care of holding both Faith and a good Conscience and the Motive he useth to quicken his care is that those who are not careful to hold both will be in danger of losing both So much is implyed in his saying that some having put away a good Conscience have made shipwrack concerning Faith Holding Faith or the Faith and a good Conscience which some having put away concerning Faith or the Faith have made shipwrack First We will explain the terms or endeavour to shew what it is to hold the Faith and what to make shipwrack of it as also what it is to hold a good Conscience and what to put it away Secondly That holding the Faith will nothing avail us except we also hold a good Conscience Thirdly That mens making shipwrack concerning the Faith is occasioned by their having first put away a good Conscience First For Explication of the terms we will enquire 1. What it is to hold the Faith and what to make shipwrack of it To hold the Faith is to adhere to the belief and profession of the Doctrine of the Gospel Holding or keeping the Faith sometimes implyeth also a life answerable to the Christian doctrine as where S. Paul saith I have kept the Faith And where the Author to the Hebrews exhorts the Christians to hold fast the profession of their Faith without wavering But here it can signifie no more than the belief and profession of that Doctrine because it is distinguished from holding a good Conscience Again to make shipwrack of the Faith is to do either of these two things Either First expresly to Renounce the Articles of the Christian Belief the main fundamental Articles all or any of those on which the whole Frame of Christianity is erected and which are the Essential materials of it As that Iesus is the Son of God that he dyed for our sins and rose again for our justification that he ascended into Heaven and will come again at the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead that men shall be rewarded or punished according to their works that Faith Repentance and New Obedience are of absolute necessity to our obtaining the Divine Favour and everlasting life These and the like Articles which either are declared necessary to Salvation by our Saviour or his Apostles or which from their own nature appear so to be as containing necessary motives encouragements or helps to a holy life these are such as the renouncing any of which is making shipwrack concerning the Faith But the misunderstanding such Doctrines as have no such weight and stress laid upon them or which considered in themselves appear to be of such a nature as that the misunderstanding of them is consistent with true Goodness cannot be called a making Shipwrack of the Faith For if so it will be impossible to know who holds the Faith and who makes shipwrack of it There being many points so disputably expressed in the Scriptures and which there is such a diversity of Opinions about even among Good as well as Learned men that it may be an argument of too great confidence and presumption in any to conclude peremptorily that theirs is the true notion of them Or Secondly The introducing such Principles and Practices into the Christian Religion as do manifestly strike at any of its Fundamentals and particularly such as directly or in their evident consequences enervate the Promises Threatnings or Precepts of the Gospel and contradict the great design of Christianity viz. that of making men Sober Righteous and Godly this may also very properly be called making shipwrack of the Faith It is truly so notwithstanding it may be joyned with a profession of all the Articles of our Religion For who seeth not that those who corrupt it with such Doctrines or Practices are as injurious to the Faith as the down-right opposers of its main Principles or rather the more injurious of the two there being much more danger of a false Friend than of a professed and open enemy 2. Would we know what it is to hold a good Conscience this is in short sincerely to endeavour to walk in all the Commandments of the Lord blameless To endeavour impartially to acquaint our selves with the Divine Will and when we understand it to comply therewith although it be never so cross to our own wills and natural inclinations And therefore on the contrary to put away a good Conscience is to be bent upon the pleasing our own wills and gratifying our sensual Appetites to give up our selves to be acted and governed by fleshly and impure Lusts To be devoted to the Service of corrupt carnal and worldly affections and interests Where the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye or the pride of life the love of Pleasures Riches or Honours are predominant in the Soul there a good Conscience is put away Secondly We next come to shew that holding the Faith will nothing avail us if withal it be not our care to hold a good Conscience This is apparent in that the Renewing of mens natures and Bettering their Lives is the only end both of Natural and Revealed Religion and were not this the end thereof Religion would be the vainest and most insignificant thing in the world The Heathens themselves were well aware of this and therefore the professed intendment of their Philosophy was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The purgation and perfection of the humane life They well knew that no body is the better for the best Principles where they are only believed and not lived And as for the Principles of the Christian Religion which the Ancients used to call the Christian Philosophy I shall not need to prove that our belief of these is required wholly upon the account of the great efficacy they have for the transforming of us into the Divine likeness the subjecting our Wills to the Will of God and the making us holy in all manner of Conversation And therefore we find our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles making the whole of a Christian to consist in keeping his sayings in doing the things he commands them in Faith that worketh by love and in the new Creature And therefore we see the greatest contempt cast upon Knowledge and Profession and Faith unaccompanied with an answerable life and practice Therefore we read that Faith without works is dead that Faith is dead being alone as being utterly unable to stand us in the least stead and as being so unable to save us as greatly to aggravate our Condemnation The Papists lay mighty weight upon their Orthodoxy their believing as the Church believes and flatter themselves with a fond conceit that the goodness of their Faith will make great amends for the badness of their lives But suppose it true that they are the Orthodox believers and all the Christian World Hereticks besides themselves as they would have us believe yet the Devils are as Orthodox as they can be for their hearts but their Orthodoxy makes
you in the first place to her Doctrine of Infallibility Which speaks her uncapable of erring in any of her Decrees and Determinations Which Infallibility the Iesuits will have seated in the Popes Chair others in the Pope in conjunction with a General Council that is a Number of Bishops and Priests packt together of his own Faction For there is nothing he hates more than a Council truly General I call this not only a false but a wicked Doctrine because of the infinite mischief that it doth in the world For the Romish Church's pretence to Infallibility is that which enables her to Lord it at that intolerable rate over the minds and Consciences of her Subjects and to make them the greatest of Slaves and Vassals And 't is this also that makes her utterly incurable of her gross corruptions her other notorious Heresies and the ungodly and horrid practices founded upon them So that so long as she continues to assume to herself the Title of Infallible there is no hope to be conceived of her being ever in the least Reformed either in her Principles or Practices But never was a Doctrine more shamefully baffled than this hath been as easily it may there being nothing but Interest to uphold it nor one syllable in all the Bible to befriend it As for that promise of our Saviour that the gates of hell shall never prevail against his Church the most that can be concluded from thence is that he will ever have a Church upon earth in spight of all the endeavours of Hell to destroy it But thanks be to God this Promise would be no whit the further from being performed although the Devil should be permitted totally to extinguish the Church of Rome though to be sure he understands his own interest better than once to attempt it But if the meaning of this Promise be as the Romanists would have it that the gates of Hell shall never so prevail against the Church as to occasion her falling into errors of Iudgment why may we not as well extend it so far as to secure her also from errors of Practice these being no less dangerous or destructive than those of Iudgment But I retain so much Charity for the Romish Church still as not to think her so forsaken of all Modesty as to deny that in this sense the Gates of Hell have prevailed against her with a vengeance And as for the other Promises which they lay any stress on they are either such as 't is manifest the Apostles only and first planters of the Gospel were concerned in or else such as belong to all Christians without exception thus far as that while it is their sincere endeavour to know the truth and to live up to their knowledge they shall be secured from pernicious and damnable errors Again What say you to the Doctrine of the Popes Supremacy over all other Churches and Kingdoms too and his having a Grant of as vast Dominions upon Earth next and immediately under Christ as Christ himself hath under God the Father his being King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords and that both in Spirituals and Temporals I might easily tire you upon this head of Discourse but all I will say to it shall be this that the Charter pretended for so mighty an Empire is much too obscurely exprest to be ever understood by any other people than the Pope and his Vassals There is not a tittle in the Holy Scriptures for it though we know what a noise and fluster they make with two Texts Pasce Oves meas and Dabo tibi Claves c. as if this Supremacy were as plainly legible in each of them as the Doctrine of the Creation in the first verse of Genesis But which is worst of all how many thousands of honest people have been barbarously butcher'd merely because their eyes would not serve them to read this Doctrine of theirs in those two Texts And this is that Doctrine which gives them a pretence for their restless and unwearied endeavours to get these Kingdoms again within their Clutches and for all their desperate and hellish designs against us What say you to their Doctrine of Image-Worship with which I will joyn that other of Praying to Saints and Angels In their Adored Council of Trent it is decreed that The Images of Christ the Virgin mother of God and other Saints be especially kept in Churches and that due Honor and Veneration be given unto them And afterward this Council expresseth its allowance of Picturing the Divinity it self and accordingly Pictures of the Blessed Trinity Oh hateful sight are ordinarily to be beheld in the Popish Churches Now would we know what the Council means by Debitus honor veneratio the due honour and veneration that is to be given to Images this appears by these following words We decree doing honour to them because the honour which is done to them is referred to the Prototypes which they represent So that in the Images which we kiss and before which we uncover our heads and fall down we adore Christ and Worship the Saints which they represent c. So that the Honour and Veneration which they determine should be given to Images do imply all external Acts of Adoration and that the Image of our Saviour is to have the self same Adoration paid to it that would be due unto himself were he personally present And the Universal Practice of the Romish Church wholly to pass over the Vile stuff of their Doctors Schoolmen and Casuists will tell you the meaning of their debitus honor veneratio The consent of Nations saith the Learned Grotius have made Sacrifices Oblations and Incense proper signs of Divine Worship but though I had time I need not stand to shew that the Images of Christ Angels and Saints especially that of the Blessed Virgin are every where Worshipped with these signs and with all the Rites of the most solemn Invocation in Sacred Offices and in places set apart for Divine Worship And they do all the external honour to the Saints and Angels in the Addresses they make unto them whether immediately or as represented by Images that 't is imaginable they should do to our Saviour himself or the Blessed Trinity Nay They pray unto them not only for Temporal or Ordinary Blessings but for Spiritual and Supernatural such as the Pardon of their sins and the Holy Spirit and eternal life as might be shewn at large Now what is Idolatry if such doings are not why they tell us and we cannot blame them that the true Notion of Idolatry is only the Worshipping some Creature for the most High God supposing it to be the most High God But if so the Worshippers of the Golden Calf to be sure were no Idolaters for they can be little better than mad themselves who are able to imagine that the Israelites were so mad as to believe that the Calf which they saw made and that of their own
the Non-necessity of the Laity's partaking of the Cup in the Lords Supper and their being Rob'd accordingly of their share therein expresly contrary to our Saviours institution and the Practice of the first Ages of the Church and of all other Churches in the world What say you to their well known Doctrine Of the Non-necessity of Repentance before the imminent point of death And to this other that goes beyond that viz. that meer Attrition or sorrow for sin for fear of hell if accompanied with the Sacrament of Penance is sufficient to a sinners justification and acceptance with God This the Council of Trent doth plainly take for granted in the fourth Chapter of their fourteenth Session What say you to the Doctrine of Opus operatum which makes the meer work done in all acts of Devotion sufficient to the Divine Acceptance particularly the bare saying of Prayers without either minding what they say or understanding it And agreeably hereunto the Romish Church enjoyns the saying of them in a Language unknown to the generality of her children notwithstanding the perfectly contrary Doctrine delivered by S. Paul in the 14 th Chap. of the first to the Corinthians What say you to the Doctrine of the Insufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for mens Salvation and her denying them to be a complete Rule of Faith and Practice in things necessary without her Traditions Wherein she gives the Lye to the same great Apostle who tells his son Timothy that the Scriptures are able to make wise to Salvation and that by them the man of God may be perfected and throughly furnished to every good work What say you to her Doctrine of the Gospels obscurity even in things of absolute necessity to be believed and practised devised on purpose to perswade the people to an implicit belief in her self and to receive without examining whatsoever doctrines she shall please to call Articles of Faith This is a wicked Doctrine in it self also as well as upon the account of the Design of it It being most unworthy of God to require all under pain of damnation rightly to understand those Points which are obscurely revealed What say you to her Doctrine of the dangerousness of the vulgars reading the Holy Scriptures and her Practice answerable thereunto of denying them the Bible in their own language What say you to her Doctrine that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks What say you to this Doctrine that the most horrid villanies are then lawful when necessary to the promoting of the interest of the Catholick cause I do not say that this is decreed in any Council or that it is in express terms taught by any of them But however if it be lawful to judge of mens opinions by their constant practices we may without a Calumny call this also a Doctrine of the Church of Rome Particularly the world hath for a long time been well acquainted with her most horrible Cruelties upon the account of Religion To mind you of a few famous instances in the persecution of the Albigenses and Waldenses were miserably murthered no fewer than a thousand thousand In the Massacre of France in the space of three months an hundred thousand In the Low-Countries in a few years were cut off by the hand of the common hangman thirty and six thousand Protestants And by the holy Inquisition as Vergerius witnesseth who was well acquainted therewith were destroyed in less than thirty years space one hundred and fifty thousand with all manner of the most exquisite cruelties I need not mind you what a vast number were Burnt at the stake in our own Country in the Reign of Queen Mary Nor what additions have been made since to Romes Butcheries in Piedmont and Ireland And what a horrible slaughter had there been in England by the Gun powder Treason if it had not been prevented by a Wonderful Providence And also what work the Romanists would have been at here again before this time if God in his infinite mercy had not defeated the Councels of those bloudy Achitophels all who do not wilfully shut their eyes and are not Papists at least in Masquerade should one would think acknowledge themselves satisfyed after so great evidence So that we need no further proof that the Woman hath Rome Christian for her principal Seat upon whose head S. Iohn tells us was a name written Mystery Babylon the great the mother of Harlots and Abominations of the earth and whom he saw drunk with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Iesus But we have farther proof that the now mentioned wicked doctrine may truly be charged upon the Church of Rome For her abominable Practices do not only justifie this charge but several of the Doctrines of her darling sons those pretious youths the Iesuits and which as they tell you are much elder than their order viz. That of the lawfulness of Equivocations and Mental Reservations even before Courts of Iudicature at least if they consist of Hereticks of the putting which vile principle into practice we have had of late diverse marvelous and most astonishing instances That of the Popes power of Dispensing with the most Solemn Oaths and of Absolving Subjects from their Allegiance to Heretical Princes That of the Lawfulness nay Meritoriousness of taking Arms against them of Stabbing and Poisoning them And we of this Kingdom too well know that the Romish Church make no bones of practising upon these Principles I might still farther proceed in instancing in her most corrupt and wicked Principles but you have had enough in all Conscience And but that now especially we are obliged to take all opportunities for the exposing of the vileness of the Romish Religion I would e'en be as soon engag'd in stirring Jakes's and raking dunghills as in such work as this God be thanked for that mighty Spirit that hath been stirred up throughout the Nation against Popery Oh that it more generally proceeded from our sense of the hatefulness thereof and the extreme dishonour it brings to Christianity and its infinite injuriousness to the Souls of men as well as from the concern we have for our Temporal interest which is but a mean and pitiful consideration in comparison of those other And the better the Principles of Popery and the Practices of the Papists are understood the greater and more lasting must their zeal against them needs be who have any hearty kindness either for Christianity or for Natural Religion either for Christianity or for good Morality and common honesty or even mere good nature I will not so far imitate the horrible uncharitableness of the Romish Church as to say that 't is impossible to find any sincere Christians in her Communion and much less that no honest or good natur'd people are among them But this we are very certain may safely be said that whosoever is throughly instructed in the Popish Principles and acts accordingly is so much a