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
did they speake this out of any disesteem of those Fathers but when they were I say so urged to defend the truth against the Adversaries of it by the evidence whereof they were able to make good what they sayd that those Fathers were but men and might erre Now for this who is more apt then your Lordship to cast in the dish of this precise party as you call them that they should upon just cause speake thus of your antient Fathers What would you say then if all this party should as one Man rise up and openly professe against you as a notorious enemy of the truth and of the Church of God in England and elswhere and of all pious sincere and zealous Preachers of the Gospell and that under the Name of the precise party which you so yoake with the Jesuites you doe maliciously not onely seek to undermine but even professedly to invade and oppugne the whole Kingdome of Iesus Christ as also your practises and this your Book can witnesse And how doe you come to know the thoughts of this precise party so well that you say they think their own preachings were infallible Surely you do but think so You might therfore judge more charitably But as I said of those Fathers so do I of these what they have a good and sure ground in Scripture for to preach and teach they may be sure and they know it to be the truth and so infallible As for those that preach of cursing and lyes as David speaks and suggest slanders and false reports into the eares of Princes and Courts against Gods Ministers and Preachers let them thinke and be assured too that what they preach or print is not onely not infallible but most malicious and detestable both before God and Man as tending also the blinding and so to the downfall of such as beleeve such falshoods to be infallible L. p 104. When the Fathers say we are to rely upon Scriptures onely they are never to be understood with exclusion of Tradition in what causes soever it may be had Not but that the Scripture is abundantly sufficient in and of it selfe for all things but because it is deep and may be drawn into different senses and so mistaken If any man will presume upon his own strâ—ngth and goe single without the Church And citing an excellent sentence out of Vincentius Lynnenâ—is quum sit perfectus Scripturarum Canon sibique ad ommia satis superque sufficiat c. Forasmuch as that Canon of Scripture is perfect and superabundantly selfe-sufficient to all things and if you adde this your note upon it in the margent And if it be sibi ad omnia then to this to prove it selfe at least after Tradition hath prepared as to receive it P. A little before you cite also Augustine seting downe 4 speciall notes and marks internall to the Scripture to prove it to be the word of God As 1. The Miracles 2. That there is nothing carnall in the Doctrine 3. That there hath been such performance of it 4. That by such a Doctrine of humility the whole world almost hath been converted And there also to the same purpose Lynnenâ—is who placeth the Scripture before Tradition And here againe That the Scripture is selfe-sufficient to all What room then for Tradition Or if Tradition have any place at all it were good manners for it to come behind as a Handmayd waiting on her Mistris But you can salve all with a wet finger or with one drop out of your pen If it be sibi ad omnia that is selfe-sufficient to all things then to this to prove it selfe at least after Tradition â—ath prepard us to receive it This is your own Addition or Comentary and Glosse of your own Mother wit which is as Tertullian saith of the old Roman Senate which had made a decree that none should be taken into the number of their Gods but such as the Senate it selfe should first think worthy and approve of So as Tiberius Caesar under whose Empire Christ suffered when he had heard much fame of Christ he moved the Senate that Christ migh be entertained for one of their Gods But the Senate for the foresaid Reason rejected it because they first had approved of it Whereupon Tertullian saith Ergo nisi homini plaâ—uerit Deus non erit Deus Therfore except it please man God shall not be God A fit parralell for this very purpose The Scripture by the consent of all the antient Fathers is abundantly selfe-sufficient to prove it selfe to be the word of God but the present Church hath a Senatus consultum a Decree Tradition which must first give her voyce and approbatiton that the Scripture is the word of God otherwise in vaine are all those Encomiums and Commendations of the Fathers though never so antient affirming and confirming the Scriptures selfe-sufficiencie even beyond all measure The Tradition of the present Church must first give her voyce Ergo nisi homini placuerit Scriptura non erit verbum Dei Therfore except it please man the Scripture shall not be the word of God Onely herein you goe beyond the Roman Senate for their Decree for the admiting of a God was by the generall voyce of all the Senators But yours is here from the sole and single Oracle of the Church of England The Chaire of Canterbury 'T is enough that you tell us with an if if the Scripture be Sibi ad omnia then to this to prove it selfe at least after Tradition hath prepared us to receive it Otherwise never talke of Fathers Authority all is in vaine The Scripture cannot be beleeved to be the word of God unlesse The Tradition of the Present Church prepare the way to receive it And at least you say which is no small deminution of the Sâ—riptures selfe-sufficiencie which you put with an if at least But of this sufficiently But let 's heare your Reasons further for your Tradition The Scripture Say you is deep and may be drawn into different sences and so mistaken that any man will presume upon his own strength and goe single without the Church So it seemeth your Articles of Religion are deepe as which not onely may be but are drawne into different sences and so mistaken and that by the presumption of one mans strength going single without the Church But for the Scripture though it be deep yet it affords us both line and Bucket sufficient to draw water out of those wellâ— of Salvation and so to give us a full tast whereby to relish and resent whose word it is except the Tradition and Authority of your present Church doe cut off our line and breake our Bucket The Scripture hath both Milke for Babes and strong Meat for Men. In the Sea both the Elephant may swim as AUG and GREG. saith and the Lamb wade and when it is by unstable men wrested and drawn into different sences and so mistaken yet it remaines the
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
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
and of Rome doe agree upon 363 364. He contradicts himselfe ibid. 307. Jesuites Commendation of the English Liturgy whether it be a good signe 364. 318. How the Prelate rewards the late Dr. White for his Deserts and what they were 364 365. The true Church of Christ proved against the Prelate not to be alwayes visible and conspicuous by many Instances Though the Prelaticall be alwayes conspicuous 366 367 368. Most pittifull and perplexed contradictions and confused and false Speeches of the Church of Rome by the Prelate 369. Rome a Tree wholly corrupt without so much as the Barke of a true Church 370. 321. Dr. Whites Errours Fundamentall reductivè confuted 371 372. 325. Wherein the Prelates Church of England is departed from the Foundation 373. The Prelates Latitude of faith in reference to different mens Salvation which he can no more fit to them then a coat for the Moâ—ne 373 374. True Preachers must teach all what and how to beleeve though it be no worke for the Prelates pen 373. 327. The Prelate confesseth that Romanists dare not beleeve but as the Church of Rome beleeves which saith he beleeves not aright How then can his Ignorants be saved 374 375. 332. Apocrypha by the Prelate how neatly brought in as a Co-witnesse with the Scripture to prove points of Faith 375. 336. The Prelates Resolution to live and dye in the Faith of the Primitive Church confuted by sundâ—y Instances 375 376. 338. The Prelate holds not the Saving Faith as not acknowledging other then Romes Faith 377 378 379. And the Saving Faith is not in the Church of Rome 377 The Prelate holds a false Hope and Charity together with a false Faith with Rome wherein he will live and dye an English Romish-Catholicke 379 380. 339. The Prelates haâ—ting and halfing with the Jesuite 380. In charging Rome he checketh himselfe 340. His halting againe 381. Yet he confesseth that the now Roman Faith is not the Catholicke which Roman Faith he will live and dye in 380. What Contradiction is ib. His contradiction noted 382. His halting down-right all along 382 383. 342. How the Prelates Saving Faith of Rome is by himselfe proved to be Infidelity 384. So as compared with the former he will live and dye in the Roman Infidelity Conferre 375 376 377. His Collusion 382. 349 Who the first Founder of Purgatory 386. 365. The Prelates false root of the true Churches existence and true root of the false 387 388. 370. The Church of Rome how yeelded by the Replyer to be visible yet not Apostolicke against the Prelate 387 388. 371. Of Peters being at Rome 388. The Church of Rome for what preserved of God 389. 375 How the Prelate gives more liberty to his Protestants to goe to the Romish Church to heare Masse which he calls the Service of God then the Jesuite doth to his Roman Catholicks to goe to the English Service 390 391 392. 376. The Prelates Assertion That the Church of Rome and the Protestant Church of England do not set up a different Religion 392. And so no great difference of going to either yet that both accuse each other of grosse corruptions indangering Salvation 393. Ibid. Who are the Prelates Indifferent Readers to whom it appeares by his Discourse as himselfe saith That the Religion profest in the Church of England comes nearest to the Primitive Church And what Readers will judge the contrary 394. 377. Not onely Superstition as the Prelate stints it but grosse Idolatry in Adoration of Images in Invocation of Saints in Adoration of the Sacrament 395. 378. By the Prelates confession to the Priest A. C. there should be but little pride in his heart 396. 379. The Prelates wan hope of mercy to the dead Lady 396 397. 388. The Prelates Close or Conclusion wherein he excuseth himselfe by reason of his other weighty affaires and of his Age His misnaming of the Penman of the 90 Psalme least he should through all his Booke but touch or name any one Scripture and withall not mistake misapply or pervert it His fearefull and desperate condition layd home unto him by the Replyer His mocking and abusing Gods Name and Mercy in his hypocriticall Prayer and impenitent heart His blaphemy in Fathering all his Booke written and published for the meeting of his Popish Truth and Peace in a Reconciliation with Rome upon Gods Free Grace His wicked and false hope that God will bring to passe that his Diabolicall Designe and Desire which cannot come to passe but with the utter confusion of the whole Land His hypocriticall and faithlesse giving Glory to God after all his blacke mouthed blasphemies and disgraces throughout his Booke cast upon the Majesty of God of Christ and of the Holy Ghost also upon Gods holy word the Scripture as if he would in the close of all with this one plaister heale so many broken heads 397 to 405. This suffice for a rude Model But what 's that to the House it selfe Enter therfore and take a free and full view Consider what thou readest and the Lord give thee understanding in all things TO THE AVTHOR AND PVBLISHER OF THE RELATION MY Lord that you find not my Name in Front the Reasons are to my selfe And when you find it 't will appeare that feare of your displeasure though terrible enough was not the Cause But whoever I be you will Say perhaps I am some madde fellow and too bold to make a Reply to your Relation But your own words will I hope excuse me for that For you Say A right sober mâ—n may without the least touch of insolency or madnesse dispute a businessâ— of Religion with the Roman either Church or Prelate so it be with modesty and for the finding out or confirming of Truth free from â—anity and purposed opposition against even a Particular Church So you Now my manner in disputing with one so Great though a single Prelate and no Church being with modesty and 〈◊〉 from vaniâ—y and purposed opposition against your Person and the end for finding out and confirming the Truth which God himselfe knoweth I hâ—pe I Say your Lordship wil be as good as your word not to cast upon me an aspersion or Censure of the least touch of Insolâ—nâ—ie or madnesse But this indeed I must confesse unto you and professe before all the world that in a Cause so weighty as this wherein I find my Lord Iesus Christ so deeply ingaged so much dishonoured and his onely true Faith and Religion so much depressed and disparaged and that by so great a Prelate I must crave pardon if herein I be both zealous and plain with you And that so much the more that one so Great I say so high in favour in Court and so potent and prevalent in the State should so doe And to this purpose I remember another Speech in your Booke Worth is no necessary concluder for Truth For worth once misled is of all other the greatest misleader And such is
But wicked is a Generall word and perhaps it hath no reference here to you in particular Yes certainly you in particular the Holy Ghost doth in this Psalme point you out as it were with the finger How Note but the Title of the Psalme A Psalme for the Sabbath day But it may seem strange that David should heare speake of the wicked and of their flourishing estate What coherence hath this with the Sabbath day Surely hereby the Spirit of Prophesie notes out unto us a speciall time or age of the Church wherein ungodly men should most notoriously oppose themselves against the sanctification of the Sabbath day and wherein they should extraordinarily flourish and prosper even as the green and goodly bladed Grasse that groweth on high upon the house tops but in that their flourishing estate they should sodainly perish And of all other times and ages of the Church ever was this Prophesie so extraordinarily and remarkably verefied for ungodly and desperate offenders in this kind as in this present age and especially in the Church of England now since your springing up and flourishing upon the toppes of Canterbury Palace For shew us any age wherein the sanctification of the Sabbath or Lords day was by publike Edict dispensed with and by sundry Printed Books cryed down and you shal be excused from being of those men whom the Holy Ghost notes out here for wicked and ungodly But you cannot Therefore this Psalme for the Sabbath day speaks of you in speciall as being a professed enemy of the sanctification of the Sabbath and so of all true holinesse and yet you doe so flourish and prosper in this your wicked and impious opposition to all Godlinesse as never any have done more nor so much in mans memory But what 's the issue of this These wicked enemies of Godlinesse and of the sanctification of the Sabbath in speciall shal be destroyed for ever But when Even then when they are in the top of their flourishing estate But how shall we know this First GOD hath said it and therefore 't is sure enough and Secondly this their flourishing estate is an immediate both signe and cause of their utter ruine But doth your Lordship beleeve that this shall ever be verefied of you Why should you not For are not you the great Instrument and Agent in advancing the Edict for Sports to its full execution And why should you not then beleeve the rest that in the height of your present prosperity you shal be destroyed for evermore And why doe you not beleeve it For David saith A brutish man knoweth not neither doth a foole understand this to wit when he wicked spring as the Grasse and when all the workers of iniquity doe flourish it is that they shal be destroyed for ever And doe you not know do you not understand this Then you fill up the Prophesie to the full as verefied of you wholly L. p. ibid. But on the other side GOD forbid too that your Majesty should let both Lawes and Discipline sleep for feare of the name of Persecution and in the meane time Let Master Fisher and his fellowes angle in all parts of your Dominions for your Subjects c. P. Here I hope you speake it seriously GOD forbid At least in part For you name two things Lawes and Discipline Lawes against Jesuites as Fisher and his fellowes And herein it may be questioned perhaps by some whether you speake seriously GOD forbid that such Lawes should sleep For you know they have slept so long a time and so soundly that I feare your God forbid will not prove loud enough to awaken them And as for Discipline that 's for your Puritans And for that you need not trouble the King to breake his sleep your selfe I trow can look well enough to the keeping of that awake For in truth it can take no rest for you And therefore neither in this respect need your God forbid to be serious as being altogether superfluous Onely the best use that you can make of it as you know it better then I can tell you is is that your God forbid here may prove so happy for the vindicating of your Reputation as to perswade the misdeming world that if the Lawes against Iesuites do sleep you are not the cause of it who ever els God forbid and if Dissipline be over wakefull and too quick and exceed all bounds as having no Law to confine it alas you are not the Man God forbid For wake or sleep your God forbid your Maâ—esty should let them sleep argueth plainly that the keeping of the Discipline awake is his part whose it is not to let them sleep 'T is well my Lord you have so strong a back to lay your burthens upon as is touched before especially when they presse too hard upon you as in the clamours and outcryes against your outrages But what Doe you come here with your God forbid your Majesty should suffer Discipline to sleep when but a little before and almost with the same breath you said God forbid I should ever offer to perswade a Persecution in any kind Do we not know what the awakening of Discipline is Is it not like the awakening of a sleeping Lyon Doth not then the rigorous and incessant restlesse execution of Discipline so as it can never be suffered once to sleep trench upon Persecution at least as neare as you say at after sundry errours of the Church of Rome come neare the overthrowing of the Foundation or as their worshiping of Images comes too neare heathenish Idolatry But in your Close you apply your God forbid onely against the Jesuites That 's well that you presse it not with your Discipline upon your Puritans as you do the Lawes against Romes Fisher-men And I note here that for Jesuites you have Laws but for Puritans you have Discipline without Lawes or as it stands in opposition to Lawes But what followeth Alas what do I find saluting me in the very front of your next page L. p. 12. Now as I would humbly beseech your Majesty to keep a serious watch upon these Fisher-men which pretend S. Peters but fish not with his net so I would not have you neglect an other sort of Anglers in a shallower water P. Yet your words seem to import a greater zeale in you against the Iesuites then against your Puritans For touching those you humbly beseech but concerning these you onely would have And yet what you onely would have is somwhat and perhaps as prevailing especially when you set it on in private as your open humbly beseeching Yea being Primate of all England or Patriarcha Alterius Orbis I know not whether you may speake it in the Popes stile Volumus jubemus as much to say I would have and then by this reckoning it would surmount I humbly beseech But what 's this other sort of Fishers that you would not have his Majesty to neglect Or what these Anglers
of true piety and the power of true Religion in all those or the most part who are insnared by them Although you call this Weakenesse in those that cry them all down But I hope this weaknesse is So crying especially reaching up to heaven will in time so prevaile with God as to batter them down and to dismount your Canon that holds them up But such consider not Say you that by this meanes their most hated enemies the Jesuites I suppose you meane cry up their cause and not els but by them Surely By them here if rightly taken 't will prove very true you Say By them that is by your Ceremonies For what is there whereby the Jesuites doe more climbe and cry up themselves and their Cause then your crying up of your Ceromonies This they professe in their Bookes and English Pamphlets which they scatter among the People that the Church of England is coming amaine towards Rome as being weary of her Religion or ashamed of it And all this especially since you have climbed up to the top-pinnacle of Canterbury Church And well you Say Their most hated Adversaries You say not Your most hated Addversaries the Iesuites for then you should account Jesuites no better then Puritans Though I think your Lordship can give no great good reason why the Jesuites should be the Most hated enemies of those that most cry down your Ceremonies except you will give the Jesuites precedencie of you in persecuting those men But I say your Zeale for Ceremonies is a fiery Chariot to carry the Jesuites to that heaven of their happinesse to wit Englands Reconciliation with Rome which is hastened and advanced by nothing so much as by hoysing up of Altars and other Idolatrous Superstitions and puting downe of good Ministers and all true Religion This this is the Ladder by which Jesuites Climbe up not now to the top of Tyburne but to the top of their Mount Tabor beholding the Church of England transformed into the Church of Rome being also so exceedingly helped up and advanced by this your handy worke now published for that end L. p. 21. In this insuing Discourse I have indeavoured to lay open those wider Gates of the Catholick Church c. P. So you have indeed having set open Englands broad Gates that That Great Whore of Babylon with all her Train and Trinkets her Superstitions and Idolatries may have the more easie reentry without so much as the ruffling of her Ruffe Nay rather then fayle as the Trojans at the Subtile Counsell of their perjured Sinon brake downe a great part of their City-wall to let in the Trojan horse which unknown to them was full of armed Greeks their Enemies by which meanes their City was surprized sacked and burnt So you having been a great Instrument of not onely Seting open the broad Gates and making them wider then they were before but of pulling downe the Walls and Bulwarks of the Church of England to wit in Suppressing Gods Word and Supplanting the most Painefull and Godly Ministers as the Watchmen of the City yea the Chariots and Hose-men of Israel and having prepared it by the Setting up of your Altars and Superstitious Service and Devotion attending thereupon all conformable to Rome doe in this your Book now published as with open voyce proclaime how happy a thing it were that the Church of England and of Rome were perfectly reconciled and reunited Againe you have in this also layd open those wider gates of your Catholick Church in that therein you have in some respects made those broad Gates that lead to destruction wider then they were before For at after in your Booke you can find a broad way for the silly ignorant Papists to find Salvation in the Church of Rome and so to be Saved living and dying in the Roman Faith But of this in its due place Onely you have altogether shut the Gates of the Catholick Church against all Reformed Churches beyond the Seas as having no Prelates and therefore no Churches As hath been noted You adde The Catholicke Church confined to no Age Time or Place nor knowing any bounds but that Faith which was once and but once for all delivered to the Saints Jude 3. P. My Lord what have you to doe with the Saints faith except that you indeavour to destroy it Or with those Saints except to persecute and root them out Or would you make us beleeve that you are one of those Saints Certainly then you must become another-gates Man then as yet you have shewed yourselfe to be Your Tyranny your Hypocrisie your Superstitions your Persecutions your Reconciliation with Rome must be utterly abandoned Except by continuing in them you hope to be the next Canonized Saint to Ignatius the Father and Founder of the Jesuites Society Lately Canonized by his Holinesse at Rome for his good Service for the Catholick Cause and so may you haply after 100. yeares come to be Canonized for the notable Service you have done in the Church of England for the Church of Rome if ever you shall bring them to a perfect Reconciliation And as for that Faith you Speake of as the bound of the Catholicke Church which you say you and Rome doe both professe we shall have occasion hereafter to speake more largely of it L. p. 22. I have delivered with a single heart that truth which I professe P. What truth it is which you professe we have in part already discovered in this your Dedicatory and shall further and more fully in your insuing Discourse But with what singlenesse of heart you have done it that we leave to the Judge of all hearts Onely where we find your hypocrisie so palpable as that we cannot chuse but use it as a Perspective to see into the constitution of your heart as where we find your words so directly contradicting your deeds and practises the clearest Indexes of your mind expressed and written in Capitall Letters we doe not spare to informe you of it both because the heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know it So as your own heart when you think it single may double with you and that others also taking warning by such a dangerous example as the greatest Prelate of England may not also be deceived and seduced by your deep dissimulations L. ibid. In the publishing whereof I have obeyed your Majesty discharged my duty to my power to the Church of England given account of the hope that is in me and so testified to the world that Faith in which I have lived and by Gods blessing and favour purpose to dye P. For your obedience to his Majesty we say no more having touched before how strong that backe had need to be that beares all your burthens so intolerable to be borne But is this the discharge of the duty of the Metropolitane of all England to the Church of England to compile and publish such a Booke to reconcile England with
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
and so no title to Gods Grace either to accompany or assist it When Christ tooke his Farewell of the Apostles he left his Commission with them for the Ministry of his Word and Sacraments and thereupon gave a Promise of his continuall assisting grace to them and to all his faithfull true Ministers of his Word successively to the end of the world Goe Saith he and teach all nations baptizing them c. teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you And Loe I am with you alway even unto the end of the world Now 't is plaine as is both shewed before and will yet more that your present Church being Prelaticall and Hierarchicall is a false and Antichristian Church a Church of Priests of a strange Order not of Christs institution nor your Government of Christs ordinance and so your Church is of no Auhority nor doe you faithfully and truely preach the Word and administer the Sacraments but with the mixture of your owne Superstitious devises nor doe you teach men to observe all things whatsoever Christ commanded in his word and hath left written in the Scripture but on the contrary you suppresse the preaching of his word and oppresse his faithfull Ministers and by publick Authority assumed make voyd Christs eternall Law as before So as Gods people have cause to take up that complaint and prayer of David It is time for thee Lord to worke for they have made voyd thy Law And therefore that promise of Christ to his Apostles and true Ministers of the Gospell pertaines not to you and so not to any of your usurped Authority and pretended Tradition of your present Church But you proceed L. p. 85. After the morall perswasion reason and force of the present Church there is ground enough to move any reasonable man that it is fit he should read the Scripture and esteeme very reverently and highly of it And this once done the Scripture hath then In and home Arguments enough to put a soule that hath but ordinary Grace out of doubt that the Scripture is the word of God infallible and Divine P. The same man Still But what if as with the Church of Rome and the Jesuites your present Church of England doth hold this Paradox so She should take up Romes practise and by your Authority forbid all men the reading of the Scriptures but such onely as shal be thought fit to be dispensed withall to read it We know not what you may doe if once you can obtain voyces in Convocation as what may not you doe to make this your bare assertion and Antichristian opinion an Irrefragable Canon of the present Church of England That men ought not to presume to read the Scriptures till the Authority of the present Church hath made way and her Tradition cleared their understanding and taught and informed their Soules and thereupon very reverently and highly esteeme of it For this is the Cleare Summe of your words here No reading of the Scriptures no esteeming highly and reverently of it no In and home Arguments enough to puâ— a soule out of doubt that Scripture is the word of God Infallible and Divine So as till he be perswaded hereof 't is but vaine and frivolous for a man to read the Scriptures and this perswasion he cannot have till after the morall perswasion reason and force of the present Church And here I note again how you put the Tradition of your present Church single and alone forgetting to Second it with Gods Grace which doth but confirme what I said before that Gods Grace Ordinary Grace when you doe mention it it is but when you stumble upon it and it stands but for a Stale it is your Tradition and Authority of the present Church that is all in all But you proceed L. p. 85 86. Thirdly you to wit A. C. pretend that we make the Scripture absolutely and fully knowne Lumine suo by the light and testimony which it hath in and giveth to it selfe c. We doe not Say that there is such a full light in Scripture as that every man upon the first sight must yeeld to it The Question is onely of such a light in Scripture as is of force to breed Faith not to make a perfect knowledge P. The pretence of A. C. herein was not without just cause onely he considered not what the present Church of England now under your Primacy doth hold So as you should or might have shaped your Answere thus A. C. Distingue tempora Distinguish the times Know you not who sits now in the Chaire of Canterbury True it is that formerly the Church of England or rather some private men all or most of the Divines thereof that have written of this Subject allthough very learned I confesse and of great note place and ranke in the Church in their time held and writ so against you but that was onely their private opinion though all their Bookes were published by Authority But what 's all this to the Church of England now Now you may heare and understand by me who am the voyce of the present Church of England that it is otherwise And what you doe pretend I doe thus interpret We doe not Say c. But what doe you not Say We doe not Say that there is such a full light in Scripture as that every man upon the first sight must yeeld to it How So perhaps not any hath Said Yet this all our Orthodox Divines before you have said That there is such a full light in Scripture as that every man by the thorow and serious reading over of the Scripture hath sufficient evidence therein to convince him as to yeeld it to be the very word of God And if he doe not therupon yeeld the defect is not in the Scripture but in himself But at first sight This is a miserable shift and poore put off to answere fully to the Jesuites pretence or rather true assertion For in this he saith true that we to wit all the Orthodox Divines of the Church of England as aforesaid do hold the Scripture absolutely and fully to be known lumine suo by the light and testimony which it hath in and gives to it self Only we do not make it so as you expresse the Jesuite but we find know and beleeve it to be so But they never said At first sight This is your owne Flam. But what our â—ormer Divines have written hereof they have with such Arguments confirmed as not you with all your Divines of note and worth of which you patch up your present Church of England are able to Answere oudè gru not one word or Syllable But come we to the Question as you State it The Question is say you onely of such a light in Scripture as is of force to breed faith not to make a perfect knowledge And what 's your resolution of this Question of your own Stating Do you yeeld thus much that there
as then in Norfolke and Suffolke and Essex while these godly and painfull Ministers preached the word of God it did as the Apostle saith trékein run or diarrusai flow forth like the waters in the Sanctuary When Paul was prisoner at Rome and yet had liberty to preach the word for in those dayes Les Diables estroyent encores en Leur Donat the Devil was but a Grammer Scholar and had not learned in Machiavels Schoole to be one of Antichrists Statesmen to shut Ministers up in the Inquisition-house that they shall never tell Tales more in the Pulpit he Said For the which I am a Prisoner in bonds but the word of God is not bound So as while Gods Ministers are not restrained from preaching the word of God but that they freely preach it without impeachment it may be truly said The word of God is not bound But on the contrary when Godly and painfull Ministers are silenced then it may alike truly be sayd The word of God is bound I will recollect all and conclude with a Syllogisme If the free Preaching of Gods word be the liberty of it and the silencing of Gods faithfull Ministers be a binding of Gods word then the freeing of such silenced Ministers is the restoring of Gods word to its libetty But the free Preaching of Gods word is the liberty of it and the silencing of Gods faithfull Ministers Therefore the freeing of silenced Ministers is the restoring of Gods word to its liberty The consequence of the Antecedent cannot be denyed and the Minor is the Apostles in that place forealedged so as here is nothing left for you to deny but the Conclusion And that 's enough for you Yet might those Ministers have but eqâ—all Law and liberty to plead their Cause against you they would easily purge themselves from such an aspersion of being Factious when some of your party would prove to be deep enough plunged at least in a Premunire to say no more were not the Laws asleep and in this case in as much bondage as the Gospell I passe from the matter of your Ipswich Newes to the Author And it would be News to tell us truly who that might be But all the tidings you can tell us of him is by certain marks to describe him unto us And those are three 1. Is H.B. which in your Book set out concerning those three foresaid bitter men and which you read in the Starre-Chamber before all the Court at their Censure you set in the margent over against those passages which you cite out of Ipswich News This is one of your marks although as I said before and as I have it by very credible intelligence he was not the Author of it and therfore you take and have set your first mark amisse for H. B. it was not And yet this mark falsly set became the occasion of the seting on of the second mark and that was an Eare-marke and that upon both the Eares for failing and that closse to the head which escaped scarce a hayres breadth and this upon the Pillory that some thousands of beholders might be witnesses of it The third mark I find here in your margent in this form †a Crucifix I cannot call it but it is next unto it a Crosse it is and very like to Christs Crosse and as like to that Pillory wherein H. B. stood as can be A fit mark therfore for him whom you had so marked before So as if any inquire of this Author who it should be your Book can shape him a ready answere Ecce signum Loe here a signe of that Pillory on which he suffered In the last place you call him here in scorn and through the nose as Tertullian speakes in another case of an Hereticke the Godly Author of the late Newes from Ipswich and all this he may do by Authority that sits in Cathedrâ— derisorum in the scorners chaire making a mock of all true Religion Godlinesse and honesty And thus you cease not still to persecute the poore Man every kind of way here by â—ruell mocking as the Apostle speakes But he but drinks of the same Cup which his Lord and Master drunk of before him And all these things you load Christs Servant withall shall but make his crown the more glorious For I heare he indures that his perpetuall closse Imprisonment and Banishment from Wife Children Friends Countrey all with as great a continued magnanimity as he did his standing and suffering on the Pillory L. ibid. I ever tooke Sermons and so do still to be most necessary expositions and applications of holy Scripture and a great ordinary meanes of Saving knowledge But I cannot thinke them or the preachers of them divinely infallible The Antient Fathers of the Church preached farre beyond any of these of either Faction and yet no one of them durst thinke himselfe infallible much lesse that whatsoever he preached was the word of God And it may be observed too that no men are more apt to say that all the Fathers were but men and might erre then they that think their own preachings are infallible P. Here you acknowledge Sermons to be necessary expositions and applications of holy Scripture and a great ordinary meanes of saving knowledge Doe you so Have you indeed ever taken them to be so And so still indeed What still What all this while that you have been and are a most notorious persecuter of and rooter out of godly Preachers whom your late Brother White in Scorne in his Book of the Sabbath or rather against the Sabbath calls Sermonders And is there a generation or profession of men above ground whom you hate more then these If you ever took Sermons to be such why do you continually take the Preachers themselves in your nets and so devoure them Are Sermons necessary expositions and applications of Scripture and that by your owne confession Then the greater your condemnation that take away this Key of Knowledge And that they be a great meanes of Saving knowledge Then why do you not onely suffer the people to perish for want of them but chase away good Pastors from them Thus are you not guilty of the blood of so many thousand Soules and have pronounced the sentence of condemnation against your selfe with your own mouth And thus doth not the nakednesse of your notorious and shamelesse hipocrisie discover it selfe to all the world while you professe in words one thing and in your deeds practise the contrary But you give the reason your selfe because you take Sermons to be such as you say therefore you persecute the Preachers of them Neither yet come you full home to the truth in giving Sermons their due for all your sugred words Sermons I meane the plain powerfull and sound preaching of Gods word by explication and application You say they are great meanes of sound knowledge You doe not say so of Sermons as of your externall
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
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
in matters of faith as the Shrine of your Predecessor S. Thomas of Canterbury with the keyes of his blind votaries And so much the more in these dayes as wherein you have put all England to a stand and stagger what to beleeve in point of Faith considering that the Articles of Religion like Meteors hang in suspense in the ayre no man knowing what to make of them whether they be white or blacke or what such Comets portend untill to that Edict of the Court that binds up the sense of the Articles fast asleep or in a slumber between Hawke and Buzzard or as a speaking in a dreame you shall superadde the Definitive Decree of the Chaire of Canterbury to interpret unto us what they have dreamed all this while But I suppose the Board calling you so much away from your Chaire you are the more willing and that in such a case of necessity to send all the faithfull to your Ordine primus at Rome and to Peters Chaire there if any such thing be there which may like Iunoes three footed stoole resolve all their doubts And so as you say to A C. Rome may thanke you for it But alwayes provided tha◠Rome first reduce her selfe as you say to the Observation of Tradition Apostolicke and then you will say Latinè plainly That it wil be then necessary for every Church and for the faithfull every where to agree with it to have recourse to Rome and to rest their Faith there where is the most Powerfull Principality And thus as well as I could I have pickt up your meaning wherein if I have come short you must pardon me and blame your selfe for your being no more perspicuous in matters of such moment as about consulting of Oracles considering that that of Apollo and Delphos was long agoe put to silence But to proceed L. p. 199. The Bishop of Rome hath no power from Christ over the whole Church to be Iudge in Controversies nay out of all doubt 't is not the least reason why de facto he hath so little successe because de Jure he hath no power given P. Not over the whole Church This seems to imply that the Bishop of Rome hath a power from Christ to be Iudge in Controversies over all the Churches at least within his own more powerfull Principality And consequently that the Primate of Canterbury hath the like power from Christ to be Judge in Controversies over the whole Church of England If you have yet it wil be some ease to the English that they have an Oracle so neare home to resolve them in all doubts so as they need not as formerly go trudge to Rome for the matter But neither to the Pope in his Powerfull Principality nor to you in your Primacy hath Christ given any power at all to be Judge in Controversies of Faith And because you have no Calling nor Commission from Christ therfore 't is true you say in this that the Pope hath no better successe And I pray you what successe have you had since you took upon you to sway the Crosier staffe of Canterbury and to be Judge in Controversies of Faith making and raysing controversies there where there was none before as namely in the Articles of Religion 'T is true you have put many a good Minister to Silence thrust many a one out of his Cure and Countrey levied your way for an universall Conformity to Rome prevailed much in your Designes that way but yet have you any great cause to boast of your successe all things Considered I say no more Verbum sapienti you understand me well enough And certainly when you cast up your reckoning you will find your selfe to be as much behind hand for successe as you do the Pope And your Reason is true because you have no power no Authority no Calling no Commission from Christ either to possesse such a place or to execute such an Office For as the Lord saith in Ieremie speaking of false Prophets I sent them not neither commanded them therfore they shall not profit this people at all saith the Lord. So neither have you reason to thinke that because you may do what you list in turning things upside down in seting up your Altars in suppressing Gods word in oppressing Gods Ministers in advancing your Arminian and Popish faction and you hitherto prosper therein while there is never a man left that dare so much as mutter a word against these your practises so great is your Power and so terrible your Cruelty and Ministers so Cowardly so as by this meanes your Cause and Course seems to prosper while you can crush any that shall interpose himselfe or lawfully in his place oppose your violent courses therfore Christ hath given you this power thus to tyrannise wherein you doe so prosper True it is that Christ hath given way to Satan to rage in these times because he knows he hath but a short time and hereby Christ will try and humble his people that he may doe them good and be glorified in their deliverance and in the destruction of all such Papall and Antichristian Tyranny L. p. 200. The Church being as large as the world Christ thought it fitter to governe it Aristocratically by Divers rather then by One Viceroy And I beleeve that this is true For all the time of the first 300. yeares and somwhat bettter it was governed Aristocratically to wit by the Bishops c. P. Here you give us occasion further to launch into the Deep of this Mystery that we may sound the bottome of it and so discerne what ground it floats upon mudde or sand or both although we have in part discovered it before Here you say and you say you beleeve it too it is an Article of your Creed that Christ thought it fitter to govern the Church Aristocratically by diverse rather then by one Viceroy And you give the Reason The Church being as large as the world We will first take an Assay of your words and then of your Reason For to a vulgar Reader some of your words are somwhat obscure and some also very finely couched that every eye cannot at the first discerne the Mystery of them And first for Aristocratically Aristotle the famous Philosopher and no meane statesman in his Politicks layes down 3 kinds of Civil Government taken in the better part The first is Monarchia which is a government by One the second is Aristocratia which is a Government of the Best Men the third is Democratia which is a Government Popular or of the People Opposite to these three he sets three sorts of bad Government the first is Tyranny which is opposed to Monarchy Tyranny ruling either without or contrary to the good Laws established but a Monarchy governing according to the established good Laws of the State Kingdome or Common-weale The second is Oligarchia which signifies the Government of a few and this standing in opposition to Aristocratia
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
They are taught this one Maine Principle That they must be saved not by Faith onely but by their good Works whereby they must merit their Salvation Now this all Papists learned and unlerned professe This unlesse they cease to be Papist they live and dye in and so they are necessarily and certainly damned For to adde any thing to Faith in Iustification is damnation as before it shewed And saith the Prophet They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy But Thirdly you say They may be saved so they conforme to a Religious life Now what is the Religious life of a Papist and especially of a silly ignorant Papist Namely to goe to Shrief or Confession to the Priest his Ghostly Father as often as may be as the Fernall Glory published by your Chapleins licence teacheth or at the least once a yeare against Easter to keep his Lent-fast strictly so as upon paine of damnation or greivous penance not to eat an egge all that time and so observe all othor Fasting-dayes in the yeare together with all Holydayes to say over their Beads every day in repeating their Pater Noster Ave Mary Creed and ten Commandements â—f either they be so learned or devout to goe to their dayly Masse and Mattens where it is their safety to understand never a word nor to say Amen to the Priest but by the sound of his voyce which they understand no more then the chattering of a Magpy to call upon such a Saint his speciall Mediator and say a Pater Noster and Ave Mary before such an Image and especially of their Lady and a thousand such like observations wherein a Popish Religious life consisteth And so this is the Religious life of your ignorant silly Papist wherin living and dying he may be saved if he may beleeve your Doctrine But to this you adde An humble and peaceable obedience To What Or to whom As to the Priests Ghostly Discipline when he injoynes sore penance as whipping-cheare in Lent or the like Or if you meane peaceable obedience to the Civil Magistrate as in England that must be according to their Ghostly Fathers direction and limitation they must not take the Oath of Supremacy nor in some cases the Oath of Allegiance when it makes for the Catholick Cause And though to satisfie the Law and save his purse he come once a moneth to Church and heare your service yet Sermon he must not heare especially if the Preacher be Puritannicall for that might turn him quite from his Popery And thus such partly by their peaceable civill life and partly by their humble Popish Religious life so living and dying may be saved And therfore to such silly Ignorants we must not deny salvation Why so For first We have not so learned Christ say you Wee What wee Wee to wit you and your present Church of England And surely you had not need to deny salvation to that Church with which you and your Church is one and the same Church least otherwise you might leave your selves as little hope of salvation as others doe them But this is a piece of your learning of Christ it seems to beleeve that a silly ignorant Papist that knows not the right hand from the left that is drowned in Ignorance blindnesse superstition Idolatry Infidelity and as a drowned man knows it not may securely wrappe himselfe in the shrowd or mantle of his silly ignorance and so goe to heaven Thus have you learned Christ. But Wee Wee I say that renounce all communion with the Whore of Babylon and with all her Abominations have not so learned Christ as having heard him and been taught by him as the truth is in Iesus as to beleeve there is salvation to be hoped for of any but such as walke according to Christs rule and live and dye in his Faith And what 's Christs rule Even that which follows in the same place vers 22 To put off and renounce the former conversation of the Old Man which is corrupt according to the deceitfull lusts waâ—king v. 18. in the vanity of our minds having the understanding darkened being alienated from the life of God through ignorance as the Gentiles because of the blindnesse of their heart who being past feeling have given themselves to all â—â—sâ—viousnesse to worke all uncleannes with greedinesse Wherupon the Apostle addes But have not so learned Christ so as to thinke to be saved in a Heathenish life drowned in ignorance from which you cannot distinguish the life of an ignorant Papist except that it is infinitely more stupid and fuller of grosse ignorance and all abominations then the Heathen were and saving that Papists professe the name of Christians We have not I say so learned Christ. What is then the learning of Christ To put off the Old Man and that ye be saith the Apostle renewed in the spirit of your mind putting on the New man which after God is created in Righteousnesse and true Holinesse This is the learning of Christ. So as without this learning neither any silly ignorant Papist nor the most pregnant acute learned Arch-Prelate can be saved We must have both the Righteousnesse of justification by Faith imputed and of Sanctification of the spirit of Christ inherent and shining forth in a holy life and conversation It is not a Pope-holynesse in keeping of a Lent fast or worshiping of an Altar and such like counterfeit holines of mans devising This you learne not of Christ. For Christ saith In vaine they worship me teaching for Doctrines the Commadements of men or humane Traditions This holinesse saves not but shuts men out of the Kingdome of Heaven But secondly You call it stifnesse and churlishnesse in Protestants to deny all Papists salvation We shall by and by see your Charity to Papists which is so extreame great as we need not wonder at your malice against those some Protestants you speake it Is it stifnesse to avouch the truth And if they do bebaiousthai as the Apostle exhorteth Titus constantly affirme what not onely is truth but also necessary to be spoken as being a matter of such moment and consequence as concernes the savation of soules by denying salvation to whom it belongeth not and when men are seduced in a false perswasion therof call you this churlishnesse Certainly this churlishnesse in so denying is better then your charity in affirming a falshood Nay what will you say if this which you call churlishnesse be found to be true Charity when your Charity will be found to be deadly hatred against the soule of that silly ignorant Papist For true Charity ever consists with verity els it is no Charity but vanity Now those Protestants which deny salvation to all Papists living and dying in the Roman faith doe it upon sound and solid grounds even upon cleare evidence of Scripture For the Roman Faith is not the true Christian Faith as we have proved And without the true Christian Faith
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
Government is nothing according to our Great Kings Laws but according to your own devised Canons and in nothing in Nothing I say agreeable to the Laws of Christ in the Scripture for the right Government of his Church Nay that Government which Christ hath prescribed in his word and which is practised in the best Reformed Churches beyond the Seas you doe utterly and openly condemn and the Churches themselves that doe practise the Discipline of Christ and his Apostles while you deny them to be any Churches of Christ at all Againe Every Kingdome as it hath but one King over it so it is capapable of no more then onely one Vice-Roy so as by that Title he that is your Ordine Primus and hath a more Potent Principality the Pope had he but a good Title would carry that honour from you all if you value the worth and Dignity of that Vice-Royship after the value of your Bishopricks and not after vertue Either then you must acknowledge the Pope to be the sole Vice-Roy which you are loth to doe For why should not the Patriarch of the other world be as capable of that honour as he or you must give us leave to find out the onely true Vice-Roy of Christ in his Church and that is The Holy Ghost For when our Great King went into his Celestiall Kingdome to his Church Tryumphant leaving his Militant here on Earth under the Kingdome of Grace as touching his bodily presence he sent the Holy Ghost to be his Vice-Roy or Vice-Gerent to be perpetually resident in his Kingdome of Grace here for the Governing of his Church Militant and that according to the Law of Christ in his written word leading the People of Christ into all truth by revealing unto them all the Mysteryes of Christs will contained in the Scripture As Christ saith He shall gâ—orifie Me for he shall receive of mine and shew it unto you And v. 13. When the spirit of Truth is come whom v. 7. I will send unto you he will guide you into all Truth for he shall not speake of himselfe but whatsoever he shall heare that shall he speake Loe here then a faithfull Vice-Roy indeed And will or dare you deny this Spirit of God to be an All sufficient Vice-Roy who doth execute Christs Kingly Office in his Church in all things just so as Christ himselfe willâ—th And therfore except you can prove that Christ hath many Kingdomes of Grace here on earth or any more Churches Militant then one onely here is no Rome for any such Vice-Roys as you pretend to be For here we see it plain that of Christs one and onely Kingdome of Grace here on earth the Holy Ghost is the onely Vice-Roy And who is fit to be Christs Vice-Roy in his spirituall Kingdome but the Spirit of God and of Christâ— Ye are therfore no Vice-Roys because you are altogether carnall and your Kingdome is of this world And therfore Thirdly how can you Prelates pretend to be Vice-Roys over Christs Church whenas as is noted before ye are not so much as any members at all of Christs Kingdome For you are the Members of Antichrists Kingdome and so you are or may be Antichrists Vice-Roys over his severall Provinces 'T is true you style your selves spirituall Lords spirituall and your Courts spirituall and you are an Hierarchy as much to say as a Holy Kingdome or Government but it is not spirituall of Christs spirit but of that spirit that ruleth in the ayre that gave you all that Authority So as you do with Bellarmine turne those words of Christ to Peter Pasce oves meas Feed my Sheep to Regio more Impera Rule as a King And what similitude is there between Christ and you that you should be his Vice-Roys in his Church-Militant When he was here in person he was among his own as a servant and Minister He had no staâ—ely and Princely Palaces he kept no such Pontificiall house nor Court he governed not his Church by Chancellors Arch Deacons Deanes Chapters Commissâ—â—â—â—s Offiâ—ialls Pursuivants Apparitors and all that Rabble Christ had no such face of a Kingly Government So as you have altogether perverted the Kingdome of Christ which is altogether spirituall and holy into a meere temporall and carnall Kingdome wherein therfore you are none of Christ Vice-Roys but Viâ—ious Roys and Tyrannicall Lords O Antichâ—istian Generation O notorious Hypocrites O proud and blind Guides How shall you escape the vengeance to come that dare thus impiously abâ—se the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ and so impose upon the world by your bold usurpations Vsurpations indeed You call your selvs Vice-Roys Apostolicke Bishops Spirituall Church Grace Holinesse meere Nominalls which you have usurped and patched together to become a veile to cover your deep hypocrisie and to seem glorious in the eyes of the world and all to hold up your earthly Kingdome which consists altogether of earthly things honours riches pleasures But blind world that suâ—ferest thy selfe to be thus guld and befoold with such glittering stuffe and to be made a slave to such Lords and to be cheated of thy salvavation by these Antichristian Mountebanks And yet they pretend and professe that this their carnall pompous and Pontificiall Kingdome is Christs spirituall Kingdome here in the state of Grace Let them then cleare themselves herein from that damned Heresy of that old Heretick â—erinthus who lived in S. Iohns time His Heresy was That Christs Kingdome after his Resurrection was earthly and that now the flesh conversing in Ierusalem was to serve lusts and pleasures See Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib 3. cap. 22. Now is not the Prelates Kingdome just that in practise with Cerinthus his Heresy If so As S. Iohn forsook the Bath wherein Cerinthus was what cause have Christians to fly from that roofe where such an Antichristian Hierarchy domineereth But in the next place let 's consider of your Reason How stands it good that because Christs Church is as large as the world therfore he thought it fitter to governe it by Diverse then by One Vice-Roy Now we have proved your Hierarchy not to be an Aristocrasie a Government of the Best men and that by good Laws seeing therfore you must needs be some Government then it must be an Olegarchie that is the Government of a few of the worse men such as rule by their lusts and not by any good Laws either of God or Man But now tell me my Lord if you argue upon this ground that because the Militant Church is as large as the world therfore 't is fitter it be governed by many Vice Roys then by one why may not aswell one Prelate as the Pope be sole Vice-Roy over the whole world as my Lord of Canterbury be a Vice-Roy over all England For doth not the Pope and you Governe your Churches by substitutes Why then may not the Pope Governe the whole by his Curates as you doe all England by your Curates For