more remarkable and the belief of St. Peters having founded it with his suffering Martrydom there with St. Paul made it much honoured so that when the Empire became Christian then the Dignity of the Imperial City made the Bishop of Rome be acknowledged the first Patriarch From this beginning they arose by many degrees to the height of pretending to a Supremacy both Civil and Spiritual and then they not only received appeals which was all they at first pretended to but set up Legantine Courts every where made the Bishops swear Obedience and Homage to them and the Arch-Bishops receive the Pall from their hands in sign of their dependance on them Exempted Monasteries and other Clarks from Episcopal Jurisdiction broke all the Laws of the Church by their Dispensations So that no shaddow of the primitive Government does now remain And though Gregory the Great wrote with as much indignation against the Title of Vniversal Bishop as ever any Protestant did yet his Successors have since assumed both the Name and thing And to that height of Insolence has this risen that in the Council of Trent all the Papal Party opposed the Decree that was put in for declaring Bishops to have their Jurisdictions by Divine Right The Court Party not being ashamed to affirm that all Jurisdiction was by Divine Right only in the Pope and in the other Bishops as the Delegates of the Apostolick See and they were in this too hard for the other Party So that now a Bishop who by the Divine appointment ought to feed the Flock can do no more in that then as the Pope gives him leave The greatest part of the Priests have no dependence on their Bishops The Monks Fryars and Iesuits being immediately subordinate to the Pope so that they do what they please knowing they can justifie any thing at Rome and they fear no Censure any where else From this so many abuses have crept in and the Canonists have found out so many devices to make them Legal that there is no hope of Reforming these at Rome The whole State of Cardinals is one great Corruption who from being Originally the Parish Priests of Rome and so under all Bishops have raised themselves so high that they do now trample on the whole Order and pretend to an Equality with Princes The giving Benefices to Children the unlimitted Plurality of Benefices in one Person the Comendam's the reserved Pensions with many other such like are gross as well as late Corruptions And no wonder if all men despair of Reforming the Court of Rome when these abuses are become necessary to it by which the greatness of the Cardinals and the other Officers or Ministers there is kept up I need not mention the gross Simony of that Court where all the world knows every thing may be had for money The Popes themselves are often Chosen by these Arts and if their own Rules be true such Elections with every thing that follows on them are void The Infinite Swarmes of the Inferiour Clergy do plainly drive a Simoniacal Trade by the Masses they say for Departed Souls for Money And for Publick Pennance they have Universally let it fall in stead whereof private Pennance is now in use And if their own Writers say true this is made an Engine to serve other ends when by enjoyning slight and easie Pennances they draw the People after them upon which the Jesuites have been loudly accused these Forty Years last past In Sum all the Corruptions or rather defects that are in the Government of our Church are only such as they brought in and have not met yet with such effectual remedies as must cure the Church of these inveterate Distempers their ill Conduct did cast her into If any of that Party will review these Particulars and so far trust their own Reasons as to judge according to the plainest Evidence they cannot resist the conviction that they must needs meet with when they see the simplicity of our Faith the Morality of our Doctrine the Purity of our Worship and our Primitive Government and compare it with their vast Superfetation of Articles of Faith the Immorality of their Rules of living the Superstition if not Idolatry of their Worship and the most extravagant Innovations in Government that are in the Church of Rome And indeed these things are so clear that few could resist the force of so much plain truth if it were not for some prejudices with which they are so fettered that they cannot examine matters with that freedom of mind that is necessary Therefore much care must be taken to clear these in the most familiar and demonstrative manner that is possible They may be reduced to these Five chief Ones First That the true Church cannot Err. Secondly That out of the true Church there is no salvation Thirdly That the case of the Church of Rome is much safer than ours is since the Church of England acknowledges a possibility of salvation in the Church of Rome which they on the other hand deny to the Church of England Fourthly That unless there be a Supreme Judg set up we can be sure of nothing in Religion but must fall into many Factions and Parties And Fiftly That the Reformation was but a Novelty begun in the former Age and carried on in this Nation out of an ill design and managed with much Sacriledge The First of these seemed necessary to be cleared in the beginning of this Discourse and I am deceived if it was not done convincingly And for the Second we agree to it That out of the true Church there is no Salvation But then the Question comes What makes one a Member of the true Church The Scriptures call the Church the Body of Christ of which he is the Head So then whoever are joined to Christ according to the Gospel must be within the true Church But the deceit that lies hid under this is That from hence they fancy that the Unity of the Church does consist in an outward Communion with the See of Rome And upon that they calculate that there must be an Unity in the Body of the Church And that cannot be except all be joined to the See of Rome Now we grant there is but one Church but this Unity consists not in an Outward Communion though that is much to be desired but consists in an Unity of Belief about the essentials of Christianity There is nothing more evident than that even according to their own Principles other Churches are not bound upon the hazard of Damnation to hold Communion with the See of Rome for it is not an Article of Faith nor certain according to their own Doctrine That the Pope is Infallible And except that were certain we cannot be obliged to hold Communion under such a Sanction with that See For if it be possible that a Pope may become an Heretick or Schismatick which many of them confess and all agree that the contrary is not of Faith
Church and our Church has it likewise These are such plain things and the Truth of them is so notoriously known that I should ask any of that Communion whether upon the like reasons he would not be Jealous of any person or sort of persons whatsoever And if these grounds of jealousie would work in other matters it is much more reasonable that they should take place in matters of Religion In which as an Error is of far greater Importance So Impostors in all Ages have studied to make gain by Religion Therefore it is most just upon these violent presumptions to look about us and take care we be not cheated But before I would descend to particulars there is one General prejudice that works most universally on weaker minds to be removed which is that the true Church cannot Erre If then it be made appear unanswerably that the true Church may Erre and that in a most weighty Point all these Arguments fall to the ground That the Church of the Iews in our Saviours days was the true Church cannot be denied for our Saviour owned it to be such He joyned with them in their worship He sent the Lepers to the Priest He commanded them to hear the Doctors that sate in Moses Chair and himself acknowledged the High Priest This is sufficient to prove that it was the true Church and yet this Church erred in a most Important point whether Jesus Christ was the true Messias in whom the Prophecies were fulfilled or not they Judged falsly The High Priests with all the Sanhedrim declared him a Blasphemer and condemned him guilty of Death Here the true Church expounds the Scriptures falsly and erred in the Foundation of Religion And it is well known that the chief arguments which they of the Romish party bring to prove that a Church cannot Err do agree as well to the Iewish as the Christian Church the one being the true Church under that dispensation as well as the other is now If then this Decision made by the true Church in Christs time did not oblige all in that Church to go on in that error but private persons might have examined their Sentence and depart from them upon it then upon the same reasons though we acknowledge the Church of Rome a true Church yet we may examine her Doctrines and separate from her errors This grand prejudice being thus removed there are two things in the next place to be laid before them One is that the Scriptures being acknowledged to come from Divine Inspiration on all hands can only decide the Controversies among us and the places I shall make use of shall be cited according to the Doway Translation to which being made by themselves they cannot except Another is that a man must judg of things as they appear plainly to his reasonable Faculties It is against all reason to say that because it is possible for a man to be mistaken therefore he ought to doubt his Judgment in things that are clear to him This must turn a man Sceptical both to all Religions and all the concerns of human life Therefore every man must follow his Judgment when after a diligent Inquiry any thing appears plain to him And now to come up close to those of that perswasion they are to consider that the chief parts of Religion are First Articles of Faith Secondly Rules of Life Thirdly The worship of God chiefly in the Sacraments And Fourthly The Government of the Church If then in every one of these Heads the Church of England agrees clearly with the Scriptures and the Church of Rome does either manifestly contradict them or differs matterially from them in all these points in which we and they differ then the Resolution of the Question Whether a man ought to joyn himself to our Church or theirs will be easily made For Articles of Faith if either the Apostles Creed or the Creeds of the First 4. General Councils contain a just abstract of the Faith then we who receive every Article in these Creeds do agree more exactly to the Apostolical Doctrine than they who have added many new Articles to their Creed The chief Article of Faith is The Covenant made between God and Man through Iesus Christ by which upon the Account of his Merits and Intercession all who follow the Rules of the Gospel may expect the Blessings of it both here and hereafter Pennance toward God and Faith towards our Lord Iesus Christ being the conditions upon which we hope for Eternal life This we plainly teach without Addition or Change But in how many things have they departed from this Simplicity of the Gospel First In teaching People to address to God for the Merits and by the Intercession of the Saints From whom these things are asked for which the Scriptures direct us only to God and Christ. And in the very words pronounced after absolution The Merits of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints are joined with the passion of Christ as the grounds on which we obtain pardon of Sin Grace and Eternal life Secondly In perswading People That a Simple attrition with the use of the Sacraments without any real conversion of the Soul or change of life is sufficient to Salvation Thirdly In perswading People That there is a Communication of the Merits of Saints to other Persons though the Scriptures mention only the Communication of Christs Merits Fourthly by Teaching that tho our sins are pardoned thorough Christ yet there are terrible and long lasting torments to be endured in another State Fiftly that saying Masses and going of Pilgrimages can Redeem from these Now in all these the two chief Designs of the Gospel are plainly contradicted Which be First To Change our hearts and lives Secondly To perswade us to a humble Dependance upon Christ and an high acknowledgment of him But these Doctrines of theirs as they shew us a way to be sure of Heaven without a real Conversion so they take off so much from Faith in Christ as they carry us to trust to somewhat else These are Errors of great Importance Since they corrupt the Fountain and overthrow the chief design of the Christian Religion They are also late devices brought in in the dark and ignorant Ages No mention is made of praying to Saints in any Ancient Liturgie There is a great deal against it in the most Ancient Authors And though in the Fourth Century upon the Conversion of many Heathens to the Christian Faith to humour them in their conceit of some Intermedial Agents between the Divinity and us Mortals there was a Reverence for the Saints set up to drive out the worship of those Secondary Deities yet this was no direct Adoration though they then began to use Rhetorical addresses to Saints like prayers Yet even in Gregory the Great his time in the beginning of the Seventh Century we find no Prayers made to them in all his Liturgies And for the Belief of a simple Attrition being sufficient with
the express words of the Institution and contrary both to the Doctrine and Tradition of the Church for 1300 years 3. They have declared the Priests saying Mass to be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the Dead and the Living though the Scripture plainly says That Christ was once offered for us It is true the Primitive Church used the words Sacrifice and Oblation as our Church yet does but their meaning by that was only in the general sense of these terms as Prayers Praises and Alms are called Sacrifices 4. They have brought in a new piece of Worship which is the hearing of Mass without receiving the Sacrament and it is now the great Devotion of their Church Though by the Institution it is as express as can be that the Consecration is only in order to its being a Communion And by the Apostolical Canons which some in their Church believe to be the work of the Apostles and are by them all acknowledged to be a Collection of the Rites of the first Ages all persons that were present at the Worship and did not communicate were to be severely censured 5. The adoring the Sacrament the exposing it on the Altar and carrying it about in solemn Processions to be worshipped as they are late Inventions so if Transubstantiation be not true they are by their own confession the grossest Idolatries that ever were And are not these considerable variations from the first Institution of this Sacrament As for their own Sacraments though there is no reason to equal them to either of these that were instituted by Christ yet some of them we use as they were at first appointed Persons Baptized are Confirmed with Imposition of hands the only Ceremony used by the Apostles We allow the use of Confession and do press it in many cases and give the benefit of Absolution but we do not make this an Engin to screw peoples secrets from them For which there is no warrant in Scripture nor was it thought necessary for many Ages after the Apostles Confession of publick Scandals was enjoyned and for private sins it was recommended but this latter was not judged simply necessary for obtaining the pardon of sin And what noise soever they make of the good that Confession and the enjoyning of Pennance may do if well managed we need only appeal to some of their own best Writers now in France whether as they have been practised they have not rather driven all true Piety out of the world If these abuses had been only the faults of some Priests the blame could not have been justly cast on their Church but when the publick Rules given to Confessors printed with Licence are their warrants for so doing then their Church is in fault So that nothing is more common among them than for persons after a confession made of their sins with a slight sorrow and some trifling pennance undergone together with the Priestly Absolution to fancy themselves as clean from all sin as if they had never offended God And this being the Doctrin of their Church it both lessens the sense of sin and takes men off from making such earnest applications to God through Christ as the Gospel commands For Orders they are among us with the same Rites that Christ and the Apostles gave them first And a learned Man of their own Church has lately published the most ancient Forms of Ordinations he could find From which it appears that all the Ceremonies in their Ordinations for the want of which they accuse us were brought in since the eighth Century so that even by their own Principles these things cannot be necessary to Ordination otherwise there were no true Orders in the Church for the first eight Ages For Marriage we honour it as Gods Ordinance and since the Scriptures declare it honourable in all without exception we dare deny it to none who desire it St. Paul delivers the Duty of Clergy-men towards their Wives with Rules for their Wives behaviour which had been very impertinent if Clergy-men might have no Wives We find a married Clergy in the first ten Centuries And we know by what base Arts the Caelibate of the Clergy was brought in and what horrid ill effects it has produced Neither do we allow of any devices to hinder Marriage by degrees of kindred not prohibited in the Law of God or the trade that was long driven in granting Dispensations in those degrees and afterwards annulling these and avoiding the Marriages that followed upon them upon some pretences of Law Thus it appears how they have corrupted the Doctrine of the Sacraments together with the Worship of God The last head of Religion is Government and as to this we can challenge any to see what they can except to us First in reference to the Civil Power we declare all are bound for conscience sake to obey every lawful Command of the Supream Authority and to submit when they cannot obey We pretend to no Exemption of Clarks from the Civil Jurisdiction but give to Caesar the things that are Caesars We do not obey the King only because he is of our Religion much less do we allow of Conspiracies or Rebellions upon our judging him an Heretick so that we deliver no Doctrin that can be of any ill consequence to the Society we live in And for the Ecclesiastical Government we have Bishops Priests and Deacons rightly Ordained and in their due subordination to one another every one administring these Offices due to his Function which has been the Governemnt of the Christian Church since the times of the Apostles So that we have a clear vocation of Pastors among us from whose hands every person may without scruple receive all the Sacraments of the Church But for the Church of Rome how unsafe is the Civil Government among them not to mention the Doctrin of deposing Princes for which I refer you to my former Letter What a security does the Exemption of Clerks from the Civil Courts in cases criminal give to loose and debauched Church-men and what disturbance must this breed to a Common wealth The denying the Civil Magistrate power to make Laws that concern Religion or oblige Churchmen takes away a great deal of his Rights for scarce any Law can be made but wrangling and ill-natur'd Churchmen may draw it within some head of Religion And that this was frequently done in former Ages all that have read History know The quarrels that were in the beginning of this Century between the Pope and the Republick of Venice were a fresh Evidence of it But for the Ecclesiastical Government they have spoiled it in all the parts of it The Pope has assumed a power of so vast an extent and so arbitrary a nature that all the ancient Canons are thrown out of doors by it We know that originally the Bishops of Rome were looked on by the rest of the Church as their Colleagues and fellow Bishops The Dignity of the City made the See
THE Unreasonableness AND IMPIETY OF POPERY IN A SECOND LETTER Written upon the Discovery of the Late PLOT Imprimatur C. Alston Nov. 12. 1678. LONDON Printed for R. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1678. The Unreasonableness and Impiety OF POPERY In a Second Letter written upon the Discovery of the Late PLOT SIR YOu are pleased to tell me that my last Letter has had some good effect and that many who were before carried away with the false colours of the Romish Religion are now a little awakned and seem not unwilling to examin things which they took formerly upon trust and therefore you desire me since you are not Master of so much spare time your self to set down the most material and convincing reasons and in as few words as may be that are most likely to open the eyes of honest and simple persons that have been hitherto misled and are now willing to be instructed In all such cases I first consider the temper of the persons to be dealt with Such as take up their Religion out of interest or humour and think it point of honour to continue in it and so will examine nothing are not to be spoken to Others that are naturally superstitious and credulous are very hard to be wrought on for they believe every thing that is said on the one hand and distrust all that is told them by any body else Some of those have a vanity in coming to talk with Divines but it is an endless labour to deal with them for at every time one must begin of new But the only persons to be dealt with are those that are sincere and inquisitive that having been bred in that Religion or brought over to it by some specious pretences are now willing to hear reason and resolved to follow it wherever they find it And therefore in the first place their minds must be disingaged from these unjust prejudices that they conceive of our Religion and such just prejudices must be offered them against the Romish Religion as may at least beget in them some jealousies concerning it by which they may be brought so far as to think the matter suspicious If then there be such reasons offered them for susspecting foul dealing from their Priests and Church as would make them suspect an Attorney Physician or any other person with whom they were to deal they will be prepared to hear reason which is all that we desire and upon this Head these following Considerations may be laid before them 1. All people that pretend to great Power and Dominion over our consciences are justly to be suspected If any man designed to make himself Master of any of our other Liberties we would examine his Title and suspect all his other motions when we see they tend to subject us to him Therefore a Church that designs to keep all her Votaries under an absolute obedience is justly to be suspected and our Church that pretends to no such power is more likely to deal fairly 2. A Church that designs to keep her Members in ignorance is more to be suspected than a Church that brings every thing to a fair Trial. A Church that denies the use of the Scriptures in a known tongue except to a few and wraps up their Worship in a Language that is not understood is reasonably to be suspected more than a Church that gives the free use of the Scriptures to all persons and worships God in a Language which the people understand 3. A Church whose Opinions tend to engross the Riches of the world to its Officers is more to be suspected than a Church that pretends to nothing but a competent maintenance of the several Officers in it The Redeeming Souls out of Purgatory and the Enriching the Shrines or Reliques of Saints Pardons Jubilees and many more Tenets of the Church of Rome are so calculated for enriching their Societies that every cautious man must needs suspect some design in it which he cannot charge on a Church that has none of these Arts to get money 4. A Church that has carried on its Designs by the most dishonest methods possible the forging of Writings and Deeds of Miracles Visions Prophesies and other things of that Nature is more justly to be suspected than a Church that cannot be charged with any such practices The Forging so many Epistles for the Popes of the first Ages which are now by themselves confest to be Spurious with many other Forgeries were the Engines by which the Papal Power was chiefly advanced The Legends and Extravagant Fables of which they are now ashamed were the chief Motives of Devotion for many Ages And by these Saints and Images were so much magnified and Monasteries so enriched A Noted Liar after a Discovery is no more to be trusted 5. Any that considers the present State of Rome the manner of Electing Popes the Practices of that Court and the Maximes they move by must see that every thing there is secular corrupt and at best directed by rules of Policy But to fansie the Holy Ghost can come upon any Election so managed as their own Books shew that is is the most unreasonable thing that can be devised Therefore a Church that neither pretends so high nor can be charged with such proceedings is more likely to be the true Church 6. A Church that teaches Cruelty against poor Innocent people that differ in opinion and sets on Plots Conspiracies and Rebellion against Princes that are judged Hereticks is more likely to be corrupted than a Church that is so merciful as to condemn all capital proceedings for difference of Opinion and teaches an absolute Submission to the Soveraign Power even when it persecutes and oppresses them 7. A Church that is false to her own Principles is not so likely to Instruct her members aright as a Church that is in all things consistent to her self The great Foundation of their Doctrine is That there must be a speaking Judg to decide all Controversies Now they have no such Judg for it is not of Faith that the Pope is this Judg or is Infallible And for a general Council they have had none these 112. years nor are they like to see another in hast So they have no Speaking infallible Judg among them And thus they deceive people by a false Pretence whereas we appeal to nothing but what we really have among us which are the Scriptures 8. A Church that appeals to Marks which are not possible to be searcht out is more likely to mislead people than a Church that pretends to nothing but what can be certainly proved The great thing they appeal to is the Constant Succession of the Bishops of Rome and their other Pastors This cannot be known no not by a probable conjecture But there are on the contrary as great grounds for History to deny it in the See of Rome as in any other Ancient See whatsoever but though they have it both the Greek
the Sacrament no body ever dreamed of it before the Schoolmen found out the Distinction between Attrition and Contrition in the later Ages For the Communication of the Merits of Saints the whole Fathers in one voice speak only of the Merits of Christ being Communicated to us The Fryers first invented it to invite People at least to die in their habits by perswading them that all the merits of the Saints of their Order were shared among the whole Order And for Redeeming out of Purgatory the first Four Ages knew nothing of it In the beginning of the Fifth Century St. Austin plainly speaks of it as an Opinion which some had taken up without any ground and that it was no way certain nor could we ever be sure of it And though in Gregory the Great 's time the Belief of it was pretty far advanced yet the Trade of Redeeming out of it by saying Masses for Departed Souls was not even then found out So that all these are both gross Errors and late Inventions The next Branch of Religion is the Rule of human life which one would think could be taken from no other Standard so certainly as the 10. Commandments and the Expositions given of these in Scripture chiefly our Saviours Sermon on the Mount Let Malice it self appear to Declare wherein our Church strikes at any of these or Teaches men to disobey even the least of them If then our Rule of life be exactly the same with that which the Scriptures prescribe we are safe as to this which may be well called The most important piece of Religion For it is to be considered that God making man after his own Image the end of his Creation was that he might be made like God The Attributes of God to be Imitated are Goodness Mercy Justice Wisdom and Truth And it is certain that the Design of Revealed Religion was to give men clearer Notions of these Moral perfections to press them by stronger Arguments and encourage cur Endeavours by suitable Rewards and punishments So that if any Religion contradict these Moral Duties we are sure it is false for the Revelation of God's will must be designed to make us better than we would otherwise be following barely the Light of Nature and not worse If then the Church of Rome over throws Morality and contradicts any of the Ten Commandments we are sure it is not of God And how far it has done this they may judge by these Particulars First Whatever Church offers cheap and easie pardons for sin does take off so much from our sense of the evil of sin We cannot have a very ill opinion of any thing that is easily forgiven Now what are the Popes Pardons Indulgences Jubilees Priviledged Altars the going of Pilgrimages the saying of some Collects the wearing of Agnus Dei's Peebles or other such like trash but so many Engines to root out of mens minds any deep horrour or great sense of sin Is not this the very thing which the People of the Iews of old offered at to bring Thousands of Rams Ten Thousand Rivers of Oyl their First born or the fruit of their Body to offer for their sins All which were rejected in the name of God in these words I will shew thee O man what is good and what our Lord requireth of thee Verily to do Iudgment and to love mercy and to walk solicitous with thy God This is a Moral matter and unchangable therefore whoever go to beat down the sense of sin by the offer of Pardon on any other terms but the sincere change of a mans life destroy Morallity which is the Image of God in man If from this general Consideration we descend to Examine the Commandments in particular we shall find matter enough for a severe Charge against their Church Is not the First Commandment broken when Devotions are offered to Saints which Import their being Omniscient Omnipresent and Almighty that are the Incommunicable Attributes of the God-head and when pardon of sin preservation Grace against Temptations and Eternal life are immediately begged from Saints It is true they say the sence of these prayers is only that we desire their assistance at Gods hands for these blessings But the words of their Offices import no such matter And though for above One Hundred and Sixty Years these things have been complained of and in the Correction of their Offices some of them were cast out yet many of them do still continue In which the plain sence of the words of their Offices is Idolatrous Only they make a shift with another and forced sence put on them to defend themselves from that charge And for such Devotions they can shew no Warrant for the first Thousand years after Christ. The Second Commandment is so openly and confessedly broken by them that many of them maintain it does not all oblige Christians but belonged only to the Jewish Dispensation And in all their Catechisms it is left out which was done very wisely with what honesty let them answer for it was not fit the people should look on that as a Commandment which they saw so notoriously broken throughout their whole Church A great trade being also driven by the breach of it That this was not in the Primitive Church themselves confess all the Books the Fathers wrote against the Idolatry of the Heathens demonstrate this Nor were Images so much as set up in Churches before the Sixth Century And then care was taken that they should not be worshipped and not before the Eighth Century were they worshipped in any place of the Christian Church The Doctrine of the Popes power of Relaxing of Oaths and discharging men from the Obligation of them joyned with the practice of their Popes for above 800 years is as formal an Opposition to the Third Commandment as can be Imagined This was also begun in the Eighth Century The vast multiplication of Holy-days made the Observation of the Lords day of necessity slacken They have destroyed the Order of Societies established in the Fifth Commandment by the Power they allow the Pope to Depose Princes and absolve Subjects from their Alleageance They teach the murdering and burning all Hereticks that is to say all that will not submit to their Tyranny by which Infinite numbers of Innocent persons have been murdered against the Sixth Commandment And these two Doctrines of deposing Princes and putting Hereticks to death were abhorred by the Church for the first Eight ages and were brought in by the Popes since that time The frequent practice of the Court of Rome in granting Divorces on the pretence either of Spiritual kindred or of Degrees not forbidden either by the Law of Nature or the word of God and allowing second Marriages to both Parties upon such Divorces is an avowed breach of the Seventh Commandment The setting on some Princes to Invade other Princes in their just Rights is the Doctrine as well as it has been the practice of their Church for some
Ages And as their Popes have wrested many Territories from Temporal Princes so for many Ages they set on Publick Robbery against the Eighth Commandment The Doctrine of Equivocating both taught and practised the breaking of safe Conducts and publick Faith decreed by their General Councils is also against the Ninth Commandment For the Tenth I shall say nothing of it because the meaning of it is not so generally agreed on But thus we see all the Rules of Morality are contradicted by that Church It might be justly added to swell up this Charge that of late there have been Doctrines published to the world by the approved Casuists of that Church with Licence which subvert all Justice destroy all security and take away the most sacred ties of mankind By the Doctrines of Probability and of Ordering the Intention aright there is no crime how black soever but a man may adventure on it with a good conscience These things were long and openly taught amongst them without any Censure And when many of the French Clergy complained of these at the Court of Rome perhaps more out of spite to the Jesuits than zeal for the Truth it was long before these so just Remonstrances were heard And in conclusion a trifling Censure was past on them by which they were declared Scandalous neither Impious nor Wicked and all were forbidden to teach them any more but they stand yet in the Books formerly published with Licence After all these particulars is it to be wondered at if the morals of the men of that Church be vitiated when their Doctrine is so corrupted for peoples practices are generally worse than their Opinions And thus the Second point is made good that in our Church we teach the same Rules of Living that are in the Scriptures which are grosly corrupted by their Doctrines The Third Branch of the Christian Religion is the Worship of God and that chiefly the use of the Sacraments For the Worship of God let it be considered that we pray to God and praise him only for all these things about which the Scriptures command us to address to him Our worship is in a Language that all the people understand and so are edified by it according to St. Paul who has enlarged so much on this matter in a whole Chapter that it is strange how any who acknowledg the Authority of that Epistle can deny it Our Liturgies are such that the Romanists cannot except to any part of them Our ceremonies are few and these be both decent and useful So that in all the parts of our Worship we do so exactly agree to the Rule of the Scriptures and the Primitive Church that they cannot blame us for any one Rubrick or Collect in it But for their worship It is in a Language not understood by the people who to be sure can receive no Edification from that they understand not nor can they say Amen to such Devotions This is as it were in spite to St. Paul who took special care that as long as his Authority was in any esteem in the Church such an abuse should never creep into it Nor is there a shadow of Authority for such a practice from the Primitive Church in which for many Ages the Worship was still in the vulgar Tongues Next their Worship is so overcharged with many Rites and Ceremonies that the seriousness of Devotion must needs be much alloyed by them A great part of the Worship is so whispered as if they were muttering Spells Their Books of Exorcisms are the most indecent things that can be full of Charms and other ridiculous Rites And for the Pontifical and Ceremonial of their Church they may match with Heathenism for Superstition Their Offices are so various and numerous and the Rubricks seem so full of disorder that a man may as soon learn a Trade as know all the several parts of them How this can be reconciled to the Simplicity of the Gospel or the Worshipping God in spirit and truth may be easily judged by those who can compare things For the Sacraments we have the Two that Christ Instituted Baptism and the Lords Supper And for Pennance Confirmation Ordination and Marriage we have them also among us as they were appointed by Christ and his Apostles though we do not call these Sacraments For Extream Unction we find no warrant at all for it as a sacred Ordinance and we are sure the Church for many Ages did not think of it For Baptism it is done among us in the very Form our Saviour appointed and this they do not deny But among them they cannot be assured that they are at all Baptized since according to the Doctrine of the necessity of the Intention of the Priest to the Being of a Sacrament they cannot be assured of it for an Atheistical Priest can spoil their Baptism so that unless they can be certain of that which is impossible for them to know I mean the Intention of the Priest they are not sure that they were ever truly Baptized But for the Lords Supper if any person will so far trust his own Reason and senses as to compare all the Warrants we have in Scripture for that Ordinance with the Practice of our Church and theirs they will soon see who agree most to them Christ took Bread which he blessed and gave saying This is my Body which is given for you He also took the Chalice and said Drink ye all of it c. All this we doe and no more so that it is indeed a Communion among us and those who have read the account that Iustin Martyr gives us of the Rites in the Communion in his days would think he were reading the very Abstract of our Office But in the Church of Rome besides the less material things of the Form of the Bread the Consecration of Altars and Vessels with the numberless little devices in the Canon of the Mass that they seem not of such importance let these considerable changes they have made be looked into 1. They have brought in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation against the clearest Evidence both of sense and reason against the nature of a Sacrament and its being a Memorial of Christs Death and that by the very words of Consecration the Bread and Wine are Christs Body and Blood as the one was given for us and the other shed for us on the Cross and not as he is now at the Right hand of God The belief of this crept in by degrees from the eighth Century in which it was first set on foot but much contradicted both in the Eastern and Western Church and was not fully setled till the 13th Century We are sure it was not the Doctrine of the Churches of Rome Constantinople Asia Antioch nor Africk in the 5th and 6th Centuries by express Testimonies from the most esteemed Authors of that time Gelasius Chrysostom Ephrem Theodoret and St. Austin 2. They deny the Chalice to the Laity against
then other Churches are not in that case obliged to hold Communion with that See If therefore the possiblity of Error in that See be acknowledged then holding Communion with it cannot be the measure of the Unity of the Church So we bring it to this Issue It is not Heresie to say The Pope may Err Therefore this is no just prejudice against our Church because we have departed from Communion with him when he imposed his Errors on us So all the high things they boast of that See come to nothing except they say This Proposition is of Faith That the Pope is Infallible And for these Meetings that they call General Councils they were at best but the Councils of the Western Patriarchate artificially packt and managed with much Art as appears even from Cardinal Pallavicini's History of the Council of Trent For the Third Prejudice It is the most disingenuous thing that can be Because our Church is charitable and modest in her Censures and theirs is uncharitable and cruel in her Judgments therefore to conclude That Communion with them is safer than with us If confidence and Presumption Noise and Arrogance are the marks to judge a Church by we must yield to them in these but if Truth and Peace Charity and holy Doctrines be the better Standards then we are as sure that our Communion is much safer Let this Rule be applied to the other concerns of human life and it will appear how ridiculous an abuse it is to take measures from so false a Standard If a man were sick the Question comes Whether he shall use an approved Physitian or a Montebanks On the one hand the Montebank says He will certainly cure him and the Doctors will undoubtedly kill him On the other hand the Doctor modestly says he will undertake nothing but will do the best he can and for the Montebank he tells him It is very dangerous to trust to him though he will not deny but sometimes great cures are done by them The Insolence of the Montebank will never carry it against a Doctors modesty but among weak and credulous People and such must they also be who are taken with this Montebankry in Religion But if this be taken to pieces the folly of it will yet appear more manifest For First the reason we give for a possibility of Salvation in the Church of Rome is because we look on such and such things as the Essentials of Christianity which are yet retained in that Church And either this Reasoning is true or false If it be true then it is as true that we may be saved who retain these Essentials of Christianity If it is false then no Inference can be drawn from it Secondly Though we yield a possiblity of Salvation in that Church we declare that they are in great danger by many opinions among them which if fully understood and believed do even vitiate the Essentials of Christanity particularly that Foundation of Religion The Covenant between God and Man thorough Christ formerly insisted on So that we declaring a Certainty of Salvation to those who sincerely follow the rules of our Church and a great danger in their Church the preferring their Communion to ours upon this account is as unreasonable as to sleep without shutting our Doors because it is possible we shall not be robbed in so doing Or when we are at Sea to prefer a Cock-boat to a good clean Ship These are such absurdities that an ordinary measure of weakness cannot swallow them down Thirdly We are not so forward as they imagine in yielding a possibility of Salvation in their Church For our concession amounts rather to this that we do not deny it than that we positively affirm it And therefore they have no reason to draw these advantages from it 4. A great difference is to be made between what God in the Infiniteness of his mercy may do and what he is bound to by the Covenant made with man in the Gospel for the former we acknowledg it is impossible to fix the limits of that mercy which is as far above our thoughts as the heavens are above the Earth And how far it extends to all sincere minds we are not so presumptuous as to define therefore we will not Damn at pleasure as they do but we do assert Their Church is guilty of such gross Corruptions by which the vitals of Religion are vitiated that they have not that reason to claim the Mercies of the Gospel due by that Covenant 5. The Church of Rome has a dark and fair side the dark side is what the true consequence of their Opinions is the fair side is what some witty men have devised to palliate these corruptions with and to deceive the Vulgar by We know many of that Communion either do not at all know these corrupt Doctrines or have such a fair representation made of them that they are thereby both more easily and more innocently misled From hence it is that we are inclined to hope more charitably concerning some that are abused by them But for those that have examined things more fully or that having been bred among us yet reject the Truth and go over to them we are not so much enclined to have so good hopes of them as they imagine So this is a weak and ill grounded conceit in all the parts of it The Fourth Prejudice is concerning the necessity of Submitting to some Common Judg of distrusting our own reasons and believing the Church without which there must be many Sects and Divisions and this they aggravate from the many different Parties that are among us But these are only specious pretences to deceive weak people by For First If-it is necessary that there be a Common Judg it is most necessary that it be known who this Judg is otherwise it is to no purpose to talk of a Judge if they cannot point him out This is like him that came to discover a huge Treasure that he knew was hid under ground but being asked in what place it was he answered he did not know that and he believed no body else knew Some say the Pope is the Judge others as confidently that the Council is Judge even without the Pope others think it is sure work to say the Pope and Council together and others say the Body of the Church spread over the World For the Popes some of them have been condemned for Heresie and others for making Schism many of them have been most horrid men they are generally ignorant in Divinity being for most part bred to the Law so that a great part of their own Church rejects the Popes Infallibility For Councils they have had none these 115 years and the last was so over-ruled by the Popes that no other has been desired since so that if either a Council without the Pope or with him be the Infallible Judge they have lost their infallibility and except a Council were constantly sitting they can shew no
in the Worship of God with which they could not comply any longer either they were obliged to Worship God against their Consciences or to lay aside all publick Worship or else to cast out these Corruptions by a Reformation Let any man of good reason judge whether the last of these was not to be chosen There was no Obligation lying on this Church to wait for the pleasure of the Court of Rome or our neighbouring Churches in this matter We are a free and Independent Church we owe a charitable and neighbourly Correspondence to forreign Churches but we are subject to none of them And according to the express Decision of one of the first General Councils in the like case we were no way subordinate to the See of Rome even as it was the Patriarchate of the West Themselves do confess that it is no Heresie to say That See is fallible and therefore we were not obliged to dance attendance at that Court when we discovered the Corruptions with which it had deceived the World but might in our National or Provincial Synods at home examine and Reform whatever errors were among us And the multitude of those who held these errors could be no just ground for delaying any advances towards a Reformation no more than in the ancient Church the Orthodox Bishops when chosen into a See corrupted with Arrianism were obliged because that Contagion was generally spread to make no attempts toward Reformation They Except further That the Reformation was begun here by a vitious Prince King Henry the Eighth who partly out of revenge because the Pope would not grant his desire about the Divorce of his Queen and partly to enrich himself and his Courtiers with the sale of Abbey-lands did suffer these Doctrins first to take head here and therefore they can have no good opinion of any thing that came from so wicked a man and upon such ill motives If this be a good Argument against the Reformation it was as good against Christianity upon Constantine's turning Christian for the Heathen Writers represent him with as black a character as they can do King Henry But we must not think ill of every thing that is done by a bad man and upon an ill Principle Otherwise if we had lived in Iehu's days the same Plea would have been as strong for keeping up the Idolatry of Baal since Iehu had in a very unsincere manner destroyed it and yet God rewarded him for what he had done But whatever might have been King Henry's secret motives his proceedings were regular and justifiable He found himself married to her that had been his own Brothers Wife contrary to the express words of the Law of God The Popes Legat and his own Confessor and all the Bishops of England except one thought his scruples were well grounded Upon which according to the superstition of that time he made his applications to the Court of Rome for a Divorce which were at first well received and a Bull was granted Afterwards some defects being found in that a more ample one was desired which was also granted and Legats were appointed to try the matter But the Pope soon after turned over to the Emperors Party whose Aunt the Queen was and was thereupon prevailed with to recal the Legats Commission destroy the Bull and cite the King to appear at Rome where all things and persons were at the Emperors devotion Upon all this the King did expostulate with the Pope that either his business was just or unjust if it was just why did he recall what he had granted and put him off with such delays If it was not just why did he at first grant the Bull for the Divorce This was unanswerable but the Pope did still seed him with false hopes yet would do nothing Upon which he consulted the chief Universities and the most learned men in Christendom about his Marriage Twelve famous Universities and above an hundred learned Doctors did declare under their hands and Seals some writing larger Treatises about it that his Marriage was against the Law of God And that in that case the Popes Dispensation which had allowed the Marriage was void of it self So after the King had been kept in suspence from December 1527 till February 1533 4. above six years he set his Divines to examin what authority the Pope had in England either by the Law of God or the practice of the Primitive Church or the Law of the Land and after a long and accurate search they found He had no authority at all in England neither by the Laws of God of the Church nor of the Land so this Decision was not made rashly nor of a sudden The Popes Authority being thus cast off it was Natural in the next place to Consider what Doctrines were then held in England upon no other grounds-than Papal Decrees For it was absurd to reject the Popes power and yet to retain these Opinions which had no better Foundation than his Authority Upon this many of the things which had been for some Ages received in the Church of Rome fell under debate And a great many particulars were reformed Yet that King was so leavened with the Old Superstition that the progress of the Reformation was but slow during his Reign But it was carried on to a further perfection under King Edward and Queen Elizabeth In all their Methods of proceeding there is nothing that can be reasonably censured if it be confessed that the Pope is not Infallible and the whole Church of Rome acknowledges that it is no Heresie to deny his Infallibility And for the Sale of the Abby-lands they only spoiled the spoilers For the Monks and Fryers had put these publick cheats on the Nation of Redeeming Souls out of Purgatory going on Pilgrimages with the worship of Saints and Images which were infused in the vulgar by many lying Stories pretended Apparitions the false shew of Miracles with other such like Arts. And the credulous and superstitious Multitudes were thereby wrought on to endow these Houses with their best Lands and adorn their Churches with their Plate and richest Furniture It was not to be expected that when their Impostures were discovered they should enjoy the spoil they had made by them nor was it for the publick interest of the Nation to give such encouragement to idleness as the converting all these Houses to Foundations for an unactive life would have been Many of them were applied to good Uses Bishopricks Cathedral and Collegiat Churches Hospitals and free Schools And more of them ought indeed to have been converted to these ends But the excesses of King Henry and his Courtiers must not be charged on the Reformers who did all they could to hinder them And thus all these prejudices with which the Vulgar are misled appear to be very unjust and ill grounded In conclusion If by these or such like considerations any that are now of that Communion can be brought to mind Religion in earnest considering it as a Design to save their Souls by making them truly pure and holy and so reconciling them to God through Christ And if they will examine Matters without Partiality seeking the truth and resolving to follow it wherever they find it and joyn with their Enquiries earnest Prayers to God the Father of lights to open their eyes and grant them his Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth there is little doubt to be made but the great Evidence that is in Truth will in due time appear so clear to them as to dissipate all these mists which Education implicite Faith and Superstition have raised by which they have hitherto darkened FINIS Acts 20. 21. Micha 6. 8. 1 Cor. 14. Matt. 28. 19. Matt. 26. 26 27. 28. ver Heb. 9. 26 28. Acts 8. 17. Morinus Heb. 13. 4. 1 Tim. 3. 2. 4. 11. Eph. 1. 22 23. Matt. 18. 7. 2. Cor. 3. 3.