write all that Tradition Doctrine common to all Mankind and also what was peculiar to Abreham's Posterity so that no part of the Traditional Doctrine necessary to Salvation was left unwritten And the Prophet afterwards having more particular Revelations about the time place and other circumstances of the Conception Birth Preaching Miracles Death Resurrection and Ascension of the promised Seed penned them likewise So that the great Tradition that the Jewish Church was to derive down from Generation to Generation was the writings of Moses and the other divinely inspired Penmen as the intire Rule of their Faith in the Messiah to come So also what was necessary to be believed of what our Lord Jesus Christ come in the Flesh Taught and ordained did and suffered is intively collected in the Scriptures of the New Testament and no Doctrine of Christ necessary to be believed nor Institution of Christ necessary to be obeyed is left out of the said Holy Writings to be derived down by Oral Tradition and therefore it is an intollerable injury done to Christians to deny them the liberty of Reading the Scriptures in their own Tongue And an abominable Cheat is put upon the Christian world in pretending that Part of the Rule of Faith is left to be derived down by the Churches Tradition yea so that what Doctrine was not defined by the Church that is the Pope or Council or both to be de side and part of the Tradition to day may yet be so to morrow and so be made then necessary to Salvation which was not necessary before Parish I apprehend now the good warrant we have to stick to the Scriptures as the only and intire Rule of Faith and I hope by the grace of God I shall not forsake that sure Word But Sir still if we yield what the Romanists claim that there is appointed by God an Infallible Judge of the sense of the Scriptures to whose definitions all are bound to consent our Rule would be no Rule to us without the concurrent judgment of such an Authentick Interpreter Min. But it can never be proved that Christ hath appointed such an Authentick Interpreter of Scripture and infallible Judg of Controversies And besides the ridiculous perverting of Scripture by Popes to bolster up this and their other pretensions is sufficient evidence to any man that will use his eyes and his reason that the Pope is no such Judge And indeed if Gods Spirit cannot speak plain in his Word but he must need an Interpreter how can the Pope or Church speak so but they must also need an Interpreter and that Inpreter must need another Interpreter and so on in Insinitum Therefore we believe the infinitely Gracious God hath so made known his mind about Mans Salvation in his word that no man who prays to God earnestly and humbly for the assistance of his Spirit and useth serious attention and pondering of the Scripture comparing Scripture with Scripture and applies himself to the help of learned and pious Men and Ministers when he needs the same can dangerously err in necessary points of Faith and yet learned Men and Ministers convince him of the sence of Scripture who seeks their assistance not in the strength of their Authority and Infallibility but in strength of that Light in which they are inabled by God to represent the Truth But I must not inlarge upon this Head I refer you if you need farther satisfaction to what the Reverend and Learned Dr. Stillingsleet Dr. Tillotson or Mr. Poole in his Nullity of the Roman Faith Mr. Baxter and others have writ upon this Subject Parish I am well satisfied I pray you proceed Minist Next you are warranted to bear Testimony even unto Blood against the Popes Supremacy challenged over the whole Church nay in a manner over the whole World And that you may be satisfied that so you ought to do consider that the Pope claims no less than these Prerogatives following First That he as Saint Peters Successour and Christs Vicar is the Head of the Catholick Church on Earth and the first Subject of all Ecclesiastical power So that whatsoever Power of Order or Jurisdiction any Bishop Presbyter Lay-Chancellour or other Official doth exercise is derived say the Romanists from the Pope That he can dispence with Vows and Oaths grant Pardons and Indulgences yea if he decree Vertue to be Vice or contrarily none are to question it nor doth any Appeal lye from him Nor can any Prince or State or Church constitute any Order or reform any abuse in matters Ecclesiastical but by delegation from the Pope That he as Christs Vicar who is King of Kings may depose Kings for Heresy or for favouring Hereticks or for any Male-Administration or other pretended unfitness of the Person to Govern That he can absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and give to whom he will the Empires and Kingdoms of the Earth and the Glory of them as the Divel Matth. 4. said he could do For thus Popes have practised in this part of the old world oft and in the new also Pope Alexander 6th Giving Peru and Mexico to the Kings of Spain and Portugal Parish If this be his claim then every one is warranted to oppose it unto death it being such an abominable usurpation of an Authority that Christ never gave and a most unsufferable inchroachment on both the Civil and Religious Rights both of Princes and private men both Christians and Heathen And he is a Traytor to Christ and a betrayer of his own and others Rights who yeilds to it and methinks there is nothing in Popery of more dangerous consequence to be yeilded and yet nothing more groundlesly challenged nor that can more prejudice unconverted Heathen Princes against Christianity than this Doctrine That they who before were Supreme must be Subordinate to the Pope when they turn Christians For first It can never be proved that Christ gave any such power to St. Peter or if he had it cannot be proved that St. Peter's personal priviledges are derivative to his Successours nor yet that the Pope of Roma is his Successour rather than the Bishop of Antioch or Jerusalem no nor yet can it be proved that the present Pope is the rightful Bishop of Rome by uninterrupted Success when from St. Peter as they claim there having been so many Heretical wicked Schismatical and Simonaical Persons who have possessed that Seat This and more I remember you told me was said against it by the very humble learned and pious Dr. Barrow late Master of Trinity Colledg in Cambridg in his absolute and incomparable discourse on this Subject But I pray you give me a reason why all the Kings of the Earth do not rise up against the Pope in defence of their own and their Subjects Right Minist The Scripture tells us Rev. 17. 2. They are made drunk with the Wine of the fornications of the great Whore and intoxicated with the pompousness of her superstitious Worship and
to his Glorious Majesty you suffer for Righteousness sake and the Commands of God with the examples of the Saints in all Ages will justifie you herein Nay further if you suffer for exercising the true Worship of God either singly as Daniel or socially with other Devout Persons fearing God as the Primitive Christians did daily and weekly not forsaking the assembling themselves together Heb. 10. 25. You suffer for Righteousness sake For God is God and is to be worshiped whether man will allow it or no. I speak not this as if I thought it unlawful for the Civil Governor when any of his Subjects shall Assemble in a considerable Number to require security of them that they will not under pretence of Divine Worship like the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their Sacrifice complot the Disturbance of the Publick Peace Next if you suffer for holding fast and contending for the Faith and Truth once and at once delivered to the Saints you suffer for Righteousness sake And this hath been and will be the most general cause of Suffering to the Saints of God For they are Children of the Light and of the Truth and by Publishing and Professing of the Truth they not only turn others from darkness to light but also from the power of Satan unto God which makes him and his Instruments rage against it First therefore He suffers for Righteousness who suffers from Athiests for owning the belief of a God that is for professing to believe That there is a Glorious and Incomprehensible Being eternally existing unmade and distinct from all things that are made unmeasurable in his Infinite Presence Infinitely Powerful Wise Good and All-knowing who made preserves and Governs all things and is to be Feared Loved Trusted in and to be Submited to Obeyed and Worshiped by all Men and Angels and to be desired and chosen by them as their Portion and Happiness Next He Suffers on the same good account who Suffers from Heathen and Polytheists for professing to believe there is One onely God and thus some amongst the Jews yea and amongst the Heathen as Socrates and thousands of the Primitive Christians Suffered and are Martyres of God yet they were by the Polytheists reputed Atheists because they denied their false Gods Next He Suffers for Righteousness Sake who Suffers from Materialists or Hobbists for professing that God is a Glorious Spritual Being free and unconstrained by any natural or fatal necessity who is every where intire and not divided into parts Working all Things according to his own Will And indeed Hobbism or Hylexism is but a blanched and disguised Atheism and is the Pander to all sensual Lusts and the Canker of Loyalty and incourager of Rebellion Next He is God's and Christ's Martyr who Suffers for the Arrian or Socinian for professing to believe according to the Revelation of God concerning himself that the glorious Godhead through its Infinite Perfection subsists in Three Father Son and Holy-Ghost owning that Unity and undividing Communion of Essence do each of them imply Perfection and are a way of Subsistence proper to the Godhead and as incommunicable and unparallel'd in the Creatures as his Eternity of duration or the immensity of his spiritual Presence are And Thousands of Christians thus Suffered of Old under the Arrians Next He is a Martyr of Jesus who Suffers from Jew Mahometan Heathen or any other Insidel for professing to believe That Jesus conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem in the time of Augustus Caesar the Roman Emperor brought up at Nazareth and Crucifi'd under Pontius Pilate the Roman Governor in Judea at Jerusalem was the Promised Seed of the Woman the Man from the Lord the same that should comfort Mankind against the Curse the Seed of Abraham the Shiloh of Juduh the Rod and Branch of the Root of Jesse the Son of David and he of whom the Tradition was to the Fathers of Old that he should Break the Serpents Head and overthrow the design of Satan for man's destruction and of whom the Prophets prophecied That in him all Nations should be Blessed and he should be a Covenant to all People and bear our Sins and have the Chastisements of our Peace laid on him that is that he should as a Mediator betwixt God and Man Seal a new Covenant for us in his Blood wherein God promiseth pardon to the Penitent Believer and grace to the humble Suppliant and peace to the Contrito and glory to the persevering in Faith and Holiness and that his Death is the onely Propitiation for our Sins and that he accordingly dyed for our Sins and confirmed thereby the Covenant and rose again the third day and ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God being exalted even in his Humane Nature above the highest Angels and that he is God the Word and Wisdom of the Father Incarnate and is appointed to be the Judge of the quick and the Dead and that there neither is nor was nor shall be any other Name under Heaven by which Sinners may be saved but the Name of Jesus Christ A Christian may meet with Sufferings also from other Sects but the main Sect and Heresie against which I perceive you desire to be fortified is that of the Papists from whom ten thousand times ten thousand of the Saints of God have suffered for owning the Faith once delivered to the Saints and that Whore sitting on the Scarlet Beast hath made her self drunk with the Blood of the Martyrs of Jesus though as I said before I belive many of our English Papists to be of a more debonaire temper at present Par. It is indeed my chief desire to be fortified in suffering in opposition to Popish Errors though your accounts about other Sects redound also to my Advantage Min. You suffer therefore as a Martyr of Jesus if you suffer because you own that God since the writing of the Scriptures hath appointed them to those who have them as an intire rule of Faith in all things which God hath by Revelation made known concerning the way in which he will carry on Sinner to Salvation and that it is the Code or Body of all the Laws and Institutions of Christ to his Church But if you please I will speak of this a little more largely Parish Yea Sir I desire you would because I find that it is pleaded that once the Faith of the Patriarchs and so also of the first Christians was built upon Oral Tradision and Catechetical Institution Min. You say right the Patriarchs Doctrine of Faith about the Creation of the World about the Fall of Man about the promised Seed and about Sacrifices Tythes the Patriarchal Sabbath and Marriage was at first delivered by Oral Tradition and derived by Catechising from Father to Son But after that the Nations had corrupted the true Doctrine and Adulterated the Tradition it pleased God to inspire Moses to
Babylon Min. I shall readily as far as I am able comply to your Pious desire not because my fears keep equal pace with yours for to me still there is hope in Israel as to this thing but because the considerations which such a Subject will lead us to will be a great advantage to us Living and Dying The Method I will observe in my Discourse shall be this I. I will endeavour to shew you what sort of Cause it is that will make a Martyr namely To suffer for Christs Name and for Righteousness sake II. I will shew how a Martyr must be qualified as to his Temper and Practice III. What promises God hath made both of Consolations and Supports here and of rewards hereafter to his Suffering Saints Parish Sir I am glad we are come to this sweet Theme and shall attend diligently praying to God to guide your Tongue for my Direction and Consolation in the ways of the Gospel Min. Amen He therefore suffers for Christs Name and for Righteousnes sake I. Who suffers for refusing to strengthen the hands of Wicked Men in their Wickedness by his Consent or Example II. Who suffers for Promoting the Churches Peace III. Who suffers for the Exercise of warranted Religious Worship or refusal of Communion in Idolatrous and Sinful Worship IV. Who suffers for contending for the Faith and Truth once delivered to the Saints First He Suffers as a Martyr who Suffers because he will have no Fellowship in the unfruitful Works of Darkness nor run to the same excess of Riot with others who Suffers because he is ready when Sinners intice him to answer with David Depart from me ye Evil doers for I will keep the Commandements of my God is Gods Martyr For certainly if we Suffer on this account because we will by our professed obedience to God's Law give testimony to his Sovereignty and to the Equity and Excellency of that Rule he hath appointed to his Rational Creatures we may justly be stiled God's Martyrs And in particular if we Suffer for Fearing God and the King and not medling with those who are given to change but that in Conscience towards God we retain our Loyalty to our Sovereign it is a Suffering for Righteousness sake Parish But will the Suffering in the Cause of strict Moralities in title Christians to Martyrdom Min. Yes For Morality or Conformity to the Moral Law in our Duty to God and Men for God's sake is so great a part of the obedience of Faith given to the Rule or the New Creature that he who Suffers rather than he will offend against the Moral Law In Conscience that God who made him and Christ who Redeem'd him requires that he should live by that Rule in order to God's Glory his own and others good is God's and Christ's Martyr And be assured of it Good Men shall not want occasion of Suffering on that account especially in such days and places wherein almost every thing is countenanced but Piety and Virtue Next If you Suffer for promoting the Peace of the Church and opposing Schisms and Divisions amongst Brethren you Suffer for the Name of Christ and you cannot want occasion of Suffering if than be your design so long as the Zeal for or against our English Littleismes flames out at the top of every Chimney Parish Indeed it is easily observable that those good and moderate Men who have endeavoured to remove the Fewel of our present Contentions are as violently assaulted by the fierce Men the Bigotts on both sides as if they were the declared Enemies of both the Contending Parties however I resolve through the Grace of God to follow your Example and Doctrine herein both to pray and strive for the Peace of Jerusalem by all lawful means For I believe if I should dye at the Stake for the Profession of the most precious Truths of the Gospel and yet be a divider of Christ's Church I should be condemned to be a Firebrand in Hell by the Prince of Peace Min. But when I press you to contend for the Peace of the Church I mean not only the Peace of the particular Society of Christians amongst whom your Residence and Cohabitation calls you to communicate in Publick Worship But also to promote the Catholick Unity of the Catholick Church by vertue of which it is That every Baptized Christian Professing Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ and bringing sufficient Evidence or Credentials of his Christianity may as a Member of that one Body under Christ the Head Challenge the Priviledge of Communion in all the Ordinances of Christ with any Society of Christianst or partionlar Church where ever he happens to live or occasionally to come For if any Society of Christians shall impale themselves by mutual Compacts or by setting up other new and unnecessary Terms of Communion with them so as to exclude from their Communion other Christians cohabiting with them or coming to them they are therein Schismatical especially if those Terms be such as the Neighbor or Stranger-Christian cannot comply to without wrong to his own Conscience I do indeed judge that if the Terms of Communion required though new and narrower then Christ hath required to make us Members of his Catholick Church be such as I can comply to wihout Sin I ought not to disturb the Peace of the particular Church where I am by a stiff opposing of them especially if I have sufficiently protested my Right and Priviledge as a Member of the Catholick Church to have Communion allowed me without such Imposals For my Christian Liberty gives me a Latitude to become all things not sinful to all men And though a particular Church may be Schismatical in imposing such new and narrow Terms of Communion with her as Christ never imposed to make us Members of his Catholick Church yet if I separate causlesly that is where I can Communicate without Sin I am Schismatical also so that at the same time a Church may be Schismatical in imposing unecessary Terms of Communion and a particular Christian may be Schismatical in refusing Compliance to those Terms if he can comply to them without Sin Parish Sir I thank you for by this Information you have contributed not only to make easie to me my Compliance to just Ecclesiastical Laws which I did something scruple on conceit that my yielding betray'd my Christian Liberty but also to enlarge my special Brotherly Love to all Christians as Members of the same Body with me under Christ our Head and you have given my Conscience a latitude and my Heart a readiness to join in worship with any Christian where ever I come and may be admitted and to receive readily as much as in me lies any Christian to Communion with me and with that Society of Christians amongst whom I Cohabit and Communicate Min. Next if you suffer for not complying to sinful Worship such as is forbidden by God as unworthy to be offered up
and as the Beams of the Sun will put out a Fire so the frevent love of God in them morally extinguished the painful burnings of the Furnace and bound the Flames to the Peace even before Gods Power did the same miraculously Thus the Apostles went away rejoycing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ their love then burst out into transports of joy and thankfulness that God would vouchsafe to use them to bring Glory to his Name The Apostle saith If there be any consolation in love Phil. 2. Intimating that there is no consolation without it and by how much more excellent the person loved is for whom we suffer so much larger breasts of consolations hath our love so that if to suffer for the love of a desired Spouse as when Jacob served an hard Service for Raehel carry a joy and delight to the Party loving or if to die for a Friend a good Man or a good Prince whom we love be so satisfactory to the sufferer as men declare that it is how much more to suffer for God and Christ It as far excelleth all other sufferings on the motives of the sensual Love yea or Friendship or Loyalty as the benevolent warmth of the Sun beams in the Spring is more invigorating and comforting to Plants and living Creatures than the chokey heat of a Stove or Furnance nay it is indeed a glory the Saints have above the Angels that they are called to suffer for God which the others impassibility denyes them to do So that the love of God in suffering Saints gives that exceeding comfort and satisfaction that is at no other time felt because there never was that full exercise of it before it is that breaking the box of Spicknard that finelleth more sweet by its diffusion The third Grace is Love to the Church which yields exceeding satisfaction when it carries us to act for the good of our Brethren that we can willingly spend be spent for them but the â—ower and top of it is to fill up in our bodies what is behind of the sufferings of Christ for his Churches sake When a suffering Christian thinks thus these sufferings of mine may be a strengthning of the Faith of all the Christians that hear of them and see them nay it may be an establishment to some Christian an hundred years hence what a sweet and comforting reflection must it needs be What delight may we imagine have some Gallant Heathens taken to die devotedly for their Country as did Coarus the Athenian and Deoius and Curtius the Romans but how much sweeter is it to the Martyr to think that by his sufferings the Church of Christ the Houshold of Faith those who shall hereafter be fellow Citizens with the Angels shall be confirmed and strengthened The fourth Grace is love to Enemies and Persecutors at any time to forgive an Enemy is both more glorious and more comfortable than to overcome him David had more honour when he dismissed Saul alive than when he brought away the Head of Goliah in his hand and undoubtedly he had more inward comfort and satisfaction also for the Victory of Goliah was justly attributed to the Providence of God directing the stone to the mark but the dismissing and Pardoning his Enemy was the Fruit of the Grace of God in his Heartâ— but to suffer with the designing the good of our Enemies even of their Conversion and Eternal welfare is much more sweet and affecting If St. Steven had as in all likelihood he had an hope that his sufferings might Convert some of his Persecutors what joy did that thought bring into his holy Soul if there be joy in Heaven amongst the Angels for the Conversion of a sinner when yet they contribute nothing to it what joys must be to Martyrs that die in hope and desires for the Conversion of Christs Enemies and theirs For a Martyr tyed to the Stake to think with himself Some of the ring of this gazing Multitude that look on me nay some of the Officers that is humanely butcher me may come to have their hearts melted by my flames and of Lions become Lambs and followers of the Lord Jesus what a sweet and comfortable thought must that be to the suffering Saint and Martyr of Jesus A fifth Grace that then yields its Fragrancy is our Faith it the promises of sufficient Grace and Support this is our Victory whereby we overcome the world even our Faith and who is it that overcometh the world but he that believer that Jesus is the Christ of whose fulness we are to receive Grace and Grace for Grace We have now the comfort of Faith in the assurance from Gods Word that he will never fail us nor forsake us but in a time of suffering Faith girls up its Loins and makes his boast in the name of the Lord crying The Lord is our Refuge and Strength a very present help in trouble therefore will not we fear though the Earth be removed and so Psal 21. 1. The Lord is my strength and my Salvation whom shall I fear the Lord is the strength of my life of whom then shall I be afraid And also Psal 144. 12. He expresseth his confidence in abundance of words The Lord is my strength my goodness my fortress my high Tower and deliverer my shield and he in whom I trust Thus Paul 1 Tim. 1 12. I know whom I have believed and am perswaded that he is able to keep that committed to him against that day This Faith in Gods assistance triumphs in the name of the Lord and despiseth all the power of the Adversary The next Grace yielding its sweetness to a suffering Saint is his hope and heavenly mindedness it must needs be a pleasant prospect to go up to the top of Pisgah and view the Promised Land by Holy Meditation to think as far as our dark Glass will give us leave to see what is the Peace and Joy and what is the Purity and Holiness of the Glorified Saints but when we come to suffer for the Hope of Israel then our Hope grows more lively more strong and vigorous and fixed upon that Glory that shall be revealed Thus St. Steven Act. 7. when his enemies verse 45. gnashed upon him with their teeth being full of the Holy Ghost looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw the Glory of God and Jesus standing on the Right Hand of God thus our hope by how much the nearer it comes to injoyment grows the stronger and makes the dying Christian say as it were to himself Egredere anima mea egredere quid times Go forth my Soul go forth reach forward to lay hold on that Crown of Righteousness which now thou art not far from think with thy self what it is to have all Tears wiped away all Graces perfected and to be filled with the Love and Communion of God and Christ at whose Right Hand is fulness of Joy and Pleasures for evermore Thus