on the other IV. The Council that called the Emperours and others Princes power of investing Bishops the Henrician Heresie and judg'd the Bishops that had been for it to be dig'd out of their graves and burnt V. The Subjecting and debasing of all Christian Princes making them but as the Body and the Moon and the Bishops to be as the soul and the sun Especially the General Lateran Council which decreed Transubstantiation and all to be Hereticks that denied it And oblige all temporal Lords to exterminate all such Hereticks on pain of Excommunication deposition damnation VI. The Councils of Constance and Basils that were for Reformation how falsly and cruelly they dealt with Hus and Jerome and rejected the four great requests of the Bohemians and fixed their pollutions VII The Councils of Florence and that of Trent which had more Learned men who yet more obstinately managed the Enmity to Reformation VIII The present State of the Universal Church throughout the World as it is divided into Papists Protestants Greeks Moscovites Georgians with the Circassians and Mengrelians Armenians Nestorians Jacobites Cophtis Abasines Maronites Melchites And what thoughts these have of one another And I would desire Mr. Morrice to tell us 1. Whether he believes not verily that all these Instances prove that the Bishops have been the chief cause and that by Ambition Pride and Worldliness 2. Whether it be not the Bishops that in the Roman and other Parties now are the greatest hinderers of Reformation and of Concord and it would not be soon done were it not through them 3. Where it is that he will stop in his Vindication of the Bishops and their Councils and go no further and by what cogent reason 4. Whether he thought he had well defended the Church-Tyranny which I accused 1. By vindicating the first Ages and others whom I praised and accused not 2. And by letting fall his Vindication save a few consequent quibbles at the fourth General Council which was in 451. And so seems to vindicate the Bishops and Councils but for the space of 150 years of the time that I mentioned their degeneration 5. Whether if the Bishops had been willing when they had the King's Commission to make necessary alteration or were but to this day willing to prefer things necessary before things hurtful or indifferent we might not live in happy and holy Love and Peace in England 6. Whether he can blame a man that believes in Christ for lamenting the doleful corruption and division of the Christian world and for enquiring of and lamenting the sinful causes 7. If that Church Prelacy which they justly call the best in all the world can endure no more Parish Discipline than we have nor can endure such a Ministry as are silenced by hundreds or thousands than whom no Nation on Earth abroad that I can hear of hath better can you blame us for suspecting that somewhat is amiss with them and more with others 8. I hope you will yet remember that I did not appear as an accuser of Prelacy or Conformity but as importuned by your selves to give the reasons why I dare not take your Covenant and Oath never to endeavour any alteration of your Church Government and that after seventeen years silence My prayers to God shall be my endeavour for these following Alterations 1. That the Primitive Discipline may be exercised in the Parish Churches as Bucer importuned the King and Bishops de Regno Dei c. 2. That to that end we may either have so many Bishops under the Diocesan as be capable to do it or the Presbyters enabled allowed and obliged to do it 3. And that we may not instead of it have only a distant Court of men that know not the Parishioners where a Lay Chancellour decreeth Excommunication and Absolution which the Parish Priest must publish though his conscience be against it 4. And that Diocesans may not silence faithful Ministers without such cause as Christ will allow nor set up ignorant bad ones and bind the Parishioners to hear and communicate with no other I am so far from precise expectations from Diocesans or from reviling them that I do constantly praise them as very good Bishops who do no harm or but a little and if they should never preach themselves so they will not hinder others 9. And as for my calling Things and Persons as they are I hope you will not say that it was out of Malice that Anastasius Platina Massonius Stella Sigibert Baronius Genebrard Binnius c. have recorded such horrid crimes of Popes and others also of Prelates And is it malice in me to transcribe their History I am of Dr. Henry Moore 's mind who saith Mystery of Iniq. p. 388. Hence it is plain that they are the truest friends to Christendom even to Rome it self that do not sooth them up in their sins by mitigating and hiding their soul miscarriages but deal apertly and plainly with them for their own safety that neither admit nor invent subterfuges to countenance or palliate their Idolatrous and superstitious practices but tell them plainly how much they are apostatized from the true Worship of God and Christ into Paganism and Idolatry Better are the rebukes of a faithful friend than the hired flatteries of a glozing mercenary I pray mark this well 10. I take two things to be the degenerating and corruption of Episcopacy 1. When they became so bad that they were not willing to do good according to their undertaken Office Bad men will do ill in any place 2. When they had put themselves into a state of incapacity that they could not do the Good undertaken were they never so willing 1. Since great Baits of Wealth and Domination have tempted the worst men to be the Seekers Bishops have rarely been good except under a Saint-like Prince or People that had the Choice nor are ever like to be And what work the Enemies of Holiness will make by abusing Christ's Name against himself is easie to know such will take the best men for the worst and call them all that 's naught that they may quiet their Consciences in destroying them 2. And since a Diocess of many hundred or score Parishes hath had but one Bishop for Discipline the work is become impossible to the best But when a few Bad men will mercinarily undertake Impossibilities and so Badness and Impossibility go together alas what hope but of a better world above Saith Luther de Concil Eccles p. 300. Sed quam sunt intenti hanc crassam asininam â—atuitatem Unus Episcopus nonnunquam habet tres Episcopatus vel Dioceses tamen vocatur Unius Uxoris maritus cum habet tantum unum Episcopatum tamen interdum habet centum ducentas quingentas Parochias aut etiam plures vocatur tamen Sponsus unius Ecclesiae Hi non sunt digami Tam insulsas ineptissimas naenias recipit mens humana it a permittente Deo cum a
take any impressions and upon false information chargeth Cyril with prosecuting his private quarrells with Nestorius under pretence of zeal for the faith I leave all men to believe our Accuser as they see cause And the same I say of that which is so great a Controversie among the Critical Historians whether Theodorets Epistle to Job Aut. against Cyril be Counterfeit or were written on a false rumour of Cyrils death Their 5th General Council hath it Baronius and Binnius say some Eutychian knave hath corrupted the Acts of that Council Must Councils be the Laws of all the world and hath the Church and Tradition kept them no better that we know not when we have them truly Leave us then to the universal Laws of God § 14. He saith truly that the Council of Ephesus was chiefly directed by the authority of Cyril Ans And so was that at Trent by the authority of the Pope And when he hath confuted the credible History wich tells us of the womens and Courtiers hatred of Nestorius and proved that the Emperour and Pulcheria the Empress were but one I will grant that the authority of the Court directed not Cyril and that then and now Bishops neither were nor are directed by the Civil powers § 15. When I spake against Nestorius his cruelty to Sectaries he asketh What Hereticaters were hotter than the Presbyterians in 1646. The inquisition is not more severe than their ordinance against Heresies which they desired should be made felony and punished by death c. Ans Reader Judge of the mans Credit as to ancient History still by his truth about the Present age 1. The Inquisition he saith is not more severe Do I need to answer this to any man of 50 years of age It 's Capable of no answer but what he will call by some name deserved by his own 2. I can find no such ordinance He saith It was offered Is that all And by whom Was it the body of the Presbterians or who 3. What were the Heresies named by them Were they not down right Blasphemy 4. Who and how many were ever either tormented or put to death for Heresie from 1641 till 1660 I remember not one save that James Nayler was imprisoned and whipt and had his Tongue bored for blasphemous Personating Christ and that not by the Presbyterians 5. Why are they so ordinarily reproached by the Prelatists for tolerating all Sects here in England 6. What if all this had been true What is it to me or any of my mind I never had a hand in persecuting one man to my remembrance How few can you name of all the Nonconformists now in England that had any hand in the Severities you mention I know not four in England that I remember And what 's this to us any more than to you 7. And was it well done or ill If well why do you liken them to the Inquisition Are you for it If ill why do you plead for it in others Imitate it not if you dislike it For my part as I am against all Sects as such I am much more against the cruelty of any I stick no more at the disgracing the Presbyterians sins than yours And I am readier to disgrace my own than either if I can know them I would cherish Errours no more than you but I would not ruine or imprison even such of your selves as have too many Heresie must have its proper cure I thank God I had once an Orthodox agreeing Flock But again I say the Presbyterians were too impatient with Dissenters and it 's better have variety of Fish in the Pond than by the Pikes to reduce them to special unity § 16. He saith that Nestorius consequentially denyed the God-Head of Christ p. 192. Next he hath found a contradiction in my words that the Emperor was weary of this stir And yet that Cyril did it to please the Court These critical men can make their two hands enemies to each other How came he waking to dream that this was a contradiction when Historians tell us that the Women and Courtiers hated both Chrysostome and Nestorius He implyeth that the Emperor and the Court were all one or of one mind But I am not bound to believe him no more than of many other Emperours whose Wives kept up one party and they another And I pray you why should we be confident that Theodosius 2. himself called an Eutychian by the hereticating Bishops was not against Nestorius when he called that Council at first Condemned both him and Cyril and after him alone I did but recite the Historians words and was that forgetfulness § 17. His many words about this controversie with Nestorius are the most unworthy of any answer of all his Books sometime he saith as I as p. 193. It had been happy for the Church if the mysteries of our Religion had never been curiously disputed sometime he confesseth that Nestorius spake the same thing with Cyril that Christ had two natures in one Person ibid. And that he expresseth himself one would think very orthodoxly p. 202. But the Heretick dissembled and hid his sence And so this man after above 1000 years knew the mans mind to be contrary to his words whereas it's palpable to him that readeth the Histories that the man was so far from hiding and dissembling that he was sowrly and morosely addicted to stick to the words and Notions he had espoused and too little to regard a peaceable complyance to mollifie his accusers His fault lay on the clean contrary side But he proveth him a Heretick that meant Christ was two Persons though he said the contrary 1. Because he saith that the Humane Nature was united in dignity and honour to the Divine Ans As if either the hypostatical union were denyed by those words or he knew that Nestorius meant not to include it in those terms But he saith he useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ans As if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never signifyed more than a Relative or official Person when besides the many places cited by Derodon Nestorius oft explaineth himself in the common orthodox sence But the foulest charge is that he seems once or twice to distinguish Christ from the Divine Nature Ans By Christ he expresseth himself to mean the humane nature anointed to his Office And the man thought that the Divine Nature was not so anointed and distinguishing is not dividing It is not his Nay and my Yea that can inform any Reader what Nestorius said and meant without reading his own words rather than Cyrils of him And if such as Mr. M. will pretend Charity and contrary to plain evidence face down the world that a Man denyeth consequentially Christs God-Head and the Unity of his Person while he profest the contrary no mans innocency is sufficient to escape the fangs of such hereticaters And let him call me what his list inclineth him to call me
Sword Whether it be true that they say that they were necessitated to do what they did against Barnevolt and Grotius for the safety of their State I am no Judge But I am sure it is of an ill sound to those that read it And so is it to read in Episcopius and others what violence the People have used against the Arminians and they were fain to tolerate them when all was done And it 's no wonder that the Dissention increased in England when the Clergy would not long stand to the decrees that by our own six Delegates were moderated Dr. Heylin tells you how Bishop Laua's Zeal was the cause of our following Contentions And how By bearing down all that were against him 2. But the meer Doctrinal Decrees of the Synod of Dort are so moderate and healing that where Violence hath been forborn and Reason used many have been pacified by them And 3. What that Synod did not a few private Peace-makers have much done The Writings of Camero Amyraldus Capellus Placeus Testardus Lud. Crocius Mat. Martinius Conr. Bergius Joh. Bergius Blondel Daile and above all Le Blank 's have for ought I hear half ended the controversie And having my self written one Book Cathol Theologie for Reconciliation I have not to this day had a word of Contradiction but the Consent of very many And as I before noted Is not even in London where other differences might exasperate yet this Controversie almost laid to sleep But if our Arminians will but get as severe Laws and Canons made against them that are not of their Opinions as be against them that dare not conform to the Diocesane Model and the rest they shall quickly see this quarrel revived The Articles of the Church of England determine not these Controversies and that is our Peace Put in but one determining Article against either side and it will break us more in pieces Doth not our own Case and Experience then confute those over-doing Councils § 34. His next Instance is that of the Westminster Assembly So far from reconciling the People that after this they were distracted into innumerable Schisms Never was there so lamentable a face of things never such variety of Heresie and such Wantonness and Extravagancy in blaspheming God under pretence of Religion and Conscience And this is the State whither the same manner of men are driving again Ans 1. I say again I knew so many of that Assembly as that I do not think that the Christian World had ever an Assembly of more able and truly pious Clergy-Men these 1300 Years at least But these Upstarts that knew them not can tell us any thing that Faction hath taught them to believe concerning them and others The Parliament was by seeming necessity drawn to gratifie the Scots The Assembly though Conformists all save Eight or Nine were as sensible as the Nonconformists of the mischiefs of silencing worthy Ministers and forbidding Afternoon Sermons and such like and they were as much against Arminianism and Popery as the Church of England was in A. Bp. Abbat's days and as much as he against the Doctrine of Mainwaring and Sibthorp And the Parliament absolutely restrained them from debating any thing but what they proposed to them so that they that were for the Primitive Episcopacy had no liberty to debate it or speak for it but on the by But when the Covenant was offered them against Prelacy they were about to enter a Protestation against it and were stopt only by limiting the renunciation to the English frame described in an explicatory Parenthesis But for my part I think them much to be blamed that they did not though against that prohibition resolve to propose such moderate healing terms to the Parliament as were agreeable to their judgments or at least have testified against the limiting of Church Concord to such narrow termes as must exclude such men as were for the English Episcopacy They might easily have known that the number of such in England was so great as that an excluding Law must needs be an Engine of great Division and that Conquest will not change mens Judgments And as I doubt not but the five Dissenting Independents were greatly to blame for making such a stir for leave to gather their Churches when nothing was imposed on them which they could accuse So I doubt not but the Assembly were to be blamed for making a greater noise against errours than they had cause for Their desire of Concord which was good itself did raise them to too great Expectations of it and too great impatience of little differences They published their Testimony against the errours of the times in which they took in Dr. Hammond and made many differences worse than they were too like the old Hereticators And they wanted that skill to compose their differences with the Independents as was needful to that end and might have been attained And will the faults of that Assembly justifie the far greater faults of others But 2. This sort of Historians do much more differ from us about the matters of Fact which our Eyes have dayly-seen yea about our own Thoughts and Minds than about the History of the ancient Church The case was very far different from that which he describeth Mr. Lawson a Conformist saith There was never better Preaching Piety encouraged and encreased c. than at that time In all the Counties where I was acquainted there were many young Orthodox faithful Preachers that gave themselves wholly to do good for one that was ten Years before and not any considerable number noted for any immorality We were in the County where I lived almost all of one mind for Episcopal Presbyterians and Independents uniting in that which they agreed in and leaving all to Liberty in the rest we lived in constant Brotherly Love and Peace without Dissention I never knew of any of a divers Religion in all the County save at the end in one or two corners about Twenty Quakers And near me were about Twenty otherwise Orthodox that denied Infant-Baptism and perhaps as many more in the whole County and Two or Three ignorant Socinians In the next County I heard not of so many Heterodox Never did I see before or since so much Love and Concord among Ministers and all religious People nor read of any Age that had so much for 1300 Years And whereas the common cry is Oh but they were all Rebels against the King I have named abundance of the Ministers in mine Apology to Dr. Good who being Episcopal was a Guide in our Meetings and after so accused the Nonconformists and challenged him to name one of them that ever meddled with Wars I knew none in all the County that was in any Army save the King 's save Mr. Hopkins of Evesham dead and my self and one that is a Conformist and one Independent dead But it 's true that they were then so set upon Parish Reformation and Concord that they were more
THE TRUE HISTORY OF COUNCILS Enlarged and Defended Against the Deceits of a pretended Vindicator of the Primitive-Church but indeed of the Tympanite Tyranny of some Prelates many hundred years after Christ With a Detection of the false History of Edward Lord Bishop of Corke and Rosse in Ireland And a Specimen of the way by which this Generation confuteth their Adversaries in several Instances And a Preface abbreviating much of Ludolphus's History of Habassia Written to shew their dangerous Errour who think that a general Council or Colledge of Bishops is a supream Governour of all the Christian World with power of Universal Legislation Judgment and Execution and that Christs Laws without their Universal Laws are not sufficient for the Churches Unity and Concord By RICHARD BAXTER a Lover of Truth Love and Peace and a Hater of Lying Malignity and Persecution To which is added by another Hand a Defence of a Book Entituled No Evidence for Diocesan Churches Wherein what is further produced out of Scripture and ancient Authors for Diocesan Churches is discussed London Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1682. To the Pious and Peaceable Protestant-Conforming Ministers who are against our Subjection to a Foreign Jurisdiction The notice of the Reason of this Book with a Breviate of Ludolphus's Habassian History Reverend Brethren WHen after the effects of our calamitous divisions the rejoycing Nation supposed they had been united in our King newly restored by a General and Army which had been fighting against him invited strengthned by the City many others an Act of Oblivion seemed to have prepared for future amity some little thought that men were about going further from each other than they were before But the Malady was evident to such of us as were called to attempt a Cure and neither the Causes nor the Prognosticks hard to be known A certain and cheap Remedy was obvious but no Pleas no Petitions could get men to accept it The Symptomes then threatned far worse than yet hath come to pass God being more merciful to us than mistaken men We were then judged criminal for foreseeing and foretelling what Fruit the Seed then sown would bring forth And since then the Sowers say the Foretellers are the cause of all We quickly saw that instead of hoping for any Concord and healing of the Bones which then were broken it would become our Care and too hard work to endeavour to prevent a greater breach Though we thought Two Thousand such Ministers as were silenced would be mist when others thought it a blessing to be rid of them we then feared and some hoped that no small number more would follow them It was not you that cast such out nor is it you that wish the continuance and increase of the Causes We agree with you in all points of the Christian Reformed Religion and concerning the evil of all the sins which we fear by Conforming to commit though we agree not of the meaning of those Oaths Promises Professions and Practices which are the matter feared We live in unfeigned Love and Communion with those that love Truth Holiness and Peace notwithstanding such differences as these God hath not laid our Salvation or Communion upon our agreeing about the meaning of every word or Sentence in the Bible much less on our agreeing of the sense of every word in all the Laws and Canons of men Two things we earnestly request of you for the sake of the Christian Religion this trembling Nation and your own and others Souls 1. That you will in your Parish Relations seriously use your best endeavours to promote true Godliness and Brotherly Love and to heal the sad Divisions of the Churches We believe that it must be much by the Parochial Ministers and Assemblies that Piety and Protestant Verity must be kept up And what we may not do we pray that you may do it who are allowed 2. That you will join with us against all Foreign Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical or Civil The Party which we dread I have given you some account of in my Reply to Mr. Dodwell By their Fruits you may know them 1. They are such as labour to make our Breaches wider by rendring those that they dissent from odious which commonly is by false accusations They call out for Execution by the Sword against those that dare not do as they do and cry Go on abate nothing they are factious Schismaticks rebellious They might easily have learnt this Language without staying long in the Universities and without all the Brimstone Books that teach it them An invisible Tutor can soon teach it them without Book He that hateth his Brother is a murtherer and hath not eternal Life abiding in him 2. They are for an universal humane Government with power of Legislation and Judgment over the whole Christian World How to call it they are not yet agreed whether Aristocratical or Monarchical or mixt Some of them say that it is in the Collegium Episcoporum governing per Literas formatas for fear lest if they say It is in Councils they should presently be confuted by the copious Evidence which we produce against them And yet they may well think that men will ask them When did all the Bishops on Earth make Laws for all the Christian World or pass Sentences on Offenders without ever meeting together And how came they to know each others minds and which way the major Vote went And what and where are those Laws which we must all be governed by which neither God nor Councils made The Canons were all made by Councils If you say that I describe men so mad as that I must be thought to wrong them I now only ask you whether our Case be not dismal when such men as you call mad have power to bring us and keep us in our ` Divisions or to do much towards it without much contradiction But others who know that such palpable darkness will not serve their cause do openly say that it is General Councils which are the Legislative and judging Governours to the whole Church on Earth as one Political Body For they know that we have no other Laws besides Gods and theirs pretended to be made for all the World But when the Cases opened by me in the Second part of my Key for Catholicks and else where do silence them this Fort also is deserted by them Even Albert. Pighius hath rendred it ridiculous 1. If this be the specifying or unifying Head or summa Potestas of the Universal Church then it is not monarchical but Aristocratical 2. Then the Church is no Church when for hundreds of Years there are no General Councils an essential part being wanting And they that own but the 4 or 6 first General Councils make the Church no Church or to have been without its essentiating Government these Thousand Years And by what proof besides their incredible Word
kept from the Sacrament and Communion for a crime till he profess Repentance than to be hanged or banished or ruined for it But especially the Temptation was strongest to the Bishops whose baits were the most alluring And ever since then they that most loved Wealth Power and Honour that is the worst most worldly men have been the most eager desirers and seekers of Bishopricks And while humble holy men must rather be sought to such earnest seekers are like to be the ordinary finders and possessors 11. But yet three things kept up for some time a considerable number of godly Bishops in the Churches which with the humble Presbyters kept up the Interest of sound and practical Religion 1. Those that had been tryed worthy men before Constantines conversion and the Bishop's exaltation kept their Integrity in the main though in the Nicene Council their contentious Libels shewed that we are more beholden to Constantine than to them that they fell not into such strife as their Successors did Good men may be carryed too far in Pride and Strife but they will not be mastered by them and turn against the Power of Godliness 2. The People and Inferiour Clergy had the choice of their Bishops And so though they oft had tumults as in popular Elections it will be yet the worst ambitious men were long kept out and the best oft chosen till the People and Presbyters themselves were corrupted 3. And divers good Emperours arose that took some care to promote the best But alas this had sad and frequent interruptions 12. For the Arians possest Constantine himself with hard thoughts of Athanasius and his Adherents And it could not be expected that Julian should countenance the best when Constantius and Valeus had done so much against them and got most of all the Churches headed by Arian Bishops to say nothing yet of after times 13. But now two things became matter of Contention among the Bishops and their Clergy and increased the strife from time to time The first and chief was the Old Cause greatly strengthened viz. Who should be greatest Who should have the largest fattest and most Ruling Diocess and Seat The other was Who should be taken for the most Orthodox and whose Explications of the Faith should be taken for the soundest especially about the description of the Person and immanent acts of Christ Or briefly 1. Jurisdiction and Greatness 2. Wisdom and hard words 14. Now also Constantinople contended with Rome and being the Seat of the Empire which they judged to be the true Reason of Church-preheminence they at first modestly took the second place And now the Trinity of Patriarchs was turned to five Jerusalem being made the fifth At all this Rome grudged 15. All this while the old Discipline of the Church was tolerably kept up 1. Because though much of the world had got into the Church yet a very great part were tenacious of their Heathenish Customs and prejudiced against Christians by their Contentions odiously described by Am. Marcellinus and many others and prejudiced against Constantine for his Son Crispus and Sopaters death c. and against Constantius for the Murder of Julian's Relations and being taken with the plausible parts of Julian and with the great Learning and highly extolled Lives of Plotinus Porphyrius Jamblichus Aedesius Maximus Proeresius Libanius Chrysanthius and such others described by Eunapius c. so that except Rome and Alexandria for 200 years and some few of the very great Churches for 400 the Churches were no greater than one Bishop and his Consessus might tolerably govern by the Keys 2. And all this while all the Presbyters were Church-Governours as well as the Bishop though he was their Chief and all Excommunications were to be done by joint consent And so many Church-Governours may do more than one 16. Then Councils called General having by the Emperours Grant and the Clergies Desire and Consent the Supreme Church-Power it was in these Councils that the Pride Ambition and Domination of all the worldly Prelates that were too soon got in did exercise it self as the valour and wit of Souldiers in a field of War And as 1. The good men yet among them 2. And the Articles of Faith yet retained by them did cause them to do much good against some Heresies and Disorders so the Pride and Turbulency yea ignorance of the rest caused them to become the occasions of the doleful Schisms and Heresies and Enmity of Christians against each other which continue to this day unhealed 17. These hurtful Contentions in Councils at first prevailed but little and that at Nice did much more good I think than harm And after at Constant a little more hurt was done and much good And those that followed did worse and worse till the proud worldly Spirit contracted Malignity and so much prevailed that for a thousand years at least the Bishops with their Prelatical Clergy and their Councils have been the grand Corruption and Plague of the Church which many of the most Learned Expositors of the Revelation take to be the Image of the Beast and Dr. H. Moore calls it a Heathenish Christianity which they have made their Religion 18. In their progress to all this as the Diocesses first grew up from our Parochial Magnitude towards that of the present Diocesan so the very Pastoral Power of all the rest of the Presbyters was by degrees taken away so far as that they had no consenting power in Ordinations or Excommunications unless the Bishop would chuse a few for his Council so that the proper power of the King 's was confined to one Bishop over many hundred Parishes and so Discipline became an impossible thing save as it served the Bishops against some that they disliked And so the Church which was as the Garden of Christ became like the Commons and good and bad were little differenced in Communion 19. Yet because the Power must still be useful to the Bishops ends as he sees cause some shadow of the old exercise must be kept up But the Bishop having not leisure for the tenth part of the labour which this very shadow required Lay-men are made his Chancellours to decree Excommunications and Absolutions and to Govern by the Church Keys like a secular Court And Commissaries Officials Surrogates and other hard names and things are set up instead of the Presbyters and their Antient Office 20. By this time the Antient Species of the Churches was altered and whereas it was long held that a Church and Bishop were Correlates and there were no more Churches than Bishops now many hundred or a thousand Parishes are become no Churches but parts of one Diocesan Church which is the lowest and many score or hundred of the old sort of Bishops all cast out and swallowed up by one Just as if a thousand or some hundred Schools should have but one Governing Schoolmaster and be but one School but each part have an Usher to read to the Boyes
and finding that I and such others are accused as being disobedient to them and for not swearing and covenanting never to endeavour any alteration of their present Church-Government and all excommunicate by the Canon that say there is any thing in it even from the Archdeacon downward to the rest in Office repugnant to the Word of God I took it at last to be my duty to give the Reasons of my dissent in a full Treatise of Episcopacy And because I perceived young men and strangers to former times deceived by the general noise How Antient and Universal Episcopacy hath been as if all that is called Episcopacy were but one and the same thing or as if we were against the Primitive Episcopacy therefore I suddenly and too hastily for want of time bestowed a few weeks in summing up the Heads of the History of Bishops and Councils out of a few Historians which were most common next at hand and of most credit with those whose faults I opened That it might be truly known How much the tumified degenerate sort of Prelacy had caused the Divisions and Calamities of the Church § 21. For this Mr. Morrice as fame saith and many more are so greatly offended with me and say of me herein what they do And on pretence of Vindicating the Primitive Church which untruly implyeth that I who vindicated it against corrupters did oppose it he defendeth the corruptions and sinful miscarriages and diseases of the Prelates And this he doth 1. By striving to make me contemptible as unlearned as if that would excuse the sins which I rehearse and lament He findeth in one place through my haste and heedlesness a word of Theodoret misplaced and the word Calami translated Quills which he thinks should be Reeds and one or two more such as if he prevaricated and had a design to extol the Book which he finds no more and greater fault in than he really hath done And he proveth it likely that I never saw the Histories that stood by me near twenty years because the Printer put a Comma between Marquardus and Freherus I think there are a dozen Comma's misplaced in my whole Book when he himself saith of his own Book The faults that have escaped are almost infinite But of these things more anon 2. He loudly and frequently chargeth me with malicious falsifying History and when he cometh to the proof I have shewed you who the falsifier is 3. The great thing I am accused of is making the Bishops more the causes of Heresie Schism and Violence than they were And of that I have said nothing but what I think I have fully proved And let the Reader judge by this following Catalogue Domineeâ—ing Pride hath been the chief cause of Heresies and Schisms especially working in the Clergy to tumid Prelacy and Tyranny I. I before noted how the Apostles began to strive who should be greatest till the effusion of the Spirit after Christs rebukes had cured them And what tiranny Diotrephes used through love of Preheminence II. If the doubtful stories of Simon Magus be true his tumor was more than Papal And Epiphanius makes Menander Saturnilus Basilides to be but his Off-spring The Original of the Nicolaitans and Gnosticks who Epiphanius saith had ensnared himself once is utterly uncertain Carpocras Cerinthus Ebion Valentinus Secundus Ptolomaeus were all but Birds of the same Gnosticks Nest a crazed sort of men that mingled Christianity Platonism and Magical Imaginations and what they were themselves is not known Such was Marcus Colarbasus Heracleon the Ophitae the Cainites the Sethians Cerdo Marcion was a Bishop's Son cast out for vice and Lucian Apelles and Severus his Off-spring the Heads of their little Sects whether Bishops or not is unknown What kind of Hereticks Tertullian Tatianus and Origen were and how many faults as soul Lactantius and many not numbered with Hereticks have is well known And among all these in those early daies till there were Popes and Diocesans such as now in the world none such could be Hereticks III. Many Councils contended about the time of Easter and Victor with one part of Bishops excommunicated Polycrates and the Arian Bishops while as Socrates and Sozomen tell us the Churches that left it indifferent had peace IV. A Council of the best Bishops at Carthage decreed Rebaptizing V. A Council of the Bishops of Cappadocia Cilicia Galatia c at Iconium for Rebaptizing those Baptized by Hereticks And Stephen Bishop of Rome excommunicated them all VI. A Council at Synadis and divers others decreed the same Rebaptizing VII Divers more African Councils of good Bishops with Cyprian decree the same whom Stephen Bishop of Rome condemneth VIII Divers Bishops are said to be Sabellian Hereticks IX Paulus Samosatenus Bishop of Antioch was a Heretick X. The Council of Bishops at Cirta in Numidia under Secundus Mr. M. calls worse than I do XI A Carthage Council of 70 Bishops An. 306. set up the Donatists Schism striving for the preheminence who should be Bishop of Carthage XII An. 308. Another Donatists Council had 270 Bishops Many more Councils they had XIII The first General Council at Nice we honour and assent to its Creed But thank Constantine for burning all their Libels and keeping peace by his presence and speech XIV The Schism made by Meletius and Peter Bishops is well known XV. The Heresie of Arius a Presbyter that would have been a Prelate quickly infected Eusebius Nicomed If not Eusebius Caesariensis and divers other Bishops XVI Epiphanius saith that Audius was driven to his Heresie by being long abused beaten and at last excommunicated for reproving the Bishops and Priests for their Covetousness Luxury and other sins And so he became a Bishop himself XVII Eusebius Nicom made Bishop of Constantinople whom you tell us Valesius thinks was no Heretick hired a Whore at Antioch to father her Child on Eustathius the Bishop there and got more Bishops to depose him and the Emperour to banish him XVIII A Council of Bishops at Tyre unjustly condemn and persecute Athanasius XIX Three Bishops saith Mr. M. overcome with too much Wine and persuasion ordained Novatian falsly Bishop of Rome before this aforementioned XX. A Council at Jerusalem An. 335. tryed and approved Arius Faith and restored him XXI A Council at Constantinople condemned Marcellus Ancyranus and Athanasius and justified Arius XXII A Council of near 100 Bishops at Antioch 36 being Arians deposed Athanasius XXIII Another Council at Antioch make a new Creed without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 XXIV A Council of 376 Bishops at Sardica decree Appeals to Rome which Augustin and the African Bishops were against XXV The Semi-Arian Bishops went to Philippopolis and condemned such as the other at Sardica had absolved but cast out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as not scriptural and cast dreadful accusations on Athanasius Paulus C. P. and Marcellus XXVI An. 350. A Council at Milan received Ursacius and Valens Arians XXVII Stephen an Arian Bishop hired a
them where and when and with what success the aspiring humour did begin If we have small visible probability of escaping we must yet before we come to Smithfield satisfy our Consciences that we betrayed not the Church CHAP. III. Of Mr. M's notice that I am Unlearned § 1. MR. M's Preface Contracteth the Chief things which he hath to say against me in his book that the Reader may find them there all together And of these that I am unlearned is not the least And if that be any of his question I assure him it shall be none of mine I am not yet so vain as to plead for my Learning Yea I will gratify him though he accuse me of being against repentance with an unfeigned confession that my ignorance is far greater than his accusation of unlearnedness doth import Alas I want the knowledge of far more excellent things than languages I do but imperfectly know my self my own soul my own thoughts and understanding I scarce well know what knowing is Verily if no knowledge be properly true that is not adequate to the object I know nothing And subscribe to Zanchez quod nihil Scitur by such as I. Alas Sir I groan in darkness from day to day I know not how to be delivered How little do I know of that God whom the whole Creation preacheth and of that Society which I hope to be joyned with for ever and that world which must be my hope and portion or I am undone Many whom I am Constrained to dissent from upbraid me with my ignorance and I suppose it is that for which they silence me reproach hate and prosecute me even because I have not knowledge enough to discern that all their impositions are lawful or else I know not what it is for But none of them all can and will tell me how I should be delivered from this ignorance If they say It must be by hard study I can study no harder than I have done If they say I must be willing to know the truth I take my self for sure that I am so If in that also I am ignorant in thinking that I know my own mind when I do not what else then can I hope to know If they say You must be impartial I think I am so saving that I must not deny or cast away the truths already received If they say You should read the same books which have convinced us I read far more of the Papists and Prelatists and other sects that write against me than of those that are for me And the more I read the more I am confirmed And when these men preach and write against the Calvinists they render them odious as holding that men are necessitated to sin and to be damned and that it is long of Gods Decree which cannot be resisted Therefore I suppose they will not lay the Cause on God I do then confess my Ignorance of matters a thousandfold greater and more needful than those which they mention in their accusations I confess my self unlearned But I intreat them that tell me of my disease which I know to my daily grief much better than they to tell me also how I may be cured If they say that it must be by Fines and Imprisonment it hath been tryed I am yet uncured I hope they will not pronounce me remediless and not tell me why who use themselves to speak against those that preach men into desperation would they but tell me the secret how so many thousands of them came to be so much wiser than I in far shorter time and with far less study it would be if true an acceptable deed of Charity rather than to tell me of the Ignorance which I cannot help Could I but know needful truth in English I would joyfully allow them to glory of being more skilful in all the Oriental Tongues and also in French Irish Spanish and Italian than I am CHAP. IV. Of his Accusation that I vainly name Historians which I never saw or read § 1. I Must profess that it never was my purpose to tell the world how many Historians I have read nor to abridge all that I have read And those that I have most read I have there made no mention of as not being for my intended end And multitudes that stood by me I never opened to the writing of this history my design being chiefly against the Papists and those Protestants who most esteem their writings and had rather unite with the French Papist Church than with us Nonconformists Therefore when I was past the first 400 or 500 years it was the greatest and most flattering Popish historians that I abriged as ad hominem being likest not to be denyed I told the reader that I made not use of Luther the Magdeburgenses nor the Collections of Goldastus Marquardus Freherus Reuberus Pistorius c. And the Printer having put a Comma between Marquardus and Freherus he Conjectures that I took him for two men because I added not the Christian names of the rest And he concludes that whoever this mistake belongs to it 's plain that M. B. had but little acquaintance with those Collections For I name some of the Authors therein Ans Seeing these things are thought just matter for our accusers turn I will crave the Readers patience with such little things while I tell him the truth It is about 25 years since I read the Germa History in the Collections of Freherus Reuberus and Pistâ—rius and about 30 years since I read the Collections of Goldastus The Magdeburgenses Osiander Sleidan or any such Protestants I thought vain to alledge to Papists About seven or eight years ago as I remember I was accused for Preaching and Fined by Sir Thomas Davis and the Warrant was sent by him to Sir Edm. Bury Godfrey to levy it on me by Distress I had no way to avoid it but bona fide to make away all that I had Among the rest I made away my Library only borrowing part of it for my use I purposed to have given it almost all to Cambridge in New-England But Mr. Knowles yet living who knew their Library told me that Sir Kenelme Digby had already given them the Fathers Councils and Schoolmen but it was History and Commentators which they wanted Whereupon I sent them some of my Commentators and some Historians among which were Freherus Reuberus and Pistorius Collections and Nauclerus Sabellicus Thuanus Jos Scaliger de Emendat Temp. But Goldastus I kept by me as borrowed and many more which I could not spare and the Fathers and Councils and Schoolmen I was stopt from sending Now whether I was unacquainted with those that partly stand yet at my Elbow and which I had read so long ago must depend on the Credit of my Memory and I confess my Memory is of late grown weak but not so weak as to think that Marquardus Freherus was not one man and a Palatinate Councillor though it be
names that I most forget why I gave not the Christen names of Reuberus and Pistorius whether because I forgat them or because I minded not so small a thing not dreaming what would be inferred from it I remember not But when I wrote that abridgment I made use of none that I thought the Papists would except against For the first ages I gathered what I remembred out of the Fathers and out of Eusebius Socrates Sozomen Evagrius Theodoret the Tripartite Nicephorus Liberatus Brev. Victor Utic Beda and such others as are by them received Besides which I principally followed and Epiâ—omized Binnius and Crab and partly Baronius with Platina Onuphrius Panunius Stella Petavius and others of their own And I resolved I would not so much as open Goldastus or any Protestant Collector that they might not except against their Credit and reject them as malicious cursed Hereticks as Labbe doth Melchior Goldastus and almost all such others as he mentions and as Gretser Sanders and other Papists commonly do Therefore even those Histories which be in Goldastus I would not take as out of him but some of them from the books published by others and some as cited by Binnius Petavius or other such And this is now the proof of my Vanity § 2. It is a mistake if he think that I intended as he speaks to be a Compiler of General Church History When I professed but to acquaint the English Reader with the true matter of fact out of the Papists themselves what the ambitious part of Bishops and Councils have done and by what degrees the Papacy sprang up and whether subjection to the ascendent exort Prelacy be absolutely necessary to Concord and Salvation § 3. As to his saying I am the first that ever reckoned Nazianzen among Historians I take the writings of the Fathers especially Justin Clemens Alex. Tertullian Cyprian Eusebius Basil Nazianzen Hierom Chrysostom Augustin to be the best part of Church History especially their Epistles And of this opinion I am not the first CHAP. V. Of his Accusation of my citing Hanmer and other Translators and being deceived by Binnius and such others § 1. 1. HE accuseth me for not using Valesius his Edition of Eusebius and those Editions of the Councils which he accounteth the best To which I say 1. I am not Rich Enough to buy them nor can keep them if I had them Must none write but Rich men The French Councils would cost more than many of us are worth We have had no Ecclesiastical maintenance these 19 years and we cannot keep the books we have Luther wrote his book de Conciliis when it seems he had never read many of the Councils Acts but as related by Eusebius Socrates Sozomen and the Tripartite History 2. Dr. James hath long ago warned all Scholars to make much of Crab and other old ones and the Fathers as Printed at Basil by Erasmus Amerbachius c. and not to trust much to new Editions as coming through untrusty hands 3. Is Valesius a man of so much credit with you Do you believe what he saith of Grotius as being in judgment for the Papal Church and only in prudence delaying his visible Communion with them that he might draw in many with him Vales in Orat. de Petavio If he lye in this and the success of Petavius on Grotius why should he be more trusted than others If not I need not tell you what to think of those Bishops and Drs. who profess to be of the same mind and Church as Grotius nor again to tell you who they be 4. My design led me not to make use of Criticks but only to tell the world what the Papists themselves confess such as I have throughout cited § 2. As for my using Hanmers Translation of Eusebius and Socrates my case was â—s before described Valesius I had not Grineus I made use of heretofore But since I was by constraint deprived both of my books and money to buy more when I wrote that Abridgment I had only Hanmers Translation left me And if that sort of men that forced me to give away my books to keep them from being distreined on will make use of this to prove me ignorant of them the matter is very small to me If you say I should not then have written I answer could they so have silenced us in the Pulpit they had more answered their own judgment than mine I had no use for Criticks nor for any thing in Eusebius and Socrates that depends on the credit of the Translator § 3. As to his oft noting that in Translations and sometime in Chronology I err by following Binnius I answer had I written a full Church History I should better have examined him and others But I lay no stress of my cause of any of Binnius his Translations nor will I undertake for any Historian that I cite My business was but to tell those that believe Binnius and Baronius and such other what they say Nor do I yet intend to bestow any time in examining whether he wrong Binnius or not it being nothing to my cause nor me whether he mistook a year or the meaning of a word of the Authors whom he citeth § 4. He saith I use an old uncorrect Edition of Binnius 1606. Ans It is that which is in most common use entituled Recognita Aucta notis Illustrata dedicated to the Pope and to C. Baronius ejus monitu scripta qui veterem illam mendosam mutilam confusam compilationem mille locis illustravit c. commonly Preferred before Crab Surius Nicolinus c. But any quarrel serveth some men CHAP. VI. Of his Accusations of my own Mistranslations and Mistakes § 1. OF these are two real Oversights which he nameth committed by too much hast and heedlesness The one is that I misplaced Vere in the Translation of a Speech of Theodorets a gross oversight I confess The other that I put Episcopi as if it had been the 〈…〉 tive case when it was the Nominative plural which also was a heedless oversight And about the death of Stephanus he noteth my mistranslating Calami and I imagine yet he is scarce certain what it signified himself As for his note of my use of Scripture about the Ephesine Council I purposely kept to the literal Translation that none might say I did mistranslate it but I never said that by the Scriptures was meant the Bible § 2. This Accuser puts too great an honour on such a History as mine which goeth through so many Ages and Acts in noting so few and such little things I never pretended to be as good an Historian as he is yet I do not think that it was any thing but a slip of memory that made him put Eustathius instead of Flavian as kickt to death at Ephesus And me thinks he that thus begins his Errata of his own Book The faults that have escaped are almost infinite should not for one false Comma of the
their Officers and Curates against the aforesaid exercises of Religion occasioned this sad Division so did the sense of this in the minds of those called Puritanes continue too long Many a time have I seen abundance in great Perplexity saying We believed them that professed that they took not Arms against the King but to execute the Law on Delinquents and defend themselves and the Kingdom from them We abhor the Regicides and Usurpers We would restore the King if we were stronger than the Army And yet we are in doubt how far we should actively contribute to our own calamity For though the King deserve more than we can do we doubt not but the Bishops will increase our Burdens and make greater havock in the Church than heretofore And many sate still on this account and as far as ever I could discern next the Power of the Army the fear of the Bishops was the chief delay of the Kings return I knew not all England but according to the Extent of my acquaintance I have truly told you the quality of those then called Puritans and of their Common adversaries And on which side now proportionably are most of the most understanding sober charitable conscionable and seriously religious Persons and on which most of the contrary not speaking of any Magistrates I think it neither my work nor our New Historians to tell For people that live among their neighbours will believe their senses and experience what ever either he or I shall say And I am well assured that this argument which I think was not found We cannot believe that God will suffer the Generality of the Religious to be deceived in so great a case and the most of the debauched ignorant haters of serious Godliness to be in the right did prevail with very many that could not try the Cause by the Laws and constitution of the Kingdom § 2. If I should recite the particular unjust reports of multitudes of these Writers it would be tiresome and loathsome Yea all the mistakes of this Eminent Historian are too many to be named But I will here name one which seems at once to smite and smile Pag. 2â—7 There is a temper which Mr. B. is acquainted with that is not to be prevailed on either by threats or promises from the Magistrate and seems to hate nothing so much as compliance with Superiors There are some that scorn to preach by the Licence of the Government and place the Kingdom of Christ purely in opposition to Law and Magistrates Answ. Note the credibility of this Historian 1. Doth their accusation of my flattering the Usurpers whom I more openly disowned than most of his Fraternity agree with this 2. Did my long and earnest Petitioning to be accepted but in a poor Curates place though I Preacht for nothing yea if it were but in some ignorant obscure Village and only to preach over the Catechism agree with this 3. Doth my large profession of Subjection in my Second Plea for Peace not yet blamed by them herein agree with this 4. I willingly took the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and an Oath to be true to the King as his Chaplain in ordinary and had this any such signification 5. Did my begging in vain a License from Bishop Morley and craving and obtaining one of Bishop Sheldon signifie this 6. But the smile is that one would think by these words I might have preached by the Governours License and would not And is that true Did I not preach by the Kings License and the Clergy blame me for it And as for the Bishops License I do profess that it 's yet in force and I do preach by it If I mistake it is not my refusing it If he intimate as he seems that by the Bishops License I might have had leave to preach in the Parish Churches it 's now too late But I would I had known how to get it I confess one Summer in the Countrey about 25 miles off I did venture upon the Credit of my License at Amersham Chesham Rickmersworth c. But it was too pleasing work to me to be continued One Church in Southwark I was once let into but no more in or near London I once craved leave of the moderate Bishop that now is that without putting down the meeting where I was in that great Parish of St. Martin's I might preach sometime there and once a day at the Chappel which I built which the Parish Incumbent useth and that he would quiet the Justices to that end and thought I had had his consent But the Constables and other Officers stood from that day about a quarter of a year together every Lord's Day at the door of the former place of Assembly to have apprehended me by the Justices warrant if I had gone And never could I hear of a man in London that was willing I should come into his Pulpit but the best have refused it Nor did I much desire it here For it is not to preach to them that have no need that is my request but to such as cannot come into the Parish Church or otherwise truely need our help Once I did try to have got leave two miles out of the City to have preacht a Kinswomans Funerall Sermon on the right of my License But the Minister said He must first ask the Bishop and then denyed me Reader these are the Historians that Charge me with misreport of ancient History visible in the most partial Authors on the other side Judge of them by their Report of the History of our Place and Age. CHAP. XV. Mr. M's way of getting belief by a Magisterial condemning the most credible Historians and authorizing whom he please § 1. IF we had not Eusebius Socrates and Sozomen how naked should we be left and much unacquainted with the case of the Church from the Apostles Besides Theodorets History till 440. And what a shake is given to the Credit of all these by Mr. M. and others of greater name Though Eusebius himself be by Petavius and many other Papists accounted an Arian yea and seemingly proved such and by Bellarmine de Script Eccles it s said that Athanasius so calls him and Jerom calls him the Arian Signifer and Prince and the 7th General Council so judgeth him yet Socrates vindicateth him and thinks he is wronged And indeed though his own Epistle written to his Flock be not justifyable incautelous and unjustifyable words were too Common before his daies as Petavius hath too fully proved with those that we must not yet call Arians But while Bellarmine and Mr. M. charge Socrates and Sozomen as Novatians that is Hereticks themselves they deprive Eusebius of much of their defence and render his History the more suspicious § 2. And though I know Mr. M. hath more partners herein I never saw yet any credible proof that either of them were Novatians Good Christians are not ashamed nor afraid to make profession of their Religion And
of them is softer than theirs that hereticate each other And Derodon hath fully proved that this Council when they condemned Nestorius were of his Judgment in the whole matter and said but the same as he § 14. As to his telling me that Eutyches denied Christ to be truly and properly man I will no more believe him than if he had said Cyril did so § 15. But he saith the Monothelites were the genuine Disciples of Eutyches They were of his mind in that Consequence And such another Controversie it was And how much greater errour against our Belief of the Father Son and Holy Ghost have I proved e. g. to be in your Dr. Sherloks Book And yet I hope he meant better than he spake § 16. P. 255. He confesseth of one Party what I said viz. Of Dioscorus and Flavian I am apt to believe they were much of the same Opinion as to the point in controversie and knew it well enough which was the only cause why Dioscorus with his party of Bishops and Monks would not endure to come to any Debate of the matter for fear it would appear that they all agreed and then there would have been no pretence to condemn Flavian which was the Design if not of the Emperour yet at least of those that governed him Ans Fie Dr. will you thus abuse so many Orthodox Bishops And almost condemn your vindicating Book And harden me in my Errour But I am much of your mind and if one of us err so doth the other § 17. And I like his Ingenuity saying Anatolius confesseth in Council that Dioscorus was not condemned for Heresie but Tyranny and no man contradicted him Ans Not in answer to those words but the Accusations of many contradicted him before § 18. That they mean one thing by their various expressions I have fully proved and he no whit confuteth That the Eutychians acknowledged no distinct Properties and Nestorius owned an Unity but in Dignity and Title only are his flat slanders to be no way proved but by their Adversaries accusations The very words I named even now Divino mirabili sublimi nexu and many clearer shew it of Nestorius And I wish him to take heed himself how he defineth the Hypostatical Union lest the next General Council if ever there be one make him an Heretick Can he believe that the great number of Eutychian Bishops were so mad as not to know that Christs Mortality possibility material Quantity Shape c. were the properties of Christs Humanity and not his Deity But some Men can believe any thing well or ill reasonable or unreasonable as Interest and affection lead them § 19. He saith that If it were a faction that denied this it was a strong one and never was opposed by any Person before Mr. Baxter Ans I heard you were a young man but if you be not above one Hundred Years old your reading cannot be great enough to excuse this confidence from such temerity as rendereth you the less credible How many Thousand Books be they which you or I never read How know you that none of them all oppose it But would you persuade the Reader that I call it a Faction to believe your sence of these Councils Factious men are forwardest to judge others Hereticks without cause and all that I say is that Though such deny my Assertion it is true Doth it follow that I take all for factious that deny it If I had said Though Papists deny it that had not been all one as to say All are Papists that deny it 2. But did never any person oppose it 1. I named you David Derodon before who though he largely labour to prove Cyril an Eutychian in words and sence and that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did mean Natura and not Persona yet as to Nestorius he copiously proveth that the Council of Calcedon was just of his Mind and condemned him for want of Understanding him Though you have not seen that Book of Derodons I have and you should not judge of what you never saw 2. Luther de Conciliis first accuseth Nestorius as a Heretick denying Christ's Godhead or holding two Persons And presently retracts it and confesseth he was seduced by believing the Papists but though he had not read much of the Councils but what he had gathered out of the Tripartite and such Historians yet he gathered from the Passages of the History that the difference lay only in words which he openeth at large and yet turns it sharply against Nestorius for thinking that we may not speak of Christs Godhead or Manhood by communicated names or Attributes and greatly rejoiceth that this serveth his turn in his Opinion about Consubstantiation and Sacramental words Because I will leave nothing in doubt with you but whether Luther was before my days and lest you say again that I cite Books which I see not I will give you some of his words beginning earlier not translating lest I have not skill enough but they are so like mine that I doubt you will be no Lutherane De Concil pag. 175. Ecclesiae Romana C. P. ambitiose rixatae sunt de re nihili vanissimis nugasissimis naeniis donec tandem utraque horribiliter vastata deleta est Illa omnia libentius recito ut videat prudens Lector quomodo ex tam celebri Synodo Constant inopolitana seu ex sonte manaverint semina maximarum Confusionum propterea quod ibi Episcopus Ecclesiae ut Patriarcha fuerat Praefectus p. 178. Quam horribilia certamina contentiones moverunt hi duo Episcopi de primatu ut facile judicari posset Spiritum sanctum non esse authorem hujus Instituti Alia habet Episcopus longe potiora quae agat quam sunt hi pueriles inepti ludi Praemonemur quod Concilia prorsus nihil novi debent comminisci vel tradere De Concil Ephes p. 180 181. Excesserant jam è vivis sancti Patres illi optimi Episcopi S. Ambrosius S. Martinus S. Hieronymus S. Augustinus qui eo ipso anno quo Synodus coacta est mortuus est S. Hilarius S. Eusebius similes eorumque loco prorsus dissimiles patres suborti fuerant Ita ut Imperator Theodosius amplius eligi Episcopum C. P. ex Sacerdotibus vel Clericis Civitatis C. P. nollet hanc ob causam quod plerumque essent superbi ambitiosi morosi qui movere certamina tumultus in Ecclesiis plerumque tolerent p. 182. Cumjam videret Nestorius tantas turbas ortas ex corruptela multiplici gemens prorupit in haec verba Tollamus è medio omnes ambiguitates quae primum praebuerunt occasiones istis certaminibus fateamur palam Mariam recte vocari Matrem Dei. Sed nihil profecit Nestorius ne tunc quidem eum revocaret suum errorem sed voce publica conde mâ—atus ex orbe Imperii universo ejectus explosus est Quanquam illi duo Episcopi
Clara's Leander's c. But towards such as I am you have been as firm to that Principle as any one of our Enemies could wish In 1660 1661. it was most effectually improved and you have attained much of the fruits then foretold and ever since have been unmoveably and prevailingly true to it 3. But this maketh some men the Distracters of the Church if not the greatest which truly I have better thoughts of Such as Junius Paraeus Amyraldus Le Blanke Davenant Ward Usher Holdsworth Morton Hall c. And lately when we were preparing for the Kings Return Bp. Brownrig and after his death Dr. Gawden Dr. Gulston Dr. Allen Dr. Bernard and diverse such did offer themselves to a Treaty for Moderation And since then Dr. Wilkins Dr. Burton Dr. Tillotson and in diebus illis Dr. Stilling fleet have been guilty of this crime of distracting the Church by projects of Moderation But I can name the Bps. that were not guilty of it To abate or forsake the necessary points of Faith and Practice on pretence of Moderation is to destroy Christianity on pretence of Humanity or Peace But to make Laws that men shall preach with Horns on their Heads to signifie the Victory of Truth and to ruine all that will not keep these Laws much more if men should command worse and to say a Project for Moderation would distract the Church would be as far from Wisdom as it is from Moderation And some Prelates have done as bad as this § 9. He confesseth p. 296. that by force and Fraud the whole World in a manner was turned Arian And did I ever say worse of the Bishops than this § 10. He maketh Aerius to speak against Bishops because he could not be a Bishop so that he was of a Prelatical Judgment and Spirit and calleth him The Cartwright of the times by which if he mean that Cartwright would have been a Bishop it doth but tell us that he deserveth little belief in his History § 11. He is a most singular Historian p. 303. in telling us that after the Monothelites in following Ages of the Church the Devil started up but few Heresies till these Ages Swenk feldians Anabaptists c. By this I perceive he believeth neither Papists nor Protestants For the Papists name many Heresies since and the Protestants say that Popery is but a Composition of many Heresies and name us many that concur'd thereto § 12. He there giveth me this serious Admonition It is a much greater wonder that any man that makes Conscience of what he saith should against all truth of History and against his own knowledge charge the Bishops with all the Heresies in the World that a person that seems so sensible of approaching Judgment as frequently to put himself in mind of it should yet advance so malicious and groundless an Accusation There is no dallying with the all-seeing God What Plea shall be made for whole Books full of Calumny and Detraction c. Ans This is not the least acceptable passage to me in his Book I love the man the better for seeming serious in the belief of Judgment and I hope his Warning shall make me search my Heart with some more jealousie and care He seems here to believe himself but being my self far more concerned than he is to know how far I am guilty of what I am accused as far as I can know my Heart and Writings I 'le tell the Reader what to judge of his words and me 1. That I charge the Bishops with all the Heresies in the World never was in my mind nor can I find it in any of my Writings Yet this he very oft repeateth And should a man so often write a falshood about a thing visible and never cite the place where I say it and this while he is thus seriously mentioning Calumny and Judgment 2. Can he make men believe at once that I do persuade men that Bishops or Diocesanes came not up till about 150 years after Christ and yet that I make them the Authors of the Heresies that were in those times Non entis non est actio Could Bishops be Hereticks when there were no Bishops 3. If I had charged the Bishops with all the Heresies it followeth not that I had charged no one else with them and made the Bishops the sole Authors and acquit People Priests and Princes why then doth he name many Monks and Priests that were Hereticks Or Emperours that promoted them as if this crossed what I say Did he think that I excluded the Army if I blame the General or the Prelatical Priests when I blame the Prelates If I took the Bishops of England to be the chief cause of our Church-Schisms and Calamities doth it follow that I acquit such as you and all the Clergy like you 4. That I have done this against all Truth of History which I transcribed out of the Councils and Historians most partial for the highest Prelacie is either a great untruth and unproved by him or I know not what I read or write 5. That I do this against my own Knowledge I am certain is an untruth 6. That my Accusations are malicious I am certain is untruth as being able to say that I speak in pitty to the Church and to save Souls from deceit and malice no man but pray with the Liturgy that God will forgive our Enemies Persecutors and Slanderers and turn their Hearts 7. That I have brought any Groundless Accusation I must take for an untruth till my Grounds produced are better confuted 8. Much more that I write whole Books full of Calumny and Detraction All these and more untruths being heapt up with the mention of Death and Judgment tells us whither Faction and Prepossession may carry men 2. But what is the truth I shall again briefly tell the Reader 1. About 2000 of such Ministers as I confidently take for the most spiritual and conscionable and devoted to God and the good of Souls are silenced and in Law imprisoned and ruined and all the People of their mind are ipso facto if they confess it excommunicated besides their other penalties I accuse not the Law but mention only the matter of Fact which the K. once commissioned Bps. to have prevented 2. The Kingdom is dolefully divided and alas the sad consequents are not to be named 3. Besides all our Penalties the Bishops accuse us as the causes of all and as wilful Schismaticks and call for the Execution of the Laws against us 4. We say we dare not do that which when ever they will give us leave we are ready to give our reasons why we take it for heinous sin against God and tending to the ruine of the Church nor dare we forsake our Ministry while the Churches necessities are to us past doubt 5. We beg of them but to abate us some needless Oaths and Covenants and Professions and a few things called indifferent by the Imposers that we may all live
very few if any one were Bishops when they turned Hereticks I have enquired in the Preface though if they ascended from Heresie to Prelacy it 's all one to me But by this I conjecture that he taketh fewer for Hereticks than others do and that he pretends acquaintance with their minds in that antecedent part of their Lives which no History mentioneth I confess I think that for the most part men are Papists before they are Popes or Papist Bishops And yet I think that it is first the desire of Papal and Prelatical Grandeur and next the Exercise of it which is the cause of Schism and Persecution § 17. I verily believe as he doth that Platonick Philosophy and a willingness to win the Heathens by compliance had a great hand in corrupting many Doctrines and not only Monks but others of the most religious Christians had a great hand in many of the ancient Superstitions especially those that tended to the over-honouring of their Martyrs and too much advancement of their Bishops when they came newly from under the Persecution of the Heathens But it came not to be universal nor the Engine of great Corruption and cruelty till the Bishops turned all into a Law Who could make any of all this necessary but Pope Prelates or Princes who pretended a Legislative Power hereto Even Luther and Melancthon were indifferent to diverse Ceremonies so they were made to be indifferently used But when they are made necessary by a Law specially more necessary to a Minister than his Ministry and to a private Christian than his Church Communion who doth more vehemently condemn them than they § 18. That Paschasius Radbertus was the first that broached the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is a doubtful expression Either he meaneth the Name or only the Thing under another Name If the latter he will do more than Edm. Albertinus or Bp. Consius have done if he prove it If it be the name that he meaneth I think by my Memory for I will not for that go read him all over that he will not find the name in Radbertus nor any where before Stephanus Eduensis about 130 years after him and that all that he can truly say is but as Bellarmine doth Hic Author primus suit qui seriò copiosè scripsit de veritate Corporis Sanguinis Domini in Eucharistia contra Bertramum Presbyterum § 19. That the Bishops charged by me with these Corruptions were the only Opposers of them that we find in antiquity as we may see in the Canons of Africk and Spain is a saying very near kin to much of his History I confess that so few Presbyters in comparison of Bishops were publick Actors whose Judgments were notified to the World that it 's no wonder after Constantine's time if there be more proofs of their words and deeds than of other mens But there are a great number of excellent men here slandered against the credit of all Church-History and their own Writings yet in our hands Would it be worth the Readers Price and Labour I could swell my Book with the proof that what he speaketh is untrue Did he think that I could not prove that Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Origene Arnobius Lactantius Macarius Maternus Firmicus Ephrem Syrus Faustinus Hierome Ruffinus Prudentius Sulpitius Severus Sedulius Mammertus Cassianus Vincent Lirinensis Socrates Sozomen Isodore Pelusiota c. did something in opposition to some Church-Corruptions Though some of them promoted some others Yea Antonie and abundance of Monks that furthered some opposed others no less dangerous Though many of them may be accused as Bellarmine doth Sulpit. Severus for saying Ecclesiam auro non strui sed destrui Judge of time past by what we see Is it only the Bishops that are against the Popes Church-Corrupting Usurpation in Italy Spain France c. Is it only the Bishops that are against the Mass Corruptions and against all their corrupt Doctrines of Indulgences Purgatory Images c. and against all their Ceremonies and prophane abuse of holy things Was it only the Bishops at Constance and Basil that were against suppressing the Bohemian and Moravian Reformation In the end of Lydius upon Prateolus you may read a Letter subscribed by so great a number of Lords and great men for John Hus and Hierome and the Reformation which yet prevailed not with the Bishops as will tell you who was then the greatest Opposers of Church-Corruption And I think Princes and Drs. opposed it more than Bps. in Luther's time Is it only the Bishops that have opposed warping towards Rome for Church-Unity Have none but Bishops been against corrupting the Churches by silencing good Ministers and ordaining bad ones The things that are have been I confess our difference is great on the case what is to be accounted Church-Corruption For that which in one Country goeth for Corruption in another yea the same goeth for Church-Glory Strength and Beauty Our main difference is about what 's good and what 's bad what 's Virtue and what 's Vice § 20. He next comes to Sedition and asketh What Reign have they disturbed here with their Sedition And because he knoweth that I can refer him to the large Volume of their Treasons written by Prin and abroad to the many Volumes in Goldastus and the many Histories of the Wars of Popes and Councils against Emperours he prevents all my Proof with a downright Untruth that If a man be not blind he may see that my History is only designed against Protestant Bishops under a general name Ans Was it not enough so grosly to write this Untruth of me but he must also reproach all the Readers as blind that will not judge falsly of what they read Doth he know my meaning better than my self He knoweth that I plead for the Primitive Episcopacy and that I profess to intend this History most to discover the Rise Growth and Maturity of the Popish destructive sort of Prelacy Readers can you believe this man that I wrote the case of the Bishops before and under Popery and of the Popes and of above Five hundred Councils and all these before the name of a Protestant Bishop was known in the World and as he saith gathered their faults and all this only against the Protestant Bishops and not against Popes or Prelates or any of the Councils that I named Perhaps he would tempt me to refer him to the History of Bishop Laua's Trial or to what Bishop Abbot George and Robert Bishop Hall and others said against him Or to tell him of A. Bp. Williams Arms for the Parliament But these are not Subjects fit for our Debates § 21. P. 318. When I say that where Prelacy with the Papists is at the highest Princes are at the lowest He asketh Is it the Bishop or the Papist that is here to blame Is this the effect of their Order Ans 1. I thought the Pope of Rome and the Bishop of Rome had been
Very good but cried Pretty good Ink Pretty good Ink and no body would buy of him and he lost his Ink. And if you cry up An indifferent Religion whatever you have for numbers you will have for quality but an Indifferent Church save our Rulers XV. But he adds Many of them would preach against it and their Governours too Ans 1. You tempt them towards it If I ask the Butcher Is your Meat sweet and he say it is indifferent I am excusable if I think it stinks 2. They judge by the effects They thought that when an indifferent thing casteth out a necessary thing it becomes naught 3. But yet your Accusation is unfaithful Why did you not say then that it was not for Non-conformity that men were cast out but for preaching against your Religion Who were those Was it proved If so what was that to the rest Do you punish many learned moderate men for the fault of a few others that they were not concerned with You now alledge Mr. Hildersham Ball Bradshaw Baine Knewstubs and abundance such for being against Separation and persuading men to come to the Common Prayer and many of them to kneel at the Sacrament and yet when you plead for their Silencing even other mens words may serve against them XVI To conclude in all he layeth the cause of their silence on themselves for not conforming and yet will not tell us what we should do to help it Would they have us Conform while we judge it as sinful as I have mentioned in my first Plea for Peace No they profess the contrary Would they have us believe all to be lawful We cannot Our Judgments are not at our Command What would they have us do to change Worldly Interest maks us too willing We study as hard as they We earnestly beg Gods Illumination to save us from Er rour We read all that they write to convince us And the more we read study and pray the more heinous the Sin of Conformity seems to some I askt Bp. Morley the same question when he forbad my preaching before the ejecting Act and he bid me read Bilson and Hooker I told him that was not now to do and in both of them I found the Principles which are made the cause of my Silencing my greatest Crimes and in one of them worse He then told me If God would not give me his Grace he could not help it And yet most of these men are against fatal reprobating necessitating Decrees The imposing Papists use men worse Of whom will you pardon a Fable A Bee and a Flie were catcht together in a Spiders Web The Spider when they were tired with striving claimed them both for her Food as a punishment for breaking into and troubling her Web And against the Bee she pleaded that she was a hurtful Militant Animal that had a Sting and against the Flie that she was noisome and good for nothing The Bee answered that her mellifying Nature and work was profitable and Nature had armed her with a Sting to defend it And the Flie said as she did little good so she did little harm and could make her self no better than Nature had made her And as to the Crime alledged against them they both said that the Net was made by a venomous Animal spun out of the Air and the Venom of her own Bowels made for no use but to catch and destroy the Innocent and they came not into it by malice but by ignorance and mistake and that it was more against their Will than against the Spiders for they contrived not to fall into it but she contrived to catch them and that it was not to break the Net that they strove but to save their Lives The Master of the House overheard the Debate but resolved to see how the Spider would judge which was quickly done without more words the took them for Malefactors and killed them both The Master of the House so disliked the Judgment that he ordered that for the time to come 1. The Bees should be safely hived and cherished 2. And the Flies if not very noisome should be tolerated 3. And all Spiders Webs swept down I need to give you no more of the Exposition of it than by the Spider I mean the Papal noxious Canon-makers and that by the Net I mean their unnecessary and ensnaring Laws and Canons which are made to catch and destroy good men and are the way to the Inquisition or Bonner's Coal-house or Smithfield Bonefires But I must desire you not to imagine that I speak against the Laws of the Land § 27. As to the Conclusion of his last Chapter I shall now add no more but this If what I said before and to Mr. Hinkley satisfie him not of what Religion and Party both sides were that began the War and Mr. Rushworths Collections and other Histories of former Parliaments be not herein useful to him let him but secure me from burning my Fingers with Subjects so red hot by mens misinterpreting and impatience and I will God willing give him so full proof that to say nothing of latent Instigators and consequent auxiliaries on either side nor of the King himself whose Religion is beyond dispute the parties else that begun the War in England did differ in Religion but as A. Bps. Laud and Neal and Bromhal and such others and A. Bps. Abbot and Williams and Bp. Bilson on the other side and as Dr. Mainwaring Sibthorp c. on one side and Mr. Ri. Hooker and such on the other side differed And if my proof be confutable I will not hereafter undertake to prove that English is the language of England But my Bargain must be thus limited 1. I will not undertake that from the beginning there was no one Papist on the Kings side or no one Presbyterian on the Parliaments I could never yet learn of more than one in the House of Commons and a very few Independents but I cannot prove that there was no more 2. You must not put me upon searching mens hearts I undertake not to prove what any mans heart in England was but what their Profession was and what Church they joined with in Communion 3. And you must not equivocate in the use of the name Presbyterian or Nonconformist and tell me that you take some A. Bps. and Bps. and such Divines as Ri. Hooker and Bilson and Bp. Downame the Pillars of Episcopacy and Conformity for Presbyterians And if it may be I would beg that of you that you will not take the long Parliament for Presbyterians and Nonconformists who made the Acts of Uniformity the Corporation Act the Militia Act and those against conventicles and for banishment from Corporations c. Notwithstanding their high Votes about the Succession and Jealousies of Popery and that which they said and did hereupon For I confess if it be such Nonconformists or Presbyterians as those that you mean I 'le give you the better And I must
complaining roundly Two Thousand This I must conclude to be done knowingly for somtimes he only mentions One Thousand Eight Hundred p. 151 c. Ans I am persuaded that it is not knowingly that you speak so much besides the truth but for want of knowing what and whom you talk of I never medled with gathering the number Mr. Calamy did and shewed us a List of 1800 upon which I long mentioned no more and seldom saw him afterward But Mr. Ennis who was more with him assuring me that they had after an account of at least 200 more who were omitted I sometime to speak the least mention the 1800 and sometime say about 2000 and by his last account that was the least Yet with a Lord Bishop that knoweth nothing of all this I knowingly over reckon But if God be pleased with their silencing why do you take this ill § 20. The next and great Accusation is my extenuating the Bishops Clemency and aggravating our Sufferings and that against my Conscience I impute to the Bishops that bloodiness which they never intended but abhor And he will not believe what I say of the death of any by Imprisonment or want Ans The good Lady that pittied the Beggars when she came in out of the Frost and Snow when she had warmed her self chid them away and said it was warm enough I could name you those in London that travelled out of the North in great want and took up with such cold Lodgings here in great want of all things that they were past cure before their misery was known How many poor Quakers have dyed in Prison many know It 's like you never heard of the death of Mr. Field a worthy Minister in the Gate-house nor of Mr. Thompson in the noisome Prison at Bristol nor of Reverend Mr. Hughes of Plimouth's Death caused by his Prison sickness perhaps you never read the Life Sufferings and Death of excellent Joseph Allen of Taunton I will not be the gatherer of a larger Catalogue But I believe some others will But these you know not of § 21. The words in my Book which I speak argumentatively shewing clearly whither their cause will lead them if they trust to bring us to Unity by force you unworthily feign that I speak as accusing the Bishops Inclinations My Argument was If you think by violence to effect your ends it must be either by changing mens judgments or by forcing them as Hypocrites to go against their judgments or else by utter destroying them till there are no Dissenters But none of these three ways will do it Ergo Violence will not do it 1. I prove that force will not change their Judgments 2. I prove they are such men as will rather suffer death than sin against their Consciences and so less Sufferings which cure not do but exasperate the Disease 3. I prove that if when less doth no good you would destroy them that would not do your work but cross it And doth this signifie that I charge the Bishops with bloody purposes They openly tell us that it 's punishing us that must bring us to Concord I tell them Lesser will not do it and greater will but hurt themselves A man would think that I hereby rather infer that Bishops will not be bloody than that they will when I argue ab incommodo Truly Sir I see nothing in your Book which tempted me to lament that I mist the happiness of your Academical Education or Disputes Nor do I envy those that now enjoy it God save his Church from the worser part of them § 21. You say P. 79. You must needs look on my aggravating my own and the Dissenters Sufferings beyond Truth you are sure beyond Probability to have proceeded from want of temper As for saying that some have lived on brown Bread and Water Ans I find still that our difference lieth in matter of Fact done in the open sight of the World And if it were whether we are English-men I have no hope of ending it O what is History My own Sufferings by them are very small save the hindering of my Labour Leave to work is all the Preferment that ever I desired of them What I have had hath been against their Wills who have called out for my greater restraint God hath enabled me by the Charity of others to send some small relief to a few of those whose Case he will not believe Some of them have Seven or Eight Children and nothing at all of their own to maintain them and live in Countries where scarce two Gentlemen of Estates within their reach do befriend them and the People are generally poor and many of these have none to preach to being not permitted And when they attempted to meet with some few secretly to fast and pray in some case of need have had their few Goods carryed away by Distress Good Alderman Ashhurst now with Christ took care of many and hath shewed me Letters and Certificates of undoubted credit in the very words which I named One is now near us that was put to get his Living by Spinning Mr. Chadwick was the last of whom I read those words in a just certificate that he and his Children had long lived on meer brown Rye Bread and Water It is now above a dozen Years since Dr. Vermuxden told me that Mr. Matthew Hill was his Patient with Hydropical swell'd Legs with drinking Water and using answerable Food through meer Poverty But God turned it to good for necessity drove him when a little strengthened to Mary-Land where he hath been almost the only able Minister they have We that know them our selves and beg Money to relieve them are supposed to be Lyars for telling that which all their Neighbours know Through Gods Mercy few in London suffer so much though divers are in great streights But great numbers in the Countrys who live among the poor had not some of them now and then a little Relief from London were like to beg for Bread or fall into mortal Diseases by Food unfit for Nature Even in London they that knew Mr. Farnworth Mr. Spinage and some others and how they lived and dyed understand me I 'le name Mr. Martin formerly of Weedon very poor in London to tell you of your impartiality though he lost one Arm in the Kings Army he had not a day abated him in Warwick Gaol for preaching § 22. As to his repeating all my mention of their dealings and my blaming the Bishops at the Savoy for our present divisions and my aggravating the evils which Violence will produce if they trust to that way I judge it all necessary to be spoken Unknown sin will not be repented of nor forborn nor unknown danger prevented nor the unknown needs of the Peoples Souls relieved He asketh Is this the way to be at Peace with us I answer There is no other way What Peace can we have with them that think they are bound to silence
commanded it 5. I find that Christ hath himself done the work for which the necessity of Universal Humane Government by Pope or Councils is pretended viz. He hath made and caused his Apostles peculiarly qualified for it to record Universal Church-Laws even as many as are Universally necessary And if so I cannot but think 1. That he hath done it better than Man can do 2. And that to add more unnecessarily must needs be a snare and burden to the Church 3. And that it must be an usurping the Power of Christ For if there be no other Universal Governour there is no other that hath Authority to make Universal Laws Therefore this is Treason against Christ and a making Man a Vice-Christ 6. I found that there is not so much as a Natural Capacity in any one or many for an Universal Government Church-Government being of such a nature as maketh it far more impossible than for one Monarch or Aristocracy to Govern all the Earth And to do it by a truly General Council or by the Diffused Bishops of all the World is further from possibility than to do it by a Pope 7. I searcht the Councils pretended to be General to see whether they had made any better Laws than Christ's or made any desirable addition And I found 1. That while they were not wholly Papists they never pretended to make Canons for any Christians but only those in the Roman Empire 2. And that it had been much happier for the Churches if they had made no more Laws than Christ had made them for holy Doctrine Worship and Church-Discipline and had only as Teachers expounded and applied the Laws of Christ 8. I considered the Present State of the Church Universal and I find it such as no Party of Christians in the World doth own The Pope pleadeth for an Universal Soveraignty and all his Clergy do the same some saying it is in Councils some in the Pope and most in both together or Councils approved by the Pope And Protestants Greeks Nestorians Jacobites and almost all other Christians in the World accuse this Roman Church and Claim The Papists condemn the rest The Greeks Arminians and almost all the rest accuse each other 9. I considered what Popery is that is Clergy-Power in its height and what it hath done in the World And I found 1. A woful description of the lives of multitudes of Popes recorded by their own most credited Historians And 2. I found multitudes of vicious Canons obtruded by them as Laws on the Universal Church 3. I found most doleful Histories of the Wars and Rebellions that they have caused from Age to Age. 4. I found that they have corrupted the Doctrine of Christ in abundance of particulars 5. And that they have lockt up the Sacred Scriptures from the Vulgar as they have not done their Canons 6. And that they have turned God's Spiritual Worship into a multitude of Superstitious Rites and scenical Ceremonies and Shews 7. And that they have turned Spiritual Church-Discipline into a secular sort of Tyranny 8. And that they have most schismatically unchurched the rest of the Churches because they are not Subjects of the Pope 9. And that they have branded the soundest Churches with the name of Hereticks while they are the grand Heresie of the World 10. And that they have been and are the greatest Silencers of sound Preachers and hinderers of true Piety and Reformation in the Church 11. And that they have wofully vitiated the People that are their Subjects so that odious wickedness fed by Ignorance abounds among them and it is their Votaries that are called Religious and a few Canonized persons Saints as if Religion and Sanctity were rarities or any could be saved without them 12. Lastly I find that they have lived upon Blood like Leeches and have been the cruellest Persecutors of holy men on pretence of killing Hereticks And that it is this to which they trust 10. I took not this notice of them upon meer prejudice but have read I think as many Papists Books as Protestants or any other against them Nor have I taken it upon dark Scripture Prophecies suspecting my understanding of them But 1. The matter of fact from themselves 2. Against their Papal Supremacy from such Arguments as are fully collected by Dr. Barrow 3. Against their heinous Church-corruptions from such Moral Evidence as Dr. H. Moore hath fully gathered in his Mystery of Iniquity 4. Against their pretences of Tradition and Antiquity I fetcht my Arguments from the Histories and Authors which they themselves alledge and especially their Councils with the Fathers Writings § 9. Seeing the Church in this sad Condition and the Papal part so greatly vitiated I considered how long it had so been And I found that the Pope and his Bishops grew not up like a Mushroom in a day but had been long in thriving to maturity And I met with no man that could just tell what Year or what Age the disease or tumor did begin Bishop Bromhall thinks if they will abate their last 400 years Innovations we may have hope of agreeing with them Bishop Gunning will own no General Councils but the first six some will receive eight some but four Mr. Morrice here goeth no further in his defence of them whatever he think Some begin Popery with Leo the great some with Gregory's Successour But it is most certain that it was first an Embrio and next an Infant and so grew up from Childhood to maturity by degrees And the first Church-corruption was not that which we now call Popery And it is as certain that the tumor did neither begin nor grow up in the Bishop of Rome alone but in other Bishops who grew up with him were his strength and Councils and he their Head § 10. It is known when the Greeks and Romans began most notably to strive which should be greatest and how the division increased and when and how it came to an anathematizing or excommunicating each other § 11. It 's notorious that it was from the Councils of Calcedon and Ephesus that the great separated bodies of Nestorians and Eutychians now called Jacobites that possess the East and South were broken off with Nestorius and Dioscorus and so continue to this day § 12. I considered who were the Chief Authors of all these lamentable Schisms and Church-corruptions in the several Ages when they rose and who continue them to this day And I found that many Princes were much to be blamed and the People not Innocent no not the Religious Monks But the Bishops that had the main Church-power by abusing it were with their Clergy the principal Causes and so are to this day The breaches might yet be healed in East West and South were it not for them § 13. Finding this in History of undoubted Truth I next considered what was the Cause that the Bishops and their Clergy should become such Church-corrupters and Dividers and still continue the Churches miseries And
I found as followeth 1. That none are able to do so much hurt as those that have the greatest Parts Power Interest and Trust None kill so many except Souldiers as those Physicians who are entrusted to heal and save them If five hundred neighbours mistake a man's Disease whom he never trusted it hurts him not But an unskilful Nurse or Parent may kill a sick Child and an unskilful or unfaithful Physician may kill multitudes 2. And there goeth so much to make a man a skilful faithful Pastor as that such are rare As a Physician is like to kill his Patient if he mistake but some one thing in his Disease or some Ingredient in his Medicine though he were right in all the rest So if a Guide of Souls were excellent in all other things what work one Opinion yea or unskilful word may make not only the case of the Nestorians Eutychians Monothelites c. tell us but even the strife that arose in the Church about Hypostasis and Persona which had almost hereticated Jerom himself for all his skill in the Languages And the case of the Greeks and Latines about Filioque and abundance such 3. And Pride is the Heart of the Old Man first living and last dying And great Power great Parts and great Esteem do feed it if true Grace do not mortifie it Knowledge puffeth up and especially when men live among the ignorant and unlearned and are but half Learned themselves and are thought by the people and themselves to be much wiser than they are Inter coecos luscus Rex 4. And Selfishness is the very sum of all positive iniquity And Pride and Selfishness make men desirous to be the Idols of the World and to seem as Gods knowing good and evil and to have their will of all that they have to do with 5. And the strongest temptations use to cause the greatest sins § 14. These Generals presupposed it is most clear 1. That the remnant of these sins even in Christ's Apostles set them on striving who should be greatest and made James and John desire preheminence and also to have called for Fire from Heaven and made them after Christ's Resurrection hope that he would have restored the Earthly Kingdom unto Israel And it put Paul to vindicate his Apostleship against many that disparaged him As it made Diotrephes who loved to have the preheminence to cast out the Brethren and speak evil of John It gave Peter occasion to warn the Bishops not to Lord it over God's Heritage but to be Examples to the Flock overseeing them not by constraint but willingly 2. Even in good men this fault though not in a reigning degree did live more in others afterwards that had not that measure of the Spirit as the Apostles had to overcome it And if even in Paul's daies he had none like-minded to Timothy who naturally cared for the good of all for all too much sought their own and not the things that are Jesus Christ's as Demas forsook him for some worldly Interest what wonder is it if afterward Pride and Worldliness grew greater and Heresies and Strifes increased 3. Yet while Christianity was a suffering and laborious State the Pastors of the Churches were commonly the best men that had more Knowledge Holiness and Love than others and the Churches prospered under the Cross They that spared not their labours but imitated the pattern set by Paul Acts 20. did not strive who should have the largest Diocess and undertake that which they could not do but they strove to do as much as they were able and to increase and edifie the Flock 4. But when extraordinary Gifts abated and acquired Ones became more necessary and few Philosophers turned Christians able Taking Preachers or Orators grew fewer and those few that were eminent in Knowledge and Speech were justly preferred before the rest And usually some one man had the chief hand in converting men and gathering a Church in each particular Town and then he rightfully was taken for their Pastor And it being found that the publick and private care of Souls required in each Church where were fit men more than one Pastor It was not meet that more should be brought to â—im that was there before without his approbation and consent but that he were to the Juniors as a Father And because the rest were usualiy below him in Gifts and Worth it was thought but meet that they should do what they did by his consent And also to avoid Divisions to which they were over-prone it was judged fit that one should have the preheminence and a negative and partly ruling Vote 5. The Churches which in the beginning had these Bishops and Fellow-Presbyters were single Congregations And shortly they grew to be more than could meet together in some few great Cities Persecution hindering them from very large Assemblies besides their want of large capacious Temples Dr. Hammond thinks that there is no evidence that in Scripture-time there were any other Presbyters than Bishops and consequently a Bishop had but one Congregation unless he went one hour to one and another to another which was not their use But doubtless in this he is mistaken as the many Speakers as Corinth shew 6. The Greatness of the Roman Empire was prepared by God to be then an exceeding great fortherance of the Gospel For under the same Civil Laws and Powers where one or two Languages were understood by most Christians had the far greater advantage for Communication Want of forreign Languages is now our great hinderance from Preaching the Gospel to other Nations of the World And the Confusion at Babel was an unspeakable Judgment But as Ships yea Navies can sail on the Ocean when small Barks or Boats only can pass on Rivers so the vastness of the Roman Empire was a great help to the Church by Communication Language and Accesses But especially when the Emperour became Christian the advantage was exceeding great Whereas now the Greatness of the Turkish Tartarian Indostan Empire are great Impediments to the Gospel because the Barbarians are more cruel Enemies than the Civil Romans notwithstanding the ten Persecutions were and their opposition is the more extensive by the extent of their Dominions and the Christian Churches having now more scandalized the Infidels by their corruptions While they were not corrupted by worldly power and wealth the great holiness of the Churches convinced the sober part of the Empire Albaspineus shews us clearly that their strictness was so great that they endured no notable scandalous sin among them yea and came very near to the Novatians in their Discipline And that it was not for greater strictness that the Novatians were condemned but for denying the Power of the Church to absolve men penitent that sinned after Baptism And their Canons shew it And it is certain that Christians obeying Paul avoided the Heathen Judicatures as much as might be and censured those that did not and ended their Differences
think that so great a Patriarchate Diocess would not find a conscionable Pastor work enough without joyning with it the Magistrates Office 2. Was not the Church greatly changed even so early from what it was a little before in the daies of Martin and Sulpitius when even Ithacius durst not own being so much as a seeker to the Magistrate to draw the Sword against gross Hereticks and the best Bishops denied Communion with them that sought it And now a Bishop himself becomes the striker not of gross Hereticks but such as peaceable Bishops bore with I remember not to have read that Cyril had any Commission for the Sword from the Emperour Others then had not But I deny it not § 6. He saith that elsewhere I say I shall not dishonour such nor disobey them Answ I say and do so If a Bishop will take another Calling from the King's Grant when he hath undertaken already 40 times more work as a Diocesan than he can do I le honour and obey him as a Magistrate But I would be loth to stand before God under the guilt of his undertaking and omissions § 7. As to all the rest of the History about Cyril's Executions and the wounding of Orestes the Governour I leave it between the Credit of Mr. M. and Socrates And he very much suspects the Story of Cyril ' s making a Martyr of him that was executed for it I leave all to the Reader 's Judgment I think I may transcribe Socrates without slandering Cyril Here his spleen rising saith There are men in the world that honour such as Martyrs for murdering a King Answ You may smell what he insinuates I think he will not say that he ever did more against them than those that they call Presbyterians have done We Wrote and Preacht against them when he did not I know not the Presbyterian living to my remembrance that was not against the Murder of the King and Prin. whom the Bishops had cropt and stigmatized for being against them as an Erastian was the hottest in the Parliament for the Execution of the King's Judges But I knew divers Conformists that have written or spoken to justifie or excuse that Fact § 8. As for the Murder of Hypatia I leave him to his scuffle with Socrates and Damascius in which I interess not my self § 9. I thank Pope Innocent Mr. M. durst not deny Cyril's faults in his Enmity to the memory of Chrysostom and yet he calls my reciting the matter of Fact a reproach He is constrained to confess That the Quarrel was it seems hereditary to him so is Original Sin and he did prosecute it beyond all equity or decency against the memory of a dead man This was a fault and and he that is without any or without any particular animosity specially if he be in any eminent place let him â—ast the first stone Answ Thanks to Conscience We feel your Animosities But is not this man a Railing Accuser of Cyril if I am such What saith he less in the main Yea he now renews his Accusation of his Predecessor saying It was hereditary To prosecute malice against the very name of a holy extraordinary Bishop beyond all equity and decency what will Christianity or Humanity call it But Faction saith it was a fault and he that is without any c. Thus talkt Eli to his Sons So one may say To Silence 2000 Ministers or to hate the best men and seek their ruine is a fault a Prelatical peccadillo and so was Bonner's usage of the Martyrs and let him that is without any cast the first stone And St. John saith He that hateth his Brother is a murderer and none such hath Eternal Life abiding in him and that as Cain he is of the Evil One the Devil And I believe him § 10. But he saith I injuriously charge him with calling Alexander a bold faced man when Atticus was the first Author of that word Answ Atticus mentioned Alexander's confident true and necessary Counsel Cyril contradicting it calls the man A man of a confident face or mouth If another Bishop said the first words before him do I wrong him in saying he said the second O tender men His urging the keeping up the names of such as Nectarius and Arsacius and casting out Chrysostomus is so like our Canons about Readers and Nonconformists and our Canoneers descriptions of their Country Parsons and the Puritanes that I wonder not that you defend him § 11. But he saith that It 's a little unchristian to blast his memory with the faults which he corrected in his life-time Answ 1. It 's necessary to tell that truth which blasteth the Reputation of such sin as was growing up towards Papacy Ans 2. Then Christ was unchristian to tell the Jews of their very Fathers murders of the Prophets while they disclaimed it and built their Sepulchres Mat. 23. And then it was unchristian in the Holy Ghost to blast the memory of Adam Noe Lot David Solomon Peter yea or Manasseh with sins repented of 3. History must speak truth about things repented of or else it will but deceive the world 4. The Honour of God and Goodness and Truth must be preferred before our own Honour Repentance if true will most freely confess a mans own sin and most fully shame it § 12. Whether all his far-fetcht Conjectures that Cyril repented be true or no is nothing to me I will hope he did though I never saw it proved The very last Sentence of Death might do it His retortion is I know no man deeper engaged in the Contentions of the Church than I The writing of his Eighty Books being but like so many pitcht Battels he has fought and most commonly in the dark when he was hardly able to discover friend from foe Answ It 's too true that being all written for Peace the Enemies of Peace have fought against them Nimis diu habitavit anima mea inter osores pacis But pro captu Lectoris c. All men take not the words of such as he for Oracles How much I have written and done for Peace let others read and judge I long laboured and begg'd for Peace in vain with such as he defendeth And it 's admirable if this pittiless Enemy of Sects and Errours can be for all the Sects and Errours that I have written against Have I in the dark taken for foes by Errour the Atheists the Infidels the Sadduces the Hobbists the Quakers the Ranters the Papists the Socinians the Libertines called Antinomians the Anabaptists the Separatists and Sects as Sects Be of good comfort all These Prelatists that accuse us for too dark and sharp Writings against you seem to tell you that they will more hate persecuting or distressing you Yes when they agree with themselves His Prayer that I may have a more honorable opinion of Repentance he calls me to speak to in the End § 13. Whether good Isidore Pelusiota were a man very easy to