as Kings and their Courts by the laws But Protestants do not observe that as the interpretation of the laws depends not of them who sue the King but of the ancient practise of his Judges and Courts so the interpretation of Scripture must not be made by tâ—em who sue the Pope and Councels but by the Bishop and the Church who ar to explain it not according to every on 's privat fancy as Protestants do but according to the tradition customs and practises of the orthodox Christians in former Ages And by this we free the Roman Catholick Church and the Councel of Trent from the Protestant calumny of novelty of doctrin not only in this particular of the Canon of Scripture but in all it 's other definitions Proâ—estants confound our new Decrees with new doctrin wheras nothing is more cleer then that old doctrin may be defined by a new Decree that is made more publick and authentick The Councel tels them sess 4. that it only declares what Canon of Scripture the primitive Church held and quotes for it divers ancient Faâ—hers and Councels and therfor it 's Decree maks no new Canon of Scripture but is a promulgation of the old which induceth an obligation of believing what formerly had not bin so generaly known because it had not bin so cleerly and solemnly proclaimed Methinks none ought to carp less at the novelty of our definitions then Protestants if they would reflect vpon their own reformations They pretend that their doctrin is not only renewed but revived because forsooth the whole visible Church had lost that purity of the Primitive faith for many ages which they now have restored Roman Catholicks are more moderat and modest as having a better opinion of the Church and of God's providence they confess that the doctrin defended by the Councel of Trent was never extinguished in the Church but that it lived in the harts and profession of many faithful though many others of the same communion did not hold them-selves obliged to believe it as a doctrin of faith vntil it had bin sufficiently and solemnly proponed by the Definition of the Church in a general Councel as Divine That being don no addition or alteration was made of divine faith For new definitions are not new articles of faith but promulgations of the old faith or declarations of our obligation to believe as articles of faith those things which had bin formerly revealed but not so sufficiently proposed to the whole Catholick Church Wherfore articles of Faith not believed before they be decreed by a general Councel may be aptly compared to laws or ordinances before they ar published as the publication or proclamation of a law maks not a law but declares the obligation of complying therwith so the definition of a general Councel maks not the article of faith but declareth the obligation of believing that doctrin which before the publication or proclamation of the Church had not bin sufficiently proposed as Divine revelation To what purpose then did Doctor Cozins trouble him-self and his Readers with composing a book against the Catholick Canon of Scripture declared in the Councel of Trent when all his arguments are but sayings of men who doubted of books and parts of Scripture before they were declared and only because they were not declared Canonical by a general Councel He would fain impose vpon the world that S. Ierom was so much a Jew and so little a Christian as for the Canon of the old Testament to rely altogeather vpon the Hebrew Rabins and that he set a greater value vpon their testimony then vpon the authority of the Church or of the great Councel of Nice which received into the Canon of Scripture the book of Judith though rejected by the Jews His proof of S. Jerom's judgment being the same with that of Protestants in this controversy is that in some places of his writings he says the contested books of the old Testament are not in the Canon of the Jews nor received as Canonical by the Christian Church to which is answered that S. Jerom altered his opinion as appeareth in his prefaces prefixed to the said books which he translated into latin at the instance of the Churches and Bishops that held them to be Canonical to whose belief S. Jerom at length conformed his own judgment In his preface to the Book of Tobie he says Yee desire me to translate a booke from the Caldean language to Latin the book of Tobie which the Hebrews admit not into the Catalogue of Sacred Scriptures J have satisfied your desire c. The Hebrews reprehend vs c. Because we have translated into latin things against their Canon But I judged it better to displease the judgment of Pharisees then disobey the commands of Bishops c. In conformity to this he says in his preface of Iudith With the Hebrews the book of Iudith is read amongst the Agiographa the authority wherof is judged less fit to decide controversie c. But because the Nicen Synod is read to have computed this book in the number of holy Scripturs J have acquiesced or complyed with your demand Out of which words it is manifest 1. That St. Jerom was not of the same opinion with the Iews concerning these books because he says he displeased or offended their judgment by his translation as a thing against their Canon which would not have â—in vnless his intention in translating and judgment were known to favour the belief of the Bishops and Christians that held them to be Canonical for the translating them only as pious books could not be offensive to the Iews who acknowledged them for such as Cozins with Chemnitius and all Protestants confess though pag. 82. he contradicts him-self having no other shift left to prove St. Ierom a Iew in this particular And his words of the book of Iudith demonstrat that he opposed the authority of the Nicen Councel against the opinion of the Iews to prove that book Canonical and fit to determin controversies of Religion and in case we should grant he doubted whether the Councel numbred it in the Canon yet non can doubt but that he believed the Councel had authority to declare it Canonical which is the point disputed of But Doctor Cozins would willingly make us believe by a notorious fraud and imposture that Cardinal Belarmin doth not only acknowledg St. Ierom to have persisted still in his former opinion of excluding these controverted books from the Canon but also that the Councel of Nice never received that of Iudith into it and to that purpose pag. 45. quotes Belarmin's words de verbo Dei lib. 1. c. 10. vlt. thus Admitto Hieronymum in ea fuisse opinione quia nondum generale Concilium de his libris aliquid statuerat These words the honest Protestant Bishop of Duresme setts down in capital letters and with them concluds Cardinal Belarmin's sentence and sense concerning Hierom's opinion of the book of Iudith and
absolutly necessary for salvation and not to believe it in a matter not absolutly necessary when equaly proposed by the same testimony and authority is as much as to say that God can speak by his Church litle vntruths but not great vntruths or that he may permit his veracity to be violated or vitiated in litle but not in great matters as if forsooth the authority and infallibility of the Church were to be measured by the matter it proposeth and not by the manner and supernatural marks of the proposal and by the dignity of the speaker More over their pretence of the Churches fallibility in not Fundamental articles hath no solid ground for the Protestant Church is either fallible or infallible in saying so and in it's doctrin of Fundamentals if fallible non can prudently rely thervpon either in this or in any other matters of faith if infallible then the Protestant distinction of Fundamentals must be a fundamental article of faith because they admit not any Church to be infallible in articles that are not fundamental And yet the same Protestants say the Roman Catholick Church is also infallible in fundamentals but the Roman Catholick and Protestant Church contradict on the other in this doctrin of fundamentals Therfore one of both must erre and that on must be the Protestant because it maintains that two Churches teaching contradictory doctrins may both be infallible therin Add hervnto that if the Roman Catholick Church be infallible in fundamentals or in all articles necessary for salvation how can Protestants excuse their reformation and separation from the guilt of a grievous sin and schism so vncharitable a breach is not justifiable by less then damnable or dangerous doctrin in the Church that is forsaken And what damnable doctrin or danger of damnation could or can be in adhearing to the Roman Church it being confessedly infallible in Fundamentals that is in all things necessary for salvation If therfore God's veracity is denyed even according to the Protestants doctrin and distinction by saying that the Church is fallible in fundamentals it can be for no other reason but because the fundamental articles are sufficiently proposed by the Church as revealed by God and seing the not fundamental articles are proposed by the same Church and testimony and by consequence as sufficiently as the fundamental Protestants must grant that God's veracity is no less denyed by maintaining the fallibility of the Church in not Fundamentals then in Fundamentals So that they must either acknowledg the infallibility of the Church in all articles and matters of faith whether absolutly necessary or not necessary for salvation or deny God's veracity and the foundation of all Christian belief SECT XIII The same further demonstrated and proved that neither the Protestant faith nor the faith lately asserted in a book called sure footing in Christianity is Christian belief where also is treated of the resolution of faith NOt the maâ—â—er believed but the Motive and manner of believing makes a belief Christian There may be an historical or imaginary faith of Christ as well as Divine and real that is men may believe the mysteries of Christianity 〈◊〉 they believe the roman history and fancy that such a belief is not human but Divine This we maintain to be the Protestants case and faith which is not grounded vpon Divine revelation but vpon human persuasion and vpon an imaginary evidence of God's revelation They assent not to the mystery of the Trinity or to any other because God revealed it but because they think it vndeniably evident either by the publick confession of all Christians or by the privat suggestion of their own spirit or by the principles of natural reason or by their pretended cleerness of Scripture that God revealed such mysteries as they are pleased to make choyce of for the Articles or fundamentals of their Reformations And therfore according to the diversity of the evidences wherupon they build their faith the Protestant sects are framed and divided into Prelaticks whose Motive and evidence is the concurrence of all Christians in their fundamentals of Christianity and into Fanatiks amongst whom we include Presbiterians c. who rely vpon the evidence of their spirit and the cleerness of Scripture and into Socinians who make evident reason the rule of their Religion c. That these Protestant persuasions are not grounded vpon Divine revelation or vpon God's Authority and veracity we proove because it is impossible to make an authority the motive of our belief vnless we believe all things that are equaly proposed and delivered to vs as depending of and asserted by that authority St. Austin says non can believe that the Ghospel of St. Matthew is the word of God vnless he doth likewise believe that the Acts of the Apostles is the word of God because they are both delivered as God's word by the same authority The same testimony and the same visible Church which delivered to the first Protestants the mystery of the Trinity and Incarnation as revealed by God delivered also to them Transubstantiation Purgatory c. as revealed by God and they or their followers can not pretend to have any other testimony for the engagement of God's veracity in certifying them of the truth and revelation of the articles they retain but the same testimony which delivered to them the articles they reject Therfore the reality and Divinity of the revelation being equally testified and applicable by on and the same testimony to both articles aswell to the retained as to the rejected it is impossible that Protestants can believe those they retaâ—â—â— moved thervnto by God's veracity or for being revealed by God seing the same veracity and revelation is equally and as cleerly applyed by the testimony of the Catholick visible Church to the other articles which they reject as not revealed If you ask a learned Protestant why doth he believe the mystery of the Trinity or Incarnation He will answer as all Hereticks ever did aswell as Catholicks because God revealed it But if you inquire further why doth he believe that God revealed it He will tell you because it is manifest in SVBSECT I. I Am right sorry to number among Protestants and Manichees who hould also this error of believing nothing which they did not fancy to be self evident the Author of a book called sure footing in Christianity who will needs have it self evident by virtue forsooth of tradition that God revealed all the points of our Roman Catholick doctrin Jt's pitty he stumbled so irrecoverably at his very first step pretending to see so cleerly and tread so surely vpon a plain ground had he bin as wary in the choice of his principles as he is witty in deducing his conclusions I should have followed him as an excellent Guide but he striving to raise Christian faith vnto a greater height of evidence then is consistent with it's nature and with our merit and liberty or convenient for the Government of God's
Catholicks were but few and in the later days they will not be many in respect of Heretiks but still it was and will be the Catholick Church Therfore it can not be an argument that a Church in not Catholick or Universal because ther ar more Pagans and Professors of Heresies then of the true Religion Their being more hereticks in number is consistent with the being of many faithfull houlding the Apostolick faith and no more is requisit for a Catholick or Universal Church But sure Protestants forget the invisibility of their own when they except against the Universality of ours If theirs was Catholick or Universal when they were so few that for the space at least of 1000. years not one Protestant could be found in the whole world they have no reason to deny the denomination of Catholick to the Roman which always hath bin so conspicuous and numerous If they will proceed coherently and say that for those 1000. years before Luther ther was no Catholick Church then they must not only reform but alter and cut short the Apostles Creed and blot out at least for those 1000. years that article J believe in the Catholick Church And as Protestants have no reason to believe that the vniversality or Catholicism of the Church consists not so much in the number of persons as in the antiquity and identity of faith of the Professors with that of the Apostles so have they not any reason to object partiality and illegality against the testimony and judicature of the Roman Church and Councells when they censure Protestant opinions Not partiality because when a Iudg or wittness giveth sentence or evidence against his own natural inclination and interest there can be no suspition of partiality nor lawfull exception against his sentence or testimony as too much favoring himself or his relations And truly if Roman Catholicks did judge of controversies of faith according to their own natural inclination and interest and had not in their definitions and testimonies a greater regard to conscience then conveniency they would never witness or define that Priests ought not to marry or that Kings and Bishops ought to be subject to the Pope in spirituall affaires or that men ought to abstain from flesh so many days in the week or that ther is no bread or wine in the Sacrament notwithstanding the appearance of both neither would they part with their lands and mony vpon the score of Purgatory or maintain that privat men or Churches must not take the liberty to themselves of deciding controversies of Religion but on the contrary beleeve that generall Councells are infallible even when they define matters contrary to our sense and inclinations Roman Catholicks are made of flesh and bloud they are naturally as averse from these thoughts and submissions and find as great difficulty in conforming their judgments and testimonies thervnto as Protestants Therfore they cannot be partial in condemning Protestants for not believing these things vnless they be also partial against themselves and nothing but the evidence of their own obligation â—o believe these things strengthned by the grace of God could prevaile with so many learned and sober men as have bin and are known to be among Roman Catholicks to be partial against themselves or to judg and wittness contrary to their own natural inclinations and temporal interest for Popery against Protestancy SVBSECT II. Of the Iustice and legality of our Roman Censures against Protestancy NOw as to the legality of the proceedings and censures of the Roman Catholick Church against Protestancy it is as manifest as lawfull witnesses and cleer evidences can make any judgment either in law or equity In all controversieâ— both of law and Religion the Courts and Church must ground their sentences vpon matter of fact All disputes of faith must be reduced vnto and decided by this matter of fact Whether Christ our Saviour and his Apostles taught such doctrin Whether he revealed the reformed not the Roman sense of Scripture This being a thing don 1600. years since neither party can produce new eyes or eare witnesses pretending to an immediat knowledg of what then Christ and his Apostles preach't That immediat evidence ended with the begining of the second age and we must begin our proof with this last and proceed to examin our witnesses by a retrogradation from this present age to the first because the only proof of things which are beyond the reach of our knowledg and memory is the Tradition and testimonies of others vpon which we must rely or resolve not to believe any thing even of our-selves as our names families Countries or of this world and much less of the next Let us begin therfore with the Reformed Protestant Churches and ask them what witnesses have they in this 16. Century to prove that Christ and his Apostles were Protestants or taught their reformed sense of Scripture They will answer they have as many witnesses as ther are Protestants We demand their cause of knowledge such of them as in matters of Religion make any use of reason will not pretend that they know it by privat revelation or by their own proper interpretation of God's Law those are neither Court nor Church evidences but will answer that their Parents and Pastors tould them Christ and his Apostles were Protestants and these were tould so by others their Parents and Pastors vntill passing some few descents they come to Luther or Calvin or Cranmer c. There they must stop for Luther Calvin and Cranmer did not pretend that their Parents or Pastors testifyed to them that Protestancy was the true Religion them-selves having bin the first Inventors or Revivers therof after that it had bin by their own confessions at least 1000. years buried and their Church had bin invisible or enchanted Jt is a remarkable thing that never any ancient Heretick or modern Reformer of the Catholick doctrin could name an inmmediaâ— Preâ—â—cessor much less any Church from which he received his Religion and reformed interpretation of Scripture Optiâ—â—s that ancient Father â— 2. contra â—armeâ— says That Donatus was a son without a Father a Successor without a Predecessor filius sine Patre sequens sine Antecedenâ—e the same we may say of Luther Calvin Cranmer c. And seing ther must be a Succession of faith as well as of meâ— and that as one who can not prove his Father or family to be noble by the testimonies and tradition of others can not pretend to nobility of descent or to right of inheritance so can not Luther Calvin or Cranmer and their followers pretend to antiquity of faith or to be of the Catholick family of Christ without a legal testimony and tradition of their spiritual descent which tradition or testimony they confess to be wanting Mr. Napper in his Treatise vpon the Revelations pag. 43. The Pop's Kingdome hath had power over all Christians from the time of Pope Silvester and the Emperour Constantine for these
number of Arius his faction because the Councell's testimony was confirmed by a Tradition and by the authority of St. Silvester Bishop of Rome whose legats presided in that Assembly· In the same Century was condemned the Heresy of Macedonius against the Holy Ghost by a Councell in Constantinople confirmed by the authority of St. Damasus Bishop of Rome Photius in lib. de septem Synodis In the fifth Century was condemned the heresy of Nestorius in the Ephesin Councell wherin presided Cyrillus in the name of Pope Celestin. Evagrius lib. 1. cap. 4. And a litle after was condemned the heresy of Eutiches in the Councell of Calcedon wherin also presided the Legats of Pope Leo. Evagrius lib. 2. cap. 4. And the whole Councell petitioned to the Bishop of Rome for his confirmation of their Acts. tom 2. Concil Breviarium Liberati In the same fifth age was condemned the heresy of the Pelagians by authority of the Bishops of Rome The Pelagian heresy saith St. Austin lib. 2. Retract c. 50. with it's authors was convicted and condemned by the Roman Bishops Jnnocent and Zozimus with concurrence or at the instance of the Councells of Africk And Prosper in Chronico an 420. A Councell being holden at Carthage of 217. Bishops the Synodal Decrees were sent to Pope Zozimus which being approved the Pelagian heresy was condemned in the whole world In the sixt Century many heresies were condemned in the 5. Synod In the 7. Century and sixt Synod were condemned the Monothelits wherin presided the Pop's Legats though the Emperor was present and subscribed but after all the Bishops not as a Judge but as on who consented and submitted to their judgment In the 8. Century and 7. Synod of 350. Bishops were declared and condemned as hereticks they who opposed the worship of Jmages wherin also presided the Pop's Legats wherof Photius saith This sacred and great Councell condemned a barbarous heresy newly invented by wicked and execrable men c. For they did terme the adorable Image of Christ wherby erronious idolatry is excluded an Idol c. In the 9. Century and 8. Synod many controversies were decided and the Pop's Legats presided The Emperor was present and subscrib'd but after the Legats and Patriarchs and plainly acknowledged that the judgment of Religious Controversies apertain'd not to him and that by subscribing he only testifyed his Consent In the 10. Century we read of no heresy but of the Greeks Schism In the 11. Century Pope Leo the 9. in a Councell at Vercelli and Pope Nicolas 2. in a Councell at Rome of 113. Bishops condemned the heresy of Berengarius against the real presence and Transsubstantiation Lanfrancus lib. 1. contra Bereng This Berengarius was no great scholler as Archbishop Guido says but very ambitious and thought to acquire fame by his new opinion After twice recanting and returning to his heresy in his last sickness perceiving his end to draw neer Iohn Gerson relates these his last words My God Thou wilt this day appeare to my salvation as J hope for my repentance or to my damnation as I feare for deceiving with pervers doctrin others whom afterwards I could not reduce to the truth of thy Sacrament In the 12. Century Jnnocent the second Bishop of Rome condemned the heresy of Peter Abaylard see S. Bernard epist 194. And Pope Eugenius 3. condemned the error of Gilbert Porretanus in the Councell of Rhems see S. Bern. serm 80. in Cantica In the 13. Century Pope Innocent 3. condemned the error of Ioachim the Abbot in the Lateran Councell And afterwards Pope Gregory 10. in the Generall Councell of Lions condemned the Greeks error In the 14. Century Pope Clement 5. condemned the errors of the Begards in the Councell of Vienna In the 15. Century the errors of Iohn Hus and Iohn Whicliff were condemned in the Councell of Constance by Pope Martin 5. And the errors of the Greeks in the Councell of Florence by Pope Eugenius 4. Now what reason can Protestants give why Pius 4. Bishop of Rome and the Councell of Trent though of his calling and party might not condemn the opinion of Protestants as lawfully and legaly as his Predecessors had don in every age the like opinions of other Reformers Both condemners and condemned were Christians for hereticks must be baptised otherwise they are rather Pagans then hereticks The condemned Christians were often Patriarchs and Bishops some-times as many as the Condemners and yet neither could their Plea of Christianity or pretence of Scripture or parity in dignity or equality in number exempt them from the validity and legality of the Roman Censures vnto which if they did not submit all the Catholick world held them for obstinat hereticks Therfore we may not without contradicting both reason and authority the common sense of the Church and the general custom of Christian antiquity allow the exceptions which Protestants plead against the Pope and the Councell of his Bishops that forsooth they are but a part of the Catholick Church and therfore as party concerned incompetent Judges and witnesses in controversies of Christian Religion We have seen the weakness and ill success of the protestant design in this distinction of fundamentall and not fundamentall articles of faith and how they are rejected as hereticks by the Greeck Schismaticks and other sectaries whom they courted to be admitted as a part of their Church we have also proved the vnreasonableness of their exceptions against the testimony and censures of the Roman Bishops and Councells Now we will view the distinction it self and prove that by the protestant doctrin of fundamentalls the very foundation of Christian Religion is destroyed and nothing believed with Divine faith SECT XII God's veracity is denyed by Protestancy and by the Prelatick distinction and doctrin of fundamentall and not fundamentall articles of faith THe foundation of Christian Religion is the belief of God's veracity The belief of God's veracity consists not only in acknowledging that whatsoever God saith is true that was never denyed by any heretick and yet all hereticks deny his veracity but consists in acknowledging also that whatsoever doctrin is sufficiently proposed as spoken or revealed by God is infallibly true and that God is the Author of the same To avoyd all disputes concerning the sufficiency of the proposal of God's revelations we will condescend so far to our Protestants Adversaries as to make themselves Judges therof provided they will be so Religious and rational as to grant that to Divine Majesty ought not be denyed a prerogative which by the dictamen of reason the laws of nature and the practise of themselves and of all Nations is due and exhibited to Majesty and Magistracy and to all temporal Soveraigns Viz. To speak and declare their mind by the mouth of others their inferiour Officers and Ministers wherfore as subjects do judge it a sufficient proposal of the regal authority and confess them-selves are obliged to believe that their Soveraign speaks and commands
Church he hath fallen into the Fundamental error and foundation of Protestancy but yet with this difference that albeit he agreeth with Protestants in making cleer evidence of the revelation the ground or rule of faith and by consequence in destroying all Christian belief yet he takes a contrary way from them Protestants by reducing their evidence to very few points reject most of the articles of the Roman Catholick Church as incredible but the Author of the sure footing by amplifying and applying his evidence to every article of our faith makes them all more then credible that is self evident He and Protestants agree in the rule but differr in the application Neither of them will believe any thing but what they fancy evident but on party fancies all is evident the other fancies litle or nothing is evident Jf they vnderstand on another they may soon come to an accord and the sequell of their principle will be to take away all Christian belief for Christian belief must of necessity involue some obscurity in that Act or at least formality wherby we assent vnto the mystery believed Otherwise if the essence or nature of Christian faith were consistent with cleer evidence and with the want of all obscurity why may it not be sayd that the blessed have faith in heaven nay why may it not be sayd that the second person of the Trinity hath â—aith ab 〈◊〉 if it be sufficient for faith that on assentâ— to truth for 〈…〉 and speaking of an other though 〈◊〉 evidently 〈…〉 and sees also that the other speaks The sure footing therfore doth faile and 〈…〉 â—eason of the Author 's confounding the evidence of our obligation to belieue the articles proposed by the Church with the evidenâ—e of God's revealing them by the 〈◊〉 proposal of the Church The testimony of the Church confirmed by so many supernatural signes makes it cleerly euident to vs that we are bound to believe God revealed all the doctrin delivered as his by the tradition and testimony of the Church but the tradition or signes of the Church do not make 〈◊〉 or self 〈◊〉 that God hath de facto revealed 〈…〉 which the Church proposeth as Divine It is moraly evident that God revealed it but not Metaphysicaly evident according to Schoolmens expression This moral evidence of God's revealing what the Church proposeth induceth a clâ—â—r and evident obligation vpon the will and soul of man to adheare as vnalterably to the doctrin of the Church as if we had metaphysical or cleer evidence that God revealed the same and the motiue of our faith and of this adhesion is God's veracity because it is manifest by the very light of Nature that we ought to believe God would not permit such a miraculous and moral evidence of his own revealing or speaking the mysteries of christianity by the mouth of our Church vnless he did realy speake by the same Church For want of this doctrin and distinction many vnderstand not how a man can possibly or at least prudently adheare or assent to an object with greater assurance then he sees cleer reason for If by cleer reason for an assent of Divine faith be meant that the truth of the mystery assented vnto must of necessity be cleer to the Assenter either in it self or in it's necessaire connection with the Revelation it is a gross mystake for that the difference between an assent grounded vpon cleer evidence of the truth or of reason and an assent grounded vpon Divine authority is that the first is a cleer intellectual sight of the truth itself the second is not so but a cleer sight of our own obligation of assenting to the truth revealed or related because wee see cleer and convincing signs of the sincerity and veracity of the Author or relator Now our obligation of believing God to be the Author of the doctrin of the Church being evident to ourselves we are bound to assent to the same Doctrin according to the evidence of our obligation that is with greather assurance then appearance of the truth The evidence of our obligation to assent is a sufficient ground for our assurance of the truth assented vnto Wherfore albeit some Catholick Divines have pretended to maintain in their schoole disputations that God by the infinitness of his supernatural power may concurr to an Act of faith though the existence of the revelation itself were evident to the believer yet besides that most of them speak irresolutly and incoherently in that point they all grant that our Christian faith must always involve obscurity in it's assent and that that faith which would have evidence both of the existence of the revelation and of the revealers veracity would be an other kind of faith much differring from our Christian and Catholick Besides we ought to consider that it is one thing to dispute in schooles of what God may do and an other thing to believe in the Church what he hath don In the schooles they dispute even of impossibilities because they make it their business to exercise witt in speculations but in the Catholick Church our chief business consists in believing and practising The reason why Faith doth require a mixture of obscurity or want of cleer evidence is because to believe is to trust him whom you believe for the truth signified by his words and if you did see the truth in it self or know that it cannot be separated from the words spoken you can no more trust the speaker for the truth so connected with his words then trust him for the money you know to be contained in a purse which he delivers vnto your hands for though you do not see the money you see the purse wherin you have cleer evidence the money is contained To believe therfore is to take on 's word for the truth as you do his bond or bill for money for which you have no other security but his worth and veracity and the greater on s worth and veracity is the more you ought to rely vpon it and doubt the less of his performance and therfore if you require any greater assurance or evidence of the truth then his supposed inclination to the same or his veracity you do him a great injury and resolve not to trust or believe him Wherfore God's worth veracity or inclination to truth being infinit we ought not to exact a cleer sight of the truth it self nor of any things evidently connected therwith if we do we neither trust nor believe him his inclination therfore to truth being infinit we ought not to retain the least suspition or feare of being deceived either by himself or by the Church whervnto he gives the charge and signes of declaring and proposing his word to vs because he who is infinitly inclined to speak truth is inclined to do it not only when himself speaks but every way that truth can be spoken or by every person and Organ that may be prudently taken to speak by his
commission The Roman Church therfore being prudently taken for the Organ of God's voice it is as impossible we should be misledd by it's doctrin as it is that God should go against his infinit inclination to truth or should violat his own veracity Had God's veracity bin limited to his own personal or immediat speech and not extended to what-soever he delivers by the mouth and ministery of others and of his Church it had not bin infinit his credit would have ended with Christ's preaching to the Apostles and though they were bound to believe their Master non could be obliged to believe them But seing God's veracity is infinit and his words must continue for ever they can be as little confined to the persons or Pastors of any on certain age as infinit veracity to on particular truth or infinit excellency and goodness to any one degree of perfection Now seing that God's worth and veracity or his infinit inclination to speak truth cannot be greatet in on matter nor in on age then in an other and that according to on 's inclination to any thing must be the application of his power to effect it we must conclude that God is as much engaged by his worth and goodness and as much inclined by his veracity and as much applied by his omnipotency to speak truth by the mouth of the Church as by his own and in the least matter as much as in the greatest and in every succeeding age as in that of the Apostles and that vnless his worth wisdom veracity goodness and omnipotency faile that Church which beareth the miraculous marks of his authority and exerciseth his ministery must be infallible in proposing and declaring his will and word in all Controversies whatsoever So that they who grant the Church 〈◊〉 infallible only in fundamental articles of faith deny Godâ—â—oodness worth veracity and omnipotency and they who believe not the doctrin of the Roman Catholick Church as the word of God because forsooth they have not cleer evidence that it is the word of God do no more believe nor trust God in the other they assent vnto then he who says he believes and trusts a man whose word or writing he will not take for 100. pounds vnless he delivers to him at the same time that summe of money not only sealed but seen in a bag The reason of this last assertion is cleer because one of the differences between the word of God and the word of men is that you mistrust men for the truth though you heare their own voice and have evidence that they speak the imperfection of their nature making their speech subject to falshood and themselves to frailty therfore we may mistrust their veracity and doubt they be mistaken or deceive vs though they pretend and profess to speak nothing but truth It is not so with God whose nature being infinitly perfect and truth it self it is manifest by natural reason that he can neither be mistaken nor deceive vs by his words and by consequence if we knew evidently that him-self speaks or that the words or doctrin vttered by the Church are his we can no more mistrust or not believe him then mistrust his Deity or feare a flaw in his perfections and fraud in his proceedings So that Protestants resolving not to believe the doctrin of the Church of Rome made sufficiently credible by supernatural signes to be Divine vntill it be made cleerly evident to them that it is the word of God resolve their faith into heretical obstinacy because they resolve not to believe or trust God that evidence which they exact not being compatible with the merit trust obscurity and obsequiousness of Christian belief nor with the duty of rationall Creatures They may be compared to some Irish or Scotch Rebells refusing to obey the King's Lieu-tenant and Commissioners because for-sooth they have not clear evidence that the commissions and commands are signed by the King though they see his Majesty's hand and seale for the authority set over them which also is obeyd and acknowledged by the better sort and greater part of both Nations yet the Rebells will not submit to any Orders vnless the King leave England go in person to rule them and satisfie every particular fellow that he hath named such a Lieu-tenant or Commissioner or vnless his Majesty will immediatly by him-self exercise his royal Jurisdiction signe and seale his commissions in their sight c. Some will think there is a great disparity in the comparison for that God may without trouble or prejudice to him-self reveale his will and pleasure to every particular person which Kings can no more do then be in many places at one time Therfore what inconveniency can it be that God make evident to every particular person either by a clear signe of his presence or by an evident proof of his spirit which doctrin is Divine which not without obliging men to believe that the Roman Catholick or any other Church is infallible and can not propose falshood for God's word To this we answer that God might not only reveale his mysteries to every person but save us also without subordination to any Church or Pastors or dependency of Sacraments but all Christians agree that he hath bin pleased not to do so so that the question is not what he could have don but what he hath don But it appears by the light of reason that ther is a certain distance and decorum due to Majesty and superiority by virtue wherof God or even a Creature that is supreme in any government may command his inferiors and subjects by subordinat officers and warant these officer's authority by some outward signes and seales of his Soveraignty which signes though they may be possibly counterfeited yet oblige the People so governed to obey Ministers so qualified as submissively as if him-self had immediatly delivered his own commands Wherfore though it were possible that a King might without trouble write and deliver all his oâ—ders immediatly or without the assistance of Secretaries Ministers and Messengers yet it were not fit And why the Protestant Doctors that write of this subject should think fit that God ought to deprive him-self of a decency and decorum due even to human Majesty to humor their curiosity or to comply with their obstinacy J can not comprehended nor attribute to any other thing but to want of humility and excess of heresy the malice wherof consists in contemning God's authority and denying his veracity when sufficiently appearing in the Church and though not self evidently yet so convincingly as to make our obligation of submitting thervnto evident Jt is therfore agross absurdity to think or say that the reverence due to the Divine authority obligeth vs not to submit or not assent therunto vnless it be more then moraly evident and by consequence more them sufficiently evident vnto us that we can not be mistaken in our submission or assent For hence
charity towards Catholicks is but forc't and feigned Whatsoever is required that a Church be truly Catholick is visible in the Roman It may judge and censure all other dissenting congregations without note of partiality or illegality Protestants have no credible nor legal witnesses to testify that their doctrin is the same which Christ and his Apostles taught Roman Catholicks have If all sects of Christians were admitted to general Councells and therin Judges of themselves and of their faith greater illegality it would be and greater partiality then that only Roman Catholicks be Judges of their cause Since the Apostles time one part of the Christians judged the other and the part that judged the other was that which obeyed and stuck to the Bishops of Rome as St. Peters Successors proved in every age vntill this present SECT XII HOw Gods veracity is denyed by Protestancy as also by the prelatick doctrin of fundamental and not fundamental articles of faith The belief of Gods veracity consists not in acknowledging that whatsoever God sayd is true never any heretick denyed that and all hereticks deny Gods veracity but consists in believing that God will not color nor countenance falshood with supernatural and evident signes of truth Protestants give less credit and obedience to Gods Ministers and Orders declared by the Church though qualified with vndeniable signes of Gods truth then they do to a Constable Catchpol or any other the meanest officers of a Court or Commonwealth though their warrants or badges may be more easily counterfeited then the miracles or signes of the Roman Catholick Church They will not believe God speaks or commands by the Roman Catholick Church though it hath the supernatural signes of his trust and sheweth his great seal Miracles but they believe that the King speaks and commands by any Minister of state or inferiour Magistrat No Ministers of judicature or officers of war have so authentick marks of the Kings authority to command the subjects and to end Suits of law as the Roman Catholick Church hath of Gods authority to instruct mankind and determin controversies of faith As it is rebellion to contemn the Kings authority represented by the authentick badges therof in his Ministers so is it heresy to contemn Gods authority represented in the Roman Catholick Church by supernatural signes as miracles sanctity Conversion of nations c. Gods veracity might be lawfully questioned if it were lawfull to judge that he permits the Roman Catholick Church to err in any point of faith whatsoever Proved by a similitude of my Lord Chancelor delivering the Kings mind to the Parliament in his Majesties own hearing and presence Veracity is a vertue inclining to speak truth not only when the person speaks but when any other speaks by his commission for then the person that employes an other to speak is bound by virtue of his own veracity to endeavour to the vttermost of his power that his Minister or Messenger vtter nothing but truth and this is to be vnderstood not only in matters of great but also of small importance Protestants make their own conveniency not Gods veracity the motive of their faith and measure therby which articles are fundamental which not The most fundamental article or the foundation of faith is to believe that God can not permit his Church to err even in not fundamentals A Demonstration ad hominem against the Protestant doctrin of the Churches fallibility in not fundamentalls SECT XIII THe same further demonstrated as also that neither the Protestant faith nor that of the Sure footing in Christianity is christian belief Not the matter believed but the motive and manner of believing makes our belief Christian. Protestants and the Author of the Sure footing believe not any thing in matters of faith which they do not imagin to be evident in it self or evident to them that it is revealed They agree in making cleer or self evidence the rule of faith but vary in the application of that rule the Author of the Sure footing applies it to all or most of the Roman Catholick Tenets Protestants to few The doctrin of the Sure footing can not be excused by the opinion of some Schoolmen that say an act of faith is possible and consistent with evidence of the revelation Christian faith must have a mixture of obscurity Mr. Robert Boyles expression that faith and twilight agree in this property that a mixture of darknes is requisit to both for that with too refulgent light the one vanisheth into knowledge as the other into day is not only witty but agreable to the sense of the ancient Fathers and to Scripture Hebr. 11. To believe is to trust the person believed and take his word for the truth as you doe a mans word or bill for mony Gods worth and veracity being infinit we ought not to admit of any doubt in matters of faith our assurance of faith must not be grounded vpon evidence either of the object or of the revelation but vpon an impossibility that God should by evident signes oblige mankind to believe that he revealed the mysteries of Christianity and yet not reveale them or permit the Church to deceive us God were not omnipotent did he permit the Church to err in any matter of faith though not fundamental because according to the proportion of ones inclination to any thing is the application of his power to effect the same and Gods inclination to truth even in not fundamentalls being infinit he must be infinitly concerned and applied to preserve the Church from falshood in the least articles as well as in fundamentalls The different manner of believing God and men Wee could not believe God if it were evident to us he spoke what we assent vnto Wherin doth consist the guilt of heresy Declared by that of rebellion The absurdity of the privat spirit and of all other Protestant pretexts against the publick testimony and authority of the Roman Catholick Church SECT XIV PIety and policy mistaken in making prelatick Protestancy the legal Religion of the state and in continuing the Sanguinary and penal statuts against the Roman Catholick faith It was want of Christian piety in Q. Elizabeth to introduce the Protestant Religion but not want of human policy because she had no title to the Crown but by Protestancy The title of the Stevards is vnquestionable and therfore they need not the Support of Protestancy How dangerous and damnable a thing it is to make the temporal laws of the land the rule of faith the Protestant prelatick Religion hath no better The Principles and priviledges of Protestancy being inconsistent with Soveraignty and government every Protestant Commonwealth found it necessary to mold and moderat those principles and priviledges by human lawes according to the customs and constitutions of every Kingdom and therfore Episcopacy without which our Parliaments could not be legal was here in England continued with prelatick Protestancy though contrary to the Tenets of Protestancy and to
A TREATISE OF RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT WITH Reflexions vpon the Cause and Cure of Englands late distempers and present dangers THE ARGVMENT VVhether Protestancy be less dangerous to the soul or more advantagious to the State then the Roman Catholick Religion THE CONCLVSION That Piety and Policy are mistaken in promoting Protestancy and persecuting Popery by penal and Sanguinary statuts Permissu Superiorum An Dom M.DC.LXX TO THE MOST ILLVSTRIOVS PRINCE THE DVKE OF BVQVINGHAM c. May it please your Grace THE inconsiderat censures of half witted Critiks have canonized the custom of dedicating books to great persons at least they have so extenuated the crime that I despair not to obtain your Graces Pardon for my presumption of prefixing your name to this Treatise without your consent or knowledge But if the general custom be not a lawful excuse for my ambitious solicitation of your Graces patronage I must transfer the fault from my self the Author and lay it on the Argument of my book which is so proper for a person of your Graces high birth profound judgment and publick trust thus without violence to the work it could hardly be offerd to any other The Argument My Lord of this Book is Liberty of Conscience which is the most reasonable oâ— all liberties it is the spiritual birthright of our souls and the only human prerogative that cannot be forc't or forfeited Though our selves be slaves our thoughts are free and so much our own that none but the searcher of hearts can know them God himself doth not vse violence against our opinâ—â—ns when he commands us â—o change them he doth not compell us by rigor and penalties but convinceth us by reason and miracles My Lord Princes are called Gods in the Scripture and therfore ought to imitat divin perâ—â—â—tions How much your Grace doth excell in this perfection of being avers from compelling mens Consciences is so notorious that any man may without flattery the common vice of Epistles Dedicatory publish and print your vertues In this one of patronizing Liberty of Conscience are so many comprehended that did I vndertake to enumerat and explain them this short Epistle must have bin a vast volum It s an eminent part of Religion to propagat and persuade it by reason Its Charity to consider and commiâ—erat other mens capacitys how capricious soever 〈◊〉 prudence to proportion the laws to tender Consciences On the contrary the zeal of persecution is but a Cloaâ— of ambition for men of one persuasion to exclude all otherâ— from places of profit trust and honor wherof the Zealots would never be thought worthy if such as the penal laws exclude did conform to the Church of England And when any one doth becom a conformist none is more sorry for his Conversion then they that pretended to design and effect it by persecution because the number of Proselits doth diminish the profit and destroy the projects they had of begging Recusants fines and forfeitures Your Genious and generosity My Lord are so much above these base and destructive ways that you are becom the refuge of all persons afflicted for their Conscience To be popular vpon this score and to be the patron of so numerous and conscientious a party as it is the effect of your Wisdom and vertue so it is a just cause for your Prudent Prince to confide in your Ministery and to countenance your popularity I do acknowledge My Lord that in som districts of the Church of Rome men are punished for their Conscience or contumacy by a Court of Iustice called the Inquisition How worthy the Inquisition is of imitation I leave to the Judgment of others But this I do maintain in my book that our penal and Sanguinary statuts are much more severe and vnreasonable then the Canon law wherupon the Inquisitors Sentences are grounded 1. Because the Canons against Innovators of Religion are almost as ancient as Constantin the first Christian Emperor 2. They seemed so conscientious and convenient to all his Catholick Successors and other Soveraigns that they have incorporated into the laws of their Dominions the Canons wherby the Inquisitors are directed to punish heresies or pretended reformations of Religion and therfore the first Protestant Reformers in England durst not publish their doctrin vntill these statuts against heretiks had bin repeald by Act of Parliament 1. Edu 6.3 the Inquisitors pretend not to act by human commission against mens opinions they proceed as spiritual Pastors and the Apostles Successors and therfore endeavor to reduce the obstinat Nonconformists by producing thousands of learned and lawful witnesses to proue that the Roman faith is built vpon the very same Apostolical revelations reasons and miracles wherby the primitive Church and the Catholick world had bin converted from Paganism to Christianity But our English penal and Sanguinary statuts punish men for adhering to the ancient and authentick Religion of Christendom and for not embracing a new interpretation of Scripture for which there is no credible testimony or proof that it is the Apostolical neither is there as much as a pretence of any miracles to confirm Protestancy or that monstrous Shee-supremacy which was imposed vpon men only to make An Bullens daughter Queen of England and to exclude the right heirs and now reigning family from the Crown Notwithstanding this great disparity My Lord between the severity of the Inquisition and of our penal statuts J wish both equally excluded from this Monarchy and that no compulsion be used against Conscience but that every one be left to choos his own Religion according to his capacity it being likely that none will have a greater care of saving any mans soul then himself who is more concerned therin then any other whether Prince Parliament or Pastor That God may inspire into every soul that one faith without which none is saved ought to be the only common prayer imposed vpon us for that by this vniformity of prayer every man is left to his own Inquisition which is much more agreable to our genious then that of Spain and more likely to make us agree amongst our selves then any penal or Sanguinary statuts all which I humbly submit to your Graces Iudgment begging your Pardon for this trouble and your protection for this Treatise Your Graces most obedient and most humble servant IOHN WILSON THE PREFACE THE end which most Authors propose to themselves in writing Prefaces is to incline mâ—n to read their books but the books are now so many and of such groat busks that even the Prefaces are not perused Notwithstanding this superfluity and surfeit of books I have ventured to add this one to the number not without hopes that the Title will invite men to read the Preface and perhaps the Preface may persuade them to read the Book For Religion and Government being the two things wherin mankind is most concerned the one being the ground of everlasting happiness the other of temporal prosperity and I having vndertaken to
direct men to the best Religion wherof depends the best Government the Conscience of some and the curiosity of others will furnish me with Readers Some Raylers I must expect to have because I endeavor to demonstrat that the Crown may lawfully seise on the Church Revenues but I am content to bâ—â—â—ld at so the commonwealth be not rallied out of so necessary a support And least J should be thought too partial â—o my own Religion I desire but a tolâ—ration for it as I do for all other Christian professionâ— albeit to obtain this toleration for the Catholick I am forc't to compare it with the protestant and to prove thâ—â— no Religion is so conscientious or so convenient as the Roman The truth of this may â—â—â—ily be discerned by a Comitâ—e of the layty if publik conferences of Religion be permittâ—d in English And truly 〈…〉 Scriptures are permitted to be read and interpreted by every English lay man J seâ— not why the layty may not judge of Controversies and conferâ—â—ces of Religion and according 〈◊〉 they find the interpretations of every Congregation consistent with the word of God grant or not grant liberty of Conscience There are few who 〈…〉 often heard how pressingly aâ—â—â—ertinently som of the wisest members of Parliament have spoke for Liberty of Conscience in the late sessions how they made it appear that our decay of trade and our fall of rents wherof Merchants and Land-lords do so much complain is wholy occasioned by the severity of our laws against Recusants and nonconformists for what credit or security can Merchants or Tradesmen have in England when their stock and substance may be legaly confiscated whensoever they refuse to take an oath or frequent a Church contrary to their conscience what commerce or correspondence can we expect from beyond the Seas when he that this day is an able Banquier amongst vs to morrow must turn Bankrupt if he will not contrefait himself a Conformist The Tenants Cattle and Corn may be seised vpon and by consequence the Landlord deprived of his Revenue whensoever a ceremonious Parson or an officious Church-warden or a malicious neigbor will inform that they come not to the common Prayer or Communion so that the Nonconformists being two parts of England in a few years two parts of the Kingdom will be destroyed If our penal statuts against Non-conformists did make this Monarchy as peaceable as they make it poor perhaps som Polititians might think it advisable to continue them But seing it is impossible to govern an empoverish't multitude without a standing Army which England will hardly brook and that Religion persecuted makes Rebellion plausible all disinteressed persons may with reason admire that the Bishops themselves do not Press and pray for liberty of conscience For though they should be so short-sighted as not to foresee future inconveniencies yet they cannot be so insensible as to forget the former effects of persecutioÌ„ And they will find great difficulty in persuading even the most devoted to their own calling that the same cause will not produce in 70. the same effects we have felt since 40. If they imagin that their spiritual censures will prevail against the temporal power of a discontented multitude they must maintain contrary to late experience that God will work Miracles to support the Church of England against Presbyterian sectaries § As for the Kings restauration I confess it looks like a Miracle but why our English Bishâ—ps should attribut so great a blessing rather to Gods will of countenancing their strange caracter then to his will of continuing lawful Monarchy or of manifesting the late Kings innocency or of rewarding the constancy and of relieving the indignity of the Cavaleer party can never be vnderstood by any that knows the grounds of our Protestant Episcopacy and how it was raised by Q. Elizabeth rather to exclude the succession of the Stevards from the Crown then to establish a succession of true Bishops in the Church There is much more reason to think that his Majesties restauration was decreed by God in order to the performance of his Declaration at Bredà for liberty of conscience then in order to the non-performance of so publick and solemn a promise And albeit I cannot say that our desired peace will be so absolutly secured by liberty of conscience in England as it is in other Countries by the Tenets and vniformity of the Roman Religion yet is it manifest that persecution for promoting Prelatick Protestancy will rather increas our confusions then work our conversion not only becaus the non-conformists are the more numerous party and by consequence can hardly be forc't to obey laws against their Consceince but also becaus it is confessed by the very Prelaticks that Christians may be saved though they do not conform to the Church of England nay they must grant that such as do conform to its doctrin and disciplin may be damned for so doing becaus it is a fallible and by consequence for ought they or any one knows a fals Church That a Church believed by the members therof to be infallible and the only way of salvation doth persecute such as revolt from its faith and obedience is thought by some a rational though by me a rigorous practise but that the Church of England wherof it is a fundamental Article that the whole visible Church or all Christian Congregations and by consequence it self hath erred or may err in doctrin should persecute such as revolt from it or men of a contrary persuasion for having a stronger faith grounded vpon Christs promis of never forsaking vs and a better opinion of Gods providence and of their own Churches doctrin seems not agreable to the rules of the Ghospel nor of human prudence For whether the Protestants sectaries persuasion of their own privat spirits infallibility or the Roman Catholicks belief of their general Councells infallibility be true or fals the Church of England will never be able to persuade or prove that any Christians ought to be persecuted by penal and sanguinary statuts for not exchanging that assurance of Divine faith which themselves are persuaded they have for a bare Prelatick probability of the same faith or for a confessed possibility of being mistaken in the doctrin of salvation Seing therfore of two evils the least ought to be chosen and that if liberty of conscience be an evil it is a less one then persecution becaus it will cause less dangers and disturbances in the Nations then laws which force the Prelatick probability and vniformity It seems to be against the rules as well of piety as of policy to continue the penal and sanguinary statuts in favor of the confessedly fallible Church of England And when I plead for liberty of conscience in England for Presbyterians and Fanaticks I hope it will not be ill taken that I beg the same freedom and favor for Roman Catholicks especially if I prove as I have vndertaken that our principles are not
and reformations They began in Luthers owne days and still continue to increase and multiply having no rule of faith but an obscure text of Scripture nor no Church or Court of judging the controversies therof with an obligation to submit there-unto but every ons privat opinion which must needs breed diuision add confusion And so it happened in the very beginning to Luther For his Disciples observing that every one of them-selves might pretend to be sent by God by an extraordinary vocation as well as Luthers seing he proved not his Mission by Miracles or by any supernatural sign to reforme the Church divers of them separated from him and set up for them-selves as Zuinglius who invented the Sacramentarian Religion against Christs real presence in the Sacrament and Bernard Rotman Father of Anabaptists c. It were tedious to relate all their divisions and almost impossible We will only assure the Reader that in the space of 30. years after Luther began his Reformation it was divided and subdivided in Germany alone into 130. Sects For first his Disciples divided them-selves into four principal Reformations of plain Lutherans halfe Lutherans Antilutherans or Sacramentarians and Anabaptists These plain Lutherans into eleuen Sects and these againe into soft rigid and extravagant Lutherans the semilutherans or half Lutherans also into eleven Sects The Sacramentarians or Antilutherans into 56. and one of these into 9. The Anabaptists into 13. Sebastianus Traneus a Protestant numbreth 70. How all these have bin subdivided since we may guess at by the variety we see in England of Protestant Religions not with standing the severity of the Laws in favor of the Prelatik Not one of these Sects have subordination to another and agree only in some generall Notions of Christianity and in impugning the Roman Catholick Religion one of the marks wherby the Holy Fathers discerned Heresies Each of them pretend to be a true Church and condemn the rest as Schismatical and Heretical Congregations perpetualy quoting Scripture one against the other but understood according to every on s conveniency fancying or feigning that the Spirit of God inspires him to reform not only the Roman Doctrin but the Protestant reformations But when we call to them for their comission which must be signed by Miracles and desire to know by what authority they presume to take vpon them so high an employment they tell vs that Miracles are ceased in the Church and all ours either counterfeit or Diabolicall wrought by the Devill to confirm us in the Idolatry of the Mass Invocation of Saints c. But because our Miracles exceed the Devills power and can be wrought only by God rather then Protestants will embrace the truth by Miracles testified they teach a blasphemy saying that God doth give power of working true Miracles unto false teachers not to confirm their false and Popish opinions but to tempt those the Indians Iaponeses and Chineses unto whom they be sent By which Paradox they call in question Christianity it self for why might not God tempt the Iews and primitive Christians by Christs Miracles as well as the Indians and Iaponians by others of the same nature and as prodigious If the Indians be not bound to belieue the doctrin preach't to them though confirmed by our true miracles why should the Jews or any others be obliged in conscience to belieue Christ For if God may work true Miracles to make a falshood so plausibly credible as to oblige prudent men to belieue it no prudent man is bound to belieue the truth when it is euidently confirmed with true Miracles and by consequence none was or is bound to belieue in Christ which doctrin is impious and contrary to our Sauiours own words Ioan. 5.36 and against 2. Cor. 12. Hebr. 2.4 and Marc. 16.20 and Joan 15.24 Where our Sauiour declares that the reason why the incredulous Jews did sin in not believing his Diuinity was because he confirmed his doctrin with Miracles Jf I had not don among them the works which no other man did they had not sinned As for their authority of reforming the Roman Catholick faith they answered that they needed no other warrant but Scripture which did cleerly condemn the Popish Tenets Being desired to shew what parts or words of Scripture were Contrary to the Popish Tenets for that after comparing all places and Texts very godly and learned men could find no such opposition between Gods word and the Roman doctrin they replied that the reason why the Popish Diuins and Prelats did not see their own errors afterall their search and study was because they had not the spirit of God which had reuealed to Protestants the true meaning of holy writ though they could not deny but that their own interpretation was new and contrary to that which the visible Church of the 15. â—n age had receiued from the 14 th and the 14 th from the 13 th and so forth Therfore they all conspired in maintaining that the visible Church had erred in doctrin and that the mystery of iniquity began euen with the Apostles or immediatly after But because some parts of Scripture are so cleere against their new doctrin that they could not be wrested against the Roman Catholicks nor reach the Protestant thy framed a new Canon of Scripture and excluded as Apocryphall many Books and Chapters which spook cleerly against them and in their translations of the ould and new Testament into vulgar languages they added to and substracted from Gods word what they thought fit to make the illiterat people belieue that their new inuentions were agreable to Scripture and that Popery was quite contrary to the same And because none of the first Reformers was a Bishop and they knew Bishops only could consecrat other Bishops and Priests and that no Congregation could be esteemed a Church with out that caracter and calling according to the receiued maxim of S. Hieron Ecclesia non est quae non habet Sacerdotem Luther And the rest who pretended a Reformation judged it necessary to alter this doctrin and declare that all Christians both men and women are Priests by baptism yet that only such as are chosen by the Congregation or Magistrat ought to exercise the function for the auoyding of confusion Luther endeauors to proue it at large thus The first office of a Priest is to preach the word c. But this is common to all next is to baptyze and this also may do euen women c. The third is to consecrat bread and wyn but this also is common to all no less then Priests and this I avouch by the authority of Christ him-self saying Do this in remembrance of me this Christ spook to all there present and to come afterwards whosoever should eat of that bread and drink of that wine c. This also is wittnessed by S. Paul who 1. Cor. 11. repeating this applyeth it to all the Corinthians making them all as
for her proued incest and adultery yet his pride and wilfulness was so excessiue that rather then acknowledg his former error by a formal recantation he continued to exercise his scandalous supremacy so violently that he devised Articles of Religion made Cromwel his Vicar-general in spiritual affairs took upon him to define what was heresy what Catholick faith permitted the Scriptures to be translated by heretiks and read in English and to vexe the Pope countenanced and connived at any novelties though afterwards he burn't the novelists for heretiks and prohibited when it was too late their Translations of Scripture and other Books which he had formerly permitted But seing that notwithstanding his severity the Sacramentarian heresy which he most of all hated did increase in his Kingdom and that the spiritual sword in his lay hand did not work those effects which it had don when it was managed by the Bishops of Rome by whose sole authority all the heresies of the first 300. years were condemned and suppressed without the help of a general Councel and that the Keys which he had usurped served rather to open the doors of the English Church to all errors then shut them out and perceiving his end draw neer he began to think of a reconciliation with Rome but such a one as might sute with his humor which he termed Honour Therfore he sent his favorit Bishop Gardener to the Jmperial Diet with privat instructions to endeavour in such a manner his return to the unity and obedience of the Church through the mediation of the Catholick Princes of Germany and of the Pop's Legat that on King Henrys side it might look more like a princely condescendâ—ncy then a penitent conversion wherunto he seemed to incline at the solicitation rather of others then moved by a detestation of his own errors But God with whom none must dally nor Princes capitulat summon'd him to an account sooner then was imagined Whether he repented or despaired at his death is vncertain Some say his last words were omnia perdidimus all is lost In his last will and Testament he named 16. Tutors for his Son to govern during his minority with equall authority charging them not to bring in the Sacramentarian Religion But God permitted his will to be broken before his body was buried who had changed the last wills of so many thousands deceased and that but three days after his death for upon the 1. of February Seamor Earle of Hartford brother to Ed. 6. Mother was made Protector of the King and Kingdom by his own ambition and privat authority of his faction which prevailed amongst the 16. Executors without expecting any Parliament or consent to the Realm for so great a charge or for the change of religion which immediatly followed And because Wriothesly Earle of Southampton Lord Chancelor the Earle of Arundel and Bishop Tonstall and some others would not betray their trust and opposed the new reformation they were disgraced and displaced SVBSECT I. Of the English Religion and Reformers in King Edward VI. reign THe Earle of Hartford newly created Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of England was a man fitter to be governed then to govern his judgment was weak but himself very wilfull and so blindly resolut in commanding and executing the designs of others by whom he was guided that without perceiving it he was made the instrument of his own ruin as wel as of his brothers and of the yong King also by the chang of the ancient Religion Dudley Earle of Warwick was his director both in Church and state affairs and yet was his greatest enemy which Somerset had not the wit to see though all the world knew him to be his Competitor And albeit Dudly had bin always a Roman Catholick in his judgment yet as most Polititians do he dissembled his belief and yet â—oothed the Protector in his inclination to the protestant reformation not doubting but that having once intoxicated the people with the liberty and inconstancy therof he might lead them from the contempt of spiritual authority to rebel against the temporal and humor so well their mad zeale that for their new Ghospel's preservation and propagation they would fix vpon him for their Director and stick to whom he would appoint for their Soveraign He was not deceived in his expectation the Protector Seamour was destroyed Dudly himself made chief Minister of England the King poysoned the Princess Mary excluded the Lady Jane Gray declared Queen because she was a Protestant and marryed to Dudlys Son All which things he compased in a short tyme though by degrees as you shall hear No sooner was K. Henry 8. dead but Dudly Earle of Warwick advised Somerset to take vpon him the Protectorship and to make him odious by his privat authority to alter the publick profession of faith and because he knew so notorious a fraud could not be effected without force he devised with the Protector the journy of Musselborough field and the war of Scotland vnder pretence of gaining by force the yong Queene of Scots to marry K. Edward 6. but in reality to get the power of the Militia into his own hands and therby to settle in England a Religion wherby he might in due tyme vpon the score of a refin'd reformation vnsettle the government and alter K. Henry 8. Testament and persuade England that his Daughter Marys reign would eclipse the light of the ghospel which then began to shine After that he had made the Protector so odious that none could endure to hear his name or to live vnder his government he thought it a proper tyme to establish by Parliament that new profession of faith which he knew could not be effected without the consent and concurrence of that great Assembly And though he was not ignorant of the absurdities contained in the best of the new reformations yet because since the setlement of the spiritual headship of our Kings he perceived the common people might be led any way and that an Act of Parliament was held sufficient to make them believe the ancient Christian Religion was profane and that any protestant reformation was the primitive and Apostolick faith he wrought so much by the feare of the army and the Kings authority that albeit in the first Parliament and year of Edward 6. reign nothing more could be obtained in favour of Protestancy but an indemnity for the preachers therof from penalties enacted by the ancient laws against married Priests and Heriticks and a repeal of the English Statuts confirming the Imperial Edicts against heresies yet in the second year and Parliament of Edward the VI. It was carried though by few votes and after a long debate of aboue four months that the Zuinglian or Sacramentarian reformation should be the Religion of England The charge of framing Articles of this Religion as also of composing the Liturgy and a book of rits ceremonies and administration of Sacraments had bin commited to
doctrin and therfore resolved to accomodat the doctrin of the Church of England to his humour Hooper and Rogers agreed vpon an ecclesiastical Government inconsistent with Monarchy which was that over every 10. Churches or Parishes in England there should be a learned Superintendent appointed who should have faithful readers vnder him and that all Popish Priests should clean be put out And to draw all publick matters of state and Religion to them-selves they composed a Treatise to prove That it is lawful for any privat man to reason and writ against a wicked Act of Parliament and vngodly Councel c. see Fox pag. 1357. col 1. num 72. And Hoopers prophecy against the Prelatick protestants for not conforming them-selves to his Puritan and Presbiterian disciplin pag 1356. And of his contention with Cranmer and other Prelatick protestants about the oath of Supremacy c. Fox pag. 1366. Both Cranmer and Ridly made apear to the Protector and Councel that Hoopers Presbiterian disciplin was not consistent with the Constitution of Parliaments and the refusal of the oath of Supremacy to be of dangerous consequence in a tyme that Deuenshir Northfolk and many other Shires had taken arms in defence of the Roman Catholick faith It was further considered that so sudain a change from on extreme to an other in matters of religion as it would have bin from ceremonious Popery to plain Preâ—bitery was against the rules of policy therfore seing the people had bin so long accustomed to the Mass and to Ecclesiastical ceremonies it was judg'd expedient to make the vulgar sort believe the chang was not of Religion but of language that the common prayr was the Mass in English that the substance of the Catholick faith was retained in the Prelatick caps copes and surplises and what alteration there seem'd to be was but of things indifferent or petty circumstances and had bin resolved vpon by the King and Parliament more to preserve vniformity then to promote novelty as may be seen by any that wil observe the words of the statuts confirming the common prayr book administration rits ad ceremonies of the Sacrament 2. Ed. 6.1 and the Councels letter to the Bishops recited by Fox pag. 1184. col 1. Whereof long tyme there had bin in this Realm of England divers forms of common prayer And where the Kings Majesty hath hereto fore divers tyms assayed to stay innovations or new rits To the intent that an vniform quiet and godly order should be had concerning the premises hath appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury should draw and make one convenient and meet order of common Prayer and administration of Sacraments to be vsed in England Wales c. The which at this tyme by the ayde of the holy Ghost with vniform agreement is of them concluded c. in the Statut. But in very deed the whole substance of Catholick Religion was changed and nothing retained but so much therof as seemed necessary to keep the name of Christians and had not bin rejected by most of the ancient condemned hereticks as shal appeare by our obseruations vpon the 39. ensuing articles of Religion of the Church of England SECT V. Of the 39. Articles of the Church of England WHosoever considerâ—â— these 39. Articles of Religion composed by Cranmer and his Divines may easily perceive their drift was rather to humour factions at home and dissenting Protestants abroad to countenance sensuality and grant a liberty of not believing the particulars of Christianity then to instruct men in the doctrin of Christ or to prescribe any certain rule of Faith For their method is to word so the matter of the Articles that where Protestants disagree among themselves every one of the dissenting parties may apply the Text to his own sense In so much that the Presbiterians except not against the doctrins themsel-ves rightly explained that is according to their explanation but against the wording and expressions therof which say they are ambiguous and capable of more senses then one and so may be and are wrested to patronise errors In the mistery of the real presence they speak clearly against it because it was resolved in Parliament That England should be Zuinglian in that point against the Catholick faith of Transsubstantiation Wherfore after Cranmer and the other his Contemporisers had set down in five of their six first Articles the belief of the Trinity Incarnation Passion and Resurrection wherof no Protestants then doubted they dare not declare themselves in the third wheein they speak of Christ descent into Hell whether it was to that of the damned or to a third place for that if they denyed the first they would have offended Calvin Jf they denyed the last they were sure to disoblige some Lutherans that admitted of Lymbus or a third place In the sixt Article they free all men from an obligation of believing any thing that is not read in Scripture or proved therby and make it their ownly rule of faith and themselves the Judges therof wherin they agree with the ancient Hereticks Arians Donatists Eunomians Nestorians c. But for that some Protestant doctrins are expresly reproved by many Parts of Scripture they make those parts Apocrypha because forsooth they were doubted of by some Churches in the primitive tymes And truly if a man will reflect vpon these words of thâ—ir sixt Article We do vnderstand those Canonical Books of the ould and new Testament of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church he may cleerly see that they believe many parts of the new Testament not to be Canonical Scripture because many parts therof have bin doubted of in the Church before the Canon was determined See after part 2. In the 7. they only declare that Christians are not bound to observe the ceremonial but only the moral law of Moyses In the 8. they tel vs of foure Creeds wherof S. Athanasius his symbol is one are to be believed because they may be proved by Scripture and yet S. Athanasius himself declared in â—he Councel of Nice that the doctrin of his Symbol that is the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation could not be proved by Scripture alone or without Tradition In the 9. and 10. Article they follow the heretick Proclus the Messalians Zuinglius Luther and Calvins doctrin concerning Original sin In the 11. Article they teach with some of the Pseudo-Apostles with Eunomius and with the same Zuinglius Luther and Calvin that men are justified by faith alone See herafter of the justification by only faith how inconsistent with any solicitude or care for good works And in the 12. would faine but in vaine free themselves and their Doctrin from the aspersion of neglecting good works though they maintain them not to be necessary for justification In the 13. Article they say all virtuous moral actions of men â—hat are not in grace have the nature of sin And in the 14. they follow Eunomius Vigilantius
holy Doctor and then approv'd of by all the world and ever since accepted and applauded in God's Church be defective or deceitfull then a translation made since the pretended Reformaâ—ion by men not only engaged in that new doctrin but maintain'd therby and so addicted to the pleasures and profits of this world as the first Reformers and their Successours the Protestant Clergy are known to be not only in England but in all other parts of Christendom Let them be pleased also to consider whether the judgment of the Roman Catholick Clergy in these Kingdoms who in being of that judgment can have no motive but conscience as is manifest by the incapacities and penalties lay'd vpon them for not conforming to Protestancy be not a more impartial and less to be suspected rule for any prudent person to follow then the judgment of the Protestant Clergy rewarded and promoted to the greatest employments both in Church and state for being of that opinion they profess and who would forfeit all their being if they declared them-selves contrary to Protestancy This being as maturely and impartially considered as the importance of the matter doth require non will believe that the vulgar Translations made by Protestants is holy Scripture they being so contrary to our vulgata in latin translated out of the true Greeck and Hebrew copies writen first by a holy Martyr and after revewed by a St. whose sincerity and learning were sufficient to canonize his Translation had it not bin the word of God and most holy of it self and so declared by the testimony and approbation of the Church for the space of 1200. years before the Councel of Trent In vain therfore do Protestant Writers tell us that theiâ— Translations are taken immediatly from the fountains of the Greek and Hebrew so is our vulgata only with this difference that ours was taken from the fountains when they were cleere and by holy and learned men that knew which were the crystal waters and true copies but theirs is taken from fountains of trouble'd waters by lewd and vicious persons and after that the Arians and other Hereticks had poyson'd and corrupted them with their false and filthy doctrin Thus much against the Protestant letter of Scripture now to their sense of Scripture SECT V. The Protestant interpretation is not the true sense of Scripture THE principal part and as it were the soule of Scripture is the sence which was delivered to the Church togeather with the letter For as St. Hierom in ep ad Galat. sayth the Ghospel is not in the word but in the sence not in the bark but in the sapp not in the leaves of the words but in the root of the meaning So that though we should grant the Protestant Translations to be true yet if we prove their interpretation false we demonstrat they have no Scripture nor the least pretext or colour for their Reformations And first that the Church received togeather with the letter the true sense of Scripture is as evident as it is that God would not speak words without sense or leave the interpretation of them to men whose capacities reach not the mysteries of Religion contained in the words Therfore our learned Adversaries are obliged to confess that no man doubteth but that the primitive Church received from the Apostles and Apostolical men not only the text of Scripture but also the right and native sense therof The dispute therfore between Catholicks and Protestants is not whether the Church ever received the true sense of Scriptures but whether that sense continued as well as the letter in the Church and whether the interpretations of Luther Calvin Cranmer Hamond c. or of the Prelaticks of England ought to be preferr'd before that of the Roman Catholick Church because the true sense of Scripture is supposed by all Protestants to have bin lost for many ages and that the whole visible Church of God was either so careless as to forget the ancient sense or so wicked as to forge a new sense of Scripture And first it seems against reason to believe that any Christian Congregation could be less carefull of the sense of Scripture then of the letter because the sense is that which importeth most for preservation of the faith Therfore if the Prelats and Pastors of the Church have bin so watchfull and diligent in all ages as to find out and correct all heretical corruptions of the letter of Scripture how is it possible they would neglect the same industry for preservation of the sense which is the principal part of God's word And if Protestants think the letter was safe in the custody of the Roman Chatholick Church from which they received it how can they suspect the purity of that sense which was kept and delivered to them by the same Church and authority And if God's providence as they confess was engaged in keeping the leaves and letter of Scripture from corruption surely it could not be so vnconcern'd for the integrity of the sence and substance as to permit it to perish Besides it is much easier to keep the sense of Scripture incorrupt and pure then the letter The letter was writ only in paper or parchment the sense in the heads and hearts of the Bishops Doctors and People of the Church a dash of a pen may alter the letter but cannot have access to the sence which lodgeth in the hearts and heads of the faithfull The precept of receiving the sense of Scripture from the Church is not only agreable to reason but prescrib'd in Scripture as the only way of saluation Go not from the doctrin of the elders for they have learned it from their Fathers and of them thou shalt learn vnderstanding and to answer in the time of need Eccles. 8.8 The first Protestant Reformers observed not this they went to no precedent Church nor Fathers for their interpretation of Scripture and therfore the words of Ieremy 18.15 may be literally applyed to them They have stumbled from the ancient ways to walk in ways not troden The Protestant Clergy ought to say and confess ingeniously that of holy Iob 8.8 Jnquire therfore I pray thee of the ancient generation and prepare thy self to search of their Fathers for we are but yesterday and ought not intrude their own Imaginations as the true explanation of God's word They do not imitat St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil who as Eusebius relates Hist. l. 11. cap. 9. did seek the vnderstanding of the Scriptures not from their own presumption but from the writings and authority of their Ancestors They do not follow the rule of Origen saying tract in Math. 29. That in our vnderstanding of the Scripture we must not dâ—part from the first Ecclesiasticall tradition nor believe other-wise but as the Church of God hath by succession delivered to us Nor that of Tertulian l. 1. de prescrip c. 6. What the Apostles preach'd what Christ reveal'd to them ought not be otherwise proved
diximus tali lege vt quae hic damus anno aetatis nostrae quadragesimo secundo propendeant eis quae quadragesimo dederamus quando ut diximus tempori potius scripsimus quam rei sic jubente Domino vt tali ratione aedificemus ne inter initia Canes Porci nos rumpant He had no great opinion of the Apostles writings as is proved by his altering the very Text of Scripture contrary to all copies both Greek and Latin and by his saying that S. Paul did not attribut so much to his own Epistles as to think that all therin contained was sacred for that were to impute immoderat arrogancy to the Apostle tom 2. Elench contra Catabaptistas fol. 10. And because the other Cantons of the Suitzers would not accept of this Reformation he sticking to the principles therof endeavored by force of arms to bring them vnder subjection and to his own Ghospel and in this attempt Zuinglius was killed sealing with his bloud what he had writ tom 1. in explanat art 42. fol. 84. that Kings and Magistrats may be deposed when they resist the Ghospel that is any privat Protestant interpretation of Scripture As for the Reformers of the Protestant Church of England they were King Henry 8. Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury Peter Martyr Hooper Rogers Ridley Bucer Okin The Revivers were Jewel Parker Horn c. of whose lives and conversations we have sayd somthing and enough to prove they were not fit men to reform christian Religion their doctrin they borrowed from Luther and Zwinglius the supremacy only excepted which King Henry 8. invented and therfore Bishop Iewel the chief maintainer both of the Protestant doctrin and Prelatick caracter of the Church of England in his defence of the Apology edit 1571. pag. 426. as also in the Apology part 4. c. 4. thought it necessary for the credit of the 39. Articles of the English Religion which had bin compiled out of Luther and Zwinglius writings to commend those two Pillars of Protestancy as most excellent men even sent by God to give light to the whole world in the midst of darkness when the truth was vnknown and vnheard of As for B. p Iewel him-self we remit the reader to Doctor Hardings Confutation of the Apology wherin he may cleerly discern the false lustre of this counterfeit Jewel and the value which men ought to set vpon this pretious stone layd for a foundation of the Prelatick Church and vpon the rotten stuff which he and his Successours have sould for Divine truth to English Protestants ever since he vndertook to maintaine their cause for as Doctor Heylin ingeniously acknowledgeth in his Ecclesia restaurata all the learned English Protestant Writers have borrowed from B. p Jewel what they have sayd in defense of the Protestant Religion and that is one reason why their works are so full of manifest vntruths and them-selves so frequently convicted of gross mistakes they rely too much vpon this reviver of their faith or at least would make the world believe that he may be relyed vpon in matters of faith But because Doctor Heylin makes it his busines to persuade the world that Ievel then did make good the caracter and ordinary vocation of the Church of England against Harding and that Doctor Bramhall late Protestant Primat of Ireland triumph'd over the supposed Jesuits who renewed Harding's quarrel I judged it necessary to cleer both these mistaks in few words As for Bishop Iewel we have sayd in the 1. part sect 7. of this Treatise how easily he might have stop't Harding's mouth by only naming the Bishop who consecrated Parker and his Camerades for Harding vsed no other Argument against the nullity of the English Protestant Clergy but this A Bishop must be ordained by an other Bishop but Parker and his Camerades were not ordained Bishops by any other Bishop Ergo. His proof that they were not ordain'd by any Bishop was this name the Bishop that ordained them name the place where they were consecrated This was a demand soon satisfied if ever Parker or his fellows had bin ordained Bishops especially with so much ceremony and solemnity as the new records of Lambeth report that matter Yet Jewel could never name Parker's and the first Protestant Bishops Consecrators he named indeed Parker for his own Consecrator but being press'd by Harding to name Parkers insteed of answering Harding's question whervpon depended the whole controversy the credit of his Clergy and the satisfaction of the Reader he maks an impertinent digression and long discours of the obligation which some pretended to have bin in ancient times of consulting the Bishop of Rome before they proceeded to the election and consecration of Bishops but never returned to the point of naming the first Protestant Bishop's Consecrator whom he would have named to Harding if ever they had bin consecrated And this is one part of the great victory which Doctor Heylin so much brags of The other part concerns Bramhall and the supposed Iesuits The true relation wherof is as followeth After that his Majesty and the Royal Family had bin driven out of England and France by the late vsurped powers and all Christian Princes thought it their conveniency to court the Rebells and not entertain in their Dominions the Person of our King much less embrace his quarrell it happen'd on day at Bruges that Doctor Crouder Chaplain to his Royal Highness the Duke of York in his Master's Chamber and presence without any provocation or occasion given by any of the Roman profession vtter'd very intemperat words against Doctor Goff Almoner to the Queen Mother for having taken orders in the Church of Rome after that he had received them in the Church of England To which a Catholick Gentleman answered he had don no more then what all other Protestant Ministers who became Roman Priests had continually practised and as he believed vpon good grounds Whervpon the Doctor notwithstanding the King was come to his Brother's chamber reassum'd his Argument and continued to dispute with such vehemency that being caled to read morning prayers he mistook the time of the day and in the morning read evening prayers to the congregation The cause of his mistake being known and many believing that his excess of choler argu'd a weakness in his cause Doctor Bramhall late Primat of Ireland Writ a Treatise in vindication of the English Clergys caracter which is the book so much applauded by the Prelaticks and by Doctor Heylin as vnanswerable wheras it was sudainly and so substantially answered that Primat Bramhall never durst reply notwithstanding the general concern of his Clergy and his own particular engagement and the Church of England perceiving the evidence of our arguments against the validity of their forms of ordination thought their best answer was to confess the force of our reasons and correct the errors of their Bishops by changing the forms they had composed of Priesthood and Episcopacy
Protestancy an infallible mark of a false Church and of Hereticks whose endeavor saith Tertullian Is not to convert Pagans but to pervert Christians Negotium est illis Haereticis non Ethnicos convertendi sed nostros evertendi Their success in that particular is no argument that God approves of their Religion but is only a sign of our human frailty and perverse inclinations to vice and liberty And they who say that the Protestant Reformation needs no other miracle to prove that it is Divine but it's propagations mistake and misapply the argument the miracle consists not in that many embraâ—â— Protestancy but rather in that any at all reject or forsake a Religion so favorable to sensuality of liâ—â— and singularity of judgment Is it not an argument and a miracle of God's special and super-natural grace that any one temporal Catholick Soveraign reject so absolut and advantagious a jurisdiction over these Subjects as the spiritual supremacy That Bishops preferr the Catholick subordination to the Pope before the Protestant equality That Catholick Priests contemn the conveniences and coâ—â—â—nt which Protestant Ministers find in a married life 〈◊〉 â—hat the Catholick laytâ— change not their wives or husbands according to the principles and practises 〈◊〉 Protesâ—â—â—cy and not only contradict their senses in the 〈…〉 Transubstantiation but dis-own the Protestant pretended right of every privat person to judg according to his own sense of 〈…〉 all controversies of Christian Religion A Reformation so indulgent and obliging to every man and woman of what â—â—ate and condition soever could as litle want Proselies as the 〈◊〉 neither is the multitude of believers more a miracle 〈…〉 Pâ—â—â—estant then in the Mahometan or any other popular 〈◊〉 pleasing Religion SECT VIII Protestants mistaken in the consistency of their justifying faith with justice or civil Government Demonstrated in the new setlement of Irland and in the persecution against Catholicks in England and yet the King and his government vindicated from the note of Tyrany or the breach of publick faith because his Ministers are compell'd by a necessity of state to run with the spirit and principles of Protestancy Notwithstanding all which the Irish and English Roman Catholicks are bound in conscience not to attempt the recovery of their right or Religion by arms but rather to submit them-selves to his Majesty and suffer their crosses with Christian patience All Protestants agree in the doctrin of Iustification by only faith but seem to differ in that of good works And though all necessity of good works be in very deed excluded by the pretended sufficiency and efficacy of the Protestant justifying faith for in what need can a man stand of good works if he be sure of his justification and by consequence of his salvation by only faith But the scandal of the world at their dispensing with the observation of the ten Commandments as things not required by Christians and cleerly inferred from their Iustification by only faith was so general that they disguised but never disown'd the doctrin and do yet stick to their principle though they dare not openly allow the consequences They speak so sparingly in favour of good and gracious works that no one Protestant Church will attribute to them any merit congruity or influence vpon either justification or salvation In so much that our Prelaticks who are more modâ—â—at then any other Protestants in this particular will not grant that good works are commanded by God as if they were depending of our liberty or relating to our endeavors but only are commanded as vnavoydable effects flowing necessarily from a Protestant and justifying faith as heat from fire or fruit from the tree The Prelatick Church of England in the 11. Article of it's Religion saith We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ by faith and not for our own works or deservings Wherfore that we are justified by faith only is a most wholsom doctrin and very full of comfort And in the 12. Article declares All beit that good works which are the fruits of faith and follow after justification can not put away our sins and endure the severity of God's Judgment yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith in so much that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit This explanation concerning the necessity of good works makâ— men as carless of them as if they had bin impossible or not at all requisit Because we are not solicitous of what we are sure of he who is well clad and sits by a good fire fears not to be starv'd with could neither doth he think it necessary to vse any other exercise or diligence for keeping him-self warm If therfore good works do spring out as necessarily of a true and lively faith as heat from fire or fruit from the tree any Protestant that supposeth him-self hath that faith needs not be solicitous of good works they will spring as a necessary consequent from his faith But because experience doth shew that the Protestant who pretends to a justifying faith hath not always good works and many who are not Protestants exercise moral virtues it is further declared by the Church of England in the 13. Article for the comfort of Protestants and confusion of Papists That even the best moral works and virtues when they spring not of faith in JESUS Christ are no way pleasing to God but rather have the nature of sin Hence it is our English as well as other Protestants hould expressly with Luther That good works take their goodness of the worker and that no work is disallowed of God vnless the Author be dis-allowed before that sin is not hurtfull to him that actually believeth and therfore when the faithfull do sin they diminish not the glory of God all the danger of sin being the evell example to our neighbour That David when he committed adultery was and remained the Child of God that sin is pardoned as soon as committed the believing Protestant having received forgivness of all his sins past and to come And that there is no work better then other to make water to wash dishes to be a Sower or an Apostle all is one to please God That he who doth once truly believe cannot afterwards fall from the grace of God or loose his faith by any sins and therfore faith is either perpetual or no faith What a wide gap is opened by this wicked doctrin to all kind of vice libertinism and rebellion is more visible in it self then considered by well meaning Protestants who may tax the most dissolut of their brethren with being evill Christistians but must withall confess them to be good Protestants as not violating the principles of their Religion by which they are encouraged to justify the most wicked actions by
vs as sacred Thus much have I thought good to remember that Volanus may receive answer from himself when he so often inforceth against vs the authority of learned men and the consent of the Church c. And truly Socinus doth defend his error concerning Christ with as many and as cleer texts of Scripture not vnderstood in the sense of the Roman Catholick Church as any point of Protestancy is maintained by other Protestants The Puritans now called Presbiterians vse the same way of arguing against the Prelatiks and with no less success then socinus against Volanus as may be seen in Cartwright in his second reply against episcopacy p. 1. pag. 484. And that it may appear saith he how justly we call this Canon of the Councell the first generall of Nice in the Canon touching the Metropolitan which the Prelatiks vrged in favor of Episcopacy vnto the tuch stone of the word of God let it be considered c. In the same Councell appeareth that to those chosen of the ministery vnmarried it was not lawfull to take any wife afterwards c. Paphnutius sheweth that not only this was before that Councell but was an ancient Tradition of the Church in which both him-felf and the whole Councell rested c. If the ancient Tradition of the Church can not authorise this neither can ancient custome authorise the other The Prelatick Clergy would fain hould Episcopacy by virtue of Tradition and of the authority of the Nicen Councell and yet would have Priests marry contrary to the same tradition and authority In like manner as the same Mr. Cartwright well observeth ibid. pag. 582. the Bishops of the Church of England would needs have the Nicen Councell be of sufficient authority to maintain Arch-Bishops but not the Pope wheras the on is as cleerly expressed as the other and no less necessary for the government of the Church If saith he an Arch-Bishop be necessary for calling a Provincial Councell when the Bishops are divided it is necessary there be also a Pope which may call a generall Councell when division is among the Arch-Bishops for when the Churches of one Province be divided from other as you ask me so I ask you who shall assemble them togeather who shall admonish them of their duties when they are assembled If you can find a way how this may be don without a Pope the way is also found wherby the Church is disburdned of the Archbishop When Prelaticks dispute with Presbiterians about Episcopacy and ceremonies c. they extoll the four first general Councells but when they dispute with Roman Catholicks about the vnmarried life of Priests the Pop's supremacy or any other point of Popery then they extenuate the authority of the same Councells and will admitt of no other rule of faith but Scripture So that a Prelatick Protestant against Presbiterians is a Papist and against Papists is a Presbiterian what he is or would be if both did argue against him at the same time is not well known to me nor as I suppose to him-self but if he admits of the two main pillars wherby protestancy is supported which are the pretended fall and fallibility of the visible Church and the arbitrary interpretation of Scripture he may be any thing he pleases and to speak more modestly of him then Modestinus of Calvinists he is in a faire way to be a baptised Iew Mahometan or Arian and can not miss that way if he will be guided by the Protestant principles and follow the track of the most learned of the reformation Both Luther and Calvin dislik't the word Trinity on sayd it sounded couldly the other barbarously and Luther by omitting in his Translation of the new Testament this Text of Scripture There-be three which give witness in heaven the Father the word and the holy Ghost and these three be one sheweth how little inclined he was to believe that sacred Mystery and by saying that his soule hated Homusion and that the Arians did very well to reject that new and profane word from the rules of faith he declareth how his Protestant rule and reformation doth direct men to heresy and to all kind of infidelity for there is not a more refined heresy then Scripture mis-interpreted and mis-applyed and Scripture may be as easily mis-interpreted and mis applyed against the Trinity or the second Person 's equality and consubstantiality as applied to any on point of Protestancy The Anti-Trinitarians of Poland Transilvania and Hungary think themselves as good Calvinists as any French Hugonots and better Protestants then English Prelaticks or German Lutherans because they not only agree with all reformed Churches in the Fundamentalls of Protestancy that is in supposing the Apostacy of the Catholick Church and in reforming it by privat authority and their own interpretation of Scripture but go a step further in the Reformation by denying the Trinity By the principles of Protestancy and the practise of the first Protestant Reformers it is left to the choyce and discretion of every particular Church and person what articles of Popery are fitt to be rejected by their privat interpretation of Scripture and indeed it is impossible for men not tyed to any rule but to their own fancies of Scripture to agree in the points of Popery what to reject or retain They who confine with the Turk's Dominions venture to deny the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ and laugh at their brethrens arguments against their impiety as deduced only from Tradition Councells and Fathers and call them old Roman raggs long since torn in pieces by the Protestants them-selves in other points of Protestancy c. Hi sunt vetusti panni quos vos laceratis in aliis fidei articulis c. lacerata jamdudum calceamenta Nullus Nemo H. 9. They are say they patcht showes worn out long agon but heer in England France c. where no neighboring Nations deny the Trinity or Incarnation Protestants make those Misteries fundamental articles of faith but in Transilvania and Hungary The principles of Protestancy are not kept in such awe as heer they make bold there to apply Scripture against any mysteries of Christianity Wherfore we must not admire that they as Mr. Hooker tells vs Eccles. Polâ—â— l. 4. pag. 183. Of the reformed Churches of Poland think the very belief of the Trinity to be a part of Anti-Christian corruption and that the Pop's triple Crown is a sensible mark wherby the world might know him to be that misticall Beast spoken of in the Revelation in no respect so much as in his doctrin of the Trinity Nor when they say that St. Athanasius his Symbol is the Symbol of Sathan and brag that Luther did scarce vntile the Babilonian Jower of Rome but that they do vtterly demolish it and dig vp its very foundation By which words they give cleerly to vnderstand that the Protestants of Germany England Denmark c. are but superficial Protestants
and are as yet far short of that substantial and fundamental Reformation whervnto the principles of Protestancy and the Protestant rule of faith or an arbitrary interpretation of Scripture doth direct and incline all Churches of the Reformation As for our English Presbiterians and Fanaticks they agree with the Polonian Hungarian and Transilvanian protestant Arrians and Anti-Trinitarians in believing the Protestant Reformations can not be pious and perfect so long as they retain any on point of Popery and indeed there is as much reason and ground in Scripture to reject all as any on and the Protestant principles warant the deniall of the Trinity and Incarnation as well as of the Mass and Transubstantiation The prelaticks perceive this to be true and therfore in the 39. Articles to avoyd scandal and discredit profess the belief of many mysteries that according to the very foundation of their Reformation they ought to deny and though they seem not to be guilty of impiety in their resolution of retaining some yet are they convicted of incoherency in not rejecting all as we shall now manifestly prove SECT XI How the indifferency or rather inclination of Protestancy to all kind of infidelity is further demonstrated by the Prelatick doctrin and distinction of fundamental and not fundamental articles of faith The design of their fundamental distinction layd open The Roman Catholick the sole Catholick Church and how it hath the authority of iudging all controversies of Religion VNity of doctrin being a confessed mark of the true Church which is called One in relation to one and the same faith and Protestants perceiving they want this vnity and the means to bring them to it every particular Church and person challenging a right to interpret Scripture after his own manner as well as Luther and Calvin c. who could not assume to them-selves that liberty without granting it to others and that not only their sundry Churches and confessions differ extreamly in doctrin but even the members of one and the same Congregation agree not among them-selves in the explanation of their Articles nor in the Authority of their Church to command and determin what articles ought to be believed this I say considered by Protestants some of their chief writers and particularly the English Prelaticks have invented a distinction wherby they hope to foole their flocks and make them believe that there is not only an vnity but an vniversality of faith amongst all dissenting Protestants and by consequence that they are true Catholicks They divide therfore the articles of Christian Religion into fundamentall and not fundamentall Fundamentall they call those wherin all Christians do agree not fundamentall they make every article wherof them-selves or any other Christians doubt how ever so fundamentall it may be held by the rest By which doctrin they make Arians Nâ—â—torians and all ancient Hereticks good Catholicks and their errors not fundamentall or destructive to salvation because forsooth they are Christians though deny the consubstantiality of Christ. This is no wrested consequence of ours but their own confessed Tenet The great prelatick writer Doctor Morton late Bishop of Duresme in his approved and applauded book of the Kingdom of Jsrael and of the Church dedicated to Queen Elizabeth pag. 94 sayth The Churches of Arians are to be accounted the Church of God because they do hould the foundation of the Ghospell which is faith in JESUS Christ the son of God and Saviour of the world And pag. 91. He giveth this general rule Whersoever a company of men do joyntly and publickly by worshipping the true God in Christ profess the substance of Christian Religion which is faith in JESUS Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the world ther is a true Church notwithstanding any corruption what soever c. Thus they plead for the Arrians declaring in their favour that consubstantiality of the son or his being the natural son of God is not the substance of Christian belief A man would think that the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament is a substantial point of faith seing ther of dependeth the reality of our Sacrifice the feeding or famishing of our soules and the verifying or falsifying of Christ's plain and express words and yet Bishop Iewel the greatest piller of the Church of England in his Apology for the same pag. 101. edit 1600. obâ—erving that Protestants were divided in the belief of that mystery tells vs it is but a matter of indifferency The Lutherans and Zuinglians saith he are both sides Christians good friends and Brethren they vary not between them-selves vpon the principles and foundations of our Religions c. But vpon one only question the real presence neither weighty nor great Doctor Reynolds in his 5. Conclusion annexed to his conference pag 722. affirmeth the real presence to be but as it were the grudging of a litle ague if otherwise the party hould the Christian faith And all Protestants conspire in this heretical shift because their change and choyce of articles of faith can not be maintained by any other way but by denying that therby they touch the foundation of Christian Religion So Luther defended his Consubstantiation as may be seen in Amandus Polanus in his Synop. pag. 446. And Iacobus Acontius lib. 3. Stratagematum Sathanae pag. 135. saith It 's evident concerning as well those who hould the real presence of Christ's Body in the bread as those others which deny it that although of necessity one part do err yet both are in way of saluation if in other things they be obedient to God Jn this Protestant distinction we must distinguish two things 1. The design 2. The doctrin wherupon Protestants ground their design In this Section J will discover the design and declare the weakness therof In the next I will demonstrat the falshood of the doctrin wherby they intended to carry on their design Protestants proceed in this affair as weak Ministers of state when they find by experience they have bin mistaken in taking their measures and in the management of publick concerns they would fain be reconciled and make strict leagues with such Potentats as formerly they had disobliged and them-selves now stand in need of their friendship and fancy they can effect all by inculcating vnto them general notions of a common danger grounded vpon the power and pride of some neighbouring and emulous Prince So Prelaticks reflecting vpon the weackness of their cause occasion'd through the dissentions of the Reformed Religions and vpon the incoherency of their own 39. Articles with the foundation and liberty of Protestancy would fain by a generall notion of Christianity vnite all heretical Churches to them-selves against the Roman Catholicks pretended pride and power In which proceedings they commit two great indiscretions 1. They do not consider how they have disobliged the Greek and most of the Eastern Churches by declaring in their 39. Articles the doctrin of the Holy Ghost's procession from the Father and
when certain officers known by the vsual marks and badges of their Master's Soveraignty and their own military or civil charges propose his orders either by proclamation letters patents or otherwise so Protestants will acknowledg that all Christians are bound to believe it i◠a sufficient proposal of the 〈◊〉 existence of Divine Revelation and that God speaks or commands whensoever his mind is declared to them by that Church and Ministers who beare at least as authentick marks and badges of God's authority and of their own ministery to evidence their trust and jurisdiction as the Officers of state and Justice do in a Republick or 〈◊〉 Government In a word all that we desire of Protestants is that they will give as much credit and respect to God as to Princes and no less to the Ministers of God's Church then to Senators or to the Officers of a King's Court. But their fundamental distinction dispenseth with all such duties and leads them a quite contrary way 〈…〉 not obliged to believe the mysteries of faith as they are proposed by the Roman Catholick Church though the sayd Church be more authentickly waranted thervnto by God then any Ministers or Magistra◠are waranted to 〈…〉 of state by their Prince vnless it be clearly evident 〈…〉 evidently credible will not serve their turn that God revealed what the Church proposeth as his word and command Such Doctrines of the Roman Church as they fancy cleer or self evident either by their owne privat spirit and discourse or by the vnanimous and general acknowledgment of all Christians such and only such do Protestants believe as points of faith and call them fundamental articles or articles necessary for salvation all others either they hould only as probable opinions and things of indifferency or reject as superfluous and superstitious And because the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation are generally professed in these parts of Europe by all Christians though not by all in the Catholick sense but with certain interpretations Therfore the learned Prelatick Protestant Writers both ancient and modern reduce all the articles and the total summe of Catholick faith and of the foure first generall Councells to a belief of the Trinity and Incarnation that is to some Kind of faith though it be but the Arian in JESUS Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the world as Doctor Morton Bishop of Duresme and others teach who vpon this score maintain that the Arian Churches and by consequence all ancient hereticks are to be accounpted members of the Church of God We have quoted their words num 3. of the precedent section That no King's Ministers or Magistrats have so authentick marks and badges to evidence in them-selves their Master's authority for exercising their respective charges and jurisdictions as the Roman Catholick Church hath of being entrusted and apointed by God to deliver his Divine doctrin declare his sense of Scripture and decide Religious controversies is manifest by the signs and marks of God's Church compared with the marks and badges of Princes Officiers Omitting many other marks of the true Church J will touch but three which are Conversion of Kings and Nations from paganism to Christianity Succession of Pastors and doctrin from the Apostles to this present and miracles All these are visible only in the Roman Catholick Church and are more authentick because they cannot be easily counterfeited then any human euidences even the most esteemed which is the King's hand and Seale To say because some pretended miracles have bin impostures no miracles at all are true or none ought to be credited is no less vnreasonable then to cry down all current money because there is some fals coyne and is as ridiculous and rebellious as to disobey and reject all royall commissions and orders of Councell because some may or have bin counterfeited and subreptitiously obtained But suppose as Protestants pretend that miracles were ceased I hope the Conversion of so many Nations and Kings of the Gentils to Christianity and a continuall succession of the Roman doctrin and Pastors are neither ceased not counterfeited no other Church but the Roman Catholick hath these signes of God's providence and as non can deny but that they are more convincing arguments and greater evidences of the super-natural Ministery and jurisdiction which the Roman Church doth claim then any human signes badges or commissions can be of the Royal authority exercised by King's officiers either civil or military so likewise it must be acknowledged that there is a cleerer and greater obligation vpon men to submit their judgments and wills to the definitions and Decrees of the Roman Catholick Church and Councells proposing or declaring God's revelations and commands then there can be vpon subjects to obey the orders of temporal Souveraigns published or proclaimed by their chief Ministers and subordinat officers Therfore as it is notorious Rebellion in subjects against their King's authority to contemn his commands when they are proposed by Ministers that shew his commissions so is it manifest heresy and a denial of God's veracity to contemn or doubt of the doctrin proposed as Divine by the Roman Catholick Church so authentickly qualified with the aforesaid supernatural marks And as it is want of duty and alleigance in subjects and a ridiculous excuse for not obeying Orders to pretend they have not cleer evidence that the King signed them or for all they know that his Minister or Officer may be an Impostor and his commission or warrant counterfeit so must it be concluded want of christian belief and excess of hereticall obstinacy in Protestants to excuse their contempt of the Roman Catholick doctrin and authority by pretending a possibility of mistake in the same Church because forsooth they are not convinced of it's infallibility and authority by a Demonstration or revelation so evident that though they would they cannot deny it Such evidences are not necessary nor even compatible with Christian belief as shall be proved herafter less are sufficient to convince them-selves and all rational men of a strickt obligation to believe and obey a temporal Prince and Magistrat and sure they are vnreasonable if they imagin God deserves less belief duty and subjection then Princes That Protestants believe not their own Churches or Congregations with out doubts and feares of being mistaken in the reformed doctrin and authority of proposing the same we do not admire because not any on of their churches doth pretend to infallibility nor could hitherto or can yet shew any sign or seale of God for their sense of Scripture or reformations but that they should think them-selves obliged to take a Herald or Trompeters Coat and a Constable or Cathpol's staffe and other such badges so easily counterfeited for sufficient evidences of the King's authority and yet except against the authentickness of the conversion of Kings and Nations the Succession and sanctity of Pastors and doctrin of the Roman Catholick Church Which are things that cannot be
counterfeited must needs be the effect of prejudice and passion proceeding from want of christianity especialy when they see that others as learned cautious and conscientious as them-selves after weighing all objections and circumstances submit their judgments to the sufficiency of these signs for making the Roman Catholick authority authentickly Divine and that we believe what is proposed with out the least suspition or feare either of fraud or frailty in the Roman Catholick Councells which are the Proposers and Ministers of God's word Besids if Protestants did consider the nature of Veracity and God's Providence they would never doubt of the application of his power to preserve the Roman Catholick Church from error seing it hath so many signs of his truth and Ministery as the conversion of Nations succession and Sanctity of doctrin and Doctors miracles vnity of faith c. For Veracity as Aristotle and all Philosophers define it is a Virtue inclining to speak truth And he is not inclined to speak truth that countenanceth falshood in so particular a manner as God doth the doctrin and jurisdiction of the Roman Catholick Church A King that might if he would and yet doth not hinder his Ambassadors and Ministers or any other persons from abusing other Princes or his own Subjects by their speaking or commanding in his Majesties name or at least in speaking other-wise then he really intended they should and had prescribed by his commission or instructions such a King I say is not inclined to speak truth because he willingly permits his officers or others that pretend to speak in his name or really do speak by his Orders to vtter falshood and misinterpret his words and meaning notwithstanding that he may easily prevent that fraud and frailty and reapeth no benefit by either an evident argument that he is not avers to such false practises No Protestant doubts but that my Lord Chancellor speaks truly the King's mind and sense when he pursues his Majesties speech in Parliament in his Royal presence and hearing and to think other-wise would be not only to tax my Lord Chancellor with folly but the King with an inclination to falshood and a fault unbeseeming the dignity of a Prince the care and charge of the Country's Father as also the sincerity and veracity of an honest man Seing therfore God is as much inclined to speak truth as any thing can be to love it self for God is truth by essence if it be against the dignity of a Prince and against the nature of human veracity and honesty which is but a shadow of the Divine to permit falshood in Ministers of state or in servants sent but of ordinary errands when their Masters can easily prevent it how much more repugnant must it be to the nature of God and to his Divine veracity to permit the Roman Church in his own presence name and hearing tell lyes and disguise them and it self with so probable and plausible signes of his Divine truth and Commission as to seale it's doctrin with marks and miracles so vndeniably supernatural that the most learned Protestants acknowledg they are and can only bewrought by God's power light can as litle concurre to produce darkness as truth to favor falshood Even men that love truth hate to heare others tell lyes and do contradict vntruths if them-selves be present and quoted for Authors of the stories They will not entertain servants given to that vice nor permit them weare their livery much less employ them in matters of concern wherin they may abuse their Master's word and prejudice his friends or Tenants Can Protestants then imagin that God doth not only permit the Roman Catholick Church to weare his livery and his authority but that he doth promote the stories and lies of that Church in case it's doctrin be fals for the space of so many ages with so great signes and testimonies of his Divine approbation that the wisest and wairiest men of the world after much study and examination did and do still preferr it before all other Religions Do they think that God is not as much concern'd in preventing frauds faults and frailties in his Ministers and Messengers as temporal Princes are concern'd in the credit and truth of theirs Wherfore if Protestants judg it a breach of faith or want of truth and worth in a temporal Prince not to endeavor to the vtmost of his power that his Ministers and messengers deceive not his subjects and Allies by mistaking or misapplying his Commands or demands they can not but see the absurdity of believing that God doth permit Ministers and Messengers so supernaturaly qualified as those of the Roman Church are to err in proposing his revelations vnto all man kind his Veracity being as highly concern'd in the infallibility of the Proposers as his power makes him capable of preventing their human mistakes and of confounding the Devill 's malice But Protestants have found out a new device and defence of their distinction They grant it is against God's Veracity to permit the Roman Catholick Church to err in proposing the Fundamental articles of faith that is such articles as Protestants fancy absolutly necessary for saluation which are say they that Scripture is the word of God and JESUS Christ the son of God and Redeemer of the world some add the Mystery of the Trinity hitherto we could never obtain from them a more exact Cathalogue of their Protestant Fundamentals As for the other doctrines of the Roman Catholick Church 〈◊〉 and proposed as Divine Protestants think they may be denyed and questioned without any offence to God denyal or doubt of his veracity I could never heare any other reason or dispâ—rity for this their distinction but that the measure of the infallibility of the Church ought to be our salvation because it was the end proposed by God in the institution and constitution of his Church In such articles therfore say they as are absolutly necessary for salvation the Church cannot but be infallible in the proposal otherwise we could not believe them and consequently not be saved because we can not be sure that God revealed them But this their Fundamental distinction still destroys the foundation of Christian belief which is God's veracity They make their own conveniency and not God's veracity the motive of crediting the Mysteries of faith as if truth it self or God's inclination to speak truth could be greater in on matter then other or that the belief of any article could be more Fundamental or of greater importance and necessity for salvation then to believe that God is as much concerned and as necessarily inclined to speak truth as well by the mouth of his Church as if him-self spoke immediatly as well also in the least matter as in the greatest and by consequence he is as much engaged to preserve the Church from error in on as in the other So that to believe the testimony or proposal of the Church in a matter
would follow the greater the authority is the more slow we ought to be in submitting therunto or which is the same the more inclined God is to truth and the more powerfull he is to practise the same and to keep the Church stedy to truth the more slow we ought to be in believing the Church or God's known Ministers and Messengers SECT XIV Reasons for liberty of Conscience and how much both Piety and Policy is mistaken in making Prelatick Protestancy the Religion of the state by continuing and pressing the sanguinary and penal statutes against the Roman Catholick faith and the Act of vniformity against sectaries THere is not any thing more damnable to soules or more dangerous to states then to make the laws of the land the rule of faith and temporal statuts the ground of spiritual jurisdiction It is endeed Christian piety to fence and favour Religion with Imperial edicts and Royal Decrees and therfore it was prophecied of the Church Kings shall be thy nursing Fathers and Queens thy Mothers but to found the belief of eternal verities and of Christian Religion vpon temporal statuts and to frame the doctrin of the Church and the Caracter of the Clergy according to Acts of Parliament and to the interest of the Prince is neither piety nor policy in lawfull and vndoubted Soveraigns What Queen Elizabeth did to salue the sore of her illegitimacy was as great a prejudice and ought as litle be made a president to the royall family of the Stewards as Oliver Cromwel's Tyrany the laws and Religion of both equaly tending to it's total ruin and exclusion from the Crown with this only difference that Queen Elizabeth destroy'd the Stewards by reforming the Old Religion whervpon their right was grounded but Cromwell destroy'd them by reforming the New Religion whervnto they had conformed and wherby they endeavored to setle their Throne And indeed Souveraigns can expect no greater security or better success then the Royal family of the Stewards hath had whilst the Religion which their Subjects profess hath no other certainty or setlement but what is received from an arbitrary interpretation of Scripture confirmed by temporal statuts That the Protestant prelatick Religion hath no other rule but this and the laws of the Lands is manifest by so many changes of it's articles liturgy caracter and Translations of Scripture by publick and Parliamentory authority That it hath no certainty from it's own principleâ— is manifest by the acknowledged fallibility of that Church and by the liberty of interpreting God's word and by the prerogative of judging controversies of faith which the Tenets of all the Reformations and example of the first Reformers allow to any particular person that will claim the privilege of a reformed Christian or the spirit of a godly or guifted Protestant This liberty of professing and the vncertainty of protestancy having proved in all places and persons wherunto it had access a seed of rebellion destructive not only of the substance of Religion but of the tye of alleigance it was thought necessary for the preservation of Princes and the peace of their subjects to reduce the variety and regulat the extravagancy of the dissenting reformed doctrines into publick professions of protestancy as sutable to the interest of the souveraigns and inclinations of the subjects and customs of their Countries as could be devised And because the government of England continued Monarchical and that Episcopacy doth favor Monarchy and is essential to Parliaments the protestancy of the Church of England was made prelatick notwithstanding the incoherency of Episcopacy with the very foundation of the first and pure pretended reformations And seing ther is such antipathy between the caracter of Episcopacy and the principles of protestancy that the Church of England in the beginning of Q. Elizabeths reign durst not claim that caracter or any spiritual jurisdiction by succession from the Apostles and their successors the ensuing Catholick Bishops it was content to receive both as also the confirmation of it's prelatick doctrin from an vnheard-of spiritual supremacy of a lay Prince and from Acts of Parliament and so was it made the legal Religion of the state contrary to the principles both of the ancient Catholick faith and of the new protestant reformations How contrary this setlement of prelatick protestancy by a persecution of Popery is to Christian piety may easily appeare to them who will remember what hath bin sayd hertofore of the sanctity antiquity and continuall succession of the Roman Catholick Religion from the Apostles to this present and reflect vpon the principles begining and progress of protestancy in general and of the prelatick in particular How inconsistent with policy it is to press by the severity of laws a profession so generally dislik't as the prelatick it being contrary to the ancient Religion and not agreeing with the new Reformations experience hath demonstrated when not only all foreign Roman Catholick Princes and people stood neuters not much concerned whether Protestant Prelacy or Presbytery should prevaile in England they pittied indeed the Royal family and wish'd them good success against their rebellious subjects but this they wish'd to them as Princes not as Prelatiks not only Isay foreign Catholicks were neuters but all the Protestant Churches abroad were more inclined to favor the Presbiterian and fanatick English and Scotch Congregations then the King's Religion for that they come neerer to them and to the primitive and fundamental principles of Protestancy The reason why the Prelatick persuasion is so odious to the reformed Churches abroad and so opposed by Presbiterians and other Protestant Congregations at home is because the formality of it's ceremonies and the legality of it's discipline are incompatible with the primitive spirit liberty and principles of protestancy The protestant Bishops would fain Lord it over their brethren not content with the name and power of Protestant superintendents they strive to imitat the authory and severity of the Catholick Episcopal jurisdiction in their Courts and do what they can to retain a ceremonious decency in there Churches but neither is agreable with the nature and spirit of the Protestant Reformations which consist in an independency and exemption from all spiritual superiority and ceremonie of a particular person being supreme Judge and Interpreter of Scripture This spiritual judicature is the spiritual birth-right of every Protestant and the ground wherupon Luther and his followers raised their reformations and their new sense of the Ghospel Wherfore the resâ—raiâ— of this Protestant evangelical liberty and birth-right by the rigor of our lawes in favor of the prelatick jurisdiction and disciplin must needs make the law-makers and their religion as odious to all zealous Protestants as liberty of opinion and fancied Scripture are deere to a stubborn and humorâ—om peopâ—â— Let it then be maturely considered whether any thing can be more daungerous to the safety of the Soveraign or to the tranquillity of the state then to enact lawes
in a protestant Commonweale or Kingdom wherby the very foundation and birth-right of Protestancy is made penal and the most Religious observers of the protestant rule of faith are rendred incapable of all employments both in Church and state And that all this violence is practised to support a Creed the 39. articles of a doubtful sense and a Clergy of a doubtful caracter even according to their own prelatick principles and according to the primitive principles of protestancy and to vphould a Church that professeth it's own fall and fallibility and therfore for all it self knows is no true Church but may be mistaken in it's doctrin and lead all that rely vpon it's ministery and instruction into eternal damnation and can give no satisfaction or security to such as are of their communion nor produce any thing for justifying the severity of these proceedings but a Parliaments Act of vniformity and other temporal statuts To which every Presbiterian and fanatick doth answer that lawes enacted in favor of Religion do suppose not make the Religion reasonable for though reason be the ground of all human lawes yet no human lawes can be the ground of Religion When all this is maturely considered it will doubtless appeare to be a sad case that a poore man who desires to be saved and informed of the true Church and of Christ's doctrin and conform himself therunto shall be compell'd by forfeitures imprisonment and banishment c. to the prelatick doâ—trin and Church of England and shall have no other reason 〈◊〉 redress given him for this violence and punishments but that he doth not conform to the Religion established by the lawes of the Land So much was alleadged for the Idolls and Religion of the Pagan Emperous and vpon the same ground of law did they persecute the primitive Christians Doubtless all Quakers Presbiterians and non Conformists think themseves as glorious sufferers as the holy primitive Martyrs and Confessors which persuasion in so great and zealous a multitude can not be voyd of daunger and ought to be remedyed more by reason then rigor for though from Roman Catholicks whose principles are peaceable and incline them to suffer persecution with patience no great prejudice may be feared if they will be directed by their profession yet experience hath taught that all Protestant sectaries have inherited from their first Patriarchs Luther Calvin Crammer c. the spirit of sedition and rebellion which is involved in the very foundation of protestancy Luther openly declared so much at the Diet of Worms in presence of the Emperour Charles 5. Who had objected against him tumults and disorders as vndeniable effects of his doctrin misapplying the words of our saviour Non veni pacem mittere sed gladium as if dissention and rebellion had bin a mark of the true Ghospel On the other side the Presbiterians do imitate the bloudy proceedings and principles of their 〈◊〉 Fathers Zuinglius and Calvin in deposing of Kings and Magistrats and make good the saying of Zuinglius Evangelium vult sanguinem the Reformation must be maintained by bloud So that the sanguinary statuts in favor of prelatick protestancy and the bloudy principles of Presbitery in in pursuance of their seditious spirit clashing togeather will make fine work among Christians and the prelatick Clergy which ought by their admonitions and censures to compose these disorders and be Authors of peace are despised as no Clergy and their caracter is made the subject of discord and dispute And the Protestant Bishops which ought to exercise the authority whervnto they pretend retire and recurr to the 〈◊〉 Courts for the spirituality as well as for the legality of their jurisdiction and function and confess in plain termes their Churches frailty and fallibility in doctrin and leave the state to shift for it self deprived of thâ—â—â— helps which Catholick Princes receive from the Roman Church and Clergys censures wherwith rebellious subjects are terrified and 〈◊〉 or return to their duty SVBSECT I. NEither is the daunger of disturbing the tranquillity of the state for supporting the Prelatick doctrin and caracter by temporal lawes confin'd only to Presbiterians and Fanatiks the Prelatiks them-selves if interest prevaile not more with them then conscience and coherency can not but change their Religion into a contrary persuasion when they observe that the mean between Popery and Presbytery wherin they place Prelatick protestancy and the truth of christianity hath no solid foundation or colour of reason For what can be more absurd then to pretend that as moral virtue is a mean or mixture of two extremes so the truth of Christian Religion is a mean between two contrary opinions or a mixture of Popery and Presbitery which are two extremes involving contradictory Tenets Morality I confess is a mediocrity and a kind of Mixture For liberality for example doth seeme to participat some thing of covetousness and some thing of prodigality which are extreme different but Christianity being truth and Divine truth is no mean between the two but one of the two extremes it is no mixture because truth admits no mixture of falshood nor division it can be but on one side Therfore when a Presbiterian or Fanatick saith that Scripture is the only rule of faith and Judge of Controversies the Catholick sayes it is not not both but one of them speaks truth Yet the Prelatick would fâ—ain stand like a Christian moderator or neuter between both parties and reconcile their Contradictions by reducing them to a third doctrin or to a mean between truth and falshood and the mean is to grant both the contradictory propositions and collogue with both sides And indeed that is the mean wherin Prelatick Protestancy doth consist when their writers defend it against Presbiterians they grant the doctrin of Papists when they answer and 〈◊〉 against Papists they maintain the doctrin of Presbiterians for there is no other mean to reconcile or be reconciled to contradictions but to maintain both And this was the custom of Luther Calvin Cranmer c. and is the ordinary practise of the ablest Prelaticks in their books of Controversy I remit you to one of their greatest Champions my Lord Bishop of Down in his Dissuasive from Popery you need not run through the whole book read but his first Section and you will heare him say first that Scripture alone is the foundation or rule of faith and after that it is not Then again that it is nothing els but Scripture together with the Creeds and the foure first Councells It is as impossible therfore that a 〈◊〉 man should be in his judgment a Prelatick Protestant as it is he should believe that God revealed contradictions Wherfore if interest and conveniency hath not a greater 〈◊〉 vpon his profession of faith then conscience or coherency even to the principles of the Reformation he will not continue a prelatick nor make temporal statuts his rule of faith but will either according to the prudent
are now superfluous and disrespectfull to the Royal Family that Reigns but such as have the honor to know him best assure us his Lâ—p is no great friend to Pâ—pists Lastly whosoever will call vnto mind the mis-chief which but a few members of the House of Commons of the long Parliament wrought against the late King and will observe how popular others of the same stamp are now and how apt the giddy multitude is to be fool'd again into Rebellion by the like madd zeale against Popery will be of opinion that not any on thing can be of so great prejudice to the peace and prosperity of England as the continuance of lawes which if executed make the Nation and Government SVBSECT II. Queen Marys and the Inquisitions severity against Protestancy can be no President or excuse for the Statuts against Popery I Will conclude this matter with answering the vulgar Objection made for vindication of the penal and sanguinary lawes of Queen Elizabeth against Roman Catholicks grounded vpon a parity of the like lawes executed by Queen Mary and the Jnquisition against Protestants The disparity will discover the fallacy and dissolue the force of their argument Neither Queen Mary nor the Jnquisition made any lawes against Protestants they were made by the first Christian Emperours and accepted by all Catholick Kings into the statuts of their Kingdoms and confirmed by their Parliaments The ancient Christian Soveraigns not only believed that the Roman faith was the Apostolick but found by experience the same Roman Catholick faith had peaceable principles agreablâ—â—o just Government and therfore they enacted lawes of death infamy confiscation of goods c. against all such as presumed to alter that doctrin declaring such as contradicted the Tenets therof to be Innovators and Hereticks When protestancy began in England they who preach't the new doctrin being conscious of their own guilt and of having incurred the penalties of these ancient Christian lawes then in force against Innovators and Hereticks and in particular against the marriage of Priests with Nuns proceeded other-wise Zozomen hist. lib. 6. cap. 3. affirmeth how that the Christian Emperour Jovinian who was in course the third Emperour after Constantin the Great published an Edict that who allured a Nun to mariage should be therfore punished with the loss of his head And this law is yet extant Câ—d l. de Episcopis Câ—â—ricis But they I say petitio to the Parliament of Edward â— to have those 〈◊〉 repealed wherby you may see how they acknowledged their own doctrin was Heresy whervpon they werâ— dispensed with to marry and all the 〈◊〉 lawes against Herâ—tickâ— and heresiâ—â— were repealed Queen Mary succeeding restored the ancient lawes that had bin repealed by King Edâ—â—â—d 6. togeather with the ancient Religion but she was not the Author of them as Queen Elizabeth was of the penal and sanguinary statuts against Priests and Roman Catholicks which never had bin heard of before her time in a Christian Kingdom or Common-wealth Jn like manner the Inquisition maâ—â— no new lawes against Protestants neither do they sentence them to death they only declare that they are Innovators of the ancient Catholick doctrin or Hereticks and then the secular Magistrats do execute the temporal lawes in foâ—â—e against such persons If protestants had not found themselves guilty of heresy why were they so solicitious to have the laweâ— â—hat had bin â—â—acted against hereticks not lately but during those venâ—â—â—ble 〈◊〉 of the priâ—â—tive Church repealed why did 〈…〉 if their doctâ—â—â— was the â—â—me with that of â—he ancient Fathers that lived in times wherin the Imperial lawes were made and in force what needed they to except against lawes which had bin enacted to favour the doctrin of those Fathers with whom they pretend to agree Queen Mary therfore and the Inquisition who proceeded acâ— willing to those ancient â—â—wes against protestants did nothing but what all Christian and Catholick Emperours and Kings had don for the space of 1300. years against hereticks But Queen Elizabeth took the quite contrary way she observed that according to the principles of Christianity as also according to the ancient and modern lawes of England her self could not enjoy the Crown having bin declared illegitimat by sundry Acts of Parliament never repealed nor the Stewards be excluded they being the lawfull and immediat Heirs and because the Queen of Scots from whom they derived their title was a Catholick Queen Elizabeth made her-self and England Protestant that is by Acts of Parliament she declared that all the Catholick Emperours Kings and Churches of the world for almost 1300. years had bin superstitious and Idolatrous that the Bishop of Rome was Anti-Christ the Catholick Clergy Cheats the sea of Rome the whore of Babylon spiritual Jurisdiction a shee and secular supremacy the sacrifice of Christ's body and bloud a blasphemy five of the seaven Sacraments human invention and corrupt following of the Apostles Priesthood and Episcopacy nothing but a lay Ministery authorised vnder the Soveraign's great seâ—le all lawfull Priests and Bishops Traytors all Catholicks Hereticks c. And all these absurdities were made legal in England to make her Father's marriage with Anne Bullen seem lawfull wheras it had bin declared null and invalid by so many Parliaments of England that her self durst not attempt an immediat and cleer repeale of Acts so notoriously inconsistent with the right that herself pretended â—o the Crown Tâ—at 〈…〉 and men who expected favors from her should so metamorphose sacred things into profane Scripture into fancy and illegitimacy into legitimacy we do noâ— admire neither is it strange that illiterat people after a Century of years continuance and education in such a Religion should be zealous in the maintenance therof or that a Clergy which hath no other livelyhood nor hopes of promotion but by justifying these proceedings should endeavor to continue her lawes against orthodox Christianity and the known truth for their own interest are frailties incident to men but that the nobility and Gentry of England being so well vers'd in their own Chronikles and in the Histories of other Nations that persons of so much witt knowledg and judgment should not when they meet in Parliament move and resolve to restore Christianity and rectify so gross and vulgar mistakes especialy since the family against whose succession the statuts had bin introduced is restored to the Crown this 〈◊〉 or oblivion I say of the English 〈◊〉 and nobility iâ— hardly excusable And if the 〈◊〉 will not be moved out of charity to their fellow subjects and 〈◊〉 to abolish the sanguinary and penal Laws against Roman Catholicks let them do it out of civility to the Royal Family against whose party and Title so injust Laws were â—â—acted There is not therfore any thing 〈◊〉 more Queen Elizabeths penal statuts then to compare 〈◊〉 wiâ—h Queen Mariâ—â— and the Inquisitions proceedings against Protestants It 's now time that we pass from the examination of
confess a fault in the maintenance wherof their fortunes are concerned and by consequence how accomptable the protestant layty is to God for not mistrusting and examining the truth and sincerity of their own Clergy being so indigent and so interessed persons and so confidently charged and so frequently caught with falshoods what fraud can be more visible then to make men believe that so infamous and dissolute persons as Luther Zuinglius Calvin Cranmer and Beza c. were Saints sent by God to restore his Church vnto it's primitive doctrin and spirit or that they and all protestants do agree in all matters of faith against Papists Their dissentions vices and wickedness are so manifest that they can not be denyed without impudency and without giving the lye to the whole world and contradicting their own writings And yet the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and his Junta of Divines would face down Mr. Walsingham that there was no such matter and because the poore man humbly petitioned to have the matter decided by comparing their own books which were in the next roome with his notes he was censured and called a foolish bold Knave impudent fellow sâ—â—cy Companion c. and threatned with prison and pillary And for that they durst not betray the weakness of their cause by so publick and violent proceedings against a known protestant who desired to continue one of themselves if protestancy did not prove to be a mistake of Christianity the Arch-bishop to be shut of him sent him to the Commissary of St. Albans to be resolved forsooth whether Luther acknowledged in his Books that he began the protestant Reformation and impugned the Mass adoration of the Sacrament Invocation of Saints c. moved therunto by the devill 's arguments in a real conference between himself and sathan as if this passage and others of Luther's and Calvin's works were not to be found in London or in his Graces Library at Lambeth as well as at St. Albans And after that by his own importunity Mr. Walsingham had obtained of Doctor Covell to shew him Luther's book wherin he acknowledged this conference and conviction of the Devill 's arguments that the Doctor should interrupt him and divert the whole discourse with a rush you see I have this book and many such like 3. Reflexion By what particular indirect means cavills and Calumnies the Arch-bishop himself endeavored to maintain the protestant Religion and discredit the Catholick delivering to Mr. Walsingham Mr. Bell's libell against the Iesuits as an invincible fortress against the Roman faith and his other book full of corruptions and falsifications as a very sincere and solid piece which falsifications being shewed to them all sitting in their Junta and Iudgment about that affaire the Arch-bishop durst not send into his study for the Fathers works that were affirmed by Mr. Walsingham to have bin corrupted by Bell and Calvin c. His Lordship 's confessed practise also of burning Catholick Books argues the weaknes of the protestant cause and proves how much they are afraid their own false dealing and the impiety of their principles should be discovered 4. Reflexion That Mr. Walsingham's case hath bin and is revived and practised now every day when any conscientious protestant begins to doubt of the safety and sincerity of his Religion The protestant Clergy tells him that he is in a sure way of salvation and yet this assertion is against one of their articles of faith to wit that which acknowledgeth their Church is fallible in proposing Christ's doctrin and the true sense of Scripture and by consequence for all they know themselves may be in damnable errors Then they tell him the Papists are Jdolaters worship Anti-Christ c. that our Books of Controversyes are full of lyes and fables and to make good these their impostures they not only corrupt our Authors but translate into English all infamous libells though they treat not of controversies as the Jansenists Letters Palafox his relations and for the renegat Fr. Paulo his history of the Councell of Trent they swear it is the most exact and sincere work of this age wheras Cardinal Palavicino in his answer to the same and in the very begining hath set down 300. of Fr Paulo's vntruths in matter of fact so palpable that they seem inexcusable in him and render others guilty of vnpardonable rashness and obstinacy who credit so mistaken or malicious an Author and preferr his bare word before the vnanimous Testimony of all Christendom that hath accepted the definitions of the Councell as Catholick truths which they would never have don had they bin such as Fr Paulâ— describes Js it likely that the Bishops Embassadors and Prelats of so different nations and subjects to Princes of so contrary Interests who were present at the Councill and recommended to their flocks and friends the decrees of Trent as sacred would conspire to cheat and damne their Souveraigns relations and neighbors Or that they knew not better how matters went in the Councill or were not more impartial in relating them then one Apostâ—ta Friar or those persons from whom he pretends to have received his papers and intelligence with such pittifull frauds and fashoods are many poor protestant soules deluded and seduced into eternal damnation which they deserve for believing their own Clergy without any further examination of the scruples and doubts which common sense and natural reason doth raise in every one of them that converseth with Roman Catholicks or observeth the incoherency and inconstancy of protestancy together with it's singularity and pride of Spirit contemning the primitive true sense of Scripture declared by vniversal Tradition and the vnanimous consent of all orthodox Fathers and Councills Perditio tua ex te Jsrael 5. Reflexion One of my Lord of Canterburyes reasons to Mr. Walsingham against crediting the Popish book was do you not know when two men go to law together one will speak the worst he can by the other And though this ought not to be practised in law suites much less in controversies of Religion yet seeing my Lord would have protestants read our books with that prejudice reason doth dictat that theirs ought not to be read without caution especially Seeing every protestant â—eader makes himself supreme Judge of Controversies of Religion and no Judge ought to give sentence before both sides be heard Suppose therfore that the protestant and Catholick Clergy are engaged not only in a dispute of Religion but in a suit of Law to wit whether the revenues of the Church of the three Kingdoms belong of right rather to the present possessors then to the ancient proprietors neither party say you ought to be Iudge in his own cause who then must decide the business The Layty Content let my Lord Chancellor of England notwithstanding his known Jnclination to favor and promote protesâ—â—â—cy be named head of a Committee for examining and deciding the question Let it be tryed in publik Court which
these are his words and concealed by the Bishop who also striks out of Vincentius Lirin other words wherby it did appear what a kind of keeper the Church is of the truths deposited with her and how litle danger there is of corrupting the old or admitting of new doctrin The Bishop pag. 38. sets down the sentence thus Ecclesia depositorum apud se dogmatum Custos c. Denique quid vnquam Conciliorum Decretis enisa est nisi vt quod antea simpliciter credebatur hoc idem postea diligentius crederetur c. But in Vincentius Lirinensis It is thus Christi vero Eoclesia sedula cauta depositorum apud se dogmatum Custos here first he skips over these two words sedula cauta diligent and wary because they spoiled his plot of persuading us that the Church might by negligence of its Pastors be insensibly changed and corrupted To the same intent he conceales with an c. the rest that followes which would have cleered all and left no room for the Bishops fraud for Vincentius Lirin his words are But the Church of Christ is a diligent Depositary or Keeper of the truths committed to her never changes any thing at all in them lessens nothing adds nothing nether cuts away things necessary nor adjoyns things superfluous neither looseth what is hers nor vsurpes what belongs to others Let any Christian or honest Pagan Iudge whether these words be not Diametrically contrary to what the Bishop pretends vnto in this passage viz. suspition and possibility of the Churches adding novitia veteribus novelties to the old doctrin of making a change of that faith she first received from Christ and his Apostles and of becoming Lupanar errorum which this good man and holy Martyr sayes he is loath to english and yet leaves out cuts and corrupts the Latin text of set purpose to fix vpon Christs Espouse the greatest infamy How Bp. Laud falsifies Occham to infringe St. Austins authority concerning the infallibility of the Church in succeeding ages as well as in that of the Apostles and is forced by his error to resolve his prelatick faith into the light of Scripture and the privat Spirit of Fanaticks which he palliates vnder the name of grace and therby warrants all rebellions against Church and state AN act of divine faith must be prudent that is men are not bound to believe any article therof v. g. that Scripture is the word of God vnless there evidently appear prudent and sufficient motives to exclude all moral possibility that any but God is the Author of the doctrin proposed to be believed These motives of credibility we call the signs of the Church and are the miracles of Christ and his Disciples sanctity and succession of his doctrin and Doctors Conversion of Kings and nations to christianity c. These signs or motives of credibility though they do not evidence demonstratively that our faith is true or that the Church or Congregation of men wherin they be found is the Catholick yet they demonstrat an obligation in us of believing it as we have proved elsewhere in so much that if no such signs or motives of credibility had bin none would be bound to believe any point of Christian Religion with certainty of faith and therfore St. Austin sayd he would not believe the Scripture had he not bin moved therunto by the authority of the Church because Scripture of it self hath no sufficient arguments and signs to ground a prudent and undoubted belief of its being the word of God but the signs and motives of credibility invest the Church with sufficient authority to declare both that and all other mysteries of faith and to make our Ecclesiastical Ministery and Mission more authentikly divin then any Regal Commissions or human Badges can set forth the truth and dignity of Ministers of state and officers of war Therfore as not to believe or to contemn men so qualified when they command in the Kings name is by the light of reason and consent of all nations judged obstinacy and rebellion not to be excused by pretending ignorance or want of greater evidence then those vsual signs of their employments afford so must it be obstinat heresy not to believe that what is proposed by the Church qualified with the aforesaid signs is revealed by God This supposed the main Controversy between Protestants and Catholicks is about the resolution of Christian faith for though both parties pretend that they believe because God revealed to the Prophets and Apostles the Mysteries of faith yet we say that Protestants can not shew how it may be prudently believed that Christ preached or revealed any such doctrin as is pretended vnless it be acknowledged that the Church of every succeeding age was and this present is as truly and realy though perhaps not so highly quoad modum infallible in delivering the Apostles doctrin as the Apostles were in delivering that of Christ. We do not say that Tradition or the Testimony of the Church confirmed by the foresaid signs is the prime motive and last resolution of faith but that the Tradition and Testimony of the present Church is infallible to the end it may infallibly apply the prime motive which is Gods veracity to vs and we prudently assent thervnto But the Bishop denying this is driven with Presbyterians and Fanaticks to an inbredâ—light of Scripture and to the privat Fanatick spirit with this only difference that where they say they are infallibly resolved that Scripture is the word of God by the Testimony of the Spirit within them his Lordship pag. 83.84 averrs he hath the same assurance by grace And because we object and admire that no Catholick could ever perceive this inward and inbred light of Scripture wherby all Protestants pretend they are assured it is the word of God he concurrs pag. 86 with Fanatitks in telling vs that blind eyes can not and pervers eyes will not see it It s strange his Lordship did not foresee the sad effects which this Protestant principle and presumption wrought against himself and his Prelatick Church within a very short time after he writ this doctrin and applyed the same against the Roman Catholicks He might be sure it would be retorted against the Church of England for why may not every Protestant Sectary pretend that the Prelatick Church of England is as blind and pervers in not seing the light of Scripture as Luther and Laud pretend the Roman Catholick is It is but every particular mans fancy and word no other proof is required by Protestants nor indeed can any better be produced to make good that so many honest and learned searchers of Scripture as have bin and are in the Roman Catholick Church can not or will not see the pretended light of Scripture so largely diffused among Protestants and distributed to every Fanatick Presbyterian and Prelatick whose faith can not be maintained without this rash judgment and most dangerous
that neither expose their persons nor open their purses for the defence of their King and Countrey notwithstanding that his Majesty the Nobility and people are so deeply engaged for the safety honor and trade of this Empire in a defensive war against the vnited powers of most powerfull Enemies and that the Parliament was forcit for want of other means to feed the King and be his faithfull souldiers with smoak of Chymnys whilst a mean Ministery raised by Q. Elizabeth in opposition to the Royal family of the Stewards doth swallow vp the substance of these Kingdoms How ridiculous it is to hear these Protestant Ministers cry out Sacrilege at this our proposal as if they had any spiritual caracter or any right to what they possess or though they had as if the Church ought not to contribute in cases of extreme necessity to the defence of the Commonwealth The vndoubted Catholick Clergy will rid the layty of any scruple of Sacrilege for applying the goods of the Church to the necessary defence of the Countrey We know the ancient Pastors and Bishops of Gods Church did not scruple in such cases to sell the very Chalices and vestments of the Altars much less to spend their revenues for the safety of their Flock But indeed they had no wives nor Children and therfore needed not be solicitous to buy estates for their sons or to setle jointures on their wives or to rayse portions for their daughters out of the patrimony of the Church which of right belongs to the poor and who is more poore then our soldiers and seamen or then Husbandmen and Tradesmen that hitherto contributed nay then our King that sacrificeth his revenue to the maintenance of the land forces and navy But if the Protestant Clergy be confident of the Iustice of their cause why do they not come to a tryal why do they oppose liberty of Conscience why do they with so many artifices decline reasoning and delude the people 〈◊〉 their Religion be true we Roman Catholicks will not â—â—pine at their riches nor at the rigor of the laws made by Queen Elizabeth against our Religion and against the interest of the Stewards or at least we will not be such fools as not to be hastily and heartily converted to protestancy seing therby we may not only be saved but share with the Protestant Clergy enjoy very many conveniences and free our selves from the penalties and incapacities wherunto we are subject for being Papists Herein they may believe us there being no likelyhood we shall be obstinat against a truth if protestancy appear in our desired Conference to be a truth every way so advantagious to our selves But an ill cause dreads nothing so much as a free and publick hearing since protestancy was intruded into England by Q. Elizabeth the Catholicks have continually petitioned and pressed for a publick trial but never could obtain that favor Arch-bishop Laud pag. 445. against Fisher gives this reason that the King and the Church of England had no reason to admit of a publick dispute with the English Romish Clergy till they shall be able to shew it vnder the seal or powers of Rome That that Church will submit to a third who may be an indifferent Judge between them and us or a General Councell which Councell though general he sayes pag. 194. is not infallible And as for any other indifferent and infallible Judge the Bishop thinkes there is none as yet in the world and yet its certain that a Iudge or Councell that is not believed infallible is not for the purpose because neither party can be obliged to submit their judgments to its sentence in matters of faith So that though the controversy could be decided by a fallible Judge or Councell we should remain still divided and that the Bishop well knew but some thing he must have sayd to divert the well meaning Protestant layty from questioning the sufficiency or sincerity of their own Clergy observing their backwardnes in giving satisfaction to our so just demand And yet we granted to them in Q. Maries reign as free a disputation as they desired we gave them their choice of books and notaries and time not only to put in their arguments and answers in writing but to review and correct what they dislik't vpon more mature deliberation To Arch-bishop Lauds reason for not allowing a Conference is answered that we desire so much the salvation of souls and service of the state that we will give vnder our own hands and seals the powers of Rome we cannot Command that if Protestants will admit of such a Trial as was granted to them in England and to their party in France which we have related in this Treatise we are content to submit to my Lord keeper of England and other noble persons judgments therin And let our Adversaries choos either to argue or answer let them object falsifications of Scripture and Fathers against us or answer to such as we shall charge them withall And if they cannot maintain their Reformation without such fraudulent dealing as we object against them let them loose the Church revenues if we can not defend our Religion without the lik fraud let us not only be debarred from liberty of Conscience but loose our lives Notwithstanding my Lord keepers known inclination to favor Protestancy we will not except against his and the Committees sentence so confident are we of the justice of our cause If they refuse so fair an offer though they keep their revenues without doubt they will forfeit their credit and be as much lost in the opinion of their own Prelaticks as of Fanaticks And as the Protestant Clergys diffidence must breed doubts and diminish the esteem of the Pastors in the mynds of their flocks so may it give the Protestant layty full assurance there can be no danger in embracing our Religion which so learned persons as are in the Protestant Clergy dare not encounter Besides the late change of their prelatick formes of Ordination hath so discredited their caracter of priesthood and Episcopacy that no sober lay-man will fight for a priestly function confessed by the Priests themselves to be invalid and what confession of invalidity can be more plain then to add vnto their old forms the words Priest and Bishop forc't therunto by the arguments of their Adversaries demonstrating that neither of those functions had bin hitherto sufficiently expressed in their Rituals and by consequence that the caracter could not be given by forms so vnsignificant and so imperfect I have often considered what could move the Clergy of the Church of England to condemn in this particular of their form of Ordination their first Protestant Ancestors and to condescend to their Catholick adversaries in a matter so important as that of the validity of their priestly and Episcopal caracter and to acknowledge by this change judged hitherto by themselves to be at least superfluous that they
for refusing to Roman Catholicks a publick Trial of Falsifications and an amicable Conference of Religion makes the refusal yet more unreasonable Popery saith every Protestant is a growing Religion if disputes thereof be admitted we shall turn all Papists If they be not persecuted their profession will prevail If liberty of conscience be granted very few will frequent Protestant Churches The prelatick Clergys last reason is Venient Romani tollent locum nostrum If we come once to reason the matter with Roman Catholicks infallibly we shall loose our Revenues But I may assiure them that the Roman Clergy covet not their revenues if it be found that we have any right to the Church livings we will lay our pretensions at his Majesties feet and Petition the Pope as we did in Queen Marys days to leave all to the King and Parliaments disposal for the ease and defence of our fellow Subjects and the terror of our Enemies And as for our Religion being a growing Religion we cannot deny it and rejoyce that our Adversaries confess so much how could it otherwise be the Catholick or become universal Protestancy is confined to this Northern Climate notwithstanding its liberty of open and sensual allurements the Mahometan perswasion is propagated by force of Arms and multiplicity of Wives the Greek Schism is but a spite and spleen against the Primacy of Rome and therefore is justly Become a Slavery to the Turk No Religion but the Roman Catholick doth grow and flourish maugre the Storms of outwaâ—d Persecutions and the strength of our inward perverse inclinations aganst it we follow reason against the appearance of sense we prefer vertue before vice the judgment of the Church before our own and Heaven before Earth and therefore we are made Strangers in our own Country Straglers abroad Tennants at will of our own Estates and our lives stand at the mercy of every base Informer that will press the law against our Conscience and yet in this sad condition and circumstances our Religion doth increase and is acknowledged to be a growing Religion Ergo it is the true Catholick and not only the most safe for the Soul but the most convenient for the State especially of Great Britain as now shall more particularly appear SECT XIII The same further demonstrated and how by Liberty of Conscience or by Tolerating the Roman Catholick Religion by Act of Parliament the British Monarchy will become the most considerable of all Christendom Peaceable at Home and recover its Right Abroad How evidently it is the mutual Interest of Spain and England to be in a perpetual League against France and how advantagious it is for Spain to put Flanders into English Hands THree things must concurr to make a Monarchy Powerful and Peaceable 1. Uniformity in Religion or at least Liberty of Conscience 2. Great Revenues of the Monarch without empoverishing by unusual and unimerciful Taxes the Subjects unless they be slaves 3 Men fit for Sea and Land Service These Islands afford the last the other two we want but may have them if we will by an Act of Parliament for Liberty of Conscience or for tolerating the old Faith of our Ancestors wherewith this Kingdom flourished in Peace and Prosperity for the space of 1000 years Such an Act I mean as may make legal one Profession but wherein there ought to be a Proviso that none of another suffer for his Conscience or Religion especially for the Roman Catholick That without Uniformity in Religion or without Liberty of Conscience it is impossible for a Monarchy to be long peaceable or powerful is manifest by Reason and Experience Reason doth dictate that when Mens minds are Discontented and Oppressed by Persecution for their Conscience they will hazard their all to be satisfied and saved their Rebellion against the Soveraign will be thought the ground of their Salvation or at least the only way to preserve their Posterity from being damned and brought up in the state false Religion Experience doth shew that diversity of Opinions if but one be permitted doth not only occasion Domestick differences as the parting of Man and Wife of Parents and Children Brothers and Sisters c. But is the cause of publick Inconveniencies as jealousies between Princes and Subjects from whence proceed civil Wars which are the greatest obstacle of Prosperity in an Empire or Commonwealth Whilst the Hugonots were persecuted in France France was not so considerable Here in England we are more afraid of persecuted Presbyterians Fanaticks and other Sectaries than of the French Danes and Dutch seeing therefore Liberty or Uniformity in Religion is so necessary for the Peace and Power of a Monarchy all States-men must grant the Religion fittest for the State is that which is most likely to be generally embraced if Men may have their free choice Now whether that be Protestancy or Popery is the question It is not Protestancy because 't is now a hundred years and more since it hath been endeavoured by all ways imaginable to bring the Subjects of the Crown of England unto an Uniformity in Protestancy even by Sanguinary and Penal Statutes and yet the design doth not take and indeed cannot Because it involves a contradiction for to be a Protestant is to have the liberty of opâ—ning and the gift of interpreting Scripture which Liberty and Prerogative is not consistent with a subjection of Judgment to the Authority and Interpretation of any Church or Councel and by consequence not with Unity of Faith Besides the Protestant Church whether Prelatick Presbyterian or Fanatick is not as much as pretended to be Infallible in Doctrine or in its Interpretation of Scripture and it 's a great vanity for a Church that professeth Fallibility in explaining the Scriptures and admitteth a liberty or Latitude of applying the Letter of the same to every private mans Spirit and Interpretation to oblige men to any unity or certainty of Faith and therefore our Acts of Parliament are so inefficacious Again Faith is not Christian unless the Believers hold it certain and no Believer can hold his own Faith certain if he submits and comforms his Judgment to the Doctrine and Decrees of a Fallible Church For that no man can think himself certain of what he knows may fail evident therefore it is that the Protestant Faith is neither Christian nor certain because the Professors thereof if they be guided by their confessed fallible Church must know that their Faith may be False The Roman Catholick Church seeing it is believed Infallible by all Catholicks may teach a Faith which must be thought by us to be Certain Conscientious Christian and by consequence convenient fit for both Soul and State How conscientious and Necessary it is for the Salvation of the Soul we have proved in this whole Treatise as also how convenient for the State now I will shew the same in a word and by the confession of our Adversaries It is a growing Religion say they therefore I infer
non solum in sermone sed etiam in virtute not only by preaching but also by power of working miracles the wolves are deprehended c. Of all St. Bernards miracles J will mention but one which Godefridus relateth as an eye witness and could not without known discovery and discredit have then reported a matter so publick and of such importance with so great variety of particular circumstances had the thing bin vntrue There is saith this Author a place in the Countrey of Tolosa called Sarlatum where as the Sermon was don they offered to the servant of God as every where the vse was many loaves to bless which by lifting vp his hand and making the sign of the Cross in Gods name blessing he sayd thus Jn this you shall know that these things are true which we and that those other are fals which the Hereticks labor to persuade you c. And whosoever they be of your diseased persons that tast the loaves they shall be healed that you may know us to be true Ministers of God Ganfredus Carotensis a Bishop who stood by added if they take it with a good faith they will be healed St. Bernard sudenly replyed I do not say so but whosoever will tast of them will be healed to the end they may know we are true and sincere ministers of God And so huge a multitude of diseased persons recovered by tasting the same bread that over all the Countrey this was divulged c. Here we see first How St. Bernard took those people to be hereticks and calls them wolves according to the phrase of the Ghospell becaus they denyed the very same doctrin of the Roman Catholick Church that Protestants do deny as the real presence and Transubstantiation Purgatory the Popes supremacy prayer to Saints worship of Images Indulgences c. We see how God declared by true miracles that the Saint was not mistaken in censuring them as hereticks and by consequence all who obstinatly maintain the same opinions which they did to be of the same stamp Osiander a learned Protestant sayes that though he takes not St. Bernard for a Conjurer but rather for a holy man and honours him as a Saint yet he thinks his miracles were don by the Devil And though this evasion be most absurd and vnworthy either a Scholler or a Christian yet is it the common and best plea of Protestants against such evidences J say the answer is most absurd 1. for that St. Bernards miracles exceeded the Devil and natures power 2. If he was a Saint God would not have permitted the Devil to abuse him so grosly in a matter of faith without the purity and profession wherof there can be no true sanctity 3. Much less would he have permitted the Devil to make St. Bernard an instrument for the establishing of Jdolatry and other damnable errors of Popery in case the contrary belief of Protestants and Petrobusians be the Catholick for albeit God hath permitted the Devil to make vse of wicked men to broach and promote heresys we never read that he condescended so far to his Luciferian pride as to let him employ Saints in such a ministery or to confirm falshood by such miracles as St. Bernards neither indeed is such a permission consistent with Gods veracity or with our obligation to believe his doctrin as hath bin proved SECT III. Miracles to confirm the worship and virtue of the sign of the Cross recorded by St. Paulinus Bishop of Nola St. Cyrillus of Ierusalem St. Atâ—anasius St. Hierom St. Gregory Turonensis Nicephorus and Theodoret in the Ecclesiasticall History THat the primitive Christians by Tradition from the Apostles vsed to sign themselves frequently with the sign of the Cross at the beginning and finishing of every work rising and going to bed before and after meat is testified by Tertullian and St. Cyrill of Jerusalem sayes let us not be ashamed to confess Christ crucified but let the cross be printed confidently in our foreheads with our fingers as also in all other things in our bread in our drink in going abroad in returning home before sleep when we rise in travelling in resting it is a great gard given to the poor gratis to the infirm without trouble it is a grace given by God the mark of the faithful and terror of the Devils By this sign they have bin triumphed over shew it boldly when they see the Cross they remember him that was crucified they fear him that bruised in peeces the Dragons head And even as the Apostles and they who stuck to their doctrin and disciplin honored and vsed the sign of the Cross so Simon Magus Cerinthus Basilides and all the progeny of hereticks did and do abhorr that instrument of our redemption in so much that St. Paul declares it to be a mark of heresy to be an enemy of Christs Cross. And St. Hipolitus that most ancient and learned Martyr in his book of the Consummation of the world sayes that Antichrist will prohibit men to make the sign of the Cross. And as Simon Magus maintained that the Cross ought not to be honoured becaus Christ did not realy suffer vpon it but only his Jmage and Cerinthus came neer the same error pretending that IESVS and Christ were different and that only IESVS suffered not Christ Besides that neither IESVS nor Christ but Simon Cyreneus who carried the Cross suffered vpon the same and that Christ did shrink away as these hereticks J say thought the Cross ought not to be worshipped becaus they maintained Christ did not suffer death vpon it so all Christians who believed his real passion and death did honor the Cross in the primitive Church and God to confirm this their faith and piety hath wrought innumerable miracles wherof I shall relate but very few The first shall be taken out of Paulinus Bishop of Nolae his writings a man of such sanctity and credit that St. Austin St. Hierom St. Gregory the great St. Gregory of Tours Prosper Aquitanicus and others say of him he was faithful as Abraham obedient as Isaac benign as Jacob liberal as Melchisedech discreet and prudent as Ioseph meek as Moyses innocent as Samuel mercifull as David wise as Salomon of great courage as Peter fervent as Paul c. And so charitable that he made himself a slave in Africk to redeem from barbarous servitude some of his Flock This holy Bishop Paulinus receiving from the hands of his Kinswoman Melania a litle peece of the Cross which John Bishop of Ierusalem sent vnto him it happened that a stable full of hay took fire and the flames reached to St. Paulinus his hous he presently took the relique of the Cross and opposed it to that furious element wherupon the devouring flames instantly retired and the fire was wholy extinguished Of this miracle St. Paulinus himself composed an elegant poem yet to be seen in his works A greater miracle the same Saint observes in the holy Cross which
Protestants None could ever prove there was one true miracle wrought to confirm the Protestants doctrin or their pretended authority for reforming the Tenets of the Roman Catholick Church Protestants are forced to say that miracles are ceased and that ours are Diabolical or counterfeit Because no true Bishops were Protestants and by consequence they could have no Priests ordained and so their Priesthood must have perished after the death of the first Apostatas Luther and others the Protestant reformers and Churches taught that all Christians are Priests both men and women and this doctrin is supposed to be true by the Church of England in their 39. articles and in the Act of Parliament 8. Eliz. 1. SECT IV. OF the Protestant Prelatick Church of England The occasion of K. Henry the 8. divorce from Q. Catharin and of his revolt from the Church of Rome was his passion to An Bullen the words of S. Iohn Baptist to Herod concerning his brothers wife absurdly applyed to K. Henrys marriage with his Brothers widdow How zealously he had formerly maintained the Popes supremacy how cruelly he afterwards persecuted the professors therof and how impiously he judged S. Thomas of Canterbury robbed his shrine and burnt his Reliques The Catholick Princes rejected his embasies and solicitations for imitating his example in assuming the supremacy And how much the protestant Princes were troubled and ashamed that he made his lust the motive of his reformation How incredible a thing is the English supremacy K. Henry 8. at length resolved to renounce it and returne to the duty of a Christian King but stood upon such termes and differrd it so long that he died in Schism excommunicated and despairing of Gods mercy His last will and testament was broken before his body was buried The Erle of Hartford made himself Protector and brought into England the Sacramenrian or the Zuinglian heresy against K. Henrys last will and the lawes of the land then in force without a Parliament and contrary to the votes of the Erles of Arundell and Southampton and others of the 16. Trustees named Governors by K. HeÌ„ry 8. during the minority of Edw. 6. SVBSECT I. HOw Seamor was directed and destroyed by Dudley Duke of Northumberland The sayd Dudley notwithstanding he was a Catholick in his judgment as himself confessed at his death concurred to establish protestancy in England designing therby to vnsettle the state and make way for excluding the right heirs of the Crown and crown his own family which he effected by excluding Q. Mary for being a Catholick and by marrying his Son to the Lady Jane Grey who had no other right to the Kingdom but what her Zeal to the Protestant Religion and Clergy gave her What wicked men and great cheats were Cranmer and his Camerades that composed the 39. articles of the Protestant Religion of the Church of England and the common prayer book that of Sacraments Rites and Ceremonies and how the common people were made believe the change was not of Religion but of language SECT V. OF the 39. Articles of the Church of England they contain only some general notions of Christianity and are applicable to all dissenting Sects of Protestancy as Presbytery Zuinglianism c. The design of the composers having bin rather to give men a liberty of not believing the particulars of Christian Religion then of tying them to any certain points therof or to any faith therfore they declare that the visible Church is fallible and determin no certain canonical Scripture of the new Testament They make the doctrin that Luther learnt of the Devil against the Mass Tradition and praying to Saincts c. part of their Creed as also the Tenet against spiritual Caracters of Episcopacy and Priesthood art 25. rejecting imposition of hands as not instituted by Christ. In the 2. last Articles they endeavour in vain to suppress the errors of Anabaptists especialy that of appropriating to themselves other mens goods in vain I say because in their former articles they declare its lawful for Protestants to dispossess the Roman Catholick Clergy of their goods and dignitys by vertue of a privat interpretation of Scripture and the Anabaptists pretend no more but that its lawfull for themselves to deal after the same manner with Prelaticks and t is certain there can be no disparity given So that the two last articles of the 39. as also that of the authority of the Protestant Clergy are against an evident parity of reason in their own Protestant Principles SECT VI. A Particular account of the revolutions which these 39. articles caused in England and how they may work always the same effects if there be such politick and popular heads amongst us as Dudley Crumwell and many of the last long Parliament Q. Maries Reign how much endangered by Protestant designs and rebellions Duke Dudleys speech at his death The Roman Catholick Religion restored by Act of Parliament and the Protestant decreed to be Heresy and Schism as also the force and frauds of K. Henry 8. divorce discovered and his marriage with Q. Catharin of Spain declared valid The Roman Clergys resignation of the Church revenues to the Crown and present possessors Q. Elizabeths intrusion against the right of the Steward 's effected by the zeal of the Protestant faction for suppressing of Popery SECT VII NOtwithstanding that Q. Elizabeth was declared illegitimat by 3. Acts of several Parliaments never yet repealed she possessed herself of the Croun and excluded the Queen of Scots the lawfull and immediat heir to Q. Mary lately deceased By the advice of Cecil and others she revived Protestancy and the Supremacy therby to excuse her illegitimacy She instituted a new Kind of Clergy the Prelatick Protestant Bishops neither had nor have any other caracter of Episcopacy but what the great seal and her temporal laws give them Any Lay person may consecrat a Bishop of the Church of England if he hath the Kings commission to do it all other things being superfluous according to the Act. 8. Eliz. 1. and 25. article of the 39. How the Oath of supremacy divided Protestants and made the Catholicks more constant The simplicity of some Protestant writers pretending that the Pope offered to confirm the English liturgy if Q. Elizabeth would acknowledge his jurisdiction SECT VIII REasons why Q. Elizabeth in her long raign could not settle her Protestant Religion nor gain credit for the Prelatick Clergy Neither is it possible for her Successors to make the generality of her subjects to have any esteem for either SECT IX HOw injurious and prejudicial the Protestant Religion hath been to the Royal family of the Stevards and how zealous they have bin and still are in promoting the same It preferred not only Q. Elizabeth but also any natural child of hers before the line of the Stewards Wherof see the 8. sect â—in How dexterously K. James played his game and how they who murthered his mother were forced to invite him to the Crown
of England Of his design to reform the principles and liberty of Protestancy intending therby to render it less dangerous to lawfull Soveraigns and Monarchy How K. Charles 1. pursued his Fathers design but his sufferings and death demonstrat the impossibility of confining the Protestant liberty within the rules of Government or reason By the fundamental principles of Protestancy every particular person is a Supreme Iudge in spiritual affairs and may more easely apply and abuse that prerogative to the prejudice of his Soveraign then the Pope can his papal Supremacy Therfore it s a great providence of God when any Protestant King of England escapes to be judged and deposed by his Subjects THE SECOND PART OF the vnreasonableness of Protestancy and of the inconsistency of the principles of Protestancy with Christian piety and peaceable government SECT I. THe vnreasonableness and inconsistency of Protestancy with Christian piety or policy proved by the very fundamental principle of all Protestant reformations which principle is a supposition of the fallibility and fall of the visible Catholick Church from the pure and primitive doctrin of Christ to damnable errors and notorious superstition Such a change is demonstrated both incredible and impossible SECT II. THe Protestants proof of such a change is their pretended cleerness of Scripture It is demonstrated that their Sense of Scripture is not clear in any texts controverted between Catholicks and Protestants That the principles of Protestancy incline to vice the Catholick principles to vertue proved in many particulars The invisibility of the Church a ridiculous comment SECT III. THe Protestant letter and Sense of Scripture is not the word of God Doctor Cossins his Scholastical History of the English Canon of Scripture confuted as also his exceptions against the authority of the Roman Catholick Canon The Lutheran Churches of Germany agree not with the English Canon of Scripture SVBSECT I. DOctor Cossins now Bp. of Duresme his exceptions against the Councel of Trent answered The legality of a Councel as well as of a Parliament may stand with the absence of many members if they were summoned and expected The absurdity of Protestant writers excepting against the want of Bishops in the Councel of Trent wheras themselves made new Religions and reformations by a Single voice of Luther Zuinglius Calvin c. and in England by the vote of the major part of twelve persons named by the Parliament to determin matters of faith and Sacraments seaven men were thought sufficient to do the work and cast the Roman Catholick Religion Protestant Bishops can no more pretend to sit and define in a general Councel then proclaimed rebells can pretend to vote in a lawful Parliament It s as reasonable the Bishop and Church of Rome should condemn hereticks and judge all controversies of faith as it is that a King and Parliament condemn rebells and judge suites in law A new definition of Pope or Councel is no new article of faith it is only a declaration of our obligation to believe that which formerly had bin revealed but not sufficiently proposed Doctor Cossins his egregious falsification of Belarmin his wresting words of St. Austin and St. Hierom. SECT IV. THe Protestant translations of Scripture are fraudulent and fals no certainty of Christian faith can be built vpon them Protestants admit no Coppy or translation to be authentick to the end they may be at liberty to reject what they do not fancy of the letter of Scripture as well as of the sense The vulgar Latin is authentick Scripture How corrupt are all English Bibles How in K. Edward 6. his reign Cranmer and the first Apostles of English Protestancy changed the very text of Christs words This is my body three several times Protestants make the Apostles fallible in doctrin even after receiving the holy Ghost and by consequence must hold their writings or Scripture to be fallible SVBSECT I. MAny particular instances of Protestant corruptions in the English Bibles to asert the Protestant and prelatick doctrin of the Church of England Against images Against Ordination by imposition of hands Against the single life of Priests Against the Sacrifice of Masse Against vowes of chastity To favor the Kings Supremacy How fondly these corruptions are excused by Whitaker and how absurdly Scripture is made speak according to the Protestant translations What small hopes there are that a Clergie which corrupts Scripture or continueth and countenanceth corruptions of Scripture will repent or recant their errors and how little reason the Protestant layty hath to rely vpon their Clergys sincerity or vpon their English Scripture SECT V. THe Protestant interpretation is not the true Sense of Scripture The principal part of Gods word is the sense he delivered to the Church together with the letter It s against reason to believe that the Church would be more carefull of preserving the letter then of preserving the sense of Scripture and therfore Protestants are vnexcusable for taking the letter from the Roman Church and rejecting the sense The holy Fathers bid us receive the Sense of Scripture as well as the letter from the Church An infallible mark of heresy to do the contrary It is at least 16. to one that the Roman Catholick Sense of Scripture is true and the Protestant fals SECT VI. NO Protestant Church hath a true Ministery Miracles Succession of doctrin or Sanctity of life Their extraordinary vocation is ridiculous and incredible it being impossible that God should send Ministers to contradict doctrin confirmed with so many signs of his own authority and approbation as the Roman Catholick is God never sent such vitious men as the Protestant reformers were to reform his Church either in the old or new Testament If the Protestant doctrin had bin true God would have wrought miracles to confirm it for the conversion of the seduced Papists as Protestants confess he doth for the conversion of the Jndians Iaponians and China What wicked men were Luther Zuinglius Calvin Beza Cranmer and the rest of his Camerades that framed the Religion and Liturgy of the Church of England and how little credit in matters of faith deserves the Parliament that confirmed the same Calvins miracle at Geneva foretold by Tertullian SECT VII THe conversion of pagan Kings and Kingdoms to Christianity foretold in Scripture is a more cleer sign of the true Church then any other miracles and not to be found in any other Church but in the Roman Catholick acknowledged by learned protestants Of Barlows three-score invisible Queens converted by protestants No greater an absurdity then their invisible Church The vain endeavors of Calvin and other protestants to convert Heathen nations Bezas despair of Success in that Ministery and his advice to protestants to leave that labor to the Jesuits and rather busy themselves at home Tertullians saying that its a sign of hereticks to pervert Christians not convert pagans may be properly applyed to Protestants Their success in propagating their new Ghospel no
6. reign What a wicked man Arch. Cranmer was of Peter Martyr Echinus Bucer Latimer and Ridleys impieties SVBSECT III. OF Hooper Rogers Poynet Bale and Coverdale Hooper and Rogers combined against Crāmer and Ridley How Latimer joyned with them Their Project of Puritanism How Hooper inveighed against plurality of benefices when he had none and enjoyed two Bishopricks when his faction prevailed and left his friend Rogers in the lurch How Rogers and Coverdale conspired with Tyndall to falsify Scripture Bishop Poynets contest and Suit in law with a Butcher about the Butchers wife notwithstanding that Poynet had one of his own But Sentence was given for the Butcher against Poynet contrary to the Principles and liberty of Protestancy and to what the protestant Church had resolved before in the like case between Sir Ralph Sadler and one Barrow whose wife was decreed to be married to Sir Ralph during Barrows life Bishop Bales conversion to protestancy related by himself and attributed to his beloved Dol. What an impostor he was Bish Coverdales drunkenes and corruptions of Scripture How corrupt and vngodly a Scripture is the English translation of the Bible It was condemned by act of Parliament as fraudulent ād fals Notwithstanding which censure it was and is imposed vpon the Nation as the word of God sometimes it was called Mathews Bible othertimes the Bishops Bible or the Bible of the large volume with litle or no alteration Coverdales vanity in attempting to convert to protestancy the Vniversity of Oxford Laurence Sanders a Protestant Martyr and Priest his resolution to dy for legitimating his little bastard SVBSECT IV. ARch Cranmers conference with Doctor Martyn and other Catholicks How weakly he defended the Protestant cause How vainly Protestants pretend Scripture for their doctrin as all heretiks do How Cranmer was proved to be an heretick by the definition of Origen Tertullian c. SECT III. OF the Protestant Clergy in Q. Maries reign the same that afterwards founded Q. Elizabeths Church Their frauds factions cheats and changes of the English Protestant religion during their exile in Germany Related by Dr. Heylin How the German Protestants called the English Protestants the devils Martyrs and would not entertain their banished Clergy and Confessors How therupon the English clergy changed and accommodated their Religion to that of the places wherin they lived and printed books at Frankford and Geneva containing contrary doctrines for humoring dissenting churches How often they changed their Liturgy at Frankford Of Grindall Horn Sandys Chambers Pakhurst Whithead Whittingham Williams Goodman Wood Sutton Fox their frauds factions divisions and books against Q. Mary c. How vnfit men to be Bishops and to found a Church and yet they were the chief pillars and Prelats of Q. Elizabeths reformation SECT IV. ABominable frauds and wilfull falcifications of the protestant Clergy in Q. Elizabeths reign to maintain their doctrin set forth vnder the name of an Apology and defence of the Church of England How Q. Elizabeth gained the Nobility and House of Commons to vote in Parliament for reviving Protestancy Of Bish. Iewells ridiculous challenge at Pauls Cross. How all the Protestant Clergy conspired with him in his impostures How they were confuted by Doctor Harding Stapleton and other Catholicks All the Protestant writers borrow from Jewells impostures their arguments and authoritys against the Roman Catholick Religion Acknowledged by Dr. Heylin in his history of the Church of England SVBSECT I. THe Protestant Clergys fraud and falshood against Communion vnder one kind It was a thing indifferent in the ancient Church Proved by several instances Jewells ridiculous evasions SVBSECT II. JEwell and the Protestant Clergy censure as hereticks the same ancient Fathers they appeal vnto in other controversies for condemning the mariage of Priests They corrupt the Ecclesiastical history for the same reason and bring an example of an imaginary Bishop to confirm their corruption and pretend that S. Gregory Nazianzen says that a Bishop may minister the better in the Church for having a wife in his house and that his own Father was instructed in Ecclesiastical functions by his wife SVBSECT III. IEwell and his Prelaticks charge Cardinal Hosius and all Catholicks with contemning the holy Scriptures contrary to his own knowledge and even after he had bin admonished of the imposture SUBSECT IV. FAlsifications and frauds against the Bishop of Rome his Supremacy scripture falsified to impugne the same SVBSECT V. PRotestants frauds and falsifications to deny and discredit the Sacrifice of Mass. Their pretence that the ancient Mass was the same thing with the English communion or Liturgy Iewells impudency SUBSECT VI. PRotestant falsifications and corruptions of Scripture to make the Pope Antichrist and the succession of Bishops a mark of the beast Q. Elizabeths first Bishops were violently bent against Episcopal Succession because it was notorious that themselves wanted such a succession Want of Succession a mark of hereticks Proved by Fathers SVBSECT VII PRotestant falsifications to prove that Popes may and have decreed heresys SVBSECT VIII ITem to prove that Popes have insulted over Kings SVBSECT IX ITem to prove that S. Austin the Apostle of England was no Saint but an hypocrit as also to discredit Catholick Writers SVBSECT X. PRotestants frauds and falsifications of Scripture as likewise their altering of the 39. articles of Religion to make the laity believe that there are true Bishops and Priests in the Church of England Jtem their forgery of records The Evasions of Primat Bramhal and others concerning their Episcopal succession confuted SVBSECT XI XII AN advertisment to the Reader concerning Bishop Iewell of some learned Protestants converted to the Roman Catholick Faith by discovering the falsifications and frauds of his books Mr. Hookers sincerity questioned for his immoderat praises of so great and notorious an impostor in his Eccles. Polit. A feigned Protestant story of the two Doctors Reynolds How Iewell excused his falsifications in presence of the Erle of Leicester by saying that Papists must be dealt with as Papists SECT V. FRauds follies and falsifications of Iohn Fox his Acts of monuments and of his Magdeburgian Masters in their Centuries The litle sincerity of the English Church and Clergy in countenancing such fals dealing All sober men that read the works of the Magdeburgian Centurists must conclude they composed them rather in drinking stoves then in retired studies so rash and foolish are their censures of the greatest Doctors and Saints of Gods Church Valētia the Iesuit aptly compared these centurists to malefactors that confess all the knowing and honest men of the country or citty witness that they are theeves and hereticks c. And then these malefactors refute all this by only saying that the sayd knowing and honest men so highly esteemed by all the world for their knowledge and integrity spoke incommodiously and ignorantly when they accused the theeves Iohn Fox his absurdity in making the true Church visible to Protestants and invisible to Catholicks What
Law of England our Kings may minister all ecclesiastical functions consecrat Bishops and their letters patents are sufficient to give any lay person man or woman power to consecrat Bishops and Priests Ten wilfull falsifications set down together by Bish Morton for proving that Catholicks hold the Pope cannot be deposed nor become an heretick Primat Bramhalls falsification to prove that Popes may and have decreed heretical doctrin SECT IX PRoved by reasons and examples that no Religion is so little dangerous to the soveraignty and safety of Kings or so advantagious to the peace and prosperity of subjects as the Roman Catholick notwithstanding the Popes spiritual supremacy Bellarmin the Author most excepted against in the opinion of deposing of Kings sayes that a King cannot be deposed for being an heretick vnlesse he forceth his subjects to heresy The Author of this Treatise doth not intend to promote Bellarmīs doctrin but only sheweth there can be no danger in it though it were allowed as true Not any thing more contrary to sound policy then to lay for the foundation of loyalty an Oath or engagement against opinions plausible popular and practised The best way to suppress them is to silence the Authors not censure their doctrin How litle the Popes power is feared by protestants though they make it the pretext of persecuting Catholicks How little his censures can disturb the government in regard of the notoriousness of the fact and the solemnity of his sentences required for their validity How Arch Laud and other protestants contradict them selves in this matter A fancied possibility without probability can bring no danger to the government How vnreasonable it is to exact a more strict profession of allegiance from catholick subjects to a protestant Soveraign then is given by any other Catholicks to their Catholick Soveraign That the french Kings exacts such engagements or Remonstrances from their subjects against the Popes authority as is required in England and Ireland from Catholiks against the same is a gross mistake All such disputes are prohibited in France as tending to sedition and no way profitable The Censure of the Parliament of Paris and some Doctors of the Sorbon against the Popes authority disanulled by the King and privy Councell in France Protestants cannot cleare their own principles in this particular from the aspersions they lay on the Catholick Tenets One of the fundamental principles of Protestancy is a power in the people to depose Soveraigns and dispose of their Kingdoms for the use of the Ghospel Proved by the examples of all Kingdoms and States that received the Reformation even the Prelatick of England SECT X. THat Protestants could never prove any of the wilfull falsifications wherwith they charged Roman Catholick writers but on the contrary themselves are convicted of that crime whensoever they attempted to make good their charge against us Of the Index Expurgatorius Bp. Taylors objections in the Dissuasive as also Bp. Mortons Bp. Jewells c. retorted vpon themselves Item Sutcliffs accusations against Bellarmin The Councell of Calcedon confirmed by Act of Parliament of Q. Elizabeth and by consequence the Popes spiritual supremacy which that Councell asserts SUBSECT I. PRotestants convicted by Belarmin of holding 20. ancient condemned heresies and how fourteen are admitted by them or at least vnanswered and the other six wherof they endeavor to cleere themselves are excused only by falsifying Fathers and Catholick Authors among which are two Pelagian heresies two Novatian one Manichean and one of the Arians Besides these Protestants maintain Iustification by only faith with the Simonians and Eunomians That God is the author of sin with the Florinians That women may be and are Priests with the Peputians That Concupiscency is a sin with Proclus That the true Church was invisible for many ages with the Donatists That men ought not to fast the Lent pray nor offer Sacrifice for the dead with the Aerians That Saints ought not to be prayed vnto nor their reliques or images worshipt with Vigilantius SVBSECT II. FAlsifications objected against Baronius by Dr. Sutcliff How ridiculous The difference between the falsifications objected by Catholicks and those that are objected by Protestants SECT XI CAlumnies and falsifications of Luther Clavin Arch-bishop Laud and Primat Vsher to discredit the Roman Catholick Religion and vphold Protestancy against their own conscience and knowledge What impudent impostors were Luther and Calvin Proved in many particulars Frauds and falsifications and calumnies of Primat Vsher called the Irish Saint by Protestants against the real presence and Transsubstantiation Against sacramental Confession Against absolution of sins by a Priest His cheat concerning Duli◠nd Latria No new invention of Jesuits but the ancient doctrin and distinction of the Fathers Against prayer to Saints His imposture of the Breviary of the Premonstratensian Order SVBSECT I◠OF Bp. Laud the English Protestant Martyr How fraudulently he would fain excuse the modern Greeks from being hereticks notwithstanding his 39. Prelatick articles condemn their doctrin of the holy Ghost as heresy He abuseth S. Austin to make Protestants believe that general Councells may err against scripture and evident reason He abuseth Vincentius Lyrinensis laying to that ancient Fathers charge his Graces own blasphemy and commits therin many frauds He falsifies Orcam and resolves the Prelatick Faith into the imaginary light of Scripture and the priva◠spirit and therin agrees with Presbiterians and Fanatiks And pretends that Prelaticks are not Schismaticks and Sectaries But to excuse them commits divers frauds His pretence of the lawfulness for privat Churches to reforme themselves confuted His doctrin doth justify all the sectaries proceeding against himself and the Church of England His vanity in pretending that the Church of Britain is independent of the Pope as also that the Pope can not be judge in his own cause His fraudulent and absurd explanation of S. Ireneus against the primacy of Rome item of the gallican libertys His abusing and corrupting S. Greg. Nazian because that Saint asserteth the infallibility of the Roman Church His falsifying of Gerson vpon the like accompt A faire offer to Protestants for the trial of falsifications SECT XII Whether it be piety or policy to give the Protestant Clergy of these 3. Kingdoms a million sterl per an for maintaining by such frauds and falsifications as hitherto have bin alledged the doctrin of the church of England which also they acknowledge to be fallible and by consequence for all they know fals And how the sayd million per an may be conscientiously applyed to the vse of the people without any dangerous disturbance to the Government It was policy in Q. Elizabeth to make such a clergy and Religion but not piety The case being now altered neither piety nor policy to preserve either No seditious or interessed persons can disturb the Government by pretending zeal for preserving a Religion and Clergy so prejudicial to the soul and state if liberty be granted to discover the cheat wherby the
Danaeus contra Belarmin pag. 781. (c) The title of Zwingitu his writing is Pietate Prudentia in signi Helveti orum Reipublicae Hulde ricus Zwinglius aliique Evangelicae doctrinae Ministri gratia pacem a Deo c. ton 1. fol. 110 See all these words and much more related by him-self 1. sq ad fol. 123. [d] Zwingl tom 3 in lib. de subid Ecclesiae fo 249 The Reformers of the English Church Jn Queen Elizabeth See the nullity of the English Church and Clergy See this in the new Edition of the Common prayr book ritâ—s c. of the Church of England [a] In psal 30. con 2. [b] Esay 2.2 [c] Esay 60.16 [d] Esay 60.9 [e] Esay 60.10.11 Psalm 102.15.22 Esay 62.2 [f] Esay 60.6 [g] Esay 49.23 And see the marginal notes of the English Bible of 1576. in Esay 49.23 [h] Psalm 2.8 [i] The English Bible 1576. in the marginal notes saith The meaning is that Kings shall be converted to the Ghospel and bestow their power and authority for preservation of the Church Luther tom 4. Wittemb in Esay 6. folio 234. Kings shall obey and believe the Ghospel c. The Church is in perpetual vse of converting others to the faith c. For this is signified by her gates being continually open [k] Whitaker in his answer to Mr. William Reynolds in the Preface pag. 37. [l] Centur. 4. col 292. 293. vnder the titles de justificatione bonis operibus where they conclude saying J am cogitet pius Lector quam procul haec aetas in hoc Articulo de Apostolorum doctrinâ— desciverit (m) Centur. 4. col 254. Ad hoc Presbyterâ—m aliquem deputarunt ad quem qui deliquerunt accedentes quae gessissent confiterentuâ— c. Ea lege confitentes absolvebat vt a seipsis poenas commissorum exigerent (n) Centur. 4. col 255. col 256.257 are recited and rejected the particulaâ— sayings of Bazil Ambrose Prudentius Ephrem Athanasius (o) Centur. 4. col 304. Where are recited and rejected the sayings of Lactantius and S. Ierom. (p) See confessed testimonies for Transsubstantiation alleadged by the Centurists cent 4. col 29â— col 985. And cent 5â— col 517. They say Chrysostom seemeth so confirm Transsubstantiation And cent 4. c. 10. col 985. that Eusebius and Emissenus did speake vnprofitably of Transsubstantiation (q) Chemnitius in his examin part 2. pag. 29. alledged the severall sayings of S. Austin S. Ambrose and S. Gregory Nazianzen affirming the adoâ—â—tion of the Sacrament And Orat. 11. de Gorgonia sorore telleth how his deceased sister prostrated her self before the Alter and calling vpon him who is worship'd on it â— miracle saith he the departed presently received health And the Centurists cent 4. col 430. do reprove some prayers of S. Ambrose saying Continent adorationem panis in Sacramento (r) Centur. 3. col 83. they reprove S. Cyprian saying Sacerdotem vice Christi fungi Deo Patri Sacrificium offerre They also say that the writings of S. Ireneus and Ignatius the Apostles scholler are here in incommodious and dangerous And Sebastia Francus in his Epist. de abrogandis Statutis omnibus Ecclesiast affirmeth that presently after the Apostles time the supper of our Lord was turned into a Sacrifice (s) Centur 4. col 456. 457. 482. 1446. Centur. 4. col 602. 1250. 457. And S. Ierom contra Vigilantium cap. 3. affirmeth the estimation of Reliques to be in his time the received doctrin non vnius vrbis sed totius orbis (v) Hemnitius examin part 4. pag. 10 Suscipiebant etiam Peregriâ—â— Nationes ad loca vbi Reliquias Miraculis celebres claras audiebant (x) Centur. 4. col 409. (z) Mr. Fulk against Heskins Sanders c. pag 657. affirmeth that by report of Paulinus the Cross was by the Bishop of Hierusalem brought forth at Easter yearly to be worshiped of the people See Evagrius hist. lib. 4. cap. 25. also Danaeus in respons ad Belarmini controvers pag. 1415. affirmeth that Cyril and sundry other Fathers were plainly superstitious and blinded with inchantment of the Crosses adoration (1) See Mr. Covels answer to Burges pag. 130 136. (2) Cent. 4. col 616. It is alledged out of the Councel of Neocesaâ—ea can 1. Presbyter si vxorem duxerit ab ordine suo illum deponi debere col 486. col 303. col 704. 1293. (3) Centur. 5. col 1274. they charge Gelasius who lived an 480. saying Romanam Ecclesiam jure Divino contendit Gelasius esse omnium primam in epist. ad Brut. c. cap. 11. And Gelasius in decretis cum 70. Episcopis initis saith Romana Ecclesia â—alliâ— Sâ—â—odicis constitut caeteris Ecclesiis praelata est sed Evangelica voce Domini Primatum obtinuit Tu â—s Petrus inquiâ—â—s super hanc Petram c. (y) Centur. 4. col 1329. Et Osiander in epitom cent 4. pag. 454. And Zozimen hist. lib. 6. c. 27. post med reported of S. Paul the Monk In dies singulos trecentas Orationes Deo velut tributum quoddam reddidit ac ne per inprudentiam in numero erraret trecentis lapillis in sinum conjectis ad singulas preces singulos inde ejecit lapillos consumptis igitur lapillis constabat sibi Orationes lapillis numero pares abs se expletas esse And see other like examples of saying prayers by accompt or numbring of them in Palladius his historia Lausiaca cap. 24. cap. 25. [4] Beza cit apud Saâ—â—iâ—â—am in defen Tract de divâ—â—sis gradibâ—â— Ministrorum c. pag. 309. [5] Tertull. lib. de praescr c. 42. Luther in Commentâ—r ad cap. 2. ad Galat. Where it is taught Faith in Christ doth in deed justify but it 's necessary with all to keep God's Commandments because it is writen Jf thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments there Christ is denyed and saith is abolished because that which is proper to God alone is attributed to the Commandments of God or to the law When any one proposeth Moyses with his Commandments to thee and would oblige thee to keep them then thy with thy Moyses to the Jews J will have nothing to do with Moyses nor his law for he is an enemy to Christ. Luther in Collo mens Germ. fol. 152. 153. Si scortus es si scortator si Adulter vel alioquin peccator crede in via salutis ambulas Cum in peccatum demersus es ad summum vsque si credis in mâ—dia beatidudine versaris This doctrin of the Antinomian Lutherans togeather with their rejecting the ten Commandments as impertinent to Christians is censured by the Manâ—feldian Ministers Confess Mansfeld fol. 39. 90. And yet the principle from whence all necessarily follows is maintained Mr. Willet in his Synopsis Papismi pag. 564. saith The law remaineth still impossible to be kept by us through the weackness of our flesh neither doth