infallible and the Mistress of all other Churches that there is a Purgatory with the rest of those Doctrines which they embrace and we reject Nay these opinions with their consequences rather tend to make men much worse than otherwise they would have been Some of them make them more loose and careless in the leading of their lives and some make them most cruel and uncharitable to such as differ from them yea render them many times disobedient to their rulers and furious disturbers of the peace by Plots and Treasons and Rebellions for the advancing of their cause True Christianity puts men upon no such courses but these are the natural effects of Popery as has often been verified by sad experience L. I understand you well and am fully perswaded that we in our Church do embrace all those Christian Doctrines that tend to the promoting of good life and do retain none that are an hindrance to it But what say you to their objections against Calvin and Luther who as my Author says were very wicked men and strange stories he tells of them out of Bolsec and other Writers of their Church T. To this I answer that it sufficiently appears how bad their cause is which must be maintain'd by the most odious lies and forgeries For there are no Books in the world less to be credited than those which their Monks and Priests have written in praise of those they have Canonized for Saints and in dispraise of such as they have damned for Hereticks making the former somewhat more than Angels and the latter worse than Devils But as to Calvin and Luther some of the more ingenuous even of their own Church have given a fairer character of them than their lying Bolsec and such Authors And had they but been as zealous for Popery as they were against it no doubt but they had past amongst them for great Saints with all their faults But in the mean time were they really as bad as they falsely accuse them to be yet are we little or nothing concerned herein since they were not the Reformers of our Church Nor yet if they had is it the goodness of this or that person which we are obliged to defend but the truth of our Doctrine and the lawfulness and necessity of our Reformation Thus they make a great out-cry against Henry the Eighth what a bad man he was and what ill designs he had in throwing off the Popes Supremacy which was the most he did toward the Reformation but let his designs be what they would the thing it self was justifiable and good VVhat if a bad Emperor upon carnal designs should have supprest Heathenism and promoted Christianity as Constantine himself was accused by some is this any dishonour to the Christian Religion But little cause have Papists of all men to talk of ill instruments whilst they may remember from what a Trayterous Murderer and Usurper the Pope first received the title of Universal Bishop for which he had been long quarrelling with the Bishop of Constantinople And however they slander Calvin and Luther we might with much more reason and truth object what kind of creatures multitudes of their Popes have been whom they own as Heads of their Church even such monsters of men for all manner of impiety filthiness and cruelty as the world hath scarce ever heard of the like And this we have from those of their own Church who have written their Lives and their greatest Champions such as Bellarmine and Baronius cannot deny it L. But it s further objected against Calvin and Luther and the first Reformers that they never wrought miracles to shew they had a commission from God T. Our first Reformers never pretended to bring in any new Religion only they cast out Popish Innovations which had corrupted and defaced it and for this they needed no extraordinary commission from heaven nor any miracles to warrant the same For they preached no other but the same old Religion which was taught by Christ and his Apostles and was abundantly confirmed by the miracles which they wrought long ago And with us the Reformation was begun and carried on in a just and regular manner by our Rulers in Church and State who had full authority to make the same even as the Kings and High-Priests of old had to reform any abuses and corruptions which at any time were crept into the Iewish Church And as these needed no new commission from Heaven no new miracles to authorize them to rectifie disorders and reform the Church according to the rules of Moses's Law no more did our Reformers need them for the removing of those errors and superstitions which had by degrees been brought in contrary to our Saviours Gospel L. I see no reason indeed why miracles should be expected from them who only cast out new inventions and keep fast to the old Christian Religion which hath already been confirmed by so many and great miracles But yet my Author says that in their Church they have had miracles wrought in all ages such as curing the blind and deaf raising the dead and casting out of Devils which he accounts to make mightily for the honour of their Saints and of the Church to which they belong T. In the Primitive times indeed such miracles were wrought for proving of the Christian Doctrine that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and all that he taught most certainly true and this Doctrine so confirmed is the Religion which we at this day do openly profess in our Church But then I utterly deny that ever such miracles were wrought to prove the truth of Popish Doctrins properly so called as of Transubstantiation Pargatory Invocation of Saints c. for these were never taught by Christ or his Apostles and therefore could not receive confirmation from the miracles of their working As to any that are pretended to be done in the Church of Rome for the attesting of these they are meer cheats and forgeries or lying wonders agreeable to the nature of those false Doctrines which they are designed to confirm And though your Author talks of healing the sick raising the dead c. I can hear of no such thing done by any of them amongst us whatever they may pretend to in Popish Countries where it s an easie matter for cunning Priests to impose upon credulous people But were indeed any such miracles wrought for the proof of Popish Doctrines one would think they should be done amongst those they call Hereticks who stand in need of such arguments for their conviction rather than amongst their own people who need them not Great Stories they often tell of their casting out of Devils and for this knack are their Priests mightily magnified by their deluded followers and prefer'd before the Ministers of our Church who pretend to no such matter But that this is a gross cheat seems plain enough from hence that what their Priests pretend to in this kind for all that ever I could
to draw them into a submission and therefore especially do they account the Greeks to be Hereticks and Schismaticks though I know they lay some other things to their charge But besides the Greek Church there are multitudes of other Christians in several parts of the world who submit not to the Bishop of Rome So that this boast of their vast numbers in comparison of others is as false as it is weak For according to the computation of many learned men if all the Christians in the world were divided into four parts those who belong to the Romish Church where ever they are scattered would not make one quarter of them With what face then can they pretend that they alone are the whole Catholick Church As if there were no Christians in the world but themselves all the rest being Hereticks or Infidels or what they please to call them L. But they say these Churches are not Protestants T. Whether that name be proper to them or not it 's enough that they joyn with us in the most substantial points against the Papists As to the name of Protestants I before told you we do commonly understand by it those who have reformed themselves from the errors of the Romish Church and have cast off her authority which before she unjustly usurped over them And in this sense there are a great many large and flourishing Churches of them in these Western parts of the world besides numerous Plantations in the East and West-Indies especially in the latter where many of the Native Heathens have been converted by them But as to the Greeks and those other Churches who never were enslaved to the Bishop of Rome though the name of Protestant may not so fitly belong to them yet do they agree with us in utterly disowning the Supremacy of that Bishop which is the very fundamental Doctrine of the Romish Church by which especially they are distinguished from those of all other communions As to other points wherein the Romanists and the Reformed differ in some of them the Greeks agree with us in others with them But that which is most material to my purpose is this that all these Churches do hold the same essential Articles of Christian Doctrine with us They receive the same holy Scriptures and the same ancient Creeds in which our faith is contain'd but then they reject many of those additions which in latter times have been made by pretended General Councils of the Roman Church Particularly I say they deny the Supremacy and Infallibility of that Church the chief of their new Doctrines By this therefore judg whose faith is most Catholick or Universal whilst many of their fundamental Articles as they esteem them are rejected by all Christian Churches besides themselves who are not a fourth part of Christendom whereas all the Articles of our Faith are embraced by all these Churches yea even by the Church of Rome it self for as I have often said the sum of our Faith and Religion is in the Apostles Creed and this hath been received by the whole Catholick Church in all times and places and the Roman Church also retains it though she has added new Articles to it But if she has any good pretence to the title of being part of the Catholick Church it must be upon account of her receiving and professing this same Christian Faith which we together with the whole Church of Christ do hold and not on account of those new Articles she has added which are so generally disown'd both by us and all other Christians in the world except their own party and which were utterly unknown to the Catholick Church for many ages after our Saviour Judge then I say whose faith is most Catholick theirs or ours L. I confess there seems little difficulty in the case but yet I have heard them oft object that ours is for the most part a Negative Religion made up of Negative Articles as that the Pope is not Head of the Church that there is no Purgatory no Transubstantiation c. Now they say we find no such Negative Doctrines in the Catholick Church of old and therefore we do herein differ from it T. To this the answer is exceeding easie that we hereby only reject those corrupt additions which the Romish Church hath made to the ancient Catholick Faith And their obtruding these falshoods on the world gave occasion for such Negative Articles as those you mention which we now look upon as very necessary to shew that we keep close to the ancient Rule of Faith delivered by Christ and his Apostles which Faith we keep entire and do express it most positively and plainly as we have it in the Creed But the Novelties which the Romish Church hath added to this we do utterly deny and reject As for instance when the Bishops of that Church many hundred years after our Saviour make a new claim of an Universal Jurisdiction over all Christian Churches we think it most just and necessary to disown all such his Supremacy as being no where taught in the Gospel nor mention'd in the Creed nor own'd by the Primitive Church The same we declare concerning their other Doctrines of Purgatory and Transubstantiation that we believe them nor So we also teach that there ought to be no worship of Images no Invocation of Saints or Angels c. and all this for the same reason because no where injoyn'd by our Saviour or his Apostles nor establish'd in any of the four first General Councils which we readily embrace but rather the contrary to these is either expressly taught or plainly enough insinuated And if the Church of Rome shall still go on to coin new Articles we shall as occasion is offered still be as ready to reject them declaring them to be no part of our Faith And by this means we do best manifest our conformity to the Catholick Church in all ages contenting our selves with that Faith which she hath ever profest and transmitted to posterity And here it is a most ridiculous thing for them to bid us shew where the Church of old held such Negative Articles as we now do since these were not like to be heard of before the errors that occasion'd them were introduced As when the Judaizing Christians taught the necessity of keeping Moses Law then the Apostles denied it and establish'd the contrary Now suppose this error had not been broach'd till some hundred years after had it not been sufficient for the Christians then to say that the Apostles never taught it who revealed the whole Counsel of God and therefore certainly it could be no part of their faith And so say we of the Doctrines before mention'd the Popes Supremacy the worship of the Blessed Virgin and the like if these had been so necessary as Papists hold we should hear of them in our Saviours Sermons or in some of the Epistles written by the Apostles to several Churches or sure we should meet with them in the writings
of the most ancient Fathers or in the Decrees of the first Councils but since we find no such thing we may firmly conclude them to be no essential Articles of the Christian Faith As if now that party in the Roman Church which asserts the freedom of the Blessed Virgin from Original sin should so far prevail as to get a Council like that packt up at Trent to establish this new opinion as an Article of Faith would it not be enough for us to reply that this is no where to be found in Scripture or in the Creed and therefore whether true or false yet certainly is no article of faith And thus we shew our selves to be of the same faith with the Catholick Church of old whilst we embrace the very same Articles which she did and what more is obtruded upon us as part of the faith we do constantly reject it either as false or as unnecessary Though as to all or most of the points which we thus reject you will find sufficient evidence against them in holy Scripture as I shall afterward shew L. But they commonly say that they have only established these new Doctrines in opposition to new Heresies with which the Church in former times was not troubled and therefore did not so fully and expresly determine against them as they now have done yet they pretend that these their new Articles were plainly implied and contain'd under some head or other of ancient Doctrine T. All this is most false and frivolous since if these new coin'd Articles of theirs had been true there was the same reason why they should have been taught anciently as well as now and occasion enough was frequently offered To instance in one for all If Saint Peter was indeed to have been made supreme Governour of the Christian Church and the Bishops of Rome after him would not our Saviour have told his Apostles so when they were contending who should be greatest And after this in the Primitive times when there were often hot contentions amongst Bishops and Churches would they not all have appeal'd to the Pope for the decision of their controversies and have yielded submission to his sentence if this had been the current Doctrine of the Church that he was their Supreme Governour and Infallible Judg But alas we find no such matter And consider further that when Heresies arose the ancient Fathers who wrote against them plainly shew'd how they contradicted the Holy Scripture and the common Doctrine contain'd in the Creed as explain'd by those who went before them Thus when the Arrians denied the Divinity of our Saviour the Orthodox both proved it by Scripture and urged that Article of the Creed that Jesus is the Son of God which they shew'd was still interpreted of his partaking of a Divine nature as was afterward therefore more fully exprest in the Nicene Creed But now where can Papists shew Scripture in proof of their Novelties Or in what Article of the Creed will they prove them to be virtually contain'd and shew that the Article was so understood by those Ancients who have written Comments on the Creed How will they by this method make out that the Pope is Christs Vicar on Earth not surely because Christ is the Son of God Or what because there is mention made of the Catholick Church must that be meant only of the Roman Church so that none must belong to it but those who yield subjection to the Pope But what ancient Writer did ever thus explain this or the other Article And to what Articles I beseech you must we reduce those other peculiar Doctrines of theirs Transubstantiation Purgatory c. with the rest of their gross Errors and Innovations These therefore do we most justly reject as being corrupt additions to the ancient Christian Faith the common Faith of Gods Holy Catholick Church which we retain firm and entire without adding or diminishing CHAP. IV. Of the fourth Mark of the true Church that it is Apostolick L. BY your last discourse I am fully satisfied how little reason Papists have to assume and engross to themselves the title of Catholicks and that our Church of England is a true and sound part of the Catholick Church And at the same time I do also perceive that the last mark of a true Church doth as properly belong to it viz. that it is Apostolick T. This is indeed so very plain from what hath been said under the former head that I reckon there is little need to spend much time in speaking particularly to it For as I have often inculcated our Church receives all those Doctrines which we are certain were taught by the Apostles that faith which was delivered by them to the Churches which they planted as it is to be found at large in their writings and which is summ'd up in that which we call the Apostles Creed as being the Summary of their Doctrine All the Articles of this Creed we do stedfastly embrace and profess and that in the plain sense of the words according to the commonly received interpretation of the Church of Christ in the first and purest ages And thus our Doctrine is Apostolical so also is our Government our Worship and Administration of the holy Sacraments and therefore our Church doth most justly deserve the title of an Apostolical Church For according to the precepts and example of the Apostles we worship the true God in the name of his Son Jesus our only Mediator and that in a language understood by the people We baptize with water In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And in the Lords-Supper do give both Bread and Wine to the people according to our Saviours own institution In a word we preach the very same Faith the same holiness and righteousness of life which the Apostles did But on the other hand it 's most certain that as to the chief points wherein the Church of Rome and we differ the Apostles never delivered those Doctrines nor enjoyn'd those practices which are obtruded upon us by that corrupt Church They never taught that the Bishop of Rome is the supreme and infallible Head of the Church They never taught us to pray to Angels or Saints no not to the Blessed Virgin her self nor to make Prayers for the Dead that they might be delivered out of Purgatory nor to take away the Cup from the Laity nor to worship the consecrated Host to adore Images or to make any use of them in Religious service These things with many others now used in the Church of Rome were never taught or practised by the Holy Apostles and therefore so far that Church is not Apostolical L. I do verily believe it deserves not that name with respect to those Doctrines and practices wherein it differs from us But I hear them often making great boasts that theirs must certainly be an Apostolical Church because an Apostle himself was once their Bishop even St. Peter and he ordained another
from the corruptions of Popery the Blessed Fruits whereof we do at this day enjoy and hope we shall still continue so to do through the same Divine Grace and favour which first bestowed this mercy upon us though most unworthy of the same But leave we this shadow of an Argument and pass to his third L. Pray do so T. It is this That Church is only to be heard which â—â—s all the marks of a true Church but the Roman Câ—urch has them and no other therefore she only is to be â—â—ard These marks as he goes on are Antiquity Miracles Holiness of Life and Doctrine Universality Uâ—â—ty Succession of Bishops from the Apostles these he calls Infallible Marks of the true Church which belong to none but that of Rome L. These marks of the Church or most of them I do well remember you spoke largely to in the beginning of our â—â—st conference and from what you have there said I 〈◊〉 furnished with a sufficient Answer to this Argument viz. that the Church of Rome as it is now corrupted with â—hose Doctrines wherein Popery consists such as the Popes Supremacy and Infallibility Purgatory Transubstantiation c. it cannot truly plead these marks he lays down For these Popish Doctrines are not of the same Antiquity with pure Christianity there never were any true Miracles wrought to confirm them they are not Holy in themselves nor do tend to promote Holiness of Life but rather the contrary they are not nor ever were Universally received by all Christian Churches nor is there much Unity amongst themselves in their explication of them though if there were this signifies nothing as being but the Unity of a Sect within it self and though their Bishops may live in the same City that the Apostles once did yet they did not receive these Doctrines from the Apostles but have introduced them since some at one time some at another and therefore in respect of Doctrine they are not the Apostles Successors nor are to be hearkned to as such T. What you alledge is most undeniably true And let me further add that suppose the Church of Rome were now as pure in its Doctrine and Worship as in the very days of the Apostles it was so that these marks did really belong to it yet this is no good Argument that we must all therefore be of the Church of Rome if ever we hope to be saved since many other Churches might plead the same even all that received the Christian Religion in the same purity and simplicity whose Members therefore might have as good grounds to hope for Salvation But when we further consider how that Church has degenerated from its Primitive purity beside that it has no dominion over us there is still much less reason that we should for the embracing of her Communion desert our own Church of England which is a most sound part of the Catholick Church as any this day in Christendom To her agree all the marks of a true Church as I have formerly shewn She hath these mention'd by this Author Antiquity c. For the Doctrines of our Church are as old as the times of our Saviour and his Apostles This is that true Christian Doctrine which was confirmed by all those Miracles which are recorded in the New-Testament These Doctrines are all Holy as well as True and have a natural tendency to make men Holy and Good These are Universally received by all Christian Churches that now are or ever were in the World being the very same you find summ'd up in the Apostles Creed Thus are we at Unity with the truly Catholick Church and thus whilst our Ministers Preach the very same Doctrines use the same Worship and Sacraments which the Apostles did they are in that respect truly their Successors Yea beside this those Bishops of our Church whom God made use of for the Reformation of it did receive their Orders from those who were of the Church of Rome so that if their Ordination be valid so is ours if they have a succession from the Apostles so have we To say nothing of what is commonly related in History that some of the Apostles or Apostolical men sent by them first planted Christianity in these parts from which time it was never utterly rooted out But I think I need add nothing more on this Head having already said so much in another place L. No Sir but rather proceed to the fourth Argument T. It is this That Church is to be heard which takes the narrow way that leads to Life Matt. 7. but the Roman Church takes it and therefore she is to be heard And this he proves because she takes as he says not only the way of Gods commands but also the narrow way of Christs Counsels What say you to this L. Even the same in effect that you lately said upon the former Argument viz. that supposing it to be true that the Church of Rome does take this narrow way yet it is not she alone that takes it and therefore there is no necessity that I should renounce all other Churches for Communion with her I am sure there is no reason why I should on this account forsake our own Church wherein the precepts of Christ are most plainly taught and strictly urged upon the people and in the very same way to Heaven are we dayly exhorted to walk in which our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles have led us by their Example as well as Doctrine even the way of Piety Righteousness and serious Holiness T. Your Answer is solid and true L. But I have yet somewhat more to say against his Argument and do directly deny that their Church takes the same way to Salvation in all things which our Saviour hath proposed in his Gospel For whatever he talks of their following not only his Commands but his Counsels yet sure I am that their Church requires many things to be believed and done in order to Salvation which our Blessed Saviour never commanded counsel'd or taught and therefore in these things they do not take the way of the Gospel but one of their own devising For in the Gospel we no where find that a Man cannot be saved except he acknowledge the Popes Supremacy believe Transubstantiation worship Images c. These things I think are directly contrary to the Doctrines and Precepts of the Gospel and yet these with many more of like nature are required in the Roman Church with all strictness imaginable in doing of which she takes not the way of the Gospel nor therefore in this ought she to be heard T. Most certainly she ought not But you have all the reason in the World to remain fixed in Communion with your own Church which requires nothing to be believed or practised as of necessity to Salvation but what is revealed in the Holy Scriptures Herein following the direction which our Saviour gave to his Apostles and in them to their Successors Matt. 28. ult that they should
in all ages hath acknowledged and walked in But the Church of Rome which may well enough be stiled the Popes little flock hath peculiar Doctrines of its own which she hath added to the common truths of Christianity many of which Doctrines do apparently lead men to the broad way even to loosness of life and manners as hath been already shewn T. There needs nothing more be added to what you say and therefore I shall proceed to his sixth and last question viz. Can you shew me any miracles that ever were wrought in testionony of the truth of your Religion Or that all the miracles which Catholicks shew to have been done in confirmation of their Religion have been false or were wrought be Beelzebub any more than those which Christ did work in his life time L. I do well remember the answer that long since you gave to this the summ of which was that since our Religion is that same holy Christian Religion which was taught by our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles all those miracles which they anciently wrought in confirmation of their Doctrine do at this day confirm ours also which being the same with theirs needs no new miracles for that purpose For by those miracles of theirs besides other weighty arguments we are fully assured that Iesus Christ is the Son of God that he died for our sins and rose again from the dead with the rest of the Creed wherein is briefly comprized the summ of our Belief the chief articles of our Religion And when our first Reformers rejected those Popish errors which had been added to these ancient Christian Doctrines as they needed no extraordinary commission for this their reformation no more did they need any miracles to confirm their commission It was enough that they had authority from God from the Church and from their Prince to preach the truths of the Gospel and to reject all errors contrary thereto and to remove those abuses which in later times had crept into the Church But whilst they only preach'd that same Gospel which had been abundantly confirmed already by mighty signs and wonders they no more needed any new miracles than if such errors and abuses had never been brought in And as to those false Doctrines wherein Popery consists such as the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation c. we do utterly deny that ever any true miracles were wrought in confirmation of them whatever fine tales their Monks may tell us in their Legends And for any to compare these their lying Legends so full of most ridiculous and prodigious stories with the account that is given of the miracles done by our Saviour and his followers in the New Testament is to be guilty of notorious impudence and blasphemy and plainly tends to promote infidelity and Atheism T. Your censure is very just and your answer solid and satisfactory as are the rest you have given By all which it appears that your Author had little cause to say that they who ask the resolution of these doubts from their Ministers if they have any light of reason will find how much they are deluded For blessed be God I hope many of our people are so well instructed that they will not be imposed upon nor much puzled with such captious Questions as these Especially whilst they seek to their Ministers for a resolution of their doubts by the grace of God they shall be secured from the delusions of Popish Emissaries who go about seeking whom they may deceive CHAP. III. An answer to some Propositions said to be unanswerable by Protestants T. IN the next place I find your Author at his Scholars request furnishing him with some unanswerable Propositions as he vainly stiles them against Protestants Of these he names eight taken as he says from Costerus the Jesuit who therewith if we may believe him put all the ablest Ministers of Germany and the Low-countries to their wits ends Which if it were so one would wonder that there were any Protestant Ministers or people left in those Countries and that they were not all long since driven out of their wits and their Religion into Popery But had they never used those terrible arguments of fire and sword Prisons and Inquisition no body would much fear their pregnant arguments difficult questions or unanswerable Propositions The two former we have already dispatched let us now survey the last in which I am apt to think we shall still find a tedious repetition of many the same things that we have already often heard which if it be so we shall more briefly pass over them L. Probably you will find it so However I think we shall sooner have finished if you please to give the answer your self to these his Propositions which I shall exactly recite to you T. That shall be as you will But I hope you are not moved with his formidable title of Unanswerable Propositions L. I have no reason I am sure if they be like his unanswerable Questions in which there proved little or no difficulty T. Their common way is to make up the want of good Reason with great words and loud noise producing only thin fallacies and empty sophistry whilst they talk big of Infallible Evidence and clear Demonstration But let us hear these dreadful Propositions I beseech you L. His first is this Never since the Apostles times till Luther began his new Doctrine in the year 1517 was any man found in the whole World who did in all things consent with either Lutherans Calvinists Anabaptists or other Sectaries opinions Nor shall ever any of the Sectaries prove the Apostles or Evangelists to have been of the Lutheran Calvinistical or any other new Sect. Whence follows that Luther and the rest have no Faith at all but only a new fancied invention which they adorn with the name of Faith and that they are the men of whom the Scripture in several places affirms that there will come in the latter times false Prophets T. As to Lutherans or Calvinists we own neither one name or other as has been often said nor are we concerned to vindicate any particular opinion of this Man or that though I reckon the Doctrine of both as to the substance of it to be sound and good at least so far as it agrees with that of our Church which only we are obliged to answer for and easily we may though he revile us also as Sectaries since it is no other than the same Christian Doctrine which is contain'd in the Gospel and summ'd up in the Creed and this let him confute if he can or attempt it if he dare And in this Doctrine we are sure both the Apostles of old with the Catholick Church in their Age and in all Ages since do fully consent with us Nor was it any new Doctrine that our Reformers brought in No but whilst they rejected Popish Novelties they retain'd those truths of Christianity which were as old as the first institution of Religion What
means he then by saying that none of the Ancients consent with us in all things In every little oppinion it 's scarce likely there were or ever will be two men in the World that do exactly agree No such agreement I am sure is to be found amongst the Divines of the Roman Church But as sure it is that we agree with the Apostles and Ancient Churches in all things material and substantial in all points of Faith necessary to Salvation For we embrace the same Holy Scriptures and the same Creeds which they did What means he again by saying that the Apostles were not of the Lutheran or Calvinistical Sect What that they were not followers of Luther or Calvin They were not like indeed but it 's enough I hope if Luther and Calvin were followers of the Apostles Thus what if he should say that the Apostles were not of the Church of England Is it not sufficient that our Church embraces the same Faith which the Apostles planted in all places where they came Wherefore we may with great reason conclude contrary to his extravagant and most uncharitable inferences that we have the true Christian Faith in our Church and not any new-fangled invention c. If the Apostles Creed be a Summary of the true Faith I am sure we have it since we do most heartily embrace this Creed and those Holy Scriptures whence it 's taken and therefore we are none of those false Prophets foretold in Scripture For whilst we keep close to God's Word as the rule of our Faith we are safe enough from deserving any such charge But how will they of the Romish Church acquit themselves from it whilst they have brought in many devices of their own to which the Apostles and Primitive Christians were meer strangers and therefore cannot be said to consent with Papists therein Such are their Doctrines of Purgatory Transubstantiation c. Such are their customs of praying in an unknown Tongue having private Masses where the Priest only receives in their publick Assemblies their half-Communions giving only the Bread to the people when they do Communicate c. None of these things were anciently taught or used in the Church and some of them but lately established amongst themselves These therefore we may justly say are new-fangled inventions devised of their own Brain contrary to Holy Scriptures And they who broach and maintain them are in this respect false Teachers and probably some of those who are foretold in Scripture at least they and their false Doctrines are condemned by it and that 's enough for our purpose L. It is so indeed and enough have you said to weaken and refute this his first Proposition If the rest have no more strength they are far from deserving that great title he gives them I shall rehearse the next if you please T. Presently you shall only take notice from what hath been said how plain the Answer is to that captious Question of theirs Where was your Religion before Luther Where was it Even there whereever the Gospel was received whereever the Christian Doctrine was own'd for that is our Religion and nothing but that It was therefore in the Primitive Church that was planted by the Apostles and in the whole Catholick Church in all succeeding Ages Our Religion was both in the East and the West even in the Roman Church it self For we grant they still retain'd the Christian Faith they kept and do still keep the Apostles Creed though they have added several new Articles to it and that especially in their Council of Trent which appear'd not in the World quite so soon as Luther Now the truly Catholick Ancient Christian Faith we receive but their new-coin'd Articles we reject So that before the Reformation our Religion was in their Church as Gold in a heap of Dirt or as one long since exprest it as the pure Flower amongst the Bran or as Corn among Tares And by the Reformation we only wash'd away this Dirt sifted out the Bran and plucked up the Tares But the old Religion the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles remains pure and entire L. But say they where did the Apostles teach that there is no Purgatory no Transubstantiation c Yet thus the Protestants teach and therefore they consent not with the Apostles T. Yes certainly but they do for as I have formerly told you we therefore say there is no Purgatory c. because the Apostles say no such things which be sure they would have done had they been true since they are such weighty and material points as the Church of Rome now accounts them What the Apostles taught that we receive what they taught not we refuse as knowing they were faithful in delivering all that they received of the Lord. Judge then which of us consents most with the Apostles we who receive all their Doctrines but reject what they never taught of they who teach these new Doctrines which neither the Apostles nor any of their first followers ever delivered nor were they for some Hundred years after generally profest so much as in their own Church Yea these Novelties were never directly and formally established as Articles of Faith and made necessary for all men of their Communion to believe till in these latter Ages some of them as I take it not till the very Council of Trent not yet an Hundred and fifty years since which they call a General Council though packt up of Bishops of their own Sect and the major part the Popes own creatures who used all the foul arts imaginable to carry things according to his humour as is plainly to be seen in the History of that Council written by some of their own Church Now in respect of these Articles in which Popery chiefly consists we may with great reason retort the question and demand Where was your Religion before the Council of Trent And were the Apostles of the same opinion with these Trent Fathers Compare their Creeds together and it will easily appear Yea compare that of Trent with any other of the old Creeds such as the Nicene or Constantinopolitan and it will easily appear what additions they have made to the ancient Faith whereas our Church receives those very same Creeds without addition or diminution To conclude this though we readily grant their Popish Errors to have been before our Reformation from them for they could not be cast out before they were brought in yet the great truths of our Religion were taught and received in the Church some Ages before those Errors were ever heard of Our Religion then did not first appear in Luther's days when the Reformation was wrought but is as old as since the time of Christ and his Apostles being nothing else but pure Christianity resormed from the errors and abuses of Popery These things I have already oft mentioned but could not well avoid the repetition of them on occasion of this his first Proposition which by this time you see
is far enough from being unanswerable Now let us hear the second L. It cannot be proved that the Religion and Faith of the Holy Roman Catholick Church hath been any way changed in any Article that belongs to the Religion by any Pope Council or Catholick Bishop nor can any of them be produced that have changed it But it is rather proved that the very same Faith hath remain'd entire and inviolate from the times of the Apostles to this very day and by continual succession or from hand to hand as it were is come to our hands Whence is manifestly gathered that it is the very same Faith which the Apostles taught and therefore the same that they learned from Christ their Master in his School T. The Answer which I have just now given to his first Proposition doth wholly take off the force of this second also For pray consider we do not charge those of the Church of Rome with directly changing the Articles of the Christian Faith for we grant they still retain the Apostles Creed wherein that Faith is briefly comprized and the Holy Scriptures where it is more largely taught But our great charge against them is their adding to this old Faith new Articles of their own devising some of them utterly uncertain some notoriously false which yet they impose as of absolute necessity to be believed in order to Salvation even as much as the Apostles Creed it self And for the vindication of these Novelties they give very corrupt and false interpretations of the ancient Articles and of the holy Scriptures themselves such as the first Christian Writers never gave Thus for instance they would have the Catholick Church mentioned in the Creed to signifie the Roman Church and so to comprehend only those who acknowledg the Bishop of Rome to be Head of the Church and Christ's Vicar upon Earth whereas none of the Ancients did ever thus explain this Article So that by their corrupt glosses they do in some instances very much change the Doctrine whilst they retain the Words But as to these novel additions which they would thrust upon us we do utterly deny that they were ever taught by Christ or his Apostles nor consequently could be delivered down from them successively to this present Age. Nay our Learned Writers shew as to many of them the very time when they were introduced by what Degrees and what Arts it was done and with what difficulties and oppositions they met They name the very Pope who first obtain'd the Title of Supreme Bishop of the Universal Church they name the Council where Image-worship was first established and after that when Transubstantiation and the Popes Power of Deposing Princes were Decreed c. Though as our Writers commonly urge it is a most foolish and ridiculous thing when we demonstrate the Errors of their Church for them to say there are none because we cannot shew the precise time when they were first brought in As if when the Tares were plainly seen in the field the Servant should have denied there were any because no body could exactly tell when they were Sown it being done while the Master slept It 's enough that we can tell the time long after the Apostles when their erroneous Doctrines were not received in the Church and that proves them to be no part of the Ancient Faith of Christians which has been always and every where received in the Catholick Church Nay as to one most corrupt custom of their Church that of taking the Cup from the Laity when they first established it by a Decree viz. in the Council of Constance not three hundred years ago they themselves do there acknowledg that it was permitted in the Primitive Church yet it now seem'd fit to the Church of Rome for what reason you must not enquire to order the contrary to that primitive practice But to conclude That faith which indeed the Apostles learn'd in Christs School and from him taught to their followers and which from them hath been transmitted from one age to another down to this present time this we do most readily own and imbrace even that faith which is delivered in the holy Scriptures and comprized in the Creed and so far as they of Rome do acknowledg this faith we have no quarrel with them But the new Articles decreed by late Councils of their own by no means can we admit not a syllable of them being mention'd in the ancient Creeds nor can they be proved by the Holy Scriptures but many of them are directly contrary thereto as hath been already shewn and will yet further appear in my answer to his following argument to which you may proceed L. His third Proposition is That it cannot be shew'd that either the Ceremonies Sacraments or any Doctrine of their Church contains any thing contrary to holy Scripture but rather their learned Doctors clearly teach and demonstrate all the foresaid things to be plainly consonant to Holy Writ Such be these Words This is my Body and others Whence it follows that Lutherans Calvinists and other Sectaries have ungroundedly and without reason separated themselves from the Roman Church That also they who withdraw themselves from the Catholick Churches bosom can give no reason why they turn rather to the Lutherans than to the Calvinists Anabaptists or such other Hereticks T. That the Church of Rome hath brought in Customs contrary to the Holy Scripture is very evident from that instance I gave under the last Head viz. their taking away the Cup from the people at the Communion contrary to our Saviours own institution and practice who gave the Cup as well as the Bread to his Apostles requiring them all to drink of it and this not as Apostles meerly but as they were his Disciples And he enjoyn'd them to do this hereafter in remembrance of him and consequently to give both the Bread and the Wine to all Christians that should come to the Lords Table And so the Apostle Paul expresly requires Let a man examine himself every man that is whether of the Clergy or Laity and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that Cup. According to the Apostle then every Man that is bound to examine and prepare himself for this Holy Sacrament ought to drink of the Cup as well as eat of the Bread And thus it was generally used in the Primitive Church by their own confession as you have heard And yet in these latter ages out of I know not what pretended reverence for the Cup no body must partake of it ordinarily but the Priest that consecrates which is I say most expresly contrary to the Scripture But for their excuse they have devised forsooth a fine Doctrine of Concomitancy which if you will do them the small favour to grant that of Transubstantiation to be true they think well enough solves all For they tell you that the Blood so accompanies the Flesh that he who receives one partakes of the other also and
which we are far from granting And even this much may well enough serve to shew the weakness of his argument L. Very weak it is indeed when though it should be granted yet makes little or nothing to his purpose T. But in the next place I would have you further consider what has often before been suggested and proved that the Church of Rome is at this day so degenerated and corrupted that supposing you lived under a Popish Government even in Rome it self where the Pope is in effect King as well as Bishop yet there it would be utterly unlawful for you to hold communion with that Church upon the terms now required by it For this Church I say is foully degenerated from its Primitive purity both in Doctrine Worship and Discipline and is thereby guilty in some sort of Apostasie Heresie and Schism even so far as to make her communion unlawful since it cannot be had without a most sinful compliance with her in gross errors and corruptions 1 I say she is guilty of Apostasie and have before made it evident in that she teaches such false Doctrines as were not own'd and uses such a corrupt way of worship as was not practised in the first ages of the Christian Church Hereby therefore she has Apostatized or departed from that purity and integrity which she was once honoured with when her faith was spoken of throughout the world Rom. 1. For pray consider a Church may be guilty of a great degree of Apostasie though she does not renounce the very name and title of Christianity Those Churches of Asia to which the Messages were sent in the second and third of the Revelation did not renounce the name of Christians but yet we read that they had faln from their first love and were so far declined that of some of them it s said they had only a name to live and were dead and are severely threatned that without repentance and reformation they should be destroy'd How the Church of Rome has vilely degenerated from the Primitive Church has already been shewn in many instances particularly as to their way of Worship whilst they pray to Angels and Saints make use of Images worship the Consecrated bread take away the Cup from the people in the Communion have their Service in an unknown Tongue c. Now because she is guilty of such Apostasie and corruption in her Worship every good Christian who makes conscience of worshipping God according to his will reveal'd in his Word may justly refuse to joyn with her therein 2 And not only in her Worship but in her Doctrine also she hath apostatized from the Primitive integrity even from the true rule of Faith the holy Word of God And on this account she may justly be reputed guilty of Heresie if by that word you understand very soul and gross errors apparently contrary to the holy Scriptures and to the Doctrines of the Primitive Church Such for instance are their Doctrines of the Popes Supremacy and power of deposing Princes for Heresie and of their Churches Infallibility be it in Pope Council people or where you will for they are not agreed amongst themselves about it Such also are their Doctrines of Transubstantiation Purgatory with others the like Now here it 's a vain thing to ask by what General Council were these Errors condemned what Fathers wrote against them c. since there never was any true General Council called since the Church of Rome broached and maintain'd these Errors And those who are commonly honoured with the title of Fathers viz. the Christian Writers for five or six hundred years after our Saviour were dead and gone before that time Though some of the most holy and learned men of those ages wherein these Errors were first published did with great zeal and diligence oppose and testifie against them as against Transubstantiation Image-worship c. But it 's enough for us that these Doctrines are contrary to Scripture and to the writings of the most ancient Fathers and were never established by those famous Councils of old which best deserve the name of General On account therefore of these false Doctrines also I reckon it utterly unlawful to hold communion with the Romish Church since we cannot be admitted to it without professing our consent to and approbation of them 3 And therefore lastly this Church is notoriously guilty of Schism that is of a groundless sinful separation from other faithful Christians whilst she makes such unlawful terms of Communion that no man well informed can with a good conscience comply with Now in order to our proving the Church of Rome guilty of Schism there 's no great need of answering his captious questions whose company did she leave where was the true Church which she forsook c. For though these questions are proper enough when we speak of the Schism of particular persons from the Church of which they were members yet the case is different when we are speaking of a whole Church its self becoming Schismatical this is to be shewn plainest by other methods to which I shall now apply my self and shall also as I go along give sufficient answer even to those questions so as shall abundantly serve to demonstrate the Church of Rome to be deeply guilty of this heinous sin of Schism and that on sundry accounts 1. If a particular Church shall advance her self above all other Churches and set up her Bishop as the Supreme Governour of all other Christian Bishops and Churches and will have no Communion with any but such as shall submit to her Supremacy this is a Schismatical Church For without any just ground she withdraws her self from her Sister-Churches and gives them just cause to renounce communion with her And this is the Case of the Romish Church who makes this proud claim and hath thereby divided her self from all other Churches that will not submit to her which they who do are themselves partakers with her in Schism whilst they set up a false head of the Church without any good warrant from Scripture Reason or Antiquity 2. When a particular Church on account of this unjust claim of Supremacy shall draw away the Members of other particular Churches perswading them to separate from their own Bishops and Pastors and to entertain such as she sets over them she is in this also plainly Schismatical as making horrid rents and divisions in neighbouring Churches which else might have lived in peace and union And those Members who are thus seduced and drawn away are also guilty of Schism in leaving their own proper Pastors to follow Usurpers and Intruders And this also is the case of the Romish Church and its adherents at this day 3. If any Church shall impose unlawful conditions upon her Members so that they cannot live in Communion with her without being guilty of wilfull sin then is that Church it self to be pronounced Schismatical and not those Members who for so good reason withdraw
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead and Indulgences p. 65 CHAP. VII Of Transubstantiation p. 75 CHAP. VIII Concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass. p. 102 CHAP. IX Of having Prayers in an unknown Tongue p. 105 CHAP. X. Concerning Confession of Sins to the Priest in order to his forgiveness of them p. 109 CHAP. XI Of Invocation of Saints p. 119 CHAP. XII Of the Worship of Images p. 129 CHAP. XIII Of Praying by Beads p. 142 CHAP. XIV Of Distinction of Meats p. 148 CHAP. XV. Of withholding the Scriptures from the Common-People p. 152 PART II. CHAP. I. COntaining an Answer to some Arguments against Protestants p. 167 CHAP. II. A Resolution of some Doubts and Questions proposed to Protestants 190 CHAP. III. An Answer to some Propositions said to be unanswerable by Protestants p. 200 CHAP. IV. An Answer to a pretended Demonstration That the Roman Church is the True Catholick Church p. 225 CHAP. V. Of the number of Sacraments with some other things briefly discust and the conclusion of the whole p. 239 A DIALOGUE BETWIXT TWO PROTESTANTS In Answer to a Popish Catechism CALLED A Short Catechism against all Sectaries PART I. A DIALOGUE BETWIXT A Teacher and a Learner CHAP. I. Concerning the true Church and the marks of it and first of its Unity Learner SIR I live in a place where there are many of those who call themselves Roman Catholicks and though I care not much for disputing with them for I seldom find any thing comes of it but anger and ill words yet I cannot always avoid it For some of them are my near Relations and they sometimes put Books into my hands and sometimes bring their Priest along with them to convince me and are still earnestly urging me to change my Religion and to forsake the Church of England telling me plainly that no Salvation is to be had out of the Church of Rome Teacher That I know is their common Doctrine but it is so very unreasonable and so horridly uncharitable that this alone were enough to keep a man from becoming a Papist since if he thorowly embrace their principles he must condemn all but those of their own way And believe it they had need to consider well how they can hope for mercy themselves who pass so severe a sentence upon others But thanks be to God whatever they talk of St. Peters Keys they are not hereafter to be our Judges nor are salvation and damnation at their disposing That God who will judg both us and them according to his own Gospel will one day justifie and acquit thousands whom they have condemned And therefore never be daunted by their insolent language and heavy censures The very same you may sometimes hear from Quakers and others of the vilest Sects For still the less reason the more wrath and considence that by bold and threatning talk they may fright people into their way when they want good Arguments to perswade them L. I believe it is so yet I 'le confess to you I am sometimes a little puzled with some of their subtle discourses and therefore I would desire you to furnish me with plain answers to the chief of those arguments which they commonly insist on These I think I can pretty well remember having heard them so often but to help my memory I have brought with me a little Book wherein they are contained and from thence shall propose them T. I shall readily give you my assistance herein Let me hear then how do they use to assault you L. Those I have met with do commonly begin with telling me as I find it here also in some of the first pages of this their book That there is but one Lâ—rd and one Faith one Religion and one Church wherein a man can be saved as there was but one Ark of Noah wherein he and his family were preserved T. We easily grant that there is one true Religion even that which Christ hath revealed and is therefore called the Christian Religion and there is one Catholick Church viz. the whole body of Christian people who embrace this Religion But there are many particular Churches which hold this same Faith as of old the Church of Ierusalem of Antioch c. so now of England of Scotland c. What then can they infer hence to their purpose L. That as Turks and Jews cannot be saved so no more can Hereticks T. It still beseems us to be more careful for the saving of our own souls than hasty in condemning of others Wherefore let us leave the condition of such who never heard the Gospel nor had any opportunity of hearing it to the wise and just Judg of all the Earth who will do right to all As for Hereticks they are such as deny some essential part of the Christian Faith and therefore properly speaking are not Christians But what 's all this to us L. They say that we of the Church of England are Hereticks out of the Catholick Church and therefore cannot be saved T. Say it they commonly do but are never able to prove it since we believe the whole Religion of our blessed Saviour contained in the holy Scriptures We receive the ancient Creeds of the Church wherein is contained the summ of this Religion How then are we Hereticks L. Because we are not of the Roman Church which is the congregation of those who own the Bishop of Rome to be Christs Vicar and the visible Head of his Church upon earth which congregation they say is the Catholick Church and the only true way to salvation and they who are not of this communion are Hereticks and Sectaries T. This is the current Popish Doctrine but had it been the opinion of the Primitive Church in the Apostles days or soon after surely they would have given some such a definition as this of the Catholick Church or at least have call'd it the Roman Catholick Church as Papists now do but it s neither so called in the Creed nor this Article so explained by any Christian Writer in those days or long after L. Who then are to be reckoned as members of the Catholick Church T. Even all good Christians through the whole world that do sincerely believe and obey the Gospel of our blessed Saviour These are the true members of his Church and all who profess to do so are the outward visible members of this Catholick Church And in this sense we acknowledg with your Author that Christ hath always had a visible Church on Earth and will be with it to the end of the world nor shâ—â—â— the Gates of Hell be able to prevail against it Nor do we say as he charges us that the whole Church has been lost or put out but particular Churches in this place or that as at Ierusalem at Rome or any otherwhere may fall into great decay and at length into utter ruin Yet still Christ will have a Church upon earth still there will be men professing Christianity to whom
both Heathens Jews and all Infidels ought to joyn themselves L. Since then the Catholick Church signifies the whole society of Christian people where ever scattered over the face of the earth it hence appears that they who assert the Church of Rome to be this Catholick Church do thereby declare that there are no true Christians in the world but the Papists as we use to call them which seems to me very strange Doctrine But yet may not a particular Church be in some sense stiled Catholick T. Yes pâ—operly enough as it is a part of the Catholick Church holding the same faith with it and not schismatically dividing from it And thus of old the Church of Rome might be stiled Catholick and so might the Church of Ephesus of Antioch or any other place to distinguish them from Hereticks and Schismaticks that made factions and parties in their several Churches and separated from their own lawful Bishops and Pastors L. Are not those Christian Churches which are commonly callâ—d Reformed Churches parts of the Catholick Church T. Yes they are the best and soundest parts of it L. But why are they called Protestant and Reformed T. Not to trouble you with the first particular occasion of the name Protestant they are now generally stiled so because they protest against the errors and corruptions of the Roman Church and have Reformed themselves from the same according to the primitive pattern laid down in holy Scripture So that when you hear tell of the Protestant Religion or Reformed Religion you are not to understand thereby any new Religion distinct from Christianity but only the old Christian Religion in its native simplicity and purity separate from all Popish additions Nor do we say as I have told you that the Church was lost and now lately found out but this we say that it was greatly corrupted especially in these Western parts of the world over which the Bishops of Rome had by ill arts usurped an authority From which Usurpation our Rulers most justly and regularly delivered themselves and afterwards with great care and consideration reformed our Church from those corruptions which were chiefly introduced and supported by that authority L. But they of that Church use to tell us and so does my Author here that all who are not of their communion are Sectaries to whom by no means do agree the marks of the true Church which yet they say are all of them evidently to be found in theirs T. Nothing more common than for adversaries to give one another very ill names and that shall serve for half a confutation amongst ignorant people But names alter not the nature of things And as zealously as they of Rome do affect the name of Catholicks I doubt not but upon search they will be found as notorious Sectaries as any in Christendom whilst many of those whom they brand with that infamous title will appear to be true Catholick Christians if there now be or ever were any such in the world And in order to the proof of this pray let me hear what are those marks of the true Church L. They are said to be chiefly four that it is One Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church and this say they cannot be said of any Protestant Church and therefore not of our Church of England which is by them reckoned among Sectaries T. By these marks let us be tried Only take notice that no one particular Church can be stiled the Catholick Church as if a part was the whole But I say the Church of England which we are now chiefly concern'd to vindicate is a true and sound part of this One Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church and all the marks of a true Church do much more clearly and fully agree to it than to the Church of Rome But let me hear what they object to the contrary L. First they say it is not One that is it is not united because there are so many divisions in it Some will be Protestants some Presbyterians others Independents Anabaptists Quakers c. Nor can they be one whilst they acknowledg not one Head to determine controversies Whilst on the other hand the Papists pretend that they have this one Head one Faith the same Sacraments and so are all of one Religion and therefore having so much unity are to be own'd by this mark for the true Church c. T. In answer to this consider 1 That it cannot with any pretence of reason or Scripture be made the mark of a true Church that there shall be no divisions in it For were there not some to be found in the best and purest Churches immediately planted by the Apostles themselves As particularly in the Church of Corinth for which they are severely reproved 1 Cor. 1. 10 11 c. 2 Much less doth it become those of the Church of Rome to accuse others of divisions who have more and greater amongst themselves than can be found I believe in any other Church in Christendom They talk of one Head but sometimes they have had two or three Popes at once and that for several years together They are divided in points fundamental to their own Church as whether the Pope be above a General Council or the Council above the Pope Nor are they any more agreed where the Infallibility of which they boast so much is seated than about the Supremacy whether it be in the Pope or in a General Council or in both together Yea some say 't is neither in one or the other nor in both united as considered apart from the rest but in the whole body of the faithful as by them Religion is convey'd from one generation to another And are they not much better for an Infallible Judg of controversies whilst they are not yet agreed who he is and where this Infallibility is to be found In a multitude of other points are they divided as learned Writers of our Church have shewn at large and with great probability have some asserted that they hardly agree universally amongst themselves in any Doctrines but those wherein they agree with us 3 But again were they never so well united amongst themselves yet is this but the agreement of a Sect with it self and is far from proving them to be therefore the Catholick Church or any sound part of it As if suppose all the Quâ—kers were perfectly agreed together in all opinions and imagin their number was as great as the Papists are they therefore to be reckoned the Catholick Church because forsooth they are One amongst themselves Surely no since by their errors and their schism they divide themselves from all other Christians Thus whilst Papists are united in owning the Pope to be Christs Vicar on earth and the supreme visible Head over the whole Christian Church they do hereby only make a sect or faction let their number be never so great And by this means as well as many other ill opinions and practices which are imposed on the
members of their Church they do separate themselves from all other Christians in the world who disown this Universal Headship of the Pope with the rest of their errors L. But they boast much of the Union of their Church because say they go where you will you shall find the same Worship the same Mass and this frequented in all places where their Church is owned by the members of it T. Still this is but an Union amongst themselves such I say as any party may have Quakers for instance may go to Quakers Meetings where ever they travel and yet still remain a Schismatical party And though I lay no great stress upon it yet formerly even in the Church of Rome however it is now with them they have had much variety in their publick Offices according to the different Usages of different places But still I say be they never so perfectly agreed in their own way of worship as well as in Doctrine there is nothing in this to prove them the One Catholick Church Nay it does not so much as prove them to be One with it as a sound part thereof except their Doctrine and Worship be such as agrees with that of the Catholick Church in all ages For any party I have told you may agree amongst themselves even whilst they are schismatically divided from others L. But they say our Church of England is not thus united because many separate from her Prayers and Sacraments T. And what is there no Unity therefore amongst the members of our Church because there are some who through peevishness weakness or any other cause separate from it Does not the main body of the people of this Kingdom through Gods mercy joyn in Religious communion and can freely resort to any Parish Church where they happen to be If some that live in the Nation will not thus joyn is that an argument against the union of those that do In some Popish Countries are there not many thousands who separate from the Church of Rome And do they take that for a good reason to prove them not to be united who joyn with it I trow not but yet it may do much to prove there is little true union amongst them to consider by what means they are held together viz. partly by force and violence at least in many places and partly by keeping the people in ignorance And is it not a fine kind of union think you to have men chain'd together in Iron fetters and kept in a dark Dungeon where they are not able to stir a foot from each other had they never so much mind And had the people in Italy and Spain but more light and more liberty you would quickly see what vast numbers would depart from their communion there as they have done in other places But ignorance is the bond of their union as well as the mother of their Devotion L. Yet is there nothing more common with them than to cry up the Unity of their Church and to exclaim against the divisions which they say are in ours T. They exclaim against them whilst more ways than one they endeavour to promote them They use also their utmost arts to aggravate and enhance them and make them be thought much greater than they are whilst they cunningly endeavour to lessen and conceal those amongst themselves which yet I reckon to be far greater than even those betwixt our Church and the generality of such as dissent from it And sometimes these their differences have been managed with as much heat and violence and have produced fighting and bloodshed as you will find largely related in the most learned Dr. Stillingfleet's Discourse on that subject But besides this certainly the Papists of all people have little reason to cry out against Schismaticks and Sectaries since they themselves will be found to be as great Schismaticks as any at this day amongst us and as dangerous too if we may judg of them by their principles For besides that the whole Popish Church may justly be accounted Schismatical in dividing it self from the rest of Christendom of which more hereafter those of them who live amongst us do wholly separate from our Church and pass a much more heavy doom upon us than I think most of our other Sectaries do For these do generally acknowledg the Church of England to be a true Church and grant her Doctrine to be sound and good and profess to hold communion with us in faith and love whilst they withdraw from us on account of some Modes and Ceremonies in Divine Worship Thus it is with many of them but now the Papists do plainly declare against our Church and Ministers that we have no true Faith nor Sacraments nor Christian virtue or piety but are cursed Hereticks in the most miserable state of damnation And all this chiefly because we submit not to the usurpation of a foreign power that of the Pope which at least in Spirituals they prefer before the power of our own Governours whether in Church or State So that in obedience to the Bishop of Rome who hath no more to do in England than the Bishop of Ierusalem they make no scruple of disobeying the King and Bishops and all the Laws of the Land at least I say in all matters that relate to Religion And whilst the Pope himself is Judg in the case what may he not hook in under that pretence And therefore may the Papists amongst us justly be reckoned as Schismaticks whilst they refuse communion with that Christian Church where they live which is a sound part of Christs Catholick Church and requires nothing unlawful of its members And very dangerous they are because they prefer a foreign Usurper before all the power of our own Church Especially if you also consider the current Doctrine of their Church that this same Usurper the Bishop of Rome has power to depose Heretical Kings as they account ours and to absolve their subjects from their Allegiance and dispose of their Kingdoms to others And this most intollerable tyranny over Princes have sundry Popes exercised when they have had power in their hands and have more than once attempted it in these Kingdoms Yea to this day many of the rigid and stricter sort of Papists refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance wherein this extravagant power of the Pope is denied Judg then whether I had not reason to say that men retaining these principles and on that account rejecting our communion are themselves such notorious and dangerous Schismaticks as have little reason to accuse others of schisms and divisions L. But though we own not the Pope to be an Infallible Iudg of Controversies have not we sufficient means for union in our Church T. Yes we have so whilst we acknowledg the Holy Scriptures to be the Infallible Rule of Faith in which all things necessary to salvation are plainly revealed and do also grant that the Governours of our Church have power to compose all differences
Prayers and Sacraments are framed and ordered according to the rules of it and all most evidently tend to the producing of that holiness which the Gospel most strictly requires being a Doctrine according to godliness as the Apostle stiles it And through Gods blessing on his own Ordinances and the endeavours of his faithful Ministers there are great numbers amongst us who do live truly religious Christian holy lives as many I am apt to think as are to be found in any Christian Church throughout the world of the same largeness with ours As to the wickedness of others which we justly lament as good men in all ages have sadly lamented the same this is the fault of particular persons and not to be charged upon the Church which owns no Doctrines that promote wickedness much less does she require of her members the embracing and professing of any such false and mischievous Doctrines nor does she impose upon them any thing which God has forbidden nor restrain them from any duty which he has commanded This therefore may sufficiently shew the Holiness of our Church to be such as that we may lawfully hold communion with it yea and are bound so to do since there is nothing sinful required of us in order thereto but here we may be as pious and holy as in any Church whatever and I think have as great helps and encouragements thereto L. My Author grants that there are some in our Church who appear modest and charitable and so there are among the Heathens but he says its all but outward appearance since we have no true Religion as he pretends and therefore can have no true virtue T. How utterly groundless and unjust is this charge whilst as hath been said before we do most firmly believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God and from this our belief in him and his holy Gospel do our works proceed and out of true love to God and to our brother Judg then whether they who have that faith in Christ which works by love are to be reckoned amongst Heathens and Infidels Or rather are not they destitute both of Christian charity and common modesty and ingenuity who talk at this absurd and most malicious rate L. Indeed I see not how they can excuse themselves herein but yet I hear them boasting often what numbers of Saints and Martyrs they have had in their Church both in former and latter ages and will allow no Saints in any other Church but theirs T. As to Saints of latter ages they keep up the names and tell fine stories of some of whom its much doubted whether they ever had a being in the world But which is far worse there are some whom they cry up for Saints and Martyrs who died as Rebels and Traytors against their Prince in a blind furious zeal for their great Master the Pope Such was their Thomas à Becket formerly and Garnet lately with others of the like stamp But as to the true Saints of former ages though some of them might live in the same places in which they of the Romish Church now do yet are they not to be accounted members of that Church according to its present constitution since they were utter strangers to those falshoods and superstitions which are now establish'd amongst them only they embraced that same pure plain Christian Religion which is at this day profest with us and are therefore rather to be reckoned of our Church than theirs L. This is plain enough but what say you to the great numbers of Religious people still amongst them viz. those of their several Orders in their Monasteries and Nunneries that live single lives being retired from the world that they may wholly give up themselves to Gods service for they talk much of these when they boast of the holiness of their Church T. For my part I hope there are some amongst them who deserve the name of Religious and where there is one truly so I wish there were an hundred Yea I would to God that both with them and all other Churches every man who is called a Christian may walk worthy of his holy profession I have no desire to make any party of men worse than indeed they are nor any delight in representing how bad they be or are commonly censured at least And therefore I shall say nothing of all that filthiness and lewdness which in former times their Monks and Nuns have been severely accused of by some of their own Church for I care not for raking in such a channel Nor shall I take notice how much they are degenerated from the first institution of a Monastick life in which men were wont to be very diligent and industrious in some honest and useful employment But yet that you may not be abused by fair shows and specious pretences I would not have you think that men and women are ever the more holy and religious for leaving their families and callings and shutting up themselves in Cloisters there to repeat over so many Creeds and Pater-Nosters in a day For there is no encouragement given in the Gospel for our entring into such a lazy retired course of life Nor is it at all like to the life of our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles neither do they hereby bring that honour to God nor that good to the world which by a more free and active life they might do So that I doubt not but that in thousands of pious well ordered families there is more true devotion yea more purity and chastity than in most of these their Religious Houses as they call them But beside all this there is one thing I would have you seriously to consider that though I grant there may be and I hope are some Papists truly religious whether in their Cloisters or out of them yet it is not as they are Papists but as they are Christians of the same faith with us who are reformed from their errors So that whatever holiness is amongst them it makes nothing for the honour of Popery that is of those Doctrines wherein they differ from us but of Christianity in its purity and simplicity as it is profest amongst us To speak yet plainer if need be any of them that are truly good become so through the grace of God by their firm and effectual belief of the Christian Religion viz. that Jesus Christ is the Son of God that he died for our sins and rose again for our justification that he will come to judge the quick and the dead and will sentence the wicked to everlasting punishment and receive the righteous to life eternal Such as these are the great truths of our Religion which being heartily believed and seriously considered do by Gods blessing thoroughly change mens hearts and lives and make them truly pious and good But no body becomes so by his believing that the Bishop of Rome is Christs Vicar and has power over all the Princes on earth that their Church is
Romish Church But for the Papist the happy man that has had the good luck to hit into this true Church they have so many tricks and quirks to secure him in his life at his death and after it that let his faults be what they will it s very strange if he miss of Heaven at least after he has taken Purgatory in his way if he was very poor for rich men may easily escape that too or get soon out of it if they 'l follow the Priests directions Such fine devices they have to give men a lift to Heaven without putting them to the trouble of walking in that narrow way of serious holiness which alone leads thither So that I cannot but say and without any prejudice or partiality I speak it notwithstanding all that noise and talk of holiness in the Church of Rome nothing but Holy Mother Church Holy Father the Pope Holy Altars Holy Images Holy Water Holy Crosses Beads Agnus Dei's Reliques and a thousand holy trinkets more yet I think there is as little true holiness of life and conversation to be found amongst them as in any Church of the world Yea we shall often find that when those of that way are told of the holy Lives of many Protestants or are themselves exhorted to strictness and piety of life as that wherein true Religion chiefly consists they will be ready presently to make a puff at it as if this was of no value in comparison of being of the true Church of the infallible Catholick Church as they fondly call their own Sect as if being in a good Church would secure a bad man when we are so plainly taught that without holiness no man shall see God let him be of what Church he will Wherefore to conclude this remember that since in the Church of England the holy Gospel is most purely taught and the holy Sacraments duly administred according to our Saviours own institution and the members of it are neither required to profess any falshood or practise any evil in order to their communion with it but on the contrary are most strictly enjoyned to be holy in all their conversation and do here enjoy all manner of helps and advantages thereto therefore I say this is such an Holy Church as that you may and ought to hold communion with it Proceed we now to the following Marks of the true Church CHAP. III. Of the third mark of the true Church that it's Catholick L. THE next mark he lays down of the true Church is that its Catholick And here they make great boasting and triumphing for they say none else call themselves Catholicks but they nor as they pretend have any reason so to do since they tell of vast numbers belonging to their Church in all places of the world far and near and how they convert Heathens whilst Protestants they say are but a little handful here and there in corners amongst a multitude of Catholicks T. As to what they call themselves it matters little for be sure they 'l give themselves good words Neither is it true that none but they lay claim to that name for we of this Church do esteem our selves true Catholick Christians as professing the ancient Catholick faith of Christ and so do frequently stile both our selves and our Doctrine and with good reason as I doubt not to demonstrate As to their great numbers compared to other Christians suppose what they alledge were true as it is most false yet is this no sufficient argument of their being true Catholicks for that 's to be judged by the truth of their Doctrines and not by the number of Professors For if we should at this rate go to the Poll and judg of truth by most votes then might the Mahometans carry it from Christians And heretofore the number of the Arrians was said to be greater than of the Orthodox But that 's to be accounted a true part of the Catholick Church which professes the Catholick faith even the same Christian Religion which all good Christians in all ages former as well as latter and of all Nations have ever constantly profest And by this rule you will find that the Church of England is a most true and sound part of the Catholick Church as professing this same Christian faith contain'd in the Gospel and summ'd up in the Apostles Creed Here you may remember what I have before told you that it is most vain and unreasonable for any one particular Church to stile her self the whole Catholick Church as if there were no Christians in the world but themselves And yet in this sense doth the Church of Rome stile her self Catholick the absurdity of which I have before shewed And there needs nothing more to manifest it than this single consideration that there are thousands and millions of Christians in several parts of the world who neither now do nor ever did own the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome which is the great fundamental article of their faith to pass by all others at present and yet all these whilst they embrace the whole Christian Doctrine taught in the holy Scriptures are to be lookt on as true Catholick Christians though they do not believe the Bishop of Rome to be Christs Vicar upon earth invested with Supremacy over all Christian Churches for this is a Doctrine which our Saviour never taught his Disciples Now without owning this false Doctrine a man cannot be of the Church of Rome according to the Decrees of their Popes and Councils and yet without this I say a man may receive the whole Christian Religion as it was delivered by Christ and his Apostles and therefore he may be a true Catholick Christian though he be not of the Romish Church nor yields subjection to it L. This seems to me very plain and clear T. But it will appear yet more plain if you consider what is a most certain truth that there can be no manner of good evidence given that the Church of Christ for some hundred years after our blessed Saviours time did ever receive this Doctrine of the Popes Supremacy or his Infallibility Nay our learned men assert that there is not so much as any one Christian Writer for at least three hundred years after that time some say four or five that did ever so much as teach any such strange Doctrine as this How then I beseech you can the owning of it now be necessary to make a man a Catholick when the whole Catholick Church for some ages after its first Plantation was a meer stranger to it L. I think there is no appearance of reason for it T. To this add that the whole Greek which was much larger than the Romish before it was over-run by the Turks ever disown'd these same new opinions of the Popes Supremacy and Infallibility with many others of the same stamp neither do they generally embrace them to this day though sometimes the Romanists have used all manner of arts and devices
Bishop to succeed him and so hath the succession continued to this day and therefore sure they must needs be an Apostolical Church T. In answer to this I shall wave the dispute whether indeed St. Peter was ever Bishop of Rome or no and shall pass by all that may be said of the frequent Schisms which have happen'd amongst them by their having sometimes two or three Popes at once and that for many years together nor shall I tell of the fine tricks and politick intrigues of the Cardinals at the Election of a Pope nor of those vile arts which are frequently used by such as aspire to that dignity all which tends very much to abate their honour and shews how unlike they are to the Apostles whose Successors they boast themselves to be But waving these things let me only desire you to consider how little force there is in this argument to prove their Church to be now Apostolical that once there was an Apostle Bishop of it except there still continue with them the same truth of Doctrine and purity of worship which the Apostles did at first teach and establish For let us grant that St. Peter and St. Paul with other holy men planted a Church at Rome yet is it not possible that here as well as at Ephesus might afterward arise men who should teach perverse things as we find it exprest Act. 20. 30. and thereby corrupt the Doctrine of the Gospel Was it not thus in many other Churches And may it not be so at Rome too yea most certainly we know it is so For though we grant that Church to have remain'd for a considerable time pure and uncorrupted yet for many ages by-past to this very day there have been such Doctrines and practices currently received and established in that Church as the Apostles never taught to them nor to any others And with respect to these I say they deserve not the title of an Apostolical Church meerly because an Apostle at first planted it and presided over it The Papists themselves will not now allow this title to any of the Greek Churches which were planted by the Apostles because they look upon them as erroneous and schismatical and certainly they themselves have as little reason to challenge it as any of their neighbours being at least as grosly degenerated as any though they may have more prosperity and greater numbers of people adhering to them It is not then so much the sitting in the same Chair as teaching the same Doctrines with the Apostles that makes a Bishop to be a true Successor of them Wherefore those Churches which were planted by holy men after the Apostles were dead and gone if they receive the same Doctrine and retain the same worship and Sacraments which the Apostles did these may most justly be accounted Apostolical Churches sound members of the One Holy Catholick Apostolick Church of Christ. L. I think there is great reason so to account them but it seems very unreasonable that any one Church should stile it self the Apostolick Church so as to exclude all others from that title especially so unsound a Church as that of Rome which is at this day so very unlike to what it was in the times of the Apostles T. It is indeed every whit as unreasonable as to arrogate to themselves alone the name of Catholick which we discoursed of before Nay let us suppose that the Bishops of Rome to this very day followed the example of the Apostles preached the same Doctrine led the same good lives and used the same holy worship and discipline so that their Church indeed deserved to be own'd as Apostolical yet what in reason could be infer'd from hence more than this viz. that the people in their own Diocess should be subject to them and that all other sister Churches ought to give them due respect and maintain such communion with them as those at a distance are capable of But it does not in the least follow that the Bishop of Rome is Christs Vicar upon Earth and their Church the only Catholick and Apostolick Church so that none must have this title but those who inslave themselves to the Pope L. You have said enough to convince me how very absurd it is for the Church of Rome to stile her self the Catholick Apostolick Church as if there were no other Christians in the world but Papists yet pray tell me may not the Church of Rome be reckoned a part of the Catholick Church T. At the best it is but a small part as I have before told you and also a very unsound part Yea I will not doubt to add that take the Church of Rome even in the largest sense as comprehending all those that submit to the Pope as Head of the whole Church under Christ they may justly be reckoned a Schismatical party dividing themselves from the rest of the Catholick Church setting up a false Head and Governour and appointing unlawful terms of communion And though in this respect the Masters and leaders of the faction are in the greatest guilt yet the people who are seduced are also more or less guilty according to the capacity they are in of geting better information But yet notwithstanding this schism they are in and notwithstanding the many errors and abuses that are amongst them whilst they profess the Christian Religion and own their Baptism they may be allow'd the name of Christians such as belong to the visible Church of Christ. And how uncharitable soever they are to us I hope there are many good Christians amongst them who do heartily believe the Gospel and live in obedience to it according to their knowledg and who on that account may be stiled true members of the Catholick Church as all honest true hearted Christians are notwithstanding those errors and faults they may be guilty of which do not utterly violate their Baptismal Covenant nor destroy that faith and holiness by which we are united to Christ the Head and so are living members of his body the Church But still I say this title belongs not to them as they are Papists embracing the peculiar tenents of their own Church but as they are Christians holding the essential Articles of the Christian Faith together with our own and all other Churches For as to Popery it is really a disease a corruption of the Christian Religion Yet as a diseased man may have his vitals so sound that even the Plague or Leprosie may not kill him so may there be some amongst the Papists in whom the great and common truths of Religion may be so deeply implanted and so faithfully retained and improved that the disease of Popery may not prove mortal Whilst they hold the foundation Jesus Christ and his Gospel though the hay and stubble which they build upon it shall be burnt yet may they through the mercy of God in Christ be saved so as by fire that is with great difficulty 1 Cor. 3. 11 12 c. And
their case seems most pitiable who through the disadvantage of their education want due means of instruction and what allowances our gracious God will make on that and the like accounts is fittest for us to leave to his own infinite wisdom Only let us be careful to regulate our own practices by the plain rule of Gods holy Word which through his favour we so plentifully enjoy L. What you say shall teach me more charity to those of them that are sincere than they will allow to us But I do still more and more perceive how little reason there is for my entring into communion with that Church in which there is so great hazard of Salvation even no more than for my venturing into a Pest-house full of infected persons because it 's possible some of them may have so much strength of nature as to overcome that dangerous distemper T. The case is much the same CHAP. V. Of some particular points in difference betwixt us and the Church of Rome and first of the Popes Supremacy L. HAving now received so full satisfaction in this first great point concerning the true Catholick Church what it is and who are the members of it and being upon good grounds firmly perswaded that the Church of England is a very sound part of this Catholick Church in whose communion therefore by Gods grace I hope to live and die I would in the next place gladly hear you discourse of some of those particular points wherein chiefly the difference lyes betwixt us and the Church of Rome For they alledg many plansible reasons and sometimes quote Scripture for those opinions of theirs which we reject as Popery and therefore I would gladly be furnisht with solid and good answers to these their Allegations T. Most readily shall I afford you my assistance herein Only let me premise that suppose in this or that particular opinion you should fancy their Church had the truth on her side yea though it really was so yet is this no sufficient reason why you should go over to their communion since from what has been said you may discern that their Church has no manner of jurisdiction over ours which we shall presently make more plain and you cannot lawfully desert your own Church meerly because you apprehend there is some error commonly received in it whilst you have liberty to hold communion with it without owning and professing that error And though for my own part I declare I do not know so much as any one material point of difference wherein the Church of Rome has the truth on her side yet this I speak with respect to those who in some particular cases may be of another mind and afterward may have occasion to make use of it accordingly But now proceed to those several points wherein you desire satisfaction L. I will so and shall herein follow the method in which I find them laid down in this little Book to which I have hitherto had recourse And the first thing here mention'd is concerning one Pope in the Church viz. the Bishop of Rome who is they say to be own'd as the visible Head and Governour of the whole Church under Christ. T. This is indeed the most fundamental point of the Romish faith by which chiefly they stand distinguisht from all other Churches and as such I have often upon occasion mention'd it already and have told you that there is not a word of it in the Apostles Creed which is the summ of the Christian Faith nor yet in the Holy Scriptures whence that Creed was taken which may be sufficient prejudice against it but pray what do they alledg in proof of it L. Both this my Author and others commonly plead that as there is one Emperour in an Empire one King in a Kingdom one Master in a family so there should be one Pope in the Church T. I think they should rather infer the quite contrary that as there is a Master in every Family a King in every Kingdom c. so in every Diocess there should be a Bishop and in every Nation a Primate or chief Bishop or else a Synod of Bishops from whom there should lye no appeal to any foreign Bishop whatsoever It would indeed have look'd a little more like an argument for their purpose if they could have said that as there is one Emperor over all the Kings and Kingdoms of the world so there ought to be one Pope over all Bishops and Churches But as it appears impossible for one man to govern the whole world so neither is it much easier for one Bishop to govern all the Christians in the world especially if all Nations should embrace Christianity as every good man desires they should But to let pass their little similies and idle fancies do you think if it had been a matter of such necessity to salvation as Papists say it is to own the Pope as Christs Vicar and visible Head of the Catholick Church do you think I say that our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles would not have told us of it and have given strict command to all Christians to obey him and to seek to his Infallible judgment in all doubts and controversies and submit to his authority for the composing of all differences whereas we now find not one syllable to this purpose either in the Gospel or Epistles but Christians are exhorted to obey their own Rulers both Sacred and Civil and to take the Doctrine delivered by our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles as the Infallible Rule of their faith and manners and no other Head of the Church do we read of but our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to whom all power is given in Heaven and Earth as he himself tells us Matt. 28. 18. But he no where tells us that he hath transfer'd all this power to any mortal man nor setled any person as his Vicar and Deputy-Governour of all the Christian world L. Yes they say Christ gave this priviledg to Saint Peter stiling him the Rock on which he would build his Church and giving him the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven Matt. 16 18 19. and from Saint Peter they would have this power to be derived to his Successors the Bishops of Rome T. This is the Text which they commonly bring for their purpose but with how little reason may appear at the very first sight whilst neither is here confer'd upon St. Peter any such power as to be Ruler over all the Christian Church nor the least mention made of any priviledge whatever to be convey'd from him to his Successors at Rome or any other where As to the Rock here spoken of many of the Ancients understand by it the Doctrine which St. Peter had now profest that great fundamental article of the Christian Faith that Iesus was the Christ the Son of the living God But let us suppose it to be meant of his person as he was to be a Preacher of this Doctrine yet
up where they could a most cruel and bloody Inquisition for the destroying of those whom they call Hereticks even all that will not submit to their tyranny By slaughters in the open field and publick Massacres by burning at the Stake or murdering in Prison have they cut off thousands if not millions of innocent and good Christians Judge then whether are these men acted by the Spirit of Christ yea or no L. I think not since he tells us that he came into the world to save mens lives and not to destroy them T. To this let me add that whilst they keep up the name of Christianity and so may be said to sit in the Temple of God they have for their own ends most grosly corrupted this holy Religion ordering all their Doctrines and practices so as may conduce most not to the good of souls but to encrease the wealth and honour of the Pope and his Clergy Multitudes of whom especially those of higher rank have lived in pomp and pride yea wallowed in all riot and luxury and by the bad examples they give by the loose Doctrines they teach and the large Indulgences they grant upon easie terms they have done much to promote and encourage wickedness amongst the people Judg then I say whether is all this pride and ambition this sensuality and impurity this bloodiness and cruelty falshood and violence which is the very natural genius and spirit of Popery properly so called whether is it agreeable to the temper and design of Christianity L. I rather think it directly contrary thereto T. So far therefore it may justly be stiled Antichristian Yet herein do not mistake me as if I was so uncharitable as to censure all Papists to be such proud cruel vicious persons No far be it from me I hope there are many honest souls among them both of Clergy and Laity who as I have before said do according to their knowledg serve God in the simplicity of their hearts But this I assert that consider Popery as a thing distinct from Christianity the chief Doctrine of it being that of the Popes Supremacy it hath been and at this day is carried on by such ways as I have named even by force and fraud by plots and treasons by war and bloodshed And the governing part among them who are chief factors for this design the Court and Conclave of Rome with all their busie active instruments up and down the world are led and acted by such an Antichristian or Unchristian spirit as I have before described Most plainly do they prefer their own cause and party far above Christianity the greatness and glory of the Pope and his Clergy before the honour and interest of our blessed Saviour and the salvation of precious souls Insomuch that with these Grandees Religion is little more than a bare name and serves meerly for a cloak and pretence under the disguise whereof they can more effectually pursue their own carnal ends And for the obtaining of these they have so strangely altered it that by the use they make of it and the colours they give it a man would be apt to think that the great design of our Saviours coming into the world was not so much to redeem and save mankind as to advance his pretended Vicar the Pope and to make him the greatest and most absolute Monarch in the whole world Whereas in truth nothing can be more contrary to the life and temper of our Saviour and to the whole tenour of his Holy Religion than such an ambitious lordly spirit proudly affecting dominion and honour and the great things of this present world On this account then you may perceive how justly the Pope and his adherents who make it their chief business to promote this his Temporal greatness to the infinite prejudice of Christs true Religion may justly be stiled an Antichristian faction And if after all this it shall be found that there are Prophecies in the Revelation and other places of Scripture which foretell that such a great Apostasie there shall be from the purity and simplicity of Religion and that both as to time and place and many other circumstances agreeing to the Church of Rome as by many of our Learned Writers with great reason is asserted this will go very far toward a demonstration that the Pope with his Faction is indeed the Antichrist foretold in holy Scripture L. However that be it seems most evident that Popery is a Doctrine very different from true Christianity and in many things directly contrary to it and is carried on by courses no less contrary to the example and precepts of our Blessed Saviour T. And by this means I hope you do still more and more perceive that a man may be a sincere good Christian without embracing of Popery and particularly this foundation article of the Popes Supremacy On which having been so long let us proceed to somewhat else CHAP. VI. Of Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead and Indulgences L. THE next points which my Author mentions are Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead which he puts both together T. Not without cause for the latter depends on the former as they have now ordered their Prayers though neither of them upon holy Scripture as I doubt not but to manifest but tell me first what says he of Purgatory L. He says that the Apostle informs us in 1 Cor. 3. that there is a fire in the other world in which some slight faults of good people must be purged away before they can attain Heaven T. But if you read the place you 'l find no such matter There 's not a word said of fire in another world or that mens faults are done away by fire Only the Apostle is there speaking of those who add their own fancies and false Doctrines to the Truths of Christianity which Doctrines of theirs shall in due time be strictly examined and upon a narrow search shall be discovered and rejected even as the fire consumes hay and stubble And if the men that preached these Doctrines shall be found to hold the foundation so as to be preserved from destruction yet will they escape with great difficulty as a man that 's saved out of the fire And indeed this Text doth most aptly represent to us the condition of the Romish Church for whilst they retain the foundation of Christian Religion they do build thereupon hay and stubble many false and corrupt Doctrines as an excellent Writer of our Church in a Sermon upon this Text gives a full account in a little room And amongst others he reckons this of Purgatory of which with a pleasant sharpness he there says that though they have got to themselves gold and silver by this Doctrine and that of Indulgences which depends upon it yet is it as errant hay and stubble as the rest that is vain and false For neither this nor any other Text speaks a word concerning souls being held in Purgatory flames and that
Case since several Writers of their own Church do freely grant that if this Doctrine of Transubstantiation be not true then they may justly be charged with as gross Idolatry as ever was practised in the World And most certainly this Doctrine is not true if any regard may be had to God's Holy Word to clear Reason to our own Senses or to the most Ancient Christian Writers and what they would have more I cannot tell L. I am perfectly satisfied with your Discourse on this point and shall therefore proceed to some other particular T. It 's high time you should and I shall take care to be briefer in the rest only I was willing to insist the longer on this because they reckon it so weighty and important a Doctrine of their Church for the denial of which they look upon us as damnable Hereticks and when they have had power in their hands have treated us accordingly even with all that bloody rage and cruelty which the Idolatrous Heathens of old used toward the Primitive Christians Hereby also you may be convinced how utterly unlawful it is to hold Communion with the Church of Rome which is guilty of Idolatry in this her worship of the Host and imposes the same upon all that joyn with her and therefore what great Reason there was for the Reformation at the first and for our refusal to this day to pollute our Souls by a compliance with such abominations which for ought I can see is as utterly unlawful even though a Man lived in the Dominions of a Popish Prince as it was for the three Children to fall down and worship the Golden Image at Nebuchadnezzar's command And as chearfully might any good Christian venture upon the fiercest flames in this Cause as they did in theirs resting assured if not of a deliverance yet of the Crown and Glory of Martyrs which is a Thousand times better And to conclude when by this instance you are so plainly convinced what a gross and palpable errour is expresly taught and stifly maintained by the Roman Church and as a judgment upon them they seem fallen into it for a discovery of their falshood you may thence easily inferr what opinion is to be had of the Infallibility of that Church and so will be better prepared for the receiving a discovery of any other of their Errors as it shall happen to be made to you To which purpose let us now proceed CHAP. VIII Concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass. L. THE next point mentioned in my Author is that of the Mass which he says little about but that it is the unbloody Sacrifice which Christ offered at his last Supper and which he commanded his Apostles to offer for the commemoration of his death T. This belongs to what we have just now been so largely discoursing of Only you are to take notice that the common Doctrine among them is that at the Mass as they call it or at the Sacrament of the Lords Supper there is a true Sacrifice offered which is propitiatory both for the quick and the dead viz. such as are in Purgatory that is tends to procure the pardon of their Sins and freedom from punishment And this they call an unbloody Sacrifice to distinguish it from that which our Blessed Saviour offered on the Cross when he sned his Blood for us Though how it can be unbloody whilst the natural Substance of Blood is there according to their principles is not easie to understand nor how that can be fitly called a commemoration of his death which they say is a Sacrifice of Christ who is there corporally present But in the mean time this notion of a Sacrifice if taken strictly and properly is a meer fiction not having the least countenance from Holy Scripture where we read only that Christ offered up himself a Sacrifice for us on the Cross but not a word of his doing it the night before when he instituted the Holy Communion nor of his being dayly offered up by the Priest to make atonement for sins Nay we expresly read Heb. 9. 26 27 28. that he only once offered up himself and is now gone to appear in the presence of God for us but there 's nothing said of his being offered up to God by others We do indeed freely grant that in this Holy Sacrament we make a solemn commemoration of that Sacrifice which Christ offered up and so may be said to represent to the Father what his Son hath suffered on our behalf that he may graciously incline to bestow on us those Blessings which were so dearly purchased for us And we do in some sort Feast upon this Sacrifice by our eating and drinking of these holy Elements Here also we do make a Sacrifice or an Oblation of our selves both Souls and Bodies unto God as is exprest in our Liturgy in the Prayer after Receiving and here lastly we do offer up our Thanksgivings and Praises as also our Silver and Gold in Charity and Almsgivings which are the Christian Sacrifices still to be used under the Gospel and with which we read God is well pleased Heb. 13. 16. And in some of these senses are we to understand the Ancients when they speak of a Sacrifice or Oblation made to God at the Holy Table Especially if we consider that the Custom amongst them was as Learned Men inform us for the richer sort to bring good store of provision to this Table which they presented as their Oblation or Christian Sacrifice And out of these was taken the Bread and Wine which were Consecrated and made use of in the Holy Communion and the rest was either spent in their Love-feasts or went to the Poor and to the Clergy L. As there seems little reason to stile the Lords-Supper a Sacrifice save in the sense you have explained it so there seems yet less why they should call it a Sacrifice for the dead as well as the living T. Indeed there is no Reason at all for it nor so much as any colour from Scripture But this depends upon their dream of Purgatory of which we have already spoken an Opinion I told you very gainful to the Church on many accounts and particularly this custom of having Masses for the dead though it yields no profit to the dead themselves yet it brings in much to the living I mean to the Priests who receive great store of Money for these their Masses which is sometimes left by the deceased person himself and sometimes given by his Friends on his behalf this being generally looked upon in their Church as a work of extraordinary Charity and you may be sure warmly enough urged by the Priests and earnestly pleaded for from the very same principle that made the Silver smiths so zealous for Diana even because their Trade and Gain depended upon her honour Act. 19. 27. But whatever there may be of seeming Charity to a dead Friend or of real profit to the living Priest in this device most
mans right and yet will not allow him the benefit of having the Will to plead on his own behalf And this is plainly the course of the Roman Church in the present case for the Rulers withhold the Scripture from the people that they may the more easily detain them in a blind obedience to those Doctrines and commands of their own which are contrary to it and which they will not have examined by it And you may well suspect the man has bad wares to put off who will expose them no where but in a dark shop It 's much to be feared that Guide means not well who would have my eyes put out or fast closed that I may follow him blindfold He that teaches falshood as well as he that does evil is afraid of the light that will discover his error But to conclude this whatever Papists may talk of the obscurity of Scripture the true reason why they keep it out of the peoples hands is because it is too plain I mean because it so plainly contradicts several Doctrines and practices that are now current in their Church So plainly does the second Commandment forbid all worship of Images that by their good will they would not have it come into the peoples sight And as plainly doth the holy Scripture in other places forbid the worship of Angels or Saints having Prayers in an unknown tongue the taking away the Cup from the Laity plainly it confutes their Doctrine of Transubstantiation whilst it calls the holy Elements bread after Consecration In these and several other instances doth Scripture so plainly make against them that no wonder if therefore they are so much against the Scripture as that they will not commonly permit the people to read it but keep back from them this key of knowledg L. This seems to be the true reason but so bad a one that they are ashamed to own it And now I return you unseigned thanks for the pains you have taken to confirm me in the truth and to shew me the vanity and weakness of those arguings wherewith they of the Church of Rome do endeavour to excuse and palliate their gross errors and to impose upon common people who are sometimes easily misled T. No great wonder if with their subtilties they impose upon such as cannot well distinguish betwixt specious pretences and solid reasonings And indeed they do in some measure deserve to be imposed upon who will so far trust to their own weak judgments as not to seek direction and assistance from those who are able to give it but do presently conclude that if they themselves cannot answer a cunning Priest no body esse can and thereupon without more ado become his easie proselytes especially when some worldly interest draws them to it which is an argument quickly discerned but not easily resisted Yet it 's strange to see how these same persons when they are gone off from our Church presently seem so humble and modest as to suspect their own judgments they commonly refuse to discourse with our Ministers pretending they are not fit to meddle with controversies nor hold disputes They now refer themselves wholly to the Church their own Sect the Romish Church that must be their Judge and their Guide They might before dispute and yield and be Judges for themselves when they left our Church but now forsooth they are got as the Priest tells them whose word they must take for it into an infallible Church whose Doctrines and commands must never be questioned or examined nor any thing heard that can be objected against them All must be swallow'd without chewing they must believe as the Church believes though what that is they do not well know This is the way that Romish Priests commonly take with them and a cunning way it is for securing of the Converts they have once made but so grosly partial that a man of ordinary discretion may readily discern it and no sincere lover of truth will be drawn to comply with it For how can any man answer it to God or his own conscience to depart from that Church wherein he has been baptized and educated without a fair hearing what can be said for it and when he is drawn away into another Church becomes so fixed and resolute that he 'l hear nothing that can be said against it But you I confess have acted at another rate and I cannot but commend your ingenuity and diligence herein which I pray God to succeed for your establishment in that holy Religion in which you have hitherto been instructed and from which I hope you 'l never be perverted For it is the very truth of God taught by his Son Jesus in his holy Gospel the only infallible rule of Faith and Manners L. I do stedfastly believe that it is so and by the grace of God will never depart from it T. Does your Author meddle with no other points of controversie betwixt us and the Church of Rome L. He mentions no more that I find looking upon these I suppose as most material but toward the end of this Chapter he heaps up many bitter invectives against our Ministers as if they spoke ill of the Romish Church out of meer malice against their consciences only to make Papists envied and hated and that they often cite the holy Scripture to no purpose or to an ill one and do also falsifie and cut off what is not to their liking yea and have put whole Books out of the number of Canonical Scriptures in fine that they do all as the toy takes them without thinking of any judgment or hell to come after T. This is very severe indeed but so grosly false and spiteful that it deserves no more notice or answer than the revilings of an angry scold Only to the last heavy charge of putting out whole Books of Holy Scripture I shall answer a few words and leave you to judge of the rest by what truth you shall find in this accusation Know then that as to the New Testament we receive for Canonical all the same Books which the Church of Rome it self does and all other Christian Churches in the world so far as ever I have heard And as to the Old Testament we receive all those Books which were acknowledged for Canonical by the Iewish Church who are very competent witnesses in this case or by the Christian Church for four hundred years after our Saviour as learned Writers of our Church have demonstrated and particularly Bishop Cozens before named in his History of the Canon of Scripture As to those Books which are called Apocryphal though we have them not in the same esteem with the Sacred Writings of the Old and New Testament yet we have a just value for them as the works of pious men and of great antiquity and our Church appoints Lessons out of them to be publickly read though not on the Lords days thereby recommending them to the people who have them in their
therefore whilst the people take the Flesh under the species of Bread this may very well serve without taking the Wine too But if this be a good reason Why then need the consecrating Priest take the Wine Or why need our Saviour have appointed both Bread and Wine to be made use of in this his Holy Supper Here then you have a plain instance of their practising contrary to the Scripture in so weighty a matter as the Administring the Holy Communion To this may be joyn'd their custom of private Masses or Communions if that be not a contradiction the Priest himself many times receiving alone and none of the people who are present partaking with him contrary to the first institution of this Holy Sacrament and to the very nature and design of it as it is a Communion and contrary also to the practice of the Primitive Church To these may a great many more easily be added of which we have formerly taken notice Such as having their Prayers in an unknown Tongue contrary to the Apostles direction 1 Cor. 14. Their Worshipping of Saints and Angels which is forbidden in all those places that command us to Worship God alone in the name of Jesus Christ our only Mediator and most expresly Col. 2. 18. Rev. 22. 9. Also their Worship of Images and of the Host contrary to the second Commandment And for an instance of their false Doctrines many of which we have often mentioned we need go no further than that palpable one of Transubstantiation which he mentions as agreeable to Scripture that says This is my body But how little these words make for his purpose we have before shewn and that their plain meaning is This is the Sacrament of my Body or the representation and commemoration of it and the way of conveying the benefits that come by it according to the constant use of the like expressions in the matter of Sacraments even as the Paschal Lamb is called the Passover of which it was only a solemn Memorial But that the natural substance of Bread and consequently of Wine remains after Consecration we have proved from the Apostle who again and again calls it so 1 Cor. 11. How then can he say that without ground we separate from the Romish Church Since if there were nothing else to be blamed this alone were sufficient reason to keep out of their Communion since in order to it they require our belief of a Doctrine most apparently false namely that of Transubstantiation and enjoyn a practice founded upon this Doctrine which is notoriously sinful viz. the Worship of the Consecrated Elements as if they were now turned into the substance of Christ's Body and Blood yea into whole Christ both as to his Divine and Humane Nature Now they themselves as you have heard do grant that if there was no such change made by Consecration this Worship would be idolatrous and therefore we being upon good grounds assured that no such change there is do utterly abhor the very thoughts of such Idolatrous worship and do believe our selves bound in Conscience to Almighty God to undergo a Thousand deaths rather than be guilty of it yea though we lived in Popish Countries But besides this we here in England owe no manner of obedience to the Bishop of Rome nor are under any obligation to forsake the Communion of our own Church for that of the Romish but should be guilty of that hainous sin of Schism by so doing as the Papists amongst us are at this day of which more in another place As to what he talks that they who go from their Church can give no reason why they should rather turn to Luther than to the Calvinists c. it concerns not us in the least who neither turn to the one or the other but continue in Communion with our own Church in which we were Baptized and live in obedience to our own Rulers in Church and State whom God hath set over us Nor do I discern by what reason he makes this silly inference nor yet for what purpose But let me hear his next Argument L. It cannot be proved that ever at any time were admitted any Priests that were not first duly consecrated by Bishops Wherefore we rightly infer that all Lutheran Ministers Calvinists or any other Sects not Consecrated according to the old custom of the Holy Church are for both from the name and reality of the Divine Priesthood and so that in their Cene or Supper as they call it they give but a meer piece of Bread as also that they have no power to Absolve from Sins but send away people as entangled and defiled with Sin as they were when they came to them T. As to this Argument we of the Church of England are nothing concerned in it since our Priests receive Ordination from Bishops and therefore have as full authority for the exercise of their Ministerial function as those of any Christian Church in the World Some other Reformed Churches also do embrace Episcopal Government As for such who want it we shall not enter into a dispute concerning the validity of their Orders But this I think we may safely assert that if the people be duly qualified for the Lord's Supper as St. Paul himself calls it 1 Cor. 11. 20. by a firm belief of the Gospel and sincere love and obedience to our Blessed Saviour they shall not want the benefits that are promised to worthy Communicants through any defect or irregularity in the Ordination of their Ministers And if they do truly repent of their sins and forsake them they shall for Christ's sake obtain forgiveness from God though never any Priest should give them Absolution But on the other hand our Writers have shewn that according to the common principle received in the Romish Church That the truth of Sacraments depends upon the intention of the Priest the people cannot be certain at any time that they have true Sacraments no nor whether he be a true Priest that Administers them But I shall trouble you with nothing more on this Argument L. There is no need since it reaches not our Church in the least I shall therefore proceed to the fifth which is this It cannot be found in the whole Holy Scripture that nothing is to be believed but what clearly and expresly is contained written in the same whence follows the ruine and overthrow of the ground-work on which Lutherans Calvinists and other Sectaries rely when they affirm that nothing is to be believed but what is expresly set down in Holy Writ T. I wonder who says so Every thing is to be believed that has sufficient evidence of its truth whether it be in Scripture or not But this we say and this I suppose he means to argue against that nothing is of necessity to be believed in order to Salvation but what is contain'd in Holy Scripture Which in effect is the same as to say that the Holy Scripture contains all necessary
more fit to be so than bare tradition which they of the Church of Rome so vainly boast of But for your further satisfaction in this point I shall refer you to a most solid and rational discourse concerning the Rule of Faith done by a Reverend Divine of our Church and shall now hasten to what remains L. His seventh Argument is this It cannot be shewn that for these 1500 years there hath been any Catholick who held that the Pope of Rome was Antichrist or that did revile and rail at the holy Sacrifice of the Mass or lastly that did blame Invocation of Saints the usual praying for the Dead and such like works of piety belonging to Faith and Religion which the whole world hath laudably practised and reverenced for 1500 years Wherefore it is most evident that Lutherans Calvinists c. do most wickedly when they dare revile such things T. These points have all of them been sufficiently discust already I have told you how one of their Popes did assert him to be the forerunner of Antichrist who should assume the title of Universal Bishop which his Successors have now a long time done whilst they claim a Supremacy over the Universal Church But which is more material I have she-wn how contrary the Doctrines and practices wherein Popery consists are to the nature and design of true Christianity and therefore may well enough be stiled Antichristian I have shewn that there is not properly a Sacrifice in the Communion but a commemoration of Christs Sacrifice only once offered and have also manifested that there is neither Scripture Reason nor good Antiquity to be pleaded on behalf of that Invocation of Saints and praying for the Dead which are now used in the Church of Rome As for railing and reviling I would not be guilty of it 'T is enough to disprove their errors and renounce them to shew the falshood and mischiefs of them and this I hope is not to be accounted railing In a word whatever he pretends no Christian Writers for four or five hundred years after our Saviour did assert the Bishop of Rome to be Christs Vicar on Earth and under him supreme Governour of the whole Christian Church Nor did they teach or practise such Invocation of Saints and praying for the Dead as are now in use amongst Papists And upon this account our Church hath with great reason and religion reformed her self from these and the like corrupt innovations L. Doubtless she has so and the weakness of his Arguments do the more assure me of it His last is nothing else but a repetition of what he has often said viz. That the first Authors of Christian faith in Germany Spain England c. have acknowledged and brought in no other faith nor have our forefathers received any other Faith than the Holy Catholick Roman which self-same we have received from our forefathers and have hitherto conserved Whence he concludes that Sectaries his common name for all Protestants have invented new opinions of their own and presented them to the people as a certain rule of Faith and the pure word of God and that consequently they are liable to the curse denounced against those who preach a new Gospel nor can ever hope to please God and attain eternal happiness being destitute of the right faith whereupon he advises his Scholar considering the nearness of death and the eternity of Hell torments to prefer the salvation of his Soul before all sublunary things T. So far his advice is good but 't is a wonder that any man who pretends to have a regard to his own or others souls and believe there is an Hell provided for such as make and love a lye dare be guilty of such notorious forgeries and calumnies as are contain'd in this his charge against Protestants as if they had proposed some new opinion of their own devising for a rule of Faith whilst it 's well known that we make the holy Word of God to be the only certain rule of it And even he himself a little before accused us for saying that nothing is to be believed but what is contained in Gods Word that is nothing as necessary to salvation as I have before granted and proved This he calls the ground-work of the Reformation and we do not deny it And that same Christian Faith which is contain'd in these holy Scriptures at large and briefly summ'd up in the Creed is that same Faith which the first planters of Christian Religion taught and established in our own and other Countries and this self-same do we retain to this day If then the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed as we commonly call it be a new invention so is our faith but if these contain an Abridgement of the truly ancient Catholick Faith then his charging us with new inventions is a most false and malicious slander so far are we from it that a great reason why we reject their Doctrines of the Supremacy and Infallibility of their Pope or Church with the rest of their Errors is because these are new inventions of their own and no part of the ancient Faith Wherefore instead of pronouncing the heavy sentence of damnation upon others which is true Popish charity it behoves them well to consider how they can exempt themselves from the curse threatned to those who preach another Gospel than the Apostles did which in some sort they do whilst they impose the Traditions of their Church of which the Apostles never spoke a syllable as of equal certainty and authority with the Holy Scriptures themselves But I am tired with his Arguments which still lead me so oft to repeat the same things Though I shall not repent it if it any way tend to give you more satisfaction L. I thank God I am well satisfied with your discourse and am now fully convinced that there is small strength in these his Arguments which he pretends to be such pregnant and unanswerable things But after all there remains something which he calls an evident demonstration that the Roman Catholick Church hath been and still is the true Church which I shall desire you to take into examination T. Yes very willingly and I doubt not but we shall soon find how little it deserves the name of a demonstration Though if it be possible for him to produce any thing that has an appearance of truth and reason sure he will now do it in the last place that it may leave the greater impression upon his Reader Let us hear then what he says CHAP. IV. An Answer to a pretended Demonstration That the Roman Church is the true Catholick Church L. THIS Demonstration which he so much boasts of is taken he says from one Dr. Baily who it seems revolted from our Church to that of Rome and thus it runs It will not be denied but that the Church of Rome was once a most excellent flourishing mother-Mother-Church This Church could not cease to be such but she must fall
either by Apostasie Heresie or Schism 1 Apostasie is a renouncing not only the Faith of Christ but the very name and title to Christianity No man will say that ever the Church of Rome fell thus 2 Heresie is an adhesion to some private or singular opinion or error in Faith contrary to the general approved Doctrine of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common received Doctrine of the Christian world I pray you satisfie me to these particulars 1. By what General Council was she condemn'd 2. Or which of the Fathers wrote against her 3. Or by what authority was she otherwise reproved for it seems to me a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemn'd by every one that has a mind to condemn her 3 Schism is a departure or a division from the unity of the Church whereby that bond and communion held with some former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided it self by schism from any other body of faithful Christians brake communion or went forth from the society of any Elder Church I pray satisfie me to these particulars whose company did she leave From whom did she go forth Where was the true Church which she did forsake For it appears a little strange to me that a Church should be accounted Schismatical when there cannot be assign'd another Church different from her which from age to age hath continued visible from which she departed Hence he infers That the Church of Rome is the only true Church that leads to an eternity of bliss T. This indeed they commonly boast of as an unanswerable demonstration which they often scatter abroad in papers for the deluding of silly people Now though I see nothing in it but what has already been answered again and again yet for your fuller satisfaction Consider 1 suppose that we should grant his whole argument and every word in it to be true yet will it do little service to their cause nor will by any means yield that inference he would draw from it viz. that the Church of Rome is the only true Church and therefore to her communion we must betake our selves leaving the Church of England if ever we hope for salvation For pray what if we shou'd grant which yet he will never be able to prove that the Church of Rome is at this day as true and sound and flourishing a Church as we own it once to have been and should yield that it never fell by Apostasie Heresie or Schism what follows hence I beseech you What that she is the only true Church and the whole Catholick Church No by no means but only that she ought to be look'd upon as a sound part of the Catholick Church and therefore that her members viz. the Christians of that Diocess ought to live in strict fellowship with her and all other neighbouring Churches ought to give her due respect in maintaining such communion with her as sister-Churches are capable of holding one with another But it does not I say in the least follow that she is the supreme Mistress and Governess of all other Churches and therefore that all Christians in the world must render subjection to her and her Bishop otherwise they are to be look'd upon as no members of the Catholick Church nor at present in a capacity of salvation For such a supreme Mistress as this she never was when in her best and purest state nor therefore ought she to be esteemed so at this day neither do we of this Church owe obedience to her nor ought we to leave our own Church for her sake or at her command L. I cannot see how his argument proves us at all obliged thereto nor consequently how it reaches his purpose T. That it does not will still appear plainer if instead of Rome you name any other ancient Church suppose that of Ierusalem which was once very glorious and flourishing and deserved above all others to be stiled a Mother-Church now suppose that at this day it remain'd as sound and good as ever it was and to use his language that it never fell by Apostasie Heresie or Schism pray would it hence follow that all other Churches and particularly this of England must therefore yield subjection to the Church of Ierusalem That our Bishops must pay homage to the Bishop of that Church owning their dependance upon him and living in obedience to him And if they should refuse to do thus must our people therefore forsake their own Bishops and Clergy and withdraw from the Churches where they officiate and entertain Bishops or Priests that are sent over to us from Ierusalem and run into corners with them for the worship of God Surely there is not the least reason for any of this and not a whit more is there for our being thus subject to the Bishop of Rome or for our receiving and joyning with the Priests which are sent over to us by his authority There never was nor is now any reason why we should be thus enslaved to the Romish Church For in the very days of the Apostles and some hundred years after when that Church was in its best and purest state we of the Church of England rendred no such obedience to it own'd no such dependance upon it Neither indeed did the Bishops of that Church then claim any such power and Supremacy over us and other foreign Churches Wherefore as our ancestors the British Christians did not subject themselves to the Bishop of Rome nor ever thought such a subjection necessary to their salvation no more have we reason to do Whatever power or precedency the Bishops of Rome might afterwards have in these Western parts either by favour of the Emperor or by consent of the Bishops amongst themselves or most of all by their own daily encroachments by the meer advantage of their Seat without either law or reason this I say nothing at all concerns us at this day since all his power here is utterly abrogated and taken away by just and lawful authority in a most mature and deliberate manner as you before heard And I then told you how in Henry the Eighth's time before our happy Reformation it was generally own'd and declared by the Popish Clergy themselves that the Bishop of Rome had no more authority over us in England than the Bishop of Ierusalem Antioch or any other foreign Bishop And long before that our Laws limited and restrain'd the Popes power as it seem'd good to our Rulers And so do Popish Princes themselves at this day suffering him to have no more power or priviledg amongst them than themselves think fit Since then the Church of Rome in the very days of its primitive purity and glory had no power over us in this Church no more hath it at this day nor ought to have though it were still as pure and good as at first it was
Blessing to those for whose sake they were Written But whilst we are thus engaged in disputes and controversies let us look well to the temper of our minds and take great care that we lose not peace or charity whilst we are inquiring after and contending for the truth Let us have as great an aversion as we will from the errors the ill principles and practices of any sort of men but let us not have the least enmity to their persons upon any pretence whatever Let us pity them and pray for them and do all we can in our several places to instruct them to reduce and reform them but let us not hate or envy them not rail upon or revile them not wish them or do them any hurt nor rejoyce in any mischief that befalls them nor vex our selves at their prosperity or with the fears and forethoughts of it Let us not fret our selves in any wise to do evil For that end above all let us take heed of such a fierce and furious zeal as tends to disturb the peace of Church and State That 's no true zeal for Religion which produces such ill effects but rather a zeal for opinions and parties or for outward advantages and proceeds from pride envy revenge distrust of God and such like evil principles But the wisdom which is from above is pure and peaceable True Religion inspires the breasts of men with meekness and patience humility and charity renders them calm and quiet gentle and tractable easie to be intreated and easie to be governed Next to piety to God what greater duty of Religion than Loyalty to our Prince as the Minister of God How then can Religion be exprest or promoted by Sedition and Rebellion any more than by cursing and swearing and such like profaneness He that talks of rebelling for his Religion has lost what he contends for before he begins the contest For what Religion has he who resists the Ordinance of God And this as we are taught by God himself he does who resists that lawful authority which God hath set over him But we must shew that we Fear God by Honouring the King and loving all men especially our Christian Brethren This is the language of Holy Scripture and this is the Doctrine of our Church Let us then live in peaceable Communion with this Church and let us in all respects behave our selves in so loyal and dutiful a manner toward our King as she instructs and obliges us to do even so that we may deserve the Character which one of the Ancients in his Apology for the Christians gives of them viz. That a Christian is an enemy to no man much less to his Prince Thus ought we to practise if we will be true to our profession For the Religion of our Church as I have often said and fully proved in the following Discourse is no other than the Christian Religion the very same which our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles taught without either Popish or Phanatical corruptions and additions And as in other points so particularly in this of obedience to Magistrates she inculcates what Christ hath commanded Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and that of St. Paul Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers c. even Bishops and Priests as well as Lay-men and this not only for wrath but conscience sake Or as St. Peter Submit to every ordinance of man for the Lords-sake This was the Doctrine and practice of the Apostles and of the Primitive Christians in the first and purest ages when they had the greatest temptations to the contrary even in times of hottest persecution and this not for want of strength as Bellarmine to their great dishonour would have it thought Lib. 5. de Rom. Pont. Cap. 7. but out of obedience to Gods commands and faith in his promises But in succeeding ages of greater prosperity as the Church declined from her purity in many other respects so also in point of subjection and obedience to Governours Then began Prelates to contend with Princes and the Pope to set himself against yea above the Emperour Then by degrees he claim'd a power of deposing even Kings for what he shall judg heresie and of absolving Subjects from their Allegiance which by the way Bellarmine very finely compares to that power which the spirit ought to have over the flesh Lib. 5. de Rom. Pontif. Cap. 6. Then were the Clergy exempted from the jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate with many other encroachments upon the rights of Princes which they of the Church of Rome were especially guilty of But it was the design of our pious Reformers to remove these as well as other abuses and to restore Religion to its Primitive purity as far as possible And this they have done as in many other instances so particularly in asserting the just power and prerogative of Kings strictly obliging all the members of this Church whether Clergy or Laity to yield all that homage and honour that obedience and subjection which by the plain dictates of reason and nature and by the express Laws of God in Holy Scripture are most justly due to them And as it was the glory of the Primitive Church so has it been of ours ever since the happy time of her Reformation that she hath always maintained her Loyalty and Allegiance untainted and unshaken And hath fixed it on such principles as will make it firm and steady in all times and under all Princes on such as made the Primitive Christians obedient to their Emperours whether Heathen or Christian Arrian or Orthodox even on the principles of Religion and Obedience to Almighty God who hath set up Kings as his Vicegerents and hath expresly commanded us to reverence and obey them as such threatning damnation to them that resist and promising an eternal Kingdom of Glory to the meek and peaceable and to the patient sufferer for righteousness sake This I say is Primitive Christianity and this is the true Protestant Doctrine of our Church taught by our first Reformers and by their genuine successors ever since So that it seems not without reason that several learned men make this a chief distinguishing character of a True Protestant without an Irony that he owns the Kings Supremacy as our Church has defined it I am sure he that denies it so far agrees with the Papists Wherefore if we would restore due honour to the name of Protestant which by the abuse of pretenders hath of late been exposed to derision and contempt let us live according to the Doctrine of our Church whilst we profess our selves zealous for Protestant Religion and cry out bitterly against Popery let us take heed of embracing some of the vilest principles and practices of it such as were broached and maintain'd chiefly by their furious Hildebrands and some of the worst men amongst them I mean their Doctrine of resisting and rebelling against lawful Soveraigns upon pretence of Religion and the honour of
in Religion amongst our selves by proposing Articles of peace suppressing disputes about obscure and unnecessary matters and by determining of things indifferent in the worship of God according to the general rules of Scripture which principles being heartily embraced and honestly practised will procure as much peace and union in every Church as can be expected in this state of imperfection And by this means thanks be to God there is more true Christian unity to be found in our Church than amongst Papists themselves notwithstanding their Infallible Judg Pope or Council or they know not well who And what appearance of union there is amongst them is to be ascribed rather to the peoples ignorance than to the Popes knowledg yea to the Inquisition much rather than to his Infallibility L. I am well satisfied in this matter But before I proceed to the next mark pray tell me what is that unity which is required in a particular Church to make it lawful for a man to hold communion with it T. Plainly it is this that it be in union with the Catholick Church by holding the same faith which it has always held and using the same worship in all things substantial which it has always used And thus doth the Church of England whilst it owns the Holy Scripture as the Rule of Faith and receives the ancient Creeds wherein this Faith is briefly comprized which Scripture and Creeds have been generally received by the Catholick Church in former ages as well as this And in our Church is established the solemn Worship of the true God in the name of Jesus Christ and here the holy Sacraments are administred according to this rule of Holy Scripture and after the pattern of the Catholick Church in all ages from which the Church of Rome is most grossly degenerated as you may anon be more fully informed L. But does not the Church of Rome receive the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Creeds that we have and worship the true God in the name of Iesus Christ T. Yes they do so and thereby they do plainly approve of and confirm what we hold But then they have made additions of their own to this Faith and have brought many corruptions into this worship and thereby have occasion'd one of the greatest schisms that ever happened in the Church and are themselves the Schismaticks because they make unlawful terms of communion and exclude those who comply not with these terms So far as they are One with the Catholick Church we are One with them So far as they retain that Faith and Worship which has ever been approved of in the Church since the days of Christ and his Apostles we are ready to joyn in communion with them but the errors and corruptions which in latter times have been added and imposed these we utterly reject In these we must dissent from them that it may appear we are one with the ancient Catholick Church which never own'd many of those things which they now impose and we renounce as I shall after shew But let us proceed if you please to the other marks CHAP. II. Of the second mark of the true Church viz. Holiness L. THE next mark of the true Church is that it 's Holy which they say agrees to their Church not to ours Their Doctrine they pretend is holy not ours in their Church are multitudes of holy persons to be found whole Orders of them but out of it they say there is no true holiness no holy people nay nor can be T. It is a matter to be sadly lamented by all good men that among Christians of what profession or Church soever there is no more true piety and holiness to be found and that generally they are more zealous for promoting their own party and private opinions than holiness and righteousness without which we cannot be saved let the Church we are of be never so true and our opinions never so sound and orthodox But in this respect I do verily think there is no Church in the world more guilty than the Church of Rome nor any that less deserves to be stiled an Holy Church For proof of this I intend not to insist on that general loosness and impiety which abounds in Popish Countries and no where perhaps more than in Italy and Rome it self the Seat of his Holiness as they stile the Pope and yet a very sink of all sensuality and profaneness But that which I would have you chiefly to consider is this that several of those Doctrines of their Church which are properly stiled Popish and in which they differ from us do manifestly tend to the prejudice and hindrance of an holy life and do rather serve for an encouragement to sin and wickedness As for instance whilst they abuse the people with idle stories of Purgatory where they may make satisfaction for their sins and where they shall sometimes find much ease and at last be delivered out by the prayers that are said for them by Priests after their death to whom good store of money must be left for that end How does this tend to harden men in their sins and to prevent their timely reformation whilst the hope of a Purgatory takes off the fear of Hell Thus also they teach that Attrition that is being sorry for their sins for fear of punishment will procure their pardon if they make confession and are absolved by a Priest And at most easie rates do they grant Absolutions and Indulgences which must needs make men much more careless of their lives more bold to venture upon wickedness for which they have a pardon so ready at hand But besides these and other hurtful opinions we may plainly discern that in the several branches of Religion their gross corruptions have done much to destroy all true piety and goodness For instance instead of a serious spiritual affectionate worship of God which might help to conform the souls of men to the holiness of that God whom they worship they have invented a world of useless ridiculous Ceremonies which turn it into a kind of bodily exercise that little profits the soul. They have publick prayers in an unknown Tongue where it s enough for the people to be present though they scarce understand a word and what benefit can this afford to their minds Here also contrary to Gods express command they have brought in the worship of Images the Invocation of Saints and Angels especially of the Blessed Virgin as also the adoration of the Host that is of the consecrated Bread in their Mass all which are horrid impieties And even a great part of their private Devotions consists in saying over their Pater Nosters and Ave Maries so many times by rote of which they keep count by a sett of Beads And is this a due worship of God in spirit and truth with affection and reverence such as our Blessed Saviour enjoyns and as the very nature of God requires from all reasonable creatures Moreover as
there is little of true devotion in their worship so they have done much by other false Doctrines of theirs to destroy righteousness truth peace and charity from amongst men to pass by their Doctrines of Equivocation and mental reservation many of great note in their Church have taught that no faith is to be kept with Hereticks and it s well known they have sometimes put it in practice They exempt their Clergy from obedience to the Civil Magistrate and teach that it is in the power of the Pope to Excommunicate and Depose Heretical Princes and to absolve their subjects from Allegiance to them who after this by their principles may lawfully rise up and rebel against them Yea in some of their Councils they have decreed that the Rulers who will not root out Hereticks as they account all that are not of their Church shall be deprived of their Dominions And when they have had power in their hands they have exercised the most barbarous cruelty upon those they call Hereticks that ever was heard of in the world both in our own and other Nations especially where their bloody Inquisition is allow'd They burn their bodies and censure their souls to Hell and this is Popish charity This is the Church that boasts so much of her holiness and good works But should I go about to tell you what is the Divinity of many of their famous Casuists especially of the Jesuits as it 's laid open by some of their own Church and is to be seen in their Books and in the present Popes condemnation of some of their grossest Doctrines if this I say should be laid open you would be amazed to find how there is scarce any sin but with one distinction and evasion or other you might be allow'd to commit it scarce any duty but you might have a colour for the neglect of it Amazed one may well be to find men calling themselves Christians yea Doctors of the Church to allow and defend such practices as a sober heathen would abhor Yet this is the Church that is to be known by her Holiness above all other Churches L. Many of these things which you object against their Church I find my Author afterwards to vindicate but in the mean time he says we Protestants have no holiness in our Church that the first Reformers were very wicked men and so are their followers and a great many ill things he says of those he calls Sectaries as guilty of Rebellion Murders Adultery Sacriledg c. T. As to those who have been really guilty of these or the like crimes let them bear all the blame which they most justly deserve As to our own Church it s no way concerned in this charge no but let the shame light upon that Church which first taught and practised Treason and Rebellion Plots and Conspiracies murdering of Kings and massacring of their Subjects under pretence of Religion And if any that are called Protestants have been guilty of such Villanies they may in respect of these practices and the principles whence they flow justly be stiled the Jesuits Disciples whatever abhorrence they may pretend for other points of Popery L. But he says we take away all fear of God and obedience to his commands and all good Doctrine with more to that purpose T. A plain sign it is that they themselves have no fear of God before their eyes whilst they are guilty of such malicious slanders and reproaches Some good pretence they might have for these censures if we took away the Scriptures from the people wherein all good Doctrine and Gods holy commandments are contain'd and instead of these should put into their hands lying Legends devised by idle Monks full of feigned miracles and ridiculous stories which tend to nourish superstition and error But on the contrary it s well known that we not only allow to common people the use of holy Scripture but do most earnestly exhort them to be diligent and constant in the reading and meditation of it How then dare they say that we take away all good Doctrine And is not this the chief design of the Sermons so plentifully preached amongst us to explain these holy Scriptures to shew the people thence their duty both to God and man and to enforce the same upon them To this same end are also written many excellent Books by the Divines of our Church Yea some done by the more devout Writers of their Church which do chiefly aim at the promoting of good life have been translated into our language are commonly read and well esteemed among us such as Thomas à Kempis Drexelius Sales and others Nothing is more frequently prest upon us than that above all things we ought to live in imitation of our Blessed Saviour and his holy Apostles in the exercise of true devotion and piety to God of righteousness truth and mercy to one another and of purity and sobriety in our own persons which we look upon as the very summ of Religion and the great design of the Gospel according to Tit. 2. 11 12. With us is taught the great obligation that lies upon all men whether Clergy or Laity to be obedient to the King as supreme and to all that are in authority under him That we ought to love our neighbours as our selves keeping faith and truth with all men whether good or bad Orthodox or Heretical avoiding all equivocation and mental reservation With us is taught the excellency and necessity of charity both in doing good to all that need our assistance and in forgiving those who have done evil to us if ever we hope for mercy and forgiveness from God And as many publick good works have been done in this Kingdom since the Reformation as can be shewn within the same compass of years in times of Popery though upon better principles In our Church we are taught to flie from whoredom drunkenness and all riotous sensual courses and that not as slight and venial faults but as most dangerous and deadly vices And for the more effectual promoting of holiness our Religious worship is framed according to the rules of holy Scripture directed to God only in the name of his Son Jesus not to Angels or Saints Our prayers are in a known tongue that the people may be affected and edified and as the Apostle requires may be able on good grounds to say Amen We have the Holy Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords-Supper administred according to our Saviours own Institution and these still urged as most solemn obligations to all piety and holiness of living without which the outward performance will stand us in no stead We declare that no pardon for sin can be obtain'd but on condition of sincere repentance and that no repentance is sincere but what produces reformation and amendment of life if opportunity be afforded So that our Doctrine you see is the Doctrine of the Gospel and the precepts of it are daily inculcated on the people Our
hear is still done in some dark corner amongst those of their own party not daring to come into the open light and submit their proceedings herein to the careful examination of skilful and impartial persons Sometimes perhaps they perswade melancholy people that they were possest and they have cured them when they either leave them little better than they found them or else may work a cure by Physick proper for that purpose Sometimes its notorious they have train'd up Cheats for this very purpose A famous instance there was of this some years ago amongst our selves viz. the Boy of Bilson near Wolverhampton in Staffordshire said to be dispossest by some Catholick Gentlemen as they stiled themselves but to the grief and shame of the Authors the whole Imposture was discovered and publish'd to the world by Dr. Morton then Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry L. If they indeed had this miraculous power of casting out Devils which they make such boasts of I wonder they do not shew the same power in working other miracles as well as this T. 'T is very true But this they may chuse to deal in because the Imposture is not so easily found out For here they commonly have to do with poor melancholy people and with young women especially who are sometimes afflicted with strange distempers which both themselves and their friends may ignorantly fancy to be a possession of the Devil and so are lyable to be imposed upon either by a subtile or by a silly Priest who may perhaps be deceived as well as his Patients and if they happen to recover may think he has done great feats by the mighty pains he has taken And truly the method which they use in these their Exorcisms or casting out of Devils as it s described in their own Books is nothing like that of our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles who by the speaking of a few words did presently cast them forth with authority whereas Popish Priests make a long work and keep a great deal of stir about it using such ceremonies and charms such strange ways of proceeding as makes it look like some unlawful conjuring or at best the whole appears very odd and ridiculous they having neither any command or example in the holy Scripture for the warrant of such practices on this occasion And one remarkable difference there is which is worth our notice that in the Primitive times those out of whom the Devils were cast generally were Heathens or Infidels who hereupon commonly became Converts to Christianity whereas now adays those who are said to be dispossest by their Priests are people of their own party who may easily be practised upon or induced to believe whatever their Ghostly Father tells them But I wonder when we hear of a Protestant being possest with Devils and dispossest by a Popish Priest except when there has been much juggling with a new Convert L. I confess I never heard of any If you please we will now proceed to the next mark of a true Church T. Yes presently we will but before I leave this subject of the Holiness of the Church I would desire you to take notice that every good Christian who is no Papist hath in and from himself as full evidence of the falshood of Popery as he has of his own sincerity and true piety for they declare that no man has any true faith or holiness that is not of their Church and on this account the current Doctrine amongst them is That no man out of it can be saved But now if you upon a faithful examination of your own heart and life do find that you do by Gods grace most stedfastly believe the Gospel of our Lord Jesus and do live in sincere obedience to the precepts of it according to the best of your understanding you have then at hand a most plain and undeniable demonstration even from this knowledg of your self that their Doctrine is most false whilst they confine both holiness and salvation to their own party since you who are not of it do believe and obey the Gospel and our blessed Saviour hath promised pardon and salvation to all that do so without requiring them moreover to believe the Pope to be his Vicar and to submit to all his Doctrines and Decrees Hence then I say its very evident to every honest Christian though no Papist that he may be holy and so may be saved without being of the Romish Church and consequently this is not that Catholick Church out of which no salvation is to be had L. This is indeed a plain argument which every good man may fetch from the knowledg of his own faith and godliness whilst I know and feel that I believe in my Saviour and truly love and serve him certainly I may upon good grounds hope for that happiness which he hath promised to all that are so qualified And whilst I thus know my own sincerity I shall not much be concern'd though a thousand Popish Priests should tell me that I have neither faith nor holiness nor can possibly be saved because I am not their follower for sure the testimony of a mans own conscience is of much more value than all their censures and Christs promises are worthy of more regard I hope than the Popes threatnings T. I think they are It may also be worth our notice to consider what a great dishonour is cast upon their proselytes by this Doctrine of theirs for if there be no true faith or holiness out of the Romish Church then these their Converts must confess that they had neither before they turned Papists but were meer Infidels and profane ungodly persons L. This seems evidently to follow upon their principles and I fear it 's often too true For though I will not take upon me to censure those whom I know not yet I must confess so far as I have observed in the place where I live most of those who have been perverted by them were persons of very ill lives before T. Yea and more than this so they commonly remain after For as we shall rarely find any persons of much sobriety and seriousness revolt to them from our Church so never did I for my own part know one that became a better man and stricter liver by his turning Papist For whatever they talk of holiness their chief business like the Pharisees of old is to make proselytes to their own party and then whether after that they grow better or worse as to their Morals is a matter they seem not much concern'd about Get them but once into the bosom of the Church and their business is done As for a poor Protestant let him be never so humble and holy never so obedient to his Rulers and charitable to his brethren never so desirous to know the whole will of God and to do it yet there is no help for him no way but to Hell he must go because forsooth he is an Heretick out of the
in other cases T. Good reason you have to be so wary since the boast they make of antiquity being on their side is notoriously vain and false and in nothing more palpably than in the present case about the Popes Universal Supremacy For in none of the ancient Councils is any such priviledge given him any more than in holy Scripture which Councils our Church most readily embraces especially the four first Yea the direct contrary is decreed in the very first and most famous General Council that of Nice For therein it was determined as to the Jurisdiction of Bishops that ancient customs should be retain'd and that such eminent Bishops as of Alexandria and Antioch should have the same priviledges in their Precincts that the Bishop of Rome had in his By which decree they within their several limits were made as absolute as he and were not in the least subject to his power nor responsible to him for their proceedings And not to trouble you with many instances in the next age after this there was a great Council in Carthage where St. Austin himself was present in which it was expresly decreed that there should be no appeals to any foreign Bishop after matters had been determined amongst themselves This indeed gave offence to the Pope that then was who pretended that this power of receiving appeals was granted him by the Council of Nice To which the African Bishops answered they had never heard any such matter but would send purposely to Nice it self or some other neighboring Bishops to make enquiry they did so and found all to be meer fraud and forgery Such wicked arts did they of Rome use from the beginning for the justifying and promoting their proud Usurpations Something of a precedency we grant there was very anciently allow'd to the Bishop of Rome which had nothing in it of jurisdiction and power over the rest of his brethren but only was an honour granted him chiefly on account of Rome's being the Seat of the Emperour Hereupon he had many advantages above other Bishops and was capable of doing them good Offices at Court and on that account frequent application was made to him by such as needed his assistance and very often in point of meer prudence matters were brought to him from other Churches and referred to his arbitration Hither also many of the Eastern Bishops were forced to fly for refuge and succour when opprest by the Arrians By these and such like means especially by the Emperour's removal more and more into the East the Bishop of Rome strangely encreased in honour and power and at length in pride and insolence So that in succeeding times as a secular spirit of ambition and covetousness began to infect the greatest Churchmen there were most vehement contests betwixt the Bishops of Rome and of Constantinople for the preheminence For in one General Council it had been determined that because the Emperour had his residence at Constantinople the Bishop of that City should have the same priviledges which the Bishop of Rome had formerly enjoy'd for the same reason And one of the Bishops of Constantinople at length took upon him to stile himself Universal Bishop thereby say learned men claiming rather honour than any jurisdiction over his brethren Yet Gregory then Bishop of Rome was so incensed at it that he positively declared that whoever should assume such a proud title was a certain forerunner of Antichrist This was about six hundred years after our Saviour And not long after it Boniface the third Bishop of Rome by means of the wicked Phocas who had murdered his Master Mauricius and was chosen Emperour in his stead got his Church to be stiled the Supreme of all other Churches though with much ado as their own Historian expresses it But this Supremacy the body of the Greek Church utterly refused to acknowledg and so does to this day though they of Rome have several times used all manner of arts and tricks to draw them into a compliance still persisting in the same methods of fraud and violence for the confirming and securing their arrogant usurpations which at first they made use of to introduce them L. But they say it 's necessary to the unity of the Church that there should be one Supreme Head and Governour T. Very true and so I have told you there is namely the Lord Jesus Christ the only Head of the Catholick Church the Unity whereof consists in the subjection of the members to this same Head by their belief of the same Doctrine and obedience to the same holy Laws and by living in mutual love and charity and Christian communion one with another And herein most plainly doth the Apostle place the unity of the Christian Church Ephes. 4. that they have one Lord one Faith c. but not in their having one chief Ruler under Christ here on Earth whether Pope or Council only they are bound to live in obedience to their own Princes and Bishops in the respective Dominions and Churches where they reside L. They say that Christ alone is the invisible Head but the Pope is the visible Head of the Church T. This is a distinction we no where meet with in holy Scripture and therefore do justly reject it as the fond imagination of their own brain coin'd only to serve a turn But instead of detaining you with any further discourse on this subject I shall refer you to the Learned Dr. Barrow's excellent Treatise which handles it at large if you have leisure to peruse it wherein this pretence of the Popes Supremacy is so shamefully exposed and so fully confuted as cannot but give abundant satisfaction to any intelligent and impartial Reader And this is done with such strength of reason and such full proof from all antiquity that I am apt to think there will scarce be found any of the Champions for the Romish cause as bold men as they be so hardy and impudent as to attempt the returning any answer to that his most solid and impregnable Discourse L. Yet it 's wonder if they do not for they seem most zealous in contending for this above all other Doctrines T. And will you blame them since if this be disown'd the whole fabrick of Popery falls to the ground For if the Pope be not Head of the Church then all Princes in their own Dominions will be found to be Supreme Moderators and Governours in all causes and over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil which is our meaning when we stile the King Head of our Church and then what reformation they with their Clergy have made according to the Holy Scriptures will appear justifiable Yea then these Princes may confer all manner of Church-preferments in their own Kingdoms without asking the Popes leave or expecting his confirmation and all Ecclesiastical causes may be determined without any appeals to Rome And if the King of England may do this in his Dominions as most certainly he may then
may the King of France do the same in his as if the Pope should provoke him probably he might and so may all others if they please By which means at length the Bishop of Rome would be confined to his own Diocess and his Spiritual power be shut up in much the same limits with his Temporal But alas what an utter ruin would this be to the Papal dignity and honour How would their treasures be drain'd their glory sullied and their power abated yea even reduced to nothing No wonder therefore if Bellarmine in the Preface to his Books of the Romish Bishop stiles this Doctrine of his Supremacy the very summ or chief point of Christianity Had he said of Popery it had been true enough For 't is plain they look upon this as one of the most weighty articles of their faith Let this be denied our conformity to their Church in all other things will signifie little or nothing As it appears in Henry the Eighths case for though he still retain'd the main Body of Popery yet because he rejected this power of the Pope he was reckoned and treated as an Heretick and Apostate Whereas let this be but own'd and you shall be dispensed with in many other things As our Historians tell us it was offered to Queen Elizabeth that we should have our Service in English Communion in both kinds c. provided she would submit to the Popes authority and own his Supremacy L. This is I perceive so useful an opinion that they have great reason to be zealous in asserting it but it doth so apparently serve their own ends that were it for nothing else I should mightily suspect the truth of it but by the very slender proof they bring either from Scripture or Reason I am sufficiently assured that it is notoriously false T. Good ground you have so to be yet pray consider what mighty stress they lay upon this idle opinion whilst they confine the Catholick Church to those who embrace it and Excommunicate all others as Hereticks and Schismaticks Yea such homage they pay to this their great Master that even in things of an indifferent nature they will rather yield obedience to his commands than to those of their own Prince And that 's plain from this instance amongst others that for a considerable time in Queen Elizabeths days the Papists came to our Churches but after the Pope had sent order to the contrary they generally desisted And I have heard some eminent Papists alledging the Popes Prohibition as the chief reason of their not taking the Oath of Allegiance So certainly true it is that a Papist acting according to the rules of his own Church can be no further a good Subject than the Pope will give him leave Nor has any Doctrine been more destructive of the rights of Princes and the duty of subjects than this of the Popes Supremacy In pursuance of this or for the promoting it has the peace of the world in these latter ages been greatly disturbed Kings and Kingdoms Excommunicated and endeavoured to be destroy'd Yea for the disowning of this according to their mercyless tenents must we poor Protestants be made utterly miserable both in this life and that to come Here we must be condemned to fire and faggot and hereafter to everlasting burnings even because we will not believe the Bishop of Rome to be Christs Vicar on Earth L. For the sake of this I am more apt to suspect the rest of their Popish Doctrines But though the Pope be not Christs Vicar yet is it not too severe to stile him Antichrist for so it seems many of our Writers do at which my Author is very angry and says it is a calumny and a lye and most intollerable stupidity to assert it T. Certainly not greater than to assert his Supremacy But pray what reason does he give for this his anger and his confidence L. He says that Antichrist shall be a Jew a particular man at the end of the world whereas the Popes be successively many of divers Nations and many ages ago T. Whilst he gives you only his bare word for all this there would need no more confutation than a bare denial Nor shall I give you or my self the trouble to search into the Revelation or any other obscure places of Scripture thence to prove the Pope to be Antichrist Only you may call to mind the saying of Pope Gregory even now quoted That he who should take on him the title of Universal Bishop is the forerunner of Antichrist And so far as Pope Gregory's Infallibility may be allow'd they may serve to prove his Successors to be an Antichristian generation of men But without going about positively to define what is meant by Antichrist in the New Testament that which I would chiefly recommend to your serious consideration in this matter is this That though the Bishops of Rome were at first very pious and good men and so generally continued for some ages yet as they grew in wealth they did by degrees strangely degenerate from the virtue and piety of their Predecessors till at length they with the Grandees of the Clergy who are the Governing part of the Popish faction have most apparently set up and pursued a design exactly contrary to that of our blessed Saviour which design of theirs may therefore well enough be stiled Antichristian and so may the abettors of it who have by the most vile and unchristian methods carried on the same To make this manifest in a few words consider that our blessed Saviour hath expresly told us that his Kingdom is not of this world does not consist in riches honours and worldly dignity but his whole business was to promote the glory of God and the salvation of mens souls by bringing us to the love and practice of piety and humility righteousness and mercy purity and sobriety and all true virtue and goodness But now on the contrary he who stiles himself Christs Vicar plainly enough declares that his Kingdom is of this world For what is it they seek after and so earnestly contend for but worldly greatness and power pomp and glory to make all men pay homage and obedience to them And under this pretence of being Vicar of Christ and Successor of St. Peter have the Popes for many ages exalted themselves above all that is called God I mean above all Civil power above Kings and Emperours who are indeed Gods Vicegerents on earth They have set their feet on the necks of Princes and kickt off their Crowns at their pleasure deposed and destroy'd Kings absolved their Subjects from the Allegiance due to them and disposed of their Kingdoms to others so far as they had power For their own secular interests they have often stir'd up Wars amongst Christian Princes yea themselves have maintain'd and prosecuted the same They have excited the people to Civil Wars and Seditions and sometimes even drawn the Son to rebel against his own Father They have set
piety and virtue to imitate their good examples obey their counsels and please our selves with the forethoughts of that happy time when we shall follow them into glory Moreover since we believe that our prayers cannot profit our friends when they are dead this may well make us more industrious to do them all the good we can whilst they are alive And if by Gods blessing on our endeavours they become truly pious and good in this world we shall have no need to pray for them when they are gone into the other but rather will they have cause to praise God for us By this time I hope you perceive how little cause there is of separation from our Church on account of our not using prayers for the deliverance of souls out of Purgatory Since we have no reason to believe there is any such place nor consequently to use any such prayers But yet I will add if any man should be of another opinion and fancy this to be a lawful piece of charity yet would not this justifie his separation from us for though he thought our publick prayers in this to be defective yet I hope this defect does not render the rest unlawful If he meet not with a prayer agreeable to his own private conceit in this matter yet he may joyn very chearfully in those we do use which are most plainly agreeable to the will of God revealed in his word which holy word ought to be the rule both of our belief and worship And when we vary from this rule we cannot pray in faith with any well-grounded confidence of being heard as particularly they cannot who pray for the release of souls from Purgatory or for the easing of their pains there seeing they have neither precept nor promise no nor so much as any example in all Scripture to warrant their so doing L. I am convinced they have not nor will I by the grace of God ever offer up any such unwarrantable prayers CHAP. VII Of Transubstantiation T. WHAT is the next Popish Doctrine your Author mentions L. That of Christs Personal Presence in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper about which I shall be glad to hear you discourse and to answer the arguments he brings for it T. Now then we come to their great Doctrine of Transubstantiation viz. that the natural substance of the Bread and Wine in the Communion is by Consecration changed into the substance of Christs body and blood which is certainly one of the most absurd and unreasonable Doctrines that ever was taught and yet there is nothing they assert with more zeal and fierceness and in Queen Maries days accounted it reason enough to burn poor Protestants for Hereticks if they would not profess it This being commonly one of the first questions put to them What say you to the Sacrament of the Altar For so they used to stile the Eucharist or Holy Communion Well pray let me hear what arguments your Author brings for this strange opinion L. He first attempts to prove it from those words of our Saviour at the institution of this Holy Sacrament This is my body which is given for you Luk. 22. 19. and he adds that Christ now making his Will his words must needs be very clear T. This indeed is the Text they commonly insist on and the words in themselves are clear enough but the strange comment they make on them does certainly render them the most obscure and unintelligible that ever were uttered For pray tell me does it not seem a wonder of wonders past all understanding that our Blessed Saviour who was there alive in the midst of his Disciples should at the same time himself give them his natural body and blood to be eaten and drunk by them and after this still remain alive sound and whole as he was before without any manner of change L. It seems very strange and unlikely I confess at first hearing T. And yet we never find the Apostles making any objection or raising any scruple about it Nor does our Blessed Saviour say any thing to prevent or remove such objections as might easily be made May we not then fairly infer hence that they understood these words in the same plain easie sense which such expressions in like cases do very evidently carry along with them namely that the Bread and Wine were the Symbols and Sacramental signs and tokens of his Body and Blood and the breaking of the one and pouring out of the other did very fitly represent the wounding and bruising of his Body and the shedding of his Blood for our sakes Neither do we say as they accuse us that these are bare figures of Christs Body and Blood but do constantly teach that the benefits of his Death and Passion are hereby effectually communicated to worthy receivers Here we make a solemn and most thankful commemoration of the Sacrifice which Christ offered on the Cross and in feeding on the holy Elements we feast upon that Sacrifice and so renew and confirm our Covenant with God in Christ giving up our selves to him as an holy and obedient people and by these Seals of his Covenant the great God assures us of the truth of his Promises and gives himself to us as our God and reconciled Father in Jesus Christ. And by this means our faith is strengthned our love to God and man is quickned and inflamed and all other graces increased and the Divine comforts of his Spirit afforded and so the flesh of Christ becomes meat indeed and his blood drink indeed nourishing our souls to eternal life L. All this is plain and easie to understand T. It is so and most natural it is after this manner to explain our Saviours words as being most agreeable to the common way of speaking in like cales where that which is a sign or Sacrament is said to be the very thing which it denotes and represents Thus the Paschal Lamb is said to be the Lords Passover of which it was a commemoration Exod. 12. 11. So in Pharaoh's Dream the ears of corn and the kine are said to be years of plenty and of famine because they signified the same And a plain place to this purpose you have 1 Cor. 10. 4. where it 's said that Rock was Christ because it did prefigure or typifie him So when our Saviour says This Cup is the New Testament in my blood what other sense can these words have but that this Wine represents his Blood which was shed to ratifie and confirm the New Testament or Covenant of Grace and mercy which God hath made with all true believers through his Son L. He quotes also Joh. 6. where much is said concerning our eating Christs flesh and drinking his blood But from what you have already said I cannot but think is most reasonable to understand the words in a spiritual sense as signifying our feeding upon Christ by faith and so deriving grace from him into our souls T. You have good reason so
confirming their belief of his Doctrine The Doctrine was to be believed but the miracle was to be seen which confirm'd that Doctrine To instance in one for all When the water was turn'd into wine Ioh. 2. it was now seen and tasted to be true wine only it was much better than common wine Otherwise do you think if it had still had the colour the smell and the taste of water that the people would have been perswaded it was turned into wine Would they have been satisfied with an odd story that the substance was wine though the accidents of water still remain'd or with any such idle unintelligible talk Would such a sort of miracle as this that could no way be perceived ever have been believed Or would the pretence to such miracles ever have gain'd Disciples to our Saviour And yet such a one is this of Transubstantiation L. So very strange and unaccountable it is that it never ought to be admitted without very good proof T. And is it not then almost as strange that ever any man should believe so absurd a Doctrine not only without good proof but even against the express words of Scripture as well as against his reason and senses L. No matter for sense and reason they cry but how do you prove it to be against Scripture T. It may be proved from those places which tell us of our Saviours being received into Heaven as Act. 3. 21. and he cannot at the same time be corporally present upon earth and in heaven too L. But did he not appear to St. Paul and others after his Ascension T. Yes he did so yet does not this prove him to be then corporally present for he might render himself visible to them without descending as he did to St. Stephen or he might appear to them in a Vision and make himself present to their imagination Or he might be said to appear to them by his Angel whom he sent For thus in Scripture it 's commonly said God appear'd to this or that man when he sent his Angel to him with some message But besides this the plain words of the Evangelists when they relate the institution of this Holy Sacrament do directly contradict this Doctrine of Transubstantiation For they tell us that our Saviour took bread and blessed it and brake it even the very same that he took that he blest and what he blest that he broke and what is this but true bread as to its natural substance Only in a mystical and spiritual sense it was made the Body of Christ by Consecration And thus also St. Paul calls it Bread after Consecration no less than three times in three verses together 1 Cor. 11. 26 c. L. This my Author grants but says it 's called so because the external accidents of bread do still remain T. That is because the colour shape and taste of bread do still remain with all other qualities of common bread Now I beseech you can there be any better or surer way to discover what is the substance or nature of a thing than by such accidents such outward sensible appearances as these How can we distinguish bread from a stone or water from wine but by the colour the smell the taste or the like And thus do we here distinguish bread from flesh and wine from blood and do believe that to be bread which is both call'd so in Scripture and which our own eyes discern to be indeed so L. But he says faith will teach us otherwise from the Word of God T. Nay on the contrary you see Gods word calls it bread after the Consecration and therefore both our faith and our senses assure us that it is bread Nor does this in the least contradict our Saviours words when he says This is my body for so it is in a spiritual sense whilst yet the substance of bread remains unchanged and therefore most properly is it called bread which it could in no wise be if no such substance was there Yet still we say that by partaking of these holy Elements of bread and wine we do really partake of Christs body and blood though in a spiritual manner according to St. Pauls expression 1 Cor. 10. 16. Do you judge then who keeps closest to Scripture in this point they or we L. To me it seems plain that the Doctrine and language of our Church is no less agreeable to Scripture than to reason And I still discover what injury they do us whilst they charge us with holding that the Sacrament is only the figure of Christs body T. It is as I have already said a most false charge for though it be the figure of his body and expresly called so by some ancient Writers yet we own it to be much more than so For in this holy Sacrament are given to us Christs body and blood whilst the blessings and benefits of his Death and Passion are made over to and bestow'd upon the worthy receiver And so our Church expresses it in the Office at the Communion We do spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood Christ dwelleth in us and we in him we are one with Christ and he with us L. Yet they say we make the Sacraments of the New Testament in effect no better than the old since the Passover and such like were figures of Christ whereas in the New Testament is to be given the real verity T. A most plain difference we make whatever they say to the contrary for besides that our Sacraments are few and easie clear and intelligible it is to be considered that under the Law were used types and shadows which prefigured Christ to come and that somewhat obscurely whereas the Sacraments now used do most plainly shew him to be already come and to have died for our sins and risen again according to the Scriptures Herein moreover is made to us a more plenteous communication of grace and comfort as the fruit of his Death and Resurrection according to that of the Evangelist The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Iesus Christ Joh. 1. 17. Yet after all we assert that the Elements made use of in these Sacraments of the New Testament are no more changed as to their natural substance than those of the Old that is they are still Sacraments outward visible signs and representations of Spiritual things and are not changed into those very things themselves which they are designed to represent and hold forth to us And this is granted by the Papists themselves as to one of the Sacraments viz. that of Baptism For the water herein made use of still remains water It is not turned into the natural blood of Christ and yet by virtue of that blood which this water represents are our sins washt away in this Laver of Regeneration Hence then it is most evident that the efficacy of a Sacrament consists not in having the natural substance of the Elements altered for then
there would be no virtue in Baptism And consequently neither doth the excellency of the Sacraments of the New Testament above those of the Old consist in any such alteration for if it did then Baptism should not be prefer'd before Circumcision or any of the washings and sprinklings used under the Law since in Baptism water still remains true water And if this be no disadvantage or dishonour to the holy Sacrament of Baptism then no more is it to the other Sacrament that the Bread and Wine used therein do still remain true Bread and Wine as to their natural substance after Consecration L. I cannot imagin any reason for the putting a difference in this case betwixt the two Sacraments And I do a little wonder they should be so careless as to use an argument which if it had any truth er force in it would plainly tend to the disparaging of the Sacrament of Baptism T. You must not expect good arguments in a bad cause but has your Author no better than these L. I find no more arguments on this subject only he makes use of a sumilitude that if a Father should leave to his Son his House and Garden by his last Will would the Son understand by this the picture of the House and Garden or the things themselves in truth In like manner he infers that our Saviour has not left us the bare figures of his Body and Blood but these very substances in the Sacrament T. Rather we may infer that in like manner did our Blessed Saviour truly give up himself for us on the Cross there shedding his blood for the remission of our sins and doth in this Holy Sacrament really confer the blessings purchased by his death upon all true believers and by this means he does most truly give himself to them according to his promise even much more to their advantage than if he had given them his natural flesh and blood in the Sacrament L. I think my Authors Simile does him little service T. Service do you say rather if you consider it well it will be found to make directly against his own opinion For suppose your Father had left you an House and Land by his Will and appointed some body after his death to put you in possession of it by giving you a key and a turf or twig when this is done do you take this key to be the very house or the turf or twig to be the land no surely but only in effect and in the sense of the Law they are so since by these the house and land are made over to you and by receiving them you are put in actual possession of them as fully and effectually as if the whole house and all the land had been put into your hands if that had been possible And thus I say by these Holy Elements doth our Blessed Saviour make over himself and all the blessings of the Covenant to his faithful people L. The resemblance is very plain and helps me still better to understand how fitly the Body and Blood of Christ may be said to be verily and indeed received by the faithful in the Lords Supper without giving the least coununance to this Doctrine of Transubstantiation T. That you may be sure of these being the very words used in our Church-Catechism and many the like expressions we find in the Office at the Communion some of which I mention'd before Yet all this while it 's well known how utterly our Church disowns this absurd opinion so contrary to sense and reason and to the express words of Scripture as I have shew'd Yet give me leave in a few words further to manifest how without admitting this opinion we may very properly affirm That Christ is verily and indeed received by the faithful in this holy Supper viz. 1 In a moral sense as servants receive their Master by taking earnest and subjects their Prince by taking the Oath of Allegiance For here we do solemnly profess our selves the disciples servants and subjects of the blessed Jesus and by taking these holy symbols of bread and wine do receive him as our Lord and Saviour to whom we promise and vow all humble obedience and through whom alone we hope for mercy and salvation 2 Here also do we receive those graces of his holy Spirit which transform us into his likeness so that Christ himself may be said to come into us to take possession of us and to dwell in us and we in him even by saith and love and by our likeness to him in all humility purity charity and those other graces which make us partakers of a Divine Nature and may well be stiled Christ in us the hope of glory all which are confirmed and increased by our worthy communicating at this holy Table So that passing by other things that might be added to this purpose you may hence see how properly the holy Elements may be called the Body and Blood of Christ of which they are the Sacrament and Symbol and which they do really convey to us as much to our advantage as if they were changed into the very natural substance of what they represent For suppose we should eat Christs natural flesh and drink his blood what are our souls the better for this if the graces of his Spirit do not accompany them But if these graces are bestow'd on us by our worthy receiving of the holy Elements of Bread and Wine what loss is it to us that these remain unchanged as to their substance L. None at all that I can imagin T. You may be sure of it since what is bodily reaches only to the body and not to the soul of man For as our Saviour tells us Mat. 15. 11. That what enters into the mouth defiles not a man of which he after gives the reason because it passeth into the belly and thence into the draught So neither can that which enters into the mouth of it self purifie and cleanse the soul of man because it 's only received into the body and so passes through it And this is that Doctrine which I have formerly told you our Blessed Saviour himself most plainly teaches Ioh. 6. 63. when he corrected the gross mistake of the dull Capernaites L. Yet how gross soever it was the Papists at this day seem to continue in it as if Christ had promised to give men his natural Flesh to eat T. And this they do contrary to our Saviours own explication of himself in vers 63. and to other places of Scripture before named and also contrary to all true Reason We will not set up our own shallow reasonings against the Holy Scripture but are ready most firmly to believe whatever we find therein plainly revealed And there we may find some things above our Reason though nothing contrary to it But now this Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation it is both contrary to plain Scripture and is also full of so many palpable absurdities and contradictions that
it were almost endless to name them Yet the more to confirm you against it if need be let me mention a few of those many As for instance according to this opinion our Saviours body would be in ten thousand places at one viz. where ever the Consecrated host as they call it is At Rome and at Paris in the East-Indies and the West and in thousands of Churches where it 's reserved And in one place Christs body would rest upon the Altar in another it might be carrying toward a sick man It would be in one Priests box and in anothers hand in this mans mouth and in that mans stomach and all this one and the same body still Yea thus it must have been ever since the first institution of this Sacrament above sixteen hundred years ago Millions of men in the several ages and places of the world would all have eaten this self same body a thousand times over and yet still it remains whole and untouched the very same that it was from the beginning neither multiplied nor divided neither encreased nor diminished Again by this Doctrine every wafer and every part of the wafer is the whole body and a thousand wafers are only that one Yea what is more prodigious if any thing can be so according to this opinion our Blessed Saviour when he was present with his Apostles alive and well did then give himself into their hands to be eaten by them So that he was in their mouths and bellies at the same time that he was sitting amongst them and yet never shewed the least sign nor felt the least effect of any such change upon him And yet after all this same Body was next day offered up and his Blood poured out on the Cross. It deserves also to be considered how the breaking of Christ's natural Body and eating and swallowing it is consistent with its being still alive as surely they will grant it is Yea how this same Body should be at God's right hand shining in honour and glory and yet at the same time be set upon the Altar or carried in a Box yea eaten by Mice or by Worms and Flies But no questions must be asked no doubts or scruples raised all must be swallowed with an implicite Faith and they think to solve all well enough with crying nothing is impossible with God which any Man may as well pretend to justifie the grossest falshoods and absurdities in the World Though truly I think none can be imagined greater than what this opinion stands justly charged with That so mighty a change should be made in the very natural substance of the Bread and yet that there is no manner of appearance of it but still here is the same colour tast smell and all other accidents or qualities of Bread after Consecration as before And notwithstanding all this we must believe that there is no substance of Bread to which these accidents belong but the substance of Flesh without any accidents at all What strange prodigious fancies are these And what a scandal is it to our Religion what a mighty hindrance to the belief of it when such an unreasonable opinion shall be proposed as an Article of Faith And be made of equal necessity to be believed with the great Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation though it has no manner of support from the Holy Scripture as I have before shewn L. I confess if a Man thought he could not be a Christian without receiving this Opinion it would be a strong temptation to Infidelity and go nigh to make him reject our whole Religion T. Doubtless it would and I fear it has often produced this effect Woe be to them by whom the offence cometh Yea further it will appear that on some other accounts this Doctrine directly tends to promote Infidelity whilst as many Learned Writers have observed it does in a great measure evacuate and overthrow the main proofs of the Truth of Christianity For one great Argument our Saviour made use of was the Miracles which he wrought The works which I do saith he bear witness of me If you believe not me believe me for the works sake Now to make this Argument of any force it must be supposed that their Senses did not deceive them but what they saw and heard was really true For if our Senses are not to be relied on in judging of their own proper Objects at a due distance how could the people tell but that all these Miracles were meer cheats and delusions But if they had sufficient assurance that they were truly wrought because they saw them with their own eyes and thereupon had sufficient ground to believe that Religion to be true which was confirmed by them then have we as good reason to believe Transubstantiation to be most false since our Senses do as fully assure us that it is so And hence we are very certain that this could be none of the Doctrines which our Saviour taught because there would have been a direct contradiction betwixt the Doctrine it self and the Argument made use of to prove it for whilst he appeals to his Miracles he supposes that Men may trust their Senses in the discerning of proper Objects whereas according to this Doctrine no trust is to be given to them Moreover we know that our Saviours Resurrection was the great confirmation of his Doctrine and did demonstrate him to be the Son of God the promised Messiah Now how should it be known that the same Jesus who was Crucified was indeed risen from the dead but by their sight of him and converse with him Thus we read what full satisfaction it pleased our Saviour to give to St. Thomas in this respect permitting him to put his Fingers into the print of the Nails and to thrust his hand into his side and by this means all his doubts were removed Now the same ground that St. Thomas had to believe that the Body which was wounded and hung dead on the Cross was after raised again the very same have we to believe that the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament are not turned into the natural substance of Christ's Body and Blood even the full evidence of our Senses Whereas if St. Thomas and the rest of the Apostles at the institution of this Holy Sacrament a little before Christs Death had found their Senses to be so grosly deceived as Papists would perswade us I know not how they could well have trusted them so soon after his Resurrection as we find they did If then the Apostles had good reason to believe the Resurrection of Christ to be true so have we to rest assured that this Doctrine of Transubstantiation is most false Yea let me add if we are sure that these words This is my body are in the Gospel then so sure we may be that they cannot be taken in that gross sense which Papists put upon them for as we know them to be there because there we see them and
read them so do we as plainly see that after Consecration the Bread and Wine still remain in their natural substances and therefore are made the Body and Blood of Christ in a spiritual and mystical sense according to the most common acceptance of such Phrases that relate to Sacraments as was before shewn L. You need add nothing more to clear this matter nor can I imagine what reply they can make except they shall say that we must not in this case trust our senses but exercise of our Faith T. This indeed they do say but with no manner of reason For though God requires the Exercise of our Faith in Believing what he hath revealed though our senses cannot reach to or discern it yet we never read in the whole Book of Scripture that ever he requires men to believe any thing directly contrary to the evidence of their Senses to believe it was dark as midnight when they saw the Sun shining at Noon-day to believe the same Man to lye dead in his Grave whom they saw alive walking before them For at this rate all our Saviours Miracles had been wrought in vain if men must not believe their own eyes as we use to say For we must consider that Almighty God hath so framed our Nature that we are to be directed and guided by our Senses in those matters that properly belong to them Nor can we I think in this present state have more clear and full assurance of any thing than what our Senses when sound and perfect convey to us And therefore I have said our Saviour took this way to give assurance of the truth of his Gospel and of his Resurrection by that satisfaction he gave to the very Senses of Men. Thus St. Iohn when he would give the clearest and fullest evidence of the truth of Christian Doctrine he tells us That which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which our hands have handled declare we unto you 1 Joh. 1. 1 2 3. Now all this may assure us that those words This is my body are not to be taken in such a sense as would engage us to the belief of Transubstantiation Nay the Word of God it self assures us that they are not since in this Word as I have shewn from many places the Holy Bread in the Sacrament is called Bread after Consecration and therefore are we so to believe it and are to look upon it as his Body Spiritually and Sacramentally and so neither one Text contradicts another nor will our Faith contradict our Senses L. This is easie and intelligible and neither offers violence to the Word of God nor to the Reason of our own Minds T. Yet further let me add if the Senses of all Men throughout the whole world are thus deceived as they must be if Transubstantiation be true then is all certainty of any thing whatever in a manner utterly destroyed How can I tell that I tread upon the Earth that I see the Heavens over my head or the Sun shining in the Firmament In these and all other things which I think that I see or hear my Senses may be imposed upon as well as in the present Case And how then can I be sure that any Revelation was ever made from God to Man Or how could any Man be sure of it though a Voice came to him from Heaven or a Vision appeared to him All this may be but idle fancy and delusion his Hearing and his Sight are not to be trusted Yea let this opinion be admitted and how can we be certain of the truth of that which God hath in his Word revealed For if he deceive me one way why not another The same Holy and True God who hath revealed his Will in Holy Scriptures hath also made another sort of Revelation in the works of Nature He hath given me Senses of Seeing Hearing c. and hath proposed Objects agreeable thereto Now if I believe him to be so Holy and Good that he will not deceive me in his Word why may I not from the same Goodness argue that he will not deceive me in his Works But if he should do it in the latter why may he not in the former also L. They may say this is a particular Case and therefore though our Senses may herein be mistaken yet we have no reason to suspect them at other times T. A particular Case it is indeed and such as nothing like it can be instanced in nor yet any good reason assigned why our Senses may not at any other time be deceived as well as in this matter But strangest of all it is that we have no warning given us in Scripture not to trust our Senses in this particular Case though in all others we may Nor do we find any thing said to take off the prejudice that might arise in mens minds against so strange a Doctrine We hear of no Objections made of old against it by the Enemies of Christianity nor of any Answers given to silence or prevent such Objections Nay on the contrary as I have said when the Capernaites mistook our Saviour's meaning he let them know that his Discourse was to be understood in a spiritual sense Ioh. 6. 63. Thus certainly the Apostles understood it as also those Words This is my body else surely we should have heard of their doubts and objections at least they would have made some further enquiry about the sense and meaning of them Else how comes it to pass that we never find the least mention of this same Doctrine in any of the Apostles Sermons or in the Epistles written to any of the Churches Nay though there was so fair an occasion offered to St. Paul when he discourses about the Lords-Supper 1 Cor. 11. where he tells them that what he had received of the Lord he delivered to them but he is there so far from explaining or asserting the Doctrine of Transubstantiation that he teaches the direct contrary in calling it Bread over and over after Consecration L. Yet I have heard some arguing for it from those words of his that he who eats and drinks unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ Vers. 27. Now say they how could this be so hainous a sin if the natural Body and Blood of Christ were not present in the Sacrament T. For that let the Apostles own words decide it for he there tells us that he who eats this Bread and drinks this Cup unworthily is thus guilty So that it is Bread which is eaten and consequently Wine which is drunk by the Receiver But to do this unworthily and irreverently rushing upon it as a common meal not duly considering the great importance and design of this Holy Sacrament as it is a commemoration of Christ's death and a Spiritual Feast upon his Body and Blood this must needs be an hainous Sin being an affront to Christ himself and a profanation of his Sacred Ordinance This is meant by
hands and may read them as much as they please And especially those two Books Ecclesiasticus and that of Wisdom are well worthy to be read again and again as containing most excellent moral rules for the direction and guidance of our lives Consider then what an impudent thing it is for Papists to accuse our Church for putting out these Books of Apocrypha which yet are in so much use amongst us whilst they themselves endeavour in some sort to make the whole Bible Apocryphal I mean by their hiding it so much from the common people putting away not only some but even all the Books of Holy Writ very much from their sight And some of their Authors do speak so meanly and contemptibly of these holy Books which do so little service to their cause that they seem not to have so much respect for them as we have for the Apocrypha it self So that they of all people have least reason to condemn others for slighting or rejecting the holy Scriptures and our Church hath as little reason to be condemned as any other in the whole world As to his other spiteful suggestions I leave it to your self or any other impartial person to judge whether I have said any thing against the Doctrine of their Church without giving good reason for it And I can assure you I have not in this whole Discourse said one word against my conscience neither would I have you envy or hate any mans person be he Papist or what he will whilst you abstain from their errors For though I do not believe the Popish fiction of Purgatory yet I do firmly believe there is a future Judgment and an Hell prepared for the wicked and ungodly particularly for lyers and slanderers and for such as hate their neighbours upon any pretence whatever And is this all that your Author has to say L. He adds nothing more in this Chapter but advice to those who are seduced as he calls it that they should beg light from God and weigh what he has said and seek more instruction from good and learned Catholicks meaning I suppose Popish Priests chiefly T. There 's little doubt of it Now to prevent your being seduced by those who call themselves Catholicks but are not truly so I shall wish you to follow his advice so far as it 's good Humbly beg of God to enlighten your mind with the knowledg of the truth and be ever careful to do the will of God so far as you know it that so you may be the better qualified for the assistance and direction of his good Spirit which delights in men of pure hearts and humble minds Moreover I advise you to weigh impartially what is said on both sides and then be true to your own judgment and conscience in following that which has the plainest and fullest evidence of its truth I would not have you out of pride and vanity thrust your self upon disputes but when you cannot well avoid the discourses of their Priests or Gentlemen if you happen to be at any time somewhat puzled with their arguments do not hastily conclude them to be unanswerable but consult with your Minister or such as may be best able to inform and satisfie you And you may do well to furnish your self with some of those Books that are written by our Divines in defence of the Church of England against the Papists But above all Books let me earnestly request you with great diligence to study and search the holy Scriptures for in them you shall find the true way to eternal life Read there our Blessed Saviours own most Heavenly Discourses who spake as never man spake and particularly read often his most admirable Sermon in the Mount where you have the summ of Christian Religion Read also the several Epistles of the Apostles with the rest of those Scared Writings as you have opportunity and then honestly and impartially compare the Doctrines of our Church and those of the Church of Rome which differ from ours with what is taught in these same holy Books and what you shall find to be most plainly agreeable thereto that own and embrace and evermore firmly adhere to L. The Council you give me is most fair and reasonable which hitherto I have endeavoured to follow and by Gods grace will continue so to do For I can truly say it my chief design is to please God and save my soul And I cannot imagin any surer way to attain this than by studying well the Word of God wherein he hath revealed his will and the way to eternal salvation And certainly God is so good and gracious that he will not fail to direct and guide those into the right way who with sincere and honest minds do above all things desire and endeavour to know his will that they may do it Yea I look upon it as an instance of his kindness and good providence that I so happily met with you from whom I have received such full satisfaction And as for the subtle arguments of Papists I hope by that assistance which you have already given me and yet further will do I shall in a-good measure be able to answer them In the following Chapter my Author produces several of these subtilties which he calls pregnant arguments against Sectaries and these I shall desire you to consider and give an answer to T. I am very willing to do it but that I may not tire you we 'l refer this to our next meeting L. I am well content only one favour I shall request that in the mean time you would please at your leisure to send me in writing the summ of what you have now discoursed that I may have the benefit of perusing it and fixing it better in my mind T. I shall readily grant your request and praying God to lead you into and settle you in the truth shall for this time bid you farewell L. Farewell Good Sir The Second Part. CHAP. I. Containing an Answer to some Arguments against Protestants T. WELL met Friend L. I am heartily glad Sir to meet you again so soon and do return you many thanks both for the pains you took in your late Conference with me and that you was pleased as I desired to send me the summ of it in writing which I have read over again and again to my fuller satisfaction T. I shall reckon my self very well recompenced for what pains I have taken if you reap any advantage thereby L. That I have done very much I thank God For upon the review of my Popish Author so far as we have proceeded I meet not there with any objection against our Religion nor with any argument for Popery but what I can easily answer Nay more than this since I was with you I have read over the last Chapter of his Book the consiâ—eration of which you defer'd till this our second meeting and truly I have not been much gravel'd with any thing in it but can
tolerably well give answer thereto from what I have already heard from you Nor do I find here much that is new but many of the same things in other words drest up with much art and cunning T. I am glad you are so good a proficient and since you tell me this let us if you will for a while at least take a new method in our following discourse Give me your Book and for the trial of your skill I 'le propose thence the arguments which your Author makes use of and you shall return answers to the same L. I shall do my best but must crave your assistance when I am at a loss T. That you may be sure I shall readily give and if we meet with many the same things which we have had already we shall the quicklier dispatch them Only something I have to premise before I come to his arguments In the beginning of this his last Chapter he brings in his Scholar desiring to be furnish'd with some pregnant arguments for the reducing of Sectaries to the Catholick Church which he says they have groundlesly forsaken and cruelly persecuted Now what ground we whom he unjustly calls Sectaries had to forsake the Romish Church not the Catholick we have already shewn and shall do more but whilst he would insinuate that we Protestants have been grievous persecutors of Papists this I am sure is a very groundless charge and I wonder he had the impudence to fasten it upon us especially considering how infamous their own Church hath long been for the most cruel bloody persecution of poor Protestants meerly upon account of Religion and that in this Kingdom to go no further Whereas it 's very rare that any Papist hath suffered the loss of his life amongst us purely upon that account nor should I desire ever to see such severity used toward them or any other Sect if they will but live peaceably and not disturb the Government But most certain and undeniable it is that many of them have suffered for downright Treason and Rebellion as in the Gunpowder-Plot and at several other times And indeed our Laws make it Treason for any of the Kings subjects to go to the Church of Rome for Orders and then come over to draw away the people into communion with that Church this being look'd on as a seducing of them from their Allegiance to his Majesty which no wise Prince will suffer And with good reason is it so look'd on since few of these Priests will take the Oath of Allegiance and do reckon themselves exempt from the Civil power and both they and their deluded proselytes are taught to prefer the power of a foreign Potentate viz. the Bishop of Rome before that of their own Prince Some of them indeed say not all that this his power is only in Spirituals but whilst the Pope is judge in his own cause what either is spiritual or has a tendency to it may he not under this pretence extend his power as far as he pleases as you heard before But though in this and other instances the principles of Papists are extremely dangerous to the Civil Government yet I wonder whether Protestants may be permitted to live as quietly in Italy or Spain as thousands of Papists do here in England Nay at this day even in France it self what disturbances and persecutions do poor Protestants meet with and that chiefly as is said through the malicious instigations of fierce and furious Clergy men whilst yet we hear not that they can in the least charge them with any seditious or unpeaceable behaviour What impudence then is it for Papists to cast such dishonourable reflections upon our Government whether of Church or State as if we were guilty of I know not what rigorous proceedings against them Whereas it will be hard to find any where in Christendom more mildness than in the Church of England nor any where more cruelty and severity than in that of Rome whose bloody Inquisition has been long talked of throughout the world But to follow your Author yet before he brings forth his Arguments he tells us that Christ sends us to the Church quoting Matt. 18. 17. That if we neglect to hear the Church we must be counted for no better than Heathens and Publicans What this makes to his purpose I do not well understand For this seems plainly to be meant of that particular Church whereof we are Members in peaceable communion wherewith we ought to live rendring chearful obedience to all its lawful injunctions But what 's this to the Church of Rome which neither has any Authority over us in England and whose impositions are notoriously sinful He next quotes that of St. Paul 1 Tim. 3. 15. That the Church is the pillar and ground of truth Which is true both of the Catholick Church and of every particular Church that is a sound Member of it For hereby is declared that the truth of the Gospel that is the Christian Religion is carefully preserved openly profest and taught in the Christian Church The expression here made use of is commonly thought to allude to the fixing up of Writings upon a Pillar in some publick place that they may be seen and read of all like that in Iosh. 8. 32. But still I am to seek what this makes for his advantage If he only intend by these Quotations to prove that a Man ought to live in communion with the true Church of Christ and to behave himself peaceably and obediently in that particular Church of which he is a Member Who denies it Or what will he gain by it Since this tends nothing to prove it our duty to become Members of the Romish Church to believe all her Doctrines and obey her commands Well but this is that he will now demonstrate we are all bound to and that by five Arguments all of them as he fancies most strong and unanswerable which we shall particularly survey and examine the strength of them His first is That Church is to be heard in which there is most assurance that one is in the way to Salvation but in the Roman Church there is most assurance of this and therefore she is to be heard and obey'd What say you to this L. I deny that there is most assurance of our being in the way to Salvation in the Roman Church T. And well you may but thus he goes on to prove it Protestants grant that one living and dying in the Roman Church may be saved else they condemn all their Ancestors to the pit of Hell and therefore those of that Church have most assurance of their Salvation since it 's granted by all that they are in the way to it and thus he says it has been held by all the World time out of mind And to give full strength to his Argument we must add what he has in other places that Papists deny that a Protestant can be saved whilst Protestants grant that a Papist may and
therefore does not the Papist seem to be of the surer side L. No but the quite contrary I think may be concluded from this very Argument since as I have before heard from you this very uncharitableness of the Papists in condemning all that are not of their way makes their own Salvation to be very hazardous Judge not saith our Saviour lest ye be judged whilst the Protestant by his Charity shews himself to be a better Christian and consequently in the surer way to Salvation And had I no other Argument against turning Papist this alone would keep me from it that I should then stand bound by the Decrees of Popes and Popish Councils to look upon all men in a state of Damnation who are out of the Romish Church for so they have determined as I have often heard and my Author seems plainly to assert it T. There is a great deal of Truth and Reason in what you say For this is the current Doctrine of their Church though some of the common people will not own it But beside this it is to be considered that though a Protestant may have charitable thoughts of an honest Papist yet this makes nothing at all for the commendation of Popery since it is not for this that he is saved not for his embracing of Propery I mean but for his belief of the Gospel and his obedience to it In the mean time Popery is his disease and makes his condition very hazardous only we hope that possibly he may be saved notwithstanding it As a man that has the Plague or has taken poison it 's possible he may recover but yet his condition is very sad and full of danger and no man in his wits will venture upon Poison or a Pesthouse because there is a possibility of escaping Whatever Charity then we may have for a well-meaning Papist I 'le assure you we have no good opinion of Popery but do with great reason assert that they who embrace it do run a great hazard of their Salvation whilst they entertain Doctrines not only false in themselves but very pernicious in their effects being great hindrances to piety and holiness without which no man shall see God And beside their bad Doctrines great is their danger whilst they corrupt Religion by their Idolatrous worship and here in this Kingdom disobey their Rulers and Schismatically withdraw from that Church with which they ought to hold Communion and this meerly in compliance with the usurpation of a foreign Power These and many other ill things they do which we would not for a World be guilty of yet after all we are not rash to pass a Sentence of Damnation upon them to their own Master let them stand or fall to whose mercy we leave them whilst they deliver us up to Satan But this while our Charity gives small encouragement to a wise man to turn Papist L. If the rest of his Arguments be like this there 's no such strength in them as he boasts of T. You must not expect good Arguments for a bad Cause As to what he talks of condemning our Ancestors to Hell it no way follows though we should be of opinion that Salvation is not ordinarily to be had in the present Church of Rome For those Ancestors of ours who first embraced Christianity were no Papists paid no homage to the Bishop of Rome neither in those days had that Church defiled it self with those corruptions which were brought in by degrees in after Ages And withal the ignorance of our forefathers in those corrupter times may do somewhat to excuse them but should we continue in their errors who now enjoy the clearer light of the Gospel we were utterly inexcusable Whilst we have charity for our Ancestors we ought to take care of our own Souls Neither yet was there any time when the whole World own'd the Romane Church to be the only way to Salvation as he boldly and falsly asserts L. Surely no For when Religion was most pure in the Church of Rome no doubt but the Members of any other sound and orthodox Church might be saved as well as those of that Church which did not then claim jurisdiction over all other Churches as you have formerly told me nor was it looked upon as necessary to Salvation for a Man to own the Popes Supremacy in those early days T. Most certainly it was not nor is there any more reason that now it should I am sure this is none which your Author has produced viz. That Protestants generally grant it possible for a Papist to be saved whilst Papists will not grant that a Protestant can On which I shall bestow a few more words And pray take notice that this is a very deceitful way of arguing and has little of strength in it if it be well examined A Protestant is never the worse for a Papists hard thoughts of him nor a Papist the better for our greater charity to him We have other Rules and Measures by which we are to proceed in the present case and are to consider whether the Papist has any good reason for his uncharitable opinion else he himself may be hurt by it but not we nor our Cause Sometimes I grant in matters of difference a Man may be inclinable to yield to that which he perceives both parties are agreed in but this will by no means be found in the case before us For the Protestant does not grant the Papist to be in a safe way to Salvation nor yet that Popery truly so called is at all the way to Salvation but rather a great hindrance to it the utmost he grants is only this that possibly a Papist notwithstanding the dangerous errors and corruptions of their Church may be saved But in the mean time he asserts and he proves that the belief and practice of the Holy Christian Religion which is most purely profest amongst Protestants is the surest and safest way to Salvation Now when a Papist shall come and tell you that Protestants are no Christians have no Faith no Holiness are out of the Catholick Church and therefore cannot possibly be saved all this noise and nonsence ought no more to affect you than the ravings of a Mad-Man or the like rude and insolent Language of furious Quakers who like Mad-men indeed at their first coming up used to cry aloud to any Man that opposed them Thou art damn'd Man thou art damn'd And at this rate I have heard do the wretched besotted followers of Muggleton talk at this day And truly herein both they and the Papists deserve to be regarded all alike That is the Men pitied and their Censures slighted and despised And yet to shew you more plainly if it may be the folly of this way of Arguing let me give you a like instance whereby you may judge of it which with others of the same nature I find made use of by some of our Writers to this same purpose Suppose we then a Man sick
of some dangerous Disease and seeking to an able Physician for advice which when he has received and is about to follow it in comes a bold Mountebank and tells the Man it 's utterly impossible he should ever recover by hearkning to his Physician but if he will be guided by him all shall be well for he has an infallible Cure at hand that will certainly do the work Now suppose the Physician be so modest that he will not answer this impudent Quack in his own language nor say it 's impossible for his Medicines to do any good only he deals honestly with his patient and tells him of the danger of trusting himself in such a Mans hands who takes very desperate courses and where he cures one kills Twenty but for himself he shall prescribe nothing but what he can demonstrate to be safe and good and which through God's blessing hath often been very effectual Now in point of prudence what ought the patient to do in this case What must he reject a skilful and safe Physician because he speaks with modesty and caution and chuse the daring ignorant Mountebank because he talks big and boldly and boasts of Infallible Receipts of a certain and speedy Cure L. No surely by no means T. Yet so he should do by this Authors Argument for the choice of their Church because forsooth she condemns all others and commends her self talking as much of Infallibility as the most cheating Mountebank is used to do and with much what the same reason and truth The Case is so like that I need not trouble you with applying it L. No you need not For I understand it well enough and as well do I discern the weakness of his Argument T. And yet for your fuller satisfaction if need be I would have you read that Sermon I formerly told you of on 1 Cor. 3. 13. by a Reverend Divine of the Church of England where you will find this piece of sophistry so shamefully bafled and exposed that he must be a very silly and shameless Priest that will ever offer to make use of it more Wherefore to all that hath been said on this subject I shall only suggest one thing more to your consideration viz. that so far as this Argument hath any force in it it may with great advantage be retorted on Papists themselves For if that way be safest to be chosen in which both parties are agreed then are we Protestants clearly on the safer side For they themselves own the Scriptures which we embrace they approve of the Creeds which we hold they cannot but allow of the Worship of God in the name of Jesus Christ with all other the substantials of our Religion which as I have often said is nothing else but Christianity it self But now we do utterly disown the additions which the Romish Church has made to the Ancient Creeds many of their traditions we also reject as being plainly repugnant to the Holy Scriptures we condemn their worship of Images of Angels and Saints as being neither commanded by God nor practised by the Church of Christ in the Primitive times Hence then you may be informed what is safest to chuse and follow whether the plain and pure Religion of Jesus Christ profest in our Church and acknowledged by all Christians in the World even by the Papists themselves or to swallow down all those new Articles which their Church has added to the Christian Faith and defile our selves with those superstitions with which they have corrupted the Worship of God Many of which Doctrines and Practices are disapproved by all Christians but those of their own Sect and which upon good grounds we believe to be so utterly unlawful and pernicious that they make the condition of those in the Romish Church very hazardous and for our selves should we embrace them we could have no hopes of Salvation Judge then upon the whole what is safest to be chosen L. I confess I see little or no difficulty in the Case wherefore pray proceed to the second Argument T. I shall repeat to you what he calls so though for my part I find nothing in it that may deserve the name of an Argument Thus it runs That Church is not to be heard whose Authors and chief Doctors are meer Cozeners and Impostors and such he says are all but those of the Roman Church and therefore are not to be heard L. I deny that the Authors and Doctors of our Church are Cozeners and Impostors T. Thus he goes about to prove it They all say that they will reform the Roman Church with the pure Word of God and yet they have never done it nor will ever be able and therefore they are all meer Cozeners and Impostors This is all the proof he gives L. This all seems to me just nothing for I reckon that the Author of our Religion was no other than our Blessed Saviour and the first Teachers of it were the holy Apostles and Evangelists who taught it by their Preaching and then committed it to Writing in the Holy Word of God which we most readily embrace and in which our Religion is wholly contained And surely these were no Cozeners or Impostors but rather they who have corrupted Religion by their own novel inventions contrary to this Holy Word T. This is very true that you say but here by the Authors of our Church he means those Learned men who were instrumental for the reforming it from those inventions which he pleads for as a part of Religion L. This I believe to be his meaning But since these good men by Gods assistance did actually reform our Church by the pure Word of God from those Popish corruptions wherewith it was before polluted I admire why he should say they were Cozeners and Impostors for not doing what they pretended they would when as they have really done it T. And admire you still may For I cannot guess at his reason except by the Roman Church he means that particular Church which is at Rome or else the whole Sect of Papists all who own the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome and so stile themselves the Romish Church Take it in either of these senses and I confess this Romish Church is not yet reformed But this rather shews their obstinacy than any thing of deceitfulness in those who have attempted their Reformation If the Prophets and pious people of old would have healed Babylon and she would not be healed was this any dishonour to the Prophets Neither surely were any of the first Reformers so vain as to say that they would certainly reform the whole Church of Rome though they might heartily desire it and in their several places diligently endeavour it And thanks be to God through his assistance and blessing these their endeavours have been most happily successful in many Nations of the World and particularly in this our Kingdom of England for the delivering of our Church from the Usurpation of the Pope and
presses all men to endeavour after perfection in every grace and vertue and especially to be much in works of mercy and charity but yet she does not fright people with stories of Purgatory to bring in their wealth to the Church nor teach them that there is any great perfection in leaving their honest callings to run into a Monastery bringing their riches along with them thither She requires constant temperance and sobriety and sometimes imposes fasting and abstinence but then whether men eat a little flesh or fish oyl or butter she thinks it not a matter of the least moment but leaves all men to their own choice and prudence In a word she does not with the Pharisee teach for doctrines the commands of men but diligently inculcates the express commandments of Almighty God delivered to us in his holy Word And tho' she would not have us so foolish and proud as to think of meriting Heaven by our own good works yet she teaches that upon our patient continuance in well doing we shall through the mercies of God and the merits of Christ certainly obtain eternal life but upon no others terms does she encourage any man to hope for it And thus you see how our Church teaches us to take that same safe and narrow but sweet and pleasant way to salvation which is proposed to us in the Gospel L. I am fully perswaded she does so God grant me grace ever to walk in this holy way and then I shall not doubt of an happy end Pray proceed to his last argument T. I shall so and this it is That Church is not to be heard which has no solid reason for her keeping the Sabbath-day on the day she does keep it but no Church or Congregation of Sectaries has this and therefore none of them ought to be heard What say you to this L. I say that we of the Church of England whom he unjustly calls Sectaries have good reason for our keeping the Sabbath on that day we do keep it even as good reason as the Church of Rome it self has T. He goes on to prove the contrary thus No Church of Sectaries has Scripture for keeping the Sabbath-day on Sunday and no longer on Saturday as God commanded it and yet they reject tradition upon which ground the Roman Church keeps the Sunday in lieu of Saturday and therefore they have no solid reason for what they do c. L. I answer we have Scripture for keeping one day in seven viz. the fourth Commandment And we read that after our Saviours Resurrection the Apostles and Disciples commonly assembled together on the first day of the week which is called the Lords-day Revel 1. 10. And then we have tradition to assure us that this day was observed by the Christian Church ever since which tradition we may plead for our practice I trow as well as the Church of Rome T. Yes certainly we may for though we reject a great many ill things which they would thrust upon us for old traditions many of them being meer novelties of their own devising yet we do by no means reject such traditions as have sufficient evidence of their having been generally received by all Christian Churches from the very times of the Apostles down to our days and of this nature do learned men generally affirm the observation of the Lords-day to be And what you alledg from Scripture may very well serve to recommend to us so ancient and general a practice To all this besides the great equity and reasonableness of the thing in it self you may add the authority of those whom God hath set over us in Church and State all which being put together leaving the nice disputes that have been about this matter is a sufficient ground for our observation of the first day of the week as a Christian Sabbath a day of rest from our common employments devoted to the more solemn worship and service of God both in publick and private As solid reason therefore do we give for our practice herein as the Church of Rome it self can do or any other Church in the world And thus we have done with his five mighty arguments in which upon a little examination there appears nothing of strength or solidity He next musters up some weighty objections as he reckons them against those whom he calls Sectaries which he says ought to make them very much doubt whether they be secure in the way they are in And here according to his usual vain way of bragging he makes this large offer which yet he will never make good that all Priests Jesuits and Catholicks over all the world will turn to their way if they can but get from their Ministers a clear and satisfactory resolution of the following doubts L. It was cunningly done of him to call for a satisfactory resolution since though it be as clear as the light at noon-day yet they may still pretend that it is not satisfactory T. They may so though I question not but it will appear such to all that are impartial and judicious These doubts I shall propose to you in order and hear what you your self can say for the resolving of them L. I shall give in the best answers I am able and where I am at a loss shall still desire your help CHAP. II. A resolution of some doubts and questions proposed to Protestants T. FIrst he demands whether it can be clearly shewn that our Ministers were sent by Almighty God to preach and to reform the Roman Catholick Church or whether they are not some of the false Prophets who say The Lord saith when the Lord hath not sent them Ezek. 13. 6. L. There seems no great difficulty in resolving this doubt since our Ministers had lawful Ordination and thereby had authority to preach the Word of God And by the light of this word they discovered many errors and abuses in the Roman Church wherewith we were foully polluted and by Gods blessing and the assistance of lawful authority they were very instrumental in reforming us from the same Now whilst they proved their Doctrine by this Word of God they are not to be compared to those false Prophets who taught the people lyes and vanity as we have it Ezek. 13. 7 8. T. Your answer is sufficient and very clear For since our first Reformers did not publish a new Religion but rather restored the old by removing those corrupt additions that had been made to it they did not need any extraordinary commission from Heaven such as Moses had from God when he delivered the Law and as the Apostles had from Jesus Christ when they were first sent to preach the Gospel But it was sufficient that they were duly qualified by Gods Spirit for the work of the Ministry and were lawfully called to it by those who had authority in the Church to ordain them to that Office Such as these are truly said to be sent of God and are therefore
the Iewish Church by the solemn rite of Circumcision and since our Saviour hath no where given the least intimation that this priviledg should be taken from them I can see no reason why the children of Christian Parents may not be solemnly consecrated to God by Baptism and so admitted members of the Christian Church And to omit many other Texts which speak in favour of infants this without any wresting of the words may be fairly drawn from that commission given to the Apostles and their Successors Mat. 28. 19. Go ye therefore and teach or disciple all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost They were to make Disciples of whole Nations which surely comprehends both Parents and Children First the Parents were to be instructed in the Christian Faith and upon their profession of it to be baptized And then they themselves being devoted to God and entred into Covenant with him since Parents have power over their children to dispose of them for their good and to lay engagements on them for that end surely it was lawful for them to devote their children also to God and to enter them into Covenant with him by Baptism thereby laying a strict obligation upon them when they come to years of discretion to perform their part of this holy Covenant if ever they hope for any benefit by it the Parents also being bound to acquaint their children with their duty so soon as they are capable of learning it Thus when any one from among the heathens became a proselyte to the Iews when he himself was circumcised so were his children also Yea learned men tell us that it was also the custom to wash these proselytes in pure water and that very probably our Saviour was pleased to accommodate himself to this same usage of theirs in his instituting of Baptism for the more solemn admission of members into his Church Now as an excellent Writer argues suppose that our Blessed Saviour instead of the word Baptizing should have used that of circumcising and have said Go teach all Nations circumcising them in the name c. would not all men have been apt to think that the same priviledg which the Iews had of admitting their children into Covenant by Circumcision that Christian Parents also should have the like why then may not the same be reasonably argued from the words though Baptism be here named and not Circumcision Very probable it is that the Apostles thus understood it and that they practised accordingly when we read of their Baptizing such and such persons and their housholds as Act. 16. 15 33. amongst whom there might be some children for any thing that can be shewn to the contrary And certain we are that very early in the Christian Church insants were admitted to Baptism and thence hath it continued to this day to be the general custom of all Churches throughout the world And pray take good notice that though our Church allows nothing to be imposed upon our belief or practice as necessary to salvation but what is contain'd in Gods holy Word yet she hath great regard to antiquity to the customs of the truly Catholick Church and the current Doctrine of the Fathers and requires Ministers to have due respect thereto in their Exposition of Scripture And therefore without any contradiction to her self may very well admit the observation of such customs that having so much ground from Scripture are recommended also by the early and general practice of the Christian Church This I say she may very well do but is by no means thereby obliged to receive all the traditions and customs of the Roman Church for many of which nothing can be truly pleaded either from Scripture or antiquity but very much against them from both L. This is very plain and satisfactory Pray let us have his next question T. It is this Can you make it appear to me how your Sectaries can with reason and sufficient ground condemn all the Catholicks that were so many ages before Luther and Calvin for being no better than heathens and convince me that by adhering to you I shall be more secure of my salvation than if I joyn my self to them that have been held time out of mind in most parts of the world for the men that have the true and only saving Religion What answer give you to this L. First I know no body that does thus condemn all Catholicks before Luther and Calvin For as to those Christians in the first ages of the Church who truly deserve the name of Catholicks whether of the Roman Church or any other we are so far from condemning that we admire and applaud them we approve of their Doctrine contain'd in the ancient Creeds and do imbrace and profess it we honour their memory and endeavour to imitate their example But as those of the Roman Church in latter ages whom he means I suppose by his Catholicks though we do not say they are as bad as heathens yet we do truly say that they have very much corrupted Christian Religion by false Doctrines and Superstitious usages and therefore we think it a much safer way to salvation to adhere to the ancient certain truths of Christianity every where received and to worship God in that pure and holy manner which our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles both taught and used than to embrace those additions made by the Roman Church which are no parts of true and saving Religion nor have ever been so accounted by the generality of Christians And though our ancestors might have some excuse from the state of this Church in their days yet we their posterity should be utterly inexcusable if now that our Church has so justly reformed her self from Popish corruptions we should break off from her communion and go over to the Church of Rome that hates to be reformed This were to add the guilt of Schism to that of Superstition T. Your answer is very clear and full and may well enough serve for the solution of his fifth Query which is to the same purpose with the former viz. Can you make evident at least that in your little flock or in Luther and Calvin their guides more holiness and virtue was to be found than in the Catholicks And that it is this little flock of yours not the Catholicks that go the narrow way that leads to life L. To this may easily be answered as you have formerly instructed me that though Luther and Calvin were learned and good men who in their own times and places did much service for the Reformation of Religion yet they never had authority in our Church nor do we own them as our guides The blessed Iesus is the Author of our Religion and after him the holy Apostles were the teachers of it being no other than Christianity it self and consequently the true way to eternal happiness even that narrow way of truth and holiness which the whole flock of Christ
articles of Faith so that no Church on Earth has any power to coin and impose new ones not revealed in the Scripture which I say acquaints us with all things needful to Salvation And this I am sure is plainly enough taught in the Scripture it self 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. The Holy Scriptures they then enjoy'd viz. the Writings of the Old-Testament are said to be able to make him wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Iesus being profitabâ—e to all things necessary thereto as you may there find it fully exprest So Joh. 20. 31. These things are written that you might believe that Iesus is Christ the Son of God and that believing you might have life through his name So that if we believe in Jesus Christ according to all that is written of him in the Gospel this Faith if it produce Obedience will certainly procure everlasting Life And indeed our own reason may well tell us that since the very design of the Holy Scripture is to reveal to us the whole Will of God in order to our Eternal happiness surely there is revealed in them all that is necessary to this end Can we imagine that those Holy Men who committed to Writing the Doctrine of our Blessed Saviour with an account of his Life and Death his Resurrection and Ascension c. that they would omit any thing which was necessary for us to know and believe in order to our Salvation when they wrote these things purposely that we might be saved Especially if we consider that they have given us a very large account of things much more than was of absolute necessity And in such abundance would they leave out things more necessary than those they have Recorded The necessary Articles of Faith are comprized in a little room and have generally been thought to be comprehended in the Apostles Creed This was the judgement of the Primitive Fathers and many Learned men of the Church of Rome have acknowledged as much Now the Articles of this Creed I hope are all contained in the Holy Scripture being there both largely exprest and frequently inculcated So that the ground-work of the Reformation remains firm and unshaken viz. that the Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to Salvation and therefore those new Articles which the Roman Church hath invented besides yea contrary to these Scriptures ought by no means to be admitted L. The Doctrine of our Church concerning the Sufficiency of Holy Scripture seems very plain and the inference you make from it clear and natural But the Sixth Argument will give you occasion to discourse further on this Subject For my Author says it will be for confirmation of his former Proposition and thus it runs We would fain have Luther Calvin and other Sectaries shew where they find written that the Gospel according to St. Matthew is Holy Scripture rather than the Gospel of Nicodemus which seeing they cannot do and yet they believe too the Gospel of St. Matthew as to Holy Scripture they must needs confess that they believe some things which are not contain'd in Scripture T. His former Argument truly stands in much need of confirmation but is like to receive little from this which he brings to strengthen and enforce it Since if we grant him the whole of it I cannot see that it will do any service to his cause or any prejudice to ours For who ever denied but that we believe some yea many things which are not contain'd in Holy Scripture We believe there is such a Country as France and such a City in it as Paris though there be nothing of them in Scripture Or which is nearer to our purpose we believe there was such a Man in the World as Iulius Casar and that the Book which goes under his name called Casars Commentaries was indeed written by him This we believe on account of the current Tradition and constant opinion of the World from his time down to this present Age there being no ground to doubt of the truth of it since all circumstances concurr to render it credible Even thus to come to the Case in hand we believe the Gospel according to St. Matthew and the other Sacred Books to be Written by those persons whose names they bear in the Title as Authors of them because this hath been the constant judgement of the whole Church of God from the very Age wherein these Books were Written to this present time And on the other hand we have good reason to reject a Book pretended to be written by Nicodemus because none such was admitted by the Primitive Church which must needs have known of it if any such Book there had been For this reason it was never own'd as Canonical by the Catholick Church in any Age since nor therefore do we now receive it as such Where now I beseech you lies the strength of this his mighty Argument L. I confess I am so far from discerning the strength of it that I do not well understand what he aims at by it T. I 'le tell you then in a few words He would by his way of arguing force us to acknowledge that Holy Scripture does not contain all things necessary to Salvation but that there are some Traditions of the Church to be received with equal reverence and esteem as particularly that such and such Books are Canonical Scripture others not and that it is on account of the authority of the Church of Rome that these Traditions are to be received and therefore lastly they hence infer that all other Traditions which their Church proposes to us are by the same reason to be received without doubting or disputing This is their common way of arguing and this Author here and in other places insinuates the same But now to shew further how little of force or solid reason there is in this smooth and subtle talk pray consider with me seriously two or three things which I shall suggest to you L. I promise you my most diligent attention T. 1 Then we must ever carefully distinguish betwixt the tradition or delivery of the holy Scripture it self from one generation to another and those other traditions whether Doctrines or customes beside the holy Scripture which yet are by the Roman Church made of equal authority with it the former we own but not the latter For we most readily grant that there hath been a tradition of the holy Scripture as that which was written by such and such men inspired by the Holy Ghost from one age to another ever since the time of its first writing and so hath it been brought down to us in these days And those Books which the Primitive Church embraced as thus Sacred and Canonical and so delivered them to succeeding ages these do we embrace with all reverence and submission as the rule both of faith and manners containing the whole will of God in order to our salvation But then for this very reason do we utterly deny
that there are any other traditions of equal necessity to salvation which are not contain'd in these holy Scriptures 2 Note well that though the Church of God hath been a most faithful preserver of these holy Scriptures and hath carefully transmitted them from one generation to another yet it is not the Church which gives authority to the Scriptures as if she by any power in her could make that to be the word of God which is not so or unmake that which is indeed so No but the Church received for the word of God that which was delivered by holy men inspired by the Holy Ghost who gave full evidence of this their inspiration both by the nature of that Doctrine which they delivered and by the mighty miracles which God enabled them to work for the attesting the truth of this Doctrine both preached and written Now the Church which was in being in the first ages when these holy men committed their Doctrine to writing was a most competent witness of their writing those Books which go under their names and accordingly received them as the Sacred writings of such persons divinely inspired and so convey'd them to the next generation Thus the Iewish Church received the Books of Moses and the Prophets and thus the Primitive Christian Church received the writings of the Evangelists and the Apostles as also the Books of the Old Testament both upon the tradition of the Iewish Church and also upon the authority of our Blessed Saviour who own'd and approved of the same And thus the Books both of the Old Testament and the New have ever since by the good Providence of God been preserved in the Christian Church and handed down from one generation to another and so shall be we need not question to the end of the world And this same tradition of the Church whereby these holy Books are distinguished from all others and carefully delivered by the former age to the next following this we give all just regard to and do freely grant that this is of singular use for our information what Books belong to the Canon of Scripture what not and by this tradition we learn that this Book was written by this man under whose name it goes and another by that as for instance this by St. Matthew that by St. Mark c. But whilst the Church thus bears testimony to the Scripture to which testimony we give all due regard she does not I say give authority to it For there is a vast difference betwixt these two It 's the Kings hand and seal which gives authority to a writing containing suppose a grant of this or that priviledg but some credible persons his Secretaries or others who were witnesses to his signing or sealing of that writing may give testimony to it and so procure it to be own'd as authentick Thus the holy Scriptures which are recommended to us by the testimony of the Church derive their authority from God only who hath set to his seal that they are true as I have said both by the miracles that were wrought to confirm the Doctrine contained in them by the holiness of that Doctrine and many other circumstances relating thereto 3 Yet again take notice when I say we give such regard to the testimony of the Church I do not hereby mean the Roman Church as distinct from all others no by no means but the truly Catholick even the whole Christian Church whether of the East or West the North or South For this hath been the constant tradition of the whole Church in all ages ever since the Apostles that these Books were written by men divinely inspired and were given to be the rule of our faith and manners If some doubt was for a while made concerning a Book or two yet when these doubts were removed they were received into the Canon with the rest And this hath been the opinion not only of the Catholick Church but of most Hereticks and Schisinaticks also whose testimony here may be of great force whilst they could not but own the authority of Scripture even though they were confuted by it Yea to this I may add the acknowledgment of Heathens themselves or of Iews who lived in those times that the Books which go under the names of St. Matthew St. Paul c. were indeed written by them Thus we have a general current tradition not only of the Roman but of all other Churches in the world that such and such Books belong to the Canon of Scripture and this is commonly granted by Hereticks and Schismaticks themselves And even Heathens and Infidels who wrote against the Christian Religion have own'd these Books to be written by those persons whose names they bear who were eminent in that age for the propagating of our holy Religion So that we have a much more famous and uncontroulable tradition for it than that the Books which are said to be written by Tully Virgil c. are indeed their works which I think no body makes any doubt of Lastly from what hath been said you may infer that though we give just regard to this current tradition of the Universal Church by which these holy Books are convey'd to us as Canonical Scripture yet it does not in the least follow that we are therefore obliged to embrace all those Doctrines and practices of the Roman Church which she would impose upon us under the venerable name of Traditions of the Catholick Church whilst they are for the most part only the private opinions and usages of their own Church many of them of very late date and expresly contrary to the judgment and practice of the Christian Church in the first and purest ages of it as well as to the holy Scripture it self So that there is no more reason for our embracing these traditions of the Romish Church than there was for our Saviour and his Apostles to receive all the traditions of the Iewish Church by many of which they had made void the Commandments of God After all then Tradition rightly understood makes nothing against but apparently for us For if there be any other Tradition as universal as this of the Books of Holy Scripture our Church readily embraces it as before has been exprest And we will own that the summ of our Faith is brought down by Tradition viz. in the very form of baptizing in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and more largely in the Apostles Creed wherein this form is explain'd We grant also that at first the Christian Faith was thus planted by the Preaching of the Gospel before the Books of the New Testament were written But now this our Faith is most plainly and fully contained in these Sacred Books whereas the additional Doctrines of the Romish Church are no more brought down by Universal Tradition than they are contain'd in the Holy Scripture which we assert to be the only sure and perfect rule of Faith and manners and upon all accounts much
promise of Spiritual benefit by this kind of Unction Thus you may still perceive how little reason they have to blame us for having only Two Sacraments whilst they boast of Seven L. I plainly see they have no reason for it since whatever is good and useful in these things we retain and enjoy though we do not call them Sacraments T. But whilst they falsly accuse us of defectiveness herein it beseems them well to consider their own guilt in taking away one half of a true Sacrament I mean the wine in the Communion from the people so plainly contrary to our Saviours institution and the universal practice of the Church for many ages after Such a material defect as this is a most palpable blemish to their Church and cannot be wiped off by their new-fangled Doctrine of Concomitancy devised for the purpose of which I have formerly spoken And even this is a very good reason to keep people from entring into the Church of Rome in that they cannot there partake of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper according to our Saviours appointment one half of it being kept back from them L. And as great reason you have shew'd there is to keep out of their Communion in respect of that part of the Sacrament which they do administer I mean the consecrated bread for this they will have given to none but those who believe it to be God and worship it before they eat it T. You speak a very great truth and it may well seem matter of wonder that ever a society of men calling themselves Christians should have so little regard to Christs own institution and to the peace and welfare of his Church as to make such alterations in the administring this holy Sacrament that no Christian who is well-informed can with a good Conscience partake of it with them For I must declare plainly I do not see how a man can do it without being guilty of Idolatry in Worshipping the Bread and of consenting to Sacriledge in being deprived of the Cup. L. Two such horrid crimes that one would think should startle any man that has not a blind mind or a seared Conscience T. The prejudice of education I confess is very great and few people ever get above it which makes it less strange for those that are born and bred amongst Papists to swallow these things without scruple especially considering in what ignorance their people commonly are kept but for Protestants who have any knowledge in Religion any reverence for the holy Scriptures that ever any of these should revolt from their own Church and break over so many difficulties to get into Communion with the Church of Rome in all her corruptions may justly be matter of wonder and astonishment L. 'T is strange how they can ever bring their Consciences to such a compliance T. God only knows the hearts of men and to his judgment we must leave them But methinks the Case is so plain that no man of competent understanding who considers things impartially and hath a due regard to God's Word and a sincere desire to please God and save his Soul can easily be drawn to approve of those palpable errors and absurdities those scandalous and grosly evil practices which are at this day taught and imposed in the Roman Church And I think it may come to pass through the wise and just Judgement of Almighty God that he hath permitted this corrupt Church so foully to degenerate in some particular instances the better to preserve honest and well-meaning Souls from being carried away with her power pomp and glory and from being deluded by those fine pretences and subtle insinuations which her Agents make use of to draw Disciples after them L. So far there may be a good effect of those bad things wherewith that Church is defiled T. God grant the notoriousness of them may so appear to all that those who are yet innocent may be preserved from being seduced and infected and those who are guilty may become sensible of their sin and danger and do their utmost to reform a Church so polluted or speedily leave her if she hates to be reformed But for your self I hope after all that hath been said there is not the least danger of your forsaking that sound and good Church whereof you are a Member for so corrupt a one as that of Rome is at this day L. By the grace of God I hope there is not For I never could incline to think such a change reasonable but by the discourses now had with you I am more fully perswaded of the utter unlawfulness the folly and infinite hazard of it And whilst I have the use of my reason I am confident I shall always be of the same mind And I trust I shall never be so far forsaken of God as to act contrary to my own setled judgment and conscience T. God forbid you should And since what hath been said may with Gods blessing be sufficient to secure you from deserting your own Church for the Romish I have no inclination to trouble you with any more points in controversie betwixt us and them L. I suppose you have spoken to the most material ready T. I think I have so But there are some others which have been agitated with great heat such particularly as about Justification wherein it consists and on what condition it is obtain'd whether by faith or works and also concerning the merit of good works with others the like About which many of their Authors have written at a very extravagant rate and perhaps some of our own have run into a contrary extreme especially at the beginning of the Reformation when in the heat of opposition they said some such things as cannot well be defended And sometimes there has been much wrangling about words one side taking them in this sense the other in that To instance only in Justification The Popish Writers generally mean thereby though very improperly the same as Sanctification which hath occasion'd much confusion in the Disputations on this subject All that I shall say of it is this Let it be granted that it is only for Christs sake that we are pardoned and saved and we shall readily acknowledg that in order to our obtaining these benefits there is necessarily required on our part that faith which works by love both to God and our Neighbour and produces a sincere obedience to all the precepts of the Gospel As to the merit of good works if the word merit be taken strictly and properly it 's most unreasonable to assert it For certainly our works which are so very mean and imperfect which are performed in the time of this short life and which in duty we are bound to perform which add nothing to God and are done by the assistance of his Grace these works cannot in strict reckoning deserve to be rewarded with eternal glory The holy Scripture most plainly tells us That our goodness extends not to God that
much disturbance to both Moreover I thank God I am so fully convinced not only of the lawfulness and duty but of the great and unspeakable advantage of living in communion with the Church of England that I feel not in my self the least inclination to depart from it For here we have the Holy Scriptures the food of our souls freely allow'd us and daily read amongst us very frequently they are explain'd to us and our duty from them inforced upon us in useful practical Sermons Our prayers I am satisfied are holy and good such that if it be not our own faults we may use them with much devotion The Holy Sacraments are here administred according to our Saviours own appointment so far as he hath exprest it And as to any Ceremonies or circumstances of Worship established by the prudence and authority of the Church I know nothing but what is very innocent and lawful very grave and decent agreeable to the solemnity of Divine Worship So that I am ready to say with St. Peter Lord whither shall we go since here we have the words of eternal life here we have the way to it plainly discovered and the means for attaining it plentifully afforded T. I am very glad to hear you discourse so honestly and judiciously and I pray God keep you ever in this good mind and grant that you and all other Christians may make a right use of all those means and advantages which are here afforded in order to their Salvation To which purpose before I dismiss you give me leave with all possible earnestness to beseech you not to satisfie your self with holding the true Religion and being of a true Church whose Doctrine and Worship is holy and good but see above all things that you your self be a truly religious and good man Else what shall it avail you to be a member of the best and purest Church in the world if you be an impure unholy person no true living member of Jesus Christ Though Loyalty to our Prince and Conformity to the Church are great duties yet these will not excuse our disobedience to any of Christs Laws who is the King of Kings and Head of the Church What though we are not Papists Hereticks or Schismaticks yet if we be wicked and loose livers we are in a worse condition than even Heathens and Infidels The inordinate love of money may damn a man as well as the worship of an Idol of Gold or Silver yea Covetousness is stiled Idolatry and so is voluptuousness too for the sensual man is said to make his belly his god To prefer the Creature before the Creator and the pleasures of sin before the joyes of Heaven may well be reckoned amongst the most vile and damnable errors and heresies He that lives in malice and envy that hates his brother and reviles oppresses or cheats him is a most factious and schismatical man for he makes a rent and schism in the body of Christ and is broken off from it by being destitute of that charity which is the bond of perfection by which fellow Christians are united one to another and all of them to Christ their Head Let it not suffice therefore that you live in an excellent Church where you have the Word Prayers and Sacraments according to Christs appointment but see that you diligently improve them for the promoting of good life this being the great end for which they were appointed Joyn constantly in the Prayers with great reverence and devotion and then live according to your Prayers and professions Firmly believe the Articles of your Creed and let your faith work by love Attend to the reading and preaching of Gods Word with care and seriousness and see that you be not an Hearer only but a Doer of the Word Often reflect upon your Baptismal Vow and be faithful to it in fighting against the world the flesh and the Devil most entirely devoting your self to the service of the blessed God and his Son Jesus in leading a godly righteous and sober life Frequently renew these Vows at the Holy Communion and there most thankfully commemorate the death of our blessed Saviour Who loved us and gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Let his love constrain you to obedience and let the remembrance of his Death and Resurrection mortifie all sin in you and quicken you to newness of life Let the terrors of the Lord perswade you to repentance and new obedience and let the hopes of eternal glory make you patient constant and chearful in well doing In a word see that you truly Fear God Honour and obey the King love your brethren and live in peace and charity with all men herein continually exercising your self to have a conscience void of offence toward God and man By such a truly religious and holy life you will adorn your profession bring honour to the Church gain upon its enemies or stop their mouths and even force them to acknowledg that God is in you of a truth that certainly this is a true Christian Church whose members are of such a truly Christian temper and behaviour By this means you will best be secured from all that lye in wait to deceive whether Papists or Separatists Your own in ward sense and relish of Divine things will assure you that true Religion consists not in bodily exercises how pompous costly and laborious soever Nor will you fansie the power of Godliness to be manifested by wrangling against such Forms and Ceremonies as are in themselves no hindrance to Spiritual Worship and Devotion but may be an help Yea by this means you will certainly obtain eternal happiness which can no other way be secured For being of the true Church will never save him that is not a true Christian which no wicked man is nor will right opinions make amends for bad manners Whereas he that heartily and honestly endeavours in all things to know and do the will of God shall either be preserved from error or from being much hurt by it For those mistakes which neither proceed from a vicious temper of mind nor lead to any evil practice in a mans life are not like to be very hurtful to himself or to others To conclude then Let your conversation in all respects be such as becomes the Gospel of Christ and be stedfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord being assured that your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. L. I do again and again return you most hearty thanks for all the good counsel you have given me and do sincerely resolve by Gods help to follow it for which purpose I beg the assistance of your prayers T. That I do faithfully promise you and do also desire yours that I my self may observe the directions I have given and not contradict them by an evil example And God grant that all those every where who take Christs name into their mouths may depart from all iniquity And may the Holy Spirit of Truth lead us all into and keep us in those ways of truth and peace and serious holiness which may bring honour to God and to our Religion and procure us true comfort here and eternal glory hereafter through the mercies of God in Jesus Christ to whose guidance I commit you and bid you heartily farewell L. God Almighty hear your Prayers bless your Instructions and plenteously reward you for all your kindness and pains and grant us an happy meeting in that blessed world above where we shall never part more Farewell Dear Sir FINIS