we have but one Head Jesus Christ That they are two Churches besides what is said hear the words of Cajetane in the foresaid Oration in Bin. p. 552. This Novelty of Pisa sprung up at Constance and vanished At Basil it sprung up again and is exploded and if you be men it will nâ—w also be repressed as it was under Eugenius the fourth For it cometh not from heaven and therefore will not be lasting Nor doth it embrace the Principality of that One who is in the Church triumphant and preserveth the Church militant and which the Synod of Pisa ought to embrace if it came from heaven and not as it doth to rely on the Government of a multitude The Church of the Pisans therefore doth far differ from this Church of Christ For one is the Church of believers the other of Cavillers One of the houshold of God the other of the Errone us One is the Church of Christian men the other of such as fear not to tear the coat of Christ and divide the mystical members of Christ from his mystical body This was spoken in Council with applause And can there yet be greater divisions then these 4. They have been utterly divided about the very power of choosing their Pope in whom they must unite In one age the People chose him In another the Clergy chose him sometime both together For a long time the Emperours chose him At last only the Cardinals chose him And sometime a General Council hath chosen him Our Catholick Church hath no such uncertain Head but one that 's the same yesterday to day and for ever 5. They have often had two or three Popes at once and one part of the Church hath followed one and another the other yea as is said for forty years together none knew the true Pope saith Cajetane ubi sup Of the Schism of that time there were three so accounted Popes that none of them might be esteemed the Successor of Peter either certain or without ambiguity For many ages one part hath been running after one and the other after the other or striving about them But we are all agreed in our Head without Controversie 6. They have killed multitudes of persons in their divisions about the choice of their Pope as in Damasus choice And they have had many bloody wars to the dividing of the Church about their Popes and between Pope and Pope This was their Unity It would make a Christian ashamed and grieved to read of the lamentable wars and divisions of Christendom either between or about their Popes 7. Their Popes and Christian Emperor Kings and Princes have been in yet longer and more grievous wars 8. They have set Princes against Princes and Nations against Nations in wars about the Causes of the Popes for many ages together and it is too seldom otherwise 9. They have set Kings and their own subjects together in wars as England and almost all Christendom hath known by sad experience 10. They have Excommunicated Princes and encouraged their subjects to expell them and to murder them hence were the inhumane murders of Henry the third and Henry the fourth Kings of France and the Powder Plot and may Treasons in England This is their Unity 11. They center and unite the Church in an impotent insufficient Head that is not able to do the Office of a Head to the hundredth part of the Church and therefore cannot possibly preserve unity But our Head is all-sufficient 12. They set up not only a Controverted head which all the Churches never agreed to nor ever will do but also a false usurping Head which the Churches dare not and ought not to unite in Whereas Jesus Christ is beyond controversie the just and lawfull Head of the Church 13. Your Agreement and Unity is with none but your own sect and is this so great a matter to boast off you divide your selves from most of the Catholick Church and cast them off as Hereticks or Schismaticks and then boast of a Unity among your selves And so may the Quakers the Anabaptists the Socinians as well as you Or if you magnifie your Unity from the greatness of your number that agree the Greek Church also is numerous and yet in this we far exceed you For the true Catholick is in Union with all the Members of Christ on earth We lay our Unity on the Essentials of Christianity and so are united with all true Christians in the world even with many of them that reproach us when you laying your Unity on I know not how many doubtfull points yea on you know not what your selves can extend it no further then to your sect Which is the more notable and glorious Unity to be United to the truly Catholick body containing all true Christians in the world or to be at Unity with a sect which is the lesser and more corrupted part of the Church 14. With what face can Papists glory in their Unity that are the greatest Dividers of the Church on earth Who is it that condemneth the greatest part of the Church and prosecuteth that condemnation with fire and sword or so much vehemence as the Papists do when they have most audaciously divided themselves from all others and arrogated the title of Catholicks to themselves they call this abominable Schism by the name of Unity If you say that the Reformers have divided themselves from all others too I answer not as from Hereticks or no members of the same body with us as you do but only as from unsound mistaken Brethren And therefore properly we are not divided from them but only from their mistakes We think it not lawfull to join with the dearest Brethren in sinning or in that worship by personal local communion where we cannot keep our innocency But yet we hold the unity of the Spirit with them in the bond of Peace and are one with them in all the substance of Christianity and holy worship Even where distance of place or circumstantiall differences keep us from Communion in the same Assemblies yet our several Assemblies have communion in faith and Love and the substance of worship as to the kind so that our division from other Christians is nothing to the Papists 15. But yet when any differ from us in any point Essential to our Religion that is to Christianity they are none of us nor owned by us and therefore you cannot say that we are at difference among our selves because some Apostates have faln off from us You will not allow us to say you have many sects because some of you have turned Socinians or because thousands of yours have turned to the Reformers in the dayes of Luther Calvin c. And why then should those sects be numbred with us that are not of us but went out from us If men turn Infidels Seekers Quakers Socinians c. they are not of us no more then of you If you say that we bred them I answer no more than you breed
but otherwise what is it to the faith or salvation of the world whether Rome or any one of these be yet a true Church or be ceased I know not well whether there be any Church at Coloss or Philippi or some other places that had then true Churches And doth it therefore follow that I am not a true believer what would you say to such a fellow that should argue thus concerning other Churches as these men do of Rome and say e. g. If Philippi be a true Church then England are no true Churches If it be not when did it cease to be a true Church Would you not answer him What is it to me whether Philippi be a true Church or not May not we and they be both true Churches How prove you that And whether it be ceased or not ceased doth no what concern my faith or salvation further then as my charity is to be exercised towards them So say we of Rome It was a true particular Church in the Apostles dayes And if it be still a true Church what hinders but we may be so to But whether it be so or not is little to me It concerneth not my faith or Salvation to know whether there be any such place as Rome on earth or whether it were consumed long ago If a man were so simple as to believe a report that Rome was destroyed by Charls of Bourbon and never inhabited or had a Pope since he were but such a Heretick as Pope Zachary and Bishop Boniface made of Virgilius for holding there be Antipodes though further from the South 2. And if you take the word Church in the second sence for a Diocesan or Patriarchiall Church or Association of Churches supposing such forms proved warrantable the same answer serveeth as to the first 3. But to come to the true state of our Controversie If by a true Church you mean either of the two last that is 1. The whole Universal Church or 2. A Mistris Church that must Rule all the rest it was never such a true Church in Pauls dayes And therefore here we turn this argument of the Papists against themselves If the Church of Rome were neither the whole Catholick Church nor the Mistris of all other Churches when Paul wrote his Epistle to them then it is not so now nor ought to be so accounted But the former is proved 1. That the Church of Rome was not the whole Catholick Church then no man that 's well in his wits can doubt that reads what a Church there was at Jerusalem what a Church at Ephesus and Philadelphia Smyrna Thyatira Laodicea Corinth and abundance more Prove that all or any of these were parts of the Church of Rome if you can 2. Where doth Paul once name them either the Catholick Church or the Mistris or Ruler of all Churches or give the least hint of any such thing or mention any Pope among them whom the whole world was to take to be their Soveraign Head Is it not an incredible thing that Paul and all the Apostles would forget to make any mention of this priviledge or teach them how to use it or teach other Churches their duty in obeying the Church of Rome if indeed they had been made the Mistris Church Men that can believe what they list may say what they list But for my part I will never think so hardly of Paul and all the Apostles as to accuse them of so great oblivion or negligence And therefore I conclude Rome was neither the Universal Church nor the Mistris Church then not many an age after and therefore it is not so to be accounted now So that you see how easily this silly Argument shews its shame But though it concern not our main question I shall tell them further that the Matter of the Roman Church must be distinguished from its New Political Form For the Matter so many of its members as are true Christians are part of the Catholick Church of Christ though not the whole And for the form 1. There is the form of its severall parts and the form of the whole The form of any parts of the Roman Church that are Congregations or particular Churches of true Christiant may make those parts true Churches that is there may be many a true Parish Church that yet live under the Papall Yoak But as to the Politicall form of their Roman Catholick Church as it is a Body Headed by one claiming an Universall Monarchy so the form is false and Antichristian and therefore the Church as Papall must be denominated from this form and can be no better And this is our true answer to the question whether the Church of Rome be a true Church There are I doubt not among them many a thousand true members of the Catholick Church and there may be true particular Churches among them having true Pastors and Christian people joyned for Gods worship though I doubt there is but few of them but do fearfully pollute it and I am confident that salvation is much more rare and difficult with them then it is with the Reformed Catholicks yet that many among them are true Christians and saved I am fully perswaded especially when I have read such writings as Gersons Guil. Parisiensis Ferus Kempis c. And I think the better of Bellarmine himself for saying of Kempis de imitatione Christi Ego certe ab adolescentia usque in senectam hoc opusculum saepissime volvi revolvi semper mihi novum apparuit nunc etiam mirifice cordi meo sapit Bellarm. de Scripter Eccl. pag. 298. But the Pope as a pretended Universal Monarch is a false Head and consequently their Papall Church as such is a false Antichristian Church and no true Church of Jesus Christ And by the way I conceive you are thus to understand a clause in a late oath of Abjuration drawn up by the last Parliament to be offered to the Papists viz. that the Church of Rome is not the true Church that is 1. Not the whole Catholick Church but part of it as they are Christians 2. Nor a true Church at all as Papal and so formally as the Now Romish Church But all this is little to our main Question CHAP. XXIII Detect 14. ANother great Endeavour of the Papists is to edness unity consistency and setledness in Religion but we are still at uncertainty and to seek incoherent not tyed together by any certain bond but still upon divisions and upon change And they instance thus A while ago you were Episcopal and then Presbyterian and now you are nothing but every one goes his own way A while ago you worshipped God in one manner in Baptising Marrying Burying Common Prayer the Lords Supper and now you have all new Where is the Church of England now some of you are for one Government and some for another the Lutherans have superintendents the Calvinists are Presbyterians And what names of reproach do the Episcopal
from or disobeyeth the uncharitable Clergy but he is stigmatized for an Heretick and charged with almost as much wickedness as their mouths are wide enough to utter and the ears of other men to hear What horrid things have they spoken of the poor Waldenses and Albigenses and Bohemians Of Luther Oecolampadius Calvin and who not Though I have had applauding flattering Letters from some of them that tryed whether I were flexible and ductile yet I doubt not but I shall have my share my self before they have done with me I wonder I hear not of it before now Hence among other reasons its like that Mr. Pierce became so destitute of Charity as to disgorge his sould of so many bitter reproaches and calumnies against the Puritans and Presbyterians whom if he know not he sinneth but as Paul did but if he know he terrifieth us from his principles by the fruits that which shews the want of Charity shews the want of saving Grace and consequently the want of right to Glory Hence it is that the greatest Schismaticks are the commonest accusers of their Brethren with schism Pharisaically saying I thank thee Lord that I am not as other men nor as these Schismaticks Hence also it is that so many learned well-meaning Papists do so pervert their studies and endeavors and abuse and lose and worse then lose their wits and parts to draw men to their way compassing Sea and Land to make a Romish Proselite especially of a Prince or man of power interest or ability to serve them What pains take they to draw Nations to their minds and to embroil the world in contentions and confusions to attain their ends What horrid persecutions Massacres and barbarous inhumane cruelties have multitudes of men of learning and good parts and natures been ingaged in by the very Principle that I now confute and for the promoting of their kind of Unity and Concord in wicked and impossible ways 7. Besides this it takes men off from seeking the true Peace of the hurch while they mistakingly pursue a false peace The Devil the cunning Enemy of Concord hath not a more effectual way to take men off from the ways and means of holy Concord then by starting them a false game and causing them to lay out all their labor to build a Babel when they should be building Zion Oh what a blessed state might the Church be in if all the Jesuites Fryers Prelates Priests and others had laid out that labor for a righteous possible Unity and Peace in Gods appointed way which they have vainly and impiously laid out to unite the world in a Vice-christ or Vice-god Fore seeing and at present feeling many of these calamitous consequences to the Church I think it of exceeding moment that mens judgements should be rectified that are misled concerning the nature of the unity of the Church Still professing that to me they are the dearest Christians and nearest to my heart that are most for Unity and Concord so it be in Christ and upon righteous possible conditions CHAP. II. The true State of the Controversie and how much we grant HAving given you an account of the Occasion and Motives that produced this Disputation I shall now briefly state the Controversie between us And because the terms are all plain and my sense of them explained in the fore-going part I shall think no more here necessary then to tell you in certain Propositions How much we Grant and How far we are Agreed and then to tell you what it is that we deny and wherein we differ Prop. 1. We are Agreed that Christ hath a true Catholick Church on earth and ever hath had since first he planted it and ever will have to the end of the world and that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it or hath it ever had an Intercision for a day or an hour and that this Church is so far Infallible as that it never was nor ever will be ignorant of or erroneous against any Article of faith or part of obedience that is of absolute Necessity to salvation otherwise by that error it should have ceased to be the Church of Christ Prop. 2. We are agreed that this Catholick Church in respect of the Internal faith and charity of the Members and their Communion with Christ by the quickening Spirit on his part and holy sincere returns of devotion on theirs may be called Mystical or Invisible The thing is utterly undenyable though some Papists in the perversness of contentious Disputations seem to deny it And doubtless when they assert that Christ hath no Invisible Church they must mean it simply and not quoad haeo interiora or else they speak against all sense and Reason No man is simply Invisible but every man as to his soul is Invisible Prop. 3. We are Agreed that this Catholick Church in regard of the outward Profession of this Inward Faith and Holiness and in regard of the discernable numbers of persons making this Profession hath ever been visible since first it began to be visible And that the visibility hath never had any intercision If some Protestanss say otherwise it 's clear that this is all that by the common judgement of Protestants is maintained viz. That Christians and the Catholick Church containing the Professing Christians through the world have ever since their first planting had a visible being but yet 1. That the Visibility was not such but that Hereticks as the Arrians did might make a controversie of it whether they or the true Christians were the Church indeed and by their greater numbers or Power might blind men that they should not see which was the true Church 2. And that in the Catholick Church some parts may be much more corrupt and others much more pure and the Purer part be so much the lesser and oppressed and vilified by the more corrupt that the most part should not discern their Purity but take them as they did the Waldenses for Hereticks 3. And that two parts or more of this Catholick Church may so fall out among themselves as that one of them shall deny the other to be part of the Catholick Church when yet they really for all that censure remain parts of it as much as they And hereupon may grow a contest between them which of the two is the true Catholick Church and one part may say It is we and not you and the other may say It is we and not you and no man shall be able to discern which of the two is the Catholick Church because it is neither of them but each are a part 4. And though the Bodies of the members are visible and their Worshipping actions Visible and their Profession audible yet the faith Professed is not Visible nor the Truth of their Profession or of their Christianity or Church Truth being the object of the Intellect and not of sence 5. And though the true members of the Church do know the true Church
and so it is apparent unto them yet most that are not members of it do not know it Arrians and Mahometans know us to be men professing such and such Articles of faith but they know not that to be the true faith nor us to be the true Church but judge the contrary In this sence contained in these Propositions it is that Protestants deny the Church to have been alwayes Visible and not as the Papists commonly mistake them Prop. 4. We are agreed that this Catholick Church is but One There are not two Visible nor two Mystical Catholick Churches Nor are the Mysticall and Visible two Bellarmine might have spared all his labour that he hath bestowed in vain upon this point to prove that the Visible and Invisible are not two Catholick Churches The Protestants are further from that Opinion then the Papists and it is more suitable to the Popish Interest and Cause to be of that Opinion then to the Protestants If it were not that they are past learning by the advantage of their Infallibility and especially of one man and one so mean condemned by them and that it is unlawfull to be a Teacher of Error I could tell them of a new device by the advantage of this distinction of Catholick Churches for the modelling their mistakes into a more specious plausible form then now it appeareth in to the rest of the Churches But we are glad of their company in any Truth and therefore will not disagree from them in that which makes against themselves One Objection I once heard a Learned Anabaptist cast in our way viz. There may be a Visible Church of hypocrites therefore the Mystical and Visible may be two Answ But the Question was of the Catholick Church and not of a particular Church We confess that some members of the Catholick Church are Mystical and Visible in the several respects before mentioned and that some are Visible and not Mystical or as Bellarmine well calls them Dead Members and not Living and that the Church as Visible is more comprehensive then the Church as Regenerate or Invisible and yet all but One Church though it have more members in it in one respect then in another And we confess that its possible for twenty or an hundred of these Dead members to constitute a particular Church by themselves though it is not usual for Visible Churches to be without Living members and so there may be a particular Visible Dead Member Analogically called a Member or a particular Visible Church that is thus Dead and these be parts of the Catholick Church as Visible But yet there is not two Catholick Churches One Visible and the other Invisible one alive and the other Dead In a Corn field there are 1. Good Corn. 2. Stricken blasted Corn that hath a name and shew but in deed no Corn. 3. Tares darnell cockle and such weeds It is called A Field as it conteineth them all It is called a Corn field only from the Corn. The Univocal proper parts of a Corn field is the Corn only The Visible and Analogical parts are also the blasted ears The darnel and cockle are no parts but noxious accidents There are not two fields of Corn one of true Corn and the of other blasted ears And yet the Corn field taken largely and Analogically hath more parties in it then true Corn and you may perhaps have some particular sheavs that are wholly of that which is blasted which you will call a sheaf of Corn Analogically only but a sheaf of weeds you will not at all call a sheaf of Corn. Even so in the Catholick Church there are sincere Christians which are true and living members and there are Hypocrites which are Analogically members and there are locally mixed many that by denying essential points of the Christian faith or by notorious Impiety do declare themselves to be weeds and no members of the Church at all Prop. 5. We are also Agreed that this One Visible Catholick Church is One Political Holy Society as united in Jesus Christ the Head who teacheth and ruleth it by his Ministers and other Officers in the several parts according to the necessity of each We call it One Political Society 1. Principally because that all the Church is united in this One Soveraign or Head the Lord Jesus and therefore it is called his body 2. They have all the same holy doctrine of faith and Law to live by and be judged by 3. They have all Church Officers of the same sort under Christ to teach and govern them 4. They have all the same kind of Holy Ordinances as Reading Preaching Praying Praise Sacraments c. appointed them by the Lord. 5. They are all engaged in One and the same Holy Covenant to the Lord More might be mentioned and shall be God willing in a peculiar Treatise of Catholicism or the Catholick Church And though Christ himself be not now seen among us yet may he truly be called a Visible Head For 1. He sometime lived visibly on earth 2. And is now the Visible King of all the Church as he is in the Heavens Though we see him not the Celestiall Inhabitants do It is but little of the world that seeth the Pope any more then they see Christ If one unseen to us may be a pretended Visible Head the other may be truly so So that the Body Head Laws Worship c. being Visible so is the Policy Prop. 6. We are agreed also that all these Christians and particular Churches are obliged by Christ even by the very Law of Nature and the ends of their calling and the General Laws of the Gospell to live in as much Love and Unity and Peace as they can and to hold as full and extensive communion as they can that is as far as their work requireth and their Capacity will permit and enable them those that are cohabitans and members of one Congregation must hold local communion in that Congregation unless Necessity prohibite Those that through distance are uncapable of joining in the same Assemblies should yet be conjoined 1. In the same Lord Faith Baptism Covenant Profession 2. In the same bond of Christian special Love 3. In the use of the same sort of holy worship as to the Substance though they differ in circumstances as in the Word Prayer Praises Sacraments c. 4. And in one sort of Church Officers and Government And as far as we have to do with each other all this should be manifested and we should readily own one another as Brethren and true Churches notwithstanding lesser differences Prop. 7. To these ends it is meet that the Bishops or Pastors of the Churches should hold in way of Association as frequent Assemblies as is needfull for the maintaining of mutual Love and Correspondency and right understanding of each other and to manifest their unity and assist each other in the work of God that it may be the more successfully carried on by united strength against
by force The Pastors are the Judges of Heresie and Vice ad hoc thus far so as to judge who shall be Denounced by themselves unmeet for the Churches Communion and Judges of sound Doctrine so far as to resolve what is by themselves to be taught to the people and Judges of that Magistrate so far as to determine whether he be a fit subject for their Administrations and Communion For every man is to judge when he is to act and execute in these cases and therefore when the Question is Who is to be tolerated or forcibly restrained the Magistrate is the only Judge and the Minister but a teacher But the Question is whom should I admit or not admit to my Communion and whom should I perswade and require the Church to avoid or to receive Here the Pastors are the Judges And when the Question is Whether the Pastor go according to Gods Word or not here the people have Judicium Discretionis and cannot be forced though they ought to obey where they see not sufficient reason to the contrary Mat. 28. 18 19. Heb. 13. 17. 1 Thes 5. 12. 1 Cor. 4. 1. Luk. 12. 42 44. 1 Sam. 28. 18. Dan. 9. 8 10. Joh. 20. 23. 2 Chron. 36. 14 15 16. 19. The honor and power of the Pastors is for their work And so great is that work that as to fleshly accommodations it layeth us under abundance more trouble then the power and honor affordeth us relief from All true Pastors therefore should be so far from striving for Power Greatness and Rule and extent of their Diocess as matters of advantage that they should still look on their Power but as Power to thresh or plough or sow or reap a Power to give alms to all the poor in the Town to visit all the sick to cure mad men that will abuse me c. such a Power to labor and suffer in doing good And thus he that will be the Greatest but think of no other kind of greatness but a power to become the servant of all If men had these true apprehensions of the Episcopal office they would be no more forward in contending for power and large Diocesses then now they are in contending who shall Instruct most of the ignorant or go to the poor ungodly families to further their reformation or intreat beseech exhort most of the obstinate from man to man or who should relieve the most of the poor of all the Countrey about And if this be it they contend for they may Rule without a Commission from the Prince Who will hinder them that hath any fear of God 1 Cor. 4. 9 10 11 12 13 16. Act. 20. 18. to the end 2 Cor. 1. 24. Mark 10. 44. 1 Thes 2 9. Luk. 10. 2. 20. No man is called by God to more work then he can possibly do nor should desire and undertake more And therefore if Prelates and Councils and Popes would but conscionably bethink them of the work what it is and how to be done of what weight and how strict will be the account and then consider how they can do it our differences would quickly be at end For though godly men would put off no service they can do yet when they lookt on the undertaking of these Impossibles they would tremble to think on it All conscionable men are sensible of their weakness and the weight of the work and say who is sufficient for these things And I dare say the strongest of them all would feel the weight of the burden of one Parish and be readyer to beg and seek about for help then to contend for a a larger Diocess unless as the meer necessity of the Church for want of laborers might call them to labor in other parts Duty supposeth Authority and Authority supposeth ability and opportunity even natural ability and mental qualifications Psal 131. 1 2. 2 Cor. 2. 16. BY this much you may see what Unity may be expected in the Church on earth 1. A unity of internal Faith and Love and Spirit among all real Christians 2. A Unity of Profession all professing the same Belief that is of the word of God in General and of the Creed and Essentials of Religion in particular and as many more of the particular truths as they can reach 3. A Unity of Professors in local communion in the same Assemblies in Gods publick Worship in the Word Prayer Praises Sacraments c. Where they cohabite or have opportunity for such communion 4. Among those that are out of our reach or being neer us yet differing in some smaller things where a difference is tolerable we may yet in word writing and deed own each other as Brethren and combine for the promoting of the common good and the commonly received truths and duties So that we have in these four the unity of the spirit in the bond of Peace One Body the Catholick Church comprehending all properly called Christians One Spirit The sanctifying Spirit of Christ One Hope of our calling One Promise or Gospel and One Heaven and End One Lord even Christ the only Head of the Church One Faith Both objective in Scripture and the Creed and subjective specifical which is our Reception of Scripture doctrine and of Christ with his benefits One Baptism entring all one and the same Covenant with Christ to be his and take him for our Lord and Saviour renouncing the world the flesh and devil and signifying this by external washing in the name of that Father Son and Holy Ghost One God and Father Our Creator Preserver our End and Happiness Ephes 4. 3 4 5. And is all this Nothing to you that seemed so much to Paul that unless you have also an Earthly Universal Head and an Unity in Ceremonies wherein all must be of your mind and conform to you as if you were Gods you will revile at our divisions and run to Rome for further Unity HAving laid down those Grounds or Principles on which the Unity and Peace of the Church must be built there appears not any great need of adding any more for the reducing these to practice if these were but received the way of practice would be obvious But briefly I shall lay down these few Propositions implyed in those exprest before 1. Let every man profess his belief of the Holy Scriptures in General and in particular of all that Scripture hath exprest to be of Necessity to Salvation by denouncing death to them that have it not And let them also Profess to consent that God be their God and Christ their Saviour and the Holy Ghost their Sanctifier and that they renounce the flesh the world and Devil resolving to live a holy life And let this be by a credible way of Professing And all that do thus let us esteem love and use them as Christians till they some way plainly disown this Profession 2. Let every such Baptized Professor owning also the Ministry Church and Worship Ordinances plainly required
A Key for Catholicks To open the Jugling of the Jesuits and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand whether the Cause of the Roman or Reformed Churches be of God and to leave the Reader utterly unexcusable that after this will be a Papist The first Part. Containing some Arguments by which the meanest may see the Vanity of Popery and 40. Detections of their Fraud with Directions and Materials sufficient for the Confutation of their Voluminous Deceits particularly refelling Ts. Manual some Manuscripts c. With some Proposals for a hopeless Peace The Second Part sheweth especially against the French and Grotians that the Catholick Church is not United in any meerly Humane Head either Pope or Council By Richard Baxter a Catholick Christian and Pastor of a Church of such at Kederminster LONDON Printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster and are to be sold by him there and by Thomas Johnson at the Golden Key in St. Pauls Church-yard 1659. At 4. s. bound To his Highness RICHARD Lord Protector OF THE Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland c. SIR THese Papers presume to tender you their service because the Subject of them is such as it most neerly concerneth both us and you that you be well acquainted with The Roman Canons that batter the Unity Catholicism and Purity of the Church of Christ are mounted on the frame which I have here demolished The swords and pens and tongues that you are now engaged against and which you must expect from henceforth to assault you are whetted and managed by the senseless tyrannous ungodly principles which I have here Detected As unreasonable as they appear to the unprejudiced they are such as have animated the studies and diligent endeavours of thousands to captivate the Princes and Nations of the Earth to the Roman yoke As vain as they appear to us that see them naked they are such as have divided and distracted the Churches of Christ and troubled and dethroned Princes and laid them at the feet of the Roman Pope They have absolved subjects from their Oaths and other obligations to fidelity They have involved many a Nation in blood O the streams of the blood of Saints that have been shed by these Roman Principles in Savoy France Bohemia Poland Germany Ireland England and many other Lands As easie a war as here I manage it is against those adverse Principles that have armed Thousands and Millions against the innocent or against their lawful Soveraigns whom God had bound them to obey They have fastned knives in the breasts of the greatest Kings as the lamentable case of Henry the third and fourth of France doth testifie They have in a few days time in Paris and the adjoyning parts of France perfidiously butchered Nobles and other persons of eminency and people of all sorts to the number of neer thirty thousand as Thuanus reckoneth them if not forty thousand as Davilah The Doctrines which I here confound have invaded England by a Spanish Armado whether by the Popes consent and upon the account of Religion I have after shewed out of their own Writers they have prepared knives and poyson for our Princes which God did frustrate they have laid Gunpowder to blowup King and Parliament and hellishly execute the fury of the deluded zealots in a moment and then to have charged the Puritans with the fact They have in a time of Peace by a sudden insurrection murdered so many thousands in Ireland in a few days or weeks as posterity will scare believe They are dreadful Practicals and not meer speculations that we dispute against I beseech you therefore that you receive not this as you would do a Scholastick or Philosophical Disputation about such things as seem not to concern you but as you would interess your self in a Disputation upon the Question Whether you should be deposed or murdered as an Heretick And whether we should be Tormented and burnt as Hereticks And whether the lives of all the Princes and People upon earth whom the Pope judgeth Hereticks should be at his mercy c. so do in this cause I speak not this to provoke you to deal bloodily with them as they do with the servants of the Lord I abhor the thoughts of imitating their cruelty It is only the Necessary Defence of your Life and Dignity and the Lives of all the Protestants that are under your Protection and Government and the souls of men that I desire On what terms we stand with those men whose Religion teacheth them to kill us if they can and to venture their lives for it is easie to understand When we have no security from them for our lives but their disability to destroy us we must disable them or die I utter no melancholy dreams nor slanders I have here shewed it in the too plain and cepious Decrees of the approved General Council at Lateran that the deposing of Princes and absolving their Subjects from their fidelity and giving their Dominions to others not only for supposed Heresie but for not exterminating such as deny Transubstantiation c. is an Article of their Faith and no man can disown it without disowning Popery in the Essentials If once they will renounce the Decrees of General Councils approved by the Pope we shall be soon agreed Saith Costerus Enchirid. cap. 1. p. 46. Quae sanc Decreta si veritatem si obsignationem Spiritus Sancti si praesentiam Christi spectes idem habent pondus momentum quod Sancta Dei Evangelia They believe these Decrees to be as true as the Gospel I need not therefore tell you that Bozius Hostiensis and many more of them make the Pope to be the Lord of all the World Or that Bellarmine and the stronger side do carry it as The common judgement of all Catholick Divines see what a rabble he heaps up De Pontif. Rom. li. 5. c. 1. that the Pope ratione spiritualis habet saltem indirectè potestatem quandam eamque summam in temporalibus Which cap. 6. he saith is just such over Princes as the soul hath over the body or sensitive appetite and that thus he may change Kingdoms and take them from one and give to another as the chief Spiritual Prince if it be but necessary to the safety of souls cap. 78. He gives us his proof of this And whether the Pope do take your Government to be for the good of souls I need not tell you It is the stupendious judgement of God on Christian Princes for their sins that they have been so far blinded as to endure such an usurper so long and have not before this blotted out his name from among the sons of men Non licet c. It is not lawful saith Bellarmine ib. c. 7. for Christians to Tolerate an Infidel or Heretical King if he endeavour to draw his Subjects to his Heresie or unbelief but to judge whether a King do draw to Heresie or not belongeth to the Pope to
what is the thing whose succession is questioned A Protestant is a Christian that holdeth to the holy Scriptures as the sufficient Rule of faith and holy living and protesteth against Popery The Protestant Churches are Societies professing the Protestants Religion The Protestant Religion is an improper speech but the Protestants Religion is a phrase that we shall own For Protestancy is not our Religion it self but the Rejection of Popish corruptions of Religions or defiling Additions If my Rejections of other mens Additions be themselves Additions then is it in the power of any Heretick in the world to force me to Add to my Religion at his Pleasure A thousand new Articles Forms of Worship he may devise and then must I add to my Religion by rejecting them all even as I add to my Apple by wiping the dirt of it or to my Cloaths by brushing them The Protestants Religion is only the Christian Religion the naked Christian Religion alone The Papists the Christian Religion corrupted with abundance of additions The Protestants ever disavowed any Confessions of men as pretended to be the Rule or Law of their Religion The Protestants Religion is the Holy Scriptures alone The Papists Religion is all that is decreed by the Pope and Councils Our Religion containtd in the Scoipture hath its Essentials and Integrals All the Essentials and as much of the Integrals as in the use of means we are able to understand we believe particularly and explicitely the rest we believe generally and implicitely to be all true So that as the Papists will not give us leave to take the writings of Greâ—ser Bellarmine or any of their Doctors yea the Articles of their Divines at Thoren Ratisbone c. to be therefore Articles of their faith but only those that are contained in General Councils approved by the Pope so we require the same justice of them that they call Nothing the Articles of our Faith but what is contained in the Holy Scripture which is the only Rule of our Religion Do they know our Religion better then we do This is our Religion and this we stand to Well! Consider now whether any thing be easier then for a Protestant to shew you a visible Church that hath successively been of his Religion 1. The Christian Religion hath been in all ages since Christ in visible Societies The Religion of Protestants is the Christian Religion therefore the Religion of Protestants hath been in all ages since Christ in visible Societies 2. That Religion which is contained in the Holy Scripture as its Rule or sufficient Revelation hath been professed in all ages in visible Churches But the Religion of Protestants is contained in the Holy Scriptures as its Rule or sufficient Revelation therefore the Religion of Protestants hath been professed in all ages in visible Churches We name the Societies from the places of their residence Our Church as Augustine tels the Donatists begun at Hierusalem and thence was dispersed into Asia Africa and Europe it hath continued in Syria Aethiopia Aegypt India Greece c. If I could name but one Nation that had been of my Religion I should suspect it were not the true Religion It is the Christian world that is instead of a Catalogue to us O but say the Juglers This is a General answer to say you are Christians there are more sorts of Christians then One I Reply It is the General or Catholick that we are speaking of and therefore if it were not such a General answer it were not pertinent to the Question There are no more sorts of Christians but One that is there is no Essential difference among them but there is a gradual integral and modal difference But may not Christians of several Degrees of Knowledge be in the same Catholick Church Our question is not Where any Sect or any particular Church hath had its succession but where that Catholick Church hath been of which we are members And surely Christ hath but One Catholick Church O but say they would you make men believe that Ethiopians Armenians Greeks c. are Protestants you may be ashamed of so gross a fiction I answer Is it the Name of Protestants or their Religion that you would have us prove a succession of These deceivers cheat abundance of poor souls by this one device even supposing that the word Protestant doth denominate our Church from its Essential parts and so call for a Catalogue of Protestants But I would ask them whether we or they do better know our Religion and consequently what a Protestant is If they know it at all it is from our writings or expressions For sure they will not pretend without signs to know our hearts and that better then our selves You must take it from us if you will know what our Religion is as we must take it from you if we will know yours And therefore delude not silly souls by perswading them that you know what our Religion is better then we If you will believe our Books that tell you believe our sayings also and believe me that here tell you my own Religion A Protestant is a Christian that protesteth against Popery Christianity is our Religion Protesting against Popery is our Negation or Rejection of your Corruptions of Religion Men that never heard of the name of Papist or Protestants may be of the same Religion with us If many Nations of the world never received Popery and we reject it if they never knew it and we know it and disown it are we not both of one Religion even in the Integrals One man never heard of the Leprosie another catcheth it and is cured of it and a third flyeth from it and preventeth it And I think all these are truly men yea and in tantum sound men When you call to us for a proof of our succession either you mean it of the Essentials of our Religion and Church or of the Negation of your Corruptions Either you mean it of the points that we are Agreed in or of those we differ in Christianity is it that we are Agreed in and that is our Religion and nothing but that Protestancy as such is but our wiping off the dirt or curing the scab that you have brought upon our Religion Is he not a man as well as you that will not tumble with you in the dirt or come into your Pesthouse If we know not our own Religion then we cannot tell it you and then you cannot know it And if we do know it believe us when we profess our own Belief We still profess before men and Angels that we own no Religion but the Christian Religion nor any Church but the Christian Church nor dream of any Catholick Church but one containing all the true Christians in the world united in Jesus Christ the Head We protest before men and Angels that it is the Holy Scriptures that are the Law and Rule and Test of our Religion And why are we not to be Believed in this our own Profession as well as you are in yours when you make the Decrees of Popes and Councils to be your Law and Rule and Tests We perform therefore more then you demand You ask us Where was our Church before
Scriptures 3. To let Pastors and other Subjects know what sence of Scripture the Magistrate will own within his Dominions 4. And to let the Pastors and the world know what sence in the principal Points we are agreed in But still we take not our Confessions for our Divine Rule and therefore if there be any errour in a Confession there is none in the Rule of our Religion and consequently none in the Religion which we all agree in but only in such a persons or Churches exposition of the Rule which yet among Christians is not in any essential Point 3. Understand well what is the Catholick Church that when the Papists ask you what Church you are of or call to you to prove its antiquity or truth you may give them a sound and Catholick answer The Catholick Church is the whole number of true Christians upon earth for we meddle not now with that part which is in Heaven It is not tyed to Protestants only nor to the Greeks only much less to the Romanists only or to any other party whatsoever but it comprehendeth all the members of Christ and as visible it containeth all that profess the Christian Religion by a credible profession If the Christian Religion may be known then a man may know that he is a Christian and consequently a member of the Catholick Church But if the Christian Religion cannot be known then no man can know which is the Church or which is a Christian All Christians united to Christ the Head are this Catholick Church If you tye the Church to your own party and make a wrong description of it you will ensnare your selves and spoil your belief and your defence of it 4. Run not into extreams mix not any unsound principles with your Religion For if you do the Papists will cull out those and by disgracing them will seem to disgrace your Religion 5. Use not any unsound Arguments to defend the Truth For if you do the truth will suffer and seem to be overthrown by the weakness of your Arguments 6. Joyn not with those men that cast out any Ordinance of God because the Papists have abused it Reformation of corrupted Institutions is not by the Abolition of them but by the Restauration of them There are few things in use among the Papists themselves as parts of worship but may lead us up to a good original or tell us of some other real Duty which did degenerate into these 7. Joyn not with those ignorant unpeaceable self-conceited womanish rabious Divines or private men that pour out unworthy reproaches at godly men among our selves as if they were Hereticks or such as the Churches should dis-own For these are they that please the Papists and harden them in their Error and offend the weak They think they may call us Hereticks or Blasphemers by authority when we call one another so Such Railers teach them what to say and play their game more effectually then they could do their own When they are alluring the simple people how soon will they prevail if they can but prove their charge against us from the pens of Protestants themselves Having told you on what grounds you must make good your cause against them I shall next give you three or four easie Arguments some of them formerly given you by which even the weakest may prove that Popery is but deceit CHAP. III. Argum. 1. IF there be any godly honest men on earth besides Papists then Popery is false and not of God But there be godly honest men on earth besides Papists therefore Popery is false and not of God The Major is proved thus It is an Article of the Popish faith that there are no godly honest men on earth besides Papists therefore if there be any such Popery is false By godly honest men I mean such as have true love to God and so are in a state of salvation The Antecedent I prove thus 1. Their very definition of the Church doth make the Pope the Head and confine the membership only to his subjects making the Roman Catholick Church as they call it the whole 2. But yet lest any ignorant Papists say I may be a Roman Catholick without believing that all others are ungodly and shall be damned I will give it you in the Determination of a Pope and general Councll Leo the tenth Abrog Pragm sanct Bull. in the 17 th General Council at the Laterane saith And seeing it is of necessity to salvation that all the faithful of Christ be subject to the Pope of Rome as we are taught by the testimony of divine Scripture and of the holy Fathers and it is declared in the Constitution of Pope Boniface 7. c. And Pope Pius the second was converted from being Aenaeas Sylvius by this Doctrine of a Cardinal approved by him at large Bull. Retract in the Vol. 4. of Binnius p. 514. I came to the Fountain of Truth which the holy Doctors both Greek and Latine shew who with one voyce say that he cannot be saved that holdeth not the unity of the holy Church of Rome and that all those vertues are maimed to him that refuseth to obey the Pope of Rome though he lye in sack cloth and ashes and fast and pray both day and night and seem in the other things to fulfill the Law of God So that if a Pope and General Council be false then Popery is false For their infallibility is the ground of their faith and they take it on their unerring authority But if the Pope and a General Council be to be believed then no man but a subject of the Pope can be saved no though he fast and pray in sack-cloth and ashes day and night and seem to fulfill the rest of the Law of God It s certain therefore that if any one of you that call your selves Romane Catholicks do not believe that all the world shall be damned save your selves you are indeed no Romance Catholicks but are Hereticks your selves in their account for you deny a principal Article of their faith and deny the Infallibility of the Pope with a General Council which is your very Foundation And therefore we find that even in the great charitable work of reducing the Abassines the Jesuite Gonzalus Rodericus in his speech to the Emperours mother laid so great a stress on this point that when she professed her subjection to Christ he told her that None are subject to Christ that are not subject to his Vicar Negavi Christo subjici qui ejus vicario non subjicitur Godignus de reb Abassin Lib. 2. c. 18. in Roderic liter p. 323. And Bellarmine saith de Eccl. l. 3. c. 5. that no man though he would can be subject to Christ that is not subject to the Pope that is he cannot be a Christian And therefore Card. Richlieu then Bishop of Lusson tels the Protestants that they were not to be called Christians And Knot against Chillingworth with abundance more of them
being false Popes who are not to be written in the Catalogue of the Roman Popes but only for the marking out of such times And what kind of Cardinals Priests and Deacons think you we must imagine that these monsters did choose when nothing is so rooted in nature as for every one to beget his like And Genebrard that spleenish Papist li. 4. Sec. 10. saith In this one thing that age was unhappy that for neer one hundred and fifty years about fifty Popes did wholly fall away from the virtue of their ancestors being rather irregular and Apostatical then Apostolical So that the Church of Rome had not then either a Holy or Apostolical Head And Pope Adrian the sixth himself writeth De Sacram. Confir Art 4. that there have many Popes of Rome been Hereticks And two or three several General Councils did condemn Pope Honorius for an Heretick And if I should tell you but what their own writers say of the wickedness of the Roman Clergy in many ages and of the wickedness of the Roman people of the large summs of money that the Pope hath yearly for the licensed or tolerated Whore-houses in Rome you would think that the body of the particular Roman Church were neer kin to the Head and therefore not the Holy Mistris of all Churches But perhaps some will say that the Pope was holy because his Office was Holy though his person vicious Ans 1. If this be the Holiness of the Catholick Church mentioned in the Creed then the Institution of offices is it that makes it Holy and while the office continueth the Holiness cannot be lost 2. Then let them prove their Holiness by Saints no more 3. Let them not then delude the people but speak out and tell them that they mean such Holiness as is consistent with Heathenism or Infidelity Murders Sodomie and may be in an incarnate Devil Is this the Holiness of the Catholick Church Object But you may have unholy persons among you also that yet say you are of the true Church Answ But they are no Essential part of the Catholick Church which we believe and therefore it may be a Holy Church though they be unholy But the Pope is an Essential part of the Roman Church which they believe in and therefore it can not be Holy if he be unholy Object By this means you leave no room for the Church of Rome or any Papist in the Catholick Church which is truly Holy Answ Not as Papists so they can be no members of it But if with any of them Christianity be predominant and prevail against the infection of Popery so that it practically extinguish not Christianity then as Christians they may be members of the Church and be saved too but not as Papists CHAP. VII Argum. 5. THE true Catholick Church of Christ is but One The pretended Roman Catholick Church is more than One Therefore the pretended Roman-Catholick Church is not the true Catholick Church of Christ The Major is confessed The Minor I prove thus 1. Where there are two Heads or Soveraign Powers specifically distinct there are two Societies or Churches But those called Papists or the Roman Catholick Church have two Heads or Soveraign Powers specifically distinct Therefore they are two Churches The Major is granted by all Politicians who do without contradiction specifie Common-wealths and other Political Societies from the Soveraign Powers and so the Monarchical Aristocratical and Democratical are several Species The Belgian Common-wealth and the French be not specifically the same The Minor hath two standing proofs so visible that he must be blind indeed that cannot see them First there are the many Volumes that are written by both sides for their several forms Bellarmine Gretsor and the rest of the Italian faction proving that the Pope is the chief Power and above a General Council and the seat of Infallibility and not to be judged by any being himself the Judge of the whole world And the other party proving that a General Council is above the Pope and that he is to be judged by them and may be deposed by them If any say that they are but few and no true Catholicks of this Opinion I answer then a General Council are but few and no true Catholicks which yet is said by them to represent the whole Catholick Church For the General Council of Constance and of Basil have peremptorily asserted it and repeat it over and over yea the Council of Basil say Ses ultim that Not one of the skilfull did ever doubt but that the Pope was subject to the Judgement of a General Council in things that concern faith And that he cannot without their consent dissolve or remove a General Council yea and that this is an Article of faith which without destruction of salvation cannot be denyed and that the Council is above the Pope defide and that it cannot be removed without their own consent and that he is an heretick that is against these things See Binnius page 43. 79. 96. And Pope Eugenius owned this Council ibid. page 42. And for the Council of Constance Martin the fifth was chosen by it and present in it and personally confirmed it in these words Quodomnia singula determinata conclusa decreta in materiis fidei per praesens concilium conciliariter tenere inviolabiliter observare volebat nunquam contraire quoquo modo Ipsaque sic conciliariter facta approbat ratificat non aliter nec alio modo that is what they did as a Council and not what private members did you see then even General Councils representing the Catholick Church do not only say that a Council is above the Pope but make it an Article of faith and damn those that deny it What then is become of Bellarmine and the rest of their champions But perhaps you 'l say they are but few on the other side I answer yes Not only most Popes and the Italian Clergy and the predominant party of Papists but another General Council even that at the Lateran under Julius 2. and Leo 10. expresly determine on the contrary that the Pope is above a General Council So that here is not only an undenyable proof that General Councils are fallible by their contradicting each other and that there is a Necessity of rejecting some of them and consequently that the Foundation of Popery is rotten but also here is one Representative Catholick Church against another Representative Catholick Church and one Council for one Species of Soveraignty and another for another Species of Soveraignty So that undoubtedly it is not the same Church that had two heads of several sorts 2. And the Nations that are on both sides to this day are a proof beyond denyall of their division The French on one side and the Italians on the other and other nations divided between both So that the thing which they call by one name is two indeed But so is not the true Catholick Church Object
following ages we will be tryed by them in the articles of our faith and in the principal controversies we have with the Papists Yea but this will not serve their turn It is the present Church that must judge or none For say they if the ancient Church had power so hath the present and if the ancient Church had possession of the truth how shall we know it but by the present I answer 1. We may know it by the Records of those times far surer then by the reports of men without writing Controversies or numerous mysterious points are sorrily carryed in the memories especially of the most even of the Teachers And for the Records one diligent skilfull man will know more then ten thousand others One Baronius Albaspinaeus Petavius among the Papists and one Usher Blondell Salmasius Gataker c. among the Protestants knew more of the mind of antiquity then a whole Country besides or perhaps then some Generall Councils 2. Well! but if you appeal to the greater number to them shall you go You must be tried by the present Church Why then you are condemned Is it the lesser number or the greater or the better that must be judge You will not say the leser as such If you do you know where you are If you say the Better part shall be judge who shall be Judge which is the Better part we are ready to prove the Reformed Churches the Better part and if we do not we will give you the day and lose our cause But I suppose you will appeal to the Greater part Content Then the world knows you are lost The Greeks Moscovites Armenians Abassines and all other Churches in Asia Africa and Europe are far more then the Papists and your own pens and mouths tell us that these are against you Many of them curse you as Hereticks or Schismaticks the rest of them know you not or refuse your government They all agree against your Popes universall Headship or Soveraignty and so against the very form of your new Catholick Church So that the world knows the Judgement of the far greatest part of Christians on earth to be against you in the main so that you see what you get by appealing to the Catholick Church But I know you will say that all these are Schismaticks or Hereticks and none of the Catholick Church But they say as much by you some of them and all of them abhor your charge and how do you prove it and who shall be Judge whether they or you be the Catholick Church You tell us of your succession and of twenty tales that are good if you may be Judges your selves but so do they say as much which is good if they be Judges When we offer to dispute our case with you you ask us Who shall be Judge and tell us the Catholick Church must be Judge But who shall be Judge between you and them which is the Catholick Church you will not let us be Judges in our own cause and why then should you Are we Protestants the lesser number as to you so are you to all the rest that are against you And what reason have we to let the lesser number Judge over the Greater If still you say because you are the Better let that be first tryed but no reason you should there also be the Judges So that the case is plainly come to this Either the Papists must stand to the Greater number and then the controversie is at end or they must shamefully say we will not dispute with you unless we may be the Judges our selves though the fewer Or else they must lay by their talk of a Judge and dispute it equally with us by producing their evidence which we are ever ready for CHAP. XVIII Detect 9. THE most common and prevalent Deceit of the Papists is by ambiguous terms to deceive those that cannot force them to distinguish and to make you believe they mean one thing when they mean another and to mock you with cloudy words I shall here warn you to look to them therefore especially in three terms on which much of their controversies lies that is the words Church Pope and Council For there 's but few understand what they mean by any one of these words 1. When you come to dispute of the Church with them see that you agree first under your hands of the Definition of that Church of which you dispute And when you call them to Define it you will find them in a wood you will little think how many severall things it is that they call the Church For example sometime they mean the whole Body Pastors and People but more commonly they mean only the Pastors which are the far smallest part And sometime they mean the Church Reall and sometimes only the Church Representative as they call it in a Generall Councill But whether they mean the Pastors or People they exclude all saving the Pope of his subjects and so by the Church mean but a part or sect Sometime in the Question about Tradition some of the French take the Church for the community as fathers deliver the doctrine of Christ to their children c. And sometime they take it in its Politicall sence for a holy society consisting of a visible Head and members But then they agree not of that Head some setting the Pope highest and some the Councill But frequently they take the word Church for the supposed Head alone as in most questions about Infallibility Judging of Controversies expounding Scripture keeping of Traditions defining points of faith c. They say The Church must do these but commonly they mean the supposed Head And one part mean a Generall Councill and the Jesuites and Italians and predominant part do mean only the Pope so that when they talk of the whole Catholick Church and call you to its Judgement and boast of its Infallibility you would little think it they mean all this while but one poor sinfull man and such a man as sometime hath been more unlearned then many of your school boys of twelve or fourteen years of age and sometime hath been a Murderer Adulterer and if General Councils or the common vote may be believed an Heretick an Infidel an Incarnate Devil This man is their Church as Gretser Bellarmine and the rest of that strain profess So that if you do but force them to define and explain what they mean by the Church you will either cause them to open their nakedness or find them all to pieces about the very subject of the Dispute 2. So also when they use the name of a Pope in disputation make them explain themselves and tell you in a Definition what they mean by a Pope For though you would think this term were sufficiently understood yet you shall find them utterly at a loss and all to pieces about it Let us consider distinctly of the Efficient Matter and Form 1 As to the efficient cause of their Pope
my Lecture-day from Thursday to Friday that I change my Religion or the worship of God These are our great changes Well I will you now hear whether the Papists or we be the greatest Changlings 1. Some just changes they have made themselves that they know well enough are as great as ours It was so common in the antient Church to Pray only standing on every Lords day and not to kneel at all in any part of the worship of that day that it was taken for an universal Tradition and to kneel was taken for a great sin and condemned by General Councils many hundred years after Christ and yet the Church of Rome and other Churches as well as we have cast off this pretended Tradition violated this Decree of General Councils and forsaken this universal Custom of the Church And the Papists receive the Eucharist kneeling for all this Law and Custome In the primitive Church and in Tertullians dayes a Common Feast of the Church was used with the Lords Supper and the Sacrament taken then But now this Custom is also changed It was then the Custom to sing extempore in the Congregation to Gods praise But now Rome it self hath no such Custom It was once the Custom to give Infants the Lords Supper but now Rome it self hath cast off that Custom Once it was a Canon that Bishops must not read the books of Gentiles Concil Carthag 4. which yet Paul made use of and the Papists now do too much value Abundance such changes might be mentioned greater then ours in which we are justified by the Papists themselves 2. But they have yet other kind of changes then these They have changed the very Essence of the Catholick Church in their esteem they have changed the Officers the Doctrine the Discipline the Worship and what not as though they had been born for change to turn all upside down In the Primitive times the Church had no universal Monarch but Christ but they have set up a new universal Monarch at Rome In the primitive times the Catholick Church was the Universality of Christians and they have changed it to be only the subjects of the Pope In the Primitive times Rome was but a particular Church as Jerusalem and other Churches were but they have changed it to be the Mistris of all Churches For many hundred years after Christ the Scripture was taken to be a sufficient Rule of faith but they have changed it to be but part of the Rule In the antient Church all sorts were earnestly exhorted to read or hear and study the Scripture in a known tongue but they have changed this into a desperate restraint proclaiming it the cause of all Heresies In the antient Church the Bread and Wine was the Body and Blood of Christ Representative and Relative but they have changed it into the real Body and Blood Heretofore there was Bread and Wine remaining after the words of Consecration but they have changed so that there remaineth neither Bread nor Wine but the qualities and quantity without the substance and this must be believed because they say it against Scripture and Antiquity and in despight of sense it self In the antient Church the Lords Supper was administred in both kinds bread and wine to all but they have lately changed this into one kind only to the people denying them one half of the Sacrament Of old the Lords Supper was but the Commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross and a Sacrament of our Communion with him and his members but now they have changed it into a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the quick and dead and in it they adore a piece of Bread as very God with Divine worship Of old men were taught to make daily confession of sin and beg pardon and when they had done all to confess themselves unprofitable servants but now they are so changed that they pretend not only to be perfect without sin and to Merit by the Condignity of their works with God but to supererogate and be more perfect then innocency could make them by doing more then their duty Of old those things were accounted sins deserving Hell and needing the blood of Christ for pardon which now are changed into venial sins which properly are no sins and deserve no more then temporal punishment Of old the Saints had no proper merits to plead for themselves and now men have some to spare for the buying of souls out of Purgatory Of old the Pastors of the Churches were subject to the Rulers of the Commonwealth even every soul not only for wrath but for Conscience sake was obliged to be subject but now all the Clergy are exempted from secular Judgement and yet the secular power is subject to them for the Pope hath power to depose Princes and dispossess them of their Dominions and put others in their rooms and dissolve the bonds of Oaths and Covenants in which the subjects were obliged to them and to allow men to murder them by stabbing poysoning c. If you do not believe me stay but till I come to it and I shall give you yet some further proof Would you have any more of the Popish Changes Why I might fill a volume with them Should I but recite all the changes they have made in Doctrines and all that they have made in Church Orders and Discipline and Religious Orders and their Discipline and in Worship and Ceremonies I should be over tedious their very Liturgy or Mass-book hath been changed and made by changes such abundance of additions it hath had since the beginning of it What changes Sixtus the fift and Clement the eighth made in their Bibles I told you before as also what changes they have had in the election of their Popes And now I am content that any impartial man be judge whether Papists or the Reformed Churches are the more mutable and unsetled in their Religion and which of them is at the greater certainty firmness and immutability CHAP. XXIV Detect 15. ANother fraud of the Papists which they place not the least of their confidence in is this They perswade the people that our Church and Religion is but new of the other dayes invention and that theirs is the only old Religion And therefore they call upon us to give them a Catalogue of the professors of our Religion in all ages which they pretend we cannot do and ask us where our Church was before Luther To this we shall give them once more a brief but satisfactory answer I. We are so fully assured that the oldest Religion is the best since the date of the Gospell that we are contented that our whole cause do stand or fall by this tryall Let him be esteemed of the true Religion that is of the oldest Religion This is the main difference between us and the Papists We are for no Religion that is not as old as the dayes of the Apostles but they are for the Novelties and Additions of
Popes and Councils Their own Polidore Virgil de Inven. Rerum p. 410. lib 8. c. 4. calling us a Sect doth give you a just description of us Ita licentia pacta loquendi c. i. e. Having once got leave to speak that sect did marvailously increase in a short time which is called Evangelicall because they affirm that no Law is to be received which belongeth to salvation but what is given by Christ or the Apostles Mark what they confess themselves of our Religion And yet these very men have the face to charge us with Novelty as if Christ and his Apostles were not of sufficient Antiquity for them Our main quarrel with them is for adding new inventions in Religion and their principal business against us is to defend it and yet they call theirs the old Religion and ours the new Our Argument lieth thus That which is most conform to the Doctrine and Practice of Christ and his Apostles is the truly Antient Religion and Church But our Religion and Church is most conform to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles therefore it is the truly antient Religion and Church The Major they will yield For no older Religion is desirable further then as the Law of Nature and Moral Determinations of God are still in force I suppose they will not plead for Judaism For the Minor we lay our cause upon it and are ready to produce our evidence for the Conformity of our Religion and Churches to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles That Religion which is most conform to the Holy Scriture is most conform to the doctrine and practice of Christ and his Apostles But our Religion and Churches is most conform to the holy Scriptures therefore c. They can say nothing against the Major but that the Scripture is Insufficient without Tradition But for that 1. We have no Rule of faith but what is by themselves confessed to be true They acknowledge Scripture to be the true word of God So that the Truth of our Rule is Justified by themselves 2. Let them shew us as good Evidence that their Additional Articles of faith or Laws of life came from the Apostles as we do that the Scriptures came from them and then we shall confess that we come short of them Let them take the Controversies between us point by point and bring their proof and we will bring ours and let that Religion carry it that is Apostolicall But we are sure that by this means they will be proved Novelists For 1. Their Traditions in matter of faith superadded to the Scripture are meer Hereticall or Erroneous forgeries and they can give us no proof that ever they were Apostolicall 2. The Scripture affirmeth its own sufficiency and therefore excludeth their Traditions 3. I shewed you how in their own General Council at Basil the Scripture sufficiency was defended 4. I have shewed you in my Book called the Safe Religion that the ancient Fathers were for the sufficiency of Scripture 5. Their Traditions are the opinions of a dividing sect contrary to the Traditions or doctrine of the present Catholick Church the far greater part of Christians being against them 6. We are able to shew that the time was for some hundred years after Christ when most of their pretended Traditions were unknown or abhorred by the Christian Church and no such things were in being among them 7. And we can prove that the chief points of Controversie mantained against us are not only without Scripture but against it and from thence we have full particular evidence to disprove them If the Scriptures be true as they confess them to be then no Tradition can be Apostolicall or true that is contrary to them For example the Papists Tradition is that the Clergy is exempt from the Magistrates judgement But the holy Scripture saith Let every soul be subject to the higher power Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4 5. The Papists Tradition is for serving God publickly in an unknown tongue But the holy Scripture is fully against it Their Tradition is against Lay mens reading the Scripture in a known tongue without special License from their ordinary But Scripture and all antiquity is against them The like we may say of many other Controversies So that these seven wayes we know their Traditions to be deceitfull because they are 1. Unproved 2. Against the sufficiency of Scripture 3. Against their own former confessions 4. Against the concent of the Fathers 5. Contrary to the judgement of most of the Catholick Church 6. We can prove that once the Church was without them 7. And they are many of them contrary to express Scripture And if Scripture will but shew which of us is neerest the doctrine and practice of the Apostles then the controversie is ended or in a fair way to it For we provoke them to try the cause by Scripture and they deny it we profess it is the Rule and test of our Religion but they appeal to another Rule and test And thus you may see which is the old Religion which will be somewhat fullyer cleared in that which followeth II. And that our Church and Religion hath been continued from the dayes of Christ till now we prove thus 1. From the promise of Christ which cannot be broken Christ hath promised in his word that that Church and Religion which is most conform to the Scripture shall continue to the end But our Church and Religion is most conform to the Scripture therefore Christ hath promised that it shall continue to the end 2. From the event The Christian Religion and Catholick Church hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now But ours is the Christian Religion and Catholick Church therefore ours hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now The Major they will grant the Minor is proved by parts thus 1. That Religion which hath all the Essentials of Christianity and doth not deny or destroy any Essential part of it is the Christian Religion but such is ours therefore c. 2. That Religion which the Apostles were of is the Christian Religion But ours is the same that the Apostles were of therefore c. 3. That Religion which is neerer the Scripture then the Romish Religion is certainly the Christian Religion But so is ours therefore c. 4. They that believe not only all that in particular that is contained in the Ancient Creeds of the Church but also in generall all that is besides in the holy Scripture are of the Christian Religion But thus do the Reformed Churches believe c. 2. And for our Church 1. They that are of that one holy Catholick Church whereof Christ is the head and all true Christians are members are of the true Church For there is but one Catholick Church But so are we therefore c. 2. They that are Sanctified Justified have the love of God in them are members of the true Catholick Church But such are all that are sincere Professors of our Religion therefore c. But all this will not serve them without a Catalogue and telling them where our Church was before Luther To this we further answer we have no peculiar Catholick Church of our own for there is but one and that is our Church Wherever the Christian Church was there was our Church And where-ever any Christians were congregate for Gods worship there were Churches of
the same sort as our particular Churches And wherever Christianity was there our Religion was For we know no Religion but Christianity And would you have us give you a Catalogue of all the Christians in the world since Christ Or would you have us as vain as H. T. in his Manuall that names you some Popes and about twenty professors of their faith in each age as if twenty or thirty men were the Catholick Church Or as if those men were proved to be Papists by his naming them This is easie but silly disputing In a word Our Religion is Christianity 1. Christianity hath certain Essentials without which no man can be a Christian and it hath moreover many precious truths and duties necessary necessitate praecepti and also necessitate medii to the better being of a Christian Our being as Christians is in the former and our strength and increase and better-being is much in the latter From the former Religion and the Church is denominated Moreover 2. Our implicite and actuall explicite Belief as the Papists call them must be distinguished or our General and our particular Belief 3. And also the Positives of our Belief must be distinguished from the implyed Negatives and the express Articles themselves from their implyed Consectaries And now premising these three distinctions I shall tell you where our Church hath been in all Ages since the birth of Christ 1. In the dayes of Christ and his Apostles our Church was where they and all Christians were And our Religion was with them in all its parts both Essential and perfective That is we now Believe 1. All to be true that was delivered by the Apostles as from God with a General faith 2. We believe all the Essentials and as much more as we can understand with a Particular faith 3. But we cannot say that with such a particular faith we believe all that the Apostles believed or delivered for then we must say that we have the same degree of understanding as they and that we understand every word of the Scriptures 2. In the dayes of the A postles themselves the Consectaries and implied Verities and Rejections of all Heresies were not particularly and expresly delivered either in Scripture or Tradition as the Papists will confess 3. In the next ages after the Apostles our Church was the one Catholick Church containing all true Christians Headed by Jesus Christ and every such Christian too many to number was a member of it And for our Religion the Essential parts of it were contained both in the Holy Scriptures and in the Publick Professions Ordinances and Practices of the Church in those ages which you call Traditions and the rest of it even all the doctrines of faith and universal Laws of God which are its perfective parts they were fully contained in the holy Scriptures And some of our Rejections and Consectaries were then gathered and owned by the Church as Heresies occasioned the expressing of them and the rest were all implyed in the Apostolical Scripture doctrine which they preserved 4. By degrees many errors crept into the Church yet so that 1. Neither the Catholick Church nor one true Christian in sensu composito at least did reject any essential part of Christianity 2. And all parts of the Church were not alike corrupted with error but some more and some less 3. And still the whole Church held the holy Scripture it self and so had a perfect General or Implicite belief even while by evill consequences they oppugned many parts of their own profession 5. When in process of time by claiming the universall Soveraignty Rome had introduced a new pretended Catholick Church so far as their opinion took by superadding a New Head and form there was then a two fold Church in the West the Christian as Christian headed by Christ and the Papal as Papal Headed by the Pope yet so as they called it but one Church and by this usurped Monarchy as under Christ endeavoured to make but one of them by making both the Heads Essential when before one only was tolerable And if the Matter in any part may be the same and the same Man be a Christian and a Papist and so the same Assemblies yet still the forms are various and as Christians and part of the Catholick Church they are one thing and as Papists and members of the separating sect they are another thing Till this time there is no doubt of our Churches Visibility 6. In this time of the Romish Usurpation our Church was visible in three degrees in three severall sorts of persons 1. It was visible in the lowest degree among the Papists themselves not as Papists but as Christians For they never did to this day deny the Scriptures nor the Ancient Creeds nor Baptism the Lords Supper nor any of the substance of our Positive Articles of Religion They added a New Religion and Church of their own but still professed to hold all the old in consistency with it Wherever the truth of holy Scriptures and the ancient Creeds of the Church were professed there was our Religion before Luther But even among the Papists the holy Scriptures and the said Creeds were visibly professed therefore among them was our Religion And note here that Popery it self was not ripe for a corruption of the Christian faith professed till Luthers opposition heightned them For the Scripture was frequently before by Papists held to be a most sufficient Rule of faith as I shewed before from the Council of Basil and consequently Tradition was only pleaded as conservatory and expository of the Scripture but now the Council of Trent hath in a sort equalled them And this they were lately driven to when they found that out of Scripture they were unable to confute or suppress the truth 2. At the same time of the Churches oppression by the Papacy our Religion was visible and so our Church in a more illustrious sort among the Christians of the most of the world Greeks Ethiopians and the rest that never were subject to the usurpation of Rome but only many of them took him for the Patriarch primae sedis but not Episcopus Ecclesiae Catholicae or the Governour of the Universall Church So that here was a visibility of our Church doubly more eminent then among the Romanists 1. In that it was the far greatest part of the Catholick Church that thus held our Religion to whom the Papists were then but few 2. In that they did not only hold the same Positive Articles of faith with us but also among their Rejections
did Reject the chief of the Popish errors as we do Besides many particular points named in my Safe Religion they Rejected with us the Popes Catholick Monarchy the pretended Infallibility of the Pope or his Councils the new form of the Papall Catholick Church as Headed by him with other such points which are the very fundamentall controversies between us and the Papists So that besides that the Papists themselves profess our Religion the major part of the Catholick Church did profess it with the Rejection of the Papacy and Papall Church and so you may as easily see where our Religion was before Luther as where the Catholick Church or most of Christians were before Luther 3. And beside both these our Religion was professed with a yet greater Rejection of Romish corruptions by thousands and many thousands that lived in the Western Church it self and under the Popes nose and opposed him in many of his ill endeavours against the Church and truth together with them that gave him the hearing and were glad to be quiet and gave way to his tyranny but never consented to it Concerning these we have abundant evidence though abundance more we might have had if the power and subtilty of the Papall faction had not had the handling of them 1. We have abundance of Histories that tell us of the bloody wars and contentions that the Emperours both of East and West have had with the Pope to hinder his tyranny and that they were forced by his power to submit to him contrary to their former free professions 2. And we have abundance of Treatises then written against him both for the Emperours and Princes and against his doctrine and tyranny some store of them Goldastus hath gathered And intimations of more you have in their own expurgatory Indices 3. And we have the histories and professions of the Albigenses Waldenses Bohemians and others that were very numerous and if Raynerius say true they affirmed about the year one thousand one hundred that they had coutinued since the Apostles and no other Originall of them is proved 4. Particular evidence unanswerable is given in by Bishop Usher de Succes statu Eccl. and Answer to the Jesuites and the Ancient Religion of Ireland and in Dr. Field and Morneyes Mysterie of Iniquity and of the Church and Illyricus and many others 5. Even Generall Popish Councils have contended and born witness against the Popes superiority over a Councill 6. And in that and other points whole Countreyes of their own are not yet brought over to the Pope 7. They have still among themselves Dominicans Jansenists c. that are reproached by the Jesuites as siding with Calvin in many Controversies as Catharinus and many more in others Most points of ours which we oppose to Popery being maintained by some or other of them 8. But the fullest evidence is the certain history or knowledge of of the case of the common people and Clergy among them who are partly ignorant of the main matters in Controversies between us as we see by experience of multitudes for one to this day and are generally kept under the fear of fire and sword and torments so that the truth of the Case is this the Roman Bishops were aspiring by degrees to be Arch-bishops and so to be Patriarchs and so to have the first seat and vote and to be called the Chief Bishops or Patriarchs and at last they made another thing of their office and claimed about six hundred years or more after Christ to be universal Monarchs or Governours of all the Church But though this claim was soon laid it was comparatively but few even in the West that made it any Article of their faith but multitudes sided with the Princes that would have kept the Pope lower and the most of the People medled not with the matter but yielded to necessity and gave place to violence except such as the Albigenses Bohemians Wicklefists and the rest that more openly opposed So that no man could judge of the multitude clearly which side they were on being forced by fire and sword and having not the freedom to profess their minds So that in summ our Religion was at first with the Apostles and the Apostolick Church and for divers hundred years after it was with the universal Christian Church And since Romes usurpation it was even with the Romanists though abused and with the greater part of the Catholick Church that renounced Popery then and so do now and also with the opposers of the Pope in the West under his own nose You see now what Succession we plead and where our Church and Religion still was If any deny that we are of the same Church and Religion with the Greeks Abassines and most of the Christian world yea all that is truly Christian I easily prove it 1. They that are Christians joyned to Christ the Head are all of the same Church and Religion for none else are Christians or united to Christ but the Church which is his Body But the sincere Greeks Abassines c. and we are Christians united to Christ the Head therefore we are all of one and the same Church and Religion 2. They that believe the same holy Scripture and differ in no essential part of the Christian faith are of the same Church and Religion but so do both we and all true Christians therefore we are all of one Church and Religion 3. They that are truly regenerate and Justified hating all known sin longing to be perfect Loving God above all and seeking first his Kingdom and Righteousness and accounting all things but as dung in comparison of Christ these are all of the true Catholick Church and the true Christian Religion but such are all that are sincere both of the Greeks Abassines c. and the Reformed Churches as we prove 1. To others by our Profession and Practice by which only they are capable of judging of us 2. To ourselves infallibly against all the Enemies of our salvation in Hell or Earth by the knowledge and acquaintance with our own hearts and the experience of the work of God upon them All the Jesuites in the world cannot perswade me that I love not God and hate not sin and prefer not the Love of Christ before all the world when I feel and know that I do till they can prove that they know my heart better then I do 4. If Christ Consent to it and we Consent to it then we are all that are sincere in their profession of the true Catholick Church and Religion for if he consent and we consent who is there that is able to break the match But Christ consenteth and we consent as we prove by parts 1. His consent is expressed in his Gospel that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life and whoever will may drink of the water of life freely 2. And our consent we openly professed at Baptisme and have frequently renewed and our own
to these witnesses some more of your worthies August Triumph de Ancon q. 5. art 1. saith To make a new Creed belongs only to the Pope because he is the Head of the Christian faith by whose authority all things belonging to faith are confirmed and strengthened Et Art 2. As he may make a new Creed so he may multiply new Articles upon Articles And in Praefat. sum ad Johan 22. he saith that the Popes power is Infinite because the Lord is great and his strength great and of his greatness there is no end And q. 36. ad 6. he saith that the Pope giveth the Motion of Direction and the sense of Knowledge into all the members of the Church For in him we live and move and have our being And the Will of God and consequently the Popes Will who is his Vicar is the first and chief cause of all motions corporall and spiritual And then no doubt may change without blame Abbas Panormitan in cap. C. Christus de haeret n. 2. saith The Pope can bring in a new Article of faith And Petr. de Anchoran in idic The Pope can make new Articles of faith that is such as now ought to be believed when before they ought not to be believed Turrecremat sum de Eccl. lib. 2. cap. 203. saith that the Pope is the Measure and Rule and Science of things to be believed And August de Ancona shews us that the Judgement of God is not higher then the Popes but the same and that therefore no man may appeal from the Pope to God qu. 6. art 1. And therefore be not offended if we suppose you to have changes A Confutation of a Popish Manuscript on this point Just as I was writing this I received another Popish M. S. sent from Wolverhampton to Sturbridge to which I shall return an answer before I go to the next point Pap. M. S. An Argument for the Church IT will not be denyed but that the Church of Rome was once a most pure excellent flourishing and Mother Church and her faith renowned in the whole world Rom. 1. 8. 6. 16. Whites Def. p. 555. King James speech to the Parliament Whitaker in his Answer to Dr. Sanders Fulk cap. 21. Thes 7. Reynolds in his fifth Conclusion This Church could not cease to be such but she must fall either by Apostacy Heresie or Schism Apostacy is not only a renouncing of the faith of Christ but of the name and Title of Christianity No man will say that the Church of Rome had such a fall or fell so Heresie is an adhesion or fast cleaving to some private or singular Opinion or error in faith contrary to the generally approved doctrine of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common received doctrine of the Christian world I pray you satisfie me in these particulars 1. By what General Council was she ever condemned 2. Which of the Fathers ever writ against her 3. By what Authority was she otherwise reproved For it seems to be a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemned by every private person who hath a mind to condemn her Schism is a departure or division from the unity of the Church whereby the bond and Communion held with some former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided her self from any body of faithfull Christians or broke Communion or went forth from the Society of any Elder Church I pray you satisfie me in these particulars 1. Whose company did she leave 2. From what body went she forth 3. Where was the true Church she forsook For it appears not a little strange that a Church should be accounted Schismatical when there cannot be assigned any other Church different from her which from age to age since Christs time hath continued visible from whence she departed Thus far the Papists Manuscript An Answer to the foregoing Argument IF the Author of this Argument thinks as he speaks it s a case to be lamented with tears of blood that the Church of Christ should be abused and the souls of men deluded by men of so great ignorance But if he know that he doth but juggle and deceive it s as lamentable that any matter of Salvation should fall into such hands 1. This Argument I have before answered Detect 13. The word Church here is ambiguous and either signifieth 1. A particular Church which is an Association of Christians for personal Communion in Gods worship 2. Or divers such Associations or Churches Associated for Communion by their officers or delegates for unity sake 3. Or else it may signifie some one Mistris Church that is the Ruler of all the rest in the world 4. Or else it may signifie the Universal Catholick Church it self which containeth all the particular Churches in the world The Papist should not have plaid either the blind man or the Jugler by confounding these and never telling us which he means 1. For the first we grant him that Rome was once an excellent flourishing Church And so was Ephesus Hierusalem Philippi Colosse and many more 2. As to the second sence it is humane or from Church custom so to take the word Church for Scripture that I find doth not so use it But for the thing we are indifferent Though it cannot be proved that in Scripture times Rome had any more then a particular Church yet it s all one as to our cause 3. As to the third and fourth senses we deny as confidently as we do that the Sun is darkness that ever in Scipture times Rome was either a Mother to all Churches or the Ruler and Mistris of all or yet the Universal Church it self Prove this and I will turn Papist But there 's not a word for it in the Texts cited but an intimation of much against it Paul calleth Rome a Church and commendeth its faith True but doth he not so by the Thessalonians Colossians Ephesians Philippians c. and John by the Philadelphians Pergamus Thyatira and others as well And will not this prove that Rome was but such a particular Church as one of them The citation of Protestants are done it seems by one that never read them nor would have others read them which makes him turn us to whole books to search for them if we have nothing else to do and to miscited places But we know that all our Divines confess that Rome was once a true and famous particular Church but never the Universall Church nor the Ruler of the world or of all other Churches in Pauls dayes Would you durst lay your cause on this and put it to the tryal Why else did never Paul make one word of mention of this Power and honour nor send other Churches to her to be Governed And now I pray consider to what purpose is the rest of your reasoning What is it to me whether Rome be turned either
Imperial City 3. They give Equal Priviledges to the seat of Constantinople because it was now become New Rome 4. That the Roman Legates would not be present at this act 5. But the next day when they did appear and pretended that this act was forced the Bishops all cryed No man was compelled It s a just decree we all say thus we all approve it Let that stand that is decreed it s all right 6. Here specially note that this General Council thought they needed not the Popes Approbation for the validity of their Decrees when they pass them and take them for valid even contrary to the will of the Pope Speak you that bear the least reverence to a General Council Did this Council think that their Decrees were invalid if the Pope approve them not You see if you be not wilfully blind they did not And who is now to be believed Bellarmine and his party and the present prevalent party of the Papists that say Councils not approved by the Pope are invalid or without authority or the Council of Calcedon that thought otherwise 7. Note that the Popes Legates called this An humbling and depressing and wronging of the Papacy and therefore entred their dissent see Bellarmines Confession lib. 2. de Pontif. cap. 17. Binnius notes on this Council Baronius an 451. 8. Note also that the shifts of Bellarm. Binnius Baronius Becanus Gretser c. are apparently false that say this Canon was surreptitiously brought into the Council for Aetius Act. 16. openly professed the contrary and all the Bishops professed their consent to the last 9. Note also that this is one of the four Great Councils which the Papists themselves compare to the four Gospels and in it were six hundred and thirty Fathers 10. Note also that this great Council is against them and on the Protestant side in the very foundation of all our differences Whether the Roman Priviledges be jure divino or humano And though it be but the Priviledges and not the now claimed Vicarship that was in Question yet the Conclusion is the stronger against them because the lesser was denyed But their last shift is that this Clause or Canon was not approved and so is Null 1. Mark then you that wrote this Manuscript that we have General Councils against you but we want the Popes Approbation And in good sadness was that the meaning of your Question What Council that is what Pope condemned our Church Can it be expected that this one man should condemn himself or can you be no Heretick till then 2. But let it be so this once Did not your Pope approve of this Council when Gregory the first did liken it with the other three to the four Gospels and said of this Tota devotione Complector integerrima approbatione custodio I embrace it with my whole devotion I keep it with most entire approbation Greg. 1. Regist l. 1. Epist 24. cited in the Decrees Dist 15. c. 2. I think this is expresly a full Approbation not without excepting any part only but excluding all such exceptions And the like Approbation of Gelasius in the Roman Council is cited there also in the Decrees ibid. pag. 33. I did also before instance the sixt General Council against you approved by Pope Adrian in his Epistle to Tharasius in the second Nicene Council And indeed it is no hard matter to prove you condemned by your own Popes also If you could but understand the plainest words in a matter that is against your opinions and wills there needed no talk to perswade you that Pope Gregory the first condemned the Title of Universal Bishop or Patriarch professing earnestly that he was the forerunner of Antichrist that would usurp it But the plain truth is as sad experience teacheth us no words of Fathers Popes or Councils much less of Scripture are intelligible to you when your wills are against the matter But we may truly say of you that lay all on the will of the Pope as Austins Observator your Lodovicus Vives freely speaketh in schol in August lib. 20. de Civit. Dei cap. 26. Those are taken by them for Edicts and Councils which make for them or are on their side the rest they no more regard then a meeting of women in a workhouse or a washing place Do you understand this language of one of your own but too honest to have much company Well but you have a third Question By what Authority was she otherwise reproved Answ By the Authority of that Precept Levit. 19. 17. and many the like By the same Authority that Paul reproved Peter Gal. 2. and withstood him to the face by such Authority as any man may seek to quench a fire in his neighbours house or pull a man out of the water that is drowning or as any one Pastor may reprove another when he sinneth By the same Authority as Irenaeus rebuked Victor and the Asian Bishops withstood him and as Cyprian and the Council of Carthage reproved Stephen and the rest aforecited did what they did By as good Authority as the Church of Rome condemneth the Greek Church doth the Greek Church and many another condemn the Church of Rome 3. The next case is about the Roman schism To your Questions I answer 1. To Question whether Papists be Schismaticks is to question whether Ethiopians be black Do you not at this day divide from all the Christian world save your selves Do you not unchurch most of the Christians on earth O dreadful presumption when Christ is so tender of his interest and his servants and is bound as it were by so many promises to save them and not forsake them You ask what Church you left and when was it and whose company Sensless Questions By a Church if you mean the Universal Church there is but One in all and therefore One Universal Church cannot forsake another but when part of it forsaketh the other part and arrogateth the title of the whole to themselves do you doubt whether this be Schism If you mean a particular Church How can Spain Italy France and many more Kingdoms go out of a particular Church that contain so many hundred particular Churches in them No more then London can go out of Pauls Church The Catholick is but One containing all true Christians on earth and you have been guilty of a most horrid Schism as ever the Church knew For 1. You have set up a Church in the Church An Universal Church in the Universal Church A new form destructive to the old Your Pope as Christ-representative is now an Essential part of it and no man is a member of it that is not a member of the Popes body and subject to him So that even the Antipdes and the poor Abassians that know not whether the Pope be fish or flesh or never heard of such a name or thing must all be unchristened unchurched and damned if you be Judges Yea and Bellarmine tells us which indeed your
Church Constitution doth infer that all that are duly baptized are interpretatively or implicitely baptized into the Pope 2. And as you have devised a New Catholick Church so you hereby cast off and disown all the Christians of the world that be not of your party determining it as de fide that none of them can be saved who yet had rather venture on your Curse and Censure then into your Heresie and Schism 3. And hereby you fix your selves in this Schism and put us that unfeignedly long for peace out of all Hope of ever having Peace with you because you will hearken to it on no terms but that all men become subjects to your usurping Representative-Christ which we dare as soon leap into the fire as do Do you know now where the Church or Body was that you forsook It was all over the world where ever there were any Christians Were it not a great Schism think you if a few Anabaptists should say We are the whole Church and all others are Hereticks or Schismaticks Or was it not a great Schism of the Donatists to arrogate that title to themselves and unchurch so many others And what Church did they forsake Augustine tells them over and over what the Catholick Church was that they withdrew from even all true Christians dispersed over the earth Or that Church which begun at Hierusalem and thence diffused it self through the world But he never blames them for separating from the Universal Roman Head or Vicar but from the Church of Rome as a conspicuous combination of particular Churches Optatus and he do blame them for withdrawing as also from other Churches What if John of Constantinople in prosecution of his title of Universal Patriarch had concluded as you that none in the world are Christs members but his members nor of the Church but his subjects had not this been a notorious schism Tell us then what Church he had forsaken and answer your self But your last Caution in a parenthesis doth condemn your selves What I Must that Church that 's true be visible from Christs time then as Constantinople nor most other were never true Churches which is false so Rome it self was never a true Church which is false also Did you think that there was a Church at Rome in Christs time Sure you are not so ignorant By this Rule there should be no true Church but that at Jerusalem and those in Judaea But suppose you had said since the Apostles time This also had excluded most Churches on earth But if you mean the Universal Church we grant you easily that it hath been visible ever since Christs time but not alway in one place or Country Is not the greater part of Christians in the world whom you schismatically unchurch a visible company Doubtless you know they are Yea the Abassines and many Churches that being out of the Roman Empire did never so much as submit to your Primacy of Order nor had you ever any thing to do with them more then to own them as Christians yet now are condemned by your Arrogancy because they will not begin in the end of the world to enter into a new Church which they nor their Fore-fathers had ever any dependance on It was a shrewd answer of an old woman that the Emperor of Habassia's Mother gave to Gonzalus Rodericus the Jesuite pressing her to be subject to the Pope as the Vicar of Christ or else she could not be subject to Christ Neque ego inquit illa neque mei sancto Petro obedientiam negamus in eadem nunc sumus fide in quae fuimus ab initio ea si recta non erat cur per tot aetates ac secula nemo repertus est qui nos errrantes commonerent i. e. We are in the same Belief as we were from the beginning If it were not right why did no man in so many ages warn us of our error till now Mark here a double Argument coucht against the Pope One from Tradition even Apostolical Tradition for Godignus himself saith that no man doubts but Ethiopia received the faith from the beginning even from the the Eunuch and St. Mathew The other is that sure that Pope that cannot in so many ages look after his flock no not so much as to send one man to tell them that they erred till about one thousand five hundred years after Christ was never intended by Christ to be the Universal Governour of the world What! will Christ set any on an Impossible work Or make it so necessary to people to obey one that they never so much as hear from But what said the Jesuite to the old woman Why he told her Non potuisse Romanum Pontificem qui totius Christi Ecclesiae pastor est praeteritis retro annis Doctores in Abassiam mittere eò quod Mahumetani omnia circumdarent nec ullum ad ipsos additum relinquerant Nunc vero aperta jam Maritima ad Aethiopiam via id praestare quod nequivit prius that is The Pope of Rome who is the Pastor of the whole Church of Christ was not able in the years past to send Doctors into Habassia because the Mahomitans compassed all and left not any passage to them But now the seas are open he can do that which he could not before Liter Gonzal Roder. in Godign de Reb. Abass lib. 2. cap. 18. pag. 324. A fair answer As if Christ had set either the Pope or the Abassines an impossible task and appointed a Governour that for so many hundred years could not govern or the people must be so many hundred years no Christians though they believed in Christ till the Pope could send to them And how should these and all such Countries send Bishops to a General Council As your own Canus Loc. Theol. saith of the Jesuites so say I of your New Church Vocati estis ad secietatem Jesu Christi quae sine dubio societas cum Christi Ecclesia sit qui titulum sibi illum arrogant hi videant an Haereticorum more penes se Ecclesiam existere mentiantur i. e. You are called to the society of Jesus Christ which society being undoubtedly the Church of Christ let them see to it that arrogate this title to themselves whether they do not imitate hereticks by a Lying affirmation that the Church is only with them lib. 4. c. 2. fol. mihi 116. But we do not hence conclude that all that have lived and dyed in your profession have been no members of the Church because that your Church is guilty of Heresie and notoriously of Schism For we know that millions that live among you consent not to your usurpations Nay do not so much as understand your errors thereabout And some hold them but Notionally as uneffectual Opinions And every one is not a Heretick that holdeth a point that is judged Heretical and which is Heresie in another that holdeth it in another sort And there are errors called Heresies by most
which are not destructive to the Essentials of Christianity but only to some Integral part And there is a schism that doth not unchurch men as well as a schism that doth of which this is no place to treat But ad hominem me thinks your own writers put you hard to it who conclude as Bellarmine and many more do though Alphonsus à Castro and others be against it that Hereticks and Schismaticks are no members of the Church And Melch. Canus Loc. Theol. lib. 4. cap. 2. fol. 117. saith that that Hereticks are no parts of the Church is the common conclusion of all Divines not only of those that have written of late but of them also that by their Antiquity are esteemed the most Noble This is attested by Cyprian Augustine Gregory the two Councils of Lateran and Florence Rightly therefore did Pope Nicolas define that the Church is a collection of Catholicks If this be true it is an Article of faith And then Alphonsus à Cast and all of his mind are Hereticks and lost men And I pray you note what a case you are in Two Approved General Councils have determined that a Heretick is no member of the Church But multitudes of your own writers and Pope Adrian and many more of your Popes have judged that a Pope may be a Heretick and consequently no member of the Church And consequently judge what 's become of your Church when an Essential part of it is no part of the Church Your common shift which Canus ibid. and others fly to is that He must be a judged Heretick before he is dismembred But 1. Sure that is but for manifestation to men for before God he is the same if men never judge him 2. Where the case is notorious the offendor is ipso jure cut off 3. Then it is in the Popes Power to let whole millions of Hereticks to be still parts of the Church And so the world shall be Christians or no Christians as he please and why may he not let Turks and Infidels on the same grounds be parts of the Church For he may forbare to judge them if that will serve 4. Then all the Christians in the world that the Pope hath not yet judged and cast out are members of the Church And then millions and millions are of the Church that never were subjects of the Pope If you say It is enough that there is a General condemnation of all that are guilty as they are I answer then it is enough to cut off a Pope that there was a General condemnation against such as he 5. But if all this satisfie you not yet I told you before that two or three Councils and three Popes did all judge Pope Honorius guilty of Heresie and consequently both Popes and General Councils have judged that a Pope may be an Heretick therefore you have been judged Heretical in your Head which is an essential part of your Church And thus I have shewed you what is the schism of the Church of Rome which being but a part hath attempted to cut off all the rest and so hath made a new pretended Catholick Church As a part of the Old Church which consisteth of all Christians united in Christ we confess all those of you still to be a part that destroy not this Christianity But as you are new gathered to a Christ-Representative or Vicar General we deny you to be any Church of Christ If you be Church members or saved it must be as Christians but never as Papists For a Papist may be a Christian but not as a Papist And if yet you cannot see the Church that you separate from open your eyes and look into much of Europe and all over Asia almost where are any Christians look into Armenia Palestine Egypt Ethiopia and many other Countries and you shall find that you are but a smaller part of the Church If you will not believe what I have before proved of this hear what your own say Anton. Marinarins in the Council of Trent complaineth that the Church is shut up in the Corners of Europe and yet Domestick enemies arise that waste this portion shut up in a corner Sonnius Bishop of Antwerp in Demonstrat Relig. Christian lib. 2. Tract 5. c. 3. saith I pray you what room hath the Catholick Church now in the habitable world scarce three elnes long in comparison of that vastness which the Satanical Church doth possess If yet you boast that you have the same seat that formerly you had I answer so have the Bishops of Constantinople Alexandria and others whom you condemn And we say as Gregory Nazianz Orat. de land Athanasii It is a succession of Godliness that is properly to be esteemed a succession For he that professeth the same doctrine of faith is also partaker of the same throne But he that embraceth the contrary belief ought to be judged an adversary though he be in the throne This indeed hath the name of succession but the other hath the Thing it self and the Truth And he next addeth such words as utterly break your succession in pieces saying For he that breaketh in by force as abundance of Popes did is not to be esteemed a successor but rather he that suffereth force nor he that breaketh the Laws but he that is chosen in manner agreeable to the Laws nor he that holdeth contrary tenets but he that is endued with the same faith Unless any man will call him a Successor as we say a sickness succeedeth health or darkness succeedeth light and a strom succeeds a calm or madness or distraction succeedeth prudence Thus Nazianz pag. 377. We conclude therefore with one of your own Lyra Glos in Math. 16. Because many Princes and chief Priests or Popes and other inferiors have been found to Apostatize the Church consisteth in those persons in whom is the true knowledge and confession of Faith and Verity And so much to this empty Manuscript CHAP. XXXVI Detect 27. ANother of their Deceits is this To charge us with introducing New Articles of faith or points of Religion because we contradict the New Articles which they introduce and then they require us to prove our doctrines which are but the Negatives of theirs We receive no Doctrines of faith or worship but what was delivered by the Apostles to the Church These men bring in abundance of New ones and say without proof that they received them from the Apostles And because we refuse to receive their Novelties they call our Rejections of them the Doctrines of our Religion and feign us to be the Innovators And by this device it is in the Power of any Heretick to force the Church to take up such as these men call New points of faith If a Papist shall say that besides the Lords Prayer Christ gave his Disciples another Form or two or three or many or that he gave them ten New Commandments not mentioned in the Bible or that he oft descended after his Ascension and
both and a great part that its necessary to neither And you see here the benefit of having an Infallible Living judge of controversies and expounder of Scriptures and how admirably he hath ended all their differences And again I say If formally these Unbelievers are in their Catholick Church they shall give us leave to say that the Greeks and other Eastern and Southern Christians are in the same Catholick Church as we are when we differ not so much And when they have made the Non-belief of Articles of the faith consistent with salvation they will never while they breath be able to confute him that on the same grounds affirmeth the contrary belief consistent with salvation in case of the same want of teaching and sufficient means And by this time I hope you see of how small moment the Popish Censures are when they judge that a Protestant cannot be saved It s true that S. Clara here judgeth otherwise but 1. It s said his Book was burnt or condemned at Rome for it 2. He alloweth Infidels as much 3. And he proveth himself a Heretick by it at Rome seeing a General Council and Pope have determined the contrary even that it is necessary to salvation to be a subject of the Pope of Rome CHAP. XXXVIII Dètect 29. ANother of their Deceits and I think the most successfull of all the rest is Their suting their Doctrines and Government and Worship to the fleshly humours of the ungodly by which means the Greatest and the Most are alwayes like to be on their side When on the contrary our Doctrine Discipline and worship is all so contrary to carnal interest and conceits that we are still like to lose the most if not the greatest and consequently to be a persecuted people in the world This is their unanswerable Argument By this means they captivate the Nations to their Tyranny The Most are every where almost licentious sensual worldly and unsanctified Wise men and Godly men are few in comparison of the rest of the world And it is the multitude commonly that hath the strength and the Great ones that have the wealth So that I confess I take it for a wonder of mercy that they are not Lords in every Countrey and that the Reformed Catholicks be not used every where as they be in Spain and Italy For where they have but opportunity to shew themselves the Principles and Practises of the Papists are such as will be most likely to win the Rabble rout to them and make them Masters of the multitude and of all except a few believing Heavenly persons For the flock is little that must have the Kingdom And then when they have got the multitude thus to follow them and club'd the rest into prisons or burned them in the flames they reckon of this as one of the surest Evidences that they are the Catholick Church because forsooth they are the greater number in the Countries where they have advantage and it is but a few whom they were able to persecute or burn as Hereticks that were against them The very Argument of the Jews against Christ and his Disciples The Reasons why they have not by this Policie won the Christian world to their side are under God the great Defender of the innocent these four 1. Because in the Eastern and Southern Churches they have not had opportunity to lay their snares as they have had here in the West And also those Churches have too many corruptions and neglects at home for the gratifying of the worser sort 2. Because God hath been pleased in some places so to bless the endeavours of the smaller part as to enable them against the multitude to preserve some liberty 3. Because God hath sometime given Wise and Godly Princes to the people that will not be cheated with the Popular deceits 4. And principally because that the Papal Tyranny is directly contrary to Princes Rights so that its only those that are blinded by ignorance or strengthened by an extraordinary league with Rome or forced by the multitude of Popish subjects and neighbours that put their necks into the Romish yoke For what by the Popes pretended Power in temporals at least in ordine ad spiritualia and what by his excommunicating Princes and his pretended power to depose them and give their kingdoms to another and to absolve their subjects from their oaths and fidelity which is an Article of their faith agreed on by the Pope and General Council Later sub Innoc. 3. cap. 3. and what by his exempting the Clergy from their Princes Power and what by the pilling their Countries for money and what by their doctrine and practises of murdering Princes that are not of their mind by these and many other Evidences they have awakened many of the Princes of the earth to look about them and consequently to befriend the Truth against these Tyrannous Usurpers Had it not been for these helps under God we had not been like to have a name where they can reach nor to have had liberty to breath in the common air It would be a voluminous work to shew you how all the Doctrines Government and worship of the Papists is suted to the humor of the sensual multitude and fitted to take with ungodly men I shall but instance in twenty particulars which are far from all 1. The Reformed Catholicks hold that none should be taken into the Church by Baptism unless themselves or their Parents if they be Infants do make Profession of the Christian faith and of an holy life for the time to come and seem to understand what they say and do and be serious in it which exasperateth the grosly ignorant and ungodly when we deny them this Priviledge of Believers But the Papists admit of the ignorant ungodly and such as believe not explicitely in Christ as you heard even now and so please the people and fill their Church 2. The Orthodox hold that Baptism giveth Remission of sin to none but true believers and their seed The Papists perswade many millions more that all their sins are not only pardoned but actually abolished ex opere operato in their Baptism which is comfortable News to such ungodly souls 3. The Protestants say that Original sin liveth after Baptism in some degree though it reign not or condemn not those that are true believers and that Concupiscence that is all inordinacy of the sensual appetite or inordinate inclination to sensual objects is a sin The Papists tell them that when once they are baptized there is no such thing in them as Original sin and that Concupiscence is no sin at all 4. The Orthodox hold that none are to be admitted to the Eucharist and Communion of the Church therein but those that believe actually or profess so to do the Articles of the faith and understand the nature of the Sacrament and live according to the Laws of Christ But the Papists give it to all and drive men to the Sacrament so that
are together by the ears who say that Merit of Condignity is but ex pacto by vertue of Gods Promise And now I leave it to the Conscience of any sober Papist whether we be guilty in any one point that this great Cardinal chargeth us with And whether Papists and Protestants were not in a fair way for reconciliation if we differed not more in other things then in these And here again I must let them know that Scripture only is the Rule and Test of our Faith and Religion Their Polidor Virgil in this speaks truly of us saying They are called Evangelical because they maintain that no Law is to be received in matters of Salvation but what is delivered by Christ or his Apostles so sapless and putid is their scorn of the Evangelium quintum If therefore Luther Calvin or any man speak in any word amiss blame the man that spoke it for that word but blame not all or any others for it if you are men Austin Retracted his own errors and which of us dare Justifie every word that hath faln from our mouths or pen before God How many hundred points do Schoolmen and Commentators charge on one another as Erroneous among yourselves shall all the errors of the Fathers be charged on the Catholick Church or all your writers errors upon yours And that we do well to stick to the Holy Scriptures as the sufficient Rule we are the more encouraged to think by the concessions of our adversaries of greatest Note as well as by the Testimony of the Scripture it self and the concent of the ancient Doctors of the Church and the unprovedness of of their pretended additonals Among others even this great Cardinal Richlieu saith thus pag. 38. Nos autem nullam aliam c. i. e. As for us we put or assert no other Rule but Scripture neither of another sort nor totall Yea we say that it is the Whole Rule of our Salvation and that on a double account both because it containeth immediately and formally the summ of our salvation that is all the Articles that are necessary to mans salvation by necessity of means N. B. and because it mediately containeth whatsoever we are bound to believe as it sends us to the Church to be instructed by her of whose infallibility it certainly confirmeth us Note here that 1. He grants us that all Articles necessary to our Salvation as Means are immediately and formally in the Scripture And then surely they may be saved that believe no more then is in the Scripture 2. That we are to believe no Church but that which the Scripture sends us to and to believe its infallibility no further then the Scripture doth confirm it And that the Scripture is our whole and only Rule O that all Papists would stand to this But let them not blame us now for standing to it Had this Cardinall done no more by Policie and Power then by Disputing against the Reformation he might easily have been dealt with CHAP. XL. Detect 31. ANother of their frauds is By ranking the Protestants among the rabble of Sects and Heresies that are in the world and then asking ignorant souls If you will needs be of any sect how many are here before you and what reason have you rather to be of the Protestants then of any other Answ Indeed this question is worth the considering by a Papist or any sectary but the true Catholick is quite out of the reach of it The Church of Christ is one and but One. This one Catholick Church containeth all the true Christians in the world This is the Church that I am a member of which is far wider then the Roman Church The Church that I profess my self a member of containeth three parts 1. The most sound and healthfull part and that is the Reformed Churches 2. The most unsound in doctrine though possest of many Learned men and that is the Papists themselves not as Papists simply but as Christians though infected with Popery 3. The middle part which is sounder then the Papists in doctrine but less learned and below the Protestants in both and that is all the Greeks and other Eastern and Southern Churches that are no subjects of the Pope All these even all true Christians are members of the Church that I belong to though some of them be more sound and some be leprous or lamentably polluted To these I may add many particular lesser sects that subvert not the foundation as some Anabaptists and divers others And will you ask me now why I will not be of another sect as well as of the Protestants Why my answer is ready A Sect divided from the body I abhor I am of no Sect It is the Unity Universality and Antiquity of the Church that are its honourable attributes in my eyes Protestants that unchurch all the rest of the world and count themselves the whole Church of Christ do in some sort make themselves a Sect But where is there any such I know none such nor I hope ever shall do And therefore I may say that Protestants are no more a sect then the Patients in an Hospital that are almost healed or then the higher form of Scholars in a school or then the Merchants or richer sort of Tradesmen in a City And such a Sect God grant that I may be of even one in the Church that shall be of soundest understanding and of purest worship and of the most carefull holy honest life But still I shall acknowledge them of the lowest form even them that learn the A. B. C. to be in the same School with me And if they Papists or any others will disclaim me that shall not unchurch me as long as Christ disclaims me not Nor shall it provoke me to disclaim them any further then I see Christ leading me the way So that the Papists may see that if they will deny the Church that I am of they must deny their own and all the Christian world But how will they answer this themselves Seriously I profess that besides their other errors it is one of the greatest reasons why I dare not be a Papist because then I know I must be a Sectary What is a Papist but as meer a sectary as any that retaineth a name in the Church They are a company of men that have set up a Humane Usurping Head or Vice-christ over the Catholick Church owning him themselves and unchurching and condemning all the Church that will not own him The Church that I am of is neer thrice as big as the Papists Church is Theirs is but a piece and a polluted piece that would divide it self from all the rest by condemning them And now I would seriously desire any Papist living to resolve the question If he will needs be of a sect and forsake the Universal Church why of the Popish sect rather then another If because it is the greatest I answer it s less then the whole If because it
against the Papists such as Dr. Fields Crakenthorps Ushers Chillingworths Jewels Rivets Chamiers Ames Reignolds whittakers and such like beginning with Sir Humfrey Linds Via Devia via Tuta du Plessis of the Church and his Mysterie of Iniquity and Dr. John White c. 3. That you will not hearken to Papists secretly nor masked nor coming to you by indirect and Jugling ways but open their perswasions and call to some able studyed Divines to deal with them in your hearing if needs you will hear them that so you may hear one side as well as the other 4. That you take heed what Retainers Servants or Familiars are about you For some that pretend to be acquainted with these men are much mistaken if they be not more frequent at your elbows and in your Bed-chambers then many do imagine If they cannot be of your Councils and your neer attendants they will rather be your Porters or the Grooms of your Stables then they will be kept out We fear not any thing that they can do in an open way in comparison of their secret whispers and deceits when there is no body to gainsay them Had they the Truth we should be glad to entertain it with them It is not therefore Truth in their mouths that we are afraid of But seeing the Nations and our Posterity have so much dependance on your Integrity we call for so much Justice at your hands as that you will not cast open your ears to each deceiver especially in secret or on unequal tearms Let not all our peace and safety be hazarded by the self-conceitedness or imprudence of you that are our Rulers Seeing it is you that must give us Laws or set the Vulgar the pattern which they are so much addicted to imitate We adjure you in the Name of the most High God that you be not too forward and facile in hearkening to Seducers and corrupting those Intellects which the whole Nation hath so great an Interest in and that you be not henceforth as children tost to and fro and carryed about with every wind of doctrine by the the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4. 14. But we beseech you mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16. 17 18. Hearken not to every one that saith Lo here is Christ or Lo there is Christ here is the Catholick Church or there is the Catholick Church As if Christ were divided or the Catholick Church were more then One Or it were confined to a Sect or Party whether Papal or any other and did not contain all Christians through the world All parts of this Church are not equally pure but all are Parts Be you of the purest part but do not therefore take that part for the whole much less the polluted part Have compassion on the diseased and tumified part but do not therefore so far doat as to love the tumor or disease and say that none is the Church but this We are willing to be as Charitable to that Proud Throne of Rome and usurping Vice-christ as will stand with the safety of our souls and of the Church But God forbid that we should therefore be so blind as to run into their Pest-house and drink the poyson by which they are thus tumified intoxictaed Look on their Principles and see what an aspect they have on Christ on the Catholick Church and upon Princes Look back on their Practises and see what their Principles proved in the fruits Yea what need we go further for a warning then to remind you of that which one would think should be deep and fresh in your minds even what they have brought upon Kings Queens Lords Prelates and this whole Land But this leads me to the next Detection CHAP. XLVIII Detect 39. THE last of their Practical frauds at home and the most desperate is Their Treasons against the lives of Princes and the Peace of Nations and their dissolving the bonds of Oaths and Covenants and making Perjury and Rebellion to seem to be Duties and Meritorious works It would be a voluminous task to relate the Histories of the Papal Tresons How the Roman Vice-christ having laid a claim to both Swords Spiritual and Temporal hath plaid the Traytor against the Greek Emperors dispossessing them of the West and against the Emporors of Germany stirring up their own subjects and the Christian Princes and States against them setting his foot on the neck of one and making another wait barefoot long at the Roman gates and keeping many of them in wars It was this Horrid Treason and Tyrannical usurpation over all the Christians Princes that caused all those Treatises on that subject wrote against him in the Defense of Princes and their Rightt which Mich. Goldastus hath preserves and conjoyned in divers Volumes It was this that caused England Denmark Sweden and so many other Princes to be the readier to shake off his yoke Kings are not Kings where the Pope is fully Pope except only the House of Austria whom he is forced to gratifie as the only prop of all his tyrannie France that hath so much stood for its Liberties hath felt the fruits of the Roman Principles and League and two of their most renowned Kings successively have been basely and inhumanely butchered by them And to this day the numerous swarm of the Popes dependant Clergy doth not only devour as is thought about a third part of the Lands but also aws and swaies the Princes Even in Ireland before our wars a Bishop Bedle in his Letter to Laud in Prins Introduct pag. 102. doth open the Power of the Clergie and their insolencies as such that he concludes His Majesty is now with the greatest part of this Countrey as to their hearts and consciences King but at the Popes descretion And in another Letter to the said Archbishop ibid. pag. 112. he saith I that know that in this Kingdom of his Majesty the Pope hath another Kingdom far greater in number and as I have heretofore signified to the Lords Justices and Council which since is justified by themselves in print constantly guided and directed by the order of the new Congregation de propaganda fide lately erected at Rome see the rest Do I need to tell England of the many treacheries since the Reformation against our Princes Or who it was that would have deposed as well as Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth and exposed her Kingdoms to the will of others Or who it was that wrote against King James his Title to the Crown Or who were the Actors of the Hellish Powder-plot Or who it is that hath been still blowing the fire and casting all into disturbances for their ends Do I need to mention their approving of
succession of the Catholick Church for the defection of Henry the eighth who forcibly separated himself and his people from the communion of Christians which was promoted by Edward the sixth and Elizabeth who being pertinaceous and impenitent in the same Rebellion and Usurpation therefore the Pope incited by the continual perswasions of many and by the suppliant prayers of the English men themselves N. B. hath dealt with diverse Princes and specially the most potent King of Spain to depose that woman and punish her pernicious adherents in that Kingdom Read the rest there for though wicked its worth the reading The Pope there saith that Pope Sixtus before him prescribed the Queen and took from her all her Dignities Titles and Rights to the Kingdom of England and Ireland absolving her subjects from the Oath of fidelity and obedience He chargeth all men on pain of the wrath of God that they offord her no favour help or aid but use all their strength to bring her to punishment and that all the English join with the Spaniard as soon as he is landed offering rewards and pardon of sins to them that will lay hands on the Queen and so shewing on what Conditions he gave the Kingdom to Philip of Spain This and more you may see in Thuanus And yet some of our Juglers that say they are no Papists perswade the world that Papists hold not the deposing of Princes nor absolving their subjects from the Oaths of fidelity and that the Spanish invasion was meerly on Civil accounts and that they expected not any English Papists to assist them with other such impudent assertions Even Dominicus Bannes one of the best of them in Thom. 22. qu. 12. art 2. saith that Quando adest evidens notitia c. i. e. When there is evident knowledge of the crime subjects may lawfully exempt themselves from the Power of their Princes before any declaratory sentence of a judge so they have but strength to do it Adding to excuse the English Papists for being no worse that Hence it follows that the faithfull Papists of England and Saxony are to be excused that do not free themselves from the power of their Superiors nor make war against them because commonly they are not strong enough to manage these wars and great dangers hang over them Princes may see now how far the Papists are to be trusted Even as far as they are sufficiently disabled And their August Triumphus saith de Potest Eccles qu. 46. art 2. Dubium non est quin Papa possit omnes Reges cum subest causa rationabilis deponere i. e. There is no doubt but the Pope may depose all Kings when there is reasonable cause for it Is not this a Vice christ and a Vice-god with a witness Add but to this that the Pope is Judge when the cause is Reasonable for no doubt but he must judge if he must execute and then you have a Pope in his colours even in his Universal Soveraignty Spiritual and Temporall And as I said before from Suarez and others when the Pope hath deposed a King any man may kill him I will not trouble you with Mariana's directions for poysoning him or secretly dispatching him de Reg. instit lib. 1. cap. 7. Suarez his moderate conclusion is enough Defens fid Cathol li. 6 c. 4. sect 14. Post sententiam c. After sentence past he is altogether deprived of his Kingdom so that he cannot by just title possess it therefore from thence forward he may be handled as a meer tyrant and consequently any private man may kill him O Learned Suarez No wonder if you and your Profession be dear to Princes and if Henry the fourth of France took down the Pillar of your infamy and received you into his Kingdom and Heart again No wonder if the Venetians at last have re-admitted you to procure some aid against the Turk I will conclude with one Testimony of a Roman Rabbi cited by Bishop Usher who knew his name but would not do him the honour to name him It is B. P. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epistol J. R. impresan 1609. Who hath excused the Powder-Plot from the Imputation of cruelty because both Seeds and Root of an evil herb must be destroyed and doth add a derision of the simplicity of the King in imposing on them the oath of Allegiance in these most memorable expressions worthy to be engraven on a Marble Pillar Sed vide in tanta astutia quanta sit simplicitas c. But see what simplcity here is in so great craft When he had placed all his security in that Oath ho thought he had framed such a manner of oath with so many circumstances which no man could any way dissolve with a safe conscience But he could not see that if the Pope dissolve the Oath all its knots whether of being faithfull to the King or of admitting no Dispensation are accordingly dissolved Yea I will say a thing more admirable You know I believe that an unjust Oath if it be evidently known to be such or openly declared such obligeth no man That the Kings oath is unjust is sufficiently declared by the Pastor of the Church himself You see now that the Obligation of it is vanished into smoak and that the bond which so many wise men thought was made of iron is less then straw These are the words of Papists themselves From their published writings we tell you their Religion I know they will here again tell us abundance of false accusations of the Protestants such as the Image of both Churches heapeth up and they will tell us of our war and killing the King in England But of this I have given them their answer before To which I add 1. The Protestant doctrine expressed in the Confessions of all their Churches and in the constant stream of their writers is for obedience to the Soveraign Powers and against resisting them upon any pretenses of Heresie or Excommunication or such like 2. The wars in England were raised between a King and Parliament that joyned together did constitute the Highest Power and upon the lamentable division occasioned by the Papists the people were many of them uncertain which part was the Higher and of greatest Authority some thought the King and others thought the Parliament as being the Representative body of the people in whom Polititians say is the Majestas Realis and the Highest Judicature and having the chief part in Legislation and Declaration what is just or unjust what is Law and what is against Law Had we all been resolved in England which side was by Law the Higher Power here had been no war So that here was no avowed resisting of the Higher Powers None but a Parliament could have drawn an Army of Protestants here under their banner 3. And withall that very Parliament consisting of Nobles Knights Gentlemen and Lawyers who all declared to the people that by Law they were bound to obey and assist them
a Catholick Christian Communion in several Assemblies under several Pastors acknowledging each other the true Churches of Christ and joining in Synods when there is need or at least giving each other as Christian Brethren the right hand of Fellowship 3. If that may not be attained the next Degree desirable is That we may take one another for Christians and Churches of Christ though under such corruptions as we think we are bound to disown by denying the present exercise of Communion as we do with particular Offendors whom we only suspend but not condemn 4. If this much may not be had but we will needs excommunicate each other absolutely the next degree of Peace desirable is That we may at least so far regard the common truths that we are agreed upon and the souls of the people as to consult on certain terms on which we may most peacably mannage our differences with the least hatred and violence and disturbance of the Peace of Christendom and with the least impediment to the generall success of those common truths that we are all agreed in 5. If this may not be attained the lowest Degree desirable is That at least we may take each other for more tolerable adversaries then Mahometans and Infidels are and therefore may make a common Agreement to cease our wars and blood-shed and turn all our Arms against the great and common enemy of the Christian name Were it not for the Devill and wicked minds all these might be attained but if men be not themselves incarnate Devils we may expect the last And understand that the terms of the lowest Degrees are all implyed in the Higher And now for the Highest and most desirable Degree of Peace viz. That we may meet in the same Assemblies under the same Pastors there is so little probability that ever it should be accomplished and withall the various apprehensions of Christians doth make it so necessary to bear with one another in this that I shall say but little of it as knowing that I am like to lose my labor Only this much concerning the terms If you will impose no more in point of Belief as necessary to Salvation but what is contained in the holy Scriptures yea and in the three Creeds and four first General Councils and will leave the Pastors of the particular Churches to worship God according to the Rule of the holy Scriptures prudentially themselves determining of meer Cireumstances left to their determination according to the general Rules of Order Decency and Edification and bearing with a difference herein according to the different state of the Churches or judgement of the Pastors this is the only probable way to bring us to this highest degree of Peace Though according to this course men should be left to some liberty to joyn with what particular Congregation they see best and so would most commonly joyn with those that are neerest to their own judgement yet the minds of most would be so mollified by mutual forbearance and by being satisfied in the way that is thus commonly agreed on that they would not scruple to joyn with one another in worship in the several Assemblies And here I shall further add that if these terms cannot be yielded to yet all that will yield to the terms of the next Degree of Peace may be admitted into our Assemblies though we cannot joyn with them in theirs For the Papists have much more in the manner of their worship to keep us back then we have in ours to keep them back For their errors lie in Excess and they suppose ours to lie but in Defect Now Conscience may well yield to perform one part of a duty when it cannot perform the rest But it can never yield to commit one actual sin by doing what is forbidden by God E. G. If the Papists think that we sinfully omit the Sacrament of extream unction they may nevertheless be present at the Sacrament of Baptism If they think we preach not all the truth that we ought they may nevertheless hear and receive that which we do preach But in their Assemblies we must do those positive actions which our Consciences tell us are sins against God And therefore unless they will yield as they will not to the above mentioned terms we cannot joyn in their Assemblies but upon the terms in the next Chapter we can admit them into ours But if the Churches have not a necessary Liberty in this they will never agree but be still breaking into pieces or persecuting one another to force men to joyn with such Assemblies as best please them that bear the Sword Though we readily grant that to hear and learn the principles of Religion and submit to the state and duty of Catechumens men may with less inconvenience be forced and ordinarily should so be CHAP. LII THe second Degree of Peace desirable below the former is That if we cannot live under the same particular Pastors and joyn in the same Assemblies yet we may hold a distant Catholick Communion in several Assemblies without condemning or persecuting one another and may afford the special Love of Christians to each other This will not be done as long as we take each other for Hereticks and therefore the causes of those censures must be removed partly by a neerer agreement in our Principles and partly by a greater Moderation in our Censures of one another And this a man would think among Christians might be obtained The terms on which it must be had are these Suffer us to confine our selves in Worship and Church-government to the Word of God and the Determination of our particular Churches or Pastors about meer Circumstantials left to their determination and do you confine your selves accordingly or not extending your practise beyond the Canons of the four first General Councils and the rest called Canones Ecclesiae Universalis published by Justellus Tillius or the Codex Dionysii Exigui and for matters of Faith we will all profess to receive the Scripture and what ever is contained in the said Councils and the three Creeds and to insist upon no more as necessary And on these terms we may live in Love as Brethren Here note 1. That in matter of Faith we will not be bound to take more then is in the Scripture and yet we will take all as aforesaid that is in the Creeds because we are perswaded that there is no more then is in the Scripture 2. We will not tie each other to profess on what Grounds we receive the Doctrine of these Creeds and Councils If you receive it as Tradition superadded to Scripture and if we receive it as being the same with Scripture Doctrine or a meet Exposition of it we will leave each other in this without examination to their liberty as long as it is the same things that we believe 3. In matters of Worship and Government we may not be compelled to take in all that is in all these Councils but only
any of his power I say that not a word of this should be mentioned by Christ or his Apostles even when there was so great occasion when Peter was among them when there was striving for supremacy when the Churches were lamentably contending about the preheminence of their teachers and some were for one and some for another and some for Cephas himself and when so many heresies arose and hazzarded the Churches as among the Corinthians Galathians and others there did This is a thing so hard to be believed by one that believeth the wisdom and love of Christ that I must say for my part it surpasseth my belief Especially as is said when also so much is said against the Supremacy contended for All this I speak of any earthly Head whether Pope or Council Object But say the Papists you can allow Princes to be the Heads of the Church why then not a Pope Answ We acknowledge Princes and Pastors over parts of the Church but not over the Church Universal Every Corporation may call the Major or Bayliff a subordinate Head of that Corporation but not of the Kingdom Object There may be a Prorex a Viceking and why not then a Vicarious Head of the Catholick Church Answ 1. Because a Kingdom is not so big as all the world or all that is and may be Christian 2. Because a King having Dominion hath power of doing all that by others that he cannot do himself But a Pastor being a Minister hath no such power given him but must do his work himself 3. Because the work of the Ministry requires far more labour and attendance So that it is an utter Imopssibility that any man should be able to do the work of a supream Ruler of all the Christian world yea or the hundreth part of it as it must be done 4. And lastly because Christ hath made no such Prorex or Vice-head and none can have it without his commission Object But the Civil power hath been exercised by an Emperour over more then all the Christian world And why then may not the Ecclesiastical Answ 1. It s notoriously false that ever Emperour had so extensive a Dominion 2. The Gospel must be preached over all the world and therefore we must consider the possible future extent of the Church and not only the present existent state 3. There are many millions of Christians mixt in the Dominions of Infidel Princes among other Religions which makes the Government of them the more difficult 4. I shewed before from the nature of the work many other difficulties which make a difference Object Monarchy is the best Government therefore the Church must have it Answ The Monarchy of God is best but among men it is according to the state of the Rulers and subject One way is better in some cases and another in others 2. For one man to be Monarch of all the Christian world is not best when by taking a thousand times more upon him then he can do he will ruine instead of ruling well 3. You may as well say An Universal Civil Monarch over all the world is best therefore so it must be but when will you prove that But if I mistake not in my conjecture it is the thing that the Jesuites have lately got into their heads that the Pope must have the Universal Soveraignty Ecclesiastical and Civil that so an Universal peace may be in the world Obj. There was but One High Priest before Christ Answ 1. No more there was but one Temple Will you therefore have no more Nor but one civil Monarch in that Church Would you have no more I partly believe it 2. It was easie for one to Rule so small a Nation as Judaea in comparison of all the world 3. Prove you the Institution of your Supremacy as we can prove the Institution of Aarons Priesthood and the taking of it down again and we will yield all 4. That Priesthood was a Type of Christ the Eternal Priest and is ended in him as the Epistle to the Hebrews shews at large Object There is a Monarchy among Angels and Devils Answ 1. It s a hard shift when you must go to another world for your pattern But for your Argument fetcht from Hell I will leave it with you but for that from Heaven I say there 's no proof of it And if there were till you can prove that our work and fitness for it is the same as Angels and that the Lord hath appointed the same form here you have said nothing But because this Question is largely handled by abundance of our Learned Writers I shall say no more to it here but conclude that by this which is already said in brief it is manifest that The Catholick Church of Christ is not one Visible Political Body as joined to any One Universal Visible Head or Soveraign besides Christ If any being driven from this hold shall say that yet there are several Patriarcks that Govern the several Provinces of the Christian world though there be no head but Christ I answer 1. If there be no earthly Head and Center of unity then I have the main cause These Patriarcks may and do at this day unreconcilably disagree among themselves This therefore will not serve for a unity 2. When as is aforesaid you have well proved the Institution of these Patriarcks and how many they be and who and the power of Princes to make new ones and not to forbear it and to pull down the old ones and when you have answered the foregoing Arguments as many of them as extend to Patriarchal power also as well as Unversal Headship then we shall take this further into consideration In the mean time I supersede as having done that which I think necessary to take off men from inclining to Rome and reproaching of Churches upon the erroneous Conceit of the Nature and unity of the Catholick Church as if it were One as under One Earthly Visible Head CHAP. IV. Opening the true Grounds on which the Churches Unity and Peace must be sought and the means that must be used to attain so much as is here to be expected Quest BUT if this be not the way of the Churches Unity which is and what should we desire and endeavour for the attaining it For the distractions of the Church are so great through our divisions that it makes us still apt to suspect that we are out of the way Though it be a great work to answer this question rightly and a hundred a thousand times greater to answer it satisfactorily that is to satisfie prejudiced incapable men with a right answer yet I shall attempt it by casting in my thoughts or to speak more confidently by declaring so much as I am certain is the will of God concerning this weighty thing And here I shall first lay down those grounds upon which we must proceed if we will do our duty for the union of the Church 2. I shall tell you what
them when they turn to the same sects from you Nor no more then you bred the Lutherans far better men They went out from you and yet you bred them not But on the other side you cherish those as part of your Church which differ from you in your fundamentals so that the Pope dare not unchurch or disown them as the French c. but so do not we 16. Our Unity is in Positives and theirs is in Negatives Ours is a Unity in faith and theirs is in not believing the contrary And so dead men may have a fuller Unity in the grave then the Papists have 17. Our Union is Divine having a Divine Head and Center and Divine Doctrine and Law in which we agree But the Papists is humane having a carnal Head and Center and Humane Decrees and Canons for its matter and Rule 18. They have not so sure a means of retaining men in their unity as we have Let experience be Judge of this For where one hath forsaken our Unity and Communion I suppose hundreds if not thousands have forsaken theirs as France Belgia Germany Sweden Denmark Poland Hungary Transilvania England Scotland Ireland c. can witness and if themselves might be believed the Greek Church and all or almost all the Christians else in the world have gone from their unity And yet will they glory in the effectualness of their means of unity Why then did they not retain all these Nations in their unity 19. Moreover indeed they have very little Religious unity at all among them for its force and terror that keeps men in their Church And who can tell under such violence how many stick to them in Conscience and willingly He that will forsake their Religion in Spain must be tormented and burnt at a stake and in other Countreys where they have full power he must be at least undone So that 1. Theirs is a unity of bodies more then of minds 2. And their union is not procured by the Pope as Pope but by the temporal sword which the Pope hath usurped over some countreys and which deluded Princes use by his perswasion in other Countreys What a jugling deceit then is this to perswade poor souls that the only way to unity is to Center in the Pope of Rome and that this is the most effectual means of ending differences when in the mean they make so little use of it and place so little confidence in it themselves but uphold their unity by the Magistrates sword And if this be the way we have Magistrates among us as well as they that can as effectually compell men to unity as far as their Judgements tell them it is fit And besides this force it is the riches and preferment of their Clergy with their immunity from secular power the like that is the means of their unity But it is the light of holy Scripture opened by a faithfull Ministry and countenanced by Christian Magistracy without tyranny that is our means of unity If the Papal Headship be so effectuall a means of unity as they pretend and if they are so much of a mind as they say let them give us leave but to preach one 12. moneths in Spain and Italy if they dare or let them give men leave without fire and sword to choose their Religion 20. And yet besides all this and after all this tyranny they have more difference among themselves then we have or then all the Christians that I hear of in the world And to hide the Infamy of their differences they tolerate them and extenuate them For differences in Discipline and order of Worship they allow abundance of sects called Orders that men and women may choose which they please And the voluminous differences of their Schoolmen Casuists and Commentators they say are not in matters of faith But call them what you will they are many of them greater differences then are with us I pray read over the Jansenians Mysterie of Jesuitism and take notice of the differences between the Jesuites and them in Case Divinity and judge whether they be small And let it not offend your ears if I recite some of their Differences in that Papists own words as he cites the Jesuites and tells you where to find what he saith Pag. 89. Filintius the Jesuite holds that if a man have purposely wearied himself with satisfying a whore that he might be dispensed with from fasting on a fasting day he is not obliged to fast But the Jansenians think otherwise Basilius Pontius Bunny the Jesuites teach that a man may seek an opportunity of sinning primò per se when the spiritual or temporal concernment of our selves or our neighbours inclineth him thereto But the Jansenists think the contrary Pag. 91. Eman. Sa the Jesuite holds that a man do what he conceives lawfull according to a probable opinion though the contrary be the more certain and for this the Opinion of one grave Doctor is sufficient And Filintius the Jesuite held that it is lawfull to follow the less probable opinion though it be the less certain and that this is the common opinion of modern authors Pag. 95. And yet the Jansenists are against it Layman the Jesuite holds that If it be more favourable to them that ask advice of him and more desired it is Prudence to give them such advice as is held probable by some knowing person though he himself be convinced that it is absolutely false But the Jansenists are against this Pag. 96. Bunney the Jesuite holds that when the patient follows a probable opinion the confessor is bound to absolve him though his judgement be contrary to that of the penitent and that he sins mortally if he deny him absolution Myster of Jesuit pag. 97. But the Jansenists deny this Father Reginaldus and Cellot hold that the modern Casuists in questions of Morality are to be preferred before the antient Fathers though they were nearer the Aposiles times Pag. 98. But the Jansenists think otherwise Pope Gregory the fourteenth declareth Murderers unworthy to have Sanctuary in Churches But the Jesuits and Jansenists agree not who are the Murtherers The 29 Jesuites in their Praxis page 600. by murderers understand those who have taken money to kill one treacherously and that those who kill without receiving any reward but do it only to oblige their friends are not called murtherers But the Jansenists think otherwise No marvail if you cannot understand the Scripture without a judge when you can no better understand your judge no not what he means by a murtherer Vasquez the Jesuite saith that in this Question rich men are obliged to give alms out of their superfluity though the affirmative be true yet it will seldom or never happen that it is obligatory in point of practice Pag. 105. But the Jansenists think otherwise Valentia the Jesuite Tom. 3. p. 2042. holds that If a man give money not as the price of a Benefice but as a Motive to resign
adversary will deny it or accuse it Men are in never the more danger of damnation because a Papist or any other partial Sectary will tell them that they shall be damned We believe not that the Pope hath so far the Power of the Keyes of Heaven as that he can keep out whom he please We have a promise of salvation from Christ and then we can bear the threatning of a Pope When Bellarmine judgeth Pope Sixtus damned himself its strange that he should have a power before to dispose of Heaven for others and shut out whom he pleased that must be shut out himself The Novatians Donatists Anabaptists or any such Sect that held the substance of the Christian faith might have pleaded this Argument as well as the Papists for they also have the courage to pass the sentence of damnation upon others if that will serve turn and we have the Charity to say that some of them may be saved 2. If by the Papists own confession Charity be the life of all the graces or holy qualities of the soul and that which above all others proveth a man to be Justified and in a state of salvation then judge by this Argument of their own whether our charitableness or their uncharitableness be the better sign and whether it be safer to joyn with the charitable or the uncharitable yea with them that are so notoriously uncharitable as to condemn the far greatest part of the Church of Christ meerly because they are not Papists 3. When we say that a Papist may be saved it is with all these limitations 1. We say that a Papist as a Christian may be saved but not as a Papist As a man that hath the Plague may Live but not by the Plague 2. We say that Popery is a great enemy and hinderance to mens salvation and therefore that those among them that are saved must be saved from Popery and not by it 3. We say that therefore salvation is a rarer thing among the Papists then among the Reformed Catholicks where it is most difficult it is like to be most rare many more of the Orthodox are like to be saved then of the Papists 4. And we say that where Popery prevaileth against Christianity and so much mastereth the heart and life that the Christian doctrine is not Practically received there is no salvation to be had for such without Conversion Thus is it that we say a Papist may be saved And for my part I will not be the more uncharitable to them for fear of giving them advantage I know Hunnius hath written a Book to prove them no Christians and Perkins hath written another to prove that a Papist cannot go beyond a Reprobate and I must needs say so too of all those in whom Popery is predominant practically and overcometh Christianity But yet I doubt not but God hath thousands among them that shall be saved partly of the common people that are forced to forbear contradicting the Priests and that understand not or receive not all the mysteries of their deceit and partly among the Fryars and Jesuites where some of them take in the venom but speculatively or not predominantly and practically give themselves to Mortification and an holy Life though I have known none such yet when I read the writings of Gerson Kempis Thaulerus Ferus Barbanson Benedictus Anglus the Life of Mounsieur de Renty and such others though I see in some much of error and meer affectation yet I am easily perswaded to believe that they had the spirit of God and that there are many more such among them But I should be sorry if Holiness were not much more common among us and freer from the mixtures of error and affectation 4. And for our saying that they have the Kernel and so much as is necessary to salvation it is true but it is the same Kernel that we hold and we have it undefiled and unpoysoned and the Papists mix it with the venom of their Errors He that hath all things in his meat and drink that I have in mine may yet make it worse then mine if he will put dung or poyson in it When you have all things necessary in a precious Antidote or other Medicine you may soon marr all by putting in more then all as the Papists do The plain truth is the Papists and Reformed Catholicks are both Christians and Christianity is enough to save them that mar it not but keep it practically and predominantly even as a man that takes poyson and he that taketh none are both of them men and he that takes the poyson may be said to have all the same parts and members as the other and yet not be so likely to live as he that lets it alone And I cannot say but many that take it may recover and if you ask me Which be they I say All those that timely cast it up again or else whose strength of Nature prevaileth against it and keepeth it from mastering the Heart or vital Powers shall be recovered and live but those in whom the poyson prevaileth and is predominant shall die So all those Papists that so receive the Errors of Popery as either to cast them up again or that they are not predominant to the subduing of the power of Christian Faith and Holiness by keeping them from being sincere and practical and predominant these shall be saved but not the rest Now if upon these grounds any man shall think that Popery is the safer way because we say that they have all that is necessary to salvation objectively in their Creed and that a Papist may be saved upon the same terms that man may be perswaded that it is safest taking poyson because that he hath all the parts of a man that takes it and possibly nature may prevail and he may live But yet I shall choose to let it alone 5. The same Papists that say that a Protestant cannot be saved do yet maintain that an Infidel may be saved or one that believeth not the very Articles of the Christian faith You will think this strange But I will a little insist on the proof of it to these uses 1. That you may see that their censures proceed from meer design or partiality 2. That you may see that they make believing in the Pope to be more necessary then believing in Christ or in the Holy Ghost 3. That you may see how holy their Church is that admitteth of Infidels 4. That you may see on how fair grounds they deny that we may be one Catholick Church with the Fathers Greeks Egyptians Abassines Armenians Waldensis c. because of some differences when yet they themselves can be one Church with Infidels or such as deny the Articles of the Creed or at least believe them not 5. And that you may see how well their Religion hangs together and also how well they are agreed among themselves even about the essentials of Christianity it self whether they be
not bound so much as to seek information And pag. 120. he cites Vega lib. 6. cap. 18. saying that as Ignorance purae negationis about many Articles of faith may be without fault so there is the same reason of Ignorance pravae dispositionis Which he maintains against Gerson and Hugo And S. Clara adds of his own To speak my sense freely I think that the common people committing themselves to the instruction of the Pastors trusting their knowledge and goodness if they be deceived it shall be accounted Invincible Ignorance or probable at least So Herera which excuseth from fault Yea some Doctors give so much to the Instruction of Doctors on whom the care of the flock lyeth that if they teach hic nunc that God would be hated that a rude Parishoner is bound to believe them And so page 121. concludeth that he hopeth many of us are saved Page 122. he citeth the concent of Azorius To. 1. l. 8. Just c. 6. and Corduba again And pag. 123. saith It seemeth to be the common Opinion of the Schools and Doctors at this day that the Laity erring with their Teachers or Pastors are altogether excused from all fault yea by erring thus many wayes materially they merit for the act of Christian Obedience which they owe their teachers as Valentia saith Tom. 3. disp 1. q. 2. pag. 5. and others with Angles Vasquez c. Pag. 124 125. After Cajetan he cites Zanchez teaching that those that are brought up among Hereticks are not bound presently to believe and yet are not to be accounted Hereticks till they refuse Belief sufficiently propounded to them And he cites Alph. Ã Castro and Simanchas Aragon and Tannerus and Faber for the same And pag. 126. he cites Eman Sa affirming that even among Catholicks many are excused from the explicite knowledge of the Trinity and Incarnation specially if there want a Teacher For what saith he shall we say that an infinite number of Christians otherwise good people perish that scarce know any thing aright of the Mysterie of the Trinity and Incarnation Yea judge perversly or falsly of them if you ask them And cites Rozella and Midina of the same mind Lastly gives also the judgement of Gr. Valentia fully for his opinion Analys fid lib. 2. cap. 3. lit D. In the sixteenth Probleme page 127. he puts another Question Whether the Law of Nature and Decalogue may be unknown without fault And saith that though Alex. Ales say No yet It is the more common and received Opinion citing Adrian Corduba Herera alios communiter that there may be such invincible ignorance in respect of the Law of Nature and the Decalogue And note for the understanding of all this that this which they call an Implicite faith in Christ is no actual faith in Christ at all He that only believes as the Church believes and knows not that the Church believes in Christ in the Resurrection of Christ c. hath no actual belief in Christ or the Resurrection at all Ignoti nulla fides If I believe that one of you is true of his word it doth not follow that I actually believe the particular propositions which I never heard This which they call an implicite Belief is nothing but the explicite actual belief of the Formal Object of Faith Divine or Humane as that God is True or the Church True and infallible but it is no belief at all of the particular material object And note that every one in the world that believeth that there is a God must needs believe that he is no Lyar and so hath in God an Implicite belief Now if this will save men without a particular belief in Christ then Christianity is not necessary Every Turk and Jew and Infidel that believeth in God may then be said to have an Implicite faith in Christ in the Popish language because he believeth all that God revealeth to be true But if an Implicite faith in God will not serve how should an implicite faith in the Church serve unless the Church that is the Pope be better then God See here whether they make any more of the Christian faith then a meer shooing horn to draw and keep men to their side By a General Council and the Pope it is determined that no man can be saved out of their Church as headed by the Pope To believe in the Pope is of Necessity to Salvation but to believe in Christ in his Incarnation Death Resurrection is not so An Implicite faith in the Pope or Church yea or erring Doctors may save and men may merit by following them in error but an Implicite faith in God himself will not save if we believe not in the Pope So that if we were Infidels we might be saved so we were of the Church of Rome and believed in the Pope but the Holiest Christian that believeth explicitely in God and all the Articles of the faith cannot be saved if he believe not in the Pope Do you think they believe these Doctrines themselves or rather frame them to the building of their Kingdom And what a wonder is it that Learned Doctors see not their own contradiction they suppose a man to believe in the Pope or as the Church believeth and yet not to believe in Christ And is not the Church essentially a company of Christians the spouse and body and school and Kingdom of Christ And is not the Pope essentially the pretended Vicar of Christ How then can they believe in Christs Vicar or Christs School or Kingdom or followers before they believe in Christ himself And by all this you may perceive the Holiness of the Roman Church and the nature of that Discipline or Church Government that all the world must needs submit to or be damned Even such as takes in Infidels and all and layeth the Church as common to the world for as many as will but believe in the Pope and Clergy You see here also another mysterie opened that a man may have enough to Justifie him that yet will not save him For most of them are here said to hold that a man may be justified without an explicite faith in Christ or that the knowledge of Christ is not necessary to his Justification but to his salvation it is Though the other half say that its necessary to neither And if a man die in a Justified State must he be condemned when Paul saith Rom. 8. 30. Whom he justified them he also glorified You see also here what their Baptism doth that can ex opere operato infallibly put away the sins of all these Infidels and so the Eucharist c. And yet they must not be saved for all that their sins are all done away O what a Maze is the Romish Divinity And you see how well they are agreed about these fundamentals when half of them think that an Actual belief in Christ is necessary to salvation and not to Justification and others that its necessary to
can he not Govern it without a Visible Monarch Why then did the world never hear of such a man Yea the whole world is the Kingdom of Christ himself though not in that special sort as his Church is For all Power in heaven and earth is given him Mat. 28. 18 19. and for that end he Dyed Rose and Revived that he might be Lord of the Dead and Living Rom. 14. 9. and he is made Head over all things to the Chruch Eph. 1. 22 23. And hath this Kingdom an Universal Visible Monarch Yes the Pope is the man Long hath he laid claim to it Princes you see whose hands your Crowns and Kingdoms are in Deceive not your selves they are the Popes For certainly they are all Christs and if he be to be believed he is the Vice-christ and so succeedeth him in the Monarchy of the world But then why doth not this simple Pope lay claim to the Empire of Indostan and Tartarie and China and Constantinople as well as of these smaller Kingdoms of Europe 2. And for the Metaphorical title of an Army I answer It sufficeth that it hath an Universal General in Heaven that can command it twice as well there as the Pope can on earth yea and is as Visible to the Antipodes yea to me as ever the Pope was All the world is Gods Army But I will not say that the Pope or any man is Generall of it save Christ nor will I call him The Lord of Hosts 3. And for the Sheepfold of Christ he ahth appointed particular Shepheards to watch for the several parts of the flock But if one man were to look to all the sheep in the world he would make such work as the Pope would do with the sheep of Christ If you tell us still that Christ is out of sight I answer He is even at hand he is coming he will not be long In the mean time it is the duty of every Pastor to feed the flock of God that is among them not as Lords over Gods Heritage as the Vice-christ would be and when the chief Shepheard doth appear we shall receive the Crown 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3 4. Peter never dreamed poor man that he was the chief Shepheard himself 4. For the Metaphor of a Family I answer That God can Govern all the Families in the world and when the Pope can do so then all the world shall acknowledge him the Master of the Family Till then we have learned that the whole Family of Heaven and Earth is named of God and of the Redeemer-God-and-Man but not of the Pope of Rome 5. And for the similitude of a Ship I answer One man can Govern a ship of the common size but a ship as big as all the world I think no man but Christ can govern And so confident am I in this opinion that I profess I will not be in that ship as big as the world which the Pope shall undertake to Govern if I do but know how to get out of it Pag. 146. He goes on to tell us that even the bruits have their Governours and instanceth in the Bees Answ I am not well acquainted with Irrational Governours or Governments but seriously it is no Article of my faith that one Bee can Govern all the Bees in the world Nor one Ape all the Apes in the world Let it suffice the Pope that every particular Church be a Bee-hive and every Hive have its proper Governour Next he again tells Prince Charls that we should not deny that to the Church which we see is necessary to all humane Societies Answ Was this man in his wits Have all Societies or any Society an Universal Humane Governour Who is it that is the Universal Chancellor of all the Academics on Earth Who is it that is the Ruler of all the Colledges of Physitians in the world I know what Schoolmaster we have in our own School here but I never heard of an Universal Schoolmaster for all the world nor for all England who is the Universal Governour of all the Companies of Merchants in the world Or who is the Universal King In the Conclusion he gathers up all into seven reasons Why the Church should have a Vice-christ 1. That the militant Church might be like the triumphant who have one Invisible Head Answ 1. Christ is visible to the Church in Heaven 2. When you have proved that any meer man is Christ or Head in Heaven then we will grant that a meer man shall be Christ and Head on earth 3. Earth is not yet fit to be conformed to Heaven in its Government 4. Is it not the truest conformity that Heaven and Earth have one and the same Lord though visible to them and not to us yet ruling us by visible officers 5. But if this will not serve le ts have on earth a visible Government therefore let us have no Pope that is invisible to almost all the world but Pastors that are visible in their particular Churches The second Reason is That the militant Church differ not from it self but as each particular Church hath one Visible Head or Pastor so the whole should have Answ 1. Content if the Pope can shew as good a Commission for the whole and be as able to Govern the whole and will really be present with the whole and visible to them 2. Is the world unlike it self if all the world have not one King as every particular Kingdom hath Or one Schoolmaster as every particular School hath The third Reason is For preserving Unity Answ 1. And well it is done by you And what unity will you keep at the Antipodes Or in the vast dominions of Heathen and Mahometan Princes where Christians are dispersed but you come not neer them 2. We have a better unity already in One God One Christ One Spirit One Gospel One Baptism One Hope c. 3. The Mahometans have more unity then you The fourth Reason is To fulfill the doctrine of the Prophets and Christ Answ You should have better shewed such a doctrine before you had made use of it as a reason The fifth Reason is That the Christian Church may be like the Jewish Answ When the Christian universal Church is no bigger then the Jewish that one may Govern it as well we will hearken to you Let the Pope undertake no larger a Circuit The sixth Reason is That there may be some one Supream judge to punish Bishops and define matters of faith call Councils extinguish heresies and schisms Answ 1. One Christ is enough for the Catholick Church for all these uses I find the Articles of saith as well defined by Christ as by the Vice-christ I have searcht the writings both of Christ and the Vice-christ and in my poor judgement there is no comparison between them nor hath the Pope one jot mended the Scripture 2. And for Heresies and Schisms Christ hath extinguisht many but for ought I see the Pope rather increaseth them In
all oppositions Prop. 8. These Associations should so far know the members Associated as is necessary to the holding of a Christian Communion with them and therefore should not admit all into their Association but such as either produce the Evidences of sound faith and Holy life or literas communicatorias certificates from credible members of their communion that the persons are fit for their Communion Prop. 9. These Associations are principally for the Union and Communion of Churches and therefore must apply themselves to the maintaining and promoting of Unity Prop. 10. Such Associations should therefore have their set times of frequent meeting in Synods for Ordinary help of one another besides extraordinary meetings on extraordinary occasions which none should neglect Prop. 11. We agree that such Associated Pastors may have their Moderators either pro tempore or stated at the cause requireth And that it is no great matter whether he be called a President Bishop Moderator c. in which all should have liberty so far as that the peace of the Church be not cast away for such names Prop. 12. We are also agreed that whatsoever shall be concluded in order to the Union and Communion of Churches in any of these Synods the particular Associated Members must observe they being thereto obliged by Vertue of those General precepts thet require us to do all in Unity and Concord and with one mind and mouth to glorifie God and to avoid divisions c. Except they be such things as cannot be obeyed unless we violate the Law of God Thus far the Canons that is Agreements of lesser Synods or greater are obligatory Prop. 13. We are also Agreed that when ever the good of the Church requireth it there may be Greater Assemblies also held consisting of many of these conjunct or speciall members delegate by the rest And that this course should extend as far as our capacity will allow in needfull cases Prop. 14. Lastly we shall grant that where Pastors cannot through distance or other Impediments hold Synods or any particular Churches cannot send any competent members to such Synods yet may they when its needfull by messengers certifie each other of their faith professions practises and particular doubts and cases and so hold communion in some degree owning each other as Brethren in one Lord and by such intercourse of Messengers and Letters as we are capable of assisting and seeking assistance from each other As Basil and the rest of the Eastern Bishops did to the Western in their distress while they had hope And the faith of all the Churches that are neer enough for any externall communion being thus known their Literae Communicatoriae may be valid and satisfactory when any member passeth into other parts Thus far I hope we are Agreed This much I am sure we hold our selves But now the difference followeth We hold that this Universal Church which is one in Christ their Head as the world is one Kingdom in God the absolute Soveraign King is by Christ distributed into many Congregations dispersed over the face of the Earth and that these as several Corporations in one Kingdom have all their particular Governours and Order All forcible Government we ascribe to the Magistrate and deny it to the Pastors of the Church And that teaching and Guidance which is called Ecclesiastick Government we suppose is the work of every Pastor in his flock and the Ordering of the communion of Churches by Canons Agreements and their execution in part is the work of Synods And as in this Kingdom all the Free-schools are governed by the Schoolmasters who are all under the Prince and Laws without any General Schoolmasters to Teach or Oversee and Rule the rest and without Synods too though they may meet when their mutual Edification requires it and yet all the Schools in England are in Peace because no Archscoolmasters presume to rob the Magistrate of his power Even so we judge that if Pastors do but Teach and Guide their severall flocks and the Magistrate keep and use his power of forcible Government that is in seeing that they do their Offices faithfully and no Archpastors presume to take the power of the Magistrates out of their hands the Churches may have quietness and peace still allowing a greater Necessity of Communion and so of Synods among Churches then among Schools and reserving the rod to the secular power And we concieve that most of the stir that Popes and Popish Prelates have made about Church Government hath been but to rob the Magistrate of his due and to become themselves the Church-Magistrates through the world But that the Church hath any Politicall Universal Head but Christ alone either a Vice god or Vice-Christ either Pope or Council that any one is as Pope Julius saith of himself in the place of God the maker of all things and Laws this we deny That the whole Church on Earth is so one Political Society as to be under any one terrestial numericall Head whether personal or collective Pope Council or Patriarks having power of Legislation or judgement over the whole and by whom each member is to be Governed this we deny and think it as absurd and much more sinfull as to affirm that all the world must needs have one Visible Monarch under God to represent him and that he is no subject to the God of Heaven that acknowledgeth not this Visible Universall Monarch We deny that the Church is such a Society We deny that it hath such an Head We deny that it hath any such universal Humane Laws We deny that the parts of it are to be conjoyned by the subordinate Officers Cardinals Patriarks Archbishops or what ever of such an usurping Soveraign We affirm that no Christian should fancy or assert that any such Head and Order for unity is appointed by Christ or that it is Desirable or Rome to be the better liked of because it pleadeth for such an Order or vainly boasteth of such of an unity or that any should dare to contrive the promoting of it Yea we maintain that such fancies and contrivances are the most notable means of the division or desolation of the Churches And that it is the notable hinderance of the unity of all the Christian Churches that such a false Head and Center of unity is set up and an Impossible Impious unity pleaded for and furiously sought by fire and sword instead of the true desirable unity And that the Churches will never have true unity and peace if these principles of theirs be not disgraced and disowned and the true principles better understood I shall now give you some Arguments for our Assertion and then in the End shall give you the true Grounds and Means of unity CHAP. III. Our Arguments for the Negative IN the management of the Arguments for the Negative I shall principally deal with them that would Head the Church with a Council that is would make the Church to be autonomicall and be
in Scripture be a member of some particular Church where he may worship God in the Communion of Saints 3. Let those that make not the foresaid Christian Profession be excluded the number of Christians and those that own not the Fundamentals of communion the Church Ministry Word Prayer Praise Sacrament of Communion be taken as unmeet for actual communion with us though yet we censure them not to be no Christians 4. Let those that are obstinate and impenitent in any Errors contrary to the said Profession and Ordinances or in actual gross sin or discovering an ungodly heart be rejected by the Church after due admonition and patience 5 Let all the Pastors Associate and hold constant correspondency according to their neerness and opportunity for helping and strengthening each other and unanimous carrying on the work of Christ 6. Let these Associations have standing Presidents where the peace of the Church requireth it 7 Let no particular Pastors set up any thing in Gods publick Worship which is not Necessary and may tend to make divisions by driving tender Consciences from his communion 8. Let Associations forbear making Laws to others and imposing as Governours and let them make Agreements for certain Duty and not Laws that pretend to make new duties and let them Agree on nothing unnecessary 9. Let them study Holiness as much as Peace and keep clean themselves and their societies as far as they can and look at labour and suffering and not at any other honour and power but what is for duty and let them look abroad and help the dark parts within their reach and lay out themselves freely and industriously for God and have the chief regard to the most publick good 10. Let him that is justly cast out of one Church be received by none into communion till he be reconciled and if they suspect that he is unjustly cast out let him not be received till the Church that cast him out be heard and the injury or his Repentance manifest 11. Let those that cannot hold local communion because of some smaller practical difference as gestures words c. and yet agree in the foresaid Profession and Fundamentals of Communion yet own each other professedly as Brethren and maintain Love and communion in other respects 12. Let all differing Christians consult and agree how to hold their differences so as may least prejudice the common truths which all receive and as may least hinder the salvation of the ungodly or offend the weak 13. Let none judge or defame each other till they are heard and see they have sufficient cause by certain proof And then admonish them and bring the cause to the Association before they proceed further 14. Let the correspondency of Pastors extend as far as there is Capacity Opportunity and need We cannot correspond with the Antipodes nor much with the Ethiopians nor such remote parts there is seldom opportunity and seldom necessity of actual correspondence with forreign Nations But yet when publick occasions require it the publickest cases being the weightiest we should by Delegates or Messengers from several Associations perform our duties in all such correspondencies whether in Councils or otherwise 15. If any members of our Churches travail into other parts they should take Certificates or Communicatory Letters that they may be admitted to the communion of the Churches where they travail or abide 16. The chief consultations for General Peace and effectual promoting the healing of the Churches and the propagation of the Gospel into the unbelieving parts of the world should be done by Christian Princes by their Agents and though Ministers are fit to be partly their Agents in such consultations yet not meerly as Pastors but as fit men employed by their Princes He that lives to see but this much reduced to practise will see a better unity and peace in the Church then ever was or will be attained by an earthly Head and Judge of the Universal Church whether Pope or Council or then the Agreement of the five Patriarks and the later Primates and Metropolitans will procure Let us be content with one Head and one Heart and center there but though the fingers and toes be more we can well bear it Take up with the Holy Scriptures as the sufficient Rule Let the Profession of that be the mark of a believer and all such believers be taken to be as they are the Catholick Church and no faction Schismatically and presumptuously confine it to themselves Let this Intellectual Unity of faith be seconded with a cordial Unity of Holy Love to Christ and his Members that so our Unity may begin at the Head and Heart and not perversly at the fingers and toes of smaller matters or at the hair and nails of Ceremonies and indifferent Modes Let this be manifested in Professions of Love and publick ownings of the Catholick Brotherhood and of Christians as Christians and by publick disclaiming all selfishness and partiality and private Interests and all reproachfull words and writings and by actual communion as far as we can Let the Worship of God be performed in such holy simplicity that none may be driven from the sacred Assemblies and let the people be suffered to go the same way to heaven as Peter and Paul did go themselves and lead their hearers in Let us not be ambitious of Church Union or Communion with those that ought to be cast out of the Church and whom we are in Scripture commanded to avoid but let the three attributes of Holy Catholick and Apostolical be still affixed to the Church and be practically considered and those considerations issued in The Communion of Saints And then we shall have so much Unity and Peace as may honour the Christian Religion and strengthen us in the way to our Perfect Peace which is not to be expected in this dark diseased imperfect world This is the way and none but this But is there any hope that while men are as they are such healing Truths should be received and obeyed Yes by here and there a man who shall have the Peace of their peaceable Affections and Endeavours but not by the most either of the people or the Pastors let the evidence of the truth be never so clear Who can expect any great success of such Proposals that knows the world till the time come when Light shall go forth with an absolute resolution to prevail God is one and all that Deny themselves and center in him must needs be One But self is as various and numerous as Persons are And this self is the Heart of the Natural man and the Center of all the unsanctified And every self is a grain of Sand that 's hardly made coherent with another The Darkest mind is self-conceited and the poorest child or beggar is self-affected and high and low Princes and people have self-interests which draw them several waves And in the sanctified this self is mortified but in part and is the first living and