are thought to make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace and that are set in the least opposition or competition with Christs Merits or in any place save commanded subordination to him nay he says he firmly holds That Works done with a conceit of obliging God by Merit in commutative Justice or as conceited sufficient without a Saviour and the pardon of their failings do more further their Damnation than Salvation Yea p. 97. none but Christ merited of strict distributive Justice according to the Law of Innocency nor by any Works that will save from the charge of sin and desert of death And that thou mayest know what he ascribes to our Graces Holiness or Works He tells us p. 119. we mean by Merit but the moral aptitude for the reward of a free Benefactor who also is Rector when the ordering of a free gift suspended on official conditions is sapientially made a means of procuring obedience This one Clause if understood and he is a bold Traducer of so great a Man that cannot understand words so plain will acquit Mr. B. and inform thee of the place of all Gospel Conditions 1. All Gospel-blessings are the free gifts of Christ as Benefactor they have their being without any regard to what we do therefore nothing in man is a jot of the righteousness or merit for which they are bestowed 2. Christ is our Rector or Governor he will rule us as well as be beneficent to us 3. As a means to incline us to comply with him as Rector he suspends these blessings on terms of what he makes our Duty and wisely orders them as Motives to our Obedience 4. Any Act of our Obedience is no more than a conformity to that Order of his and doth not hinder all we receive from him to be of free gift Obj. But he saith that good Works are necessary to Salvation Answ He doth so and how few deny it But 1. Not if a man dye as soon as he be converted but if he have time p. 94. 2. Their rewardableness is by Gods free Grace and Promise for the sake of Christs meritorious Righteousness Sacrifice and Intercession their imperfection being pardoned and their holiness amiable through him These are his words p. 76. 3. He saith Not without or as a supplement to the Sacrifice Merits and free Grace of Christ our Saviour and Faith in him p. 93 75. And we give our selves to Christ as our Prophet Priest and King to be saved by his Merits p. 94.4 He saith our best Works will not save a man from the charge of sin and desert of death p. 97. 5. He denies that external Obedience is necessary to our admission into a justified state as he shews in the Thief on the Cross And when he saith we are justified by our Faith Godliness and Works Justification is not taken by him for the pardon of sin which he ascribes wholly to the Merits of Christ but he takes Justification there for our acquittance against the accusation that we are Infidels Ungodly and Hypocrites And saith that against the charge that we are Sinners deserving Hell we are justified by Christ believed in p. 94. His meaning is plainly this Christ alone by his Merits forgives our sins and purchased eternal Life for us But seeing that Christ hath promised to forgive none but the penitent Believer and declared he will destroy all impenitent unbelieving ungodly sinners Now he thinks that we must be truly acquitted that we are not such or we shall not be saved by Christ Yea he thinks that when God justifies a man for Christs Merits he doth also declare a man to be a true Believer because he will justifie no other and will justifie all such and when God admits a man into Glory he doth even thereby adjudge him a believing penitent holy and upright man and free from the charge of being an infidel hypocritical unholy Enemy against whom the Gospel denounceth Vengeance and bars relief Let these things be weighed and none will wonder that he should say on his sick bed No works I will leave out works if he grant me the other And truly in health none spake more humbly of his own Works than he used to do But because some confident weak persons have inferred from that passage that he changed his Principles when he came to dye we shall inform thee that after that passage was utter'd by him even the night before his death Mr. Baxter was asked whether he was of the same sentiments as formerly about Justification He answered That he had told the World sufficiently his thoughts about it by several Writings and otherwise and thither he referr'd them And after a little pause with his Eyes lifted up to Heaven he cryed Lord pity pity pity the Ignorance of this poor City And in the time of his sickness he declared to us and others that his thoughts in these things were the same as formerly Our regards to Mr. B. force the Publication of what we here insert tho' we would not be judged so happy as to arrive at his Light to lead us to a full Agreement with all his Sentiments As to this Book we wish there be not still great need of such helps against Popery and we are assured it will give more light than some greater Volumes on this Subject That God may render it useful shall be the Prayer of Thy Servants in the Gospel Daniel Williams Matthew Sylvester Protestant Religion Truly Stated and Justified c. THE Deceiver calleth his Book The Touchstone of the Reformed Gospel as if he owned a Gospel distinct from that of the Reformed Church And he undertakes to name fifty two points which the Protestants affirm but tells you not where nor proveth his affirmation but you must believe him as a Touchstone of Truth Dec. The first Protestant affirmation feigned is That there is not in the Church One and that an infallible Rule for understanding the Holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith Answ A meer Lye if he mean that this is any part of Protestant Doctrine but he may find as crude confused words in some ignorant person that is called a Protestant The Reformed Catholicks hold that there is in the Church one and that an infallible Rule for understanding the holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith And that Rule is The Evidence of its own meaning as inherent in its self discernible or intelligible by men prepared and instructed by competent Teaching and Study and the necessary help of Gods Grace and Spirit This is that Rule But the Reformed believe not 1. That there is any Rule by which ignorant prejudiced heretical wilfully blind wicked uncapable men can understand such Scripture as they are hereby undisposed to understand unless by a great change made on themselves Nor that any Prince can make a Statute which on Man can misunderstand abuse or violate 2. Nor that Men can understand it
World nor to have Men miraculously enabled to do it and give proof that it is Divine 3. We hold that God's written Word and Law is perfect in its kind Psal 19. and sufficient to its proper use and end Which Bellarmine Cassinus and the Council of Basil and many School-men in their Prologues on the Sentences confess extendeth to all things commonly necessary to Salvation yea and to be the Divine Rule of Faith 4. Yet we deny not that if God had seen meet to deliver any necessary part of Law or Gospel Faith or Practice as his will by bare word and Memory of Man we had been bound to believe and obey it when we had sound proof that it was indeed from God 5. We hold that for fullest certainty we have possession of the Bible it self and of the Essentials of Christianity brought us by two Means Conjunct that is The Scripture and practical Custom of the Church As the Scripture or written Word shineth to us by its own Light so Tradition tells us which be the Canonical Books and how the Church received them as Divine and that there are no other such And the practice of Baptismal Profession and Covenanting and of the Church Assemblies and reading Scripture and Catechizing and of Eucharistical Communion and Prayer c. tell us what in all Ages hath been taken for true Christianity As we hold a humane Belief needful in Subserviency as a means to Divine Belief so we hold humane Tradition needful to the conveyance of God's Word to us But by your leave we will distinguish the Messenger from the Authour If the King send me a Law or Mandate by a Messenger or by the Penny-Post I will receive and obey it and yet not take the Post or Messenger for King or Legislator or Infallible 6. And the Reformed Catholicks do own all true Tradition but are for a far surer Tradition than the Roman Sect. Our Tradition of Scripture and the great points of Christianity cometh to us by Evidence Infallible that may be called Natural with the greatest advantage of Moral Evidence also and not on the boast and bare word of one proud Sect that pretendeth to Fanatick Inspiration and Authority above all others I call that Natural Evidence which ariseth from such necessary Causes that cannot be otherwise nor can deceive And I call that the best Moral Evidence which cometh from Mens testimony of greatest credit for skill and honesty and we have both these Mans Soul hath some necessary acts that cannot but be and cannot be otherwise Such is sensation of sensible objects duely presented Intellectual perception of things presented according to the evidence in which they appear The Love of our selves and our own known welfare and any thing that is known to be an only and necessary means thereto and hath Omnimodam ratiomem boni The Love of Truth as Truth and Good as Good The hatred of misery c. These all Men have as men and that which dependeth on these dependeth not only on mens honesty And our evidence of Tradition is such as this It is from the Common Consent of all capable Witnesses of various Opinions Passions and Interests Friends and Foes whereas the Tradition of Sectarian Papists dependeth on the Credit of one Sect that falsly pretend a peculiar trust with both Scripture and Tradition tho' against the greater part of Christians And pretend Fanatically that even ignorant Popes and Prelates in Council have a gift of infallible knowledge For Example If there were a doubt raised Whether there be any such City in the World as Rome Paris Vienna or whether there was ever such persons as K. James K. Charles Ludovicus 14 of France c. Or whether the Statutes in our Books were really made by the Kings and Parliaments named in them and be the same unchanged c. There is Natural evidence of all this because it ariseth from necessary acts All sorts of men of contrary interests could never agree to lie and deceive men in such cases no more than they could all agree to kill themselves And if some would be falsifyers the rest would presently detect and shame them If any Lawyers would falsyfie or change the Statutes others would presently manifest the deceit they being commonly known and the cross interests of so many depending on them yea I say not only that this is Natural Infallible Evidence but that it is more than very much other Physical Evidence of many other things because we have better means to know Mans Natural necessary acts than we have to know most other Creatures of God And then for Moral Evidence we have all the Godly's attestation of all Ages and Nations and Sects of Christians and among the rest the Papists also agreeing that This Bible and This Creed and these Essentials of Christianity were all certainly transmitted to us from Christ and his Spirit in his Apostles And what 's the Tradition of the Papal Sect to all this who tell us falsely you cannot know the Scripture to be God's Word but by taking it on the belief of the Pope and Church of Rome as Endowed with the Power of Judgment and the gift of Infallibility Alas what abundance of Impossibilities must be proved true before any Man can by this method believe God's word 1. Before they can believe the Gospel and that Jesus is the true Christ they must believe that he hath a Vicar 2. And a Church 3. And the Pope is this Vicar and his Sect this Church And 4. That he hath the Office Power and Gift of infallible Judging which the Major number of Christians or Churches have not 5. And that Christ not yet believed in gave him power and Infallibility 6. And that he that now Reigneth is the true Pope by due Election Consecration Qualification c. With many more such Impossibilities And what is it to give up the Cause to the Infidels if this be not 7. But we judge that God's Law in Scripture secured from the charge of pretended Rememberers and Vsurpers is so sufficient to its proper use that there needeth no Supplemental Tradition as if it were but half God's Law but only subservient historical Tradition And we challenge the Papists to prove de facto 1. That any such supplemental Tradition is Existent 2. That they possess any other but what the other Churches know 3. That they are more than other Churches authorized to be the Keepers and Judges of that Tradition And 4. We fully prove them Innovators and that Popery is a meer Novelty It is copiously proved by Peter Moulin de novitate Papismi David Blondel de Ecclesia Andrew Rivet Defence of Morney against Coffetean and against Silvester and many others Can they without the most profligate Impudence pretend Apostolical Tradition for denying the Laity the Cup in the Eucharist and for their praying in an unknown Tongue and forbidding the Scripture and deposing Princes and dissolving Oaths of Allegiance and for tormenting and
tell him You must believe us that are the Mouth of the Pope and the Pope tho' you think that the Word of God is against it Speak out Deceiver would you have all Men be of their Rulers Religion or not Should the Jews have believed the Church that Christ was a Blasphemer Deceiver and Traytor and the Apostles Seditious Fellows Must we be Mahometans under Turks Persians and Indians and Papists under Papists And why not Lutherans under Lutherans also And so our King shall be our God and our Religion humane Or must Men judge what is true or false good or bad by their own understandings Do Kings and Prelates Rule Men or Dogs and Brutes If Cromwell say He is Supream and King Charles say He is Supream tell us whether we must not use our own understandings to know which of them to believe and obey And must we not do so if the World the Flesh and the Devil say one thing and Christ another And I pray you tell us whether that be Religion that is not Divine and whether it be not our own understanding that must distinguish between God and Man Did not Vulgar Folly fit slothful Fools for Hell they would easily perceive that Popery engaging them to renounce their own understandings maketh us all Voluntary Brutes to gratify the ambition of Men and puts down God from being our Governour and Man from being a Voluntary Subject and turns the Kingdom of Christ into the Kingdom of Beasts The Sixth Point accused That St. Peters Faith hath failed Ans Who could more ignorantly have stated a Controversie 1. Protestants are further from the Opinion that Peters Faith failed than the greatest Papist Doctors Some Protestants hold that no Man that hath true saving Faith doth ever totally lose it much less Peter Others hold that no Elect Person that hath true Faith doth totally lose it And so thought Augustine Others add that though some as Calvin speaks qualecunque semen sidei perderint having no more immutable Grace than Adam had in Innocency yet all that have a Confirmed Radicated Habit persevere And as to Peters Faith all save those called Arminians agree as far as I know that his Faith was not totally lost nor Peter relapsed into a State of Damnation But will all the Jesuits say as much We commonly hold that the Habit of Peters Faith must be distinguished from the Acts and the Act of Assent from the Act that exciteth Confession and conquereth Opposition And that Peters Faith did not totally fail as to the Habit nor the Assent that Christ was the Messiah But that it actually failed as to the latter Act that should conquer Fear Christ said to him and the rest before that Why are ye fearful O ye of little Faith Little Faith is Faith failing in Degree This is our Victory over the World even our Faith saith St. John And did not Peters Faith fail as to part of that Victory when he Curst and Swore that he knew not the Man But by Peters Faith this Deceiver meaneth the Popes Faith And he instanceth in the Scribes and Pharisees that were to be heard because they Sate in Mose's Chair and in Cajaphas the High-Priest Reader see what Christians these Slaves of Christs pretended Vicar are Doth he not plainly infer that the people did well that believed the Priests and the Scribes and Pharisees that Christ was a Deceiver and workt Miracles by the Devil and was a Blasphemer and a Traytor and deserved Death and that cryed Away with him Crucifie him And what wonder if they obey their High Priest when he Commandeth them to Murther Thousands and Hundred Thousands Saints Nicknamed Hereticks when they justifie them that killed Christ and the Apostles because the Church Commanded it unless they will renounce their own plain Consequence And must we indeed believe that the Popes Faith never failed because Peters did not Then we must believe that General Councils that are their Church have been very false and slanderous Reader I will give thee but an Account of one or two when their own most flattering Historians have written of many a long time that they were rather Apostatict than Apostolici and named but to keep the Account of time The great General Council at Constance that Burnt John Hus and Jerome of Prague for Truth and Honesty finding three Popes Heading three Churches called Roman Catholicks had no way to return to Unity but by putting down all three With much adoe they got down two of them But Pope John at Rome had the fastest hold and they had more adoe to get him down and had not the Emperour resolved to back them they had been foiled Hereupon he is accused in the Council First by Fifty Four Articles of such Monstrous Villanies as one would think humane Nature were uncapable of Afterward many more are added of Poysoning Pope Alexander of Incest with his Brothers Wife and the Holy Nuns and Ravishing Maids and Adultery with Men's Wives and much more and of Simony almost incredible And amongst the rest which I forbear to recite lest I tire the Reader they say and prove that he was a notorious Simoniack and a portinacious Heretick That oft before divers Prelates and other Honest Men by the Devils perswasion he pertinaciously said asserted dogmatized and maintained that there is no Life Eternal nor any after this And he said and pertinaciously believed that Man's Soul dieth with the Body and is extinct as are the Bruits And he said that the Dead rise not contrary to the Articles of the Resurrection c. These Articles being shewed to the Pope he confest his Sin and consented to be Deposed and begged Mercy but all in Hypocrisie while he sought to get out of their Hands and Power And now Reader dost thou think that it is the mark of a Heretick and deserveth Burning and Damnation for a Man to think that this Popes Faith failed Were it not for tiring you I would repeat such Articles against many others of them as would make you think that not only the Heathen Philosophers but even Mahomet was a Saint in comparison of these Swinish and Diabolical Popes After this the Great Council at Basil accused Eugenius the 4th of Heresie and multitudes of horrid Crimes and deposed him But he outfaced them and standing it out to the last got the better and the Succession is ever since continued from this Pope that was deposed by a grand General Council Before these Pope John the 12th was deposed by a Council at Rome called by Otho the Emperour for such horrid Villanies as no Pagans that we read of ever matcht Read them but in Baronius and Binnius Drinking Healths in Wine to the Devil and calling at Dice upon Jupiter and Venus besides Murders Simony Incest and all Wickedness are all consistent with Papal Faith And if this be no failing I shall grant that the Popes Faith nor the Devils can never fail The Seventh accused Point That the
such thing as you falsly charge them with That the Church of Rome is not such a Church that is Is not the Vniversal Church indeed we not only say but think the contrary sitter for a man Drunk than Sober What is Rome all the World Is Abassia America Mesopotamia Muscovy Asia Thrace England Scotland Sweden Denmark no part of the World yea of the Christian World And is not the Christian World the Church Vniversal Reader here is a Controversy worthy the Wits Learning and Honesty of all the Famous Fathers and Doctors and Juglers of the Roman Catholick Church The Question is Which of the Rooms in the House is the whole House One saith that the Kitchin or the Cole-House or the House of Office is the whole House We Protestants say that no one Room is the whole but Hall Parlors Dining-Room and all the Chambers and Closets and Kitchin are the whole and if the Cole-House and House of Office will needs be parts we will not contend with them but we will never grant that they are either the whole or the best part Tho' by Fire and Stink they think to force us to it But the ancient Writers distinguish between the Catholick Church and a Catholick Church By the first is meant the whole Church By the second is meant such a particular Church as is not Schismatical but a true and sound part of the whole But what could these Self-Condemners say more against themselves than thus openly to confess that their Sect claimeth to be the whole Church and so Trayterously unchurcheth two or three parts of the Church of Christ and Damneth most Christians for not being Traytors to Christ as they To confute his base abuse of Scripture is needless and irksome The Tenth point accused That the Churches Vnity is not necessary in alâ— pâ—iâ—ts of Faith Ans This we verily hold for all that God hath revealed in Scripture to be believed are points of Faith if the Word be used intelligibly by these men But all the points of Genealogies Topography Chronology Prophecy in Scripture are revealed to be believed therefore they are points of Faith and if Unity in all these is necessary to the Unity of the Church then no Church on Earth hath Unity Certainly Rome hath not whose Commentators and Doctors disagree about many hundred Texts of Scripture and Sixtus 5th and Clemens 8th Popes about the very Translation of many hundred Texts These men must now say that we are not bound to believe all Gods Word or else they must confess that their Church hath not Unity That which Reformed Catholicks hold is 1. First points of Faith or revealed to be believed are some of them Essential to Christianity and of necessity to Salvation and some but Intergrals if not some Accidents The first all the True Church agreeth in The second not As who is Antichrist or Babylon or the Ten-Horned or Two-Horned Beast in the Revelations What is the Time Times and half a Time with an Hundred such But in general all believe that all Gods Word is true It might convince these men in that it was long before all the Churches received all the Canonical Books of Scripture and yet all received not all their Apocryphal Books And are these out of the Church Or are none of these Books to be believed The Eleventh Point accused That St. Peter was not Ordained by Christ the first Head or Chief among the Apostles and that among the Twelve none was greater or lesser than other Ans Meer Falsehood as undistinguisht The word Head is ambiguous this Writer hath a Head such as it is that other Heads much differ from Reformed Catholicks hold that Peter is called first in numbring them That he was by Christ in many instances preferred before others That he was an Eminent Speaker and worker of Miracles That all the Apostles were not Equal in parts and worth but some herein greater than other What was Judas no lesser than the rest that was a Thief and Traytor John was Eminently the Disciple whom Jesus loved But we hold 1. That as John was not made Lord or Ruler of the rest by being Loved more so Peter's Preheminence made him no Master or Ruler of the rest The twelve Apostles were chosen Relatively to the twelve Tribes Peter as Reuben was the first and denyed Christ and was called Satan with a Get behind me Mat. 16. as Reuben defiled his Fathers Bed But as Levi was the third so was James the first Sanctified Apostle And as Juda the fourth is called the Law-giver from whom the Scepter should not depart c. so John the fourth is the Disciple of Eminent Love and Love is the Everlasting Grace when Faith and Prophesie cease But Christ made no one of them Ruler of the rest Proved 1. No Text speaketh any such thing And the Headship of Governing Power would have been of such grand necessity to be known that Christ and his Apostles must needs have plainly and oft inculcated it 2. Peter never Exercised any such Power what mention is there of any Laws or Mandates of his to the other Apostles 3. The rest never sought to him for Laws or Orders 4. The Schism and Controversies of Christians were never decided by appealing to him as the Judge 5. When some at Corinth would have made him their Head and said I am of Cephas Paul reproveth them as carnal saying of all What are they but Ministers by whom ye believed 6. Paul reproveth him Gal. 2. 7. The Jewish Christians contend against him for Eating with Gentiles Act. 11. whom he satisfieth by proof from God and not by pleading his Supremacy 8. He never once claimed any such Power 9. Paul 1 Cor. 12. tells us of none in the Church greater than Apostles But the rest were Apostles as well as he 10. No such Article was ever put into the Churches Creed We grant that Christ did in instituting the Apostles Office institute a disparity of Ministers in his Church and this to be continued in the Ordinary continued part of their Works but not in the Extraordinary And we grant that in putting Peter first Christ intimated that among men of the same Office there may for Order sake be a Priority as the President of a Synod or Colledge or the Fore-man of a Jury or a Chief-Justice or the Speaker of a Parliament God is not the God of Confusion but of Order as in all the Churches If a Parish or an Independant Church have one grave Pastor with divers young Assistants that were but his Scholars nature will give him some awing Preheminence among them We are not against such a Primacy among Bishops or Arch-Bishops But this is nothing to a Governing Office And if Peter had had such what 's that to the Pope of Rome The Twelfth Point accused That a Woman may be Head or Supreme Governess of the Church in all Causes as the late Queen Elizabeth was Ans A cheat by Confusion and Equivocation
and many others tell us that for all that the Scripture is plain and sufficient Yea so it is in many Thousand particular Texts If this be not so let this Man tell us if he can how it cometh to pass that Papists Greeks and Protestant Commentators agree of the meaning of most of the Scripture perhaps of Nineteen Texts in Twenty if it be not plain But do Protestants say that there is nothing in the Scripture hard to be understood the Father of Lyes will scarce affirm this of them lest their Commentaries and Controversies shame him 2. But what Must the people be forbidden to Read Gods Word because some passages are dark Why not also forbidden to Read Statutes Canons Fathers Jesuits Fryars and the Loads of Papists Controversies Is there nothing hard in all these Volumes what not in all the Canons In all Chrysostom Austin Cyril c In all Lombard Aquinas Bonaventure Scotus Ockam Cajetane and all the Tribe In all Suarez Vasquez Huctado Albictine c In all Cajacius and his Tribe Why are not these forbidden Do but rub your Foreheads and tell me 1. Whether the Law was not darker than the Gospel and yet God charged them Deut. 6. and 11. To teach the words to their Children and that lying down and rising up at home and abroad and to write them on the posts of their Houses and their Gates And every blessed Man Psal 1. was to delight in the Law of the Lord and meditate in it Day and Night Read Psal 119. 2. Whether Christ did not Preach the words Recorded in the Gospel to the unlearned common people and Peter and Paul and all the Apostles to all the vulgar Jews and Gentiles 3. Whether they writ not their Recorded Epistles to the Vulgar even to all the Churches 4. Whether it is not Gods Word that we must all be Ruled and Judged by and is the Charter of our right to Heaven and should we be forbid to read it 5. Whether Hierom Chrysostom Austin and all the Fathers do not press Men and Women of all Ranks to read or learn and study the Scriptures 6. Whether he be not like Antichrist that will forbid Men to read that which God sent his Son from Heaven to Preach and Christ appointed Apostles Pastors and Teachers to communicate to all the World 7. Whether the Prince of Darkness and Pride himself would not be ashamed openly to say I have so much skill to speak Intelligibly and God so little that you must read my Books and not read his And whether Popes and Priests Volumes are not as unskilfully written as Gods and as like to draw Men to Heresie and Sin 8. Whether he that thus Condemneth God and his Law and extolleth Man's be like to make good his accusation at God's Barr Alas must such things as these be disputed by Men that would be our Infallible Rule 9. Either the knowledge of God's Word is needful or not If not why did God write part of it himself And send his Son to Preach it And his Spirit in his Prophets and Apostles to write and Record it Are blind Worms fit to accuse God of Folly and needless Work Can Men obey God's Law that know it not But if the knowledge of it be needful to our Obedience and Salvation ask common Reason whether the Difficulties should not rather oblige us to read and study it so much the more â—till we understand it rather than not to read it at all Do their ductile Followers that read it not understand it better than those that study it Day and Night The less we know of needless things the better and quieter we are If God's Law and Gospel be such what a God and Governour have we Can Heathens and Turks Blaspheme him more than to take him for so foolish a Governour of the World as to make a stir by his Son from Heaven and by Angels and Prophets to give them so needless yea pernicious a Law and Gospel as that Men must be kept from reading it lest it Poyson them with Heresie 10. Is it not essential to him that relatively we take for our God to be the Governour of the World and to be our Saviour and the Holy Ghost to deliver and Seal the Gospel as glad Tidings to all Nations And is it not by his Law that God Governeth and by his Gospel that Christ Saveth and the Holy Ghost doth illuminate and Sanctifie And doth not that Man or Clergy then put down God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and set up themselves in the stead who forbid the reading of God's Law and Gospel and Command the knowledge and observance of their own Canons and Dictates instead of them as more Intelligible and safe And is not this as Robert Grosthead told Innocent 4. next the Sin of Lucifer and Antichrist or rather plain Antichristianism it self 11. Is the Stage manner of Massing liker to make the people understand God's Law and Gospel by multitudes of Gestures Motions Crossings Ceremonies that need long Expositions that overwhelm the strongest Memories than the reading and study of the plain and full words of God in Scripture 12. Did this Deceiver ever hear Protestants say that the Apocalypse and Daniel and Ezekiel and the Canticles and the Chronologies of Scripture are all easy to be understood For if he have heard such a Fool did he ever read this in the Confessions of any Church Do not their Commentaries tell the difficulty And ask this Man or his fellow Creature whether the Infallible Pope or Councils have overcome all these difficulties to the Papists and made all this easy to them Or do not their Valuminous disagreeing Commentaries and Controversies shew that they are still as hard to them as to us 13. And ask them whether Pope or Council have ever yet written an Infallible Commentary on the Bible or all such difficult Texts If not is it because they cannot or because they will not And what the better then is their Church for their feigned skill and power infallibly to decide difficult Scripture Controversies What can be more shameless than this pretence in Men that will not do it nor ever did 14. And if still they tell you that the people were always bound to believe and obey the Churches Rites without dispute or Contradiction ask them whether it was not the Church Rulers that killed Christ and called him a Blasphemer and Deceiver and that Persecuted and accused the Apostles And whether the People were bound to believe them as Jewish Papists and whether all the Apostles and Christians were Rebels and Hereticks for not believing them And whether it was not for the Sins of Priests and Princes and the peoples complying with them that God by his Prophets reproved the Israelites and at last forsook them to Captivity 2 Chron. last Jer. 5 last 15. And if they tell you of the Peoples need of Teachers tell them that that is none of the Controversie But whether their Teachers
killing all baptized persons that obey not the Pope with many such 8. If Tradition tell us of any Customs used in the Apostles or Primitive times that be not in Scripture and so be not made matters of Necessity to all yea or of any occasion all mutable Customs that are mentioned in Scripture as washing the Saints Feet the Holy Kiss the Womans Vail long or short Hair Collections each Lords Day Preachers Travelling on Foot c. we quarrel not with the then use of such Traditions when they were seasonable no more than with forbearing things strangled and blood Nor quarrel we with the Churches after that setled Easter Day and made the 20th Canon of the Nicene Council and used divers Ceremonies at Baptism But Traditions of things Indifferent and Mutable we receive but as such to be laid aside when the occasion ceaseth And if any will turn them into a necessary common Law we disclaim such Usurpers for they cross that very Tradition It was delivered as Indifferent and you feign and make it a necessary Law and so destroy it 9. We maintain openly that Tradition is against the Papacy and its Corruptions They are but a third or fourth part of Christians The other two or three parts of the Christian World profess that the Tradition of their Churches is against the Popes universal Sovereignty and against all the Corruptions of which they accuse him None but the shameless will deny that the Abassians Armenians Greeks and others plead that this is their Tradition And Reader tell us why the Tradition of two or three parts of the Church should not rather be believed against a third part than that which the third part boast of against all the rest 10. Ask them which way they know and keep their Traditions Whether they have any History Records or any other way which we may not know as well as they If they pretend that it is a Secret kept by their Church it 's a strange Secret that so many Thousands know But if it be a thing proveable let them prove it 11. Is it not unmercifulness to tell all the Christian World that as big and hard as the Bible is if they knew and obeyed it all they cannot be saved unless they believe and do more kept by the Pope and called Tradition When yet these Deceivers can dispense with the knowledge and practice of God's own word and think the Bible a Book too big and hard and the Prophane say too strict to be commonly understood and kept And yet all the Bible is not Enough but we must be bound to as much more as they will call Tradition yea Volumes also of Papal Canon Laws 12. Did not Christ for this thing Condemn the Old Pharisees Mat. 15 Prove your Traditions to be Apostolical and about things necessary and not your Forgeries or about things mutable and indifferent and we will obey all such Apostolical Traditions But your Novelties and Usupations shall not pass with us for Divine Laws because you can call them such The Fifth accused Point That a Man by his own understanding and private Spirit may rightly judge and interpret Scripture Ans Can any Man unriddle what this Deceiver meaneth 1. Can a Man judge without his own understanding 2. What meaneth he by a private Spirit Little know I. If he mean God's Spirit it is no contemptible nor private Spirit even in a private Man If he mean a Man 's own Spirit Soul or Intellect it is the same as his own understanding If he mean any Evil Spirit or fancy and Erroneous self-conceit we defie such Spirits and Deceivers that use them To understand without our own understandings is a Mystery fit for Rome Why may not a Dog or a Sheep be said so to understand the Scripture if it may be understood without our own understandings What a Curse is on the ignorant Nations that will be led by such words as these But if he will say that he meant By his own understanding alone without a Teacher why did he not say so but say one thing and do another But that had been too gross a Lye to have been believed by them that see that we set up Teachers in all our Congregations 3. Therefore I can imagine nothing but absurdity in his words unless he mean that we hold that a Man may rightly Interpret Scripture by his own understanding immediately instructed by his Teacher and God's Spirit without taking the Sence only at the rebound on the belief of the Pope and his Clergy For we never thought that a Man 's own natural Wit without a Teacher and the help of God's Spirit can savingly understand and apply the Scripture And yet we would fain tell Papists a better way to Convert a Philosopher or a Turk than to Preach to them thus God hath written his Law and Gospel to the World but you cannot tell what is the meaning of it till you take that sence on trust from our Pope and Clergy and know that Christ authorized him to be Judge and that before you believe in Christ or understand the word that so authorizeth him Were not corrupted Nature very blind in things Spiritual Plow-men and Tinkers and Coblers would be able to confute such Fopperies and much more Priests and Popes and Prelates 4. But I pray you tell me whether the Pope and his Prelates do not interpret Scripture by their own understandings Whose understandings else do they judge by in Conclaves or Councils 5. And tell me whether he that judgeth that the Pope is Christs Vice-Christ and Ruler at the Antipodes and is infallible tho' he be by Councils condemned for a Simonist and Infidel an Atheist a Seducer or an ignorant Sot Doth not this Man judge all this by his own understanding If a Man take an ignorant sottish Priest for the Mouth of the Catholick Church tho' he know no more what he talks against than this Roman Deceiver doth he not judge this by his own understanding If a Sot will believe you that your Sect is the whole Church and all are Damned tho' they love God and believe in Christ if they will not be ruled by the Pope and every Mass-Priest doth he not judge thus by his own understanding Do you Preach to Men or Beasts that have no understanding of God's Law and Will If a Man must believe all the Canons of Popes and Councils in Baronius Binnius Surius Nicolinus Caranza c. doth he not do it by his own understanding 6. Oh! But the meaning is You are all private ignorant Men and we are the Clergy Kings choose some of us and Popes choose others and whether we are Wise or Fools Learned or Vnlearned Infidels or Christians you are all Damned if you will not follow us and if we be Damned you must be content to be Damned with us And is it so Hath God made Man for no safer and better a Condition than to be Damned when ever Sottish Drunken Priests will
lead them into all Truth and keep them from doing that Work Erroneously which they were commissioned to do Tho' not to make them absolutely free from Sin or Errour in all other things And therefore the Scripture written by them is free from Errour by Virtue of the special promise and Spirit 3. That all true Christians really regenerate are free from all Errour inconsistent with true saving Faith and Title to Salvation 4. That therefore the Church as it signifieth only the said regenerate true Christians hath no Damning Errour or none but what is pardoned as consistent with saving Faith and Holiness 5. That the Universal Visible Church is the whole Company of men on Earth that profess true saving Faith and are by Covenant Vow Baptized into this Profession And that all this true Visible Church professeth no Errour inconsistent with their Profession of the foresaid saving Faith Because the profession of saving Faith is essential to visible Christianity and to the visible Church For mark that I say not that they profess no Errour inconsistent with sincere Faith in themselves subjectively nor yet that as to objective Faith may not by unseen consequence overthrow it For there is such a concatenation of Divine revealed Truths that it is a doubtful case whether any one Errour which all men have do not by remote Consequence subvert the very Foundations But no true Visible Church or Christian so professeth any one Errour as not to profess the essential points of Faith and Godliness tho' they may think falsely that both are true Therefore Protestants teach that unseen Consequences are not to be so charged on those that see them not and hold fast the injured Truth as if it were a known or direct denyal of the Truth 6. But every Church and every man being imperfect both in knowledge Faith and Holiness have all some Errour For to be objectively de fide is to be of Divine Revelation And all the Scripture is Divine Revelation And if the question be Whether any Pope Council or Church understand all the Scripture without any Errour judge by Commentators and common Experience And now what saith the Deceiver against all this 1. He citeth Isa 59.21 God hath promised to preserve his Word in the Church Ergo the Church cannot Err A forged Consequence no more followeth but that the true Church shall not lose or forsake Gods Word For then it would cease to be the Church But 1. Not that the best Churches understand all that Word without any Errour 2. Nor that any particular Church visible may not apostatize or turn Hereticks or corrupt Gods Word and forbid men to use it in a known Tongue as the Papists do Next he citeth Joh. 14.16 As if all the Church had the same promise of the Spirit of Infallibility as the Apostles had If so then 1. Papists are none of the true Church because they have many Errours 2. And if the major part be the Church rather than a minor Sect then all other Christians that are against Popery are free from Errour for they are twice or thrice as many as the Papists 3. And when the far greater part were Arrians they were free from Errour Yea the Council of Sirmium to which Pope Liberius professed full consent Or did Christ break his promise to all these 4. If the Pope or all his Prelates have as full a promise of the Spirit as the Apostles then they may write us a new Bible and Word of God as they did No wonder then if the Canons and Decretals be as much Gods Word as the Bible But why then do they not confirm their Canons by Miracles as the Apostles did And why did so many Popes contradict each other Had both Stephanus Formosus Nicholas and the foresaid Johns that denyed the Life to come c. the same Gift as the Apostles Surely we may well say to them as St. James Shew me thy Faith by thy Works They did shew it by most odious Simony Gluttony Drunkenness Lying with Maids and Wives even at the Apostolick Doors Murdering Christs Members by Thousands Silencing faithful Preachers Deposing Emperours Commanding Perjury and Rebellion even to Sons against their own Fathers Forbidding all Church Worship of God to whole Kingdoms for many years when a King will not obey the Pope By such Works they shew their Faith O the power of Satan and the horrid pravity of man when such things are not only Justified but trusted to for Justification and made consistent with a Church that never Erred Indeed these Errours crept in by Degrees which maketh it difficult to Expositors of Scripture Prophesie to know just the year when the mischief became so ripe as to prove Rome to be Babylon Apostate to Pagano-Christianity and the Pope to be Antichrist But if I see a man Raging mad in Bedlam I will not make it an Article of my Faith that he is Sanae mentis because I know not just when his amentia deliratio or Melancholly became a Mania or Furor The Deceiver also citeth Mat. 18.17 viz. Because men must hear the Church where a Sinner dwelleth that calleth him to Repentance after due Proof and Admonition therefore the Pope and his Prelates cannot Err. An Argument liker a Derision than a serious Proof Did not the Pope then Err when Bishops and Councils have in vain called him to Repent Doth not the Church Err then most damnably that commandeth Murder Treason and most heynous Sin and is the Leader of the Impenitent Must we take such then as Heathens and Publicans But as the man thinketh so the Bell tinketh Do but Fancy that by the Church is meant only the Pope and his Clergy and that all is such Sin which the Pope calleth so tho' God command us and then all such Texts will seem to them to say what they would have them say The man also citeth Eph. 5.27 viz. Christ will present his Regenerate Church perfect and spotless in Judgment What then Ergo the Visible Church on Earth hath no Errour or Spot And Ergo the Pope and his Clergy are this Visible perfect Church And why not as well Constantinople Alexandria Antioch or Jerusalem the Mother Church Which part is it that is the whole or indefectible What is profaining Gods Word if this be not If any should be forbidden the Scripture it is these prophaning Priests The Eighth accused Point That the Church hath been hidden and Invisible Ans We do not think that the Pope and his Clergy-Church have been hidden and invisible Their Wars even in Italy and Rome for many Ages made them Visible Yea and palpable too The Kings and Emperours that they Fought against or Deposed knew them above 100000 Waldenses and Albigenses felt them to the Death Quae Regio in terris talis non plena laboris Whether this man knew not the Protestants Judgment herein or whether he would not have his Reader know it I cannot tell but I shall tell you what it
separating from the far greater part of the Christian World because they refuse Subjection to this usurping Vice-Christ and judging all to Fire and Ruine that renounce not all humane Senses and worship not Bread pretended to be deifyed by daily numerous Miracles of the basest Priests and deposing Kings that will not be such Executioners and justifying their Subjects in Perjury and Rebellion We will not differ with you for the Name whether you will call those that are such Antichrists or Diabolists Whether such a State be the Babylon or far worse as sinning against more Light and by more horrid abuse of the Name of Christ against himself The Fourteenth accused Point That no man nor any but God can forgive or retain Sins Ans False as undistinguished We hold 1. That to forgive Sin being the forgiving of the Punishment of Sin and the obligation thereto 1. Parents may on just cause forgive Corrective punishment to their Children and Masters to their Servants 2. Magistrates may on just cause forgive Corporal punishment to Subjects 3. Equals may forgive Injuries to Friends and Enemies 4. Pastors may on just cause forgive the Church penalties of Excommunication which they had power to inflict And all the Flock must forgive and receive the penitent accordingly 5. When a Sinner by Faith and Repentance truly performeth the Condition of Gods pardon expressed in Scripture the Ministers of Christ are by Office authorized to declare and pronounce him pardoned by God and by the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper to Invest him in a pardoned State by delivering him a Sealed pardon But only Suppositively If his Faith and Repentance be sincere else he hath not Gods pardon of the Divine Punishment This is all true and plain and enough But we detest their Doctrine that say 1. That men can pardon the Spiritual and Eternal Punishment any otherwise than consequently declaring and delivering Gods pardon which shall hold good if the Priest refuse to declare or deliver it 2. Or that Popes or Priests pardon Purgatory pains and Masses and Money and the Redundance of Saints Merits and pleasing the Pope conduce thereto But if you will Speak so absurdly as to say that if the King send a pardon to a Traytor or Murderer the Messenger pardoned him we leave you to your phrases None of the Texts or Fathers cited speak for any more than what we hold The Pastors are to declare men pardoned that God pardoneth And while they so judge according to Gods Word it is pardoned in Heaven But not if they pardon the wicked and impenitent The Fifteenth accused Point That we ought not to confess our Sins to any man but to God only Ans This is a mere impudent Lie 1. We ought to confess our Sin to the Magistrate at his Judicature when we are justly accused of it 2. And to those that we have injured when it is needful to repair the wrong or to procure their forgiveness 3. And to those that we have tempted into Sin or encouraged in it when it is needful to their Repentance 4. And to some faithful bosome Friend when it is needful that such know our Faults that they may watch over us or advise us or pray for our pardon and deliverance 5. And when in Sickness danger of Death or other Affliction we get the Pastors of the Church to pray for us we should confess our Sin to them that they may know on what cause they speak to God for our forgiveness 6. And in any case of Guilt Trouble Fear or Difficulty in which we need the Pastors Counsel for our safety ease and peace of Conscience our selves and other Friends being insufficient hereto we should confess our Sins to the Pastors whose advice we seek As a Patient must truly open his Case to his Physician and a Clyent to his Councellor if he will not be deceived by deceiving them Is all this no Confession But Protestants believe not 1. That we must go to a Physician for every Flea-biting or Scratch or Cut-Finger or to a Lawyer to give him an account of all our Actions Money ot Lands nor to Priests in cases that our selves or ordinary Friends can safely and satisfactorily resolve 2. Nor that our Confessor must needs be a Papist Priest or one chosen by the Pope or our Enemies and not by our selves 3. Nor that we must open all our Secrets to him or make any Confession which will do more hurt than good nor over far to trust the Fidelity of a Knave nor a suspected or untryed person 4. And we have reason to suspect them that are importunate to know our Secrets 5. And when Confession is required as in order to obtain a false forged pardon and to set up the Domination of Usurpers over men's Consciences and over the World it 's then unlawful If Protestants would force Papists to confess all their secret Sins to them would not this same Deceiver say it were unlawful The Sixteenth accused Point That Pardons and Indulgences were not in the Apostles time Ans Another meer Lie as undistinguished Such Pardons as I before owned were in the Apostles times But the Popish feigned pardons were not The Seventeenth accused Point That the actions and passions of the Saints do serve for nothing to the Church Ans Most impudent calumny and falsehood 1. We hold that the Prayers of all the Saints on Earth are of great importance for the Churches welfare 2. And that their Doctrine Counsel and Reproof is so too they being the Lights of the World and the Salt of the Earth 3. And that their Example is of greaâ— benefit to the Church and World whiâ—â— their Light so shineth before men that theâ— may see their good works and glorifie theâ—â— Father which is in Heaven 4. And their Charitable Works of themselves sure are beneficial to the Church And so is their Defence of the Truth 5. And their Sufferings Glorifie Gods Power and his promises of reward and they encourage others to Victorious Constancy Do all these serve for nothing to the Church 6. Yea we are so far from holding what he feigneth that it is not the least cause of our hatred of Popery that it liveth by the Defamations Slander Persecution and cruel Murder of Saints 7. Yea as Abels Blood cryed against Cain so the Blood of Martyrs and dead Saints cryeth for Vengeance against the Persecutors of the Church 8. And seeing Christ saith that the Children of the Resurrection are like or equal to the Angels we have reason to believe that even now they are perfected Spirits Heb. 12.24 And knowing that Angels are very serviceable and beneficial to the Church on Earth we know not how far the Spirits of the just are so too But we have a sufficient Mediator and Advocate with the Father whose Sacrifice Merits and Advocation are perfect and need no supplement And the Spirits of the just do praise him as saved by his Merits and never boast that they
good Works that are our Obedience to the Law of Christ are but the performance of our Baptismal Covenant and the Fruits of Faith without which it is dead Hypocrisie and are of absolute necessity to Salvation to all that have time to do them Against the charge That we are Sinners deserving Hell we are justified by Christ believed in Against the accusation That we are Infidels Ungodly Hypocrites we must be justified by our Faith Godliness and Works or perish But we do also hold 1. That if a man be convicted as the Theif on the Cross and should die suddenly no outward good which he cannot do is absolutely necessary to his Salvation but only his inward Faith Love and Repentance and Confession if able 2. We do firmly hold that Works done with a conceit of obliging God by Merit in commutative Justice or as conceited sufficient without a Saviour and the pardon of their failings are such as more further Damnation than Salvation at least in those that hear the Gospel 3. And we are no Papists and therefore believe not that ignorant words of Prayer in a Tongue not understood and wearing Reliques and going on Pilgrimages and needless confessing to Priests and subjection to an universal Vice-Christ and living upon the Blood of Saints Murdering the Living and praying to the Dead and the Sons honouring their Days Relicks and Monuments whom their Fathers Burnt or Persecuted these are not Good Works necessary to Salvation as is plain Math. 23. and Revel 14.17 18 c. We do with Paul renounce all Works of our own that are thought to make the Reward to be of Debt and not of Grace and that are set in the least opposition or competition with Christs Merits or any place save commanded Subordination to him The Two and Twentieth accused Point That no Good Works are Meritorious Ans The word Merit is ambiguous and so abused by Papists that indeed the Protestants are shyer of it than the Fathers were lest the use of it should cherish the abuse 1. There is Merit of man and of God 2. And this in Commutative Justice conceited or only in Governing distributive Justice 3. And this is either according to the Law of Innocency or Moses or according to the Law of Christ Now Protestants hold 1. As to the Name that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy and worthiness are Scripture words and may be used and Merit is but of the same signification and we condemn not the Ancients that so used it But the worst Sence must not be cherished 2. Do they hold 1. That no Creature can merit of God in Commutative Justice that giveth quid pro quo to his Benefit God receiveth not from Man or Angels unless he will call Acceptance and Complacence Receiving 3. None but Christ merited of strict Governing Justice according to the Law of Senceless Innocence nor by any Works that will save man from the charge of Sin and desert of Death 3. All at Age that will be saved must have good Works according to their Capacity for Christ is the Author of Salvation to all those that obey him Heb. 5.9 Tho' they obey not an unknown Priest at Rome But all these Works are our Obedience to Christs own healing Government such as the Laws of a Physician to the Sick And we all agree that he will Judge that is Justifie or Condemn in Judgment all men according to their Works that is according to the Law and it's promulgation by which in their several Ages and Nations he governed them 4. Your own Doctors that know what they say tell us that by Merit they mean nothing but the Rewardable quality of their acts related to Gods promise through Christs Merits And doth any Protestant Church deny this The Three and Twentieth accused Point That Faith once had cannot possibly be lost Ans Still confused slander and deceit Protestants hold 1. That the Faith not rooted prevalent and saving is frequently lost such as you call sides informis 2. That even sincere Faith may be lost as to the Act for some little time that is suspended in a deliquium as Peters and theirs Luk. 24. that said We trusted this had been he c. 3. That many lose to the Death some degree of their habitual Faith 4. But they differ in the rest just as you do among your selves Dominicans and Jesuits 1. Some think that no one at Age at least in a State of such Faith as at present would have saved him doth ever totally lose it 2. Some think that many have but such loseable Grace as Adam had 1. As being not Elect to Salvation and therefore not in Gods decree of Preservation and Perseverance 2. As having a Faith not Rooted and Confirmed And that these may fall from a justified State But that 1. The Elect. 2. Nor the Confirmed never fall away This was Austins Judgment and his followers of which see Vossii Theses And is that Jesuit honest that feigneth this proper to the Protestants where the Controversie is the same among themselves The Four and Twentieth accused Point That God by his will and inevitable decree hath ordained from all Eternity who shall be Damned and who Saved Ans What a false Deceiver is this that would make us believe that this is proper to the Protestants when it is the Common Doctrine not only of the Dominicans but of the very Jesuits themselves and all their Church 1. None of them dare say that men are Damned or Saved without Gods foreknowledge nor against his absolute will by overcoming his Power 2. None of them dare say that this fore-knowledge of God was not from Eternity but that he knew one day what he knew not before 3. All that the Jesuits themselves say is that God decreed it upon this fore-knowledge and that he hath a Scientia media what will come to pass positis quibusdam if such and such things be done by man and that this fore-knowledge in order of Nature is before the Decree but both from Eternity But Cardin Cameracensis Petrus de Aliaco hath irrefragably confuted this imposing Priority and Posteriority of act on God tho' I think some Divine acts as denominated only Relatively from the order of Objects may be so distinguished 4. In all this we say not that God hath by his will and decree ordained from Eternity or in time that men shall sin or will and choose Evil but only who shall be Damned for sin which God never willed or caused but foresaw not as if he were an idle Spectator but a willing suspender of his own acts so far as to leave Sinners to their self-determining wills 5. But God being the cause of Good and Men and Devils of Evil our Salvation is of him and our Destruction of our selves and therefore God decreeth not Men's Salvation or Sanctification meerly on foresight of our Faith but decreeth our Faith it self Sin he permitteth but Faith he effecteth and decreeth
to Effect 6. As for them that feign that we say that God decreeth that some shall be Saved and others Damned however they Live it is but the dictates of the Father of Lies We say that God at once decreeth the End and the Means as he doth not decree that men shall live though they neither Eat nor Drink nor that they shall have Corn though they neither Plow nor Sow but that they shall Eat and Drink and live thereby and that they shall Plow and Sow and mannure the Soil and so have Corn. So God doth at once decree that this and that man shall have the means of Grace especially a Saviour and the Gospel and shall faithfully use them and be Sanctified by them and sincerely obey God and overcome the World the Flesh and the Devil and persevere to the End and that for Christs Merits he will give them the Grace of his Spirit and pardon their Sins and bring them to Glory All this is our Decree of God But he doth not decree that men shall sin that they may be Damned For sin is no Work of God nor a means appointed by him for Men's Damnation no more than a Righteous King doth make men Traytors or Murderers that he may Hang them But he justly denyeth his Grace to many that forfeit it by willful Resistance Disobedience and Contempt though he take not the forfeiture of his Elect. He is deceived and wrongeth God that maketh him the Author of Men's sin And so doth he that feigneth God to send his Son to redeem the World and his Word and Ministers to call them and his Spirit to renew them and all this at Random not knowing whether it may not be all lost or leaving it chiefly to the Free-will of them whose wills are contrarily inclined and vitiated Whether Christ and all his Preparations shall be lost The plain Christian that holdeth but to these two points that our Destruction is of our selves but our help and Salvation of God and that God is the first and chief cause of all good and Men and Devils of all Evil is liker to be wise with Sobriety and Safety than the Ignorant Intruders into Gods Secrets and the prating Calumniators that speak Evil of the things which they understand not and reproach those that speak not as Rashly and Ignorantly as themselves even in some equivocal unexplained words Methinks Papists should be so kind to God as seeing the Pope can tell who is a Damned Heretick and to be kill'd even all that believe not in the Pope or are not his Subjects and who is in Purgatory and how long he shall stay there Or how many years Torment the Pope can shorten They should allow God to know a little more and that not as one whose Power and Grace is Conquered by impotent Worms against his absolute Will The Five and Twentieth accused Point That every one ought Infallibly to assure himself of his Salvation and to believe that he is of the number of the Predestinate Ans I would fain excuse the man as far as I can and therefore I hope that as the man was excusable that did eat Snakes for Snigs or Eels so he read some Pamphlet of an Antimonian either Crisp or Saltmarsh or some other such or talkt with some of their silly Novices and thought he had Convers'd with the Reformed Catholicks or read the Confessions of the Reformed Churches The first Sentence is a Fundamental Truth and a damnable Falshood as the Equivocal words are variously understood And is it not pity that the Priests of the Infallible Church should put things so different into the same words and that in an accusation of so many Churches and Nations when yet God himself is feigned by them to write by his Spirit so Unintelligibly that without these Doctors skilful Exposition it is but like to make men Hereticks that is Adversaries to the Pope and his Clergy To assure our selves of our Salvation may mean to give all diligence to make our Salvation infallibly sure This every one ought to do Or it may mean that every man ought to believe it as an infallible Truth that he shall be saved The next Sentence seemeth to make this his meaning in the first Which if it be he is a false Calumniator of the Reformed Churches But if the first be his meaning and he deny it he is an open Enemy to Man's Salvation What is all the Scripture for and all our Religion but to make sure of our Salvation 2 Pet. 1. 10. Give all diligence to make your Calling and Election sure And if no man can be sure to what purpose hath God made so many promises of it expressing the Conditions to them that believe that love God that forsake all for him if no man can know whether he perform the Condition and that he is within this promise Why doth God lay down so many signs to difference the Children of God from the Children of the Devil if they cannot be discerned Sure Heaven and Hell be not like and yet are the Heirs of Heaven and Hell undistinguishable Is the Image of God and the Devil so like that none can know them asunder No not the man that hath had them both And why doth God so aften call on Believers to Rejoyce if they cannot know whether they shall be in Heaven and Hell for ever If you say he is not sure to persevere many Papists grant that the Confirmed may And why may not Bradford Hooper Sanders and Thousands else that are Dying by the Sacred blood-thirsty Church be assured when they are Dying that they have forsaken Life and all for Christ But oportet mendacem esse memorem still Why do you not tell men when the Pope is selling them Pardons and saving them out of Purgatory that when all 's done they can have no assurance of Salvation yea that they ought not to endeavour to make it sure And whose now is the safe Church and Religion if a Papist can never be sure that he shall be saved in your Church and Religion nor sure that he is in a State of Salvation That is that he is a true Christian and hath Charity and is an honest man 2. A man that hath got true and clear Evidence that he hath a Confirmed Faith and Hope and loveth God as God above all ought consequently to take it for an infallible Truth that so Dying he shall be saved Else he must either give God the Lie that hath promised it or he must be supposed to be deceived when he thinketh that he believeth and loveth God But that every man must believe that he is of the Number of the Predestinate to Salvation is a damnable Doctrine because it requireth all the Millions of ungodly men to believe a Lie yea to believe it as a Divine Truth and to make God both the Author of the Lie and of the deceit of our selves by this Command And when Millions are not of the
Cure of an aking Tooth is for the sake of all the Body That is 1. For the good of the whole 2. And done out of love to the whole But this will not satisfie confounding Deceivers No doubt it is dead Saints that he meaneth And what he meaneth by Merits I suppose he knoweth not himself or else he would have told us How far we own or abhor the pretence of Merits I shewed before All Saints are saved by the full sufficient Merits of Christ and have none at all of their own unless the amiableness of Grace freely given them be called their Merits as a thankful Child more deserveth his Fathers Love that is is more Lovely than a Rebel that scorneth him and a piece of Gold deserveth to be esteemed above Dirt and a Nightingale above a Toad Yea their own Jesuit Vasquez not only denieth all Merit of God in Commutative Justice as all save Romans and a few such Sots do but also in point of distributive Justice by which he seemeth to deny Merit more than Protestants do For by Merit we mean but Moral aptitude for the reward of a free Benefactor who is also Rector when the ordering of a free Gift suspended on official Conditions is sapientially made a means of procuring Obedience Whatever God hath promised to give us for other Men's sake that he will so give But our Faith shall not go beyond his Promise If God have told us any where who Saint Nicolas and St. Becket and St. Christopher and St. Joan and St. Jane and St. Winifrid are and what they were to us more than others and that they were real Saints and that he hath promised us Mercy for their sakes and bid us pray to him for their Meriting for us let them shew us this in his Word But if it be only the Popes Command and Promise let his Subjects obey and trust it We are certain that none but Saints are saved And why then must I go to God for the Merits of St. Nicholas or St. Bridget any more than for the Merits of all the rest which are many Millions As God is jealous of his Honour against Idols so is he of Christs Honour against Antichrists and false Mediators and we must do nothing that seemeth to ascribe any part of Christs proper Office of Mediation to any Creature And doth it not seem so if we pray Lord hear pardon and save me for the Merits of Becket or Bridget c. For what more can we say of the Merits of Christ But still mark that these men say not that we must pray thus for the Merit of Saints but that we may And must all be Burnt or Damned that will not do all that the Pope thinks they maey do That we receive no benefit by them is a forged Calumny and not our Doctrine We believe that the Jews had benefit by Abraham Moses David when they were Dead And that the Reformed Churches have had benefit by the Blood of the Martyrs shed by the Blood-thirsty Papists to this day and that the whole Church hath benefit by the Writings of Chrysostom Nazianzene Augustine c. Luther Calvin c. The Four and Thirtieth accused Point That we ought not expresly to pray them to pray or intercede to God for us Ans There was enough said of this before about praying to Angels When God bids us pray to dead Men's Souls we will do it Till then your saying we may do it proveth neither may nor must to us Why then cannot you keep your may to your selves Never a Conjurer in England can tell us how far Souls in Heaven can hear nor where and when they are present or within hearing nor which of them are so whether all or one or which No nor whether those Saints that understood not Latin on Earth do understand Latin Prayers sent up from Earth whâ—â—â— the Speaker himself understandeth them not Alas Christian Reader what a dark uncertain Worship like Charming would this Infallible Church compell men to offer the most Holy God while they accuse his Word of ensnaring dangerous obscurity We will pray to those alive that we know do hear us to pray to God for us for the sake of Christ But it 's but profanation of the Scripture to say that because Luke 16 a man in Hell supposed to see and hear Abraham did pray him to send Lazarus on Earth therefore we that neither see nor hear the Dead should pray to them But Dives prayed in vain and so may you And what if those Souls should prove to be in Purgatory Must we pray both to them that are in Purgatory and for them also And is it certain that the Pope and all his Church are sure which Saint is not in Purgatory when all are there or worse say they that ever sinned and did not Pennance for it The Five and Thirtieth accused Point That the Bones or Relicks of the Saints are not to be kept or reserved no Virtue proceeding from them after they be once dead Ans 1. Where hath God Commanded us to keep them for the Virtue that proceedeth from them 2. We deny not but a man may keep a Skeleton or Skull and if it be his Fathers we will accuse him no higher than of Imprudence and Passion But what proof have you of Virtue proceeding from Bones till you see it by experience Is it any appointed means for God to work Miracles by And how know you that all were Saints that the Pope calleth so Had all the Debauched Popes of Anno 800 900 1000 skill Infallible to know Saints from Hypocrites And hath God promised Virtue to all their Bones And are you sure that they are their Bones Alas what numerous Tricks have men to trust to to deceive themselves and others that yet will not obey Christs plain Commands and trust his promise The Six and Thirtieth accused Point That Creatures cannot be Sanctified or made more holy than they are already of their own Nature Ans A down-right slander 1. We believe that all men that shall be saved are or shall be Sanctified and made more holy than they are of their own Nature 2. We believe that to the Pure all things are Pure and are Sanctified by the Word and Prayer And that whatever we do we should do it to the glory of God And when a Christian devoteth and useth his Food Estate and all to Gods Service it is Sanctified 3. We believe that a Temple a Font a Table and Utensils may well be separated from common uses to Gods Worship And that Separation is a sanctifying of them To be Sanctified or Holy is but to be separated from common use to Gods special Service according to the nature of the thing used 1. Godly men are Sanctifyed and Saints because by Soul-consent and Devotion and Practice they are sincerely separated to God from the slavery of the World the Flesh and the Devil being Habitually and Predominantly lovers of God and Holiness by
the grace of Christ and the Holy Ghost 2. Professed Christians are Sacramentally Sanctifyed when by outward Baptism they are devoted to God in Christ 3. Even bad Ministers are externally sanctifyed as separated and consecrated to a Holy Office 4. Temples and Books and Church Utensils are sanctifyed when by men they are separated from common and unclean usage to Gods Worship So that tho' Holiness in all be this separation to God yet as the Persons and things are not the same so neither is their Holiness in specie but only in genere And there is a Superstitious and an Idolatrous Mock-Holiness when men will devote that to God and Holy uses which he abhorreth or accepteth not nor ever required of them And say as the Hypocrite Pharisees it is Corban who required this at their hands The Hypocrites and Idolaters have always been forward for this unrequired Mock-Holiness to quiet their Consciences instead of real saving Holiness It 's Cheaper and Easier to have Holy-Water Holy-Oil Holy-Spittle Holy-Images Holy-Crosses Holy-Vestments of many sorts Holy-Altars Holy-Shrines and Pilgrimages Holy-Bones and Chips and Places than to have Holy-Hearts and Lives which love God and Grace and Heaven above all this World and Life it self and by the Spirit mortify all fleshly Lusts The Seven and Thirtieth accused Point That Children may be saved by their Parents Faith without the Sacrament of Holy Baptism Ans Can you unriddle this charge Whether the man mean that they may be saved by Baptism without their Parents Faith Or that both must be conjoyned as necessary to Salvation He will not tell us that 1. That God hath made abundance of promises to the Seed of the Faithful and taketh them into the Covenant of Grace with their Parents and saith that they are Holy 1 Cor. 7.14 Protestants have copiously proved against Anabaptists and Papists But it is Gods Mercy and Christs Merit Grace and Covenant that they are saved by The Parents Faith is but that Qualification and Relation which maketh them receptive and capable of this saving Grace The Parenrs Faith saveth themselves but as the Moral qualifying disposition and condition of Gods saving Gift And to Infants it is required not that they be Believers but Believers Seed devoted to God by Parents or Pro-Parents whose they are 2. We doubt not but regularly where it may be had this Dedication should be solemnly made by Baptismal Covenanting Ask the Anabaptists whether we hold not this But we believe that as private Marriage maketh Husband and Wife before God but solemn Matrimony is necessary for publick Order without which they may be punished as Fornicators So if an Infant be the Child of one believing Parent dedicated to God he is Holy and in the same Covenant with the Parent and were else unclean But that before the Church he is not regularly to be judged in Covenant till it be solemnized in Christs appointed way by Baptism Still excepting where Baptism cannot be had and there even sober Papists say that the Votum the Vow or desire will serve And this necessity is manifold 1. When the Child dieth before Baptism could be had 2. Where there is no capable Person to do it or that will not utterly deprave it 3. When the Parent is an Antipoedo-Baptist and omitteth it thinking it a Sin If they think that the Infant is not saved by the Parents Faith why should they think that believing Parents Children are damned because the Parent Erreth in such an external thing But Papists that turn other parts of Holiness into Form and Ceremony and make a Religion of the Carkass mortifyed would here also perswade People that the very outward act of Washing is of so great moment with God that though it were the holyest Persons or their Seed a mistake or a delay or surprize of Death will damn them if they be not Baptized or Martyred This tendeth to Subject all to the Mercy and Dominion of the Priests that they may seem more necessary to Salvation than they are or at least their external Forms by Lay-men or Women Baptizers administred Constantine himself the Churches great Deliverer was not Baptized till near his Death Are they sure that he was till then in a state of Damnation and had been Damned if he had so Died Methinks in gratitude the Church of Rome should have cast him no lower than the Torments of Purgatory The Eight and Thirtieth accused Point That the Sacrament of Confirmation is not necessary nor to be used Ans You may so mean by the Word Sacrament and Confirmation as that we do deny them And you may so mean as that we are more for them than you are 1. If by a Sacrament you mean one of Gods Institution appointed by him to be his Solemn Delivery and Investiture in a state of Christianity or necessary Grace and if by Confirmation you mean Arch-Bishops anointing Infants or Ignorant Children or Persons with hallowed Oyl compounded once a year and his Ceremonious boxing them and such other Formalities then we deny that such Confirmation is any such Sacrament nor is necessary or to be used because Holy things are not to be mortyfied and profaned 2. But if by a Sacrament you mean but a Solemn renewal of our Covenant with God in Christ and by Confirmation you must that those Baptized in Infancy should at due Age understandingly under the Pastors hand or Care profess their serious personal Consent to that Covenant which by others they imputatively made in Baptism we are so far from denying this that we think till this Solemn personal Covenanting and owning their Baptism with understanding and seeming seriousness be made the Entrance into the state of Adult Church Communion the woful Corruption of the Church is never to be well healed but while one side turn Confirmation into a dead Shadow and Mockery and the Anabaptists scandalized Heresie are all for Rebaptizing instead of Confirmation Prophanation and Schism will gratifie Satan You know that the English Bishops practise Confirmation and the Liturgy describeth it as I here do And are the Church of England no Protestants And divers Protestant Non-Conformists here have about 29 and 30 years ago written full Treatises for Confirmation The Nine and Thirtieth accused Point That the Bread of the Supper of our Lord was but a Figure or Remembrance of the Body of Christ received by Faith and not his true and very Body Ans 1. Protestants hold that as all words are to be taken according to the usage of the Subject or Science that they are used about Physical Terms Physically Rhetorical Rhetorically Geometrical Astronomical Arithemetical accordingly Law Terms according to Law and Moral and Theological Terms Morally and Theologically so if as Naturalists we ask what the matter of that Sacrament is we say Bread and Wine If as Moralists and Theologues we say it is the Body and Blood of Christ As if you ask of a Gold and Silver Coyn what it is in a Natural Sence we say
Bookseller and not being seen by us the Authours of the Epistle to the Reader till the Sheets were printed these ERRATA's must be corrected PAge 76. line 24. read after God through him Page 81. l. 14. read Converted for Convicted Page 94. l. 24. read converted for convicted Page 96. l. 21. read they do hold for do they hold Page 97. l. 1. read sinless for senceless Page 116. l. 9. read intuition for intention Page 119. l. 17. read Reneus for Romans Page 149. l. 4. r. Ordainers for Ordinances Page 150. l. 15 16. r. preference for pretence Page 152. l. 2â— r. Councils for Council Page 162. l. 10. r. there is mention Page 165. l. 3. r. Vegetable Page 166. l. 27 28. r. professed for promised Books Printed for John Salusbury at the Sun over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill AN end of Doctrinal Controversies which have lately troubled the Churches by Reconciling Explication without much disputing by Richard Baxter The Certainty of the World of Spirits fully evinced by unquestionable Histories of Apparitions and Witchcrafts proving the Immortality of Souls By Richard Baxter The Harmony of the Divine Attributes in the Contrivance and Accomplishment of Mans Redemption by our Lord Jesus Christ c. By VVilliam Bates D.D. The Duty and Blessing of a Tender Conscience plainly stated and earnestly recommended to all that regard Acceptance with God By T. Cruso Two Sermons opening the Nature of Participation with and demonstrating the Necessity of Purification by Christ By the same Author Five Sermons on various Occasions by the same Authour The Mirror of Divine Love Unvailed In a Paraphrase of the high and mysterious Song of Solomon Tho Countreys Concurrence with the London United Ministers By S. Chandler A Summary or Abridgement of the whole Bible whereby Children and the Younger sort may learn the Contents of it in a very short time and give an Account of the principal passages of it A New Examination of the Accidence and Grammer A New Discourse on the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecka 12o. The Suffering Christian 12o. Nostradamus's Prophesies THE CONTENTS 1 OF the Rule of Faith p. 1 2 Of the Judge of Controversies in matters of Faith p. 6 3 Of the Scriptures difficulty p. 8 4 Of Traditions p. 19 5 Of the private Spirit p. â—9 6 If St. Peters Faith failed p. â—4 7 If the Church can err p. 39 8 Of the Churches Infallibility p. 50 9 Of her Vniversality p. 56 10 Of her Vnity p. 58 11 Of St. Peters Headship p. 60 12 Of a secular Princes Headship p. 63 13 Of Antichrist p. 67 14 Whether none but God can forgive Sinâ— p. 7â— 15 Whether we ought to confess to none but to God p. 7â— 16 Of Pardons p. 7â— 17 Whether the Actions and Passions of 〈◊〉 Saints are profitable to us p. 7â— 18 Of works of Supererogation p. 18 19 Of Free-will p. 82 20 Of keeping the Commandments p. 89 21 Of Faith and good works p. 99 22 Whether good works are meritorious p. 96 23 Whether Faith once had cannot be lost p. 97 24 Of Gods inevitable decree who shall be damned and who shall be saved p. 99 25 Whether we ought to assure our selves of our salvation p. 103 26 Whether every one hath his Angel-keeper p. 107 27 Whether Angels pray not for us p. 108 28 Whether me may not pray to them p. 110 29 Whether they can help us or no p. 113 30 Of Saints Apparitions p. 114 31 Whether they know what passeth on earth p. 117 32 Whether they pray not for us ib. 33 Whether we may alledge their Merits in favour of our selves p. 118 34 Whether we may not pray to them p. 121 35 Of the Relicts of Saints p. 122 36 Of hallowing of Creatures p. 123 37 Of the Necessity of Baptism p. 126 38 Of Confirmation p. 128 39 Of the last Supper p. 130 40 Of râ—â—â—ivers under one kind p. 136 41 Of the Sacrifice of the Mass p. 14â— 42 Of Extream Vnction p. 14â— 43 Of Holy Orders p. 148 44 Of Religious Vows p. 15â— 45 Of fasting and abstinence from meats p. 155 46 Of Limbus Patrum p. 157 47 Of Purgatory p. 158 48 Of making Images p. 162 49 Of worshipping Images p. 164 50 Of making the Picture of God p. 168 51 Of blessing with the sign of the Cross p. 170 52 Of service in an unknown Tongue p. 173 THere will in due time be published a large Account of Mr. Baxters Life mostly written by himself
Prince countermand the Vow in Youth But if they can keep it and that keeping become not Sin by consequent accidents or changes they ought to keep it though they must repent of their rash unlawful making it Gods Law is perfect and maketh Duty enough for us and we should not foolishly make more as Law-givers to our selves when we are conscious how far short we come of keeping Gods own Laws The Five and Fortieth accused Point That Fasting and abstinence from certain Meats is not grounded on Holy Scripture nor causeth any Spiritual good Ans Still deceitful Confusion Protestants hold 1. Fasting is a needful Duty to several Persons in several cases As 1. To take down the Flesh when it groweth too strong in Lust 2. For the cure of many Diseases from fulness 3. To exercise our Humiliation in times of publick Danger and Calamity or of personal repentance for some great Sin or under some affliction that calleth for great Humiliation 2. They hold that Abstinence is needful in it's time and place as Fasting is in it's And that all Eating and Drinking is unlawful which gratifieth the Appetite by Quantity or Quality against Men's health and the just Rules by which we should judge what is healthful Yea that bare Eating and Drinking to please the Appetite which doth not some way conduce to fit us for our Duty is Sin 3. We know that the same Meat and Drink for Quality and Quantity which is best for one is hurtful and mortal to another And we know that Fasting is as Physick whether for Health or for the Soul and if we are fallen into the hands of such Physicians as will tye all the Land and all the World to take the same Physick and on the same days to take a Purge or a Vomit every Wednesday Friday and Holy Evens we shall obey them when we are a-weary of our Lives I think our London Colledges would deride such prescribers 4. And if any will tell us that we shall merit of God and save our selves by forbearing the coursest sort of Flesh and eating the more costly Fish Junkets Sweet-meats and drinking Wine and strong-Drink we abhor such Mock-Fasts for God will not be mocked But Hipocrites turn all Religion into a Mockery I have heard those called strict precise Protestants accused as being against abstinence and Fasting and upon enquiry I found that those of my acquaintance eat and drink less all the year than their accusers of my acquaintance do on their Mock-fasting days To such their Diet would seem a strict Fast even Calvin that macerated his body with eating but a few bits once a day is by some Papists called a sensual Glutton though Massonius saith the contrary The Six and Fortieth accused Point That Jesus Christ descended not into Hell nor delivered thence the Souls of the Fathers Ans 1. And do not these false Accusers know that both the Creed which we all profess and the Articles of the Church of England say expresly that Christ descended into Hell 2. And those ahat dislike the Translation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into Hell yet grant Christ went into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that 's all the Scripture saith So that all the doubt is but what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth Whether the Hell of Torment or more Generally the unseen state of separate Souls If you mean the last what Protestants deny it If you mean the first what presumptuous cruelty is it to believe that all the Souls of the Fathers were in Hell till the Death of Christ Christ alleadging I am the God of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob sure meant not that God was their God because they were in Hell Was Lazarus in Hell when Abraham said Now he is Comforted It was a Hell of Joy and Comfort Were Samuel Elisha Job Daniel c. in Hell Was Moses in Hell that appeared in Glory on the Mount with Elias But what is it that the Infallible Church cannot make good when they have once presumed to affirm it The Seven and Fortieth accused Point That there is no Purgatory Fire or other Prison wherein sin may be satisfied for after this Life Ans 1. Which way this Church came to be so much acquainted with Hell and Purgatory and Prisons and satisfying in them in the other World more than is revealed in the Word of God we know not unless some have told them that come thence or from Heaven But for our parts we think Gods Word more trusty than Dead men whom we know not God sendeth us to the Law and to the Testimony If they speak not according to these it is because there is no Light in them Isa 8.20 Abraham preferred Moses and the Prophets before one from the Dead The prophane citation of Scripture by him for such a Purgatory-Prison and Satisfaction needs no answer save the perusal of the Texts What mean these men by satisfying for Sin 1. If they mean that Satisfaction by the merits whereof God pardoneth sin without dishonour to his Justice Government or Law Christ and he only hath thus fully satisfied for sin already and there remaineth no more Sacrifice for sin for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified 2. But if by satisfying for sin they mean that all must suffer all the punishment that their sin deserveth then God forgiveth no sin at all For to forgive the sin is to forgive the punishment And then they renounce the Office Sacrifice and Blood of Christ which are for the pardon of Sin And they renounce Baptism and the Lords Supper that give and Seal it And they cast away all hopes of Salvation and damn all Mankind For all Sin deserveth some degree of Damnation in Hell But if the Pope can pardon sure God doth pardon some To deny pardon is to deny all the Scripture and all humane hope and mercy 3. But if by satisfying for sin they mean that God when he forgiveth through Christ the destructive everlasting Punishment will yet require some corrective temporal punishment with which he is said to be satisfied in that he requireth no more we confess de re that such a thing there is in this World Death as Death and Pain as Pain are such and the Curse on the Earth and the loss of some degrees of Grace they are all corrective Penalties And if any say that a lower degree of Glory for the loss of some degree of Grace is such or that the separation of the Soul from the Body till the Resurrection hath some nature of Penalty we strive with no man about such things But de nomine we justly here dislike the Word Satisfying because in common Sence it soundeth as some Compensation and somewhat that is of the same nature with Christs satisfaction and that is all that Justice requireth to purchase our pardon And it encourageth the ill use of it by Papists that make it meritorious And de re we believe no such
Purgatory much less the Popes Power to deliver men out of it for Masses or the like because God tells us of no such thing And the Primitive Churches never owned it Augustine first seemed to doubt of it But I find none before that ever held it unless you will call Origens Opinion such that thought the Devils and Damned should have a time of Deliverance now called Heresie As to 1 Cor. 3.13 15. Is there no fiery Tryall of mistaken Doctrine and of the Erroneous in this Life As to Joh. 11.22 What an Expositor is this I know saith Martha that whatever thou wilt ask of God he will give it thee Ergo Lazarus was delivered out of Purgatory As well he may say All Saints shall have a Resurrection Therefore all are in Purgatory Or God denyeth Christ nothing Therefore there is a Purgatory So Acts 2.24 Whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of Death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it Here he noteth two things 1. That where Christ was there was pains Ans As if Death it self were not a Penalty It was Christs pains or penal State of Death that Peter mentioneth and the man himself here confesseth that Christ had no pain in that place 2. But he saith that it was not Christs but others pain that is said to be loosed when the Text plainly saith 1. That it was Christs pains of Death 2. Loosed by his Resurrection 3. Because it was impossible that he not they should be held of it So 1 Cor. 15.24 Because there is no mention of Baptizing for the Dead he feigneth a Purgatory meant And Luk. 16.9 That Receiving at Death into the everlasting Habitations proveth a Purgatory When yet they say that Purgatory is to none an everlasting Habitation And Luk. 23.42 Because the Thief would be remembred by Christ in his Kingdom Souls may be holpen after death out of Purgatory As if it was Purgatory that was the Paradise with Christ where that Thief was to be that day Is it not tedious but to read such prophanation of Gods Word The Eight and Fortieth accused Point That it is not lawful to make or to have Images Ans This Lie hath conquered the blushing Passion 1. Can such men believe that there are no Protestant Painters Are there none of their Shops in London or Holland Do none but Papists make or sell Pictures Are not the Statues of Kings at the Exchange the Stocks-Market Chaering-Cross Are there no Images on our Coyn Nor our Banners Nor on the Escutcheons of the Nobility and Gentry of this and other Lands Are there no Images at the Sign-posts in all London nor in all the Cities and Market-Towns in the Kingdom Nor in any of the Church-Windows But perhaps they will say tho' we speak so universally to deceive the ignorant yet we meant it of Images of Religious signification and use Ans And do not all the Lutherans keep them in their Churches Are they not continued in most Church-Windows in England Obj. But at least it's true of the Calvinists or Puritans Ans 1. And will you therefore slander the rest 2. But we must not hastily believe any thing that false accusers say Have not the Holland Calvinists multitudes of Pictures Did you never see Beza and others Icones virorum illustrium nor Mr. Samuel Clerk's Lives with Images Nor the Puritans English Geneva Bible with the Images of the Histories Nor the Dutch Quarry-Bricks for Chimneys on which most of the History of the Bible is painted O! for Truth or Modesty 2. But we confess that there are some Images Bawdy some Superstitious Idolatrous or Blasphemous which we leave to such as choose them they being not for our use of which after The Nine and Fortieth accused Point That it is not lawful to reverence Images nor to give any honour to insensible things Ans Methinks you should sometime speak truth if it were but before you are aware 1. Protestants commonly hold that they should give Honour to all Insensible things They are all the work of God dishonouring or not honouring the Creature or Work is dishonouring or not honouring the Creator and Maker as such The due praise and honour of a Building a Book c. is necessary to the due praise and honour of the Author Do you think Protestants Condemn the 18th Psalm the 104th Psalm the 145 and all the rest that Magnifie the works of God Is there any above a Beast that doth not honour and praise Sun Moon Stars Heaven and Earth Sea and Land as the works of God Yea we honour every Plant and Flower every Vigetable and Mineral knowing that God is wonderful and unsearchable in all What is Physick Astronomy Geography but the shell of knowing and honouring Gods Works and God in them 2. And the Image of Kings of Holy Men are purposely made and Printed by Protestants in Love Honour and Reverence to the persons Living or Dead whom they represent You may see many Rooms adorned with the Images of the Fathers and of late Divines For their Relation they love with some sort of honour the Pictures of those whom you have burnt as Hereticks See whether you find them not in John Fox his Acts and Monuments 3. But we are warned oft enough by God and by the mischievous effects of it in the Churches against all Idolatrous and scandalous and ensnaring respect and use of Images which are either false Representations or are used contrary to the second Commandment to Corporal Idolatry though not mental in such likeness to the Heathen use of their Demons Images and deified Heroes and Emperours as seemeth to be but a change of the object Persons or may tempt others to unlawful usage of them Especially the use being not commanded us of God while it is dangerous And we abhor the Papists Omission of the second Commandment and turning the Tenth into two lest the people should perceive the evil of such Imagery No wonder that their Proselytes must be kept in Ignorance and forbid the Scriptures in a known Tongue without a special Licence when they must not ordinarily read or hear all the Ten Commandments even these Ten written by God himself in Stone are too much for them to be trusted with and yet all the Mass of Ceremonies and Ocean of Canon Laws are not too much And he that must be killed for not obeying these must not know all Gods own Ten Commands yea many have been burnt for having his Word Translated 4. And to pray before the Image of Saints and then to say we do not pray to them but to those that they represent is but to do what the Heathen Idolaters promised to do to their Demons They usually said We be not such Fools as to think Wood and Stone and Gold and Images to be God But as the first Commandment forbids us to have any Gods but the true God so the second forbids us to seem to have any more tho' our