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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bishop_n	great_a	pope_n	1,627	5	6.0909	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26962	Naked popery, or, The naked falshood of a book called The Catholick naked truth, or, The Puritan convert to apostolical Christianity, written by W.H. opening their fundamental errour of unwritten tradition, and their unjust description of the Puritans, the prelatical Protestant, and the papist, and their differences, and better acquainting the ignorant of the same difference, especially what a Puritan and what a papist is / by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1677 (1677)	Wing B1315; ESTC R13884	120,987	206

in our reproach of the same pretended Schism 5. Note how shamelesly the Papists still tell us of all the Bishops of the Christian World being for them and asking us where was our Church before Luther that is a Society of Christians that obeyed not the Pope when they confess that Augustine and all the African Church for twenty years obeyed him not and alas soon after the Vandals came and conquered them and persecuted and destroyed those famous Bishops that did survive And that you may further know that they had yet more disobedient Resisters than African Bishops you may remember that even the Egyptian Monks so long famous for their great austerity and sanctity had renounced not only obedience but Communion with the Pope and his Adherents Fulgentius was about going to live with them for their holiness but he was told of this and turned his course vid. Vit. Fulgent And how great were all those Churches of Aethiopia Armenia exterior India and the rest which the Apostles converted which Reynerius aforesaid truly saith are not under the Church of Rome Cont. Waldens Catal. in Riblioth Patr. To. 1. p. 773. I have formerly recited the words of Melch. Canus one of their great Bishops saying Loc. Theolog. li. 6. c. 7. fol. 201. 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 Emperours and the GREATER NUMBER OF CHURCHES and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the one Pope of Rome See here their own Confession 1. Where Christians opposing the Pope were before Luther 2. And of what credit their boast of Universality and Catholick Tradition is One while W. H. saith The Bishops of the whole World were for them But when their cause leads them to tell truth they say Almost all the Bishops of the whole World have vehemently fought against the Pope and the Arms of Emperors and the greater number of Churches were against them And indeed if it had been none but the Greeks he might well have said The greater number of Churches For the Contest which begun upon the Emperours removal to Constantinople and at the first General Council increasing more and more till Gregory opposed John's Claim of Universal Bishop as Antichristian at last Phoc as the cruel murderer of Mauritius gave the Title to the Bishop of Rome But that no whit ended the contest following Emperors being contrary minded and the Greeks continuing their Claim the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople excommunicating one another so that by this abominable striving which should be the Chief or Greatest the Churches that were of old in the Empire have been divided and so they continue to this very Day as unreconcileable as ever And when Gregory sent his Emissary hither to Preach to the Saxons they found the Christian Britans and Scots not only averse to the Government Orders and Ceremonies of Rome so that in many Kings Reigns neither words nor force could make them yield but also such as refused their Communion and would not so much as eat and drink with them in the same house No wonder then that Marinarius at the Council of Trent complain that the Church is shut up in the Corners of Europe and that Sonnius Bishop of Antwerp say Demonstr Relig. Christ li. 2. Tract 5. c. 3. I pray you what room hath the Catholick Church now in the habitable World Scarce three Elns long in comparison of the vastness which the Satanical Church doth possess The truth is saith Brierwood Divide the known World and alas how much is unknown into thirty parts and about nineteen are Heathens and six Mahometans and five Christians of all sorts And of these Christians the Papists at this day are as some think about a fifth part some think a fourth part and some think a third part And after the assuming of the Universal Title their Popes more and more degenerated to such odious wickedness at last as we hope few Pagans are guilty of which we speak not as from Enemies but from their own Historians and Flatterers such as Platina Baronius Genebrard c. Nay not so much from them as from Councils General and Provincial which have accused condemned and deposed them Read in my Key for Catholicks pag. 220 221 222. the words of Baronius Genebrard Platina CL. Espensaeus 〈◊〉 Muss Guicciardine c. Nic. Clemangis Bernard Alv. Pelagius say more Let any impartial man but read the Articles on which the Council at Constance condemned and deposed John 23. about 70 in number in which they make him almost as bad as a man out of Hell can be and indeed say he was commonly called The Devil incarnate Read the Articles on which the Council at Basil condemned and deposed Eugenius the Fourth as a perjured Wreteh an obstinate Heretick and all the rest Read the Articles on which another Council deposed John 13. alias 12. And read the Lives of many more in their own Historians And what came the Church to when it had such Heads when Baronius saith ad an 912. that the face of the holy Roman Church was exceeding filthy when the most potent whores did rule at Rome by whose pleasure Seats were changed Bishops were given and which is a thing horrid to be heard and not to be spoken their Lovers were thrust into Peters Chair being false Popes who are not to be written in the Catalogue of the Roman Popes but only for the marking of such times And what kind of Cardinals Priests and Deacons think you we must imagine that these Monsters did chuse when nothing is so rooted in Nature as for every one to beget his like For near 150 years saith Genebrard about fifty Popes were rather Apostatical than Apostolical And where was their uninterrupted Succession all this time Pope Nicolas in his Decretals Caranz p. 393. 395 saith He that by Money or the favour of Men or Popular or Military Tumults is intruded into the Apostolical Seat without the Concordant and Canonical Election of the Cardinals and the following religious Clergy let him not be taken for a Pope nor Apostolical but Apostatical And of the Clorgy he saith Priests that commit Fornication cannot have the honour of Priesthood Yea Let no Man hear Mass of a Priest whom he certainly knoweth to have a Concubine or Woman introduced And shall not Protestants forgive those that will not hear such or as bad Where then was the Papacy under such For above forty years together there were more Popes than one at once and sometimes more than two one dwelling at Rome and another at Avignion or elsewhere One set up and obeyed by one Party and another by another Party each condemning the other as an Usurper And had the Universal Church then any one Head And with what wickedness are they charged one destroying what the other was for see in

him for the Primacy in the Empire At first he claimed but an Equality but afterward a Priority as Universal Bishop because his Seat was the Imperial Seat The Patriarch of Jerusalem was so far from the Court and of so small power that he made the least stir of any of the five though he had the fairest pretense incomparably for a claim of Supremacy on Religious reasons if a Supreme there must have been Christ himself having been there a Minister to the Circumcision and Shepherd of the Sheep of the House of Israel and his Kinsman James then Bishop after and that being the Mother-Church out of which sprung all the rest But the other four Patriarchs especially three of them became as so many Generals of Armies militating frequently against each other and he that got the stronger Party of Bishops and Court-favourers carryed all against the rest But no place more turbulent nor no Bishop more unquiet than those of Alexandria Pride and Worldliness now grew apace and so corrupted the Clergie that in their Synods the fleshly part too oft prevailed against the spiritual When Court and Councils were for the Arrians the whole Eastern part of the Empire was embroiled in the Contention and the Orthodox in the greater Bishopricks cast out When they were down and cast out themselves the temporizing and turbulent Bishops usually got the Major Vote Excellent Gregory Nazianzen for the great service that he had done against the Arrians was chosen by the People and made Patriarch of Constantinople But the Synod of Bishops envyed him and rejected him to whom he gave place and would not strive Dioscorus of Alexandria and his party fought it out at the General Council and killed Flavianus And being after overcome and outed of his Seat did still claim and keep the Title with his followers and the most of his Patriarchate of the People stuck to him so that he propagated his Opinion and Interest in all those remote parts of the Empire Yea among Volunteers in Ethiopia and other extra-imperial parts which no Law or Canon had subjected to him while the Patriarch that succeeded him by the Councils Decree had his party only as the rest within the Empire So that to this day the Syrians Ethiopians and abundance others profess themselves the followers of Dioscorus as the true Bishop injuriously say they cast out Chrysostome afterwards was cast out of his Patriarchate of Constantinople by a Synod of Bishops and the Court. At Rome the Bishoprick was such a prey that contending for it troubled the Publick Peace At the choice of Damasus they fought it out in the Church and his party won that sacred Field leaving many Carcasses there to the Church-Communion of the dead But it became the great advantage of Rome that when the Empire was divided the Western Emperour proved Orthodox while the Eastern were oft Arrians Which kept up the honour of the Western Bishops who had not the temptations of the East where sharp persecutions and the desolation of their Flocks and the boast of the Arrians as the Major part that was also setled by Authority caused the ejected Bishops sometime to solicite them of the West for help by sending them some to acquaint the Arrians that their Cause was owned by the Western Bishops or to put some Countenance on their depressed Cause and indeed the Western Emperour did rescue them This occasioneth the Papists to this day to pretend that this was an Act of their subjection to the Pope St. Basil was the chief in this solicitation and you shall read his words Translated Verily the manners of proud men speaking of the Western Bishops use to grow more insolent if they be honoured And if God be merciful to us what other addition have we need of but if Gods anger remain on us what help can the pride of the West bring us when they neither know the truth nor can endure to speak it but being prepossessed with false suspicions they do the same things now which they did in the Case of Marcellus contentiously disputing against those that taught the truth but for Heresie confirming it by their Authority Indeed I was willing not as representing the Publick Person of the East to write to their Leader Damasus but not about Church-matters but that I might intimate that they neither knew the truth of the things that are done with us nor did admit the way by which they might learn them And in general that they should not insult over the calamitous and afflicted nor think that Pride did make for their dignity when that one sin alone is enough to make us hateful to God But this Epistle of Basil Andr. Schottus the Jesuite left out of Basil's Works when he published them Antw. Lat. A. D. 1616. Tertullian had made as bold with the Bishop of Rome long before lib. de Pudic. pag. 742. against Zepherinus So had Cyprian and Firmilian against Stephen Hilary Pictav with Liberius and the Councils even that of Nice But most notable was the sharp Contest of the Carthage Council of which Augustine was one against Zosimus and Boniface and Celestine when the Pope falsly alledged a Canon of the Nicene Council for Appeal to Rome they denyed his claim and evinced the forgery and stood it out against him to the last I. And here you may see that they took not the Pope's Power to be of God jure divino For they searched only all the Archives to find out the true Copies of the Nicene Council Pisanus Canons being not then made and did not go to the Scripture to decide the Case nor to Tradition Apostolical only pleading Church-Laws and Order as on their side And that they never dreamt of a Divine Institution of this Roman Papacy or Primacy but only as the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in England hath precedency by the King's Laws and not by God's so Rome was the first Seat by the meer appointment of man even Emperours and Councils is yet fully evident 1. In that the same Power that made the other four Patriarchs made the Bishop of Rome a Patriarch and he was not made Pope or Prime Patriarch before he was made Patriarch But no man dreameth of a Divine Institution of the other four Patriarchs Ergo. 2. Because the whole Eastern Church which was far greater than the Western first equalled the Patriarch of Constantinople to him of Rome and after preferred him when yet they never dreamed of a Divine Institution of the Patriarchate of Constantinople For it was but lately made And no man of reason can judge that all the Catholick Emperours Bishops and People of the far greatest part of the Imperial Church would professedly equal or prefer a Humane Office before one which they believed to be of Divine Institution 3. To this day all the Greek Church shew themselves to be of that judgment by adhering to the Patriarch of Constantinople whom they confess to have been made such by Emperours and Councils

elsewhere cited Pope Innocents words By the fulness of our Power we can dispense with the Law being above the Law And the Gloss oft saith The Pope dispenseth against the Apostle against the Old Testament c. The Council of Trent say Sess 21. cap. 1 2. that This power was always in the Church that in dispensing the Sacraments saving the substance of them it may ordain or change things as it should judge most expedient to the profit of the Receiver But is not the Cup of the substance as truly as the Bread Andrad Def. Conc. Trid. li. 2. p. 236. Hence it is plain that they do not erre that say the Popes of Rome may sometimes dispense with Laws made by Paul and the four first Councils And Vasquez saith To. 2. Disp 216. N. 60. Though we grant that this was a Precept of the Apostles yet the Church and Popes might on just causes abrogate it For the power of the Apostles was no greater than the power of the Church and Pope in bringing in Precepts One of Luthers Opinions opposed as Heretical by Leo 10. was this It is certain that it is not in the hand of the Church or Pope to make Articles of Faith See more in my Key p. 243 244. XXXVIII The Pope setteth up a Publick Worship of God in a Tongue not understood by most of the Worshippers and forbiddeth men without Licence to read the Scriptures in a known Tongue Practice and the Trent Council prove both these XXXIX The Pope determineth that the Image of Christ be reverenced with equal honour as the holy Scriptures So it is decreed Concil Constant the eighth General Can. 3. And yet Images are mans work and at the best unnecessary and the holy Scriptures are Gods work by his Spirit and the Law by which we must live and be judged at the last XL. And when all this Power over the whole Earth is thus claimed there is no possible means left for any mortal man much less for the Antipodes to know who is the man that hath this Power and whom on pain of damnation we must obey and believe in before we can believe in Christ Proved If there be any possibility of knowing it it must be either 1. By personal qualifications of mind 2. Or by right of election 3. Or of Ordination 4. Or of Possession 5. Or of Acceptance by the Church after Possession I cannot Imagine any other way But there is no possibility of knowing who is Pope by any of these wayes I. The first is not pretended by them But anon we shall thence prove their Nullity for want of necessary Qualifications II. If Election will tell us then it is either any Election whatsoever or else Election by authorized Persons Not the first else the Turks or the Greeks or the Adversaries of Rome might elect a Pope And an hundred might be elected at once several ways Not the later For if any one way of Election be necessary Popes were no Popes when that way failed Sometime they were elected by the People of Rome and were they the Chusers for all the World Sometimes by the People and the Presbyters Sometimes by the Neighbour Bishops and Ordainers Sometimes by the Emperours And lastly by the Cardinals If one way only be valid the rest were invalid And how shall we prove which If any of these ways are valid then six men or five may be chosen at once by the several ways And where is the proof III. If Ordination be the notifying Title then 1. Those Lay men that were put in full possession unordained were no Popes and where then is the Succession 2. And who is it that hath that ordaining Authority If some Bishops ordain one and some another and so twenty as they long did divers in many years Schism which of these is the true Pope or is it all IV. If Possession were the Title then the Turk may be Pope or he that can get it by the Sword Then there can be no Usurper but the strongest hath best Right Then he that kept at Rome had better title than he that was in Germany or at Avignion V. If it be the Churches after acceptance then 1. He was an Usurper before 2. And what or who is that Accepting Church Sure they that must make a Pope of no Pope by after acceptance should have the antecedent Election Else Popes must all be first Usurpers before they are true Popes But 1. If it must be the major part of the Christian World then there is no Pope because two parts are against him If it must be one Sect of Christians only like the Papists that will but think themselves the Church or better than the rest who is it that can prove their title to this Choice And must it be All of them or but Part If All 1. How shall we ever know it Never such a thing was tryed 2. And then there was no Pope in the 40 or 50 years Schism If it must be Part how shall we ever know which part it must be If the major or the melior how shall it be ever tryed and known in a division None to this day knoweth who had the major or melior part in many a Schism If they say that silent non-opposition is Consent I Answer That 's a known Falshood when most men even a thousand to one have neither Call nor Opportunity to signifie their dissent effectually and when no wise men that love their time and peace will run to Rome by thousands out of all Kingdoms to tell them their dissent 2. But it was no silent submission when several Popes were upheld by several Kingdoms So that there is no way of certain notice who is the true Pope but he must go for the man as Eugenius 4. did after his Deposition who can keep possession which is no title at all 2. Yea I prove certainly according to their own Principles that there is no Pope at Rome nor hath been for many an hundred years For they hold themselves that the Right must be derived by an uninterrupted Succession from S. Peter and call us no Ministers for want of Succession But that they have no such uninterrupted Succession is notorious For 1. An Infidel and Heretick Pope so openly judged can be no Pope Else a Turk might be Pope For he that is no Christian is no Christian Bishop But Popes before mentioned have been judged Infidels Hereticks incarnate Devils 2. A Pope actually deposed as an uncapable wicked Heretick by a General Council was no Pope Yet such was Eugenius 4. who yet kept the place and the rest are his Successors 3. There have been sometimes several years without any Pope at all And if two or three years make no interruption how shall we know how long time doth it 4. Baronius Genebrard and others aforementioned confess that for 50 of them together they were Apostatical and deserve not to be named among the Popes being wicked men made

c. XXV They will publickly pray to God and praise him in an unknown Tongue because the Pope will have it so XXVI They think that the far greatest part of the Body of Christ are tormented in the Flames of Purgatory to make satisfaction to Gods Justice for some Sins notwithstanding Christs sufficient satisfaction XXVII Expecting to go to the Flames of Purgatory when they dye they cannot possibly be willing to leave this World and consequently must be worldlings and never truly willing to dye For the basest condition on Earth will seem to them more desirable than Purgatory XXVIII They think that the Flames of Purgatory do perfect mens preparation for Heaven whereas he is readiest for Heaven that is likest to those in Heaven and most holy and that is they that most love God! And they that are angry here with every one that hurteth him and do not think that tormenting men will win their love yet look that the torments of Purgatory should help us to love God better than all the mercies on Earth will do XXIX The generality of Papists believe a fallible Priest or Printer or such other person telling them what is the Faith of the Universal Church and yet think that this is an Infallible Faith XXX A Papist is one that layeth his hopes of salvation upon his belief of and obedience to a Pope which by their own Principles is no Pope and a General Council which is no General Council never was nor never will be and on his Communion with a Catholick Church which is no Catholick Church but a Sect. All which hath been proved already and moreshall be I have told you in part what we take a Papist to be Some things before mentioned in the description of a Pope have been here necessarily repeated CHAP. VIII What the Papists Church is called the Roman Catholick Church WHat their CHURCH is may so easily be gathered from what is said that I shall say but little more of it In General It is a Society called Ecclesiastical constituted of such a Head and such Members as I have described Particularly I. It is a Humane Church as to the Efficient Cause of its Form made by Man as distinct from that Church-form which was instituted by Christ even by the Fathers because that Rome was the Imperial Seat As is proved before II. It is a Humane Church as to the constitutive Head as distinct from the true Universal Church which hath no Head single or collective Pope or Council that is not God III. It is a Sect consisting of about the third part of the Christian world calling themselves the whole Church and condemning all the rest for not subjecting themselves to this Usurping Head IV. It is a new Church in comparison of Christs Universal Church as having a new Humane Original As is proved V. It is a treasonable Church as set up without Christs Authority and challenging his Prerogative and weakning his Kingdom by unchurching the greatest part VI. It is an unholy Church as distinct from the holy Catholick Church and that both in the essential Matter and Form 1. In the Matter its Head which is a constitutive part having been oft a condemned Heretick Infidel Murderer and other flagitious wicked man 2. As to the Form being not of God it is not holy 3. Besides that as to the Head he was long made by the most wicked Whores All this is before proved at large VII It is a Church that hath had its pretended succession interrupted as is proved sometimes by long Vacances sometimes by long Schismes when no one was the Universal Head sometimes by the Incapacity of the Persons being Lay-men or Infidels Simoniaoal condemned deposed Hereticks and therefore no Bishops VIII It is a Schismatical Church that cuts off it self from all the rest of the Christian Church And by making a false Head and Principle and conditions of Unity which the Universal Church never did never will or can unite in is the grand cause of the greatest continued Schism IX It is a trayterous Church against Princes making it their very Religion to force bloody Oaths on them and to excommunicate and depose them and give away their Dominions and that tolerateth its most famous Doctors to maintain that being excommunicate they are no Kings and may be killed and to maintain that the Pope is above them in Temporals and may set up and pull down Kings when he seeth cause All this is expresly proved before X. It is a Church that believeth Contradictions as is proved in their Councils e. g. The Council of Basil Sess ult saying No one of the skilful did ever doubt but that the Pope was subject to the Judgment of a General Council in things that concern Faith c. And others saying the clean contrary As also in divers other things XI It was for above forty years sometimes two sometimes three Churches instead of one For the Head being an essential part two or three Heads make as many Churches XII It is at this day divers Churches really as to the Form that are by the ignorant supposed to be one Two or three Forms and Partes Imperantes being essential make as many Churches though the subjects live mixt The summa Potestas is a constitutive essential part Some called Papists take the Pope for the summa Potestas and some a Council and some both conjunct and some the Church real or diffused through the World XIII It is a Church made up of a tolerated hodge-podge of many Sects some utterly uncapable Members so they do but serve the Pope I have shewed out of many Doctors cited by Sancta Clara that many that believe not in Christ are of their Church He saith himself pag. 113. Deus Nat. Grat. What is clearer than that at this Day the Gospel bindeth not where it is not authentically preached that is that at this Day men may be saved without an explicite belief of Christ For in that sence speaks the Doctor concerning the Jews And verily what ever my illustrious Master hold with his learned Master Herera I think that this was the Opinion of Scotus and the COMMON one citing many that follow it And that men that hold all the different Opinions in the Jesuites Morals and the Schoolmen besides many various Religious Sects make up their Church is not denyed XIV It is a Church that pretendeth to have a Judge and end of Controversies but indeed hath a Judge that for the most part dare not decide them and that can make no end of them when decided For instance the Controversie of the Virgins immaculate conception decided at Basil is never the nearer an end Images were decreed up by some Councils and down by others Even S. Thomas stood not to the second Council of Nice about Image Worship The various Councils that decreed variously for and against a Councils Supremacy never the more ended the strife And indeed it is so hard to know approved from reprobate

and sacred Scripture and that henceforth it shall be lawful for no Man to Preach or Teach the contrary Where was this Tradition kept before that was so hard a Controversie till now 2. And do not General Councils bring in Novelties I cited formerly the words of Cajetan in his Oration in the Council at the Laterane under Leo 10. charging the Council of Constance Basil and Pisa with Novelty and such Novelty as would have quite defaced the Church and was inconsistent with it And Pighius chargeth them with the like Yea I told you before where he saith that General Councils themselves are a Novelty devised by Constantine 3. Be not General Councils themselves approved or reprobated at the pleasure of the Pope What a number of reprobated Councils were there that yet were as numerous as the approved and as lawfuly called and assembled Bellarmine instanceth in the 2. of Ephesus Constance Basil and many more Of which more before II. Another of their deceits is by pretending to Vinc. Lerinensis Rule quod ab omnibus ubique semper c. as if Antiquity and Universality were on their side I must remember that I have long ago confuted these and the rest of their deceits in my Key for Catholicks Yet I will briefly speak here to these two 1. For Antiquity we willingly stand to it and to the rejecting of all Novelty in Religion But we must have better proof than the word of our Grand-fathers or a Priest 1. Is any of their Books or Traditions elder than the holy Scripture 2. Either the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. have been sure Keepers of Antiquity or not If yea then we may take their Testimony as well as the Church of Romes If not why may not you prove as ill Keepers of it as they 3. But are they not certain Novelties that you would impose on us under the colour of Antiquity Read but Pet. Moulin de Novit Papismi or Mr. Th. Doelittles Discourse in the Morning Lectures against Popery and you shall see the Novelty of your Religion fully proved Take now but these few instances 1. Your very Patriarchate Primacie Claim of Universality General Councils are all proved Novelties before 2. Your own Writers confess that the denying the People Christs Blood or the Cup in the Lords Supper is a Novelty that prevailed by Custom by little and little and was not common long before the Council at Constance Dare you say that it was so from the beginning or of old 3. Can you possibly believe that your forbidding men to read the Scriptures in a known Tongue without a Licence is not a Novelty if ever you read Chrysostom Augustine Jerome or any thing of the Ancients 4. Is it not a Novelty for the publick Prayers of the Church to be ordinarily made in a Tongue not understood by the generality of the People But I must stop 2. And as to Universality I have before proved 1. That by their own Confession most of the Churches and Bishops of the World have been against them 2. That at this day they are not above the third part of Christians Too small an Universal Church for any man of Charity and Consideration to be a member of A Sect that call themselves All the Church Jacob. a Vitr Histor Orient Cap. 77. tells us that the Churches in the Easterly part of Asia alone exceeded in multitude both the Greek and Latine Churches As for their telling us that all these followed Dioscorus a Heretick or were Nestorians and that all the Abassines Armenians Georgians Syrians Coptics Greeks Protestants c. are Hereticks or Schismaticks I have answered it so oft at large that I must not repeat what I have said Only 1. I say that if the Censures and Revilings of Adversaries can un-christen all others and appropriate the Church to them that have least Charity perhaps the Qualiers may shortly have as fair a Title as the Papists If General Councils be not to be believed when they Hereticate Popes I will not believe a Railer when he Hereticates most of the Christian World whom he never saw or spake with Sure that man judgeth persons unheard 2. I repeat the words of Barchardus one of your own that long lived among them and spake what he saw p. 325 326. And is for those that we judge to be damned Hereticks as the Nestorians Jacobites Maronites Georgians and the like I found them to be for the most part good and simple men and living sincerely towards God and Men they are of great abstinence c. And p. 324. he saith that the Syrians Greeks Armenians Georgians Nestorians Nubians Jubeans Chaldeans Maronites Ethiopians Egyptians and many other Nations of Christians there inhabit and that some are Schismaticks not subject to the Pope and others called Hereticks as the Nestorians Jacobites c. but there are many in these Sects that are very simple knowing nothing of Heresies devoted to Christ materating the Flesh with Fastings and clothed with the most simple Garments so that they far excel the very RELIGIOUS of the Church of Rome And p. 323. of the Papists whom he calleth by the Name of Christians as if it were proper to them he saith There are in the Land of Promise men of every Nation under Heaven and every Nation liveth after their own Rites and to speak the very truth to our own great confusion there are none found in it that are worse and more corrupt in Manners than Christians that is Papists 3. If greater Errours and Vices than are among the Armenians the Abassines Syrians c. will allow us to reject men from our Communion how much more cause have we to renounce Communion with Popes and Papists than with these Churches 4. How can any man say that Nations and Countries are to be rejected as Hereticks unless the single persons guilty were tryed and heard when there is no Heresie but what is in individuals and no Law of God or Reason condemneth the innocent for the guilties faults much less all Posterity for their Ancestors III. But they never gain more than by aggravating the Divisions that are among other Christians and boasting of the Unity of their Church And the Contentions that have been among us have given them such advantage as that some in the sense of their former guilt having been Sect-masters themselves have turned Papists as thinking it the state of Union and having found no settlement in those ways which they have tryed because they never rightly understood the true temperament of the Christian Religion which they professed they think to find it in that way that they never tryed as sick men turn from side to side for ease while the cause of their weariness and pain is within them and turneth with them Here let the Reader note 1. That Fools judge of Differences in Religion by the noise that it makes in the World but men of Reason judge of it by the greatness and number of the points of