shall set forth to the contrary I must crave pardon if it be not of the same faith with you And thus farre you allow any in the Church of England this liberty for your words are Is it not lawfull for any in the Church of England to say I conceive thus or thus of it c Although you adde L. p. 51. It is one thing to hold an opinion privately within himselfe and another thing boldly and publickly to affirme it P. I doe I confesse boldly and publickly affirme this my faith concerning this Article which my faith I doe assure my selfe is true being grounded upon good and cleare evidence of the Scripture on which my faith is built and not upon any thing of humane Authority And in making open confession of this my faith I doe therin follow the Rule of Scripture which saith Bretheren if any of you doe erre from the Truth and one convert him Let him know that he which converteth a Sinner from the errour of his way shall save a Soule from death and shall hide â— multitude of Sinnes Now what know I that this Declaration of my Faith with Reasons from the Scripture may by Gods grace be a meanes to convert if not your Lordship from your errour yet others or may preserve them from falling into it being dangerously entred into it by such an example as your selfe And however if it be lawfull for you boldly and publickly to affirme such things of beliefe which are not found to be in Scripture why may it not be as lawfull for me boldly and publickly to affirme the Contrâ—ry But the Scope of your Speech as I conceive is to maintaine your practise in punishing in High Commission such as expound this Article by and according to the Scripture L p. 53. For that all the Positive Articles of the present Church of England are grounded upon Scripture we are content to be judged by the joynt and constant beliefe of the Fathers which lived within the first foure or five hundred yeares after CHRIST when the Church was at the best and by the Councels held within those times and to submit to them in all those points of Doctrine P. But first as is before noted as you give accasion why have you made your Articles to be DÃpsucoi of a double sense So as in that respect how can you call them Positive being so perplexed in themselves And againe Whom doe you meane here by Wee I suppose you and your church of England You are contented to be Judged by Fathers and Councels within the first 500. yeares whether your Church-Articles be grounded on Scripture or not Are you contented so indeed Then you must be contented to undergoe the Censure of departing both from the judgement of the Scriptures as disavowing them for the onely rule of Faith and Doctrines to be tryed by and also from the joynt and constant beliefe both of Fathers and Councels within the first 500. yeares For their joynt constant and unanimous beliefe was that nothing besides the Scripture is to be Judge in matters of Faith And if you want leasure to read the Fathers doe but peruse the learned Discourses and Disputes of the Divines of the Church of England before your being a Prelate as Dr. Carleton of the Church De Ecclesia Dr. Whitakers forementioned Dr. White his way to the true Church Dr. Bilson yea and all those that have written of these Controversies and they will abundantly show this that it was ever held as a Principle and therefore not to be denyed nor needfull to be proved and which Dr. Carleton in his said Book proves never to have been altered till in and by the Councel of Trent That the Scripture is the sole rule of Faith But thus you and your Church of England are contented to be one and the Same Church with Rome in refusing the Scripture as the Sole Iudge of your Doctrines But will you be judged by the joynt and constant beliefe of Fathers and Councels within the first 500. yeares whether your Articles about Grace Election Predestination c. bearing as you Declare a double and opposite sense in their Pelagian and Arminian sense be according to the Scriptures or no If I name onely Augustine who was Pelagionorum Malleus that Hammer to knock down the Pelagians both the Fathers and Councels within those first 500. yeares did joyntly and constantly professe that which he writ to be the Beliefe of the whole Church it was so clearely and fully proved out of Scripture In so much as you may read in the Histories of the Councels as in Binius how that some Councels and Bishops of Rome set downe Large Passages in Augustins Tracts against the Pelagians as the Jugement of the Catholick Church and the particular Decrees and Acts of such and such councels If then you will stand to the Judgement of those ancient Fathâ—rs and Councels then you must at their Barre hold up that hand which was a chiefe instrument in drawing up the said Declaration which hath so enigmatized and darkened the Articles as they have no other Light left but a kind of twilight which inclines rather to the night then to the day rather to favour the Pelagian Heresie then the Orthodox verity But this being your language all along that you put not onely your Articles and the Articles of the Creed but the Mysteries also of the Scriptures to the Iudgement of the Primitive Church Fathers Generall Councels we will Supersede from speaking more of it in this place Again where you say that the Church was then at the best if you understand it during the age and time of the Apostles 't is most true but if of the Succeding ages within 500. yeares we may doubt of it or rather resolve the contrary unlesse you meane it comparatively to the ages after that wherein Antichrist and the Mystery of Iniquity began more brightly to shine forth and display themselves in the Roman Sea both in corruption of doctrine and of Gods worship beyond all excesse For you may know that within the space of the first 500. yeares the Church was so overgrown and pestered with the heresie of Arius as the world groaned under it wondering it was become an Arian as Hierome speakes Totus ingemuit mundus miratus se factum esse Arianum And among many corruptions and much unsoundnesse in Doctrine what multitudes of Superstitious devises and heathenish Customes not onely crept but crowded into the service of God Which Heathenish Rites as we find in B. Rhenanus his Annotations upon Turtullian were by the Christians in a kind of carnall policie admitted both because many ancient men being converted to Christianity such as it was could not easily part with their old Customes as also that thereby they might draw other of the Gentiles to become Christians Just such a policie as our new Doctors I meane of your Church of England have used in a pretence at least making us beleeve
what evidence can the Church of Rome now give us or what assurance can she have besides the bare name That she is still a Christian Church Onely Vega helps it aswell as he can That in reason and Charity men are not to thinke that the Priest should be so carelesse at the Consecration as not to look to his Intention upon which the Salvation of all menâ— soules dependeth Fourthly for the Sacrament of the Eucharist or of the Altar as they call it First this is in the same Predicament with Baptisme for the Priests intention which if not present at the Consecration of the Host as they call it there is no Transubstantiation no body of Christ and so they worship a wafer instead of Christ and so by their owne Confession in that case they commit materiall Idolatry as a Jesuite confessed in Dispute with Dr Featly But Secondly by the very name of Sacrament of the Altar they destroy the Sacrament that Christ ordained in his last Supper called therfore the Supper of the Lord. For they have turned it from a Supper to a sacrifice yea and that from an Eucharisticall sacrifice as the Fathers called it to a Propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of quick and dead as is noted before And so this Sacrament they have Non sacramented and made of it a whole burnt sacrifice Secondly they have utterly destroyed the materialls or Element in this their Sacrament the bread and wine that no maâ— should so much as dreame or once take it for the Lords Supper For a Supper cannot be without bread and drinke and heâ—e is neither And so it is neither Supper nor Sacrament And thus they have taken away noâ— onely the cup from the people but the bread also altogether So as there is nothing in their Sacrament but a meere lye meere imaginations Phantasmes of Accidents without subject as we said before And so enough of this And lastly the Church of Rome having disanulled the Sacraments of Grace it hath withall disabled them from being seales of Grace For it is the property of a seale to give a sure and certain Impression and thereby a Confirmation of the Covenant But in Popish Sacraments all certainty is taken away as is shewed and so having lost the seales consequently the Covenant of Grace it selfe is of no force unto them And thus in denying the two Testaments to be the onely rule of Faith and overthrowing the two Sacraments the seales of Faith yea having lost and disclaimed the true Saving Faith it selfe what evidence hath Rome left her to shew and prove that she is now a true Church of Christ or hath the Essence of a true Church Let her shew her evidence As he said Let Baal if he be a god plead for himselfe Yet all this is of no Force to your Lordship but that like Ixion imbracing a cloud for Iuno as it is in that Fable so you imbrace but a cloud or rather the shadow of a cloud instead of the once faire Virgin Rome you must needs have her a true Church still She onely say you misuses the two Sacraments A small triviall trifle to speake of Misusing then is nothing with you What say you then to those wicked Princes and Priests of Israel that misused the Lords Prophets Was this nothing They so misused them that they stoned them to death And so the Church of Rome hath so misused the two Sacraments that they have stoned them them to death and left not one alive But they have made amends for it For say you they have added more even no lesse then five which are as the five wounds wherewith the Lord was crucified to death For those five have eaten out the other two of Christs own ordaining both expressing his death the one for ingrafting us into it the other for growth and strength by it as our spirituall food And these five Sacraments fo humane invention they must have their vertue of conferring Grace ex opere operato being all as they use them a meere evacuating of Christs me it s But time permits not a longer discourse of them Enough is said for Answer And for Conclusion the Church of Rome having taken away the Authority of Scripture and added her own Traditions and having taken away and misused the Lords Sacraments and added their own Sacraments what remaines to that Church but that which the Divine Iohn Concludeth the whole Bible withall I testifie unto every man that heareth the words of the Prophecie of this Book If any man shall adde unto these things God shall adde unto him the plagues that are written in this Book And if any man shall take away from the Book of this Prophecie God shall take away his part out of the Booke of life and out of the Holy City and from the things which are written in this Booke Out of the Holy City which is the Church of Christ. Here then in this holy City is no place for the Church of Rome L. p. 131.132 The Church of Rome both was and was not a right or Orthodox Church before Luther made a breach from it For in the Primitive times of it it was a most right and Orthodox Church but upon the immediate times before Luther or some Ages before that Rome was a corrupt and tainted Church farre from being right And yet both these times before Luther made his breach P. The Conclusion then of your speech here is this That Luther made his breach from the Church of Rome not onely as it was Corrupt and tainted immediately or in some Ages before but also as it was right and Orthodox in her Primitive Times For you say And yet both these times before Luther as well those wherein the Church of Rome was most right and Orthodox as those wherein after before Luther it was corrupt and tainted made his breach And thus you make the rent on the Protestant party to be not onely from the corrupt and tainted Church of Rome but from the most Right and Orthodox Church of Christ. A pestilent speech bewraying the speaker to be in the very gall of bitternesse and in the bond of iniquity and worhty to be abhorred and abandoned of all that beare the name of Protestants But this agreeth with that which we noted before how you exclude all the Protestant Reformed Churches beyond the Seas where your Prelacie and Hierarchy is not erected nor my Lord Bishops Chaire allowed from being any Churches of Christ or members of the true Catholick Church For here also in Luthers rent from the Church of Rome not onely as corrupt and tainted but as once Right and Orthodox you include all those Reformed present Churches and to exclude them out of the true Church of Christ. But as before we have shewed and proved and shall yet more upon fit occasion ministred upon the same cause for which you exclude all Reformed Protestant Churches beyond the Seas from being Churches of Christ
because they are seperated from the Church of Rome and from all Prelacy and Hierarchy we do exclude you and Rome with your Prelaticall and Hierarchicall Churches and Government Ecclesiasticall from being any true Churches of Iesus Christ. And whereas you say Rome was once Right and Orthodox 't is true that in Pauls time the faith of those Christian Romans was famous throughout the world and so it might continue pure for a time after but when once the Prelacie and Hierarchy of Rome and that but within Romes Diocesse was erected it became Ipso facto Antichristian and after when the Bishop of Rome became supream over all Christendome then it was the Church of Antichrist from which it is necessary for all true Christians to make a perpetuall Seperation L. p. 133. The Roman Church which was once Right is now become wrong by imbracing superstition and error P. Such is your stile to touch that delicate Woman tenderly as saying She is now wrong by imbracing superstition and error But not by defiling her selfe with abominable Idolatries This you never once charge her with in all your Book as we shall see more at after And onely error as humanum est errare but you never tell her of her Heresies and Apostacie from Christ and her Doctrines of Devils Beware of that You have therfore put me to the greater paines in dealing plainly both with her and you L. ibid. 'T is too true indeed that there is a miserable rent in the Church and I make no question but the best men do most bemâ—ane it nor is he a Christian that would not have unity might he have it with Truth P. You are often putting your finger into this scarre or rent An Argument it paines you because ubi dolor ibi digitus And I am perswaded the more you put your finger in it the wider you will make it And certainly those that are indeed the best men are so farre from bemoaning such a rent as they rejoyce in it the cause considered as in their glory and safety And such Christians as have the greatest wisdome tempered with their goodnesse do see such an Impossibility of Reconciliation with Rome that they account it the greatest folly in the world once to dreame of such an unity as is coupled with a condition of Truth I mean Truth indeed not such a Truth as you mean there where nothing but superstition and error Idolatry and Infidelity Hypocrisie and Iniquity Ambition and Avarice Pompe and Pleasure are the onely supporters of Peters Infallible but counterfeit Chaire Unlesse you mean as you must doe those good men which are your Confederates in your Idolatrous Altars and other Superstitions and Idolatries halting between two opinions God and Baal and have already one foot over Romes thresholdâ— accounting themselves with your Church of England one and the same Church with Rome as two branches of the same tree as two Sisters of the same venter ready to salute each other with the kisse of amity and unity as Aâ—ab did his Brother Bâ—nhâ—daâ— then much may be what should hinder your unity And for your Truth as we sayd before we know very well what it is Rome will not want for that which you call Truth L. ibid. But I never said nor thought that the Protestants made this rent P. I pray you do you think as you speake But admit it Why should you think so Or why are you so zealous in makeing such an Apology which true Protestants indeed will never thank you for But you are such a Protestant as I dare say would not have been the first that should have made the rent no nor the hindmost neither so firme you are for peace But I noted before a necessity of Seperation to be made by the Protestants from Rome as Christ admonisheth Rev. 18.4 Come out of her my people c. L. p. 135. He must leave my words to my selfe and their sense either to me or to the genuine construction which an Ingenious Reader can make of them P. 'T were well If you would observe the same Law your selfe to others Then you would not so frequently as you doe make a poore Minister an offender for a word and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate and turn aside the just for a thing of nought as the Prophet speaks L. ibid. The Protestants did not get that name by protesting against the Church of Rome but by protesting and that when nothing else would serve against her errors and superstitions Do you but remove them from the Church of Rome and our Protestation is ended and the Seperation too P. Yes by protesting against the very Church of Rome got they and that deservedly the name of Protestants For were not those errors and superstions you speake of yea and Antichristianisme and abominable Idolatries and universall Apostacie become the very body and soule of the Religion faith and practise of that Church Was not your Dalilah the Church of Rome become that Harlot and Mother of whoredomes and all abominations before the Seperation and rent was made Could they then protest against her corruptions and not withall against her selfe Were not all her corruption so incorporated unto her as they were altogether inseperable from her like the Blackamores skin or the Leopards spots which cannot be changed And do not you confesse that they protested against her Corruptions when nothing els would serve when there was no remedy left when she was grown incorrigible So as they might have said as in the Prophet we would have healed Babylon but she is not healed Forsake her and let us goe every one into his own Countrey for her judgement reacheth unto heaven and is lifted up even to the Skies It applyes it selfe And my Lord you speake too late and in vain to A.C. to remove Romes errors and superstition A C. is not of the Faith to remove such mountaines He cannot wâ—sh the Blackmore white You must procure such a Generall Councel as is at least equall to that of Trent to reverse all those Decrees whereby all Romes superstitions and errors are so ratified as England will sooner heare of a Parliament for Reformation then Rome will indure the thoughts of any more Generall Councels to question or meddle with her Trent Decrees Rome is now setled upon her lees and you shall sooner remove the City of Rome it selfe from her muddy Tiber then the Church of Rome from her superstitions Nor is the black skin more conaturall to the Ethiopian nor spots to the Leopard then Idolatry Superstition Infidelity Apostacie and all error is conaturall to the Beast with seaven heads and ten hornes as making up both the Complexion and Constitution of that painted Whore And therefore you might have saved all this labour in vain in writing such a Volume out of a hope to worke an unity with Rome when her superstitions and errors shal be removed and that is ad Graecas Calendas
when men sheere their Goates so in this respect you may safely say That when Romes errours and Superstitions are removed our Protestations and Seperation is ended And so may I. L p. 136. Protestants doe but protest the sincerity of their Faith against the Doctrinall corruption which hath invaded the great Sacrament of the Eucharist and other parts of Religion P. Well were it for you and your present Church of England as you have lately made it or would at least make it if you had such sincerity of Faith to protest against Romes doctrinall corruptions as true Protestants have But why doe you call the Lords supper The Great Sacrament of the Eucharist Is it Great because you give it a Name not known in Scripture Or because it is so grandized in the Church of Rome as it is made like the Great Diana of the Ephesians whom all the Pontifician world worshipeth Or it is Great comparatively to Baptisme because this is celebrated in the Font at the Church doore neere the Belfrey and That upon your high Altar which you have advanced at the chiefe as you esteem it and East end af your Chancels and of your stately Cathedrals Or Great because in your Devotion you bow towards that place whence it seems you look for your help yea so lowly fall down and worship before it as before the Lord your maker Or what is it that your Eucharist is become with you so Great a Sacrament Because it or your selfe is Great with Child of a young new God-Almighty But however For my part I reverence every Ordinance of God but I dare not make nor esteem them greater then God hath made them nor give them other Names and Titles then God hath given them least I either seem to be wiser then my Maker and their Author or should give more honour to them then is due this being as wofull experience hath taught the ready way to rob God of his honour to transferre it to the creature and set it up instead of God But loth you are I know to call the Sacrament the Lords Supper as the Scripture calls it least it might call for the Lords Table as the Scripture also terms it and so your high Altar should have no more Room in the Church But doe the true Protestants protest the sincerity of their Faith onely against the Doctrinall Faith which hath invaded your Great Sacrament of the Eucharist Yes you adde and other parts of Religion What be those That we may know those speciall Doctrinall Corruptions against which you say Protestants do protest the sincerity of their Faith For Rome hath many Doctrinall Corruptions against which true Protestants protest which you do not so much as mention in all your Book and such too as do â—â—atly overthrow the Foundation Christ. As Iustification by works for one which we have touched before Yea and Rome hath many and those most damnable corruptions which you are so farre from accounting corruptions as you make them Essentiall parts of Gods worship I name Altars for one Of which also before And these things we Protestants protest the sincerity of our Faith against But you are none of those Protestants as not professing much lesse protesting the sincerity of any such Faith L p. 138. A right sober man may without the least touch of insolence or madnesse dispute a businesse of Religion with the Roman either Church or Prelate as all men know Irenaeus did with Victor so it be with modesty and for the finding out or confirming of truth free from vanity and purposed opposition against even a particular Church P. This passage I cited before in my Preface to your Lordship yet I here recite it again because perhaps all wil be little enough to put you in mind therof For as I told you before the Greatnesse of the Cause hath caused my stile and Spirit to mount upon the wings of zeale for my Christ and for his Church in a higher degree and strain then ordinary And that for this you Censure me of insolence or madnesse as I feare it wil be the best defence you can make for your Cause alwayes excepted the Bill in Starre-Chamber I have no remedy but patience committing the Cause to him that judgeth rightly And as I have done it for the finding out of the truth so this hath caused me a great deale of moyle in digging and removing away a masse of earth and rubbedge which you had cast to hide this Treasure from us So as a purposed opposition was not it that set me upon this Great taske but yet I oppose you and purpose to detect your falsities so fairly guilded over with hypocrisie that you might not impose too much upon your Credulous Reader You aledge for this purpose the Example of Irenaeus arguing a Case with Victor Bishop of Rome which you say all men know But my Lord I suppose all men do not know it And because it is a matter both worthy and not unnecessary for all men to know it I will take occasion here to speake somthing of it as not impertinent also to our present purpose Towards the end of the second Century there was a difference between the Asian Church and the Roman about the Day of Celebrating the memory of the Lords Resurrection The contention grew hot as commonly men are most eagre in propounding their own devises in matter of Religion so as because the Asian Churches would not conforme to Victor Bishop of Rome he began to fume and to thunder and threaten them all with Excommunication Irenaeus who lived in France for this reproves Victor telling him that he ought not to proceed and deale so with Asian Churches for such differences as were of things at that time accounted Indifferent Some saith he fast one day before Easter some two some more some 40. houres together whereupon by the way it seems that those 40. houres were afterwards turned into forty dayes for your Lent Fast kaì cudèn élatton pà ntes oâ—uioi eirteneusà n tè kaì eireneúomen pròs alluious yet neverthelesse saith he all these lived peaceably together and we also are at peace one with another Kaì he diaphonìn tes nesteÃas tèn homónoian tes pÃstâ—os sunistesi And this difference about Fasting commendeth saith he the unity of Faith And he relates unto him also the examples of sundry of his Predecessors in the Sea of Rome who neither kept it themselves nor command of it to others and yet neverthelesse they that observed it not were at peace with those that came to them from the neighbour Churches or Congregations wherein it was observed Nor were any at any time cast out of the Church about the Manner or Custome But those Presbyters saith he who before you observed it not sent Commendations or kind salutations and greetings as tokens of Charity to those of other neighbouring Churches who did observe it And blessed Polycarpus sojourning at Rome in the time of
Anicetus and they being at some small oddes between them yet preserved peace and did not fall out about this matter For neither could Anicetus perswade Polycarpus not to observe it nor did Polycarpus perswade Anicetus to observe it but each left other to their own Customes And thus they communicated together and in the Church or Congregation Anicetus gave the Eucharist to Polycarpus out of a reverent respect and so they dismissed each other in peace and in all Churches but those that observed it and those that observed it not had peace one with another And thus Irenaeus pherònumos tìs according to his Name became a Peace-maker to all the Churches So Eusebius Now as these things I here relate by Occasion so the Consideration that sundry particulars therein may be not unusefull As 1. That things Indifferent and of humane Ordinance in matters of Religion ought not to be imposed upon mens Consciences as necessary to be observed but in such things Christian Congregations or Churches ought to be left free Secondly in variety or difference in opinions or manners and customes in things Indifferent Christians may and should keep fast the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and testifie the unanamity of Faith in the diversity of Factions nothing being done against Gods word One man saith the Apostle esteemeth one day above another another esteemeth every day alike Let every man be perswaded in his own mind And v. 13. Let us not judge one another in these things but judge this rather that no man put a stumbling blocke or an occasion to fall in his brothers way And v. 19. Let us follow after the things that make for peace and things wherewith one may edifie another So All meates are in their own nature cleane but of any think this or that uncleane to him it is uncleane And that whole Chapter is of things indifferent such at least as those Primitive times in the more tender infancie of the Church admitted and esteemed indifferent as of Dayes and Meates wherein mens Consciences were not to be forced And as concerning our Christian liberty we must take heed saith the Apostle least by any meanes it become a stumbling block to them that are weak Thus we see what the Christians in the primitive Ages did Thus did the Bishops of Rome themselves before Victor whom Irenaeus calls Presbutérous Presbiters Thirdly Victor is reprooved by Irenaeus for breaking this peace among the Christian Churches and sâ—eking to bring their Christian liberty â—nto bondage by forcing them is conforme to his assumed nâ—w Altar wherein his Antichristian pride and Tyranny began to shâ—w it selfe in attempting what his Predecessors 〈◊〉 not doâ— in this kind Fourthly Victor being thus reproved defiâ—â—ed from his violent course and yeelded to Irenaeus his Allegations and so gave way for Churches to injoy their liberty with peace Now my Lord to apply these things Hereby you may see how things in their own nature indifferent ought to be left free and not to be made burthens and bonds to mens Consciences that so Christian Liberty and Peace may be preserved inviolate You see how those ancient Bishops or Presbyters of Rome bound not this liberty brake not this peace You see how Victor presuming to violate both yet upon the reproofe of Irenaeus though inferiour to him in place he yeelded to reason suffered not pride or passion to predominate but left to the Churches both their Liberty and Peace But now for you my Lord you are not contented onely to impose with rigour upon mens Consciences those Ceremonies which you otherwise call Indifferent yet enforce them as necessary as being also by mans Laws Commanded and such as in point of Indifferencie might justly be questioned were they not superstitious but also in erecting and imposing both besides Mans Law and against Gods Law other both idolatrous and superstitious devises as your stone or woodden Altars with their Equipage and service in adorations and the like and those borrowed from the Church of Rome her selfe none since Victor infinitely corrupted and deeply deceived yea drowned in all Idolatries and Superstitions which have been of late so violently and universally pressed upon all Churches within your Reach that what confusions or combustions it may further cause the Lord knows But this we are sure of that as the liberty of Mens Consciences is hereby generally brought into bondage and both the outward and inward peace of the Churches violated and broken to pieces while you cry for peace and cease not to presse your Vniversall Conformity as if it were the way of quenching the flame to poure out the Oyle of a meere nominall Peace so the Faith of Christ and the salvation of Christian mens soules is hereby utterly subverted as formerly is shewed And of these things you have been sufficiently admonished and convinced by some Ministers of Christ. But you say It was too roughly done not as Irenaeus reproved Victor Is that all But consider how truly And how diseases the more desperate require the sharper medicines Yea as the Poet said Immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum est ne pars sincera trahatur I leave you to English it But that the reproofe were true though sharpe did you as Victor did who suffered himselfe to be victus overcome by Irenaeus his reproofe and Allegation Nay you though both victus convictus vanquished and convinced in your Conscience and knowledge of the truth of all those enormities which you were charged withall yet you must be Victor not resting till you had sent away your Reprover with a Censure more bitter and sharper then the sharp reproofe could be and yet not desisting from your violent course to enforce an Universall Conformity whereby the whole Land is infected with terrible combustions and those no lesse further dangerous then already full of dammage Such a Peace-maker is your Conformity Is this the way think you to make you Victor Soft and faire For though perhaps you glory in your tyrannicall conquest over the poore Body of your Reprover yet while your spirit doth to use the Apostles word to the same purpose hupernikan become more then Victor as before is noted and so his Cause not foyled but confirmed and crowned in his suffering for it never think your selfe a Victor No no my Lord never think to be victor by fighting against Christ Lay down your violence in pressing your Conformity fight not against the common peace by disturbing the peace of mens Consciences Lay not siege to Christian liberty in inforcing even things indifferent and how much lesse such as are both in their nature and use Idolatrous Superstitious and directly against the expresse word of God But that you will that you must needs set up your Romish Altars with your other devices sutable yet inforce them upon Gods Ministers and People by your terrible commands and threats armed with High-Commission Power or Princes Edicts Convince men as much as you can by
in matters of faith as the Shrine of your Predecessor S. Thomas of Canterbury with the keyes of his blind votaries And so much the more in these dayes as wherein you have put all England to a stand and stagger what to beleeve in point of Faith considering that the Articles of Religion like Meteors hang in suspense in the ayre no man knowing what to make of them whether they be white or blacke or what such Comets portend untill to that Edict of the Court that binds up the sense of the Articles fast asleep or in a slumber between Hawke and Buzzard or as a speaking in a dreame you shall superadde the Definitive Decree of the Chaire of Canterbury to interpret unto us what they have dreamed all this while But I suppose the Board calling you so much away from your Chaire you are the more willing and that in such a case of necessity to send all the faithfull to your Ordine primus at Rome and to Peters Chaire there if any such thing be there which may like Iunoes three footed stoole resolve all their doubts And so as you say to A C. Rome may thanke you for it But alwayes provided tha◠Rome first reduce her selfe as you say to the Observation of Tradition Apostolicke and then you will say Latinè plainly That it wil be then necessary for every Church and for the faithfull every where to agree with it to have recourse to Rome and to rest their Faith there where is the most Powerfull Principality And thus as well as I could I have pickt up your meaning wherein if I have come short you must pardon me and blame your selfe for your being no more perspicuous in matters of such moment as about consulting of Oracles considering that that of Apollo and Delphos was long agoe put to silence But to proceed L. p. 199. The Bishop of Rome hath no power from Christ over the whole Church to be Iudge in Controversies nay out of all doubt 't is not the least reason why de facto he hath so little successe because de Jure he hath no power given P. Not over the whole Church This seems to imply that the Bishop of Rome hath a power from Christ to be Iudge in Controversies over all the Churches at least within his own more powerfull Principality And consequently that the Primate of Canterbury hath the like power from Christ to be Judge in Controversies over the whole Church of England If you have yet it wil be some ease to the English that they have an Oracle so neare home to resolve them in all doubts so as they need not as formerly go trudge to Rome for the matter But neither to the Pope in his Powerfull Principality nor to you in your Primacy hath Christ given any power at all to be Judge in Controversies of Faith And because you have no Calling nor Commission from Christ therfore 't is true you say in this that the Pope hath no better successe And I pray you what successe have you had since you took upon you to sway the Crosier staffe of Canterbury and to be Judge in Controversies of Faith making and raysing controversies there where there was none before as namely in the Articles of Religion 'T is true you have put many a good Minister to Silence thrust many a one out of his Cure and Countrey levied your way for an universall Conformity to Rome prevailed much in your Designes that way but yet have you any great cause to boast of your successe all things Considered I say no more Verbum sapienti you understand me well enough And certainly when you cast up your reckoning you will find your selfe to be as much behind hand for successe as you do the Pope And your Reason is true because you have no power no Authority no Calling no Commission from Christ either to possesse such a place or to execute such an Office For as the Lord saith in Ieremie speaking of false Prophets I sent them not neither commanded them therfore they shall not profit this people at all saith the Lord. So neither have you reason to thinke that because you may do what you list in turning things upside down in seting up your Altars in suppressing Gods word in oppressing Gods Ministers in advancing your Arminian and Popish faction and you hitherto prosper therein while there is never a man left that dare so much as mutter a word against these your practises so great is your Power and so terrible your Cruelty and Ministers so Cowardly so as by this meanes your Cause and Course seems to prosper while you can crush any that shall interpose himselfe or lawfully in his place oppose your violent courses therfore Christ hath given you this power thus to tyrannise wherein you doe so prosper True it is that Christ hath given way to Satan to rage in these times because he knows he hath but a short time and hereby Christ will try and humble his people that he may doe them good and be glorified in their deliverance and in the destruction of all such Papall and Antichristian Tyranny L. p. 200. The Church being as large as the world Christ thought it fitter to governe it Aristocratically by Divers rather then by One Viceroy And I beleeve that this is true For all the time of the first 300. yeares and somwhat bettter it was governed Aristocratically to wit by the Bishops c. P. Here you give us occasion further to launch into the Deep of this Mystery that we may sound the bottome of it and so discerne what ground it floats upon mudde or sand or both although we have in part discovered it before Here you say and you say you beleeve it too it is an Article of your Creed that Christ thought it fitter to govern the Church Aristocratically by diverse rather then by one Viceroy And you give the Reason The Church being as large as the world We will first take an Assay of your words and then of your Reason For to a vulgar Reader some of your words are somwhat obscure and some also very finely couched that every eye cannot at the first discerne the Mystery of them And first for Aristocratically Aristotle the famous Philosopher and no meane statesman in his Politicks layes down 3 kinds of Civil Government taken in the better part The first is Monarchia which is a government by One the second is Aristocratia which is a Government of the Best Men the third is Democratia which is a Government Popular or of the People Opposite to these three he sets three sorts of bad Government the first is Tyranny which is opposed to Monarchy Tyranny ruling either without or contrary to the good Laws established but a Monarchy governing according to the established good Laws of the State Kingdome or Common-weale The second is Oligarchia which signifies the Government of a few and this standing in opposition to Aristocratia
But who shal be Judge of that Alas we are never the nearer if you Prelates be the visible Iudges For then what Canons or Constitutions shall crosse either Scripture or Positive Law of the Land which you shall define and determine to be fit for you to govern the Church by What Laws of the Realme shal be just which crosse one of your Canons Did not in a Cause pleaded in your High-Commission the Popes Canon aledged by the Advocate on the one party preponderate a Statute of Edw. 6. alledged by the Advocate of the adverse party so as the Popes Canon carryed the Cause So as while you will be the visible Iudges you will lead us all in a Circle and make us so turne round as we should not know where we are imagining that all the world went upon wheels Yea but there is yet one qualification may help at a pinch For you say Archbishops and Bishops under a Gratious Keng to governe c. 'T is true indeed that under the shadow of a Gracious King to you you are imboldened to do all you do Lastly you say the Church of England doth not beleeve there is any necessity to have one Pope or one Bishop over the whole Christian world And are there not trow you many thousands in the Church of England which doe not beleeve there is any necessâ—y of having One Pope or Arch-Prelate over the whole Church of England the other world as before And I beleeve there is no more necessity of the one then of the other but that they might be well spared as Christ will one day not spare them And as I said before the Pope by as good a Title may argue a necessity of his being uneversall Bishop over the whole Christian world as you can setting the Law of England aside for your being Pope over the whole Church of England And that upon your own Ground for you say The Church of England and the Church of Rome is one and the same Church no doubt of that and The Church of England may find her selfe where Romes is now just there then if so that both are one and the Popes Principality more powerfull then that of Canterbury and if there be a nccessity that Canterbury be over the whole Church of England which is but a part of the Catholicke and that for order and unity why not the like necessity for the Pope to be supreme over all for preserving order and unity seeing your Militant Church is but one and to make many heads many Vice-Roys is to divide the body and Kingdome and so make rents in it which you like not of But to conclude I beleeve and with me all true Beleevers who have their judgements rightly informed wherever they be in any part of the world that there is a necessity of duty lying upon all Christian Magistrates to exterminate and exterpate the whole Hierarchy and Prelacy as Antichristian enemies of Iesus Christ and of his Kingdome yea and the band of Civil States and people out of the world For so we read Rev. 17.16 17. A place worthy to be written in the hearts of all Kings Christian. And it is the duty of all true Christians to rowse up the Spirit of prayer in them and to stirre up the coals of zeale to flame forth in offring up of pure Incense of fervent Prayer especially in these times wherin Satan so rageth and his Instruments grow so malapert and mischievous that God would hasten the accomplishment of Antichrists Kingdome that so the Kingdome of Iesus Christ may be exalted and inlarged and he alone rule and raigne in his Church L. p. 212. Somwhat may be done by the Bishop and Governours of the Church to preserve the unity and certainty of Faith and to keep the Church from renting or for uniting it when it is rent And this pag. 198 one Pope cannot doe P. Somwhat Why you tell us immediately before that the Pope or a Bishop may perhaps despense in some cases with the Decrees of a Generall And this I hope is somwhat more then somwhat Or perhaps at least And we have shewed before how you Prelates do either preserve the Church from renting or when it is rent make up the breaches of it namely by an uniting and confederating against Christ and his true Church and by labouring tooth and nayle to support and keep safe and sound your Antichristian Hierarchy which is not truly and properly an unity but a conspiracie against Christ from whose true Mysticall body you have made the Great and unreconciliable Rent And therfore you to preserve the unity and certainty of Faith intire which even as you are Prelates you are altogether Apostates from and enemies unto Or is the spirit of Infallibility intayld to the Prelates Chaire For doth not this necessarily imply either an Infallibility or at least a greater dexterity and a more excellent and Divine spirit to be in Prelates qua Praelati Infulati as they are Mitred Bishops then in all those that are no Prelates when onely by Prelates though but somwhat to this purpose may be done But we have shewed before what ability or soundnesse of judgement in divine spiritual matters we may expect to be in Prelates in comparison of others who are both learned pious judicious Divines L. p. 194. To draw all together to settle Controversies in the Church there is a visible Iudge and Infallible but not living and that is the Scripture pronouncing by the Church and there is a visible and living Iudge and that is a Generall Councel P. Here I goe backe a little to fetch in this passage as fiâ— here to usher in a many other Passages scattered here and there in your Book which is hard to reduce to any order or forme But we must do as we may And I shall not wittingly offer violence to any part in the least though somtimes here and there I am faine to pull them in by the head and shoulders And here you doe with the Papists make the Scripture to be but a dead letter for say you it is not a living Iudge no nor yet a speaking Iudge but as it is pronounced by the Church Wheras the Apostle saith of it Zonâ—o lógos tou Theou The word of God is living or lively nor onely so but e'nergès effectuall as it is before noted And if you will apply this to the Word preached that 's true too Although you will not confesse preaching of Gods word to be the Scripture or yet the word of God But it must be pronounced by the Church as the onely mouth of Scripture and that must be also in the Churches sense Of which sufficiently before Yet this you adde to all your other indignities you put upon the Scripture that you make it a dead Iudge and so indeed no Iudge at all as before you plainly tell For if it be blind as wanting light and if it be mute or dumb
hath been an Old stickler for Images ever since her S. Gregory first set them up in Churches to become Laymens Books Wherein in processe of time the Laity was so well read and grew such profound Proficients that those dumb Masters had taught them to put no difference at all between the Images and the Saints themselves whom they represented For the Images were layd so thick on with beautifull and lively colours as the eyes of the simple Beholders being dazled therewiâ—h were not able to penetrate or pierce through them to discern the Saints themselves who were farre enough off Whereupon the Images grew prouder and prouder as taking all the honour done to themselves like the Asse that bore the Image of the god â—sâ—sâ— he imagined that the people adored him So as becoming every day more gay then other and to follow the fashions even the clergy also began to fall in love with them and so to doâ—e upon them as they not onely adored them and that as devoutly as you do your Altars and that which hangs over them but writ Books in commendation of them and found out a Mistery which the Heathen never knew nor acknowledged the learned of them at least That Images were to be adored with the same honour that was due to the Saints they represented as the Image of Christ and the Crucifix and the Crosse with Laâ—ria which is divine worship due to Christ and to God as they distinguish the Images of the Saints with Doulia such a worship as they have devised for the Saints and if you knew all no way inferiour to divine worship and the Image of the Virgin Mary with a certain worship which they call Huperdoulia which is proper say they to the Virgin Mary a worship I will warrant you if it were well examined above that worship which they give to God himselfe And all these worships they give to the very Images themselves respectively Nor are they any small â—ools that teach these things as no lesse then Aquinas among the School-men and Bonaventure both Saints for this their meriâ— and Bellarminâ— among the Jesuites besides many more of such lâ—arned Râ—bbiâ—s In so much as their golden Legends and other Authors report that the said S. Thomas coming into a Church in Naples a goodly Cruifix saluted him saying My good friend Thomas thâ—u hast written well of me what recompense dâ—st thou desire He answered the Crucifix None but your selfe Now pâ—rhaps iâ— was of good massy Gold or Silver But this by the way Thus we see those simple A. B. C. Books and scarce that which aâ— first were onely for simple Laicks became in time Books to teach those that were of the highest forme in their Schooles even their Angelicall and Seraphicall Doctors And thus even in them came Augustins words to be verified which he then spake of the Heathen Quâ—s intuetur simulacrum c. Who beholdeth an Image that is not so affected with it as to beleeve that to be God which he seeth and adoreth And againe Plus valeat â—imulacrâ— ad incurvandum in foelicem animam quod oculos habent c. quà m ad corrigendum quod â—on vident c. Images are of more force to crooke an unhappy soule that they have eyes and eares and mouth and nose and hands and feet then to correct it that they see not heare not speak not smell not handle not walke not As David saith They that make them are like unto them and so are all they that put their trust in them that is that adore them The Makers and worshipers learned and unlearned are even as blockish as the senselesse Images themselves as the Prophet Esay also saith chap. 44.19 Besides had not Rome a finger at least if not a whole hand in that Decree of the 7 th Generall Councel of the 2. of Nice for worship of Images though then they went not so farre as Divine worship in words at least untill the worship it selfe do prove it And how many good and Godly Emperours were most grievously vexed and troubled from time to time by the Bishops of Rome for causing the Idolatrous Images in Churches to be broken down and cast out But what more Moderne Rome is too like to Paganisme in the practise of Image-worship Too like Nay doth she not farre outstrip the Heathen in this her Idolatry Da veniam verbo pardon the word Idolatry as being too grosse a word to brand the Church of Rome withall in all your Booke and therfore I suppose more grosse then your tender Eares can well brooke to heare to be layd to Romes Charge or cast in her dish as being too bitter a sauce and able to put the good motion of Reconciliation quite out of taste And it seems it is Religion with you to call Image-worship Idolatry or an Image and Idol because that second Councel of Nice made a Decree Qui sacras Imagines Idola vocant Anathema They that call the sacred â—mages Idols let them be Anathema or such as alledge against them sentences of Scripture against Idols let them be Anathema So loth are you to come under that cursed Councels Anathema But a spade is a spade And if Modern Rome outstrip old Heathen Rome â—n the Idolatry of Image-worship and if the Heathen were Idolaters then let Rome passe for an Idolatresse But the old Heathen though they adored the Images yet when it was objected to them their usuall answere was that they worshiped not the Image it selfe but that which it represented as Lactantius and Augusâ—ine and others report of them But your Moderne Rome teacheth and professeth not onely practiseth that she gives the same honour to the Image which is due to that which it representeth and that the honour or worship of Chrisâ— is terminated in his Image or Crucifix or Crosse and doth not passe through it or beyond it that is reacheth not to Christ but is wholly intercepted and preoccupated by the Image So Atheistically impudent is that Whoâ—â— grown in her Idolatry of Images that â—he surpasseth all the Heathen that ever were But you cite a saying of Cassender That in this present case of the Adoration of Images the Church of Rome came full home to the superstition of the Heathen Full home that 's somwhat more like yet then too like But it seems you have Cassanders ancient Copy which hath not passed through the fire of Romes Index Expurgatorius which would never have suffered such an Heresy as this to escape a Deleatur And you know I suppose that Cassanders works are marked out in their Indices to be purged of all such stuffe as this is Then after sundry other passages out of Romish Authors bewraying their grâ—sse Idolatry but teaching it onely none I hope doth practise it tho say you wherein you shew that you have as good a hope of the learned Teachers of Idolatry as hereafter you shew charity to their simple Disciples for their salvation
reward he had in his life time and what he hath now I cannot tell that the Lords Grace of Canterbury is pleased to Grace the late Lord Bishop of Eli by being of the same opinion with him Well what 's the Opinion That there must be some one Church or other continually visible That some one Church or other hath still been visible I shall not grudge you But take my meaning withall Some false Church or other hath been though why must be I see no reason saving that there must be Heresies even among the Churches of God continually visible ever since the Apostles times And the Church of Rome for Instance hath bore the bell away which degenerating into an Antichristian Church hath been still visible though not alwayes in one and the same place but most What at Rome and somtimes at Aninion in France for where the Popes Court is there is the Church in its glorious conspicuity yet somtime without a Head somtime with two Heads somtime with three Heads that a man might say The Porter of Heaven-gates had three Heads as the Poets fained Cerberus the Porter of Hell to have had But for the true Church of God that may somtimes be hid For first as we shewed before there was no true Church visible among the revolted Ten Tribes Secondly not in Ahaz his time when he shut up the Temple and and served Idols in every Corner of Ierusalem and then where was the Church visible the while when the whole publick service and worship of God was suppressed the Temple being shut up Againe also in Ioah his time was the like as ye may reade 2 Chro. 24.17 to 22 c. Lastly when the Temple was burnt and all the people of God dispersed Captives in Babylon where they could not sing one song of Sion Where was then the visible Church the while But you will say They might have Synagogues in Babylon But you cannot prove it And the Prophet Esay saith That they were hid in Prisons As many of Christs deare servants are at this day in your Church of England And what say you for that 30 dayes Interdiction that no man should make any suit to God or man during that space Where was then the Church visible But that was but for 30 dayes But you and Dr. White are for a continuall visibility And it seems you herein jumpe with the Jesuites who stand upon a continuall visibility every day alledging that of Christ And loe I am with you paâ—as tà s e mâ—meras which our English turnes Allwayes but they All the dayes to wit everyday Which they doe to puzzle Protestants in shewing their visible succession every day without fayle since Christs time But you will say perhaps Daniel was found praying in those dayes But he was but one single Man and so not Ecclesiâ a Church or Congregation And if he prayed with his Family it was but in his private house and you will hardly allow that for a visible Church but rather call it a private Conventicle And if with this Family then if at least you had but sent your Pursuivants not onely Daniel but according to the Kings strict Decree his whole Family should have been cast with him into the Lyons denne So during the Aegyptian servitude what conspicuity of a Church in Israel Now and then perhaps in some godly Families there might be two or three assembled Yet this private still visible you will not call it For you will not allow Churches in private Families though they were in the Apostles time And such Churches so visible as two or three are visible when you see them but the world takes no notice of them as Churches Christ never fayles to have in the world And these Congregations in private Families being driven from your publick Idolatrous Superstition in your Churches are so hid many times that your blood-hounds cannot trace them or hunt them out But as for such a Conspicuous Glorious Visibility of succession of such Prelaticall Heads of Hierarchicall Churches though such may be alwayes in some Countrey or other resplendent eminent and apparent yet Christs poore Church the while may be and commonly is hid as little starres especially where such great Luminaria as your Lordships spread out your hot and fiery beames As the Woman the Church as before which here we recapitulate to incounter two such Giants when she fled from the Dragon and his flood of persecution into the Wildernesse who saw her then and there And when the whole world was turned Arian where was the true Church visible And so since Antichrist came to his Xenith or Vereticall point to his Meridian brightnesse how hath Christs Church been hid in corners as among the Merindolians Cabriers Waldensis and others who were still persecuted by that Beast and his Crew As Solomon saith When the wicked rise men hide themselves And so we may truly say When Prelates rise and beare sway and grow most resplendent and predominant in their Potent Principalities then Gods people hide themselves And the Apostle saith of the beleevers in the Old Testament in times of persecution or captivity or of the Maccabees They wandred about in sheep-skins and Goat-skins being destitute afflicted and tormented of whom the world was not worthey they wandred in Deserts and in mountains and in dennes and caves of the earth And who were all those trow you but the true Church of God And how was then the Church of God visible but that one might see another But such you will not allow to be visible Churches 1. because you cannot see them 2. because you do not allow to be Churches visible no more then you do the Reformed Churches in Geneva and among the Canâ—oâ—s and those mountains where you cannot see them which is their safety as not to feele you And where was the visibility of Gods true Church in England in Queen Maries dayes in the midst of the black tempest of persecution where you could not discerne one true Professour and Protestant but by the light of that fire which was by the Prelates kindled to burn them for Martyrs Or if you or your Beagles had hunted among the Woods perhaps ye might have found halfe a dozen poore soules under some Tree shading them from the present heat of persecution where they did solace their soules with having among them some few leaves of St. Pauls Epistles which they read to strentghen and arme them against their â—urne came Call you this a visible Church But you will say The Church of England was then visible and conspicuous in the Bishops and the publick Congregations throughout the Churches of the land where Divine service or Masse was sung or sayd every day Then was the Church visible in Edmund of London and Stephen of Winchestr and other their Associates who were as Zealous Champions for the Church of England then as you are now So as that Church
And Virgil also a heathen Roman Poet did afterwards take and borrow this from Plato expressing it in his Aeneads And so from these two might Origen borrow his Purgatory and the Church of Rome from them all three might out of this lake of Plato or Pluto if you will borrow so much Bitumen or Pitchy matter and so casting into it the stone Asbestos which being once kindled is not quenched againe it became the hot-burning lake of Purgatory as namely for the purging of Indifferent men such as are neither hot nor cold neither Beleevers nor Infidels neither Christians nor Heathen neither good fish nor flesh Indifferent between Papists and Protestants halfe for Christ and halfe or rather All for Belial Reconcilers of light and darknesse of Truth and Errour or as the Papists say such as had onely veniall sinnes not throughly purged with holy-water in this life and therfore must be purged with fire what water could not doe untill after a Venal Masse chanted for their soules they should be delivered and so passe the Pikes into the Elâ—sian Fields And this is both Authority and Antiquity sufficient for your Purgatory though you bestow much sweat in this hot Stove and in pursuing this Ignis fatuus yet haply it may purge youâ— Reputation of that venial opinion which men have of you L. p. 375. Rome but with all other particular Churches and no more then other Patriarchall Churches was and is radix existentiae the root of the Churches existence And The uniâ—ersall Nature and Beeing of the Church hath no actuall â—xistence in all her particulars And this I say for her existence onely not the purity or forme of her existence which is not here considered P. These words confirm what you have said before of your Catholicke Church consisting of particular Patriarchall Prelaticall or Hierarchicall Churches throughout the world all of them visible and conspicuous in these it existeth as in the root this existence may be without the consideration of purity as a Church may be a true Church of Christ and yet not be holy Having then answered these things before it is sufficient for this And this still confirmes what I have said of Christs true and onely holy Catholick Church which is a matter of faith in the Creed This true and onely holy Catholick Militant Church of Christ hath for its prime Radix or Root Christ in whom it existetth subsisteth and hath its beeing Then it is diffused into all the members of Christs mysticall body all the Elect over the world or in any corner thereof to the end of the world and hath no existence at all in the Hierarchy or Prelacie or in any one visible Church or particular place or Countrey but it lyes hid as the sappe in the root in all the Persons of the Elect onely and the substance and life thereof is hid with Christ in God the Prime root And the existence of this Catholicke Church cannot be considered possibly without Purity and Holinesse for it exists no where but in purity and holynesse so as every person is holy in whom it existeth And so much for this L. p. 370 371. But if she be not the Catholicke nor the root of the Catholicke Church yet Apostolick I hope she is Indeed Apostolicke she is as being the sea of one and he a Prime Apostle But then not Apostolicke as the Church is called in the Creed from the Apostles no nor the onely Apostolicke Visible I may not deny God hath hitherto preserved her but for a better end doubtlesse then they turne it to The Church of Rome indeed Apostolicke Why so As being the sea of one and he a prime Apostle That was Peter you mean sure He was a Prime Apostle though not the Prime 〈◊〉 somtimes Iames is placed before him Gal. 2.9 And Paul was no whit inferiour to those 3. Iames Peter and Iohn who were Pillars and seemed to be somwhat And in this respect may you not possibly meane Paul rather then Peter for Paul we are sure was in Rome and there preached though in prison But we read no where in Scripture that Peter was at Rome much lesse that he sate there Bishop of Rome and so fixed his Chaire there If therfore you mean Peter and pitch upon him though the Popes are faine to use somtimes two strings to their bow and to challenge their succession both from Peter and Paul and some stories speake both of Peter and Paul as Bishops there I say if you pitch upon Peter how doe you prove that Peter was at Rome and if at Rome whether Bishop there and if a Bishop there why consequently must that Sea be still Apostolicke seeing non sedes sed fides not the seat but the Faith makes Apostolicke But there be many reasons and arguments from Scripture some that Peter was not at Rome others and those more demonstrative that he was never Bishop of Rome as Pontifex or Prelate such a Bishop as you meane I have seen a Booke Printed in English by Authority which proveth that Peter was never at Rome And this he doth by computing and comparing the times and other Circumstances in the Acts and Pauls Epistles with those Histories which say he was there and Bishop there which stories neither agree with the Scripture nor with themselves nor with other Histories profane And if Peter were at Rome how cometh it that Paul being there doth not in all his Epistles make mention of him Was Peter either so obscure as Paul should not know him to be at Rome Or so proud of his new Prelacie as not to acknowledge his fellow Apostle now a Prisoner Or what was it that Paul doth not so much as mention him Because Peter being for the Circumcision should a'llotrtoepiskopoin take Pauls Bishoprick over his head who was for the Uncircumcision whereof Rome was the Metopolis Or had Peter with Demas forsaken Paul imbracing this present world in a Lordly Bishopricke But let it be given you that Peter was at Rome and Lord Bishop of Rome what then Ergo is the Church of Rome indeed Apostolicke Did Peter leave his Apostolick Bishopricke by an Intayle â—o all his successors in Rome Are â—hey Apostolicke when they are become Apostates from the faith Alas alas your words utter your spirit but no truth Onely one thing you deliver as doubtlesse where you say Visible I may not deny God hath hitherto preserved her but for a better end doubtlesse then they turne it to Visible Ergo the Pope is Peters successor Ergo the sea of Rome is indeed Apostolicke Ergo a true Church of Christ. For visible it is It is indeed that visible and conspicuous City on its seven tops or hils whereon it stood in Iohns time and now that Woman that sits and rides mounted on her seven-headed ten-horned Beast Visible with a witnesse otherwise all her pompe would loose the Grace if it wanted spectators as her Scarlet and Purple and Pearle and
your own Name This in our poore opinions will mightily take with the vulgar and easily vindicate and set upright your Graces Reputation And because we are not ignorant of your multiplicious and waighty affaires in Court not permitting your thoughts that vacancie which such a worke would require let not that trouble your Lordship our Service shall not be wanting Thus or so your Divines Well now that you heare your friends Counsell what 's your Resolution L· ibid. I confesse I looked round about these men and their motion and at last my thoughts working much upon themselves I began to perswade my selfe that I had been too long diverted from this necessary worke And that perhaps these might be in voce hominum tuba Dei in the still voyce of men the loud Trumpet of God P. And perhaps my Lord and that whereof it may be ye wil be the rather perswaded the unanimous consâ—nt of these Divines might be by the instigation of that same Spirit in which those 400. Prophets by their unanimous vote prevailed to perswade King Ahab to goe up to Ramoth Gilead that so according to Gods own purpose he might there perish But it might be you say Gods loud Trumpet What to hasten you to Judgement Certainly that lying Spirit in those Prophets was sent from GOD to prepare the way of executing vengeance on that Ahab the more speedily as who had sold himselfe to worke wickednesse in sheding Nabaths blood And surely when I look'd into the intrals of this your Booke as the Roman Southsayers of old did into the bowels and entralls of their Sacrifices and found them so exceedingly vicious and corrupt and withall like to Caesars Sacrifice wherein was found no heart which the Astrologers took for a bad signe no heart at all to the true Religion indeed it suggested these conceits into my mind about this very passage of yours But time will try all things And if you will have my poore opinion I am perswaded if you had never put pen to paper it having been super-sufficient to have expressed your mind in your other handy-works or Practises and so had reserved your Apology when requisite to your perswasive Language and powerfull Rhetorick men might have had lesse hold to take off you when you might have put all your other Actions upon a higher moving Cause as usually ye doe But for writing you know Litera Scripta manet Or else it had been better to have reprinted your First Coppy as it was at first without Alteration and in your Chaplains name still for so you should both have vindicated it from obscurity lying hid and lurking in the belly of Dr. Whites Works and also at pleasure have either owned or disclaimed it as you found occasion Or might have excused any thing that might be taken in it as offensive either imputing it to your Chapleins mistake or to want of leasure to revise it or which is the surest and most beaten way to the Printer as was lately done about that notorious Popish Book of Salis his Devotions And hereof if your Lordship knows it not I will tell you a pretty Tale. This Book of Devotion of Salis bearing the Title of Bishop of Geneva although the Church of Geneva have no such Bishops had been so long ago translated into English and being purged from those grosse points of Popery which were in the Originall Coppy was by Authority published in Print and sold well But of late dayes since you came to sit in that Chaire one undertook to translate the Originall anew and intire as it was at first set forth by the Author without altering any thing as the Translator professed in his Epistle Dedicatory to Mris Anne Roper a notorious Recusant This Translation being brought to your Chaplein to license it past for currant as containing nothing in it against Faith and Manners and so was licensed without the least correction of the grossest things in it It came to the Printer who falling aworke upon it began to stumble at some no small Popish blocks that lay in his way insomuch as he was afraid to goe on but went and shewed them to your Chaplein who making a tush at it bad him goe on and he would beare him out in it So Printed it was And coming abroad some began to find fault with it and the stinke of the Booke more and more increasing with stirring it came at length to be smelled by your Lordship Hereupon what serious examination you used about it I know not but there being some Jealousie that some one of those THREE forementioned troublesome bitter men whose Cause was then shortly to be heard might haply among other things might they have been permitted to speake freely cast that Booke in your Lordships dish the next newes we heard of it was that a Proclamation is published for the burning of the Book in Smith-field wherein also all the blame was layd upon the poore Printer for which he must to prison and you and your Chaplein were acquitted and cleared as no way faulty So easie is it with the least breath to blow away the blackest clowds when they threaten a storme either against you or your Chaplein in such cases But now in this your Booke so exactly Reprinted and revised and republished wherein also you have ratified and avowed all in your former Booke for yours you have for ever fast bound your hands that you cannot helpe your selfe at a dead lift Well 't is too late now either to prevent or remedy what is past Yet one thing there is which you may perhaps deem to be operae pretium worth your paines as wherein lyes your maine Confidence of vindicating your Reputation with good men and that is some Large Discourses in your Booke wherein you seeme to be point blanke against the Papists as about the Scripture Transubstantiation c. This indeed might say well to it and passe for currant were there not in some of them so much grosse allay as makes the whole to be reprobate Silver as the Prophet saith and also did you not commit a grosse Solecisme in writing a seeming Truth and practising apparently contrary and did you not overballance seeming Truths with too much Popish Truth throughout your Booke as will all along appeare And you know that if one dead Fly will corrupt a whole box of oyntment how much more a Swarme And a little poyson corrected and infused in a Potion proves medicinall but if uncorrected and of two great a quantity it becomes mortall and so instead of bealing kills the Patient But to proceed L. p. 9. I have thus acquainted your Majestie with all occasions which both formerly and now againe have led this Tract into the Light P. And not without cause needs your Tract to be led into the light I will not here apply that speech of Christ If the blind lead the blind but leave it to the event L. p. 11. GOD forbid I should
to boot For then how easily and quickly may the Wolves and Foxes devoure all the Flocks in the Land when the faithfull Shepheards and wathmen as your Lordship knowes Leo-well are taken away and when those Fishers can show the people this your Book which as a vast net were able at one draught to inclose multitudes by exâ—rting them to be reconciled to Rome and that upon this one ground that the Church of England and of Rome is one and the same Church no doubt of that of which anon But yet me thinks I have not all this while dived deep enough to sound the bottome of this word Not neglect Somwhat of a moderate Speech in the smoothnesse of the barke Not neglect as if you should say I would not have your Majesty to be too rigorous against the Puritan Ministers good men but yet I would not have you to neglect them But we cannot better find out the full meaning of this word but by the large Commentary of your Practises which summed up together amount to thus much I would not have your Majesty to neglect that is I would not have your Majesty neglest means that can possibly be devised for the utter rooting out of these Puritans that do so pester your Kingdome And for that you must make your main aym at the suppressing of the Puritan Ministers For smite the Shepheard and the sheep wil be Scattered Now forasmuch as all Non-conformists are put to perpetuall silence wherein we have been helped by your good Lawes and we want Lawes to dealâ— with your Puritan Conformists therefore we must supply that with policie backed with your Royall Power Your Majesty must set forth Edicts laying a straight charge on us Prelates to see them executed For instance That all Ministers yea and that in their own Persons not by their Curates do read in their severall Congregations respectively your Book for Sports on Sundayes and Holy-dayes This will pack away a good many of them who I know will never read it Leâ— another be made for setting up of Altars in all Churches as that for S. GREGORIES under S. Pauls which would be pulished in Print although in the meane time it be safely kept among the Records of the Counsell Board and your Proclamation since enjoynes all Orders for Religion to be observed whether Publique or Private being made at the Counsell-Board A third to prohibit all Lectures on the week dayes and also preaching on the Afternoones on Sundayes A fourth prohibiting Controverted points to be preached on at all or Predestination c. which will mainly pinch the Puritans A fift That whatsoever Rites we Bishops doe or shall impose upon the Churches may be ratified under your Majesties Broad Seale both for the preventing of Premunires and suppressing Clamours of the People against the Prelates and enforceing Ministers to obey them A sixt That a Proclamation be published to inhibit all men from speaking or writing against the Religion of the Church of England As it is now established leaving out that other Phrase as it was in Queen Elizabeths time and turning into As it is Now established And to all these adde Vnder pain of your Majesties most heavy Displeasure not nominating any particular punishment because of the Lawes but leave that to us for so long as you doe but give us power we shall not want meanes and wayes to punish them so long as either the High Commission or Starre-Chamber doe stand And thus in short time there should not one Puritan be left in the Land And all this I meane by I would not have you neglest Thus we know your mind But in the meane time my Lord you might doe well to consider and consult what may be the Consequences of these things that you thus load the King withall What Thus to root out the Puritans and so by your Innovation of the State of Religion by Law established to make way for your Reconciliation with Rome Take heed what you doe Have you not learned that principle in the Politicks That Suddaine Changes in the Civill Government and most of all in Religion is full of perill And another notable point of prudence I have read of For a Prince how ever he may haply connive yet not to appeare the prime Author of such projects and practises as may breed a heart-burning in the people For as the Heathen Poet sung Invidia Siculi non invenere Tiranni Majus Tormentum And the Wise-man saith Who can stand before Envy Not Caesar himselfe And therefore if you tender the Kings honour and the peace and weale of his Kingdome doe not lay too great a burthen upon him Give way that some things may be imputed to your zeale so as if you should come to be questioned for it as you have no such feare so long as there is no Parliament which I hope you will look too well enough the King may have opportunity to show his favour in spreading his Royall wing over you But my Lord you professe great love to his Majesty and to the peace and prosperity of his Kingdome Will you now show how zealously and sincerely you love the King and his people at this time At this calamitous and dangerous time when you see a whole Kingdome even his Native Countrey fallen off at one clappe And for what cause Some say 'T is for Religion because they cannot injoy it in that purity nor their Consciences in that liberty as antiently they did before the Prelates came to be set over them but by that their meanes they are more and more pressed as they complain to bring them to a full conformity to your Church of England as now you have made it which you say is all one with the Church of Rome and which in your Booke you labour to reconcile to Rome And can there be any thing more offensive to true Christian Stomacks then the burthening of their Consciences with such things as are against Gods Word and Christs Kingdome and their Christian Liberty Or is it not for this Cause that they are thus fallen off But the Late Proclamation given at White-Hall Febru 27. 1639. seemes to intimate that one maine Cause of the Scots discontent is the Hierarchicall Government For there it is said We neither can nor will permit Episcopall Government established by many Acts of Parliament in that our Kingdome to be abolished And againe the Proclamation saith And further we thinke to declare unto you and to the Christian world that by our Intention of introducing the Service Booke into that Kingdome we had not the least thought of Innovation in Religion in this or that but meerely to have a conformity with that Worship of God which is observed within both our other Kingdomes though il-minded men have wrested some things in it to a Sinister Sense Thus it seems to me that the Scots are discontented with Episcopall Government and Ceremonies which usually go together Now were it not a worthy and admirable
Preeminence the Bishops Chaire hee prateth against Iohn hee receives not the bretheren and forbids them that would and and throwes them out of the Church by Excommunication just as you and the Pope doe This ambition and erection of Prelacie or Hierarchy was that Mystery of Iniquity which Satan began to brood and hatch even in the Apostles dayes and wherein we have Diotrephes quickly grown up as the first Cocke of the Game of speciall and particular note and name that durst affront even the Apostle himselfe And this Mystery of Iniquity hath continued ever since though at first and in the first Ages it grew up but slowly by reason of a tò katekon à Remora or maine impediment the Roman Empire whose Imperiall Seat being once removed from Rome to Constantinople by Constantine who consopited appeased and put an end to those tenne Persecutions which had been a great hinderance to Antichrists growth then began this Mistery to perke up and the Bishop of Rome Silvester the first could be content to weare a Crown put upon his head by Constantine which upon Boniface the eight his head was multiplyed to a triple Crown one for heaven another for earth and third for purgatory and thus by degrees successively it grew up to that height which we see it now arrived at even its Akmè or full Stature beyond which it cannot goe though it would So as its main care strength and policie is all little enough Parta tueri to maintain what it hath got Now I say in this Mystery of Iniquity I mean the Prelacie or Hierarchy was Antichrist begotten born bred up and at length brought to his full maturity and perfection Now is this Mystery of Iniquity therefore good because it is able to vie and plead Antiquity even as high up as the Apostles owne times and so along downe to ours Though I doe more then suspect that you take it in foule Scorne that I should Anti-christen your Prelacie or Hierarchie with the name of the Mystery of Iniquity But if ye will be patient a while I shall ere I have done give you I hope good Satisfaction And in the meane time the Apostle shall passe his word for it who in the very same place where he speakes of the Mystery of Iniquity doth speake also of the Man of Sin the Son of Perdition who is an Adversary and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped who sitteth as God in the Temple of God shewing himselfe that he is God The very recitall of which words may suffice to stay any reasonable mans stomacke from breaking out into outragious impatience against him that saith The Prelacie is the Mystery of Iniquity But you shall have it God willing at full anon Againe some of your Divines goe about to drive the Antiquity of your holy Lent-Fast from the Apostles very times and so to have continued ever since in all Ages and Places where the Church hath taken any rooting And indeed some Christians even then began to observe Touch not Tast not handle not and to observe Times daies Moneths but the Apostle condemns all such observation and as before brands them for Doctrines of Devils and departing from the Faith and denying of Christ. So as though you could prove your Church-Government to have been in use both in and ever since the Apostles times yet it will not follow that it is such a Government as either was practised or yet approved by the Apostles themselves For your Church-Government is altogether Hierarchicall by Prelates which the Apostles never practised themselves nor yet approved but condemned in others that either began to practise it or were inclined and affected thereto Not as Lords over Gods Heritage saith Peter Not as having dominion over your Faith saith Paul It shall not be so among you saith Christ. Diotrephes loveth to have the Preeminence saith Iohn But of this we shall have occasion to speake more at after In the meane time take this with you Did the Apostles nay for some hundred yeares after them did Prelates keep Courts and Consistories with their Chauncellors Archdeacons Commissaries Officialls Tipstaves Pursuivants Apparators like the Roman Lictors with their rodds for terrour and state Or had they their private Courts to excommunicate whom they pleased and that by a dumbe Priest and for every triviall matter and for no just cause Prove these things my Lord to have been in use in the Primitive Ages at the least for the first 500. yeares or in any place but where Diotrâ—phes was untill Antichrist the Pope set up that frame of Hierarchy with all its Equipage Traine and Rabble the just Image whereof you have set up in the Church of England You speak bigge indeed but you cannot be as bigge as your word If you had leasure to read the Histories of the Church and among the rest the Centuries they will show you what a vast difference there is between your Church-Government as both now and of long time it hath been practised in the Church both of Rome and England and that ancient Government practised by the ancient Prelates in the Primitive Ages And in the Popes Canon Law and other Records à Polidor Virgil De Inventorebus rerum c. you may come to know the Antiquity of your Prelaticall Courts and Consistories Chancellors Archdeacons Officialls Commissaries Registers and all the frie. For beyond that seaven hild City the head-spring of this Seaven-Streamed Egyptian Nilus is not found Hath not then the Seperatist as you call him just cause and ground to charge your Church of England with Antichristianisme whose Church-Government and Discipline is such as the Apostles never approved but expresly reproved and condemned and practised the contrary For if your Church-Government be that which the Apostle brands with the Mystery of Iniquity and of Antichrist then surely you cannot excuse it from Antichristianisme If you say This is rather meant of the Church of Rome and of the Pope the Head thereof who you must needs confesse is very like to Antichrist if he be not the very Antichrist as indeed he is then of the Church of England Why wherein differeth the Church of England from that of Rome in Church-Government Do you not say you are both one and the same Church And wherein one and the same but in Church-Government especially Of which we shall speake more anon Now for Antichristianisme you know it comes of Antichrist and Antichrist is a compound word Anti in the Greek signifying both for and against So as Anti-Christ is one that under pretence of being for Christ is against Christ. Such is the Pope who pretends to be Christs Vicar which is as much to say as Antixristos Antichristus as Anthupatos Pro consul so Antichristus Prochristus or Vice-Christ And yet he is Anti Against Antikeimenos an Adversary to Christ as the Apostle sets him forth So as the Pope is
about Altars Prelates Calling Ceremonies Now if they should consult your Lordship Siting in the Chaire of Canterbury to resolve them in these difficulties what would be your finall determination of them For the first would you not alledge Heb. 13.10 We have an Altar For the second Psal. 45.16 Princes in all Lands that is Prelates For the Third to wit Ceremonies 1 Cor. 14.40 Let all things be done decently and in Order Ergo what Ceremonies the Bishop shall injoyne you must observe These are your Glosses and such interpretations as these we must looke for of your Church Such as the Church of Rome is very dextrous and expert in As This is my body Ergo The Bread is transubstantiated into Christs very body I have prayed for thee Peter Ergo the Pope cannot erre Launch out into the deep Ergo the Pope may fish all the world Arise Peter Kill and eat Ergo the Pope may kill the Venetians As it were by fire Ergo there is a Purgatory Thus the Scripture where 't is plaine should guide the Church otherwise not but in doubt and difficulty the Church should expound the Scripture that is guide the Scripture Ergo the Church is above the Scripture because onely where 't is plaine it guides the Church but where difficult the Church must guide it interpret it In difficulties then the Scripture it must not guide the Church Ergo in difficulties and doubts the Church may interpret as She pleaseth No not so for you adde ibid. Saying Yet so as neither the the Scripture should be forced nor the Church so bound up as that upon just and further evidence She may not revise that which in any Case â—ath slipt by her P. Here be two things enterfeerinch each other First a Caution Secondly a Condition The Caution That the Scripture be not forced Take heed of that But who shall Judge of that Even the Same that forceth it the Church And who shall defend that Scripture from forcing if it be left to mens interpritation and those men in matters of doubt and difficulty are not guided by the Scripture but the Scripture by the Churches interpretation But in no Case let the Scripture be forced You will have a care of that But why then doe you show your selfe so expert in forcing and misapplying the Scripture and that most pittifully as both hath been shewed and will all along appeare But however the Condition will helpe all Forcing or not forcing the Church must not be bound but that upon just and further Evidence She may revise that which in any Case hath slipt by her Now what is this just and further Evidence Or what this Revising And what this Sliping by her I take the Sense and Summe of all to be this That here you lay your ground to make way for an Index expurgatorious to revise But is that all Nay 't is implyed that some thing els be done as to correct and expunge or at least more clearely interpret but indeed to expunge with a Deleatur let it be blotted out whatsoever in any Books formerly Printed by Authority in England hath in any Case slipped by her or if the maine Subject of the Book be not Catholick and consonant to the Doctrines of the present Church that they may be censured as Prohibited Bookes and so una Litura cancelled And withall whatsoever you find in any Books which you do not very well resent to declare which be the Doctrines of the Church of England and which private mens opinions And 't will be requisite in my judgement that you hasten this worke to dispatch it in your time least if you die such another Phoenix will hardly arise out of your Ashes that will have the courage to adventure upon these things But among all other things leave us not in that perplexed estate whereinto you have brought us by your Declaration before the Articles of Religion but make us a New Declaration to certifie us what to beleeve and rather resolve us plainly that the Articles are to be taken in that sense which agreeth with your own opinion then that they should give an uncertain sound for then who shall prepare himselfe to the battell And there may be great reason why we should preferre your Lordships opinion before the judgement of all other those learned men that have formerly lived in the Church of England because the Church may now see more and further into a Milstone then of old as a Dwarfe upon a Giants shoulders And so what slippes have formerly passed by the Church of England your Lordship with your Chapleins and Divines will so revise and repurg as there shal be nothing left upon record whereby it might appeare to Posterity that there is any such difference between the Church of England and of Rome as to hinder their most wished and desirable reconciliation And I think I am not in this farre wide of your Project The Wardens of the Company of STATIONERS can tell what you lately gave them in Charge about such a matter for the revising of Puritan Books that so when you have purged out the Puritanism there may be neither Purity nor Verity left As I remember the Orator said of a certaine Roman that he alwayes had his head and eye-browes Shaven that men might take him not to have one haire of a good man Thus when you have given such Books a dry shaving you will make them to appeare as ridiculous as Davids Messengers whom the young Ammonitish King took and caused halfe their beards to be Shaven off and their garments to be curtalled to their bare buttocks But herein you prudently follow both the example of Rome and the Counsell of Franciscus â S. Clara who commends you for seting afoot this Project But I hope the Stationers will look a little better to their tò méros â—rgasÃa the gaine of their Trade and that which is their Freehold and Livelyhood as well knowing that if the good Books be guelt of their masculine vertue and verity none will buy them except perhaps Chandlers to stop their Mustard pots and put about their Candles And then should the Company of Book sellers and their Posterity be deprived of the benefit of their Coppies which are as a Coppy-hold of Inheritance to them and theirs But time will try all things L. p. 18. And though I cannot prophesie yet I feare that Atheisme and Irreligion gather strength while the truth is thus weakened by an unworthy way of contending P. Cannot you prophesie being the High Priest of England as that High Priest did that it was necessary Christ should dye that the whole Nation perish not So cannot you prophesie That it is necessary that all Puritans Christs members should perish that the whole Generation and Hierarchy of Priests perish not But though you cannot no more then Balaam prophesie or bring an Inchantment against the Children of Israel that God should
Pope not to be Antichrist and no necessity of frequent Preaching and none to preach but Bishops and Deanes and that onely and especially at the three Solemn times in the yeare Also another Book intituled the Femall Glory as full fraught thoughout with the most grosse blasphemous Idolatrous Popish Stuffe as it can hold and this in plain English allowed by one of your Chapleins or of London house and for ought I heare not yet suppressed or call'd in Besides many other of the same branne some whereof are printed but kept up under deck not daring yet to peep forth till the Storm as in Starre Chamber you call'd it raysed by BURTON and others be over and least they should be made Popish Martyrs in Smithfield as Salis his Devotions were which for feare were burned as afore Under your Primacy hath there not been a mighty stirring and stickling for the seting up of Altars c. yea of Images too and Crucifixes and that in Collegiate Churches or Chappels both in Oxford you being Chauncellour and in Cambridge where you want not a Vice-Chauncellour and which you indeavour in all the Churches of England Under your Primacie have not your pregnantest wits and profoundest Divines been set aworke to write Books to unmorallize the 4th Commandement for the perpetuall keeping of the Lords Sabbath day and so unbind Christians from the sanctification of the Lords day and their Books allowed by your Authority and Dedicated to great ones and much applauded by your Faction Under your Primacie have not your Doctors also written stoutly for your Altars and that even unto blasphemy Saying that the use of the Altar is to sanctifie the Sacrifice and without an Altar the Sacrifice is not Sanctified or dedicated by the Bishop Under your Primacie began not Ministers to be Suspended Silenced Excommunicated put out of their Benefices and Cures of Soules for refusing to read the Book of Liberty for Sports on the Lords day and to set up Altars in their Churches at their Ordinaries Command These these my Lord being thus doe you complaine of unsettlednesse Who hath troubled the Fountain The Wolfe above at the Spring head or the Lamb below To recollect then and recapitulate these things When Profanation of the Lords day is by publick Edict allowed when the Articles of Religion are made as the Delphick Oracles to be taken two contrary wayes when the Doctrines of Gods Grace are universally restrained and forbid to be preached when Popish Books publickly allowed in Print and Orthodox Books against Popery restrained when Altars set up in all Churches where there was none before when Books published by Authority to disanull Gods Morall Law when Books allowed publickly to maintain the seting up of Altars in Churchs when Godly Ministers by multitudes put down for not yeelding to those things which are contrary to the Laws of God and man and all this in the State of England where from the first Reformation such as it was have been universally and constantly maintained both by writing and preaching the morality of the 4th Commandement for the sanctification of the Lords Day the Articles of Religion concerning Grace to have but one Orthodox sense the free and unrestrained preaching of Gods word and confuting of all opposite Errours that the Pope is that Antichrist that the Lords Supper was to be celebrated onely at the Lords Table that Ministers Conformity was extended no further then was limited by the Law all these things considered in the tumult of so many bold Innovations Innovation I cry you mercy Renovations I should say of old Popish ragges and outcast reliques for you disclaim Innovation against Gods law and Mans law what settlement what peace what tranquility can be expected and then again al these new Attempts for Uniformity and Conformity coming in under and with your Primacie can they vindicate your Reputation from a generall opinion of your being the most perillous and pernicious Instrument of unsettling and troubling the State oâ— the Land and of Religion and you may if you will take Scotland in to boot with generall discontents and heart burnings to see the State of Religion thus turned topsie turvie And doe you complain notwithstanding that you cannot attain to an Orderly Settlement Stay my Lord be not so eagre See Scotland first settled before you proceed further in the settlement of England least you unsettle all Be not deceived in the confidence of your own active brain and borrowed power And see also how your Booke will take For Certainly therein you have run your selfe upon the Pikes get off as you can Your Reputation if you meane it for the Repute to be a good Protestant unlesse you meane it that you would be accounted what you are a member of one and the Same Church with Rome is now bound to the Stake ready to be Sacrificed for a whole-burnt Offering For what your Ordinary practises proclaimed to the world of you now in your Book you stick not openly to professe that you desire for the Church and State of England to be reconciled to the Sea of Rome So as your Book besides the turbulent matter in it like the Trojan horse full of armed enemies could not possibly have been borne into the world in a more unhappy time then now when you see two Kingdomes all in a combustion which the Sprinkling of your Romes Holy water wil be so farre from quenching or allaying that it will prove rather as Oyle to increase and feed the flame But GOD give the King the Spirit of Wisedome and Iudgement to see into these things betimes both for the preventing of further mischiefes and for the reuniting of the great rent between his two Kingdomes But as Iehu said to Iehoram when he asked Is it peace Iehu What peace said he so long as the Whoredomes of thy Mother Iezabel and her Witchcrafts are so many So what peace can be expected in the Land where such an Uniformity and Settlement is required as is so repugnant to the Laws of Christs Kingdome and conformable to Antichrists Tyranny and conducible to a reconciliation with that old Iezabel of Rome Certainly the case being so as Deborah said in her Song They chose new gods then was warre in the gates So when a Nation falls to advance higher and higher a new and false Religion where it had been formerly in some good measure cast out to set up Idolatrous and Romish Altars whereby Christ the true and onely Altar of true Christians as hath been shewed is denyed and renounced and to cry down Gods holy Commandements and to oppresse Gods holy Word in the Ministry of it and to persecute Gods faithfull Ministers and People and like the Aegyptians to oppresse Gods People more and more with intolerable burthens of humane inventions to the great reproach of Christ and the throwing down of his incommunicable Royall Soveraignty over his Church and People in matters of Faith and the worship of God Can peace or settlement
so fit as his own Day of Rest which he hath Commanded to be sanctified weekly of us if we be his people and he the Lord our God who hath redeemed us in his holy and eternall Law and in which day we resting do partake and communicate of his holy and eternall rest begun here by Christ and consummate in heaven in that pangúrei solemne Generall Assembly and Congregation of the first borne written in heaven Heb. 12.23 And to conclude if the ten Commandements belong to us Christians under the Covenant of Grace then certainly the 4 th Commandement which commands to keep the Sabbath of the Lord our God which is the Lords day Now by this which hath been spoken you may examine how farre you and your Church of England have erred in the foundation that is in this and other fundamentall points of Faith at least if those Acts â—dicts and Books that have been published against the aforesaid Doctrines shal be avowed for the Doctrines of the Church of England as they are pressed And if with Rome you be thus fallen holy you are not by your own confession nor onely so but Hereticall yea more then that Infidel For in the same page you say If the Church can erre quite from the Foundation then she is nor Holy nor Church but becomes an Infidell Now we have proved that to erre in one or more though not in all fundamentall points of Faith is to fall quite off from the foundation But if you thus cease to be holy how are you the Church of Christ still as you say For holinesse is essentiall unto and so is of the Difinition of the true Church of Christ I beleeve the Holy Catholicke Church And so of every particular Church if it be a true member of the true Catholicke it is holy For Eadem est ratio totius partium If the whole be holy so every member and part But the whole true Church is holy For 't is Christs body mysticall whereof he the Head he the root and we the Branches and if the root be holy so are the branches as the Apostle saith And he saith againe The Temple of God is holy which Temple ye are And I say Christ being the Head and the Church hâ—s body the spirit of holinesse and sanctification flows down from the Head to all the mâ—mbers as the Oyle powred on Aarons head went down to the skirts of his clothing which was a type of the holy anoynting oyle of Christs spirit powred on him which he communicates to all the members of his misticall body even as a mans head communicates of Animal spirits of motion to all the parts of his body as we touched before Except with Bellarmine you will have a dead member to be a true member Indeed a dead member of a dead body is a true member of that body And certainly if a Church cease to be holy it ceaseth to be a Church of Christ any moreâ— But I pray you what should move you to say thus Though the Church ceaseth to be Holy yet ceaseth not to be a Church of Christ. You have it not from the Schoole of Divinity not scarce can you rake it out of the puddle of the Iesuites themselves But haply you might suspect that the Church of Rome might be proved to be fallen quite from the Foundation as hath been already proved before and therfore your Charity would provide one refuge for it that though thus she ceaseth to be holy yet not to be a true Church still But you may doe well to study this point a little better how to make it good How a Church may cease to be Holy becoming Hereticall and yet be a Church of Christ still L. p. 141.142 Those Errors that are dyed in Graine cannot consist with holinesse of which Faith in Christ is the very Foundation And therfore if we will keep up our Creed the whole Militant Church must still be holy P. This confirmes what before I concluded of the Church of Rome as no Church of Chhist because by your own verdict not holy For her Errors and that in the fundamentall points of Faith are all dyed in graine so as they will never change colour nor looke of another hue For both they are of no small antiquity and since their first hatching they have been by sundry Councels confirmed and at last most irrefragably in the Councel of Trent as hath been shewed For as those things which you elswhere instance Worship of Images first erected in the 2 d Councel of Nice the seventh Generall Transubstantiation first Decreed in the Councel of Laterian under Innocent the third and the taking away of the Cup in the Sacrament first decreed in the Councel of Constance so the Title of Antichrist of Vniversall Bishop and Head of the Church obtained first by Boniface 3. above a thousand yeares agoe with many or most or all the Rest of Popery have been ever since their severall erections upon all occasions more and more ratified never any corrected and by generall practice upheld and against all opposition and conviction stiffly maintained Are they not dyed in graine then And if so you confesse they consist not of holinesse But say you if we will keep up our Creed the whole Melitant Church must still be Holy Here you enterfere againe For notwithstanding all that is said or I suppose can be said you will have the Church of Rome to be holy still as being a member of the Church Militant in despight of the Pope But let her be a member of your Church Militant is she therfore holy Say not you your Church Militant may fall into errors so as to cease to be holy And if the Church of Rome hath thus fallen hath she not for her part ceased to be holy But not if she keep up the Creed What call you that To hold the letter of the Creed and to deny the Faith of it so we have proved before She hath lost the Faith of Christ the foundation of Holinesse Ergo she hath lost Holinesse Ergo lost the Essence of a Church Ergo she is not in the compasse of your Creed I beleeve the Holy Catholicke Church L. p. 142. I say it and most true it is That it was ill done if those who ere they were that made the seperation P. It should be most true if you doe but say it Yet we find not all to be most true you say How true this is I know not yet Let us here I remember a little before you performed a thanklesse office for the Protestants in making an Apology for them as not the first in the fault of this seperation Which I answered And here you put the fault on those that made the seperation who ere they were which might be aswell the Protestants as the Papists But speake out L. p. 145. For my part I am of the same opinion for the continuing of the Schisme that I was for
non sinit esse sui Some secret sweetnesse in mans native home Draws him to mind it still where ere become L. Ibid. In a corrupt Time or Place 't is as necessary in Religion to deny falshood as to assert and vindicate truth Indeed this latter can hardly be well and sufficiently done but by the former an affirmative verity being ever included in the negative to a falshood P. Then I hope in a corrupt Time and Place is it not necessary in Religion to deny your falshoods and to assert and vindicate the Truth by you so undermined and oppugned And your own Words here are sufficient to leave your Deeds without excuse L. p. 157. If it be a Cause common to both parties a third must judge and that is the Scripture or if there be jealousie or doubt of the sense of the Scripture they must either both repaire to the exposition of the Primitive Church and submit to that or both call and submit to a Generall Councel P. The Scripture That 's honest as I noted before Yea and submit to and rest in that which you say not But of the Scripture the onely Judge of all Controversies we have spoken sufficiently before and so for matters of jealousie or doubt and not either to your Primitive Church or to a Generall Councel For further Answere we shall have further occasion L. p. 171. Pope Urban 2 at the Councel held at Bari in Apâ—lia accounted my Worthy Predecessor S. Augustine as his own compâ—â—â—e and said He was as the Apostolicke and Patriarch of the other world so he then turned this Iland P. As worthy as your predecessor Anselme was and though now one of Romes Saints yet he was against your Priests Marriage But perhaps therfore the more worthy And he was so holy it seems that he said he never repented him of any thing in all his life but about the eating of some Fish one time But if the Pope gave your Worthy Predecessor the Title of Apostolicke and Patriarch of the other world of England why should not the same Title descend to his successors And it seems you are not a little affected with it For you say A Primate is greater then a Metropolitan and a Patriarch then a Primate And none were above Patriarch but Pope If then you succeed Anselme in his Patriarchate of the other world you are in the next degree to succeed him that is Papa totius Orbis But how ever you glory in these titles I assure you for my part I shall ever preferre a good honest Cobler that feares God above them all For he hath an honest calling you none And you all are persecuters of them that truly feare God and so enemies of Christ. And though you would be called Apostolicke yet to be Metropolitan Primate Patriarch Pope are all swelling Titles of pride which the Apostles never knew and which Christ expresly forbids as hath been noted and will be more As followeth L. p. 175. The calling and Authority of Bishops over the Inferiour Clergy that was a thing of known use and benefit for preservation of unity and peace in the Church P. For this you cite Hierome But you omit his other words where he saith That your Diocesan Bishops for of such onely the Question is were brought in but humana praesumptione non Institutione Divina by humane Presumption not by Divine Institution or Gods Ordinance and this as men presumed in Schismata remedia for a remedy of Schisme But it proved to be Schisma magnum the Great Schisme that made up the body of Antichrist the Great Rent from Christ filling up the Mystery of Iniquity as hath been shewed And out of Ieromes Sacerdos Priest where he saith No Priest no Church you conclude in the Margent so even with him No Bishop no Church As if to be a Priest must needs be a Bishop And idid you say This was to settle in the minds of men from the very Infancy of the Christian Church as that it had not been to that time contradicted by any In the very Infancy of the Church But your Prelacy was but an Infant then and Innocent in comparison to the Giants now We shewed before how this Mystery wrought even in the Apostles times which they knockt down yet still Satan kept it afoot The use of it hath great Antiquity but the Apostles condemned it as a meere abuse and Christ as Heathenish And you talke here of use but you are not able to shew us any Authority from Scripture either from Apostolik Ordinance and Example The Apostles indeed before Christs Resurrection were blindly ambitious of being chief in Christs Kingdome and Christ told his two kinsmen Iames and Iohn They asked they knew not what and yet Mark tells us that Christ asking them what they reasoned of by the way they were ashamed to tell him as being selfe-guilty of pride and ambition and still when he had but newly told them of his Passion to be at Ierusalem they not understanding what it meant were still at it afresh who should be the chiefe but after that Christ was risen again and his holy Spirit was breathed into them then they were of another mind they never after contended who should be chiefest but rather who should be â—umblest and hoâ—yest and most painfull and faithfull in the spirituall Kingdome of Christ in the execution of their Apostolicall Charge Which argues plainly that the Prelacy is a meere carnall thing a temporall Kingdome contrary to Christs Kingdome which carnall men voyd of Christs Spirit and Grace are blindly ambitious of calling their Prelacy an Hierarchy or hoâ—y Government or Kingdome but know not what holinesse or Christs Kingdome meaneth And doe we see any men in the world of any ranke whatsoever more Lordly more proud more ambitious more covetous more profane more corrupt then those of the Hierarchy Take the best of them now in England the most learned of them have they any zeale or courage for the truth now when they see Religion and the Faith of Christ turned topsie-turvie Doe they not all seeke their own not that which is Iesus Christs And when your Chapleins gueld their Works have they any virility left in them to maintain the truth of that which they have written If their Metropolitan doe but speake the word is it not with them as in the Comedy of the Parasite Ait quis Aio Negat Nego But what say I of those Prelates that are fallen upon the very Lees and Dregges of the worst and last times Alas in the first Generall Councell of Nece under Constantine in the Infancy of the Church as you call it what hot contentions among the Prelates one against another What bundels and fardels of complaints brought they into the Councel before Constantine Enough to set all in a combustion had not the Emperour the more wisely put all their Bills and mutuall complaints in a combustion by burning them in a faire fire
before him in the view of all the Councel And the maine point of their Contentions was about Precedency which Bishoprick should be before another Oh devout and humble Prelates O holy successors of the Apostles Are these men like to remedy Schisme in the Church that are the Authors of them themselvs How came the great Schisme of Arius but by the Prelates when but one chiefly stood up against him How got Antichrist to be Caput Vniversale Universall Head or Bishop but by the dessent of the Bishops which causing their Appeales to Rome brought the Roman Bishop to that height so as the Prelates being worse divided among themselves then the Presbyters had been before them for remedy of whose Schisme they were by mans prescription erected gave occasion to the two Bishops of the two Imperiall Cities Rome and Constantinople to stickle for one Headship over all to reconcile all And so the Popedome it selfe the Throne of the Beast was erected in Schismatis remedium for the onely Remedy of all Schisme And it is to be noted how these two Prelates strove for this supremacy and both under the veile of humility Iohn of Constantinople becomes a great Faster whereupon he was styled Iohannes Iejunator Iohn the Faster Gregory then of Rome though he thundred against Iohns Ambition calling him that had or affected that Title the forerunner of Antichrist yet seeing Iohn like to prevaile with pretence of holinesse and humility Gregory stiles himselfe servus servorum Dei He thought he would not come behind for humility but indeed therein bewraying his pride when his humility was but in emulation And we see in Gregories Registrum in sundry of his Epistles how low he descends in most base flattery to that Parricide Phocas and his Empres to visit the thresholds of Peter and Paul c. But what will not Episcopall zeale doe for the Hierarchy But thus he kept Iohn off and so made way for his own Prophecy which was Filius superbiae prope est The son of pride that is Antichrist is neere at hand And neerer surely then he was aware For Gregory deceasing and Sabianus succeeding and siting but one yeare Boniface 3. the next successor obtaind this Title of Phocas and so each confirmed other the Emperour the Pope in the Throne of Antichrist which is a Tyranny over mens Soules and the Pope the Emperours Cruelty in a Tyranny over mens Bodyes And thus came that Prophecy of the Angel Revel 17.18 to be fulfilled The Woman which thou sawest is that great City which reigned over the Kings of the Earth As Rome then did in S. Iohns time So as according to Gods word not Constantinople which was not the Imperiall Câ—ty till Constantine so made it but Rome must be the feat of the Beast and of the Whore thus described Thus from Bishops emulation ambition contention one against another for honour precedency and greatnesse in the world came Antichrist to mount upon that Beast which had 7 heads and ten hornes And your selfe confesseth The difficulty was to accommodate the Places and Precedencies of Bishops among themselves And for this you say The most equall and impartiall way was that the Honours of the Church should follow the Honours of the State So that the greater City the greater Bishop And thus Romes Primacy in Order brought him to his supremacy in Authority Againe you say The Calling of Bishops Whence this Calling Not from God And of Aarons Priesthood it was said No man takes this honour upon him but he that is called of God as was Aaron Heb. 5.4 So all the Apostles had a speciall Calling and Commission from Christ to preach c. Paul Called to be an Aposâ—le of Iesus Christ. He stood upon his Calling he had a lawfull Calling wheron his Apostolicke Authority was founded Now you would be accounted Apostolick and the Apostles successors but where 's your Calling We find no such Calling as of Lord-bishops in the Scripture Therfore you have no Authority over the inferiour Clergy not over Gods Ministers I meane Either therfore prove your Calling from God or give us leave to deny your Authority as being an usurped Tyranny If you aledge those Bishops so called Act. 20.28 Phil. 1.1 1 Tim. 3.1 Tit. 1.7 c. Prove they were Diocesan Bishops We prove them by the plain Text to be but Presbyters over the severall Congregations over which the Holy Ghost made them Episkópous Bishops or Overseers as more fully at after If you aledge Timothy and Titus for Bishops that 's soon answered they were onely Euangelists no Bishops Those Epigraphees in the end of that to 2 Tim. and Tit. they are no part of the Text but were added long after at the leasâ— 400. years It behoves you therfore to prove your Calling better before you so presse and oppresse us with your Authority But you adde L. p. 177. Among these to wit Patriarchs Metropolitans Bishops there was effectuall subjection respectively grounded upon Canon and positive Law in their severall quarters P. Here you confesse that all subjection of Metropolitans to the Patriarchs and of Bishops to the Metropolitans was but grounded upon Canon and Positive Law Ergo not upon the Canon of Scripture nor the Law of God As you confessed openly in High Commission that no one Apostle had Authority or Iurisdiction over the Rest or any of their fellows so as though you call your calling Apostolicke yet your Arch-Bishoprick is not Apostolicke in exercising Authority and Iurisdiction over all the Bishops in your Province This you have not from the Scripture I know not from what Papall Canon For as for Positive if you meane the Politick Laws of Princes you will not take your Authority from them And the Judges have declared their judgement in the Kings Edict that your exercising your Authority and keeping Courts in your own Names is now no more a trenching upon the Kings Prerogative then formerly it hath been Where the Judges are to be commended for their Discretion But it is very well Thus you are loose off from the Positive Law of the Prince and we deny you any title either of Authority or Calling over the Ministry and so you may prove to sit between two stooles or as he that hath not one string to his bow But whereas you confesse before that Bishops have no Jurisdiction one over another because the Apostles had not hence it is evident that those who are true Bishops to wit Presbyters have no jurisdiction over one another and so there is no such Order or Calling of Lord Bishops whereby they have Authority over the true Bishops and Pastors of the flocks of Christ. These things are noted sufficiently before but as Augustine writing against the Pelagians saith By these things so often repeated though the importunity of the Adversary will not be repressed yet the Truth shal be the more confirmed and the Faith of Beleevers the more firmly established L. p. 183. The
after the Pleasures after the Ease and after the goodly Palaces and Demeanes of your Bishoprickâ— in all which you cannot shew kâ—lòn ' érgon a worthy worke And so indeed these words of the Apostle and elswhere concerning a Bishop do nothing concerne you but onely to convince you that you are none of those Bishops whom the Scripture so styleth Well what be those speciall qualities which the Apostle requireth in a true Bishop set over the Congregation of the Lord It shall suffice to mention for the present purpose but some of them As first He must be Anégkletos unreprovable such as cannot be justly accused of any crime Now none of you come thus cleane to your Bishopricks for you are or may be justly accused of having been Pluralists which is against your Old Canons Non-Residents Idle Dreanes seldome Preaching in their own Cures but by a poore Stipendary Curate flattering Court-Preachers and the like Nay who is capable or heire apparent of a Bishopricke or Prelacie that hath not two or three â—at livings with a Prebend or two and a Deanery that being thus qualified having his Purse well lyned I say not that he may purchase his Bishopricke he may be able at least at his In-coming to defray five or six hundred Pounds or a thousand Markes for Fees and Feasts and Gloves at his Consecration Well secondly He must not be Authádas selfe-willed so our last Translation renders the word And beleeve me this may come neere the proudest of your Coats when you come with your Volumus Iubemus We will and command and that without either Law or Canon And you must have your will ther 's no remedy for that else ye will take the pet or pepper in the nose and cry out of contempt of Authority And the word signifieth also one that is arrogant and proud a selfe-pleaser You may take all these senses if you will Thirdly He must not be Plékges a strikâ—r whether with his own or others hands as delivering over to the secular Power or Sword whereby he so strikes as he sheds the blood of the Innocents He must be none of that society Fourthly he must not be OrgÃlos soon Angry testy or touchy such as Naâ—al that one might not speake to him he was so snappish and curst Fiftly he must not be Aiskrokerdès given to filthy lucre as in exacting Fees he or his Officers of poore Ministers either extraordinary at their Admissions or ordinary at Visitations and a thousand wayes besides Viis modis sine modo in your Bishops Courts Sixtly He must be Philágados a lover of good men not a hater and persecuter of them Seventhly he must be DÃkaies just not oppressing Innocents by a faction and confederacy of voyces forepacked in your Courts before the Cause come to be heard Eightly He must be Osios holy not one that is an enemy to all true holinesse and persecutes the very name of it and suppresse the practise and meanes of it as by crying down the sanctification of the Lords day and the sincere Preaching of the word of God and commending and dispensing with profane sports on that day Ninthly He must be Didáktikos apt to teach not onely sufficient and able for his Scholarship or one that can make a Sermon if he will but he must be diligent in preaching in season and out of season He must hold fast the faithfull Word that he may be able by sound Doctrine both to exhort and to convince the Gainsayers So farre must he be from abbetting and countenancing false Teachers and unsound Doctrine and old damned Heresies and forbidding to preach sound Doctrine and punishing those that doe I might reckon up sundry more qualities which Christ requireth in those whom onely he allowes and appoints as fittest to govern and feed his People as becomâ—th good Pastors to doe their flocks as 1 Tim. 3. and Tit. 1. and elsewhere But because Lord Prelates or Diocesan Bishops as I said before are none of those Bishops here which the Apostle requires to be thus qualified therfore I have said enough to convince you that you are none of Christs Bishops if you do but look your selves in this Glasse And if you mark it well these are those that immediately succeded the Apostles and Euangelists in the Ministeriall function As we read Eph. 4.11 where the Pastors and Teachers are those who are elswhere called Presbyters and Bishops such as Paul and Barnabas did Keirotonesi elect ordaine or appoint by imposition of hands Kat ' e'kklesÃan in every Church or particular Congregation A place very remarkable And these Presbyters Bishops Pastors Teachers Preachers Ministers for all is one and the same Office as they succeded the Apostles but with a particular limitation every one to their peculiar charges and Congregations respectively so while the Apostles lived they were still next unto them as we see Act. 15.2.4.6.22 23. And these are those Elders that rule well which especially doe Kopian labour hard in the Ministry of the Word and Doctrine These are those Aristoi those Optimates the best men by whose Aristocraticall Government according both to the thought we may boldly and truly say and to the expresse word of Christ the severall Churches and particular Congregations and flocks of Christ are governed and that not by any their own devised Canons but by the onely Canon of Scripture wherein are expressed all those Laws and Rules by which all true Ministers of Christ doe regulate themselves and govern their severall Congregations For although Christs faithfull and true Ministers are the best men and therfore are but few in comparison and who is fit or sufficient for these things saith the Apostle yet Christ left them not to governe his Churches or flocks as they should thinke best but according to his own Laws as Deputies are to govern the people according to the Kings Laws and no otherwise For such is the Government of Aristocratie it is established upon good Laws of the Common-weale otherwise it should degenerate into the corrupt and bad Government of Oligarchia So as here is no roome for your Diocesan Lord Bishops for you are none of those Aristoi Optimates the best mâ—n whom Christ thought fit for the Aristocraticall Government of his Church sith ye are neither qualified for it as he requires in his true Bishops nor will you confine your Prelaticall Government to the Laws of Christ expressed in his word but will govern by your own Canons and lusts as usurpers use to doe And therfore by the way no mervaile if you speake so contemptibly and basely of the holy Scripture seeing in them you can find no ground either of Precept or Apostolick Precedent for your Antichristian Hierarchy All which considered doth in the second place give us just cause to doubt at least or rather to be well assured indeed that Diocesan Prelates or Bishops as you usurpe the Title are no Vice-Roys under the Great King Iesus Christ because your
Government is nothing according to our Great Kings Laws but according to your own devised Canons and in nothing in Nothing I say agreeable to the Laws of Christ in the Scripture for the right Government of his Church Nay that Government which Christ hath prescribed in his word and which is practised in the best Reformed Churches beyond the Seas you doe utterly and openly condemn and the Churches themselves that doe practise the Discipline of Christ and his Apostles while you deny them to be any Churches of Christ at all Againe Every Kingdome as it hath but one King over it so it is capapable of no more then onely one Vice-Roy so as by that Title he that is your Ordine Primus and hath a more Potent Principality the Pope had he but a good Title would carry that honour from you all if you value the worth and Dignity of that Vice-Royship after the value of your Bishopricks and not after vertue Either then you must acknowledge the Pope to be the sole Vice-Roy which you are loth to doe For why should not the Patriarch of the other world be as capable of that honour as he or you must give us leave to find out the onely true Vice-Roy of Christ in his Church and that is The Holy Ghost For when our Great King went into his Celestiall Kingdome to his Church Tryumphant leaving his Militant here on Earth under the Kingdome of Grace as touching his bodily presence he sent the Holy Ghost to be his Vice-Roy or Vice-Gerent to be perpetually resident in his Kingdome of Grace here for the Governing of his Church Militant and that according to the Law of Christ in his written word leading the People of Christ into all truth by revealing unto them all the Mysteryes of Christs will contained in the Scripture As Christ saith He shall gâ—orifie Me for he shall receive of mine and shew it unto you And v. 13. When the spirit of Truth is come whom v. 7. I will send unto you he will guide you into all Truth for he shall not speake of himselfe but whatsoever he shall heare that shall he speake Loe here then a faithfull Vice-Roy indeed And will or dare you deny this Spirit of God to be an All sufficient Vice-Roy who doth execute Christs Kingly Office in his Church in all things just so as Christ himselfe willâ—th And therfore except you can prove that Christ hath many Kingdomes of Grace here on earth or any more Churches Militant then one onely here is no Rome for any such Vice-Roys as you pretend to be For here we see it plain that of Christs one and onely Kingdome of Grace here on earth the Holy Ghost is the onely Vice-Roy And who is fit to be Christs Vice-Roy in his spirituall Kingdome but the Spirit of God and of Christâ— Ye are therfore no Vice-Roys because you are altogether carnall and your Kingdome is of this world And therfore Thirdly how can you Prelates pretend to be Vice-Roys over Christs Church whenas as is noted before ye are not so much as any members at all of Christs Kingdome For you are the Members of Antichrists Kingdome and so you are or may be Antichrists Vice-Roys over his severall Provinces 'T is true you style your selves spirituall Lords spirituall and your Courts spirituall and you are an Hierarchy as much to say as a Holy Kingdome or Government but it is not spirituall of Christs spirit but of that spirit that ruleth in the ayre that gave you all that Authority So as you do with Bellarmine turne those words of Christ to Peter Pasce oves meas Feed my Sheep to Regio more Impera Rule as a King And what similitude is there between Christ and you that you should be his Vice-Roys in his Church-Militant When he was here in person he was among his own as a servant and Minister He had no staâ—ely and Princely Palaces he kept no such Pontificiall house nor Court he governed not his Church by Chancellors Arch Deacons Deanes Chapters Commissâ—â—â—â—s Offiâ—ialls Pursuivants Apparitors and all that Rabble Christ had no such face of a Kingly Government So as you have altogether perverted the Kingdome of Christ which is altogether spirituall and holy into a meere temporall and carnall Kingdome wherein therfore you are none of Christ Vice-Roys but Viâ—ious Roys and Tyrannicall Lords O Antichâ—istian Generation O notorious Hypocrites O proud and blind Guides How shall you escape the vengeance to come that dare thus impiously abâ—se the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ and so impose upon the world by your bold usurpations Vsurpations indeed You call your selvs Vice-Roys Apostolicke Bishops Spirituall Church Grace Holinesse meere Nominalls which you have usurped and patched together to become a veile to cover your deep hypocrisie and to seem glorious in the eyes of the world and all to hold up your earthly Kingdome which consists altogether of earthly things honours riches pleasures But blind world that suâ—ferest thy selfe to be thus guld and befoold with such glittering stuffe and to be made a slave to such Lords and to be cheated of thy salvavation by these Antichristian Mountebanks And yet they pretend and professe that this their carnall pompous and Pontificiall Kingdome is Christs spirituall Kingdome here in the state of Grace Let them then cleare themselves herein from that damned Heresy of that old Heretick â—erinthus who lived in S. Iohns time His Heresy was That Christs Kingdome after his Resurrection was earthly and that now the flesh conversing in Ierusalem was to serve lusts and pleasures See Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib 3. cap. 22. Now is not the Prelates Kingdome just that in practise with Cerinthus his Heresy If so As S. Iohn forsook the Bath wherein Cerinthus was what cause have Christians to fly from that roofe where such an Antichristian Hierarchy domineereth But in the next place let 's consider of your Reason How stands it good that because Christs Church is as large as the world therfore he thought it fitter to governe it by Diverse then by One Vice-Roy Now we have proved your Hierarchy not to be an Aristocrasie a Government of the Best men and that by good Laws seeing therfore you must needs be some Government then it must be an Olegarchie that is the Government of a few of the worse men such as rule by their lusts and not by any good Laws either of God or Man But now tell me my Lord if you argue upon this ground that because the Militant Church is as large as the world therfore 't is fitter it be governed by many Vice Roys then by one why may not aswell one Prelate as the Pope be sole Vice-Roy over the whole world as my Lord of Canterbury be a Vice-Roy over all England For doth not the Pope and you Governe your Churches by substitutes Why then may not the Pope Governe the whole by his Curates as you doe all England by your Curates For
all the Ministers in England are but your Curates And suppose you were one of the Popes Bishops and so his Creature what difference would there be between your Governing of your Province under the Pope as it were his Deputy and Governing according to Romes Canons and Customes and as you do now in your own Name And the Pope challenging the whole world for his Diocesse and you the Province of Canterbury for yours all the difference is that he needeth the more Curates which he may have with a wet finger and you the fewer Onely perhaps his Holinesse would now and then fleece your Graces Clergy as he was wont of old to doe But in the mean time both the Pope and your Lordship do much mistake the matter in judgeing or estimating and measuring the latitude and extent of Christs Church For you both measure it according to the extent of your large and Potent Principalities Patriarchall Countries Archiepiscopall Provinces Episcopall Diocesse But you are farre wide in casting your line For though Christs Church is said to be dispersed over the whole earth being confined to no place yet of all this wide world he hath the least number and fewest of all where commonly your Hierarâ—hy is most predominant For those that belong to Christ are a sort of poore Snakes despised in the world and alwayes persecuted and oppressed by your Hierarchy so as they can hardly find so much as a little corner any where in the world much lesse in all the Circuit of your Diocesse or Provinces where they may hide their heads or live in any peace So as of all your full Vintages and fruitfull Fields Christ is glad of the refuse of a few gleanings And so Christs flock alas is so small and so poore and his Kingdome on earth so despised as to set up such Lordly Vice-Roys as the Prelates over it the very Fees of your Courts would eat them out And therfore because Christs sheep are here and there scattered in the world and many times as sheep without a shepheard being driven by your Dogges from their own pasture Christ thought it fitter to place over his small and scattered flocks poore sheheards that should feed their severall flocks respectively with the wholesome food of the word of God and therfore appointed to every particular Congregation a peculiar Pastor of their own that should alwayes be personally resident with his flocks keeping his watch over them night and day and so much the more in regard of so many Wolves and Foxes and wild Beasts which without continuall watching would make a prey of them Neither would Christ permit his shepheards to commit their Flocks to Hirelings or Stipendaâ—y Curates while themselvs should take their pleasure and ease for the Hireling when he seeth the theef or wolfe coming fleeth because he is an Hireling neither careth he for the Sheep Therfore Christ wisely and providently hath appointed to every particular Congregation or flocke of his a shepheard of their own and that after his own heart to feed them with knowledge and understanding And as the shepheard governes and guides his own flocke so every faithfull Minister or Pastor is appointed by Christ to be the Governour of his own Congregation according to the Rule of Christ. So as in this respect Christ thought it fitter to appoint many Governours in his Church namely to each Congregation their own Shepheard rather then a few such as you speake of as one over a whole Countrey or Province Neirther let your Lordship thinke that every such Congregation having a faithfull Pastor over it hath yet need of any your Episcopall Inspection or Trienniall Visitations or your Archdeacons Annuall Visitation wherein you inquire onely whether your owne Canoâ—s be observed and if so Omnia bene All is well onely the poore Ministers paying their Procuration the Visitor never inquiring if the Minister be diligent in preaching to his flocke but whether he hath kept the Order for not preaching in the After-noons on the Lords day and the Order for not Preaching such and such Doctrines and such like so as commonly your visitation is like that of the Plague saving that this is from God immediately and yours from another sourse And Ministers and People too could think themselves happy to be freed from your awfull and terrible viâ—its wherein your maine ayme is to root out all good Ministers for which the omission of one of your Ceremonies is sufficient So as Christs Congregation I say needs not any such Inspection of the Bishops eye over them which is as l' aeil de beuf or the weather gall called the Ox eye which portends a storme to follow For Christ hath promised his perpetuall Presence and residence with his people and his eye watcheth over them night and day least any hurt them As he saith When two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them Loe here an intire and compleat body of a Church having Christ as head over them and his Spirit in them and his Word before them and their own shepheard appointed by Christ to feed them so as here is no place left for your Prelaticall Vice-Roys Object Put you say No Bishop no Church so say I too but the Apostles Bishop he must be not your Diocesan Lord Bishop What order then say you wil be in the Church A good and decent order in every Congregation where Christs order and ordinance takes place and where mans presumption breaks not this order And consider here the excellent wisdome and order of Oeconomy that Christ hath appointed every Congregation to be governed by For as that is the most perfect and compleat form of Civil Government which is mixed of all the 3 states as the Monarchiall Aristocraticall and Democraticall when the King governeth by his good Laws using the best men as the noble and most vertuous in the higher places of the Kingdome and the bâ—st and disâ—reetâ—st of the common people in the bearing of inferiour offices such as every one is most fit for a representation whereof we have in the 3 states in Parliament the King the Nobles and the Commons so the Lord Iesus Christ hath established this most compleat form of Government in his Church First himselfe rules as King over all Governing by his Spirit Secondly he hath set over every particular Congregation such as are Aristâ—i the optimates the best and ablest to be Pastors and Teachers each of his own flock And thirdly he hath added also the Denocraty or government of the people appointed to be chosen out of every Congregation the gravest wisest sobriest and discreetest some as Elders some as Deacons to be helpers to the Minister in matter of Discipline of Sacramentall Provision of reliefe of the poore of visiting the sicke and of other Church affaires for that Congregation And these are called by the Apostle Antilâ—pseis kubernâ—seis which our English
to defend their ancient and accustomed Liberty Regiment and Laws they may not well be countod Rebells So he But this by the way But I have somthing more to say about the shaking of the Foundations of Faith and Good Manners though I mentioned it before but now upon this occasion And that is concerning Ceremonies of humane ordinance in Gods worship which being imposed upon mens Consciences is not onely a shaking of the Founâ—ation of Faith but an overthrowing of it for thereby Christ is denyed to be the onely King of his Church And therfore as the Kings of Israel did nothing in reforming of Religion and the worship of God but what was expresly commanded and prescribed in Gods Law so Christian Kings and Magistrates ought not to doe any thing no not to impose any one humane Ceremony or Ordinance in Gods service besides that which is written in Gods word otherwise the Foundations of Faith is overthrown Of such moment is the least Ceremony in Gods service that it is of the substance and Foundation of Faith L. p. 210. But 't is time to return For A.C. in this Passage hath been very carefull to tell us of a Parliament and of living Magistrates and Iudges besides the Law books Thirdly therfore The Church of England God be thanked shines happily under a Gratious Prince and well understands that a Parliament cannot be called at All times and that there are visible Iudges besides the Law-books and one supreme long may he be and be hapâ—y to settle all Temporall Differences which certainly he might much better perform if his Kingdome were well ridde of A. C. and his Fellows And she beleeves too that our Saviour Christ hath left in his Church besides his Law-books the Scripture Visible Magistrates and Iudges that is Arch-bishops and Bishops under a Gratious King to governe both for Truth and Peace according to the Scripture and her own Canons and Constitutions as also those of the Catholicke Church which Crosse not the Scripture and the Iust Laws of the Realme But she doth not beleeve there is any Necessity to have one Pope or Bishop over the whole Christian world more then to have one Emperour over the whole world P. It were time indeed for you to return from your Course when once there is mention of a Parliament For thriving If you mean that your Church of England hath of late dayes well thriven in her prevailing for the seting up of Images and Altars for bringing in more Superstitions into your Service for puting down sincerity Purity and power of the true Religion and of the Preaching of Gods word for suppressing the Doctrines of Grace forementioned for hampering the Puritans as you call them by puting down suspending and silencing of Godly and painfull Preachers and by crying down both the Doctrine and Practise of the sanctification of the Sabbath or Lords day and by smothering in the birth all sound and Orthodox Books against Popery and other Heresies not suffering them to be Printed and by licencing of Popish Books to be Printed and Publâ—shed and the like and if this be the way of the well thriving of your Church whomsover you have cause to thanke yet surely you have small cause to thanke God whose Name herein you doe abuse and blaspheme as perhaps your own Conscience may tell you as if he favoured such practises of yours because for a time he patiently suffers and winks at them and that in judgement to a sinfull Land and for tryall of his own servants and people and for a preparative to your certaine ruine if speedy repentance prevent it not For God is not mocked with such thanks though he be mocked but whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reape How then doth it concerne all Christian Magistrates to look to it least if they suffer Christs Kingdome to be betrayed into the hands of Antichristian Usurpers by giving way unto them to doe what they list while themselvs seem to sleep they provoke God too much For as Samuel sayd to the People If ye doe wickedly you shall perish both you and your King For my part though I will not joyne in Prayer with such a Profane Hypocrite as you are and an enemy of Iesus Christ and his Truth no more then the Apostle Iohn would be in the same Bath with that Heretick Cerinthus yet my dayly Prayer is and shall be that God would more and more let the King see how miserably he is abused and the Peace and safety of his Kingdome distracted and indangered both by the late violent practises which have been held in Church-affaires and now by the publishing of such a Book as this so notoriously perillous or rather most pernicious and so much the more in these times of troubles about Religion lately sprung up in the Iland of Great Britaine Which Book though it make many faire pretences for Peace yea Peace and Truth yet in truth it will prove the greatest troubler of Israel and the falsest friend to true Truth that the light hath seen these many yeares This I speake not by conjecture much lesse out of malice to the Authors Person but from the cleare evidence of the word of Prophecy in Scripture in such cases But how comes your Church of England to be so well seen in State-Mysteries I pray you as so well to understand that a Parliament cannot be called at all times Or by the Church of England doe you not meane the the Chaire of Catnterbury as the Church Collective or representative of England For you should better understand such State-matters especially for the not calling of Parliaments at all times or suppose it were at Notime or Nevermas least perhaps it might prove as a Frost to nippe your thriving and overforward spring then your Lordship For my part I am no States-man and so I leave State matters to States-men who should best understand them But if your A.C. and his Fellows be such troublesome fellows why doe you trouble your selves with them when a good honest Parliament might ease the King and Kingdome â—oo of that trouble provided that good Laws already enacted and by the next Parliament if ever there shal be any quickned by a new Law to put them in better execution there may be also a good season to bring forth such Visible Iudges as without straining the strings either of their Purses or Consciences coming clearly to their Benches and not making them as Banks but siting Rectè in Curia they may without feare of any Prepotent Prelate or Partiality in respect of Persons do Justice I passe now from the understanding of your Church of England to her Beliefe which you also tell us of She beleeves too What doth she beleeve That our Saviour Christ hath left in his Church besides his Law-books the Scriptures visible Magistrates and Iudges that is Arch-bishops and Bishops How Is this come already to be an Article of the Faith of the Church of
England because her Great Metropolitan a little before beleeves it Or because Ipse dixit he said Christ thought it fitter to governe his Church by Divers Vice-roys then by One Is there such an Infallibility in your bare word as for the Church of England to establish her beliefe upon Certainly this is an Addition to the Articles of the Faith of the Church of England which in her former dayes she was not acquainted with Well for your Arch-bishops and Bishops we have said I hope enough and perhaps you will say too much and desire no more to be troubled with them Yet I see we must whether we will or no. For first here againe you doe most impiously ne dicam impudenter ye blasphemously bely the Lord Iesus Christ as before you have done more then once or twice and are not yet ashamed but rather hardned in your Habit as being reserved to be confounded Secondly as before you would make Christ to be the Author of such Governours and Vice-Roys as Arch bishops and Bishops so here Besides his Law-Books the Scripture he hath you say made you visible Magistrates and Iudges Surely That is besides the Scripture indeed yea not onely praeter but contra not onely besides but against the expresse Scripture as is but a little before proved that Arch-bishops and Bishops though they have gotten a degenerate Beeing as Mules in Rerum natura yet should have any Beeing at all in the Church of Christ much lesse that they should be Iudges at all in spirituall matters being themselves altogether carnall And For Arch-Bishops it hath not so much as a Name in Scripture as your Bishops have usurped that Title from Scripture and you confesse the Apostles were all equall in what night then grew up this Mushrum And we have before given a touch and tryall what kind of Iudges you would prove would men but pin their faith on your White sleeve But except you can bring some better Authority then your own blasphemous speech that Christ hath left such visible iudges to his Church your Church of England will have but a cold pull of it when she shal be put to give a reason of this her beliefe that Christ did so Or what Or why For truth and peace These words are with you as Mel in ore verba lactis honey in the mouth words of milke but we can discerne by them Fel in Corde fraus in factis Gall in the heart and fraud in actions But by what means will you procure us truth and peace By governing How or by what Law or Rule According to the Scripture say you Stay there and govern according to that for that is the onely way were your Prâ—laticall Government according to the Scripture both to procure and preserve truth and peace But unlesse you can prove which you never can by the Scripture and not by your own single-soled bold affirmation that Christ hath made you Governours of his Church you shall never perswade us to beleeve or hope that you will ever Govern according to the Scriptures But yet is this all Will you be such honest Governours as you will not go beyond Christs Law-books the Scriptures Nothing lesse For there follows immediately a dangerous Conjunction Copulative And. According to the Scriptures And. And what I hope you have no other Law-books to adde to Christs Law-books Have you Produce them And her own Canons and Constitutions Nay then Farewell Christs Law-Books Christ may put up his Pipes as it is said When your Canons and Constitutions come in Place And then farewell Truth and Peace your own Canons and Constitutions can make no Room for them For he that shall hold the truth never so right and firm and shall transgresse but one of your Canons what peace He shal be put to read the Canon that is he shal be shattered to pieces with your shooting off of your Canon And he that comes under the command of your Canon is ipso facto brought under the Babylonian and Antichristian yoak so as not onely his peace is destroyed but the truth power and verture of Christs death which hath freed his people from the bondage of all humane ordinance as hath been shewed in Gods worship and service is overthrown As also your selfe elswhere saith That Peace and Truth are rent by superstitious deâ—iâ—es from which I hope all your Canons and Constitutions are not altogether free How much lesse can that Church be free from most miserable slavery that puts her neck under the yoak and her shoulders under the intollerable burthen of your Canons and Constitutions Nay I will say more If you be the visible Magistrates and Iudges of the Church as the High Priests and Pharisees were although the High-Priests office was grounâ—ed upon Divine Ordinance and Authority and had Christ himselfe to stand at your Barre to be judged though you had not as the Jews said they had a Law to put him to death yet you would find Church-Canons and Constitutions enough or some new devise though not to condemn him to be Crucified yet to Censure him to be Pillorified and to have his Eares closse cropt and his blood shed in a great measure and stript naked and perpetually Imprisoned and exiled as being the Arch-enemy of your Hierarchy Tyranny Hypocrisie and all Impiety And all this you would do by vertue of your Canons and Constitutions which yet were never ratified by any Law of the Land or Act of Parliament But yet seeing you must have your Church-Canons and Constitutions besides Christs Law-Books to govern by yet the Church of England may think her selfe well appayd and in some tolerable though intollerable case if she have but her own Canons such as her selfe hath constituted and assented to For volenti non fit injuria If the Church of England be willing to be an Asse to her Prelates as once she was to the Pope she may And so she hath her amends in her own hands If the yoak of Canons pinch her she may thank her selfe for putting her neck under I but this is not all There be other Canons besides that are not hers that she must be governed by What more Bonds and Fetters yet for thee poore Church of England Yes As well her own Canons and Constitutions as Those also of the Catholicke Church What are those Alas your Church of England is an Ignoramus in all such Canons as you call Catholicke And your Church Catholike you know and tell us doth Comprehend that of Rome and Rome hath innumerable Canons Consâ—itutions and Decretalls so as under the Canons of the Catholicke Church you may bring upon the Church of England all the Canons and Decrees of Trent all the Popes Decretalls and the whole body of the Popes Canon Law so large a field is your Canons and Constitutions of the Catholicke Church But you qualifie the matter in adding Which crosse not the Scripture and the just Laws of the Realme That 's somthing
and needs the Churches mouth and if it be dead as being not living Certainly it can be no fit Iudge at all except ye will admit of a Judge that is both blind and dumb and dead As three Romans being sent in Ambassage one a Foole an other a Coward the third having the Gout Cato told the Senate they had sent an Ambassage that had neither Head Heart nor Feet And such a Judge would you make the Scripture But 't is visible you say So are your dumb dead and blind Images in your Churches they are visible and very conspicuous when the Scripture oftentimes can neither be seen nor heard Now to your Generall Councels L. p. 192. And surely what greater or surer Iudgement can we have where sense of Scripture is doubted then a Generall Councel I do not see And pag. 211. The making of Canons which must bind all particular Christians and Churches cannot be concluded and established but there to wit in a Generall Councel P. 224. I said The Determination of a Generall Councel erring was to stand in force and to have externall obedience yeelded to it till evidence of Scripture or a Demonstration to the Contrary made the errour appeare and untill thereupon another Councel of equall Authority did reverse it And pag. 226. Now suppose a Generall Councel actually erring in some point of Divine Truth I hope it will not follow that this Errour must be so grosse as that forthwith it must be known to private men And doubtlesse till they know it obedience must be yeelded Nay when they know if the Errour be not manifestly against fundamentall verity in which case a Generall Councel cannot easily erre I would have A. C. and all wise men consider whether externall obedience be not even then to be yeelded And p 227 Therfore it may seem very fit and necessary for the peace of Christendome that a Generall Councel thus erring should stand in force till evidence of Scripture or a Demonstration make the errour to appeare as that another Councel of equall Authority reverse it And ibid. No way must lye open to private men to refuse obedience till the Councel he heard and weighed And p. 261. A Councel hath power to order settle and define Differences arisen concerning Faith This power the Councel hath not by an immediate Institution from Christ but it was prudently taken up in the Church from the Apostles example Act 15. And ibid. If the Councel be lawfully Called and proceed orderly and conclude according to the Rule the Scripture then the Dâ—finitions therof are binding but not from calling another Councel to reverse or abrogate the former Asts upon just cause P. 346. 'T is true that a Generall Councel de pace facto after 't is ended and admitted by the whole Church is then Infallible for it cannot erre in that which it hath already clearly and truely determined without Errour After 't is confirmed 't is admitted by the whole Church then being found true it is also Infallible that is it deceâ—ves no man And p. 347. For a man upon the pride of his own Iudgement to refuse externall obedience to the Councel was never lawfull nor can error stand with any Government P. 357.358 Christ did just intend to leave an Infallible certainty in his Church to satisfie either Contentious or Curious or presumptuous spirits And therfore in things not fundamentall nor necessary 't is no matter if Councels erre in one and another and a third the whole Church having power and meanes enough to see that no Councel erre in necessary things c. If it erre in things necessary we can be Infallibly assured by the Scripture the Creed the 4. first Councels and the whole Church where it erres in one and not in another And pag. 360 For one Faith necessary to Salvation a most infallible certainty we have already in the Scripture the Creeds and the 4. first Generall Councels to which for things necessary and fundamentall in the Faith we need no assistance from other Generall Councels P. 378. I submit my Iudgement with all humility to the Scripture interpreted by the Primitive Church and upon new and necessary doubts to the judgement of a lawfull and free Generalâ— Councel And I absolutely make a lawfull and free Generall Councel Iudge of Controversies by and according to the Scripture And p. 386. I have expresly declared that the Scripture interpreted by the Primitive Church and a lawfull and free Generall Councel determining according to these is judge of Controversies P. Thus in your Commending of Generall Councels you are very large that I may not say lavish too And surely in one respect especially you have great Reason for your Generall Councels must consist of Prelates onely so as in exalting Generall Councels you magnifie your Prelacie But I remember a saying of Basill that in his Observation he never knew any good to come of Generall Councels of Bishops who when they met in Councel were more zealous and eagre for their own particular Honours and Dignities then of the Church of God And as Bernard saith Totus fervet Ecclesiastiâ—us zelus sola pro Dignitate tuendâ— All the zeale of Church-men is infâ—amed altogether for the advancing and upholding of their Dignity But let us now take a briefe view of your words which we will collect and reduce to certain summary Heads First That Generall Councels are the supreme Iudge of the sense of Scripture when and where 't is doubted p. 192. Secondly that the Canons and Decrees of Generall Councels bind all Christians of necessity p. 211. Thirdly yea though Generall Councels determine Errors yet that requires at least externall obedience Fourthly That Generall Councels erring in some points of Divine Truth yet you hope it will not be so grosse as to come to the common view or if it doe yet obedience must be yeelded p. 226. onely except the Error be not manifestly against the fundamentall Verities Fifthly That a Generall Councel hath no power from Christ to be Iudge in Controversies but the Church prudently tooke it up from the Apostles example Act. 15. Sixtly That the Difinitions of Generall Councels bind being according to the Rule the Scripture yet that those may be reversed by an after-Councel Seventhy A Generall Councel in things clearely and truly determined cannot erre but in that is infallible Eightly That it is pride not to obey the Councels Difinitions yea unlawfull and not standing with any Government Ninthly That Christ intended to leave an Infallible certainty in his Church but not to satisfie contentions or curious or presumptuous spirits Tenthly That it is no matter if Generall Councels erre in one two three c. things not fundamentall nor necessary Eleventhly That for necessary Faith to Salvation we have an Infallible certainty in the Scriptures Creeds and 4. first Generall Councels to which for things necessary we need not the Assistance of any other Generall Councel Twelfthly That the Scripture interpreted by the
moderate man and saw more then he durst speake of And the same Rhenanus as was before touched in his Annotations upon Tâ—rtullian and I take it in that Book out which you cite this sentence De Corona Militis observes how sundry Heathen Ceremonies crope into the Church by occasion of many old men newly converted to Christianity whom it was hard to waine from their old Heathenish fashions which therfore were thought fit to be admitted as not hurting but profiting those old Heathen new Christians But godly and learned men as I said before could tell you what infinite dammage your tyrannicall pressing of your Ceremonies upon mens Consciences hath brought to the Gospell and so to the soules of men by depriving them of so many worthy Ministers onely for Non-conformity But this is one speciall end for which you so presse your Ceremonies to suppresse Godly and learned Preachers and so the sincere Preaching of the word of God that the people being brought up in ignorance and profanesse might be the lesse sensible of bearing the yoake of your Antichristian Tyranny over them But as for your Carnall Ceremonies which the Apostle saith are good for nothing pròs plesmonen in comparison of satisfying the flesh the carnall pride of will-worshipers we have spoken sufficiently before But Rhenanus addes a qualification so there be a meane kept I think you might have done well to have omitted this till you had been better acquainted with this meane of which before And the Author might have expressed this Meane a little more fully thus So there be either no Ceremonies at all or if any those very few and those few not pressed with rigor or necessity upon mens Consciences but left free to every one to use them or not according to the Christian liberty which Christ hath purchased for them as is said before Whereas you are not satisfied with a few Ceremonies nor with the Old but you must have New added with a Tot quot and all of them you presse so hard upon the Conscience as you wring blood And this is all the Meane you keep Lastly So the By be not put for the Maine that is say you so we place not the principall part of our Piety in them And doe not you so For you put your Altar and all the solemn Service and Ceremonies of Devotions and Adorations attending upon it even all your humane Inuentions and Will worship for the very Maine of all your Religion Do you not I know you willingly confesse it And what 's the By but Gods-word and the sincere Preaching thereof which you put By and by seting up your Altar-service do thrust out of the Church by the head and shoulders as is noted before And I say The Maine the All and some of all your Religion is your Altar On this your Goddesse all your other Devotions and Ceremonies as so many Hand-mayds give their devout attendance Your face prayeth towards your Altar your body boweth towards your Altar your second solemn service as the secundae Mensae for your daintier Cates must be served up upon your Altar which the maine Body of the Church must not tast of your Third service which is instead of the Preachers concluding prayer blessing after his halfe-houres Sermon must be served by your Priest at your Altar when with his blessing he dismisses the people with an Ite Missa est And all the while of your solemn Second and Third service your Serving men in their Liveries or Rich Copes stand and give their Attendance about your Altar your Crucifixes and Images like the Cherubims have their aspect and respect upon your Altar All must come and offer at your Altar while for joy your Organs merrily play Thus as the Romish Altar-service as Bellarmine tells us is the maine substance of all their Religion just so is yours That 's the Maine But What 's the By then Namely all the Intralls or Inwards of externall Devotion and worship these are the appurtinances these are the By. What are those Inwards The Inwards of True Externall worship are Faith Feare of God Love of God Zeale of Gods Glory sincerity of heart in spirit and Truth Now these with you are altogether the By for these you have layd quite By as before L. p. 280. F. Fisher reports After this we all rising the Lady asked the Bishop whether she might be saved in the Romain Faith He answered she might L. What Not one Answere perfectly related My Answere to this was Generall for the ignorant that could not discerne the errours of that Church so they held the foundation and conformed themselves to a Religious life Pag. 285. We have not so learned Christ as to deny salvation to some ignorant silly soules whose humble peaceable obedience makes them safe among any part of men that professe the foundation Christ. And pag. 288. some Protestants there be which doe as stiffly and as churlishly deny All Papists salvation as they doe us And 283. In this Our Charity is not mistaken and if it be mistaken Charity is better then none at all P. From all these words together we observe this one Maine That silly ignorant Papists living and dying in the Romish Faith may be saved with these conditions 1. If they discerne not the errour of that Church 2. So they profes the foundation Christ 3. So they conforme to a Religious life in an humble and peaceable obedience The second Maine I observe is That we ought not to deny to such in that case salvation And that upon these Reasons 1. Because we have not so learned Christ. 2. Because it is stiffnesse and Churlishnesse in Protestants to deny all Papists salvation 3. That in granting them salvation it is true Charity not mistaken 4. That if Charity herein be mistaken 't is better then none at all Of all these brefly First then I Answere That the Roman Faith being Infidelity it selfe 't is impossible that any living and dying in that faith can be saved And we have before proved it to be flat Infidelity and Apostacy Nor will it excuse any Ignorant that he discerneth not this Infidelity and Apostacy For ignorance though it excuse à Tanto as the Schoolmen speake from the muchnessâ— of sinne yet not à Toto from the Maine of sinne A man that is blind and knows not the danger of the way he walkes in doth as well fall into the pit as he that seeing runs headlong into it The Heathen knew not that they lived and dyed in Idolatry and Infidelity yet they were damned for all their ignorance Secondly for their Professing the foundation Christ Is Profession sufficient Many sayth the Apostle professe Christ that in works doe deny him being abominable disobedient and unto â—very worke Reprobate Is it enough then to professe all that is in the Creed did ignorant silly Papists know what their Latin-Creed meaneth and yet want faith Againe they professe as they are taught How is that
answered Tamen Romanus est yet he is a Romanist And this Romanist is like the Colloquintida in the pot of pottage of which the young Prophets said to Elizeus Ther 's death in the pot Or like the flye in the Apothecaries box of oyntment it marres and corrupts the whole oyntment And a man may say of your Roman Christians or Christian Romanist which you will as one said of a wicked Prelate who was also a Temporall Prince as you be when he gloryed of his greatnesse as being both a Prelate and a Prince or Earle What shalbecome of the Bishop when the Earle is in hell So what shal become of your Romanist as a Christian when your Christian as a Romanist is in hell L. p. ibid I am willing to hope there are many among them which kâ—ep within the Church and yet wish the Superstitions abolished which they know and which pray to God to forgive their errours in what they know not and which hold the foundation firme and live accordingly and would have all things amended that are amisse were it in their power And to such I dare not deny a possibility of Salvation for that which is Christs in them though they hazzard themselves extremely by keeping so closse to that which is Superstition and in the case of Images comes too neare to Idolatry P. Your Hope and Charity may be much but in this can doe but little But 't is possible that some may keep within the Confines of that Church-Dominions and more powerfull Principality and yet not be of that Church as those seven thousand in Israel forementioned Of such if any such there be we may well hope of their salvation although they cannot live in those places where Popery beares sway but with much danger to their bodies and estates and some to their soules too As I perswade my selfe for all your diligent Inquisition and hunting with your Hounds Beagles and Prosecutions or if you will persecutions in your High Commission and other spirituall Coâ—ts there are many poore honest soules in England that truly feare God and abhorre your superstitions and oppressions but in regard of their bodies and estates cannot be but in dayly danger of falling into your Lyons denne if but once detected But for others who are sensible of your Tyrannicall yoake and groane under the burthens of your superstitions and Ceremonies yet have not the heart and courage of the spirit of Christ to with-draw their necks but indure all your bondage so they may injoy the fleshpots of Aegipt however they may wish to be free yet you know the Proverbe Wishers and Woulders And so of those in the Church of Rome some Errours some may see and be sensible of them and wish them removed but in the mean time will they nill they they must undergoe them and that even against their Conscience so as me thinks this should somwhat abate and snibbe your willingnesse to hope of any possibility of salvation for such as against their Conscience and for worldly respects live in known errour Nor can he possibly avoyd it so long as he lives in and of that Church For as Solomon saith Can a man take fire in his bosome and not be burnt Can one goe upon hot coales and his feet not be burnt so who so toucheth a whorish woman shall not be innocent Now he that lives in and of the Romish Church lives in the whores bosome and is a member of the whore And perhaps many a one feeling how hot the bosome is wisheth he were out of it but hath not the Power being as Solomon saith plunged into a deep pit The mouth of a strange Woman is a deep pit he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therin And once in 't is hard getting out Nor all a mans wishing will doe it But say you he prayes to God to forgive him his Errours that he knows not What then Is he the nearer salvation when he still lives in the errour that he knows and onely wisheth to be amended And doth not many a man live in a known sinne as whoredome or drunkennesse or the like and being convinced of the foulenesse of it and the many evils it brings upon him wishes he could leave it and prayes God to forgive him and yet lives in it still Is he ever the neare to mercy Nay he is the further off as being habituated and hardened in his sin known sin wherein he lives unpenitently Wheras Solomon saith He that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have mercy But he that hideth his sins shall not prosper And you here bring some Papist in confessing the errours which he knows not as praying God to forgive them but never a word of his confessing and praying God to forgive those errours which he knows and wherein he lives So here is a hiding of his known errours But it were too grosse to bring him in confessing and deprecating God for his known errours wherein he still liveth and though he wish them amended in the Church of Rome yet amends them not himselfe nor doe you tell us that he doth so much as wish them amended in himselfe and therfore you prudently forbeare the mention of any such thing as his praying to have his known errours forgiven For that should put a man into a desperate case shuting him out of all hope and possibility of salvation to mock God to his face in praying to have those Errours and sins forgiven him in which against his Conscience he both liveth and resolveth no other though he wisheth but to dye But yet say you such hold the foundation Christ. How As they that held him fast when they crucified him For such as live in known sin and errour they as the Apostle saith * crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame Such holding of Christ is not to hold him as a foundation but to overthrow the foundation For Christ dyed not to hold to deliver us from the punishment of sin but from the guilt and dominion of sin by working in us Faith and Repentance So as to professe Christ and to want these yea to live in known sin and errour onely with a faint wishing of amendment is not to hold the foundation Christ but to make him a false foundation as if he were a Saviour of such as so live in known sin and errour as they resolve no other but to live and dye in it And we have proved before that Romes Religion quite overthrows the foundation Christ so as none living and dying in the Faith of that Church can be saved and the more he knows it and yet lives in it the greater is his damnation though he wish never so much to have the errour amended But you say Christ hath a part in them I answere with the Apostle The Foundation of God stands sure and hath this seale The Lord knoweth them that are his and
Church of Rome and of the Church of England And that the greatest too And I am perswaded the Church of England since it professed the Gospell never had such a monstrous and Bayeyard-like bold misleader as this Great worth of Canterbury hath proved to be or will certainly proove in effect if it find as blind Disciples to deale witthall as it selfe is a Master Although it is much hoped that if any Man hath conceived such an high Opinion of your worth as to account you for the most Profound Divine the most Pregnant Politician and the most potent Champion of the Church of England the very Reading of this your Book with a corrected judgement will either convert him from this errour or at least prevent that this errour of your Doctorship shall not Commence or Proceed to the degree of Heresie L. p. 303. 'T is safest to beleeue the Article of Christs Descent into hell as both the Churches of England and of Rome do agree upon that is That he descended into the place of the damned And this is the truth P. Surely if this be the truth that Christ descended locally into hell the place of the damned it were safest to beleeve it whether you and Rome consent in the beliefe of it or no. But because you beleeve as the Church of Rome beleeves will you thereupon conclude This is the truth Certainly we have the more cause to suspect that truth for a falshood wherein you and Rome doe both agree But how true your beliefe with Rome is and how true this Truth we have before sufficiently discovered But will this hold for a good Rule that in what you and Rome agree it is safest to beleeve it You agree in Altars Priests Sacrifice all manner of wil-worship Antichristianisme and many things more forespecified Ergo is 't safest to beleeve these things Or for whom safest safest for all those that affect to be of your Church Tryumphant here and would not come under your persecution But how agrees this with that which you adde ibid. that Rome will not indure this that Christ descended into the place of the damned but onely in Limbum Patrum a Region in the upper part of Hell Ergo rather then faile if Rome will not beleeve as you doe That Christ discended into the place of the damned you will beleeve as she beleeves that he dâ—scended in Limbum Patrum For agree you must and that 's the safest beliefe L. p. 307. I my selfe have heard some Iesuites confesse that in the Liturgie of the Church of England ther 's no positive errour P. 'T is a signe then your Liturgie agrees pretty well with the Romish Messal as is noted by the way before For surely such a Testimony from a Jesuites mouth gives us the more cause of suspicion that all is not so well in your Liturgie as it should be As Diogenes sayd when the people applauded him he began to suspect himselfe that he had committed some absurdity or other saying Wherein have I miscarryed my selfe that this people doth so commend me L. p. 318. Though Dr. White late Bishop of Ely was more able to answere for himselfe yet since he is now dead and is thus drawn into this Discourse I shall as well as I can doe him the right which his learning and paines for the Church deserved And I grant as well as he that there must be some one Church or other continually visible P. First for Dr. White he being now dead which he was long before I will say no more but this For his deserving pains for the Church the Church of England you meane as now it stands the same Church with that of Rome and of the same Faith with her and of which Faith he also declared himselfe to be when he told a Minister that the Difference between the Church of Rome and of England in the Doctrines of the sixt Session of Trent and by name of Grace and Justification was little or nothing how great it was his Works extant can witnesse as namely his Approbation prefixed to your now Brother of Chichester his Appeale to Caesar wherein is maintained the whole Body of your Arminian Heresie together in all or most of the grossest points of Popery as worship of Images at least with Doulia and the like and assaying to prove the Pope not to be Antichrist as if he would solem è coelo tollere also Dr. Whites Book of the Sabbath to prove no Sabbath to Christians and the fourth Commandement not to be Morall for the keeping of one day in the weeke as the Lords Day allowing also of vaine sports and profane pastimes on that Day and commending of praying towards the East where your Altar is placed and such like stuffe in all which he so well deserved of your Church of England as he scarce had his fellow onely if he were now living againe he would yeeld the Bucklers to your Lordship as the bravest Champion of the now Chuch of England that hath risen up in this latter Age or yet succeeding times may hope to produce But let us now heare the right which your Lordship does him and which his paines for the Church deserved But first let me tell you you forget here to give him his Title of Lord Bishop which you indeed gave him in the very first page of your Booke But now his Lordship is dead let not Lord and Bishop be separated in any case no not by death it selfe For indeed lord-Lord-Bishop is a peculiar Title differencing you from all true Bishops indeed as the Scripture commendeth for the onely Bishops as is shewed before yet I know not how it is come to passe that in the best Reformed Churches beyound the Seas the Pastors are never called Bishops I suppose it is because as Kings of old were stiled Tyranni and that in meliorâ—m partem untill degenerating into Lawlesse Tyrants indeed good Kings would thereupon never after be called Tiranni but Kings so the Reformed Churches seeing how the name of Bishop grâ—w to be odious the Office and Calling of it being changed 〈◊〉 that of a Parochiall Pastor into a Diocesan Lordship and so 〈◊〉 have for this cause layd aside the Name of Bishop though otherwise the Name is good as it pertaines to the true 〈◊〉 and Presbyters over particular Congregations as is before shâ—wed so as the Reformed Churches doe herein as the Ancient Romans did who when their Kings turned Tyrants the lâ—st wheâ—of was Tarquinius surnamed Superâ—us for his extreme 〈◊〉 they for ever banished both the name of Kings and 〈◊〉 out of their Commonweale But let us see how you recompense the omission of this Lordly Title in this place to such a well deserving man You adde And I grant as well as he that there 〈◊〉 be some one Church or other continually visible Aâ— well aâ— he This then may seem to be some recompense by way of honour and 〈◊〉 some doing of him Right for indeed his main
then as now was no lesse sensible then visible when sitting most conspicuous in their Courts they condemned Christs true Church for an Heretiâ—ke delivering it over to the seculer power for a burnt sacrifice And was not this that Church then of which you tell us when you say Our Church was just there then where Romes is nâ—w So as we need make no doubt but your now conspicuous Church of England was one and the same with that in Maryâ—s dayes onely that Church by vertue of a Law burned the Saints of God and you without Law bury them quick You aâ—e all for a conspicuous visibility of a Prelaticall or Hierarchicall Church But Christs true Church as before is otherwise which hath for the Bishop of her soule the Lord Iesus Christ who is no Non Resident Bishop but perpetually resident and present with all his Congregations Yea where but two or three are assâ—mâ—led in his Name there is He in the midst of them He saith not In a Cathedrall or other Church but indefinitely Wheresoever as in a Chamber in a private room as the Apostles were for feare of the High Priests During which time where was the conspicuous visibility of the true Church untill the day of Penticost came when there was a new Church collâ—ctive of all nations under heaven Againe Christ saith not Where there is a multitude but Where two or three nor assembled in a Prelâ—tâ—s name as members of a Prelaticall Church but In may Name saith Christ in the faith of me according to my word then and there am I in the midst of them to rule and protect as King to teach as Prophet as Priest to present their persons and sacrifices to my Father These these are those Churches or Congregations which you scorne and scoffe at and which you persecute and punish as â—alefactors for so assembling as where Christ is present among them which plainly bewrayes your selves to be the false Church which you say must be continually visible L. p. 320. A Church may hold the Fundamentall point literally and as long as it stayâ—s there be without controwle and yet erre grosly dangerously nay damnably in the exposition of it And this is the Church of Romes case For most true it is it hath in all Ages maintained the Faith unchanged in the expression of the Articles themsâ—lves but it hath in the exposition both of Creeds and Councels quite changed and lost both the sense and meaning of some of them So the Faith is in many things changed both for life and beliefe and yet seems the same Now that which deceives the world is that because the barke is the same men thinke this old decayed tree is as sound as it was at first and not wether-beaten in any age But when they can make me beleeve that painting is true beauty I le beleeve too that Rome is not onely sound but beautifull P. First here I must note the perplexed and confused frame of your first sentence You say A Church may hold thâ— fundamentall point literally and as long as it stayes there be without controwle and yet erre grosly dangerously nay damnably in the exposition of it As much as if you had sayd That a Church may hold the fundamentall point literally and erre grosly dangerously nay damnably in the exposition of it and yet be without Controwle As for As long as it stayes there namely in holding the fundamentall point literallâ— how is it without controwle when notwithstanding the holding of the letter it erre grosly dangerously nay damnably in the exposition of it For you joyne and jumble all together the holding of the letter and the overthrowing of the sense and yet want controwle And what 's the letter where the sense is lost What 's the barke when the pith and marrow is gone As Iâ—rome saith Gods word standeth non in verborum cortice sed in medulla sententiarum not in the barke of words but in the pith of the sense Well And this is Romes case say you How Most true it is say you that it hath in all ages maintained the faith unchanged in the expression of the Articles themselves but it hath in the exposition both of Creeds and Councels quite changed and lost the sense and meaning of some of them So the faith is in many things changed both for life and beliefe and yet seems the same Here againe do you not most pittifully enterfere Faith is lost in the exposition and yet kept in the expression of the Articles Have not you lost sense in this expression except you can recover it by a better exposition For you separate the expression from the exposition So you leave the Articles as a dead carcase without a soule For there is no faith kept in the expression of the letter without the true exposition of the sense And if the sense be lost the faith is lost And what expression of faith doe you call that which is abstracted from the sence But Rome hath lost the sense but of some of them Of which And whether of Creeds or Councels For here you shuffle both together too as making Councels of equall Authority with the Creeds I did not thinke before this nor yet that Councels Decrees are to be taken as Creeds Onely I might have learned of you before That Councels Decrees though they be erronious must bind all to obedience and then sure they are little inferiour to Creeds saving that those may be reversed by another Generall Councel but these not But however Rome is the same barke of a Church still Ergo a true Church still Why the Barke is not the Tree no more then a Sheep-skin is a Sheep No nor yet hath Rome so much as the barke of the true Church of Christ left Looke upon her outward hew and habit and there we shall find nothing but the habitements of the great Whore and the Ensignes of Antichrist with his Church Malignant warring against the true Spouse and Church of Christ. And both these we find in that one Chapter where the Woman is set out to the life Her Habilements She fits upon a scarlet coloured Beast full of Names of Blasphemy having seven Heads and Ten Hornes and she is arayed in purple and scarlet colour and decked with gold and precious stone and Pearle having a golden Cup in her hand full of abominations and filthinesse of her fornications with a Label on her forehead to know her the Better a Name written Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth and she is drunken with the blood of the Saints And a little after we see her Ensignes set up and those be her ten Hornes the power of Kings which she instigateth to make warre with the Lamb and those on his side the Called and Chosen and Faithfull Now the Whores habit is not the habit of Christs Spouse This is not the barke of the weather-beaten Tree of Gods
whatsoever faith is requisite and necessary to salvation as the beliefe of Scripture to be the word of God as is shewed before And this saving faith is the faith of all them that are heires of salvation to wit of all Gods Elect and all the Saints But it seems with Father Bellarmine you have an Implicit faith for your ignorants and an Explicit for you that are great Clerks or the letter of the Creed for those and the sense for these But I handled this also before Onely you propound a Paradox which is no worke for your pen wherein you are the wiser not to take upon you to read or expound such riddles had you been so wise as not to have propounded â— And yet it is the worke of every good Minister of Chrâ—â—t to teach the people what to beleeve and to exhort them to grow in Grace and knowledge and Faith and so declare unto them the whole Counâ—el of God and to keep nothing backe and to build men up in knowledge more and more unto perfection As the Preacher saith Because the Preacher was wise he still taught the people knowledge yea he gave good heed and sought out and set in Order many Proverbs The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words and that which was written was upright even words of truth The words of the wise are aâ— Goads and Nayles fastened by the Masters of Assemblies which are given from one shepheard But this is not a patterne for you to follow neither by your tongue nor pen. You have other imployment for them But though we cannot set a bound to faith in respect of perfection of degrees yet we ought to teach the people all the parts of saving faith and knowledge striving unto perfection And besides it is the duty of every good Minister of Christ to limit and set bounds to all the negatives of faith in discovering all manner of sins and errours which are all contrary and enemies to faith and salvation For which end they must open all the ten Commandements as Christ did Mat. 5. and all other points of saving Doctrine in the Scriptures Now though you have not the skill or will to set bounds how farre men shall beleeve yet you want no will nor power to inhibit and restraine Preachers shewing them how little a way they must goe in teaching the people and so consequently how little a way the people must goe in beleeving and saving knowledge as in restraining and forbidding to preach the Doctrines of Grace as before forbidding Lectures and especially all Sermonâ— on the Lords day afternoon forbidding long Preaching at any time forbidding expounding of the Catethisme as many of your Prelates doe and the like Thus you can finely set men bounds how little thy shall beleeve or know of God to their salvation That 's a worke if not for your pen or hand yet for your head and not unlikely of your hand and pen too L. p. 327. The Romanists dare not beleeve but as the Roman Church beleeves And the Roman Church at this day doth not beleeve the Scripture and the Creeds in the sense in the which the ancient Primitive Church received them P Dare they not How then say you there is possibility of salvation in the Roman Church for any when it condemneth and accurseth saving faith and justification thereby with other saving truths For if the Papists dare not beleeve but as their Church beleeves then they are bound to good behaviour they dare not beleeve to their salvation And if they dare not beleeve to their salvation then they cannot be saved And if they cannot be saved what possibility of salvation for them living and dying in that faith And here Why do you noâ— say in the sense of the Scriptures themselves and not of the Primitive Church But you doe not like the Scripture sense except the Church interpret it You allow not Scriptures to speake for or testifie for themselves You are the same man still And as we sayd before you doe wisely in that to stoppe the mouth of Scripture as Ahab did Michaiahs for it never speaks good of you but evil alwayes L. p. 232. I will acknowledge every fundamentall point of faith as proveable out of the Canon as we account it as if the Apochryphall were added unto it P. As if Apocryphalls were any divine proofe at all of the fundamentall points of faith in Scripture or ought any way in that respect to be so much as named with the Scripture Apocryphalls saith Ierome may be read for instruction of manners but not for confirmation of faith as before L. p. 336. I have lived and shall God-willing dye in that faith of Christ as it was professed in the ancient Primitive Church and as it is professed in the present Church of England P. As you handle the matter ther 's a vast difference between the faith of Christ professed in the ancient Primitive Church and that which is now professed in the present Church of England For the Ancient Primitive Church taken properly and strictly as somtime in your Booke as before you put it was that wherein the Apostles lived Now will ye be tryed by the Ancient Primitive Church of the Apostles held and professed What say you my Lord for your faith in this case Will you put your faith and Religion to the tryall of the most intire and upright Jâ—ry the Twelve Apostles Certainly if you decline this tryall 't is a shrewd suspicion that the faith of yours wherein you are so resolute to live and dye is not right Therfore for shame of the world you must at least professe or pretend that you wil be tryed by the the Faith and Religion which the Apostles and the true Church of God in their time as being the most Pure Prime Ancient Primitive Church held and professed First then That Primitive Church neither held nor professed nor practised any Hierarchicall government of Prelates or Bishops but have câ—ndemned it in their writings the Scriptures of the New Testament And yet I are say you resolve to live and dye Primate of Canterbury and Metropolitan of all England Secondly The Apostles and the ancient Primitive Church in their Age and time had no Altars but onely the Lord Iesus Christ Heb. 13.10 as it is formerly proved but you and your Church of England both set up and worship Altars and â—each the people both by your Books and practise to do so too and force Ministers to erect Altars or force them out of their Churches And this Faith and Religion also I dare say you resolve to live and dye in Thirdly The Apostles and the anciciâ—nt Primitiâ—e Church in their time celebrated and sanctified every Lords day in holy duties onely and in preaching as well in the afternoon as in the fâ—â—enoon never forbidding but still exhorting to preach in season and out of season giving no liberty to vaine and profane sports and Pastimes either upon