persons they have ten times more cause to fear than the common people And considering the advantage they once had by the horrible Ignorance of Priests and people it must be imputed only to the watchful eye of Divine Providence that the Scriptures being of so little use in the Roman Church have been preserved entire to our dayes There had been no such means in the world to have prevented a Reformation as this for they are not out when they take the Scripture so much for their enemy as appears by the force and restraint they put upon it and the fear and jealousie they are in about it continually If it had not been for this would any one have compared the Scriptures in the hands of the common people as my Adversary doth to a Sword in a mad mans hand Is it of so destructive a Nature and framed for no other use than a sword is which nothing but discretion keeps a man from doing mischief by and all the way a man hath though never so meek and humble to defend himself by it is by destroying his enemy with it if he continues his assault These expressions do not argue any kindness to the Scripture nor an apprehension of any great good comes to the world by it but that really men might have been more at ease and fewer differences in Religion had happened if all the Copies of the Bible had been lost assoon as the Pope had placed himself in his infallible Chair This design was once attempted as I shall shew afterwards but failed of success and I know not how far the principles of this prudence may carry them if ever such a season should fall into their hands again having found so much trouble to them from the Scriptures and so little benefit by them their Church being once owned as infallible For I would fain know whether the Scripture hath not done more mischief according to them in the hands of the Reformers than it can be supposed to do in the hands of the common people If it must be a sword in a mad mans hand whether the more strength and cunning such a one hath he be not capable of doing so much the more mischief by it And if it were possible to get it out of such a mans hands whether it were not the highest prudence and care of the publick safety to do it It can be then nothing but the impossibility of the thing which makes them suffer the Scripture to be in the hands of any who are capable of doing mischief by it and the more mischief they may do the more desirable and prudential it is to take it from them But all men see none are so capable of doing mischief thereby as men of the greatest wit and learning and that have the fairest appearance of piety to the world the consequence then of this doctrine is if pursued to the true design of it that the Scripture should be kept if possible out of the hands of the most subtle learned and pious men above all others if they be not true to the interests of the Roman Church It is but a meer shew to pretend only to keep the people in order for when are they otherwise but when cunning men have the managing of them the true meaning of this principle is that it will never be well with the World till the Books of Scripture are all burnt which are abroad and that only one Original be preserved in the Vatican to justifie the Popes title to Infallibility and that as the Sybilline Oracles of old never to be consulted but in cases of great extremity and that under the inspection of some very trusty officers nor to be interpreted but by the Pope himself If I were of the Church of Rome and owned the principles of it I must needs have condemned the great men of it in former times for want of Prudence in this matter That would have served their turn much better than forging so many decretal Epistles falsifying so many testimonies perverting so many Texts of Scripture to maintain the dignity of the Papal Chair There was only one small circumstance wanting their good will we have no cause to question and that was the possibility of it for although the Roman Church called it self Catholick they were wise enough to know there were many considerable Churches in the world besides theirs where the Scriptures were preserved and from whence copies might be procured by persons who would be so much the more inquisitive the more they were forbidden to get it Therefore they pitched upon an easier way and finding the people under a very competent degree of Ignorance they indulged them and soothed them up in it and told them they could never miss the way to Heaven though never so narrow in the dark Their only danger was too much light for then probably they might be in a great dispute whether the broad way was not the true for there they saw most of their Friends and Leaders And while they kept the people in this profound Ignorance and superstition they jogged on in their opinion as securely to Heaven as Ignatius Loyola's Mule did to Mount-serrat when he laid his Bridle on his neck to see whether he would take the way to pursue the Moor which was the more beaten track or the more craggy and untrodden way to that place of devotion and by a mighty providence and I suppose a little help of the Rider the Beast took the more narrow way But when persons began to be awakened by learning and thereby grew inquisitive in all matters and so by degrees in those of Religion they then espied their errour in letting such a Book lye abroad in so many hands from whence so many irresistible arguments were drawn against the Doctrine and practices of the Roman Church This I assure my self is the true ground of the quarrels against the Reading the Scriptures but that being now irremediable they betake themselves to smaller arts and endeavour to hinder any one particular person whom they have the least suspicion of from meddling with a Book so dangerous to their Church and Religion § 10. For if this were not it what makes them to be more jealous of the use of the Scriptures than ever the Christians were in former Ages Was there not much more danger of misunderstanding the Doctrine of the Gospel at first than ever after Nay were there not very many who were false Apostles and great and dangerous Hereticks presumptuous and arrogant if ever any were But did Christ or his Apostles for all this think it unfit to communicate the doctrine of the Gospel to the people or were the Books containing it written in Languages not to be understood by them no they chose the most popular languages of that time most largely spread and generally understood The Apostles never told their Disciples of the danger of reading the Divine Writings that were among them when they were
obedience to the will of God being agreed to be the condition of mans happiness no other way of Revelation is in it self necessary to that end than such whereby man may know what the will of God is 2. Man being framed a rational Creature capable of reflecting upon himself may antecedently to any external Revelation certainly know the Being of God and his dependence upon him and those things which are naturally pleasing unto him else there could be no such thing as a Law of Nature or any principles of Natural Religion 3. All supernatural and external Revelation must suppose the truth of natural Religion for unless we be antecedently certain that there is a God and that we are capable of knowing him it is impossible to be certain that God hath revealed his will to us by any supernatural means 4. Nothing ought to be admitted for Divine Revelation which overthrows the certainty of those Principles which must be antecedently supposed to all Divine Revelation For that were to overthrow the means whereby we are to Judge concerning the truth of any Divine Revelation 5. There can be no other means imagined whereby we are to judge of the truth of Divine Revelation but a Faculty in us of discerning truth and falshood in matters proposed to our belief which if we do not exercise in Judging the truth of Divine Revelation we must be imposed upon by every thing which pretends to be so 6. The pretence of Infallibility in any person or Society of men must be Judged in the same way that the truth of a Divine Revelation is for that Infallibility being challenged by vertue of a supernatural assistance and for that end to assure men what the will of God is the same means must be used for the trial of that as for any other supernatural way of Gods making known his Will to men 7. It being in the power of God to make choice of several wayes of revealing his will to us we ought not to dispute from the Attributes of God the necessity of one particular way to the Exclusion of all others but we ought to enquire what way God himself hath chosen and whatever he hath done we are sure cannot be repugnant to Infinite Justice Wisdome Goodness and Truth 8. Whatever way is capable of certainly conveying the will of God to us may be made choice of by him for the means of making known his will in order to the happiness of mankind so that no Argument can be sufficient a priori to prove that God cannot choose any particular way to reveal his mind by but such which evidently proves the insufficiency of that means for conveying the Will of God to us 9. There are several wayes conceivable by us how God may make known his Will to us either by immediate voice from Heaven or inward inspiration to every particular person or inspiring some to speak personally to others or assisting them with an infallible spirit in Writing such Books which shall contain the Will of God for the Benefit of distant Persons and future Ages 10. If the Will of God cannot be sufficiently declared to men by Writing it must either be because no Writing can be intelligible enough for that end or that it can never be known to be Written by men infallibly assisted the former is repugnant to common sense for words are equally capable of being understood spoken or written the latter overthrows the possibility of the Scriptures being known to be the Word of God 11. It is agreed among all Christians that although God in the first Ages of the World did reveal his mind to men immediately by a voice or secret inspirations yet afterwards he did communicate his mind to some immediately inspired to Write his Will in Books to be preserved for the benefit of future Ages and particularly that these Books of the New Testament which we now Receive were so Written by the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ. 12. Such Writings having been received by the Christian Church of the first Ages as Divine and Infallible and being delivered down as such to us by an universal consent of all Ages since they ought to be owned by us as the certain rule of faith whereby we are to Judge what the Will of God is in order to our Salvation unless it appear with an evidence equal to that whereby we believe those Books to be the Word of God that they were never intended for that end because of their obscurity or imperfection 13. Although we cannot argue against any particular way of Revelation from the necessary Attributes of God yet such a way as writing being made choice of by him we may justly say that it is repugnant to the nature of the design and the Wisdom and Goodness of God to give infallible assurance to persons in Writing his Will for the benefit of Mankind if those Writings may not be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their salvation 14. To suppose the Books so Written to be imperfect i. e. that any things necessary to be believed or practised are not contained in them is either to charge the first Author of them with fraud and not delivering his whole mind or the Writers with insincerity in not setting it down and the whole Christian Church of the first Ages with folly in believing the Fulness and Prefection of the Scriptures in order to Salvation 15. These Writings being owned as containing in them the whole Will of God so plainly revealed that no sober enquirer can miss of what is necessary for salvation there can be no necessity supposed of any infallible society of men either to attest or explain these Writings among Christians any more than there was for some Ages before Christ of such a Body of men among the Iews to attest or explain to them the Writings of Moses or the Prophets 16. There can be no more intolerable usurpation upon the faith of Christians than for any Person or Society of men to pretend to an assistance as infallible in what they propose as was in Christ or his Apostles without giving an equal degree of evidence that they are so assisted as Christ and his Apostles did viz. by miracles as great publick and convincing as theirs were by which I mean such as are wrought by those very persons who challeng this infallibility and with a design for the conviction of those who doe not believe it 17. Nothing can be more absurd than to pretend the necessity of such an infallible commission and assistance to assure us of the truth of these writings and to interpret them and at the same time to prove that commission from those writings from which we are told nothing can be certainly deduced such an assistance not being supposed or to pretend that infallibility in a body of men is not as lyable to doubts and disputes as in those books from
last times wherein he doth at large set forth the hypocrisie idleness flattery and baseness of the Fryers but coming to shew the near approach of the dangers he mentions he saith It is now fifty five years for about that time Almaric broached his doctrine that some have endeavoured to change the Gospel of Christ into another Gospel which they said would be better more perfect and worthy which they call the Gospel of the Holy Ghost or the everlasting Gospel which will by its coming turn the Gospel of Christ out of doors as saith he we are ready to prove out of that cursed Gospel and a little after he adds That this Everlasting Gospel was publickly explained at Paris A. D. 1254. from whence it is certain that it would be preached unless there were some other thing which hindered And afterwards he saith That in that Book this Everlasting Gospel is said to exceed the Gospel of Christ as much as the light of the Sun doth that of the Moon or the Kernel doth the Shell This Book of his extreamly incensed the Fryers and they presently sent informations against him to the Pope and by their interest got his Book to be condemned and burnt publickly before the Pope and the Court at Anagnia and afterwards at Paris to which purpose the Pope published a Bull and denounced the sentence of excommunication against any who should presume to defend it and the Write of it was deprived of his Ecclesiastical Promotions and banished France as far as the Popes power could do it All this was done in great haste before the Legats from the Vniversity could appear and when they came three of them recanted and returned only Gul. de S. Amore resolved to stand it out and answered all their objections and persisted still in the accusation of that horrible Book and at last prevailed so much that the Pope was fain to condemn the Evangelium aeternum together with S. Amours Book but it appears how unwillingly he did it by his carriage in it which is related by Matth. Paris for he condemned the other Book solemnly and caused the sentence to be publickly executed but he gave order that this Book should be secretly burnt and as much as might be without any offence to the Fryers Lo here the true zeal of the Head of the Church A Book only writ against the Mendicant Fryers is condemned as impious wicked execrable and what not in the Bull against it and a Book against Christian Religion in the highest manner hardly procured to be condemned and when it is with great fear of displeasing the Authors and approvers of it And since that time they have been very careful to suppress the least mention of the latter but very forward to set forth the other For in the Roman Bullarium the Bull against S. Amours Book is set forth at large but not the least intimation of any such Book condemned as the Evangelium aeternum So much dearer to the Pope is the honour of Fryers than of Christ and the Christian Religion And therefore S. Amour said well in the University of Paris before they went That it was to no purpose to go about to procure the condemning that Book at Rome where it had so many Favourers the design of it being to advance the honour of Religious Orders though to the overthrow of the Gospel of Christ. It is well these things were written and preserved by Writers of their own Church and persons of the same Age out of whom only I have given account of them for otherwise according to their usual Method of confuting things which do not please them they would be denyed with a mighty confidence and the world should be told that these are only the Lyes and Forgeries of Hereticks But these are to their shame preserved in their own Books and we can shew them the very words if occasion requires it § 9. Yet we are not to think that only the preaching Fryers sell into these extravagancies for the Franciscans had a great hand in them too and were as forward to promote that which they accounted their common interest And notwithstanding the Popes condemning the Book said to be taken out of Abbot Ioachims Writings yet his doctrine did in no long time after break forth again in the Franciscan Order For toward the latter end of the same Century or as most think in the beginning of the next in the time of Clement the fifth appeared one Petrus Iohannis de Oliva a great Disciple of Ioachims as Guido Carmelita Alphonsus a Castro and Franciscus Pegna affirm All the difference saith Alphonsus between them was that Ioachim made the spiritual State to commence from the founding the Benedictine Order but Petrus Iohannis would have it begin only from S. Francis Which State as Eymericus relates where he recounts his errors began with the Franciscan Order when the Angel of Christ that is S. Francis did set his mark upon all his Souldiers and that S. Francis appeared as Christ did with his wounds upon him For we are to understand that S. Francis in one of his Visions upon the very day of the exaltation of the Cross had the same bleeding wounds on his hands feet and side which Christ had upon the Cross and carried them for two years together before his death and lest this should be suspected Pope Alexander the fourth preached it in S. Bonaventures hearing that himself saw them as the sixth Lesson on S. Francis day in the Roman Breviary and Bonaventure assure us And who dares question the infallibility of the Popes eye-sight Unless the Story in latter times of Maria Visitationis as she was called Abbesse of the Annuntiation in Lisbon may give some suspicion of it For this Virgin had gained so great a reputation for sanctity not only in Portugal but in Spain Italy and the East Indies that she seemed to be a fit match for S. Francis And she out-did him in the number of her wounds for she had thirty two upon her head caused by Christs putting his Crown of Thorns upon her and in her hands and â—eet and side they were as exact as in St. Francis she made no difficulty of shewing them if her Confessor bid her but never otherwise lest she should seem too much to glory in the honour which Christ had done her This Confessor was no less a man than Ludovicus Granatensis a man highly commended for learning and piety who as verily believed them as Pope Alexander did those of S. Francis One day in the Week she laid raggs to her wounds upon which the print of the wounds was made These rags with incredible devotion saith the Writer of the Story were sent to the Pope himself and to the greatest and most religious persons in all parts by whom they were received with great Veneration And when he was Inquisitor in Sicily he saith he saw many of them
behalf of the Clergy was sent Richard Fitz-Ralph the learned Bishop of Armagh best known by the name of Armachanus who there with great smartness opposed the Fryers to the Popes face in a long and set discourse still extant wherein he gives an account that coming to London about some business of his See he found great disputes about the priviledges of the Fryers and being desired to Preach he made seven or eight Sermons wherein he declared his mind against them both as to their Order and Priviledges in which he followed the doctrine of the Divines at Paris above an hundred years before delivered by them upon the like occasion asserting it not to be in the Popes power to grant such priviledges which destroy the rights of the Parochial Clergy or the jurisdiction of the Bishops The Fryers charge him with Heresie as they are wont to do those who are wiser than themselves saith Boulay Armachanus dyed at Avignon but so did not the Controversie with him although the Fryers seem to have had the better there they being the Popes Ianisaries and ready in all places to serve his turn yet Walsingham saith it was not without corrupting the Popes Court by great bribes given by the Fryers that they obtained the confirmation of their priviledges yet seven years after Harpsfield saith this Controversie was referred to the Parliament to be determined Very strange that a Parliament in England should be thought a more likely means for Vnity in the Church than the Authority of so many Popes who had interposed in it for putting an issue to this difference After Armachanus Wickliffe undertook this quarrel against the Fryers and made use of the same arguments against them which those who defended the Clergy had done before For in his Book against the Orders of Fryers he particularly insists upon this That they for pride and covetise had drawen fro Curats there Office and Sacraments in which lyen winning or worship and so maken dissention betwixt Curats and there Ghostlié Childer Which are his own words But Wickliffe and his Disciples carrying the Controversies much farther to points of doctrine and other practices in the Roman Church made the other parties more quiet out of opposition to these whom they looked on as their common enemies It may be therefore they will say that although the Popes Pastoral power may not alwayes cure their divisions yet the opposition of Hereticks makes them run together like a flock of sheep if this were true it seems they are more beholding to Hereticks for their Vnity than to the Popes Authority but we shall find that neither one nor the other of these nor both together can keep them from divisions and those managed with as great animosity as we have ever found in the most differing Sects § 9. Witness the proceedings between the Iesuits and the Secular Priests begun in Wisbich Castle in the latter end of Q. Elizabeths Reign when it came to a separation from each other about the authority of the Arch-Priest And they mutually charged each other with being guilty of a horrible Schism maintained saith Watson by the Iesuits and Arch Priest with infinite violence much infamy for the time and innumerable particular wrongs thereupon not unknown to the meanest Catholick in England The secular Priests finding themselves unjustly accused as they said to the Pope published a Book in Latin which they Dedicated to his Holiness called declaratio motuum turbarum which saith Parsons in his answer called A manifestation of the great folly and bad spirit of certain in England calling themselves secular Priests is made up only of invectives and passionate words injurious and manifest false slanders they in their Reply charge Parsons with follie and madness and the highest degree of impudencie If any one hath a mind to furnish himself with all the terms and phrases of scolding reproach and infamy he may find them in the Books they then writ against each other or if he thinks that too great a trouble he may meet with a goodly parcel of them put together out of Fa. Parsons his own writings by Watson at the end of the Reply to Parsons's Libell The short account of the breach among them was this all the loud talk they made abroad concerning their cruel persecution could not hinder ambition and envy from having its effects among them from these first arose misunderstandings and then quarrels between the secular Priests and the Iesuits from thence the Priests proceed to the framing a sodality as they called it among themselves the better to strengthen themselves against the Iesuits which they understanding prevail with one of the number of the associated Priests to betray their Councils him they send to Rome who in the name of all the Priests in England desired for the preventing differences for the future and the curing those that were already that there might be a Government and subordination settled among them Fa. Parsons being then at Rome follows the matter close and represents to the Pope the necessity of it because of the great discords which were among them in England Whereupon the Pope according to Fa. Parsons desire referrs the whole business to Cardinal Cajetan their Protector Who being governed by the Iesuits pitched upon a person wholly at their devotion as the seculars thought which was Blackwell a man swayed altogether by Garnet Provincial of the Iesuits well known for his zeal in the Catholick cause by suffering as one of their Martyrs in the Gunpowder Treason and one of the Arch-Priests instructions was in all matters of moment to be advised by the Provincial of the Iesuits The Secular Priests finding themselves thus over-reached by the cunning of the Iesuits and that they designed hereby wholly to govern their affairs make many demurrs to his Authority both concerning the manner and the substance of it and desire a Breve from the Pope and then promise to submit Parsons procures one to their purpose and an appearance of peace was for a little time among them and they mutually promised not to charge the Schism upon each other but within a month or six weeks the flame brake out with greater fury than ever the Arch-Priest sending his directions into all parts that none of the Seculars should be admitted to the Sacraments without acknowledging themselves Schismaticks So that the Popes Breve was so far from ending the difference that it encreased it Fa. Parsons charging them and the Seculars not denying it that after it they were farther from obeying the Arch-Priest than they were before So unhappy have the Popes been when they have gone about to use their Authority for composing differences among those who are in their own Church But we leave this and come to a later controversie among them about the same matters of Order and Government Richard Smith titular Bishop of Chalcedon was invested with the Authority of Ordinary over their English Clergy by Vrban
an image if not in one neither is it in the other But what doth this answer signifie unless there be an equal presence and union of the Divine nature of Christ with the Image as there was with the humane nature Which union was the reason of the adoration given to the person of Christ and what ground can there be then of giving divine worship to the Image of Christ unless the same union be supposed If the humane nature without the union of the divine could yield us no sufficient reason of divine worship being given to it how much less can an Image deserve it which can only at the best represent but the external lineaments of that humane nature And if the divine nature be supposed united with the Image then the same divine honour is due to the Image of Christ which is to God himself which yet these Nicene Fathers deny and the Image then joyned with the divine nature is as proper an object of divine worship without respect to any Prototype as the person of Christ is consisting of the divine and humane nature Again they urge If the humane nature of Christ be represented in the Image of Christ to be worshipped as separate from the divine this would be plain Nestorianism To this the good Nicene Fathers not knowing what to answer plainly deny the conclusion and cry They Nestorians No they lye in their teeth they were no more Nestorians than themselves nor so much neither And now good men they say It is true they do represent Christ only by his humane nature in an Image and when they look on Images they understand nothing but what is signified by them as when the birth of the Virgin is represented they conceive in their minds that he who was born was truly God as well as man Alas for them that they should ever be charged with the worship of Images They plead for nothing now but a help to their profound Meditations by them But the Controversie was about worship what ever they think and their Adversaries argument did not lye in the Images being considered as an object of perception but of worship i. e. if the Image can only represent the humane nature of Christ as separate from the divine and in that respect be an object of worship to us then the charge of Nestorianism follows but this they very wisely pass by and their distinction of the Image from the principal cannot serve their turn since the Image receiving the worship due to the principal must have not only the name as they say but the reason of worship common with the principal which it represents After this the Fathers of Constantinople proceed to another Argument which is That all the representation of Christ allowed us by the Gospel is that which Christ himself instituted in the Elements of the Lords Supper whose use was to put us in remembrance of Christ. No other Figure or Type being chosen by Christ as able to represent his being in the flesh but this This was an honourable Image of his quickning body made by himself say they which he would not have of the shape of a man to prevent Idolatry but of a common nature as he took upon him the common nature of man and not any individuated person and as the body of Christ was really sanctified by the divine nature so by institution this holy Image is made divine through sanctification by Grace Here the Nicene Council quarrels with them for calling the Eucharist an Image contrary as they say to the Scriptures and Fathers but they are as much to be believed therein as in their admirable proofs that the worship of Images was the constant doctrine of the Church and having strenuously denyed this they suppose that to be enough to answer the argument Besides these particular arguments against the Images of Christ the Council of Constantinople useth many more against the Images of any other Because these being the chief there can be less reason for any other besides that there is no tradition of Christ or his Apostles or the primitive Fathers for them no way of consecration of them prescribed or practised no suitableness in the use of them to the design of Christian Religion which being in the middle between Iudaism and Paganism it casts off the Sacrifices of the one and not only the Sacrifices but all the Idolatries of the other and it is blasphemy to the Saints in Heaven to call in the Heathen superstitions into Christianity to honour them by that it is unbecoming their glory in Heaven to be set up on earth in dull and sensless Images that Christ himself would not receive testimony from Devils though they spake truth neither can such a Heathenish custome be acceptable to the Saints in Heaven though pretended to be for their honour That nothing can be plainer in the Gospel than that God is a Spirit and will be worshipped in Spirit and in truth to which nothing can be more contrary than the going about to honour God by worshipping any Image of himself or his Saints These and many other arguments from the Scriptures and Fathers that Council insists upon to shew the incongruity of the worship of Images to the nature of God and the design of the Christian Religion to which the Council of Nice returns very weak and trivial answers as shall more largely appear if any one thinks good to defend them And we have this apparent advantage on our side that although the Popes of Rome sided with these worshippers of Images yet the Council at Francford condemned it called together by Charles the Great Not out of misunderstanding their Doctrine as some vainly imagine because as Vasquez well proves the Copy of the Nicene Council was sent to them by Pope Adrian because the Acts of that Council were very well known to the Author of the Book written upon this subject under the name of Charles the Great and published by du Tillet at Paris about the middle of the last Century which is acknowledged by their learnedst men to have been written at the same time because the Popes Legats Theophylactus and Stephanus were present and might easily rectifie any mistake if they were guilty of it and none of the Historians of that time do take notice of any such error among them But Vasquez runs into another strange mistake himself that the Council of Francford did not condemn that of Nice which is evident they did expresly by the second Canon of of that Council published by Sirmondus And all the Objections of Vasquez are taken off by what Sirmondus speaks of the great authority and antiquity of that MS. from which he published them and from the consent of the Historians of that time that the Council of Francford did reject that of Nice and Sirmondus saith they had good reason to deny it to be an Oecumenical Council where only the Greeks met together and none of other Provinces were called
the corrupt lives of those who believe it From hence the trade of saying Masses hath proved so gainful and such multitudes of them have been procured for the benefit of particular persons this being a much easier way of procuring Grace and Salvation than fervent prayer constant endeavours after a Holy Life Mortification Watchfulness and other things we make necessary to enjoy the benefit of what Christ hath done and suffered for us And these things have been complained of by persons of their own communion who have had any zeal for devotion and the practice of true Goodness Cassander although he denyes the doctrine of the efficacy of the Sacraments without the devotion of the receiver to be the received doctrine of the Roman Church yet cannot deny but such a Pharisaical opinion as he calls it had possessed the minds of many of those who did celebrate Masses and were present at them and that too just an occasion was given to those who upbraid them with that opinion because of the multitude of Masses which were celebrated by impure and wicked Priests meerly for gain at which those who are present think they depart from them with a great deal of sanctity although they never once resolve to change their lives but return from thence immediately to their former sins Mons. Arnauld in his Book of frequent communion written upon that occasion confesseth that some in the Roman Church by their doctrine and instructions given to persons did destroy all preparations as unnecessary to the partaking the benefits of the Eucharist and that the worst persons might come without fear to it And that the most required as necessary by them is only the Sacrament of Penance to recover Grace by which he saith they reduce to bare confession and that this by them is not made necessary neither by the more probable opinion but only being at that time free from the guilt of mortal sin It is not to be denyed that Mons Arnauld hath proved sufficiently the other opinion to be most consonant to Scripture and Fathers and the rules of a Christian life but when that is granted the other opinion is yet more agreeable to the doctrine of the Roman Church For although Cassander produce some particular testimonies against it of persons in that Church yet we must appeal for the sense of their Church to the decrees of the Council of Trent which are so contrived as not to condemn the grossest doctrine of the opus operatum For when it doth determine That whosoever shall say that the Sacraments do not confer grace ex opere operato shall be Anathema it cannot be interpreted according to the sense of Cassander and those he mentions that the efficacy of Sacraments doth not depend upon the worth of the Priest For the twelfth Canon relates to that Whosoever shall say that the Minister being in mortal sin although he useth all the essentials to a Sacrament yet doth not celebrate a Sacrament let him be Anathema Those reverend Fathers were not sure so prodigal of their Anathema's to bestow two of them upon the same thing Their meaning then in the eighth Canon must be distinct from the twelfth and if it be so the opus operatum cannot have respect to the worth of the Priest but the devotion of the receiver and it is there opposed to the faith of the divine promise This will appear more plain by the account given of it in the History of that Council After they treated of condemning those who deny Sacraments do confer grace to him that putteth not a barr or do not confess that Grace is contained in the Sacraments and conferred not by vertue of faith but ex opere operato but coming to expound how it is contained and their causality every one did agree that grace is gained by all those actions that excite devotion which proceedeth not from the force of the work it self but from the vertue of devotion which is in the worker and these are said in the Schools to cause grace ex opere operantis There are other actions which cause grace not by the devotion of him that worketh or him that receiveth the work but by vertue of the work it self such are the Christian Sacraments by which grace is received so that there be no barr of mortal sin to exclude it though there be not any devotion So by the work of Baptism grace is given to the Infant whose mind is not moved towards it and to one born a Fool because there is no impediment of sin The Sacrament of Chrisme doth the like and that of extream Vnction though the sick man hath lost his memory But he that hath mortal sin and doth persevere actually or habitually cannot receive grace by reason of the contrariety not because the Sacrament hath not vertue to produce it ex opere operato but because the receiver is not capable being possessed with a contrary quality I dare now appeal to the most indifferent Judge Whether what I objected to them concerning the efficacy of Sacraments whether the minds of the receivers of them be prepared or no were not so far from being a calumâ—y that there is not so much as the least mistake in it if the doctrine of the Council of Trent be embraced by them And any one who shall consider their number of Sacraments and the admirable effects of every one of them may very well wonder how any man among them should want Grace or have any Devotion For Grace being conferred by the Sacraments at so many convenient seasons of his life whether he hath any devotion or no he is sure of Grace if he doth but partake of their Sacraments and need need not trouble himself much about devotion since his work may be done without it Never any doctrine was certainly better contrived for the satisfaction of impenitent sinners than theirs is Our Saviour seems very churlish and severe when he calls sinners to repentance that they may be saved but they have found out a much easier and smoother passage like that of a man in a Boat that may sleep all the while and land safe at last Not so much as the use of reason is required for the effect of that blessed Sacrament of extream Vnction by which like a Ship for a long Voyage a person is pitched and calked for eternity Surely it is the hardest thing that may be for any one to want Grace among them if they do but suffer the Vse of Sacraments upon them and they are the gentlest givers of it imaginable for all they desire of their Patients for Grace is only for them to lye still but if they should chance to be unruly and kick away the Priests or their rites of Chrisme I know not then what may become of them Yet the Church of Rome hath been so indulgent in this case that supposing men under a delirium or wholly insensible if before it be but probable they desired
properties in the Holy Trinity of the Fatherhead of the Motherhood and of the Lordship and she further saw that the second person which is our Mother substantially the same dear worthy person is now become our Mother sensual for we be double of Gods making substantial and sensual We may justly admire what esteem Mr. Cressy had of that Lady to whose devout retirements he so gravely commends the blasphemous and senseless tittle tattle of this Hysterical Gossip It were endless to repeat the Canting and Enthusiastick expressions which signifie nothing in Mother Iuliana's Revelations and one would wonder to what end such a Book were published among us unless it were to convince us of this great truth that we have not had so great Fanaticks and Enthusiasts among us but they have had greater in the Roman Church And by this means they may think to prevail upon the Fanaticks among us by perswading them that they have been strangely mistaken concerning the Church of Rome in these matters that she is no such enemy to Enthusiams and Revelations as some believe but that in truth she hath not only alwayes had such but given great approbation and encouragement to them So that among all their visions they do but mix some that confirm their particular Doctrines as the Visions of Iuliana concerning the great Worship of the B. Virgin from her son the holy Vernacle at Rome and such like fopperies these make all the rest very acceptable among them § 6. 2. That which they account the most perfect way of life hath been instituted by Enthusiastick persons and upon the credit of visions and revelations and the highest way of devotion in that Church is meer Enthusiasme 1. That the Religious orders were instituted among them by Enthusiastick persons upon the credit of their visions and revelations The most celebrated orders at this day in the Roman Church are the Benedictines Carthusians Dominicans Franciscans and Iesuites and if I can prove this concerning each of these we shall see how much Fanaticism hath contributed to the support of the Roman Church And it is a very fair way towards the proof of it that Bellarmin confesseth concerning the four first and that of Romoaldus that they were at first instituted by St. Benedict St. Romoaldus St. Bruno St. Dominick St. Francis by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and for Ignatius Loyola if he do not appear as great a Fanatick as ever hath been in the world we shall be contented to be upbraided with the charge of Fanaticism among us It is observable in the life of St. Benedict as St. Gregory relates in the second Book of his Dialogues that he was a great hater of humane learning and that was the first occasion of his retiring from the World being very much afraid a little knowledge should have destroyed him He therefore forsook not only his Studies but his Fathers house and business being as St. Gregory saith knowingly ignorant and wisely unlearned he might as well have said ignorantly learned and foolishly wise One might have suspected it had been rather hatred of his Book than devotion at his age which made him run away from School and his Fathers house but one of his Visions in his Cave makes it more probable there was some other occasion of it But however away he goes and only an old Nurse with him and he requited her soon for it for he by his Prayers set together the winnowing Sieve which she had broken in pieces which was after hanged up before the doors of the Church to the Lombards times But this is nothing to his being three years in a Cave without the knowledge of any but St. Roman who let him down victuals by a rope and a Bell and the Devil owing him a great spight threw a huge stone and broke the Bell. Here he lay so close that he was fain to be discovered by a vision and was so devout that he had forgotten Easter day till he was put in mind of it by the person who by a vision was sent to him and was so little like a man that the shepherds took him for a beast lying in a den But at last he is brought to light and found to be a wonderful person for among superstitious people ignorance and devotion are most admired together and now many are sent to him for education having conquered his amorous passions by rowling himself naked among thornes and nettles which thorns a long time after St. Francis grafted Roses upon as Bollandus well observes which bear in the coldest part of Winter and of them Rose water is made which is sent as a present to the greatest Princes He had an admirable Sagacity in spying Devils for he saw a little black Devil which led away a Monk from Prayers and was fain to pray two dayes with Pompeianus and Maurus that God would afford them the Grace to see him too and at last Maurus being young and his sight good saw him but Pompeianus being older and wiser could not However St. Bennet sent the little Devil packing with a stroke of his rod as he did at other times with the sign of the cross and easily caused a stone to be lifted up whereon the Devil sate which could not be stirred before his coming It would take up too much time to tell of his Miracles my business is only with his visions and revelations by which he could not only foretell things to come but could discover absent things so that the Monks could not eat out of his sight but he could tell as well as if he saw the meat in their teeth when they denyed it He discovered Riggo's fraud when he came to him in Totila's habit and told Totilas how long he should raign nay if we believe St. Gregory he knew the secrets of the Divinity being one Spirit with God no wonder then the unhappy Boy could not hide one Flask of Wine nor the Monks receive handkerchiefs of the Women but he found it out but most admirable was his sight of his Sister Scholastica's soul entring into Heaven in the shape of a Dove and another time the soul of Germanus Bishop of Capua in a fiery Circle carryed by Angels to Heaven but above all was his seeing all the world under one ray of the Sun which he could not do Gregory concludes without a Divine internal light upon which a dispute hath been raised in the Schooles whether St. Benedict saw the divine Essence or no Aquinas thinks not but only that he had an extraordinary revelation Vasquez doth not seem much to oppose it but upon two grounds the one very considerable that we never read the Virgin Mary did it who ought to have the highest share in revelations and visions the other only a plain place of Scripture No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son of the Father he hath revealed him As
in which he was sometimes swallowed up in God as Bonaventures expression is and his soul melted at the sight of Christ and was so tender hearted to the poor that he sometimes put off his clothes to give them sometimes unript them sometimes cut them in pieces I suppose that he might give to the more All this while he had no Teacher but Christ and learnt all by inspiration but went besides himself at hearing the voice come from a Crucifix as any one almost would have done and it seems he was not well recovered when he came from the Cave for the people flocked about him as a mad man and gave him the common Civility to such persons of dirt and stones and his Father entertained him with dark rooms and chains as the fittest for him whom neither words nor blows could bring to himself But finding no amendment he made him renounce his Patrimony and so discharged him which S. Francis did so readily that he would not so much as keep the Clothes on his back Whereby saith Bonaventure in a wonderful zeal and being drunk in the Spirit casting away his very Breeches and being stark naked before them all said thus to his Father Hitherto I called thee Father on earth but hence forward I can securely say Our Father which art in Heaven As though his duty to God and his Parents had been inconsistent The Bishop in whose presence all this was done gave order to have his nakedness covered highly admiring his zeal and he no sooner had got some rags about him but he falls to makeing Crucifixes in Mortar with his own hands as Children do Babies in the dirt In this height of Fanaticism he goes about and preaches to the people whose words pierced their hearts much sooner than sense and reason would have done and he soon brought the superstitious and ignorant multitude to a great admiration of him for his very way of saluting the people he pretended he had by revelation At last one Bernard joyns with him but S. Francis tells him They must seek God for direction what to do and after prayers he being a great worshipper of the Trinity in honour to it opens the Gospel three times and the first three sentences he met with were to be the rule of their Order their second Brother was F. Gyles who though an Idiot and a simple man was full of God as he saith and had so many extasies and raptures that he seemed to live rather among Angels than men One day when S. Francis was alone in a solitary place He fell into an extasie of joy and had full assurance of the remission of his sins and being transported beyond himself he was catched up into a wonderful light wherein his mind being inlarged he foresaw all that should come to pass concerning his Order His number being increased to Rome he goes to confirm his Order but the Pope rejected him with scorn but in the night he saw a Palm growing between his feet into a goodly Tree which he wisely interpreting to be S. Francis sent for him and promised him fair things and upon the other Vision of his supporting the Lateran Church he approves his Rule and establishes his Order And his whole life afterwards was agreeable to this beginning 〈◊〉 and the Rule of his Order he called as Possevine tells us The Book of life the hope of salvation the marrow of the Gospel the ladder of Heaven the key of Paradise the Eternal Covenant Let any Fanaticks be produced among us though we are far from looking on them as the supporters of our Church who have exceeded S. Francis in their actions or expressions S. Brigitt saith of the Rule of S. Francis That it was not dictated or composed by the wisdom of man but by God himself nay every word therein was inspired by the Holy Ghost which she saith likewise of all the other Rules of Religious Orders What horrible blasphemy is this which is so solemnly approved in the Church of Rome for divine Revelations But lest Dominicus should seem to come behind S. Francis in â—â—sions he tells him at Rome where they met That it was revealed to him in a Vision that Christ was just coming to destroy the world for the wickedness of it and his Mother stopt him and told him she had two servants would reform it whereof himself was one and Christ approved of him as one that would do his work but his companion he did not know till he met S. Francis and so they embraced one another Which Vision out of his great humility S. Francis reported having it from the others own mouth I shall not insist on any more of Dominicus nor on the blasphemous Images set up in S. Marks Church at Venice one of which was of S. Paul with this Inscription By him we go to Christ the other of Dominicus with this but by him we go easier to Christ but I shall proceed to their followers among whom we meet with one of the most blasphemous pieces of Enthusiasm the world hath ever known § 8. For which we are to understand that in the beginning of the thirteenth Century one Almaricus a Student in Paris was suspected for some dangerous Opinions for which he was sentenced to recant and soon after dyed Among these Opinions he broached this blasphemy which was privately instilled into his followers That every person of the Trinity had his successive time of ruling the world that the Law of the Father continued till Christs comeing the Law of the Son to their time and then the time of the Holy Ghost was to begin In which the use of Sacraments was to cease and all internal administrations and every one then was to be saved by the inspiration and inward grace of the Holy Ghost without any external actions They so highly extolled Love that what would have been a sin without it they thought to be nothing with it as Fornication Adultery c. and promised impunity to the women with whom they committed these things because they said God was only good and not just That these were their opinions is delivered by Rigordus who lived in that age and was upon the place being a Monk of S. Denys and Physitian to the King of France and by Eymericus and Pegna and many others But by the care and endeavour of the Bishop and Vniversity of Paris though they had spread very far abroad and with a great deal of secrecy yet by the fraud and artifice of one imployed among them who pretended to revelations and the Spirit as highly as they could do they were convicted condemned and some of them executed Notwithstanding which severity about fifty years after this came forth a Book with the Title of Evangelium aeternum or the Eternal Gospel published by the Mendicant Fryers and supposed to be written by Iohannes de Parma
with her Picture and a Book of her life and eminent sanctity by a person of great authority which were preserved as precious things by the Vice-roy's Lady But this is nothing to Gregory the thirteenth then Pope who writ a Letter of encouragement to her to go on in the same way of sanctity she had begun She had been examined by the Inquisition and her wounds were allowed by them after diligent search But at last they found what she aimed at which was the Revolt of Portugall from Spain which being once suspected she is brought before the Inquisition and her Sanctity is condemned her wounds declared to be a meer Imposture being artificially made by red Lead and her self sentenced by the Inquisitors to a very severe pennance all her dayes Decemb. 8. A. D. 1588. I suppose my Adversary having been upon the place hath often heard the truth of this but if he doubts it he may find it as I have related it in Ludovicus a Paramo By which it is very easie to ghess what it is which gives and preserves the reputation of these things in the Roman Church for if this Saint had dyed before her design brake forth we might have heard of her wounds in the Roman Breviary as well as those of St. Francis and a Festival might have been kept in commemoration of her sanctity and her self as religiously invocated as the rest of the Popes making But supposing Pope Alexander the fourths authority prevailed so much upon the people to believe that S. Francis had the same wounds which Christ had c. No wonder then it should be written in the Book called The Flowers of S Francis that those only were saved by the blood of Christ who lived before S. Francis but all that followed were redeemed by the blood of S. Francis No wonder this Petrus Iohannis made the Rule of S. Francis to be the very same with the Gospel and that which Christ and his Apostles lived by of which S. Francis was the greatest observer next to Christ and his Mother and that as Christ when he was to reform the world chose twelve Apostles so S. Francis had twelve Brethren by whom the Evangelical Order was founded that those who opposed this Order were the carnal persecuting Clergy in whom the Seat of the Beast is much more than in the people that in the time of this Mystical Antichrist the Carnal Church shall oppose the doctrine life and zeal of the Saints and burn as it were with fire against them but it shall be dryed up from all spiritual Wisdom and Grace and the riches of Christ and be exposed to errors and delusion as it was with the Iews and Greeks Those who will not take the pains to see how faithfully I have translated these words out of Eymericus would imagine I have borrowed some of the canting language of the modern Quakers But he goes on saying That as Vasthi the Queen being cast off from the Kingdom and Marriage of Ahassuerus the humble Esther was chosen to succeed in her place and the King made a great Feast to his Princes and Servants so in this last state of the Church the adulterous Babylon the carnal Church being rejected the spiritual Church must be exalted and a great and spiritual Feast be kept to celebrate these Nuptials with that under the Mystical Antichrist there shall be overturnings and commotions by which the Carnal Church shall be terribly stirred up and moved against the Evangelical Spirit of Christ but that the Whore of Babylon the Carnal Church shall fall in which time the Saints shall preach saying from this time it is no longer the Church of Christ but the Synagogue of Satan and the Habitation of Devils which before said in the pride of her heart I sit as a Queen in great honour and glory I rule over my Kingdom I sit at ease I am no Widow i. e. I have Bishops and Kings on my side that the Roman Church is that great Whore spoken of in the Revelations which hath committed fornication with this world having departed from the worship and sincere love and the delights of Christ her Spouse and embraced the world the riches and pleasures of it and the Devil and Kings and Princes and Prelates and all the lovers of this world That the Teachers of this spiritual State are more properly the Gates to lead men into the wisdom of Christ than the Apostles themselves These things are expresly delivered concerning the doctrine of this Franciscan Fryer by the Inquisitor Eymericus I know Wadding in his Franciscan Annals to preserve the reputation of his Order would clear him from all suspicion of Heresie but I suppose the credit of an Inquisitor having such opportunities to know the truth so near his own time and having the examination of many of his followers is to be relyed on rather than the testimony of one at such a distance and partial for the honour of his order Especially that being considered which Possevin saith of Eymericus that most of his accounts of the times a little before his own were the very same with what was contained in a Manuscript in the Vatican Library both as to order and words which is though to have been brought from Avignon to Rome where he was made Inquisitour General by Gregory 11. A. D. 1358. But it is not denyed by Wadding or others that the Beguini and Fratricelli the Beguardi and others were his followers and we shall find so great an agreement in their opinions that it would be strange they should be accounted the Disciples of any other Eymericus gives this account of them that in the time of Clement 5. there arose in the Province of Narbonne one Petrus Iohannis a Franciscan Fryer who published by Writing and Preaching a great many Errours and Heresies in the same Province and drew many after him who had spread themselves over France Italy Germany and other places and continued in his time being daily searched for condemned by the Inquisitours They all agreed that their doctrine was from God by immediate inspiration and that all the writings of Petrus Johannis were revealed to him from the Lord and that he had declared this to some of his Friends that he was so great a Doctor that from the time of the Apostles and Evangelists there have been none greater than he in Learning and Holiness and that his writings theirs only excepted wherein they fell short of the former Sect were the most useful to the Church § 10. Their doctrines may be reduced to these four heads 1. Evangelical poverty 2. Unlawfulness of Swearing 3. The Doctrine of perfection 4. Opposition to the carnal Church Which being joyned with that greater degree of light which they supposed themselves to have above all the rest of the world makes up a Sect of Quakers after the Order of St. Francis 1. Their Doctrine of Evangelical poverty about which they said That our
preserve the honour of Regicides it was but seven months and twenty four dayes before Ravaillac perfected that work which the other had begun This observation I owe to an ingenuous and learned Doctor of the Sorbon yet living who detests these practices and doctrines and himself lyes under the same censure there And the more to abuse the world on the same day a Book of Mariana's was suspended which those who look no farther than the name might imagine was the dangerous Book so much complained of but upon search it appears to be a Book quite of another nature concerning Coynes The latter instance concerns the Irish Remonstrance the account of which I take from Caron the publisher of it The Popish Clergy of Ireland a very few excepted were accused of Rebellion for opposing themselves to the Kings Authority by the instigation of the Popes Nuncio after which followed a meeting of the Popish Bishops where they banished the Kings Lieutenant and took the Royal Authority upon themselves almost all the Clergy and a great part of the people joyned with them and therefore it was necessary since the Kings return to give him better satisfaction concerning their Allegiance and to decline the Oath of Allegiance which they must otherwise have taken some of them agree upon this Remonstrance to present to the King the news of which was no sooner come to Rome but Cardinal Barberin sends a Letter to the Irish Nobility 8 July A. D. 1662. to bid them take heed of being drawn into the ditch by those blind guides who had subscribed to some propositions testifying their Loyalty to the King which had been before condemned by the Apostolick See After this the Popes Nuncio at Brussels Iuly 21. 1662. sends them word how displeasing their Remonstrance was at Rome and that after diligent examination by the Cardinals and Divines they found it contained Propositions already condemned by Paul 5. and Innocent 10. and therefore the Pope gave him order to publish this among them that he was so far from approving their Remonstrance that he did not so much as permit it or connive at it and was extremely grieved that the Irish Nobility were drawn into it and therefore condemned it in this form That it could not be kept without breach of faith according to the Decree of Paul 5. and that it denyed the Popes Authority in matters of faith according to that of Innocent 10. By this very late instance we see what little countenance they receive from Rome who offer to give any reasonable security to the King of their Loyalty and by the Popes own Declaration the giving of it is an injury to the faith and a denying his Supremacy For which we are to understand that A. D. 1648. when the Papists were willing to make as good terms for themselves as they could and it was objected to them that they held Principles inconsistent with Civil Government viz. that the Pope can absolve them from their obedience that he can depose and destroy Heretical Magistrates that he can dispense with all Oaths and contracts they make with those whom they call Hereticks upon which they met together and to save themselves from banishment resolved them in the Negative but no sooner was this heard at Rome but the sacred Congregation condemned this resolution as heretical and the subscribers as lyable to the penalties against those who deny the Popes Authority in matters of faith upon which they are cited to appear at Rome and Censures and Prisons are there prepared for them The summ of it then is that they can give no security of their Loyalty to the King against the Popes power to depose him and absolve his Subjects from whatever Oaths they make to him or they must be accounted Hereticks at Rome for so doing For this good old Cause is as much still in request at Rome as ever and it is in their power to be accounted Hereticks at Rome or bad Subjects in their own Countrey but one of them they cannot avoid So much may suffice to shew that the most dangerous Principles of Fanaticism either as to Enthusiasm or Civil Government are owned and allowed in the Church of Rome and therefore the number of Fanaticks among us is very unjustly charged upon the Reading the Scriptures in our own Language CHAP. V. Of the Divisions of the Roman Church The great pretence of Vnity in the Church of Rome considered The Popes Authority the fountain of that Vnity what that Authority is which is challenged by the Popes over the Christian World the disturbances which have happened therein on the account of it The first revolt of Rome from the Empire caused by the Popes Baronius his Arguments answered Rebellion the foundation of the greatness of that Church The cause of the strict League between the Popes and the posterity of Charles Martel The disturbances made by Popes in the new Empire Of the quarrels of Greg. 7. with the Emperour and other Christian Princes upon the pretence of the Popes Authority More disturbances on that account in Christendome than any other matter of Religion Of the Schisms which have happened in the Roman Church particularly those after the time of Formosus wherein his Ordinations were nulled by his successours the Popes opposition to each other in that Age the miserable state of that Church then described Of the Schisms of latter times by the Italick and Gallick factions the long continuance of them The mischief of those Schisms on their own principles Of the divisions in that Church about matters of Order and Government The differences between the Bishops and the Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges the history of that Controversie and the bad success the Popes had in attempting to compose it Of the quarrel between the Regulars and Seculars in England The continuance of that Controversie here and in France The Jesuits enmity to the Episcopal Order and jurisdiction the hard case of the Bishop of Angelopolis in America The Popes still favour the Regulars as much as they dare The Jesuits way of converting the Chinese discovered by that Bishop Of the differences in matters of Doctrine in that Church They have no better way to compose them than we The Popes Authority never truly ended one Controversie among them Their wayes to evade the decisions of Popes and Councils Their dissensions are about matters of faith The wayes taken to excuse their own differences will make none between them and us manifested by Sancta Clara's exposition of the 39 Articles Their disputes not confined to their Schools proved by a particular instance about the immaculate conception the infinite scandals confessed by their own Authors to have been in their Church about it From all which it appears that the Church of Rome can have no advantage in point of Vnity above ours 2. § 1. THE other thing objected as flowing from the promiscuous reading the Scriptures is the number of our Sects and the
and to have any authority over them because they look on themselves as a free State There can be but one lawful Head of the Church by their own principles and only they are truly united to the Church who are in conjunction with the lawful Head and therefore it follows upon their own principles that they must be in a State of Schisme who are united with any other than the true Head What then signifie the boasts of Vnity in the Roman Church if they cannot prevent the falling of their members into such dangerous Schisms To what purpose is it to tell us of one Head of the Church to whom all must submit if there have been several pretenders to that Headship and the Church hath been a long time divided which of them was the true Unless all their Vnity comes to this at last that they have an excellent Vnity among them if they could all agree And such an Vnity may be had any where But if all were agreed what need any means of agreement by one universal Head or what can that universal Head signifie to making Vnity when his title to his Headship becomes a cause of greater divisions May not we say upon better grounds that taking away the Popes authority would tend much more to the peace of the Church since that hath been the cause of so great disturbances in the world and is to this day of one of the greatest differences between the several parts of the Catholick Church For as things now stand in the Christian World the Bishop of Rome is so far from being the Fountain of Vnity that he is much rather the Head of Contention and the great cause of the divisions of the Christian Church § 7. 3. The differences have been as great in the Roman Church as out of it both as to matters of order and doctrine 1. For matters of Order and Government Have not the controversies between the Regulars and Seculars among them even here in England been managed with as much heat and warmth as to matter of Episcopal jurisdiction as between those of the Church of England and the dissenters from it Neither is this any lately started controversie among them but hath continued ever since the prevalency of the Mendicant Fryers and their pretences of exemptions from Episcopal jurisdiction and encroaching upon the office of the Parochial Clergy For no sooner did the Fryers begin publickly under pretence of priviledges to take upon them to Preach without licence from the Bishops where they pleased and to take other offices of the Parochial Clergy out of their hands but great opposition was made against them by all the learned men who were friends to the Episcopal power and the peace of the Church Which being a matter of concernment for us to understand I shall give a faithful account of it from the best Writers of their own Church Assoon as the Monastick orders were found to be very serviceable to the Interests of the Court of Rome it was thought convenient to keep them in an immediate dependence upon the Pope in whatever Countrey they were From hence came the great favour of Popes to them and their willingness to grant them almost what priviledges they desired because receiving them only from the plenitude of the Popes power they were obliged to maintain and defend that from whence they derived them At first when they led a more properly Monastick life the priviledges granted them seem to be nothing else but exempting them from some troubles which were inconsistent with it either relating to their persons or the estates they enjoyed After this they began to complain of the numbers of people flocking to their Churches as inconsistent with their private and retired life from hence we first read that publick Masses by the Bishop were forbid in Monasteries to prevent a concourse of people and especially of Women to them But a long time after this they lived in subjection to the Bishops and meddled no more in Ecclesiastical than in Secular matters So Charles M. in his Capitular commands them to keep within their Monasteries to be subject to their Bishops and to meddle in no Ecclesiastical matters without the express command of the Bishop But as the Popes increased their authority the Monks inlarged their priviledges and procured exemptions from Episcopal jurisdiction which yet was not pleasing to those who valued the Churches peace above the priviledges of the Monastick orders These exemptions are therefore highly condemned by St. Bernard though a Monk himself as tending to the dissolution of the Ecclesiastical Government and by Ivo Carnotensis who saith he grew weary of his Episcopal Government by reason of them Petrus Blesensis hath an Epistle written to Pope Alexander 3. in the name of Richard Archbishop of Canterbury against the Abbot of Malmsbury who refused subjection to the Bishop of Salisbury and being cited by the Archbishop to appear before him for his contempt he declared he would be subject to none but the Pope and said they were pittiful Abbots who did not wholly exempt themselves from the Bishops power when they might for an annual pension to the Pope obtain an absolute exemption Therefore the Archbishop saith it was time for them to complain because this contagion did spread it self far and the Abbots set themselves against their Bishops and Metropolitans and the Popes by indulging these things did command disobedience and Rebellion and arm the Children against their Fathers but these and many other complaints signified nothing in the Court of Rome as long as their profit and interest were advanced by it And although we read of many affronts which the Monks put upon the Bishops before the time of the Mendicant Fryers yet their insolency grew the highest when they took upon them to Preach in Parochial Churches and hear Confessions without the Bishops leave Thence the Vniversity of Paris published the Book De periculis novissimorum temporum which although written by S. Amour went abroad in the name of all the Divines there as appears by the beginning of it wherein a Character is given of those persons who should make the last times so troublesome they should be lovers of themselves not enduring reproof covetous both of riches and applause high-minded because they would not be in subjection to the Bishops but be set before them and therefore disobedient to their spiritual Fathers And such as these are said to creep into houses which the ordinary Gloss expounds of those who enter into the houses of those who are under anothers charge these enter not by the door as the Rectors of Churches do but steal into them like Thieves and Robbers and leading captive silly women is their setting them against the Bishops and perswading them to a Monastick life These are likewise false teachers who though never so learned and holy teach without being sent and none are duly sent but such as are chosen and
authorised by the Church such as Bishops and Presbyters are the one succeeding the Apostles the other the 72 Disciples and afterwards they deny that the Pope himself can give any power to others to meddle in the charge of a Parish or in Preaching among them but where they are invited to it because Bishops themselves cannot otherwise act out of their own Dioceses and that the Pope in this case doth injury by violating the rights of others and if he should go about to destroy what the Prophets and Apostles have taught he would erre in so doing Besides say they if these Praedicant Fryers have a liberty to Preach where they please they are all universal Bishops and because maintenance is due to all who Preach the people will be bound to pay procurations to them which will be an unreasonable burden upon them Many other Arguments they use against this new sort of Itinerant Preachers and represent the dangers that came to the Church by them at large wherein they describe them as a kind of hypocritical Sectaries that abused the people under a fair shew and pretence of Religion having as they say a form of Godliness but denying the power of it and that the persecution of the Church by them would be equal to what it was by Tyrants and open Hereticks because they are familiar enemies and do mischief under a shew of kindness And that one of the great dangers of the Church by them would be their possessing Princes and people with prejudices against the Government of the Church by the Bishops which having done they can more easily lead them into errours both against faith and a good life That their way of dealing is first with the women and by them seducing the men as the Devil first tempted Eve and by her Adam and when they have once seduced them they tye them by oathes and vows not to hearken to the counsel of their Bishops or those who have the care of their souls That the Bishops ought to suppress these and call in the publick help to do it and to purge their Dioceses of them and that if they do it not the blood of the people will be required of them and destruction will come upon them for it and though Princes and people had taken their part that ought not to discourage them but their folly ought to be made manifest to all men After this they lay down the means to be used for suppressing them and the signes for their discovery saying that they are idle persons busie bodies wandring beggars against the Apostles express command who would have all such excluded the Church as disorderly livers and therefore conclude with an earnest exhortation to all who have a care of the Church to rise up against them as the pernicious enemies of its peace and welfare All these things which are only summarily comprehended in that Book are very largely insisted upon by Gul. de Sancto Amore in another Book entituled Collections of Holy Scripture which is wholly upon this subject The Mendicant Fryers being thus assaulted endeavoured to defend themselves as well as they could and made choice of the best wits among them for their Champions such as Bonaventure and Aquinas then were who undertook their cause and were fain to shelter themselves under the plenitude of the Popes power by which means they were sure to have the Pope on their side but his Authority was here no means of Vnity for the controversie continued long after and was managed with great heat on both sides § 8. Upon the great complaint of the priviledges and exemptions which the Monastick orders had obtained from the Popes Clement 5. promised to have this business discussed in the Council of Vienna and to that end gave order to several learned men to write about it among whom particularly Durandus Mimatensis writ a large discourse not mentioned by Possevin but Printed A. D. 1545. wherein he perswades the Pope to revoke all such exemptions because they were contrary to the ancient Canons of the Church whereby from the Apostles times all places and persons whatsoever were immediately under the jurisdiction of the Bishops and that the Pope neither ought nor could change this order of the Church Because the order of Bishops being appointed to prevent Schisms in the Church it could not attain its end if any persons were exempted from their jurisdiction And if it were in the Popes power to grant such exemptions it were by no means expedient to do it because the order of the Church would be destroyed by it the Bishops contemned and the Church divided and if the Monastick Orders paid no obedience to the Bishops the people would soon learn by their example to disobey them too And supposing it had been expedient before it could not be so then because though the Monastick orders were founded in a state of poverty yet now those who were in them were arrived at such a height of intolerable pride and arrogance that not only their Abbots and Priors but the Fryers thought themselves equal to Bishops and fit to be preferred before other Ecclesiastical persons Thus far Durandus and Aegidius Romanus at the same time writ a Book against the Exemptions of Fryers Against both of them Iacobus the Abbot of the Cistercians writt a defence of Exemptions which was published in Vienna in the time of the Council This matter was hotly debated in that Council but the Pope would not yield to the revocation of them but renews a Bull of Boniface 8. for qualifying and composing the differences that had happened to the great scandal of the Church about them wherein he takes notice of several Bulls before which had taken no effect so excellent an instrument of peace is the Popes Authority and that of a long time a most grievous and dangerous discord had been between the Bishops and Parochial Clergy on one part and the Preaching Fryers on the other Therefore the Pope very wisely considering how full of danger how prejudicial to the Church how displeasing to God so great a discord was and resolving wholly to remove it for the future by his Apostolical authority doth appoint and command that the Fryers should have liberty to Preach in all Churches Places and publick Streets at any other hour but that wherein the Bishops did Preach or did command others to Preach without a particular license to Preach then A greater instance of the discords which have been in the Roman Church nor of the insufficiency of the Popes Authority for the cure of them can hardly be produced than this is The Popes were forced to say and unsay and retract their own grants to mitigate and qualifie them and all to no purpose for the differences continued as great notwithstanding them The first Pope who interposed in this quarrel was Gregory 9. who upon complaint made by the Fryers of the Bishops exercising their jurisdiction
8. Febr. 4. A. D. 1625. not long after he comes into England and was received with so great kindness by their party here as made the Iesuits who are friends to none but themselves soon to become his enemies especially when he began to exercise his Episcopal jurisdiction here in laying restraints upon the Regulars which the Iesuits with other Regulars grew so impatient of that they soon revived the old quarrel concerning the authority and jurisdiction of Bishops and managed it with so great heat and fierceness that the titular Bishop was fain to leave the field and withdraw into France The bottom of the quarrel was they found the kindness of their party to them abated since the Bishops coming who before had sway'd all and lived in great plenty and bravery when the poor Seculars got scarce bread to eate as Watson very sadly laments in his answer to Parsons but now the necessary support of the dignity of a Bishop made the charity of their party run in another channel which the Provincial of the Iesuits complains of in a Letter to the Bishop of Chalcedon Therefore they endeavour all they can to make a party against him among the people too which they did so effectually as amounted to his withdrawing a more civil word for his exile And now both parties being sufficiently heated the battel begins in which not only England and Ireland but France and Flanders were deeply engaged The first who appeared was Dr. Kellison Professour of Doway in a Book in Vindication of the Bishops Authority to whom Knot then Vice-Provincial of the Iesuits returned his Modest and brief discussion c. under the name of Nicholas Smith a Iesuite then dead Soon after came out another written to the same purpose under the name of Daniel of Iesu whose true name was Iohn Fluide which the other writing Ioanes for Iohn was the Anagram of he was a Iesuit too and Professour at St. Omars which Books were first censured by the Arch-bishop of Paris then by the Sorbonne and at last by the Bishops of France in an Assembly of them at Paris but the Iesuits were so far from giving over by this that they new set forth their Books in Latin with large approbations of them and publish a Remonstrance against the Bishop of Chalcedon in the name of the Catholick party in England which was disowned by the greatest number of them and cast wholly upon the Iesuits the same year 1631. three Books were published by the secular Clergy here in opposition to the Iesuits Who were so far from quitting the Field by the number of their enemies that they begin a fresh charge against both the Sorbonne Doctors and the French Clergy under the fained name of Hermannus Loemelius whose chief Author was the fore-named Iesuite Lloyd with the assistance of his Brethren as the diversity of the style shews and another Book came out against the Faculty of Paris in Vindication of Knot or Nicholas Smith with many approbations of Bishops Vniversities and private Doctors and in Vindication of the Propositions of Ireland likewise censured at Paris another Book came forth under the name of Edmundus Vrsulanus whose true name was Mac-mahone Prior of the Franciscan Convent in Lovain About the same time the Iesuits published their Censure of the Apostolical Creed in imitation of the censures at Paris against their Doctrine as though their Doctrines were as certain as that and themselves as infallible as the Apostles wherein they charge the Bishops their enemies with reviving old Heresies and broaching new ones The Iesuits having now done such great things triumph unreasonably in all places as having utterly overthrown their enemies and beaten them out of the field when in a little time after Hallier and le Maistre two Doctors of the Sorbonne undertake the quarrel against them but none was so highly magnified and infinitely applauded by the French Clergy as a person under the disguised name of Petrus Aurelius whose atchievements in this kind they celebrate next to those of the Pucelle d' Orleans and Printed all his Works together at their own charge and writ a high Elogium of him which is prefixed before them And the secular Clergy of England sent him a letter of Congratulation for his Triumphs subscribed by Iohn Colleton Dean of the Chapter and Edmond Dutton Secretary wherein they sadly lament the discords that have been among them here and the Heresies broached by their Adversaries by occasion of them The main of-this Controversie did concern the dignity necessity and jurisdiction of the Episcopal Order as appears by the Censures of the Bishops of France and by Aurelius who saith that although the Dispute began upon occasion of the Bishop of Chalcedon and the English Clergy yet it was now carried farther whether the Episcopal Order was necessary to the Being of a particular Church Whether it was by divine right or no Whether confirmation might be given without Bishops Whether the Episcopal Order was more perfect than the Monastical Whether the Regulars were under the jurisdiction of Bishops And therefore the Iesuits are charged by their Adversaries with a design to extirpate and ruine the whole Order of Episcopacy Have not these men now great reason to insult over us that some of these questions have caused great differences among us when the Iesuits in England had laid the foundation of them by their quarrels of the same kind but a little before and furnished the enemies to Episcopacy and the Church of England with so many arguments to their hands to manage their bad cause with But what becomes of the Court of Rome all this while do the Pope and Cardinals only stand still to see what the issue of the Battel will be without ever offering to compose the difference between the two parties No. The Iesuits finding how hard they were put to it make their address to Rome as their greatest Sanctuary and A. D. 1633. obtained a Decree of the Sacred Congregation for suppressing the Books on both sides without judging any thing at all of the merits of the cause or giving any censure of the authority on either side And is not now the Popes authority an excellent remedy for all divisions in the Church When in so great a heat as this was the Pope durst not interpose at all in the main business for fear of losing either side which is a plain argument that they themselves look on his Authority as so precarious a thing that they must by no means expose it where it is like to be called in Question Were not here Controversies fit to be determined To what purpose is that authority that dare not be exercised when there is most need of it and when could there be greater need than in such a time when the Church was in a flame by these contentions And yet so timerous a Decree as this was could find no acceptance For at Paris immediately comes out a disquisition upon it shewing
all of a mind and it is not necessary to the Unity of the Church that they should be but they have the only way of composing differences and they do not differ in matters of faith from each other and their differences lye only in their Schools and do not disturb the peace of the Church This is the utmost I can find their best wits plead for the Vnity of the Roman Church and if these be sufficient I believe they and we will be proved to be as much at Unity as they are among themselves 1. They say the Vnity of the Church doth not lye in actual Agreement of the members of it in matters of Doctrine but in having the best means to compose differences and to preserve consent which is submission to the Popes Authority So Gregory de Valentiâ explains the Vnity of their Church for actual consent he grants may be in other Churches as much as theirs and there is nothing singular or peculiar attributed to their Church supposing they were all of a mind which it is plain they are not but therein saith he lyes the Vnity of their Church that they all acknowledge one Head in whose judgement they acquiesce and therefore they have no more to do but to know what the Pope determines If this be all their Unity we have greater than they for we have a more certain way of ending Controversies than they have which I prove by an argument like to one in great request among them when they go about to perswade weak persons to their Religion viz. that it must needs be safer to be in that Religion wherein both parties agree a man may be saved than in that where one side denies a possibility of salvation so say I here that must be a safer way for Unity which both parties agree in to be infallible than that which one side absolutely denyes to be so but both parties agree the Scriptures to be infallible and all Protestants deny the Pope to be infallible therefore ours is the more certain way for Vnity But this is not all for it is far from being agreed among themselves that the Pope is infallible it being utterly denyed by some among them and the asserting it accounted Heresie as is evident in some late Books written to that purpose in France and England What excellent means of Vnity then is this among them which it is accounted by some no less than Heresie to assert § 13. But supposing they should yield the Pope that submission which they deny to be due to him yet is his definition so much more certain way of ending Controversies than the Scriptures Let them name one Controversie that hath been ended in their Church meerly by the Popes Decrees so as the opposite party hath declared that they believed contrary to what they believed before on the account of the Popes definition We have many instances to the contrary wherein controversies have been heightened and increased by their interposing but none concluded by them Do they say the Scripture can be no means of Vnity because of the various senses which have been put upon it and have they no wayes to evade the Popes definitions Yes so many that his Authority in truth signifies nothing any farther than they agree that the upholding it tends to their common interest But when onces he comes to cross the interest of any party if they do not in plain terms defie him yet they find out more civil wayes of making his Definitions of no force Either they say the Decree was procured by fraud and the Pope made it by mis-information which is the common way or he did not define it as a matter of faith sitting in Cathedrâ or the sense of his definition is quite otherwise than their Adversaries understand it or supposing that be the sense the Pope is never to be supposed to define any thing contrary to the Scriptures and Fathers and ancient Canons Of all which it were no difficult task to give late and particular instances but no one who is acquainted with the history of that Church can be ignorant of them and the late proceedings in the point of the five Propositions are a sufficient evidence of these things to any one who reads them For when was there a Fairer occasion given to the Pope to shew his Authority for preservation of the Churches unity than at that time when the matter of the five Propositions was under debate at Rome The same controversie was now revived which had disturbed their Church so often and so much before In the time of Clement 8. the heats were so great between the Iesuits and Dominicans that the Pope thought it necessary for the peace of the Church to put an end to them to that end he appointed Congregations for several years to discuss those points that he might come to a resolution in them This Pope at first was strangely prepossest by the arts of the Iesuits against the Dominicans but sending for the General of the Dominicans he told him what sad apprehensions he had concerning the peace of the Church by reason of the disputes between the Iesuits and them and therefore charges him that those of his Order should no longer molest the Iesuits about these things to whom he replyed that he assured him with as great Protestation as he was able that it was no meer Scholastical dispute between them but it was the cause of faith that was concerned which he discoursed largely upon to the Pope and made such impressions upon him that the Dominicans verily believe that had that Pope lived to the Vespers of Pentecost that year he dyed in March he had published a Bull against the Iesuits in presence of the Colledge of Cardinals and created F. Lemos Cardinal After his death the congregations were continued in the time of Paul 5. but at last were broken up without any decision at all If the Popes determination be such an absolute Instrument of peace in the Church it is the strangest thing in the world it should be made so little use of in such cases where they all acknowledge it would be of infinite advantage to their Church to have an issue put to such troublesome controversies as these were But they know well enough that the Popes Authority is the more esteemed the less it is used and that it hath alwayes been very hazardous to determine where there have been considerable parties on both sides for fear the condemned party should renounce his Authority or speak plainer truths than they are willing to hear And therefore it was well observed by Mons. S. Amour that they are very jealeus at Rome of maintaining the Authority of the decrees which issue from thence and that this consideration obliges the maker of them to look very well to the compliance and facility that may be expected in their execution before they pass any at all Which is a most certain argument they dare