saved who avoyd the mortall infection of these points and what caution must be used to preserve this Charity from crossing with Truth HAving discovered many Untruths in at least foure maine points of this Chapter wee are come to a fifth point whose truth is so powerfull that it overcomes mee and makes mee to acknowledge with the Author That it divides Protestants and right Romists so farre as salvation and damnation And I must cleere either side from uncharitablenesse in saying that these who faile in this point are in a state of damnation And it is very true that hee promiseth That this Reason strikes at the roote which is taken from the nature and propertie of Faith The point is this That whosoever doth give his faith and assent to all the Articles of Christian doctrine yet if hee doe it not upon the right and infallible motive hee hath no saving Faith Now hereunto wee subjoyne That true and right Papists or Romists doe not beleeve upon the true and infallible motive Therefore they can have no saving Faith And indeed though they have many and pernitious errors yet this is the great and generall error that makes up the Mystery of iniquity which wee call the Papacie and the Papists call the Church For the ordinary motive of faith in those who are the right and naturall members of the Head of that Mysterie is to beleeve the Articles of Faith because the Church whose mouth head and spirit is the Pope propounds and commands them to bee beleeved And this Author saith that the onely true and infallible ground is The Revelation of Almighty God and the proposition and direction of the Church Wherein first hee joyneth the Church with God in this ground of Faith and so gives as it were halfe of the ground of Faith to the Church from God and makes it halfe unsafe and damnable But even this halfe hee seemes elsewhere wholly to take away and so to leave men wholly to bee damned by a Faith wholly grounded on a motive which cannot raise a saving and supernaturall Faith for hee saith That if the Church hath not decided propounded and commanded a doctrine to bee beleeved by her children a man may thinke and doe as hee sees cause without incurring the crime of heresie Thus wee see that the Revelation of God is not a motive of Faith of it selfe but the Church is the motive of beleeving Gods Revelation so first wee see the Church to put God aside and to take place of him and knowing who is the Head Heart if not the Whole of this Church wee finde him just in his owne place and that is lifting himselfe up above all that is called God And secondly wee see the deadly motive and ground of Faith proposed by Papists to Popish soules even the word of a man and a Man of sinne on whom whatsoever Faith is finally grounded it can give nothing but damnation Neither are wee put by other Papists to lay pieces together to prove this their damning motive of Faith for besides the common voice of the people that they beleeve as the Church beleeves wee have before heard that the Rhemists acknowledge the Popes to bee an Order of Governors to whom wee are bound to cleave in Religion and to obey in all things And thereupon they infer that A Papist is a Christian man a childe of the Church and subject to Christs Vicar So the Christianity of a Papist and his being a child of the Church depends on his cleaving to the Pope and obeying him in all things But yet againe we may see it more acknowledged in their Writers Lorca brings forth Medina affirming that The Testimonie of the Church doth so farre partake of being the formall object or motive of faith that the utmost resolution of faith is into the authoritie of the Church and the proofes produced for it are to bee heard in the common language of Romists If it bee asked why thou beleevest the Trinity in Unity and thou answer Because God saith it It will then bee demanded of thee how thou knowest that God saith it thou hast no other Answer left but this Because the Church saith it and so are they taught in the Catechisme and so answer both the learned and unlearned Behold the common answer and common faith of Romists Now this object of faith being man and not God it cannot raise that supernaturall and saving faith whose object is the prime Veritie even God speaking to the soules of his servants And seeing this humane faith hath so possessed Romists that their Prophets doe make the obeying and cleaving to the Pope in his doctrine the very Character of a Christian and childe of the Church this Church consisting of these children thus adhering to the Pope is against such truely affirmed not to bee the Church and so may the Homily of our Church clearely bee interpreted which denyeth the Church of Rome that is the Pope and his Adherents to bee the true Church for thus to adhere unto the Pope and to lay beliefe on him is so farre from making a true childe and member of the Church that it makes a member of the Papacie and so of Antichrist it makes a Synagogue for Sathan and Hell and not a Church for Christ and salvation And whereas this Author both in this Chapter and the beginning of the eighth objects it to us that wee condemne their doctrines and account the Church of Rome to bee the Seate of Antichrist and the Synagogue of Sathan Hee hath here seene one reason of it and it is a reason of his owne and his fellowes even because the Romish Doctors and Champions tell us that the Church of Rome is made of those children which beleeve in the Pope And this faith being humane cannot make a Church to Christ but to the Pope and thus the Pope stands in the place of Antichrist for putting Christ out of his place and stepping into it whiles thus hee makes his sheepe to heare his voice before Christs yea both herein and often otherwise against Christ. But a second Reason may bee given of their calling the Church of Rome the Synagogue of Sathan the Church of Rome being taken in a larger sense even for all those parts of mankinde that have reference to Rome For they finde this Church of Rome overspred not onely with this false and Antichristian faith but with other mortall errours and abhominations such are grosse and almost universall Idolatry in the worship of Images and especially of the Sacrament confidence in workes for justification and merit and a grosse ignorance even a not knowing of Christ which before hath beene touched Now many seeing a field overcome with these deadly and killing weeds and so overcome that they seemed to cover the face of the field they tooke it to bee a field of Weeds and not of Corne And because the usuall manner of speaking is to say that a horse is blacke and
divided Jesus from Christ and so themselves from Christians though as it hath been told them and as it is said by a Pope from S. Paul all Christians are called ad societatem Iesu Christi to the society both of Jesus and of Christ 1 Cor. 1.9 But surely if this be the Authors place in Calvin it is likely hee hath either forgotten Calvin or was not trusted with the reading of Calvin and some one that was trusted but not trusty told him it would serve his turne and deceived him As for the wonderfull wisdome which this Author speciously sets forth in the differences of those Order That wisdome is here come to passe which Solomon condemneth when he saith Be not wise over much for humane wisdome hath so far wrought herein that Orders have been multiplied far beyond the gifts of continency yea above the good both of Church and Common wealth And so far were they as this Author saith from stripping themselves from earthly incumberances to fly fast into heaven that too much they stripped both Laiâ—y and Clergy of earthly maintenances and therewith have made to themselves fleshly incumberances But of this wisdome before hath been given to the Reader such a representation that I think it appeared to him not to be spirituall but carnall earthly and divelish if not in the invention yet in the execution and therefore for brevity thither I remit the Reader Only I wish the Author would prove what hee saith by some place of Scripture That God inspired the Founders of Orders with severall spirits and that there is a speciall spirit with which an Order was first endued especially if that Scripture were rightly applyed by Abbot Whitgift That Monkery was a plant which the heavenly Father planted not and therefore should bee pulled up by the rootes Which Prophecie was soon after fulfilled in this Land The Cavalier comes now to dismount a third objection of Protestants concerning Romish difference which ariseth as hee saith in regard of the differences betweene learned and unlearned men which hee assayeth to take away by a distinction of explicite and implicite faith in this manner A man is said to have explicite faith of any article or doctrine when he hath heard it particularly propounded to him and hath some particular knowledge thereof and gives particular assent thereunto But as for implicite faith of any article or doctrine a man is then said to have it when hee beleeves that concerning it which the Church teacheth them explicitely who are capable thereof although for his owne part he have not perhaps so much as heard of it in particular or if he did hee hath forgot it or if he did remember it he hath not capacity enough to apprehend or understand it And when he hath shewed this distinction he labours with great vehemency to prove it and affirmes That without this it would be wholly impossible to maintaine any Church in any unity of faith at all and finally concludes That this sword of ours is turned into a buckler wherewith to defend them First for the pains he takes to make good this distinction hee takes it to make good our objection and so labours for us and against himselfe for upon this distinction being grounded we ground our objection and say that this distinction leaves even the like differences amongst Romists for which they accuse and damne us and leaves no better unity among them then it leaves among us And if thus then it is both a sword in our hand to hurt them and a buckler also to defend us against them neither have they any buckler to defend themselves against this sword much lesse will this sword that wounds them become a buckler to defend the wounds which it selfe gives But the onely safe way is with that King who comes with the weake side to send Ambassadors for peace to the stronger Now to shew that this distinction being strengthened doth strengthen our objection and so is a true sword against Romists I say That in those points of faith which are beyond the explicites or fundamentals are called implicites there are differences among Romists as well as among us and these differences are not onely such as are discovered by the ell by which the faith of the unlearned is found shorter then that of the learned but the Cloth it selfe within the measure of the learned is torne into pieces and the learned themselves doe differ in the beliefe of the said points among themselves as well as from the unlearned And this hath bin shewed before and is indeed a part of D. Whites undertaking formerly mentioned I may instance in a point or two Transubstantiation is an Article of their new faith and not usually reckoned among their explicites the one part of the learned hath beleeved that the substance of Bread being abolished the Body of Christ is brought to the place of it another part beleeves that the substance of Bread is changed into the substance of Christs Body which I nothing doubt was the first meaning of this new doctrine each confutes either And an unlearned man that stands by may easily being over-weighed with the reasons of both either beleeve neither or somewhat else of his owne And indeede I my selfe have asked one of their Proselites whether he would chew or teare the body of Christ with his teeth and he told me that he did not think that their Doctors would say it so also in the point of Image-worship a matter of deepe consequence and much concerning life and death yet by them left among Implicites One side of the Doctors holds a plaine worship of the Image of Christ with Latria or divine honour and others hold this honour given properly to Images to be Idolatrie and either give it improperly or give an inferiour reverence or no religious reverence at all But the unlearned man when he sees the Image set in Churches covered with gold turning his head and eyes weeping working miracls saith with the Lycaonians Gods are common to us in the shape of men and thinkes hee cannot worship God too much and therefore doth it with all his soule and all his might even with a perfect Idolatrie Now are not these differences of momeÌ„t among them in their Explicites many more such there are which it were too tedious to repeat indeed their differences must needs bee much more then ours because many of their learned Explicites are errours and in errours there can never bee a full agreement for if any one hath that good spirit which maks discovery of them he commonly is opposed and contradicted by the others errour as here the not worshippers of the Image with divine worship is opposed by the worshipper Besides he that is in the darke and sees not what to beleeve if he beleeve any thing he can but beleeve an imagination of his owne and not a reall ttuth and so must needs differ from him who seeth
others doe and therefore doe exact a more explicite beliefe and consequently may bee accounted in some respects more fundamentall This I desire the Reader to observe because this confirmeth that which hath beene formerly spoken concerning the agreement between Fundamentals and Explicites and must serve hereafter for a Confutation of his owne objections against Fundamentals In the meane time that which paines him for the present is this That wee doe not beleeve every Decree or Errour of the Pope as well as these important grounds of Christianitie for thus hee presently subjoyneth There is no doctrine at all concerning Religion the beliefe whereof is not fundamentall to my salvation if the catholick Church propound and command mee to beleeve it So the Cavaliers quarrell against us is this That wee doe not make the worship of Images kindred of Gossips and such popish vanities fundamentall to our salvation as the Articles of the Trinity and Christs Incarnation A fearfull blasphemy and which should make his heart hate his hand for writing it but they well deserve to bee given up to the beliefe of such impious errours who receive not the love of the truth revealed in the word with duâ— estimation For such will easily equall the word of Man to the word of God and will not suffer the word of God to stand for a sufficient saving verity nor a sufficient ground of unity except man give his word for the word of God and Man add his word to the word of God For if the Pope give his word for a doctrine contained in Gods word then his Popish disciples must receive it and untill that they may without heresie not beleeve it and if the Pope adde his word to the word of God Gods word is not a sufficient ground of unity but the unity made by that word is to be torne in pieces if withall we do not joyne the word of the Pope in one beliefe with it Thus is the Pope made Christs Rivall and takes the faith of the spouse from her husband to himselfe And so whereas he would accuse us of an high craft our craft is no other then that simplicity of S. Paul by which hee did labour to espouse the Church as a chaste Virgin to one Husband which was Christ But this Romish doctrine is the very craft of the old Serpent and Dragon which goes about to seduce Eve the patterne of the Church from her Husband and to marry her to the Pope or rather to make her his Adulteresse But let him remember Whoremongers and Adulterers especially such great ones God will judge Yet this would hee approve by that which followes For there is no errour in faith which may not bee made damnable by the manner of holding it when it is done so obstinately as that in defence thereof a man denyes the authority of the Catholick Church But briefly I answer First that the Church cannot make a point of faith of that which is none Secondly Stapleton tells us that the Church hath no promise to bee infallibly directed in the decision and resolution of small or light points and so the Church not having this infallible direction cannot have authority to make such points fundamentall nor to command faith to them where she hath no infallible direction in them Thirdly the Church in these lesser points not having this authority hee doth not disobey the authority of the Church who beleeveth not these points which she hath no authority to command as points of faith Fourthly if the Church were this foundation and could make a point fundamentall yet the Pope and his confederacy for whom this Author fights is not the Church Fifthly the same Popish Church hath taught and propounded many grosse errours and untruths for points of doctrine which are so farre from being fundamentall to salvation that they shake the very foundation and so are rather fundamentall to damnation But here I cannot but complaine of this Author in that hee useth craft which himselfe accuseth for while he goes about to lay the Pope the Chimera of Rome for a foundation of faith hee names him not in his whole booke but still tells us of the catholick Church let him come forth plainly out of his Covert and shew us his catholick Church even the Pope and his adherents if he be not ashamed of them and not thus draw disciples to a fancy and a piece of Poetry under the reall and reverend name of the catholick Church But this may serve as a caveat to the Reader that the Cavalier tells us of the Church when the Pope is his errand Another point whereof he seemes to be ashamed is the worship of Images which he never reckons among the doctrines of difference but if it please him he may now fitly conjoyne them together and then his discourse may runne thus If the Pope decree the worship of Images it may be fundamentall to salvation if with the deniall of Idolatrie the Popes authority bee denyed Yet our Author having spoken that which is proved to be fearfully untrue in his sense that what the Pope and his conspiracy under the name of the catholick Church doe propound and command to be beleeved is fundamentall he is bold to say This untruth is unanswerably proved by the meere catalogues of heresies which have beene made by severall Fathers of the Primitive Church and especially by S. Austin in his Treatise ad quod vult Deum which I have toucht before and which I earnestly exhort my Reader to peruse at large This is so farre from being unanswerable that it hath beene answered and our Author can never make it good that those points which hee acknowledgeth to be of little importance in themselves were there declared to bee fundamentall for being obstinately maintained against the decision command of the Pope and his Councell eâ—ther private or publick so that the Author onely makes up with boldnesse and undertaking what hee wants in evidence and proofe And as in the following piece hee preferres his Reader to the sixth and fifth Chapters so I also referre him to the answer of those Chapters and there besides other solutions hee may see that the example of Saint Cyprian makes mightily against the Popes authority since it plainly appeares that Saint Cyprian did hold the Popes fallibilitie when he plainly held the contrary to that which the Pope had decided And thus being put besides his premisses hee is also deprived of his conclusion The distinction of points of faith into fundamentall and not fundamentall doth stand still in such full truth and power that the unbeliefe of points not fundamentall doth not presently forfeit salvation though the same points bee decided by the Pope and his conspiracy much lesse doe worship of Images Prayer in an unknowne tongue salvation by merits the Popes supremacy especially taken for a foundation of faith though decided and commanded by the Pope cause damnation by being unbelieved but rather by being believed
hate the seven thousand that doe not bow their knees to Baal though dispersed among seven millions of Idolaters wee may not hate Israel though in bondage under Pharaoh But to the true Israel even to the pure in heart and those who in Christ Jesus are new creatures and walke according to this rule peace the prayers of peace the true fruits of love doe belong the divine Apostle being herein our guide and example And while thus wee enjoy and imbrace this universall love with the universall body of Christ great is our safety for hereby wee know and may assure our hearts that wee belong to that universall body which alone loveth it selfe with this universall love That is the truly catholick Church which is indued with this catholick love that is a living Church which is a loving Church Our Church therefore imbracing and exercising this catholick love is a Church truly catholick and our Church being a Church of love is a Church of life Let therefore Cassander a Doctor of the Church of Rome conclude for us Qui rectâ sententiâ de Christo capiti injunguntur c. They that by a right beliefe concerning Christ are joyned to the head and by the hand of love and peace are joyned to the bodie of the Church howsoever they may differ in some opinions and rites are by no meanes to bee accounted Schismaticks or separated from the Church though they seeme rejected and excomunicated by some other part of the Church more mighty and possessing the Government CHAP. II. Wherein is declared that Rome wants this catholick love 1. By her separation from other Churches 2. By her hatred to Protestants manifested in the cruell persecutions and massacres practised against them in Popish countries and by the rebellions treasons open hostilitie stirred up against this Kingdome All which prove her to bee uncharitable and un-catholick IT hath been shewed that love and peace must bee catholick and universall that so they may be capable of a catholick and universall Church for as wide and as large as the Church is so large must the love of the Church be The body of Christ is the measure of this love and this love must bee no jot shorter then the body of Christ the body of Christ then extending to all Nations and so being a catholick body must be followed through all Nations with no lesse then a catholick love but love as much as it is short of loving this catholick body of Christ so much is it short of being a catholick love and so much it is indeed uncatholick Now the Romish Church which according to the Church of England is to be understood of the Pope and his adherents doth not make this body of Christ the measure of her love but the body of the Papacie not Christs Kingdome but the Popes Kingdome is the measure of Romish love As much then as the Popes Kingdome is short of the Kingdome of Christ so much is Rome short of a catholick love and so much is shee uncatholick Now wee know that the Kingdome of Christ spreads it selfe much farther then the Kingdome of the Pope yea Christ is known and beleeved where there is neither knowledge nor faith of the Pope Accordingly Cassander thinketh not onely the Westerne Churches of Protestants but the Easterne and Southerne also and by name the Russian Syrian AEthiopian and Armenian that beleeve the Apostles Creed and doe not by schisme divide themselves from the communion of other Churches to bee members of the true and catholick Church of Christ. And these parts of the Church are so great and large that a Countrey-man of ours in his diligent Inquiries gives this judgement of the Greek Church alone If wee should collect and put together all the Christian Regions hitherto intreated of which are all of the Greek Communion and compare them with the parts professing the Roman religion wee should finde the Greek farre to exceed if wee except the Roman new and forraine purchases made in the West and East Indies Now to these if wee shall add the Christians in Syria Cyprus Mesopotamia Babylon and Palestine which are by the least computation 50000. families and by the greatest 60000. And if againe we joine with these the Armenians who are under two Patriarchs of their owne whom they terme Catholickes and are esteemed to exercise jurisdictions over 70000. families And if yet further wee shall increase this number by those innumerable Christians of AEthiopia that are spread far and wide in the vaste Dominions of Prester Iohn And lastly if to these wee adde the no little number of Protestant Christians in the West wee may see that the Kingdome of the Pope is far short of the Kingdome of Christ and consequently that the love of Rome at least so much is short of catholick love But if wee leave those other famous and farre dispersed parts of Christs body whom Rome leaves without true catholick love and more particularly and punctually examine Romes want of love to Protestants whereof especially is our present inquirie all the paper in the world were scarce sufficient to containe the words that might be written for the proofe of it with the bloud of Protestants shed by the Romists So that the ancient parable of Iotham hath been fulfilled in our dayes If indeed yee annoynt mee King over you then come and put your trust in my shadow and if not let fire come out of the bramble and devoure the Cedars of Lebanon The fire and lightning of the Popes excommunications fly out against the denyers of his universall Kingdome and Supremacy and that fire is too often seconded with materiall fire For the maintenance of his pride Christians must bee hated spoyled and butchered of Christians There is a method of cruelty set forth against such who are Romes Hereticks and the true Churches Christians This wee finde thus summed up by Azorius the Jesuite 1. Excommunication 2. Irregularity 3. Confiscation of goods 4. Dissolving of all bands bee they oathes fealty service or any other covenant and promise 5. Deprivation of all dignities and honours 6. Losse of Ecclesiasticall buriall 7. Infamy 8. Uncapacitie of all dignities and offices Ecclesiasticall to themselves their favourers receivers and children to the second generation by the fathers side yea though the children were borne before the heresie 9. Losse of life And even Bellarmine himselfe whom learning which once had a name of emollit mores and seeming devotion should have made somewhat milder drinks deeply if not pleasantly in this cup of bloud and delivers it to his Disciples that they may pledge him Solum remedium est mittere illos maturè in locum suum The onely remedy is to send them betimes to their owne place which place though indeed it be heaven it seems yet the good Fathers charitable meaning was by a first death speedily to send Protestants to hell the place of the second
Deum Where himselfe also makes an exact Catalogue of all the heresies which had sprung untill his time and where by the way I must needs observe in a word that hee recounts divers heresies which are held by the Protestant Church at this day and particularly that of denying prayers and sacriâ—ices for the dead and then hee concludes in the end that whosoever should hold any one of them were no Christian Catholick But here I must challenge this Champion first that hee deales not fairely with us in putting in these words In disobedience to the Church For let the world know that this is not our holding That a different opinion being held in a purposâ—d disobedience to the Church is safe or compâ—tible with unity of charity but that some different opinions in points of doctrine by darknesse of understanding or weaknesse of faith not apprehended or beleâ—ved yet not without a purposed disobedience to the Church may be compatible with unity and salvation Secondly if it were true which hee saith that unity were broken by the obstinate beliefe of any one doctrine joyned with disobedience to the Church how doth not this make against Rome which maintaineth her universall Supremacy and other errors directly against the Canons of the Church Thirdly wee deny Rome to bee that Church which the Fathers speake of Fourthly this Authors allegations make directly against his owne end and overthrow the authority of Rome which hee goes about to establish For let him speake upon his conscience and reputation Were all those heresies mentioned by Epiphanius and Augustine adjudged and condemned for heresies by the Church of Rome If not then it seemes there may bee hereticks without any judgement of the Church of Rome and there may be hereticks that hold some errors not adjudged heresies by the Church of Rome But if so then what is become of this Authors heresie described to be the obstinate beliefe of any one doctrine in disobedience to the Church the Church in the Authors sense being no other then the Church of Rome How was this Church disobeyed in those things which shee had not decreed and even his particulars of prayers and sacrifices for the dead Had the Church of Rome adjudged these at this time to bee points of faith Hee cannot say it How plaine deceit then is this to seeme to prove these to bee heresies because held in a disobedience to the Church when the Church in his Romish sense had not decreed the doctrines to bee beleeved which are contrary to these supposed heresies Let us now come to his particular citations and see yet more particularly how they make not against us but mostly against himselfe Hee begins with Saint Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 3. The Church having received this word preached and this faith as was shewed before and having spread the same over the whole world doth diligently preserve it as inhabiting one house and doth likewise beleeve those things which are taught thereby as having one soule and one heart and in the same conformity shee preaches and teaches and delivers it as possessing but one moâ—th For though there bee in the world different expressions and tongues yet the vertue and power of Tradition is but one and the same And neither those Churches which are found in Germany nor those others in Spaine nor those in France nor they which are in the Easterne parts nor they which are in Egypt nor they which are in Lybia nor they which are in the middle parts of the world doe beleeve or make tradition of doctrine any otherwise in one place then they doe in another but as that creature of God the Sunne is one and the same in the whole world so is the preaching if the Truth And those Prelates of Churches who have most power and grace of speech will deliver no other things but these for no man is above his Master neither will such an one as hath meaner Talents in speech make this doctrine and Tradition lesse but since Faith is but one and the same neither doth hee inlarge it who is able to speak much of it nor that other diminish it who speakes lesse I answer that this place is produced improperly in regard of the Point deceitfully in regard of the Reader For Irenaeus in the second Chapter next preceding had set downe a forme of Faith and a summe of chiefe Articles agreeable to our Creed And then in the third whence this allegation is taken hee saith that the Church having received this faith doth uniformly preach it and with one Mouth through all nations neither doth the more learned increase it nor the lesse learned diminish it Now this being spoken of the principall points of faith â—oth rather prove our unity in fundamentalls but not prove our Champions entire unity in inferiour points therefore it comes not home to the Authors marke but indeed he goes about to deceive the Reader when he brings it in as a proofe of that which it proves not Secondly this place makes mightily against the Papacy and that Confederacy for in the faith which Irenaeus sets downe in the foregoing chapter there is not one Article concerning the Popes Supremacy nor worshiping Images nor of praying in an unknowne tongue c. These therefore being now decreed by the Pope are inlargements of faith wherefore the Popes that thus inlarge the faith are by Irenaeus censured not to bee these Prelates of Churches who have most power and grace of speech yea not so good as the others of lesse grace but withall hee censureth them that they are above their master and their master being Christ it fits right with the saying of Paul That hee sits as God and exalts himselfe above all that is called God Hee comes next to Tertullian Tertullian shewes plainly that whosoever denyes any one doctrine of the Church rejects all for thus hee saith upon occasion Valentinus approveth some things of the Law and the Prophets some things hee disallowes that is hee disallowes all whiles he approves some The Author here also imposeth upon his Reader if wee may beleeve Tertullians learned but Romish Adnotator Pamelius For not to insist on this that the words are Omnia improbat dum quaedam reprobat he disallowes all whiles hee refuseth some from Pamelius we learne that these words are not spoken of all points of faith proposed by the Church much lesse if the Church bee taken for the Papacy but of the bookes of the Law and the Prophets which Protestants do by no meanes reject For this is Pamelius his sentence immediatly after these words Quod usque adâ—o verum agnoverunt alii scriptores ut disertis verbis scribant inter caeteros Damascenus quod vetus Testamentum reprobaverit This by other writers is said to be so true that they expresly write and Damascen among others that hee refused the old Testament And indeede hee that did deny the old Testament did deny more then one doctrine of
this little So that this being not a little but a great point S. Basill doth not speak against us but for us who sayes that in these great points there should be no difference Now it might be called little by some not for the little weight of the point but for the litte odds in the sound of the word so that in the little difference of a syllable the great point lay affirmed or denyed And indeed it were better that death were imbraced then any such point of divine doctrine should bee betrayed Besides â—s there a desire on our side of betraying or delivering up any lesser points of divine doctrine but rather a charitable hope that men may be saved though differing in opinion concerning some lesser matters by not knowing that they be divine doctrines or not reaching to them by a weake and inferiour degree of a faith But who so will truely judge our maine quarrell with Romists hee shall finde it to be a defence of divine doctrine against humane fictions and traditions And Romists most grossely offend against the words and example of S. Basil who permit many syllables of the divine doctrine in the second Commandement forbidding worship of imâ—ges to be left out of their Catechismes and the divine doctrine of halfe a Sacrament to be denyed and made voyd to the people and the divine doctrine of praying in a known tongue in the Church to be actually betrayed Saint Gregory Nazianzen is next who as our Author saith thus delivers himselfe Nothing can be more dangerous then those hereticks who when they run straight through all the rest doe yet with one word as with some drop of poyson infect the true and sincere faith of our Lord. If this Champion had gotten this place by his owne knowledge he could not well but take notice that the sincere faith whereof Gregory speaks is the faith contained in the Nicene Creed which Creed is set at the head of the Tractate and accordingly the one word of which hee speaks as being dangerous to the faith is the word that giveth not to Christ one Substance with the Father This word Nazianzen often names in this discourse so that the Cavalier could not well oversee it if hee had seene the place yea hee saith plainly that it lets in the Arian heresie And if it be thus this Champion is yet far from his Conclusion by this Antecedent which must thus lead the way It is most dangerous to differ in one word of the Creed which concernes a point fundamentall even the Deity of Christ therefore it is most dangerous to differ in points out of the Creed which are extra-fundamentall and of the Popes decreeing But let Romists look whether this place doe not fight against them who thrusting the word Roman after or into the word Catholick have drawne the soules of too many to beleeve in the Pope or Popish Church in stead of God and so have changed the very foundation of their faith Saint Hierome must have the same answer no man denying but that for some one word or two contrary to the faith or Creede in points fundamentall many heresies have been and ought to bee cast out of the Church It followes Saint Leo saith That out of the Catholick Church there is nothing pure According to that of the Apostle Whatsoever is not of faith is sinne But what doth this here where the question is not Whether they sin that be out of the catholick Church but Whether they be out of the catholick Church that differ in any smal point of doctrine from some other members of the same Church But because this place wants help hee adds a second If it be not one it is no faith at all We acknowledge there is but one saving and fundamentall Faith in Christ Iesus as but one Baptisme and this faith was once delivered to the Saints and the Saints still doe so uniformely receive it as that they who have any other fundamentall faith have none at all But if Romists will have faith to bee one in all points then by this Popes doctrine they have no faith for their faith is not one in all points with the one faith once delivered to the Saints nor with the faith in the time of Leo for in that one faith there was no worship of Images no universall Monarchy of the Pope no worship of Bread The Cavaliers first place of Augustine I am loth to bring forth to spare both the Cavalier and the Reader It is somewhat long but very short of the Cavaliers mark it proves against the Donatists That the Church in earth and the Church in heaven are not two Churches but one But who denyes this yea who denyes the true Church on earth to bee but one and this is the Protestants maine businesse to keep it one though differing in some lesser points of doctrine And it is our Authors businesse to breake this unity even by this place which he produceth under a shew of proving unity but not proving by it such an unity as by it hee may make a division hee is faine to set a second Buttresse to support his wall of separation Thus hee reareth it To shew moreover by the judgement of Saint Augustine that the Church in her doctrine was to be truly one hee spake thus of the Donatists who called upon the same God preached the same â—ospel sung the same Psalmes had the same Baptisme observed the same Easter and the like in those things they were with mee yet not wholly with mee in schisme not with mee in heresie not with me in a few not with mee but in regard they were not with mee in a few their being with mee in many could not help them If the Cavalier had gone on in his Allegation the very next words would have given him an answer to the objection which hee drew out of the former for those words say that the one thing wherein they were not one was Charity And the want of this hee proves out of Saint Paul 1 Cor. 13. to make all the rest unprofitable But our question is not of want of charity but of differing in some small point of faith True it is that this uncharitablenesse was back'd with an error which hee called an heresie That the Catholick Church was onely in the part of Donatus and so as Saint Augustine infers that the Church was not catholick But let our Author remember That this voucheth an Article of the Creede as denyed by the Donatists but with the denyall of any such Article he cannot charge us But yet that their error did not kill nor cut them off all from being truly of the Church except the error were accompanied with the want of that one thing which was true charity we have great probabilities if not proofes out of Optatus and Saint Augustine the former of which commonly calls them brethren and the later denies not but some of them might be
But wee see their errour was condemned before by Cornelius and Stephen Bishops of Rome even in the time of S. Cyprian And therefore if there bee no other reason the Donatists may escape the note of Heresie with S. Cyprian But indeede there were other reasons that might aggravate the errour of the Donatists beyond S. Cyprian and make it look more like Heresie A first may be a maintaining of their errour after much evidence and conviction by Scriptures A second because they made this errour a ground of an other errour That it was a just cause to divide from the Church because the Church differed from them in their errour This Cyprian never did for though Cyprian yeelded not obedience to the Pope having decided the point yet he held union with the Church even with those who differed from him in this point of re baptization which may be spoken to the shame both of the old Donatists and the new even the Romists that teare the Church into pieces for every little difference Thirdly the Donatists were thought thereupon to raise another errour contrary to an Article of the Creed That the Church was not Catholick and this the Cavalier might have seene in this very Treatise of Saint Austin ad quod vult Deum from whence hee fetched his former objections Lastly if any man will see the reason of Lirinensis whom this Author produceth he may thus receive it and adde it for a Corollary The Masters are absolved the Disciples are condemned c. whose wickednesse I judge to bee worthy of double hatred both because they feare not to deliver unto others the poyson of Heresie and because with profane hands they tosse the memory of holy men as ashes which were quenched and spread abroad a reviv'd opinion which should have beene buried in silence following herein the steps of their Father Cham who not onely neglected to cover the nakednesse of reverend Noe but also shewed it to others to bee derided As for the answer of Cyprian to him that made the question concerning the doctrine of Novitianus it doth not shew that they that obey not the Popish Church are Hereticks but that Hereticks are cast out of the Church for their Hereticall doctrines And such doctrines whose Authors and Abettors are for them worthily cast out of the Church are not worth the enquiry The Cavalier having passed through many untruths now comes to an impertinence fraught also with untruths Hee would faine prove that because there are some quarrells betweene some Calvinists and some Lutherans therefore Protestants are damnable Hereticks for disobeying the Pope in small matters But he knowes not how to tye this together scarcely with the Jesuiticall cart-ropes of vanity and fraud called Equivocation and mentall Reservation For neither of them doe charge the other with Heresie for disobeying the Pope yea not for disobeying the Church but as they would perswade others in their disputing vehemence for not rightly conceiving some passages of Scripture and I dare so much trust the Cavaliers honesty that he will not say that himselfe beleeves some of those slanders which himselfe produceth from Lutherans against Calvinists Such are corrupting the Scriptures concerning the glorious Trinity the Deity of Christ and the Holy Ghost And hee knowes or might know if he have but begunne with Bellarmines coÌ„troversies whom he names what Greâ—zer speakes of Hunnius one of the Cavaliers chiefe Authors that casts scandalls upon Calvinists in his Epistle prefixed to Bellarmines controversies For there he saith That Hunnius began a kind of writing right Lutherane that is Thrasonicall vaine-glorious furious I had almost said drunken yea he goes from the man to the kind and saith The Lutheran Preachers doe set forth their disputations as if it were upon Meade and Beere and so that they may seeme to smell of that which ariseth from both railing-slanders and madnesse Now if this testimony of Gretzer be true and whatsoever it be I thinke this Cavalier will not give this Father of his the lye then I wonder he would produce testimonies of such whose Disputations as saith his Father Gretzer smell of rayling-Slanders and madnesse So that indeed this argument seemes not to be so much a matter of earnest as of mirth even to make himselfe and his Romish Readers infernally merry with the bitternesse and contentions of christians yet it were not hard to shew patternes of such vomits of Gall brought up from Romish stomacks and indeede here they lye in sight but I had rather they should bee covered with ashes then bee stirred to annoy my Reader and my selfe with the savour of them Only I will give this Champion some animadversions one is that this is a stale objection long since dissolved by that reverend and learned prelate the ever honoured Bishop Iewell And this Bishop hath so torne this objection to ragges that I wonder this Cavalier would stoope so low as to take up such ragges which can never bee well sowed together againe and cloath his book with them A second that it were farre more like the spirit of Moses to say Why doe yee strive seeing yee are brethren then to gather this uncharitable and false Inference Because yee strive yee are not brethren I am passing from this Champions Untruths to his Truth but I cannot passe over an abominable fearefull and manifold Untruth not so much bounded in one part of this Chapter as arising from the whole For his maine drift and plot is and his words doe tell it us That let a point of doctrine bee never so fundamentall and necessary to salvation if his Popish Church doe not decide propound and command it to bee beleeved it is not heresie not to beleeve it But bee the point never so small if the Popish Church decide and command it to bee beleeved then must it bee beleeved upon paine of damnation Now what can bee said more to put the Pope above God to make him Antichrist and his followers Antichristians That which God saith may bee unbeleeved without note of heresie though it bee this maine point This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well-pleased But if the Pope decide and command to bee beleeved that Gossips are such kinne that they cannot marry without incest not to beleeve this is certaine damnation fearefull blasphemies and unhappy Christians whose God is lesse then their Pope and whose Pope is above the highest God But as this makes way for the Mystery of iniquity so it leades fitly to the next point which is this Champions Truth wherein this Mysterie will bee more fully revealed SECT II. The Idolatrie of Papists 1. In making the Pope the foundation of Faith 2. In giving Divine worshâ—p to the Sacramentall Elements and to Images 3. In attributing the merit of salvation to their owne works is such as may sinke many of them into a damnable estate though it may bee charitably hoped of others that they are
many other crimes doe not accordingly God often calls Idolatry by the name of Adultery and thereupon threatens a divorce to his people And in that commandement alone which forbids this Spirituall Adultery doth God onely mention his Jealousie Againe if a man be jealous let a stranger be never so like him his jealousie will not suffer his wife to love that stranger as himselfe yea he will not indure it though shee say it is for his sake and for likenesse to to her Husband How much more should the jealousie of God arise when his worship is given to things infinitely inferior to himselfe and so farre below that it is a kinde of blasphemy to name them in a comparison Accordingly God casts it off with a scornefull indignation To whom will yee liken God If this jealousie of God could not indure that Dagon should stand in one place with the Arke shall we thinke that the same jealousie will indure an Idol to dwell quietly with him in the soule of that man which is truly the Temple of God What agreement saith S. Paul hath the Temple of God with Idols For yee are the Temple of the living God And if Saint Paul aske this question as if it could not receive an answer How dare men to answer this question at least with such facility to dissolve it how dare they say Yes S. Paul It hath beene seene very generally that the Temple of God even ignorant Christians have had agreement with Idols for if Christians knew not but that the Idols ought to bee worshipped with divine worship they beleeving this might give divine worship to idols and this Idolatry is not damnable Surely if such an answer may thus get safe passage through this Text by some narrow way to make Idolatry to agree with God and salvation doubtlesse it seemes by Saint Pauls question the common and ordinary relation between them is disagreement and there is some great difficulty or some great rarity in this agreement And this great danger and difficulty should bee greatly pressed at least not lesse then the narrow way of escaping And indeed to expresse this danger and difficulty is my businesse at this time and for a further expression of it let the words of Iosua bee considered Yee cannot serve the Lord for hee is an holy and a jealous God Hee will not forgive your transgressions and sinnes except yee put away the strange gods which are among you I might add from many places of Scriptures That they who feared the Lord and served their own gods did not feare the Lord. And in the daies of good Iosiah God would Cut off those that worship and sweare by the Lord and sweare by Malcam And that Idolatry is generally clothed in Scripture with the title of Abomination and it is not easie nor usuall with God to dwell with Abomination But referring the Reader to his owne reading I conclude with that piercing and affrighting speech of Saint Paul There is a brother and it is a weake brother and this brother out of his weaknesse eates things sacrificed unto Idols with conscience of religious honour of the Idols the same weake brother seeing a strong brother eating in the Temple of Idols is strengthened in his making conscience and giving honour and worship to the Idoll and yet of this weake brother Saint Paul saith that Hee perisheth No doubt this weake brother making conscience of the Idoll beleeved this honour which his conscience gave to the Idoll was due and lawfull yea he beleeved it the more as Saint Paul saith by seeing a strong brother in the Idols Temple whom hee thought to have made the same conscience of the Idoll yet this brother for whom Christ dyed thus weake thus beleeving and upon such a tentation if wee beleeve Saint Paul perisheth by this Idolatry There is yet a third dangerous yea deadly infection of Rome in the Idolatry of Merits of which soules should bee wary for generally those merits are by by them made Saviours while they think that they are able to justifie or stand in judgement before Gods Justice and that they deserve life eternall yet Christ Jesus who is God blessed for ever could onely performe such merits for mankinde As for us when wee speake most of our good works Let us say with that holy man Remember me O Lord concerning this and spare mee according to the multitude of thy mercy and then put this clause to it from our Saviour When wee have done all wee are unprofitable servants Let not this Idolatry seeme small to us which the chiefe of them dare not maintaine when they dye though the Papall profit makes it pleasant whilest they live But let it bee as one of the botches of Egypt which kill the soules of thousands with death eternall Thus have wee seene errors deadly and damnable to many that professed them in the Church of Rome and beleeved what they professed wherefore the safest way by which charity joyned to verity may more clearly save some in this Church is to finde some that are cleare from these errors And these being produced may serve for patternes to others to drive them from these errors And accordingly it is possible to find some within the Romish territories that have been cleer from these Idolatries yea some that have beene Teachers and Writers and no doubt they have begotten some Auditors and Readers like to themselves And first for the killing error of making the Pope or his Church the god and utmost foundation of faith there are not a few of the late Writers as Lorca tels us that wholly deny it The authority and testimony of the Church doth nothing pertain to the assent of faith neither as part of the object nor as a condition without which faith cannot bee which opinion of Canus not a few of the later men doe imbrace to this hee adds which was the opinion of Calvin And to make this yet more cleer that often objected place of S. Augustine I would not beleeve the Gospel except the authority of the Church did move mee Lorca saith Canus Calvin answer with the very same words That Augustine meant nothing in this sentence but that the Church is an apt beginning and as it were an introduction by which a man wholly ignorant of the faith is fitly led unto it but not that the Church should bee the reason of beleeving for that is Because God speaks in the Scripture and it is an infallible instrument of the divine Testimony And Lorca afterwards affirmes That the resolution of this question Why you beleeve is lastly and directly resolved into the testimony of God and this is the adaequate reason of beleeving Because God saith it Thus are there some and not a few of the Church of Rome as Lorca tels us that avoid the shipwrack of soules which is visually suffered by faith in the Pope or testimony of man even
first there hath beene shewed a sore called difference in points defined and points de fide And by the Authors rule they that hold any one point of faith contrary to Romish definition are not of Romish faith nor Church therefore if they bee of a divers faith or Church their Altar is against the Romish Altar Secondly for their peace notwithstanding these differences I dâ—sire to know whether that should be called peace when a Dominican is burned by Franciscans and a Canon in Sevill is condemned as an Heretick for a point either not defined or defined for him by the second Councell of Nice And againe what peace is that betweene the Priests and Jesuits when the Priests call them Hereticks Traytors c. Surely hereby it seemes the peace that is among such is but a warre under the name of peace and this name or title is forced by feare of the forged but fiery and burning head of unity for even the infernall kingdome it selfe hath some bond of unity though not of verity and charity And accordingly the Papacy agreeth under a head called Abaddon and Apollyon And indeede this Author himselfe hath shewed us that where there is a difference in any point of faith upon such a difference one should be to another as Cerinthus to Saint Iohn So that if they hold communion still it seemes by his rule it is not a spirituall but a carnall communion not a communion of Saints but a communion that is faulty and whose fault is this that it is a communion But I say againe to this Author that his owne Answer will be turned against him as an unanswerable objection For if Romists being at such differences in opinions can yet hold communion one with another why do they not hold the like communion with other Christians that maintaine the like differences But herein lies a mystery and it is the mysterie of iniquity And if the Reader know it not I will bring him one that shall teach him Lorca plainly tels him that he is no heretick that beleeves contrary to any Article of faith so he do not rebell against the Church So the Pope the Church vertuall is the whole matter of Popish religion and Popish unity Beleeve the Pope and obey him in what hee saith upon his word and though you beleeve not Christs word in any Article of faith you have both faith and unity Disobey Christs command of beleeving the very Article of Christs Incarnation if you beleeve the Pope and bee the Popes good subject you shall not be an heretick Accordingly it is said of the Divines of Coleine they held an hereticall opinion in that point which the Cavalier magnifies by calling it the Justification of souls yet they were not hereticks but godly Catholicks And of Catharinus he held contrary to the Councell in the point of assurance yet was a catholick Bishop And others before named by Bellarmine contrary to the Councell of Nice in the point of Image-worship yet in being good Papists they are good Catholicks So the Pope is the summe of Popish religion and unity And is it our unhappinesse that because we beleeve not in the Pope but beleeve in Christ our beliefe in Christ will not serve our turn for religion unity and salvation But now in his Answer to the second objection somewhat like a right Cavalier of Rome he runs at Tilt against Calvin and thus he breaks his Lance on him The next objection is yet more stupid then the former and I wonder how Calvins rage against the Church could put him so farre out of his wits as that hee would ever take it into his mouth For it is hee who being pricked with our noting their want of unity towards their fellow Brethren thinks to retort it back upon us by saying that wee are not in case to object any such thing against them for asmuch as that forsooth wee have as many Sects among us as we have severall Orders of religious men and then hee reckons up Benedictines Carmelites Dominicans Franciscans and whom he will Wicked man who well knew that none of these holy Orders doth differ in any point of doctrine from any of the rest and are so farre from breaking communion with them as that still they prevent one another in all honour and good respect All this wee must take upon his bare word and his title also which he giveth to Calvin wicked Calvin yet well fare the honest Belgicks purgers for when Calvin was named they in stead of Calvin did put in studiosus so upon the matter they called him not wicked but studious Calvin But why wicked Calvin because he knew that no one of those Orders doth differ in any point of doctrine Did Calvin know this or doth any man yea the Author himselfe yet know it We come but now from the differences of Jesuites and Priests Dominicans and Franciscans c. And this Authour himselfe confesseth there that each opposeth the contrary opinion by all arguments that occurre Besides it is no new nor strange objection that divers covents have their severall Masters whom they follow Againe look on the Jesuites doctrine of killing Kings doe all Friers agree in these doctrines upon which much more justly may be cryed out wicked Mariana wicked Friar Clement wicked Barradius wicked Garnet doctrines in my opinion plainly contrary to the faith since the faith is plainly taught by the Scripture in this point And I think more hereticall it is to deny and contradict such a point being thus plainely taught in the Scripture by David Solomon Peter and Paul then to deny what the Pope hath decided by letters sent from Rome unto Trent But will you see this Authors ingenuity hee accuseth Calvin but produceth not the place whence hee taketh his accusation the neerest place that I finde is not for the Authors purpose for there Calvin retorts not the want of unity of faith among the Friars by the diversity of Sects among them But Calvin shewes That the Friars by dividing themselves from others in the Sacraments and publick Assemblies did dissolve the Communion of the Church and depart from it and excommunicate themselves And he saies that so many Ministeries as there be of this kinde so many Assemblies of schismaticks he saies not hereticks as differing in faith which troubling the Order of the Church are cut off from the lawfull fellowship of the faithfull And that this departing should not bee secret they have given to themselves divers names of Sects Neither were they ashamed to boast of that which S. Paul doth so much detest In stead of Christians wee heare some called Benedictines some Franciscans some Dominicans So that here we find neither mention of Carmelites nor indeed of differing in points of faith but of a schismaticall separation from other Christians by different sects expressed by different names And to them hee might have added Jesuits who by a more neer separation have
of it yet I cannot deny that hee hath two Errands one to bring forth a jest upon our Fox and his followers under the names of Fox and Geese But if it had pleased this Author duly to follow this Fox in the reading of his Martyrologie he might have found out the true Fox that followes and teares and destroyes those whom our Author by a new Metamorphosis and Romish transubstantiation hath changed into Birds His second Errand he thus expresseth I finde when they are put to name their particular Professors of former ages they doe but muster up those severall single false doctrines which have bin held by other heretiks by Retaile during ten or twelve 〈◊〉 since Christ our Lord many of which doctrines togethâ—r themselves doe now professe in grosse for what other men of former times did they ever or can they ever name as men of their Religion but such as beleeved some one or two of those hereticall doctrines which now themselves embrace and wherein they are contrary to us But all this as it is not very pertinently brought in to excuse Romish uncharitablenesse so it is not very truly objected for wee can prove our doctrines which hee calls heresies by the Fathers and Scriptures and the Scriptures he cannot deny have beene beleeved above twelve ages Besides Popish Authors doe acknowledge that the Waldenses agree with Protestants in more then one or two doctrines for they are said to bee more then twenty wherein wee agree with them And though afterward this Cavalier affirmes it yet hee proves not that for other points these were expresse hereticks in the Protestants opinion neither doe we hide any fundamentall errours in them which we object against Romists But if these had not beene in the world it is most true that the maine point of Popery which is the Popes tyrannicall headship of the Catholick Church the very root of Idolatries errours and divisions hath in all ages been denyed since it was first broached But our Author is still much displeased with fundamentalls because by them wee have unity with those who have heretofore differed in some doctrines from their Papacy for saith he If it were not for this distinction no man could bee of the same Religion with any other that is not wholly of the same Religion so farre forth at the least as that he must not obstinately deny any one doctrine thereof whether it bee important more or lesse when once as hath beene said it is lawfully and sufficiently propounded and commanded to bee beleeved by the true Church as it is true and certaine when Luther rebelled from the Church of Christ our Lord nor in any age before his time there was in the whole world any one Kingdome or Countrey or City or Town or Family of men or Pastours or Flock yea or any one single person so much as of Luthers own much lesse of the now Protestant Religion which is now forsooth so farre refined beyond his Here the Cavaliers true Church being that confederacie whereof the Pope is the head hee would faine dissolve that solid unity which is made by fundamentals in Christ Jesus the true head to mak a fictitious unity in the Pope But if hee should cast off this onely true and substantiall ground of unity which knits together all the sound Churches that are at this day or ever have been through all Nations on the face of the earth since our Saviour to make an unity by agreeing under paine of damnation in all points propounded and commanded by the Pope and his Church of Rome whether important more or lesse hee shall not onely by this meanes breake the unitie of all the true Churches on earth into pieces but of Rome it selfe For to returne almost his owne words Since the Pope who hath rebelled against Christ and usurped the Headship of the Church first coined and established a Religion in Trent neither then nor in any time before there was in the whole world any one Kingdome or Country or City or Towne or Family of men or Pasture or Flocke yea or any one single person who by a supernaturall Faith which this Authour onely approves did imbrace the whole body and every Article of the Trent Religion Yea even at this day it is not received in divers parts that beare the name of the Church of Rome much lesse in Greece Armenia Syria Ethiopia most of which either know not or acknowledge not this Councell nor the Popes Supremacie All these therefore refusing any of these Articles must be torne in pieces from the body of Christ and cast into Hell fire Thus the Scarlet Whore drunke with the bloud of the Saints speaks in the right voice of the Harlot If she may not have the whole childe let it bee cut in pieces Let the Church be distracted and damned if the Pope may not be her Lord and her Tyrant And so whereas Christ was a head that gave himselfe to death to save his body from damnation is not hee an Antichrist that throwes the body of Christ into hell and damnation to make himselfe the head But in a third place hee objecteth not an use of ours but an abuse of his owne For hee abuseth his Reader in saying to him That the making of this distinction betweene Fundamentall and not Fundamentall points of Faith and the resolving not to declare which is which doth save them with a great part of the ignorant world from the imputation of rigour in their proceeding with us For how could they persecute as they doe without extreme note of cruelty But neither the making nor hiding of Fundamentalls is the cause of prosecuting Romists in this Kingdome but the cause of their punishment hath been their owne making of Treasons miraculously revealed by Gods goodnesse notwithstanding their hiding even in the vaults and depths of the earth And though there were no Fundamentalls of Religion but only Fundamentalls of State the Fundamentalls of State are very plain and cannot well be hidden which justifie the execution of Rebells and Traitours But of this some proofe hath been given in the beginning of this Booke and the Authour will call for more towards the end As for that which followes Yea or even how could they dissent without apparent impiety from our beliefe and practice of those Doctrines wherein wee have had and still have prescription of so many ages if the contrary thereof should be confessed by themselves not to be Fundamentall It is so weak that I wish that some childe and not the Cavalier had spoken it to save his reputation For will any man say that it is impiety to dissent from others in ancient errours though these errours be not Fundamentall Tertullian might have taught our Authour much more wisdome who upon the custome of an errour not very Fundamentall thus saith They that have received the holy Ghost preferre truth before custome SECT IIII. Sheweth the differences amongst Popish Divines about their
Explicites or Fundamentals with some reasons of those differences and directions for discerning fundamentall points from others THe Cavalier thus goes on It is more then probable that one reason why they are so unwilling to give in any Catalogue of the fundamentall points is Because they know so well how ridiculous they would make themselves by the infinite variety of their Catalogues For if it be so familiar with them to bee of different mindes concerning particular doctrines how much more would they bee so in this which is a roote of many branches or rather a monster of many heads and so there can bee no doubt but that some of them would not bee more resolute in restraining the fundamentall points into a narrow compasse then others would bee in enlarging them into a broader The Authour here goes about to make the Fathers yea himselfe and his owne partners ridiculous for if varietie in the Catalogues of Fundamentals or chiefe heads and grounds of Christianity bee ridiculous how shall the Fathers escape the merriments of this Authour Yea how shall himselfe and his owne partners not bee mocked by himselfe For it is plaine that neither Irenaeus nor Tertullian in sundry patternes of the rule of Faith doe enumerate Articles just of the same number and breadth Neither doe the three usuall Creeds hold equall measure by the Authours ell yea let the Authour himselfe who confesseth that there are such Heads and Grounds of Christianity more fundamentall make a Catalogue of these Heads and hee can never agree with all his fellowes who agree not among themselves And thus if hee will looke into this glasse hee may see himselfe laughing at himselfe And indeed if the Reader will peruse the Romists where they write of their Explicites they may see the same variety wherewith the Cavalier here makes himselfe merry some contracting them into a narrower some enlarging them into a broader compasse And to save labour to the Reader I will here give him a Modell of this variety Bellarmine saith That there are some things in Christian Doctrine as well of faith as of manners which are simply necessary to all unto salvation as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed tenne Commandements and some Sacraments other things not being so necessary that without their explicite knowledge and faith and profession a man may not bee saved But Vasques thus differs from Bellarmine in some Articles of the Creede There are saith hee some Articles in the Apostles Creed and the other of Nice which the ignorant are not commanded to know nor commonly the faithfull for all doe not know the Communion of Saints yea you shall finde not a few learned men that know not what the Communion of Saints is and the Article of the Church seemes hard to teach and learned men thinke that the ignorant doe commonly erre in it Yea hee comes at length to this short measure of faith I would not doubt to grant that there are not a few Countrey people that without fault are ignorant of some of those mysteries which are necessary Azorius the Jesuite speakes of other differences and varieties differing also himselfe from others First hee saith That every Beleever ought explicitely to beleeve all the Articles of faith either as according to the number of the Apostles they are accounted twelve or according to the sentence of Divines they are reckoned foureteene But then hee adds That some affirme the unlearned must beleeve more then these Articles because they must beleeve the immortality of the soule originall sinne c. Againe hee saith Some hold that both the twelve Articles and the fourteene must bee beleeved but himselfe thinks that it is sufficient to salvation if a man beleeve explicitely the one or the other Yea at length hee comes to shew That if a man bee so dull that hee cannot perceive the Article of the Trinity it will suffice if hee beleeve explicitely some other plainer Articles as that Christ the Sonne of God is borne of a Virgin that hee suffered was crucified dâ—ed and was buryed that hee rose againe from the dead and ascended into heaven Canisius as wee have seene before saith That the summe of faith or of all things to bee beleeved is the Apostles Creed And whereas Thomas Aquinas concludes that the Articles to bee beleeved of Christs Divinity and Humanity are fitly numbred either twelve or foureteene Lorca after this acknowledgement adds Perchance the Church did not intend in this summe to comprehend all these Articles which containe any speciall difficultie or ought explicitely to bee beleeved of all the faithfull And when hee comes to speake of those Explicites hee confesseth plainely That in assigning the Rule by which it may bee defined what the vulgar should beleeve Divines doe differ and doe put divers Rules the most common Rule is That they should beleeve those Articles which are by Solemnities celebrated in the Church and that it sufficeth if they beleeve these But this Rule seemes insufficient to others both in excesse and defect Scotus seemes to say That the common precept of faith doth onely binde to the beliefe of the easie which hee calleth grosse points Some of the later as Suarez It â—ufficeth the common people if they beleeve the Articles in the Creed But Lorca himselfe goes beyond all that hitherto have beene mentioned and saith These Rules being laid aside it is to bee affirmed That it is commanded to all the faithfull explicitely to beleeve first the Articles of faith both the foureteene and the twelve in the Creede They must also beleeve the Decalogue and the more common Precepts which are reduced to the Decalogue the doctrine of the seven Sacraments of Prayer of the Popes authoritie and the Prelates Behold a great variety in Romish Explicites Yet I confesse that I find not my selfe so merry hereat as the Cavalier at our supposed differences in Fundamentals but will rather strive to excuse them and to finde reasons for their varietie for the reasons seeme to bee serious as the matter which they goe about is weightie and profitable even the proposall of those grounds whose knowledge is necessary to salvation So farre is it from being a monster as this Authour termes it that his calling of it by this Title is so much the more monstrous as it is true that himselfe acknowledgeth that there are such Heads of Christianitie which himselfe thus calleth monstrous Behold a Truth of the Authours owne bringing forth and then mocked by him for a monster but I will goe on to speake for his Truth and against his Monster even against him to plead for him and his fellowes True it is that there may bee a different enumeration of the Articles in the Fathers Rules of faith in the Creeds and in the Explicites of later Writers as well as our Fundamentals and that for divers reasons One may bee this Because some Catalogues may put in more Articles for more full unfolding
the point then the Chapter hath been hitherto to the Title You say there are great differences between the Protestants and you about the understanding of the Article of the descent of Christ into Hell and the other of the holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints c. But what doe you here talk of differences in understanding fundamentals where the present question is Whether the Protestants doe acknowledge their fundamentalls to bee contained in the Creed For if Protestants declare that their fundamentals are contained in the Creed then your Title is gone which saith That they do not nor dare not declare them And surely it will aske a greater strength and a farre bigger volume then Charity mistaken to prove that Protestants doe not rightly understand the Articles of the Creed But secondly the Authours objection is grounded not onely upon a new but upon a false supposition if his fellow Romists may bee Judges For his supposed proposition is this That all the Articles in the Creed are Fundamentall Now this is different from the first proposall of our opinion That all fundamentall Articles are in the Creed It is also denied by his owne fellowes For though all fundamentall Articles be there yet they say that some Articles that are there may not bee fundamentall or explicitely to be known upon losse of salvation as before hath been shewed out of Vasquez and Azorius Therefore to stand upon a different understanding of those Articles which are denied by your owne men to bee Explicites or doubted is besides the matter But thirdly Do we differ from you in understanding those points What is that to the point undertaken in the end of the last Chapter and promised to be shewed in this That wee differ among our selves in the number of Fundamentalls You are now gone â—â—om our ridiculousnesse by differing in the number of fundamentalls and are come to a ridiculousnesse of your owne by your differing from us in the false understanding of some Articles of the Creed which all your owne Prophets doe not account Fundamentals But you add It is to little purpose to know or confesse that the Creede containes all Fundamentals unlesse there were some certaine way to understand them right This is againe a ranging from shewing our differences among our selves or that wee have not these Fundamentals Yet I answer Wee have a certaine and the best way of understanding them right wee have a learned Ministery endued with gifts from on high which teacheth and preacheth these Fundamentals and the right meaning of them And the right meaning thus taught the Spirit in the hearers doth so discover and certifie the truth of them that the hearers see the Articles to bee Gods truth and not mans And accordingly their faith thus beleeving them resteth on God as the sole Foundation of their faith and this teaching of the Catholick Church wee use commend and allow But that The single Article of the holy Catholick Church should containe the reason of all our faith fundamentally seemes to mee an high kinde of Blasphemie And this blasphemous doctrine as wee have before shewed is the very spirit of Popery or Antichrist which sets up the Pope in Gods place and makes his beleevers truely Papists or Antichristians And this great offence and mysterie of iniquitie carryeth Papists by throngs into the Land of darknesse and into this secret of theirs the soules of the saved may not enter True it is that God useth the service of the Ministers or if you will of the Church in publishing the Articles of faith but no other Foundation of supernaturall faith there is but God himselfe though speaking by man unto man the Fundamentality of our faith passeth through man that is the instrument and resteth wholly upon God But saith hee If wee understand it otherwise the Scripture it selfe speakes of particular errours which are damnable in them by whom they are imbraced and yet they are not at all against any expresse Doctrine of the Creed As namely where Saint Paul calls it a Doctrine of Divels to forbid marriage and meates c. I answer first That the Authour hereby proves that which wee deny not and disproves not that which hee saith wee affirme For the point is not Whether there bee any damnable errours besides those that are against some expresse doctrine of the Creede But Whether there bee in the Creede those fundamentall points which being truely beleeved will cause unity with Christ the Head and unity with his Body the Church Other errours against other Truths in Scripture not fundamentall wee acknowledge there are many and proceeding from the Divell the Father of Lyes and in themselves damnable to such as hold not the true Foundation Christ Jesus by beleeving Fundamentals And it is to bee feared that such are many of those true Papists whose foundation is the Pope But otherwise they may bee rather damnable in themselves then actually damning to those who by infirmities hold them and by beleeving fundamentals are in Christ Jesus to whom there is no condemnation Secondly not onely Fathers in their Rules of faith but the Romists themselves doe not place the lawfulnesse of meates and marriage among their chiefe Heads of Christianitie or Explicites and Fundamentals and therefore this Authour doth ill require of us that which hee cannot obtaine of his fellowes Wherefore let him first make this objection against them and when hee hath their Answer then let him take it for us But being unhappily as well as impertinently fallen into the mention of these damnable errours hee saw that as soone as they were brought in they looked at least asquint on the Church of Rome and claymed kindred of her And therefore hee thought that there was need of an Apologie to put off this kindred and acquaintance Which by the way is not to bee understood of the chastity and fasts of the Catholick Church as Protestants doe most perversely affirme which knowes that those things are lawfull but that yet it is most gratefull to God when his servants for his love deprive themselves of those delâ—ghts But of the Heresies of the Manichâ—es as Saint Augustine doth expressely declare who forbad both marriage and meates as being abominable and impure through the institution thereof which they said was derived from a certaine second ill conditioned god of their owne making But this nor all the water in the Sea will wash away all the kindred betweene Romists and these errours For though Saint Augustine may apply this Prophecie to the Manichees yet may hee not also apply them to the Montanists Tertullian himselfe acknowledging that they have beene taxed out of this very place And if to the Montanists why not to those Romists who with Durandus maintaine a curse and so an impurity of flesh and cleannesse of fish who also forbid marriage to Priests which this place plainly condemneth And whereas this Authour talkes of voluntary deprivation it is certaine that
best is hee who by a fundamentall faith is built upon Christ the true foundation can never be damned by unbeleeving any Article of faith created and coined by the Pope a counterfeit foundation And here while the Authour doth quarrell with the poornesses of the Doctour not being able to maintaine a combate with his richâ—s it seemes hee doth it with a greater poornesse For what a poore quarrelling is it with the Doctour for saying That Papists will not let Protestants to bee saved though they beleeve the same Creed except they will beleeve the same Mathematicks and govern themselves by the same Kalendar when thiâ— Authour knowes his meaning and expressed it himselfe in the words nearly preceding That the Romane Church makes â—oyes fundamentalls And might not the Pharisees thus have taken a poore exception at our Saviour for saying that they strained Gnats whereas they strained not Gnats but payed the tythe of Mint and Cummin Besides he doth not say that it is really so done but premising this When every thing must be called Foundation wee shall never know where to stop where to consist If we should beleeve their Sacrificium incruentum their unbloudy sacrifice in the Masse if we did not beleeve their Sacrificium cruentum too that there was a power in that Church to sacrifice the bloud of Kings wee should be said to be defective in a fundamentall Article If we should admit their Metaphysickes their transcendent Transubstantiation and admit their Chimiques their Purgatory fires and their Mythologie and Poetry their apparitions of soules and spirits they would bind us to their Mathematicks too and they would not let us be saved except we would reforme our Almanackes to their ten daies and reforme our clockes to their foure and twenty houres for who can tell when there is an end of Articles of faith in an arbitrary and occasionall Religion So the Doctour only shewes how such an unlimited making of fundamentalls may goe on in a perpetuall procession it having already made things not so profitable as Clocks and Kalendars Articles of faith and points fundamentall Witnesse the Service in an unknowne tongue the Lords Supper without wine c. But the Cavalier fights in earnest with this supposition and tells us that Romists doe rather governe themselves with the lesse perfect Kalendar which now is used in this place Yea hee gives a morall of this their deed letting the world see thereby how willingly we can accommodate to them in all things which belong not meerly to Religion The controversie of Kalendars I leave to the Critickes of time to bee decided and rectified in their emendatione Temporum But the argument of accommodation taken from our Almanackes is retorted by a greater argument remembred in our Almanackes For when in them wee see the Papists Treason on the fifth of November wee are thereby put in mind that Papists doe not accommodate to Protestants in all things that belong not meerly to Religion For it is not meerly a matter of Religion for a King to sit in Parliament and yet the Papists would have accommodated him by blowing him up with powder thus sitting in Parliament But the Cavalier having thus spoken to ill effect to amend the matter brings not forth the Doctours words but his saying to this effect But that the Reader may be his owne guide and the Doctour the speaker of his owne effect and the Cavaliers faire carriage may more plainly appeare I will here confront the Doctours words with the Cavaliers The Doctours words are these Call not superedifications foundations nor call not the furniture of the house foundations call not ceremoniall and rituall things essentiall parts of Religion and of the worship of God otherwise then as they imply disobedience for obedience to lawfull authority is alwaies an essentiall part of Religion The Cavalier thus repeats him That difference in beliefe in points which are not very important is not to prejudice a mans salvation unlesse by not beleeving them hee commit a disobedience withall For saith he obedience indeed is of the essence of Religion I thinke that the Cavalier seeing his face in this glasse finds that it lookes red with blushing at the mis-reporting of the Doctour The Doctour speakes of ceremonies the Cavalier reports him speaking of differences in beliefe The Doctour speakes of ceremonies commanded by lawfull authority the Cavalier of points of faith commanded by the unlawfull authority of the Pope But if it please him to remember what hath been already told him That the Church much lesse the Pope hath an Inerrability in points of small importance and where she hath no Inerrability she hath no authority Again in respect of the different capacities of the hearers all are not capable of every little point and subtlety of faith and I thinke no Pope hath power to command his disciples to beleeve that which their capacity is not able to understand But lawfull Rites or Ceremonies not being points of faith but of action and being easie to bee understood the obedience to lawfull authority in them may more concerne the essence of Religion then obedience to the Pope in those small points of faith wherein the Pope hath no unerring power and no authority to make a lawfull command for the people doe not sinfully disobey where the Pope hath no lawfull authority to command The Author having thus lost his premisses and proofes yet goes on to a conclusion which cannot but be lost in the losse of his premisses so that his concluding inferences This shall serve for discharge both of what they object against our unity in faith and of what they alledge in the behalfe of theirs And I conceive that I have sufficiently secured these two maine grounds upon which this whole discourse is turned are but commendations of a false conception and of a discourse which is turned upon grounds over-turned For neither is his first ground sufficiently secured That there is but one true Faith and one true Religion and Church out of which there is no salvation the word Out being understood in the sense of the Authour that is That if a man be out of the faith professed in the Church in the least haire part or degree that there can bee to him no salvation Nor more secured is his second ground That Catholicks and Protestants cannot possibly be accounted of that one Religion Church and Faith For as it may be true that Protestants and all Catholickes doe not agree in every small title and mite of faith yet it is most true that true Catholickes and Protestants are so entirely of one saving Faith and Religion that they are also of one Church And from these Catholickes I desire not to exclude all of the Romane Diocesse But indeed Papists whose humane faith is grounded on the Pope as their foundation being ready to beleeve Idolatry Treason or whatsoever the Pope shall decree for a matter of faith these I know not how to account members with us
of that true Church whereof Christ is the Head They are not so truly Christians of Christ as Papists of the Pope But still I inferre that when the Authour hath his two grounds granted That if Protestants and Papists bee not of that one Church wherein is salvation yet Papists are uncharitable for damning Protestants who are of that Church wherein is salvation so that neither are his grounds sufficiently secured neither if they were are Papists secured sufficiently from uncharitablenesse But after his pretended sufficient securing of his grounds either by way of supererogation or because hee was not secure of his securing hee yet brings in more proofe that we are of two Religions And now for the finall proofe of this last point according even to their practice as well as ours Let my Reader but look upon the body of their Lawes made against us and especially upon the Preambles thereof wherein they plentifully shew how hatefull an opinion they have of our Church Let him looke upon the severall Acts of State which have issued from my Lords of the Councell Let him look upon the Proclamations which have beene made and published from time to time Let him looke upon the large Commissions which have beene granted to Pursuivants whereby that scumme of the world hath beene and is enabled both to ransome and ransack us at their pleasure Surely thus farre there is little said but that many of the late Traytours against the French King may take up for a proofe that they were not of one Religion with that King because against them there issued Acts of State Proclamations Messengers or Pursuivants though all of them perchance were not the scumme of the Countrey to apprehend and ransack them But hee goes farther Let him looke upon those speeches which have beene uttered in both Houses of Parliament not onely against Professours but even the Profession it selfe of our Religion and how his most excellent Majestie hath beene importuned by their petitions to add more weight to our miseries for thus it will easily bee scene how false how rotten how superstitious how idolatrous how detestable how damnable and even destructive of all truth and goodnesse they professe themselves to esteeme our Religion And in fine that wee carry such a marke of the Beast in our foreheads as must needs in their opinion shut up the gates of heaven against us and set open the gates of hell to devoure and swallow us up So that certainly wee are no more of one Church with them in their opinion then they are of one with us in ours Here indeed hee hath many good Epithites of Popery rotten superstitious idolatrous c. but I finde one great one wanting and that is trayterous for this Epithite had a great share in the Parliamentary Complaints and Accusations of Popery But to answer his many words in few because they were answered in that which last preceded wee deny not but that which wee call Popery and Papists call their Religion that is a beleeeving in the Pope and obeying of him commanding Idolatry Treason Rebellion and whatsoever else hee shall please to decree for a point of faith is a rotten superstitious idolatrous and traiterous Religion And of this it is truely said in the prayers of the fifth of November This their Religion is Rebellion their faith is faction their practice murdering of soules and bodies But yet wee charitably hope that there are some though two few who have not so bowed the knees of their soules to this Baal of Rome that they submit their soules and faiths to him in all his idolatrous and trayterous Doctrines Decrees and Commands but being rather in Rome then of Rome are Christs and not the Popes and therefore will heare Christs voice and not the Popes when the Popes voice is the voice of a stranger and an enemy to Christ. CHAP. XII Wherein the Cavaliers tenth and last Chapter is annihilated which hee calleth a Recapitulation SECT I. The totall of the Cavaliers many nothings is cast up in two short Conclusions contrary to all that which hee hath indeavoured to prove And some additionals to that totall examined viz. The false remedies of his impertinent feare lest Papists should grow in love with the civility of Protestants THe Cavalier having said many nothings in his former discourse hee now summes up these nothings which being never so many yet it is well knowne they can amount but to nothing Wherefore not to make this work tedious by unnecessary repetitions I referre the Reader to the former severall confutations and annihilations of the particulars out of which he would here frame this Recapitulation and insteed of the Authour 's not inferred but intruded Conclusion upon forlorne and vanishing premisses this Conclusion still stands right and strong for us that since there is but one true Church and one saving faith and the Protestants notwithstanding any of this Authours hollow answerable and answered objections from difference in Sacraments Traditions c. doe hold and beleeve this saving faith and so are the true Church the Papacie and adherents thereof professing a difference and division from them so farre as to bee of another Church and faith doe excommunicate themselves most heavily even to damnation And secondly The Protestants being the true Church the Romists separating themselves from us persecuting us and pronouncing damnation against us doe herein exceeding uncharitably while they cut off hate persecute and sentence unto hell and damnation the true Church even the living members of Christ Jesus For indeed Papists can never prove against us any change of the Foundation and therefore are uncharitable in damning those who are lively stones built on that onely Foundation and corner stone Christ Jesus But as if Rome were not enough uncharitable and though the Title seemed to tell us that the Cavalier would but have recapitulated his former uncharitable speeches yet hee breakes forth into new Capitulations and Incentives of uncharitablenesse He doubts yea seemes to bee grieved that some of the Romish Communion seeing the faire and just conversation of Protestants may grow into love with them and their Religion But let the Cavalier upon better consideration remember that this is not the great and most dangerous and suspicable fault of Popery that it is so in love with Civility that for it it neglects Religion but that Popery hath so mightily depraved and corrupted Religion that Popish Religion hath destroyed Civility and fairenesse of Nature So that whereas Religion should have advanced men beyond naturall candour and fairenesse Popish Religion hath destroyed this naturall fairenesse and made them worse then men whom true Religion would have lifted up above men unto Saints an evident mark that it is not a true but a false and foule Religion This appeareth plainely in those of the powder Treason divers of which were men of candid natures and ingenuous dispositions yet by Popish Religion turned out of nature made worse then themselves and brought
Wherein a vaine boast of the Romists confidence in maintaining their Religion by Excommunications is confuted And an inconsiderate charge That treason is pretended against Papists Priests in this Realme because wee dare not avow the punishing them for heresie is retorted BUt I wonder no lesse that this Cavalier should withall boast of his Catholicke Church That shee is so farre from obliging a man that beleeves not in his heart as shee teacheth under pecuniary mulcts to repaire to her Service and Sacraments that she will by no meanes admit him thereunto till hee have first cleared himselfe of that suspicion and sufficiently shewed himselfe free from any such want of beliefe For first what kind of converts are those whom Rome from whatsoever heresie converteth by the Faggot and admits to her Sacraments And is there not very just cause to suspect that they beleeve not from the heart all that she teacheth or at least doe not sufficiently shew themselves free from any such want of beliefe when they are turned to their new faith onely by such woodden arguments Secondly it seemes this Authours Catholicke Church is not the same Catholicke Church whereof Optatus and Saint Austin were members For Catholickes of that Church did compell men to Church by penalties that did not altogether beleeve in their heart as the Church taught And wee know the Churches intent is to bring them to heare and by hearing to beleeve what shee teacheth and so to fit them for the Sacraments Thirdly Bellarmine himselfe confesseth that the Church hath used such meanes for the reducing of Heretickes and in the very terms which the Authour denieth Pecuniary mulâ—ts And whereas our Authour eftsoones speakes of Ostiarii set to keep out men of contrary beliefe what knowne Protestant in France is hindered or at least how commonly are they admitted by the imaginary Ostiarii to bee present at the Masse And in the Archdukes Court Protestants have come to the Masse and known to bee such by most notorious Papists though they came in only to see the acting of it Secondly what Ostiarii did put off Catharinus for holding contrary to Trent That a man by faith may bee sure of his salvation Or Cajetan for holding That infants dying without Baptisme might be saved Who puts off the French that hold the Councell to be above the Pope a point of faith much differing from the present faith of Rome That which followeth I thinke at the first reading may appeare to bee the meere swelling of one that hath drunke the poysoned cup in the hand of the Scarlet Lady This Church enriched and endowed with the holy Ghost proceeds like a body which knowes it selfe to belong to an omnipotent head and feares not to avow both what it saith and what it doth And as on the one side shee expresses all the suavity which can bee conceived and is most ready to wrap up the most enormious sinners of the world and the most mortall enemies which shee hath in the very bowels of her compassion if they will come to God in the way of Penance For can the Reader keep himselfe from laughter when he seeth the lofty description of this Romish fortitude and withall seeth the low pusillanimity and meannesse of the Pope taking in an Excommunication denounced against the State of Venice without penance and satisfaction and so neither avowing what it saith nor what it doth to the plain disavowing of that which this Cavalier saith Againe doth not this Church proceed much rather like a body ruled with a head possest not with a seventh vertue but with many of the seven deadly sinnes whereof a great one is Covetousnesse For doe wee not reade that which may make a modest Romist to blush when hee reades it when the Popes owne souldiers and servants fight for his supremacy a principall point of their forged and fictitious faith he by mony hath been brought from avowing what hee said for those servants and their services It followes Shee goes on so farre if shee see cause to separate them in the quality of Heretickes from her communion and proceeds not against them as against Traytors to Princes or States according to that poore shift of Protestants whose guilty consciences make them not dare though their hearts bee well bent that way to punish our Priests capitally as for a corrupt Religion but they set upon them false and impudent pretexts of Treason First We acknowledge that the Pope doth outgoe this Authour with his Excommunication for hee goes on so farre not onely when hee sees cause but when hee sees no cause to separate from his Communion even without any proofe of heresie for what cause was there seene of excommunicating the King of Navarre out of his Kingdome in the quality of an heretick who was taken for a Romist especially since it is recorded that the King of Spaine's conscience in his death-bed was not satisfied with the Pope's eye-sight of the cause but spake as seeing cause of Restitution where the Pope pretended cause of Excommunication And what cause had the Venetians given of Excommunication when their Restitution without penance shewes plainely that they were without cause excommunicated And what cause had the Pope for excommunicating Queene Elisabeth and giving away her Kingdome And whereas you say Shee proceeds not against them as against Traytors to Princes or States This is so true that I cannot confute it But to make your truth yet more true I must also add this That your Papacy proceeds against Protestants because they will not bee Traytors to Princes or States as appeares by the penance of the Irish Pilgrime formerly mentioned and by the Bull of Pius quintus where hee curseth and excommunicateth those subjects that will not bee Traytors to their Soveraigne And indeed by that Bull the Papists themselves were exceedingly troubled betweene two feares one of being tyed with the cords of this excommunication for want of Treason and another of being tyed up for Treason in obeying this Excommunication Which griefe with the remedy thereof I finde thus described by Master Hart a not unlearned Romist The Bull of Pius quintus for so much of it as is against the Queene is holden among the English Catholicks for a lawfull sentence and a sufficient discharge of her subjects fidelity and so remaines in force but in some points touching the Subjects it is altered by the present Pope For where in that Bull all her subjects are commanded not to obey her and shee being excommunicated and deposed all that doe obey her are likewise innodate and accursed which point is perillous to the Catholicks for if they obey her they bee in the Popes curse and if they disobey her they are in the Queenes danger therefore the present Pope to releeve them hath altered that part of the Bull and dispensed with them to obey and serve her without perill of Excommunication which Dispensation is to endure but till it please
of the dead bee rich there is a shorter way to free them out of Purgatory then to pray to the worlds end Besides the Treasure of the Church growing by the growth of Papall charity which delivers soules out of Purgatory it is a wonder how that Papall charity doth not inlarge it selfe and the Churches Treasure to the utmost in a whole deliverance of Soules out of Purgatory and so leave no worke for the tedious charity of praying for them to the worlds end But it seems that either there is a want of charitie in the Pope who may deliver soules and will not especially seeing for money they may bee delivered or if hee doe deliver them it is rather vanity then charity that prayeth for soules to the worlds end which before the worlds end are delivered Our Author comes next to Monasteries and religious Houses as proofes of Romish charity where hee tels us That being consecrated by the vows of Poverty Chastity and Obedience their Church with excessive charitie provides means for them that they may bee enabled to live and wholly to attend that sacred function for the assistance of mankind in the way of Spirit without scattering and dispersing their thoughts and cares upon providing for the necessaries of this life Surely if the Author can prove it to be charity which hath made this provision all the world without more proof may beleeve it to bee excessive For so excessive hath it beene in provision that it hath fret deeply into Church and Common-wealth having eaten up a great part of the maintenance of the Clergie in Appropriations and a great part of Lay possessions in Bequeathes and Donations yea this excessive charity hath provided such meanes for these thus consecrated by the vowes of poverty obedience and chastitie that the excessive provision hath exceedingly devoured the consecrating poverty obedience and chastity for the spirit of error works in these members of the Papacy as it doth in the Head bringing contraries out of contraries from the prosession of poverty infinite riches of chastity most foul uncleannes and of obedience high disobedience to the Lord of the Universe yea rebellion against his Deputies and annointed Ones the Kings of the earth And whereas the Champion thinks that this provision of excesse should look like the fruit of charity because it enableth Monks to live without distraction if he meane labour by distraction let him know that herein his wisdome differs much from the wisdome of the ancient Fathers S. Basil both urgeth the labour of Monkes by the example of Christ and his Apostles yea hee particularly names the Trades and Professions which hee would have them to use And Saint Hierome is very earnest in it and saith that the Egyptian Monasteries admit none without labour St. Augustine he hath a Worke of the worke of Monks and tels the meaner sort of them That by no meanes it is comely that in that course of life wherein Senators are laborious labourers should bee idle And hee confutes this idle conceit which then was on foote That Monks must bee idle because they must live like the Lillies and neither work nor spin And in poorer Houses the works of the Monks was taught and required untill late times even so late as the Abbot Tritheimius who lived about an hundred and fifty yeers past This Abbot in an Homily of the handy-labour of Monks presseth it earnestly by the blessednesse in the Psalme pronounced on them that eat the labours of their hands by the first penalty of labour laid on Adam by Saint Paul's rule That hee who would not labour should not eat yea hee cites their own Father Benedict who saith in his Rule Idlenesse is an enemy to the soule and therefore at certaine times the Monks must bee busied in the labours of their hands Hee acknowledgeth honestly that which was formerly spoken out of Saint Hierome That in the first setting up of the Monasticall estate it was a custome not to admit any Monks into that fellowship without labour And he confesseth as plainely how idlenesse came in After that the Monks began to have riches and rents the ancient simplicity decayed and pride grew so upon the growth of riches that at last Monks generally refused to labour with their hands Yet hee ceaseth not to exhort his owne Monks to that labour which was now growne so much out of use and from which as this Abbot tels us excessive provision had distracted other Monks though it be here by the Cavalier mistaken for a proofe of charity And whereas he calls it a sacred function surely idlenesse is no function yea I doubt not but I might truly say that it was never any function even when it was at best But men of divers functions met together to live as they thought so neer as they might according to the patterne of the primitive Christians And as a Citizen that lives under the rules and government of a City cannot call his citizen-ship a function no more may the Monk call his Monkery a function for living under the rules of a Monastery But as it stands at this day we have too many proofes that if it were a sacred function at the first it is generally now neither function nor sacred Erasmus in his Antidote upon that Epistle of Hierome to Rusticus formerly alledged saith Let it offend no man that in this Epistle nor in any of the former Saint Hierome commandeth none of those things which in these dayes are required of Monks Of those three vowes which they call solemne there is not one word But wee must remember that which is cleerly manifest by this mans Writings that in Hieromes time there was not that kind of Monks which we see in our age And Cassander thus agreeth with him It is manifest enough how much Monkery is now degenerated from the first originall how defiled and deformed with abuses true and solid religion being changed into an empty shew of religion and riches increasing piety hath decreased Thus wee see what is become of the sacred function and what a work of charitie it hath beene to give those riches to it which have been the means to diminish the piety of it And indeed such fearfull abominations have beene discovered in monasteries since idlenesse met in them with excessive provision that scarce any roaring Society can match this sacred function So farre is it from assisting mankinde in the way of Spirit that it hath given to mankind most loathsome and scandalous examples in the way of the flesh For how many Stories are stuffed with their adulteries murders of children unnaturall pollutions yea in our owne Chronicle the eyes of the Reader are almost defiled with the names of Monks found guilty of that sinne of fire and brimstone And indeed take a man with strength of body and by the provision of excessive charity joyned with idlenesse and fulnesse you make
being his owne and not the Texts onely wee may upon request allow this place and the next of Christs prayer for unity Iohn 17 to intend unity of affections and yet hee will bee short of his unity in all points of Doctrine And it is wel known that if this were meant the present Romists themselves have not that unity neither those who farre excelled them the ancient Martyrs and Fathers And farre more guilty are they against the prayer of Christ in maintaining division of affections towards Patriarchall Sees and many eminent parts of the catholick Church for the Pope is like Ismael his sword against every man that will not submit to his universall Supremacy And according to this dividing Spirit of the Papacie is it this Authors businesse in this worke to make a division in the Church for false proving is making even where there is an unity for is not this his employment in this Chapter and more hereafter in taking away the distinction of points fundamentall to set Christians by the eares and one to damne another for differing in every little point of doctrine For thus hee saith even soone after his former places of unity and hee would faine have Saint Matthew and Saint Mark to say so with him Whosoever should faile of beleeving any one point of Christian doctrine should be as sure of condemnation as if he had beleeved but any one or none A Foundation laid of Babel it selfe even of division and hatred in the Church of God A Position to which I cannot bee silent for Sions sake nor for my brethren and companions sake whom this Position hath often slaine with death temporall and adjudged to death eternall For let it look as smooth as it will doe you breake up the bowels of it and you shall finde it full of bloud division and damnation This even this is it which hath wrought those fearefull Massacres Treasons Excommunications Fires whereof many horrid spectacles in the second Chapter have been presented And how should it bee otherwise but that it should produce such hellish effects when it teacheth Christians for every failing in the beleefe of any one point of Christian that is in their language Romish or Popish doctrine to accompt other Christians in the state of damnation and to hate them more then heathens So that if the Pope say that the Worship of Images Prayer in an unknown tongue without understanding Rats eating the body of Christ and such other errors bee points of Christian doctrine the man that beleeves them not though hee beleeve in Christ yea all other points but one of these hath forfeited his salvation and is fallen into the odious state of a combustible heretick and of a damnable person But this Author might have beene put in minde of more mercy by one of his allegations for though Christ in the place of Matthew by him alledged willeth that all Nations bee taught to observe whatsoever hee hath commanded yet his owne fellow Romists allow that the breach of some of Christs Commands are not damnable I might alledge a Command of Christ in the Lords Supper Drinke yee all of this which as concerning the lay people they have turned into Drinke yee none of this But I will passe to other Commands such as those are which command the keeping of the morall Law Matth. 5.17.28.48 and forbid every idle thought but the breach of these Commands by inordinate thoughts or small deviations the Romists can make not mortall and damnable but veniall How comes it then that they will allow us no veniall errors and failings in small points of doctrine but any one point of Christian that is in his sense Popish doctrine not beleeved is damnably mortall Is there not in this a great piece of Popish leaven even of the wicked mystery that sinnes against Gods Commands of morall obedience may bee veniall but against the Popes Commands in the least point of doctrine are altogether mortall And doth not the reason appeare to bee this That in the breach of a morall Law as that of coveting our neighbours goods God is offended but the Pope is not hurt but by not beleeving any one point which the Pope delivers for Christian doctrine his Inâ—rrability fals to the ground and so his Supremacy And it were better according to the policie of this wicked Mystery that all the world were burned or damned or set at division then that the Papacie should fall But thus doth the Pope set himselfe above God by valuing offences against himselfe of a more damnable nature then sinnes against God But well it is withall that they shew hereby that God is yet farre more mercifull then the Pope for God they say makes little sins veniall whereas the Pope makes little errors against Popish doctrine deadly and damnable But the truth is to those that are in Christ Jesus God doth make veniall both errors in lesser points of faith which grow by ignorance blindenesse or weaknesse of faith aswell as lesser errors in life by infirmity and weaknesse Christs bloud is a propitiation for all our sinnes aswell sins in the understanding as in the will And to those who attaine to that measure of faith which knits them to Christ Jesus Christ Jesus by his bloud will make other ignorances and unbeliefes in those points of doctrine to which they cannot attain veniall and pardonable and surely our Author is hardly driven to get a shew of proof from Scripture of this doctrine of division and damnation The place of Matthew could not serve for there was only a command to the Apostles to teach all Nations to observe all Christs Commands But we have seene above out of Romists that the breach of some of Christs Commands is not damnable but veniall wherefore another place must be forced to confesse it Accordingly that of Saint Marke is set on the rack but this place speakes not of not beleeving all and every point of doctrine delivered and decreed by the Pope and his adherents but the maine scope of the place is a casting of damnation upon men for the great point of not beleeving in Christ for in the Gospel this is an usuall sense of the word beleeving especially when it stands upon life and death And it seemes this Author can bring no plain place of Scripture to prove that he who beleeves not every small point of doctrine decided by the Pope shall bee damned for if he could these places had not been so unmercifully racked toward it But thus still behold a going on of the Mystery of iniquity Unity unto salvation is urged thereby to make division unto damnation Words are taken from Christ the Head therewith to tear his body into pieces But hereof wee may make this use That when a Papist preacheth to Protestants of unity then let them expect beware of division SECT IIII. The place taken out of the 18. of Matth. is cleared which the Cavalier had perverted to the
this same opinion of inerrability was the cause of their Error as it is even now in the Romish Papacy Their presumption of not erring was so far from being an Argument of inerrability that it made them to runne into error and to lead the people after them blinde after blinde into the ditch of error This wee see in their owne words for thus they say Come let us devise devices against Ieremiah for the law shall not perish from the Priest yea this presumption of not erring was thought a very sure ground of erroneous judgement in this strange controversie whether Christ be Christ Do any of the Rulers or of the Pharises beleeve on him as if they should say The Rulers and the Pharises the Priests and the Doctors cannot erre and they have judged this controversie that Christ is not Christ And therefore without controversie men ought not to beleeve in Christ. But is there then no use of judgement of the Church yes surely very great The Church yea the Priests or Ministers of the Church according to the covenant of Levi ought to speake the Law of God to the people and judge controversies thereby And then as the Thessalonians hearing Saint Paul wee must not thinke that wee doe so much heare their word as the very word of God And this word being followed will make a true and inerrable judgement and truth ever being one it will ever cause unity And so are we come to the fourth point and indeede the point most proper to the present question though the place bee not proper to prove the Popish unity which this Author would picke out of it For whereas to raise this unity out of this text he would thereby enforce an absolute yeelding to the judgement of the Church without appealing to Scripture hee must remember that in this judgement of the Church the Scripture is implyed and included And the including of it is the onely right meanes of causing true christian unity For the case wherein a man not hearing the Church is to be accounted an Heathen is sinning against a brother Now sinning against a brother is plainly forbidden by Scripture being contrary to that Royall law of love which commands a man to love his Neighbour as himselfe So that not to heare the Church in a case of sinning against a brother is not to heare the Church advising or judging according to Scripture And so upon the matter it is a not hearing of the Scripture speaking by the mouth of the Church and then see how unhandsomely ariseth the Inference of this Author That he that will not hear the Church judging according to Scripture may not appeale to the Scripture that is he may not appeal from Scripture to Scripture But much more right and reasonable is this consequence That if a man shall wilfully not hearken to the Church in a case thus evidently judged by Scripture let such an one bee accounted as an heathen And indeed I can scarce thinke that if this man who is questioned and accused by his brother were guiltlesse and so by the Word of God should bee acquitted that this Author himselfe would have him taken for a heathen being judged by the Church against Gods Law and Scripture to bee an offender But in this case the curse lights on the false Judges that call good evill as it doth on those that falsely damne Protestants And thus also the Cavaliers imaginary contrariety of two Churches judging one against another is prevented and removed through this stedfast rule of unity for two Churches judging one case according to one right rule and such is the Scripture cannot pronounce of one case more then one judgement And so the man whom hee would affright is put out of feare for being tossed betweene two damnations by two contrary judgements for there is but one right judgement according to the Scripture and so but one damnation to bee feared which any man may avoyd by hearing the Church judging uniformely according to the Scripture for if the Church make a man a heathen against the Word of God we have seen that Christ did not take such a one for an heathen for Christ tooke the blinde man into his company whom the Jewish Prelates had unjustly excommunicated and made like an heathen And no wonder for Nicodemus Christs Disciple takes it for a confessed ground neither is it denyed by the Pharisees That the Law is Judge and from the Law all Judgement should proceed Doth our Law saith hee judge any man Accordingly S. Paul tels the High Priest That hee sits to judge after the Law Therefore when the Judgement is contrary to the Law it hath in it a nullity Now in all Judgements according to the Law as there is a power and efficacie so there is an harmonious unity But when there are two Popes a Pope and an Antipope or two successively that Judge one against the other how are the poore Popish souls that depend on a Popes word as a divine Law tossed miserably between two damnations But this while the children of the Church are safe from this distraction by the unity of that judgement which proceedeth from the constant unity of verity in the Scriptures CHAP. VI. The Testimonies of the Fathers which the Cavalier in his fourth Chapter alledgeth for the necessity of his conceited unity are turned upon himselfe and the Papists THis Champion of Rome goes from Scriptures which indeed went from him runs after Fathers which also run from him And although he please himself much when he findes the word Unity especially Books written for Unity yet hee must still bee put in minde that all mention of unity in the Fathers doth not prove this unity which hee undertakes They write of unity in love and unity under lawfull Pastors that flocks bee not divided by partiall and schismaticall setting up Pastors against Pastors in one and the same Flock But our Authors businesse is as I said before and himselfe now and then remembers that there must bee an universall unity in all points of doctrine decreed by the Pope bee they great or small which hee will never prove by any Fathers to bee absolutely necessary to salvation or to a reall unity in the Church Yet thus hee strives to wrest out this unity Others have written and framed expresse Catalogues of all the heresies which had risen in the Church of Christ our Lord from his ascension to heaven till their owne time expressely shewing hereby that both the unity of the Church was directly broken by the obstinate beliefe of any one doctrine which was held in disobedience to the same Church and withall that whosoever did so breake it must forfeit the salvation of his soule thereby And this was done by Saint Epiphanius Bishop of Cyprus by Phylastriâ—s Bâ—shop of Brescia who are both cited to this purpose by the incomparable Saint Augustine in his Treatise de haeresibus ad quod vult
that abides not in Christs doctrine and faith But in all this hee doth not say that the Protestants are not in the Church neither that they remaine not in Christs Doctrine and Faith but it may rather concerne the Papacie which hath made a new Church against the Church of Christ and a new Faith by adding twelve Articles more to the former It doth also plainely shew them that they suffering for Treasons of Powder Rebellion c. cannot expect thereby a Crown of faith but a punishment of perfidiousnesse Saint Augustine is next alledged and hee useth the like or very same words and so the like or the same answer might serve But indeed Augustine so punctually speaketh against the Papacie and pierceth it through that no one place can well bee lost because every one is serviceable against the Papacy for which it is produced These are the words first alledged out of Saint Augustine Would you have men so blinde and deafe as not to heare or reade the Gospel where they may know that faith our Lord left to his Apostles concerning his Church Now what the Papists will answer to this I know not who make many men so blinde as not to reade at all and so deafe as not to heare the Gospel but in Latin And secondly hee sayes that Saint Augustine puts himselfe to shew That this is that Church of Christ which is spread over the whole world Who can more plainly say that the Roman Papacie is not this Church whose universall power and extent is denyed by other Patriarchs and is unbeleeved yea and unknowne in a great part of the Christian world The last place out of Augustine seconded with the consent of Cardinall Perron hee turnes to this use That Catholick is not onely a name of beleefe and faith but of charitie and communion which whosoever should want should also want salvation But withall I must say that long before I knew this opinion of Perron I beleeved this truth and I also beleeved that it did make mightily for us and mightily against the Papacie That it makes mightily for us I have shewed in the first Chapter who doe imbrace a catholick love with the whole body of Christ which is his Church That it makes mightily against the Papacie I have shewed in the second Chapter because it excludes from love and communion many eminent parts of the Church even so much of the Church and body of Christ as extends beyond subjection and obedience to the Papacie And indeed this Champions allegations doe so fight for us against his owne Papacie that a suspicious Reader may doubt hee hath been hired by us But by the next allegation perchance hee thinkes his suspicion may be somewhat cleered where thus hee commenteth in the behalfe of his mother Saint Hierome writing to Pope Damasus saith not onely of the catholâ—ck Church indefinitely but denoting that to bee the Roman that that Church is the Arke out of which whosoever liveth shall bee drowned in the deluge and that that Church is the House out of which whosoever should eate the Lambe were a profane person But doth Hierome here denote the catholick Church both for breadth and length to be Roman and no Church to be catholick which was not Roman that is under the Roman subjection this was farre from his meaning Hee meant that at that time the Roman Church was by one faith the same with the catholick Church anâ— in union with it as a member of the body and that out of this one Church wherewith Rome was then one in faith there was no salvation Secondly Hee did not say that that Church shall bee the Arke out of which shall bee no salvation but that Church is the Arkâ— shewing what it then was and not what it shall be Indeed the Papacie even the Man of sinne the Head and his members in the Mystery of iniquity now call themselves the Church of Rome But Rome at the best had never Religion and the Church faster tyed to it then Jerusalem and therefore we may take leave to say of Rome as it was said of Jerusalem How is the faithfull Citie become an Harlot It hath been manifestly proved that this Mysterie of iniquitie or Papacie is farre different from the ancient Church of Rome and Saint Hierome himselfe hath taught us that Rome should bee the seate of Antichrist and hee did not meane that when Rome is the seate of Antichrist shee should bee taken for the Arke out of which no man should bee saved Therefore this place that made for Rome then while shee was a pure part of the catholick Church makes against her now when she is the seate of the Man of sin or Antichrist and they that might be invited to come to her then as an eminent part of the Arke and catholick Church may now bee driven out from her by a voice from heaven Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues There follow two places out of Lactantius whereof the first indeed saith for us and against these Romists that are divided from us and our Church That they that enter not into the Temple of God or depart out of it shall bee deprived of the hope of salvation But the second place I know not how it may serve for the point in hand but it otherwise is an wholesome exhortation for Romists and I wish it may doe good to the Author No man must flatter himselfe with an obstinate kinde of contention for the questions here about salvation and life which if it bee not watchfully and diligently provided for it will be extinct and lost The Cavalier ends in a tempest which he puls downe on his own head S. Fulgentius hath this dreadfull saying wherewith I will conclude this point c. where he brings in Fulgentius saying That neither Baptisme nor Almes nor Martyrdome can be of any benefit towards his salvation that holds not unity with the Church A place indeed that ought to be dreadfull to the Romists for their Schism described in the second Chapter but no way dreadfull to us for our catholick Charity expressed in the first SECT III. The Cavaliers indeavour to prove that the Protestants and Papists cannot bee both members of this one Church doth not absolve the Papists from uncharitablenesse ANd having thus concluded the Allegations hee thus gives a reason of his conclusion Nor will I so much distrust either the attention or the discretion of my Reader as to thinke that I need presse this point any further A saying good at last but much better at first for if there had bin at first no distrust of the Readers discretion there had beene no neede of any one of those Allegations which have beene brought forth to prove a point not denyed There is but one Church out of which there is no salvation But let us see what immediatly followes So that now in the
the truth and beleeves it being seene As for their unlearned who walke most in the darke though sometimes it may happen two blinde men may stumble upon one path yet it is impossible but that mostly they must differ in their opinions concerning that which they know not And whereas our Author would faine make these differences to be an agreement by a resolution to beleeve what the Church teaches we have already shewed that this resolution doth no way make thē actually to agree that actually do disagree And the Canon of Sivill I think would scarcely have beleeved the Inquisitors if they had told him Wee agree with you about Image-worship because we both resolve to beleeve as the Church teacheth though we condemne you for an Heretick because wee doe not agree And indeede there is no possibility of making an actuall agreement in those lesser points because of the different capacities and degrees of faith And God in the Scripture hath not promised such an actuall agreement to all the members of the Church in all lesser points of doctrine for he hath not promised a full and uniforme discovery of them to all Yea it hath been shewed out of your owne great Doctor Stapleton by a Roman Catholick that in the discovery of small points the Church is not infallibly directed And even therefore I conceive that this distinction was first framed to give leave for that difference which necessarily followeth humane ignorance and which even by the Cavaliers confession cannot be avoided in different capacities and measures of faith And yet having acknowledged such a necessity of this distinction he both labours to deny the differences on his owne side for which this distinction was necessarily made and which the very making of it doth acknowledge and hee labours to accuse our differences which this distinction would excuse as well as his owne So it is still a sword against Romists to confound them whilest they deny their owne differences neither can the forge of Rome ever turne it to a Buckler to defend them in this deniall But it is a Buckler to us to defend us from their objecting of differences against us seeing this distinction doth both acknowledge a necessity of some lesser differences and so excuseth us And thus may wee come to a sight of the unity of faith in the Church For in the explicites that is in fundamentalls of absolute necessitie which knit unto Christ the foundation there is and ought to be an unity and this substantiall unity may cover the incurable differences in the lesser implicite points being held by Infirmity and not with Contention Scandall and Schisme For unity in fundamentalls doth take away the damning censure of differences in lesser points when there is a will of beleeving right in these points but a want of power to attaine this beliefe And so these differences in lesser points not being put upon account for the will of unity in them and for the reall unity in fundamentalls this reall unity in fundamentalls is accounted an entire or at least a solid and saving unity So that the unity is not to be reckoned from this that all doe actually agree in this beliefe of all lesser points for in divers of these points divers doe necessarily differ but because their unity in fundamentalls and a will of unity in these lesser points wherein they differ the imputation of smaller differences being thus taken away are accounted to them for an entire or at least for a sufficient unity And this truth is in not much unlike Tearmes to bee seene in Tertullian Regula quidem fidei una omninò est sola immobilis irreformabilis credendi scilicet in unicum Deum omnipotentem mundi conditorem Filium ejus Iesum Christum c. But hereof more must bee said in the following Chapters wherin the Author brings us to fundamentalls being himselfe indeed necessarily brought to them by this former distinction of Explicites and Implicites yet hee goes about to fight against that unity which is established by this distinction and against the distinction which himselfe hath established and so will bee accounted a Trespasser by destroying what hee hath built but indeede this distinction being resisted by him will resist and overthrow him In the meane time this stands still firme and unremoved That the Romists have great sharp and weighty differences among them as weighty if not farre weightier then Protestants and therefore they want charity to Protestants in damning Protestants for such differences while for the like or greater differences even de fide they are bountifull to give salvation each to other and this they doe because they are servants of one Master the Pope whose service wee wanting should indeed be no more hated for this freedome then Israel for being delivered out of the bondage of Egypt Yet both then and now wee see the Egyptians make after us with violence and malice hating us for no other fault but for our freedome from Egypt But God that then beganne and after made good his worke of deliverance I hope will do it also for us and he will be above them even in that wherein they were proud above us and cover the Sea of Rome the mother of uncharitablenesse with a Sea of confusion CHAP. X. Containing an answer to the Cavaliers eighth Chapter wherein he quarrells at the distinction of Fundamentall and not Fundamentall and is divided into three Sections SECT I. First Sheweth the Protestants separation from Rome to bee reasonable though it bee true that some in the Church of Rome may bee saved Secondly That the Papists are the faulty causes of that separation A City generally infected with the plague and a few persons onely being free will it bee thought a reasonable question to bee proposed to some that flye from this City Why doe yee flye since you know and acknowledge that all are not infected to death but some live in this City But if the King of that Citie should banish all that should say that the Plague were in the Citie yea would put them to death were it not yet a farre more unreasonable question to aske those who had given out such a report Why doe you flye that are banished and Why doe you flye that must die if you flye not Yet such are the questions of this Author in the head of this Chapter of which it seemes that the repetition might serve for a confutation It is the acknowledgement and complaint of a sonne of the Church of Rome The chiefe cause of the calamitie of the Church is to bee ascribed unto them who being puff'd up with the vaine pride of Ecclesiasticall power have proudly and contemptuously despised and driven away those who rightly and modestly admonished them c. And againe Those who speake to them of amendment that exhort them to bee healed yea that offer their helpe to effect it they not only cast out and drive from the fellowship
another way Here leaving to the Authour his owne terme of railing wherein I wonder hee should delight but that I see elsewhere hee takes pleasure in the mentioning of scurrill and blasphemous Invectives I say that some errors bee not fundamentall which are found in the Fathers and now maintained by Romists yet wee are not disabled by this distinction to reprove Romists for them for wee doe not say in this distinction that no errours should bee reproved but those which are fundamentall for even lesser errours are to bee reprehended but wee say that these errours in lesser points doe not breake the unity which by greater and more fundamentall points is made betweene Christ and his members and betweene the members themselves And secondly wee say that Romists are much more to bee reproved if they hold any errours of the Fathers now in controversie betweene us for these controverted errours have beene now by the Scriptures more evidently discovered to bee errours and it is a thing farre more worthy of blame if a man should runne into a ditch by day then if he should stumble into it by night But whatsoever exactnesse this Authour may require or imagine in this distinction this exactnesse being granted it will never make it to appeare that wee differ from the unanimous beliefe of the Fathers in the maine points mentioned in their rules of faith now called Fundamentals And for his Argument concerning the Lutherans it doth not endanger us for if the Lutherans should bee found by this distinction to differ from us in these fundamentall points which should unite them to Christ it is no hurt to us to renounce the communion of those who renounce communion with Christ. And on the other side if by it they bee found to differ from us in points not fundamentall it would bee no danger nor just disreputation to us to avow those points wherein wee differ not to bee fundamentall but wee will much rather disavow the quarrels which are made where there is no fundamentall difference The period which followes as farre as it is a true Narration of our way of making peace by this distinction with the Fathers and the Lutherans is a commendation both of the distinction and our peace-making by it But by the way I deny That Romists have brought us from denying via facti That the Fathers taught the doctrine of Praying to the Saints or for the dead in the sense and manner of Rome for the Fathers did not unanimously teach praying to Saints I am sure Saint Augustine who was above 400. yeers after Christ doth deny Saints to know ordinarily the affaires of the living which happen after their decease And for prayers for the dead in Purgatorie the Cavalier cannot shew a good patterne for more yeares then the former As for the difference in the number of Canonicall Bookes which it seemes this Author is sorrie that it is not avowed to bee fundamentall it is not altogether new but ancient and wee see it at this day in the Syriack and it were pitie to cut off from salvation all the Churches and Fathers which ever differed in this number yea he must damne many Romists if hee will make this difference fundamentall They that beleeve all necessary saving truths though they bee not fully perswaded that just so many Books were wholly indited by some one of the Apostles or Evangelists I know now how this Author may damne them if these saving truths being beleeved doe save them sure I am that in their owne Explicites or points of importance which wee call fundamentall and they say must bee knowne and beleeved under paine of damnation they doe not mention any names much lesse the number of Canonicall Bookes So it seemes by their owne doctrines the names and full number of the bookes of Scripture are none of their owne Explicites and Fundamentals but other points beleeved may serve to save such beleevers And if such may bee saved though they know not the set number of Books why would you have us to breake unitie for a point the not explicite knowing and beleeving whereof in your owne doctrine doth not exclude salvation Hee goes on and objects a second good use that wee make of points fundamentall which is a proofe of the visibility of our Church And true it is That if there have beene still a visible Roman Church which hath held points fundamental until the Reformation begun by the Protestants then is that visibility since that time still continued by us The former we leave to the Romists to prove for their owne sakes and the later we can very easily prove for our selves And whereas hee repeats but confutes not that some of ours have said that there is no necessity that the Church must have been continually visible I tell him that if this were an absurd Doctrine as he terms it they were led to this absurdity with a great shew of reason For not to run out at large into the common place of visibility when Lirinensis saith at the deluge of Arianisme The whole Romane Empire was fundamentally overthrowne and removed And we reade elsewhere the Pope himselfe was turned Hereticke where was the visibility of the Cavaliers Romish Church it selfe But I need not to dwell much on the defence of this doctrine because he only confutes it by the Epithite Absurd and because that which followes next most concernes the present businesse though this also is a rehearsall and not a confutation Some few of them affirme when they are urged by us to shew that visible Church of theirs that theirs and ours doe make but one true Church and so in shewing the visibilitie of ours they doe withall as they say shew their owne to have beene visible And these men tread in this way because they well know that no other Church but ours can indeed be shewed to have beene visible through all ages since Christ our Lord. But I must here deny his repetition if by the word Church he meane the Pope and those that have made him the foundation of their faith for these and ours wee say not to be one Church with us because they have changed the foundation But if you meane those that by beleeving fundamentalls have fastned their faith on Christ the true foundation wee allow That our Church hath beene one with them and hath been visible in their visibilitie yet avoyding this That hee can ever prove that other Churches have not beene as truly and continually visible as Rome for it will still trouble the Author to shew that the Churches of Greece and Africk have bin lesse truly visible then Rome since the Primitive times of their first conversion And now this Authoâ— being past our use of fundamentalls for visibility yet walkes on though beyond his right businesse but hee that is out of the way in his maine matter of making division to excuse Romish uncharitablenesse may well walke into by-wayes in his prosecution
many whatsoever this Authour saith have not deprived themselves voluntarily of marriage but have taken it upon them as a yoke and burden which neither they nor their Predecessors were able to beare many sinking under it unto the very pit of Hell And let them labour with their wits and pennes so much as they can they will never by reason nor by the lives of their Priests disprove Christs truth That all men cannot receive it nor prove their owne untruth That all men can receive it And surely the Fornications Adulteries Murders and pollutions that have issued from this Law of Coelibate I doubt not cry aloud to heaven against Rome as once against Sodome for that sore to which it is condemned Hee adds further In like manner Saint Peter saith That Saint Paul in his Epistles had written certaine things which were hard to bee understood and which the unlearned and unstable did pervert to their destruction Saint Augustine declares upon this place that the places misunderstood concerned the doctrine of Iustification which some misconceived to bee by faith alone by occasion of what Saint Paul had writ to the Romanes and of purpose to countermine that errour hee saith that Saint James wrote his Epistle and proved therein that good works were absolutely necessary to the Act of Iustification Hereupon wee may observe two things the one That an errour in this point alone is by the judgement of Saint Peter to worke their destruction who imbrace it And the other That the Apostles Creede which speakes no one word thereof is no good Rule to let us know all the fundamentall points of faith To this I answer First That this Authour goes on still upon a false ground as if wee said that all errours in faith that may damne men were fundamentall and expressely against some Article of the Creede Whereas wee have often affirmed That any errour though not fundamentall may damne men that by a lively faith hold not rightly the fundamentals and so are without Christ. And it seemes that these men were not well grounded and founded by fundamentals in Christ Jesus whom Saint Peter calls unlearned and unstable and their errour the errour of the wicked A generation of vipers turne wholesome food into poyson and abuse Scriptures to their owne condemnation But secondly That faith doth not justifie but that good workes are absolutely necessarie to the Act of Iustification is most untrue and against Saint Augustine himselfe Untrue for a man is justified by faith in Christ and not by his owne merits which in your language are good workes as divers of your owne Authours affirme And a man in the instant of his Justification may dye before he hath had time to do good works and yet his Justification may be good And it is against Saint Austin even in the same place whence the former saying of Saint Peter is taken where you may find that commonly knowne sentence of his Opera sequuntur justificatum non praecedunt justificandum Good works follow justification and doe not goe before it So that whiles this Authour observes two things hee gives more then two scandalls to his Reader For first hee chargeth falsly not Saint Austin onely but Saint Iames with holding this errour That good workes were absolutely necessary to the act of justification And then secondly he will make him to say that the not holding of this errour is an errour which may worke their destruction that embrace it Yea thirdly that the Apostles Creed is no good rule to let us know all the fundamentall points of faith because it speakes no one word to teach us that the Cavaliers errour is a fundamentall point of faith Lastly his owne Doctors doe bring into their Explicites our faith in Christs passion resurrection for justification but not this his Article That good workes are absolutely necessary to the act of justification And if they doe not why doth hee require it of us in our fundamentalls SECT II. Wherein his Exceptions against the 39. Articles of Religion established in this Church are answered BUt having quarrelled in vaine with the Creed to prove the insufficiency of it for fundamentalls now hee comes to the Articles where he thus begins Others say that the Booke of the 39. Articles declares all the fundamentall points of Faith according to the Doctrine of the Church of England but this also is most absurdly affirmed For as it is true that they declare in some confused manner which yet indeed is extremely confused what the Church of England in most things beleeves so it is true that they are very carefull that they bee not too clearly understood And therefore in many Controversies whereof that Book speakes it comes not at all to the main difficulty of the question between them and us and especially in those of the Church and Free-will While the Authour speaks of a confused manner and which is extremely confused his words do returne upon himselfe and his owne discourse For that he may make his discourse confused it seemes hee makes use of this doubtfull word Declare For if wee say That the Booke of Articles declares our fundamentalls of faith wee doe not say it declares all the knots of questions which are between us and the Romists For it is well knowne there are divers controversies between us and the Romists which are not of fundamentalls And neither the Fathers in their rules of Faith neither Romists in their Explicites doe declare the knots of questions which may arise even concerning fundamentalls themselves if the fundamentalls be so expressed that their true and saving sense may bee received and beleeved by the working of that Spirit which makes Christs sheep to hear Christs voice They that thus beleeve shall bee saved though they know not all the knots which cunning and erring men doe make They that write rules of Faith Explicites and Fundamentalls doe not in the same undertake to write all knots of controversies which concerne them And the Cavalier doth not find them in his owne Doctors among their Explicites wherefore the answer which he makes for them let him take for us Secondly for his particulars of the Church and Free-will First for the Church Doth our Church hold that the visibility and inerrability of the Church are fundamentalls And if shee doe not how can this Authour accuse her for not shewing fundamentalls because she shewes not those points which she doth not hold to be fundamentall The Church is not the foundation of the Church but she her selfe is built on that onely foundation Christ Jesus And even your owne men are not agreed about making the Article of the Church one of the Explicites or at least agree not in declaring these points of controversies concerning her to be explicitely beleeved And for Free-will I might aske first Doth this Authour find in any of his Doctors this knot of Free-will for an Explicite But secondly Doth the Councell of
of the Universities yea or yet by any one Colledge or Societie of learned men amongst them This Authour is exceedingly troubled for want of more division and complaines there is not opposition enough betweene us and Rome yet when wee expresse a contrariety to the Tenents of Rome then hee cryes out There is such a crossenesse betweene us that wee cannot bee one Church and when wee doe not expresse it then Wee dare not so much as declare it in publick manner And now he calls for Fundamentals as Goliah for Combatants Give mee a man that wee may fight together and yet a man would thinke that one trained up in the Schoole of Rome to such an eminence as to take him to bee her Champion and Cavalier should so know the first grounds of Christianity which himselfe calls more fundamentall that hee should not make it a quarrell against us that wee doe not teach him Yet before hath beene shewed how a man that hath not much more skill then himselfe may ghesse with as much certainty at our fundamentals as at his owne Romish Explicites But if hee lack work for his Cavalier and to that end desire plaine points of Controversie our Church hath evidently declared her judgement against the Papall Supremacy Transubstantiation Worship of Images Merits Purgatory Prayer in an unknowne tongue Sacrifice of the Masse and divers other points And I wonder how this Authour got leave either of his judgement or modesty to say that shee who daâ—es in these points to declare her opposition to the Synagogue of Rome dare not doe it in others if shee pleased For to omit the other points shee that dares declare her opposition against the Popes Supremacie hath dared to oppose the very Head and Heart of Popery and if shee dare oppose the Head why should shee bee affraid of the Limmes and Branches But both in the Head and many Branches our Church hath declared her judgement and therein may hee and his fellowes exercise their valour if they doe so much overflow with it even to complaining of want of quarrels And when they have dispatched these Controversies and quit themselves in them like Cavaliers then let them call for more and find fault with want of differences And now if I would answer a wise man according to his wisdome I would use his owne words and make them speak against himselfe and his fellowes We are not likely to see their Romish Explicites whereof they talke so loud avowed by their Universities Colledges or Councels c. Yea we are not likely to see the point of worshipping images with Latria nor the Popes power to depose Kings determined by any Councell and yet of these points Papists speak aloud for them fill the world with Treasons against God in heaven and Gods Deputies on earth And I might with very little exchange adjoyne his own following words The reason of their Reservation is plaine for if a Councell should bee convinced of errours their maine Cause would receive a mortall wound But now when some particular men defend these errours they may say as Master Hart did to Master Reynolds I care not for the judgement of Andradius or Cajetane or any other private man though you could bring an hundred of them But I am weary of waiting on his words which either have no weight or weight to presse himselfe to the ground But a swelling yet most empty vanity is that saying which our Authour imagineth to bee great with reason I have heard some Catholicks affirme and that to my thinking with great reason that they would hold it to bee no ill work for them if the pretended Colledge of Chelsey or any other were founded by Protestants expresly for writing Books of Controversie by common consent For as I said before Our Church by common consent hath declared her judgement in divers points of Controversie already named and the Romists have here worke enough to confute if they can what hath beene established by common consent Hic Rhodus Hic saltus This they have assayed hitherto with shame and losse and though they lose by the quarrels they have already undertaken yet they are not ashamed to call for more quarrels that is for more losse Besides this vanity may bee turned against themselves For why should not we also demand That the Pope and his Councell should establish a Colledge at Rome or Rhemes which should write Controversies by a Pseudo-Catholcik consent which when they have done then let them call for a Colledge from us I wish this Authour would try to speake something against us wherein hee might not speake against himselfe But our Cavalier is now like a Ship drawing neere to the Harbour and his water is still shallower and shallower yet hath he descryed one Doctor of whom if hee doe not make prize all his Adventures are lost But what if wee disclaime the Doctor as Master Hart did Andradius and Cajetane then is our Authour put to silence for want of a Colledge writing with common consent Yet saving to our selves these and the like exceptions Let us see what hee saith and first take notice of the Preface which like a Beadle doth usher and make way for the Doctor On the other side at times they make eager Invectives against us for declaring so many yea and all the Doctrines of our Church to bee fundamentall so farre forth as that whosoever refuses obstinately to beleeve any of of them doth forfeit the salvation of his soule And in the strength of this zeale of theirs Doctor Dunne in a Sermon made before his Majesty at his first happy comming to this Crown doth bitterly exclaime against the Catholick Roman Church as making every toy to bee fundamentall And can you blame our Writers or Preachers to reprove you that you will damne so many soules for toyes yea for errours For herein they have God for their patterne and your patterne is that which God reproved in Ionah For we with the Father of Mercie would save many thousand soules who by faith in Christ the foundation are united unto God and by repentance and regeneration doe strive and endeavour to obey him But you imitating the fault of Ionah for the Popes honour and supremacy will have many thousands of such beleeving and penitent soules to be damned who know not the right hand from the left in many of your frivolous Doctrines if the Pope doe affirme it For example If a man beleeve all the Truths in the Bible and all those which are in the Romish Decrees and withall lives justly soberly and godly yet beleeves not that it is unlawfull for Gossips to marry this man must bee damned And how may not Preachers then say to the Romists Now walke yee not charitably when through your vanities the brother must perish for whom Christ died Christ would have saved him as a foundation of salvation but the new and supposititious foundation the Pope damneth him whom Christ would save But the
Christendome and your owne fires which you have kindled to consume a world of Protestants will flash into your faces blast them and make them look red with the shame of this scandall And that which followes is a like empty of Truth but indeed that emptinesse is againe filled up with malice They desire to obey appetite and sense without being ever so much as told if they can chuse that they must lose heaven for their labour You have had Scriptures Fathers and Reasons for our Religion which never yet were nor never can bee answered and with these hath Popery beene battered into pieces Why then talke you of appetite and sense when your owne smart and shame can tell you that wee have had stronger weapons which have beaten you with sound blows Rather speake of sense and appetite when you see a Papist in his â—at dayes before Ashwednesday to make worke for the Priest or speak of sense and appetite when a King is moved to goe to the dames of Paris and then offered to have a Cardinall a man of sense and appetite to be his Confessor as Lewis the eleventh at the enterview told Edward the fourth rather speake of sense and appetite among the stalled Monks the fleshly Cardinals the luxurious Popes that may draw a world of soules into hell both by doctrine and example and who of you durst say to such a one What dost thou or in our Authours words tell them that they must have hell for their labour But indeed wee justly take it ill that Papists should tell us that when wee are going to heaven we should lose heaven for our labour onely because wee give not up our soules to this Man and Head of sinne by schisme and errour leading millions of soules from heaven to hell Hee goes on and sayes The children in this are as like their Mother as they can looke For who perceives not that the Protestant Church doth rather carry a respect to outward conformity then to reall unity in matter of Religion and that indeed they are but as in jest when there is speech of saving soules in any one Church rather then in another A large scandall cast on a whole Church and I doubt once this Authours Mother yet without proofe and against proofe for no proofe doth hee bring that our Church is in jest in matters of Religion or accounts all Religious alike and even his owne words next following might have holpen him to disprove his owne false witnesse It is true that they make both Lawes and Canons whereby they obliged men under a world of penalties to frequent their Churches and to receive their Sacraments For the Lawes and Canons which hee mentions doe expresse a care for the beleeving her doctrine since they command a subscription to it a teaching and preaching of it and preaching Saint Paul saith is the meanes of beleeving and lastly Excommunication against those that affirme the contrary But the Authour having spoken a broad scandall against the whole Church brings in a very narrow tax of some Ministers for a proofe of it For I put the case If a man who were knowne to be wholly affected in his heart of the Catholick faith should yet for the saving of his lands or goods resolve to comply with their Lawes by going to their Churches and by receiving their Communion yea and withall should declare in company the day before that hee was resolved to doe so the day after for the onely saving of his estate and for the shewing of obedience to the Kings Lawes though yet withall hee were perswaded that their Sacraments were unlawfull and their Church impure Would that Minister refuse to let him goe to his Service and for to communicate with the rest Infallibly hee would not and wee see daily that they doe not in like occasions for that Church as I said aspires not to unity but uniformity But here first let the Reader take notice That the Cavalier brings in sons of Rome as like the mother as they can looke and just the same which hee reproved before For hee speakes of a man who is wholly affected in his heart to the Romish faith and yet for saving his goods will come to the Church and receive our Communion Now let me borrow the Cavaliers words and see how his owne words doe fit with his owne Catholicks They professe according to the occasion and comply with the superiour Powers of this world and obey the motions of appetite and sense and are as like their mother Rome as they can looke who for a long time hath fitted Religion to temporall ends if wee may beleeve judicious and truth-telling Guicciardin But now for the admitting of such a one to receive as shall professe his beleeving our Church to bee impure and our Sacraments unlawfull I can hardly thinke that this Authour beleeves that our Church doth allow it For the Canons do excommunicate ipso facto those that say our Church is not true and maintaineth the Apostles doctrine or affirme part of the Articles is erroneous now the doctrine of our Sacraments is a part of the Articles Besides the Rubrick before the Communion doth order That if any have done any wrong to his neighbor by word or deed the Curate having knowledge thereof shall call him and advertise him in any wise not to presume to come to the Lords Table untill hee have openly declared himself to have truly repented Now I think our Church is a very neer and honourable neighbour and that hee who professeth that hee holds her impure doth also professe that hee exceedingly wrongs her and then you may see what doth follow But that I may somewhat speak for Romists Though Rome which is called an Harlot cannot but have a Whores forehead yet I professe that I know no Romist so impudent I never heard of one in charity I can hardly think there is such a one that will openly professe our Sacrament to bee unlawfull and yet receive it presently upon the saying of it for my part if I were a Romist though I indeed knew such Romish Catholicks I should not boast of their shame to the Protestants it shewing an extreme need of scandalous objections when a man must first cast the filth of a scandall at his owne wholly affected for so he termes them Catholicks that it may rebound from their faces and light on Protestants And for our aspiring to unity it is far more reall and solide then such a single and slight objection can dissolve or dissever for we have those mighty bonds of unity One God the Father of all one Lord and one Spirit one Baptisme and one saving Faiht Neither is our faith leâ—t loose to Libertinisme but the doctrine of it is contained in Articles agreed and subscribed to by the Clergy and enacted by the State and as hath been shewed there is Authority and Law for the punishment of those that cast scandals upon it SECT III.
c. Aq. 22. q. 2. A. 5. See more hereafter in the diversitie oâ— Explicites b The Priest T.W. as I finde him alledged by B. White in his Orthodoxe Page 134. And the Priest Master Smith askes Mr. Walker whether the Church of England may erre in points fundamentall and the Councell of Trent Sess. 3. cals the Creed Fundamentum firmum unicum c De praescript cap. 14. Certè aut non obstrepant aut quiescant adversus Regulam Nihil ultra scire omnia scire est d Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 19. Cum teneamus Regulam veritatis id est Quia sit unus Deus omnipotens c. e In his verè completur Prophetia qua dicitur verbum consummans brevians in AEquitate Istud indicium posuerunt per quod agnosceretur is qui Christum verè secundum Apostolicas Regulas praedicaret Ruffin in Symbolum Sigillum integrum id est Symbolum Catholicum Optat. lib. 2. adversus Pa. Symbolum est breviter complexa Regula fidei Et totius Catholicae legis fides Symboli colligitur brevitate Aug. de Temp. S. 119.115 Regula fidei pusillis magnisque communis Aug de fide c. Est autem Symbolum per quod agnoscitur Deus quod quique proindè credentes accipiunt ut noverint qualiter contra Diabolum fidei certamina praeparent In quo quidem pauca sunt verba sed omnia continentur Sacramenta c. Isid. de off Eccl. lib. 2. c. 22. Patrum consensio non in omnibus legis divinae quaestiunculis sed solùm certè praecipuè in fidei Regula Item in iis duntaxat praecipuè quaestionibus quibus totius Catholici dogmatis fundamenta nitantur Vincent Livin cap. 39 41. a Profecto quod sacer Psalmus peâ—sonat verum est Quoniam pater meus mater mea dereliquerunt me Dominus autem assumpsit me Si ergò dereliquerunt nos patres nostri quomodo curis nostris rebus intersunt si autem parentes non intersunt qui sunt alli mortuorum qui noverint quid agamus quidve patiamur Ibâ— ergò sunt spiritus defunctorum ubi non vidâ—nâ— quaecunque aguntur aut eveniunt in ista vita hominibus August de cura pro mortuis cap. 13. b Major difficulâ—as est circa posteriora Capita ejusdem libri Esther ab illis verbis Cap. 10. Dixitque Mordochaeus à Deo facta sunt omnia Haec enim non esse veram Scripturam neque pertinere ad librum Esther Canonicum opinati sunt ante Concilium Trident. Lyranus Dion Carthusianus Hugo Camotensis Cajâ—tanus post Concilium Sextus Senensis Lorca â—ract de locis Cathol lib. 1. Dis. 3. membr 3. n. 23. Liber Baruch Hunc librum à Canone rejiciunt nonnulli ex haereticis ex Catholicis Driâ—do Idemque sentit Cal. in fine libri Ester qui nullos libros admittit praeter eos quos Hieronymus expresâ—è Canonicâ—s vocat Id. n. 27. similia passim in seq b Etiam quando aliqui dubitabant libri isti erant Canonici licet illi probabili ignorantiâ excusantur negarenâ— Id. n. 38. a Universum Romanum Imperium funditùs concussum emotum est Vinâ— Liri cap. 6. b Liberius Sozom lib. 4. c. 14. Cum his verò simul projicit à sancta Dei Catholica Ecclesia similiterque anathematizari praevidimus Et Honorium qui fuerat Papa antiquae Romae â—ò quòd invenimus per scripta quae ab eo facta sunt ad Seâ—giumâ— quia in omnibus menteÌ„ ejus secutus est impia dogmata conâ—irmaviâ— Conâ— 6. Act. 13. a See the History of the Waldenses lib. 1. cap. 8. when it was said by a Jesuite that the Waldenses and the Ministers of Calvin agree in twenty seven Articles viz. About the Popes Supremacie Purgatory Praiers to Saints worship of Images marriage of Priests sufficiencie of Scriptures c. which are more then one or two points Ibid. part 3. lib. 1 â—b 6. It is very likely their doctrine came from the Apostles and agreed with them for Reynerius the Inquisitour saith Some hold so And againe They live justly before men and beleeve all things well of God and all the Articles contained in the Creed onely they hate and blaspheme the Romish Church Speeds Chronic. Foxe Martyrolog aâ— Ann. 1160. The Confessour of Lâ—wes the twelfth being sent by him to examine some of the Walâ—enses at his returne wisheâ—h that â—e weâ—â— so good a Christian as the worst of them Histor. of the Waldenseâ— â—â—b 1. cap. 5. b See the Mysterie of Iniquity by Philip Momay L. of Plessis 1 Kin. 3.26 b Hunc qui receperunt veritatem consuetudini anteponunt Tert. de vel virg cap. 1. Consuetudo â—ine veriâ—aâ—e vâ—tustas erroris est propter quod relicto errore sâ—quamur veritaâ—é Cypâ— â—pâ—st 74. b Quaedam in doctrina Christiana tam fidei quam morum esse simpliciter omnibus necessaria ad salutem qualis est cognitio Articulorum Symboli Apostolici decem Praeceptorum nonnullorum Sacramentotum caeâ—era non ita necessaria ut sine eorum explicita notitia fide professione homo salvari non possit Bell. de verbo Dei lib. 4. cap. 11. c In Symbolo Apostolorum Niceno â—liqui praeter illos continâ—ntur quos rudes non debent ex praecepto scire nec fideles communiter fed si quis audiat eos in Symbolo contineri debet credere nam Communionem Sanctorum non omnes sciunt imo etiam inter homineâ— literatos non paucos invenias qui ignorant quae sit haec Communio Sanctorum Articulus autem de Ecclesia multis viris doctis videtur difficilis ad docendum putant rudes in illo communiter errare Caeterum adhuc ego non dubitarem concedere esse non paucos rusticos inter Christianos qui absque culpa ignorant aliqua mysteria ex iis quae necessaâ—ia sunt Vasques in 12. Disp. 121. n. 2. d Quisque fidelium credeâ—e expliciâ—è debeat omnes Articulos fidei vel qui juxta numerum Apostolorum duodecim in Symbolo continentur vel qui juxta Thâ—olâ—gorum sententiam qâ—atuordecim proponuntur Quaeritur An quisque etiam vulgaris rudis credere expliciâ—è debeat aliquid praeter praedictos fidei Articulos Sunt qui ita affirmant eâ— ratione permoti quòd unusquisque expressim credere debeat immortalem esse animaÌ„ hominis item esse peccatum originis c. Qâ—â—rundam est opinio unumquemquâ— fidelium debere credere quicquid expressè in Symbolo Apostolorum continetur ob id minimè sufficere â—i singulâ— credant explicitè quaâ—uordecim Articulos fidei prout à Theologis propununtur quoniam quisque praecepto ac lege compellitur ad credendum expressim descensum Christi Domini ad inferos unam sanctam Caâ—holicam Ecclesiam Sanctorum communionem peccatorum remissionem perpetuam Deiparae Viâ—ginitatem de quibus singulis nihil explicitè quatuordecim fidei
SECT III. The Papists as much bounden to declare their Explicites as the Protestants their Fundamentalls This distinction may bee rightly used for the manifestation of our union with the Fathers to prove the perpetuall visibilitie of the Church professing the same Fundamentalls with us but unjustly objected as a ground of our severitie against Papists who are punished here as Traytors for overthrowing the foundations of State not as Hereticks for contradicting the foundations of Faith HEe goes on I should bee glad to know of the Authors of this distinction what points of their faith which are controverted betweene them and us or betweene the Lutherans and them are fundamentall and which are not fundamentall Then he sayes That a fundamentall point being such that whosoever beleeves it not cannot be saved there is nothing which more imports a man exactly to learne then what is fundamentall and what not and yet there is absolutely no one thing which hath beene so frequently and so importunately desired as that they would give in some exact List or Catalogue of all and the onely fundamentall points of faith and yet there is no one thing wherein wee are so little satisfied and which upon the matter they doe so absolutely refuse And yet as hath beene here expressed if according to their grounds a man should faile of beleeving any one fundamentall point of faith by his not knowing through their fault that the point which he beleeved not was fundamentall hee must bee sure to perish and that for ever First to his question what are fundamentalls and what not hee ought to give an answer himselfe for hee himselfe hath told us Page 74. That some doctrines are of farre more importance then others because they may containe the very heads and first grounds of Christianitie more then others doe and therefore exact a more Explicite beliefe and consequently may bee accounted in some respects more fundamentall It being then acknowledged by him that there are such doctrines of farre greater importance then others that exact a more Explicite beliefe and are more fundamentall why doth hee not answer himselfe concerning that which himselfe affirmeth and yet withall questioneth Let him truly tell us or himselfe if hee please which are those doctrines of more importance that containe the heads of Christianity and are more fundamentall and give us a List of them and wee may tell him or hee may tell himselfe an answer to his question And then also may he by this List as by a Touchstone and Rule finde what differences betweene us and any others are fundamentall and not fundamentall So that hee being herein ingaged himselfe either hee hath spoken that whereof hee cannot give an account or else askes of us an account of that which hee knowes and wherein hee can answer himselfe And indeede the Authors owne partners or rather leaders have layd the foundation of these fundamentalls in their Explicites for their Heads Articles and Grounds of Religion to which they require an Explicite beliefe are such as those which we call fundamentall yea not onely wee but the Author himselfe calleth such points more fundamentall and his owne Priests call them positively fundamentall Besides the very rules of faith mentioned and rehearsed by Tertullian and Irenaeus and other Fathers the Symboles and Creeds of Nice other Councels and of Athanasius and Lirinensis his precipua Capita or chiefe Heads yea hee hath the word fundamentall are summes and acknowledgements of such fundamentals And now how can this Authour either bee so farre uncatechised as not to know such grounds of Religion or call Protestants the authours of this distinction and how can hee object any thing against Protestants or require any thing of them but object the like against his owne Teachers yea against the Fathers of the Church and require the like of them Accordingly how can hee aske an exact List and Catalogue of Fundamentals of Protestants more then of Fathers yea of his owne Doctors and Masters And indeed let him bring an exact List and Catalogue of all the onely Articles of Faith contained in the Fathers rules of faith and an exact List of all and the onely Explicites of the Romists and hee may quickly receive a Catalogue of our Fundamentals But this Authour is here againe exceedingly out of his way and that the Title of his Chapter might tell him by the warinesse of it for his businesse is not to deny a distinction of fundamentals and not fundamentals in regard of greater or lesser importance of the Articles themselves but this being granted to adjoyne and superedifie that though this distinction doe stand yet even points of lesser importance and in themselves not fundamentall may bee made fundamentall by the command and authority of the Pope So that his quarrelling at this distinction is not onely a quarrell from his errand but a quarrell against the Fathers and a quarrell against himselfe and against his fellow-Romists and if hee make quarrels against himselfe and his fellowes why may wee not leave them and him to make up their owne quarrell among themselves And accordingly whereas this Authour makes a fearfull noyse how dearely it concernes men to know which are fundamentals wee might turne him to get an answer for this out-cry from himselfe and his fellow-Romists yea from the Pope himselfe for Romists say that the Explicites are such points that hee who doth not know them cannot bee saved Then the Authours terrible words doe thus warfare against himselfe putting Explicites for Fundamentals That there is nothing in all Christian Religion which imports a man more exactly to learne then what are these Explicites without the knowledge whereof none can bee saved And an exact List and Catalogue should be given of these Explicites which yet the infallible Pope hath never given to his Papists So that if a Papist should faile of beleeving an Explicite by not knowing it to bee an Explicite hee must be sure to perish and that for ever Yet the Cavalier in wrath and warre against unity proceeds further in fighting against his owne confessed and undeniable distinction of Explicites and Fundamentals and hee so proceeds that it may easily bee seene that his anger puts out the eye of his judgement or carryes him beyond the kenne of it For thus hee saith Whereas if either they framed not the distinction of Fundamentals at all or else would clearly let men know which points alone were fundamentall then this would follow That whensoever wee should convince them in any particular Doctrine which is denyed by them and which yet was beleeved by the ancient Fathers they would bee obliged to confesse that either that point was not fundamentall which would dis-able them from railing at us for beleeving the same or else that the Fathers were of a different Religion in fundamentall points from them and that in their owne opinion those very Fathers could not bee saved which would put them to much prejudice