Souls in Purgatory or for praying to the Virgin Mary and abundance such if Holy Water alone would do all the Business Was not he much overseen or did grosly prevaricate that drew up this Charge Might I but chuse my Adversaries Advocate and agree with him to say nothing but what I can disprove I would certainly have the better and be justified VII The next part is And as for his obedience to Magistrates if they be not of his Religion he owes them no allegiance And if he have by Oath obliged himself he has a holy Father can dispense with him for that or any other Oath for a piece of Money If his Prince persecute him for his Religion let him but have so much desperate courage as to sacrifice his own life to stab or poyson his said Persecutor he shall at Rome be canonized for a Saint Nor can private Persons expect any fidelity from him when he is thus traiterously rebellious against his Liege Lord and Soveraign c. Ans Now I perceive you are over bold and do too hardly blush when you have the face to bring in such an instance and by the inserting of a word or two of your own to dare to wash off from your Religion the blot of Perfidiousness and Rebellion when it is part of the Decrees of your approved General Council The Prevaricator wrongeth you 1. By making not of his Religion to be all that 's necessary to free you from allegiance 2. By putting in or any other Oath for a piece of Money I have not yet found that the Pope undertaketh to dispense with a man that will swear to believe the Roman Church or the rest in Pope Pius his Trent Oath nor yet with the Vow of Baptism if seconded by an Oath 3. By saying only If his Prince persecute him for the Doctors say that he must be first excommunicate or a Heretick at least and some say he must have the Pope's Order before he may kill a King and the Council only speaketh of Deposing and not of killing 4. And the Prevaricator too rashly promised Canonizing He that murdered one of the French Kings was but praised in an Oration by the Pope proved by many but not Canonized Garnet was not every one But because I see you grow so bold and also in what follows return to what you had said before I will instead of following you farther tell you what such as I mean by a Papist and what some other men mean by him CHAP. V. The true History of the Papacy its original and growth THough I reserve the opening of the ambiguities of the word Papist till near the end I shall so far anticipate that as to tell you here also that the word PAPIST is equivocal I. In the sense of Grotius and all our Reverend Country-men that are of his judgment Papists are those that without any difference do approve of all the sayings and doings of Popes for honour or lucre sake as is usual Discus p. 15. If of all then of all the Adulteries Murders Simonie Heresie Infidelity charged on some of them by their own Writers and by Councils I am sorry if this be usual I hope yet that there are few of these Papists in the World and that few Popes themselves will deny that they are sinners But he elsewhere desireth the Reformation 1. Of some bold disputes of the School-men 2. And the ill lives of the Clergie 3. And some Customs which have neither Councils nor Tradition II. Some who are for the Supremacy of General Countils above the Pope do call those Papists that are for the Pope's Supremacy above such Councils or that give him the Legislative as well as the Judicial Power over the Universal Church Though themselves give him the Supreme Judicial Power when there is no General Council III. Protestants call those Papists who hold that the Roman Pope is rightfully the Governour of the Universal Church on Earth either as to Legislative or Judicial-executive Power either with Councils or without Two things are here included in our Judgment 1. That there is no rightful Universal Governour under Christ over all the Church on Earth either as to Legislation or Judgment 2. That the Roman Pope therefore is no such Governour In this third sense now I am to tell you what we Protestants mean by a Papist more particularly And first I must tell you what a POPE is before I can well tell you what a Papist is Which I shall do I. De facto Historically II. De jure as to the Power which he claimeth I. A long time the Bishops of Rome were seldome called Popes and other Bishops were so called as well as they At first the Bishops of Rome were pious persecuted Men and many of them Martyrs and usurped no Power over any Churches but their own which with Alexandria were the two first that brake Ignatius his Test of Unity who saith To every Church there is one Altar and one Bishop with his fellow Presbyter and Deacons But Rome having long called her self the Mistris of the World and being the Seat of the Empire and Senate and of the Governing Power of the orbis Romanus the Christians there grew greater than others and the Bishop as it increased kept it under his Power And when Christians had peace which was under the far greatest part of the Heathen Emperours and for the far longest time the Greatness of Rome giving Greatness to that Church and so to the Bishop and great opportunity to help other Churches because the Governing Power of the Empire was there this Bishop grew to be of greatest wealth and interest And in times of Peace the Strife which Christ once ended was taken up among the Bishops which of them should be the greatest And St. Paul having taught Christians that they should not go voluntarily to Law against each other before Heathens if there were but a wise man among them to be an Arbitrator the Christians supposing that they had none wiser or fitter than their Bishop made him their Common Arbitrator in things Civil as well as Ecclesiastical By which means Custom making it like a Law Bishops became de facto Church-Magistrates But they had no Power to execute any Penal Laws either Jewish or Roman or to make any of their own except as Arbitrators or Doctors to those that would voluntarily receive them And they had no Power of Life and Death nor to dis-member any nor to beat or scourge them nor to Fine them or Confiscate their Estates But being entrusted by Christ as his Ministers with the Power of the Church-Keys and by the People with the Power of Civil Arbitrations they were by this the stated Governours of all Christians who yet obeyed the Roman Heathen Magistrates but brought none of their own differences voluntarily before them And because that Multitudes of Heresies took advantage of the Churches liberty and swarmed among them to their great weakning and disgrace and christ
be or can be unless Christianity come much nearer to be rooted out of the Earth and the Church brought into a narrower room V. But you have a reflecting Comparison between the Kings presiding and the Popes and between a National Council and the Bishops of the whole Christian World To begin at the later part Alas poor ignorant Man if you believe this your self And alas unfaithful Man if you believe it not and yet dare say it Do you yet know no difference between the orbis Romanus and the orbis universalis Or will you with William Johnson alias Terret prove your Councils to be Universal because such places as Thracia had Bishops there as if Thracia had been without the Empire or because such a name as Johannes Persidis is found at Nice Read all the subscribed names and return to a sounder mind Theodoret knew what he said when he gave the reason why James Bishop of Nisibis in Persia or near it was at the Council of Nice Because Nisibis was then under the Roman Emperour Do you not know that most of the Christian World two to one are not of the Pope's Subjects and are All the Bishops of the Christian World then on your side And do you not know that when Constantine presided at Nice his Dominion was full as large as the Bishop of Rome's was and a little larger VI. But because you shall find us reasonable we will tell you that we consent to General Councils where the Pope consenteth not We consent to what the great Councils at Calcedon and Constantinople before mentioned say of the Humane Institution of his Primacy and the Reason and Mutability of it and so doth not the Pope We consent to the Councils at Constance Basil Pisa that the Pope may be deposed as a Heretick and worse but the Pope doth not Is it not he then that dissenteth from all the Bishops of the World VII And for the Kings presiding we wholly own it He is the Governour of Clergy-men as well as of Physicians and he is to see that they abuse not their Function to the common hurt The difference is here 1. Our King Governeth but his own Dominions But your Pope would Govern all the World 2. Our King hath an undoubted Title Your Pope is an Usurper 3. And as to your name Head he hath given the World full satisfaction that he did never claim to be a Priest-Head or Governour a Constitutive Head of a properly called Church nor to have the power of Word Sacraments and Keys so as to administer them but to be a Civil Head and Governour of Priests and the Churches in his Dominions as he is of Physicians c. VIII And you mistake the Puritans if you think they are not for this Government Why else take they the Oath of Supremacy Yea and if you think that they are not for as much Unity and Concord of all the Churches in a Kingdom as can be had without a greater hurt than the lesser particularities of their concord will do good And they are not against National Synods for such Concord And they hold the King to be the Regular Head or Governour or Principium of that Concord But not principium essentiale ipsius Ecclesiae And therefore the Puritans differ from judicious Ric. Hooker who saith If the King be the Head of the Church he must needs be a Christian For we hold that an Infidel King may be so the Head that is the Rightful Governour of the Christians and Churches in his Dominion or else how should they be obliged to obey him IX And you are mistaken if you think that the Puritans and the Prelatists differ about submitting our Faith to the judgment of the Church We subscribe the same Articles which say that General Councils may erre and have erred even about matters of Faith X. But I must tell you that the Puritans who are accused of disorder and confusion do many of them loath disorder and confusion even in words and doctrine And they distinguish here between the Churches keeping and teaching the Christian Faith and the Churches judging in matters of Faith The first they are wholly for We must receive our Faith from our Teachers and oportet discentem fide humana credere But if by Judging you mean strictly a Decisive judgment in which we must rest which way soever the sentence pass as if the Church might not only teach us the truth of our Religion but judge in partem utramlibet whether it be true or not the Puritans own no such power in the Church nor will so submit their Faith to the judgment of it They believe that Pastors in Councils have power to judge that there is a God Almighty c. a Christ a Holy Ghost that Christ dyed rose c. that the Scripture is true that there is an absolute necessity of Holiness that there is a Resurrection and Life everlasting that Gods Commandments must be kept and sin not committed c. But that no Council hath power to judge that there is no God no Christ or the contrary to any one of these or any other revealed Truth of God XI And I must not let pass your Schismatical inference that else there should be as many Religions and ways of worship as Parishes or persons if some supreme Governour determined not in matters of worship For 1. It was not so when no Supreme Governour determined on earth 2. But either you mean the Substantials of Gods Worship or the Circumstantials In the first as faith is not to be got by force so neither is Godliness but yet Governours should here do their best But as to the other we abhor the Conceit that there are as many Religions as there is difference about vestures gestures days and meats But perhaps you take the word Religion in the Romane sense as you confine it to those that you call the Religious as if you took the people of your Church to be irreligious And so you have indeed too many Religious however they come to make one Church The Religion of the Carthusians is one and of the Benedictines another and of the Franciscans another I cannot name them all One eateth Herbs and Fish and another eateth Flesh seldom another often one weareth one habit and another weareth another one Religion hath one Rule of Life and another hath another But with us there is but one Religion which is the Christian though one man wear cloth and another stuffe one white and another black one eat Flesh and another Fish and another can seldom get either though one wear his Hair long and another short though one be old and another be young yet we are all of one Religion Yea though one preach and pray in English another in Welch another in French and another in Dutch yet we take not these to be so many Religions No nor though one think Free praying fitter for Ministers than an imposed Form and another think an
had commanded his Servants to serve him in as much Unity and Concord as they could duty and necessity drove the Pastors of the Churches to Correspondencies and to meet together on all just occasions and at last to Associations for the ordering of these Meetings In which they agreed in what Compass and in what Place or by whose Call such Meetings should be held and what Bishops in those Meetings should preside or sit highest and first speak and subscribe And usually they thought that to follow the Order of the Civil Government and give precedency to those that were Bishops of such Cities as had precedency in the Civil Government was the most convenient Order And in these Meetings they agreed on such Canons or Orders for all in that Compass to observe as they thought best tended to their ends And having no forcing Power as is aforesaid they formed their Impositions on voluntarily penitents so as might serve instead of the Power of the Sword Even Murderers Incestuous Adulterers they could not punish with Death Stripes or Mulcts and they were loth to disgrace Christianity so much as to accuse such to the Heathen Magistrates and therefore they laid the greater shame upon them forbidding them Communion with Christians for so many years as they thought meet and before they restored them they were humbly to beg the Prayers and Communion of the Church But yet these Synods were small and few and rare and never any dreamt of them as a Council of all the Church on Earth But when God blessed the Rome World with a Christian Emperour after the sharp Persecution of Dioclesian and this Emperour had by Religion and Interest made the Christian Souldiers his chief confidents or strength he studied the utmost increase of the Christians and to that end invited all to Christianity by the favour of the Court and by such Honours Commands Wealth and Dignities as they were capable of and above all he exalted the Christian Bishops whom he found the Rulers of the Christian Societies He gave them Honours and Wealth and Power He made a Law that no Christians should be forced to go to the Civil Heathen Judicatures from their Bishops and gave Power to the Bishops to be the Christians Judges some few hainous Crimes being in time excepted And so the Bishops were by his Law made Civil Magistrates or Arbitrators yet not with any Power of Life or Limbs or Estate So that all that would become Christians and would be subject to the Bishops Canons and Church Discipline were freed from Death Stripes and Mulcts for many Crimes which all others were lyable to and Excommunication and some Penance was instead of all By such means Multitudes of worldly Men and by the Preaching of the Gospel Multitudes that were sound Christians came together into the Churches And Bishopricks being now very desirable for their Power Honour and Wealth Men that most loved Power Honour and Wealth that is Proud Worldly Carnal Men did earnestly seek them and strive for Precedency in them But yet while the People had the choice or a Negative therein and the old Spirit of Christianity remained in many of the Bishops in many places bad ones were kept out and many excellent Men were preferred The Heresie of Arrius and the Alexandrian Contentions thereabout required a remedy for the Churches Peace The Bishops could not end it themselves It spread so far that it was Constantine's great grief to see Christians so quickly disgrace themselves and weaken their Religion in the Eyes of the Heathens Therefore he called a Council of Bishops consisting mostly of those of the Eastern parts where the troubles arose Two Priests of Rome were there but not the Bishop nor but few of the West Where the Emperours open Rebukes and Lamentation for their Contention and his earnest Exhortation to Peace and his burning all the Libells or Accusations which the Bishops brought in against each other and his continual presence and moderating oversight of them brought that meeting at last to that good and peaceable End which else it was never like to have attained It never came into Constantine's mind to call this Council as an Universal Representative of the whole Christian World or as the Governours of the Churches that were out of his Dominions but as a fit expedient to end the strife that was raised in those Parts For as few of the West were there so none of all other Kingdoms were once called For who should call them Constantine that called the Council neither did it nor ever pretended to a power to do it The Pope called not the Council much less did he call the rest of the Christian World Socrates tells us l. 1. c. 15. that St. Thomas had Preached to the Parthians and Bartholomew to the Indians and Matthew to the Ethiopians though the middle India was not Converted till Constantine's days by Frumentius and Edesius and Iberia by a Maid And so Euseb l. 3. c. 3. who saith that St. Andrew Preached to the Scythians and in Vit. Constant l. 4. c. 8. that there were many Churches in Persia And no doubt these Apostles Preached not in vain Scotland and other Countries that were out of the Roman Empire had Churches Yet any Neighbour Bishop that desired it might voluntarily be present When Theodoret in his Life tells us that James Bishop of Nisibis in the borders of Persia was at the Council of Nice For Nisibis was then under the Government of the Roman Empire he plainly intimateth that none but the Subjects of the Empire were called And the names yet visible of the Subscribers prove it Notwithstanding this Councils decisions the Contentions continue and the Major part of the Bishops went that way usually as the Emperours went And so in the Reign of Constantius and Valens they most turned to the Arrians at least in words And many General Councils so called of the Empire the Arrians had in which they prevailed and made Creeds for their turn as they at Nice had done against them and brought Persecution on the Orthodox silencing and ejecting them and scattering their Meetings as prohibited Conventicles the Emperour himself sometime executing their dispersions and restraint And among other Liberius the Bishop of Rome against his Conscience Subscribed to them The Fathers at the Council of Nice did determine of the bounds of the Patriarchs of the Empire which being at first but three Rome Alexandria and Antioch Jerusalem was after added and after that Constantinople For Constantine having now strengthned himself by the Christian Interest and being further out of the danger of mutable Souldiers than his Predecessours did that which none of them was ever able to do by removing the Imperial Seat from Rome to Constantinople and so leaving that Famous City as naked and almost neglected Whereby two great changes befell the Clergie 1. The Bishop of Rome was left more absolute and uncontrouled in the West 2. And the Bishop of Constantinople set up against
in our reproach of the same pretended Schism 5. Note how shamelesly the Papists still tell us of all the Bishops of the Christian World being for them and asking us where was our Church before Luther that is a Society of Christians that obeyed not the Pope when they confess that Augustine and all the African Church for twenty years obeyed him not and alas soon after the Vandals came and conquered them and persecuted and destroyed those famous Bishops that did survive And that you may further know that they had yet more disobedient Resisters than African Bishops you may remember that even the Egyptian Monks so long famous for their great austerity and sanctity had renounced not only obedience but Communion with the Pope and his Adherents Fulgentius was about going to live with them for their holiness but he was told of this and turned his course vid. Vit. Fulgent And how great were all those Churches of Aethiopia Armenia exterior India and the rest which the Apostles converted which Reynerius aforesaid truly saith are not under the Church of Rome Cont. Waldens Catal. in Riblioth Patr. To. 1. p. 773. I have formerly recited the words of Melch. Canus one of their great Bishops saying Loc. Theolog. li. 6. c. 7. fol. 201. Not only the Greeks but almost ALL THE REST OF THE BISHOPS OF THE WHOLE WORLD have vehemently fought to destroy the priviledge of the Church of Rome And indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperours and the GREATER NUMBER OF CHURCHES and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the one Pope of Rome See here their own Confession 1. Where Christians opposing the Pope were before Luther 2. And of what credit their boast of Universality and Catholick Tradition is One while W. H. saith The Bishops of the whole World were for them But when their cause leads them to tell truth they say Almost all the Bishops of the whole World have vehemently fought against the Pope and the Arms of Emperors and the greater number of Churches were against them And indeed if it had been none but the Greeks he might well have said The greater number of Churches For the Contest which begun upon the Emperours removal to Constantinople and at the first General Council increasing more and more till Gregory opposed John's Claim of Universal Bishop as Antichristian at last Phoc as the cruel murderer of Mauritius gave the Title to the Bishop of Rome But that no whit ended the contest following Emperors being contrary minded and the Greeks continuing their Claim the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople excommunicating one another so that by this abominable striving which should be the Chief or Greatest the Churches that were of old in the Empire have been divided and so they continue to this very Day as unreconcileable as ever And when Gregory sent his Emissary hither to Preach to the Saxons they found the Christian Britans and Scots not only averse to the Government Orders and Ceremonies of Rome so that in many Kings Reigns neither words nor force could make them yield but also such as refused their Communion and would not so much as eat and drink with them in the same house No wonder then that Marinarius at the Council of Trent complain that the Church is shut up in the Corners of Europe and that Sonnius Bishop of Antwerp say Demonstr Relig. Christ li. 2. Tract 5. c. 3. I pray you what room hath the Catholick Church now in the habitable World Scarce three Elns long in comparison of the vastness which the Satanical Church doth possess The truth is saith Brierwood Divide the known World and alas how much is unknown into thirty parts and about nineteen are Heathens and six Mahometans and five Christians of all sorts And of these Christians the Papists at this day are as some think about a fifth part some think a fourth part and some think a third part And after the assuming of the Universal Title their Popes more and more degenerated to such odious wickedness at last as we hope few Pagans are guilty of which we speak not as from Enemies but from their own Historians and Flatterers such as Platina Baronius Genebrard c. Nay not so much from them as from Councils General and Provincial which have accused condemned and deposed them Read in my Key for Catholicks pag. 220 221 222. the words of Baronius Genebrard Platina CL. Espensaeus 〈◊〉 Muss Guicciardine c. Nic. Clemangis Bernard Alv. Pelagius say more Let any impartial man but read the Articles on which the Council at Constance condemned and deposed John 23. about 70 in number in which they make him almost as bad as a man out of Hell can be and indeed say he was commonly called The Devil incarnate Read the Articles on which the Council at Basil condemned and deposed Eugenius the Fourth as a perjured Wreteh an obstinate Heretick and all the rest Read the Articles on which another Council deposed John 13. alias 12. And read the Lives of many more in their own Historians And what came the Church to when it had such Heads when Baronius saith ad an 912. that the face of the holy Roman Church was exceeding filthy when the most potent whores did rule at Rome by whose pleasure Seats were changed Bishops were given and which is a thing horrid to be heard and not to be spoken their Lovers were thrust into Peters Chair being false Popes who are not to be written in the Catalogue of the Roman Popes but only for the marking of such times And what kind of Cardinals Priests and Deacons think you we must imagine that these Monsters did chuse when nothing is so rooted in Nature as for every one to beget his like For near 150 years saith Genebrard about fifty Popes were rather Apostatical than Apostolical And where was their uninterrupted Succession all this time Pope Nicolas in his Decretals Caranz p. 393. 395 saith He that by Money or the favour of Men or Popular or Military Tumults is intruded into the Apostolical Seat without the Concordant and Canonical Election of the Cardinals and the following religious Clergy let him not be taken for a Pope nor Apostolical but Apostatical And of the Clorgy he saith Priests that commit Fornication cannot have the honour of Priesthood Yea Let no Man hear Mass of a Priest whom he certainly knoweth to have a Concubine or Woman introduced And shall not Protestants forgive those that will not hear such or as bad Where then was the Papacy under such For above forty years together there were more Popes than one at once and sometimes more than two one dwelling at Rome and another at Avignion or elsewhere One set up and obeyed by one Party and another by another Party each condemning the other as an Usurper And had the Universal Church then any one Head And with what wickedness are they charged one destroying what the other was for see in
and sacred Scripture and that henceforth it shall be lawful for no Man to Preach or Teach the contrary Where was this Tradition kept before that was so hard a Controversie till now 2. And do not General Councils bring in Novelties I cited formerly the words of Cajetan in his Oration in the Council at the Laterane under Leo 10. charging the Council of Constance Basil and Pisa with Novelty and such Novelty as would have quite defaced the Church and was inconsistent with it And Pighius chargeth them with the like Yea I told you before where he saith that General Councils themselves are a Novelty devised by Constantine 3. Be not General Councils themselves approved or reprobated at the pleasure of the Pope What a number of reprobated Councils were there that yet were as numerous as the approved and as lawfuly called and assembled Bellarmine instanceth in the 2. of Ephesus Constance Basil and many more Of which more before II. Another of their deceits is by pretending to Vinc. Lerinensis Rule quod ab omnibus ubique semper c. as if Antiquity and Universality were on their side I must remember that I have long ago confuted these and the rest of their deceits in my Key for Catholicks Yet I will briefly speak here to these two 1. For Antiquity we willingly stand to it and to the rejecting of all Novelty in Religion But we must have better proof than the word of our Grand-fathers or a Priest 1. Is any of their Books or Traditions elder than the holy Scripture 2. Either the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. have been sure Keepers of Antiquity or not If yea then we may take their Testimony as well as the Church of Romes If not why may not you prove as ill Keepers of it as they 3. But are they not certain Novelties that you would impose on us under the colour of Antiquity Read but Pet. Moulin de Novit Papismi or Mr. Th. Doelittles Discourse in the Morning Lectures against Popery and you shall see the Novelty of your Religion fully proved Take now but these few instances 1. Your very Patriarchate Primacie Claim of Universality General Councils are all proved Novelties before 2. Your own Writers confess that the denying the People Christs Blood or the Cup in the Lords Supper is a Novelty that prevailed by Custom by little and little and was not common long before the Council at Constance Dare you say that it was so from the beginning or of old 3. Can you possibly believe that your forbidding men to read the Scriptures in a known Tongue without a Licence is not a Novelty if ever you read Chrysostom Augustine Jerome or any thing of the Ancients 4. Is it not a Novelty for the publick Prayers of the Church to be ordinarily made in a Tongue not understood by the generality of the People But I must stop 2. And as to Universality I have before proved 1. That by their own Confession most of the Churches and Bishops of the World have been against them 2. That at this day they are not above the third part of Christians Too small an Universal Church for any man of Charity and Consideration to be a member of A Sect that call themselves All the Church Jacob. a Vitr Histor Orient Cap. 77. tells us that the Churches in the Easterly part of Asia alone exceeded in multitude both the Greek and Latine Churches As for their telling us that all these followed Dioscorus a Heretick or were Nestorians and that all the Abassines Armenians Georgians Syrians Coptics Greeks Protestants c. are Hereticks or Schismaticks I have answered it so oft at large that I must not repeat what I have said Only 1. I say that if the Censures and Revilings of Adversaries can un-christen all others and appropriate the Church to them that have least Charity perhaps the Qualiers may shortly have as fair a Title as the Papists If General Councils be not to be believed when they Hereticate Popes I will not believe a Railer when he Hereticates most of the Christian World whom he never saw or spake with Sure that man judgeth persons unheard 2. I repeat the words of Barchardus one of your own that long lived among them and spake what he saw p. 325 326. And is for those that we judge to be damned Hereticks as the Nestorians Jacobites Maronites Georgians and the like I found them to be for the most part good and simple men and living sincerely towards God and Men they are of great abstinence c. And p. 324. he saith that the Syrians Greeks Armenians Georgians Nestorians Nubians Jubeans Chaldeans Maronites Ethiopians Egyptians and many other Nations of Christians there inhabit and that some are Schismaticks not subject to the Pope and others called Hereticks as the Nestorians Jacobites c. but there are many in these Sects that are very simple knowing nothing of Heresies devoted to Christ materating the Flesh with Fastings and clothed with the most simple Garments so that they far excel the very RELIGIOUS of the Church of Rome And p. 323. of the Papists whom he calleth by the Name of Christians as if it were proper to them he saith There are in the Land of Promise men of every Nation under Heaven and every Nation liveth after their own Rites and to speak the very truth to our own great confusion there are none found in it that are worse and more corrupt in Manners than Christians that is Papists 3. If greater Errours and Vices than are among the Armenians the Abassines Syrians c. will allow us to reject men from our Communion how much more cause have we to renounce Communion with Popes and Papists than with these Churches 4. How can any man say that Nations and Countries are to be rejected as Hereticks unless the single persons guilty were tryed and heard when there is no Heresie but what is in individuals and no Law of God or Reason condemneth the innocent for the guilties faults much less all Posterity for their Ancestors III. But they never gain more than by aggravating the Divisions that are among other Christians and boasting of the Unity of their Church And the Contentions that have been among us have given them such advantage as that some in the sense of their former guilt having been Sect-masters themselves have turned Papists as thinking it the state of Union and having found no settlement in those ways which they have tryed because they never rightly understood the true temperament of the Christian Religion which they professed they think to find it in that way that they never tryed as sick men turn from side to side for ease while the cause of their weariness and pain is within them and turneth with them Here let the Reader note 1. That Fools judge of Differences in Religion by the noise that it makes in the World but men of Reason judge of it by the greatness and number of the points of
shewed Having said thus much more to shew that your Foundation is Sand who send us from Books to our Grandfathers as infallible and that this is no better a ground than the Abassines Greeks and others may build on as well as you and that we our selves have a far surer and Universal Tradition than the Papacy hath and have your own consent to every word of our Objective Religion I now proceed to consider of your Character of Parties CHAP. II. YOU describe to us four supposed Parties I. The Puritan II. The Prelatical Protestant whom your Fitz-Simmons calleth The Formalist III. The Papist as you suppose us falsly to describe him IV. The Papist as you suppose him truly described whom you call The Apostolical Christian In all which you shew that you are far from Infallibility and a man unfit for your Relations to trust in so great a Case I. I confess you give the Puritan a very laudable description in comparison of the Prelatist Protestant and the feigned Papist And you tell us that you were once a Puritan your self and you own still that which you describe as Puritanism only adding Popery to it which you think it wants I confess you speak incomparably more honourably and charitably of Puritans than some malicious interessed Persons of their own Protestant Profession will do But 1. You deal not informingly in your describing a Puritan before you distinguish that ambiguous ill-made word It hath three common acceptions among us at least First The ancientest as it signifieth the old or later Catharists who held that they were perfect if they are not belyed And none come nearer these than the Papists and Quakers certainly Protestants are far from it Secondly the old Non-conformists had the name of Puritanes put on them by those that were against them For what reason I leave them to answer to God Thirdly and because these Non-conformists lived strictly and were for much preaching and praying and holy conference and spending the Lords-day in holy Exercises and serious diligence in working out our Salvation and were sharp against drunkenness swearing and such other sins therefore the vulgar Rabble of vicious ones that durst not rail at Piety under the name of Piety took the advantage of the Bishops displeasure at the Non-conformists and of the name Puritane and put that name upon all Christians among them that were notably serious in practical Godliness perswading themselves that they were all but Hypocrites And so the name among the vulgar Rabble grew common to godly Conformists and Non-conformists And as if loquendum cum vulgo had been a Law by this means the Devil did more hurt both to godliness rendring it among the vulgar to he but odious Hypocrisie and Singularity and to Episcopacy making Multitudes that disliked the wickedness of the Rabble to think that all this came from the Bishops and it did more to advance and honour the Non-conformists because the name was formerly theirs as such than by any one thing that I remember in all my younger days This the godly Conformists grievously complained of as Bishop Downame in his Spitâ—le Sermon called Abrahams Tryal and Mr. Robert Bolton who saith that he believeth that never poor persecuted Word passed through the Mouths of wicked Men with more bitter scorn since Malice first entred into the Heart of Man Really the permitting of the common Rabble of all the debauched Sinners of the Land to make serious godliness a common scorn under the name of Puritanisme had as great a hand as any thing I know in all our Confusions Fourthly and it added Fuel to the Fire when some brought up a fourth sence of the Word some say Mar. Ant. de Dom. Spalatensis was the inventor of it and that was Doctrinal Puritanes by which name they understood those by some called Calvinists by others Anti-Arminians who held the Doctrine of your Dominicans or of the Jansenists Now who can well tell which of these sorts of Puritanes you were and talk of while you Characterize the second sort as well as the first and yet distinguish them from Prelatick Protestants 2. But which ever it is observe here that you own the Puritanes Religion still and say I have not so much left Puritanism as Prelaticks call it as added that to it wherein I found it come short of the holy Apostles Doctrine and Institutions p. 1. And when you have described the Puritane as one seriously conscionable and regardful of his Salvation at large you add If this be to be a Puritane would to God all the World were Puritanes I am so far from being Converted from thus much of a Puritane that I most heartily wish I could Convert all the World to it 3. But yet your description of him is so very false that I may conclude when you turned as you think from being a meer Puritane to be a Papist you never knew what a Puritane is nor indeed ever were a Puritane your self unless you take the word as fitted to your self and such as you If you had meant by a Puritane a meer Non-conformist as such you would not so laudably have described the work of God upon his Soul and Life as you have done For if most Non-conformists be such yet so are many others as well as they And it 's easie to see what a deceitful course it is to take up a name of many significations and such as signifieth no different Religion at all as to any one Article of Faith nor any more difference in or about Religion than such as is among most Christian Churches and much less than is among your selves Besides that the plainer name of a Non-conformist is of no determinate nor certain signification save only in general to notifie one that Conformeth not to all that is imposed on him but what that is the name doth not signifie A Non-conformist in Scotland is one thing in England another thing as the Impositions are different Non-conformity twenty years ago or fourty years was one thing Non-conformity since 1662. is quite another thing And Non-conformists differ among themselves If twenty things be imposed as necessary to the Ministry he is a Non-conformist who consenteth but to nineteen of them and so is he that consenteth but to eighteen or to seventeen or to sixteen and so on as well as he that consenteth to none of them And that there is so much difference among them is no wonder to them nor any considerate Man for they hold Christian Love and Communion with those that agree with them in the foresaid common Principles and Practice of Christianity as far as they require not them to sin And they are not of a different Religion from every one that fasteth not on Fridays or Saints Vigils c. as you seem to be nor from every one that doth so nor from every one that thinketh not in every thing as they think or that prayeth in other words than they for no two Men in the World
words of Reynerius saying that the outer Churches planted by the Apostles were not under the Church of Rome 8. The executive part neither could nor ever was performed upon the Churches without the Empire When did any Patriarch or any Provincial or General Council send for any Bishop or other person out of India Scythia Ethiopia or any other exterior Nation to answer any Accusation or pass any Sentence of Deposition or Suspension against them or put any other into their places 9. General Councils are confessed by Papists to be but a Humane and not a Divine Institution and what Humane Power could settle them in and over the Church Universal If you say It is by Universal Consent prove to us that ever there was such a Consent or that ever there was any meeting or treaty for such Consent of all the Christian World and we will yield it to you Surely if there be any Christians at the Antipodes they were not sent to in those days when Lactantius Augustine and others denyed that there were any Antipodes and derided it nor when the Pope by our Countryman Boniface his Instigation excommunicated Virgilius for holding that there were Antipodes Hear their great disputer Pighius Hierarch Eccles lib. 6. c. 1. fol. 230. General Councils saith he have not a Divine or Supernatural Original but meerly an Humane Original and are the Invention of Constantine a Prince profitable indeed sometimes to find out in Controversie which is the Orthodox and Catholick Truth though to this they are not necessary seeing it is a readier way to advise with the Apostolick Seat So that General Councils are Novel Humane and only of the Empire then 10. But to end all the Controversie the names of the Subscribers are yet to be seen who were not the representatives of the Christian World but of the Empire as is notorious Aeneas Sylvius Epist 288. saith that before the Council of Nice there was little respect had to the Church of Rome And though when he was made Pope Interest caused him to revoke his judgment of the Councils being above the Pope he never revoked such historical narratives Their great Learned Mathematical yet militant Cardinal Cusanus li. de Concord Cathol c. 13. c. saith that the Papacie is but of Positive right and that Priests are jure Divino equal and that it is subjectional Consent which giveth the Pope and Bishops their Majority and that the distinction of Dioceses and that a Bishop be over Presbyters are of Positive Right and that Christ gave no more to Peter than the rest and that if the congregate Church should chuse the Bishop of Trent for their President and Head he should be more properly Peter 's Successor than the Bishop of Rome Object Oh but this Book is disallowed by the Pope Answ No wonder So is all that is against him The Exceptions which we grant are these 1. There were some Cities of the Empire that were near to other Nations where the Princes being Heathens Christians were underlings and few And the Bishops of these Cities extended their care to as many of the Neighbour Countries as would voluntarily submit to them So the Bishop of Tomys was Bishop of many Scythians and so some that were on the Borders of Persia had many Persians and were at Nice 2. There were some Countries that were sometimes under the Roman Power and sometime under the Persian or others as Victory carried it and these when they had been once of the Imperial Church took it when they fell under Heathens to be their Honour Strength and Priviledge to be so accounted still and so would come to their Councils after if they could So it was with the Armenians and the Africans when the 〈◊〉 had conquered them c. 3. There were some Bishops that lived on the Borders of the Empire under Heathens that needed the help of Neighbour Churches and accordingly were oft with them craving their help So it was with the old Britans as to the Bishops of France 4. There were some small Countries adjoining to the Empire who took the Friendship of the Roman Power for their great Honour and safety and therefore were glad to conform in Religion to the Empire and to let their Bishops join with them 5. And there were some Neighbour Countries who were turned to Christianity by the Emissaries of the Bishop of Rome who therefore rejoicing also in so powerful a Patronage were willingly his Subjects But this was long after the first great Councils These two last were the Saxons case in England Accordingly you may sometimes find two or three out of such Countries at some of the General Councils of the Empire Which yet were called General but as to the Empire and not as to the World To proceed in the History When Christians were mostly exempted from the Magistrates Judicatures that were most Heathens though under a Christian Prince and so the Bishops Canons were to them as the Laws of the Land are to us it is no wonder that Councils must then be very frequent and Canons of great esteem and hereupon Bishops by prosperity growing more and more worldly and carnal made use of their Synodical Power as is aforesaid to accomplish their own Wills So that the Synods of Bishops became the great Incendiaries and Troublers of the Empire You need no more to satisfie you of this but to read the Acts of the Councils and the words of Nazianzen called Theologus against Synods and contentious Bishops and the sad Exclamations of Hillary Pictav They that had too little zeal against Ungodliness Unrighteousness Pride and Malice were so zealous against any that withdrew from their Power and contradicted them that they easily stigmatized them for Hereticks and made even godly sober Christians suspected of Heresie for their sakes while notorious Vice was used gently in those that adhered unto them Even holy Augustine saith Drunkenness is a mortal sin si sit assidua if it be daily or constant what not else and that they must not be roughly and sharply dealt with but gently and by fair words Vid. Aquin. 22. q. 150. a. 1. 4. ad 4. a. 2. 1. And their Great Gregory That with leave they must be lest to their own wit or disposition lest they grow worse if they be pulled away from such a Custom as Drunkenness But when it came to such as withdrew from under them they were not so gentle Lucifer Calaritanus is made the Head of a Heresie because he was but too much against the receiving of such as had been Arrians The large Catalogues of Heresies contain many that never erred in Fundamentals They prosecuted the Priscillianists so hotly that if godly men were but given to fasting and strictness of life they were brought into suspicion of Priscillianism And the Vulgar took advantage of the Bishops turbulency and ill disposition to abuse the godly S. Martin therefore separated from the whole Synod of the Bishops about him and
with him so but they will have his Body here still and yet a Vice-Christ or visible Monarch also in his stead See their own words which I have cited at large in my Answer to Mr. Johnson V. The pretended ground of this his Claim is that St. Peter received this power from Christ and that St. Peter was Bishop last at Rome and that the Pope succeedeth him in his Bishoprick and Power This is professed commonly by them But 1. It is false that St. Peter received any such Power from Christ as to be the Governour of all the rest of the Apostles and Christians in the World He never exercised or claimed such a Government but in cases of Controversie Act. 15. and Gal. 2 c. He dealeth but on equal terms with the rest And they that said I am of Cephas are as well rebuked as they that said I am of Paul And 1 Cor. 12. 28 29 c. Apostles are said to be but chief Members of the Church and Christ the only Head And when the Disciples strove who should be the greatest Christ giveth it not to Peter but forbideth it to them all And Peter himself as a fellow Elder exhorteth all Elders to oversee and feed the Flock not as Lords over the Heritage c. and never claimeth a Soveraignty to himself No word mentioneth any Power that St. Peter had greater than his Apostleship And Bellarmine professeth that the Pope hath not his power as succeeding him in his Apostleship but as an ordinary Pastor over the whole Church 2. There is no certainty that ever Peter was at Rome as Nilus hath shewed but a humane Testimony of many later Fathers upon the words of uncertain Reporters before them which are to be believed indeed as probable but no more There being as great a number of Papist Writers I think about 60 that tell us there was a Pope Joane and yet it is uncertain if not least probable But if he was at Rome Apostles were no where proper Bishops Bishops were the fixed Elders or Pastors of particular Churches Apostles were moveable and Itinerant having an Indefinite Commission to go preach the Gospel to all the world as far as they were able Though the ancient Fathers used to call them Bishops because pro tempore they Ruled perswasively where they came Though indeed their work was to settle Churches and Bishops and not to be settled Bishops themselves 3. Paul was certainly and long at Rome and liker to be as a Bishop there of the two If Paul was not one Peter was not for there is no more but less proof of his Government there If Paul was one then one City had two contrary to the old Canons 4. There is no proof that Peter's being last at Rome gave his Power to all or any following Bishops of Rome any more than to the Bishops of Antioch who are said to succeed him in his first Bishoprick or any more than Christs dying at Jerusalem the Mother Church did fix the Supremacie there or any more than the other eleven Apostles did leave their power which they had above all ordinary Bishops to the places where they abode either last or first If Peter's dying Bishop at Rome prove such a succession of Universal Monarchy the aforesaid Successions will be proved by the same Reason which yet none affirm Even Alexandria claimed but from St. Mark who was less than thirteen Apostles But no Testament of Peter declaring any conveyance of such a Monarchy is pretended by the Popes which is a wonder Nor any word that ever he used of such importance 5. I have shewed that General Councils Calced and Constant have declared that Romes primacy had a later humane rise Yet would they have exercised no other Government than St. Peter did the world would not have been troubled by them as they have been VI. The Papists seem not resolved themselves whether the Pope have an Universal Apostleship or Teaching office as well as the Universal Monarchy or Government Though Bellarmine say that he succeedeth not Peter as an Apostle but as a Pastor yet most others that I have seen medling with it say otherwise If he succeed not in the Apostleship he is no true Successour of St. Peter at all in any superemience of Power For what he had was as an Apostle If he do then he is bound to go preach himself to the Nations of the world as Peter was To send others to preach and not do it himself was no Apostleship They were sent themselves David and Solomon set up Priests and yet were themselves no Priests Hezekiah and Josiah sent and set up Preachers and yet undertook not that office themselves VII This Pope claimeth the sole Power of calling General Councils of all the Christian world yet never did it And consequently of being the Judge when any shall be called and so whether ever there shall be any or not And though former General Councils voted that they should be every ten years yet he prevaileth to the contrary VIII Also he claimeth the sole power of presiding in such Councils and also of making their Decrees either valid by his approbation or null or invalid by his Reprobation as he please so that nothing that they Decree is of force but as it pleaseth him whence we have distinct Catalogues of Approved and Reprobate Councils Yet no mortal man knoweth oftentimes how much of a Councils Acts and Decrees the Pope approveth When Martin the fifth had consented to all done by the Council of Constance the word Conciliariter acta seemed to the Council to mean all that they did de facto as a Council But the Popes ever since yet reject that Council on pretense that by conciliariter was meant all that de jure as a Council they might do Gregory the first approved of the four first General Councils receiving them as the four Gospels and if his Predecessors did not it was because their consent was not taken to be necessary nor much sought And yet now Bellarmine raileth at the Council of Calcedon and they tell us how much of it they receive and how much not And so of many others And nothing is more evident in such History than that the Emperors and not the Pope were they that called divers of the first Councils IX The Pope accordingly claimeth a supremacy above General Councils that he may dissolve them but they cannot question or depose him though General Councils have decreed the contrary I recited Binnius words before Vol. 2. p. 515. Pighius Gretser's Bellarmine's and multitudes more might soon be produced to the same sense The eighth General Council at Constantinople saith Can. 21. that None must compose any Accusations against the Pope Vid. Bellarm. de concil li. 2. c. 11. Saith Pighius Hier. Eccl. li. 6. The Councils of Constance and Basil went about by a new trick and pernicious example to destroy the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and instead of it to bring in the domination of