Scriptures 3. To let Pastors and other Subjects know what sence of Scripture the Magistrate will own within his Dominions 4. And to let the Pastors and the world know what sence in the principal Points we are agreed in But still we take not our Confessions for our Divine Rule and therefore if there be any errour in a Confession there is none in the Rule of our Religion and consequently none in the Religion which we all agree in but only in such a persons or Churches exposition of the Rule which yet among Christians is not in any essential Point 3. Understand well what is the Catholick Church that when the Papists ask you what Church you are of or call to you to prove its antiquity or truth you may give them a sound and Catholick answer The Catholick Church is the whole number of true Christians upon earth for we meddle not now with that part which is in Heaven It is not tyed to Protestants only nor to the Greeks only much less to the Romanists only or to any other party whatsoever but it comprehendeth all the members of Christ and as visible it containeth all that profess the Christian Religion by a credible profession If the Christian Religion may be known then a man may know that he is a Christian and consequently a member of the Catholick Church But if the Christian Religion cannot be known then no man can know which is the Church or which is a Christian All Christians united to Christ the Head are this Catholick Church If you tye the Church to your own party and make a wrong description of it you will ensnare your selves and spoil your belief and your defence of it 4. Run not into extreams mix not any unsound principles with your Religion For if you do the Papists will cull out those and by disgracing them will seem to disgrace your Religion 5. Use not any unsound Arguments to defend the Truth For if you do the truth will suffer and seem to be overthrown by the weakness of your Arguments 6. Joyn not with those men that cast out any Ordinance of God because the Papists have abused it Reformation of corrupted Institutions is not by the Abolition of them but by the Restauration of them There are few things in use among the Papists themselves as parts of worship but may lead us up to a good original or tell us of some other real Duty which did degenerate into these 7. Joyn not with those ignorant unpeaceable self-conceited womanish rabious Divines or private men that pour out unworthy reproaches at godly men among our selves as if they were Hereticks or such as the Churches should dis-own For these are they that please the Papists and harden them in their Error and offend the weak They think they may call us Hereticks or Blasphemers by authority when we call one another so Such Railers teach them what to say and play their game more effectually then they could do their own When they are alluring the simple people how soon will they prevail if they can but prove their charge against us from the pens of Protestants themselves Having told you on what grounds you must make good your cause against them I shall next give you three or four easie Arguments some of them formerly given you by which even the weakest may prove that Popery is but deceit CHAP. III. Argum. 1. IF there be any godly honest men on earth besides Papists then Popery is false and not of God But there be godly honest men on earth besides Papists therefore Popery is false and not of God The Major is proved thus It is an Article of the Popish faith that there are no godly honest men on earth besides Papists therefore if there be any such Popery is false By godly honest men I mean such as have true love to God and so are in a state of salvation The Antecedent I prove thus 1. Their very definition of the Church doth make the Pope the Head and confine the membership only to his subjects making the Roman Catholick Church as they call it the whole 2. But yet lest any ignorant Papists say I may be a Roman Catholick without believing that all others are ungodly and shall be damned I will give it you in the Determination of a Pope and general Councll Leo the tenth Abrog Pragm sanct Bull. in the 17 th General Council at the Laterane saith And seeing it is of necessity to salvation that all the faithful of Christ be subject to the Pope of Rome as we are taught by the testimony of divine Scripture and of the holy Fathers and it is declared in the Constitution of Pope Boniface 7. c. And Pope Pius the second was converted from being Aenaeas Sylvius by this Doctrine of a Cardinal approved by him at large Bull. Retract in the Vol. 4. of Binnius p. 514. I came to the Fountain of Truth which the holy Doctors both Greek and Latine shew who with one voyce say that he cannot be saved that holdeth not the unity of the holy Church of Rome and that all those vertues are maimed to him that refuseth to obey the Pope of Rome though he lye in sack cloth and ashes and fast and pray both day and night and seem in the other things to fulfill the Law of God So that if a Pope and General Council be false then Popery is false For their infallibility is the ground of their faith and they take it on their unerring authority But if the Pope and a General Council be to be believed then no man but a subject of the Pope can be saved no though he fast and pray in sack-cloth and ashes day and night and seem to fulfill the rest of the Law of God It s certain therefore that if any one of you that call your selves Romane Catholicks do not believe that all the world shall be damned save your selves you are indeed no Romance Catholicks but are Hereticks your selves in their account for you deny a principal Article of their faith and deny the Infallibility of the Pope with a General Council which is your very Foundation And therefore we find that even in the great charitable work of reducing the Abassines the Jesuite Gonzalus Rodericus in his speech to the Emperours mother laid so great a stress on this point that when she professed her subjection to Christ he told her that None are subject to Christ that are not subject to his Vicar Negavi Christo subjici qui ejus vicario non subjicitur Godignus de reb Abassin Lib. 2. c. 18. in Roderic liter p. 323. And Bellarmine saith de Eccl. l. 3. c. 5. that no man though he would can be subject to Christ that is not subject to the Pope that is he cannot be a Christian And therefore Card. Richlieu then Bishop of Lusson tels the Protestants that they were not to be called Christians And Knot against Chillingworth with abundance more of them
Professors of our Religion therefore c. But all this will not serve them without a Catalogue and telling them where our Church was before Luther To this we further answer we have no peculiar Catholick Church of our own for there is but one and that is our Church Wherever the Christian Church was there was our Church And where-ever any Christians were congregate for Gods worship there were Churches of the same sort as our particular Churches And wherever Christianity was there our Religion was For we know no Religion but Christianity And would you have us give you a Catalogue of all the Christians in the world since Christ Or would you have us as vain as H. T. in his Manuall that names you some Popes and about twenty professors of their faith in each age as if twenty or thirty men were the Catholick Church Or as if those men were proved to be Papists by his naming them This is easie but silly disputing In a word Our Religion is Christianity 1. Christianity hath certain Essentials without which no man can be a Christian and it hath moreover many precious truths and duties necessary necessitate praecepti and also necessitate medii to the better being of a Christian Our being as Christians is in the former and our strength and increase and better-being is much in the latter From the former Religion and the Church is denominated Moreover 2. Our implicite and actuall explicite Belief as the Papists call them must be distinguished or our General and our particular Belief 3. And also the Positives of our Belief must be distinguished from the implyed Negatives and the express Articles themselves from their implyed Consectaries And now premising these three distinctions I shall tell you where our Church hath been in all Ages since the birth of Christ 1. In the dayes of Christ and his Apostles our Church was where they and all Christians were And our Religion was with them in all its parts both Essential and perfective That is we now Believe 1. All to be true that was delivered by the Apostles as from God with a General faith 2. We believe all the Essentials and as much more as we can understand with a Particular faith 3. But we cannot say that with such a particular faith we believe all that the Apostles believed or delivered for then we must say that we have the same degree of understanding as they and that we understand every word of the Scriptures 2. In the dayes of the A postles themselves the Consectaries and implied Verities and Rejections of all Heresies were not particularly and expresly delivered either in Scripture or Tradition as the Papists will confess 3. In the next ages after the Apostles our Church was the one Catholick Church containing all true Christians Headed by Jesus Christ and every such Christian too many to number was a member of it And for our Religion the Essential parts of it were contained both in the Holy Scriptures and in the Publick Professions Ordinances and Practices of the Church in those ages which you call Traditions and the rest of it even all the doctrines of faith and universal Laws of God which are its perfective parts they were fully contained in the holy Scriptures And some of our Rejections and Consectaries were then gathered and owned by the Church as Heresies occasioned the expressing of them and the rest were all implyed in the Apostolical Scripture doctrine which they preserved 4. By degrees many errors crept into the Church yet so that 1. Neither the Catholick Church nor one true Christian in sensu composito at least did reject any essential part of Christianity 2. And all parts of the Church were not alike corrupted with error but some more and some less 3. And still the whole Church held the holy Scripture it self and so had a perfect General or Implicite belief even while by evill consequences they oppugned many parts of their own profession 5. When in process of time by claiming the universall Soveraignty Rome had introduced a new pretended Catholick Church so far as their opinion took by superadding a New Head and form there was then a two fold Church in the West the Christian as Christian headed by Christ and the Papal as Papal Headed by the Pope yet so as they called it but one Church and by this usurped Monarchy as under Christ endeavoured to make but one of them by making both the Heads Essential when before one only was tolerable And if the Matter in any part may be the same and the same Man be a Christian and a Papist and so the same Assemblies yet still the forms are various and as Christians and part of the Catholick Church they are one thing and as Papists and members of the separating sect they are another thing Till this time there is no doubt of our Churches Visibility 6. In this time of the Romish Usurpation our Church was visible in three degrees in three severall sorts of persons 1. It was visible in the lowest degree among the Papists themselves not as Papists but as Christians For they never did to this day deny the Scriptures nor the Ancient Creeds nor Baptism the Lords Supper nor any of the substance of our Positive Articles of Religion They added a New Religion and Church of their own but still professed to hold all the old in consistency with it Wherever the truth of holy Scriptures and the ancient Creeds of the Church were professed there was our Religion before Luther But even among the Papists the holy Scriptures and the said Creeds were visibly professed therefore among them was our Religion And note here that Popery it self was not ripe for a corruption of the Christian faith professed till Luthers opposition heightned them For the Scripture was frequently before by Papists held to be a most sufficient Rule of faith as I shewed before from the Council of Basil and consequently Tradition was only pleaded as conservatory and expository of the Scripture but now the Council of Trent hath in a sort equalled them And this they were lately driven to when they found that out of Scripture they were unable to confute or suppress the truth 2. At the same time of the Churches oppression by the Papacy our Religion was visible and so our Church in a more illustrious sort among the Christians of the most of the world Greeks Ethiopians and the rest that never were subject to the usurpation of Rome but only many of them took him for the Patriarch primae sedis but not Episcopus Ecclesiae Catholicae or the Governour of the Universall Church So that here was a visibility of our Church doubly more eminent then among the Romanists 1. In that it was the far greatest part of the Catholick Church that thus held our Religion to whom the Papists were then but few 2. In that they did not only hold the same Positive Articles of faith with us but also among their Rejections
Church Constitution doth infer that all that are duly baptized are interpretatively or implicitely baptized into the Pope 2. And as you have devised a New Catholick Church so you hereby cast off and disown all the Christians of the world that be not of your party determining it as de fide that none of them can be saved who yet had rather venture on your Curse and Censure then into your Heresie and Schism 3. And hereby you fix your selves in this Schism and put us that unfeignedly long for peace out of all Hope of ever having Peace with you because you will hearken to it on no terms but that all men become subjects to your usurping Representative-Christ which we dare as soon leap into the fire as do Do you know now where the Church or Body was that you forsook It was all over the world where ever there were any Christians Were it not a great Schism think you if a few Anabaptists should say We are the whole Church and all others are Hereticks or Schismaticks Or was it not a great Schism of the Donatists to arrogate that title to themselves and unchurch so many others And what Church did they forsake Augustine tells them over and over what the Catholick Church was that they withdrew from even all true Christians dispersed over the earth Or that Church which begun at Hierusalem and thence diffused it self through the world But he never blames them for separating from the Universal Roman Head or Vicar but from the Church of Rome as a conspicuous combination of particular Churches Optatus and he do blame them for withdrawing as also from other Churches What if John of Constantinople in prosecution of his title of Universal Patriarch had concluded as you that none in the world are Christs members but his members nor of the Church but his subjects had not this been a notorious schism Tell us then what Church he had forsaken and answer your self But your last Caution in a parenthesis doth condemn your selves What I Must that Church that 's true be visible from Christs time then as Constantinople nor most other were never true Churches which is false so Rome it self was never a true Church which is false also Did you think that there was a Church at Rome in Christs time Sure you are not so ignorant By this Rule there should be no true Church but that at Jerusalem and those in Judaea But suppose you had said since the Apostles time This also had excluded most Churches on earth But if you mean the Universal Church we grant you easily that it hath been visible ever since Christs time but not alway in one place or Country Is not the greater part of Christians in the world whom you schismatically unchurch a visible company Doubtless you know they are Yea the Abassines and many Churches that being out of the Roman Empire did never so much as submit to your Primacy of Order nor had you ever any thing to do with them more then to own them as Christians yet now are condemned by your Arrogancy because they will not begin in the end of the world to enter into a new Church which they nor their Fore-fathers had ever any dependance on It was a shrewd answer of an old woman that the Emperor of Habassia's Mother gave to Gonzalus Rodericus the Jesuite pressing her to be subject to the Pope as the Vicar of Christ or else she could not be subject to Christ Neque ego inquit illa neque mei sancto Petro obedientiam negamus in eadem nunc sumus fide in quae fuimus ab initio ea si recta non erat cur per tot aetates ac secula nemo repertus est qui nos errrantes commonerent i. e. We are in the same Belief as we were from the beginning If it were not right why did no man in so many ages warn us of our error till now Mark here a double Argument coucht against the Pope One from Tradition even Apostolical Tradition for Godignus himself saith that no man doubts but Ethiopia received the faith from the beginning even from the the Eunuch and St. Mathew The other is that sure that Pope that cannot in so many ages look after his flock no not so much as to send one man to tell them that they erred till about one thousand five hundred years after Christ was never intended by Christ to be the Universal Governour of the world What! will Christ set any on an Impossible work Or make it so necessary to people to obey one that they never so much as hear from But what said the Jesuite to the old woman Why he told her Non potuisse Romanum Pontificem qui totius Christi Ecclesiae pastor est praeteritis retro annis Doctores in Abassiam mittere eò quod Mahumetani omnia circumdarent nec ullum ad ipsos additum relinquerant Nunc vero aperta jam Maritima ad Aethiopiam via id praestare quod nequivit prius that is The Pope of Rome who is the Pastor of the whole Church of Christ was not able in the years past to send Doctors into Habassia because the Mahomitans compassed all and left not any passage to them But now the seas are open he can do that which he could not before Liter Gonzal Roder. in Godign de Reb. Abass lib. 2. cap. 18. pag. 324. A fair answer As if Christ had set either the Pope or the Abassines an impossible task and appointed a Governour that for so many hundred years could not govern or the people must be so many hundred years no Christians though they believed in Christ till the Pope could send to them And how should these and all such Countries send Bishops to a General Council As your own Canus Loc. Theol. saith of the Jesuites so say I of your New Church Vocati estis ad secietatem Jesu Christi quae sine dubio societas cum Christi Ecclesia sit qui titulum sibi illum arrogant hi videant an Haereticorum more penes se Ecclesiam existere mentiantur i. e. You are called to the society of Jesus Christ which society being undoubtedly the Church of Christ let them see to it that arrogate this title to themselves whether they do not imitate hereticks by a Lying affirmation that the Church is only with them lib. 4. c. 2. fol. mihi 116. But we do not hence conclude that all that have lived and dyed in your profession have been no members of the Church because that your Church is guilty of Heresie and notoriously of Schism For we know that millions that live among you consent not to your usurpations Nay do not so much as understand your errors thereabout And some hold them but Notionally as uneffectual Opinions And every one is not a Heretick that holdeth a point that is judged Heretical and which is Heresie in another that holdeth it in another sort And there are errors called Heresies by most
them that when they are in Purgatory the Pope hath power to pardon them and the saying of so many Masses for their souls may ease them or rid them out and the Merits of other folks may deliver them 14. Protestants tell them that they must be holy for themselves but Papists tell them that they may hire another man to say their prayers for them which may serve turn 15. The Protestants do ingenuously confess that they have no way to end all Controversies in this life but that we have a sufficient way so far to decide them as is necessary to the peace of the soul of the Church and of the Commonwealth but no way for a final absolute Decision till the day of Judgement The Pastors of the Church are to be Judges so far as they are to execute And the Magistrates are to be Judges so far as they must execute And every Christian hath a judgement of Discerning so far as he is to execute But the absolute final judgement is reserved to the last day when God will fully end our controversies But this satisfyeth not men that would have all in hand and the sentence past before the Assizes And therefore the Papists better fit their humour and tell them and they do but tell them of an End of all their controversies at hand of an easie cheap remedy by believing the Infallible Pope and Council and so putting an end to all divisions and doubts 16. The Protestants would have none but seeming Professing Saints in their Churches But the Papists Canonize a Saint as a wonder and shut them up in Monasteries and call a few Religious that are separated from other Christians as Christians formerly were from the world which brings the people to think that Holiness and Religion is not necessary to all but to a few Devotaries that will be better then they are commanded to be 17. The Protestants bind men to keep their vows and fidelity to their Governors But the Papists tell them that the Pope hath Power to free them from their fidelity and dispense with their oaths 18. The Papists teach men to fast by eating the pleasantest meats but the Protestants use a total abstinence while they fast unless in meer necessity 19. The main business and administration of Protestant Pastors is against that flesh that is predominant in the unregenerate and therefore must needs be distastefull to the multitude of the ungodly Our preaching is to open mens sin and misery and cause them to perceive their lost condition and so to reveal to them a crucified Christ and then to set them on the holy self-denying heavenly life that Christ hath prescribed them And to speak terrour to the rebellious and to cast the obstinate out of our communion and to comfort none as the heirs of heaven either in life or at death but only the truly sanctified and renewed souls But for the Papists their Preaching in most places is but seldome but they have a Mass in Latine And as the old saying is The Mass doth not bite It galleth not a guilty conscience to see a Mass and here a many of Prayers which he understandeth not And when they do preach when they should shew wicked men their misery they flatter and deceive them too often by their false doctrine They cannot humble them in the sense of their Original sin and Misery for that they tell them was quite extinct and done away in Baptism And for their following sins Absolution upon their customary confessions hath done away all the guilt at least so that here is no Misery for the Miserable souls to see but like a Constables presentment at a Sessions an Omnia bene Unless perhaps some gross actual sin be apparent among them and then they shall have an Oration against it to drive them to auricular confession and to receive the Body of Christ and be Absolved And so do they by Ceremonies and Sacraments ex opere operato quiet the Consciences of unsanctified men and humour them in all their rites and customs and at last curn them to Heaven or Purgatory with an Absolution and Extream Unction And how pleasing a Religion this is to the ungodly people those Ministers can tell that see the rage of such against those that deny them even better Forms and Ceremonies when they desire them to pacifie their Consciences instead of real Holiness and Obedience 20. Lastly how the Jesuites have fitted their whole frame of Moral doctrine and Case Divinity to humour the unconscionable Montaltus the Jansenist will fully shew you through the whole fore-cited Mysterie of Jesuitism Those that would escape any worldly trouble or danger the Jesuites have a help at hand for even their doctrine of Equivocation and Mentall reservation which makes the Popes Dispensation with oaths and promises needless What accommodations they have for him that hath a mind to Murder his adversary to calumniate another to take Use without Usury to forbear restoring ill-gotten goods to commit fornication to rob another and many the like you may see in their own words cited in the said Book Yea what comfort they have for a man that loveth not God so he will not hate him Trust not my report but read the Book for its worth the reading So that we see the advantage that the Papists have to sweep away the vicious ignorant multitude and then to boast that they are the Catholicks and we but Schismaticks because they are the greater part and then they are armed also by the Multitude to oppress us by their violence Now what remedy to use against this Fraud I cannot tell but only to deal plainly and faithfully though it do displease and to administer Gods Ordinances as he prescribeth though never so distastefull to flesh and blood and so to commit our selves to God and trust him with his Church and cause who is able to preserve it and is most engaged to appear for us when we lay all upon him and have none to trust but himself alone Let us not hearken in this case to flesh and blood that would advise us to remit the reins of Discipline and to bend our Administrations to some pleasing complyance with carnal minds We disengage God when thus we begin to shift for our selves out of his way But withall we must acquaint those Princes that are faithfull to Christ how much it is their duty in this case to assist us not by any cruelty to the Papists that I desire not but only by quieting the ungodly part of our People in a state of Catechumens or expectants or a Learning condition fitted to their state and to restrain such in the mean time as would take advantage of their discontents to seduce them by pleasing licentious doctrines to their undoing CHAP. XXXIX Detect 30. ANother of their frauds is by culling out all the harsh unhansome passages or mistakes that they meet with in any Protestant Writers and charging all these upon the Protestant
a Catholick Christian Communion in several Assemblies under several Pastors acknowledging each other the true Churches of Christ and joining in Synods when there is need or at least giving each other as Christian Brethren the right hand of Fellowship 3. If that may not be attained the next Degree desirable is That we may take one another for Christians and Churches of Christ though under such corruptions as we think we are bound to disown by denying the present exercise of Communion as we do with particular Offendors whom we only suspend but not condemn 4. If this much may not be had but we will needs excommunicate each other absolutely the next degree of Peace desirable is That we may at least so far regard the common truths that we are agreed upon and the souls of the people as to consult on certain terms on which we may most peacably mannage our differences with the least hatred and violence and disturbance of the Peace of Christendom and with the least impediment to the generall success of those common truths that we are all agreed in 5. If this may not be attained the lowest Degree desirable is That at least we may take each other for more tolerable adversaries then Mahometans and Infidels are and therefore may make a common Agreement to cease our wars and blood-shed and turn all our Arms against the great and common enemy of the Christian name Were it not for the Devill and wicked minds all these might be attained but if men be not themselves incarnate Devils we may expect the last And understand that the terms of the lowest Degrees are all implyed in the Higher And now for the Highest and most desirable Degree of Peace viz. That we may meet in the same Assemblies under the same Pastors there is so little probability that ever it should be accomplished and withall the various apprehensions of Christians doth make it so necessary to bear with one another in this that I shall say but little of it as knowing that I am like to lose my labor Only this much concerning the terms If you will impose no more in point of Belief as necessary to Salvation but what is contained in the holy Scriptures yea and in the three Creeds and four first General Councils and will leave the Pastors of the particular Churches to worship God according to the Rule of the holy Scriptures prudentially themselves determining of meer Cireumstances left to their determination according to the general Rules of Order Decency and Edification and bearing with a difference herein according to the different state of the Churches or judgement of the Pastors this is the only probable way to bring us to this highest degree of Peace Though according to this course men should be left to some liberty to joyn with what particular Congregation they see best and so would most commonly joyn with those that are neerest to their own judgement yet the minds of most would be so mollified by mutual forbearance and by being satisfied in the way that is thus commonly agreed on that they would not scruple to joyn with one another in worship in the several Assemblies And here I shall further add that if these terms cannot be yielded to yet all that will yield to the terms of the next Degree of Peace may be admitted into our Assemblies though we cannot joyn with them in theirs For the Papists have much more in the manner of their worship to keep us back then we have in ours to keep them back For their errors lie in Excess and they suppose ours to lie but in Defect Now Conscience may well yield to perform one part of a duty when it cannot perform the rest But it can never yield to commit one actual sin by doing what is forbidden by God E. G. If the Papists think that we sinfully omit the Sacrament of extream unction they may nevertheless be present at the Sacrament of Baptism If they think we preach not all the truth that we ought they may nevertheless hear and receive that which we do preach But in their Assemblies we must do those positive actions which our Consciences tell us are sins against God And therefore unless they will yield as they will not to the above mentioned terms we cannot joyn in their Assemblies but upon the terms in the next Chapter we can admit them into ours But if the Churches have not a necessary Liberty in this they will never agree but be still breaking into pieces or persecuting one another to force men to joyn with such Assemblies as best please them that bear the Sword Though we readily grant that to hear and learn the principles of Religion and submit to the state and duty of Catechumens men may with less inconvenience be forced and ordinarily should so be CHAP. LII THe second Degree of Peace desirable below the former is That if we cannot live under the same particular Pastors and joyn in the same Assemblies yet we may hold a distant Catholick Communion in several Assemblies without condemning or persecuting one another and may afford the special Love of Christians to each other This will not be done as long as we take each other for Hereticks and therefore the causes of those censures must be removed partly by a neerer agreement in our Principles and partly by a greater Moderation in our Censures of one another And this a man would think among Christians might be obtained The terms on which it must be had are these Suffer us to confine our selves in Worship and Church-government to the Word of God and the Determination of our particular Churches or Pastors about meer Circumstantials left to their determination and do you confine your selves accordingly or not extending your practise beyond the Canons of the four first General Councils and the rest called Canones Ecclesiae Universalis published by Justellus Tillius or the Codex Dionysii Exigui and for matters of Faith we will all profess to receive the Scripture and what ever is contained in the said Councils and the three Creeds and to insist upon no more as necessary And on these terms we may live in Love as Brethren Here note 1. That in matter of Faith we will not be bound to take more then is in the Scripture and yet we will take all as aforesaid that is in the Creeds because we are perswaded that there is no more then is in the Scripture 2. We will not tie each other to profess on what Grounds we receive the Doctrine of these Creeds and Councils If you receive it as Tradition superadded to Scripture and if we receive it as being the same with Scripture Doctrine or a meet Exposition of it we will leave each other in this without examination to their liberty as long as it is the same things that we believe 3. In matters of Worship and Government we may not be compelled to take in all that is in all these Councils but only
from or disobeyeth the uncharitable Clergy but he is stigmatized for an Heretick and charged with almost as much wickedness as their mouths are wide enough to utter and the ears of other men to hear What horrid things have they spoken of the poor Waldenses and Albigenses and Bohemians Of Luther Oecolampadius Calvin and who not Though I have had applauding flattering Letters from some of them that tryed whether I were flexible and ductile yet I doubt not but I shall have my share my self before they have done with me I wonder I hear not of it before now Hence among other reasons its like that Mr. Pierce became so destitute of Charity as to disgorge his sould of so many bitter reproaches and calumnies against the Puritans and Presbyterians whom if he know not he sinneth but as Paul did but if he know he terrifieth us from his principles by the fruits that which shews the want of Charity shews the want of saving Grace and consequently the want of right to Glory Hence it is that the greatest Schismaticks are the commonest accusers of their Brethren with schism Pharisaically saying I thank thee Lord that I am not as other men nor as these Schismaticks Hence also it is that so many learned well-meaning Papists do so pervert their studies and endeavors and abuse and lose and worse then lose their wits and parts to draw men to their way compassing Sea and Land to make a Romish Proselite especially of a Prince or man of power interest or ability to serve them What pains take they to draw Nations to their minds and to embroil the world in contentions and confusions to attain their ends What horrid persecutions Massacres and barbarous inhumane cruelties have multitudes of men of learning and good parts and natures been ingaged in by the very Principle that I now confute and for the promoting of their kind of Unity and Concord in wicked and impossible ways 7. Besides this it takes men off from seeking the true Peace of the hurch while they mistakingly pursue a false peace The Devil the cunning Enemy of Concord hath not a more effectual way to take men off from the ways and means of holy Concord then by starting them a false game and causing them to lay out all their labor to build a Babel when they should be building Zion Oh what a blessed state might the Church be in if all the Jesuites Fryers Prelates Priests and others had laid out that labor for a righteous possible Unity and Peace in Gods appointed way which they have vainly and impiously laid out to unite the world in a Vice-christ or Vice-god Fore seeing and at present feeling many of these calamitous consequences to the Church I think it of exceeding moment that mens judgements should be rectified that are misled concerning the nature of the unity of the Church Still professing that to me they are the dearest Christians and nearest to my heart that are most for Unity and Concord so it be in Christ and upon righteous possible conditions CHAP. II. The true State of the Controversie and how much we grant HAving given you an account of the Occasion and Motives that produced this Disputation I shall now briefly state the Controversie between us And because the terms are all plain and my sense of them explained in the fore-going part I shall think no more here necessary then to tell you in certain Propositions How much we Grant and How far we are Agreed and then to tell you what it is that we deny and wherein we differ Prop. 1. We are Agreed that Christ hath a true Catholick Church on earth and ever hath had since first he planted it and ever will have to the end of the world and that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it or hath it ever had an Intercision for a day or an hour and that this Church is so far Infallible as that it never was nor ever will be ignorant of or erroneous against any Article of faith or part of obedience that is of absolute Necessity to salvation otherwise by that error it should have ceased to be the Church of Christ Prop. 2. We are agreed that this Catholick Church in respect of the Internal faith and charity of the Members and their Communion with Christ by the quickening Spirit on his part and holy sincere returns of devotion on theirs may be called Mystical or Invisible The thing is utterly undenyable though some Papists in the perversness of contentious Disputations seem to deny it And doubtless when they assert that Christ hath no Invisible Church they must mean it simply and not quoad haeo interiora or else they speak against all sense and Reason No man is simply Invisible but every man as to his soul is Invisible Prop. 3. We are Agreed that this Catholick Church in regard of the outward Profession of this Inward Faith and Holiness and in regard of the discernable numbers of persons making this Profession hath ever been visible since first it began to be visible And that the visibility hath never had any intercision If some Protestanss say otherwise it 's clear that this is all that by the common judgement of Protestants is maintained viz. That Christians and the Catholick Church containing the Professing Christians through the world have ever since their first planting had a visible being but yet 1. That the Visibility was not such but that Hereticks as the Arrians did might make a controversie of it whether they or the true Christians were the Church indeed and by their greater numbers or Power might blind men that they should not see which was the true Church 2. And that in the Catholick Church some parts may be much more corrupt and others much more pure and the Purer part be so much the lesser and oppressed and vilified by the more corrupt that the most part should not discern their Purity but take them as they did the Waldenses for Hereticks 3. And that two parts or more of this Catholick Church may so fall out among themselves as that one of them shall deny the other to be part of the Catholick Church when yet they really for all that censure remain parts of it as much as they And hereupon may grow a contest between them which of the two is the true Catholick Church and one part may say It is we and not you and the other may say It is we and not you and no man shall be able to discern which of the two is the Catholick Church because it is neither of them but each are a part 4. And though the Bodies of the members are visible and their Worshipping actions Visible and their Profession audible yet the faith Professed is not Visible nor the Truth of their Profession or of their Christianity or Church Truth being the object of the Intellect and not of sence 5. And though the true members of the Church do know the true Church
A Key for Catholicks To open the Jugling of the Jesuits and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand whether the Cause of the Roman or Reformed Churches be of God and to leave the Reader utterly unexcusable that after this will be a Papist The first Part. Containing some Arguments by which the meanest may see the Vanity of Popery and 40. Detections of their Fraud with Directions and Materials sufficient for the Confutation of their Voluminous Deceits particularly refelling Ts. Manual some Manuscripts c. With some Proposals for a hopeless Peace The Second Part sheweth especially against the French and Grotians that the Catholick Church is not United in any meerly Humane Head either Pope or Council By Richard Baxter a Catholick Christian and Pastor of a Church of such at Kederminster LONDON Printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster and are to be sold by him there and by Thomas Johnson at the Golden Key in St. Pauls Church-yard 1659. At 4. s. bound To his Highness RICHARD Lord Protector OF THE Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland c. SIR THese Papers presume to tender you their service because the Subject of them is such as it most neerly concerneth both us and you that you be well acquainted with The Roman Canons that batter the Unity Catholicism and Purity of the Church of Christ are mounted on the frame which I have here demolished The swords and pens and tongues that you are now engaged against and which you must expect from henceforth to assault you are whetted and managed by the senseless tyrannous ungodly principles which I have here Detected As unreasonable as they appear to the unprejudiced they are such as have animated the studies and diligent endeavours of thousands to captivate the Princes and Nations of the Earth to the Roman yoke As vain as they appear to us that see them naked they are such as have divided and distracted the Churches of Christ and troubled and dethroned Princes and laid them at the feet of the Roman Pope They have absolved subjects from their Oaths and other obligations to fidelity They have involved many a Nation in blood O the streams of the blood of Saints that have been shed by these Roman Principles in Savoy France Bohemia Poland Germany Ireland England and many other Lands As easie a war as here I manage it is against those adverse Principles that have armed Thousands and Millions against the innocent or against their lawful Soveraigns whom God had bound them to obey They have fastned knives in the breasts of the greatest Kings as the lamentable case of Henry the third and fourth of France doth testifie They have in a few days time in Paris and the adjoyning parts of France perfidiously butchered Nobles and other persons of eminency and people of all sorts to the number of neer thirty thousand as Thuanus reckoneth them if not forty thousand as Davilah The Doctrines which I here confound have invaded England by a Spanish Armado whether by the Popes consent and upon the account of Religion I have after shewed out of their own Writers they have prepared knives and poyson for our Princes which God did frustrate they have laid Gunpowder to blowup King and Parliament and hellishly execute the fury of the deluded zealots in a moment and then to have charged the Puritans with the fact They have in a time of Peace by a sudden insurrection murdered so many thousands in Ireland in a few days or weeks as posterity will scare believe They are dreadful Practicals and not meer speculations that we dispute against I beseech you therefore that you receive not this as you would do a Scholastick or Philosophical Disputation about such things as seem not to concern you but as you would interess your self in a Disputation upon the Question Whether you should be deposed or murdered as an Heretick And whether we should be Tormented and burnt as Hereticks And whether the lives of all the Princes and People upon earth whom the Pope judgeth Hereticks should be at his mercy c. so do in this cause I speak not this to provoke you to deal bloodily with them as they do with the servants of the Lord I abhor the thoughts of imitating their cruelty It is only the Necessary Defence of your Life and Dignity and the Lives of all the Protestants that are under your Protection and Government and the souls of men that I desire On what terms we stand with those men whose Religion teacheth them to kill us if they can and to venture their lives for it is easie to understand When we have no security from them for our lives but their disability to destroy us we must disable them or die I utter no melancholy dreams nor slanders I have here shewed it in the too plain and cepious Decrees of the approved General Council at Lateran that the deposing of Princes and absolving their Subjects from their fidelity and giving their Dominions to others not only for supposed Heresie but for not exterminating such as deny Transubstantiation c. is an Article of their Faith and no man can disown it without disowning Popery in the Essentials If once they will renounce the Decrees of General Councils approved by the Pope we shall be soon agreed Saith Costerus Enchirid. cap. 1. p. 46. Quae sanc Decreta si veritatem si obsignationem Spiritus Sancti si praesentiam Christi spectes idem habent pondus momentum quod Sancta Dei Evangelia They believe these Decrees to be as true as the Gospel I need not therefore tell you that Bozius Hostiensis and many more of them make the Pope to be the Lord of all the World Or that Bellarmine and the stronger side do carry it as The common judgement of all Catholick Divines see what a rabble he heaps up De Pontif. Rom. li. 5. c. 1. that the Pope ratione spiritualis habet saltem indirectè potestatem quandam eamque summam in temporalibus Which cap. 6. he saith is just such over Princes as the soul hath over the body or sensitive appetite and that thus he may change Kingdoms and take them from one and give to another as the chief Spiritual Prince if it be but necessary to the safety of souls cap. 78. He gives us his proof of this And whether the Pope do take your Government to be for the good of souls I need not tell you It is the stupendious judgement of God on Christian Princes for their sins that they have been so far blinded as to endure such an usurper so long and have not before this blotted out his name from among the sons of men Non licet c. It is not lawful saith Bellarmine ib. c. 7. for Christians to Tolerate an Infidel or Heretical King if he endeavour to draw his Subjects to his Heresie or unbelief but to judge whether a King do draw to Heresie or not belongeth to the Pope to
whom the care of Religion is committed therefore it belongs to the Pope to judge a King to be deposed or not deposed You see here it is not Lawful for such Christians as the Papists to Tolerate you which may help your judgement in the point of their Toleration Si Christiani saith Bellarib olim non deposuerunt Neronem Valentem Arianum similes id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis You have your Government and we our Lives because the Papists are not strong enough They tell you what to trust to Saith Tollet one of the best of the Jesuites li 1. de Instruct Sacerd. c. 13. They that were bound by the bond of fidelity or Oath shall be freed from such a bond if he fall into Excommunication and during that Debtors are absolved from the obligation of paying to the Creditor that debt that is contracted by words These are no private uneffectual Opinions Saith Pope Pius the 5th himself in his Bull against our Queen Elizabeth Volumus mandamus We will and command that the Subjects take Arms against that Heretical and Excommunicate Queen But their crueltie to mens souls and the Church of Christ doth yet much more declare their uncharitableness It is a point of their Religion to believe that no man can be saved but the Subjects of their Pope as I have after proved and is to be seen in many of their writings as Knot and a late Pamphlet called Questions for Resolution of Unlearned Protestants c. and Bishop Morton hath recited the words of Lindanus Valentia and Vasquez Apol. lib. 2. c. 1. defining is to be of Necessity to Salvation to be subject to the Roman Bishop And would not a man think that for such horrid doctrines as damn the far greatest part of Christians in the world they should produce at least some probable Arguments But what they have to say I have here faithfully detected If we will dispute with them or turn to them the Scripture must be no further Judge then as their Church expoundeth it The Judgement of the Ancient yea or present Church they utterly renounce for the far greatest part is known to be against the Headship of their Pope and therefore they must stand by for Hereticks Tradition it self they dare not stand to except themselves be Judges of it for the greatest part of Christians profess that Tradition is against the Roman Vice-christ The internal sense and experience of Christians they gainsay concluding all besides themselves to be void of charity or saving grace which many a thousand holy souls do find within them that never believed in the Pope Yea when we are content to lay our lives on it that we will shew them the deceit of Popery as certainly and plainly as Bread is known to be Bread when we see it feel and taste it and as Wine is known to be Wine when we see and drink it yet do they refuse even the judgement of sense of all mens senses even their own and others So that we must renounce our honesty our Knowledge of our selves our senses our reason the common experience and senses of all men the Judgement and Tradition of the far greatest part of the present Church or else by the judgement of the Papists we must all be damned Whether such opinions as these should by us be uncontradicted or by you be suffered to be taught your Subjects is easie to discern If they had strength they would little trouble us with Disputing Nothing more common in their Writers scarce then that the Sword or Fire is fitter for Hereticks then Disputes This is hut their after-game Though their Church must rule Princes as the soul ruleth the body yet it must be by Secular Power excommunication doth but give fire it is Lead and Iron that must do the execution And when they are themselves disabled it is their way to strike us by the hands and swords of one another He that saw England Scatland and Ireland a while ago in blood and now sees the lamentable case of so many Protestant Princes and Nations destroying one another and thinks that Papists have no hand in contriving counselling instigating or executing is much a stranger to their Principles and Practices Observing therefore that of all the Sects that we are troubled with there is none but the Papist that disputeth with us with flames and Gun-Powder with Armies and Navies at their backs having so many Princes and so great revenews for their provision I have judged it my duty to God and his Church 1. To Detect the vanity of their cause that their shame may appear to all that are impartial and to do my part of that necessary work for which Vell. Paterculus so much honoured Cicero Hist lib. 2. c. 34. Ne quorum arma viceramus corum ingenio vinceremur And 2. To present with greatest earnestness these following Requests to your Highness on the behalf of the cause and people of the Lord wherein the Papists also shall see that it is not their suffering but only our Necessary Defence that we desire 1. We earnestly request that you will Resolvedly adhere to the cause of Truth and Holiness and afford the Reformed Churches abroad the utmost of your help for their Concord and Defence and never be tempted to own an Interest that crosseth the Interest of Christ How many thousands are studiously contriving the extirpation of the Protestant Churches from the Earth How many Princes are consederate against them The more will be required of you for their aid The serious endeavours of your Renowned Father for the Protestants of Savoy discovered to the world by Mr. Morland in his Letters c. hath won him more esteem in the hearts of many that fear the Lord then all his victories in themselves considered We pray that you may inherit a tender care of the cause of Christ 2. We humbly request that you will faithfully adhere to those that fear the Lord in your Dominions In your eyes let a vile person be contemned but honour them that fear the Lord Psal 15. 4. Know not the wicked but let your eyes be upon the faithfull of the Land Psal 101. 4 6. Compassionate the weak and curable Punish the uncurable restrain the froward but Love and cherish the servants of the Lord. They are under Christ the honour and the strength of the Commonwealth It was a wise and happy King that professed that his Good should extend to the Saints on earth and the excellent in whom was his delight Psal 16. 2 3. This strengthening the vitals is one of the chief means to keep out Popery and all other dangerous diseases We see few understanding Godly people receive the Roman infection but the prophane licentious ignorant or malignant that are prepared for it 3. We earnestly request your utmost care that we may be ruled by Godly Faithfull Magistrates under you and that your Wisdom and Vigilancy may frustrate the subtilty of Masked Papists
or Infidels that would creep into places of Council Command or Justice or any publick office If ever such as these should have a hand in your affairs or be our Rulers we know what we must expect The Reasons of our jealousies of such men are because we know that the design is agreeable to their principles and interests and we know it is their usual course and we find that such men swarm among us we hear their words we read their writings we see their practices for Popery and Infidelity The jealousies of many wise men in England are very great concerning the present designs of this Generation of men and not without cause We fear the Masked Papists and Infidels more then the bare-faced or then any enemy The men that we are jealous of and over whom we desire you to be Vigilant are these Hiders that purposely obscure and cover their Religion He that wilfully concealeth his Faith alloweth me to suspect it to be naught The chief of them are 1. The Seekers that have not yet found a Church a Ministry Ordinances or Scripture nor some of them a Christ to believe in 2. The Paracelsians Behmenists and other Enthusiasts that purposely hide themselves in self-devised uncouth cloudy terms and pretend to visible familiarity with spirits 3. The Vani whom God by wonders confounded in New England but have here prevailed far in the dark 4. The secret guides of the Quakers 5. Those that make it their business to argue against the Religion of all others but assert little of their own endeavouring to bring all men to uncertainties and loose them from the faith 6. Those that are still vilifying or undermining the faithfull Godly Ministry 7. Those that do secretly or openly plead the cause of Infidels which are alas too many whether ex animo or for promoting Popery time will disclose that deride the Scriptures and deny the Immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the body or that there are any Devils or is any Hell 8. The Libertines that would have liberty for all that they can call Religion though against the certain Principles of Christianity and that tell us the Magistrate hath nothing to do with mens Religion of which anon 9. The Democratical Polititions that are busie about the change of Government and would bring all into confusion under pretence of the Peoples Liberty or Power and would have the Major Part of the Subjects to be the Soveraign of the rest that is the worst that are still the most and the ignorant that cannot Rule themselves and the vicious that are enemies and hinderers of piety and the worldlings that mind nothing but what is under their feet and have no time to think of Heaven they have so much to do on earth and as Augustine saith had rather there were one Star less in Heaven then One Cow loss in their Pastures these must be our Soveraigns 10. Those that under pretence of defending Prelacy and of uniting us with Rome do adhere to the course of Grotius and Sancta Clara and Unchurch all the Reformed Churches degrade all the Ministers that are not of their way while they maintain the verity of the Church of Rome and the validity of her Ordination and would have the Pope to be the Principium Unitatis to all the Church and the Western Parts to obey him as their Patriatch yea and himself to be the Ruler of the whole so he do it by the Laws of General Councils and deprive not inferiour Bishops of their Priviledges These ten sorts of men we are Jealous of and if ever you advance them into places of Command or Power it will increase our jealousies God knows I have no personal grudge to any of them But the Gospel and the souls of men and the hopes of our posterity are not so contemptible as to be given away as a bribe to purchase these mens good will or to stop their mouths lest they should reproach us As it is the common but a poor redress that after the Massacres of thousands the surviving Protestants have still had from the Papists viz. to disclaim the fact or cast it upon some rash discontented men which will not make dead men alive again So will it be a poor relief to us when these men are our Masters and have deprived us of all that was dear to us in the world that we escaped their ill language while the work was doing 4. We also humbly beseech you that you will go on with the purging and encouraging of the Ministry Casting out the Ignorant and Ungodly and countenancing those that are Able and Faithfull They deny their ease and dignity and the riches of the world which other employments would afford to encounter with Satan and the worlds corruptions for the happiness of souls And therefore the more oppose them and revile them and unthankfully requite them the more are you obliged for the sake of Christ and mens salvation to assist them All their enemies contending to surpass the Devil in impudency accuse them of Covetousness Idleness and Ambition as if these were the things that they seek after in the world If our practice seconding our profession be not enough to confute these calumnies of malignant men let this be added to confute them that we make it our earnest request to your Highness that all such Ambitious Idle Covetous or otherwise scandalous Ministers may be cast out You have Commissioners in every County for this work Require them to do it faithfully If we desired this much against our Reproachers they would say we persecuted them We desire you therefore but to turn this persecution against our selves We also desire you that you will not advance us to Temporal Honours or Dignities or Power nor make us Lord Bishops nor to abound with the riches of this world These things agree not with our caling We only desire food and rayment and necessaries to furnish us for our work and express some charity to the needy that daily expect it from us and we crave of you that we may be no richer We also desire you never to put the sword into our hands nor enable us to execute any of our private passions upon any nor yet to touch mens Bodies or Estates but only to manage the word and Keyes of the Kingdom of Christ upon mens Consciences and Guide his Church according to our office and let it prevail as God shall bless it This is all the advancement we desire We have doubly renounced all the world as Christians and as Ministers of Christ we have given up our selves to a difficult flesh-displeasing work we crave no more of you but so far to countenance us as Christ commandeth you and the good of our peoples souls requires And God will be judge between us and our malitious reproachers whether these requests are Covetous Ambitious or Unreasonable 5. We also humbly crave your aid for the procuring and maintaining an Union and Concord
what is the thing whose succession is questioned A Protestant is a Christian that holdeth to the holy Scriptures as the sufficient Rule of faith and holy living and protesteth against Popery The Protestant Churches are Societies professing the Protestants Religion The Protestant Religion is an improper speech but the Protestants Religion is a phrase that we shall own For Protestancy is not our Religion it self but the Rejection of Popish corruptions of Religions or defiling Additions If my Rejections of other mens Additions be themselves Additions then is it in the power of any Heretick in the world to force me to Add to my Religion at his Pleasure A thousand new Articles Forms of Worship he may devise and then must I add to my Religion by rejecting them all even as I add to my Apple by wiping the dirt of it or to my Cloaths by brushing them The Protestants Religion is only the Christian Religion the naked Christian Religion alone The Papists the Christian Religion corrupted with abundance of additions The Protestants ever disavowed any Confessions of men as pretended to be the Rule or Law of their Religion The Protestants Religion is the Holy Scriptures alone The Papists Religion is all that is decreed by the Pope and Councils Our Religion containtd in the Scoipture hath its Essentials and Integrals All the Essentials and as much of the Integrals as in the use of means we are able to understand we believe particularly and explicitely the rest we believe generally and implicitely to be all true So that as the Papists will not give us leave to take the writings of Greâ—ser Bellarmine or any of their Doctors yea the Articles of their Divines at Thoren Ratisbone c. to be therefore Articles of their faith but only those that are contained in General Councils approved by the Pope so we require the same justice of them that they call Nothing the Articles of our Faith but what is contained in the Holy Scripture which is the only Rule of our Religion Do they know our Religion better then we do This is our Religion and this we stand to Well! Consider now whether any thing be easier then for a Protestant to shew you a visible Church that hath successively been of his Religion 1. The Christian Religion hath been in all ages since Christ in visible Societies The Religion of Protestants is the Christian Religion therefore the Religion of Protestants hath been in all ages since Christ in visible Societies 2. That Religion which is contained in the Holy Scripture as its Rule or sufficient Revelation hath been professed in all ages in visible Churches But the Religion of Protestants is contained in the Holy Scriptures as its Rule or sufficient Revelation therefore the Religion of Protestants hath been professed in all ages in visible Churches We name the Societies from the places of their residence Our Church as Augustine tels the Donatists begun at Hierusalem and thence was dispersed into Asia Africa and Europe it hath continued in Syria Aethiopia Aegypt India Greece c. If I could name but one Nation that had been of my Religion I should suspect it were not the true Religion It is the Christian world that is instead of a Catalogue to us O but say the Juglers This is a General answer to say you are Christians there are more sorts of Christians then One I Reply It is the General or Catholick that we are speaking of and therefore if it were not such a General answer it were not pertinent to the Question There are no more sorts of Christians but One that is there is no Essential difference among them but there is a gradual integral and modal difference But may not Christians of several Degrees of Knowledge be in the same Catholick Church Our question is not Where any Sect or any particular Church hath had its succession but where that Catholick Church hath been of which we are members And surely Christ hath but One Catholick Church O but say they would you make men believe that Ethiopians Armenians Greeks c. are Protestants you may be ashamed of so gross a fiction I answer Is it the Name of Protestants or their Religion that you would have us prove a succession of These deceivers cheat abundance of poor souls by this one device even supposing that the word Protestant doth denominate our Church from its Essential parts and so call for a Catalogue of Protestants But I would ask them whether we or they do better know our Religion and consequently what a Protestant is If they know it at all it is from our writings or expressions For sure they will not pretend without signs to know our hearts and that better then our selves You must take it from us if you will know what our Religion is as we must take it from you if we will know yours And therefore delude not silly souls by perswading them that you know what our Religion is better then we If you will believe our Books that tell you believe our sayings also and believe me that here tell you my own Religion A Protestant is a Christian that protesteth against Popery Christianity is our Religion Protesting against Popery is our Negation or Rejection of your Corruptions of Religion Men that never heard of the name of Papist or Protestants may be of the same Religion with us If many Nations of the world never received Popery and we reject it if they never knew it and we know it and disown it are we not both of one Religion even in the Integrals One man never heard of the Leprosie another catcheth it and is cured of it and a third flyeth from it and preventeth it And I think all these are truly men yea and in tantum sound men When you call to us for a proof of our succession either you mean it of the Essentials of our Religion and Church or of the Negation of your Corruptions Either you mean it of the points that we are Agreed in or of those we differ in Christianity is it that we are Agreed in and that is our Religion and nothing but that Protestancy as such is but our wiping off the dirt or curing the scab that you have brought upon our Religion Is he not a man as well as you that will not tumble with you in the dirt or come into your Pesthouse If we know not our own Religion then we cannot tell it you and then you cannot know it And if we do know it believe us when we profess our own Belief We still profess before men and Angels that we own no Religion but the Christian Religion nor any Church but the Christian Church nor dream of any Catholick Church but one containing all the true Christians in the world united in Jesus Christ the Head We protest before men and Angels that it is the Holy Scriptures that are the Law and Rule and Test of our Religion And why are we not to be
Believed in this our own Profession as well as you are in yours when you make the Decrees of Popes and Councils to be your Law and Rule and Tests We perform therefore more then you demand You ask us Where was our Church before Luther And we answer Where our Religion was You ask us Where was that and we tell you Where ever the Christian Religion was and the Holy Scriptures were received This were enough for us in answer to your Question But we do more We tell you not only where our Church and Religion was but where there were men that owned not your grand Corruptions no more then we What can you demand more of us when you call for a succession of Protestants then that we tell you of a succession of Christians which are of our Religion and which were no Papists yea against Popery which therefore were of our integrity And who knoweth not that the foresaid Abassines Armenians Egyptians Greeks c. are against your Papal Soveraignty Infallibility and all that is by us renounced as Essential to Popery O but say the Juglers these are not Protestants they differ from you in many particulars I answer Call them by what name you please they are not only Christians but also Anti-papists or free from Popery and then they are of our Religion and Church But indeed must the world be made believe that all that we Believe is essential to our Religion and that no man that differeth from us can be of our Religion be the difference never so small But say they tell us of a Church that professes your 39 Articles Silly deceivers Do not those very Articles profess that The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation so that whatever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of the Faith or be thought requsite or necessary to Salvation Art 6. We never took these Articles instead of the Scripture but the Articles and all Protestants profess the Scripture to be the only Rule and Test of their Faith and Religion The substance of the 39 Articles may easily be proved to have been successively held by the Church from the beginning but it is not incumbent on us to prove that every word in the writings of every Divine or Church hath been so continued no more then you will own the writings of any Divines or Provincial Synods of your own as being the Rule of your Faith As you profess that the Decrees of Popes and general Councils approved by him besides the Scriptures are the Rule and Test of your Religion so do we profess that the Scriptures alone with the Law of Nature is the Rule of ours But what say they will you be of the same Church with Nestorians Eutichians and other Hereticks I Answ 1. We will not take all for Nestorians or Eutichians that a railer can call such that never knew them nor can prove it 2. Hereticks indeed that deny any essential part of Christianity are no Christians anh therefore none of the Church that we are of but if you will call those Hereticks that have all the essentials of Christianity because they err in lesser points we know that there are such in the Catholick Church We will be none of them our selves if we can escape it yet indeed have no hope of escaping all error till we are perfect in knowledge But we will not run out of the family of God because there are children and sick persons in it Nor will we for sake the Catholick Church because there are erring persons in it O but saith the Papist We acknowledge not your distinction of points Essential and not Essential all points of Faith are Essential with us and of necessity to Salvation Answ Reader thou shalt see here such impudent and faithless jugling as may make thee blush to think that Christianity hath such professors 1. The Outside of their assertion damneth no aess then all the world that live to the use of Reason 2. The Inside of their deceitful meaning is almost clean contrary and leaveth Heathens and Infidels in the Church or in a state of salvation as well as Christians 3. It leaveth no one Article of faith essential to a Christian or to one that shall be saved and leaveth the Church an Invisible thing clean contrary to their own assertions of its Visibility 4. And when they have thus wrangled themselves into a wood of contradictions and Unchristian absurdities the wisest of them say as we say in the main point All this I will now manifest to thee 1. The Out-side of their assertion is that Every point that we are bound to belive by a Divine faith is fundamental or essential to Christian faith or of necessity to salvation And if so then no man breathing can be saved For no man knoweth all that he is bound to know And no man believeth that which he understandeth not It is impossible to believe that such a Proposition is a truth distinctly and actually when I understand not what the Proposition is And that we all know but in part even what we are obliged to know no man will deny but he that is mad by pride or faction All that God hath revealed in his word is the matter of our faith There is to man can say I have no culpable ignorance of any one Truth of God that I should believe Had we been more perfect in our diligent studies and prayers and use of all means and had we never sinfully grieved the spirit that should illuminate us to say nothing of our Original sinfull darkness there is not one of us but might have known more then we do If sin of the will and life be consistent with true faith then some sin in the understanding is consistent with faith But the former is true therefore c. But according to the out-side of their doctrine no man that hath any sinfull ignorance and consequently unbelief in his understanding can be saved that is no man in the world If he that thinks he knowth any thing knoweth nothing as he ought to know 1 Cor. 8. 2. what shall be said of these men that think they and all the Church do know all things that they ought to know and that their understandings have no sin And must we needs be of that faith that damneth all men and of that Church where none are saved 2. As the Out-side of their Assertions is made for a bug-bear to frighten fools so that the In-side as expounded by many of them is that Heathens and Infidels may be of their Church or saved and that nothing of the Chrian faith at all is necessary to salvation is plain For they ' tell us that they mean that all points are of necessity where they are sufficiently proposed and mens ignorance is not invincible but where there is no sufficient proposal but mens ignorance is invincible or
content with this to govern Volunteers The other is by Commands that shall be seconded with force And this is proper to the Magistrate But if they will be deluded to give up their Crowns and Scepters to the Pope let them stand as the objects of the compassion of Spectators Much more then I have here given you I had prepared of the Testimony of Antiquity against them But here is more then they are able solidly to answer and I was afraid of over-whelming the capacity of ordinary Readers I understand not the French Tongue but by the Testimony of Learned men that understand them and especially by the help of a Noble friend that hath vouchsafed to translate some part of them for my use I am imboldened to a confidence that the two famous Confutations of the great Perron will stand to the perpetual shame of Popery which none of them will be ever able to Reply to without as great a dishonour to their Cause as will follow their not daring to Reply I mean Blondell's Book De Primatu in Ecclesia which overwhelms them utterly with the witness of Antiquity Pet. Molinaeus de Novitate Papismi which I hope his Reverend Son of his name may live to help us to in English But if any of the Romanists that dare not meddle with those Champions nor dash themselves upon those Pillars shall yet vouchsafe an Answer to this smaller work I do hereby assure him that if he wil do it soberly in the fear of God in a way of close and solid Arguing he will perform a task that will be very acceptable to me But niblers snarlers cavillers and senseless praters I shall contemn Richard Baxter The Contents CHap. 1. Popery no way to Unity page 1. Chap. 2. Directions for them that will deal with a Papist p. 5. Chap. 3. Argum. 1. Against Popery by which every honest godly man is secured from them p. 9. Chap. 4. The second Argument p. 16. Chap. 5. Argum. 3. That deposing Kings that will not exterminate us and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance and giving their Dominions to others is an Article of the Papists Faith p. 17 18. Chap. 6. Argum. 4. The Church of Rome unholy in its Essentials p. 21 22 c. Chap. 7. Argum. 5. The Papists of more then One Church yet each part pretending to be the Catholick Church p. 26. Chap. 8. Argum. 6. The Church of Rome hath discontinued p. 31. Chap. 9. Argum. 7. From sense securing all men from Popery that will believe their eyes or any of their or others senses T 's frivolous answer refelled p. 34. Chap. 10. Detect 1. Prove them but guilty of one Error in Faith and all Popery is confuted p. 38. Chap. 11. Detect 2. A Doctrine so contrary to Scripture and it self cannot be free from Error p. 39. Chap. 12. Detect 3. Agree on the way of proof before you dispute Papists will take neither Sense Reason Scripture nor the Tradition or Judgement of the greater part of the Church for judge or proof p. 41. Chap. 13. Detect 4. Understand what they mean when they call to you for a Judge of Controversies How far a Judge is necessary and who p. 43. Chap. 14. Detect 5. They pretend that in their way there is an End of Controversies but in ours there is none Detected p. 46. Chap. 15. Detect 6. Their boast of Unity and reproaching us with Divisions Detected p. 52. Chap. 16. Detect 7. Their confounding the Essentials and Integrals of Christianity Detected p. 63. Chap. 17. Detect 8. Their extolling the judgement of the Catholick Church Detected It is against them p. 71. Chap. 18. Detect 9. Some of their deluding Ambiguities Detected 1. In the word Church 2. In the word Pope 3. A General Council Bring them to Define what they mean by these and you break them p. 73. Chap. 19. Detect 10. Their Confounding 1. An humane Ordinance and a Divine 2. Meere Primacy with Soveraignty 3. An alterable Order with an unalterable Essential Detected p. 81. Chap. 20. Detect 11. The vanity of their pretending Tradition detected p. 86. How far we are for Tradition p. 87. Tradition confoundeth Popery p. 98. Chap. 21. Detect 12. Their pretence that the Greeks and all other Churches were once under the Pope Detected p. 102. Chap. 22. Detect 13. Their plea that the Church of Rome is a True Church and therefore we are Schismaticks for separating from it Detected p. 103. Chap. 23. Detect 14. Their pretending to fixed Unity and settledness and that we are at uncertainty incoherent and changelings Detected p. 107. Chap. 24. Detect 15. Their plea that our Church and Religion is new and theirs old and their calling for a Catalogue and proof of the Succession of our Church before Luther Detected and our Church made known to them p. 115. And vindicated from Turbervile's exceptions Proved fully that persons differing in points of Faith are Christians and of the same Church p. 125 127 c. And that the Abassines Armenians Copties Greeks c. are of the same Church with us proved T 's proof of their Succession confuted to p. 141. Chap. 25. Detect 16. Their jumbling all our differences together and then making lesser or common differences to be the Protestant Religion Detected p. 141. Thirty two points of Popery named which they are challenged to prove a Succession of with my promise to receive what is so proved T 's Arguments for the Succession of their Doctrine confuted to p. 155. Papists have those in their Church that differ in point of Faith p. 155. No such difference between us and the most of the Christian world as can prove us not of the same Catholick Church proved against H. T. in the instances 1. Of Invocation of Saints p. 157. 2. Praying for the dead p. 160. 3. Veneration or Adoration of Images Cross and Reliques p. 162. 4. Transubstantiation 5. Satisfaction and Purgatory 6. Of Fasts Free-will c. Chap. 26. Detect 17. Their false interpretation of the sayings of Ancients from whence they would extort a proof of their Soveraignty Detected in eight instances p. 169. Chap. 27. Detect 18. Their corrupting Councils and Fathers and citing such Detected p. 176. Chap. 28. Detect 19. Their perswading the people that we are all Lyars that nothing we say and write may be regarded p. 182. Chap. 29. Detect 20. Their feigned Miracles 184. The story of the Boy of Bilson p. 185. Chap. 30. Detect 21. Their Impudent slanders The horrid Lyes against Luther and Calvin insisted on by the Marquess of Worcester and their common Writers fully detected p. 189. Chap. 31. Detect 22. Their quarrels at our Translations of Scripture p. 200. Chap. 32. Detect 23. Their design to make the Ministers odious to the people Their riches and ours compared p. 201. Chap. 33. Detect 24. Their cavils against our Ministry Ordination and Succession confuted p. 205. Chap. 34. Detect 25. Their pretence of the Holiness of their Church
end the. p. 288. l. 24. for left r. lest p. 297. l. 17. for them r. the. p. 314. r. Paulus 5. p. 356. l. 31. r. hatchets p. 362. l. 28. r. at last p. 365. l. 8. for may r. many l. 33. r. Maldonate p. 397. l. 30. r. the other of l. 32. for parties r. straw p. 409. l. 32. r. in the. l. 36. blot out none p. 422. l. 13. r. presided p. 426. l. 17. blot out of p. 432. l. 33. for had r. had not p. 434. l. 4. for to r. as p. 435. l. 1. r. members p. 433. l. 29. blot out a. p. 452. l. 20. r. But when the. A Key for Catholicks To open the juglings of the Jesuits and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand whether the cause of the Romane or the Reformed Churches be of God and to leave the Reader utterly unexcusable if after this he will be a Papist CHAP. I. THE thoughts of the divided state of Christians have brought one of the greatest and constantest sadness to my Soul that ever it was acquainted with especially to remember that while we are quarrelling and plotting and writing and fighting against each other so many parts of the world about five of six remain in the Infidelity of Heathenism Judaism or Mahometanism where millions of poor souls do need our help and if all our strength were joyned together for their Illumination and Salvation it would be too little Oh horrible shame to the face of Christendom that the Nations are quietly serving the Devil and the Turk is in possession of so many Countries that once were the Inheritance of Christ and that his Iron yoak is still upon the necks of the persecuted Greeks and that he stands up at our doors in so formidable a posture still ready to devour the rest of the Christian world and yet that instead of combining to resist him and vindicate the cause and people of the Lord we are greedily sucking the blood of one another and tearing in pieces the body of Christ with furious hands and destroying our selves to save the enemy a labour and spending that wit that treasure that labour and that blood to dash our selves in pieces on one another which might be nobly and honestly and happily spent in the cause of God These thoughts provoked me to many an hours consideration How the wounds of the Church might be yet healed And have made it long a principal part of my daily Prayers that the Reconciling Light might shine from Heaven that might in some good measure take up our differences and that God would at last give healing Principles and dispositions unto men especially to Princes and the Pastors of the Church But the more I studied how it might be done the more difficult if not impossible it appear'd and all because of the Romane Tyranny the Vice-Christ or pretended Head of the Church being with them become an essential part of it and the Subjection to him essential to our Christianity it self So that saith Bellarmine de Eccles l. 3. c. 5. No man though he would can be a Subject of Christ that is not subject to the Pope and this with abundance of intolerable corruptions they have fixed by the fancy of their own Infallibility and built upon this foundation a worldly Kingdom and the temporal Riches and Dignity of a numerous Clergy twisting some Princes also into the Interest so that they cannot possibly yield to us in the very principal points of difference unless they will deny the very Essence of their New Christianity and Church and pluck up the foundations which they have so industriously laid and leave men to a suspicion that they are fallible hereafter if they shall confess themselves mistaken in any thing now and unless they will be so admirably self-denying as to let go the temporal advantages which so many thousands of them are interested in And whether so much light may be hoped for in so dark a generation or so much love to God and self-denyal in millions of men so void of self-denyal is easie to conjecture And we cannot in these greatest matters come over to them unless we will flatly betray our Souls and depart from the Unity of the Catholick Church and from the Center of that Unity to unite with another called the Romane Catholick Church in another Center And if we should thus cast away the Truth and Favour of God and sin against our Knowledge and Conscience and so prove men of no Faith or Religion under pretence of desiring a Unity in Faith and Religion yet all would not do the thing intended but we should certainly miss of these very ends which we seek when we had sold the Truth and our Souls to obtain them For there is nothing more certain then that the Christian World will never unite in the Romane Vice-Christ nor agree with them in their Corruptions against plain Scripture Tradition Consent of the ancient Church against the Reason and common sense of Mankind This is not by any wise man to be expected Never did the universal Church or one half of it center to this day in the Romane Soveraignty And why should they hope for that which never yet was done When they had their Primacy of Place to be the Bishop of the first Seat and first of the Patriarcks it made the Pope no more a Soveraign and a Vice-Christ then the King of France is Soveraign to the Duke of Saxony or Bavaria or then the Senior Justice on the Bench is the Soveraign of the rest and yet even this much he never had but from the Romane Empire What claim did he ever lay in his first Usurpations to any Church without those bounds It was the Empire that raised him and the Empire limited his own Usurpations Saith their own Reinerius or whoever else Cont. Waldens Catal. in Biblioth Patr. To. 4. pag 773. The Churches of the Armenians and Aethiopians and Indians and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome Yea in Gregories days they found the Churches of Brittain and Ireland both strangers and adversaries to their Soveraignty insomuch as they could not procure them to receive their Government nor change so much as the time of Easter for them no nor to have Communion with them at last Anno 614. Laurentius their Arch-Bishop here wrote this Letter with Mellitus and Justus to the Bishops and Abbots in all Scotland that is Ireland While the Sea Apostolick after its manner directed us to preach to the Pagan Nations in these Western parts as in the whole world and we happened to enter this Island called Brittain before we knew them believing that they walked after the manner of the universal Church we reverenced both the Brittains and the Scots in great Reverence of their Sanctity But when we knew the Brittains we thought the Scots were better But we have learnt by Daganus the Bishop in this forementioned Island and by
Columbanus the Abbot coming into France that the Scots do nothing differ from the Brittains in their Conversation For Bishop Daganus coming to us refused not only to eat with us but even to eat in the same House where we did eat Usher Epist Hibern 7. p. 18. Our most peaceable Bishop Hall was forct to write a Roma irreconciliabilis While we are thinking of Reconciliation they are about our ears with Plots and violence and with swarms of Rome-bred Sects and are day and night industriously undermining us so that by their continual Alarms I am called off to these defensive wars which here I have undertaken yet still resolving that the Desperateness of the Cure shall not make me run from them into a contrary extream nor be out of the way of Peace nor neglect any necessary means how hopeless soever of success The Work that here I have undertaken is 1. To give you briefly those Grounds on which you must go if you will keep your ground against a Papist 2. To give a few invincible Arguments which the weakest may be able to use to overthrow the principal grounds of the Papists 3. To detect their Frauds and give to the younger sort of Ministers sufficient Directions for the Confutation of all the Papists in the world 4. To propound though in vain such terms of Peace as we can yield to CHAP. II. BEfore I mention the Grounds or Cause that you must maintain I must premise this Advice to the Common People 1. Wrong not the Truth and your selves by an unequal conflict Enter not rashly upon Disputes with those that are Learned and of nimble tongues if you be ignorant or of weak capacities your selves Though I shall here shew you that Scripture Church Tradition Reason and Sense are on your side yet experience tels us how the words of Juglers have made millions of men deny belief to their eyes their taste and other senses An ignorant man is soon silenced by a subtile wit and many think that when they cannot answer they must yield though they deny both Sense and Reason by it If any of them secretly entice you desire them to debate the case with some able learned experienced Minister in your hearing It is the office of your Pastors to defend you from the wolves If you once despise them or straggle from them and the Flocks and trust to your own Reason that is unfurnished and unprepared for such work you may take that you get by it if you be undone You need the help of Pastors for your souls as well as of Physicians for your Bodies and Lawyers for your Estates or else God would never have set them over you in his Church Let them but come on equal terms and you shall see what Truth can do In this way we will not avoid a Conference with any of them But alas with ignorant unlearned people what may not such Deceivers do that can perswade so many thousand souls to give no Credit to their own eyes or taste or feeling but to believe a Priest that Bread is not Bread and Wine is not Wine 2. Yet I would have the weakest to endeavour to understand the reasons of their Profession and to be able to repell Deceivers And to that end I shall here give you first some Directions concerning the cause which you must defend And concerning this Observe these things following 1. Understand what the Religion is that you must hold and maintain It is the antient Christian Religion Do not put every Truth among the Essentials of your Religion Our Religion doth not stand or fall with every Controversie that is raised about it That which was the true Religion in the Apostles days is ours now that which all were baptized into the Profession of and the Churches openly held forth as their Belief Reformation brings us not a new Religion but cleanseth the old from the dross of Popery which by innovation they had brought in A man that cannot confute a Papist may yet be a Christian and so hold fast the true Religion It followeth not that our Religion is questionable or unsafe if some point in Controversie between them and us be questionable or hard The Papists would fain bring you to believe that our Religion must lie upon some of these Controversies but it s no such matter Perhaps you will say That then it is not about Religion that we differ from them I answer yes it is about the Essentials of their Religion but it is but for the preserving the Integrity of ours against the Consequences and additions of theirs They have made them a New Religion which we call Popery and joined this to the Old Religion which we call Christianity Now we stick to the old Religion alone and therefore there is more essential to their Religion then is to ours so that our own Religion even the ancient Christianity is out of Controversie between us The Papists do confess that the Creed the Lords Prayer the ten Commandments are true yea that all the Scripture is the word of God and certainly true so that our Religion is granted us as past dispute And therefore it is only the Papists Religion that is in question between us and not ours If you will make those lower Truths to be of the Essence of your Religion which are not you will give the Papists the advantage which they desire 2. If the Papists call for a Rule or Test of your Religion and ask you where they may find it assign them to the Holy Scriptures and not to any Confessions of Churches further then as they agree with that We know of no Divine Rules and Laws of Faith and Life but the holy Scripture and the hearts of Believers have an imperfect Transcript of them The Confessions of Churches are but part of the Holy Scripture or Collections out of them containing the points of greatest weight And if in phrase or order much more in matter there be any thing humane we make it not our Rule nor are we bound to make it good no more then the Writings of godly men A point is not therefore with us an Article of Faith because our Churches or a Synod put it into a Confession but because it is in the Word of God For a Councils determinations do with us differ but gradually from the Judgement of a single man in this respect And therefore we give them the Scripture only as the full Doctrine of our Faith and the perfect Law of God And those points in it which Life or Death is laid upon and God hath told us we cannot be saved without we take as the Essentials of our Religion and the rest as the Integrals only If they ask Why then we do draw up Confessions of Faith I answer 1. To teach and help the people by gathering to their hands the most necessary points and giving them sometimes an explication of them 2. To let our Accusers see that we misunderstand not the
of God If there be but one Protestant that you know or any one of all that have been that you take to be in a saving state you cannot possibly turn Papist if you know what you do For it is essential to Popery to contradict all this Nay this is not all but think of all the Greek Church that lyeth under the tyranny of the Turk and of all the Armenians and Abasines and other Christians in the world that are more in number far then the Papists and you must conclude that not one of all these are saved before you can be a Papist And is this an easie task to one that hath the heart of a man in his brest If you are no true Christians your selves dare you conclude that not one of these are true Christians If you confess that you love not God your selves dare you say that among the far greater part of the Christians of the world there is not one man or woman that loves God This you must say if you will be a Papist And then on the other hand Look on the words of Jesus Christ and see what thanks he will give you for such a censure Mat. 7. 1 2 3 4 5. Judge not that ye be not judged for with what judgement ye judge ye shall be judged and with what measure you meet it shall be measured to you again And why beholdest thou the mote in thy brothers eye but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye Thou hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then shalt thou see cleerly to cast out the mote out of thy brothers eye Jam. 4. 12. There is one Law-giver that is able to save and to destroy who art thou that Judgest another Rom. 14. 1 2 3 4 10. Him that is weak in the faith receive ye but not to doubtful disputations For one believeth that he may eat all things another who is weak eateth herbs Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth for God hath received him Who art thou that judgest another mans servant to his own master he standeth or falleth yea he shall be holden up for God is able to make him stand One man esteemeth one day above another another esteemeth every day alike Let every man be fully perswaded in his own mind But why dost thou judge thy brother or why dost thou set at nought thy brother we shall all stand before the Judgement seat of Christ For it is written as I live saith the Lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God so then every one of us shall give account of himself to God Let us not therefore judge one another any more Matth. 18. 6. But whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck and that be were drowned in the depth of the Sea Mat. 25. 40 45 34 41. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom For I was hungry and ye gave me meat Verily I say unto you in as much at you have done it unto one of the least of these my Brethren ye have done it unto me And ver 41. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire Verily I say unto you in as much as you did it not to one of the least of these you did it not to me I will recite no more Judge now by such passage as these how Christ sets by one of the least of his servants and consequently how he will take it of you to judge the far greatest part of his Church to be graceless and none of his Church but such as shall be damned And if you dare not venture on so unreasonable and inhumane a censure against the experience of so much holiness as appeareth in them before your eyes then you cannot be Papists And if you dare venture on it I leave you to consider whether under pretence of being the only Christians you have not done violence to the common reason and nature of man So much for the second proof of the Minor 3. But I have yet another proof that many that are no Papists are good Christians and consequently that Popery is a deceit and that is the Testimony of many of their own Writers I will not call for their testimony concerning our selves for we know our selves better then they do but concerning other Churches whom they condemn as Hereticks or that are no subjects of the Pope of Rome And I will at this time content my self with one of many that might be cited and that is a Monk Burchardus that lived in the Holy Land and having wrote a Description of it and those that inhabit it saith of them as followeth p. 325 326. And for those that we judge to be damned Hereticks as the Nestorians Jacobites Maronites Georgians and the like I found them to be for the most part good and simple men and living sincerely toward God and men they are of great abstinence c. And of the Romane Catholicks he saith page 323. There are in the Land of Promise men of every Nation under Heaven and every Nation lives after their own Rites and to speak the very truth to our own great confusion there are none found in it that are worse and more corrupt in manners then Christians he means Papists And page 324. he tels us that the Syrians Greeks Armenians Georgians Nestorians Nubians Jubeans Chaldaeans Maronites Ethiopians Egyptians and many other Nations of Christians there inhabit and that some are schismaticks not subject to the Pope and others called Hereticks as the Nestorians Jacobites c. but saith he there are many in these sects that are very simple or sincere knowing nothing of heresies devoted to Christ macerating the flesh with fastings and cloathed with the most simple garments so that they far excel the very Religious of the Church of Rome so you hear an Adversaries testimony Well then when a Papist can prove to me that I love not God contrary to my own experience of my self and when he can make me believe that no one of all the holy Heavenly Christians of my acquaintance Ministers or people are in a state of charity or Justification and that no one Christian on earth shall be saved but a Papist then I will turn Papist And till then they do not desire me to turn But I must solemnly profess that this belief is so difficult to me and abhorred by my reason and my whole heart and so contrary to my own knowledge and to abundant evidence and to all Christian charity that I think I shall as soon be perswaded to believe that I am not a man and that I have not the use of sence or reason or that Snow is black and the Crow white as to believe this Essential point of Popery I should a hundred times easier be brought
being false Popes who are not to be written in the Catalogue of the Roman Popes but only for the marking out of such times And what kind of Cardinals Priests and Deacons think you we must imagine that these monsters did choose when nothing is so rooted in nature as for every one to beget his like And Genebrard that spleenish Papist li. 4. Sec. 10. saith In this one thing that age was unhappy that for neer one hundred and fifty years about fifty Popes did wholly fall away from the virtue of their ancestors being rather irregular and Apostatical then Apostolical So that the Church of Rome had not then either a Holy or Apostolical Head And Pope Adrian the sixth himself writeth De Sacram. Confir Art 4. that there have many Popes of Rome been Hereticks And two or three several General Councils did condemn Pope Honorius for an Heretick And if I should tell you but what their own writers say of the wickedness of the Roman Clergy in many ages and of the wickedness of the Roman people of the large summs of money that the Pope hath yearly for the licensed or tolerated Whore-houses in Rome you would think that the body of the particular Roman Church were neer kin to the Head and therefore not the Holy Mistris of all Churches But perhaps some will say that the Pope was holy because his Office was Holy though his person vicious Ans 1. If this be the Holiness of the Catholick Church mentioned in the Creed then the Institution of offices is it that makes it Holy and while the office continueth the Holiness cannot be lost 2. Then let them prove their Holiness by Saints no more 3. Let them not then delude the people but speak out and tell them that they mean such Holiness as is consistent with Heathenism or Infidelity Murders Sodomie and may be in an incarnate Devil Is this the Holiness of the Catholick Church Object But you may have unholy persons among you also that yet say you are of the true Church Answ But they are no Essential part of the Catholick Church which we believe and therefore it may be a Holy Church though they be unholy But the Pope is an Essential part of the Roman Church which they believe in and therefore it can not be Holy if he be unholy Object By this means you leave no room for the Church of Rome or any Papist in the Catholick Church which is truly Holy Answ Not as Papists so they can be no members of it But if with any of them Christianity be predominant and prevail against the infection of Popery so that it practically extinguish not Christianity then as Christians they may be members of the Church and be saved too but not as Papists CHAP. VII Argum. 5. THE true Catholick Church of Christ is but One The pretended Roman Catholick Church is more than One Therefore the pretended Roman-Catholick Church is not the true Catholick Church of Christ The Major is confessed The Minor I prove thus 1. Where there are two Heads or Soveraign Powers specifically distinct there are two Societies or Churches But those called Papists or the Roman Catholick Church have two Heads or Soveraign Powers specifically distinct Therefore they are two Churches The Major is granted by all Politicians who do without contradiction specifie Common-wealths and other Political Societies from the Soveraign Powers and so the Monarchical Aristocratical and Democratical are several Species The Belgian Common-wealth and the French be not specifically the same The Minor hath two standing proofs so visible that he must be blind indeed that cannot see them First there are the many Volumes that are written by both sides for their several forms Bellarmine Gretsor and the rest of the Italian faction proving that the Pope is the chief Power and above a General Council and the seat of Infallibility and not to be judged by any being himself the Judge of the whole world And the other party proving that a General Council is above the Pope and that he is to be judged by them and may be deposed by them If any say that they are but few and no true Catholicks of this Opinion I answer then a General Council are but few and no true Catholicks which yet is said by them to represent the whole Catholick Church For the General Council of Constance and of Basil have peremptorily asserted it and repeat it over and over yea the Council of Basil say Ses ultim that Not one of the skilfull did ever doubt but that the Pope was subject to the Judgement of a General Council in things that concern faith And that he cannot without their consent dissolve or remove a General Council yea and that this is an Article of faith which without destruction of salvation cannot be denyed and that the Council is above the Pope defide and that it cannot be removed without their own consent and that he is an heretick that is against these things See Binnius page 43. 79. 96. And Pope Eugenius owned this Council ibid. page 42. And for the Council of Constance Martin the fifth was chosen by it and present in it and personally confirmed it in these words Quodomnia singula determinata conclusa decreta in materiis fidei per praesens concilium conciliariter tenere inviolabiliter observare volebat nunquam contraire quoquo modo Ipsaque sic conciliariter facta approbat ratificat non aliter nec alio modo that is what they did as a Council and not what private members did you see then even General Councils representing the Catholick Church do not only say that a Council is above the Pope but make it an Article of faith and damn those that deny it What then is become of Bellarmine and the rest of their champions But perhaps you 'l say they are but few on the other side I answer yes Not only most Popes and the Italian Clergy and the predominant party of Papists but another General Council even that at the Lateran under Julius 2. and Leo 10. expresly determine on the contrary that the Pope is above a General Council So that here is not only an undenyable proof that General Councils are fallible by their contradicting each other and that there is a Necessity of rejecting some of them and consequently that the Foundation of Popery is rotten but also here is one Representative Catholick Church against another Representative Catholick Church and one Council for one Species of Soveraignty and another for another Species of Soveraignty So that undoubtedly it is not the same Church that had two heads of several sorts 2. And the Nations that are on both sides to this day are a proof beyond denyall of their division The French on one side and the Italians on the other and other nations divided between both So that the thing which they call by one name is two indeed But so is not the true Catholick Church Object
to know the right Pope nor know him not to this day If England were fourty years thus divided between two Kings it were certainly two Kingdoms But the true Catholike Church of Christ is but one CHAP. VIII Argum. 6. THE true Catholike Church hath never ceased or discontinued since the founding of it to this day The Church of Rome hath ceased or discontinued therefore the Church of Rome is not the true Catholike Church I prove the Minor for the Major they will grant If the Head which is an Essential part hath discontinued then the Church of Rome hath discontinued But the Head hath discontinued therefore c. The Minor only needs proof and that I prove 1. There have been many years interregnum or vacancy when there was no Pope at all And where then was the Church when it had no Head 2. There have been long successions of such as you confess your selves were not Apostolical but Apostatical 3. Your own Popes and Councils command us to take such for no Popes For example Pope Nicolas in his Decretals see Caranza pag. 393. saith He that by money or the favour of men or popular or military tumults is intruded into the Apostolical seat without the Concordant and Canonical election of the Cardinall and the following religious Clergy let him not be taken for a Pope nor Apostolical but for Apostatical And even of Priests he commandeth Let no man hear Mass of a Priest whom he certaiâ—ly knoweth to have a Concubine or woman introduced Caranza pag. 395. and ibid. he saith Priests that commit fornication cannot have the honour of Priesthood 4. But our greater Argument is from the authority of God and the very nature of the office An infidel or notoriously ungodly man is not capable of being a Pastor of the Church in sensu composito while he is such But the Popes of Rome have been Infidels and notoriously ungodly men therefore they were uncapable of being Pastors of the Church and consequently that Church was Headless and so no Church The Major I prove 1. Where there is not the necessary matter and disposition of the matter there can be no reception of the form But Infidels and notoriously ungodly men are not matter sufficiently disposed to receive the form of Pastoral Power therefore they cannot receive it The Minor is proved 1. As every true Church is a Christian Church it being only a Congregation of Christians that we so call in our present case so every Pastor is a Christian Pastor but an Infidel or notoriously ungodly man is not a Christian Pastor therefore not a true Pastor 2. Otherwise a Mahometan Jew or Heathen may be a true Pope which I think they will deny themselves 3. If any Disposition or Qualification at all be necessary to the being of the Pastoral Office besides manhood then is it necessary that he own God the Father and the Redeemer that is be not notoriously an Infidel or ungodly But some qualification is necessary therefore c. None can be named more necessary then this And that Popes have been such as I here mention is proved before Not to mention Marcellinus that sacrificed to an Idol or Liberius that subscribed to the Arrian profession for I believe there is an hundred times more hope of their Salvation by Repentance then of an hundred of their Successors John the twenty second held that the soul dies with the body of which the Parisians and others condemned him John the twenty third as I shewed before denyed the life to come and so was an Infidel The Witchcraft Poysonings Simony Sodomy Adulteries Incest c. of others are sufficiently recorded by their own Historians CHAP. IX Argum. 7. TO the foregoing Arguments I add the recital of one formerly mentioned for the use of all that have the use of their wits and senses If a man may be sure that he knows bread to be bread and wine to be wine when he seeth feeleth and tasteth them then he may be sure that Popery is a deceit This Consequence they cannot question But a man may be sure that he knoweth bread to be bread and wine to be wine when he seeth feeleth and tasteth them therefore c. Note that I speak of such a knowledge as belongs to men of sound wits and senses and a convenient object and medium It is the senses of the whole world that I appeal to and not of one or two it is bread and wine that are near us in the hand or mouth that I speak of and not at a miles distance in the day-light and not in the dark So that take the bread and wine into your hand and judge of it and let this decide our Controversie If you can tell whether that be bread or no bread you may tell whether the Papists or we are in the right Those therefore that be not learned and subtile enough to judge by Disputations and writings of Learned men may yet judge by their sight and feeling Either you know bread and wine when you see it taste it feel it or you do not If you do then the Controversie is at an end for the senses of all sound men in the world will be against the Papists that say the bread after Consecration is no bread and the wine is no wine But if you cannot know bread when you see feel and eat it then see what follows 1. Then we are sure that the Pope and all his Council are not at all to be trusted for if sence be not to be trusted then the Pope and his Council know not when they read the Scripture and Canons and Fathers and hear Traditions but that they are deceived 2. Then we are uncertain of any Judgement that Pope or Council can give for when they spoke or wrote it we are uncertain whether our eyes and ears or reason judging by them are not deceived in the hearing or reading of their words 3. How ridiculously then do they call for a Judge of Controversies and what a foolish quarrel is it that they make who shall be the Interpreter of Scriptures or Judge of Controversies For what can a Judge do but speak or write his mind and when he hath done you know not what it is that you hear or read because your senses may deceive you It s a far harder matter to understand a sentence or book of the Pope or Council when you read or hear it then to know bread when you see and feel and eat it Many thousands know bread that know not the Popes sentence nor a word of a book 4. And by this rule it is uncertain whether Scripture be true or Christianity the true Religion For we cannot know it but by our sences and if they are so uncertain all our Religion must needs be uncertain 5. Yea we cannot tell what Revelation to desire that should end our Controversies and make us certain For if God should send an Angel or other Messenger from heaven to decide
we have but one Head Jesus Christ That they are two Churches besides what is said hear the words of Cajetane in the foresaid Oration in Bin. p. 552. This Novelty of Pisa sprung up at Constance and vanished At Basil it sprung up again and is exploded and if you be men it will nâ—w also be repressed as it was under Eugenius the fourth For it cometh not from heaven and therefore will not be lasting Nor doth it embrace the Principality of that One who is in the Church triumphant and preserveth the Church militant and which the Synod of Pisa ought to embrace if it came from heaven and not as it doth to rely on the Government of a multitude The Church of the Pisans therefore doth far differ from this Church of Christ For one is the Church of believers the other of Cavillers One of the houshold of God the other of the Errone us One is the Church of Christian men the other of such as fear not to tear the coat of Christ and divide the mystical members of Christ from his mystical body This was spoken in Council with applause And can there yet be greater divisions then these 4. They have been utterly divided about the very power of choosing their Pope in whom they must unite In one age the People chose him In another the Clergy chose him sometime both together For a long time the Emperours chose him At last only the Cardinals chose him And sometime a General Council hath chosen him Our Catholick Church hath no such uncertain Head but one that 's the same yesterday to day and for ever 5. They have often had two or three Popes at once and one part of the Church hath followed one and another the other yea as is said for forty years together none knew the true Pope saith Cajetane ubi sup Of the Schism of that time there were three so accounted Popes that none of them might be esteemed the Successor of Peter either certain or without ambiguity For many ages one part hath been running after one and the other after the other or striving about them But we are all agreed in our Head without Controversie 6. They have killed multitudes of persons in their divisions about the choice of their Pope as in Damasus choice And they have had many bloody wars to the dividing of the Church about their Popes and between Pope and Pope This was their Unity It would make a Christian ashamed and grieved to read of the lamentable wars and divisions of Christendom either between or about their Popes 7. Their Popes and Christian Emperor Kings and Princes have been in yet longer and more grievous wars 8. They have set Princes against Princes and Nations against Nations in wars about the Causes of the Popes for many ages together and it is too seldom otherwise 9. They have set Kings and their own subjects together in wars as England and almost all Christendom hath known by sad experience 10. They have Excommunicated Princes and encouraged their subjects to expell them and to murder them hence were the inhumane murders of Henry the third and Henry the fourth Kings of France and the Powder Plot and may Treasons in England This is their Unity 11. They center and unite the Church in an impotent insufficient Head that is not able to do the Office of a Head to the hundredth part of the Church and therefore cannot possibly preserve unity But our Head is all-sufficient 12. They set up not only a Controverted head which all the Churches never agreed to nor ever will do but also a false usurping Head which the Churches dare not and ought not to unite in Whereas Jesus Christ is beyond controversie the just and lawfull Head of the Church 13. Your Agreement and Unity is with none but your own sect and is this so great a matter to boast off you divide your selves from most of the Catholick Church and cast them off as Hereticks or Schismaticks and then boast of a Unity among your selves And so may the Quakers the Anabaptists the Socinians as well as you Or if you magnifie your Unity from the greatness of your number that agree the Greek Church also is numerous and yet in this we far exceed you For the true Catholick is in Union with all the Members of Christ on earth We lay our Unity on the Essentials of Christianity and so are united with all true Christians in the world even with many of them that reproach us when you laying your Unity on I know not how many doubtfull points yea on you know not what your selves can extend it no further then to your sect Which is the more notable and glorious Unity to be United to the truly Catholick body containing all true Christians in the world or to be at Unity with a sect which is the lesser and more corrupted part of the Church 14. With what face can Papists glory in their Unity that are the greatest Dividers of the Church on earth Who is it that condemneth the greatest part of the Church and prosecuteth that condemnation with fire and sword or so much vehemence as the Papists do when they have most audaciously divided themselves from all others and arrogated the title of Catholicks to themselves they call this abominable Schism by the name of Unity If you say that the Reformers have divided themselves from all others too I answer not as from Hereticks or no members of the same body with us as you do but only as from unsound mistaken Brethren And therefore properly we are not divided from them but only from their mistakes We think it not lawfull to join with the dearest Brethren in sinning or in that worship by personal local communion where we cannot keep our innocency But yet we hold the unity of the Spirit with them in the bond of Peace and are one with them in all the substance of Christianity and holy worship Even where distance of place or circumstantiall differences keep us from Communion in the same Assemblies yet our several Assemblies have communion in faith and Love and the substance of worship as to the kind so that our division from other Christians is nothing to the Papists 15. But yet when any differ from us in any point Essential to our Religion that is to Christianity they are none of us nor owned by us and therefore you cannot say that we are at difference among our selves because some Apostates have faln off from us You will not allow us to say you have many sects because some of you have turned Socinians or because thousands of yours have turned to the Reformers in the dayes of Luther Calvin c. And why then should those sects be numbred with us that are not of us but went out from us If men turn Infidels Seekers Quakers Socinians c. they are not of us no more then of you If you say that we bred them I answer no more than you breed
them when they turn to the same sects from you Nor no more then you bred the Lutherans far better men They went out from you and yet you bred them not But on the other side you cherish those as part of your Church which differ from you in your fundamentals so that the Pope dare not unchurch or disown them as the French c. but so do not we 16. Our Unity is in Positives and theirs is in Negatives Ours is a Unity in faith and theirs is in not believing the contrary And so dead men may have a fuller Unity in the grave then the Papists have 17. Our Union is Divine having a Divine Head and Center and Divine Doctrine and Law in which we agree But the Papists is humane having a carnal Head and Center and Humane Decrees and Canons for its matter and Rule 18. They have not so sure a means of retaining men in their unity as we have Let experience be Judge of this For where one hath forsaken our Unity and Communion I suppose hundreds if not thousands have forsaken theirs as France Belgia Germany Sweden Denmark Poland Hungary Transilvania England Scotland Ireland c. can witness and if themselves might be believed the Greek Church and all or almost all the Christians else in the world have gone from their unity And yet will they glory in the effectualness of their means of unity Why then did they not retain all these Nations in their unity 19. Moreover indeed they have very little Religious unity at all among them for its force and terror that keeps men in their Church And who can tell under such violence how many stick to them in Conscience and willingly He that will forsake their Religion in Spain must be tormented and burnt at a stake and in other Countreys where they have full power he must be at least undone So that 1. Theirs is a unity of bodies more then of minds 2. And their union is not procured by the Pope as Pope but by the temporal sword which the Pope hath usurped over some countreys and which deluded Princes use by his perswasion in other Countreys What a jugling deceit then is this to perswade poor souls that the only way to unity is to Center in the Pope of Rome and that this is the most effectual means of ending differences when in the mean they make so little use of it and place so little confidence in it themselves but uphold their unity by the Magistrates sword And if this be the way we have Magistrates among us as well as they that can as effectually compell men to unity as far as their Judgements tell them it is fit And besides this force it is the riches and preferment of their Clergy with their immunity from secular power the like that is the means of their unity But it is the light of holy Scripture opened by a faithfull Ministry and countenanced by Christian Magistracy without tyranny that is our means of unity If the Papal Headship be so effectuall a means of unity as they pretend and if they are so much of a mind as they say let them give us leave but to preach one 12. moneths in Spain and Italy if they dare or let them give men leave without fire and sword to choose their Religion 20. And yet besides all this and after all this tyranny they have more difference among themselves then we have or then all the Christians that I hear of in the world And to hide the Infamy of their differences they tolerate them and extenuate them For differences in Discipline and order of Worship they allow abundance of sects called Orders that men and women may choose which they please And the voluminous differences of their Schoolmen Casuists and Commentators they say are not in matters of faith But call them what you will they are many of them greater differences then are with us I pray read over the Jansenians Mysterie of Jesuitism and take notice of the differences between the Jesuites and them in Case Divinity and judge whether they be small And let it not offend your ears if I recite some of their Differences in that Papists own words as he cites the Jesuites and tells you where to find what he saith Pag. 89. Filintius the Jesuite holds that if a man have purposely wearied himself with satisfying a whore that he might be dispensed with from fasting on a fasting day he is not obliged to fast But the Jansenians think otherwise Basilius Pontius Bunny the Jesuites teach that a man may seek an opportunity of sinning primò per se when the spiritual or temporal concernment of our selves or our neighbours inclineth him thereto But the Jansenists think the contrary Pag. 91. Eman. Sa the Jesuite holds that a man do what he conceives lawfull according to a probable opinion though the contrary be the more certain and for this the Opinion of one grave Doctor is sufficient And Filintius the Jesuite held that it is lawfull to follow the less probable opinion though it be the less certain and that this is the common opinion of modern authors Pag. 95. And yet the Jansenists are against it Layman the Jesuite holds that If it be more favourable to them that ask advice of him and more desired it is Prudence to give them such advice as is held probable by some knowing person though he himself be convinced that it is absolutely false But the Jansenists are against this Pag. 96. Bunney the Jesuite holds that when the patient follows a probable opinion the confessor is bound to absolve him though his judgement be contrary to that of the penitent and that he sins mortally if he deny him absolution Myster of Jesuit pag. 97. But the Jansenists deny this Father Reginaldus and Cellot hold that the modern Casuists in questions of Morality are to be preferred before the antient Fathers though they were nearer the Aposiles times Pag. 98. But the Jansenists think otherwise Pope Gregory the fourteenth declareth Murderers unworthy to have Sanctuary in Churches But the Jesuits and Jansenists agree not who are the Murtherers The 29 Jesuites in their Praxis page 600. by murderers understand those who have taken money to kill one treacherously and that those who kill without receiving any reward but do it only to oblige their friends are not called murtherers But the Jansenists think otherwise No marvail if you cannot understand the Scripture without a judge when you can no better understand your judge no not what he means by a murtherer Vasquez the Jesuite saith that in this Question rich men are obliged to give alms out of their superfluity though the affirmative be true yet it will seldom or never happen that it is obligatory in point of practice Pag. 105. But the Jansenists think otherwise Valentia the Jesuite Tom. 3. p. 2042. holds that If a man give money not as the price of a Benefice but as a Motive to resign
faith if Scripture be not And if all be not how shall we know which is But at least tell us Is no one of all those many hundred or thousand Texts which your Commentators differ about any matter of Faith If not then sure you have no Faith If it be then surely the Papists differ among themselves in matters of Faith It is not a few Texts that Lyra's excepter and Burgensis differ about to name no more And of the foresaid Editions of the Bible by Pope Sixtus and Clement see Dr. Jame's Bellum Papale vel Concordia discors CHAP. XVI Detect 7. BY what hath been said you may discern how to deal with them when they would industriously confound the Essentials and the Integral parts of our Faith for this is another of their juglings They cannot endure to hear us distinguish the fundamentals that is the Essentials of our Religion from the rest and therefore they call out to us for a Catalogue of our fundamentals and would perswade us that whatsoever is matter of faith is of Necessity to salvation to be believed and those are damnable Hereticks that deny them and therefore we must not make any such difference See Knot against Chillingworth Their design in this is to perswade people that the world must be wholly of their mind in matters of faith or else they cannot be saved And by this trick they would prove that the Protestants and many other Churches are all Hereticks and therefore have no place in General Councils and are no parts of the Catholick Church But let us consider how judiciously they proceed 1. We must desire the Papists to tell us whether Christianity be any thing or nothing If any thing it hath its Essence and 2. Whether this Essence of Christianity be Knowable or not If not then they cannot know a Christian from another and they cannot know the Church from other Societies If it be knowable then its Essence must needs be knowable 3. And we would be informed by them whether all true Christians in the world are of the same stature or degree of knowledge and explicite belief If they be then there 's no difference between Fathers and Babes Strong and Weak Priest and People and then the Jesuites have no more Knowledge or Faith then the simplest woman of their Church but if there be a difference then 4. We would know whether the Essence of Christianity be varyed according to these degrees If so then there are as many sorts of Christianity in the world as there be degrees of Faith which they have more wit I suppose then to affirm If not then the Essence of Christianity is distinguishable from the Integrity or superadded Degrees which is the thing that we contend for 5. We desire also to know whether the Apostles did not go on to teach their people more after they had made them Christians in a state of salvation And whether the Priests Fryers and Jesuits will give men up and teach them nothing more when they have made them Christians I know they will say There 's more to be taught And if so then the Essentials of Christianity are distinguishable from the Integrals or Degrees 6. And we would know else how they will understand that in Heb. 5. 10 11 12 14. and 6. 1 2. For when for the time ye ought to be Teachers ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the Oracles of God and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness for he is a babe But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil therefore leaving the Principles of the doctrine of Christ let us go on to perfection not laying again the foundation c. Tell us now whether the Apostle do not here distinguish between babes and strong men milk and strong meat the principles or foundation and perfection 7. And we would know of them whether all that is Revealed by God be of absolute Necessity to every mans salvation that do or may hear it If so then no man can be saved that knoweth not all that God hath revealed and then no one in the world can be saved for here we know but in part And their own Commentators differ about the word of God which sheweth that they are imperfect in the Knowledge of its sense And their Pope knows it not or else he is shamefully to blame that will not tell it the world and reconcile his Commentators and Disputers But if all revealed be not of Absolute Necessity then we may have leave to distinguish between points absolutely Necessary and the rest 8. And we would know whether all shall be damned that know not as much as the most Learned and Wise if not then still we may have leave to distinguish 9. Further we demand whether any ignorance or error that is culpable will stand with Charity and Salvation If not then who shall be saved If yea then we may still distinguish the points of Absolute Necessity from the rest 10. We demand also whether the whole holy Scripture be the word of God If so then whether we ought not to believe it all as far as we can understand it And if so whether it be not all de fide matter of Faith If not they must tell us what part of Gods word is to be believed and what not If yea then certainly men may err de fide in points of Faith and yet have Charity and be saved as their disagreeing Commentators Casuists and Schoolmen do 11. We would know whether the matters that their Divines are disagreed in be Revealed by God or things unrevealed If not revealed do they not deserve to be kickt out of the world for troubling the world so with unrevealed things If they be Revealed are they not Revealed to be believed and so are de fide 12. And we would know whether there be not some things Essential to true Obedience and some things not Essential If not then no sinner hath sincere Obedience and can be saved If yea then why may not the same be said of faith 13. Also we would know when they baptize the Adult whether they require any profession of the faith from them or not If not they may as well baptize Infidels or Heathens If they do then what is that profession Is it a profession of every particular truth that God hath revealed to be believed No sure for then none but Doctors must be baptized Nor they neither Or is it a profession of some particular Truths only If of some only why of those more then the rest if they be not the Essentials distinguishable from the rest And do they make men true Christians by baptizing them or not If they do then sure the Baptismal faith must contain all that is Essential to
following ages we will be tryed by them in the articles of our faith and in the principal controversies we have with the Papists Yea but this will not serve their turn It is the present Church that must judge or none For say they if the ancient Church had power so hath the present and if the ancient Church had possession of the truth how shall we know it but by the present I answer 1. We may know it by the Records of those times far surer then by the reports of men without writing Controversies or numerous mysterious points are sorrily carryed in the memories especially of the most even of the Teachers And for the Records one diligent skilfull man will know more then ten thousand others One Baronius Albaspinaeus Petavius among the Papists and one Usher Blondell Salmasius Gataker c. among the Protestants knew more of the mind of antiquity then a whole Country besides or perhaps then some Generall Councils 2. Well! but if you appeal to the greater number to them shall you go You must be tried by the present Church Why then you are condemned Is it the lesser number or the greater or the better that must be judge You will not say the leser as such If you do you know where you are If you say the Better part shall be judge who shall be Judge which is the Better part we are ready to prove the Reformed Churches the Better part and if we do not we will give you the day and lose our cause But I suppose you will appeal to the Greater part Content Then the world knows you are lost The Greeks Moscovites Armenians Abassines and all other Churches in Asia Africa and Europe are far more then the Papists and your own pens and mouths tell us that these are against you Many of them curse you as Hereticks or Schismaticks the rest of them know you not or refuse your government They all agree against your Popes universall Headship or Soveraignty and so against the very form of your new Catholick Church So that the world knows the Judgement of the far greatest part of Christians on earth to be against you in the main so that you see what you get by appealing to the Catholick Church But I know you will say that all these are Schismaticks or Hereticks and none of the Catholick Church But they say as much by you some of them and all of them abhor your charge and how do you prove it and who shall be Judge whether they or you be the Catholick Church You tell us of your succession and of twenty tales that are good if you may be Judges your selves but so do they say as much which is good if they be Judges When we offer to dispute our case with you you ask us Who shall be Judge and tell us the Catholick Church must be Judge But who shall be Judge between you and them which is the Catholick Church you will not let us be Judges in our own cause and why then should you Are we Protestants the lesser number as to you so are you to all the rest that are against you And what reason have we to let the lesser number Judge over the Greater If still you say because you are the Better let that be first tryed but no reason you should there also be the Judges So that the case is plainly come to this Either the Papists must stand to the Greater number and then the controversie is at end or they must shamefully say we will not dispute with you unless we may be the Judges our selves though the fewer Or else they must lay by their talk of a Judge and dispute it equally with us by producing their evidence which we are ever ready for CHAP. XVIII Detect 9. THE most common and prevalent Deceit of the Papists is by ambiguous terms to deceive those that cannot force them to distinguish and to make you believe they mean one thing when they mean another and to mock you with cloudy words I shall here warn you to look to them therefore especially in three terms on which much of their controversies lies that is the words Church Pope and Council For there 's but few understand what they mean by any one of these words 1. When you come to dispute of the Church with them see that you agree first under your hands of the Definition of that Church of which you dispute And when you call them to Define it you will find them in a wood you will little think how many severall things it is that they call the Church For example sometime they mean the whole Body Pastors and People but more commonly they mean only the Pastors which are the far smallest part And sometime they mean the Church Reall and sometimes only the Church Representative as they call it in a Generall Councill But whether they mean the Pastors or People they exclude all saving the Pope of his subjects and so by the Church mean but a part or sect Sometime in the Question about Tradition some of the French take the Church for the community as fathers deliver the doctrine of Christ to their children c. And sometime they take it in its Politicall sence for a holy society consisting of a visible Head and members But then they agree not of that Head some setting the Pope highest and some the Councill But frequently they take the word Church for the supposed Head alone as in most questions about Infallibility Judging of Controversies expounding Scripture keeping of Traditions defining points of faith c. They say The Church must do these but commonly they mean the supposed Head And one part mean a Generall Councill and the Jesuites and Italians and predominant part do mean only the Pope so that when they talk of the whole Catholick Church and call you to its Judgement and boast of its Infallibility you would little think it they mean all this while but one poor sinfull man and such a man as sometime hath been more unlearned then many of your school boys of twelve or fourteen years of age and sometime hath been a Murderer Adulterer and if General Councils or the common vote may be believed an Heretick an Infidel an Incarnate Devil This man is their Church as Gretser Bellarmine and the rest of that strain profess So that if you do but force them to define and explain what they mean by the Church you will either cause them to open their nakedness or find them all to pieces about the very subject of the Dispute 2. So also when they use the name of a Pope in disputation make them explain themselves and tell you in a Definition what they mean by a Pope For though you would think this term were sufficiently understood yet you shall find them utterly at a loss and all to pieces about it Let us consider distinctly of the Efficient Matter and Form 1 As to the efficient cause of their Pope
many others so like to the Arguments and Language of the Seekers and Infidels that we can scarcely know whom we hear when they speak to us For the discovery of their desperate fraud in this point and the right confuting of them 1. You must distinguish them out of their confusion 2. You must grant them all that is true and just which we shall as stiffly defend as they 3. You must reject their errors and confute them And 4. You may turn their own principall weapon against them to the certain destruction of their cause Of all these briefly in course 1. For the first two I have spoke at large in the Preface to the second part of the Saints Rest and in the determination in the first part of my Book against Infidelity But briefly to touch some of the most necessary things here 1. We must distinguish the Tradition of the Scriptures or the Scripture doctrine from the Tradition of other doctrines pretended to be the rest of the word of God 2. We must distinguish between a certain proved Tradition and that which is unproved and uncertain if not grosly feigned 3. We must distinguish between the Tradition of the whole Catholick Church or the greater part and the Tradition of the lesser more corrupted selfish part even the Roman part 4. We must distinguish between a Tradition of necessary doctrine or practice and the Tradition of mutable Orders 5. And we must distinguish between Tradition by way of Testimony or History or by way of Teaching Ministry and Tradition by way of Decisive Judgement as to the Universal Church suffer them not to jumble all these together if you would not be cheated in the dark 2. And then concerning Tradition we grant all these following Propositions so that it is not all Tradition that we deny 1. We grant that the Holy Scriptures come down to us by the certain Tradition of our fathers and Teachers and that what the seeing and hearing of the Apostles was to them that lived with them that Tradition and belief of certain Tradition is to us by reason of our distance from the time and place So that though the Scripture bear its own evidence of a Divine author in the Image and superscription of God upon it yet we are beholden to Tradition for the Books themselves and for much of our knowledge that these are the true writings of the Apostles and Prophets and all and not depraved c. 2. We thankfully acknowledge that the Essentials of the faith and more hath been delivered even from the Apostles in other wayes or forms besides the Scriptures as 1. In the Professions of the Churches faith 2. In the baptismal Covenant and signs and whole administration 3. In the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 4. In Catechisms or Catechizings 5. In the prayers and praises of the Church 6. In the hearts of all true believers where God hath written all the Essentials of the Christian saith and Law So that we will not do as the Papists perversly do when God delivereth us the Christian Religion with two hands Scripture compleatly and Verbal Tradition in the essentials they quarrell with the one hand Scripture on pretence of defending the other so will not we quarrell with Tradition the other hand but thankfully confess a Tradition of the same Christianity by unwritten means which is delivered more fully in the Scripture and this Tradition is in some respect subordinate to Scripture and in some respect co-ordinate as the spirits left hand as it were to hold us out the truth 3. We confess that the Apostles delivered the Gospel by voice as well as by writing and that before they wrote it to the Churches 4. By this preaching we confess there were Christians made that had the doctrine of Christ in their hearts and Churches gathered that had his ordinances among them before the Gospel was written 5. And we confess that the Converted were bound to teach what they had received to their children servants and others 6. And that there was a setled Ministry in many Churches ordained to preach the Gospel as they had received it from the Apostles before it was written 7. And that the said ordinances of Baptism Catechizing Professions Eucharist Prayer Praise c. were instituted and in use before the Gospell was written for the Churches 8. And that when the Gospel was written as Tradition bringeth it to us so Ministers are commissioned to deliver both the Books and the doctrine of this Book as the Teachers of the Church and to preach it to those without for their conversion 9. And that Parents and Masters are bound to teach this doctrine to their children and servants yea if a Minister or other person were cast into the Indies or America without a Bible he must teach the doctrine though he remembred not the words 10. We grant that to the great benefit of the Church the writers of all ages have in subserviency to Scripture delivered down the Sacred Verities and Historians the matters of fact 11. And that the unanimous Consent of all the Churches manifested in their constant professions and practices is a great confirmation to us 12. And so is the suffering of the Martyrs for the same truth 13. And the Declarations of such consent by Councils is also a confirming Tradition 14. And the Confessions of Hereticks Jews and other Infidels are Providentiall and Historical Traditions for confirmation 15. And we profess that if we had any Certain proof of a Tradition from the Apostles of any thing more then is written in Scripture we would receive it All this we grant them for Tradition 3. But in these points following we oppose them 1. We take the holy Scriptures as the Compleat universal Rule or Law of faith and Holy living and we know of no Tradition that containeth another word of God Nay we know there is none such because the Scripture is true which asserteth its own sufficiency Scripture and unwritten Tradition are but two wayes of acquainting the world with the same Christian doctrine and not with divers parts of that Doctrine so as that Tradition should add to Scripture yea contrarily it is but the substance of greatest verities that are conveyed by unwritten Tradition but that and much more is contained in the Scripture where the Christian doctrine is compleat 2. The manner of delivery in a form of words which no man may alter and in so much fullness and perspicuity is much to be preferred before the meer verbal delivery of the same doctrine For 1. The Memory of man is not so strong as to retain as much as the Bible doth contain and preserve it safe from alterations or Corruptions Or if one man were of so strong a memory no man can imagine that all or most should be so Or if one Generation had such wonderfull memories we cannot imagine that all their posterity should have the like If there were no statute Books Records or Law-books in
which is most sufficient and most cleare in it self but for us This we all yield The second way is necessary to sciences diminutely and insufficiently delivered by their authors for their supplement so Aristotle is supplemented by Albertus Magnus c. The third way specially if it be not excessive is tolerable to the well being though it be not necessary The fourth way assertively is to be rejected as Poyson Thus are the authorities to be understood that forbid to add to or diminish from the Scripture Deut. 12 32. Well! by this time you may see that when such doctrine as this for Scripture sufficiency and perfection as the Rule of faith and life admitting no addition as necessary but explication nor any other as tolerable but moderate ampliation which indeed is the same I say when this doctrine past so lately in a Popish General Council you may see that the very Doctrine of Traditions equaled with Scripture or being another word of God necessary to faith and salvation containing what is wanting in Scripture is but lately sprung up in the world And sure the Traditions themselves be not old then when the conceit of them came but lately into the world 4. Well I have done the three first parts of this task but the chief is yet behind which is to shew 1 How little the Papists get by their Argument from Tradition 2. And how â—uch they lose by it even all their cause 1. Two things they very much plead Tradition for the one is their private doctrines and practices in which they disagree from other Christians and here they lose their labour with the judicious 1. Because they give us no sufficient proof that their Tradition is Apostolical 2. Because the dissent of other Churches sheweth that it is not universal with other Reasons before mentioned 2. The other Cause which they plead Tradition for is the Doctrine of Christianity it self And this they do in design to lead men to the Church of Rome as if we must be no Christians unless we are Christians upon the credit of the Pope and his Subjects And here I offer to their Consideration these two things to shew them the vanity of their arguing 1. We do not strive against you in producing any Tradition or Testimony of Antiquity for the Scripture or for Scripture Doctrine we make as much advantage of such just Tradition as you What do such men as White Vane Cressy c. think of when they argue so eagerly for the advantage of Tradition to prove the Scripture and Christian faith Is this any thing against us Nothing at all We accept our Religion from both the hands of Providence that bring it us Scripture and Tradition we abhor the contempt which these partial Disputers cast upon Scripture but we are not therefore so partial our selves as to refuse any collateral or subordinate help for our faith The more Testimonies the better The best of us have need of all the advantages for our faith that we can get When they have extolled the Certainty of Tradition to the highest we gladly joyn with them and accept of any certain Tradition of the mind of God And I advise all that would prove themselves wise defenders of the faith to take heed of rejecting Arguments from Providences or any necessary Testimony of man especially concerning matter of fact or of rejecting true Church History because the Papists over value it under the name of Tradition left such prove guilty of the like partiality and injuriousness to the truth as the Papists are And whereas the Papists imagine that this must lead us to their Church for Tradition I answer that in my next observation which is 2. We go beyond the Papists in arguing for just Tradition of the Christian faith and we make far greater advantage of it then they can do For 1. They argue but from Authoritative Decision by the Pope under the name of Church-Tradition excepting the French party whereas we argue from true History and certain Antiquity and prove what we say Where note 1. That their Tradition is indeed no Tradition for if it must be taken upon the credit of a man as supposed Infallible by supernatural if not miraculous endowment this is not Tradition but Prophesie And if they prove the man to be such a man it s all one to the Church whether he say that This was the Apostles doctrine or This I deliver my self to you from God For if he were so qualified he had the power and credit of a prophet or Apostle himself And therefore they must prove the Pope to be a Prophet before their kind of Tradition can get credit and when they have done that there is no need of it this their honest Dr. Holden was ware of upon which he hath so handsomely canvassed them 2. Note also that such as Dr. Holden Cressy Vane White and other of the French way that plead for Tradition mean a quite other thing then the Jesuited Italian Papist meanes and while they plead for universal Tradition they come nearer to the Protestants then to their Brethren if they did not contradict themselves when they have done by making meer Romish Tradition to be universal 3. Note also that when Papists speak of Tradition confusedly they give us just reason to call them to Define their Tradition and tell us what they mean by it before we dispute with them upon an ambiguous word seeing they are so divided among themselves that one party understands one thing by it and another another thing which we must not suffer these juglers to jumble together and confound 2. Another advantage in which we go beyond the Papists for Tradition is that as we argue not from the meer pretended supernatural Infallibility or Authority of any as they do but from rational Evidence of true Antiquity so we argue not from a sect or party as they do but from the Universal Church As far as the whole Church of Christ is of larger extent and greater credit then the Popish party so far is our Tradition more Credible then theirs And that is especially in three things 1. The Papists are fewer by far then the rest of the Christians in the world And the testimony of many yea of all is more then of a part 2. The Papists above other parties have espoused an interest that leads them to pretend and corrupt Tradition and bend all things to that interest of their own that they may Lord it over all the world But the whole Church can have no such Interest and Partiality 3. And the Papists are but one side and he that will judge rightly must hear the other sides speak too But the Tradition that we make use of is from all sides concurring yea Papists themselves in many points Yea our Tradition reacheth further then the Universal Church for we take in all rational Evidence even of Jews Heathens and Hereticks and Persecutors that bear witness to the matters of fact
and what was the doctrine and practice of the Christians in their times and what Books they made the ground of their faith so that as true Universal impartial naturally-or-rationally-infallible History or Testimony differeth from a private pretended-prophetical assertion or from the Testimony of one party only so doth our Tradition excell both the sorts of Popish Tradition both that of the Papal and that of the Councill party And now judge who may better boast of or extol Tradition they or we and to what purpose Cressy White and such men do bring their discourses of Tradition 2. But yet we have not so done with them till Tradition have given them their mortal stroak You appeal to Tradition to Tradition you shall go But what Tradition mean you The Tradition of the Catholick Church And where is this to be found and known but in the profession and practice of the Church and in the Records of the Church Well then of both these let us enquire The first and great Question between you and us is Whether the Pope be the Head and Soveraign Ruler of the whole Catholick Church and then whether the Catholick Church and the Roman are of equal extent What saith Tradition to this 1. Let us enquire of the present Church and there we have the profession and practice of all the Greek Church the Syrians the Moscovites the Georgians and all others of the Greek Religion dispersed throughout the Turks Dominions with the Jacobites Armenians Egyptians Abassines with all other Churches in Europe c. that disclaim the Headship of the Roman Pope all these do with one mouth proclaim that the Church of Rome is not and ought not to be the Mistriss of the world or of all other Churches but that the Pope for laying such a claim is an usurper if not the AntiChrist This is the Tradition of the Greeks this is the Tradition of the Abassines the far greatest part of the Church on earth agree in this Mark then what is become of the Roman Soveraignty by the verdict of Tradition even from the vote of the greatest part of the Church Rome hath no right to its pretended Soveraignty Babylon is faln by the judgement of Tradition If you have the faces again to say that all these are Hereticks or Schismaticks and therefore have no vote we answer If a minor party and that so partial and corrupt seeking Dominion over the rest may step into the Tribunal and pass sentence against the Catholick Church or the greatest part of it blame not others if on far better grounds they do so by that part And for shame do not any more hereafter use any such self-condemning words as to ask any Sect How dare you condemn the Catholick Church Do you think all the Church is forsaken but you c And let us ask you as you teach your followers to ask us If we must turn from the Universal Church to any Sect why rather to yours then another why not as well to the Anabaptists or other party as to the Papists But your common saying is that the Greeks Protestants and all the rest were once of your Church and departing from it they can have no Tradition but yours for their spring is with you To which we answer 1. The vanity of this your fiction shall by and by be answered by it self 2. You say so and they say otherwise why should we believe you that are a smaller partial and corrupted part 3. Well then let us go to former ages seeing it is not the present Church whose voice you will regard only by the way I pray forget not 1. That you do ill then to call us still to the Judgement of the present Church and dare not stand to it 2. And that you do ill to perswade men that the greater part of the Church cannot err if you sentence the greater part as Schismaticks or Revolters But how shall we know the way and mind of the ages past If by the present age then the greater part giveth us in their sence against you If by the Records of those times we are content to hear the Testimony of these And first when we look into the Antients themselves we find them generally against you and we find in that which is antiquity indeed no footsteps of your usurped Soveraignty but a contrary frame of Government and a consent of antiquity against it 2. When we look into later History we find how by the advantage of Romes temporal greatness and the Emperors residence there your greatness begun and preparation was made to your usurpation and how the translation of the Imperial Seat to Constantinople made them your Competitors yea to begin in the claim of an universal Headship and we find how it being once made a question you got it by a murdering Emperor resolved on your side for his own advantage We find that it was long even till Hildebrands dayes before you could get any great possession for all this sentence It would but be tedious here to recite our Historical Evidence we refer you to what is done already by Goldastus and Bishop Usher de statu success Ecclesiar and in his Answer to the Jesuits Challeng and in his Discourse of the Antient Religion of Ireland c. specially by Blondel in his French Treatise of Primacy and Dr. Field and many others that have already given you the testimony of Antiquity More then you can give a reasonable answer to I have produced in my Book called the safe Religion In plain English instead of Apostolical Tradition for your Soveraignty we find that eight hundred years after the dayes of Christ you had not neer so much of the Catholick Church in your subjection as you have now that at four hundred or five hundred if not till six hundred years after Christ you had no known part of the world that acknowledged your universal Soveraignty but only the Latine Western Church submitted to the Pope as their Patriarch and the Patriarch primae sedis the first in order among the Patriarchs and that before the dayes of Constantine and the Nicene Council he was but a Bishop of the richest and most numerous Church of Christians and we see no proof that of an hundred years after Christ he was any more then the chief Presbyter of a particular Church If all this will not serve we have National Evidences beyond all exception that the Ethiopian Churches of Habassia the Indians Persians c. were never your subjects to this day That England Scotland and Ireland here in your Western Circuits were not only long from under you but resisted you maintaining the Council of Calcedon against you and joyning with the Eastern Churches against you about Easter day c. And that the Eastern Churches and many great Nations as Tendue Nubia c. that now are revolted were never your subjects and some of them had little to do with you And yet if all this will not serve
we have your own Confessions I have elsewhere mentioned some Canus Loc. Theol. lib. 6. cap. 7. fol. 201. saith Not only the Greeks but almost all the rest of the Bishops of the whole world have vehemently fought to destroy the Priviledge of the Church of Rome and indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperors and the greater number of Churches and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the one Pope of Rome Mark here whether the Catholick Church was then your subjects when the greater number of Churches and most of the Bishops of the whole world as well as the Greeks were against you and vehemently fought against your pretended priviledges Rainerius supposed contra Waldenses Catal. in Bibliotheca Patrum Tom. 4. pag. 773. saith The Churches of the Armenians and Ethiopians and Indians and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome Read and blush and call Baronius a parasite What would you have truer or plainer And what Controversie can there be where so many Nations themselves are witnesses against you And you may conjecture at the numbers of those Churches by what a Legate of the Popes that lived among them saith of one Corner of them Jacob. Ã Vitriaco Histor Orient cap. 77. that the Churches in the Easterly parts of Asia alone exceeded in multitude the Christians both of the Greek and Latine Churches Alas how little a thing then was the Roman Catholick Church If all this were not enough the Tradition of your own Catholick Church is ready to destroy the Papacy utterly For that a General Council is above the Pope and may judge him and depose him and that is de fide and that its Heresie to deny it and that all this is so jure that ne unquam aliquis peritorum dubitavit no wise man ever doubted of it all this is the judgement of the General Council of Basil with whom that of Constance doth agree And whether these Councils were confirmed or not they confess them lawfully called and owned and extraordinary full and so they were their Catholick Church Representative and so the Popes Soveraignty over the Council is gone by I radition but that 's not the worst For if a free General Council should be called all the Churches in the world must be equally there represented And if they were so then down went the usurped Head-ship of the Pope For we are sure already that most of the Churches in the world are against it and therefore in Council they would have the Major vote And thus by the concession of the Roman Representative Catholick Church the Pope is gone by Tradition So that by that time they have well considered of the matter me thinks they should be less zealous for Tradition CHAP. XXI Detect 12. ANother of the Roman frauds is this They perswade men that the Greeks the Protestants and all other Churches were once under their Papal soveraignty and have separated themselves without any just cause and therefore we are all schismaticks and thereforefore have no vote in general Councils c. A few words may serve to shew the vanity of this accusation 1. Abundance of the Churches were so strange to you that they had not any notable communion with you 2. The Greek Churches withdrew from your Communion but not from your subjection If any of the Patriarcks or Emperours of Constantinople did for carnal ends at last submit to you it was not till lately nor was it the act of the Churches nor owned nor of long continuance So that it was your Communion and not your subjection that they withdrew from 2. And as for us of the Western parts we answer you 1. We that are now living our Fathers or our Grand-fathers were not of your Church and therefore we never did withdraw 2. There were Churches in England before the Roman Power was here owned And therefore if it was a sin to change the first change was the sin when they subjected themselves to you and not the later in which they returned to their ancient state 3. And for the Germanes or English or whoever did relinquish you they have as good reason for it as for the relinquishing of any other sin If they did by the unhappiness of ill education or delusion submit to the usurped Soveraignty of the Pope they had no reason to continue in such an error Repentance is not a Vice when the thing Repented of is a vice Justifie therefore your usurpation or else it is in vain to be angry with us for not adhering to the usurper and the many corruptions that he brought into the Church CHAP. XXII Detect 13. ANother deceit that they manage with great confidence is this say they If the Church of Rome be the true Church then yours is not the true Church and then you are Shismaticks in separating from it But the Church of Rome is the true Church For you will confess it was once a true Church when Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans and if it ceased to be a true Church tell us when it ceased if you can If it ceased to be a true Church it was either by heresie or Schism or Apostacy but by none of these therefore c. A man would think that children and women should see the palpable fallacy of this Argument and yet I hear of few that the learned Papists make more use of But to lay open the shame of it in brief I answer 1. The deceit lieth in the ambiguity of the word Church As to our present purpose observe that it hath these several significations 1. It is taken oft in Scripture for one particular Church associated for personal communon in Gods Worship And thus there were many Churches in a Countrey as Judea Galatia c. 2. It is taken by Ecclesiastical writers often for an Association of many of these Churches for Communion by their Pastors such as were Diocesan Provincial National Churches whereof most were then ruled by Assemblies where a Bishop Archbishop Metropolitan or Patriarck as they called them did preside 3. It is taken oft in Scripture for the Body of Christ the holy Catholick or Universal Church containing all true Believers as mystical or all Professors of true faith as visible 4. It is taken by the Papists oft for one particular Church which is the Mistris or Ruler of all other Churches And now I come to apply these in answer to the argument 1. If the Question be of a true particular Church we grant you that the Church of Rome was a true and noble Church in the daies of Paul and long after and thus Paul owneth it in his Epistle as a true Church And to the question when it ceased to be a true Church I answer 1. What matter is it to us whether it be reasoned or not any more then whether Corinth Ephesus Coloss Thessalonica or Jerusalem be true Churches or ceased In charity we regard them all
but otherwise what is it to the faith or salvation of the world whether Rome or any one of these be yet a true Church or be ceased I know not well whether there be any Church at Coloss or Philippi or some other places that had then true Churches And doth it therefore follow that I am not a true believer what would you say to such a fellow that should argue thus concerning other Churches as these men do of Rome and say e. g. If Philippi be a true Church then England are no true Churches If it be not when did it cease to be a true Church Would you not answer him What is it to me whether Philippi be a true Church or not May not we and they be both true Churches How prove you that And whether it be ceased or not ceased doth no what concern my faith or salvation further then as my charity is to be exercised towards them So say we of Rome It was a true particular Church in the Apostles dayes And if it be still a true Church what hinders but we may be so to But whether it be so or not is little to me It concerneth not my faith or Salvation to know whether there be any such place as Rome on earth or whether it were consumed long ago If a man were so simple as to believe a report that Rome was destroyed by Charls of Bourbon and never inhabited or had a Pope since he were but such a Heretick as Pope Zachary and Bishop Boniface made of Virgilius for holding there be Antipodes though further from the South 2. And if you take the word Church in the second sence for a Diocesan or Patriarchiall Church or Association of Churches supposing such forms proved warrantable the same answer serveeth as to the first 3. But to come to the true state of our Controversie If by a true Church you mean either of the two last that is 1. The whole Universal Church or 2. A Mistris Church that must Rule all the rest it was never such a true Church in Pauls dayes And therefore here we turn this argument of the Papists against themselves If the Church of Rome were neither the whole Catholick Church nor the Mistris of all other Churches when Paul wrote his Epistle to them then it is not so now nor ought to be so accounted But the former is proved 1. That the Church of Rome was not the whole Catholick Church then no man that 's well in his wits can doubt that reads what a Church there was at Jerusalem what a Church at Ephesus and Philadelphia Smyrna Thyatira Laodicea Corinth and abundance more Prove that all or any of these were parts of the Church of Rome if you can 2. Where doth Paul once name them either the Catholick Church or the Mistris or Ruler of all Churches or give the least hint of any such thing or mention any Pope among them whom the whole world was to take to be their Soveraign Head Is it not an incredible thing that Paul and all the Apostles would forget to make any mention of this priviledge or teach them how to use it or teach other Churches their duty in obeying the Church of Rome if indeed they had been made the Mistris Church Men that can believe what they list may say what they list But for my part I will never think so hardly of Paul and all the Apostles as to accuse them of so great oblivion or negligence And therefore I conclude Rome was neither the Universal Church nor the Mistris Church then not many an age after and therefore it is not so to be accounted now So that you see how easily this silly Argument shews its shame But though it concern not our main question I shall tell them further that the Matter of the Roman Church must be distinguished from its New Political Form For the Matter so many of its members as are true Christians are part of the Catholick Church of Christ though not the whole And for the form 1. There is the form of its severall parts and the form of the whole The form of any parts of the Roman Church that are Congregations or particular Churches of true Christiant may make those parts true Churches that is there may be many a true Parish Church that yet live under the Papall Yoak But as to the Politicall form of their Roman Catholick Church as it is a Body Headed by one claiming an Universall Monarchy so the form is false and Antichristian and therefore the Church as Papall must be denominated from this form and can be no better And this is our true answer to the question whether the Church of Rome be a true Church There are I doubt not among them many a thousand true members of the Catholick Church and there may be true particular Churches among them having true Pastors and Christian people joyned for Gods worship though I doubt there is but few of them but do fearfully pollute it and I am confident that salvation is much more rare and difficult with them then it is with the Reformed Catholicks yet that many among them are true Christians and saved I am fully perswaded especially when I have read such writings as Gersons Guil. Parisiensis Ferus Kempis c. And I think the better of Bellarmine himself for saying of Kempis de imitatione Christi Ego certe ab adolescentia usque in senectam hoc opusculum saepissime volvi revolvi semper mihi novum apparuit nunc etiam mirifice cordi meo sapit Bellarm. de Scripter Eccl. pag. 298. But the Pope as a pretended Universal Monarch is a false Head and consequently their Papall Church as such is a false Antichristian Church and no true Church of Jesus Christ And by the way I conceive you are thus to understand a clause in a late oath of Abjuration drawn up by the last Parliament to be offered to the Papists viz. that the Church of Rome is not the true Church that is 1. Not the whole Catholick Church but part of it as they are Christians 2. Nor a true Church at all as Papal and so formally as the Now Romish Church But all this is little to our main Question CHAP. XXIII Detect 14. ANother great Endeavour of the Papists is to edness unity consistency and setledness in Religion but we are still at uncertainty and to seek incoherent not tyed together by any certain bond but still upon divisions and upon change And they instance thus A while ago you were Episcopal and then Presbyterian and now you are nothing but every one goes his own way A while ago you worshipped God in one manner in Baptising Marrying Burying Common Prayer the Lords Supper and now you have all new Where is the Church of England now some of you are for one Government and some for another the Lutherans have superintendents the Calvinists are Presbyterians And what names of reproach do the Episcopal
my Lecture-day from Thursday to Friday that I change my Religion or the worship of God These are our great changes Well I will you now hear whether the Papists or we be the greatest Changlings 1. Some just changes they have made themselves that they know well enough are as great as ours It was so common in the antient Church to Pray only standing on every Lords day and not to kneel at all in any part of the worship of that day that it was taken for an universal Tradition and to kneel was taken for a great sin and condemned by General Councils many hundred years after Christ and yet the Church of Rome and other Churches as well as we have cast off this pretended Tradition violated this Decree of General Councils and forsaken this universal Custom of the Church And the Papists receive the Eucharist kneeling for all this Law and Custome In the primitive Church and in Tertullians dayes a Common Feast of the Church was used with the Lords Supper and the Sacrament taken then But now this Custom is also changed It was then the Custom to sing extempore in the Congregation to Gods praise But now Rome it self hath no such Custom It was once the Custom to give Infants the Lords Supper but now Rome it self hath cast off that Custom Once it was a Canon that Bishops must not read the books of Gentiles Concil Carthag 4. which yet Paul made use of and the Papists now do too much value Abundance such changes might be mentioned greater then ours in which we are justified by the Papists themselves 2. But they have yet other kind of changes then these They have changed the very Essence of the Catholick Church in their esteem they have changed the Officers the Doctrine the Discipline the Worship and what not as though they had been born for change to turn all upside down In the Primitive times the Church had no universal Monarch but Christ but they have set up a new universal Monarch at Rome In the primitive times the Catholick Church was the Universality of Christians and they have changed it to be only the subjects of the Pope In the Primitive times Rome was but a particular Church as Jerusalem and other Churches were but they have changed it to be the Mistris of all Churches For many hundred years after Christ the Scripture was taken to be a sufficient Rule of faith but they have changed it to be but part of the Rule In the antient Church all sorts were earnestly exhorted to read or hear and study the Scripture in a known tongue but they have changed this into a desperate restraint proclaiming it the cause of all Heresies In the antient Church the Bread and Wine was the Body and Blood of Christ Representative and Relative but they have changed it into the real Body and Blood Heretofore there was Bread and Wine remaining after the words of Consecration but they have changed so that there remaineth neither Bread nor Wine but the qualities and quantity without the substance and this must be believed because they say it against Scripture and Antiquity and in despight of sense it self In the antient Church the Lords Supper was administred in both kinds bread and wine to all but they have lately changed this into one kind only to the people denying them one half of the Sacrament Of old the Lords Supper was but the Commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross and a Sacrament of our Communion with him and his members but now they have changed it into a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the quick and dead and in it they adore a piece of Bread as very God with Divine worship Of old men were taught to make daily confession of sin and beg pardon and when they had done all to confess themselves unprofitable servants but now they are so changed that they pretend not only to be perfect without sin and to Merit by the Condignity of their works with God but to supererogate and be more perfect then innocency could make them by doing more then their duty Of old those things were accounted sins deserving Hell and needing the blood of Christ for pardon which now are changed into venial sins which properly are no sins and deserve no more then temporal punishment Of old the Saints had no proper merits to plead for themselves and now men have some to spare for the buying of souls out of Purgatory Of old the Pastors of the Churches were subject to the Rulers of the Commonwealth even every soul not only for wrath but for Conscience sake was obliged to be subject but now all the Clergy are exempted from secular Judgement and yet the secular power is subject to them for the Pope hath power to depose Princes and dispossess them of their Dominions and put others in their rooms and dissolve the bonds of Oaths and Covenants in which the subjects were obliged to them and to allow men to murder them by stabbing poysoning c. If you do not believe me stay but till I come to it and I shall give you yet some further proof Would you have any more of the Popish Changes Why I might fill a volume with them Should I but recite all the changes they have made in Doctrines and all that they have made in Church Orders and Discipline and Religious Orders and their Discipline and in Worship and Ceremonies I should be over tedious their very Liturgy or Mass-book hath been changed and made by changes such abundance of additions it hath had since the beginning of it What changes Sixtus the fift and Clement the eighth made in their Bibles I told you before as also what changes they have had in the election of their Popes And now I am content that any impartial man be judge whether Papists or the Reformed Churches are the more mutable and unsetled in their Religion and which of them is at the greater certainty firmness and immutability CHAP. XXIV Detect 15. ANother fraud of the Papists which they place not the least of their confidence in is this They perswade the people that our Church and Religion is but new of the other dayes invention and that theirs is the only old Religion And therefore they call upon us to give them a Catalogue of the professors of our Religion in all ages which they pretend we cannot do and ask us where our Church was before Luther To this we shall give them once more a brief but satisfactory answer I. We are so fully assured that the oldest Religion is the best since the date of the Gospell that we are contented that our whole cause do stand or fall by this tryall Let him be esteemed of the true Religion that is of the oldest Religion This is the main difference between us and the Papists We are for no Religion that is not as old as the dayes of the Apostles but they are for the Novelties and Additions of
Popes and Councils Their own Polidore Virgil de Inven. Rerum p. 410. lib 8. c. 4. calling us a Sect doth give you a just description of us Ita licentia pacta loquendi c. i. e. Having once got leave to speak that sect did marvailously increase in a short time which is called Evangelicall because they affirm that no Law is to be received which belongeth to salvation but what is given by Christ or the Apostles Mark what they confess themselves of our Religion And yet these very men have the face to charge us with Novelty as if Christ and his Apostles were not of sufficient Antiquity for them Our main quarrel with them is for adding new inventions in Religion and their principal business against us is to defend it and yet they call theirs the old Religion and ours the new Our Argument lieth thus That which is most conform to the Doctrine and Practice of Christ and his Apostles is the truly Antient Religion and Church But our Religion and Church is most conform to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles therefore it is the truly antient Religion and Church The Major they will yield For no older Religion is desirable further then as the Law of Nature and Moral Determinations of God are still in force I suppose they will not plead for Judaism For the Minor we lay our cause upon it and are ready to produce our evidence for the Conformity of our Religion and Churches to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles That Religion which is most conform to the Holy Scriture is most conform to the doctrine and practice of Christ and his Apostles But our Religion and Churches is most conform to the holy Scriptures therefore c. They can say nothing against the Major but that the Scripture is Insufficient without Tradition But for that 1. We have no Rule of faith but what is by themselves confessed to be true They acknowledge Scripture to be the true word of God So that the Truth of our Rule is Justified by themselves 2. Let them shew us as good Evidence that their Additional Articles of faith or Laws of life came from the Apostles as we do that the Scriptures came from them and then we shall confess that we come short of them Let them take the Controversies between us point by point and bring their proof and we will bring ours and let that Religion carry it that is Apostolicall But we are sure that by this means they will be proved Novelists For 1. Their Traditions in matter of faith superadded to the Scripture are meer Hereticall or Erroneous forgeries and they can give us no proof that ever they were Apostolicall 2. The Scripture affirmeth its own sufficiency and therefore excludeth their Traditions 3. I shewed you how in their own General Council at Basil the Scripture sufficiency was defended 4. I have shewed you in my Book called the Safe Religion that the ancient Fathers were for the sufficiency of Scripture 5. Their Traditions are the opinions of a dividing sect contrary to the Traditions or doctrine of the present Catholick Church the far greater part of Christians being against them 6. We are able to shew that the time was for some hundred years after Christ when most of their pretended Traditions were unknown or abhorred by the Christian Church and no such things were in being among them 7. And we can prove that the chief points of Controversie mantained against us are not only without Scripture but against it and from thence we have full particular evidence to disprove them If the Scriptures be true as they confess them to be then no Tradition can be Apostolicall or true that is contrary to them For example the Papists Tradition is that the Clergy is exempt from the Magistrates judgement But the holy Scripture saith Let every soul be subject to the higher power Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4 5. The Papists Tradition is for serving God publickly in an unknown tongue But the holy Scripture is fully against it Their Tradition is against Lay mens reading the Scripture in a known tongue without special License from their ordinary But Scripture and all antiquity is against them The like we may say of many other Controversies So that these seven wayes we know their Traditions to be deceitfull because they are 1. Unproved 2. Against the sufficiency of Scripture 3. Against their own former confessions 4. Against the concent of the Fathers 5. Contrary to the judgement of most of the Catholick Church 6. We can prove that once the Church was without them 7. And they are many of them contrary to express Scripture And if Scripture will but shew which of us is neerest the doctrine and practice of the Apostles then the controversie is ended or in a fair way to it For we provoke them to try the cause by Scripture and they deny it we profess it is the Rule and test of our Religion but they appeal to another Rule and test And thus you may see which is the old Religion which will be somewhat fullyer cleared in that which followeth II. And that our Church and Religion hath been continued from the dayes of Christ till now we prove thus 1. From the promise of Christ which cannot be broken Christ hath promised in his word that that Church and Religion which is most conform to the Scripture shall continue to the end But our Church and Religion is most conform to the Scripture therefore Christ hath promised that it shall continue to the end 2. From the event The Christian Religion and Catholick Church hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now But ours is the Christian Religion and Catholick Church therefore ours hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now The Major they will grant the Minor is proved by parts thus 1. That Religion which hath all the Essentials of Christianity and doth not deny or destroy any Essential part of it is the Christian Religion but such is ours therefore c. 2. That Religion which the Apostles were of is the Christian Religion But ours is the same that the Apostles were of therefore c. 3. That Religion which is neerer the Scripture then the Romish Religion is certainly the Christian Religion But so is ours therefore c. 4. They that believe not only all that in particular that is contained in the Ancient Creeds of the Church but also in generall all that is besides in the holy Scripture are of the Christian Religion But thus do the Reformed Churches believe c. 2. And for our Church 1. They that are of that one holy Catholick Church whereof Christ is the head and all true Christians are members are of the true Church For there is but one Catholick Church But so are we therefore c. 2. They that are Sanctified Justified have the love of God in them are members of the true Catholick Church But such are all that are sincere
did Reject the chief of the Popish errors as we do Besides many particular points named in my Safe Religion they Rejected with us the Popes Catholick Monarchy the pretended Infallibility of the Pope or his Councils the new form of the Papall Catholick Church as Headed by him with other such points which are the very fundamentall controversies between us and the Papists So that besides that the Papists themselves profess our Religion the major part of the Catholick Church did profess it with the Rejection of the Papacy and Papall Church and so you may as easily see where our Religion was before Luther as where the Catholick Church or most of Christians were before Luther 3. And beside both these our Religion was professed with a yet greater Rejection of Romish corruptions by thousands and many thousands that lived in the Western Church it self and under the Popes nose and opposed him in many of his ill endeavours against the Church and truth together with them that gave him the hearing and were glad to be quiet and gave way to his tyranny but never consented to it Concerning these we have abundant evidence though abundance more we might have had if the power and subtilty of the Papall faction had not had the handling of them 1. We have abundance of Histories that tell us of the bloody wars and contentions that the Emperours both of East and West have had with the Pope to hinder his tyranny and that they were forced by his power to submit to him contrary to their former free professions 2. And we have abundance of Treatises then written against him both for the Emperours and Princes and against his doctrine and tyranny some store of them Goldastus hath gathered And intimations of more you have in their own expurgatory Indices 3. And we have the histories and professions of the Albigenses Waldenses Bohemians and others that were very numerous and if Raynerius say true they affirmed about the year one thousand one hundred that they had coutinued since the Apostles and no other Originall of them is proved 4. Particular evidence unanswerable is given in by Bishop Usher de Succes statu Eccl. and Answer to the Jesuites and the Ancient Religion of Ireland and in Dr. Field and Morneyes Mysterie of Iniquity and of the Church and Illyricus and many others 5. Even Generall Popish Councils have contended and born witness against the Popes superiority over a Councill 6. And in that and other points whole Countreyes of their own are not yet brought over to the Pope 7. They have still among themselves Dominicans Jansenists c. that are reproached by the Jesuites as siding with Calvin in many Controversies as Catharinus and many more in others Most points of ours which we oppose to Popery being maintained by some or other of them 8. But the fullest evidence is the certain history or knowledge of of the case of the common people and Clergy among them who are partly ignorant of the main matters in Controversies between us as we see by experience of multitudes for one to this day and are generally kept under the fear of fire and sword and torments so that the truth of the Case is this the Roman Bishops were aspiring by degrees to be Arch-bishops and so to be Patriarchs and so to have the first seat and vote and to be called the Chief Bishops or Patriarchs and at last they made another thing of their office and claimed about six hundred years or more after Christ to be universal Monarchs or Governours of all the Church But though this claim was soon laid it was comparatively but few even in the West that made it any Article of their faith but multitudes sided with the Princes that would have kept the Pope lower and the most of the People medled not with the matter but yielded to necessity and gave place to violence except such as the Albigenses Bohemians Wicklefists and the rest that more openly opposed So that no man could judge of the multitude clearly which side they were on being forced by fire and sword and having not the freedom to profess their minds So that in summ our Religion was at first with the Apostles and the Apostolick Church and for divers hundred years after it was with the universal Christian Church And since Romes usurpation it was even with the Romanists though abused and with the greater part of the Catholick Church that renounced Popery then and so do now and also with the opposers of the Pope in the West under his own nose You see now what Succession we plead and where our Church and Religion still was If any deny that we are of the same Church and Religion with the Greeks Abassines and most of the Christian world yea all that is truly Christian I easily prove it 1. They that are Christians joyned to Christ the Head are all of the same Church and Religion for none else are Christians or united to Christ but the Church which is his Body But the sincere Greeks Abassines c. and we are Christians united to Christ the Head therefore we are all of one and the same Church and Religion 2. They that believe the same holy Scripture and differ in no essential part of the Christian faith are of the same Church and Religion but so do both we and all true Christians therefore we are all of one Church and Religion 3. They that are truly regenerate and Justified hating all known sin longing to be perfect Loving God above all and seeking first his Kingdom and Righteousness and accounting all things but as dung in comparison of Christ these are all of the true Catholick Church and the true Christian Religion but such are all that are sincere both of the Greeks Abassines c. and the Reformed Churches as we prove 1. To others by our Profession and Practice by which only they are capable of judging of us 2. To ourselves infallibly against all the Enemies of our salvation in Hell or Earth by the knowledge and acquaintance with our own hearts and the experience of the work of God upon them All the Jesuites in the world cannot perswade me that I love not God and hate not sin and prefer not the Love of Christ before all the world when I feel and know that I do till they can prove that they know my heart better then I do 4. If Christ Consent to it and we Consent to it then we are all that are sincere in their profession of the true Catholick Church and Religion for if he consent and we consent who is there that is able to break the match But Christ consenteth and we consent as we prove by parts 1. His consent is expressed in his Gospel that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life and whoever will may drink of the water of life freely 2. And our consent we openly professed at Baptisme and have frequently renewed and our own
souls are acquainted with the sincerity of it whatever any that know not our hearts may say against it 5. All that are truly Baptized and own their Baptismal Covenant are visible members of the true Catholick Church For it is the very nature and use of Baptisme to enter us into that Church But Greeks Abassines Georgians Armenians c. and Protestants are all truly Baptized and own their Baptismal Covenant therefore we are all of the true Catholick Church What is ordinarily said against this succession of our Church I have answered in my safe Religion I now add an answer to what another viz H. Turbervile in his Manuall saith against us in the present point The easiness of his Arguments and the open vanity of his exceptions will give me leave to be the shorter in confuting them His first Argument pag. 43. is this The true Church of God hath had a continued Succession from Christ But the Protestant Church and so of all other Sectaries hath not a continued Succession from Christ to this time therefore c. Answ 1. I pray thee Reader be an impartial Judge what this man or any Papist ever said with sense and reason to prove that the Eastern and Southern Churches have no true Succession Let them talk what they please of their Schisme the world knows they have had as good a Succession as Rome Are they not now of the same Church and Religion as ever they have been All the change that many of them have made hath been but in the entertaining of some fopperies common to Rome and them And if any of these which you call Sectaries can prove their Succession it destroyes your Argument and Cause Me thinks you should not ask them where their Church was before Luther 2. But how doth this Disputer prove his Minor that we have no Succession Only by a stark falshood forsooth by the Concession of the most Learned Adversaries who freely and unanimously Confess that before Luther made his separation from the Church of Rome for nine hundred or one thousand years together the whole world was Catholick and in obedience to the Pope of Rome Answ O horrid boldness that a man that pleads for the sanctity of his Church dare thus speak so notorious an untruth in the face of the world At this rate of Disputing the man might have saved the labour of writing his Book and have as honestly at once have perswaded his Disciples that his Adversaries unanimously consess that the Papists cause is best What if the fifteen cited by him had said so when I can bring him one thousand five hundred of another mind and cite him fifteen for one of another mind is that the unanimous confession of his Adversaries But unless his Adversaries were quite beside themselves there is not one of them could say as he feigneth them to say For doth not the world know that the Eastern and Southern Churches far exceeding the Romanists in number did deny obedience to the Pope of Rome Would this perswade his poor Disciples that we all confess that there are or were no Christians in the world but Protestants and Papists His first cited Confession is Calvins that all the Western Churches have defended Popery A fair proof Doth this Disputer believe in good sadness that the Western Churches are all the world or a sixth part of the world But this is the Popish arguing What Calvin speaks of the Western Churches that is the prevailing power in each Nation of them he interprets of all the world So he deales with Dr. White who expresly in the words before those which he citeth affirmeth the visibility of the Churches of Greece Ethiope Armenia and Rome but only saith that at all times there hath not been visible distinct companies free from all corruption which one would think every penitent man should grant that knows the corruption of his own heart and life It would be tedious to stand to shew his odious abuse of the rest when they that say most of the word world but as it is used Luk. 2. 1. so much of his first argument His second is this Without a continued number of Bishops Priests Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same faith from Christ and his Apostles to this time a continued succession cannot be had But Protestants have no continued number c. Answ And how proves he the Minor No how at all but puts us to disprove it and withall gives us certain Laws which we will obey when they grow up to the honour of being reasonable His first Law is that We must name none but only such as held explicitely the thirty nine Articles all granting and denying the same points that the late Protestants of England granted or denyed for if they differ from them in any one materiall point they cannot be esteemed Protestants Answ A learned Law And what call you a material point You may yet make what you list of it If they differ in any point Essentiall to Christianity we grant your imposition to be necessary But there is not the least Chronologicall or Geographicall or other truth in Scripture but is a Materiall Point though not Essential Must you needs know which these Essentials are In a word Those which the Apostles and the ancient Church pre-required the knowledge and profession of unto Baptism And because all your fond exceptions are grounded on this one point I shall crave your patience while I briefly but sufficiently prove that Men that err and that in points materiall may yet be of the same Church and Religion Argum. 1. If men that err in points material that is precious truths of God which they ought to have believed may yet be true Christians and hold all the Essentials of Christianity then may they be of the same true Church and Religion But the former is true therefore so is the later The Antecedent is proved in that all truths which may be called Materiall are not of the essence of Christianity Argum. 2. The Apostle Thomas erred in a Materiall point which is now an essentiall when he would not believe Christs Resurrection and yet was a member of the true Church therefore c. Argum. 3. The Papists err in material points and yet think themselves of the same true Church therefore they must confess that differing in Material points may be the case of members of the same true Church For proof of the Minor I demand Are none of the points Material that have been so hotly agitated between the Jesuites and Dominicans and Jansenists the Papall party and the Councill party The Thomists Scotists Ockamists c. At least review the Jesuite Casuists cited by the Jansenists Mysterie of Jesuitism and tell us whether it be no whit Material Whether a man may kill another for a Crown or may kill both Judge and witnesses to avoid an unjust sentence Or whether a man should go with good meanings into a Whore-house to perswade them
to penitence that hath found by experience that when he comes there he is naught with them himself Or whether a man may lawfully lie and calumniate to put by a calumny Or speak falsly with mentall reservations Or forbear loving God many years together if not all his life Are these points no whit Material You know that one part of you with a Pope and General Council are for deposing Heretical Kings and murthering and stabbing them and others of you disavow it Is this no whit material And yet you are all of one Church and Religion A hundred more of your differences I could name Argum. 4. From instances of the Fathers that have erred in Material points and yet are taken to be of the same Church and Religion How many Churches differed about Easter day what abundance of errors are in your Clementines and other such writers owned by you Justin Martyr was a Millenarie Numbered divers Infidels with Christians thought that Angels lived by meat and generated with Devils c. Athenagoras thought that second Marriages were comely Adultery and that the Angels fell by the love of women and begot Gyants of them c. Irenaeus hath the like Theophilus Antioch worse Tertullian and Orrigen you will confess had yet worse Clem. Alexand. was for the salvation of Infidels and Heathens against swearing and many such besides those before mentioned Greg. Thaumaturgus hath divers if the confession and other works be his that are ascribed to him Cyprian Firmilian and the whole Council at Carthage were for rebaptizing those baptized by hereticks Against all Wars and Oaths Lactantius with many more was a Millenary and hath too many great errors I have no delight to rake into their faults but if it be necessary I shall quickly prove many and great errors by fourty more of them at the least And yet all these or most are confessed by you to be of one Church and Religion Argum. 5. From your own Confessions Bellarmine lib. 1. de Beat. SS cap. 6. faith that he seeth not how the sentence of Justin Irenaeus c. can be defended from error Of Tertullian he saith There 's no trust to be given to him lib. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 8. Eusebius he saith was addicted to the Hereticks Cyprian he saith did seem to sin mortally de Rom. Pont. lib. 4. cap 7. Augustine is accused by many Jesuites for going too far from Pelagius Hierom is oft pluckt by you And so are many more of the Fathers And yet you confess some of them at least were of the true Church and Religion Argum. 6. If there be no perfect concord to be expected till we come to the place of perfect knowledge and happiness then it is not perfect concord that is necessary to prove us of the same Church or Religion But the Antecedent is alas too far past doubt Therefore c. Argum. 7. If the godly and learned Doctors of the Church and all men have some alas how many culpable errors in matters of Religion yea of faith if you call that de fide which we are obliged to believe then those that have such errors may be of the same Church and Religion But the Antecedent is so true and evident that I think none but a blind proud Pharisee will deny himself to beg of God daily to pardon and heal his culpable errors So much to prove that men of errors and differing minds if not about the essence of the Church may be of the same Church 2. But why is it that they must all needs explicitely hold the thirty nine Articles 1. I pray you tell us whether all your own Church do explicitely hold and believe all your Articles that is all that Popes and General Councils have defined or declared Dare you say that one of five hundred of five thousand doth explicitely believe all this And why then is it necessary in our case that all must explicitely believe all those Articles 2. Yea with us it is far more unnecessary For we take not those Articles for the Rule of our faith but only the holy Scripture And therefore you may as well tell us that no man is of our Religion that did not write or speak all the same words that Jewell Reignolds Perkins or such other have written in their whole works 3. It s easie to prove for all that that the sense and substance of those Articles have been owned by the Churches in all ages 3. But what if we grant your conclusion that else they cannot be esteemed Protestants what of that As if none but Protestants were of the same Church and Religion with us Sure you think we make a sect of our selves like you and exclude all others from the Church and Salvation as you do The word Protestant is not the first denomination of our Religion from its essence for so we call our selves Christians only But it is a title that accidentally accrewed to our Religion from our Protesting against your innovations and corruptions and our Rejecting the errors contrary to our Religion which you had introduced Now those that were not involved in your errors as our forefathers were but lived at a further distance from you might have no occasion to make such a Protestation and yet be of the same Church and Religion as we are Now to your particular Laws 1. Saith H. T. Let him not name the Waldenses for they held the Real presence that the Apostles were Lay men that all Magistrates fall from their dignity by any mortal sin that it is not lawful to swear c. and Waldo lived but in one thousand one hundred and sixty Answ 1. We have better assurance of the faith of the Waldenses in their own published Confessions then from the mouth of their Adversaries 2. The Lutherans hold the real presence and yet are of the same Religion and Church with us 3. The Apostles were Lay-men in the Jews account and sense as not being Priests or Levites but not in Christians account that believed their mission and thus thought the Waldenses 4. They thought that Magistrates and Ministers do by Mortal sin forfeit all the right and title to their office from which themselves may have comfort and justification in judgement But they never thought that they were not to be obeyed by others or that their actions were not valid for the Churches good 5. Many of the ancientest Fathers thought it unlawfull to swear at all that yet are cited by you as of your Church But the Waldenses are slandered in these points 6. Though Waldo was but about one thousand one hundred and sixty yet the same Religion and Church under other names and before those names were fastned on them was much elder as Raynerius may satisfie you So that for all this the Waldenses and we are of one Church and Religion He adds Let him not name the Hussites for they held Mass Transubstantiation and seven Sacraments that the universal Church consisted only of the
predestinate c. Answ O what a sort of men have we to deal with The Council of Constance burnt John Huss to ashes for saying that there remained the substance of Bread and Wine after Consecration and that Transubstantiation was a new word to deceive men with as Binnius himself expresseth among their accusations of him And among the articles for discovery of the Hussites one was Whether they take it to be a mortall sin to reject the Sacraments of Confirmation extream unction and marriage And yet now Huss is burnt for it the poor lay-Papists are perswaded by their deceivers that the Hussites were for Transubstantiation and seven Sacraments Why then did a General Council accuse or receive accusation and witness against him for the contrary 2. That the universal Church as invisible and as taken in the first signification containeth none but the truly sanctified and so predestinate we believe as well as Huss though in the second Analogical signification the Church as visible containeth all the Professors of faith and Holiness whether sincere or not 3. And that they were condemned by the Council of Constance and Huss and Hierom burnt after they had a safe conduct doth shew that the faith of Papists is perfidiousness for why should the people be more just then a General Council but it shews not that we and they are not of the same Church or Religion you condemned and burnt those of our Religion too therefore you thought at least that we are neer kin But H. T. proceeds with his precepts Let him not name the Albigenses for they held all marriages to be unlawfull and all things begotten ex coitu to be unclean They held two Gods c. Answ These are not only such falshoods by which you uphold your cause but the more inexcusable and shameless by how much the more frequently and fully detected long ago and yet continued in Perrin Viguerius and many others might have prevented your error especially Bishop Usher de Succes Eccles cap. 6 7 8 9 10. who hath given you enough out of your own writers to have satisfied you and shewed you that it was from the Arrians and Manichees inhabiting those Countreyes among them that the heavy charges of Bernard Eckbertus Schonaugiensis and others were occasioned And see by him there cited what the same Bernard saith against your Church of Rome and then judge which he spoak hardlier of As for the Catharists next added they were not the Puritan Waldenses as you speak but part of the Manichees and if such as they are described we are content to lose their names and are not ambitious to be reputed their Successors He adds Let him not name the Wicklifians for they held that all things came to pass by fatall necessity That Princes and Magistrates fell from their dignity and power by mortall sin Answ We know by many of Wicklifs own books printed and manuscript what his judgement was what ever your Council at Constance accuse him of It was a Divine Necessity opposed to uncertainty and to the determination of an unruled will that he mentioneth And do not your Jesuites lay as heavy a charge on the Dominicans sometimes and with as great cause may many of your Schoolmen be disclaimed for this as Wicklife if you will understand him and them Wicklife was known to obey and teach obedience to Magistrates But is it not a fine world when Wicklife must not be of our Church because he is supposed to deny the power of Magistrates in mortal sin and yet the Pope and his Council determine that Princes or Lords that will not root out such as the Pope cals Hereticks must be cast our and their Countrey given to others It seems you take Wicklife to be some kin to your selves But we doubt not but he was of the Catholick Church and Religion and therefore of the same with us H. T. adds Let him not name the Grecians for they rejected the Communion of Protestants Censur Eccl. Orient They were at least seven hundred or eight hundred year in Communion with the Church of Rome they were united to the Church of Rome again in the Council of Florence They held Transubstantiation seven Sacraments unbloody Sacrifice Prayer to Saints and for the dead Answ If one Patriark or twenty men reject our Communion what 's that to the Millions of Greek Christians that never rejected it And what 's that to all Patriarcks before and after that rejected it not Did Cyril reject our Communion that hath published a Protestant confession and was so maligned and treacherously dealt with to the death and falsly accused to the Turks by the Jesuites for his constancy 2. Do you think the world knoweth not by what inducements you drew a few poor men at Florence to subscribe to a certain union with you and what death the Patriark dyed and how the Greeks resented his fact and what a return they made to your Church I pray perswade your selves that they and we and all are Papists 3. If the Greeks did disclaim Communion with us they are nevertheless of the same Church and Religion with us for all that Paul and Barnabas were both Christians when they parted in dissention If one neighbour in anger call another Traitor unjustly and say he will have no Society with him they may be both the Kings subjects and members of one Common wealth for all that 4. As to the Greeks opinions and the Papists false accusations of them I have spoken already against pretended Veridicus in my Safe Religion It is not you nor all the Jesuites on earth that can prove the Greeks and us to be so distant as not to be of the same Catholick Religion and Church You add Let him not name the Egyptians for they held Transubstantiation and unbloody Sacrifice as is manifest by their Liturgies but denyed the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son and held but one will in Christ Godignus de reb Abas lib. 1. cap. 28. Answ 1. Godignus talks not of the Egyptians but the Abassines This learned man it seems is so home-bred and confined to the Roman Church that he little regardeth the rest of the Christian world or else he would have known a difference between the Egyptians and Abassines He is likely to know well the true Catholick Church that while 2. You cannot prove that they hold Transubstantion Nor shall your bare naming their Liturgy make us believe it The Egyptian Liturgy you tell us not where to find nor I suppose do you know your selves An Ethiopick Liturgy your compilers of the Bibliotheca Patrum have given us Tom. 6. But 1. It hath no mention of Transubstantiation in it that I can find but only a Hoc est Corpus c. which we say in our Administration as well as they 2. And I find that Liturgy so contrary to the reports of your own writers concerning the practice of the Ethiopians as about the Elevation Confirmation c.
whether you believe that the Oral Tradition of all the Church did preserve the Knowledge of Augustines Epiphanius Chrysostomes c. doctrine so much as their writings do Is the doctrine of Aquinas Scotus Gabriel c. yea the Council of Trent preserved now more certainly in mens memories then in writing If so they have better memories then mine that keep them and they have better hap then I that light of such keepers For I can scarce tell how to deliver my mind so in any difficult point but one or other is misunderstanding and misreporting it and by leaving out or changing a word perhaps make it another matter so that I am forced to refer them to my writings and yet there by neglect they misinterpret me till I open the book it self to them 6. Either the Fathers of the fifth age are intelligible in their writings or not If they be then we may understand them I hope with industry If they be not then 1. Much less were their transient speeches intelligible 2. And then the writings of the sixth age be not intelligible nor of any other and so we cannot understand the Council of Trent as the Papists do not that controvert its sense voluminously nor can we know the Churches judgement 7. By your leave the Roman Corrupters take on them so much Power to make new Laws and new Articles of Faith quoad nos by definitions and to dispense with former Laws that unless they are all Knights of the Post they can never swear that they had all that they have from their Fore-fathers 8. Well! but all this is the least part of my answer But I grant you that the sixth age understood and retained the doctrine of the fifth age and have delivered it to us But that there were no Hereticks or corrupters you will not say your selves Well then the far greatest part of the Catholick Church did not only receive from the fifth age the same Christian Religion but also kept themselves from the grossest corruptions of the Pope and his flatterers that were then but a small part And thus we stick to the Catholick Church succeeding to this day and you to an usurper that then was newly set on the Throne of universal Soveraignty So that your chief Argument treadeth Popery in the dirt because the greater part of the Catholick Church not only in the fifth and sixth age but in the seventh eighth nineth tenth thirteenth fourteenth fifteenth and sixteenth ages have been aliens or enemies to the Roman universal Monarchy therefore if one age of the Church knew the mind of the former age better then the Pope did we may be sure that the Pope is an usurper The third Argument of H. T. is that the Fathers of the first five hundred years taught their tenets therefore its impossible they should be for the Protestants Answ 1. Protestants are Christians taking the Holy Scriptures for the Rule of their faith If the Fathers were Christians they were for the Protestants but its certain they were Christians If you could prove that they were for some of your mistakes that would not prove them against the Protestants in the doctrine of Christianity and the holy Scriptures and so that we are not their Successors in Christianity and of the same Church which was it that you should have proved but forgot the question And of this we shall speak to you more anon Well! by this time I have sufficiently shewed the succession of our Church and continuation of our Religion from the Apostles and where it was before Luther and given you the Catholick Church instead of a dozen or twenty names in each age which it seems will satisfie a Papist but yet we have not done with them but require this following Justice at their hands Seeing the Papists do so importunately call to us for Catalogues and proof of our succession Reason and Justice requireth that they first give us a Catalogue of Papists in all ages and prove the succession of their Roman Catholick Church which they can never do while they are men And here I must take notice of the delusory ridiculous Catalogue wherewith H. T. begins his Manual His Argument runs thus That is the only true Church of God which hath had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this day very true But the Church now in Communion with the Sea of Rome and no other hath had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time therefore c. For the proof of the Minor he giveth us a Catalogue And here note the misery of poor souls that depend on these men that are deluded with such stuff that one would think they should be ashamed the world should see from them 1. What if his Catalogue were true and proved would it prove the Exclusion that no other Church had a succession Doth it prove that Constantinople or Alexandria had no such succession because the Romanists had it where is there ever a word here under this Argument to prove that exclusive part of his Minor 2. And note how he puts that for the Question that is not the Question between us A fair beginning The Question is not about Churches in Communion with you but about Churches in subjection to you But this is but a pious fraud to save men by decieving them The Ancient Church of Rome had the Church of Hierusalem Corinth Philippi Ephesus and many a hundred Churches in Communion with her that never were in subjection to her 3. And if the Papists can but prove themselves true Christians I will quickly prove that the Protestants are in Communion with them still as Christians by the same Head Christ the same spirit baptism faith love hope c. though not as Papists by subjection to the same usurper 4. Our question is of the Universal Church And this man nameth us twenty or thirty men in an age that he saith were professors of their Religion And doth he believe in good sadness that twenty or thirty men are either the universall Church or a sufficient proof that it was of their mind 5. But principally did this man think that all or any besides their subjects had their wits so far to seek as to believe that the persons named in his Catalogue were Papists without any proof in the world but meerly because they are listed here by H. T Or might he not to as good purpose have saved his labour and said nothing of them 6 But what need we go any further we will begin with him at lis first Century and so to the second and if he can prove that Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary or John Baptist or the Apostles or any one of the rest that he hath named were Papists much more all of them I am resolved presently to turn Papist But unless the man intended to provoke his reader to an unreverent laughter about this abuse of holy things one would think he should not have named
the second and third Age produced no Councils the greater deceivers then are the Papists that have found us Councils then and so you have no Catholick succession proved Yea but he saith they have successions of Popes Martyrs and Confessors which is sufficient for their purposes See the strength of Popery Any thing is sufficient for your purposes it seems Rome had Bishops therefore they were the Universal Rulers of the Church A strong consequence Rome had Martyrs and Confessors therefore it was the Mistris of all Churches Who can resist these arguments But why did you not prove that your Confessors and Martyrs suffered for attesting the Popes Soveraignty If they suffered but for Christianity that will prove them but Christians and not Papists Thus you see to the confusion of the Papists that they have nothing to shew for the succession or antiquity of Popery for the three first Ages Yea worse then nothing For here he comes in with some of the Decretals forsooth of some of their Bishops Decretals unknown till a while ago in the world brought out by Isidore Mercator but with so little cunning as left them naked to the shame of the world the falshood of them being out of themselves fully proved by Blondell Reignolds and many more and confessed by some of themselves Here you see the first foundation of Papal succession even a bundle of fictions lately fetcht from whence they please to cheat the ignorant part of the world But in the fourth and fifth ages H. T. doth make us amends for his want of proof from the three first But suppose he do what 's that to a succession while the three first ages are strangers to Popery Well! but lets hear what he hath at last His first proof after a few silent names is from the Council of Nice And what saith that why 1. It defined that the Son of God is consubstantiall to his Father and true God And what 's that to Popery 2 But it defined the Popes Soveraignty But how prove you that Why it is in the thirty ninth Arab. Canon O what Consciences have those men that dare thus abuse and cheat the ignorant As if the Canons of the first General Council had never been known to the world till the other day that Alphonsus Pisanus a Jesuite publisheth them out of Pope Julius and I know not what Arabick book These men that can make both Councils and Canons at their pleasure above a thousand years after the supposed time of their existence do never need to want authority And indeed this is a cheaper way of Canon-making in a corner then to trouble all the Bishops in the world with a great deal of cost and travail to make them But if this be the foundation the building is answerable Their Bishop Zosimus had not been acquainted with these new Articles of an old Council when he put his trick upon the sixth Council of Carthage where for the advancement of his power though not to an universall Monarchy yet to a preparative degree he layeth his claim from the Council of Nice as saying Placuit ut si Episcopus accusatus fuerit c. which was that If an ejected Bishop appeal to Rome the Bishop of Rome appoint some of the next province to judge or if yet he destre his cause to be heard the Bishop of Rome shall appoint a Presbyter his Legate c. In this Council were 217. Bishops Aurelius being president and Augustine being one They told the Pope that they would yield to him till the true copies of the Council of Nice were searched for those that they had seen had none of them those words in that Zosimus alledged Hereupon they send abroad to the Churches of the East to Constantinople Alexandria Antioch c. for the ancient Canons From hence they received several copies which all agreed but none of them had either Zosimus forgery in nor the forged clause which Bellarmine must have in much less the eighty Canons of Pisanus the Jesuite or this one which H. T. doth found his succession on but only the twenty Canons there mentioned which have not a word for the Popes Soveraignty And here note 1. That Zosimus knew not then of Pisanus Canons or else he would have alledged them nor yet of Bellarmines new part of a Canon for the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome 2. That Zosimus himself had not the faith the wit or the memory to plead either Scripture Apostolical Institution or Tradition for his priviledge but only a false Canon of the Council of Nice as looking no higher it seems for his authority 3. How early the Roman Bishops begun both to aspire and make use of forgeries to accomplish it 4. That there was no such Apostolick or Church Tradition for this Roman power as our Masters of Tradition now plead for which all the Catholick Church must know For the whole Council with all the Churches of Constantinople Alexandria Antioch c. that is in a manner all save Rome were ignorant of that which Zosimus would have had them believe and Bellarmine and H. T. would have us to believe 5. Note also how little the Church then believed the Popes infallibility 6. Yea Note how upon the reception of the several Copies of the Nicene Canons they modestly convicted Zosimus of falshood And how the Council resolved against his usurpation See in the African Councils the Epistle of Cyril and Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople and the Epistles of the Council to Boniface and Celestine In their Epistle to Boniface before they had received their answers from other Churches about the Nicene Canons they tell him that they believed they should not suffer that Arrogancy non sumus istum typhum passuri But to Celestine they conclude more plainly though modestly Presbyterorum quoque sequentium c. i. e. Let your holiness as beseemeth you repell the wicked refuges of Presbyters and the Clergy that follow them because this is not derogate or taken from the African Church by any Definition of the Fathers and the Nicene Decrees most plainly committed both the inferiour Clergy and Bishops themselves to the Metropolitans For they did most prudently and most justly provide that all businesses N. B. all should be ended in the very places where they begun and the Grace of the holy Ghost will not or should not be wanting to each province which equity should by the Priests of Christ be prudently observed and most constantly maintained Especially because it is granted to every one to appeal to the Councils of their own Province or to a Universall Council if he be offended with the judgement of the Cognitors Unless there should be any one that can think that our God can inspire a justice of tryall into any one man N. B. and deny it to innumerable Priests that are congregated in Councill Or how can that judgement that 's past beyond sea be valid to which the necessary persons of the witness
them who perswaded the King of France to join with the Spaniard in the Invasion of England and when the Cardinal answered that the King of France was under an Oath of Peace with the Queen of England the Pope their best Pope replyed that the Oath was made to an Heretick but he was bound by another Oath to God and the Pope and added that that Kings and other Soveraign Princes tolerate themselves in all things that make for their commodity and it s now come to pass that it is not imputed to them nor taken to be their fault and he alledged the saying of Francisc Mariae Duke of Urbine that a Nobleman or Great man that is not the Soveraign is blamed and counted infamous of all men if he keep not his faith but supream Princes may make Covenants and break them again without any danger to their credit and may lye betray and commit such like practises These are your best Popes Poor men that can forgive other mens sins and pardon them the pains of Purgatory and cannot save their own souls from Hell Are they not like to Govern the Universal Church well that can no better Govern themselves or that one City where they dwell And are not these men worthy to be consulted as infallible Oracles by those that dwell at the Antipodes though it cost them their lives to sail or travail to them Can he be a Christian or be saved that believeth not in one of these men Or can any man receive the Christian faith or Scriptures till he first know these good men to be Christs infallible Vicars And how many thousand Whores are licensed at Rome how sumptuously they live what revenues come to the Pope by them many of your own mention And though some of you write for it and your Pope still maintaineth it yet Mariana one of your Jesuites though he was for King-killing condemneth this lib. de Spectaculis cap. 16. And your Claud. Espensaeus lib. 3. de Continentia cap. 4. sets it out with a witness lamenting Rome as if it were turned all into one Whore-house and be wailing it that the Jews should so far shame you that no one of their children may play the harlots unless they first turn Popish Christians and be baptized and then they have thier liberty Of the gain that comes to the Pope and Prelates by the Simoniacall Market of benefices save me the labour of reciting and read but Nicol. Clemangis Archidiaconus Baiosensis Tractde Annatibus non solvendis Alvarus Pelagius de Planctu Eccles lib. 2. Art 15. l. 1. art 67. Claud. Espensaeus in Tit. 1. pag. 68. Cardinel Cusanum de Concord Cathol lib. 2. cap. 40. Marc. Ant. de Dom. Spalatensem de Repub. Eccless lib. 9. c. 9. Budaeum li. 5. de Asse Duarenum I. C. de sacris Eccles Minist lib. 5. c. 8. passim Rivet will direct you to many more Yea that the odious sin of Sodomie was common or too frequent with many of the Clergy and Popes themselves gluttony drunkenness and whoredom being the common smaller sins see the same Rivet manifesting at large out of the express complaints of Maphaeus Alvarus Pelagius and many more of their own writers Hoffmeister cited by Grotius Discussio Apol. Rivet p. 72. At cum Ep scopi quidam ignorant quid Sacramenti vox significet cum ipsos pudent sacramenta per seipsos conferre cum omnia apud ipsos sint venalia cum Ecclesiam defraudent suis sacramentalibus quae vocant quae potest Sacramentis apud simplici ores reverentia Jam quod ad Parachos Ecclesiastas quod attinet vix centesimus quisque de sacramentis ullam facit mentionem in suis ad plebem concionibus hic ex ignorantia ille ex negligentia Gravissime peccatum est ab Episcopis nostris dum numerantur potius ordinandi quam examinantur quantum quis nummorum tantum favoris habet apud quosdam Quae hic premo prudens lector intelligit Nolim enim hic referre quales Episcopos Decanos Canonicos Pastores c. Nobis subinde intrudat potiùs quam ordinet Romana Curia Regum item Principum aulae qui omnes juxta jocum cujusdam familiam suam satiant si modo tales bestiae satiari possent muneribus sacris Ab equorum stabulis è culina rapiuntur ad Sacerdotia qui quid Sacerdos sit ne persomnium quidem cogitarunt homines qui professione sunt indigni Papirius Massonius that wrote the Deeds of the Popes for their honour and sought his Reward from Sixtus Quintus saith De Episcop urb lib. 6. in Gregor 13. No man doth now a dayes look for Holiness in Popes those are judged the best that are a little good or less naught then other Mortals use to be Pope Pius the second was one of the best that your Papal seat a long time had and yet in his Epistle to his Father Epist 15. that was angry with him for fornication he saith Ais dolerete i. e. You say you are sorry for my crime that I begot a son in sin or bastardy I know not what opinion you have of me Certainly you that are flesh your selves did not beget a son that is made of stone or iron You know what a Cock you were your self And for my part I am not gelded nor one of them that are frigid or impotent Nor am I an hypocrite that I should desire rather to seem good then to be good I ingenuously confess my error for am not holyer then David nor wiser then Solomon It s an antient and usual sin I know not who is without it A holy Church you are that while This plague is spread far and neer if it be a plague to make use of our naturals though I see it not seeing Nature which doth nothing amiss hath bred this Appetite in all living creatures that mankind should be continued This was he that was the glory of your Papacy that knew none without this beastly sin And Orichovius tells Pope Julius the third that Pope Paul the second his predecessor had a Daughter in the eyes of all men And of this Pope Julius the third Onuphrius himself saith that Being a Cardinall he followed voluptuousness as by stealth but being made Pope and having what he would have he cast away all care and gave up himself to his mirth and disposition Of whom Thuanus saith Hist lib. 6. that he was very infamous as a Cardinall but after past his life in greater infamy And Alvarus Pelagius lib. 2. art 73. fol. 241 c. lamenting Whoredome as a common sin but specially of the Clergy tells us that the cause is because Commonly the Religious of that age were Gluttons or belly Gods Arrogant Proud incomparably beyond secular men conversing with women c. And drink more wine in their Religious state then before and are commonly carnal And that the Monks had their female Devotaries with whom by the Prelates
to these witnesses some more of your worthies August Triumph de Ancon q. 5. art 1. saith To make a new Creed belongs only to the Pope because he is the Head of the Christian faith by whose authority all things belonging to faith are confirmed and strengthened Et Art 2. As he may make a new Creed so he may multiply new Articles upon Articles And in Praefat. sum ad Johan 22. he saith that the Popes power is Infinite because the Lord is great and his strength great and of his greatness there is no end And q. 36. ad 6. he saith that the Pope giveth the Motion of Direction and the sense of Knowledge into all the members of the Church For in him we live and move and have our being And the Will of God and consequently the Popes Will who is his Vicar is the first and chief cause of all motions corporall and spiritual And then no doubt may change without blame Abbas Panormitan in cap. C. Christus de haeret n. 2. saith The Pope can bring in a new Article of faith And Petr. de Anchoran in idic The Pope can make new Articles of faith that is such as now ought to be believed when before they ought not to be believed Turrecremat sum de Eccl. lib. 2. cap. 203. saith that the Pope is the Measure and Rule and Science of things to be believed And August de Ancona shews us that the Judgement of God is not higher then the Popes but the same and that therefore no man may appeal from the Pope to God qu. 6. art 1. And therefore be not offended if we suppose you to have changes A Confutation of a Popish Manuscript on this point Just as I was writing this I received another Popish M. S. sent from Wolverhampton to Sturbridge to which I shall return an answer before I go to the next point Pap. M. S. An Argument for the Church IT will not be denyed but that the Church of Rome was once a most pure excellent flourishing and Mother Church and her faith renowned in the whole world Rom. 1. 8. 6. 16. Whites Def. p. 555. King James speech to the Parliament Whitaker in his Answer to Dr. Sanders Fulk cap. 21. Thes 7. Reynolds in his fifth Conclusion This Church could not cease to be such but she must fall either by Apostacy Heresie or Schism Apostacy is not only a renouncing of the faith of Christ but of the name and Title of Christianity No man will say that the Church of Rome had such a fall or fell so Heresie is an adhesion or fast cleaving to some private or singular Opinion or error in faith contrary to the generally approved doctrine of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common received doctrine of the Christian world I pray you satisfie me in these particulars 1. By what General Council was she ever condemned 2. Which of the Fathers ever writ against her 3. By what Authority was she otherwise reproved For it seems to be a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemned by every private person who hath a mind to condemn her Schism is a departure or division from the unity of the Church whereby the bond and Communion held with some former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided her self from any body of faithfull Christians or broke Communion or went forth from the Society of any Elder Church I pray you satisfie me in these particulars 1. Whose company did she leave 2. From what body went she forth 3. Where was the true Church she forsook For it appears not a little strange that a Church should be accounted Schismatical when there cannot be assigned any other Church different from her which from age to age since Christs time hath continued visible from whence she departed Thus far the Papists Manuscript An Answer to the foregoing Argument IF the Author of this Argument thinks as he speaks it s a case to be lamented with tears of blood that the Church of Christ should be abused and the souls of men deluded by men of so great ignorance But if he know that he doth but juggle and deceive it s as lamentable that any matter of Salvation should fall into such hands 1. This Argument I have before answered Detect 13. The word Church here is ambiguous and either signifieth 1. A particular Church which is an Association of Christians for personal Communion in Gods worship 2. Or divers such Associations or Churches Associated for Communion by their officers or delegates for unity sake 3. Or else it may signifie some one Mistris Church that is the Ruler of all the rest in the world 4. Or else it may signifie the Universal Catholick Church it self which containeth all the particular Churches in the world The Papist should not have plaid either the blind man or the Jugler by confounding these and never telling us which he means 1. For the first we grant him that Rome was once an excellent flourishing Church And so was Ephesus Hierusalem Philippi Colosse and many more 2. As to the second sence it is humane or from Church custom so to take the word Church for Scripture that I find doth not so use it But for the thing we are indifferent Though it cannot be proved that in Scripture times Rome had any more then a particular Church yet it s all one as to our cause 3. As to the third and fourth senses we deny as confidently as we do that the Sun is darkness that ever in Scipture times Rome was either a Mother to all Churches or the Ruler and Mistris of all or yet the Universal Church it self Prove this and I will turn Papist But there 's not a word for it in the Texts cited but an intimation of much against it Paul calleth Rome a Church and commendeth its faith True but doth he not so by the Thessalonians Colossians Ephesians Philippians c. and John by the Philadelphians Pergamus Thyatira and others as well And will not this prove that Rome was but such a particular Church as one of them The citation of Protestants are done it seems by one that never read them nor would have others read them which makes him turn us to whole books to search for them if we have nothing else to do and to miscited places But we know that all our Divines confess that Rome was once a true and famous particular Church but never the Universall Church nor the Ruler of the world or of all other Churches in Pauls dayes Would you durst lay your cause on this and put it to the tryal Why else did never Paul make one word of mention of this Power and honour nor send other Churches to her to be Governed And now I pray consider to what purpose is the rest of your reasoning What is it to me whether Rome be turned either
Apostate Heretical or Schismatical any more then whether Jerusalem Ephesus Philippi or any other Church be so faln If you are not faln I am glad of it if you are I am sorry for it and so I have done with you unless I knew how to recover you Would you not laugh even at the Church of Jerusalem that was truly the Mother Church of the world if they should thus reason We are not faln away therefore we must Rule over all the world and no man is a Christian that doth not obey us This is the sport you make in the cheating of souls Well but let us follow you though our cause be not concerned in it 1. I answer that we accuse you not of renouncing the name of Christ 2. We must needs fear that according to to your own definition of Heresie you are guilty of many Heresies And to your Questions I answer 1. I pray you tell us what General Councils did ever condemn one half of the Heresies mentioned by Epiphanius Augustine or Philastrius Was there ever a greater rabble of Heresies then before ever a General Council was known and were they dead and buryed before the first General Council was born 2. Did you not smile when you wrote these delusory Questions How can a General Council condemn you or any great part of the Church for instance the Greeks c. If you be not there it s not a General Council And will you be there to condemn your selves you have more wit and less grace then so And I pray what General Council did ever condemn the Greeks for those many errors charged on them If the Greeks themselves were not there it was not a General Council so considerable a part are they of the Church And what General Council hath condemned the Abassines Egyptians c. 3. Do you think General Councils are so stark mad or horridly impious as to condemn so many Kingdoms with one condemnation for Heresie Why they know that men must be heard before they be condemned and a Kingdom consisteth of many millions of souls And it is not enough to know every mans faith if we know the faith of the King or Pope or Archbishop or Bishops And how long shall they be examining each person in many Kingdoms 4. But yet I can say more of your Church then of others He that kills the Head kils the Man Your Usurping Head is an Essential part of your New-formed Church But your Head hath been condemned by Councils therefore your Church in its essential part hath been condemned by Councils Do you not know that all the world as well as the feigned Council Sinuessan condemned your Pope Marcellinus for Offering to Idols Know you not that two or three General Councils condemned Pope Honorius as a Monothelite Yes no doubt you know it Know you not that the second General Council of Ephesus condemned and excommunicated your Pope And that the Council of Basil called by him did the like If you do not see Bellarmines parallel of them de Conciliis lib. 2. cap. 11. Do I need to tell you what the Council of Constance did Or for what John 22. alias 23. and John 13. and other Popes were deposed by Councils 2. And for Fathers do I need to tell you how many condemned Marcellinus Liberius Honorius and others How oft Hilary Pictav in fragmentis in recit Epist Liberii doth cry out Anathema tibi Liberi prevaricator presuming to curse and excommunicate your Pope Need I tell you what Tertullian saith against Zephernius Yea what Alphonsus à Castro and divers of your own say against Liberius Honorius Anastasius Celestine and tell us that many Popes have been Hereticks At least give us leave to believe Pope Adrian the sixth himself Read Dom. Bannes in 2 m 2ª q. 1. art 10. Where he proves at large against Pighius that a Pope may be an Heretick and laughs at Pighius that now after two hundred years would prove them false witnesses which write that Pope Honorius was condemned for an Heretick by three Popes viz. Agatho Leo the second and Adrian the second 3. But perhaps you 'l say that though your Popes have been condemned by Councils yet so have not your maintained doctrines Answ Yes that they have too Did not the Councils at Constantinople condemn the Doctrine of the second Nicene Council for Image-worship and the Council at Frankford do the like And those two at Constantinople were as much General as your Council of Trent was and much more And yet that same Council at Nice did condemn the doctrine of St. Thom. Aquinas and your Doctors commonly of worshipping the Image of Christ and Cross and sign of the Cross with Latria divine worship And did not your General Councils at Laterane and Florence declare that the Pope is above a Council and that they cannot depose him c. And yet your General Councils at Constance and Basil determine the contrary as an Article of Faith and expresly affirm the former to be Heresie See then your own doctrine even in a fundamental point condemned by General Councils of your own which side soever you take the Popes or the Councils And did not the sixt Council of Carthage of which St. Augustine was a principal member not only detect Pope Zosimus forged Canon of Nice but also openly and prevalently resist and reject your Usurpation and refuse your Legates and Appeals to you If you would cloak this believe your own Pope Boniface Epist ad Eulalium saying Aurelius sometime Bishop of Carthage with his Colleagues did begin by the Devils instigation to wax proud against the Church of Rome in the times of our Predecessors Boniface and Celestine And if you have learnt to except against this Epistle see your Bishop Lindanus justifying it Panopl l. cap. 89 Or at least believe your Champion Harding against Jewels Challenge art 4. sect 19. After the whole African Church had persevered in schism the space of twenty years and had removed themselves from the obedience of the Apostolick seat being seduced by Aurelius Bishop of Carthage Again note that Austin was one of them But you 'l say that this was not a General Council Answ True for when part riseth against part it cannot be the whole that is on either side Moreover do you not know that the Greeks have condemned you oft And truly their Councils have been much more General then yours at Trent was where about forty Bishops altered the Canon of Scripture and made Tradition equal with it I think verily this one County would have afforded a far better Council of a greater number But I 'le once more name one General Council that hath condemned your very foundation and that is the fourth General Council at Calcedon before mentioned Act. 15. Can. 28. Act. 16. where you may find 1. That the ancient Priviledges of the Roman Throne were given them by the Fathers in Council 2. That the Reason was because Rome was the
Imperial City 3. They give Equal Priviledges to the seat of Constantinople because it was now become New Rome 4. That the Roman Legates would not be present at this act 5. But the next day when they did appear and pretended that this act was forced the Bishops all cryed No man was compelled It s a just decree we all say thus we all approve it Let that stand that is decreed it s all right 6. Here specially note that this General Council thought they needed not the Popes Approbation for the validity of their Decrees when they pass them and take them for valid even contrary to the will of the Pope Speak you that bear the least reverence to a General Council Did this Council think that their Decrees were invalid if the Pope approve them not You see if you be not wilfully blind they did not And who is now to be believed Bellarmine and his party and the present prevalent party of the Papists that say Councils not approved by the Pope are invalid or without authority or the Council of Calcedon that thought otherwise 7. Note that the Popes Legates called this An humbling and depressing and wronging of the Papacy and therefore entred their dissent see Bellarmines Confession lib. 2. de Pontif. cap. 17. Binnius notes on this Council Baronius an 451. 8. Note also that the shifts of Bellarm. Binnius Baronius Becanus Gretser c. are apparently false that say this Canon was surreptitiously brought into the Council for Aetius Act. 16. openly professed the contrary and all the Bishops professed their consent to the last 9. Note also that this is one of the four Great Councils which the Papists themselves compare to the four Gospels and in it were six hundred and thirty Fathers 10. Note also that this great Council is against them and on the Protestant side in the very foundation of all our differences Whether the Roman Priviledges be jure divino or humano And though it be but the Priviledges and not the now claimed Vicarship that was in Question yet the Conclusion is the stronger against them because the lesser was denyed But their last shift is that this Clause or Canon was not approved and so is Null 1. Mark then you that wrote this Manuscript that we have General Councils against you but we want the Popes Approbation And in good sadness was that the meaning of your Question What Council that is what Pope condemned our Church Can it be expected that this one man should condemn himself or can you be no Heretick till then 2. But let it be so this once Did not your Pope approve of this Council when Gregory the first did liken it with the other three to the four Gospels and said of this Tota devotione Complector integerrima approbatione custodio I embrace it with my whole devotion I keep it with most entire approbation Greg. 1. Regist l. 1. Epist 24. cited in the Decrees Dist 15. c. 2. I think this is expresly a full Approbation not without excepting any part only but excluding all such exceptions And the like Approbation of Gelasius in the Roman Council is cited there also in the Decrees ibid. pag. 33. I did also before instance the sixt General Council against you approved by Pope Adrian in his Epistle to Tharasius in the second Nicene Council And indeed it is no hard matter to prove you condemned by your own Popes also If you could but understand the plainest words in a matter that is against your opinions and wills there needed no talk to perswade you that Pope Gregory the first condemned the Title of Universal Bishop or Patriarch professing earnestly that he was the forerunner of Antichrist that would usurp it But the plain truth is as sad experience teacheth us no words of Fathers Popes or Councils much less of Scripture are intelligible to you when your wills are against the matter But we may truly say of you that lay all on the will of the Pope as Austins Observator your Lodovicus Vives freely speaketh in schol in August lib. 20. de Civit. Dei cap. 26. Those are taken by them for Edicts and Councils which make for them or are on their side the rest they no more regard then a meeting of women in a workhouse or a washing place Do you understand this language of one of your own but too honest to have much company Well but you have a third Question By what Authority was she otherwise reproved Answ By the Authority of that Precept Levit. 19. 17. and many the like By the same Authority that Paul reproved Peter Gal. 2. and withstood him to the face by such Authority as any man may seek to quench a fire in his neighbours house or pull a man out of the water that is drowning or as any one Pastor may reprove another when he sinneth By the same Authority as Irenaeus rebuked Victor and the Asian Bishops withstood him and as Cyprian and the Council of Carthage reproved Stephen and the rest aforecited did what they did By as good Authority as the Church of Rome condemneth the Greek Church doth the Greek Church and many another condemn the Church of Rome 3. The next case is about the Roman schism To your Questions I answer 1. To Question whether Papists be Schismaticks is to question whether Ethiopians be black Do you not at this day divide from all the Christian world save your selves Do you not unchurch most of the Christians on earth O dreadful presumption when Christ is so tender of his interest and his servants and is bound as it were by so many promises to save them and not forsake them You ask what Church you left and when was it and whose company Sensless Questions By a Church if you mean the Universal Church there is but One in all and therefore One Universal Church cannot forsake another but when part of it forsaketh the other part and arrogateth the title of the whole to themselves do you doubt whether this be Schism If you mean a particular Church How can Spain Italy France and many more Kingdoms go out of a particular Church that contain so many hundred particular Churches in them No more then London can go out of Pauls Church The Catholick is but One containing all true Christians on earth and you have been guilty of a most horrid Schism as ever the Church knew For 1. You have set up a Church in the Church An Universal Church in the Universal Church A new form destructive to the old Your Pope as Christ-representative is now an Essential part of it and no man is a member of it that is not a member of the Popes body and subject to him So that even the Antipdes and the poor Abassians that know not whether the Pope be fish or flesh or never heard of such a name or thing must all be unchristened unchurched and damned if you be Judges Yea and Bellarmine tells us which indeed your
which are not destructive to the Essentials of Christianity but only to some Integral part And there is a schism that doth not unchurch men as well as a schism that doth of which this is no place to treat But ad hominem me thinks your own writers put you hard to it who conclude as Bellarmine and many more do though Alphonsus à Castro and others be against it that Hereticks and Schismaticks are no members of the Church And Melch. Canus Loc. Theol. lib. 4. cap. 2. fol. 117. saith that that Hereticks are no parts of the Church is the common conclusion of all Divines not only of those that have written of late but of them also that by their Antiquity are esteemed the most Noble This is attested by Cyprian Augustine Gregory the two Councils of Lateran and Florence Rightly therefore did Pope Nicolas define that the Church is a collection of Catholicks If this be true it is an Article of faith And then Alphonsus à Cast and all of his mind are Hereticks and lost men And I pray you note what a case you are in Two Approved General Councils have determined that a Heretick is no member of the Church But multitudes of your own writers and Pope Adrian and many more of your Popes have judged that a Pope may be a Heretick and consequently no member of the Church And consequently judge what 's become of your Church when an Essential part of it is no part of the Church Your common shift which Canus ibid. and others fly to is that He must be a judged Heretick before he is dismembred But 1. Sure that is but for manifestation to men for before God he is the same if men never judge him 2. Where the case is notorious the offendor is ipso jure cut off 3. Then it is in the Popes Power to let whole millions of Hereticks to be still parts of the Church And so the world shall be Christians or no Christians as he please and why may he not let Turks and Infidels on the same grounds be parts of the Church For he may forbare to judge them if that will serve 4. Then all the Christians in the world that the Pope hath not yet judged and cast out are members of the Church And then millions and millions are of the Church that never were subjects of the Pope If you say It is enough that there is a General condemnation of all that are guilty as they are I answer then it is enough to cut off a Pope that there was a General condemnation against such as he 5. But if all this satisfie you not yet I told you before that two or three Councils and three Popes did all judge Pope Honorius guilty of Heresie and consequently both Popes and General Councils have judged that a Pope may be an Heretick therefore you have been judged Heretical in your Head which is an essential part of your Church And thus I have shewed you what is the schism of the Church of Rome which being but a part hath attempted to cut off all the rest and so hath made a new pretended Catholick Church As a part of the Old Church which consisteth of all Christians united in Christ we confess all those of you still to be a part that destroy not this Christianity But as you are new gathered to a Christ-Representative or Vicar General we deny you to be any Church of Christ If you be Church members or saved it must be as Christians but never as Papists For a Papist may be a Christian but not as a Papist And if yet you cannot see the Church that you separate from open your eyes and look into much of Europe and all over Asia almost where are any Christians look into Armenia Palestine Egypt Ethiopia and many other Countries and you shall find that you are but a smaller part of the Church If you will not believe what I have before proved of this hear what your own say Anton. Marinarins in the Council of Trent complaineth that the Church is shut up in the Corners of Europe and yet Domestick enemies arise that waste this portion shut up in a corner Sonnius Bishop of Antwerp in Demonstrat Relig. Christian lib. 2. Tract 5. c. 3. saith I pray you what room hath the Catholick Church now in the habitable world scarce three elnes long in comparison of that vastness which the Satanical Church doth possess If yet you boast that you have the same seat that formerly you had I answer so have the Bishops of Constantinople Alexandria and others whom you condemn And we say as Gregory Nazianz Orat. de land Athanasii It is a succession of Godliness that is properly to be esteemed a succession For he that professeth the same doctrine of faith is also partaker of the same throne But he that embraceth the contrary belief ought to be judged an adversary though he be in the throne This indeed hath the name of succession but the other hath the Thing it self and the Truth And he next addeth such words as utterly break your succession in pieces saying For he that breaketh in by force as abundance of Popes did is not to be esteemed a successor but rather he that suffereth force nor he that breaketh the Laws but he that is chosen in manner agreeable to the Laws nor he that holdeth contrary tenets but he that is endued with the same faith Unless any man will call him a Successor as we say a sickness succeedeth health or darkness succeedeth light and a strom succeeds a calm or madness or distraction succeedeth prudence Thus Nazianz pag. 377. We conclude therefore with one of your own Lyra Glos in Math. 16. Because many Princes and chief Priests or Popes and other inferiors have been found to Apostatize the Church consisteth in those persons in whom is the true knowledge and confession of Faith and Verity And so much to this empty Manuscript CHAP. XXXVI Detect 27. ANother of their Deceits is this To charge us with introducing New Articles of faith or points of Religion because we contradict the New Articles which they introduce and then they require us to prove our doctrines which are but the Negatives of theirs We receive no Doctrines of faith or worship but what was delivered by the Apostles to the Church These men bring in abundance of New ones and say without proof that they received them from the Apostles And because we refuse to receive their Novelties they call our Rejections of them the Doctrines of our Religion and feign us to be the Innovators And by this device it is in the Power of any Heretick to force the Church to take up such as these men call New points of faith If a Papist shall say that besides the Lords Prayer Christ gave his Disciples another Form or two or three or many or that he gave them ten New Commandments not mentioned in the Bible or that he oft descended after his Ascension and
conversed with them or that there are many more worlds of men besides this earth or that Christ instituted twenty Sacraments how should we deal with these men but hy denying their fictions as sinfull Novelty and rejecting them as corrupt additions to the Faith And were this any Novelty in us And should they bid us prove in the express words of Scripture or antiquity our Negative Propositions that Christ gave but one form of prayer that he did not oft descend that he gave no more Decalogues Sacraments c. Is it not a sufficient proof of any of these that they are not written and that no Tradition of them from the Apostles is proved and that they that hold the Affirmative and introduce the Novelty must prove and not we Our Articles of faith are the same and not increased nor any new ones added But the Papists come in with a new faith as large as all the Novelties in the Decretals and the Councils and these innovations of theirs we reject Now our Rejections do not increase the Articles of our faith no more then my beating a dog out of my house or keeping out an enemy or sweeping out the filth doth enlarge my house or increase my family They do not take all the Anathema and Rejections in their own Councils to be Canons or Articles of faith For example The Pope hath made it an Article of faith that no Scripture is to be interpreted but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers This wereject and make it no Article of our faith but an erroneous Novelty Do we hereby make a new Article because we reject a new one of theirs yea a part of the Oath of their Church made by Pope Pius after the Council of Trent 1. If this be an Article prove it if you can 2. If it be a Truth and no Novelty I pray you tell us which be Fathers and which not and help us to know certainly when we have all or the unanimous Consent And then tell us whether every man is not forsworn with you that interprets any text of Scripture before he have read all the Fathers or any text which six of them never expounded or any text which they do not unanimously agree on And yet though it be not our necessary task we can easily prove to you that this is a New Article of your devising 1. Because else no man must expound any Scripture at all before these Fathers were born For how could the Church before them have their unanimous consent And 2. Because that otherwise these Fathers themselves wanted an Article of faith unless it was an Article to them that they must expound no Scripture but by their own Consent 3. Because these Fathers do few of them expound all or half or the twentieth part of the Scripture 4. Because they took liberty to disagree among themselves and therefore do not unanimously consent in abundance of particular texts 5. Because they tell us that they are fallible and bid us not take it on their trust 6. Because the Apostles have left us no such rule or precept but much to the contrary 7. Your own Doctors for all their Oath do commonly charge the Fathers with error and misexpounding Scripture as I shewed before Canus and many others charge Cajetan a Cardinal and pillar in your Church with making it his practise to differ from the Fathers and choosing expositions purposely for the Novelty pro more suo as his custom And when he hath highly extolled Cajetan Loc. Theol. lib. 7. pag. 223. he adds that yet his doctrine was defiled with a Leprosie of errors by an affection and lust of Curiosity or confidence on his wit expounding Scripture as he list happily indeed for the most part but in some few places more acutely then happily because he regarded not antient Tradition and was not verst in the reading of the Fathers and would not learn from them the Mysteries of the sealed book And in another place he blames him that he alway followed the Hebrew and Greek text And many other Papists by him and others are blamed for the same faults Andradius and more of the later plead for it And yet these men are counted members of your Church that go against an Article of your new faith and Oath So Transubstantiation is one of your New Articles in that Oath Do we make a New one now if we reject it Or need we be put to prove the Negative And yet we can easily do it And Edm. Albertinus among many others hath done it unanswerably Another of your Articles is that it belongeth to your Holy Mother the Church to judge of the true sence of Scripture And you mean the Roman Church and that they must judge of it for all the Christian world Prove this to be the Antient doctrine if you can If we reject this Novelty are we Innovators or need we prove the Negative And yet we can do it and have oft done it at large Did Athanasius Basil Nazianzen Nyssen Augustine Hierom Chrysostome Epiphanius and the rest of the Fathers send to Rome for the sence of the Scriptures which they expound or did they procure the Popes Approbation before any of them published their Commentaries You know sure that they did not The like may be said of all the rest of your New Articles and Practises We stand our ground Some of your Novelties we reject as trifles some as smaller errors and some as greater but still we keep to our antient faith of which the Scripture is a full and sufficient Rule as Vincentius Lirinens ubi supra though we are glad of all helps to understand it we say with Tertullian de carne Christi cap. 6. Nihil de eo constat quia Scriptura non exhibet Non probant quia non Scriptum est His qui insuper argumentantur nos resistemus CHAP. XXXVII Detect 28. ANother of their Deceits is this They make advantage of our charitable Judgement of them and of their uncharitable judgement of us and all other Christians to affright and entice people to their sect They say that we cannor be saved nor any that are not of the Roman Church But we say that a Papist may be saved They say that we want abundance of the Articles of faith that are of necessity to salvation We say that the Papists hold all that is necessary to salvation Luther saith that the Kernel of true faith is yet in the Church of Rome therefore say they Let Protestants take the shell And hence they make the simple people believe that even according to our own Confessions their Church and way is safer then ours I have answered this formerly in my Safe Religion but yet shall here once more shew you the nakedness of this Deceit 1. The Papists denying the faith and salvation of all other Christians doth no whit invalidate our faith nor shake our salvation Our Religion doth not cease to be true when ever a peevish
not bound so much as to seek information And pag. 120. he cites Vega lib. 6. cap. 18. saying that as Ignorance purae negationis about many Articles of faith may be without fault so there is the same reason of Ignorance pravae dispositionis Which he maintains against Gerson and Hugo And S. Clara adds of his own To speak my sense freely I think that the common people committing themselves to the instruction of the Pastors trusting their knowledge and goodness if they be deceived it shall be accounted Invincible Ignorance or probable at least So Herera which excuseth from fault Yea some Doctors give so much to the Instruction of Doctors on whom the care of the flock lyeth that if they teach hic nunc that God would be hated that a rude Parishoner is bound to believe them And so page 121. concludeth that he hopeth many of us are saved Page 122. he citeth the concent of Azorius To. 1. l. 8. Just c. 6. and Corduba again And pag. 123. saith It seemeth to be the common Opinion of the Schools and Doctors at this day that the Laity erring with their Teachers or Pastors are altogether excused from all fault yea by erring thus many wayes materially they merit for the act of Christian Obedience which they owe their teachers as Valentia saith Tom. 3. disp 1. q. 2. pag. 5. and others with Angles Vasquez c. Pag. 124 125. After Cajetan he cites Zanchez teaching that those that are brought up among Hereticks are not bound presently to believe and yet are not to be accounted Hereticks till they refuse Belief sufficiently propounded to them And he cites Alph. Ã Castro and Simanchas Aragon and Tannerus and Faber for the same And pag. 126. he cites Eman Sa affirming that even among Catholicks many are excused from the explicite knowledge of the Trinity and Incarnation specially if there want a Teacher For what saith he shall we say that an infinite number of Christians otherwise good people perish that scarce know any thing aright of the Mysterie of the Trinity and Incarnation Yea judge perversly or falsly of them if you ask them And cites Rozella and Midina of the same mind Lastly gives also the judgement of Gr. Valentia fully for his opinion Analys fid lib. 2. cap. 3. lit D. In the sixteenth Probleme page 127. he puts another Question Whether the Law of Nature and Decalogue may be unknown without fault And saith that though Alex. Ales say No yet It is the more common and received Opinion citing Adrian Corduba Herera alios communiter that there may be such invincible ignorance in respect of the Law of Nature and the Decalogue And note for the understanding of all this that this which they call an Implicite faith in Christ is no actual faith in Christ at all He that only believes as the Church believes and knows not that the Church believes in Christ in the Resurrection of Christ c. hath no actual belief in Christ or the Resurrection at all Ignoti nulla fides If I believe that one of you is true of his word it doth not follow that I actually believe the particular propositions which I never heard This which they call an implicite Belief is nothing but the explicite actual belief of the Formal Object of Faith Divine or Humane as that God is True or the Church True and infallible but it is no belief at all of the particular material object And note that every one in the world that believeth that there is a God must needs believe that he is no Lyar and so hath in God an Implicite belief Now if this will save men without a particular belief in Christ then Christianity is not necessary Every Turk and Jew and Infidel that believeth in God may then be said to have an Implicite faith in Christ in the Popish language because he believeth all that God revealeth to be true But if an Implicite faith in God will not serve how should an implicite faith in the Church serve unless the Church that is the Pope be better then God See here whether they make any more of the Christian faith then a meer shooing horn to draw and keep men to their side By a General Council and the Pope it is determined that no man can be saved out of their Church as headed by the Pope To believe in the Pope is of Necessity to Salvation but to believe in Christ in his Incarnation Death Resurrection is not so An Implicite faith in the Pope or Church yea or erring Doctors may save and men may merit by following them in error but an Implicite faith in God himself will not save if we believe not in the Pope So that if we were Infidels we might be saved so we were of the Church of Rome and believed in the Pope but the Holiest Christian that believeth explicitely in God and all the Articles of the faith cannot be saved if he believe not in the Pope Do you think they believe these Doctrines themselves or rather frame them to the building of their Kingdom And what a wonder is it that Learned Doctors see not their own contradiction they suppose a man to believe in the Pope or as the Church believeth and yet not to believe in Christ And is not the Church essentially a company of Christians the spouse and body and school and Kingdom of Christ And is not the Pope essentially the pretended Vicar of Christ How then can they believe in Christs Vicar or Christs School or Kingdom or followers before they believe in Christ himself And by all this you may perceive the Holiness of the Roman Church and the nature of that Discipline or Church Government that all the world must needs submit to or be damned Even such as takes in Infidels and all and layeth the Church as common to the world for as many as will but believe in the Pope and Clergy You see here also another mysterie opened that a man may have enough to Justifie him that yet will not save him For most of them are here said to hold that a man may be justified without an explicite faith in Christ or that the knowledge of Christ is not necessary to his Justification but to his salvation it is Though the other half say that its necessary to neither And if a man die in a Justified State must he be condemned when Paul saith Rom. 8. 30. Whom he justified them he also glorified You see also here what their Baptism doth that can ex opere operato infallibly put away the sins of all these Infidels and so the Eucharist c. And yet they must not be saved for all that their sins are all done away O what a Maze is the Romish Divinity And you see how well they are agreed about these fundamentals when half of them think that an Actual belief in Christ is necessary to salvation and not to Justification and others that its necessary to
both and a great part that its necessary to neither And you see here the benefit of having an Infallible Living judge of controversies and expounder of Scriptures and how admirably he hath ended all their differences And again I say If formally these Unbelievers are in their Catholick Church they shall give us leave to say that the Greeks and other Eastern and Southern Christians are in the same Catholick Church as we are when we differ not so much And when they have made the Non-belief of Articles of the faith consistent with salvation they will never while they breath be able to confute him that on the same grounds affirmeth the contrary belief consistent with salvation in case of the same want of teaching and sufficient means And by this time I hope you see of how small moment the Popish Censures are when they judge that a Protestant cannot be saved It s true that S. Clara here judgeth otherwise but 1. It s said his Book was burnt or condemned at Rome for it 2. He alloweth Infidels as much 3. And he proveth himself a Heretick by it at Rome seeing a General Council and Pope have determined the contrary even that it is necessary to salvation to be a subject of the Pope of Rome CHAP. XXXVIII Dètect 29. ANother of their Deceits and I think the most successfull of all the rest is Their suting their Doctrines and Government and Worship to the fleshly humours of the ungodly by which means the Greatest and the Most are alwayes like to be on their side When on the contrary our Doctrine Discipline and worship is all so contrary to carnal interest and conceits that we are still like to lose the most if not the greatest and consequently to be a persecuted people in the world This is their unanswerable Argument By this means they captivate the Nations to their Tyranny The Most are every where almost licentious sensual worldly and unsanctified Wise men and Godly men are few in comparison of the rest of the world And it is the multitude commonly that hath the strength and the Great ones that have the wealth So that I confess I take it for a wonder of mercy that they are not Lords in every Countrey and that the Reformed Catholicks be not used every where as they be in Spain and Italy For where they have but opportunity to shew themselves the Principles and Practises of the Papists are such as will be most likely to win the Rabble rout to them and make them Masters of the multitude and of all except a few believing Heavenly persons For the flock is little that must have the Kingdom And then when they have got the multitude thus to follow them and club'd the rest into prisons or burned them in the flames they reckon of this as one of the surest Evidences that they are the Catholick Church because forsooth they are the greater number in the Countries where they have advantage and it is but a few whom they were able to persecute or burn as Hereticks that were against them The very Argument of the Jews against Christ and his Disciples The Reasons why they have not by this Policie won the Christian world to their side are under God the great Defender of the innocent these four 1. Because in the Eastern and Southern Churches they have not had opportunity to lay their snares as they have had here in the West And also those Churches have too many corruptions and neglects at home for the gratifying of the worser sort 2. Because God hath been pleased in some places so to bless the endeavours of the smaller part as to enable them against the multitude to preserve some liberty 3. Because God hath sometime given Wise and Godly Princes to the people that will not be cheated with the Popular deceits 4. And principally because that the Papal Tyranny is directly contrary to Princes Rights so that its only those that are blinded by ignorance or strengthened by an extraordinary league with Rome or forced by the multitude of Popish subjects and neighbours that put their necks into the Romish yoke For what by the Popes pretended Power in temporals at least in ordine ad spiritualia and what by his excommunicating Princes and his pretended power to depose them and give their kingdoms to another and to absolve their subjects from their oaths and fidelity which is an Article of their faith agreed on by the Pope and General Council Later sub Innoc. 3. cap. 3. and what by his exempting the Clergy from their Princes Power and what by the pilling their Countries for money and what by their doctrine and practises of murdering Princes that are not of their mind by these and many other Evidences they have awakened many of the Princes of the earth to look about them and consequently to befriend the Truth against these Tyrannous Usurpers Had it not been for these helps under God we had not been like to have a name where they can reach nor to have had liberty to breath in the common air It would be a voluminous work to shew you how all the Doctrines Government and worship of the Papists is suted to the humor of the sensual multitude and fitted to take with ungodly men I shall but instance in twenty particulars which are far from all 1. The Reformed Catholicks hold that none should be taken into the Church by Baptism unless themselves or their Parents if they be Infants do make Profession of the Christian faith and of an holy life for the time to come and seem to understand what they say and do and be serious in it which exasperateth the grosly ignorant and ungodly when we deny them this Priviledge of Believers But the Papists admit of the ignorant ungodly and such as believe not explicitely in Christ as you heard even now and so please the people and fill their Church 2. The Orthodox hold that Baptism giveth Remission of sin to none but true believers and their seed The Papists perswade many millions more that all their sins are not only pardoned but actually abolished ex opere operato in their Baptism which is comfortable News to such ungodly souls 3. The Protestants say that Original sin liveth after Baptism in some degree though it reign not or condemn not those that are true believers and that Concupiscence that is all inordinacy of the sensual appetite or inordinate inclination to sensual objects is a sin The Papists tell them that when once they are baptized there is no such thing in them as Original sin and that Concupiscence is no sin at all 4. The Orthodox hold that none are to be admitted to the Eucharist and Communion of the Church therein but those that believe actually or profess so to do the Articles of the faith and understand the nature of the Sacrament and live according to the Laws of Christ But the Papists give it to all and drive men to the Sacrament so that
are together by the ears who say that Merit of Condignity is but ex pacto by vertue of Gods Promise And now I leave it to the Conscience of any sober Papist whether we be guilty in any one point that this great Cardinal chargeth us with And whether Papists and Protestants were not in a fair way for reconciliation if we differed not more in other things then in these And here again I must let them know that Scripture only is the Rule and Test of our Faith and Religion Their Polidor Virgil in this speaks truly of us saying They are called Evangelical because they maintain that no Law is to be received in matters of Salvation but what is delivered by Christ or his Apostles so sapless and putid is their scorn of the Evangelium quintum If therefore Luther Calvin or any man speak in any word amiss blame the man that spoke it for that word but blame not all or any others for it if you are men Austin Retracted his own errors and which of us dare Justifie every word that hath faln from our mouths or pen before God How many hundred points do Schoolmen and Commentators charge on one another as Erroneous among yourselves shall all the errors of the Fathers be charged on the Catholick Church or all your writers errors upon yours And that we do well to stick to the Holy Scriptures as the sufficient Rule we are the more encouraged to think by the concessions of our adversaries of greatest Note as well as by the Testimony of the Scripture it self and the concent of the ancient Doctors of the Church and the unprovedness of of their pretended additonals Among others even this great Cardinal Richlieu saith thus pag. 38. Nos autem nullam aliam c. i. e. As for us we put or assert no other Rule but Scripture neither of another sort nor totall Yea we say that it is the Whole Rule of our Salvation and that on a double account both because it containeth immediately and formally the summ of our salvation that is all the Articles that are necessary to mans salvation by necessity of means N. B. and because it mediately containeth whatsoever we are bound to believe as it sends us to the Church to be instructed by her of whose infallibility it certainly confirmeth us Note here that 1. He grants us that all Articles necessary to our Salvation as Means are immediately and formally in the Scripture And then surely they may be saved that believe no more then is in the Scripture 2. That we are to believe no Church but that which the Scripture sends us to and to believe its infallibility no further then the Scripture doth confirm it And that the Scripture is our whole and only Rule O that all Papists would stand to this But let them not blame us now for standing to it Had this Cardinall done no more by Policie and Power then by Disputing against the Reformation he might easily have been dealt with CHAP. XL. Detect 31. ANother of their frauds is By ranking the Protestants among the rabble of Sects and Heresies that are in the world and then asking ignorant souls If you will needs be of any sect how many are here before you and what reason have you rather to be of the Protestants then of any other Answ Indeed this question is worth the considering by a Papist or any sectary but the true Catholick is quite out of the reach of it The Church of Christ is one and but One. This one Catholick Church containeth all the true Christians in the world This is the Church that I am a member of which is far wider then the Roman Church The Church that I profess my self a member of containeth three parts 1. The most sound and healthfull part and that is the Reformed Churches 2. The most unsound in doctrine though possest of many Learned men and that is the Papists themselves not as Papists simply but as Christians though infected with Popery 3. The middle part which is sounder then the Papists in doctrine but less learned and below the Protestants in both and that is all the Greeks and other Eastern and Southern Churches that are no subjects of the Pope All these even all true Christians are members of the Church that I belong to though some of them be more sound and some be leprous or lamentably polluted To these I may add many particular lesser sects that subvert not the foundation as some Anabaptists and divers others And will you ask me now why I will not be of another sect as well as of the Protestants Why my answer is ready A Sect divided from the body I abhor I am of no Sect It is the Unity Universality and Antiquity of the Church that are its honourable attributes in my eyes Protestants that unchurch all the rest of the world and count themselves the whole Church of Christ do in some sort make themselves a Sect But where is there any such I know none such nor I hope ever shall do And therefore I may say that Protestants are no more a sect then the Patients in an Hospital that are almost healed or then the higher form of Scholars in a school or then the Merchants or richer sort of Tradesmen in a City And such a Sect God grant that I may be of even one in the Church that shall be of soundest understanding and of purest worship and of the most carefull holy honest life But still I shall acknowledge them of the lowest form even them that learn the A. B. C. to be in the same School with me And if they Papists or any others will disclaim me that shall not unchurch me as long as Christ disclaims me not Nor shall it provoke me to disclaim them any further then I see Christ leading me the way So that the Papists may see that if they will deny the Church that I am of they must deny their own and all the Christian world But how will they answer this themselves Seriously I profess that besides their other errors it is one of the greatest reasons why I dare not be a Papist because then I know I must be a Sectary What is a Papist but as meer a sectary as any that retaineth a name in the Church They are a company of men that have set up a Humane Usurping Head or Vice-christ over the Catholick Church owning him themselves and unchurching and condemning all the Church that will not own him The Church that I am of is neer thrice as big as the Papists Church is Theirs is but a piece and a polluted piece that would divide it self from all the rest by condemning them And now I would seriously desire any Papist living to resolve the question If he will needs be of a sect and forsake the Universal Church why of the Popish sect rather then another If because it is the greatest I answer it s less then the whole If because it
on Shipboard What fools are you to venture your lives in such a ship that hath so much encumbrance and danger and so many flaws and but a few inches between you and death and is guided by such a Pilot as may betray you or cast away your lives for ought you know They know now that none but mad men will be perswaded by such words as these to leap into the Sea to scape these dangers and therefore they do this but to make men willing to pass into their ship and take them for our Pilots If you are wise therefore hold them to it and leap not over-board but keep where you are till they have shewed you a safer Vessel and Pilot which they can never do When I did but privately desire of Cl. Writer that he would acquaint me with that truth that he thought me ignorant of and that we might privately and lovingly consider how far we were agreed and where we differed that we might debate the case and try who was in the right he resolutely denyed to have any debate with me or to open any of his judgement but pag. 46. reproacheth this very motion as proceeding from my aims of a monstrous shape and ugly looks so monstrous a thing doth it appear to these deceiving Juglers to tell men what Religion they are of and would have us to receive when they will freely reproach the Religion which we profess 4. And you may strongly conjecture at the quality of these Juglers by their constant opposition against the Ministry It is Ministers that are their eye-fore the hinderers of their Kingdom Could they but get down these the work were done the day were their own And therefore their main business whatever vizor they put on is to bring the people into a dislike or contempt of the Ministry If they seem Quakers they will rail at them If they seem Seekers they will dispute against their calling If they seem the gentlest Behmenists they have their girds at them to acquaint the world that they are misguided by them But at first they will not let you know which is the true Ministry if ours be not or which is the true Church if ours be not Here they leave you 5. The Jugling Papist what vizor soever he wears is commonly putting in for his own opinions of the Necessity of a Judge of Controversies an Infallible Church a state of perfection here the magnifying of our own inherent Righteousness without any great esteem of Justification by the forgiveness of sin and many such like 6. Papists have still an aking tooth at the Authority and sufficiency of Scripture and therefore on one pretence or other are still disgracing and impugning it and leading men aside to some other Rule 7. Papists have still an enmity against the Power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion For in such matters their Vice-christ must be the only Judge Whereas indeed by that time the Magistrate hath judged Who is Punishable by the Sword and the Pastors and Particulars Churches have judged Who is excommunicable which are their undoubted works there is nothing left for a Pope to do Suspect them that are for a Liberty for all or at least for all that are no worse then Papists They that set open this door intend to creep in at it themselves at last 8. And it is a suspicious sign when you find men enemies to the Unity Peace and Settlement of our Churches but would still keep us in division and distraction And yet some of these men will lament our Divisions and cry up Unity but they will secretly hinder it or do nothing to attain it 9. And it is somewhat suspicious to see men hang loose from all our Churches in their practise and joyn with none nor communicate in the Sacraments If they know not Sacraments and Church-communion to be both our Duty and the Means of our strength and comfort it is doubtful whether they are Christians or Infidels But if they know this of the Necessity and use of Sacraments and Church-communion in general and yet joyn not with any of our Churches herein it 's a shrewd suspicion that they have an eye upon some other Church For sure a tender conscience would not be many years in resolving of so great and practical a point no more then he would live many years without prayer on pretence of being unsatisfied in the mode of Prayer 10. And yet on the contrary side there are some Jugling Papists especially in our Councils Civil and Ecclesiastick that play their game by over-doing and making every thing to be Popish and Antichristian to drive us into extreams and into opinons in which we may easily be bafled And it 's not a little that they have won of us at this game CHAP. XLVII Detect 38. ANother of their Practical Frands is In their exceeding industry for the perverting of men of Power Interest that are likely to do much in helping or hindering them Swarms of them are busie day and night for the seducing of Princes and Nobles and Rulers of all sorts and of Commanders in the Armies Of their diligence abroad we may know somewhat by their success on divers of the German Princes and the late Queen of Sweden and on many of the Nobles of France and such others At home we have smarted by the fruits of their industry What abundance of assaults were made on the late King from his going to Spain and the Popes Letters to him there and to the Bishop of Conchen to take care for his seduction and so all along to the last I need not mention And what Noblemen or Persons of Interest in England lay not under assaults and solicitations in those days And are all the Jesuites and Fryars dead Or have they not still the same cause and industry as then Is the Court or Councils of the Land or the Nobility Gentry or Army now free from their fraudulent solicitations How far they have prevailed time will fullier reveal but what they will endeavour we may easily judge And certainly the number of Seekers and such other Sects among them doth tell us that they have not lost their labour If these lines shall fall into the hands of any of our Rulers or Commanders I intreat them for the sake of their souls and the Common-wealth to be prudent and vigilant in a matter of such consequence I do not intend to intreat them from error unto truth without sufficient light and evidence But that which I desire is but reasonable 1. That you would not be too confident of your own understandings to deal with such Juglers in your own strength without assistance They have made it their study all their days and are purposely trained up to deceive whereas you are much wanting in their way of study and much unfurnished to resist how highly soever you may think of your selves 2. That you would read a little more the learned solid writings of our Divines
against the Papists such as Dr. Fields Crakenthorps Ushers Chillingworths Jewels Rivets Chamiers Ames Reignolds whittakers and such like beginning with Sir Humfrey Linds Via Devia via Tuta du Plessis of the Church and his Mysterie of Iniquity and Dr. John White c. 3. That you will not hearken to Papists secretly nor masked nor coming to you by indirect and Jugling ways but open their perswasions and call to some able studyed Divines to deal with them in your hearing if needs you will hear them that so you may hear one side as well as the other 4. That you take heed what Retainers Servants or Familiars are about you For some that pretend to be acquainted with these men are much mistaken if they be not more frequent at your elbows and in your Bed-chambers then many do imagine If they cannot be of your Councils and your neer attendants they will rather be your Porters or the Grooms of your Stables then they will be kept out We fear not any thing that they can do in an open way in comparison of their secret whispers and deceits when there is no body to gainsay them Had they the Truth we should be glad to entertain it with them It is not therefore Truth in their mouths that we are afraid of But seeing the Nations and our Posterity have so much dependance on your Integrity we call for so much Justice at your hands as that you will not cast open your ears to each deceiver especially in secret or on unequal tearms Let not all our peace and safety be hazarded by the self-conceitedness or imprudence of you that are our Rulers Seeing it is you that must give us Laws or set the Vulgar the pattern which they are so much addicted to imitate We adjure you in the Name of the most High God that you be not too forward and facile in hearkening to Seducers and corrupting those Intellects which the whole Nation hath so great an Interest in and that you be not henceforth as children tost to and fro and carryed about with every wind of doctrine by the the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4. 14. But we beseech you mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16. 17 18. Hearken not to every one that saith Lo here is Christ or Lo there is Christ here is the Catholick Church or there is the Catholick Church As if Christ were divided or the Catholick Church were more then One Or it were confined to a Sect or Party whether Papal or any other and did not contain all Christians through the world All parts of this Church are not equally pure but all are Parts Be you of the purest part but do not therefore take that part for the whole much less the polluted part Have compassion on the diseased and tumified part but do not therefore so far doat as to love the tumor or disease and say that none is the Church but this We are willing to be as Charitable to that Proud Throne of Rome and usurping Vice-christ as will stand with the safety of our souls and of the Church But God forbid that we should therefore be so blind as to run into their Pest-house and drink the poyson by which they are thus tumified intoxictaed Look on their Principles and see what an aspect they have on Christ on the Catholick Church and upon Princes Look back on their Practises and see what their Principles proved in the fruits Yea what need we go further for a warning then to remind you of that which one would think should be deep and fresh in your minds even what they have brought upon Kings Queens Lords Prelates and this whole Land But this leads me to the next Detection CHAP. XLVIII Detect 39. THE last of their Practical frauds at home and the most desperate is Their Treasons against the lives of Princes and the Peace of Nations and their dissolving the bonds of Oaths and Covenants and making Perjury and Rebellion to seem to be Duties and Meritorious works It would be a voluminous task to relate the Histories of the Papal Tresons How the Roman Vice-christ having laid a claim to both Swords Spiritual and Temporal hath plaid the Traytor against the Greek Emperors dispossessing them of the West and against the Emporors of Germany stirring up their own subjects and the Christian Princes and States against them setting his foot on the neck of one and making another wait barefoot long at the Roman gates and keeping many of them in wars It was this Horrid Treason and Tyrannical usurpation over all the Christians Princes that caused all those Treatises on that subject wrote against him in the Defense of Princes and their Rightt which Mich. Goldastus hath preserves and conjoyned in divers Volumes It was this that caused England Denmark Sweden and so many other Princes to be the readier to shake off his yoke Kings are not Kings where the Pope is fully Pope except only the House of Austria whom he is forced to gratifie as the only prop of all his tyrannie France that hath so much stood for its Liberties hath felt the fruits of the Roman Principles and League and two of their most renowned Kings successively have been basely and inhumanely butchered by them And to this day the numerous swarm of the Popes dependant Clergy doth not only devour as is thought about a third part of the Lands but also aws and swaies the Princes Even in Ireland before our wars a Bishop Bedle in his Letter to Laud in Prins Introduct pag. 102. doth open the Power of the Clergie and their insolencies as such that he concludes His Majesty is now with the greatest part of this Countrey as to their hearts and consciences King but at the Popes descretion And in another Letter to the said Archbishop ibid. pag. 112. he saith I that know that in this Kingdom of his Majesty the Pope hath another Kingdom far greater in number and as I have heretofore signified to the Lords Justices and Council which since is justified by themselves in print constantly guided and directed by the order of the new Congregation de propaganda fide lately erected at Rome see the rest Do I need to tell England of the many treacheries since the Reformation against our Princes Or who it was that would have deposed as well as Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth and exposed her Kingdoms to the will of others Or who it was that wrote against King James his Title to the Crown Or who were the Actors of the Hellish Powder-plot Or who it is that hath been still blowing the fire and casting all into disturbances for their ends Do I need to mention their approving of
succession of the Catholick Church for the defection of Henry the eighth who forcibly separated himself and his people from the communion of Christians which was promoted by Edward the sixth and Elizabeth who being pertinaceous and impenitent in the same Rebellion and Usurpation therefore the Pope incited by the continual perswasions of many and by the suppliant prayers of the English men themselves N. B. hath dealt with diverse Princes and specially the most potent King of Spain to depose that woman and punish her pernicious adherents in that Kingdom Read the rest there for though wicked its worth the reading The Pope there saith that Pope Sixtus before him prescribed the Queen and took from her all her Dignities Titles and Rights to the Kingdom of England and Ireland absolving her subjects from the Oath of fidelity and obedience He chargeth all men on pain of the wrath of God that they offord her no favour help or aid but use all their strength to bring her to punishment and that all the English join with the Spaniard as soon as he is landed offering rewards and pardon of sins to them that will lay hands on the Queen and so shewing on what Conditions he gave the Kingdom to Philip of Spain This and more you may see in Thuanus And yet some of our Juglers that say they are no Papists perswade the world that Papists hold not the deposing of Princes nor absolving their subjects from the Oaths of fidelity and that the Spanish invasion was meerly on Civil accounts and that they expected not any English Papists to assist them with other such impudent assertions Even Dominicus Bannes one of the best of them in Thom. 22. qu. 12. art 2. saith that Quando adest evidens notitia c. i. e. When there is evident knowledge of the crime subjects may lawfully exempt themselves from the Power of their Princes before any declaratory sentence of a judge so they have but strength to do it Adding to excuse the English Papists for being no worse that Hence it follows that the faithfull Papists of England and Saxony are to be excused that do not free themselves from the power of their Superiors nor make war against them because commonly they are not strong enough to manage these wars and great dangers hang over them Princes may see now how far the Papists are to be trusted Even as far as they are sufficiently disabled And their August Triumphus saith de Potest Eccles qu. 46. art 2. Dubium non est quin Papa possit omnes Reges cum subest causa rationabilis deponere i. e. There is no doubt but the Pope may depose all Kings when there is reasonable cause for it Is not this a Vice christ and a Vice-god with a witness Add but to this that the Pope is Judge when the cause is Reasonable for no doubt but he must judge if he must execute and then you have a Pope in his colours even in his Universal Soveraignty Spiritual and Temporall And as I said before from Suarez and others when the Pope hath deposed a King any man may kill him I will not trouble you with Mariana's directions for poysoning him or secretly dispatching him de Reg. instit lib. 1. cap. 7. Suarez his moderate conclusion is enough Defens fid Cathol li. 6 c. 4. sect 14. Post sententiam c. After sentence past he is altogether deprived of his Kingdom so that he cannot by just title possess it therefore from thence forward he may be handled as a meer tyrant and consequently any private man may kill him O Learned Suarez No wonder if you and your Profession be dear to Princes and if Henry the fourth of France took down the Pillar of your infamy and received you into his Kingdom and Heart again No wonder if the Venetians at last have re-admitted you to procure some aid against the Turk I will conclude with one Testimony of a Roman Rabbi cited by Bishop Usher who knew his name but would not do him the honour to name him It is B. P. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epistol J. R. impresan 1609. Who hath excused the Powder-Plot from the Imputation of cruelty because both Seeds and Root of an evil herb must be destroyed and doth add a derision of the simplicity of the King in imposing on them the oath of Allegiance in these most memorable expressions worthy to be engraven on a Marble Pillar Sed vide in tanta astutia quanta sit simplicitas c. But see what simplcity here is in so great craft When he had placed all his security in that Oath ho thought he had framed such a manner of oath with so many circumstances which no man could any way dissolve with a safe conscience But he could not see that if the Pope dissolve the Oath all its knots whether of being faithfull to the King or of admitting no Dispensation are accordingly dissolved Yea I will say a thing more admirable You know I believe that an unjust Oath if it be evidently known to be such or openly declared such obligeth no man That the Kings oath is unjust is sufficiently declared by the Pastor of the Church himself You see now that the Obligation of it is vanished into smoak and that the bond which so many wise men thought was made of iron is less then straw These are the words of Papists themselves From their published writings we tell you their Religion I know they will here again tell us abundance of false accusations of the Protestants such as the Image of both Churches heapeth up and they will tell us of our war and killing the King in England But of this I have given them their answer before To which I add 1. The Protestant doctrine expressed in the Confessions of all their Churches and in the constant stream of their writers is for obedience to the Soveraign Powers and against resisting them upon any pretenses of Heresie or Excommunication or such like 2. The wars in England were raised between a King and Parliament that joyned together did constitute the Highest Power and upon the lamentable division occasioned by the Papists the people were many of them uncertain which part was the Higher and of greatest Authority some thought the King and others thought the Parliament as being the Representative body of the people in whom Polititians say is the Majestas Realis and the Highest Judicature and having the chief part in Legislation and Declaration what is just or unjust what is Law and what is against Law Had we all been resolved in England which side was by Law the Higher Power here had been no war So that here was no avowed resisting of the Higher Powers None but a Parliament could have drawn an Army of Protestants here under their banner 3. And withall that very Parliament consisting of Nobles Knights Gentlemen and Lawyers who all declared to the people that by Law they were bound to obey and assist them
without importunity or constraint And were our Power but answerable to our Desires we would soon put an end to these contentions of the Church without the hurt of any of the Dissenters Yea did there appear but any considerable Hopes of success I should venture to be more large in Proposals to that end But when wiser men of greater interest can do no good and the case appeareth as next to desperate a few words may suffice to satisfie my own conscience and to please my mind with the mention of a Peace and to help some others to right Dispositions and Desires though we have never so little expectation of success And in order to what follows I must first desire every Reader rightly to understand the meaning and design of all that I have hitherto said It is but to be a necessary help to the Discovery of the Truth and the confutation of the contrary errors and the just defence of the doctrine of Christ and of his Churches I solemnly protest that it is none of my design or desire 1. To make any believe that the Difference is wider between us and the Papists then indeed it is Nay I am satisfied that in many doctrinall points it is not so great as commonly it is taken to be by many if not most on both sides as in the points of certainty of Salvation of Pardon of Justification of Works of Faith and in almost all the controversies about Predestination Redemption Free-will the work of Grace c. The Dominicans in sence agree with the Calvinist as they call them and the Jesuites with the Lutherans and Arminians and so in divers other points The divers understanding of words among us and the weakness and passions of Divines and a base fear of the censures of a party hath occasioned may on both sides to feign the differences to be much wider then indeed they are so that when an Alvarez a Bannes a Gibieuf have spoken the same things as the Protestants do they are presently fain to pour out abundance of unworthy slanders against the Protestants for fear of being accounted Protestants themselves And to shew their party how much they differ from us they must feign us to be monsters and to hold that which commonly we abhor And some Protestants are too blame also in some measure in this kind This unchristian dealing will gripe the conscience when once it is awakened Let me be rather numbred with those that are ambitious to seem as Like to all the Churches of Christ and as much to agree with them as honestly and possibly I may what party soever distaste that union and agreement And let my soul abhor the desire of appearing more distant and disagreeing then we are what censures so ever I may incur Our students would not so ordinarily read Aquinas Scotus Ariminensts Durandus c. if there were not in them abundance of precious truth which they esteem How neer doth Dr. Holden come to us in the fundamental point of the Resolution of our faith How neer come to the Scotists to us in sence about the point of Merit and Waldensis and others yet neerer How neer comes Contarenus to us and many more in the point of Justification How neer comes Cardinall Cajetan to us in the Liberty of dissenting from the Fathers in the Exposition of the Scriptures and so doth Waldonate and many another How neer comes Cardinal Cusanus lib. de Concord to us even in the Essential point of difference about the Original and Title that Rome hath to its supremacy How neer comes Gerson to us in the point of Venial and Mortal sin perhaps as neer as we are to our selves How neer come the Dominicans and Jansenians to us in the points of Predestination Grace and Free will For my own part I scarce know a Protestant that my thoughts in these do more concur with then they do with Jansenius that is indeed with Augustine himself There are very few points of the Protestant doctrine which I cannot produce some Papist or other to attest and easily thus be even with Mr. Brerely upon fairer terms then he deals with us 2. I do also protest that it is none of my desire or design to create any unjust Censures of the final state of Papists in any Readers nor to perswade men that they are all damned or that there are no honest godly men among them When I read such writers as Gerson Barbanson Ferus and others I am fully satisfied that there are many among them how many God only knows that truly fear God and are sanctified gracious people with whom I hope to dwell for ever And therefore I think it my Duty not only to forbear unjust Censures of them but also to love them with that entire speciall Christian Love by which Christ would have us known to be his Disciples and to perswade all others to do the like Though still I am constrained to say that in my small acquaintance with them I find no comparison between the English Papists and our Churches in point of Holiness I would they were much better 3. I do also protest that it is not my desire or design to make any innocent Papist to be accounted guilty of the faults of others which he disowns 4. Nor is it any of my desire or design to provoke the Magistrate to any cruelty or injustice towards them nor to lay any penalty on them but what is truly of necessity for the safety of himself and the Common-wealth and a just restraint of them from perverting others and doing mischief to the souls of men as I shall open more at large anon 5. Nor is it any of my desire or design to make the generality of them unjustly more odious with Rulers or People then the measure of their corruptions do deserve Or to hide any of their vertues or deprive them of any honour which is their due This much my conscience witnesseth of my intents though I know the partial will hardly believe it when they feel themselves smart by that Contradiction which they have made necessary for our own defence And this I thought necessary to premise before I lay down the following Proposals that prejudice and passion do not turn away men eyes or cause them to misinterpret them For it is prejudice partiality and faction that hath hitherto frustrated all such Proposals and attempts CHAP. LI. THere are five several Degrees of Peace which lye before us to be attempted between the Roman and Reformed Churches We shall begin with the highest and upon supposition of the failing of our Designs for that come down to the next and so to the Lowest 1. The first Degree of Peace to be Intended and Desired is That we may so far Agree as that we may hold personal Communion in the same Assemblies in the worship of God and live under the same particular Pastors 2. If that cannot be attained the next Degree desirable is That we may hold
Ecclesiam utramque Gallicanam Brittanicam etiam tum cum Ecclesia Brittanica non communicabat cum Romanâ certe si utraque pars absque prejudicio sese mutuo intelligeret pars extrema de rigore suo vellet remittere ea Brittanicae Ecclesiae cum Gallicana concensio non foret adeo improbabilis atque prima fronte videtur Ecclesiam utramque vel alterutram ignorantibus I add this but to shew the Judgement of those on whom the judgement of Grotius had any influence for a Communion with the French as if we little differed from them Still professing that I would run with the forwardest to meet them upon tolerable terms And that the remembrance of the moderation wisdom charity of the Cassandrian party in France that resisted the violence of the rest long in vain and lamented the massacres and were oppressed by them is very greateful to my thoughts and the names of many of them very honorable in my esteem And it grieves me that Grotius called by Mr. Pierce a Protestant should so far out-go them in Popery whom the same man confesseth to have been Papists He goes much further then Cassander Much further then Thuanus that so plainly and truly openeth abundance of the Popish evills that Grotius patronizeth and so long and successfully did his part to keep out of France the Authority of the Council of Trent which was part of Grotius his Religion And how far he went beyond that excellent man Michael Hospitalius the Head of that party so much commended by Beza as well as by Thuanus and Foxius and others is easie to manifest 5. And I am the more provoked also to perform this task because I see by many more as well as Mr. P. that the design is still on foot and that the Papists that are got so strong in England under the mask of the Vani the Seekers the Infidels the Quakers the Behmenists and many other Sects have so much addition to their strength by Grotians that go under the mask of Episcopal Divines Which yet I should the less be troubled at if France Savoy England Holland Poland Bohemia and all parts where they prevail did not acquaint us by bloody tormenting thundering flaming evidence how they use their power where they dare 6. And it moveth me much also to consider the consequence of the point in hand It is not a meer speculation but a point so practical that the right decision and understanding of it is as much as the Peace of millions of souls yea of all the Churches and Common-wealths in Christendom is worth All that have any thing of the love of God alive within them are somewhat sensible of the sinfulness and misery contained in the divisions and discord of Believers and therefore they must needs be solicitous for the Cure and lay out themselves and all they have or can do to accomplish it if they knew the way And the more zealous any man is for Peace the more resolutely will he carry on his work and bear down all opposition that would hinder him in that which he thinks the way of Peace And when persons thus disposed by humanity and grace shall be quite mistaken in the very thing they seek even in the Nature of the Churches unity and peace they will think themselves bound with all their zeal and diligence to endeavour the doing of an evill work and to accomplish a work neither possible nor desirable And it is not hard for a man of an indifferent wit to fore-see what uncharitableness discomposure of minds of Churches and Common-wealths and abusing and endangering of souls is like to be the fruit of such mistakes about the Churches Unity and Peace And as the School useth to say from Boetius and Anselm Malum non est nisi à bono propter bonum so it will be like by experience to be made a proverb that Bellum discordia non sunt nisi à pacificis propter pacem The greatest discords and wars will be from the Love and Endeavour of Unity and Concord and for the obtaining of them by impossible means These following evills may easily be foreseen 1. If men mistake about the Nature of the visible form of the Catholick Church and its unity it is like to pervert their judgements in many other weighty points of Religion For when they have received this Error as a Truth then they will be exceedingly inclined to bend the rest of their opinions to it and contrive them into a Consistent Form For Truth would to Truth as Fire would to Fire and Water to Water Yea all that is flexible within them shall be bended to the interest of this conceit 2. As soon as ever any man hath received this opinion of the necessity of an Universal Visible Head or common Government of the whole Chruch he is either a Papist or of an opinion equivalent in folly tyrannie and impiety to Popery For if such a Visible Head must be there is no other that can pretend to it with Reason or Honesty any more then the Pope Nor is it our quarrel against Rome that their Bishop rather then another should be this usurping Head but that they would have such a one at all It is not who shall be the man or power but whether there shall be any such man or power that we dispute This Error about the Necessity of an Universal Visible Head is the very thing that turneth most to Popery and this is the common argument that is mannaged by deceivers to that end as their writings commonly declare 3. And then when men are drawn over to be Papists for the avoiding of Schism and the obtaining of Unity they are unawares involved in the most desperate Schism which I have proved that party to be guilty of and with it drink in the dregs of all the Roman abominations When men have set up a new Church-form by setting up a new Head and Center of Unity and then judge of all particular Churches and Members by this standard it leadeth them unavoidably to separate from all the Churches and Christians upon earth that conspire not and center not with them in their new devised Head 4. And by this means Charity is much destroyed in mens souls and he that hath least of Love hath least of God and the Preachers and Pastors turn all their studies into matter of Controversie and their labors into wranglings and all under pretence of Catholick Unity And having not charity they prove not only sounding brass and tinkling Cymbals in their most learned labors but too often burning brass like Perillus Bull and military Trumpets and all this under pretense of Charity when they have destroyed it Hence is it that uncharitable censures are so common and the Lambs of Christ so often cloathed in the skins of Wolves by the Wolves that have by exchange put on the skin of the Lamb. Scarse a man that crosseth or displeaseth that is dissenteth
and so it is apparent unto them yet most that are not members of it do not know it Arrians and Mahometans know us to be men professing such and such Articles of faith but they know not that to be the true faith nor us to be the true Church but judge the contrary In this sence contained in these Propositions it is that Protestants deny the Church to have been alwayes Visible and not as the Papists commonly mistake them Prop. 4. We are agreed that this Catholick Church is but One There are not two Visible nor two Mystical Catholick Churches Nor are the Mysticall and Visible two Bellarmine might have spared all his labour that he hath bestowed in vain upon this point to prove that the Visible and Invisible are not two Catholick Churches The Protestants are further from that Opinion then the Papists and it is more suitable to the Popish Interest and Cause to be of that Opinion then to the Protestants If it were not that they are past learning by the advantage of their Infallibility and especially of one man and one so mean condemned by them and that it is unlawfull to be a Teacher of Error I could tell them of a new device by the advantage of this distinction of Catholick Churches for the modelling their mistakes into a more specious plausible form then now it appeareth in to the rest of the Churches But we are glad of their company in any Truth and therefore will not disagree from them in that which makes against themselves One Objection I once heard a Learned Anabaptist cast in our way viz. There may be a Visible Church of hypocrites therefore the Mystical and Visible may be two Answ But the Question was of the Catholick Church and not of a particular Church We confess that some members of the Catholick Church are Mystical and Visible in the several respects before mentioned and that some are Visible and not Mystical or as Bellarmine well calls them Dead Members and not Living and that the Church as Visible is more comprehensive then the Church as Regenerate or Invisible and yet all but One Church though it have more members in it in one respect then in another And we confess that its possible for twenty or an hundred of these Dead members to constitute a particular Church by themselves though it is not usual for Visible Churches to be without Living members and so there may be a particular Visible Dead Member Analogically called a Member or a particular Visible Church that is thus Dead and these be parts of the Catholick Church as Visible But yet there is not two Catholick Churches One Visible and the other Invisible one alive and the other Dead In a Corn field there are 1. Good Corn. 2. Stricken blasted Corn that hath a name and shew but in deed no Corn. 3. Tares darnell cockle and such weeds It is called A Field as it conteineth them all It is called a Corn field only from the Corn. The Univocal proper parts of a Corn field is the Corn only The Visible and Analogical parts are also the blasted ears The darnel and cockle are no parts but noxious accidents There are not two fields of Corn one of true Corn and the of other blasted ears And yet the Corn field taken largely and Analogically hath more parties in it then true Corn and you may perhaps have some particular sheavs that are wholly of that which is blasted which you will call a sheaf of Corn Analogically only but a sheaf of weeds you will not at all call a sheaf of Corn. Even so in the Catholick Church there are sincere Christians which are true and living members and there are Hypocrites which are Analogically members and there are locally mixed many that by denying essential points of the Christian faith or by notorious Impiety do declare themselves to be weeds and no members of the Church at all Prop. 5. We are also Agreed that this One Visible Catholick Church is One Political Holy Society as united in Jesus Christ the Head who teacheth and ruleth it by his Ministers and other Officers in the several parts according to the necessity of each We call it One Political Society 1. Principally because that all the Church is united in this One Soveraign or Head the Lord Jesus and therefore it is called his body 2. They have all the same holy doctrine of faith and Law to live by and be judged by 3. They have all Church Officers of the same sort under Christ to teach and govern them 4. They have all the same kind of Holy Ordinances as Reading Preaching Praying Praise Sacraments c. appointed them by the Lord. 5. They are all engaged in One and the same Holy Covenant to the Lord More might be mentioned and shall be God willing in a peculiar Treatise of Catholicism or the Catholick Church And though Christ himself be not now seen among us yet may he truly be called a Visible Head For 1. He sometime lived visibly on earth 2. And is now the Visible King of all the Church as he is in the Heavens Though we see him not the Celestiall Inhabitants do It is but little of the world that seeth the Pope any more then they see Christ If one unseen to us may be a pretended Visible Head the other may be truly so So that the Body Head Laws Worship c. being Visible so is the Policy Prop. 6. We are agreed also that all these Christians and particular Churches are obliged by Christ even by the very Law of Nature and the ends of their calling and the General Laws of the Gospell to live in as much Love and Unity and Peace as they can and to hold as full and extensive communion as they can that is as far as their work requireth and their Capacity will permit and enable them those that are cohabitans and members of one Congregation must hold local communion in that Congregation unless Necessity prohibite Those that through distance are uncapable of joining in the same Assemblies should yet be conjoined 1. In the same Lord Faith Baptism Covenant Profession 2. In the same bond of Christian special Love 3. In the use of the same sort of holy worship as to the Substance though they differ in circumstances as in the Word Prayer Praises Sacraments c. 4. And in one sort of Church Officers and Government And as far as we have to do with each other all this should be manifested and we should readily own one another as Brethren and true Churches notwithstanding lesser differences Prop. 7. To these ends it is meet that the Bishops or Pastors of the Churches should hold in way of Association as frequent Assemblies as is needfull for the maintaining of mutual Love and Correspondency and right understanding of each other and to manifest their unity and assist each other in the work of God that it may be the more successfully carried on by united strength against
as well able to prove that a London Convocation was a General Council Pighius pleading for the Pope saith plainly that General Councils were the devise of Constantine And the Popes themselves do fetch the most specious Evidences for their primacy from the Decrees or Edicts of Emperors Valentinian Gratian and others And what power had those Emperors at the other side of the world 3. And then before the Nicene Council what General Councils were there since the Apostle days None doubtless that the world now knows of It 's senseless enough to think that 350 Roman Bishops at the second Council of Nice or the 150 Bishops in the third Council at Constantinople or the 165 Bishops at the second Council at Constantinople or the 150 Bishops at the first there were the Universal Church of Christ But it will be more ridiculous to say that the new-found Concilium Sinuessanum imagined without proof to meet in a certain Cave for the deposition of an Idolatrous Pope were a General Council Where then was the Head the unity the form of the Church for 300 years Was it governed all that time think you by a General Council yea or ever one day since the Apostles Well but was there ever such a thing at all Indeed men have a fairer pretence when the Church was contained in a family or a City or a narrow space to call the meetings of the Apostles or other Christians then by the name of a General Council but they are hard put to it if this be all The great Instance insisted on is the Council Act. 15. But were the Bishops of all the Churches there or summoned to appear Act. 14. 23. they had ordained them Elders in every Church but few of them were there Timothy Titus abundance were absent It 's plain that it was to the Apostles and Church at Hierusalem as the Fountain and best informers that they sent Not because these were the Universal Church but because they were of greatest knowledge and authority If it could be proved that all the Apostles were there it would no more prove them a General Council then that the Deacons of one Church were ordained by a General Council Act. 6. And Matthias and Justus put to the Lot by a General Council Act. 1. and that Christ appeared to a General Council after his Resurrection and gave the Sacrament of his Supper to a General Council before his death So that it is most evident from the event that Christ never made a General Council the Head or Governor of his Church and that there never was such a thing the world much less continually Argum. 3. The form or unity no nor the well-being of the Catholick Church dependeth not on that which is either unnecessary unjust or naturally or morally impossible But a true General Council is none such It cannot be or if it were it would be unnecessary and unjust Therefore it is not the Head or Soveraign Governor of the Church on which its being unity or well being doth depend I have nothing here to prove but the Minor And 1. I shall prove the Impossibility 2. The non-necessity 3. The unjustice of a General Council and so that no such thing is to be expected A true General Council consisteth of all the Pastors or Bishops of the whole world or so many as Morally may be called All. A General Council of Delegates from all the Churches must consist of so many proportionably chosen as may signifie the sense and consent of all or else it is a meer name and shadow Both these are Morally if not Naturally Impossible as I prove 1. From the distance of their habitations some dwell in Mesopotamia some in Armenia some in Ethiopia some in Mexico the Philippines or other parts of the East and West-Indies some at St. Thome's some dispersed through most of the Turks Dominions Now how long must it be before all these have tidings of a Council and summons to appear or send their Delegates Who will be at the cost of sending messengers to all these Will the Pope Not if he be no richer then Peter was How many hundred thousand pound will it cost before that all can have a lawful summons And when that is done it will be long before they can all in their several Nations meet and agree upon their Delegates and their instructions And when that is done who shall bear their charges in the journey Alas the best of the Churches Pastors have had so little gold and silver that they are unable themselves to defray it A few Bishops out of each of these distant Countries will consume in their journey a great deal of money and provision To provide them shipping by Sea and Horses and all other necessaries by land for so many thousand miles will require no small allowance And then consider that it must be voluntary contribution that must maintain them And most love their money so well and know so little of the need of such journeys and Councils that doubtless they will not be very forward to so great a contribution And it is not to be expected that Infidel Princes will give way to the transporting of so much money from their countries on the Churches occasions which they hate But suppose them furnished with all necessaries and setting forward How long will they be in their journey Shipping cannot always be had Many of them must go by land It cannot be expected that some of them should come in less than three or four if not seven years time to the Council And will ever a General Council be held upon these terms 2. Moreover the persons for the most part are not able to perform such journeys Bishops are Elders Most of them are aged persons The wisest are they that are fit to be trusted in so great a business by all the rest And few attain that maturity but the aged Especially in the most of the Eastern Southern Churches that want the helps of Learning which we have And will the Churches be so barbarous as to turn out their aged faithful Pastors upon the jaws of death Some of them are not like to live out so long time as the journey if they were at home They must pass through raging and tempestuous Seas through Deserts and enemies and many thousand miles where they must daily conflict with distress It were a fond conceit to think that without unusual providences ten Bishops of a thousand â—â—ould come alive to the Council through all these labors and difficulties And moreover it 's known how few bodies will bear the Seas and so great change of air How many of our Souldiers in the Indies are dead for one that doth survive And can ancient Bishops spent with studies and labors endure all this Most studious painful Preachers here with us are very sickly and scarse able to endure the small incommodities of their habitations And could they endure this 3. Moreover abundance of the Pastors of
is impossible to most of the world as is before shewed and were it possible it would be so tedious and laborious a course that its ridiculous in most to mention such Appeals Argum. 9. The Soveraign or Head of the Church as of every Body Politick hath power to deprive and denude any other of their power The Pope or General Council hath not power to do so therefore they are not of the Head or Soveraigns of the Church The Major is a known principle in polity He that giveth power can take it away And it 's confessed by the Opponents in this case The Minor I prove 1. Because else it would be in the power of the Pope or Council whether Christ shall have any Ministry and Church or not They may at least make havock of it at pleasure But that 's false 2. As is before said we receive not our power from them therefore they cannot take it from us 3. The Holy Ghost doth make us Over-seers of the flock Act. 20. 28. and lay a Necessity on us and denounce a woe against us if we preach not the Gospel and hath no where given us leave to give over his work if the Pope or a Council shall forbid us 4. And they can shew no Commission from Christ that giveth them such a power Arg. 10. If it were the form or Essence of the Church to have a humane visible Head then our Relation to such a head would be essential to our Membership or Christianity But the Consequence is false therefore so is the Antecedent The falseness of the consequent is apparent 1. In that it cruelly and ungroundedly unchristeneth all that do not believe in such a visible Head That is the greatest part by far of the Christians in the world And 2. By the ensuing argument And the necessity of the consequence is evident of it self Argum. 11. If such a visible Head were essential to the Church and so to our Christianity then should we all be Baptized into the Pope or a General Council as truly and necessarily as we are baptized into the Church But we neither are nor ought to be so baptized into the Pope or a General Council therefore they are not essential to the Church or our Christianity The Major viz. the Consequence is clear and not denyed by the Papists who affirm that Baptism engageth the baptized to the Pope He that is united to the body is united to the head he that is listed into the Army is listed to and under the General He that is entred into the Common-wealth is engaged to the Soveraign thereof But that we are not baptized to the Pope or a General Council is proved 1. Because neither the form of Baptism nor any word in Scripture doth affirm such a thing 2. No persons in Scripture times were so baptized Men were baptized before there was a Pope at Rome or a General Council And afterward none were baptized to them at least for many hundred years otherwise then as they were entred into the particular Church of Rome who were Inhabitants there 3. Never any was baptized to Peter or Paul or any of the Apostles saith Paul 1 Cor. 1. 13. was Paul crucified for you or were ye baptized in the name of Paul They must be baptized into the name of no visible Head but him that was crucified for them 4. The Apostle fully resolveth all the doubt 1 Cor. 12. describing the body into which we are baptized ver 13. And he entitleth it from the head Christ vers 12. but acknowledgeth no other head either co-equal with Christ or subordinate The highest of the other members are called by Paul but eyes and hands and thus Apostles Prophets Teachers Miracles gifts of healing helps Governments are only said to be set in the Church as eyes and hands in the body but not over the Church as the Head or Soveraign Power ver 17 18 19 28 29. so that though he that is baptized into the Church is baptized into an Organical body and related to the Pastors as to hands and eyes yet not as to a head nor as to a representative body neither And me thinks neither Pope nor Council should pretend to be more then Apostles Prophets and Teachers and Governments If the form of baptism had but delivered down the authority of the Pope or a Council as it did the authority and name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Tradition would have been a tolerable Argument for them though Scripture had been silent But when the Baptismal Tradition it self is silent and it is a doctrine so monstruously strange to the Primitive Church that all the baptized are baptized to the Pope or a General Council I know no remedy but they must both put up their pretenses Argum. 12. The Essence of the Church into which they were baptized was part of the doctrine which the Catechumeni were taught and all at age should learn before their baptism The Soveraignty or Headship of Pope or Council was no part of the Doctrine which by the Primitive Church the Catechumeni were taught and ought to learn before their baptism Therefore the Soveraignty or Headship of Pope or Council was not then taken to be of the Essence of the Church The Major is evident 1. In that the Catholick Church was in the Creed and it's essentials there briefly expressed in those terms Holy Catholick Church and Communion of Saints 2. In that Church History fully acquainteth us that it was the practice of the Catethists and other Teachers to open the Creed to them before they baptized them and therein the Article of the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints The Minor is proved by an induction of all the Records of those times which in gross may now suffice according to our present intended brevity to be mentioned There is no one Writer of many hundred years no not Origen Tertullian Irenaeus or any other that purposely recite the Churches belief which the Catechumeni were taught nor Cyril or John Hierosol or any other who open those Articles to the Catechumens that ever once mention the Doctrine of the Headship of the Pope or Council when they open the Article of the Catholick Church nor yet at any other time If they affirm that they did let them prove it if they can Argum. 13. As it is high Treason in a Republick to deny the Soveraign and to be cut off from him is to be cut off from the Common-wealth so it would be a damning unchristening sin to deny the Headship of the Pope or General Council if they were indeed the Head of the Church But it is no such damning unchristening sin Therefore they are not the Head of the Church The Major is plain from the Nature of Soveraignty The Minor is certainly proved 1. Because it is never mentioned in Scripture nor any ancient Writer for many hundred years as a state of Apostasie nor as a damning sin nor as any sin to deny
the said Headship of the Pope or Council 2. Because else most of the Christians of the world at this day are Apostates and unchristened Or if that seem a tolerable conclusion to the Romanists Yet 3. Because then Christ had no Church for some hundreds of years which I know they will not think so tolerable a conclusion For to dream that the ancient Christians did know any Head of the Church but Christ or were engaged in loyalty to the Pope or Council is a disease that few are lyable to except such as are strangers to the writings of those times or such as read them with Roman spectacles resolved what to find in them before hand Argum. 14. All Christians are bound to study or labor to be acquainted with the Laws of the Soveraign power of the Church All Christians are not bound to study or labor to be acquainted with the Laws of Popes and Councils Therefore the laws of Popes and Councils are not the Laws of the Soveraign power of the Church The Major is proved in that all subjects must obey the Laws of the Soveraign power But they cannot obey them unless they know them Therefore they are bound to endeavour to know them The Minor is proved 1. In that they being written in Latine and Greek which a very small part of the Christians of the world do understand and their Teachers not sufficiently expounding them and they being more copious and voluminous more obscure and uncertain of which next then for all private Christians to understand the people cannot learn these having enough to do to learn Gods Word 2. The Papists that deny the use of the Holy Scriptures to the people in a known tongue and deny the necessity of understanding them will sure say the same of their Decretals and Canons unless they mean to set them up above the Scripture as well as equal them thereto Argum. 15. The Soveraign Head of the visible Church and Center of our unity must be evident that all the Christian world may know it The Pope and General Council are not such Therefore neither of them are the Head of the Visible Church The Major is confessed by the Opponents and it 's plain because men cannot obey an unknown power The Minor is known by common experience For many a year together by Bellarmines confession learned and wise men could not tell which was the true Pope yea their Councils could not tell Most of the Christian world to this day cannot discern his Commission for that power which he pretendeth to A true General Council now no man can know because it is a non ens Their pretended General Councils are so ravelled in confusion that they are not agreed among themselves which are indeed such and which not but many are rejected and many suspected of which Bellarmine giveth us a list and those that one receiveth another rejecteth and the most by far are rejected by most of the Christian world And when some would take up with the four first and some with six and some with eight the Papists deridingly ask them whether the Church hath not as much authority now as it had then And how shall the Christian world know whether it were a true General Council or not Of which see the difficulties first to be resolved which I have recited in my Disputations against Popery Argum. 16. The Laws of the Soveraign Power of the Church must be certain or else how shall we know what to obey The Laws of Popes and General Councils are not certain Therefore c. The Minor is proved by experience The Popes Decretals are many unknown and many proved forgeries by Blondell ubi sup and many others beyond all question and none of them proved Laws to the Church The Canons of the first Council of Nice are not agreed on among the Papists Many others are proved forged Many are flatly contrary to each other as I have shewed ubi sup and how then shall Christians know what to obey The ancient Canons condemned the gesture of kneeling on the Lords day and consequently then at the Lords Supper the reading of the Heathens Books and many such things which are now taken for lawful The later Councils that contradict the former do seem to most of more questionable authority then they And what Councils are to be received and what rejected they are not agreed among themselves nor have any certain Rule to know by on which they are agreed Nor will their Popes or Councils yet resolve them this great question So that Christians are at a loss concerning these Laws and know not which of them they are obliged by and which not Argum. 17. If the Pope or Council be the Head of the Church then must their Laws be preached to the people by their Teachers But the Laws of Popes and Councils need not be preached to the people by their Teachers Therefore c. The reason of the Major is because the Laws that they must obey in matters spiritual in order to salvation the Ministers must preach to them But these are pretended to be such Therefore c. As to the Minor 1. It would be but an unhansome thing in their own hearing for Preachers to take their Texts out of the Canons or Decretals and preach these day after day to the people which yet they have need to do many a year if the obedience of them be our necessary duty 2. Ministers are commanded to preach only the Gospel and it is said to be sufficient or able to make us perfect and build us up to salvation Therefore we need not preach the Canons or Decretals Argum. 18. While a Visible Head cannot be agreed on even by those that would have the Church united in suoh a Head it is all one to them as if there were no such Head and the union still is unattainable by them But even among the Papists themselves a Visible Head is not cannot be agreed on Therefore c. What good will it do to say we must center some where and know not where and obey some body and know not who The Italians and Spanish make the Pope the Infallible Head and say a General Council without him may err and is but the body The French make the Council the Head and say the Pope may err and that the infallibility such as they plead for is in the Council It is not a Head but this Head in specie that is the form of the Church if any such be And therefore they must needs according to their own principles be of divers Churches while they place the Soveraignty in several sorts and persons Till they better agree among themselves in their Fundamentals and Essentials of the Church we have small encouragement to think of uniting on any of their grounds Argum. 19. The Soveraign Power or Headship over the Church is a thing undoubtedly revealeed in the Holy Scripture For we cannot imagine that the Scripture should be silent in so
any of his power I say that not a word of this should be mentioned by Christ or his Apostles even when there was so great occasion when Peter was among them when there was striving for supremacy when the Churches were lamentably contending about the preheminence of their teachers and some were for one and some for another and some for Cephas himself and when so many heresies arose and hazzarded the Churches as among the Corinthians Galathians and others there did This is a thing so hard to be believed by one that believeth the wisdom and love of Christ that I must say for my part it surpasseth my belief Especially as is said when also so much is said against the Supremacy contended for All this I speak of any earthly Head whether Pope or Council Object But say the Papists you can allow Princes to be the Heads of the Church why then not a Pope Answ We acknowledge Princes and Pastors over parts of the Church but not over the Church Universal Every Corporation may call the Major or Bayliff a subordinate Head of that Corporation but not of the Kingdom Object There may be a Prorex a Viceking and why not then a Vicarious Head of the Catholick Church Answ 1. Because a Kingdom is not so big as all the world or all that is and may be Christian 2. Because a King having Dominion hath power of doing all that by others that he cannot do himself But a Pastor being a Minister hath no such power given him but must do his work himself 3. Because the work of the Ministry requires far more labour and attendance So that it is an utter Imopssibility that any man should be able to do the work of a supream Ruler of all the Christian world yea or the hundreth part of it as it must be done 4. And lastly because Christ hath made no such Prorex or Vice-head and none can have it without his commission Object But the Civil power hath been exercised by an Emperour over more then all the Christian world And why then may not the Ecclesiastical Answ 1. It s notoriously false that ever Emperour had so extensive a Dominion 2. The Gospel must be preached over all the world and therefore we must consider the possible future extent of the Church and not only the present existent state 3. There are many millions of Christians mixt in the Dominions of Infidel Princes among other Religions which makes the Government of them the more difficult 4. I shewed before from the nature of the work many other difficulties which make a difference Object Monarchy is the best Government therefore the Church must have it Answ The Monarchy of God is best but among men it is according to the state of the Rulers and subject One way is better in some cases and another in others 2. For one man to be Monarch of all the Christian world is not best when by taking a thousand times more upon him then he can do he will ruine instead of ruling well 3. You may as well say An Universal Civil Monarch over all the world is best therefore so it must be but when will you prove that But if I mistake not in my conjecture it is the thing that the Jesuites have lately got into their heads that the Pope must have the Universal Soveraignty Ecclesiastical and Civil that so an Universal peace may be in the world Obj. There was but One High Priest before Christ Answ 1. No more there was but one Temple Will you therefore have no more Nor but one civil Monarch in that Church Would you have no more I partly believe it 2. It was easie for one to Rule so small a Nation as Judaea in comparison of all the world 3. Prove you the Institution of your Supremacy as we can prove the Institution of Aarons Priesthood and the taking of it down again and we will yield all 4. That Priesthood was a Type of Christ the Eternal Priest and is ended in him as the Epistle to the Hebrews shews at large Object There is a Monarchy among Angels and Devils Answ 1. It s a hard shift when you must go to another world for your pattern But for your Argument fetcht from Hell I will leave it with you but for that from Heaven I say there 's no proof of it And if there were till you can prove that our work and fitness for it is the same as Angels and that the Lord hath appointed the same form here you have said nothing But because this Question is largely handled by abundance of our Learned Writers I shall say no more to it here but conclude that by this which is already said in brief it is manifest that The Catholick Church of Christ is not one Visible Political Body as joined to any One Universal Visible Head or Soveraign besides Christ If any being driven from this hold shall say that yet there are several Patriarcks that Govern the several Provinces of the Christian world though there be no head but Christ I answer 1. If there be no earthly Head and Center of unity then I have the main cause These Patriarcks may and do at this day unreconcilably disagree among themselves This therefore will not serve for a unity 2. When as is aforesaid you have well proved the Institution of these Patriarcks and how many they be and who and the power of Princes to make new ones and not to forbear it and to pull down the old ones and when you have answered the foregoing Arguments as many of them as extend to Patriarchal power also as well as Unversal Headship then we shall take this further into consideration In the mean time I supersede as having done that which I think necessary to take off men from inclining to Rome and reproaching of Churches upon the erroneous Conceit of the Nature and unity of the Catholick Church as if it were One as under One Earthly Visible Head CHAP. IV. Opening the true Grounds on which the Churches Unity and Peace must be sought and the means that must be used to attain so much as is here to be expected Quest BUT if this be not the way of the Churches Unity which is and what should we desire and endeavour for the attaining it For the distractions of the Church are so great through our divisions that it makes us still apt to suspect that we are out of the way Though it be a great work to answer this question rightly and a hundred a thousand times greater to answer it satisfactorily that is to satisfie prejudiced incapable men with a right answer yet I shall attempt it by casting in my thoughts or to speak more confidently by declaring so much as I am certain is the will of God concerning this weighty thing And here I shall first lay down those grounds upon which we must proceed if we will do our duty for the union of the Church 2. I shall tell you what
or in part But by Consultations and Agreements to strengthen each other and Direct the people in the faith of Christ and the maintaining and propagating the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and doing those duties in the Worship of God and in Righteousness and Mercy to men which the Scriptures do impose and in agreeing upon those Modes and Circumstances of Worship which God hath made necessary in genere and left to occasional humane determination in specie Nor may they under this pretence either contradict the just determination of the Magistrate concerning such Circumstances or impose any ensnaring needless Ceremonies upon the Church but only order the service of God according to the General Directions of the Scripture and the Light of Nature which by the consideration of the case may help to discern the fittest order It is therefore a strange assertion of some that Governours have nothing to do if they may not appoint new Ordinances or Symbolical Ceremonies on the Church and make new Laws seeing God hath done the rest already As if it were nothing to see to the execution of Gods Laws Or as if this were not the fittest work for such kind of Rulers whose Rule is only by Ministerial Guidance Or as if the determination of Necessary Circumstances requisite ex natura rei were not enough for them to do beside what is written There being no more necessary to the reducing of the Laws of God into practice Me thinks meer servants and Embassadors should not be very forward in making Laws if they understand their office Jam. 4. 12. Heb. 8. 10 16. Gal. 3. 15. Deut. 12. 32. Ezek. 2. 7. 3. 10 11. 1 Cor. 3. 5. 4. 1 2. 2 Cor. 1. 24. 1 Cor. 6. 12. 9. Those necessary Circumstances in Religious Worship which are of humane determination and left undetermined by God are unfit matter for General Councils or remote Assemblies to make standing General Laws of For 1. the Nature of the things are such as are mutable and unfit to be fixt but must be frequently varied as occasions require 2. The occurring circumstances will be the fittest guide to determine them 3. They may be meet in one Countrey or Church which are unmeet in another 4. Upon such reasons God himself hath left them undetermined Therefore he left them not to any fixed General determination 5. The Pastors that are in the place are the fittest Judges of those occasions that must determine them 6. And it is the office and in the Commission of those Pastors to be the Guides of their own actions and Congregations 7. And Councils are not their Lords So that all this laid together may tell us that it is rather the work of particular Pastors or Bishops and of neerest Associations in those cases where Concord is requisite then of Provincial or National or General Councils to determine of such Circumstances For example The command of preaching reading administring the Sacraments singing Psalms c. do imply that I must have some time and place to do them in I must use some gesture vesture necessary utensils but it tells not what in particular I must read some particular Chapter Psalm c. or so much of it Now common prudence will tell me what to do in these cases my self or else I am not fit to be a Pastor or entrusted with so great a work as Gods publick Worship or the care of souls Shall a Council now make Laws that all the Ministers in the World or in this Nation shall preach only on such a day and only at such an hour and in this or that part of the Church and only on such Texts such days appointing them a Text for every day or that they shall use only such words in praying and preaching as is written for them or shall pray or preach just so long or shall sing only such a Psalm in such a tune using only such cloaths and such gestures with an hundred the like This is to make themselves Masters of the Church and use their power to the destruction of Ministry Worship and Church and not to the Edification of it The present state of the flock by sin or affliction or the like may make such a Text fittest for me to preach on and such a Chapter to be read or such a Psalm to be sung when by the Impositions of proud usurpers I am commanded to use the contrary viz. Subjects of Joy in a time of Humiliation or of Humiliation in the time of Joy c. Many the like inconveniencies might easily be manifest These unnecessary Impositions are the Engines of Division Act. 15. 28. Rom. 14. throughout Rom. 15. 1 7. Phil. 3. 15 16. Mat. 23. 4. 11. 28. 1 Cor. 6. 12. 2 Cor. 1. 24. 10. Where some Impositions by Magistrates or Agreements by Ministers in such Circumstances are thought lawful or fit yet must not the Churches Unity or Peace be laid upon them So that if through the weakness of Christians they could not perceive the lawfulness of them but did think they should sin against God if they used them it is a cruel dividing course for Magistrates here by sore penalties or Pastors Excommunications to seek to drive them upon that which they think is the way to hell or the wrath of God when in the Judgement of the Imposer it is a thing indifferent The peace of the Church and of Conscience is more worth then a Ceremony and better kept by gentle recommending such things if fit and a tender rebuke or check to the weak then by forcing all to that which they neither can nor need to use But some say if all may use what way they will what order shall we have I answer therefore make no unnecessary Laws cast not a foot-ball of contention before them These presumptuous Impositions are the fire brands of the Church For example we had here a Law that Ministers should read only such a peece of a Chapter called an Epistle and Gospel such a day which yet I would not disobey here now arose contention about it The same Ministers were left at liberty what Text to preach on and this liberty made no breach in the Church Ministers were commanded to wear a Surplice and this raised contention But what kind of hat or cap or shooes or hose to wear they were left at liberty and this made no contention nor occasioned any undecency The Lords Supper was to be taken only kneeling and this raised contention But they were left at liberty whether to kneel or stand or sit at Sermon or reading or singing Psalms and this bred no undecency nor division They were enjoyned to bow at the name of Jesus in the reading of the Gospel only And this raised division But they were left at liberty to bow or not to the Name of God Christ Lord c. and to the Name Jesus in Sermon or the Epistle or the same Gospel read in the whole Chapter and this bred no
division nor discontent Lay the Churches peace upon no new humane Impositions if you would have it hold Peruse Rom. 14. and the other Text last cited 1 Cor. 6. 12. 11. The Churches Peace or Unity must not be laid on any bare words of mans devising It 's not a work for Councils or Prelates to form the Christian doctrine in new methods and terms and then to force others to subscribe or use those very terms If the same men that refuse this be willing to subscribe to the whole Scripture or to a Confession in Scripture terms you may force him to no more Object But Hereticks will subscribe to Scripture Answ 1. They must wrest it then or wrest their Consciences And by either or both these shifts they may also subscribe to any of your Confessions 2. If his Heresie be latent in his mind you know it not nor can call him an Heretick nor doth it hurt the Church If it he published or preached to others let civil Governors question him for corporal punishment and let the Associate Pastors question him to his Reformation or Rejection You will have a better ground to reject him for delivering falsehood in his own words then for not subscribing to Truth in your words when he subscribed the same Truth in Gods Words There is no Unity to be expected if you will so far depart from the Scripture sufficiency as to make any more for sense or phrase of absolute necessity to our peace By phrase or terms I mean either the same numerically as in the Original or equipollent as in translations And I say not that it 's necessary to the unity of the Church that every word in Scripture Original or Translations be subscribed to for some may doubt of the corruption of a word or Book But that no more is necessary If all Scripture be not of that degree of Necessity much less humane additions Isa 8. 20. 1 Tim. 3. 17. 2 Tim. 1. 13. 1 Cor. 9. 5. 1 Tim. 6. 20. Act. 20. 32. 12. The Churches Unity Peace must not be laid upon all Divine Truths as not on lesser darker points which neither the being nor well-being of Christianity is concerned in so much as to rest upon them Phil. 3. 15 16. Rom. 14. 15 17 20. Heb. 5. 11 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 7. 19. Gal. 5. 6. 6. 15. Col. 3. 11. 13. We ought to love and esteem as Christians and members of the Catholick Church all those that profess to believe the Essentials of Christianity and to be sanctified by the Spirit of God and lead a holy upright life so they make a credible profession not evidently contradicted by words or deeds though these persons may differ from us in many lower points of Doctrine Worship or Government 1 Cor. 1. 2. Eph. 6. 24. Gal. 6. 15 16. Phil. 3. 16. Rom. 15. 1 2. 14. 1 2. 1 Cor. 8. 9. 14. We ought so to manage the Worship of God in our particular solemn Assemblies that no sober peaceable Christian may be repulsed or forced from our local Communion through differences in things of indifferent nature Heb. 8. 5. Mat. 15. 9. Rom. 14. 13. 14 1. 2 Cor. 11. 3. Joh. 4. 23 24. 15. If any Churches differ from us in Ceremonies or smaller things or if any particular Christians differ so that they cannot in conscience hold local Communion with us in the same Assemblies for Worship E. G. if we sit at the Lords Supper and they dare not take it without kneeling if we sing a version of the Psalms which they scrup'e to joyn in If we permit none to joyn that will not conform in disputable things in such cases though it be first our duty to do our best to remove all offences yet if that cannot be done we may and ought in several Assemblies to take each other for Brethren and of the same Catholick Church so be it we all hold the same essentials of Faith and Godliness and walk accordingly and especially if we also hold those weighty superstructures that the welfare of the Church is most concerned in Though here were few or no instances of this case in the days of the Apostles when divisions were not so great as now yet the general rules in the fore-cited Texts do prove it 16. Ecclesiastical Ministerial Government by whomsoever exercised must not degenerate into a secular coercive Government nor may we use carnal weapons nor meddle by force with mens bodies or estates nor yet can we oblige the Magistrate to do it meerly to execute our censures or without sufficient Evidence to prove it his duty nor can we oblige the people against the Word of God clave errante so that neither Bishop nor Council hath any such power as is properly decisively Judicial obliging to execution be the sentence right or wrong But our people must know that though we be their Guides or Rulers yet are we but Ministers and that they have a higher power to regard and must not obey us against the Lord but in and for him The Power of Pastors therefore is not like Magistrates or absolute Judges as is said before but like a Physitian in his Hospital or in an infected City among his Patients and like a Reader of any Science to voluntary Scholars in his School and as an Embassador to them to whom he is sent So that our Governing being but by the Word and on the Conscience is of the same nature with our Directing 1 Pet. 5. 3. Luke 22. 25 26. 3 Joh. 9. 10. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 17. Magistrates are Governors of the Church even as a Church and of Christians as Christians though not Absolutely nor in the same respects by the same means to the same neerest Ends as Pastors Magistrates must force us to our duty and punish us if we be wicked or negligent even as Pastors and cast us out of our Benefices and deny us encouragements if we be insufficient so that ad hoc the Magistrate is the only Judge what is sound doctrine and what heresie what Ministers are sufficient or insufficient culpable or not I say ad hoc so far as to Judge who shall have publick Liberty and Countenance and who shall be punished restrained and discountenanced Thus far the Mastrate is Judge in Religion besides that Judgement of Choice which every private man hath And therefore the Princes of the Christian world should hold some correspondencies like General Councils among themselves by their agents for carrying on the work of Christ and much of the unity and prosperity of Christians lyeth on their hands Isa 49. 23. Psal 2. 12. Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4. 1 King 2. 27 35. 2 King 18. 4. 2 King 23. 8 20. 2 Chron. 14. 3 5. Josh 1. 8. 1 Tim. 2. 2. 18. Yet are the Pastors of the Church in their places Rulers or Guides of Princes and Magistrates that is we Guide them by Doctrine and Church discipline as they Rule us
by force The Pastors are the Judges of Heresie and Vice ad hoc thus far so as to judge who shall be Denounced by themselves unmeet for the Churches Communion and Judges of sound Doctrine so far as to resolve what is by themselves to be taught to the people and Judges of that Magistrate so far as to determine whether he be a fit subject for their Administrations and Communion For every man is to judge when he is to act and execute in these cases and therefore when the Question is Who is to be tolerated or forcibly restrained the Magistrate is the only Judge and the Minister but a teacher But the Question is whom should I admit or not admit to my Communion and whom should I perswade and require the Church to avoid or to receive Here the Pastors are the Judges And when the Question is Whether the Pastor go according to Gods Word or not here the people have Judicium Discretionis and cannot be forced though they ought to obey where they see not sufficient reason to the contrary Mat. 28. 18 19. Heb. 13. 17. 1 Thes 5. 12. 1 Cor. 4. 1. Luk. 12. 42 44. 1 Sam. 28. 18. Dan. 9. 8 10. Joh. 20. 23. 2 Chron. 36. 14 15 16. 19. The honor and power of the Pastors is for their work And so great is that work that as to fleshly accommodations it layeth us under abundance more trouble then the power and honor affordeth us relief from All true Pastors therefore should be so far from striving for Power Greatness and Rule and extent of their Diocess as matters of advantage that they should still look on their Power but as Power to thresh or plough or sow or reap a Power to give alms to all the poor in the Town to visit all the sick to cure mad men that will abuse me c. such a Power to labor and suffer in doing good And thus he that will be the Greatest but think of no other kind of greatness but a power to become the servant of all If men had these true apprehensions of the Episcopal office they would be no more forward in contending for power and large Diocesses then now they are in contending who shall Instruct most of the ignorant or go to the poor ungodly families to further their reformation or intreat beseech exhort most of the obstinate from man to man or who should relieve the most of the poor of all the Countrey about And if this be it they contend for they may Rule without a Commission from the Prince Who will hinder them that hath any fear of God 1 Cor. 4. 9 10 11 12 13 16. Act. 20. 18. to the end 2 Cor. 1. 24. Mark 10. 44. 1 Thes 2 9. Luk. 10. 2. 20. No man is called by God to more work then he can possibly do nor should desire and undertake more And therefore if Prelates and Councils and Popes would but conscionably bethink them of the work what it is and how to be done of what weight and how strict will be the account and then consider how they can do it our differences would quickly be at end For though godly men would put off no service they can do yet when they lookt on the undertaking of these Impossibles they would tremble to think on it All conscionable men are sensible of their weakness and the weight of the work and say who is sufficient for these things And I dare say the strongest of them all would feel the weight of the burden of one Parish and be readyer to beg and seek about for help then to contend for a a larger Diocess unless as the meer necessity of the Church for want of laborers might call them to labor in other parts Duty supposeth Authority and Authority supposeth ability and opportunity even natural ability and mental qualifications Psal 131. 1 2. 2 Cor. 2. 16. BY this much you may see what Unity may be expected in the Church on earth 1. A unity of internal Faith and Love and Spirit among all real Christians 2. A Unity of Profession all professing the same Belief that is of the word of God in General and of the Creed and Essentials of Religion in particular and as many more of the particular truths as they can reach 3. A Unity of Professors in local communion in the same Assemblies in Gods publick Worship in the Word Prayer Praises Sacraments c. Where they cohabite or have opportunity for such communion 4. Among those that are out of our reach or being neer us yet differing in some smaller things where a difference is tolerable we may yet in word writing and deed own each other as Brethren and combine for the promoting of the common good and the commonly received truths and duties So that we have in these four the unity of the spirit in the bond of Peace One Body the Catholick Church comprehending all properly called Christians One Spirit The sanctifying Spirit of Christ One Hope of our calling One Promise or Gospel and One Heaven and End One Lord even Christ the only Head of the Church One Faith Both objective in Scripture and the Creed and subjective specifical which is our Reception of Scripture doctrine and of Christ with his benefits One Baptism entring all one and the same Covenant with Christ to be his and take him for our Lord and Saviour renouncing the world the flesh and devil and signifying this by external washing in the name of that Father Son and Holy Ghost One God and Father Our Creator Preserver our End and Happiness Ephes 4. 3 4 5. And is all this Nothing to you that seemed so much to Paul that unless you have also an Earthly Universal Head and an Unity in Ceremonies wherein all must be of your mind and conform to you as if you were Gods you will revile at our divisions and run to Rome for further Unity HAving laid down those Grounds or Principles on which the Unity and Peace of the Church must be built there appears not any great need of adding any more for the reducing these to practice if these were but received the way of practice would be obvious But briefly I shall lay down these few Propositions implyed in those exprest before 1. Let every man profess his belief of the Holy Scriptures in General and in particular of all that Scripture hath exprest to be of Necessity to Salvation by denouncing death to them that have it not And let them also Profess to consent that God be their God and Christ their Saviour and the Holy Ghost their Sanctifier and that they renounce the flesh the world and Devil resolving to live a holy life And let this be by a credible way of Professing And all that do thus let us esteem love and use them as Christians till they some way plainly disown this Profession 2. Let every such Baptized Professor owning also the Ministry Church and Worship Ordinances plainly required
in Scripture be a member of some particular Church where he may worship God in the Communion of Saints 3. Let those that make not the foresaid Christian Profession be excluded the number of Christians and those that own not the Fundamentals of communion the Church Ministry Word Prayer Praise Sacrament of Communion be taken as unmeet for actual communion with us though yet we censure them not to be no Christians 4. Let those that are obstinate and impenitent in any Errors contrary to the said Profession and Ordinances or in actual gross sin or discovering an ungodly heart be rejected by the Church after due admonition and patience 5 Let all the Pastors Associate and hold constant correspondency according to their neerness and opportunity for helping and strengthening each other and unanimous carrying on the work of Christ 6. Let these Associations have standing Presidents where the peace of the Church requireth it 7 Let no particular Pastors set up any thing in Gods publick Worship which is not Necessary and may tend to make divisions by driving tender Consciences from his communion 8. Let Associations forbear making Laws to others and imposing as Governours and let them make Agreements for certain Duty and not Laws that pretend to make new duties and let them Agree on nothing unnecessary 9. Let them study Holiness as much as Peace and keep clean themselves and their societies as far as they can and look at labour and suffering and not at any other honour and power but what is for duty and let them look abroad and help the dark parts within their reach and lay out themselves freely and industriously for God and have the chief regard to the most publick good 10. Let him that is justly cast out of one Church be received by none into communion till he be reconciled and if they suspect that he is unjustly cast out let him not be received till the Church that cast him out be heard and the injury or his Repentance manifest 11. Let those that cannot hold local communion because of some smaller practical difference as gestures words c. and yet agree in the foresaid Profession and Fundamentals of Communion yet own each other professedly as Brethren and maintain Love and communion in other respects 12. Let all differing Christians consult and agree how to hold their differences so as may least prejudice the common truths which all receive and as may least hinder the salvation of the ungodly or offend the weak 13. Let none judge or defame each other till they are heard and see they have sufficient cause by certain proof And then admonish them and bring the cause to the Association before they proceed further 14. Let the correspondency of Pastors extend as far as there is Capacity Opportunity and need We cannot correspond with the Antipodes nor much with the Ethiopians nor such remote parts there is seldom opportunity and seldom necessity of actual correspondence with forreign Nations But yet when publick occasions require it the publickest cases being the weightiest we should by Delegates or Messengers from several Associations perform our duties in all such correspondencies whether in Councils or otherwise 15. If any members of our Churches travail into other parts they should take Certificates or Communicatory Letters that they may be admitted to the communion of the Churches where they travail or abide 16. The chief consultations for General Peace and effectual promoting the healing of the Churches and the propagation of the Gospel into the unbelieving parts of the world should be done by Christian Princes by their Agents and though Ministers are fit to be partly their Agents in such consultations yet not meerly as Pastors but as fit men employed by their Princes He that lives to see but this much reduced to practise will see a better unity and peace in the Church then ever was or will be attained by an earthly Head and Judge of the Universal Church whether Pope or Council or then the Agreement of the five Patriarks and the later Primates and Metropolitans will procure Let us be content with one Head and one Heart and center there but though the fingers and toes be more we can well bear it Take up with the Holy Scriptures as the sufficient Rule Let the Profession of that be the mark of a believer and all such believers be taken to be as they are the Catholick Church and no faction Schismatically and presumptuously confine it to themselves Let this Intellectual Unity of faith be seconded with a cordial Unity of Holy Love to Christ and his Members that so our Unity may begin at the Head and Heart and not perversly at the fingers and toes of smaller matters or at the hair and nails of Ceremonies and indifferent Modes Let this be manifested in Professions of Love and publick ownings of the Catholick Brotherhood and of Christians as Christians and by publick disclaiming all selfishness and partiality and private Interests and all reproachfull words and writings and by actual communion as far as we can Let the Worship of God be performed in such holy simplicity that none may be driven from the sacred Assemblies and let the people be suffered to go the same way to heaven as Peter and Paul did go themselves and lead their hearers in Let us not be ambitious of Church Union or Communion with those that ought to be cast out of the Church and whom we are in Scripture commanded to avoid but let the three attributes of Holy Catholick and Apostolical be still affixed to the Church and be practically considered and those considerations issued in The Communion of Saints And then we shall have so much Unity and Peace as may honour the Christian Religion and strengthen us in the way to our Perfect Peace which is not to be expected in this dark diseased imperfect world This is the way and none but this But is there any hope that while men are as they are such healing Truths should be received and obeyed Yes by here and there a man who shall have the Peace of their peaceable Affections and Endeavours but not by the most either of the people or the Pastors let the evidence of the truth be never so clear Who can expect any great success of such Proposals that knows the world till the time come when Light shall go forth with an absolute resolution to prevail God is one and all that Deny themselves and center in him must needs be One But self is as various and numerous as Persons are And this self is the Heart of the Natural man and the Center of all the unsanctified And every self is a grain of Sand that 's hardly made coherent with another The Darkest mind is self-conceited and the poorest child or beggar is self-affected and high and low Princes and people have self-interests which draw them several waves And in the sanctified this self is mortified but in part and is the first living and