I will not burden my paper with the testimonies of those ancient heroes who professedly affirm that they all rely wholly upon obscure faith and not upon any reason either topicall or demonstrative for their religion St. Gregory and Theodoret shall serv for all Fides non habet meritum saith the first in his homilies upon the Gospel ubi humana ratio praebet experimentum speaking of human reason that should precede faith Theodoret in his graecanicis affectibus speaks thus Cur nostrum credulitatis fidei titulum accusatis quodque nostris sententiis tradendis nullam demonstrationem praetendamus solam vero illis fidem atque credulitatem insinuare conemur quos rebus divinis imbuendos suscepimus Annon ratione plenum est quod Deo absque demonstratione credamus Which made St. Gregory Nazianzen tell Emperour Julian when he objected to the Christians their rusticity and ignorance that the one word Credere was the same to Christians that Ipse dixit to the Pythagorians But this way of setting up and holding that only to be religion which right reason will make forth and justifie is a rare and untrodden path and which ordinary spirits dare not venture upon and 't is held forth only by some wits here in London I suppose to dash out of countenance that grosser way of maintaining all by Scriptures texts and it will serv well enough for exercise and discours when good wits meet together as Cicero showed his eloquence in defending Paradoxes but it must needs be dangerous if it be once believed and reduced to practis nor is it easie to say whether solitary reason or a text privately interpreted would caus more and greater inconveniences this makes the skirts of the Church too narrow that inlarges them too wide even so wide that all Jewes Turks and Pagans would by this reckoning be in the truth which in effect is onely to say there is no religion at all quod ubique est nusquam est and so much is easily collected by the generall axiom joined with our own particular experience to the contrary for if nothing is to be beleeved but what can be demonstrativly proved and we find by experience that nothing can be demonstrativly proved either about Gods will his providence or nature it will thence necessarily follow that nothing at all is to be believed and he that holding the axiom endeavours withall himself to demonstrate the whole body of religion creates the like conclusion in mens minds without further words when they find he has demonstrated nothing The power of reason then will not suffice to set up a new guide and he that pretends this for his own preheminence before others must either actually in words or at least vertually in effect disable the whole reason of mankind besides his own which to sober men will not exalt his caus but rather render him and all his reason contemptible Some will object how can our faith then be rational or how can we give a reason for our faith if indeed we have none for it I answer that faith has his reason as science hath his and both be good reasons but very much differing the reason of science is drawn from the very intrinsick bowels of the truths that be known but faith draws his reason from the autority of him who delivered it this serves one and the same for the stability of all articles be they never so many and diverse as the Trinity for example and sacraments creation and the life to come whereas every several conclusion in science must have his own proper reason And one of these must not have nor can it admit of the reason that is peculiar to the other for then it should not be it self if science should have an extrinsecal reason from autority it would then not be species but fides not evidence but faith and if faith should have an intrinsical one it would not be faith but evidence He gives the best reason in the world for his faith that resolves it into an autority which is the best can be had and he that resolves it into his own reason as he cannot but run himself into danger considering the wondrous frailty and darkness of mans judgment in all things so likewise considering that the very essence and quiddity of faith requires to rely ultimately upon the credit of a revealer instead of defending faith he destroyes it To beleev no more then we see is indeed to beleev nothing Let wise Salomon and Christ our Lord make up the concluding argument Man saith Salomon can find out nothing of the works which God hath wrought from the beginning to the end nor of all the works of God almighty can he find out any reason of the things that are done under the sun and the more he labours to seek the less he finds although the wise man or philosopher should say he knows them he cannot do it Thus speaks Salomon arming us aforehand against the temptations of any who might endeavour to mislead us by a pretens of demonstration into erroneous wayes to our own prejudice Then comes Christ our Lord in his discours with Nicodemus wherein he teaches him the regenerating power of Baptisme which Nicodemus could not understand and makes up the argument to this effect If you cannot comprehend even the things you see and feel and convers with here on earth this is Salomons antecedent as the wind for example which you do not know either whence it comes or whither it goes much less must you expect to comprehend the invisible and celestial secrets of religion this is Christs consequence as if he had said these things are sublime and forreign and brought to you from another superiour place you know not and therefor to be submitted unto by faith and not to be measured with your poor reason which does not so much as know the things that be at home And it is an argument à minore ad majus And as for the two other pretenses of interiour light and pure sens of Gods word which be held forth more generally for the victory and preheminence in the contest somthing I have said already and somthing more shall speak in the following paragraff Third Chapter No religion or sect or way hath any advantage over another nor all of them over Popery §. 12. Light and spirit BY reason of this great obscurity of things whereby we are led into so many petty differences where otherwise there would be none we are so withheld from diving into weightier affairs that not one of a thousand does so much as think of them so that greater things we take hand over head and boggle at lesser which in reason must needs follow upon the admittance of the former The caus of all this is the narrow restraint of our judgments and considerations which seldom look forth out of our own doors And hence it is that if any one by casualty of birth society books or personal fansy adjoin
them do not understand otherwis they would not cull out of it so many various texts against the Christian doctrin of good works and their merit so absolutely impertinent to that purpose that I cannot but be ashamed to see grave men to defend the caus so frivolously the works whose merit S. Paul disables there were apparently such as were don before conversion of which the abettours would have those works to be the caus works acted in Judaisme and Paganisme without Christ without the assistance of his grace without his command without his promis of reward for them end consequently without any acceptablenes they might have upon those grounds But what is all this to the disabling of Christian good works don in Christ by his speciall grace out of obedience to his command with a promis of everlasting reward and intrinsick acceptability thence accrewing Look if Gospel do not make out Christian merit in this point see if do no clearly speak forth both Christs word commanding his grace assisting his love accepting and the riches of his goodnes crowning all such good works don in him for his love with eternal reward Come ye blessed for I was hungry c. But this only by the way The occasion then of that sacred epistle being manifestly to make peace between two stickling barrettours as it required a great judgment and spirit in the author to write it well so could it admit but little of method in its progres And a man may easily discern that the Apostle turns himself now against the Jew then sodainly against the Gentile then to the Jew again still disabling all the utmost they could either of them do or pretend to do before their conversion as any way of ability and power to merit either it or the grace and life they had by it And it is to be noted too that wheras the Jew had three times more of plausibility on his side than the Gentile had St. Paul speaks least against him that was the weakest side and most oppressed but where he checks the Gentile once he rebukes the Jew three times and never lins till he had laid his insulting in the dust So proper it is to an ingenuous nature to withold the strong domineering party that the weaker and oppressed may gather a little heart and discern himself at least in as good a postur as his antagonist Now my purpos sith it is very like that of the good Apostles I shall not I hope be blamed for imitating so great a Doctour in his method And although to every one of my five chapters I do adjoin som generall contents as I have said yet are they not to be looked upon as confined to that place but that other matters will in each chapter and its severall paragraffs occurr and also those very contents be elsewhere hinted at for I do intermingle my topicks according as they seemed at any time conducing to the right understanding I aim at which I have don on purpos to keep up the appetite and refresh it with variety So in tasts an olla hath that good rellish which all the things contained in it without that generall mixture and seasoning would never have apart My Reader will see also that somthings are but slightly touched which he would think ought to have been more seriously prosecuted som again he will imagin too prolix others too often to appear and too sodainly to vanish like Virgills ghost Omnibus vmbra locis adero and all so interwoven that in one paragraff it can hardly be guessed what is to be handled in the next These and other such things which many may dislike I have a reason for and I hope my reader whose profit and pleasur I only wait upon will give me leav to use it A seasonable gentle air invites men abroad whom a strong wind would have kept within doors and I hope this my familiar discours may move many of my countrimen who would not have looked upon solid and studied controversies to read and perhaps recover that good disposition of mind I wish them even with their own pleasur and good liking Our land this last twenty years hath been in a chaos of confusion a Tohu and Bohu without either form or order and we all find our selves in a mist in a wood in a darknes almost invincible by our severall divisions and subdivisions of parties in the way of Faith But I hope that by the help of this Discours which is intended as a generall light unto all Books Sermons or Controversies wherby people are drawn into so many severall distracting opinions we shall find the way out at least know where we are My order and phrase be suited to the present times but the matter and purpos concealed in it of a lasting concernment Qui legit intelligat This is all I have to prefate and I wish no more but truth and peace to all and to the whole Israel of God FIAT LVX First Chapter There is no colour of reason or just title may move us to quarrell and judg one another with so much heat about Religion §. 1. Diversity of feuds THe applaus and honour of this world is a thing desired and pleasing to all persons from the Prince in the court to the Peasant in the cottage even as wealth and place by which it is atchieved Nor is there one of a thousand that follows not the inclination to the end be may attain it in that degree his condition is capable and they get it som by chance of birth and education som by industry and worth som by subtilty and wit Hence proceed those many high attempts we so much wonder at in this world for arts and trades began at first through a necessity of food and the conveniency we found in mutuall society such attempts I mean as were apt to lead the vulgar into a fit of admiration as be the two great excellencies of power and knowledg and their great atchievements that for defence of laws and kingdoms this for the adornment of nations and purer pleasurs of more refined intellects And both of these have many branches and kinds and each hath a diversity of graduall perfections He that cannot sway a Province will tirannise in his Parish and if he cannot appear abroad will domineere in his own hous so likewise on the other side what glory the emulous Plebeian sees given to higher spirits for sciences they cannot reach or for a supervisorship of Religion they may not hope for this by the contempt of the one and reformation of the other do they go about to compas in the world first by words and pen if they can write then if they multiply and grow strong enough by rude force and violence and still the pretens for all is cleanly and fair washed over that applaus and glory may both accompany strengthen and crown the design What strang things have been attempted by emperours and great captains and commanders upon earth all
God that is in us urges us to hate all the works of the devil So say they There is no communion with light and darknes God and Belial They say so too you will be friends anon Blessed is he that hates iniquity from his heart This is the very subject of their sermons you are now becom one of their disciples We their disciples no we bow not our head to any horned beast Very good they like your resolution and will not therfor bow their heads to you Second Chapter All things are so obscure that no man in prudence can so far presume of his own knowledg as to set up himself a guide in religion to his neighbour § 6. Obscurity of God OF the three abovenamed considerations which being well imprinted in our hearts I should deem sufficient to put all our animosities to silence the two last be rather moral then acroamatick topicks and therefore to be cast with their fellows into the last paragraff of the book The first which speaks the great ignorance our present condition is involved both concerning God and his works and providence requires a little more explicit discours and becaus it is a speculation very beneficial not only to the purpos I now aim at but absolutely in it self and for several uses of mans life it shall take up the three or four following paragraffs And if all these things and religion can be about nothing els but them both God nature and providence do prove so obscure as I find them to be and I think will to all that ponder the matter well evidently appear what is then the knowledg we boast of and of which we are so confident as to prescribe laws every one of us to the whole land and to bring all into confusion about it He that shall think upon God alone apart from heaven and earth and every whatever created substance visible or invisible as in the center of his own all-sufficient eternity before either earth or heaven was made must needs be swallowed up and darkened round about as if he stood in the center of a world of waters and for want of a proper idea to fix on melt away in reverence of that all venerable and and sacred being which is an unmeasurable and boundless ocean of wisdom power and goodness in himself And altho he may have much improved himself by the frequent study and meditation of the subtil books Christendom hath brought forth yet shall he find himself so infinite short of any satisfying knowledg concerning God that he must conclude himself to remain still in the wondring side and to know nothing Whensoever I think of that first Esse we call God both S Thomas and subtil Scotus and all writings or conceits of men fail and fall short and help me little or nothing no nor any scripture whatsoever they seem all to speak something about God nothing of him indeed they cannot In this our earth and exile we have no words to express him no notion to conceiv him as he is in himself no idea to represent him which perhaps is the reason moved subtil Scotus to teach that our divinity is not speculative but practical lest it should be a science that signifies nothing for love of that divine object makes up all Our Lord is verily a hidden God saith one no less piously than truly hidden in himself and essence hidden in his works hidden in his providence hidden in his own life and being and hidden too in all his emanations and the egressions of eternity Nor can any created being in the highest pitch of all possible excellency naturally approach that unaccessible presence in his state of pilgrimage and mutability The discovery of himself unto them is their bliss it is their condition supernatural and felicity of glory What then can poor man a worm and dust in this his state of sin corruption and darknes presume to know of Him whom no invisible creatur or the highest angel can pry into even in the highest excellency of his spiritual condition out of his state of immutability and beatitude No man can see God and live and no angel can see God and dye for the vision is inconsistent either with our mortality or their state of probation we must be elevated above our mortal life they exalted from their condition of mutability by that vision once imparted God is an abysse of beatitude reserved onely for the infinity of bliss in the state of eternity where new ravishing wonders and extasies and joyes shall spring up from him without end to the daily fresh beatifying of all those spirits that shall be thought worthy of that glorious never failing day Nor is there any way left for man to reach this infinite abysse but by affection The will of man is far longer winged than his understanding and love will find access where knowledg cannot approach For tho it be true that an unknown thing cannot be loved yet may a man love more of a thing than he knows and fasten his affection upon that thing in particular whereof he hath but a general and confused apprehension Thus I may love a mans person whom I never saw and consequently know not by a report of his goodness or sight of his hand writing which love will embrace the person himself tho it be guided by no more knowledg then that of his words or gesture or written conceptions so God represented unto us under the general and metaphysical notions of an infinite substantial ocean of goodness wisdom and power from whom do all things flow by whom they subsist and in whom finally they end the first caus eternal immense omnipotent the best and greatest creatour and conserver of all that is or can be substantial wisdom and sanctity immutable hater of iniquity and lover of good the beginning and end of things essential truth and light and life the very being of all beings the solace of all spirits and sole beatifying bliss and the like tho this and much more said of him as notions adjacent and metaphysical properties of that eternal and ineffable essence suffice us for our knowledg of him in this world yet is all the while that great essence from whence those properties flow unexprest and utterly hid and God still in his particular and specifick entity and unknown God to us and yet notwithstanding God or that unknown essence is supereminently estimated adored and loved even in his very individual being by that spirit who will think of him and love him as he ought even in this very state of our exile corruption and darknes So far extended so ingenious and quick is love that a very small sparkling of knowledg if it do but show her afar off onely the outward frontispiece and battlements where the beloved dwells will enough suffice her for a guide to throw her self into him bosom This great God and immens spring of life and being if he be compared to the univers and whole creation
in it nor do we move the plants to their growth and ripenes nor do we know our selves how these or any other things in nature are wrought Thus destitute are we of any rules of providence whereby this world is either set or kept in order that we neither prescribe them nor see them observed or do our selves understand them we are neither called to advise for the ordering of the being of things under us or is our help required for their conserving or our suffrage demanded for the putting a period to their existences And are not we in the mean time goodly rulers and disposers of the world that have neither hand in the making or guiding of it I knew once an innocent that took a fansy in his brain that he was master and disposer of all the burdens that came up in barges and lighters by a river that ran through the town and would constantly be upon the bridg at the hour they were to unload where standing very serious and attentive as soon as he saw the porters to carry forth out of any barge a burden of coal or corn or other provision he still bad them aloud and with autority to take it and carry it that way which he saw them inclined to go and all the day long he was never disobeyed Such masters and governours are we of this world with power to bid a bird to fly or ant to creep or wolf to run or heavens to move even as we see they do and so we are obeyed and no otherwayes nor no otherwayes do we know either what they will or ought to do We do indeed feed upon som creatures we either ensnare or which stand tame to our hands and tirannize over som others subjugating them either by subtilty or force will they nill they to our yoke but this is no more than the beast fish and birds do to one another And as for the ebbing and flowing of those several events and accidents that be proper only unto man as peace and war wealth and poverty arts policy religion and the like what a labyrinth is he in that enters into consideratition of their varieties and causes the ends and motives of them If religion be a thing so necessary to our salvation how is it that our good God left the gentiles for so many hundred years all over the face of the earth to walk after the errours of their mind in the blindnes and darknes of their understanding what had they done before they were born to deserv it and if they be so dealt withal without desert how does Gods justice appear And again if a particular religion be not necessary for example the Christian why did Christ our Lord put those poor harmles men his apostles to so many labours necessities and dangers of death to plant it in the world And how comes it that even this religion now revealed and preacht in the world makes so small progres and brings forth so little fruit among us Why should the Turk and his alcoran cast forth the only true religion out of all his Territories where it did once so gloriously triumph and fructifie Syria Egypt Africa Greece and heresies and schisms out of other places The assurance of our own souls immortality would conduce not a little to the exciting of our dull and drowsy spirits unto a more quick and lively care of our future bliss and so dull we are and doubtfull of all things that it were almost necessary we had it and yet we are God wot so far from that that we even doubt our selves whether we our selves have any thing immortal in us nor is there left an argument in reason to convince us of it Is it not a strang thing that man the most excellent of creatures upon earth should be so left to his own disposition to turn and swarve as he pleases either to right hand or left and by that means to fill the earth with injurious disorders and enormities of sin which might as well have ever remained innocent and peaceable and all other creatures both above and below us go on orderly in their cours prescribed by their maker without any irregularity or deviation Does not every good maister of a hous keep his whole family in order if he can and know how to do it And God wants neither wisdom power or goodnes that he should be either not desirous or ignorant or not able to make all actually good What chain of causes known to man may unriddle these things Are not all things in daily change both to Kingdoms in general and each mans particular person both in matter of fame wealth power and other accidents But how do all these things happen as they do what is the immediate caus efficient what the final where doth the justice appear Histories tell us of little else but warres battles desolations deluges translation of empires the rise and downfall of kingdoms in their power renown and civility alteration of states and lawes succession of deepest barbarisme to most high civility and again of most exquisite civility unto horridest barbarisme mutation of languages pestilences oppression and liberties of people c. By what lawes of the almighty are all these things ordered and what justice infers such heaps of misery upon feeble mankind especially since we see even with our eyes that all invasion which sets afoot the greatest and most oecumenick changes is generally unjust If we do but only consider the horrid turmoils that have been at times in our own countrey by the Romans and Brittons Brittons and Saxes Saxes and Normans Scotch and English the two houses of York and Lancaster nay but the meer troubles of these last twenty years from 1640. to 1660. whereof we have been spectators and sufferers nor will there any pen be able to set down the miseries we have undergone wherein rebellion prevailed over loialty dissimulation over truth tenant over Lord subject over King even to the murdering of that sacred person by a pretended form of justice in the face of the world without any caus exhibited against him but only his own defence against their rebellion and the depriving his loiall subjects of their estates liberties and lives souldiers all the land over hovering daily over our heads like ravens over sick and dying bodies c. What justice what providence appears to us in all these things Are we not as blind as beetles to discern it The iniquity of man we understand well enough but Gods justice in so ordering or permitting it who can discern and yet there is doubtles a reason in heaven for all What distinction appears in this world betwixt the just man and unjust save that uprightnes and honesty for the most part goes to the worst Is it not a mystery that so many innocent souls persons of most exact vertue and good conscience both towards God and man should walk up and down many of them hungry and half starved traduced and
time of our late civil warres wherein our Monarchy once subverted we all perished with it and our rights and welfare at such a loss that no man could say that aught he had remaining was his own It must needs be so for the government what ever it be is before the laws and the laws receiv all their strength and vigour from the acknowledged autority of that power from whence they are derived Now that the Christian Church was first monarchicall under one Sovereign Byshop when Christ who founded it was upon earth no man will deny for aristocracy or democracy it could not be sith all his twelve apostles were under him as his disciples and not fellow doctours or legislatours with him nor did he ever pretend to receiv his autority from men but immediately from God above unto whom he was personally united and this autority of his must first be accepted before his word can be believed or his law acknowledged and these must have all their force from that power which according to its firmitude of truth gives them all their life and vigour which remains and dies with it and with the government under which the laws and doctrin began It appears then that all the laws and rules and promises and whole doctrin of Christianity and founded upon the spiritual monarchy of Jesus who was Man-God that he might be both unto human kind a fit and proportioned head as man and uncontroulable independent and infallible as God And hence it must needs follow that the subversion of episcopacy which is the spirituall monarchy in which our Lord founded his Christianity must needs weaken and by degrees utterly destroy all faith for the ruin of the polity is the death of all its laws founded in it Nor will it suffice if an Independent or Presbyterian say that they are still under their head Christ who being in heaven hath his spirituall influences over them I say this suffices not for the true Church of Christ whersoever it is must have the very same head she had at first or else she cannot be the same body and that head was man-God personally present in both his natures with the body of his Church here on earth and although Christ may and does supply the invisible part of his God-head influence upon his mystick body yet a visible head or byshop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruin What then you will say cannot God preserv his Church without the help of man I answer we must not here dispute what God can do but what he will do God can warm the earth and make fruits to grow and us to see without the sun but if he have otherwise ordained we must expect those effects from the caus he hath set and no other wayes And that all truths are to be expected from his Church and from him he hath substituted in his place to govern us as our only visible Pastour is manifestly apparent both by his own law and practise and our experience By his law when he sayes that he who will not hear his Church must be as a publican and reprobate by his practise when he would not have his own supernatural vocation and endowment and light from heaven to suffice St. Paul either to make him a Christian or a Teacher till he had received both from the hands of his Church and pastors by our experience while we see from age to age that all those that withdraw themselves from the Catholick Church and from her chief Byshop and pastour let the occasion be what it will or never so little do run themselves restlesly into endles schisms denying one thing after another still from less to more till at length all Christianity be cancelled and beginning with schisme they end with atheisme all truth unity and peace being to be had onely from and in that one Church which as St. Paul does well and wisely call it Christs Body so is it only animated with his spirit of truth and from the government there appointed which is episcopal and in a special manner from the chief pastour there presiding ruling and directing in place of Jesus Christ unto whom all obey in yielding obeysance unto him in spiritual affairs according to his own order and appointment Nor is there any more certain rule of discerning the approaching ruin of Christianity in any person or people than when we see them either secretly to undermine or openly to oppugn papal autority No pope no byshop no byshop no Church no Church no salvation This being once well pondered as a thing of such weighty concernment deservs we shall begin both to suspect that the first reformers Luther and Calvin who being Priests under that Papal hierarchy flew out against the Church whereof they had been members and furiously cryed down both Pope and all episcopacy were not sent from God and likewise conclude that the counsel of Queen Elizabeth did wisely reassume that ancient form of Church government though it were opposite to the principles of reformation and judgment of all the first reformers becaus it was both most conformable to times of primitive Christianity and in all reason most likely to conserve the land in unity And if we were once by Gods grace freed from preconceived prejudice we should all of us as clearly see and love the beauty of papal doctrin as now some of us allow of papal government nor is there any thing commendable in any reformation but that and only that which it hath in it of Popery And lastly we shall easily discern that the the Presbyterian plea and all its arguments or whatever else they can have to say against episcopacy are of no value and indeed too slight for me to insist upon their solution I had a mind here to decipher the Protestants plea against the Papist but I finde that there cannot be made any one scheme of it as of the Independent and Presbyterians becaus these the first of them speaks so generally of all things that he seldom touches upon any one particular the other so insists upon one particular that he troubles himself with nothing else and a man may know what both of them would have But all these and several other reformations when they set their face against the Roman Catholick go all under the generall name of Protestants and yet speak several and contradictory things one accusing them for that which the other approves And generally they do neglect their doctrin and inveigh against the vices and follies which either they put upon them or are indeed found amongst som people or persons that do profess that faith in France Spain Italy or other parts as pride tyranny drunkennes leachery foolish gambols and usages of Countreys with which Protestant books against popery are lustily stuft up or if they do indeed speak to their doctrin it is either done onely with some
wonder take any one kingdom under his spiritual jurisdiction and they shall remain a hundred yea thousand years in all peace and unity upon religions account But let that kingdom once divide and separate from him and presently all those very self same byshops who before in their subordination to the Pope easily mannaged the peoples consciences and kept them in a most orderly peaceablenes not know in their separation from him which way to turn themselves but that heresies and schismes will rise and augment themselves without end in despight of all their power and endeavours as if unity and truth and peace were tied to the Popes chair Those that understand not catholick religion have stood many of them exceedingly amazed at this consideration and not without caus for whence can this happen It is not becaus Popes are all saints and only they for the venerable and renowned priests under him and great multitudes of people about him in all nations which shine like stars in the firmament may be without controul as good and holy many of them as himself and although Popes be for the most part very good civil and discreet men yet if it should happen that som one be no better than he should yet even that man shall be as zealous of unity in religion and preserv it as exactly as the best which exalts our wonderment unto such a height that we are even forced to acknowledg that there is some great secret in this business not easily to be resolved for all other byshops and princes the more worldly and sensual they be the less care have they of their flock and people If we shall say that these be the great powers of God upon him the doubt is at an end and a reason appears why people do fear so much to be excluded his communion if this be not admitted I am at a loss and can find no reason why a good king and true head of his Church if himself or the people can make him so should not be able by his acknowledged autority and sword to keep his own subjects in an unity of faith and peace as well as a bad Pope for so we beleev them all to be and pretended head keeps together other mens subjects of different manners and languages without sword or axe or corporal rods only by the meer love of his communion and fear they have to lose it Nor can we say that new opinions about religion are never broacht among catholiks for this as it cannot be expected amongst so many millions of great wits and spirits that be amongst them up and down the world so is it so far from being true that all the heresies that have rose in Christianity were invented ever by some catholick I mean that had been formerly such for his opposition to and apostacy from his general Pastour makes him ceas to be catholick any longer and generally by priests who preferring their own judgments before their pastours and the tradition they had hitherto walked by in the pride of their hearts led people after them out of the fold of the Church And whoever does so puts himself by his own autority in locum Petri and is to be looked upon by all good Catholicks who have care of their own salvation as a dangerous guide Thus did first begin our own Protestancy by Martin Luther Calvin and other fallen priests and the fall of murmuring Judas from the colledg of apostles of contesting Adam and Eve from the bliss of paradise of dissenting Lucifer and his angels from heaven who are said to dispute with Michael and his angels as Luther did with Eckius and his fellow Catholicks signifie nothing else But what does the Pape or Christian pastour do in this case When the tumult is once raised and a disorder begun in any part of his flock by som proud turbulent spirit amongst them the Pape first whistles him and his fellow petulcous rams into order by charitable admonition which still increases lowder by degrees and if this will not serv but that they will still be refractory he casts in his shepheards crook amongst them and divides the turbulent from the peaceful and so the infection stayes The disquiet ones being driven out depart in a rout together but within a while they separate and walk by sixes and seavens and subdivide at length so often that at last they go single whiles every sheep amongst them will be a ram and every ram a shepheard But the other quiet ones that hear the voice of their sheapherd and follow him in peace as becoms sheep to do enjoy all happines and spiritual content amongst themselvs to the unspeakable comfort of their souls under him whom Christ the great Messias hath set over them and this is called the Catholick flock which for the love they bear to their honoured pastour and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we commonly call Papists and somtimes becaus they will not forsake either their sheapheard or divine pastures of truth and sacraments wherein they have been brought up when we would speak more civilly we call them Recusants If any one shall think I speak too much in favour of catholick religion let such know that I favour nothing but truth and peace and it is the part of an ingenuous and well bred nature to support what he can the weaker side especially if he know it to be innocent and injuriously opprest as it often happens in this world that the stronger in right may be the weaker in repute Nor can any fewd amongst us ever be ended which is the thing I aim at so long as errour and injustice are maintained And although we quarrel furiously one with another yet considering that our strifes amongst our selves proceed upon the very same grounds and motives we pretend all of us to have against the general adversary we all hate till this capital dislike of Popery be diminished our other fewds must needs be kept alive No peace amongst our selves till we revoke our words and ill deeds against our innocent neighbours and at last comply charitably with them against whom our first dissention sprang up in this land Ephraim is against Manasses and Manasses against Ephraim but both against Juda and becaus they are both against Juda their lawful superiour therefor are they so furiously bent against one another whiles Ephraim to be in Juda's place who is thrust out by both parties labours to depress Manasses and Manasses for the same reason to trample upon Ephraim Thus is Presbyterian against Independent and Independent against Presbyterian but both against the Papist Protestant against Puritan and Puritan against Protestant but both against the Catholick And as soon as the Protestant had by violence supplanted and cast his Roman-neighbours out of all their dignities honour and livelihood the rancour had utterly ceased had not the Puritan rose up out of the Protestant bowels and subverted him by the same means he had used to his catholick foregoers and
that a nation such as England is so wise and serious in all other things so judicious and grave should be perswaded by any mans words against the dictamen of their own reason if they would but consult it to beleev any such thing of this innocent faith when they cannot but clearly see in all histories both our own and others that amongst all the pretended wayes of Christianity only catholick religion both sets up and preservs the Crown which giddy headed sects indanger Som of our english clergy tell us of a thousand I know not what dangers of the Pope thereby to get the assistance of secular power to their own ends but what is indeed the occasion they know assuredly that the Pope if he were once admitted would both separate them from the secular life they lead and bring into order their exorbitant opinions And what harm if both these things were done If we do but search antiquities we shall find that none of our ecclesiastiastical benefices were given by princes and people to maintain a wife and children but only such single abstracted contemplative men as had consecrated themselvs and all their whole affections to God to serv him in all singlenes of heart in prayer and fasting and perfect charity and in the sacrifice of the altar all the dayes of their life without any solicitude after this world as priests of antient Christianity did and not for women and children unto whose generation against ecclesiastical custom and constitutions our ministers give as much attendance as any secular man whatsoever and generate children which after their death unles they show in their life time more of wordly solicitude than their spiritual state permits must lie upon the parish and as for ordering our dissentions in points of faith I should think not only the Pope who would assuredly do it but any whatsoever thing in the world though it were but an owl in an ivy bush should deserv thanks if he effected it But I return to my story §. 18. Item NOt only the kingdoms of the continent Germany Hungary Italy France Spain but all the Northern coasts and islands Denmark Norway England Ireland and the isles about them were now in a full and quiet possession and profession of their catholick religion when upon a little occasion heaven so willing it for some great sin or neglect of mankind the whole scene was changed on the sodain and catholick faith in our northern coasts to the grief and amazement of all that were then alive utterly abolished even by the discontent of one person and he but a private one neither upon this occasion The Pastour of Christianity upon some solicitation of Christian Princes for a general compliance throughout all Christendom to their design sent forth in the year 1517. a plenary indulgence throughout the world in favour of the Cruciata against the Turk Albertus byshop of Mentz delegated by the Pope to see it executed in Germany committed the preaching and promulgation of it unto the Dominican friars which the hermits of St. Austin within the same place took ill but especially Martin Luther a preacher and professour in that order esteeming himself the best deserving man in the town grew exceeding wroth that any should be chosen before himself to execute that work which was likely to have as great an auditory and confluence of people as might happen in a mans life time to the no small repute of him who should be thought worthy before another to divulge the bull and make the exhortation sermon in the behalf as it were of the whole Christian world Vexed therfore that he was thus neglected and as he thought undervaliewed not only by words but books and papers secretly thrown about he diminished first the dominicans then the byshop then indulgences themselvs Catholick superiours and princes blamed this misdemeanour of Luther as a practis of much danger and sedition but he grew not any thing better thereby but rather more head-strong and furious as unlawful passion increases by the very means of mitigation inveighing now with more boldness as far as he durst both against Prince and Prelate too Insomuch that the duke of Saxony after a year or two invited friar Luther to his court where by dispute and colloquy with the eminent doctour Eckius if he could not make his caus good he might grow better principled at least for Gods sake and his own good condescend to moderation and peace But Luther after much tiresom talk told at last very boldly both the duke and his doctour too that the quarrel was not begun for God nor for God should it be ended And so departing thence he proceeded now with more virulent words to incens the people unto whom he promised liberty from their vowes and fastings and other penitential observances whereby he perverted much of the laity clergy and religious people both men and women who 't is strange to consider it violating their vowes deserted that Catholick Church besides which they had never known nor heard of other to follow the serpentine enticements of one private person and he if not the worst yet at least none of the best that ever were Thus when one ram has leapt over a hedg all the other poor sheep so many as be within ken of the fact are apt to follow So prone is man to go astray like sheep and do amiss to our own ruin without any other reason for it than the sight of a president acting before us what our own naturall inclination is apt of it self without the curb of religion or law of its own natur to embrace And so much was the world disposed at that ill hour to a dissolute loosnes that Luther was still gaining upon people even from his first apostacy But when he had once married himself unto Catherine Bore a Nun by him seduced out of the monastery of Mymick contrary to both theâ—r vowes so that he was now become a sure and fast enemy as well to continence as before he had shown himself to abstinence 't is wonder how fast they flocked to him on all sides not only from the vulgar laiety but even from all instutes and profession and countries even the priests and votaries of chastity Oecolampadius a monk of S. Briger Jacobus Praepositi an Augustine Andreas Carolstadius an archdeacon in Wittenberg Suinglius a cannon of Constance Martin Bucer a dominican fryar Lismanin a Franciscan Richerius a Carmelite John Calvin a curate priest Philip Melanchton out of Germany Michael Servetus out of Spain Bernardin Ochyn and Peter Martyr out of Florence John Alasco out of Poland Sebastian Castalio out of France Beza out of Burgundy Stancar and Valentine Gentile out of Italy Blandrate Alciate and David Georg out of Transylvania c. who being all hitherto catholicks took occasion now by the example of Luther to fall away whereby as the body of holy Church was purged of some unquiet spirits so was Luthers retinue in a short space
restore the antient disciplin much abated by wars and factions recovered the exclesiastick investitures out of the hands of emperour Henricus who had invaded them and moved Christian princes to a war in the holy land for the caus of Jesus Christ there blasphemed where he should principally be honoured and the assistance of distressed Christianity against the Turk good works all and which none but he would have heeded to effect 10. Pape Innocent the second when Peter de Lions his antipope had filled Christendom with wars and factions and Peter de Bruis had no less corrupted their judgments with heresies against baptism temples almes deeds and offerings rose up and manfully fought them both for the recovery of truth and peace of Christianity in his tenth oecumenical councel at Lateran an 1139. 11. Some while after in the time of pape Alexander the third the Christian world was no less rent asunder both by the faction of a competitour of his called Victor the second and the heresies of the Waldenses or Albigenses against both which the said Pape called his eleventh Councel at Lateran an 1179 and made provision there most carefully against any the like disturbance upon such occasion 13. Pape Innocent the third did the world no les good service in his twelfth general councel at Lateran an 1215 where he judged and condemned the heresies of those times which infected and troubled the world censured abbot Joachim his book against Magister sententiarum and wicked Almaricus who denied the real presence and resurrection c. and exhorted all Christian princes to the recovery of the holy land which had been regained by the joint endeavours of the Christian world in Pape Vrban the seconds time Godfrey of Bullen being there made king of Jerusalem but after 90 years was lost again in the daies of pape Vrban the third whose successour Gregory the eight and his followers till this Innocent the third did much lament and labour to help the loss but Innocent had more hopes by reason that Baldwin earl of Flanders was then made emperour of Constantinople 13. Pape Innocent the fourth found a great deal of trouble in the world and to heal the malady he called a general synod at Lions an 1245 which was the thirteenth oecumenical councel against the cruelties of emperour Frederick who filled Christendom with wars and bloodshed whence arose the faction of the Gwelfs and Gibellines against the tirrany of the saracens the perfidiousnes of the greeks who plotted at Constantinople the destruction of all the Latines and against the irruption of the Tartarians who ruined Poland and Hungary 14. A little afterwards when now Michael Paleologus had got the empire of greece by the expulsion of Baldwin and the greeks began to fall back to som of their former errours denying the Holy Ghosts procession sacrifice in unleavened bread and some fasts so that much combustion happened upon this occasion in the oriental Church Pape Gregory the tenth called the fourteenth councel at Lions an 1274 for the healing these disorders recovery of the holy land and union of the Greeks 15. In the year 1311 when the knights Templers began to give some offence in the Christian world or at least the king of France and other princes pretended so and the Bogards and Beguines a kind of religious people in Germany sowed some errours up and down to the great scandal of people Pape Clement the fift called a councel at Vienna to rectify both as also for recovery of the holy land and reformation of discipline then much decayed in the Church 16. But still there was much division in the oriental part of the Church among the greeks who denied many of them the procession of the Holy Ghost from the second person of the Trinity the felicity of the blessed and purgatory in the Churches antient sens and the primacy of the Roman See which although they held in the primitive times for many ages together yet they sank into that dangerous errour by degrees for after that they had got an emperour in Constantinople absolute and independent they motioned in councels kept in those times for the most part in the oriental parts first that the byshop of that Sea for the honour of the empire might be made a Patriarch then afterwards that he might have place before other antient patriarchs who had the right of precedency before him and then at last they would have him independent as the emperour himself was in temporals thus by degrees running themselvs into schisms To prevent these errours and factions Pape Eugenius the fourth called the sixteenth general councel at Florence an 1439 where by means of Josephus patriarch of Constantinople and other grave grecian prelates there assembled the union betwixt the greeks and latins was made up 17. In the year 1512 was kept the seaventeenth councel at Lateran under Pape Julius the second and Leo the tenth to mitigate a great schisme raised by means of an episcopal conversion at Pisa called together by cardinal Caravaial and Sanseverin without the Papes autority both which came in here and submitted as also to bring Christian princes to mutual concord to stop the frequent argumentations that were too vehemently urged in schools out of Aristotle against the souls immortality and to hasten an expedition against the Turk 18. And lastly three Popes one after another Paulus Julius and Pius fought successively with equal resolution against Luther and Calvin and several others of their apostate priests for internal justification the possibility and merit of doing well the truth and efficacy of the seaven sacraments prayers for the dead intercession of saints and indulgences in the great oecumenical councel of Trent There have been in the Church besides these greater councels six hundred other national provincial diocesan synods over and above those which S. Peter kept with the apostles in Jerusalem which being called together upon several occurrencies were all licensed guided and directed by the Papes of those times who kept continual correspondence with the prelates while they sate in councel and if any synod either opposed him or swarved from his directions it was looked upon by the rest of Christendom as reprobate on that account I should be too tedious if I should declare the indefatigable industry high wisdom and piety of Popes in steering the Ship of the Church both in the calms of peace that she might not then lye hulling and idle but make good progress towards bliss and also in the strang storms and tempests that the malignity of this world hath raised against her which have been so great and various that one would have thought by the many leaks that sprang in her at times the excessive beatings of decuman billows upon her sides the dangerous hidden rocks on which she has dasht unawares and the greater apparent ones she has been carried upon by the violence of wind and weather not humanly to be avoided that she could never have lasted to this