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
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
Columbanus the Abbot coming into France that the Scots do nothing differ from the Brittains in their Conversation For Bishop Daganus coming to us refused not only to eat with us but even to eat in the same House where we did eat Usher Epist Hibern 7. p. 18. Our most peaceable Bishop Hall was forct to write a Roma irreconciliabilis While we are thinking of Reconciliation they are about our ears with Plots and violence and with swarms of Rome-bred Sects and are day and night industriously undermining us so that by their continual Alarms I am called off to these defensive wars which here I have undertaken yet still resolving that the Desperateness of the Cure shall not make me run from them into a contrary extream nor be out of the way of Peace nor neglect any necessary means how hopeless soever of success The Work that here I have undertaken is 1. To give you briefly those Grounds on which you must go if you will keep your ground against a Papist 2. To give a few invincible Arguments which the weakest may be able to use to overthrow the principal grounds of the Papists 3. To detect their Frauds and give to the younger sort of Ministers sufficient Directions for the Confutation of all the Papists in the world 4. To propound though in vain such terms of Peace as we can yield to CHAP. II. BEfore I mention the Grounds or Cause that you must maintain I must premise this Advice to the Common People 1. Wrong not the Truth and your selves by an unequal conflict Enter not rashly upon Disputes with those that are Learned and of nimble tongues if you be ignorant or of weak capacities your selves Though I shall here shew you that Scripture Church Tradition Reason and Sense are on your side yet experience tels us how the words of Juglers have made millions of men deny belief to their eyes their taste and other senses An ignorant man is soon silenced by a subtile wit and many think that when they cannot answer they must yield though they deny both Sense and Reason by it If any of them secretly entice you desire them to debate the case with some able learned experienced Minister in your hearing It is the office of your Pastors to defend you from the wolves If you once despise them or straggle from them and the Flocks and trust to your own Reason that is unfurnished and unprepared for such work you may take that you get by it if you be undone You need the help of Pastors for your souls as well as of Physicians for your Bodies and Lawyers for your Estates or else God would never have set them over you in his Church Let them but come on equal terms and you shall see what Truth can do In this way we will not avoid a Conference with any of them But alas with ignorant unlearned people what may not such Deceivers do that can perswade so many thousand souls to give no Credit to their own eyes or taste or feeling but to believe a Priest that Bread is not Bread and Wine is not Wine 2. Yet I would have the weakest to endeavour to understand the reasons of their Profession and to be able to repell Deceivers And to that end I shall here give you first some Directions concerning the cause which you must defend And concerning this Observe these things following 1. Understand what the Religion is that you must hold and maintain It is the antient Christian Religion Do not put every Truth among the Essentials of your Religion Our Religion doth not stand or fall with every Controversie that is raised about it That which was the true Religion in the Apostles days is ours now that which all were baptized into the Profession of and the Churches openly held forth as their Belief Reformation brings us not a new Religion but cleanseth the old from the dross of Popery which by innovation they had brought in A man that cannot confute a Papist may yet be a Christian and so hold fast the true Religion It followeth not that our Religion is questionable or unsafe if some point in Controversie between them and us be questionable or hard The Papists would fain bring you to believe that our Religion must lie upon some of these Controversies but it s no such matter Perhaps you will say That then it is not about Religion that we differ from them I answer yes it is about the Essentials of their Religion but it is but for the preserving the Integrity of ours against the Consequences and additions of theirs They have made them a New Religion which we call Popery and joined this to the Old Religion which we call Christianity Now we stick to the old Religion alone and therefore there is more essential to their Religion then is to ours so that our own Religion even the ancient Christianity is out of Controversie between us The Papists do confess that the Creed the Lords Prayer the ten Commandments are true yea that all the Scripture is the word of God and certainly true so that our Religion is granted us as past dispute And therefore it is only the Papists Religion that is in question between us and not ours If you will make those lower Truths to be of the Essence of your Religion which are not you will give the Papists the advantage which they desire 2. If the Papists call for a Rule or Test of your Religion and ask you where they may find it assign them to the Holy Scriptures and not to any Confessions of Churches further then as they agree with that We know of no Divine Rules and Laws of Faith and Life but the holy Scripture and the hearts of Believers have an imperfect Transcript of them The Confessions of Churches are but part of the Holy Scripture or Collections out of them containing the points of greatest weight And if in phrase or order much more in matter there be any thing humane we make it not our Rule nor are we bound to make it good no more then the Writings of godly men A point is not therefore with us an Article of Faith because our Churches or a Synod put it into a Confession but because it is in the Word of God For a Councils determinations do with us differ but gradually from the Judgement of a single man in this respect And therefore we give them the Scripture only as the full Doctrine of our Faith and the perfect Law of God And those points in it which Life or Death is laid upon and God hath told us we cannot be saved without we take as the Essentials of our Religion and the rest as the Integrals only If they ask Why then we do draw up Confessions of Faith I answer 1. To teach and help the people by gathering to their hands the most necessary points and giving them sometimes an explication of them 2. To let our Accusers see that we misunderstand not the
gifts may be lost we never denyed it The special gifts that accompany salvation some of us judge are never lost others of us think are left only by those that are not predestinate as Austin thought and your Dominicans think And what cause is here of your quarrell His eleventh Accusation is this Scripture saith that God taketh away and blotteth out our iniquity as a cloud and puts our iniquities far from us as the East is from the West and maketh us as white as snow You say that he takes not away nor blotteth out our sin but only doth not impute it and doth not make us white as snow but leaveth in us the fault and uncleaness of sin which Scripture no where speaks Answ This is half falshood and half confusion raked up to make a matter of quarrel with 1. It s false that we say He doth not take away nor blot out our sin nor make us white as snow Do not all Protestants in the world affirm all this 2. There are these things here considerable 1. The Act of sin 2. The Habit 3. The guilt or obligation to punishment 4. The culpability or reatus culpae 1. As for the Act how can you for shame say that God takes it away when it is a transient act that is gone of it self as soon as acted and hath no existence as Scotus and all your own take notice 2. As to the Culpability you will not sure for shame say that God so put away e. g. Davids Adultery as to make it reputable as a vertue or not a vice 3. As to the Reatus ad paenam the full Guilt we maintain that it is done quite away and if your eyes be in your head you may see that it is in regard of this guilt and punishment that the Scriptures mentioned by you speak or principally speak at least For I pray you tell us what else can they mean when they speak of actual sins that are past long ago and have no existence Learned wranglers would you make us believe that Grace is given to David to put away the Act of his Murder and Adultery so that it may be quid praeteritum non jam existens a thing past and gone which it is without grace so that when you feign us to say that God takes not away sin but only not imputeth it you feign us to make synonymal terms to be of different sences He takes them away by not imputing them 4. But if you speak not of the sence of a particular Text but of the Matter in difference it can be nothing but the habit of sin that you mean that we say that God takes not away And here you play partly the Calumniators and partly the erroneous Pharisees 1. You Calumniate in feigning us to deny that habitual sin is done away Because our Divines say that it is not the work of meer pardon which we call Justification to put it away therefore you falsly say that we hold it is not put away at all whereas we hold without one contradicting vote that ever I read or heard that all that are Justified are Sanctified Converted Regenerate Renewed and must live an holy life And that all their sins are so far destroyed that they shall not have dominion over them that Gross and Wilfull sin they forsake and the least infirmities they groan and pray and strive against to the last and then obtain a perfect conquest 2. But if you mean that no degree of habitual or dispositive sin or absence of holy qualities remaineth in the Justified soul it is a Pharasaical error yea worse then a Pharisee durst have owned And it seems this is your meaning by the words of Calvins which you cite And dare you say that you have no sin to resist or purge or pardon Are you in Heaven already The whole have no need of the Physitian but the sick and have you no need of Christ to heal your soul would you be no better then you are O proud souls and strange to themselves and the purity of the Law Hath not the Holy Ghost pronounced him a Lyar and Self-deceiver that saith he hath no sin 1 Joh. 1. 8. 10. In many things we offend all Jam. 3. 2. I shall but recite to you two Canons of a Council which if you use the Lords prayer are fit for you to consider Concil Milevit cont Pelagianos Can. 7. Item placuit ut quicunque dixerit in Oratione Dominica ideo dicere sanctos Dimitte nobis Debita nostra ut non pro seipsis hoc dicant quia non est eâ— jam necessaria ista sed pro aliis qui sunt in suo populo peccatores ideo non dicere unumquemque sanctorum Dimitte mihi debita mea sed Dimitte nobis debita nostra ut hoc pro aliis potius quam pro se Justus petere intelligatur Anathema sit Can. 8. Item placuit ut quicunque verba ipsa Dominicae Orationis ubi dicimus Dimitte nobis debita nostra ista volunt à Sanctis dici ut humiliter non veraciter hoc dicatur Anathema fit Quis enim ferat Oraâ—tem non hominibus sed ipsi Domino mentientem qui labiis sibi dicit dimitti velle Corde dicit quae sibi dimittantur debita non habere You see here the Council curseth all those as intolerable Lyars that say the Lords prayer desiring him daily to forgive or remit their sins and yet think that they have no sins to forgive yea or that every Saint hath not such sins What can a Papist say to this but by making Councils as void of sence as they feign the holy Scriptures to be Hus twelfth and last Accusation is this The Scripture saith that Blessedness in the Reward the Prize the Penny the wages of Labourers and the Crown of Righteousness you contend that its meerly the free gift of God and not a Reward which no Scripture doth affirm Answ A meer Calumny and perverting of Calvins words who often saith as we constantly do that Eternal life is given as a Reward and Crown of Righteousness But we distinguish between the Act of God in his Gospel Promise which is a Conditional Deed of Gift of Christ and Life to all that will Accept them and the execution of this by Judgement and Glorification And we say that it was Antecedenter meerly of Gods free Grace that he made such a Deed of Gift the blood of Christ being the purchasing cause and nothing of our works had a handin the procurement Dare you deny this But that our Justification in Judgement and our Glorification which are the Execution of the Law of Grace do make our works the Reason not as having merited it ex proportione operis or in Commutative Justice but as having performed the condition of the free Gift and so being the persons to whom it doth belong And this is the sense of Scotus and of one half of the Papists for still you
as gross as common even an abuse of Cyprians words l. 1. Ep. 3. where Cyprian speaks for the necessity of obeying One in the Church meaning a particular Church as the whole scope of his Epistle testifieth And this man would make them simple believe that he speaks of the Universal Church His Reasons proceed thus First p. 128. c. he tells us that the invisible God thinks meet to Govern the world by visible men Answ And who denies that Christ also governeth his Church by men But he concludeth hence Num alia ratione c. Shall we believe that Christ doth govern his Church in another way then God governeth the whole world Answ Reader doth not this man give up the cause of the Pope and say as much against it fundamentally as a Protestant Saith Boverins We must not believe that Christ doth govern the Church in another way then God doth govern the world But saith common sense and experience God doth not govern the whole world by any one or two or ten Universal Vice-monarch Therefore Christ doth not Govern the Church by any one Universal Vice-monarch His next Reason is Because Christ was a visible Monarch once on earth himself And if the Church had need of a visible Monarch then it hath need of it still Answ 1. Here the Reader may see that it is to no less then to be Christs successor or a Vice-christ that the Pope pretendeth And then the Reason if it were of any worth would as well prove that there must be one on earth still that may give the Holy Ghost immediately and make Articles of Faith de novo and Laws for the Church with promise of Salvation and may appoint new Offices and orders in the whole Church c. And why not one also to live without sin and to die for our sins and rise again and be our Saviour And why not one to give us his own body and blood in the Sacrament 2. Christ himself doth oppose himself to all terrestrial inhabitans saying One is your Master even Christ And what then why Be not ye called Masters But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant And Be not ye called Rabbi for one is your Master even Christ and all ye are Brethren Mat. 23. 8. 9 10 11 12. where most evidently he shews that neither Peter or any of his own Disciples were to be called Masters as Christ was nor was any such to be on earth and so no Vice-christ yea that all his Apostles being Brethren were not to be Masters one to another but servants so that here is a plain bar put in against any of Peters Mastership or Headship of the Universal Church 3. We do on these and many other Reasons deny your consequence It follows not that we must still have a Christ on earth because we once had 4. Christ hath chosen another Vicar though invisible as Tertullian calls him and that is the Holy Ghost whom he sent to make such supply as was necessary by various gifts proportioned to the several states and members of the Church 5. If Christ would have left a Vice-christ upon earth which should have been an Essential part even the Head of his Church he would doubtless have plainly expressed it in Scripture and described his Office and Power and given him directions to exercise it and us directions how to know which is he and to obey him But there is not a word of any such matter in the Scripture nor Antiquity when yet it is a point if true of such unspeakable importance 6. You might at well feign that if it were then necessary to have twelve or thirteen Apostles it is so still and if then it was necessary to have the gift of tongues and miracles it is so still which yet the Pope himself is void of 7. It is not enough for your silly wit to say its fit that Christ have a Successor therefore he hath one but let him that claimeth so high an honour as to be the Vice-christ produce his Commission and prove his claim if he will be believed 8. Christ is still the visible Head of his Church seen in Heaven and as much seen over all the world except Judea and Egypt as ever he was When he was on earth he was not visible at Rome Spain Asia c. He that is Emperor of the Turkish Monarchy perhaps was never personally an hundred miles from Constantinople The King of Spain is no visible Monarch in the West-Indies And if all the world except Judea might be without a Present Christ then why that may not as well as the rest you must give him an account if you will tie him to be here resident 9. And yet if the Pope would usurp no more Power then Christ exercised visibly on earth it would not be all so bad as it is or hath been He would not then divide inheritances nor be a temporal Prince nor wear a Triple Crown nor keep so glorious a Court and Retinue nor depose Princes nor deny them tribute nor exempt his Prelates from it nor from their judgement Seats nor absolve their Subjects from their fidelity c. nor trouble the world as now he doth He would not exercise the power of putting any to death much less would he set up Inquisitions to burn poor people for reading the Scriptures or no being of his mind Pag. 133. He makes Christ the visible Pope while he was on earth and tells us that Promulgating the Gospel sending Apostles instituting Sacraments c. were Pontificalia munera Papal Offices Answ And indeed was Christ a Pope and is the Pope a Christ Jesus I know and Peter and Paul I know but this Vice-christ I know not If indeed the Vice-christ have power to do these Papal works to promulgate a new Gospel to send out Apostles to institute Sacraments c. as Christ did let us but know which be the Popes Sacraments and which be Christs which be the Popes Apostles and which be Christs and which is the Popes Gospel and which is Christs and we shall use them accordingly The Law and Testimony will help us to distinguish them Pag. 134. He comes to prove that Christ hath a Successor and his first proof is from Mic. 2. Let the Reader peruse it and judge without any help of mine what proof there is that the Pope is a Vice-christ The next is in Hosea 1. which speaketh of the return of the Israelites from Captivity Let the Reader make his best on it for the Pope for I think it not worth my labour to confute the Papists impudent perverting such Texts as these By the way he tells us as Card. Richlieu and the rest commonly do that its no dishonour to Christ to have a Deputy no more then for the King of England to have a Deputy or Vice-king in Ireland Answ 1. But our first question is Whether de facto such a thing be Prove that Christ hath Commissioned a
as if they said that no men but Papists have souls in their bodies and laid their faith on this and as soon I think should I believe them if this were their belief It s a good preservative against Popery when a man cannot turn Papist without putting out his eyes and renouncing his wit and reason and common experience as well as his charity yea without denying of what he knoweth by his own soul But let us come to their Evidences 1. They say We have no Canonized Saints I answer 1. All the Apostles and Saints of the first ages were of our Religion and many of them have been beholden to the Pope for Canonizing them 2. We have no usurper among us that pretendeth Infallibly to know the hearts of others nor to number Gods Saints But with us the Holy Ghost maketh Saints and their lives declare it and those that converse with them discern it so far as to be highly confident and men discern it in themselves so far as to be Infallibly though not perfectly certain 3. It seems the Pope takes Saints to be rare with them that they must be named and written with red Letters in an Almanack And H. T. Man pag. 84. is fain to send us for proof to their Chronicles and Martyrologies and he nameth four Saints that they have had viz. Saint Austin the Monk Saint Bennet Saint Dominick and Saint Francis Now we all know that none but Saints are saved and that without holiness none can see God Heb. 12. 14. So that it seems if sanctity be so rare among the Papists salvation must be rare But as for us we make it our care to admit none but Saints to our Church Communion though we preach to others to prepare them for it For we believe that the Church is a Holy Society and find Paul calling the whole Churches that he writes to by the title of Saints and we believe it is the Communion of Saints that is there to be held And if we had no more Saints in one County at once yea in some one Parish at once then would fill up the Popes Calendar so as to have one for every day in the year we should betake our selves to bitter lamentation Whereas the Church of Rome takes in all sorts of the unclean and is so impure and polluted a society that its a wonder how they should have the face to boast of their holiness to men that live among them and know them Thousands of their members are stark Infidels as not knowing the Essentials of the Christian Faith It s known here in Ireland that abundance of them know not who Christ was but that he was a better man than Saint Patrick Bishop Usher saw it and lamented it that they perished as Heathens for want of knowing Christianity it self while they went under the name of Catholicks and therefore he would have perswaded the Popish Priests to have Consented that they should be all taught a Catechism of the common principles that we are agreed in but he could not procure it when Dr. Jo. White asked one of them in Lancashire who Jesus Christ was she answered that sure it was some good thing or else it should not have been put into the Creed And how much swearing whoredom drunkenness and other wickedness is in their Church is known not only by the complaints of their own writers but by the too common experience of Travailers We have known Papists that have turned from them by the experience of one journey to Rome and seeing what is there And for Church censures by which any of these should be purged out they are laid by and reserved for other uses even as thunder-bolts for the Popes Adversaries and the servants of Christ whom they take for Hereticks and for Princes whom the Pope would have deposed and murdered These things are not meer words but the lives of many Kings and Princes have been the sacrifice of the Roman Holiness And what need you any further proof that their Church is as the common wilderness and not as the Garden of Christ and is a Cage of all unclean birds then that they actually keep them all in their Communion It made my heart rise at their hypocrisie and filthiness to read one sentence in one of the most learned and sober and honest of all their Bishops that have written and that is Albaspinaeus Observat 1. pag. 1. saith he Siquis unquam hoc seculo quod nescio an acciderit Communione fuit privatus sola fuit Eucharistiae perceptione in reliquis suae vitae partibus quam ante Excommunicationem habuit eandem cum caeteris fidelibus consuetudinem usum retinuit That is If ever any one man in this age was put from the Communion which I know not whether such a thing hath come to pass it was only from the receiving the Eucharist in the other parts of his Life be retained the same familiarity and converse with other believers which he had before his Excommunication Here you see from a credible Bishop that lived in the thickest of their Clergy in France that he knew not that any one person in the age that he lived in was ever kept from the Lords Supper but if he were yet that was all he was still a member of their Church and familiar with the rest Let the Christian world then observe by their practice what an abominable hypocritical contest they make for to prove the Power of Church-government to be only in their Pope and the Prelates to whom he giveth it and when they have done do make no more use of the Power which they so pretend to as not to exercise the Censures of the Church upon one offendor there in an age How were that man worthy to be thought of or to be used that would set all the world on fire by contending that no Schoolmaster or Physitian should be suffered in the whole world but himself and such as he giveth power to and when he hath done will not by himself or his subjects and dependants teach or heal one person in an age were such an one meet to live on the earth Or should we judge that man in his wits that would believe him O what a stye is the Roman Society what dunghills are in their Assemblies and yet must not the Shovel or the Beesom be used once in an Age what no weed pulled up no super fluous branch cut off Is this the use of all the Canons of their Church concerning Excommunication and abstention Must the Christian world be at such a vast expence to maintain so rich and numerous a Clergy for this And must we cast out our Pastors to receive such as these when we should be ashamed if we had not exercised more of the cleansing power of the Keyes in one Parish Church then Albaspinaeus knew of among the Papists in a whole age But perhaps there is little of this filth among them to be cast out He that