they say that there are some things that will be closely united by no cement so well as by humane blood Doubtless the Gospel as used in English and Preached by true Protestants such as the Pseudo-Bellamie in Philanax Anglicus hatefully calleth Protestants off Sincerity goeth not with many beyond Sea for the same Gospel which they believe And therefore no wonder if the Preachers of it be unpleasing to them and he that will please them and unite with them must silence or oppose those that they would have to be silenced and disgraced And some think that Union with many Kingdoms of Christians which call themselves the Catholick Church is much to be preferred before the Love and Concord of a hated party in our Island And as Dr. Saywell the Master of a Colledge and Bishop Gunnings Chaplain saith to prove that there is a Universal Legislative and Judicial power in the Clergy over Kingdoms as well Persons If more persons or particular Churches give offence by Heresy Schism c. The CHURCH UNIVERSAL or the rest of the Bishops may reprove them for it and then there is no Reason why one man should be censured and many should go free and consequently our Saviour hath established the Authority of his Church over all Christians as well particular Churches as private men Churches of Kingdoms and Nations have a SOVERAIGNTY over them to which they must yield obedience Isa. 60. 12. The Nation and Kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish yea those Nations shall be utterly wasted pag. 343. Though Kings have no Civil Universal Soveraign over them but Christ yet it seems all the world both Kings and Kingdoms have an Ecclesiastical Soveraignty over them all Communion of equalls and Christian Counsel and Reproof is not enough such as all Neighbour Princes may use towards one another Nor the denial of such Communion to the uncapable But all Kings and Kingdoms must be under one Church Soveraignty which hath a Legislative Judicial power over them all to excommunicate absolve them c. And how much more in ordine ad Spirituaâ—ia the common exposition of Ecclesiastical Power tells you As experience long told many Kingdoms what the Excommunicating of a King and Interdicting a Kingdom the worship of God do signify towards their Dethroning or Invasion And all this must be done not as for the Pope but under the name of a General Council and the poor Pope shall have no power but say some to call that Council and call it General when there is no such thing and preside in it and rule us as chief Patriarch and St. Peters Successor in the Intervals of General Councils that is continually and that not Arbitrarily but by the Laws of the Church or Councils and no mortal man can tell which those Authorized Legislative Councils are among the hundreds of erroneous or contradicting ones So that Popery in England is an abhorred thing for it is nothing with some but the Popes absolute Government of the whole Church as without or above Laws and Ecclesiastick Parliaments And can you reconcile all this to our Oath of Supremacy and the Canons that establish it renouncing all forreign Iurisdiction Yes easily we have been told it meaneth only forreign Civil Iurisdiction which belongs to the King and not forreign Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction which is all that the sober Popes do claim save indirectly in ordine ad Spiritualia To Command a Nation on pain of Excommunication and Damnation according to divers Councils to renounce their Allegiance to their Excommunicate Prince and to depose him and set up another is no act of Civil but of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction which yet hath dethroned Emperours and overthrown Dominions And saith A. Bishop Laud in Dr. Stillingfleet's defence of him p. 540. It doth not follow because the Church may err therefore She may not Govern. For the Church hath not only a PASTORAL Power to Teach and Direct but a PRETORIAN also to controul and censure c. And for external obedience to General Councils when they err Consider whether it be not fit to allow a General council that honour and priviledge which all other Great Courts have Stillingfleet p. 534. So that instead of a Council of equals for concord as Princes use for peace with their neighbours We have an Vniversal Soveraign Court set up with Pretorian Power to make binding Laws and pass Iudgment to all the Christian World and say some They are Schismaticks that obey not these Vniversal Laws and obedience to them and suppressing all forbidden Assemblies for Gods worship is the only way to Christian concord And where this forreign Jurisdiction is made of such absolute necessity that without subjection to it by Kings and Kingdoms there is no concord to be had nor any avoiding of the guilt of Schism what wonder if some can wish that silencings reproaches ruines and confusions may be thought no dear price to obtain an universal union for which Christ and his Law are insufficient They that have read Grotius Cassander Baldwin Hoffmeister Erasmus A. Bishop Laud Dr. Heylin of his Life Bishop Sparrow A. Bishop Bromhal and the Prefacer Bishop Parker Thorndike Bishop Gunning and his Chaplain Dr. Saywell and such others and against them all have read Dr. Isaac Barrow of the Supremacy against Thorndike c. may understand where our difference and danger lyeth § 8. And is Englands self destroying disease uncureable God hath in wonderful mercy given us peace from forreign Enemies And is there no hope of prevailing with English men to live together in peace Must that of Isa. 49. 36. be our case to eat our own Flesh and be drunken with our own Blood as with sweet Wine Alas no counsel no petitions no tears no experience no judgments of God by Plagues and Flames have hitherto one jot prevailed But the Ulcer of mens minds grows more and more putrid and malignant Two ways are by some proposed First that all the Consciencious worshippers of God in the Kingdom should bring their judgments to a full conformity in every particular to their rulers Whenas first they cannot tell us who these must be some say to the King or Law Some say to the Bishops in a National Convocation Others say to the foresaid forreign universal Soveraignty of General Councils with the Patriarchs If the first be the way what Kingdoms must it be in Is it no where but in Britain Or also in France Spain Italy Germany Poland And must there be as many Religions as Kings and Laws will make And how far must this go And where must we stop Must Kings choose us a God Or chuse whether we shall have any God any Christ any Bible any worship of God and so any Heaven If it be the Bishops that must be the common rule of our Religion what Countreys and Ages doth this rule serve for Was it the rule where Princes and Prelates were Arians or Nestorians or Eutychians or Monothelites or Papists Is it
hate you as it hated me because you are not of the World but I have chosen you out of the World Marvel not if the World hate you As many as will live godly in Christ Iesus shall suffer Persecution c. Who do you think all this is spoken of It is not of you that are fleshly worldly ungodly men Who Persecuteth you for righteousness sake Who hateth revileth or imprisoneth or fineth you for living godly in Christ Jesus Do you suffer as much for reviling Preachers as we have done for Preaching What suffer you for all the Oaths that be sworn daily in Streets and Taverns and the horrid prophaneness Atheism Sadduceism Infidelity that men are guilty or If you did suffer for Whoredom Drunkenness Blasphemy is that for Christ or righteousness When the Holy Ghost saith As he that was born after the Flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit even so it is now is it such as you that he meaneth When Peter saith They speak evil of you and falsly accuse your good conversation in Christ 1 Pet. 3. 16. whom meaneth he When he saith 1 Pet. 4. They think it strange that you run not with them to all excess of ryot lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings banquetings and abominable idolatry who do you think he meaneth And when he saith 1. Pet. 2. 9. Ye are a chosen Generation a royal Priest-hood a holy Nation a peculiar People that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light who is it that he meaneth You 'll say It is Christians True But is it Hypocrites Is it those that will say at last Lord we have Prophesied in thy Name and Eat and Drunk in thy presence to whom Christ will say Depart from me ye workers of Iniquity I know you not Sure false Christians are worse than Heathens 39. The way which you take against Religious persons doth shew who it is that sets you on work and what it is that is the root of your enmity As Gods Image is in the understanding will and executive power of man so is Satans and he is accordingly described by Christ to be 1. A Liar and Deceiver 2. A Malignant Hater of Goodness or Holiness and a cause of sin 3. A hurtful murderer or destroyer And these are the three ways by which Godly people are prosecuted in the world 1. Belying them is grown so common with their enemies that there is nothing scarcely so notoriously false which they will not affirm of them and it 's well if some will not preach it print it or swear it And they make one another easily believe it Till experience proved it I did not think that humane nature had been liable to such impudent monstrous lying 2. The daily business of many is by wit and diligence to draw men to hate Religious men on false pretences As plainly as Christ preacheth and urgeth Love as his great Commandment so plainly do these press and urge men to Hatred But of this before 3. And Hatred tends to Hurtfulness What plotting and labouring is there in the world to ruine and destroy each other The malignant spirit is blood-thirsty It 's strange how the unclean Devils thirst to draw or suck some blood from Witches Nothing more alienates me from the Papal Kingdom than that it lives like Leeches upon blood To read over the History of the Inquisition and of their Massacres would make Men take Toads and Adders and mad Dogs and Wolves for harmless things in comparison of some Men. If any would requite them or others with the like I hate it in Protestant or Papist The Turks conquered the Greek Empire partly by the mutinous divisions of the Christians and partly by promising them Liberty of Religion And when the Christians thought they should have that they yielded up the Empire with the less resistance And that which was so advantageous to the Infidels might well used and limited be more advantageous to the Christian Truth and Church But though good things may be used in an ill cause it is a sign of a bad cause which needeth bad means That cause which is carried on by Lying Perjury and Deceit by malignant Love-killing endeavours and by cruelty and hurtfulness and blood is thereby made suspicious to all wise men It is a wonder of impudency in Baronius Binnius and other Papists to justifie Martin a Canonized Saint for renouncing Communion to the death with the Synods and Bishops who perswaded the Emperor to draw the Sword against the Gnostick Priscillianists and themselves to defend a thousand-fold greater cruelties and murders in their own Church on the account of Religion But sin is mad self-contradiction 4. I conclude with this great truth They that hate and oppose Godly mens obedience to God do seek to silence the chief Witness of Christ and to cast out Christianity from the Earth Christianity cannot be proved to be true but by the Spirit which is its Seal and Witness This Witness of the Spirit was not only extraordinary in Languages and numerous Miracles but also ordinary in the work of Sanctification This Seal is set on all that shall be saved in all times and places The Lord knoweth who are his And let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity He redeemed us to purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Iesus Christ Tit. 2. 12 13 14. By this healing work Christ is known to be indeed our Physician the real Saviour that saveth his people from their sins As man generateth man and the Father is known by the similitude of the Child and as he is known to be a good Artist that can make others such This is Christs standing Witness in all times and places And when you would turn this into scorn and cloud it with slanders or the charge of Hypocrisie and would have such judged an odious people and have them driven out of the world what do you in effect but spit in the face of Christ and crown him with Thorns and call him a Deceiver and crucifie him afresh and seek to expel Christianity from the Earth What reasonable man could believe Christ to be Christ the Saviour of the world if he did not sanctifie men and make them much better and fitter for Heaven than other men So that in this you directly militate for the Devil the World and the Flesh against God the Father Son and Holy Ghost against the Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints and the Hope of Resurrection and life everlasting which if you did openly under the name of Infidels or Heathens or rather as the profest Souldiers of the Devil it were less disingenuous and hypocritical than to do it in
never Revile or Prosecute the Atheists Infidels Sadduces Hobbists and those many thousands that seldom if ever go to any Church or worship God publickly at all Is the worship that Peter and Paul used worse than irreligiousness and infidelity 11. Who can believe that you are sincerely zealous against misworshiping God when you can ordinarily your selves be in a drinking house or playing house at the time of publick worship And when so few of you ever so much as worship God in your Families by Prayer or read the Scripture or Catechise your families 12. Is it not a strange thing to hear men accuse others for not using the Liturgy in Gods worship and at the same time would have them that refuse it to be forbidden all publick worshiping of God at all Doth this signify any dislike of their omitting Gods worship Which is the more ungodly omission to omit all worship of God and live like Atheists or to omit only so much of the Liturgy as the Apostles used not I have known many that could not eat cheese as is said before nor scarce smell it without danger of Death If you would have a Law made that such shall eat no other meat few wisemen will believe that it is their health and life that you desire If a man fail in paying his Landlord some odd act of Service will you make a Law that he shall pay nothing at all If a Subject neglect paying some excise or using Bow and Arrows will you forbid him paying any thing or serving the King at all Sure they that forbid men all publick worship be offended at somewhat else than that men do not rightly worship God unless they think that not to worship him at all is better than doing it without their Book Obj. But he shall be Compelled to better worship Ans. How when he lieth in jail he cannot publickly worship God at all Is that better worship I know it is banishment which some would have executed And will men worship God any better among Heathens or Infidels or others Or why should other Countries endure them if they be not to be endured in their own Are not English-men that worship God only by their own Book as much Nonconformists when they are in other Lands France Spain Italy Germany Holland c. as those are here that do not use it And are they there intolerable and worthy of ruine Did the Apostles or first Churches banish any on such accounts Will Christ banish them from his Kingdom Hath he made any such Laws And is not he the absolute Soveraign Hath he left his Servants to the will of man to use them how they will or cast out of his Church whom they will Are you sure these are none of the number of whom Christ saith I was hungry and ye fed me not c. In as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these my Brethren you did it not to me Mat. 25. Accus But they are Schismaticks and Separate from the Church and is not that a damnable sin Ans. 1. Being speaking only to malignant enemies of serious Godliness I say It is not only Separatists that you hate but Godly Conformists yea perhaps most of all because you are more restrained from hurting them How oft hear we Curses and Revilings against Conforming Puritanes or as some call them Church Whigs If they are not haters of their brethren but Friends to Love and Peace you nickname them Trimmers And cursing those whom Christ blesseth when he saith Blessed be the Peace-makers for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven You say Cursed be the Trimmers and would the Kingdom were rid of them It is any that are for a holy life and obedience to God that you abhor 2. As I said before you spare those that come to the Parish Churches no more than others The old Nonconformists wrote more against Separation than any else in England did And yet were hated as intolerable The reconcilers who are since made Nonconformists did publickly offer to be Subject to Arch-Bishops and Bishops to use the Liturgy themselves if reformed and if it were not yet never pleaded for separation And yet are never the more endured 2. But who is it that they separate from Do they not profess Union and Communion with the whole Catholick Church on Earth What separation do you mean Is it their Local absence And are not you such Separatists from all the world saving the Assembly where you meet One cannot be in two places at once Or is it that they dislike somewhat in your Forms of Worship so they may in others Forms with whom yet they profess Communion And in what is it that they shew dislike or separation They hold Communion with you as Christians and as reformed from Popery They separate not from Papists as Christians And from you it is only for that which you say is no part of your Worship or Religion but things indifferent which they think to be sin And are those Separatists from your Church who only separate from that which is no part of your Church or Worship 3. Are the French and Dutch Churches in London Schismaticks or Separatists who profess Communion with our Churches though they use not our Oaths Subscriptions or Liturgy Liking their own mode better and preferring it is no Separation If I like your Liturgy better than any in the Bibliotheca Patrum is that separating from all Churches that use the rest 4. Who are the Schismaticks in France Italy Poland c. Those that are called so and persecuted as such or those that impose on them the things which they judge sinful What if you were in a Presbyterian Land where the Liturgy and Prelacy are forbidden and another Form set up by Law and you should contrary to that Law use the Liturgy and Ceremonies or at least refuse subscribing against Prelacy and for Lay Elders If they excommunicated or ruined you for this who do you think were guilty of the Schism 5. Do they forsake the Assemblies before they are excommunicated Or is it not an odd thing for to excommunicate men first and then accuse them for not coming to Church I have known Ministers stop in the midst of Publick Worship and refuse to go on till an excommunicate person went out The whole representative Church of England do in their 5 6 7 and 8 Canons ipso facto without tryal or sentence excommunicate all in England who affirm any thing to be sinful or repugnant to Gods Word in the Church Governing Offices whatsoever in the Liturgy Ceremonies or Articles And shall they after this be called Separatists for not coming in Doth not the Canon shew that the Church would not have them come in when they cast them out Obj. But the Church and Canon bid them repent of that their wicked errour and publickly confess it and so come in Ans. 1. Is a mans Judgment absolutely in his power Can a man believe a thing to
Oaths the Oath of Allegeance and the Oath called the Covenant that by them overcame the opposition of the other Army and brought home the King. It was this that engaged the Ministers of England against both Cromwel and a Common-wealth and the Ministers were followed by most of the religious people of the land which broke the adversaries strength It was this that engaged the excluded members of the then long Parliament It was this that engaged the City of London It seems it was this that engaged Gen. Monk's Army when they say in their address to him see it in Englands Triumph for K. Charles the 2d p. 85. We hope to evince to his Majesty and all the world that we and all those that have been engaged in the Parliaments cause are his Majesties best and most real subjects and that your Excellency and the Armies under your command have complied with the obligations for which they were first raised for the preservation of the true Protestant Religion the Honour and Dignity of the King the Priviledges of Parliament the Liberty and Property of the Subjects and the Fundamental Laws of the land I am not justifying all that I recite I doubt not but they were much mistaken But if they had then been told that shortly all the Corporation Offices and Trusts in England shall be constituted by a personal Declaration of every one that There is no obligation on any person from the Oath called the Solemn Covenant to restore the King oppose Schism or to any thing whatever the effect would have been such as makes me wonder that the Royalists as then called should be very eager to make all such declare that all these Souldiers Ministers Parliament and Citizens that restored the King as bound to it by that Oath were therein mistaken and no such obligation thence was on them Qu. 7. I need not name to you the sorry fellows out of the Jails where they lay for inhuman villanies that have been our zealous ranting tearing prosecuters And do you think such actors are an honour to your cause If it be good use good men in it Qu. 8. Why do you play your game under board and behind the Curtain If you are not ashamed of your cause openly own it Is falshood lying and dissembling beseeming them that say they are of a Church out of which none can be saved I remember when Terret alias Iohnson had seduced the eldest Daughter of the Countess of Balcarres whom they stole away and made a Nun in France and she was after askt why she did so long go to our Churches join in family worship read Protestant Books and talk against the Papists and deride them after she was a Papist her self she answered that they had leave to do all that as long as they did not openly Profess their Religion and were not detected But when once they were discovered and openly professed themselves Roman Catholicks they must then suffer any thing rather than conform to us Gods cause needeth not such jugling and lying Qu. 9. Why do you not ingenuously plead your cause against us so as may satisfy an understanding Conscience before you seek our destruction 1. Your arguings are commonly fitted only to cheat the ignorant by ambiguities and confusion and equivocal terms Your queries or methods to the French sufferers are only a formed cheat by confounding 1. Subjection to Governours and Communion with neighbour Churches 2. Communion with your Church in Christianity and Communion with its sins 3. A Catholick Church informed only by the soveraignty of Christ and a pretended universal Church informed by the soveraignty of Man a Monarch or a Church-Parliament 4. The office of keeping delivering and teaching men Gods Laws and an absolute power to Judge of their sence and to make more as a supplement to their defects obliging all the world on pain of Excommunication and Death And more such 2. Any writings which undeniably open your frauds you take no notice of nor vouchsafe to answer upon the importunity of Mr. Iohnson and divers others I have lately written 1. A reply to Iohnson 2. A small book in answer to one of your Papers to prove that we have a certainty of Christianity without Popery 3. In answer to another a small Book called Full and Easy satisfaction which is the true Religion None of them will you answer nor those before written But instead of a sober investigation of the truth some of you raise odious slanders of my life and threaten and seek my destruction I never hurt any of you as I said before nor ever perswaded any to severity against you I have long ago publickly proposed terms on which we might live together as neighbours in peace But destruction and misery are in your way that I have observed and the way of peace you have not known There are three things which alienate common Christians from you more than all other disputes 1. That you can go so openly against the plainest words of God as in blotting out the Second Commandment in notorious contradicting 1 Cor. 12. and Rom. 14 and 15. about the terms of Church Union and Communion about Latin Prayers and Worship to the ignorant denying the Cup to the Laity denying sense in Transubstantiation 2. That you befriend Ignorance so much by the said Latin Worship forbidding most to read the Scripture translated and accuse Gods Spirit of writing obscurely to cover this 3. That your Religion liveth by cruelty and blood and cannot stand without it Which at least in prudence you should hide as long as you can Or at least not design to make the ignorant and vicious Protestants your Proselytes and Agents conjunctly to ruin those whom your Consciences know to be the most Consciencious and seriously religious By which already the flock of Christ do under your Sheeps cloathings so judge of you by your fruites that if any man that is called a Protestant Clergy-man do but Write and Preach for cruelty and ruin towards serious Conscionable Christians people by this very mark do presently suspect that he is either a Papist or so near them as that he is ready to pass over to them whom he so assisteth in destructive work Qu. What must be the cure of Malignity Ans. When the heel of the holy seed is sufficiently bruised the Serpents Head must be broken 1. The War in Heaven which formerly cast down the Dragon must break the supream Serpentine Head. II. Then his Heads military on Earth will be broken I. The usurping universal Head called Ecclesiastical II. The national Serpentine Heads I. Exterior Mahometan and Heathen II. Interior called falsly Christian I. Serpentine Monarchs that War against Christ. II. Serpentine Prelates and their Patrons that fight against Christ as in his own name and by his pretended commission And all this by Christ and not by sinful means Reformation is begun à Minoritis at the lowest for personal Salvation of the Elect But a Majoritis at the Heads for publick welfare And God must raise Reforming Princes and Pastors to that end FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel Mr. Baxter's Catholick Theology Folio A Third Volume of Sermons Preached by the late Reverend and Learned Tho. Manton D. D. In two parts Folio A Hundred Select Sermons on several Texts of Fifty on the Old Testament and Fifty on the New. Folio Choice and Practical Expositions on four Select Psalms Folio Both by the Reverend and Learned Tho. Horton D. D. late Minister of St. Hellens London The true Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus Physician to Henry the Second Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth Kings of France and one of the Best Astronomers that ever were Folio Sixty one Sermons Preached mostly on publick occasions whereof five formerly Printed by Adam Littleton D. D. Rector of Chelsea in Middlesex Folio The Saints Everlasting Rest or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory 4to The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II. and King Iames II. Truly Stated and Argued By Richard Baxter 4to A Discourse concerning Liturgies By the late Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. David Clarkson 8vo A Discourse of the Saving Grace of God. By the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel 8vo The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezekiel opened and applyed Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broad-street and partly at Stepney on Ianuary 31. 1689. Being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Slavery by His then Highness the most Illustrious Prince of Orange Whom God raised up to be the glorious Instrument thereof By Matthew Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney 4to The Life of Faith in every State. By Rich. Baxter 4to Alderman Ashurst's Funeral Sermon 4to A Key for Catholicks to open the Juglings of the Jesuits The first part of answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4to Full and easy satisfaction which is the true Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8vo Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4to FINIS
of the Earth are Idolaters and Heathens And do I need to say how ignorant wicked and miserable they are Many of them publickly worship the Devil as Witches do with us and he deludeth them and appeareth in divers shapes to them and ruleth them as he doth Witches And those that are more civil are strangers or enemies to Christ Six parts of the thirty are Ignorant Mahometans destroyers indeed of Heathenish Idolatry and such as take Christ for a great and true Prophet but know him not as a Saviour but equal or prefer a gross Deceiver and live under barbarous Tyrants who by violence keep them in the dark The other five parts that are called Christians alas consist most of people bred up in lamentable Ignorance mostly barbarous or debased by the oppression of Tyrants such as the Moscovites most of the Greeks the Abassines Armenians and many Eastern Sects and Nations What Ignorance the vulgar Papists are bred in in Italy Spain Germany Poland France and other Countreys and what enmity to true Reformation prevaileth in Princes Priests and People and by what Lying and Cruelty they fight against Truth and what Inquisitions Murders and inhumane Massacres have been their powerful means I need not use many words to tell And are the Protestant Reformed Churches free from fleshly worldly wicked men from ignorant malignant cruel Enemies to Truth and Piety and Peace § 3. Our Kings Dominions are the best and happiest Nations on Earth Here is most Knowledge of the Truth and most proportionably that truly Love it and live in a holy obedience thereto and fain would live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness honesty and sobriety But alas they must be contented with their own personal uprightness and reward and the peace of their Consciences in Gods acceptance But with men there seemeth to be no hopes of common Wisdom Piety Love and Peace We are all baptised with one Baptism we all profess to be the servants of one God and the faithful followers of one Christ and to believe in one Holy sanctifying Spirit and to believe the same Canonical Scriptures as the Word of God indited by that Spirit and to be of one Holy Catholick Church which is all the Members of Christ on Earth and to hold the Communion of Saints We mostly in England and Scotland agree in the Protestant Reformed Doctrine and Sacraments Our concord in profession is so great that if some men had not devised some Oaths Professions Covenants Practices and Knacks and Engines of their own which they dare not say God made to become the matter of our unavoidable dissent they could hardly have known how to pretend any difference in religion among us and hell would scarce have found any Cloak for malicious accusations enmity and discord You shall scarce meet with a man that will not speak well of Love and Peace and say that we must Love God above all and our Neighbours as our selves and do as we would have others do to us And yet is there any Enmity or Disagreement Alas how great and how uncureable § 4. Who would think that knew us not by our Profession but only by our Actions but that the three Kingdoms consisted of the deadliest Enemies to each other Of Turks and Christians of Wolves and Sheep that I say not of Devils and Men Yea Turks and Christians can live together in Hungary and all the Eastern Countreys Orthodox and Hereticks can live together in Poland Helvetia Holland c. But Protestants and Protestants cannot live together in Britain Cities and Corporations Countreys and Churches i◠not Families also are distracted in enmity and more than mental feuds and war. Guelphes and Gibelines party against party studying Accusations against each other as if they were Scholars daily exercised in the School of him that is the Accuser of the Brethren All their Learning and Wit is called up and poured out to render others as odious as they are able All their power interest friends and diligence are used to ruine and destroy each other No lies or perjury with some seem unlawful to accomplish so desired an effect In all companies the discourse and converse that should be to edifie each other in Love and comfort each other by the hopes of dwelling together in Heaven is taken up with slanders backbitings scorning railing and plotting the overthrow of the best of their neighbours Innocency never wants odious or scornful names As if they were acting their part that called Christ and his Apostles and the ancient Christians Deceivers Blasphemers Enemies to Caesar Ring-leaders of Sedition that taught men to worship God contrary to the Law. Every drunkard and wicked liver can as easily make his conscionable neighbour a Rogue or a Traitor or a Schismatick or an Hypocrite as he can open his mouth and speak And to justifie all this malice is become a virtue hating the most religious is Zeal for Government and Order destroying Christs Members is standing up for the Church hunting them as Dogs do Hares or as Hawks do the lesser birds is a meritorious work of supererogation no doubt and will not finally lose its reward God is served by hating and scorning them that are serious in his service It is Religion to make Religion odious and call it Hypocrisie and to be for that which is uppermost and befriends their worldly Interest and to make him suspected of Disloyalty who is for obedience to God. Conscience and fear of sinning and of damnation is the mortal enemy to be conquered or driven out of the Land as if there were no quietness to be expected in mens minds no concord in the Church no obedience to the Clergy or the Laws no safety from Sedition till Conscience be silenced or banished and men give over fearing God or as if Christ and Caesar could not both reign but God or Princes must be dethroned And O that the sacred Tribe were innocent and none of them were the leaders in such hypocritical malignity Their Canons ipso facto excommunicate all not excepting Princes Parliaments or Judges that do but say that any of their Ceremonies Liturgy or Officers in Church Government not excepting the lowest or Lay-mens power of the Church Keys by decreeing Excommunications and Absolutions are repugnant to the Word of God And when they have ipso facto Excommunicated them all they call them Separatists for not coming to their Communion Think not the contradiction and hypocrisy incredible read but the 5 6 7 and 8. Canons and judge They have a Law and by their Law he is cut off from the Church or Christ that doth but call any of these the Inventions of Prelates sinful or say that God forbids them And the Jail must be his dwelling till he die there who in ten cases remaineth Excommunicate and doth not openly profess that he repenteth and judgeth that to be sinless which he is utterly unable so to judge When we have preached seven and seven years to
to promote Love to all even unto enemies but much more to the most holy It would make men zealous of good works and if it were possible as much as in them lieth to live peacebly with all men to bless those that curse them to pray for those that hate and persecute them forbearing and forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake forgiveth us It would teach them while they have time to do good to all men but especially to them of the houshold of Faith Mens hearts would be constituted of Love It would become a nature in them Their Speech and Converse would be the Savoury breath of Love Their dealings towards all men would be the works of Love Their sharpest reproofs would be but to do the sinner good But alas another Spirit hath possessed thee which rageth and teareth thee and is blind and deaf It calleth for Fire from Heaven and it kindleth a fire of Hell And sure his name is Legion for there are many It passeth under the names of Wisdom and Hatred of some evil But it must needs be Earthly Sensual and Devilish for it is neither Pure nor Peaceable Gentle or Merciful and Impartial but foameth with bitter envy and strife unto confusion and every evil work And yet thou knowest not what manner of Spirit thou art of Is it God that setteth rulers and people against each other Doth he divide his own Kingdom against it self when he tells us that the Devil will not do so by his Is it God that sets the parts of the same body in a hatred and War against each other As if it were the interest of the nobler and the Servile parts to weaken or destroy each other And it were an addition to the health and welfare of the one which is gotten by Conquest from the other Is it God that maketh people despise or dishonour their lawful Governours or any Rulers to hate the best Subjects and desire more to be feared than to be loved and rather to have power to do hurt than actually to do good Is it God that sets Corporations and Churches and Neighbours and Families in a state of Malice Vexation Strife and a kind of War against each other Doth the Spirit of God indite the malicious Pamphlets which exercise the utmost of Wit and Hatred to destroy Love and to call the Nation into the Devils Camp by mutual hatred to live as Enemies and Fight against the Lord and the ways of Peace And if any endeavour a reconciling healing of our wounds it 's turned into scorn and his healing motions are represented as the grand causes of division and to beg for peace is heinous Schism and next Rebellion against the Church and a crime sufficient to forfeit that mans Peace and Reputation And he that tells men of the only possible terms of Concord is made the chiefest cause of discord To serve and worship God no otherwise than Peter and Paul did and than God prescribeth is enough to render us unworthy to live on English Earth And if England may not suffer such why should any other nation suffer them There are men that keep holy days for St. Peter and St. Paul and dedicate Churches to them and their bellies are maintained at Dives rates and their Wealth and Revenues and Grandure held up by that which is dedicated to these Churches and to alienate any of this superfluity from their flesh were worse Sacriledge than to cast out and silence a thousand faithful Preachers And yet if St. Paul were a Preacher now in France Spain Italy or England and would worship God but as he did when he was on Earth and would not swear say and do as much more as the Bishops Canons bid him I think we should again hear those words Acts 22. 22. Away with such a fellow from the Earth for it is not fit that he should live here Unless he wrought miracles to convince men And whether those would prevail is a doubtful case or whether he would not pass for a Deceiver and Fanatick § 6. As in times of War all broken beggarly and idle fellows turn Souldiers as the easiest trade to live by and are never after good for any other trade but to kill and rob men So the Love-killing Regiments have forsaken other trades and this is like to put down all Booksellers complain that they can fell few Books but News and Scorning or Invective Libels And what is the subject of our formerly weekly and now daily News Books Why they tell us that such a City or Corporation are altogether by the Ears as Enemies some choosing one Mayor and some another Some called Whigs and others Tories Some seeking the ruine and Blood of others and some hardly escaping the power of false Witnesses and Oaths One Jury acquitting a man whose life is sought and another condemning him In such a Town or City so many find and so many distreined on and so many crowded into Jails and such and such Preachers cast into Prison and such a one dead there for praying to God and openly worshipping him without-book or by no book but his own In such and such a Country the people prosecuting each other on such accounts and some flying into other parts and some into America to seek that peace among Savages and Wolves and Serpents in Wildernesses which they could not have under sacred Protestant Prelates and their Clergy In France the poor Protestants hunted like Hares neither suffered to live at home nor to flie naked to beg their bread in other Lands and all this for the concord and peace of the holy Catholick Church a pattern so worthy of imitation that even such excellent men as Grotius think that it 's worth all hazards labour and cost to reduce England and the Lutherans to the French-Church-Consistence and to silence and ruine all as Calvinists that are against it From Hungary we must read how the persecuted Protestants after their utmost suffering and patience are fain to call in Turks to save them from the cruelties of Christians And that those parts that are under the Turks have far more prosperity and freedom in Religion than those that are under the Emperor Papists And Protestants under them are kept in coâ—â—â—â—al fear as knowing that it is their Law and Doctrine that Princes are bound to do their best to exterminate or destroy them on pain of Excommunication Deposition and Damnationâ— And remembring the Inquisitions the Piedmont French Dutch Irish c. Massacres So that they are brought to this hard dilemma Chuse whether you will be Dead men or be proclaimed Rebels If whole Countreys will not lie down and die patiently without self-defence they are odious Rebels These and such other are the subjects of our News-books which have broken the poor Booksellers who were wont to live by selling Books of Learning and of practical Divinity And too many Preachers are fain to be short as well as formal in their Sermons
the rule now in France Spain Italy c. Or was it so in the Popes Catholick Church from An. 700 till the Reformation If it be General Councils I am weary of repeating the Proofs that there never was one nor ever is like to be one or ought to be If it be an European Council who shall call them and who shall judge whether it be equal and so far General And are not the greater number of European Bishops known Papists And will they not then be the Major Vote And so we must be as bad as they And if the rest of the Christian world be not bound by them in Greece Ethiopia Armenia Syria c. Why are we Is it the Council of Ariminum Sirmium Milane c. or of Ephesus 2 Nice 2d many at Constantinople at the Laterane at Lyons at Florence at Constance at Basil at Trent that are our Rule Must all that will be Catholicks and saved hold all the Heresies Contradictions and Corruptions that Councils have held and obey all their load of Canons If the Italians French English c. are all disagreed how many and which Councils we must obey can all poor people know which is in the right And hath Christ left Religion so uncertain a thing Or so mutable that General Councils of Prelates may be still increasing it If he was the the maker of it by himself and his Apostles we may know more certainly where to find it Most Christians may say Christ we know and Peter and Paul c. we know But your Councils are too many too voluminous too uncertain for us to know But if they are such an absolutely necessary rule as you pretend why do not teachers preach them to us daily as they do the Sacred Scriptures If any would come down to confine these universal Laws only to Things Indifferent alas must the world be confounded and divided about things indifferent Are not things indifferent variable as Countreys and Ages are And must the world have one Soveraignty to make Laws for them Cannot we have Life Liberty Peace and Love without things indifferent Or without agreeing in them Are there any two in the whole world that are not ignorant and that differ not about many greater matters than things indifferent Doth he know himself or know what a man is that thinks all tolerated Christians must be so Skill'd in all things indifferent which men may impose as to know them to be such When it is so hard to teach the people things necessary few and plain Alas Lord why must the Churches be left in such hands § 9. But some have found out another remedy for our divisions and that is That only the Bishops shall be engaged to a Forreign Jurisdiction or profess the necessity of obeying them under the name of a General Council and in the intervals of a Colledge of the Bishops of the whole world as one Aristocracy And that this shall not be imposed on any Lay-Communicants but their Consciences shall be left at liberty Nor at the first on the inferior Clergy till they are prepared to receive it But only that the People obey the Priests and Prelates and the Priests obey the Prelates and all their Governing Officers and the Prelates only profess obedience to the Pretorian Court called The Catholick Church Bishop Gunnings Chaplain tells us that the Laity are not required in order to Communion to declare for General Councils Whether they use the like Moderation in France Spain Germany I know not viz. For the Bishops only to Profess obedience to the Pope and the Priests to the Bishops and the people to the Priests and Bishops I hear they go further And if Conventicles as they will call them are also suppressed we need not fear Religious Violence Murder and Ruine upon a feared Roman Successour For saith the same Bishops Chaplain pag 283. For matters may be so ordered that all Officers Ecclesiastical Civil and Military and all that are employed in Power or Authority of any kind be persons both of known Loyalty to the Crown and yet faithful Sons of the Church and firm to the established Religion and the Laws that they act by may be so explained in the favour of those that conform to the publick Worship and the discouragement of all Dissenters that we must reasonably be secure from all violence that the Papists can offer to force our submission For when all our Bishops and Clergy are under strict obligations and Oaths and the people are guided by them and all Officers Civil and Military are firm to the same interest and under severe penalties if they act any thing to the contrary Then what probable danger can there be of any violence or disturbance to force us out of our Religion when all things are thus secured and the power of External Execution is generally in the hands of men of our own perswasion Ans. The Dr. says well I am of his mind in this When they have subdued and cast out all Dissenters as they do in France and the Bishops and Clergy are setled under a Forreign Church-Jurisdiction and the People setled in Obedience to them and all Offices Civil Military and Ecclesiastick in their hands I do not think they need to fear that the Papists will use violence to change their Religion whoever reigneth But the Question is whether this suppose an Vnion with all in England that are now against a Forreign Jurisdiction or only the destruction of them or else the forcing them to these terms As to a destruction of them or forcing them to such terms surely Violence must do this And what though the Subjects of Forreign Power fear no Violence are all the rest that is the Protestants of the Kingdom inconsiderable We suppose the old Church of England and all our Parliaments since the Reformation were against a Forreign Jurisdiction And will it be no loss to England to destroy so many that is the Body of the Land But the Question is Whether they may not be thus brought to concord by consent I answer no unless you suppose them to be men that indeed have no Religion and therefore can easily part with the bare name For they are sworn by the Oath of Supremacy against all forreign Iurisdiction And put the case that the Pope and a Council or the King of France would bring the Emperours or the Kings Army to serve him and be at his Command and he would only desire that the General Officers and Colonels may be engaged to obey him and the Captains and lower Officers to obey them and the Souldiers to obey the Officers but the common Souldiers shall be bound to no more than this obedience to their Officers Query Whether all these Souldiers be not Traitors to the King or Emperour Cromwells common Souldiers took no Commissions against King or Parliament they did but obey their Officers that pulled down both And were they therefore guiltless Protestants will not thus follow such
Prelates against their Oaths and against the known truth and against their duty to God and the King. § 10. But though it be notorious that Domination and Jurisdiction be the things which cause the Papal Clergy to trouble and tear the Christian world what is it that makes the Laity so mad getteth this Clergy such a militant crowd against their own Tranquillity and Salvation It 's as visible as any moral thing that the Churches Divisions and Wars and Miseries have about a thousand years risen from Satans thrusting such worldly fleshly unholy men into holy Offices who seek them but to serve their Pride and Covetousness and Fleshly Appetites and Ease and who are Enemies at the heart to the serious obedience to Christ which formally they preach Christs own Apostles in their time of ignorance began to strive which of them should be greatest of which we have recorded his sharp rebuke which St. Peter himself did after second in 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3. in words so plain that if his pretended Successours had not first claimed a power as the Church to be the determining expounders of all the Bible they had lain under the Condemnation of Christ and Peter Naked without a Defence or Cloak But this Church-expounding authority sets them above all the Word of God which is now but what they please to make it and an instrument to execute their wills And indeed it is now rather the Pope and his Prelates and Councils than Christ that are the Law-makers to the Church For it is not he that maketh the words only that makes the Law but he that giveth them their sense The words are but as the body and the sense is the Soul of the Law. The Ministerial Church now scorn the name of Ministers and being become Pretorian and Magisterial they give Christ and his Spirit in the Apostles leave to make the words and body of the Scripture or Divine Law as God formed Adams body of the dust so that they may give it the breath of Life and also may make far more Voluminous Laws of their own and cut off and condemn all the Children of God that cannot believe that it 's lawful to obey them And though the Ignorant think that the claim of universal Legislation and Judgment in the universal Church and General Councils be no Service to the Domination of particular Clergy men no nor to any seeing there will never be a General Council They understand not the mystery of iniquity and mistake We have English Writers that have told them 1. That indeed Power is first given to the body fine doctrine for Royalists but by the Body it is given to the Prelates to use for them 2. That as a General Council hath the Supream power so the Prelates under them have the Inferior Ruling power and the executive in the intervals of Councils 3. That as Councils represent the Church in Soveraignty so every Bishop is by his office the true Representative of the Clergy of his Diocess and every Metropolitan the Representative of his Province and every Patriarch of his Patriarchate And then are not the Patriarchs at least with the Metropolitans Universal Rulers in such Intervals 4. And the Pope is the Patriarch of the West and hath a primacy in the Church universal and must be confest to be principium unitatis Catholicae and say some to be the President of Councils 5. To which others add that it belongs only to the president to call Councils and to Iudg which are Lawful without whose call they are so far from binding us that they are themselves but unlawful Routs And what would you have more But what 's all this to the poor Priests What Why 7. The people know not what the volumes of Councils say and it is the Priests or no body that must tell it them both what their exposition of Scripture is and what their own additional Laws are without which they cannot be obeyed so that indeed the peoples Faith is ultimately resolvedly into the authority of the Priest who tells them what the Bishop saith who tells them what the Metropolitan and his Synod saith who tells them what the Patriarch and his Synod saith who tells them what the chief Patriarch and a General Council saith who tell them determinatively what Christ and the Scripture saith and meaneth But what 's this to Councils when there are none Yes 8. Those that are past and gone have left all those binding Laws by which the present Bishops as an Aristocracy must govern all the Christian World. But are not they for Monarchy in the state How come they then to plead for a Soveraign Aristocracy over the Catholick Church and how come even the French Clergy to be for the power of a Church Parliament above the Pope I cannot answer that let the Pope and they debate it But I wonder that A. Bishop Laud should be for the derivation of all power from the Body as Richard Hooker is See Dr. Stillingfleets Defence of him p. 544. 545. c. No Body collective whensoever it assembled it self did ever give more power to the representing body of it than a binding power upon it self and all particulars Nor ever did it give this power otherwise than with this Reservation in nature that it would call again and reform and if need were abrogate any law or ordinances upon just cause made evident that the representing Body had failed in trust or truth And this power no Body collective Ecclesiastical or Civil can put out of it self or give away to a Parliament or Council or call it what you will that represents it The power which a Council hath to order settle and define differences arising concerning faith it hath not by any immediate institution of Christ but it was prudently taken up by the Church from the Apostles example See Dr. Stillingfleets Defence I confess that the generality of Politicians and Lawyers Heathens Papists and Protestants go much this way as to Civil Government and say that the Majestas personalis is in the King or Senate but the Majestas realis in the Body which giveth the Organical power and on just cause may take it away It is no honour to be singular in Politicks and I have said enough of this elsewhere Christ. Direct p. 1. But if it be the Body of the whole Church on Earth that must give Church Officers and Councils their power and recal it when there is cause if ever the whole Christian World meet together to vote it when it cometh to Poling we will give both the Monarchical and the Aristocratical Conciliar Papists three for one to try who hath the power given by the Body But while two or three parts do already disown almost all their Councils the case is decided But if an old Councils Heresies Errours or Tyranny can be invalidated only by a new one that is truly General or a new one as Papal as the last we confess that Trent
their ancient and accustomed Liberty Regiment Laws they may not well be counted Rebels saith he of Obedience pag. 520. But I hear many now say the contrary and Condemn such Doctrine as disloyal I find some joyn with the Papists in accusing the Reformation as caused by Rebellions in Germany Geneva France Belgium c. And I find Bishop Iewel Bilson and other Bishops defending the French defence and Dr. Peter Moulin of Canterbury in his answer to Philanax Anglicus Contradicting their accusers as false in Point of History Abundance of such Political Controversies are now lately agitated some charging their adversaries with Rebellion and some with Tyranny Some saying they are guilty of Treason against the King and others They are Traitors against the Kingdom And too ordinarily damning one another as if these matters were Articles of our Creed What a dismal difference is there now about those words in the Declaration in the Corporation Act There is no Obligation on me or any other person from the Oath called the solemn League and Covenant Some say there are none but Rebels will refuse it And that if any obligation had been granted to things lawful or necessary some would have extended it to Rebellion or Schism And therefore all Obligation is to be renounced Others say that National perjury is a forerunner of National Calamity or ruine and that where Oaths bind not there can be no Trust and no Trust no Commerce And they think as Dr. Sanderson and Casuists Papists and Protestants do that though an Oath or Vow be unlawfully Imposed and Sinfully taken and part of the matter of it be unlawful and the Imposers and Takers are bound to repent and no one is bound by it to the unlawful part yet the taker is bound to that part of the matter which is lawful or necessary And they take it to be lawful and necessary to Repent of sin to oppose Prophaneness Schisms Heresy and Popery to defend the King and therefore that it obligeth them to these I meddle not with the Roman opinion that it is the Henrician Heresy to say that Kings have a power of investing Bishops and disobeying the Popes Excommunication and of such as Cardinal Perron that dare not question or deny the power of the Pope and Councils to Excommunicate and depose Kings because then they must condemn approved General Councils which are their religion itself and saith he must grant that the Pope is Antichrist and the Church erroneous that hath so long used this I name all these Political Controversies 1. To tell you that it is not factious and passionate enmity to each other on such accounts which I mean by enmity to Religion 2. And to remember men that if in so many and great points of Politicks and Government the Learned and Christian World have so great difference what reason is there that we should Damn or Excommunicate or hate each other about a hard opinion in Religion or a Ceremony 3. And to tell the Popish Church that if it were a good argument that there must be one Pretorian Court or Church to oblige all the World by an universal determination in what sence to expound the Scripture because it is abused to errour by mens mistake and there must be an end of Controversies by the same reason there must be an universal Pretorian Court to expound all human Laws and end the controversies of Lawyers Yea and to master all mens Reason for Scripture is no more commonly controverted and abused than Law is And not half so much as Reason is which is pleaded for almost all the falshood and wickedness in the World. § 10. Moreover it is not personal feuds between Man and Man that I mean by Enmity to Godliness No though any such be against an Innocent and Godly Man where it is not for his Godliness but some other difference § 11. I will say more though some dislike it it is not a Papist as such that I mean by a Malignant Enemy of Godliness I know that Education and Temptation and want of hearing the confutation of their errours judiciously made may cause Godly persons to think that the universal Church must be united in some humane Head or Soveraign power and that there is no other way to end controversies and schisms and that as Dr. Saywell saith there must be some over Kingdoms or National Churches as well as over particular persons that many may not escape while a few are punished It is easy to be deceived by the pretences of Unity and Concord while men see the divisions and discords of others And the false pretences of Antiquity are so confidently uttered by their Clergy that men unacquainted with the history may verily believe them And the plea for an uninterrupted succession of Ministerial ordination and that a Superior must give power to the Inferiors deceiveth many If there must be a Diocesane to ordain and rule all Presbyters and a Metropolitan to ordain or rule the Diocesanes and a Patriarch to rule them from whom shall the Patriarchs receive their power or commands but from a Pope The poor reasoning which the French now use with the Protestants puzleth unskilful persons viz. Was there any Church before your reformation If yea where was it And had not you your Ministerial power from it It was Rome or none And if it was the true Church then it is so now We answer them there was and is one only Catholick Church Of this Christ only is the Head or Universal governour and no man or men Of this all Lawful Pastors are his official guides in their several Provinces as many Justices and Mayors of Corporations under one King That all these having one King Jesus and one Law of Christ and one Spirit and one Faith and Hope are to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and to use Synods when needful to that end but not as a Pretorian or Regent Aristocracy or Court. That the Church before Luther was all over the World where ever there were Christians in Ethiopia Egypt Syria Armenia Georgia Circassia Asia and where ever the Greek Christianity is in Moscovy and in all Europe where there were true Christians That the envious man having sowed Tares this Church is unhappily fallen into many corruptions diseases and factious sects almost all censuring one another no part of it is perfect That the Papal part is in Doctrine Worship and Government one of the most corrupted parts Yet so far as their diseases or errours nullify not their profession of Christianity they are parts though leprous And therefore though they are the most uncharitable and schismatical part as they cut off or unchurch all the Christian World save themselves yet being as Christians united to the rest in the common faith their Baptism Ordinations are not nullities as they invest men in the Christian Society and Christian Ministry though that part of them is a nullity which engageth men
in a schism and in sin That the Ministerial power is not the gift of Man but only of Christ who by the Charter of his recorded Word giveth the power and the obligation to that person who is duely chosen and called thereto As the Kings Charter giveth the power to the Mayor of a Corporation duly qualified and chosen that the ordainers are but partly Judges of due qualification and partly Ministerial Investers and not at all the Donors of the Power that ordination is for order sake needful when it may be had to keep men from being Judgers of their own sufficiency But order being only for the thing ordered as the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath is not necessary against the end That there is no necessity that a Superior must ordain but as the Colledge of Physicians Philosophers c. make Physicians Philosophers as approved so may equals in the Ministry Do not Bishops make or consecrate Bishops If this were not so who makes the Pope If he did not pretend that his power is given him immediately from Christ he must grant that there are some men above him to give it him and so he is not the Soveraign If they say that the power of Popes and Kings is given by the whole body the Church he is then no Pope for it 's known that three parts of the Christian World are against him If he will say None are the Church but those that are his party any sect or rebels may say the like and appropriate authority to themselves Nothing more cheateth the ignorant than ambiguous words and confusion And explaining those words and needful plain distinction would save the writing of many volumes and would make truth easily meet the seeker and unravel all the spider Webs of deceivers Do but well use these few distinctions and all Popery vanisheth into smoak 1. Distinguish between a Catholick Church as headed by Christ This we are all members of and a pretended Catholick Church headed by the Pope or any men This is another Church as to the denominating form having another informing unifying head And this is it which we deny 2. Distinguish visibility Christs Church is so far visible as to have a Head who was visible on Earth is visible in Heaven and will visibly come to Judgment and visibly reign for ever It hath visible Laws Protection and Officers The subjects bodies and their profession are visible And it is no farther visible no not as to the Souls or real faith of the subjects The Papists Church hath an Usurping Visible Humane Head on earth 3. Distinguish of Baptism and Ordination as into Christs Catholick Church and done by Papists as Christians And as into the Popes Catholick Church and done by Papists as Papists 4. Distinguish of Subjection and Communion We owe Communion when we owe no Subjection and where men have no right to be our Governours 5. Distinguish between Communion in Christianity and that in Essentials Integrals or Accidents and Communion in errours and corruptions or defects We have Communion with Papists and all Christians in Christianity if they be Christians indeed But we renounce Communion in the errours and sins of them and all others as far as we are able to avoid them All Christians have Union and Communion in the Essentials of Christianity No Christians have Union and Communion in all the Integrals on Earth all being imperfect But the more such Union and Communion the better No Christians have or ought to have Communion in all the Accidents All should avoid Communion in sin 6. Distinguish between Communion of Hearts Communion of Profession and Communion in Local presence We have Heart Communion in one Essential Faith Hope and Love with all true Christians on Earth We profess all one Faith in the Essentials We have nearer Communion or fuller with the Reformed Churches which are soundest in the Integrals than we have with the more faulty and corrupt But we have Local presence but in one place at once and we ought to avoid Local presence where we cannot have it without sin though we have Communion in Faith Love and Profession with the same men If a Reformed Church will not admit our Local presence without subscribing some one untruth we must be absent when we may be present with a worse Church which excludeth us not by any such Imposition 7. Accordingly distinguish of Separation We separate not at all from Union or Communion with Papists as they are Christians or as they hold any Truth But 1. We separate from Subjection and Obedience to them which we never owed them or any other Church 2. We separate from Communion with their Church as it is a Policy informed by an Usurping Humane King or Head. 3. We separate from all their sins so far as we know them 4. We deny Local presence in their Mass-worship because of the sin imposed on us both before it and in it 5. We are uncapable of Communion in all accidents or mutable indifferent things Understand and use well these few plain distinctions and you need little more to answer all the Papists And I fear not to add that were the Papists in my power as I never did I never would use any inhumanity or cruelty towards them yea I would use no Offensive but only Defensive force against them nor hurt one of them further than they made it necessary for the Defence of the Land or those whom they would hurt I knew not till a Book called The Liberties of England lately told me how many very severe Laws are against them I am no Judge of the times that they were made in nor of their occasions But I think that of late they have done more hurt than good For 1. Some of them seem too severe 2. Some I cannot prove to be justifiable viz. Those which would compel them to come to our Sacramental Communion when many a good Minister would not receive them if they came And that which excommunicateth them that never were of our Communion And that which layeth the Excommunicate as such in prison c. 3. It greatly tendeth to misinform Forreigners who seeing these Laws think they are all put in Execution and so believe those that tell them that the Catholicks here are under constant Cruelties and frequent Martyrdoms whenas I never in all my life knew of one Papist that suffered so much for his Religion as I have done my self within these few years past though my sufferings are so small as to be no meet matter of very great complaint 4. These Laws being a continual danger to them should there be Governours that would execute them doth put them on continual plotting and striving against them Sufferings or great dangers put men by fear upon self-defence and the utmost endeavours for deliverance who would be more quiet if they found themselves in safety and though their Clergy would be still plotting the recovery of the Papal power to
endeavour it When you say or hear all the ten Commandments you pray Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law And do you hate men for endeavouring to keep it If you come to the Lords Table you confess your sins and bind your selves in Covenant to forsake them and to live a holy life and you take the Sacrament upon it And the Liturgy warneth you to take heed that you dissemble not nor be hinderers of Gods holy word lest the Devil enter into you as he did into Judas and fill you with all unrighteousness And if you hate or oppose that holy obedience to God which you profess after all this what must be the portion of such hypocrites And in your Creed you profess to believe in God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost and to hold a Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints And yet do you hate Saints that obey the Father Son and Holy-Ghost and hate their Communion 10. Hath not God printed on mans nature such a sense of the difference between Good and Evil as that all Laws and Government are founded in that sense And no man loveth to be counted or called a bad or ungodly or unconscionable man A Lyar a Knave a Perjured man or a wicked man And yet do you hate men for avoiding wickedness 11. Do not you use to accuse Religious men of some sin or other Truly or falsly and think by that to make them odious And yet do you accuse them and hate them most for not sinning To be Sober Just and Godly is but to avoid sins of Omission and Commission And do you at once accuse them as sinners and hate them for obeying God and sinning no more 12. Doth it never affright you to find the Devils nature in you as hating the Divine or holy nature which is in faithful Godly men And to think how openly you serve the Devil and do his work No man that believeth there are Devils can doubt but that the hatred of God as holy and the hatred of his holy Word and Work and Servants is the Devils malignity and the opposing of them his work If he were to write you his Commandments they would be contrary to Gods and the chief of them should be Thou shalt not Love God nor serve him with all thy Heart and Soul and Might nor Love those that do so but hate deride oppose and persecute them And is it honourable openly to serve the Devil Christ tells such men Ioh. 8. That the Devil is their Father because they have his nature and that his work they do for he was from the beginning a Lyar and a Malignant Murderer and turned man from obeying God. And can you think that he loveth you or that his Service against God is better than Gods or his reward better 13. Doth it never touch your Consciences to consider that you are the Children and followers of cursed Cain and how punctually his case against Abel and yours against Gods Servants is the same By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his Gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh Heb. 11. 4. Cain hated him because God more accepted him and his offering 1 Ioh. 3. 10 11 12. In this the Children of God are manifest and the Children of the Devil Whoever doth not righteousness is not of God nor he that loveth not his Brother For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning that we should love one another Not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his Brother And wherefore slew he him because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous 14. Is it possible that any man can unfeignedly believe a Heaven as the reward of holy obedience and yet think we can do too much to obtain it or be too careful to make it sure Is not everlasting glory worth the cost of a holy life Or can it be too dearly bought 15. Or is it possible to believe Gods Judgment and Hells Punishment and yet to hate those that do their best according to Gods own Counsel to escape it 16. What monstrous cruelty is it in you to wish poor Souls to do that which God hath told us they shall be damned for God saith Without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5. 20. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Mat. 5. If ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 8. 7 8. 13. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness 2 Pet. 3. 11. We receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us serve God acceptably with Reverence and Godly fear for our God is a Consuming Fire Heb. 12. 28 29. Be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord for asmuch as you know that your Labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. This is the very tenor of the Gospel And would you wish men to damn their Souls for nothing To lose Heaven and suffer Hell for ever and all to avoid a pure and holy life What a bloody motion is this Worse than if you intreated us all to cut our own throats Let us try first whether you will do far less at our request Will you give the poor all your Lands and Estates Will you run into Fire or Water or set your own houses on fire when any will but desire it It 's like you have heard of the Woman who being tempted to adultery desired the tempter first to hold his Finger in the Fire for her Which when he refused she told him it was less reason she should burn in Hell to Satisfy his lust If you will not part with your Life or Estate when another desires you why should we part with Heaven for ever and choose Hell at your desire Yea we see that you will not leave an ill-gotten gain or a Sport or a Whore or a Drunken Cup for all the Love of God the blood of Christ and the hope of Heaven And shall we part with God and Heaven and Christ to humour you And what is it that you offer us instead of all that we must part with And to ease the pain which we must undergo Nothing or worse than nothing If we should renounce God and our hope of Heaven you cannot give us health or wealth for it Much less can you secure these or life to us till to morrow And will any thing that you can give us be better than Heaven to us Or will it make Hell tollerable Will you undertake to answer for it at the bar of God if we are charged with an ungodly fleshly life or
the Church and under Christs colours and in the Christian name And you must be sure that you are stronger than God and our Saviour if you will prevail to the last God hath undertaken the defence of the Just Christ hath undertaken to present them triumphant before his Father and cast their Enemies into Hell. Are you sure you can overcome him Vile Worms that cannot fetch a breath without him When began you to be stronger than God Was it in the womb or in Infancy when you could not go Or was it when the Devil and the Flesh made you mad or drunken in ignorant malice If so the drunken fit will soon be over and God will awake a tormenting Wit. If you can conquer God try your strength first on his works Stop the Sun change Night and Day turn the Tide of the Sea live without Meat or Air resolve that you will never die save all your Friends from death Can you do none of this and yet will you venture a War against God Or do you think to fight against his Servants and bribe him to be on your side and forsake them to your rage Did Christ take Mans Nature and die to save them and will he now turn on Satans side against them He overcame the Devils temptation on Earth yea called Peter Satan Mat. 16. when he would have tempted him not to die for his chosen Let Men or Devils go try him in his Glory whether he will change his mind and take your part against his own holy Truth and Servants Chap. IV. Objections and false Accusations answered BUT I know that as Christ and his Apostles were not hated nor killed without pretended cause and reason nor the Martyrs murdered without accusation so none will now justifie the scorning or persecuting an innocent person or a Saint as such but they will first make them odious and seem worthy of all that is done against them They will say It is not godly men but wicked Hypocrites that we hate and prosecute a false and odious sort of persons who are unruly and set up their own wit and will against the Laws and Governours of the several Kingdoms where they live They are the very worst of men Ans. If they are so indeed they are none of the men that I am pleading for nor you the men that I reprove But before we come to particular Accusations it is your wisdom to answer these few Questions 1. Have you particular matter against them to make good this charge Or is it only a general malicious Accusation 2. Is it individual persons that you mean by whom it 's proved or do you thus accuse whole companies of men What if one said of Papists Jews or Turks They are Murderers Adulterers Perjured c. Do you think he were not an odious slanderer to speak that of all or most or the whole Party which he can prove but by some few 3. Do you know all the persons whom you accuse And have you heard it proved Or do you not say this of whole Congregations assembled to worship God of whom you know not one of many If this be so it 's inhumane calumny 4. Have the particular persons been heard speak for themselves and give the reason of their actions and were they proved insufficient Or were they condemned unheard Or was Gods Word derided and taken for no reason 5. Do you not know that the Devil is the great Accuser of the Brethren and that he hath malice and craft enough to say as bad as you can say by the best of men and must he be believed 6. Are you sure you can make God believe you that these men are as bad as you affirm If not and if he find a man in prison for obeying his word and ask who laid him there will you undertake to prove that he was laid there for some crime If God own him and say he is my Servant will you confute him and say No but he is a Schismatick God knoweth a Saint from a Schismatick better than you do Sheep-steelers use to sheer the sheep and cut out the mark But they have to do with men Gods mark is where man cannot take it away And the foundation of God standeth sure The Lord knoweth who are his 7. Know you not that Christ and his Apostles and all the Martyrs were as deeply charged and put to death as Malefactors We must then have better proof than accusation 8. If they prove faithful Christians whom you thus accuse Christ hath undertaken their Justification It is his office And do you think to baffle him Can he not answer you Rom. 8. 32 33 35. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth Who is he that will condemn them 9. Have you not greater sins your selves than those whom you accuse If so you condemn your selves Would you have God judge of them as you do If so do you not tell him how to judge of you and even crave him to condemn you 10. Doubtless you know that you are sinners And how think you to be justified at the Bar of God Is there any but Christ to judge and justify you And do you think he will justifie his Enemies that hated accused and condemned his Servants 11. Those that dwell near godly Christians and should know them are more unexcusable for their malice and slanders than forreigners and strangers are Men of another land or age may be deceived by lying fame or history But you that are their Neighbours are without excuse I speak for none but persons fearing and obeying God And you might easily have known that they are neither Fornicators Drunkards Perjur'd swearers Liars Oppressors Thieves nor suffer for any such crimes as these 12. And if they are as wicked as you say why do you not prosecute them for such wickedness What are the French Protestants now prosecuted and ruin'd for Have any Judicatures proved them guilty of any such crimes against God or Man Or is it not only for worshiping God contrary to the Kings and Prelates Laws And how is that As Christs Apostles did They refuse nothing in Gods worship which God commanded or any of Christs Apostles used or any Churches in their days or long after And did the Apostles offer God so odious a worship as deserved hatred and destruction When Daniels Enemies designed his ruine they said Dan. 6. We shall find no matter against this Daniel except it be concerning the Law of his God And so they got a Law made against praying to any God but the King for a certain time Daniel must be cast to the Lions for breaking the Kings Law The poor flies deserve death for coming into the Spiders Web But did not the venomous Worm Spin it of purpose out of her own Bowels or condensate air to take and kill the flies by craft In England there are many that worship God as the French Protestants do and no better than