either common to other Societies as well as a true Church or if they are proper to such a Church they are elsewhere no less nay much more in some others than in theirs As for the Essential Properties here in my Text they are but four and those are from an Infallible Authority The like whereof cannot be shewed for any other Therefore our Church desires nothing more than to be tried by these Tokens If the same way of Tryal does not please them so well in the Roman Church we cannot wonder at it for these make no way for them but against them in every Particular I shall make a short Proof of it trying their Catholic Church as they call it by these Characters of the Primitive Apostolick Church And first for the Doctrine of the Apostles If the Publick Profession of that without any other be required of any true Church and if the Scriptures contain all the Doctrine of the Apostles as it was firmly believed by the Fathers in the Primitive Church How come they of the Roman Church to find out so many Doctrines of which there is no mention in the Scripture nor in any of the Primitive Fathers In what place were they kept to be made known in after-times that were not known to them that lived in or near the Apostles times But they have I know not how many such Doctrines and they are properly Doctrines of their Church They are declared by their Councils with most dreadful Anathemas to all those that shall presume to deny them We see they Unchurch us we know what they have done more and may guess what they would do more to us for denying them But they have them in their Creed the Creed that is sworn by all their Clergy They swear first the old Nicen and add to that the new Roman Creed They conclude it in these terms Hanc esse veram Catholicam Fidem extra quam nemo salvus esse potest That this is the true Catholick Faith without which no man can be saved What a horrible thing is this to couple together I believe in God and in our Lord Iesus Christ with I believe the Doctrines of Transubstantiation Auricular Confession Image-Worship Purgatory Indulgences and what not some of which things some of themselves do confess are not so much as once mentioned in Scripture and none of them is mentioned there in plain words not in any words that were understood so by the Fathers for many Ages after Christ. For the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Besides that we find nothing for it but many things against it in the Ancients so many that we are sure it could not be the Tradition of those Times We see at its first birth it was declared to be a Novelty and a Falshood by Rabanus Arch-Bishop of Mentz and by other of the learnedst men that lived eight or nine hundred years after Christ. We find at that time and for two hundred years after it was a rude lump which askt much licking over to perfect it And then having both Shape and a Name it was defined to be of Faith by Pope Innocent in his Lateran-Council above twelve hundred years after Christ. For Confession to a Priest the necessity of it was unknown to the Fathers of the Primitive Church Nay above a thousand years after Christ it was held disputable in the Roman Church And though the Practice of it was imposed by Pope Innocent in his Council of Lateran yet even then it remained disputable as to the Doctrine till it was made to be of Faith by the Trent Council For their Doctrine of Image-Worship than which nothing can be more contrary to the Scriptures as they were understood by the Primitive Fathers we know it was established by the second Nicen Council and we know what a Council that was But it was condemned in the same Age by two as numerous Councils that of Constantinople a little before it and that of Frankfort immediately after it And the matter was held in debate all that Age in both the Eastern and Western Church till at last it was setled in the East according to the Nicen Council which they have so much out done in the Roman Church that even the Greeks charge them with Idolatry And they are not wholy excused from it by many of their own Communion For their Doctrin of Purgatory it doth not appear that any one of the Ancients hit upon it among all the different Opinions that they had concerning separated Souls till St. Austins time and yet then we are as sure it was no Catholic Tradition as we can be of any thing of that Age. After near two hundred years more it was believed by one of great Name from whose fabulous writings it got Credit And so crept by Degrees into the Faith of the Roman Church But it is received by no other Christians For their Doctrin of Indulgences It is so confessedly new It was at first so ill grounded and so wickedly designed that God seemed to have suffered them to run on into this to shew the World as afterward he did by this Example what Stuff the Lusts of men left to themselves would bring into the Christian Religion It were easie to shew the like in all their new Articles of Faith Most of them I shall consider as they come under the other Heads of my Discourse The mean while these may pass for a sample of the rest They all sprung up in late corrupt Times and went at first as Private Opinions only but being found to make well for the Interests of the Clergy they were concerned to bring them in credit with the People And they took a way for it that could not fail in such an Age by forging New Revelations and Miracles when by these means worthy of their Doctrines they had brought them into the Christian Faith then beside the Interest that first brought them in there was another reason to continue them It was necessary for the Credit of the Infallibility of the Roman Church Touch that and you shake the whole building of Popery even to the Foundation that is the Papacy it self To secure that they are brought under this miserable necessity of holding all for Catholic Faith that is once received in the Roman Church Whatsoever she bringeth forth must be fathered on the Apostles though there is not the least Colour for it in their Writings But to shew how little trust they have in the Apostles writings there needs no other instance than this that their Church hath forbid her Laity to read them and hath taken a course that if they read they cannot well understand them The Scripture was writ by the Apostles in the most vulgar language of their times the Greek which was the mother tongue of most and well
pretend indeed that it is clear in the Tradition of the Fathers But for the Fathers that received the Scripture from the Apostles it is evident that they could not find any such thing in it Nor could any of them that lived in the first six hundred years Nay they were to seek for it that lived above a thousand years after the Apostles times Some indeed of the Antients have spoke of an unbloody Sacrifice and that offered by every Christian as well without the Sacrament as with it But as they alway denied any more Bloody Sacrifice So little did they think of an unbloody to take away sin and that such as none could offer but the Priest How much less that Chirst himself must be that Sacrifice nay must come from heaven both to offer and to be offered and that upon such pitiful small or needless occasions The most common pretence not to mention any worse is to fetch a soul out of Purgatory Which the Priest is to do for a small piece of Silver But they have other devices to do the same thing Therefore why must Christ come from Heaven to earn this mony And be sent on these errands ten thousand times a day And every time suffer as much as it cost him to Redeem all mankind This horrible Mystery unknown to former Ages was kept for times worthy of such a discovery Those dark dismal times that brought in the Grossest errors of Popery Other things in their Worship are new and bad Enough though they do not come up to the Monstrousness of this Namely their prayer to Angels and to Saints departed this life and their prayer for Souls in Purgatory which things together make up a great part of their Offices in the Roman Church For the first of these Prayer to Angels We cannot say that there was no such thing in the Apostles times For an Apostle by mistake was like to have used it but was forbid by the Angel to whom he offered worship And another Apostle writ purposely against it as being a Superstition that some would then have brought into the Church But those instances sufficiently shew that it could be no part of the Apostles Prayers For Prayer to Saints as the Apostles have left no Example so they could have none before them according to the Doctrine of the now Roman Church Nor is there any colour for it in Scripture nor in the Tradition of the Apostles Age. There are many things in both to the contrary But after some hundreds of years when Christianity was the Established Religion and Heathens came by droves into the Church It is no wonder that they who in their Gentilism Prayed to Deified men more than to God were apt to run into this Superstition They were still for a Religion that would affect the sense And they found matter for it at the Memories of the Martyrs where from the Miracles that were wrought for the Testimony of their Faith They took occasion to treat the Saints as before they had done their Heathen Gods and to address themselves to them for those Temporal benefits which they took to be conferred by their means It may seem strange that some of the Fathers of the Church should give countenance to this popular Error But however they complied with the weakness of the people in hope to promote their Zeal to Religion and perhaps they might have some other Hypotheses of their own yet they writ things which could not consist with this worship And some of the Fathers writ directly against it They asserted to God the whole duty of Worship They owned no other Mediator but Christ. This they all acknowledged to be the sense of the Catholic Church But the darker times grew the more that Error prevailed The people led their Guides and tolled them on with worldly advantage who repaied them with lying Wonders and Visions to confirm them in their Error At last by Poetry it got into the Offices of the Church And yet then they had no Doctrine sufficient to bear it A thousand years after Christ they were not sure that the Saints heard their Prayer or that the Saints are in Heaven which is the very Foundation of their worship Their very Prayers e taught them the contrary And therefore they that came after altered them in some places But yet still there is enough left in the Mass Book f to shew them how far they are removed from the Old Roman Church The Prayers for Souls in Purgatory could be no antienter than the Doctrine of Purgatory was And therefore having shewn that the Apostles had no such Doctrine I need not prove that these were none of their Prayers But if they prayed for the dead on any other account it doth not concern the now Roman Church For she pretends not to pray for any dead but for them that are in Purgatory And yet to do her Right she hath not one prayer expresly for them in all her Offices for the dead The Reason is because those Offices were made before that Fiction was generally believed The Offices were fitted to those Doctrines which were Then in the Roman Church Which as I have shewn were much different from what she hath now So where their Doctrines were doubtful there the Prayers are in ambiguous terms But they are plain enough in that which is of Faith that is where they pray as we do for a blessed Resurrection But because that is assured to all that die in Christ whether in a Perfect or Imperfect estate and men will not buy Prayers for that which will come without asking Therefore to get their mony there was no better way than to persuade them that their friends might be fetched out of Purgatory or might be eased in it by such Prayers as were then used in the Church There might have been new Prayers made for the purpose But as bad as times were in that darkness of Popery some would have declared against such a gross Innovation Therefore it was thought enough to keep the old Prayers and get the Church to interpret them as she hath done sufficiently to shew her own Novelty in this matter For the other parts of their Worship we read that the Ptimitive Christians that lived next the Apostles times had their Lessons from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament So they have some likewise in the Roman Church But for every such Lesson they have Two Lessons out of other Books And no small part of them I say no more than I can prove are as arrant Fables as any that are in the Heathen Poets For the Language of their Prayers and Offices in their Church it is all in Latin and that is an Unknown tongue It is a chance if any there understands it And
12 13. We have been all made to drink So Justin M. Apol. 2. p. 97. E. and 98. E. declares the manner of those times that every one of the people that were present at the Sacrament did receive it in both kinds d It appears that this manner was continued in following Ages it does not appear that it was changed in any Church till that Doctrine came in which requires men to disbelieve their Senses This being hard to do in that part of the Sacrament the Cup was taken away by degrees in these Western Churches The first that writ for this use as far as I can find was Gislebertus that lived about the year eleven hundred Aquinas that lived about one hundred and fifty years after says that then this new manner was providently observed in some Churches Summ. Part. III. q. 80. art 12. in Corp. After one hundred and fifty years more was the Council of Constance which enjoin'd it to all and that with a bold non obstante to all that Christ had said or done to the contrary For thus the Decree Sess. 13. Concil Ed. Labb Tom. XII 100. B C. Though Christ administred this Sacrament to his Disciples in both kinds of bread and wine yet Notwithstanding this the approved Custom of the Church is otherwise And though in the Primitive Church this Sacrament was then received by the faithful in both kinds Yet this Custom was brought up with good reason for the avoiding of some Perils and Scandals c. It seems they were such as Christ did not foresee or the Antient Church did not find for otherwise this had not been then to do a It makes the Sacrifice of Christ as much lower in value as it is oftener offered than the Levitical Sacrifices For the reason of their being often offered was because of their insufficiency to take away sin Heb. x. 11. Had Christs Sacrifice been like theirs he must often have suffered Heb. ix 25 26. He must have oftentimes offered the same Sacrifice Heb. x. 11. As they say he doth at every Mass in the Roman Church But this he needed not Christs Once was enough Heb. vii 27. and ix 12 26 28. and x. 10. He offered one Sacrifice for sin for ever Heb. x. 12. and by that one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are Sanctified V. 14. So that there is no more offering for sin V. 18. No more true proper propitiatory Sacrifice a The Sacrament of the Lords Supper was Ordained for the remembrance and representation of the propitiatory Sacrifice of Christ to be offered or made by every believer He takes eats drinks he Does this in remembrance of Christ. Luk. xxii 19. and so doing he sheweth forth the death of Christ 1 Cor. xi 26. and applieth to himself Christs body broken and his blood shed for us There goes with it an Eucharistical Sacrifice that is before the Sacrament an Oblation solemnly presented to God in and after it a Spiritual Sacrifice of Prayer and Thanksgiving an offering of our selves souls and bodies For this every Christian is a Priest 1 Pet. ii 5. The manner of it is thus described in the old Roman Missal set forth by Pamelius After the reading of the Gospel the Offertory is sung and the Oblations are offered by the people out of which Bread and Wine are set upon the Altar to be Consecrated and the Prayer is said over the Oblations After this the Priest began the Canon of the Mass and said the Commemoration in these words Remember Lord all here present who offer to thee this Sacrifice of praise for themselves and all theirs Menardi Sacr. Gregor p. 2. In those times men saw the Oblations to which those words did refer But afterward when there was no more such offering and no more breaking of Bread but a Wafer to be offered by the Priest for the People then the Antient form was improper and therefore they altered it thus Remember Lord all here present for whom We offer to thee c. So it stands now in the Roman Missal Where all the other Prayers which were designed for the Eucharist are misapplied to the new Propitiatory Sacrifice And yet still they continue these following words of the Prayer after the Diptychs through our Lord Jesus Christ By whom thou O Lord Createst all these things always good c. and givest them to us This they say over the Wafer and Wine after Consecration Of the Creatures of Bread and Wine See the end of Page 47. b Bell. de Missà Lib. l. Cap 2. Secundò saith All things whatsoever that are called Sacrifices in Scripture were of necessity to be destroyed and that by Killing them if they were living things if without life by Burning them c. a Bell. de Missà Lib. I. Cap. 27. the whole Chapter Whether by 〈…〉 c. b 1562. Jul. 24. Padre Paâ—lâ— saith Ataiâ—e Cardinal Palavicino saith Fâ—rerâ— shewed that the Sacrifice of the Mass cannot be prâ—ved from Scripture alone without Tradition particularly that it cannot be prâ—ved from Christ words at the last Supper but by the uniform exposition of the Fathers He adds that They did not so understand it as if their sense were of Faith The truth is the Ancient Fathers did not so understand our Saviours words nor perhaps did many of the Trent Fathers themselves For when the question was put whether Christ at the last Supper offered himself for a Propitiatory Sacrifice it held both the Divines and Bishops in long Dispute saith Card. Pallavicino XVII 13. 11 c. It was alledged on the one hand that if that at the last Supper was a true Propitiatory Sacrifice then that upon the Cross could be only in remembrance of this and on the other hand if it was not such a Sacrifice then there was no such Sacrifice Instituted by Christ for the words of Institution Hoc Facite could refer to nothing else but to what was done then and there I have shewed that they refer to those words Take Eat Drink and were spoken to the Disciples as Communicants and no otherwise After much time and heat at last the Doctrine was set down in these words that at the last Supper Christ offered himself for a Sacrifice without saying whether Propitiatory or Eucharistical But neither did this satisfie saith Cardinal Pallavicino XVIII 9. 3. c Suarez in tertiam Aquin. disp 41. art I. Secundò potest saith in the New Testament there are no convincing testimonies to prove that there is a true proper Sacrifice under the Gospel d None before Iustin Martyr speaks of Sacrifice among Christians unless Clemens Remanus in his Epist. ad Cor. §. 36. Where he calls Christ the High Priest of our offerings But he speaks only of the Sacrifice of praise and contrite hearts Ibid. and §. 52. But for Iustin in his Book against Tryphon p. 344. c. He proves that we are all a Holy Priesthood because God accepts none but Priests and yet all