putting an Oath to all the Clergy of the Christian Church within your power to be true to the Pope and to obey him as the Vicar of Christ Who first taught men to swear that they would not interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous Consent of the Fathers Who was the first that brought in the doctrine or name of Transubstantiation and who first made it an Article of faith Who first made it a point of faith to believe that there are just seven Sacraments neither fewer nor more Did any before the Council of Trent swear men to receive and profess without doubting all things delivered by the Canons and Oecumenical Councils when at the same time they cast off themselves the Canons of many General Councils and so are generally and knowingly perjured as e. g. the twentieth Canon of Nice forementioned These and abundance more you know to be Novelties with you if wilfulness or gross ignorance bear not rule with you and without great impudence you cannot deny it Tell us now when these first came up and satisfie your selves One that was afterward your Pope Aeneas Sylvins Epist 288. saith that before the Council of Nice there was little respect had to the Church of Rome You see here the time mentioned when your foundation was not laid Your Learned Cardinal Nicol. Cusanus lib. de Concord Cathol c. 13. c. tells you how much your Pope hath gotten of late and plainly tells you that the Papacy is but of Positive right and that Priests are equall and that it is subjectional consent that gives the Pope and Bishops their Majority and that the distinction of Diocesses and that a Bishop be over Presbyters are of Positive right and that Christ gave no more to Peter than the rest and that if the Congregate Church should choose the Bishop of Trent for their President and Head he should be more properly Peters Successor then the Bishop of Rome Tell us now when the contrary doctrine first arose Gregory de valentia de leg usu Euchar. cap. 10. tells you that the Receiving the Sacrament in one kind began not by the decree of any Bishop but by the very use of the Churches and the consent of believers and tels you that it is unknown when that Custom first begun or got head but that it was General in the Latine Church not long before the late Council of Constance And may you not see in this how other points came in If Pope Zosimus had but had his will and the Fathers of the Carthage Council had not diligently discovered shamed and resisted his forgery the world had received a new Nicene Canon and we should never have known the Original of it It s a considerable Instance that Usher brings of using the Church service in a known tongue The Latine tongue was the Vulgar tongue when the Liturgy and Scripture was first written in it at Rome and far and neer it was understood by all The service was not changed as to the language but the language it self changed and so Scripture and Liturgy came to be in an unknown tongue And when did the Latine tongue cease to be understood by all Tell us what year or by whom the change was made saith Erasmus Decl. ad censur Paris tit 12. § 41. The Vulgar tongue was not taken from the people but the people departed from it 5. We are certain that your errors were not in the times of the Apostles nor long after and therefore we are sure that they are Innovations And if I find a man in a Dropsie or a Consumption I would not tell him that he is well and ought not to seek remedy unless he can tell when he began to be ill and what caused it You take us to be Heretical and yet you cannot tell us when our errors did first arise Will you tell us of Luther You know the Albigenses whom you murdered by hundreds and thousands were long before him Do you know when they begun Your Reinerius saith that some said they were from Silvesters dayes and some said since the Apostles but no other beginning do you know 6. But to conclude what need we any more then to find you owning the very doctrine and practise of Innovation When you maintain that you can make us new Articles of faith and new worship and new discipline and that the Pope can dispense with the Scriptures and such like what reason have we to believe that your Church abhorreth Novelty If you deny any of this I prove it Pope Leo the tenth among other of Luthers opinions reckoneth and opposeth this as Hereticall It is certain that it is not in the hand of the Church or Pope to make Articles of faith in Bulla cont Luth. The Council of Constance that took the supremacy justly from the Pope did unjustly take the Cup from the Laity in the Eucharist Licet in primitivâ Ecclesiâ hujusmodi Sacramentum reciperetur a fidelibus sub utraque specie i. e. Though in the primitive Church this Sacrament was received by Believers under both kinds The Council of Trent say Sess 21. cap. 1 2. that this power was alway in the Church that in dispensing the Sacraments saving the substance of them it might ordain or change things as it should judge most expedient to the profit of the receiver Vasquez To. 2. Disp 216. N. 60. saith Though we should grant that this was a precept of the Apostles nevertheless the Church and Pope might on just causes abrogate it For the Power of the Apostles was no greater then the power of the Church and Pope in bringing in Precepts These I cited in another Treatise against Popery page 365. Where also I added that of Pope Innocent Secundum plenitudinem potestatis c. By the fulness of our power we can dispense with the Law above Law And the Gloss that oft saith The Pope dispenseth against the Apostle against the Old Testament The Pope dispenseth with the Gospell interpreting it And Gregor de valent saying Tom. 4. disp 6. q. 8. Certainly some things in later times are more rightly constituted in the Church then they were in the beginning And of Cardinal Peron's saying lib. 2. Obs 3. cap. 3. pag. 674. against King James of the Authority of the Church to alter matters conteined in the Srripture and his instance of the form of Sacraments being alterable and the Lords command Drink ye all of it mutable and dispensable And Tolets Its certain that all things instituted by the Apostles were not of Divine right Andradius Defens Concil Trid. lib. 2. pag. 236. Hence it is plain that they do not err that say the Popes of Rome may sometime dispense with Laws made by Paul and the four first Councils And Bzovius The Roman Church using Apostolical power doth according to the Condition of times change all things for the better And yet will you not give us leave to take you for changers and Novelists But let us add
hath Articles besides those of the Creed But the Synod of Dort hath more But those in the Bull are new as Dr. Rivet will have it But very many learned men think otherwise that they are not new if they be rightly understood and that this appeareth by the places both of holy Scripture and of such as have ever been of great authority in the Church which are cited in the Margin of the Canons of Trent Pag. 35. And this is it which the Synod of Trent saith that in that Sacrament Jesus Christ true God truly man is really substantially conteined under the form of those sensible things yet not according to the naturall manner of existing but Sacramentally and by that way of existing which though we cannot express in words yet may we by cogitation illustrated by faith be certain that to God it is possible And the Council hath found words to express it that there is made a change of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and the whole substance of Wine into the Blood which conversion the Catholick Church calleth Transubstantiation Pag. 79. When the Synod of Trent saith that the Sacrament is to be adored with Divine worship it intends no more but that the Son of God himself is to be adored I le add no more but that which tells you who is a Papist with the Grotians and who is none Pag. 15. In that Epistle Grotius by Papists meant those that without any difference do approve of all the sayings and doings of Popes for honor or lucre sake as is usual Ibid. He tells us that by Papists he meaneth not them That saving the right of Kings and Bishops do give to the Pope or Bishop of Rome that Primacy which ancient custom and Canons and the Edicts of ancient Emperors and Kings assign them Which Primacy is not so much the Bishops as the very Roman Churches preferred before all other by common consent It 's well it hath so mutable a foundation so Liberius the Bishop being so lapsed that he was dead to the Church the Church of Rome retained its right and defended the cause of the Universal Church This and much more I had given the Reader before in Latine but because Mr. Pierce thinks that I wrong Grotius if you have it not in English I have born so much respect to his words and to the Reader as to remove the wrong and thus far to satisfie his desire Having told you some of the Occasion of this writing I shall add somewhat of the Reasons of it but the less because I have given you so much of them already in my foresaid Discovery of the Grotian Religion 1. My principal Reason is that before expressed that Popery may be pulled up by the very roots For Italians French and all build on this that the Church must have one visible Head 2. That I might take in those parties of the Papists that I have past by or said less to in the former Part of the Book 3. Because I see what Influence the conceit that I dispute against hath on the minds of many well-meaning less judicious people 4. Because I perceive in part what influence the design of Grotius had upon England in the changes that were the occasion of our late wars He saith himself Discuss pag. 16. That the labors of Grotius for the Peace of the Church were not displeasing to many equal men many know at Paris and many in all France many in Poland and Germany and not a few in England that are placid and lovers of peace For as for the now-raging Brownists and others like them with whom Dr. Rivet better agreeth then with the Bishops of England who can desire to please them that is not touched with their venom So that he had Episcopal Factors here in England And whereas some tell me that Grotius was no Papist because he professed his high esteem of the Church of England and say they had Church-preferment here offered him and thought to have accepted it I answer 1. Either it was Grotius in the first Edition or the Church of England in the second Edition then in the Press that this must be spoken of if true 2. Was not Franciscus a Sancta Clara still the Queens ghostly Father a Papist for all he reconciled the Doctrine of the Church of England to that of Rome Grotius and he did plainly manage the same design 3. Mr. Pierce assures you by his Defence that Grotius hath still his followers in England of the party that he called the Church of England And is it any more proof that Grotius was a Protestant for joyning with them then that they are Papists that joyn with him Is not his Doctrine here given you in his Englished words Do you doubt whether the Council of Trent were Papists This makes me remember the words of the late King to the Marquess of Worcester when the Marbuess came into the room to an appointed conference about religion with him leaned on D. Bayly's arm he told the King that he came leaning on a Doctor of his own Church and the King replyed My Lord I know not whether I should think the better of you for the Doctors sake or the worse of the Doctor for your sake or to this purpose And indeed the Doctor quickly shew'd by professing himself a Papist what an Episcopal Divine he was And I think we have as fair advantage to resolve us whether to think the better of Grotius for the Church of Englands sake or the worse of those that he called the Church of England and that were of his mind for Grotius sake In a late Treatise De Antiqua Ecclesiae Brittanicae libertate Diatribe written by I. B. a Divine of the Church of England and printed at Bruges 1656 pag. 34 35. Thes 4. it is averred That since the ancient liberty of the British Church was by the consent of the whole Kingdom resumed remaining Catholick in all other things it may retain that Liberty without losing its Catholicism and without any note of Schism or Heresie This Liberty then was the Reformation And this he saith was maintained by Barnes a Papist and Benedictine Monk and Priest in a M. S. entituled Catholico-Romanus Pacificus c. 3. and that for this sober work of his the Peaceable Monk though of unblamed life and unspotted fame was snatch out of the midst of Paris and stript of his habit and bound on a Horse-back like a Calf and violently carryed into Flanders and so to Rome and so to the Inquisition and then put among the Bedlams where he dyed and not contented with his death they defamed him to have dyed mad Though Rome give Peace no better entertainment the Learned Author thinks that France will and therefore adds concerning the French Church Quâcum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 optanda foret etiamnum veteris redintegratio concordiae quam constat plus mille ab hinc annis amicissime intercessisse inter
content with this to govern Volunteers The other is by Commands that shall be seconded with force And this is proper to the Magistrate But if they will be deluded to give up their Crowns and Scepters to the Pope let them stand as the objects of the compassion of Spectators Much more then I have here given you I had prepared of the Testimony of Antiquity against them But here is more then they are able solidly to answer and I was afraid of over-whelming the capacity of ordinary Readers I understand not the French Tongue but by the Testimony of Learned men that understand them and especially by the help of a Noble friend that hath vouchsafed to translate some part of them for my use I am imboldened to a confidence that the two famous Confutations of the great Perron will stand to the perpetual shame of Popery which none of them will be ever able to Reply to without as great a dishonour to their Cause as will follow their not daring to Reply I mean Blondell's Book De Primatu in Ecclesia which overwhelms them utterly with the witness of Antiquity Pet. Molinaeus de Novitate Papismi which I hope his Reverend Son of his name may live to help us to in English But if any of the Romanists that dare not meddle with those Champions nor dash themselves upon those Pillars shall yet vouchsafe an Answer to this smaller work I do hereby assure him that if he wil do it soberly in the fear of God in a way of close and solid Arguing he will perform a task that will be very acceptable to me But niblers snarlers cavillers and senseless praters I shall contemn Richard Baxter The Contents CHap. 1. Popery no way to Unity page 1. Chap. 2. Directions for them that will deal with a Papist p. 5. Chap. 3. Argum. 1. Against Popery by which every honest godly man is secured from them p. 9. Chap. 4. The second Argument p. 16. Chap. 5. Argum. 3. That deposing Kings that will not exterminate us and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance and giving their Dominions to others is an Article of the Papists Faith p. 17 18. Chap. 6. Argum. 4. The Church of Rome unholy in its Essentials p. 21 22 c. Chap. 7. Argum. 5. The Papists of more then One Church yet each part pretending to be the Catholick Church p. 26. Chap. 8. Argum. 6. The Church of Rome hath discontinued p. 31. Chap. 9. Argum. 7. From sense securing all men from Popery that will believe their eyes or any of their or others senses T 's frivolous answer refelled p. 34. Chap. 10. Detect 1. Prove them but guilty of one Error in Faith and all Popery is confuted p. 38. Chap. 11. Detect 2. A Doctrine so contrary to Scripture and it self cannot be free from Error p. 39. Chap. 12. Detect 3. Agree on the way of proof before you dispute Papists will take neither Sense Reason Scripture nor the Tradition or Judgement of the greater part of the Church for judge or proof p. 41. Chap. 13. Detect 4. Understand what they mean when they call to you for a Judge of Controversies How far a Judge is necessary and who p. 43. Chap. 14. Detect 5. They pretend that in their way there is an End of Controversies but in ours there is none Detected p. 46. Chap. 15. Detect 6. Their boast of Unity and reproaching us with Divisions Detected p. 52. Chap. 16. Detect 7. Their confounding the Essentials and Integrals of Christianity Detected p. 63. Chap. 17. Detect 8. Their extolling the judgement of the Catholick Church Detected It is against them p. 71. Chap. 18. Detect 9. Some of their deluding Ambiguities Detected 1. In the word Church 2. In the word Pope 3. A General Council Bring them to Define what they mean by these and you break them p. 73. Chap. 19. Detect 10. Their Confounding 1. An humane Ordinance and a Divine 2. Meere Primacy with Soveraignty 3. An alterable Order with an unalterable Essential Detected p. 81. Chap. 20. Detect 11. The vanity of their pretending Tradition detected p. 86. How far we are for Tradition p. 87. Tradition confoundeth Popery p. 98. Chap. 21. Detect 12. Their pretence that the Greeks and all other Churches were once under the Pope Detected p. 102. Chap. 22. Detect 13. Their plea that the Church of Rome is a True Church and therefore we are Schismaticks for separating from it Detected p. 103. Chap. 23. Detect 14. Their pretending to fixed Unity and settledness and that we are at uncertainty incoherent and changelings Detected p. 107. Chap. 24. Detect 15. Their plea that our Church and Religion is new and theirs old and their calling for a Catalogue and proof of the Succession of our Church before Luther Detected and our Church made known to them p. 115. And vindicated from Turbervile's exceptions Proved fully that persons differing in points of Faith are Christians and of the same Church p. 125 127 c. And that the Abassines Armenians Copties Greeks c. are of the same Church with us proved T 's proof of their Succession confuted to p. 141. Chap. 25. Detect 16. Their jumbling all our differences together and then making lesser or common differences to be the Protestant Religion Detected p. 141. Thirty two points of Popery named which they are challenged to prove a Succession of with my promise to receive what is so proved T 's Arguments for the Succession of their Doctrine confuted to p. 155. Papists have those in their Church that differ in point of Faith p. 155. No such difference between us and the most of the Christian world as can prove us not of the same Catholick Church proved against H. T. in the instances 1. Of Invocation of Saints p. 157. 2. Praying for the dead p. 160. 3. Veneration or Adoration of Images Cross and Reliques p. 162. 4. Transubstantiation 5. Satisfaction and Purgatory 6. Of Fasts Free-will c. Chap. 26. Detect 17. Their false interpretation of the sayings of Ancients from whence they would extort a proof of their Soveraignty Detected in eight instances p. 169. Chap. 27. Detect 18. Their corrupting Councils and Fathers and citing such Detected p. 176. Chap. 28. Detect 19. Their perswading the people that we are all Lyars that nothing we say and write may be regarded p. 182. Chap. 29. Detect 20. Their feigned Miracles 184. The story of the Boy of Bilson p. 185. Chap. 30. Detect 21. Their Impudent slanders The horrid Lyes against Luther and Calvin insisted on by the Marquess of Worcester and their common Writers fully detected p. 189. Chap. 31. Detect 22. Their quarrels at our Translations of Scripture p. 200. Chap. 32. Detect 23. Their design to make the Ministers odious to the people Their riches and ours compared p. 201. Chap. 33. Detect 24. Their cavils against our Ministry Ordination and Succession confuted p. 205. Chap. 34. Detect 25. Their pretence of the Holiness of their Church
my Lecture-day from Thursday to Friday that I change my Religion or the worship of God These are our great changes Well I will you now hear whether the Papists or we be the greatest Changlings 1. Some just changes they have made themselves that they know well enough are as great as ours It was so common in the antient Church to Pray only standing on every Lords day and not to kneel at all in any part of the worship of that day that it was taken for an universal Tradition and to kneel was taken for a great sin and condemned by General Councils many hundred years after Christ and yet the Church of Rome and other Churches as well as we have cast off this pretended Tradition violated this Decree of General Councils and forsaken this universal Custom of the Church And the Papists receive the Eucharist kneeling for all this Law and Custome In the primitive Church and in Tertullians dayes a Common Feast of the Church was used with the Lords Supper and the Sacrament taken then But now this Custom is also changed It was then the Custom to sing extempore in the Congregation to Gods praise But now Rome it self hath no such Custom It was once the Custom to give Infants the Lords Supper but now Rome it self hath cast off that Custom Once it was a Canon that Bishops must not read the books of Gentiles Concil Carthag 4. which yet Paul made use of and the Papists now do too much value Abundance such changes might be mentioned greater then ours in which we are justified by the Papists themselves 2. But they have yet other kind of changes then these They have changed the very Essence of the Catholick Church in their esteem they have changed the Officers the Doctrine the Discipline the Worship and what not as though they had been born for change to turn all upside down In the Primitive times the Church had no universal Monarch but Christ but they have set up a new universal Monarch at Rome In the primitive times the Catholick Church was the Universality of Christians and they have changed it to be only the subjects of the Pope In the Primitive times Rome was but a particular Church as Jerusalem and other Churches were but they have changed it to be the Mistris of all Churches For many hundred years after Christ the Scripture was taken to be a sufficient Rule of faith but they have changed it to be but part of the Rule In the antient Church all sorts were earnestly exhorted to read or hear and study the Scripture in a known tongue but they have changed this into a desperate restraint proclaiming it the cause of all Heresies In the antient Church the Bread and Wine was the Body and Blood of Christ Representative and Relative but they have changed it into the real Body and Blood Heretofore there was Bread and Wine remaining after the words of Consecration but they have changed so that there remaineth neither Bread nor Wine but the qualities and quantity without the substance and this must be believed because they say it against Scripture and Antiquity and in despight of sense it self In the antient Church the Lords Supper was administred in both kinds bread and wine to all but they have lately changed this into one kind only to the people denying them one half of the Sacrament Of old the Lords Supper was but the Commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross and a Sacrament of our Communion with him and his members but now they have changed it into a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the quick and dead and in it they adore a piece of Bread as very God with Divine worship Of old men were taught to make daily confession of sin and beg pardon and when they had done all to confess themselves unprofitable servants but now they are so changed that they pretend not only to be perfect without sin and to Merit by the Condignity of their works with God but to supererogate and be more perfect then innocency could make them by doing more then their duty Of old those things were accounted sins deserving Hell and needing the blood of Christ for pardon which now are changed into venial sins which properly are no sins and deserve no more then temporal punishment Of old the Saints had no proper merits to plead for themselves and now men have some to spare for the buying of souls out of Purgatory Of old the Pastors of the Churches were subject to the Rulers of the Commonwealth even every soul not only for wrath but for Conscience sake was obliged to be subject but now all the Clergy are exempted from secular Judgement and yet the secular power is subject to them for the Pope hath power to depose Princes and dispossess them of their Dominions and put others in their rooms and dissolve the bonds of Oaths and Covenants in which the subjects were obliged to them and to allow men to murder them by stabbing poysoning c. If you do not believe me stay but till I come to it and I shall give you yet some further proof Would you have any more of the Popish Changes Why I might fill a volume with them Should I but recite all the changes they have made in Doctrines and all that they have made in Church Orders and Discipline and Religious Orders and their Discipline and in Worship and Ceremonies I should be over tedious their very Liturgy or Mass-book hath been changed and made by changes such abundance of additions it hath had since the beginning of it What changes Sixtus the fift and Clement the eighth made in their Bibles I told you before as also what changes they have had in the election of their Popes And now I am content that any impartial man be judge whether Papists or the Reformed Churches are the more mutable and unsetled in their Religion and which of them is at the greater certainty firmness and immutability CHAP. XXIV Detect 15. ANother fraud of the Papists which they place not the least of their confidence in is this They perswade the people that our Church and Religion is but new of the other dayes invention and that theirs is the only old Religion And therefore they call upon us to give them a Catalogue of the professors of our Religion in all ages which they pretend we cannot do and ask us where our Church was before Luther To this we shall give them once more a brief but satisfactory answer I. We are so fully assured that the oldest Religion is the best since the date of the Gospell that we are contented that our whole cause do stand or fall by this tryall Let him be esteemed of the true Religion that is of the oldest Religion This is the main difference between us and the Papists We are for no Religion that is not as old as the dayes of the Apostles but they are for the Novelties and Additions of
predestinate c. Answ O what a sort of men have we to deal with The Council of Constance burnt John Huss to ashes for saying that there remained the substance of Bread and Wine after Consecration and that Transubstantiation was a new word to deceive men with as Binnius himself expresseth among their accusations of him And among the articles for discovery of the Hussites one was Whether they take it to be a mortall sin to reject the Sacraments of Confirmation extream unction and marriage And yet now Huss is burnt for it the poor lay-Papists are perswaded by their deceivers that the Hussites were for Transubstantiation and seven Sacraments Why then did a General Council accuse or receive accusation and witness against him for the contrary 2. That the universal Church as invisible and as taken in the first signification containeth none but the truly sanctified and so predestinate we believe as well as Huss though in the second Analogical signification the Church as visible containeth all the Professors of faith and Holiness whether sincere or not 3. And that they were condemned by the Council of Constance and Huss and Hierom burnt after they had a safe conduct doth shew that the faith of Papists is perfidiousness for why should the people be more just then a General Council but it shews not that we and they are not of the same Church or Religion you condemned and burnt those of our Religion too therefore you thought at least that we are neer kin But H. T. proceeds with his precepts Let him not name the Albigenses for they held all marriages to be unlawfull and all things begotten ex coitu to be unclean They held two Gods c. Answ These are not only such falshoods by which you uphold your cause but the more inexcusable and shameless by how much the more frequently and fully detected long ago and yet continued in Perrin Viguerius and many others might have prevented your error especially Bishop Usher de Succes Eccles cap. 6 7 8 9 10. who hath given you enough out of your own writers to have satisfied you and shewed you that it was from the Arrians and Manichees inhabiting those Countreyes among them that the heavy charges of Bernard Eckbertus Schonaugiensis and others were occasioned And see by him there cited what the same Bernard saith against your Church of Rome and then judge which he spoak hardlier of As for the Catharists next added they were not the Puritan Waldenses as you speak but part of the Manichees and if such as they are described we are content to lose their names and are not ambitious to be reputed their Successors He adds Let him not name the Wicklifians for they held that all things came to pass by fatall necessity That Princes and Magistrates fell from their dignity and power by mortall sin Answ We know by many of Wicklifs own books printed and manuscript what his judgement was what ever your Council at Constance accuse him of It was a Divine Necessity opposed to uncertainty and to the determination of an unruled will that he mentioneth And do not your Jesuites lay as heavy a charge on the Dominicans sometimes and with as great cause may many of your Schoolmen be disclaimed for this as Wicklife if you will understand him and them Wicklife was known to obey and teach obedience to Magistrates But is it not a fine world when Wicklife must not be of our Church because he is supposed to deny the power of Magistrates in mortal sin and yet the Pope and his Council determine that Princes or Lords that will not root out such as the Pope cals Hereticks must be cast our and their Countrey given to others It seems you take Wicklife to be some kin to your selves But we doubt not but he was of the Catholick Church and Religion and therefore of the same with us H. T. adds Let him not name the Grecians for they rejected the Communion of Protestants Censur Eccl. Orient They were at least seven hundred or eight hundred year in Communion with the Church of Rome they were united to the Church of Rome again in the Council of Florence They held Transubstantiation seven Sacraments unbloody Sacrifice Prayer to Saints and for the dead Answ If one Patriark or twenty men reject our Communion what 's that to the Millions of Greek Christians that never rejected it And what 's that to all Patriarcks before and after that rejected it not Did Cyril reject our Communion that hath published a Protestant confession and was so maligned and treacherously dealt with to the death and falsly accused to the Turks by the Jesuites for his constancy 2. Do you think the world knoweth not by what inducements you drew a few poor men at Florence to subscribe to a certain union with you and what death the Patriark dyed and how the Greeks resented his fact and what a return they made to your Church I pray perswade your selves that they and we and all are Papists 3. If the Greeks did disclaim Communion with us they are nevertheless of the same Church and Religion with us for all that Paul and Barnabas were both Christians when they parted in dissention If one neighbour in anger call another Traitor unjustly and say he will have no Society with him they may be both the Kings subjects and members of one Common wealth for all that 4. As to the Greeks opinions and the Papists false accusations of them I have spoken already against pretended Veridicus in my Safe Religion It is not you nor all the Jesuites on earth that can prove the Greeks and us to be so distant as not to be of the same Catholick Religion and Church You add Let him not name the Egyptians for they held Transubstantiation and unbloody Sacrifice as is manifest by their Liturgies but denyed the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son and held but one will in Christ Godignus de reb Abas lib. 1. cap. 28. Answ 1. Godignus talks not of the Egyptians but the Abassines This learned man it seems is so home-bred and confined to the Roman Church that he little regardeth the rest of the Christian world or else he would have known a difference between the Egyptians and Abassines He is likely to know well the true Catholick Church that while 2. You cannot prove that they hold Transubstantion Nor shall your bare naming their Liturgy make us believe it The Egyptian Liturgy you tell us not where to find nor I suppose do you know your selves An Ethiopick Liturgy your compilers of the Bibliotheca Patrum have given us Tom. 6. But 1. It hath no mention of Transubstantiation in it that I can find but only a Hoc est Corpus c. which we say in our Administration as well as they 2. And I find that Liturgy so contrary to the reports of your own writers concerning the practice of the Ethiopians as about the Elevation Confirmation c.
not the subject of the Pope as universal Monarch Nor can any other be saved as being without the Church 3. And that the Church of Rome is by Gods appointment the Mistris of all other Churches 4. And that the Pope of Rome is Infallible 5. That we cannot believe the Scriptures to be the word of God or the Christian doctrine to be true but upon the Authoritative Tradition of the Roman Church and upon the knowledge or belief of their Infallibility that is we must believe in the Pope as Infallible before we can believe in Christ who is pretended to give him that infallibility 6. That no Scripture is by any man to be interpreted but according to the sence of the Pope or Roman Church and the unanimous consent of the Fathers 7. That a General Council approved by the Pope cannot err but a General Council not approved by the Pope may err 8. That nothing is to us an Article of faith till it be declared by the Pope or a General Council though it was long before declared by Christ or his Apostles as plain as they can speak 9. That a General Council hath no more validity then the Pope giveth it 10. That no Pastor hath a valid Ordination unless it be derived from the Pope 11. That there are Articles of faith of Necessity to our Salvation which are not contained in the Holy Scriptures nor can be proved by them 12. That such Traditions are to be received with equal pious affection and reverence as the holy Scriptures 13. That Images have equal honour with the Holy Gospel 14. That the Clergy of the Catholick Church ought to swear obedience to the Pope as Christs Vicar 15. That the Pope should be a temporal Prince 16. That the Pope and his Clergy ought to be exempted from the Government of Princes and Princes ought not to judge and punish the Clergy till the Pope deliver them to their power having degraded them 17. That the Pope may dispossess Princes of their Dominions and give them to others if those Princes be such as he judgeth hereticks or will not exterminate Hereticks 18. That in such cases the Pope may discharge all the subjects from their allegiance and fidelity 19. That the Pope in his own Territories and Princes in theirs must burn or otherwise put to death all that deny Transubstantiation the Popes Soveraignty or such doctrines as are afore expressed when the Pope hath sentenced them 20. That the people should ordinarily be forbidden to read the Scripture in a known tongue except some few that have a license from the ordinary 21. That publick Prayers Prayses and other publick worship of God should be performed constantly in a language not understood by the People or only in Latine Greek or Hebrew 22. That the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist is Transubtantiate into the very body and blood of Christ so that it is no more true Bread or Wine though our eyes tast and feeling tell us that it is 23. That the consecrated host is to be worshipped with Divine worship and called our Lord God 24. That the Pope may oblige the people to receive the Eucharist only in one kind and forbid them the Cup. 25. That the sins called venial by the Papists are properly no sins and deserve no more but temporal punishment 26. That we may be perfect in this life by this double perfection 1. To have no sin but to keep all Gods Law perfectly 2. To supererogate by doing more then is our Duty 27. That our works properly merit salvation of God by way of Commutative Justice or by the Condignity of the works as proportioned to the Reward 28. That Priests should generally be fordidden Marriage 29. That there is a fire called Purgatory where souls are tormented and where sin is pardoned in another world 30. That in Baptism there is an implicite vow of obedience to the Pope of Rome 31. That God is ordinarily to be worshipped by the Oblation of a true proper propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead where the Priest only shall eat and drink the body and blood of Christ while the Congregation look on and partake not 32. That the Canon of Scripture is the same that is declared by the Council of Trent I will pass by abundance more to avoid tediousness And I will not stay to enquire which of these are proper to the Papists But I am resolved so to receive many of them as they can prove a Catholick succession of that is that they were in all ages the Doctrine of the Universal Church And I crave the charity of such a proof from some Papist or other if they have any charity in them and that they will no longer keep universal Tradition in their purses And I would desire H. T. to revise his Catalogue and instead of twenty or thirty dead and silent names that signifie no more then Blanks or Cyphers he would prove that both those persons and the Catholick Church did in every age hold these thirty two forementioned doctrines And when hath done then let him boast of his Catalogue Till they will perform this task let them never more for shame call to us for Catalogues or proof of succession But if they are so unkind that they will not give us any proof of such a Catholick succession of Popery we shall be ready to supererogate and give them full proof of the Negative That there hath been no such succession of these thirty two points as soon as we can perceive that they will ingeniously entertain it though indeed it hath been often done already But certainly it belongeth to them that superinduce more Articles of Faith to prove the continuation of their own Articles through all ages of which anon Well! but one of these Articles at least the Popes Soveraignty H. T. will prove successively if you will be credulous enough In the first age he proves it from Peters words Act. 15. 7 8 9 10. God chose Peter to convert Cornelius and his company therefore the Pope is the Universall Monarch Are you not all convinced by this admirable argument But he forgot that Bellarmine Ragusius in Concil Basil and others of them say that no Article can be proved from Scripture but from the proper literall sence To say somewhat more he unseasonably talks of the Council of Sardis and Calcedon an 400. 451. lest the first age have but a blank page In the second age he hath nothing but the names of a few that never dreamt of Popery and a Canon which you must believe was the Apostles that Priests must communicate Of which we are well content In the third Age he nameth fifteen Bishops of Rome of whom the last was deposed for offering incense to Saturn Jupiter c. But not a syllable to prove that one of these Bishops was the universal Monarch Much less that the Catholick Church was for such Monarchy But to excuse the matter he tells you that
sensible Image made of any sensible matter but such an Image as is to be conceived with the understanding Origen against Celsus lib. 7. page 373 384 386. 387. is large and plain against this use of Images as the Protestants are And the Eliber Concil C. 36. saith Placuit picturas in Ecclesia esse non debere ne quod colitur aut adoratur in parietibus depingatur It seemeth good to us that Pictures ought not to be in the Church lest that which is worshipped or adored should be painted on Walls Some Papists would sain find a sense for this anon contrary to the words But Melch Canus plainly saith that the Council did not only imprudently but impiously make this law to take away Images Loc. Theol. lib. 5. cap. 4. conc 4. I shall cite no more but intreat the Reader that is willing to be informed how much Antiquity was against the Papists in the points of Images to peruse only Dallaeus de Imaginibus and Usher in his Answer to the Jesuite and Sermon to the Parliament And I provoke the Papists to confute what is in them alledged if they can H. T. hath no better shift to salve their credit Manual page 319 320. then to set their own Schoolmen and General Council together by the ears The second Council of Nice that did most for Images did openly renounce the adoring them with Divine honour and Tharasius solemnly professed Duntaxat in unum verum Deum latriam fidem se referre reponere They did refer and repose faith and divine worship in the true God alone But Aquinas sum 3. q. 25. a. 3. 4. maintaineth as I before observed that the Image of Christ and the Cross and the sign of the Cross are to be worshipped with Divine worship And what saith H. Turbervile to this Why This is a meer school opinion and not of faith with us Urge not therefore what some particular Divines say but hearken to the Doctrine of Gods Church Very good Is not this so gross a kind of jugling that would never down if devout ignorance and implicite faith had not prepared the stomacks of the people 1. You see here that to contradict the Determination of a General Council is not of faith with them But it is not against your faith Do you give leave to meer school opinions to contradict General Councils See here what 's become of the Popish faith If the Determinations of Councils be not Articles of faith with you then you have no faith but give up your cause And if they be then Aquinas and his followers are Hereticks 2. And then see what 's become of the Popes Infallibility in Canonizing Saints that have sainted Thomas Aquinas that proves a Heretick by your Law so that your cause is gone which way ever you turn you 3. And then see what it is to pray to Saints when some of them are made Hereticks by your own Laws 4. And then also see at what Unity the Church of Rome is among themselves when it is the very common doctrine of their learned Schoolmen which contradicteth a General Council Are you not well agreed that while 5. And lastly note what a Holy Church you have when the common sort of your most learned Divines are thus made Hereticks See Bishop Ushers allegations of Th. Arundels Provincial Council at Oxford 1408 ex Guil. Linewood lib 5. And Jac. Naclantus in Rom. cap. 1. fol. 42. saith We must not only confess that the faithfull in the Church do worship before the Image as some cautelously speak but that they adore the Image without any scruple yea and that they worship it with the same worship as the Prototype so that if it be worshipt with Divine worship the Image must have Divine worship And Cabrera in 3. part Thom. qu. 25. art 3. disp 2. num 15. there cited by Usher saith that it is of faith that Images are to be worshipped in Churches and without and we must give them signs of servitude and submission by embracing lights offering incense uncovering the head c. 2. That Images are truly and properly to be adored with an intention to adore themselves and not only the samplars represented in them This Conclusion is against Durandus and his followers whose opinion by the Moderns is judged dangerous rash and savouring of Heresie and M. Medina reporteth that M. Victoria reputed it heretical but our conclusion is the common one of Divines If Images be improperly only adored then they are not to be adored simply and absolutely which is manifest Heresie And if Images were to be worshipped only by way of Remembrance because they make us remember the samplars which we thus adore as if they were present it would follow that all creatures are to be adored with the same adoration as God which is absurd 3. The Opinion of Saint Thomas that the Image must be worshipped with the same act of adoration as the samplar which it representeth is most true most pious and very consonant to the decrees of faith Thus Cabrera who adds that this is the doctrine of Thomas and all his Disciples and almost all the old Schoolmen and particularly of Cajetan Capreolus Paludanus Ferrariensis Antoninus Soto Alexand. Ales Albertus Magnus Bonaventura Richardus de media villa Dionysius Carthusianus Major Marsilius Thom. Waldensis Turrecremata Clichtovaeus Turrian Vasquez c. And Azorius saith It is the constant opinion of Divines Institut Moral tom 1. lib. 9. cap. 6. Yea in the Roman Pontifical published by the Authority of Clement the eighth it is expressed that The Legates Cross shall have the right hand because Divine worship is due to it See here whether the Pope himself be not an Heretick and the Pontifical contain not heresie and the whole rabble of the Schoolmen hereticks by contradicting the determination of the General Council at Nice 2. which H. T. citeth and the doctrine which he saith is the doctrine of Gods Church such is the faith and unity of the Papists But they will say still that though all these worship the very Cross and Images themselves and that with Divine worship yet there be some of a better mind that do but worship God by the Image such as H. T. c. Answ And do you think that rational Pagans did not know as well as you that their Images were not Gods themselves and so worshipped them not as Gods but as the representers and instruments of some Diety Lactantius Instit lib. 2. cap. 2. brings them in saying thus Non ipsa c. We fear not them but those whom they represent and to whose names they are consecrated And Arnobius thus Deos per simulachra veneramur It is the Gods that we worship by Images And Augustine thus reporteth the Pagans sayings in Psal 96. Non ego lapidem c. I do not worship that stone nor that Image which is without sense And in Psal Psal 113. cono 2. Nec simulachrum nec daemonium
to these witnesses some more of your worthies August Triumph de Ancon q. 5. art 1. saith To make a new Creed belongs only to the Pope because he is the Head of the Christian faith by whose authority all things belonging to faith are confirmed and strengthened Et Art 2. As he may make a new Creed so he may multiply new Articles upon Articles And in Praefat. sum ad Johan 22. he saith that the Popes power is Infinite because the Lord is great and his strength great and of his greatness there is no end And q. 36. ad 6. he saith that the Pope giveth the Motion of Direction and the sense of Knowledge into all the members of the Church For in him we live and move and have our being And the Will of God and consequently the Popes Will who is his Vicar is the first and chief cause of all motions corporall and spiritual And then no doubt may change without blame Abbas Panormitan in cap. C. Christus de haeret n. 2. saith The Pope can bring in a new Article of faith And Petr. de Anchoran in idic The Pope can make new Articles of faith that is such as now ought to be believed when before they ought not to be believed Turrecremat sum de Eccl. lib. 2. cap. 203. saith that the Pope is the Measure and Rule and Science of things to be believed And August de Ancona shews us that the Judgement of God is not higher then the Popes but the same and that therefore no man may appeal from the Pope to God qu. 6. art 1. And therefore be not offended if we suppose you to have changes A Confutation of a Popish Manuscript on this point Just as I was writing this I received another Popish M. S. sent from Wolverhampton to Sturbridge to which I shall return an answer before I go to the next point Pap. M. S. An Argument for the Church IT will not be denyed but that the Church of Rome was once a most pure excellent flourishing and Mother Church and her faith renowned in the whole world Rom. 1. 8. 6. 16. Whites Def. p. 555. King James speech to the Parliament Whitaker in his Answer to Dr. Sanders Fulk cap. 21. Thes 7. Reynolds in his fifth Conclusion This Church could not cease to be such but she must fall either by Apostacy Heresie or Schism Apostacy is not only a renouncing of the faith of Christ but of the name and Title of Christianity No man will say that the Church of Rome had such a fall or fell so Heresie is an adhesion or fast cleaving to some private or singular Opinion or error in faith contrary to the generally approved doctrine of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common received doctrine of the Christian world I pray you satisfie me in these particulars 1. By what General Council was she ever condemned 2. Which of the Fathers ever writ against her 3. By what Authority was she otherwise reproved For it seems to be a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemned by every private person who hath a mind to condemn her Schism is a departure or division from the unity of the Church whereby the bond and Communion held with some former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided her self from any body of faithfull Christians or broke Communion or went forth from the Society of any Elder Church I pray you satisfie me in these particulars 1. Whose company did she leave 2. From what body went she forth 3. Where was the true Church she forsook For it appears not a little strange that a Church should be accounted Schismatical when there cannot be assigned any other Church different from her which from age to age since Christs time hath continued visible from whence she departed Thus far the Papists Manuscript An Answer to the foregoing Argument IF the Author of this Argument thinks as he speaks it s a case to be lamented with tears of blood that the Church of Christ should be abused and the souls of men deluded by men of so great ignorance But if he know that he doth but juggle and deceive it s as lamentable that any matter of Salvation should fall into such hands 1. This Argument I have before answered Detect 13. The word Church here is ambiguous and either signifieth 1. A particular Church which is an Association of Christians for personal Communion in Gods worship 2. Or divers such Associations or Churches Associated for Communion by their officers or delegates for unity sake 3. Or else it may signifie some one Mistris Church that is the Ruler of all the rest in the world 4. Or else it may signifie the Universal Catholick Church it self which containeth all the particular Churches in the world The Papist should not have plaid either the blind man or the Jugler by confounding these and never telling us which he means 1. For the first we grant him that Rome was once an excellent flourishing Church And so was Ephesus Hierusalem Philippi Colosse and many more 2. As to the second sence it is humane or from Church custom so to take the word Church for Scripture that I find doth not so use it But for the thing we are indifferent Though it cannot be proved that in Scripture times Rome had any more then a particular Church yet it s all one as to our cause 3. As to the third and fourth senses we deny as confidently as we do that the Sun is darkness that ever in Scipture times Rome was either a Mother to all Churches or the Ruler and Mistris of all or yet the Universal Church it self Prove this and I will turn Papist But there 's not a word for it in the Texts cited but an intimation of much against it Paul calleth Rome a Church and commendeth its faith True but doth he not so by the Thessalonians Colossians Ephesians Philippians c. and John by the Philadelphians Pergamus Thyatira and others as well And will not this prove that Rome was but such a particular Church as one of them The citation of Protestants are done it seems by one that never read them nor would have others read them which makes him turn us to whole books to search for them if we have nothing else to do and to miscited places But we know that all our Divines confess that Rome was once a true and famous particular Church but never the Universall Church nor the Ruler of the world or of all other Churches in Pauls dayes Would you durst lay your cause on this and put it to the tryal Why else did never Paul make one word of mention of this Power and honour nor send other Churches to her to be Governed And now I pray consider to what purpose is the rest of your reasoning What is it to me whether Rome be turned either
whom the care of Religion is committed therefore it belongs to the Pope to judge a King to be deposed or not deposed You see here it is not Lawful for such Christians as the Papists to Tolerate you which may help your judgement in the point of their Toleration Si Christiani saith Bellarib olim non deposuerunt Neronem Valentem Arianum similes id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis You have your Government and we our Lives because the Papists are not strong enough They tell you what to trust to Saith Tollet one of the best of the Jesuites li 1. de Instruct Sacerd. c. 13. They that were bound by the bond of fidelity or Oath shall be freed from such a bond if he fall into Excommunication and during that Debtors are absolved from the obligation of paying to the Creditor that debt that is contracted by words These are no private uneffectual Opinions Saith Pope Pius the 5th himself in his Bull against our Queen Elizabeth Volumus mandamus We will and command that the Subjects take Arms against that Heretical and Excommunicate Queen But their crueltie to mens souls and the Church of Christ doth yet much more declare their uncharitableness It is a point of their Religion to believe that no man can be saved but the Subjects of their Pope as I have after proved and is to be seen in many of their writings as Knot and a late Pamphlet called Questions for Resolution of Unlearned Protestants c. and Bishop Morton hath recited the words of Lindanus Valentia and Vasquez Apol. lib. 2. c. 1. defining is to be of Necessity to Salvation to be subject to the Roman Bishop And would not a man think that for such horrid doctrines as damn the far greatest part of Christians in the world they should produce at least some probable Arguments But what they have to say I have here faithfully detected If we will dispute with them or turn to them the Scripture must be no further Judge then as their Church expoundeth it The Judgement of the Ancient yea or present Church they utterly renounce for the far greatest part is known to be against the Headship of their Pope and therefore they must stand by for Hereticks Tradition it self they dare not stand to except themselves be Judges of it for the greatest part of Christians profess that Tradition is against the Roman Vice-christ The internal sense and experience of Christians they gainsay concluding all besides themselves to be void of charity or saving grace which many a thousand holy souls do find within them that never believed in the Pope Yea when we are content to lay our lives on it that we will shew them the deceit of Popery as certainly and plainly as Bread is known to be Bread when we see it feel and taste it and as Wine is known to be Wine when we see and drink it yet do they refuse even the judgement of sense of all mens senses even their own and others So that we must renounce our honesty our Knowledge of our selves our senses our reason the common experience and senses of all men the Judgement and Tradition of the far greatest part of the present Church or else by the judgement of the Papists we must all be damned Whether such opinions as these should by us be uncontradicted or by you be suffered to be taught your Subjects is easie to discern If they had strength they would little trouble us with Disputing Nothing more common in their Writers scarce then that the Sword or Fire is fitter for Hereticks then Disputes This is hut their after-game Though their Church must rule Princes as the soul ruleth the body yet it must be by Secular Power excommunication doth but give fire it is Lead and Iron that must do the execution And when they are themselves disabled it is their way to strike us by the hands and swords of one another He that saw England Scatland and Ireland a while ago in blood and now sees the lamentable case of so many Protestant Princes and Nations destroying one another and thinks that Papists have no hand in contriving counselling instigating or executing is much a stranger to their Principles and Practices Observing therefore that of all the Sects that we are troubled with there is none but the Papist that disputeth with us with flames and Gun-Powder with Armies and Navies at their backs having so many Princes and so great revenews for their provision I have judged it my duty to God and his Church 1. To Detect the vanity of their cause that their shame may appear to all that are impartial and to do my part of that necessary work for which Vell. Paterculus so much honoured Cicero Hist lib. 2. c. 34. Ne quorum arma viceramus corum ingenio vinceremur And 2. To present with greatest earnestness these following Requests to your Highness on the behalf of the cause and people of the Lord wherein the Papists also shall see that it is not their suffering but only our Necessary Defence that we desire 1. We earnestly request that you will Resolvedly adhere to the cause of Truth and Holiness and afford the Reformed Churches abroad the utmost of your help for their Concord and Defence and never be tempted to own an Interest that crosseth the Interest of Christ How many thousands are studiously contriving the extirpation of the Protestant Churches from the Earth How many Princes are consederate against them The more will be required of you for their aid The serious endeavours of your Renowned Father for the Protestants of Savoy discovered to the world by Mr. Morland in his Letters c. hath won him more esteem in the hearts of many that fear the Lord then all his victories in themselves considered We pray that you may inherit a tender care of the cause of Christ 2. We humbly request that you will faithfully adhere to those that fear the Lord in your Dominions In your eyes let a vile person be contemned but honour them that fear the Lord Psal 15. 4. Know not the wicked but let your eyes be upon the faithfull of the Land Psal 101. 4 6. Compassionate the weak and curable Punish the uncurable restrain the froward but Love and cherish the servants of the Lord. They are under Christ the honour and the strength of the Commonwealth It was a wise and happy King that professed that his Good should extend to the Saints on earth and the excellent in whom was his delight Psal 16. 2 3. This strengthening the vitals is one of the chief means to keep out Popery and all other dangerous diseases We see few understanding Godly people receive the Roman infection but the prophane licentious ignorant or malignant that are prepared for it 3. We earnestly request your utmost care that we may be ruled by Godly Faithfull Magistrates under you and that your Wisdom and Vigilancy may frustrate the subtilty of Masked Papists
many others so like to the Arguments and Language of the Seekers and Infidels that we can scarcely know whom we hear when they speak to us For the discovery of their desperate fraud in this point and the right confuting of them 1. You must distinguish them out of their confusion 2. You must grant them all that is true and just which we shall as stiffly defend as they 3. You must reject their errors and confute them And 4. You may turn their own principall weapon against them to the certain destruction of their cause Of all these briefly in course 1. For the first two I have spoke at large in the Preface to the second part of the Saints Rest and in the determination in the first part of my Book against Infidelity But briefly to touch some of the most necessary things here 1. We must distinguish the Tradition of the Scriptures or the Scripture doctrine from the Tradition of other doctrines pretended to be the rest of the word of God 2. We must distinguish between a certain proved Tradition and that which is unproved and uncertain if not grosly feigned 3. We must distinguish between the Tradition of the whole Catholick Church or the greater part and the Tradition of the lesser more corrupted selfish part even the Roman part 4. We must distinguish between a Tradition of necessary doctrine or practice and the Tradition of mutable Orders 5. And we must distinguish between Tradition by way of Testimony or History or by way of Teaching Ministry and Tradition by way of Decisive Judgement as to the Universal Church suffer them not to jumble all these together if you would not be cheated in the dark 2. And then concerning Tradition we grant all these following Propositions so that it is not all Tradition that we deny 1. We grant that the Holy Scriptures come down to us by the certain Tradition of our fathers and Teachers and that what the seeing and hearing of the Apostles was to them that lived with them that Tradition and belief of certain Tradition is to us by reason of our distance from the time and place So that though the Scripture bear its own evidence of a Divine author in the Image and superscription of God upon it yet we are beholden to Tradition for the Books themselves and for much of our knowledge that these are the true writings of the Apostles and Prophets and all and not depraved c. 2. We thankfully acknowledge that the Essentials of the faith and more hath been delivered even from the Apostles in other wayes or forms besides the Scriptures as 1. In the Professions of the Churches faith 2. In the baptismal Covenant and signs and whole administration 3. In the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 4. In Catechisms or Catechizings 5. In the prayers and praises of the Church 6. In the hearts of all true believers where God hath written all the Essentials of the Christian saith and Law So that we will not do as the Papists perversly do when God delivereth us the Christian Religion with two hands Scripture compleatly and Verbal Tradition in the essentials they quarrell with the one hand Scripture on pretence of defending the other so will not we quarrell with Tradition the other hand but thankfully confess a Tradition of the same Christianity by unwritten means which is delivered more fully in the Scripture and this Tradition is in some respect subordinate to Scripture and in some respect co-ordinate as the spirits left hand as it were to hold us out the truth 3. We confess that the Apostles delivered the Gospel by voice as well as by writing and that before they wrote it to the Churches 4. By this preaching we confess there were Christians made that had the doctrine of Christ in their hearts and Churches gathered that had his ordinances among them before the Gospel was written 5. And we confess that the Converted were bound to teach what they had received to their children servants and others 6. And that there was a setled Ministry in many Churches ordained to preach the Gospel as they had received it from the Apostles before it was written 7. And that the said ordinances of Baptism Catechizing Professions Eucharist Prayer Praise c. were instituted and in use before the Gospell was written for the Churches 8. And that when the Gospel was written as Tradition bringeth it to us so Ministers are commissioned to deliver both the Books and the doctrine of this Book as the Teachers of the Church and to preach it to those without for their conversion 9. And that Parents and Masters are bound to teach this doctrine to their children and servants yea if a Minister or other person were cast into the Indies or America without a Bible he must teach the doctrine though he remembred not the words 10. We grant that to the great benefit of the Church the writers of all ages have in subserviency to Scripture delivered down the Sacred Verities and Historians the matters of fact 11. And that the unanimous Consent of all the Churches manifested in their constant professions and practices is a great confirmation to us 12. And so is the suffering of the Martyrs for the same truth 13. And the Declarations of such consent by Councils is also a confirming Tradition 14. And the Confessions of Hereticks Jews and other Infidels are Providentiall and Historical Traditions for confirmation 15. And we profess that if we had any Certain proof of a Tradition from the Apostles of any thing more then is written in Scripture we would receive it All this we grant them for Tradition 3. But in these points following we oppose them 1. We take the holy Scriptures as the Compleat universal Rule or Law of faith and Holy living and we know of no Tradition that containeth another word of God Nay we know there is none such because the Scripture is true which asserteth its own sufficiency Scripture and unwritten Tradition are but two wayes of acquainting the world with the same Christian doctrine and not with divers parts of that Doctrine so as that Tradition should add to Scripture yea contrarily it is but the substance of greatest verities that are conveyed by unwritten Tradition but that and much more is contained in the Scripture where the Christian doctrine is compleat 2. The manner of delivery in a form of words which no man may alter and in so much fullness and perspicuity is much to be preferred before the meer verbal delivery of the same doctrine For 1. The Memory of man is not so strong as to retain as much as the Bible doth contain and preserve it safe from alterations or Corruptions Or if one man were of so strong a memory no man can imagine that all or most should be so Or if one Generation had such wonderfull memories we cannot imagine that all their posterity should have the like If there were no statute Books Records or Law-books in
England our Laws would be but sorrily kept and obeyed and executed 2. If all the world had such miraculous memories yet men are apt to be negligent either in learning or keeeping of holy doctrine All have not that zeal that should excite them to such wonderfull diligence without which such a treasure could not be preserved 3. When matter and so much matter is commited to bare memory without a form of unalterable words new words may make an alteration before men are aware The change of one word sometimes doth make a whole discourse seem to have another sense 4. There are so many carnal men in the world that love not the strictness of that doctrine which they do profess and so many hereticks that would pervert the Holy Doctrine that it would purposely be altered by them if it could be done and it might much more easily be done if it lay all upon mens memories For one party would set their memory against the others and as it was about Easter a publick matter of fect tradition would be set against tradition especially when the far greater part of the Church turn Hereticks as in the Arrians dayes then Tradition would be most at their keeping and interpretation and if we had not then had the unalterable Scriptures what might they not have done 5. A whole Body of Doctrine kept only in Memory will be soon disjoynted and dislocate and if the matter were kept safe yet the method and manner would be lost 6. And there could not be such satisfactory Evidence given to another of the Integrity or Certainty of it as when it is preserved in writing We should all be diffident that the Laws of England were corrupted or that Lawyers might combine to do it at their pleasure if there were no Law Books or Records but all lay in their memories If they were never so faithfull yet they could not give us such evidence of it I do not think any man of common reason can heartily believe that all the holy Truths of God Historical Doctrinal Practical Prophetical c. could without a course of miracles or extraordinary means have been kept through all ages as well without writing as with it 7. And if writing be not necessary why have we so many Fathers Histories and Canons And why do they fetch their Tradition from these and ridiculously call them unwritten verities Are they unwritten when they turn us to so many volumes for them And if mans writing be necessary for their preservation me thinks men should thankfully acknowledge that God hath taken the best way in giving it us in his own unalterable phrase 3. If they do prove that some matters of fact are made known to us by Tradition that are not in the Scripture or that any Church Orders or Circumstances of worship then used are so made known to us which yet we wait for the proof of it will not follow that any of these are therefore Divine Institutions or universal Lawes for the unchangable obligation of the whole Church If there be some things Historically related in the Scripture that were obligatory but for a season and ordained occasionally and ceased when the occasion ceased as the Love-feasts the Kiss of Love the washing of feet the abstaining from things strangled and blood the anointing the sick the Prophesyings one by one mentioned 1 Cor. 14. 31. miraculous gifts and their exercise c. then it will not follow if they could prove that the Apostles fasted in the Lent or used the sign of the Cross in Baptisme or holy Ordinances or confirmed with a Cross in Chrysme c. that therefore they intended these as universal Laws to the Church though I suppose they will never prove that they used the things themselves 4. We will never take the Popes Decision or bare word for a Proof of Tradition nor will we receive it from pretended Authority but from rational Evidence It is not their saying we are the authorized keepers of Tradition that shall go with us for proof 5. And therefore it is not the Testimony of the Papists alone who are not only a lesser part of the Church but a part that hath espoused a corrupt interest against the rest that we shall take for certain proof of a Tradition but we will prefer the Testimonie of the whole Catholick Church before the Romish Church alone 6. They that can produce the best Records of Antiquity or rational proof of the Antiquity of the thing they plead for though they be but a few Learned Antiquaries may yet be of more regard in the matter of Tradition then millions of the vulgar or unlearned men so that with us universal Tradition is preferred before the Tradition of the Romish sect and Rational proof of Antiquity is preferred before ignorant surmises But where both these concur both universal consent and records or other credible evidence of Antiquity it is most valid And as for the Romish Traditions which they take for the other part of Gods word 1. In all Reason they must produce their sufficient proof that they came from the Apostles before we can receive them as Apostolick Traditions And when they have done that they must prove that it was delivered by the Apostles as a perpetual universal doctrine or Law for the whole Church and when they have well proved both these we shall hearken further to them 2. Either these Traditions have Evidence to prove them Apostolical or no Evidence If none how can the Pope know them If they have Evidence why may not we know it as well as the Pope at least by the helps that his charity doth vouchsafe the world 3. If there be any Proof of these Traditions it is either some Antient Records or Monuments and then our Learned Antiquaries may better know them then a multitude of the unlearned Or it is the Practice of the Church And then 1. How shall we know how long that practice hath continued without recourse to the writings of the ancients The reports of the people is in many cases very uncertain 2. But if it may be known without the search of Antient Records then we may know it as well as they 4. If the Pope and Clergy have been the keepers of it have they in all ages kept it to themselves or declared it to the Church I mean to all in common If they have concealed it 1. Then it seems it belonged not to others 2. Or else they were unfaithfull and unfit for the office 3. And then how do succeeding Popes and Clergy know it If they divulged it then others know it as well as they We have had abundance of Preachers from among the Papists that were once Papists themselves as Luther Melancthon Zuinglius Calvin Beza Peter Martyr Bucer c. and yet these knew not of your truly Apostolical Traditions 5. And it mars your credit with us because we are able to prove the beginning of some of your traditions or a time
which is most sufficient and most cleare in it self but for us This we all yield The second way is necessary to sciences diminutely and insufficiently delivered by their authors for their supplement so Aristotle is supplemented by Albertus Magnus c. The third way specially if it be not excessive is tolerable to the well being though it be not necessary The fourth way assertively is to be rejected as Poyson Thus are the authorities to be understood that forbid to add to or diminish from the Scripture Deut. 12 32. Well! by this time you may see that when such doctrine as this for Scripture sufficiency and perfection as the Rule of faith and life admitting no addition as necessary but explication nor any other as tolerable but moderate ampliation which indeed is the same I say when this doctrine past so lately in a Popish General Council you may see that the very Doctrine of Traditions equaled with Scripture or being another word of God necessary to faith and salvation containing what is wanting in Scripture is but lately sprung up in the world And sure the Traditions themselves be not old then when the conceit of them came but lately into the world 4. Well I have done the three first parts of this task but the chief is yet behind which is to shew 1 How little the Papists get by their Argument from Tradition 2. And how â—uch they lose by it even all their cause 1. Two things they very much plead Tradition for the one is their private doctrines and practices in which they disagree from other Christians and here they lose their labour with the judicious 1. Because they give us no sufficient proof that their Tradition is Apostolical 2. Because the dissent of other Churches sheweth that it is not universal with other Reasons before mentioned 2. The other Cause which they plead Tradition for is the Doctrine of Christianity it self And this they do in design to lead men to the Church of Rome as if we must be no Christians unless we are Christians upon the credit of the Pope and his Subjects And here I offer to their Consideration these two things to shew them the vanity of their arguing 1. We do not strive against you in producing any Tradition or Testimony of Antiquity for the Scripture or for Scripture Doctrine we make as much advantage of such just Tradition as you What do such men as White Vane Cressy c. think of when they argue so eagerly for the advantage of Tradition to prove the Scripture and Christian faith Is this any thing against us Nothing at all We accept our Religion from both the hands of Providence that bring it us Scripture and Tradition we abhor the contempt which these partial Disputers cast upon Scripture but we are not therefore so partial our selves as to refuse any collateral or subordinate help for our faith The more Testimonies the better The best of us have need of all the advantages for our faith that we can get When they have extolled the Certainty of Tradition to the highest we gladly joyn with them and accept of any certain Tradition of the mind of God And I advise all that would prove themselves wise defenders of the faith to take heed of rejecting Arguments from Providences or any necessary Testimony of man especially concerning matter of fact or of rejecting true Church History because the Papists over value it under the name of Tradition left such prove guilty of the like partiality and injuriousness to the truth as the Papists are And whereas the Papists imagine that this must lead us to their Church for Tradition I answer that in my next observation which is 2. We go beyond the Papists in arguing for just Tradition of the Christian faith and we make far greater advantage of it then they can do For 1. They argue but from Authoritative Decision by the Pope under the name of Church-Tradition excepting the French party whereas we argue from true History and certain Antiquity and prove what we say Where note 1. That their Tradition is indeed no Tradition for if it must be taken upon the credit of a man as supposed Infallible by supernatural if not miraculous endowment this is not Tradition but Prophesie And if they prove the man to be such a man it s all one to the Church whether he say that This was the Apostles doctrine or This I deliver my self to you from God For if he were so qualified he had the power and credit of a prophet or Apostle himself And therefore they must prove the Pope to be a Prophet before their kind of Tradition can get credit and when they have done that there is no need of it this their honest Dr. Holden was ware of upon which he hath so handsomely canvassed them 2. Note also that such as Dr. Holden Cressy Vane White and other of the French way that plead for Tradition mean a quite other thing then the Jesuited Italian Papist meanes and while they plead for universal Tradition they come nearer to the Protestants then to their Brethren if they did not contradict themselves when they have done by making meer Romish Tradition to be universal 3. Note also that when Papists speak of Tradition confusedly they give us just reason to call them to Define their Tradition and tell us what they mean by it before we dispute with them upon an ambiguous word seeing they are so divided among themselves that one party understands one thing by it and another another thing which we must not suffer these juglers to jumble together and confound 2. Another advantage in which we go beyond the Papists for Tradition is that as we argue not from the meer pretended supernatural Infallibility or Authority of any as they do but from rational Evidence of true Antiquity so we argue not from a sect or party as they do but from the Universal Church As far as the whole Church of Christ is of larger extent and greater credit then the Popish party so far is our Tradition more Credible then theirs And that is especially in three things 1. The Papists are fewer by far then the rest of the Christians in the world And the testimony of many yea of all is more then of a part 2. The Papists above other parties have espoused an interest that leads them to pretend and corrupt Tradition and bend all things to that interest of their own that they may Lord it over all the world But the whole Church can have no such Interest and Partiality 3. And the Papists are but one side and he that will judge rightly must hear the other sides speak too But the Tradition that we make use of is from all sides concurring yea Papists themselves in many points Yea our Tradition reacheth further then the Universal Church for we take in all rational Evidence even of Jews Heathens and Hereticks and Persecutors that bear witness to the matters of fact
Popes and Councils Their own Polidore Virgil de Inven. Rerum p. 410. lib 8. c. 4. calling us a Sect doth give you a just description of us Ita licentia pacta loquendi c. i. e. Having once got leave to speak that sect did marvailously increase in a short time which is called Evangelicall because they affirm that no Law is to be received which belongeth to salvation but what is given by Christ or the Apostles Mark what they confess themselves of our Religion And yet these very men have the face to charge us with Novelty as if Christ and his Apostles were not of sufficient Antiquity for them Our main quarrel with them is for adding new inventions in Religion and their principal business against us is to defend it and yet they call theirs the old Religion and ours the new Our Argument lieth thus That which is most conform to the Doctrine and Practice of Christ and his Apostles is the truly Antient Religion and Church But our Religion and Church is most conform to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles therefore it is the truly antient Religion and Church The Major they will yield For no older Religion is desirable further then as the Law of Nature and Moral Determinations of God are still in force I suppose they will not plead for Judaism For the Minor we lay our cause upon it and are ready to produce our evidence for the Conformity of our Religion and Churches to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles That Religion which is most conform to the Holy Scriture is most conform to the doctrine and practice of Christ and his Apostles But our Religion and Churches is most conform to the holy Scriptures therefore c. They can say nothing against the Major but that the Scripture is Insufficient without Tradition But for that 1. We have no Rule of faith but what is by themselves confessed to be true They acknowledge Scripture to be the true word of God So that the Truth of our Rule is Justified by themselves 2. Let them shew us as good Evidence that their Additional Articles of faith or Laws of life came from the Apostles as we do that the Scriptures came from them and then we shall confess that we come short of them Let them take the Controversies between us point by point and bring their proof and we will bring ours and let that Religion carry it that is Apostolicall But we are sure that by this means they will be proved Novelists For 1. Their Traditions in matter of faith superadded to the Scripture are meer Hereticall or Erroneous forgeries and they can give us no proof that ever they were Apostolicall 2. The Scripture affirmeth its own sufficiency and therefore excludeth their Traditions 3. I shewed you how in their own General Council at Basil the Scripture sufficiency was defended 4. I have shewed you in my Book called the Safe Religion that the ancient Fathers were for the sufficiency of Scripture 5. Their Traditions are the opinions of a dividing sect contrary to the Traditions or doctrine of the present Catholick Church the far greater part of Christians being against them 6. We are able to shew that the time was for some hundred years after Christ when most of their pretended Traditions were unknown or abhorred by the Christian Church and no such things were in being among them 7. And we can prove that the chief points of Controversie mantained against us are not only without Scripture but against it and from thence we have full particular evidence to disprove them If the Scriptures be true as they confess them to be then no Tradition can be Apostolicall or true that is contrary to them For example the Papists Tradition is that the Clergy is exempt from the Magistrates judgement But the holy Scripture saith Let every soul be subject to the higher power Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4 5. The Papists Tradition is for serving God publickly in an unknown tongue But the holy Scripture is fully against it Their Tradition is against Lay mens reading the Scripture in a known tongue without special License from their ordinary But Scripture and all antiquity is against them The like we may say of many other Controversies So that these seven wayes we know their Traditions to be deceitfull because they are 1. Unproved 2. Against the sufficiency of Scripture 3. Against their own former confessions 4. Against the concent of the Fathers 5. Contrary to the judgement of most of the Catholick Church 6. We can prove that once the Church was without them 7. And they are many of them contrary to express Scripture And if Scripture will but shew which of us is neerest the doctrine and practice of the Apostles then the controversie is ended or in a fair way to it For we provoke them to try the cause by Scripture and they deny it we profess it is the Rule and test of our Religion but they appeal to another Rule and test And thus you may see which is the old Religion which will be somewhat fullyer cleared in that which followeth II. And that our Church and Religion hath been continued from the dayes of Christ till now we prove thus 1. From the promise of Christ which cannot be broken Christ hath promised in his word that that Church and Religion which is most conform to the Scripture shall continue to the end But our Church and Religion is most conform to the Scripture therefore Christ hath promised that it shall continue to the end 2. From the event The Christian Religion and Catholick Church hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now But ours is the Christian Religion and Catholick Church therefore ours hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now The Major they will grant the Minor is proved by parts thus 1. That Religion which hath all the Essentials of Christianity and doth not deny or destroy any Essential part of it is the Christian Religion but such is ours therefore c. 2. That Religion which the Apostles were of is the Christian Religion But ours is the same that the Apostles were of therefore c. 3. That Religion which is neerer the Scripture then the Romish Religion is certainly the Christian Religion But so is ours therefore c. 4. They that believe not only all that in particular that is contained in the Ancient Creeds of the Church but also in generall all that is besides in the holy Scripture are of the Christian Religion But thus do the Reformed Churches believe c. 2. And for our Church 1. They that are of that one holy Catholick Church whereof Christ is the head and all true Christians are members are of the true Church For there is but one Catholick Church But so are we therefore c. 2. They that are Sanctified Justified have the love of God in them are members of the true Catholick Church But such are all that are sincere
Professors of our Religion therefore c. But all this will not serve them without a Catalogue and telling them where our Church was before Luther To this we further answer we have no peculiar Catholick Church of our own for there is but one and that is our Church Wherever the Christian Church was there was our Church And where-ever any Christians were congregate for Gods worship there were Churches of the same sort as our particular Churches And wherever Christianity was there our Religion was For we know no Religion but Christianity And would you have us give you a Catalogue of all the Christians in the world since Christ Or would you have us as vain as H. T. in his Manuall that names you some Popes and about twenty professors of their faith in each age as if twenty or thirty men were the Catholick Church Or as if those men were proved to be Papists by his naming them This is easie but silly disputing In a word Our Religion is Christianity 1. Christianity hath certain Essentials without which no man can be a Christian and it hath moreover many precious truths and duties necessary necessitate praecepti and also necessitate medii to the better being of a Christian Our being as Christians is in the former and our strength and increase and better-being is much in the latter From the former Religion and the Church is denominated Moreover 2. Our implicite and actuall explicite Belief as the Papists call them must be distinguished or our General and our particular Belief 3. And also the Positives of our Belief must be distinguished from the implyed Negatives and the express Articles themselves from their implyed Consectaries And now premising these three distinctions I shall tell you where our Church hath been in all Ages since the birth of Christ 1. In the dayes of Christ and his Apostles our Church was where they and all Christians were And our Religion was with them in all its parts both Essential and perfective That is we now Believe 1. All to be true that was delivered by the Apostles as from God with a General faith 2. We believe all the Essentials and as much more as we can understand with a Particular faith 3. But we cannot say that with such a particular faith we believe all that the Apostles believed or delivered for then we must say that we have the same degree of understanding as they and that we understand every word of the Scriptures 2. In the dayes of the A postles themselves the Consectaries and implied Verities and Rejections of all Heresies were not particularly and expresly delivered either in Scripture or Tradition as the Papists will confess 3. In the next ages after the Apostles our Church was the one Catholick Church containing all true Christians Headed by Jesus Christ and every such Christian too many to number was a member of it And for our Religion the Essential parts of it were contained both in the Holy Scriptures and in the Publick Professions Ordinances and Practices of the Church in those ages which you call Traditions and the rest of it even all the doctrines of faith and universal Laws of God which are its perfective parts they were fully contained in the holy Scriptures And some of our Rejections and Consectaries were then gathered and owned by the Church as Heresies occasioned the expressing of them and the rest were all implyed in the Apostolical Scripture doctrine which they preserved 4. By degrees many errors crept into the Church yet so that 1. Neither the Catholick Church nor one true Christian in sensu composito at least did reject any essential part of Christianity 2. And all parts of the Church were not alike corrupted with error but some more and some less 3. And still the whole Church held the holy Scripture it self and so had a perfect General or Implicite belief even while by evill consequences they oppugned many parts of their own profession 5. When in process of time by claiming the universall Soveraignty Rome had introduced a new pretended Catholick Church so far as their opinion took by superadding a New Head and form there was then a two fold Church in the West the Christian as Christian headed by Christ and the Papal as Papal Headed by the Pope yet so as they called it but one Church and by this usurped Monarchy as under Christ endeavoured to make but one of them by making both the Heads Essential when before one only was tolerable And if the Matter in any part may be the same and the same Man be a Christian and a Papist and so the same Assemblies yet still the forms are various and as Christians and part of the Catholick Church they are one thing and as Papists and members of the separating sect they are another thing Till this time there is no doubt of our Churches Visibility 6. In this time of the Romish Usurpation our Church was visible in three degrees in three severall sorts of persons 1. It was visible in the lowest degree among the Papists themselves not as Papists but as Christians For they never did to this day deny the Scriptures nor the Ancient Creeds nor Baptism the Lords Supper nor any of the substance of our Positive Articles of Religion They added a New Religion and Church of their own but still professed to hold all the old in consistency with it Wherever the truth of holy Scriptures and the ancient Creeds of the Church were professed there was our Religion before Luther But even among the Papists the holy Scriptures and the said Creeds were visibly professed therefore among them was our Religion And note here that Popery it self was not ripe for a corruption of the Christian faith professed till Luthers opposition heightned them For the Scripture was frequently before by Papists held to be a most sufficient Rule of faith as I shewed before from the Council of Basil and consequently Tradition was only pleaded as conservatory and expository of the Scripture but now the Council of Trent hath in a sort equalled them And this they were lately driven to when they found that out of Scripture they were unable to confute or suppress the truth 2. At the same time of the Churches oppression by the Papacy our Religion was visible and so our Church in a more illustrious sort among the Christians of the most of the world Greeks Ethiopians and the rest that never were subject to the usurpation of Rome but only many of them took him for the Patriarch primae sedis but not Episcopus Ecclesiae Catholicae or the Governour of the Universall Church So that here was a visibility of our Church doubly more eminent then among the Romanists 1. In that it was the far greatest part of the Catholick Church that thus held our Religion to whom the Papists were then but few 2. In that they did not only hold the same Positive Articles of faith with us but also among their Rejections
to penitence that hath found by experience that when he comes there he is naught with them himself Or whether a man may lawfully lie and calumniate to put by a calumny Or speak falsly with mentall reservations Or forbear loving God many years together if not all his life Are these points no whit Material You know that one part of you with a Pope and General Council are for deposing Heretical Kings and murthering and stabbing them and others of you disavow it Is this no whit material And yet you are all of one Church and Religion A hundred more of your differences I could name Argum. 4. From instances of the Fathers that have erred in Material points and yet are taken to be of the same Church and Religion How many Churches differed about Easter day what abundance of errors are in your Clementines and other such writers owned by you Justin Martyr was a Millenarie Numbered divers Infidels with Christians thought that Angels lived by meat and generated with Devils c. Athenagoras thought that second Marriages were comely Adultery and that the Angels fell by the love of women and begot Gyants of them c. Irenaeus hath the like Theophilus Antioch worse Tertullian and Orrigen you will confess had yet worse Clem. Alexand. was for the salvation of Infidels and Heathens against swearing and many such besides those before mentioned Greg. Thaumaturgus hath divers if the confession and other works be his that are ascribed to him Cyprian Firmilian and the whole Council at Carthage were for rebaptizing those baptized by hereticks Against all Wars and Oaths Lactantius with many more was a Millenary and hath too many great errors I have no delight to rake into their faults but if it be necessary I shall quickly prove many and great errors by fourty more of them at the least And yet all these or most are confessed by you to be of one Church and Religion Argum. 5. From your own Confessions Bellarmine lib. 1. de Beat. SS cap. 6. faith that he seeth not how the sentence of Justin Irenaeus c. can be defended from error Of Tertullian he saith There 's no trust to be given to him lib. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 8. Eusebius he saith was addicted to the Hereticks Cyprian he saith did seem to sin mortally de Rom. Pont. lib. 4. cap 7. Augustine is accused by many Jesuites for going too far from Pelagius Hierom is oft pluckt by you And so are many more of the Fathers And yet you confess some of them at least were of the true Church and Religion Argum. 6. If there be no perfect concord to be expected till we come to the place of perfect knowledge and happiness then it is not perfect concord that is necessary to prove us of the same Church or Religion But the Antecedent is alas too far past doubt Therefore c. Argum. 7. If the godly and learned Doctors of the Church and all men have some alas how many culpable errors in matters of Religion yea of faith if you call that de fide which we are obliged to believe then those that have such errors may be of the same Church and Religion But the Antecedent is so true and evident that I think none but a blind proud Pharisee will deny himself to beg of God daily to pardon and heal his culpable errors So much to prove that men of errors and differing minds if not about the essence of the Church may be of the same Church 2. But why is it that they must all needs explicitely hold the thirty nine Articles 1. I pray you tell us whether all your own Church do explicitely hold and believe all your Articles that is all that Popes and General Councils have defined or declared Dare you say that one of five hundred of five thousand doth explicitely believe all this And why then is it necessary in our case that all must explicitely believe all those Articles 2. Yea with us it is far more unnecessary For we take not those Articles for the Rule of our faith but only the holy Scripture And therefore you may as well tell us that no man is of our Religion that did not write or speak all the same words that Jewell Reignolds Perkins or such other have written in their whole works 3. It s easie to prove for all that that the sense and substance of those Articles have been owned by the Churches in all ages 3. But what if we grant your conclusion that else they cannot be esteemed Protestants what of that As if none but Protestants were of the same Church and Religion with us Sure you think we make a sect of our selves like you and exclude all others from the Church and Salvation as you do The word Protestant is not the first denomination of our Religion from its essence for so we call our selves Christians only But it is a title that accidentally accrewed to our Religion from our Protesting against your innovations and corruptions and our Rejecting the errors contrary to our Religion which you had introduced Now those that were not involved in your errors as our forefathers were but lived at a further distance from you might have no occasion to make such a Protestation and yet be of the same Church and Religion as we are Now to your particular Laws 1. Saith H. T. Let him not name the Waldenses for they held the Real presence that the Apostles were Lay men that all Magistrates fall from their dignity by any mortal sin that it is not lawful to swear c. and Waldo lived but in one thousand one hundred and sixty Answ 1. We have better assurance of the faith of the Waldenses in their own published Confessions then from the mouth of their Adversaries 2. The Lutherans hold the real presence and yet are of the same Religion and Church with us 3. The Apostles were Lay-men in the Jews account and sense as not being Priests or Levites but not in Christians account that believed their mission and thus thought the Waldenses 4. They thought that Magistrates and Ministers do by Mortal sin forfeit all the right and title to their office from which themselves may have comfort and justification in judgement But they never thought that they were not to be obeyed by others or that their actions were not valid for the Churches good 5. Many of the ancientest Fathers thought it unlawfull to swear at all that yet are cited by you as of your Church But the Waldenses are slandered in these points 6. Though Waldo was but about one thousand one hundred and sixty yet the same Religion and Church under other names and before those names were fastned on them was much elder as Raynerius may satisfie you So that for all this the Waldenses and we are of one Church and Religion He adds Let him not name the Hussites for they held Mass Transubstantiation and seven Sacraments that the universal Church consisted only of the
that I must needs conclude that either the Liturgy or much of it is forged or that the generality of your own Relators of their practice are grosly deceived and do deceive which is not likely because they are many and write at several times and it is against themselves 3. And as for the procession of the Holy Ghost and the denyal of two wills in Christ some of your own writers profess that the former in the Greeks and the later in many others is found to be but a verbal difference the same words not signifying the same thing in their esteem as in ours 4. However if they would but become the subjects of the Pope they might be of your Church for all this and therefore seeing they are the subjects of Christ we shall take both Ethiopians and Copties to be of the same Catholick Church with us for all these and many other of their errors Lastly saith H. T. Let him not cite the Armenians for they hold but one nature in Christ and that his flesh was changed into his Divinity and were condemned by the Council of Calcedon Answ The Armenians are a considerable part of the Catholick Church Binnius in the life of Eugenius the third saith their Catholick so call they their chief Bishop hath infinite that is above a thousand Bishops under him Oth. Frisingensis hath the like 1. Though they held but one nature in Christ it was not by permixtion or confusion of the natures as Eutiches imagined but Conjunction or Coalition Nicephor Hist Eccles lib. 18. cap. 53. And divers of your own writers say the difference is found to be but in words And even all this they now deny as you may see in their own Confession published not eighty years ago Artic. 26 27 28 29 30. c. 2. That they change the humane nature of Christ into the Divinity is your slander and therefore no good argument 3. That they were condemned by the five Acts or in any Act of the Council of Calcedon is another untruth sure you go much upon trust that dare venture to stuff your book with such falshoods But the best is your simple Papists know not but all is true they must believe you and cannot disprove you The Armenians then and we are of one Catholick Church and Religion notwithstanding all your forgeries and vain exceptions I know that one or two petty Councils chid them for not mixing water with wine in the Eucharist and more then that the Canons of the General Council called Quinisexti do condemn the same error as theirs and also their deputing the Sons of Priests successively to the Priesthood and not shaving their hair and their eating eggs and cheese on Saturdayes and Sundayes in Lent But 1. We fear not to say that we are of the same Church with men that err more then not shaving or then eating eggs and cheese comes to or any of this 2 And remember that this is one of your Reprobate Councils 3. And one that the third time when two General Councils before had done it did Canon 36. give aequalia privilegia equal priviledges to the Seat of Constantinople as Rome had So that I think you will have no mind of this General Council And if any other have judged them Eutichians though I renounce that opinion yet I must tell you that my Charity covereth far greater errors in the Papists or else I could not take them for Christians If the Question had ever been started in a Council whether mans soul and body are two Natures or but one it s ten to one but it would have made another heresie and yet perhaps the real difference have been no more then it is now there is no Controversie about it But H. T. addeth Protestants pretence to the Fathers of the first five hundred years is very idle because were it true as it is most false that those Fathers were Protestants yet could not that suffice to prove them is continued Succession of one thousand six hundred years Answ 1. It sufficeth us if those Fathers were Christians as we are though having no usurper of an universal Monarchy to Protest against they were not to be called Protestants 2. It is an idle pretence indeed to go about to prove a Succession of one thousand six hundred years by the bare instance of five hundred years but your idle head hath forged more idle pretences then this by way of calumniation But yet we may prove the Antiquity of our Religion from those Fathers and the Novelty of yours and a Succession for those five hundred years and for the rest if the whole Christian world had been big enough for you to see you might have discerned our Evidence of a further Succession He adds 2. Because those of the sixth age must needs know what was the Religion and Tenets of them that lived in the fifth age by whom they were instructed and with whom they daily conversed better then our Protestants can now do who have Protested on their salvation that it was the very same with theirs received from them by word of mouth c. Answ 1. Any thing will serve for the simple that will believe you But I pray you tell us whether it were all or some of the sixth age that made this solemn Protestation that you mention If all or most or the ten thousandth man tell us where we may find that Protestation If a few they were not the sixth age 2. If Pope Boniface alone was not the sixth age tell us where that age did Protest on their salvation that the Bishop of Rome was taken by their Fore fathers for the universal Monarch and Head of the Church beyond his bare Primacy of order 3. What age hath protested on their salvation that the Roman prohibition of reading Scriptures or of receiving the Eucharist in both kinds or other points anon to be mentioned were the Religion of their Fore-fathers and so from age to age 4. I pray you tell us where to find this Protestation of the tenth age which Genebrard Bellarmine and others of your own so complain of as having not learned men nor any Council but Apostatical Popes and an ignorant wicked Clergy that suspected a man of Heresie if he understood Greek or Hebrew and of Magick or Conjuring if he medled with Mathematicks 5. It is legible in the writings of the sixth Age that they did fetch the doctrine of the fifth age from their writings and not only from word of mouth What else mean the preservation of those writings and those numerous citations out of them Nay more they would not trust their memories in a General Council for the Canons of the Church no nor for the Canons of the next preceding Council no nor for the Common Creed but had all read and repeated out of the writing before the Council when there was occasion And let Conscience be free to speak truth for a few sentences and tell us in good sadness
whether you believe that the Oral Tradition of all the Church did preserve the Knowledge of Augustines Epiphanius Chrysostomes c. doctrine so much as their writings do Is the doctrine of Aquinas Scotus Gabriel c. yea the Council of Trent preserved now more certainly in mens memories then in writing If so they have better memories then mine that keep them and they have better hap then I that light of such keepers For I can scarce tell how to deliver my mind so in any difficult point but one or other is misunderstanding and misreporting it and by leaving out or changing a word perhaps make it another matter so that I am forced to refer them to my writings and yet there by neglect they misinterpret me till I open the book it self to them 6. Either the Fathers of the fifth age are intelligible in their writings or not If they be then we may understand them I hope with industry If they be not then 1. Much less were their transient speeches intelligible 2. And then the writings of the sixth age be not intelligible nor of any other and so we cannot understand the Council of Trent as the Papists do not that controvert its sense voluminously nor can we know the Churches judgement 7. By your leave the Roman Corrupters take on them so much Power to make new Laws and new Articles of Faith quoad nos by definitions and to dispense with former Laws that unless they are all Knights of the Post they can never swear that they had all that they have from their Fore-fathers 8. Well! but all this is the least part of my answer But I grant you that the sixth age understood and retained the doctrine of the fifth age and have delivered it to us But that there were no Hereticks or corrupters you will not say your selves Well then the far greatest part of the Catholick Church did not only receive from the fifth age the same Christian Religion but also kept themselves from the grossest corruptions of the Pope and his flatterers that were then but a small part And thus we stick to the Catholick Church succeeding to this day and you to an usurper that then was newly set on the Throne of universal Soveraignty So that your chief Argument treadeth Popery in the dirt because the greater part of the Catholick Church not only in the fifth and sixth age but in the seventh eighth nineth tenth thirteenth fourteenth fifteenth and sixteenth ages have been aliens or enemies to the Roman universal Monarchy therefore if one age of the Church knew the mind of the former age better then the Pope did we may be sure that the Pope is an usurper The third Argument of H. T. is that the Fathers of the first five hundred years taught their tenets therefore its impossible they should be for the Protestants Answ 1. Protestants are Christians taking the Holy Scriptures for the Rule of their faith If the Fathers were Christians they were for the Protestants but its certain they were Christians If you could prove that they were for some of your mistakes that would not prove them against the Protestants in the doctrine of Christianity and the holy Scriptures and so that we are not their Successors in Christianity and of the same Church which was it that you should have proved but forgot the question And of this we shall speak to you more anon Well! by this time I have sufficiently shewed the succession of our Church and continuation of our Religion from the Apostles and where it was before Luther and given you the Catholick Church instead of a dozen or twenty names in each age which it seems will satisfie a Papist but yet we have not done with them but require this following Justice at their hands Seeing the Papists do so importunately call to us for Catalogues and proof of our succession Reason and Justice requireth that they first give us a Catalogue of Papists in all ages and prove the succession of their Roman Catholick Church which they can never do while they are men And here I must take notice of the delusory ridiculous Catalogue wherewith H. T. begins his Manual His Argument runs thus That is the only true Church of God which hath had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this day very true But the Church now in Communion with the Sea of Rome and no other hath had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time therefore c. For the proof of the Minor he giveth us a Catalogue And here note the misery of poor souls that depend on these men that are deluded with such stuff that one would think they should be ashamed the world should see from them 1. What if his Catalogue were true and proved would it prove the Exclusion that no other Church had a succession Doth it prove that Constantinople or Alexandria had no such succession because the Romanists had it where is there ever a word here under this Argument to prove that exclusive part of his Minor 2. And note how he puts that for the Question that is not the Question between us A fair beginning The Question is not about Churches in Communion with you but about Churches in subjection to you But this is but a pious fraud to save men by decieving them The Ancient Church of Rome had the Church of Hierusalem Corinth Philippi Ephesus and many a hundred Churches in Communion with her that never were in subjection to her 3. And if the Papists can but prove themselves true Christians I will quickly prove that the Protestants are in Communion with them still as Christians by the same Head Christ the same spirit baptism faith love hope c. though not as Papists by subjection to the same usurper 4. Our question is of the Universal Church And this man nameth us twenty or thirty men in an age that he saith were professors of their Religion And doth he believe in good sadness that twenty or thirty men are either the universall Church or a sufficient proof that it was of their mind 5. But principally did this man think that all or any besides their subjects had their wits so far to seek as to believe that the persons named in his Catalogue were Papists without any proof in the world but meerly because they are listed here by H. T Or might he not to as good purpose have saved his labour and said nothing of them 6 But what need we go any further we will begin with him at lis first Century and so to the second and if he can prove that Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary or John Baptist or the Apostles or any one of the rest that he hath named were Papists much more all of them I am resolved presently to turn Papist But unless the man intended to provoke his reader to an unreverent laughter about this abuse of holy things one would think he should not have named
John Baptist that was dead not only before Rome had a Church but also before the time that Bellarmine and his Brethren pretend that Peter received his Commission to be the universall Head And did not this writer know that Protestants can give him the same names as for them and if printing them be proof their proof is as good If it be not what proof shall we have Our proof is the Holy Scriptures written by the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost in those times Thence we prove that the first Church held the same belief as we have yea though it be not incumbent on us we will thence prove that the Catholick Church was not then Papists Why else do we still appeal to Scriptures and they refuse to stand to the tryal of it any otherwise then as expounded by the Pope but that we are confident and they diffident of them We know the Apostles faith from the Apostles but the Papists will not know it but from the present Church of Rome They tell you the Apostles were for them but how know we that Why by the testimony of the next age and where is that testimony Why the third age received it and how is that proved Why because the fourth age was of their mind And how prove you that Why in the upshot because the present age is of their mind Why but most Christians of the present age are against them yea but they are none of the Church It is only the present Church of Rome Well! but the present Church of Rome represented in a General Council may err I but the Pope cannot in Cathedra and in approving a Councill So that the summ is this If the Pope himself may be judge the Apostles were Papists But if the Apostles may be heard themselves they were none I make no doubt though Bellarmine deny it but other Churches can prove as good a succession as the Romane as to Bishops And poor Bellarmine after all is fain to give up this Mark as insufficient to prove a true Church Lib. ◠de Eccles cap. 8. Dico secundò Argumentum à successione legittna adferri à nobis praecipuè ad probandum non esse Ecclesiam ibi non est haec successio quod quidem evidens est ex quo tamen n◠colligitur necessario ibi esse Ecclesiam ubi est successio By his own confession then succession will not prove the Romanists a true Church But as to a succession of Religion and a continuation of the Catholick Church for my part I am so far from declining it in argumentation that I here solemnly profess to all the Papists that shall read these words that AS SOON AS I SHALL SEE ANY CERTAIN PROOF BY CATALOGUE OR ANY OTHER WAY THAT THE CATHOLICK CHURCH HATH SUCCESSIVELY FROM AGE TO AGE BEEN PAPISTS I WILL TURN PAPIST WITHOUT DELAY AND I CHALLENGE THEM TO GIVE US SUCH PROOF IF THEY CAN. Nay if they will prove that in the first age alone or the second or third alone the Catholick Church were Papists I am am resolved to turn Papist Nay I am most confident they cannot prove that in any one age to this day the Catholick Church were Papists And as to H. Ts. Catalogue I return him further answer that no one named by him in the first age had any one of their errors And no one named by him to the year four hundred I may add to the year six hundred if his false catalogue be truly corrected was a Papist so well hath he proved the Popish Succession But for the plainer opening of this I shall add the discussion of another of their deceits CHAP. XXV Detect 16. ANother notable fraud of the Papists is to confound all their own errors and corruptions together and then to instance in some of those errors that are common to them with some others and to omit the Essentiall parts of Popery And so they would make the world believe that if they prove the Antiquity of any points in difference between them and us they do thereby prove the antiquity of Popery and so of the succession And so they would make our Religion also Essentially to consist in every inferiour difference between us Suffer them not therefore thus to juggle in the dark but distinguish between the Essentials of Popery or the main difference between them and us and the other errors which are not proper to them alone Thus Bellarmine opens his jugling lib. 4. de Eccles cap. 9. where he pleadeth Antiquity of Doctrine as a Note of the true Church And saith he Jam duobus modis c. Two wayes we may by this Mark prove our Church 1. By shewing the sentences of the Ancients by which we confirm all our tenets and refute our adversaries But this way saith he is most prolix and obnoxious to many calumnies and objections Mark Papists and take heed of appealing to Antiquity The other way saith he is shorter and surer by shewing first from the confession of the adversaries that our tenents are the doctrine of all the antients c. And indeed if the weakness or rashness of any Protestants be the Papists strength its time for us to be more prudent but if it be the Papists unhappiness that cannot understand the antients in the antients but only from the Pope or the Protestants the Fathers are faln into the hands of Babies as well as the Scriptures and the Protestants have too little wit if they will join with the Pope in an abusive interpreting the Fathers for the Papists And thus Bellarmine proceeds to cite Calvin and the Centurists as giving them the Fathers But wherein Forsooth in the point of Free-will Limbus Concupiscence Lent Lay baptism in necessity c. And therefore by our Confessions Antiquity is for the Papists And this is their shortest and surest way The more fools we then Is not here great diffidence in the Fathers when they have more confidence in our sayings then their writings But this jugling will not serve the turn Take up the Essentials of Popery and prove a Catholick succession of them and you shall win the day In Explication of my former professions I here again solemnly promise and protest that WHEN EVER I SEE A VALID PROOF OF A CATHOLICK SUCCESSION OF THESE FOLLOWING POINTS I WILL PRESENTLY TURN PAPIST OR OF ANY ONE OF THEM I WILL TAKE UP THAT ONE And I provoke the Papists that boast of Tradition Succession and Antiquity to do this if they are able 1. Let them prove a Catholick Succession or continuation of this point that The Pope of Rome is appointed by Christ to be the universall Monarch Soveraign Governour Head of the Catholick Church and the Vicar of Christ on earth and holding the place of God himself whom all must obey 2. And that the true and only Catholick Church is a Society thus headed and Governed by the Pope and that no man is a true member of the Catholick Church that is
25. Tertul. cont Marcion Carm. lib. 4. cap. 7. Athanas Tom. 2. Epist 39. Et in Synops Sacr. scrip Hilar. Pictav Explanat in Psalmos Cyril vel Johan Hierosol Catech. 4. Concil Laodic Can 59. Epiphan haeres 8. 76. de Mensur ponderib Greg. Nazianz. Carmin de veris genuinis libris SS Amphiloch in Balsam pag. 1082. Hieronym in Prolog in lib. Reg. Prol. in lib. Solom Et Epist ad Laetam passim Ruffinus in Symbolum But what need I cite any more when Dr. Cosin hath done it in a volume purposely where this allegation also of the third Conc. Carthag is answered AND now having shewed you that Papists cannot prove any Catholick Succession or Continuation or Tradition of their Religion let us consider of their silly shift by instancing in some by-points common to them with others Of which I shall say the less because I have spoke to it already in my Safe Religion And before I mention any particulars remember that I have proved before that ignorance or difference about many points not essential to Christianity may consist with our being of one Religion and Catholick Church and therefore such differences are nothing to the point of succession of the Catholick Church or Religion This is plain to any reasonable man And that the Papists may see that for their parts they have nothing to say against it I shall add to what is said that they tolerate or plead for the toleration of greater differences among themselves which yet they affirm to consist with the unity of faith I will now give you but an instance or two The Jesuits maintain that if a man do but believe in their Pope and Church as infallible he may not only as some say be ignorant of some Article of the Creed it self and yet be a true Catholick yea and be saved but also believe a false Article as from God and the Church The former is commonly taught not only by such as Suarez that say the Article of Christs Descent into Hell is not to all of Necessity to Salvation but by many others in the Doctrine of Implicite faith The later clause you may see among others in Franc. Albertinus the Jesuite Corollar pag. 250. where his objectors put this case Suppose twenty Bishops preach to a countrey man a false Article as if it were spoken by God and the Church that proposal of the twenty Bishops is so sufficient that the Countrey man prudently formeth an evident practical judgement and morally certain to believe with a speculative assent the Article proposed by the twenty Bishops for the Authority of God as the formal reason Three absurdities seem hence to follow 1. That the Countrey man should be obliged under mortall sin to believe the twenty Bishops and so the precept of faith should bind to believe a falshood 2. The Countrey man should be in Gods Grace without faith In Grace because he commits no mortal sin yea he obeys the command of believing Yet without faith because he believes a falshood opposite to faith and so loseth faith 3. God should concur to deceive To the first Albertinus answereth that it s no Absurdity that the command of faith do oblige to believe a falshood it being not per se but per accidens To the second he saith that the Countrey man doth not lose his grace or faith because the falshood believed is not formally opposite to the true faith but materially Here you see that a man may hold an Article opposite to the faith materially and yet not only be a true Christian in grace and faith but also in so doing obey by accident the command of believing so be it he believe in their Church And if that be so with what face can these men say that our Church or Religion is new or not the same with the Greeks c. when we have the same formal Object of faith and differ in no Essential Material point See here their lubricity and partiality One Instance more The second Council of Nice that decreed for Image-Worship doth yet expresly decree that Latria Divine worship is to be given only to God Thomas Aquinas sum 3. q. 25. art 3. 4. purposely maintaineth that Latria Divine Worship is to be given to the Image of Christ and to the Cross that he dyed on and to the sign of that Cross Here is an Article of their faith expresly contradicted And yet Aquinas is a member of their Church And if any say he is no member it s proved past doubt for the Pope hath Canonized him for a Saint So that now it is a part of their Religion to take him for a true believer And Albertinus hath as he thinks proved that though in many other matters of fact the Pope be fallible yet in the Canonizing of Saints he is infallible because of some promise of Gods speciall assistance if one knew where to find it Abundance of such Instances might be brought that prove that the Papists own men as true believers that deny or contradict Articles of their faith But what need we more then that France and thousands elswhere are yet members of their Church that deny the Laterane and Florentine definition for the Popes Supremacy above a General Council and when most Papists hold that Angels are incorporeal contrary to the definition of the said second Council of Nice And therefore by their own law nay much more we may well say that those were of our Religion that differed from us in nothing that is indeed or our esteem Essential to the faith Now to a few particulars 1. The Papists tell us that Fulk confesseth that Hierom Austin Ambrose c. held the invocation of Saints H. T. p. 49. Answ 1. If any hold that they should desire the departed Saints to pray for them as they do the living we have reason enough to take it for their error but it s no proof that they are not of the same Church and Religion with us As long as they give no part of that adoration or honour to Saints which is proper to God the Father Son or Holy Ghost it is not inconsistent with true Faith and Christianity 2. But yet we must tell you that the Primitive Church was unacquainted with the Romish prayer to Saints Till the end of the fourth Century they are not able to prove that ever three men if any one were for any prayer to the Dead at all except such a conditional speech in an Oration as Greg. Nazianzen hath If holy souls have any care or feeling of such things as these receive this Oration Orat. 11. I intreat the Reader that needeth information of the way of Antiquity in this point to read Bishop Ushers Answer to the Jesuite on this point page 418 c. Where he saith that for nine parts of the first four hundred years he dare be bold to say that the Jesuite is not able to produce so much as one true testimony out
colo c. 1 worship neither the Image nor a Spirit in it but by the bodily likeness I behold the sign of that which I ought to worship Yea that many of them renounced the worshipping of Devils appeareth by Augustines report of their words in Psal 96. Non colimus mala daemonia c. We worship not evil spirits It is those that you call Angels that we worship who are the powers of the great God and the Ministers of the great God To whom Austin answers Would you would worship them that is honour them aright then you would easily learn of them not to worship them And doubtless few could be so silly as to think there were as many Jupiters or Apollos as there were Images of them in the world So that you see here that some of the Pagans as to Image-worship disclaimed that which the Papists ascribe to them viz. Divine worship Oh but saith H. T. tell us not of particular Doctors but of the Doctrine of Gods Church Answ What not of Saint Thomas What! not of the Army of School Divines before mentioned What! not of the Communis sententia Theologorum the common judgement of Divines for so they call it What not of that which is de fide or consonant to it and whose contrary is heresie or savours of Heresies as they say of Durandus opinion what not of Pope Clement the eighth and the Romane Pontifical pag. 672. wonderful are all these no body in your Church O admirable harmony that is in your united Church But you can agree to leave out the second commandment lest the very words should deter the people from Image worship and to make an irrational division of the tenth to blind their eyes And yet you cry up the Testimony of the Fathers when you are fain to hide one of the ten commandments so that thousands of your poor seduced followers know not that there is such a thing No wonder if you cast away Gregory Nyssen's Epistle against Pilgrimages and Epiphanius his words in the end of his Epistle to Johan Herosol against Images and if Vasquez in 3 Thom. disp 105. c. 3. contrary to the plain words do fain that it was the Image of a prophane or common man that Epiphanius puld down and Al. Cope Dial. 5. c. 21. say that the epistle is counterfeit and not Epiphanius's and if Bellarmine de Imag. c. 9. and Baronius ad an 392. say that this part of the Epistle is forged and if Alphons a Castro cont Haeres de Imag. reproach Epiphanius for it as an Iconoclast so well are you agreed also in the confutation of the Fathers Testimonies that any way will serve your turn though each man have his several way Fair fall Vasquez that plainly confesseth that indeed the Scripture doth forbid not only the worship of an Image for God but also the worshiping of the true God in an Image but saith that this commandment is now repealed and therefore under the Gospel we may do otherwise Vasq li. 2. de Adorat Disp 4. c. 3. Sect. 74. 75. c. 4. Sect. 84. But of this point I shall say no more now but this 1. Many Christian Churches do reject Images from their Churches and worship as well as Protestants 2. More reject statues that reject not pictures 3. Many that keep them worship not them nor God in them or by them as by a mediate object 4. General Councils have been against Images that want nothing but the pleasure of the Pope to make them of as good authority as the Council that was for them 5. That Council that was for them Nice 2. condemneth the Schoolmen and Pope Clement himself as Hereticks for worshiping them or the Cross with Divine worship 6. I again urge any Papist to answer Dallaeus book rationally that can 7. To spare me the labour of saying more of the judgement of the ancient Catholick Church against the Popish use of Images I desire the Reader to peruse what Cassander an honest Papist hath written to that end Consultat de Imag. et simulac who begins thus Ad Imagines vero sanctorum quod attinet certum est initio praedicati Evangelii aliquanto tempore inter Christianos praesertim in ecclesiis imaginum usum non fuisse ut ex Clemente Arnobio patet Tandem picturas in ecclesiam admissas ut rerum gestarum historiam exprimentes c. And he produceth abundance from antiquity against the present Popish use of them 4. Another point in which the Papists pretend to better Countenance from Antiquity then we is the point of the Corporal presence with Transubstantiation But of this there is so much said by multitudes of our Divines that I shall now say no more but desire the studious to Read at least Bishop Ushers Answ to the Jesuite of it and Edmundus Abertinus de Eucharistia a Treatise so full of evidence from Scripture Reason and the judgement of the Fathers that I boldly challenge all the Papists in the world to give a tolerable answer to it that is a better then that is given When we have thus shewed them the stream of Antiquity to have been against them they pass us by and thrust into the ignorant peoples hands a few musty scraps of abused words which are answered and cleared over and over Thus do H. T. D. Baily and others 5. In the point of Satisfaction and Purgatory besides what Sadeel Chamier and others have said Usher and the foresaid Dallaeus in a full Treatise have shewed the Papists nakedness from Antiquity so that modesty should forbid them to pretend the Fathers for them any more if any modesty be left 6. About their Fasts though that be no essential of Religion both the time manner c. is so fully spoak to by the said Dallaeus in another just volume de Jejuniis that Popery in this also is openly condemned by the Fathers in the view of the impartial considerate world The point of Free will and most of the rest in which they imagine that we dissent from Antiquity or the Eastern Churches I have spoak to already in my first Book against Popery I had thought to have gone through the rest particularly at least the rest mentioned by H. T. and D. Baily but finding them so frequently and fully handled already I will forbear such labour in vain CHAP. XXVI Detect 17. ANother of the Papists Deceits and one of the Principal that they support their cause with is A false interpretation and application of all the sayings of the Fathers which they can but force to a shew of countenancing their supremacy That you may find out their jugling in this I shall shew you some of of their Footsteps more particularly 1. Any claim that their own ambitious Bishops have made to a further power then was due to them they use as an Argument for their universal soveraignty when as we deny not but that there was too much pride and Ambition in their Prelates
that changes may be and yet the time and Authors be unknown is from the instance of other Churches that have been corrupted or subverted by Innovations and yet the time and authors are unknown You accuse the Churches in Habassia of many errors your selves and you are not able to tell us when they came in or who introduced them The same may be said of the Georgians Armenians Egyptians yea and of the Greeks and Russians Can you tell us when and by whom each error was introduced that corrupted the Churches mentioned in the Scripture as Corinth Philippi Coloss Thessalonica Ephesus Laodicaea and the rest you know you can give us no better an account of this then we can of the Authors of your Corruptions nor so good You know that among the Primitive Fathers whose writings are come to our hands many errors had the Major vote as that of the Corporeity of Angels which your second General Council at Nice owned and their Copulation with women before the flood the Millenary conceit and many more which you confess to be errors Tell us when any of these came in if you can unless you will believe that Papias received the last from John and then it s no error Who did first bring the Asian Churches to celebrate Easter at a season differing from yours Who first brought the Brittains to it Nay we know not certainly who first Converted many Nations on earth nor when they first received their Christianity and how then should we know when they first received each error And we find that good men did bring in Novelties and what was by them introduced as indifferent would easily by custom grow to seem Necessary and what they received as a doubtfull opinion would easily grow to be esteemed a point of Faith The Presbyters and whole Clergy of Neocaesarea were offended with Basil for his Innovations viz. for bringing in a new Psalmodie or way of singing to God and for his new order of Monasticks and they told him that none of this was so in Gregories dayes and what answereth Basil He denyeth not the Novelty of his Psalmodie but retorts again on them that their Letany also was new and not known in the time of Gregory Thaumaturgus yea saith he How know you that these things were not in the dayes of Gregory For you have kept nothing unchanged to this day of all that he was used to you see what chopping and changing was then in the Church among all sorts when such an alteration was made in less then forty years Yet Basil would not have unity to be laid on any of these things but addeth But we pardon all these things though God will examine all things only let the principal things be safe Basil Epist 63. Isidore Pelusiota lib. 1. Epist 90. saith that the Apostles of the Lord studying to restrain and suppress unmeet loquacity and shewing themselves Masters of modesty and gravity to us did by wise Council permit women to sing in the Churches But as all Gods documents are turned into the contrary so this is turned to dissoluteness and the occasion of sin For they are not affected with deep compunction in singing Divine Hymns but abusing the sweetness of the singing to the irritating and provoking of lust they take it for no better then stage-play songs therefore he adviseth that they be suffered to sing no more Here you see 1. That changes had happened about many Divine things 2. That he adviseth himself the introducing of this novelty that women be forbidden singing in the Church because of the abuse though he confess it a wise Apostolick Order So that for Novelty by good men to creep into Gods worship is not strange 3. Moreover the Nature of the thing may tell all the world that neither you nor we can be accountable of the beginning of every error that creepeth into the Church For 1. The distance of time is great 2. Historians are not so exact and what they tell us not neither you nor we can know 3. Much History is perished 4. Much is corrupted by your wicked forgeries as hath been oft proved to you 5. Mixtures of Fables have hindred the credit of much of it 6. Nations are not individual persons but consist of millions of individuals And as it is not a whole Nation that is converted to the faith at once so neither is it whole Nations that are perverted to Heresie at once but one receiveth it first and then more and more till it over-spread the whole Paul saith that such doctrine eateth like a Gangrene and that is by degrees beginning on one part and proceeding to the rest 7. As I said before that which is at first received but as an Opinion and an Indifferent thing must have time to grow into a Custom and that Custom maketh it a Law and makes Opinions grow up to be Articles of Faith and Ceremonies grow to be Necessary things You know that this is the common way of propagating opinions in the world 4. I have in another Book shewed you out of many of your own writers the rise of divers of your vanities And Usher hath told the Jesuite more and so he hath told you of your thriving to your present height in his Book de success statu Eccles And so hath Mornay in his Mysterie of Iniquity and Rivet in the Defense of him against Cofferellus and Pet. Molinaeus hath purposely written a Book de Novitate Papismi Antiquitate veri Christianismi shewing the Newness of Popery in the several parts of it To these therefore I remit you for Answer to this Objection 5. Can you tell us your selves when many of your doctrines or practices sprung up When took you up your Sabbaths fast for which you have been condemned by a Council You know that when the twentieth Canon of the Nicene Council was made and when the Canons at Trull were made it was the Practice of the Church through the known world to pray and perform other worship standing and to avoid kneeling on the Lords Day Tell us when this Canon and Tradition was first violated by you and by whom It was once the custom of your Church to give Infants the Eucharist who first broke it off It was once your practice to Communicate in both kinds who first denyed the Cup to the Laity At first it was only a doubtful Opinion that Saints are to be Prayed to and the dead prayed for which came into mens minds about the third or fourth Century But who first made them Articles of faith Augustine began to doubt whether there were not some kind of Purgatory But who first made this also a point of faith Who was it that first added the Books of the Maccabees and many others to the Canon of Scripture contrary to the Council of Laodicaea and all the rest of the concent of Antiquity which Dr. Reignolds Dr. Cosin and others have produced Who was it that first taught and practised the
which are not destructive to the Essentials of Christianity but only to some Integral part And there is a schism that doth not unchurch men as well as a schism that doth of which this is no place to treat But ad hominem me thinks your own writers put you hard to it who conclude as Bellarmine and many more do though Alphonsus à Castro and others be against it that Hereticks and Schismaticks are no members of the Church And Melch. Canus Loc. Theol. lib. 4. cap. 2. fol. 117. saith that that Hereticks are no parts of the Church is the common conclusion of all Divines not only of those that have written of late but of them also that by their Antiquity are esteemed the most Noble This is attested by Cyprian Augustine Gregory the two Councils of Lateran and Florence Rightly therefore did Pope Nicolas define that the Church is a collection of Catholicks If this be true it is an Article of faith And then Alphonsus à Cast and all of his mind are Hereticks and lost men And I pray you note what a case you are in Two Approved General Councils have determined that a Heretick is no member of the Church But multitudes of your own writers and Pope Adrian and many more of your Popes have judged that a Pope may be a Heretick and consequently no member of the Church And consequently judge what 's become of your Church when an Essential part of it is no part of the Church Your common shift which Canus ibid. and others fly to is that He must be a judged Heretick before he is dismembred But 1. Sure that is but for manifestation to men for before God he is the same if men never judge him 2. Where the case is notorious the offendor is ipso jure cut off 3. Then it is in the Popes Power to let whole millions of Hereticks to be still parts of the Church And so the world shall be Christians or no Christians as he please and why may he not let Turks and Infidels on the same grounds be parts of the Church For he may forbare to judge them if that will serve 4. Then all the Christians in the world that the Pope hath not yet judged and cast out are members of the Church And then millions and millions are of the Church that never were subjects of the Pope If you say It is enough that there is a General condemnation of all that are guilty as they are I answer then it is enough to cut off a Pope that there was a General condemnation against such as he 5. But if all this satisfie you not yet I told you before that two or three Councils and three Popes did all judge Pope Honorius guilty of Heresie and consequently both Popes and General Councils have judged that a Pope may be an Heretick therefore you have been judged Heretical in your Head which is an essential part of your Church And thus I have shewed you what is the schism of the Church of Rome which being but a part hath attempted to cut off all the rest and so hath made a new pretended Catholick Church As a part of the Old Church which consisteth of all Christians united in Christ we confess all those of you still to be a part that destroy not this Christianity But as you are new gathered to a Christ-Representative or Vicar General we deny you to be any Church of Christ If you be Church members or saved it must be as Christians but never as Papists For a Papist may be a Christian but not as a Papist And if yet you cannot see the Church that you separate from open your eyes and look into much of Europe and all over Asia almost where are any Christians look into Armenia Palestine Egypt Ethiopia and many other Countries and you shall find that you are but a smaller part of the Church If you will not believe what I have before proved of this hear what your own say Anton. Marinarins in the Council of Trent complaineth that the Church is shut up in the Corners of Europe and yet Domestick enemies arise that waste this portion shut up in a corner Sonnius Bishop of Antwerp in Demonstrat Relig. Christian lib. 2. Tract 5. c. 3. saith I pray you what room hath the Catholick Church now in the habitable world scarce three elnes long in comparison of that vastness which the Satanical Church doth possess If yet you boast that you have the same seat that formerly you had I answer so have the Bishops of Constantinople Alexandria and others whom you condemn And we say as Gregory Nazianz Orat. de land Athanasii It is a succession of Godliness that is properly to be esteemed a succession For he that professeth the same doctrine of faith is also partaker of the same throne But he that embraceth the contrary belief ought to be judged an adversary though he be in the throne This indeed hath the name of succession but the other hath the Thing it self and the Truth And he next addeth such words as utterly break your succession in pieces saying For he that breaketh in by force as abundance of Popes did is not to be esteemed a successor but rather he that suffereth force nor he that breaketh the Laws but he that is chosen in manner agreeable to the Laws nor he that holdeth contrary tenets but he that is endued with the same faith Unless any man will call him a Successor as we say a sickness succeedeth health or darkness succeedeth light and a strom succeeds a calm or madness or distraction succeedeth prudence Thus Nazianz pag. 377. We conclude therefore with one of your own Lyra Glos in Math. 16. Because many Princes and chief Priests or Popes and other inferiors have been found to Apostatize the Church consisteth in those persons in whom is the true knowledge and confession of Faith and Verity And so much to this empty Manuscript CHAP. XXXVI Detect 27. ANother of their Deceits is this To charge us with introducing New Articles of faith or points of Religion because we contradict the New Articles which they introduce and then they require us to prove our doctrines which are but the Negatives of theirs We receive no Doctrines of faith or worship but what was delivered by the Apostles to the Church These men bring in abundance of New ones and say without proof that they received them from the Apostles And because we refuse to receive their Novelties they call our Rejections of them the Doctrines of our Religion and feign us to be the Innovators And by this device it is in the Power of any Heretick to force the Church to take up such as these men call New points of faith If a Papist shall say that besides the Lords Prayer Christ gave his Disciples another Form or two or three or many or that he gave them ten New Commandments not mentioned in the Bible or that he oft descended after his Ascension and
conversed with them or that there are many more worlds of men besides this earth or that Christ instituted twenty Sacraments how should we deal with these men but hy denying their fictions as sinfull Novelty and rejecting them as corrupt additions to the Faith And were this any Novelty in us And should they bid us prove in the express words of Scripture or antiquity our Negative Propositions that Christ gave but one form of prayer that he did not oft descend that he gave no more Decalogues Sacraments c. Is it not a sufficient proof of any of these that they are not written and that no Tradition of them from the Apostles is proved and that they that hold the Affirmative and introduce the Novelty must prove and not we Our Articles of faith are the same and not increased nor any new ones added But the Papists come in with a new faith as large as all the Novelties in the Decretals and the Councils and these innovations of theirs we reject Now our Rejections do not increase the Articles of our faith no more then my beating a dog out of my house or keeping out an enemy or sweeping out the filth doth enlarge my house or increase my family They do not take all the Anathema and Rejections in their own Councils to be Canons or Articles of faith For example The Pope hath made it an Article of faith that no Scripture is to be interpreted but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers This wereject and make it no Article of our faith but an erroneous Novelty Do we hereby make a new Article because we reject a new one of theirs yea a part of the Oath of their Church made by Pope Pius after the Council of Trent 1. If this be an Article prove it if you can 2. If it be a Truth and no Novelty I pray you tell us which be Fathers and which not and help us to know certainly when we have all or the unanimous Consent And then tell us whether every man is not forsworn with you that interprets any text of Scripture before he have read all the Fathers or any text which six of them never expounded or any text which they do not unanimously agree on And yet though it be not our necessary task we can easily prove to you that this is a New Article of your devising 1. Because else no man must expound any Scripture at all before these Fathers were born For how could the Church before them have their unanimous consent And 2. Because that otherwise these Fathers themselves wanted an Article of faith unless it was an Article to them that they must expound no Scripture but by their own Consent 3. Because these Fathers do few of them expound all or half or the twentieth part of the Scripture 4. Because they took liberty to disagree among themselves and therefore do not unanimously consent in abundance of particular texts 5. Because they tell us that they are fallible and bid us not take it on their trust 6. Because the Apostles have left us no such rule or precept but much to the contrary 7. Your own Doctors for all their Oath do commonly charge the Fathers with error and misexpounding Scripture as I shewed before Canus and many others charge Cajetan a Cardinal and pillar in your Church with making it his practise to differ from the Fathers and choosing expositions purposely for the Novelty pro more suo as his custom And when he hath highly extolled Cajetan Loc. Theol. lib. 7. pag. 223. he adds that yet his doctrine was defiled with a Leprosie of errors by an affection and lust of Curiosity or confidence on his wit expounding Scripture as he list happily indeed for the most part but in some few places more acutely then happily because he regarded not antient Tradition and was not verst in the reading of the Fathers and would not learn from them the Mysteries of the sealed book And in another place he blames him that he alway followed the Hebrew and Greek text And many other Papists by him and others are blamed for the same faults Andradius and more of the later plead for it And yet these men are counted members of your Church that go against an Article of your new faith and Oath So Transubstantiation is one of your New Articles in that Oath Do we make a New one now if we reject it Or need we be put to prove the Negative And yet we can easily do it And Edm. Albertinus among many others hath done it unanswerably Another of your Articles is that it belongeth to your Holy Mother the Church to judge of the true sence of Scripture And you mean the Roman Church and that they must judge of it for all the Christian world Prove this to be the Antient doctrine if you can If we reject this Novelty are we Innovators or need we prove the Negative And yet we can do it and have oft done it at large Did Athanasius Basil Nazianzen Nyssen Augustine Hierom Chrysostome Epiphanius and the rest of the Fathers send to Rome for the sence of the Scriptures which they expound or did they procure the Popes Approbation before any of them published their Commentaries You know sure that they did not The like may be said of all the rest of your New Articles and Practises We stand our ground Some of your Novelties we reject as trifles some as smaller errors and some as greater but still we keep to our antient faith of which the Scripture is a full and sufficient Rule as Vincentius Lirinens ubi supra though we are glad of all helps to understand it we say with Tertullian de carne Christi cap. 6. Nihil de eo constat quia Scriptura non exhibet Non probant quia non Scriptum est His qui insuper argumentantur nos resistemus CHAP. XXXVII Detect 28. ANother of their Deceits is this They make advantage of our charitable Judgement of them and of their uncharitable judgement of us and all other Christians to affright and entice people to their sect They say that we cannor be saved nor any that are not of the Roman Church But we say that a Papist may be saved They say that we want abundance of the Articles of faith that are of necessity to salvation We say that the Papists hold all that is necessary to salvation Luther saith that the Kernel of true faith is yet in the Church of Rome therefore say they Let Protestants take the shell And hence they make the simple people believe that even according to our own Confessions their Church and way is safer then ours I have answered this formerly in my Safe Religion but yet shall here once more shew you the nakedness of this Deceit 1. The Papists denying the faith and salvation of all other Christians doth no whit invalidate our faith nor shake our salvation Our Religion doth not cease to be true when ever a peevish
not bound so much as to seek information And pag. 120. he cites Vega lib. 6. cap. 18. saying that as Ignorance purae negationis about many Articles of faith may be without fault so there is the same reason of Ignorance pravae dispositionis Which he maintains against Gerson and Hugo And S. Clara adds of his own To speak my sense freely I think that the common people committing themselves to the instruction of the Pastors trusting their knowledge and goodness if they be deceived it shall be accounted Invincible Ignorance or probable at least So Herera which excuseth from fault Yea some Doctors give so much to the Instruction of Doctors on whom the care of the flock lyeth that if they teach hic nunc that God would be hated that a rude Parishoner is bound to believe them And so page 121. concludeth that he hopeth many of us are saved Page 122. he citeth the concent of Azorius To. 1. l. 8. Just c. 6. and Corduba again And pag. 123. saith It seemeth to be the common Opinion of the Schools and Doctors at this day that the Laity erring with their Teachers or Pastors are altogether excused from all fault yea by erring thus many wayes materially they merit for the act of Christian Obedience which they owe their teachers as Valentia saith Tom. 3. disp 1. q. 2. pag. 5. and others with Angles Vasquez c. Pag. 124 125. After Cajetan he cites Zanchez teaching that those that are brought up among Hereticks are not bound presently to believe and yet are not to be accounted Hereticks till they refuse Belief sufficiently propounded to them And he cites Alph. Ã Castro and Simanchas Aragon and Tannerus and Faber for the same And pag. 126. he cites Eman Sa affirming that even among Catholicks many are excused from the explicite knowledge of the Trinity and Incarnation specially if there want a Teacher For what saith he shall we say that an infinite number of Christians otherwise good people perish that scarce know any thing aright of the Mysterie of the Trinity and Incarnation Yea judge perversly or falsly of them if you ask them And cites Rozella and Midina of the same mind Lastly gives also the judgement of Gr. Valentia fully for his opinion Analys fid lib. 2. cap. 3. lit D. In the sixteenth Probleme page 127. he puts another Question Whether the Law of Nature and Decalogue may be unknown without fault And saith that though Alex. Ales say No yet It is the more common and received Opinion citing Adrian Corduba Herera alios communiter that there may be such invincible ignorance in respect of the Law of Nature and the Decalogue And note for the understanding of all this that this which they call an Implicite faith in Christ is no actual faith in Christ at all He that only believes as the Church believes and knows not that the Church believes in Christ in the Resurrection of Christ c. hath no actual belief in Christ or the Resurrection at all Ignoti nulla fides If I believe that one of you is true of his word it doth not follow that I actually believe the particular propositions which I never heard This which they call an implicite Belief is nothing but the explicite actual belief of the Formal Object of Faith Divine or Humane as that God is True or the Church True and infallible but it is no belief at all of the particular material object And note that every one in the world that believeth that there is a God must needs believe that he is no Lyar and so hath in God an Implicite belief Now if this will save men without a particular belief in Christ then Christianity is not necessary Every Turk and Jew and Infidel that believeth in God may then be said to have an Implicite faith in Christ in the Popish language because he believeth all that God revealeth to be true But if an Implicite faith in God will not serve how should an implicite faith in the Church serve unless the Church that is the Pope be better then God See here whether they make any more of the Christian faith then a meer shooing horn to draw and keep men to their side By a General Council and the Pope it is determined that no man can be saved out of their Church as headed by the Pope To believe in the Pope is of Necessity to Salvation but to believe in Christ in his Incarnation Death Resurrection is not so An Implicite faith in the Pope or Church yea or erring Doctors may save and men may merit by following them in error but an Implicite faith in God himself will not save if we believe not in the Pope So that if we were Infidels we might be saved so we were of the Church of Rome and believed in the Pope but the Holiest Christian that believeth explicitely in God and all the Articles of the faith cannot be saved if he believe not in the Pope Do you think they believe these Doctrines themselves or rather frame them to the building of their Kingdom And what a wonder is it that Learned Doctors see not their own contradiction they suppose a man to believe in the Pope or as the Church believeth and yet not to believe in Christ And is not the Church essentially a company of Christians the spouse and body and school and Kingdom of Christ And is not the Pope essentially the pretended Vicar of Christ How then can they believe in Christs Vicar or Christs School or Kingdom or followers before they believe in Christ himself And by all this you may perceive the Holiness of the Roman Church and the nature of that Discipline or Church Government that all the world must needs submit to or be damned Even such as takes in Infidels and all and layeth the Church as common to the world for as many as will but believe in the Pope and Clergy You see here also another mysterie opened that a man may have enough to Justifie him that yet will not save him For most of them are here said to hold that a man may be justified without an explicite faith in Christ or that the knowledge of Christ is not necessary to his Justification but to his salvation it is Though the other half say that its necessary to neither And if a man die in a Justified State must he be condemned when Paul saith Rom. 8. 30. Whom he justified them he also glorified You see also here what their Baptism doth that can ex opere operato infallibly put away the sins of all these Infidels and so the Eucharist c. And yet they must not be saved for all that their sins are all done away O what a Maze is the Romish Divinity And you see how well they are agreed about these fundamentals when half of them think that an Actual belief in Christ is necessary to salvation and not to Justification and others that its necessary to
both and a great part that its necessary to neither And you see here the benefit of having an Infallible Living judge of controversies and expounder of Scriptures and how admirably he hath ended all their differences And again I say If formally these Unbelievers are in their Catholick Church they shall give us leave to say that the Greeks and other Eastern and Southern Christians are in the same Catholick Church as we are when we differ not so much And when they have made the Non-belief of Articles of the faith consistent with salvation they will never while they breath be able to confute him that on the same grounds affirmeth the contrary belief consistent with salvation in case of the same want of teaching and sufficient means And by this time I hope you see of how small moment the Popish Censures are when they judge that a Protestant cannot be saved It s true that S. Clara here judgeth otherwise but 1. It s said his Book was burnt or condemned at Rome for it 2. He alloweth Infidels as much 3. And he proveth himself a Heretick by it at Rome seeing a General Council and Pope have determined the contrary even that it is necessary to salvation to be a subject of the Pope of Rome CHAP. XXXVIII Dètect 29. ANother of their Deceits and I think the most successfull of all the rest is Their suting their Doctrines and Government and Worship to the fleshly humours of the ungodly by which means the Greatest and the Most are alwayes like to be on their side When on the contrary our Doctrine Discipline and worship is all so contrary to carnal interest and conceits that we are still like to lose the most if not the greatest and consequently to be a persecuted people in the world This is their unanswerable Argument By this means they captivate the Nations to their Tyranny The Most are every where almost licentious sensual worldly and unsanctified Wise men and Godly men are few in comparison of the rest of the world And it is the multitude commonly that hath the strength and the Great ones that have the wealth So that I confess I take it for a wonder of mercy that they are not Lords in every Countrey and that the Reformed Catholicks be not used every where as they be in Spain and Italy For where they have but opportunity to shew themselves the Principles and Practises of the Papists are such as will be most likely to win the Rabble rout to them and make them Masters of the multitude and of all except a few believing Heavenly persons For the flock is little that must have the Kingdom And then when they have got the multitude thus to follow them and club'd the rest into prisons or burned them in the flames they reckon of this as one of the surest Evidences that they are the Catholick Church because forsooth they are the greater number in the Countries where they have advantage and it is but a few whom they were able to persecute or burn as Hereticks that were against them The very Argument of the Jews against Christ and his Disciples The Reasons why they have not by this Policie won the Christian world to their side are under God the great Defender of the innocent these four 1. Because in the Eastern and Southern Churches they have not had opportunity to lay their snares as they have had here in the West And also those Churches have too many corruptions and neglects at home for the gratifying of the worser sort 2. Because God hath been pleased in some places so to bless the endeavours of the smaller part as to enable them against the multitude to preserve some liberty 3. Because God hath sometime given Wise and Godly Princes to the people that will not be cheated with the Popular deceits 4. And principally because that the Papal Tyranny is directly contrary to Princes Rights so that its only those that are blinded by ignorance or strengthened by an extraordinary league with Rome or forced by the multitude of Popish subjects and neighbours that put their necks into the Romish yoke For what by the Popes pretended Power in temporals at least in ordine ad spiritualia and what by his excommunicating Princes and his pretended power to depose them and give their kingdoms to another and to absolve their subjects from their oaths and fidelity which is an Article of their faith agreed on by the Pope and General Council Later sub Innoc. 3. cap. 3. and what by his exempting the Clergy from their Princes Power and what by the pilling their Countries for money and what by their doctrine and practises of murdering Princes that are not of their mind by these and many other Evidences they have awakened many of the Princes of the earth to look about them and consequently to befriend the Truth against these Tyrannous Usurpers Had it not been for these helps under God we had not been like to have a name where they can reach nor to have had liberty to breath in the common air It would be a voluminous work to shew you how all the Doctrines Government and worship of the Papists is suted to the humor of the sensual multitude and fitted to take with ungodly men I shall but instance in twenty particulars which are far from all 1. The Reformed Catholicks hold that none should be taken into the Church by Baptism unless themselves or their Parents if they be Infants do make Profession of the Christian faith and of an holy life for the time to come and seem to understand what they say and do and be serious in it which exasperateth the grosly ignorant and ungodly when we deny them this Priviledge of Believers But the Papists admit of the ignorant ungodly and such as believe not explicitely in Christ as you heard even now and so please the people and fill their Church 2. The Orthodox hold that Baptism giveth Remission of sin to none but true believers and their seed The Papists perswade many millions more that all their sins are not only pardoned but actually abolished ex opere operato in their Baptism which is comfortable News to such ungodly souls 3. The Protestants say that Original sin liveth after Baptism in some degree though it reign not or condemn not those that are true believers and that Concupiscence that is all inordinacy of the sensual appetite or inordinate inclination to sensual objects is a sin The Papists tell them that when once they are baptized there is no such thing in them as Original sin and that Concupiscence is no sin at all 4. The Orthodox hold that none are to be admitted to the Eucharist and Communion of the Church therein but those that believe actually or profess so to do the Articles of the faith and understand the nature of the Sacrament and live according to the Laws of Christ But the Papists give it to all and drive men to the Sacrament so that
Religion as if they were so many Articles of our Faith or at least were the common doctrines of our Churches They will not give us leave to do so by them when yet we have much more reason for it For 1. They teach the People that they are bound to believe as their Teachers bid them and they reproach us for confessing that we are not in all points of Doctrine infallible And yet we still confess this fallibility and say in plain terms that we know but in part 2. Divers of their particular Doctors that we use to cite are such as the Pope hath Canonized for Saints and they tell us that in Canonizing he is infallible And therefore an Infallibly Canonized Saint must not be supposed to err in a point of faith 3. They boast so much of Unity and Concent among themselves that we may the better cite particular Doctors And yet we think our selves bound to stand to their own Law in this and to charge nothing on them as the faith of their Church but what their Church doth own and therefore while they refuse to stand to particular Doctors we will not urge them to it for its good reason that all men should be the Professors of their own belief But what reason is there then that we may not have the same measure from them which they expect We profess to take no man nor Council of men for the Lords of our faith but for the Helpers of our faith They tell us that they know not where to find our Religion We tell them it is entirely in the written word of God and that we know no other Infallible Rule because we know no other Divine Revelation supposing what in Nature is revealed They tell us that All Hereticks do pretend to Scripture and therefore this cannot be the Test of our Religion I answer that so all cavillers and defrauders and extortioners may pretend to the Law of the Land to undo poor men by quirks of wit or tire them with vexatious suits And yet it follows not that we must seek another Rule of Right and take the Law for insufficient And what if Hereticks pretend to Tradition to General Councils and the Decretals of the Popes as you know how frequently they do Will you yield therefore that these are an infufficient Rule or Test of your own Religion Open your eyes and judge as you would be judged But I will come to some of the particular Opinions which they charge us with And because I know not a more weighty renowned Champion of their cause then Cardinal Richleiu then Bishop of Lucion I shall take notice of his twelve great errors which he so vehemently chargeth on the Reformed Churches as contrary to the Scripture And sure I shall do much to make clean our Churches if I fully wipe off all the pretended blots of errour that so wise a man could charge upon them In his Defens contra script 4. Ministr Charenton cap. 2. pag. 12. c. he begins his enumeration thus 1. The Scripture saith Jam. 2. that a man is not Justified by Faith only but you say that he is Justified by Faith alone and by Faith only which is found in no place of Scripture and do you not then resist the Scriptures Answ 1. We believe both the words of Paul and James that a man is Justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law and saved through Faith not of works lest any man should boast Rom. 3. 28. Ephes 2. 8 9. and also that a man is Justified by works and not by Faith only Jam. 2 Did not this Learned man know that we believe all the Bible why then should he charge us with denying that which we retain and publickly read in our Churches as the word of God Did he think that we set so much by Luthers or any mans writings as by the Bible 2. But if he can prove that we understand not these words aright he should have evinced it better then by the use of the words Faith alone For our Churches by Faith alone do profess openly to mean no more then Paul doth by Faith without works And can they find fault with Paul 3. Indeed we are not all agreed upon the fittest Notion of the interest of Faith and works in our Justification but our difference is more in words and notions then matter of which see my Disput of Justification 4. And. why do you not quarrel with your own Cardinal Contarenus de Justif and others of your own that joyn with us in the doctrine of Justification His second Accusation is The Scripture saith that we can Love God with all the heart you say that no man can Love God with all the heart which is no where read in Scripture and yet do you not resist the Scriptures Answ 1. Unprofitable Confusion we distinguish between Loving God with all the Heart as it signifieth the sincerity and predominant degree of Love and so every true Christian hath it and as it signifieth some extraordinary degree above this meer sincerity and so some eminent stronger Christians have it and as it signifieth the highest Degree which is our duty and which excludeth all sinful imperfection And thus we say that no man actually doth Love God perfectly in this life nor do we think he speaks like a Christian that dare say Lord I Love thee so much that I will not be beholden to thee to forgive the imperfection of my Love or to help me against any sinful imperfection of it Your own Followers whom you admire as the highest Lovers of God do oft lament the imperfections of their Love as M. de Renty for instance in his Life But now if the question be only of the posse and not the act we say that the Potentia naturalis is in all and the Potentia Moralis which is the Habit is in the sanctified but this Moral Power is not perfect it self that is of the highest degree and without any sinful imperfection though yet it hath the perfection of sincerity and in some the perfection of an eminent degree And will not this content you His third Accusation is The Scripture saith that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ with the adjunction of those words that signifie a true Body and Blood you say that it is not Christs Body and Blood but only a figure sign and testimony which the Scripture no where saith Answ 1. The Scripture saith not that it is his Body and Blood substantially or by Transubstantiation And we say not as you feign that it is not his Body and Blood but a figure c. For we say that it is his Body and Blood Sacramentally and Representatively as he that personateth a King on some just account is called a King and as in actions of Investiture and Delivery the delivering of a Key is the delivering of the House and the delivery of a twig and turf is the delivery of the Land and the deliverer
are together by the ears who say that Merit of Condignity is but ex pacto by vertue of Gods Promise And now I leave it to the Conscience of any sober Papist whether we be guilty in any one point that this great Cardinal chargeth us with And whether Papists and Protestants were not in a fair way for reconciliation if we differed not more in other things then in these And here again I must let them know that Scripture only is the Rule and Test of our Faith and Religion Their Polidor Virgil in this speaks truly of us saying They are called Evangelical because they maintain that no Law is to be received in matters of Salvation but what is delivered by Christ or his Apostles so sapless and putid is their scorn of the Evangelium quintum If therefore Luther Calvin or any man speak in any word amiss blame the man that spoke it for that word but blame not all or any others for it if you are men Austin Retracted his own errors and which of us dare Justifie every word that hath faln from our mouths or pen before God How many hundred points do Schoolmen and Commentators charge on one another as Erroneous among yourselves shall all the errors of the Fathers be charged on the Catholick Church or all your writers errors upon yours And that we do well to stick to the Holy Scriptures as the sufficient Rule we are the more encouraged to think by the concessions of our adversaries of greatest Note as well as by the Testimony of the Scripture it self and the concent of the ancient Doctors of the Church and the unprovedness of of their pretended additonals Among others even this great Cardinal Richlieu saith thus pag. 38. Nos autem nullam aliam c. i. e. As for us we put or assert no other Rule but Scripture neither of another sort nor totall Yea we say that it is the Whole Rule of our Salvation and that on a double account both because it containeth immediately and formally the summ of our salvation that is all the Articles that are necessary to mans salvation by necessity of means N. B. and because it mediately containeth whatsoever we are bound to believe as it sends us to the Church to be instructed by her of whose infallibility it certainly confirmeth us Note here that 1. He grants us that all Articles necessary to our Salvation as Means are immediately and formally in the Scripture And then surely they may be saved that believe no more then is in the Scripture 2. That we are to believe no Church but that which the Scripture sends us to and to believe its infallibility no further then the Scripture doth confirm it And that the Scripture is our whole and only Rule O that all Papists would stand to this But let them not blame us now for standing to it Had this Cardinall done no more by Policie and Power then by Disputing against the Reformation he might easily have been dealt with CHAP. XL. Detect 31. ANother of their frauds is By ranking the Protestants among the rabble of Sects and Heresies that are in the world and then asking ignorant souls If you will needs be of any sect how many are here before you and what reason have you rather to be of the Protestants then of any other Answ Indeed this question is worth the considering by a Papist or any sectary but the true Catholick is quite out of the reach of it The Church of Christ is one and but One. This one Catholick Church containeth all the true Christians in the world This is the Church that I am a member of which is far wider then the Roman Church The Church that I profess my self a member of containeth three parts 1. The most sound and healthfull part and that is the Reformed Churches 2. The most unsound in doctrine though possest of many Learned men and that is the Papists themselves not as Papists simply but as Christians though infected with Popery 3. The middle part which is sounder then the Papists in doctrine but less learned and below the Protestants in both and that is all the Greeks and other Eastern and Southern Churches that are no subjects of the Pope All these even all true Christians are members of the Church that I belong to though some of them be more sound and some be leprous or lamentably polluted To these I may add many particular lesser sects that subvert not the foundation as some Anabaptists and divers others And will you ask me now why I will not be of another sect as well as of the Protestants Why my answer is ready A Sect divided from the body I abhor I am of no Sect It is the Unity Universality and Antiquity of the Church that are its honourable attributes in my eyes Protestants that unchurch all the rest of the world and count themselves the whole Church of Christ do in some sort make themselves a Sect But where is there any such I know none such nor I hope ever shall do And therefore I may say that Protestants are no more a sect then the Patients in an Hospital that are almost healed or then the higher form of Scholars in a school or then the Merchants or richer sort of Tradesmen in a City And such a Sect God grant that I may be of even one in the Church that shall be of soundest understanding and of purest worship and of the most carefull holy honest life But still I shall acknowledge them of the lowest form even them that learn the A. B. C. to be in the same School with me And if they Papists or any others will disclaim me that shall not unchurch me as long as Christ disclaims me not Nor shall it provoke me to disclaim them any further then I see Christ leading me the way So that the Papists may see that if they will deny the Church that I am of they must deny their own and all the Christian world But how will they answer this themselves Seriously I profess that besides their other errors it is one of the greatest reasons why I dare not be a Papist because then I know I must be a Sectary What is a Papist but as meer a sectary as any that retaineth a name in the Church They are a company of men that have set up a Humane Usurping Head or Vice-christ over the Catholick Church owning him themselves and unchurching and condemning all the Church that will not own him The Church that I am of is neer thrice as big as the Papists Church is Theirs is but a piece and a polluted piece that would divide it self from all the rest by condemning them And now I would seriously desire any Papist living to resolve the question If he will needs be of a sect and forsake the Universal Church why of the Popish sect rather then another If because it is the greatest I answer it s less then the whole If because it
can he not Govern it without a Visible Monarch Why then did the world never hear of such a man Yea the whole world is the Kingdom of Christ himself though not in that special sort as his Church is For all Power in heaven and earth is given him Mat. 28. 18 19. and for that end he Dyed Rose and Revived that he might be Lord of the Dead and Living Rom. 14. 9. and he is made Head over all things to the Chruch Eph. 1. 22 23. And hath this Kingdom an Universal Visible Monarch Yes the Pope is the man Long hath he laid claim to it Princes you see whose hands your Crowns and Kingdoms are in Deceive not your selves they are the Popes For certainly they are all Christs and if he be to be believed he is the Vice-christ and so succeedeth him in the Monarchy of the world But then why doth not this simple Pope lay claim to the Empire of Indostan and Tartarie and China and Constantinople as well as of these smaller Kingdoms of Europe 2. And for the Metaphorical title of an Army I answer It sufficeth that it hath an Universal General in Heaven that can command it twice as well there as the Pope can on earth yea and is as Visible to the Antipodes yea to me as ever the Pope was All the world is Gods Army But I will not say that the Pope or any man is Generall of it save Christ nor will I call him The Lord of Hosts 3. And for the Sheepfold of Christ he ahth appointed particular Shepheards to watch for the several parts of the flock But if one man were to look to all the sheep in the world he would make such work as the Pope would do with the sheep of Christ If you tell us still that Christ is out of sight I answer He is even at hand he is coming he will not be long In the mean time it is the duty of every Pastor to feed the flock of God that is among them not as Lords over Gods Heritage as the Vice-christ would be and when the chief Shepheard doth appear we shall receive the Crown 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3 4. Peter never dreamed poor man that he was the chief Shepheard himself 4. For the Metaphor of a Family I answer That God can Govern all the Families in the world and when the Pope can do so then all the world shall acknowledge him the Master of the Family Till then we have learned that the whole Family of Heaven and Earth is named of God and of the Redeemer-God-and-Man but not of the Pope of Rome 5. And for the similitude of a Ship I answer One man can Govern a ship of the common size but a ship as big as all the world I think no man but Christ can govern And so confident am I in this opinion that I profess I will not be in that ship as big as the world which the Pope shall undertake to Govern if I do but know how to get out of it Pag. 146. He goes on to tell us that even the bruits have their Governours and instanceth in the Bees Answ I am not well acquainted with Irrational Governours or Governments but seriously it is no Article of my faith that one Bee can Govern all the Bees in the world Nor one Ape all the Apes in the world Let it suffice the Pope that every particular Church be a Bee-hive and every Hive have its proper Governour Next he again tells Prince Charls that we should not deny that to the Church which we see is necessary to all humane Societies Answ Was this man in his wits Have all Societies or any Society an Universal Humane Governour Who is it that is the Universal Chancellor of all the Academics on Earth Who is it that is the Ruler of all the Colledges of Physitians in the world I know what Schoolmaster we have in our own School here but I never heard of an Universal Schoolmaster for all the world nor for all England who is the Universal Governour of all the Companies of Merchants in the world Or who is the Universal King In the Conclusion he gathers up all into seven reasons Why the Church should have a Vice-christ 1. That the militant Church might be like the triumphant who have one Invisible Head Answ 1. Christ is visible to the Church in Heaven 2. When you have proved that any meer man is Christ or Head in Heaven then we will grant that a meer man shall be Christ and Head on earth 3. Earth is not yet fit to be conformed to Heaven in its Government 4. Is it not the truest conformity that Heaven and Earth have one and the same Lord though visible to them and not to us yet ruling us by visible officers 5. But if this will not serve le ts have on earth a visible Government therefore let us have no Pope that is invisible to almost all the world but Pastors that are visible in their particular Churches The second Reason is That the militant Church differ not from it self but as each particular Church hath one Visible Head or Pastor so the whole should have Answ 1. Content if the Pope can shew as good a Commission for the whole and be as able to Govern the whole and will really be present with the whole and visible to them 2. Is the world unlike it self if all the world have not one King as every particular Kingdom hath Or one Schoolmaster as every particular School hath The third Reason is For preserving Unity Answ 1. And well it is done by you And what unity will you keep at the Antipodes Or in the vast dominions of Heathen and Mahometan Princes where Christians are dispersed but you come not neer them 2. We have a better unity already in One God One Christ One Spirit One Gospel One Baptism One Hope c. 3. The Mahometans have more unity then you The fourth Reason is To fulfill the doctrine of the Prophets and Christ Answ You should have better shewed such a doctrine before you had made use of it as a reason The fifth Reason is That the Christian Church may be like the Jewish Answ When the Christian universal Church is no bigger then the Jewish that one may Govern it as well we will hearken to you Let the Pope undertake no larger a Circuit The sixth Reason is That there may be some one Supream judge to punish Bishops and define matters of faith call Councils extinguish heresies and schisms Answ 1. One Christ is enough for the Catholick Church for all these uses I find the Articles of saith as well defined by Christ as by the Vice-christ I have searcht the writings both of Christ and the Vice-christ and in my poor judgement there is no comparison between them nor hath the Pope one jot mended the Scripture 2. And for Heresies and Schisms Christ hath extinguisht many but for ought I see the Pope rather increaseth them In
that followed Grotius Arminius in doctrine and the Greek Church and were for a reconciliation with Rome on those terms which doubtless Rome would never have yielded to the interest that the Papists had among them and influence that they had on them or their proceedings is evident from what is said before and much from the copious Proofs produced by Mr. Prin in his forementioned Book Canterburies Tryal with the Introduct The Jesuites Letter cited by Prin ib. pag. 89. saith Now we have planted that Soveraign drugg Arminianism which we hope will purge the Protestants from their heresie and it flourisheth and bears fruit in due season The Articles exhibited in Parliament against many of the Bishops will tell you by their works who were the instigators of them Of themselves I know of none but Goodman that hath professed himself a flat Papist and I shall not think it my duty to suspect any one man of holding an Opinion which he professeth not himself unless the evidence be very strong to move suspicion But that many Papists were at work with them in that pretended Reconcilement Francis à S. Clara and divers others put us past doubt And that Papists crept into places in the Chruch under the garb of conformable Arminians is too well known It is no wonder therefore that Dr. Baily Dr. Goffe Dr. Vane Hugh Paul de Cressy and many more of them did opnely revolt when the game seemed to be spoiled that was plaid underboord It had been far less hurt to us I think if all the rest had been as open As for the King himself that was their Head if any conjecture that he was a flat Papist as I have heard many rashly say I think there is much evidence to confute them 1. That very Letter to the Pope forementioned on which the suspicion is most grounded if you mark it exactly doth intimate no more then a desire of a union and Reconciliation with some additions that may bear a tolerable sence 2. His own Profession of the Protestant Religion is sufficient evidence 3. His Disputation with the Marquess of Worcester cleareth it 4. His speech at death and Papers since published clear it more So that I think we may be confident that he was no nearer to Rome then was the reconcilable part of the Greeks and that he desired no more then Bishop Bromhal and other of his Bishops offer them to have the Church governed by Patriarcks and the Pope to be Principium Unitatis c. If any would know what Party Grotius was of I desire them carefully to peruse but these places in his writings which I have cited elsewhere Discus Apolog. Rivet pag. 255. pag. 7. vot pro Pace pag. 1 2 3. And of his friends in England among the Bishops in Paris and all France in Germany and Poland See Discus Apol. Rivet pag. 16. and my Discovery of Grotius Religion Yea for my own part I am perswaded that the Papists were as much afraid of King Charls and the Grotian design as of any thing that of long time hath been hatcht against them They are not all of a mind at home The French and moderate party no doubt applauded the design and liked such writings as S. Clara's and would gladly have married England and France in Religion But others the Italian Spanish Jesuited party might easily foresee what danger was in brewing for them Had France England Sweden Denmark and the German Lutherans agreed together to bear down the Calvinists as unreconcilable on one side as Grotius intimates it necessary and the Italians and their adherents that set up the Pope above a Council on the other side it would have made the Pope afraid as no doubt he was For though he was glad that we would draw neerer him and make him the Head in any sort yet he knew not how to stop so great an inundation as was like upon the union to over-flow him And hence was the malice of the Jesuites against the life of the King and withall that he was fain into such hands where he was like to do them little service Secret Windebanks Letter recited by Prin ubi sup tells us that it was the Jesuites that were the death of Father Leander and so were the Enemies of Francis S. Clara and his Book which caused it to incur a Roman Censure So that with one part of them that is the best way which the other is more afraid of then of Protestants We see it by the Jansenian contest We see it in that Cassander Erasmus Vives c. are excellent Catholicks with some of them and Heretical and vile with the rest 4. The persecuted Nonconformists of the Protestant party though they were most adverse to the Papists yet had some of the Popish brood at last crept in among them not only to spie out their minds and wayes but to head the party and sow among them the seeds of further discontent and error and to make them a Nursery for various sects For every where by their good wils the Jesuites will have some If you ask me for my proof of this I shall at this time give you but these two 1. The fruits that sprung up from among them and the manner of Production of which more anon 2. The words of the Jesuites Letter recited by Mr. Prin Introd pag. 90. I cannot choose but laugh to see how some of our own coat have re-incountred themselves you would scarce know them if you saw them and it is admirable how in speech and gesture they act the Puritans The Cambridge Schollars to their wofull experience shall see we can act the Puritans a little better then they have done the Jesuites they have abused our sacred Patron St. Ignatius in jest but we will make them smart for it in earnest I hope you will excuse my merry digression for I confess to you I am at this time transported with joy to see how happily all instruments and means as well great as lesser co-operate to our purposes Yet cannot I hear of any considerable infection among this party that way before Sir Henry Vane's dayes 5. How far they crept into all Societies under the name of Independants is opened by so many already in Print that I shall add no more of it 6. And it s a thing notorious that they have crept in among the Anabaptists and formented that Sect. The story of the Scottish Missionary that pretended himself a Jew and gave the Anabaptists the glory of his Conversion and Rebaptizing at Hexham and was discovered at Newcastle is published and commonly known whether he be yet in Prison or releast I know not And too many more have more cleanly plaid their game And though many of the more sober Anabaptists would not be so usefull to the Papists as they expected yet multitudes of them too far answered their expectations If you ask now what the Papists get by all this I answer you see in the Instance
succession of the Catholick Church for the defection of Henry the eighth who forcibly separated himself and his people from the communion of Christians which was promoted by Edward the sixth and Elizabeth who being pertinaceous and impenitent in the same Rebellion and Usurpation therefore the Pope incited by the continual perswasions of many and by the suppliant prayers of the English men themselves N. B. hath dealt with diverse Princes and specially the most potent King of Spain to depose that woman and punish her pernicious adherents in that Kingdom Read the rest there for though wicked its worth the reading The Pope there saith that Pope Sixtus before him prescribed the Queen and took from her all her Dignities Titles and Rights to the Kingdom of England and Ireland absolving her subjects from the Oath of fidelity and obedience He chargeth all men on pain of the wrath of God that they offord her no favour help or aid but use all their strength to bring her to punishment and that all the English join with the Spaniard as soon as he is landed offering rewards and pardon of sins to them that will lay hands on the Queen and so shewing on what Conditions he gave the Kingdom to Philip of Spain This and more you may see in Thuanus And yet some of our Juglers that say they are no Papists perswade the world that Papists hold not the deposing of Princes nor absolving their subjects from the Oaths of fidelity and that the Spanish invasion was meerly on Civil accounts and that they expected not any English Papists to assist them with other such impudent assertions Even Dominicus Bannes one of the best of them in Thom. 22. qu. 12. art 2. saith that Quando adest evidens notitia c. i. e. When there is evident knowledge of the crime subjects may lawfully exempt themselves from the Power of their Princes before any declaratory sentence of a judge so they have but strength to do it Adding to excuse the English Papists for being no worse that Hence it follows that the faithfull Papists of England and Saxony are to be excused that do not free themselves from the power of their Superiors nor make war against them because commonly they are not strong enough to manage these wars and great dangers hang over them Princes may see now how far the Papists are to be trusted Even as far as they are sufficiently disabled And their August Triumphus saith de Potest Eccles qu. 46. art 2. Dubium non est quin Papa possit omnes Reges cum subest causa rationabilis deponere i. e. There is no doubt but the Pope may depose all Kings when there is reasonable cause for it Is not this a Vice christ and a Vice-god with a witness Add but to this that the Pope is Judge when the cause is Reasonable for no doubt but he must judge if he must execute and then you have a Pope in his colours even in his Universal Soveraignty Spiritual and Temporall And as I said before from Suarez and others when the Pope hath deposed a King any man may kill him I will not trouble you with Mariana's directions for poysoning him or secretly dispatching him de Reg. instit lib. 1. cap. 7. Suarez his moderate conclusion is enough Defens fid Cathol li. 6 c. 4. sect 14. Post sententiam c. After sentence past he is altogether deprived of his Kingdom so that he cannot by just title possess it therefore from thence forward he may be handled as a meer tyrant and consequently any private man may kill him O Learned Suarez No wonder if you and your Profession be dear to Princes and if Henry the fourth of France took down the Pillar of your infamy and received you into his Kingdom and Heart again No wonder if the Venetians at last have re-admitted you to procure some aid against the Turk I will conclude with one Testimony of a Roman Rabbi cited by Bishop Usher who knew his name but would not do him the honour to name him It is B. P. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epistol J. R. impresan 1609. Who hath excused the Powder-Plot from the Imputation of cruelty because both Seeds and Root of an evil herb must be destroyed and doth add a derision of the simplicity of the King in imposing on them the oath of Allegiance in these most memorable expressions worthy to be engraven on a Marble Pillar Sed vide in tanta astutia quanta sit simplicitas c. But see what simplcity here is in so great craft When he had placed all his security in that Oath ho thought he had framed such a manner of oath with so many circumstances which no man could any way dissolve with a safe conscience But he could not see that if the Pope dissolve the Oath all its knots whether of being faithfull to the King or of admitting no Dispensation are accordingly dissolved Yea I will say a thing more admirable You know I believe that an unjust Oath if it be evidently known to be such or openly declared such obligeth no man That the Kings oath is unjust is sufficiently declared by the Pastor of the Church himself You see now that the Obligation of it is vanished into smoak and that the bond which so many wise men thought was made of iron is less then straw These are the words of Papists themselves From their published writings we tell you their Religion I know they will here again tell us abundance of false accusations of the Protestants such as the Image of both Churches heapeth up and they will tell us of our war and killing the King in England But of this I have given them their answer before To which I add 1. The Protestant doctrine expressed in the Confessions of all their Churches and in the constant stream of their writers is for obedience to the Soveraign Powers and against resisting them upon any pretenses of Heresie or Excommunication or such like 2. The wars in England were raised between a King and Parliament that joyned together did constitute the Highest Power and upon the lamentable division occasioned by the Papists the people were many of them uncertain which part was the Higher and of greatest Authority some thought the King and others thought the Parliament as being the Representative body of the people in whom Polititians say is the Majestas Realis and the Highest Judicature and having the chief part in Legislation and Declaration what is just or unjust what is Law and what is against Law Had we all been resolved in England which side was by Law the Higher Power here had been no war So that here was no avowed resisting of the Higher Powers None but a Parliament could have drawn an Army of Protestants here under their banner 3. And withall that very Parliament consisting of Nobles Knights Gentlemen and Lawyers who all declared to the people that by Law they were bound to obey and assist them
without importunity or constraint And were our Power but answerable to our Desires we would soon put an end to these contentions of the Church without the hurt of any of the Dissenters Yea did there appear but any considerable Hopes of success I should venture to be more large in Proposals to that end But when wiser men of greater interest can do no good and the case appeareth as next to desperate a few words may suffice to satisfie my own conscience and to please my mind with the mention of a Peace and to help some others to right Dispositions and Desires though we have never so little expectation of success And in order to what follows I must first desire every Reader rightly to understand the meaning and design of all that I have hitherto said It is but to be a necessary help to the Discovery of the Truth and the confutation of the contrary errors and the just defence of the doctrine of Christ and of his Churches I solemnly protest that it is none of my design or desire 1. To make any believe that the Difference is wider between us and the Papists then indeed it is Nay I am satisfied that in many doctrinall points it is not so great as commonly it is taken to be by many if not most on both sides as in the points of certainty of Salvation of Pardon of Justification of Works of Faith and in almost all the controversies about Predestination Redemption Free-will the work of Grace c. The Dominicans in sence agree with the Calvinist as they call them and the Jesuites with the Lutherans and Arminians and so in divers other points The divers understanding of words among us and the weakness and passions of Divines and a base fear of the censures of a party hath occasioned may on both sides to feign the differences to be much wider then indeed they are so that when an Alvarez a Bannes a Gibieuf have spoken the same things as the Protestants do they are presently fain to pour out abundance of unworthy slanders against the Protestants for fear of being accounted Protestants themselves And to shew their party how much they differ from us they must feign us to be monsters and to hold that which commonly we abhor And some Protestants are too blame also in some measure in this kind This unchristian dealing will gripe the conscience when once it is awakened Let me be rather numbred with those that are ambitious to seem as Like to all the Churches of Christ and as much to agree with them as honestly and possibly I may what party soever distaste that union and agreement And let my soul abhor the desire of appearing more distant and disagreeing then we are what censures so ever I may incur Our students would not so ordinarily read Aquinas Scotus Ariminensts Durandus c. if there were not in them abundance of precious truth which they esteem How neer doth Dr. Holden come to us in the fundamental point of the Resolution of our faith How neer come to the Scotists to us in sence about the point of Merit and Waldensis and others yet neerer How neer comes Contarenus to us and many more in the point of Justification How neer comes Cardinall Cajetan to us in the Liberty of dissenting from the Fathers in the Exposition of the Scriptures and so doth Waldonate and many another How neer comes Cardinal Cusanus lib. de Concord to us even in the Essential point of difference about the Original and Title that Rome hath to its supremacy How neer comes Gerson to us in the point of Venial and Mortal sin perhaps as neer as we are to our selves How neer come the Dominicans and Jansenians to us in the points of Predestination Grace and Free will For my own part I scarce know a Protestant that my thoughts in these do more concur with then they do with Jansenius that is indeed with Augustine himself There are very few points of the Protestant doctrine which I cannot produce some Papist or other to attest and easily thus be even with Mr. Brerely upon fairer terms then he deals with us 2. I do also protest that it is none of my desire or design to create any unjust Censures of the final state of Papists in any Readers nor to perswade men that they are all damned or that there are no honest godly men among them When I read such writers as Gerson Barbanson Ferus and others I am fully satisfied that there are many among them how many God only knows that truly fear God and are sanctified gracious people with whom I hope to dwell for ever And therefore I think it my Duty not only to forbear unjust Censures of them but also to love them with that entire speciall Christian Love by which Christ would have us known to be his Disciples and to perswade all others to do the like Though still I am constrained to say that in my small acquaintance with them I find no comparison between the English Papists and our Churches in point of Holiness I would they were much better 3. I do also protest that it is not my desire or design to make any innocent Papist to be accounted guilty of the faults of others which he disowns 4. Nor is it any of my desire or design to provoke the Magistrate to any cruelty or injustice towards them nor to lay any penalty on them but what is truly of necessity for the safety of himself and the Common-wealth and a just restraint of them from perverting others and doing mischief to the souls of men as I shall open more at large anon 5. Nor is it any of my desire or design to make the generality of them unjustly more odious with Rulers or People then the measure of their corruptions do deserve Or to hide any of their vertues or deprive them of any honour which is their due This much my conscience witnesseth of my intents though I know the partial will hardly believe it when they feel themselves smart by that Contradiction which they have made necessary for our own defence And this I thought necessary to premise before I lay down the following Proposals that prejudice and passion do not turn away men eyes or cause them to misinterpret them For it is prejudice partiality and faction that hath hitherto frustrated all such Proposals and attempts CHAP. LI. THere are five several Degrees of Peace which lye before us to be attempted between the Roman and Reformed Churches We shall begin with the highest and upon supposition of the failing of our Designs for that come down to the next and so to the Lowest 1. The first Degree of Peace to be Intended and Desired is That we may so far Agree as that we may hold personal Communion in the same Assemblies in the worship of God and live under the same particular Pastors 2. If that cannot be attained the next Degree desirable is That we may hold
would have the causes taken away What! When I recite his very words Or was I deeply silent of the particular causes Do you mean Here or Throughout If Here so I was deeply silent of ten thousand things more which either it concerned me not to speak or I had not the faculty of expressing in one sentence If you mean Throughout you read without your eyes or wrote either with a defective Memory or Honesty Read again and you shall find that I recite the causes 3. But did I not all that my task required by reciting the Negation of the causes It was not saith Grotius the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons And I shewed you partly and the Canons shew you fully that that Primacy is the Universall Headship which Protestants I mean not Roman Grotian Protestants have ever used to call Popery But saith Mr. P. Grotius chargeth the Papists with it Answ 1. True but the Protestants much more as making many more faults by their withdrawing from Rome then they mended 2. And he chargeth not that which we have called Popery with it though he charge the Papists with it That some sins of the Papists did occasion it he confesseth and all the Papists that ever I spoke with of it do confess But I am referred for these causes charged on the Papists to Grot. Votum pag. 7 8. and thither I 'le follow Mr. P. that I may know how much he chargeth on the Papists himself And there I find that the things that Grotius found faulty in the Papists were but these two 1. That to the true and ancient doctrine many quirks of the Schoolmen that were better skli'd in Aristotle then the Scriptures were introduced out of a liberty of disputing not out of the Authority of Universal Councils And the Opinions stablisht in the Church were less fitly explicated 2. That Pride and Covetousness and manners of ill example prevailed among the Prelates c. And really did you think that he is no Papist that is but against the Schoolmens Opinions and the Prelates Pride Covetousness and Idleness and holdeth all that they call the Decrees of General Councils Hath not the Council at Lateran and Florence decreed that the Pope is above a General Council and the Council at Lateran decreed that Princes are to be deposed and their Subjects absolved from their fidelity if they exterminate not Hereticks such as Protestants out of their Dominions Is he no Papist that holds all that is in the Council of Trent if he be against some School-points not determined and against the Prelates Pride Well Sir I understand you better then I did And though you thought meet that your words might be conform to one another and not to truth to say that I called you Arminian and Pelagian I purpose if I had done so to call you an Arminian no more But I beseech you cry not out of persecution till the men of your mind will give us leave to be Rectors of Churches in their Dominions as you and others of your mind are allowed to be in these And demand not of Mr. Hickman the bread he eats nor the money he receives as if it were yours till we can have license to be maintained Rectors or at least to escape the Strappado in your Church But I promised you some more of Grotius in English to stop your mouth or open it whether you see cause and you shall have it Discus pag. 14. Grotius distinguisheth between the Opinions of Schoolmen which oblige no man for saith Melchior Canus our School alloweth us great liberty and therefore could give no just cause of departing as the Protestants did and between those things that are defined by Councils even by that of Trent The Acts of which if any man read with a mind propense to peace he will find that they may be explained fitly and agreeably to the places of the holy Scriptures and of the ancient Doctors that are put in the Margin And if besides this by the care of Bishops and Kings those things be taken away which contradict that holy doctrine and were brought in by evil manners and not by authority of Councils or Old Tradition then Grotius and many more with him will have that with which they may be content This is Grotius in English Reader is it not plain English Durst thou or I have been so uncharitable as to have said without his own consent that Mr. Pierce would have defended this Religion and that we have Rectors in England of this Religion and that those that call themselves Episcopal Divines and seduce unstudied partial Gentlement are crept into this garb and in this do act their parts so happily If words do signifie any thing it here appears that Grotius his Religion is that which is contained in the Council of Trent with all the rest and the reformation which will content him is only against undetermined School-Opinions and ill manners that Cross the doctrines of the Councils I 'le do the Papists so much right as to say I never met with a man of them that would not say as much Especially taking in all Old Tradition with all the Councils how much together by the ears now matters not as Grotius doth Yet more Discus p. 185. He professeth that he will so interpret Scripture God favouring him and pious men being consulted that he cross not the Rule delivered both by himself and by the Council of Trent c. Pag. 239. The Augustine Consession commodiously explained leath scarce any thing which may not be reconciled with those Opinions which are received with the Catholicks by Authority of Antiquity and of Synods as may be known out of Cassander and Hoffmeister And there are among the Jesuites also that think not otherwise Pag. 71. He tels us that the Churches that join with Rome have not only the Scriptures but the Opinions explained in the Councils and the Popes Decrees against Pelagius c. They have also received the Egregious Constitutions of Councils and Fathers in which there is abundantly enough for the correction of vices but all use them not as they ought They lye for the most part hid in Papers as a Sword in the Scabbard And this is it that all the lovers of piety and peace would have corrected And gives us Borromaeus for a president Pag. 48. These are the things which thanks be to God the Catholicks do not thus believe though many that call themselves Catholicks so live as if they did believe them but Protestants so live by force of their Opinions and Catholicks by the decay of Discipline Pag. 95. What was long ago the judgement of the Church of Rome the Mistris of others we may best know by the Epistles of the Roman Bishops to the Africans and French to which Grotius will subscribe with a most willing mind Rome you see is the Mistris of other Churches Pag 7. They accuse the Bull of Pius Quintus that it
and so it is apparent unto them yet most that are not members of it do not know it Arrians and Mahometans know us to be men professing such and such Articles of faith but they know not that to be the true faith nor us to be the true Church but judge the contrary In this sence contained in these Propositions it is that Protestants deny the Church to have been alwayes Visible and not as the Papists commonly mistake them Prop. 4. We are agreed that this Catholick Church is but One There are not two Visible nor two Mystical Catholick Churches Nor are the Mysticall and Visible two Bellarmine might have spared all his labour that he hath bestowed in vain upon this point to prove that the Visible and Invisible are not two Catholick Churches The Protestants are further from that Opinion then the Papists and it is more suitable to the Popish Interest and Cause to be of that Opinion then to the Protestants If it were not that they are past learning by the advantage of their Infallibility and especially of one man and one so mean condemned by them and that it is unlawfull to be a Teacher of Error I could tell them of a new device by the advantage of this distinction of Catholick Churches for the modelling their mistakes into a more specious plausible form then now it appeareth in to the rest of the Churches But we are glad of their company in any Truth and therefore will not disagree from them in that which makes against themselves One Objection I once heard a Learned Anabaptist cast in our way viz. There may be a Visible Church of hypocrites therefore the Mystical and Visible may be two Answ But the Question was of the Catholick Church and not of a particular Church We confess that some members of the Catholick Church are Mystical and Visible in the several respects before mentioned and that some are Visible and not Mystical or as Bellarmine well calls them Dead Members and not Living and that the Church as Visible is more comprehensive then the Church as Regenerate or Invisible and yet all but One Church though it have more members in it in one respect then in another And we confess that its possible for twenty or an hundred of these Dead members to constitute a particular Church by themselves though it is not usual for Visible Churches to be without Living members and so there may be a particular Visible Dead Member Analogically called a Member or a particular Visible Church that is thus Dead and these be parts of the Catholick Church as Visible But yet there is not two Catholick Churches One Visible and the other Invisible one alive and the other Dead In a Corn field there are 1. Good Corn. 2. Stricken blasted Corn that hath a name and shew but in deed no Corn. 3. Tares darnell cockle and such weeds It is called A Field as it conteineth them all It is called a Corn field only from the Corn. The Univocal proper parts of a Corn field is the Corn only The Visible and Analogical parts are also the blasted ears The darnel and cockle are no parts but noxious accidents There are not two fields of Corn one of true Corn and the of other blasted ears And yet the Corn field taken largely and Analogically hath more parties in it then true Corn and you may perhaps have some particular sheavs that are wholly of that which is blasted which you will call a sheaf of Corn Analogically only but a sheaf of weeds you will not at all call a sheaf of Corn. Even so in the Catholick Church there are sincere Christians which are true and living members and there are Hypocrites which are Analogically members and there are locally mixed many that by denying essential points of the Christian faith or by notorious Impiety do declare themselves to be weeds and no members of the Church at all Prop. 5. We are also Agreed that this One Visible Catholick Church is One Political Holy Society as united in Jesus Christ the Head who teacheth and ruleth it by his Ministers and other Officers in the several parts according to the necessity of each We call it One Political Society 1. Principally because that all the Church is united in this One Soveraign or Head the Lord Jesus and therefore it is called his body 2. They have all the same holy doctrine of faith and Law to live by and be judged by 3. They have all Church Officers of the same sort under Christ to teach and govern them 4. They have all the same kind of Holy Ordinances as Reading Preaching Praying Praise Sacraments c. appointed them by the Lord. 5. They are all engaged in One and the same Holy Covenant to the Lord More might be mentioned and shall be God willing in a peculiar Treatise of Catholicism or the Catholick Church And though Christ himself be not now seen among us yet may he truly be called a Visible Head For 1. He sometime lived visibly on earth 2. And is now the Visible King of all the Church as he is in the Heavens Though we see him not the Celestiall Inhabitants do It is but little of the world that seeth the Pope any more then they see Christ If one unseen to us may be a pretended Visible Head the other may be truly so So that the Body Head Laws Worship c. being Visible so is the Policy Prop. 6. We are agreed also that all these Christians and particular Churches are obliged by Christ even by the very Law of Nature and the ends of their calling and the General Laws of the Gospell to live in as much Love and Unity and Peace as they can and to hold as full and extensive communion as they can that is as far as their work requireth and their Capacity will permit and enable them those that are cohabitans and members of one Congregation must hold local communion in that Congregation unless Necessity prohibite Those that through distance are uncapable of joining in the same Assemblies should yet be conjoined 1. In the same Lord Faith Baptism Covenant Profession 2. In the same bond of Christian special Love 3. In the use of the same sort of holy worship as to the Substance though they differ in circumstances as in the Word Prayer Praises Sacraments c. 4. And in one sort of Church Officers and Government And as far as we have to do with each other all this should be manifested and we should readily own one another as Brethren and true Churches notwithstanding lesser differences Prop. 7. To these ends it is meet that the Bishops or Pastors of the Churches should hold in way of Association as frequent Assemblies as is needfull for the maintaining of mutual Love and Correspondency and right understanding of each other and to manifest their unity and assist each other in the work of God that it may be the more successfully carried on by united strength against
a General Council a faction might promote any heresie or carnal interest and no Churches would be so enslaved as those that send at the dearest rates Italy and a few more parts at Trent would over-vote all the Churches of East and South and set up what interest or opinion they please And so if one corner of the Church can err all may err for all the Council Where there is an equal interest there should be an equal power in Councils which will certainly be otherwise 4. If the Pope be he that must call General Councils we shall have none till it will stand with his interest And if he have not the power of calling them no one else hath for none pretendeth to it And if they must be called by universal consent three hundred years is little enough for all the world to treat of the time place and other circumstances and consent 5. And if the Pope must call them he will easily by the very choice of the place procure the accomplishment of his own designs 6. Those that think it the Popes prerogative to call a Council do also affirm as I before shewed in the express words of Binnius and others that a Council hath no more power then the Pope will give them and that when they are convened by him and have done their work it is all of no Validity if he allow it not If he approve one half that half is valid and his approbation will make their Decrees the Articles of our faith when as the other half which he disapproveth shall not be worth a straw And is it not a most foolish thing for all the world to put themselves to so much charge to defray the expenses of their Bishops and hazzard their lives and lose their labours at home for so many years and hazzard the Churches by their absence when for ought they know the Bishops of the whole Christian world do but lose all their labour and nothing shall be valid if they please not the Pope of Rome And is it not most abominable justice in him thus to put all the world to trouble and cost and hazzard the Churches and the Pastors lives for nothing when if the infallible spirit be only in himself he might have done the work himself and saved all this cost and labour 7. By what Justice shall all the Catholick Church be obliged by the Decrees of such a General Council Is it by Law or Contract If by Law it is by Divine Law or by Humane If by Divine let it be shewed that ever God made such a Government for the Catholick Church and then take all If by Humane Laws it is impossible and therefore not to be affirmed For no Humane Soveraign hath power to make Laws for all the world If you say is it by contract then 1. All those Nations that thought not meet to send any Bishops to the Council will be free 2. And so will all those be that sent Bishops who dissented from the rest For contract or Consent bindeth none but Contracters or Consenters And so England is not bound by the Council of Nice Ephesus Calcedon Constantinople c. 8. By what Justice shall any people be required to send Delegates on such terms as these to Councils or to stand to their definitions when they have done When our faith and souls are preciouser things then so boldly to cast upon the trust of a few Delegates so to be chosen and employed What Bishops other Countries will choose we know not And for our own 1. In almost all Countries it is the Princes that choose or none must be chosen but who they will which is all one 2. If the Bishops choose it s those that are highest with the secular power that will have the choice who perhaps may choose such as are contrary to the judgement of most of that Church that is thought to choose them Most Nations have a Clergy much at difference The Remonstrants and Contramonstrants in Holland would not have chosen like members for the Synod In the Bishops days men of one mind were chosen here in England to Convocations The next year we had a Learned Assembly that put down the Prelacy for which a Convocation had formed an Oath to be imposed on all Ministers but a little before And why should the judgment of the Prelates be taken for the judgement of the Church of England any more then the other when for number learning and piety to say the least they had no advantage laying aside ignorant ungodly men in point of number Till the Spanish match began to be treated on the Bishops of England were ten if not twenty to one Augustinians Calvinists or Antiarminians Now the Arminians would be thought the Church of England and their doctrine agreeable to the doctrine of that Church Would they not accordingly have differed if they had been sent to a General Council How bitterly are the Articles of the Church of Ireland decryed by the Arminian Bishops since sprung up both in Ireland and England so that if Delegates be sent to any Council they may speak the minds of those that sent them which perhaps is the King or a small prevailing party but not of the rest which perhaps may the best and most If Jeremiah of Constantinople be of a Council he will go one way If Cyril be of a Council he will go another way And his counterfeit Successor undo what he did 9. No Church that sendeth three or four Bishops to represent a thousand or two thousand Pastors can be sure how those Bishops will carry it when they come thither For ought we know they may betray our cause and cross their instructions They may be perverted by the reasonings of erroneous men or bribed by the powerfull And to cast our faith on so slender an assurance is little wisdom 10. If consent only bind us to the Decrees of Councils to submit to them as our Rule then is Posterity bound that did not consent as their Fathers did or are they not If not we are free If yea by what bond And then why do not the Grotians in Ireland and England obey the Antiarminian Decrees of the Churches in both Did not the Church of England send Bishop Carlton Bishop Hall Bishop Davenant afterward a Bishop Dr. Ward Dr. Goad and Balcanquall Episcopal Divines to the Synod of Dort and so England was a part of that Synod And yet the Grotians and Arminians think not themselves bound to receive the Doctrine of that Synod nor to forbear reproaching it 11. It is unjust that any especially most of the Churches should be obliged by the votes of others and oppressed by Majority meerly because their distance or poverty or the age or weakness of their Pastors disableth them to send any or an equal number or to defray the charge of their abode c. Ah if good Pope Zachary or Archbishop Boniface had considered that the essence or unity of the Church
is impossible to most of the world as is before shewed and were it possible it would be so tedious and laborious a course that its ridiculous in most to mention such Appeals Argum. 9. The Soveraign or Head of the Church as of every Body Politick hath power to deprive and denude any other of their power The Pope or General Council hath not power to do so therefore they are not of the Head or Soveraigns of the Church The Major is a known principle in polity He that giveth power can take it away And it 's confessed by the Opponents in this case The Minor I prove 1. Because else it would be in the power of the Pope or Council whether Christ shall have any Ministry and Church or not They may at least make havock of it at pleasure But that 's false 2. As is before said we receive not our power from them therefore they cannot take it from us 3. The Holy Ghost doth make us Over-seers of the flock Act. 20. 28. and lay a Necessity on us and denounce a woe against us if we preach not the Gospel and hath no where given us leave to give over his work if the Pope or a Council shall forbid us 4. And they can shew no Commission from Christ that giveth them such a power Arg. 10. If it were the form or Essence of the Church to have a humane visible Head then our Relation to such a head would be essential to our Membership or Christianity But the Consequence is false therefore so is the Antecedent The falseness of the consequent is apparent 1. In that it cruelly and ungroundedly unchristeneth all that do not believe in such a visible Head That is the greatest part by far of the Christians in the world And 2. By the ensuing argument And the necessity of the consequence is evident of it self Argum. 11. If such a visible Head were essential to the Church and so to our Christianity then should we all be Baptized into the Pope or a General Council as truly and necessarily as we are baptized into the Church But we neither are nor ought to be so baptized into the Pope or a General Council therefore they are not essential to the Church or our Christianity The Major viz. the Consequence is clear and not denyed by the Papists who affirm that Baptism engageth the baptized to the Pope He that is united to the body is united to the head he that is listed into the Army is listed to and under the General He that is entred into the Common-wealth is engaged to the Soveraign thereof But that we are not baptized to the Pope or a General Council is proved 1. Because neither the form of Baptism nor any word in Scripture doth affirm such a thing 2. No persons in Scripture times were so baptized Men were baptized before there was a Pope at Rome or a General Council And afterward none were baptized to them at least for many hundred years otherwise then as they were entred into the particular Church of Rome who were Inhabitants there 3. Never any was baptized to Peter or Paul or any of the Apostles saith Paul 1 Cor. 1. 13. was Paul crucified for you or were ye baptized in the name of Paul They must be baptized into the name of no visible Head but him that was crucified for them 4. The Apostle fully resolveth all the doubt 1 Cor. 12. describing the body into which we are baptized ver 13. And he entitleth it from the head Christ vers 12. but acknowledgeth no other head either co-equal with Christ or subordinate The highest of the other members are called by Paul but eyes and hands and thus Apostles Prophets Teachers Miracles gifts of healing helps Governments are only said to be set in the Church as eyes and hands in the body but not over the Church as the Head or Soveraign Power ver 17 18 19 28 29. so that though he that is baptized into the Church is baptized into an Organical body and related to the Pastors as to hands and eyes yet not as to a head nor as to a representative body neither And me thinks neither Pope nor Council should pretend to be more then Apostles Prophets and Teachers and Governments If the form of baptism had but delivered down the authority of the Pope or a Council as it did the authority and name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Tradition would have been a tolerable Argument for them though Scripture had been silent But when the Baptismal Tradition it self is silent and it is a doctrine so monstruously strange to the Primitive Church that all the baptized are baptized to the Pope or a General Council I know no remedy but they must both put up their pretenses Argum. 12. The Essence of the Church into which they were baptized was part of the doctrine which the Catechumeni were taught and all at age should learn before their baptism The Soveraignty or Headship of Pope or Council was no part of the Doctrine which by the Primitive Church the Catechumeni were taught and ought to learn before their baptism Therefore the Soveraignty or Headship of Pope or Council was not then taken to be of the Essence of the Church The Major is evident 1. In that the Catholick Church was in the Creed and it's essentials there briefly expressed in those terms Holy Catholick Church and Communion of Saints 2. In that Church History fully acquainteth us that it was the practice of the Catethists and other Teachers to open the Creed to them before they baptized them and therein the Article of the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints The Minor is proved by an induction of all the Records of those times which in gross may now suffice according to our present intended brevity to be mentioned There is no one Writer of many hundred years no not Origen Tertullian Irenaeus or any other that purposely recite the Churches belief which the Catechumeni were taught nor Cyril or John Hierosol or any other who open those Articles to the Catechumens that ever once mention the Doctrine of the Headship of the Pope or Council when they open the Article of the Catholick Church nor yet at any other time If they affirm that they did let them prove it if they can Argum. 13. As it is high Treason in a Republick to deny the Soveraign and to be cut off from him is to be cut off from the Common-wealth so it would be a damning unchristening sin to deny the Headship of the Pope or General Council if they were indeed the Head of the Church But it is no such damning unchristening sin Therefore they are not the Head of the Church The Major is plain from the Nature of Soveraignty The Minor is certainly proved 1. Because it is never mentioned in Scripture nor any ancient Writer for many hundred years as a state of Apostasie nor as a damning sin nor as any sin to deny
without my own asking his opinion by that Learned Judicious man Arch-Bishop Usher a man well known to be acquainted with the Judgement and practice of the Antients if any other whoever His words were these Councils are not for Government but for Unity not as being in order of Government over the several Bishops but that by consultation they may know their duty more clearly and by agreement maintain Unity and to this end they were anciently celebrated Himself a Primate recommended to others these moderate Principles And this middle way of Reverend Usher is the true healing Mean between them that would have properly Governing Councils and them that would have none or think them needless or but indifferent things But yet as is before mentioned in the tenth Proposition consequentially we are obliged to perform the Agreements of these Councils if they be agreeable to the General Rules of the Scriptures or if our performance be not forbidden by the Word of God Because we are under the General obligation to do all things in as much unity concord and peace as we can Gal. 2. per totum 1 Cor. 3. 5 22. 2 Cor. 13. 11. 1 Cor. 1. 10. 4. 6. Mat. 20. 25. Phil. 3. 16. 4. 2. Mat. 23. 8 9 10. 1 Pet. 5. 3. And I grant that Pastors are related to the Universal Church as well as to a particular and are to have a common care of the whole though they have a special charge only of their particular flocks Therefore many Pastors in a Synod are Pastors as well as disjunct and therefore their acts are authoritative Governing Acts as to the flock But 1. to the Pastors themselves they are not properly Governors no more in Synods then out 2. And as to the flocks they are not in a direct superiour order above their particular Pastors but only from their concord are accidentally more to be regarded and obeyed then a single Pastor as a Colledge of Physitians is more to be regarded then a single Physitian not as being of higher authority but of greater credit in cases where men must be trusted 5. A Council consisting of Bishops or Pastors that by distance are not uncapable of ordinary local Communion whether it be a General Council as they are commonly called which are not such properly or National or Provincial 1. As they are Christians singly have a Judgement of Discerning what is sound Doctrine and whom to judge Catholicks and fit for their Communion And 2. As they are single Pastors they have the Judgement of Direction what Doctrine to recommend as found to their people limited to the Superiour Direction of God by his Word and whom they must hold or not hold Communion with And this is an Authoritative Direction which may be accompanyed with a Commanding as an Herald or Pursevant may command in the Princes name 3. And as they are many Pastors in Council assembled they have a Judgement of Concord or Power to enter solemnly into Consultations for mutual information and then into Agreements for the right performance of their duty in recommending that which is sound Doctrine to their people and receiving the true members of the Catholick Church and rejecting such as are to be rejected So that the most General Councils of true Pastors caeteris paribus are to be most reverenced by the Princes and people and in cases where they are sure it is lawful to follow their Agreements though they be not satisfied of the necessity of it à natura rei they ought to follow them on the account of unity and also in cases meerly doubtful to them in point of Doctrine to be ballanced by their judgements rather then by the Judgement of single Pastors and more then by any other humane judgement caeteris paribus which exception I add because a smaller Assembly yea a single Pastor or private man speaking according to the Word of God is to be believed and regarded more then the greatest Assembly contradicting the Word yet we are not easily to think without evident proof that one man should be rather in the right then so many seeing it is easier for one to err then so many and the promises are more to the publick then any single persons so far as they can be known to others And yet an Assembly of an hundred or twenty or ten apparent humble holy Judicious men is likelier to be in the right and more to be regarded then an Assembly of a thousand ignorant unlearned wicked Bishops One clear eye may see further then ten thousand purblind ones Act. 6. 5. Act. 5. 34. 1 Thes 2. 14. 1 Cor. 11. 16. 14. 33. 10. 32. 6. As the properest matter for such General Assemblies to Consult and Agree upon is General things as What Doctrine is sound and what unsound in General what persons in General fit for the Churches Communion and what unfit c. so smaller Assemblies that are capable of ordinary personal Communion and know the persons and circumstances of the cases are fittest to consult and agree whether such or such particular persons are fit for their own Communion yea and for their Churches Communion in difficult cases And also may consult and agree what Doctrines and practises to recommend to their own people as most agreeable to the Word of God And thus far these two sorts of Synods may be said to have a power of Judging viz. ad hoc in order to such agreements and practice Act. 6. 5 6. Rom. 15. 26 27. 2. Cor 8. 19. 7. The Postors of particular Worshipping Churches are the Authorized Guides Rulers or Teachers of those Churches and each Member thereof and must first discern in their own minds and next if they be many over a Church Agree among themselves and then teach the people what is to be believed and practised and with whom in General and in Particular to hold Communion and whom to avoid and may charge the people in Christs name to obey their just directions and when they have done must themselves execute their own part herein as by avoiding the Rejected and not delivering them the Symbols or Sacrament of Communion c. And though they must consult with neighbor Churches for carrying on the work of God in unity and to the best advantage of the Common cause yet are they not under the proper Government of them or any Assemblies Ecclesiastical though obliged in all just things to Agree with them So that Canons as Canons I mean the Conclusions of such Assemblies are but properly Agreements and not Laws though by consequence they may be said to oblige or rather we by another Law obliged to accord and practise them Heb. 13. 17. 1 Thes 5. 12 13. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. Act. 20. 28. 8. The work of Councils how large so ever is not to make new Scriptures to be the Rule of our Faith and Life nor to make new Articles or Doctrines of Faith nor to frame God a new Worship in whole
division nor discontent Lay the Churches peace upon no new humane Impositions if you would have it hold Peruse Rom. 14. and the other Text last cited 1 Cor. 6. 12. 11. The Churches Peace or Unity must not be laid on any bare words of mans devising It 's not a work for Councils or Prelates to form the Christian doctrine in new methods and terms and then to force others to subscribe or use those very terms If the same men that refuse this be willing to subscribe to the whole Scripture or to a Confession in Scripture terms you may force him to no more Object But Hereticks will subscribe to Scripture Answ 1. They must wrest it then or wrest their Consciences And by either or both these shifts they may also subscribe to any of your Confessions 2. If his Heresie be latent in his mind you know it not nor can call him an Heretick nor doth it hurt the Church If it he published or preached to others let civil Governors question him for corporal punishment and let the Associate Pastors question him to his Reformation or Rejection You will have a better ground to reject him for delivering falsehood in his own words then for not subscribing to Truth in your words when he subscribed the same Truth in Gods Words There is no Unity to be expected if you will so far depart from the Scripture sufficiency as to make any more for sense or phrase of absolute necessity to our peace By phrase or terms I mean either the same numerically as in the Original or equipollent as in translations And I say not that it 's necessary to the unity of the Church that every word in Scripture Original or Translations be subscribed to for some may doubt of the corruption of a word or Book But that no more is necessary If all Scripture be not of that degree of Necessity much less humane additions Isa 8. 20. 1 Tim. 3. 17. 2 Tim. 1. 13. 1 Cor. 9. 5. 1 Tim. 6. 20. Act. 20. 32. 12. The Churches Unity Peace must not be laid upon all Divine Truths as not on lesser darker points which neither the being nor well-being of Christianity is concerned in so much as to rest upon them Phil. 3. 15 16. Rom. 14. 15 17 20. Heb. 5. 11 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 7. 19. Gal. 5. 6. 6. 15. Col. 3. 11. 13. We ought to love and esteem as Christians and members of the Catholick Church all those that profess to believe the Essentials of Christianity and to be sanctified by the Spirit of God and lead a holy upright life so they make a credible profession not evidently contradicted by words or deeds though these persons may differ from us in many lower points of Doctrine Worship or Government 1 Cor. 1. 2. Eph. 6. 24. Gal. 6. 15 16. Phil. 3. 16. Rom. 15. 1 2. 14. 1 2. 1 Cor. 8. 9. 14. We ought so to manage the Worship of God in our particular solemn Assemblies that no sober peaceable Christian may be repulsed or forced from our local Communion through differences in things of indifferent nature Heb. 8. 5. Mat. 15. 9. Rom. 14. 13. 14 1. 2 Cor. 11. 3. Joh. 4. 23 24. 15. If any Churches differ from us in Ceremonies or smaller things or if any particular Christians differ so that they cannot in conscience hold local Communion with us in the same Assemblies for Worship E. G. if we sit at the Lords Supper and they dare not take it without kneeling if we sing a version of the Psalms which they scrup'e to joyn in If we permit none to joyn that will not conform in disputable things in such cases though it be first our duty to do our best to remove all offences yet if that cannot be done we may and ought in several Assemblies to take each other for Brethren and of the same Catholick Church so be it we all hold the same essentials of Faith and Godliness and walk accordingly and especially if we also hold those weighty superstructures that the welfare of the Church is most concerned in Though here were few or no instances of this case in the days of the Apostles when divisions were not so great as now yet the general rules in the fore-cited Texts do prove it 16. Ecclesiastical Ministerial Government by whomsoever exercised must not degenerate into a secular coercive Government nor may we use carnal weapons nor meddle by force with mens bodies or estates nor yet can we oblige the Magistrate to do it meerly to execute our censures or without sufficient Evidence to prove it his duty nor can we oblige the people against the Word of God clave errante so that neither Bishop nor Council hath any such power as is properly decisively Judicial obliging to execution be the sentence right or wrong But our people must know that though we be their Guides or Rulers yet are we but Ministers and that they have a higher power to regard and must not obey us against the Lord but in and for him The Power of Pastors therefore is not like Magistrates or absolute Judges as is said before but like a Physitian in his Hospital or in an infected City among his Patients and like a Reader of any Science to voluntary Scholars in his School and as an Embassador to them to whom he is sent So that our Governing being but by the Word and on the Conscience is of the same nature with our Directing 1 Pet. 5. 3. Luke 22. 25 26. 3 Joh. 9. 10. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 17. Magistrates are Governors of the Church even as a Church and of Christians as Christians though not Absolutely nor in the same respects by the same means to the same neerest Ends as Pastors Magistrates must force us to our duty and punish us if we be wicked or negligent even as Pastors and cast us out of our Benefices and deny us encouragements if we be insufficient so that ad hoc the Magistrate is the only Judge what is sound doctrine and what heresie what Ministers are sufficient or insufficient culpable or not I say ad hoc so far as to Judge who shall have publick Liberty and Countenance and who shall be punished restrained and discountenanced Thus far the Mastrate is Judge in Religion besides that Judgement of Choice which every private man hath And therefore the Princes of the Christian world should hold some correspondencies like General Councils among themselves by their agents for carrying on the work of Christ and much of the unity and prosperity of Christians lyeth on their hands Isa 49. 23. Psal 2. 12. Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4. 1 King 2. 27 35. 2 King 18. 4. 2 King 23. 8 20. 2 Chron. 14. 3 5. Josh 1. 8. 1 Tim. 2. 2. 18. Yet are the Pastors of the Church in their places Rulers or Guides of Princes and Magistrates that is we Guide them by Doctrine and Church discipline as they Rule us