time of our late civil warres wherein our Monarchy once subverted we all perished with it and our rights and welfare at such a loss that no man could say that aught he had remaining was his own It must needs be so for the government what ever it be is before the laws and the laws receiv all their strength and vigour from the acknowledged autority of that power from whence they are derived Now that the Christian Church was first monarchicall under one Sovereign Byshop when Christ who founded it was upon earth no man will deny for aristocracy or democracy it could not be sith all his twelve apostles were under him as his disciples and not fellow doctours or legislatours with him nor did he ever pretend to receiv his autority from men but immediately from God above unto whom he was personally united and this autority of his must first be accepted before his word can be believed or his law acknowledged and these must have all their force from that power which according to its firmitude of truth gives them all their life and vigour which remains and dies with it and with the government under which the laws and doctrin began It appears then that all the laws and rules and promises and whole doctrin of Christianity and founded upon the spiritual monarchy of Jesus who was Man-God that he might be both unto human kind a fit and proportioned head as man and uncontroulable independent and infallible as God And hence it must needs follow that the subversion of episcopacy which is the spirituall monarchy in which our Lord founded his Christianity must needs weaken and by degrees utterly destroy all faith for the ruin of the polity is the death of all its laws founded in it Nor will it suffice if an Independent or Presbyterian say that they are still under their head Christ who being in heaven hath his spirituall influences over them I say this suffices not for the true Church of Christ whersoever it is must have the very same head she had at first or else she cannot be the same body and that head was man-God personally present in both his natures with the body of his Church here on earth and although Christ may and does supply the invisible part of his God-head influence upon his mystick body yet a visible head or byshop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruin What then you will say cannot God preserv his Church without the help of man I answer we must not here dispute what God can do but what he will do God can warm the earth and make fruits to grow and us to see without the sun but if he have otherwise ordained we must expect those effects from the caus he hath set and no other wayes And that all truths are to be expected from his Church and from him he hath substituted in his place to govern us as our only visible Pastour is manifestly apparent both by his own law and practise and our experience By his law when he sayes that he who will not hear his Church must be as a publican and reprobate by his practise when he would not have his own supernatural vocation and endowment and light from heaven to suffice St. Paul either to make him a Christian or a Teacher till he had received both from the hands of his Church and pastors by our experience while we see from age to age that all those that withdraw themselves from the Catholick Church and from her chief Byshop and pastour let the occasion be what it will or never so little do run themselves restlesly into endles schisms denying one thing after another still from less to more till at length all Christianity be cancelled and beginning with schisme they end with atheisme all truth unity and peace being to be had onely from and in that one Church which as St. Paul does well and wisely call it Christs Body so is it only animated with his spirit of truth and from the government there appointed which is episcopal and in a special manner from the chief pastour there presiding ruling and directing in place of Jesus Christ unto whom all obey in yielding obeysance unto him in spiritual affairs according to his own order and appointment Nor is there any more certain rule of discerning the approaching ruin of Christianity in any person or people than when we see them either secretly to undermine or openly to oppugn papal autority No pope no byshop no byshop no Church no Church no salvation This being once well pondered as a thing of such weighty concernment deservs we shall begin both to suspect that the first reformers Luther and Calvin who being Priests under that Papal hierarchy flew out against the Church whereof they had been members and furiously cryed down both Pope and all episcopacy were not sent from God and likewise conclude that the counsel of Queen Elizabeth did wisely reassume that ancient form of Church government though it were opposite to the principles of reformation and judgment of all the first reformers becaus it was both most conformable to times of primitive Christianity and in all reason most likely to conserve the land in unity And if we were once by Gods grace freed from preconceived prejudice we should all of us as clearly see and love the beauty of papal doctrin as now some of us allow of papal government nor is there any thing commendable in any reformation but that and only that which it hath in it of Popery And lastly we shall easily discern that the the Presbyterian plea and all its arguments or whatever else they can have to say against episcopacy are of no value and indeed too slight for me to insist upon their solution I had a mind here to decipher the Protestants plea against the Papist but I finde that there cannot be made any one scheme of it as of the Independent and Presbyterians becaus these the first of them speaks so generally of all things that he seldom touches upon any one particular the other so insists upon one particular that he troubles himself with nothing else and a man may know what both of them would have But all these and several other reformations when they set their face against the Roman Catholick go all under the generall name of Protestants and yet speak several and contradictory things one accusing them for that which the other approves And generally they do neglect their doctrin and inveigh against the vices and follies which either they put upon them or are indeed found amongst som people or persons that do profess that faith in France Spain Italy or other parts as pride tyranny drunkennes leachery foolish gambols and usages of Countreys with which Protestant books against popery are lustily stuft up or if they do indeed speak to their doctrin it is either done onely with some
then presume of his knowledg and what motives has he in himself to do so which another wants Be it scriptures prophesies visions light or inward assurance boast of what you pleas all the earth will do the like and with the self-same confidence For let Philosphers speak what they pleas of the certainty of object which som men have over and above the certainty of subject I am not able to conceiv how an objectiv certainty can stand without evidence or how it may consist with that mutability I see to be in the world for men do depart as well from a good religion wherein they would have to be certainty of object as from a bad one wherein they allow only a certainty of subject which is nothing but a personal self-willed resolution in their wayes Since men therefor do thus abound all of them in their own sens haply without sence if a thousand voices may be of force against one single one how does it behoove us if we would be truly wise to walk all our dayes not in disputes and disquietness without end but in humility and fear But som will say all this is nothing to us since Christ our Lord hath revealed to us both God himself and all necessary truths concerning him of all which we may be confident But stay a while and ponder what I have already spoken do not all nations say as much for themselvs What then should we doubt of our faith in Christ no in no wise But I must speak a bold word these very dissentions of ours about that faith in its branches so hot so various so extravagant are apt to inferre a suspicion of it in its very root are not hundreds in our own countrey become atheists already upon that very motiv and these men supposing substantial change once made in religion and deliberately admitted are rather to be commended for their wit than blamed for they do but that sodainly which all the land will will come to by degrees If the Papist or Roman catholick who first brought the news of Christ and his Christianity into the land as all men must needs know that have either heard or read of Christianities ingress into England or other countreys and kingdoms for we do no sooner hear news of Christianity than Popery and his crucifixes monasteries reliques sacrifice and the like I say if the Papist be now becom so odious as we see he is and if the faith he brought and maintained a thousand years together be now rent all asunder by sects and factions which bandy all to the ruin of that mother religion if all her practical truths wherein chiefest piety consists be already abolished as erroneous does not this justify the pagan whom this catholick Christian displaced to make way for his own law And must not this be a certain way and means to introduce atheism which naturally follows that faith once removed even as a carkas succeeds a living body once deceased for one truth denied is a fair way to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very autority of the first revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself than he can his law for the same axe and instrument that cut down the branches can cut up the root too and if his reverence for which all the rest was beleeved defend not their truth it must needs at length utterly fail in his own For all the autority they had was purely from him and he falls in them before he falls in himself no man can deny this that shall seriously lay his hand upon his heart and ponder things as he ought And he that once ceases to beleev in Christ whom before he worshipped I am sure he will turn atheist if his wit and reason proceed consequently and beleev nothing A little more to specify my meaning If the institutions of monasteries to the praise and service of God day and night be thought as it hath been now these many years a superstitious folly if Christian Priests and sacrifices be things of high idolatry if the seven sacraments be deemed vain most of them if it suffice to salvation to beleev what ever life we lead if there be no value or merit in good works if Gods laws be impossible to be kept if Christ be not our law maker and directour of doing well as well as redeemer from ill if there be no sacramental tribunal for our reconciliation ordained for us by Christ upon earth if the real body of our Lord be not bequeathed unto his Spous in his last will and testament if there be not under Christ a general head of the Church who is chief Priest and Pastour of all Christians upon earth under God whose Vicegerent he is in spiritual affairs all which things are now held forth by us manifestly against the doctrin of the first preachers of Christianity in this land then say I paganisme was unjustly displaced by these doctrins and atheism must needs succeed for if Christ deceived us upon whom shall we rely and if they that brought us the first news of Christ brought along with it so many grand lyes why may not the very story of Christ himself be thought a Romance And erunt novissima pejora prioribus the latter condition of this land under atheism catholick faith once utterly extirpated must needs be far wors than it was in paganisme before it was planted Far sweeter is that body put case a statue of stone that was never animated than is any carkas of man after the soul is departed And are not we in a wood now who shall lead us out The maze is made greater by the consideration of the multitude of sects now reigning amongst us all which as they do unanimously conspire against that catholick Church they have deserted so do they wrangle now about every thing wherein they first agreed and conspired against her hating and execrating one another even unto war and bloodshed and the utter desolation of our distressed nation Quid est veritas and on whose side is God all this while does he not lie hid and say nothing and leav us wholly to our selvs by a judgment unsearchable in these our affairs even as in other courses of this world i th interim all opinions utter fine words all presume of themselvs all are peremptory and censur not only their neighbours but even the whole earth round about Where is truth here saith one nay not there but here quoth another neither there nor there but here saith a third but so many heres and there 's sounds nothing to a rational man but either every where or no where and which to conclude is impossible for man of himself stedfastly to resolv Here is Christ and there is Christ in the judgment of Christ himself signifies neither here nor there If they say saith our Lord here is Christ or there is Christ do not ye go forth or follow them and
body even as Christs natural body under one spirit and head united and compacted together and that without ceas even so long as that mystick body lasteth upon earth in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi till it receiv its final consummation negatively to prevent schismes and herefies which might otherwise render the Church in her members both contemptuous and liable to continual ruin whiles every particular person left to himself would be carried up and down like children with puffes of novelty blowing several wayes by the cunning subtilty of men pretending new light spirits reasons and such like stratagems in astutia in their knavery and pride of heart to bring people into a circumvention of errour all which inconveniences are avoided by following the guidance of the Church and the Pastours therein appointed over us A general spirit of truth in those that are set over the flock keeps them together and safe whereas particular lights in the sheep that are to be ruled would divide them from their pastour and from one another and division infers destruction Nor could that great Jewish argument be any way warded or put by but by recours to the Churches infallibility which can be no other but what Christ gave her and his own autority and truth revealed by this Church is the utmost foundation that supports the whole fabrick nor can there be any thing further assigned to support it but God with whom it is beleeved to be united for as all material buildings and their connexion are beheld with the eye but their foundation is not seen but is beleeved by the influence it hath in supporting the fabrick which it self is ultimately sustained by the center So may we discern some consequences of the points of religion upon a supposal of a great fundamental truth upon which they all depend as this is that Christ is a true and divine teacher but this cannot be seen or maintained otherwise than by a pure belief yielded unto that Church that first taught him and His truth sustains all his doctrin and the formal fabrick of the Church built upon him and it can be grounded upon nothing but God himself the center of all subsistence and verity This connexion of us to the apostles of the apostles to Christ and Christ to God St. Paul insinuates when he saith to the Christians of Corinth Omnia vestra sunt sive Paulus sive Apollo sive Kephas vos autem Christi Christus autem Dei The Christians might indeed reply to the Jew and say that Christ our Lord was a holy and sacred person divine innocent miraculous and unblamable in his whole life and conversation that he came from heaven by the mission of his eternal father and his own great benignity to plant upon earth an universal catholick Church amongst all nations which in the fulnes of time God was pleased to do whereas Moses had confined his Church by Gods command till that hour of general salvation was come unto the one family of Abraham and that he had received autority from God so to do which not only his own evangelists but even Moses and the prophets sufficiently attest who all do so speak forth the birth and life passion and resurrection of this our great Messias and the glory of his Church amongst the gentiles accordingly as himself promised and it hath now appeared to be and that nothing but rancour and prejudice and the scandal of his humility and the Jews mistake of the Messias his first and second coming did incens them against their own lord when he appeared amongst them who also looked even then for a Messias sodainly to come whom they were to obey and follow and cannot probably being then the onely select people of God ascribe their immense desolations exiles from their own homes and miseries these sixteen hundred years than to the guilt they have contracted upon themselvs by shedding the blood of that sacred person Nor are they to be excused sith all the ancient Rabbies before Christs coming did openly profess throughout all the Hebrew Church that they understood not the end and meaning of Moses law nor ever should till the great Messias came to teach them which was so beaten into their minds that all the Hebrewes beleeved it as appears by the saying of the woman of Samaria When the Messias comes he will teach as all things although through the hatred they bore to Jesus Christ they began after his coming to sing another song This I say and such like words they might reply and prove all by some autority or other but yet whatsoever they could alledge the Jewish Rabbies would give another interpretation to it or if it were their own gospel flatly deny it and so having no other further autority to rely upon but the truth of that Church that stands upon this foundation of Christs divinity there they must rest For there can be no hope either of satisfying a querent or conconvincing an opponent in any point of Christianity unles he will submit to the splendour of Christs autority in his own person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the reason why som of the Jews in Rome when S. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the prophets beleeved in him and some did not So then the great resolv of all doubts must be immediately upon the autority of the present Church which derived from the Church foregoing must by several concatenations bring us at length to the autority of Christ which is the root and firmitude and life of all and if this be once acknowledged and firm and firm it cannot otherwaies be than by captivating our wills and understanding to his love and obedience under that notion the Church hath revealed him it must equally support all future generations of Christians be they never so many in any temptation or difficulty that should afterwards happen and the whole Church and all her doctrin built upon it Nor can any at any time pretend rightfully and justly other motive of his beleef than what the apostles had for theirs the first age from the apostles the second age from the first c. and still the foregoing Church does but derive the faith and practise received unto its successour and both must equally stand upon the same foundation of one and the same autority which all generations take by the like resignation and faith-submission unto the worlds end So that he that departs in any age from the waies of the foregoing Church upon what pretence soever it be done of knowledge interiour light reason spirit or other discovery he leavs the foundation on which his faith was built and vertually forsakes Christ and would have had the same argument against him if he had lived in his time for if the Church the visible Church prove not to be even in that particular age a just keeper and deliverer of faith received then was the Church deceived not so
men for my name but who shall persever unto the end he shall be saved But I hope our countreymen will at length discern their own dangerous mistake and perceiv with me that the Popish Mass which is the old opostolical devotion merits not the hatred and mischief we have either wrought or intended the observers of it in our land Hitherto then I hope we have no reason to hate popery upon the account of their Messach which is indeed the chiefest piece of our division and occasion of the many contumelies we put upon them especially considering that in our own Communion so far as it goes we do but imitate great part of it and that in their very words § 23. B. V. Mary AL Catholiks I could ever see or hear or read of bear a most devout respect to the Virgin MARY whom others care not how they villify and dishonour either by their words or writings and I cannot but dislike this our uncivil carriage to say no wors of it as much as I do approve of their piety Surely that Virgin of whom God would be incarnate and with whom he lived so many years together must needs be a person of strang perfection and worthy of great esteem amongst all such as worship her Son and look upon him indeed as their Redeemer He that loves him that begets saith the good apostle loves him that is begotten and I should think he that worships him that is begotten must needs have some respect for her that bare him The blessed Virgin was her self so confident of this that she was bold to say Ecce enim ex hoo beat am me dicent omnes generationes all generations all nations saith she shall call me Blessed And surely if this be true and in gospel it passes for divine words we that instead of calling her Blessed presume so highly to villify and blaspheme her even in our publick streets for which in catholick countries we should be in danger of being stoned to death by the people show our selvs to be a nation that belongs not to the Magnificat Indeed all here amongst us are not so rude but such as be are neither punished nor questioned for it And what in the name of God hath the Virgin Mary don to us what ill or harm hath she ever wrought us that any English Christian should cast so many gibes and show so much disesteem to that blessed creatur whom the whole catholick world the angels of heaven nay our Lord himself and that great God that made heaven and earth have set in so high a place of honour Will our incivility as it hath no ground or reason admit likewise of no limits It may be feared that the spirit of Luther anisme is some very foul one for it hath moved the professours of it in several places unto most unseemly language and highest disesteem of very thing that is venerable Not only princes and prelates priests and altars shrines and sacrifice byshops and their sacred ordinations the real presence tribunal of our reconciliation and the like but the very saints and angels of heaven nay the most innocent blessed Maid whom the very Turks do honour to this day and that she may not be thought the wors of for that an angel from heaven saluted by the mandate and in the name of him who is primogeneal Life and substantial Truth with the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Most beloved and Gratious escape not the lash of our lips and pens And yet this is not all neither Do not I know that the primitive protestants in forreign parts have uttered some openly some more obscurely in their writings many odde words against the very honour of Jesus Christ himself although our more moderate Church of England I am confident hates them for it Did not Calvin taunt at his ignorance and passion and too much haste for his breakfast when he crust the figtree that had not fruit upon it when he sought it if he had studied catholick divines they would have taught him a more modest and pious interpretation than that idle wicked one of his own Did not Michael Servetus that bold apostate Spanish youth speak openly amongst his fellow protestants in Geneva that he wondered that they had raised all their controversies so many as they had against the Church which is named the body of Christ and yet never a one against Christ the head of that body did not Valentine Gentile that unhappy Italian after he had revolted to Calvin take it ill that all the reformed Churches agreed yet with the papists in the beleef of a Trinity and with him sided Matheus Gribaldus Lismanin Francis David and Jacobus Paleologus though this last recanted afterward and returned happily to his catholick faith And who-knows not that Luther Brentius Calvin Suinglius yea and Erasmus too who though he yet remained catholick would be nibling now and then at Arrian and Socinianisme let fly many a secret dart at Christ and the sacred Trinity though they were not yet so bold as to profess openly with som others of their brethren whom they saw to suffer in their repute for it any such opinion till they found the world in a more forward disposition to accept it and all these bent their bowes and fitted their arrowes to the string that if not openly yet at least in the dark and in Lunâ as the prophet phrases it they might shoot and hit every thing that is sacred even Christ himself So true it is that he who loves him that begets loves him that is begotten and he that hates the one does not truly love the other But the penmen of our creed and gospel who made honourable mention of the Virgin Mary were of another spirit than we be that so much dishonour her although for fashion sake we read over those holy penmens words A certain protestant byshop did not many years ago examin a catholick child that stood before him if he could say his prayers the boy replying yes said first his Pater noster after that began his Ave Maria which catholicks use to repeat in memory of Christs incarnation at which words nay quoth the byshop let her alone let her alone we have nothing to do with her The child went on to his Creed and when he came to conceptus est de spiritus sancto natus ex he sodainly stopt and she is here again quoth the child she is here again my Lord what shall I do with her now you may let her pass quoth the byshop in your Creed but not in your prayers As though we might have faith but neither hope nor charity for her But if we seriously consider the spirit of those who wrote either our Gospel or Creed we shall find that of Roman catholicks to have a most near consanguinity with it and loving them we cannot hate these for the respect they bear his virgin Mother whom we all worship §. 24. Images IN all places where
himself once to any one opinion here in England he sodainly entertains such a prejudice against all the rest that there is left in him no further place for counsel for all other wayes besides his own are condemned as soon as his own is accepted and he does no sooner think himself sure but all others must in the same time be lost And yet he hath but his own judgment for it neither supported only with the appearances of I know not what spirit or internal light which he and his enjoy and all others want And if a man press him once to further difficulties than himself hath thought on though without the reflection upon them he could never be able to settle any firm judgment about these things in particular one shall soon find that he heeds not any of those things without which the other could not be judiciously concluded nor is able even by the help of that light or spirit of his to satisfy therein either himself or other man which argues plainly that the spirit and light he pretends is nothing but his own private resolution not sufficiently amplified and yet irrationally fixed against all autority and counsel The Christians in antient times especially for the first four hundred years after Christ had many serious and grave disputes with the Jew and pagan which being rational and weighty and about the foundations of Christianity whereon the other articles were built did pusle even the wisest of their clergy to answer but after all the ratiocination ended whether it sufficed or no they still concluded with this one word Credo which the love of Christ had fastned upon them as emperour Julian comonly surnamed the Apostate testifies of them And this although in philosophy and logick it had been a weak answer yet in religion it was the best and only one to be made so that all the burden fell at length upon the autority of Jesus Christ who being both a man and one too that was crucified as a malefactor undertook to send forth religion into the world under the title of a divine Prophet and the onely Son of God almighty maker of heaven and earth which could not but at first make a disturbance both among the Jewes and Gentiles where it should be preached And the great mystery begins here and here it must end for this autority being once admitted from the Church that brings it all other catholick truths will follow by a kind of consequence from the same hands and therefor this autority of his which can never be demonstratively proved unto us that live now but only by vertue of the Church that derives it us Christ must maintain himself by signs and wonders and such signall proofs of his divine providence over his Church from time to time that his deity may somewhat appear in his Churches progres and defence and all other doctrins must be made good by it and the Church that first preached it to us In any age of the Christian Church a Jew might say thus to the Christians then living Your Lord and maister was born a Jew and under the jurisdiction of the high Priests these he opposed and taught a religion contrary to Moses otherwise how coms there to be a faction but how could he justly do it no human power is of force against Gods who spake as you also grant by Moses and the Prophets and divine power it could not be for God is not contrary to himself And although your Lord might say as indeed he did that Moses spake of him as of a Prophet to com greater than himself yet who shall judg that such a thing was meant of his person for since that Prophet is neither specified by his name or characteristicall properties who could say it was he more than any other to come And if there were a greater to com than Moses were surely born a Jew he would being com into the world rather exalt that law to more ample glory than diminish it And if you will further contest that such a Prophet was to abrogate the first law and bring in a new one who shall judge in this case the whole Church of the Hebrews who never dreamed of any such thing or one member thereof who was born a subject to their judgments This is the great oecumenicall difficulty and he that in any age of Christianity could either answer it or find any bullwark to set against it so that it should do no harm would easily either solv or prevent all other difficulties should arise by the same autority by which it was cleared For if Christ were not only a lawfull Teacher but even one that was greater than Moses as Christians beleev him to be and both the one and the other pretended this great work of establishing a Church surely Christ must do it in as great an excellency as Moses and with some advantage the doctrin and disciplin must be as sublime and stated as permanently as his and Christ who wrote no law must so provide notwithstanding that his Church might otherwise have one from him and keep it as uniformly as the Hebrew Church did theirs Wherefore as Moses after he had done all things which belonged to himself to do constituted Aaron and his Successours to be guides rulers overseers and judges of all Controversies that might arise in the tribes about any points of their religion he had written them So must St. Peter and his Successours be inabled by some equall if not more speciall means sith they also were constituted by Christ to govern his flock to captivate all men to the obedience of Christs will otherwise his Church could not go on so uniformly in all ages which uniformity is the glory and indeed the very life and conservation of a Church as that of the Hebrewes did Nor may any body prudently imagin that the Spirit of Jesus in his Church and all the members thereof cooperates in every one immediately unto truth as it does to grace for then why should he constitute doctours and pastours and bishops over us as the good apostle learnedly asserts in his epistle to the Ephesians Ipse de dit quosdam quidem apostolos quosdam autem prophetas alios vero Evangelistas alios autem pastores doctores ad consummationem sanctorum in opus ministerij in aedificationem corporis Christi donec occurramus omnes in unitatem fidei agnitionem filii dei in virum perfectum in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi ut jam non simus parvuli fluctuantes circumferamur omni vento doctrinae in nequit â hominum in astutia ad circumventionem erroris Most excellent pathetical words where we have first the doctrin that pastours are set over us in the Church to guide us then the end of that constitution which he declares first positively then negatively the positive end is a perfect unity of faith which by that means must vegetate and fructify and grow up in one
much in that age as in the first when she took her faith from him that did manifestly so comport himself as if he would be taken for a God and promised his Church by the general spirit he would send her to teach her all truth and strengthen her therein against all opposition even to the consummation of the world which none but God or one exceeding near unto him could make good and if this were not performed the imposture was in the first beginning That building must needs stand firm that rests upon a Deity which hath influence upon the whole fabrick to keep it up and if it be not so kept up and conserved the Church doth but vainly flatter her self when she boasts of the divinity of her support if she fail in her doctrin and faith Christ is not God Whensoever therfor we read either in the Acts of the apostles or other ancient story of the conversion of a Kingdom or people unto the right religion of Christianity we still find it was done not by any private illumination of any one who living before in darknes with the rest was now secretly called to teach others but by a resignation unto a former doctrin brought from Christ by his missioners and preachers by submission to a truth delivered to them from without not rising up within them Faith comes by hearing and every man upon earth that hath ever been approved Christian received it that way and was made thereby not a maister but disciple to the Church Wheras on the other side this spirit and light and such like discoveries we so frequently talk of makes us not schollers but maisters ipso facto and urges not to submit to foregoers but to condemn them not to resign our own but to captivate others understandings not to go to the Church but to go out of it and that upon the single motive of a new illumination which none had before us and we from no body I know well enough that a man cannot be converted and becom a good Christian without the assistance of Gods grace exciting and cooperating with us to our good when the truth is taught and revealed to us But this I suppose is not the Light men talk of for this is rather in the affection and will than in the understanding and bids us hearken to another not to our selves to join with a Church already planted not to begin a new one of our own heads It sayes not to us make a vineyard of your own but go into mine And the intellectuall Light men speak of if we have any we receiv it afterwards as a reward of our humility in that Church where we did not kindle it but found it already burning to guide our feet by it in the wayes of peace Crede intelliges said a great Prophet Beleev and you shall understand but we must beleev first and by that obscure step of beleef which is as a duksy twi-light between the darknes of infidelity we lived in before and the light of truth we go to arrive we to all future happines But we in England that pretend this new Light and secret Spirit are separated by it from a former Church but brought to none nor are we made disciples by it but maisters on the sudden and enabled to teach all men that which we never received from any which is absolutely against the whole cours of Christianity and will if it be admitted set open a gap unto all fanatick fansies St. Paul professes he was apostle not of men nor by men but by God and the reason is becaus his first call was extraordinary from heaven as was likewise the suggestion he had to his mission and yet that God that called him although he showed him so singular a favour yet would he not dispense with his own orders and constitutions even in him but sent him to the good Priest Ananias to be by him instructed and catechised and admitted into his Church and with those people St. Paul found in the profession of that faith did he often conferre even he that was so strangly called from heaven conferred the Gospel which afterwards he preached as himself speaks in his epistle to the Galatians with those people and with that Church he found in actuall possession and profession of that faith least saith he I should have run in vain that is least he should do or think or preach any thing amiss contrary to the truth received unto which he was called which he could no otherwaies by the constitutions Jesus himself had made be assured of but by comparing his doctrin with that which was believed and practised in the Church before him into which he was now incorporated as a member in that body by the assistance of the grace he had received to be first a disciple and then afterwards a maister and teacher and when he did become a doctour he did not make himself one no nor his calling by Christ sufficed to do it but he was made such a one under the hands of the apostles and by their approbation autority and sacred ordination as may be seen in the book of the Acts ch 13. Nor was he to teach without that Churches leav or contrary to her faith but by her direction and in subjection to her This is a faithful speech and worthy of all consideration which seriously pondered would dissipate in a moment all whatsoever pretences of light spirit reason or other thing that shall mov any to a new way by himself contrary to what he hath received seen practised in the Church before him And if any would seriously peruse the Acts of the apostles wherein the footsteps of primitive Christianity fufficiently appear he shall find that all that were called unto Christs religion were brought to the feet of the apostles and priests who received them at the door and brought them into the hous of God by the laver of Baptisme and imposition of hands and confession of sins and it was not onely the ordinary but sole ingress into that Church and none were ever esteemed to be of that body but only by those means which also the pastours of the Church were only to mannage He that comes not in at the door saith Christ is neither sheep nor shepheard but a theef and a robber And true Christian religion consists not in going out of a Church but coming in there to submit to the ancient dictates of piety which Christ revealed §. 13. Independent and Presbyterians Plea TO a judicious man whom a word sufficeth it will already appear that no opinion or way here in England can have any advantage over the other by vertue of discoveries made by any light spirit or reason since there can no such be legally pretended to set up any new religion apart from the former but to join rather with the old which if it be not absolutely true Christ is not God and all Christianity but a human invention But yet
And if the salt have lost his savour wherewith shall it be seasoned Nor can we be ignorant that this Episcopacy-power was set up in England many years after Reformation-ingress by the ambitious policy of som men who falling from their former humility-spirit set up that chair of a State-spirituall for themselves which when another sate in it they used all kind of endeavour force and power to throw it down Can prelate-affecters deny that Episcopacy-power was by the first and purest reformation-light utterly subverted If you know it not the smallnes of your judgment will comdemn you if you know it and do the contrary you are condemned in your own judgment and if the Reformation was impure in this then was Protestant Reformation corrupt both in its first birth and the most glorious of all its enterprises wherein our consciences were withdrawn from the tyrant-yoaks of inveigling men unto the sweet influences of Christ who as he is the great pastour of souls so he is sure not to mislead his flock by any such passions as do frequenty domineer in man when he is once set over his fellow servants pride ignorance self-will and interest And if we be once brought again to the same ancient servil yoak of conscience-tyranny to receive our light and influences from men as before we did under Popery why may we not by the same strong tide of an irresistable self-leading power be driven uncontroulably to the same or greater errours Except you will say that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a surer and more unerring guide than the Romish byshop both of them I am sure be men and equally fallible who standing either of them betwixt us and home may by their usurped power over consciences which be only subject to the invisible Lord of truth lead us again either into our ancient or some new invented errour and if they impose the yoak who can resist them But the Lord of truth cannot lye and the beams of his light falling immediately upon his peace-messengers as once upon the apostles in cloven tongues of fire untainted with the interposition of any intervening obstacle must needs be both clear and true I will teach you all things saith he to his apostles he said not that one of them should teach another nor did those cloven tongues descend first from Christ upon Peter from Peter to Andrew from Andrew to John and so forward in an hierarchical line which Papists imagine in their Church but from Christ alone immediately upon them all Nor can you move us at all by telling us as you do of ancient tradition for Episcopacy-power even from Christ time unto this present age sith all those times and places are concluded by the pious Reformation under popish darknes which began even in Pauls time when the mystery of iniquity even this mystery of papall tiranny began to work and so overwhelmed the whole earth till at length the Lord was pleased by the foolishnes of preaching to enlighten those little ones who were predestined to beleev a truth aforetime hidden to all the sons of men Did we not all appeal from such popish traditions to the oracle to the gospel to the word of God and to the truth that cannot lye And what other instrument did we make use of to the abolishing of that human supremacy over mens souls which now again by erroneous tradition you would contrary to your own principles obtrude upon us than that very word and oracle And the gospel which as it is now by Reformation-purity put into every mans hand so is every man the ministers successors to the apostles by the help of Christs light which by frequent prayer they unite to themselvs the people by light they receiv from gospel-ministers to interpret and understand it is totally with us and for us Look into the gospel of Matthew c. Hic subauditur longus textuum catalogus ab initio ad finem Biblii contra episcopatum If you reply that we must for the sense of all these places have recours unto the Church what Church do you mean yours out of which you say we are fallen or the popish Church which both you and we deserted Take which you will for the same reasons and gospel-verities equally reject them both and if we must hearken to your Church out of which you say we are fallen why then did not you obey that Church out of which you sell your selves if that were in errour and therefore to be deserted yours is in no better condition but the invisible congregation of the faithfull which in our first reformation we took to be the Church can never fail And if you begin now to take the Church in a popish sense for any hierarchicall prelacy you do at once condemn your selves both of inconstancy and dissimulation and also of violation of gospell and rebellion against that visible Church our forefathers found themselves in unto which it seems now by this tenour of your speech they were bound by their Christianity to obey Scripture autority you have none for you nay it is all against you human words and practises being now rid by Christ of all those servil yoaks we valiew not and the true light of purest Reformation which you have deserted sith it is with us as at the beginning we must not forfeit nor do any thing may obstruct the ingoings and out-goings of little Christ within us Whiles the Presbyterian is hotly busied in this his plea against the Prelate-Protestant the Independent touches his elbow and advises him to bethink himself least with the same weapon he wound his adversary and kill himself For if such reasonings saith he be of value what will then becom of the clerical Presbyterian black coat which being derived from popery finds no more grounds in scripture than episcopacy hath Are not all men equally subject to Christ and capable alike of his divine influences and so indeed it is said of the times of Christianity And they shall be all taught of God How then com other teachers to intrude betwixt us and God to obstruct and taint and variously infect his light those upon whom the Holy Ghost descended were all lay men as we be and som of them women too But as soon as the Presbyterian turning upon him called him fanatick the protestant cried In neither barrel better herring ye are both so It was presently replied by them both when did the spirit leav us to speak unto you by what light or scripture can you make that good you that are blinded in your own errours The Catholick coming by When theeves fall out quoth he honest men may hope to come to their own goods again §. 14. Protestant pro and con WHat advantage then can the pious Quaker have against the zealous Presbyterian or both of them against the honest Protestant whiles all of them find words enough out of scripture and reasons thence deduced to throw at one another and each side is both
that a nation such as England is so wise and serious in all other things so judicious and grave should be perswaded by any mans words against the dictamen of their own reason if they would but consult it to beleev any such thing of this innocent faith when they cannot but clearly see in all histories both our own and others that amongst all the pretended wayes of Christianity only catholick religion both sets up and preservs the Crown which giddy headed sects indanger Som of our english clergy tell us of a thousand I know not what dangers of the Pope thereby to get the assistance of secular power to their own ends but what is indeed the occasion they know assuredly that the Pope if he were once admitted would both separate them from the secular life they lead and bring into order their exorbitant opinions And what harm if both these things were done If we do but search antiquities we shall find that none of our ecclesiastiastical benefices were given by princes and people to maintain a wife and children but only such single abstracted contemplative men as had consecrated themselvs and all their whole affections to God to serv him in all singlenes of heart in prayer and fasting and perfect charity and in the sacrifice of the altar all the dayes of their life without any solicitude after this world as priests of antient Christianity did and not for women and children unto whose generation against ecclesiastical custom and constitutions our ministers give as much attendance as any secular man whatsoever and generate children which after their death unles they show in their life time more of wordly solicitude than their spiritual state permits must lie upon the parish and as for ordering our dissentions in points of faith I should think not only the Pope who would assuredly do it but any whatsoever thing in the world though it were but an owl in an ivy bush should deserv thanks if he effected it But I return to my story §. 18. Item NOt only the kingdoms of the continent Germany Hungary Italy France Spain but all the Northern coasts and islands Denmark Norway England Ireland and the isles about them were now in a full and quiet possession and profession of their catholick religion when upon a little occasion heaven so willing it for some great sin or neglect of mankind the whole scene was changed on the sodain and catholick faith in our northern coasts to the grief and amazement of all that were then alive utterly abolished even by the discontent of one person and he but a private one neither upon this occasion The Pastour of Christianity upon some solicitation of Christian Princes for a general compliance throughout all Christendom to their design sent forth in the year 1517. a plenary indulgence throughout the world in favour of the Cruciata against the Turk Albertus byshop of Mentz delegated by the Pope to see it executed in Germany committed the preaching and promulgation of it unto the Dominican friars which the hermits of St. Austin within the same place took ill but especially Martin Luther a preacher and professour in that order esteeming himself the best deserving man in the town grew exceeding wroth that any should be chosen before himself to execute that work which was likely to have as great an auditory and confluence of people as might happen in a mans life time to the no small repute of him who should be thought worthy before another to divulge the bull and make the exhortation sermon in the behalf as it were of the whole Christian world Vexed therfore that he was thus neglected and as he thought undervaliewed not only by words but books and papers secretly thrown about he diminished first the dominicans then the byshop then indulgences themselvs Catholick superiours and princes blamed this misdemeanour of Luther as a practis of much danger and sedition but he grew not any thing better thereby but rather more head-strong and furious as unlawful passion increases by the very means of mitigation inveighing now with more boldness as far as he durst both against Prince and Prelate too Insomuch that the duke of Saxony after a year or two invited friar Luther to his court where by dispute and colloquy with the eminent doctour Eckius if he could not make his caus good he might grow better principled at least for Gods sake and his own good condescend to moderation and peace But Luther after much tiresom talk told at last very boldly both the duke and his doctour too that the quarrel was not begun for God nor for God should it be ended And so departing thence he proceeded now with more virulent words to incens the people unto whom he promised liberty from their vowes and fastings and other penitential observances whereby he perverted much of the laity clergy and religious people both men and women who 't is strange to consider it violating their vowes deserted that Catholick Church besides which they had never known nor heard of other to follow the serpentine enticements of one private person and he if not the worst yet at least none of the best that ever were Thus when one ram has leapt over a hedg all the other poor sheep so many as be within ken of the fact are apt to follow So prone is man to go astray like sheep and do amiss to our own ruin without any other reason for it than the sight of a president acting before us what our own naturall inclination is apt of it self without the curb of religion or law of its own natur to embrace And so much was the world disposed at that ill hour to a dissolute loosnes that Luther was still gaining upon people even from his first apostacy But when he had once married himself unto Catherine Bore a Nun by him seduced out of the monastery of Mymick contrary to both theâ—r vowes so that he was now become a sure and fast enemy as well to continence as before he had shown himself to abstinence 't is wonder how fast they flocked to him on all sides not only from the vulgar laiety but even from all instutes and profession and countries even the priests and votaries of chastity Oecolampadius a monk of S. Briger Jacobus Praepositi an Augustine Andreas Carolstadius an archdeacon in Wittenberg Suinglius a cannon of Constance Martin Bucer a dominican fryar Lismanin a Franciscan Richerius a Carmelite John Calvin a curate priest Philip Melanchton out of Germany Michael Servetus out of Spain Bernardin Ochyn and Peter Martyr out of Florence John Alasco out of Poland Sebastian Castalio out of France Beza out of Burgundy Stancar and Valentine Gentile out of Italy Blandrate Alciate and David Georg out of Transylvania c. who being all hitherto catholicks took occasion now by the example of Luther to fall away whereby as the body of holy Church was purged of some unquiet spirits so was Luthers retinue in a short space
labour are quite concorporared with it and make as it were one body with the spirit thereof such were the glorious saints of the Church Som take it in as powdered beef or other flesh unto a perfect seasoning yet so as that still the flesh is more and hath the denomination these are upright good men preserved by the power of their religion from putrefaction and unsavorines although they be men still upright men Som take it in as clay in a less degree and more imperfect mixture but yet they shew it in their lives and conversation for it keeps them together and if in one action they miss of grace in another they recover it But som again in the fourth place are like a marble stone or brick which rubbed over with salt imbibes nothing and such as these have the name of religion upon them nothing in them and they may be met with every where especially in outward society and commerce for they are still abroad even when better people are retired and sometimes they will for their own interest get into inclosures too where they procure much disturbance and vexation to the saints In a word catholick religion is wondrous good and fruitful as it was said of Canaan and brings forth huge clusters of lovely grapes all over the land but there be also giants and the sons of Anak to be met with there and I escaped not their hands But God knew the innocence of my heart and I beleev his good angel supported me For the main I got the end I went for and having passed through some part of Holland and Germany France and Flanders returned to my countrey to participate of the miseries which our civil wars then commenced upon pretens of a purer reformation and further elongation from popery did bring upon us And out of the love I bear my protestant countrimen I set forth this little Light that they may no more be inveigled to infect their hearts and hands with the hatred and ruin of the innocent For catholick faith which we call popery is in it self a most sacred and pure religion it makes million of saints though it permit some bad ones even as protestancy which brings all things to a naked beleef that must suffice what ever life we lead though it suffer some honest men not apt by the light of reason to transgress so oft as they may makes a million of loos and wicked ones but this is the difference that there the few evil ones have som remors for doing ill here the multitude of desperadoes have none at all Catholicks cannot doubt of their faith if Christ who promised to be with his Church unto the worlds consummation be a true prophet and again if he be a true prophet then all reformers who jointly affirm the Church to have failed for so many ages must needs be in an errour But I com to my travels and particular observations so much as may serv to my present purpos §. 22. Messach I Was edified and amazed to see catholick people flocking to Church not upon sundaies only but every day in the week to their sacred orisons the bells ringing to that purpos all the town over not only every several hower in the morning until midday but at verspers compline and even at midnight mattens when all the religious of a kingdom are called up in the very depth of their sleep to chant forth psalms hymnes and canticles to the prais and glory of the almighty It deighted me to enter their Churches which be kept so sweet and clean and in such a religious quiet retirednes that it would make a man at his entrance into them as they say of the kingdom of Florida in a sweet spring day to forget wife and children and all worldly busines But when I beheld the deep reverence and earnest devotion of the people the majesty of their service the gravity of their altars the decency of their priests certainly said I within my self this is he hous of God and gate of heaven Alas our Churches in England as they be now be as short of those either for decency use or piety as stables to a princely pallace there they be upon their knees all the week long at their prayers many of then constantly an hour together in the morning and half an hour he that is least and my hous saith God is the hous of prayer but our Churches are either shut up all the week or if they be open are wholly taken up with boies shouting running and gamboling all about On Sundaies indeed our people sit quiet and decently drest but to bow the knee is quite out of fashion and if any one chance to do it as he is rare to behold so is he very nimble at it and as soon up as down as if he made a courtship with his knees or only tried if his nerves and sinews were as good to bow as stand upright And our whole religious work here is to sit quietly whiles a minister speaks upon a text conferring notes answering difficulties expounding words drawing conclusions and putting together for ampler dilucidation one text to another as if he were reading to students in the school some piece of Aristotles Perihermenias And thus we spend all our daies ever learning and teaching and our whole religion is to teach and learn as if religion were only to lend the ear to one who cries Hearkens or an art of knowing how to speak an hour upon two or three words of a vers which for my part as I am well enough assured that it is not the great work of Christian religion so neither is it the true work of Christian preaching whether we consult reason or presidents of antiquity to find it For as all sermons left us by greek and latine fathers are grave short and pithy such namely as they being all priests used to deliver at the altar between the Evangile and Creed so were they ever most free from any such verbal comparing of text with text vers with vers and the like various vanities which so take up our English preachings that our sermons be little or nothing else and only serv to spend time and vent our own frivolous verbosity If it do happen that a more learned Protestant do make a sermon of solid matter as sometimes they will he will be sure before he make an end by one conceit or other to have a fling at the Papists to the end that people may think as indeed they do that Papists have no such doctrine though the preacher know himself that he got it all out of their books which is a pretty piece of legerdemain but very frequent in this land Another thing I have observed and it is worth observation that of all the sermons I have ever heard in England I have never known any to deliver ex proposito the proper and peculiar doctrin of protestancy by which and for which we first revolted from the catholick
Church as that our good works be all mortal sins and damnable before God that we have no will or power to do good or avoid evil that the commandements of God are impossible to be kept c. but rather all contrary as if we were ashmed of our own doctrin and afraid to speak before the people what we know in reason could not but offend Christian ears But all generally do preach when they preach any good thing the doctrin of catholicks though ever abused with their own modes and mixtures For every sect as it hath a peculiar spirit so hath it a mode and vein and method proper to it self The Independent speaks many good words but inconsequent and unconnexed so much roving up and down as if he had a mind to be prophet errant and before he gives over to say somthing of every thing The Presbyterian ever pursues some Platonick idea for example the ingoing and outgoings of Christ which is so thin and bodiles that he is forced to assign six or seven wayes to discern it then gives twelv consequent effects nineteen wayes to get c. in which wayes he does even tire himself as you may perceive by his melting and breathing when he comes to the high hills of eighteenthly and ninteenthly and after some months labour and travel in these his wayes at last with much ado he finishes his text which before he handled it was good and easy doctrin but is now by his tedious exercise rendered obscure intricate and full of doubts The Protestant cuts his text out logically into so many parts and then walks through them all with an even rhetorick adorned with witty conceits and flowers of common places still bringing un that parcel of the text he is handling with such proportion and measure in the close that a man must needs say when he has done that he has shewed a featous piece of art and when his or Presbyterian or Independents sermon is ended then is the great work of their religion done though all to little purpos for a dead mans foot say what you will to him will never warm is shoo But the Catholick if he speak like himself having gravely and pithily prest the intention of the gospel for such a day unto the peoples practis and devotion falls to the great works of sacrifice if it be in the morning and of evensong in the after noon adoration prayer and charity which is the summe wherein his religion consists and all his preaching servs but as a pair of bellows to make those coles burn Nor does any good old catholick that is well grounded in the constant practis of his faith care at all for any further instruction knowing aforehand that it can tend to nothing els than what before he knew and yet endeavours to practis For with him pure religion and undefiled is not to hear words but do deeds to reliev the orphan and widow and to keep our selvs unspotted in this world which unspottednes we attain by complying heart and hand unto the rule and sacraments of Jesus Christ Nor did the primitive Christians for three hundred years ever hear any sermon made to them upon a text all their whole life time but meerly flocked together at their priests appointment to their messach or dominicum or Leiturgy or by what other name for they used many at several times to avoid the pagans discovery their Christian sacrifice was called And it is most strang that we should pretend here in England to be Christians and the only good ones and yet reject those two great things which were by all Christendom esteemed in every age the very essences of Christianity the tribunal of absolution and the great Legacy of Jesus his body to his spous the Church insisting wholly upon preaching which as it is an accidental and relative work of our Christianity so is it common with us an all religions both Mahometan Jew and Pagan whose sermons if any should hear he could not tell by the morality of the master to what religion they belonged It is hard to say why against all the vogue of antiquity we should be so violent as to abolish the Christian sacrifice pull down the altars banish the priesthood yea and persecute it unto death except we mean to repaganise our selvs Our protestant forefathers when they first rose found manifestly all the Christian world over that this incruent sacrifice according to the order of Melchisedeck was and had ever been the sum of all apostolical devotion for which our many goodly fair Churches shrines and altars were built which hang now forlorn and desolate in our hands like great dead carkasses after the soul is departed for the inshrined body of Jesus was the life and soul of our Churches which then died all of them when he departed mouldring away ever since into dust and rottennes And therefor Martin Luther with his Kate the Adam and Eve of protetestancy did not for that reason presume to pull down the altars although they would not keep them up without the mixtur of som errour of their own But we in England in our strang heat tore down all without either president of the catholick world or our own reforming forefathers We cannot but see if indeed we see any thing that every law and religion hath been still annexed with a corresponding sacrfice Yea so surely and universally that sacrifice seems both to be born with religion and with religion to be extinguished The first men who worshipped God in the world as Cain and Abel are said to have don it with a sacrifice after the flood with religion again renewed was also sacrifice renewed by Noah and when afterwards through divers persecutions religion was brought into hazzard nothing did the prophets so much lament as the ceasing of their sacrifice as may be be seen in the book of Kings and Daniel And not without reason for all other kinds of good things offered or don to God are common also unto creatures only sacrifice is a worship so due to the Almighty as none either in heaven or earth may partake with him in it an other sacrifice properly socalled besides this according to the order of Melchisedeck there never was any amongst Christians For although faith hope and prais be by way of analogy called a sacrifice in an improper and translated locution to set forth the worth and acceptablenes of them yet this is so far from derogating to the great and solemn sacrifice properly so called that it presupposes and establishes it for the other could not have that analogical name except that thing were unto which they may bear analogy prais could not be commanded as sacrifice if there were no such thing as sacrifice thence the commendation should be drawn and to whose worth it should allude as it were impertinent and foolish to express the sweetnes of any oratory by the name of honey and sugred rhetorick if we did beleev there were no such
Corinth most heartily in his letters requesting their praiers and he esteemed it as good as if he had himself been by and heard it and yet the catholick altar is not so far from the people as Corinth is from Rome Wherefore in St. Pauls judgment one may pray for another not onely priest for the people but people also for the priest without being understood or so much as either heard or seen Nor could St. Paul in his own reason ever deny the efficacy of those praiers which be made by one for another in any whatever language for it was all one to him what language the Romans spake and if he did reflect upon it he could not be ignorant that they spake not the language of Corinth when he wrote to them from thence that they should pray for him there at so great a distance But if any will yet be obstinate and object unto me that S. Paul himself even in his epistle he wrote to Corinth from Ephesus which was his first letter he sent to that people speaks there about the end of the same letter very much against their praying and prophesying in an unknown tongue he may know first that even the tongue of the Romans whose prayers notwithstanding S. Paul so earnestly requested at Corinth was an unknwn tongue to those that lived there and yet that wise apostle would not we may think contradict himself Secondly then what was the matter The busines was this There were in the primitive Churches up and down many gifts and gratuities bestowed upon Christian people by that holy Spirit who would thereby exalt the gospels glory as extemporary prophesies working of miracles gift of tongues and the like and S. Paul hearing at Ephesus of some disorders in Corinth upon that account as those kind of gifts are possible to be abused he wrote to them about it to let them know that the spirit of Jesus for such his voluntary donations unto men was indeed to be praised but yet that Christians should not therefor place in those things their utmost glory and then to diminish further the huge esteem they had there of gifts and tongues before all other he lets them know that of all the other gifts that in particular was liable to the greatest inconveniences even far more than either wonder-working or prophecy This is the apostles drift as any one may see that understands a grave and sober letter But what is all this to any service of the Church But thirdly that I may make the thing yet a little plainer the Latin in which the Catholick service is kept is no unknown tongue and therefor that objection of no valiew against it There is no tongue in the world can be said absolutely either a known tongue or unknown but only with relation unto people and so every language in the world is in respect of som people a known tongue and in respect of others an unknown English is an unknown tongue to Vienna but not to London high Dutch is an unknown tongue to London but not to Vienna And therefor that we may conclude a tongue to be known or unknown we must compare it to the family or people in reference to whom it is used and no otherwise and that family or people must be considered not in any other respects if they have many but only in relation to that particular rank or order which refers unto such a language An English merchant living in Anwerp hath two languages which himself and family speaks English and Dutch and both of them in reference both to England and Holland jointly may be called both known tongues and unknown but in his busines with the English dutch is the unknown tongue in his Holland affairs english So the Pope as he is governour and lord of the city of Rome speaks Italian as all the other people there do and it is the only known tongue in that degree and order but as he is head of the whole Church spread over the earth which is a mystical body distinct from the body politick and hath a language of its own quite differing from the Italian that passes through Germany France and Spain both Indies and the Islands the north and south world wheresoever Christians live so he uses and speaks that general language which is latin and in that sens Italian is an unknown tongue and Latin only the known tongue of the Christian world So that in order to religion that one language that is spoken not in one corner but runs quite through the hous and is common to all as they be ranked in the series of Christianity wherein they are trained up by the father of the family and which in reference to religion he only speaks himself is the only known tongue in order to it and all other tongues unknown And so not latin but english not latin but dutch not latin but spanish is an unknown tongue to the Christian world for all these though they be the known languages of particular kingdoms which be but a corner of Christianity yet not they but latin is the known language of the whole Christian body and family through the world The hous of God is but one in it self although it be disperst over several nations and the language fitted for all the body must consequently be but one wherein all those nations are united and linked together exteriourly even as they be joined interiourly in faith which in that one tongue is carried up and down and conserved and all other tongues english french spanish be accidental to Christians as they be Christians even as the times and places of their abode be nor be they fastned unto them by their Christianity but by corporal birth and education which be contingent and altogether accidental to religion So then latin in reference to religion which for reasons above named must use one language is so far from being an unknown tongue that it is the only one known language of the Christian world united to Christian faith as the proper garment to a body by whose fashion it is discerned I know that a part of the Church useth greek in her Liturgy and som few people Hebrew as well as the generality does Latin But I mention only the latin tongue becaus my countrimen take notice only of that And all the three languages agree in this that they are segregated from vulgar use consecrated by the cross of the Meffiâ—s approved by the general pastour and equally liable to the present objection which is so trufatical that it casts not the least blemish upon popery for that custom and I hope all wife men will be of my mind Our land me thinks should thank the Pope for keeping his Mass and Psalter in such an unknown tongue For so our vulgar if they should be curious to see it yet can they neither be offended by what they hear nor so much as discern that our own English communion-book is drawn out of the
popish Breviary and Missal To revile and hate a custom whence we do our selves receiv so much benefit and no body and harm is fals latin in morality §. 26. Communion EVen as to pleas the people and to draw and keep them from the catholick Church we threw the Bible amongst them telling them withall that as it is easie to understand so is every man inabled to interpret it although our Protestant Church does now too late repent it and wish with all their hearts it had never been done so likewise another plausible advantage we took against the Pope and Church wherein those people communicate commonly but under one kind by giving all communicants a spoonful of wine together with their mouthful of bread which stratagem has given as ample content as if people had been treated at my Lord Majors Feast For who would not drink with their meat and what reason can be given that they should not or that a feast with wine should not caeteris paribus be better than without it But a little to abate our insulting over a grave religious people let me argue a little for them after my plain manner Protestant countreymen you cannot but know at least you ought to know that the catholick Church uses the cup in communion as much as we in England do and in sacrifice more for so I distinguish at this time that the sacrifice is for the priest communion for the people more I say than we ever mean to do for the deacon or minister at the altar after the priest had communicated the people with the hoast carries the cup after him to all the said communicants to drink before which action of communion the Priest to prefigure Christs passion upon the altar and his blood effused had both consecrated and consummated both the kinds himself Is not this enough to silence you I should think it were since you are taken so clearly in a dissimulation at least that I may speak no more when you say that Catholicks have not the cup in communion concealing what you ought to acknowledg both that the people have as much as ours and that the priest consecrates and consummates both which others do not Oh but you will say they give not the people the consecrated challice which is the very blood of Christ very good no more do Protestants do we give the people any more then a cup of natural wine they do so too if you answer it is blest wine know and remember that when you speak against the Priests consecration Oh then that blessing is nothing but when you would argue against the communion in one kind then you make something of it so likewise your own blessing of the cup when you talk against puriritans o 't is a great and venerable secret but when you plead against Catholicks then 't is but an empty ceremony Where shall any one hold such slippery cells But to omit these cavills May not Anti-Romans be ashamed to say that Catholicks use not the cup which they use as much as any and to as much effect as we will allow it to be used and yet more too The catholick people in communion I must say it again that I may be understood do drink of such a cup as Protestants do affirm to be the only cup and no other and over and above this communicate the very body of their redeemer animated with his soul and sacred blood and hypostatically united to his deity which thing Protestants neither do nor will allow it although gospel do both direct and command it And yet we will be talking of I know not what defect of catholick communion not remembring too as we forget other things that all the vertue of consecration is attributed by Protestants only to our feeding upon Christ by faith which no man can deny but that it may be totally done and compleated without touching either bread and drink and therfore have they mightily laboured to make good that when our Lord saith in St. John My flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed that he speaks not one word of sacramental eating or drinking but only of feeding upon him spiritually by the mouth of faith May not Catholicks say the like to any text that shall be brought for the people communion of the challice He is surely a mad man that so belabours his adversary in one argument that by the same he knocks out his own brains in another So then Protestants take from the people both the real body and blood of Christ united and effused and then exclaim against Catholicks for not using the effused species as well in communion as sacrifice We who hold neither as we ought condemn them for withholding one who hold both and call that in them a sacriledge with we our selves esteem but a ceremony The catholick Church feeds her people with real meat we feed ours with signs and husks Though others might upbraid the witholding of one kind if it were so yet surely we cannot ingenuously do it who have taken away the reallity of both Whatsoever Protestants do truly hold and teach concerning this sacrament the same do catholicks from whom they had it maintain too and what more ought to be done the Catholick Church does it and Protestants do it not Must we feed upon Christ crucified by faith Catholicks do it and it is the very end of their religion Must the Eucharist be taken in remembrance of him and commemoration of his death They do it Must both kinds be blest and taken they do that too Must the people drink wine out of a cup in communion Catholik people do the like On the other side Catholicks do really partake of the animated and living body of their Redeemer this ought to be done to the end we may have life in us And yet Protestants do it not Catholicks have it continually sacrificed before their eyes and the very death and effusion of their Lords blood prefigured and set forth before them for faith to feed upon This Protestants have not they do it not and yet this ought to be done for so our Lord commanded when he said to his apostles hoc facite this do ye which you have seen me to do and in that manner you see me do it exercising before your eyes my priestly function according to the order of Melchizedech with which power I do also invest you and appoint you to do the like even to the consummation of the world in commemoration of my death and passion exhibiting and shewing forth your Lords death till he com This I say Protestants do not and we are mad angry that the Papist does what his redeemer injoined him Thus far ad hominem The consecrated challice is not indeed ordinarily given by the priest to people in private communion And it is neither expedient it should be so nor necessary to any effect of communion nor yet is ther in gospel any precept for it It is not
necessary unto any effect either in the Protestants way which is fals or in the Catholick way which is true In the Protestants doctrin all the effect of communion is wholly attributed to the operation of faith and Christs words say they are to be taken spiritually and not literally for flesh and bloud profiteth nothing And therefore according to them one kind is enough nay if we have neither kind there is no loss but only of a ceremony which may be supplied well enough at our ordinary tables According to catholick doctrin whole Christ is really under either kind and so it is indifferent in which kind we receiv But it is not expedient ordinarily to communicate under the liquid species for danger of effusion as would somtimes happen in assemblies severally disposed And yet there may be reason by circumstance of the person to communicate rather in the liquid kind than the other as when the communicant is young or sick and not able to take down the other and therfore in antient times such people were ordinarily communicated in the liquid species only by the help of a spathula linguae or little pipe made on purpos for that use and for aught I know it may so be done still upon the like occasion As for any precept of communicating under both kinds I never heard or read of any none hath the great mother Church delivered either in her gospel or out of it For all the whole passage of the last supper whence Anticatholicks do principal ground their reasonings concerns only the sacrifice how the apostles and their successours should consecrate and bless it what they should take to bless and consecrate and how they should consummate after consecration And ther is not there any word or fact concerning the communicating of people nor were ther in that time and place any lay people at all to be communicated either man woman or childe but they were all excluded and if a man would draw negativ arguments as som do out of scripture he might conclude out of that place that lay people are to receive in neither kind sooner then in both And although learned Saint Paul may insinuate in his epstles that even the laiety did partake of Christs body yet it may readily be answered in the Protestants own grounds if he did plainly say so that he spake not of a corporall but spirituall communion Indeed the whole manner of giving communion to the laiety is wholly left to tradition and to the judgment and disposition of the Church which appears more probable for that the catholick Church hath according to her own prudence unto some persons in som times and places used only the communion of the challice to others only the sacred bread to others both no man ever finding fault therewith or startling at it as any new thing and if we consider the scrupulousnes of former ages we cannot but think they would have risen up and excepted against this if it had been deemed either new or ill or if it had not been in the breasts of all good Christians preconceived and fully known to be totally arbitrary and in the Churches power to communicate the laiety either in both kinds or only one and of the two in which she pleased or thought most fitting for the condition of the communicant This was certainly the opinion which Christians ever had concerning communion But as for consecration it seems necessary to the integrity of the sacrifice and the fruit thereof to the whole Church and determined under a precept that it should be made in both kinds for so it was instituted to declare and set forth before our eyes the Passion of Christ and his blood effused of which it could not be a compleat figure or representation except both kinds were consecrated and so the effusion exprest It was to exhibite whole Christ crucified both quoad continentiam and quoad significationem which signification is not requisite in communion where the thing contained is received and not the signification or mode exprest This indifferent use of communion amongst the antient Christians in either kind somtime one somtime the other somtimes both is enough to verify that of Saint Paul if it be taken as it ought to be in the literal sense We are all partakers of one bread and of one cup For though either kind were lawful for any one yet that any one kind was sufficient one may easily see was the opinion of that good apostle by what he speaks in the foregoing comma Whosoever shall eat this bread or drink this cup of our Lord unworthily c. and v. 24. and v. 25. repeating the institution as our Lord delivered it makes him after the consecration of the bread say absolutely Do this in commemoration of me but after the consecration of the challice he speaks with a limitation Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in commemoration of me So that the particle And in the other text must needs be taken disjunctively when he saith we are all partakers of one bread and of one cup that is to say all of us either partake of both or each one at least either of one or the other which manner of speech is very ordinary in all languages Mulier est domus salus ruina A woman saith the proverb is the safety and ruin of a hous yet not conjunctively or both together but either the one or the other according as she is her self either wise or foolish and nothing is more usual in common speech than to use this particle And disjunctively when we speak unto many at once or of many thus ten men rising from a feast may say we have fed heartily to day of flesh fish and fowl though one might haply eat only of one kind another of another as it chanced and yet not any one of all If a man do seriously peruse either the gospel or Acts of the apostles wherein is delineated the primitive religion of Christians he may easily gather that communion then was thought sufficient under one kind and that the species of Bread was most usual to such as were in health For first gospel speaks of as much effect of this one kind as of both This is a bread com down from heaven that if any eat thereof he dies not Joh. 6.50 again he that eats of this bread shall live for ever v. 25. If any one eateh me the same shall live by me v. 58. and he never there compares himself to wine as he does to bread nor mentions the drinking as he does the eating of him We are one bread and one body saith S. Paul all that do partake of one bread 1 Cor. 10.13 And what is there more to be expected but union with Christ and his mystical body immortality and life eternal with him which all follow upon our worthy communicating of the sacred bread Secondly when our Lord brake bread with his disciples in Emaus and so disappeared very great
along with him in his train and service all those holy prophets and patriarks of the old law who had in their place of detention waited for the consolation of Israel I say St. Peter must suppose that proposition on which the firmitude of his whole discours was chiefly grounded to be admitted by the Jews for true otherwise his argument had been inefficacious and had neither proved Christs ascension nor yet Jesus to be Christ and if the Jews had beleeved Davids soul to be in heaven though not his body yet still the argument in my judgment had fallen short All this infers that the Hebrew Church did beleev a detention of spirits citra coelum and that the Rich man might go to hell before Christ but Lazarus the happy went but into Abrahams bosom that is to say unto that repose where Abraham David and all the antient patriarks expected the light and redemption of Israel and not into heaven it self And they might very well so beleev for how can any one hope for that upon anothers gift which he never promised when he promised all other things but it heavenly bliss amongst all the fair promises made in the law of Moses was never so much as mentioned nor those people ever put in hope of it for any good work they should do But in the new testament of our Messias heaven which himself should open to his faithful is frequently promised as an immens motive and incitement to good words they should for his love by the assistance of his grace act and persever in unto the end Yet so too as that in the execution of this promis it is sufficiently insinuated that if any spirit issue out of his body not absolutely purified himself may indeed by the use of such means of grace as our Lord instituted be saved yet so as by fire 1 Cor. 3. And therfore our blessed Saviour speaking of the severall trespasses we make in this life gives us this counsel to set all right and straight as far as we can while we are here in via in the way of this life for if once by death we be delivered up to the place of hold detention or prison ther will be no getting forth thence till the utmost farthing be paid Math 5. that is as holy fathers do jointly interpret the place till absolute satisfaction be made either by sufferance or suffrages And that redemption or remission of some sins may be had after this life is enough insinuated unto us by himself when he tells us that there be some sins that shall never be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come For if any should tell me here in England that som criminall offences will neither be pardoned at the Sessions nor at the Kings bench at Westminster he sufficiently insinuates if he speak properly that releas may be had for som other offences in both the places S. Paul in his epistles although he do somtimes indirectly hint at this doctrin of expiation after this life yet does he not directly make use of it as a topick place either in his exhortation to vertue or disswasion from vice But the reason is manifest for being a thing mixt of good and ill it could serv sufficiently to neither purpos and heaven being now lately promised to all those that walk piously in Christ Jesus was a more full and stronger motive of perswasion as also was hell a greater argument of affrightment then the interjacent place of expiation however penall could be which by reason of the temporality of the sufferance and hopes of approaching glory admits some comfort to mitigate the terrour and again by reason of the penalty of that condition and trouble of expectation carries enough of terrour to allay to comfort of the place And yet incidentally and without design ther is there to be found as much of purgatory as of the liturgy the trinity primitive absolution and other mysteries of faith In a word the thought of heaven served well both to incourage people to the utmost perfection of charity and good works and to comfort them also in tribulations which the memory of their expiation before it could not do And on the other side if any were wicked for such a one purgatory would neither be a seasonable nor sufficient menace Yet both all their life time and especially when they came to dye all records of primitive times will tell us how careful the antient Christians were to provide for their souls assistance after death And accordingly S. Austin commends the piety of his mother Monica in that she begged so earnestly of him her son to be mindful of her soul when he stood at the altar to pray heartily for her after her deceas and he sets down at large in the ninth book of his Confessions c. 12. and 13. the dirge and sacrifice and prayers he made both for her and her husband Patricius And the doctrin of expiatory punishments after this life he teaches in several places of his many learned volumes In his 20 book de civitate dei c. 9.13.16 and 24. In his comment upon the 37 psalm In his book of fifty homilies hom 16. In his 41 sermon de sanctis In the 110 chapter of his Enchiridion In his book de cura pro mortuis c. 2. and 4. By which and other places we may see that S. Austin was not only of this catholick opinion but he was also a priest himself who both taught and practised it sacrificing at the altar for souls departed And so was S. S. Bede German Constantinopolitanus Jo. Damascen and Alcuin in the eight age of the Church not to mention later times S. S. Isidore Eligius and the fathers of the eleventh councel of Tolledo in the seventh age S. S. John Climacus Gregory the great and the Fathers of the councel of Valentia in the sixt S. S. Jo. Chrysostome with the above-named S. Austin Paulinus Eucherius Lugdunensis Victor Vticensis Socrates and Theodores in the fist S. S. Eusebius Caesariensis Athanasius Basilius Magnus Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus Gregorius Nazianzen and Nyssen Epiphanius Ambrosius and Hieronimus in the fourth S. S. Eusebius Alexandrinus Zeno Veronensis and Origen in the third S. S. Ireneus Hermes and Tertullian in the second who were all of them priests catholick Roman priests and publickly taught as I am able to make it apparent out of their works this venerable religious doctrin of the souls expiation after death before it arrive to heavenly bliss by the prayers and pennances and alms deeds of the faithful left behind them in this world and did it and practised it themselvs in their houses altars and oratories according as they had received it from the first age which they found in an universal beleef and practis of the same truth as even yet appears by the antient liturgies and testimonies of S. Matthews S. Mark S. James the elder and the younger S. Clement and S. Denyse the Areopagite Thus Popery did
day But thanks be to Him that provided a wise and vigilant Pilot with whom he sits himself invisibly at the stern to guide him and such as voiage in the same ship with him unto all truth even to the consummation of the world Histories will tell us how careful and more then humanly happy Popes have been in all ages in reconciling Christian princes and resolving difficulties between them in examining of doctrines in counselling and perswading high spirited children ready to fly out into heresies to humility and resignation in governing so many bodies of Religious which be all subjected under him as other parts of the Church be and are so numerous that one would hardly beleev ther should be so many religious houses in the Christian world all serving God night and day with that silence order and cleanlines every one in his way and institute that it is the goodliest thing in the world to behold St. Bennet rose in the sixth age of the Church about the year 529. and yet about the year 1480. it is written that ther were then of his order fifteen thousand monasteries in the world and the other families of S. Francis S. Augustine S. Dominick the Society and others are none of them much less numerous and all these families have still recours to the Pope both for their rule and statutes and for all difficulties that may occurre in their spiritual government And who can be sufficient for all these things None surely but he that is singularly assisted from heaven and Christ our Lord in my judgment hath no less shown his divinity and power in the Pope than in himself as much in his spirituall and mystick as he did in his natural body and the life indeed which by his Spirit he livs in his Church is in a manner the very same with his naturall one now praying now disputing amongst the doctours now fasting then watching then healing the sick and working miracles then persecuted maligned envied somtimes at a feast somtimes hungrying somtimes making merry with a loaf of bread and few fishes the disciples now defending their maister now the maister defending his disciples c. for so the Pope protects innocent beleevers and these again defend him But of all those glorious things our Lord did in his life time conversion of people confutation of pharisaical opposers releeving of poor healing of diseases and the like he hath shown greater abundance in his Church than in himself according as himself promised Ye shall do greater things than these Which confutes the antient calumny of our old adversary the Jew who ascribed all our Lords miraculous operations either to som gipsie tricks he learnt when he was in Egypt or to som evill spirit he had got to attend his person either of which had it been true had failed with his peson and his power had not extended to his Church And all things considered I think I may truly say that Christ in the Pope and Church is more miraculous than he was in his own person and I doubt not but the nativity of his Church and miraculous conversation passion resurrection and ascension shall be the same with his So that he who contemns the Pope contemns Christ who presides in him and he that contemns the Church villifies his spirit which lives and movs and animates that body I could be very copious in this subject but I must not be prolix in any thing I only desire my reader to consider this one thing which after serious thought he will find to be true that if there had not been Popes in all ages both to conserv and propagate faith we had either never heard any news of Christianity here in England or not kept it undisturbedly so long All the whole gospel and body of Christianity is his purely his and from him we received it Nay the first great fundamental of Christian religion which is the Truth and divinity of Christ had it not been for him had failed long ago in the world and what then had becom of all the rest For after Pope Sylvester according to the faith of his ancestors had by means of his three Legates great Osius bishop of Corduba White and Vincent two priests established in the first councel of Nice the said divinity of Christ our Lord wherein he is consubstantial to that almighty One who made the earth and stars against Arrius and his allies who began to teach the contrary it is incredible to say what frequent murmurations resorts and conciliar meetings were made afterward up and down the world by the priests and byshops who had drunk in the contrary opinion and in that point deserted him against their Pope and Pastour for three or four hundreed years together till in a manner all the whole Church not only clergy but laiety and the princes of Christendom opposed him in it while the Pope now left in a manner alone or with a very thin retinue of beleevers and all his successors one after another fought even to sweat and blood for the vindication of that great Christian article even against the whole world And he so far overcame at length that there be scarcely in these dayes any that doubt of that which the Pope only by the authority of his place and title wrought out of the very fire Whence I may truly say that Christ is the Popes God for if the Pope had not been or had not been so vigilant and resolute a pastour as he is humanly speaking Christ had not been taken for any such person as he is beleeved this day And let men talk what they will by their vain philosophy this I will boldly say and am assured of that if the Pope be not an unerring guide in matters of religion and faith all is lost A man once rid of the controul of his autority may as easily deride and as solidly confute the incarnation as the sprinkling of holy water nor could the reason of the whole earth be able to convince him And after all this shall children and boyes jeer and revile in our streets and pulpits this sacred majesty of the Pope whom the vertue wit valour and nobility of all Christendome hath ever so highly honoured and we if we consider things as we ought can never love too much shall we cast unjust and vile contumelies upon him who holding a solicitude for all the Churches of Christs has so many millions of the greatest spirits in the world depending upon his lips for direction and truth with whom and under whom have concurred in his general councels so many thousands of renowned prelates venerable byshops princely cardinals grave patriarchs subtile divines and doctours Abbots and Generals of orders oratours chancellors knights and barons sent to his assistance by the Kings and Potentates of Christendom the very stars of our earthly hemisphere met together either to make up or grace and strengthen his great counsell convened in subordination to his legates nay emperours
themselves have thought it an addition of honour to sit in that solemn and thrice venerable assembly though in a separated place Shall we I say mock and revile this sacred person Let not such a thing be said of us any more let it not be told in Gath or the streets of Askalon that we use any such rude behaviour lest the very uncircumcised Philistins condemn our vast inexcusable incivility Nor yet let us either envy or malign the respect which Pappists give to Him from whom they received their Christianity and by whose vigilance and care it hath been kept inviolate amongst them from its first ingres into the land even to this very day Shall our eye be therefor evil becaus theirs is good §. 30. Popery IN the more flourishing doctrins of the Catholick Church I could be largely copious but I have said as much as may suffice my intended purpos which was so far to excuse even that religion also that if all do not embrace yet none may persecute and hate it Wherefor I do purposly omit to speak of other more plausible parts of Popery viz. 1. The obligation which all who beleev in Christ have to attend unto good works and the merit and benefit of so doing 2. The possibility of keeping Gods commandements with the assistance of divine grace 3. The liberty and freedom of human will either to comply with grace or resist it 4. The sacred councel and excellency of divine vowes 5. The right and obligation to restitution when any one shall have wronged his neighbour either in his soul or body fame goods or estate 6. The power and autority of of the Church in her tradition and decisions 7. The fasts and abstinence at certain times from som kind of meats which is all the religion we read Adam was injoined to observ in Paradise that we may therby be more apt to acknowledg Gods gifts and goodnes at those times we enjoy other good things of his bounty and at other times them and to sanctify our spirit for divine retirements 8. The divine ordination and unspeakable comfort and benefit of Confession 9. The caelibate and single life of the clergy who thereby freed from much solicitude of this world though not without som troublesom struggling against unseemly lusts of youth may approach the altar like angels of God who neither marry nor are given in marriage 10. The doctrin of indulgencies which be nothing els but a releas from som temporal penalties due to sin after repentance and remission which the Church does generally bestow by commutation as when for example an indulgence of such penalties for so many daies or years is granted unto such as upon the time appointed shall repent and confess fast pray give almes and communicate for the Churches preservation and concord of Christian princes which is a doctrin as rational and well grounded as any in Christianity though we in England will not understand it 11. Finally the ecclesiastick hierarchy and supremacy whereby catholick religion like a flourishing fair tree spreads his boughs in several kingdoms of the earth even from sea to sea so united all of it in all its parts and connexed together that ther is no catholick upon earth but is under som priest all priests subordinated to their byshops these to their metropolitan all metropolitans to the Patriarchs and Patriarchs united in the Papal cone every leaf cleavs to som twig every twig to som branch every branch to som bough every bough to the bole and the bole to the root And several other such like points of the Roman religion which coming all together from once hand have stood unchangeable in all ages the same and depending all upon the verity of the first revealer have an equality of truth though not of weight These and several others with the other half dozen more offensive doctrins I have cleared and explicated our reformers cut off at one blow when they taught us that it would suffice to salvation only to beleev in Christ without any more ado and that other things were popish superstitions whereby we became a strang kind of servants that beleev their maister but heed not either to fulfil his orders or do his commands For they told us and we have hitherto beleeved it That ther be no such things as good works pleasing to God but all be as menstruous rags filthy odious and damnable in the sight of heaven That if it were otherwis yet are they not in our power That with the assistance of any grace to be had Gods commandements are impossible to be kept and it would be therefor vain to attempt it especially sith we have in us no strength of free will to act any thing but evil That it must needs be foolishnes to vow unto God sith we can do nothing we ought to do and no less foolish if we have vowed to pay it That what wrong soever we do to another God is merciful and restitution fruitles both becaus one sin cannot make satisfaction for another nor any thing clear us but the blood of Christ alone unto which if we should concurr our selves by doing good works or satisfying for ill we should be half our own redeemers That the Church which presumes to teach other things than we allow is a fals mistres distracted and knows not what she sayes That to fast from sin is fast enough without depriving our stomachs of good flesh when we have a mind to it and yet becaus we sin in every thing we do neither is that fast possible to be kept That confession is needless How can man forgive sins That our clergy find themselvs men and not angells and love women as well as others and first revolted from popery principally for their sakes preferring a good wife before the whore of Babylon and the altars that kept them asunder are thrown down the honest pulpit standing now solitary speaks for them and brings them happily together That of indulgencies there is no need since obligation to penalties is shaken off long ago by our own autority without any indulgence from another That papal supremacy is the only obstacle to our liberty and therefor it must be abolished And let popery hang together as close as it can it shall go hard but we will find a battery to shake it So much indeed hath sophistry and continual clamour against popery and state punishments lying ever most heavily upon the professours of it prevailed over our judgments that now ther is no goodnes no worth no truth in it no none at all it is all naught all and every part of it naught nothing but naughtines superstition and vanity All that I will say for the present is this If popery be a bad religion more is the pitty for the professors of it suffer as much for it as might well serv for a good one Millions of people for the beleef they have in it and the love they bear its holy counsels and
promises of future reward do voluntarily and of their own accord forsake the world and all worldly pleasures to serv God night and day in poverty humility and chastity and multitudes of others of a secular condition in several parts of the earth have rather chosen to live an afflicted life in this world contemned abused pillaged beaten put to death by their persecutours than to forsake that religion and these too as noble and wise persons many of them as any the earth hath had But if any will yet be contentious and maintain his hatred still against Popery I earnestly request he would seriously ponder these few following Queries which I borrowed of a friend It will not be deny'd but that the Church of Rome was once a most pure excellent flourishing and Mother Church for this is not only by good St. Paul amply testified in his epistle to the said Romans but acknowledged also by Whitaker in his answer to Dr. Sanders by White in his defence of his way by Fulk and Reinolds and also by K. James in his speech to the Parliament This Church could not ceas to be such but she must fall either by Apostasie Heresie or Schism I. Apostasie is not onely a renouncing of the Faith of Christ but the very name and title to Christianity No man will say that the Church of Rome had ever such a fall or fell thus II. Heresie is an adhesion to some private and singular opinion or errour in Faith contrary to the general approved Doctrin of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common recived Doctrin of the Christian world I pray satisfie me as to these particulars viz. 1. By what General Councel was she ever condemned 2. Which of the Fathers ever writ against Her Or 3. By what authority was She otherwise reproved For If seems to me to be a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemned by every one that hath a minde to condemn her III. Shisme is a departure or division from the Vnity of the Church wherby the Band and communion held with som former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided her self by Schisme from any other body of faithful Christians or brake communion or went forth from the Society of any Elder Church I pray satisfie me as to these particulars 1. Whose company did She leave 2. From what body did She go forth 3. Where was the true Church which She forsook For it appears somwhat strange to me that a Church should be accounted schismatical when ther cannot be assigned any other Church different from her which from age to age since Christ his time hath continued visible from whence She departed If these Queries were well pondered or if men would once beleev as most true it is that by irrefragable principles which all must needs acknowledg who will own a Christianity in general Popery may be proved to be as good a religion as the best then Facta est Lux. But this is a little beyond my intention which aims no further than only to put our passions to a demur for which it may suffice us to think that Popery is not ill And if I should yet say more and endeavour to prove it good those that be of that Way will say I speak too little and they who be not will think I say too much I had a purpos in the three last dialogues of my Reclaimed Papist to make Popery appear not only a good religion but the best and not only the best but the only sole Christianity which Christ planted upon earth and which every right reason that admits of Christ must needs approve But I hope I was therfore discouraged and hindred in that work that it might be left for som better hand and I should my self very much rejoyce to see it don It is now besides my purpos my paper also is already too much swelled my mind calls for freedom and my pen is dulled Acta est pars acroamatica sequitur moralis Fifth Chapter Moral topicks for charity and peace §. 31. Conclusion AS without the indifferency and moderation I have hitherto laboured to implant ther cannot be in us any capacity of a right understanding so ther be yet som moral topicks remaining which are apt to implant this moderation and indifferency as to consider first the sad precipices men have run themselves and others by their headiness and temerarious obstinacy in their opinions and conceits about religion secondly that the connatural excellency of a good Christian consists not in finding new waies to the reformation of other mens thoughts but putting in practis the old received well known dictates of sobriety justice and piety in our selves thirdly that charity which the apostle makes to be the end and highest perfection of religion and indeed all vertue suggests good and moderate thoughts of our neighbour c. But these and such like topicks be a subject fitter for a pious preacher than a civil logician and so leav them What I should speak at this time unto any such purpos take it in the golden words and phrase of the honourable Lord Chancellour the Oratour of the Land Gentlemen the distempers of religion which have too too much disturbed the peace of this Kingdom is a sad argument indeed It is a consideration that must make every religious heart to bleed to see religion which should be the strongest obligation and cement of affection and brotherly kindness and compassion made now by the pervers wranglings of passionate and froward men the ground of all animosity hatred malice and reveng And this unruly and unmanly passion which no question the divine nature exceedingly abhors somtimes and I fear too frequently transports those who are in the right as well as those who are in the wrong and leaves the latter more excusable than the former when men who find their manners and dispositions very conformable in all the necessary obligations of humane nature avoid one anothers conversation and grow first unsociable and then uncharitable to each other becaus one cannot think as the other doth And from this separation we intitle God to the patronage of and concernment in our fancies and distinction and purely for his sake hate one another heartily It was not so of old when one of the most antient Fathers of the Church tells us that love and charity was so signal and eminent in the primitive Christians that it even drew admiration and envy from their greatest adversaries Vide inquiunt ut invicem se diligunt Their adversaries in that in which they most agreed in their very prosecution of them had their passions and animosities among themselvs they were only Christians that loved and cherished and comforted and were ready to dye for one another Quid nunc dicerent illi Christiani si nostra viderent tempora sayes the incomparable Grotius How would they look upon our sharp and virulent contentions in the debates of Christian religion and the bloody wars that have proceeded from those contentions whilst every one pretended to all the marks which are to attend upon the true Church except only that which is inseparable from it Charity to one another My Lords and Gentlemen This disquisition hath cost the King many a sigh many a sad howr when he hath considered the almost irreparable reproach the Protestant religion hath undergone from the divisions and distractions which have been so notorious within this Kingdom What pains he hath taken to compose them after several discourses with learned and pious men of different perswasions you may see by a declaration he hath published upon that occasion by which you see his great indulgence to those who can have any protection from conscience to differ with their brethren And I hope God will so bless the candour of his Majesty in the condescentions he makes that the Church as well as the State will return to that unity and unanimity which will make both king and people as happy as they can hope to be in this world If aught yet remain to be said in the heavenly words of blessed S. Paul I shall conclude it all Quosdam quidam posuit deus c. Some hath God set over us in his Church first apostles secondly prophets thirdly doctours then virtues then graces of healing opitulations gubernations sorts of tongues Are all apostles are all prophets are all doctours are all vertues have all men the grace of healings do all speak with tongues do all interpret But do you emulate the better graces And I do yet show unto you a more excelling way If I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity I am but as sounding brass and tingling cimbal And if I shall have prophesy and know all mysteries and all sciences and if I shall have all faith so that I can translate mountains and have not charity I am nothing c. This is the great rule of our happines and square of all perfection Et quicunque hanc regulam secuti fuerint pax super illos super Israel Dei FINIS