crush in pieces all the Kings and Kingdoms of the Earth He may as Bosius saith depose Kings for just causes and without any cause also It belongs to him saith Sunders to pronounce Kings Hereticks to declare their Subjects exempt from Allegiance and that they ought to be deposed if they will not Blade it for Christ that is for the Popes Tyranny and Lust And this is not onely matter of their Faith but Fact 2. Not onely in the Supremacy but also in the Holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper for at first the people received it under both kinds for the space of a thousand years And saith Myraldus The Roman Order commanded the Wine to be conserated that the People might fully communicate And the antient Liturgies of their own Church do tell us that the People received the Wine as well as the Bread Nay Cajetan as eminent a Member as ever their Church boasted of confesseth that the Custom endured a long time in the Church even until their so-much-admired Council of Constance forbad it and then the Romanists altered their minde 3. Her defection hath been most notorious in that monstrous Tenet of Transubstantiation a Doctrine lately brought in and made matter of Faith by Innocent the third in the Lateran Council within these four hundred years before which time no man was obliged to believe it but all men were left to their own liberties whereas now 't is accounted Heresie to deny it and worthy of Bonds the Inquisition a Stake and Hell 4. In the Worship of Images for at first that Church admitted of no Image at all either painted or carved no not the Image of Christ himself saith Erasmus to be set up in Churches And when they began to be used the Church of Rome her self forbad any Worship to be given to them as appears by Gregory's Epistles to Severus And Polydore a great admirer of the Romish Church confesseth that all the Fathers condemned the Worship of Images for fear of Idolatry And when the Nicene Council brought them in for ornament even then they denied them Worship 5. In the great Article of Justification the most eminent Pillars of their Church having denied Justification by Works as Thomas Aquinas and others yet the Council of Trent varied from them and thrust in mans inherent Righteousness as the formal cause of his Justification Now a Church that hath made these Defections and hath introduced such horrid Errours should be separated from Come out of her my people which leads me to the consideration of the various Causes of this Apostacy which may be referred either to 1. Her Pride and Ambition 'T is well known what arrogance that Church became guilty of when Tertullian in his time complained de Insolentia Cleri Romani And Luther calls them Silk and Sattin Divines to whose proud Spirits the poor and contemptible way of Christ could not comport In that Assertion of theirs how do they extol their Priesthood Creatura paruit Joshuae at Presbyteris Creator Sol illi at his Deus quotiescunque verba sacra pronuntiat The Creature obeyed Joshua but the Creator doth the Priests the Sun yielded to him but to these as often as they pronounce the words of Consecration doth God yield On this conceit it is that they degrade all Temporal Princes those Vmbratiles Dii making them stand bare-foot at their great Bishops gate hold his Stirrup yea their own Crowns at his courtesie exempting all their Ecclesiastical Subjects from their Jurisdiction and all the rest from their Allegiance 2. Fraud and Perfidiousness the Romanists had fully learned that Regnandi Causa all Oaths were to be violated How grosly were the Pope and his Adherents taken in forging some Canons of the Council of Nice for their preheminent Dignity And being conscious of their own falshood still continue to deprave all Authors that might give in Evidence against them outfacing all antient Truths and foisting in Gibeonish witnesses of their own forging and leave nothing unattempted against Heaven or Earth that might advance their Faction Take a view of her carriage to those that diffent from her How hath she abused all that opposed her charging Wickliffe with Blasphemy Luther to have had his Advice from the Devil Queen Elizabeth's Episcopal Jurisdiction and secret Fruitfulness our Bishops to have been consecrated in Taverns oun casting the Crust of the Sacramental Bread to Dogs With a thousand more of this nature maliciously raised and defended against Knowledge and Conscience for the disgrace of those that diffent from them 3. Covetousness For if you look on all their Opinions about Indulgences Private Masses Auricular Confession you will find love to Money the cause of them all Hence the humour of that Church was well hinted to us in the answer of a Priest to his Friend who asking him why he would not Absolve a Penitent without a great sum of Money replyed They get Heaven by us and we must get Money by them 4. Neglect of Scripture And this hath see open a flood-gate whereby all the world was drowned in Errours For take the Eyes out of the Body the Sun out of the Firmament the Compass from the Ship and what can follow but darkness blackness and confusion Therefore they wish that there had never been Scripture and say That the Church could have done well enough with Traditions onely They call the Bible that Book which hath made all the stirs in the world and say That all the Faith a man can have by it is meerly humane and no more O! the great patience of God that bears such Blasphemies from these Monsters of Men 5. Nourishing of sin Of which this Church hath been guilty two several ways 1. By her common practice of encouraging those who had been censured in the Eastern Churches for foul Miscarriages to appeal to her and she would Absolve them and whenever she did inflict Ecclesiastical Censures they were in a great part Pecuniary and meerly to the macerating of the Body no ways to the saving of the Soul which occasioned us to tell them that peccata raduntur non eradicantur and Heathen-like they did vitia abscondere non abscindere by this Penance there was something done about sin nothing done against sin it being like Sampsons Hair cut off yet because the Roots remained they sprung up to their full strength again 2. By the suitableness of her Doctrine to the carnal and sensual part of man Particularly 1. That Doctrine of extenuating original sin making motions to sin unconsented to no sin at all That a man hath power to keep the Commandments That to love God binds onely at some times That actual inadvertency in holy Duties doth not hinder the Fruit of them That Prayers said in Latine though we do not understand them are very acceptable unto God c. 2. That Doctrine of advancing the pride of Nature which tells her that she can merit her own Glory without being much beholding to Gods Mercy that
so many Places at one time and yet no Place Flesh and no Flesh several Members without distinction a substance without quantity and other accidents or substance and accidents that cannot be seen felt or perceived So that they make their saviour either a Monster or Nothing 2. In overthrowing the Perfection of Christs Satisfaction for if all be not paid how hath Christ satisfied If temporal punishments in Hell be yet due how is all paid And if these be paid by us how are they satisfied by Christ 3. In presumptuously mangling Christs sacred Institution by which they sacrilegiously rob his people of one half of that heavenly Provision which he left as his last and dearest Legacy to his Church As if Christs Ordinance were superfluous or any shaveling Priest could be wiser than his Redeemer 4. In imposing heavier burdens than ever Christ designed Hence the conscience of their Proselytes are overladen with infinite unnecessary Traditions far more than ever Moses commented on by the Jewish Rabbies they imposing them with no less Authority and exacting them with far more Rigour than any of the Royal Laws of their Maker And this brings me to the third thing considerable viz. As III. It is a bloudy and cruel Religion to all that have and do oppose her Even since Cain set the Knife to Abet's throat the Churches Veins have bled Rome was first of all founded in Bloud and still endeavours to erect its self by the same method of Serpentine Designes and Dragon-like Rage and Gruelty This will clearly appear unto you by taking a view of her either in her Principles or Practices First her Principles in these seven things 1. In asserting the Power of the Pope over all Temporal Princes and Kingdoms for he like his Father the Devil will shew all the glory of a Kingdom and give it to some Creature of his own if he will fall down and worship him They account it not onely lawful but meritorlous to murder a Protestant Prince whom they call heretical hereby to introduce a Popish Successor and advance the interest of their own Cause throughout the world 2. That an Heretick for Heresies sake and in point of Conscience though he troubles not the State ought to be put to death This also causeth the effusion of much Bloud and when the Pope hath anathematiz'd a Nation or Person nè brut a essent fulmine they inflame Kings and provoke them to destroy all with Fire and Fagot And these we have sadly found to be their Arguments both to enlighten our Vnderstandings and inform our Judgments in the Popish Religion For as one ingeniously observed They convince by a Dagger and enlighten by a Faggot Hence they call an utter Desolation a Restauration and the subversion of three Kingdoms no other than the conversion of them How much Protestant Bloud this Doctrine hath shed in France and Germany and how many English throats have bled by this Knife is not easie to judge 3. That no publick Faith is to be kept with Hereticks as if Christiana Fides and Punica were all one The Heathens by the Rush-candle of Nature could perceive that Truth in mens words and promises is the best Ligament in a body politick and the very joynts and nerves of all Civil Constitutions How much admired is that Roman who kept his Faith with Carthage though he knew it would be his very ruine But Johannes a Roman Priest could say That in the destruction of the Lutherans Judges were not bound to follow either Law Promise or Reason How sad is it that Romana Fides might be depended on when Rome was Heathenish but not now it is become Christian ‑ and that the moral Honesty of the poor blinde Heathens should so much exceed the Piety of these Catholick Pretenders 4. That mental Reservations and Equivocations are lawful This must needs overthrow Civil Constitutions were they almost Adamantine For what delusions of Magistrates what evasions of righteous Judgments what ensnaring of innocent men what doubting in Oaths will there be by this means How can an Oath be the end of Strife and Controversie if this be allowed O ye holy Martyrs lay aside your glorious Robes of Immortality You died like fools and were guilty of your own Blood whenas you might have denied and forsworn all by mental Reservations and Equivocations 5. A fifth bloudy Position of theirs is An absolute necessity of concealing all things revealed in Auricular Confession This Doctrine hath been a private back-way to let in the most horrible Conspiracies and Murders Hence 't is a received Maxime amongst them That Nullum lantum malum esse potest cujus vitandi causa Confessionem prodere liceat That Confession is not to be revealed whatever punishment be endured Bellarmine praiseth Garnet the Jesuit that would not reveal the Gunpowder-Treason because as he saith Confession is Jure Divino and Temporal Authority Jure Humano And Casanbon tells us That it was a Jesuits Speech to him De Jure humano leviori damno Reges omnes quot-quot sunt occiderentur quam vel una Confessio revelaretur That it was a far less Offence to destroy many Princes than to reveal one Confession I wonder whether they would hide it if there were a Conspiracy against the life of their Triple-crowned Monarch But there was one that escaped well in this matter of Confession viz. Father Aubigney who in the bloudy fact of Ravilliack being called in question and demanded what was revealed to him in Confession he replied That God had given him this grace That whatsoever was revealed to him in Confession he presently by a miracle forgot it and for all the world could not remember it again I think if this Answer saved him it was the best Grace that ever God bestowed on him 6. That the Clergy are exempted from subjection and so cannot be guilty of treasonable practices Clerici rebellio in Regem non est Crimen bâ—â—sae Majestatis quia non est Subditus Regi The rebellion of a Priest against his Prince is not Treason because he is not his Subject for they are by her affirmed to be so the Inheritance and Portion of God that they are exampt from all Temporal Jurisdiction to Civil Princes and States If so what wickedness may not be committed by such men How doth the Pope herein oppose the Apostle Rom. 13.1 Let every soul be subject to the higher powers And it is a known Explication of Chrysostom's Every Soul though he be a Monk a Priest though he be never so Spiritual as they call it is here understood and cannot draw his shoulder from the yoak of Allegiance 7. That blinde obedience unto Governours is necessary And let in this once upon a People and you let in the Trojan Horse full of armed Enemies in his bowels For whatever the Pope and his Officers shall command to be done be it to destroy a whole Kingdom nay subvert three Kingdoms at one time must not be disputed but
Sun when she appears in her Meridian glory If you do but cast your eye on the former Chapter you will finde enough and I shall need no more to prove it Then 1. The Woman that is the Whore of Babylon is said to be a City which reigneth over the Kings of the Earth and this was onely the Roman Monarchy at that time there being no other City in the world but this that had such a Jurisdiction And so it is expounded not onely by some Greek Authors but by most Latine Writers as Iraeneus Tertullian St. Ambrose St. Jerome St. Augustine and others Prosper also a Latine Writer saith Who cannot understand what City it is that carrieth a cup full of Abominations of Vncleanness and fornication of the whole Earth when that is called Eternal which is but Temporal Verily it is a name of Blasphemy when mortal men are called Divi Gods and their Suppliants say unto them To your divine Power to your Altars and to your Eternity This the Learned know to be the City of Rome which was called Vrbs AEterna and wherein the Emperours were called Gods and the People flattered them with Altars and Titles of divine Power and Eternity as now they do their Popes with the like Antichristian terms of The most Holy and Your Holiness Who have also as blasphemous tokens of Divinity as any of the heathen Emperours had in their Triple-Crowns riding on mens shoulders their being attended on by Kings and Emperours their Thrones in Churches higher than Altars and such-like magnificent Pomps of Heathenish and Antichristian pride Ambrosius Ansbertus a Latine Writer also 850 years since calls Rome the second Babylon who sitting aloft on her seven Hills rules the Scepter of the whole world and in the name of that City is figured the power of the whole earthly Dominions Hence II. In the seventh verse she is said to sit on a beast having seven heads and ten horns which seven heads be seven hills whereon the woman sitteth Now 't is well known not onely to learned Christians but to Heathens themselves that Rome alone is a City builton seven hills This is thought to be a very silly Argument by that Renegado Sanders and others by the seven hills to prove the See of Antichrist to be at Rome because the City is now gone from the Hills and standeth in the Plain of Campus Martius and the Pope sitteth on the other side of the River To which it is well answered That though the greatest part of the City be not now on the seven Hills and his Unholiness his Palace of Pleasure be on the other side the River yet on these hills stand Churches Abbeys and Monasteries where the Papal Authority is put in execution and there is never an one of those hills whereon the present Religion of Rome is not practised Being galled with this they make two Romes Rome Pagan and Rome Christian The Whore spoken of is they say Heathenish Rome which was ruled by those Monsters of mankind Nero Domitian Calignla c. who writ their Laws and rouled their Garments in the bloud of Christians but the Christian Rome is not here meant Whereas 't is obvious to every one that hath but common rational notions alive within him whose Conscience is not quite vitiated and Minde putrified with noisome Lusts but must see that the present Rome in respect of State Princely Dominion and Cruelty in persecuting the Saints of God is all one with the Heathenish Empire the See of the Bishop being turned into the Court of the Emperour and Shambles of the Butcher To avoid this they farther say That Babylon is drunk with the bloud of the Saints and Martyrs shed not in Rome but in Jerusalem where the Lord was crucified and the two Prophets being slain lie there in the streets This is excellently answered by St. Hierome who saith That it is not meant of Jerusalem but of Rome and Christ is said to be crucified there either 1. Because the Authority whereby he was crucified was from the Roman Empire or 2. Because Christ in his Members was and is dayly there crucified though locally in his own person he was crucified at Jerusalem But besides the Authority of Scripture in this case it were easie to adde in the third place 3. The favour and defence which this Exposition hath received from a multitude of Antient and Modern learned men Hence St. Bernard saith That the Beast spoken of in the Apocalypse to which a mouth is given to speak blasphemies and to make war with the Saints is now gotten into St. Peter's Chair as a Lion prepared for his Prey And in another place speaking of the Romish Priesthood They are called saith he the Ministers of Christ yet serve Antichrist And Petrarch saith Once Rome but now Babylon And Joachim Abbas Antichrist was long since born in Rome and now strives every moment to get higher and higher 4. And lastly I answer That it was such a Babylon that for a while Gods people were lawfully in her but when her Corruptions did increase they were commanded to depart which cannot be affirmed of Rome Pagan but of Rome Papal and therefore Come out of her my people This brings me to the second thing viz. the great defection this Church hath made from her Primitive Purity and Integrity The Spouse is now become an Harlot and the chast Virgin a Mother of Fornications her Apostacy is now as infamous as ever her Faith was glorious Some things she is confessed to hold right as a true God in three Persons true Scripture though with additions a true Christ though mangled with foul and erroneous consequences true Baptism though shamefully deformed with rotten Traditions and if you compare Rome Christian with Rome Roman you will see her defection in these five grand instances thereof 1. In the unlimited Jurisdiction of the Triple-Crown The Councils of Basil and Constance decreed that a general Council was of greater Authority than the Pope and that he ought to be subject to it The Council of Nice appointed him his bounds and limits and the Council of Chalcedon made the Bishop of Constantinople equal with him in Authority and Jurisdiction And Gregory himself who sate in the Papal Chair writes That whoever stiles himself Universal Bishop or desires to be called so is the forerunner of Antichrist and many learned Papists believed this to be true But since that time the case is much altered for the Councils of Lateran and Trent have determined the contrary insomuch that he whose Primitive stile was Servant of servants doth now exalt himself above all that is called God The beginning of this Supremacy over other Bishops was in Boniface the third's time who with great ado obtained of Phocas a fit Master to prefer such a Servant to be made Oecumenical Bishop Which Authority his Successors have enlarged and now his Janizaries the Jesuits tell us he is that Statue in Daniel which shall