body even as Christs natural body under one spirit and head united and compacted together and that without ceas even so long as that mystick body lasteth upon earth in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi till it receiv its final consummation negatively to prevent schismes and herefies which might otherwise render the Church in her members both contemptuous and liable to continual ruin whiles every particular person left to himself would be carried up and down like children with puffes of novelty blowing several wayes by the cunning subtilty of men pretending new light spirits reasons and such like stratagems in astutia in their knavery and pride of heart to bring people into a circumvention of errour all which inconveniences are avoided by following the guidance of the Church and the Pastours therein appointed over us A general spirit of truth in those that are set over the flock keeps them together and safe whereas particular lights in the sheep that are to be ruled would divide them from their pastour and from one another and division infers destruction Nor could that great Jewish argument be any way warded or put by but by recours to the Churches infallibility which can be no other but what Christ gave her and his own autority and truth revealed by this Church is the utmost foundation that supports the whole fabrick nor can there be any thing further assigned to support it but God with whom it is beleeved to be united for as all material buildings and their connexion are beheld with the eye but their foundation is not seen but is beleeved by the influence it hath in supporting the fabrick which it self is ultimately sustained by the center So may we discern some consequences of the points of religion upon a supposal of a great fundamental truth upon which they all depend as this is that Christ is a true and divine teacher but this cannot be seen or maintained otherwise than by a pure belief yielded unto that Church that first taught him and His truth sustains all his doctrin and the formal fabrick of the Church built upon him and it can be grounded upon nothing but God himself the center of all subsistence and verity This connexion of us to the apostles of the apostles to Christ and Christ to God St. Paul insinuates when he saith to the Christians of Corinth Omnia vestra sunt sive Paulus sive Apollo sive Kephas vos autem Christi Christus autem Dei The Christians might indeed reply to the Jew and say that Christ our Lord was a holy and sacred person divine innocent miraculous and unblamable in his whole life and conversation that he came from heaven by the mission of his eternal father and his own great benignity to plant upon earth an universal catholick Church amongst all nations which in the fulnes of time God was pleased to do whereas Moses had confined his Church by Gods command till that hour of general salvation was come unto the one family of Abraham and that he had received autority from God so to do which not only his own evangelists but even Moses and the prophets sufficiently attest who all do so speak forth the birth and life passion and resurrection of this our great Messias and the glory of his Church amongst the gentiles accordingly as himself promised and it hath now appeared to be and that nothing but rancour and prejudice and the scandal of his humility and the Jews mistake of the Messias his first and second coming did incens them against their own lord when he appeared amongst them who also looked even then for a Messias sodainly to come whom they were to obey and follow and cannot probably being then the onely select people of God ascribe their immense desolations exiles from their own homes and miseries these sixteen hundred years than to the guilt they have contracted upon themselvs by shedding the blood of that sacred person Nor are they to be excused sith all the ancient Rabbies before Christs coming did openly profess throughout all the Hebrew Church that they understood not the end and meaning of Moses law nor ever should till the great Messias came to teach them which was so beaten into their minds that all the Hebrewes beleeved it as appears by the saying of the woman of Samaria When the Messias comes he will teach as all things although through the hatred they bore to Jesus Christ they began after his coming to sing another song This I say and such like words they might reply and prove all by some autority or other but yet whatsoever they could alledge the Jewish Rabbies would give another interpretation to it or if it were their own gospel flatly deny it and so having no other further autority to rely upon but the truth of that Church that stands upon this foundation of Christs divinity there they must rest For there can be no hope either of satisfying a querent or conconvincing an opponent in any point of Christianity unles he will submit to the splendour of Christs autority in his own person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the reason why som of the Jews in Rome when S. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the prophets beleeved in him and some did not So then the great resolv of all doubts must be immediately upon the autority of the present Church which derived from the Church foregoing must by several concatenations bring us at length to the autority of Christ which is the root and firmitude and life of all and if this be once acknowledged and firm and firm it cannot otherwaies be than by captivating our wills and understanding to his love and obedience under that notion the Church hath revealed him it must equally support all future generations of Christians be they never so many in any temptation or difficulty that should afterwards happen and the whole Church and all her doctrin built upon it Nor can any at any time pretend rightfully and justly other motive of his beleef than what the apostles had for theirs the first age from the apostles the second age from the first c. and still the foregoing Church does but derive the faith and practise received unto its successour and both must equally stand upon the same foundation of one and the same autority which all generations take by the like resignation and faith-submission unto the worlds end So that he that departs in any age from the waies of the foregoing Church upon what pretence soever it be done of knowledge interiour light reason spirit or other discovery he leavs the foundation on which his faith was built and vertually forsakes Christ and would have had the same argument against him if he had lived in his time for if the Church the visible Church prove not to be even in that particular age a just keeper and deliverer of faith received then was the Church deceived not so
himself once to any one opinion here in England he sodainly entertains such a prejudice against all the rest that there is left in him no further place for counsel for all other wayes besides his own are condemned as soon as his own is accepted and he does no sooner think himself sure but all others must in the same time be lost And yet he hath but his own judgment for it neither supported only with the appearances of I know not what spirit or internal light which he and his enjoy and all others want And if a man press him once to further difficulties than himself hath thought on though without the reflection upon them he could never be able to settle any firm judgment about these things in particular one shall soon find that he heeds not any of those things without which the other could not be judiciously concluded nor is able even by the help of that light or spirit of his to satisfy therein either himself or other man which argues plainly that the spirit and light he pretends is nothing but his own private resolution not sufficiently amplified and yet irrationally fixed against all autority and counsel The Christians in antient times especially for the first four hundred years after Christ had many serious and grave disputes with the Jew and pagan which being rational and weighty and about the foundations of Christianity whereon the other articles were built did pusle even the wisest of their clergy to answer but after all the ratiocination ended whether it sufficed or no they still concluded with this one word Credo which the love of Christ had fastned upon them as emperour Julian comonly surnamed the Apostate testifies of them And this although in philosophy and logick it had been a weak answer yet in religion it was the best and only one to be made so that all the burden fell at length upon the autority of Jesus Christ who being both a man and one too that was crucified as a malefactor undertook to send forth religion into the world under the title of a divine Prophet and the onely Son of God almighty maker of heaven and earth which could not but at first make a disturbance both among the Jewes and Gentiles where it should be preached And the great mystery begins here and here it must end for this autority being once admitted from the Church that brings it all other catholick truths will follow by a kind of consequence from the same hands and therefor this autority of his which can never be demonstratively proved unto us that live now but only by vertue of the Church that derives it us Christ must maintain himself by signs and wonders and such signall proofs of his divine providence over his Church from time to time that his deity may somewhat appear in his Churches progres and defence and all other doctrins must be made good by it and the Church that first preached it to us In any age of the Christian Church a Jew might say thus to the Christians then living Your Lord and maister was born a Jew and under the jurisdiction of the high Priests these he opposed and taught a religion contrary to Moses otherwise how coms there to be a faction but how could he justly do it no human power is of force against Gods who spake as you also grant by Moses and the Prophets and divine power it could not be for God is not contrary to himself And although your Lord might say as indeed he did that Moses spake of him as of a Prophet to com greater than himself yet who shall judg that such a thing was meant of his person for since that Prophet is neither specified by his name or characteristicall properties who could say it was he more than any other to come And if there were a greater to com than Moses were surely born a Jew he would being com into the world rather exalt that law to more ample glory than diminish it And if you will further contest that such a Prophet was to abrogate the first law and bring in a new one who shall judge in this case the whole Church of the Hebrews who never dreamed of any such thing or one member thereof who was born a subject to their judgments This is the great oecumenicall difficulty and he that in any age of Christianity could either answer it or find any bullwark to set against it so that it should do no harm would easily either solv or prevent all other difficulties should arise by the same autority by which it was cleared For if Christ were not only a lawfull Teacher but even one that was greater than Moses as Christians beleev him to be and both the one and the other pretended this great work of establishing a Church surely Christ must do it in as great an excellency as Moses and with some advantage the doctrin and disciplin must be as sublime and stated as permanently as his and Christ who wrote no law must so provide notwithstanding that his Church might otherwise have one from him and keep it as uniformly as the Hebrew Church did theirs Wherefore as Moses after he had done all things which belonged to himself to do constituted Aaron and his Successours to be guides rulers overseers and judges of all Controversies that might arise in the tribes about any points of their religion he had written them So must St. Peter and his Successours be inabled by some equall if not more speciall means sith they also were constituted by Christ to govern his flock to captivate all men to the obedience of Christs will otherwise his Church could not go on so uniformly in all ages which uniformity is the glory and indeed the very life and conservation of a Church as that of the Hebrewes did Nor may any body prudently imagin that the Spirit of Jesus in his Church and all the members thereof cooperates in every one immediately unto truth as it does to grace for then why should he constitute doctours and pastours and bishops over us as the good apostle learnedly asserts in his epistle to the Ephesians Ipse de dit quosdam quidem apostolos quosdam autem prophetas alios vero Evangelistas alios autem pastores doctores ad consummationem sanctorum in opus ministerij in aedificationem corporis Christi donec occurramus omnes in unitatem fidei agnitionem filii dei in virum perfectum in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi ut jam non simus parvuli fluctuantes circumferamur omni vento doctrinae in nequit â hominum in astutia ad circumventionem erroris Most excellent pathetical words where we have first the doctrin that pastours are set over us in the Church to guide us then the end of that constitution which he declares first positively then negatively the positive end is a perfect unity of faith which by that means must vegetate and fructify and grow up in one
much in that age as in the first when she took her faith from him that did manifestly so comport himself as if he would be taken for a God and promised his Church by the general spirit he would send her to teach her all truth and strengthen her therein against all opposition even to the consummation of the world which none but God or one exceeding near unto him could make good and if this were not performed the imposture was in the first beginning That building must needs stand firm that rests upon a Deity which hath influence upon the whole fabrick to keep it up and if it be not so kept up and conserved the Church doth but vainly flatter her self when she boasts of the divinity of her support if she fail in her doctrin and faith Christ is not God Whensoever therfor we read either in the Acts of the apostles or other ancient story of the conversion of a Kingdom or people unto the right religion of Christianity we still find it was done not by any private illumination of any one who living before in darknes with the rest was now secretly called to teach others but by a resignation unto a former doctrin brought from Christ by his missioners and preachers by submission to a truth delivered to them from without not rising up within them Faith comes by hearing and every man upon earth that hath ever been approved Christian received it that way and was made thereby not a maister but disciple to the Church Wheras on the other side this spirit and light and such like discoveries we so frequently talk of makes us not schollers but maisters ipso facto and urges not to submit to foregoers but to condemn them not to resign our own but to captivate others understandings not to go to the Church but to go out of it and that upon the single motive of a new illumination which none had before us and we from no body I know well enough that a man cannot be converted and becom a good Christian without the assistance of Gods grace exciting and cooperating with us to our good when the truth is taught and revealed to us But this I suppose is not the Light men talk of for this is rather in the affection and will than in the understanding and bids us hearken to another not to our selves to join with a Church already planted not to begin a new one of our own heads It sayes not to us make a vineyard of your own but go into mine And the intellectuall Light men speak of if we have any we receiv it afterwards as a reward of our humility in that Church where we did not kindle it but found it already burning to guide our feet by it in the wayes of peace Crede intelliges said a great Prophet Beleev and you shall understand but we must beleev first and by that obscure step of beleef which is as a duksy twi-light between the darknes of infidelity we lived in before and the light of truth we go to arrive we to all future happines But we in England that pretend this new Light and secret Spirit are separated by it from a former Church but brought to none nor are we made disciples by it but maisters on the sudden and enabled to teach all men that which we never received from any which is absolutely against the whole cours of Christianity and will if it be admitted set open a gap unto all fanatick fansies St. Paul professes he was apostle not of men nor by men but by God and the reason is becaus his first call was extraordinary from heaven as was likewise the suggestion he had to his mission and yet that God that called him although he showed him so singular a favour yet would he not dispense with his own orders and constitutions even in him but sent him to the good Priest Ananias to be by him instructed and catechised and admitted into his Church and with those people St. Paul found in the profession of that faith did he often conferre even he that was so strangly called from heaven conferred the Gospel which afterwards he preached as himself speaks in his epistle to the Galatians with those people and with that Church he found in actuall possession and profession of that faith least saith he I should have run in vain that is least he should do or think or preach any thing amiss contrary to the truth received unto which he was called which he could no otherwaies by the constitutions Jesus himself had made be assured of but by comparing his doctrin with that which was believed and practised in the Church before him into which he was now incorporated as a member in that body by the assistance of the grace he had received to be first a disciple and then afterwards a maister and teacher and when he did become a doctour he did not make himself one no nor his calling by Christ sufficed to do it but he was made such a one under the hands of the apostles and by their approbation autority and sacred ordination as may be seen in the book of the Acts ch 13. Nor was he to teach without that Churches leav or contrary to her faith but by her direction and in subjection to her This is a faithful speech and worthy of all consideration which seriously pondered would dissipate in a moment all whatsoever pretences of light spirit reason or other thing that shall mov any to a new way by himself contrary to what he hath received seen practised in the Church before him And if any would seriously peruse the Acts of the apostles wherein the footsteps of primitive Christianity fufficiently appear he shall find that all that were called unto Christs religion were brought to the feet of the apostles and priests who received them at the door and brought them into the hous of God by the laver of Baptisme and imposition of hands and confession of sins and it was not onely the ordinary but sole ingress into that Church and none were ever esteemed to be of that body but only by those means which also the pastours of the Church were only to mannage He that comes not in at the door saith Christ is neither sheep nor shepheard but a theef and a robber And true Christian religion consists not in going out of a Church but coming in there to submit to the ancient dictates of piety which Christ revealed §. 13. Independent and Presbyterians Plea TO a judicious man whom a word sufficeth it will already appear that no opinion or way here in England can have any advantage over the other by vertue of discoveries made by any light spirit or reason since there can no such be legally pretended to set up any new religion apart from the former but to join rather with the old which if it be not absolutely true Christ is not God and all Christianity but a human invention But yet
disputant and moderatour both opponent and maister of the chair both interpreter and judg The Roman catholick I do not here mention for the taking Him for his guide and judg from whom he first received his scriptur and faith and expecting all resolutions of doubts only from his lips can never stagger or fall into perplexity But with Protestant Presbyterian and Independent whose utmost resolv is in their own hands the case is otherwayes And the combat that is amongst them is the most desperate imaginable whiles any visible speaking judg being excluded by them all each one fights against all the rest with the same topick ratiocinations that none but he that uses them must judg Scripture is for us scripture is easy and we have it the spirit that is in us teaches all truth the light from above us is only to direct us and not men who are lyers c. And these if they prevail overthrow him that uses them so that to the same combatant must needs happen by the same means both death and victory and the same autorities and argumentations if any of them obtain his desire must bear both a probility for him and a prejudice against him Thus the Protestant if he do or will pretend to convince the Presbyterian then must he at the same time and for the same reasons yield to the Roman catholick with whose discourse and arguments he flourishes and triumphs against him and yet being uttered from the mouths and pens of Catholicks against himself he contemned and jeered them And if the Presbyterian texts and reasons be of force against the Protestant then must the Protestant fall by that instrument by which himself stands and subsists against the Papist against whom he hath ever used those very assertions and arguments and the Presbyterian too must stand and fall upon the same account the same weapon laying him dead before the Independent which against the Protestant supports him The Independent if he be able by strength of his light and spirit to maintain himself against all his foregoers Presbyterian Protestant and Papist then by the same reasons must he needs fall when a new fansy rises by any succeding generation A strang case and indeed a meer riddle but a certain truth And the Catholick all this while to a disinterested understanding whiles all his enemies condemn one another stands uncontroulably justified in his oppositions to them The Independent is in the wrong saith the Presbyterian and Protestant the Presbyterian erres saith the Protestant and Independent the Protestant is deceived saith the Independent and Presbyterian you are all mad men quoth the Roman Catholick you first abused and supplanted me and now by the same wayes and means you do supplant and abuse one another But if I may interpose my judgment the Protestant although I honour his gravity above all the rest seems to be in a wors case than either Presbyterian or Independent for these in maintaining themselvs and their wayes do but strike home the first principles of protestant reformation whereas the Prelate-protestant to defend himself against them is forced to make use of those very principles which himself aforetime when he first contested against popery destroyed as be the difference betwixt clargy and laiety the efficacy of episcopal ordination the autority of a visible Church unto whom all are to obey and the like so that upon him falls most heavily even like thunder and lightning from heaven utterly to kill and cut him asunder that great oracle delivered by S. Paul in his letter he wrote to the Christians of Galatia Sī quae destruxi iterum haec aedifico praevaricatorem me constituo If I build up again the things I formerly destroyed I make my self a prevaricatour an impostour a reprobate A heavy sentence But truth will out and wisdom will be justified at long running even by her greatest adversaries It seems that those pieces of popery we so desperately inveighed against for our own interest were indeed not evil but good The Protestant may indeed with some plausible show excuse himself and say that the first Reformers though sent from God yet might they notwithstanding have some little mixture of humane passion and infirmity and so out do their work and decry more then in truth they ought to have don as he that would straighten a crooked wand bends it as much the other way to the end that by that over force it may at length recover its mediocrity and straightnes and what ever is done amiss by earnestnes of passion may by a second thought be mended And this excuse would find place in any busines of humane concernment but whether it may be of any weight in affairs of religion and divine faith I leav others to judg for what may be pretended by all unto endles changes can never be rightly said by any and S. Paul having assigned that property as a signal mark of a prevaricatour I should think we may beleeve it without further dispute However by the reassuming of this episcopacy be it the substance or shadow of Popery or what you pleas our English Protestant Church became by that means the very best and choisest flower of all the Reformation no order no decency no peace no uniformity in all the world where Protestancy was received like unto that we here enjoyed under our bishops in England nor could any man by the force of nature suspect any the least rottennes in the foundation of such a handsom fabrick I am sure I had not but by a strang chance that happened to me in my childhood And although our Prelate-Protestant is not able to answer the Presbyterian objection standing upon his own first principles of reformation which do indeed and ever will justify all revolts to the worlds end yet by the principles of his Recovery those I mean by which he reassumed Episcopacy too precipitously decried by the first reformers which principles be firm and good and right Christianity he will easily frustrate and dissolv all opposition but then he must creep into the bosom of Roman catholicks and beg the assistance of their arguments which before he foolishly contemned For every Body be it what it will natural politick or spiritual must so long as it remains entire and sound have the same principal parts and organs it was born withal and cannot endure long even in a contrary posture of them without dissolution and ruin Take any kingdom that is settled in monarchy and if you endeavour once the subversion of that Polity you do at the same time take away the life of all her laws and rights and utterly disturb her happines and peace which are so mixed and intangled in the very nerves and sinews of her laws and these again so settled upon the polity as upon the prime innate influent Calid and radicall primogeneal Humid that all goes together and take part alike either in weal or woe This truth we have had a sad experience of in the
time of our late civil warres wherein our Monarchy once subverted we all perished with it and our rights and welfare at such a loss that no man could say that aught he had remaining was his own It must needs be so for the government what ever it be is before the laws and the laws receiv all their strength and vigour from the acknowledged autority of that power from whence they are derived Now that the Christian Church was first monarchicall under one Sovereign Byshop when Christ who founded it was upon earth no man will deny for aristocracy or democracy it could not be sith all his twelve apostles were under him as his disciples and not fellow doctours or legislatours with him nor did he ever pretend to receiv his autority from men but immediately from God above unto whom he was personally united and this autority of his must first be accepted before his word can be believed or his law acknowledged and these must have all their force from that power which according to its firmitude of truth gives them all their life and vigour which remains and dies with it and with the government under which the laws and doctrin began It appears then that all the laws and rules and promises and whole doctrin of Christianity and founded upon the spiritual monarchy of Jesus who was Man-God that he might be both unto human kind a fit and proportioned head as man and uncontroulable independent and infallible as God And hence it must needs follow that the subversion of episcopacy which is the spirituall monarchy in which our Lord founded his Christianity must needs weaken and by degrees utterly destroy all faith for the ruin of the polity is the death of all its laws founded in it Nor will it suffice if an Independent or Presbyterian say that they are still under their head Christ who being in heaven hath his spirituall influences over them I say this suffices not for the true Church of Christ whersoever it is must have the very same head she had at first or else she cannot be the same body and that head was man-God personally present in both his natures with the body of his Church here on earth and although Christ may and does supply the invisible part of his God-head influence upon his mystick body yet a visible head or byshop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruin What then you will say cannot God preserv his Church without the help of man I answer we must not here dispute what God can do but what he will do God can warm the earth and make fruits to grow and us to see without the sun but if he have otherwise ordained we must expect those effects from the caus he hath set and no other wayes And that all truths are to be expected from his Church and from him he hath substituted in his place to govern us as our only visible Pastour is manifestly apparent both by his own law and practise and our experience By his law when he sayes that he who will not hear his Church must be as a publican and reprobate by his practise when he would not have his own supernatural vocation and endowment and light from heaven to suffice St. Paul either to make him a Christian or a Teacher till he had received both from the hands of his Church and pastors by our experience while we see from age to age that all those that withdraw themselves from the Catholick Church and from her chief Byshop and pastour let the occasion be what it will or never so little do run themselves restlesly into endles schisms denying one thing after another still from less to more till at length all Christianity be cancelled and beginning with schisme they end with atheisme all truth unity and peace being to be had onely from and in that one Church which as St. Paul does well and wisely call it Christs Body so is it only animated with his spirit of truth and from the government there appointed which is episcopal and in a special manner from the chief pastour there presiding ruling and directing in place of Jesus Christ unto whom all obey in yielding obeysance unto him in spiritual affairs according to his own order and appointment Nor is there any more certain rule of discerning the approaching ruin of Christianity in any person or people than when we see them either secretly to undermine or openly to oppugn papal autority No pope no byshop no byshop no Church no Church no salvation This being once well pondered as a thing of such weighty concernment deservs we shall begin both to suspect that the first reformers Luther and Calvin who being Priests under that Papal hierarchy flew out against the Church whereof they had been members and furiously cryed down both Pope and all episcopacy were not sent from God and likewise conclude that the counsel of Queen Elizabeth did wisely reassume that ancient form of Church government though it were opposite to the principles of reformation and judgment of all the first reformers becaus it was both most conformable to times of primitive Christianity and in all reason most likely to conserve the land in unity And if we were once by Gods grace freed from preconceived prejudice we should all of us as clearly see and love the beauty of papal doctrin as now some of us allow of papal government nor is there any thing commendable in any reformation but that and only that which it hath in it of Popery And lastly we shall easily discern that the the Presbyterian plea and all its arguments or whatever else they can have to say against episcopacy are of no value and indeed too slight for me to insist upon their solution I had a mind here to decipher the Protestants plea against the Papist but I finde that there cannot be made any one scheme of it as of the Independent and Presbyterians becaus these the first of them speaks so generally of all things that he seldom touches upon any one particular the other so insists upon one particular that he troubles himself with nothing else and a man may know what both of them would have But all these and several other reformations when they set their face against the Roman Catholick go all under the generall name of Protestants and yet speak several and contradictory things one accusing them for that which the other approves And generally they do neglect their doctrin and inveigh against the vices and follies which either they put upon them or are indeed found amongst som people or persons that do profess that faith in France Spain Italy or other parts as pride tyranny drunkennes leachery foolish gambols and usages of Countreys with which Protestant books against popery are lustily stuft up or if they do indeed speak to their doctrin it is either done onely with some
liars so that you must take it then upon the credit of those who by your own principles may as well deceive you as you me Can you tell who wrote that book O yes you name me presently twenty several persons which you can no more prove to be authours of the books than any thing contained in the writings although their names may be there prefixed Those persons at least as they were men of several conditions priests kings lawyers poets historians fishermen doctours so did they live in several times and places of the world and differ both in these things and also in their very stile and manner of writing as much as any can do A brachman in India teacher of morality two thousand years ago William the conqueror King of England six hundred years ago dictatour of our law and our Sir Kenelm Digby Knight and Philosopher lately author of a Natural Philosophy Do these three differ any more then St. John Moses and Salomon either for time place condition or stile of writing I trow not how then came all those with so much diversity of their own to write the word of God more than these and how they and no other Who first gave them their autority or was it given or onely declared and by what power and vertue could it be declared by any that knew them not and lived so long after them How com laws poems sermons histories letters visions so many several fansies in such diversity of composure to be dictated from one divine hand and how do they conspire together in such variety of times to make at length one vlume of faith And yet too they must not all be either of signification or validity just as they lye and sound but some in this manner some in that Moses law must not bind in its judicial or ceremonial part which makes up in a manner all the whole Pentateuch but onely in the truth of story and morality some books must be taken according to the literal sense and not in any mystical one some in the mystery and not the letter and som again according to both What shall guide us in these things a parable must not be looked on as a story nor yet morallised in all its pars but onely in the capital intention no words must be culled forth to prove any thing out of the road of his mind and purpose who spake them no axiom of holy writ is to be taken by halves nor yet in any sense was not thought of by the authour an objection is not to be proposed for a conclusion nor any trope or metaphor perverted all words must speak to the writers scope not against it as he made them to do who brought texts against veneration of Saints out of St. Jo. Chrysostoms speeches made expresly in honour of them and others against monarchy drawn out of the book of Kings and many such like cautions there be I cannot now think of What autority or rule shall conduct us in all these uncertainties The Catholick indeed has one by which he passes on uniformly and quietly in the course of his religion as the sun in the firmament without noise or trouble but others jumble and justle one against another like coaches in a street O the Scripture and truth therein contained will discover it self Does it not very fairly whiles we are all of us together by the ears not for the Bible but with it You must beleeve What should I beleev and why I expect a perswasion to beleev not a command and to hear not that I must beleev but what and not onely what to credit but why and wherefore O but you may discern in these writings the very marks of Gods hand appearing Though there be such marks yet it seems by our many divisions we cannot read of our selves what those marks would have or what Church and doctrin they would establish and to whom can those marks appear to be Gods but to them only who have seen Gods hand aforetime or stood by him when he wrote Porphirius was as good a marks-man and understanding Philosopher as perhaps ever was and yet he deserted Christianity and all the whole Bible for want of the marks of divinity in it as others for the same reason have at times rejected many particular books I justifie neither him nor them but only speak thus much to show how instable a thing man is when he relyes upon his own judgment Have not we known wicked hypocrites to speak as fine words as any be in scriptur and by those their marks to deceiv many and I doubt not but Antichrist when he appears will do so But how came this book into England for it was not it seems any part of it written here It was brought hither you will say at the lands first conversion all of it together in one volume If this be true as true indeed it is then we had it from the Pope of Rome whether we speak of the conversion of Englishmen or Brittons And shall I build my beleef upon the autority of a book if indeed it could make it out sent us from him whom our own ministers do publickly proclaim to be an impostour and antichrist or can I in reason so condemn him and not suspect it If he did not onely present it us but made his catholick beleevers with so much labour and industry to transcribe it all the world over before printing was invented as a sacred and venerable thing a man might think in reason there were somthing in it to favour him and his religion which being once accepted under the notion of divine writings men would not easily dare to contradict and nothing at all against him O but the Pope did not make the book nor any of his predecessors This is more than either you or I can prove sith that book so much of it as belongs to Christianity was never found in our countrey but as taken and sent from him and it is no hard matter to make a book for my own ends and for its ampler autority to father it upon some renowned person the better to promote my design Truly such places as speak so plainly the Churches autority the real presence absolution of sins by man episcopal government and the like papal doctrin are apt enough to suggest such thoughts and some of our first reformers upon that very account did shrewdly suspect and were not afraid to say it that the Pope had at least a finger in many such like places which he might in their opinion easily do when he had once overwhelmed the earth with his mists of errour and made the people so credulous that he might do what he pleased And if I do indeed think the Pope to be Antichrist and a seducer I cannot rationally beleev or trust unto any book he sends me more than I do to his doctrin which he sayes is there grounded sith I have indeed but his word for the autority of
both and let me once give a freedom to my thoughts I shall as soon question one as the other and if I do reject one proceeding rationally I must cashier the other also Surely the Pope canot but smile to see his book which is the ground and guide of the catholick faith he delivered with it to be made by the Protestant to speak protestantisme presbyterisme by the Presbyterian anabaptisme by the Anabaptist and quakerisme by the Quaker even as doubtles it would be a sport to Virgil if he were alive to see his Arma virumque cano turned epithalamist by one a prophetist by another an evangelist by a third whereas the poem it self intends none of these things but only the travels and wars of Eneas and doubtles our scripture it self might be made by these tricks of wit to speak forth the passions of Queen Dido Without all doubt and controul it is a most high inconsequence so passionately as we do to plaspheme a byshop who is and ever was acknowledged in the world for Pape or Father of Christianity as the most wicked man alive and a grand seducer and yet to hugge a book in our bosomes which we took at first upon his credit as an oracle of truth and then again first to fall out with him and then with one another amongst our selves about the meaning of that book wherein his own catholick beleevers all the while unanimously agree without any end pelting one another with texts and verses unto the utter ruin of charity not understanding for the most part either the uncertainty of our own reasonings or the dangerous consequence of our wayes I will utter a bold word but what I know to be true both by experience and irrefragable reason As the gospel cannot prove any thing being separated from the Church and the living and speaking oracle of him that sent it unto whose judgment both defendant and disputant must submit so neither without the help of that autority can it prove it self either by any argument which it uses none or by vertue of miracle recorded in it sith those signs and wonders there related are now as far from my knowledg as be the truths of any doctrins to be ratified by them so that I shall have as much ado to beleev them as any piece of doctrin they may confirm being all of them equally either motives or objects of beleef as I pleas my self And it is all one to me that am born in these dayes so long after those signs were wrought to beleev the miracles by Gods incarnation or Gods incarnation by the miracles since I may beleev both but can evidently know neither of them to be true so far as that I may use one of them as a medium to demonstrate the other If the gospel laid before me should work of it self any strang wonder in my sight then I might haply have some motive to beleev it but we in England inveigh bitterly against the present miracles that are shown in the catholick Church ascribing them all if they be true unto the operations of Satan so that according to this way I should not know what to think neither if the bible should do som strang thing before me and as little conclude of the past miracles there recorded §. 16. Appeal AS it is impossible to be assured that the bible is the word of God if we condemn him from whom it first came of imposture so is it certain that upon that book wrested out of the hands of catholicks against him and his who first presented it we ground all the several wayes of religion here in England whereof each body and faction does so far presume as to condemn all to death who will not approve them And yet if we did but proceed like rational men we could not but remain all of us in great humility and fear upon these surmises Does not the Pope pretend the spirit of Christ as well as we do not all catholicks so had we not the bible from them do they not ratiocinate out of it and show their religion thence as well as we only they do it uniformly we differently and upon their principles they build up Church and State we pull down all Put case we were all at this instant in our antient state of paganisme and a Priest or two should com to us from Rome to convert us now as then they did to Christianity with the gospel in their hands which they should tell us to be pure truth and Gods word which we never heard before if we should reject and disesteem them as cheating seducers could we rationally accept and beleev the book or would we not therefor cast into the fire that volum of theirs wherein were contained the summe of all their mission and news if we looked upon the men that brought it as impostours Consider seriously and think not to pull the snail out of her shell and then to keep one apart and crush the other without which it cannot liv Church and Gospel were both born together but the Church first at least in a priority of nature and must both liv together Christ the head must be authorised before he could teach and the Church established before any of her children could write a gospel nor can they with authentick autority write any thing but what the mother Church constituted by her espous the sours of all heavenly truths that earth can expect shall set her seal unto So that in any age to deny the Church and to accept of her writings to profess Christ and condemn her that brought us the first news of him is at one and the same time to take her autority and reject it to say she is fals and yet true in the same affairs As she gave testimony to Christ so did Christ unto her The same gospel ratifies both Christ and his Church the same Church both Christ and the gospel the same Christ both gospel and the Church too which himself established So then reason light scripture power of interpretation being equally to be found at least pretended in all anticatholick wayes and the Roman catholick although he have withal a surplusage of true and right autority from the Church and her pastour whom he ever follows yet since he never denied but strongly and effectuoussy maintained that he hath with him as much of true interpretation light and reason as any can pretend and so far more peculiar and excelling as the judgment of the universal Church in all ages from whence he drew that reason and light of his is in matters of religion that are not invented but derived to be preferred before the conceit of any one person who contrary to the very essence and nature of antient Christianity shall go out of the Church wherein he found himself it may most manifestly appear that as the catholick hath all the right and preheminence that any other may pretend for himself and yet a far greater too even that
autority which can onely constitute religion so likewise all anticatholicks both Independent Presbyterian and Protestant have the same power and advantage each one against another which any other may pretend against him scripture easy scripture interiour light and spirit whiles none of them will in the interim admit of any living judg nor of the autority of a foregoing Church wherein they found themselvs when they first went out and changed And I have already said and truly said that no man ever yet was impowred even from heaven to go out of the general flock but to have recours unto it nor considering the order God hath set ever can be Nor is there any surer rule of discerning a fals pretension than that of the Apostle Exierunt ex nobis which if it held good in the Church when that apostle was alive it must needs do so unto all generations so long as the Church remains by vertue of him who promised to confirm it and therein his deity must chiefly appear even vnto the consummation of the world And if we consider the first ingress of all these religions we shall find that the catholick faith entred our land first and chased hence our antient paganisme after it had been here existent a thousand years the Protestant went forth out of it the Puritan by and by out of the Protestant not to mention any further subdivision and the catholick religion entered by vertue of her own powerful integrity all the others by force either of Parliament or Sword that Church as she entered peaceably so she remained quietly all the time of her stay in the Kingdom but the others neither stay nor enter without disturbance she hath a rule to go by and a judg to submit unto in all affairs others as they will be their own judg so must the rule speak as they list and no otherwise which manner of proceeding if it have its free cours must needs work much disorder in a kingdom I have often marvelled that these various wayes of religion here in England which multiply without end or any hope of reconciliation have not all this while appealed to the sacred majesty of the King who hath been acknowledged by all the parties to be supreme in all his kingdoms as well in spirituals as temporals and head as well of the Church as State Certainly had this been don and that all had rested upon his verdict as they ought by reason of their own acknowledgment to do much mischief had been prevented But we were so far all of us from doing so that on the contrary first we secretly murmured against both Queen Elizabeth and King James and then broke forth into open hostility against his son Indeed that private swelling of the murmuring waters were an ill boding omen of the vast tempest which followed afterwards in the reign of our good King Charls with so dismal and violent a rage that it both split the ship and drowned our pilot We did not appeal then with submission to his judgment as by our own law and agreement upon our revolt from Popery we ought to have don but forced him imperiously to our own and when in right reason he could not consent unto it we made no conscience to destroy and cut off not so much his head as our own which being a singular unparallel'd piece of insolent cruelty never yet acted before upon earth it will remain an eternal blemish both upon the men and religion too so long as the world lasteth Did we sincerely think our King to be head as well of Church as of State how then durst we subjugate him to our selves in the affairs of both and under pretens of purity of religion oppress him from whom under God all our religion should be derived as the head and sours of it The body may prepare blood and vital spirits to be presented to the head but of these are not made animal spirits till the head receivs and makes them such for the good of the whole and from the head com down all those influences that be fitted and proportioned unto that life which the animal lives So may and ought every kingdom either apart or in Parliament assemblies to propose affairs unto their head but can take none as authentick till he have determined and derived them to us whether civil or spiritual if so be he be head of both resting quiet within our selves both before and after he hath don it for what hand or foot ever questioned the spirits which the head derived it or pretended either to mend or make them But we have by these our proceedings condemned our selves if we do not indeed think him our spiritual head as we profess in words of vise hypocrisie if we do beleev him so of inconsequent madnes But to remove the Pope the King is head with us and to remove the King the people is head and to remove one another each particular person is his own head So arbitrary a thing it is with us to set up and pull down power at our pleasur It would seem very strang to a rational man that the Pope who is in our esteem the worst of men should keep together the people of many kingdoms which as they be not at all subject to him in civil affairs so are they very divers among themselves both in habits manners language lawes and other weighty respects and inclinations in a constant unity of religion from age to age and yet a noble vertuous prudent King should not be able to do so much among his own subjects all of one guarb one law one language for one age together the Pope all the while we beleev to be a fals and onely pretended Head the King an acknowledged and true one This is a greater secret and yet greater too upon this account that if any should fall away from the Popes religion the apostate runs himself into no more danger upon that account than what he willingly brings upon himself the loss of further communion with him and his Church for the Popes excommunication signifies no more and all the Pope can do is but to excommunicate him who before by his own voluntary act put himself out of his communion But the King hath a temporal sword in his hand to take corporal reveng upon rebellion and apostacy and the people subject to him in faith are likewise subject in other temporal respects and by their rebellion against him hazzard their estates and lives I know well enough that Popes are generally as civil and accomplished gentlemen as be in Europe and for the most part very learned yet can I never beleev but that there be others in the Christian world both priests doctours and byshops as learned as the pope himself and as wise too and accomplisht persons in any perfections either natural or moral and yet can none but He hit upon this feat of guiding the Christian flock in unity and peace Nay which yet augments the
hugely augmented Insomuch that this new clergy made up of fallen priests and votaries fell to writing stifly against their ecclesiastical pastour and the laiety drew themselvs into bodies against their temporal superiours in every place those in Germany against the emperour those in Holland against their King they in France against theirs nay the contagion flew so swiftly about Europe like wild fire in dry stubble that ere King Philip could get into Spain his subjects there were corrupted many of them and hissing hot unto battle but he was a wise prince and well understood the unquiet genius of heresie and therfore took a speedy cours with som for an ensample and terrour to the rest and so preserved his kingdom but the wars in France were long and dangerous those of Germany and Holland hardly yet ended It was almost twelv years before this strang confluence of people could agree together by what name to be owned till a chance gave it them thus There was congregated for the catholick Churches peace a solemn diet at Spire in Germany against which and the articles there agreed upon Luthers new troop made a joint unanimous Protestation appealing from the diet to the emperour although their after comportment shewed that they did indeed no more respect the emperour than his diet upon which general and hearty Protestation of their own they were pleased ever after to call one another Pretestants Yet sooner than they had well agreed in the name they so much disagreed in doctrine ambitious heads as all of them were emulating each one as great a name and fame as Luther had whom they both equalled in renown and place whilst they all remained priests in the catholick Church and now separated injoyed as great fulnes of the spirit as himself that they did not only set up several wayes and sects amongst themselvs but inveighed and wrote bitterly one against another even with more virulency than they had aforetime used against the Church in the beginning of their discession And now there was up and down amongst the Protestants here Osianders church there Stancars there Melanchthons here a body of rigid Lutherans there soft ones here Calvinists enemies to both here Illyricans there Valentine-gentilists here Plenilutherans there Semilutherans there Antilutherans here the disciples of Oecolampadius there of Suinglius c. all which did so eagerly quarrel about the matters of Reformation that a sober man could not have the patience either to hear their sermons or read their books Since that first division of Luther which is now above a hundred years there have been several times both in Germany and other places many great meetings by Protestant divines of all sorts and sides to bring all parties to an union but it could never be effected to this day which is a shrewd sign as Luther spake ingenuously before the duke of Saxony that the concertation was not begun for God nor yet for God shall ever be ended An ambition they have by their very discession and novelties to advance their name and worldly contents being so opposite as it is unto yielding or submission to anothers judgment will both make schisms and maintain them without controul nor can it be expected he should yield to his fellow servant or condisciple who contemns the maister and doctour and chief pastour of Christianity §. 19. Item INto our Kingdom of England this new invented protestancy had found access exceeding difficil if not altogether impossible all our Kings even from the Conquerour to that day being ever most vigilant that no innovation should arise to the endangering as those wise princes apprehended not only the spiritual but politick state under what ever pretens it should begin and the whole land carrying throughout the world so eminent a renown both for their piety and learning and zealous long continued affection to the catholick religion above all other nations when an odde accident set the doors wider open here than either in Germany France or Netherlands for its more free and copious ingress and it was this King Henry the eight a valorous and noble prince who had also set forth a book against Luther and his new coined protestancy for which zealous and Christian act of his the Pope conferred upon him the title of Defensor fidei wherein our Kings glory to this day even this so great a prince stood at that time so vehemently affected unto one of his subjects Anne Bullen that for her he ran himself into a hundred troubles and his whole kingdom into irreparable miseries To the end he might marry with her he endeavoured a divorce from his good wife Queen Catharine with whom he had lived honourably and peaceably twenty years together which with most earnest importunity for six whole years together when he could not obtain of the Pope he renounced him and by the insinuation of some Lutherans who by this time had crept into the land he made himself Pope and head of the Church within the territories of England and so he dispensed with himself and made that divorce by his own autority which the Pope could not do with his and married Anne whom a while after by the same autority he divorced again and cut off as King and Pope both Anne from his bed and Annes head from her shoulders Upon this strang act of the Kings declaring himself head of the Church never before known or heard of since Christianity first entered England for though Kings were ever honoured as nursing fathers of the Church yet head of influence to this mystical body of Christ is onely Jesus himself and head of government under him only that person who first begot us in Christ and in whom all the sacred hierarchy ends I say upon that strang act of his both King Henry and his whole kingdom was overthrown at one blow and laid prostrate under the feet of those men whom he had so gloriously triumphed of late and obtained thereby to the no small ornament of his crown the addition of a new title for now came flocking in out of Germany Geneva and the Netherlands whole swarms of reformers as thick as grashoppers by whom in a small time the Kings countenance being now set against catholicks who could never be brought to like of his divorce the land was so universally corrupted defaced and spoiled that within few years all the goodly monasteries nunneries abbeyes and their Churches were utterly dispeopled pillaged and ruined and millions of people of both sexes a sad sight to behold who had served God night and day in those their angelical retirements cast forth into the wide world to begin a secular worldly life many of them in their feeble old age when all their whole livelihood was taken from them The prey indeed was very great but it proved aurum Tolosanum neither King nor people was ever the richer for it general granaries as the monasteries then were making provision for all children to be born in the land
which was infinite eas both for rich and poor even unto all eternity but these once pillaged and destroyed vanishing in particular mens hands like water through the fingers whereof nothing at all considerable is kept Nay he that was before the richest and noblest king in Enrop after this vast spoil which a man would think were enough to set up any Prince that was never so low became so very poor before his death that he was forced to make adulterate and leather-coin to supply his wants and of all the great families that were enriched with that spoil there is not one in twenty that keeps up his head at this day Queen Mary stopped this torrent for a while but it burst forth again in Queen Elisabeths reign who also found it so impetuous that she with all her subtle counsel could not tell how to wield or rule a people of so many heads and factions as had then flown together in the land out of several nations and endeavoured to perswade the people every one to their own way of reformation as the onely pure one Yet the Queen notwithstanding being declared illegitimate in her fathers daies thought it safer all things considered to leav off her ancient religion in which she had by catholick byshops received the Crown than to disgust the resolute Protestants All the difficulty was how to content even them being so severally biassed that no one thing could do it French Protestants the Calvinists and Suinglians were mo in number but German Protestants of greater repute and both these and those so subdivided into parties as there appeared no hopes to pleas any one without the offence of all the rest She concluded therefore by the advice of her counsel which saw a necessity of it to recall episcopacy which had been now some years banished by whose awe and power the rabble might be brought to som order And becaus the catholick byshops who were now all of them so many as remained alive imprisoned would not be induced either by promis or threats to ordain her any and Protestant byshops there were none upon earth she appointed her own divines by her autority and power to create one another which kind of ordination though it were not onely ridiculous to catholicks but hateful also to the greater part of Protestants who in all their reformations that were ever yet made jointly execrated episcopacy as the main badg of popery yet the Queen provided by an Act that none upon pain of her displeasure and further penalties should laugh at it Thus was settled and English Protestant Church neither according to Luther Melanchthon Calvin or any of those first Protestant teachers much less the Roman catholick and yet too a part of every thing as it were on purpos to pleas all at least to stop their mouths The name of Protestants we assumed from Luther as the most ancient and honourable of the reformation the doctrin for the most part from Calvin as most pure and our episcopacy in imitation of the Catholick as most safe and so we were neither one nor the other and yet in some sens all We pulled down altars which Luther kept up and set up episcopacy which Luther pulled down We joyned with Calvin in his doctrin but not his government we joyned with Catholicks in their form of government but not in their doctrin We cast off the Priests albe and vestment to pleas Calvinists we keep still the surplice to comply with Luther and a sacrament or two in condescention to the Catholick who delivered them with the addition of more Our ministers mourned in black to imitate the Papist priests that were then only in repute and yet they did it with a wife in their hand that Luther might not take exception whether the wife were virgin or widdow to satisfie Calvin who without scruple of irregularity married a tailors widow For Luthers sake we defied the Pope for Calvins satisfaction we bore our selvs towards the King as if he were little concerned in spiritual affairs and yet to affront the Catholicks we called him head of our Church We preached the word becaus Catholicks amongst other things used to do it we made no sacrifice becaus Calvin abhorred it and yet we kneeled in communion becaus Luther liked it The mass we cashiered to satisfie Calvin for Luthers sake we drew a compendious Common-prayer book out of it and the breviary and to content the Catholicks we kept all the gospel entire The real presence with Calvin we cried down yet we kept an altar-table covered with linnen in some compliance to Luther and we bowed our knee as we past by though it were a meer naked board in imitation of Catholicks who used to do so to their inshrined Messias We kept up the pulpit that Catholicks who built them for that use might not except against us for pulling down all we removed the altar-table to pleas Calvin and instead of the crucifix upon the rood loft we placed a naked unicorn to content Luther and Catharin Bore To affront Catholicks we preached down good works and charity we cried up faith for Luthers sake and hope becaus we could not see how it could stand with Calvins certainty of salvation we left to his disposal c. §. 20. Item I Cannot see why a wise counsel and Parliament may not with as much autority form a Church both for doctrin and government as either Luther or Calvin their judgments are moe in number more versed in weighty affairs more clear and free from that passion which transported those good birds to their reformation And this mixture of things by the discretion of so many grave men if a Church as well as other polities be of human institution is so far from derogating that it augments the splendour I am sure this Church of ours marched forward with a very handsome show and some tranquility of progress even until the reign of our good King Charls the first when it was with a violent wild rage miserably defaced In all which time of its flourish the distressed Catholick was with all exact care persecuted all the land over both in their livelihood and dignities and liberty and somtimes life too although their imprisonments and loss of their estates did not so much afflict them as two other vexations the one to their fame the other to conscience both of them unto good and upright men almost insupportable For the press and pulpit were ever sweating out somthing against the honour of Roman catholicks which hath rendered them at length as black as ingenious calumny can make them The conscience torture was a double edged Oath drawn on purpos to entangle those catholicks whom threats punishment or promises could not move to desert their former way of faith and it could not but take for going under the specious name of Allegiance and Supremacy and withall implicitely involving as the letter sounded an abnegation of ancient Christianity it would if they refused
and antient divines do teach that he did before them the same sacramental act he had himself instituted and done aforetime before his apostles and by that he was discerned which interpretation is very probable for there be set down the same words and gestures He took bread and blessed and brake it and gave it to them Luke 24.30 And if it were so then it seems the cup was not thought necessary either by Christ himself or his disciples otherwise neither Christ would have done his work imperfectly and vanished before he had given them the cup nor would the disciples have judged him by so doing to be their master but som evil spirit or impostour as who had kept the cup from them against their right Nay by this example it seems that the very consecration it self may be dispenced in case of necessity to be don only in one kind though the complete sacrifice and mode of signication would be unexprest Thirdly in the first and second chapters of the Acts of the apostles where mention is purposely made of the religious assemblies of the Christians and their sacred Synaxis ther is much speech there of their breaking of bread but not any word of the use of a cup amongst the people And it is enough insinuated as well directly in these forenamed places that that was the religious work of the primitive Christians as it is indirectly afterwards c. 20. One day of the sabboth saith the text when we came together to break bread No mention being made any where in all that book of the challice at all So that I must conclude as I said before that the communion of the challice is neither necessary to any effect of the sacrament nor expedient to be generally practised nor is there in gospel or sacred writ any either precept or president for it But the autority and practis of the catholick Church descended from the apostles is in this as in all other points the best and most irrefragable convincing argument which S. Paul in another case kept for his best and last refuge 1. Cor. 11. If any one saith he will be contentious we have no such custom nor the Church of God And if there be no such custom in the Church of God let not any of us be any further contentious §. 27. Saints I Do not remember that ever I took into my hands any catholick Breviary or Missal or other prayer book but it had prefixed before it a calendar or catalogue of great saints amongst them apostles martyrs confessours virgins of whom the Catholicks keep a very respectful memory as of the temples wherein God did once dwell and work wonders in the Church And although this act and custom of theirs be made by our voluntary interpretation a thing of much offence and scandal against them yet looking upon it with an unprejudiced eye I cannot discern it to be any other than the civility of a due respect For what ingenuous noble spirit would not do as much for the great heroes of his own family that have upheld and innobled the hous And what sayes Christ would he not have it done so to his surely if these things had not been don in his Church but all memorials of him and his blotted out according to the fansy of every reformer we had had by this no more certainty of him than of Jove or Mercury But what sayes he therefor He that loves me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and make my mansion in him c. he that leavs father or mother for my sake shall sit upon thrones c. he that shall overcome and keep my words unto the end I will give him power over nations as I have received from my father and I will give unto him a morning star c. and the like promimises of glory I stand not now to mention And I should think whom God and Christ so highly honours that we may honour them too nay I beleev we should for a good servant ought to respect him his maister loves And what are we afraid of least people by much reflecting upon such eminent examples of vertue should be moved therby to imitate them what can it be els If saints were proposed and described unto us like Mars Jove and Venus eminent both actours and patrons of vice then we might justly blame it But who can dislike of an example of heroick vertue though it were in a Romance And all those saints even from the first of January to the last of December are so commended for their sacred retirements ravishing contemplations of Gods love and the life to come carnal mortifications and castigations of body fastings abnegations of themselves excessive charity daily renewed resolutions against the world flesh and devill and valorous attempts for the love of Jesus to justifie his truth and gospel even to the effusion of their bloods that we read nothing els of them all which is but what Christ and his apostles both by example and word either prescribed or at least counselled both them and us to do And who can make bitter gibeing invectives against them and their legends but only he who is an enemy to the vertues there commended What my self and others in England have read and heard against Popish Saints it would be tedious to speak but I find it to be the spirit and genius of them that depart from the Popes religion Luther the Hectour rampant was excellently dextrous at this feat of disabling persons of renown and before him his grandsire Wicleph who publickly affirmed that St. Austin St. Bennet St. Bernard and other such like men were damned in hell for founding religious orders yea and even John Calvin himself that holy faced man was so intemtemperatly given to this theiomachy that he opened his mouth not only against all saints and their memorials in the register of the Church but even the renowned persons both of the old and new testament canonized in holy writ Noah Abraham Rebecca Jacob Rachel Job Moyses Josuah David Elias Jeremias Daniel The B. Virgin Mary S. Joseph S. Mary Magdalen Martha the haemorroiss Woman who touched Christs garments S. Peter S. Paul S. Matthew S. Luke S. Zacharias the husband of Elizabeth and S. Denyse Areopagite c. and his own words against all these I could easily set down but that I would not tire my reader nor foul my paper with his detracting unseemly speeches But I should being left to my own reason shrewdly suspect him to be an enemy to vertue whom I find to calumniate and disable all those persons who by authentick history are so much commended for it and by the same proposed unto us as an ensample of our lives It is not only their due but our benefit to keep the memory of saints before us Besides that man cannot easily forget his own imortality after our deceas who often ruminates upon such vertuous presidents whom being dead he honours as yet
themselves have thought it an addition of honour to sit in that solemn and thrice venerable assembly though in a separated place Shall we I say mock and revile this sacred person Let not such a thing be said of us any more let it not be told in Gath or the streets of Askalon that we use any such rude behaviour lest the very uncircumcised Philistins condemn our vast inexcusable incivility Nor yet let us either envy or malign the respect which Pappists give to Him from whom they received their Christianity and by whose vigilance and care it hath been kept inviolate amongst them from its first ingres into the land even to this very day Shall our eye be therefor evil becaus theirs is good §. 30. Popery IN the more flourishing doctrins of the Catholick Church I could be largely copious but I have said as much as may suffice my intended purpos which was so far to excuse even that religion also that if all do not embrace yet none may persecute and hate it Wherefor I do purposly omit to speak of other more plausible parts of Popery viz. 1. The obligation which all who beleev in Christ have to attend unto good works and the merit and benefit of so doing 2. The possibility of keeping Gods commandements with the assistance of divine grace 3. The liberty and freedom of human will either to comply with grace or resist it 4. The sacred councel and excellency of divine vowes 5. The right and obligation to restitution when any one shall have wronged his neighbour either in his soul or body fame goods or estate 6. The power and autority of of the Church in her tradition and decisions 7. The fasts and abstinence at certain times from som kind of meats which is all the religion we read Adam was injoined to observ in Paradise that we may therby be more apt to acknowledg Gods gifts and goodnes at those times we enjoy other good things of his bounty and at other times them and to sanctify our spirit for divine retirements 8. The divine ordination and unspeakable comfort and benefit of Confession 9. The caelibate and single life of the clergy who thereby freed from much solicitude of this world though not without som troublesom struggling against unseemly lusts of youth may approach the altar like angels of God who neither marry nor are given in marriage 10. The doctrin of indulgencies which be nothing els but a releas from som temporal penalties due to sin after repentance and remission which the Church does generally bestow by commutation as when for example an indulgence of such penalties for so many daies or years is granted unto such as upon the time appointed shall repent and confess fast pray give almes and communicate for the Churches preservation and concord of Christian princes which is a doctrin as rational and well grounded as any in Christianity though we in England will not understand it 11. Finally the ecclesiastick hierarchy and supremacy whereby catholick religion like a flourishing fair tree spreads his boughs in several kingdoms of the earth even from sea to sea so united all of it in all its parts and connexed together that ther is no catholick upon earth but is under som priest all priests subordinated to their byshops these to their metropolitan all metropolitans to the Patriarchs and Patriarchs united in the Papal cone every leaf cleavs to som twig every twig to som branch every branch to som bough every bough to the bole and the bole to the root And several other such like points of the Roman religion which coming all together from once hand have stood unchangeable in all ages the same and depending all upon the verity of the first revealer have an equality of truth though not of weight These and several others with the other half dozen more offensive doctrins I have cleared and explicated our reformers cut off at one blow when they taught us that it would suffice to salvation only to beleev in Christ without any more ado and that other things were popish superstitions whereby we became a strang kind of servants that beleev their maister but heed not either to fulfil his orders or do his commands For they told us and we have hitherto beleeved it That ther be no such things as good works pleasing to God but all be as menstruous rags filthy odious and damnable in the sight of heaven That if it were otherwis yet are they not in our power That with the assistance of any grace to be had Gods commandements are impossible to be kept and it would be therefor vain to attempt it especially sith we have in us no strength of free will to act any thing but evil That it must needs be foolishnes to vow unto God sith we can do nothing we ought to do and no less foolish if we have vowed to pay it That what wrong soever we do to another God is merciful and restitution fruitles both becaus one sin cannot make satisfaction for another nor any thing clear us but the blood of Christ alone unto which if we should concurr our selves by doing good works or satisfying for ill we should be half our own redeemers That the Church which presumes to teach other things than we allow is a fals mistres distracted and knows not what she sayes That to fast from sin is fast enough without depriving our stomachs of good flesh when we have a mind to it and yet becaus we sin in every thing we do neither is that fast possible to be kept That confession is needless How can man forgive sins That our clergy find themselvs men and not angells and love women as well as others and first revolted from popery principally for their sakes preferring a good wife before the whore of Babylon and the altars that kept them asunder are thrown down the honest pulpit standing now solitary speaks for them and brings them happily together That of indulgencies there is no need since obligation to penalties is shaken off long ago by our own autority without any indulgence from another That papal supremacy is the only obstacle to our liberty and therefor it must be abolished And let popery hang together as close as it can it shall go hard but we will find a battery to shake it So much indeed hath sophistry and continual clamour against popery and state punishments lying ever most heavily upon the professours of it prevailed over our judgments that now ther is no goodnes no worth no truth in it no none at all it is all naught all and every part of it naught nothing but naughtines superstition and vanity All that I will say for the present is this If popery be a bad religion more is the pitty for the professors of it suffer as much for it as might well serv for a good one Millions of people for the beleef they have in it and the love they bear its holy counsels and
promises of future reward do voluntarily and of their own accord forsake the world and all worldly pleasures to serv God night and day in poverty humility and chastity and multitudes of others of a secular condition in several parts of the earth have rather chosen to live an afflicted life in this world contemned abused pillaged beaten put to death by their persecutours than to forsake that religion and these too as noble and wise persons many of them as any the earth hath had But if any will yet be contentious and maintain his hatred still against Popery I earnestly request he would seriously ponder these few following Queries which I borrowed of a friend It will not be deny'd but that the Church of Rome was once a most pure excellent flourishing and Mother Church for this is not only by good St. Paul amply testified in his epistle to the said Romans but acknowledged also by Whitaker in his answer to Dr. Sanders by White in his defence of his way by Fulk and Reinolds and also by K. James in his speech to the Parliament This Church could not ceas to be such but she must fall either by Apostasie Heresie or Schism I. Apostasie is not onely a renouncing of the Faith of Christ but the very name and title to Christianity No man will say that the Church of Rome had ever such a fall or fell thus II. Heresie is an adhesion to some private and singular opinion or errour in Faith contrary to the general approved Doctrin of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common recived Doctrin of the Christian world I pray satisfie me as to these particulars viz. 1. By what General Councel was she ever condemned 2. Which of the Fathers ever writ against Her Or 3. By what authority was She otherwise reproved For If seems to me to be a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemned by every one that hath a minde to condemn her III. Shisme is a departure or division from the Vnity of the Church wherby the Band and communion held with som former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided her self by Schisme from any other body of faithful Christians or brake communion or went forth from the Society of any Elder Church I pray satisfie me as to these particulars 1. Whose company did She leave 2. From what body did She go forth 3. Where was the true Church which She forsook For it appears somwhat strange to me that a Church should be accounted schismatical when ther cannot be assigned any other Church different from her which from age to age since Christ his time hath continued visible from whence She departed If these Queries were well pondered or if men would once beleev as most true it is that by irrefragable principles which all must needs acknowledg who will own a Christianity in general Popery may be proved to be as good a religion as the best then Facta est Lux. But this is a little beyond my intention which aims no further than only to put our passions to a demur for which it may suffice us to think that Popery is not ill And if I should yet say more and endeavour to prove it good those that be of that Way will say I speak too little and they who be not will think I say too much I had a purpos in the three last dialogues of my Reclaimed Papist to make Popery appear not only a good religion but the best and not only the best but the only sole Christianity which Christ planted upon earth and which every right reason that admits of Christ must needs approve But I hope I was therfore discouraged and hindred in that work that it might be left for som better hand and I should my self very much rejoyce to see it don It is now besides my purpos my paper also is already too much swelled my mind calls for freedom and my pen is dulled Acta est pars acroamatica sequitur moralis Fifth Chapter Moral topicks for charity and peace §. 31. Conclusion AS without the indifferency and moderation I have hitherto laboured to implant ther cannot be in us any capacity of a right understanding so ther be yet som moral topicks remaining which are apt to implant this moderation and indifferency as to consider first the sad precipices men have run themselves and others by their headiness and temerarious obstinacy in their opinions and conceits about religion secondly that the connatural excellency of a good Christian consists not in finding new waies to the reformation of other mens thoughts but putting in practis the old received well known dictates of sobriety justice and piety in our selves thirdly that charity which the apostle makes to be the end and highest perfection of religion and indeed all vertue suggests good and moderate thoughts of our neighbour c. But these and such like topicks be a subject fitter for a pious preacher than a civil logician and so leav them What I should speak at this time unto any such purpos take it in the golden words and phrase of the honourable Lord Chancellour the Oratour of the Land Gentlemen the distempers of religion which have too too much disturbed the peace of this Kingdom is a sad argument indeed It is a consideration that must make every religious heart to bleed to see religion which should be the strongest obligation and cement of affection and brotherly kindness and compassion made now by the pervers wranglings of passionate and froward men the ground of all animosity hatred malice and reveng And this unruly and unmanly passion which no question the divine nature exceedingly abhors somtimes and I fear too frequently transports those who are in the right as well as those who are in the wrong and leaves the latter more excusable than the former when men who find their manners and dispositions very conformable in all the necessary obligations of humane nature avoid one anothers conversation and grow first unsociable and then uncharitable to each other becaus one cannot think as the other doth And from this separation we intitle God to the patronage of and concernment in our fancies and distinction and purely for his sake hate one another heartily It was not so of old when one of the most antient Fathers of the Church tells us that love and charity was so signal and eminent in the primitive Christians that it even drew admiration and envy from their greatest adversaries Vide inquiunt ut invicem se diligunt Their adversaries in that in which they most agreed in their very prosecution of them had their passions and animosities among themselvs they were only Christians that loved and cherished and comforted and were ready to dye for one another Quid nunc dicerent illi Christiani si nostra viderent tempora sayes the incomparable Grotius How would they look upon our sharp and virulent contentions in the debates of Christian religion and the bloody wars that have proceeded from those contentions whilst every one pretended to all the marks which are to attend upon the true Church except only that which is inseparable from it Charity to one another My Lords and Gentlemen This disquisition hath cost the King many a sigh many a sad howr when he hath considered the almost irreparable reproach the Protestant religion hath undergone from the divisions and distractions which have been so notorious within this Kingdom What pains he hath taken to compose them after several discourses with learned and pious men of different perswasions you may see by a declaration he hath published upon that occasion by which you see his great indulgence to those who can have any protection from conscience to differ with their brethren And I hope God will so bless the candour of his Majesty in the condescentions he makes that the Church as well as the State will return to that unity and unanimity which will make both king and people as happy as they can hope to be in this world If aught yet remain to be said in the heavenly words of blessed S. Paul I shall conclude it all Quosdam quidam posuit deus c. Some hath God set over us in his Church first apostles secondly prophets thirdly doctours then virtues then graces of healing opitulations gubernations sorts of tongues Are all apostles are all prophets are all doctours are all vertues have all men the grace of healings do all speak with tongues do all interpret But do you emulate the better graces And I do yet show unto you a more excelling way If I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity I am but as sounding brass and tingling cimbal And if I shall have prophesy and know all mysteries and all sciences and if I shall have all faith so that I can translate mountains and have not charity I am nothing c. This is the great rule of our happines and square of all perfection Et quicunque hanc regulam secuti fuerint pax super illos super Israel Dei FINIS
which move Planets or bodies unto us here altogether invisible except we either rise higher or they descend towards us in their motion warmed and vegetated by their fires as we by our sun If it be thus as well it may for aught I can know of my self what a strange consort of hymnes and praises rise up in the univers continually and without ceas as incens in several keys of musick unto that great holy One who made us all to supply the defects of those small pittiful services we poor worms perform unto him in this our earthly system This may seem far more rationall thank to think that we gross corporeall creatures and sensuall sinners are the only people in the univers who serv the almighty and that all those eminent bright shining systems above us whose order method properties bulk and nature is so obscure are there set and appointed for nothing else but onely for our use which we cannot yet say what it is and when we have imagined our utmost is not of the value of any one star in the firmament or that bodies of their vast capacity should be utterly empty and have no creature at all within them I should of my self be so far from thinking that the stars of the firmament are onely for our use that I should doubt whether the very elements amongst which we live and breath earth aier and water and the beasts minerals and plants contained in them are onely made to serv us tho chiefly intended for our benefit The very gradual perfections of nature hath in it self a worth and decency beseeming the Creatour tho man had never been And if all had been onely aimed for our use would not a less sea have served our turn and fewer birds beasts fish and plants What use have we of all the great depth of earth under us to the center or larg vast aether about us And if we were such absolute lords of the world as we conceiv our selves to be how is it that nothing at all in natur is at our command not the sea not the aier not the earth it self nor any thing upon it or in it will either come or go or alter or stop his course at our pleasure which King Canutus observed well when standing with his nobles by the Thames side he perceived the tide to rush upon him altho he had commanded it to com no nearer What kind of vassails be these inferiour natures under man that will obey us in just nothing Besides when any one is absolute maister of a hous wholly destined to his use surely such a one can go and com into any room thereof without controul but let man walk down either into the bottom of his seas to see his fish there or into the cellars of his earth amongst the mettals and tell me if he be not stifled as soon as other creatures But if he once attempt to mount the upper rooms of his habitation tho it be but into the first or second region of the aier he shall fail at the very first step for his ethereal greeces will not bear the gross unweildly bulk of their Lord so ill is the house fitted for the maisters constitution from the very top to the bottom Can we not honour and bless God for the use he hath lent us of all these things which is great and various but we must by the vanity of our hearts appropriate and monopolise the univers to our selvs as if it were for no other use at all but ours The manifold use and services we have of the stars and elements beasts birds fish and plants which do all administer unto man in somthing or other according to the exigence either of his necessities thence to be supplied or his corporal delight or mental speculation to be furnished from that great body which the divine goodnes therefor made before man that in the first instant of his being he should want nothing ought to make us thankful but not proud And so the holy prophet admiring the excellency and perfection of place that mankind by his creators goodnes hath over other visible creatures amongst whom he livs and the various uses he hath of them doth in one of his sweet psalms invite man thereupon to magnifie this his great benefactour who set him in so high a place when he needed not to have put him in any and if man do so he shall do well But he must not appropriate more to himself than is given or instead of being thankful for the dominion he has received vainly conceit a dominion he has not Aristotle fansied our earth to be the center of the Univers and the stars to be a sift essence differing from all the four elements placed in the circumference but the great wits of the world that lived before him Pythagoras Empedocles Anaxagoras Democritus Epicure were of another mind And although our Christian Schoolmen have now for five of six hundred years explicated and defended the principles of their religion even in the way of Aristotle by which for a thousand years it had been opposed by the pagan yet do they not intend to mix his philosophy with those principles of their faith nor does the great Christian Church therefore canonise his philosophy for truth becaus she suffers her own truths to be declared and explicated by it If Christianity be true it fears no antagonists but will bear the test of any right philosophy but yet philosophy that it may be right indeed must be corrected and ordered by this divine truth as well as this explicated in som things by it And if another Christian philosopher should explicate his faith now afresh in the way of Democritus or Pythagoras as in the first times of the Church it was declared in the way of Plato and in these latter ages by Aristotle so he do it piously and warily and square not his rule of faith by them but them by it I cannot see why it may not commendably be done But then as he does use those explications to satisfy a pythagorean or epicurean so must he confidently reject as dissonant to right reason what he finds unapt to square with the received truths of Jesus Christ as we do now deal with Aristotle This if it were done as Christian religion will be justified when it is perceived to stand with the right reason of any Philosophy so likewise when another Philosophy contrary to Aristotles is once understood all the whole univers both for number weight and measure its essences relations concatenation origin life and qualities would hang as loose suspence and doubtful as if nothing had been ever said of it Aristotles reasons will make Democritus and his disciples doubted and again the great learning and subtility of Democritus Anaxagoras Epicurus Empedocles will as much disable Aristotle and the doubt may be as pregnant among Christians as other men where the catholick Church interposes not the autority of some received tradition to cast
the scales But whether she do this or no is not to my purpos now in hand who intend onely to insinuate unto such as multiply opinions about religion both without and against that Church that even nature it self is vastly obscure and unknown to man who lives in it and nothing in a manner but only what enters our senses can be so certainly known and concluded by any that he may prudently either swagger or fight for his opinion And religion and the things of another world must needs be yet more obscure than those of this It is observable that Christ and Moses and other holy Apostles and Prophets when in their discours they touch incidentally upon things of nature their chief purpos being ever to teach the way of vertue and true piety they comply oftentimes to the capacity and judgement of the hearer what ever it be So Christ our Lord told us that at the finall day the stars shall fall from heaven insinuating by that amongst his other expressions the great disturbance of nature then to happen wherein comets which the vulgar calls stars may shoot indeed but the Philosophers stars cannot fall upon us out of the firmament except all return to the old Chaos and one System mix with another Moses calls the sun and moon the two greater lights and the stars of the firmament the lesser altho contrary to philosophicall truth when he intended to declare unto the people that have vulgarly such conceptions of them that sun and moon and all the other stars and planets were created by that God he revealed The Psalmist under the similitude of an Eagle which renews his youth expresses moral renovation which he might well do sith men had so fansied of the eagle whether indeed he do so or not The like compliance was used by him who told the people that the stars in their ranks fought against their enemies in which phrase he insinuated Gods providence in battles condescending to the peoples imagination who looked upon the stars as a pitched field of champions under the Lord of those hosts of heaven to defend the innocent Thus leaving us in the same imagination about things of nature they found us in they endeavoured all of them onely to chalk us out the right way unto that felicity whereof the knowledg of these and other wonderments of Gods power shall be the least part by serving him as we ought from whom have issued prodigies we shall never know in this life and who is himself the wonder of all wonders onely to be seen and known in the other Having seriously perused the Schools and learning of the ancient Pagan Philosophers this I finde that their disciples however conceited of their demonstration and knowledg did rather beleev than know any thing and the first maister invented himself properly speaking not so much a philosophy as faith Take Aristotle and his School on one side Democritus and Epicure on the other these two schools were mainly opposite both in their principles and whole body of learning And yet none that understand them well can tell by any strength of nature or force of their arguments which of them is with truth According to learned Democritus and Epicure all things began in time by a fortuite concours of atomes which in all eternity filled the immensity of space and as these made the world so do they by their incessant mobility work continually insensible alterations till after long time they fly all asunder again and make casually another world either here again or in som other part of the immens space quite of another mode and fashion unto this so that matter upon this account is all and does all According to Aristotle the world had no beginning but partiall generations daily wherin form gives the act and essence and matter is so far from being all that it is but a pure potentiallity and prope nihil almost just nothing These were the opposite principles of two differing Philosophies But were they known or evident to either of the maisters If they had sought for an argument to prove them they had laboured in vain one therfor conceited that matter was all things the other that matter was nothing c. and upon this conceit which nothing but the autority of the maister to whom they would adhere fastened upon the disciples they raised a Philosophy which being thus founded upon a human faith or fansy all their following ratiocinations could never effect that it should be rather called knowledg than beleef or fantosme And this is the reason why the ancient Christian Priests grave and learned men who had entertained an esteem of their maister above all mortall men would never give way that the articles of Christian faith should be tried by the principles either of Aristotelian or Epicurean beleef and since the disciples of those men would adhere so firmly to fals and indemonstrated principles of human teachers they thought it much more reasonable that they should hold constantly what they had received from a divine maister and not submit to the test of such ungrounded inevident and contradicting principles of men as much opposite one to another as all perhaps to Christian faith even Aristotles philosophy as well as the rest What more assured pillars be there in Aristotles school than these Ex nihilo nihil fit 2. quod incipit esse desinit esse 3 quae conveniunt in aliquo tertio conveniunt inter se 4 accidentis esse est inesse 5. ex duobus entibus in actu non fit unum 6. Ã privatione ad habitum non datur regressus not to mention others And yet those catholik priests perceived well enough that Christian principles were contrary unto these and these to them the first to creation the second to the souls immortality the third to the Trinity fourth to the Eucharist fifth to the Incarnation sixth to the resurrection Some ages after rose our Christian philosophers whom we commonly call Schoolmen and raised a fine piece of art upon Christian principles defended and made good even in Aristotles way And these becaus the forenamed and such other Aristotelian axioms carried a plausible appearance of truth in the ear they did accept them indeed but in a sens of their own so that they do not in this Christian school make out that sens they did in the others though they bear the same sound And it is pretty to see how one and the same axiom is made in several schools to butteres up waies that be destructive to one another God made the world in time saith the Christian and none but he could do it for it is not in the power of any creature no not of the highest intelligence to make a thing of nothing for ex nihilo nihil fit of nothing is nothing made namely by the power and force of nature though it may by God the first caus so speaks he The world is eternal saith Aristotle and could not be made