and damnation the soonest to those who despise and reject them Which being expressed with a grim countenance and a terrible accent startles and shakes more persons of weak judgements and timorous dispositions than all the reasons and arguments they could ever produce This hath alwayes been the method of deceivers to pretend to the highest and then make the sin of those who do not believe them as great as if the thing were real Thus the rejecting mens Fanatick pretences to Revelations and Extasies is cryed out upon as blaspheming the Holy Ghost and refusing to believe upon the Roman Churches pretended Infallibility is called no less than denying Gods Veracity We profess to believe the true inspiration of the Holy Ghost and every tittle of what God hath revealed but we will not swallow Pretences for Evidences nor Enthusiasms for Revelations For as the true Religion was at first founded upon Divine Inspiration so we know that the greatest corruptions of it have sprung from the pretence to it Maimonides saith that the first beginning of Pagan Idolatry was owing to the pretence of Inspiration and immediate Revelations for the Worship of the Stars However that be we are certain the Devil made use of Oracles and Enthusiasms as the most effectual means to bring men to the practice of it both in Aegypt in Greece and many other places and they who have taken the pains to collect them have reckoned one hundred and sixty several Oracles that were in request in the times of Paganism After Christianity began to be setled in the world the greatest corrupters of it were the pretenders to Dinive Inspiration as the false Apostles the Gnosticks the Montanists and many others And the pretence to this is so much the more dangerous because it bids high and is easily taken up and requires no learning or wit but only confidence to manage it and may carry men by impulses and motions to the most unwarrantable actions and where it meets with an Enthusiastical temper is very hardly removed 3. We may observe that a truly infallible Spirit is not sufficient to put an end to Controversies For when was that ever more evident than in the holy Apostles after the miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost upon them Many are apt to say now That there will never be an end of these wranglings and Schisms and disputes in Religion till there be an infallible Judge to put an issue to them But were there not infallible Judges in the Apostles time that gave infinitely greater evidence of an infallible Spirit than any ever since have done But were Controversies put to an end by it No certainly when the Apostles complain so much of the Schisms and divisions and errors and heresies and disputes and quarrellings that were among them And if so great an evidence of a Divine Spirit manifested by their Miracles had no greater effect then what can we imagine the shadow of S. Peter or the dream of infallibility can do in the Roman Church And give me leave to say it is the Inquisition and not Infallibility which keep things quiet among them But God deliver us from such an end of Controversies 2. The false Prophets and Apostles pretended to greater mortification and self-denyal than the true Apostles did S Hierom understands their coming in Sheeps clothing of this pretence to greater severity and rigour of life than others used Those that go about to deceive must appear to have something extraordinary this way to raise an admiration of them among those who judge of Saints more by their looks than by their actions Whereas the greatest Hypocrites have been alwayes the greatest pretenders this way Our blessed Saviour was so far from making any shew of this rigour and severity that he was reproached by the Scribes and Pharisees those mortified Saints to be a wine-bibber a friend to Publicans and Sinners Alas what heavenly looks and devout gestures and long prayers and frequent fastings had they more than Christ or his Disciples The poor Widows were so ravished with their long prayers that they thought they could not do better with their houses or estates than to put them into the hands of such mortified men to the world till they found notwithstanding their Sheeps clothing that by their devouring they were ravening Wolves Those that seem so much to fly from the world do but as Souldiers in a Battel sometimes do that seem to fly from their enemies but only with a design to make them follow that they may have the more advantage upon them One would think no men were so afraid of the world as they that seem to run so fast from it but they lay their Ambuscado's to entrap it and if once it gets into their hand no men know better how to be revenged upon it What pleasant incongruities are these to see men grow rich by Vows of Poverty retired from the world and yet the most unquiet and busie in it Mortified to the pleasures of life and yet delighting most in following the Courts of Princes Such kind of men were the Pharisees of old and who would have thought that under the Name of that Jesus who so much detested and abhorred their hypocrisie there should others arise who have outdone them in their own way As though Christ had said Except your righteousness be like the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter in the Kingdom of Heaven But we need not wonder that in these latter ages such pretences should be made use of since in the very beginning of the Christian Church these were the common arts of deceivers They found fault with the Apotles as giving too much liberty to men in the use of Marriage and Meats but they thought the state of the one was not agreeable to their sanctity nor the free use of the other consistent with their severe and mortified life For they did forbid to marry and commanded to abstain from meats They would not make use of the liberty which God had allowed but they were ready to take that which he had forbidden therefore the Apostle gives the true character of them when he saith they spake lyes in hypocrisie There was an outward shew of sanctity and severity in their doctrine but no men are observed by Ecclesiastical Historians to have been more eager of what God had forbidden than they who were so scrupulous about what God had allowed We do not say the case is altogether the same where men are forbidden absolutely as though Marriage were unlawful in it self which was the case of the antient Hereticks and where it is forbidden only to a particular Order of men as it is in the Church of Rome but this we say that where it is forbidden to a particular Order of men as though it did not become the sanctity of that Order this is reviving that hypocrisie which S. Paul condemns especially when it is forbidden on such an account as Pope Siricius
who were foretold by the Prophets that should come for the redemption of his People for many shall come in my Name saying I am Christ and shall deceive many Not as though they pretended to be sent by Christ but that they would assume to themselves the Dignity and Authority of the true Messias and of this sort there were many that arose among the Jews such as Theudas Jonathas Barchochebas and many others But besides these there were false Prophets some of which did openly oppose Christianity such as that Bar-Jesus mentioned in the Acts but there were others who pretended to own Christianity and to prophesie in the Name of Christ whom S. Peter calls false Teachers and whom S. Paul describes by the same character that our Saviour here doth But I know that after my departing shall grievous Wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw disciples after them whom he elsewhere sets forth by their Sheeps clothing when he saith that by good words and fair speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple whom he calls false Apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ which carryed so fair a shew and appearance among the people that S. Paul was very full of jealousie and apprehension concerning them lest they should by degrees draw away his Disciples from the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ. For I am jealous over you saith he with godly jealousie but I fear lest by any means as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. It may seem strange that after the Apostles had with so much care and diligence planted the Gospel of Christ in several Churches they should express so much fear as they did and especially S. Paul of their being so soon corrupted by these false Teachers as he doth not only of the Corinthians but of the Galatians too I marvel saith he that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ. And O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth and of the Ephesians That we henceforth be no more Children tossed to and fro and carryed about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive and of the Colossians Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. And Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels and of the Hebrews Be not carried about with diverse and strange doctrines But we shall see this great Caution delivered here first by our Saviour and afterwards by his Apostles was no more than necessary if we consider under what pretences they came and what Arts and Methods these false Teachers used to delude and seduce the people 1. They pretended to the same infallible Spirit which the Apostles had And this may be the reason why our Saviour doth not here call them false Teachers but false Prophets For Prophecy in its proper notion doth not relate to future events but to divine Inspiration So S. Chrysostom saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Prophet saith he is the same with Gods interpreter so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in Greek Authors as in the Author of the Book de Mundo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendered by Apuleius effari caeteris and Festus saith that the Latines called those Prophets which were oraculorum interpretes and so the Hebrew words are taken in the same sense without any relation to foretelling things to come So Moses is said to be a God to Pharaoh and Aaron thy Brother shall be thy Prophet i. e. thy interpreter Abraham is called a Prophet and the Patriarchs are all called Prophets in regard that Divine Revelations were more common before the written Law but the reason why the name of Prophecy came to be restrained to the prediction of things to come was because future events lying most out of the reach of mens knowledge the fore-telling of these was looked upon as the greatest evidence of divine inspiration But in the New Testament prophesying is often taken for the gift of interpreting the hard places of the Old Testament as Themistius calls one that interpreted the hard places in Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thence Prophesying is reckoned among the spiritual gifts and so these false Prophets were not men who pretended to fore-tell future events but to the assistance of an infallible Spirit in giving the sense of Scripture and by this pretence they transformed themselves into the Apostles of Christ giving out that they enjoyed equal priviledges with them whereby three things may be observed which deserve our consideration 1. That nothing is more easie than for false Teachers to pretend to an infallible Spirit such whom our Saviour and his Apostles did warn men especially against pretended to be Prophets and Apostles and to know the mind of Christ better than they who truly had the assistance of the Holy Ghost Some think the bare pretence to Infallibility ought in such a divided state of the Christian world to be entertained as the best expedient to end Controversies and that Church which doth alone challenge it ought on that account to be submitted to as though the most confident pretenders were to be soonest believed so they will be do what we can by the weakest sort of mankind but by none who have and use their judgements If bare pretences were sufficient Simon Magus did bid the fairest to be Head of the Church for he pretended to be Gods Vicar upon earth or the divine Power sent down from Heaven which none of the Apostles pretended to Why then did not the Christian Church submit to Montanus his Paraclete when no other Christians pretended to such an immediate inspiration as he did And certainly Prisca and Maximilla were better Oracles than a Crucifix was to a late Pope If there be any thing beyond a bare pretence to an infallible Spirit we desire to see better arguments for it than the false Apostles could produce for theirs if there be nothing but a bare pretence we must leave the Pope and Quakers to dispute it out 2. That the pretence to Divine Inspiration is very dangerous to the Christian Church For we see what mischief it did in the Apostolical times when there was a true infallible Spirit in the Apostles of Christ to discover and confute it yet notwithstanding all the care and diligence of the Apostles many were seduced by it For those who have the least ground do commonly use the greatest confidence and denounce Hell
Plot. This I know is suggested and believed by some who think it a fine thing to talk out of the common road and to be thought more skilful in Mysteries of State than other men But I would fain understand from whence they derive this profound intelligence at such a distance of years If King Iames may be believed if the Popish Historians and Apologists at that time may be credited there was not the least intimation given either by the Actors or Sufferers from abroad or at home of any such thing Was not the world sufficiently alarm'd at the news of this dangerous and unparallel'd Conspiracy Were not men very inquisitive into all the particulars and those of the Church of Rome especially the Iesuits concerned in point of honour to wipe off the stain from themselves and to cast the odium of it on a great Minister of State Were not two of the Iesuits who were conscious of the Plot preferred afterwards at Rome and how many Writings came from thence about it and yet not one man discovered the least suspicion of any such thing If they go on in this way without the least shadow of proof to lay the contrivance of this Plot on a professed Protestant for all that I know by the next age they may hope to perswade men that it was a Plot of Protestants to blow up a Popish King and Parliament 2. That they had all their Motives and encouragements from the principles of their Religion to undertake such a design And Philostratus contends that the murder of Domitian ought rather to be attributed to the doctrines of Apollonius than to the hands of Stephanus and Parthenius For which we are to consider that they were fully possessed with this as a principle of their Religion That it was absolutely in the Popes power to deprive heretical Princes of their dominions which had been rooted in them especially after that Pius the Fifth had fully declared it in his Bull against Queen Elizabeth In her case they made no scruple to destroy her if they could and thought they should do it with a good conscience And there are no Villains in the world like those who are Villains out of conscience But as to the Queens Successor the Pope had declared nothing till such time as Garnett being Provincial of the Iesuits had received two Briev's from Rome wherein he declared That in case they should suspect the Queens Successor would not be true to their Religion it was lawful for them to use their endeavours to keep him from the Crown These Briev's Garnett shews to Catesby who took the rise of his design from hence And when afterwards in conference Garnett desired him to know the Popes opinion in it he replyed That he needed not ask that for if it were lawful to exclude him before he came to the Crown it was lawful to take him away when he was in possession of it Which argument was so strong that Garnett either had no mind or was not able to answer it All the scruple Catesby had after this was whether it were lawful to destroy the innocent and guilty together which Garnett fully resolved him in so it were for the greater good of the Church Upon these two grounds as Widdrington a Roman Catholick well observes Catesby laid the Foundation of his whole conspiracy After this it 's evident by manifest proofs and Garnetts own confession under his hand that he and other Iesuits did understand the particulars of the Plot and Tesmond another Iesuit and he discoursed the circumstances walking together in Moor-Fields and that not in confession as is pretended for the Iesuit did not confess it as a fault but advised with him about particulars and asked him who should be Protector of the Kingdom after the Plot took effect as Garnett himself confessed But suppose it had been in confession why might not Treason be discovered as well as Heresie and their Casuists acknowledge that Heresie may be revealed There is only this difference that Treason is only against Secular Princes but Heresie against the interest of their Church which is dearer to them than all the Princes lives in the World Yea so busie were the Iesuits in encouraging this Plot that they not only debated it among themselves but one of them gave them the Sacrament upon the Oath of Secrecy and then absolved them after the discovery another prayed for good success another comforted them after it was discovered by the examples of good designs that had wanted success And must we after all this believe that only a few discontented Laicks were engaged in it and that it was nothing at all to their Church when the Iesuits gave all the encouragement to them in it in point of conscience so that it was truly as well as wittily said of one That the Iesuits double garment might well be called Charity because it covered a multitude of sins 3. But if the Church of Rome give no encouragement to such actions why hath it not detested the principles upon which it was grounded Why hath it not removed all suspicion in the minds of Princes and People of giving any countenance to such treasonable designs But on the contrary the same doctrines are still avowed and the persons of the Conspirators honoured Widdrington saith that Garnetts name was inserted into the English Martyrology though he gave it under his hand that he dyed for Treason That his bones were kept for Reliques and his Image set over Altars as of a holy Martyr Is this the honour of Regicides and Traytors in the Roman Church When in the late prosperous Rebellion the prevailing Faction had proceeded to such a height of Wickedness as to take away the life of our Gracious Soveraign how did the Church and Nation groan and grow impatient till they could vindicate the honour of our Religion and Countrey not only by an execution of Justice on the persons of the Regicides but by declaring in Parliament against the principles that led to it What hath there been done like this in the Court or Church of Rome against the principles or actors of this Gunpowder-Treason If it had succeeded by all that we can see Paul the Fifth might have admired the providence of God in it as much as Sixtus the Fifth did in the murder of Henry the Third of France and we may guess his mind shrewdly by the Bulls he published against the Oath of Allegiance which the King was forced for his own security to impose on the Papists after this Conspiracy With what scorn and contempt doth Bellarmine treat the King in his Writings against him and tells him in plain terms if he would be secure he must give liberty to their Religion It seems then their principles are dangerous to Princes where they have it not What mark of dishonour was there set by their own part on any one of the Conspirators Two of the Iesuits upon their arrival at Rome met with