gifts may be lost we never denyed it The special gifts that accompany salvation some of us judge are never lost others of us think are left only by those that are not predestinate as Austin thought and your Dominicans think And what cause is here of your quarrell His eleventh Accusation is this Scripture saith that God taketh away and blotteth out our iniquity as a cloud and puts our iniquities far from us as the East is from the West and maketh us as white as snow You say that he takes not away nor blotteth out our sin but only doth not impute it and doth not make us white as snow but leaveth in us the fault and uncleaness of sin which Scripture no where speaks Answ This is half falshood and half confusion raked up to make a matter of quarrel with 1. It s false that we say He doth not take away nor blot out our sin nor make us white as snow Do not all Protestants in the world affirm all this 2. There are these things here considerable 1. The Act of sin 2. The Habit 3. The guilt or obligation to punishment 4. The culpability or reatus culpae 1. As for the Act how can you for shame say that God takes it away when it is a transient act that is gone of it self as soon as acted and hath no existence as Scotus and all your own take notice 2. As to the Culpability you will not sure for shame say that God so put away e. g. Davids Adultery as to make it reputable as a vertue or not a vice 3. As to the Reatus ad paenam the full Guilt we maintain that it is done quite away and if your eyes be in your head you may see that it is in regard of this guilt and punishment that the Scriptures mentioned by you speak or principally speak at least For I pray you tell us what else can they mean when they speak of actual sins that are past long ago and have no existence Learned wranglers would you make us believe that Grace is given to David to put away the Act of his Murder and Adultery so that it may be quid praeteritum non jam existens a thing past and gone which it is without grace so that when you feign us to say that God takes not away sin but only not imputeth it you feign us to make synonymal terms to be of different sences He takes them away by not imputing them 4. But if you speak not of the sence of a particular Text but of the Matter in difference it can be nothing but the habit of sin that you mean that we say that God takes not away And here you play partly the Calumniators and partly the erroneous Pharisees 1. You Calumniate in feigning us to deny that habitual sin is done away Because our Divines say that it is not the work of meer pardon which we call Justification to put it away therefore you falsly say that we hold it is not put away at all whereas we hold without one contradicting vote that ever I read or heard that all that are Justified are Sanctified Converted Regenerate Renewed and must live an holy life And that all their sins are so far destroyed that they shall not have dominion over them that Gross and Wilfull sin they forsake and the least infirmities they groan and pray and strive against to the last and then obtain a perfect conquest 2. But if you mean that no degree of habitual or dispositive sin or absence of holy qualities remaineth in the Justified soul it is a Pharasaical error yea worse then a Pharisee durst have owned And it seems this is your meaning by the words of Calvins which you cite And dare you say that you have no sin to resist or purge or pardon Are you in Heaven already The whole have no need of the Physitian but the sick and have you no need of Christ to heal your soul would you be no better then you are O proud souls and strange to themselves and the purity of the Law Hath not the Holy Ghost pronounced him a Lyar and Self-deceiver that saith he hath no sin 1 Joh. 1. 8. 10. In many things we offend all Jam. 3. 2. I shall but recite to you two Canons of a Council which if you use the Lords prayer are fit for you to consider Concil Milevit cont Pelagianos Can. 7. Item placuit ut quicunque dixerit in Oratione Dominica ideo dicere sanctos Dimitte nobis Debita nostra ut non pro seipsis hoc dicant quia non est eâ— jam necessaria ista sed pro aliis qui sunt in suo populo peccatores ideo non dicere unumquemque sanctorum Dimitte mihi debita mea sed Dimitte nobis debita nostra ut hoc pro aliis potius quam pro se Justus petere intelligatur Anathema sit Can. 8. Item placuit ut quicunque verba ipsa Dominicae Orationis ubi dicimus Dimitte nobis debita nostra ista volunt à Sanctis dici ut humiliter non veraciter hoc dicatur Anathema fit Quis enim ferat Oraâ—tem non hominibus sed ipsi Domino mentientem qui labiis sibi dicit dimitti velle Corde dicit quae sibi dimittantur debita non habere You see here the Council curseth all those as intolerable Lyars that say the Lords prayer desiring him daily to forgive or remit their sins and yet think that they have no sins to forgive yea or that every Saint hath not such sins What can a Papist say to this but by making Councils as void of sence as they feign the holy Scriptures to be Hus twelfth and last Accusation is this The Scripture saith that Blessedness in the Reward the Prize the Penny the wages of Labourers and the Crown of Righteousness you contend that its meerly the free gift of God and not a Reward which no Scripture doth affirm Answ A meer Calumny and perverting of Calvins words who often saith as we constantly do that Eternal life is given as a Reward and Crown of Righteousness But we distinguish between the Act of God in his Gospel Promise which is a Conditional Deed of Gift of Christ and Life to all that will Accept them and the execution of this by Judgement and Glorification And we say that it was Antecedenter meerly of Gods free Grace that he made such a Deed of Gift the blood of Christ being the purchasing cause and nothing of our works had a handin the procurement Dare you deny this But that our Justification in Judgement and our Glorification which are the Execution of the Law of Grace do make our works the Reason not as having merited it ex proportione operis or in Commutative Justice but as having performed the condition of the free Gift and so being the persons to whom it doth belong And this is the sense of Scotus and of one half of the Papists for still you
the Papists to call for express Scripture for these that are not Articles of Faith in proper sence CHAP. XLIV Detect 35. ONE of their Practical Deceits consisteth in the choosing of such persons to dispute with against whom they find that they have some notable advantage 1. Commonly they deal with women and ignorant people in secret who they know are not able to gainsay their falsest silliest reasonings 2. If they deal with a Minister it is usually with one that hath some at least of these disadvantages 1. Either with some young or weak unstudyed man that is not verst in their way of Controversie 2. Or one that is not of so voluble and plausible a tongue as others For they know how much the tonguing and toning of the matter doth take with the common people 3. Or with one that hath a discontented people that bear him some ill will and are ready to hearken to any one that contradicteth him 4. Or else with one that hath fixt upon some unwarrantable notions and is like to deal with them upon terms that will not hold And if they see one hole in a mans way of arguings they will turn all the brunt of the Contention upon that as if the discovery of his peculiar Error or weakness were the Confutation of his Cause And none give them greater advantage here then those that run into some contrary extream They think to be Orthodox by going as far from Popery as the furthest About many notions in the matter of Justification Certainty of Salvation the nature of Faith the use of Works c. they will be sure to go with the furthest And a Jesuite will desire no better sport then to have the baiting of one that holds any such opinion as he knows himself easily able to disgrace One unsound Opinion or Argument is a great disadvantage to the most learned Disputant Most of all the insultings and success of the Papists is from some such unsound passages that they pick up from some Writers of our own as I said before And they set all those together and tell the world that This is the Protestant Religion Just as if I should give the Description of a Nobleman from all the blemishes that ever I saw in any Nobleman As if I have seen one crook-backt another blind another lame another dumb another deaf another a whoremonger another a drunkard c. I should say that A Nobleman is a whoremonger and drunkard c. that hath neither eyes nor ears nor limbs to bear him c. So deal they by Protestants And what a Character could we give of Papists on these terms But I would intreat all the Ministers of Christ to take heed of giving them any such advantage By over-doing and running too far into contrary extreams you will sooner advantage them and give them the day then the weakest Disputants that stand on safer grounds Inconsiderate heat and self-conceitedness and making a faction of Religion is it that carryeth many into extreams when Judgement and Charity and Experience are all for Moderation and standing on safe ground A Davenant a Lud. Crocius a Camero a Dallaeus c. will more successfully confute an Arminian then a Maccovius a so it is here The world sees in the Answer of Knot what an advantage Chillingworth had by his Principles when the Jesuite having little but the reproachful slander of a Socinian name and cause to answer with hath lost the day and shewed the world how little can be said for Popery CHAP. XLV Detect 36. ANother of their Practical frauds is in seeking to Divide the Protestants among themselves or to break them into Sects or poyson the ductile sort with Heresies and then to draw them to some odious practises to cast a disgrace on the Protestant Cause In this and such Hellish practises as this they have been more successful then in all their Disputations But whether the Cause be of Heaven or Hell that must be thus upheld I leave to the considerate to judge What they have done abroad in this way I leave others to enquire that are more fit But we all smart by what they have done at home Yet this I may well say that if their own secular Priests are to be believed as Watson and many more It is their Jesuites that have set many Nations in those flames whose cause the world hath not observed And I may well set down the words of a Priest of their own John Brown aged seventy two in his Voluntary Confession to a Committee of Parliament as it is in Mr. Prins Introduct pag. 202. Saith he The whole Christian world doth acknowledge the prediction which the University of Paris doth foresee in two several Decrees they made Anno 1565. When the Society of Jesuites did labour to be members of that University Hoc genus hominum natus est ad interitum Christianae Reipubliae subvertionem literarum They were the only cause of the troubles which fell out in Muscovie when under pretence to reduce the Latine Church and plant themselves and destroy the Greek Church the poor King Demetrius and his Queen and those that followed him from Polonia were all in one night murdered by the monstrous Usurper of the Crown and the true progeny rooted out They were the only cause that moved the Swedes to take Arms against their lawfull King Sigismund and chased him to Poland and neither he nor his successors were ever able to take possession of Sweden For the Jesuites intention was to bring in the Romish Religion and root out Protestants They were the only cause that moved the Polonians to take Arms against the said Sigismund because they had perswaded him to marry two sisters one after the other both of the house of Austria They have been the sole cause of the war entered in Germany since the year one thousand six hundred and nineteen as Pope Paulus 15. told the General of their Order called Vicelescus for their avarice pretending to take all the Church lands from the Hussites in Bohemia to themselves which hath caused the death of many thousand by sword famine and pestilence in Germany They have been the cause of civil wars in France during all which time moving the French King to take Arms against his own subjects the Protestants where innumerable people have lost their lives as the siege of Rochell and other places will give sufficient proof For the Jesuites intentions were to set their society in all Cities and Towns conquered by the King and quite to abolish the Protestants They were the cause of the murder of the last King of France They were the only projectors of the Gunpowder Treason and their Penitents the actors thereof They were the only cause namely Father Parsons that incensed the Pope to send so many fulminate Breves to these Kingdoms to hinder the Oath of Allegiance and lawfull Obedience to their temporal Prince that they might still fish in troubled waters Their
whom the care of Religion is committed therefore it belongs to the Pope to judge a King to be deposed or not deposed You see here it is not Lawful for such Christians as the Papists to Tolerate you which may help your judgement in the point of their Toleration Si Christiani saith Bellarib olim non deposuerunt Neronem Valentem Arianum similes id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis You have your Government and we our Lives because the Papists are not strong enough They tell you what to trust to Saith Tollet one of the best of the Jesuites li 1. de Instruct Sacerd. c. 13. They that were bound by the bond of fidelity or Oath shall be freed from such a bond if he fall into Excommunication and during that Debtors are absolved from the obligation of paying to the Creditor that debt that is contracted by words These are no private uneffectual Opinions Saith Pope Pius the 5th himself in his Bull against our Queen Elizabeth Volumus mandamus We will and command that the Subjects take Arms against that Heretical and Excommunicate Queen But their crueltie to mens souls and the Church of Christ doth yet much more declare their uncharitableness It is a point of their Religion to believe that no man can be saved but the Subjects of their Pope as I have after proved and is to be seen in many of their writings as Knot and a late Pamphlet called Questions for Resolution of Unlearned Protestants c. and Bishop Morton hath recited the words of Lindanus Valentia and Vasquez Apol. lib. 2. c. 1. defining is to be of Necessity to Salvation to be subject to the Roman Bishop And would not a man think that for such horrid doctrines as damn the far greatest part of Christians in the world they should produce at least some probable Arguments But what they have to say I have here faithfully detected If we will dispute with them or turn to them the Scripture must be no further Judge then as their Church expoundeth it The Judgement of the Ancient yea or present Church they utterly renounce for the far greatest part is known to be against the Headship of their Pope and therefore they must stand by for Hereticks Tradition it self they dare not stand to except themselves be Judges of it for the greatest part of Christians profess that Tradition is against the Roman Vice-christ The internal sense and experience of Christians they gainsay concluding all besides themselves to be void of charity or saving grace which many a thousand holy souls do find within them that never believed in the Pope Yea when we are content to lay our lives on it that we will shew them the deceit of Popery as certainly and plainly as Bread is known to be Bread when we see it feel and taste it and as Wine is known to be Wine when we see and drink it yet do they refuse even the judgement of sense of all mens senses even their own and others So that we must renounce our honesty our Knowledge of our selves our senses our reason the common experience and senses of all men the Judgement and Tradition of the far greatest part of the present Church or else by the judgement of the Papists we must all be damned Whether such opinions as these should by us be uncontradicted or by you be suffered to be taught your Subjects is easie to discern If they had strength they would little trouble us with Disputing Nothing more common in their Writers scarce then that the Sword or Fire is fitter for Hereticks then Disputes This is hut their after-game Though their Church must rule Princes as the soul ruleth the body yet it must be by Secular Power excommunication doth but give fire it is Lead and Iron that must do the execution And when they are themselves disabled it is their way to strike us by the hands and swords of one another He that saw England Scatland and Ireland a while ago in blood and now sees the lamentable case of so many Protestant Princes and Nations destroying one another and thinks that Papists have no hand in contriving counselling instigating or executing is much a stranger to their Principles and Practices Observing therefore that of all the Sects that we are troubled with there is none but the Papist that disputeth with us with flames and Gun-Powder with Armies and Navies at their backs having so many Princes and so great revenews for their provision I have judged it my duty to God and his Church 1. To Detect the vanity of their cause that their shame may appear to all that are impartial and to do my part of that necessary work for which Vell. Paterculus so much honoured Cicero Hist lib. 2. c. 34. Ne quorum arma viceramus corum ingenio vinceremur And 2. To present with greatest earnestness these following Requests to your Highness on the behalf of the cause and people of the Lord wherein the Papists also shall see that it is not their suffering but only our Necessary Defence that we desire 1. We earnestly request that you will Resolvedly adhere to the cause of Truth and Holiness and afford the Reformed Churches abroad the utmost of your help for their Concord and Defence and never be tempted to own an Interest that crosseth the Interest of Christ How many thousands are studiously contriving the extirpation of the Protestant Churches from the Earth How many Princes are consederate against them The more will be required of you for their aid The serious endeavours of your Renowned Father for the Protestants of Savoy discovered to the world by Mr. Morland in his Letters c. hath won him more esteem in the hearts of many that fear the Lord then all his victories in themselves considered We pray that you may inherit a tender care of the cause of Christ 2. We humbly request that you will faithfully adhere to those that fear the Lord in your Dominions In your eyes let a vile person be contemned but honour them that fear the Lord Psal 15. 4. Know not the wicked but let your eyes be upon the faithfull of the Land Psal 101. 4 6. Compassionate the weak and curable Punish the uncurable restrain the froward but Love and cherish the servants of the Lord. They are under Christ the honour and the strength of the Commonwealth It was a wise and happy King that professed that his Good should extend to the Saints on earth and the excellent in whom was his delight Psal 16. 2 3. This strengthening the vitals is one of the chief means to keep out Popery and all other dangerous diseases We see few understanding Godly people receive the Roman infection but the prophane licentious ignorant or malignant that are prepared for it 3. We earnestly request your utmost care that we may be ruled by Godly Faithfull Magistrates under you and that your Wisdom and Vigilancy may frustrate the subtilty of Masked Papists
Heathens Atheists or Infidels These carry their judgement as to the positive part as close as any of the rest and are grown in England to a far greater number and strength then is commonly imagined It is not only Leviathan or his Ocean that is guilty of this Apostasie however they use the name of Christ but abundance that lurk under several names A great while I knew not what to make of this close Generation but now I have found out that which should make a believing tender heart to bleed even gross Infidelity causing them secretly to scorn at Christ and the holy Scripture and the life to come as bitterly as ever Julian did And this is crept so high and spred so far that it is dreadful to those few that are acquainted with its progress Some that have lately professed to turn Papists for what ends I know not are known to be stark Infidels And some that have long gone for leading men with them have satisfied us by their writings that they are Romanists of the most ancient strain even of the Roman Religion that was ancienter then Peter and Paul And many of the unsetled sort of Protestants are so far forsaken of God as to Apostatize to the same condition Montaltus the Jansenian takes the Jesuites for false unworthy calumniators for giving out that they have long had a design at Port-Royal to overthrow the Gospel and set up Infidelity and meer Deism But I am sure they deserve much harder words of us in England between them for doing so much to destroy the Christianity of many in order to the setting up of Popery I do not charge it all and only on the Papists I know the Devil hath more sorts of Instruments then one But that they have had a notable hand in this Apostasie we have good reason to satisfie us Not that they desire that men should be absolutely and finally Infidels But 1. they would make the world believe that all must be Infidels that will not receive the Christian Faith upon the Roman account and terms And in order to this they industriously seek to disgrace the Scripture and overthrow all the grounds of the Faith of such as they dispute with And so make them Infidels in order to the proof of that their affirmation 2. And then they think that they must take them off all Religion as Boverius afore cited to prepare them for the Popish Religion 3. And the malice of some of them is such that they had rather men were Infidels then Protestants or at least they will venture them upon Infidelity in the way rather than not take them off from being Protestants And no wonder when they allow Infidels so much more charity then Protestants as to their salvation as all the Authors cited by S. Clara before do signifie And when Rome burneth Protestants but giveth toleration for Jews And thus by these Devilish devices the Hiders in England that keep close their Religion are discovered at last to be one part of them Infidels or Heathens and another part of them Papists And no wonder if they would lately have introduced the Jews here into England and if they have so many other designs to promote this Apostasie 4. Another sort that Popery hath here hatch or cherished are the Socinians a Sect with whom both Papists and Heathens do joyn hands as the Bond of their Conjunction Yet I know that they were not bred at first by Popery and I know that the genuine Papist that holds fast the Articles of their Faith must needs disown the Socinian But however it comes to pass I am sure there are too many of late self-conceited men innovaters in Philosophie that have reduced their Theologie to their novel Philosophie and expounded Scripture by such conceits as suit with the Socinians I shall say nothing of the Millenaries the Levellers and many such like But here in the close I would desire any Papist that is conscious of the promoting of any of these fore-mentioned abominations to tell us whether this be like to be the way of God Or whether Peter or Paul did ever take such a course as this to plant the Gospel or build up the Church And whether it be like to be the Cause of God that must be maintained by such means Is not their damnation just that say Let us do evill that good may come thereby Should not the means be suited to the end Hath the glory of God any need of a lie This course will never ingratiate your opinions with any wise considerate men This is but working with the Devil for God like one that doth consult with a Witch or Conjurer to find the goods of the Church when they are stoln Do you think God needs the Devils help Or is it like to be help that comes from him But the truth is it is your bad Cause that requires these evils means and it is your bad hearts that set you on work to use them Though you think perhaps that you do God service by it yet you know not what Spirit you are of Christ owneth not such ways as these and therefore his servants will not own them CHAP. XLVI Detect 37. ANother Practical fraud of the Papists is In hiding themselves and their Religion that they may do their work with the more advantage I shall tell you briefly 1. The way by which they do this and 2. The advantage they get by it And 3. Help you to detect them 1. The principal means by which they conceal themselves is By thrusting themselves into all Sects and Parties and putting on the vizor of any side as their cause requireth It 's well known that formerly we had abundance of them that went under the name of Protestants and were commonly called by the name of Church-Papists But there is great reason to think that there are more such now Some of them are Prelatists and some of them call themselves Independants some creep in among the Anabaptists and some go under the cloak of Arminians and some of Socinians and some of Millenaries and all the other Sects before mentioned They animate the Vanists the Behmenists and other Enthusiasts the Seekers the Quakers the Origenists and all the Juglers and Hiders of the times It is they that keep life in Libertinisms and in Infidelity it self Among every one of these parties you may find them if you have the skill of unmasking them 2. Another way of Hiding themselves is by having a Dispensation to come to any of our Assemblies or join in worship with any party good or bad Or else they will prove it lawfull without a Dispensation where the Pope interdicteth it not And their way is this that all the old known Papists especially of the poorer sort shall be still forbidden to come to our Assemblies lest they bring the blot of levity and temporizng on their Religion and lest there should not be a visible party among them to countenance their cause But
the New proselites especially such as are of any power and interest in the world and may do them more service in a masked way and can fairly avoid the Imputation of Popery these shall have leave to come to our Assemblies when their cause may make advantage of it That you may see I feign not all this of them besides the proof from certain experience which we daily see let me lay before you the Decisions of one of their principall Directors in this work of propagating their faith and that is Thom. Ã Jesu de Convers Gentium How far they are for favouring of Heathens and Infidels and Liberty of Conscience for them for all their cruelty to Protestants you may see him lib. 5. Dub. 4. pag. 207. Where he tells you that the sentence commonly received in the Schools is that it is not lawfull for Christian Princes to use any force against Infidels for sins against the Law of Nature it self and citeth Caject Victoria Covarruv Greg. de valent And himself decides it in the middle way of Azorius That Pagans may not be punished for despising the honour and worship of God though they may for not giving every man his own and for theft murder false witness and other sins that are against mens right Compare this with Sir H. Vane's doctrine of Liberty And lib. 5. part 1. Dub. 6. pag. 220. he teacheth that A Catholick living among Hereticks may when the scandalizing of others forbids it not for fear of death go to the Temples of bereticks and be among them in their meetings and assemblies because of it self it is a thing indifferent For a man may for many causes go to the Temples of hereticks and be among them in their assemblies as that he may the easilyer and more effectually and commodiously confute their errors or on other just occasions unless accidentally it scandalize others Yea as Azorius saith he may do it to obey a Prince though he be an heretick when he feareth the loss of his honour maintenance or life For in this he only obeyeth his Prince especially if among the faithfull that is the Papists he openly affirm that he doth it only to obey his Prince and not to profess the heretical sect For by that open attestation he avoideth the offence and danger of Catholicks and well declineth the unjust vexation of the Prince And that Papists may eat flesh on dayes when their Church forbids it to hide themselves among hereticks he determineth in Dub. 5. p. 218 219. So that the Papists are abundantly provided for their security against such as would discover them when it stands not with their ends to disclose themselves 3. Another most effectual way of Hiding themselves is by Equivocation or mental reservations which we use to call Lying when they are examined about their Religion their Orders or their actions Lying that hurteth not another they commonly maintain to be but a venial sin which say most of them is properly no sin at all And to equivocate or reserve one half of your answer to your selves say the Jesuites is not Lying nor unlawfull in case a mans interest requireth him to do it See the words of their own Casuists cited for this by Montaltus the Jansenist Were it a thing that needed proof I would give you enough of it Thom. Ã Jesu the Carmelite ubi sup Dub. 4. pag. 218. secureth them sufficiently His Question is Whether one that denyeth it when he is asked of a Heretick whether he be a Priest or a Religious man or whether he heard Divine service do sin against the confession of faith He answereth No for that is no denying himself to be a Christian or Catholick For it is lawfull to dissemble or hide the person of a Clergy man or a Religious man without a lye in words lest a man be betrayed and in danger of his life and for the same cause he may lay by his Habit omit prayers c. because N. B. humane Laws for the most part bind not the subjects conscience when there is great hazard of life as in this case Azorius hath well taught Just Mor. Tom. 1. lib. 8. c. 27. So that by the consent of most there is no danger to a Papist in any such case from his own confession Another way of Hiding their Religion and themselves is by false Oaths which we called wilfull perjury but the Jesuites take for a Lawfull thing when a mentall Reservation or Equivocation supplyeth the want of verbal truth as their words cited by the forementioned Jansenian testifie And who will ever want so easie so obvious so cheap a Remedy against all danger of perjury as a mental Reservation is Yea that the Pope can sufficiently dispense with any of their Oaths of fidelity or Allegiance or the like I shall shew you under the last Detection The Parliament hath imposed on them an Oath of Abjuration but do they not know how little the Clergy and such as have their countenance will stick at that such Nets are too wide to catch them in Hear the words of one of their own Priests Io. Browns Voluntary Confess in Prins Introduct p. 203. saith he Its strange to see the Stratagems which they use with their penitents concerning the Oath of Allegiance If they be poor they tell them flatly when they are demanded to take the Oath that it is damnable and no wayes to be allowed by the Church If they be of the richer sort they say they may do as their conscience will inspire them And there be some of them that make no conscience at all to have it taken sooft as they are demanded What would you have more then such discoveries by themselves 2. But what get they by this Hiding of themselves Answ 1. They hereby secure themselves from danger 2. They do the more easily prevail for the multiplication of their sect For worldly persons would not so easily flock into them without some such security from suffering 3. They preserve those that are come over to them from revolting by the discouragement of suffering especially the Rich and Honourable 4. They angle for souls with the less suspition when they stand behind the bush Papists are become so distasted with the people by the Power-plot and many other of their pranks that they may take more with them if they come masked under another name 5. By this means they may openly revile and oppose the Ministry and Ordinances and Churches and Protestant doctrine without disturbance by the Magistrate A Papist in the Coat of a Quaker an Anabaptist a Seeker or the like may rail at us and our doctrine in the open Streets and Market place and call us all to naught and teach abundance of their own Opinions without a controul And many a poor soul will take an Anabaptist Papist or Seeker into their bosome and familiarly hear them and easily swallow down what they say that would be afraid of them if he knew them
in their teeth for they will leave none alive and at liberty to do it When we see in good sadness that it is Navies and Armies and stabbings of Kings and Powder-plots and Massacres that we have to dispute against it 's time to be able to Answer them in their own way or we lose the day It is not a good Cause or wit or learning or honesty that will then serveturn I know God is al-sufficient for his Church and in him must be our Trust But he requireth us to expect his blessing in the use of lawful probable means He can give us Corn without plowing and sowing but we have little reason to forbear these and expect it He can Convert men without preaching But yet the blessing of God doth presuppose Pauls planting and Apollo's watering He can Rule and Defend us without Magistrates but it is not his appointed way And he can save us from deceitful bloody men without our care and vigilancy and resistance but it is not his ordinary appointed course in which he would have us look to him for deliverance And therefore in the Name of God let Princes and Parliaments be vigilant for they watch for the outward security of the Church and Common-wealth as Ministers do for our spiritual wel-fare as those that must give account And let the people take heed what Parliament or Magistrates they choose And let all that love the Gospel and the prosperity of the Christian world and of their posterity have their eyes in their head and take heed of that bloody hand that hath in England Scotland Ireland France Savoy Low-countries Germany Bohemia c. already spilt so many streams of Christian blood If the Wise the Learned Moderate Lord du Plessis was so zealous for the Lawfulness of Necessary Defence as Grotius chargeth him as to put it into his Testament whom he makes also the Author of Junius Brutus I know not on what ground doubtless he knew with whom he had to do and thought that every Guisian League was not a Law of God or of the King Some Princes think that it is their safest way to please the Pope and Jesuites and so will be Papists on the terms as some of the Indians worship the Devill because he is so naught that he may not hurt them But these men were wiser if they understood that the malice of Infernal Spirits is not to be avoided by pleasing them but by resisting them They are too bad to be ever pleased by any means but what will be your utter ruine And they are not stronger then the Devil himself who will flie if we resist him If the best were not the most Powerful what would become of the world And if God be stronger then the Devil he should rather be pleased then the Devil for he is able to defend you from the Devils displeasure and he is most able to hurt you if you be dispisers of his power which Justice will effect more certainly on the bad then Satans malice can do upon the good Men think themselves wise that shift for their safety by carnal and unlawful means But they shall all find at least that plain honesty is the best policy and the favour of God the best security and a life of faith the most prudent life and that shifting for your selves in unbelieving ways is the greatest folly It is the design of the Papists by the strokes of Clements Ravilliacks Vauxes and such others to terrifie Princes that they may not dare to resist them but may see that they have no hold of their lives while they are under their displeasure But yet such as have most displeased them have scaped best It is recorded by one that the great King Henry of France being perswaded to stand it out against the Jesuites answered Give me security for my Life then And what a security did he find in his unbelieving way A thousand pitties it is that Protestant Princes should not be united among themselves that they might be strengthened for their joynt Defense But that the envious man should be able so far to over-wit them as to sow among them the seeds of war while they sleep or selfishly mind their own affairs and interests And a greater pitty and shame it is that the Ministers of the Gospel of peace should be the causes of these divisions or should not do their best to heal them But it is the greatest shame of all to us that so many years experience of the calamitous effects of our Divisions and so much industry of many worthy peaceable men should do no more to a fuller Reconciliation then yet is done The names and pacifying Labors of such as Duraeus Davenant Hall Morton Usher Hayne Dr. Morin Amyraldus Hottonus Conradus Bergius Johannes Bergius Georgius Calixtus Jerem Burroughs and many more that have laboured for peace do live as Monuments of their honor and our dishonor and do reflect much shame upon the faces of those Reformed Ministers and Churches that after all this are so much unreconciled yea that are not by the strongest motives and perswasives so much as excited to zealous endeavours for the healing of our sad division no nor some of them restrained from the passionate prosecution of their increase If yet any Papist believing such false Histories as the Image of both Churches doth contain or really finding any Protestants culpable shall say that we are as bad as they in wars or cruelty and that Illiacos intra muros peccatur extra I again reply 1. That true History and experience tells the world that there is no comparison between their excessive cruelties and ours 2. Yet it is none of my desire or intent to defend any person or people that have been truly guilty in the least degree 3. Our doctrine is against that which theirs doth own 4. If either our Doctrine or practise have been amiss we desire reproof and information and are willing to reform them The Word of God being our only Rule if it appear that we have in any point misunderstood it we desire nothing more then to be rectified and then we shall confess our former faults before the world and promise reformation For our Principles fix us not in Sin or Error But the Papists are fixed in their Errors and think there is a necessity lyeth on them never to amend Now the Pope and a General Council hath already decreed that the Pope may depose Princes and Absolve their subjects and give their Lands to others to amend this abominable error is with them to give away all their cause and to cease to be Papists So that all Princes and People must necessarily despair of their amendment CHAP. L. Some Proposals for a hopeless Peace IT is A Defensive conflict that I have been hitherto managing This work is put upon us by our adversaries But in the conclusion I will add a few words of that whith enticeth by its amiable aspect and which we gladly follow
Councils are unjust because there can be no just satisfaction given by men that live at so vast a distance that this great number that come thither are truly Bishops yea or Presbyters either It s not possible under many years time so much as to take any satisfactory account of their ordination and abiding in that office and the truth of their deputations or elections And when in their elected Representative Councils there will be perpetual controversies between several parties as there is in Parliaments whether it be this man or that which is truly elected in how many years will all these be decided before they begin their work So that I may well conclude laying all these seven considerations together the distance of places the age and state of the Bishops the state of the Civil Governments which they live under their necessary labours at home and the ruine that will befall their Churches by so much absence the diversity of their languages the multitude of the Bishops and the difficulty of knowing the Ordination and Qualifications of persons so remote to prove their capacity I say all these together do plainly shew that such General Councils are impossible and unjust and therefore not the standing Government or form of the Church or the center of its Unity Argum. 4. As the Synod it self is impossible needless and unjust so it is Impossible that they should do the work of a Head or Soveraign Power if they could Assemble therefore they are not appointed thereunto The Antecedent is partly manifest by what is said from their different languages and other considerations Moreover 1. The persons that will have appeals to them and causes to be judged if really they will do the work of a Soveraign Power and Judge will be so many millions that there will be no room for them about their doors nor any leisure in many years to hear their causes If you say It was not so in former Councils I answer that is because they were not truly General or were called in such times when the Church did lie in a narrow compass and not in such remote parts of the world and because they were assembled indeed but occasionally to advise upon and determine some one particular mans case or few and never took upon them to be the Soveraign power or head of the Church or its essential form or Center of Unity 2. These millions of persons that have so many causes will have so far to travail that it will put them to great cost and labour to come and attend and bring all their witnesses And if they be not sounder bodyed then our English Souldiers the poor people of Mexico and other parts of those Indies to look no further will be a great part of them dead by the way before they can reach the General Council e. g. if it should be in the midst of Europe 3. And the Council will not be competent Judges of so many causes which by distance must needs be much unknown in many weighty Circumstances whose cognisance is necessary 4. And lastly such Councils will sit so seldom that the work will be undone Argum. 5. If God had intended that such a Council should have been the form of his Church or the necessary Governour of it he would have acquainted us with his will concerning some certain Power to summon them or would have authorized some or other to call such a Council But he hath not acquainted us with his will herein nor authorized any to call such a Council therefore it was not his intent that it should be the form or necessary Governour of his Church Either this Council must meet by an Authoritative call or by consent If by such a call who must call them The Popes pretense to this Authority is voluminously and unanswerà bly confuted long ago and it s well known what ever Baronius say that the ancient Councils were called by the Emperors and many since have been called by Emperours and Cardinals And if you say that it belongs to the Emperour I answer what hath he to do to summon the subjects of the French Spaniards Turks Aethiopian c And by this it appears that we never had true Universal Councils They were but General as to the Roman world or Empire For who ever precided it is certain that the Emperours called them And what had Constantine Martian Theodosius or any Roman Emperour to do to call the subjects in India Aethiopia Persia c. to a Council Nor de facto was there any such thing done Is it not a wonderfull thing that the Pope and all his followers should be or seem so blinded to this day as to take the Empire for the whole earth or the Roman world for all the Christian world yet this is their all If you say that it must be done by the consent of Princes then either of Christian Princes or of all If of the Christian only you must exclude the Bishops that are under Mahometan and Heathen Princes and then it will be no General Council especially if it be now as it was in the time of Jacob à Vitriaco the Popes Legate in the East who saith that the Christians of the Easterly parts of Asia alone exceeded in number the Christians both of the Greek and Latine Churches And whether it be all Princes or only Christian Princes that should consent who can tell whether ever it will be God hath not promised to lead them to such a consent And they are unlikely of themselves as being many and distant and of different interests and apprehensions and usually in wars with one another so that if an age should be spent in treating of a General Council among them it s ten to one that the treaty will be in vain and its next to an impossibility that all should consent Besides no man can shew a Commission from God to enable them and only them to such a work But if you say that it must be done by the consent of the Bishops themselves the Impossibility moral is apparent who will be found that will be at the cost and pains to agitate the business among them No one can appoint the time and place but by consent of the rest Who doth it belong to to travail to the Indies Aethiopia Aegypt Palestine and all the rest of the world to treate with the Bishops about the time and place of a Council And how many lives must he have that shall do it And when he findeth them of a hundred minds what course shall he take and how many more journies about the world must he make to bring them to an agreement But I am ashamed to bestow more words on so evident a case Argum. 6. The Head or Soveraign of the Church as of every body Politick hath the Legislative Power over the whole The Pope or a General Council have not the Legislative Power over the whole Therefore the Pope or General Council are not the