are thought to make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace and that are set in the least opposition or competition with Christs Merits or in any place save commanded subordination to him nay he says he firmly holds That Works done with a conceit of obliging God by Merit in commutative Justice or as conceited sufficient without a Saviour and the pardon of their failings do more further their Damnation than Salvation Yea p. 97. none but Christ merited of strict distributive Justice according to the Law of Innocency nor by any Works that will save from the charge of sin and desert of death And that thou mayest know what he ascribes to our Graces Holiness or Works He tells us p. 119. we mean by Merit but the moral aptitude for the reward of a free Benefactor who also is Rector when the ordering of a free gift suspended on official conditions is sapientially made a means of procuring obedience This one Clause if understood and he is a bold Traducer of so great a Man that cannot understand words so plain will acquit Mr. B. and inform thee of the place of all Gospel Conditions 1. All Gospel-blessings are the free gifts of Christ as Benefactor they have their being without any regard to what we do therefore nothing in man is a jot of the righteousness or merit for which they are bestowed 2. Christ is our Rector or Governor he will rule us as well as be beneficent to us 3. As a means to incline us to comply with him as Rector he suspends these blessings on terms of what he makes our Duty and wisely orders them as Motives to our Obedience 4. Any Act of our Obedience is no more than a conformity to that Order of his and doth not hinder all we receive from him to be of free gift Obj. But he saith that good Works are necessary to Salvation Answ He doth so and how few deny it But 1. Not if a man dye as soon as he be converted but if he have time p. 94. 2. Their rewardableness is by Gods free Grace and Promise for the sake of Christs meritorious Righteousness Sacrifice and Intercession their imperfection being pardoned and their holiness amiable through him These are his words p. 76. 3. He saith Not without or as a supplement to the Sacrifice Merits and free Grace of Christ our Saviour and Faith in him p. 93 75. And we give our selves to Christ as our Prophet Priest and King to be saved by his Merits p. 94.4 He saith our best Works will not save a man from the charge of sin and desert of death p. 97. 5. He denies that external Obedience is necessary to our admission into a justified state as he shews in the Thief on the Cross And when he saith we are justified by our Faith Godliness and Works Justification is not taken by him for the pardon of sin which he ascribes wholly to the Merits of Christ but he takes Justification there for our acquittance against the accusation that we are Infidels Ungodly and Hypocrites And saith that against the charge that we are Sinners deserving Hell we are justified by Christ believed in p. 94. His meaning is plainly this Christ alone by his Merits forgives our sins and purchased eternal Life for us But seeing that Christ hath promised to forgive none but the penitent Believer and declared he will destroy all impenitent unbelieving ungodly sinners Now he thinks that we must be truly acquitted that we are not such or we shall not be saved by Christ Yea he thinks that when God justifies a man for Christs Merits he doth also declare a man to be a true Believer because he will justifie no other and will justifie all such and when God admits a man into Glory he doth even thereby adjudge him a believing penitent holy and upright man and free from the charge of being an infidel hypocritical unholy Enemy against whom the Gospel denounceth Vengeance and bars relief Let these things be weighed and none will wonder that he should say on his sick bed No works I will leave out works if he grant me the other And truly in health none spake more humbly of his own Works than he used to do But because some confident weak persons have inferred from that passage that he changed his Principles when he came to dye we shall inform thee that after that passage was utter'd by him even the night before his death Mr. Baxter was asked whether he was of the same sentiments as formerly about Justification He answered That he had told the World sufficiently his thoughts about it by several Writings and otherwise and thither he referr'd them And after a little pause with his Eyes lifted up to Heaven he cryed Lord pity pity pity the Ignorance of this poor City And in the time of his sickness he declared to us and others that his thoughts in these things were the same as formerly Our regards to Mr. B. force the Publication of what we here insert tho' we would not be judged so happy as to arrive at his Light to lead us to a full Agreement with all his Sentiments As to this Book we wish there be not still great need of such helps against Popery and we are assured it will give more light than some greater Volumes on this Subject That God may render it useful shall be the Prayer of Thy Servants in the Gospel Daniel Williams Matthew Sylvester Protestant Religion Truly Stated and Justified c. THE Deceiver calleth his Book The Touchstone of the Reformed Gospel as if he owned a Gospel distinct from that of the Reformed Church And he undertakes to name fifty two points which the Protestants affirm but tells you not where nor proveth his affirmation but you must believe him as a Touchstone of Truth Dec. The first Protestant affirmation feigned is That there is not in the Church One and that an infallible Rule for understanding the Holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith Answ A meer Lye if he mean that this is any part of Protestant Doctrine but he may find as crude confused words in some ignorant person that is called a Protestant The Reformed Catholicks hold that there is in the Church one and that an infallible Rule for understanding the holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith And that Rule is The Evidence of its own meaning as inherent in its self discernible or intelligible by men prepared and instructed by competent Teaching and Study and the necessary help of Gods Grace and Spirit This is that Rule But the Reformed believe not 1. That there is any Rule by which ignorant prejudiced heretical wilfully blind wicked uncapable men can understand such Scripture as they are hereby undisposed to understand unless by a great change made on themselves Nor that any Prince can make a Statute which on Man can misunderstand abuse or violate 2. Nor that Men can understand it
is 1. Protestants commonly hold That as the Word Church signifieth the Company of sincere Christians and Heart-consenters to the Baptismal Covenant so it is invisible to Man that knoweth not the Heart Inward Faith and Love which denominate them are not seen by others dare any deny this 2. But as the Word Church signifieth the Vniversality of men baptized professing Christianity in publick Assemblies so it was never invisible since such publick profession and Assemblies first began 3. But when the Pagan Persecutors forced their meetings into Woods and Cells and Pits called Conventicles and to Night-Meetings they were hidden from the Persecutors as well as they could hide themselves And so they were when they hid themselves from the Arrian Persecution of Valens Constantius Gensericus Hunnerichus and from the Persians And so were those of Tholouse Piedmont Bohemia and others that hid themselves and fled from the Crusado's under Simon Montford and St. Domonick and others that Murdered them Christ himself fled to Egypt and Galilee from Persecutors His Disciples were met secretly for fear of the Jews when Christ appeared to them when Peter was in Prison many were assembled by Night in a Conventicle at the House of Marks Mother to pray for him The Papists themselves keep hidden Meetings where they cannot have more publick 4. God hath not promised his Church such constant Prosperity as that in every Age any Nation shall have publick Liberty without all Persecution much less that they shall be still uppermost and Masters of the World and have Kings and Emperours always for them 5. But we cannot say that yet the Church hath been so low since the days of Constantine that all Princes have disowned the Essentials of Christianity and we hope it never will be so 6. But all Ages and parts of the Church have not been equally pure and sound In some Ages the Arrians were most In the Reign of Theodosius Junior Anastasius c. the Eutichians prevailed In the days of Philippicus the Monothelites prevailed so that at one of their Councils Binius saith There were Innumerable Bishops In one Emperours time those prevailed that were against Images in Irene's and Theodora's times those that were for them Sometime the Bishop of Rome had most Power and sometime the Bishop of Constantinople and Alexandria For an Hundred years even much of Italy forsook him and set up a Patriarch at Aquileia as their Head Through many Ages the Citizens of Rome themselves expelled him or Fought against him Now in all these Cases the Church as professing Christinanity was still Visible But which of all the parts was the purest and soundest was known to none but the sound parts themselves And when and where the Errours became so great as really to nullifie or invalidate the Profession of Christianity this was known only to those near that had opportunity to know the mind of the accused For Noxa Caput sequitur One man tho' a Prince or Prelate cannot make all his Subjects Hereticks by his Errour So that nothing hath been more Visible than that there have still been professed Christians and so an Universal visible Church on Earth But which parts of this Church have de facto been Sound and which Corrupt and what Errours have nullified their Profession and what only blemisht it this hath never been visible to the Erroneous For no man knoweth that he Erreth but it hath been visible to the Sound And so that the Church of Rome yet Professeth Christianity we know But whether their Errours prove them Babylon or nullifie their Christianity must be known only by trying the guilty Individuals Here the Cheaters say to the Ignorant If the Church hath been always Visible where was your Church before Luther Ans 1. Where-ever there were men professing Christianity and Baptized and not Apostatizing Were there none such in the World must we be put to prove where there were any Christians before Luther Were not the Hearers grosly Ignorant the Cheaters would have no Confidence in such Fopperies as these Obj. But the Church of Rome profest Christianity before Luther Ans It did so and as Christians we are of the same Church with them we know no Universal Church but the Christian as such that is all Christians as only Headed by Christ If you cannot tell whether before Luther there were any Christians in the World in Abassia Egypt Syria Armenia the Greeks Muscovites c. it 's your gross ignorance of History But whether Papists Arrians Eutychians Nestorians Monothelites Phantasians Image-Worshippers do invalidate their profession of Christianity by their contrary Errours and Crimes it much more concerneth themselves than us to enquire and judge But tho' those that nullify not their profession of Christianity are all of the same Church Universal that we are of yet we profess that their New humane Church which is only the Pope as Head and all that adhere to him as such are no Church of Christ at all All Christians as such are parts of the Christian Church But a Policy consisting of a Vice-Christ and his Subjects is a Rellellious Usurpation and no Church Forma denominat As Christ is the Head all are of the Church that truly cleave to him as Head As the Pope is the pretended Head they are all a pack of Rebels And now what an ignorant Cant is it to say The Church cannot Apostatize Ergo it cannot Err Ergo the Pope of Rome and his hireling Clergy cannot Apostatize and Ergo They cannot Err Tell me whether Rome be all the World And whether the Church of Rome and the Christian World be Words of the same signification in any Dictionary And whether an Alexandrian Catholick or a C.P. are Catholick be not as good Sence as a Roman Catholick And whether the Texts or Fathers that you name prophanely will prove that the Church of C.P. Alexandria Antioch or Jerusalem can never Err or Apostatize or be Invisible And whether your own Jesuits confess not that Rome shall do so too in the Reign of Antichrist In the mean time take this answer 1. The Church as intimately Sanctified and sincere was ever invisible 2. The Church Universal as professing Christianity was ever Visible tho' oft hid by Persecution 3. Whether Rome C.P. Jerusalem be a true Church or Apostate is invisible to those that knew them not 4. That the Papal Church as informed by a Universal Vice-Christ is a false Church is Notorious This is our Judgment The Ninth accused Point That the Church was not always to remain Catholick or Vniversal And that the Church of Rome is not such a Church Ans The first part is a meer flat Lye We hold that the Church is always to remain Universal till it be presented perfect in Glory If it remain not Universal what becomes of it Is it a part of something else or annihilated If Christ have no Church he is no Head of the Church and so no Christ What Protestant Church ever said any
such thing as you falsly charge them with That the Church of Rome is not such a Church that is Is not the Vniversal Church indeed we not only say but think the contrary sitter for a man Drunk than Sober What is Rome all the World Is Abassia America Mesopotamia Muscovy Asia Thrace England Scotland Sweden Denmark no part of the World yea of the Christian World And is not the Christian World the Church Vniversal Reader here is a Controversy worthy the Wits Learning and Honesty of all the Famous Fathers and Doctors and Juglers of the Roman Catholick Church The Question is Which of the Rooms in the House is the whole House One saith that the Kitchin or the Cole-House or the House of Office is the whole House We Protestants say that no one Room is the whole but Hall Parlors Dining-Room and all the Chambers and Closets and Kitchin are the whole and if the Cole-House and House of Office will needs be parts we will not contend with them but we will never grant that they are either the whole or the best part Tho' by Fire and Stink they think to force us to it But the ancient Writers distinguish between the Catholick Church and a Catholick Church By the first is meant the whole Church By the second is meant such a particular Church as is not Schismatical but a true and sound part of the whole But what could these Self-Condemners say more against themselves than thus openly to confess that their Sect claimeth to be the whole Church and so Trayterously unchurcheth two or three parts of the Church of Christ and Damneth most Christians for not being Traytors to Christ as they To confute his base abuse of Scripture is needless and irksome The Tenth point accused That the Churches Vnity is not necessary in alâ— pâ—iâ—ts of Faith Ans This we verily hold for all that God hath revealed in Scripture to be believed are points of Faith if the Word be used intelligibly by these men But all the points of Genealogies Topography Chronology Prophecy in Scripture are revealed to be believed therefore they are points of Faith and if Unity in all these is necessary to the Unity of the Church then no Church on Earth hath Unity Certainly Rome hath not whose Commentators and Doctors disagree about many hundred Texts of Scripture and Sixtus 5th and Clemens 8th Popes about the very Translation of many hundred Texts These men must now say that we are not bound to believe all Gods Word or else they must confess that their Church hath not Unity That which Reformed Catholicks hold is 1. First points of Faith or revealed to be believed are some of them Essential to Christianity and of necessity to Salvation and some but Intergrals if not some Accidents The first all the True Church agreeth in The second not As who is Antichrist or Babylon or the Ten-Horned or Two-Horned Beast in the Revelations What is the Time Times and half a Time with an Hundred such But in general all believe that all Gods Word is true It might convince these men in that it was long before all the Churches received all the Canonical Books of Scripture and yet all received not all their Apocryphal Books And are these out of the Church Or are none of these Books to be believed The Eleventh Point accused That St. Peter was not Ordained by Christ the first Head or Chief among the Apostles and that among the Twelve none was greater or lesser than other Ans Meer Falsehood as undistinguisht The word Head is ambiguous this Writer hath a Head such as it is that other Heads much differ from Reformed Catholicks hold that Peter is called first in numbring them That he was by Christ in many instances preferred before others That he was an Eminent Speaker and worker of Miracles That all the Apostles were not Equal in parts and worth but some herein greater than other What was Judas no lesser than the rest that was a Thief and Traytor John was Eminently the Disciple whom Jesus loved But we hold 1. That as John was not made Lord or Ruler of the rest by being Loved more so Peter's Preheminence made him no Master or Ruler of the rest The twelve Apostles were chosen Relatively to the twelve Tribes Peter as Reuben was the first and denyed Christ and was called Satan with a Get behind me Mat. 16. as Reuben defiled his Fathers Bed But as Levi was the third so was James the first Sanctified Apostle And as Juda the fourth is called the Law-giver from whom the Scepter should not depart c. so John the fourth is the Disciple of Eminent Love and Love is the Everlasting Grace when Faith and Prophesie cease But Christ made no one of them Ruler of the rest Proved 1. No Text speaketh any such thing And the Headship of Governing Power would have been of such grand necessity to be known that Christ and his Apostles must needs have plainly and oft inculcated it 2. Peter never Exercised any such Power what mention is there of any Laws or Mandates of his to the other Apostles 3. The rest never sought to him for Laws or Orders 4. The Schism and Controversies of Christians were never decided by appealing to him as the Judge 5. When some at Corinth would have made him their Head and said I am of Cephas Paul reproveth them as carnal saying of all What are they but Ministers by whom ye believed 6. Paul reproveth him Gal. 2. 7. The Jewish Christians contend against him for Eating with Gentiles Act. 11. whom he satisfieth by proof from God and not by pleading his Supremacy 8. He never once claimed any such Power 9. Paul 1 Cor. 12. tells us of none in the Church greater than Apostles But the rest were Apostles as well as he 10. No such Article was ever put into the Churches Creed We grant that Christ did in instituting the Apostles Office institute a disparity of Ministers in his Church and this to be continued in the Ordinary continued part of their Works but not in the Extraordinary And we grant that in putting Peter first Christ intimated that among men of the same Office there may for Order sake be a Priority as the President of a Synod or Colledge or the Fore-man of a Jury or a Chief-Justice or the Speaker of a Parliament God is not the God of Confusion but of Order as in all the Churches If a Parish or an Independant Church have one grave Pastor with divers young Assistants that were but his Scholars nature will give him some awing Preheminence among them We are not against such a Primacy among Bishops or Arch-Bishops But this is nothing to a Governing Office And if Peter had had such what 's that to the Pope of Rome The Twelfth Point accused That a Woman may be Head or Supreme Governess of the Church in all Causes as the late Queen Elizabeth was Ans A cheat by Confusion and Equivocation
must understandingly joyn Doth their Priest celebrate their Mass alone out of the peoples sight or hearing in a Sanctuary while they are in the outer Court Do not their people assemble to their Mass Will they stand to it that their Church renounceth all worship of God in Holy Assemblies save by the Priest alone And is this the Holy Catholick Church And the man here professedly calls the Priests solitary action the publick Service which is for the people and not by them and therefore they need not understand and all the peoples Prayers are private and should be understood so that the Mystery opened either the Priest is all the Church or else they have no publick Church Service if they must meet that every one may have a secret Prayer of his own and may only see the Priests Service called publick And by this he pretends that he answereth Paul 1 Cor. 14. Adding most shamelesly 1. That it seemeth there by the Text that the common Service of the Church was not then in a Tongue commonly understood 2. Because there was one to supply the place of the Ideots to say Amen where he saith that the Geneva-men most deceitfully and maliciously Translated He that is an Ideot how shall he say Amen And raileth at them for putting So be it O! what is man and how incredible is the pretended infallible Clergy that can expect that all men trust their Souls on such palpable deceit When St. Paul spent a great part of the Chapter to disswade those that by Inspiration could speak strange Languages that they should not use them in the Church as being unedifying or at least not without an Interpreter this man gathers that the common Service was in an unknown Tongue As if this disswaded use of some Prophets gift were the common Service 2. And when he disswadeth them from Praying in an unknown Tongue or giving thanks in it saying else how can he that occupieth the Room of the unlearned say Amen this man feigneth that yet they were to give thanks in an unknown Tongue and one was to supply the place of the Ideot or unlearned in saying Amen See vers 23. Paul would have all say Amen this man says one was to do it for them Paul argueth that therefore they must speak to the understanding of the unlearned This man turneth his own words against him Doth his Supplier of the Ideots place himself understand or not If not Paul saith How can he say Amen If he do how doth he supply the place of the Ideots that are supposed should say Amen and cannot For the sake of this Chapter and Instance I shall never think any words so plain that Papists cannot turn against their most evident sense But what is the Man's pretence for this erroneous Confidence Why the Vulgar Latine Translateth it Qui supplet locum instead of Qui implet locum And that Latin Translator by supplet meant the same as implet possidet vel tenet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is well known to signifie to fill up Their own Expositors are many of them for the Sence which this Doctor chargeth as deceitfully and maliciously given Cornelius a Lapide saith that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Denuo implere vel simul Communiter omnes implere to fill again or all together or in common to fill It is not Qui supplet vicem indocti but Qui locum occupat inter in doctos or Idiotae locum tenet And so it is expounded by the ancients Chrysostom Occumenius Theophysact And are not these Roman Priests notoriously Perjured that all Swear to expound the Scripture according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers when as besides that the Fathers have but few of them written Commentaries on the Scriptures there are very few of them that unanimously agree of the Sence of the one half of the Scripture Texts but either say nothing of them or differ And not only in this but in most points named by this Doctors Touchstone he and others go flat against them And what meaneth the man to rail at them that say So be it instead of Amen Is it not a true Translation But he will prove that it should not be Translated and consequently that Servict may be said in an unknown Tongue for Amen is not Greek but Hebrew Ans 1 Who can stand before these Arguments if they be but backt with Guns and Swords or Smithfield Fires which are too hot for any Answer save Patience He may also prove it from Christs Words on the Cross Eloi Eloi Lamasabacthani For Christ was now the most publick Priest and was offering the most publick Service by his Sacrifice Ergo the publick Service should be in an unknown Tongue And it may be they may find some other untranslated word that shall confute not only all the Bible but all the Septuagint and Vulgar Latine Translations But seeing these Men's Arguments are too hot for me to answer as they might know that the Church of England refuseth not AMEN so neither will I though as I can prove that the Corinthian Church were Hebrews and Gentiles mixt and that Amen was understood by both so Protestants use it as a word understood From the Serpents Seed and his deceiving subtil Lies From Cain and his Successours and the malignant and Blood-thirsty Enemies of Abels faithful acceptable worship from such a worldly and fleshly Sacred Generation as take gain for Godliness and make their worldly carnal interest the Standard of their Religion and their proud Domination to pass for the Kingdom of Christ From an Vsurping Vice-Christ whose ambition is so boundless as to extend to the Prophetical Priestly and Kingly Headship over all the Earth even at the Antipodes and to that which is proper to God himself and our Redeemer From a Leprous Sect which Condemneth the far greatest part of all Christs Church on Earth and separateth from them and calleth it self the whole and only Church From that Church that decreeth Destruction to all that renounce not all humane Sense by believing that Bread is not Bread nor that Wine is Wine but Christs very Flesh and Blood who now hath properly no Flesh and Blood but a Spiritual Body and that decreeth the Excommunication Deposition and Damnation of all Princes that will not exterminate all such and absolveth their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance From that Beast whose Mark is PER Perjury Perfidiousness and Persecution and that think they do God acceptable Service by killing his Servants or tormenting them and that Religion which feedeth on Christs Flesh by Sacrificing those that he calleth his Flesh and Bones Ephes 5 From the infernal Dragon the Father of Lies Malice and Murder and all his Ministers and Kingdom of Darkness GOOD LORD make haste to deliver thy Flock and confirm their Faith Hope Patience and their Joyful desire of the great true final Glorious Deliverance AMEN AMEN AMEN FINIS This Book was delivered by Mr. Baxter himself to the
killing all baptized persons that obey not the Pope with many such 8. If Tradition tell us of any Customs used in the Apostles or Primitive times that be not in Scripture and so be not made matters of Necessity to all yea or of any occasion all mutable Customs that are mentioned in Scripture as washing the Saints Feet the Holy Kiss the Womans Vail long or short Hair Collections each Lords Day Preachers Travelling on Foot c. we quarrel not with the then use of such Traditions when they were seasonable no more than with forbearing things strangled and blood Nor quarrel we with the Churches after that setled Easter Day and made the 20th Canon of the Nicene Council and used divers Ceremonies at Baptism But Traditions of things Indifferent and Mutable we receive but as such to be laid aside when the occasion ceaseth And if any will turn them into a necessary common Law we disclaim such Usurpers for they cross that very Tradition It was delivered as Indifferent and you feign and make it a necessary Law and so destroy it 9. We maintain openly that Tradition is against the Papacy and its Corruptions They are but a third or fourth part of Christians The other two or three parts of the Christian World profess that the Tradition of their Churches is against the Popes universal Sovereignty and against all the Corruptions of which they accuse him None but the shameless will deny that the Abassians Armenians Greeks and others plead that this is their Tradition And Reader tell us why the Tradition of two or three parts of the Church should not rather be believed against a third part than that which the third part boast of against all the rest 10. Ask them which way they know and keep their Traditions Whether they have any History Records or any other way which we may not know as well as they If they pretend that it is a Secret kept by their Church it 's a strange Secret that so many Thousands know But if it be a thing proveable let them prove it 11. Is it not unmercifulness to tell all the Christian World that as big and hard as the Bible is if they knew and obeyed it all they cannot be saved unless they believe and do more kept by the Pope and called Tradition When yet these Deceivers can dispense with the knowledge and practice of God's own word and think the Bible a Book too big and hard and the Prophane say too strict to be commonly understood and kept And yet all the Bible is not Enough but we must be bound to as much more as they will call Tradition yea Volumes also of Papal Canon Laws 12. Did not Christ for this thing Condemn the Old Pharisees Mat. 15 Prove your Traditions to be Apostolical and about things necessary and not your Forgeries or about things mutable and indifferent and we will obey all such Apostolical Traditions But your Novelties and Usupations shall not pass with us for Divine Laws because you can call them such The Fifth accused Point That a Man by his own understanding and private Spirit may rightly judge and interpret Scripture Ans Can any Man unriddle what this Deceiver meaneth 1. Can a Man judge without his own understanding 2. What meaneth he by a private Spirit Little know I. If he mean God's Spirit it is no contemptible nor private Spirit even in a private Man If he mean a Man 's own Spirit Soul or Intellect it is the same as his own understanding If he mean any Evil Spirit or fancy and Erroneous self-conceit we defie such Spirits and Deceivers that use them To understand without our own understandings is a Mystery fit for Rome Why may not a Dog or a Sheep be said so to understand the Scripture if it may be understood without our own understandings What a Curse is on the ignorant Nations that will be led by such words as these But if he will say that he meant By his own understanding alone without a Teacher why did he not say so but say one thing and do another But that had been too gross a Lye to have been believed by them that see that we set up Teachers in all our Congregations 3. Therefore I can imagine nothing but absurdity in his words unless he mean that we hold that a Man may rightly Interpret Scripture by his own understanding immediately instructed by his Teacher and God's Spirit without taking the Sence only at the rebound on the belief of the Pope and his Clergy For we never thought that a Man 's own natural Wit without a Teacher and the help of God's Spirit can savingly understand and apply the Scripture And yet we would fain tell Papists a better way to Convert a Philosopher or a Turk than to Preach to them thus God hath written his Law and Gospel to the World but you cannot tell what is the meaning of it till you take that sence on trust from our Pope and Clergy and know that Christ authorized him to be Judge and that before you believe in Christ or understand the word that so authorizeth him Were not corrupted Nature very blind in things Spiritual Plow-men and Tinkers and Coblers would be able to confute such Fopperies and much more Priests and Popes and Prelates 4. But I pray you tell me whether the Pope and his Prelates do not interpret Scripture by their own understandings Whose understandings else do they judge by in Conclaves or Councils 5. And tell me whether he that judgeth that the Pope is Christs Vice-Christ and Ruler at the Antipodes and is infallible tho' he be by Councils condemned for a Simonist and Infidel an Atheist a Seducer or an ignorant Sot Doth not this Man judge all this by his own understanding If a Man take an ignorant sottish Priest for the Mouth of the Catholick Church tho' he know no more what he talks against than this Roman Deceiver doth he not judge this by his own understanding If a Sot will believe you that your Sect is the whole Church and all are Damned tho' they love God and believe in Christ if they will not be ruled by the Pope and every Mass-Priest doth he not judge thus by his own understanding Do you Preach to Men or Beasts that have no understanding of God's Law and Will If a Man must believe all the Canons of Popes and Councils in Baronius Binnius Surius Nicolinus Caranza c. doth he not do it by his own understanding 6. Oh! But the meaning is You are all private ignorant Men and we are the Clergy Kings choose some of us and Popes choose others and whether we are Wise or Fools Learned or Vnlearned Infidels or Christians you are all Damned if you will not follow us and if we be Damned you must be content to be Damned with us And is it so Hath God made Man for no safer and better a Condition than to be Damned when ever Sottish Drunken Priests will
to Effect 6. As for them that feign that we say that God decreeth that some shall be Saved and others Damned however they Live it is but the dictates of the Father of Lies We say that God at once decreeth the End and the Means as he doth not decree that men shall live though they neither Eat nor Drink nor that they shall have Corn though they neither Plow nor Sow but that they shall Eat and Drink and live thereby and that they shall Plow and Sow and mannure the Soil and so have Corn. So God doth at once decree that this and that man shall have the means of Grace especially a Saviour and the Gospel and shall faithfully use them and be Sanctified by them and sincerely obey God and overcome the World the Flesh and the Devil and persevere to the End and that for Christs Merits he will give them the Grace of his Spirit and pardon their Sins and bring them to Glory All this is our Decree of God But he doth not decree that men shall sin that they may be Damned For sin is no Work of God nor a means appointed by him for Men's Damnation no more than a Righteous King doth make men Traytors or Murderers that he may Hang them But he justly denyeth his Grace to many that forfeit it by willful Resistance Disobedience and Contempt though he take not the forfeiture of his Elect. He is deceived and wrongeth God that maketh him the Author of Men's sin And so doth he that feigneth God to send his Son to redeem the World and his Word and Ministers to call them and his Spirit to renew them and all this at Random not knowing whether it may not be all lost or leaving it chiefly to the Free-will of them whose wills are contrarily inclined and vitiated Whether Christ and all his Preparations shall be lost The plain Christian that holdeth but to these two points that our Destruction is of our selves but our help and Salvation of God and that God is the first and chief cause of all good and Men and Devils of all Evil is liker to be wise with Sobriety and Safety than the Ignorant Intruders into Gods Secrets and the prating Calumniators that speak Evil of the things which they understand not and reproach those that speak not as Rashly and Ignorantly as themselves even in some equivocal unexplained words Methinks Papists should be so kind to God as seeing the Pope can tell who is a Damned Heretick and to be kill'd even all that believe not in the Pope or are not his Subjects and who is in Purgatory and how long he shall stay there Or how many years Torment the Pope can shorten They should allow God to know a little more and that not as one whose Power and Grace is Conquered by impotent Worms against his absolute Will The Five and Twentieth accused Point That every one ought Infallibly to assure himself of his Salvation and to believe that he is of the number of the Predestinate Ans I would fain excuse the man as far as I can and therefore I hope that as the man was excusable that did eat Snakes for Snigs or Eels so he read some Pamphlet of an Antimonian either Crisp or Saltmarsh or some other such or talkt with some of their silly Novices and thought he had Convers'd with the Reformed Catholicks or read the Confessions of the Reformed Churches The first Sentence is a Fundamental Truth and a damnable Falshood as the Equivocal words are variously understood And is it not pity that the Priests of the Infallible Church should put things so different into the same words and that in an accusation of so many Churches and Nations when yet God himself is feigned by them to write by his Spirit so Unintelligibly that without these Doctors skilful Exposition it is but like to make men Hereticks that is Adversaries to the Pope and his Clergy To assure our selves of our Salvation may mean to give all diligence to make our Salvation infallibly sure This every one ought to do Or it may mean that every man ought to believe it as an infallible Truth that he shall be saved The next Sentence seemeth to make this his meaning in the first Which if it be he is a false Calumniator of the Reformed Churches But if the first be his meaning and he deny it he is an open Enemy to Man's Salvation What is all the Scripture for and all our Religion but to make sure of our Salvation 2 Pet. 1. 10. Give all diligence to make your Calling and Election sure And if no man can be sure to what purpose hath God made so many promises of it expressing the Conditions to them that believe that love God that forsake all for him if no man can know whether he perform the Condition and that he is within this promise Why doth God lay down so many signs to difference the Children of God from the Children of the Devil if they cannot be discerned Sure Heaven and Hell be not like and yet are the Heirs of Heaven and Hell undistinguishable Is the Image of God and the Devil so like that none can know them asunder No not the man that hath had them both And why doth God so aften call on Believers to Rejoyce if they cannot know whether they shall be in Heaven and Hell for ever If you say he is not sure to persevere many Papists grant that the Confirmed may And why may not Bradford Hooper Sanders and Thousands else that are Dying by the Sacred blood-thirsty Church be assured when they are Dying that they have forsaken Life and all for Christ But oportet mendacem esse memorem still Why do you not tell men when the Pope is selling them Pardons and saving them out of Purgatory that when all 's done they can have no assurance of Salvation yea that they ought not to endeavour to make it sure And whose now is the safe Church and Religion if a Papist can never be sure that he shall be saved in your Church and Religion nor sure that he is in a State of Salvation That is that he is a true Christian and hath Charity and is an honest man 2. A man that hath got true and clear Evidence that he hath a Confirmed Faith and Hope and loveth God as God above all ought consequently to take it for an infallible Truth that so Dying he shall be saved Else he must either give God the Lie that hath promised it or he must be supposed to be deceived when he thinketh that he believeth and loveth God But that every man must believe that he is of the Number of the Predestinate to Salvation is a damnable Doctrine because it requireth all the Millions of ungodly men to believe a Lie yea to believe it as a Divine Truth and to make God both the Author of the Lie and of the deceit of our selves by this Command And when Millions are not of the
the grace of Christ and the Holy Ghost 2. Professed Christians are Sacramentally Sanctifyed when by outward Baptism they are devoted to God in Christ 3. Even bad Ministers are externally sanctifyed as separated and consecrated to a Holy Office 4. Temples and Books and Church Utensils are sanctifyed when by men they are separated from common and unclean usage to Gods Worship So that tho' Holiness in all be this separation to God yet as the Persons and things are not the same so neither is their Holiness in specie but only in genere And there is a Superstitious and an Idolatrous Mock-Holiness when men will devote that to God and Holy uses which he abhorreth or accepteth not nor ever required of them And say as the Hypocrite Pharisees it is Corban who required this at their hands The Hypocrites and Idolaters have always been forward for this unrequired Mock-Holiness to quiet their Consciences instead of real saving Holiness It 's Cheaper and Easier to have Holy-Water Holy-Oil Holy-Spittle Holy-Images Holy-Crosses Holy-Vestments of many sorts Holy-Altars Holy-Shrines and Pilgrimages Holy-Bones and Chips and Places than to have Holy-Hearts and Lives which love God and Grace and Heaven above all this World and Life it self and by the Spirit mortify all fleshly Lusts The Seven and Thirtieth accused Point That Children may be saved by their Parents Faith without the Sacrament of Holy Baptism Ans Can you unriddle this charge Whether the man mean that they may be saved by Baptism without their Parents Faith Or that both must be conjoyned as necessary to Salvation He will not tell us that 1. That God hath made abundance of promises to the Seed of the Faithful and taketh them into the Covenant of Grace with their Parents and saith that they are Holy 1 Cor. 7.14 Protestants have copiously proved against Anabaptists and Papists But it is Gods Mercy and Christs Merit Grace and Covenant that they are saved by The Parents Faith is but that Qualification and Relation which maketh them receptive and capable of this saving Grace The Parenrs Faith saveth themselves but as the Moral qualifying disposition and condition of Gods saving Gift And to Infants it is required not that they be Believers but Believers Seed devoted to God by Parents or Pro-Parents whose they are 2. We doubt not but regularly where it may be had this Dedication should be solemnly made by Baptismal Covenanting Ask the Anabaptists whether we hold not this But we believe that as private Marriage maketh Husband and Wife before God but solemn Matrimony is necessary for publick Order without which they may be punished as Fornicators So if an Infant be the Child of one believing Parent dedicated to God he is Holy and in the same Covenant with the Parent and were else unclean But that before the Church he is not regularly to be judged in Covenant till it be solemnized in Christs appointed way by Baptism Still excepting where Baptism cannot be had and there even sober Papists say that the Votum the Vow or desire will serve And this necessity is manifold 1. When the Child dieth before Baptism could be had 2. Where there is no capable Person to do it or that will not utterly deprave it 3. When the Parent is an Antipoedo-Baptist and omitteth it thinking it a Sin If they think that the Infant is not saved by the Parents Faith why should they think that believing Parents Children are damned because the Parent Erreth in such an external thing But Papists that turn other parts of Holiness into Form and Ceremony and make a Religion of the Carkass mortifyed would here also perswade People that the very outward act of Washing is of so great moment with God that though it were the holyest Persons or their Seed a mistake or a delay or surprize of Death will damn them if they be not Baptized or Martyred This tendeth to Subject all to the Mercy and Dominion of the Priests that they may seem more necessary to Salvation than they are or at least their external Forms by Lay-men or Women Baptizers administred Constantine himself the Churches great Deliverer was not Baptized till near his Death Are they sure that he was till then in a state of Damnation and had been Damned if he had so Died Methinks in gratitude the Church of Rome should have cast him no lower than the Torments of Purgatory The Eight and Thirtieth accused Point That the Sacrament of Confirmation is not necessary nor to be used Ans You may so mean by the Word Sacrament and Confirmation as that we do deny them And you may so mean as that we are more for them than you are 1. If by a Sacrament you mean one of Gods Institution appointed by him to be his Solemn Delivery and Investiture in a state of Christianity or necessary Grace and if by Confirmation you mean Arch-Bishops anointing Infants or Ignorant Children or Persons with hallowed Oyl compounded once a year and his Ceremonious boxing them and such other Formalities then we deny that such Confirmation is any such Sacrament nor is necessary or to be used because Holy things are not to be mortyfied and profaned 2. But if by a Sacrament you mean but a Solemn renewal of our Covenant with God in Christ and by Confirmation you must that those Baptized in Infancy should at due Age understandingly under the Pastors hand or Care profess their serious personal Consent to that Covenant which by others they imputatively made in Baptism we are so far from denying this that we think till this Solemn personal Covenanting and owning their Baptism with understanding and seeming seriousness be made the Entrance into the state of Adult Church Communion the woful Corruption of the Church is never to be well healed but while one side turn Confirmation into a dead Shadow and Mockery and the Anabaptists scandalized Heresie are all for Rebaptizing instead of Confirmation Prophanation and Schism will gratifie Satan You know that the English Bishops practise Confirmation and the Liturgy describeth it as I here do And are the Church of England no Protestants And divers Protestant Non-Conformists here have about 29 and 30 years ago written full Treatises for Confirmation The Nine and Thirtieth accused Point That the Bread of the Supper of our Lord was but a Figure or Remembrance of the Body of Christ received by Faith and not his true and very Body Ans 1. Protestants hold that as all words are to be taken according to the usage of the Subject or Science that they are used about Physical Terms Physically Rhetorical Rhetorically Geometrical Astronomical Arithemetical accordingly Law Terms according to Law and Moral and Theological Terms Morally and Theologically so if as Naturalists we ask what the matter of that Sacrament is we say Bread and Wine If as Moralists and Theologues we say it is the Body and Blood of Christ As if you ask of a Gold and Silver Coyn what it is in a Natural Sence we say