record never to be forgotten or forgiven so long we have clear evidences of strong resistance made to the Romish Religion before the times of Luther And in most Countries and times where and when the Romish corruptions began from small and obscure beginnings to be gross and plain some or other in greater or lesser numbers began to Renounce and Protest against them What though some of these early Reformers might hold some erroneous Opinions which we our selves condemn yet however they opposed the Romish Church in her corruptions and these tended to a Reformation which was compleated only by degrees and 't is no wonder some Stumbled in such a night of Ignorance And have not the Agents of Rome destroy'd the Papers and Records disguiz'd their Adversaries and falsify'd their Opinions to serve the Power and Interest of their great Mistriss They therefore branded the Waldenses with the name of Manichaism and that they affirm'd two Principles or Originals of all things because they asserted that the Emperour was Independent of the Pope and that they deny'd Christ to be the Son of God because they could not believe a crust of Bread to be Christ And they have fram'd as lewd stories against many excellent Men of the later Ages who withstood the approches of their Doctrine and Government which we certainly know and the more Ingenuous among them confess to be Notoriously false Though we have reason to believe because of the severity and industry of the Romish Factors ever warm against those who oppos'd her practises a great number of Honest and Learned Men as those Ages would afford are buried in obscurity and their names unknown there being an Expurgatorian Index for the merits of such Men as well as Books and Editions yet we have a sufficient Catalogue of them who kept up the Title and claim of old Christianity and would not suffer their new Errors to plead prescription 2. By shewing what Errors and Mistakes are included in the Question 1. That these new Errors of Rome are absolutely necessary to the being of a Christian Church For though we believe all that Christ and his Apostles taught all things that are contain'd in the Holy Scriptures all things that undoubted Tradition or good Reason proves to derive themselves from both or either yet because we do not Assent and Subscribe to the new Articles of Faith that Rome hath invented for us we cease to be a Christian Church are markt for Hereticks which are worse than Pagans with them and must be certainly Damn'd Nay should we embrace all the other Doctrines of Rome and deny only the Popes Authority and Supremacy that Epitome of their Christianity it would avail us little we are Heathens still Should we reject but one Article of Pope Pius's Creed suppose the Doctrine of Purgatory or Merit yet because this Questions Infallibility the centre of all their Religion we are in the State of Damnation still Should we receive their Doctrines as probable and in a larger and more favourable meaning yet because we do not entertain them as Articles of Faith in the fense of the Church our case is not mended we shall meet with Fires here and hereafter for our reward Should we wink and swallow them all down with a good Catholick Stomach yet if the Bishop of Rome should give out a new Edition of Faith enlarg'd with many more Monstrous Doctrines and Opinions yet if we bogle and keck at them all our former righteousness shall not be remembred we are Apostates worse than Turks and Infidels and who can tell what this Infallible and Powerful Guide of Christendom will do For when things obscure or of an Indifferent Nature when things wherein they differ among themselves and only serve a Temporal Interest when Opinions which they can dispense withal upon occasion when only the modes and manner of Truth when contradictories and Doctrines directly leading unto Impiety and things Barbarous and Blasphemous have been Christen'd Articles of Faith and Fundamentals of Religion have we not just reason to suspect as ill or worse may be done again And the intrigues of Trent be acted once more and as many new Articles of Faith as Titular Bishops by the same Spirit moving in the same manner were not the first and early Christians sound Members of Christs body though they never thought of such wild Opinions as these and publisht Truths directly contrary to them And could I suppose them to have known these Innovations out of Zeal and Fidelity to their trust would have detested amd abhor'd them Was Christ negligent in the discharge of his mighty office and his Apostles defective in their duties and Ministry not to accquaint the first Christians with these great Truths and were they reveal'd in the Tridentine Council only to us upon whom the ends of the World are come These Primitive Disciples of Christ thought themselves secure of Heaven by this short Creed that Jesus was the Christ the son of God And the contrary was the Character of the Man of Sin that deny'd that Jesus was come in the Flesh that he was the God incarnate and the true Messiah and were Scandaliz'd at his meanness and obscurity St. Paul told the Jaylor that certainly he would be sav'd if he believed that Jesus was the Christ all other Fundamentals of Christianity one way or other being necessarily included in that belief And thought that he made sincere and sound Disciples if they believ'd what he Preacht only Jesus and the Resurrection in their full compass and latitude Though we believe all this in a more express and explicit sense all that is contain'd in Scripture in the Apostles Creed or the two other Creeds drawn up by the Church to explain the Christian Religion in some Articles and to oppose the Doctrines of Hereticks yet the first Christians shall be Sav'd and we shall be Damn'd they shall be the elect and the Church of God we must be Reprobates and the Synagogue of Satan Or let Rome shew her wonted Charity and say She doubts also of their Salvation Or did Christ connive at that time of Ignorance or had he as a Lawgiver forgot to declare some part of the will and pleasure of God and upon better remembrance after so many hundred years suggested it to his careful Vicar Or did Christ knowing their Nature and Circumstances of it that they could not bear them at that time therefore delay the discovery so long Or did these new Articles lye hid so long conceal'd by his Apostles or buried by some lewd Hereticks in the rubbish of those Churches they pull'd down but afterwards found as they say the Cross was and now restored to light Or are these new Articles some way or other contain'd in the Ancient Creeds which we believe and by easy and natural consequences deduc't from them Some such fine reasons as these must be pretended otherwise we can safely conclude that our Church is truly Ancient and Apostolical though She disowns
began to favour his new Faith and Innovation And so errors once superinduc't upon the Truth will become by Age Truth it self and are never to be mended for fear of this pert Question and charge of Innovation on And it 's plain that new and old are but uncertain Characters to Judge of Truth and falshood by there being sometimes a new Truth that is lately discover'd to be so but really old and an old error kept up a long time by Force of Art and Walking in the Garb of Truth but truly new having come in after the Truth it vies with Time like a River many times bringing down straw and trash and leaving weighter things behind which when they come to be retriev'd are call'd new Fashions and Inventions When Abraham restored the true Worship of God and stript it of Idolatry and Superstition the Chaldean Priests whose Power and Interest was shaken by it were very brisk and ready to charge this Pious and Mighty Man from the East with Novelty and Singularity in his Religion the false service of God in these Countries being then ancient and almost Universal though the Patriarchs Religion did derive it self from a very ancient stock that of Adams in Paradise kept up by an Enoch and a Noah in single Families when all Flesh had corrupted their ways and now deliver'd unto Abrabam and now all the sticklers for a false Religion began to upbraid the Sons and Followers of Abraham's Faith with Novelty and ask them where was your Religion before the times of Abraham who set up his but yesterday and Scorns and Uncharitably Damns all his Forefathers who of old liv'd beyond the River in our Religion The same Objection might have been cast in the teeth of Moses when he was setling a Religion deliver'd to him by God in opposition to the Idolatries and false Devotions of the World and to serve his further designs of providence that he affected Novelty and Singularity that all the World stood against him in this and one of his Disciples afterwards was Inhumane and Vncharitable in praying God to pour out his Indignation upon the Heathen who had not known his Laws And his Successor Joshua might have met with the same fare when he bids his People choose whom they will serve either the Gods beyond the Flood and in Egypt or the Gods of the Amorites Old and great Nations who might have had this Objection in its full strength on their side or the God of Abraham and stoutly tells them let that plausible argument weigh with them what it will as for himself and his Family they would serve the Lord. And as this Religion might degenerate in descending Ages so any restorer of it might be set upon by the same frivolous Objection and so it hapned to our Messias and his fore-runner who was to restore all things who when he began to reform the false glosses and corrupt senses which the Scribes and Pharisees had put upon the Law of Moses and cry down their Traditions which made the Commands of God of none effect was lookt upon as an Enemy to Moses a Blasphemer of the Law a Prophaner of the Temple and a Changer of all their Religion whose design was only to fill up their Law and restore it to its Natural Beauty and Perfection and before Abraham was I am not only in his Divine Nature and designation to his office but in his Religion also which now he was going to teach the Few and Gentile too And now the times of a general Reformation being come and the Apostles were Preaching this excellent Religion unto all the World Jew and Gentile comspire together in the same Language and call them setters forth of strange Gods and new Heresies Heads and Contrivers of new Sects and ways and are whipt for Vagrants and Impostors who would cheat the World out of their old paternal Religions that were entail'd upon them teach them to speak ill of the Gods of their Fathers and Predecessors and to think they all dyed in a false Religion and to embrace a new-fangled Faith of a few illiterate and rambling fellows who had turn'd the World upside down And had this argument prevail'd then as much as the Romanists do desire if should now we should have had no Christianity among us the Idol-Gods of our Ancestors in this Island their Woodens and Twisters would have prescribed against Christ himself 3. To turn the Question upon them and ask them some others of the like Nature Men that are insolent and ever boasting of the Antiquity of their Family and upbraiding others with their obscure Birth and extraction do many times meet with some cross Questions about the Head and Fountain of their Families which many times proves only to be a Shepherd or meaner Original made Glorious with arrogant Titles and borow'd Names Searching into the pedigree of Romes Religion we do not find Christ or St. Peter or any of his Apostles to be the Authors of it but Pride Interest and Design old Vices indeed but new Fathers of a Christian Church which brought in a late and new generation of opinions and additions to Christs Religion Clothing them with the venerable Names of Primitive and Apostolical Where was the Romish Religion before the Council of Trent concluded only about the year 1563. of a later date then when Luther first began which Legitimated all their Innovations the Issue of Scholastick Wranglings pretended Dreams and Visions Forc't and Unnatural Senses of Scripture Ambition and Profit the Exchequer of Rome to be made Sons of the Church and Fundamentals of the Christian Faith Many of their own Writers confess that for 1400. or 1500. years the Pope was not believ'd to be Infallible till of late some of their flaming Zealots have invested him with Infallibility whereby the Roman Church is sick unto Death and no cure is to be apply'd because She is so certain and sure that She is well Their lewd Doctrine of Transubstantiation was not made an Article of Faith till the Council of Lateran under Innocent the Third above 1200 years after Christ and many of their own Writers are still dissatisfied about it The Title of Vniversal Bishop was obtain'd by Pope Boniface the Third not till about 600 years after Christ fearing a powerful Rival the Constantinopolitan Bishop who affected the same and therefore by the Popes themselves was declaim'd against as Proud and Antichristian but now by Hypocrisie and base complyance with the Wicked Phocas who was Guilty of Treason and Murder against the Emperour Mauritius Rome gain'd the delicious point and has made it a Fundamental Article of her new Religion Though the Popes came not up to their Swaggering Temper and Power of Hectoring Christian Princes some hundreds of years afterwards The Doctrine of Purgatory which some derive from the Platonick Fancies of Origen the Montanism of Tertullian pretended Visions and Pagan Stories Rhetorical Flourishes and doubtful expressions of the
later Fathers yet is was not positively affirm'd till about the year 1140. and not made an Article of Faith till the Council of Trent then indeed a good estate became a surer way to Heaven then then a good Life and Conversation The use of Indulgences was the Moral to the Fable of Purgatory and began to grow much what about the same time though it came not to the height and perfection till Pope Leo the Tenths time when Luther so stoutly opposed them then Heaven was set to Sale and the best Chap-Man was the greatest Saint though they boast of the second Council of Nice for the Antiquity of their Image Worship And if it will do them any good so they may of Simon Magus who was of an elder date and a very fit Patron of such an Opinion yet the Council of Frankfurt condemn'd it and the purest times did not so much as allow the making of Images And it was not the Catholick Doctrine in France for almost 900. years after Christ nor in Germany till after the twelfth Century then indeed such a Doctrin might be very proper when true Religion was turn'd into Pageantry and a form of Godliness The number of the seven Sacraments is now an Article of the Romish Faith yet the Council of Florence ended in the year 1439. was the first Council and Peter Lombard the first Man that precisely fixt that number That the Laity ought to receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper only in one kind was never made an Article of Faith till the Council of Constance concluded in the year 1418. then indeed that Council with the greatest insolence and a direct Invasion of the Authority of Christ took the Cup from the Lay Mens mouths notwithstanding as 't was then acknowledg'd the Institution of Christ to the contrary and they may as well Christen the Laicks Children only in the name of the Holy Ghost leaving out the Father and the Son by the way of concomitancy it being as Lawful to Baptize as to Communicate by the halfs For what cannot such a pretended Power do The prohibiting of Priests to Marry was not in perfection as 't is now till Pope Gregory the Sevenths time Let them tell us where 't is said by Christ or his Apostles or any of the truly Ancient Writers of the Christian Church that Pennance is a Sacrament or that Auricular Confession is necessary to Salvation or that Prayers ought to be made in an unknown Tongue or that good works are strictly meritorious or where can they find they many Impieties and Absurdities of their Mass in those early times of Antiquity And since they are fond of asking us this Question we might ask them many more about the many Fopperies and Innovations in their Faith and Devotion and many they are and large is the invntory almost as many as are the Christian Truths in direct opposition to them or prevarication from them But they seem to confess the newness of their Religion when they arrogantly set up a Power in their Church to frame new Articles of Faith and many things only Opinions and Notions at first have grown up by degrees to Fundamental Truths and having once slipt into error they are bound to maintain it for the Reputation and Authority of of Holy Church And who knows how many of this Nature are upon the Romish forge ready to be put into their Creed and where must we end not till it be believ'd that consecrated Feathers and Holy Water can conveigh Divine Grace to us and drive away Wicked Spirits and the Weathercocks of our Churches be thought Pillars of it Would the Champions of Rome speak out they would tell us as their Eckius did the Duke of Bavaria that the Doctrine of Luther might be overthrown by the Fathers though not by the Scriptures 't is a plain confession that we have the truest Antiquity on our side and in the beginning it was not so But we add that we have the Fathers also on our side for otherwise what mean their Expurgatorian indices of the Fathers and other Ancient Writers but that they very well know that these are old Enemies to Pope Pius's new Creed and the Truth in them confounds their error Such an account as this about the Original and Progress of their new additions to the old Faith was convenient to be given not because the Nature of the thing did necessarily require it for it had been sufficient only to have prov'd that these Romish additions to the Christian Faith are contrary to the Word of God and no where to be found in any of the Divine Writings the only Infallible Rule of Faith and that they have no power of minting new Articles Fundamental to Salvation but because the Disciples of Rome so frequently ask us the Question and lay so much stress upon it if these are Innovations crept into their Church who was the first Author of them when did he begin in whose Reign and in what place did he live who did oppose him what company believ'd on him and what his new Opinions were as they instance in Arianism and other Heresies and because they Fancy we cannot make all these particulars so absolutely plain therefore they say we have falsly charg'd the Romish Church with new errors and that their Faith is truly Ancient and by an uninterrupted Succession of Infallible Bishops hath been conveigh'd down from Christ and his Apostles in its full purity to this present Age. To satisfy their curiosity the defenders of the reformation have done this but suppose they could not have been so particular about the birth of these new errors or had made some mistakes in the compass of time yet however the charge of Innovation against the Romish Church stands firm and good upon these accounts 1. That Reformation carries not so much a respect to the error when it began as to the error it self Not whether it be sooner or later but whether it be an error contrary to the True Christian Faith It may serve some honest purposes to know the who and the when the where and the how and other circumstances of its beginning and proceeding but the necessity of Reformation springs from the Nature of the error which came from the Invention of Men and not the Authority of Christ And matters not much whether Simon Magus who was contemporary with the Apostles was the first Author of it or Pope Hildebrand at so great a distance 'T is enough that we are certain and sure that the Popish Doctrins which we condemn by comparing them with the Scriptures are not Christ and his Apostles have none of their Images or Superscriptions upon them who only had full Authority to make them current and True Articles of Faith They have indeed Christianity among them but like Josephs Coat so dipt in Blood so over-lac't with Fopperies and undecent Ceremonies and so many new pieces stitcht to the old Cloth that the old Fathers if alive
True Church whether Visible or hid which this Question denys 3. This Question supposeth that the Roman Church cannot err but that it remain'd pure and undefiled as it came from the Hands of Christ through the many Centuries of years till it came to the times of Luther and from thence shall so continue till the Worlds end and therefore we made a false charge against them of corruptions in their Religion to excuse our Innovation But we have reason to conclude She hath foully err'd from the Faith and that more fatally and obstinately because She pretends She cannot err For upon what grounds doth the found her Infallibility Upon the Scriptures They are only so many dead letters till the breath of the Church doth give them life and they are then to do the Church a good turn and give her Infallibility which is such a cirle as makes Mens brains so giddly turning round in it that they scarce know what the Scriptures and what the Church do mean the places of Scripture to prove Infallibility are such which have only reference to the Apostles themselves their Doctrines or Confessions of Faith as Divine and Infallible but not to their pretended Successors Or else they are restrain'd not simply unto all Truth but only unto all Truth that is necessary to Salvation in which the Pope or a Council cannot err while they follow the Spirit of Truth in the Scriptures and not compel the Spirit and Scriptures to follow them For they do not irresistibly force the minds of Christians into Truth Or else relate only to the Catholick-Church and not to the particular Roman or else are applicable to private Assemblies and their Worship of God which no body but Quakers and Enthusiasts think to be Infallible And all the first Ages of Christianity and undoubted tradition never in the least imagin'd such an Infallibility as now the Church of Rome dreams of They are at War among themselves where this Infallibility is lodg'd either in the Pope alone or in a General Council alone or in both together the Pope Sitting in person there or by his Legates or it the Council confirm'd by the Pope till they agree among themselves and prove it better we say 't is no where plac't but in the Scriptures and they do not prove any other person or persons upon Earth to be Infallible in their determinations To say such an Infallible Judge of controversies to guide the Church is absolutely necessary and therefore Divine Providence hath plac't him some where or other and who but the Pope can be the Man Is only to prescribe methods unto God and teach him how to Govern his Church and not be thankful for the good old ways of Salvation and Peace Scriptures an honest Judgment with Divine asistance and humane means he hath chalkt out for us but contrive some new ones of their own Such Infallibility must be of no use to the Church of God for upon the Romish principles it cannot be known for the Pope before he be Infallible must be Bishop of Rome but the Sacrament of Order according to the Council of Trent receives it validity from the intention of the Priest that when he ordain'd him Bishop he did what the Church intended and who can tell upon these grounds what this supposed Priest was who gave this Order or dive into his thoughts and intentions which their Casuists confess may sometimes be very perverse But if there be this Infallibility at Rome why do not the Countries and Religious Orders in them still under their Dominion receive the Blessed fruits of it and still all the brawls and squables among themselves if his Holiness be at leisure and it be worth his while And why should not the Champions of Rome bend all their Power to prove this main point of Infallibility when all other controversies would fall under and submit unto its Power a compendious way to make the Christian World at Peace and Unity with its self But why need we labour to disprove the Popes Infallibility when themselves put their shoulders to it and do the work for us in disputing among themselves whether the Pope being an Heretick may be deposed by which Question they confess that he may fall into Heresy which is error of the highest Nature carrying Wilfulness and Obstinacy with it And accordingly these Infallible Men have been guilty of Heresies as Pope Honorius of Monothelitism and Liberius of Arrianism and the like and many of them liv'd most debauched lives and fatal to Christianity as Heresy and Fallibility and wherein providence is highly concern'd This Doctrine of Infallibility looks like a plain contrivance of the Romish Church having some way or other slipt into these gross errors from small beginnings and finding them not defensible by all the sleights and arts of their cunning heads are forc't to quit their hold and betake themselves to their common Sanctuary of Infallibility that let these things be what they will in Dispute between us and them they are sure they are great Truths by Vertue of Infallibility which is one of the Miracles of Rome which can change the Nature of things which may be true in England and the quite contrary at Rome as Father Cotton and other Jesuites affirm'd at Paris For it 's plain to all impartial Judgments that their Doctrine of Purgatory Transubstantiation and the like are not to be found in Scriptures are utterly unkown to the truly Acient Fathers and the eldest and purest times of Christianity and contrary to the reason of Mankind They may as well tell us that the City of Rome was never sack't and spoyl'd because some Flaterers humour'd her Pride and Arrogance calling her the immortal City and impregnable Rock as that these gross errors never invaded and ruin'd the Christian Faith because of the fine name of Infallibility which they arrogate to themselves And may as well put out our eyes and then bid us see if we can discover any errors in the Romish Church And St. Peter's being at Rome proves no more that he left Infallibility behind him than Consecrated Clouts sent from Rome that the Infant that wears them shall ever after be a firm defender of the Romish Faith 4. This Question will serve any Heresies or Errors that have got some Antiquity on their side against a Reformation If it be true in this case 't is so in all others and then what a shelter have they provided for all Heresies if they chance to live long to be safe and secure in and escape correction And there are many errors contemporary with Christianity it self in its first plantation in the World at least followed it very close at the heels such were the Ancient Gnosticks the Carpocratians or Ebionites the spawn of Magus and others who can plead great Antiquity on their side and as properly ask any Reformer of their Heresies where was his Religion before such a time as the inconstant World