popish Breviary and Missal To revile and hate a custom whence we do our selves receiv so much benefit and no body and harm is fals latin in morality §. 26. Communion EVen as to pleas the people and to draw and keep them from the catholick Church we threw the Bible amongst them telling them withall that as it is easie to understand so is every man inabled to interpret it although our Protestant Church does now too late repent it and wish with all their hearts it had never been done so likewise another plausible advantage we took against the Pope and Church wherein those people communicate commonly but under one kind by giving all communicants a spoonful of wine together with their mouthful of bread which stratagem has given as ample content as if people had been treated at my Lord Majors Feast For who would not drink with their meat and what reason can be given that they should not or that a feast with wine should not caeteris paribus be better than without it But a little to abate our insulting over a grave religious people let me argue a little for them after my plain manner Protestant countreymen you cannot but know at least you ought to know that the catholick Church uses the cup in communion as much as we in England do and in sacrifice more for so I distinguish at this time that the sacrifice is for the priest communion for the people more I say than we ever mean to do for the deacon or minister at the altar after the priest had communicated the people with the hoast carries the cup after him to all the said communicants to drink before which action of communion the Priest to prefigure Christs passion upon the altar and his blood effused had both consecrated and consummated both the kinds himself Is not this enough to silence you I should think it were since you are taken so clearly in a dissimulation at least that I may speak no more when you say that Catholicks have not the cup in communion concealing what you ought to acknowledg both that the people have as much as ours and that the priest consecrates and consummates both which others do not Oh but you will say they give not the people the consecrated challice which is the very blood of Christ very good no more do Protestants do we give the people any more then a cup of natural wine they do so too if you answer it is blest wine know and remember that when you speak against the Priests consecration Oh then that blessing is nothing but when you would argue against the communion in one kind then you make something of it so likewise your own blessing of the cup when you talk against puriritans o 't is a great and venerable secret but when you plead against Catholicks then 't is but an empty ceremony Where shall any one hold such slippery cells But to omit these cavills May not Anti-Romans be ashamed to say that Catholicks use not the cup which they use as much as any and to as much effect as we will allow it to be used and yet more too The catholick people in communion I must say it again that I may be understood do drink of such a cup as Protestants do affirm to be the only cup and no other and over and above this communicate the very body of their redeemer animated with his soul and sacred blood and hypostatically united to his deity which thing Protestants neither do nor will allow it although gospel do both direct and command it And yet we will be talking of I know not what defect of catholick communion not remembring too as we forget other things that all the vertue of consecration is attributed by Protestants only to our feeding upon Christ by faith which no man can deny but that it may be totally done and compleated without touching either bread and drink and therfore have they mightily laboured to make good that when our Lord saith in St. John My flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed that he speaks not one word of sacramental eating or drinking but only of feeding upon him spiritually by the mouth of faith May not Catholicks say the like to any text that shall be brought for the people communion of the challice He is surely a mad man that so belabours his adversary in one argument that by the same he knocks out his own brains in another So then Protestants take from the people both the real body and blood of Christ united and effused and then exclaim against Catholicks for not using the effused species as well in communion as sacrifice We who hold neither as we ought condemn them for withholding one who hold both and call that in them a sacriledge with we our selves esteem but a ceremony The catholick Church feeds her people with real meat we feed ours with signs and husks Though others might upbraid the witholding of one kind if it were so yet surely we cannot ingenuously do it who have taken away the reallity of both Whatsoever Protestants do truly hold and teach concerning this sacrament the same do catholicks from whom they had it maintain too and what more ought to be done the Catholick Church does it and Protestants do it not Must we feed upon Christ crucified by faith Catholicks do it and it is the very end of their religion Must the Eucharist be taken in remembrance of him and commemoration of his death They do it Must both kinds be blest and taken they do that too Must the people drink wine out of a cup in communion Catholik people do the like On the other side Catholicks do really partake of the animated and living body of their Redeemer this ought to be done to the end we may have life in us And yet Protestants do it not Catholicks have it continually sacrificed before their eyes and the very death and effusion of their Lords blood prefigured and set forth before them for faith to feed upon This Protestants have not they do it not and yet this ought to be done for so our Lord commanded when he said to his apostles hoc facite this do ye which you have seen me to do and in that manner you see me do it exercising before your eyes my priestly function according to the order of Melchizedech with which power I do also invest you and appoint you to do the like even to the consummation of the world in commemoration of my death and passion exhibiting and shewing forth your Lords death till he com This I say Protestants do not and we are mad angry that the Papist does what his redeemer injoined him Thus far ad hominem The consecrated challice is not indeed ordinarily given by the priest to people in private communion And it is neither expedient it should be so nor necessary to any effect of communion nor yet is ther in gospel any precept for it It is not
Christian So am I. Have you meditated seriously upon the promises of Gospel and hopes of a future resurrection I have don so too have you lived justly soberly and piously in this world expecting our blessed hopes in the comming of our Lord Jesus in glory I do the same and if I may speak on word secundum insipientiam perhaps more in mortification more frequent more abounding in charity more constant in the integrity of all my dealings more chast and sober less intangled in this present world or any affections therof more affected to my maker and redeemer and I am perswaded that God doth inhabit and dwell within me Why then do you trouble me he was of another spirit who said Siquis aliter sentit Deus ipsi hoc revelabit He that never judged amiss in points of Religion had so much meeknes in him as to conceit if any one in this or that particular thought otherwis than himself that God either had or would reveal it him and so abstained from censuring wheras you condemn all men that think not as you do who for aught I know think aright of nothing The very true beleef and right judgment of things whence is it or how come we by it If it be mans own operation you cannot tell but that I have it If it be Gods work you cannot blame me if I have it not his gifts are free and dispensed as himself pleases Am I in fault or do I deserv to be vext and harassed by my neighbour becaus the Kings majesty hath not given me a chain of gold Whether he hath promised it or no I am sure the performance is only in his hand and my duty being don I cannot in justice be either checkt or beaten for default of the donary which is to com only from above and if my King or God detain it it is a vertue in me to be resigned and think he hath a reason for it altho I know it not and that I have it not may be indeed my misery but not my fault St. Paul having severely chid the people of Corinth in his first Letter he wrote to them for their many disorders and some such like dissentions though in a far inferiour degree as ours in England be and their great obstinacy and feuds therupon with variety of pious rhetorick upon every subject they so contentiously disagreed in insinuated at last that whatsoever they might pretend for those their various Schismes from the power and Spirit of God even as we here do yet God was not indeed and really amongst them at all for God saith he is not the God of dissention but of peace and then he addes a great Oracle which he left behinde him for after ages to stop all dissentious feuds that might ever arise in any people about the preheminence of doctrin in Christianity wherin each one may pretend to be chiefest guide An à vobis saith he verbum Dei processit an in vos solos pervenit Did the word of God proceed from you or unto you only did it com as if he should have said you have not reason you people of Corinth to stand so much upon your opinions in matters of religion or to contest so hotly about them to your mutuall disparagements and breach of peace sith the Gospel and word of God neither came forth from any of you nor yet did it com only to you that any of you should therby and otherwis it could not be presume to be teacher of the rest in opinions and waies they cannot in their reason approve of unles they should prefer your autority before it Here then is prescribed a most oraculous rule both to know whence the right Christian truth is to be deduced in any matter of doubt and whose conduct is to be rejected whatever light or knowledg any one may pretend by way of priviledg for the obtaining over other men the preheminencie of a guide or leader That man or those people who can rightly challenge a power of leading other men in a way of religion must be such and only such as either the word of God came from or unto whom alone the word of God came And it must needs in reason be so for who should teach us in any science or resolv any doubts arising in it but the maister who first shewed it if any such can be found or which at first professed it I ask then all these our religious duellists both Anabaptist and Quaker Presbyterian and Protestant Did the word of God com from you or came it unto you alone and unto which of you did it first come that we may adhere unto that party without dispute He from whom it came must have the primary guidance over all and he unto whom it first came must carry a secondary presidentship over all such as be derived from him but which of you is it that can pretend to either That it came not alone to either our Puritan or Protestant is evidently apparent sith by the testimony of the apostle it went forth unto all the ends of the earth and indeed our own experience and knowledg of severall Kingdomes that be Christian would sufficiently witnes that without any testimony at all and that it came not forth from either of them is as manifest as the other sith the word and Gospel of Christ was in the world many ages before any of those waies were extant and the Puritan with all their factions found that word here in England in the hands of the Protestant and the Potestant it is well enough known wrested it from the Roman Catholick who had lived in it a thousand years before any Protestant was known or heard of in the Land◠and the catholick received it from his Papal Pastour or Bishop the Brittain from Pope Eleutherius the Saxon from Pope Gregory the Great as all histories witness Let us take heed then we incurr not the censur of mad men for pretending with so many furious quarrells both by tongue and pen and sword a precedency in religion one over another where according to this great oracle of S. Paul it is manifest that none of us can have any nay by this rule we cannot have so much as truth amongst us any further then we are conformable unto him from whom the word of God came or to them unto whom it first came and if we make a strict examin we shall find that they unto whom the Gospel in this nation first came were not either Protestants Presbyterians or Independents and he from whom it came was one whom all these do hate Where then is truth and which of these duellists hath the precedency in it I mention not the the Papist or Roman Catholick amongst the rest both becaus he raises not troubles but is on the suffering side oppugned by all opiniasters of what ever kind they be and defamed and vexed by them all who notwithstanding upon the same account of religion defame and
much in that age as in the first when she took her faith from him that did manifestly so comport himself as if he would be taken for a God and promised his Church by the general spirit he would send her to teach her all truth and strengthen her therein against all opposition even to the consummation of the world which none but God or one exceeding near unto him could make good and if this were not performed the imposture was in the first beginning That building must needs stand firm that rests upon a Deity which hath influence upon the whole fabrick to keep it up and if it be not so kept up and conserved the Church doth but vainly flatter her self when she boasts of the divinity of her support if she fail in her doctrin and faith Christ is not God Whensoever therfor we read either in the Acts of the apostles or other ancient story of the conversion of a Kingdom or people unto the right religion of Christianity we still find it was done not by any private illumination of any one who living before in darknes with the rest was now secretly called to teach others but by a resignation unto a former doctrin brought from Christ by his missioners and preachers by submission to a truth delivered to them from without not rising up within them Faith comes by hearing and every man upon earth that hath ever been approved Christian received it that way and was made thereby not a maister but disciple to the Church Wheras on the other side this spirit and light and such like discoveries we so frequently talk of makes us not schollers but maisters ipso facto and urges not to submit to foregoers but to condemn them not to resign our own but to captivate others understandings not to go to the Church but to go out of it and that upon the single motive of a new illumination which none had before us and we from no body I know well enough that a man cannot be converted and becom a good Christian without the assistance of Gods grace exciting and cooperating with us to our good when the truth is taught and revealed to us But this I suppose is not the Light men talk of for this is rather in the affection and will than in the understanding and bids us hearken to another not to our selves to join with a Church already planted not to begin a new one of our own heads It sayes not to us make a vineyard of your own but go into mine And the intellectuall Light men speak of if we have any we receiv it afterwards as a reward of our humility in that Church where we did not kindle it but found it already burning to guide our feet by it in the wayes of peace Crede intelliges said a great Prophet Beleev and you shall understand but we must beleev first and by that obscure step of beleef which is as a duksy twi-light between the darknes of infidelity we lived in before and the light of truth we go to arrive we to all future happines But we in England that pretend this new Light and secret Spirit are separated by it from a former Church but brought to none nor are we made disciples by it but maisters on the sudden and enabled to teach all men that which we never received from any which is absolutely against the whole cours of Christianity and will if it be admitted set open a gap unto all fanatick fansies St. Paul professes he was apostle not of men nor by men but by God and the reason is becaus his first call was extraordinary from heaven as was likewise the suggestion he had to his mission and yet that God that called him although he showed him so singular a favour yet would he not dispense with his own orders and constitutions even in him but sent him to the good Priest Ananias to be by him instructed and catechised and admitted into his Church and with those people St. Paul found in the profession of that faith did he often conferre even he that was so strangly called from heaven conferred the Gospel which afterwards he preached as himself speaks in his epistle to the Galatians with those people and with that Church he found in actuall possession and profession of that faith least saith he I should have run in vain that is least he should do or think or preach any thing amiss contrary to the truth received unto which he was called which he could no otherwaies by the constitutions Jesus himself had made be assured of but by comparing his doctrin with that which was believed and practised in the Church before him into which he was now incorporated as a member in that body by the assistance of the grace he had received to be first a disciple and then afterwards a maister and teacher and when he did become a doctour he did not make himself one no nor his calling by Christ sufficed to do it but he was made such a one under the hands of the apostles and by their approbation autority and sacred ordination as may be seen in the book of the Acts ch 13. Nor was he to teach without that Churches leav or contrary to her faith but by her direction and in subjection to her This is a faithful speech and worthy of all consideration which seriously pondered would dissipate in a moment all whatsoever pretences of light spirit reason or other thing that shall mov any to a new way by himself contrary to what he hath received seen practised in the Church before him And if any would seriously peruse the Acts of the apostles wherein the footsteps of primitive Christianity fufficiently appear he shall find that all that were called unto Christs religion were brought to the feet of the apostles and priests who received them at the door and brought them into the hous of God by the laver of Baptisme and imposition of hands and confession of sins and it was not onely the ordinary but sole ingress into that Church and none were ever esteemed to be of that body but only by those means which also the pastours of the Church were only to mannage He that comes not in at the door saith Christ is neither sheep nor shepheard but a theef and a robber And true Christian religion consists not in going out of a Church but coming in there to submit to the ancient dictates of piety which Christ revealed §. 13. Independent and Presbyterians Plea TO a judicious man whom a word sufficeth it will already appear that no opinion or way here in England can have any advantage over the other by vertue of discoveries made by any light spirit or reason since there can no such be legally pretended to set up any new religion apart from the former but to join rather with the old which if it be not absolutely true Christ is not God and all Christianity but a human invention But yet
disputant and moderatour both opponent and maister of the chair both interpreter and judg The Roman catholick I do not here mention for the taking Him for his guide and judg from whom he first received his scriptur and faith and expecting all resolutions of doubts only from his lips can never stagger or fall into perplexity But with Protestant Presbyterian and Independent whose utmost resolv is in their own hands the case is otherwayes And the combat that is amongst them is the most desperate imaginable whiles any visible speaking judg being excluded by them all each one fights against all the rest with the same topick ratiocinations that none but he that uses them must judg Scripture is for us scripture is easy and we have it the spirit that is in us teaches all truth the light from above us is only to direct us and not men who are lyers c. And these if they prevail overthrow him that uses them so that to the same combatant must needs happen by the same means both death and victory and the same autorities and argumentations if any of them obtain his desire must bear both a probility for him and a prejudice against him Thus the Protestant if he do or will pretend to convince the Presbyterian then must he at the same time and for the same reasons yield to the Roman catholick with whose discourse and arguments he flourishes and triumphs against him and yet being uttered from the mouths and pens of Catholicks against himself he contemned and jeered them And if the Presbyterian texts and reasons be of force against the Protestant then must the Protestant fall by that instrument by which himself stands and subsists against the Papist against whom he hath ever used those very assertions and arguments and the Presbyterian too must stand and fall upon the same account the same weapon laying him dead before the Independent which against the Protestant supports him The Independent if he be able by strength of his light and spirit to maintain himself against all his foregoers Presbyterian Protestant and Papist then by the same reasons must he needs fall when a new fansy rises by any succeding generation A strang case and indeed a meer riddle but a certain truth And the Catholick all this while to a disinterested understanding whiles all his enemies condemn one another stands uncontroulably justified in his oppositions to them The Independent is in the wrong saith the Presbyterian and Protestant the Presbyterian erres saith the Protestant and Independent the Protestant is deceived saith the Independent and Presbyterian you are all mad men quoth the Roman Catholick you first abused and supplanted me and now by the same wayes and means you do supplant and abuse one another But if I may interpose my judgment the Protestant although I honour his gravity above all the rest seems to be in a wors case than either Presbyterian or Independent for these in maintaining themselvs and their wayes do but strike home the first principles of protestant reformation whereas the Prelate-protestant to defend himself against them is forced to make use of those very principles which himself aforetime when he first contested against popery destroyed as be the difference betwixt clargy and laiety the efficacy of episcopal ordination the autority of a visible Church unto whom all are to obey and the like so that upon him falls most heavily even like thunder and lightning from heaven utterly to kill and cut him asunder that great oracle delivered by S. Paul in his letter he wrote to the Christians of Galatia Sī quae destruxi iterum haec aedifico praevaricatorem me constituo If I build up again the things I formerly destroyed I make my self a prevaricatour an impostour a reprobate A heavy sentence But truth will out and wisdom will be justified at long running even by her greatest adversaries It seems that those pieces of popery we so desperately inveighed against for our own interest were indeed not evil but good The Protestant may indeed with some plausible show excuse himself and say that the first Reformers though sent from God yet might they notwithstanding have some little mixture of humane passion and infirmity and so out do their work and decry more then in truth they ought to have don as he that would straighten a crooked wand bends it as much the other way to the end that by that over force it may at length recover its mediocrity and straightnes and what ever is done amiss by earnestnes of passion may by a second thought be mended And this excuse would find place in any busines of humane concernment but whether it may be of any weight in affairs of religion and divine faith I leav others to judg for what may be pretended by all unto endles changes can never be rightly said by any and S. Paul having assigned that property as a signal mark of a prevaricatour I should think we may beleeve it without further dispute However by the reassuming of this episcopacy be it the substance or shadow of Popery or what you pleas our English Protestant Church became by that means the very best and choisest flower of all the Reformation no order no decency no peace no uniformity in all the world where Protestancy was received like unto that we here enjoyed under our bishops in England nor could any man by the force of nature suspect any the least rottennes in the foundation of such a handsom fabrick I am sure I had not but by a strang chance that happened to me in my childhood And although our Prelate-Protestant is not able to answer the Presbyterian objection standing upon his own first principles of reformation which do indeed and ever will justify all revolts to the worlds end yet by the principles of his Recovery those I mean by which he reassumed Episcopacy too precipitously decried by the first reformers which principles be firm and good and right Christianity he will easily frustrate and dissolv all opposition but then he must creep into the bosom of Roman catholicks and beg the assistance of their arguments which before he foolishly contemned For every Body be it what it will natural politick or spiritual must so long as it remains entire and sound have the same principal parts and organs it was born withal and cannot endure long even in a contrary posture of them without dissolution and ruin Take any kingdom that is settled in monarchy and if you endeavour once the subversion of that Polity you do at the same time take away the life of all her laws and rights and utterly disturb her happines and peace which are so mixed and intangled in the very nerves and sinews of her laws and these again so settled upon the polity as upon the prime innate influent Calid and radicall primogeneal Humid that all goes together and take part alike either in weal or woe This truth we have had a sad experience of in the
hugely augmented Insomuch that this new clergy made up of fallen priests and votaries fell to writing stifly against their ecclesiastical pastour and the laiety drew themselvs into bodies against their temporal superiours in every place those in Germany against the emperour those in Holland against their King they in France against theirs nay the contagion flew so swiftly about Europe like wild fire in dry stubble that ere King Philip could get into Spain his subjects there were corrupted many of them and hissing hot unto battle but he was a wise prince and well understood the unquiet genius of heresie and therfore took a speedy cours with som for an ensample and terrour to the rest and so preserved his kingdom but the wars in France were long and dangerous those of Germany and Holland hardly yet ended It was almost twelv years before this strang confluence of people could agree together by what name to be owned till a chance gave it them thus There was congregated for the catholick Churches peace a solemn diet at Spire in Germany against which and the articles there agreed upon Luthers new troop made a joint unanimous Protestation appealing from the diet to the emperour although their after comportment shewed that they did indeed no more respect the emperour than his diet upon which general and hearty Protestation of their own they were pleased ever after to call one another Pretestants Yet sooner than they had well agreed in the name they so much disagreed in doctrine ambitious heads as all of them were emulating each one as great a name and fame as Luther had whom they both equalled in renown and place whilst they all remained priests in the catholick Church and now separated injoyed as great fulnes of the spirit as himself that they did not only set up several wayes and sects amongst themselvs but inveighed and wrote bitterly one against another even with more virulency than they had aforetime used against the Church in the beginning of their discession And now there was up and down amongst the Protestants here Osianders church there Stancars there Melanchthons here a body of rigid Lutherans there soft ones here Calvinists enemies to both here Illyricans there Valentine-gentilists here Plenilutherans there Semilutherans there Antilutherans here the disciples of Oecolampadius there of Suinglius c. all which did so eagerly quarrel about the matters of Reformation that a sober man could not have the patience either to hear their sermons or read their books Since that first division of Luther which is now above a hundred years there have been several times both in Germany and other places many great meetings by Protestant divines of all sorts and sides to bring all parties to an union but it could never be effected to this day which is a shrewd sign as Luther spake ingenuously before the duke of Saxony that the concertation was not begun for God nor yet for God shall ever be ended An ambition they have by their very discession and novelties to advance their name and worldly contents being so opposite as it is unto yielding or submission to anothers judgment will both make schisms and maintain them without controul nor can it be expected he should yield to his fellow servant or condisciple who contemns the maister and doctour and chief pastour of Christianity §. 19. Item INto our Kingdom of England this new invented protestancy had found access exceeding difficil if not altogether impossible all our Kings even from the Conquerour to that day being ever most vigilant that no innovation should arise to the endangering as those wise princes apprehended not only the spiritual but politick state under what ever pretens it should begin and the whole land carrying throughout the world so eminent a renown both for their piety and learning and zealous long continued affection to the catholick religion above all other nations when an odde accident set the doors wider open here than either in Germany France or Netherlands for its more free and copious ingress and it was this King Henry the eight a valorous and noble prince who had also set forth a book against Luther and his new coined protestancy for which zealous and Christian act of his the Pope conferred upon him the title of Defensor fidei wherein our Kings glory to this day even this so great a prince stood at that time so vehemently affected unto one of his subjects Anne Bullen that for her he ran himself into a hundred troubles and his whole kingdom into irreparable miseries To the end he might marry with her he endeavoured a divorce from his good wife Queen Catharine with whom he had lived honourably and peaceably twenty years together which with most earnest importunity for six whole years together when he could not obtain of the Pope he renounced him and by the insinuation of some Lutherans who by this time had crept into the land he made himself Pope and head of the Church within the territories of England and so he dispensed with himself and made that divorce by his own autority which the Pope could not do with his and married Anne whom a while after by the same autority he divorced again and cut off as King and Pope both Anne from his bed and Annes head from her shoulders Upon this strang act of the Kings declaring himself head of the Church never before known or heard of since Christianity first entered England for though Kings were ever honoured as nursing fathers of the Church yet head of influence to this mystical body of Christ is onely Jesus himself and head of government under him only that person who first begot us in Christ and in whom all the sacred hierarchy ends I say upon that strang act of his both King Henry and his whole kingdom was overthrown at one blow and laid prostrate under the feet of those men whom he had so gloriously triumphed of late and obtained thereby to the no small ornament of his crown the addition of a new title for now came flocking in out of Germany Geneva and the Netherlands whole swarms of reformers as thick as grashoppers by whom in a small time the Kings countenance being now set against catholicks who could never be brought to like of his divorce the land was so universally corrupted defaced and spoiled that within few years all the goodly monasteries nunneries abbeyes and their Churches were utterly dispeopled pillaged and ruined and millions of people of both sexes a sad sight to behold who had served God night and day in those their angelical retirements cast forth into the wide world to begin a secular worldly life many of them in their feeble old age when all their whole livelihood was taken from them The prey indeed was very great but it proved aurum Tolosanum neither King nor people was ever the richer for it general granaries as the monasteries then were making provision for all children to be born in the land
labour are quite concorporared with it and make as it were one body with the spirit thereof such were the glorious saints of the Church Som take it in as powdered beef or other flesh unto a perfect seasoning yet so as that still the flesh is more and hath the denomination these are upright good men preserved by the power of their religion from putrefaction and unsavorines although they be men still upright men Som take it in as clay in a less degree and more imperfect mixture but yet they shew it in their lives and conversation for it keeps them together and if in one action they miss of grace in another they recover it But som again in the fourth place are like a marble stone or brick which rubbed over with salt imbibes nothing and such as these have the name of religion upon them nothing in them and they may be met with every where especially in outward society and commerce for they are still abroad even when better people are retired and sometimes they will for their own interest get into inclosures too where they procure much disturbance and vexation to the saints In a word catholick religion is wondrous good and fruitful as it was said of Canaan and brings forth huge clusters of lovely grapes all over the land but there be also giants and the sons of Anak to be met with there and I escaped not their hands But God knew the innocence of my heart and I beleev his good angel supported me For the main I got the end I went for and having passed through some part of Holland and Germany France and Flanders returned to my countrey to participate of the miseries which our civil wars then commenced upon pretens of a purer reformation and further elongation from popery did bring upon us And out of the love I bear my protestant countrimen I set forth this little Light that they may no more be inveigled to infect their hearts and hands with the hatred and ruin of the innocent For catholick faith which we call popery is in it self a most sacred and pure religion it makes million of saints though it permit some bad ones even as protestancy which brings all things to a naked beleef that must suffice what ever life we lead though it suffer some honest men not apt by the light of reason to transgress so oft as they may makes a million of loos and wicked ones but this is the difference that there the few evil ones have som remors for doing ill here the multitude of desperadoes have none at all Catholicks cannot doubt of their faith if Christ who promised to be with his Church unto the worlds consummation be a true prophet and again if he be a true prophet then all reformers who jointly affirm the Church to have failed for so many ages must needs be in an errour But I com to my travels and particular observations so much as may serv to my present purpos §. 22. Messach I Was edified and amazed to see catholick people flocking to Church not upon sundaies only but every day in the week to their sacred orisons the bells ringing to that purpos all the town over not only every several hower in the morning until midday but at verspers compline and even at midnight mattens when all the religious of a kingdom are called up in the very depth of their sleep to chant forth psalms hymnes and canticles to the prais and glory of the almighty It deighted me to enter their Churches which be kept so sweet and clean and in such a religious quiet retirednes that it would make a man at his entrance into them as they say of the kingdom of Florida in a sweet spring day to forget wife and children and all worldly busines But when I beheld the deep reverence and earnest devotion of the people the majesty of their service the gravity of their altars the decency of their priests certainly said I within my self this is he hous of God and gate of heaven Alas our Churches in England as they be now be as short of those either for decency use or piety as stables to a princely pallace there they be upon their knees all the week long at their prayers many of then constantly an hour together in the morning and half an hour he that is least and my hous saith God is the hous of prayer but our Churches are either shut up all the week or if they be open are wholly taken up with boies shouting running and gamboling all about On Sundaies indeed our people sit quiet and decently drest but to bow the knee is quite out of fashion and if any one chance to do it as he is rare to behold so is he very nimble at it and as soon up as down as if he made a courtship with his knees or only tried if his nerves and sinews were as good to bow as stand upright And our whole religious work here is to sit quietly whiles a minister speaks upon a text conferring notes answering difficulties expounding words drawing conclusions and putting together for ampler dilucidation one text to another as if he were reading to students in the school some piece of Aristotles Perihermenias And thus we spend all our daies ever learning and teaching and our whole religion is to teach and learn as if religion were only to lend the ear to one who cries Hearkens or an art of knowing how to speak an hour upon two or three words of a vers which for my part as I am well enough assured that it is not the great work of Christian religion so neither is it the true work of Christian preaching whether we consult reason or presidents of antiquity to find it For as all sermons left us by greek and latine fathers are grave short and pithy such namely as they being all priests used to deliver at the altar between the Evangile and Creed so were they ever most free from any such verbal comparing of text with text vers with vers and the like various vanities which so take up our English preachings that our sermons be little or nothing else and only serv to spend time and vent our own frivolous verbosity If it do happen that a more learned Protestant do make a sermon of solid matter as sometimes they will he will be sure before he make an end by one conceit or other to have a fling at the Papists to the end that people may think as indeed they do that Papists have no such doctrine though the preacher know himself that he got it all out of their books which is a pretty piece of legerdemain but very frequent in this land Another thing I have observed and it is worth observation that of all the sermons I have ever heard in England I have never known any to deliver ex proposito the proper and peculiar doctrin of protestancy by which and for which we first revolted from the catholick
men for my name but who shall persever unto the end he shall be saved But I hope our countreymen will at length discern their own dangerous mistake and perceiv with me that the Popish Mass which is the old opostolical devotion merits not the hatred and mischief we have either wrought or intended the observers of it in our land Hitherto then I hope we have no reason to hate popery upon the account of their Messach which is indeed the chiefest piece of our division and occasion of the many contumelies we put upon them especially considering that in our own Communion so far as it goes we do but imitate great part of it and that in their very words § 23. B. V. Mary AL Catholiks I could ever see or hear or read of bear a most devout respect to the Virgin MARY whom others care not how they villify and dishonour either by their words or writings and I cannot but dislike this our uncivil carriage to say no wors of it as much as I do approve of their piety Surely that Virgin of whom God would be incarnate and with whom he lived so many years together must needs be a person of strang perfection and worthy of great esteem amongst all such as worship her Son and look upon him indeed as their Redeemer He that loves him that begets saith the good apostle loves him that is begotten and I should think he that worships him that is begotten must needs have some respect for her that bare him The blessed Virgin was her self so confident of this that she was bold to say Ecce enim ex hoo beat am me dicent omnes generationes all generations all nations saith she shall call me Blessed And surely if this be true and in gospel it passes for divine words we that instead of calling her Blessed presume so highly to villify and blaspheme her even in our publick streets for which in catholick countries we should be in danger of being stoned to death by the people show our selvs to be a nation that belongs not to the Magnificat Indeed all here amongst us are not so rude but such as be are neither punished nor questioned for it And what in the name of God hath the Virgin Mary don to us what ill or harm hath she ever wrought us that any English Christian should cast so many gibes and show so much disesteem to that blessed creatur whom the whole catholick world the angels of heaven nay our Lord himself and that great God that made heaven and earth have set in so high a place of honour Will our incivility as it hath no ground or reason admit likewise of no limits It may be feared that the spirit of Luther anisme is some very foul one for it hath moved the professours of it in several places unto most unseemly language and highest disesteem of very thing that is venerable Not only princes and prelates priests and altars shrines and sacrifice byshops and their sacred ordinations the real presence tribunal of our reconciliation and the like but the very saints and angels of heaven nay the most innocent blessed Maid whom the very Turks do honour to this day and that she may not be thought the wors of for that an angel from heaven saluted by the mandate and in the name of him who is primogeneal Life and substantial Truth with the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Most beloved and Gratious escape not the lash of our lips and pens And yet this is not all neither Do not I know that the primitive protestants in forreign parts have uttered some openly some more obscurely in their writings many odde words against the very honour of Jesus Christ himself although our more moderate Church of England I am confident hates them for it Did not Calvin taunt at his ignorance and passion and too much haste for his breakfast when he crust the figtree that had not fruit upon it when he sought it if he had studied catholick divines they would have taught him a more modest and pious interpretation than that idle wicked one of his own Did not Michael Servetus that bold apostate Spanish youth speak openly amongst his fellow protestants in Geneva that he wondered that they had raised all their controversies so many as they had against the Church which is named the body of Christ and yet never a one against Christ the head of that body did not Valentine Gentile that unhappy Italian after he had revolted to Calvin take it ill that all the reformed Churches agreed yet with the papists in the beleef of a Trinity and with him sided Matheus Gribaldus Lismanin Francis David and Jacobus Paleologus though this last recanted afterward and returned happily to his catholick faith And who-knows not that Luther Brentius Calvin Suinglius yea and Erasmus too who though he yet remained catholick would be nibling now and then at Arrian and Socinianisme let fly many a secret dart at Christ and the sacred Trinity though they were not yet so bold as to profess openly with som others of their brethren whom they saw to suffer in their repute for it any such opinion till they found the world in a more forward disposition to accept it and all these bent their bowes and fitted their arrowes to the string that if not openly yet at least in the dark and in Lunâ as the prophet phrases it they might shoot and hit every thing that is sacred even Christ himself So true it is that he who loves him that begets loves him that is begotten and he that hates the one does not truly love the other But the penmen of our creed and gospel who made honourable mention of the Virgin Mary were of another spirit than we be that so much dishonour her although for fashion sake we read over those holy penmens words A certain protestant byshop did not many years ago examin a catholick child that stood before him if he could say his prayers the boy replying yes said first his Pater noster after that began his Ave Maria which catholicks use to repeat in memory of Christs incarnation at which words nay quoth the byshop let her alone let her alone we have nothing to do with her The child went on to his Creed and when he came to conceptus est de spiritus sancto natus ex he sodainly stopt and she is here again quoth the child she is here again my Lord what shall I do with her now you may let her pass quoth the byshop in your Creed but not in your prayers As though we might have faith but neither hope nor charity for her But if we seriously consider the spirit of those who wrote either our Gospel or Creed we shall find that of Roman catholicks to have a most near consanguinity with it and loving them we cannot hate these for the respect they bear his virgin Mother whom we all worship §. 24. Images IN all places where
living Honourable mention of Saints deceased proves an immortality of the soul and this immortality renders the saints even after their deceas still more honourable so that he that honors them must needs believ this and he that truly beleevs this will be apt to honour them I am God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living so argues and disputes our Lord Christ proving the souls immortality by the honourable mention of souls departed And his argument is good and very subtile for if God be the God even of souls departed then souls departed are not nothing but som subsisting thing for God cannot be said to be the God of that which is not And these two effects a beleef of our immortality and a pronenes to imitate their good works so highly crowned hath this memorial of saints wrought all over the catholick world where ther is not a man but will urge himself somtime or other for the respect he bears to such a glorious saint who by shedding his blood or mortifying his body magnified God and his religion upon earth to do somthing either of pennance or charity superabundant over and above what he should have thought upon himself without that help in imitation of the good pattern of him who being once a man compassed with the same infirmities that we now be hath shewed us notwitstanding both by his life and doctrin that such good works are both feasible by frail man and very commendable too and beneficial even to the reward of never ending glory And to this end do Catholicks read their saints lives labouring each one to the degree of his devotion to rais up in himself the lively sparkles of hope and faith and charity by those examples which he sees not confined only to the one age of the apostles but translucent in all times and places by his continued goodnes to his Church whose mercy endureth for ever Nor are those saints lives so prodigious and incredible as we in England take them to be I speak of solid authenticated legends For I have my self seen with mine own eyes and known hundreds of living men that have equalled them in those practises And he that knows the vigorous nature and life of Gospel where it is really put to practise and not only verbally profest will wonder at nothing If ye say to this mountain remove hence saith our Lord to aright beleever all things are possible and I am confident by what I have seen my self that ther be now as bad a world as it is an immens number of people among Catholicks as eminent in all perfections as ther have been in any age and som of them equall too even to the glorious saints of old whose legends we read For thousands of people do make it their very profession even as people here in London set up and profess a trade to lead their lives exactly according to the tenour of gospel noting every evening before they sleep all the deviations even of their very thoughts and making resolutions in the morning for the renewed practis of all such vertuous actions that may probably lye in their way and in particular such a vertue to day that to morrow this in the third and so they end their lives All the Catholick world knows I do not lye And all this is don not by any force of nature but against it by the meer power and vertue of their religion whereby I have known many men to subdue corrupt nature even to amazement and miracle And the various examples both of good people yet alive and of eminent saints departed whose cells and vestments and beads and books are yet reserved amongst them incourage Catholicks unto this vertuous adventure while not only by sight of their lives who live amongst them and of the mortified figures of the holy persons deceased and bloody necks of their martirs but also by sermons and the continual rites of the Church prefiguring before them the conversation and passion both of Jesus himself and his many glorious followers who have imitated his steps that none might think but that the same life might be led though not in the same degree and the same valour be shown in undergoing both carnal castigations and death even by meer man through the grace of him who strengthens us to all things they are made continually to remember and seriously lay to heart both what they are to do and whom to imitate by which reflections they are more moved towards all the good works of piety than without them such a poor weak spirit as mans is housed in mouldring clay could ever bee And that this hath been the practis of the Christian Church in all times to set before the people the lively pourtraits of their holy and well deserving foregoers for their greater incitation unto semblable good works unto which their religion calls them I could easily show throughout all ages but that I intend here to speak no more than what may somwhat allay the preconceived prejudice we have taken up against the Popes religion especially in the few particulars I touch upon of which I speak no more than what I think may suffice to unbeguile such as list seriously to ruminate upon the truth And if in these things which seem harder to us their caus be just I should think the lesser prejudices should fall away of themselvs and we at length love one another as we ought for no man I think does willingly hate the innocent Only two testimonies of the primitive respect unto saints and their images amongst Christians taken not out of the bowels of the Church but from her enemies one from the Jew the other from the Pagan sufficiently known in history I cannot but here mention The Jews in the first three ages of the Church even from the apostles to Constantine the great accused the Christians not only in private but even before the Roman emperours and Senate of three great violations of Moses law first that they broke the sabboth and had turned it from the seventh day of the week unto the first making that holiday which Moses ordained for work and that a working day which Moses made holy secondly that they worshipped images of their saints and kept them not only in their houses but in their oratories and chappels thirdly that they brought in a strange God Jesus Christ they meant which neither they nor their forefathers knew all which seemed expresly against the letter not only of the general law but of the two tables of the ten commandements The pagan all over the empire laughed at the Christians for three ridiculous worships of theirs namely of a breaden God of the priests genitals and of an asses head the first whereof proves the primitive sacrifice of which I have already spoken the second their confession the third their use and respect they had of images for the Jewes had defamed Jesus Christ our Lord whose
head and half pourtraict Christians used upon their altars even as they do at this day amongst other things of his great simplicity and ignorance Some will haply say if this were all that is done to saints to keep the pictur and read the lives of such renowned personages who consecrated themselvs to Gods glory and service for the incitement of our affections unto the like virtuous atchievements I should not much blame it But papists over and above this do pray to saints too and that is no wayes excusable Give me leav to reply to this That which you now say you cannot much blame has been made so odious that never a Catholick in England durst for this hundred years so much as let a Crucifix hang in his chamber lest both he and it should be torn asunder by us And what you judg in excusable their praying to saints which I have so often heard and read in our protestant Churches and books objected so eagerly and constantly against them when I found it other-wayes than we in England conceiv it to be I was glad both for their sakes and ours too I did therfor curiously examin and turn over the whole Roman Breviary and Missal which is the devotion of the Catholick Church and contains almost a fourth part of it a commemoration of several Saints according to the daies of the year wherin they flitted hence into a better life And I did not meet with so much as any one prayer addressed to any saint or angel of heaven no not upon those dayes wherin commemoration of them is made but directed all of them from the very first prayer to the last unto God the father by Jesus Christ in the unity of the holy ghost either exprest or implied And their practis herin is conform to antient tradition confirmed by their own law in a councel at Carthage under Pope Siricius an 397. wherin it was declared and ordained that all publick prayers of the Church should be made directly unto God the Father And Catholicks even upon a saints day making their prayer to God beg only of him amongst other their requests that the good works of such a saint in whom he glorified himself may speak better things for them than they can themselvs deserv For example upon St. Bennets day Intercessio nos quaesumus Domine Benedicti Abbatis commendet ut quod nostris meritis non valemus ejus patrocinio assequamur Upon the feast of St. Francis O God who by the merits of St. Francis doest inlarge thy Church with a new off-spring grant unto us by the imitation of him to despise earthly things and enjoy celestial And so run all the other praiers of the Church wherin any invocation of saints is made directed ever unto almighty God by his son Jesus Christ And this is no more than what was ever don in the Hebrew Church both befor and after Christianity was in the world as the works of ancient Rabbies can witnes and no less holy writ it self when it makes almighty God sooner as it were condescending to the peoples petition by the mediation of the merits of glorious patriarchs whom he singularly favoured and his wrath and displeasur against the Jews then at a height when he refuses to hear those saints in their behalf If Moyses and Samuel saith the sacred text Jer. 15. should stand before me yet is not my soul unto this people that is to say he would not in the behalf of such desperate wicked people accept of the praiers even of those saints that were most dear unto him and this was spoken by the prophet long after Moses and Samuel was dead Long before this the Patriarch Jacob does most plainly insinuate this custom of saints invocation as ordinary and familiar among the Hebrews when being to bless his two nephews Ephraim and Manasseh he speaks thus The angel who brought me out of all my evils bless these children and upon them be invocated my name and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac Gen. 48. And ther is a formal prayer to that purpose Exod. 32. which expresses as much invocation of saints as any or all the praiers of the Christian Church do ever use Remember saith Moses remember O God Abraham Isaac and Israel thy servants unto whom thou hast sworn by thy self saying I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven Which prayer was after imitated by Daniel c. 3. Withdraw not O Lord thy mercy from us for Abraham thy beloved Isaac thy servant and Israel thy holy one And if Daniel and Moses praied to saints well may we do it and if that of theirs was not a praying to saints but only to almighty God by the concurrence of their merits then is the Catholick Church to be not excused only but commended for she does the like in those prayers of hers she makes any mention either of saint or angel and no otherwise In their letanies indeed and short ejaculations Catholicks seem to invocate saints directly when in one part of them they say Holy Mary pray for us St. Peter pray for us c. But this though in words and sound it seems direct yet in sense and purpose it is indirect so that sancta Maria ora pro nobis omnes sancti Dei intercedite pro nobis is in sense but this Sancta Maria omnes sancti intercedant pro nobis ad Dominum ut nos mereamur c. And if we ponder it right it must needs be so for when I pray any one to pray for me considering the object and matter of my desire which both of us must joyn in I do not properly speaking pray to him but by him and only desire in my good affection that the prayers he makes for all may be available unto me And this is the more apparent becaus the letanies are directed unto God beginning continuing and ending with him Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy Father of heaven God Have mercy on us O Son redeemer of the world God Have mercy on us c. Holy Mary pray for us St. Michael pray for us c. Be propitious spare us O Lord. From all evil Deliver us O Lord c. By the mystery of thy incarnation Deliver us O Lord. By thy nativity Deliver us O Lord c. We sinners Beseech thee to hear us That thou grant us peace We beseech thee to hear us c. Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world spare us O Lord c. Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy Our Father c. Thus the letanies run and he that directs continues and ends his letany or praier to God must needs pray to him and objectively to none but him So that the interposition of any intercessour must needs be indirect in sense however it be exprest in words and can signifie no more but this that God would gratiously accept of the prayers they make in our behalf For
themselves have thought it an addition of honour to sit in that solemn and thrice venerable assembly though in a separated place Shall we I say mock and revile this sacred person Let not such a thing be said of us any more let it not be told in Gath or the streets of Askalon that we use any such rude behaviour lest the very uncircumcised Philistins condemn our vast inexcusable incivility Nor yet let us either envy or malign the respect which Pappists give to Him from whom they received their Christianity and by whose vigilance and care it hath been kept inviolate amongst them from its first ingres into the land even to this very day Shall our eye be therefor evil becaus theirs is good §. 30. Popery IN the more flourishing doctrins of the Catholick Church I could be largely copious but I have said as much as may suffice my intended purpos which was so far to excuse even that religion also that if all do not embrace yet none may persecute and hate it Wherefor I do purposly omit to speak of other more plausible parts of Popery viz. 1. The obligation which all who beleev in Christ have to attend unto good works and the merit and benefit of so doing 2. The possibility of keeping Gods commandements with the assistance of divine grace 3. The liberty and freedom of human will either to comply with grace or resist it 4. The sacred councel and excellency of divine vowes 5. The right and obligation to restitution when any one shall have wronged his neighbour either in his soul or body fame goods or estate 6. The power and autority of of the Church in her tradition and decisions 7. The fasts and abstinence at certain times from som kind of meats which is all the religion we read Adam was injoined to observ in Paradise that we may therby be more apt to acknowledg Gods gifts and goodnes at those times we enjoy other good things of his bounty and at other times them and to sanctify our spirit for divine retirements 8. The divine ordination and unspeakable comfort and benefit of Confession 9. The caelibate and single life of the clergy who thereby freed from much solicitude of this world though not without som troublesom struggling against unseemly lusts of youth may approach the altar like angels of God who neither marry nor are given in marriage 10. The doctrin of indulgencies which be nothing els but a releas from som temporal penalties due to sin after repentance and remission which the Church does generally bestow by commutation as when for example an indulgence of such penalties for so many daies or years is granted unto such as upon the time appointed shall repent and confess fast pray give almes and communicate for the Churches preservation and concord of Christian princes which is a doctrin as rational and well grounded as any in Christianity though we in England will not understand it 11. Finally the ecclesiastick hierarchy and supremacy whereby catholick religion like a flourishing fair tree spreads his boughs in several kingdoms of the earth even from sea to sea so united all of it in all its parts and connexed together that ther is no catholick upon earth but is under som priest all priests subordinated to their byshops these to their metropolitan all metropolitans to the Patriarchs and Patriarchs united in the Papal cone every leaf cleavs to som twig every twig to som branch every branch to som bough every bough to the bole and the bole to the root And several other such like points of the Roman religion which coming all together from once hand have stood unchangeable in all ages the same and depending all upon the verity of the first revealer have an equality of truth though not of weight These and several others with the other half dozen more offensive doctrins I have cleared and explicated our reformers cut off at one blow when they taught us that it would suffice to salvation only to beleev in Christ without any more ado and that other things were popish superstitions whereby we became a strang kind of servants that beleev their maister but heed not either to fulfil his orders or do his commands For they told us and we have hitherto beleeved it That ther be no such things as good works pleasing to God but all be as menstruous rags filthy odious and damnable in the sight of heaven That if it were otherwis yet are they not in our power That with the assistance of any grace to be had Gods commandements are impossible to be kept and it would be therefor vain to attempt it especially sith we have in us no strength of free will to act any thing but evil That it must needs be foolishnes to vow unto God sith we can do nothing we ought to do and no less foolish if we have vowed to pay it That what wrong soever we do to another God is merciful and restitution fruitles both becaus one sin cannot make satisfaction for another nor any thing clear us but the blood of Christ alone unto which if we should concurr our selves by doing good works or satisfying for ill we should be half our own redeemers That the Church which presumes to teach other things than we allow is a fals mistres distracted and knows not what she sayes That to fast from sin is fast enough without depriving our stomachs of good flesh when we have a mind to it and yet becaus we sin in every thing we do neither is that fast possible to be kept That confession is needless How can man forgive sins That our clergy find themselvs men and not angells and love women as well as others and first revolted from popery principally for their sakes preferring a good wife before the whore of Babylon and the altars that kept them asunder are thrown down the honest pulpit standing now solitary speaks for them and brings them happily together That of indulgencies there is no need since obligation to penalties is shaken off long ago by our own autority without any indulgence from another That papal supremacy is the only obstacle to our liberty and therefor it must be abolished And let popery hang together as close as it can it shall go hard but we will find a battery to shake it So much indeed hath sophistry and continual clamour against popery and state punishments lying ever most heavily upon the professours of it prevailed over our judgments that now ther is no goodnes no worth no truth in it no none at all it is all naught all and every part of it naught nothing but naughtines superstition and vanity All that I will say for the present is this If popery be a bad religion more is the pitty for the professors of it suffer as much for it as might well serv for a good one Millions of people for the beleef they have in it and the love they bear its holy counsels and