did consist in a General Council that must be fetched partly from the Antipodes they would have thought better on it before they had excommunicated Virgilius for saying that there were Antipodes or quod alius mundus alii homines sunt sub terras Dr. Heylin tels us in his Geography Lib. 1. pag. 25. that Bede de ratione temporum cap. 32. calleth it a fable that there are Antipodes and not to be believed and adds that Augustine Lactantius and some other of the Learned of those better times condemned it as a ridiculous incredible fable whose words saith he I could put down at large did I think it necessary And did that age dream that the Being or Unity of the Church or the salvation of the Believers soul depended on this Article that a General Council partly called from the Antipodes must be the Churches Head or Governours or that the Pope at least must be acknowledged and obeyed by every Christian soul that will be saved at the Antipodes And Sir Fradcis Drake and Cavendish would not have been so famous for compassing the world if men had understood that when the Gospel is spread through the earth so many poor old Bishops must ordinarily take half such Journies or voyages to do their business If the Decree of the Council of Constance had been executed to have had a General Council evry ten years many would scarce have had time to go and come But the charitable Church of Rome hath found out a Remedy not only by the rarity of their Councils let them decree what they will to the contrary but also by condemning the most of the Churches and the remotest as Hereticks and sending them to Hell to save them a journey to the General Council 12. Moreover such Councils are unjust because of the multi tude of Bishops that must there meet and cannot be heard speak As the case standeth already there are many more Bishops in the world then can meet and speak and hear in one or two or three Assemblies And many thousand more may be made If I should say that all the Rectors of particular Churches whom they call Parish Presbyters are Bishops and have votes in Councils they would easilyer deny it then disprove it or invalidate the proofs already brought But to proceed on their own grounds me thinks they that make him a Bishop who hath Presbyters and Deacons under him should admit all those Pastors of particular Churches that have Presbyters under them as their Curates which are many Or if they say that only Cities must have Bishops yet must they on their own grounds admit a Bishop for each City And if every City in a few Kingdoms in Europe had a Bishop in the Council there would be no room for all the rest of the world But how prove they that Countrey Parishes may not have Bishops Why may not on their own grounds every four or six parishes have one Hath God forbid it where and when sure they will not say it is of Divine institution that a Bishop have just so many Parishes and Presbyters under him and neither more nor less The number is confest to be left undetermined And what if Christian Princes Bishops and people agree to settle Bishops in every such small number of Parishes by what Law can they exclude them from a General Council If they say by the Canons of former Councils I answer 1. Those Canons are contrary to Scripture 2. They contradict one another 3. They themselves do not obey the Canons of many such Councils 4. Those Councils have no power to make Laws much less Laws that shall reach to this time and place But they will say Pauls command to Titus 1. 3 5. and the example Acts 14. 23. is only of ordained Elders or Bishops in every City therefore they may not ordain them any where but in Cities But I deny the consequence Most ancient interpreters by Elders Acts 14. 23. Understand meer Presbyters And then it would as much follow that Presbyters must be ordained no where but in Cities What if I can prove that the Apostles never gathered a solemn Assembly of Christians for Divine Worship any where but in Cities or that they never administred the Lords Supper any where but in Cities will it follow that therefore we ought not to Assemble or administer the Sacrament any where but in Cities But what if this were granted they cannot deny but every corporation such as most of our Burroughs and Market Towns in England are may truly be called Cities in that Scripture sence And if every such City had a Bishop Even England France Germany and Italy a little spot of the world would make Bishops enough for two or three Councils and more then could Assemble and do the work Two shifts they have against the over-greatness of the number One is the course now taken to have but one Bishop over many Cities and a very large Circuit of the Countrey The other is to depute one out of many from every Countrey to represent the rest and so it shall be a Representative General Council though not a Real But for the first 1. Who hath authority to make such diminutions 2. What if those that are supposed to have that authority shall be otherwise minded 3. It s apparently against the word of God and tendeth to the frustrating of the Office that true Bishops should be so rare By their own Rule each City should have one And let Brerewoods Enquiries or any such writers help you to conjecture how many that would be And for the other way 1. A Representative General Council is another thing quite different from a Real 2. What word of God have they to prove such a Representative Council Doubtless none And will they give us a Church form and center of Unity meerly of their own brains upon supposition that it is prudential 3. Men are of exceeding different degrees of understanding and of different judgements actually so that if e. g. England should send one or two or ten men to represent the rest to a General Council it s more then possible that they may give their judgements in many points so far contrary to the minds of those that sent them that twenty or an hundred to one at home may be against them For we cannot send our understandings and all our reasons with them to the Council when we send them And so no man can say that any such Council doth express the mind of the greater part of the Church 4. By this rule you may reduce a General Council to a dozen men or to the four or five Patriarks For all the rest may choose them as their representatives 5. But it s not to be expected that all the Churches should be satisfied of the lawfulness or fitness of such substitutions and representations And therefore they will not consent or elect men for such a power and work And who may justly force them 13. Moreover such
to doubt whether I have the love of God my self then to conclude all the Christians in the world save the Papists to be the heirs of damnation CHAP. IV. Argum. 2. THat Doctrine is not true nor of God which teacheth men to renounce all Christian Love and Works of Christian Love towards most of the Christians upon earth But so doth the Doctrine of Popery therefore it is not of God If their Error were meerly speculative it were the less but here we see the fruits of it and whither it tends The major Proposition is plainly proved from John 13. 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye have love one to another Col. 1. 4. It must be a Love to all the Saints 1 Thess 4. 9. But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you for ye your selves are taught of God to love one another This special Love is the Commandment of Christ the new Commandment without this no man can be a Lover of God nor be loved of him as a Member of Christ as you may see 1 John 3. 11 12 14 23. 4. 7 8 11 12 20 21. 2 John 5. John 13. 34. 15. 12 17. 1 Pet. 1. 22. He that loveth not a Christian as a Christian with a special love you may see in these Texts is none of the Sons of God And that the Papists teach men to deny this special Christian Love to most Christians in the world I prove They that teach men to take most true Christians in the world for no true Christians but for Hereticks or ungodly persons that shall be damned do teach them to deny the special love and works of love to most true Christians But thus do the Papists therefore c. How can a man love him as a Christian or a godly man whom he must take to be no Christian or an ungodly man It s true they may yet love them as Creatures and so they must the Devils and they may love them as men and so they must the Turks and Heathens But no man can love him as a member of Christ whom he believes to be no member of Christ but of the Devil And all Papists are bound to this uncharitableness by their Religion even by the Pope and general Council And so as Christ bindeth his servants to Love one another with a special Love so the Pope and Council bind the Papists not to love the most true Christians with a special Christian love they cannot do it without being Hereticks themselves or overthrowing the foundation of Popery And here you have a taste of the Popish Charity when they boast above all things of their Charity I must profess it is their horrible inhumane uncharitableness that seems to me their most enormous crime And also you may see here the extent of their Good works which they so much Glory in He that is bound not to love me as a Christian is bound to do nothing for me as a Christian So that they will not give a cup of cold water to a Disciple in the name of a Disciple unless he be also a Disciple of the Pope nor can they love or relieve Christ in his servants when they are bound to take them as none of his servants and so the special Love and Charity of a Papist extendeth to none but those of their own Sect and such a Charity the Quakers and Anabaptists and Familists have as eminently as they Let them take heed lest they hear In as much as you did it not to one of the least of these you did it not to me CHAP. V. Argum. 3. THat Doctrine which teacheth men to destroy or undo them whom Christ hath bound them to love as Christians and absolveth Subjects from their Allegiance to their Princes and requireth the deposing of them and committing the Government of their Dominions to others because they are judged to be Hereticks by the Pope yea or if they will not destroy and extirpate such as he calleth Hereticks I say this Doctrine is not of God nor such as Christian Princes should smile upon But such is the Doctrine of Popery therefore c. I know that a Paper entituled An explanation of the Roman Catholikes Belief and other the like do seem to renounce the opinion of breaking faith with Hereticks and of promise breaking with Magistrates It seems they think they owe no more obedience to their Magistrates then they promise But as I refer the Reader to what King James and his defenders have said on this point besides many more so I shall now give you but the words of one of their own approved General Council 12. the fourth at the Laterane under Innocent 3. as Binnius and others of their own record it In the first Chapter they set down their Catholike faith two Articles of which are 1. That no man can be saved out of their Universal Church And 2. That the bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar are transubstantiate into the Body and Blood of Christ the appearances remaining And in the third Chapter they say We excommunicate and anathematize every heresie extolling it self against this holy orthodox Catholike faith which we have before exponed condemning all hereticks by what names soever they be called And being condemned let them be left to the present secular Powers or their Bailifs to be punished the Clergy being first degraded of their Orders and let the goods of such condemned ones be confiscate if they be Lay-men but if they be Clergy men let them be given to the Churches whence they had their stipends And those that are found notable only by suspition if they do not by congruous purgation demonstrate their innocency according to the considerations of the suspition and the quality of the person let them be smitten with the sword of Anathema and avoided by all men till they have given sufficient satisfaction and if they remain a year excommunicate let them then be condemned as hereticks And let the secu'ar powers in what Office soever be admonished and perswaded and if it be necessary compelled by Ecclesiastical censure that as they would be reputed and accounted Believers so for the defence of the faith they take an Oath publikely that they will study in good earnest according to their power to exterminate all that are by the Church denoted hereticks from the Countries subject to their Jurisdiction So that when any one shall be taken into Spiritual or Temporal power he shall by his Oath make good this Chapter But if the temporal Lord being required and admonished of the Church shall neglect to purge his Countrey of heretical defilement let him by the Metropolitan and other Comprovincial Bishops be tyed by the bond of Excommunication And if he refuse to satisfie within a year let it be signified to the Pope that he may from thenceforth denounce his Vassals absolved from his fidelity and may expose his Countrey to be seised
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.
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
in their own shame Vigilius saith he proceeded to that insolency that he excommunicated Mennas for four moneths And Mennas did the same by him But Justinian being moved to anger with such things sent some to lay hold on him But Vigilius being afraid of himself fled to the Altar of Sergius the Martyr and laid hold on the Sacred Pipes would not be drawn away till he had pul'd them down But by the Mediation of the Empress Theodora the Pope was pardoned and Menna and he absolved one another A fair proof of the Vicarship 3. And so it was that Pope Honorius was condemned for an Heretick by two or three General Councils 5. Also when they meet with any big words of their own Popes as I command this or that they take it for a proof of the Vicarship As if big words did prove Authority Or as if we knew not how lowlily and poorly they spoke to those that were above them As Gregory the first for instance was high enough towards those that he thought he could master but what low submissive language doth he use to secular Governors that were capable of overtopping him And what flattering language did his successors use to the most base murderers and usurpers of the Empire 6. Another Roman deceit is this When they find any mention of the exercise of the now thriving Roman Power over their own Diocess or Patriarchal circuit they would hence prove his universal Power over all And by that Rule the Patriarch of Alexandria or Constantinople may prove as much 7. Also when they meet with the passages that speak of the elevation of their Pope to be their first Patriarch in the Roman Empire or any Power that by the Emperors was given him they cunningly confound the Empire with the world and especally if they find it called by the name of the world and they would perswade you that all other Christians and Churches on earth did ascribe as much to the Bishop of Rome as the Roman Empire did It s true that he was in the Empire acknowledged to be first in order of dignity because of Rome the seat of his Episcopacy especially when General Councils began to trouble themselves and the world about such matters of precedency And it s well known from the language of their writers as well as from the words of Luke 2. 1. that they usually called the Empire all the world And from such passages would the Papists prove the Primacy at least of the Pope over all the world But put these Juglers to it to prove if they can that beyond the Rivers Meroes and Euphrates and beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire the Pope did either exercise Dominion or was once so much as regarded by them any more then any other Bishop except there were any adjacent Island or Countrey that had their dependence upon the Empire I hope they will not deny that the Church extended much beyond the Empire Though our History of that part of it be much defective And let them prove if they can that ever any of those Churches had any regard to the Roman Bishop any more then to another man Let them tell you where either the Empire of the Abassines or any other out of the line of the Imperial power was any whit like-subject to the Pope 8. But their chief fraud is about names and words When they meet with any high complemental title given to the Bishop of Rome they presently conclude that it signifieth his Soveraignty Let us instance in some particulars and shew the vanity of their conclusions from them 1. Sometimes the Roman Bishops are called Summi Pontifices the chief Popes and hence some gather their Supremacy But I suppose you will believe Baronius their chief flatterer in such a case as this And he tells you in Martyrolog Roman April 9. that Fuit olim vetus ille usus in Ecclesia ut Episcopi omnes non tantum Pontifices sed summi Pontifices dicerentur i. e. It was the ancient custom of the Church to call all Bishops not only Pontifices Popes but chief Popes And then citing such a passage of Hierom Epist 99. he addeth Those that understand not this ancient custom of speech refer these words to the Popedom of the Church of Rome 2. As for the names Papa Pope Dominus Pater Sauctissimus beatissimus dei amantissimus c. it s needless to tell you that these were commonly given to other Bishops 3. And what if they could find that Rome were called the mother of all Churches I have formerly shewed you where Basil saith of the Church of Caesarea that it is as the mother of all Churches in a manner And Hierusalem hath oft that Title 4. Sometime they find where Rome is called Caput Ecclesiarum and then they think they have won the cause When if you will consult the words you shall find that it is no more then that Priority of Dignity which not Christ but the Emperours and Councils gave them that is intended in the word It s called the Head that is the chief Seat in Dignity without any meaning that the Pope is the universal Monarch of the world 5. But what if they find the Pope called the Archbishop of the Catholick Church or the Universal Bishop then they think they have the day I answer indeed three flattering Monks at the Council of Calcedon do so superscribe their libels but they plainly mean no more then the Bishop that in order of dignity is above the rest And many particular Churches are oft called Catholick Churches There 's difference between A Catholick Church and The Catholick Church And the Bishop of Constantinople had that Title even by a Council at Constant an 518. before the Bishop of Rome had it publikely or durst own it It was setled on the Patriarch of Constantinople to be called the Oecumenical or Universal Patriarch Who knoweth not that Emperours gave such Titles at their pleasure Justinian would sometime give the Primacy to Rome and at another time to Constantinople saying Constantinopolitana Ecclesia omnium aliarum est caput The Church of Constantinople is the Head of all other Churches An. Dom. 530. C. de Episcopis l. 1. lege 24. And it s known that this Justinian that sometime calls Rome the Head did yet when the fifth General Council had condemned Vigilius Pope of Rome permit Theodora his Empress to cause him to be fetcht to Constantinople and drag'd about the street in a halter and then banished till they had forced him to subscribe and submit to the Council even as they had deposed Pope Silverius his predecessor And Baronius himself mentioneth a Vaticane Monument which as it calls Agapetus Episcoporum princeps on one side so doth it call Menna the Apostolick Universal Bishop Which Baronius saith doth mean no more then that he was Universal over his own Provinces aad if that be so any Bishop may be called Universal And do not these
was over the Bishop read the first verse and then the Boy had no fit thinking it had been some other verse And thus they proved him a deceiver and the Boy was much confounded but pretended more distraction and then that he might get away he complained of extream sickness and made water in the Urinal as black as ink groaning when he made it But the third day after they espyed him mixing ink with his Urine and nimbly conveying away the Inkhorn And when they came in upon him and found him in the conveyance he broke out into tears and was suddenly cured and confessed all how he had been taught his art and how he did all and confessed that his intent was to be cured by a Priest and to turn Papist and whether they have catcht him again or no I know not for I hear he is a Quaker in Bristol or at least a reviler of the Ministry The Bishop took his examination at large Octob. 8. 13. 1620. If any doubt of the story they may be satisfied yet by the Boy himself or by the Reverend Bishop yet alive or by any of the neighbours in Bilson that were at age there but thirty seven years ago But before the Bishop had discovered the knavery one of the Conjuring Priests writes the Narrative of the business which is printed with the rest and is Entituled A Faithful Relation of the proceedings of the Catholick Gentlemen with the Boy of Bilson shewing c. And they begin with Not to us O Lord but to thy Name give the Glory And so they proceed to make their report of it for deluding the people as a Miracle And the writing was by a Papist Gentleman examined attested upon Oath to be received from one Mr. Wheeler c. But when they heard of the Discovery they were ashamed of their faithful Relation At last the Bishop brought the Boy at the next summers Assizes July 26. 1621. to ask pardon openly of God and the woman accused by him and of the Countrey cheated by him and there was an end of that Popish Miracle Abundance more such I could give you out of certain records but I recited this for the sake of H. T. and the Papists of Wolverhampton And for your Miracles I beseech you if you regard not us yet open your ears to a Jesuite that speaks the Truth Joseph Acosta de temporib noviss lib. 3. c. 3. To all the Miracles of Antichrist though he do great ones the Church shall boldly oppose the Belief of the Scriptures and by the inexpugnable Testimony of this Truth shall by most clear light dispell all his juglings as Clouds Signs are given to Infidels Scriptures to Believers and therefore the Primitive Church abounded with Miracles when Infidels were to be called But the last when the Faithful are already Called shall rest more on the Scripture then on Miracles Yea I will boldly say that all Miracles are vain and empty unless they be approved by the Scripture that is have a doctrine conform to the Scripture But the Scripture it self is of it self a most firm Argument of Truth And the same Acosta confesseth in his Indian History that they do no Miracles in the Indies where the boast is And if they did it would confirm Christianity but not Popery Yea if Miracles be so much to be lookt at why will you not give us leave to observe them The same Miracles that you boast of do testifie against you if they be true To instance now but in one Prosper makes mention of a Miracle which Thyraeus de Daemoniac pag. 76. and many more of yours recite that was done by the Sacramental Wine A person possessed by the Devil was cured after many other means used in vain by the Drinking of the Wine in the Eucharist And doth not this Miracle justifie us that give the people the Wine and condemn you that refuse to give it them Many other Miracles I could recite that the Fathers say were done by the Sacrament in both kinds received which condemn you that forbid it CHAP. XXX Detect 21. ANother of the Papists waies of deceiving is by impudent Lyes and Slanders against their Adversaries which they vent with such confidence that the seduced people easily believe them They that are taught to believe their Priests against their own seeing hearing feeling tasting and smelling must needs believe the vilest Lyes that they are pleased to utter in cases where the miserable people are unable to disprove them I will give you but a few of that multitude of Instances that might be given 1. In a Manuscript of the Papists which I lately received from a Neighbour of Sturbridge as sent from Wolverhampton there are these words with which they conclude Luther having richly supped and made his friends merry with his facete conceits died the same night This is testified by Cochleus in vita Lutheri And John Calvin a branded sodomite consumed with lice and worms died blaspheming and calling upon the Devil This is registred by Schlusselburge and Bolseck these were the Ends of the Parents of the Protestant and Presbyterian pretended Reformed Religions And as if their own tongue must sentence them to Hell in the very words before they say All Lyars their part shall be in the pool burning with fire and brimstone which is the second death And so make Application of it to the Protestants as being Lyars and when they have done conclude with the two forecited impudent Lies of Luther and Calvin The like words of Calvin hath the late Marquess of Worcester or Dr. Baily for him in his Papers to King Charles the whole writing being stuffed with such impudent Lies that one would wonder that humane nature should be capable of such wickedness and that the silly people should swallow down such heaps of falshood And it is not these two alone but multitudes of Papists that have written these Lies of Luther and Calvin Thyraeus the Jesuite in his Book de Daemoniacis part 1. cap. 8. pag. 21. tells us this story that the same day that Luther dyed there was at Gheola a Town in Brabant many persons possessed of Devils that waited on their Saint Dymna for Deliverance and were all that day delivered but the next day they were all possessed again whereupon the Exorcist or some body asked the Devils where they had been the day before and they answered that they were commanded by their Prince to be at the Funeral of their fellow Labourer Luther And for proof of this Luthers own servant that was with him at his death looking out at the window did more then once to his great terror see a company of ugly spirits leaping and dancing about without and also that the Crows followed the Corps all the way with a great noise O wonderful patience and mercy of God that suffereth such abominable Lyars to live and doth not cause some sudden vengeance to befall them Reader I will tell thee now the case
against the Papists such as Dr. Fields Crakenthorps Ushers Chillingworths Jewels Rivets Chamiers Ames Reignolds whittakers and such like beginning with Sir Humfrey Linds Via Devia via Tuta du Plessis of the Church and his Mysterie of Iniquity and Dr. John White c. 3. That you will not hearken to Papists secretly nor masked nor coming to you by indirect and Jugling ways but open their perswasions and call to some able studyed Divines to deal with them in your hearing if needs you will hear them that so you may hear one side as well as the other 4. That you take heed what Retainers Servants or Familiars are about you For some that pretend to be acquainted with these men are much mistaken if they be not more frequent at your elbows and in your Bed-chambers then many do imagine If they cannot be of your Councils and your neer attendants they will rather be your Porters or the Grooms of your Stables then they will be kept out We fear not any thing that they can do in an open way in comparison of their secret whispers and deceits when there is no body to gainsay them Had they the Truth we should be glad to entertain it with them It is not therefore Truth in their mouths that we are afraid of But seeing the Nations and our Posterity have so much dependance on your Integrity we call for so much Justice at your hands as that you will not cast open your ears to each deceiver especially in secret or on unequal tearms Let not all our peace and safety be hazarded by the self-conceitedness or imprudence of you that are our Rulers Seeing it is you that must give us Laws or set the Vulgar the pattern which they are so much addicted to imitate We adjure you in the Name of the most High God that you be not too forward and facile in hearkening to Seducers and corrupting those Intellects which the whole Nation hath so great an Interest in and that you be not henceforth as children tost to and fro and carryed about with every wind of doctrine by the the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4. 14. But we beseech you mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16. 17 18. Hearken not to every one that saith Lo here is Christ or Lo there is Christ here is the Catholick Church or there is the Catholick Church As if Christ were divided or the Catholick Church were more then One Or it were confined to a Sect or Party whether Papal or any other and did not contain all Christians through the world All parts of this Church are not equally pure but all are Parts Be you of the purest part but do not therefore take that part for the whole much less the polluted part Have compassion on the diseased and tumified part but do not therefore so far doat as to love the tumor or disease and say that none is the Church but this We are willing to be as Charitable to that Proud Throne of Rome and usurping Vice-christ as will stand with the safety of our souls and of the Church But God forbid that we should therefore be so blind as to run into their Pest-house and drink the poyson by which they are thus tumified intoxictaed Look on their Principles and see what an aspect they have on Christ on the Catholick Church and upon Princes Look back on their Practises and see what their Principles proved in the fruits Yea what need we go further for a warning then to remind you of that which one would think should be deep and fresh in your minds even what they have brought upon Kings Queens Lords Prelates and this whole Land But this leads me to the next Detection CHAP. XLVIII Detect 39. THE last of their Practical frauds at home and the most desperate is Their Treasons against the lives of Princes and the Peace of Nations and their dissolving the bonds of Oaths and Covenants and making Perjury and Rebellion to seem to be Duties and Meritorious works It would be a voluminous task to relate the Histories of the Papal Tresons How the Roman Vice-christ having laid a claim to both Swords Spiritual and Temporal hath plaid the Traytor against the Greek Emperors dispossessing them of the West and against the Emporors of Germany stirring up their own subjects and the Christian Princes and States against them setting his foot on the neck of one and making another wait barefoot long at the Roman gates and keeping many of them in wars It was this Horrid Treason and Tyrannical usurpation over all the Christians Princes that caused all those Treatises on that subject wrote against him in the Defense of Princes and their Rightt which Mich. Goldastus hath preserves and conjoyned in divers Volumes It was this that caused England Denmark Sweden and so many other Princes to be the readier to shake off his yoke Kings are not Kings where the Pope is fully Pope except only the House of Austria whom he is forced to gratifie as the only prop of all his tyrannie France that hath so much stood for its Liberties hath felt the fruits of the Roman Principles and League and two of their most renowned Kings successively have been basely and inhumanely butchered by them And to this day the numerous swarm of the Popes dependant Clergy doth not only devour as is thought about a third part of the Lands but also aws and swaies the Princes Even in Ireland before our wars a Bishop Bedle in his Letter to Laud in Prins Introduct pag. 102. doth open the Power of the Clergie and their insolencies as such that he concludes His Majesty is now with the greatest part of this Countrey as to their hearts and consciences King but at the Popes descretion And in another Letter to the said Archbishop ibid. pag. 112. he saith I that know that in this Kingdom of his Majesty the Pope hath another Kingdom far greater in number and as I have heretofore signified to the Lords Justices and Council which since is justified by themselves in print constantly guided and directed by the order of the new Congregation de propaganda fide lately erected at Rome see the rest Do I need to tell England of the many treacheries since the Reformation against our Princes Or who it was that would have deposed as well as Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth and exposed her Kingdoms to the will of others Or who it was that wrote against King James his Title to the Crown Or who were the Actors of the Hellish Powder-plot Or who it is that hath been still blowing the fire and casting all into disturbances for their ends Do I need to mention their approving of
as well able to prove that a London Convocation was a General Council Pighius pleading for the Pope saith plainly that General Councils were the devise of Constantine And the Popes themselves do fetch the most specious Evidences for their primacy from the Decrees or Edicts of Emperors Valentinian Gratian and others And what power had those Emperors at the other side of the world 3. And then before the Nicene Council what General Councils were there since the Apostle days None doubtless that the world now knows of It 's senseless enough to think that 350 Roman Bishops at the second Council of Nice or the 150 Bishops in the third Council at Constantinople or the 165 Bishops at the second Council at Constantinople or the 150 Bishops at the first there were the Universal Church of Christ But it will be more ridiculous to say that the new-found Concilium Sinuessanum imagined without proof to meet in a certain Cave for the deposition of an Idolatrous Pope were a General Council Where then was the Head the unity the form of the Church for 300 years Was it governed all that time think you by a General Council yea or ever one day since the Apostles Well but was there ever such a thing at all Indeed men have a fairer pretence when the Church was contained in a family or a City or a narrow space to call the meetings of the Apostles or other Christians then by the name of a General Council but they are hard put to it if this be all The great Instance insisted on is the Council Act. 15. But were the Bishops of all the Churches there or summoned to appear Act. 14. 23. they had ordained them Elders in every Church but few of them were there Timothy Titus abundance were absent It 's plain that it was to the Apostles and Church at Hierusalem as the Fountain and best informers that they sent Not because these were the Universal Church but because they were of greatest knowledge and authority If it could be proved that all the Apostles were there it would no more prove them a General Council then that the Deacons of one Church were ordained by a General Council Act. 6. And Matthias and Justus put to the Lot by a General Council Act. 1. and that Christ appeared to a General Council after his Resurrection and gave the Sacrament of his Supper to a General Council before his death So that it is most evident from the event that Christ never made a General Council the Head or Governor of his Church and that there never was such a thing the world much less continually Argum. 3. The form or unity no nor the well-being of the Catholick Church dependeth not on that which is either unnecessary unjust or naturally or morally impossible But a true General Council is none such It cannot be or if it were it would be unnecessary and unjust Therefore it is not the Head or Soveraign Governor of the Church on which its being unity or well being doth depend I have nothing here to prove but the Minor And 1. I shall prove the Impossibility 2. The non-necessity 3. The unjustice of a General Council and so that no such thing is to be expected A true General Council consisteth of all the Pastors or Bishops of the whole world or so many as Morally may be called All. A General Council of Delegates from all the Churches must consist of so many proportionably chosen as may signifie the sense and consent of all or else it is a meer name and shadow Both these are Morally if not Naturally Impossible as I prove 1. From the distance of their habitations some dwell in Mesopotamia some in Armenia some in Ethiopia some in Mexico the Philippines or other parts of the East and West-Indies some at St. Thome's some dispersed through most of the Turks Dominions Now how long must it be before all these have tidings of a Council and summons to appear or send their Delegates Who will be at the cost of sending messengers to all these Will the Pope Not if he be no richer then Peter was How many hundred thousand pound will it cost before that all can have a lawful summons And when that is done it will be long before they can all in their several Nations meet and agree upon their Delegates and their instructions And when that is done who shall bear their charges in the journey Alas the best of the Churches Pastors have had so little gold and silver that they are unable themselves to defray it A few Bishops out of each of these distant Countries will consume in their journey a great deal of money and provision To provide them shipping by Sea and Horses and all other necessaries by land for so many thousand miles will require no small allowance And then consider that it must be voluntary contribution that must maintain them And most love their money so well and know so little of the need of such journeys and Councils that doubtless they will not be very forward to so great a contribution And it is not to be expected that Infidel Princes will give way to the transporting of so much money from their countries on the Churches occasions which they hate But suppose them furnished with all necessaries and setting forward How long will they be in their journey Shipping cannot always be had Many of them must go by land It cannot be expected that some of them should come in less than three or four if not seven years time to the Council And will ever a General Council be held upon these terms 2. Moreover the persons for the most part are not able to perform such journeys Bishops are Elders Most of them are aged persons The wisest are they that are fit to be trusted in so great a business by all the rest And few attain that maturity but the aged Especially in the most of the Eastern Southern Churches that want the helps of Learning which we have And will the Churches be so barbarous as to turn out their aged faithful Pastors upon the jaws of death Some of them are not like to live out so long time as the journey if they were at home They must pass through raging and tempestuous Seas through Deserts and enemies and many thousand miles where they must daily conflict with distress It were a fond conceit to think that without unusual providences ten Bishops of a thousand â—â—ould come alive to the Council through all these labors and difficulties And moreover it 's known how few bodies will bear the Seas and so great change of air How many of our Souldiers in the Indies are dead for one that doth survive And can ancient Bishops spent with studies and labors endure all this Most studious painful Preachers here with us are very sickly and scarse able to endure the small incommodities of their habitations And could they endure this 3. Moreover abundance of the Pastors of
the Churches live under Mahometans and other Infidels that will not give them leave to travail so far into the Countries of Christian Princes on such occasions They hate us and our Religion They are oft at war with us and then would hang those Bishops as Intelligencers that should offer to come among us 4. And they must many of them pass through the Countries of other Princes that are Infidels and oft in war with the parts which they come from or go to And it cannot be expected that in such cases they should allow them passage through their Countries If one do all will not When poor Lithgow had travailed nineteen years he was tortured strappado'd and disjoynted and made a cripple at Malaga in the Spanish Inquisition And thanked God and the English Embassador that he sped so well 5. Even at home in Europe the Princes are so commonly in Wars as are France Spain Venice Sweden Denmark Poland the Emperor Brandenburgh Holland Portugal England Transylvania c. at this very day that there is not the least probability that they should all or half consent to have so many of their subjects pass into their enemies Countries to reside so long Jealousies raised by particular Interests would make it Treason 6. Moreover many Princes understand that the Pope hath no power to call such Councils nor any man else and they know the design of the Pope to subject the world to himself And therefore they will abhor that their subjects should travail so far at his call that hath such designs or at another mans that hath no authority to call them This hath made the Emperor of Habassia so resolutely resist the Popes pretensions as Godignus Maffaeus and others do declare Few Princes will endure to have their subjects brought under a forreign Power 7. And if you suppose all the Bishops come to the Council the very number out of all the Christian world to make any thing like a General Council would be so great as would be unfit for one or two or ten or twenty Council houses or Assemblies 8. And they would be uncapable of conferring through diversity of languages Few of the Abassines Egyptians Syrians Armenians or of most of the world understand and speak any language that would commonly be understood and used in a Council Nor is it possible to do it by Interpreters For so many Interpreters cannot be used to tell all that understand not what every man saith and to expound their minds to others This would waste an age in a Council so that such a Council would be a very Babel 9. And Councils use to be so long that it cannot be expected that after so many years journey old men should live to see the issue or do any great matters there Eighteen years at Trent would consume a great many of the Bishops How many even of the Popes own Legates dyed before that Council could be finished 10. And if they should live to see the end can you dream that they should live to perform the like tedious dangerous journeys and voyages to bring back the Decrees of the Councill to their Churches Judge now whether such Councils are not Naturally Impossible I will add but this No men can be compelled And to make all the world at once agree to so difficult a task and agree upon the time and place must be a Miracle One will be for it and another against it One for one time and place and another for another through most of the world We see how hardly any two Princes can agree upon times places and all circumstances in their Treaties 2. Let us next enquire of what Necessity such a Council is If it be Necessary for Church government it is either to make Laws or to execute them But for neither of these therefore they are not Necessary 1. Christ hath made us Laws already sufficient for salvation And I hope he hath not constituted so loose a Society and left his Body to such mutations as that they must so frequently have new Laws And if it must sure it must be from their Soveraign who hath reserved the Legislative Power to himself as his Prerogative Legislation is the highest act of Supremacy and chief flower in the Crown of Soveraignty The Church is Christs subjects and shall subjects make their own Laws Scripture is sufficient If this be all that we need General Councils for to make Universal Laws to the Church we can spare them as well as Traytors in a Common-wealth And for Execution of Laws it is either Magisterial by force of the Sword and this they have nothing to do with it being the Princes right Or it is for the Excommunicating Church offenders And to cast them out of particular Churches is the work of the Pastors of those Churches Others cannot know the persons and hear the cause If all Church-causes should come to a General Council Millions of men must be attending them at once And if it be to judge who shall be cast out of the Communion of the Churches and what Churches themselves are to be excommunicated the Synods of neighbour Pastors are to do as much of that as is to be done Where then is the Necessity of such Councils at such rates Augustine said that drunkenness in his time was grown so strong that there must be a Council to suppress it Could they do such feats as to cure Drunkenness Whoredom Covetousness Pride I would be for them 3. If a General Council were called it must be a most unjust Assembly For 1. It would be guilty of cruelty and destroying the Church of Christ by killing so many of the Pastors as aforesaid 2. It would be guilty of cruelty and Church destoying by the starving and desertion of the flocks at home What will become of the poor peoples souls when they are left to the Wolves to Hereticks and Deceivers and to the temptations of their own flesh and the world being for ten or twenty years or for ever deprived of their Pastors under pretense of a General Council Basil in his seventieth Epistle tells the Western Bishops that they of the East could not come to solicite their own cause with them For saith he If any one of us N. B. do for the least moment leave his Church he presently leaveth his people to deceivers And on this ground he shews that they could not so much as spare Bishops to be meer Messengers to them Much less could they have spared a sufficient number to stay seven or ten years together If any think that such Necessities are unusuall he knows not the world And Councils are most usefull if ever when necessities are greatest 3. In Councils things are carried by Votes and so Abassia Armenia Mexico and places so remote that they can send but one or two would be out-voted by that corner of the world where the Council is called that can send in proportionably an hundred for one and so under the name of
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