of Infallibility Church-Authority and resolution of Faith and Judge of Controversies c. p. 119. The Reformation never did decline the Judgment of the Primitive Church for its Justification p. 120 121. Luther and Calvin misrepresented by Cardinal Bellarmine p. 122. The Apostolick Church founded and governed by the Apostles over all the World is the true Standard of the Christian Church ibid. The Scriptures the only Authentick Records of the Apostolick Church and the only certain account we have of the Faith and Doctrine of the most Primitive Church p. 123. Several Doctrines Examined by Antiquity 1. Supremacy not allowed of by the first Council of Nice nor that of Constantinople nor Chalcedon p. 125. 2. Transubstantiation acknowledged by many of the Schoolmen not to have been the Doctrine of the Primitive Church ibid. This Doctrine brought into the Church a little before Berengarius and not throughly understood even then by those who held it p. 126. Berengarius his Recantation and the Gloss upon it p. 127. The Number of the Sacraments not declared to be seven by the Primitive Church nor mentioned by any Author till 1100 Years after Christ ibid. Necessity of Auricular Confession questioned by Learned Men in the times of Peter Lombard p. 128. Purgatory not mentioned by any Antient Writers p. 128 129. Indulgences received very late into the Church ibid. Prayers and Oblations for the Dead an Antient Practice but no Doctrine of the Primitive Church ibid. Prayers in an unknown Tongue never the Practice any where of the Primitive Church ib. Worship of Saints and Angels and of Images of no Antient date in the Church ibid. All these Doctrines of the Roman Church which distinguish it from the Reformed that they were not Doctrines of the Primitive Church is further proved 1. From their Expurgatory Indices p. 130. 2. From the Correcting or rather Corrupting the Fathers and the counterfeiting so many false ones and obtruding Spurious Authors upon the World. p. 131 132. 3. From that little esteem and regard they too often have for Antiquity when ever it makes against them p. 133. 4. From the Determinations and Decrees of the Present Church which are the only things they stick to and which they prefer a thousand times before Antiquity or the whole sence of the Primitive Church The Seventh Note The Union of the Members among themselves and with the Head. UNity no proper Character of a true Church because found upon Societies of different natures and contrary designes p. 137. It is a good mark when 't is a duty as 't is a duty when the terms of Vnion are so ibid. Wherein this Vnity consists according to Bellarmine p. 138. Hereupon three things are endeavoured 1. That the Vnity here offered is no true Note of the Church forasmuch as Vnion with the Pope as Head of the Church hath no Foundation in Scripture Reason or Antiquity p. 140. 1. Scripture p. 141 142 143. 2. No Foundation of it from Reason p. 144 145. 3. Nor any Colour from Antiquity p. 145 to 149. The Cardinals Argument for the necessity of this Vnion from Experience considered p. 149. 2. The Vnion which they pretend to among themselves as Members no certain Note of the Church p. 150. 1. This is no more than what any Society may have as well as the true Church and any other Church as well as the Roman p. 151. 2. As there may be this Vnion out of the true Church so its may not be within it ibid. II. If Vnity were a true Note of the Church yet the Roman Church hath it not which is probably true of the first and most certainly true of the second branch of the Cardinals Vnity p. 152. 1. It is probable that there is not now nor hath been for many Ages any true Pope for the Church to be Vnited to ibid. 2. Neither is there that Vnion in all points of Doctrine amongst the Papists or such a Vnion of their Members as shall prevent the breaking away of some from the Communion of the rest p. 153. Not that wonderful agreement as the Cardinal pretends in the Sacred Writers of their Church nor in the Decrees of their Lawful Councils nor in those of their Popes p. 154. Several Disputes between the Canonists and Schoolmen in many material points of Doctrine between the Thomists the Scotists and Occamists between the Franciscans and Dominicans about the conception of the Blessed Virgin the Jansenists and Molinists p. 155 156. Bellarmin's Answer to all this viz. They differ not in those things that belong to Faith considered p. 156 157. The Cardinals difference between the division of Hereticks from the Church and a division from Heresie considered p. 158. If there be in the Church of Rome a certain rule for ending Controversies viz. The Sentence of the chief Pastor or a definition of a General Council ibid. 1. Why were not these the means of composing those Controversies that carried us away from them ibid. 2. How could those be certain means of composing Controversies concerning which even in their own Church there were the greatest Controversies of all p. 159. This largely shewn from the Learned Launoys Epistle to Nicholas Gatinaeus upon this Question p. 160 161 162 163. III. That that Vnity which is indeed a Note of the Church we Protestants have and that in a much greater degree than they p. 164. The true Grounds and Notions of Church-Vnity represented ibid. 1. Vnity of Submission to one Head our Lord Jesus Christ ibid. 2. Vnity of professing the Common Faith once delivered to to the Saints grounded upon the Authority of Scriptures and summarily expounded in the Antient Creed p. 165. 3. Vnity of Sacraments in the Church ibid. 4. Vnity of Obedience to all Institutions and Laws of Christ p. 165. 5. Vnity of Christian Affection and Brotherly kindness ibid. 6. Vnity of Discipline and Government ibid. 7. Vnity of Communion in the Service and Worship of God. p. 166. Some tho' not all of these necessary to the being of a Church viz. The acknowledgment of our Lord the profession of one Faith and admission into the state of Christian Duties and Priviledges by one Baptism ibid. Those particular Churches which keep Vnity in all these respects better than others do have the mark of Ecclesiastical Vnity in a higher degree than those others have p. 167. The Church of Rome as she holds one Lord one Faith one Baptism is part of the Catholick Church and so far maintains Catholick Vnity ibid. Wherein she departs from Catholick Vnity Purity and Charity shewed in several instances p. 167 168. The Church of England not chargeable on the same account ibid. 168 169. Vnity of Communion in the Church of Rome is Vnity of Communion among themselves but not Catholick Vnity of Communion because the terms of it are many of them unlawful and unjust p. 170. The Contrary to which the true Case of the Church of England ibid. 171. The Conclusion p. 171
whole Work. p. 390. FINIS Books Printed for and Sold by Richard Chiswell Dr. CAve's Lives of the Primitive Fathers in 2 Vol. Folio Dr. Cary's Chronological Account of Ancient Time. fol. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity fol. Sir John Burlace's History of the Irish Rebellion fol. The Laws of this Realm concerning Jesuits Seminary Priests Recusants the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance explained by divers Judgments and Resolutions of the Judges with other Observations thereupon By William CawleyEsq fol. Dr. Towerson's Explication on the Creed the Commandments and Lord's Prayer in 3 Vol. fol. Bishop Nicholson on the Church-Catechism 40. Mr. John Cave's seven occasional Sermons 40. Bishop Wilkin's Natural Religion 80. His Fifteen Sermons 80. Mr. Tanner's Primordia Or the Rise and Growth of the first Church of God described 80. Spaniards Conspiracy against the State of Venice 80. Dr. Cave's Primitive Christianity in three parts 80. Certain genuine Remains of the Lord Bacon in Arguments Civil Moral Natural c. with a large account of all his Works By Dr. Tho. Tenison 80. Dr. Henry Bagshaw's Discourses on select Texts 80. Mr. Seller's State of the Church in the three first Centuries Dr. Burnet's Account of the Life and Death of the Earl of Rochester 80. Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of England 80. History of the Rights of Princes in the Disposing of Ecclesiastical Benefices and Church-lands 80. Relation of the present state of the difference between the French King and the Court of Rome to which is added the Pope's Brief to the Assembly of the Clergy and their Protestation published by Dr. Burnet 80. Dr. Cumber's Companion to the Altar 80. Dr. Sherlock's Practical Discourse of Religious Assemblies 80. Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness of Separation 80. A Vindication of the Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet in answer to Mr. Baxter and Mr. Lob about Catholick Communion 80. Sir Rob. Filmer's Patriarcha or natural Power of Kings 80. Bishop Wettenball's Method and Order for private Devotion 125. Valentine's Private Devotions 40. Dr. Spencer de Legibus Hebraeorum Ritualibus earum Rationibus fol. Dr. John Lightsoot's Works in English in 2 Vol. fol. Sir Tho. Brown's Vulgar Errors with all the rest of his Works fol. Patris Simonii Disquisitiones Criticae de Variis per diversa Loca Tempora Bibliorum Editionibus Accedunt Castigat Opusc Is Vossii de Sibyllinis Oraculis 40. The Case of lay-Lay-Communion with the Church of England considered 40. Two Letters betwixt Mr. R. Smith and Dr. Hen. Hammond about Christ's Descent into Hell. 80. Dean Stratford's Disswasive from Revenge 80. Dr. Hez Burton's first Volume of Discourses of Purity and Charity of Repentance and of seeking the Kingdom of God. Published by Dean Tillotson 80. Sir Thomas More 's Vtopia newly made English by Dr. Burnet 80. Mr. Seller's Devout Communicant assisted with Rules Meditations Prayers and Anthems 12â— Dr. Towerson of the Sacraments in General Of the Sacrament of Baptism in particular 80. The History of the COVNCIL of TRENT in which besides the Ordinary Acts of the Council are declared many notable Occurrences which hapned in Christendom for 40 Years and particularly the Practices of the COVRT of ROME to hinder the Reformation of Their Errors and to maintain Their Greatness Written by Father Paul of the SERVI To which is added the Life of the Author and the History of the Inquisition Books lately Printed for Richard Chiswell Dr. Burnets History of the Reformation of the Church of England in 2 Vol. Fol. A Collection of Sixteen several Tracts and Discourses Written in the Years from 1678 to 1685. inclusive by Gilbert Burnet D. D. To which are added A Letter written to Dr. Burnet giving an Account of Cardinal Pool's Secret Powers The History of the Powder-Treason with a Vindication of the Proceedings thereupon An Impartial Consideration of the Five Jesuits dying Speeches who were Executed for the Popish Plot 1679. 40. A Dissertation concerning the Government of the Ancient Church more particularly of the Encroachments of the Bishops of Rome upon other Sees By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Octavo An Answer to Mr. Serjeant's Sure Footing in Christianity concerning the Rule of Faith With some other Discourses By WILLIAM FALKNER D. D. 40. A Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of England in Answer to a Paper written by one of the Church of Rome to prove the Nullity of our Orders By GILBERT BVRNET D. D. Octavo An Abridgment of the History of the Reformation of the Church of England By GILB BVRNET D. D. Octavo The APOLOGY of the Church of England and an Epistle to one Signior Scipio a Venetian Gentleman concerning the Council of Trent Written both in Latin by the Right Reverend Father in God JOHN JEWEL Lord Bishop of Salisbury Made English by a Person of Quality To which is added The Life of the said Bishop Collected and written by the same Hand Octavo The Life of WILLIAM BEDEL D. D. Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland Together with Certain Letters which passed betwixt him and James Waddefworth a late Pensioner of the Holy Inquisition of Sevil in Matters of Religion concerning the General Motives to the Roman Obedience Octavo The Decree made at ROME the Second of March 1679. condemning some Opinions of the Jesuits and other Casuists Quarto A Discourse concerning the Necessity of Reformation with respect to the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome Quarto First and Second Parts A Discourse concerning the Celebration of Divine Service in an Unknown Tongue Quarto A Papist not Misrepresented by Protestants Being a Reply to the Reflections upon the Answer to A Papist Misrepresented and Represented Quarto An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England in the several Articles proposed by the late BISHOP of CONDOM in his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church Quarto A Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the Exceptions of Monsieur de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator 40. A CATECHISM explaining the Doctrine and Practices of the Church of Rome With an Answer thereunto By a Protestant of the Church of England 80. A Papist Represented and not Misrepresented being an Answer to the First Second Fifth and Sixth Sheets of the Second Part of the Papist Misrepresented and Represented and for a further Vindication of the CATECHISM truly representing the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome Quarto The Lay-Christian's Obligation to read the Holy Scriptures Quarto The Plain Man's Reply to the Catholick Missionaries 240. An Answer to THREE PAPERS lately printed concerning the Authority of the Catholick Church in Matters of Faith and the Reformation of the Church of England Quarto A Vindication of the Answer to THREE PAPERS concerning the Unity and Authority of the Catholick Church and the Reformation of the Church of England Quarto Mr. Chillingworth's Book called The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation made more generally useful by
we are all made to drink into one Spirit 4. There is also an Unity of Obedience to all the Institutions and Laws of Christ which is an Instance of Unity that ought by no means to be forgotten this being no less a common Duty than the Profession of the Faith the performance whereof uniteth us effectually to him as to our Head and maketh us living Members of his Body 5. There is the Unity of Christian Affection and brotherly Kindness of which our Lord spake when he said By this shall all Men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another Thus St. Paul 1 Cor. xii The Members should have the same care one of another c. 6. There is an Unity of Discipline and Government which is maintained chiefly by retaining for substance the same Form that was left in the Church by the Apostles by the Bishops and Pastors confederating together as much as may be for the edification of their Flocks by regarding every Regular Act of Authority in one Church as the Act of the whole and giving no occasion to breach of Christian-Communion by abusing a lawful or by claiming an undue Authority c. 7. There is likewise an Unity of Communion in the Service and Worship of God in glorifying God with one Mouth in joining in the same Religious Assemblies for Prayer and Sacraments for Acts of common Piety and Devotion according to the Rules of the Gospel I need not mention any more Instances of Christian Vnity since those that are more particular may be easily deduced from these Now to speak clearly there ought to be all these kinds and Instances of Unity in the Church but we see evidently that they are not all there I mean in every Part and Member of the Church And therefore they are not all necessary to the Being of a Church how necessary soever they may be whether to the Wellbeing of it or to the Salvation of those Persons whereof the Church consists But some of them are necessary to the Being of the Church and they are the acknowledgment of the one Lord the Profession of the one Faith and admission into the state of Christian Duties and Priviledges by one Baptism And this is all that I can find absolutely necessary to the Being of a Church inasmuch as the Apostle says That we are all baptized into one Body And therefore so far as Vnity in these things is spread and obtains in the World so far and no farther is the Body of the Church propagated because it is one by this Unity But then indeed there ought to be a farther Unity an Unity of observing all the Institutions of our Lord Jesus an Unity of Christian Charity and good Will an Unity of Government and Discipline an Unity of Communion in Religious Assemblies to which I will add also that there ought to be an Unity of Care to keep out of the Communion of Christians all dangerous Errors and unlawful Practices And when such begin to appear much more if they have taken root and are grown to a scandal to root them out again But Unity in these things does not run through the whole Church or through that Body which is one in the three former Respects and therefore it must necessarily be granted that the Church is not one Body in those later Respects tho it ought to be so But because these are proper Instances of Church-Unity tho not absolutely necessary to the Being of the Church therefore it cannot be denied that those particular Churches which keep Unity in these Respects better than others do have the Mark of Ecclesiastical Unity in a higher Degree than those others inasmuch as they have not only that Unity which is a Mark of a true Church but that also which is the Mark of a pure Church and are not only one Body in those things without which they could not be Parts of the Catholick Church but one also in those things wherein all other Parts of the Church ought to be one with them We therefore according to Truth allow the Church of Rome to be a Part of the Catholick Church because she holds that one Lord that one Faith that one Baptism which we hold without which there were no Church at all And thus far she maintains Catholick Unity But inasmuch as she hath violated the Institution of our Lord Jesus concerning the other Sacrament as in other Respects so by withholding the Cup from the People notwithstanding he said Drink ye all of this and that the Apostle said We are all made to drink into one Spirit even all that belong to the Body of Christ she has departed from Catholick Unity the Unity of Obedience Because she will not be content to be a Sister but claims to be the Mother and Mistress of all other Christian Churches and has advanced her Bishop to be Head and Monarch of the whole Church and will have Commuion with no other Christian Society but such as will be content to become her Subjects and will allow no Act of Ecclesiastical Authority to be valid but in a State of Dependence upon her she has therefore departed from the Catholick Unity of Government and Discipline Because she has brought the Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation Purgatory Invocation of Saints c. into her Creed and Practices suitable to such false Doctrines into her Worship she has departed from that Purity of professing the Faith c. in which all Churches should be one And because she will have no Communion with us but upon these Terms which are impossible she has departed from the Unity of Catholick Communion Finally Because she has pursued all Christians that dare to open their Mouths against these Innovations with Anathema's c. and sacrificed the Lives of innumerable Christians to her resentments she has departed from the Unity of Catholick Charity With these things the Church of England cannot be charged nor with any such things as these not truly and justly I am sure In her Worship and Aministration of the Sacraments she transgresseth not the Institutions of the Lord in her Government she encroaches not upon the Liberty of other Churches To her Creed she hath added no Novelties To her Communion she hath annex'd no unlawful Conditions she doth not unchurch those Parts of Christendom that hold the Unity of the Faith no not that Church it self the Church of Rome which has added thereunto so many enormous Innovations She hath not embroiled the World nor wasted Countries with violence Upon such accounts as these she hath the Mark of Christian Vnity incomparably more than the other Church From such distinct notions of Vnity as I have laid down it is evident that nothing can be more idle than to seek for a Church by that Mark of Unity which the Cardinal lays down which comes to no more than this that Men be all of a mind that there be no Divisions among them c. since it is not
meerly Unity that is a Mark of the true Church but Unity in the true Faith nor is Unity the Mark of a pure Church unless it be upon Terms of Obedience to God of Charity to one another of keeping the Faith unmixed with Errors and Innovations and the Worship of God free from material Defects and forbidden Practices From hence also the Folly of that conceit may be easily discerned that in this divided State of Christendom there must be one Church which is the only Church of Christ exclusively to all the rest that are not in Communion with her Which is as much as to say that because there is not that Unity amongst Christians which there ought to be therefore there is none at all and because they are not united in one Communion therefore they are not united in one Lord one Faith one Baptism That fond Principle now mentioned is advanced by the Romanist for the sake of this Inference that because we grant the Church to be but one and withall acknowledg them to be a true Church therefore we being divided from them can be no true Church our selves That is to say because we acknowledg that they have that one Faith in which all that are united belong to the Church therefore we are out of the Church our selves who have the Unity of that Faith too and moreover the Unity of observing all the Institutions of Christ and the Unity of Catholick Terms of Communion c. which they have not If some part of the Church gives just cause of Offence or if another takes Offence where none is given this is indeed contrary to the Duty of the Members of the Church but not utterly inconsistent with their being Members of it And if St. Paul was in the right when he said If the Foot shall say because I am not the Head I am not of the Body is it therefore not of the Body It will be also true that tho the Foot should say to the Hand thou art not of the Body because thou art not the Foot the Hand would be of the Body for all that As for the Unity of Communion which they boast so much of in the Church of Rome I say 't is an Unity of Communion among themselves but 't is not the Catholick Unity of Communion because the Terms of it are many of them unjust and unlawful whereas we of the Church of England having as much Unity of Communion among our selves as they have this also to say as we have abundantly shewn that the Terms of our Communion are every one of them just and lawful and therefore ours is a Catholick Unity If there are some Protestants that will not communicate with us it is no more our Fault than that the Papists refuse to do so And tho in point of Interest this tends to weaken yet in Controversy it cannot prejudice the common cause of Reformation That part of the West that has left the Church of Rome may labour under Discords that affect their very Communion while she her self does not and yet in the Cause against her they may be all in the Right Where Truth is maintained against a corrupt Church there may yet be Disobedience to Authority overvaluing Questions of no great moment a greater stress laid upon Opinions and Practices than the Cause will bear and this shall be sufficient to break Christian Communion And at the same time gross Errors may be maintained and with one consent imposed upon the World by the other Church and all the while the Differences how weighty soever that happen by the bye may be so over-ruled by Force and Power and the sensible Interests of this World that they shall not affect their Communion with one another But for the Reasons already laid down it were a fond thing to chuse a Church by the Mark of such Unity In short If we would in all Respects keep within the Unity of the Church this must be done by professing true Doctrine by leading good Lives by a charitable Spirit and Behaviour towards all Christians by frequenting Prayers and Sacraments and by submitting to the Authority of our lawful Guides in all things of Indifference and Expedience And then we may be sure that whatever others do we keep the Vnity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace And though the Church after all is not that one Body in all Respects which it ought to be and which it would be if all Men did their Duty yet that we our selves are such Members of that one Body as we ought to be and as all others ought to be likewise Now all this Unity we may keep in the Communion of the Church of England but we cannot keep it all in the Communion of the Roman Church as the Terms thereof now stand But if this Unity be not enough when once the Romanists can prove that Union to the Pope as Head of the Church and Union to the Roman Church in all that she believes and teaches is also necessary to our Being of the Church or even to our maintaining that Unity which ought to be amongst all Christians we will also acknowledg the Pope's Supremacy and believe as the Roman Church believes but not till then THE END LONDON Printed by J. D. for Richard Chiswel at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1687. The Eighth Note of the CHURCH EXAMINED VIZ Sanctity of Doctrine Octava Nota est Sanctitas Doctrinae Bellar. de Notis Ecclesiae L. iv c. 11. IMPRIMATUR June 4. 1687. Hen. Maurice SEeing the New Covenant is the Charter upon which the Church of Christ is founded and all the Blessings which this Covenant promises are appropriated to that Sacred Society to be in Communion with it is doubtless a matter of vast importance to the Souls of Men and it being so it is not to be imagined but that the blessed Jesus the most concerned and careful Friend of Souls that ever was hath been sufficiently mindful to leave such plain and easy Directions behind him how we may find his Church and satisfy our selves whether we are in Fellowship with it or no as that neither the Learned nor Unlearned may be left in the dark for resolution in such a momentous Enquiry But how much the Church of Rome hath made it her Business to snarl and perplex several Points of Religion which our Saviour left plain and obvious enough to all Capacities is too notorious and in nothing more than in this how to discover and find out the true Church In order to which her most Learned Doctors and particularly Cardinal Bellarmin have given us certain Notes by which as they pretend the true Church may be distinguished by honest and diligent Enquiries from all false Churches whatsoever But how far these Notes are from performing what is promised for 'em hath been sufficiently proved upon a very fair Examination of the Seven first of ' em I proceed therefore to the Eighth viz. Sanctity of
England to settle all and reconcile the Nation to the Church of Rome These things were so well known that Strada the Jesuit after a Narrative of this lamentable Overthrow for fear it should be made use of to the disadvantage of his Catholick Cause as if Almighty God had manifestly favoured the Hereticks in the conclusion of all effectually confutes this last Note of Bellarmin's For when he had intimated what an Unhappiness it was to the Queen and Her Subjects that they had not the good Luck to be conquered as the Pope and the Spaniard had most lovingly designed Neque se magis pios venditare potuerint quia fortunatiores fuêre nisi forte c. he tells us that the English could not therefore boast they were the more Holy because they had been the more Fortunate unless perhaps they should think the Misbelief of the Saracens and Turks were to be preferred before the Christian Religion because in many successful Engagements they had often defeated the Forces which the Christians had with much labour brought together To this we willingly agree and are glad that our Cause does not stand in need of such weak Supports But then if good Success will not be allowed to make for us when it is on our Side there can be no reason it should be brought as an Argument against us when it happens to be on Theirs After this it would be superfluous to reckon up any more of Queen Elizabeth's Felicities he that would undertake to recount them all must write the History of her Reign And whoever is acquainted with that will find it true what Anne D'est Dutchess of Guise and Nemours to whose House the Queen had been no Friend was wont ingenuously to acknowledg That she was the most Glorious and Fortunate Woman that ever swayed a Scepter Thuan. lib. 129. This Testimony which was given her by so great a Person that could not possibly be suspected of Flattery is very considerable but the Character that was bestowed upon her by King James the First some time before he succeeded her in the Throne is greater than this and more to be valued because of the Impartiality and Wisdom of the Royal Author His Words concerning her are these There is a LAWFVL QVEEN there in England presently reigning K. James his Works p. 147. who hath so long with so great Wisdom and Felicity governed her Kingdoms as I must in trew Sincerity confess the like hath not been read nor heard either in our Time or since the Days of the Roman Emperour Augustus The Authority of so great and wise a Prince may be enough not only to secure her Memory from the malicious Attempts of envious trifling Pens but to put the Happiness and Prosperity of her Government out of question And if Bellarmin's Note of Temporal Felicity might be suffered to take place her Example alone would be sufficient to prove the Church of England the true Church and the Imputations of Heresy and Schism which are wont to be urged with so much Clamour must by Consequence be retorted upon His. But I hope I have shewed that this can be no Note that if it were the Instances he has brought do not prove what he would have and that others may be pleaded as plausibly for the contrary side And indeed any that considers it must needs wonder that the Cardinal's Mind should be so blinded with Worldly Success and Greatness or whatever it were as to cause him in the last Place where we might have expected his greatest Strength to put in such a frivolous Note that may be easily turned a thousand several ways that will fit the Alcoran as well as the Council of Trent and at best makes his Church altogether as various and uncertain as the Fortune of War. I should here have made an end but that I have met with a late Writer that undertakes to shew the Vse and great Moment of the Notes of the Church c. And he tells us that Cardinal Bellarmine after others hath Pag. 1. to very good purpose lent his helping Hand to shew us the City on a Hill and hath given us Marks which one would think carry Majesty in their Faces And a while after he imagines that the Author of the Discourse concerning the Notes of the Church Pag. 3. durst not let them pass by us in their Majestick Train lest his Reader with Saba 's Queen should be daz'led at the Glory transported as she was that there was no Life in her For says he they seem to a single not malignant Eye even triumphant Notes of the militant Church And then he leads them out in great State Pag. 4. as he thinks As first Let me have leave to reckon them Ay with all my Heart well then The Name Catholick how sacred to all those who own any of the three Creeds really and veritably The Second its Antiquity How indubitable and above all suspition of Novelty And so he goes on and shews them all in good Order till he comes to the three last and there he draws the Curtain as if he were afraid any Body should see their Majestick Faces Pag. 5. To say nothing concerning the Confession of Adversaries and unhappy Exit of the Churches Enemies Here are two of the Number which he does but just give us a little glimpse of and then pops 'em away presently out of sight But poor Temporal Felicity is served worst of all it has not the Honour to be so much as named he has not bestowed one Syllable upon it though I take it to be as Triumphant a Note as any of the rest But for all that it was cunningly done to drop it for he could not choose but be aware that the Hereticks might sometimes pretend to a share of it Now when he had given us such a view of the Majestick Train as he thought fit he concludes the Paragraph with an artificial Epiphonema adorned with a very Pathetical Ingemination These These are the NOTES which like a Bill in Parliament deserve what a second Reading Parturiunt Montes O the virtue of Butler's Rhetorick But really I am afraid that These These NOTES These Triumphant NOTES as they are by him drawn up would be so far from being thought worthy of a second Reading that they would certainly be thrown out of the House However I have look'd steadily upon them more than once as they are represented by him and as they are laid down in the Cardinal 's Original and I have not yet been able to discover the Majesty one would think they carry in their Faces but in my Opinion some of their Faces would have been a great deal better if they had had any Foreheads I have carefully beheld their Majestick Train in its full length and yet never fell in a Swoon with Saba's Queen nay I have not had so much as the least Qualm of Fear or Admiration upon me and my Eyes were so far
things as Marks of Distinction only without any further Design of lessening their Natures and Qualities by them p. 31. 4. It does not follow that because the Name Catholick in that time when it was for the most part conjoined with the Catholick Faith was a sure Note of a true Church it must always be so even when the Name and the Thing are parted p. 32. The worst of Hereticks laid claim to it p. 33. The Rule to know the True Church by proved from Lactantius and St. Austin ibid. 5. It doth not follow that because the being called after the Names of particular Men in that Age when all so called were for the most part corrupt in the Faith was a sure Hand of Schismaticks and Hereticks that it must always be so p. 33 34. III. The Church of Rome having egregiously corrupted the Catholick Faith or Religion neither is nor deserves the Name of a Catholick Church p. 34. This justified by comparing her Doctrine in several Points with that delivered by Christ and his Apostles p. 35. For Instance that Angels and Saints are to be prayed unto and worshipped this contrary to Scripture ibid. The worshipping of Images contrary to the second Commandment which they make the same with the first p. 36. The Scripture commands all Persons indifferently to read the Scriptures the Church of Rome allows not this Liberty to the Laity but upon License ibid The Scriptures forbid Prayers in an unknown Tongue and the Church of Rome enjoins such and no other p. 37. Purgatory contrary to Scripture ibid. The denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the express Instistitution of our Saviour p. 38. The Scripture saith that the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament even after Consecration is Bread and Wine the Church of Rome says the Bread and Wine is Transubstantiated into the natural Body and Blood of Christ. p. 39. The Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass according to the Scripture derogatory to Christ's own Priestly Oblation whereby he once offered himself a compleat Sacrifice of Expiation p. 40. In all these Particulars the Church of Rome a Corrupter of the Christian Faith and Doctrine and consequently deserves not the name of Catholick ibid The Second Note ANTIQUITY THis Mark and Character of a true Church is not proper to the Church of Rome alone nor in truth doth it belong to it To prove this three things are here offered I. That the Plea of bare Antiquity is not proper to the Church but common to it with other Societies of false Religion p. 41. The Notes of a thing must be proper to that of which they are a Note and not common to it with other things p. 42. 1. Because what is proper to a thing is inseparable from it and did ever belong to it since it had a being and can at no time be absent from it ibid. 2. Other Societies have laid claim to this Note and it could not be denied them and therefore no proper Note of a Church ibid. This shews that bare Antiquity cannot be a Note of Truth p. 44. Antiquity and Priority widely different p. 45. A twofold Antiquity one in respect of us the other absolute and in it self ibid. The Church of Rome will not be tried only by the Scriptures which is the true Antiquity p. 46. Error almost as ancient as Truth for which reason several wicked Doctrines running down to Posterity have made use of the plea of Antiquity to give them countenance and support p. 47. II. The present Church of Rome vainly pretends to true Antiquity i.e. to ancient Truth p. 48. Wherein true Antiquity doth consist ibid. The present Church of Rome not ancient by reason of that alteration they have made in the ancient Creed p. 49. Cardinal Bellarmin's Ratiocination against this charge consisting of 6 things to be observed in all Changes of Religion none of which he says can be shewn in the Church of Rome since the Apostles time ibid. His reasoning built upon very false grounds this considered and largely answered in four Particulars p. 50. 1. As being contrary to all History and Experience there having been great Changes in Religion the Authors and the beginnings c. of which cannot be known p. 50. 2. Neither do the Examples they alledg for this their reasoning serve to no other purpose but to shew the falseness of it as in the case of the Nestorian and Arrian Heresies p. 51. 3. Supposing them true they would uphold the greatest Impieties ibid. The Heathen Gods and their Oracles supported by this Argument p. 52. 4. The Roman Church it self an instance of this there being an acknowledg'd change in it and yet they cannot tell who first began it viz. Communion in one kind ibid. Two instances out of Polydore Virgil when and by whom they were brought into the Church of Rome p. 53. 1. Their grand Article of Faith the Papal Authority brought in by Victor and carried on by the following Bishops ibid. The present Definitions of the Catholick Church and the Power of the Pope to depose Kings not challenged till Gregory VII i.e. 1000 Years after Christ ibid. 2. It is known when Images crept into the Church p. 55. A little more than 100 Years since unwritten Traditions were decreed to be a part of the Rule of Faith i. e. of the Word of God. ibid. III. That the Religion of the Church of England by Law established is the true Primitive Christianity p. 56. The Third Note DURATION THree things are here considered I. What is to be understood by the term Duration p. 58. Duration includes 3 things 1. A Being of a Church from the beginning p. 58 2. The continuance of that Church to the end p. 58 3. The continuance of that Church from the beginning to the end without interruption p. 58 Bellarmine's Application of the first of these to the Church of Rome yet deficient in the latter Branches p. 59. II. How far Duration is a Note of the true Church p. 59. This is no Note by which a true Church is to be found out or distinguished from the false ib. For four Reasons 1. The nature of the thing will not permit that it should be a Note p. 60. 2. That cannot be a Note of the true Church which doth not inseparably belong to the Church in all seasons and cases p. 61. 3. That which is a Note must be proper to the thing which it is the Note of and not common to other things as well as that p. 61 62. Common to false Churches as well as true ibid. 4. If it be a Note of a true Church then those could not be true Churches which have not not had that Duration ib. This unchurches the 7 Churches of Asia p. 62 63. III. The Church of Rome hath no just and sufficient title to this Character p. 63. This proved as to 1. Place 2. Persons 3. Order 4. Doctrine these being the things by which a Church doth exist and is made
visible p. 63 64. Rome not always the principal Seat of the Church p. 63. Avignon was for 70 Years where the Pope and the whole Court recided ibid. Several Popes Hereticks p. 64. Two Popes at once contending for the Chair and this for above 40 Years together and at one time 3 Popes p. 64. The Church of Rome compared with it self in reference to several Doctrines p. 65. What the Church of Rome now holds and what the Church of Rome hath held ibid. Her being the Mother-Church and the Pope being Christ's Vicar ibid. Concerning the Apocryphal Books ibid. Scripture and Tradition p. 66. Scripture in unknown Tongues ibid. Merit p. 67. Indulgences ibid. Purgatory p. 68. Prayers in an unknown Tongue ibid. Praying to Saints p. 68 69. Image-worship p. 69. Sacraments the Number of them ibid. Transubstantiation p. 70. Communion in one kind ibid. Solitary Masses p. 70 71. Auricular Confession p. 71. Extream Vnction ibid. Priests Marriage ibid. In all these Particulars Rome is not now what it hath been The Fourth Note Amplitude or Multitude and Variety of Believers THE Scriptures first gave us the Notion of a Church p. 73. A true Christian Church professes the true Christian Faith. p. 74. Instead of this the Church of Rome have invented several Notes and Characters of a Church which are not to be met with or are not plainly delivered in Scripture ibid. Of which this Amplitude or Multitude c. is one ibid. What Bellarmine understands by this Note p. 75. In Answer to him I. It is shewed this cannot be a Note of the true Church ibid. 1. Whether you consider the Members thereof under either the Notion of a great Multitude or 2. a great Multitude of Believers ibid. Satan's Kingdom more numerous than the Kingdom of Christ. ibid. The Worshippers of Mahomet exceed the Members of Christ's true Church in number since the Romanists make themselves the only Catholicks p. 76. The Kingdom of Christ not to be distinguished from the Kingdom of Antichrist by this Note ibid. This Note therefore no true Character of a Church p. 77. The several Places of Scripture whence Bellarmine pretends he fetches this Note of his ibid. This is so far from being a Note of the Church that it is no more than the variable State and Condition of it p. 78. This acknowledged by the Cardinal himself in his Explication of this Note ibid. The present State of the Church not to be compared with what it shall be before the End of the World. p. 79. Many plain Prophecies brought for the Proof of this ibid. The Cardinal's Citation of Vincentius Lirinensis for the confirming this Note considered p. 80 81. II. Supposing this to be a true Note of the Catholick Church it doth not advantage the Church of Rome as to that her pretention of being the true Catholick Church ibid. 82 to 85. III. Supposing again this Note to be true it doth the Reformed Churches a very great Service in demonstrating them to be true Parts of the Catholick Church p. 85. This demonstrated by two Arguments p. 86 87. 1. That in the first Ages of Christianity the Catholick Church then was more ours than now it is the Romanists p. 86. That there is a great Agreement between the antient Church of Rome and the present Church of England ibid. This is evident by comparing the Doctrine and Worship of each together ibid. 2. That upon computation the Churches subject to the Roman See exceed not the Reformed Churches in Amplitude or Multitude of Members p. 87 to 91. The Conclusion p. 92. The Fifth Note Succession of BISHOPS IN Examination of this Note Three Things are inquired into I. How far this Note may be necessary to any Church p. 94. True and Lawful Pastors necessary to the Constitution of the Church and this Pastoral Power Originally from Christ ibid. Power of Ordination entrusted with Bishops the chief Governors of the Church and ordinary Successors of the Apostles p. 94 95. The Government of the Church of England by Bishops and its Succession not interrupted in the Reformation ibid. 1. Obs Tho Succession of Bishops be necessary to the compleat constitution of a Church yet it may be doubted whether it is indispensable to the very being of it so as to unchurch every place that wants these 2. Obs It is not necessary for every Church which firmly presumes upon this Lawful and Orderly Succession even from the Apostles should be able to produce the Records of its conveyance thro' every Age and in every single Person by whom it hath past p. 95. The Antients contented themselves in delivering down to us the Succession of Bishops in the greater Sees and Mother-Cities As of Rome Alexandria Antioch Jerusalem c. ibid. 3. Obs Some irregularities and uncanonical proceedings in times of great Schisms or publick Disturbance have been interpreted for no interruption of this Authentical Succession p. 97. II. How far the Succession of Bishops may be granted to the Church of Rome p. 98. Little left upon Record of many of the first Bishops in the Church of Rome excepting their bare Names ibid. If Heresie breaks the Succession this is chargeable upon the Church of Rome p. 99. If Schismatical Intrusions can dissolve the order of Succession this chargeable likewise on the Bishops of that Church viz. Felix the 2. and Vigilius ibid. 1. The Case of the Roman Succession extreamly changed since the first time p. 101. No Supremacy to be found in the Church of Rome for more than the first 500 Years p. 101 102. 2. The Church of Rome not very favourable to the Order of Bishops ibid. The Divine Right of Episcopacy disputed in the Council of Trent ibid. 3. Their Catechism makes this no distinct Order but only a different degree of the same Priesthood p. 103. III. How insufficient a proof this will afford them of any great advantage ibid. 1. Succession is no sufficient evidence of the Truth of the Doctrine of any Church p. 104 105. 2. An unintterrupted Succession of Bishops is no warrantable ground of the Claim of Superiority over another Church which hath not so clear evidences thereof p. 105 106. The Cardinals Testimonies out of St. Augustine Irenaeus Tertullian and Epiphanius examined p. 107 108. His Inference from these citations about Succession considered p. 109 110. The Conclusion The Sixth Note Agreement in Doctrine with the Primitive Church THis is acknowledged a True Mark of a Church p. 113. The Infallibility of the present Church is to be laid aside till it be first known whether it agrees with the Primitive Church or not p. 114. The True Chuch only to be discovered by the True Faith. p. 115. Those matters of Faith in Controversie betwixt us are to be determined by the Doctrines and Practices of the Primitive Church p. 116. The Church of Rome waving Particular Controversies that may be made plain and evident to most capacities delights rather to run out into General Controversies
172. The Eighth Note Sanctity of Doctrine THat this Note as well as the others is far from performing what is promised for it by the Cardinal is sufficiently made evident by four Particulars p. 173. I. What is here meant by Sanctity of Doctrine p. 174. Tho' that is the best and purest Church which hath the least of Error and Corruption in its Doctrine and Discipline yet that which is the best is not the only true Church p. 157. II. That Sanctity of Doctrine i.e. a pure profession of true Religion without any mixture of Error is no true Note or Character whereby a man may distinguish the true Church from all false Churches p. 176. That this can be no true Note of the true Church made evidently appear from the consideration of those necessary Properties of all true Notes by which Things are to be known and distinguished p. 177. These are Four. 1. Every true Note ought to be common to all of the same kind with the thing which it notifies p. 177 to 180. 2. Every true Note ought to be proper and peculiar to that kind of things of which it is a Note and not common to Things of another kind p. 181. 3. Every true Note ought to be more known than the Thing which it notifies p. 182 183. 4. Every true Note ought to be inseparable to the Thing which it notifies p. 184 to 188. III. In what sense this may be a Note of the true Church p. 189. That is a true Church which professes all the Essential Articles of Christian Faith and receives all the Essential parts of Christian Worship and Discipline p. 190. The Church of England willing to be tried by this p. 192. IV. According to the Principles of the Church of Rome the true Church is not to be found by this Note in which soever of the two Senses we understand it ibid. This clearly made out in Four Particulars 1. The Church of Rome decryes mens private judgment of Discretion as utterly insufficient to make any certain distinction of Truth from Falshood in matters of Religion p. 194. 2. Shee allows no sufficient Rule without the true Church to guide and direct our private Judgment of Discretion p. 195. Which is the true Church not to be resolved by Principles of Nature but those of Revelation p. 196. No other Rule while we are out of the Church to direct us in this Enquiry but only that of Scripture ibid. This the Church of Rome tells us is insufficient and that for two Reasons 1. Because the Scripture is not full enough as to all Doctrines of Faith and Manners And therefore there are certain unwritten Traditions in the Church of equal Authority with it by which its defects are supplied p. 197. 2. Because it is not clear enough the Sense of it being so obscurely expressed that we can never be certain what it is without the interpretation of the true Church p. 198. These considered and answered 3. The Church of Rome resolves all certainty as to matters of Faith into the Authority of the true Church which indeed is the Fundamental Principle of Popery p. 199. A short Dialogue upon this Argument between a Papist and Protestant p. 200 to 202. 4. The Church of Rome gives Authority to the true Church to impose upon us a necessity of believing such Things as before they were not obliged to believe p. 203. to the End. The Ninth Note Efficacy of Doctrine BY Efficacy of Doctrine Two Things understood Either 1. The power which the Word of God hath in the hearts of particular men to dispose them to believe aright and to live well Or 2 That Success which it hath in drawing Multitudes outwardly to profess and embrace it p. 209. The first too inward and the second which is that which the Cardinal understands by it too uncertain a thing to be a Note of a True Church ibid. Many other things besides Efficacy of Doctrine which have and may convert whole Nations to the Christian Religion such as hopes and fears outward force necessity p. 210. An Instance hereof in the Conversions wrought by Charles the Great p. 211. The difference between such Conversions and those which were made in the first Ages of the Church p. 212. In answer to the Cardinal upon this Note Three things laid down I. That the prevalency of any Doctrine can be no Note of a True Church p. 213. This appears 1. From what our Saviour hath said in this matter ibid. 214. 2. From the Consideration of the Temper and Constitution of Mankind p. 215. to 217. 3. From plain matter of Fact. p. 218 219. Error hath such an influence often up n mens minds that they have rejected Truth and preferred the most gross and impious Opinions before it ibid. This apparent from the Histories of all Ages ibid. More particularly in the Case of Arianism p. 219. And in that of Mahomitanism p. 220. The Conversions wrought by those if the Greek Church whom the Church of Rome accounts Hereti ks p. 221. The Efficacy of the Reformed Doctrine ibid. II. That the Prevalency of the Doctrine professed in the Church of Rome is no Note of its being a True Church p. 222. And that for these reasons 1. Because of that great mixture of Errors which there is with the Truth which it professes p. 223. 2. Because the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is so much altered from what it formerly was ibid. 3. Because it hinders those who embrace it from throughly examining it p. 224. 4. Because Art and Force have sometimes been made use of to make it prevail p. 225. III. The Arguments the Cardinal makes use of to prove this to be a Note of the True Church proved to be Insufficient p. 226. 1. His Arguments from the Scriptures considered ibid. 2. His Arguments from the prevalency of the Christian Doctrine in the beginning of the Church examined p. 227. 3. His Arguments from the particular Instances which he gives of Conversions wrought by those of the Church of Rome reflected on p. 227. I. The Conversion of the English by Austin the Monk considered p. 228. Four Things alledged in answer to it ibid. 2. The Conversion of the People of Franconia by Kilianus replied to p. 228 229. 3. The Conversion of a great part of Germany by Vinofrid otherwise called Boniface considered ibid. The Conversion of the Vandals of the Danes of the Bulgarians Slavonians c. Ascribed to other Causes than the naked Efficacy of the Christian Doctrine ibid. The Barbarous Cruelties that were used by the Spaniards in the Conversion of the Indians p. 230. The Instance of Heraclius the Emperors Letter to Dagobert King of France concerning the method he made use of for the Conversion of the Jews p. 231. The Conclusion The Tenth Note Holiness of LIFE IN this Argument it is shewn I. What the Notion of Holiness is p. 233. Holiness is of Two kinds 1. Holiness of Calling and Dedication What
omitting Personal Contests but inserting whatsoever concerns the common Cause of Protestants or defends the Church of England with an exact Table of Contents and an Addition of some genuine Pieces of Mr. Chillingworth's never before Printed viz. against the Infallibility of the Roman Church Transubstantiation Tradition c. And an Account of what moved the Author to turn Papist with his Confutation of the said Motives An Historical Treatise written by an AUTHOR of the Communion of the CHVRCH of ROME touching TRANSVBSTANTIATION Wherein is made appear That according to the Principles of THAT CHVRCH This Doctrine cannot be an Article of Faith. 40. The Protestant's Companion Or an Impartial Survey and Comparison of the Protestant Religion as by Law established with the main Doctrines of Popery Wherein is shewed that Popery is contrary to Scripture Primitive Fathers and Councils and that proved from Holy Writ the Writings of the Ancient Fathers for several hundred Years and the Confession of the most Learned Papists themselves 40. The Pillar and Ground of Truth A Treatise shewing that the Roman Church falsly claims to be That Church and the Pillar of That Truth mentioned by S. Paul in his first Epistle to Timothy Chap. 3. Vers 15. 4o. The Peoples Right to read the Holy Scripture Asserted 4o. A Short Summary of the principal Controversies between the Church of England and the Church of Rome being a Vindication of several Protestant Doctrines in Answer to a Late Pamphlet Intituled Protestancy destitute of Scripture Proofs 4o. An Answer to a Late Pamphlet Intituled The Judgment and Doctrine of the Clergy of the Church of England concerning one Special Branch of the King's Prerogative viz. In dispensing with the Penal Laws 4o. A Discourse of the Holy Eucharist in the two great Points of the Real Presence and the Adoration of the Host in Answer to the Two Discourses lately Printed at Oxford on this Subject To which is perfixed a Large Historical Preface relating to the same Argument Two Discourses Of Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead The Fifteen Notes of the Church as laid down by Cardinal Bellarmin examined and confuted 4o. With a Table of the Contents Preparation for Death Being a Letter sent to a young Gentlewoman in France in a dangerous Distemper of which she died By W. W. 12o. The Difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome in opposition to a late Book Intituled An Agreement between the Church of England and Church of Rome A PRIVATE PRAYER to be used in Difficult Times A True Account of a Conference held about Religion at London Sept. 29 1687 between A. Pulton Jesuit and Tho. Tenison D. D. as also of that which led to it and followed after it 4o. The Vindication of A. Cressener Schoolmaster in Long-Acre from the Aspersions of A. Pulton Jesuit Schoolmaster in the Savoy together with some Account of his Discourse with Mr. Meredith A Discourse shewing that Protestants are on the safer Side notwithstanding the uncharitable Judgment of their Adversaries and that Their Religion is the surest Way to Heaven 4o. Six Conferences concerning the Eucharist wherein is shewed that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation overthrows the Proofs of Christian Religion A Discourse concerning the pretended Sacrament of Extreme Vnction with an account of the Occasions and Beginnings of it in the Western Church In Three Parts With a Letter to the Vindicator of the Bishop of Condom The Pamphlet entituled Speculum Ecclesiasticum or an Ecclesiastical Prospective-Glass considered in its False Reasonings and Quotations There are added by way of Preface two further Answers the First to the Defender of the Speculum the Second to the Half-sheet against the Six Conferences A Second Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the new Exceptions of Mons de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator The FIRST PART In which the Account that has been given of the Bishop of Meaux's Exposition is fully Vindicated the Distinction of Old and New Popery Historically asserted and the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in Point of Image-worship more particularly considered 40. The Incurable Scepticism of the Church of Rome By the Author of the Six Conferences concerning the Eucharist 40. Mr. Pulton Considered in his Sincerity Reasonings Authorities Or a Just Answer to what he hath hitherto Published in his True Account his True and full Account of a Conference c. His Remarks and in them his pretended Confutation of what he calls Dr. T 's Rule of Faith. By Tho. Tenison D. D. A Full View of the Doctrines and Practices of the Antient Church relating to the Eucharist wholly different from those of the Present Roman Church and inconsistent with the belief of Transubstantiation Being a sufficient Confutation of CONSENSVS VETERVM NVBES TESTIVM and other Late Collections of the Fathers pretending to the Contrary 40. A BRIEF DISCOURSE Concerning the NOTES OF THE CHURCH With some REFLECTIONS on Cardinal BELLARMIN's Notes LICENSED April 6. 1687. JO. BATTELY LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXVII PAge 11. l. 15. for Character r. Charter and p. 14. l. 8. r. Charter p. 16. l. 12. after Ancient and Apostolick Church add Which is the same with his second Note concerning Antiquity which must refer to the Antiquity of its Doctrine for an Ancient Church tho founded many years since if it have innovated in Doctrine cannot plead Antiquity and a Church founded but yesterday which professes the Ancient Faith may p. 18. l. 6. f. first r. fifth p. 22. l. 14. f. now r. more A BRIEF DISCOURSE Concerning the Notes of the CHURCH c. IF Cardinal Bellarmin had not told us That this is a most profitable Controversie Controv. T. 2. L. 4 de Notis Ecclesiae I should very much have wondered at that pains which he and so many other of their great Divines have taken to find out the Notes of the Church For is not the Catholick Church visible And if we can see which is this Church what need we guess at it by marks and signs and that by such marks and signs too as are matter of dispute themselves Cannot we distinguish between the Christian Church and a Turkish Mosque or Jewish Synagogue or Pagan Temple Cannot we without all this ado distinguish a Christian from a Turk or a Jew or a Pagan And it will be as easie to find out a Christian Church as it is to find out Christians for a Christian Church is nothing else but a Society of Christians united under Christian Pastors for the Worship of Christ and where ever we find such a Society as this there is a Christian Church and all such particular or National Churches all the World over make up the whole Christian Church or the Universal Church of Christ But this will not do the Cardinal's business Though the Christian Church is visible enough yet not such a Church as he
first five hundred Years after Christ to refer us to the last five hundred Which is to confess the Novelty of their most beloved Doctrines And consequently to quit this Note of Antiquity as in Truth he plainly doth in that Book where being pressed with this Argument That no such Power was claimed in the first Times of the Church he answers ‖ Ib. cap. 3. p. 69. That he hath not right Conceptions of the Church of Christ who admits nothing but what he reads expresly written or done in the ancient Church For the Church of later time hath Power not only to explain and declare but constitute and command those things which belong to Faith and Manners Which is as much as to say they need not trouble themselves about Antiquity for they can make Articles of Faith now which were not heard of in the Beginning 2. We have often also told them by what steps Images crept into the Church For they remained at first only in private Houses for Ornament or for Commemoration and not uncensured There being above 300 Years past before they came into any Church and then not without Opposition and for this end only to be of an Historical use to remind People of things past Which improved in 300 Years more to a Rhetorical use as we may call it to stir up Devotion in the People For which purpose Gregory the Great fancied they were profitable and tho he by no means allowed them to be worshipped yet he thought the People might look upon them and worship God before them And this looking upon them to help Devotion was improved in the time of the second Nicene Council into a downright worshipping of them which would not pass in these Western Parts for good Doctrine And when at last we know and have told them by what steps this new Worship advanced hither and grew to a greater Degree of Religious Respect than that Nicene Council admitted the most zealous Defenders of it could not agree about it nor do they know what to make of it to this day We could tell them of other things that are much newer for it is but a little more than 100 Years since unwritten Traditions were decreed to be a part of the Rule of Faith that is of the Word of God. But this is sufficient to shew that they vainly boast of Antiquity which is only ancient Error and some of it not very ancient neither As for ancient Truth that 's on our side whom they most injuriously accuse of following Novelties III. For the Religion of the Church of England by Law established is the true Primitive Christianity In nothing New unless it be in rejecting all that Novelty which hath been brought into the Church But they are the Cause of that for if they had not introduced new Articles we should not have had occcasion for such Articles of Religion as condemn them Which cannot indeed be old because the Doctrines they condemn are new tho the Principle upon which we condemn them is as old as Christianity we esteeming all to be new which was not from the Beginning For as for our positive Doctrine Polydore himself hath given a true Account of it and makes it the Reason why the Sect called Evangelick as he speaks increased so marvelously in a short time because they affirmed that no Law was to be received which appertains to the Salvation of Souls but that which Christ or the Apostles had given * L. viii cap. 4. de rerum Inventoribus And who dare say that this is a new Religion which is as old as Christ and his Apostles With whom whosoever agree they are truly ancient Churches tho of no longer standing than Yesterday As they that disagree with them are New tho they can run up their Pedigree to the very Apostles Thus Tertulian †L. de praescript c. xxxii discourses with whose Words something contracted I shall conclude As the Doctrine of a Church when it is divers from or contrary unto that of the Apostles shews it not to be an Apostolick Church tho it pretend to be founded by an Apostle So those Churches that cannot produce any of the Apostles or Apostolical Men for their Founders being much later and newly constituted yet conspiring in the same Faith are nevertheless to be accounted Apostolick Churches because of the CONSANGVINITY OF DOCTRINE THE END LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1687. The Third Note of the CHURCH EXAMINED VIZ DURATION Tertia Nota est Duratio diuturna nec unquam interrupta Bellarm L. iv c. vi IMPRIMATUR Apr. 30. 1687. GVIL. NEEDHAM HOW far the Church of God is beholden to the Industry of some Learned Men in the Church of Rome for the Notes they give of a Church is not my Business at present to examine But those of the Reformed Religion must acknowledg themselves obliged to them for so frankly quitting those Characters which are essential to every true Church and for taking up with such as either apparently belong not to their Church or belong to other Churches as well as theirs or lastly such as may be found in a false Church as well as a true This might easily be proved against them through the fifteen Notes which are offered by them to the World But I shall content my self to give an Instance of it in the Note of Duration which is made by them a necessary Mark of the true Church In Prosecution of which I shall consider I. What is to be understood by the Term Duration II. How far Duration may be said to be a Note of the true Church III. Whether the Church of Rome hath a sufficient Title to this Character § I. Duration according to Bellarmin is the continuance of a Church throughout all Times without Interruption and he adds that the Catholick Church is so called not only because it always hath been but also because it always will be So that this Duration doth include in it these three Things 1. The Being of a Church from the Beginning 2. The Continuance of that Church to the End. 3. The Continuance of that Church from the Beginning to the End without Interruption Let us now see how he applies it to the Case It 's evident saith he that our Church hath continued from the beginning of the World hitherto Or if we speak of the State of the New Testament it hath endured from Christ to this Year 1557. The Year when he wrote this But for all his Beginning its evident there is no Proof of what he affirms and his Assertion is very insufficient 1. That he takes it for granted that his Church and the Christian Church are one and the same and that there is no other true Church but his It 's evident our Church c. 2. That he has omitted two main Branches of his Duration viz. That part of it which was to the end of the World which is
more evidently proved to be no true Catholicks than those of the Roman Communion may in all those Articles of Faith which are peculiar to themselves For as to Points of mere Belief how much more than the Apostles Creed can they shew us to have been received always every where and by all Christians But as for that large Addition of Tridentine Articles annexed to that Creed by P. Pius the 4th no unbiassed Person can believe they have ever done any thing like proving that any of them have been received always and much less every where and by all those whom themselves own for Catholick Christians 4. By this Note of a Catholick no Society of Christians can bid so fair for Catholicism as the Reformed Churches but especially the Church of England whose avowed Principle it is to receive nothing as an Article of Faith but what is contained in the holy Scriptures Artic. 6. or may be proved thereby Nor doth she embrace any one Doctrine as an Article of Faith but what is clearly expressed in those Books of whose Canonicalness there never was the least Dispute in the Primitive Church Secondly I proceed to shew that if we should acknowledg this to be a true Note of the Catholick Church instead of enabling the Church of Rome to make good her Pretension of so being it will destroy it And instead of doing Disservice to the Reformed Churches it will do them excellent Service and be a certain Argument of their being true Parts of the Catholick Church And 1. I will shew that it will not at all Advantage the Church of Rome as to that her Pretension and therefore can do us no Prejudice The Cardinal proves 1. That his Church began to fructify throughout the World in the Days of the Apostles from these Words of St. Paul Col. 1.6 The Truth of the Gospel is come unto you as it is in all the World and bringeth forth Fruit as it doth also in you c. But what is this to his Church Is the Gospel's bringing forth Fruit in all the World the same thing with the Church of Rome's so doing 2. He adds the Authority of several Fathers for this Church's being spread in their Time all over the then known World but gives us none of their Sayings except St. Prosper's The first Father he cites is St. Irenaeus in the 3d Chapter of his Book Edit Paris p. 53. But the Father here only saith That this Faith which he sums up immediately before and is but the chief part of the Apostle's Creed the Church disseminated throughout the World diligently preserves as if it were confined but to one House But how doth this concern the Church of Rome Which is not once mentioned with others here particularly named except we could be made to believe that wheresoever the Word Church is found that Church is still to be understood Next he cites Tertullian adversùs Judaeos Edit Rig. p. 189. and having search'd that Book these or none are the Words he means viz. Those Words of David are to be understood of the Apostle's their Sound is gone forth in all the Earth and their Words unto the End of the World For in whom have all Nations believed but in Christ who is now come The Parthians Medes Elamites and those that inhabit Mesopotamia Armenia Phrygia Cappadocia Pontus Asia and Pamphilia Egypt Africa and beyond Cyrene the Romans and Jews now in Jerusalem and other Nations as now of the Getuli and Moors all Spain divers Countries of the Gauls and those of the Britains which the Romans could never conquer are subject to Christ c. But I again ask What is all this to the Church of Rome more than to any other particular Church belonging to any one of the many Nations of which that of the Romans is one and two whole Quarters of the World here mentioned His third Father is St. Cyprian Edit Oxon. p. 10◠in his Book de Vnitate Ecclesiae But here is nothing he could fancy to be for his purpose except these Words The Church is one which by its Fruitfulness is extended into a Multitude As there are many Rays of the Sun and but one Light c. So the Church of our Lord which being filled with Light sends forth her Beams through the whole World is but one Light which is diffused every-where But though this be said of the Catholick Church is here the least Intimation that the Church of Rome is this Catholick Church After St. Cyprian follow several of the later Fathers their Books being only directed to But the narrow room I am confined to will not permit me to examine them nor need we look any farther to be satisfied how this greatest Man of the Roman Church condescended to the most shameful impertinence in citing Scripture and Fathers for the doing her Service But we must not overlook St. Prosper's Verses in his Book de Ingratis viz. Sedes Roma Petri quae Pastoralis Honoris Facta Caput Mundo quicquid non possidet Armis Relligione tenet i. e. Rome the Seat of Peter being made the Head of Pastoral Honour in the World whatsoever Country she possesseth not by her Arms she holds by her Religion But considering how early this Father lived viz. about the beginning of the Fifth Century he could mean no more than this That the Church of Rome the most Honourable of all other by means of that Cities being the ancient Seat of the Emperors keeps still possession of those places by the Religion they received from Her over which she hath lost Her Old Dominion And what is this but another plain Instance of most idle quoting of Ancient Authors Not to reflect upon Fetching Arguments from Poetical Flourishes But not to stand to consider how Ample the Roman Church was in the times of those Fathers nothing is more evident than that that part of Christendom she took up was but a small Spot of Ground compared with the Space those Churches filled which tho they held Communion with Her were distinct Churches from Her and owned no Subjection to Her. And it was about or above an Hundred Years after the youngest of those Fathers that the Pope was inverted by that Execrable Wretch Phocas a Blessed Title in the mean time with the Primacy over all Churches And Gregory the Great who died in the Beginning of the Sixth Century not only sharply inveighed against John Patriarch of Constantinople and his Successor Cyriacus for assuming to themselves the Title of Vniversal Bishops though there was no appearance of their designing any thing more thereby than an Addition of Honour not of Power to that Patriarchate but also called those who should affect such a Haughty Title Greg. Epist 37. 70. lib. 11. Ep. 30. l. 4. the Forerunners of Antichrist And as these Bishops taking this Title was a Demonstration that they acknowledged not the least Subjection to the Bishops of Rome so Pope Gregory's calling
those Bishops who should so do without Exception Forerunners of Antichrist is as plain a Proof that the Bishops of Rome to his time did not look on themselves as having a Primacy over all Churches And 't is manifest that in the time of the Council of Nice the Church of Rome was not thought to include the Catholick Church or to be any more than one part thereof This I say is manifest from the Sixth Canon of that Council viz. Let the ancient Customs be preserved for the Bishop of Alexandria to have Jurisdiction over Egypt Lybia and Pentapolis because the Bishop of Rome hath a like Custom c. Which is as much as to say that the Bishop of Alexandria had then the same uncontroulable Power in his large Jurisdiction that the Bishop of Rome had in his And therefore that Council knew nothing of this Bishop's having any Power over the Alexandrian and much less over the whole Catholick Church Nor is any thing more certain than that the mere Superiority of Honour which the Roman Church had was founded on no Divine Right but only on that Cities being the Seat of the Empire For as the Second General Council viz. that of Constantinople decreed in its Third Canon That the Bishop of Constantinople should have the priviledg of Honour next to the Bishop of Rome upon the account of its being the Imperial City and therefore called New Rome So in the Twenty eighth Canon of the Fourth General Council viz. that of Chalcedon it was ordained that for the same Reason the Bishop of Constantinople should have equal priviledges with the Bishop of Rome So that 't is a plain Case that whosoever shall undertake to prove from any Sayings of the Ancients for the first 500 Years at least that the Church of Rome and the Catholick Church were reputed to be the same and consequently that whatsoever they said of the Amplitude of this is to be understood of that Church must necessarily make as sad work of it as Bellarmin hath here done And therefore it is apparent too that no Service can be done to the Church of Rome by this Note as to her pretension of being the true Catholick Church From whence it will likewise follow that no prejudice can from thence accrue to the Reformed Churches But this is not all For 2. This Note were it a true one would be Destructive to that her Pretence and do the Reformed Churches great Service viz. in demonstrating them to be true parts of the Catholick Church This also may be concluded from what hath been said but it will be made more evident by these following Considerations 1. If the Church of Rome had as Ample a Spread over the World for some of the first Ages as Bellarmin contends for this would far more redound to the Advantage of our Churches of the Reformation were Amplitude a distinguishing Property of the Church than to the Advantage of the present Church of Rome because that Church then was more ours than now it is the Romanists For there can scarcely be a greater Disagreement in Doctrine and Worship between any two Christian Churches than there hath for a long time been between the same Church as she was then and is now But the Agreement is as great between the Ancient Church of Rome and our Churches and especially between Her and the Church of England This our Adversaries could not but see would they impartially compare the Doctrine and Worship of each together And the only Quarrel they have with us is that we will not admit more into our Creed than the Christians of the First Ages did into theirs And that we worship God only by the alone Mediation of Jesus Christ as they did That our Laity partake of the Communion in both kinds as theirs did And in short that we believe the Holy Scriptures to be a compleat Rule of Faith as it was every where believed to be by the Primitive Catholicks and that we will not receive into our Worship the Roman Novelties those things which were utterly unknown to both the Roman and all other Churches in those Ages Now whereas the Cardinal would have it observed for the better explaining the meaning of this Note That if one Province alone should retain the true Faith it might properly be called the Catholick Church so long as its Faith is one and the same with that which at one time or other had prevailed in the whole World We desire no greater Advantage to our Church and all other in Communion with Her since these and those Churches which in the Primitive Times were extended all over the then known parts of the World are agreed in much more than all the Fundamental Points of Faith. 2. It hath been estimated upon Computation that the Churches subject to the Roman See exceed not much the Reformed Churches in Amplitude or Multitude of Members Especially since Italy Spain See the Preface to Brerewood's Enquiries and Portugal are detained in the Romish Religion not by Choice or Judgment but by Ignorance and the Tyranny of the Inquisition But who can be ignorant that the Church of Rome bears not the least proportion upon those Accounts with these Churches considered in Conjunction with that part of Christendom which agreeth with them as in all the main Points of Christianity so in refusing Subjection to that Church and in most of those Doctrines and Practices which we condemn in Her as contrary to Holy Scripture or as not founded thereon and yet made necessary to Salvation by Her and not taught by the Primitive Church So that should all the Churches which deny that of Rome to have any Authority over them deal with Her as she hath dealt with them and pronounce Her to have nothing more left Her than the mere Name of a Church this Her Note would be an unanswerable Objection against Her being A true Church as well as The true Church on supposition that as she holds of two Parties of Christians rejecting Communion with and unchurching each other but one of them can be a true Church That so large a part of Christendom I say agrees with the Reformed Churches in all the Grand Articles of Faith and in the Chief of those wherein they are at Varience with the Church of Rome as makes the whole an incomparably greater Body of Believers than all those together who own that Church for their Mother is so notorious that 't is impossible our Adversaries should dispute it The Cardinal indeed tells us on this Note That Besides all Italy and Spain and almost all France which the Church of Rome possesseth And besides Germany England Poland Bohemia Hungary Greece Syria Aethiopia Egypt in which many Catholicks are found even in the New World viz. America She hath Churches without the mixture of Hereticks And we can Reply That Besides England Scotland and Ireland in which Protestancy is the National Religion and in the two former of which the Number
Cardinal Bellarmin's Fourth Note of the Church were as true as we have proved it false And that it would then overthrow instead of establishing the Church of Rome's marvellous Pretence of being The True or Catholick Church THE END Pag. 80. lin 18. read ab omnibus LONDON Printed by J. D. for Richard Chiswel at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1687. The Fifth Note of the CHURCH EXAMINED VIZ The Succession of Bishop Quinta Nota est Successio Episcoporum in Romanâ Ecclesiacirc ab Apostolis deducta usque ad nos Bellar. L. iv c. viii de Notis Ecclesiae IMPRIMATUR May 9. 1687. JO. BATTELY THE Disputers of the Roman Communion boasting in nothing so much as in the venerable Name of the Catholick Church using all means to appropriate it to themselves exclusivly to any others And it being the most popular Argument they flee to and with which they commonly begin and end all Debates We are concerned faithfully and plainly to examine their Title or Claim to so honourable a Denomination and the many vast Priviledges founded thereupon Among the Notes of the Church in Bellarmin their chief Champion the Fifth in order and it may be not the least Plausible in all his Number is this of the Succession of Bishops the Subject of this short Essay in which three Inquiries may be made 1. How far this Note may be necessary to any Church 2. How far this may be granted to the Roman Church 3. How insufficient a Proof it affords to them of any great Advantage by it In answer to the former Iniquiry 1. Concess 1. it may I presume be generally yielded That to the compleat Constitution of the Church it will be always needful that there be in it True and Lawful Pastors not only for the rightful Administration of God's Word and Sacraments but also for the due and orderly Government thereof and the Dispensation of wholsom Discipline to the Flock committed to their charge requiring all tender Care vigilant Inspection and indulgent Provision from Them And all cheerful and humble Submission and ready Subjection from These Requisites to any Society confirmed by many Precepts and Examples in Scripture We yield this Pastoral Power originally to be from Christ Concess 2. the Head of his Church the chief Bishop and Pastor of his Flock and by him immediately conveyed to the Apostles and from them derived by Imposition of Hands or Ordination to their Successors in the several Churches which they planted and so to be continued by a Regular Succession to the End of the World As may be proved by the several Directions in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus and Examples in the Acts of the Apostles and the following Practice of the Church in all Ages and Places of which we have any Records extant No Man taketh this Honour all himself Heb. 5.4 We grant farther Concess 3. that according to the best Evidence of Scripture-Rule or Example and the constant Practice of Christ's Church the Power of Ordination is entrusted with the Bishops the chief Governours thereof and ordinary Successors of the Apostles unto the End of the World. And we as readily embrace the Canonical Provision of the Constitutions under the name of the Apostles by St. Clemens or the Decree of the ever-renowned first Council of Nice That every Bishop be ordained by three Bishops or two at the least c. All most agreeable to the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of England Such is our Government and Succession not at all interrupted in the Reformation whatever Difficulties it struggled with elsewhere A signal Happiness for which we have Reason ever to bless God and not peevishly to endeavour by wilful schismatical Separations to deprive our selves of that Priviledge which may be the chief Eye-sore to our Adversaries and thereby to furnish them with new and better Arguments than ever yet they found against us If their Succession be good so is ours for sure it is not tyed to one place whether we derive it through them by Augustin the Monk though ordained in France or from or by the British Bishops who had been here several Ages before his Coming and by as Regular a Succession from Apostolical Times without any dependance as they profess or as far as we can find on the See or Bishop of Rome However it may be noted Observ 1. that though this Succession of Bishops be necessary to the compleat Constitution of the Church yet it may well be doubted whether it is indispensable to the very Being of it so as to unchurch every Place that wants these For Baptism alone gives us Admission into the Church and a Title to the Heavenly Inheritance upon the Performance of our Part of the Covenant And although this obliges all Christians to endeavour to provide themselves with lawful Pastors for their constant Supply in all the means of Grace and so to seek them abroad as far as they can where they have them not at home Yet in a supposed case where these may not be had or but upon conditions out of their Power to yield or in the mean time they who suppose Baptism to be valid though in case of necessity administred by any Christian nay according to their Catechism by Jew Infidel or Heretick if he but intend to do what the Church designs hereby must not presently unchurch any Place or exclude all Persons that want this full Provision of all needful Helps and Advantages though some of most immediate Divine Institution What Allowances God may make for great Necessities or almost invincible Difficulties and Prejudices where Men are not wilfully and obstinately wanting to themselves we cannot or must not determine It is not necessary that every Church which may firmly presume upon this lawful and orderly Succession even from the Apostles Observ 2. should be able to produce the Records of its Conveyance through every Age and in every single Person by whom it hath past Few Churches of of long continuance have been so happy as to preserve Authentick Registers of all their Transactions from their first Plantation which must not weaken their Authority or make doubtful the Effect of their Ministrations where no positive Evidence is brought to the contrary The Antients content themselves in delivering down to us the Succession of Bishops in the greater Sees and Mother-Cities not of Rome only but of Alexandria Antioch Jerusalem and others though Bellarmin insinuates the contrary here as is most apparent in Eusebius c. Answ to 3d Object The Eminence of their Place and Power the frequent Resort of other neighbouring Churches to them from whom they were generally derived or as Dependant on their Cities in Civil Administrations which the Ecclesiastical usually followed these and such like Reasons made them more the notice of all about them and their Successions more carefully recorded in Church-Writers Which possibly they might have then done in many of the lesser
it was sometimes a Mark of an Orthodox and Catholick Christian to be joyn'd in Communion with the Roman Bishop therefore it must always be so and it can never happen that a Man should be united to the Church and disjoyn'd from the Pope Because St. Hierom referred himself to the Chair of Peter when Damasus sate in it therefore he would have done the same to his Predecessor Liberius after he had communicated with the Arians Of the same kind is the Argument from Optatus Finally because St. Augustin thought that Cecilian had reason to value his Communion with the Roman Church more than the multitude of his Enemies in as much as the Principality of an Apostolical Chair had always flourished there therefore the Bishop of Rome is Head of the Church As if there were no other Apostolical Chair besides that at Rome and as if the Communion of no other Church was to be esteemed when a Bishop meets with unreasonable Opposition but one that is by virtue of her Chair Mistress of all the Rest For what he says out of St. Augustin in Psal contra partem Donati it has had its Answer p. 107. Pope Leo indeed speaks a little more to the Purpose but without any Authority as being a Witness in his own Cause For it was but a few Years before that Zosimus Boniface and Celestin had set up a small pretence to an Universal Headship tho nothing was got by it but a notable Rebuke from the African Fathers whereof St. Augustin was one for introducing a worldly Pride into the Church But no wonder if those Popes that followed still kept their Eye upon that Power which their Predecessors could not as yet compass On the other side it appears by most unquestionable Evidence that the Primitive Fathers knew no greater necessity of being united to the Roman than to any other Catholick or Orthodox Bishop When Pope Victor took upon him to excommunicate the Asian Churches for not observing Easter as the Roman did they were so far from thinking a Union with him as their Head necessary to their being Members of the Catholick Church that they called a Synod of their own reprehended the Pope's Arrogance and resolved to adhere to their own Custom St. Cyprian Firmilian and the Africans did the like in opposition to Pope Stephen Apud Cypr. Ep. 75. p. 228. Ed. Oxon. Firmilian plainly telling him that while he thought to Excommunicate all them from himself he had but excommunicated himself from them In ancient Times there was no shadow of any such Headship in the Pope as of late Ages has been contended for He was treated with no other Titles of Respect than other Bishops were who were called Popes and Vicars of Christ no less than he as he was by them stiled their Colleague and Brother no less than they by him In respect of Presidency over particular Churches his Jurisdiction was confined as well as theirs in respect of the common Care of the whole Church each of them was deemed to have an Authority and a Trust no way inferiour to his All which our Adversaries do full well understand who are but a little conversant in St. Cyprian if they would but speak what they know But because St. Hierom's Complâ—mt to Damasus is insisted upon by the Cardinal let St. Hierom be heard speaking to this very Point so clearly that we cannot desire he should have been more express Where-ever saith he there is a Bishop whether at Rome Hier. ad Evagr. Ep. 85. or at Eugubium or Constantinople or Rhegium or Alexandria or Thanis he is of the same Worth and of the same Priesthood The advantage of Wealth and the disadvantage of Poverty does not make a Bishop to be higher or lower but they are all Successors of the Apostles To conclude this Point Popes have been anciently censured condemned and excommunicated when they were thought to have deserved it Julius was Excommunicated by the Eastern Bishops Sâ—â— Vindic. of Answ To some late Papers p. 6. c. Liberius Anathematized by St. Hilary Vigilius Excommunicated by the Africans Honorius Condemned by the VIth General Council Did these Fathers take the Pope for their Common Head and the Center of Catholick Union Some Popes have been Hereticks as the Romanists themselves cannot deny and therefore time has been when it was so far from being a Note of the Catholick Church to be united to the Pope that it was impossible so to be without separation from the Catholick Church But the Cardinal has a very notable Argument to prove the necessity of this Union viz. Experience since those Churches have withered away that are divided from this Head the Pope Witness the Asiatick and African Churches anciently famous for numerous Councils for learned and holy Men but since their Schism from the Roman Church reduced to obscurity and plunged into gross Ignorance To which it might be enough to answer That although where the Sin is flagrant and beyond controversy there the Calamity that befalls the Offender may without breach of Charity or impious Intrusion into the Councils of Providence be well deemed the effect of God's Justice Yet in a Dispute about Right and Truth to take advantage from the Afflictions of a Man or of a Church and to make them an Argument against the oppressed side is barbarously uncharitable and wicked and becomes none but those who care not by what means they come to their end But not to pry into the Secrets of Divine Providence Might it not have served the Cardinal's turn to assign the Afflictions and Ignorance of those Churches to the Irruptions of their Enemies upon them who at length prevailed and utterly destroyed some of them and to this day hold the rest in Slavery If this be not enough what if one should add that their not uniting themselves to the Pope was indeed one cause of their Misfortunes who had much rather see those ancient and glorious Churches laid wast by Infidels then saved by the united Arms of Christendom to make a vigorous Opposition to his claim of Supremacy However it is not more certain that they were once the most flourishing Churches in Christendom than that when they were so they did not acknowledg this Union to the Bishop of Rome as the Head of the Catholick Church nay that they opposed the Beginnings and Preparations to so unjust a claim and therefore their denying it at present can with no reason be alledged as the cause of their Distress One thing more we have to say to this doughty Argument that if it may be trusted how comes it to pass that we have a contrary experience in Churches nearer home which have not fallen into decay by separating from the Pope We are apt to think that from the Reformation to this day there have been as many Persons eminent both for Piety and Learning in the Church of England as any Age ever produced in any Nation That we are not sunk into gross
Ignorance our Adversaries know by some Experience And we may say without need of blushing for the matter that they have felt some Learning from this Church which their Union to the Pope hath of late helped very few of them to And if we may conclude any thing from the Examples of those within their own Communion we shall find that the more closely any of them are united to this supposed Head their Piety and Learning does not flourish one jot the more for it Let the Learning of the Gallican Church be compared with that of Spain or Italy Let the Piety of the Regulars especially of the Jesuits be weighed with that of the Secular Clergy and I believe it will appear that this Union is no such excellent advantage either towards Piety or Learning that they should appeal to Experience to shew the Necessity thereof either to the one or the other And thus much for their Union to the Pope 2. Neither is the Union which they pretend to among themselves as Members any certain Note of the Church The Cardinal was not content to describe their Union by thinking the same concerning all Doctrines of Faith but will have it to exclude also Discord and Dissension and falling into Sects and Parties For since he denies such Union to be found amongst Pagans and Hereticks he must be supposed to affirm it of the Members of his Church if he talks to any purpose Now admitting it were so 1. This is no more than what any Society may have as well as the true Church and any other Church as well as the Roman The Members of every Church are thus far united that they all agree in professing the common Belief of the Society to which they belong But about other Doctrine they either fall into Dissension or not as it happens And for some considerable time they may agree very well and at length fall out In which case according to Bellarmin's Note they would be the true Church while they agreed whatever their Faith should be which is most absurd It is not whether Men are united among themselves in what they believe but whether that wherein they are united be the right Faith that is to be considered Union in a false way is a confederacy in Error and the more that Men are united in it the more wise or prudent they may shew themselves to be but never the more Orthodox And though the Cardinal produces that Saying of our Saviour Every Kingdom divided against it self Matth. xii is brought to desolation to shew that Discord is a Sign of the Kingdom of the Devil yet he has manifestly perverted the Place inasmuch as our Saviour's Discourse there proceeds upon the contrary supposition viz. that Satan is not divided against himself 2. As there may be this Union out of the true Church so it may not be within it which makes it plain that this is no certain Note of the Church It is undeniable that there were Divisions in the first Apostolical Churches and consequently that to be Members of the Catholick Church it is sufficient that in those things wherein the Unity of the Faith consists all speak the same thing And if the Cardinal meant that the breaking of a Church into Parties and the Rise of Heresies and Schisms out of it is a certain Note of a false Church he might as well have said that there never was a true Church in the World no not in the Apostles times And if for this Reason he would unchurch the Protestants he did in effect put as good an Argument as this against the Reformation into the Mouth of a Turk or a Jew against Christianity that there is no Truth in it at all and because Christians are so divided one against another therefore none of them are in the right For a more particular Consideration of this Argument I refer the Reader to the Apologetical Vindication of the Church of England lately published Thus much for the first part of this Discourse which was to shew that the Unity here offered is not a Note of the Church I proceed to shew II. That if it were yet the Roman Church has it not Which is probably true of the First and most certainly true of the second Branch of the Cardinal's Unity 1. It is probable that the Roman Church wants the First and that there is now no true Pope nor has been for many Ages for that Church to be united to For by their own Confession a Pope Simoniacally chosen a Pope intruded by Violence a Heretick and therefore sure an Atheist or an Infidel is no true Pope And many such there have been of one sort or other whose Acts therefore in creating Cardinals c. being invalid it is exceeding probable that the whole Succession has upon this account failed long ago Besides there have been about 25 Schisms in the Church of Rome the last of which continued no less than 50 Years wherein two and sometimes three Popes pretended to St. Peter's Chair created Cardinals had their several Parties and Abettors c. During which Schisms it would be a madness to say that the Roman Church was united to the Pope as Head when they were all together by the Ears which of the Anti-Popes was the true one Now while there was no certain Pope there could be no certainty of the validity of any Acts necessary to continue a Succession of true Popes But this Case having happen'd so often and sometimes continued for many years the uncertainty must have at last grown into an utter improbability that they have a Pope and therefore according to the Cardinal that they are a Church unless it be all one whether the Church be united with a Nominal Pope or a Real Pope with a True Head or a False Head or any Head whatsoever But 2. It is undoubtedly true That the Roman Church has not the second Branch of Unity viz. that Union of the Members to one another which the Cardinal pretends Whether by it he means an Union in all points of Doctrine of great Consequence amongst those who remain in the Communion of his pretended Catholick Church or such an Union of their Members as shall prevent the breaking away of some from the Communion of the rest She has not the former Unity For if Philosophers Hereticks c. have had their Sects and Parties and been at great Dissensions among themselves so have the Members of the Roman Church too He pretends that all the Sacred Writers of their Church do wonderfully agree Now to let pass his Presumption in supposing the ancient Doctors of the Church to be one part of these their Writers we will for the present admit it and only ask If they agreed so wonderfully with the Fathers what need there was of an Index Expurgatorius upon the Fathers to make them and the Fathers of Trent agree something better He pretends that the Decrees of their Lawful Councils agree in *
In omnibus Dogmatibus inter se conveniunt all Doctrines Just so the Councils of Constance and Basil decreeing That all Power even the Papal was in things appertaining to Religion to be subject to the Council agreed with the Abolition of the Pragmatick Sanction by the Lateran Council under Leo X by which the Council is made to truckle to the Pope As to which and other Instances of the like sort no help is to be had from that Qualification of Lawful Councils since what the Jesuits will not own to be a Lawful Council is by other Parties in that Church owned to be so And that Church must needs be at wonderful Unity within it self that cannot so much as agree what Councils are Lawful and what are not And yet if they were so agreed their Church-Unity is not to be bragged of when there are enough amongst them to make an unlawful Council and to determin otherwise in a point of so vast Consequence as that above-mentioned than they ought to do For if in the same Communion one Council determines one way and another the contrary way that Communion cannot be said to agree ever the more for one being a lawful and the other an unlawful Council Whereas he pretends that the Decrees of Popes are also at Unity with one another one would expect that in the next place Fire and Water should be brought in for an Example of Agreement too For they may be made to agree as soon as the Decrees of many Popes Leo and Gelasius condemned receiving in one kind De Consecr Dist 2. cap. 12. Have there been no Popes since that condemned the contrary Nicholas IV determined that Christ was a Beggar Extravag Joh. Tit. 14. cap. 4. and had Right to nothing but John XXII comes not long after him and makes it Heretical so to say It has been so frequent a practice for Popes to overthrow the Decrees of their Predecessors that it were endless to recount the particulars As for the Writers which they may justly claim to themselves how Bellarmin should come to fancy such a wonderful Agreement is very strange who in his own Controversies has observed so many notable Differences amongst them De Concil lib. 2. cap. 14. alibi Was it not Bellarmin that observed several Catholick Writers to have agreed with the Hereticks in asserting the Council to be above the Pope And that as those did not agree with themselves so neither did the other side of Canonists and School-men that asserted the contrary And this is no trifling Question neither Such Disagreement is noted by the same Cardinal upon other material Points viz. Concerning the Pope's Temporal Power Whether Vows of single Life are dispensable What Worship may be given to Images Whether Images of God may be made or not Whether Extream Unction and other of their Sacraments were instituted by Christ Whether Intention be necessary to a Sacrament Whether an express purpose of forsaking Sin be necessary to Contrition Whether good Works be truly meritorious And concerning many more Questions in most of which some or other of themselves have held as Protestants do against the rest of their Church Not to insist upon the Disputes between the Thomists the Scotists and the Occamists which were not all about Trifles the Question between the Dominicans and Franciscans about the Conception of the Virgin was by themselves esteemed of such Consequence that there have been Revelations about it against Revelations and if we will believe them Miracles against Miracles To which we may add the flaming Contentions between the Jansenists and the Molinists See Veteres Vindicat. c. 10. both which grew to such a height that it has been all along almost as dangerous to the Interest of the Roman Church to let their Controversies go on as to go about to decide them I confess the Divinity of the New Methodists the French Expositor and the English Representer has as yet occasioned but little disturbance in that Communion for which I know a good Reason But this I will say that if their New-Popery can in all Points be received with the Old See Defence of Exp. of the Doctrine of the Ch. of England p. 90. I do not see but from this time forward their Unity may be inviolable now that they have got the Knack of making Contradictions agree with one another But to all such Instances as these Bellarmine hath supplied them with a ready Answer That they differ not in those things that belong to Faith. Upon which cautious Answer one would be apt to enquire how nearly a Question in Religion must be allied to the Faith before it may be said to belong to it The Cardinal himself tells us now and then of something held by Catholicks that is fere haereticum as he calls it almost heretical in which case the Question should be also almost of Faith and may be said to belong to it But if he means simply that they all agree in Matters of Faith as he says afterward and that all Catholicks say the same thing about Doctrines of Faith as we were told before we are willing to hear him But then we expect that the Church of England the Lutherans and the Calvinists should be heard too when to the Papists charging them with some Differences they make the same Answer that they have all the same Faith especially since when they come to prove the Truth of what they say they will shew that the Matters wherein they differ do not break the Unity of the Catholick Faith which is something a better Argument than the Cardinal produces for the Unity of his Party in matters of Faith viz. that they all profess to believe that which shall be judged necessary to be believed in the Roman Catholick Church For to say no more to this at present notwithstanding this Profession we are very sure that some of them take those things to be matters of Faith which others do not if we may believe them of which the Infallibility of the Pope and the Deposing Doctrine are notorious and undeniable Instances But now if by the Vnion of the Members should be meant such a Union as will hinder the separation of some from the rest then this Note must not by any means be pretended to in the Church of Rome from which so many Churches that once were in Communion with her have broken away Indeed he does not expresly say that he means this by the Union of the Members among themselves but some such thing he must mean or else by virtue of this Note he does impertinently run down the Lutherans as being Hereticks because they have begotten so many Sects which as he pretends charge each other with Heresy And then it may as truly be said that the Church of Rome in whose Communion we were before the Reformation wants the Mark of Unity because so many have broken away from her as that any other Churches want it because some
have also divided from them For 't is very idle to say that tho we were Members of that Church when we first began to differ from it yet that by our Divisions we cut our selves from her Communion and therefore that the Unity of her Communion is not affected by our Departure For thus we may as well excuse all the separations from ours or from any other Church viz. that by separating from us they no longer belong to us We are very confident that in all Points of Doctrine of any great moment we of the Church of England do agree much more together than those of the Church of Rome and as for them who have gone out from us they as little break the Unity of the rest whom they are gone from as Luther's departing from the Church of Rome broke the Unity of those who still remained in it So that either the Church of Rome must renounce her pretence to Unity upon this account that Sects and Parties have not broken away from her or she must set up this wise Note of the true Church that all her Members are united except those that are divided from her which is a Mark that will fit any Society in the World. But the Cardinal does here offer a difference between the Division of Hereticks from the Church and a Division from Heresy That in their Church they have a certain Rule for ending Controversies viz. the Sentence of the chief Pastor or the Definition of a general Council and therefore Dissension does not arise among them from the Doctrine of the Church but from the Malice of the Devil Now in answer to this not to be importunate with that Question That if these be the ways of compounding Controversies how comes it to pass that their Controversies still remain I would know 1. Why were not these the means of composing those Controversies that carried us away from them Our Fathers were once of their Communion and those means were not sufficient to retain them in it To say this arose from the Malice of the Devil is to say in effect that the Devil was in 'em which is a little too Magisterial for a Controvertist though he were a Cardinal Unless he resolves to ascribe it to the Devil that they were taken off from an implicit Faith and a blind Obedience to the Church of Rome For it seems to be some Peoples Opinion when Men begin to judg a little for themselves the Spirit of Heresy comes in and then away they go But from hence I gather that the Sentence of the Pope or of a plenary Council is no certain Rule for ending Controversies nor certain means of preventing Divisions if some other means be not used to keep Men from trying the Spirits and proving all things What they are the Cardinal knew very well but mentioned them not nor shall I need to do it In the mean time when whole Countries went off from that Church as soon as they had a little considered what they had believed upon her Authority I need not say whether the Separation was caused by the Doctrine of that Church or by the Malice of the Devil but leave the World to judg But 2. How could those be certain means of composing Controversies concerning which even in their own Church there were the greatest Controversies of all What deference is to be given to the Sentence of their chief Pastor has always been a great Dispute amongst them and the best if not the greatest Part of their Church do not think him infallible Nor is it yet agreed what is requisite to make the Sentence of a general Council decisive nor of those Councils that have contradicted one another which they are to follow And that cannot be a certain Rule for deciding Controversies which is it self controverted So that they have neither that Union of Members among themselves nor those certain means of Union which they pretend to have Which I shall farther shew from a Learned Writer of their own the Famous ‖ Ep. par 8. p. 353. Launoy who in an elaborate Epistle to Nic. Gatinaeus wholly overthrows the pretence in Question For whether or no there be such an Union in the Church of Rome as will serve the Cardinal's turn I will leave the Reader to judg by this short and faithful account of that Epistle First then He proves unanswerably by numerous and apposite Testimonies of every Age That from the Apostles Times till the Council of Trent the constant universal Doctrine concerning the Church was this that it is the Society of the Faithful without ever inserting into the Definition of it any thing relating to its being united to the Pope or any other Bishop as to a Visible Head. Nay P. 400.415 Secondly That all the most Learned Lovers of Antiquity and Godly Opposers of Novelty in the Roman Communion both in the Time of the Council of Trent and ever since have retained that Notion of the Church and stuck to the Ancient Definition And Thirdly P. 415.419 That Canisius and Bellarmin have egregiously innovated in their Doctrine by adding to the ancient Definition such things as are repugnant to all Antiquity and mean while that they opposed each other Canisius making it of the nature of the Church to be under a * Uno summo post Christum capite Monarch and giving no place in his Definition of it to other Governours to whom the Church also is to be united Whereas Bellarmin makes an Aristocracy wherein one is Chief at least †Esse caetum hominum c. colligatum sub regimine legitimorum pastorum ac praecipue unius Christi in terris Vicarii Romani Pontificis De Eccl. l. 3. c. 2. a tempered and limited Monarchy essential to the Church going in this matter against Antiquity against Canisius and against himself in that he elsewhere makes Antiquity a Note of the true Church and says 't is a Demonstration of the Novelty of a Doctrine when the first Authors can be named and pointed to which is his own Case and Canisius's as to this Doctrine He reflects upon both of 'em P. 418 419.428 for ill Logick in these Definitions and shews how they destroy each other He censures the Followers of Canisius sharply and judiciously and then remarks that tho Bellarmine have greater Authority amongst Divines yet Canisius's Definition is more generally received and that for four Reasons because there is more Court-Flattery in it because it is put into Catechisms which the other is not and so sticks by virtue of an early Impression because some Men are mad upon Novelties and lastly others insufferably Ignorant as to the Holy Scriptures and Ancient Tradition the Principles of true Theology Fourthly He thinks they have done harm to the Church and that for these Reasons 1. Because P. 430. for want of Logick they have confounded the Nature of the Church with the State of it 2. They have neglected St. Paul's
Church it is agreed of all sides that it is only to the true Church And therefore I must be certain which is the true Church before I can be ascertained which Church is infallible Seeing therefore that every true Note is inseparable to the Thing which it notifies before I can be certain that I have found the true Church which Christ hath promised to continue to the end of the World by this Note of not erring I must have very good assurance not only that my Church doth not err at present but also that not to err is always inseparable to it both for the time past and the time to come Seeing therefore there is no one Church now in being of which we can be rationally assured as to this matter the necessary Consequence is that by this Note no Man can certainly discover which is the true Church And now having proved that according to the true Properties of the Notes of the true Church this of Sanctity of Doctrine as Bellarmin explains it is no true Note for an honest Enquirer to seek the true Church by I proceed III. To enquire in what Sense this is a true Note of the true Church In short if by Sanctity of Doctrine we understand professing all the necessary and essential Articles of Christian Faith and admitting all the essential parts of Christian Worship and Discipline this wherever it is is a certain Note of a true Church for nothing can be a certain Note of a true Church but what is essential to it as a true Church for whatsoever is accidental to it is separable from it and whatsoever is separable from it it may have or not have and yet be a true Church notwithstanding that therefore which doth not appertain to it as it is a true Church may appertain to a false Church as well as a true But to say that that is not a true Church which hath all the essentials of a true Church is a downright Contradiction If therefore we would have such Notes of a true Church as we may certainly depend upon we must fetch 'em from the Essence of a true Church and consequently we must first state what a true Church is before we can be certain what are the true Notes of it Now what it is that is necessary to constitute a true Christian Church may be easily collected by considering what is necessary to make a true Christian for a true Christian Church is nothing but a Society of true Christians And seeing that Christianity consists of Doctrines of Faith and Laws of Worship and Discipline he only is a true Christian that owns and receives Christianity in all these parts of it that is who acknowledges all the Essentials of true Christian Faith Worship and Discipline And consequently that must be a true Christian Church or Society of true Christians which professes all the Essential Articles of Christian Faith and receives all the Essential parts of Christian Worship and Discipline whereever therefore I find a Religious Society of Men professing all the necessary Doctrines of true Christian Faith worshiping the one God through the one Mediator communicating in the true Christian Sacraments and submitting to the true Christian Discipline duly administred by true Christian Pastors and Governours there I am certain I have found a true Church if that be a true Church which hath all the Essentials that constitute a true Church Wherefore before we can know whether this or that be a true Church we must be rightly imformed what a true Church is and before we can state what a true Church is we must learn what the true Faith and Worship and Discipline is because these are the Essential Ingredients of which a true Church is composed And when we have learn'd what these are by them we may certainly discover whether this or that be a true Church or no. If therefore by Sanctity of Doctrine we understand the publick profession and admission of all the Essentials of Christian Faith Worship and Discipline it is not only a certain Note of a true Church but the only certain Note of it because there can be no certain Note of a true Church but what is Essential to it and there is nothing Essential to it but what this Note comprehends Where-ever this is there is the entire Essence of a true Church and if there were but one Church upon Earth that had it that would be the only true Church in the World and if there were ten thousand Churches agreeing in it there would be ten thousand true Churches So that whereas all other Notes are separable from a true Church and consequently may direct us to a false Church instead of a true this is no more separable from it than a true Man is from the Human Nature And if I had found a Church that hath in it all the other Notes of Bellarmin excepting this I should still be to seek for a true Church as on the contrary if I had found a Church that wants all the rest but this I should nevertheless sit down fully satisfied of its Truth and seek no further And thus I have given a brief Account in what Sense Sanctity of Doctrine is a certain Note of the true Church and by this our Church is willing to be tryed by any honest and ingenuous Enquirer whose Business it is to seek for Truth and not for Gain and Preferment and if upon Examination he cannot find in it as I am sure he may if he examine fairly all the Essentials of that Faith and Worship and Discipline which the Scripture teaches and the Primitive Ages profess'd and embraced in God's Name let him seek farther abroad but if after he hath missed of it in the Church of England he should happen to find it in the Church of Rome imports him as much as his Soul is worth to enquire into one Point more viz. whether he sought it by his Reason or by his Interest And now I proceed IV. And Lastly To shew That according to the Principles of the Church of Rome the true Church is not to be found by this Note in which-soever of the two Senses we understand it for if by Sanctity of Doctrine we mean with Bellarmin an unerring profession of the Truth without any the least intermixture of Error before we can be certain we have found thē true Church by it we must be very well assured concerning the profession of that Church which we take to be the true Church that it is in all particulars true without any the least Ingredient of Error Or if by Sanctity of Doctrine we only mean the profession of all the Essentials of Christian Faith Worship and Discipline before we can be certain that we have found the true Church by it we must be very well assured not only that there are such Essential Principles and what they are but also that they are true for unless we certainly know that there are such Principles and what
should find the true Church by the direction of Scripture For since according to this Note that can be no true Church which doth not unerringly profess all necessary Doctrines of Faith and Manners when I have found a Church which professes all such necessary Doctrines as are in Scripture I cannot be secure that it is a true Church supposing there are other necessary Doctrines out of Scripture viz. in the unwritten Traditions because then the profession of these will be altogether as necessary to its being a true Church as the profession of those All that the Scripture can satisfy me in is only this whether such a Church profess all the necessary Doctrines in Scripture but if there are any necessary Doctrines out of Scripture it 's certain that the profession of them is as necessary to the being of the true Church as the profession of those that are in it And therefore before I can be certain that it is the true Church I must be fully satisfied that it professeth both which I can never be unless I have some other Rule to go by besides this of Scripture 2dly The Church of Rome teaches that the Scripture is no sufficient Rule in respect of clearness the Sense of it being so obscurely exprest that we can never be certain what it is without the Interpretation of the true Church Which if true it 's utterly impossible for one who is out of the true Church ever to find it by the direction of Scripture For according to this Note that only is the true Church which doth not err in its Profession at least in any necessary Point either as to Doctrines of Faith or Doctrines of Manners But before I can know whether any Church doth not err in its Profession I must be certainly informed what the true Profession is or what are those Doctrines of Faith and Manners of which this true Profession consists as to which the Scripture can never certainly inform me if it be not sufficiently clear For if I can never be certain what the true sense of Scripture is without the Interpretation of the true Church How is it possible that while I am out of the true Church I should ever be certain of its Sense as to all the particular Doctrines which the true Profession of Religion contains So that according to this Principle the Scripture is so far from being a sufficient Rule to one that is out of the true Church that it is perfectly useless to him in his Enquiry after it for either it can certainly direct him to the true Church or it cannot if it can it must be sufficiently clear to inform him of its own Sense without the Interpretation of the true Church concerning all those Doctrines of Faith and Manners whereof the unerring Profession of the true Church is composed and if so this Principle of the Roman Church is erroneous if it be not to what purpose doth it serve unless it be to lead him into an endless Maze of Uncertainties wherein the further he wanders the more he will lose himself So that if a Man hath had the misfortune to be born and bred out of the true Church in an Heretical or Schismatical Communion and is enquiring his way in by this Note of an unerring Profession he hath no other Rule to instruct and inform him what this unerring Profession is but only that of Scripture which according to the Principles of the Church of Rome is insufficient for his Purpose How then is it possible he should ever be certain that he hath found the true Church when the only Rule he hath whereby to enquire what that unerring Profession is whereby he is to seek it is utterly insufficient to resolve him Thirdly The Church of Rome resolves all Certainty as to matters of Faith into the Authority of the true Church and indeed this is the fundamental Principle of Popery viz. That the only ground of Certainty as to matters of Faith is the Authority of the present true Church teaching and proposing ' em Till such time therefore as we have found the true Church and do believe upon the Authority of its teaching we can never have any true Certainty of the matters which we are to believe And yet before we can be certain that we have found the true Church by this Note of an unerring Profession we must have very good certainty as to all matters of Faith for we can never be certain upon the Authority of any Church that what we believe is true till such time as we are certain that it is the true Church nor can we ever be certain that it is the true Church until we are certain that it doth not err in its Profession or which is the same thing that all the matters of Faith which it teaches and professes are true So that the certainty of our Faith after we have found the true Church and do believe upon its Authority must depend upon the certainty of our Faith while we were seeking it and did believe without its Authority Because before we can believe with any certainty upon the Authority of any Church we must be certain that it is the true Church but we can never be certain that it is the true Church till we are first certain that its Profession is true as to all the matters of Faith contained in it To make the matter more plain I will briefly represent it in a short Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist Protest You tell me I can never be certain as to matters of Faith unless I believe upon the Authority of the true Church Pap. I do so and upon the Truth of this Proposition all my Religion is founded Protest But I beseech you May I be certain as to matters of Faith if I believe upon the Authority of any Church tho I am not certain whether it be the true Church or no Pap. To what Purpose do you ask this Question Protest Because if I may then in believing upon the Authority of the Church of England which you say is a false Church I shall be as certain as to matters of Faith as you who believe on the Authority of the Church of Rome which you say is the only true Church Pap. Why then I tell you you can never be certain as to matters of Faith in believing upon the Authority of any Church unless you are certain it is the true Church upon whose Authority you believe ' em Protest Why so Pap. Because it is not the Authority of a Church merely that is the true ground of Certainty but the Authority of the true Church otherwise the Authority of all Churches true or false would be equally a true ground of Certainty And therefore you can never be certain that the Authority of that Church upon which you believe is a true ground of Certainty unless you are first certain that it is the true Church Protest I do allow your Reason But then pray
69. which I presume is the best that his Friend Bellarmine could direct him to and which hath nothing further in it than a pretty high Flight which several of the Fathers would take when they mention the Holy Sacrament and what may be well enough defended by those that reject Transubstantiation to the uttermost The Cardinal gives us another Miracle from Paschasius de Corpore Dom. c. 14. which our late learned Reasoner is very fond of too ‖ Consens Veterum p. 97. The Story is of a certain Godly Priest that was in great dis-tress to see with his bodily Eyes the Shape of him whom he certainly believ'd actually present under the Species of Bread and Wine At length he obtain'd what he so long desir'd and beheld the Body of Christ in Human Shape but in the Figure of a Child which he had also most vehemently desired Now as to this beside the Authority of the Book out of which this is taken let us consider to what purpose this Miracle was wrought or the Story of it told in this place The Cardinal is upon the Proof of Christ's Bodily Presence in the Sacrament and this Bodily Presence is so receiv'd by those of the Roman Communion that they believe that very Body which was slain upon the Cross was buried was rais'd again and went up into Heaven that that very numerical Body is substantially and intirely under the Species of Bread and Wine the Substance of which is perfectly vanish'd Let me therefore ask Mr. Sclater of Putney because his Friend the Cardinal cannot now answer for himself Did our Blessed Saviour die an Infant and rise again an Infant and does he now sit at the Right Hand of God in the Figure of a Child or in his Infant-state If not and I hope he will say it is blasphemous to think so how then did this Godly Presbyter see the Body of Christ as he supposed it transubstantiated under the Species of Bread and Wine The Substance of the Bread and Wine was gone into that Body that had been crucified What! was there Transubstantiation upon Transubstantiation and the proper Body of our Saviour gone into the Substance of a Child's Body It may be this made him in love with those Liturgies he quotes †Consens Veterum p. 28. wherein the Priest is blessing God for vouchsafing by him to change the immaculate Body of Christ and his precious Blood c. To change it into what perhaps from that of a grown Man to that of a Child or Infant Well but the Cardinal is something more wary in the Story than the venturesom Gentleman of Putney For he tells us the Priest had desir'd to see him in this Shape If so and if he was thus far indulg'd what kind of Argument is this for Transubstantiation What Conviction is this that the very self-same Body that hung upon the Cross and is at the right Hand of God is brought down under the Species of Bread and Wine But the Author adds in Bellarmin That it pleaseth God to work Miracles upon a twofold account sometimes to confirm the doubting and sometimes for the Consolation of those that fervently love him * Bellarm. de Saer Euchar. ubi supr This we are to suppose then was not to confirm the Godly Priest in his Faith he needed not that but to give him great Consolation But what Are we to suppose so Godly a Presbyter as this was to be more ravish'd in the view of his Saviour under the shape of a smiling playing Babe than in that very Form wherein he finish'd the great work of our Salvation upon the Cross and wherein he is now triumphing Above in the Accomplishment of what he undertook Let him believe it that can make the Doctrine of Transubstantiation the Reason of his Conversion from the Church of England to that of Rome and can strengthen his Faith in it more firmly from some Rabbinical Prophecies and such a Story as this is †Consensus Veter p. 21 22. and so on and p. 97. I would have examined a Third Story of St. Anthony of Padua but I find this done so learnedly and so effectually to my Hands by a most ingenious Pen (a) Reflections on the Rom. Devotions p. 326 327 c. that I had rather refer the Reader thither than needlesly swell the bulk of this Note Considering therefore how little likelihood of Truth there is in many Stories of this kind or where as to matter of Fact some of them may have been possibly true yet how reasonably they may be accounted the Tricks and Impostures of Evil Spirits I cannot but close this Head with an Expression of St. Austin to the Donatists upon the same Pretensions they had to Miracles August de Vnitate Eccles c. 16. Removentur ista vel figmenta mendacium hominum vel portenta fallacium spirituum Away with these either Fictions of Lying Men or Illusions of deceiving Spirits For certainly they are neither the Note nor can be the Glory of any true Church And therefore III. Lastly We of the Reform'd Religion as we do not pretend to the working of Miracles in our Age so if we did we could pretend to prove nothing by them but what hath been already sufficiently prov'd by the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles We most humbly and thankfully adore the great Condescentions of Divine Grace that hath been pleas'd in his first planting of Christianity so fully and so unquestionably to confirm all the necessary Articles of our Belief with such strong and convincing Miracles The Report of these Miracles we most firmly believe We do without the least haesitancy own the Almighty Power of God in them and entirely embrace all that Faith which they were design'd to confirm and establish We know of no other Doctrines that we have any Obligation to receive than what are deliver'd to us in the Holy Scriptures and so effectually seal'd to us We have nothing new to put off or back with the pretence of Miracles but are always ready to reject both the Doctrines when they are propos'd and the Miracles when they are offer'd in Defence of them We have no need to follow cunningly devis'd Fables since we have a more sure Word of Prophecy to which by God's Grace we will take heed And therefore all Miracles at this time of the Day are superfluous to us for if the Doctrine be not propos'd to us before-hand in the written Word ten thousand Miracles could not warrant it if it be to be found there they may save the trouble of a Miracle because that Word of God hath been sufficiently confirm'd in that Way already This Word of God is the sure Rule of our Faith the great Character of our Hopes and if the hearty Belief of this and humble Conformity of Life to it will not secure us at last we are contented to lose all the Rewards which this Gospel hath made us to expect And therefore
Constance and Trent that 't was the ancient Practice For the Doctrine of Transubstantiation See a Treatise of Transubstantiation by one in the Communion of the Church of Rome Printed 1687. one of the Communion of the Church of Rome hath given us an Account lately he proves from many Doctors of the Church of Rome that it is not ancient viz. from Peter Lombard from Suarez Scotus the Bishop of Cambray Cardinal Cusanus Erasmus Alphonsus à Castro Tonstall and Cassander And that 't is not taught in the holy Scriptures he proves from the Testimonies of Scotus Ockam Gabriel Biel and Cardinal Cajetan and after all that it was not the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Church It would have been very fit I should here have made an end having considered every thing which the Cardinal hath offered as to this Note of the Church But there is a late Writer I will not call him Author hath taken the Confidence to produce the Testimony of the Jewish Writers in behalf of the Church of Rome Mr. Sclater's Consenf Vet. and which is most surprising of all he quotes the Rabbins in Defence of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which they are as far from asserting as he is from understanding them The Cardinal was too learned and modest to attempt any thing of this Nature but this Gentleman advanceth higher than he thought fit to do What he offers speaks nothing so lowdly as the Writers Effrontery and Ignorance not to say something worse Tho he thought fit to desert his Mother the Church of England yet it little became him to fly in her Face and suborn a Rout of Jews against her His Discourse is so weak that I shall bestow very little time and pains about it I shall however say something to it that he may not think any Part of his Pamphlet unanswered and do heartily wish him Repentance for his Folly and that he may learn Modesty for the future And for my better proceeding in this matter I shall do these things First I will briefly shew the true use and value of the Testimony of Jews as to the Christian Religion Secondly I shall shew the gross Ignorance not to say Dishonesty of this Writer in this Matter Thirdly I shall prove that the Jewish Writers are so far from serving the Church of Rome that they bear witness against it and that also in this very matter of Transubstantiation First I shall consider how far the Testimony of the Jews is useful to Christianity And several such there are that serve the common Christianity 1. The Jews as to matter of Fact confess that there was such a Man as Jesus that he wrought wonderful Works They do in their Talmud and elsewhere mention several of those Names which are mentioned in the New Testament and are there mentioned to have been at the same time in which they are placed there This is an useful Testimony and serves the common Christianity and saves us the labour in our Books against the Jews of proving these Matters of Fact. 2. They are also good Witnesses as to the Number of the Canonical Books of the Old Testament which were deposited in their Hands This is owned by Cardinal Cajetan who affirms that this is one Advantage we receive from the Obstinacy of the Jews Cajetan in Rom. xi v. 11. that tho they believe not in Christ themselves yet they approve the Books of the Old Testament and therefore those Books cannot be supposed to have been invented by the Christians to have served their turn This Testimony of theirs serves indeed the common Christianity but is so far from serving the Church of Rome that it is a good Evidence against the Council of Trent who have receiv'd those Books for Canonical which the Jews never received into the Canon of Scripture 3. They are good Witnesses of the Promise of a Messias which is reckoned among the Fundamental Articles of the Jewish Faith. And this is an other Advantage that Christians receive as Cajetan well observes in the Place mentioned before from the Obstinacy of the Jews Abravenel C. Fidei c. 1. They agree that such a Promise was made and that therefore it cannot be supposed either a Forgery of the Christians or a vain Belief peculiar only to them 4. They are good Witnesses where they interpret those Texts of the Old Testament of the Messias which belong to that matter and which are by the Writers of the New Testament applied to that purpose And the more ancient Jews do thus The Chaldee Paraphrasts and other of the more ancient Jewish Doctors do apply those Texts to him which the Christians also understand to be spoken of him Of which were it not too great a Digression it would be easy to produce very many Proofs This serves the common Christianity greatly and in our Disputes against the Jews affords us very great Advantages 5. Nor do I deny but that some of the Catholick Doctrines of the Christian Religion I mean such as have been always believed from the first Beginning of Christianity may receive some Confirmation from the Writings of the most antient Jewish Doctors But to produce them as Witnesses as this Writer does to a Doctrine never received by the antient Church is the most extravagant thing imaginable Secondly I shall shew the gross Ignorance not to say Dishonesty of this Writer in this matter His Author from whom he borrows all his Rabbinical Learning is Galatinus He tells if we will believe him that he was always accounted a very learned Man Preface to Consens Veterum It would have been more to his purpose to have vouched for his Honesty After this he falls into a Fit of Devotion he is of a sudden transported with Admiration that the Hebrew Writers long before Christ's time take Mr. Sclater's word for that should have such Notions But the Wind bloweth were it listeth c. He might have staid till he had been sure of the matter of Fact and then 't would have been time enough to admire at it But the Reader is to know that Mr. Sclater was mightily inclined to believe in this matter with the Church of Rome or else Galatinus could never by his Arguments have prevailed upon him This appears from his own Words after he had drawn up his Evidence from Galatinus P. 27. he tells his Reader that Galatinus thought and I 'le assure you 't is hard to say what a Jew that professeth himself a Convert to the Church of Rome does really think these Prophecies and Interpretations he might have called them Dreams and Figments argumentative not only against the Jews but a Confirmation also of the Christian Religion against all Hereticks c. But if you ask Mr. Sclater what confirms him in this Belief you 'le find him not hard to believe I am confirmed says he by the Title-page of his Book Of so great force is the Title-page of Galatinus his Book with Mr. Sclater of
be no Note of the true Church III. That in case it were the Protestant Church would be the true Church rather than the Church of Rome I. I shall premise these five Things as preparatory to what follows 1. That by an unhappy End Bellarmin means That which is so in outward Appearance to the Eye of Sense or according to the Judgment of the World. Such as a violent or sudden or infamous or any kind of strange or unusual Death especially such in which there is an appearance of the Divine Vengeance As to be devour'd by Dogs or eaten up of Vermin to be flea'd or burnt alive for a Man to kill himself or to be kill'd by his Servants to be smitten by a Thunderbolt c. In a word any such End as either in its Nature or in its Circumstances is not the usual or common End of Men. 2. Bellarmin meant this not barely for the Note of a Church but of that which is the only true Church For since besides the common Faith in which all Christians agree there are many points in which they differ and by which they are divided among themselves into several Parties he supposing that no more than one of these can be a true Church and therefore that that one must be the only true Church his work was to furnish us with such Notes by which this one Church might be known and distinguish'd from all the rest And therefore 3. The Instances he produces of Unhappy Deaths are for the greater part impertinent because the Persons were such as were Enemies not to this or that Christian Church as distinguished from another but to Christianity it self and endeavour'd the total extirpation of it out of the World. So did the Emperors Nero Domitian Dioclesian the Apostate Julian c. And those Hereticks Simon Magus Manichaeus c. were not more opposite to the Church of Rome than to any other Christian Church There is nothing therefore in these Instances by which one Christian Church may be distinguish'd from another nothing by which the Church of Rome may be marked out for the true Church rather than the Church of Antioch or Alexandria And as those direful Deaths of the Heathen Persecutors and Apostate Christians gave no peculiar advantage to the Church of Rome then so they make much against the Church of Rome now For if they signified as Bellarmin would have them that Church to be the true Church which was then opposed by them it plainly follows that the Church of Rome now is not a true Church and that the Church of England is because the Church of Rome now is not the same Church it was then it hath now another Faith by which it is become another Church whereas the Church of England is the same now it was at first yea the same now that the Church of Rome was then it having purged her self from those Corruptions which have been since introduced by the Church of Rome and reduced it self to the Primitive Faith. Those other Examples of Tragical Deaths which if they had been true would have been more to the purpose shall be anon considered 4. Observe that the unhappy End of those who defend it must be a Note of a false Church if the unhappy End of those who oppose it be a Note of the true The Reason is plain because those who defend it in doing so they must oppose that Church that opposes it if they therefore have an unhappy End the opposite Church will have this Note of the only true Church and by Consequence that Church they defend in opposition to it must be a false Church 5. Observe that from God's Judgments against particular Persons nothing can be concluded against that Church of which they are Members The Reason is manifest because God's Judgments upon particular Persons are usually inflicted for particular personal Crimes as in the case of Nadab and Abihu Ananias and Sapphira These things being premised I proceed to shew II. That this can be no Note of the true Church which I might prove at large by shewing that it is destitute of all those Conditions which Cardinal Perron (b) Reply to K. James l. 1. c. 5. and Bellarmin himself (c) De Not. Eccles c. 2. makes necessary to every true Note But because this Method hath been already observed in the Examination of some of the foregoing Marks I shall therefore wave the Advantages it would afford me nor do I indeed stand in need of them because the Vanity and Falsity of it will be otherwise sufficiently manifest both by Scripture Experience and Reason First By Scripture And 1. By all those Scriptures which declare that all things come alike to all Men That in the common course of Providence there is no difference put between the Righteous and the Wicked between him that sacrificeth and him that sacrificeth not (d) Eccles 9.1 2 3. and by a plain Parity of Reason he that persecutes the true Religion and he that defends it he that worships God aright and he that worships him amiss or not at all as to outward Events hath frequently the same Lot As King Josiah the Restorer and Maintainer of the true Religion and who served the Lord with all his Heart died the same unnatural Death that Ahab did who served Baal and provoked the Lord to Anger more than all the Kings of Israel that were before him Nor was this promiscuous Dispensation of Events taken notice of only by wise Solomon but we find it long before affirmed by Job that God destroys both the Perfect and the Wicked (e) Job 9.22 Righteous Abel the first Man that ever died was a Proof of it he whose Sacrifice was by God accepted fell himself a Sacrifice to his wicked Brother's Envy Nor was it thus only before the Law and under the Law but it continues so still now under the Gospel The Tares and the Wheat though sown by different Hands the one by the Son of Man the other by the Devil yet as they grow up together in the same Field so they are gathered and cut down by the same Reapers by the same Sickle and are not sever'd the one for the Fire and the other for the Barn till the End of the World. Yea in plain Contradiction to this Note the Scripture tells us That there are just Men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the Wicked and there are wicked Men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the Righteous (f) Eccl. 8.14 And that not only in the Course of their Lives but when they die too For there is a just Man that perisheth in his Righteousness and there is a wicked Man that prolongeth his Days in his Wickedness (g) Eccl. 7.15 The good Man is sometimes cut off by an early Death because he is better than others and the Wicked whose Sins cry aloud for Vengeance prolongs his Days in his Wickedness and after a long and
an happy End it is a true one Thus for Example the Church of England is both a true Church and a false Queen Elizabeth lived and died happily the Spaniards her and its great Enemies in 88 died unfortunately therefore it is the only true Church King Charles the First of Blessed Memory had an unhappy End the Usurper died quietly in his Bed therefore it is a false Church I bring the Church of England only for an Instance the same is as true of the Church of Rome and I doubt not of any other Division of Christians of what Denomination soever And is not this now a fine Note to find out the true Church by when no false Church can be found that will not by it be the only true one and on the contrary no true Church can be mention'd that will not be a false one Yea which is more when that which is indeed the only true Church the Church Catholick will by this Note be no Church for not only its Enemies but its Friends too do often die unfortunately and its Enemies as well as its Friends have frequently such Deaths as in the Eye of the World are most happy 4. Whereas it is a Contradiction to say That the only true Church can be more than one if this Note stand good it will be many so many different Churches as there are in the World so many only true Churches will there be one only excepted So when a Pope dies miserably as all the World knows the Popes have frequently done then every Church in the World the Roman only excepted is the only true Church because the Pope is an Adversary to every one of them and this as appeared by the third thing premised is made by Bellarmin the Note of the only true Church Yea 5. Those very Protestant Churches which Bellarmin design'd to mark out for false will by this Note be true Churches and that which he would conclude the only true Church will be a false one 1. The Lutherans and Calvinists he says are not true Churches because Luther and Calvin died miserably that they so died I shall presently shew is false But be it true what follows If Luther died miserably then the Calvinists are the true Church If Calvin died miserably then the Lutherans are the true Church for Luther and Calvin opposed each other as well as both of them the Church of Rome 2. That the Church of Rome that he would make to be the only true Church will by this Note be concluded a false one I shall shew in speaking to the next Head and therefore now pass it I think by this time not only the Vanity but the Falshood of this Note is sufficiently manifest III. Let us now suppose it a Note of the true Church and see who will have the best on 't The advantage will lye so clearly on the Protestant side that the Romanists themselves will be found to confess it I grant That those horrid Deaths which have by the Church of Rome been inflicted upon those who have opposed her Errors are a Mark by which she is made as visible as her City seated upon the seven Hills those who have thus died are more than can be numbered and their Deaths were many of them both for Nature and Circumstances the most monstrous But this I trow does not mark her out for the Spouse of Christ but for that Woman that is drunken with the Blood of the Saints and with the Blood of the Martyrs of Jesus She is not therefore I think ambitious of this Mark but would rather hide it tho it is so deeply branded upon her that she will never be able to rub it out If therefore these be set aside which I am confident the Church of Rome is very willing they should be and would be glad if all Histories were burnt too in which their Burnings are left on Record let us see whether Church the Roman or the Protestant hath the fairest Plea to this Note This will be soon determin'd by comparing the Deaths of their Prime Members and Zealous Champions and then considering on which side we find the greater number of such as are unnatural and not common to Men. 1. For the Protestants The chief Assertors of the Protestant Interest are either their Bishops and other eminent Pastors and Teachers or those Secular Princes who have under God been the great Defenders and Protectors of the Protestant Faith. As for their Bishops and other eminent Pastors and Teachers they are without number who have died the most happy Deaths such as Jewel Whitaker Vsher Hall Morton Jackson Melancthon Bucer Musculus Zanchy Farellus Beza Vrsinus Grynaeus c. whose Deaths were not only placid and pious but attended with those lively Hopes of a Blessed Immortality as recommended their Religion to its Adversaries But it is not so much my business to tell you whose Deaths were happy as out of that number to select those that were unhappy And I think we may take it for granted that the number of these is very small in that their profess'd Adversary who labour'd to make the most of every thing against them hath mention'd no more than Five viz. Luther Zuinglius Oecolampadius Carolostadius and Calvin Now suppose it true That all these died as miserably as Bellarmin would have the World believe yet what are five to that numberless number who have had the most auspicious Deaths Will not the Argument for the Truth of their Church from those that died happily as much exceed that against it from those that died miserably as the number of the one exceeds that of the other So that if the true Church be concluded by this Argument it is ten thousand to one but the Protestant Church is the only true Church But what shall we say if the Deaths of all but one of these five be misrepresented And what he says of that one and two of the other if it were true be no Argument of an unappy Death Whether it be so or no I shall now briefly examin He begins with Luther He says the Cardinal died suddenly for whereas in the Evening he was merry and in Health and had provoked all that were present to Laughter by his Jests the same Night he was found dead (l) Lutherus morte repentina sublatus est nam cum vesperi opiparam caenam sumpsisset laetus sanus facetiis â—itis omnes ad risum provocasset eadem nocte mortuus est Bellarm. Grant this were true A sudden Death is not always and to all Persons unhappy But suppose it were it ill becomes a Papist to object it since it is no more than what hath been the Lot of many of their Popes For so died Pope Nicholas III (m) Ubi idem Pontifex cibi ac potus continentissimus subita tamen morte correptus c. Plat. in Vit. Nic. III. and Pope Clemens VI (n) Vergente hoc eodem anno Clemens cum
from being dazled at the Sight that they were no more affected than if I had looked on a Piece of Green Silk But I doubt he will censure them very hardly for it and think they are a sort of malignant Cavaleerish Eyes I can't help that but whatever Eyes they be since I have been able to hold them open so long against the glaring imaginary Splendor of These These Triumphant NOTES I will venture to draw out the whole Train once more and give a little Remark upon every one of them as they pass by 1. The Name of Catholick This is a Note which may be easily usurped by every bold Pretender but till it can be proved that it is joyned with the Profession of the true Faith the Name alone is nothing but an empty and insignificant Sound 2. Antiquity I shall not here mention the Antiquity of some Errors nor that there were many Churches in the World before there was any at Rome but will freely confess that that had been ancient enough if it had preserved that Doctrine in its Purity which it received at the first But it is well known that the Additions she has made unto that concerning Infallibility Images Purgatory and the like cannot be pretended to be of Antient and Apostolical Tradition Nay many of their present Tenents were never declared necessary till the last Age and the Church of Rome as it is now constituted can be esteemed no older than the Council of Trent that is about fourty Years younger than the Reformation 3. Duration By this the Cardinal would perswade us that his true Church has been from the Beginning and shall continue to the End of Christianity The first we deny the second can never be proved till the Day of Judgment We are sure the Church of Rome has been changed already from what it was and we hope and believe that it will be changed again from what it is And then what would become of the Duration they boast of if they should ever reform themselves from those Errors and Abuses which have crept in among them as has been often attempted and a long time most earnestly desired by many of the best and most impartial of their own Communion So that granting this to be a Note it would make against them both ways For what is past we know what Alterations have been made by them and they can never be secured against others that may happen hereafter 4. Amplitude or Multitude and Variety of Believers This can by no means be made a Note of the Church for the time was once that Christ's Flock was a little Flock Acts 1.15 and the number of the Names together were but about an hundred and twenty And afterwards the Arrian Heresy had almost overspread the Face of Christendom insomuch that the whole World was thought to be against Athanasius and Athanasius against the whole World. Or should we let it pass for a Note they could gain but little by it For they are infinitely exceeded in Multitude not only by Heathens and Mahometans but by Christians of other Denominations 5. Succession of Bishops How far this may be necessary to the Being of a Church I need not dispute But the uninterrupted Succession they of Rome are wont to glory in is manifestly false For besides the long Vacances that have sometimes happened and the many Schisms they have had when two or more have pretended to the Papacy and no Man could determine who had the Right which must make it dubious the confessed Hereticks that have possessed themselves of the Infallible Chair must quite cut off at least interrupt the Succession Or if they have it notwithstanding this or any other Objection that might be made We of the Church of England can plead the same 6. Agreement in Doctrine with the Primitive Church This is a good Note indeed if they mean the truly Primitive Church for that agreed with the Scripture and Doctrine of the Apostles But then I hope they will not have the Confidence to affirm that their Prayers in an Unknown Tongue their Half-Communion their Adoration of the Host and many other things which they now receive are agreeable to the Practice and Belief of that Primitive Church 7. The Vnion of the Members among themselves and with the Head. Of this they are continually making their Brags but the many and violent Contentions that have often been betwixt the several Pretenders to the Papal Dignity and the endless Feuds and Animosities that are kept up amongst them about many Controverted Points do sufficiently declare that their Church has been rent and torn with Factions and Intestine Divisions as much as any other Society Or if they were as firmly Vnited as they pretend it is no more than other Combinations of Men have been in known and wicked Errors 8. Sanctity of Doctrine For they generally assert as the Cardinal does here that the Roman Church maintains nothing that is False either in Matter of Faith or Manners If they were able to prove this there might be some Reason indeed that their Church should be esteemed the Mother and Mistress of all Churches as she has been wont of late to stile her self But since the Power of deposing Princes has been openly assumed and frequently practised and never yet condemned by any either Pope or Council since the Doctrine of Aequivocation and many other absurd and impious Opinions are taught by their Casuists and made use of by their Confessors in directing the Consciences of their Penitents and since these and many more very dangerous Errors do not only escape without a Censure but are approved of and incouraged by their Governours I do not see how they and their Church can possibly be excused from the Guilt of them 9. The Efficacy of Doctrine Here we are told of the wonderful Success they have had in the Propagation of their Faith and the Conversions that have been made of whole Nations And supposing it were as they say yet Heresy and Infidelity has often had as great and swift a Progress in the World as any that their Doctrine can boast of and considering the Pravity and Corruption of Human Nature it is not strange that the most gross and pernicious Errors should be more readily received and spread themselves faster than the most divine and sacred Truths 10. Holiness of Life This is indeed the most real Commendation of a Christian and I will not go about to rob them of the Glory of it But then it cannot be denied but meet Philosophers and some of the Antient and many of those whom they account Modern Hereticks have been of a very strict and unblamable Conversation and divers of their Popes and other Ecclesiasticks of the greatest Eminency of Place have been very infamous for all sorts of Wickedness and Debauchery and their very Religious Orders have been often complained of for the neglect of their Discipline and loosness of their Lives as is abundantly testified by their
own Authors 11. The Glory of Miracles These alone were never a Note of the true Church And those extraordinary Gifts which were bestowed at first for the Confirmation of Christianity we think they are ceased long ago But we are forewarned of False Christs and false Prophets Mat. 24.24 which should shew great Signs and Wonders which me-thinks should make a Church very careful how they made any pretension to Miracles But the Church of Rome is resolved to do it and would fain perswade us that there are many great Ones wrought among them to this very Day and as they believe always will be But we know and they will not deny it that many of the Miracles they have talked of are meer Forgeries and Delusions others altogether incredible and but weakly attested and wholly unworthy of the Seriousness and Gravity of the Christian Religion most of them said to be done in Corners and are never to be seen but among themselves When they please to oblige us Protestants with the sight of a few of them they may then deserve to be farther considered till that be done they must give us leave to think that their Church is reduced to great Streights when it shall stand in need of such slight Artifices as these to support it 12. The Light of Prophecy This if they had it can bring no more Advantage to their Cause than the other The Church of God anciently when extraordinary Revelations were more common had not always Prophets in it And when any appeared the Prophet was to be tryed by the Faith of the Church and not the Church by the Predictions of the Prophet And we are still commanded to try the Spirits whether they are of God 1 Joh. 4.1 Because many false Prophets are gone out into the World. 13. The Confession of Adversaries This if the Cardinal's Instances were pertinent would yet be but of little Consequence for if some Protestants have spoken favourably of his Catholicks some of his Catholicks have spoken favourably of Protestants Or if we should be willing to hope well of some of them as we are and they should adjudge us every one to Eternal Damnation as they generally do this would be but an ill sign that their Church must therefore be the truer because it is more Censorious and Uncharitable than Ours 14. The Vnhappy End of the Church's Enemies A wise Man would be something afraid of passing this into a Note before he was himself safe in his Grave For all things come alike to all Eccl. 9.2 there is one Event to the Righteous and to the Wicked Many of the most Zealous Patrons of the Romish Persuasion have met with as Tragical and Unfortunate Ends as the most accursed Heretick that ever was devoured by Vermin or burnt at a Stake 15. Temporal Felicity This may be placed in the same Rank with the former it is altogether as variable and inconstant as that no certain Judgment can be made upon it They are not to learn that the Enemies of their Church have been often successful and that Victory has not always waited upon their Catholick Arms no not in their most Holy Wars when Religion has been the only ground of the Quarrel Thus upon a Review of all the Notes in order as they are mustered up by the great Cardinal it may appear to any unprejudiced Enquirer that he has missed of his Aim For that they are either no Notes of a Church at all or not proper to that of Rome And now after the highest Pretences of an Infallible Church and the absolute Deference and Submission which they say is due unto it any Man that shall seriously consider the Matter must needs wonder they should have no surer means at last to find it out than a few slight and improbable nay some of them very vain false and extravagant Conjectures The Protestants whom they will not allow to be certain of any thing have far better Evidences than these and as good Assurances of the Truth of their Church as can be desired For we think the True Faith True Worship and a Right Administration of the Sacraments do unquestionably make a True Church These the Romanists themselves cannot deny to be the great and necessary Notes and if the Controversy betwixt us come to be determined by these it will soon appear which Communion we ought to prefer We make Profession of the whole Catholick Apostolick Faith as it is contained in the Holy Scriptures and briefly comprized in the three Creeds which is all that was ever received in the Primitive Church They have made large Additions to the Antient Belief and increased the number of the Articles from Twelve to Four and Twenty many of which were not so much as heard of in the First Ages and never made necessary to be believed till above fifteen hundred Years after the Publication of the Gospel We Worship Almighty God and none but him and unto him we Pray in a Language we understand through Jesus Christ our only Mediator in whose Name when we ask we are sure to be heard They have a kind of Worship which they give to Saints and Images which as to all External Acts of Adoration is the very same they pay to God himself and when their Addresses are directed unto Him all their Publick Service is in an unknown Tongue and they set up to themselves many Mediatours of Intercession when they cannot tell whether they hear them but it is most certain that God has never promised to hear them for their Sakes We receive the two Sacraments which Christ ordained in his Church and administer them both in such Manner and Form as he has appointed They without any Divine Authority have made Seven Sacraments and in the Lord's Supper they believe that there is offered up a proper Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Living and the Dead they adore the Elements which they think are Transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of our Saviour and suffer the Laity to communicate but in one kind robbing them of the Cup contrary to the plain Institution and express Command of our Blessed Lord. And since we have the True Faith True Worship and the Sacraments rightly Administred it is evident that we are not deficient in any thing that is necessary to the Constitution of a True Church But They will never be able to prove themselves such a One by the late Additions they have made to the Creed and their many Deviations from the Primitive Rule And yet they will be continually vaunting that they are not only a True Church but the only True Church in the World and upon this Presumption they thunder out their Anathema's upon all Christendom besides and confidently condemn them for a Company of Heretical and Schismatical Conventicles But they cannot justify that rash and uncharitable Sentence nor make good any part of this heavy Charge For we that heartily believe all the Antient Creeds cannot be accused of Heresy neither are we guilty of Schism because we only Reformed those Errors and Corruptions which they had introduced and wanted not sufficient Authority for what was done But if they are still absolutely resolved to stand to the Censure they have passed and allow no True Church upon Earth but their Own it is not Cardinal Bellarmin's Fifteen Notes that will ever prove it FINIS ERRATA Pag. 367. l. 3. for not r. most P. 371. Marg. l. ult for cap. 3. r. 13. LONDON Printed by J. D. for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1687. BOOKS lately printed for Richard Chiswell THE Pillar and Ground of Truth A Treatise shewing that the Roman Church falsly claims to be That Church and the Pillar of That Truth mentioned by St. Paul in his First Epistle to Timothy Chap. 3. Vers 15.4o. The Peoples Right to read the Holy Scripture Asserted 4o. A Short Summary of the Principal Controversies between the Church of England and the Church of Rome being a Vindication of several Protestant Doctrines in Answer to a Late Pamphlet Intituled Protestancy destitute of Scripture Proofs 4o. Two Discourses of Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead An Answer to a late Pamphlet Intituled The Judgment and Doctrine of the Clergy of the Church of England concerning one Special Branch of the King's Prerogative viz. In dispensing with the Penal Laws 4o. A PRIVATE PRAYER to be used in Difficult Times 8o.
prosperous Life hath an honourable Death and Burial for I saw says Solomon the Wicked buried (h) Eccles 8.10 that is as Cardinal Cajetan expounds the Words in such a pompous Sepulchre as transmits an honourable Memory of them to Posterity I grant that the Notes of Divine Vengeance are in some Mens Deaths fairly legible But then as I have before observed from God's Judgments against this or that Person nothing can be concluded against that Church of which they are Members 2. Besides these general Declarations the Scripture further assures us by a particular Instance that a true Church may be without this Mark and that the Enemies of the true Church may have it Thus the Church of Israel was without it and the uncircumcised Philistins had it when the High Priest fell backward and brake his Neck and his two Sons Hophni and Phineas with thirty thousand of the Israelites fell in one day by the Sword of the Philistins (i) 1 Sam. 3. Again when Zedekiah the Defender of the true Church was taken his Nobles slaughtered his Sons slain before his Eyes his Eyes then put out and he carried Captive to Babylon and put in Prison till the day of his Death If this was then a Note of the Church the Babylonians were the only true Church of God for their Enemies had then the most unhappy Ends So contrary is this Note to what we find in Scipture Secondly Nor is it less repugnant to daily Observation and the History of foregoing Ages For 1. All the World can testify that the same kind of Death happens to Men of different yea of opposite Churches That as dies the Christian so dies the Jew as dies the Catholick so dies the Heretick That the Protestant and Papist lie down ALIKE in the Dust to use Job's Phrase (k) Job 21.26 That as they often agree in their Deaths who while they lived were of different Churches so they often widely differ who were united in the same One hath a natural another a violent Death one falls by the Hand of God another by the Hand of his Neighbour one goes off gently in a Calm another is hurried away in a Storm one lives out the Term of Nature another is cut off in the midst of his Days one dies leisurely another is snatched away suddenly one finds a Grave in the Earth another in the Sea another finds none at all but is exposed as a Prey to Beasts and Birds This is so obvious that it is needless to produce Instances for the Confirmation of it 2. Whosoever has any Acquaintance with the History of the Christian Church knows that for several of the first Ages at least the best Men had generally the worst Deaths That the Apostles of our blessed Lord were set forth as a Spectacle to the World suffered the Deaths of the basest Malefactors that St. Peter and St. Andrew were crucified St. James the Just stoned and his Brains knocked out with a Club St. Bartholomew flead alive That not one of the Apostles can be named who did not end his Life by an unnatural Death except only St. John who escaped it by Miracle for he was cast into a Cauldron of boiling Oil. That the first Bishops their Successors followed them in the like Tragical Deaths That St. Clemens Bishop of Rome was thrown into the Bottom of the Sea St. Simeon Bishop of Jerusalem crucified St. Ignatius Bishop of Antioch exposed to the Lions St. Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna burnt at a Stake Yea that the Christians for the most part for three hundred Years together met with the most horrid Deaths One was torn in pieces by wild Beasts another was roasted on a Spit another was broiled on a Gridiron another had his Flesh scraped off to the Bones with sharp Shells and Salt and Vinegar poured into his green Wounds and for one of their bloody Persecutors an hundred Christians may be found who died a terrible Death These were the happy Ends that the first and best Christians were blessed with happy indeed if we respect the Cause for which they died and the blessed Reward they were crowned with but none ever more unhappy in the Eye of the World. As they had been of all Men the most miserable had they had Hope in this Life only so if this Note be true their Hope could not have reached beyond it 3. Nor is this Note more repugnant to Scripture and Experience than it is to Reason One prime fundamental Principle of Reason is That Contradictions cannot be true or that the same thing cannot be and not be This we are as sure of as that we our selves are or that any thing else is whatsoever therefore it be from whence it plainly follows that Contradictions may be true we are as sure that it is false and therefore that the Note now under consideration is so because if it be true the most palpable Contradictions will be true also Of those many that offer themselves I shall mention a few As 1. That that was a false Church which was most certainly the true Church For if the burning alive of Valens the Arian Emperor was a certain Sign that the Arian Faith is false the burning alive of many of the first Christians is as certain a Note that the Primitive Faith is false If it follows that Manichaeus was a damnable Heretick because he was flead alive must we not conclude that St. Bartholomew was as bad and by consequence all the holy Apostles because he suffered the same kind of Death 2. That a Church remaining the same without any Change in Doctrine Worship or Discipline may be to day a false Church to morrow the only true Church So the Church of Israel was a false one when the High Priest fell backward and brake his Neck within a few days after when the Hand of the Lord was against the Philistines and they were smitten with a foul Disease of which they miserably died it was a true Church again Thus the Church of Rome in the Year 1656 when a dreadful Pestilence for that is one of Bellarmin's unhappy Ends swept away three hundred thousands in three Months time in the Kingdom of Naples and made great havock at Rome and Genoa †Athanas Kircheri Scrutin Physico-Med Contag Luis quae dicitur Pestis P. 426. was a false Church but in the Year 1665 when the like dreadful Pestilence raged in London it became a true Church again Yea 3. That there is no one Church in the World but by this Note it may be and it may not be the true Church because the Opposers and the Defenders of any one and the same Church may have both of them unhappy and both of them happy Ends. Now as the Opposers have unhappy Ends it is a true Church as the Defenders have unhappy Ends it is by the fourth thing premised a false one Again as the Opposers have an happy End it is a false Church as the Defenders have