to vindicate is in the Sixt Page of my Sermon and t is out of the Polycraticum of Iohannes Sarisburiensis a learned Bishop who did flourish almost 500 years ago l. 6. c. 24 p. 329. Edit Lugd. Bat. 1595. Where though 't is granted The Church of Rome was said to shew Her-self a Step-Mother and Scribes and Pharisees were also said to sit in her Yet I am branded with unsincere and unhansome dealing because the words were not spoken by the good Bishop to the Pope as from Himself or as his own sense and meaning But as received from many others and which himself had heard spoken in divers Provinces To which I answer by these degrees First that I never did once pretend the words were spoken by the Bishop much less that they were spoken as his peculiar sense and meaning But having us'd the word Pharisees in the Body of my Discourse and apply'd it to the men of the Roman Church I only noted in the Margin where the word might be found in the sense I gave it Meaning no more by it than This That I was not the first who had so apply'd it but that I had it from the men of their own Communion and such as used such language long enough before Luther Next 't is clear that my Citation was not brought by way of proof though 't was a proof of my Candor in the use of that word but rather by way of Accommodation Else I had noted both how commonly and how loudly the word was us'd it being most for my Interest and for the Credit of my Cause to make it appear that it was us'd rather by many than by one nor only in one but in many places So that mine Enemies should have thank't my love of Brevity in a Margin which would not suffer me to be fond of my whole Advantage For Thirdly had I pursued it as very prosperously I might I might have added that That Censure fixt on the Pope and the Cardinals and the Roman Church in general was not only Vox Populi which of it self had been enough but too agreeable besides with his own opinion as also with the opinion of Cardinal Guido whom the plain-hearted Bishop thought it praesumption to contradict And though he made a due exception of some particular good men which in the worst Times and Places were never wanting yet That Justice being don and other Civilities being premis'd He told the Pope to his Teeth as Guido had don in a publick Synod in which the Pope himself presided some Enormities which his Holiness both did and winck't at § 4. This is all the Vindication of that whole Sermon which I have ever thought needful for my Protestant Readers or have look't upon my self as concern'd to make For did I know any thing else at which a weak-sighted Brother had ever Stumbl'd I would take the like care to put the Block out of his way And for such of my Readers as are not Protestant who are Afraid of being satisfied and scorn Conviction I think it most proper to say but This That if 't is matter of any moment to be allow'd the last word on any Controverted Subject Then Mr. Whithy's full Answer to the Attempt of Mr. Cressy must needs be happy in its Privilege of having not met with a Reply § 5. And such a Privilege has been injoy'd by what I writ some years ago in way of Preface to Dr. Sherman touching the Church of Rome's Pretensions to an Infallibility The Confutation Discovery of which One Error be it never so short so it be plain and perspicuous does make it absolutely needless to be Voluminous on the Rest just as the grubbing up the Root of a noxious Tree makes it vain and superfluous to spend a richer Treasure of Time about the mortifying and killing its several Branches § 6. For the point of Infallibility must needs be one of the two Pillars whereof the Pope's pretended Headship or Universal Pastorship is the other wherewith the Tromperies superstructed must stand or fall And as it is skilfully contriv'd by the Roman Champions to spend their strength in securing that Saving Error The Church of Rome cannot Err because it gives the the best security to whatsoever other Errors their Church can own and under which as an Asylum the grossest Follies they can get-by do live in safety so by consequence 't is as happily resolv'd by us upon so good an occasion given to shew the Feeblenesse and Defects even of That which does hold up the Papal Grandeur and cannot choose but be acknowledg'd even by men of both sides to be their first or their second most Helpfull Engine § 7. This does bring into my mind what I was told many Years since by an honourable Friend then when newly come out of Italy wherein from his childhood he had been bred That having first been convinc'd by the little Treatise which had been penn'd on that point by his Brother Falkland That his beloved Roman Church was not-unerrable He could not hinder his own Discovery how very grievously she had Err'd Nor by consequence could he hinder his own Conversion from a Church still pretending to a privilege of not being able to be deceiv'd as soon as he found 't was even That which had most deceiv'd him And truly had I been tempted but with a little of that leisure I once enjoy'd whereby to have written more at large to Serenus Cressy who pretending to Confute has Escap'd my Sermon and only fought like a Parthian by certain dexterous Tergiversations though unlike a Parthian in point of mischief neither denying nor disproving but still evading my Citations and taking very great care to obscure his own as well by making both the Greek and the Latin Fathers to hold their peace in Greek and Latin and only speak in that English which He affords them as by concealing both the Pages and the Editions of his Authors for fear a Protestant should have leisure and patience too whereby to bring them to a strict and a speedy Trial I say had I the leisure and could think it worth while to employ that leisure in examining all his Book as some have thought fit to do I should not inlarge on any point with greater contentment to my Self or greater hope of convincing both Him and His than that on which he hopes most to guard his obstinacy by § 8. For when the Romanists contend for the Church of Rome's being Infallible they mean by the Roman the whole Church Catholick and by the whole Church Catholick they mean as many as own the Pope for their Soveraign Pastor This is call'd by a plainer phrase The present Visible Church to which for all the General Councils the last Recourse is to be had But why rather to the Present than to the Primitive Church or why to the present Church Visible rather than to the first General Councils Even because
saith Mr. Cressy Universal Experience doth demonstrate it impossible that any Writing can end a Debate between multitudes of persons interessed and therefore not impartial or indifferent Thus still there is something not only fallible but false whereby a Romanist is to judge where to find Infallibility for wheresoever That is the last Recourse is to be made Because an Experience as Universal as that whereof Mr. Cressy speaks doth also demonstrate it as impossible That Any present Church Visible much less that His should put an end to a Debate between multitudes of persons whose Interest and Byass is multifariously divided as well as They. Men must equally agree which they never will first what is to be meant by the present Visible Church and after That that she is Infallible before she can possibly put an end to all their Dissensions in their Debates § 9. But what does he mean by the present Church Visible Does he mean all the Churches that do submit unto the Pope as their Soveraign Pastor either IN or OUT of a General Council If the first he must mean either a written or speaking Council If the former Then he should not have distinguish'd it from the present Church Visible as here he does Then there needed no more than One but That by all means must be a standing General Council from the beginning of the Church till the Day of Iudgment And then the Church was never able to make her Members a jot the better for her Infallibility or to prove she had such a priviledge by being able to put an End to a Debate between Multitudes of different Interest and Judgment in several Nations either before the Nicene Council which was the first that was General or since the Council held at Trent which they avow to be the last But if he mean's only a speaking Council then he confesses that at present there is no such present Visible Church as can Infallibly put an end to the Debate above mention'd even because there is no such General Council Which things being so where is the boasted Infallibility How shall we find or comprehend it or how is any Creature the wiser for it And if he means what was said in the second Branch of my first Dilemma All the Churches which own the Pope as their Soveraign Pastor not IN but OUT of a General Council Then the Pope in his Conclave or College of Cardinals which by the way is a Conventicle though not a Council not Concilium but Counciliabulum must be the sole and proper speaking Iudge who can end such a Debate as before we spake of so that in Him as in her Head the present Visible Church does entirely lodge at least in respect of her Infallible Iudgment which none but the Pope out of a Council can have or utter But thus the Romanists Absurdities will be more notable than before For the Pope may be an Heretick if not an Heathen Pope Marcellinus was the first and Pope Liberius the second And there is no better arguing than to the Aptitude from the Act. Nay in some of the 30 Schisms which Onuphrius reckons up in the Church of Rome before the word Protestant was ever heard of when two or three Popes did sit at once 't was even impossible to determine which Pope was the true and which the false The Councils of Constance and Pisa whereof the former by the way was a General Council in the Catalogue set forth by Pope Paulus Quintus were utterly at a Loss in their Debates of this matter From whence it follows unavoidably that Mr. Cressy must not dare to avow this last notion of The present Visible Church as well because it is not That to which he dares say the last Recourse is to be had as because she can too easily declare her sense in another way than as she was ever represented by her Pastors out of all Nations that is to say by a General Council which yet the present visible Church can never do saith Mr. Cressy chap. 9. p. 95. But when I say he must not dare to avow this last notion of the present visible Church to which he gives the last Recourse and to which he ascribes Infallibility I mean he must not for the future not but that for the present he dares to do it Because he tells us expressly p. 97. as dogmatically too as without all proof That the present Superiours living and speaking must conclude all controversies their Interpretation of Scripture and Fathers their Testimony of Tradition must more than put to silence all contradiction of particular persons or Churches it must also subdue their minds to an Assent and this under the penalty of an Anathema or cutting off from the body of Christ. § 10. This is said by M. Cressy concerning the living and speaking Iudges of his Church Judges for the time being in every Age. Quite forgetting what he had said not long before p. 95. That Reason Inspiration and Examples of Primitive Fathers must joyntly make up the only Guide which He affirms to be Infallible For unless they all concur as he had said before that p. 93 together with the present visible Governours to whom he there gives a judging determining power That which we take to be Reason and Inspiration and the sense of the Primitive Church may deceive and misguide us Now besides that This saying destroys the former where no less was ascrib'd to the present visible Superiours living and speaking than here is attributed to All four Requisites in conjunction we know that Reason may be deceiv'd Inspiration be counterfeit by some unclean spirit which fallible Reason must be the Judge of primitive Fathers subject to Error and present Superiours much more than Primitive And many fallible Guides can never make up one Infallible any more than many Planets can make one Sun or many Acts of finite knowledge one true omniscience For as Mr. Cressy does confess that Infallibility and Omniscience are incommunicable Attributes of God Himself p. 98. so he imply's a contradiction when he saith they are communicable to any creature such as is his present visible Church And another contradiction as bad or worse when he saith that a man although of much Ignorance may in a sort be Omniscient within his sphere p. 99. which is as if he should have said That a man may be able to have a knowledge of All things because he may so know them All as to be Ignorant of Some But then with the help of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the meanest man is as omniscient as is his Roman Catholick Church because within his determinate sphere he must needs have a knowledge of All he know's and of more than she know's the Roman Church hath no knowledge So again when he would shew how a creature may be Infallible though he had said that God Himself is incommunicably such p. 98. he has no better a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
does humbly hope That if any Difficulty arise in the receiving of the Canons or if any things Doubtful shall require a Definition or Declaration His Holiness will provide for the Necessities of the Provinces for the Glory of God and the Tranquillity of the Church either by calling a General Council if He shall judge it to be needful or by committing all the Business to such as He shall think fit or by what way soever He shall judge more commodious All upon the matter both is and must be as He pleaseth and when the Council is dissolv'd He is himself Tantamount to a General Council Indeed much more For the Council did but propose But He declares and defines by Apostolical Authority He command's and decree's by somewhat more than Apostolical That Faith without the least Doubting be had by all to his Creed and all under the penalty of being cut off from the Body of Christ notwithstanding some part of his Creed is This That Apocryphal writings and meer Traditions concerning Faith as well as Manners are by all to be receiv'd with as much Reverence and Affection as things proceeding from God the Holy Ghost or from the mouth of our Lord Iesus Christ. Now if a Council as the Lateran does only Read a Decree in Fieri And a Pope as the Tenth Leo by saying Placet does make it one in Facto esse If a Council cannot be currant unless it be called by the Pope and by the Pope praesided in yea if nothing don in it can pass for currant until the Pope hath approved of it or until he hath made it become Authentick by an Act of his Will or by a word of his Mouth Mr. Cressy and Father Iohnson who do so earnestly contend for a subcoelestial Infallability cannot chuse but believe if at all they believe as well as plead it That its real Inherence is in the Pope and only said to be in the Church because it does more become the Error and set it off to the People with better Grace The Reason of what I say is very cogent in it self and that it may be so to others I thus endeavour to make it plain They say that Councils are not currant unless approved of by the Pope Nor does he give his Approbation until the Council is at an end His Approbation is after and not before it From whence 't is natural to Inferr That he approve's not of the Council because Infallibly good and therefore currant it would not then need his Approbation But the Council is good and currant because He approve's it And why should That be said unless because He is Infallible with Them that say it Thus I say it is to Them not Thus in It selfe For then there would follow this other Absurdity That if The Council hath err'd it is because the Pope hath not approv'd it For let him but approve and It hath not err'd because it hath every thing required to its Infallibility If not let them speak for I argue only ad homines and out of very great charity try to make them asham'd with their own Devices § 14. Now to speak a gross Truth The Approbation of a Pope when a Council hath don with its Consultations cannot possibly have the virtue to effect that such a Council shall not have err'd For if it hath erred it is erroneous though He approve's it If not it is orthodox though He rejects it The Emperours who call'd the first and truest General Councils did either not care for or not expect his Approbation Yet Those were the Councils either not erring at all or at least the least erring of any other § 15. But let us yield Mr. Cressy yet more Advantage and suppose him only to mean what once he saith for he saith so many things that he seem's to have many and even contradictory meanings A Church represented by her Pastors out of All Nations which Pastors out of All Nations make a General Council And that This only is the Church to which he ascribes Infallibility To which I answer by two Degrees First by observing that he takes for granted what is false For there was never such a Council as to which All Nations did send their Pastors and by consequence The Church was never so Represented and by consequence never Infallible if She can only be Infallible when so Represented to wit by the Pastors of All Nations which have Christian Churches in them For the first four General Councils were not such in That sense And only were called Oecumenical not for Bellarmine's Reason but because they consisted of all the Pastors who were sent from Those Nations which made up all the Roman Empire whose Emperours by a figure were call'd the Masters of the world Beyond the limits of the Empire None of those or after Councils did ever reach None went thither out of Persia India the Inmost Arabia and Aethiopia wherein the Churches were never under the Roman Empire Nor yet out of Britain France and Spain when being parted from the Empire They became the Peculiar of other Princes And as the Empire grew scanty so the Councils in proportion did grow less General Whose Greatness is to be measur'd not by the number of the Bishops but by the multitude of the Churches and by the Greatnesse of the Regions from which they come But since the Bishops of Rome with other Rights of the Roman Empire have invaded This also of calling and praesiding in General Councils they have been only call'd General for being a Confluence of Pastors out of all the Papal Empire And therefore according to Mr. Cressy They could not possibly be Infallible because not such as to which All Nations did send their Pastors § 16. Next I answer by observing that the learned'st Romanists cannot agree about the Nature or Number of General Councils For first as to the Nature The General Councils of the Romanists are thus divided by themselves Some say they are approved by the Sea Apostolical and received by the Catholick Church 2 Some are absolutely reprobated 3 Some are reprobated in part approved 4 Some are neither reprobated nor approved Now since each of these sorts is said by Romanists to be General and General Councils in the general are also said by the same to be Infallible What else do they say in effect substance but that the Church represented in General Councils is either absolutely Infallible as in the first species of General Councils or altogether fallible as in the second or partly Infallible and partly fallible as in the third or neither fallible nor infallible as in the fourth If General Councils cannot err Why then do they reprobate or doubt any of them If they have sufficient reason both to reprobate some and to doubt of others Why do they call Them General Councils or if General Councils can be doubted of at all and that by Them too By what Infallible
General Because for want of a better Refuge when they are press't with many things which cannot be justifi'd or deny'd They have evermore recourse to This one Catholick evasion That they are but the sentiments of private Doctors whose ill opinions or mistakes are not chargable on the Church Now though we cannot but beleive their Private Doctors as they call them when they are men of great Learning and greater Zeal to That Cause and only speak as Narrators touching matters of Fact and such as of which they might be silent with more advantage unto themselves Yet I hope 't will not be said That the present superiours living and speaking to whom Mr. Cressy ascribes the power of Concluding all Controversies are no better than private Doctors much lesse will they say it of their General Councils unto which they do acknowledge the last reeourse is to be had And here if any man shall ask what may be probably the Reason why when the Tenet of Infallibility is so far a Doctrine of their Church as it is taught and maintain'd by their Present visible Governours or their present Superiours living and speaking unto whom is ascribed the power aforesaid It hath not yet been thought fitt to be credited by the Decree of a General Council nor indeed of any Council that I am able to alledge I know not what Reason to render of it unlesse I may say that they distinguish between their Doctrines and their Opinions or between Things pretended and Things Beleived by their Superiours As if the Governours Themselves whom they make Tantamount to a General Council were not able to beleive the Infallibility they pretend to But only thought fitt that The People should If any other man Can give any better reason I do earnestly desire that what I have given may go for None § 19. And as on the one side Their stedfast Belief That Shee cannot err is enough to confirm them in all their Errors So to convince them on the other side of that one Error will make them ready both to see and renounce the Rest. That it may seem to be a vain or a needless Thing for any man to be lavish of Time or Labour in a particular Ventilation of other controverted Points whilst This of Infallibility remain's untouch't or undecided For if we shew them the Absurdities of Bread and Wine being transmuted into the Body and Blood of Christ or of being so transmuted into Human Flesh and Blood as to retain both the Colour Touch and Tast and all other Adjuncts of Bread and Wine or of its so beginning now to be in the Act of Consecration the numerical Body of a crucified Iesus as to have been the very same under Pontius Pilate as well as in the Virgins Womb or of its beginning to be as often and of as many several Ages as the Priests as their Altars shall please to make it or of its being the same Body whether eaten by a Christian or by a Dog They will defend themselves with This That though 't is Absurd and Impossible yet it is necessarily True because 't is taught by that Church which cannot deceive or be deceiv'd Whereas if once we can convince them that she is able to be deceiv'd who had taught them to believe she is undeceivable and that in matters of greatest moment They cannot chuse but disapprove and forsake her too as the greatest Deceiver in all the world § 20. That Shee is Able to be deceiv'd cannot better be evinced than by the Evidence that Shee Is. And t is evident that Shee Is by her own Confession For shee is no where more seen than in her General Councils whereof when any one does condemn what Shee asserts as no Error or when one does contradict and accuse another of which I have given sufficient Instance she does confess her self Fallible by so declaring She has been False And accordingly Mr. Cressy could not righteously be blam'd by the Roman Partizans for having confessed as he did in his Exhomologesis That this Infallibility is an unfortunate word That he could wish it were forgotten or at least laid aside That Mr. Chillingworth fought against it with too great successe That it is not to be met with in any Council And That the Authority of the Church meaning the Church undepraved was never inlarged by Herself to so great a wideness And as They cannot blame him much less can I for confessing a Disadvantage he could not conveniently deny That which I blame him for is This and for This he can never be blam'd enough That having confessed Infallibility to be one of God's peculiar Incommunicable Attributes and by consequence that the Church which he calls the Roman Catholick can no more be Infallible than Omniscient He has yet been so transported with Partiality to a Church he has resolved to assert whether right or wrong as to communicate That to Her which he confesseth Incommunicable and to affirm that That is Necessary which he confesseth to be Impossible and so to espouse in a Fit of Kindness what in a Fit of Discretion He cannot Own § 2. Having thus cloy'd my Reader with but a Tast of Mr. Cressy I persevere in my purpose not to spend or loose time upon all the Rest partly for the Reason alâ—eady mention'd beeause 't would be as well a thanklesse as needlesse office Partly becasue t is undertaken without my Care or procurement by other men Nor only undertaken But elaborately don too not only by Mr. Whitby and by Him very sufficiently But by a Person of greater Eminence after whom to sett about it would at least be superfluous if not Immodest Partly because I am still disswaded both by the Virulence of mine Enemies and by the Kindnesse of my Friends as well as by many my more peculiar and lessedispensable Employments Lastly because by a little Pattern of any strong or slight Stuff 'T is both the cheapest and easiest way whereby to Judge of the whole Piece 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 FINIS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR THE LIFELESNES of LIFE On the hether side of IMMORTALITY With a Timely Caveat against PROCRASTINATION Briefly expressed and applyed in a SERMON Preached at the Funeral of EDWARD PEYTO of Chesterton in Warwick-shire Esq 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sophocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To my ever Honoured Friend M rs Elizabeth Peyto of Chesterton MADAM TO speak my sense of your many Favours with my reverent esteem of your Approbation and how inclinable I have been to yield obedience to your Commands the greatest expression that I can make hath been hetherto the least that I think is due And now I am sorry I can prove by no better Argument at the present how great a deference and submission I think is due to your Judgment than by my having preferr'd it before mine own in permitting that
A COLLECTION OF SERMONS UPON Several Occasions By THOMAS PIERCE D. D. Praesident of St. Marie Magdalen College in Oxford OXFORD Printed by W. Hall for Ric Royston and Ric Davis MDCLXXI THE CONTENTS of this VOLUME ARE SERMONS PREACHED I. BEfore the Lord Major Court of Aldermen and Common Council of the City of London at St. Pauls Church upon the first Sunday after his Majesties Restauration 1660. II. Before the Honourable the House of Commons in Parliament Assembled at St. Margarets Church Westminster upon the 29. day of May being the Anniversary Day of the King and Kingdoms Restauration 1661. III. Before the Right Honourable the House of Lords at the Abby Church of Westminster upon a Solemn day of Humiliation occasioned by the Great Rain in Iune and Iuly 1661. IV. Before the King at Whitehall upon the Wednesday-Monthly Fast when the Pestilence decreased but yet continued As did also the War with the French and Dutch 1665. V. Before the Clergy of England in Convocation Assembled at S. Pauls Church touching the Power of the Church in a National Synod 1661. VI. Before the University at St. Maries Church in Oxford concerning the Rights of the Civil Magistrate and especially of the Supreme upon the opening of the Term 1664. VII Before the King at Whitehall upon Candlemas Day 1661. VIII Before the University upon Act-Sunday-Morning at St. Maries Church in Oxford touching the Usefulness Necessity of Human Learning c. 1664. IX Before the King at White-Hall in Vindication of our Church against the Novelties of Rome 1662. To which is added in this Edition X. A Paraenesis to the Reader touching the Sermon going before and the Discourse which follows after of Romes pretended Infallibility XI Before a Rural Congregation at the Funeral of Edward Peyto of Chesterton in Warwick-shire Esquire 1659. Englands Season FOR REFORMATION OF LIFE A SERMON DELIVERED IN St. PAUL'S Church LONDON ON THE SUNDAY Next following His Sacred Maiesties RESTAVRATION M.DC.LX Christian Reader THat what I committed the other day to the ears of Many I now so suddainly expose to the eyes of All as I dare not pretend to deserve thy Thanks so I conceive I cannot justly incurr thy censure For it is not in complyance with my peculiar inclinations which of themselves are well known to be sufficiently averse from any farther publication of single Sermons but partly to testify my Obedience to the commands of some Learned and pious Friends partly to frustrate the ill-meant whispers of some unlearned and peevish Enemies How farr I was from a design either to please or to provoke either this or that part of the Congregation And how probably desirous to profit both I leave them both to passe a Iudgement not by any one part but by alltogether It would no doubt have been greivous to me to suffer the contumâ—lies of Men for preaching Loyalty and Love and Reformation of Life a tender care of weak Brethren and a Christian Forbearance of one another if I had not thought it an happy lot to suffer ought for His sake who indur'd for mine such contradiction of sinners against himselfe some affirming he was a good Man and others saying Nay but he deceiveth the People If some are yet so devotedly the Servants of Sin as to hate me for bringing them unawares into the light because the Light hath reproved their evill deeds it cannot be from any hurtfulness either in Me or in the light but from their own sore eyes that their eyes are hurt When Men are exasperated with Lenitives and throw themselves into Paroxysmes after all our Pacifick and most Anodynous applications we ought not sure to think the worse but rather the better of our Praescriptions That Christ Himselfe could do no miracles amongst the Men of his own Country was only the Fault of their prejudice and â—nbeleif That the heat harden's clay is from the untowardness of the clay For if it were wax the heat would melt it Nor is the fault in the Sun but in the Dunghill if the more he shine's on it â—he worse it smell 's I know that those Lovers of publick Discord whom my endeavours to reconcile have made outragious as they are few in point of Number so in point of Quality they are of smallest Consideration And I know there are many most worthy persons whom the Virulence of mine enemies hatb made my Friends So that if I were studious to promote mine own Interest and did not very much preferr the consideration of their Amendment I should not indure as now I shall to sue for peace whilst I am injur'd But still remembring what it is to which as Christians we are appointed or as Souldiers markt out and that we are bound to follow our leader even the Captain of our salvation who was perfected through sufferings I shall cheerfully strive to approve my self as a minister of God by honour and dishonour by evill report and good report as a deceiver and yet true I will blesse being calumniated And being wrong'd above measure I will intreat The more it seems to be impossible to win the inventors of evill things to reconcileableness of Spirit the more will I labour for its Attainment For I will never cease to pray that by that powerfull convincing controuling Spirit which stilleth the raging of the sea and the madness of the People we may be knit together in one mind and in one judgment That the present time of our prosperity may prove the Season for our Amendment and change of life that all bitternesse and wrath and anger and clamor and evill speaking may be put away from us with all malice and that as members of one Body whereof Christ Iesus is the Head we may each of us indeavour in our several stations to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace That this was really the intent of the Following Sermon the later part of the Sermon will make apparent For what was spoken in reflection upon the darknesse of the night was only premised as a Foyl to commend the Day And as a thing without which I could not make an impartial parallel between the Text and the Time Besides that in the method of healing wounds which a flatterer may palliate but cannot cure there is as charitable an use both of the Probe and the Abstersive as there can possibly be of the Oyl and Balsam The Decollation of Gods Anointed which was so farr a Deicide as he was one of those Gods who shall dye like men had been declared by the Parliament before I made my strictures on it to haue been a most horrid and hideous Murder And if my censors did not think they had once offended they would not be candidates as they are for a Royal Pardon It being so naturall for a pardon to include and connotate an offence that unlesse we were conscious of having sinn'd we could not
Token shall they know either that the Councils are truly General and Genuine or at least that being such they are Infallible Of Bellarmine's 18 General Councils which are his first and best species he proves the Approvedness and validity by the Pope's praesiding in or approving of them His General proof is but this They are approved of by the Pope and receiv'd by Papists And what is this but to beg the Question The first 8 Councils he proves to be such by the Decree of the Pope The Nine that follow he proves to be approved Because the Pope praesided in them And the last was confirm'd by Pius Quartus So that a Council's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived from the Pope and depend's upon his Pleasure But now of those 18. there is a very great difference For the first four only were received and rever'd by Gregory the Great as were the four Gospels of Iesus Christ. Which Reverence would have been due to the other fourteen had they been of as great Authority as they needs must have been had all been aequally Infallible in their opinion who own them All. And yet the later Councils had been more valid than the former if 't is not lawful to call a Council without the Authority of the Pope as Marcellus his Decretal affirm's it is not Secondly for the Number of their approved General Councils I see not how it can be agreed For besides that the Greeks receive no more than the first seven The Lutherans but six The Eutychians in Africa no more than three The Nestorians in the East no more than two and the Polonian Trinitarians no more than one which Difference is acknowledged by Bellarmine Himself I say besides This I wonder when Bellarmine will be ever agreed with Pope Paul the fift The former rejecting the Council at Constance from the number of the Approved which yet the Later does admit of with equal Reverence It was reprobated indeed by a worse than it self to wit the Council at Florence next following after but 't was only for decreeing that a Council was above the Pope for which it ought to have been approv'd And abating those things which consist not with the Haughtiness but the just Dignity of the Popes It is as generally received as any other Yet we need no better Argument to prove such a Council above a Pope and the gross fallibility of both together than an Historical Accompt of That one Council as we find it set down by Pope Paul the fift The Third at Constantinople which is commonly reckoned the sixth General Council was by the 14 th at Toledo Can. 7. esteem'd the Fift Implying the former under Vigilius not to have been one of the General Councils which yet with other Councils does pass for such without Question And so much for the Number of general Councils as well as for the Nature of them § 17. Last of all let Mr. Cressy be allow'd to mean at the most Advantage That his General Councils are said to be Infallible not because they cannot but do not err for so he most improperly but yet most kindly helps out himself chap. 9. pag. 98. But does he not think it was an Error in the first Council of Nice as in the third of Constantinople to assent to Paphnutius his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and patronizing the Marriage of Priests as both Socrates and Sozomen and the Roman Decree do alike affirm At least the Council of Eliberis which was contemporary with That Mr. Cressy will say was in an Error for declaring it unlawful to paint in the windows or walls of Churches what is the object of Adoration And so much the rather will he believe it to be an Error because the second Nicene General Council decreed that Images are to be worship'd and denounced an Anathema to all that doubt the Truth of it Does he not think it was an Error in the Council of Chalcedon to Decree unto the Bishop of Constantinople even in causes Ecclesiastical an equality of priuiledges with the Bishop of Rome Or does he not think it was an Error in the sixth General Council to condemn Pope Honorius as a Monothelite and to decree that his Name should be razed out of the Churches Diptychs seeing another General Council since held at Florence hath defined the Pope to be the High-Priâ—st over all the world the Successor of St Peter Christ's Lieutenant The Head of the Church The Father and Teacher of all Christians and one to whom in St. Peter our Lord Iesus Christ did deliver a full Power as well to GOVERN as to feed the Universal Church And did accordingly exauctorate the Council at Constance for seating a Council above a Pope Or is it not thought by Mr. Cressy that This Florentine Council was in an Error in Granting the Roman Church a Power of adding to the Creed which the General Council of Chalcedon had forbidden to be don under the Penalty of a Curse as was observed and urg'd by Pope Vigilius Himself to Eutychius the Patriarch of Constantinople Let Mr. Cressy but compare the sixt General Council whose famous Canons were made in Trullo with the Tridentine Canons and the General Practice of his Church And sure I am he will acknowledge that the one or the other hath foully err'd It was decreed in the sixt That married men without scruple should be admitted into the Priesthood and this without any condition of abstaining thence-forwards from cohabitation lest men should seem to offer Contumely unto God's holy Institution Yea which is most to be observ'd This was a Canon made professedly against the Canon of the Church of Rome whereunto is confronted the antient Canon which is there said to be of Apostolical Perfection Here the Doctrin and Practice of the Chruch of Rome is condemn'd by a Council which is owned to be General by the same Church of Rome The Church of Rome is also condemn'd by the same General Council in its 55 Canon and commanded to conform to the 65 Canon of the Apostles from which they had scandalously departed under two great Poenalties therein express't To all which if I shall add How the 8 th General Council made a peremptory Decree That the Image of Christ is to be worship't as the Gospel of God That whosoever adore's it not shall never see his Face at his second coming never at least by their good will That the Pictures of Angels and all the Saints are in like manner to be adored And that all who think otherwise are to be Anathematiz'd I hope Mr. Cressy and Father Johnson are not such Lovers of Idolatry and Contradiction as not to know and to acknowledge the Fallibility of their Church in a general Council § 18. I have the rather made it my choise to use the Canons and Decrees of Popes and Councils especially of such as by the Romanists themselves are accompted
extraction of Their Pretensions whilst we evince at the same instant the Sacred Antiquity of our own When they obtrude their Revelations or teach for Doctrines of God the meer commandments of men we must aske them every one how they read in the beginning We may not draw out of their Ditches be the Currents never so long whilst we have waters of our own of a nobler Taste which we â—an easily trace back to the crystal spring And first of all it concern's us to marke the Emphasiâ— which our Ancient of dayes thought fit to put on the Beginning that no inferior Antiquity may be in danger to deceive us For there is hardly any Heresie or Usurpation in the Church which may not truly pretend to some great Antiquity though not so old as the Old man much lesse as the Old Serpent The Disciplinarians may fetch theirs from as far as the Heretick Aërius who wanting merit to advance him from a Presbyter to a Bishop wanted not arrogance and envy to lesâ—en the Bishop into a Presbyter But His Antiquity is a Iunior as well to that of the Anabaptists as to that of the Socinians For the Anabaptists may boast they are as old as Agrippinus and the Socinians as Sabellius The Soliâ—idians and Antinomians are come as far as from Eâ—nomius The Ranters from Carpocrates The Millenaries from Papias The Irrespective Reprobatarians from Simon Magus and the Manichees The Pontificians like the Mahumetans have such a Rhapsody of Religion a Religion so compounded of several Errors and Corruptions which yet are blended with many Doctrines most sound and Orthodox that to find out the age of their several Ingredients it will be necessary to â—ake into several Times too THe great Palladium of the Conclave the famous point of Infallibility which if you take away from them down goes their Troy it being absolutely impossible that the learned Members of such a Church should glibly swallow so many Errors unless by swallowing this first That she cannot Erre I say the point of Infallibility which is a very old Article of their very new Creed a Creed not perfected by its Composers until the Council at Trent we cannot better derive than from the Scholars of Marcus in Irenaeus or from the Gnosticks in Epiphanius They had their Purgatory from Origen one of the best indeed in one kind but in another one of the worst of our antient Writers not onely an Heretick but an Haeresiarcha or at the farthest from Tertullian who had it from no better Authour than the Arch-Heretick Montanus Nor does Bellarmine mend the matter by deriving it as far as from Virgil's Aeneid and from Tully in his Tale of the Dream of Scipio and farther yet from Plato's Gorgias unlesse he thinks that an Heathen is any whit fiâ—ter than an Heretick to give Advantage to a point of the Roman Faith Their Denial of Marriage to all that enter into the Priesthood is dated by themselves but from Pope Calixtus Their Transubstantiation is from the Lateran Council Their Half-Communion is no older than since the times of Aquinas unlesse they will own it from the Manichees to give it the credit of more Antiquity Their publick praying before the people in an unknown Tongue may be fetcht indeed as far as from Gregory the Great Their Invocation of Saints departed is no doubt an aged Error though not so aged as they would have it for the gaining of honour to the Invention because St Austin does denie it to have been in his dayes And not to be endless in the beginning of such a limited Discourse as must not presume to exceed an hour though in so fruitful a field of matter 't is very difficult not to be endlesse The Universal Superintendency or Supremacy of the Pope hath been a visible usurpation ever since Boniface the Third And so our Adversaries of Rome have more to plead for Their Errours then all the rest because the rest were but as Mushroms in their severall times soon starting up and as soon cut down whereas the Errours of Rome do enjoy the pretense of Duration too But touching each of those Errors I mean the Errors of their Practice as well as Iudgment we can say with our Saviour in his present Correption of the Pharisees whose Error was older and more authentick that is by Moses his permission had more appearance of Authority and more to be pleaded in its excuse than those we find in the Church of Rome that from the beginning it was not so and we care not whence they come unlesse they come from the Beginning Indeed in matters of meer Indifference which are brought into the Government or outward Discipline of the Church every Church has the Liberty to make her own Constitutions not asking leave of her Sisters much lesse her Children onely they must not be reputed as things without which there is no Salvation nor be obtruded upon the People amongst the Articles of their Faith We are to look upon nothing so but as it comes to us from the Beginning And this has ever been the Rule I mean the warrantable Rule whereby to improve or reform a Church When Esdras was intent on the re-building of the Temple he sent not to Ephesus much lesse to Rome he did not imitate Diana's Temple nor enquire into the Rituals of Numa Pompilius but had recourse for a Temple to that of Solomon and for a Ritual to that of Moses as having both been prescribed by God himself And yet we know the Prophet Haggai made the people steep their Ioy in a showr of Tears by representing how much the Copy had faln short of the Original The holy Prophets in the Old Testament shewing the way to a Reformation advis'd the Princes and the people to ask after the old paths and walk therein as being the only good way for the finding of rest unto their soules Jer. 6. 16. The Prophet Isaiah sought to regulate what was amisse amongst the Iewes by bidding them have recourse unto the Law and the Testimony should not a people seek unto their God If any speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Isa. 8. 19 20. And accordingly their Kings who took a care to reform abuses are in this solemn style commended for it That they walked in the wayes of their Father David that is reform'd what was amiss by what had been from the Beginning So St. Paul in the New Testament setting right what was crooked about the Supper of the Lord in the Church of Corinth laid his line to that Rule which he was sure he had receiv'd from the Lord Himself 1 Cor. 11. 23. And thus our Saviour in my Text finding the Pharisees very fond of a vitious practice which supported it self by an old Tradition and had something of Moses to give it countenance in the world though indeed no more
than a bare permission could not think of a better way to make them sensible of their Error and such an Error as was their Sin too than by shewing them the great and important difference betwixt an Old and a Primitive Custom and that however their breach of Wedlock had been without check from the daies of yore yet 't was for This to be reform'd that 't was not so from the Beginning In a most dutifull conformity to which example our Reformers here in England of happy memory having discâ—ver'd in every part of the Church of Rome not onely horrible Corruptions in point of Practice but hideous Errors in point of Dâ—ctrine and that in matters of Faith too 〈…〉 find an occasion to shew anon and haâ—ving found by what degrees the several Errors and Corruptions were slily brought into the Church as well as the several times and seasons wherein the Novelties received their birth and breeding and presently after taking notice that in the Council of Trent the Roman Partisans were not afraid to make New Articles of Faith whilst the Sacrifice of the Mass the Doctrine of Purgatory the Invocation of Saints the Worship of Images and the like were commanded to be embraced under pain of damnation as it were in contempt of the Apostles denuâ—tiation Gal. 1. 8. by which that practice of those Conspirators made them liable to a curse and farther yet that in the Canon of the Fourth Session of that Council the Roman Church was made to differ as well from her ancient and purer self as from all other Churches besides her self in that there were many meerly human I do not say profane Writings and many unwritten Traditions also not only decreed to be of equal Authority with the Scriptures but with the addition of an Anathema to all that should not so receive them This I say being consider'd and laid to heart by our Reformers by our Kings and our Clergy and Laiety too met together in their greatest both Ecclesiastical and Civil Councils they did not consult with flesh and bloud or expect the Court of Rome should become their Physician which was indeed their great Disease but having recourse unto the Scriptures and Primitive Fathers of the Church they consulted those Oracles how things stood from the Beginning and only separating from Them whom they found to have been Separatists from the primitive Church they Therefore made a Secession that they might not partake of the Roman Schism And whilst they made a Secession for fear of Schism which by no other practice could be avoided they studiously kept to the Golden mean neither destroying the Body out of hatred to the Ulcers with which 't was spread nor yet retaining any Ulcer in a passionate dotage upon the Body One remarkable Infirmity it is obvious to observe in the Popish Writers they ever complain we have left their Church but never shew us that Iöta as to which we have left the Word of God or the Apostles or the yet-uncorrupted and primitive Church or the Four first General Councils We are so zealous for Antiquity provided it be but Antique Enough that we never have despised a meer Tradition which we could track by sure footsteps from as far as the times of the purest Christians But this is still their childish fallacy be it spoken to the shame of their greatest Giants in Dispute who still vouchsafe to be guilty of it that they confidently shut up the Church in Rome as their Seniors the Donatists once did in Africk and please to call it the Catholick Church not formally but causally saith Cardinal Peron because forsooth That Particular doth infuse universality into all other Churches besides it self The learned Cardinal forgetting which is often the effect of his very good memory that the preaching of Christ was to begin at Ierusalem So it was in the Prophesie Isa. 2. 3. Mic. 4. 2. and so in the completion Luke 24. 47. Nor was it Rome but Antioch in which the Disciples were first call'd Christians Acts 11. 26. At Antioch therefore there was a Church before St Peter went thence to Rome Nay 't is expresly affirm'd by Gildas an Author very much revered by the Romanists themselves that Christianity was in Britain in the latter time of Tiberius Caesar some while after whose death 't is known that St Peter remain'd in Iewry So that Rome which pretends to be a Mother can be no more at the best then a Sister-Church and not the eldest Sister neither Neglecting therefore the pretended Universality of the Roman that is to say of a Particular Church let us compare her Innovations with what we find from the Beginning For This I take to be the fittest and the most profitable Vse that we can make of the subject we have in hand And first consider we the Supremacy or Universal Pastorship of her Popes which is indeed a very old and somewhat a prosperous Usurpation an Usurpation which took its rise from more than a thousand years ago But then besides that it was sold by the Emperour Phocas at once an Heretick and a Regicide the Devillish Murderer of Mauritius who was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Royal Image or Type of our late Royal Martyr of Sacred Memory I say besides that it was sold by the most execrable Phocas that is to say by the greatest Villain in the world excepting Cromwell and Pontius Pilate and besides that it was sold to ambitious Boniface the Third whose vile compliance with that Phocas was the bribe or price with which he bought it and besides that it was don not out of reverence to the Pope but in displeasure to Cyriacus of Constantinople who from Iohn his Predecessor usurpt the Title of Vniversal before any Pope had pretended to it I say besides or without all this it is sufficient for us to say what our Saviour here said to the ancient Pharisees That from the beginning it was not so For looking back to the Beginning We find The Wall of God's City had Twelve Foundations and in them were the names of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb. Rev. 21. 14. Paul was equal at least to Peter when he withstood him to the face and rebuked him in publick for his Dissimulation Gal. 2. 11 12 13 14. Nay St Peter himself as well as Iames and Iohn who were his Peers although he seemed to be a Pillar yet perceiving the Grace that was given to Paul gave to Barnabas and Paul the right hand of Fellowship Gal. 2. 9. And reason good For St Peter was but One of the many Apostles of the Iewes whereas St Paul was much more the great Apostle of the Gentiles to whom the Iewes were no more than as a River to an Ocean Saint Peter was commanded not to fleece but to feed the flock Noâ— was it ever once known that he did lord it over Gods heritage which himself had so strictly forbid to
others 1 Pet. 5. 3. In deed a Primacy of Order may very easily be allow'd to the See of Rome But for any One Bishop to affect over his Brethren a supremacy of Power and Iurisdiction is a most impudent opposition both to the Letter and to the Sense of our Saviour's precept Mar. 10. 42 43. 44. Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and their great ones exercise authority upon them But so shall it not be among you But whosoever will be great among you shall be your Minister and whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be the servant of all That the Apostles were every one of equall power and authority is the positive saying of St Cyprian Pari consortio praediti honoris potestatis And St Ierome is as expresse That all Bishops in all places whether at Rome or at Eugubium at Constantinople or at Rhegium are of the very same merit as to the quality of their Office how much soever they may differ in point of Revenue or of Endowments Nay by the Canons of the Two first Generall Councils Nice and Constantinople every Patriarch and Bishop is appointed to be chief in his proper Dioecese as the Bishop of Rome is the chief in His. And a strict injunction it laid on all the Bishop of Rome not excepted that they presume not to meddle in any Diocese but their own And the chief Primacies of Order were granted to Rome and to Constantinople not for their having been the Sees of such or such an Apostle but for being the two Seats of the two great Empires Witness the famous Canon of the General Council at Chalcedon decreeing to the Bishop of Constantinople an equality of Priviledges with the Bishop of Rome not for any other reason than its having the good hap to be one of the two Imperial Cities Nay no longer ago before Boniface the Third who was the first Bishop of Rome that usurpâ—t the Title of Vniversal I say no longer before Him than his next immediate Predecessor Pope Gregory the Great for I reckon Sabinian was but a Cypher the horrible Pride of succeeding Popes was stigmatiz'd by a Prolepsis by way not of Prophecy but of Anticipation For Gregory writing to Mauritius the then-reigning Emperour and that in very many Epistles touching the name of Universal which the Bishop of Constantinople had vainly taken unto himself call's it a wicked and proâ—ane and blasphemous Title a Title importing that the times of Antichrist were at hand little thinking that Pope Boniface would presently after his decease usurp the same and prove the Pope to be Antichrist by the confession of a Pope He farther disputed against the Title by an Argument leading ad absurdum That if any one Bishop were Universal there would by consequence be a failing of the Vniversal Church upon the failing of such a Bishop An Argument ad homines not easily to be answer'd whatsoever Infirmity it may labour with in itself And such an Argument is That which we bring against the Pope's pretended Headship For if the Pope is the Head of the Catholick Church then the Catholick Church must be the Body of the Pope because the Head and the Body are the Relative and Correlative and being such they are convertible in obliquo And then it followes unavoidably That when there is no Pope at all which is very often the Catholick Church hath then no Head and when there are many Popes at once which hath been sometimes the case then the Catholick Church must have at once many Heads and when the Pope is Heretical as by the confession of the Papists he now and then is the Catholick Church hath such an Head as makes her deserve to be beheaded That Popes have been Hereticks and Heathens too not only by denying the Godhead of the Son and by lifting him up above the other two Persons but even by sacrificing to Idols and a total Apostasie from the Faith is a thing so clear in the writings of Platina and Onuphrius that 't is the Confession of the most zealous and partial Asserters of their Supremacy I know that Stella and those of the Spanish Inquisition do at once confesse this and yet adhere to their Position That with his Colledge of Cardinals the Pope cannot err and is the Head of the Church But St Hilary of Poictiers was so offended at Pope Liberius his espousing the Arian Heresie that he affirm'd the true Church to have been Then onely in France Ex eo inter nos tantùm Communio Dominica continetur So ill success have they met with who have been Flatterers of the Pope or the Court of Rome To conclude this first instance in the fewest words that I can use Whosoever shall read at large vvhat I have time onely to hint the many Liberties and Exemptions of the Gallican Church and the published Confessions of Popish Writers for more than a thousand years together touching the Papal Vsurpations and Right of Kings put together by Goldastus in three great Volumes he vvill not be able to deny let his present perswasion be vvhat it vvill that the Supremacy of the Pope is but a Prosperous Vsurpation and hath This lying against it that 't was not so from the beginning Secondly 'T is true that for several Ages the Church of Rome hath pretended to be Infallible as vvell Incapable of error as not erroneous But from the beginning it was not so For besides that Infallibility is one of God's peculiar and incommunicable Attributes where there is not Omniscience there must be Ignorance in part and where Ignorance is there may be Error That Heresie is Error in point of Faith and that Novatianism is Heresie all sides agree And 't is agreed by the Champions of the Papacy it self such as Baronius Pamelius and Petavius that Rome it self was the Nest in which Novatianism was hatcht and not only so but that There it continued from Cornelius to Coelestine which wants not much of two hundred years To passe by the Heresies of the Donatists and the Arians which strangely prosper'd for a time and spread themselves over the world the former over the West the later over the East and as far as the Breast of the Pope himself one would have thought that the Tenet of Infallibility upon Earth had been sufficiently prevented by the Heresie of the Chiliasts wherewith the Primitive Church her self I mean the very Fathers of the Primitive Church for the two first Centuries after Christ was not onely deceiv'd by Papias who was a Disciple of St Iohn but for ought I yet learn without the least Contradiction afforded to it Nay the whole Church of God in the opinion of St. Austin and Pope Innocent the third and for six hundred years together if Maldonate the Iesuit may be believ'd thought the Sacrament
in the next verse after my Text as if they meant nothing more than the opening of a way to rebel against him For besides that in the Canon of the Council at Trent a Divorce quoad Torum Torum ob multas Causas was decreed to be just in the Church of Rome although our Lord had twice confin'd it to the Sole Cause of Fornication Matth. 5. 32 19. 9. And besides that the word Totum was constantly reteined in four Editions particularly in That which had the Care and Command of Pope Paul the Fifth Let it be granted that the Council did mean no more than a meer Sequestration from Bed and Board to endure for a certain or uncertain time and not an absolute Dissolution of the Conjugal Knot yet in the Judgment of Chemnitius yea and of Maldonat Himself who was as learned a Iesuite as that Society ever had it would be opposite even so to the Law of Christ. For he who putteth away his Wife for any Cause whatsoever besides the Cause of Fornication commits Adultery saith the Iesuit even for this very reason because he makes Her commit it whom he unduly putteth away Nay Chemnitius saith farther That the Papal Separation from Bed and Board is many wayes a Dissolution of the Conjugal Tye. Nor does he content himself to say or affirm it only but by a Confluence of Scriptures does make it good That against the Command of our blessed Saviour in the verse but one before my Text That which God hath joyn'd together the men of Rome do put asunder By these and many more Corruptions in point of Practice and Doctrine too which were no more then Deviations from what had been from the Beginning and which the learnedest Sons of the Church of Rome have been forced to confess in their publick writings the awakened part of the Christian world were compell'd to look out for a Reformation That there was in the See of Rome the most abominable Practice to be imagin'd we have the liberal Confession of zealous Stapleton himself and of those that have publisht their Penitentials We have the published Complaints of Armachanus and Grostead and Nicolas de Clemangis Iohn of Hus and Ierome of Prague Chancellor Gerson and Erasmus and the Archbishop of Spalato Ludovicus Vives and Cassander who are known to have died in the same Communion did yet impartially complain of some Corruptions Vives of their Feasts at the Oratories of Martyrs as being too much of kin unto the Gentiles Parentalia which in the judgment of Tertullian made up a species of Idolatry And Caâ—ander confesses plainly that the Peoples Adoration paid to Images and Statues was equal to the worst of the ancient Heathen So the buying and selling of Papal Indulgences and Pardons 't is a little thing to say oâ— Preferments too was both confest and inveigh'd against by Popish Bishops in Thuanus Now if with all their Corruptions in point of Practice which alone cannot justifie a People's Separation from any Church though the Cathari and the Donatists were heretofore of that opinion we compare their Corruptions of Doctrine too and that in matter of Faith as hath been shew'd Corruptions intrenching on Fundamentals it will appear that That door which was open'd by Us in our first Reformers was not at all to introduce but to let out Schism For the schism must needs be Theirs who give the Cause of the Separation not Theirs who do but separate when Cause is given Else S. Paul had been to blame in that he said to his Corinthians Come ye out from among them and be ye separate 2 Cor. 6. 17. The actual Departure indeed was Ours but Theirs the causal as our immortal Arch-Bishop does fitly word it we left them indeed when they thrust us out as they cannot but go whom the Devil drives But in propriety of speech we left their Errors rather then Them Or if a Secession was made from Them 't was in the very same measure that They had made one from Christ. Whereas They by their Hostilities and their Excommunications departed properly from vs not from any Errors detected in us And the wo is to Them by whom the offence cometh Matth. 18. 7. not to Them to whom 't is given If when England was in a Flame by Fire sent out of Italy we did not abstein from the quenching of it until water might be drawn from the River Tiber it was because our own Ocean could not only do it sooner but better too That is to say without a Figure It did appear by the Concession of the most learned Popish VVriters that particular Nations had still a power to purge themselves from their corruptions as well in the Church as in the State without leave had from the See of Rome and that 't was commonly put in practice above a thousand years since It did appeare that the Kings of England at least as much as those of Sicily were ever held to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that by the Romanists themselves until by gaining from Henry the First the Investiture of Bishops from Henry the Second an Exemption of the Clergy from Secular Courts and from easie King Iohn an unworthy Submission to forreign Power the Popes became strong enough to call their strength the Law of Iustice. And yet their Incroachments were still oppos'd by the most pious and the most learned in every Age. Concerning which it were easie to give a satisfactory account if it were comely for a Sermon to exceed the limits of an hour In a word it did appear from the Code and Novels of Iustinian from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set out by the Emperour Zeno from the practice of Charles the Great which may be judged by the Capitulars sent abroad in his Name from the designs and Indeavours of two late Emperors Ferdinand the First and Maximilian the Second from all the commended Kings of Iudah from the most pious Christian Emperours as far as from Constantine the Great and from many Kings of England in Popish times too that the work of Reformation belong'd especially to Them in their several Kingdoms And this is certain that neither Prescription on the Pope's side nor Discontinuance on the King 's could adde a Right unto the one or any way lessen it in the other For it implies a contradiction that what is wrong should grow right by being prosperous for a longer or shorter season Had the Pope been contented with his Primacy of Order and not ambitiously affected a Supremacy of Power and over all other Churches besides his own we never had cast off a Yoke which had never been put upon our Necks And so 't is plain that the Usurper did make the Schism If Sacrilege any where or Rebellion did help reform Superstition That was the Fault of the Reformers not at all of the Reformation nor of All Reformers neither For the most
〈◊〉 than an implicit explication of an Affirmative by a Negative The immutable God can preserve mutable creatures from actual mutation ibid. thereby implying that the Immutable cannot communicate his incommunicable Attribute of Immutability to any creature even because he cannot possibly perfect a creature into Himself But from actual mutation he can preserve any Creature as well an Ignorant single man as a whole Church Catholick Thus by endeavouring to uphold Mr. Cressy does throughly Destroy his Doctrine All he saith coming to this That however God only is Undeceivable yet he is able to preserve his deceivable creatures from being actually deceiv'd Sed quid hoc ad Iphicli Boves The Question is not Whether God can preserve a Chruch from being actually in error for so he can and often does particular Members of his Church But whether de facto he hath granted an Inerrability or an Impossibility of erring unto that which they call the Roman Catholick Church Not whether the Church is actually false in her opinions but whether or no she is Infallible or exempted by God from the passive power of giving false Judgment in points of Faith Will Mr. Cressy so confound an Adjective in Bilis with a Participle derived from the passive preterperfest Tense as either to argue à non actu ad non potentiam or else to pass over from the one unto the other Will he argue that Adam before his fall was Impeccable because he yet was preserved from actual sin or that the Church was Infallible in the Apostles own Times because she was not erroneous until she was He cannot sure be so destitute either of Logick or Grammer skill I think it rather his skill to dissemble both as finding no other way to dispute a whole Chapter for such a Doctrin unless he either beg's or forsakes the Question § 11. But now to give him more Advantage than he is mindful to give himself when he allows so great a privilege to the present Governours of the Church in every Age whom he will have to be the living and speaking Iudges to whom without contradiction all particular Churches as well as persons must meekly yield up their Assent Let us allow it to be his meaning not that These are undeceivable but that God doth still preserve them from being actually deceiv'd Was not Pope Hildebrand himself the supream speaking Iudge when yet the Council at Wormes did set him out as a Brand of Hell Was not Iohn the 23. the supream speaking Iudge of Mr. Cressy's then present visible Church when yet he openly deny'd the Immortality of the soul and for That with other crimes was condemn'd by the Council then held at Constance Were not Iohn the 22. and Anastasius the 2. the supream speaking Iudges in their several Times who yet were both stigmatiz'd for the Crime of Heresie Let Mr. Cressy now speak like an honest man Were such superiours as these then living and speaking to conclude all controversies to Interpret Scripture and the Fathers to put to silence all particular Churches to subdue mens minds to an Assent and this under the penalty of their being cut off from the body of Christ Let him read his own dictates p. 97. It will but little mend the matter to say the Pope is but One and that He spake of All Superiours Because besides that they may All have their Byasses and Errors as well as He in case they are All consulted with as they never are 'T is very evident that the Pope like the Sun among the Stars is more than All in all Cases The greatest part of those Councils which they are pleas'd to call General have been indeed little better than the meer Properties of their Popes which that I may not seem to say as one that loves to speak sharply but rather as compell'd by their own Accompts of them I shall here give an Instance in One or Two § 12. In the last Lateran Council under Julius the 2. and Leo the 10. The Holy Scriptures at the first Session are humbly laid down at his Holiness's feet And an Oath being administred are formally toucht by the Officials The Pope in that Session is call'd The Prince of all the world and in the next The Priest and the King to be adored by all the People as being most like to God Himself Accordingly in the 3 d The Kingdom of France by Pope Iulius is subjected to an Interdict and the Mart held at Lyons transferr'd to Geneva The Pragmatick Sanction is rescinded in the fourth for the improving of the Trade of Ecclesiastical Hucksters the buying and selling of Church-Preferments The Pope is asserted as God's Lieutenant upon Earth though not of equal merits A very signal Condescension and to be kept in everlasting Remembrance God is meekly acknowledg'd to be superiour to the Pope In the fifth Session Iulius die's another great Condescension And Leo his Successor is saluted as no less than the Lion of the Tribe of Iudah the Root of David the Saviour and Deliverer that was to come A pretty clintch but a blasphemous complement and unworthy a Bishop's mouth In the eighth and ninth Sessions This Lion Roar's first against them that shall violate his Decrees in the present Council to whom he threatens such a Sentence of Excommunication as none but Himself could absolve them from Next against the Emperour Kings and Princes whom he chargeth not to hinder such as were coming to the Council under the penalty of incurring God's Displeasure and his own In the last of those two Sessions Antonius Puccius tells Leo how his Eyes are darkned by the rutilant Brightness of his Divine Majesty in him alone as the Vicar of God and of Christ That saying of the Prophet ought again to have its completion All the Kings of the Earth shall come and Worship All the Nations under Heaven shall do him Service In a word throughout the whole Council nothing is carried by the counsel or consultation of Assessors for Assistants I cannot call them nothing by suffrages or votes from them that make it wear the name of a General Council But the supreme present Iudge to use the phrase of Mr. Cressy as an Infallible Dictator ordained All This is constantly the Preface to each Decree in That Council Leo Episcopus servus servorum Dei ad perpetuam rei memoriam approbante Concilio c. § 13. So again in their last and best beloved General Council All the Fathers do but prepare convenient matter for Decrees whereunto the Popes Fiat does give the life Their two and twenty years contrivances do end at last in a meek Petition That his Holiness will vouchsafe to confirm what they had done that is to inform the lifeless matters they had prepared which could not have the nature and force of Articles or Decrees until the Pope had breathed on them the Breath of Life So a little before That The General Council