A Winding-sheet FOR POPERY By RICHARD BAXTER CATHOLICK LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevil Simmons Book-sellar in Kederminster Anno Dom. 1657. A winding sheet for Popery BY Richard Baxter Catholick AMong all the sects that have troubled the Church of Christ there is none that have heapt up such a multitude of errours and made such a vexatious stir for them in the world by subtilty importunity flames and blood-shed as the Papists have done Where they dare do it they cruelly torment and bloodily murder those that are not of their erroneous mind Yea its part of their Religion to force all Christian Princes to destroy us and if they will not to absolve their subjects from their allegiance and deliver up their Countries to a Papist that will destroy us For this is the Decree of one of their undoubted Councils Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. And where they cannot or dare not do this they are busie day and night to deceive turning themselves into the shape of various Sects and creeping in among both rich and poor but specially insinuating into Rulers and Commanders that may do them the greatest service when they are seduced And their ordinary way is to seek first to unsettle men and make them doubt of their former profession and bring them into dislike with their Teachers and so to win them over to themselves To which end their common cry is that we are of a new Religion that we are Hereticks that we are a small Party and divided all to pieces among our selves and that we are but lost in wandering and confusion and all because we have left the Church of Rome which is the true Catholick Apostolick Church and which all our fore-fathers lived and dyed in and which is the Center and Head of unity and the only judge of controversies for want of whose infallible decision every man interpreting Scriptures as he please and being a Pope to himself we are so many men so many minds and all out of the way and shall never be right till we return to the Pope Here 's a fair and plausible tale that may catch the simple that know not what the Church or Religion is and may shake those that never built upon the Rock Like the words of the Harlot Prov. 2.15 to 20. 5.3 to 15. 7. 9.15 16. To call passengers that go right on their waies who so is simple let him turn in hither And 22.14 The mouth of strange women is a deep pit he that is abborred of the Lord shall fall therein For my part I think he that would not fain know the truth if he could when it is so lovely and his salvation lyeth at the slake is worse then a mad man And if I could find that Popery is the way of God I can boldly say I would quickly own it whatever it cost me by the help of grace But having searched into their writings and courses many a year I am more and more confident that for us to turn to Popery is to turn from the will of God from truth to errour from the way of the Churches unity to a sect from safety to exceeding dangere and from the way of duty to the way of sin And of this I am now to give you my reasons wherein I will promise you as before the Lord to whom I am even going to give an account that I will not speak against my confcience nor write any thing but what I would write if this were the last day I had to live as for ought I know it may be nor will I charge any thing on them falsly but undertake before any man breathing to prove out of their own writings or doings that it is theirs though they dare not own it all to the ignorant Reason 1. Popery is a way of notorious Schism and therefore not the way of God Papists are a very sect most destructive to the unity of the Catholick Church of any sect that I know of in the world They delude the simple that take their words by telling them that they are the Catholick Church and that the Christian world is of their minds when the far greater part of the Christians in the world are strangers or enemies to Popery The Christians of Athiopia and other parts of Africk with all the Greeks and the rest in Asia and the Protestants and others in Europe that disown them are far more then the Papists And it is not long ago since they were but a few in comparison of the rest of the Christian world and long after the Apostles daies they were not known upon the face of the earth When they were at the highest they never had near one half of the Christian world under their government And yet they must needs be the whole Catholick Church When a part of the Church will needs be the whole they make themselves a sect They tell us of the smallness of our Church and the greatness of theirs but I must profess that the Church of Rome is not big enough for me to be a member of The true Catholick Church consisteth of all the Christians in the world of which the Papists are but a sorry corrupted part That Church that pretendeth to be Catholick and the whole and yet excludeth the far greater and better part of Christians is too narrow for me As the Anabaptists say They are the Church and other sects say They are the Church so the Papists say They are the Church and a defiled piece would swallow up the whole As if the bramble should be taken for all the wood and the Oak and the Cedar must be no part Or the Oven or the Chimney must be all the house or every Cabbin would be the ship or a dirty village would be the whole Common-wealth It s well for the Papists if they prove a part of the universal Church for I am sure they are Schismatical in pretending to be the whole Reason 2. In this Schismatical pretence the Papists are notoriously Sacrilegious and would rob Christ of the greatest part of his flock and dismember the far greatest part of his body that they may be taken to be the whole Hath it cost Christ so dear to purchase a peculiar people to himself Tilus 2.14 Hath he purchased his Church with his own blood Acts 20. and now shall the sons of men presume to rob him of the greatest part Is his flock so little in all and will these presumptuous Sectaries make it less If you divide the world into thirty parts according to the judgement of the best Geographers nineteen of them are Heathens and six are Mahometans and but five are Christians taking in all sorts and yet the Papists that are not near half of these five would unchurch all the rest as if they envyed Christ the fruit of his blood-shed How would their King of Spain take it if they should proclaim that the far greater half of his Dominions is none of
the Uniting and Ruling of them which is so much pretended to is a flat impossibility It is not morally possible to bring all the Christian world to be of the Popish opinion herein it being a point that is so void of cogent evidence from Scripture and Reason that they are both against it It is naturally impossible for the Pope of Rome to be the faithful Governor of all the world if they would consent How many years must they be travelling or sailing to Rome from the Antipodes or other remote parts of the earth Most of them that had causes of Appeal to the Pope would either be drowned at Sea or destroyed by enemies in the passages or spent with travel or Navigation or wasted with age through the length of their journey And when they come to him how insufficient would the poor man be to decide all their matters How many thousand would be waiting every hour at his Holiness doors when he hath leisure but for a few How long would it be from the beginning of a controversie to the end by that time these poor men had travelled back again so many thousand miles And when all the Princes of a great part of the world are usually in wars will they give their subjects leave to travail so far and that where the Prince is an enemy to Christianity as the Turk is Or would the Princes that he is in war with give leave to his subjects to pass through their Dominions Let us see first how well an Universal Monarch would rule the world by Civil Government though yet that is more easie before a spiritual Monarch be set up Reason 13. And worst of all this false pretended Head and Center of the Churches Unity doth make our Concord Impossible till this Head be taken down The Papists are the greatest hinderers of the Unity and Concord of Christians I am confidently perswaded in all the world And yet all this mischief is done to the Church under the pretence of Unity and Concord What if a subject should set up himself in Ireland or Scotland and say The Prince is absent and I am his Deputy and all are Rebells that unite not in me Could there be a greater hinderer of Unity then this man For all that submit to him are Rebells and all that do not he will endeavor to oppress So is it with the Pope If we unite in him we hazard a breaking off from Christ at least it is such a sin that the Christian world will never venture on and if we refuse it the Papists proclaim us Hereticks and will have no Peace with us So that the Church will never have Concord till this false Head be taken off and Christ only be our Head Reason 14. Moreover the Papists are at such difference among themselves that its little encouragement to us to joyn with them They differ in many hundred points as the writings of the Schoolmen the Thomists and Scotists and Ockamists the Dominicans Franciscans and Jesuites and other divisions among them do declare If you say This is not in points of faith I answer 1. That is as pleases the Pope or Roman Church who may make them points of faith at pleasure 2. The reason why the Pope determineth them not is much because his Disciples are disagreed about them 3. They differ in their great fundamental it self even the seat of Supremacy and Infallibility one part telling us it is the Pope and the other that it is a General Council This one difference surmounteth all the differences of the Reformed Churches if they were set togther Forsooth we cannot be Christians nor know the Scriptures to be the Word of God but on the Authority of the Church And when we come to know what the Church is in Spain and Italy its one thing and in France another Reason 15. Moreover the way of Popery is a way of meer delusion and vain ostentation They advance the Pope to be the final Judge of Controversies or a General Council as others and when they have done they are never the nearer an end of them He seeth many hundred Controversies among them and dare not speak a word to determine them The Church of Rome is the true expounder of the Scriptures and yet many hundred differences are known to be among their own Expositors and many hundred Texts that the people understand not and yet this Oracle will not speak this Judge is as dumb as a fish and leaves us all in as much doubt and ignorance and contention as if we had no Judge So that all the importunity in the world cannot open his mouth And yet he learnedly inveighs against the Protestants that have no Judge of Controversies What is it to make fools of men if this be not Reason 16. And what a cafe do the Papists put the Universal Church into when our faith and the decision of our doubts must depend upon such a man as abundance of their Popes have been Many of their own writers call them no better then Apostates Hereticks Murderers Adulterers Sodomites Conjurers and such were the Heads of the Catholick Church a long time together I know the silly people are told by their lyars that all this is lyes But let them put it to the tryal if they dare whether I will not as fully prove it out of their own writings as that ever King William was alive in England And are condemned Hereticks and devilish Murderers and Adulterers likely to be the infallible Judges of all Controversies Reason 17. And many a time they have two and there and sometune four Popes at once so that no man knew which was the Pope And when Eugenius was deposed by a General Council yet he continued in by force and from him is the succession And yet are these Saint Peters successours Reason 18. Moreover Popery is a way of darkness They flie the light like Bats and Owls and therefore it cannot be of God Their publick prayers and praises of God are performed in a tongue which the people understand not Their writers call it the Original of all Heresies to translate the Scriptures into a known tongue And now they are forced at last to do it themselves they disswade the common people from the reading of it Yea they suffer no man to read such a translated Bible but by a License from the Ordinary which any man may know is not ordinarily granted in their own Dominions Many a man have they burnt to ashes for reading the Bible in a known tongue And how much they befriend the peoples ignorance in many other waies their writings and sad experience tell us Reason 19. Yea their profession is contrary to the light They presume to contradict the very Word of God Paul hath written a whole Chapter 1 Cor. 14. against publick praying or prophecying in an unknown tongue And yet they will use it and make the silly people believe that Paul meaneth no such matter as he speaks How many
and many times is the worshipping use of Images forbidden And yet they will use them say God what he will How plainly hath Christ instituted the Lords Supper in both kinds and how oft is it recited and they confess it was so used by the antient Church for many an hundred years And yet they will presume to alter all and to forbid the Cup even because they will do it Abundance of such instances may be given of their contradicting Scriptures Reason 20. Yea Popery fighteth with sense and reason and would make men not only mad but sensless For upon pain of damnation we must believe that the Bread in the Sacrament is no Bread and that the Wine is no Wine My eyes and my taste and my feeling tell me that it is Bread and Wine and if I know not Bread and Wine when I see it and touch it and taste it then I must be mad or sensless And then how can I tell that I know any thing at all And yet must I be here burnt at the stake and hereafter burnt in Hell for ever if Papists be my Judges unless I will believe that the substance of the Bread and Wine is turned into the substance of the body and blood of Christ and that there is now the colour and smell and taste and quantity of Bread and Wine without Bread and Wine The colour which I see and the taste which I relish are the colour and taste Of what Of nothing Nor of Bread and Wine For now there 's no such thing Not of the Body and Blood of Christ for that they deny and well they may So that if I know bread and wine when I see and feel and taste them then do I know that Popery is a deceit And if I do not then I know nothing For if sense deceive us all deceives us Moreover it is against the knowledge and experience of our own hearts Popery tells you that none are saved or have Charity but Papists because forsooth they are all out of the Church Here then is an Argument which Christians have in their breasts that all the Papists on earth cannot answer Look what degree of assurance you have that you have Charity or any special Grace and so much assurance you have that Popery is a meer chear which would perswade you that none have Charity but Papists If any stand not to this censure he is no Papist For if a Protestant may have Charity and be saved then the Church of Rome is not the whole Catholick Church Yea if you know any Protestant on earth that you are perswaded is a true Christian you must needs be as much perswaded that Popery is false In the mean time remember this to their credit that by their own confession never did a godly honest man turn Papist nor can they desire any such to turn So that every man that hath saving grace is sure Reason 21. Popery doth too much befriend ungodliness to be the way of God It is fitted to build up the Kingdom of darkness 1. How it befriendeth Ignorance and fighteth against the means of Knowledge I have toucht before 2. They make people believe that many of their sins are but venial and properly no sins against no Law and do not so much as deserve damnation and therefore they need no Saviour nor pardon of that punishment 3. Concupiscence which inclineth men to all actual sin they tell them is no sin in the Baptized but before it is 4. Their very frame and course of devotion is so formal that a man would wonder that rational men could approve of it Such a multitude of ceremonies and histrionical actions and inventions of men do they think to serve God with that one would think they could not make themselves believe that the most wise and holy God will regard them See my Book against Popery pag. 162 163. It is against the nature of a spiritual man to think such a service suitable to God which is liker a Stage-play or a Morrice-dance But the Mass bites not the profane are well enough pleased with this We find the worse our people are the proner are they to such formalities Reason 22. And indeed the issue of their way doth frighten me from it I find none of ours so prone to turn to them as the most ungodly I hope well of many among them but I never had the happiness to meet with a heavenly experienced Christian that would speak feelingly of the work of the Spirit upon their souls among them all And almost all that ever I was acquainted with were exceeding ignorant Many of them of no Religion at all not knowing who Christ is nor very little that a Christian should know And many of those few that are among us are of scandalous careless lives and few have any better then a formal wordy kind of Religiousness to say so many prayers and observe such hours and daies and the like Look among the common sort of the Papists and impartially compare their Churches with ours and see whether there be any comparison to be made in the holiness of the professors At Rome it self the seat of his Holiness they have large revenues to the Church for the licensing or permitting of whore-houses Reason 23. And I confess I see not how they can be excused from Idolatry in worshipping the creature with a Divine worship They first call the consecrated Bread the very flesh of Christ it self and their Lord God and then they worship it as God and carry it abroad in procession to that end and command all to worship it with Divine worship on pain of Damnation To pass by their praying to Saints and Angels and the Idolatrous expressions that many of their writers do use of the Virgin Mary and their setting one Saint or other to almost all the offices in the world and filling the world with most ridiculous lying stories in their Legends even to the reproach and dishonour of Christianity it self Reason 24. And it is not likely their way should be of God which must be carried on by such ungodly means as it is O the cruelty that they have exercised in the world the streams of precious blood that they have shed the bone-fires that they have made of holy persons when they had first perswaded the world that they were the servants of the Devil and continue to slander and blaspheme them when they are dead And when we discover to the people the most palpable of their misdoings they make them believe that all that we say are lies If their cause were Gods it needed not such supports as these Reason 25. And their Doctrine leadeth not to settle the soul in a durable well-grounded peace for they lead men so much to their own works and make so light of pardon and reconciliation by the blood of Christ and lead men so much to ceremonies and deny them assurance of Justification or Salvation when they have done all and then design them to the flames of Purgatory when they die unless the Pone will be so charitable as to ease them that there is little setled Peace of Conscience to be hoped for that way Reason 26. And though their errours are so many and so great that most Protestants take the Pope to be the Antichrist yet are they so arrogant as to pretend to Perfection as the Quakers do Yea to a double perfection Not only to be perfect without any sin but venial which is none but also to be perfect by works of supererogation and better then ever God Commanded them to be Reason 27. And to make all remediless their Church is said to be Infallible and so we must never hope that they should repent of any errour that ever they incurr for then they should give away their Infallibility So that there is no other cure for them but by ceasing to be Papists as there is no Peace to be expected from them to the Church but by the deposing their pretended Universal Head the Roman Pope Reason 28. And to make all desperate and open the door to other errours they have added all the Apocryphal Books to the Canon of the Holy Scriptures contrary to the Council of Laodicea and the consent of many ages of the antient Church as Doctor Cosin hath fully shewed and Dr. Reynolds and many others before him Reason 29. Yea they have added Tradition it self to be received with equal pious affection and reverence with the holy Scriptures Concil Trident. Sess 2. And this Tradition must remain unknown to others and unproved and we must take their words for it when they have thus equalled it with the Word of God corrupting thus the fountain of faith Reason 30. And when the Pope hath done this mischief to the world they say that no power on earth can judge him Though General Councils have deposed many and Bellarmine confesseth in the case of Marcellinus that they may declare an Infidel Pope to be out of the Church and that the Church may bear arms against the Pope when he would oppress it and in Schisms may see that the Church be provided yet for all this none may judge the Pope Reconcile these if you can But herein they are disagreed among themselves In this one sheet of paper I have not room to mention their many other errors nor to annex the proofs of all these charges But I offer my self to make them good to the face of any Papist living And now I leave it to the judgement of those that are not willing to be deceived Whether the Roman or the Reformed be the truer Catholick and which of them is liker to be saved and in the safer way I doubt not but this Paper will be answered by some body It s a bad Cause indeed that a man of learning can say nothing in But if the silly people will be satisfied that it s answered without understanding any thing in the answer that should satisfie a reasonable man let them even be deceived seeing they choose deceit and let them take what they get by it July 25. 1657. FINIS