Church of Rome and of the Church of England And that the greatest too And I am perswaded the Church of England since it professed the Gospell never had such a monstrous and Bayeyard-like bold misleader as this Great worth of Canterbury hath proved to be or will certainly proove in effect if it find as blind Disciples to deale witthall as it selfe is a Master Although it is much hoped that if any Man hath conceived such an high Opinion of your worth as to account you for the most Profound Divine the most Pregnant Politician and the most potent Champion of the Church of England the very Reading of this your Book with a corrected judgement will either convert him from this errour or at least prevent that this errour of your Doctorship shall not Commence or Proceed to the degree of Heresie L. p. 303. 'T is safest to beleeue the Article of Christs Descent into hell as both the Churches of England and of Rome do agree upon that is That he descended into the place of the damned And this is the truth P. Surely if this be the truth that Christ descended locally into hell the place of the damned it were safest to beleeve it whether you and Rome consent in the beliefe of it or no. But because you beleeve as the Church of Rome beleeves will you thereupon conclude This is the truth Certainly we have the more cause to suspect that truth for a falshood wherein you and Rome doe both agree But how true your beliefe with Rome is and how true this Truth we have before sufficiently discovered But will this hold for a good Rule that in what you and Rome agree it is safest to beleeve it You agree in Altars Priests Sacrifice all manner of wil-worship Antichristianisme and many things more forespecified Ergo is 't safest to beleeve these things Or for whom safest safest for all those that affect to be of your Church Tryumphant here and would not come under your persecution But how agrees this with that which you adde ibid. that Rome will not indure this that Christ descended into the place of the damned but onely in Limbum Patrum a Region in the upper part of Hell Ergo rather then faile if Rome will not beleeve as you doe That Christ discended into the place of the damned you will beleeve as she beleeves that he dâ—scended in Limbum Patrum For agree you must and that 's the safest beliefe L. p. 307. I my selfe have heard some Iesuites confesse that in the Liturgie of the Church of England ther 's no positive errour P. 'T is a signe then your Liturgie agrees pretty well with the Romish Messal as is noted by the way before For surely such a Testimony from a Jesuites mouth gives us the more cause of suspicion that all is not so well in your Liturgie as it should be As Diogenes sayd when the people applauded him he began to suspect himselfe that he had committed some absurdity or other saying Wherein have I miscarryed my selfe that this people doth so commend me L. p. 318. Though Dr. White late Bishop of Ely was more able to answere for himselfe yet since he is now dead and is thus drawn into this Discourse I shall as well as I can doe him the right which his learning and paines for the Church deserved And I grant as well as he that there must be some one Church or other continually visible P. First for Dr. White he being now dead which he was long before I will say no more but this For his deserving pains for the Church the Church of England you meane as now it stands the same Church with that of Rome and of the same Faith with her and of which Faith he also declared himselfe to be when he told a Minister that the Difference between the Church of Rome and of England in the Doctrines of the sixt Session of Trent and by name of Grace and Justification was little or nothing how great it was his Works extant can witnesse as namely his Approbation prefixed to your now Brother of Chichester his Appeale to Caesar wherein is maintained the whole Body of your Arminian Heresie together in all or most of the grossest points of Popery as worship of Images at least with Doulia and the like and assaying to prove the Pope not to be Antichrist as if he would solem è coelo tollere also Dr. Whites Book of the Sabbath to prove no Sabbath to Christians and the fourth Commandement not to be Morall for the keeping of one day in the weeke as the Lords Day allowing also of vaine sports and profane pastimes on that Day and commending of praying towards the East where your Altar is placed and such like stuffe in all which he so well deserved of your Church of England as he scarce had his fellow onely if he were now living againe he would yeeld the Bucklers to your Lordship as the bravest Champion of the now Chuch of England that hath risen up in this latter Age or yet succeeding times may hope to produce But let us now heare the right which your Lordship does him and which his paines for the Church deserved But first let me tell you you forget here to give him his Title of Lord Bishop which you indeed gave him in the very first page of your Booke But now his Lordship is dead let not Lord and Bishop be separated in any case no not by death it selfe For indeed Lord-Bishop is a peculiar Title differencing you from all true Bishops indeed as the Scripture commendeth for the onely Bishops as is shewed before yet I know not how it is come to passe that in the best Reformed Churches beyound the Seas the Pastors are never called Bishops I suppose it is because as Kings of old were stiled Tyranni and that in meliorâ—m partem untill degenerating into Lawlesse Tyrants indeed good Kings would thereupon never after be called Tiranni but Kings so the Reformed Churches seeing how the name of Bishop grâ—w to be odious the Office and Calling of it being changed 〈◊〉 that of a Parochiall Pastor into a Diocesan Lordship and so 〈◊〉 have for this cause layd aside the Name of Bishop though otherwise the Name is good as it pertaines to the true 〈◊〉 and Presbyters over particular Congregations as is before shâ—wed so as the Reformed Churches doe herein as the Ancient Romans did who when their Kings turned Tyrants the lâ—st wheâ—of was Tarquinius surnamed Superâ—us for his extreme 〈◊〉 they for ever banished both the name of Kings and 〈◊〉 out of their Commonweale But let us see how you recompense the omission of this Lordly Title in this place to such a well deserving man You adde And I grant as well as he that there 〈◊〉 be some one Church or other continually visible Aâ— well aâ— he This then may seem to be some recompense by way of honour and 〈◊〉 some doing of him Right for indeed his main
Preeminence the Bishops Chaire hee prateth against Iohn hee receives not the bretheren and forbids them that would and and throwes them out of the Church by Excommunication just as you and the Pope doe This ambition and erection of Prelacie or Hierarchy was that Mystery of Iniquity which Satan began to brood and hatch even in the Apostles dayes and wherein we have Diotrephes quickly grown up as the first Cocke of the Game of speciall and particular note and name that durst affront even the Apostle himselfe And this Mystery of Iniquity hath continued ever since though at first and in the first Ages it grew up but slowly by reason of a tò katekon à Remora or maine impediment the Roman Empire whose Imperiall Seat being once removed from Rome to Constantinople by Constantine who consopited appeased and put an end to those tenne Persecutions which had been a great hinderance to Antichrists growth then began this Mistery to perke up and the Bishop of Rome Silvester the first could be content to weare a Crown put upon his head by Constantine which upon Boniface the eight his head was multiplyed to a triple Crown one for heaven another for earth and third for purgatory and thus by degrees successively it grew up to that height which we see it now arrived at even its Akmè or full Stature beyond which it cannot goe though it would So as its main care strength and policie is all little enough Parta tueri to maintain what it hath got Now I say in this Mystery of Iniquity I mean the Prelacie or Hierarchy was Antichrist begotten born bred up and at length brought to his full maturity and perfection Now is this Mystery of Iniquity therefore good because it is able to vie and plead Antiquity even as high up as the Apostles owne times and so along downe to ours Though I doe more then suspect that you take it in foule Scorne that I should Anti-christen your Prelacie or Hierarchie with the name of the Mystery of Iniquity But if ye will be patient a while I shall ere I have done give you I hope good Satisfaction And in the meane time the Apostle shall passe his word for it who in the very same place where he speakes of the Mystery of Iniquity doth speake also of the Man of Sin the Son of Perdition who is an Adversary and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped who sitteth as God in the Temple of God shewing himselfe that he is God The very recitall of which words may suffice to stay any reasonable mans stomacke from breaking out into outragious impatience against him that saith The Prelacie is the Mystery of Iniquity But you shall have it God willing at full anon Againe some of your Divines goe about to drive the Antiquity of your holy Lent-Fast from the Apostles very times and so to have continued ever since in all Ages and Places where the Church hath taken any rooting And indeed some Christians even then began to observe Touch not Tast not handle not and to observe Times daies Moneths but the Apostle condemns all such observation and as before brands them for Doctrines of Devils and departing from the Faith and denying of Christ. So as though you could prove your Church-Government to have been in use both in and ever since the Apostles times yet it will not follow that it is such a Government as either was practised or yet approved by the Apostles themselves For your Church-Government is altogether Hierarchicall by Prelates which the Apostles never practised themselves nor yet approved but condemned in others that either began to practise it or were inclined and affected thereto Not as Lords over Gods Heritage saith Peter Not as having dominion over your Faith saith Paul It shall not be so among you saith Christ. Diotrephes loveth to have the Preeminence saith Iohn But of this we shall have occasion to speake more at after In the meane time take this with you Did the Apostles nay for some hundred yeares after them did Prelates keep Courts and Consistories with their Chauncellors Archdeacons Commissaries Officialls Tipstaves Pursuivants Apparators like the Roman Lictors with their rodds for terrour and state Or had they their private Courts to excommunicate whom they pleased and that by a dumbe Priest and for every triviall matter and for no just cause Prove these things my Lord to have been in use in the Primitive Ages at the least for the first 500. yeares or in any place but where Diotrâ—phes was untill Antichrist the Pope set up that frame of Hierarchy with all its Equipage Traine and Rabble the just Image whereof you have set up in the Church of England You speak bigge indeed but you cannot be as bigge as your word If you had leasure to read the Histories of the Church and among the rest the Centuries they will show you what a vast difference there is between your Church-Government as both now and of long time it hath been practised in the Church both of Rome and England and that ancient Government practised by the ancient Prelates in the Primitive Ages And in the Popes Canon Law and other Records à Polidor Virgil De Inventorebus rerum c. you may come to know the Antiquity of your Prelaticall Courts and Consistories Chancellors Archdeacons Officialls Commissaries Registers and all the frie. For beyond that seaven hild City the head-spring of this Seaven-Streamed Egyptian Nilus is not found Hath not then the Seperatist as you call him just cause and ground to charge your Church of England with Antichristianisme whose Church-Government and Discipline is such as the Apostles never approved but expresly reproved and condemned and practised the contrary For if your Church-Government be that which the Apostle brands with the Mystery of Iniquity and of Antichrist then surely you cannot excuse it from Antichristianisme If you say This is rather meant of the Church of Rome and of the Pope the Head thereof who you must needs confesse is very like to Antichrist if he be not the very Antichrist as indeed he is then of the Church of England Why wherein differeth the Church of England from that of Rome in Church-Government Do you not say you are both one and the same Church And wherein one and the same but in Church-Government especially Of which we shall speake more anon Now for Antichristianisme you know it comes of Antichrist and Antichrist is a compound word Anti in the Greek signifying both for and against So as Anti-Christ is one that under pretence of being for Christ is against Christ. Such is the Pope who pretends to be Christs Vicar which is as much to say as Antixristos Antichristus as Anthupatos Pro consul so Antichristus Prochristus or Vice-Christ And yet he is Anti Against Antikeimenos an Adversary to Christ as the Apostle sets him forth So as the Pope is
and their Successors the true Ministers of the Gospell who by their preaching declare who have their sinnes pardoned and who not So as your colouring over your usuall evasion of the Papists about their merits which they say are not absolutely meritorious of themselves but as being dipped and dyed in Christs blood whence they receive the tincture of merit But as the merit of Christ is altogether immanent in himselfe and not transient to us but onely by Imputation through faith and not by any infusion or inherencie as Papists teach So the power of Priestly Absolution is so proper and peculiar to the Person of Christ that it is not communicative or derivative to any Creature No not I say to the Leviticall Priests who otherwise were Types of Christ. They onely offered sacrifices for sinnes but as Types and which could never take away Sinnes as the Apostle speakes And their Office was to discerne and judge of the Leprosie and to pronounce a man cleane or uncleane according to those signes and markes which God himselfe gave Now Leprosie was an Embleme of Sinne. And as those Ministers of the Old Testament did with the Leprosie namely pronounce or declare it onely to be or not to be So the Ministers of the Gospell are to declare unto beleevers the pardon of sinnes by those signes and markes which God hath set in his Word and to impenitent persons condemnation except they beleeve and repent But for power of Absolving men from Sinnes as to Say Thy Sins are forgiven thee that 's Christs voyce alone Never any of the Apostles used this voyce to any Thy Sins are forgiven thee but as Peter said to those that were pricked in their hearts and asked Men and Bretheren what shall we doe Repent saith he and be baptised every one of you in the Name of Iesus Christ for the Remission of Sins But to Say I absolve thee from thy Sins or Thy Sins are forgiven thee is onely his who can give Repentance and Faith These two Prerogatives are inseperable in Christ as Peter sheweth Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give Repentance to Israel and forgivenesse of Sinnes and we are witnesses of these things Saith he Now if you can prove that Christ hath made you Such Princes and Saviours as to give you a power which Symon Magus would have bought with his money to give Repentance to any man then I will without any more adoe confesse that you have also a power to forgive Sins Otherwise not till then by your assumed and usurped Priesthood and presumptuous yea blasphemous forgiving of Sins I Absolve thee you deny Iesus to be the Christ the onely Christ to wit the onely Priest who onely hath merit and power as to give Repentance so remission of Sins to whom he will And thus as you take upon you to be a Priest both by your profession and practise you are an Antichrist For who is a lyer but he that denyeth Iesus to be the Christ He is Antichrist Saith the Apostle Iohn Secondly neither were it any great difficulty to prove that you Prelates and that according to your owne Doctrine in many places of your Book do deny Iesus to be the Christ to wit the onely Prophet of his Church For you allow no beliefe that the Scripture is the voyce of Christ the Prophet except the voyce and Tradition of the present Church doe first usher it in And this Church must alwayes be meant of a Prelaticall Church No question of that And for Exposition and Sense of Scripture you deny that the Scripture it selfe and of it selfe hath sufficient light as at after we shall see at large and therefore you referre us either to the Exposition of the Primitive Church or the Decisions of Generall Councels for the right Sense of the Scripture Thus you doe akurōsa as Christ saith or make voyd and of no authority the voyce of Christ by your Tradition Nay you Say also That if a Generall Councel should Conclude and Decree an Errour yet all men ought to yeeld obedience at least externall thereunto till another Generall Councel equall to that shall reverse and correct it And by the way what if it shall make it worse or adde more Errours to it But thus doe you not deny Christ to be the onely Prophet of his Church of whom God Saith Heare Him Him onely His Word onely His Voyce onely when you do not take his Word to be light enough and to be sufficient to interpret it selfe but that you must have recourse to Generall Councels consisting of Prelates as your Oracles to decide all doubts and controversies of Faith Doe you not thus attribute a greater light to men then to the voyce of Christ GOD Saith of Christ that Prophet Heare him in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you but you say In all doubts and controversies of faith heare what a Generall Councel Saith yea though it determine Errours yet all men are bound to yeeld obedience thereunto Thus the expresse voyce and cleare word of Christ that Prophet must depend upon Men and those an Assembly of Prelates or Priests which Christ never ordained in his Church and not men upon It. And so in this respect also denying Christ to be the onely All sufficient Prophet to instruct and establish his Church in all Truth while you deny his word to be Autópistos and Autà rkes of selfe-Credit of it selfe to be beleeved and selfe-sufficient to shew and interpret it selfe you prove your selfe an Antichrist For who is a lyer but he that denyeth that Iesus is the Christ He is Antichrist Your Grace therefore is an Antichrist But I come to the third Instance to which I confesse I thought to have confined my selfe and not to have touched the other two in this place though they be no lesse proper then this which is That you Prelates both by Profession and Practise as you are Prelates doe deny Iesus to be the Christ in that you deny him to be the onely Lord and King of his Church For what is for Christ to be the King of and over and in his Church but as to exercise his Almighty power and Fatherly care and Spouse-like love in protecting and preserving his Church from all evills in comforting her in the midst of afflictions in supplying her with all necessary Graces and Blessings and in vindicating the cause of his People against all their Persecuters and Oppressors So also in bearing a Speciall Kingly Rule in and over their Soules and Consciences in all things concerning Faith in the Worship and Service of God So as the people of God doe and ought to acknowledge Christ herein their onely King and not to suffer their consciences to be captivated and insnared by any ordinance of Man whatsoever in point of faith and ceremonies in Gods service injoyning a necessary conformity thereunto 'T is Christs Prerogative alone in
not see our inward Devotion towards God And say not you Our externall worship is that light without which men could not see our Devotion Iust as the Pharisees All they did was to be seen of men But you would perswade us you doe it to a higher end which is Gods glory For you Say Take this away and what Light is there left to shine before men that they may see our Devotion and glorifie our Father which is in heaven So here be two ends of all your externall worship and solemne service and great pompe and humble expressions of Devotion First that men may see your Devotion for els it were not worth a rush Secondly that they may glorifie God As I noted before these words of Christ you falsely apply to your blind Devotion which he Spake concerning the Light of faith shining forth in good workes to the glory of God Whereas your externall worship as it is a fruit of your blind Devotion so it is that whereby God is greatly dishonoured and that both actually in it selfe and effectuâ—lly in the beholders First Actually in it selfe all false worship or will-worship for both is one is a dishonour to God In vaine they worship me teaching for Doctrines the Precepts of Men. Now God is not glorified or honoured with any vain worship Nay on the contrary he is greatly dishonoured by it For such will-worship is a high presumption derogating from the Majesty of God who wil be worshiped no otherwise then as himselfe hath expresly commanded in his word As the Prophet saith And shalt honour him not doing thine owne wayes nor finding thine own pleasure And such is all will-worship Secondly God is greatly dishonoured by such externall will-worship effectively in the Beholders First because when they see such a great Prelate as your selfe use such gestures in Gods Service they are apt to imitate you and so to partake of your sinne as too many doe Secondly because in such false worship the neerer they think to approach to God in imitating of you the further off their hearts are from God as the Prophet Speaketh And they whose hearts are farre removed from God cannot glorifie God Now your will-worship which is taught by the Precepts of men though it seem to be very humble and so to draw neere unto God yet it drawes away mens hearts farre from God as there the Prophet sheweth And such as behold and affect and imitate your devises in externall worship they are as much puffed up with vaineglory that they imitate and so please such a great Man as your selfe as they never think of glorifying God And lastly God is not glorified by blind and Superstitious worshippers but by good works springing from the inward light of Faith Now your blind Devotion is not to be reckoned and ranked among good works For good works are such and so done as God hath commanded but your externall worship as you call it being a will-worship and so a false worship which God no where hath commanded but every where expressely forbidden are no good works but as Aug. Saith Splendida peccata a glaring false worship But it seemeth this your externall worship the fruit of your Devotion is all the good works you have to show that men thereby may See what Kind of light is in you which is not any true but a false light I proceed But how hath this ignis fatuus of yours carryed me so out of my way that I have over Skipt one Passage in the same Page a little before But yet coming in here it will the more fitly usher in the next which we shall note in the Same Page L. ibid. This I have observed further that no one thing hath made Conscientious men more wavering in their own minds or more apt and easie to be drawn aside from the Sincerity of Religion professed in the Church of England then the want of uniform and decent Order in too many Churches of the Kingdome P. A little before you commended unto us the Integrity of the Church in Doctrine and Manners and but now how right your hearts stand in the Service of God here you use a third word Sincerity of Religion and that professed in the Church of England By this time we are sufficiently acquainted with your Sincerity of Religion professed in the Church of England For we have your externall worship as the GREAT WITNESSE thereof of which your Sincerity so much is spoken as we have left a great hole in it And the nature of that your Sincerity of Religion professed in the Church of England duely considered can we marvaile if most mens minds in the Kingdome fall a wavering yea and if they be truely Conscientious men indeed not such as you meane to wit meere Formalists or Newters no marvaile if you find multitudes of them if multitudes of such be left to fall quite off from the Sincerity of your Religion professed in the Church of England But if any of your Conscientious men be drawn aside what 's the Cause Want of uniforme and decent Order in too many Churches in the Kingdome But doe you not see on the other side a whole Nation driven aside and that as they Say by your too much pressing upon them your uniforme and decent Order in all Churchs for the erecting of the Sincerity of Religion professed in the Church of England And yet you complain that you cannot set up your uniformity in too many Churches in England Surely ye might have done well first to have made all uniforme at home before you pressed too hard upon your Neighbour-Countrey And if too many Churches in England be not uniforme whose fault is that Not yours I dare say Have not you and your brother Prelates done pretty well to it in Suspending Silencing Excommunicating Casting out of their Ministry and Living so many Ministers Witnesse Norfolke Suffolke Essex Kent Surrey and other Diocesse and Shires Will not these Examples terrifie all other Churches in England But yet if nothing els will doe it the publishing of this your Book anew will certainly effect it or nothing And therfore you adde L. Ibid. To deale Clearly with your Majesty these thoughts are they and no other which have made me labour so much as I have done for Decencie and an Orderly Settlement of the externall worship of God in the Church Now no externall action in the world can be uniform without some Ceremonies And these in Religion the ancienter they be the better so they may fit Time and Place Too many overburthen the Service of God and too few leave it naked c. Ceremonies are the hedge that fence the Substance of Religion from all the indignities which Profanesse and Sacriledge too commonly put upon it Weaknesse it is not to see the Strength which Ceremonies things weake enough in themselves God knows adde even to Religion it selfe but a farre greater to see it and yet to cry them down All
your whole Discourse So as I may see my Doom already set down in black and white that I must be Censured as one too busie or AllotroepÃoskopos playing the Bishop in anothers Diocese in our English Translation a busy body But I must beare it off with Head and Shoulders And as the Proverbe is Over Shooes over Bootes I have already waded through the Fords of your Dedicatory and now I must launch into the Deep of your Discourse And there 's now no returning Nor have I put my hand to the Plough to turn up your weeds by the roots to look backe or desist for feare to be censured as one too busie Yea all my businesse is about particulars and namely such as summed up together in the totall conclude you to be though not a profest Invader yet a most subtile and pragmaticall Enginer and underminer of that Truth of Christ in the Scripture which yet the Gates of Hell shall never prevaile against L. p. 4. Bellarmine of very great ability to make good any truth which he undertakes for the Church of Rome P. What one thing I pray which Bellarmine undertakes to make good for the Church of Rome as the Church of Rome is a truth I say as the Church of Rome For what he undertakes to make good for the Church of Rome properly must needs be some point of Popery or Popish Doctrine Otherwise he undertakes not to make it good as for the Church of Rome Now the Church of Rome as it is the Church of Rome namely the Papall Church holds not any one Saving Truth I say againe it holds not any one Saving Truth I shall prove this more particularly at after Yet you seem to intimate here that either all or most things so undertaken by him are truth But the contrary will appeare So as what things are in themselves false and erronious can by no humane ability either of that Champion of Rome Bellarmine or of the great Champion of the present Church of England be so made good as to deserve the name of Truth L. ibid. After Bellarmine hath distinguished â—o expresse his Meaning in what sence the particular Church of Rome cannot Erre in things which are de Fide of the Faith he tells us this Firmitude is because the Sea Apostolicke is fixed there And this he saith is most true P. Your last words here are somewhat darke whether we should take them for Bellarmines words he saith or for your owne assent therein And this he saith is most true This Later is the Likelier And then againe here is another doubt whether And this he saith is very true it be referred to the whole Sentence going before and alledged by you or onely to the Last Clause If to the whole Sentence then in Saying And this he saith is most true you assent that Romes infallibility consists in the Firmitude of the Sea Apostolicke fixed there Which you seem afterwards more expresly to contradict But if onely to the Last Clause your Speech hath reference And this he saith is most true then first you should have expressed it more Clearely and punctually as in some things you doe But taking it in the best sense you confesse it is most true that the Sea Apostolicke is fixed there thus you give occasion of Dispute about Peters being at Rome and of his being Bishop of Rome and if so whether consequently Rome be yet the Sea Apostolicke But because your words here are not Cleare enough and at after you declare your selfe herein more plainly what we have to say of this we will reserve to a fitter place L. p. 23. I shall ever be glad that the Church of England may have farre more able Defendants then my selfe P. Certainly the Church of England her selfe may be glad hereof to vindicate her Reputation which you by this your Defence have layd flat in the dust But May have seems to import that now she hath not at least now that Dr. White is dead Nor hath the Church of England any great cause to glory in either of you both as Defendants unlesse by the Church of England you understand that new Start-up Faction of Arminianized and Iesuited Atheists whose Standard-beares you have been and are to bring the whole Land backe againe to Rome and so to make a full League and Confederacie against the true Church of Iesus Christ. L. p. 29. Things not Fundamentall yet to some mens Salvation are neâ—essary P. How prove you this Seeing what is necessary to some mens Salvation is necessary to all and every mans Salvation And Fundamentalls onely to wit Such things as are de Fide of Faith are the onely things necessary to every mans Salvation According to the Athanasius his Creed Whosoever will be Saved it is necessary that he hold the Catholicke Faith which Faith unlesse a man keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly For the Catholicke Faith comprehends all Fundamentalls which to violate in any one particular overthrowes the Faith and cuts a man off from Salvation But your adding of other things besides and unto the Fundamentalls as necessary to Some mens Salvation doth necessarily inferre this Consequence that there be other things besides Christ which are necessary to Some mens Salvation And so you make Christ an insufficient Saviour to some men at least as to whose Salvation things not Fundamentall are necessary For things not Fundamentall are extra Christum out of or without Christ. Whereas the Scripture Saith of CHRIST That there is no Salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given whereby Dei sothenai emas we Must be Saved which words doe plainly evince that besides Christ nothing under heaven is necessary to any mans Salvation But give us some one particular instance of such things as being not fundamentall yet are necessary to some mens Salvation You tell us of certain I wot not what Deductions from the Articles of Faith which you make to be your Not-Fundamentall and yet necessary to some mens Salvation but for our better Information you particularize in nothing neither in the things nor in the persons for whose Salvation they are necessary but leave all in the Cloudes the fittest manâ—le to foldâ—up such foule and blind errours in L. p. 31. The Churches Declaration can bind us to peace and externall obedience where there is no expresse Letter of Scripture and Sense agreed upon P. By the Latitude of this Sentence you or your Church of England may as you have done by your Declaration prefixed to your Articles of Religion as before bind Ministers not to preach of those Doctrines of Grace as Election Predestination c. because though there be expresse Letter of Scripture for them yet the Sense is so farre from being agreed upon by your present Church as that you Say plainly they may be taken in two opposite Senses So as upon this your Churches Declaration of the ambiguities of your Articles you
before all the world and therefore that the Reply be published And if it shall be thought fit to be dedicated to the King I wish that mine own hand might present it For to say no more how highly doth the Cause concerne the King and his Kingdome did he but truely know it And how he should come to know it but this way I know not And I hope his Majestie will not refuse it at Charities hand I have said Mother Zeale what sayst thou Zeale Deare Mother can we see our God so highly dishonoured our Christ so belyed his Spirit so despised his Word so disparaged his Worship so depraved his Saints so destroyed his true Spouse unchurched and excommunicated out of the Creed and a false Church fasle Faith false Religion false Gods set up in Christs Throne to be Judges in matters of Faith and proud men to usurpe over the Consciences and Soules of his people and the like and are we not to set a worke all the irons in the fire that may be to arme us against such an all-daring Philistin who dare so desperately defie the Hosts of the living God And blessed be our God who hath raised up and inabled such a Replyer and blessed be the Replyer who ever he be that takes up Davids sting and stone to throw at that Gyant-like Mushrumme And were there an hundred such Replyes let them all be published and all be presented to the King to the confusion of all Babell-builders or Ierecho's rebuilders And if men will willfully close their eyes and stop their eares against the Truth at their perill be it I have sayd Mother Humility what sayst thou Humility Deare Mother I humbly pray that the Reply be published and if my Sister Charity doe present it to the King all my ambition is to waight upon her as her hand-maid to beare up the Traine of her manyfold sin-covering Mantle This is all I can doe or say Mother Prudence what sayst thou Prudence Deare Mother although I accord with all that my Sisters have here said yet seeing it pleaseth you to impose this taske upon me I shall give you a faithfull and just account what I further conceive to be not altogether unworthy our serious consideration about the dedicating and presenting the Reply to the King First we all know what reward others have had for the like service and that of fresh memory as a Minister appealing from the Prelates to the King for a just and equall hearing of his Cause which was about the discharge of his Ministry in Preaching was delivered over to the Censure of a Court wherein his maine Adversary sate a Judge and the Censure was accordingly so terrible as no age can parallell And Secondly the same Adversary that was the Prime instigator to inflict the said Censure continues still in the same power and favour in Court so as if my Sister Charity her selfe together with Humility should present the Reply I know not what security she can have from the like Censure of being both Schismaticall and Seditious because she thus appeares against a most notorious Adversary of CHRIST and his Word but such whose power and favour in Court can so farre prevaile to the abusing of the sweet and unsuspicious nature of Princes as to make them beleeve that they cannot possibly be misled by such a Leader although the Prelate himselfe confesse that Worth once misled proves of all other the greatest Misleader and the Replyer hath detected and proved him the most notorious blind Leader that ever sate in Canterbury Chaire And Thirdly who sees not the maine worke that so many arrowes of persecution against Gods Ministers and people and so the Gospell it selfe as appeares too palpably by the Prelates usuall practises doe ayme at As namely the rooting out of the Gospell and the erecting of all Popish Superstition and Idolatry and so the bringing in of Atheisme and Infidelity with Antichristian Tyranny and all to reduce England to a Reconciliation with Rome as also the Relation it selfe doth unblushingly discover And the Merchants doe tell us from abroad how the Priests and Fryers can tell them upon occasion of the Scots first standing out that this course was by the Prelaticall Faction reaching as farre as Rome resolved on before yesterday And Fourthly when we looke upon the hideous outrages of the Prelates against which no complaint can take place nor find better successe then as when a man casts stones upward which fall down againe upon his own head doth it not argue the Estate of things to be desperate and at the height when such men as the Prelates are mounted on a throne of iniquity framing mischiefe as by a Law But yet Lastly notwithstanding all this when I consider how mercifully God hath heard the earnest prayers of his people in moving the Kings heart to such an accord with Scotland as of late although those bitter Roots which GOD never planted and which poâ—son the very ground they goe on the Prelates I meane so fast are they rooted in the earth are left still unplucked up and that the Kings heart is in the hand of the Lord as the Rivers of waters and that if he were once rightly possessed of the State of things wherein he hath been by the Prelates extreamly abused and his State exposed to the wrath of heaven we should be in good hope of Reformation so as what lawfull meanes may be most likely and probable to conduce hereunto is worth the putting in practise though full of hazzard saving that the same GOD who mightily and mercifully moved the Kings heart so farre to yeeld to his Scottish Subjects as to enjoy in a good measure the Prelates onley excepted their liberty of Conscience can also perswade him to doe as much and more for his Subjects Christs people in England And therefore my conclusion is I am so farre from Sacrificing to humane discretion or carnall reason in this point that I could be content to accompany my Sisters Charity and Humility in presenting the Reply resolving with Hester And if I perish I perish And this is all I have to say for the present Mother Piety what sayst thou Piety Deare Mother I owe a duty as to GOD principally and in the first place so to the King Gods vicegerent in the second place and therefore what may conduce to the happinesse and well-fare of the King in this kind I would for it hazzard all And I am for the pubilshing and presenting of the Reply to the King in hope he may possibly read and understand the true State of things being of such high importance as in the world there cannot be a greater And if this be not done things going on as they have done there wil be no longer abiding for us in this place I have said Mother Patience what saist thou Patience Deare Mother what your selfe and my loving Sisters here do or shall resolve of my office is to prepare my backe to beare whatsoever
the malignity and iniquity of the Times shall lay upon me which I am most willing to undergoe for his sake who suffered death that we might live And never had I more imployment to exercise me in any age Mother Iustice what sayst thou Iustice. Deare Mother I hold it both just and necessary that the Reply be published both for the beating down of the insolencie of the Relator and the raysing up of the drooping spirits of Gods people and the setling them in the Truth As for presenting it to the King though I be not against it yet for my part I have engaged my selfe in an Appeale to the High and Rightâ—ous Iudge of all the world for Iustice in this Cause where I shall be sure to have it So as I resolve not to descend to any inferiour Court and there too where the like Cause inferiour to none for pure innocencie and that also upon Appeale so foulely miscarried So as I am altogether taken up in waiting for an Answer from my Righteous Iudge wherein I shall desire my Sister Patience to lend me so much of her vertue as may preserve my Attendance from fainting Mother Mercy what sayst thou Mercy Deare Mother I am ingaged with my Sister Iustice in the same Petition to the throne of Iustice and Mercy that the Righteous Iudge will for his mercy sake to his people give righteous judgement between them and the Relator for else they and the Cause must fall to ground And this course I stick unto not that I dissent from my other Sisters but what your selfe and they shall resolve on in this case my Petition with my Sister Iustice may stand in no small stead when GOD shall be pleased to move the Kings heart to vindicate the Cause of Christ and of his innocent people from the unjust and unmercifull dealing of the Relator against whom I stand a dayly Petitioner with my Sister Iustice not departing from the Court-gate of heaven till we have a full Answer Mother Verity what sayst thou Verity Deare Mother I would willingly accompany my other Sisters to the Court in presenting the Reply to the King but that there I am better known then trusted So as I could never yet have any good successe there Insomuch as I have made my selfe as they have made me altogether a stranger at Court because my naked simplicity can no way suit with the garbe of the Court-fashion which can turn themselvs into all formes but mine which is unchangeable Yet if my Sister Hope could lend me her habit I durst adventure with my Sisters once more within the Court-gates in hope the Courtiers would not reject me as not knowing me to be Verity And should they by my language descry me yet seeing me in Hopes habit they might perhaps turn Truths Disciples in hope of some gaine or preferment so much affiance they have in hopes But alas their hope is nothing a Kin to my Sister Hope for her object are things spirituall and eternall but theirs onely temporall And besides the Relator hath forced his Pack with such a deale of trumpery and painted stuffe gilded over with the glittering Titles of Truth and Peace and Piety and Devotion and the Church and the like that these his faire polished Bristow-stones are preferred by his Court-Disciples before the true and precious Diamonds because presented in their ragged or russet Coat so as these prove not merchantable there where otherwise even Truth it selfe is bought and sold. And therefore it shal be sufficient that my Sisters so many as goe weare me as alwayes as a Jewell in their bosomes so I shall not be taken notice of and the fewer they appeare the better least the Prelate conjure them down for a sort of Factious Spirits as he did those THREE of late in the Starre-Chamber I have said Mother Prayer what sayst thou Prayer Deare Mother and all my deare Sisters here present come I pray you and kneele down here and assist me by joyning in earnest supplication to our GOD that he would direct and lead us in that way which in this businesse may most conduce to the advancement of the Cause of Christ and the honour of the King Prayer O Lord God Almighty Who shall not feare thee thou King of Saints Great and marvelous are thy works just and true are thy wayes Thou art the great King over all the Earth the righteous Iudge of all the world the GOD that hearest Prayer and helpest thy People when they cry unto thee and judgest their cause when thou seest their strength is gone But how long LORD Holy and True when wilt thou arise and have mercy upon Sion Is not now the time the set time come Is it not now a day of rebuke and blasphemy Are not the children brought to the birth and there is none to deliver How long shall thy people cry and thou answerest not How long shall the enemy roare and thou regardest not How long shall he blaspheme thy Name For ever Why pluckest thou not thy right hand out of thy bosome Art not thou our King of old working Salvation in the midst of the Earth Didst not thou divide the Sea for thy People to passe through And art not thou the same GOD of Israel still Or is thine arme shortened that it cannot save And dost thou not remember this how the enemy hath reproached O LORD and blasphemed thy Name And wilt thou deliver the soule of thy Turtle Dove unto the Beast Wilt thou forget the Congregation of thy poore for ever Remember thy Covenant O Lord for we are thy People and thou art our GOD. Other Lords besides thee have had dominion over us but by thee onely will we make mention of thy Name And yet dost thou not see the darke places of the Earth full of the habitations of Cruelty O let not the oppressed returne ashamed The poore and needy cry unto thee they trust in thee they waight for thee that they may praise thy Name Arise therfore O GOD plead thine own Cause remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily Forget not the voyce of thine enemies the tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually And now behold here spread before thee a Book of Reproaches and Blaspemies against thy Majesty and against thy Sonne Iesus Christ and against thy Holy Spirit and against thy Holy Word and against thy Holy Ministers and against thy Holy People and against thy Holy and Pure Worship yea and against the Kings Sacred Majesty whom thou hast set over thy People to governe them according to Truth and Equity under whose Patronage and Authority notwithstanding the Relator is bold to shrowd this his Book with all the Blasphemies and Falsities therein contained So as hereby not onely the exterpation of all true Faith and Religion in the Land is threatned but consequently the utter ruine and extermination of the Nation it selfe hastened already fitted as dry fewell for thy wrath by this
Incendiary For behold Lord what havock is made in the Land What superstitions in will-worship what oppression of the Gospell what persecution of thy Ministers what effusion of their innocent blood What dispersion of their poore families What prophanation of thy holy Sabbaths What erection and adoration of Antichristian Altars and Images What suspension of the doctrines of Grace and Salvation What usurped Tyrannicall Domination over thy Ministers and People What imposition of the intollerable yoake of Ceremonies upon their necks bringing them againe under Antichristian bondage whom Christ by the shedding of his precious blood hath made free And what urging and pressing with furious rage reaching up to heaven the observation of all humane Ordinances while yea and whereby thy divine Ordinances are cast out And what wilt thou now doe to thy great Name Thou hast of late by terrible signes from heaven as it were by sound of Trumpet summoned the whole Land threatning to destroy it Surely the provocations are great were not thy Patience greater But thou expectest Repentance with Reformation of all these abominations But little appearance as yet and as little hope while such Books as this are Patronized and Authorized What then Lord Wilt thou therfore proceed to judge the whole Land for these things Surely the whole Land is defiled and so the cause were just But yet remember Lord that thou hast a remnant yet left therein that have not bowed the knee to Baal And consider withall that they are a Faction principally of some few persons as the Prelates that have caused such confusions in the Land And wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked farre be that from thee Shall not the Iudge of all the world doe right And even now do not thy People lift up strong cryes unto thee against their Aegyptian Taskemasters and Babylonian Lords And behold Lord what a desperate Leader this Faction hath got even as Iudas was to the Rowt the Primate and Metropolitan of all England those Antichristian Titles he so much vaunteth of who because he walkes in Factious and lawlesse by-wayes therefore hath this Fox for his better defence gotten upon him the Lyons skin pretending the King for the Author and Patron of all his practises Now the Foundations being thus cast down what can the Righteous doe But thou art in the holy Temple Thy Throne is in heaven wherein and whence thou swayest all Scepters here below Thou art the King of Kings and in whose band the Kings heart is as the rivers of waters turning it which way it pleaseth thee And thou hast of late mercifully turned his heart to grant to his Scottish People their ancient Christian liberty both by freeing them from Ceremonies and from the High Commissions thereby cutting shorter at least the Hornes of the Beast in the exercise of Prelaticall Tyranny Now ô Lord be pleased to perfect this thy worke both in Scotland and England and throughout all Christendome by causing the Kings of the Earth that formerly were as hornes to the Beast and had given their power unto him to hate the Whore and strippe her naked and that by throwing down the Hierarchy the maine Pillar of the Antichristian Throne which is advanced above and against the glorious Kingdome and Throne of our Lord Iesus Christ. And for this cause ô Lord open the Kings eyes clearely to see the notorious hypocrisie of his Prelate who under a Colour of Peace and Truth goes about to overthrow all true Peace and Truth in his Kingdome Let him see ô Lord how dangerous it is to maintaine or countenance an Antichristian Faction within his Kingdome Let him see how naked his Kingdome lyes at this time exposed to all the stormes of heaven through so many crying Sins and desperate iniquities which the whole Land groaneth under ready to sinke to the bottome of hell Let him see and be rowsed up to a more watchfull Care and diligent attention upon the grave and waighty affaires of a King and especially not to commit the Care of Religion to Romish Prelates which are no members of the true Church of Iesus Christ. And withall ô Lord quicken the Kings heart with a Coale from thine Altar even with the zeale of the Spirit of Iesus Christ to enter into a present strict examination of the State of Religion as it now stands in his Kingdome And because thou hast in mercy stirred up and strengthened a Servant of thine to discover to the King not onely the great dishonour his Name sustaineth but the great danger his Kingdome incurreth while such intollerable things are suffered as thy Servant hath in his Reply laid open Now ô Lord let it be thy pleasure to bring this worke to a full perfection by the publishing of it that so both the King and his People by taking knowledge thereof may come to see what a miserable condition they are brought into by one blinde guide and bold Prelate And let thy Spirit ô Lord awaken and quicken the minds of the Lords and Nobles of the King and State to consider what a base vassalage all those are brought under who suffer themselves to be made slaves to serve the lawlesse lusts of one domineering Primate and at length wisely to foresee the mischiefes which the Altering of Religion to the worse and reducing all back againe to Rome may and will certainly bring upon the Land and upon themselves too if not the more speedily prevented by a sound and serious thorow Reformation Make the great ones of the world ô Lord sensible that there is a judgement to come and that there is a terrible GOD above them that shall call them to a strict reckoning for all those ungodly practises wherein themselves have either been Agents or Instruments either Principalls or Accessories as in oppressing thy Word and Truth in persecuting thy faithfull Ministers and the like And Lord stirre up all thy people to fervent and continuall Prayer and strengthen them therein to persevere and watch untill an Answer come forth from thy Throne to all their Petitions and Supplications which from day to day they have and do and shall present unto thee Oh let not our God be angry with his people that pray unto him with unfained hearts and lips nor let their enemies Say Where is now their GOD But Lord stirre up thy strength and come and helpe us Put the wicked in feare O Lord that they may know themselves to be but men And shew some token upon thy servants for good that they which hate us may see it and be ashamed because thou Lord hast holpen us and comforted us And let the Atheisticall Scornfull world see that it is not in vain to serve God and to call upon him and to wait for him And now Lord avenge the Cause of Iesus Christ against Antichrist and break down Antichrists throne and exalt Christs Throne that himselfe alone may sit and rule and raigne over his People and the show◠of that King may
be heard among them And for us thy poore handmaids here humbly suppliant before thee let thy holy Spirit direct lead and assist us in the way which may be most acceptable to thy Majesty and profitable for thy People and comfortable to us all in our distressed estate And shew unto thy Servants what thou wouldst have us to doe in this difficult businesse about the presenting of this Reply to the King which with our selves and all thine we humbly commend to thy grace and blessing through Iesus Christ to whom with thee ô Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory now and ever Amen Mother Now my deare Children I will tell you what resolution GOD hath put into my heart upon the very close of this Prayer namely that we addresse our selves to the King with this Reply together with an humble Petition And because all of us perhaps would be too many let as many of you as are willing to attend me goe with me to the King the rest let them goe and be humble suiters at the Throne of Grace that our GOD would give us to find Grace in the eyes of the King so as hearkening to our Petition he may doe accordingly Such therefore of you as are willing to accompany me stand on this side and the rest stand on that side Well I see you are equally divided Six with me and Six for me With me Charity Humilty Prudence Piety Patience and Verity For me Faith Hope Zeale Iustice Mercy Prayer Now my Gracious Children be strong and of a good courage Our Cause is good and GOD is for us and though our enemies be great yet they shall not prevaile against us TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAIESTY THE TRVE CHVRCH AND CHILDREN THE TRUE FAITH AND RELIGION OF JESUS CHRIST do humbly present their Petition of Right THAT whereas a Book intituled A Relation of a Conference between WILLIAM LAUDE and Mr. FISHER the Iesuite hath been by the said WILLIAM now of Canterbury lately republished and that under your Majesties Patronage and in the publishing whereof as he saith he hath obeyed your Majesty And whereas A Reply to the said Relation is now under the Patronage of JESUS CHRIST and in obedience to his Word and by assistance of his Grace here published and presented to your Majesty and before all the World in which Reply are detected and clearely evinced by manifold and infallible Testimonies sundry particular passages and Doctrines of the Relator which directly overthrow all true Christian Faith and Religion And whereas in this Reply is clearely proved that Prelaticall Government of the Church or the Hierarchy as they call it is meere Antichristianisme and the very Mistery of Iniquity branded by the Apostle and expresly forbidden by Christ himselfe to his Apostles whose Successors the Prelates falsely pretend to be and that all Prelates even as they are Prelates are both by their Profession and Practise so many Antiâ—hrists adversaries to CHRIST who as the Great Antichrist sit as Gods in the Temple of GOD Lording over the Faith Soule and Conscience of GODS People thrusting CHRIST out of his Throne And whereas notwithstanding the manifest truth hereof confirmed by most cleare Testimony and undeniable Proofes of Scripture the Relator or Prelate hath in his said Relation uttered sundry blasphemous Speeches belying the Wisedome Counsell and Providence of GOD and of CHRIST as making Him the Author and Ordainer of such a Hierarchicall Government of his Church which is to Father upon GOD and CHRIST a most notorious Lye and Falshood where he addes withall a blasphemous New Article of Belief of the Church of England that this is a truth And whereas the Holy Scriptures is and hath been in all Ages and by all Sound and Orthodox Divines both Ancient and Moderne both Forraigne and Domestick universally received held and constantly beleeved and maintained against all Adversaries of the Truth to be the Onely Rule of Faith and Iudge of Controversies in Divinity and alone Selfe-sufficient to give Testimony to it selfe that it is the undoubted Word of GOD as in this Reply also is fully prooved And whereas the Relator notwithstanding hath loded the Scripture with many intollerable reprâ—ohes and blasphemous words of disgrace censuring it as an insufficient witnesse to it selfe and an incompetent Iudge of Controversies in Faith as being both a blinde dumbe and dead Judge and that it hath no light in it selfe but is as a Candle in a box without light till Tradition of the present Church doe light it and the like the very ground of all Infidelity and Apostacie And whereas notwithstanding all such his blasphemies against the Scripture wherewith he hath stuffed some 30 leaves in Follio besides many other the like scattered all along his Book he the same Relator out of his grosse hypocrisie addeth this proud Blasphemy to all the rest That he hath given the Scripture all honour and ascribed unto it Sufficiencie more then enough And whereas also as appeareth in this Reply the Relator belyes and blasphemes the Holy Ghost himselfe making him the Author of most notorious lyes and vanity And whereas the Relator doth define a meere false and counterfeit Catholicke Church contrary to that Holy Catholick Church beleeved in the Creed whereby he overthrowes both that Article of Faith and with all the Communion of Saints teaching that his Catholicke Church though it cease to be holy yet is a true Church of CHRIST still And whereas of and in this his new Catholicke Church which the Relator beleeveth he makes the Church of England and of Rome to be one and the same Church and both to hold one and the same Faith of that his Catholicke Prelaticall Church which Faith is declared in the Reply not to be the true saving Faith and that they both do set up and professe one and the same Religion not different in which Faith and Religion of the Church of England and of Rome he saith as he hath lived so he resolves to dye as much to say as he will live and dye an English-Romish-Catholicke And whereas the Replyer proveth and which no Papist denyeth that the maine substance of the Romish Religion is the Masse And whereas the Relator confesseth that though a simple Papist may as he saith yet no Romanist as a Romanist living and dying in the Roman Faith can be saved and yet this Faith of Rome is the same with that of England wherein he will end his dayes So as the Church of England may hereby see in what a case she is and how highly she is preferred by her Primate as to be brought to be of the same Church the same Faith the same Religion with Rome enough to startle all your Majesties Subjects that till now thought themselves to bo Protestants and no Papists and to cause all zealous Christians to abandon all communion with such a Church as is the same Church of the same Faith and Religion with Rome And wheras
this Relator professeth and teacheth a blind Charity sutable to his Faith which he boldly affirmeth to be not a mistaken Charity in granting that a silly ignorant Papist so living and dying may be Saved by his Ignorance in that Religion conforming himselfe to his Religious life and on the contrary condemning such Protestants of stiffenesse and churlishnesse that are not of the same Charity with him though the Replyer proveth that there is no true Charity without true Faith and Verity And whereas the same Relator is shewed in this Reply to give much more liberty to your Majesties Protestant People to goâ— to the Romish Masse as being with him one and the same undiffering Religion with that of England then the Jesuite doth to his blind Romanist to come to the English Church And whereas the same Relator hath many passages wherein he makes a Generall Councell of Prelates Iudge in all Controversies of Faith ascribing unto them an Infallibility and in case they shall erre and that even in grosse things and points of Faith yet that all men are bound to yeeld obedience at least externall till another Generall Counsell equall to the former reverse those Errours whereupon by Consequence of this Prelaticall doctrine as the Replyer doth instance the Church of England it self is bound to observe the worship of Images and the forbearance of the Cup in the Sacrament c. decreed in Generall Councels and not yet reversed by other Generall Councels equall to those And whereas the Relator calls Transubstantiation Purgatory and the forbearance of the Cup but disputable and Improbable Questions the nature of which is to be taken indifferently Pro and Con And whereas he never once in all his Relation calls the Romish-worship of Images and of the Sacrament or any other Idolatry in all the Romish Church but onely by the name of Superstition abstaining altogether from the name of Idolatry as if with him the Roman Church were no Idolatresse And whereas he much lamenteth the Seperation and rent between the Protestants and Rome with the continuance of it although with the Iesuite he confesse that errour in Faith is just cause of separation And whereas he the same Relator doth cunningly yet palpably enough in sundry passages of his Booke as also he hath openly done viva voce at the High-Commission-Board exclude all the Reformed Protestant Churches beyond the Seaes as no Churches of Christ as not admitting the Hierarchy Finally also in his Book quipping Luther and in him all the Reformed Churches as having made a rent not onely from Rome with her corruptions but even from the Catholick Church it selfe which indeed in the Relators sense and difinition of the Catholicke Church is most true to wit from the universall Hierarchy And whereas he the Relator doth every where highly extoll his Ceremonies in Gods worship as without which he saith there is no light left to shine before men that they may see his Devotion and so glorify GOD therein most foulely and odiously perverting and abusing the holy Text of Scripture uttered by CHRIST to a cleane other purpose as the Replyer hath noted all which Ceremonies being a will-worship after the Tradition and Commandement of men the Apostle doth utterly condemn as wherby the very merits of Christs death are made of none effect who in his death destroyed All Ceremonies in Religion obliging the Conscience and not onely the Leviticâ—ll but all other whatsoever of humane Ordinance as the Replyer clearely proveth So as it is not left to any Power on Earth to impose the least Ceremony yea though it be of nature indifferent to bind the Conscience in the service of GOD seeing all such imposition is Antichristian Tyranny And whereas all Prelaticall Hereticall and Antichristian Faction erected by the Prince of darkenesse against Iesus Christ and his Kingdome as is apparent both by their profession and practice wherein they have nothing at all yea not any one thing to show wherein they resemble either Christ or any one of his Apostles except Iudas Christs Kingdome being altogether spirituall and not of this world but the Hierarchy a meere carnall and worldly Kingdome onely guilded over with the bare name of spirituall And whereas the Relator throughout his whole Booke bewrayeth his most palpable and profound ignorance and notorious blindnesse in the whole mystery of Faith and all true divinity in so much as when ever he Cites Scripture he still perverts it to a wrong sense and is not able to bring any proofe either from Scripture or Common Reason except from some of his Jesuiticall Authors for any of his Paradoxes and strange doctrines delivering all without Book tanquam è Cathedra as but of some Papall unerring Chaire upon the Authority of his bare word and upon meere trust And whereas the Relator saith That worth once misled is of all other the greatest misleader and who of greater worth in the Church of England and in the Esteem of Great ones too then the Great Primate himselfe whose very word with many is taken as a divine Oracle So as if the Church and State of England will but pin their soules upon this Leaders sleeve he will not fayle to lead them in that way the issue whereof seem it never so right in the eyes of credulity will certainly prove to be as Solomon saith the wayes of death And whereas by the Relator sundry occasions are ministred to the Replyer of instancing divers practises charged upon the Prelate as the principall Agent or Instrument of setting up sundry Innovations in Religion in the Church of England all which have been done under his Primacie as The republishing under your Majesties Name the Book for liberty of profane Sports on the Lords day with pressing Ministers to read the Sayd Book in their severall Congregations and upon refusall extreamely persecuting them and thrusting them from their Ministry and meanes with their poore wives and children The authorizing and licencing of some Doctors Books which cry down the Morality of the 4 th Commandement for the Sanctifying of the Lords Sabbath day The setting forth of a New Order to restraine Preachers from Preaching in the Afternoones on the Lords dayes much pressed by the Prelates and their Officers in all their visitations The setting forth of a Declaration in your Majesties Name prefixed to the Articles of Religion which the Prelates practises plainly interpret to be for the restraining and prohibiting altogether the Doctrines of Saving Grace to be preached and wherein the genuine sense of those Articles touching Grace which formerly were universally interpreted to have but one sence agreeable to the Scripture is confounded with the heterodox hereticall doctrines of the Pelagians and Arminians so as none can tell what to make of those Articles saving that by this meanes the Orthodox Ministers must not preach the truth and the Adverse party and Faction may find footing and countenance for their groundlesse and gracelesse heresies and all this to the manifest
Replyer 23 24. A notable Prophecie of Scripture against the Anti Sabbatarians in these dayes 24. How the Prelate takes Gods Name in vain 25. Difference between Romes Fishermen and Christs 26 to 30. The Prelates subtile laying all the Load upon the King what ever be amisse 29 30. Good Laws may sleep ibid. What he meanes by the wakening of Discipline ibid. 12. The Prelates meaning of Anglers in a shallower water fished out 29. And how they differ from Romes Fishers The Prelates Councel to the King how perillous in his sly and subtile inticing him against godly Preachers The Prelates sly Speeches in some Cases how best interpreted by his Practises And how and what he Councelleth the King 29 30. Perillous Consequences of Prelates practises in altering of Religion how considerable for States 30 31. The Prelate put to his proofe whether he loves the Kings Crown or the Prelates Miter better 32. 13. Prelate how condemned of the Same Scripture by himselfe alledged 32 33. How the Prelate is an Enemy to the Gospell and to the preaching of it 33. What be the Prelates Foundations of Faith and how shaken 34. How the Prelates Practises not onely shake but quite overthrow the true Foundations of Faith and that by his own Instances wherein he is selfe-condemned and his palpable hypocrisie detected 35 36 37 38 39. Altars overthrow the Foundation Christ 35. 13 14. The Prelates comparison of the Church to a Hive of Bees Scanned so as nothing is left him but the Sting 40 41 42 43. Prelates and their Clergie no true Order of Priesthood 41. The Prelate calls his Hypocrisie Integrity and Sincerity The great difference between the King and the Prelates Priest about the Bee hive 41 42. And how perilously they are joyned together by the Prelate 43 44 What Integrity of the Church in Doctrine and Manners we may expect when the Prelate or his Priest is joyned to the King in Reformation 45. Two places of Scripture vindicated from the Prelates perverting of them and whereby himselfe is stung for being too busie about the Bee-hive 46 47. For what good Service the Prelates Priest medling with the Bee-hive is stung by the true Bees 48 49. The Prelates Church in England together with Rome wherin fallen from the ancient Catholick Faith in maintaining Doctrines of Devils And what the true Catholicke Faith iâ— 51. The Prelaticall Church in England how Antichristian and what Antichristianisme is 52 53 54 55 56. The Mystery of Iniquity in the Prelacy ibid. The place in John 1 John 2.22 vindicated against Jesuites and Prelates and thereby Prelates proved to be Antichrists in that they deny Jesus to be the Christ that is King Priest and Prophet distinctly proved 56 57 58 59. No Priest but Christ ever had power to forgive sins 58. The true Reformed Churches beyond the Seas vindicated to be true Churches of Christ against the Prelate 62. And Prelaticall Churches proved to be false Churches ibid. 16. Who have cause to cry out of persecution the Prelat's Jesuite Or his Seperatist 63. What Cause the Prelate gives of Separation from his Church which he saith is the Same with Rome 64. And wherein ibid. The Prelates Riddle 65. In how many paritculars these two Sisters are alike yea one and the same 64 66 67 68. And so how the Prelates Church in England being one and the same with that of Rome must needs be a false Church 69. How the Prelate overthroweth all the learned works of the Orthodox English Divines ibid. 17. The Prelates blasphemous putting a most notorirus lye upon Christ 70. What Interpretation of Scripture we may expect from Prelates whereof his Church consisteth 71. The Prelate selfe-condemned as a most notorious forcer and perverter of Scripture where ever he doth but touch it with his finger ibid. What need there is of the Prelates Oracle in setling the true sense of the 39. Artcles which under his Primacy have been declared doubtfull and of a double sense 72. What cause we have to expect an Index Expurgatorious from the Prelate to purge the writings of all our Oxthodox Divines against the Church of Rome ibid. 18. How the Prelate without his Prophecying doth by his practise hale in Atheisme and Irreligion 73 74. What we are still to understand when the Prelate names Truth c. 74. What he He calls an unworthy way of contending for Truth which we must contend for notwithstanding against such Adversaries 75. What is that Atheisme and Irreligion properly which the prelate nameth and meaneth 75. 19. The Prelates externall will-worship what it is a Great Witnesse of 76 77. The prelates swelling pride and conceit of His Will-worship 77 78. All Will-worship expresly forbidden in the Scripture It is no Service of God but of mans lust ibid. The prelates upright heart down right hypocrisie 79. The prelates notorious and bold perverting of Christs words to His own blind Devotion 78. How God is dishonoured by the prelates will-worship 79 80 The prelates Sincerity in Religion how it drives consciencious men from Communion with His English Church 81. The prelate how clearely he deales with His Majesty 82. What is with the Prelate Decent and what orderly Settlement in the worship of God 83 84 85. Sundry Innovations or rather Renovations under the primat ib. Of Ceremonies in Gods worship Of Naturall Morall and Religious Actions how they differ in point of Ceremony 87. Prelates Ceremoniall worship Hereticall 88. What Heresie is ibid. Christ the onely Master of Ceremonies in Gods service 88. How this is an Article of our Faith 8â— Christ never imparted this His Prerogative or any part thereof to any Humane Power 90. The Apostles words for Deceny and Order 1 Cor. 14.40 cleared from Prelaticall perverters 90 91 92 93 94. Prelates Pretence for Antiquity of His Ceremonies absurd 94 95 96. Prelates Cerremonies will fit neither Time nor Place but as they are forced wherin the Prelate is too zealous and forward 97. What rubbes and tough knots the Prelate meets withall about His Ceremonies 98. And how He hath been crost since his Crucifying of His Three bitter men and why and how 99. The Prelates practise not so politick as Julians was 98. Even Mediocrity in Ceremonies is an Extreme 99. So as the very least overburthens the Church of Christ ibid. How the Prelate had need to fit His Ceremonies some for Sommer and some for Winter for overburthening His Priest 100. The Replyer requireth of the Prelate a just number of so many Ceremonies so as they may neither overburthen nor leave his Service naked 100 101. The Prelate like the Pharisees in binding burthens on others ib. How the Prelate needs many Ceremonies as Herbs to straw the way to the celebrating of the marriage betweene England and Rome ibid. How the Prelates Service is naked without his Ceremonies 1â—2 Prelates pompous Service condemned by the Heathen 102 103 The Leviticall Pompe as a Type altogether abolished by Christ 105. Adam more glorious
better then I can tell you I know you do but I tell you to rub over your memory and awaken your sleepy Conscience who were the main moving cause of all this as All the world knows And how farre you weâ—e an Instigator of the Court so to censure and of the King to inflict you very well know Who Your Lordship Farre be it For your Piety doth heartily beseech GOD to forgive them Indeed in the conclusion of that your Pamphlet which you read then in the Court after the Censure was past you had these words or the like whom I leave to the Mercy of GOD and the Iustice of the King But if indeed you doe heartily and unfainedly beseech GOD to forgive them why doe you not if indeed they have justly offended GOD and the King in transgressing any Law divine or humane both your selfe from your heart forgive them if they have done you any wrong and testifie it by a serious soliciting of the King and that now after two whole yeares and more Imprisonment and Banishment yea and Divorcement from their Wives to release and acquit them Or why do you not if you be as you pretend one of Christs Ministers at least inform the King how contrary it is both to Gods Law and Mans Law and the Law of Nature to separate Man and Wife in this sort without any just cause given on either part But the King in his Clemencie had granted to their Wives liberty and leave to goe to their Husbands And do not you know my Lord whose piety and charity and equity and policie it was to reverse and hinder it Well my Lord let me deale freely with you and that from the mouth of the Great Iudge There shall be Iudgement without Mercy to him that sheweth no Mercy Yea Suppose the Cause of that most terrible Censure had been just yet should there be no place for Mercy and that now after so long a time and so sharp a Tryall What Not one drop nor crumb of Mercy That 's enough for hell But you will say as you have done Mercy was shewed in sparing their lives How I pray you They were never questioned for their lives much lesse was any Sentence of death passed upon them nor was there any Cause found although perhaps narrowly searched for but no precedâ—nt was found Againe Suppose they had been in a legall way and justly sentenced to dye yet so to spare life as to make and leave it worse then any death can be as being a continuall and languishing death Call you this a mercy Take heed least herein that be verefied of you which the wise-man saith The tender mercies of the wicked are cruell Or shall the examples of Heathen cruelty be justified by theirs who professe to be Christians But what Heathen example can you parallell to this Indeed I remember one and but one that comes somwhat neere it The Roman Verres Praetor in Cicily closse imprisoned one Apollonius a rich Citizen there so as neither his old Father nor young Son might for the space of one whole yeare and a halfe come to see him and this for no other cause but that he was rich a punishment saith the Orator to be redeemed with a mans very life when life hath nothing left Praeter Calamitatem but meere Calamity Whereupon the Author saith who was himselfe no meane Statesman Haec cum accidunt nemo est quin intellegat ruere illam Rempub. Haec ubi veniunt nemo est qui ullam spem salutis reliquam esse arbitretur I need not English it to your Lordship Yet I will When such things happen there is none but understands that Common-wealth to be falling when these things come to passe there is none that can imagine any hope of safety to be left And what have you left to those THREE remarkable Men Praeter Calamitatem What but a miserable life As the Prophet saith of Ierusalem's Captivity in Babylon The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater then the punishment of the Sin of Sodome that was overthrowne as in a moment and no hand Stayd on her And They that be slain with the sword are better then they that be slain with hunger for these pine away stricken through for want of the fruits of the Field So as a life stript of all the outward comforts of the world yea and of the meanes of spirituall comfort which one Friend should minister unto another haveing nothing left Praeter Calamitatem but Calamity is it not a greater punishment then death it selfe How is it then a mercy instead of death undeserved to grant such a life But you say 't is just For they were Censured pro Confesso Pro Confesso Of what Of all charged in the Bill Why they did Answer and it was condemned before hearing And Si sat est accusasse quis innocens erit If it be enough to have accused who shal be innocent And againe let the Court-Records be searched if there be ever such a Precedent that a man should be so censured for not assenting to the condemnation of his Cause before the hearing Or that ever any Defendants whole and intire body of his Answer containing his just Defence yea and when he could not expect any Counsell to plead for him that either would or durst should unaliturâ at one dash be expunged as Impertinent and Scandalous and that after it was orderly admitted upon Oath into the Court Or if this be found to be the Custome of such Courts may not a man here apply the foresaid Speech of that Roman Orator When such things happen there is none but understands that Common-wealth to bee falling when these things come to passe there is none that can imagine any hope of Safety to be left Were not these things Prognostications and Presages if not rather immediate fore-runners and causes of some terriblâ— imminent and impendent Stormes that should shortly after fall upon the Land But O Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see But they shall see and be ashamed c. But how ever you are so charitable as heartily to beseech GOD to forgive them Now suppose you did this from your heart as some naturall man may do doe you think it a sufficient discharge to your Conscience or holy water enough to wash you cleane from the guilt of the blood of these men which you have so shed Is not this a meere mocking of GOD and Men to pretend piety in praying for those whom you still most cruelly persecute with all the damnable malice and hatred which you could learne of none but of the Schoole-master of Hell And doth not your notorious hypocrisie appeare in this that you still pretend piety in praying GOD and that heartily to forgive those as Malefactors and Offendors whom your own Conscience knows to be innocent and of whose punishments at least some of them you cannot give so much
as the least colour of reason or just cause other then such as the very Heathen do hisse out of all Courts of justice as the bane and ruine of Common-weales So as while you heartily beseech GOD to forgive those that be innocent persons you forget once to pray to GOD to forgive your selfe who have been the main Instrument of committing such an example of Diabolicall cruelty and iniquity as is without all example either in the Christian or Heathen world And yet running on furiously in this desperate course you say after in the very Conclusion of your Book that you are now 65. yeares of age and yet you tremble not to think it cannot be long before you must appeare before that strict Judge from whose Tribunall and Sentence not your Greatest Patron in the world can rescue you And if this be all your Charity thus to pray for these men whom you desist not to plague they may say to you as Christ did to those women that wept for him Pray not for us but pray for your selfe that GOD would pardon your sin in not taking vengeance on you for the blood of his Servants which you have shed And consider how you have used Christs Minister with what horrible and detestable cruelty and all for the faithfull discharge of his duty in reprooving such enormities and impieties as your selfe cannot be but guilty of the very remembrance whereof were enough to shake all the veines of your heart and to cause your Conscience to quake and tremble had you but the least sparke of common grace in you Oh the bloud and members of a Mans body are precious and do you think they were made and Redeemed with such a price as Christs own bloud for any Man to satisfie the lust of his Diabolicall and damnable malice upon in taking them away gratis and so easily And especially the bloud of Christs Servant which you have shed for no other cause but for bearing witnesse unto the Truth is it not precious in Gods sight And When he maketh inquisition for blood will he not remember and not forget the complaint of the poore Without doubt my Lord his Great King and Master will utterly shame and confound you for ever unmasking all your hypocrisie and leaving you naked before all the world if you still desperately goe on in this course Nor is it your Fine-spun-cob-web-Lawne-veile that can hide the grossenesse and foulenesse of your actions from the worlds eyes And though you could mock men yet God you cannot but Whatsoever ye sow ye shall reape Doe you beleeve the Scripture What saith it A man that doth violence to the blood of any Person shall flee to the pit Let no man stay him But I leave you to GOD whom because you have no changes you doe not feare yet one day shall you feele But you tell us that you have little leasure and lesse incouragement thereby to answer a Iesuite or to set upon other Services To answer a Iesuite Oh glorious word A Sound Protestant sure that Answers a Iesuite· What may we not expect This one word were enough to vindicate that reputation of yours which you tell us anon of But the mischief is I have observed a New-found-Art of Late-dayes that which our Protestant Doctors of the Now Church of England have practised and grown great Proficients in namely under the name and colour of Answering a Iesuite or so to meet him at least the halfe-way between England and Rome if he goe not further So did your Brother of Chichester in his Appeale to Caesar his Answer to the Popish Gagger How finely jumpes he with the Jesuite and comes closse to his doores A pretty veile to bring that old Hagge into request againe and to set up her Throne in the Church of England And whether your Lordship do thus or no in this your glorious Answer to the Iesuite we shall see at after But why you should complain of little leasure when you have so many Chapleins and Doctors at hand and command to set a worke and of lesse incouragement when for such services you have gotten the Metropolitanship of all England I cannot see But before I passe further I may not balke the close of your words complaining You are under the Prophets affliction Psal. 50.19 20. And what is that Between the mouth that speaks wickednesse and the tongue that sets forth Deceit And whose affliction was this The Prophets you say What Davids Yes How prove you that out of that Psalme 'T is true David had many afflictions in this kind which hee in other Psalmes much complaines of but he speakes not a word of his owne proper afflictions in this kind in that Psalme which you quote Therefore to passe by both your forced expression of the words and false application of the sense Let us take the Prophets own word But unto the wicked GOD saith what hast thou to doe to declare my Statutes or that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy mouth Seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee When thou sawest a thiefe thou consentedst with him and hast been partaker with Adulterers Thou gavest thy mouth to evill and thy tongue frameth deceit Thou sittest and speakest against thy Brother and thou slanderest thine own Mothers Son These things hast thou done and I kept silence and thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thy selfe but I will reproove thee and see them in order before thee Now consider this ye that forget GOD least I teare you in pieces and there be none to deliver Thus farre GOD speaketh in that Psalme In all which you see plainly that the Prophet complains not of his owne suffering such things of wicked tongues It is GOD that speaks here to wicked men And if you had well and wisely looked â—our face in that Glasse you might farre sooner have discerned your selfe to be one of those to whom GOD speaketh then to be as the Prophet so afflicted by them And because you are so briefe in perverting the Scriptures to make them a veile for your iniquity and a Vergula Censoria to argue and accuse Gods own innocent Servants as if their mouth spake wickednesse and their tongues set forth deceit lend your patience a little while we doe truly interpret and impartially appy the forecited words of this Psalme Here GOD speakes to the wicked and sets him forth by sundry markes and properties as First his notorious and audacious shamelesse hypocrisie in pretending to be for GOD and for his true Religion For he taketh upon him to declare Gods Statutes and takes his Covenant in his mouth but for all this he hateth instruction and casteth Gods word behind him Secondly his taking part with Theeves and Adulterers Thirdly his giving his mouth to evill and framing his tongue to deceit Fourthly his sitting and speaking against his Brother and slandering his owne Mothers Sonne Fifthly his carnall security and
piece of Service in your Lordship to his Majesty to study how the State may be reduced and that in the most peaceable and safe way that may be Will you be pleased to take a Fooles Counsell Would you purchase to your selfe an immortall name and become a Mirrour and Miracle of this age and an example to all posterity the King having past his word and so do the best service to the King that ever any of his Subjects hath done Do no more but this Cast away your Rochet and Miter Divest your self of all Episcopall Ornaments and Titles Utterly renounce and relinquish your Hierarchy as being not onely against Christs word and Kingdome as afterwards shall by Gods Grace appeare but also as being most pernicious to the Peace and Welfare of Civill States most Antichristian and one particular cause expresly of the defection of a whole Kingdome from his Majesty Now show hereby that you so love the King that rather then he shall loose one of his Kingdomes thus you will utterly and voluntarily depose your selfe from your Hierarchicall throne And I know your Lordship doth every where professe your love to peace and tell us very much of it in your Book Now can there be a more peaceable way then this to reconcile Scotland and reduce them under the Kings Government And as for ceremonies if they stand in the way I assure my selfe were your Hierarchy but once removed out of the way either his Majesty would take an Order for them or they would even sponte sua of their own accord fall as having now no more Masters to waite upon But enough of this It shall be my dayly prayer in the mean time that GOD would establish his Majesties Kingdomes with the Gospel of peace and the Peace of the Gospel in our dayes and to our Posterity till the coming of Iesus Christ. You proceed L. p. 13. 'T is truth I must tell it 't is the Gospel I must preach it 1 Cor. 9.16 P. 'T were well if you told nothing but Truth and that not onely of necessity with a must but of love and of a ready mind But your Book will further show what truth you tell And for the Gospel when doe you preach it Or how What As the Apostle did whom you quote And if you must preach it why doe you restrain others from it That your selfe onely might preach Why then preach you no oftner Surely your restraining of others from preaching puts the greater necessity upon your selfe if indeed you be a Minister of the Gospel and not a dumb Priest to preach the more frequently For indeed you Prelates take upon you to be as so many Popes or universall Pastors over all the Churches in your Diocese respectively though you seldome or never preach in any and the Ministers must be but your Curates So as they also must preach no more nor oftener nor otherwise then you their good Lords and Masters doe prescribe and limit them by vertue of their oath of Canonicall obedience Thus have you taken away the Key of knowledge and hangd it at your owne girdle so as neither ye goe into heaven your selves and those that would enter ye hinder But what doe I say Have you and your Prelates reserved to your selves as one of the Papall Reserved Cases the power of preaching the Gospel My Lord under correction you forget your selfe Do you not remember the Kings Order for preaching or rather for not preaching that no Ministers of what degree or ranke soever they be Archbishop Bishop and all under them shall not preach of the Doctrines of Election Predestination Redemption of the Elect onely Effectuall vocation of the Elect onely Iustification of the Elect onely Assurance of Salvation to the Elect onely in Grace all which Doctrines are the maine and sole Doctrines of Grace and of the Gospel So as for Ministers not to preach of these and maintaine them against the Adversaries thereof and especially in these times of opposing and undermining the truth of Grace and of the Gospel is to cease to be Ministers of the Gospel According to which reckoning if the said Order be strictly observed as you Prelates in all your Visitations doe charge the Ministers inquiring of those that be Delinquents in this kind to suspend or admonish them you have no preachers of the Gospel left in the Church of England And doe you not remember that one Lent after the said Order was come forth two of the learnedst and most Orthodox Prelates of the Church of England for preaching before the King of such points were both checked for it since which time I doe not heare they have transgressed the said Order And therefore I conceive that his Grace of Canterbury is by the same Order inhibited to preach the Grace of the Gospel or the Gospel in these dayes King Iames indeed gave out an Order inhibiting all inferiour Ministers onely to preach of those points but reserved a liberty to Prelates and Deanes to preach of them as being men of more discretion then ordinary But now Bishops nay Archbishops and all are involved Therfore had not your Lordship forgot your selfe I suppose you would not have told the King to his face That the Truth you must tell and the Gospel you must preach Therfore correct that word my Lord. L. ibid. And when the Foundations of Faith are shaken be it by Superstition or Profanenesse he that puts not to his hand as firmely as he can to support them is too wary and hath more care of himselfe then of the cause of Christ. P. A Speech Surely which without any more adoe were sufficient to vindicate your Reputation with all good men had your words but a right meaning But your Foundations of Faith are layd so low in the Earth in Generalibus that no man can come clearely to discerne them or what you meane by them And besides did you in this place meane the true Foundations of Faith indeed yet being not constant to this in other of your passages and much lesse in your practises this is of the lesse credit to obtain even of Charity it selfe any favourable interpretation And having read over your Book we come to be so well acquainted with your Foundations of Faith that we may say truely It no more belongs to you to put to your hand to support the true Foundations then it did to Vzzah to stay the Arke when the Oxen shooke it For which his meddling the Lord smote him And I feare little better will be your reward Nay what reward shall you expect who instead of supporting the Foundations of Faith doe put your heart and head and hand and all you can to supplant them As we shall see all along And I am perswaded the more you speake in this kind the more you rubbe and gall your owne Conscience and make it so tender in this respect that the least touch of conviction goes to your heart But stay
this case to sit as King in the throne which he hath set up for himselfe in every mans conscience And Christ hath redeemed us from all bondage and subjection to humane devises in Spirituall things as the Apostle saith Ye are bought with a price be not the servants of men So as this Kingly office this Kingdome over his Church Christ hath purchased with a deare price even his precious blood But Prelates â—raâ—ple this blood of Christ under their feet and make this his purchase voyd by setting themselves in his throne by sitting in and over mens consciences making Laws and imposing Rites as absolute Kings over the Church binding the Conscience to a necessary conformity to them in the worship of God And to this purpose this their Kinglike Authority indeed intollerable usurpation and Tyranny comes usually armed with a strong guard of Canons and attended with metà polleÌ„s phantasÃas with a pompous train of Ceremonies ever waiting at their heeles For their Maxime is No Ceremonies no Bishop A Bishop and his Ceremonies are Relatives and can no more be seperated one from the other then an Altar and a Priest But of Ceremonies I shall have occasion to speak more anon and therefore I am the briefer here The Summe is That a Prelate as a Prelate attended with his Ceremonies which he imposeth upon the Consciences of Gods people in the worship of God doth thereby deny Christ to be the onely King of his people and so to be their Redeemer as who hath freed them as from all Leviticall and Legall Rites so from all humane Ordinances and Devices in the worship of God I conclude therefore That a Prelate by his very place profession and practise as a Prelate usurping domination over mens Consciences in Gods worship by imposing his Ceremonies denyeth Christ to be the King of his people denyeth Iesus to be the Christ and so is a Lyer and Antichrist For who is a lyer but he that denyeth Iesus to be the Christ He is Antichrist Thus the Case being so that the Church of England being a Prelaticall and Hierarchicall Church and so for Church-Government and Discipline ruled and Lorded over by the Prelates doth thereby as a Prelaticall Body united to Prelaticall Heads and by subjection and conformity unto their Lordly impositions and injunctions in point of Ceremonies and of the worship of God conspire with the Prelates in denying Christ to be her onely King and so with them denying that Iesus is the Christ is justly condemned of Antichristianisme I should now proceed to some other passage but that one rub here comes in the way and that is concerning the Church of Christ which here ye name For you say The Church of England practises Church-Government as it hath been in use in all Ages and all Places where THE CHRCH OF CHRIST HATH TAKEN ANY ROOTING Why my Lord what say you to all the reformâ—d Churches beyond the Seas Hath your Church-Government in England been in use in all places where thâ—se Churches have been rooted now for the space of at least 100. years What In Geneva In France In Belgia and other places Now therfore you must either plainly confesse this one Clause to be most notoriously false or else that the best Reformed Churches beyond the Seaes are no true Churches of Christ. But for that you passe not much to confesse that those Reformed Churches are no true Churches because they have no Prelates This you Spake openly not long agoe at your High-Commission in Cathedra when your charity called that famous and glorious shining Lamp Mr. CALVIN Rascall when you gave those Churches that doom Had you been a Prelate in Queen Elizabeths time durst you have done so Nay in King Iames his time who with the Church of England gave all those Reformed Churches the right hand of fellowship as true Churches of Christ as in the Councel of Dort durst you have done it And why now tam audax omnia perpeti as that Heathen Poet said And have not these Churches taken rooting How then have they continued so long and flourished so much and put forth so many beautifull and goodly branches godly and learned Divines and brought forth such abundant good fruit Could all this be without taking root yea and a sound rooting too well planted by Gods own hand and watered abundantly with his blessed showers of Grace from heaven and fenced about with the wall of his mighty protection against Stormes and Tempests And I trust they shall stand and flourish when all degenerate plants which our heavenly Father hath not planted shal be plucked up by the roots as bearing no other fruit but the Apples of Sodome without beautifull but all black and rotten within Although it might justly be feared could you effect your so laboured thorow Reconciliation with Rome to become all one as you say you already be you would doe your best to root out all those Reformed Churches as that of the Palatinate now is And 't is true inded that no particular visible Churches can promise to themselves perpetuity of continuance in one place longer then God is pleased But for thee O daughter of Babylon thou Mother of whoredomes God hath particularly designed and marked thee out for destruction so as thou with all thy confederate Lovers shall not escape and the day of thy visitation sleepeth not But for the Kingdome and Church of Iesus Christ it shall abide to triumph over Antichrist and all his accursed Crew And for thee ô Church of England beware of being an Ivie about that old rotten Romish Oake least you both be cut down together and be cast into the same burning Lake for ever beware of grappling thy selfe with that old leaking and sinking Peter-boate as thy Pilate would perswade thee least you both be swallowed up together L. ibid 'T is very remarkeable that while both these the Romanist and Seperatist presse hard upon the Church both of them cry out of Persecution like froward Children c. P. What cause the Romanist hath so to cry I know not especially if the just Lawes against them be suffered to sleepe But for your Seperatists among whom you reckon and ranke godly and zealous Ministers and all good men whom you hunt after and prosecute continually in all your Courts what cause these have to cry out of persecution and that even in the throwing of them out of their Churches and Houses and native Countrey that they can rest no where for you and so what cause they have to cry and complain to their GOD of such persecution as having none on Earth to complaine to both the world may see and you shall one day feele withot speedy repentance which we have as little hope of as you can have of heaven But they being thus persecuted you impute the cause to their hard pressing upon the Church comparing them to froward Children Indeed Children will cry when they are swadled or beaten and misused And
destroyes spirituall communion with Christ and with the Holy Ghost and consequently the Article of faith concerning the Communion of Saints For Christ saith to his Disciples I tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I goe away for if I goe not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you So as to beleeve Christ to be corporally present on earth and that men have by that meanes a corporall communion with him doth debarre such men from all communion of the Spirit of Christ. And If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his He hath not Christ that hath not his Spirit and he hath not Christs Spirit that rests in the beliefe of Christs corporall presence on earth as before For except I depart saith Christ that is except I be absent from you as concerning my corporall presence the Comforter will not come unto you And thus by a false beliefe of the very manner onely of Christs presence in the Popish Eucharist Christ the Foundation is overthrowne And this errour de modo of the manner of being onely overthrowing the Foundation must needs be a Fundamentall errour if any errour may be said to be Fundamentall My Second Instance is about Christs humane Nature de modo Subsistendi of its manner of subsisting in the Person of the Son of God For to beleeve that it is either after the manner or way of Commixtion or by adherence as one thing cleaving to another or Inherence as an Accident in the Subject or by Conversion into the divine nature or by Concomitancie as Bellarmine saith Christs divinity and soule is present with his body in the Eucharist by Concomitancie all these manners doe destroy the personall union of Christs two natures in one person As those two Hereticks Nestorius and Eutiches the one condemned in the Councel of Ephesus the other in the Councel of Chalcedon the later for holding that Christ had but one Nature the humane converted into the Divine Nature the other that Christ had two Persons both these destroyed Christ the Mediator who is not a Mediator unlesse he be both God and Man in one Person Christ. So Bellarmines devise in holding Christs divine nature and humane soule to be present in and with that body which they frame unto him in the Masse by way of Concomitancie as being inseperable companions destroyes the Sacrifice of Christs Passion wherein the soule of Christ was in death seperated from his body untill his Resurrection Now the Papists say they offer up Christs body in the Masse as representing the Sacrifice of his death and Passion Which how can it be when they say his soule is by concomitancie with his body offered up So as all this while there is no representative or Commemorative much lesse a propitiatory Sacrifice of Christs death Seing in that body as they say Christs soule is inseperably present And againe to say Christs divine nature is present with that body of Concomitancie this destroyes the Personall union For Concomitancie is no personall union of the two natures concomitancie being but an accompanying of each other Whereas the divine nature of Christ doth not accompany the humane nature but assumes it and the humane nature doth not accompany the divine but subsists in it Thus it is cleare that the Consideration of the manner of being onely may possibly prove to be Fundamentall in the Faith L. p. 37. All which pertaines to Supernaturall Divine and infallible Christian faith is not by and by fundamentall in the Faith to all men P. You told us before That things not fundamentall yet to some mens Salvation are necessary and here that all that pertaines to Christian faith is not fundamentall in the faith to all men It seems you have some peculiar way to heaven which is not common to all But take heed least leaving the common road-way of true Saving Faith attended with a holy life you fayle of heaven I am the way the Truh and the Life saith Christ. And is not Christ this way Truth and Life to all that are Saved Is not he to all such as are called both Iewes and Greekes Christ the Power of God and the Wisdome of God But what doe I speake to you of Christ or what doe you speake of Christian faith that know not what Christian faith is otherwise then as you discerne in it some thing for which in whomsoever you find it you persecute it to the death L. p. 39. If new Doctrines be added to the old the Church may be changed in Lupanar errorum which I am loth to English P. Nay are you not ashamed to English it For this you Speake of the Church of Rome and you have told us that the Church of England and of Rome are one and the Same Church And now you Say If new Doctrines be added to the old the Church may be changed in Lupanar errorum And this the Church of Rome hath done as you elsewhere affirme She hath added new Doctrines to the old and such new as She doth with the old aâ— men doe when they put on a new suit make the old a Cast suit But because you are loth to English in Lupanar errorum for the reverend respect you beare to that Venerable Apostolick Sea I will doe as much for you as to English it If new Doctrines be added to the Old as the Church of Rome hath done the Church may be changed into a Stewes of Errours This Phrase you take out of Vincentius Lyrenensis his Sentence quoted in the Margent which is this in English The Church by adding new Doctrines to the old becomes a Stewes of impious and beastly Errours which was before a Sacrary of chast and undefiled verity Whence I note how you not onely smother some of his words but smooth others Saying for The Church becomes a Stewes The Church may be changed So as herein you falsify the worthy Saying of Vincentius when you make but a May be of his Is made But let the Conclusion be If a Church be turned Whore 't is good that all should know her to be so in plain English that they may avoyd her and as Salomon saith remove their way farre from her and not come neere the dore of her house And for this Cause have I taken the Paines to be your Translator L. p. 39. Some Decisions yea and of the Church toâ— are made or may be if Stapleton informe us right without an evident nay without so much as a probable testimony of holy writ But Bellarmine falls quite off and confesses in expresse termes that nothing can be certaine by certainty of Faith unlesse it be contained immediately in the word of God or be deduced out of the word of God by evident consequence And if nothing can be certain then certainly no Determination of the Church it selfe if that Determination be not grounded upon
shall meet with many passages of good note yet he may observe how farre wide he is of the scope and meaning of the Psalmes which he handleth all along He preached indeed every day as Calvin did at Geneva besides all his other weighty imployments but what a disparity there is between their expositions I referre to the judgement of K. Iames who commended Calvins Commentaries above all those of the Ancients So for the Greek Church as Aug. for the Latine that golden mouthed Chrisostome according to his Name the best preacher in his time though many of his expositions were good yet when he came to his tò u'thikòn his morall or application though in it selfe it was very good yet for the most part no way pertinent to his text he handled but he would sometimes make his use against covetousnesse somtimes against pride or some other sinne or to exhort to some morall vertue or other but I say without any coherence to his text for the most part And for the most of those Antients what was the common Theame of their preaching but morality delighting rather to contemplate in a solitary life then to practise such preaching as might win soules How few of them did preach the Doctrine of Iustification by Faith in Christ. In somuch as Bernard who lived many hundred yeares after those ancients and in those times wherein he noted Antichrist to be come which he plainly poynted out to be the Pope did preach more soundly of this doctrine of Iustification by Faith onely then all those Fathers had done if we may judge of their preaching by their writings They spent themselves more in preaching for good works Then to set forth the faith in Christ though some flashes they had here and there And whether this be not one reason why you so commend the Fathers preaching because they were so much for good works and so little for faith I know not Whereas the moderne Divines of the Reformed Churches are most singular and excellent in seting forth the Mystery of faith and that doctrine of Iustification thereby therein exalting Gods grace and excluding mans merits though not negligent in exhorting to good works as the fruits of faith Those Doctrines of Grace and faith being the main substance of the Gospell and the true practising of Iesus Christ besides which there is no true preaching Admirable they are also in seting forth the nature of sinne to bring man out of himselfe and to plant him into Christ. And in a word have so set forth the whole body of Divinity as the Fathers writings to theirs are in comparison in respect of sound Divinity but as a barren Field to a fruitfull well planted and well watered Garden And great reason there is for this The Fathers had to deale with some Hereticks as with Arius whose Mal was Athanasius and with Pelagius knockt down by Augustine and others but they knew not as yet the Mistery of iniquity which in these latter times seeking to overtop the Gospell and to overthrow the Doctrine and Kingdome of Christ hath given occasion not onely of a reformation in a seperation from that Whore of Babylon but to many Worthies whom God hath raysed up in these last times to bestirre themselves and to study Christ his Military Discipline and spirituall warfare against the Beast and his Crew and to be expert in maintaining Christs Cause with weapons both offensive and defensive So as by this occasion Gods Grace working with it this last Century hath produced more excellent sound and learned Divines and famous preachers then I may say truly though not without envie have been ever since the Apostles times The Name of our God and of our Lord Iesus Christ who by this meanes hath Tryumphed over Antichrist be praysed and glorified for evermore These have been and are Christs Triarian band fighting against Antichrists power with the sword of the Spirit in their lippes their pike their pen in their hand and fighting on their knees by Prayre and have so confounded Antichrist by the dint of their Sword and Pike the word of God that he hath no meanes left him but by his legates à latere to negotiate his cause with Kings and Princes of the earth to incite them against the precise party by taking their weapon Gods word and the preaching thereof from them leaving them nothing but their bare knees to plead their Cause upon even Prayers and Teares these which the powers on earth may cause but never deprive them of And how farre you have been a stickler and instigator in this kind I appeale to your practises and to this your Book sufficient and competent witnesses against you But to return to your Fathers you say that they for all their preaching so farre beyond others yet no one of them durst think himselfe infallible much lesse that whatsoever he preached was the word of God 'T is true they had been no wise Fathers but Children rather yea proud and foolish Men if they had thought themselves to be infallible which is proper to God alone But whatsoever they preached out of Gods word that they had good evidence it was according to the Scripture why should they not not onely thinke but be assured that being the truth it was infallible as being the substance of Gods word which they preached And so all other preachers Lastly where you say It may be observed that no men are more apt to say that all the Fathers were but men and might erre then they that thinke their own preachings were infallible And what say you I pray you of your antient Fathers Were they any others but mâ—n And might they not erre But you are not perhaps so apt to say They were but men and might erre You are willing to entertain and retaine a higher opinion of them then so Or at least you are not so apt to say so of them as they then whom none are more apt to say The Fathers were but men and might erre Sure if there were cause enough and urgent too so to say as when it concernes the glory of God and the truth it selfe he that is aptest to say so is the most to be commended And now let us here a little inquire who these men be that are so apt to say thus of the ancient Fathers and for what cause That they were but men and might erre Why who should they be but the precise party of the reformed Churches as all the worthy reverend pious religious learned and judicious Divines both beyond the Seas and on this side who undertaking to defend the truth of Christ against Antichrist and their Adversaries objecting and pressing so much the authority of the antient Fathers in such things wherein they could not be otherwise excused but that they did a'nâ—ropopathein speake as men who are not in all things infallible what could they in such a case answere otherwise But that those Fathers were but men and might erre Nor
that seeth the Son and beleeveth in him should have eternall life and I will raise him up at the last day Marke here This is the Fathers will his resolution his revealed councell and purpose What That every one that seeth Christ not with bodily eyes here but with the eyes of his soule being illuminated by holy knowledge and so beleeveth in him should have eternall life and Christ will raise him up in the last day Here is Mans last happinesse to which God hath revealed tâ— us in his word that he hath resolved in his councel to bring Mankind by Faith and Knowledge together and without seperation as both seeing and beleeving And this doth the Scripture every where shew unto us Wherfore did God give some Apostles and some Prophets and some Euangelists and some Pastors and Teachers but for the perfecting of the Saints for the worke of the Ministry for the edefication of the body of Christ And Col. 2.2 That their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the Mystery of God What a high and admirable expression is here And 6.7 this is to be rooted and built up in Christ. Againe on the other side what 's the Cause and sourse of all wickednesse and infidelity superstition and Idolatry but ignorance of God and of his word As Ephes. 4.17 This I say therfore and testifie in the Lord that ye henceforth walke not as other Gentiles walkâ— in the vaâ—ity of their minds having the understanding darkened being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindnesse of their heart c. So 1 Pet. 4.3 and Hos. 4.1 The Lord hath a controversie with the Inhabittnts of the Land because there is no truth nor mercy nor knowledge of God in the Land And vers 7. My people are destroyed for lacke of knowledge Because thou hast rejected knowledge mark it well my Lord I will also reject thee THAT THOU SHALT BE NO PRIEST TO ME. And on the other side againe The Lord saith I will give you Pastors according to mine heart which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding namely the people whom the Lord is in Covenant with But it seemeth your Priesthood standeth not with the nature and office of those Prophets which feed the people of God with knowledge and understanding You can teach the people a shorter cut to heaven and more easie for the Priest for you tell us God hath resolved to bring Mankind to blessednesse another way then by knowledge Wherin how farre you not onely dishonour but blaspheme the truth of God in Fathering such a foule and abominable lye upon him for this I leave you to that judgement which he hath revealed in his Word But you seem to doe all this in charity That the weakest among men may have their way to blessednes open A way open You meane surely the broad way and you know whither that leads and how the many such weake ones as you speake of goe in that way And broad and open your way had need to be both for the multitude of the travailers therein and for their blindnesse and for the darknesse of the way that so though both they and their guides be blind yet the way is so broad as they cannot possibly goe out of it so long as they do but follow their Nose which must be their guide for want of eyes But it may be you will alledge that saying of Augustine Indocti rapiunt regnum Caeloâ—um c. The unlearned and ignorant take by violence the Kingdome of heaven where we that be great learned Clerks are shut out Ergo the way is open for the weakest and shut against those that abuse their Learning to Gods dishonour and soules destruction But whom doth Augustine there meane by unlearned Ignorants that had no Faith nor true Religion in them Certainly ther 's no heaven for such The blind and lame come not within the fort of Sion But a true beleever may be unlettered or as they say not book learned yet not without knowledge For if he hath faith he hath a knowledge of God in Christ. And being Christs he hath the Spirit of Christ and this quickens him up â—o diligence in the use of all good meanes of saving knowledge as to heare Gods word faithfully preached for he knows Christs voyce and frequently read and conferred upon and he meditates on it his mind is much upon it as yours is of your honours and favour in Court how to keep them and he is still praying for increase of grace and faith and knowledge And my Lord many a such man I could bring that cannot a letter on the Booke that for all your seeming Learning would put you to your Trumps if your greatnesse would but descend so farre as to reason with him of the Scriptures and of Christ and so of faith and the like For there 's all his Learning And such unlearned ones they be who goe to heaven yea take it by violence as Christ saith when great Lord Prelates are shut out As Christ saith to the Pharisees The Publicans and â—arlots goe into the Kingdome of God before you for they beleeved Iohns preaching but ye when ye had seen it repented not afterwards that ye might beleeve him But you goe on in your blind way and say pag. 109. The way of knowledge was not that which God thought fittest for mans Salvation 'T is true not such a speculative knowledge as you speak of but God thought it fittest to bring men to salvation by a knowing Faith as before is shewed I will conclude this with the Apostles thunder As we said before so say I now againe if any man preach otherwise then that is delivered in Gods word let him be accursed And if the Scripture accurse him that leads the blind out of his way to which curse all the people say Amen then what curse is due to him that teacheth the blind such a way as leads to certain destruction of Soule and Body Shall not all the people say Amen to this curse L. p. 106. The Credit of the Scripture depends not upon the subservient inducing Cause that leads us to the first knowledge of the Author which leader here is the Church but upon the Author himselfe and the opinion we have of his Sufficiencie P. Doe you not make the credit of the Scripture to depend upon the Authority of the present Church when without this subservient inducing Cause you deny the possibility of beliefe that the Scripture is the word of God For you say expresly pag. 120. When I said Scriptures were Principles to be supposed I did not I could not intend they were prius cognitae known before Tradition Since I confesse every where that Tradition introduces the knowledge of them But if the credit of
all other are reducible The First is the Tradition of the Church and this leads us to a Reverend perswasion of it The Second is light of Nature and this shews us how necessary such a revealed Learning is and that no other way it can be had Nay more that all proofes brought against any point of faith neither are nor can be Demonstrations but Soluble Arguments The Third is The light of the Text it selfe in Conversing wherewith we meet with the Spirit of God inwardly inclining our hearts and sealing the full Assurance of the suffiâ—iencie of all three unto us And then and not before we are certain that the Scripture is the word of God both by Divine and by Infallible proofe But our Certainty is by Faith and so voluntary not by Knowledge of such Principles as in the light of nature can enforce Assent whether we will or no. P First here you make the manner of the way and order of beliefe of God and of the Scripture to be one and the same So as beliefe of Scripture to be Gods word must first be induced by the Tradition of the present Church els it wants credit so beliefe of God to be God must be in like manner and order induced els that 's without credit too This is just as we applyed Tertullians Speech before concerning the Roman Senate which would not alow Christ to be admitted and inrowled in the Catalogue of their Gods aâ— Caesars motion because according to a Decree of the Senate it had not first moved it as the Prime inducing cause whereupon Tertullian saith Ergo nisi homini placuerit â—eus non erit Deus Therefore unlesse it shall please man GOD shall not be GOD. So by your Doctrine here God shall not be beleeved to be God unlesse it come in by the doore of the present Churches Tradition as the sole necessary prime inducer of it How did men beleeved God to be God before this new Doctrine of yours came in to lead them the way was all the world then drowned in a Deluge of Atheisme and Infidelity so it seems Till this light of your present Church Tradition shined in the world it was all as thaâ— Aegyptian palpable darknesse all men sitting all that time and not stirring one foot to any degree of beliefe that GOD was GOD. But come we to your 3 Grounds wherein you summe up all the Totall of all this tedious Discourse in this Section The First is The Tradition of the Church that 's ever presupposed as a Prime principle having the Precedencie before that other Principle that Scripture is that word of God as before Well what doth this Tradition It leads us say you to a Reverend perswasion of the Scripture This is a faire inducement And without this no Reverend perswasion of the Scripture can be had Thus the Scripture must be beholden to your Tradition for a Reverend perswasion of it And who will not have a Reverend perswasion of that which the most Reverend Father in God commends as LAUD able Well let this suffice for that The Second is the light of Nature Well and what office hath that It shews us how necessary such a revealed learning is and that no other way it can be had But your Revealed Learning here is somwhat obscure we cannot well tell whether you mean this your Revealed learning of this your present Church-Tradition concerning beliefe of Scripture or the Scripture it selfe But be it either or both all is one we doe not much stand upon it Let it be the Scripture beleeved to be Gods word by the first necessary Inducing cause Tradition as then which no other way can be had This is then your Revealed learning which the light of Nature shews us how necessary it is How necessary it is that the beliefe of Scripture to be the word of God should be induced by Tradition becâ—use no other way it can be had Of Natures light we have spoken before sufficiently And one noâ—e more resulteth from your words here And that is That forasmuch as natures light is altogether blind in spirituall things and can no more judge of the Scriptures then a blind man of Colours nor discerneth any more light in the Scriptures then a blind man doth light in the Sun when it shineth at noon day and Natures light judging all things according to her carnall sense and having those things in greatest admiration and highest esteem which have the greatest and most glorious outward luster dazeling the eyes of her carnall mindednesse and there being nothing in the world that carries with it a more glorious and glittering show in the eyes of carnall and naturall men then a Hierarch or Prelate Sitting in his Chaire in his Pontificalibus with all heads bare round about him in the Great Hall of his Princely Palace and especially when he sits the supreme Judge in all those Causes brought into his Court and all this glory is accumulated and highly elevated in the light of Naturall mens eyes not onely in respect of all the outward splendor of the Present Church but because of an Instinct of nature in all men concerning Religion and Piety and the Service of God which is â—ed and nourished with a great pretence and profession of holinesse in thâ—se Right Reverent Fathers whose very bare Titles of most Reverend Fathers stike a reverence into all such Naturalists hearts as in children toward their Fathers and much more to their Ghâ—stly Father and which also is highly contented and pleased with the variety of Ceremonies and Pompous Service as most sutable and agreeable to natures fancy which knows no other Religion but that which stands in these externall things And seeing this Tradition of the present Church hath no testimony ground nor warrant for it in the Scripture but is a thing meerly usurped by the pride of Man And seeing none are fitter Judges to passe their sentence on Traditions side then such as are blind as Nature is in all spirituall things onely having a bare name of light as a Candle going before her whereby others may take notice of her Therfore not without great reason do you take the light of Nature for a Second to your Church Tradition as a fit consort which will easily speake for you whatsoever you desire giving her blind testimony to confirme your blind Cause And you adde Nay more that all proofes brought against any point of Faith neither are nor can be Demonstrations but Soluble Arguments To wit without your Church Tradition as the Inference sheweth This is a pretty point in Divinity indeed That the light of Nature is become a Iudge in points of Faith whether the Arguments brought against it be Demonstrative or no But this sâ—ppery is so fully refelled before that we need to say no more We come now in the last place to your Third ground Which is the light of the Text it selfe in conversing wherewith you say we meet with the Spirit
Tradition introduceth the knowledge of them P. I doe but name these your words as before being but an Inculcation and Confirmation of such things as I have abundantly Confuted before Onely this I adde That if the Scripture be not before the Tradition or Authority of the present Church whence hath the present Church this her Authority and so whence her Testimony the Credit to be of that absolute necessity to bring men to beleeve the Scripture to be the word of God Must you not be forced to come into the same Circle where a little before you found A.C. as to say which yet you never went about to prove to prevent the losse of your labour the Scripture authoriseth Church-Tradition and Church-Tradition necessarily introduceth beliefe of Scripture to be the word of God But if you be in this Circle there I leave you L. p. 121. This Principle then The Scriptures are the Oracles of God we cannot say is cleare and fully manifest to all men simply and in selfe-light for the reasons before given P. The Reasons we have weighed and found them too light But to all true beleevers in Christ This Principle The Scriptures are the Oracles of God is cleare and fully manifest and that simply and in selfe-light For the reasons and proofes before given and which all true Christians and Saints of God Confesse L. ibid. Yet we say After Tradition hath been our Introduction the Soule that hath but ordinary Grace added to Reason may discerne light sufficient to resolve our Faith that the Sun is there P. As this so often repeated by you usque ad nauseam as crambe bis cocta Coleworts twise boyld and to no other purpose it seemeth but to fill the empty belly of this your volume and to make your present Church Authority swell the bigger with its ventosity is but a repetion of the former So I shall not need to repeat the Refutation Onely this Do or can you discerne the Sun in the Scripture by the light of your divine Candle your Church Tradition And hath it not so much shining light or is it so over-clouded or ecclipsed with the black letters as nothing but the Authority of the present Church must in the first place put to her hand to withdraw the Curtaine Surely the Sun is so glorious in it selfe as be it never so much clouded yet that will shew day above our heads if we doe but looke up L. ibid. Now men may be apt to thinke out of Reverence that Divinity can have no Science above it But your own Schoole teacheth me that it hath namely The knowledge of God and of the blessed in heaven P And truly my Lord how ever you account and Reverence Divinity yet for my part I do not onely most highly reverence it but conceive and beleeve the excellencie of it to be so transcendent as I hold there can be no Science above it For what is Divinity in its native and proper Notion Divinity in its proper Prime and most sublime Notion is the Deity or God-head it selfe Theiòtes signifying the Divinity or Deity the derivation from â—eòs GOD. This is the Prime Notion of this word Divinity The second Notion of Divinity is pan tò gnoston tou Theou all which may be known of God which being in God as the light in the Sun comes to be made known unto us as by so many beames shining partly though in Comparison more obscurely in his works and partly and that most clearely in his word and most gloriously in Christ the Sun of Righteousnesse himselfe the brightnesse of his Glory and the expresse Image of his Person the very light of the Scripture and so of his Church And of this Divinity as Christ is the full patterne and perfect platforme so the Essence of the eternall Deity and the subsistances of the 3 Persons in that one Godhead together with all the glorious Attributes of God but also the whole Mystery of Christ the Redeemer comprehending and expressing whatsoever is necessary for us to know and beleeve for our Salvation In which respect the Scripture may be called and that most proproperly as by a Title proper to it quarto modo Gods Divinity-Booke and his Churches Divinity-Schoole So that in the Scripture we have a most perfect and Compleat body of Divinity of all Divinity of whatsoever holy knowledge of God and of Christ and of our selves requisite to our Salvation and the setting forth of the Glory of God In which respect unlesse a man will presume above that which is written we may truly say That Divinity being but one and the same and Science therof one and the Rule of this Science but one all comprehended in the Scripture That Divinity hath no Science above it Yet your Lordship hath learned in the Iesuites or Romes Schoole wherein it seems you have been more trained up then in Christs Schoole That Divinity hath a Science above it And what is that super-science I pray you The knowledge of God say you and of the blessed in heaven If you meane such a knowledge of God and of the blessed in heaven as is not revealed in the Scripture I say Quae supra nos quid ad nos And it is presumption to conceive of any other knowledge of God fit for us to know then what is revealed in the Scripture wherein is declared the whole counsell of God concerning his Glory and our everlasting good And for the knowledge of the blessed in heaven If you meane of the blessed Angels we may know as much of them as the Scripture hath made known unto us But this knowledge is not a Science above Divinity And if you meane the knowledge of the blessâ—d Saints in heaven it is the same with that of the Saints on earth onely Differing in Degrees of perfection Or if you had meant the knowledge that is in God and in the blessed in heaven you should so have exprest it In and not Of. But I think you speake of such a speculation as is above the Spheare of our expression Onely something though it be de non ente you must say that we may take notice what a profound Proficient you are in Romes Schoole in teaching us such a sublime and hyperbolicall Science as is inexpressible in Babylons language and therfore the fitter to darken the lustre of that Divinity which so gloriously shineth and is so exactly set forth in the Scripture But you have plentifully shewed us what Reverence you beare to this Divinity L. p 122. In the margent I would fain know why leaning too much upon Tradition may not mislead Christians as well as it did the Iews P. And I would fain know why leaning so much upon Tradition of the present Church as you doe might not be the Cause that hath lead you so much to undervalue the Scriptures and may not mislead Christians by teaching them as base an opinion of the whole Scripture as the Jewes have
of the New Testament L. p. 123. Even that Scripture of the old Testament was a light and a shining light too therfore could not but be sufficient when Tradition had gone before P. What told you us but now of misleading the Jewes by leaning too much upon Tradition and do you goe about the same way to mislead them blind as they be and to make them yet more blind if possible That you have gone to mislead Christians Doe you tell the Jewes now that the old Testament is sufficient when Tradition had gone before So as without Tradition preceding no sufficiency in the Book I perceive you will not yet have done with your Tradition as without which nothing is done L. p. 125. Certaine it is that by humane Autthority Consent and proofe a man may be assured Infallibly that the Scripture is the word of God by an acquired habit of Faith Cui non subest falsum under which no error nor falshood is but he cannot be assured Infallibâ—y by Divine Faith cui subesse non potest falsum into which no falshood can come but a Divine Testimony And a little after If you speake of Assurance onely in Generall I must then tell you a man may be assured nay Infallibly assured by Ecclesiasticall and humane proofe Men that never saw Rome may be sure and infallibly beleeve that such a City there is by Historicall and acquired Faith P. Although you use here a Schoole Distinction Cui non subest falsum cui non potest subesse falsum Of Faith Historicall and Faith Divine Assurance generall and Assurance particular yet in truth in the upshot it will appeare you speake very Confusedly as in the Babylonish Dialect or Phrase For first you attribute Infallibility to your acquired habit of Faith wherein is no falshood which habit of Faith you oppose to Divine Faith wherein no falshood can be whereas Infallibility in its genuine or Gramaticall sense importeth impossibility of Error or falshood For infallible is that which is not subject unto error which cannot be deceived So as you doe under correction very much mistake in applying your Schoole distinctions Non subest non potest to Infalliblity I remember indeed that the Schoole-men apply this Distinction to Faith Cui non subest cui non potest subesse falsum but never to Infalliblity for that is alwayes such Cui non potest subesse falsum which cannot be deceived Look a little better in your School-men and I beleeve you will find it so as I say Secondly while you would seem to put a Difference between your acquired habit of Faith which you expresse and instruct to be Historicall and Divine Faith which you say is onely to beleeve the Scripture to be the word of God you doe bring both ends together making your Acquired Faith and Divine Faith one and the same kind both Historicall Onely Historicall Faith may differ respectively to the object Humane or Divine For it is an Historicall Faith that beleeves there is such a City as Rome in which respect it may be called Historicall Faith humane and it is an Historicall Faith that beleeves the Scriptures to be the word of God in which respect it may be called Historicall Faith Divine Divine I say respectively to the object but being in kind the same Historicall Faith with the other whose object is humane And you tell us before that ordinary Grace and a morall perswasion upon the necessary previous Authority and Tradition of the present Church works this your Divine Faith All which reacheth no further but to an Historicall Faith call it what you will acquired or divine And your building this your Faith upon the Rise of humane Authority and morall perswasion how ever you use the ingredience of ordinary Grace by naming of it yet you are not able to say whether this Historicall Faith be an habit infused or acquired though you never so much daube it over with Divine Onely thus you give us occasion to take notice what an accute School-Divine you are at least so farre as a distinction or two will goe which rather confound then distinguish But admit you could demonstrate and make it plain unto us that your ordinary Grace what ever it is and a morall perswasion puts a speciall difference between your Divine Faith and Historicall yet to what purpose will all this prove May not both these Faiths be found in wicked men and Reprobates however distinguished by divine ordinary Grace and the like The Schooles have a knowne Distinction much more proper and sensible and agreeable to the truâ—h of Scripture then those you bring and so apply For speaking of the Difference between ordinary common Graces and those peculiar to the Elect they call the first Gratia gratis data Grace freely given meaning Ministeriall Graces which God freely gives as well to the wicked as to the godly he gave as Royall KarÃsmata or Graces to Saul as to David and Apostolicall Graces as well to Iudas as to Peter And this Grace Thus freely given is grounded on those words of Christ freely you have received freely give But that peculiar Grace which God freely gives too but onely to his Elect is distinguished from the other being called Gratia gratum faciens Grace makeing us acceptable unto God according to that of the Apostle According as he hath chosen us in him c. haveing predestinated us c. To the praise of the Glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved Or that Being justified freely by his grace c. Now ordinary and Common Grace being freely given of God to whom he will good or bad depends not upon humane Authority as a necessary inducing Cause Yet you make your present Church Authority which is but humane a necessary previous Cause to ordinary Grace whereby your Historicall or Divine Faith as you call it is wrought in beleeving the Scripture to be word of God and so what ever faire termes you guild this Faith withall it wil be found no better then either meerely humane or at least common unto the wicked and Reprobate which for all this your Divine Faith goe to hell and then the difference is not so great between your Historicall and Divine Faith which you keep such a puzzell about but that a man may without any great hazard winck and chuse Ob. But you tell us before That ordinarily the Scriptures must have Tradition to goe before Therfore that you place not an absolute necessity in it Ordinarily So you once say indeed But so as withall it must be absolutely necessary For you make all other meanes of this beliefe to be deficient without your Church-Tradition leading the way As for the Scriptures those have not light sufficient for themselves and are as a candle that must first be lighted before it can give light and that is by Church Authority As for the holy Holy Ghost that works not this Faith but by
as you imposed upon me So as No Right that is No Orthodox Church at Rome And yet no newes it is that I granted the Roman Church to be a true Church For so much very learned Protestants have acknowledged before me and the Truth cannot deny it For that Church which receives the Scripture as the Rule of Faith though but as a partiall and imperfect Rule and both the Sacraments as instrumentall Causes and seales of Grace though they adde more and infuse these yet cannot but be a True Church in Essence How it is in manners and Doctrine I would you would loâ—ke to it with a single eye P. Not Right then not Orthodox you hold the Church of Rome to be That 's somthing yet Yet True you ever have and will hold her to be unlesse she absolutely fall away from the Faith Well And yet I wot well you give absolutely falling away from the Faith So large bounds as it is to be feared you will never come to give her for absolutely gone and fallen away from the Faith so long as she can have but one bare thread or ragge of the profession of the Faith of the Creed nay if she can but say over her Creed though as you Confesse elsewhere she hath quite overthrown the sense of it And if the sense of it be destroyed surely the Faith of it also This will more fully appeare as we goe along We come to your Reasons why you hold Rome a True Church 1. For very learned Protestants which hold with you in this First we can set both as learned and double the number of of Protestants who will weigh down the Scale against those that seem to be of your opinion Secondly we could out of those very Protestant Authors whom you mean though I suppose you seldome read such Authors and in other things scarce name them Honoris causa collect more against this opinion That the Church of Rome is a true Church then you can for it As out of Iunius himselfe for Instance I mentioned before a laâ—e Book intituled Babel no Bethel never yet answered by any Jesuite or other Priest Romish or English where the Author hath cleared all or most of those Protestants which his Adversaries alledged and I suppose you meane from this opinion of yours And then also the Author proves by many concluding Arguments and in my opinion unanswerable that the Church of Rome is no true visible Church of Christ as having lost the very Essence of a true Church To which Booke I referre your Lordship could your patience but brook the Authors name or your Conscience not tremble at the mention of him To your Second Reason First I deny that the Church of Rome receives the Scriptures as A Rule of Faith For first The Rule of Faith must be in it selfe simply Divine and Infallible But such to the Church of Rome the Scripture is not For she makes the Infallibility and Divine Authority of the Scripture to depend upon the Church as you do upon Church Tradition which you confesse to be not simply Divine and Infallible Ergo Rome receives not the Scripture as A Rule of Faith Secondly Rome receives not holds not The Rule of Faith Ergo she is not a true Church As the late Dr Carleton of Chichester in his Book of the Church hath well and learnedly proved For not to hold the Rule of Faith is to deny and destroy the Faith and to fall absolutely away from the Foundation of Faith and to set up a new and false Faith upon a new and false Foundation Nor dare or doe you say that Rome receives the Scripture as The Rule of Faith but onely as A Rule of Faith to wit a partiall Rule as Bellarmine calls it But if the Scripture be as it is The onely Rule of Faith and ever hath been in all ages so held till Rome in the Councel of Trent changed this Rule then not to hold it so for The Rule that is the onely Rule but onely as a partiall Rule joyned with other Rules equall to it as her Traditions which Bellarmine in his Book de verbo Dei non scripto calls the word of God unwritten is to reject the onely Rule and so to fall absolutely away from the Faith And you confesse that the Church of Rome holds the Scripture but as a partiall and imperfect Rule And is this nothing with you What is this but to evacuate and utterly make voyd the Rule when for a perfect intire and absolute onely Rule it is made but a partiall imperfect and joynt Rule And when humane Authority is equalled with Divine Humane Traditions with Divine Scriptures as an equall Rule of Faith Nay and those her Traditions which she calls her word of God unwritten are such as teach things directly contrary to the Doctrines of Scripture as of Purgatory Invocation of Saints and the like Is not this a'kurosai as Christ saith to make voyd and of no Authority the Commandements of God by mens Tradition Yet this Camel you can easily swallow you slight this over as a matter of nothing as if it were all one thing in a manner to hold the Scripture The Rule of Faith and A Rule of Faith namely a part or piece of the Rule The whole Rule and a partiall Rule The onely perfect Rule and An imperfect Rule All this breakes no squares with you but that Rome for all this holds the Rule of Faith and therfore you hold her for a true Church of Christ. But yet in so saying you plainly imply That if Rome held not the Rule of Faith she is no true Church of Christ but is absolutely fallen away from Christ the Foundation For you give this for a Reason that Rome is a true Church because she holds the Rule of Faith Ergo If she hold not the Rule of Faith she is no true Church of Christ but is absolutely fallen away from the Faith Whereupon I argue thus That Church which denyeth the Scripture to be the onely Intire Absolute perfect Rule of Faith is fallen absolutely away from Christ and so ceaseth to be a true Church that is to have the very Essence and beeing of a true Church of Christ But the Church of Rome denyeth the Scripture to be the onely Intire Absolute Perfect Rule of Faith Ergo the Church of Rome is absoluely fallen away from Christ and so ceaseth to be a true Church that is to have the very Essence and beeing of a true Church of Christ. The Minor Proposition is confessed by your Lordship For you say The Church of Rome holds the Scripture but as A Rule a Partiall Rule an Imperfect Rule Thus she denyeth the Scripture to be the onely Intire Absolute Perfect Rule of Faith And for the Major Proposition you doe by necessary Consequence confesse it also to be true For you set it down as a Reason why you hold the Church of Rome to be a true Church because she holds the
Rule of Faith the Scripture Implying that to hold the Scriptures to be the Rule of Faith is one speciall note of A true Church But now you confesse againe that Rome holds not this Rule but as a partiall and imperfect Rule And therefore denying this Rule of Faith she ceaseth to be a pure Church of Christ And which is the more this the Church of Rome doth ex professo solemni Decreto professedly and by solemne Decrees ratified as irrefragable and that under Anathema to be received of all And this is farre more then to doe it by Practise onely And yet in Practise to destroy and overthrow but onely some speciall Doctrines of Scripture though otherwise the Scripture be professed and confessed in this or that particular Church to be the intire and onely Rule of Faith is de facto to disclaime the whole Scripture and to unmake it the perfect Rule of Faith and so thereby such a Church possessing such and such Errors as are Fundamentall that is against the Foundation is fallen from Christ as hath been formerly proved Now if but any one part of Scripture in this or that Doctrine of Christ be overthrown so as therein it is not made the Rule of Faith and this overthrowing such Doctrines being once professed and maintained generally in any one particular Church makes that Church to cease to be a true Church of Christ as not holding the Scripture intirely but professedly overthrowing it in such and such particulars then how much more the Church of Rome professing and maintaining gumne kephale with a whores forehead that the holy Scripture is not the onely Rule of Faith intire and perfect but partiall and imperfect as your Lordship confesseth doth thereby proclaime her selfe to all the world to be fallen away absolutely from Christ and so ceaseth to be a true Church of God And denying the Scriptures to be the Rule of Faith she denyeth the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Iesus Christ himselfe being the chiefe corner stone and so is fallen quite from the Foundation Nor onely thus by Addition of another Rule doth the Church of Rome overthrow the onely Rule of Faith the Scriptures but also by denying the selfe Authority of them as also you doe and withall by tying the sense of Scripture to the interpretation of the Church as also you doe at least in difficult places and by holding and maintaining false Doctrines against the Scriptures which overthrow Christ and wherein they will not be regulated by the Scriptures as you also doe in your Altars and forbidding the Doctrines of Grace to be Preached and other things which if the Church of England hold with the Church of Rome and with you you and both your Churches are fallen absolutely from Christ and so cease to be true Churches of God As also your very Hierarchy makes you to be no true Church of Christ were there nothing else as before is sufficiently proved And if you desire any further proofe that the Church of Rome is no true Church of Christ I still referre you to the forementioned Book Babel no Bethel And though you supprest the Book yet ten to one but one of your Hounds will hunt it out for you Next for the Sacraments which is your second Reason you say The Church of Rome holds both the Sacraments as instrumentall Causes and Seales of Grace though they adde more and misuse these Ergo she cannot but be a true Church in Essence For Answere First she holds them not absolutely to be Sacraments but dependently upon the Priests intention which you mention elsewhere And so hath the Councel of Trent defined of the Sacraments so Vega so Bellarmine Secondly if she be sure the Priests intention be not wanting or going a wool-gathering in his Consesecration then she makes the Sacraments to be not Instrumentall Causes of Graces but aitia kúria Principall and efficient working causes of Grace ex opere operato as they barbarously speake by the immediate vertue of the worke wrought So the Councel of Trent also So as they shut out the Holy Ghost from this worke as the Principall Efficient worker and sealer of Grace Thirdly For Baptisme which you make to be an Infallible Marke of that Church to be Christian besides their infinite corruptions of the Element of water which the Apostle calleth pure water with their spittle salt creame exorcismes or conjurations of the Devils insultations and the like they hang the very beeing not onely the vertue of this Sacrament upon the Priests intention which intention of the Priest is so uncertaine as Vega one of the prime Sticklers in the Councel of Trent as aforesaid in his Booke upon the Councel of Trent especially the sixt Session where he treateth of certainty of Faith in Iustification Confesseth that there can be no certainty of Salvation to a man because he cannot be certain whether he hath true Baptisme or no and that in regard of the Priests intention whereof he cannot be certaine So as by this their own Doctrine no one Papist can be sure that he is a Christian and so consequently neither can all the members of that Church severally nor conjunctly the whole Body it selfe be sure whether they or it be Christian or no and so the Church of Rome upon this very ground cannot resolve certainly whether she be a Church of Christ or no unlesse your Testimony will help her out at a dead lift And that not onely in regard of the Priests intention in the Sacrament of Baptisme but also in their Additionall Sacrament of Orders one of these more which they have added to the two So as for default of the Popes intention in ordering of Prelates or of the Prelates invention in ordering one another and in ordering of Priests and of Priests intention in Consecrating their Sacrament of Baptisme as themselves Vega and others do argue the case they are all put to the stagger whether they have in that Church either Priesthood or Sacraments For all hangs upon that weake pin or haire of the Priests intention So as another of their Primipili a Standard-bearer of the Dominicans in the same Councell Dominicus Soto forementioned in his Book de natura gratia saith that Deus in potestate Sacerdotis posuit Populi salutem GOD hath put the peoples Salvation in the Priests power Now all this considered and withall the time when this was made a Decree in the Councel of Trent a matter of 100 yeares agoe and when it was but new and the Pope and Prelates and Priests could not perhaps of a good while learne their lesson perfectly and so get a habit of it but that in all their Consecration of Prelates and Priests still intention was to seek and where it breakes off as in the Pope and Prelates in their Consecration of Orders there followes a meere nullity in succession of the whole Generation of Priests downwards and so through that whole body no Priesthood now no Sacraments
what evidence can the Church of Rome now give us or what assurance can she have besides the bare name That she is still a Christian Church Onely Vega helps it aswell as he can That in reason and Charity men are not to thinke that the Priest should be so carelesse at the Consecration as not to look to his Intention upon which the Salvation of all menâ— soules dependeth Fourthly for the Sacrament of the Eucharist or of the Altar as they call it First this is in the same Predicament with Baptisme for the Priests intention which if not present at the Consecration of the Host as they call it there is no Transubstantiation no body of Christ and so they worship a wafer instead of Christ and so by their owne Confession in that case they commit materiall Idolatry as a Jesuite confessed in Dispute with Dr Featly But Secondly by the very name of Sacrament of the Altar they destroy the Sacrament that Christ ordained in his last Supper called therfore the Supper of the Lord. For they have turned it from a Supper to a sacrifice yea and that from an Eucharisticall sacrifice as the Fathers called it to a Propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of quick and dead as is noted before And so this Sacrament they have Non sacramented and made of it a whole burnt sacrifice Secondly they have utterly destroyed the materialls or Element in this their Sacrament the bread and wine that no maâ— should so much as dreame or once take it for the Lords Supper For a Supper cannot be without bread and drinke and heâ—e is neither And so it is neither Supper nor Sacrament And thus they have taken away noâ— onely the cup from the people but the bread also altogether So as there is nothing in their Sacrament but a meere lye meere imaginations Phantasmes of Accidents without subject as we said before And so enough of this And lastly the Church of Rome having disanulled the Sacraments of Grace it hath withall disabled them from being seales of Grace For it is the property of a seale to give a sure and certain Impression and thereby a Confirmation of the Covenant But in Popish Sacraments all certainty is taken away as is shewed and so having lost the seales consequently the Covenant of Grace it selfe is of no force unto them And thus in denying the two Testaments to be the onely rule of Faith and overthrowing the two Sacraments the seales of Faith yea having lost and disclaimed the true Saving Faith it selfe what evidence hath Rome left her to shew and prove that she is now a true Church of Christ or hath the Essence of a true Church Let her shew her evidence As he said Let Baal if he be a god plead for himselfe Yet all this is of no Force to your Lordship but that like Ixion imbracing a cloud for Iuno as it is in that Fable so you imbrace but a cloud or rather the shadow of a cloud instead of the once faire Virgin Rome you must needs have her a true Church still She onely say you misuses the two Sacraments A small triviall trifle to speake of Misusing then is nothing with you What say you then to those wicked Princes and Priests of Israel that misused the Lords Prophets Was this nothing They so misused them that they stoned them to death And so the Church of Rome hath so misused the two Sacraments that they have stoned them them to death and left not one alive But they have made amends for it For say you they have added more even no lesse then five which are as the five wounds wherewith the Lord was crucified to death For those five have eaten out the other two of Christs own ordaining both expressing his death the one for ingrafting us into it the other for growth and strength by it as our spirituall food And these five Sacraments fo humane invention they must have their vertue of conferring Grace ex opere operato being all as they use them a meere evacuating of Christs me it s But time permits not a longer discourse of them Enough is said for Answer And for Conclusion the Church of Rome having taken away the Authority of Scripture and added her own Traditions and having taken away and misused the Lords Sacraments and added their own Sacraments what remaines to that Church but that which the Divine Iohn Concludeth the whole Bible withall I testifie unto every man that heareth the words of the Prophecie of this Book If any man shall adde unto these things God shall adde unto him the plagues that are written in this Book And if any man shall take away from the Book of this Prophecie God shall take away his part out of the Booke of life and out of the Holy City and from the things which are written in this Booke Out of the Holy City which is the Church of Christ. Here then in this holy City is no place for the Church of Rome L. p. 131.132 The Church of Rome both was and was not a right or Orthodox Church before Luther made a breach from it For in the Primitive times of it it was a most right and Orthodox Church but upon the immediate times before Luther or some Ages before that Rome was a corrupt and tainted Church farre from being right And yet both these times before Luther made his breach P. The Conclusion then of your speech here is this That Luther made his breach from the Church of Rome not onely as it was Corrupt and tainted immediately or in some Ages before but also as it was right and Orthodox in her Primitive Times For you say And yet both these times before Luther as well those wherein the Church of Rome was most right and Orthodox as those wherein after before Luther it was corrupt and tainted made his breach And thus you make the rent on the Protestant party to be not onely from the corrupt and tainted Church of Rome but from the most Right and Orthodox Church of Christ. A pestilent speech bewraying the speaker to be in the very gall of bitternesse and in the bond of iniquity and worhty to be abhorred and abandoned of all that beare the name of Protestants But this agreeth with that which we noted before how you exclude all the Protestant Reformed Churches beyond the Seas where your Prelacie and Hierarchy is not erected nor my Lord Bishops Chaire allowed from being any Churches of Christ or members of the true Catholick Church For here also in Luthers rent from the Church of Rome not onely as corrupt and tainted but as once Right and Orthodox you include all those Reformed present Churches and to exclude them out of the true Church of Christ. But as before we have shewed and proved and shall yet more upon fit occasion ministred upon the same cause for which you exclude all Reformed Protestant Churches beyond the Seas from being Churches of Christ
when men sheere their Goates so in this respect you may safely say That when Romes errours and Superstitions are removed our Protestations and Seperation is ended And so may I. L p. 136. Protestants doe but protest the sincerity of their Faith against the Doctrinall corruption which hath invaded the great Sacrament of the Eucharist and other parts of Religion P. Well were it for you and your present Church of England as you have lately made it or would at least make it if you had such sincerity of Faith to protest against Romes doctrinall corruptions as true Protestants have But why doe you call the Lords supper The Great Sacrament of the Eucharist Is it Great because you give it a Name not known in Scripture Or because it is so grandized in the Church of Rome as it is made like the Great Diana of the Ephesians whom all the Pontifician world worshipeth Or it is Great comparatively to Baptisme because this is celebrated in the Font at the Church doore neere the Belfrey and That upon your high Altar which you have advanced at the chiefe as you esteem it and East end af your Chancels and of your stately Cathedrals Or Great because in your Devotion you bow towards that place whence it seems you look for your help yea so lowly fall down and worship before it as before the Lord your maker Or what is it that your Eucharist is become with you so Great a Sacrament Because it or your selfe is Great with Child of a young new God-Almighty But however For my part I reverence every Ordinance of God but I dare not make nor esteem them greater then God hath made them nor give them other Names and Titles then God hath given them least I either seem to be wiser then my Maker and their Author or should give more honour to them then is due this being as wofull experience hath taught the ready way to rob God of his honour to transferre it to the creature and set it up instead of God But loth you are I know to call the Sacrament the Lords Supper as the Scripture calls it least it might call for the Lords Table as the Scripture also terms it and so your high Altar should have no more Room in the Church But doe the true Protestants protest the sincerity of their Faith onely against the Doctrinall Faith which hath invaded your Great Sacrament of the Eucharist Yes you adde and other parts of Religion What be those That we may know those speciall Doctrinall Corruptions against which you say Protestants do protest the sincerity of their Faith For Rome hath many Doctrinall Corruptions against which true Protestants protest which you do not so much as mention in all your Book and such too as do â—â—atly overthrow the Foundation Christ. As Iustification by works for one which we have touched before Yea and Rome hath many and those most damnable corruptions which you are so farre from accounting corruptions as you make them Essentiall parts of Gods worship I name Altars for one Of which also before And these things we Protestants protest the sincerity of our Faith against But you are none of those Protestants as not professing much lesse protesting the sincerity of any such Faith L p. 138. A right sober man may without the least touch of insolence or madnesse dispute a businesse of Religion with the Roman either Church or Prelate as all men know Irenaeus did with Victor so it be with modesty and for the finding out or confirming of truth free from vanity and purposed opposition against even a particular Church P. This passage I cited before in my Preface to your Lordship yet I here recite it again because perhaps all wil be little enough to put you in mind therof For as I told you before the Greatnesse of the Cause hath caused my stile and Spirit to mount upon the wings of zeale for my Christ and for his Church in a higher degree and strain then ordinary And that for this you Censure me of insolence or madnesse as I feare it wil be the best defence you can make for your Cause alwayes excepted the Bill in Starre-Chamber I have no remedy but patience committing the Cause to him that judgeth rightly And as I have done it for the finding out of the truth so this hath caused me a great deale of moyle in digging and removing away a masse of earth and rubbedge which you had cast to hide this Treasure from us So as a purposed opposition was not it that set me upon this Great taske but yet I oppose you and purpose to detect your falsities so fairly guilded over with hypocrisie that you might not impose too much upon your Credulous Reader You aledge for this purpose the Example of Irenaeus arguing a Case with Victor Bishop of Rome which you say all men know But my Lord I suppose all men do not know it And because it is a matter both worthy and not unnecessary for all men to know it I will take occasion here to speake somthing of it as not impertinent also to our present purpose Towards the end of the second Century there was a difference between the Asian Church and the Roman about the Day of Celebrating the memory of the Lords Resurrection The contention grew hot as commonly men are most eagre in propounding their own devises in matter of Religion so as because the Asian Churches would not conforme to Victor Bishop of Rome he began to fume and to thunder and threaten them all with Excommunication Irenaeus who lived in France for this reproves Victor telling him that he ought not to proceed and deale so with Asian Churches for such differences as were of things at that time accounted Indifferent Some saith he fast one day before Easter some two some more some 40. houres together whereupon by the way it seems that those 40. houres were afterwards turned into forty dayes for your Lent Fast kaì cudèn élatton pà ntes oâ—uioi eirteneusà n tè kaì eireneúomen pròs alluious yet neverthelesse saith he all these lived peaceably together and we also are at peace one with another Kaì he diaphonìn tes nesteÃas tèn homónoian tes pÃstâ—os sunistesi And this difference about Fasting commendeth saith he the unity of Faith And he relates unto him also the examples of sundry of his Predecessors in the Sea of Rome who neither kept it themselves nor command of it to others and yet neverthelesse they that observed it not were at peace with those that came to them from the neighbour Churches or Congregations wherein it was observed Nor were any at any time cast out of the Church about the Manner or Custome But those Presbyters saith he who before you observed it not sent Commendations or kind salutations and greetings as tokens of Charity to those of other neighbouring Churches who did observe it And blessed Polycarpus sojourning at Rome in the time of
themselves durst not openly professe it So as those seven thousand I cannot more fitly compare then to those whom you call a sort of Puritanicall Separatists whom you by your Altar services and other superstitions drive from your Communion who will not bow the knee to your Baal to your God-Altar nor at your Name Iesus and therfore you Ferret them out of their holes because they will not do as their Neighbours do goe with them like loving Neighbours and good Fellows to Bethel and Dan and there make merry eat drinke before their God and rise up to play as you give your people leave to doe on their Holy dayes and on the Lords dayes too Onely here is the difference it seemeth that in those dayes of old of the ten Tribes there were no Pursuivants to hunt out those poore Snakes that lurked in holes and would not bow the knee For then sure Elias should have heard of them and they should have been served with the same sawce that the Lords Prophets tasted of And again there was in Israel one good Obadiah that hid an hundred of the Lords Prophets in a Cave from wicked Iezebel as there was in Iudah a good Ebedmelech that spake to the King for the Prophet Ieremiah whom the Princes had put into the muddy Dungion but where there is an Arch-Prelate or Arch-Priest that takes upon him to rule the rost there is not found one Obadiah or one Ebedmeleck that dare so much as speake one good word to the King for the Prophets of the Lord who are most unjustly and most cruelly confiâ—ed and that to perpetuall imprisonment and banishment for no other cause but faithfully executing their Propheticall office as before But a little after you adde That Israel is called the People of the Lord 2 King 9.6 therfore a Church still I answere They might be so called because they were Abrahams seed according to the flesh which the Apostle distinguisheth from Abrahams â—eed according to the promise For all they are not Israel which are of Israel neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all Children Yet they were called the Children of Abraham and so the people of God Or secondly they might still be called Gods people in regard of the Covenant made with them in Abrahams â—oynes the externall badge wherof they wore in Circumcision and a type of the Promise wherof they injoyed in the Promised Land of Canaan which now they possessed so as they might retain the name of Gods people in that respect till they were quite cast out of that profession Or Thirdly as Antichrist is said to sit in the Temple of God that is in that place and over those where was once the Church of God or over mens Consciences which of right are the Temple of God so as Antichrist usurping Gods right and puting him as it were out of possession is truly said to sit in the Temple of God though now turned into the Temple of Antichrist so the ten Tribes have been once with the rest of their brethren the true Church of God and now fallen from it yet they might retain that name still to be called the Lords people untill there was no remedy that they were utterly cast out and cast off by a Bill of perpetuall Divorce Even as the Church of Rome untill the Councel of Trent notwithstanding her manyfold corruptions and abominable Idolatries yet was generally taken for and called a true visible Church of Christ though in truth in the Generall it was not but a false Antichristian Hierarchy and Tyranny over mens Soules and Consciences yet when after all admonitions and convictions of her Errors by many of Gods Prophets who wouâ—d â—avâ— curâ— a Babylon but she was not cured nay she was so farre off from cure and 〈…〉 all remedy or hope of remedy as in her councel of Trent she hath for ever in perpetuam memoriam ratified and consumed all her damnable errors and detestable Apostacie so as all within her Verge must under Anathema be of the same Apostacy with her she remaines wilfully obdurate and obstinate notwithstanding we must give you leave to call Rome still A true Church of God L. p. 153.154 The Councel of Mâ—lâ—nis in which S. Augustine was present condemned the whole Course of Heresie of Pelagâ—â—â— that great and bewitching Heresy in the yeare â—16 The second Councel at Aurâ—na a Provinciall too handled the great Controversies of Grace and Free-will and set the Church right in them in the yeare 444. P. Call you the Heresie of Pelagâ—us That great and bewitching Heresie So I have heard many say of Tobacco complaining how they are bewitched with it when they would same leave it but have not the power Is it in this respect that your Lordship calls that Heresie of Pelagius That great and bewitching Heresie Then it is in this respect that I never heard of any willingnesse and desire you have to leave it yea the contrary whereof you have manifesâ—ed and doe dayly by suppressing the Doctrines of Grace which are directly contrary to that great bewitching Heresie And surely as all Heresie is of a bewitching nature Who hath bewitched you saith the Apostle c. so this of Pelagius more especially as advancing Mans Nature above Gods Grace But had you indeed read the many excellent Polemâ—call Tracts of the Malleus Pelagianorum Augustine it might have been of force were there but one sparke of true Grace to have conjured and unwitched this Pelagian spirit There you might read in Terminis all those Controversies about Grace discussed and the Pelagian and Semipelagian Heresie in all oâ— them by cleare evidence and abundant pregnant Testimony from Scripture confuted as That Election and Predâ—stinatâ—on of some to Salvation and Glory and Reprobation of others is by an 〈◊〉 Decree That The Grace of Effectuall Redemption by Christ pertaines to the Elect onely which he calls the world of the Elect distinguishing it from the world of the Reprobate As also Ambrose who saith that in mundo Electorum censetur specialis universitas In the world of the Elect is reckoned a spirituall universality as where it is said Christ redeemed the whole world that is saith Augustine the whole world of the Elect. As also that the Calling of Gods Elect is according to Gods Purpose and so differing from the common Calling of which many are called but few chosen And that the Elect are Called by an Omnipotent power of Grace working in them and that they certainly persevere in Grace unto Glory and never fall away and that those who doe fall away had never any true sanctifying Grace nor ever were the true Children of God though we called them such while they professed the Truth And all these points I say he proveth by such pregnant Testimonies of Scripture that both Councels and Popes afterwards that had to doe against the Pelagians did set down whole large passages verbatim out of Augustins
after the Pleasures after the Ease and after the goodly Palaces and Demeanes of your Bishoprickâ— in all which you cannot shew kâ—lòn ' érgon a worthy worke And so indeed these words of the Apostle and elswhere concerning a Bishop do nothing concerne you but onely to convince you that you are none of those Bishops whom the Scripture so styleth Well what be those speciall qualities which the Apostle requireth in a true Bishop set over the Congregation of the Lord It shall suffice to mention for the present purpose but some of them As first He must be Anégkletos unreprovable such as cannot be justly accused of any crime Now none of you come thus cleane to your Bishopricks for you are or may be justly accused of having been Pluralists which is against your Old Canons Non-Residents Idle Dreanes seldome Preaching in their own Cures but by a poore Stipendary Curate flattering Court-Preachers and the like Nay who is capable or heire apparent of a Bishopricke or Prelacie that hath not two or three â—at livings with a Prebend or two and a Deanery that being thus qualified having his Purse well lyned I say not that he may purchase his Bishopricke he may be able at least at his In-coming to defray five or six hundred Pounds or a thousand Markes for Fees and Feasts and Gloves at his Consecration Well secondly He must not be Authádas selfe-willed so our last Translation renders the word And beleeve me this may come neere the proudest of your Coats when you come with your Volumus Iubemus We will and command and that without either Law or Canon And you must have your will ther 's no remedy for that else ye will take the pet or pepper in the nose and cry out of contempt of Authority And the word signifieth also one that is arrogant and proud a selfe-pleaser You may take all these senses if you will Thirdly He must not be Plékges a strikâ—r whether with his own or others hands as delivering over to the secular Power or Sword whereby he so strikes as he sheds the blood of the Innocents He must be none of that society Fourthly he must not be OrgÃlos soon Angry testy or touchy such as Naâ—al that one might not speake to him he was so snappish and curst Fiftly he must not be Aiskrokerdès given to filthy lucre as in exacting Fees he or his Officers of poore Ministers either extraordinary at their Admissions or ordinary at Visitations and a thousand wayes besides Viis modis sine modo in your Bishops Courts Sixtly He must be Philágados a lover of good men not a hater and persecuter of them Seventhly he must be DÃkaies just not oppressing Innocents by a faction and confederacy of voyces forepacked in your Courts before the Cause come to be heard Eightly He must be Osios holy not one that is an enemy to all true holinesse and persecutes the very name of it and suppresse the practise and meanes of it as by crying down the sanctification of the Lords day and the sincere Preaching of the word of God and commending and dispensing with profane sports on that day Ninthly He must be Didáktikos apt to teach not onely sufficient and able for his Scholarship or one that can make a Sermon if he will but he must be diligent in preaching in season and out of season He must hold fast the faithfull Word that he may be able by sound Doctrine both to exhort and to convince the Gainsayers So farre must he be from abbetting and countenancing false Teachers and unsound Doctrine and old damned Heresies and forbidding to preach sound Doctrine and punishing those that doe I might reckon up sundry more qualities which Christ requireth in those whom onely he allowes and appoints as fittest to govern and feed his People as becomâ—th good Pastors to doe their flocks as 1 Tim. 3. and Tit. 1. and elsewhere But because Lord Prelates or Diocesan Bishops as I said before are none of those Bishops here which the Apostle requires to be thus qualified therfore I have said enough to convince you that you are none of Christs Bishops if you do but look your selves in this Glasse And if you mark it well these are those that immediately succeded the Apostles and Euangelists in the Ministeriall function As we read Eph. 4.11 where the Pastors and Teachers are those who are elswhere called Presbyters and Bishops such as Paul and Barnabas did Keirotonesi elect ordaine or appoint by imposition of hands Kat ' e'kklesÃan in every Church or particular Congregation A place very remarkable And these Presbyters Bishops Pastors Teachers Preachers Ministers for all is one and the same Office as they succeded the Apostles but with a particular limitation every one to their peculiar charges and Congregations respectively so while the Apostles lived they were still next unto them as we see Act. 15.2.4.6.22 23. And these are those Elders that rule well which especially doe Kopian labour hard in the Ministry of the Word and Doctrine These are those Aristoi those Optimates the best men by whose Aristocraticall Government according both to the thought we may boldly and truly say and to the expresse word of Christ the severall Churches and particular Congregations and flocks of Christ are governed and that not by any their own devised Canons but by the onely Canon of Scripture wherein are expressed all those Laws and Rules by which all true Ministers of Christ doe regulate themselves and govern their severall Congregations For although Christs faithfull and true Ministers are the best men and therfore are but few in comparison and who is fit or sufficient for these things saith the Apostle yet Christ left them not to governe his Churches or flocks as they should thinke best but according to his own Laws as Deputies are to govern the people according to the Kings Laws and no otherwise For such is the Government of Aristocratie it is established upon good Laws of the Common-weale otherwise it should degenerate into the corrupt and bad Government of Oligarchia So as here is no roome for your Diocesan Lord Bishops for you are none of those Aristoi Optimates the best mâ—n whom Christ thought fit for the Aristocraticall Government of his Church sith ye are neither qualified for it as he requires in his true Bishops nor will you confine your Prelaticall Government to the Laws of Christ expressed in his word but will govern by your own Canons and lusts as usurpers use to doe And therfore by the way no mervaile if you speake so contemptibly and basely of the holy Scripture seeing in them you can find no ground either of Precept or Apostolick Precedent for your Antichristian Hierarchy All which considered doth in the second place give us just cause to doubt at least or rather to be well assured indeed that Diocesan Prelates or Bishops as you usurpe the Title are no Vice-Roys under the Great King Iesus Christ because your
Moris-dances teach us Nemo saltat sobrius could the very Heathen say No man Danceth that is sober And as an English Author saith licenced too but in diebus illis A Dancer and a mad man different but in the duration And to helpe to shake this Foundation yet more you have licenced Books that do unmoralize the Fourth Commandement as before as antiquated now and of no force to bind us Christians to the observation of a seventh day or the Lords day which we have proved before to be the Rest-day or the Sabbath day of the Lord our God Iesus Christ. And did not your Tyranny suppresse all Truth all your Doctors had been ere now answered to the shame of their Divinity-Profession and the confusion of their accursed Opinions and Blasphemies against the holy Truth and eternall Law of God Well here you are charged with shaking this Great Foundation of Faith and Religion And though my Name be not here to the Bill which therfore you wil be ready by another Bill to make a Libell yet as I sayd before I say againe let the King be but pleased to send forth a Proclamation commanding the Author of this Charge to come forth and avouch it before the High and Honourable Court of Parliament where he shall have a faire just unpartiall and honourable hearing and where your Lordship shall as well stand at the Barre as your Accuser and you shall see your Antagonist dare shew his face But to prevent the trouble of Calling a Parliament you will answere this is none of Your doing 't is the Kings Edict and of King Iames before him and now by the Kings speciall command republished Is it so And therein are the Foundations of Faith and Good Manners shaken And that not onely in overthrowing the Morality of the 4 th Commâ—ndement by Dispensaton of profane sports but by dispensing with youth to use their libâ—rty on that day without controule of their Superiours as Parents or Masters who if they shall hinder them the Magistrate shall punish them and so the 5 th Commandement which is a Foundation of Good Manners in all obedience due to Superiours is shaken if not pull'd down to the ground as the Aprentices of London were wont on Shrove-Tuesday to pull down Infamous houses Is all this so Why then did you not step in as good Azariah and withstand the coming forth of such an Edict and tell the King It pertaineth not to Thee ô King to set forth such an Edict to dispense wâ—th Gods Holy Morall Eternall Commandements whereby the Foundations of Faith and Good Manners are shaken least thereby shaking the Foundations both of Church and Common-Wealth you doe through Gods just wrath bring your own Kingdome to suddain ruine But did you at all interpose your selfe Or did you use Prayer and Patience rather undergoing the Kings displeasure then being either Agent or Instrument in the publishing of such an Edict No such thing For it was the handsel of your Primacy to publish the Edict as being the best Office whereby you could testifie your thankfullnesse for so high a Preferment For why should you here leave the King alone in so weighty a Cause when you tell us before that the King and the Priest more then any other are bound to looke to the Integrity of the Church in Doctrine and Manners and that in the first place And would you now leave the King in the lurch to doe that whereby the Foundations of Faith and Good Manners are shaken and the Church in Doctrine and Manners corrupted But you were an Instrument at least and that at both endâ— of the businesse As for Prayer and Patience you were willing to leave them to others that had more need and could make better use of them to wit those poore honest Ministers who seeing the danger of their publicke reading of the said Booke in their severall Congregations so straightly imposed by the Prelates and thâ—inâ— the Kings Name wherein they well understood that the very Foundations of Faith and Good Manners are shaken so as their reading of it to their people would make themselves accesâ—ary to all the mischiefe that might come thereby as whereby the wrath of God must needs be greatly incensed against the whole Land did thereupon refuse to read it committing the Cause to God in Prayer and arming themselves with resolved Patience to indure all the Censure and punishment threatned in the Booke and left to be inflicted by the Bishops As not long after the Bishops thunderclap of threatning they feele the thunderbolt it selfe by Suspension Silencing Excommunication Dispossession out of their Benefices Cures Houses Freeholds Dispersion of Family Wife and Children now exposed to the wide world and made a Prey to Wolves and Lyons Here is indeed the Patience and Faith of the Saints Here is use of their spirituall Armour Prayer Patience Teares the onely weapons of their warfaire against such enemies so as if Solomon the Preacher were now alive he might see his words as truly and fully verified in these times as ever they were in his I returned saith he and considered all the Oppressions that are done under the Sun and behold the teares of such as were oppressed and they had no Comforter and on the side of their Oppressors there was power but those had no Comforter But it is well that you left the poore soules those weapons which you could not take from them but with their lives Prayer and Patience Although how doe you labour to deprive them even of Prayer when you will not suffer them to pray together that suffer together in and for the same Cause but your Beagles hunt them out And would you not reduce all Prayer and conjure down the very Spirit of Prayer by confining it to the prescript letter and form in your Service Book where there is never a Prayer for poore afflicted and distressed soules in such a Case complaining of the Bishops Cruelty and Tyranny over them So as you see they patiently suffer they use no opposition by force And yet what say you to one of your Predecessors who when the King would not agree to his Nobles in the casheering of his Favorites who were his Privy Councellors to the ruine of his Realme he being then but Lord Elect of Canterbury took with him his Clergy and went to the King and threatned him if he would not yeeld in the matter he would Excommunicate him Neither I suppose are you of opinion with once a Brother of Winchester who in a Book of his published by Authority and Printed at Oxford hath these words If a Prince should goe about to subject his Kingdome to a forraigne Realme or change the forme of the Common-wealth from Empery to Tyranny or neglect the Laws establlished by common consent of Prince and People to execute his own Pleasure In these and other Cases which might be named If the Nobles and Commons joyne together
to defend their ancient and accustomed Liberty Regiment and Laws they may not well be countod Rebells So he But this by the way But I have somthing more to say about the shaking of the Foundations of Faith and Good Manners though I mentioned it before but now upon this occasion And that is concerning Ceremonies of humane ordinance in Gods worship which being imposed upon mens Consciences is not onely a shaking of the Founâ—ation of Faith but an overthrowing of it for thereby Christ is denyed to be the onely King of his Church And therfore as the Kings of Israel did nothing in reforming of Religion and the worship of God but what was expresly commanded and prescribed in Gods Law so Christian Kings and Magistrates ought not to doe any thing no not to impose any one humane Ceremony or Ordinance in Gods service besides that which is written in Gods word otherwise the Foundations of Faith is overthrown Of such moment is the least Ceremony in Gods service that it is of the substance and Foundation of Faith L. p. 210. But 't is time to return For A.C. in this Passage hath been very carefull to tell us of a Parliament and of living Magistrates and Iudges besides the Law books Thirdly therfore The Church of England God be thanked shines happily under a Gratious Prince and well understands that a Parliament cannot be called at All times and that there are visible Iudges besides the Law-books and one supreme long may he be and be hapâ—y to settle all Temporall Differences which certainly he might much better perform if his Kingdome were well ridde of A. C. and his Fellows And she beleeves too that our Saviour Christ hath left in his Church besides his Law-books the Scripture Visible Magistrates and Iudges that is Arch-bishops and Bishops under a Gratious King to governe both for Truth and Peace according to the Scripture and her own Canons and Constitutions as also those of the Catholicke Church which Crosse not the Scripture and the Iust Laws of the Realme But she doth not beleeve there is any Necessity to have one Pope or Bishop over the whole Christian world more then to have one Emperour over the whole world P. It were time indeed for you to return from your Course when once there is mention of a Parliament For thriving If you mean that your Church of England hath of late dayes well thriven in her prevailing for the seting up of Images and Altars for bringing in more Superstitions into your Service for puting down sincerity Purity and power of the true Religion and of the Preaching of Gods word for suppressing the Doctrines of Grace forementioned for hampering the Puritans as you call them by puting down suspending and silencing of Godly and painfull Preachers and by crying down both the Doctrine and Practise of the sanctification of the Sabbath or Lords day and by smothering in the birth all sound and Orthodox Books against Popery and other Heresies not suffering them to be Printed and by licencing of Popish Books to be Printed and Publâ—shed and the like and if this be the way of the well thriving of your Church whomsover you have cause to thanke yet surely you have small cause to thanke God whose Name herein you doe abuse and blaspheme as perhaps your own Conscience may tell you as if he favoured such practises of yours because for a time he patiently suffers and winks at them and that in judgement to a sinfull Land and for tryall of his own servants and people and for a preparative to your certaine ruine if speedy repentance prevent it not For God is not mocked with such thanks though he be mocked but whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reape How then doth it concerne all Christian Magistrates to look to it least if they suffer Christs Kingdome to be betrayed into the hands of Antichristian Usurpers by giving way unto them to doe what they list while themselvs seem to sleep they provoke God too much For as Samuel sayd to the People If ye doe wickedly you shall perish both you and your King For my part though I will not joyne in Prayer with such a Profane Hypocrite as you are and an enemy of Iesus Christ and his Truth no more then the Apostle Iohn would be in the same Bath with that Heretick Cerinthus yet my dayly Prayer is and shall be that God would more and more let the King see how miserably he is abused and the Peace and safety of his Kingdome distracted and indangered both by the late violent practises which have been held in Church-affaires and now by the publishing of such a Book as this so notoriously perillous or rather most pernicious and so much the more in these times of troubles about Religion lately sprung up in the Iland of Great Britaine Which Book though it make many faire pretences for Peace yea Peace and Truth yet in truth it will prove the greatest troubler of Israel and the falsest friend to true Truth that the light hath seen these many yeares This I speake not by conjecture much lesse out of malice to the Authors Person but from the cleare evidence of the word of Prophecy in Scripture in such cases But how comes your Church of England to be so well seen in State-Mysteries I pray you as so well to understand that a Parliament cannot be called at all times Or by the Church of England doe you not meane the the Chaire of Catnterbury as the Church Collective or representative of England For you should better understand such State-matters especially for the not calling of Parliaments at all times or suppose it were at Notime or Nevermas least perhaps it might prove as a Frost to nippe your thriving and overforward spring then your Lordship For my part I am no States-man and so I leave State matters to States-men who should best understand them But if your A.C. and his Fellows be such troublesome fellows why doe you trouble your selves with them when a good honest Parliament might ease the King and Kingdome â—oo of that trouble provided that good Laws already enacted and by the next Parliament if ever there shal be any quickned by a new Law to put them in better execution there may be also a good season to bring forth such Visible Iudges as without straining the strings either of their Purses or Consciences coming clearly to their Benches and not making them as Banks but siting Rectè in Curia they may without feare of any Prepotent Prelate or Partiality in respect of Persons do Justice I passe now from the understanding of your Church of England to her Beliefe which you also tell us of She beleeves too What doth she beleeve That our Saviour Christ hath left in his Church besides his Law-books the Scriptures visible Magistrates and Iudges that is Arch-bishops and Bishops How Is this come already to be an Article of the Faith of the Church of
But who shal be Judge of that Alas we are never the nearer if you Prelates be the visible Iudges For then what Canons or Constitutions shall crosse either Scripture or Positive Law of the Land which you shall define and determine to be fit for you to govern the Church by What Laws of the Realme shal be just which crosse one of your Canons Did not in a Cause pleaded in your High-Commission the Popes Canon aledged by the Advocate on the one party preponderate a Statute of Edw. 6. alledged by the Advocate of the adverse party so as the Popes Canon carryed the Cause So as while you will be the visible Iudges you will lead us all in a Circle and make us so turne round as we should not know where we are imagining that all the world went upon wheels Yea but there is yet one qualification may help at a pinch For you say Archbishops and Bishops under a Gratious Keng to governe c. 'T is true indeed that under the shadow of a Gracious King to you you are imboldened to do all you do Lastly you say the Church of England doth not beleeve there is any necessity to have one Pope or one Bishop over the whole Christian world And are there not trow you many thousands in the Church of England which doe not beleeve there is any necessâ—y of having One Pope or Arch-Prelate over the whole Church of England the other world as before And I beleeve there is no more necessity of the one then of the other but that they might be well spared as Christ will one day not spare them And as I said before the Pope by as good a Title may argue a necessity of his being uneversall Bishop over the whole Christian world as you can setting the Law of England aside for your being Pope over the whole Church of England And that upon your own Ground for you say The Church of England and the Church of Rome is one and the same Church no doubt of that and The Church of England may find her selfe where Romes is now just there then if so that both are one and the Popes Principality more powerfull then that of Canterbury and if there be a nccessity that Canterbury be over the whole Church of England which is but a part of the Catholicke and that for order and unity why not the like necessity for the Pope to be supreme over all for preserving order and unity seeing your Militant Church is but one and to make many heads many Vice-Roys is to divide the body and Kingdome and so make rents in it which you like not of But to conclude I beleeve and with me all true Beleevers who have their judgements rightly informed wherever they be in any part of the world that there is a necessity of duty lying upon all Christian Magistrates to exterminate and exterpate the whole Hierarchy and Prelacy as Antichristian enemies of Iesus Christ and of his Kingdome yea and the band of Civil States and people out of the world For so we read Rev. 17.16 17. A place worthy to be written in the hearts of all Kings Christian. And it is the duty of all true Christians to rowse up the Spirit of prayer in them and to stirre up the coals of zeale to flame forth in offring up of pure Incense of fervent Prayer especially in these times wherin Satan so rageth and his Instruments grow so malapert and mischievous that God would hasten the accomplishment of Antichrists Kingdome that so the Kingdome of Iesus Christ may be exalted and inlarged and he alone rule and raigne in his Church L. p. 212. Somwhat may be done by the Bishop and Governours of the Church to preserve the unity and certainty of Faith and to keep the Church from renting or for uniting it when it is rent And this pag. 198 one Pope cannot doe P. Somwhat Why you tell us immediately before that the Pope or a Bishop may perhaps despense in some cases with the Decrees of a Generall And this I hope is somwhat more then somwhat Or perhaps at least And we have shewed before how you Prelates do either preserve the Church from renting or when it is rent make up the breaches of it namely by an uniting and confederating against Christ and his true Church and by labouring tooth and nayle to support and keep safe and sound your Antichristian Hierarchy which is not truly and properly an unity but a conspiracie against Christ from whose true Mysticall body you have made the Great and unreconciliable Rent And therfore you to preserve the unity and certainty of Faith intire which even as you are Prelates you are altogether Apostates from and enemies unto Or is the spirit of Infallibility intayld to the Prelates Chaire For doth not this necessarily imply either an Infallibility or at least a greater dexterity and a more excellent and Divine spirit to be in Prelates qua Praelati Infulati as they are Mitred Bishops then in all those that are no Prelates when onely by Prelates though but somwhat to this purpose may be done But we have shewed before what ability or soundnesse of judgement in divine spiritual matters we may expect to be in Prelates in comparison of others who are both learned pious judicious Divines L. p. 194. To draw all together to settle Controversies in the Church there is a visible Iudge and Infallible but not living and that is the Scripture pronouncing by the Church and there is a visible and living Iudge and that is a Generall Councel P. Here I goe backe a little to fetch in this passage as fiâ— here to usher in a many other Passages scattered here and there in your Book which is hard to reduce to any order or forme But we must do as we may And I shall not wittingly offer violence to any part in the least though somtimes here and there I am faine to pull them in by the head and shoulders And here you doe with the Papists make the Scripture to be but a dead letter for say you it is not a living Iudge no nor yet a speaking Iudge but as it is pronounced by the Church Wheras the Apostle saith of it Zonâ—o lógos tou Theou The word of God is living or lively nor onely so but e'nergès effectuall as it is before noted And if you will apply this to the Word preached that 's true too Although you will not confesse preaching of Gods word to be the Scripture or yet the word of God But it must be pronounced by the Church as the onely mouth of Scripture and that must be also in the Churches sense Of which sufficiently before Yet this you adde to all your other indignities you put upon the Scripture that you make it a dead Iudge and so indeed no Iudge at all as before you plainly tell For if it be blind as wanting light and if it be mute or dumb
and needs the Churches mouth and if it be dead as being not living Certainly it can be no fit Iudge at all except ye will admit of a Judge that is both blind and dumb and dead As three Romans being sent in Ambassage one a Foole an other a Coward the third having the Gout Cato told the Senate they had sent an Ambassage that had neither Head Heart nor Feet And such a Judge would you make the Scripture But 't is visible you say So are your dumb dead and blind Images in your Churches they are visible and very conspicuous when the Scripture oftentimes can neither be seen nor heard Now to your Generall Councels L. p. 192. And surely what greater or surer Iudgement can we have where sense of Scripture is doubted then a Generall Councel I do not see And pag. 211. The making of Canons which must bind all particular Christians and Churches cannot be concluded and established but there to wit in a Generall Councel P. 224. I said The Determination of a Generall Councel erring was to stand in force and to have externall obedience yeelded to it till evidence of Scripture or a Demonstration to the Contrary made the errour appeare and untill thereupon another Councel of equall Authority did reverse it And pag. 226. Now suppose a Generall Councel actually erring in some point of Divine Truth I hope it will not follow that this Errour must be so grosse as that forthwith it must be known to private men And doubtlesse till they know it obedience must be yeelded Nay when they know if the Errour be not manifestly against fundamentall verity in which case a Generall Councel cannot easily erre I would have A. C. and all wise men consider whether externall obedience be not even then to be yeelded And p 227 Therfore it may seem very fit and necessary for the peace of Christendome that a Generall Councel thus erring should stand in force till evidence of Scripture or a Demonstration make the errour to appeare as that another Councel of equall Authority reverse it And ibid. No way must lye open to private men to refuse obedience till the Councel he heard and weighed And p. 261. A Councel hath power to order settle and define Differences arisen concerning Faith This power the Councel hath not by an immediate Institution from Christ but it was prudently taken up in the Church from the Apostles example Act 15. And ibid. If the Councel be lawfully Called and proceed orderly and conclude according to the Rule the Scripture then the Dâ—finitions therof are binding but not from calling another Councel to reverse or abrogate the former Asts upon just cause P. 346. 'T is true that a Generall Councel de pace facto after 't is ended and admitted by the whole Church is then Infallible for it cannot erre in that which it hath already clearly and truely determined without Errour After 't is confirmed 't is admitted by the whole Church then being found true it is also Infallible that is it deceâ—ves no man And p. 347. For a man upon the pride of his own Iudgement to refuse externall obedience to the Councel was never lawfull nor can error stand with any Government P. 357.358 Christ did just intend to leave an Infallible certainty in his Church to satisfie either Contentious or Curious or presumptuous spirits And therfore in things not fundamentall nor necessary 't is no matter if Councels erre in one and another and a third the whole Church having power and meanes enough to see that no Councel erre in necessary things c. If it erre in things necessary we can be Infallibly assured by the Scripture the Creed the 4. first Councels and the whole Church where it erres in one and not in another And pag. 360 For one Faith necessary to Salvation a most infallible certainty we have already in the Scripture the Creeds and the 4. first Generall Councels to which for things necessary and fundamentall in the Faith we need no assistance from other Generall Councels P. 378. I submit my Iudgement with all humility to the Scripture interpreted by the Primitive Church and upon new and necessary doubts to the judgement of a lawfull and free Generalâ— Councel And I absolutely make a lawfull and free Generall Councel Iudge of Controversies by and according to the Scripture And p. 386. I have expresly declared that the Scripture interpreted by the Primitive Church and a lawfull and free Generall Councel determining according to these is judge of Controversies P. Thus in your Commending of Generall Councels you are very large that I may not say lavish too And surely in one respect especially you have great Reason for your Generall Councels must consist of Prelates onely so as in exalting Generall Councels you magnifie your Prelacie But I remember a saying of Basill that in his Observation he never knew any good to come of Generall Councels of Bishops who when they met in Councel were more zealous and eagre for their own particular Honours and Dignities then of the Church of God And as Bernard saith Totus fervet Ecclesiastiâ—us zelus sola pro Dignitate tuendâ— All the zeale of Church-men is infâ—amed altogether for the advancing and upholding of their Dignity But let us now take a briefe view of your words which we will collect and reduce to certain summary Heads First That Generall Councels are the supreme Iudge of the sense of Scripture when and where 't is doubted p. 192. Secondly that the Canons and Decrees of Generall Councels bind all Christians of necessity p. 211. Thirdly yea though Generall Councels determine Errors yet that requires at least externall obedience Fourthly That Generall Councels erring in some points of Divine Truth yet you hope it will not be so grosse as to come to the common view or if it doe yet obedience must be yeelded p. 226. onely except the Error be not manifestly against the fundamentall Verities Fifthly That a Generall Councel hath no power from Christ to be Iudge in Controversies but the Church prudently tooke it up from the Apostles example Act. 15. Sixtly That the Difinitions of Generall Councels bind being according to the Rule the Scripture yet that those may be reversed by an after-Councel Seventhy A Generall Councel in things clearely and truly determined cannot erre but in that is infallible Eightly That it is pride not to obey the Councels Difinitions yea unlawfull and not standing with any Government Ninthly That Christ intended to leave an Infallible certainty in his Church but not to satisfie contentions or curious or presumptuous spirits Tenthly That it is no matter if Generall Councels erre in one two three c. things not fundamentall nor necessary Eleventhly That for necessary Faith to Salvation we have an Infallible certainty in the Scriptures Creeds and 4. first Generall Councels to which for things necessary we need not the Assistance of any other Generall Councel Twelfthly That the Scripture interpreted by the
a shorter period of your life least promising to yourselfe and sleeping in the security of so many yeares more you should be suddainly taken napping as that rich man in the Gospell to whom it was said Thou foole this night shall they take away 〈◊〉 soule from thee And besides you are â—et in a slippery place 〈◊〉 you may fall into suddain destruction as in a moment as the Prophet saith So as there is lesse confidence to be put in that then in your Age. And therfore bethinke your selfe how suddain the time may be that you must goe and give account as you say to God and Christ of the Talent committed to your Charge which you cannot so easily answere before that Judge as you could doe in the Starre-Chamber And remember what you said to the Jesuite pag. 316. Our reckoning wil be heavier if we thus mislead on either side then theirs that follow us But I see I must looke to my selfe for you are secure And are not you full out as secure as the Jesuite But in that you pray that God for Christs sake would be mercifull to yo u. But is that enough to wipe off all old scores to say God be mercifull to me When the Course of a mans life hath been a very Enmity and Rebellion against Christ when he hath spent the Talent of his Strength and Wit Meanes and Friends to the dishonour of God in oppressing Christs word persecuting his Ministers and People profaning and polluting the service of God with humane Ordinances and will-worship forcing mens Consciences to conformity and the like doe you think to salve all with a Lord have mercy upon me Nay you seem to be in good earnest when you say and pray if God for Christs sake would be mercifull unto you But wherein or for what should God for Christs sake be mercifull unto you Which of your sins your scarlet sins your Episcopall sins doe you confesse to God and because publick unto the world that truly repenting of them God for Christs sake may be mercifull to you Doe you confesse and repent of your persecuting of Gods Ministers and People for their Conscience sake Nay you are so farre from this that you say God forbid not God forgive that I should perswade to persecution in any kind or practise it in the least So as you in all this persecute none no not you nor yet perswade others to it nor disswade neither And yet you still continue a persecutor as accounting it not a sin but a vertue not vicious but rather meritorious to root out the Puritans And what say you to your more then Barbarous shedding of the Innocent Blood of Gods servants and Christs witnesses mangling their Bodies and breaking them in pieces causelesly separating Man and Wife to satisfie your wicked malice and so to murther them with your intollerable oppressions Doe you crave mercy of God for this Or is your guilty Conscience still seared and stupified Is your heart still hardened Do you need no mercy for such cruell shedding of Innocent blood David confessed his blood-shed and found mercy But you continue your cruelty still in cold blood What Do you think that because Gods people are as sheep appointed for the slaughter and you the chiefe Butcher therfore you sin not in devouring and spoyling so many good Ministers with their Families and Flocks O stupid Conscience O desperate soule And so still desperately you goe on in justifying your selfe in all that you have done and calling God to be witnesse too saying Who knows that however in many weaknesses yet I have with a faithfull and single heart bound to his free Grace for it laboured the meeting the blessed meeting of Truth and Peace in his Church O shamelesse hypocrisie O blasphemous wretch Doth God know Is God the Author of all thy impiety iniquity cruelty craft hypocrisie and dissimulation of thy faithlesse and false heart in thy plotting to bring thy false Truth and thy turbulent Peace with the Whore of Babylon that notorious enemy of Christ and his true Spouse his Church to a meeting to a blessed yea to a cursed meeting O GOD thou searcher of all hearts behold this blaspemous Wretch calling thee for a witnesse of his notorious and perfidious false heart and ascribing it to thy free Grace as the moving and helping cause of all his impious practises O Lord Be not mercifull to any wicked Transgressor that dare thus desperately take thy sacred Name in vaine and make thy Grace the father of his gracelesse actions Seest thou not ô thou All-seeing and All-revenging GOD how this man hath been a prime Instrument of oppressing thy Word of forbidding it to be preached therein denying and destroying the Doctrine of thy free Grace which here he hypocritically nameth of persecuting thy faithfull Ministers and People even to root them out Of proclaming Libertinisme in the publicke profanation of thy Sabbaths and violation of thy holy Commandement Of setting up Idolatrous Altars to the denying of the Lord Iesus Christ our onely Altar whereon our Persons and sacrifices offered up unto thee are accepted of Thee Of bringing into thy worship sundry supersâ—tious Idolatrous Rites and Ceremonies in Adoration of Altars Names praying towards the East Of setting up Images and Crucifixes those Idols in the publick place of Worship Of putting down preaching of thy holy Word upon thy holy Sabbaths especially in the Afternoones when there is most need and people should be aptest and best at leasure generally to heare Of inlarging and making heavier the yoake of Bondage and Tyranny upon the necks of thy People in increasing of more Ceremonies to the intollerable vexation of thy Children and incrochment and usurpation upon Christs Kingdome and royall soverainty as sole King over his Church and Lord of the Consciences of his people Yea surely thou hast seen all these things for thou beholdest mischiefe and spight even to requite it with thy hand and therfore the poore committeth himselfe unto thee For thou art the helper of the fatherlesse Therfore arise ô Lord ô God Lift up thine hand forget not the humble Wherfore doth the wicked contemn thee ô God He hath said in his heart Thou wilt not require it But Lord break thou the arme of the wicked and the evil man seek out his wickednesse till thou find none For wherfore should the Heathen say where is their God O let our God be known among the Heathen in our fight by the revenging of the blood of thâ— servants which is shed And let the sighing of the Prisoners come before thee according to the greateesse of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to dye And render unto our Neighbours sevenfold into their bosome their reproach wherewith they have reproched thee ô Lord. So we thy People and Sheep of thy pastture will give thee thanks for ever we will shew forth thy praise to all Generations Now to return to you againe
the poore Innocent or Infant being pinched too hard with the swathing bands or pricked with a pin mis-put will cry out and roare till they find ease So as there is cause enough of their crying And is it not trow you your too hard pressing upon your Seperatists with your Canons and Ceremonies and which as with swadling bands you bind them too strait withall and your hard and rough handling of them that gives them just cause to cry But however for all this your hard usage must by no meanes be called persecution Farre be that from your piety and clemencie that you should either perswade to Persecution in any kind or practise it in the least L. p. 16. To the Papists common Objection Where was your Church before Luther Your Answere is It was just there where theirs is now One and the same Church still no doubt of that One in Substance but not one in Condition of State and Purity their part of the same Church remaining in Corruption and our part of the same Church under Reformation The Same Naaman and he a Syrian still but leaprous with them and cleansed with us the Same man Still P. Here you teach us a Point which had the Divines of the Church of England in former Ages known it might have saved them a great deale of puzzle which the subtile Jesuites for diversion and gaining of time put them unto in tracing the footsteps of the Protestant Church and the professors thereof through all ages yeares weeks and dayes ever since the Apostles times Where was your Church Why it was just there where Romes is now This had been a short Cut to find the Protestant Church Like the North-East passage to China or the North-West to the Westeran America could they be found out But you have at length found out a South-East passage to Rome where the present Church of England loosing her selfe may find her selfe Which passage or path had now for a long time through disuse and want of Travailers and Pilgrims thither been grown up with grasse till now again beaten out by your hard and continuall travaile in it Would an English Protestant then know where his Church was before Luther Why goe but to Rome and if you have lost both Church and Religion in England there you may be sure to find it againe no doubt of that Surely I hope Iesuites wil be no longer such fooles as to take such a tedious pilgrimage compassing Sea and Land to the Shrine of Canterbury to aske of the Oracle there where your Church of England was in diebus illis They might have stayd at home and there have found it even in Rome within the Sacred Thresholds of S. Peter or S. Iohn Lateran and that with some favourable Interpretation where and when the Priest is at his Masse So as well might your Lordship call it as you doe an Idle and Impertinent Question Where was your Church before Luther What a jeast is that Iust there where Romes is Now. One and the Same no doubt of that And who shall doubt that what your Lordship è Cathedra defines out of Canterbury Chaire defines But now henceforth I hope you will not so much complaine of Seperatists from your Church of England For you teach them to Seperate from the Church of England as from Rome it selfe as being one and the same Church And you know that all Protestants of that Spirit cannot away with the Church of Rome So as you may expect every day new Companies and that by threaves to get them packing from your Church of England and that according to Christs warning piece Rev. 18.4 Come out of her my people least ye bee partakers of her Sinnes and least ye receive of her Plagues But you distinguish Yours in Purity and under Reformation Romes Church under Corruption yours Naaman cleansed their 's Naaman Leprous yet both one Naaman and be a Syrian the Same man still A paradox indeed A Riddle to pose Oedipus himselfe For riddle me this One and the Same Man both Leprous and Cleansed at the same time Cannot the Priest in the Masse as easily riddle how one and the same numericall body of Christ may be both in heaven and in his Masse-pix or on his Altar at one and the same instant Even as soon But not to stretch your paradox too farre least we teare it and so make the rent wider betwixt you and Rome which in your Book you say you are loth to doe Is your Church of England Cleansed and Romes Leprous Remember your selfe well and Consider Why then doe you not cast out that Leprous woman and Shut the doore upon her Nay why would you so faine be reunited with that filthy and polluted Leper And yet why not For is the Church of England in the Condition of Purity and under Reformation Indeed Solomon saith There is a Generation that are pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthinesse And is your Church of England Cleansed from all her Leprosie and pollutions What from the bitter root of the Hierarchy which hath defiled the Land with Idolatrous Altars and Images and Sundry Superstitious Ceremonies and open Profanation of the Lords day by tolerating of Heathenish Sports and Whorish and Drunken meetings Is it cleansed from those Doctrines of Devils forementioned accounting holy Wedlock uncleane at Some times and at Some times the Creatures uncleane Or is England cleansed from the guilt of Innocent blood of the Saints and Servants of Iesus Christ whom she hath cruelly persecuted and oppressed and with whose blood the whole Land is defiled and yet she is not washed from it She repenteth not but goes still on to fill up the measure of her Cruelty How art thou then purified ô Land How reformed How cleansed Nay dost thou not hate and persecute true holinesse and purity and especially in godly and painfull Ministers who preach against thy profanations So as may it not be said of thee as the Lord said of Ierusalem Thou art the Land that is not cleansed Seeing then thou art not cleansed from thy Leprosie but art a Syrian still a Leprous Naaman still well mayst thou be Sayd to be One and the Same Church with Rome even one and the same body even one and the same in Substance For what is that substance wherein you say the Church of England and Rome are one and the same Is it not that which you account the very Essence Forme and Beeing of your Church And what is that Or what be those things wherein the Substance of your Church consisteth as wherein the Church of England and of Rome are both one and the same so as we need make no doubt of that Surely wherein we find you both one and the same we need not doubt but in those things consists the one and onely substance of your one and the same Church For as for other things wherein the Church of England