many of such Doctors be obstinately bent and have in their mouth nothing so much as good works Merits Reward Due Debt Recompence for their well doing Yet the time drawing neer when they must hold up their Hands at the Bar of the Lords Judgment Seat and there must make answer for themselves and their works must be tried by the Law of God They give over their former confidence They have no joy in themselves yea they distrust their own works They tremble and quake inwardly They are in fearful heavinesse and perplexity of mind They know not whither to turn themselves 5. And if God give such grace unto them that they see and forsake their Error of deserving Heaven then they confesse they are sinners and therefore guilty of Death 6. And then learn that Lesson in their end which afore in their life time they would not understand The Burden of Ceremonies which are now laid upon the Members of the Roman Church Is an Intolerable Burden 1. 1. SOme of the Fathers after the 300 years that they might more easily draw the Gentiles to Christianism did Tolerate and Admit with an alteration of the end and manner some Ceremonies of the Gentiles in Chiristian Religion 2. Wherein no doubt their intention was godly to wit 1. To use their Christian libertie in matters Adiaphorous and not Morallie evil according to the Apostles rule Tit. 1. v. 15. Vnto the pure all things are pure Rom. 14. v. 14. There is nothing unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean to him it is so 2. And to amove a present offence and occasion which hindred Gentiles from receiving the Christian faith to wit the difference of outward Ceremonies and Customes 2. But in succeeding Ages when the Gentiles were converted and when the Church needed not further to accommodate it self to the weakness of the Heathen And that things at first admitted by way of toleration should rather have now been removed and worn out Superstitious persons contrary to this make daily addition and increase borrowing more and more from the superstition of Jews and of Gentiles until at length they overwhelmed Christianity with an intolerable burthen of ceremonies 3. 1. Making the easie yoak of Christs Gospel heavier then the state of Jews and of Gentiles 2. And by this means they obscured Gods truth and only made people ceremonious whereas they should have been made pious Of the false Worship of the Church of Rome 1. IN the Church of Rome there is a Religious worship and the devotion of many members of the same doth eat up their time and their estates too 2. But the Divine worship of the Church of Rome is not a true but a false worship 3. For the Papists devotion is not emploied and exercised in the true worship of God according to his word but according to mans will and invention 4. That is to say in praying to Saints In worshipping Images In suffrages for the dead In seeing Masses And adoring the Hoste And telling out a set number of Pater Nosters and of Ave Maries upon hallowed Beads In making superstitious Vows And going to Pilgrimage And abstaining from certain Meats And wearing Hair-cloth And whipping themselves And creeping on all four to a Crucifix and the like 5. Of all which we demand as God doth of the Jews by the Prophet Fsay chap. 1. v. 12. Who required these things The Church of Rome is guilty of abominable Idolatry And in what it doth consist 1. VVHatsoever Church attributeth Divine honour to a creature is guilty of abominable Idolatry But the Church of Rome attributeth Divine honour to divers creatures as appeareth in the instances following 1. Do they not devote themselves dedicate Temples consecrate Altars appoint Offices make daily Prayers vow Pilgrimages and present Offerings to the blessed Virgin and do all such outward Acts as properly appertain to Latria Is not this to equalize her with her Son The same is also true in regard of the other Saints 2. Do they not make an Idol of the Cross of Christ when they profess that they worship it Cultu Latriae Gretser the Jesuit in his Book of the Cross saith we affirm according to the more common and received opinion in the Schools That the Cross of Christ is to be worshipped with Latry that is Divine worship 3. Do they not make an Idol of the Sacramental bread or the Host as they call it to which they pray and confess before which they fall down when it is carried in solemn Procession on Corpus Christi day 4. Lastly do they not make Idols of their Images and of the Relicks of Saints before which they burn Incense and bow down when they pray directing their prayers towards them and fastening their eyes on them 2. This Conclusion then justly and Rightly follows That the Church of Rome is guilty of Abominable Idolatry The Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry IN six things the Church of Rome doth commit Idolatry 1. In worshipping the Host which the Priest holds and calling God that which is not God 2. In attributing to Saints the honour which belongeth onely to God 1. Praying to them 2. Calling them Mediators 3. Asking salvation of God by their merits 4. Believing that they know the hearts and thoughts of men 3. Particularly in calling the Virgin Mary Inventrix of Grace The Queen of Heaven The Lady of the World For Kingdome and Empire over all creatures belongeth onely to God 4. In the adoration and worship of Images 5. In the adoration of the Cross 6. In the adoration and worship of Bones of Rags and other relicks of the dead 1. The Papists do commit many things which the Heathen Idolaters did do and so are like unto them in those regards 2. In particular they put the Saints in the place of the Gods and Goddesses of the Pagans THough we forbear to fasten the name of Heathenish Idolaters upon Papists yet surely they do the same things as they did 1. The Heathen carried their Gods of Gold and Silver upon their shoulders Baruch 6.4 So do the Papists bear out their images and relicks inclosed in chasses of gold and silver in their solemn Processions on high dayes 2. The Heathen decked their images as if they were men and women with apparel and who knoweth not that Papists put costly apparel on their images Almost every Saint among them hath his Holy-day and his Working-day suit 3. The Heathen lighted Candles before their images though the image seeth not one of them And do not the Papists set Tapers before theirs 4. The faces of the Heathen Idols were blacked with smoak Baruch v. 11. So are the Papists Images with the fume of the incense they burn to them 5. The Heathen spake to their Idols as if they were able to understand them Baruch v. 41. So do the Papists to the wood of the Cross saying Ave lignum spes unica 6. The Heathenish Priests beards and
State 1. THey trouble the peace of it 2. They corrupt its Children with an impious and strange Religion 3. They make more precious account of a forreign Enemy than of its Dignity 4. They divert the minds of people from true Religion to trouble the peace of the State 5. They estrange the minds of Loyal Subjects from their Lawful Prince 6. And turn all things topsie turvie §. In the State of England as in other States since the last Reformation of the Church extream hath been the cruelty of the Papists towards the Reformed 1. VVHo are the Papists and what is their Religion That the Jesuites and Roman Priests so boldly object cruelty unto the Reformed State of England 2. 1. In Queen Maries time more of them were condemned in that State at one Sessions more executed in one day more consumed in one fire then they can recount to us to have been put to death for the Popes cause at any time or by any kind of death in the whole happy Reign of Queen Elizabeth 2 Let the Jesuites and other Papists then but call to mind the extream cruelty the exquisite Tortures the frequent Martyrdome of the times before the Keign of Queen Elizabeth And if there be in them any mark of Humanity they cannot chuse but confesse that their side hath been extream cruel And that the Englishes Reformed have been sufficiently provoked to severity against them and to have repayed them with the like 3. For what Times can afford such and so many Butcheries of men as was to be seen when the Papists were Lords over the Protestants in England let them tell what Sex or what Age they spared and did not bloodily execute all without difference and distinction Of Learned or Unlearned Of Male or Female Of Old or Young Children Virgins Married Clergie and Layetie Bishops Archbishops escaped not their hands The Martyrs they did beat with Rods their Tongues they pulled out of their Mouths their hands they burned off with Torches They Tormented Crucified Hanged and Beheaded them they burned them alive and toasted them at a soft fire Yea the Infant leaping out of the Mothers belly they received upon the Spears point and cast it into the flaming fire To conclude whatsoever barbarous cruelty could invent that they were not wanting to in execution against them 4. And if their cruelty had ended with the Living and had terminated in their deaths it had been lesse but so raging was their Tyranny that they took up the bodies of Saints interred in the Earth they arreigned them upon a day They accused them at a Bar They condemned them to Death And burned them at a Stake even exdeeding those old Tyrants in Fury and Cruelty 5. Can they name any one such Savage Fact amongst the said Reformed of England 6. Or what was he that was put to Death amongst them Reformed whom every good Man that heard of him judged not worthy of Death threefold more then of Life 7. Therefore let the Papists acknowledge their own cruelty in the State of England and accuse not the English Reformed §. What the Jesuites did alledge for their Justification of coming in England against the Laws of that State THey did alledge That they came thither upon commandment of their Superiours according to the Order of that Religion which they professe Confutation of such an Allegation 1. BUt the English Reformed did demand of the said Jesuites what necessity did lie upon them to obey his Commandement who had no Authority to enjoin them a Journey whether they were willing or unwilling to goe 2. And if that Spanish Soldier Loyola the first Authour of their Jesuitical Society were now alive and should enjoin them to set their Countrey on fire would they obey him we Reformed of England are sure they would never command such a foul fact 3. And yet he might better command and the English Jesuites execute that then this Thing for which they did professe that they were then come in England 4. For whether might it be deemed less to set houses on fire then to cause the Evils and Harms represented before 5. Which yet were the Ends of the Jesuites coming and the Order of their Profession required no less at their hands §. The Soveraign Magistrate in the Reformed State of England hath great Reason to Prohibite the Books of English Jesuites and Seminary Priests 1. THe Books of those man are such as it behooveth the Soveraign Magistrate to stop their passage 2. He must of necessity restrain their Books unless he would suffer the State to be stirred to Sedition the Church in danger of Heresie and Mens minds filled with cursed Opinions 3. For if Magistrates ought carefully to prevent lest the infection of the Plague be from other places brought into their Cities much more care is to be had that pestilent and pernicious Books be not openly spread abroad out of which simple and unlearned men do suck Poyson of deadly Error 4. Neither is the Reformed State of England the first that have taken this Course 5. It may be remembred in Queen Maries Time that they proceeded by Martial Law against all those with whom any of the Reformed Books were found If this was in the Reformed of that Time a matter worthy of Death so that they were by and by drawn to punishment as men guilty of High Treason and that without any Judicial Proceedings what reason have the English Jesuites and Seminary Priests that are in Rome Rhemes and other places abroad to look that their Books should now have such free liberty to be every where publickly sold Of Heretical Churches and Religions Of Heresies and Hereticks 1. HEresie is some opinion in matter of Faith repugnant and contrary to the Word of God being of some chosen out to themselves and wilfully maintained 2. And an Heretick is a person wilfully and stiffly maintaining false Opinions against the Scriptures after due admonition 3. There be three things required to an Heretick first that it be an Error about some Article of Christian Faith Secondly that it be contrary to the evidence and clear truth of holy Scripture soundly and generally held by the holy Catholick Church of God in the earth Thirdly that it be stoutly and obstinately maintained after conviction and lawfull admonition 4. The Doctors of the Roman Church do erre which account such Opinions for Heresies as are not condemned but rather taught in the Word of God which is the onely Rule of saving Truth 5. It is to be noted that Heresies are compared in Scriptures to whores because they are stored with cunning pranks and a thousand entisements to make men ill advised to swerve from the right way See Revel 14.4 6. As on the contrary in the said Scriptures simplicity of Faith is called Virginity See 2 Cor. 11. v. 2. 7. The Difference which is between Heresie and Schisme is as the Difference which is between Faith and Charity Heresie is the Poyson of Faith and infecteth
and how grievously doth he bewaile the most desperate Estate of the Roman Church In Cant. Serm. 33. De Conversione Pauli Thus he writeth A shameful Contagion spreadeth spreadeth over the Body of the wicked Church The Servants of Christ serve Antichrist from the Sole of the Foot to the Crown of the Head nothing is sound With these and the like Speeches used Bernard to bewaile and complain of the Intolerable wickednesse of the Church of Rome which he would never have done without sufficient Reason moving thereunto 2. Aeneas Sylvius afterward Pope writeth that Charitie was waxed cold and Faith utterly gone And what manner of Church shall we judge this to have been when she had lost both Faith and Charity 3. What shall we further Recite Petrarch Mantuan and other Poets both Learned and Famous which feared not with Satyrical Verses to Inveigh against the Pope and against the Cardinals and against the whole Clergy 4. All things were then so out of order that all sins might without controlement both be practised and openly blamed 3. This is true in regard of the Popes Court. ST Bernard doth not fear to describe it Ad Eugenium Papam Lib. 4. In these words amongst these You Eugenius being their Pastor walk decked with much Pretious Apparel If I durst speak it These are rather Pastors for Devils then for Christs sheep Your Court usually receiveth good Men but maketh few good there the wicked are not made better but the good far worse A number of such places could we alledge out of him Of the great and scandalous Incontinency of the Roman Clergie by reason of their Single Life 1. THere was never generally or in regard of the greater number any true Chastity in the Popish Clergy And ever since the Law of Single Life was obtruded Whoredome and Baudery so shamefully distained them that they became a by word to the Christian world 2. Bernard complaineth in this sort If according to Ezekiel his Prophesie we dig through the wall we shall find in the house of God an horrible abomination For after and besides fornication Adultery and Incest the very passions of Ignominy and works of filthiness Rom. 1.27 are not wanting for which the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha the very nurses of filthinesse were predamned Some of the Priests of the Church are besprinkled with the lothesome and mattery filth of this uncleannesse and abstaining from the remedy of Wedlock they brake out into all flagitious wickednesse 3. Aventine in the Story of Pope Gregory the 7. the Author of this compelled Eunuchisme speaketh in this manner And thou O vigilant Gregory what wouldest thou have done if fortune had reserved thee until our daies In which to dally with women to whore to drink to ravish and deflowre Virgins to adulterate Wives is become the principal study of Priests In so much that Cauda salax Sacrificulorum in proverbium abiit 4. Whereas the Papists in specious words rejected Wedlock in their Clergie yet indeed they did practise and admit it For although their Bishops and Priests kept no Women under the Title of Wives yet they generally maintained Lemans and Concubines which were an inferiour kinde of Wives 5. The Gloss upon the Legate Otho contains these words If a Priest keep his Concubine privately within his own or his friends house he incurreth not the penalty of this Constitution Peter Ravennas and Michael Lochmaine living about the Year 1490. report That many Clerks in their dayes kept Concubines as their Wives and brought up Children And Clemanger The Priests being at a Fee with the Prelates do commonly and openly keep their Concubines 6. That which we have said of Bishops and Priests is also true in regard of the Popes For Onuphrius saith in the Life of Pope Alexander the VI. That if this Pope at any time were not oppressed with business he devoted himself to all sorts of pleasure without respect Being especially addicted to Women of which he begate four Sons and Daughters The chief of his Lemmans was Vannocia a Roman which by reason of her Beauty and amorous Dalliance and marvellous fruitfulness in his meaner Fortunes he detained in a manner as a lawful Wife Pope Hildebrand the Father of the General Decree of single Life in the Clergie was reported to have lulled night and day without any shame in the Armes and Embracings of the great Countess Maud. And that she being surprized with the stolne Dalliance of this Pope regarded not second Marriage after the death of her first Husband Read Antonine reporting the like of Pope Clement the fift Nay Pope Leo the tenth was defamed for Sodomitical filthiness with his Pages and Chamberlains saith Joacus a Romish Bishop In what Regard the Names of Catholiques is given to the Members of the Church of Rome by some of the Reformed 1. THe Papists ought not to Triumph much for the Name of Catholiques which is given them by some of the Reformed 2. For their Meaning is to give it them no otherwise then usually the Name of Man is given to one Deadly sick or in whose Body there is nothing but skin and bone 3. He is a Catholique not who followeth the Popish Apostasie but that professeth the Doctrine of Christ God from Time to Time hath raised Godly Men that have cryed against the Errors of the Roman Religion and Church and have Discovered them 1. COncerning the Errors and Idolatries of the Roman Church when they Established themselves and chiefly when Endeavour was made to make them pass in Form of Law and to oblige to the reception of them as of Articles of Faith God did raise many godly Men who couragiously did oppose themselves to that 2. Thereupon let the Catalogue of the witness of Truth composed by Flaccus Illyricus be read and the Mysterie of Iniquity or the History of Papacy written by the most Famous and Learned Philip de Mornay 3 And not onely from among those who openly have shaken off the Popes Yoke but moreover even among those that are remaining in his Outward Communion God hath given the Grace to Acknowledge and to some of them even to Deplore and Detest publiquely great Number of Abuses and Corruptions that are in the Church of Rome Concerning the Greek Churches 1. 1. THe Greek Church could never yet be brought to joyn it self to the Church of Rome and it is as opposite to Her as ever the Reformed Church was Exception of the Jesuites 1. THis is very false say the Jesuites for in the Florentine Council the Emperour Paleolus together with the Grecians and Armenians freely acknowledged the Pope to be the Vicar of Christ and embraced the Roman Faith 2. Yea and at this day they dissent from us in few things as Jeremy the Patriarch of Constantinople hath plainly written Answer of the Reformed to that Exception THe Reformed do answer to this Exception 1. That if that be true why are they then of the Papists accounted Schismaticks Or why do they