are oft equal in Argumentation Greatly dishonouring Christ as if so near the end of the World the Albigenses and Waldenses and some Papists that found fault with the Papal Miscarriages had been all the known Church for Eleven hundred Years To tell the Mahometans that the Kingdom of Jesus after so long endeavours was scarce bigger than Wales is not the way to honour Protestants or Christ. And then they think to repair the dishonour by their Prophecy of the Millennial Kingdom which tieth the knot harder than before § X. Running from them into Errours on the other extream and spotting the Reformation with many such Errours hath greatly hardened and increased Papists Especially those Antinomian or Libertine Opinions that overthrow both Christianity and Morality and that which inferreth these which too many have promoted such are the wrong Opinions about Reprobation and the Cause of Sin and the extent of Redemption and the false sence of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness and of Justifying Faith and of the meaning of Works that justifie not and that to Believe we are justified and elected is to believe God's Word or is Fides Divina and that the Covenant of Grace hath no Condition and is made only with Christ and that both obeyed and suffered in our Person in Law sence so that we did in Law sence suffer in and by him and yet fulfil all righteousness by him and were reputatively sinless from first to last that therefore we are justified by the Law of Innocency or Works that condemneth us having perfectly kept it by Christ that our works being not meritorious are not rewardable Too many such Doctrines are Published here and abroad by such as Maccovius Cluto Cocceius and some before them And when Papists find one gross falshood they think all our Religion is such § XI It greatly confirmeth Papists when they find our Writers falsly to accuse them of any Doctrine which they hold not which is very ordinarily done by those that never read them on the meer credit of some Reverend Ministers that so accused them before For instance of the Point of Merit when men read their Books of Self-abnegation Annihilation Self-abasing and Nothingness renouncing Merit even in distributive Justice c. Some have wondered and said How much further are the Papists from trusting to or boasting of their Merits Works and Holiness than we are § XII But Protestants have no way promoted Popery more than by their manifold Divisions and Sects and their mutual enmity and miscarriages I need not name them God hath made Unity and Concord so necessary and amiable to Man that Nature and Grace abhor the contrary Satan is the Divider of Christ's Kingdom and a Kingdom divided cannot stand Multitudes turn and continue Papists not knowing where among so many Sects to fix their choice especially when they see and hear us Revile Censure Silence Imprison and Persecute one another as intolerable they think they may do so by us all and judge of us as we do by one another And to vilifie us is to value themselves Which Sect say they would you have me turn to if I turn § XIII Specially if we fall into odious Scandals as well as Sects the Crimes of Men seem the fault of our Religion When they have recited the Miscarriages here from 1642 till 1660. they think they have decided all the Controversies And also when they can recite the Munster Madness and others such § XIV Hath the Silencing of Two thousand such Ministers and shutting the Church Doors against desired Unity and Concord and keeping out Candidates and giving advantage to Papist Rulers to give full liberty for Popery done nothing to its increase What hath done more to advantage Popery by disabling Protestants and disgracing their Ministers of each Party and keeping up the hopes of Foreign and Domestick Enemies than casting the Nation into a kind of Intestine Hostility and keeping it so by the Dividing Laws and Canons which though it was principally the effects of secret Popish Projects yet had no Anti-Papists by false Prejudice Malice Revenge and worldly Interest had a hand in the effecting and since in defending it they had been more innocent And I would the Provocation had not driven many Nonconformists into harder thoughts of Bishops and Liturgy than they deserve or than they had before the experience of their usage But it 's hard when for Innocency and Duty men must lye and many die in common Jails and have all they have taken from them and be left to Beggary or Charity to keep up as great an esteem of the Authors or Abettors of such Hostility as if they were men of Love and Peace When they see men Hang'd for taking away a small part by Stealth or Robbery it must be more than ordinary Patience and Love that shall cause men to think and say no harm even by honourable and Right Reverend men that even by Law and Judgment said to be just shall take away all and much more than all We had not procured hatred by our importunity in 1660 and 1661. in Pleading and Petitioning to prevent all this if the certain foresight of it in its Causes had not seemed very dreadful to us And yet we do not see the End The Hostility continueth if not increaseth even while the Blood and Flames of Germany Hungary Transilvania Savoy Flanders and Ireland and partly Scotland loudly cry to us Fire Fire and instead of avoiding the like we are as busie as ever to bring more fewel and increase the flame And O dreadful odious Case All is as for God and Religion and the Church that is thus done against God Religion the Church and the whole Land our Posterity § XV. And by our several ways of Unjust and Causeless Impositions we have hardened the Papists in defending their more numerous Snares They say If an Independent Church may bind its Members to take their Covenants to submit to thei◠popular Examinations and Discipline to avoid Communion with the Parish Churches and not to forsake their Church but by tryed Reason or Consent And if a Convocation may impose what is done in England on terms so sharp why may not the Pastors and Councils that have greater Charge and Power do as much and more § XVI The Sectarian weak-headed part of Protestants have greatly advantaged Popery by their ignorant calling every Ceremony and Form and Opinion that they distaste by the Name of Antichristian and saying O this is Popish or taken out of the Mass-Book when some of them know not what Antichristianity is saving as every Sin against Christ is Antichristian nor know they what the Mass-Book is nor what Popery is And it s well if some knew better what Christianity is When men hear that a Bishop a Surplice a sumptuous Church Edifice a Ceremony the Liturgies a Holy-day and it 's well if not the use of the Creed and Lord's Prayer be Antichristian they are tempted to think
true as it is not which you say How shall all Christians know it to be true When such as I with all our searching cannot know it yea are past doubt that it is false It 's like you 'll say It is our obstinacy And so all shall be Schismaticks and condemned with you whom you are pleased to call obstinate for escaping that Ignorance which would better serve your Ends. § 7. Dr. S. But Mr. B. objecteth That the Nestorians Jacobites Abassines c. renounce some of the six Councils yes three of the six They had a personal Veneration for the Persons of Nestorius and Dioscorus and did believe them when they said that the Councils were mistaken in Matter of Fact and Condemned them for Opinions which they did not own and thereupon did reject those Councils But they did not then nor do not at this day reject the Catholick Faith and the Rules of Christian Unity which are contained in the six General Councils So that in effect they own them For the principal thing required is to profess the true Faith and hold the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace and Righteousness which those Churches do in that they own the Nicene and C. P. Councils and deny not the Doctrine of the other four Answ. Do you think that none of your Readers will see how much you here overthrow or give up your Cause 1. If holding the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace and Righteousness will serve while they renounce the Councils as erroneous and tyrannical and holding the same Faith and Doctrine will serve what have you been Pleading for we are for all this as well as you 2. And if the Council may erre in Matter of Fact which may be known by common sence and reason how much more may they erre in matter of right and supernatural Revelation as the Articles of the Church of England say they have done 3. You confess here that Men may reject three or four of your six Councils and yet be no Schismaticks but hold Faith Unity and Peace And are the other two more necessary than all the rest You say They hold the two first Answ. They hold not the Infallibility of Councils nor that they may not be rejected when they erre nor that we may not be discerning Judges when they erre For all this is renounced in their renouncing all save two or three 4. You say They reject not the Rules of Christian Vnity Answ. Therefore they judged not the Decrees of Councils to be that necessary Rule Else the Decrees of those renounced by them would be as necessary as the rest 5. It 's apparent by this that they held the same with those Councils not because of the Authority of those Councils but on other Grounds For it is not possible that they who renounced the Councils should believe the Christian Faith on their Authority They believed it as a Divine Revelation fide Divina and so do we 6. And dare you say that a Man that believeth the same things because they are revealed by God in his Word shall be damned unless he believe them fide humana because a General Council decreed them 7. Did your other Councils add any Decrees to the first If not what need of believing any thing as theirs If yea then receiving the Decrees of the two first is not a receiving the Decrees of the later 8. And on whose Authority did Christians believe the first 300 years before there was any General Council § 8. Dr. S. P. 346. Obj. Did the Catholick Church die or cease after the sixth General Council Answ. The Essence of the Catholick Church doth not consist in the being of a Council Their meeting is but an external means for better declaring the Catholick Faith and holding mutual Correspondence between the several Churches Ans. 1. Still you are constrained to destroy your own Cause You confess then that Councils are no constitutive Governing part of the Church as a Governed Society And if so it hath some other Humane constitutive Regent part or none If none we are so far agreed This is it that we contend for If any other you must come to your Lords College of the diffused Pastors who never made Law never heard a Cause or judged out of Council to this day nor possibly can do 2. What is this that you call an external means of Correspondence Is it a necessary Supream Legislative and Judicial Power or not If it be it must be a constitutive Essential part of the Church as Political For every Politick Society is informed by such And you argued before that Nations must be under such as well as Dioceses under Diocesans If not habetur quaesitum 3. And because your former words assert an Vniversal Soveraignty I wonder how any of common reason can think this necessary to the whole Christian World during the few Years that those two or six first Councils sate and never before nor after Are dead Men our Governors VVill a Power of Governing never exercised serve for a Thousand Years last and 300 before and not for the other 300 Or hath the Church had one Form of Government for 200 or 300 Years and another for all the other 1300 And when you tell us that Kingdoms must be judged as well as single Persons did those first Councils judge all the sinning Kingdoms since If you own no Councils since the first Six all Kingdoms that have sinned these 1000 Years had no such Judges And what Councils or other Church Power save the Popes judged the many Southern and Eastern Countries that revolted Or the Western Nations in their various Changes and Crimes Must we have such an Uuniversal Judge now who never judged any these 1000 Years 4. Your Lord saith at last that they are Mutable Laws which Councils make If so why must we needs obey the six Councils that were 1000 Years ago under another Prince May not 1000 Years time and another King's Government make a Change in the Matter and Reason of the Law If you say it stands till another General Council change it I answer 1. VVhat Council abrogated the 20th Nicene Canon against Kneeling on the Lord's Day in adoration and many such other 2. Then if ever there was a General Council it's Decrees are immutable and so you contradict your selves For it 's certain there never will be a General Council to abrogate what is done till all the VVorld be under one Christian Monarch 5. The Laws of England bind us not now as the Laws of the Kings and Parliaments that are dead that is not by Virtue of their Authority though made by them But as the Laws of the present Legislative Powers who own them and rule by them and can abrogate them when they will And when the Canon-makers are dead 1000 Years ago where now is the Ruling Power whose Laws those are There is no General Council to own them nor ever will be A thousand Years sure
that Popery called Antichristianity is no worse a thing than these and so honour Popery and deride its Accusers I would these named were all the wrongs that Protestants have done to the Protestant Cause of Reformation and all that they have ignorantly done for Popery But we hope our great Intercessor will procure forgiveness for them that know not what they do But must the Church still suffer so much by its zealous Friends Chap. XIII What is the Duty of all other Christians towards the Papists in order to the Promoting of the Common Interest of Christianity THough I have distinctly answered this Question in the Second Part of my Key for Catholicks I will here answer it again lest I be thought to run into Extreams or encourage the Extreams of others by all that I have here and elsewhere said And as to the chat of Ignorant Faction that will say I contradict my self I will answer it with Contempt and Pity § I. First we must lay deep in our Minds and inculcate on our Hearers the common Fundamental Truths and Duty That Love is the Second great Commandment like to the First That it is the fulfilling of the Law That he that dwells in Love dwells in God and God in him That he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen loveth not God whom he never saw That some love belongs to Enemies and much more to Brethren That as much as in us lyeth we must live peaceably with all Men Yea and follow Peace with all men And that these are Duties that nothing can dispense with § II. We must acknowledge and commend all that is good among them and must truly understand in what we are agreed That is They acknowledge all the same Books of Scripture to be the true Word of God which we acknowledge They own all the Articles of the Creed which we own and of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creed They own all the Lord's Prayer and all the Ten Commandments saving that they take the Second to be but part of the First and divide the Tenth into two They teach in their Catechisms all the Beatitudes Math. 5. and the Moral Virtues and the Graces of Faith Hope and Love c. And he that practically and sincerely doth all this hath many Promises of Salvation in the Scripture § III. We must not untruly fasten on them any Errour which they hold not nor put a false sence on their words though we may find many Protestants that so charge them nor may we charge that on the Party which is held but by some whom others contradict How far many Protestants herein mistake and rashly wrong them In the Doctrine of Predestination Free-will Grace Merits Justification Redemption Perseverance c. I have freely shewed in my Catholick Theology and End of Doctrinal Controversies And Ludovicus le Blank after others hath excellently opened § IV. We must not take all the Laity to own all that the disputing Clergy write for when they neither understand it nor consent to it § V. As we must distinguish between the Essentials of Popery and their Integrals or other Corruptions so we must not charge any with the first meerly for being guilty of many of the other Else we must call all the Greeks Moscovites Abassines Armenians c. Papists § VI. We must still distinguish between Christs Catholick Church unifyed by his own Headship only and the Papal Church unifyed by a pretended Universal Humane Head Monarchical or Aristocratical And so we must distinguish between a Christian as such and a Papist as such And we must hold Communion with Papists in Christianity though not in Popery And must grant that those that hold Christs Headship and Christianity more firmly and practically than the Pope's Headship and Popery and seeing not the Contradiction would renounce the Papacy if they saw it may be saved § VII To profess utter averseness to all Reconciliation with them and to declare them no Christians but Antichristians that must be the Objects only of our Hostility is to be Adversaries to the first mentioned Fundamentals and to the common interest of Peace and Christianity § VIII We must disclaim their opinion that say that the Church became Antichristian in 300 or 400 or 600 or any time before the Popes claimed Universal Jurisdiction over the Christian World as well as in the Roman Empire And then the Papal revolt did not reach one half the Church § IX We must not impute the Papal or Patriarchal Vices and Pride to the generality of the inferior Bishops though in Councils too many were very Factious For even a Heathen Amm. Marcellinus tells us the great difference by Papal Pride and lower Bishops Humility and Virtue § X. We must not take the Question whether the Pope be Antichrist as more necessary than it is Nor make the Decision an Article of Faith nor lay more of the stress of our difference on it than we ought For we have many far clearer Arguments against them from plainer Scriptures § XI Therefore we must not force the vulgar to Disputes with Papists without cause on forced Expositions and Suppositions that turn the Revelations against Rome Papal as the Babylon and Antichrist there meant when so much may be said and is by some Protestants to make it likely that it is but Rome Pagan that is there meant We must not give their Disputers the advantage of Challenging us before the Vulgar to name one Man for a Thousand Years and more after Christ that expounded the Revelation as we do or that took the Pope to be Antichrist § XII We must not imitate the great Novel Expositors of the Revelation that make the seven Churches to be seven States and Ages of the Universal Church and two of them to be in the World to come after the Conflagration and consequently that if by the Angel of each Church be meant the Bishop either alone or with his Elders as most think old and new Expositors then an Universal Humane Head is of Gods Institution And if that be true then Pâ—pery will be right in its Essentials and we in the wrong We must take heed therefore of the ignorant factious Zeal of over-doers that make men Papists by false opposing them § XIII We must take heed lest we make any one falshood a part of the Protestant Religion and Reformation much less many plain falshoods as too many do For when Papists find any such Untruths they will judge of our Religion in the main by those § XIV We must see that in the Form of our Government and Worship we own not Principles of Confusion and set not up our selves our devised terms of Church Admittance and Communion and thereby seem to justifie such Additions among Papists and others § XV. We must live in Love and Peace and Concord among our selves that our Fractions Sects and Errours and envious Oppositions make us not a scorn and make not Papists think that we are mad and