Popes and Councils Their own Polidore Virgil de Inven. Rerum p. 410. lib 8. c. 4. calling us a Sect doth give you a just description of us Ita licentia pacta loquendi c. i. e. Having once got leave to speak that sect did marvailously increase in a short time which is called Evangelicall because they affirm that no Law is to be received which belongeth to salvation but what is given by Christ or the Apostles Mark what they confess themselves of our Religion And yet these very men have the face to charge us with Novelty as if Christ and his Apostles were not of sufficient Antiquity for them Our main quarrel with them is for adding new inventions in Religion and their principal business against us is to defend it and yet they call theirs the old Religion and ours the new Our Argument lieth thus That which is most conform to the Doctrine and Practice of Christ and his Apostles is the truly Antient Religion and Church But our Religion and Church is most conform to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles therefore it is the truly antient Religion and Church The Major they will yield For no older Religion is desirable further then as the Law of Nature and Moral Determinations of God are still in force I suppose they will not plead for Judaism For the Minor we lay our cause upon it and are ready to produce our evidence for the Conformity of our Religion and Churches to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles That Religion which is most conform to the Holy Scriture is most conform to the doctrine and practice of Christ and his Apostles But our Religion and Churches is most conform to the holy Scriptures therefore c. They can say nothing against the Major but that the Scripture is Insufficient without Tradition But for that 1. We have no Rule of faith but what is by themselves confessed to be true They acknowledge Scripture to be the true word of God So that the Truth of our Rule is Justified by themselves 2. Let them shew us as good Evidence that their Additional Articles of faith or Laws of life came from the Apostles as we do that the Scriptures came from them and then we shall confess that we come short of them Let them take the Controversies between us point by point and bring their proof and we will bring ours and let that Religion carry it that is Apostolicall But we are sure that by this means they will be proved Novelists For 1. Their Traditions in matter of faith superadded to the Scripture are meer Hereticall or Erroneous forgeries and they can give us no proof that ever they were Apostolicall 2. The Scripture affirmeth its own sufficiency and therefore excludeth their Traditions 3. I shewed you how in their own General Council at Basil the Scripture sufficiency was defended 4. I have shewed you in my Book called the Safe Religion that the ancient Fathers were for the sufficiency of Scripture 5. Their Traditions are the opinions of a dividing sect contrary to the Traditions or doctrine of the present Catholick Church the far greater part of Christians being against them 6. We are able to shew that the time was for some hundred years after Christ when most of their pretended Traditions were unknown or abhorred by the Christian Church and no such things were in being among them 7. And we can prove that the chief points of Controversie mantained against us are not only without Scripture but against it and from thence we have full particular evidence to disprove them If the Scriptures be true as they confess them to be then no Tradition can be Apostolicall or true that is contrary to them For example the Papists Tradition is that the Clergy is exempt from the Magistrates judgement But the holy Scripture saith Let every soul be subject to the higher power Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4 5. The Papists Tradition is for serving God publickly in an unknown tongue But the holy Scripture is fully against it Their Tradition is against Lay mens reading the Scripture in a known tongue without special License from their ordinary But Scripture and all antiquity is against them The like we may say of many other Controversies So that these seven wayes we know their Traditions to be deceitfull because they are 1. Unproved 2. Against the sufficiency of Scripture 3. Against their own former confessions 4. Against the concent of the Fathers 5. Contrary to the judgement of most of the Catholick Church 6. We can prove that once the Church was without them 7. And they are many of them contrary to express Scripture And if Scripture will but shew which of us is neerest the doctrine and practice of the Apostles then the controversie is ended or in a fair way to it For we provoke them to try the cause by Scripture and they deny it we profess it is the Rule and test of our Religion but they appeal to another Rule and test And thus you may see which is the old Religion which will be somewhat fullyer cleared in that which followeth II. And that our Church and Religion hath been continued from the dayes of Christ till now we prove thus 1. From the promise of Christ which cannot be broken Christ hath promised in his word that that Church and Religion which is most conform to the Scripture shall continue to the end But our Church and Religion is most conform to the Scripture therefore Christ hath promised that it shall continue to the end 2. From the event The Christian Religion and Catholick Church hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now But ours is the Christian Religion and Catholick Church therefore ours hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now The Major they will grant the Minor is proved by parts thus 1. That Religion which hath all the Essentials of Christianity and doth not deny or destroy any Essential part of it is the Christian Religion but such is ours therefore c. 2. That Religion which the Apostles were of is the Christian Religion But ours is the same that the Apostles were of therefore c. 3. That Religion which is neerer the Scripture then the Romish Religion is certainly the Christian Religion But so is ours therefore c. 4. They that believe not only all that in particular that is contained in the Ancient Creeds of the Church but also in generall all that is besides in the holy Scripture are of the Christian Religion But thus do the Reformed Churches believe c. 2. And for our Church 1. They that are of that one holy Catholick Church whereof Christ is the head and all true Christians are members are of the true Church For there is but one Catholick Church But so are we therefore c. 2. They that are Sanctified Justified have the love of God in them are members of the true Catholick Church But such are all that are sincere
we have your own Confessions I have elsewhere mentioned some Canus Loc. Theol. lib. 6. cap. 7. fol. 201. saith Not only the Greeks but almost all the rest of the Bishops of the whole world have vehemently fought to destroy the Priviledge of the Church of Rome and indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperors and the greater number of Churches and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the one Pope of Rome Mark here whether the Catholick Church was then your subjects when the greater number of Churches and most of the Bishops of the whole world as well as the Greeks were against you and vehemently fought against your pretended priviledges Rainerius supposed contra Waldenses Catal. in Bibliotheca Patrum Tom. 4. pag. 773. saith The Churches of the Armenians and Ethiopians and Indians and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome Read and blush and call Baronius a parasite What would you have truer or plainer And what Controversie can there be where so many Nations themselves are witnesses against you And you may conjecture at the numbers of those Churches by what a Legate of the Popes that lived among them saith of one Corner of them Jacob. Ã Vitriaco Histor Orient cap. 77. that the Churches in the Easterly parts of Asia alone exceeded in multitude the Christians both of the Greek and Latine Churches Alas how little a thing then was the Roman Catholick Church If all this were not enough the Tradition of your own Catholick Church is ready to destroy the Papacy utterly For that a General Council is above the Pope and may judge him and depose him and that is de fide and that its Heresie to deny it and that all this is so jure that ne unquam aliquis peritorum dubitavit no wise man ever doubted of it all this is the judgement of the General Council of Basil with whom that of Constance doth agree And whether these Councils were confirmed or not they confess them lawfully called and owned and extraordinary full and so they were their Catholick Church Representative and so the Popes Soveraignty over the Council is gone by I radition but that 's not the worst For if a free General Council should be called all the Churches in the world must be equally there represented And if they were so then down went the usurped Head-ship of the Pope For we are sure already that most of the Churches in the world are against it and therefore in Council they would have the Major vote And thus by the concession of the Roman Representative Catholick Church the Pope is gone by Tradition So that by that time they have well considered of the matter me thinks they should be less zealous for Tradition CHAP. XXI Detect 12. ANother of the Roman frauds is this They perswade men that the Greeks the Protestants and all other Churches were once under their Papal soveraignty and have separated themselves without any just cause and therefore we are all schismaticks and thereforefore have no vote in general Councils c. A few words may serve to shew the vanity of this accusation 1. Abundance of the Churches were so strange to you that they had not any notable communion with you 2. The Greek Churches withdrew from your Communion but not from your subjection If any of the Patriarcks or Emperours of Constantinople did for carnal ends at last submit to you it was not till lately nor was it the act of the Churches nor owned nor of long continuance So that it was your Communion and not your subjection that they withdrew from 2. And as for us of the Western parts we answer you 1. We that are now living our Fathers or our Grand-fathers were not of your Church and therefore we never did withdraw 2. There were Churches in England before the Roman Power was here owned And therefore if it was a sin to change the first change was the sin when they subjected themselves to you and not the later in which they returned to their ancient state 3. And for the Germanes or English or whoever did relinquish you they have as good reason for it as for the relinquishing of any other sin If they did by the unhappiness of ill education or delusion submit to the usurped Soveraignty of the Pope they had no reason to continue in such an error Repentance is not a Vice when the thing Repented of is a vice Justifie therefore your usurpation or else it is in vain to be angry with us for not adhering to the usurper and the many corruptions that he brought into the Church CHAP. XXII Detect 13. ANother deceit that they manage with great confidence is this say they If the Church of Rome be the true Church then yours is not the true Church and then you are Shismaticks in separating from it But the Church of Rome is the true Church For you will confess it was once a true Church when Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans and if it ceased to be a true Church tell us when it ceased if you can If it ceased to be a true Church it was either by heresie or Schism or Apostacy but by none of these therefore c. A man would think that children and women should see the palpable fallacy of this Argument and yet I hear of few that the learned Papists make more use of But to lay open the shame of it in brief I answer 1. The deceit lieth in the ambiguity of the word Church As to our present purpose observe that it hath these several significations 1. It is taken oft in Scripture for one particular Church associated for personal communon in Gods Worship And thus there were many Churches in a Countrey as Judea Galatia c. 2. It is taken by Ecclesiastical writers often for an Association of many of these Churches for Communion by their Pastors such as were Diocesan Provincial National Churches whereof most were then ruled by Assemblies where a Bishop Archbishop Metropolitan or Patriarck as they called them did preside 3. It is taken oft in Scripture for the Body of Christ the holy Catholick or Universal Church containing all true Believers as mystical or all Professors of true faith as visible 4. It is taken by the Papists oft for one particular Church which is the Mistris or Ruler of all other Churches And now I come to apply these in answer to the argument 1. If the Question be of a true particular Church we grant you that the Church of Rome was a true and noble Church in the daies of Paul and long after and thus Paul owneth it in his Epistle as a true Church And to the question when it ceased to be a true Church I answer 1. What matter is it to us whether it be reasoned or not any more then whether Corinth Ephesus Coloss Thessalonica or Jerusalem be true Churches or ceased In charity we regard them all
my Lecture-day from Thursday to Friday that I change my Religion or the worship of God These are our great changes Well I will you now hear whether the Papists or we be the greatest Changlings 1. Some just changes they have made themselves that they know well enough are as great as ours It was so common in the antient Church to Pray only standing on every Lords day and not to kneel at all in any part of the worship of that day that it was taken for an universal Tradition and to kneel was taken for a great sin and condemned by General Councils many hundred years after Christ and yet the Church of Rome and other Churches as well as we have cast off this pretended Tradition violated this Decree of General Councils and forsaken this universal Custom of the Church And the Papists receive the Eucharist kneeling for all this Law and Custome In the primitive Church and in Tertullians dayes a Common Feast of the Church was used with the Lords Supper and the Sacrament taken then But now this Custom is also changed It was then the Custom to sing extempore in the Congregation to Gods praise But now Rome it self hath no such Custom It was once the Custom to give Infants the Lords Supper but now Rome it self hath cast off that Custom Once it was a Canon that Bishops must not read the books of Gentiles Concil Carthag 4. which yet Paul made use of and the Papists now do too much value Abundance such changes might be mentioned greater then ours in which we are justified by the Papists themselves 2. But they have yet other kind of changes then these They have changed the very Essence of the Catholick Church in their esteem they have changed the Officers the Doctrine the Discipline the Worship and what not as though they had been born for change to turn all upside down In the Primitive times the Church had no universal Monarch but Christ but they have set up a new universal Monarch at Rome In the primitive times the Catholick Church was the Universality of Christians and they have changed it to be only the subjects of the Pope In the Primitive times Rome was but a particular Church as Jerusalem and other Churches were but they have changed it to be the Mistris of all Churches For many hundred years after Christ the Scripture was taken to be a sufficient Rule of faith but they have changed it to be but part of the Rule In the antient Church all sorts were earnestly exhorted to read or hear and study the Scripture in a known tongue but they have changed this into a desperate restraint proclaiming it the cause of all Heresies In the antient Church the Bread and Wine was the Body and Blood of Christ Representative and Relative but they have changed it into the real Body and Blood Heretofore there was Bread and Wine remaining after the words of Consecration but they have changed so that there remaineth neither Bread nor Wine but the qualities and quantity without the substance and this must be believed because they say it against Scripture and Antiquity and in despight of sense it self In the antient Church the Lords Supper was administred in both kinds bread and wine to all but they have lately changed this into one kind only to the people denying them one half of the Sacrament Of old the Lords Supper was but the Commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross and a Sacrament of our Communion with him and his members but now they have changed it into a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the quick and dead and in it they adore a piece of Bread as very God with Divine worship Of old men were taught to make daily confession of sin and beg pardon and when they had done all to confess themselves unprofitable servants but now they are so changed that they pretend not only to be perfect without sin and to Merit by the Condignity of their works with God but to supererogate and be more perfect then innocency could make them by doing more then their duty Of old those things were accounted sins deserving Hell and needing the blood of Christ for pardon which now are changed into venial sins which properly are no sins and deserve no more then temporal punishment Of old the Saints had no proper merits to plead for themselves and now men have some to spare for the buying of souls out of Purgatory Of old the Pastors of the Churches were subject to the Rulers of the Commonwealth even every soul not only for wrath but for Conscience sake was obliged to be subject but now all the Clergy are exempted from secular Judgement and yet the secular power is subject to them for the Pope hath power to depose Princes and dispossess them of their Dominions and put others in their rooms and dissolve the bonds of Oaths and Covenants in which the subjects were obliged to them and to allow men to murder them by stabbing poysoning c. If you do not believe me stay but till I come to it and I shall give you yet some further proof Would you have any more of the Popish Changes Why I might fill a volume with them Should I but recite all the changes they have made in Doctrines and all that they have made in Church Orders and Discipline and Religious Orders and their Discipline and in Worship and Ceremonies I should be over tedious their very Liturgy or Mass-book hath been changed and made by changes such abundance of additions it hath had since the beginning of it What changes Sixtus the fift and Clement the eighth made in their Bibles I told you before as also what changes they have had in the election of their Popes And now I am content that any impartial man be judge whether Papists or the Reformed Churches are the more mutable and unsetled in their Religion and which of them is at the greater certainty firmness and immutability CHAP. XXIV Detect 15. ANother fraud of the Papists which they place not the least of their confidence in is this They perswade the people that our Church and Religion is but new of the other dayes invention and that theirs is the only old Religion And therefore they call upon us to give them a Catalogue of the professors of our Religion in all ages which they pretend we cannot do and ask us where our Church was before Luther To this we shall give them once more a brief but satisfactory answer I. We are so fully assured that the oldest Religion is the best since the date of the Gospell that we are contented that our whole cause do stand or fall by this tryall Let him be esteemed of the true Religion that is of the oldest Religion This is the main difference between us and the Papists We are for no Religion that is not as old as the dayes of the Apostles but they are for the Novelties and Additions of
say that we are wanting and so far wanting that being out of the Church there is no true Holiness among us When in the Preface of my Book against Popery called The Safe Religion I had truly spoken my experience that I had never the happiness to be acquainted with any Papist of a serious spiritual temper and holy life but only some of a Ceremonious formall kind of Religion and but with very few that lived not in some gross sin I was passionately censured by some of the Papists as one that condemned all for some When as 1. I only spoke of my own acquaintance 2. And I added withall that yet I was confident that God had his servants among them though I had not the happiness to know them 3. And is it not a ridiculous business that these same men should be so passionate with me for speaking but the truth concerning the ungodliness of some of them when at the same time they make it an Article of their faith and an essential point of Popery That no one Protestant hath charity or can be saved yea that no Christian in the world is sanctified really and can be saved but a Papist O the partiality of these men 4. Yea when they necessitate us to mention their ungodliness by calling us to it and laying the stress of all our cause upon the point yea laying the very Christian faith it self upon the Holiness of their Church For we must not know that Scripture is Gods word or that Christianity is the true Religion till we first know that the Church of Rome is the true Church that we may receive it on their credit And we must know that they are the true Church by being the only Holy people in the world I must profess that if my faith lay on this foundation I know so much of the falshood of it that I must needs turn infidell and I can no more believe this then I can believe that the snow is not white They confess I thank them for nothing that their common people are bad but yet say they there is some good ones among us Inter haereticos autem nullus est bonus but among the hereticks not one is good So saith Thom. Ã Jesu de convers omn Gent. pag. 531. And saith H. Turbervile Manual p. 84. But I never yet heard of any Protestant Saints in the world O wonderfull perverseness of the hearts of Sectaries O wonderfull Patience of God! Did not this mans heart tremble or smite him to write so horrid so impudent a reproach against so many precious Saints of God Durst he thus attempt to rob the Lord of the fruit of his blood and to vilifie his Jewels and as Rabshakah to reproach the Israel of God to attempt to pluck them out of Christs hand that are given him by his Father and to shut them out of heaven that are redeemed and made heirs by so dear a Price and to spit in their faces whom Christ hath washed with his blood Did he not fear that dreadfull threatning of Christ Mat 18. 6. but who so shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea Though I see so much impiety among the Papists I dare not say I dare not think that God hath not some Holy ones among them It s dangerous condemning those that Christ will Justifie and making his members to be the members of the Devil and abusing so grosly the apple of his eye If I see a man live wickedly I dare say that he is of a wicked life but I dare not say that All are so unless it be among men whose principles I am sure are inconsistent with godliness and I know that they hold those principles practically or prevalently And therefore I must say again that I have been acquainted with some Papists learned and unlearned The unlearned few of them knew what Christianity was nor whether Christ were God or Man Male or Female nor whether ever he was the King Prophet or Priest of the Church nor for what end he dyed nor what faith or repentance is but were infidels under the name of Papists or Catholicks The learned and unlearned live in some gross sin or other either all or neer all that I have been acquainted with The better sort would ordinarily swear by their Lady and by the Mass and sometime greater oaths The rest were some fornicators or adulterers some drunkards or revellers and gamesters or such like And never had I the happiness to be acquainted with one that would speak experimentally and savourily of the work of Grace upon his soul of the life of faith of communion with God and of the life to come but their Religion lay in being the Popes subjects and in fasting on Fridayes and in Lent from some sorts of meat and in saying over so many Ave Maries Pater Nosters or the like and in observing dayes and hours and Cereremonies Yet I again say I fully believe that there be better among them though I am not acquainted with them But if these men that never heard of a Protestant Saint and that conclude there is no one saved but a Papist and build their salvation on this as an Article of their faith had known but those that I have known and yet know they would either have been of another mind or have been left unexcusable in a malicious reproaching of the Saints of the most high I bless the Lord that I can truly say that I know many and many that as far as the heart of another can be known by words and a holy life do live in much communion with God whose souls are daily longing after him and some of them that have vacancy from worldly necessities spending much of their lives upon their knees having had many a special extraordinary return to their importunate requests whose delight is in the Law of the Lord in which they meditate day and night which is lockt up among the Papists Whose hearts smite them for vain words or thoughs or the loss of a few minutes of time that live in exemplary humility meekness and self-denyal bearing wrongs patiently and doing good to as many as they can as the servants of all contemning the Riches and Honours of the world mortifying the flesh and some of them longing to be dissolved and to be with Christ in whom the world never knew either once drunkenness fornication or one rash oath or any other gross sin that I could ever hear of And is it certain that all these shall be damned because they believe not in the Pope Nay is it not certain by Promise that all such shall be saved I must again profess that when the Papists lay their faith and cause on this that their Church is Holy and ours and all other are every man unholy it s almost all one to me
putting an Oath to all the Clergy of the Christian Church within your power to be true to the Pope and to obey him as the Vicar of Christ Who first taught men to swear that they would not interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous Consent of the Fathers Who was the first that brought in the doctrine or name of Transubstantiation and who first made it an Article of faith Who first made it a point of faith to believe that there are just seven Sacraments neither fewer nor more Did any before the Council of Trent swear men to receive and profess without doubting all things delivered by the Canons and Oecumenical Councils when at the same time they cast off themselves the Canons of many General Councils and so are generally and knowingly perjured as e. g. the twentieth Canon of Nice forementioned These and abundance more you know to be Novelties with you if wilfulness or gross ignorance bear not rule with you and without great impudence you cannot deny it Tell us now when these first came up and satisfie your selves One that was afterward your Pope Aeneas Sylvins Epist 288. saith that before the Council of Nice there was little respect had to the Church of Rome You see here the time mentioned when your foundation was not laid Your Learned Cardinal Nicol. Cusanus lib. de Concord Cathol c. 13. c. tells you how much your Pope hath gotten of late and plainly tells you that the Papacy is but of Positive right and that Priests are equall and that it is subjectional consent that gives the Pope and Bishops their Majority and that the distinction of Diocesses and that a Bishop be over Presbyters are of Positive right and that Christ gave no more to Peter than the rest and that if the Congregate Church should choose the Bishop of Trent for their President and Head he should be more properly Peters Successor then the Bishop of Rome Tell us now when the contrary doctrine first arose Gregory de valentia de leg usu Euchar. cap. 10. tells you that the Receiving the Sacrament in one kind began not by the decree of any Bishop but by the very use of the Churches and the consent of believers and tels you that it is unknown when that Custom first begun or got head but that it was General in the Latine Church not long before the late Council of Constance And may you not see in this how other points came in If Pope Zosimus had but had his will and the Fathers of the Carthage Council had not diligently discovered shamed and resisted his forgery the world had received a new Nicene Canon and we should never have known the Original of it It s a considerable Instance that Usher brings of using the Church service in a known tongue The Latine tongue was the Vulgar tongue when the Liturgy and Scripture was first written in it at Rome and far and neer it was understood by all The service was not changed as to the language but the language it self changed and so Scripture and Liturgy came to be in an unknown tongue And when did the Latine tongue cease to be understood by all Tell us what year or by whom the change was made saith Erasmus Decl. ad censur Paris tit 12. § 41. The Vulgar tongue was not taken from the people but the people departed from it 5. We are certain that your errors were not in the times of the Apostles nor long after and therefore we are sure that they are Innovations And if I find a man in a Dropsie or a Consumption I would not tell him that he is well and ought not to seek remedy unless he can tell when he began to be ill and what caused it You take us to be Heretical and yet you cannot tell us when our errors did first arise Will you tell us of Luther You know the Albigenses whom you murdered by hundreds and thousands were long before him Do you know when they begun Your Reinerius saith that some said they were from Silvesters dayes and some said since the Apostles but no other beginning do you know 6. But to conclude what need we any more then to find you owning the very doctrine and practise of Innovation When you maintain that you can make us new Articles of faith and new worship and new discipline and that the Pope can dispense with the Scriptures and such like what reason have we to believe that your Church abhorreth Novelty If you deny any of this I prove it Pope Leo the tenth among other of Luthers opinions reckoneth and opposeth this as Hereticall It is certain that it is not in the hand of the Church or Pope to make Articles of faith in Bulla cont Luth. The Council of Constance that took the supremacy justly from the Pope did unjustly take the Cup from the Laity in the Eucharist Licet in primitivâ Ecclesiâ hujusmodi Sacramentum reciperetur a fidelibus sub utraque specie i. e. Though in the primitive Church this Sacrament was received by Believers under both kinds The Council of Trent say Sess 21. cap. 1 2. that this power was alway in the Church that in dispensing the Sacraments saving the substance of them it might ordain or change things as it should judge most expedient to the profit of the receiver Vasquez To. 2. Disp 216. N. 60. saith Though we should grant that this was a precept of the Apostles nevertheless the Church and Pope might on just causes abrogate it For the Power of the Apostles was no greater then the power of the Church and Pope in bringing in Precepts These I cited in another Treatise against Popery page 365. Where also I added that of Pope Innocent Secundum plenitudinem potestatis c. By the fulness of our power we can dispense with the Law above Law And the Gloss that oft saith The Pope dispenseth against the Apostle against the Old Testament The Pope dispenseth with the Gospell interpreting it And Gregor de valent saying Tom. 4. disp 6. q. 8. Certainly some things in later times are more rightly constituted in the Church then they were in the beginning And of Cardinal Peron's saying lib. 2. Obs 3. cap. 3. pag. 674. against King James of the Authority of the Church to alter matters conteined in the Srripture and his instance of the form of Sacraments being alterable and the Lords command Drink ye all of it mutable and dispensable And Tolets Its certain that all things instituted by the Apostles were not of Divine right Andradius Defens Concil Trid. lib. 2. pag. 236. Hence it is plain that they do not err that say the Popes of Rome may sometime dispense with Laws made by Paul and the four first Councils And Bzovius The Roman Church using Apostolical power doth according to the Condition of times change all things for the better And yet will you not give us leave to take you for changers and Novelists But let us add
to these witnesses some more of your worthies August Triumph de Ancon q. 5. art 1. saith To make a new Creed belongs only to the Pope because he is the Head of the Christian faith by whose authority all things belonging to faith are confirmed and strengthened Et Art 2. As he may make a new Creed so he may multiply new Articles upon Articles And in Praefat. sum ad Johan 22. he saith that the Popes power is Infinite because the Lord is great and his strength great and of his greatness there is no end And q. 36. ad 6. he saith that the Pope giveth the Motion of Direction and the sense of Knowledge into all the members of the Church For in him we live and move and have our being And the Will of God and consequently the Popes Will who is his Vicar is the first and chief cause of all motions corporall and spiritual And then no doubt may change without blame Abbas Panormitan in cap. C. Christus de haeret n. 2. saith The Pope can bring in a new Article of faith And Petr. de Anchoran in idic The Pope can make new Articles of faith that is such as now ought to be believed when before they ought not to be believed Turrecremat sum de Eccl. lib. 2. cap. 203. saith that the Pope is the Measure and Rule and Science of things to be believed And August de Ancona shews us that the Judgement of God is not higher then the Popes but the same and that therefore no man may appeal from the Pope to God qu. 6. art 1. And therefore be not offended if we suppose you to have changes A Confutation of a Popish Manuscript on this point Just as I was writing this I received another Popish M. S. sent from Wolverhampton to Sturbridge to which I shall return an answer before I go to the next point Pap. M. S. An Argument for the Church IT will not be denyed but that the Church of Rome was once a most pure excellent flourishing and Mother Church and her faith renowned in the whole world Rom. 1. 8. 6. 16. Whites Def. p. 555. King James speech to the Parliament Whitaker in his Answer to Dr. Sanders Fulk cap. 21. Thes 7. Reynolds in his fifth Conclusion This Church could not cease to be such but she must fall either by Apostacy Heresie or Schism Apostacy is not only a renouncing of the faith of Christ but of the name and Title of Christianity No man will say that the Church of Rome had such a fall or fell so Heresie is an adhesion or fast cleaving to some private or singular Opinion or error in faith contrary to the generally approved doctrine of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common received doctrine of the Christian world I pray you satisfie me in these particulars 1. By what General Council was she ever condemned 2. Which of the Fathers ever writ against her 3. By what Authority was she otherwise reproved For it seems to be a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemned by every private person who hath a mind to condemn her Schism is a departure or division from the unity of the Church whereby the bond and Communion held with some former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided her self from any body of faithfull Christians or broke Communion or went forth from the Society of any Elder Church I pray you satisfie me in these particulars 1. Whose company did she leave 2. From what body went she forth 3. Where was the true Church she forsook For it appears not a little strange that a Church should be accounted Schismatical when there cannot be assigned any other Church different from her which from age to age since Christs time hath continued visible from whence she departed Thus far the Papists Manuscript An Answer to the foregoing Argument IF the Author of this Argument thinks as he speaks it s a case to be lamented with tears of blood that the Church of Christ should be abused and the souls of men deluded by men of so great ignorance But if he know that he doth but juggle and deceive it s as lamentable that any matter of Salvation should fall into such hands 1. This Argument I have before answered Detect 13. The word Church here is ambiguous and either signifieth 1. A particular Church which is an Association of Christians for personal Communion in Gods worship 2. Or divers such Associations or Churches Associated for Communion by their officers or delegates for unity sake 3. Or else it may signifie some one Mistris Church that is the Ruler of all the rest in the world 4. Or else it may signifie the Universal Catholick Church it self which containeth all the particular Churches in the world The Papist should not have plaid either the blind man or the Jugler by confounding these and never telling us which he means 1. For the first we grant him that Rome was once an excellent flourishing Church And so was Ephesus Hierusalem Philippi Colosse and many more 2. As to the second sence it is humane or from Church custom so to take the word Church for Scripture that I find doth not so use it But for the thing we are indifferent Though it cannot be proved that in Scripture times Rome had any more then a particular Church yet it s all one as to our cause 3. As to the third and fourth senses we deny as confidently as we do that the Sun is darkness that ever in Scipture times Rome was either a Mother to all Churches or the Ruler and Mistris of all or yet the Universal Church it self Prove this and I will turn Papist But there 's not a word for it in the Texts cited but an intimation of much against it Paul calleth Rome a Church and commendeth its faith True but doth he not so by the Thessalonians Colossians Ephesians Philippians c. and John by the Philadelphians Pergamus Thyatira and others as well And will not this prove that Rome was but such a particular Church as one of them The citation of Protestants are done it seems by one that never read them nor would have others read them which makes him turn us to whole books to search for them if we have nothing else to do and to miscited places But we know that all our Divines confess that Rome was once a true and famous particular Church but never the Universall Church nor the Ruler of the world or of all other Churches in Pauls dayes Would you durst lay your cause on this and put it to the tryal Why else did never Paul make one word of mention of this Power and honour nor send other Churches to her to be Governed And now I pray consider to what purpose is the rest of your reasoning What is it to me whether Rome be turned either
hath Articles besides those of the Creed But the Synod of Dort hath more But those in the Bull are new as Dr. Rivet will have it But very many learned men think otherwise that they are not new if they be rightly understood and that this appeareth by the places both of holy Scripture and of such as have ever been of great authority in the Church which are cited in the Margin of the Canons of Trent Pag. 35. And this is it which the Synod of Trent saith that in that Sacrament Jesus Christ true God truly man is really substantially conteined under the form of those sensible things yet not according to the naturall manner of existing but Sacramentally and by that way of existing which though we cannot express in words yet may we by cogitation illustrated by faith be certain that to God it is possible And the Council hath found words to express it that there is made a change of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and the whole substance of Wine into the Blood which conversion the Catholick Church calleth Transubstantiation Pag. 79. When the Synod of Trent saith that the Sacrament is to be adored with Divine worship it intends no more but that the Son of God himself is to be adored I le add no more but that which tells you who is a Papist with the Grotians and who is none Pag. 15. In that Epistle Grotius by Papists meant those that without any difference do approve of all the sayings and doings of Popes for honor or lucre sake as is usual Ibid. He tells us that by Papists he meaneth not them That saving the right of Kings and Bishops do give to the Pope or Bishop of Rome that Primacy which ancient custom and Canons and the Edicts of ancient Emperors and Kings assign them Which Primacy is not so much the Bishops as the very Roman Churches preferred before all other by common consent It 's well it hath so mutable a foundation so Liberius the Bishop being so lapsed that he was dead to the Church the Church of Rome retained its right and defended the cause of the Universal Church This and much more I had given the Reader before in Latine but because Mr. Pierce thinks that I wrong Grotius if you have it not in English I have born so much respect to his words and to the Reader as to remove the wrong and thus far to satisfie his desire Having told you some of the Occasion of this writing I shall add somewhat of the Reasons of it but the less because I have given you so much of them already in my foresaid Discovery of the Grotian Religion 1. My principal Reason is that before expressed that Popery may be pulled up by the very roots For Italians French and all build on this that the Church must have one visible Head 2. That I might take in those parties of the Papists that I have past by or said less to in the former Part of the Book 3. Because I see what Influence the conceit that I dispute against hath on the minds of many well-meaning less judicious people 4. Because I perceive in part what influence the design of Grotius had upon England in the changes that were the occasion of our late wars He saith himself Discuss pag. 16. That the labors of Grotius for the Peace of the Church were not displeasing to many equal men many know at Paris and many in all France many in Poland and Germany and not a few in England that are placid and lovers of peace For as for the now-raging Brownists and others like them with whom Dr. Rivet better agreeth then with the Bishops of England who can desire to please them that is not touched with their venom So that he had Episcopal Factors here in England And whereas some tell me that Grotius was no Papist because he professed his high esteem of the Church of England and say they had Church-preferment here offered him and thought to have accepted it I answer 1. Either it was Grotius in the first Edition or the Church of England in the second Edition then in the Press that this must be spoken of if true 2. Was not Franciscus a Sancta Clara still the Queens ghostly Father a Papist for all he reconciled the Doctrine of the Church of England to that of Rome Grotius and he did plainly manage the same design 3. Mr. Pierce assures you by his Defence that Grotius hath still his followers in England of the party that he called the Church of England And is it any more proof that Grotius was a Protestant for joyning with them then that they are Papists that joyn with him Is not his Doctrine here given you in his Englished words Do you doubt whether the Council of Trent were Papists This makes me remember the words of the late King to the Marquess of Worcester when the Marbuess came into the room to an appointed conference about religion with him leaned on D. Bayly's arm he told the King that he came leaning on a Doctor of his own Church and the King replyed My Lord I know not whether I should think the better of you for the Doctors sake or the worse of the Doctor for your sake or to this purpose And indeed the Doctor quickly shew'd by professing himself a Papist what an Episcopal Divine he was And I think we have as fair advantage to resolve us whether to think the better of Grotius for the Church of Englands sake or the worse of those that he called the Church of England and that were of his mind for Grotius sake In a late Treatise De Antiqua Ecclesiae Brittanicae libertate Diatribe written by I. B. a Divine of the Church of England and printed at Bruges 1656 pag. 34 35. Thes 4. it is averred That since the ancient liberty of the British Church was by the consent of the whole Kingdom resumed remaining Catholick in all other things it may retain that Liberty without losing its Catholicism and without any note of Schism or Heresie This Liberty then was the Reformation And this he saith was maintained by Barnes a Papist and Benedictine Monk and Priest in a M. S. entituled Catholico-Romanus Pacificus c. 3. and that for this sober work of his the Peaceable Monk though of unblamed life and unspotted fame was snatch out of the midst of Paris and stript of his habit and bound on a Horse-back like a Calf and violently carryed into Flanders and so to Rome and so to the Inquisition and then put among the Bedlams where he dyed and not contented with his death they defamed him to have dyed mad Though Rome give Peace no better entertainment the Learned Author thinks that France will and therefore adds concerning the French Church Quâcum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 optanda foret etiamnum veteris redintegratio concordiae quam constat plus mille ab hinc annis amicissime intercessisse inter
such as comes not from a wilfull neglect of means there no ignorance of the articles of faith is damnable and so no article absolutely necessary so that the question indeed is not Whether men believe or not but Whether they are Unbelievers or Heathens or ignorant persons by a willfull neglect of sufficiently proposed Truth or not So that all that part of the Heathen or Infidell world O how great that have no such proposals of the Gospel may not only be saved but be better and safer then most Christians if not all who certainly are sinfully ignorant of some truth which they ought to know Obj. But say they it will not stand with faith to deny belief to God in any thing sufficiently revealed for he that believeth him in one thing believeth him in all Answ Very true if they know it to be the Word of God And if this be all the Protestants are ready to averre upon their most solemn Oaths that they believe every thing without exception which they know to be a Divine Revelation and no wonder for so doth every man that believes that there is a God and that he is no lyar If this will serve your turn you have no more to say against us your mouths are stopt But may it not stand with faith to be ignorant and that through sinfull neglect of some revealed truth of God or of the meaning of his word If you are so proud as to think that all the justified are perfect and have no sin yet at last consider whether a man that liveth in Heathenism til fourscore years of age and then turns Christian is not afterward ignorant through his former sinfull negligene But dare you say that you have no sinfull ignorance to bewail Will you confess none nor beg pardon or be beholden to Christ to pardon it That they make no point of faith necessary while they seem to make all necssary see but what I have after cited from Frans à S. Clara probl 15 16 17. and abundance more that are mentioned there by him 3. And that by this Protean jugling they make the Church invisible is apparent For what man breathing knoweth the secrets of the souls of others whether they have resisted or not resisted the light and whether they are ignorant of the articles of faith upon sinfull contempt or for want of some due means of faith or internal capacity or opportunity We are as sure that all men are ignorant of some thing that God hath revealed to be known in nature and Scripture as that they are men But now whether any one of these men be free from those aggravations of his ignorance and that in every point upon which the Papists make him an unbeliever is unknown to others When the Faith or Infidelity of men and so their being in the Church or out of it must not be known by the Matter of Faith which they profess but by the secret passages of their hearts their willingness or unwillingness resistance or not resistance and such like the Church then is invisible no man can say which is it nor who is of it He that professeth not the Faith may be a Catholick and he that professeth it for ought they know may be an Infidel as being sinfully yet ignorant of some one truth that is not in his express confession thus by confusion the bulders of Babel marre their work 4. And that the wisest of them say in the main as we say see here in some proofs Bellarm. de Verbo Dei lib. 4. cap. 11. In the Christian Doctrine both of Faith and Manners some things are simply necessary to salvation to all as the Knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed of the ten Commandements and of some Sacraments The restore not so necessary that a man cannot be saved without the explicite Knowledge belief and profession of them These things that are simply necessary and are profitable to all the Apostles preached to all Allthings are Written by the Apostles which are Necessary to all and which they openly preacht to all see the place Costerus Echirid c. 1. p. 49. Non inficiamur praecipua illa fidei capita quae omnibus Christianis cognitu sunt ad salutem Necessaria perspicuè satis esse Apostolicis scriptis comprehensa That is We deny not that those Chief Heads of the Faith which are to all Christians necessary to be known to salvation are perspicuously enough comprehended in the Writings of the Apostles Judge by these two to spare the trouble of citing more whether they be not forced after all their Cavils to say as we in distinguishing of Articles of Faith And they cannot be ignorant that the Church hath still had Forms of Profession which were called her Symbols as being the Badge of her Members and did not suspend all upon uncertain conjectures about the frame and temper of the Professors minds But if indeed it be not the want of Necessary Articles of Faith that they accuse us of but the want of willingness or diligence to know the truth let them prove their accusations and let those persons that they prove guilty bear the blame Do they think we would not as willingly know the truth as they and that we do not pray as earnestly for Divine illumination Do we not read their Books I verily think incomparably more then they do ours and are we not willing to confer with the wisest of them that can inform us I have often privately and publickly desired you that if any of them can say more then all these Schoolmen Fryars and Jesuites say which I have read they would let me hear it that I may want no means they can afford me for my fuller information But yet they have not done with us When we prove a succession of our Religion by proving a succession of such as adhered to the Scriptures which are the Doctrine of our Religion an Argument that no Papist under heaven can confute they vainly tell us that All Hereticks pretend to Scripture and therefore that will not prove the point But 1. Doth it follow that Scripture is not a sufficient Rule of our Religion because Hereticks may pretend to it You take the 39 Articles for our Religion and yet may Hereticks that are far from our minds pretend to them It 's the liker to be the Rule because all Hereticks pretend it and would borrow credit from it to their Heresies The Law of the Land is the Rule of our Justice and yet Lawyers and their Clients that are contrary to each other do plead it for their contrary Causes The Creed it self is pretended by Arrians for their Heresie What must we have no Rule or Test or discovery of our Religion which a Heretick can pretend for his impiety What words of God or man are not capable of being misinterpreted If we should give you every day a confession of Faith some Hereticks might pretend to hold the same No wonder then if they
do so by the Scriptures 2. And can any Learned Papists be so ignorant as not to know that the Arrians pretended the Authority of General Councils and so do many other Hereticks and that the Authority of Pope and Councils are frequently pretended for contrary opinions among them and may be pretended by many an Heretick And will they therefore grant that the Decrees of Popes and Councils are no sufficient discovery of their Faith If Hereticks pretending to your Test of Faith disprove not that to be your Faith then Hereticks pretending to our Rule and Test of Faith which is the Holy Scripture is no proof that it is not our Rule of Faith I do therefore conclude that the Proof of a Succession of such Churches as have received the Holy Scriptures is a valid proof of a succession of Churches of our Religion seeing we have no Religion doctrinally but the Holy Scriptures And this as far as modesty will permit I challenge all the Jesuites on Earth to confute with any solid Reasons yet adding that we do ex superabundanti prove a succession also of Churches that never owned Popery even the greatest part of the Christian world But let these men themselves but prove to us a succession of their Church even such as they require of us Let them prove that from the Apostles days the Catholick Church or any one Congregation of twenty men did hold all that now their Councils and Popes have Decreed and are esteemed Articles of their Faith and I am contented to be their bondslave for ever or to bear a fagot or be used by them as cruelly as their malice can invent or flames or their strappado's execute Let my Head be at their Mercy if they can but prove that Succession of Popery as they require us to do of Protestancy or as I have produced of our Churches and Religion In the 15th and 16th Detection I have more largely spoken to them of this point to which I refer the Reader In the very principal point of their Papal Soveraignty they have nothing but this gross deceit to cheat the world with The Roman Emperors divers ages after Christ did give the Bishop of Rome a Primacy in their Empire and hence these men would perswade us that even from Christ they have had a Soveraignty over all the Christian world Wink but at these small mistakes and they have won the Cause 1. Suppose but Christs Institution to stand in stead of the Emperors 2. Suppose divers hundred years after Christ to have been in the Apostles days 3. Suppose Primacy to be Soveraignty or Universal Government 4. But especially grant them that the Roman Empire was all the Christian world and then they have made good that part of their Cause That there were many Nations without the reach of the Roman Empire that had received the Christian Faith is past doubt Socrates lib. 1. c. 15. saith that Thomas chose Parthia Bartholomew chose India Matthew Ethiopia to plant the Gospel in but the middle India was not converted till Constantines days by Frumentius and Edesius and Iberia by a Maid So Euseb l. 3. c. 3. tells us of Thomas his Preaching to the Parthians and Andrew to the Scythians Et in vit Const l. 4. c. 8. that there were many Churches in Persia cap. 91. how Constantine wrote for them to the King Godignus and others of them maintain that the Abassines did receive the Gospel from the beginning Besides Scotland and many other Countries that were not under the Roman Power And none of these were Governed by the Pope These three Arguments against the Papal Cause I shall here premise to more that follow 1. If all that part of the Christian world that was out of the reach of the Roman Empire did never submit to the Soveraignty of the Pope then hath he not been successively or at any time the actual Head of the Universal Church But the Antecedent is most certain therefore so is the Consequent How an old woman the Emperors Mother of Habassia did baffle their Jesuites by asking them How it came to pass if obedience to the Pope be necessary to salvation that they never had heard from him till now I have told you after from themselves If Primacy were Soveraignty and Emperors and Councils were Gods yet the Indians Abassines Persians and many more in the East and the Scots and Irish and Danes and Sweeds and Poles and Muscovites and most of Germany in the West and North should be no subjects of the Pope 2. If the Rule and Test of the Faith of Papists never had a Real Being or no succession from the Apostles then their Faith and Church hath either no Real Being or no such Succession But the Antecedent is true as I prove It is either General Councils or Popes or the Church Essential as they use to call it that is the Whole Body that is the Rule of their Faith If it be General Councils 1. They had no being from the Apostles till the Council of Nice therefore the Rule of the Papists Faith was then unborn 2. Yea they never had a being in the world There was never any thing like a General Council since the days of the Apostles to this day The first at Nice had none save one John of Persia who its like was some persecuted Bishop that was fled or if one or two more its not material but the Bishops of the Empire and out of the Western parts so few as was next to none The following Councils as Constantinop 1. c. were only out of one piece of the Empire The Council of Trent I disdain to reckon among the modester pretenders to an Universality 2. And if it be not General Councils but the Pope that is the Rule of their Faith then 1. Their Faith hath been interrupted yea and turned to Heresie and to Infidelity when the Pope hath so turned 2. And why then do they tell our people that they take not the Pope for the Rule of their Faith 3. If it be the Major part of the Universal Church 1. It 's known that two to one are against them or at least the Greater part therefore by that Rule their Faith in the Papal Soveraignty is false 2. And yet it would be hard if a man must be of no Belief till he have brought the world to the pole for it Argum. 3. If all the stir that the Papists make in the world for the Papal Government be but to rob Christian Princes and Magistrates of their Power then are they but a seditious Sect But the Antecedent is apparent For there are but two sorts of Government in the Church The one is by the Word applyed unto the Conscience which worketh only on the willing either by General exhortations as in Preaching or by personal application as in Sacraments Excommunication and Absolution And this is the work of the present Pastors and cannot be performed by the Pope Nor would he be
in their own shame Vigilius saith he proceeded to that insolency that he excommunicated Mennas for four moneths And Mennas did the same by him But Justinian being moved to anger with such things sent some to lay hold on him But Vigilius being afraid of himself fled to the Altar of Sergius the Martyr and laid hold on the Sacred Pipes would not be drawn away till he had pul'd them down But by the Mediation of the Empress Theodora the Pope was pardoned and Menna and he absolved one another A fair proof of the Vicarship 3. And so it was that Pope Honorius was condemned for an Heretick by two or three General Councils 5. Also when they meet with any big words of their own Popes as I command this or that they take it for a proof of the Vicarship As if big words did prove Authority Or as if we knew not how lowlily and poorly they spoke to those that were above them As Gregory the first for instance was high enough towards those that he thought he could master but what low submissive language doth he use to secular Governors that were capable of overtopping him And what flattering language did his successors use to the most base murderers and usurpers of the Empire 6. Another Roman deceit is this When they find any mention of the exercise of the now thriving Roman Power over their own Diocess or Patriarchal circuit they would hence prove his universal Power over all And by that Rule the Patriarch of Alexandria or Constantinople may prove as much 7. Also when they meet with the passages that speak of the elevation of their Pope to be their first Patriarch in the Roman Empire or any Power that by the Emperors was given him they cunningly confound the Empire with the world and especally if they find it called by the name of the world and they would perswade you that all other Christians and Churches on earth did ascribe as much to the Bishop of Rome as the Roman Empire did It s true that he was in the Empire acknowledged to be first in order of dignity because of Rome the seat of his Episcopacy especially when General Councils began to trouble themselves and the world about such matters of precedency And it s well known from the language of their writers as well as from the words of Luke 2. 1. that they usually called the Empire all the world And from such passages would the Papists prove the Primacy at least of the Pope over all the world But put these Juglers to it to prove if they can that beyond the Rivers Meroes and Euphrates and beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire the Pope did either exercise Dominion or was once so much as regarded by them any more then any other Bishop except there were any adjacent Island or Countrey that had their dependence upon the Empire I hope they will not deny that the Church extended much beyond the Empire Though our History of that part of it be much defective And let them prove if they can that ever any of those Churches had any regard to the Roman Bishop any more then to another man Let them tell you where either the Empire of the Abassines or any other out of the line of the Imperial power was any whit like-subject to the Pope 8. But their chief fraud is about names and words When they meet with any high complemental title given to the Bishop of Rome they presently conclude that it signifieth his Soveraignty Let us instance in some particulars and shew the vanity of their conclusions from them 1. Sometimes the Roman Bishops are called Summi Pontifices the chief Popes and hence some gather their Supremacy But I suppose you will believe Baronius their chief flatterer in such a case as this And he tells you in Martyrolog Roman April 9. that Fuit olim vetus ille usus in Ecclesia ut Episcopi omnes non tantum Pontifices sed summi Pontifices dicerentur i. e. It was the ancient custom of the Church to call all Bishops not only Pontifices Popes but chief Popes And then citing such a passage of Hierom Epist 99. he addeth Those that understand not this ancient custom of speech refer these words to the Popedom of the Church of Rome 2. As for the names Papa Pope Dominus Pater Sauctissimus beatissimus dei amantissimus c. it s needless to tell you that these were commonly given to other Bishops 3. And what if they could find that Rome were called the mother of all Churches I have formerly shewed you where Basil saith of the Church of Caesarea that it is as the mother of all Churches in a manner And Hierusalem hath oft that Title 4. Sometime they find where Rome is called Caput Ecclesiarum and then they think they have won the cause When if you will consult the words you shall find that it is no more then that Priority of Dignity which not Christ but the Emperours and Councils gave them that is intended in the word It s called the Head that is the chief Seat in Dignity without any meaning that the Pope is the universal Monarch of the world 5. But what if they find the Pope called the Archbishop of the Catholick Church or the Universal Bishop then they think they have the day I answer indeed three flattering Monks at the Council of Calcedon do so superscribe their libels but they plainly mean no more then the Bishop that in order of dignity is above the rest And many particular Churches are oft called Catholick Churches There 's difference between A Catholick Church and The Catholick Church And the Bishop of Constantinople had that Title even by a Council at Constant an 518. before the Bishop of Rome had it publikely or durst own it It was setled on the Patriarch of Constantinople to be called the Oecumenical or Universal Patriarch Who knoweth not that Emperours gave such Titles at their pleasure Justinian would sometime give the Primacy to Rome and at another time to Constantinople saying Constantinopolitana Ecclesia omnium aliarum est caput The Church of Constantinople is the Head of all other Churches An. Dom. 530. C. de Episcopis l. 1. lege 24. And it s known that this Justinian that sometime calls Rome the Head did yet when the fifth General Council had condemned Vigilius Pope of Rome permit Theodora his Empress to cause him to be fetcht to Constantinople and drag'd about the street in a halter and then banished till they had forced him to subscribe and submit to the Council even as they had deposed Pope Silverius his predecessor And Baronius himself mentioneth a Vaticane Monument which as it calls Agapetus Episcoporum princeps on one side so doth it call Menna the Apostolick Universal Bishop Which Baronius saith doth mean no more then that he was Universal over his own Provinces aad if that be so any Bishop may be called Universal And do not these
and many read it When the Gunpowder Plot was in hand they had contrived presently to give it all abroad that the Puritans did it Read Mr. Samuel Clark of it in his Mirror of Gods Judgements Fol. and you shall find this fully detected When Fisher the Jesuite had held his conference with Dr. Featley and Dr. White there being present two Earls one of them the Earl of Warwick having business shortly after beyond sea fell unknown into Dr. Westons company at Saint Omers who presently tells it him for news how Fisher had confounded the Protestant Doctors and that two Earls and so many people were turned by it to the Church of Rome not knowing that he that heard him was one of the two Earls and that there were not so many people there and how they were confirmed against Popery by that Dispute And when the Earl of Warwick brought home this jeast Dr. Weston hearing what sport was made with it in England writ a simple excuse for his Lying which I have at hand but find it had been better for him to have said nothing Should I recite but half the forgeries of this nature by which the Priests and Jesuites cheat the poor people I must be voluminous But alas their very worship of God is much of it composed of Lyes and is not that like to be acceptable worship How their Offices and Legends are stuff with fictions Canus and many of their own confess And Cassander saith that so few of the reliques in all Germany would be found true ones if examined that its better quite take off the people from the veneration of them Instancing in one of old that was worshipped as a Saint and upon enquiry was found to be the bones of a Thief Agobardus Bishop of Lyons saith Usher complained about eight hundred years ago that the Antiphonary used in his Church had many ridiculous and phantastical things in it and that therefore he corrected much of it cutting off what seemed superfluous or light or lying or blasphemous Agobard ad Cant. Lugd. de Correct Antiphon pag. 396. And not long since Lindanus made the like complaint that Not only Apochryphal matters out of the Gospel of Nicodemus and other toyes are thrust in but even the secret prayers yea alas for shame and grief the very Canon varying and redundant are defiled with most filthy faults Reader I will trouble thee no more with stirring in this puddle but only warn thee as thou lovest thy soul trust it not on the bare reports of such Lyars but try before thou trust and give not up thy sense and Reason to men that make so little or so ill a use of their own If thou refuse this Council say not but thou wast warned CHAP. XXXI Detect 22. ANother of their Deceits is by quarrelling with our Translations of the Bible and making the people believe that we have so corrupted it that it is none of the word of God and so they openly scorn it and deride it As to this point though Learned men can soon confute them by vindicating the Text as in the Original Languages and then vindicating our Translation yet the common disputant need not put them and himself to so much trouble If really they will but let the Law of God contained in the Holy Scripture be the Rule by which our difference shall be tryed and decided we will cut short the rest of the controversie and take it wholly together and we will stand to the Vulgar Latine which is it that themselves applaud We are content that this be the Rule between us Yea rather then they shall shift off the unlearned by these tricks we will admit of their own Translation which the Rhemists have with little friendship to our cause composed Only we must intreat them that their Commentaries and conceits be not taken into the Text as part of the Word of God So that this quarrell is quickly at an end The Scripture is so full against them that no Translation that makes it not another thing can make it to be on their side CHAP. XXXII Detect 23. ANother of the Designs of the Papists is to bring all the faithfull Pastors of the Churches into contempt or suspicion at least with the People that so they may draw them to refuse our helps and the Papists may deal with them alone whom they know they are easily able to over-reach Though our people have not that absolute Dependance upon their Teachers as theirs have yet an ordinate Dependance is Necessary to them or else God would never have appointed Teachers and Pastors for his Church The Papists dare not trust their followers so much as to read a Bible in their vulgar tongue Much less to Read our writings against their errors and impieties No nor their Priests and Fryars ordinarily to read them No nor commonly to read the writings of their own Party No not those nor the strongest of those that are written against us for fear lest the objection should prove too hard for the answer or lest they should understand the truth of our doctrine in some measure Sr. Edw Sands in his Europae Specul professeth how hard he found it to meet with the Works of Bellarmine himself in any Book-sellers shop in Venice or other parts of Italy But our people have all leave to keep and read the Papists writings We dare venture them upon the light upon equal terms But yet we know them to be insufficient for the most part to defend even plain and necessary truths against the Cavils of adversaries that overmatch them in learning and other abilities Now lest we should but afford them our assistance the Papists principal design is to bring them into false conceits of the Ministers and make us odious to them that they may neglect our help and the easilyer hearken to other Teachers And if they can but prevail in this design the day is their own and the souls of our unhappy people are like to be undone And the more is it to be feared lest at last they should this way prevail both because of the sin that lyeth on our selves in too reserved and negligent a doing of our work and because of the great obstinacy and unprofitableness of the people that hate the light and unthankfully despise it or will not obey it and work by it while they may The designs of the Papists against the Ministry are these 1. They principally endeavour to delade the Rulers of the Land and set them against them of which more anon 2. They are very busie to procure an overthrow of their established maintenance To which end they animate all sects to rail against Tythes 3. They labour by seoffs and nicknames to make them odious As they were the Authors or chief fomenters of the old scorn under the name of Puritans so are they of many more of late If in Court or Parliament City or Countrey you hear men set themselves of purpose to scorn or
the Papists to call for express Scripture for these that are not Articles of Faith in proper sence CHAP. XLIV Detect 35. ONE of their Practical Deceits consisteth in the choosing of such persons to dispute with against whom they find that they have some notable advantage 1. Commonly they deal with women and ignorant people in secret who they know are not able to gainsay their falsest silliest reasonings 2. If they deal with a Minister it is usually with one that hath some at least of these disadvantages 1. Either with some young or weak unstudyed man that is not verst in their way of Controversie 2. Or one that is not of so voluble and plausible a tongue as others For they know how much the tonguing and toning of the matter doth take with the common people 3. Or with one that hath a discontented people that bear him some ill will and are ready to hearken to any one that contradicteth him 4. Or else with one that hath fixt upon some unwarrantable notions and is like to deal with them upon terms that will not hold And if they see one hole in a mans way of arguings they will turn all the brunt of the Contention upon that as if the discovery of his peculiar Error or weakness were the Confutation of his Cause And none give them greater advantage here then those that run into some contrary extream They think to be Orthodox by going as far from Popery as the furthest About many notions in the matter of Justification Certainty of Salvation the nature of Faith the use of Works c. they will be sure to go with the furthest And a Jesuite will desire no better sport then to have the baiting of one that holds any such opinion as he knows himself easily able to disgrace One unsound Opinion or Argument is a great disadvantage to the most learned Disputant Most of all the insultings and success of the Papists is from some such unsound passages that they pick up from some Writers of our own as I said before And they set all those together and tell the world that This is the Protestant Religion Just as if I should give the Description of a Nobleman from all the blemishes that ever I saw in any Nobleman As if I have seen one crook-backt another blind another lame another dumb another deaf another a whoremonger another a drunkard c. I should say that A Nobleman is a whoremonger and drunkard c. that hath neither eyes nor ears nor limbs to bear him c. So deal they by Protestants And what a Character could we give of Papists on these terms But I would intreat all the Ministers of Christ to take heed of giving them any such advantage By over-doing and running too far into contrary extreams you will sooner advantage them and give them the day then the weakest Disputants that stand on safer grounds Inconsiderate heat and self-conceitedness and making a faction of Religion is it that carryeth many into extreams when Judgement and Charity and Experience are all for Moderation and standing on safe ground A Davenant a Lud. Crocius a Camero a Dallaeus c. will more successfully confute an Arminian then a Maccovius a so it is here The world sees in the Answer of Knot what an advantage Chillingworth had by his Principles when the Jesuite having little but the reproachful slander of a Socinian name and cause to answer with hath lost the day and shewed the world how little can be said for Popery CHAP. XLV Detect 36. ANother of their Practical frauds is in seeking to Divide the Protestants among themselves or to break them into Sects or poyson the ductile sort with Heresies and then to draw them to some odious practises to cast a disgrace on the Protestant Cause In this and such Hellish practises as this they have been more successful then in all their Disputations But whether the Cause be of Heaven or Hell that must be thus upheld I leave to the considerate to judge What they have done abroad in this way I leave others to enquire that are more fit But we all smart by what they have done at home Yet this I may well say that if their own secular Priests are to be believed as Watson and many more It is their Jesuites that have set many Nations in those flames whose cause the world hath not observed And I may well set down the words of a Priest of their own John Brown aged seventy two in his Voluntary Confession to a Committee of Parliament as it is in Mr. Prins Introduct pag. 202. Saith he The whole Christian world doth acknowledge the prediction which the University of Paris doth foresee in two several Decrees they made Anno 1565. When the Society of Jesuites did labour to be members of that University Hoc genus hominum natus est ad interitum Christianae Reipubliae subvertionem literarum They were the only cause of the troubles which fell out in Muscovie when under pretence to reduce the Latine Church and plant themselves and destroy the Greek Church the poor King Demetrius and his Queen and those that followed him from Polonia were all in one night murdered by the monstrous Usurper of the Crown and the true progeny rooted out They were the only cause that moved the Swedes to take Arms against their lawfull King Sigismund and chased him to Poland and neither he nor his successors were ever able to take possession of Sweden For the Jesuites intention was to bring in the Romish Religion and root out Protestants They were the only cause that moved the Polonians to take Arms against the said Sigismund because they had perswaded him to marry two sisters one after the other both of the house of Austria They have been the sole cause of the war entered in Germany since the year one thousand six hundred and nineteen as Pope Paulus 15. told the General of their Order called Vicelescus for their avarice pretending to take all the Church lands from the Hussites in Bohemia to themselves which hath caused the death of many thousand by sword famine and pestilence in Germany They have been the cause of civil wars in France during all which time moving the French King to take Arms against his own subjects the Protestants where innumerable people have lost their lives as the siege of Rochell and other places will give sufficient proof For the Jesuites intentions were to set their society in all Cities and Towns conquered by the King and quite to abolish the Protestants They were the cause of the murder of the last King of France They were the only projectors of the Gunpowder Treason and their Penitents the actors thereof They were the only cause namely Father Parsons that incensed the Pope to send so many fulminate Breves to these Kingdoms to hinder the Oath of Allegiance and lawfull Obedience to their temporal Prince that they might still fish in troubled waters Their
against the Papists such as Dr. Fields Crakenthorps Ushers Chillingworths Jewels Rivets Chamiers Ames Reignolds whittakers and such like beginning with Sir Humfrey Linds Via Devia via Tuta du Plessis of the Church and his Mysterie of Iniquity and Dr. John White c. 3. That you will not hearken to Papists secretly nor masked nor coming to you by indirect and Jugling ways but open their perswasions and call to some able studyed Divines to deal with them in your hearing if needs you will hear them that so you may hear one side as well as the other 4. That you take heed what Retainers Servants or Familiars are about you For some that pretend to be acquainted with these men are much mistaken if they be not more frequent at your elbows and in your Bed-chambers then many do imagine If they cannot be of your Councils and your neer attendants they will rather be your Porters or the Grooms of your Stables then they will be kept out We fear not any thing that they can do in an open way in comparison of their secret whispers and deceits when there is no body to gainsay them Had they the Truth we should be glad to entertain it with them It is not therefore Truth in their mouths that we are afraid of But seeing the Nations and our Posterity have so much dependance on your Integrity we call for so much Justice at your hands as that you will not cast open your ears to each deceiver especially in secret or on unequal tearms Let not all our peace and safety be hazarded by the self-conceitedness or imprudence of you that are our Rulers Seeing it is you that must give us Laws or set the Vulgar the pattern which they are so much addicted to imitate We adjure you in the Name of the most High God that you be not too forward and facile in hearkening to Seducers and corrupting those Intellects which the whole Nation hath so great an Interest in and that you be not henceforth as children tost to and fro and carryed about with every wind of doctrine by the the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4. 14. But we beseech you mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16. 17 18. Hearken not to every one that saith Lo here is Christ or Lo there is Christ here is the Catholick Church or there is the Catholick Church As if Christ were divided or the Catholick Church were more then One Or it were confined to a Sect or Party whether Papal or any other and did not contain all Christians through the world All parts of this Church are not equally pure but all are Parts Be you of the purest part but do not therefore take that part for the whole much less the polluted part Have compassion on the diseased and tumified part but do not therefore so far doat as to love the tumor or disease and say that none is the Church but this We are willing to be as Charitable to that Proud Throne of Rome and usurping Vice-christ as will stand with the safety of our souls and of the Church But God forbid that we should therefore be so blind as to run into their Pest-house and drink the poyson by which they are thus tumified intoxictaed Look on their Principles and see what an aspect they have on Christ on the Catholick Church and upon Princes Look back on their Practises and see what their Principles proved in the fruits Yea what need we go further for a warning then to remind you of that which one would think should be deep and fresh in your minds even what they have brought upon Kings Queens Lords Prelates and this whole Land But this leads me to the next Detection CHAP. XLVIII Detect 39. THE last of their Practical frauds at home and the most desperate is Their Treasons against the lives of Princes and the Peace of Nations and their dissolving the bonds of Oaths and Covenants and making Perjury and Rebellion to seem to be Duties and Meritorious works It would be a voluminous task to relate the Histories of the Papal Tresons How the Roman Vice-christ having laid a claim to both Swords Spiritual and Temporal hath plaid the Traytor against the Greek Emperors dispossessing them of the West and against the Emporors of Germany stirring up their own subjects and the Christian Princes and States against them setting his foot on the neck of one and making another wait barefoot long at the Roman gates and keeping many of them in wars It was this Horrid Treason and Tyrannical usurpation over all the Christians Princes that caused all those Treatises on that subject wrote against him in the Defense of Princes and their Rightt which Mich. Goldastus hath preserves and conjoyned in divers Volumes It was this that caused England Denmark Sweden and so many other Princes to be the readier to shake off his yoke Kings are not Kings where the Pope is fully Pope except only the House of Austria whom he is forced to gratifie as the only prop of all his tyrannie France that hath so much stood for its Liberties hath felt the fruits of the Roman Principles and League and two of their most renowned Kings successively have been basely and inhumanely butchered by them And to this day the numerous swarm of the Popes dependant Clergy doth not only devour as is thought about a third part of the Lands but also aws and swaies the Princes Even in Ireland before our wars a Bishop Bedle in his Letter to Laud in Prins Introduct pag. 102. doth open the Power of the Clergie and their insolencies as such that he concludes His Majesty is now with the greatest part of this Countrey as to their hearts and consciences King but at the Popes descretion And in another Letter to the said Archbishop ibid. pag. 112. he saith I that know that in this Kingdom of his Majesty the Pope hath another Kingdom far greater in number and as I have heretofore signified to the Lords Justices and Council which since is justified by themselves in print constantly guided and directed by the order of the new Congregation de propaganda fide lately erected at Rome see the rest Do I need to tell England of the many treacheries since the Reformation against our Princes Or who it was that would have deposed as well as Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth and exposed her Kingdoms to the will of others Or who it was that wrote against King James his Title to the Crown Or who were the Actors of the Hellish Powder-plot Or who it is that hath been still blowing the fire and casting all into disturbances for their ends Do I need to mention their approving of
as an acknowledgement of his moderation as if it were the proof of a mans moderation that he can give a civil word to any and a while refrain abusing one while he is abusing many I am thankfull to him that spits in most mens faces that he speaks to that he spitteth not in mine when I give a civil man no such thanks When I commend a man for not belying me reproaching me or otherwise abusing me as he doth others I should suspect he would take it for a dispraise For I use not to thank good men for doing me no mischief His valuing the security of his own estate above Davids or Peters that had such special Testimonies of their Holiness and Promises from God before theirs falls and his defending his Malignant sins as vertues his venemous reproaches of Puritans and Presbyterians as Protestants frightned out of their wits men of sedition and violence and a bloody Generation with abundance of the like and then telling us that he meant no Puritans but such as if one should say the Arminians are a perfidious bloody Generation and then say It s well known that he meant no Arminians but such these and such like passages shew the quality of the man and his Advertisement He that durst openly and frequently charge his adversaries with slanders and yet tell the world that I pretend that the difference between him and his Antagonists is meerly Verball because I said that Most of our contentions about those points are more about words then matter and that such eager men as he and his Antagonist do make themselves and others believe that we differ much more about them then we do Is this equipollent to a difference meerly verball this man its like dare do the same by others But it is the business of Grotius upon which I am to meddle with him And first he saith that on the same Reasons as I conclude him a Papist I must conclude him a Protestant unless I think as hardly of the Augustine Confession as of the Council of Trent Answ I shall yield it when you have proved that a Protestant is one that holdeth to the Council of Trent and the New Creed by Pope Pius made long after the Augustine Confession and that the Common Government in which all the Catholick Church must unite is the Universal Headship of the Pope governing according to the Canons and Decrees and that the Augustine Confession is so 'to be expounded by fair means or foul as shall be agreeable to or consistent with all this We use not to call such men as these Protestants but Papists but if this be your meaning when you call your self a Protestant you should have told us sooner if you desire to be known He saith the proof of which we wait for that I mistake at once the whole drift of Grotius his excellent Discussio Apol. and that I translate not his Latine into English or lamely c. Answ 1. Nothing more easie then to tell me I mistake Are not his words plain enough and frequent enough to open to us so much of his mind as I have charged him with Let the Readers of his words recited by me be the Judges For him that will believe you either to save him the labour of reading or against his eye sight he is not one of them that I write for but shall have Liberty for me to be deceived 2. That I translated not the words of Grotius was purposely done foredeeming that such men as you would have said they were mistranslated and that they were not his own but mine I am sure now that I give you but his own And if you think him wronged if the English Reader know him not by a Translation I pray you translate the words your self for I suppose you will least quarrel with your own But to pleasure you I will Translate as well as I can the passage which you choose out to defend and a few more Discus Apol. pag. 255. Those that knew Grotius know that he alwayes wished for the restitution of Christians into One and the same body But he sometime thought even after he was known to the most Illustrious Vairius that it might be begun by a Conjunction of the Protestants among themselves Afterwards he saw that this was altogether unfeasible because besides that the genius of almost all the Calvinists is most alien from all peace the Protestants are not joyned among themselves by any Common Government of the Church which are the causes that the parties made cannot be gathered into one Body of Protestants yea and that more and more parties are ready to rise out of them Wherefore Grotius now absolutely judgeth and many with him that the Protestants canno be joined among themselves unless at once they be joined to them that cohere to the Sea of Rome without which there can no common Government be hoped for in the Church Therefore he wisheth that the divulsion which fell out and the causes of that divulsion may be taken away The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons is none of these as Melanchton confesseth I think this is the English of Grotius words be it spoken with a Salvo to the preheminence of Mr. Pierces Translating faculty But here he hath a quarrel and that so momentous as to be his grand if not only instance of my misdealing and so he hath written enough against the Contagion of my Volume A happy generation that can make what they will true or false by asserting it and can give themselves the victory at their pleasure by triumphing and by wiping their mouths can make themselves innocent and by saying any thing or such a nothing as this can prove Popery to be the Protestant Religion and make many Worshipful Gentlemen of their mind that were of their mind before they knew it implicitely believing in them and in their Church Well but what is my miscarriage Why the later part of these words which are the chief Mr. Baxter takes no notice of in the English account which he renders of them Answ 1. He supposed that you and all that he wrote this for understood Latine though in Answer to an English Cavill he wrote his Discourse in English And he that Translated none of the sentence thought it no injury to give account in English but of part 2. But open your eyes and look further into his words and see whether you wrong him not by leaving out the rest of his account as much as he wronged Grotius And look into your own advertisement and see whether you recited not Grotius his words your self without a Translation committing the same error which you reprehend while you do reprehend it But saith the Episcopal Divine for so he will needs be called He is deeply silent as to the causes of the breach which Grotius did wish might be taken away and which he charged the Papists with Answ 1. Was I deeply silent that Grotius
would have the causes taken away What! When I recite his very words Or was I deeply silent of the particular causes Do you mean Here or Throughout If Here so I was deeply silent of ten thousand things more which either it concerned me not to speak or I had not the faculty of expressing in one sentence If you mean Throughout you read without your eyes or wrote either with a defective Memory or Honesty Read again and you shall find that I recite the causes 3. But did I not all that my task required by reciting the Negation of the causes It was not saith Grotius the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons And I shewed you partly and the Canons shew you fully that that Primacy is the Universall Headship which Protestants I mean not Roman Grotian Protestants have ever used to call Popery But saith Mr. P. Grotius chargeth the Papists with it Answ 1. True but the Protestants much more as making many more faults by their withdrawing from Rome then they mended 2. And he chargeth not that which we have called Popery with it though he charge the Papists with it That some sins of the Papists did occasion it he confesseth and all the Papists that ever I spoke with of it do confess But I am referred for these causes charged on the Papists to Grot. Votum pag. 7 8. and thither I 'le follow Mr. P. that I may know how much he chargeth on the Papists himself And there I find that the things that Grotius found faulty in the Papists were but these two 1. That to the true and ancient doctrine many quirks of the Schoolmen that were better skli'd in Aristotle then the Scriptures were introduced out of a liberty of disputing not out of the Authority of Universal Councils And the Opinions stablisht in the Church were less fitly explicated 2. That Pride and Covetousness and manners of ill example prevailed among the Prelates c. And really did you think that he is no Papist that is but against the Schoolmens Opinions and the Prelates Pride Covetousness and Idleness and holdeth all that they call the Decrees of General Councils Hath not the Council at Lateran and Florence decreed that the Pope is above a General Council and the Council at Lateran decreed that Princes are to be deposed and their Subjects absolved from their fidelity if they exterminate not Hereticks such as Protestants out of their Dominions Is he no Papist that holds all that is in the Council of Trent if he be against some School-points not determined and against the Prelates Pride Well Sir I understand you better then I did And though you thought meet that your words might be conform to one another and not to truth to say that I called you Arminian and Pelagian I purpose if I had done so to call you an Arminian no more But I beseech you cry not out of persecution till the men of your mind will give us leave to be Rectors of Churches in their Dominions as you and others of your mind are allowed to be in these And demand not of Mr. Hickman the bread he eats nor the money he receives as if it were yours till we can have license to be maintained Rectors or at least to escape the Strappado in your Church But I promised you some more of Grotius in English to stop your mouth or open it whether you see cause and you shall have it Discus pag. 14. Grotius distinguisheth between the Opinions of Schoolmen which oblige no man for saith Melchior Canus our School alloweth us great liberty and therefore could give no just cause of departing as the Protestants did and between those things that are defined by Councils even by that of Trent The Acts of which if any man read with a mind propense to peace he will find that they may be explained fitly and agreeably to the places of the holy Scriptures and of the ancient Doctors that are put in the Margin And if besides this by the care of Bishops and Kings those things be taken away which contradict that holy doctrine and were brought in by evil manners and not by authority of Councils or Old Tradition then Grotius and many more with him will have that with which they may be content This is Grotius in English Reader is it not plain English Durst thou or I have been so uncharitable as to have said without his own consent that Mr. Pierce would have defended this Religion and that we have Rectors in England of this Religion and that those that call themselves Episcopal Divines and seduce unstudied partial Gentlement are crept into this garb and in this do act their parts so happily If words do signifie any thing it here appears that Grotius his Religion is that which is contained in the Council of Trent with all the rest and the reformation which will content him is only against undetermined School-Opinions and ill manners that Cross the doctrines of the Councils I 'le do the Papists so much right as to say I never met with a man of them that would not say as much Especially taking in all Old Tradition with all the Councils how much together by the ears now matters not as Grotius doth Yet more Discus p. 185. He professeth that he will so interpret Scripture God favouring him and pious men being consulted that he cross not the Rule delivered both by himself and by the Council of Trent c. Pag. 239. The Augustine Consession commodiously explained leath scarce any thing which may not be reconciled with those Opinions which are received with the Catholicks by Authority of Antiquity and of Synods as may be known out of Cassander and Hoffmeister And there are among the Jesuites also that think not otherwise Pag. 71. He tels us that the Churches that join with Rome have not only the Scriptures but the Opinions explained in the Councils and the Popes Decrees against Pelagius c. They have also received the Egregious Constitutions of Councils and Fathers in which there is abundantly enough for the correction of vices but all use them not as they ought They lye for the most part hid in Papers as a Sword in the Scabbard And this is it that all the lovers of piety and peace would have corrected And gives us Borromaeus for a president Pag. 48. These are the things which thanks be to God the Catholicks do not thus believe though many that call themselves Catholicks so live as if they did believe them but Protestants so live by force of their Opinions and Catholicks by the decay of Discipline Pag. 95. What was long ago the judgement of the Church of Rome the Mistris of others we may best know by the Epistles of the Roman Bishops to the Africans and French to which Grotius will subscribe with a most willing mind Rome you see is the Mistris of other Churches Pag 7. They accuse the Bull of Pius Quintus that it