Do I not mistake Foundations of Faith instead of Superstition and Profanenesse For Them here may have for Antecedent aswell Superstition and Profanenesse as Foundations of Faith And so the sense runnes thus He that puts not to his hand as firmly as he can to surport them that is Superstition and Profanesse is too wary c. And now that I consider it better this must be your meaning if your words and deeds agree And for proofe let us come to particulars You give us two generall instances whereby the Foundations of Faith are shaken The one Superstition the other Profanesse Answerable to these two I will help you out with two particular instances the one of Superstion the other of Profanesse by both which the Foundations of Faith are shaken which we shall see how firmely you Support First For Superstition I instance in Altars These you erect these you bow unto Now to set up and bow unto or before or pray towards an Altar of wood or stone overthowes Christ the Prime and maine Foundation of Faith and that by your owne Confession For Altars in the Old Testament were ordained of GOD to be Types and Figures of Christ as also were the Sacrifices and the Priests But now Christ being come our onely Sacrifice our onely High Priest and our onely Altar those Types doe all cease And in the New Testament as Christ is called our Sacrifice and High Priest So also our Altar We have an Altar saith the Apostle whereof they have no right to eate which serve the Tabernacle Why so For the Levites or Priests which still served the Tabernacle rested still in the Typicall Altar denying Christ to be come and so they have no right to Christ the true Altar he being come and having abolished all Types And the Apostle there doth clearely prove this our Altar to be Christ. For saith he in the very next words as a reason annexed The bodies of those Beasts whose blood is brought into the Sanctuary by the High Priest for sinne are burnt without the Campe Wherefore Iesus also that he might Sanctifie the people with his own blood suffered without the Gate Let us goe forth therefore unto him without the Campe bearing his reproach For here we have no continuing City but we seeke one to come By him therefore let us offer the Sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name In which words taken together Christ is set forth unto us both as our onely Altar and as our onely High Priest and as our onely Sacifice First as our onely Altar vers 10. Secondly as our onely High Priest For so he stands in relation to the Leviticall Priesthood as the Truth to the Type v. 11 12. Thirdly as our onely Sacrifice in offering his owne blood v. 11. And thus he is said to Sanctifie us And this sanctifying hath speciall relation to Christ as the onely Altar For in the Law no Sacrifice or Offering was sanctified but by the Altar being offered up upon it As Christ saith to the Scribes and Pharisees those blind guides Ye Fooles and blind whether is greater the gift or the Altar that sanctifieth the gift Thus every gift every Sacrifice is sanctified by the Altar on which it was offered up This Altar is onely Christ whose blood being offered up upon the Altar of his Divinity Person or Nature was thereby sanctified and accepted of GOD for an All-sufficient Sacrifice for our sinnes And thus both the persons of all true beleevers and their Spirituall Sacrifices are Sanctified being offered up and presented to GOD on the Altar Christ. Our Persons as Heb. 13.12 and our gifts or Sacrifices v. 15. By him therefore let us offer the Sacrifice of praise continually that is the fruit of our lippes giving thanks to his Name Thus through Faith in Christs Name all our Sacrifices of Prayer of Praise of Almes and of a Contrite heart are Sanctified and accepted of GOD as Testimonies of our Faith Charity Repentance Thankfullnesse and Obedience as being offered up upon our onely Altar Christ. This onely Altar it is that Sanctifieth the gift Thus we see how these three Altar Priest Sacrifice are equally and inseparably resident in Christ. So as he is as well our onely Altar as our onely High Priest and our onely Sacrifice of expiation And Bellarmine himselfe confesseth that these three Altar Priest Sacrifice are Relatives and alwayes goe together Hee therefore that sets up another Altar besides Christ may as well set up another High Priest and another propitiatory Sacrifice as Antichrist doth in the Masse And to set up any one of these not onely shakes but quite overthrowes the maine Foundation Christ. And for the Altar the Sanctification of all Sacrifices and offerings is so proper and peculiar unto it that one of your Divines going about to maintaine your Christian Altars as he calls them but indeed Antichristian saith expresly that of necessity there must be an Altar in every Church as of wood or stone to Sanctifie the Sacrifice otherwise it should be altogether unsanctified And how comes this Altar of his and yours to have such a treasure and overplus of holinesse in it as to communicate such holinesse to the Sacrifice yea to the Sacrifice of Christs body upon it as he puts it but by the Bishops Consecration of it as the same Author saith whose Book is by your Chapleins license published in Print So as it seems your Episcopall consecration of the Altar infuseth a holinesse into it and the Altar communicates and imparts its holinesse to the Sanctifying even of the Sacrifice of Christs body it selfe which you would not have to be farre off from the Altar But now it being most evident hereby that your Altars doe quite overthrow the Foundation Christ who is our onely Altar how firmely you put to your hand to support this Foundation I call heaven and earth to witnesse against you who being on the contrary a Supporter of Altars and so a Supplanter of the onely true Altar Iesus Christ you give sentence against your selfe as one that is too wary and hath more care of himselfe then of the Cause of Christ. And forasmuch as you are so zealous in promoting your Altars in every Church I do here in the Name of Iesus Christ protest against you as a most notorious Adversary of Christ and so an Antichrist a setter up of Judaisme or Heathenisme in your Altars and I doe utterly renounce all communion with you in your services the principall part whereof you place in your Altars which are so many damnable Idols which you adoring are damnable Idolaters and which are set up and upholden to the intolerable reproach of Christ and whereby he is altogether denyed and renounced And thus you give just cause to all true Christians to seperate themselves from your communion in your worship of a false Christ as your false Altar if they will hold
that coming as neare as you can to the Papists in their Ceremonies you shall thereby bring them to the Church And surely this is the ready way either to bring Papists to your Church or you to their Church But I say the Church was so pestered with Rites and Ceremonies even in Augustins dayes that he complained that Christians were now in a worse case and condition under the Gospel then the Iewes were under the Law for though their yoake was grievous yet those Leviticall rites were of Gods owne ordaining and commandement but Christians saith he are brought under an intolerable yoake of Ceremonies of mens devising and imposing But now on the other side if I should enter into a Comparison between the Reformed Churches since Luther and those Primitive and ancient Churches as aforesaid I know it would be very tedious to your Lordship and extremely move your Patience especially if I should by many degrees preferre Calvin Bezâ— Zanchius Iunius and many hundred more Worthies both for learning and piety and chiefly for Soundnesse in Doctrine in the Reformed Churches beyond the Seaes yea and not a few on this side as Cranmer Ridley Latimer Hooper all Martyrs Iewel Whitakers Reynolds Perkins with infinite more and all within one Century before such as those Centuries aforesayd produced whose Names for Envy-sake I forbeare to mention Lastly you say you are content to submit to them in all those points of Doctrine If you be then for Shame cleare away those Cloudes which the said Declaration hath over-cast your Articles withall and cast away your Arminian Pelagian sense and take off your Suspension of them and let them speak one single truth as they formerly did and as all understood them according to the Scriptures L. p. 62. The Catholicke Church we beleeve in our Creed to be the Society of all Christians P. What you beleeve is one thing But we beleeve the Catholicke Church of Christ in the Creed to be the number and Society of all the Elect as the next Article expounds it The Communion of Saints but not that Company of all Christians which you name and meane Christians in name and profession tag and ragge pell mell good and bad Papists and Protestants of which the greatest number are no true living members of the true Catholick Church the mysticall body whereof Christ is the Head and which by Faith onely we apprehend for we beleeve the Holy Catholicke Church but cannot discerne with our bodily eyes as we doe a visible Object This is that Church which Christ loved for which he gave himselfe that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word to present it to himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinckle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish This we beleeve to be the Holy Catholicke Church and no other But thus indeed as you tell us before you make wider the Gates of the Catholicke Church then ever Christ made them or rather indeed you exclude the Catholicke Church of Gods Elect and set up a new Catholicke Church which may be seen but ought not to be beleeved L. p. 66. Agreed on for me also it shal be that Gods word may be written and unwritten P. Agreed on with whom Even with no lesse then Bellarmine For in the very next words you give us the reason why it is agreed upon for you that Gods word may be written and unwritten For Say you Cardinall Bellarmine tells us truely that it is not the writing or Printing that makes Scripture the word of God but it is the Prime unerring Essentiall Truth God himselfe uttering and revealing it to his Church that makes it Verbum Dei the word of God Doth Bellarmine say so And that truely And to what end I pray you doth the Cardinall say so Is it not to overthrow the Scripture for being the Sole word of God and to bring in another word of God which he calls verbum non Scriptum an unwritten word that is a word besides the Scriptures and equall to the Scriptures which is Romes unwritten Traditions And to this end and purpose Bellarmine using these words doth he tell you truely and is this the reason for which it is agreed on for you that Gods word may be written and unwritten Now though it be true that that which is spoken by God is his word though it be not written yet to us there is now no other word of God but that which is written that which is contained in the Scriptures And this word written is that alone which our Faith is grounded and settled upon According to that of Iohn Many other Signes truely did Iesus in the presence of his Disciples which are not written in this Booke But these things are written that ye might beleeve that Iesus is the Christ the Son of God and that beleeving ye might have life through his Name So as we are not to inquire further what Christ spake or did besides what we find written But your Lordship tells us before of certaine Traditions Apostolicall which it seems are that word of God which may be unwritten For you say If the Scripture be a Foundation to which we are to goe for witnesse if there â—e doubt about the Faith and in which we are to find the thing that is to be beleeved as necessary in the Faith we never did nor never will refuse any Tradition that is Vniversall and Apostolicke for the better exposition of the Scripture And to this place you referre that which you say pag. 58. As for Tradition I have said enough for that and as much as A. C. where 't is truely Apostolicall From which words first we observe that you make but an If of the Scripture as a Foundation If the Scripture be a Foundation and If in it we are to find the thing that is to be beleeved as If it were to be found in any thing else And Secondly how home you come to A C. the Jesuite in admitting Tradition Apostolicke to expound any doubt about the Faith and so with Bellarmine you are agreed for a word of God unwritten as well as written And you further adde here pag. 66. Speaking of the Scriptures their being written gave them no Authority at all in regard of themselves Written or unwritten the Word was the same But it was written that it might be the better preserved and continued with the more integrity to the use of the Church and the more faithfully in our memories So you Now 't is true that by the writing of the Scripturâ—s Gods word contained therein is preserved continued in integrity and the more faithfully kept in our mâ—mories But is thiâ— all Nay the very writing of them though it added no Authority to Gods word in regard of it selfe yet as the Scriptures are to us Gods word is of the greater Authority because written For we acknowledge no other word of God as
because they are seperated from the Church of Rome and from all Prelacy and Hierarchy we do exclude you and Rome with your Prelaticall and Hierarchicall Churches and Government Ecclesiasticall from being any true Churches of Iesus Christ. And whereas you say Rome was once Right and Orthodox 't is true that in Pauls time the faith of those Christian Romans was famous throughout the world and so it might continue pure for a time after but when once the Prelacie and Hierarchy of Rome and that but within Romes Diocesse was erected it became Ipso facto Antichristian and after when the Bishop of Rome became supream over all Christendome then it was the Church of Antichrist from which it is necessary for all true Christians to make a perpetuall Seperation L. p. 133. The Roman Church which was once Right is now become wrong by imbracing superstition and error P. Such is your stile to touch that delicate Woman tenderly as saying She is now wrong by imbracing superstition and error But not by defiling her selfe with abominable Idolatries This you never once charge her with in all your Book as we shall see more at after And onely error as humanum est errare but you never tell her of her Heresies and Apostacie from Christ and her Doctrines of Devils Beware of that You have therfore put me to the greater paines in dealing plainly both with her and you L. ibid. 'T is too true indeed that there is a miserable rent in the Church and I make no question but the best men do most bemâ—ane it nor is he a Christian that would not have unity might he have it with Truth P. You are often putting your finger into this scarre or rent An Argument it paines you because ubi dolor ibi digitus And I am perswaded the more you put your finger in it the wider you will make it And certainly those that are indeed the best men are so farre from bemoaning such a rent as they rejoyce in it the cause considered as in their glory and safety And such Christians as have the greatest wisdome tempered with their goodnesse do see such an Impossibility of Reconciliation with Rome that they account it the greatest folly in the world once to dreame of such an unity as is coupled with a condition of Truth I mean Truth indeed not such a Truth as you mean there where nothing but superstition and error Idolatry and Infidelity Hypocrisie and Iniquity Ambition and Avarice Pompe and Pleasure are the onely supporters of Peters Infallible but counterfeit Chaire Unlesse you mean as you must doe those good men which are your Confederates in your Idolatrous Altars and other Superstitions and Idolatries halting between two opinions God and Baal and have already one foot over Romes thresholdâ— accounting themselves with your Church of England one and the same Church with Rome as two branches of the same tree as two Sisters of the same venter ready to salute each other with the kisse of amity and unity as Aâ—ab did his Brother Bâ—nhâ—daâ— then much may be what should hinder your unity And for your Truth as we sayd before we know very well what it is Rome will not want for that which you call Truth L. ibid. But I never said nor thought that the Protestants made this rent P. I pray you do you think as you speake But admit it Why should you think so Or why are you so zealous in makeing such an Apology which true Protestants indeed will never thank you for But you are such a Protestant as I dare say would not have been the first that should have made the rent no nor the hindmost neither so firme you are for peace But I noted before a necessity of Seperation to be made by the Protestants from Rome as Christ admonisheth Rev. 18.4 Come out of her my people c. L. p. 135. He must leave my words to my selfe and their sense either to me or to the genuine construction which an Ingenious Reader can make of them P. 'T were well If you would observe the same Law your selfe to others Then you would not so frequently as you doe make a poore Minister an offender for a word and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate and turn aside the just for a thing of nought as the Prophet speaks L. ibid. The Protestants did not get that name by protesting against the Church of Rome but by protesting and that when nothing else would serve against her errors and superstitions Do you but remove them from the Church of Rome and our Protestation is ended and the Seperation too P. Yes by protesting against the very Church of Rome got they and that deservedly the name of Protestants For were not those errors and superstions you speake of yea and Antichristianisme and abominable Idolatries and universall Apostacie become the very body and soule of the Religion faith and practise of that Church Was not your Dalilah the Church of Rome become that Harlot and Mother of whoredomes and all abominations before the Seperation and rent was made Could they then protest against her corruptions and not withall against her selfe Were not all her corruption so incorporated unto her as they were altogether inseperable from her like the Blackamores skin or the Leopards spots which cannot be changed And do not you confesse that they protested against her Corruptions when nothing els would serve when there was no remedy left when she was grown incorrigible So as they might have said as in the Prophet we would have healed Babylon but she is not healed Forsake her and let us goe every one into his own Countrey for her judgement reacheth unto heaven and is lifted up even to the Skies It applyes it selfe And my Lord you speake too late and in vain to A.C. to remove Romes errors and superstition A C. is not of the Faith to remove such mountaines He cannot wâ—sh the Blackmore white You must procure such a Generall Councel as is at least equall to that of Trent to reverse all those Decrees whereby all Romes superstitions and errors are so ratified as England will sooner heare of a Parliament for Reformation then Rome will indure the thoughts of any more Generall Councels to question or meddle with her Trent Decrees Rome is now setled upon her lees and you shall sooner remove the City of Rome it selfe from her muddy Tiber then the Church of Rome from her superstitions Nor is the black skin more conaturall to the Ethiopian nor spots to the Leopard then Idolatry Superstition Infidelity Apostacie and all error is conaturall to the Beast with seaven heads and ten hornes as making up both the Complexion and Constitution of that painted Whore And therefore you might have saved all this labour in vain in writing such a Volume out of a hope to worke an unity with Rome when her superstitions and errors shal be removed and that is ad Graecas Calendas
be heard among them And for us thy poore handmaids here humbly suppliant before thee let thy holy Spirit direct lead and assist us in the way which may be most acceptable to thy Majesty and profitable for thy People and comfortable to us all in our distressed estate And shew unto thy Servants what thou wouldst have us to doe in this difficult businesse about the presenting of this Reply to the King which with our selves and all thine we humbly commend to thy grace and blessing through Iesus Christ to whom with thee ô Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory now and ever Amen Mother Now my deare Children I will tell you what resolution GOD hath put into my heart upon the very close of this Prayer namely that we addresse our selves to the King with this Reply together with an humble Petition And because all of us perhaps would be too many let as many of you as are willing to attend me goe with me to the King the rest let them goe and be humble suiters at the Throne of Grace that our GOD would give us to find Grace in the eyes of the King so as hearkening to our Petition he may doe accordingly Such therefore of you as are willing to accompany me stand on this side and the rest stand on that side Well I see you are equally divided Six with me and Six for me With me Charity Humilty Prudence Piety Patience and Verity For me Faith Hope Zeale Iustice Mercy Prayer Now my Gracious Children be strong and of a good courage Our Cause is good and GOD is for us and though our enemies be great yet they shall not prevaile against us TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAIESTY THE TRVE CHVRCH AND CHILDREN THE TRUE FAITH AND RELIGION OF JESUS CHRIST do humbly present their Petition of Right THAT whereas a Book intituled A Relation of a Conference between WILLIAM LAUDE and Mr. FISHER the Iesuite hath been by the said WILLIAM now of Canterbury lately republished and that under your Majesties Patronage and in the publishing whereof as he saith he hath obeyed your Majesty And whereas A Reply to the said Relation is now under the Patronage of JESUS CHRIST and in obedience to his Word and by assistance of his Grace here published and presented to your Majesty and before all the World in which Reply are detected and clearely evinced by manifold and infallible Testimonies sundry particular passages and Doctrines of the Relator which directly overthrow all true Christian Faith and Religion And whereas in this Reply is clearely proved that Prelaticall Government of the Church or the Hierarchy as they call it is meere Antichristianisme and the very Mistery of Iniquity branded by the Apostle and expresly forbidden by Christ himselfe to his Apostles whose Successors the Prelates falsely pretend to be and that all Prelates even as they are Prelates are both by their Profession and Practise so many Antiâ—hrists adversaries to CHRIST who as the Great Antichrist sit as Gods in the Temple of GOD Lording over the Faith Soule and Conscience of GODS People thrusting CHRIST out of his Throne And whereas notwithstanding the manifest truth hereof confirmed by most cleare Testimony and undeniable Proofes of Scripture the Relator or Prelate hath in his said Relation uttered sundry blasphemous Speeches belying the Wisedome Counsell and Providence of GOD and of CHRIST as making Him the Author and Ordainer of such a Hierarchicall Government of his Church which is to Father upon GOD and CHRIST a most notorious Lye and Falshood where he addes withall a blasphemous New Article of Belief of the Church of England that this is a truth And whereas the Holy Scriptures is and hath been in all Ages and by all Sound and Orthodox Divines both Ancient and Moderne both Forraigne and Domestick universally received held and constantly beleeved and maintained against all Adversaries of the Truth to be the Onely Rule of Faith and Iudge of Controversies in Divinity and alone Selfe-sufficient to give Testimony to it selfe that it is the undoubted Word of GOD as in this Reply also is fully prooved And whereas the Relator notwithstanding hath loded the Scripture with many intollerable reprâ—ohes and blasphemous words of disgrace censuring it as an insufficient witnesse to it selfe and an incompetent Iudge of Controversies in Faith as being both a blinde dumbe and dead Judge and that it hath no light in it selfe but is as a Candle in a box without light till Tradition of the present Church doe light it and the like the very ground of all Infidelity and Apostacie And whereas notwithstanding all such his blasphemies against the Scripture wherewith he hath stuffed some 30 leaves in Follio besides many other the like scattered all along his Book he the same Relator out of his grosse hypocrisie addeth this proud Blasphemy to all the rest That he hath given the Scripture all honour and ascribed unto it Sufficiencie more then enough And whereas also as appeareth in this Reply the Relator belyes and blasphemes the Holy Ghost himselfe making him the Author of most notorious lyes and vanity And whereas the Relator doth define a meere false and counterfeit Catholicke Church contrary to that Holy Catholick Church beleeved in the Creed whereby he overthrowes both that Article of Faith and with all the Communion of Saints teaching that his Catholicke Church though it cease to be holy yet is a true Church of CHRIST still And whereas of and in this his new Catholicke Church which the Relator beleeveth he makes the Church of England and of Rome to be one and the same Church and both to hold one and the same Faith of that his Catholicke Prelaticall Church which Faith is declared in the Reply not to be the true saving Faith and that they both do set up and professe one and the same Religion not different in which Faith and Religion of the Church of England and of Rome he saith as he hath lived so he resolves to dye as much to say as he will live and dye an English-Romish-Catholicke And whereas the Replyer proveth and which no Papist denyeth that the maine substance of the Romish Religion is the Masse And whereas the Relator confesseth that though a simple Papist may as he saith yet no Romanist as a Romanist living and dying in the Roman Faith can be saved and yet this Faith of Rome is the same with that of England wherein he will end his dayes So as the Church of England may hereby see in what a case she is and how highly she is preferred by her Primate as to be brought to be of the same Church the same Faith the same Religion with Rome enough to startle all your Majesties Subjects that till now thought themselves to bo Protestants and no Papists and to cause all zealous Christians to abandon all communion with such a Church as is the same Church of the same Faith and Religion with Rome And wheras
in his innocent nakednesse then with his devised Fig-leaves how applyed to the Prelaticall Church 103 104. Prelates Service sensuall and heathenish as done to an unknown God fully displayed 104. Prelates pompous Ceremonies like the Cardinals Sumpter 105. No necessity of Prelates Ceremonies sith both Superstitious and Superfluous saving that they are all the Substance of their Religion 106 107. True Reformation ought to have no Ceremonies at all to bind the Conscience 107. Prelates Ceremonies strengthen Superstition and Idolatry and destroy true piety 108. What is that Substance of Religion which Prelates Ceremonies doe fence 106 107. And what strength they adde to his Religion how it is weaknesse not to see 108. Prelates Ceremonies are beggerly Rudiments yea Aegyptian bonds and Babilonish Chaines 108. How by the Prelates Ceremonies so eagrely urged the Jesuites win ground 108 109. Romes Reconciliation hastened by hossing up wodden Altars and hurling down golden Ministers 109. The Jesuites hale in Popery through the Prelates broad Gates he hath layd open ibid. 21. How the Prelate hath layd open the wider-gates of his Catholicke Church by pulling down the walls and bulwarks of Christs true Church 109. The Prelates wider-Gates whither they lead 110. The Prelate hath nothing to doe with the true Faith nor Communion with the true Saints ibid. He perverteth the Scripture Jude 3. falsely applying the Saints Faith to his boundlesse Catholicke Church 110. What Truth the Prelate professeth and with what singlenesse of heart 110 111. And his notorious hypocrisie in deluding the King 111. The Prelate puts all his Book upon the King as published in obedience to his Majesties command ibid. What we may expect from the Prelate who resolves to dye in that Faith wherein he hath lived ibid. And so what hope he can have of Gods favour 112. THE CONTENTS OF THE MAINE POINTS AND PASSAGES IN THIS insuing Reply to the Relation it selfe 2. WHat is that Church whose judgement the Prelate would have the people to depend upon 113. And not to be too busie with Seripture but moderately in things obvious 114. How the Prelate yeelds the Jesuite this that the Church of Rome is a true Church on whose judgement people must depend 115. The Prelate a Subtile underminer of the Truth 116. 4. The papall Church holds no one point of Saving Truth ibid. 23. How the Prelate vants himselfe for the great Champion of the Church of England 117. 29. How the Prelate overthrows Christ while he makes things not Fundamentall in the Faith necessary to some mens Salvation but tells us not who those be 117 118. 31. How the Prelate can bind all men to peace by his Churches Declaration yea though it be not the Churches 118. The dangerous Consequences hereof 119. 32. The Prelate selfe-condemned for adding things contrary and detracting things necessary 120. 35. How against the Prelate things considered in the manner of Beeing onely are fundamentall in the Faith Instanced in sundry particulars 120 121. The many absurd consequences of Popish Reall-presence ibid. 37. How the Prelate makes things which are fundamentall in the Faith not to be so to all men 122. See 117.118 If the Prelate doe at all discerne what the true Faith is what use he makes of it 122. 39. How the Prelate falsifies Lyrinencis and is loth to English some of his words 123. If the Church of Rome be Lupanar Errorum a Stews of Errours 't were good that all should know her in plain English to be so to avoyd her though the Prelate be loth English men should know it ibid. How the Prelate applauds the Iesuite Stapleton in a grosse point of Popery whom Dr. Whitakers in the Chaire at Chambridge confuted 124. How therein the Prelate prefers Stapleton before Bellarmine who comes nearer to the Truth ibid. 40. How the Prelate is justly as an Enemy to Assurance of Salvation and so of true Saving Faith 124. 43. How the Prelate makes it whether for a penny Beliefe of Scripture or the Creed hath the Precedencie of a Prime Principle of Faith 125. 44. The Prelate allows some Traditions for Apostolick though not fundamentall in the Faith ibid. 45. The Prelates Faith of Christs Descent into hell which Article is by the Replyer discussed 126 to 129. 47.48 For default of examining the Articles of the Creed by Scripture the Prelate overthrows two Articles The Catholicke Church and the Communion of Saints 129. 51. Notwithstanding the Prelate we ought boldly and publickly to affirme The Truth against errour 132. 53. The Prelate submits the Faith of the Church of England to the judgement of the Fathers whether her Articles be according to Scripture How by those Fathers he is condemned 132 133. With what limitation the Church within the first 400 or 500. yeares may be sayd to have been at the best 133 134. How the Replyer declines the occasion of entring into a comparison between the truly Reformed Protestant Churches and that within the first 500. years after the Apostles 134. Conformity to Popish Rites a Pretence to bring Papists to Church as the Christians anciently intertained Heathen manners to draw them to be Christians 134. Augustine complained of Ceremonies then when if the Prelate say true the Church was at the best ibid. 62. The Prelates false professed Faith concerning the Catholicke Church in the Creed which he defines to be the Society of all Christians 135. 66. How the Prelate jumpes with Bellarmine for a word of God as well unwritten as written 135 136 137. Baptisme of Infants a Doctrine of Scripture not an unwritten Tradition We ought to repaire to Scripture in all doubts of Faith 137. 72 73. How the Prelates words not well examined may make us beleeve he is no Arminian but Orthodox in the Doctrine of Grace while he abuses the Scripture most palpably and grosly 138 139. 75 76. What the place and office of naturall Reason is in judgeing of Scripture against the Prelate magnifying naturall Reason to the vilifying of Scripture the blindnesse and vanity thereof in judging of Divine things and matters of Faith 140 141 142 143. Vnsanctified Reason how it judges the Scripture to be false 143. How the Prelate is put to his naturall Reasons pregnancy in matters of Faith 1â—2 77. The Prelates extreme blindnesse or malice in saying The Scripture is strengthened with probable Arguments from the light of Nature and humane Testimony to convince men without which it is not so demonstratively evident of it selfe 144. At large confuted 14â— to 149. A secret power in Scripture convincing a naturall man in the reading or hearing of it preached that it is the very word of God 148 149 150. See also A motion of the Replyer to the Prelate how he shall make tryall of the Scriptures powerfull sufficiencie to convince him that it is the word of God 149. A comparison of the Scripture with the Sun 151. Gods word preached and not Church-Tradition the ordinary prime motive and instrument of Faith Illustrated
Church-Tradition to the morning Light detected and shewed to halt down-right of all foure 217 218. The Prelate still unreasonably inculcates his Church-Tradition 218 219. He is brought into a Circle 219. 121. The Prelates Whimsey suckt in from the Popish Schoole That Divinity hath a Science about it confuted 219 220. What true Divinity properly is ibid. 122. The Prelate selfe-condemned while his leaning too much upon Tradition may mislead Christians 221 The Prelate still prosecutes his Tradition ibid. His misapplying of his Schoole-distintion 222 223 224. Shoole-distinctions must be well examined by Scripture 224. 125. The Prelate calls the Protestants Seperation from Popery a miserable rent which he lamenteth with a bleeding heart 225 226. His vanity discovered ibid. A most shamefull or rather shamelesse lye of the Prelate detected 226. His blasphemous lye that he hath given the Scripture more then enough 227. The Prelate confesseth he goeth the same way with the Jesuite for Church-Tradition ibid. A subtile and sly insinuation of the Prelate detected of vanity ibid. The onely difference between the Prelate and Jesuite about Tradition noted 228. 128. The Prelate vaunting the Roman Church to be a true Church with his reasons confuted 229 2â—0 231 232 233 234. Rome holds neither Word nor Sacraments Ergo no true Church 131 132. The Prelates privy nipping and pretty quipping of Luther and in him all the Reformed Protestant Churches as seperating from Rome not onely as it was then false but as once formerly true 236. And so he shuts them out as Seperatists from the true Catholicke Church as â—e accounts â—t ibid 133. How tenderly the Prelate toucheth Rome for her Superstition and errour and not once in all his Book charging her with Idolatry 23â— Who be the Prelates best men who he saith most bemone his miserable rent ibid. Reconciliation of true Protestants with Rome impossible ibid. The vanity of the Prelates Apologie for the Protestants about the Rent 238. The Synagogue of Rome and her Corruptions are grown into one intire body ibid. 135. The Prelate no observer of his own Law in interpreting of words ibid. The Prelates vaine condition to the Jesuite about Reconciliation with Rome 238 239. Why the Prelate so names The Great Sacrament of the Eucharist 239. 136. True Protestants protest against such damnable Corruptions of Rome as the Prelate accounts essentiall parts of his Catholicke Church ibid. 138. Why the Replyer hath so sharpened his style against the Prelate 241 The Example of Irenaeus arguing with Victor declared and retorted upon the Prelate concerning Ceremonies 241 242 243. 140. The Prelate beleeves that though his whole Militant Church cease to be holy yet she is a Church of Christ still 245 confuted to 251. The Prelates Militant Church why so called It is the Malignant and Antichristian Church 251 252. The Prelate implyes his Militant Church may fall from the Foundation and cease to be holy and become Hereticall and an Assembly of Hereticks ibid. The true difference between the Prelates false Militant Church and of the onely True ibid. Christs true Militant Church connot fall from the Foundation A notable instance and demonstration shewing that denyers of the Christian Sabbath day to be commanded in the 4th Commandement is an overthrowing of a fundamentall point of Faith and consequently of the whole Faith 248 249. A cleare Declaration of the Sabbath day commanded in the 4th Commandement and applyed to us Christians 248 249 250. How farre in this and other points of faith the Prelates Church of England is fallen is put to the Prelates consideration 250. 141 142. Romes errours being dyed in graine cannot by the Prelates confession consist with holinesse 251 252. 142. A peremptory Speech of the Prelate 252. The Prelate plainly enough blameth the Protestants both for making and continuing the Separation and that most peremptâ—rily ibid. How Jesuites are by the Laws of England to be disputed with and where 253. The Prelates honesty wherein it consisteth 254. namely in excluding the Scripture as Iudge an disputation ibid. 148. The Prelates Faint confession that Romes errous doe onely indanger Salvation 254. The Prelates tender Heart loth to make the rent wider ibid. Not so tender to Christs Lambs as to the Romish wolfe 255. How by the Jesuites Confession alledged by the Prelate the Protestants can abandantly justifie their Seperation from Rome ibid. The Ten Tribes under Jeroboam how no true Church against the Prelate 255 compared with Rome 256. 153 154. The Prelates notorious hypocrisie detected in his calling Pelagianisme that great bewitching Heresie As also in naming sâ—me Councels as setting the Church right therein Retorted upon the Prelate 259 260 261. 1â—5 The Prelate confuted by those examples himselfe alledgeth about his Princes and Clergies power and direction for Reformation of Religion 261 262. Of Englands halfe-Reformation now made a whole Deformation 262. To whom Reformation of Religion belongs and how ib. The Replyer justifies his answering the Prelate by his own confession 262. 157. The Prelate still persists in his obstinacie not allowing the Scripture for Iudge in doubtfull Cases 263. 171. The Prelate glories in the Title of Patriarchate of the other world which the Pope gave to his Prdecessor Anselme 263 264. An honest Cobler to be preferred before all the Prelates Pontificall and pompous Titles 264. 175. Authority of Prelates over the Clergie no Calling from God 264 to 268. Of what known use and benefit they be for unity and peace Hieromes words omitted by the Prelate That Prelates were brought in by humane presumption and not by Divine Institution 264. Scripâ—ure hath no Diocesan Bishops 267 268. 2. but they are usurpers and Tyrants 177. Domination Prelaticall with Subjection thereto confessed by the Prelate to be grounded on Canon and Positive Law 267. How the Prelates are fallen between two Stooles 268. 2. They call themselves Princes 269. 2. What kind of Princes they be 270. And who be the true Princes 269 2. 183. The Prelates necessity of one Ordine Primus and confession that the Popes Principality was the very fountain of Papall Greatnes do prove that of necessity the Prelaticall Catholicke Church is the very Head and Body of Antichrist confederate against Christ and his true Church 268 269 270 271. 182. How and whereupon the Prelate would reduce all to Rome 272 273. Where his subtilty anent the Popes Supremacy and Infallibility iâ— detected He is selfe-condemened 274. 199. How by the Prelates confession the Pope and so other Prelates cannot prosper because they have no Authority from God 274. Proud Prelates are none of Christs privy Councel 276 277. 200. The Prelates blasphemy against Christ making him the Author of the Antichristian Hierarchy detected and confuted 275 to 289. Prelates Ecclesiasticall Government not Aristocraticall but Tyrannicall 275 276. How Prelates differ from true Bishops in Scripture 278 to 281. For Prelates to be Vice-Roys how impious and absurd 28â— to 286. How unlike they are to Christ 282. Their
Preeminence the Bishops Chaire hee prateth against Iohn hee receives not the bretheren and forbids them that would and and throwes them out of the Church by Excommunication just as you and the Pope doe This ambition and erection of Prelacie or Hierarchy was that Mystery of Iniquity which Satan began to brood and hatch even in the Apostles dayes and wherein we have Diotrephes quickly grown up as the first Cocke of the Game of speciall and particular note and name that durst affront even the Apostle himselfe And this Mystery of Iniquity hath continued ever since though at first and in the first Ages it grew up but slowly by reason of a tò katekon à Remora or maine impediment the Roman Empire whose Imperiall Seat being once removed from Rome to Constantinople by Constantine who consopited appeased and put an end to those tenne Persecutions which had been a great hinderance to Antichrists growth then began this Mistery to perke up and the Bishop of Rome Silvester the first could be content to weare a Crown put upon his head by Constantine which upon Boniface the eight his head was multiplyed to a triple Crown one for heaven another for earth and third for purgatory and thus by degrees successively it grew up to that height which we see it now arrived at even its Akmè or full Stature beyond which it cannot goe though it would So as its main care strength and policie is all little enough Parta tueri to maintain what it hath got Now I say in this Mystery of Iniquity I mean the Prelacie or Hierarchy was Antichrist begotten born bred up and at length brought to his full maturity and perfection Now is this Mystery of Iniquity therefore good because it is able to vie and plead Antiquity even as high up as the Apostles owne times and so along downe to ours Though I doe more then suspect that you take it in foule Scorne that I should Anti-christen your Prelacie or Hierarchie with the name of the Mystery of Iniquity But if ye will be patient a while I shall ere I have done give you I hope good Satisfaction And in the meane time the Apostle shall passe his word for it who in the very same place where he speakes of the Mystery of Iniquity doth speake also of the Man of Sin the Son of Perdition who is an Adversary and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped who sitteth as God in the Temple of God shewing himselfe that he is God The very recitall of which words may suffice to stay any reasonable mans stomacke from breaking out into outragious impatience against him that saith The Prelacie is the Mystery of Iniquity But you shall have it God willing at full anon Againe some of your Divines goe about to drive the Antiquity of your holy Lent-Fast from the Apostles very times and so to have continued ever since in all Ages and Places where the Church hath taken any rooting And indeed some Christians even then began to observe Touch not Tast not handle not and to observe Times daies Moneths but the Apostle condemns all such observation and as before brands them for Doctrines of Devils and departing from the Faith and denying of Christ. So as though you could prove your Church-Government to have been in use both in and ever since the Apostles times yet it will not follow that it is such a Government as either was practised or yet approved by the Apostles themselves For your Church-Government is altogether Hierarchicall by Prelates which the Apostles never practised themselves nor yet approved but condemned in others that either began to practise it or were inclined and affected thereto Not as Lords over Gods Heritage saith Peter Not as having dominion over your Faith saith Paul It shall not be so among you saith Christ. Diotrephes loveth to have the Preeminence saith Iohn But of this we shall have occasion to speake more at after In the meane time take this with you Did the Apostles nay for some hundred yeares after them did Prelates keep Courts and Consistories with their Chauncellors Archdeacons Commissaries Officialls Tipstaves Pursuivants Apparators like the Roman Lictors with their rodds for terrour and state Or had they their private Courts to excommunicate whom they pleased and that by a dumbe Priest and for every triviall matter and for no just cause Prove these things my Lord to have been in use in the Primitive Ages at the least for the first 500. yeares or in any place but where Diotrâ—phes was untill Antichrist the Pope set up that frame of Hierarchy with all its Equipage Traine and Rabble the just Image whereof you have set up in the Church of England You speak bigge indeed but you cannot be as bigge as your word If you had leasure to read the Histories of the Church and among the rest the Centuries they will show you what a vast difference there is between your Church-Government as both now and of long time it hath been practised in the Church both of Rome and England and that ancient Government practised by the ancient Prelates in the Primitive Ages And in the Popes Canon Law and other Records à Polidor Virgil De Inventorebus rerum c. you may come to know the Antiquity of your Prelaticall Courts and Consistories Chancellors Archdeacons Officialls Commissaries Registers and all the frie. For beyond that seaven hild City the head-spring of this Seaven-Streamed Egyptian Nilus is not found Hath not then the Seperatist as you call him just cause and ground to charge your Church of England with Antichristianisme whose Church-Government and Discipline is such as the Apostles never approved but expresly reproved and condemned and practised the contrary For if your Church-Government be that which the Apostle brands with the Mystery of Iniquity and of Antichrist then surely you cannot excuse it from Antichristianisme If you say This is rather meant of the Church of Rome and of the Pope the Head thereof who you must needs confesse is very like to Antichrist if he be not the very Antichrist as indeed he is then of the Church of England Why wherein differeth the Church of England from that of Rome in Church-Government Do you not say you are both one and the same Church And wherein one and the same but in Church-Government especially Of which we shall speake more anon Now for Antichristianisme you know it comes of Antichrist and Antichrist is a compound word Anti in the Greek signifying both for and against So as Anti-Christ is one that under pretence of being for Christ is against Christ. Such is the Pope who pretends to be Christs Vicar which is as much to say as Antixristos Antichristus as Anthupatos Pro consul so Antichristus Prochristus or Vice-Christ And yet he is Anti Against Antikeimenos an Adversary to Christ as the Apostle sets him forth So as the Pope is
in a Cloake-bag as most of the rest were was for them and favoured their side And the present Oracle of the Church of England Papa alterius Orbis hath so handled and hammered the matter in his forge that by a Declaration before the Articles of Religion he hath with no great difficulty made those Articles concerning Grace so to speak as to please both the dissenting parties Like to a Picture which each man in the room imagins looks upon him in particular Or as easily I say as if a man should take away the prick of a Hebrew Letter from the right side and place it on the left according to which variation a man pronounceth respectively the word Schiboleth or Sibboleth The false pronounciation of which word cost the Ephraimites their lives Lastly to end as I began The Church of England and of Rome are One and the same in turning Christs Kingdome which is altogether Spirituall and not of this world into an earthly and seculer Kingdome although Styled a Spiritualty and Hierarchy or holy Government and Kingdome whose Governours are temporall Lords calling themselves Christs viceroys whose kingdome glory pompe dignity riches is all earthly not heavenly carnall not spirituall verefying that of the Apostle They are the enemies of the Crosse of Christ whose end is destruction whose God is their belly whose glory is in their Shame which mind earthly things Here are particulars enough to be silent in the rest to prove your Speech true That the Church of England and the Church of Rome are in Substance one and the Same no doubt of that As for Romes corruptions as you account and call them they are neither so many nor so great So long as they overthrow not the foundation as you not say they doe but that the large Mantle of your Charity is broad enough to cover them So as that need not to break square or greatly hinder your so much desired and attempted Reconciliation wherein I know you will be ready to meet Rome the halfe way or three quarters and more rather then faile to give his Holinesse the kisse of peace so he will be content to leave your Patriarchate or Popedome in England while himselfe enjoyeth the Vicarship of the wider world and at his death leave you his Heir apparent of the triple Crown Yet perhaps for your Reputation sake you would require that some grossenes at least might be payred off the outsides of her fouler corruptions and they a little smoothed over and for your part I dare say you will not be behind hand to bring on the Church of England in such a faire forwardnesse and neernesse as possibly the time will permit to a just conformity in all things fecible But is the Church of England now come to this to be in Statu quo So as a man may find her just there where Rome is now Alas poore England Shall not now all thy brave Worthies that are for the most part dead and gone and Some yet surviving as brands out of the flame rise up and bring their Evidences as witnesses aganst Rome that Shee is a False Hereticall Idolatrous Apostatized Antichristian Church the very Whore of Babylon plainely described in the Revelation And one of the last Bookes written against her to purpose indeed Intituled BABEL no BETHEL which came forth in a good season somwhat before you came to sit in the Chaire of Canterbury and for which you may remember you convented the Author before your High Commission Board at London house out of Terme and committed him to prison Mr. BURTON I mean now a closse prisoner and Exile hath by many impregnable Arguments so strongly proved the Church of Rome to be no true Church of Christ but a meere Antichristian Apostacie from the Faith So as neither his two hot Antagonists your Brothers Champions nor any Jesuites since hath undertaken to Answer it as being indeed unanswerable And so it Stands his Adversaries giving him the Bucklers in the plain Field And yet now is the Case so altered that so suddainly the Church of England is become One and the Same with the Church of Rome So as She may find her selfe just there where Romes is now and that no doubt of that But how doth this appeare Surely you may take it for truth for the Primate and Metropolitan of all England hath so bestirred himselfe and playd his part in Chopping and Changing puting down truth and seting up errour and superstition in the Church of England that she is Sodainly so metamorphosed into another form and in a manner transubstantiated into a new Substance of a Church as now you may find her just there where Romes is now both one and the Same Church no doubt of that If then we may take your word for your Church of England in this Case and considering that the Church of Rome is that notorious Harlot how any true Christian as I said before that will not become the member of a Harlot can hold longer communion with you I cannot see And for my part I doe here ingenuously professe and protest against you againe and againe that I abhorre you and all such Churches as hold communion with Rome as one and the Same Church and doe utterly seperate from you till you seperate from all communion and conformity with that Babylon in all those particulars forementioned And so I have done with you thus farre in this point You proceed L. p. 17. According to Christs Institution the Scripture where 't is plaine should guide the Church and the Church where there 's doubt and difficulty should expound the Scripture P. How Where I pray hath Christ so instituted And who hath bewitched you to dare to utter such a notorious and pernicious untruth as this and to Father it upon Christ and that upon your bare word For What Scripture doe you or can you bring For this Nay if the Scripture Christs own voyce and wherein the Spirit of Christ breatheth be not sufficient to interpret it selfe and that in all more doubtfull and difficult places of it what Man or Men or Church shal be able to doe it For how can any interpret difficult places of Scripture especially such as concerne Faith and Salvation but by the Scripture it selfe But we shall speake more fully of this afterwards And you have told us what the Church is namely a Hierarchy or Kingdome of Prelates who generally Savour the things of the flesh and not of the Spirit And if youâ— Lordship should but stand for a proofe and Say in this Case and that all other Prelates would hazzard their credit upon your Ability in interpreting the Scripture it would quickly appeare what hope the world might have of Prelates helpe at a dead lift for the establishing of our Faith and Consciences in some perplexed Cases O then what brave Prelaticall Glosses should we have As for the purpose Some doubts of late are risen in England
curse them yet can you not doe as that wicked Prophet did in Counselling King Balack to put a stumbling block before the Children of Israel by inticing them to his Idols with his faire Damosels You can tell us that the Church of England and of Rome are one and the Same Church and that her worship of Images is but a trenching or coming neare Idolatry as at after so as none need fear communion with her so he be but ignorant of her Corruptions Of which more hereafter But though you cannot prophesie what is all your practise but a cleare Prognostication and that not onely foretelling but causing and haling in a Deluge of Atheisme and Irreligion flowing in upon you Yea witnesse this your Book which could not spring but from the root of Atheisme and Sourse of all Irreligion and which doth not onely prognosticate nor onely teach the way how Atheisme and Irreligion may gather strength but doth certainly presage and that by necessary consequence most terrible Judgements and Calamities to fall upon the Church of England I would say rather upon the Hierarchy of England and which you doe with both hands in writing and publishing this Book and by all other your practises pull upon your own heads But this your feare of Atheisme and Irreligion to gather strength is say you while the Truth is weakened by an unworthy way of contending What Truth Or what is that unworthy way of contending for the Truth Or what is your Atheisme and Irreligion For all these termes need your interpretation But your prudent modestly therein we will make bold as well as we can to Supply First for Truth it is much in your mouth I meane the name and word Truth But when you name Truth you alwayes mean Falshood as when you Speake of the Church you meane such a Church as is a false Church and when you Speake of Peace you meane such as is a false Peace when your Reconciliation with Rome is a Conspiracie against Christ and his true Church and when you name Priest you meane such as is a false Priest and when you name Devotion you meane such as is a false Devotion of humane devising and when you name Faith as the gift of God you meane not the true Saving Faith whereof the Apostle speakes where he Saith Faith is the gift of God As we shall see at after So as ever under the green leaves of such faire words as Truth Peace Church Devotion Faith c. we may ever Suspect and shal be ever sure to find a false Serpentine Sense to lurke Secondly your unworthy way of contending for the Truth what is it but that which the Apostle exhorts unto that Christians should earnestly contend for the Faith given to the Saints and Paul that we should sunathlein wrastle together as for Mastery or for a Crown for the Faith of the Gospell Now is not this that which you call an unworthy way of contending for the Truth No doubt of thâ—â— As to write Books or preach Sermons proving the Pope to be Antichrist and the Church of Rome to be a false Church or no Church of Christ and no Salvation to be hoped for in that Church and that all true Christians ought to have no Communion with that Church but to abhorre and abandon her as the Lord commandeth and that Prelates are not Jure divino but are Antichristian and their Hierarchy Tyrannicall and that Altars in Churches are a denying of Christ the Onely Altar and that all Ceremonies invented and imposed by men in the Service of God is a will-worship condemned by Christ and his Apostles and many such like This is that unworthy way of contending whereby you say the Truth is weakened No marvaile Thirdly what is that Atheisme and Irreligion which you feare will gather Strength while the Truth is weakened by such an unworthy way of contending This I take it may be taken two wayes Either that by Atheisme you meane the true Faith of Christ which is opposite to the Romish faith wherewith you hold such correspondence for whatsoever is contrary to Romes faith or which is all one your faith is with you branded for Atheisme Or Secondly Atheisme truely and properly taken gathers strength by such an unworthy way of labouring a Reconciliation between the Church of England and the Church of Rome which to make way for you are glad to say that these two Churches are for substance one and the Same Church Now before your time the Church of England though in many things it symbolized with Rome as hath been shewed yet still it renounced all communion with her as being a Strumpet and that great Whore whose Husband is the great Antichrist But now you have so turned the Cat in the pan by making way to bring the Church of England back againe to an union and communion with Rome that you put the people to a stand to a nonplus so as they know not what to beleeve or what to think but are ready to cast off all further thought of God as if there were no God because they see those to flourish and to goe on unpunished who overthrow the faith formerly professed in England seting up the Romish faith againe where it had been cast out and on the other side Preaching and Preachers to be put down and the true Professors to be persecuted and thrown out of all and forced to quit their native Countrey and the like Now where all this is do you but feare that Atheisme gathers Strength Nay is not the root of all your cruely in persecuting Christs Ministers and People meere Atheisme It is noted of the Sadduces that of all other Sects they were the most cruell in their judiciall Censures As Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 14. out of Iosephus And no marvaile They denyed the Resurrection and the Last Iudgement So as they were Atheists This made them dare to practise all cruelty and injustice For Maxima peccandi illaecebra impunitatis Spes So how durst you be so unjust and cruell in your oppressions and persecutions did you certainly beleeve that there is a Resurrection and Last Judgement wherein you shall be Judged But this by the way 't is an Item And Irreligion also what 's that That 's soon resolved to wit Obstinacie in not admitting of Altars in some Churches Irreveverence in not bowing to Altars and worshiping towards the East and adoring the name Iesus and the like This is with you Irreligion because your whole Religion is placed in these things For so you tell us in the words following L. p. 19. The externall worship of God in his Church is the GREAT WITNESSE to the world that our hearts stand right in the Service of God Take this away or bring it into contempt and what light is there left to shine before men that they may see our Devotion and glorifie our Father which is in heaven P. Surely were it not
Pope not to be Antichrist and no necessity of frequent Preaching and none to preach but Bishops and Deanes and that onely and especially at the three Solemn times in the yeare Also another Book intituled the Femall Glory as full fraught thoughout with the most grosse blasphemous Idolatrous Popish Stuffe as it can hold and this in plain English allowed by one of your Chapleins or of London house and for ought I heare not yet suppressed or call'd in Besides many other of the same branne some whereof are printed but kept up under deck not daring yet to peep forth till the Storm as in Starre Chamber you call'd it raysed by BURTON and others be over and least they should be made Popish Martyrs in Smithfield as Salis his Devotions were which for feare were burned as afore Under your Primacy hath there not been a mighty stirring and stickling for the seting up of Altars c. yea of Images too and Crucifixes and that in Collegiate Churches or Chappels both in Oxford you being Chauncellour and in Cambridge where you want not a Vice-Chauncellour and which you indeavour in all the Churches of England Under your Primacie have not your pregnantest wits and profoundest Divines been set aworke to write Books to unmorallize the 4th Commandement for the perpetuall keeping of the Lords Sabbath day and so unbind Christians from the sanctification of the Lords day and their Books allowed by your Authority and Dedicated to great ones and much applauded by your Faction Under your Primacie have not your Doctors also written stoutly for your Altars and that even unto blasphemy Saying that the use of the Altar is to sanctifie the Sacrifice and without an Altar the Sacrifice is not Sanctified or dedicated by the Bishop Under your Primacie began not Ministers to be Suspended Silenced Excommunicated put out of their Benefices and Cures of Soules for refusing to read the Book of Liberty for Sports on the Lords day and to set up Altars in their Churches at their Ordinaries Command These these my Lord being thus doe you complaine of unsettlednesse Who hath troubled the Fountain The Wolfe above at the Spring head or the Lamb below To recollect then and recapitulate these things When Profanation of the Lords day is by publick Edict allowed when the Articles of Religion are made as the Delphick Oracles to be taken two contrary wayes when the Doctrines of Gods Grace are universally restrained and forbid to be preached when Popish Books publickly allowed in Print and Orthodox Books against Popery restrained when Altars set up in all Churches where there was none before when Books published by Authority to disanull Gods Morall Law when Books allowed publickly to maintain the seting up of Altars in Churchs when Godly Ministers by multitudes put down for not yeelding to those things which are contrary to the Laws of God and man and all this in the State of England where from the first Reformation such as it was have been universally and constantly maintained both by writing and preaching the morality of the 4th Commandement for the sanctification of the Lords Day the Articles of Religion concerning Grace to have but one Orthodox sense the free and unrestrained preaching of Gods word and confuting of all opposite Errours that the Pope is that Antichrist that the Lords Supper was to be celebrated onely at the Lords Table that Ministers Conformity was extended no further then was limited by the Law all these things considered in the tumult of so many bold Innovations Innovation I cry you mercy Renovations I should say of old Popish ragges and outcast reliques for you disclaim Innovation against Gods law and Mans law what settlement what peace what tranquility can be expected and then again al these new Attempts for Uniformity and Conformity coming in under and with your Primacie can they vindicate your Reputation from a generall opinion of your being the most perillous and pernicious Instrument of unsettling and troubling the State oâ— the Land and of Religion and you may if you will take Scotland in to boot with generall discontents and heart burnings to see the State of Religion thus turned topsie turvie And doe you complain notwithstanding that you cannot attain to an Orderly Settlement Stay my Lord be not so eagre See Scotland first settled before you proceed further in the settlement of England least you unsettle all Be not deceived in the confidence of your own active brain and borrowed power And see also how your Booke will take For Certainly therein you have run your selfe upon the Pikes get off as you can Your Reputation if you meane it for the Repute to be a good Protestant unlesse you meane it that you would be accounted what you are a member of one and the Same Church with Rome is now bound to the Stake ready to be Sacrificed for a whole-burnt Offering For what your Ordinary practises proclaimed to the world of you now in your Book you stick not openly to professe that you desire for the Church and State of England to be reconciled to the Sea of Rome So as your Book besides the turbulent matter in it like the Trojan horse full of armed enemies could not possibly have been borne into the world in a more unhappy time then now when you see two Kingdomes all in a combustion which the Sprinkling of your Romes Holy water wil be so farre from quenching or allaying that it will prove rather as Oyle to increase and feed the flame But GOD give the King the Spirit of Wisedome and Iudgement to see into these things betimes both for the preventing of further mischiefes and for the reuniting of the great rent between his two Kingdomes But as Iehu said to Iehoram when he asked Is it peace Iehu What peace said he so long as the Whoredomes of thy Mother Iezabel and her Witchcrafts are so many So what peace can be expected in the Land where such an Uniformity and Settlement is required as is so repugnant to the Laws of Christs Kingdome and conformable to Antichrists Tyranny and conducible to a reconciliation with that old Iezabel of Rome Certainly the case being so as Deborah said in her Song They chose new gods then was warre in the gates So when a Nation falls to advance higher and higher a new and false Religion where it had been formerly in some good measure cast out to set up Idolatrous and Romish Altars whereby Christ the true and onely Altar of true Christians as hath been shewed is denyed and renounced and to cry down Gods holy Commandements and to oppresse Gods holy Word in the Ministry of it and to persecute Gods faithfull Ministers and People and like the Aegyptians to oppresse Gods People more and more with intolerable burthens of humane inventions to the great reproach of Christ and the throwing down of his incommunicable Royall Soveraignty over his Church and People in matters of Faith and the worship of God Can peace or settlement
Rome What thankes the Church of England may returne you I know not But thus did not any of your Predecessors ever And have you more Charity or more Devotion then they had And for the hope in you whereof you give account to the world and your faith testified wherein you have lived and resolve to dye I will say as Ierome said to the Pelagians Sententias vestras prodidisse Superasse est The discovery of your opinions is our victory So thus to give account of your hope and testifie your faith to all the world as that wherein you have lived and resolve to dye Let 's see by your own testimony now irrevocably upon Record what to judge of you formerly namely as of one Qui cum Lacte nutricis errorem Suxisse videatur who seemeth to have sucked in Errour with his Nurses Milke As the Orator Speakes of all naturall men and what to expect of you hereafter that as you have lived a most notorious Persecuter of the truth of Christ and of his Saints So we must look for it Still so long as you live And this is our victory that we have to deale with one who is not now any longer a disguised but unmasked Enemy of the true Faith and Religion of JESUS CHRIST And however you may flatter your selfe in regard of the World and favour in Court yet if you repent not of your former life but dye as you have lived you can have neither hope nor faith in expecting Gods blessing or favour And so I passe from your Dedicatory to your Discourse as followeth THE REPLIE TO THE RELATION OF THE CONFERENCE L. p. 2. IT is very fit the People should look to the Iudgement of the Church before they be too busie with particulars But yet neither the Scripture nor any good Authority denyes them some moderate use of their own understanding and judgement especially in things familiar and evident which even ordinary Capacities may as easily understand as read And therefore some particulars a Christian may judge without depending P. What you meane by Church you have told us before namely that wherein your Church of England and that of Rome are one and the same one Prelaticall and Hierarchicall Church out of which are excluded all those Reformed Churches which neither have nor acknowledge Prelates to be of divine Institution We have also made a Say of the difficulties So as it is no difficulty to divine what Christians we are like to prove in understanding and judgement in the mystery of Faith and Salvation when we must be limited to that narrow Scantling of some moderate use of our owne understanding and Iudgement and that but in things familiar and evident to every ordinary Capacity O poore Christians that for Understanding in the Scripture must be at the allowance of Antichristian Lords who would bring into bondage Gods people by Chaining them up in Darknesse and Ignorance and doe with them as Nahash the Ammonite answered the men of Iabeth Gilead On this condition will I make a Covenant with you that I may thrust out all your right eyes and lay it for a reproach upon all Israel But the Apostle exhorts Christians Saying Be not children in understanding howbeit in malice be children but in understanding Téleio ginesthe be perfect And Leaving the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ Let us goe on unto perfection And Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age even those who by reason of use have their Senses exercised to discerne both good and evill But you allow Christians onely some moderate use of their owne understanding and that in things familiar and evident which men of ordinary Capacities may as easily understand as read So as what they read except with the very reading they doe as easily understand it as they read it they must not meditate further of it but in what they presently upon the reading understand not they must depend upon your Churches judgement So as you would exclude your Christians from being of those blessed men of whom David Speakes which delight in the Law of the Lord and in his Law to meditate day and night You would not have them with use to exercise their wits and Senses to discerne 〈◊〉 good and evill Yea the Apostle useth a word very emphaticall diâ— tò exin by an habituall use or long custome have their Senses gegumnasmâ—na exercised the word properly signifieth such an exercise as Wrastlers or such as contend for victory doe use which is with all their might and strength being train'd up unto it by long exercise So as the Scripture doth not onely not forbid but Commands and exhorts Christians to all diligence in the Study of the Scriptures That their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the aknowledgement of the Mystery of God as the Apostle speakes And Let the word of God dwell in you richly in all wisedome teaching and admonishing one another c. And the Bereans are Said to be dugenésteroi more noble then those of Thesselonica in that they received the word with all readinesse of mind and searched the Scriptures dayly whether those things were so which Paul taught Loe â—ere they examined Pauls Doctrine by the Scriptures they depended not upon his bare word and therefore the Holy Ghost markes them forth for men of a more noble spirit But you would have your Christians to be poore and beggerly in the knowledge of the mystery of Christ and to be so base-minded as in all things which are not obvious to every Capacity to depend meerely upon your Church-Authority and Judgement So as what you meane hereby except to bring into your Church of England the Iesuiticall blind obedience captivating the peoples senses to your Dictates that they might pinne their Salvation and Faith upon your Priests Sleeve I cannot imagine Which will appeare yet more clearely at after Againe these words of yours are in Answere to the Jesuit's words namely That it was not for the Lady or any other unlearned Persons to take upon them to judge of Particulars without depending upon the Iudgement of the true Church To which all your Answere in full is as before Wherein you easily let the Jesuite slip and run away with this that the Church of Rome is that true Church on whose Iudgement for Particulars all unlearned Persons must depend But you understand the true Church to be that wherein you told us before your Church of England and of Rome are one and the Same And so for Rome to be a true Church you plainly confesse at after But your words here may stand you in very good Stead to be a faire Item to all the Readers of your Booke not to be too busie with the Particulars of it but first to look to the Iudgement of the Church of England whose mouth you seem to be in this
have stopped all the Ministers mouthes binding them to peace and externall obedience Although I cannot yet conceive how that Declaration should be the Church of Englands though published in the Kings Name and perhaps compiled in the Conclave of Canterbury And thus also that Order for the Altar of S. GREGORIES which yet is but Dormant in Cryptis not published in Print in which respect it cannot be called the Declartion of the Church yet must be of force to bind all Ministers to Peace and Obedience first to Peace not to speake a word against Altars for his Eares and next to Obedience that if he refuse to have an Altar set up in his Church himselfe shal be made a Sacrifice But why should such an Order thus bind I must crave pardon for making Question And the rather because your Lordship here gives us a Rule or Canon saying The Churches Declaration can bind us to Peace and externall Obedience where there is no expresse Letter of Scripture and Sense agreed on Now though we have expresse Letter of Scripture proving Christ to be the onely Altar of Christians as before is shewed yet because this sense is not agreed on by your Lordship and so by your present Church of England therefore men must be peaceable and obedient in that point and quietly submit to Authority in the admitting and the Adoring too if you will of Altars in every Church And so in all other your superstitious Ceremonies of what force is the expresse Letter of the Scripture where the Sense of it is not by you and your Church agreed upon To give an Instance or two more This is my Body the Sense of these words is not agreed on between your Church of England and that of Rome though you are in Substance both one Church what then Ergo Ministers are bound to Peace and Obedience in not medling to or fro with the manner How Christ is present in the Sacrament though your Article of the Lords Supper doth declare it both affirmatively and negatively how it is and is not but to content themselves with Really which is a very peaceable word about which Rome and you have no great reason to fall at oddes Againe for bowing at the nameing of the Name Iesus although you have no expresse Letter of Scripture for it no not Phil. 2.10 where it is Said En to onómati In or as your Translation hath it at the name of Iesus every knee should bow but it is not Said En to onomazethai tò onoma Iesoun or Iesous In the naming of the name Iesus every knee should bow So as that place is plainly expounded and agreed on by other places of Scripture as Isa. 45.23 and Rom. 14.10 as some of your old English Bibles note those places in the Margent over against the place as in that of Isaiah there is set in in the Margent Rom. 14.10 and Phil. 2.10 all which three places unanimously shew the universall Subjection of all Creatures in heaven and earth and under the earth to Christ in the day of Iudgement yet because this Sense is not agreed on by the present Church of England therefore her Declaration in her Canon binds all to Peace and Obedience to Peace in not speaking or writing against bowing at the nameing of the name Iesus nor in preaching to expound the Letter of Scripture Phil. 2.10 by the plain sense of other Scriptures as afore cited and to Obedience by bowing themselves when they heare that Name to be named So as your Lordships Rule here is very usefull for many things although you have neither Letter nor Sense of Scripture for them L. p. 32. The power of adding any thing contrary and detracting any thing necessary are alike forbidden No power of the Church can doe this P. This Sentence you alledge out of Vincentius and allow it So as it is to be accounted your owne Confession which I suppose you will not deny Whereupon you with your Church fall under just condemnation both for adding things contrary and detracting things necessary For you adde to the service of God as you call it your Altars and sundry other superstitionâ— which the Scripture excludes and condemnes and so are contrary and you detract things necessary as Preaching of the saving Doctrines of Grace Preaching on the Lords dayes in the after noon Preaching Week-day Lectures and Cathechising by expounding the Grounds of Religion Which things are necessary profitable and usefull to the people of God and which God commaundeth as 2 Tim. 3.15.16 and 4.1.2 Gal. 6.6 Let him that is Katekoúmenos Cathechised in the word communicate To katekounti to him that Catechiseth or instructeth him in all good things Thus you and your Church take upon you to do those things which are alike forbidden and which no power of the Church can doe though you can L. p. 35. Wrangle while you will you shall never be able to prove that any thing which is but de modo a consideration of the manner of being onely can possibly be fundamentall in the Faith P. Wrangle I will not but prove that some things which are de modo considered in the manner of being onely not onely may possibly but are really in that very respect fundamentall in the Faith So as to deny them or not to beleeve them is in it selfe damnable And hereof I shall give some Instances 1. Christs body in receiving of the Sacrament is to be considered in the mâ—nnâ—r of its being present to the beleeving Communicant In so much as to exclude such manners of being present as doe destroy either the Article of his perpetuall Residence in heaven till his câ—ming againe or the truth of his Naturall Body doth deny and destroy two Articles of the Faith 1. touching Christs sitting 〈◊〉 tâ—e rigâ—â— hand of God from whence he shall come to Judgemâ—â—â— and 2 ly that he was borne of the Virgin Mary with a true humane body As the Papists apprehending and beleeving Christs naturall body to be locally present in the Eucharist doe thereby overthrow his perpetuall residence in heaven till his coming againe and withall the truth of his naturall body which being a true naturall body with all its naturall properties cannot be locally or corporally in many places at one and the same time which yet the corporall presence in the Eucharist doth necessarily import And if the truth of Christs naturall body be destroyed as by the Manichees and other Hereticks Christ is wholly evacuated and shall profit nothing Besides this Popish beliefe of Christs corporall Presence in their Eucharist makes Christs natural body which hath its dimensions of length breadth thicknesse to be a meere fantasticall and imaginaâ—y body as being contained within the narrow circle and compasse of a thinne Wafer-cake and so they destroy Christs body And so also in that they beleeve they eat this body of Christ which is to destroy it as 1 Cor. 6.13 And this beliefe of Christs corporall presence as aforesaid
your Authority and Commendation should be brought to read the Scriptures and therein should find many Prophecies and among the rest how there should come False Prophâ—ts being Wolves in Sheeps Clothing pretending holinesse but Persecuting Gods Saints pretending Religion but oppessing Gods word pretending to be Christ vicâ—royes but tyrannizing over his people and such as should Apostatise from the Faith and set up Doctrines of Devils as in abstinence from certaine Meates and Marriage at certaine times and how Christ and his Apostles were humble and despised the world being crucified unto it and how they which were proud pompous Lords claiming to be their Successors follow none of their steps neither in diligent preaching nor practise of a holy life are such Antichrists as the Scripture hath foretold and how in the last dayes perillous times should come when men should be Selfe-lovers covetous boastors proud blasphemers unholy without naturall affection implacable covenant-breakers false accusers incontinent fierce despisers of them that are good Traitors heady high-minded lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God Having a forme of Godlinesse but denying the power thereof with many other like things which when they come to compare with the State of the present times and especially of the present Church and chiefly of the Prelates themselves and shall find most of these Prophecies fulfilled in these present times they will certainly hereupon conclude that these be those last dayes and perillous times wherin these things so long agoe foretold doe clearely shew that certainly the Scriptures are the word of God The next thing I note here is that you Say a man so probably led must compare the Scripture with it selfe and other writings What other writings I pray you shall he compare the Scriptures with Shall humane writings light him a Candle to shew him the Sun shining at noon day But thus humane testimony comes in for a Second Inducer And for all your previous inducement you must still at last joyne some thing of man with Scripture Well what 's the third Ordinary Grace And this with the Authority of the present Church may beget in a man an ordinary beliefe that Scripture is the word of God As it seemes such ordinary Grace brought King Agrippa to beleeve the Prophets to be the word of God yet for all that he was but almost perswaded to become a Christian. And this Ordinary Grace is it seems that Holy Ghost which you told us of before The Fourth is morall inducement Well admit this bring him to a morall beliefe or opinion The Fifth is a reasonable perswasion by the voyce of the Church Well what theâ— After all this the Scripture gives greater and higher reasons of Credibility to it selfe then Tradition alone could give Here 's then the upshot of all as we noted before you by these steps advance the Scripture to a Credibility So as all this while you have walkt the round and gone in a Circle and end just where you began for you began at Probability and end in Credibility whereas the Scriptures were credible at least that is such as might be beleeved before you taught this new way to come to the beliefe of them So as this your Conclusion comes to just nothing Only you seem to attribute some thing to the Scripture being assisted with those other inducements wherein it surpasseth your Tradition alone Which is such a comparison and commendation as you could not devise the like to abase the Credit of the Scripture But to conclude What a Tedious Dispute you make here with the Jesuite about that which when you have done all you can will never bring a man upon any sure grounds so much as to beleeve that the Scripture is the word of God much lesse to bring him to Saving faith in Christ. But what doe I speake of Saving faith Alas that 's no worke for your pen. You are for a Scholasticall Dispute here which is so jejune and barren that many Scholasticks would hisse it out of their Schooles much more Divines out of the Divinity Schooles as indeed nothing pertaining to true Divinity but to a Spoyling through Philosophy and vaine deceit as the Apostle Speakes But the summe of all your inducements the Prime whereof must necessarily be your present Churches Authority amounts to this That men being by a bond of necessity tyed to this your Church as without which he cannot come to beleeve Scripture to be Gods word and without this beliefe no faith of Salvation and your Tradition with all other helps cannot bring a man to that beliefe when all is done the Conclusion is that according to your Tradition no man can come to be Saved So as thus by this your new Doctrines you overturne the Foundation of Faith by the very roots leaving no footing for faith to stand upon whereby a man may have any hope of Salvation But I shew'd you before a short and sure way for a man to come to this beliefe and not onely so farre as to beleeve the Scripture to be the word of God but to beleeve that he hath his part of Salvation in that word And this way is by hearing the word of God preached For Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God And this faith being the Saving faith in Christ as it apprehends all the Promises of God in the Scripture to be true and to belong to him so it comprehends the beliefe of Scripture to be the word of God And this this word of God preached and heard is that voyce of the Church of Christ or rather Christs owne voyce in the Church calling men yea and instrumentally causing Gods Spirit effectually working in and by the word to beleeve unto righteousnesse and to confesse to Salvation whatsoever is written in the Scripture to be most true as being the word of God himselfe And besides this true Christians in all ages never beleeved and Authority Tradition voyce of men simply to be any necessary prime inducement to beleeve so much as the Scriptures to be the word of God L. p. 84. That divine light which the Scripture no question hath in it self is not kindled till these helps come Thy word is a Light So David A Light Therefore it is as much a manifestation to it selfe as to other things which it shewes but still not till the Candle be lighted not till there hath been a preparing instruction what light it is till Tradition of the Church and Gods grace put to it have cleared his understanding So Tradition of the present Church is the first morall motive to beleeve P. These words confirme your former with a little illustration A divine Light here you confesse to be in the Scripture But you meane some dimme Light At the best not bright enough not sufficient to shew it selfe to be the word of God And here That Light whatever it is is not kindled till these helps come 'T is but a
Preachings by word of mouth of the Lawfully sent Pastors and Doctors of the Church are able to breed in us Divine and Infallible Faith Nay are the very word of God So A. C. expresly And no lesse then so have some accounted of their owne Factious words to Say no more then as the word of God †in the margent at this marke For the freeing of Factious and Silenced Ministers is termed The restoring of Gods word to its Liberty In the Godly Author of the Late Newes from Ipswitch p. 5. P. That the Sermons and Preachings by word of mouth of the Lawfully sent Pastors and Doctors of the Church are able to breed in men Divine and Infallible Faith being according to the Rule and Evidence of Scripture as true Preaching is what good Christian makes a doubt though you deride it I pray you you that are the great Rabbi and Champion of the present Church of England What Say you of the Apostles words How shall they call on him in whom they have not beleeved And how shall they beleeve in him of whom they have not heard And how shall they heare without a Preacher And how shall they Preach except they be Sent So then Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God But we shall heare your judgement by and by As for A. C. with whom you yoak the precise party in the same sentence surely were he no Jesuite nor illegitimate Priest but either a Sound Christian or a Lawfully sent Pastor and Doctor of the Church of Christ the words rightly meant and understood are most true I remember I have read a Story of a Grecian State I take it of Athens where when a vitious Senator in Court on a time gave very good Counsell for the Common-Weale they approved of the Counsell but would not have it Registred in his name but caused an honest man to utter the same forme of words in Court and so under his name it was recorded So I may here Let a good Christian or if you will one of the precise party you mention utter these words and not A. C. and then the sense wil be good and true And by your own words we shall convince you of folly by and by Now for the precise party in the Reformed Churches doe you not meane those who are most reformed in their life and conversation and most refined from the drosse and dregges of all Deformed Churches Superstitions and Idolatries in the pretended worship of God and from all grosse errours in Faith and Doctrine Surely those you must and do meane as whom you most deadly hate and therefore in your wretched malice do couple them with A. C. Of which precise party Iesus Christ is the head that pure and precise Nazarite and Seperatist from all sin and errour with all the Apostles Prophets and Martyrs And what do they say No lesse say you then A. C And what faith A.C. Expresly that Sermons c. as before are the expresse word of God And how prove you that this precise party saith no lesse Nay you say more that they account their own Factious words no lesse to say no more then as the word of God To Say no more Nay surely you have said enough if it be true But if not true a great deale too much Well true or not true 't is enough you Say it and so you make this precise party to be ten times worse then the Jesuite And so you would have it For say you the Jesutie saith Sermons are the very word of God but the Precise That their own factious words are What The word of God No but As the word of God Why do you call them factious words because they are As the word of God Doe you not know that true Preachers words should be hoes logâ—â—â—eou as the Oracles or word of God as Peter speakes such words as become Sound Doctrine Sound Speech that cannot be condemned but unjustly by such as doe heterodidaskalein teach strange Doctrines and agree not to wholsome words keeping the Forme of Sound words But you charge here the precise party with factious words How prove you that For Si sat est accusasse quis innocens erit If your single Accusation be sufficient who shal be Innocent But you bring your proofe è Scriptis good evidence sure What 's that †For the freeing of factious and Silenced Ministers is termed The restoring of Gods word to its Liberty But where do you find these factious words In the Godly Author of the late Newes from Ipswich Well then here be 2 things obserbable 1. The Matter 2. the Author 1. The Matter charged The freeing of factious and Silenced Ministers is termed The restoring of Gods word to its Liberty And who are these factious and Silenced Ministers Namely a matter of about an hundred godly and Conscientious Ministers in Norfolke Suffolk Essex Kent Surrey and other Shâ—res who were in one Summer and the most in the Circuit of one Visitation some silenced some suspended some also excommunicated from Church and Chimney ab Aris ac Focis aqua igni and with their Wives and Children exposed to beggery and all calamity Wherefore They were factious Wherein They would not obâ—y and conforme to the Orders of their Ordinary What Orders For the reading in their severall Congregations the Book for Sports on the Lords dayes For the setting up of Altars in their Chancels For the causing of their People never accustomed to it before to come up to the Altar and there receive the Communion or the Lords Supper on their knees For these and the like which they refused to do they are doomed Factious But the Ministers aledged these were new Impositions praeter praescriptum Legis besides the prescript Law or Statute so as their obedience should have incurred a Premunire No matter for that They are a sort of factious fellows and ringleaders of Puritan-people as you apologised in the Starre-Chamber and so being once silenced 't is too late to talk Yet these men were all Conformists to the Discipline by Law established and lived peaceably How then were they Factious Why surely they would not observe Orders They would notwithstanding an Order to the Contrary preach twice every Lords day They would open the Catechisme-points and not content themselves with the bare words of Question and Answere as it is in the Booke they would hold the people so long with their preaching in the Afternoons that they had no time left to goe to their Laudable Sports nor could the people enjoy their pleasures with a quiet Conscience the Ministers would so trouble them with pressing the Sanctification of the Sabbath according to the 4th Commandement and the like Well then diligent Preachers they were and they preached the word of God by expounding and applying it which we shall heare you by and by to commend if we may beleeve your words when we see your deeds contrary So
Tradition introduceth the knowledge of them P. I doe but name these your words as before being but an Inculcation and Confirmation of such things as I have abundantly Confuted before Onely this I adde That if the Scripture be not before the Tradition or Authority of the present Church whence hath the present Church this her Authority and so whence her Testimony the Credit to be of that absolute necessity to bring men to beleeve the Scripture to be the word of God Must you not be forced to come into the same Circle where a little before you found A.C. as to say which yet you never went about to prove to prevent the losse of your labour the Scripture authoriseth Church-Tradition and Church-Tradition necessarily introduceth beliefe of Scripture to be the word of God But if you be in this Circle there I leave you L. p. 121. This Principle then The Scriptures are the Oracles of God we cannot say is cleare and fully manifest to all men simply and in selfe-light for the reasons before given P. The Reasons we have weighed and found them too light But to all true beleevers in Christ This Principle The Scriptures are the Oracles of God is cleare and fully manifest and that simply and in selfe-light For the reasons and proofes before given and which all true Christians and Saints of God Confesse L. ibid. Yet we say After Tradition hath been our Introduction the Soule that hath but ordinary Grace added to Reason may discerne light sufficient to resolve our Faith that the Sun is there P. As this so often repeated by you usque ad nauseam as crambe bis cocta Coleworts twise boyld and to no other purpose it seemeth but to fill the empty belly of this your volume and to make your present Church Authority swell the bigger with its ventosity is but a repetion of the former So I shall not need to repeat the Refutation Onely this Do or can you discerne the Sun in the Scripture by the light of your divine Candle your Church Tradition And hath it not so much shining light or is it so over-clouded or ecclipsed with the black letters as nothing but the Authority of the present Church must in the first place put to her hand to withdraw the Curtaine Surely the Sun is so glorious in it selfe as be it never so much clouded yet that will shew day above our heads if we doe but looke up L. ibid. Now men may be apt to thinke out of Reverence that Divinity can have no Science above it But your own Schoole teacheth me that it hath namely The knowledge of God and of the blessed in heaven P And truly my Lord how ever you account and Reverence Divinity yet for my part I do not onely most highly reverence it but conceive and beleeve the excellencie of it to be so transcendent as I hold there can be no Science above it For what is Divinity in its native and proper Notion Divinity in its proper Prime and most sublime Notion is the Deity or God-head it selfe Theiòtes signifying the Divinity or Deity the derivation from â—eòs GOD. This is the Prime Notion of this word Divinity The second Notion of Divinity is pan tò gnoston tou Theou all which may be known of God which being in God as the light in the Sun comes to be made known unto us as by so many beames shining partly though in Comparison more obscurely in his works and partly and that most clearely in his word and most gloriously in Christ the Sun of Righteousnesse himselfe the brightnesse of his Glory and the expresse Image of his Person the very light of the Scripture and so of his Church And of this Divinity as Christ is the full patterne and perfect platforme so the Essence of the eternall Deity and the subsistances of the 3 Persons in that one Godhead together with all the glorious Attributes of God but also the whole Mystery of Christ the Redeemer comprehending and expressing whatsoever is necessary for us to know and beleeve for our Salvation In which respect the Scripture may be called and that most proproperly as by a Title proper to it quarto modo Gods Divinity-Booke and his Churches Divinity-Schoole So that in the Scripture we have a most perfect and Compleat body of Divinity of all Divinity of whatsoever holy knowledge of God and of Christ and of our selves requisite to our Salvation and the setting forth of the Glory of God In which respect unlesse a man will presume above that which is written we may truly say That Divinity being but one and the same and Science therof one and the Rule of this Science but one all comprehended in the Scripture That Divinity hath no Science above it Yet your Lordship hath learned in the Iesuites or Romes Schoole wherein it seems you have been more trained up then in Christs Schoole That Divinity hath a Science above it And what is that super-science I pray you The knowledge of God say you and of the blessed in heaven If you meane such a knowledge of God and of the blessed in heaven as is not revealed in the Scripture I say Quae supra nos quid ad nos And it is presumption to conceive of any other knowledge of God fit for us to know then what is revealed in the Scripture wherein is declared the whole counsell of God concerning his Glory and our everlasting good And for the knowledge of the blessed in heaven If you meane of the blessed Angels we may know as much of them as the Scripture hath made known unto us But this knowledge is not a Science above Divinity And if you meane the knowledge of the blessâ—d Saints in heaven it is the same with that of the Saints on earth onely Differing in Degrees of perfection Or if you had meant the knowledge that is in God and in the blessed in heaven you should so have exprest it In and not Of. But I think you speake of such a speculation as is above the Spheare of our expression Onely something though it be de non ente you must say that we may take notice what a profound Proficient you are in Romes Schoole in teaching us such a sublime and hyperbolicall Science as is inexpressible in Babylons language and therfore the fitter to darken the lustre of that Divinity which so gloriously shineth and is so exactly set forth in the Scripture But you have plentifully shewed us what Reverence you beare to this Divinity L. p 122. In the margent I would fain know why leaning too much upon Tradition may not mislead Christians as well as it did the Iews P. And I would fain know why leaning so much upon Tradition of the present Church as you doe might not be the Cause that hath lead you so much to undervalue the Scriptures and may not mislead Christians by teaching them as base an opinion of the whole Scripture as the Jewes have
an ordinary Grace and this Ordinary Grace hath no force at all unlesse the present Churches Authority prepare the way So as this Ordinarily of yours admits of no exception at all in any case though never so extraordinary And thus you exclude that your Divine Faith as it is a worke of ordinary Grace as you call it from being any Grace of God at all except Grace of Canterbury can dubbe it for a Grace For all Grace is one of those two kinds I named even now either that Grace of God which makes a man freely accepted in Christ which your Ordinary Grace by your own Confession doth not or that common Grace which is said to be freely given of God to whom he will without the intervention or prevention of any outward meanes or respect which your ordinary Graces cannot be for your selfe every where professe that no ordinary Grace nor any thing else can worke beliefe that the Scripture is the word of God unlesse your present Church Authority tanquam Gratia preparans ac praeveniens as a preparing and preventing Grace prepare the way And thus you see to what a Confusion all your Schoole Distinctions are brought And in truth your Schoole Distinctions for the most part being weighed in the just ballance of the Sanctuary prove too light and doe corrupt the truth For even that Distinction which I named of Gratia gratis data Gratia gratum faciens though the termes are good and true yet as some apply the latter to wit Grace making acceptable it is corrupt As when by that Grace they understand Faith Hope and Charity which being infused into the soule aâ—e the matter say they of Iustification and of our acceptation with God Now in this sense this member of the Distinction holds not good but is Popish For Faith onely is that Grace which makes us accepted of God but this not as it is a worke or Grace inherent but as an Instrument apprehending and applying Christ in whom alone we are through Faith accepted of GOD who makeâ— us accepted in the beloved So as he that will find any good and sound Distinction out of the Schoole-men he must doe as Virgil said of his reading of Ennius Margaritas è caeno legere gather pearles out of the mudde and he must look to have them well washed and polished and tryed by the Scriptures before he use them to illustrate or confirme any Doctrine of sound Divinity This by the way L. p. 226. The time was before this A. miserable rent in the Church of Christ which I B think no Christian can look upon but with a bleeding heart that C you and we were all of one beliefe D That beliefe was tainted in Tract and Corruption of time very deeply A division was made yet so as E both parties held the Creed and other Common Principles of beliefe Of these this was one of the greatest That the Scripture is the word of God For our beliefe of all things contained in it depends upon it Since F this Division there hath been nothing done by us to discredit this Principle Nay we have given it G all honour and ascribed unto it more sufficiency even to the containing of all things necessary to Salvation with satis superque enough and more then enough which your selves have not done doe not H And for begetting and setling a beliefe of this Principle we goe the same way with you and a better besides The same way with you because we alow the Tradition of the present Church to be the first inducing motive to imbrace this Principle onely we cannot goe so farre in this way as you to make the present Tradition I alwayes an infallible word of God unwritten P. Here I Have Alphabetically as by A B C. c. noted sundry particulars A That you call the Protestants seperating from the Church of Rome a miserable rent Why miserable when Christ Commands it As Rev. 18.4 as is noted before and shall yet more in a fit place So as the Protestants had been in a miserable condition if this seperation this rent had not been made B 2 dly And must every Christian heart bleed to see it because it seems yours doth Surely this hath cost the heart-blood of many thousands of Gods Saints and Martyrs shed and spilt by that blood drunken whore Yet better so to perish by her temporally here then to perish with her eternally hereafter which must have been had not this miserable rent been made C 3 dly But before this rent say you they and we were all of one beliefe You may speake for your selfe if you had lived before the rent was made We doubt not but both you would have been of the same Faith with Rome and would have continued in it so as for your part there should never have been made such a miserable rent We know well both your Faith and your Charitable and Peaceable disposition for that matter Yea though that one beliefe was tainted That should have broken no square For you say D 4 ly That beliefe that very one beliefe whereof you and they then were before the rent was tainted yea very deeply too But I say still speake for your selfe and your Confederates onely usurpe not the name of all Protestants quorum tu pars minima whereof you were the least part if any at all that seperated from Rome whereof many before they came to be called Protestants which was upon their protesting against the Whore of Babylon and for their just and necessary seperating from her dissented from and disliked and so farre as the iniquity of the times and humane frailty and unavoidable necessity permitted seperated themselves privately at least from many of her most notorious and intolerable en ormites and not a few in their severall ages wherein they lived openly protested against her both by writing and preaching though it cost them their heart-blood for it You have at hand a Catalogue of them in Catalogus Testium veritatis and in the Book of Acts and Monuments and other Authors both forraigne and domesticke and that of fâ—esh bleeding memory E 5 ly You prove your Faith was then one for holâ—ing the Creed and other CoÌ„mon Principles of beliefe of which one of the Greatest c. Indeed before that rent Rome professed and held the letter and externall form of the Creed but not the sense faith life and substance as elsewhere you confesse of the present Church of Rome Did you so then so now I doubt 't will prove so in a great measure For though you tell us that your beliefe of all things contained in the Creed depends upon this principle That Scripture is the word of God For that is the best sense can be made of your words yet there be many even fundamentall Doctrines in Scripture which your beliefe depends not upon nor your practises agree unto as both before is touched and occasion will be given yet more to speake of
Anicetus and they being at some small oddes between them yet preserved peace and did not fall out about this matter For neither could Anicetus perswade Polycarpus not to observe it nor did Polycarpus perswade Anicetus to observe it but each left other to their own Customes And thus they communicated together and in the Church or Congregation Anicetus gave the Eucharist to Polycarpus out of a reverent respect and so they dismissed each other in peace and in all Churches but those that observed it and those that observed it not had peace one with another And thus Irenaeus pherònumos tìs according to his Name became a Peace-maker to all the Churches So Eusebius Now as these things I here relate by Occasion so the Consideration that sundry particulars therein may be not unusefull As 1. That things Indifferent and of humane Ordinance in matters of Religion ought not to be imposed upon mens Consciences as necessary to be observed but in such things Christian Congregations or Churches ought to be left free Secondly in variety or difference in opinions or manners and customes in things Indifferent Christians may and should keep fast the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and testifie the unanamity of Faith in the diversity of Factions nothing being done against Gods word One man saith the Apostle esteemeth one day above another another esteemeth every day alike Let every man be perswaded in his own mind And v. 13. Let us not judge one another in these things but judge this rather that no man put a stumbling blocke or an occasion to fall in his brothers way And v. 19. Let us follow after the things that make for peace and things wherewith one may edifie another So All meates are in their own nature cleane but of any think this or that uncleane to him it is uncleane And that whole Chapter is of things indifferent such at least as those Primitive times in the more tender infancie of the Church admitted and esteemed indifferent as of Dayes and Meates wherein mens Consciences were not to be forced And as concerning our Christian liberty we must take heed saith the Apostle least by any meanes it become a stumbling block to them that are weak Thus we see what the Christians in the primitive Ages did Thus did the Bishops of Rome themselves before Victor whom Irenaeus calls Presbutérous Presbiters Thirdly Victor is reprooved by Irenaeus for breaking this peace among the Christian Churches and sâ—eking to bring their Christian liberty â—nto bondage by forcing them is conforme to his assumed nâ—w Altar wherein his Antichristian pride and Tyranny began to shâ—w it selfe in attempting what his Predecessors 〈◊〉 not doâ— in this kind Fourthly Victor being thus reproved defiâ—â—ed from his violent course and yeelded to Irenaeus his Allegations and so gave way for Churches to injoy their liberty with peace Now my Lord to apply these things Hereby you may see how things in their own nature indifferent ought to be left free and not to be made burthens and bonds to mens Consciences that so Christian Liberty and Peace may be preserved inviolate You see how those ancient Bishops or Presbyters of Rome bound not this liberty brake not this peace You see how Victor presuming to violate both yet upon the reproofe of Irenaeus though inferiour to him in place he yeelded to reason suffered not pride or passion to predominate but left to the Churches both their Liberty and Peace But now for you my Lord you are not contented onely to impose with rigour upon mens Consciences those Ceremonies which you otherwise call Indifferent yet enforce them as necessary as being also by mans Laws Commanded and such as in point of Indifferencie might justly be questioned were they not superstitious but also in erecting and imposing both besides Mans Law and against Gods Law other both idolatrous and superstitious devises as your stone or woodden Altars with their Equipage and service in adorations and the like and those borrowed from the Church of Rome her selfe none since Victor infinitely corrupted and deeply deceived yea drowned in all Idolatries and Superstitions which have been of late so violently and universally pressed upon all Churches within your Reach that what confusions or combustions it may further cause the Lord knows But this we are sure of that as the liberty of Mens Consciences is hereby generally brought into bondage and both the outward and inward peace of the Churches violated and broken to pieces while you cry for peace and cease not to presse your Vniversall Conformity as if it were the way of quenching the flame to poure out the Oyle of a meere nominall Peace so the Faith of Christ and the salvation of Christian mens soules is hereby utterly subverted as formerly is shewed And of these things you have been sufficiently admonished and convinced by some Ministers of Christ. But you say It was too roughly done not as Irenaeus reproved Victor Is that all But consider how truly And how diseases the more desperate require the sharper medicines Yea as the Poet said Immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum est ne pars sincera trahatur I leave you to English it But that the reproofe were true though sharpe did you as Victor did who suffered himselfe to be victus overcome by Irenaeus his reproofe and Allegation Nay you though both victus convictus vanquished and convinced in your Conscience and knowledge of the truth of all those enormities which you were charged withall yet you must be Victor not resting till you had sent away your Reprover with a Censure more bitter and sharper then the sharp reproofe could be and yet not desisting from your violent course to enforce an Universall Conformity whereby the whole Land is infected with terrible combustions and those no lesse further dangerous then already full of dammage Such a Peace-maker is your Conformity Is this the way think you to make you Victor Soft and faire For though perhaps you glory in your tyrannicall conquest over the poore Body of your Reprover yet while your spirit doth to use the Apostles word to the same purpose hupernikan become more then Victor as before is noted and so his Cause not foyled but confirmed and crowned in his suffering for it never think your selfe a Victor No no my Lord never think to be victor by fighting against Christ Lay down your violence in pressing your Conformity fight not against the common peace by disturbing the peace of mens Consciences Lay not siege to Christian liberty in inforcing even things indifferent and how much lesse such as are both in their nature and use Idolatrous Superstitious and directly against the expresse word of God But that you will that you must needs set up your Romish Altars with your other devices sutable yet inforce them upon Gods Ministers and People by your terrible commands and threats armed with High-Commission Power or Princes Edicts Convince men as much as you can by
to the Testimony if they speake not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Art thou not Christs Spouse Then heare Christs voyce the Scripture Say with the Spouse in the Canticles Tell me O thou whom my soule loveth where thou feedest where thou causest thy flocks to rest at noone For why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions To whom Christ her beloved Spouse answereth If thou know not O thou fairest among women goe thy way to the footsteps of the Flocke and feed thy Kiddes besides the shepheards Tents Here the true Church Christs Spouse in her perplexities and doubts wherein she is like to loose her selfe goes to Christ to her shepheard and asks of him where he feedeth where he causeth his Flocks to rest at Noon where his Congregations may find a shady layre rest and refreshing from the meridian heat of Persecutions or her Faith find rest in doubtfull cases of Faith or Conscience For why saies she should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions Why should I be uncertain and unsettled in depending upon the guidanâ—â— and conduct of false shepheards such as pretend to be as thy fellow-shepheards that sit as God in the Temple of God shewing themselves to be God equall to thee in power and Regall Authority over thy Kingdome and Church making what Laws they please in binding our Consciences and that even to their erronious Decrees To whom Christ Answereth If thou know not O thou fairest among women although despised by men goe thy way forth by the footsteps of the Flocke to the green Pastures and the waters of comfort the Scriptures where my flocke doth ordinarily find pasture For man liveth not by bread onely but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God there thou shalt find the true Pasture by the footsteps of the flocke by the continuall treading of my sheep which know no other pasture but this For here my sheep heare my voyce even here by the shepheards Tents my Ministers whom I have set over the flocks to feed them with understanding and knowledge Here be those waters for every one that thirsteth here is the milke and wine that 's to be had without money Hearken diligently unto me incline thine Eare and come unto me and thy soule shall live search the Scriptures for in them is eternall life and they are they that testifie of me These are the onely light which I have left to be a lampe for thy feet and a light for thy steps These are the onely Oracles of God which shall clearly resolve thee in all thy perplexed doubts These are my onely faithfull witnesses which I have left to witnesse the truth and to establish thy heart in the faith in me if any man teach otherwise and consenteth not to the wholsome words of Scripture which are mine own lâ—vely voyce and which containe all things pertaining to faith and godlinesse he is puft up and knoweth nothing he is a false Prophet a false shepheard a blind Guide a seducer an Antichrist Thus Christ speaketh to his Spouse in the Scripture his owne voyce the onely true living and infallible Iudge And to this Judge Christs voyce in the Scripture the true Spouse of Christ in all Ages hath still resorted and therein been resolved in her doubts and comforted in her distresse For here is that wisdome which is justified of all her Children And whatsoever is therein written is written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope Nothing can comfort us in our calamities nothing can confirm and establish our faith and hope in all our perplexed doubtings but this Before we shewed how all the Fathers with one voyce took this sanctuary came to this Iudge made this the onely Rule to determine all doubts and disputes by so Augustine so Tertullian so the incertain Author upon Mat. 24. in Chrysostome saith that in the times of Antichrist even in these our Times one cannot know the true Church but by the Scripture because Antichrist with his wicked Clergy make such a faire shew and pretence that they are the Catholicke Church just as your Lordship doth Therfore let all true Christians in these perillous times of Antichrist and Antichristian Prelates which cry down the Scriptures as an insufficient Iudge in Controversies of faith and cry up their own usurped Authority as the supreme Iudge of the Scripture at least in all doubtfull cases though they confesse their Judgement not to be of Infallible Credit fly to the Mountaines and to the Fountaines the Scriptures the lively voyce of Christ they they onely will resolve us and settle our faith in all doubts and difficulties and will discover unto us the true Church of Christ from all false pretended counterfeit Antichristian Prelaticall Hierarchicall Churches and Synagogues Now seeing though you arrogate but are not able to prove that Christ hath left your Catholicke Church an Infallible certainty which yet you confesse to be uncertaine give us leave though we touched this before now againe upon a fresh occasion to vindicate the Truth of Christ that he not onely intended but indeed hath left unto his true Church an infallible certainty of his Spirit which by the rule of his word doth guide his Elect into all truth in all ages successively unto the end of the world When he took his long Farewell of his Apostles and Disciples as concerning his bodily presence with them upon earth he left them this Promise yet to comfort them concerning his perpetuall spirituall presence with them saying Lo I am with you alwayes unto the end of the world To the end of the world Ergo with all those that are his true Disciples unto the end of the world So as wheresoever Christs Churches and Congregations be there his Spirt is This Spirit leads his into all Truth into all necessary and saving Truth infallibly and most certainly This is that Anoynting of which before He that hath not this Spirit of Christ this Spirit of truth is none of his And he that hath it is preserved from the seducements of false Prophets which come in Christs Name and shall deceive many but not the Elect for that 's not possible Every true beleever cannot will not willingly erre in any point of faith and truth necessary to Salvation I say not wittingly For many of Gods deare Children doe that ignorantly whereby Christ is denyed as in yeelding obedience to mans devices in Gods worship and that through custome wheras if they were rowsed and put to it and asked if they beleeved not that Christ is the onely King of his Church and Lord over the Conscience oh they beleeve and acknowledge none other King Aske them againe whether they beleeve that any man may exercise this Authority over them oh
confirming of them and establishing of the throne of the Beast and power of Antichrists Kingdome against Iesus Christ. Nor were it a hard matter to demonstrate this by many instanecs which for the present I omit In the meane time How prove you here your As little Question Or how come you to name This spirit of Truth in the Scripture What after all that you have said before of the Scripture that it is not bright enough that it hath no light till it be lighted by the Authority of the present Church and the like come you now to confesse that The spirit of Truth is in the Scripture Told you us not a while agoe That the Scripture is no living Iudge What not living when the spirit of Truth breaths in it Is not the spirit in the Scripture living And is not a Iudge a living Iudge when and while his spirit is in him What nothing but absurd and sencelesse contradictions with you Nothing but Babilonish language But thus we may see into what gulfes of perplexities they plunge themselves that presume and undertake to exalt their high imaginations against the Truth of God And you say againe A Generall Councel hath not this Assistance to Infallibility but as it keeps to the whole Church and Spouse of Christ whose it is to heare his word and determine by it As it keeps closse Why is it not your Catholicke Churches Representative How can it then but keep closse being of the same Body and spirit with your Church Secondly speaking here of the whole Church the Spouse of Christ you doe equivocate applying that to a false Church which is univocè univocally proper and peculiar to the misticall body of Christ. For your whole is Prelaâ—icall that of the Hierarchy and none other which we have before proved to be the Synagogue of Antichrist which heareth not Christs voyce but as your Church is pleased to interpret it and to give it Authority And that which you say of your Generall Councâ—ls may be truly said of any particular Assembly two or three met in Christs name which doth not erre being led by the spirit of Truth in the Scripture Christ himselfe according to his Promise being in the midst of them No nor yet any particular single Beleever erreth being so led So as you speake to no purpose when you say A Generall Councel cannot erre in that wherin it hath already determined according to the Scripture the vanity wherof we shewed before But the conclusion is you still leave the the Infallibility of your Generall Councel unresolved upon yea and nay sometimes affirming somtimes denying except your negative be according to that Rule in Logicke That one Negative is of more Force then a thousand Affirmatives L. p. 213. Sect. 27. My Answere was That the Councel of Trent was not onely not legall in the necessary conditions to be observed in a Generall Councel but also that it was no Generall Councel P. Though this be true you say yet the Councel of Trent was so legall according to Romes own Law that it wanted no conditions observable to make it in that behalfe not onely a legall but a Generall Councel too And secondly so Generall for the Romane Catholicke Church of Rome that all the Decrees thereof doe bind all Papists to a necessary obedience and conformity unto them and that under Anathema And your Rule is That a Generall Councells Decrees and Canons bind all Christians and a Provinciall Councels Decrees bind all of that Province And therfore I hope you will grant that the Papall Councel of Trent is of force to bind all Papists who acknowledge and accept the Pope for their Head or Primate So as though it were not a Generall Councel in the largest sense yet it was a Generall Councel for the Roman Catholicke Church which say they is the onely Catholicke Church And with which say you the Church of England is one and the same Now this I doe here touch by the way as whereof I shall have occasion to make some use anon though perhaps your thus Arguing against the generallity of Trents Councels is one of those Passages which you think may be an ingredience of the salve of your Reputation But this I say by the way L. p. 227. It may seem very fit and necessary for the Peace of Christendome that a Generall Councel thus Erring should stand in force till evidence of Scripture or c. P. This passage I cited before upon occasion among sundry other of like nature and now I repeat it onely for this to shew how your zeale for Peace made you forget Truth For still you are telling us of Peace and Truth or Truth and Peace But here your Peace stands single without Truth What Peace without Truth For you say It may seem very fit and necessary for the Peace of Christendome that a Generall Councell erring should stand in force What will you force a Peace against Truth by an Authorised errour O blush for shame L. p. 254. Suppose they Key of Doctine be to let in Truth and shut out errour and suppose the Key rightly used infallible in this yet this infallibility is primeâ—y in the Church in whose person not strictly in his own S. Peter received the Keys P. Suppose Do you make it but a supposit on that the key of Doctrine is to let in Truth and shut out Errour So it seems with you when you use that Key of your Doctrine to shut out Truth and let in errour as both your Practises and writings do shew But what is this Key of Doctrine Is it not the sincere Preaching of Gods word And then this Key is rightly used and here is the use therof Infallible But say you this Infallibility is primely in the Church How Can we get no other language from you Still all Primely in the Church Certainly not at all in your Antichristian Church where the spirit of errour raigneth and where the whole bunch of Keys hangeth at the Prelates gâ—râ—le As Pope Paschall 2. when he rode in Pompe had his seven Keys hanging at his girdle the Chiefe wherof was to open and shut Paradise to whom he pleased But we say still that this infallibility is primely in the Scripture and not in the Church not in Christs own Church For the Scripture containes that infallible Truth which the Ministeriall key Christs own ordinance and voyce openeth to the Church or Congregation of Gods people And this Ministeriall key Christ committed to Peter not simply as sustaining the person of the whole Church but chiefly and properly as he was an Apostle and Minister of Christ to preach the Gospel in which respect also he might represent the person of all faithfull Ministers of the Gâ—spel rightly and truly called to the Function to whom Christ did in Peter as afterward he did in all the Apostles commit and entrust the key of knowledge of the Doctrine of Christ to be used and imployed to that end to
moderate man and saw more then he durst speake of And the same Rhenanus as was before touched in his Annotations upon Tâ—rtullian and I take it in that Book out which you cite this sentence De Corona Militis observes how sundry Heathen Ceremonies crope into the Church by occasion of many old men newly converted to Christianity whom it was hard to waine from their old Heathenish fashions which therfore were thought fit to be admitted as not hurting but profiting those old Heathen new Christians But godly and learned men as I said before could tell you what infinite dammage your tyrannicall pressing of your Ceremonies upon mens Consciences hath brought to the Gospell and so to the soules of men by depriving them of so many worthy Ministers onely for Non-conformity But this is one speciall end for which you so presse your Ceremonies to suppresse Godly and learned Preachers and so the sincere Preaching of the word of God that the people being brought up in ignorance and profanesse might be the lesse sensible of bearing the yoake of your Antichristian Tyranny over them But as for your Carnall Ceremonies which the Apostle saith are good for nothing pròs plesmonen in comparison of satisfying the flesh the carnall pride of will-worshipers we have spoken sufficiently before But Rhenanus addes a qualification so there be a meane kept I think you might have done well to have omitted this till you had been better acquainted with this meane of which before And the Author might have expressed this Meane a little more fully thus So there be either no Ceremonies at all or if any those very few and those few not pressed with rigor or necessity upon mens Consciences but left free to every one to use them or not according to the Christian liberty which Christ hath purchased for them as is said before Whereas you are not satisfied with a few Ceremonies nor with the Old but you must have New added with a Tot quot and all of them you presse so hard upon the Conscience as you wring blood And this is all the Meane you keep Lastly So the By be not put for the Maine that is say you so we place not the principall part of our Piety in them And doe not you so For you put your Altar and all the solemn Service and Ceremonies of Devotions and Adorations attending upon it even all your humane Inuentions and Will worship for the very Maine of all your Religion Do you not I know you willingly confesse it And what 's the By but Gods-word and the sincere Preaching thereof which you put By and by seting up your Altar-service do thrust out of the Church by the head and shoulders as is noted before And I say The Maine the All and some of all your Religion is your Altar On this your Goddesse all your other Devotions and Ceremonies as so many Hand-mayds give their devout attendance Your face prayeth towards your Altar your body boweth towards your Altar your second solemn service as the secundae Mensae for your daintier Cates must be served up upon your Altar which the maine Body of the Church must not tast of your Third service which is instead of the Preachers concluding prayer blessing after his halfe-houres Sermon must be served by your Priest at your Altar when with his blessing he dismisses the people with an Ite Missa est And all the while of your solemn Second and Third service your Serving men in their Liveries or Rich Copes stand and give their Attendance about your Altar your Crucifixes and Images like the Cherubims have their aspect and respect upon your Altar All must come and offer at your Altar while for joy your Organs merrily play Thus as the Romish Altar-service as Bellarmine tells us is the maine substance of all their Religion just so is yours That 's the Maine But What 's the By then Namely all the Intralls or Inwards of externall Devotion and worship these are the appurtinances these are the By. What are those Inwards The Inwards of True Externall worship are Faith Feare of God Love of God Zeale of Gods Glory sincerity of heart in spirit and Truth Now these with you are altogether the By for these you have layd quite By as before L. p. 280. F. Fisher reports After this we all rising the Lady asked the Bishop whether she might be saved in the Romain Faith He answered she might L. What Not one Answere perfectly related My Answere to this was Generall for the ignorant that could not discerne the errours of that Church so they held the foundation and conformed themselves to a Religious life Pag. 285. We have not so learned Christ as to deny salvation to some ignorant silly soules whose humble peaceable obedience makes them safe among any part of men that professe the foundation Christ. And pag. 288. some Protestants there be which doe as stiffly and as churlishly deny All Papists salvation as they doe us And 283. In this Our Charity is not mistaken and if it be mistaken Charity is better then none at all P. From all these words together we observe this one Maine That silly ignorant Papists living and dying in the Romish Faith may be saved with these conditions 1. If they discerne not the errour of that Church 2. So they profes the foundation Christ 3. So they conforme to a Religious life in an humble and peaceable obedience The second Maine I observe is That we ought not to deny to such in that case salvation And that upon these Reasons 1. Because we have not so learned Christ. 2. Because it is stiffnesse and Churlishnesse in Protestants to deny all Papists salvation 3. That in granting them salvation it is true Charity not mistaken 4. That if Charity herein be mistaken 't is better then none at all Of all these brefly First then I Answere That the Roman Faith being Infidelity it selfe 't is impossible that any living and dying in that faith can be saved And we have before proved it to be flat Infidelity and Apostacy Nor will it excuse any Ignorant that he discerneth not this Infidelity and Apostacy For ignorance though it excuse à Tanto as the Schoolmen speake from the muchnessâ— of sinne yet not à Toto from the Maine of sinne A man that is blind and knows not the danger of the way he walkes in doth as well fall into the pit as he that seeing runs headlong into it The Heathen knew not that they lived and dyed in Idolatry and Infidelity yet they were damned for all their ignorance Secondly for their Professing the foundation Christ Is Profession sufficient Many sayth the Apostle professe Christ that in works doe deny him being abominable disobedient and unto â—very worke Reprobate Is it enough then to professe all that is in the Creed did ignorant silly Papists know what their Latin-Creed meaneth and yet want faith Againe they professe as they are taught How is that
what Of no lesse then Heresie and Schisme and other sinne too living and dying in the Roman faith Nay if there be but perill though great perill these pregnant Wits have wayes and wiles enough to avoyd all such perills and that by the cleane strength of their Art of equivocation wherein they are become the most expert Masters in the world Except they have forgotten it it is so long agoe since our Judges were wont to put them shrewdly to it as to confesse whether they were Priests or no which confession then was as good as to be hangd And you say elsewhere such can make a short cut to heaven when they lye a dying saying They renounce all their own merits whither their many bad or their few Good merits is not known and rely onely upon Christs merits for salvation As your good Brother Stephen Gardiner did at his death as before But when they dye in so good a mood though they may seem as Gardiner seemed to dye in the faith yet in charity they do not while they leave not the same gappe open for the people by which themselves get through concealing Iustification by Faith from the silly vulgar In which desperate case had not your Lordships charity put in to helpe at a dead lift to teach them a blind way to heaven which scarce any Jesuites before you ever knew What had become of them But alas As you delude those silly ignorants by telling them such a way leads to heaven which will carry them straight to hell so on the other side you doe but dally with A. C. and his fellows in telling them they are in perill onely when they are in the very precipice of perdition But if you intended to be their Ghostly Father indeed you should have told them plainly Their Religion is Idolatry Heresie Schisme Apostacie Antichristianisme Infidelity and all manner of Inâ—quity and Impiety so as to live and dye therein is inevitable damnation to all Papists whatsoever but double damnation to those that know it For as Christ saith That servant which knew his Lords will and prepared not himselfe neither did according to his will shal be beaten with many stripes But he that knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes shal be beaten with few stripes But what should a man speake to the deafe Adder that stoppes her eare and will not hearken to the voyce of Charmers charming never so wisely I will follow my Lords Councel Let them alone They be blind leaders of the blind and if the blind lead the blind they shall both fall into the pit And as he saith to the Pharisees Fill ye up the measure of your Fathers But how come you to say Ther 's danger of Schisme living and dying in the Roman faith What Can a man be a Schismaticke being a Romanist Then is not the Church of Rome her selfe a Schismatick And so the Church of England all one Church And so your Catholicke Church of which you and Rome are all Schismaticks Look to it But I may not leap over that which you have stumbled upon namely Romes Tyranny to boot And it were well if such Tyranny were confined to Rome saving that all Tyranny is such as it will not be confined to any place within any bounds You say that the Church of England and that of Rome are one and the same Church Certainly then this One Church what ever you pretend of the Catholick Church is of such a constitution as whose very foundation is Tyranny because Hierarchicall As Pope Hadoian 4. an English man lying extreme sick said That there was no life more wicked then the Popes whose Popedome was founded in blood and is maintained with blood wherein he is Romulus his successor who in laying the first foundation of Rome slew his brother Remus And wherein doth the Tyranny of your Popedome in the Church of England come short of the Popes saving that he hath a more powerfull Principality then you have Have not you in your hand like that Roman Iupiter the Pope your thunderbolâ— of Excommunication to blast and cast out of the Church whom you please or those who do not please you Do not the Censures of your High Commission like the Popes Court of Inquisitâ—â—n extend to the spoyling of good Ministers and Christians of all liberty and livelyhood You will say You use no fagots as Rome doth 'T is true 't is not yet come to that But wheâ—'s the default You onely want a Law But in the mean time you want not your devises armed both with your own power and borrowed of others to afflict men worse then with death as before is shewed in the forenamed examples And therfore from all such Tyranny both English and Romish the Lord deliver us L. p. 299. I do indeed for my part leaving other men free to their own judgement acknowledge a possibility of salvation in the Roman Church But so as that which I grant to Romanists is not as they are Romanists but as they are Christians that is as they beleeve the Creed and hold the Foundation Christ himselfe not as they associate themselves wittingly and knowingly to the grosse superstitions of the Romish Church P. Now you speake a little more plaine then before But how do you leave other men free to their own judgement when for not being of your judgement in this point you censâ—re them of stiffenesse and churlishnesse and want of Charity And yet you your selfe say that there is no possibility of Salvation for Romanists as they are Romanists So as your judgement is That Romanists as they are Romanists have no possibility of Salvation Ergo no Papist as a Papist living and dying in the faith and Religion of Popery can possibly be saved And just so say those Protestants whom you Censure for stiffe churlish and uncharitable Onely you qualifie it with this Condition If they wittingly and knowingly associate themselves to the grosse Superstition of the Romish Church so as still you save harmlesse your silly ignorant Papists that know nothing at all whether they doe and beleeve right or wrong And you distinguish That as Romanists they cannot be saved but as Christians beleeving the Creed and holding the foundation Christ. But we told you before that your silly ignorant Papists do not so much as understand or know the very letter of the Creed how much lesse beleeve it If they can mumble over their Creed as many a blind Priest doth his Mâ—sse 't is in a strange tongue and they say it for one of their blind and superstitious Prayers as they doe their Ave Marie So that way what hope or possibility can they have of salvâ—tion And for holding the foundation Christ to that we have before sufficiently proved the Contrary But say you they are Christians So you say they are Romanists too As one telling the Emperour Sigismund of Iulianus the Cardinal speaking somthing in his Commendation he
of England doth Againe you make it no great matter of difference in this case between your Protestant and the Romanist whither this or that goe to each others Church so his Conscience put not a barre As you tell us a little after That the Church of Rome and the Protestants do not set up a different Religion Of which in its place And here also you put no difference but that the Romanist doth as well serve and worship God after his Roman manner in his Idolatrous Masse as your Protestant doth after your English manner And perhaps the difference will not be found so great between you but that you will well enough agree when you have cast up your reckoning But now what if one of your simple Protestants be not resolved in Conscience of the profession of the truth in the Church of England more then of that in the Church of Rome Is it not then lawfull for him to goe to the Romish Masse With â—ou it seems so so his Conscience hinder him not And what Conscience hath your ignorant Protestant to hinder him in this case Nay I will say more What knowing Protestant have you at this day in the present Church of England since the publishing of your Declaration before the 39 Articles which makes some of the principall of them to beare a double and contrary sense that is or can be resolved in his Conscience that either the true faith or so much as the Profession of the true faith is in the Church of England For those Articles which containe the Doctrine of your Church you confesse to be ambiguous and doubtfull and doe not resolve either way but leave your Church in suspense how then can any Protestant of the Church of England be resolved in Conscience that the Profession of the true faith is in the Church of England when neither your selfe seems to be resolved or at least you doe not resolve your Church concerning your Articles what to beleeve Which being so may you not fairely hence conclude that it is lawfull for any Protestant of the Church of Engdaud to goe to the Romish Church there and in that manner to serve and worship God untill he shal be resolved in his Conscience that the profession of the true faith is in the Church of England which resolution is not like to be till your Lordship hath resolved them which is the true and orthodox sense of your Articles and that by a publicke edâ—ct athenticke and every way equall to the former as in the case of Generall Councels when the errours of one must be obeyed till another equall to that shall reverse it As before But in the meane time unlesse you make the more hast with your Edict for Resolution your whole Church of England is now at liberty to goe to Masse and so to turne Romanist as having nothing to restrain them were there but Masses enough to intertaine them as no doubt there be Priests enough for the purpose had they but Churches so long as their Conscience is not resolved of the profession of the true faith in the Church of England And so the Broad Gates are set upon for the Consummation of your so much wished and plotted Reconcliation with the Church of Rome And you adde L. p 376. Nor do the Church of Rome and the Protestants set uâ— a different Religion fâ—r thâ— Christian Religion is the same to both but they differ in the same Religion and the difference is in certaine grâ—ssâ— corruptions to the very indangering of salvation which each side sâ—yâ—s the other is guilty of P. By Protestants here 't is plain enough you mean those of the Church of England not those of the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas I am sure of it For they utterly renounce the Romish Religion and Faith as Antichristian which you avow for Christian the same with yours But they differ say you in the same Religion How They do not set up a different Religion and yet they differ in the same Religion I understand not this Babylonish language But wherein then doe they differ in the same and undiffering Religion In some certaine grosse corruptions say you But in some not in all grosse corruptions which are indifferent and common to you both And what grosse corruptions are common to both those shall not be put in the reckoning of corruptions at all each covering other with the mantle of Charity Yea such as you both agree in are the very substance of your Religion And the whole substance of the Romish yea of all Christian Religion saith Bellarmine is the Masse This then must be That same undiffering Christian Religion which you both set up And herein how much doe you dister Have you not both your Altars the main substance on the service whereof all the rest attend as your Priests Sacrifice Images Crucifixes Adorations Organs curious musicke and many other devises for your pompous service your Liturgie differing more in the language then in the matter and forme But you will say you differ in Transustantiation Yet you are willing to have a reall Presence confessed and professed with you as is noted before But you say the difference is in certaine grosse corruptions indangering salvation On which side Each side say you charges other I have heard two butter women scold and each layd to other grievous things and the one said Thou playdst the whore and the other sayd Thou playdst the whore Which of these trow you was the honester Woman She haply that had lesse playd the whore then the other which perhaps was not for want of will but opportunity You and Rome charge each other with grosse corruptions which yet are one and the same in both Doth not thus the shame of both the more appeare Your grosse corruptions on both sides can agree well enough if you can be quiet Yea and that to the indangering of Salvation too For have you not to be silent in the rest both your Altars which are alone sufficient to sacrifice upon all your faith and salvation and so to leave you neither faith nor salvation in Christ as whom also you sacrifice thereon together with your faith and salvation For we shewed before that your Altars doe overthrow and deny Iesus Christ the onely Altar of true beleevers If then you both doe agree in the grossest corruptions as those whereby your salvation is not onely indangered but destroyed which is the maine of your Religion wherin you differ not what need there be any oddes between you for the rest Both sides complain of each other both have their corruptions and grosse ones too such as overthrow salvation Then let your conscious ingenuity confesse to each other and your conscientious Charity pardon each other And so let the world be troubled no more with your Differences but be good friends and agree as sisters L. p. ibid. It may appeare by all the former Discourses to any Indifferent Reader that Religion as it is
professed in the Church of England is nearest of any Church now in Beeing to the Primitive Church Therfore not a Religion known to be false And thus I both doe and can prove were not the deafnesse of the Aspe upon the eares of seduced Christians in all humane and divided Parties whatsoever P. You doe wisely to put it to the judgement of the indifferent Reader who unlesse he be a most indifferent man between your Church of England and that of Rome and so undifferent from you both in judgement and affection to whom this which you say shall appeare to be true For no such thing can appeare to any Reader that is not so affected as to beleeve your bare word so soon as ever it sounds in his eare or whose eyes doe not looke through the false glasse of your Perspective Indeed you have proved to all men sufficiently both by this your Discourse and by your Practises that you and Rome do not set up a different Religion We all beleeve it And consequently we beleeve that herein you come full as neare to the Primitive Church as Rome doth alwayes excepted Romes lineall Pedegree from Peter and you know you are a Degree once removed And how neare you both come to the Primitive Church of the Apostles especially the primest and purest we have before shewed sufficiently And if you come nearest who I pray you are furthest off Surely the most pious the most religious the most zealous the most painfull and faithfull preachers of the Gospel the greatest contemners of the world the most humble and meeke the most patient in suffering persecution for the truth the most pure and precise in their life and conversation the most exact conformist to the onely Rule of Faith and true Religion the word of God such as are not ambitious covetous carnall and worldly minded envious malicious cruel haters and persecuters of Gods word of his Ministers and people Such such I say must be furthest off from the Doctrine and practise of the Apostles and of the most pure and Primitive Church in their time if you the Prelates and Churches of England and Rome come the nearest unto them L. p. 377. But is there no superstition in Adoration of Images None in Invocation of Saints None in Adoration of the Sacrament P. Yes and grosse Heathenish Idolatry too yea and infidelity to boote though you would mince it never so small into a matter of superstition onely And may not I say to you But is there no superstition yea no Idolâ—try in your Adoration of Altars yea and worse then that of the Papisâ—s for they worship their God you the Altar None in your Adoration of the Name IESVS None in bowing before your Crucifixes over your Altars No inducement at least to Idolatry in your goodly Images erected in your Churches No 〈◊〉 smell of Popish superstition and Idolatry in yâ—ur Adorations in the presence of such Imâ—geâ— The Iewes would not â—o much as stoop to tye the latchet of their shooe in the place where an Image was least their bowing might seem to be to the Image And who knoweth with what mind you do your humble and lowly Dâ—votion before such sacred Reliques And to summe up all together is there no superstion yea no Idolatry in all that will-worship of yours and of the Church of Rome attended with so many Rites and Ceremonies of mans invention For what is all Will-worship but Idolatry yea and the highest kind of Idolatry As Vincentius saith What are strange Gods but strange errours for that Hereticks reverence their Opinions no lesse then the Gentiles doe their Gods And Augustine saith It is the vilest and 〈◊〉 kind of Idolatry when mâ—n worship their own fancies observing that for a Religion which their erronious and swelling minds imagine Thus we see as a learned Divine of the Church of England and of great Eminencie said that a corrupt and vicious Religion such as Popery is and such as you have made yours of the Church of England not a different Religion 〈◊〉 an inward and ghostly worship of Idols which saith he Prince ought not to 〈◊〉 at or tolerate seeing no man and therfore no Prince can 〈◊〉 two Masters For saith he if God be truth they which presume to worship him with lyes as in contrary faith must needs come to passe serve now not God but the Devil a lyer himselfe and the faâ—her of 〈◊〉 whose service no Christian Prince may so much as 〈◊〉 so he Thus our Divines of the Church of England in former ages shall 〈◊〉 up as witnesses to condemn you in the day of Judgement who teach and maintain things contrary to that truth which they delivered L. p. 378. What not prove any superstition any errour at Rome but by pride and that intolerable Truly I would to God A.C. saw my heart and all the pride that lodgeth in it P. This you speake to A.C. as to a Jesuite or some Frier or some Priest All is one such a one being a Ghostly Father you may safely sub sigillo Confâ—ssionis or sub stola under the seale of Confession or under the Friers frocke under the Rose as we say open the windows of your Brest and let him look in and view all the Roomes and corners of your heart to see what pride hath taken up her lodging there and so the world shal be never a whiâ— the wiser for it But you need not to wish any such thing The pride of your heart cannot so easily be hid as that you need wish with Momus if there were a glasse window in your Brest for men to look in and see it much lesse a subtile prying Jesuite Alas though the glaring light of it blind your own eyes that you cannot see it your selfe yet any other that is but purblind may through the Glasse or spectacles of this your Book see the monstrous multiformious shape of it had they not seen it before expressed in the Capitall Characters of your most insolent and all daring practises And that you yet see it not there is not a more infallible argument or signe of a more monstrous proud heart which is ever selfe blinded But look to it What saith Ieremie The heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know it I the Lord search the heart and try the reynes even to give every man according to his wayes and according to the fruit of his doingâ—s L. p. 379. I hope God hath given the Lady mercy P. Namely that same Lady who formerly had been either brought unto or confirmed in that Romish Religion by that which you resolved her in namely That she might be saved living and dying in the Roman faith and Religion wherein it seems as she lived so she dyed Now truly my Lord If God did give her mercy it is little God hamercy to you But what ground have you for this your hope Even as much as for