she is so poor as not to be able to maintain such Seminaries But on the way it is no great character of the Piety of their Church that she abounds so with great and rich donations when we consider the Arts they used for acquiring them by making People believe themselves secure of Heaven by such donations Indeed had we got our People befooled into such persuasions the cheat might have prospered as well in our hands but we are not of those who handle the Word of God deceitfully nor will we draw the People even to do good with a crafty guile or lye for God. But now as a conclusion to this Discourse I must consider if all things among us be so sound and well grounded that with a quiet Mind and good Conscience every one may hold Communion with our Church and hope for Salvation in it I shall therefore briefly run over the Nature and Characters of the Christian Faith to see if any contradiction to them or any part of them be found among us And first of all we worship God in Spirit as a Spiritual Being with suitable Adorations which we direct to no Image nor Symbol of the Divine Presence but teach that we ought not to figure God to any corporeal being no not in our thoughts neither do we worship any beside God the Father Son and Spirit We also worship Christ but as he is God and hath the fulness of the God-head dwelling in him bodily Angels indeed we honour but knowing them to be our fellow-servants we cannot pray to them or fall down before them We count the holy Virgin blessed among women but dare give her no share of the glory due to her Son All the Saints we reverence and love but knowing God to be a jealous God we cannot divide that honour among them which is only due to him and therefore do neither worship them their Images nor their Reliques We desire also to offer up to God such Sacrifices as we know are well-pleasing to him Prayers Praises broken and contrite Hearts and our Souls and Bodies but reject all Charms and Enchantments from our Worship as contrary to the reasonable service which is acceptable to God and do retain the genuine simplicity of the Gospel-worship in a plain and intelligible stile and form without any mixtures drawn from Judaism or Gentilism And thus there is nothing among us contrary to the first design of Religion And as little will be found against the second which is the honour due to Christ in all his Offices We teach our People to study the Scriptures and to examine all we say by them and exhort them to depend on God who by his Spirit will teach them as well as us neither do we pretend to an authority over their Consciences but acknowledg our selves men of like infirmities with the People who are all called to be a Royal Priesthood and thus we honour Christ's Prophetical Office by founding our Faith only on the Divine Authority of the Scriptures We also believe there is no Name given under Heaven by which we can be saved but the Name of Christ who laid down his Life a ransom for our Souls that by his Cross we might be reconciled to God and it is to that one Sacrifice that we teach all to fly for obtaining remission of sins and the favour of God trusting only to it and to nothing we have done or can do knowing that when we have done all we can do we are but unprofitable servants much less do we hope for any thing from any of our Fellow-creatures We apply our Souls to no Intercessor but Christ and trust to no Satisfaction but his and we acknowledg him the only King of his Church whose Laws must bind it to the end of the World. Neither do we acknowledg any other Authority but his over our Consciences It is true in things indifferent he hath left a power with his Church to determine in those Matters which may tend to advance order edification peace and decency but as the Church cannot add to our Faith so neither can it institute new pieces of Worship which shall commend us to God or bind any load upon our Souls We own a Ministerial Authority in all the Pastors of the Church which they derive from Jesus Christ and not from any visible Head on Earth and therefore they are only subject to Christ We also hold that the Civil Powers are of Christ whose Gospel binds the duty of obedience to them more closely on us and therefore if they do wrong we leave them to Christ's Tribunal who set them up but pretend to no power from his Gospel to coerce or resist them and thus we honour Christ in all his Offices and so are conform to the second branch of the design of our Faith. We also receive the third with the same fidelity and whatever the practices of too too many among us be yet there is no ground to quarrel our Doctrine we preach repentance to all and study to convince them of their misery and lost estate that they may mourn for their sins and turn to God by a new course of life we preach Faith through Christ in God as that which unites our souls to him by which we are in Christ and Christ is in us We stir up our people to love the Lord their God with all their heart strength soul and mind and to wait for his Son Christ Jesus who is the hope of glory and shall change our vile bodies into the likeness of his glorious Body And from this great motive do we press our people to the study of holiness withâ—ut which they shall never see God. We send them to the ten Commandments for the rule of their lives whose exposition we chiefly take from Christ's Sermon on the Mount neither can we be charged for having taught the People to break one of the least of these Commandments We exhort all our hearers to make the life of Christ the pattern of theirs and to learn of him who was meek and lowly in heart neither can our Church be accused of having taught any Carnal Doctrines for gratifying the base Interests of the flesh or for ingrossing the power or treasure of the World the subsistence of our Church-men being but a livelyhood and not a treasure In a word we preach Christ and him Chrucified and all the rules of his Gospel for ordering the conversation aright without adding or taking from it and thus our conformity to the third branch of Christianity appears We teach also according to the fourth branch of Christianity the Doctrines of Charity neither do we condemn any who hold the foundation though in some lesser matters they differ from us but hope they may be saved as well as we We abhor the Doctrine of cruel persecuting of any for their Consciences The outmost we allow of or desire of that nature being the preservation of our own Societies pure from the contagion of
A DISCOURSE Wherein is held forth The Opposition of the DOCTRINE WORSHIP and PRACTICES OF THE Roman Church To the NATURE DESIGNS and CHARACTERS of the Christian Faith. By GILBERT BURNET D. D. LONDON Printed for J. Watts at the Angel in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXVIII Of the Doctrine Worship and Practices of the Roman Church c. HE that increaseth Knowledg increaseth Sorrow is an Observation which holdeth true of no part of Knowledg so much as of the Knowledg of Mankind It is some relief to him who knows nothing of foreign Wickedness to hope there are other Nations wherein Vertue is honoured and Religion is in esteem which allays his Regrates when he sees Vice and Impiety abound in his Country but if by travelling or reading he enlarge his Horizon and know Mankind better his Regrates will grow when he finds the whole World lies in Wickedness It argues a cruel and inhumane Temper to delight in beholding Scenes of Horror and Misery and certainly none who either honours his Maker and Redeemer or is a lover of Mankind can without sorrow look on and see the Indignities done to God and his Son Christ and see the Enemy of the humane Race triumphing over the World with such absolute Authority and so much enraged Cruelty and that not only in the dark Regions of it which the Sun of Righteousness hath not yet visited with his Gospel but that where Christ should have a Throne Satans Seat should also be is justly surprising and astonishng That almost all Christendom hath fallen from their first Love is what none whose Eyes are open can deny and it is little less evident that the greater part of it hath made shipwrack and erred from the Faith and that the Church whose Faith was once spoken of throughout the World is now become the Mother of the Fornications of the Earth It is true the Scriptures warned us of a falling away of a Mystery of Iniquity of an Antichrist to be revealed in due time and of a Babylonish Rome which should bewitch the Earth with her Sorceries but should be varnished over with fair Colours and specious Pretences so that Mystery should be on her Forehead Being then warned of so much danger to the Christian Religion it is a necessary though painful enquiry to see if this Antichrist be yet come or if we must look for another But because some have stretched the Notion of Antichristianism so far that things harmeless and innocent come within its compass and others have so much contracted it that they might scape free we are to take a view of the Nature and Designs of the Christian Religion and to conclude from that what must be Antichristianism It being not only a bare contradiction to some branches or parts of the Gospel for then every Error or Heresy were Antichristianism but a Design and entire Complex of such Opinions and Practices as are contradictory to and subversive of the Power and Life of Christianity And if we find any such thing to be broached and received in the World we may with the least hazard of uncharitableness pronounce it be Antichristianism and if it be acted or animated by any Head he may be concluded Antichrist The Designs of the Christian Religion run betwixt these four Heads The first is to give us right apprehensions of the Nature and Attributes of God that we may conceive aright of him and adore him sutably to his Nature and according to his Will and thereby be admitted to a free converse with him and become partakers of the Divine Nature How little of God was known by the twinkling's of Nature's Light even to the better and wiser part of the World Tully's Books of the Nature of the Gods do sufficiently inform us But if the Philosophers were so much to seek in it what shall we expect from the Vulgar And indeed Homer's Iliads and Ovid's Metamorphosis were wretched Systems of Divinity and yet such and such-like were the Sentiments of the Nations about the Godhead It is true the Seed of Abraham were delivered from that Darkness and knew God by his Name Jehovah and had Laws and Ordinances given them by God yet their Worship was so carnal and did so strike upon and affect the Senses that we will be soon satisfied it was not so sublime and free as became the Spirituality of the Divine Nature and so was only fitted for the Infancy of the People of God but by Christ the Mystery that lay hid from Ages and Generations was revealed for he declared the Father and revealed him and taught us to renounce Idols and Vanities and to serve the living God commanding all Men every where to repent the Times of Ignorance wherein God winked at Idolatry being then over That so Mankind being God's Off-spring might feel after him and not worship him any more in the blinding grossness of Idolatry but in a pure spiritual manner and whereas the Law came by Moses by Christ came Grace and Truth Grace in opposition to the Severity of the Law and Truth as opposed not to Falshood but to the Figures and Shadows of Moses his Law and therefore God is to be worshipped in Spirit and Truth in opposition to the Carnal Ordinances and Typical Rites which shadowed out the Truth in the Law. The second Branch of the Christian Religion is to hold forth the Method of Man's Reconciliation with his Maker For the Sense of all Mankind agrees in this that Sin is an Indignity done God which deserveth Punishment and cannot be expiated by any Service Man can do It was therefore necessary there should be a mean found for incouraging Sinners to imbrace a Religious Life of which all had reason to despair without Pardon were offered to Penitents upon the change of their Lives Now this was that the Heathen could not dream how to procure It is true the Jews had Sacrifices for expiating of Sin but these could never quiet their Consciences since the common Sense of Mankind tells that the Blood of Beasts cannot appease God. The Mystery therefore of the Reconciliation of Sinners to God is the proper Character of the Christian Religion which holds forth to us how the Eternal Word was made Man and endured unspeakable Sufferings for the Sins of Men even to the Death of the Cross and was raised up by God and carried to Heaven where he is vested with all Power and Authority and by the Merits of his Death hath a right to grant Pardon give Grace and confer Eternal Life on all that believe on him by whom God conveys all things to us and through whom we are to offer up all our Worship to God he being the Mediator betwixt God and Man. The third Head of the Christian Religion is to teach the perfectest clearest and most Divine Rules for advancing of the Souls of Men to the highest perfection of their Natures It is true noble pieces of Morality were acknowledged and taught by the Heathen Philosophers and
I should descend to the Cardinals Bishops and Abbots and shew how secular they are become all their design being to engross the Power and monopolize all Riches which contagion is also derived into the Inferiour Orders of the Clergy who by the magnifying of their Images Saints and Reliques use all the Arts they can devise for enriching of themselves and their friends And even those Orders that pretend to mortification and abandoning the world and talk of nothing but their poor and austere manner of Life yet have possessed themselves of no small part of the Riches and glory of the World. It is true there is a young Brotherhood among them which though the youngest yet hath outstripped the elder and made them stoop to it and serve it And what base and sordid ways that Society hath pursued for arriving at the highest pitch of greatness and riches and how successfully they have managed their designs is sufficiently cleared what through the Zeal of some of the honester of that Communion what through the envy of other emulating Orders All these things do fully prove how unlike that Church is to the poor and pure simplicity of Christ and his Apostles and of the first Ages of the Church If we further examine the Characters of Evangelical purity we have them from the mouth of our Saviour when he commands us to learn of him for he was meek and lowly in heart and he made it the distinguishing badge of his Disciples that they loved one another Now for humility it is true the Head of that Church calls himself the servant of the servants of God but how far such humility is from his Design his aspiring pretences do loudly declare All the World must stoop to him not only must his fellow-Bishops swear obedience to him and become his Vassals but the Kings of the Earth must be his footstool and all must pay him that servile homage of kissing his foot an ambition as insolent as extravagant His power must be magnified with the most blasphemous Titles of his being God our Lord God on Earth Omnipotent with a great deal more of such servile Adulations offered to him from the Parasites of that Court. in a word a great part of that Religion when rightly considered will be found on design contrived and abetted for exalting him to the highest degrees of insolence But so many proofs of this were already upon other occasions hinted that it is needless to go over them again and that same leven levens the whole lump of their Clergy who all pretend that by their Ecclesiastical character they are only subject to their Head and so enjoy an immunity from the Civil Authority be their crimes what they may be And an in-road on this pretence of late from the State of Venice when they seized two Churchmen that were highly guilty drew out so much of their most holy Fathers indignation that he thundred against them and finding the weakness of the spiritual sword resolved to try the edge of his temporal one upon them in patrociny partly of these Villains and partly of the covetousness of the Clergy to which the Senate had set a small limit by a Decree but finding they were like to prove too hard for him he was willing to put up his sword rather than to kill and eat as one of his Cardinals advised him Shall I with this also tell the instances of the ambition of Cardinals who from their first original of being Presbyters of Rome have risen up to the height of counting themselves the companions of Kings and in their habits affect a Princely splendor but have unluckily chosen the Liveries of the whore for they wear Scarlet as the Bishops do Purple the foretold colours of the Whores Garments Shall I next shew to what a height of pride the exaltation of the Priestly dignity among them hath risen as if it were equal nay preferrable to the condition of Princes The Priest giving absolution is a sure device to make his power be much accounted of since he can forgive sin The gorgeous and rich apparel they wear in worship serves also to set off their Dignity And what a goodly device is it that their spittle must make one of the sacred Rites in Baptism Certainly that must be esteemed a marvellous holy creature whose very excrements are so sacred Their engrossing the Cup to themselves from the people was another trick for raising of their esteem But above all things their power of transmuting the substance of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ by uttering five words was a marvellous device to make all the World admire them who can so easily and every day work a miracle compared to which all the miracles of the Gospel may pass for ordinary actions What a great piece of wonder must such a man be held to be who can thus exercise his authority over the very person of Jesus Christ notwithstanding of all the glory to which he is now exalted And it was no contemptible Engine for that same design to possess the people with a belief of the Priests offering in the Mass an expiatory Sacrifice for the sins both of the dead and living which proved a Stock for them to trade on both for their ambition and covetousness and from these evidences we may infer how little of the humility of Christ appears in the Church from the highest to the lowest The next branch of the Evangelical spirit is Meekness and Charity which leads me unto the consideration of the fourth Design of the Christian Religion which was the uniting of Mankind under one Head and into one Body and this it designed to effectuate not only by these sublime Precepts of the highest love and the utmost extent of the pardoning of injuries and of returning them with the best offices of love and prayer which the blessed Author of our Faith did enact but by the associating of the Faithful into one Society called the Church which was to be united with the closest bonds of brothely love and charity and was to be governed by Pastors and Teachers who should feed the flock with the sincere milk of the Word and was also to be cemented together by the Ligaments of the holy Sacraments by which as by joynts and bands they are both united to their Head and knit together Now we are from these things to consider what opposition that Church we are now considering gives to this branch of the end of Christianity And first whereas the Gospel pronounceth us free and that we are no more the servants of men but of God if any attempt upon that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free he changeth the authority of the Church into a tyrannical yoke much more if all the new articles of belief and rules for practice be imposed under the severest certificates But here we are to consider that all these things which that Church hath imposed on all of her communion for