antient Church-Fathers and Councils Imposing Rites unnecessary Persecution for Conscience Papal Supremacy The Branches of it Papal Personal Infallibility Religious Veneration of Images p. 48 CHAP. 5. The Principles of Fiat Lux re-examined Things not at quiet in Religion before Reformation of the first Reformers Departure from Rome no Cause of Divisions Returnal unto Rome no means of Vnion p. 89 CHAP. 6. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of the Animadversions Scripture sufficient to settle men in the Truth Instance against it examined removed Principles of Protestants and Romanists in reference unto Moderation compared and discussed p. 99 CHAP. 7. Vnity of Faith wherein consists Principles of Protestants as to the setling men in Religion and Vnity of Faith proposed and confâ—rmed p. 121 CHAP. 8. Principles of Papists whereon they proceed in bringing men to a setlement in Religion and the Vnity of Faith examined p. 161 CHAP. 9. Proposals from Protestant Principles tending unto Moderation and Vnity p. 204 CHAP. 10. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of the Animadversions The remaining Principles of Fiat Lux considered p. 301 CHAP. 11. Judicious Readers Schoolmen the Forgers of Popery 〈…〉 Discourse in Fiat Lux. p. 308 CHAP. 12. False Suppositions causing false and absurd consequences Whence we had the Gospel in England and by whose means What is our Duty in reference unto them by whom we receive the Gospel p. 315 CHAP. 13. Faith and Charity of the Roman Catholicks p. 351 CHAP. 14. Of Reason Jews objections against Christ. p. 362 CHAP. 15. Pleas of Prelate Protestants Christ the only supream and absolute Head of the Church p. 370 CHAP. 16. The Power assigned by Papists and Protestants unto Kings in matters Ecclesiastical Their several Principles discussed and compared p. 398 CHAP. 17. Scripture Story of the Progress and declension of Religion vindicated Papal Artifices for the promotion of their Power and Interest Advantages made by them on the Western Empire p. 423 CHAP. 18. Reformation of Religion Papal contradictions Ejice ancillam p. 447 CHAP. 19. Of preaching the Mass And the Sacrifice of it Transubstantiation Service of the Church p. 452 CHAP. 20. Of the Blessed Virgin p. 47â— CHAP. 21. Images Doctrine of the Council of Trent Oâ— the second Nicene The Arguments for the Adoâ—ration of Images Dctrine of the antient Church Of the chief Doctrine of the Roman Church Practice of the while Vain foundations of the pretences for Image Worship examined and reproved p. 477 CHAP. 22. Of the Latine Service p. 526 CHAP. 23. Communion p. 558. CHAP. 24. Heroes Of the Asses Head whose worship was objected to Jews and Christians p. 559 ERRATA PAge 2. l. 13. r. caeterarum p. 3. l. 23. r. advantage p. 4. l. 1. r. ultio l. 2. r. uocens p. 5. l. 16. r. up p. 7. l. 5. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 11. l. 1. r Crescens p. 12. l. 16. r. you have neither p. 15. l. 1. r. pleadable p. 16. l. 11. r. â—v l. 29 r. parcas p. 67. l. 22. r. that p. 69 l. 5. r. what p. 71. l. 26. r. revengeth p. 75. l. 15. r. tumbled p. 76. l. 22. r. Lybya p 77. l. 24. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 82 l. 10. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 84. l. 1. r. pseudopigraphall p. 85. l. 30 r. Tharasius p. 87. l. 12. r. Demetriad l. 31 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 91 l. â— r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 105 l. 32. r. from p. 106. l. 27. l. feat l 34. after that add they p. 117 l. 33. r. indispeasible p. â—19 l. 9. r. Bogomilus p. 127. l. 5. r. infallibly p. 132. l. 14. r. the p. 139. l 28. r. produce p. 144 l. 6. r. gencri l. 32. r. utique p. 145. l. 34. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 152. l. 8. dele it p. 335. l 7. r. retritius p. 337 l 4. r. suprstitious p. 343. l. 14. r. ipse p. 353. l. 1. r. quoi p. 355. l. 8. r. your Church p 357. l. 31. r. homines p. 359. l. 3 r. Brentius p. 375. l. 3. r. your p. 383. l. 13. r. the Church l. 14. r. affect it p. 389. l. 29. r. preside p. 393. l. 14. r. to p. 396. l. 12. r. preside p. 410. l. 24. r. whereas p. 417. l. 32. r. Panoruitanus p. 419. l. 16. r. with p. 420. l. 7 r. He l. 8. r. the p 439. l. 8. r. with p. 441. l. 22. r. nor p 455. l. 16. add part corr In divers places the Copy was mistaken the Church is Printed instead of our Church the intelligent Reader may easily see the mistake and do the Author right therein A Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux. CHAP. I. SIR I Have received your Epistle and therein your excuse for your long silence which I willingly admit of and could have been contented it had been longer so that you had been advantaged thereby to have spoken any thing more to the purpose than I find you have now done Sat citò si sat benè Things of this nature are alwayes done soon enough when they are done well enough or as well as they are capeable of being done But it is no small disappointment to find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fruitless flourish of words where a serious debate of an important cause was expected and looked for Nor is it a justification of any man when he has done a thing amiss to say he did it speedily if he were no way necessitated so to do You are engaged in a Cause unto whose tolerable defence opus est Zephyris hirundine multa though you cannot pretend so short a time to be used in it which will not by many be esteemed more than it deserves for all time and pains taken to give countenance to errour is undoubtedly mispent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the great Apostle We can do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth which Rule had you observed you might have spared your whole time and labour in this business However I shall be glad to find that you have given me just cause to believe what you say of your not seeing the Animadversions on your Bock before February As I find you observant of Truth in your Progress or failing therein so shall I judg of your veracity in this unlikely story for every man gives the best measure of himself And though I cannot see how possibly a man could spend much time in trussing up such a fardle of trifles and quibbles as your Epistle is yet it is somewhat strange on the other side that you should not in eight moneths space for so long were the Animadversions made publick before February set eye on that which being your own especiall concernment was to my knowledg in the hands of many of your party To dial friendly with you nolim caeterarum rerum te socordem codem modo Yea I doubt not but you use more diligence in your other affairs
against Protestants for dishonouring her and all that you say in in your Epistle in its Vindication is railing at me for minding you of your miscarriage My whole Book you say is nothing but calumnies a bundle of slanders a meer quiver of sharp arrows of desolation I am not sorry that you are sensible that it hath arrows in it tending to the desolation of your Abominations But I challenge you to give an instance of any one calumny or slander in it from the beginning to the end If you do not do so I here declare you to be really and highly guilty of that which you would falsly impose upon another Free your self by some one instance if you can if you cannot your reputation will follow your Conscience whether it will be hard for you to find them again The substance of that Chapter is this which is all that I shall now say to your nothing against it Protestants yield to the blessed Virgin all the honour that the Scripture allows them or direct them unto or that the Primitive Church did ascribe unto her and the Papists give her the honour due to God alone whereby they horribly dishonour God and her CHAP. 21. Images Doctrine of the Council of Trent Of the second Nicene The Arguments for the Adoration of Images Doctrine of the antient Church Of the chief Doctrine of the Roman Church Practice of the whole Vain foundations of the pretences for Image Worship examined and disproved YOur next procedure is to your Discourse of Figures or Images and my Animadversions upon it And here you say you will come up close unto me you mean in replying unto what I delivered about it But Sir I thought this had been contrary to your design You professed at the beginning of your Epistle that it was so and have made good use of that declaration of your self by avoiding every thing in my discourse that you found your self pressed with and too difficult a task for you to deal withal Why do you now begin to forget your self and to cast off the pretence you have hitherto shaddowed your self under and excused your self by from tergiversation Surely you think you are upon this head able to say somewhat to the purpose which you despaired of doing upon others of as great importance and therefore now you may argue and dispute which before the design of your Fiat would not permit you to do As far as I can observe you speak nothing at any time but what you think is at present for your turn But whether it have any consistency with that which elsewhere you have delivered you make it not much your concernment to enquire But we shall quickly see whether you had any just ground of encouragement to harness your self and to come up as you speak close to me in this business or no. It may be before the close of our Discourse you will begin to think it had been as well for you to have persisted in your former avoidance as to make this profession of a close dispute and whatever you pretend to the contrary really you have done so You hide the opinion and practice of your Church about the Worship of Images which you seem to be ashamed of instead of defending them and except against some passages in my Animadversions instead of answering the whole which you seem to pretend unto I shall therefore declare what is the true judgement of your Church in this matter and then vindicate the passages of my Discourse which you take notice of in your exceptions and under both heads declare the abomination of your faith and practice in your Doctrine about Images and Worship of them The Doctrine of your Church in this matter I suppose we may be acquainted with from the Determinations of your Councils the explication of your most famous Doctors the Practice of your people and the distinctions used by you to quit your selves from Idolatry in your Doctrine and Practice And you will thereby learn or may at lest to what purpose it is for you to seek to palliate and hide the deformity of that which your Mother and her wise men have made naked to all the world Your Council of Trent is very wary in this matter as it was in most of its other affairs and indeed seeing it was resolved not to give place to the Truth it became it so to be that it might keep any footing in the minds of men and not tumble headlong into contempt and reproach Many difficulties it had to wrestle withal It saw the practice of their Church which was not totally to be deserted least the great mysterie of its Infallibility should be impaired and its nakedness laid open the general complaint on the other side of learned and sober men that under a pretence of Image Worship as horrible Idolatry was brought into the Church of God as ever was practiced amongh the Heathen did not a little perplex it It had also the various and contradictory opinions of the great Doctors of your Church and Masters of your Faith about the kind of Worship which is due to Images all which had great followers ready to dispute endlesly in the maintenance of their several conceits Amidst these rocks and oppositions the Fathers found no way to sail safely but by the help of general and ambiguous words a course which in the like difficulties had frequently before stood them in good stead Wherefore they so expressed themselves that no party at variance among them might think their opinions condemned that the general practice of their Church might be countenanced and yet no particular asserted that was most obnoxious to the exceptions of the Lutherans Thus then they speak Imagines porro Christi Deiparae Virginis aliorum Sanctorum in Templis praeertim habendas retinendas eisque debitum honorem venerationem impertiendam non quod credatur quoniam honos qui eis exhibetur refertur ad Prototypa quae illae representant with much more to that purpose And we may observe That the Decree speaks only of the Images of Christ the blessed Virgin and other Saints not expresly mentioning the Images of God the Father of the Trinity and of the Holy Ghost nor of Angels which they knew to be made and to be had in veneration in their Church nor do they anywhere reject the use makeing or worshipping of them Yea in their following words they do plainly allow of the figuring of the Deity Quod say they si aliquando historias narrationes 〈◊〉 Scripturae cum id indoctae plebi expediet exprimi figurari contigerit doceatur populus non 〈◊〉 divinitatem figurari quasi corporeis oculis conspâ—i vel coloribus aut figuris exprimi possit The words are as most of the rest in this particuâ—ar as an bigâ—ous as the Oracles of Delphos This cannot be denyed to be in them however That the unlearned people are to be taught that the Deity is not painted or figured
as though it could be seen or expressed by colours but for some other end as it seems for their instruction which indeed is honest and fair dealing for they plainly tell them that by their pictures they teach them lyes the language of the Picture being that God may be so pictured whereby all your pictures and Images of God the Father as an old man of the Trinity as one person with three faces and the Holy Ghost as a Dove are approved 2. Religious Worship of Images is confirmed due honour and veneration or worship is to be given unto them saith the Council Now it is not mutual complement they are discoursing about There is no such intercourse between their Images and them ordinarily though sometimes civil salutations have passed between them Nor is it any token of Civil Subjection for Images have no eminency or authority of that kind but it is divine or religious veneration and worship which they affirm is to be assigned unto them 3. They say that due honour and veneration that is religious is to be assigned unto them but what in especial that honour and worship is they do not determine whither it be the same that is due to the sâ—mplar as some the most of your Divines think or whether it be an honour of some inferiour nature as others contend pugnant ipsi ne potesq the Synod leaves them where it found them sufficiently at variance among themselves 4. They further assert the worship that is given by them to Images to be religious or divine in that they affirm the honour done to the Image is referâ—ed unâ—â—â—he Prototype which it doth represent Now suppose this be Jesus Christ himself I suppose that they will grant that all the honour we yield to him by any way or means is divine or religious and therefore so consequently that which they would have to be given unto his Image that is a stock or stone which they fancy so to be must be so aâ—so Now Sir you may see from hence what it is that you are to speak unto and to defend or else to hold your peace in this matter And I shall yet make it a little more plain unto you Your Trent Council approves and commends the second Council of Nice as that which taught and confirmed that Doctrine and practice about Images and their Worship which your Church allows I shall therefore briefly let you know what was the judgement of that Council and what was the Doctrine and Practice confirmed in it under many dreadful Anathematisms This Second of Nice or Pseudo-Synod of the Greeks as it is called by the Council of Frankford whereunto we are sent by the Tridentine Fathers to be instructed in the due Worship of Images was assembled by the Authority of Irene the Empress a proud imperious woman her Son Constantine whose eys she afterwards put out and thrust him into a Monastery in the year 490. Tharasius was then Patriarch of Constantinoples and Hadrian the first Bishop or Pope of Rome This man most zealously or superstitiously addicted unto the worship of Images and that contrary to the judgement of most of the Western Churches as soon afterwards appeared in the Council holden at Frankford by the Authority of Charls the Great had a particular advantage both over the Empress and the Patriarch of Constantinople The Eastern Empire being then greatly weakened by its own intestine divisions and pressed on all sides by the Saracens the Empress began to entertain some hopes of relies from the French in the West whose power was then grown very great and to that end sollicited a marriage for her Son with the daughter of Charls the great and supposed that she might be helped therein by the mediation of Hadrian the Bishops of Rome having no small hand in the promotion of the attempt of Pipin and Charls the Great for the Crown of France and afterwards for the conquest of Italy and Germany And besides she was a woman her self zealously addicted to that kind of superstition which Hadrian had espoused as having in the time of Leo her Husband kept her Images in private contrary unto what she had solemnly sworn unto her Father as Credenus relates in his Annals As for Tarasius he was contrary to all Ecclesiastical Canons of a meer Lay-man at once per saltum made Patriarch of Constantinople which Hadrian upon his first hearing of greatly exclaimed against and refused to receive him into the society of Patriarchs upon his sending of his significatory Epistle This is fully declared in the Epistle of Hadrian extant in the Acts of the Council But yet afterwards bethinking himself how usefull this man might be unto his design in getting the worship of Images established in the East he declares that if he will use means to get the Heresie as he called it of the Image-opposers extirpated and their veneration established he would consent to his Election and Consecration or else not Finding how the matter was like to go with him this Lay-Patriarch undertakes the work and effectually prosecutes it in this Synod assembled at Nice by the Authority of Irence the Empress and her Son Constantine But by the way when the Council was assembled he omitted not the opportunity of improving his own interest getting himself stiled Oecumenical or Vniversal Patriarch which Anastasius Bibliothecarius in his dedication of his Translation of the Acts of this Convention unto John the eighth bewayles and ascribes it unto the flattery of the Greeks The frauds forgeries and follies of this Council and ignorance and dotage of the Fathers of it have been sufficiently by others discovered Our present concernment is only to enquire First What they taught concerning Image Worship and Secondly How they proved what they taught seeing unto them we are sent by the Tridentine Decree to be instructed in your faith in this matter First They make the having and use of Images in the Worship of God of indispensible necessity so that they anathematize and cast out of the Communion of the Church all that refuse to receive and use them according to their prescript Yea they proceed so far as in their approbation of the Confession of Theodosius the Bishop of Ammoria as to denounce an Anathema against them that do but doubt of their reception 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so he closeth his Confession which they all approve as Orthodox Anathema to them that are ambiguous or doubtful in their minds and do not confess with their hearts ex animo that Sacred Images are to be worshipped wherein they and and you with them add Schism to their Idolatry casting out of the Churches those who offend neither against the Gospel nor the determination of any General Council of old making the Rule of your Communion to consist in a sorry piece of Will-worship of your own invention which doubles the crime of your Superstition and layes an intolerable intanglement upon the Consciences of men which are perswaded from the
observed reproved condemned and written against Only unto what shall be discoursed unto this pnrpose I desire liberty to premise these three things which I suppose will be granted Dabitur ignis tamen et si ab inimicis petam The first is that What is by any previously condemned before the embracing and practice of it is no less condemned by them than if the practice had preceded their condemnation Though you should say that your avowing of a condemned errour would make it no errour yet you cannot say that it will render it not condemned for that which is done cannot be undone say you what you will Secondly that Where any opinion or practice in Religion which is embraced and used by your Church is condemned and written against that then your Church which so embraceth and useth it is condemned and written against For neither do Protestants write against your Church or condemn it on any other account but of your opinions and practices and you require but such a writing and condemnation as you complain of amongst them Thirdly I desire you to take notice that I do not this as though it were necessary to the security and defence of the Cause which we maintain against you It is abundantly sufficient and satisfactory unto our consciences in your casting us out from your communion that all the wayes whereby we say your Church is fallen from her pristine purity are judged and condemned in the Scripture the Word of truth whither we appeal for the last determination of the differences between us These things being premised to prevent such evasions as you have accustomed your self unto I shall as briefly as I can give you somewhat of that which you have now twice called for 1. Your Principle and Practise in imposing upon all Persons and Churches a necessity of the observation of your Rites and Ceremonies Customes and Traditions casting them out of Communion who refuse to submit unto this your great Principle of all the Schisms in Europe was contradicted written against condemned by Councels and Fathers in the very first instance that ever you gave of it Be pleased to consider that this concerns the very Life and Being of your Church For if you may not impose your Constitutions observances and customes upon all others actum est there is an end of your present Church State Let us see then how this was thought of in the dayes of old Victor the Bishop of Rome An Dom. 96. condemns and excommunicates the Churches of Asia because they would not joyn with him in the Celebration of Easter precisely on the Lords day Did this practise escape uncontrolled He was written against by the great Irenaeus and reproved that he had cast out of Communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whole Churches of God for a triviall cause His fact also was condemned in the justification of those Churches by a Councell in Palestine where Theophilus presided and another in Asia called together for the same purpose by Polycrates Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. 5. cap. 22 23 24 25. This is an early instance of a considerable Fall in your Church and an open opposition by Councels and Fathers made unto it And do not you S r deceive your self as though the fact of Victor were alone concerned in this censure of Irenaeus and others The Principle before mentioned which is the very life and soul of your Church is condemned in it It was done also in a repetition of the same Instance attempted here in England by you when Austine that came from Rome would have imposed on the Brittish Churches the observation of Easter according to the custome of the Roman Church the Bishops and Monks of these Churches not only rejected your Custome but the Principle also from whence the attempt to impose it on them did proceed protesting that they owned no subjection to the Bishop of Rome nor other regard than what they did to every good Christian. Concil Anglican p. 188. 2. Your Doctrine and Practise of forcing men by carnall weapons corporall penalties tortures and terrors of death unto the embracement of your profession and actually destroying and taking away the lives of them that persist in their dissent from you is condemned by Fathers and Councels as well as by the Scriptures and the light of Nature its self It is condemned by Tertullian Apol. cap. 23. Videte saith he ne hoc ad irreligiositatis elogium concurrat adimere libertatem Religionis interdicere optionem Divinitat is ut non liceat mihi colere quod velim sed cogar colere quod nolim with the like expressions in twenty other places All this externall compulsion he ascribes unto profaneness So doth Clemens Alexand. Stromat 8. So also did Lactantius all consenting in that Maxim of Tertullian Lex nova non se vindicat ultore gladio The Law of Christ revengeth not its self with a punishing sword The Councell of Sardis Epist. ad Alexand. expresly affirms that they disswaded the Emperour from interpesing his Secular power to compell them that dissented And you are fully condemned in a Canon of a Councell at Toledo Cap. de Judae distinc 45. Praecipit sancta Synodns nemini deinceps ad credendum vim inferre cui enim vult Deus miseretur quem vult indurat The holy Synod commandeth that none hereafter shall by force be compelled to the faith for God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth Athanasius in his Epistle ad Solitar falls heavily on the Arians that they began first to compell men to their heresie by force prisons and punishments whence he concludes of their Sect atque ita seipsam quam non sit pia nec Dei cultrix manifestat it evidestly declares it self hereby to be neither pious nor to have any reverence of God In a Book that is of some credit with you namely Clemens his Constitutions you have this amongst other things for your comfort 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ left men the power of their wills free in this matter not punishing them with death temporall but calling them to give an account in another world And Chrysostome speaks to the same purpose on Joh 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He asked them saying Will you also go away which is the Question of one rejecting all force and necessity Epiphanius gives it as the character of thesemi-Arâ—ians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They persecute them that teach the Truth not confuting them with words but delivering them that believe aright to hatreds wars and swords having now brought destruction not to one City or Countrey alone but to many Neither can you relieve your selves by answering that they were true believers whom they persecuted you punish Hereticks and Schismaticks only for they thought and said the same of themselves which you assert in your own behalf So Salvian informs us Haeretici sunt sed non scientes denique apud nos sunt Haeretici apud se non
The Councell of Pisa deposed Gregory the twelfth and Benedict the thirteenth for Schismaticks and Hereticks The Councell of Constance accused John the twenty third of abominable Heresie Sess. 11. And that of Basil condemned Eugenius as one à fide devium pertinacem Haereticum Sess. 34. an erroneous Person and obstinate Heretick Other instances of the like nature might be called over manifesting that your Popes have erred and been condemned as persons erroneous and therein the Principle of their In fallibility I would be unwilling to tire your patience yet upon your reiterated desire I shall present you with one Instance more and I will do it but briefly because I must deal with you again about the same matter 5. Your Church is fallen by Idolatry as otherwise so in that Religious Veneration of Images which she useth whereunto you have added Heresie in teaching it for a Doctrine of Truth and imposing the belief of it by your Tridentine Determination on the Consciences of the Disciples of Christ. I know you would fain mince the matter and spread over the corrupt Doctrine of your Church about it with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 silken words as you do the Posts that they are made of with Gold when as the Prophetspeaks of your predecessors in that work you lavish it out of the bagge for that purpose But to what purpose Your first Councell the second of Nice which yet was not wholly yours neither for it condemns Honorius calls Thâ—rnsius the Oecumenicall Patriarch and he expounds in it the Rock on which the Church was built to be Christ and not Peter your last Councell that of Trent your Angelicall Doctor Thomas of Aquine your great Champions Bellarmine and Baronius Suarez Vasquez and the rest of them with the Catholick practise and usage of your Church in all places declare sufficiently what is your faith or rather misbelief in this matter Hence Azorius Institut Lib. 9 cap. 6. tells us that Constans est Theologorum sententia Imaginem èodem honore cultu coli quo colitur id cujus est Imago It is the constant judgement of Divines that the Image is to be worshipped with the same honour and worship wherewith that is worshipped whose Image it is The Nicene Councell by the instigation of Pope Adrian Anathematizeth every one who doth but doubt of the Adoration of Images Act. 7. Thomas contendeth that the Cross is to be worshipped with Latria p. 3. q. 25. a. 4. which is a word that he and you suppose to express Religious worship of the highest sort And your Councell of Trent in their decree about this matter confirmed the Doctrine of that Lestricall convention at Nice whose frauds and impostures were never paralleled in the world but by it's self And do you think that a few ambiguous flourishing words of you an unknown person shall make the world believe that they understand not the Doctrine and Practise of your Church which is proclaimed unto them by the Fathers and Mâ—sters of your perswasion herein and expressed in practises under their eyes every day Do you think it so easie for you Cornieum oculos configere as Cicero tells us an Atturney one Cn Flavius thought to do in going beyond all that the great Lawyers had done before him Orat. pro Muraena We cannot yet be perswaded that you are so great an Interpreter of the Roman Oracles as to believe you before all the Sages before mentioned to whom hundreds may be added And what do you think of this Doctrine and Practise of your Church Hath it been opposed judged and condemned or no The first Writers of Christianity Just In Martyr Irenaeus Origen Tertullian Arnobius Lactantius utterly abhorred the use of all Images at least in Sacris The Councell held at Elibâ—ris in Spain twâ—ve or thirteen years before the famous Assembly at Nice positively forbid all use of Pictures in Churches Can. 36. Plaquit Picturas in Ecclesia esse non debâ—re ne quod colitur adoratur in parietibus depingatur The Councell resolved that Pictures ought not to be in Churches that 〈◊〉 which is worshipâ—d and adored be not painted on walls Cyprian condemns it Epist. ad Demetriad And so generally do all the Fathers as may be gathered in the pittifull endeavours and forgeries of the second Nicene Councell endeavouring to confirm it from them Epiphanius reckons it among the errors of the Gnosticks and himself brake an Image that he found hanging in a Church Epist ad Johan Hierosol Austin was of the same judgement see Lib. de moriâ— Eccles. Cathol cap. 34. Your Adoration of them iâ— expresly condemned by Gregory the great in an Epistle to Serinus Lib. 7. Ep. 111 and Lib. 9. Epist. 9. The Greek Church condemned it in a â—ynod at Constantinople an 775. And one learned man in those last dayes undertaking its defence and indeed the only man of learning that ever did so untill of late they excommunicated and cursed him This was Damascenus concerning whom they used those expressions repeated in the second Nicene Councell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unto Mansour of an evil name and in judgement consenting with Saracens Anathema To Mansour a worshipper of Images and writer of Falshood Anathema To Mansour contumelious against Christ and traytor to the Empire Anathema To Mansour a teacher of impiety and perverse interpreter of Scripture Anathema Synod Nic. 2. Act. 6. For that it was Johannes Damascenus that they intended the Nicene Fathers sufficiently manifest in the Answer following read by Epiphanius the Deacon And this reward did he meet withall from the seventh Councell at Constantinople for his pains in asserting the veneration of Images although he did not in that particular pervert the Scripture as some of you do but laid the whole weight of his opinion on Tradition wherein he is followed by Vasquez among your selves Moreover the Western Churches in a great Councell at Frankeford in Germany utterly condemned the Nicene Determination which in your Tridentins Convention you approve and ratifie An. 794. It was also condemned here by the Church of England and the Doctrine of it fully confuted by Albinus Hoveden Annal. an 791. Never was any Heresie more publickly and solemnly condemned than this whereby your Church is fallen from its pristine purity But hereof more afterwards It were no difficult matter to procced unto all the Chief ways whereby your Church is fallen and to manifest that they have been all publickly disclaimed and condemned by the better and founder part of Professors But the Instances Insisted on may I hope prove sufficient for your satisfaction I shall therefore proceed to consider what you offer unto the remaining Principles which I conceived to animate the whole Discourse of your Fiat Lux. CHAP. V. Other Principles of Fiat Lux re-examined Things not at quiet in Religion before Reformation of the first Reformers Diparture from Rome no Cause of Devisions Returnal unto Rome no means of Union YOu proceed unto the fourth Assertion
A VINDICATION â—F THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX Wherein the Principles OF THE ROMAN CHURCH As to Moderation Unity and Truth are Examined And sundry Important Controversies concerning the Rule of Faith Papal Supremacy the Mass Images c. Discussed By John Owen D. D. LONDON Printed for Ph. Stephens at the Gilded-Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard and George Sawbridge at the Bible on Ludgate Hill 1664. Imprimatur Tho. Grigg R. in Christ. P. D. Humfr. Episc. Lond. à Sac. domesticis Decemb. 9. 1663. TO THE READER Christian Reader ALthough our Lord Jesus Christ hath laid blessed and stable foundations of Unity Peace and Agreement in judgement and affection amongst all his Disciples and given forth Command for their attendance unto them that thereby they might glorifie him in the world and promote their own spiritual advantage yet also foreknowing what effect the crafts of Satan in conjunction with the darkness and lusts of men would produce that no offence might thence be taken against him or any of his wayes he hath sorewarned all men by his Spirit what Differences Divisions Schisms and Heresies would ensue on the publication of the Gospel and arise even among them that should profess subjection unto his Authority and Law And accordingly it speedily came to pass For what Solomon sayes that he discovered concerning the first Creation namely that God made man upright but he sought out many inventions or immixed himself in endless questions the same fell out in the new creation or erection of the Church of Christ. The state of it was by him formed upright and all that belonged unto it were of one heart and one soul. But this harmony and perfection of beauty in answer to his Will and Institution lasted not long among them many who mixed themselves with those Primitive converts or succeeded them in their profession quickly seeking out perverse inventions Hence in the dayes of the Apostles themselves there were not only schisms and divisions made in sundry Churches of their own planting with disputes about Opinions and needless impositions by those of the Circumcision who believed but also opposition was made unto the very fundamental Doctrines of the Deity and Incarnation of the Son of God by the Spirit of Antichrist then entring into the world as is evident from their Writings and Epistles But yet as all this while our Lord Jesus Christ according to his promise preserved the root of Love and Vnity amongst them who sincerely believed in him entire as he doth still and will do to the end by giving the one and selfsame spirit to guide sanctifie and unite them all unto himself so the care and Authority of the Apostles during their abode in the flesh so far prevailed that notwithstanding some temporary impeachments of Love and Union in or amongst the Churches yet no signal prejudice of any long continuance befell them For either the miscarriages which they fell into were quickly retrieved by them the truth infallibly cleared and provision made for Peace Vnity and Moderation in and about things of less concernment or else the evil guilt and danger of them remained only with and upon some particular persons the notoriety of whose wickedness and folly cast them out by common consent from the communion of all the Disciples of Christ. But no sooner was that sacred Society 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with their immediate successors as Egesippus speaks in Eusebius departed unto their rest with God but that the Church it self which untill then was preserved a pure and incorruppted Virgin began to be vexed with abiding contention and otherwise to degenerate from its primitive original purity From thence forward especially after the heat of bloody and fiery persecutions began to abate far the greatest part of Ecclesiastical Records consists in relations of the Divisions Differences Schisms and Heresies that fell out amongst them who professed themselves the Disciples of Christ. For those failings errors and mistakes which were found in men of peaceable minds the Church indeed of those dayes extended her Peace and Vnity if Justin Martyr and others may be believed to such as the seeming warmer zeal and really colder charity of the succeeding Ages could not bear withal But yet divisions and disputes were multiplyed into such an excess as that the Gentiles fetcht advantage from them not only to reproach all Christians withall but to deterr others from the proâ—ession of Christianity So Celsus in his third Book deals with them for saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 At first when they were but a few they were of one mind or agreed well enough But being increased and the multitude of them scattered abroad they were presently divided again and again and every one would have his own party or division and as in a divided multitude opposed and reproved one another so that they had no communion among themselves but only in name which for shame they retain So doth he for his purpose as is the manner of men invidiously exaggerate the differences that were in those early times amongst Christians for he wrote about the dayes of Trajan the Emperour That others of them took the same course is testified by Clemens Stromat lib. 7. Augustin lib. de Ovib. c. 15. and sundry others of the antient Writers of the Church But that no just offence as to the truth or any of the wayes of Christ might hence be taken we are as I said before forewarned of all these things by the Lord himself and his Apostles as also of the use and necessity of such events and issues Whence Origen cryes out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Most admirable unto me seems the saying of Paul There must be Heresies amongst you that those who are approved may be manifest Nor can any just excception be hence taken against the Gospel it self For it doth not belong unto the excellency or â—ignity of any thing to free it self from all opposition but only to preserve it self from being prevailed against and to remain victorious as the sacred truths of Christ have done and will do unto the end Not a few indeed in these evil dayes wherein we live the ends of the world and the difficulties with which they are attended being come upon us persons ignorant of things past and regardless of things to come in bondage to their present lusts and pleasures are ready to make use of the pretence of divisions and differences among Christians to give up themselves unto Atheism and indulge to their pleasures like the beasts that perish Let us eat and drink for too morrow we shall dye Quid aliud inscribi poterat sepulchro bovis But whatever they pretend to the contrary it may be easily evinced that it is their personal dislike of that holy obedience which the Gospel requireth not the differences that are about the Doctrines of it which alienates their minds from the truth They will not some of them foregoe all Philosophical inquiries after the
by Gods providence called thereunto and as they receive ability from him for that purpose to contend earnestly for it Nor is their so doing any part of the evil that attends differences and divisions but a means appointed by God himself for their cure and removal provided as the Apostle speaks that they strive or contend lawfully The will of God must be done in the wayes of his own appointment Outward force and violence corporal punishments swords and faggots as to any use in things purely spiritual and religious to impose them on the consciences of men are condemned in the Scripture by all the antient or first writers of the Church by sundry Edicts and Laws of the Empire and are contrary to the very light of Reason whereby we are men and all the principles of it from whence mankind consenteth and coalesceth into civil society Explaining declaring proving and confirming the truth convincing of gainsayers by the evidence of common principles on all hands assented unto and right reason with prayer and supplications for success attended with a conversation becoming the Gospel we profess is the way sanctified by God unto the promotion of the truth and the recovery of them that are gone astray from it Into this work according as God hath imparted of his gifts and spirit unto them some in most ages of the Church have been engaged and therein have not contracted any guilt of the evils of the contentions and divisions in their dayes but cleared themselves of them and faithfully served the interest of those in their generation And this justifies and warrants us in the pursuit of the same work by the same means in the same days wherein we live And when at any time men sleep in the neglect of their duty the envious one will not be wanting to sow his Tares in the field of the Lord which as in the times and places wherein we live it should quicken the diligence and industry of those upon whom the care of the preservation of the truth is by the providence of God in an especial manner devolved and who have manifold advantages for their encouragement in their undertaking so also it gives countenance even to the meanest endeavours that in sincerity are employed in the same work by others in their more private capacity amongst which I hope the ensuing brief discourse may with impartial Readers find admittance It is designed in general for the defence and vindication of the truth and that truth which is publickly professed in this Nation against the solicitation of it and opposition made unto it with more then ordinary vigilancy and seeming hopes of prevalency on what grounds I know not This is done by those of the Roman Church who have given in themselves as sad an instance of a degeneracy from the truth as ever the Christian world had experience of from insensible and almost imperceptible entrances into deviations from the holy rule of the Gospel countenanced by pecious pretences of piety and devotion but really influenced by the corrupt lusts of ambition love of preheminence and earthly mindedness in men ignorant or neglective of the 〈◊〉 and simplicity of the Gospel their Apostâ—cy hath been carried on by various degrees upon advantages given unto those that made the benefit of it unto themselves by political commotions and alterations until by sundry artifices and sleights of Sathan and men it is grown unto that stated opposition to the right wayes of God which we behold it come unto at this day The great Roman Historian desires his Reader in the perusal of his discourses to consider and observe quae vita qui mores fuerint per quos viros quibusque artibus domi militiaeque partum auctum imperium sit Labente â—einde paulatim disciplina velut dissidenâ—â—s primo mores sequatur animo deinde at magis magisque lapsi sint tum ire caeperint praecipites donec ad haec tempora quibus nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus perventum est What was the course of life what were the manners of thâ—se men both at home and abroad by whom the Roman Empire was â—rected and enlarged as also how antient discipline insensibly decaying far different manners ensued whose decay more and 〈◊〉 increasing at length they began violently to decline untill we came unto these dayes wherein we are able to beare neither our vices nor their remedies All which may be as truly and justly spoken of the present Roman Ecclesiastical estate The first Rulers and members of that Church by their exemplary sanctity and suffering for the truth deservedly obtained great renown reputation amongst the other Churches in the world but after a while the discipline of Christ decaying amongst them and the purity of his doctrine beginning to be corrupted they insensibly fell from their pristine glory untill at length they precipitantly tumbled into that condition wherein because they fear the spiritual remedy would be their temporal ruine they are resolved to abide be it never so desperate or deplorable And hence also it is that of all the opposition that ever the disciples of Christ had to contend withall to suffer under or to witness against that made unto the truth by the Roman Church hath proved the longest and been attended with the most dreadful consequents For it is not the work of any one Age or of a few persons to unravel that web of falshood and unrighteousness which in a long tract of time hath been cunningly woven and closely compacted together Besides the Heads of this declension have provided for their security by intermixing their concerns with the Polity of many Nations and moulding the constitutions of their Governments unto a subserviency to their interests and ends But he is strong and faithful who in his own way and time will rescue his Truth and Worship from being trampled on and defiled by them In the mean time that which renders the errors of the Fathers and Sons of that Church most peâ—nitious unto the professors of Christianity is that whether out of blind zeal rooted in that obstinacy which men are usually given up unto who have refused to retain the Truth in the love and power of it or from their being necessitated thereunto in their Councils for the supportment and preservation of their present interests and secular advantages they are not contented to embrace practice and adhere unto those crooked paths that they have chosen to walk in and to attempt the drawing of others into them by such wayes and means as the light of Nature right reason with the Scripture directs to be used in and about the things of Religion which relate to the minds and souls of men but also they have pursued an imposition of their conceptions and practises on other men by force and violence untill the world in many places hath been made a stage of oppression rapine cruelty and war and that which they call their Church a very Shambles
they never opposed the Merit of Good works as you fain me to say in your Epistle neither the one nor the other but I say that Protestants teach the Christian Doctrine of Good works as revealed in the Gospell and oppose the Merit of Good works by you invented and as by you explained and now avowed And whilest you talk at this rate as if you were perfectly innocent you begin your story as if you had nothing to do but to accuse another of fraud like him that cried Nec si me miserum fortuna Sinonem Finxit vanum etiam mendacemque improba fingit when you know what his business was But the truth is when you talk of the merit of Good works you stand in a slippery place and know not well what you would have nor what it is that you would have me believe Your Tridentine Convention hath indeed provided a limber Cothurnus to fit if it were possible your severall statures and postures But generall words are nothing but the proportion of a Cirque or Arena for Dogmatists to contend within the limits of The Antient Ecclesiasticall importance of the word Merit wherein as it may be proved by numberless instances it denoted no more than to obtain you have the most of you rejected and do urge it in a strict Legall sense denoting working for a reward and performing that which is proportionable unto it as the labour of the Hireling is to his wages according unto the strict Rules of Justice See your Rhem. An. 1 Cor. 3. Heb. 6. 10. So is the judgment I think of your Church explained by Suarez Tom. 1. in Thom. 3. d. 41. A Supernaturall work saith he proceeding from Grace in its self and in its own nature hath a proportion unto and condignity of the reward and 〈◊〉 of sufficient value to be worth the same And you seem to be of the same opinion in owning that description of Merit which Protestants reject which I gave in my Animadversions namely an intrinsecall worth and value in works arising from the exact answerableness unto the Law and proportion unto the reward so as on the Rules of Justice to deserve it Of the same mind are most of you See Andrad Orthodox Explic. lib. 6. Bagus de Merit Op. Lib. 1. cap. 9. Though I can assure you Paul was not Rom. 6. 23. Ch. 8. 18. so that you must not take it ill If Protestants oppose this Doctrine with Testimonies out of his Epistle to the Romanes as well as out of many other portions of the holy Writ for they look upon it as an opinion perfectly destructive of the Covenant of Grace Nay I must tell you that some of your own Church and way love not to talk at this high and lofty rate Ferus speaks plain unto you on Mat. 20. If you desire to hold the Grace and favour of God make no mention of your own merits Durand slicks not to call the opinion which you seem to espouse temerarious yea blasphemous Quest. 2. d. 27. In the explication of your distinction of congruity and condignity how wofully are you divided as also in the application of it there is no end of your altercations about it the termes of it being horrid uncouth strangers to Scripture and the antient Church of an arbitrary signification about which men may with probabilities contend to the worlds end and yet the very soul and life of your Doctrine of Merit lies in it Some ascribe Merit of Congruity to works before Grace and of Condignity to them done in a state of Grace some Merit of Congruity to them done by Grace and Merit of Condignity they utterly exclude Some give Grace and the Promise a place in Merit some so explain it that they can have no place at all therein Generally in your Books of Devotion when you have to do with God you begin to bethink your selves and speak much more humbly and modestly than you do when you endeavour to dispute subtilly and quell your Adversaries And I am not without hope that many of you do personally believe as to your own particular concernments far better than when you doctrinally express your selves when you contend with us As when that famous Emperour Charles the fist after all his bustles in and about Religion came to die in his retirement he expresly renounced all merit of works as a proud sigment and gave up himself to the sole Grace and Mercy of God in Jesus Christ on whose purchase of Heaven for him he alone relied Toto pectori in Deum revolutus sic ratiocinabatur saith the renowned Thuanus Hist. lib. 21. se quidem indignum esse qui propriis meritis regnum Caelorum obtineret sed Dominum Deum suum qui illud duplici jure obtinuit patris haereditate passionis merito altero contentum esse alterum sibi donare ex cujus dono illud sibi merito vindicet hacque fiducia fretus minime confundatur neque enim oleum misericordiae nisi in vase fiducia poni hanc homines fiducium esse à se deficientis innitentis Domino suo alioqui propriis meritis fidere non fidei esse sed perfidiae peccata remitti per Dei indulgentiam ideoque credere nos debere peccata deleri non posse nisi ab eo cuisoli peccavimus in quem peccatum non cadit per quem solum nobis peccata condonantur Words worthy of a lasting memory which they will not fail of where they are recorded Casting himself saith that excellent Historian with his whole soul upon God he thus reasoned That for his part he was on the account of any merits of his own unworthy to obtain the Kingdom nf Heaven but his Lord and God who hath a double right unto it one by inheritance of his Father the other by the merit of his own passion contented himself with the one granted the other unto him by whose grant he rightly or deservedly laid claim thereunto and resting in this faith or confidence he was not confounded for the oyl of mercy is not powred but into the vessel of faith this is the faith or confidence of a man fainting or despairing in himself and resting on his Lord and otherwise to trust to our own merits is not an act of faith but of infidelity or perfidiousness that sins are forgiven by the mercy of God and that therefore we ought to believe that sins cannot be blotted out or forgiven but by him against whom we have sinned who sinneth not and by whom alone our sins are pardoned This S r is the faith of Protestants in reference unto the merit of works which that Wise and Mighty Emperour after all his Military actings against them found the only safe Anchor for his soul in extremis his only relief against crying out with Hadrian Animula vagula blandula Hospes comesque corporis Quae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula frigida nudula Nec ut soles dabis jocos The only
liveth still his Word abideth still but the planters and waterers are dead long ago Again What though we received the Gospell from Rome doth it therefore follow that we received all the Doctrines of the present Church of Rome at the same time Pope Gregory knew little of the present Romane Doctrine about the Pope of Rome What was broached of it he condemned in another even John of Constantinople who fasted for a kind of Popedome and professed himself an obedient servant to his good Lord the Emperour Many a good Doctrine hath been lost at Rome since those old dayes and many a new fancy broached and many a tradition of men taught for a doctrine of truth Hipolyte sic est Thesâ—i vultus amo Illos priores quos tulit quondam puer Quum prima puras barba signaret genas Et ora flavus tenera tingebat rubor We love the Church of Rome as it was in its purity and integrity in the dayes of her youth and chastity before she was deflowred by false worship but what is that to the present Roman carnall confederacy If then any in this Nation did receive their Religion from Rome as many of the Saxons had Christianity declared unto them by some sent from Rome for that purpose yet it doth not at all follow that they received the present Religion of Rome Hei mihi qualis quantum mutatur ab illa which of old she prosessed Multa dies variusque labor mutabilis aevi Rettulit in pejus And this sad alteration declension and change we may bewail in her as the Prophet did the like apostacy in the Church of the Jews of old How is the faithfull City become an harlot it was full of judgement righteousness lodged in it but now murderers thy silver is become dross thy wine mixt with water He admires that it should be so was not ignorant how it became so no more are others in reference unto your Apostacy And what if we had received from you or by your means the Religion that is now professed at Rome I mean the whole of it yet we might have received that with it namely the Bible which would have made it our duty to examine try and reject any thing in it for which we saw from thence just cause so to do unless we should be condemned for that for which the Bereans are so highly commended So that neither is your Position true nor if it were so would it at all advantage your pretensions I adde also Did not the Gospel come from another place to Rome as well as to us or was it first preached there This you have culled out as supposing your self able to say something unto it and what is it Properly speaking it came not so to Rome as it came to us for one of the twelve fountains nay two of the thirteen and those the largest and greatest were transferred to Rome which they watered with their blood We had never any such standing fountain of our Christian Religion here but only a stream derived unto us from thence It is the hard hap it seems of England to claim any priviledge or reputation that may stand in the way of some mens designs No Apostle nor Apostolicall Person must be allowed to preach the Gospel unto us lest we should peirk up into competition with Rome But though Rome it seems must alwayes be excepted yet I hope you do not in generall conclude our condition beneath that of any place where the Gospel at first was preached by one or two Apostles so as to cry Properly speaking it came not to us at all What think you of Jerusalem where Christ himself and his twelve Apostles all of them preached the Gospel Or what think you of Capernaum that was lifted up to Heaven in the priviledge of the means of light granted for a while unto them Do you think our condition worse than theirs The two fountains you mention were opened at Antioch in Syria as well as at other places before they conveyed one drop of their treasures to Rome which whether one of them ever did by his personall presence is very questionable And by this Rule of yours though England may not yet every place where S t Peter and St Paul preached the Gospel may contend with Rome as to this priviledge And what will you then get by your trumphing over us Non vides id manticae quòd à tergo est When men are intent upon a supposed advantage they oftentimes overlook reall inconveniencies that lye ready to seize upon them as it befalls you more than once Besides there is nothing in the world more obscure than by whom or by what means the Gospel was first preached at Rome By S t Paul it is certain it was not for before ever he came thither there was a great number converted to the faith as appears from his Epistle written about the fourteenth year of Claudius and the fifty third of Christ. Nor yet by Peter for not at present to insist on the great incertainty whether ever he was there or no which shall afterwards be spoken unto there is nothing more certain than that about the sixth year of Claudius and fourty fifth of Christ he was at Antioch Gal. 2. Baronius makes the third of Claudius and the fourty fifth of Christ to contemporize but upon a mistake and some say he abode there a good while sundry years and that upon as good authority as any is produced for his coming to Rome But it is generally granted that there was a Church founded at Rome that year but by whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Socrates said of the preference of the condition of the living or dead is known to God alone of mortall men not to any Jam sumus ergo pares For to confess the truth unto you I know not certainly who first preached the Gospel in Brittain some say Peter some Paul some Simon Zelotes most Joseph of Arimathea as I have elsewhere shewed by whom certainly I know not but some one it was or more whom God sent upon his arrand and with his message No more do you know who preached it first at Rome though in generall it appears that some of them at least were of the Circumcision whence the very first Converts of that Church were variously minded about the observation of Mosaicall Rites and Ceremonies And I doubt not but God in his infinitely holy wisdome and providence left the springs of Christian Religion as to matter of fact in the first introductions of it into the Nations of the world in so much darkness as to the knowledge of after-times to obviate those towring thoughts of preheminency which he foresaw that some men from externall advantages would entertain to the no small prejudice of the simplicity of the Gospel and ruine of Christian humility As far as appears from Story the Gospel was preached in England before any Church was founded at Rome It was so saith Gildas Summo
that were found in the most of its members And it is a fancy to dream of the purity of a Church in respect of its outward order when the power and life of godliness is lost in its members and a wicked device to suppose a Church may not be separated from Christ by unbelief whilest it abides in an externall profession of the doctrine of faith Such a Church though it may have a name to live yet indeed is dead and dead things are unclean We speak of its purity and acceptation thereon in the sight of God neither will men dead in trespasses and sins be terrible unto any as an Army with banners unless they are like those in Lucilius who Vt pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena Vivere esse homines sic isti omnia ficta Vera putant credunt signis cor inesse ahenis as Lactantius reports him But you say If they fall by Idolatry and yet keep any parts of Christianity they fall by Heresie But why so would you had thought it incumbent on you to give a reason of what you say Are Idolatry and Heresie the same Tertullian who of all the old Ecclesiasticall Writers most enlargeth the bounds of Idolatry defines it to be omnis circa omne Idolum famulatus servitus Any worship or service performed in reference to or about any Idoll I do not remember that ever I met with your definition of Idolatry in any Author whatever Bellarmine seems to place it in Creaturum aeque colere ac Deum to worship the creature as much or equally with the Creator which description of it though it be vain and groundless for his aeque is neither in the Scripture nor any approved Author of old required to the constituting of the worship of any creature Idolatrous yet is not this Heresie neither but that which differs from it toto genere We know it to be cultus religiosus creaturae exhibitus any religious worship of that whish by nature is not God and so doth your Thomas grant it to be Gregory de Valentia another of your great Champions contends that tanqnam Deo as unto God is to be added unto the definition As though religious worship could be given unto any thing and not as unto God really and indeed though not intentionally as to the worshipper Where a man gives religious worship there he doth ipso facto assign a divine eminencie say he what he will to the contrary Neither will his intention of not doing it as unto God any more free him from Idolatry than an Adultress will be free by not looking on her Adulterer as her Husband I confess he adds afterwards a distinction that is of great use for you and indispensably necessary for your defence de Idol lib. 2 cap. 7. S t Peter he tells us insinuates some worship of Idols cultum aliquem simulachrorum to wit that of the holy Images to be right or lawfull when he deterreth believers ab illicitis Idolorum cultibus from the unlawfull worship of Idols 1 Pet. 4. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This were somewhat indeed if all epithetes were distinguishing none aggravating or declarative When Virgil said dulcia mella premes Geor. 4. he did not insinuate that there was any bitter honey Nor is it allowable only for Poets to use explaining and declaring epithetes but Aristotle allowes it in the best Oratours also so they use not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 long or unseasonable ones or the same frequently and the use of this here by Peter is free from all those vices When the Romane Orator cryed out ô scelus detestandum O wickedness to be abhorred he did not intend to insinuate that there was a wickedness not to be abhorred or to be approved But if it will follow hence that your Church is guilty only of lawfull Idolatry I shall not much contend about it Yet I must tell you that as the poor woman when the Physicians in her sickness told her still that what she complained of was a good sign cryed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good signes have undone me your lawfull Idolatry if you take not better heed will undo you In the mean time as to the coincidence you imagin between Idolatry and Heresie I wish you would advise with your Angelicall Doctor who will shew you how they are contradistinct evils which he therefore weighs in his scales and determines which is the heaviest 22 ae q. 94. a. ad 4. The Church in the wilderness fell by its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 its making and worshiping a golden Calfe as a representation of the presence of God That they kept some parts of the Doctrine of Truth entire is evident from their proclamation of a feast to Jehovah Do any men in their wits use to say this fall was by Heresie though all agree it was by Idolatry so that your Church might fall by Idolatry and not fall formally by Heresie according to the genuine importance of the word the use of it in the Scriptures or the definition given of it by the Schoolmen or any sober Writer of what sort soever And here I must desire you to stay a little if you intend to take Protestants along with you They constantly return this Answer unto you in the first place and tell you that your Church is fallen by Idolatry It is fallen in the worship which you give unto the Consecrated Host as you call it wherein if the Scriptures which call it bread and the Fathers who terme it the figure of the body of Christ if Reason and all our senses deceive us not you are as plainely Idolatrous as the poor wretches which fall down and worship a piece of Red Cloth So your own Costerus assures us Enchirid. cap. 8. Tolerabilior saith he est eorum error qui pro Deo solunt statuam auream aut argenteam aut alterius materis imaginem quomodo Gentiles Deos suos venerabantur vel pannum rubrum in hastam elevatum quod narratur de Lappis vel viva animalia at quondam Aegyptii quam eorum qui frustum panis colunt Their errour is more tolerable who worship a golden or silver Statue or an Image of any other matter for a God as the Gentiles worshipped their Gods or a ragge of Red Cloth lifted upon a spear as it is reported of the Laplanders or living Creatures as did the Egyptians of old than theirs who worship a piece of bread This is that which made Averoes cry out seeing the Christians eat the God whom they worship let my soul be among the Philosophers You do the same in your worship of the Cross which the chiefest among you maintain â—o be the same that is due to Christ himself And you are in the same path still in the religious adoration you give unto the blessed Virgin your prayers to her and invocations of her which abound in all your books of Devotion and generall practice And what need we mention any
Apostasie also For why must that needs be the notion of these termes in the division you made that you now express Is it from the strict sense and importance of the words themselves or from the Scripturall or Ecclesiasticall use of them or whence is it that it must be so and that it is so None of these will give you any relief or the least countenance unto your fancie Both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in themselves of an indifferent signification denoting things or acts good or evill according to their accidentall limitations and applications It is said of some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they will depart from the faith 1 Tim. 4. 1. And the same Apostle speaking of them that name the name of Christ sayes let every one of them depart from iniquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 2. 19. so that the word it self signifies no more but a single and bare departure from anything way rule or practice be it good or bad wherein a man hath been ingaged or which he ought to avoid and fly from And this is the use of it in the best Greek Authors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are such in Homer who are farre distant or remote on any account from any thing or place And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Aristotle things very remote To leave any place company thing Society or Rule on any cause is the common use of the word in Thucydides Plutarch Lucian and the rest of their companions in the propriety of that language Apostasia by Ecclesiasticall writers is restrained unto either a back sliding in Faith subjective and manners or a causeless relinquishment of any Truth before professed So the Jews charge Paul Acts 21. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou teachest Apostasie from Moses Law Such also is the nature of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a speciall option choyce or way in profession of any Truth or Error So Paul calls Pharisaisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 26. 5. the most exact heresie or way of Religion among the Jews And Clemens Alexandrinus Strom lib. 8. calls Christian Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the best Heresie And the great Constantine in one of his Edicts calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Catholick or generall Heresie and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most holy Heresie The Latines also constantly used that word in a sense indifferent Cato faith Cicero est in ea heresi quae nullum orationis florem sequitur The words therefore themselves you see are of an indifferent signification having this difference between them that the one for the most part is used to signifie the Relinquishment of that which a man had before embraced and the other a choice or embracing of that which a man had not before received or admitted And this difference is constantly observed by all Ecclesiasticall writers who afterwards used these words in the worst or an evill sense so that Apostasie in this appropriation of it denotes the relinquishment of any Important Truth or way in Religion and Heresie the choice or embracement of any new destructive Opinion or Principle or way in the profession thereof A man then may be an Apostate by partiall Apostasie that is depart from the Profession of some Truth he had formerly embraced or the performance of some duty which he was engaged in without being an Heretick or choosing any new opinion which he did not before embrace Thus you signally call a Monke that deserts his Monasticall Profession an Apostate though he embrace no opinion which is condemned by your Church or which you think hereticall And a man may be an Heretick that is choose and embrace some new false opinion which he may coyn out of his own imagination without a direct renunciation of any Truth which before he was instructed in And this is that which I intended when I told you that your Church is fallen by partiall Apostasie and by Heresie Shee hath renounced many of the important Truths which the old Roman Church once believed and professed and so is fallen by Apostasie And she hath invented or coyned many Articles pretended to be of faith which the old Roman Church never believed and so is fallen by Heresie also Now what say you hereunto Why good S r in this division Apostasie is set to express a totall relapse in opposition to Heresie which is the partiall But who gave you warrant or leave so to set them It would it may be somewhat serve your turn in evading the Charge of Apostasie that lyes against your Church but Good S r will not prove that you may thus confound things for your advantage Idolatry is Heresie and Apostasie is Heresie and what not because you suppose you have found a way to escape the imputation of Heresie I say then yet again in answer to your enquiry that your Church is fallen by Apostasie in her relinquishment of many important truths and neglect of many necessary duties which the old Roman Church embraced and performed That these may be the more evident unto you I shall give you some few instances of your Apostasie desiring only that you would grant me that the primitive Church of Rome believed and faithfully retained the doctrine of truth wherein from the Scripture it was instructed That Church believed expresly that all they who die in the Lord do rest from all their labours Rev. 14. 8. which truth you have forsaken by sending many of them into the flames of Purgatory It believed that the sufferings of this life are not worthy of the glory that shall be revealed in us Rom. 8. 18. Your Church is otherwise minded asserting in our works and sufferings a merit of and condignity unto the glory that shall be received It believed that we were saved freely by grace by faith which is not of our selves but the gift of God not by works left any one should boast Eph 2. 8. Tit. 3. 5. and therefore besought the Lord not to enter into judgement with them because in his sight no flesh could be justified Psal. 130. 4. 143. 2. And you are apostatized from this part of their faith It believed that Christ was once only offered Heb. 10 12. and that it could not be that he should often offer himself because then he must have often suffered and died Heb. 9. 25. Which faith of theirs you are departed from It believed that we have one only Mediatour and Intercessour with God 1 Tim. 2. 5. 1 Joh. 2. 2. Wherein also you have renounced their perswasion as likewise you have done in what it professed that we may invocate only him in whom we do believe Rom. 10. 14. It believed that the Command to abstain from Meats and Marriage was the doctrine of Devils 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. Do you abide in the same faith It believed that Every soul without exception was to be subject to the higher Powers Rom. 13. 1. You will not
walk in the steps of their faith herein It believed that all Image-worship was forbidden Exod. 20. And whether you abide in the same perswasion we shall afterwards examine And many more instances of the like kind you may at any time be minded of You hast to that you would fain be at which will be found as little to your purpose as those whose consideration you so carefully avoid You say Did she fall by Heresie in adhering to any errour in Faith contrary to the approved doctrine of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and Catholick Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto S r I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad hominem to one that doth not take them so And then if indeed the Roman Church had ever swerved in faith as you say she has and be her self as another ordinary particular Church as you say she is them might you find some one or other more generall Church if any there were to judge her some Oecumenicall Councell to condemn her some Fathers either Greek and Latin expresly to writs against her as Protestants now do some or other grave Authority to censure her or at least some company of Believers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell None of which since you are not able to a assign wherein you have spoken more rightly than you were aware of for not to be able to assign none of them infers at least an ability to assign some if not all of them my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was Answ. 1. You represent my Answer lamely I desire the Reader to consult it in the Animadversions pag. 66 67 68. What you have taken notice of discovers only your fineness in making Heresie an adherence to an errour in faith contrary to the doctrine of the Church and your selves the Church whereby you must needs be secured from Heresie though you should adhere to the most hereticall Principles that ever were broached in the world But nothing of all this as I have shewed will be allowed you 2. As we have seen some of the Reasons why you were so unwilling to try the Cause of your Church on the heads of Idolatry and Apostasie so here you discover a sufficient Reason why you have passed over your other head of Schism in silence You avow your self one of the most schismaticall Principles that were ever adhered unto by any professing the name of Christ. The Roman Church and the Catholick are with you one and the same Is not this Petilianus his in parte Donati nay Basilides his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan Heres 4. We only are men all others are Dogs and Swine Macte virtute If this be not to shew modcration and to persue reconciliation at once to shut out all men but your selves from the Church here and consequently Heaven hereafter what can be thought so to be In earnest S r you may talk what you please of moderation but whilest you avow this one wretched schismaticall Principle you do your endeavour to exclude all true Christian moderation out of the world 3. Why do you conclude that your Query is not answered Suppose one Question could not be answered doth it necessarily follow that another cannot I suppose you take notice that this is another Question and not that at first proposed as I told you before Your first enquiry was about your Churches crime this is about her conviction and condemnation and your Conclusion hath no strength in it but what is built on this unquestionable Maxim that None ever offended who was not publickly judged as though there were no Harlot in the world but those that have been carted It is enough S r that her condition is sub judice as it will be whether you or I will or no and that there is not evidence wanting for her conviction nor ever was since her fall though it may be it hath not at all times been so publickly managed And yet so vain is your triumphant Conclusion that we rest not here but prove also that she hath been of old judged and condemned as you will hear anon And thus I have once more given you an Answer to your enquiry how your Church fell namely that she hath done so by all the wayes and means by which it is possible for a Church to fall She failed under the just hand of God when the persons of that Vrbick Church were extirpated partly by others but totally by Totilas as the Brittish Church in England fell by the sword of the Saxons She hath fallen by Idolatry and corruption of life as did the Church of the Jews before the Captivity She hath fallen by her relinquishment of the written Word as the only rule of faith and worship and by adhering to the uncertain traditions of men as did the Church of the Jews after their return from captivity She hath fallen by Apostasie in forsaking the profession of many important truths of the Gospel as the Church of the Galatians did for a season in their relinquishment of the doctrine of Justification by grace alone She hath fallen by Heresie in coyning new Articles of faith and imposing them on the consciences of the Disciples of Christ as the Montanists did with their new Paraclete and rigid observances She hath fallen by Schisme in her self as the Judaical Church did when divided into Essenes Sadduces and Pharisees setting up Pope against Pope and Councell against Councell continuing in her intestine broils for some ages together and from all others by the wretched Principle but-now avowed by you as the Donatists did of old She hath fallen by Ambition in the Hildebrandine Principle asserting a Soveraignty in the Pope over the Kings and Potentates of the earth whereof I can give you no precedent instance unless it be of him who claimed the Kingdomes of the world to be his own and boasted that he disposed of them at his pleasure Mat. 4. And now I hope you will not take it in ill part that I have given you a plain Answer unto your Question which as I suppose was proposed unto us for that end and purpose But although these things are evident and sufficiently proved yet I see nothing will satisfie you unless we produce testimonies of former times to manifest that your Church hath been arraigned judged condemned written against by Fathers Councils or other Churches Now though this be somewhat an unreasonable expectation in you and that which I am no way bound unto by the Law of our Discourse to satisfie you in yet to prevent for the future such Ivasions as you have made use of on all occasions in your Epistle I shall in a few pregnant and unquestionable Instances give you an account both when how and by whom the falls of your Church have been
is lawfull for him to depose Emperours I hope you will not be offended at the calling over these Heresies because the so doing is not suited to our present design I took them out of your Cardinal Baronius in the place above quoted who hath placed them as on a pillar V. D. P. L. P. where they may be easily read by all men And that you may not think that these were the Heresies of Gregory alone the same Baronius affirms that these Dictates were confirmed in a Synod at Rome whereby they became the Heresies of your whole Church Did Peter thus feed the sheep of Christ seeing Pasce oves meas is the great pretence for all these exorbitances Alas Hic alienus oves custos his mulget in horâ— all this is but the shearing milking and slaying of a stranger the shepherds being driven into corners But have these noisome Heresies of your Church think you passed without controll Was she not judged censured written against and condemned in the person of her chief Pastor You must be a very stranger unto all History if you can imagine any such thing A Councell assembled by the Emperor at Worms in Germany reckons up the miscarriages of this Hildebrand and pronounceth him deposed with all those that adhered unto him Another Synod an 1080. at Brixia in Bavaria condemns him also for the same causes All the Heroick Potentates of Europe especially the Emperors of Germany the Kings of England and France with whole Assemblies of their Clergy have alwayes opposed and condemned this branch of your Supremacy And to this purpose hundreds of their Laws Decrees Edicts and Declarations are at this day extant 4. Your Pope's Personall Infallibility with the requisite Qualifications is another Hereticall Opinion that your Church hath fallen by And herein you are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned of your selves and we need no further witness against you you have been often taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very fact I know there is an Opinion secretly advancing amongst some of you whereby you would cast out of the bounds of your defence this Personall Infallibility of your Pope but we have no more reason to esteem that opinion the Doctrine of your Church than we have to conclude that the Jesuits new Position asserting him Infallible in matter of fact is so And though I know not perfectly what your opinion is in this matter yet I may take a time to shew how utterly unserviceable unto your purpose the new way of the explication of Infallibility is For it hath but these two generall inconveniences attending it First that it is not the opinion of your Church Secondly if that be the only Infalliblity we are to rest on the whole claim of your Church and its interest therein falls to the ground both which I hope to have an opportunity to manifest In the mean time we take that for the Doctrine of your Church which is declared by its self so to be which is explained and defended by her most famous Champions And indeed you in your Fiat assert as I have shewed the Pope Personally to be an unerring guide which is that we enquire after Bellarmine tells us that all Catholicks agree in these two things 1. Pontificem cum Generali Concilio non posse errare in condendis decretis fidoi vel generalibus praeceptis morum That the Pope with a generall Councell cannot erre in making decrees of faith or generall precepts concerning manners 2. Pontificem solum vel cum suo particulari Concilio aliquid in re dubia statuentem sive errare possit sive non esse ab omnibus fidelibus obedienter audiendum All believers must willingly obey the Pope either alone or with his particular Councell determining in doubtfull matters whether he may erre or no. I confess if this be so and he must be obeyed whether he do right or wrong whether he teacheth truly or falsly it is to no great purpose to talk of his Infallibility for follow him we must whither ever he leads us though it should be to Hell And the Catholick Proâ—osition that he asserts himself is that Summus Pontifex cum totam Ecclesiam docet in his quae ad fidem pertinent nullo casu errare potest The Pope when he teacheth the whole Church can in no Caseerre in those things which appertain unto faith De Rom. Pontif. lib. 4. cap. 2 3. What a Blind that is of teaching the whole Church children can see The Pope can no way teach the whole Church but as he declares his opinion or judgement which may be divulged unto many as those of another man Let us see then how well they have made good this their Infallibility and how well their judgement hath been approved of by the Church of old I will not here mind you of the Decree fathered on Clemens wherein he determines that all things among Christians ought to be common and among them wives because I know it is falsly imposed on him though you may be justly charged with it who are the Authors of those forgeries whereof that is a part Nor shall I rake the Epistles which you ascribe unto divers of the Ancient Bishops of Rome that are full of ignorance errors and pittifull non-sence because they are questionless Pseudopigraphcall though you who own them may be justly charged with their follies Nor will I much insist on the Testimony of Tertullian in his Book against Praxeas that the Bishop of Rome owned the Prophesies of Montanus untill Praxeas perswaded him to the Contrary because it may be you will say that perhaps Tertullian spake partially in favour of a Sect whereunto he was himself addicted though for ought I know he is as sufficient a Witness in matter of fact as any one man upon the Roll of Antiquity But what say you to Marcellinus Did he not sacrifice to Idols which according unto you is a mixt misdemeanour in faith and manners Con. Tom. 1. Vita Marcell and therefore certainly a shrewd impeachment of his Infallibility and was he not judged for it What think you of Liberius did he not subscribe to Arianism Soomen tells you expresly that he did so Lib. 4. cap. 15. And so doth Athanasius Epist. ad Solitarios giving the reason why he did so namely out of fear And so doth Hierome both in Script Ecclesiast Fortunat. and in Euseb. Chron. Pope Honorius was solemnly condemned for a Monothelite-Heretick in the sixth generall Councell Act. 12 13. which Sentence was afterwards ratified by your own darling the second of Nice Act. 3 and Act. 7. and is mentioned in a decretall Epistle of Pope Leo the second So Infallible was he during his life so infallible was he thought to be when he was dead whilest he lived he taught Heresie and when he was dead he was condemned for an Heretick and with him the Principle which is the hindg of your present faith Neither did Vigilius behave himself one jot better in his Chair
gathered out of your Fiat which you thus lay down It is say you frequently pleaded by our Author that all things as to Religion were ever quiet and in 〈◊〉 before the Protestants Relinquishment of the Roman Sea That ever is your own addition but let it pass what say you hereunto This Principle you pretind is drawn out of Fiat Lux not because it is there but only to open a door to your self to exspatiate into some wide generall discourse about the many wars distractions alterations that have been aforetime up and down in the world in some severall Ages of Christianity And you thereforê say it is frequently pleaded by me because indeed I never spake one word of it and it is in truth a false and fond Assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with the Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account S r I take you to be the Author of Fiat Lux and if you are so I cannot but think you were a sleep when you talk'd at this rate The Assertion is false and fond you speak not one word of it Pray S r take a little advice of your Son Fiat not to talk on this manner and you will wonder your self how you came to swallow so much confidence as in the face of the world to vent such things as these He tells us from you p. 234 235 236. Chap 4. Ed. 2. that After the conversion of this Land by the Children of blessed S t Benet notwithstanding the interposition of the Norman Conquest that all men lived peaceably together without any the least disturbance upon the account of Religion untill the end of King Henry the eighth's raign about five hundred years after the Conquest See also what in generall you discourse of all places to this purpose p. 221 222 And p. 227. you do in express terms lay down the position which here you so exclaim against as false and fond but you may make as bold with it as you please for it is your own Never had this Land say you for so many hundred years as it was Catholick upon the account of Religion any disturbance at all whereas after the exile of the Catholick belief in our Land from the period of King Henry the seventh's Raign to these dayes we have been in actuall disquiet or at least in fears Estne haec tunica filii tui Are not these your words Doth not your Son Fiat wear this livery And do you not speak to this purpose in twenty other places Is it not one of the main suppositions you proceed upon in your whole discourse You do well now indeed to acknowledg that what you spake was fond and false and you might do as much for the most that you have written in that whole discourse but now openly to deny what you have asserted and that in so many places that is not so well done of you There are S t many wayes to free your self from that dammage you feel or fear from the Animadversions When any thing is charged on you or proved against you which you are not able to defend you may ingenuously acknowledg your mistake and that without any dishonour to you at all Good men have done so so may you or I when we have just occasion It is none of your Tenents that you are all of you Infallible or that your personall mistakes or miscarriages will prejudice your Cause Or you might pass it by in silence as you have done with the things of the most importance in the Animadversions and so keep up your reputation that you could Reply to them if you would or were free from flyes And we know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Menander speaks Silence is with many the best Answer Or you might attempt to disprove or answer as the case requires But this that you have fixed upon of denying your own words is the very worst course that you could have chosen upon the account either of Conscience or Reputation However thus much we have obtained One of the chief pretences of your Fiat is by your own confession false and fond It is indeed no wonder that it should be so it was fully proved to be so in the Animadversions but that you should acknowlâ—dge it to be so is somewhat strange and it would have been very welcome news had you plainly owned your conviction of it and not renounced your own off-spring But I see you have a mind to the benefit you aymed at by it though you are ashamed of the way you used for the obtaining of it and therefore adde That neither you nor I can deny that such as keep the unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out on that account But this on the first consideration seems to mee no very singular Priviledge me-thinks a Turk a few an Arian may say the same of their Societies It being no more but this So long as you agree with us you shall be sure to agree with us They must be very unfriendly minded towards you that will call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into question Yet there remains still one Scruple on my mind in reference unto what you assert I am not satisfied that there is in your Church any such unity of faith as can keep men from falling out or differing in and about the Doctrines and Opinions they profess If there be the children of your Church are marvellous morose that they have not all this while learned to be quiet but are at this very day writing volumes against one another and procuring the Books of one another to be prohibited and condemned which the writings of one of the learnedest of you in this Nation have fately not escaped I know you will say sometimes that though you differ yet you differ not in things belonging unto the unity of faith But I fear this is but a Blind an Apron of Fig-leaves What you cannot agree in be it of never so great importance you will agree to say that it belongs not unto the unity of faith when things no way to be compared in weight and use with them so you agree about them shall be asserted so to do And in what you differ whilest the scales of Interest on the part of the combatanfs hang eeven all your differences are but in School and disputable points But if one party prevail in Interest and Reputation and render their Antagonists inconsiderable as to any outward trouble those very Points that before were disputable shall be made necessary and to belong to the Vnity of Faith as it lately happened in the Case of the Jansenists And here you are safe again The Unity of the Faith is that which you agree in and that which you cannot agree about belongs not unto it as you tell us though you talk at another rate among your selves But wee must think that the Unity of
Image of God in the world and upon the matter the only troublers of humane Society But the moderation which the Gospel requireth ariseth and proceedeth from the Principles of Vnion with Christ before mentioned which is that that proves us Disciples of Christ indeed and will confirm the mind in suitable actings against all the provocations to the Contrary which from the infirmities and miscarriages of men we are sure to meet withall Neither doth this at all hinder but that we may contend earnestly for the Truth delivered unto us and labour by the wayes of Christ's appointment to reclaim others from such opinions wayes and practises in and about the things of Religion and worship of God as are injurious unto his Glory and may be destructive and pernicious to their own souls Neither doth it in the least put any discouragement upon endeavours to oppose the impiety and Prophaneness of men in their corruption in life and Conversation which certainly and unquestionably are inconsistent with and destructive of the Profession of the Gospel let them on whom they are found be of what party Church or way of Religion they please And if those in whose hearts are the wayes of God however diversifyed among themselves by various apprehensions of some Doctrines and Practises would sincerely according to their Duty set themselves to oppose that prophaneness wickedness of Life or open vitiousness of Conversation which is breaking in like a flood upon the world and which as it hath already almost drowned the whole glory of Christian Religion so it will undoubtedly if not prevented end in the woful calamity and finall ruine of Christendome they would have less mind and leasure to wrangle fiercely among themselves and breathe out destruction against one another for their mistakes and differences about things which by their own experience they find not to take off from their Love to Christ nor weaken the obedience he requires at their hands But whilest the whole power of Christianity is despised Conversion to God and separation from the wayes of the perishing World are set at nought and men think they have nothing to do in Religion but to be zealously addicted to this or that party amongst them that profess it it is no wonder if they think their chiefest Duty to consist in destroying one another But for men that profess to be leaders and guides of others in Christian Religion openly to persue carnall and worldly interests greatness wealth outward Splendour and Pomp to live in Luxury and pride to labour to strengthen and support themselves by the adherence of Persons of prophane and wicked lives that so they may destroy all that in any opinion differ from themselves is vigorously to endeavour to drive out of the world that Religion which they profess and in the mean time to render it so unomely and undesirable that others must needs be discouraged from its embracement But these things cannot spring from the Principles of Protestants which as I have manifested lead them unto other manner of actings And it is to no purpose to ask why then they are not all affected accordingly For they that are not so do live in an open contradiction to their own avowed Principles which that it is no news in the world the vicious lives of many in all places professing Christianity will not suffer us to doubt For though that Religion which they profess reacheth them to deny all ungodliness and wordly lusts to live soberly and righteously and godlily in this present world if they intend the least benefit by it yet they will hold the profession of it in a contrary practise And for this self-deceiving attended with eternall ruine many men are beholding unto such notions as yours about your Church securing Salvation within the pale of its externall Communion laying little weight on the things which at the last day will only stand them in stead But for Protestants setting aside their occasionall exasperations when they begin to bethink themselves they cannot satisfie their own Consciences in a resolution not to love them because of some differences whom they believe that God loves or may love notwithstanding those Differrences from them or to renounce all Vnion with them who they are perswaded are united unto Christ or not to be moderate towards them in this world with whom they expect to live for ever in another I speak only of them on all sides who have received into their hearts and do express in their lives the Spirituall Power and energy of the Gospel who are begotten unto Christ by the Word of Truth and have received of his Spirit promised in the Covenant of Grace unto all them that believe on him For not to dissemble with you I believe all others as to their present state to be in the same condition before God be they of what Church or way they will though they are not all in the same condition in respect of the means for their Spirituall advantage which they enjoy or may do so they being much more excellent in some Societies of Christians than others This then to return is the Principle of Protestants derived down unto them from Christ and his Apostles and hereby are they eminently furnished for the exercise of that moderation which you so much and so deservedly commend And more fully to tell you my private judgement which whether it be my own only I do not much concern my self to enquire but this it is Any man in the world who receiveth the Scripture of the Old and New Testament as the Word of God and on that account assents in generall to the whole Truth revealed in them worshipping God in Christ and yeelding obedience unto him answerable unto his light and Conviction not contradicting his profession by any practise inconsistent with true piety nor the owning of any opinion or perswasion destructive to the known fundamentals of Christianity though he should have the unhappiness to dissent in some things from all the Churches that are at this day in the world may yet have an internall supernaturall saving Principle of his faith and obedience and be undoubtedly saved And I am sure it is my Duty to exercise Moderation towards every man concerning whom I have or ought to have that Perswasion 2. Some Protestants are of that judgement that externall force ought to have no place at all in matters of faith however Laws may be constituted with Penalties for the preservation of publick outward order in a Nation most of them that Hareticidium or putting men to death for their misapprehensions in the things of God is absolutely unlawfull and all of them that Faith is the Gift of God for the communication whereof unto men he hath appointed certain means whereof externall force is none Unto which Two last Positions not only the greatest Protestant but the greatest Potentate in Europe hath lately in his own words expressive of an heavenly benignity towards mankind in their infirmities declared his
unto one of your great Masters to be acquainted with the genuine sense of one of your Churches Proposals this being the way that he takes for his satisfaction First he speaks unto the Article or Question to be considered in Generall then gives the different senses of it according to these and those famous Masters the most of which he confutes who yet all of them professed themselves to explain and to speak according to the sense of your Church and lastly gives his own interpretation of it which it may be within a few moneths is confuted by another 3. Suppose a man have attained a knowledge of all that your Church hath determined and proposed to be believed and to a right understanding of her precise sense and meaning in all her determinations and proposals which I believe never yet man attained unto yet what assurance can he have if he live in any place remote from Rome but that your Church may have made some new Determinations in matters of faith whose embracement in the sense which she intends belongs unto his keeping the Unity of Faith which yet he is not acquainted withall Is it not simply impossible for him to be satisfied at any time that he believes all that is to be believed or that he holds the Vnity of Faith Your late Pontific all Determination in the Case of the Jansenists and Molinists is sufficient to illustrate this instance For I suppose you are equally bound not to believe what your Church condemneth as Hereticall as you are bound to believe what it proposeth for Catholick Doctrine 4. I desire to know when a man who lives here in England begins to be obliged to believe the Determinations of your Church that are made at Rome It may be he first hears of them in a Mercury or weekly News book or it may be he hath notice of them by some private Letters from some who live near the place or it may be he hath a knowledge of them by common report or it may be they are printed in some Books or that there is a brief of them published somewhere under the name of the Pope or they are put into some Volume written about the Councels or some Religious Persons on whom he much relyes assures him of them I know you believe that your Churches Proposition is a sufficient means of the Revelation of any Article to make it necessary to be believed but I desire to know what is necessary to Cause a man to receive any Dictate or Doctrine as your Churches proposition not only upon this account that you are not very well agreed upon the Requisita unto the making of such a Proposition but also because be you as infallible as you please in your Proposals the means and wayes you use to communicate those Proposals you make unto Individuals in whom alone the faith whereof we treat exists are all of them fallible Now that which I desire to know is What is or what are those certain means and wayes of communicating the Propositions of your Church unto any Person wherein he is bound to acquiesce and upon the application of them unto him to believe them fide divina cui non potest subesse falsum Is it any one thing or way or means that the hinge upon which his assent turns Or is it a Complication of many things concurring to the same purpose If it be any one thing way or medium that you fix upon pray let us know it and we shall examine its fitness and sufficiency for the use you put it unto I am sure we shall find it to be either infallible or fallible If you say the former and that particular upon which the Assent of a mans mind unto any thing to be the proposall of your Church depends must in the testimony it gives and evidence that it affords be esteemed infallible then you have as many infallible Persons things or writings as you make use of to acquaint one another with the determinations of your Church that is upon the matter you are all so though I know in particular that you are not If the latter notwithstanding the first pretended infallible Proposition your faith will be found to be resolved immediately into a fallible information For what will it advantage me that the proposall of your Church cannot deceive me if I may be deceived in the Communicating of that Proposall unto me And I can with no more firmness certainty or assurance believe the thing proposed unto me than I do believe that it is the Proposall of the Church wherein it is made For you pretend not unto any self-evidencing efficacy in your Churches Propositions or things proposed by it but all their Authority as to me turns upon the Assurance that I have of their relation unto your Church or that they are the Proposals of your Church concerning which I have nothing but very fallible evidence and so cannot possibly believe them with Faith Divine and Supernaturall If you shall say that there are many things concurring unto this Communication of your Churches Proposals unto a man as the notoritty of the Fact suitable proceedings upon it books written to prove it Testimonies of good men and the like I cannot but mind you that all these being sigillatim every one apart fallible they cannot in their Conspiracy improve themselves into an Infallibility Strengthen a Probability they may testifie infallibly they neither do nor can So that on this account it is not only impossible for a man to know whether he holds the Vnity of Faith or no but indeed whether he believe any thing at all with Faith Supernaturall and Divine seeing he hath no infallible evidence for what is proposed unto him to believe to build his faith upon 5. Protestants are not satisfied with your generall implicit assent unto what your Church teacheth and determineth which you have invented to solve the difficulties that attend your Description of the Vnity of Faith Of what use it may be unto other purposes I do not now dispute but as to this of the preservation of the Vnity of Faith it is certainly of none at all The Vnity of Faith consists in all mens express believing all that all men are bound expresly to believe be it what it will Now you would have this preserved by mens not believing what they are bound to believe For what belongs to this keeping the Vnity of Faith they are bound to believe expresly and what they believe implicitly they do indeed no more but not expresly disbelieve for if they do any more than not disbelieve they put forth some act of their understanding about it and so farre expresly believe it So that upon the matter you would have ment to keep the Unity of Faith by a not believing of that which that they may keep the Unity of Faith they are bound expresly to believe Nor can you do otherwise whilest you make all the Propositions of your Church of things to be
flattering your selves with an imagination of any other Priviledge is that which hath wrought your ruine You are deceived if in this matter you are of Menander's mind who sayed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all will of its own accord fall out well with you though you sleep securely As for all other Churches in the world besides your own wee have your concession not only that they were and are fallible but that they have actually erred long since and the same hath been proved against yours a thousand times and your best Reserve against particular charges of Errour lyes in this impertinent generall pretence that you cannot erre It may be you will ask for you use so to do and it is the design of your Fiat to promote the â—nquiry If the Church be fallible that is to propose unto us the things and Doctrines that we are to believe How can we with faith infallible believe her proposals And I tell you truly I know not how we can if we believe them only upon her Authority or she propose them to be believed solely upon that account but when she proposeth them unto us to be believed on the Authority of God speaking in the Srciptures we both can and do believe what she teacheth and proposeth and that with faith infallible resolved into the Veracity of God in his Word and we grant every Church to be so farre infallible as it attends unto the only Infallible Rule amongst men When you prove that any one Church is by any promise of Christ any grant of Priviledge expressed or intimated in the Scripture placed in an unerring condition any farther than as in the use of the means appointed she attends unto the only Rule of her preservation or that any Church shall be â—ecessitated to attend unto that Rule whether she will or no whereby she may be preserved or can give us an instance of any Church since the foundation of the world that hath been actually preserved and absolutely from all errour other than that of your own which you know we cannot admit of as you will do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great and memorable work so we shall grant as much as you can reasonably desire of us upon the account of the Assertion under consideration But untill you do some one or all of these your crying out The Church the Church the Church cannot erre makes no other noyse in our ears than that of the Jews The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Law shall not fail did in the ears of the Prophets of old Neither do we speak this of the Church or any Church as though we were concerned to question or deny any just Priviledges belonging unto it thereby to secure our selves from any pretensions of yours but meerly for the sake of Truth For we shall manifest anon unto you that you are as little concerned in the Priviledges of the Church be they what they will more or less as any Society of the Professours of Christianity in the world if so be that you are concerned in them at all So that if the Truth would permit us to agree with you in all things that you assign unto the Church yet the difference between you and us were never the nearer to an end for we should still differ with you about your share and interest therein and for ever abhor your frowardness in appropriating of them all unto your selves And herein as I sayed hath lyen a great part of your ruine Whilest you have been sweetly dreaming of an Infallibility you have really plunged your selves into errours innumerable and when any one hath jogged you to awake you out of your fatall sleep by minding you of your particular errours your dream hath left such an impression upon your imagination as that you think them no errours upon this only ground because you cannot erre I am perswaded had it not been for this one errour you had been freed from many others But this perfectly disiâ—ables you for any candid Inquisition after the Truth For why should he once look about him or indeed so much as take care to keep his eyes open who is sure that he can never be out of his way Hence you inquire not at all whether what you profess be Truth or not but to learn what your Church teacheth and defend it is all that you have to do about Religion in this world And whatever Absurdities or Inconveniencies you find your selves driven unto in the handling of particular points all is one they must be right though you cannot defend them because your Church which cannot erre hath so declared them to be And if you should chance to be convinced of any Truth in particular that is contrary to the determination of your Church you know not how to embrace it but must shut your eyes against its light and evidence and cast it out of your minds or wander up and down with a various assent between Contradictions Well said he of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is flat folly namely for a man to live in rebellion unto his own light But you adde III. That your selves that is the Pope with those who in matters of Religion adhere unto him and live in subjection unto him are this Church in an assent unto whose infallible teachings and Determinations the Vnity of Faith doth consist Could you prove this Assertion I confess it would stand you in good stead But before we enquire aftes that we shall endeavour a little to come unto a right understanding of what you say When you affirm tâ—at the Roman Church is the Church of Christ you intend either that it is the only Church of Christ all the Church of Christ and so consequently the Catholick Church or you mean that it is a Church of Christ which hath an especiall Prerog ative enabling it to require obedience of all the Disciples of Christ. If you say the former we desire to know 1. when it became so to be It was not so when all the Church was together at Hierusâ—lem and no foundation of any Church at all laid at Rome Acts 1. 1 2 3 4 5. It was not so when the first Church of the Gentiles was gathered at Antioch and the Disciples first began to be called Christians for as yet we have no tydings of any Church at Rome It was not so when Paul wrote his Epistles for he makes express mention of many other Church in other places which had no relation unto any Churches at Rome more than they had one to another in their common Profession of the same faith and therein enjoyed equall gifts and Priviledges with it It was not so in the dayes of the Primitive Fathers of the first three hundred years who all of them not one excepted took the Roman to be a local particular Church and the Bishop of Rome to be such a Bishop as they esteemed of all other Churches and Bishops
the only Church of Christ in the earth at least that others are so only so far as they agree with us we being our selves the Rule and Standard of all Gospell Church state laying weight upon what we differ from others in for the most part exceedingly above what it doth deserve Were the Same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus the same frame of spirit that was in his blessed Apostles we should be willing to try the effects of his love and care towards all that profess his Name by a Sedate Consideration at least how far he hath instructed them in the knowledg of his will and what effects this learning of him may produce And to tell you truly I do not think there is a more horrid monster in the earth than that opinion is which in the great diversity that there is among Christians in the world includes happiness and Salvation within the limits and precincts of any party of them as though Christ and the Gospell their own faith obedience and sufferings could not possibly do them any good in their station and condition This is that Alâ—cto Cuitristia bella Iraque insidiaeque crimina noxia Cordi Odit ipse pater Plâ—ton odere sorores Tartareae Monstrum Tot sese vertit in ora Tam saevae facies tot pullulat atra Colubris Whereever this opinion takes place which indeed bidâ— defiance to the Goodness of God and the blood of Christ with a Gigantick boldness for men to talk of Moderation Vnity and Peace is to mock others and to befool themselves in things of the greatest importance in the world altera manu ostentant panem alter a lapidem ferunt for my own part I have not any firmer perâ—wasion in and about these things nor that yields more satisfaction and contentment unto my mind in reflections upon it than this that if a man sincerely beleive all that and only that wherein all Christians in the world agree and yield obedience unto God according to the guidance of what he doth so beleive not neglecting or refusing the knowledg of any one Truth that he hath sufficient means to be instructed â— he need not go unto any Church in the world to secure his Salvation Hic murus aheneus esto It is true it is the Duty of such a man to joyn himself unto some Church of Christ or other which walks in professed subjection unto his institutions and in the observation of his appointments But to think that his not being of or joyning with this or that Society should out him off from all hopes of a blessed eternity is but to entertain a viper in our minds or to act suitably to the Principles of the old Serpent and to put â—orth the venome of of his poyson Some of the Antients indeed tell us that out of the Catholick Church there is no Salvation And so say I also buâ— withall that the beleif mentioned of the Truths generally embraced by Christians in their present divisions in the world I still speak of the most famous and numerous Societies of them and its profession do so constitute a man a member of the Catholick Church that whilest he walks answerably to his profession it is not in the power of this or that no not of all the Churches in the world to divest him of that Priviledge Nor can all these cryes that are in the world We are the Church and we are the Church you are not the Church and you are not the Church perswade me but that as every Assembly in the generall notion of it is a Chorch so every Assembly of Christians that ordinarlly meet to worship God in Christ according to his appointment is a Church of Christ Haec mi pater Te dicere aequum fuit id defendere when you talked of Moderation and Unity such Principles as these had better become you than those which you either privately couched in your Discourse or openly insisted on Men that think of Reducing unity among Christians upon the precise terms of that Truth which they suppose themselves insolidum possessors of Ipsi fibe somnia fingunt do but entertain themselves with pleasant dreams which a little Consideration may awake them from Charity condescension a retrenchment of opinions with a rejection of secular interests and a design for the pursuit of generall obedience without any such respect to the Particular enclousures which diversity of opinions and different measures of Light and Knowledge have made in the field of the Lord as should confine the effects of any Duty towards the Disciples of Christ unto those within them with the like actings of minds suited unto the example of Jesus Christ must introduce the desired Vnity or wee shall expect it in vain These are some of my hasty thoughts upon the Principles of Protestants before mentioned which you and others may make use of as you and they please In the mean time I shall pray that we may amidst all our Differences love one another pray for one another wait patiently for the communication of farther Light unto one another leave evil surmizes and much more the condemning and seeking the ruine of those that dissent from us which men usually do on various pretences most of them false and coyned for the present purpose And when we can arrive thereunto I shall hope that from such generall Principles aâ— before mentioned somewhat may be advanced towards the Peace of Christians and that there will be so when the whole concernment of Religion shall in the Providence of God be unravelled from that worldly and secular interest wherewith it hath been wound up and entangled for sundry Ages and when men shall not be ingaged from their cradles to their graves in a precipitate Zeal for any Church or way of Profession by outward Advantages inseparably mixed and blended with it before they came into the world In the mean time to expect unity in profession by the Reduction of all men to a precise agreement in all the Doctrines that have been and are ventilated among Christians and in all Acts and wayes of worship is to refer the Supream and last Determination of things evangelical to the sword secular power and violence and to inscribe vox ultima Christi upon great guns and other engines of war seing otherwise it will not be effected and what may be done this way I know not Sponte tonat coeunt ipsae sine flamine nubesâ— CHAP. 10. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of the Animadversions the remaining Principles of Fiat Lux considered IT is time to return and put an end unto our review of those Principles which I observed your Discourse to be built upon The next as laid down in the Animadversions p. 103. is That the Pope is a good man one that seeks nothing but our good that never did us harm but hath the Care and inspectirn of us committed unto him by Christ. In the Repetition hereof you leave out all
Totilas Besides if we that are now Inhabitants of England must be thought to have first received the Gospel then when it was first preached unto our own Progenitors in a direct line ascending this will be found a matter so dubious and uncertain as not possibly to be a thing of any concernment in Christian Religion and moreover will exempt most of the chief families of England from your enclosure seeing one way or other they derive themselves from the Antient Britains Such pittifull trifles are you forced to make use of to give countenance unto your cause But let it be granted that Christianity was first communicated unto the Saxons from Rome in the dayes of Pope Gregory which yet indeed is not true neither for Queen Berta with her Bishop Luidhardus had both practised the worship of Christ in England before his coming and so prepared the people that Gregory sayes in one of his Epistles Anglorum gentem voluisse fieri Christianam What will thence ensue why plainly that we must be all Papists or Atheists and esteem the whole Gospel a Romance But why so I pray Why the Categorick Assertions are both clear namely that the Pâ—pist first brought us the news of Christianity and that Papists are now odious But how comes this about we were talking of Gregory and some that came from Rome in his dayes And if you take them for Papists you are much deceived Prove that there was one Papist at Rome in the dayes of that Gregory and I will be another I mean such a Papist as your present Pope is or as your self are Do you think that Gregory believed the Catholick Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope the doing whereof in an especial manner constitutes a man a Papist If you have any such thoughts you are an utter stranger â—o the state of things in those dayes as also to the writings of Gregory himself For your better information you may do well to consult him lib. 4. Epist. 32 36 38. And sundry other instances may be given out of his own writings how remote he was from your present Popery Irregularities and superstitious observations were not a few in his dayes crept into the Church of Rome which you still pertinaciously adhere unto as you have the happiness to adhere firmely unto any thing that you once irregularly embrace But that the main Doctrines Principles Practices and Modes of Worship which constitute Popery were known admitted practised or received at Rome in the dayes of Gregory I know full well that you are not able to prove And by this you may see the Truth of your first Assertion that Papists brought us the first news of Christianity which you do not in the least endeavour to prove but take it hand over head to be the same with this that some from Rome preached the Gospel to the Saxons in the dayes of Gregory which it hath no manner of affinity withall Your second true Assertion is that the Papist is now become odious unto us but yet neither will this be granted you Popery we dislike but that the Papists are become odious unto us we absolutely deny Though we like not the Popery they have admitted yet we love them for the Christianity which they have retained And must not that needs be a doubty Consequence that is enduced out of Principles where in there is not a word of truth Besides I have already in part manifested unto you that supposing both of them to be true as neither of them is yet your Consequence is altogether inconsequent and will by no means follow upon them And this will yet more fully appear in an examination of your ensuing Discourse That which you fix upon to accept against is towards the close of my Discourse to this purpose in these words as set down by you pag. 40. Many things delivered us at first with the first news of Christianity may be afterwards rejected for the love of Christ and by the Commission of Christ. The truth of this Assertion I have newly proved again unto you and have exemplified it in the instance of Papists bringing the first news of Christianity to any place which is not impossible but they may do though to this Nation they did not I had also before confirmed it with such reasons as you judged it best to take no notice of which is your way with things that are too hard for you to grapple withall I must I see drive these things through the thick obstacles of your prejudices with more instances or you will not be sensible of them What think you then of those who received the first news of Christianity by believers of the circumcision who at the same time taught them the necessity of being circumcised and of keeping Moses Law were they not bound afterwards upon the discovery of the mistake of their teachers to retain the Gospel and the truth thereof taught by them and to reject the observation of Mosaical rites and observations or were they free upon the discovery of their mistake to esteem the whole Gospel a Romance What think you of those that were converted by Arians which were great multitudes and some whole Nations were not those Nations bound for the Love of Christ by his word to retain their Christianity and reject their Arianisme or must they needs account the whole Gospel a fable when they were convinced of the Errour of their first teachers denying Christ Jesus in his Divine nature to be of the same substance with his Father or essentially God! To give you an instance that it may be will please you better There are very many Indians in New England or elsewhere Converted unto Christianity by Prote stants without whose instruction they had never received the least rumor or report of it Tell me your judgement if you were now amongst them would you not endeavour to perswade them that Christian Religion indeed was true but that their first Instructers in it had deceived them as to many particulars of it which you would undeceive them in and yet keep them close to their Christianity And do you not know that many who have in former dayes been by Hereticks converted to Christianity from Paganism have afterwards from the Principles of their Christianity been convinced of their heresie and retaining the one have rejected the other It is not for your advantage to maintain an opposition against so evident a Truth and exemplified by so many instances in all ages I know well enough the ground of your pertinaciousness in your mistake it is that men who receive the Gospel do resolve their faith into the Authority of them that first preach it unto them Now this supposition is openly false and universally as to all persons what ever not divinely inspired yea as to the Apostles themselves but only with respect unto their working of Miracles which gave Testimony unto the Doctrine that they taught Otherwise Gods Revelation contained in the Scriptures is that which the
faith of men is formally and ultimately resolved into so that what ever Propositions that are made unto them they may reject unless they do it with a non obstante for its supposed Revelation the whole Revelation abides unshaken and their saith founded thereon But as to the Persons who first bring unto any the tidings of the Gospel seeing the faith of them that receive it is not resolved into their Authority or Infallibility they may they ought to examine their proposals by that unerring word which they ultimately rest upon as did the Beraeans and receive or reject them at first or afterwards as they see cause and this without the least impeachment of the truth or Authority of the Gospel its self which under this formal consideration as revealed of God they absolutely believe Let us now see what you except hereunto First you ask What love of Christs dictates what commission of Christ allows you to choose and reject at your own pleasure Ans. None nor was that at all in question nor do you speak like a man that durst look upon the true state of the Controversie between us You proclaim your cause desperate by this perpetual tergiversation The Question is whither when men preach the Gospel unto others as a Revelation from God and bring along the Scripture with them wherein they say that Revelation is comprized when that is received as such and hath its authority confirmed in the minds of them that receive it whither are they not bound to try all the teaching in particular of them that first bring it unto them or afterwards continue the preaching of it whither it be consonant to that Rule or Word wherein they believe the whole Revelation of the will of God relating to the Gospel declared unto them to be contained and to embrace what is suitable thereunto and to reject any thing that in particular may be by the mistakes of the teachers imposed upon them Instead of believing what the Scripture teacheth and rejecting what it condemns you substitute choosing or rejecting at your own pleasure a thing wherein our discourse is not at all concerned You adde What Heretick was ever so much a fool as not to pretend the Love of Christ and Commission of Christ for what he did What then I pray may not others do a thing really upon such grounds as some pretend to do them on falsly may not a Judge have his Commission from the King because some have counterfeited the great Seal May not you sincerely seek the good and peace of your Country upon the Principles of your Religion though some pretending the same Principles have sought its disturbance and ruine If there be any force in this exception it overthrows the Authority and Efficacy of every thing that any man may falsly pretend unto which is to shut out all order Rule Government and vertue out of the world You proceed How shall any one know you do it out of any such Love or Commission sith those who delivered the Articles of saith now rejected pretended equal love to Christ and Commission of Christ for the delivery of them as any other I wonder you should proceed with such impertinent enquiries How can any man manifest that he doth any thing by the Commission of another but by his producing and manifesting his Commission to be his and how can be prove that the doth it out of Love to him but by his diligence care and conscience in the discharge of his Duty as our Saviour tells us saying if you love me keep my Commandments which is the proper effect of love unto him and open evidence or manifestation of it Now how should a man prove that he doth any thing by the Commission of Christ but by producing that Commission that is in the things about whâ—ch we treat by declaring and evidencing that the things he proposeth to be believed are revealed by his spirit in his word and that things which he rejects are contrary thereunto And what ever men may pretend Christ gives out no adverse Commissions his word is every way and everywhere the same at perfect harmony and consistency with its self so that if it come to that that several Persons do teach contrary doctrines either before or after one another or together under the same pretence of receiving them from Christ as was the case between the Pharises of old that believed and the Apostles they that attend unto them have a perfect guide to direct them in their choice a perfect Rule to judge of the things proposed As in the Church of the Jews the Pharises had taught the people many things as from God for their Traditions or Oral Law they pretended to be from God Our Saviour comes really a teacher from God and he disproves their false Doctrines which they had prepossessed the people withall and all this he doth by the Scripture the Word of Truth which they had before received And this Example hath he left unto his Church unto the end of the world But you yet proceed Why may we not at length reject all the rest for love of something else when this Love of Christ which is now crept into the very out side of our lips is slipt off from thence Do you think men cannot find a cavil against him as well as his Law delivered unto us with the first news of him and as easily dig up the root as cut up the branches You are the pleasantest man at a disputation that ever I met withal haud ulli veterum virtute secundus you outgo your masters in palpable Sophistry If we may and ought for the Love of Christ reject errours and untruths taught by fallible men then we may reject him also for the love of other things Who doubts it but men may if they will if they have a mind to do so they may do so Physically but may they do so Morally may they do so upon the same or as good grounds and reasons as they reject errours and false worship for the sake of Christ With such kind of arguing is the Roman Cause supported Again you suppose the Law of Christ to be rejected and therefore say that his Person may be so also But this contains an application of the general Thesis unto your particular case and thereupon the begging of the thing in Question Our enquiry was general Whither things at first delivered by any Persons that preach the Gospel may not be rejected without any impeachment of the Authority of the Gospel it self Here that you may insinuate that to be the case between you and us you suppose the things rejected to be the Law of Christ when indeed they are things rejected because they are contrary to the Law of Christ and so affirmed in the Assertion which you seek to oppose For nothing may be rejected by the Commission of Christ but what is contrary to his Law The truth is he that rejects the Law of Christ as it is his
greatest moment and of most indispensible necessity unto Salvation whereby you render it perfectly useless according to the old Rule Quod non potest intelligi debet negligi it is fit that should be neglected which cannot be understood And 8. There is a book lately written by one of your party after you have been frequently warned and told of these things entituled Fiat Lux giving countenance unto many other hard reflections upon it as hath been manifested in the Animadversions written on that Book 9. Your great Masters in their writings have spoken very contemptuously of it whereof I shall give you a few instances The Council of Trent which is properly yours determines as I told you that their Traditions are to be received and venerated pari pietatis affectu reverentia with an equal affection of piety and reverence as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament which is a setting up of the Altar of Damascus with that of God himself in the same Temple Sess. 4. Dec. 1. And Andradius no small part of that Convention in his defence of that Decree tells us that cum Christus fragilitati memoriae Evangelio scripto succurrendum putavit it a breve compendium libris tradi voluit ut pars maxima tanquam magni precii thesaurus traditionibus intimis Ecclesiae visceribus infixis relicta fuerit As our Lord Christ thought meet to relieve the frailty of memory by the written Gospel so he would have a short compendium or abridgement committed unto books that the greatest part as a most precious treasure might be left unto Traditions fixed in the very inward bowels of the Church This is that cordial and absolute respect even unto admiration that your Catholicks bear unto the Scripture And he that doth not admire it seems to me to be very stupid It contains some small part of the mysteries of Christian Religion the great treasure of them lying in your Traditions and thereupon he concludes Canonem seu Regulam fidei exactissimam non esse Scripturam sed Ecclesiae judicium that the Canon or most exact Rule of Faith is not the Scripture but the judgement of the Church Much to the same purpose as you plead in your Fiat and Epistola Pighius another Champion of your Church Ecclesiast Hierarch Lib. 1. c. 4. after he hath given many reasons to prove the obscurity of the Scripture with its flexibility to every mans sense as you know who also hath done and referred all things to be determined by the Church concludes Si hujus Doctrinae memores fuissemus haereticos scilicet non esse informandos vel convincendos ex Scripturis meliore same loco essent res nostrae sed dum ostentandi ingenii eruditionis gratia cum Luthero in certamen discenditur Scripturarum excitatum est hoc quod proh dolor nunc videmus incendium Had we been mindful of this Doctrine that Hereticks are not to be instructed nor convinced out of the Scriptures our affairs had been in a better condition then now they are but whilest some to shew their wit and learning would needs contend with Luther out of the Scriptures the fire which we now with grief behold was kindled and stirred up And it may be you remember who it was that called the Scripture Evangelium nigrum and Theologiam atramentariam seeing he was one of the most famous champions of your Church and Cause But before we quite leave your Council of Trent we may do well to remember the advice which the Fathers of it who upon the stirs in Germany removed unto Bononia gave to the Pope Julius the third which one that was then amongst them afterwards published Denique say they in their letters to him quod inter omnia consilia quae nos hoc tempore dare possumus omnium gravissimum ad extremum reservavimus Oculi hic aperiendi sunt omnibus nervis adnitendum erit ut quam minimum Evangelii poterit praesertim vulgari lingua in iis legatur Civitatibus quae sub tua ditione potestate sunt sufficiatque tantillum illud quod in missa legi solet nec eo amplius cuiquam mortalium legere liceat Quam diu enim pauculo illo homines contenti fuerunt tam diu res tuae ex sententia successêre â—aedemq in contrarium labi caeperunt ex quo ulterius legi vulgo usurpatum est Hic ille in summa Est liber qui praeter caeteros hasce nobis tempestates ac turbines conciliavit quibus prope abreptisumus Et sane siquis illum diligenter expendat deinde quae in nostris fieri ecclestis consueverunt singula ordine contempletur videbis plurimum inter se dissidere hanc doctrinam nostram ab illa prorsus diversam esse ac saepe contrariam etiam Quod simul atque homines intelligant à docto scilicet aliquo adversariorum stimulati nou ante clamandi finem faciunt quam rem plane omnem divulgaverint nosque invisos omnibus reddiderint Quare occultandae pauculae illae chartulae sed abhibita quadam cautione diligentia ne ea res majores nobis turbas ac tumultus excitet Last of all that which is the most Weighty of all the advices which that at this time we shall give unto you we have reserved for the close of all Your eyes are here to be opened you are to endeavour with the utmost of your power that as little as may be of the Gospel especially in any vulgar tongue be read in those Cities which are under your government and Authority but let that little suffice them which is wont to be read in the Mass of which mind you also know who is neither let it be lawful for any man to read any more of it For as long as men were contented with that little your affairs were as prosperous as heart could desire and began immediately to decline upon the custome of reading any more of it This is in brief that book which above all others hath procured unto us those tempests and storms wherewith we are almost carryed away headlong And the Truth is if any one shall diligently consider it and then seriously ponder on all the things that are accustomed to be done in our Churches he will find them to be very different the one from the other and our Doctrine to be divers from the Doctrine thereof yea and oftentimes plainly contrary unto it Now this when men begin to understand being stirred up by some learned man or other amongst the adversaries they make no end of clamouring until they have divulged the whole matter and rendred us hateful unto all Wherefore those few sheets of Paper are to be hid but with caution and diligence least their concealment should stir us up greater troubles This is fair and open being a brief summary of that admiration of the Scriptures which so abounds in Catholick Countreys That Hermannus one of some account in your Church affirmed that the
that you may the easilier be quit of you never examine but only run on in your usual florishes about the use and excellency of Gods Word I told you in Fiat Lux what the Jew will reply to all such reasonings but you have the pregnant wit not to heed any thing that may hinder your florishes but if you were kept up in a Chamber with a learned Jew without bread water and fire till you had satisfied him in that objection I am still well enough assured for all your veryvaunts that if you do not make use of your Credo which here you contemn you might there stay till hunger and cold have made an end of you The meaning of this Discourse is that the Jews pretence of rejecting Christ upon the Authority and Tradition of their Church was not nor is to be satisfied by Testimonies given in the Scripture unto the Person Doctrine and Work of the Messias The sum of the Objection said down in your Fiat Lux is that which I have now mentioned It was the Plea of the Jews against Christ and his Doctrine managed from the Authority and Tradition of their Church That Christ and his Apostles gave the Answer unto this objection which I have now intimated namely the Testimony of God himself in the Scripture to the Truth of that which they objected against which was to be preferred unto the Authority and Testimony of their Church I have undeniably proved unto you in the Animadversions and it is manifest to every one that hath but read the New Testament with any Consideration or understanding The same way was persisted in by the Antient Fathers as all their writings against the Jews do testifie And I must now tell you that your calling the validity of this Answer into Question is highly injurious unto the honour of Christianity and blasphemous against Christ himself The best interpretation that I can give unto your words is that you are a person wholly ignorant of the Controversies that are between the Jews and Christians and the way that is to be taken for their satisfaction or confutation You tell us indeed in your Fiat that the Jews will reply to these Testimonies of Scripture which are alledged as giving witness to our Lord Jesus Christ and his Doctrine and contend about the interpretation of them and this you tell me I have the wit to take no notice of which by the way is unduly averred by you and contrary to your own Science and Conscience seeing you profess that you have read over my Animadversions and probably the very place wherein I do take notice of what you said to that purpose and replyed unto it was not far from your eye when you wrote the contrary And as I shewed you what was the opinion of the Antients of that reply of the Jews which you mention so I shall now add that nothing but gross ignorance in these things can give countenance to an imagination that there is any thing but folly and madness in the Rabbinical evasions of the Testimonies of the old Testament given unto our Lord Christ and his Gospel And your substitution of a naked fananical Credo not resolved into the Testimony of the Holy Writ in the room of that express Witness which is given in Holy Scripture unto the Person and Doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ to oppose therewith the Judaical Plea from their Church State Power and Authority is an Engine fit to undermine the very root of Christianity and to render the whole Gospel highly Questionable Besides it is so absurd as to the Conviction of the Jews such a mere petitio principii or begging of what is in Controversie between Christians and them that I challenge you to produce any one learned man that hath made use of it to that purpose To think that your Credo built on principles which he despiseth which you cannot prove unto him will convince another man of the Truth of what you believe can have no other ground but a magical fancy that the fixing of your imagination shall affect his and conform it unto your apprehension of things Such is your course in telling the Jews of the Authority of your Church and your Credo thereupon which cannot be supposed to have any existence in rerum natura unless it be first supposed that their Church was failed which supposal that it was not is the sole foundation of their objection What end you can propose herein but to expose your self and your profession unto their scorn and contempt I know not Sir the Lord Christ confirmed himself to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world by the Miracles which he wrought and the Doctrine which he taught was testified to be Divine by signs and express words from Heaven He proved it also by the Testimonies out of the Law and Prophets all which was confirmed by his Resurrection from the dead This coming of the promised Messiah the work that he was to perform and the characteristical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of him in application unto the person of Jesus of Nazareth the Apostles and Evangelists proved out of the Scripture to the conviction and conversion of thousands of the Jews and the confusion of the rest And if you know not that the Antients Fathers and learned men of succeeding Ages have undenyably proved against the Jews out the Scripture of the Old Testament and by the Testimony thereof that the promised Messiah was to be God and man in one Person that he was to come at the time of the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh that the work which he was to perform was the very same and no other then what was wrought and accomplished by him with all the other important concernments of his Person and office so that they have nothing left to countenance them in their obstinacy but meer senseless trifles you are exceedingly unmeet to make use of their objections or the condition of the controversie between them and Christians For what you add in reference unto my self I shall need only to mind you that the Question is not about any Personal ability of mine to satisfie a Jew which whatever it be when I have a mind to encrease it for somewhat that I know of and which I have learned out of their writings I will not come unto you for assistance but concerning the sufficiency of that Principle for the confronting of Judaical objections taken from the Authority of their Church which I have formerly proved unto you that our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles made use of unto that purpose And I will not say that it was from the pregnancy of your wit that whatever heed you took unto the stating of the Case between you and Protestants in the Animadversions parallel unto that between the Jews and the Apostles seeing a very little wit will suffice to direct a man to let that alone which he finds too heavy for him to remove
Principles whereby you attempt the confirmation of that absurd position are of that nature that they exclude the Headship of Christ and inâ—er no less change or alteration in the Church then that which must needs ensue thereon and the substitution of another in his room which destroyes the very essence and being of it Let us now consider what you further reply unto that which was offered in the Animadversions unto the purpose now discoursed of Your ensuing words are And here by the way we may take notice what a fierce English Protestant you are who labour so stoutly to evacuate my argument for Episcopacy and leave none of your own behind you nor acquaint the world with any though you know far better but would make us believe notwith tanding those far better reasons for Prelacy that Christ himself as he is the immediate Head of invisible influence so is he likewise the only and immediate Head of visible direction and government amongst us without the interposition of any Person delegate in his stead to oversee and rule under him in his Church on earth which is against the tenor both of sacred Gospel and St. Pauls Epistles and all Antiquity and the present Ecclesiastical Polity of England and is the Doctrine not of any English Protestant but of the Presbyterian Independent and Quaker How little cause you have to attempt an impeachment of my Protestancy I hope I have in some measure evidenced unto you and shall yet farther make it manifest as you give me occasion so to do In the mean time as I told you before that I would not plead the particular concernment of any party amongst Protestants no more then you do that of any party among your selves so I am sure enough that I have delivered nothing prejudicial unto any of them because I have kept my self unto the defence of their Protestancy wherein they all agree Nor have I given you an answer unto any Argument that tends in the least to the confirmation of such a Prelacy as by any sort of Protestants is admitted but only shewed the emptiness and pernicious Consequences of your Sophism wherewith you plead in pretence for Prelacy indeed for a Papal Supremacy and that on such Principles as are absolutely destructive of that Protestant Prelacy which you would be thought to give countenance unto And your ensuing Discourse wherein you labour to justifie your reflection on me is a pittiful piece of falsehood and Sophistry For first this double Head of the Catholick Church one of influence the other of direction and government which you fancy some Protestants to admit of is a thing that they declare against as injurious to the Lord Christ and that which would render the Church biceps monstrum horrid and deformed It is Christ himself who as by his Spirit he exercises the office of an head by invisible influence so by his Word that of visible direction and rule He is I say the only Head of visible direction to his Church though he be not a visible Head to that purpose which that he should be is to no purpose at all 2. If by the interposition of any person under Christ delegate in his stead you understand any one single Person delegated in his stead to oversee and rule the whole Catholick Church such an one as you now plead for in your Epistle it is intolerable arrogancy to intimate that he is designed either in the Gospel or St. Pauls Epistles or Antiquity whereas you are not able to assign any place or text or word in them directly or by fair Consequence to justifie what you assert And for the present Ecclesiastical policy of the Church of England if you yet know it not let me inform you that the very foundations of it are laid in a direct contrary supposition namely that there is no such single Person delegated under Christ for the Rule of the whole Catholick Church which gives us a new evidence of your Conscientious â—are in what you say and write 3. If you intend that which is not at all to your purpose Persons to rule under Christ in the Church presiding according to his direction and institution in and over the Particular Churches whereunto they do relate governing them in his name by his Authority and according to his Word I desire you to inform me wherein I have said or written or intimated any thing that may give you the least countenance in your affirming that by me it is denied or where it was ever denied by any Protestant whatever Prelatical Presbyterian or Independent neither doth this concession of theirs in the least impeach the sole Soveraign Monarchy of Christ and single Headship over his Church to all ends and purposes A Monarch may be and is the sole supream Governour and Political Head of his Kingdom though he appoint others to execute his Laws by virtue of Authority derived from him in the several Provinces Shires and Parishes of it And Christ is the only head of his Church though he have appointed others to preside and rule in his name in those distributions of his Disciples whereinto they are cast by his appoinment But you proceed Christ in their way is immediatâ— head not only of subministration and influence but of exterior derivation also and government to his Church Ans. He is so the supream and only Head of the Church Catholick in the one way and other though the means of conveying influences of Grace and of exterior Rule be various Then say you is he such an Head to all Belivers or no to all the whole body in general and every individual member thereof in particular if he be so to all you say then no man is to be governed in Affairs of Religion by any other man But why so I pray can no man govern in any sense or place but he must be a supream Head The King is immediate Head unto all his subjects he is King not only to the whole Kingdom but to every individual person in his Kingdom doth it thence follow that they may not be governed by officers subordinate delegated under him to rule them by his Authority according to his Laws or that if they may be so that he is not the only immediate King and supream Head unto them all The Apostle tells us expresly that the Head of every man is Christ 1 Cor. 11. 3. And that an head of Rule as the husband is the head of the wife Ephes. 5. 23. as well as he is an head of influence unto the whole body and every member of it in particular 1 Cor. 12. 12. Col. 2. 19. And it is a senseless thing to imagine that this should in the least impeach his appointment of men to rule under him in his Church according to his Law who are thereupon not heads but in respect of him servants and in respect to the particular Churches wherein they serve him Rulers or guides yea their servants for his sake not Lords
King amongst his people Deut. 18. nor in that prescription of the manner of the Kingdom which he gave them by Samuel once intimated an exemption of any persons Priests or others from the Rule or Authority of the Prince which he would set over them In the New Testament we have the Rule as the practice in the Old Rom. 13. Let every soul be subject to the Higher Powers the power that bears the sword the striker And we think that your Clergy men have souls at least pro sale and so come within the circumference of this Command and Rule Chrysostome in his Comment on that place is of our mind and prevents your pretence of an exception from the Rule by special Priviledge giving us a distribution of the universality of the Persons here intended into their several kinds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He sheweth that these things are commanded unto all unto Priests and Monks and not to secular persons only which he declareth in the very entrance of his Discourse saying Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers whither thou be an Apostle or an Evangelist or a Prophet or whatever thou be For subjection overthrows not Piety And he saith not simply Let him obey but let him be subject The very same instances are given by Theodoret Oecumenius and Theophilact Bernard Epist. 42. ad Archiepisc. Senonens meets with your exception which in his dayes began to be broached in the world and tells you expresly that it is a delusion In conformity unto this Rule of St. Paul Peter exhorts all Christians none excepted to submit themselves unto the King as Supreme 1 Epist. ch 2. 13. And what ever we conclude from these words in reference unto the King I fear that if instead of the King he had said the Pope you would have thought us very impudent if we had persisted in the denyal of your monstrous imaginary Headship But in this Principle on these and the like grounds do all Protestants concur And indeed to fancy a â—â—veraign Monarch with so great a number of men as yonr Clergy consists of in many Kingdome exempted from his regal Authority is to lay such an ax unto the root of his Government as whereby with one stroke you may hew it down at your pleasure 2. Protestants affirm that Rex in regno suo every King in his own Kingdom is the Supreme dispenser of Justice and Judgement unto all Persons in all Causes that belong unto or are determinable in foro exteriori in any Court of Judicature whither the matter which they concern be Civil or Ecclesiastical No Cause no difference determinable by any Law of man and to be determined by Coercive Vmpirage or Authority is exempted from his cognizance Neither can any man on any pretence claim any Jurisdiction over any of his Subjects not directly and immediately derived from him Neither can any King who is a Soveraign Monarch like the Kings of this Land yield or grant a power in any other to judge of any Ecclesiastical Causes among his Subjects as arising from any other Spring or growing on any other root but that of his own Authority without an impeachment and irreparable prejudice to his Crown and Dignity neither doth any such Concession grant or supposition make it indeed so to be but is a meer fiction and mistake all that is done upon it being ipso facto null and of none effect Neither if a King should make a pretended legal grant of such power unto any would any right accrew unto them thereby the making of such a Grant being a matter absolutely out of his power as are all things whereby his regal Authority wherein the Majesty of his Kingdom is enwrapped may be diminished For that King who hath a power to diminish his Kingly Authority never was intrusted with absolute Kingly Power Neither is this Power granted unto our Kings by the Acts of Parliament which you mention made in the beginning of the Reformation but was alwayes inherent in them and exercised in innumerable instances and often vindicated with an high hand from Papal encroachments even during the hour and power of your darkness as hath been sufficiently proved by many both Divines and Lawyers Things of meer spiritual order as preaching the word Administration of the Sacraments and the like we ascribe not unto Kings nor the communicating of power unto any for their performance The Soveraign Power of these things is vested in Christ alone and by him committed unto his Ministers But Religion hath many concernments that attend it which must be desposed of by forensical juridical process and and determinations All these with the Persons of them that are interested in them are subject immediately to the power and Authority of the King and none other and to exempt them or any of them or any of the like nature which may emerge amongst men in things relating unto Conscience and Religion whose Catalogue may be endlesly extended from Royal Cognizance is to make meer properties of Kings in things which in a very special manner concern the peace and wellfare of their subjects and the distribution of rewards and punishments among them Of this sort are all things that concern the authoritative publick Conventions of Church Officers and differences amongst them about their interests practices and publick profession of Doctrines Collations of Legal Dignities and Benefices by and with investitures legal and valid all Ecclesiastical revenews with their incidencies the Courts and Jurisdictions of Ecclesiastical Persons for the reigâ—ement of the outward man by Censures and Sentences of Law with the like And as this whole matter is sufficiently confirmed by what was spoken before of the Power of Kings over the Persons or all their Subjects and for to what end should they have such a power if in respect of many of them and that in the chief concernments of their rule and Government it may never be exerted so I should tire your patience if I should report one half of the Laws Instances and Pleas made given and used by the Antient Christian Kings and Emperours in the persuit and for the Confirmation of this their just power The Decrees and Edicts of Constantine the Great commanding ruling and disposing of Bishops in Cases Ecclesiastical the Laws of Justinian Charls the Great Ludovicus his Son and Lotharius his Successor with more innumerable to the same purpose are extant and known unto all So also are the Pleas Protestations and Vindications of most of the Kingdoms of Europe affer once the pretensions of Papacy began to be broached to their prejudice And in particular notable instances you might have of the exercise of this royal power in the first Christian Magistrate invested with supreme Authority both in the case of Athanasius Socrat. Lib. 1. cap. 28. cap. 34. Athan. Apol. 2. as also of the Donatists Euseb. lib. 10. cap. 5. August Epist. 162 166. and advers Crescon lib. 3. c. 17. whereunto innumerable instances in
only and absolute head and Monarch of the Catholick Church which you would perswade us to believe that he is Kings then may even in Church affairs be strikers under him be the servants and executioners of his will and pleasure but Authority from God immediately in and about them they have none nor can have any whilest your Imaginary Monarchy takes place This one fundamental Principle of your Religion sufficiently discovers the insignificancy of your florish about Kingly Authority in Ecclesiastical things seeing upon a supposition of it they can have none at all But you stay not here for 3. You ascribe unto your Popes an universal Dominion even in Civil things over all Christian Kings and their subjects In the explanation of this Dominion I confess you somewhat vary among your selves but the thing it self is generally asserted by you and made a foundation of practice Some of you maintain that the Pope by Divine right and Constitution hath an absolute supream Dominion over the whole world This opinion Bellarmine Lib. 5. de Pont. cap. 1. confesseth to be maintained by Augustinus Triumphus Alvarus Pelagius Hostiensis and Panoruitanus And himself in the next words condemns the opinion of them who deny the Pope to have any such temporal power as that he may command secular Princes and deprive them of the Kingdoms and Principalities not only as false but as down right Heresie And why doth he name the first opinion as that of four or five Doctors when it is the Common opinion of your Church as Baronius sufficiently manifests in the life of Gregory the seventh That great preserver of your Pontificial omnipotency in his Bull against Henry the German Emperour affirms that he hath power to take away Empires Kingdoms and Principalities or what â—ver a mortal man may have as Platina records it in his life As also Pope Nicholas the second in his Epistle ad Mediolanens asserts that the rights both of the heavenly and earthly Empires are committed unto him And he that hath but looked on the Dictates of the forenamed Gregory confirmed in a Council at Rome and defended by Baronius or into their Decretals knows that you give both swords to the Pope and that over and over Whence Carerius Lib. 1. c. 9. affirms that it is the Common opinion of the School Divines that the Pope hath plenissimam Potestatem plenary power over the whole world both in Ecclesiastical and Temporal matters and you know the old comparison made by the Canonists cap. de Major Obed. between the Pope and the Emperour namely that he is as the Sun the Emperour as the Moon which borrows all its light from the other Bellarmine and those few whom he follows or that follow him maintain that the Pope hath this Power only indirectly and in order unto spiritual things the meaning of which assertion as he explains himself is that besides that direct power which he hath over those Countreys and Kingdoms which on one pretence or other he claims to be Feaudatory to the Roman See which are no small number of the chiefest Kingdoms of Europe he hath a Power over them all to dispose of them their Kings and Rulers according as he judgeth it to conduce to the good and interest of the Church which as it really differs very little from the â—ormer opinion so Barclay tells us that Pope Sixtus was very little pleased with that seeming depression of the Papal Power which his words intimate But the stated Doctrine of your Church in this matter is so declared by Bozius Augustinus Triumphus Carerius Schioppius Marta and others all approved by her Authority that there can be no question of it Moreover to make way for the putting of this indirect Power into direct Execution you declare 4. That the Pope is the supream Judge of faith and his Declarations and Determinations so far the Rule of it as that they are to be received and finally submitted unto not to do so is that which you express Heresie or Schism or Apostacy About this Principle also of your Profession there have been as about most other things amongst you great Disputes and wranglings between the Doctors and props of your Church Much debate there hath been whither this power be to be attributed unto the Pope without a Council or above a Council or against one About these Chimaera's are whole volumes filled with keen and subtil argumentations But the Popes Personal or at least Cathedral Determination hath at length prevailed For whatever some few of you may whisper unto your own trouble and disadvantage to the impeachment of his Personal Infallibility you are easily decryed by the general voice of your Doctors and besides those very persons themselves wherever they would place the Infallibility of the Church that they fancy are forâ—ed to put it so far into the Popes hand and management as that whatever he determines with the necessary solemnities in matters of faith is ultimately at least to be acquiesced in So your self assure us averring that he who doth not so forfeits his Christianity and consequently all the Priviledges which thereby he enjoyes and we have reason sufficient from former experience to believe that the Pope have he ability unto his will is ready enough to take the forfeiture Whither upon a Princes falling into Heresie in not acquiescing in your Papal determinations his subjects are discharged ipso facto from all obedience unto him as Dominicus Bannes and others maintain or whither there needs the Denunciation of a sentence against him by the Pope for their absolution you are not agreed But yet 5. You affirm that in Case of such Disobedience unto the Pope he is armed with Power to depose Kings and Princes and to give away and bestow their Kingdoms and Dominions on others Innumerable are the instances whereby the Popes themselves have justified their claim of this Power in the face of the world and it were endless to recount the Emperours Kings and free Princes that they have attempted to ruine and destroy in the persuit of some wherof they actually succeeded with the desolations of Nations that have ensued thereon I shall mention but one and that given us in the dayes of our Fathers and it may be in the memory of some yet alive Pope Pius V takes upon him contrary to the advice and entreaties of the Emperour of Germany and others to depose Queen Elizabeth and to devote her to destruction To this end he absolved all her Subjects from their Allegiance and gave away her Kingdoms and Dominions to the Spaniard assisting him to his utmost in his attempt to take possession of his grant and all for refusing obedience to the See of Rome You cannot I presume be offended with my mention of that which is known unto all for these things were not done in a corner And is it not hence evident that all the power which you grant unto Kings is meerly precarious which they hold of your Pope
was Let a man be never so partially addicted unto him and his work he must acknowledge that their frivolousness and impertinency considering the work he had in hand discover somewhat besides learning and wisdom in him So also did his driving of 10000. men besides an innumerable company or women and children altogether into the river Swale in Yorkshire and there causing them to baptize one another His Contest with the British Bishops about the time of the observation of Easter breaking the peace for a Circumstance of a Ceremony that hath cost the Church twenty times more trouble then it is worth is of the same nature And I desire to know whence you have your story of his inexpressible suffering here amongst us All that I can find informs us that he was right meetly entertained by King Ethelbert at his first Landing by the means of Berda his wife a Christian before his coming with all plentifull provision for himself and his companions The next news we hear of him is about his Archiepiscopacy his Pall and his Throne from whence he would not rise to receive the poor Brittans that came to confer with him Further of his sufferings as yet I can meet with nothing And these are the things which you thought your self able to except against in my story or the Progress and Declension of Religion The summ of it I shall now comprize in some few Assertions which you may do well to consider and get them disproved 1. The First is That the Gospel was preached in this Island in the dayes of the Apostles by persons coming from the East directed by the Providence of God for that purpose most probably by Joseph of Arimathea in chief without any respect to Rome or mission from thence 2. That the Doctrine preached then by them was the same that is now publickly professed in England and not that taught by the Church of Rome where there is a discrepancy between us 3. That the story of the coming of Fugatius and Damianus into the Province of Brittain sent by Eleutherius unto Lucius is uncertain improbable and not to be reconciled unto the state and condition of the Affairs in these Nations at the time supposed for its accomplishment 4. That about the fourth fifth and sixth Centuries the Generality of the Professors of Christian Religion in the world were wofully declined from the 〈◊〉 zeal piety faith love and purity in the worship of God which their Predecessors in the same Profession glorified God by and that in particular the 〈◊〉 Church was much degenerated 5. There the Bishops of Rome for five hundred years never laid claim unto that Soveraign Power and Infallibility which they have challenged since the dayes of Pope Gregory the seventh 6. That the Bishops of Rome in that space of time pretending unto some disorderly Supremacy over other Bishops and Churches though incomparably short of their after and present pretences were rebuked and opposed by the best and most learned men of those dayes 7. That the distraction of the Provinces of the Western part of the Empire by Goths Vandals Hunns Saxons Alans Franks Longobards and their associates was to less just in the holy Providence of God upon the account of the moral evils and Superstitions of the Professors of Christianity amongst them then was that which afterwards ensued of the Eastern Provinces by the Saracens and Turks 8. That these Nations having planted themselves in the â—rovinces of the Empire together with Christianity either received anew or retained many Pagaâ—ish Customs Ceremonies Rites and Opinions therewithal 9. That their Kings by Grants of Priviledges Donations and Concessions of Power made partly out o blind zeal partly to secure some interests of their own exceedingly advanced the Papal Power and confirmed their formerly rejected pretensions 10. That when they began to perceive and feel the pernicious effects and consequences of their own facility their grants being made a ground of farther incroachments they opposed themselves in their Laws and Edicts and Practices against them 11. That there was on all hands a sad declension in the Western Church in Doctrine Worship and Manners continually progressive unto the time of Reformation These are the principal Assertions on which my story is built and which it supposeth If you have a mind to get them or any of them called to an account and examined I shall if God will and I live give them their confirmation from such undoubted records as you have no just cause to except against CHAP. 18. Reformation of Religion Papal contradictions Ejice ancillam SOme of your following leaves are such as admit of no useful consideration Wilful mistakes diversions from the Cause under debate with vain flourishes make up both pages in them I shall pass through them briefly and give you some account from them of your self and your prevarication in the Cause whose defence you have undertaken Pag. 75. you undertake the thirteenth chapter of the Animadversions which discusseth the Story of the Reformation of Religion which you took up on common fame Fama malum quo non aliud velocius ullum And that you may be able to say somewhat to the discourse before you or to make a pretence of doing so you wholly pass by every thing that is contained in it and impose upon me that which is not in it at all which you strenuously exagitate For whereas a little to take off your edge in reflecting on the Persons whom you supposed instrumental in the Reformation especially King Henry the eighth I minded you how easie a thing it was to deprive you of your pretended Advantage by giving you an account oâ— the wicked lives with the brutish and Diabolical practâ—ces of many of your Popes whom you account the Heads of your Church and the very Center wherein all the lines of your Profession meet you feign as though I had imposed all the crimes I intimated them to be guilty of and many more whose names you â—eap together upon Popery or the Relâ—gion that you profess yea that I should say that it is nothing else but only an heap of the wickconâ—sses by you enumerated Now this I did not do but you feign it of your own heads that you may have somewhat to speak against and a pretence of intimating in the close of your discourse that you have considered the Chapter about Reformation whereas in truth you have not spoken one word unto it nor unto any thing contained in it And yet when you have done as if you had been talking about any thing wherein I am in the least measure concerned you come in in the close with your grave advice That I should take heed of blaspheming that innocent Catholick flock which the Angels of God watch over to protect them As though a man could not remember the wicked crimes of your nocent Popes but he must be thought to blaspheme the innocent flock of Christ which never had greater enemies in this world
Scripture it self wherein your Images making and Image worship is as fully condemned as it is possible any superstition or Idolatry should be Your present loose discourses whereby you endeavour to possess the minds of unwary men that you do not do that which indeed you do every day and which almost all the world know that you do and which you curse others for not doing will not with considering persons redound at all unto your advantage 2. That you may the better also discern what is incumbent on you and expected from you the next time you talk of figures I shall make bold to mind you of what is the Doctrine of the chief Masters and Instructors of your Church from whence certainly we may better learn what the Doctrine and practice of it is then from one who discovers enough in what he sayes and writes to keep us from laying any great weight on his authority Now I confess that you do in this as in sundry other points of your Religion give us an egregious specimen of that consent and unity among your selves which you so frequently boast of Raphael de Torre in his Sum. Relig. Quaest. 94. Artic. â— disput 6. dub 5. gives us an account of five several opinions maintained by your Doctor in this matter of all which he rejects that only of Durand and some others affirming that images are not worshipped properly but only improperly and abusively as rash and savouring of heresie The same doth Bellarmine also and the Truth is that that opinion of Durrand Gerson and same others is plainly condemned by the Tridentine Decree as hath been already declared The Authors of the other four opinions though they differ among themselves and have several digladiations about sâ—me expressions and distinctions framed meerly in theâ—r own imaginations agree well enough that Images are religiously to be worshipped Worshipped religiously they are to be but whither per se and absolutely directly and ultimately whither with the same kind of worship wherewith that is to be worshipped which they represent they are not so fully agreed as might be desired in a matter of this importance For it is justly to be feared that whilest your Doctors are wrangling your people are committing as gross Idolatry as any of the Heathen were guilty of In the mean time the most prevalent Opinion of your Doctors is that of Thomas and his followers that images are to be adored with the same kind of worship wherewith that which they represent is to be worshipped And therefore whereas the Lord Christ is to be worshipped with Latria that which is peculiar in your judgement to God alone it follows saith he that his image is to be worshipped with the same worship also And as some of your learned men do boast that this indeed is the only approved opinion in this matter in your Church so the truth is if you will speak congruously and at any consistency with your selves it must be so For whereas you lay the foundation of all your worship of them be it of what fort it will in that figment that the honour which is done to the image redounds unto him whose image it is if the honour done to the image be of an inferior sort and kind unto that which is due unto the exemplar of it by referring that honour thereunto you debase and dishonour it by ascribing less unto it then is its due If then you intend to answer just expectation in this matter the next time you speak of figures pray consider what your Thomas teacheth as the Doctrine of your Church 3. p. q. 25. ae 3. which Azorius sayes is the constant judgement of Divines lib. 9. cap. 6. As also the exposition of the Tridentine Decree by Suarez Tom. 1. d. 54. § 4. Vasquez Costerus Bellarmine and others And 3. You may do well to consider the practice and usage of your Catholick people all the world over especially in those places where you have preserved them from being disturbed in their Devotion by the Arguments and exceptions of Protestants as also the direction that is given them for the exercise of their Devotion in that prescription of Rites and prayers which is afforded unto them Is not your bowing kneeling creeping kissing offering singing praying to the Cross and images notorious yea your placing your trust and confidence in them Yea have you omitted any of the abominations of the heathen that you have not acted over again to provoke the Lord to anger And 4. Do you think to relieve them from the guilt of Idolatry by a company of distinctions which neither they nor you understand The next time you see one of your Catholicks worshipping an image upon his knees I pray go to him and tell him that he must worship the Image with dulia or superdulia but not with latria or if with latria yet not by its self and simply but after a sort analogically and reductively or that he is about a double worship one terminated in the image and the other passing by it unto the examplar of it and you will find what thanks he will give you for your good instruction And how small a portion are these of that Mass of distinctions which you have coyned to free them from Idolatry who worship Images who all the while understand not one word of what you intend by them nor can any rational man reduce them unto any thing intelligible Sir In this matter of images you talk of coming up close to your business and I was willing to take a little pains with you to direct you in your way that having a mind to your work as you seem to pretend you may not mistake and wander away from your duty but address your self unto that which you undertake and which is expected from you You are to prove that there is a necessity of receiving the use of images in the worship of the Church so that whosoever doth not admit them is to be cast out of the Communion thereof and 2. That these Images so received are to be worshipped and adored with religious veneration if not with the very same worship that is due to the Persons represented by them yet with that which redounds unto them and that not only by the outward gesture of the body but the inward motions of the mind And when you shall have proved that the Doctrine and practice of your Church in this matter of making and worshipping Images is not contrary to the Scripture or was ever received or approved by the primitive Church for six hundred years I will promise you setting aside all other Considerations immediately to become a Papist for the present I see no cause so to do and shall therefore return to consider what you here say for the further adorning of your pictures The first thing you reflect upon is my censure of that passage in your Fiat that the sight of Images in the Church is apt to cast the minds of
in sacrificing according to the Order of that then in preaching of the Mysterie and Doctrine of this Did never any man inform you that one end of preaching the word was to regenerate the whole souls of men and to beget them anew unto God that it was also to open their eyes and to illuminate them with the saving knowledge of God in Christ that it was to beget and encrease faith in them that it was to be a means of their growth in Grace and in the knowledge of God that the Word preached is profitable for reproof Correction Dotrine and instruction in righteousness that it is appointed as the great means of working the souls of men into a likeness and conformity unto the Lord Jesus or the changing of them into his Image that it is appointed for the refreshment of the weary and consolation of the sorrowful and making wise of the simple Did you never hear that the word preached hath its effect upon the understanding and will as well as upon the Affections and upon these consequentially only unto its efficacy on them if they are not deluded Is growth in knowledge faith grace holiness conformity unto Christ Communion with God for which end the word is commanded to be preached nothing at all with you is being made wise in the mysterie of the Love of God in Christ to have an insight into and some understanding of the unsearchable treasures of his Grace and by all this the building up of souls in their most holy faith of no value with you Are you a stranger unto these things and yet think your self a meet person to perswade your Countreymen to forsake the Religion they have long professed and to follow you they know not whither Or do you know them and yet dare to thrust in your scurrility to their exclusion Plainly Sir the most charitable judgement that I can make of this Discourse of yours is that it proceeds from ignorance of the most important truths and most necessary works of the Gospel You next proceed to your plea from the Cherubims set up by Moses in the Holy place over the Ark and thence you will needs wrest an argument for your Images and the worship of them Although your Vasquez is ashamed of it and hath cashiered it long ago and that worthily as not at all belonging unto thus matter For 1. The Cherubims were not Images to which you say since the real Cherubims are not made of beaten Gold those set up by Moses must be only figures but it is of Images that we are speaking precisely and not in general of figures figures may include Types and Hieroglyphicks and any representation of things Images represent Persons and such alone are those about which we treat And if a Person be not presented by an Image it is not his Image Now I pray tell me what personal subsistences these Cherubims with their various wings and faces did represent Do you believe that they give you the shape and likeness of Angels It is true John the Bishop of Thessalonica in your Synod of Nice with the approbation of the rest of his company affirms that it was the opinion of the Catholick Church that Angels and Archangels were not altogether incorporeal and invisible but to have a slender body of ayre or fire Act. 5. But are you of the same mind or do you not rather think that the Catholick Church was belyed and abused by the Synod And if they are absolutely incorporeal and invisible how can an Image be made of them Should a man look on the Cherubims as Images of Angels would not the first thing they would teach him be a ley namely that Angels are like unto them which is the first language of any Image whatever The truth is the Mosaical Cherubims were meer Hieroglyphicks to represent the constant tender love and watchfulness of God over the Ark of his Covenant and the people that kept it and had nothing of the nature of Images in them 2. I say suppose of them what you please yet they were not set up to be adored as your Images are To which you reply It is not to my purpose or yours that they were not set up to be adored for Images in Catholick Churches are not set up for any such purpose nor do I anywhere say so No man alive hath any such thought no Trâ—â—â—tion no Council hath delivered it no practice infers it And do you think meet to talk at this rate have you no Tradition amongst you that you plead for the Adoration of Images hath no Council amongst you determined it doth not your practice speak it were you awake when you wrote these things did you never read your Tridentine Decree or the Nicene Canons commended by them is not the adoration of Images asserted an hundred times expresly in it hath no man alive such thoughts are not only Thomas and Bonaventure but Bellarmine Gregory de Valentia Baronius Suarez Vasquez Azorius with all the rest of your great Champions now utterly defeated and have not one man left to be of their judgement I would be glad to hear more of this matter Speak plainly do you renounce all adoration and worship of Images is that the Doctrine of your Church prove it so and I shall publickly acknowledge my self to have been a long time in a very great mistake But it was for this cause that I gave you a little Image of the Doctrine and practice of your Church in this matter at the entrance of our discourse foreseeing how you would prevaricaâ—e in our progress Come Sir if Image Worship be such a shameful thing that you dare not avow it deal ingenuously and acknowledge the failings of your Church in this matter and labour to bring her to amendment If you think otherwise and in truth yet like it well enough dâ—al like a man and dare to deteâ—d it at least as well as you can and more no 〈◊〉 can look for at your hands You mention somewhat of the different opinions of your Schoolmen in this matter which you sleight But Sir I tell you again that you and all your Masters are agreed that Images are to be adored and venerated that is worshipped and their disputes about that honour that rests absolutely on the Image and that which passeth on to the Prototype with the kind of the one and the other are such as neither themselves nor any other do understand You tell us indeed All Catholick Councils and practice declare such sacred figures to be expedient assistants to our thoughts in our divine meditations and prayers and that is all you know of it But if you intend Councils and practice truly Catholick or Primitive you can give no instance of allowing so much to Images as here you ascribe unto them no not one Council can you produce to that purpose for some hundreds of years but a constant current of Testimonies for the rejection of such pretend expediencies and assistances
the Prototypes themselves to be the proper objects of religious adoration which as to the most of them you know we deny unless you have also a Command to warrant you For there is 〈◊〉 Institution of God himself a Sacramental 〈◊〉 bâ—â—ween the water in Baptism and the 〈…〉 and yet I do not know that you plead that the water is to be worshipped And thus is it as to your wooden Cross you put two sticks a cross and worship them you take them asunder and burn them it is the very instance of your Nicene Council for so they repeat the words of Leontius and approve them Act. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whilest the two sticks of the Cross are put together or compacted I adore that figure for Christs sake who suffered thereon but when they are separated I cast them away and burn them a pretty course whereby a man may keep a sacred fire and worship all his wood pile before he burns it And all this you are beholding unto your imagination for We have done with your exceptions and pleas and I dare leave it to the Conscience and judgement of any man fearing God and not captivated under the power of prejudices and a vain conversation received by tradition from his Fathers whither your pretences are sufficient to warrant us to break in upon those many and severe interdictions of God lying expresly in the letter against this usage and practice and so apprehended in their intention by the whole primitive Church In the Command its self we are forbidden to make to our selves that is in reference unto the worship of God treated of in that precept not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sculptile a graven Image but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any kind of likeness of anything in heaven earth or sea so as that a man should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bow down adore or venerate them or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serve them with any sacred veneration And the natural equity of this precept was understood by the wisesâ— of the Heathen For not only doth Tacitus witness that the antient Germans had no Images of their Gods but it is known that Nama Pompilius the Roman Solon admitted not the use of them Seneca decryes them Epist. 33. and Macrobius denies that antiquity made any image to the most high God What Silius Persius and Statius observed to the same purpose I have shewed elsewhere And from this Principle Paul pleads with the Athenians that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was not to be represented with images of Gold and Silver or carved stones Neither doth God leave us under this interdiction as proceeding from his Soveraign Authority but frequently also shews the reasonableness of his will by asserting the Incomprehensibility of his nature and minding us that in the great manifestation of his glory unto the people they saw no manner of likeness or similitude which should have been shewed unto them had he been by any sensible means or matter to be represented And yet Sir all this will not deter you from making Images and various Pictures of God himself and the blessed Trinity Indeed you say you do not do it to represent the essence and nature of the Invisible God but only some divine manifestations of his excellency or presence so that those images are only metaphorical But you venture too boldly on the Commands of God with your cobweb distinctions nor do you difference your selves hereby from the more sober Heathen who openly professed that in their many names and images of God they had no design to teach a multiplication of the Divine essence but only to represent the various properties and excellencies of that one Deity which they adored as Lactantius will inform you Neither I fear do you consider aright or sufficiently esteem the scandal that by this means you cast before the Jews and Turks who abhor the worship of God amongst you upon the account of your Images and Christians also kept from participating in their Sacra by this means Lampridius tells us in the life of Alexander Severus that Hadrian the Emperour erected Temples in sundry Cities without Images in them untill he was forbidden by the Soothsayers affirming that this was the only way to make all men become Christians as though the weight of the Controversie between Christians and Pagans had turned on this hinge whither God were to be worshipped in Images or no. As for other Images and Pictures which may as to a civil use be made which you set up in your Churches to be adored and venerated is not your Doctrine and practice a meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a will worship condemned by the Apostle Col. 2. 23. A worship destitute of Institution promise command or any ground of acceptance with God A worship wherein you do what is right in your own eyes like the people in the wilderness and not that only which is commanded you which God complains of and reproves Deut. 12. 8 23. And besides you are conversant in a will worship of a most dangerous importance wherein you ascribe the honour that is due unto God alone unto that which by nature is not God which is downright Idolatry I know how you turn and wind your selves into various forms and multiply unintelligible distinctions to extricate your selves out of the â—nare that you wilâ—ully cast your selves into But you all agree well enough in this if your Nicene and Trent Councils your Baronius Vasquez Suarez and other great Masters of your Sacrâ— may be believed that they are to be adored and worshipped that is with adoration religious which what ever you may talk of its modes or distinguish about its kind is to give the honour due to God alone unto 〈◊〉 and stones And the best security you have to free you from the horrible guilt of Idolatry lyes in the pretended conjunction and religious relation that is between the image and its Prototype which is plainly imaginary and fictitious And now Sir I hope I shall obtain your excuse for having drawn forth this discourse unto a length beyond my intention your self having given me the occasion so to do by pretending that you would upon this head of Images come up close unto me which caused me to give you a little tast of what entertainment you are to expect if you shall think meet to continue in the same resolution CHAP. 22. Of Latine Service THe 18. Chapter of the Animadversions about Tongues and Latine Service is your next task Of this you say that it hath some colour of Plausibility but because I neither do nor will understand the Customes of that Church which I am so eager to oppose all my words are but wind Answ. No such thing as plausibility was aimed at in any part of that Discourse It was the Promotion or defence of Truth which was designed throughout the whole and nothing else For that are all things to be done and nothing against it What you are
you to surcease 2. This Vulgar people that you talk of as the Pharises did of them that were willing to attend unto the preaching of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 7. This vulgar rout that knows not the Law if they are Christians they are such as to whom those Epistles were originally written and for whose sakes they are preserved such as Christ hath redeemed and sanctified in his own blood and given the annointing unto whereby they may know all things and are pattakers of the Promise that they shall be taught of God The Gospel takes not away the outward differences and distinctions that are on other accounts amongst the children of men but in the things of the Gospel its self there are none Vulgar or Common nor as such to be despised but believers are all one in Christ Jesus Col. 3. 11. Jam. 2. 1 2 3 4 5 6. How it is now I know nor but I am sure that the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel the poor principally received it and the greatest number of them that were effectually called was of those whom you speak so contemptuously of as the Apostle testifies 1. Cor. 1. 26. And the same is made good in all antient story Neither are these vulgar people such Ignoramus's as you imagine unless it be where you make and keep them such by detaining from them the means of knowledge and who perish for the want of it as the Prophet complained of old I speak not of them who continue willingly ignorant under the most effectual means of light but of such as being really born of God and becoming thereby a Royal Nation an holy Priesthood as they are called yea Kings and Priests unto God do conscientiously atterd unto his teachings Of these there are thousands yea ten thousands in England who are among the vulgar fort as to their Outward and Civil Condition that if occasion were administred would farther try your Divinity then you are aware and give you another manner of account of Pauls Epistles then I perceive you suppose they would You are mistaken if you imagine that either greatness or Learning Or Secular Wisdom will give a man understanding in the Mysteries of the Gospel or make him wise therein This wisdom is from above is wrought by the Spirit of God in the use of Spiritual means by himself appointed for that purpose And we know not that men of any condition are excepted from his dispensations of Light and Grace 3. To whom and for whose instruction were those Epistles of Paul written Were they not to the Churches of those dayes to all that were at Rome called to be holy ch 1. 7. and to the Church of God that was at Corinth sanctified in Christ Jesus 1 Cor. 1. 2. with all that everywhere call on his name And why I pray may not the Churches of these dayes be concerned to know the things that the Spirit of God thought meet to instruct the former Churches in Are Believers now grown unconcerned in the Doctrine in the law and Gospel of Sin and Grace of Justification Sanctification Adoption the Obedience of Faith and duties of Holiness which S. Paul reveals and declares in his Epistles What would you make of them or what would you make of the Apostle to write things for the standing use of the Church wherein so few were like to be concerned Or do you think that there are but few things in the Scripture wherein the souls of the people are concerned and that all the rest are left for learned men to dispute and wrangle about But you say there are particular Cases in them that belonged it may be only to them unto whom their resolution was directed But are you such a stranger in the Israel of the Church as not to know that in the same Cases or others of a very neer allyance unto them determinable by the Apostolical Rules delivered in them the Consciences of your vulgar people are still concerned 4. Those Epistles of Paul wherein you instance were written by divine Inspiration and given out by the direction of the Holy Ghost for the use of the Church of God in all Ages This I suppose you will not deny If so why do you set up your wisdom built on frivolous Cavils against the Will Wisdom Love and Care of God I fear you are a stranger unto that Benefit Strength Supportment Light Knowledge Grace Wisdom and Consolation which true believers the Disciples of Christ do every day receive by reading studying and meditating on Pauls Epistles I wish you would mind some of old Chrysostoms Exhortations unto all sorts of persons to the reading and study of them they are so interwoven in all his Expositions and Sermons on them that it were lost labour to direct you unto any place in particular 5. The latter part of your Discourse would make me suspect that your converse with the Quakers that you talked of in your Fiat had a little tainted your judgement but that I can ascribe the rise of it unto another Cause Your preferring the conceived substance of Gods Will before the letter of the Scripture is their very Opinion But what do you mean by the conceived substance of Gods Will Is it the Dâ—ctrine concerning the Will of God delivered in the Scripture or is it somewhat else If some other thing why do you not declare it If it be no other why do you distinguish it from its self and prefer it above it self or do you conceive there is a conceived substance of Gods Will that is taught or may be by men better then by God himself 6. Somewhat you intimate it may be to this purpose in the close of this Discourse p. 96. where you say the Question between us is not whether the people are to have Gods Word or no but whether that Word consist in the letter left to the Peoples disposal or in the substance urgently imposed upon the people for their practice And this because you understand not but mistake the whole business all your talk in this your eighteenth Chapter vades into nothing Truly Sir I never heard before that this was the state of the Controversie between us nor do I now believe it so to be For 1. We say not that the letter of the Scripture is to be left unto the Peoples disposal but that the Scripture is to be commended unto their reverend use and meditation which we think cannot be ingenuously denyed by any man that hath read the Scripture or knows ought of the Duty of the Disciples of Christ. 2. The Conceived substance of the Word of God as by any man conceived and proposed is no otherwise the Word of God but as it answers what is written in the Scripture and by virtue of its analogy therewith 3. If by urging the substance of the Word of God on the People you understand their instruction in their Duty out of the Word of God by Catechizing Preaching Admonitions and Exhortations as