the second and third Age produced no Councils the greater deceivers then are the Papists that have found us Councils then and so you have no Catholick succession proved Yea but he saith they have successions of Popes Martyrs and Confessors which is sufficient for their purposes See the strength of Popery Any thing is sufficient for your purposes it seems Rome had Bishops therefore they were the Universal Rulers of the Church A strong consequence Rome had Martyrs and Confessors therefore it was the Mistris of all Churches Who can resist these arguments But why did you not prove that your Confessors and Martyrs suffered for attesting the Popes Soveraignty If they suffered but for Christianity that will prove them but Christians and not Papists Thus you see to the confusion of the Papists that they have nothing to shew for the succession or antiquity of Popery for the three first Ages Yea worse then nothing For here he comes in with some of the Decretals forsooth of some of their Bishops Decretals unknown till a while ago in the world brought out by Isidore Mercator but with so little cunning as left them naked to the shame of the world the falshood of them being out of themselves fully proved by Blondell Reignolds and many more and confessed by some of themselves Here you see the first foundation of Papal succession even a bundle of fictions lately fetcht from whence they please to cheat the ignorant part of the world But in the fourth and fifth ages H. T. doth make us amends for his want of proof from the three first But suppose he do what 's that to a succession while the three first ages are strangers to Popery Well! but lets hear what he hath at last His first proof after a few silent names is from the Council of Nice And what saith that why 1. It defined that the Son of God is consubstantiall to his Father and true God And what 's that to Popery 2 But it defined the Popes Soveraignty But how prove you that Why it is in the thirty ninth Arab. Canon O what Consciences have those men that dare thus abuse and cheat the ignorant As if the Canons of the first General Council had never been known to the world till the other day that Alphonsus Pisanus a Jesuite publisheth them out of Pope Julius and I know not what Arabick book These men that can make both Councils and Canons at their pleasure above a thousand years after the supposed time of their existence do never need to want authority And indeed this is a cheaper way of Canon-making in a corner then to trouble all the Bishops in the world with a great deal of cost and travail to make them But if this be the foundation the building is answerable Their Bishop Zosimus had not been acquainted with these new Articles of an old Council when he put his trick upon the sixth Council of Carthage where for the advancement of his power though not to an universall Monarchy yet to a preparative degree he layeth his claim from the Council of Nice as saying Placuit ut si Episcopus accusatus fuerit c. which was that If an ejected Bishop appeal to Rome the Bishop of Rome appoint some of the next province to judge or if yet he destre his cause to be heard the Bishop of Rome shall appoint a Presbyter his Legate c. In this Council were 217. Bishops Aurelius being president and Augustine being one They told the Pope that they would yield to him till the true copies of the Council of Nice were searched for those that they had seen had none of them those words in that Zosimus alledged Hereupon they send abroad to the Churches of the East to Constantinople Alexandria Antioch c. for the ancient Canons From hence they received several copies which all agreed but none of them had either Zosimus forgery in nor the forged clause which Bellarmine must have in much less the eighty Canons of Pisanus the Jesuite or this one which H. T. doth found his succession on but only the twenty Canons there mentioned which have not a word for the Popes Soveraignty And here note 1. That Zosimus knew not then of Pisanus Canons or else he would have alledged them nor yet of Bellarmines new part of a Canon for the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome 2. That Zosimus himself had not the faith the wit or the memory to plead either Scripture Apostolical Institution or Tradition for his priviledge but only a false Canon of the Council of Nice as looking no higher it seems for his authority 3. How early the Roman Bishops begun both to aspire and make use of forgeries to accomplish it 4. That there was no such Apostolick or Church Tradition for this Roman power as our Masters of Tradition now plead for which all the Catholick Church must know For the whole Council with all the Churches of Constantinople Alexandria Antioch c. that is in a manner all save Rome were ignorant of that which Zosimus would have had them believe and Bellarmine and H. T. would have us to believe 5. Note also how little the Church then believed the Popes infallibility 6. Yea Note how upon the reception of the several Copies of the Nicene Canons they modestly convicted Zosimus of falshood And how the Council resolved against his usurpation See in the African Councils the Epistle of Cyril and Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople and the Epistles of the Council to Boniface and Celestine In their Epistle to Boniface before they had received their answers from other Churches about the Nicene Canons they tell him that they believed they should not suffer that Arrogancy non sumus istum typhum passuri But to Celestine they conclude more plainly though modestly Presbyterorum quoque sequentium c. i. e. Let your holiness as beseemeth you repell the wicked refuges of Presbyters and the Clergy that follow them because this is not derogate or taken from the African Church by any Definition of the Fathers and the Nicene Decrees most plainly committed both the inferiour Clergy and Bishops themselves to the Metropolitans For they did most prudently and most justly provide that all businesses N. B. all should be ended in the very places where they begun and the Grace of the holy Ghost will not or should not be wanting to each province which equity should by the Priests of Christ be prudently observed and most constantly maintained Especially because it is granted to every one to appeal to the Councils of their own Province or to a Universall Council if he be offended with the judgement of the Cognitors Unless there should be any one that can think that our God can inspire a justice of tryall into any one man N. B. and deny it to innumerable Priests that are congregated in Councill Or how can that judgement that 's past beyond sea be valid to which the necessary persons of the witness
And they extoll Cyril equally with Celestine Novo Paulo Celestine they forgot Peter Novo Paulo Cyrillo Unu◠Celestinus Unus Cyrillus c. The next witness brought is the Council of Calcedon as caling Leo Universal Archbishop and Patriarch of old Rome and sentence is pronounced against Dioscorus in the names of Leo and Saint Peter Answ 1. This is but one of your common frauds It was not the Council that called him universall Archbishop but two Deacons in the superscription of their Libels viz. Thedodorus and Ischirion And were they the Catholick Church 2. By Universal Archbishop it s plain that they meant no more then the chief in dignity and order of all Archbishops and not the Governour of all 3. I have shewed you before that this very Council in its Canons not only give the Bishop of Constantinople equal priviledges with the Bishop of Rome but expresly say that Rome received this primacy of order à patribus from a Council because it was Sedes Imperii the seat of the Emperour I thought I had given you enough of this Council before Sure I am when Bellarmine comes to this Canon he hath nothing to say for his cause but plainly to charge this famous fourth General Council with lying or falshood and to say that the Pope approved not this Canon But approved or not approved if this was the Catholick Church representative sure I am that their testimony is valid to prove that there was then no Catholick reception of the Roman Monarchy as of God but contrarily a meer primacy of Dignity and Honour given it newly by men In the sixth age he had not one Council to pretend it seems for the Roman Soveraignty for he cites none but about other matters of which anon In the seventh age which he calls the sixth though then the Soveraignty was claimed by Boniface he citeth no Council for it niether In the eighth age from the year seven hundred he cites the second Council of Nice as approving an Epistle of Pope Adrian wherein he saith that the Roman Church is the Head of all Churches Answ 1. But whether Adrian himself by the Head meant the chief in Dignity or the Governour of all is a great doubt 2. But whatever he meant the Synods approving his Epistle for Images is no proof that they approved every word in it 3. Yea Tharasius seems to imply the contrary calling him only Veteris Romae primas testatorum principum successor as if his Sea had the Priviledge only of being the Primate of Rome and not the Ruler of the world 4. But if this Council did as it did not openly own the Papal Soveraignty it had been no great honour to him For as in their decrees for Images they contradicted two Councils at Constantinople and that at Frankford contradicteth them so might they as well contradict the Church in this Even as they defined Angels to be corporeal which the Council of Laterane afterward contradicted But the plain truth is it was the scope of Adrians Epistle as for Images which they expressed themselves to approve And that their Image-worship it self hath no Catholick succession me thinks they should easily grant considering not only 1. That there is nothing in the first ages for them 2. And that Epiphanius and many before him speak expresly against it 3. But specially that there have been more General Councils of those ages against them then for them and that before this of Nice decreed for them the representative Catholick Church except still the Pope be the Catholick Church did condemn them I suppose by this time you will think it needless for me to follow H. T. any further in his Catalogue I am content that any impartial sober person judge whether here be a satisfactory proof of a Catholick succession of the Papal Soveraignty when through so many ages they bring not a word for any succession at all much less that it was owned by the Catholick Church and least of all that all the rest of Popery was so owned Object But at least some other points of Popery are proved by H. T. to have such a succession Answ Peruse his proofs and freely judge Two of the thirty two Articles which I mentioned before he speaks to The one is that Bishops Priests and Deacons should abstain from their Wives or be degraded But 1. The Council which he cites for this is but a Provincial Council in Spain in the fifth Age and what 's this to Catholick succession 2. The Evidences for the Antiquity of Priests marriages are so clear and numerous that I will not thank any of them to confess their doctrine a Novelty 1 Cor. 9. 5. Have we not power to lead about a Sister a Wife as well as other Apostles and as the brethren of the Lord and Cephas I hope they will not deny that Peter had a Wife 1 Tim. 3. 2 4. A Bishop must be blameless the husband of one Wife One that ruleth well his own house having his children in subjection with all gravity ver 12. Let the Deacons be the husbands of one wife ruling their children and their own houses well Tit. 1. 7. If any be blameless the husband of one Wife having faithfull children The Antient Canons called the Apostles say Can. 6. Let not a Bishop or Presbyter put away his own Wife on pretence of Religion And if he reject her let him be excommunicated but if he persevere let him be deposed Let Bellarmine perswade those that will believe him that this Canon speaks but of denying them maintenance Canons as well as Scripture are unintelligible to these men The Canons at Trull of the fifth and sixth Council do expresly expound this Apostolick Canon as I do here and they profess it was the Apostles concession then to the Bishops to marry and they themselves forbid any to separate Priests from their Wives and professedly oppose the Roman Church in it Can. 12 13. For this Bellarmine lib. 2. cap. 27. de Pontif. Rom. reproacheth them and that 's his answer Forsooth the Pope approved not these Canons 1. Let Adrians words be read and then judge 2. What if he did not Our enquiry is of Catholick Tradition and succession and not of the Popes opinion But it s easie to bring much more for this Another point that H. T. proves is The same Canon of Scripture which they own And for this he brings one Provincial Council Carth. 3. as in the sixth Age. An excellent proof of Catholick succession through all Ages But have we not better proof of the contrary Let him that would be satisfied peruse these records and judge Euseb Eccles Hist l. 3. cap. 9. vel 10. and there Joseph li. 1. cont Apion Constitut Apostol whosoever was the author lib. 2. cap. 57. Canon Apostult Dionys Eccl. Hier. cap. 3. Melet. in Euseb Eccl. Histor lib. 5. cap. 24. Origen in Niceph. hist Eccles lib. 5. cap. 16. Orig. Philocal cap. 3. Euseb Hist l. 6. cap.
the Churches live under Mahometans and other Infidels that will not give them leave to travail so far into the Countries of Christian Princes on such occasions They hate us and our Religion They are oft at war with us and then would hang those Bishops as Intelligencers that should offer to come among us 4. And they must many of them pass through the Countries of other Princes that are Infidels and oft in war with the parts which they come from or go to And it cannot be expected that in such cases they should allow them passage through their Countries If one do all will not When poor Lithgow had travailed nineteen years he was tortured strappado'd and disjoynted and made a cripple at Malaga in the Spanish Inquisition And thanked God and the English Embassador that he sped so well 5. Even at home in Europe the Princes are so commonly in Wars as are France Spain Venice Sweden Denmark Poland the Emperor Brandenburgh Holland Portugal England Transylvania c. at this very day that there is not the least probability that they should all or half consent to have so many of their subjects pass into their enemies Countries to reside so long Jealousies raised by particular Interests would make it Treason 6. Moreover many Princes understand that the Pope hath no power to call such Councils nor any man else and they know the design of the Pope to subject the world to himself And therefore they will abhor that their subjects should travail so far at his call that hath such designs or at another mans that hath no authority to call them This hath made the Emperor of Habassia so resolutely resist the Popes pretensions as Godignus Maffaeus and others do declare Few Princes will endure to have their subjects brought under a forreign Power 7. And if you suppose all the Bishops come to the Council the very number out of all the Christian world to make any thing like a General Council would be so great as would be unfit for one or two or ten or twenty Council houses or Assemblies 8. And they would be uncapable of conferring through diversity of languages Few of the Abassines Egyptians Syrians Armenians or of most of the world understand and speak any language that would commonly be understood and used in a Council Nor is it possible to do it by Interpreters For so many Interpreters cannot be used to tell all that understand not what every man saith and to expound their minds to others This would waste an age in a Council so that such a Council would be a very Babel 9. And Councils use to be so long that it cannot be expected that after so many years journey old men should live to see the issue or do any great matters there Eighteen years at Trent would consume a great many of the Bishops How many even of the Popes own Legates dyed before that Council could be finished 10. And if they should live to see the end can you dream that they should live to perform the like tedious dangerous journeys and voyages to bring back the Decrees of the Councill to their Churches Judge now whether such Councils are not Naturally Impossible I will add but this No men can be compelled And to make all the world at once agree to so difficult a task and agree upon the time and place must be a Miracle One will be for it and another against it One for one time and place and another for another through most of the world We see how hardly any two Princes can agree upon times places and all circumstances in their Treaties 2. Let us next enquire of what Necessity such a Council is If it be Necessary for Church government it is either to make Laws or to execute them But for neither of these therefore they are not Necessary 1. Christ hath made us Laws already sufficient for salvation And I hope he hath not constituted so loose a Society and left his Body to such mutations as that they must so frequently have new Laws And if it must sure it must be from their Soveraign who hath reserved the Legislative Power to himself as his Prerogative Legislation is the highest act of Supremacy and chief flower in the Crown of Soveraignty The Church is Christs subjects and shall subjects make their own Laws Scripture is sufficient If this be all that we need General Councils for to make Universal Laws to the Church we can spare them as well as Traytors in a Common-wealth And for Execution of Laws it is either Magisterial by force of the Sword and this they have nothing to do with it being the Princes right Or it is for the Excommunicating Church offenders And to cast them out of particular Churches is the work of the Pastors of those Churches Others cannot know the persons and hear the cause If all church-Church-causes should come to a General Council Millions of men must be attending them at once And if it be to judge who shall be cast out of the Communion of the Churches and what Churches themselves are to be excommunicated the Synods of neighbour Pastors are to do as much of that as is to be done Where then is the Necessity of such Councils at such rates Augustine said that drunkenness in his time was grown so strong that there must be a Council to suppress it Could they do such feats as to cure Drunkenness Whoredom Covetousness Pride I would be for them 3. If a General Council were called it must be a most unjust Assembly For 1. It would be guilty of cruelty and destroying the Church of Christ by killing so many of the Pastors as aforesaid 2. It would be guilty of cruelty and Church destoying by the starving and desertion of the flocks at home What will become of the poor peoples souls when they are left to the Wolves to Hereticks and Deceivers and to the temptations of their own flesh and the world being for ten or twenty years or for ever deprived of their Pastors under pretense of a General Council Basil in his seventieth Epistle tells the Western Bishops that they of the East could not come to solicite their own cause with them For saith he If any one of us N. B. do for the least moment leave his Church he presently leaveth his people to deceivers And on this ground he shews that they could not so much as spare Bishops to be meer Messengers to them Much less could they have spared a sufficient number to stay seven or ten years together If any think that such Necessities are unusuall he knows not the world And Councils are most usefull if ever when necessities are greatest 3. In Councils things are carried by Votes and so Abassia Armenia Mexico and places so remote that they can send but one or two would be out-voted by that corner of the world where the Council is called that can send in proportionably an hundred for one and so under the name of
a General Council a faction might promote any heresie or carnal interest and no Churches would be so enslaved as those that send at the dearest rates Italy and a few more parts at Trent would over-vote all the Churches of East and South and set up what interest or opinion they please And so if one corner of the Church can err all may err for all the Council Where there is an equal interest there should be an equal power in Councils which will certainly be otherwise 4. If the Pope be he that must call General Councils we shall have none till it will stand with his interest And if he have not the power of calling them no one else hath for none pretendeth to it And if they must be called by universal consent three hundred years is little enough for all the world to treat of the time place and other circumstances and consent 5. And if the Pope must call them he will easily by the very choice of the place procure the accomplishment of his own designs 6. Those that think it the Popes prerogative to call a Council do also affirm as I before shewed in the express words of Binnius and others that a Council hath no more power then the Pope will give them and that when they are convened by him and have done their work it is all of no Validity if he allow it not If he approve one half that half is valid and his approbation will make their Decrees the Articles of our faith when as the other half which he disapproveth shall not be worth a straw And is it not a most foolish thing for all the world to put themselves to so much charge to defray the expenses of their Bishops and hazzard their lives and lose their labours at home for so many years and hazzard the Churches by their absence when for ought they know the Bishops of the whole Christian world do but lose all their labour and nothing shall be valid if they please not the Pope of Rome And is it not most abominable justice in him thus to put all the world to trouble and cost and hazzard the Churches and the Pastors lives for nothing when if the infallible spirit be only in himself he might have done the work himself and saved all this cost and labour 7. By what Justice shall all the Catholick Church be obliged by the Decrees of such a General Council Is it by Law or Contract If by Law it is by Divine Law or by Humane If by Divine let it be shewed that ever God made such a Government for the Catholick Church and then take all If by Humane Laws it is impossible and therefore not to be affirmed For no Humane Soveraign hath power to make Laws for all the world If you say is it by contract then 1. All those Nations that thought not meet to send any Bishops to the Council will be free 2. And so will all those be that sent Bishops who dissented from the rest For contract or Consent bindeth none but Contracters or Consenters And so England is not bound by the Council of Nice Ephesus Calcedon Constantinople c. 8. By what Justice shall any people be required to send Delegates on such terms as these to Councils or to stand to their definitions when they have done When our faith and souls are preciouser things then so boldly to cast upon the trust of a few Delegates so to be chosen and employed What Bishops other Countries will choose we know not And for our own 1. In almost all Countries it is the Princes that choose or none must be chosen but who they will which is all one 2. If the Bishops choose it s those that are highest with the secular power that will have the choice who perhaps may choose such as are contrary to the judgement of most of that Church that is thought to choose them Most Nations have a Clergy much at difference The Remonstrants and Contramonstrants in Holland would not have chosen like members for the Synod In the Bishops days men of one mind were chosen here in England to Convocations The next year we had a Learned Assembly that put down the Prelacy for which a Convocation had formed an Oath to be imposed on all Ministers but a little before And why should the judgment of the Prelates be taken for the judgement of the Church of England any more then the other when for number learning and piety to say the least they had no advantage laying aside ignorant ungodly men in point of number Till the Spanish match began to be treated on the Bishops of England were ten if not twenty to one Augustinians Calvinists or Antiarminians Now the Arminians would be thought the Church of England and their doctrine agreeable to the doctrine of that Church Would they not accordingly have differed if they had been sent to a General Council How bitterly are the Articles of the Church of Ireland decryed by the Arminian Bishops since sprung up both in Ireland and England so that if Delegates be sent to any Council they may speak the minds of those that sent them which perhaps is the King or a small prevailing party but not of the rest which perhaps may the best and most If Jeremiah of Constantinople be of a Council he will go one way If Cyril be of a Council he will go another way And his counterfeit Successor undo what he did 9. No Church that sendeth three or four Bishops to represent a thousand or two thousand Pastors can be sure how those Bishops will carry it when they come thither For ought we know they may betray our cause and cross their instructions They may be perverted by the reasonings of erroneous men or bribed by the powerfull And to cast our faith on so slender an assurance is little wisdom 10. If consent only bind us to the Decrees of Councils to submit to them as our Rule then is Posterity bound that did not consent as their Fathers did or are they not If not we are free If yea by what bond And then why do not the Grotians in Ireland and England obey the Antiarminian Decrees of the Churches in both Did not the Church of England send Bishop Carlton Bishop Hall Bishop Davenant afterward a Bishop Dr. Ward Dr. Goad and Balcanquall Episcopal Divines to the Synod of Dort and so England was a part of that Synod And yet the Grotians and Arminians think not themselves bound to receive the Doctrine of that Synod nor to forbear reproaching it 11. It is unjust that any especially most of the Churches should be obliged by the votes of others and oppressed by Majority meerly because their distance or poverty or the age or weakness of their Pastors disableth them to send any or an equal number or to defray the charge of their abode c. Ah if good Pope Zachary or Archbishop Boniface had considered that the essence or unity of the Church
head or Soveraigns of the Church The Major is of unquestionable verity in Politicks Legislation is the first and chief work of Soveraignty The Minor is proved 1. Ad hominem by the confession of the chief Opponents Grotius de Imperio summar potest doth purposely maintain it and so do others See of this Lud. Molinaeus new Book supposed against the Presbyterians his Paraenesis 2. It is the high Prerogative of Christ the true King and Soveraign of the Church which none must arrogate He was faithfull in all his house as was Moses His Law is perfect It is sufficient to make the man of God perfect even a sufficient rule of faith and life No man must add thereto nor take ought therefrom but do whatsoever he hath commanded Deut. 12. 32. To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to these it is because there is no light in them Isa 8. 20. Object But men may make By-laws under Christ and his Laws Answ True but as those are in this case no proper Laws so no man or men may make them for the Unversal Church For the business of those Laws is only to determine of circumstances which God hath made necessary in genere and left to the determination of men in specie And we may well know that there was some special reason why Christ did not determine of these himself And the reason is plain even because that they depend so much on the several states capacities customs c. of men that they are to be varied accordingly in several times and places If one standing Law would have fitted all the world or all ages in these matters Christ would have made it himself For if you say he makes some Laws and neglect others that are of the like kind and might as well have been done by himself you make him imperfect and insufficient to his work And if it be not fit that one Universal Law be made for the world then a Council must not make it And as the sufficiency of Christs law so the nature of the things declare it that these matters must not be determined of by an universal Law Should there be an universal Law to determine what day of the week or what hour of the day every Lecture or occasional Sermon shall be on Or what place every Congregation shall meet in Or where the Minister shall stand to preach Or what Chapters he should read each day Or what Text he should preach on or how long Whether by an hour-glass or without in what habit of apparrel particularly when many a poor man must wear such as he can get yea or what gestures or postures of body to use when that gesture in one Countrey signifieth reverence which in another rather signifieth neglect with abundance the like And the same is plain from the nature of the Pastoral office Every Bishop or Pastor is made by Christ the Ruler of the flock in such cases and they are bound to obey him Heb. 13. 17. And therefore a General Council must leave them their work to do which Christ hath put upon them and not take it out of their hands especially when being in the place and seeing the variety of circumstances they are more competent judges then a General Council at such distance The plain truth is Christ hath left them none of that work to do which belongeth to a Head or Soveraign but they make work for themselves that there may seem to be a Necessity of a power to do it The Church needeth none of their Laws Let us have but the Holy Scriptures and the Law of Nature and the civil Laws of men and the guidance of particular Pastors pro tempore and the fraternal Consultations and Agreements of Councils not to make any more work but to do this foresaid work unanimously and the Church can bear no more there is nothing left for Legislators Ecclesiastical to do We can spare their Laws and therefore their power and work Their business is but to make snares and burdens for us and therefore we can live without them and cannot believe that the felicity or unity or essence of the Church consisteth in them Argum. 7. All the inferior officers do derive their power from the supream All the other officers of the Catholick Church do not derive their power from the Pope or a General Council therefore a Pope or General Council are not the supream The Major is an unquestioned Maxime in Politicks It s essential to the Sovereaign to be the fountain of power to all under him Yea if it be but a deputed derived Soveraignty secundum quid so called as the Viceroy of Mexico Naples c. yet so far he must be the fountain of all inferiour power The Minor is maintained by most Christians in the world Every Bishop or Presbyter hath his power immediately from Jesus Christ as the Efficient cause though man must be an occasion or causa sine qua non or per accidens The Italian Bishops in the Council of Trent could not carry it against the Spaniards that the Pope only as Head was immediately jure divino and the rest but mediante Papa Moreover it is easie to prove out of Scripture that God never set up any Soveraign power in his Church personal or collective to be the fountain of all other Church power nor sendeth us to have recourse to any such for it Nor can they prove such a power on whom it is incumbent And lastly its most easie to prove de facto that the Bishops or Presbyters now in the several Churches in the world did not receive and do not hold their power from any such visible Head whether Pope or Council Though the Popelings do yet so do not all the rest of the Christian world Who are not therefore no Ministers or no Church of Christ whatever these bare affirmers and pretenders may imagine Nor are all the Ministerial actions in the world null which are not done by a power from him And even the Papists themselves will few of them pretend to receive their several powers of Priesthood from a General Council This therefore is not the Soveraign power or head of the Church Argum. 8. The Head or Soveraign Power hath the finally decisive Judgement and in great causes all must or may appeal to them A General Council hath not the finally decisive judgement nor may all men in great causes appeal to them Therefore a General Council is not the Head or Soveraign power The Major is undenyable The Minor is proved 1. In that it is not known nor hath the world any rule or way to know in what cases we must appeal to a General Council and what not and what is their proper work 2. In that an appeal to them is an absolute evasion of the guilty and in vain to the innocent because of the rarity of such Councils or rather the nullity 3. Because the prosecuting of such an Appeal
absent from home is but to give up the Church to Infidelity or Impiety unless the Bishops be such things as the Church can spare 9. When they come together they cannot many of them understand one another because of the diversity of their languages 10. And the Number would be so great that ten or twenty Council-houses or rooms would not hold them so that they could not Converse in one Assembly so that a true General Council now is but a name to amuse those that think the world is no bigger then a man may ride over in a weeks journey 6. And yet even this Definition of Binnius is ridiculous For he makes it enough that all the Bishops of the world may and ought to be there whether they be there or not But then what if laziness or danger deterr them or detain them Is that a Council where Bishops ought to be and are not How many must de facto be present any or none Prove if you can that forty Bishops are a General Council because the rest ought to be there And who shall be judge of each mans case whether he could or ought to have been there will you judge men before they are heard or their cause known Your saying that they ought to have been there is no proof And yet Binnius hath one exception unless lawfully hindred Good still If all the Bishops in the world be lawfully hindered it seems it is a General Council when no body is there You see now what you put the poor Papists too if you put them to define a General Council or tell you what they mean by that word And therefore I again advise you let them not befool you with empty or ambiguous words And when they are all to pieces among themselves let them not make you believe they are united by agreeing in One word when they are several things that are meant by that one word CHAP. XIX Detect 10. VVHen they go about from Councils or other History to prove the Soveraignty of the Pope let them not cheat you by confounding 1. An humane Ordinance with a Divine 2. And an alterable point of Order with an unalterable essential part of the Church 3. Or a meer Primacy in the same Order or office with a Governing Soveraignty or a different Order or office First therefore we would learn of them whether the preheminence and order of the five Patriarchal Sees began not about the first General Council to be lookt after but was setled some while after For till there were General Councils such as were so called there was no great occasion of determining which should have the first second or third seat 2. Or when ever the time was yet we enquire whether these other Sees as of Jerusalem Antioch Alexandria or some of them were not Patriarchal as soon as Rome and whether Councils that speak of priority or posteriority do not in the same manner and on the same grounds and to the same ends give Alexandria and Antioch their places as they give to Rome the first place Surely we find them speaking of them as matters of the same Order and nature saying Rome shall have the first place or seat Constantinople the second Alexandria the third Antioch the fourth and Jerusalem the fifth 4. And therefore we enquire whether all these have not the same kind of right to their preheminence whether it be Divine or Humane And that the very foundation of this Patriarchall order yea of Romes Patriarchall Primacy which was the preparative to its universal Soveraignty was not a meer humane invention given on occasion of the Imperiall seat at Rome and not any institution of Christ to Peter and his Successors I desire you not to take from my word but all that will not be fool'd out of all Historicall verity by Popish audacity let them take it from the express words of the fourth great approved General Council viz. of Calcedon which the poor Jacobites and other Churches of the East and South are so reproached for rejecting In Act. 16. Binnii pag. 134. these are their words Definitiones Sanctorum Patrum sequentes ubique Regulam quae nunc relecta sunt 150. Deo amantissimorum Episcoporum qui congregati sunt sub piae memoriae Imperatore majore Theodosio in Regia civitate Constantinop Nova Roma cognoscentes nos eadem definivimus de privilegiis ejusdem Sanctissimae Constantinop Ecclesiae novae Romae Etenim sedi Senioris Romae propter Imperium civitatis illius N. B. patres consequenter privilegia reddiderunt Et eadem intentione permoti 150. Deo amantissimi Episcopi aequa sanctissimae sedi novae Romae privilegia tribuerunt rationabiliter judicantes Imperio Senatu Urbem ornatam aequis Senioris Regiae Romae privilegiis frui i. e. We following alway the Definitions of the holy fathers and the Canon and knowing those that now have been read of the hundred and fifty Bishops most beloved of God that were Congregated under the Emperour of pious memory Theodosius the Greater in the Royall City Constantinople new Rome have our selves also defined the same things concerning the Priviledges of the same most holy Church of Constantinople new Rome For to the seat of old Rome because of the Empire of that City the Fathers consequently gave the Priviledges And the hundred and fifty Bishops most beloved of God being moved with the same intention have given equall Priviledges to the most holy Seat of New Rome reasonably judging than the City adorned with the Empire and Senate shall enjoy equal Priviledges with old Regal Rome I do not stand to note that this Council was called by Martian that his Lay Officers were called the Judges or how light the Council made of Rome when they said Qui contradicunt Nestoriani sunt qui contradicunt Romam ambulent Bin. p. 98. Nor do I stand so much on it that they gave Constantinople equal priviledges But it may confound all the Papal Juglers on earth to find an approved General Council affirming 1. That Romes Priviledges even its meer primacy were given by the Fathers 2. And that because it was the Imperial City 3. And therefore on the same reason they do the like by Constantinople 4. And that the General Council of Constant had gone before them on these grounds so that you have the vote of two of the first four great General Councils that it was not so from the beginning nor an Apostolical Tradition but the act of the Fathers because of the Imperial City If a General Council can err Popery is a deceit If it cannot err then the very Primacy of order in the Pope was then but new and humane on a Carnal ground done by man that might do the like by others and therefore undo this again But say they Pope Leo confirmed not this Answ 1. Still then the Church Representative it seems may err and the Pope only is infallible 2. Leo and his Delegates were offended
we have your own Confessions I have elsewhere mentioned some Canus Loc. Theol. lib. 6. cap. 7. fol. 201. saith Not only the Greeks but almost all the rest of the Bishops of the whole world have vehemently fought to destroy the Priviledge of the Church of Rome and indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperors and the greater number of Churches and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the one Pope of Rome Mark here whether the Catholick Church was then your subjects when the greater number of Churches and most of the Bishops of the whole world as well as the Greeks were against you and vehemently fought against your pretended priviledges Rainerius supposed contra Waldenses Catal. in Bibliotheca Patrum Tom. 4. pag. 773. saith The Churches of the Armenians and Ethiopians and Indians and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome Read and blush and call Baronius a parasite What would you have truer or plainer And what Controversie can there be where so many Nations themselves are witnesses against you And you may conjecture at the numbers of those Churches by what a Legate of the Popes that lived among them saith of one Corner of them Jacob. Ã Vitriaco Histor Orient cap. 77. that the Churches in the Easterly parts of Asia alone exceeded in multitude the Christians both of the Greek and Latine Churches Alas how little a thing then was the Roman Catholick Church If all this were not enough the Tradition of your own Catholick Church is ready to destroy the Papacy utterly For that a General Council is above the Pope and may judge him and depose him and that is de fide and that its Heresie to deny it and that all this is so jure that ne unquam aliquis peritorum dubitavit no wise man ever doubted of it all this is the judgement of the General Council of Basil with whom that of Constance doth agree And whether these Councils were confirmed or not they confess them lawfully called and owned and extraordinary full and so they were their Catholick Church Representative and so the Popes Soveraignty over the Council is gone by I radition but that 's not the worst For if a free General Council should be called all the Churches in the world must be equally there represented And if they were so then down went the usurped Head-ship of the Pope For we are sure already that most of the Churches in the world are against it and therefore in Council they would have the Major vote And thus by the concession of the Roman Representative Catholick Church the Pope is gone by Tradition So that by that time they have well considered of the matter me thinks they should be less zealous for Tradition CHAP. XXI Detect 12. ANother of the Roman frauds is this They perswade men that the Greeks the Protestants and all other Churches were once under their Papal soveraignty and have separated themselves without any just cause and therefore we are all schismaticks and thereforefore have no vote in general Councils c. A few words may serve to shew the vanity of this accusation 1. Abundance of the Churches were so strange to you that they had not any notable communion with you 2. The Greek Churches withdrew from your Communion but not from your subjection If any of the Patriarcks or Emperours of Constantinople did for carnal ends at last submit to you it was not till lately nor was it the act of the Churches nor owned nor of long continuance So that it was your Communion and not your subjection that they withdrew from 2. And as for us of the Western parts we answer you 1. We that are now living our Fathers or our Grand-fathers were not of your Church and therefore we never did withdraw 2. There were Churches in England before the Roman Power was here owned And therefore if it was a sin to change the first change was the sin when they subjected themselves to you and not the later in which they returned to their ancient state 3. And for the Germanes or English or whoever did relinquish you they have as good reason for it as for the relinquishing of any other sin If they did by the unhappiness of ill education or delusion submit to the usurped Soveraignty of the Pope they had no reason to continue in such an error Repentance is not a Vice when the thing Repented of is a vice Justifie therefore your usurpation or else it is in vain to be angry with us for not adhering to the usurper and the many corruptions that he brought into the Church CHAP. XXII Detect 13. ANother deceit that they manage with great confidence is this say they If the Church of Rome be the true Church then yours is not the true Church and then you are Shismaticks in separating from it But the Church of Rome is the true Church For you will confess it was once a true Church when Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans and if it ceased to be a true Church tell us when it ceased if you can If it ceased to be a true Church it was either by heresie or Schism or Apostacy but by none of these therefore c. A man would think that children and women should see the palpable fallacy of this Argument and yet I hear of few that the learned Papists make more use of But to lay open the shame of it in brief I answer 1. The deceit lieth in the ambiguity of the word Church As to our present purpose observe that it hath these several significations 1. It is taken oft in Scripture for one particular Church associated for personal communon in Gods Worship And thus there were many Churches in a Countrey as Judea Galatia c. 2. It is taken by Ecclesiastical writers often for an Association of many of these Churches for Communion by their Pastors such as were Diocesan Provincial National Churches whereof most were then ruled by Assemblies where a Bishop Archbishop Metropolitan or Patriarck as they called them did preside 3. It is taken oft in Scripture for the Body of Christ the holy Catholick or Universal Church containing all true Believers as mystical or all Professors of true faith as visible 4. It is taken by the Papists oft for one particular Church which is the Mistris or Ruler of all other Churches And now I come to apply these in answer to the argument 1. If the Question be of a true particular Church we grant you that the Church of Rome was a true and noble Church in the daies of Paul and long after and thus Paul owneth it in his Epistle as a true Church And to the question when it ceased to be a true Church I answer 1. What matter is it to us whether it be reasoned or not any more then whether Corinth Ephesus Coloss Thessalonica or Jerusalem be true Churches or ceased In charity we regard them all
at least be at a greater distance from them then before For such a war will never out of his mind nor will he think himself safe till he hath disabled them from doing the like again But if one part conquer it will be the King or the Puritans for so the Protestants must now be caled If the King prevail then will the Puritans be totally trod down and we by whose help the victory was got shall certainly be incomparably better then we are if not have presently all our will For our fidelity will be predicated the Rebells will be odious So that their very names will be a scorn and there will be no great resistance of us For saith Mr. Middleton in his Letter to the A. B. of Canterb. in Prins Introduct p. 142 143. The Jesuite at Florence lately returned from England who pretends to have made a strict discovery of the state of England as it stands for Religion saith that the Puritans are shrewd fellows but those which are counted good Protestants are fair conditioned honest men and think they may be saved in any Religion But if the Puritans get the day which is a most unlikely thing yet shall we make great advantage of it For 1. They will be unsettled and all in pieces and not know how to settle the Government And saith the Jesuites Letter found in the A. B. of Cant. Study in Prins Introduct pag. 89 90. Our foundation must be Mutation this will cause a Relaxation which serves as so many violent diseases as the Stone Gout c. to the speedy destruction c. 2. We shall necessitate the Puritan Protestants to keep the King as a Prisoner or else to put him to death If they keep him as a Prisoner his diligence and friends and their own divisions will either work his deliverance and give him the day again by our help or at least will keep the State in a continual unsettledness and will be an Odium on them If they cut him off which we will rather promote lest they should make use of his extremities to any advantage then 1. We shall procure the Odium of King-killing to fall upon them which they are wont to cast upon us and so shall be able to disburden our selves 2. And we shall have them all to pieces in distractions For 3. Either they will then set up a new King or the Parliament will keep the power changing the Government into a Democracy The first cannot be done without great concussions and new wars and we shall have opportunity to have a hand in all And if it be done it may be much to our advantage The second will apparently by factions and distractions give us footing for continual attempts But to make all sure we will secretly have our party among the Puritans also that we may be sure to maintain our Interest which way ever the world go The event with common reason and many full discoveries shew that this was the frame of the Papists plot And what power and interest they had in the Kings Armies and Counsels in the wars is a thing that needs no further discovery But had they any Interest in the Councils and Forces of the Parliament Answ It will be expected that he that asserteth any thing in matters of this moment should prove it by more then moral evidence of greatest probabilities and therefore I shall be sparing in my Assertions but yet I shall say in general that though the business would be troublesome chargeable and tedious to call together the Witnesses that are necessary yet Witnesses and Evidences may be had to prove that the Papists have had more to do in our affairs then most men are aware of without any positive Assertions therefore I desire them that can see a cause in its effects but to follow these streams till they find the Fountain 1. Whence came those motions against the Ministry and Churches into our Councils Whence was it that so many men of note did call the friends of the Ministry Priest ridden fellows and the Ministers Iack Presbyters to teach the Nation to bring them into scorn I well know that all this came from Hell But whether by the way of Rome I leave to your inquiry Yea whence was it that motions have been made to pull down all the Ministry at once Was this by Protestants 2. Whence came the doctrine contended for by Sir H. V. and others against the Power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion and for Universal Liberty in Religion I know the Papists are not for such liberty in Spain or any where where they can hinder it but with all I know that it is one of their fundamentals that such matters belong only to the Pope and Prelates and Magistrates must but be their Executioners and I know that its truly the Magistrates Power for which the usurping Pope contendeth and I know that the Papists are most Zealous for Liberty of Conscience in England though deadly enemies to it elsewhere 3. And whence came the Hiders Body of Divinity that hath infected so many high and low How come so many called Seekers to seem to be at a loss whether there be any Scripture Church or Ministry or which be they 4. How came we contrived into a war with Scotland and Holland when we could keep Peace with Spain with them or us or both there was some sorry cause 5. How came our Armies so corrupted with principles of impiety Licentiousness and Anarchy that so many turned Levellers to say nothing of all the rest and rose up against their Commanders and were fain to be subdued by force and some of them shot to death and many cashiered c. 6. How came it to pass that Papists have been discovered in our Armies and in the several parties in the Land 7. And where are the swarms of the English Jesuites and Fryars that are known to have emptyed themselves upon us from their Colledges beyond Sea 8. How came it to pass that the Petitions of the Protestant Presbyters of London and of other Protestants for the Life of the King could not be heard but that the Levelling party carryed on their work till they had set the forreign and domestick Papists on reproaching the Protestants as King-killers and had though very falsely turned the odium of that horrid kind of crime upon the innocent Protestants which the Papists are known to be most deeply guilty of And now in all Nations they make the ignorant people believe that the death of that King was the work of the Protestants or Presbyterians and the blot of their Religion 9. Whence came it to pass that Levelling went on with continued success till the House of Lords with the Regal Office was taken down and an engagement put on all those ductile souls that would take it to be True to the Common-wealth as established without a King or House of Lords 10. Whence came it that the Weekly News Books contained the
hath Articles besides those of the Creed But the Synod of Dort hath more But those in the Bull are new as Dr. Rivet will have it But very many learned men think otherwise that they are not new if they be rightly understood and that this appeareth by the places both of holy Scripture and of such as have ever been of great authority in the Church which are cited in the Margin of the Canons of Trent Pag. 35. And this is it which the Synod of Trent saith that in that Sacrament Jesus Christ true God truly man is really substantially conteined under the form of those sensible things yet not according to the naturall manner of existing but Sacramentally and by that way of existing which though we cannot express in words yet may we by cogitation illustrated by faith be certain that to God it is possible And the Council hath found words to express it that there is made a change of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and the whole substance of Wine into the Blood which conversion the Catholick Church calleth Transubstantiation Pag. 79. When the Synod of Trent saith that the Sacrament is to be adored with Divine worship it intends no more but that the Son of God himself is to be adored I le add no more but that which tells you who is a Papist with the Grotians and who is none Pag. 15. In that Epistle Grotius by Papists meant those that without any difference do approve of all the sayings and doings of Popes for honor or lucre sake as is usual Ibid. He tells us that by Papists he meaneth not them That saving the right of Kings and Bishops do give to the Pope or Bishop of Rome that Primacy which ancient custom and Canons and the Edicts of ancient Emperors and Kings assign them Which Primacy is not so much the Bishops as the very Roman Churches preferred before all other by common consent It 's well it hath so mutable a foundation so Liberius the Bishop being so lapsed that he was dead to the Church the Church of Rome retained its right and defended the cause of the Universal Church This and much more I had given the Reader before in Latine but because Mr. Pierce thinks that I wrong Grotius if you have it not in English I have born so much respect to his words and to the Reader as to remove the wrong and thus far to satisfie his desire Having told you some of the Occasion of this writing I shall add somewhat of the Reasons of it but the less because I have given you so much of them already in my foresaid Discovery of the Grotian Religion 1. My principal Reason is that before expressed that Popery may be pulled up by the very roots For Italians French and all build on this that the Church must have one visible Head 2. That I might take in those parties of the Papists that I have past by or said less to in the former Part of the Book 3. Because I see what Influence the conceit that I dispute against hath on the minds of many well-meaning less judicious people 4. Because I perceive in part what influence the design of Grotius had upon England in the changes that were the occasion of our late wars He saith himself Discuss pag. 16. That the labors of Grotius for the Peace of the Church were not displeasing to many equal men many know at Paris and many in all France many in Poland and Germany and not a few in England that are placid and lovers of peace For as for the now-raging Brownists and others like them with whom Dr. Rivet better agreeth then with the Bishops of England who can desire to please them that is not touched with their venom So that he had Episcopal Factors here in England And whereas some tell me that Grotius was no Papist because he professed his high esteem of the Church of England and say they had Church-preferment here offered him and thought to have accepted it I answer 1. Either it was Grotius in the first Edition or the Church of England in the second Edition then in the Press that this must be spoken of if true 2. Was not Franciscus a Sancta Clara still the Queens ghostly Father a Papist for all he reconciled the Doctrine of the Church of England to that of Rome Grotius and he did plainly manage the same design 3. Mr. Pierce assures you by his Defence that Grotius hath still his followers in England of the party that he called the Church of England And is it any more proof that Grotius was a Protestant for joyning with them then that they are Papists that joyn with him Is not his Doctrine here given you in his Englished words Do you doubt whether the Council of Trent were Papists This makes me remember the words of the late King to the Marquess of Worcester when the Marbuess came into the room to an appointed conference about religion with him leaned on D. Bayly's arm he told the King that he came leaning on a Doctor of his own Church and the King replyed My Lord I know not whether I should think the better of you for the Doctors sake or the worse of the Doctor for your sake or to this purpose And indeed the Doctor quickly shew'd by professing himself a Papist what an Episcopal Divine he was And I think we have as fair advantage to resolve us whether to think the better of Grotius for the Church of Englands sake or the worse of those that he called the Church of England and that were of his mind for Grotius sake In a late Treatise De Antiqua Ecclesiae Brittanicae libertate Diatribe written by I. B. a Divine of the Church of England and printed at Bruges 1656 pag. 34 35. Thes 4. it is averred That since the ancient liberty of the British Church was by the consent of the whole Kingdom resumed remaining Catholick in all other things it may retain that Liberty without losing its Catholicism and without any note of Schism or Heresie This Liberty then was the Reformation And this he saith was maintained by Barnes a Papist and Benedictine Monk and Priest in a M. S. entituled Catholico-Romanus Pacificus c. 3. and that for this sober work of his the Peaceable Monk though of unblamed life and unspotted fame was snatch out of the midst of Paris and stript of his habit and bound on a Horse-back like a Calf and violently carryed into Flanders and so to Rome and so to the Inquisition and then put among the Bedlams where he dyed and not contented with his death they defamed him to have dyed mad Though Rome give Peace no better entertainment the Learned Author thinks that France will and therefore adds concerning the French Church Quâcum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 optanda foret etiamnum veteris redintegratio concordiae quam constat plus mille ab hinc annis amicissime intercessisse inter
Councils are unjust because there can be no just satisfaction given by men that live at so vast a distance that this great number that come thither are truly Bishops yea or Presbyters either It s not possible under many years time so much as to take any satisfactory account of their ordination and abiding in that office and the truth of their deputations or elections And when in their elected Representative Councils there will be perpetual controversies between several parties as there is in Parliaments whether it be this man or that which is truly elected in how many years will all these be decided before they begin their work So that I may well conclude laying all these seven considerations together the distance of places the age and state of the Bishops the state of the Civil Governments which they live under their necessary labours at home and the ruine that will befall their Churches by so much absence the diversity of their languages the multitude of the Bishops and the difficulty of knowing the Ordination and Qualifications of persons so remote to prove their capacity I say all these together do plainly shew that such General Councils are impossible and unjust and therefore not the standing Government or form of the Church or the center of its Unity Argum. 4. As the Synod it self is impossible needless and unjust so it is Impossible that they should do the work of a Head or Soveraign Power if they could Assemble therefore they are not appointed thereunto The Antecedent is partly manifest by what is said from their different languages and other considerations Moreover 1. The persons that will have appeals to them and causes to be judged if really they will do the work of a Soveraign Power and Judge will be so many millions that there will be no room for them about their doors nor any leisure in many years to hear their causes If you say It was not so in former Councils I answer that is because they were not truly General or were called in such times when the Church did lie in a narrow compass and not in such remote parts of the world and because they were assembled indeed but occasionally to advise upon and determine some one particular mans case or few and never took upon them to be the Soveraign power or head of the Church or its essential form or Center of Unity 2. These millions of persons that have so many causes will have so far to travail that it will put them to great cost and labour to come and attend and bring all their witnesses And if they be not sounder bodyed then our English Souldiers the poor people of Mexico and other parts of those Indies to look no further will be a great part of them dead by the way before they can reach the General Council e. g. if it should be in the midst of Europe 3. And the Council will not be competent Judges of so many causes which by distance must needs be much unknown in many weighty Circumstances whose cognisance is necessary 4. And lastly such Councils will sit so seldom that the work will be undone Argum. 5. If God had intended that such a Council should have been the form of his Church or the necessary Governour of it he would have acquainted us with his will concerning some certain Power to summon them or would have authorized some or other to call such a Council But he hath not acquainted us with his will herein nor authorized any to call such a Council therefore it was not his intent that it should be the form or necessary Governour of his Church Either this Council must meet by an Authoritative call or by consent If by such a call who must call them The Popes pretense to this Authority is voluminously and unanswerà bly confuted long ago and it s well known what ever Baronius say that the ancient Councils were called by the Emperors and many since have been called by Emperours and Cardinals And if you say that it belongs to the Emperour I answer what hath he to do to summon the subjects of the French Spaniards Turks Aethiopian c And by this it appears that we never had true Universal Councils They were but General as to the Roman world or Empire For who ever precided it is certain that the Emperours called them And what had Constantine Martian Theodosius or any Roman Emperour to do to call the subjects in India Aethiopia Persia c. to a Council Nor de facto was there any such thing done Is it not a wonderfull thing that the Pope and all his followers should be or seem so blinded to this day as to take the Empire for the whole earth or the Roman world for all the Christian world yet this is their all If you say that it must be done by the consent of Princes then either of Christian Princes or of all If of the Christian only you must exclude the Bishops that are under Mahometan and Heathen Princes and then it will be no General Council especially if it be now as it was in the time of Jacob à Vitriaco the Popes Legate in the East who saith that the Christians of the Easterly parts of Asia alone exceeded in number the Christians both of the Greek and Latine Churches And whether it be all Princes or only Christian Princes that should consent who can tell whether ever it will be God hath not promised to lead them to such a consent And they are unlikely of themselves as being many and distant and of different interests and apprehensions and usually in wars with one another so that if an age should be spent in treating of a General Council among them it s ten to one that the treaty will be in vain and its next to an impossibility that all should consent Besides no man can shew a Commission from God to enable them and only them to such a work But if you say that it must be done by the consent of the Bishops themselves the Impossibility moral is apparent who will be found that will be at the cost and pains to agitate the business among them No one can appoint the time and place but by consent of the rest Who doth it belong to to travail to the Indies Aethiopia Aegypt Palestine and all the rest of the world to treate with the Bishops about the time and place of a Council And how many lives must he have that shall do it And when he findeth them of a hundred minds what course shall he take and how many more journies about the world must he make to bring them to an agreement But I am ashamed to bestow more words on so evident a case Argum. 6. The Head or Soveraign of the Church as of every body Politick hath the Legislative Power over the whole The Pope or a General Council have not the Legislative Power over the whole Therefore the Pope or General Council are not the
do so by the Scriptures 2. And can any Learned Papists be so ignorant as not to know that the Arrians pretended the Authority of General Councils and so do many other Hereticks and that the Authority of Pope and Councils are frequently pretended for contrary opinions among them and may be pretended by many an Heretick And will they therefore grant that the Decrees of Popes and Councils are no sufficient discovery of their Faith If Hereticks pretending to your Test of Faith disprove not that to be your Faith then Hereticks pretending to our Rule and Test of Faith which is the Holy Scripture is no proof that it is not our Rule of Faith I do therefore conclude that the Proof of a Succession of such Churches as have received the Holy Scriptures is a valid proof of a succession of Churches of our Religion seeing we have no Religion doctrinally but the Holy Scriptures And this as far as modesty will permit I challenge all the Jesuites on Earth to confute with any solid Reasons yet adding that we do ex superabundanti prove a succession also of Churches that never owned Popery even the greatest part of the Christian world But let these men themselves but prove to us a succession of their Church even such as they require of us Let them prove that from the Apostles days the Catholick Church or any one Congregation of twenty men did hold all that now their Councils and Popes have Decreed and are esteemed Articles of their Faith and I am contented to be their bondslave for ever or to bear a fagot or be used by them as cruelly as their malice can invent or flames or their strappado's execute Let my Head be at their Mercy if they can but prove that Succession of Popery as they require us to do of Protestancy or as I have produced of our Churches and Religion In the 15th and 16th Detection I have more largely spoken to them of this point to which I refer the Reader In the very principal point of their Papal Soveraignty they have nothing but this gross deceit to cheat the world with The Roman Emperors divers ages after Christ did give the Bishop of Rome a Primacy in their Empire and hence these men would perswade us that even from Christ they have had a Soveraignty over all the Christian world Wink but at these small mistakes and they have won the Cause 1. Suppose but Christs Institution to stand in stead of the Emperors 2. Suppose divers hundred years after Christ to have been in the Apostles days 3. Suppose Primacy to be Soveraignty or Universal Government 4. But especially grant them that the Roman Empire was all the Christian world and then they have made good that part of their Cause That there were many Nations without the reach of the Roman Empire that had received the Christian Faith is past doubt Socrates lib. 1. c. 15. saith that Thomas chose Parthia Bartholomew chose India Matthew Ethiopia to plant the Gospel in but the middle India was not converted till Constantines days by Frumentius and Edesius and Iberia by a Maid So Euseb l. 3. c. 3. tells us of Thomas his Preaching to the Parthians and Andrew to the Scythians Et in vit Const l. 4. c. 8. that there were many Churches in Persia cap. 91. how Constantine wrote for them to the King Godignus and others of them maintain that the Abassines did receive the Gospel from the beginning Besides Scotland and many other Countries that were not under the Roman Power And none of these were Governed by the Pope These three Arguments against the Papal Cause I shall here premise to more that follow 1. If all that part of the Christian world that was out of the reach of the Roman Empire did never submit to the Soveraignty of the Pope then hath he not been successively or at any time the actual Head of the Universal Church But the Antecedent is most certain therefore so is the Consequent How an old woman the Emperors Mother of Habassia did baffle their Jesuites by asking them How it came to pass if obedience to the Pope be necessary to salvation that they never had heard from him till now I have told you after from themselves If Primacy were Soveraignty and Emperors and Councils were Gods yet the Indians Abassines Persians and many more in the East and the Scots and Irish and Danes and Sweeds and Poles and Muscovites and most of Germany in the West and North should be no subjects of the Pope 2. If the Rule and Test of the Faith of Papists never had a Real Being or no succession from the Apostles then their Faith and Church hath either no Real Being or no such Succession But the Antecedent is true as I prove It is either General Councils or Popes or the Church Essential as they use to call it that is the Whole Body that is the Rule of their Faith If it be General Councils 1. They had no being from the Apostles till the Council of Nice therefore the Rule of the Papists Faith was then unborn 2. Yea they never had a being in the world There was never any thing like a General Council since the days of the Apostles to this day The first at Nice had none save one John of Persia who its like was some persecuted Bishop that was fled or if one or two more its not material but the Bishops of the Empire and out of the Western parts so few as was next to none The following Councils as Constantinop 1. c. were only out of one piece of the Empire The Council of Trent I disdain to reckon among the modester pretenders to an Universality 2. And if it be not General Councils but the Pope that is the Rule of their Faith then 1. Their Faith hath been interrupted yea and turned to Heresie and to Infidelity when the Pope hath so turned 2. And why then do they tell our people that they take not the Pope for the Rule of their Faith 3. If it be the Major part of the Universal Church 1. It 's known that two to one are against them or at least the Greater part therefore by that Rule their Faith in the Papal Soveraignty is false 2. And yet it would be hard if a man must be of no Belief till he have brought the world to the pole for it Argum. 3. If all the stir that the Papists make in the world for the Papal Government be but to rob Christian Princes and Magistrates of their Power then are they but a seditious Sect But the Antecedent is apparent For there are but two sorts of Government in the Church The one is by the Word applyed unto the Conscience which worketh only on the willing either by General exhortations as in Preaching or by personal application as in Sacraments Excommunication and Absolution And this is the work of the present Pastors and cannot be performed by the Pope Nor would he be
false So that here we must break with a Papist even where we might join in dispute with a heathen And how will Papists deal with Heathens if they will deny the proofs from sense and reason 3. But will they stand to the Validity of Proofs from Scripture No For 1. They take it to be but part of Gods word so that we may nor argue Negatively It is not in the holy Scripture therefore it is not an Article of faith or a Law of God For they will presently appeal to Tradition 2. And even so much as is in Scripture though they confess it to be true yet they confess it not to be by us intelligible and will not admit of any proof from it but with this limitation that you take it in that sense as the Church takes it For they are sworn by the Trent Oath to take it in that sence as the Holy Mother Church doth hold and hath held it in and never to take or interpret it but according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers So that they must know what sense all the Fathers are unanimous in before they can admit a proof from Scripture And before that can be done above a Cart-load of books must be read over or searched and when that 's done they will find that most texts were never medled with by most of those Fathers in their writings and in those that they did meddle with they disagreed in multitudes and where they disagree they are not unanimous and there the Papists are sworn to believe no sense at all And if they would have come down to a Major vote it is no short or easie matter to gather the votes And if they know the Fathers unanimous consent yet must they have the sense of the present Church too And is it not all one to make your adversary the Judge of your cause as the Judge of your Evidences and all your proofs 4. Well but at least may we not hope that they will stand to the Judgement of the Catholick Church And if so we will not take it for our adversary No they will not do so neither For 1. When they deny proof from sense and reason they must needs deny all that 's brought from the Church For the Church cannot judge it self but on supposition of the infallibility of sense 2. And when you argue from the judgement and practice of the greater part of the Church they presently disclaim them all as Hereticks or Schismaticks and will have no man be a Valid witness but themselves The Greeks the Aethiopians the Armenians the Protestants all are Hereticks or Schismaticks save they and therefore may not be witnesses in the case So that you see upon what terms we stand with the Papists that will admit of no proofs upon the Infallibility of Sense or Reason or the sufficiency of Scripture or the testimony of the Catholick Church but only from themselves CHAP. XIII Detect 4 UNderstand what the Papists mean when they are still calling to you for a Judge of Controversies If you would dispute with them they are presently asking you Who shall be the judge and perswading you that it is in vain to dispute without a living Judge for every man will be the Judge himself and every mans cause will be right in his own eyes and all the world will be still at odds till we are agreed who shall be the Judge To help you to see the sense of this deceit and then to confute it 1. You may easily observe that this is the plain drift of all to perswade you to make them your judges and yield the cause instead of disputing it For it is no other judge but themselves that they will admit Yield first that the Pope or his Council is the judge of all controversies and then its folly to dispute against them so that if you will yield them the cause first they will then dispute with you after 2. But what is to be said to the pretence of the Necessity of a Judge I answer 1. It s against all reason and experience to think that all enquiries or disputes are vain unless there be a Judge to decide the case A Judge is a Ruling decider not to satisfie mens minds so much as to preserve Order and Peace and Justice in the Society But there are thousands of cases to be privately discussed that we never need to bring to a Judge Every Husbandman and Tradesman and Navigator and other Artificer doth meet with doubts and difficulties in his way which he laboureth to Discern and satisfieth himself with a Judgement of Discretion without a Ruling Judge We eat and drink and clothe our selves and follow our daily labours without a Judge though we meet with controversies in almost all what meat or drink is best for quality or quantity and a hundred like doubts Men do marry and build and buy and sell and take Physick and dispatch their greatest worldly business without a Judge Judges are only for such controverted cases as cannot well be decided without them to the attaining of the Ends of Government 2. Is it not against the daily practice of the Papists to think or say that all disputes and controversies must have a Judge Who is the Judge between the Nominals Reals and Formalists the Dominicans Franciscans and Jesuites in all those controversies which have Cartloads of Books written on them Their Pope or Councils dare not Judge between them Do they not daily dispute in their Schools among themselves without a Judge and still write books against one another without a Judge 3. Understand well the use and differences of Judgement The sentence is but a means to the execution and Judges cannot determine the mind and will of man but preserve outward Order if men will not see the truth themselves Me thinks the Jesuits that are so eager for free will should easily grant that the Pope by his definition cannot determine the Will of man And they see that Hereticks remain Hereticks when the Pope hath said all that he can And if he can cure them all by his determinations he is much too blame that he doth not And if a mans mind be to be settled an Infallible Teacher is fitter then a Judge Judgement then being for Execution when you ask Who shall be the Judge I answer that Judgement is either total absolute and final or it is only to a certain particular end limited and subordinate from which there is an Appeal In the former case there is no Judge but Christ and the Father by him No absolute decision can be made till the great Judgement come and then all will be fully and finally decided And for the limited present Judgements of men they are of several sorts according to their several Ends. When the question is Who shall be corporally punished as an Heretick the Magistrate is Judge For coercive punishment being his work the Judgement must be his also But when the question is Who
in their own shame Vigilius saith he proceeded to that insolency that he excommunicated Mennas for four moneths And Mennas did the same by him But Justinian being moved to anger with such things sent some to lay hold on him But Vigilius being afraid of himself fled to the Altar of Sergius the Martyr and laid hold on the Sacred Pipes would not be drawn away till he had pul'd them down But by the Mediation of the Empress Theodora the Pope was pardoned and Menna and he absolved one another A fair proof of the Vicarship 3. And so it was that Pope Honorius was condemned for an Heretick by two or three General Councils 5. Also when they meet with any big words of their own Popes as I command this or that they take it for a proof of the Vicarship As if big words did prove Authority Or as if we knew not how lowlily and poorly they spoke to those that were above them As Gregory the first for instance was high enough towards those that he thought he could master but what low submissive language doth he use to secular Governors that were capable of overtopping him And what flattering language did his successors use to the most base murderers and usurpers of the Empire 6. Another Roman deceit is this When they find any mention of the exercise of the now thriving Roman Power over their own Diocess or Patriarchal circuit they would hence prove his universal Power over all And by that Rule the Patriarch of Alexandria or Constantinople may prove as much 7. Also when they meet with the passages that speak of the elevation of their Pope to be their first Patriarch in the Roman Empire or any Power that by the Emperors was given him they cunningly confound the Empire with the world and especally if they find it called by the name of the world and they would perswade you that all other Christians and Churches on earth did ascribe as much to the Bishop of Rome as the Roman Empire did It s true that he was in the Empire acknowledged to be first in order of dignity because of Rome the seat of his Episcopacy especially when General Councils began to trouble themselves and the world about such matters of precedency And it s well known from the language of their writers as well as from the words of Luke 2. 1. that they usually called the Empire all the world And from such passages would the Papists prove the Primacy at least of the Pope over all the world But put these Juglers to it to prove if they can that beyond the Rivers Meroes and Euphrates and beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire the Pope did either exercise Dominion or was once so much as regarded by them any more then any other Bishop except there were any adjacent Island or Countrey that had their dependence upon the Empire I hope they will not deny that the Church extended much beyond the Empire Though our History of that part of it be much defective And let them prove if they can that ever any of those Churches had any regard to the Roman Bishop any more then to another man Let them tell you where either the Empire of the Abassines or any other out of the line of the Imperial power was any whit like-subject to the Pope 8. But their chief fraud is about names and words When they meet with any high complemental title given to the Bishop of Rome they presently conclude that it signifieth his Soveraignty Let us instance in some particulars and shew the vanity of their conclusions from them 1. Sometimes the Roman Bishops are called Summi Pontifices the chief Popes and hence some gather their Supremacy But I suppose you will believe Baronius their chief flatterer in such a case as this And he tells you in Martyrolog Roman April 9. that Fuit olim vetus ille usus in Ecclesia ut Episcopi omnes non tantum Pontifices sed summi Pontifices dicerentur i. e. It was the ancient custom of the Church to call all Bishops not only Pontifices Popes but chief Popes And then citing such a passage of Hierom Epist 99. he addeth Those that understand not this ancient custom of speech refer these words to the Popedom of the Church of Rome 2. As for the names Papa Pope Dominus Pater Sauctissimus beatissimus dei amantissimus c. it s needless to tell you that these were commonly given to other Bishops 3. And what if they could find that Rome were called the mother of all Churches I have formerly shewed you where Basil saith of the Church of Caesarea that it is as the mother of all Churches in a manner And Hierusalem hath oft that Title 4. Sometime they find where Rome is called Caput Ecclesiarum and then they think they have won the cause When if you will consult the words you shall find that it is no more then that Priority of Dignity which not Christ but the Emperours and Councils gave them that is intended in the word It s called the Head that is the chief Seat in Dignity without any meaning that the Pope is the universal Monarch of the world 5. But what if they find the Pope called the Archbishop of the Catholick Church or the Universal Bishop then they think they have the day I answer indeed three flattering Monks at the Council of Calcedon do so superscribe their libels but they plainly mean no more then the Bishop that in order of dignity is above the rest And many particular Churches are oft called Catholick Churches There 's difference between A Catholick Church and The Catholick Church And the Bishop of Constantinople had that Title even by a Council at Constant an 518. before the Bishop of Rome had it publikely or durst own it It was setled on the Patriarch of Constantinople to be called the Oecumenical or Universal Patriarch Who knoweth not that Emperours gave such Titles at their pleasure Justinian would sometime give the Primacy to Rome and at another time to Constantinople saying Constantinopolitana Ecclesia omnium aliarum est caput The Church of Constantinople is the Head of all other Churches An. Dom. 530. C. de Episcopis l. 1. lege 24. And it s known that this Justinian that sometime calls Rome the Head did yet when the fifth General Council had condemned Vigilius Pope of Rome permit Theodora his Empress to cause him to be fetcht to Constantinople and drag'd about the street in a halter and then banished till they had forced him to subscribe and submit to the Council even as they had deposed Pope Silverius his predecessor And Baronius himself mentioneth a Vaticane Monument which as it calls Agapetus Episcoporum princeps on one side so doth it call Menna the Apostolick Universal Bishop Which Baronius saith doth mean no more then that he was Universal over his own Provinces aad if that be so any Bishop may be called Universal And do not these
on Shipboard What fools are you to venture your lives in such a ship that hath so much encumbrance and danger and so many flaws and but a few inches between you and death and is guided by such a Pilot as may betray you or cast away your lives for ought you know They know now that none but mad men will be perswaded by such words as these to leap into the Sea to scape these dangers and therefore they do this but to make men willing to pass into their ship and take them for our Pilots If you are wise therefore hold them to it and leap not over-board but keep where you are till they have shewed you a safer Vessel and Pilot which they can never do When I did but privately desire of Cl. Writer that he would acquaint me with that truth that he thought me ignorant of and that we might privately and lovingly consider how far we were agreed and where we differed that we might debate the case and try who was in the right he resolutely denyed to have any debate with me or to open any of his judgement but pag. 46. reproacheth this very motion as proceeding from my aims of a monstrous shape and ugly looks so monstrous a thing doth it appear to these deceiving Juglers to tell men what Religion they are of and would have us to receive when they will freely reproach the Religion which we profess 4. And you may strongly conjecture at the quality of these Juglers by their constant opposition against the Ministry It is Ministers that are their eye-fore the hinderers of their Kingdom Could they but get down these the work were done the day were their own And therefore their main business whatever vizor they put on is to bring the people into a dislike or contempt of the Ministry If they seem Quakers they will rail at them If they seem Seekers they will dispute against their calling If they seem the gentlest Behmenists they have their girds at them to acquaint the world that they are misguided by them But at first they will not let you know which is the true Ministry if ours be not or which is the true Church if ours be not Here they leave you 5. The Jugling Papist what vizor soever he wears is commonly putting in for his own opinions of the Necessity of a Judge of Controversies an Infallible Church a state of perfection here the magnifying of our own inherent Righteousness without any great esteem of Justification by the forgiveness of sin and many such like 6. Papists have still an aking tooth at the Authority and sufficiency of Scripture and therefore on one pretence or other are still disgracing and impugning it and leading men aside to some other Rule 7. Papists have still an enmity against the Power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion For in such matters their Vice-christ must be the only Judge Whereas indeed by that time the Magistrate hath judged Who is Punishable by the Sword and the Pastors and Particulars Churches have judged Who is excommunicable which are their undoubted works there is nothing left for a Pope to do Suspect them that are for a Liberty for all or at least for all that are no worse then Papists They that set open this door intend to creep in at it themselves at last 8. And it is a suspicious sign when you find men enemies to the Unity Peace and Settlement of our Churches but would still keep us in division and distraction And yet some of these men will lament our Divisions and cry up Unity but they will secretly hinder it or do nothing to attain it 9. And it is somewhat suspicious to see men hang loose from all our Churches in their practise and joyn with none nor communicate in the Sacraments If they know not Sacraments and Church-communion to be both our Duty and the Means of our strength and comfort it is doubtful whether they are Christians or Infidels But if they know this of the Necessity and use of Sacraments and Church-communion in general and yet joyn not with any of our Churches herein it 's a shrewd suspicion that they have an eye upon some other Church For sure a tender conscience would not be many years in resolving of so great and practical a point no more then he would live many years without prayer on pretence of being unsatisfied in the mode of Prayer 10. And yet on the contrary side there are some Jugling Papists especially in our Councils Civil and Ecclesiastick that play their game by over-doing and making every thing to be Popish and Antichristian to drive us into extreams and into opinons in which we may easily be bafled And it 's not a little that they have won of us at this game CHAP. XLVII Detect 38. ANother of their Practical Frands is In their exceeding industry for the perverting of men of Power Interest that are likely to do much in helping or hindering them Swarms of them are busie day and night for the seducing of Princes and Nobles and Rulers of all sorts and of Commanders in the Armies Of their diligence abroad we may know somewhat by their success on divers of the German Princes and the late Queen of Sweden and on many of the Nobles of France and such others At home we have smarted by the fruits of their industry What abundance of assaults were made on the late King from his going to Spain and the Popes Letters to him there and to the Bishop of Conchen to take care for his seduction and so all along to the last I need not mention And what Noblemen or Persons of Interest in England lay not under assaults and solicitations in those days And are all the Jesuites and Fryars dead Or have they not still the same cause and industry as then Is the Court or Councils of the Land or the Nobility Gentry or Army now free from their fraudulent solicitations How far they have prevailed time will fullier reveal but what they will endeavour we may easily judge And certainly the number of Seekers and such other Sects among them doth tell us that they have not lost their labour If these lines shall fall into the hands of any of our Rulers or Commanders I intreat them for the sake of their souls and the Common-wealth to be prudent and vigilant in a matter of such consequence I do not intend to intreat them from error unto truth without sufficient light and evidence But that which I desire is but reasonable 1. That you would not be too confident of your own understandings to deal with such Juglers in your own strength without assistance They have made it their study all their days and are purposely trained up to deceive whereas you are much wanting in their way of study and much unfurnished to resist how highly soever you may think of your selves 2. That you would read a little more the learned solid writings of our Divines
did yet profess to take up offensive Arms only against Delinquents or rather even but defensive against those men that had got an Army to secure them from Justice And they still professed and vowed fidelity to the King which as I have shewed they manifested to the last of their power till they were imprisoned and secluded Read Mr. Irins Speech for Agreement with the King and read the writing of the London Ministers presented to the General and published against the Kings death and Read the Vindication of the secluded members and read the Passages of the war with Scotland and of the Imprisonment of many London Ministers and of the death of Mr. Love and others and tell me whether you can do men greater wrong then to defame them for being causers of that which they disowned though it cost them the loss of Liberty Estate or Life 4. And really if you take either Vanists or Levellers who were the chief agents in this for Protestants you may as well say that Papists are Protestants The world knows that the Prayers the Petitions Protestations and other endeavours of the Protestants even the Presbyterians was for the preventing the death of that King how ever many of them disliked his course and joyned with the Parliament against his adherents This is the very truth which they that have been eye witnesses all along have good reason to know whatever any Papist say to the contrary 5. And what Protestants be they that give power to any man on earth to depose Princes and give their Kingdoms to others or to disoblige all their subjects and warrant them to kill them and dispense with oaths and turn them all into smoak and straw as yours do Renounce your treacherous Principles and we will cease to charge you with them Let a General Council and Pope but Decree the contrary to what the forecited Pope and General Council have Decreed or else do you all declare that you think this Pope and Councill erred and then we will shake hands with you for then you will either cease to be true Papists or at least become tolerable members of humane societies Why doth not the Pope himself at least condemn these doctrines if really he disown them The case is too plain CHAP. XLIX Detect 40. THeir last course when all other fail is To turn from Fraud to Force and open Violence stirring up Princes to wars and bloodshed that they may destroy the professors of the Reformed Religion as far as they are able and do that by flames and sword by halters and hatches which they cannot do by Argument Hence have proceeded the bloody butcheries of the poor Waldenses and Albigenses formerly and now again of late and the wars in Bohemia the League and wars and Massacres in France the desolating wars of Germany the plots invasions and wars in England Most of the flames in Christendom of late ages have been kindled for the Pope by his Agents that he might warm him by that fire that others are consumed by Hence his own pretenses to the Temporal Sword and so many volumes written to justifie it and so many Tragedies acted in the execution And yet these men cry up Antiquity and Tradition I wonder what Bishop in all the world for above three hundred years after Christ did ever claim or exercise the temporal sword as much as to be a Justice of Peace nay it was their judgement that it did not belong to them Neither the Pope nor any Bishop on earth as such hath any thing to do with the coercive power of the sword nor may not inflict the smallest penalty on body or purse but only guide men by the Word of God and the utmost penalty they can inflict is to excommunicate them And they have nothing to do to destroy men when they have excommunicated them nor to cause the Magistrate to do it but rather should still endeavour their Conversion Synesius Epistol 57. against Andronicus saith as followeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To join together secular government with the Priesthood is to tye together things that are incoherent or such as cannot be tyed together The old times made the same men Priests and Judges For the Aegyptians and Hebrems did long make use of the Government of Priests But afterward as seems to me when Gods work began to be done in an humane manner God separated the two sorts of life and one of them was made sacred and the other appointed for Rule and Command For some he turned to these Materiall or common secular things and some he associated with himself The former were appointed for secular business the later for prayer But from both doth God require that which is honest or Good Why then dost thou revoke this Why wilt thou conjoin what God hath separated who wouldst not have us indeed to do the work of secular Rulers but by doing it to deprave or marr it then which what can be more unhappy Dost thou need a Ruler or Patron Go to him that manageth the Laws of the Commonwealth Dost thou need God in any thing Go to the Bishop or Priest of the City not that thou shalt be sure there to have all that thou desirest but that I will afford thee the best assistance that I can or will do my best in it So far Synesius Which I wonder how Petavius could pass over without some distorting observation considering how low it treads the Roman Kingdom But Baronius had the cunning as to extract even from hence some advantage to his cause even to shew the Power that Pastors have to excommunicate Rulers ad An. 411. as Synesius with the Council did Andronicus But 1. He went not out of his own circuit to play the Bishop in other mens Diocess 2. Much less did he take up the Temporal Sword against him but disclaimeth and detesteth any such thing Why doth not the Pope when he hath past his Excommunications content himself that he hath done his part but he must excite Princes yea force them to execute his rage and fall upon the Lives and Dominions of such Princes as he will call Heretical He knows how small account would be made of his brutish thunderbolts if he had not a secular Arm to follow them Nay why is he and many of his Cardinals and Bishops secular Princes themselves Why joyneth he those Functions of Magistracie and Priesthood which Synesius here tells us God hath separated and made incoherent in one and the same person Let the Pope usurp what Ecclesiastical power he please he would not so much disturb the Church by it if he did not second it by another power It is violence that he trusteth too He knows if it were not for Arms and Violence he would soon be spewed out by the Christian world And yet many of his followers that seem more moderate confess he hath nothing to do as Pope with any but the Spiritual Sword which works no further then Conscience doth
would have the causes taken away What! When I recite his very words Or was I deeply silent of the particular causes Do you mean Here or Throughout If Here so I was deeply silent of ten thousand things more which either it concerned me not to speak or I had not the faculty of expressing in one sentence If you mean Throughout you read without your eyes or wrote either with a defective Memory or Honesty Read again and you shall find that I recite the causes 3. But did I not all that my task required by reciting the Negation of the causes It was not saith Grotius the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons And I shewed you partly and the Canons shew you fully that that Primacy is the Universall Headship which Protestants I mean not Roman Grotian Protestants have ever used to call Popery But saith Mr. P. Grotius chargeth the Papists with it Answ 1. True but the Protestants much more as making many more faults by their withdrawing from Rome then they mended 2. And he chargeth not that which we have called Popery with it though he charge the Papists with it That some sins of the Papists did occasion it he confesseth and all the Papists that ever I spoke with of it do confess But I am referred for these causes charged on the Papists to Grot. Votum pag. 7 8. and thither I 'le follow Mr. P. that I may know how much he chargeth on the Papists himself And there I find that the things that Grotius found faulty in the Papists were but these two 1. That to the true and ancient doctrine many quirks of the Schoolmen that were better skli'd in Aristotle then the Scriptures were introduced out of a liberty of disputing not out of the Authority of Universal Councils And the Opinions stablisht in the Church were less fitly explicated 2. That Pride and Covetousness and manners of ill example prevailed among the Prelates c. And really did you think that he is no Papist that is but against the Schoolmens Opinions and the Prelates Pride Covetousness and Idleness and holdeth all that they call the Decrees of General Councils Hath not the Council at Lateran and Florence decreed that the Pope is above a General Council and the Council at Lateran decreed that Princes are to be deposed and their Subjects absolved from their fidelity if they exterminate not Hereticks such as Protestants out of their Dominions Is he no Papist that holds all that is in the Council of Trent if he be against some School-points not determined and against the Prelates Pride Well Sir I understand you better then I did And though you thought meet that your words might be conform to one another and not to truth to say that I called you Arminian and Pelagian I purpose if I had done so to call you an Arminian no more But I beseech you cry not out of persecution till the men of your mind will give us leave to be Rectors of Churches in their Dominions as you and others of your mind are allowed to be in these And demand not of Mr. Hickman the bread he eats nor the money he receives as if it were yours till we can have license to be maintained Rectors or at least to escape the Strappado in your Church But I promised you some more of Grotius in English to stop your mouth or open it whether you see cause and you shall have it Discus pag. 14. Grotius distinguisheth between the Opinions of Schoolmen which oblige no man for saith Melchior Canus our School alloweth us great liberty and therefore could give no just cause of departing as the Protestants did and between those things that are defined by Councils even by that of Trent The Acts of which if any man read with a mind propense to peace he will find that they may be explained fitly and agreeably to the places of the holy Scriptures and of the ancient Doctors that are put in the Margin And if besides this by the care of Bishops and Kings those things be taken away which contradict that holy doctrine and were brought in by evil manners and not by authority of Councils or Old Tradition then Grotius and many more with him will have that with which they may be content This is Grotius in English Reader is it not plain English Durst thou or I have been so uncharitable as to have said without his own consent that Mr. Pierce would have defended this Religion and that we have Rectors in England of this Religion and that those that call themselves Episcopal Divines and seduce unstudied partial Gentlement are crept into this garb and in this do act their parts so happily If words do signifie any thing it here appears that Grotius his Religion is that which is contained in the Council of Trent with all the rest and the reformation which will content him is only against undetermined School-Opinions and ill manners that Cross the doctrines of the Councils I 'le do the Papists so much right as to say I never met with a man of them that would not say as much Especially taking in all Old Tradition with all the Councils how much together by the ears now matters not as Grotius doth Yet more Discus p. 185. He professeth that he will so interpret Scripture God favouring him and pious men being consulted that he cross not the Rule delivered both by himself and by the Council of Trent c. Pag. 239. The Augustine Consession commodiously explained leath scarce any thing which may not be reconciled with those Opinions which are received with the Catholicks by Authority of Antiquity and of Synods as may be known out of Cassander and Hoffmeister And there are among the Jesuites also that think not otherwise Pag. 71. He tels us that the Churches that join with Rome have not only the Scriptures but the Opinions explained in the Councils and the Popes Decrees against Pelagius c. They have also received the Egregious Constitutions of Councils and Fathers in which there is abundantly enough for the correction of vices but all use them not as they ought They lye for the most part hid in Papers as a Sword in the Scabbard And this is it that all the lovers of piety and peace would have corrected And gives us Borromaeus for a president Pag. 48. These are the things which thanks be to God the Catholicks do not thus believe though many that call themselves Catholicks so live as if they did believe them but Protestants so live by force of their Opinions and Catholicks by the decay of Discipline Pag. 95. What was long ago the judgement of the Church of Rome the Mistris of others we may best know by the Epistles of the Roman Bishops to the Africans and French to which Grotius will subscribe with a most willing mind Rome you see is the Mistris of other Churches Pag 7. They accuse the Bull of Pius Quintus that it