you deny them this and make them to be as out of the true Church and state of Life If yea Q. 2. Did all that the Apostles Baptized believe all the Apocrypha and all the Decrees of your Councils and your Oral Traditions Q. 3. Did the ancient Fathers and Catechists teach all those to the Catechumens before they Baptized them Q. 4. And were not those all Christians and in the true Church and in a state of Life whom the Apostles Baptized without the profession of any such Belief Q. 5. What was the Creed the Symbolum fidei used for if not to distinguish the Faith of the Christian Church from Infidelity Heresie and all without And if all the Decrees of Councils be as necessary to be the Symbol of Faith why were they not all made up into a Creed and why is the Creed differenced from them all to this day And why do you not cause the Baptized to recite and profess all these Councils Decrees but only the old Christian Creed Q. 6. Doth not Christ at the Institution of his Sacrament Mat. 28. expresly promise that he that believeth according to Baptism in the Father Son and Holy Ghost shall be saved Q. 7. Is it not a reproach to God and the Christian Religion to tell the World that God hath written us by his Spirit so great a Book as the Bible is and yet there is not in it enough to Salvation but that abundance unnecessary to Salvation is in it and some necessary things left out Q. 8. Have your Oral superadded Traditions more Evidence of Truth than the Bible or more Evidence of Necessity to be believed Not more Evidence of Truth For you confess the certain Truth of all the Bible and that as fully manifest as your Additions If it have more Evidence of Necessity what is it It is not because it is a Divine Revelation For so you confess all the Bible to be And do you pretend to a Tradition that saith You may be saved without most of the Bible though it be of God but not without fasting on Frydays or on the Vigils of Saints-days or other such Traditions But if you will make both the whole Bible and Tradition necessary to be believed it must be either Explicitely or as you call it Implicitely If Explicitely that is as each Point is particularly understood and believed then it 's doubtful whether there be one Man in the World that is a Christian and can be saved If Implicitely that is Virtually as it is in some General Proposition what is that General Is it that All that God revealeth is true Or that All that the Spirit of Christ in his Apostles delivered to the Church as his word is true These we all agree in if this will serve the turn Is it that the Church is the Ministerial Keeper of the Sacred Doctrine as delivered This also we agree in Or is it that the Church de eventu shall never corrupt alter or lose this word or any part of it If you mean it of every particular Church we are agreed of the contrary You confess that many Churches have fallen to Heresie and many Apostatized from the Faith If you speak of the Universal Church we are agreed that the Universal Church shall never Apostatize for if Christ had no Church he were no Head of it And we are agreed that they shall never turn such true Hereticks as hold not truly all the Essentials of Christianity For such also are no Christians because each Essential part is necessary to the Essence But whether the Universal Church much more the Greater part may not make or receive some culpable alteration by Amission Omission or Commission we have reason to question We never heard any Proof that the Negative was necessary to Salvation nor is it held by all your selves and whether by any one man I cannot tell For you take the Bible to be Gods Word and your knowledge of the various Readings of the Hebrew and Greek Copies and the multitude of Errours in the Vulgar Latine corrected by P. Clem. 8. and Sixtus 5. do satisfie all the World that you hold that the Universal Church or the major part even your own may culpably erre or alter the very written Word of God And who would then believe you if you said But the Unwritten Word it cannot alter It 's true indeed the Essentials considered as Written or Unwritten all the true Church nor any one Christian while such cannot deny But sure if many thousand Errours may be found in that Book which you take your selves for the Word of God and this through the fault or failing of such as have had the keeping of it and all Divine Revelations are to be believed and all the Word of God is Divine Revelation it notoriously followeth That your own Church hath not kept all that is matter of Divine Faith from alteration So that though many of your Wranglers will not distinguish the Essentials of Christianity called Fundamentals from the Integrals and Accidentals as if Christianity were nothing and had no determinate Essence yet this sheweth that you must do it whether you will or not or else you must confess that your Church may alter any thing or every thing as it hath done all these fore-mentioned Which we will not confess of the Church Universal But I suppose that we have not yet met with the Faith that you account necessary to salvation It is that the Pope of Rome and a General Council cannot erre in delivering to us the Apostolical Doctrine to be believed And this is an implicite believing of all that is written in Scripture and that is delivered orally from the Apostles If so words and names go very far with you as to mens salvation Is this to believe a thousand things which a man never knew or heard of if he do but believe the Infallibility of your Church What! Believe that which I never once thought of But this is but Implicite Faith A cheating Name for No-belief of those things For by Implicite here you can mean only Virtual and that is no Actual Belief of that thing at all but of something else which would infer more were it known Nay Virtual is too high a Name for it But will this serve the turn to salvation to believe that the Pope and his Council are Infallible What! though the same Person believe not in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost nor any of the Articles of his Creed no not a Life to come If you say Yea Then will you call this Christianity to believe in the Pope and not in Christ Or do you mean that men may be saved without Christianity but not without Popery If so why was not the Popes Name rather than Christs put into Baptism and the Creed or at least with Christs But the insuperable difficulty is How must I believe that the Pope hath this Infallibility From Christ or otherwise If not from Christ tell me
Office and Dignity would he never have told the Church of Rome of their Mistris-ship and Infallibility above the rest Would so necessary a Fundamental of Faith have been so much silenced 3. Did the Apostles Evangelists or ancient Fathers use to Convert Infidels by any such Method and telling them that they must believe first the Infallibility of the Bishop of Rome and his Clergie and then believe the Gospel because he saith it is true Had this been the old Method would there not have been more Books necessary and written to prove this first Fundamental the Infallibility of the Roman Bishop and his Councils than to have proved the Gospel it self directly Is it not a wonder that we should have such Volumes as Eusebius his Praeparatio Demonstratio Evangel and so many written by those before and after him to prove the Gospel and none of them hit on this Method nor write at large to make it good The Churches Authority and Unity is ordinarily pleaded against Heresies and Schismes but who ever Converted Infidels by the Authority of the Papal Church either proved or asserted as the necessary Medium of Faith 4. Do you not confess that all other Churches may erre besides the Roman And their plea of Tradition you account invalid Your Book called Considerations on the Council of Trent by R. H. p. 40. saith All Conciliary Definitions are not only Declarations and Testifications of such Apostolical Traditions as were left by them evident and conspicuous in all Christian Churches Planted by them but are many times Determinations of Points deduced from and necessary consequents to such clear Traditionals whether written or unwritten 2. If the Acts of General Councils were only such Declarations of Apostolical Tradition yet it is possible that some particular Church may in time depart from such a Tradition entrusted to them else how can any Church become Heretical against any such Tradition Do you not at this day accuse the Greek Church the Muscovites the Armenians the Jacobites Syrians Copties Abassines the Protestants c. as having departed from or corrupted the first Tradition And how small a part of the Universality of Christians are the Papists And if the greater part of Christians may so forsake the Apostolical Tradition why may not the Pope of Rome and his Council How shall we be sure of their exemption from such danger You tell us over and over of our receiving this and that from our Fathers and Grand-Fathers And is that a certain Proof that it is Apostolical Why is it not so then with all the rest the Abassines the Armenians c. and the Majority of Christians But of this I have spoken in the former Treatise 5. And there I have desired you to tell us whether your Grandfather or his Priest was Infallible If yea how came he by it more than all those Churches If not do you not delude your Relations by drawing them to build their Faith on a fallible man or upon nothing Your Relations were not at the Council of Trent or Florence or Laterane How shall they be sure what the Pope and Council agreed on What Foundation but the words of your Priest or Grandfather have you for your assurance May not one of your Priests lye as well as all the Greek Abassine c. Churches When Pope Coelestine himself falsly urged the Nicene Council for Appeals to Rome contrary to Augustine and the Carthage Council Either tell your Readers plainly that it 's you and such as you that are the Infallible Foundation of their Faith or bid them stay and not go your way till they are certain what the Pope and his Council say and that he is a true Pope and it a true Council and that they are more Infallible than the major part of Christians And our Faith can be no stronger than the weakest necessary medium of it from whence it must arise 6. I have said so much of this in a small Book called The certainty of Christianity without Popery which I intreat you impartially to peruse where I have also shewed the utter uncertainty that Popery would reduce our Christianity to that I will now only tell you that after your talk of Tradition and Church and Fathers and Grandfathers if we had not much more testimony of Tradition for our Religion than you have for Popery we should think our Faith were very lame Compare ours with yours 1. Yours is A pretended Authoritative determination which rests upon a supposed Inspiration of some Persons by virtue of a special Priviledge peculiar to themselves 2. It is the Tradition of the minor part of Christians against the major 3. It rests on the pretended Infallibility of a Pope which great General Councils have said may be a Heretick and have deposed divers as Hereticks and worse And upon the Infallibility of General Councils which by Popes and other Councils are pronounced fallible unless confirmed by a Pope who may be a Heretick 4. It rests upon a Foundation viz. the Popes Divine Right of Primacy and Infallibility which is expresly denyed by two of the first four great General Councils approved to this day viz. that of Calcedon reciting the sense of that of Constantinople against the said Divine right affirming that the Popes Primacy was given him by the Fathers because Rome was the Imperial Seat 5. It rests upon an Authority of Popes and General Councils which being at first but the Clergie of one Empire hath thence claimed the same Power over all the Christian World which they had got in the Dominions of one Prince 6. It rests on a Claim downright contradictory to it self as aforesaid viz. That we must believe that the Pope hath this Power and Infallibility given him and his Councils by Christ and his Gospel before we can believe that there is a Christ and a Gospel authorized and true Now our Tradition is this For all the Essentials of our Religion the Sacramental Covenant and the three expository Symbols we have the currant Tradition both of the Papists and all the rest of the Christian World Yea that every Book that we call Canonical is the true Word of God not only the Papists but almost all the Christian World confess And defacto that these Books came down from the Apostles at least that the Gospel was preached by them we have the Testimony also of Enemies and Persecutors And are not all these more than the Testimony of one Sect alone 2. And in this we have as much to confirm us as you have of the wisdom piety care of the Church to preserve the Gospel and much more too for we have the Piety of all the Churches to plead and not your Sect alone And we undertake to prove such a moral Infallibility as is also Natural viz. That Mans Nature and Interests supposed it is no more possible for so many Persons and Nations of cross Interests to have agreed in their Testimony for the Gospel than for all the
ad infernum And as others report him Qui sine poenitentia vivit sine poenitentia moritur ad infernum descendit See Baronius forecited XXVII Though the Pope condemn and unchurch so many yet doth he tolerate in his own Church abundance of differences de fide and abundance of Controversies in Theologie and abundance of Differences and Errours in great and dangerous matters of Morality and abundance of Sects that variously serve God so they will serve him and uphold his Kingdom 1. The holy Scripture is all de fide that is a Divine Revelation to be believed The Popes tolerated Translations that differ in many hundred places or that erred so oft and Commentators that differ in many hundred Texts as to the Exposition yea they tolerate those that deny the immaculate conception of the Virgin after a General Council hath defined it 2. He tolerateth vast Volumes of Theological Differences in the School Doctors 3. He tolerateth all the Moral Doctrines for murdering Kings before mentioned and all those cited by Mr. Clarkson in his Practical Divinity of the Church of Rome and all those mentioned in the Provincial Letters and the Jesuites Morals about Murder Adultery Perjury Lying seldom loving God not loving him intensively above all c. See my Key c. p. 59. 4. He tolerateth abundance of Religious Sects Jesuites Augustinians Franciscans Carthusians c. who differ from each other in their serving God as much as many of the Sects of Protestants who are despised for their discord XXVIII He pretendeth a necessity to the ending of Controversies that he be the Judge and yet will not end them by his Judgment but continueth many hundred undecided If we dispute with a Papist and cite the Scriptures they ask us presently who shall be Judge of the meaning of them As if the Pope would decide all And yet to this day he will neither write any deciding Commentary on the Bible nor on one Book of it nor end the Controversies among his own Commentators Nor will he end any of the fore-mentioned Controversies in Morality of great importance XXIX He sweareth all his Clergie never to take or interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers see the Trent Oath when yet the Fathers do not unanimously expound the Scripture nor any one Book of it And few Priests know what the Fathers are unanimous in nor can do unless they read them all which by this Oath they seem obliged to do Was not Greg. Nazianz. one of the Fathers who saith Orat. 18. I would there were no Presidency nor Prerogative of place and tyrannical Priviledges that so we might be known only by Vertue or deserts But now this Right side and Left side and Middle and Lower Degree and Presidency and Concomitancy have begot us many contentions to no purpose and have driven many into the Ditch and have led them away to the Region of Goats Is not this Heresie or worse with you Was not Isidore Pelusiota a Father but a sharp Reprover of proud and wicked Priests and Prelates who saith lib. 3. Epist 223. ad Hieracem And when I have shewed what difference there is between the ancient Ministry and the present Tyranny why do you not crown and praise the lovers of Equality Doth not this deserve a Fagot with you How ordinarily doth Cajetan and others of yours reject deservedly the Expositions of Fathers Bellarmine chargeth Justin Irenaeus c. with error de Beat. SS li. 1. Cap. 6. He saith There is no trust to be given to Tertullian de Rom. Pont. li. 4. c. 8. He saith Eusebius was addicted to Hereticks and that Cypriâ—n seemed to sin mortally de Rom. Pont. li. 4. c. 7. Di. â—â—s Peâ—avius de Trinit citeth the words of most of the ancientest as favouring Arrianism almost like Sondius himself or Philostorgius and is fain to go to the Major Vote of the Nice ne Council as the proof that most of the ancients were not really of the Arrians mind Dallaeus hath told you more of the Fathers differences and unsatisfactory expositions XXX He confesseth all the Scripture to be Gods infallible word yea his Doctors have asserted its sufficiency as a Divine Law and yet his pretense of its Insufficiency without Traditional supplement is one of the Pillars of his Kingdom The second part needs no proof For the first the elder Popes oft assert it And the School-men in their Prologue to the Sentences Scotus Durandus and many others But when Reformers confuted them by Scripture they found that would not serve their turn as Micaiah of Ahab it prophesyed not good of them but evil And since then they cry up the Church and Tradition and depress the sufficiency of Scripture Even Card. Richlieu pag. 38. confesseth As for us we assert no other Rule but Scripture neither of another sort nor total yea we say that it is the whole Rule of our salvation and that on a double account both because it containeth immediately and formally the sum of our salvation that is all the Articles that are necessary to mans salvation by necessity of means and because it mediately containeth what ever we are bound to believe as it sends us to the Church to be instructed by her of whose infallibility it certainly confirmeth us Here the sum of our Religion is granted At the Council of Basil Ragusius's oration Bin. p. 299 saith That Faith and all things necessary to salvation both matters of belief and practice are founded in the literal sense of Scripture and only from that may argumentation be taken for the proving of those things that are matters of Faith and necessary to salvation and not from those passages that are spoken by allegory c. And sup 7. The holy Scripture in the literal sense soundly and well understood is the infallible and most sufficient rule of Faith See more of his oration opened in my Key pag. 93 94 95. The Testimony of Bellarmine Costerus and others I have formerly recited XXXI The Pope teacheth us that we cannot truly believe the Articles of our Faith or the truth of Scripture but because of the Authority and Infallibility of the Pope and his Church declaring them so that we must believe that the Pope is Christs Vicar and authorized by him and made infallible before we can believe that there is a Christ or that he hath given any authority or gifts to any This is not to be denyed And Knot against Chillingworth hath no other shift but to resolve their belief of the Churches infallibility and authority not into any word or donation of Christ but into Miracles wrought by the Church So that no man can be a Believer that is not first certain of the Papists Miracles and how can millions know them when they see them not and in all my life I could never meet with one that saw them And he must next be certain that those miracles prove the infallibility of the Pope when yet
sort of Papists and very numerous especially in Italy hold that the Pope alone is Supreme and Infallible in Legislation and Judgment and that Councils are but his Counsellors to prepare Laws to which his Fiat giveth Authority and Infallibility All these indeed are commonly called PAPISTS because that more or less they are Subjects of the Pope But who can give one definition or the same marks of men that are really of so many minds If I describe one sort the other will say this is not our Opinion you do us wrong And so of all the rest And here you may see that when the Question is Whether a Papist may be saved and Whether a Papist be a Heretick or the like that it cannot be well answered till we know of which sort of Papists you speak But because I find that already my Writing is swelled beyond my first intent I will give you the Properties or inadequate conceptions of only one sort of Papists which is the third sort in the last distribution who hold the Soveraignty and Infallibility to be in the Pope and Council conjunct and that by Divine Right Because if I speak of any of the other sorts I find they fly for refuge hither and most Writers go upon this ground and will own nothing as their Religion but what is in Approved General Councils And here I desire the Reader to peruse what I have said in my Full and easie satisfaction c. out of Veron and others as they describe their Faith themselves I. A PAPIST of this sort is one that believeth that the Pope and his Council or Church is Infallible in proposing the will of Christ and believeth in Christ and receiveth the Gospel as true for the Authority and Infallibility of this Pope and Council and hereon layeth all the hopes of his salvation as on the Churches Faith And all this Authority and Infallibility he believeth before he believeth that there is a Pope or a Church of Christ or a Christ indeed or a promise or gift from Christ of any Authority or Infallibility to them Much more before he knoweth who is the true Pope and which are true General Councils or whether ever there were any such or what it is that they have decreed to be believed 1. That they take all their Faith in Christ and the Gospel on the credit of the Church that is the Pope and Council proposing it the moderatest of all this sort profess as out of Veron and others I proved as afore-cited Hence it is that one tells us that the Scripture is so full of seeming Contradictions and Improbabilities that he would no more believe it than Esop's Fables were it not for the Authority of the Church Another said Would I ever believe the Trinity the Incarnation that if you lay a man to dye in a close Chest of Lead or Marble his Soul could get out to Heaven that the Body shall rise again c. were it not for the Authority of the Church 2. They believe this Infallibility and Authority of the Pope before they can believe that there is any Pope at all For to be a Pope is essentially to be Christs Vicar as they describe him And as I said it is impossible to believe that Christ hath a Vicar before they believe that he is Christ As it is to believe a Son without a Parent 3. They believe the Infallibility and Authority of the Church as they profess before they believe that there is any Church For to be a Church is essentially to be a Society of Christians And he that yet believeth not that Christ is truly Christ cannot believe that Christians are truly Christians save de nomine nor that Christ hath a Church For they are Relatives as Wife and Husband 4. They believe the Infallibility and Authority of the Church that is the Pope and Council before they believe that Jesus is the Christ For they profess to believe in him because of the said Churches Authority and Infallibility And the Premises go before the Conclusion 5. They believe the said Infallibility and Authority of the Church before they believe that ever Christ gave them such Authority and Infallibility For they cannot believe that Christ gave it them before they believe that there is a Christ and a Word of gift And now is not here a Riddle hard enough to pose the wisest Which way do all these Believers through all the world come to know that the Pope and Council or Church are authorized and Infallible before they believe that Christ ever gave it them Which way do they think that they came by it Let him unriddle it that can 6. They believe thus in the Pope before they know what a Pope is or who is he that they must thus believe in For alas how can all or any in the world know what is necessary to make a Pope what Election what Ordination what Qualification and whether the man had all these And of divers Pretenders which is he that hath the proofs of a true title 7. They believe thus in Councils when they know not what Councils are true and what not nay whether ever there were any For I have elsewhere fully proved that there never was any nor ever will be that are truly Universal as to all the Christian World 8. Much less do these beginners know certainly what General Councils have decreed to be believed by those that will be saved That which will be said to all this is that It is not necessary that all men receive their Faith from Councils it is sufficient if it be from the Church-real though not from the Representative Ans Very good 1. Else no man was a Christian nor could be before the first General Council which was above 300 years 2. But still this answereth none of the Contradictions about believing in and from the Pope May we all take our Faith from the Church-real without taking it from the Pope or not If yea we may possibly be good friends at last If not all the Contradictions about him are still upheld by you 3. And if you must take it from the Authority and Infallibility of the Church Real still all the Contradictions will follow as if you took it from Councils For can you believe that this Church is Christs Church and hath this power and gift from him before you believe that he is Christ and that ever he made such a gift or promise to them 4. And who or what is this Real Church that must be first known to be thus impowered and infallible Is it some few or many or must it be the most If a few or many you profess that they may be Hereticks and have not that authority or gift If it must be all or the greater part 1. Then the Church of Rome goeth down that is at most but a third part 2. How shall every poor man or any man know which is the judgment of the major part Can he take
substance and sense and most of the very words all Churches used the same And when the Council of Nice taught them the way of making new Creeds which Hilary Pictav so sadly complaineth of yet still the matter of the old Creed was the substance of them all And the Eastern Creed which was used before the Nicene Council for that such a one there was the most Learned Antiquaries give us sufficient proof was but the same in sense as the Western even the Exposition of the Baptismal Faith and this the Baptized did profess before Baptism And the work of Catechists was to teach this and the sense of it to the Catechumens And that He that believeth and is baptized that is truly devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost by the Baptismal Covenant shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned is by Christ himself made the sum of his Gospel or Law of Grace As the Image of the blessed Trinity on mans Soul is Life Light and Love so the summaries of that sacred Doctrine which must imprint it on us is the Symbolum Fidei the Creed the summary of things to be believed and the Lords Prayer the Symbolum and summary of things to be willed desired and sought and the Decalogue the summary of things to be practised being the Directory of Mans three Faculties the Intellect the will and the Executive Power And all this we believe was delivered to the Churches by the Apostles and received by all Christians many years eight at least before any Book of the New Testament was written And for the fuller understanding and improvement of it and for all the integral parts of Religion that were to be added the Apostles and Evangelists more enlargedly preached them to the People in their Sermons as Christ himself had done much of them We receive all that as Gods Word which by these Apostles was delivered as such to the Churches because they had the promise of the Holy Ghost to lead them into all truth and to bring all things that Christ taught and commanded to their remembrance We are assured that all that is contained in the New Testament was written by such inspired Persons and that the Spirit of God will knew that when they were to dye without written Records the memory of Mankind would not faithfully retain and deliver to Posterity such copious matter as the Integrals and useful Accidentals of Religion and therefore caused them to write it and leave it to Posterity So that our Christian Religion is contained and delivered to us in three Formulas or Prescripts The first containeth the whole Essence of Christianity and is the Sacramental Covenant in which we are believingly given up to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and God to us in the Relation of a God and Father a Saviour and a Sanctifier This is done initially ad esse in Baptism and after ad robur in the Lords Supper This is delivered to us by Tradition Naturally Infallible de facto For all Christians as such have received and entred this Sacramental Covenant and full History assureth us that the very same Form of it is come down in all the Churches to this day The second Formula is the Exposition of the three Articles of this Sacramental Covenant in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue which hath been delivered by memory also and kept unchanged save the foresaid additions of some explicatory words in the Creed to all the Churches to this day The third Form is all the holy Canonical Scriptures the Old Testament being as preparatory to the New which contain all the Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals Our Religion then is all from Christ and his Spirit in inspired men commissioned to deliver it and is well called as you do the Apostolical Christianity We own no other It is all brought down to us by Tradition from the Apostles The Essentials in the Covenant and the explicatory Symbols or Summaries are delivered to us two ways First by Memory and Practice most currant and certain from Generation to Generation being no more than what Memory might well retain whereto yet the helps of the Ancients Writings reciting the Forms were used for the fuller certainty of Posterity Secondly in the holy Scriptures where they are contained as the Brain Heart and Stomach in the Body among all the rest as the Principal Parts The third form is so large that Memory could not preserve it and therefore God would have it delivered us in that Writing which we all call the Sacred Bible or Canonical Scripture This containeth thousands of words more than are of absolute necessity to Salvation but no more than is useful or helpful to Salvation In all this I have shewed you what our Religion is Objectively taken and which way we receive it Where you are therefore to note 1. That all our Sermons Writings Church-Articles c. are but the Expressions of our Subjective Religion telling other Men how particular Men and particular Churches understand those Divine Forms which are our Objective Religion These are various as Churches and Persons are every one having his own Faith and Religion in different measures and such expressions being but our sides mensurata may be altered and amended and we pretend not to perfection in them But the former being our sides vel Religio mensurans our Divine Objective Faith or Religion is inculpable and unalterable 2. Note that you Papists do grant all our Objective Faith and Religion even every word of it to be true infallible and of God You own I say every word of our Religion That is all the Sacramental Covenant all the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and all that which we call the holy Canonical Scriptures But we own not all yours So that you do not you cannot find fault with the least Particle of our Religion as to the truth of it but 1. You think that it is not enough And 2. That we come not to it the right way that is we take not our Faith upon the word of Papists as Papists Is not this the difference And is not this all that you cry out against us for And now let us see whether your way be better and surer than this of ours is I. Your Religion is much Bigger than ours II. You hold it on other Reasons and plead another way of receiving it I. Your Religion Objective containeth besides all our Bible all the Apocryphal Books and all the Decrees of General Councils and all the other un-written Traditions if there be any more who knows what you name your self here fasting on Frydays and on the vigils of Saints Ember-days Lent and Images and such like Here now we humbly propose to your consideration 1. Whether you will take all these into the Essentials of Christianity or not If not a Man may be a Christian and consequently of the Church or Body of Christ and in a state of Salvation without them Why then do
c. XXV They will publickly pray to God and praise him in an unknown Tongue because the Pope will have it so XXVI They think that the far greatest part of the Body of Christ are tormented in the Flames of Purgatory to make satisfaction to Gods Justice for some Sins notwithstanding Christs sufficient satisfaction XXVII Expecting to go to the Flames of Purgatory when they dye they cannot possibly be willing to leave this World and consequently must be worldlings and never truly willing to dye For the basest condition on Earth will seem to them more desirable than Purgatory XXVIII They think that the Flames of Purgatory do perfect mens preparation for Heaven whereas he is readiest for Heaven that is likest to those in Heaven and most holy and that is they that most love God! And they that are angry here with every one that hurteth him and do not think that tormenting men will win their love yet look that the torments of Purgatory should help us to love God better than all the mercies on Earth will do XXIX The generality of Papists believe a fallible Priest or Printer or such other person telling them what is the Faith of the Universal Church and yet think that this is an Infallible Faith XXX A Papist is one that layeth his hopes of salvation upon his belief of and obedience to a Pope which by their own Principles is no Pope and a General Council which is no General Council never was nor never will be and on his Communion with a Catholick Church which is no Catholick Church but a Sect. All which hath been proved already and moreshall be I have told you in part what we take a Papist to be Some things before mentioned in the description of a Pope have been here necessarily repeated CHAP. VIII What the Papists Church is called the Roman Catholick Church WHat their CHURCH is may so easily be gathered from what is said that I shall say but little more of it In General It is a Society called Ecclesiastical constituted of such a Head and such Members as I have described Particularly I. It is a Humane Church as to the Efficient Cause of its Form made by Man as distinct from that Church-form which was instituted by Christ even by the Fathers because that Rome was the Imperial Seat As is proved before II. It is a Humane Church as to the constitutive Head as distinct from the true Universal Church which hath no Head single or collective Pope or Council that is not God III. It is a Sect consisting of about the third part of the Christian world calling themselves the whole Church and condemning all the rest for not subjecting themselves to this Usurping Head IV. It is a new Church in comparison of Christs Universal Church as having a new Humane Original As is proved V. It is a treasonable Church as set up without Christs Authority and challenging his Prerogative and weakning his Kingdom by unchurching the greatest part VI. It is an unholy Church as distinct from the holy Catholick Church and that both in the essential Matter and Form 1. In the Matter its Head which is a constitutive part having been oft a condemned Heretick Infidel Murderer and other flagitious wicked man 2. As to the Form being not of God it is not holy 3. Besides that as to the Head he was long made by the most wicked Whores All this is before proved at large VII It is a Church that hath had its pretended succession interrupted as is proved sometimes by long Vacances sometimes by long Schismes when no one was the Universal Head sometimes by the Incapacity of the Persons being Lay-men or Infidels Simoniaoal condemned deposed Hereticks and therefore no Bishops VIII It is a Schismatical Church that cuts off it self from all the rest of the Christian Church And by making a false Head and Principle and conditions of Unity which the Universal Church never did never will or can unite in is the grand cause of the greatest continued Schism IX It is a trayterous Church against Princes making it their very Religion to force bloody Oaths on them and to excommunicate and depose them and give away their Dominions and that tolerateth its most famous Doctors to maintain that being excommunicate they are no Kings and may be killed and to maintain that the Pope is above them in Temporals and may set up and pull down Kings when he seeth cause All this is expresly proved before X. It is a Church that believeth Contradictions as is proved in their Councils e. g. The Council of Basil Sess ult saying No one of the skilful did ever doubt but that the Pope was subject to the Judgment of a General Council in things that concern Faith c. And others saying the clean contrary As also in divers other things XI It was for above forty years sometimes two sometimes three Churches instead of one For the Head being an essential part two or three Heads make as many Churches XII It is at this day divers Churches really as to the Form that are by the ignorant supposed to be one Two or three Forms and Partes Imperantes being essential make as many Churches though the subjects live mixt The summa Potestas is a constitutive essential part Some called Papists take the Pope for the summa Potestas and some a Council and some both conjunct and some the Church real or diffused through the World XIII It is a Church made up of a tolerated hodge-podge of many Sects some utterly uncapable Members so they do but serve the Pope I have shewed out of many Doctors cited by Sancta Clara that many that believe not in Christ are of their Church He saith himself pag. 113. Deus Nat. Grat. What is clearer than that at this Day the Gospel bindeth not where it is not authentically preached that is that at this Day men may be saved without an explicite belief of Christ For in that sence speaks the Doctor concerning the Jews And verily what ever my illustrious Master hold with his learned Master Herera I think that this was the Opinion of Scotus and the COMMON one citing many that follow it And that men that hold all the different Opinions in the Jesuites Morals and the Schoolmen besides many various Religious Sects make up their Church is not denyed XIV It is a Church that pretendeth to have a Judge and end of Controversies but indeed hath a Judge that for the most part dare not decide them and that can make no end of them when decided For instance the Controversie of the Virgins immaculate conception decided at Basil is never the nearer an end Images were decreed up by some Councils and down by others Even S. Thomas stood not to the second Council of Nice about Image Worship The various Councils that decreed variously for and against a Councils Supremacy never the more ended the strife And indeed it is so hard to know approved from reprobate
name p. 47. What men many Bishops and Conformists have been and are in England p. 48. The Religion which is uppermost right or wrong will be professed usually by the most and therefore by bad men p. 49. It is worse with the Papists who are many very bad even where they differ from superiours and suffer ibid. His accusations of Puritanes and Prelaticks Protestants about imputed Righteousness and inherent confuted A true description of the Protestants judgment of justifying Righteousness p. 51 52 c. His derision of Imputed Righteousness as a Mummery p. 54 55. His gross slander that we are for meer Imputed Holiness p. 55. The true middle way about Indifferent Rituals p. 56. I. Of his charge on Prelatists for silencing Puritanes for not observing Fasts c. which they neglect themselves p. 57. Puritanes and Papists fasting 2. Of wax tapers on the Altar p. 58. 3. Of the Sign of the Cross p. 58 59. 4. Of the real presence p. 60. 5. Of Confession and Absolution p. 61. 6. Of bowing at the Name Jesus and Images p. 62. 7. Of the Surplice Girdle Stole and Casuble p. 63. 8. Of praying for the Dead p. 64. 9. Of the Government of the Pope and Councils p. 65. 1. Whether Gods Wisdom require it 2. Civil and Ecclesiastick Monarchy of the whole world Compared p. 66 67. 3. Is the Pope Universal Apostle or Teacher p. 55. 4. Whether the Pope be Head but in the Vacancy of Councils p. 66. 5. Most of the Christian World by far are no Papists 68. 6. The Pope dissenteth from General Councils and so far from the Universal Church we own them when he doth not 69. 7. The difference between the Kings Headship and the Popes 37. 8. Puritanes are for the Kings supremacie 70. 9. How far they submit their judgment to the Churches p. 70. 10. The Church teacheth us the Faith but may not judge in partem utramlibet viz. that there is no God no Christ no Heaven c. p. 71. II. It 's Schismatical and worse to feign that various habite Gestures Meats c. make various Religions Q. 1. Do variety of Liturgies make various Religions 2. Is not Religion more concerned in the Papists Doctrinal Differences among themselves about Predestination Grace Free-will the immaculate conception and hundreds more in the School Doctors and about the deposing excommunicating and killing Kings and about all the Controversies mentioned by the Jansenists in the Jesuits Morals and by Mr. Clarkson in the Practical Divinity of the Papists than in variety of Clothes Formes or Ceremonies And is it not as laudable for Protestants to hold Union and Communion with them that use not the same words or rites as in the Church of Rome to tolerate without so much as any disowning censure the foresaid Doctrinal Differences about King killing when excommunicate Murder Adultery Fornication Perjury Lying Stealing c. mentioned in the foresaid Books p. 72. CHAP. IV. H. W's ill forming Accusations which he can best answer p. 77. What Grotius meant by Papists p. 79. I. Of Papists Image-worship p. 79. II. Of Popes Pardons p. 80. III. Their praying to the Virgin Mary 83. IV. Latine prayers 84. V. Implicite belief in Teachers 85. VI. Preferring the Churches Laws to Gods 87. VII Obedience 88. CHAP. V. THe true History of the Papacie its original and growth 94. 1. The ancient Church took not the Papacie to be of Gods institution but Mans fully proved p. 99. c. 2. The Roman Primacie was ever but one Empire and not all the Christian People in the world proved p. 103 c. 3. Councils were General only as to the Empire and not the World p. 104. Five exceptions p. 106. Remarks upon the Africans pretended schism Austin being one p. 112. The not able words of Mel. Canus against the Roman Universality 113. The means of the Popes last growth to maturity 119. The doctrines by which they do their work p. 122. 1. Depressing the Scriptures sufficiency and crying up their Traditions which are again conjuted 123. 2. Pretending Antiquity and Universality 125. Both confuted The objection of Heresie and Schism to other Churches answered p. 127. 3. Aggravating our Divisions and boasting of their Unity p. 128. Even the scandalous contending Sects among Protestants have more Unity with each other than the Papists proved 4. Their vile Counsel to men to suspect all Religion and suspend it to make them Papists Boverius to our late King p. 131. CHAP. VI. WHat the Pope is in forty Characters or inadequate conceptions of him p. 134. c. CHAP. VII WHat a Papist is The word PAPIST is equivocal Many sorts are called Papists that differ both in the Foundation and the very Form and the Subject and the Terminus of Church Power and are not formally one Church as is commonly thought pag. 165. A PAPIST of the most learned sort described who placeth the Authority Universal and the Infallibility in the Pope and Council agreeing Thirty Properties or Characters of them The first about the Resolution of their Faith into the Authority or Infallibility of the Church proposing How Protestants resolve their Faith and how they take it from their Teachers p. 169. c. See the rest CHAP. VIII WHat the Papists Church called the Roman Catholick Church is in twenty Characters p. 184. CHAP. IX TWenty Properties of the Protestant's Religion as it differeth from Popery 187. ERRATA PAge 26. line 28. for Turrian read Pisanus p. 76. l. 7. for in r. it p. 97. l. 21. r. Presbyters p. 93. l. 20. r. Roman p. 94. l. 2. for or r. of p. 107. l. 1. for Gothes r. Vandals p. 110. l. 4. dele and. p 115. l. 13. for Com. r. Corn. p. 123. l. 11. r. Libraries p. 156. l. 28. r. Greatreaks Errata in Roman Tradition c. Page 18. l. 1. for most real r. Moral p. 20. l. 5. r. Georgians p. 29. l. 16. r. Sirmium p. 37. l. 5. for sind r. said
Naked Popery OR THE NAKED FALSHOOD Of a Book called the CATHOLICK NAKED TRUTH OR THE Puritan Convert to Apostolical Christianity Written by W. H. Opening their Fundamental Errour of Unwritten Tradition and their unjust Description of the Puritan the Prelatical Protestant and the Papist and their differences and better acquainting the ignorant of the true difference especially what a Puritan and what a Papist is By RICHARD BAXTER a Professor of meer Apostolical Christianity Trita frequansque via est per Amici fallere nomen Trita frequensque licet sit via crimen habet The common beaten way of mens deceit Is as a Loving Friend to work the Cheat But though this be the common beaten way It will prove criminal another day W. H. this Author pag. â—5 saith If you do not find that they your Catholick Neighbours hold nothing nor Practise nothing but what they are able to give a very satisfactory account of to any impartial Enquirer then say I am a Knave a Lyar and a Cheat one that deserveth no mercy from God or Man in this World or the next LONDON Printed for N. Simmons at the Princes Arms in S. Paul's Church-Yard M DC LXXVII TO THE AUTHOR AND HIS RELATIONS CHAP. I. WHEN the Confutation of the Treatise of Transubstantiation was in the Press this Book came to my notice written if the Stile may go for Proof by the same Author It is conjectured that your Name is Mr. W. Hutchinson of Lincolnshire sometime of Queens Colledge in Cambridge and that it is indeed your nearest Relations whom you so earnestly labour to pervert Your Stile perswadeth me that you are serious and verily think that your way is right And I suppose you see that we also are as confident of the truth of our Profession as you are of yours The Question is whether it be your Zeal or ours that is according to Knowledge The Title of your Religion greatly pleaseth me and is the same that I assume For we are I perceive agreed in this that it is the Apostolical Christianity that is the true and safe Religion And hath God left the matter so obscure as that we cannot come to an agreement in so weighty a matter of Fact as to know what the Apostolical Christianity was when even Common History giveth us notice what the Athenian Philosophers held and what the ancient Romans held and so of almost every literate Nation You study and we study You pray and we pray You would know the truth whatever it cost you and so would We. As a Man that looketh daily when I am called away to God I solemnly protest that if I could find that Popery were the true Apostolick Christianity I would joyfully quit all the Friends Hope and Interests of this World to embrace it What is it that is your advantage and what is our disadvantage Are you more impartial in your search I am so Conscious of my Impartiality that I cannot believe that this maketh the difference Is it that we have not read the Papists writings I have reason to believe that I have read as many of them at least as you have done if you are not much above sixty years of age as I hear you are not near it But you have Conversed with more of them than I have done It 's like you have But is that the reason of my mistake You earnestly invite your Relations to Converse with the Papists because mens writings may be mistaken And on this ground I perceive you build all the certainty of your Faith That our Fathers and our Grand-Fathers have told us Infallibly what they received from their Fathers and Grand-Fathers and so on This is your certainty I will tell you briefly what I take for the Apostolical Christianity and by what Notices I receive it and then I will again consider yours I take not Christianity to be a thing so hardly to be known as you would make it either as to the Being of it or the Publication I take it to have its Essentials Integrals and Accidentals and that these are not to be confounded If it cannot be readily known what Christianity is how shall we preach it to Heathens or how shall Christians be known to others or themselves and who can have the comfort of an unknown Religion You tell us that nothing of it is written in the New Testament but the Life of Christ by four Men and a few occasional Epistles c. But do you think that Christ himself did not institute Christianity and tell Men plainly what it was Did not those four Men write Christ's Doctrine as well as his Life And is he not the Author of our Faith Did he not preach the Gospel And do you not call these four Books the four Evangelists And doth not the Gospel contain and describe Christianity Did not Christ oft tell us what it is to be his Disciples And were not the Disciples called Christians shortly after as words of the same signification But what place is there for any doubt when Christ himself did institute Baptism and describe it and command that all Nations being Discipled should be Baptized into the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost as being the Faith which Disciples must profess And do not you to this day profess that Baptizing is Christening and that Baptism washeth away all sin supposing the Baptized to receive it as Baptism by true Covenant-consent at least And doth not Baptism enter us into the true Church of Christ Sure all this is past dispute where then is the difficulty Is not a truly baptized Person a Christian And was it then as hard a matter as you make it to know what Faith was necessary to Baptism in the Person at age or the Parent of Infants Surely then the Scripture that mentioneth the History of so many thousands baptized would have told us of that grand Controversie and how it was decided But no such Controversie was then debated for ought we there find If Baptismal Covenanting with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our God and Father reconciled in Christ our Saviour and our Sanctifier be not the Symbol or Badge of Christians and that which visibly maketh them such your own Church and all the Christian World is deceived And we know that it was not the Custom of the Apostles and Pastors of the ancient Churches to make a meer Ceremony and dead Formality of Baptism by baptizing those that would but say the words I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost without understanding what they said And therefore their ordinary Preaching was the Exposition of these three Articles And the Creed called The Apostles is the Exposition of these three Articles which though some Clauses were since added and though the Churches tyed not themselves just to the very same words as we find by the various forms of this Creed in Irenaeus Tertullian Marcellus's in Epiphanius Ruffinus c. yet for the
which way and why I must believe it If from Christ can I believe that the Pope hath Power from Christ before I believe that there is a Christ that hath such Power to give And can I believe in Christ and not believe that there is a God that sent him Can I believe that Jesus is the Christ and not believe that he is a Sacrifice for sin or a Mediator between God and Man and came to save his People from their sins And can I believe this and not believe that we are all sinners and that sin deserveth that punishment which Christ came to save us from Is not our Saviour and our Sin and Misery relatives as a Physician or Medicine and a Disease And can we believe that we have sin and desert of Punishment without believing that God is our Governour and gave us that Law which we broke and which obligeth us to Punishment Can we believe in Christ and not believe that he is God and Man that he dyed rose and ascended into Heaven and will judge us at last and that he pardoneth sin reneweth Souls by his Spirit and will give us life hereafter All these are included in believing in Christ as Christ And how must I believe that Christ hath given the Pope this Infallibility or Power By any written word which granteth it or by Oral Tradition If by the written Word then I must believe that that Word is true before I can believe that the Pope is made Pope or Infallible by it If by Oral Tradition whose must that be Then I must believe some bodies Oral Tradition as true and infallible before I believe in the Pope at all If it be the first Hearers of the Apostles then either the Pope was one of those or not If yea and he hath a Negative Voice in the credible report then I must believe him as Infallible before he is proved Infallible in order to my believing that he is Infallible which is a contradiction If Not Then I must believe the Infallibility of other Hearers of the Apostles before I can believe the Pope's And the Question will recur How I shall know them to be Infallible And who they were that were those Infallible Witnesses Whether Pastors only or the People Whether of some one Church or of all the Churches And how I shall prove that they gave such a Testimony So that your pretense of a Necessity of receiving Gods Word or the Christian Faith from the Pope and his Council cometh too late For it seemeth that we must believe it first before it be possible to believe in the Pope and Council as authorised by Christ And if my Implicite Faith be the Belief of this Article Any Church in all the world yea the greater part of all the Churches may err in matters of Faith or Apostatize and only the Pope of Rome and his Council cannot What Proof or whose Tradition doth this rest upon Q. 9. Do not Bellarmine Costerus and many of your Writers profess that the Scriptures contain all things ordinarily necessary to Salvation Yea many Writers that the Creed hath all that is absolutely to be believed Yea some that it hath more than all Yea abundance Cited by Fr. a Sancta Clara that the Belief in Christ is not necessary to all And will you say then that he that believeth Explicitely the whole Bible cannot be saved without believing also your pretended Traditions Q. 10. And do you not hereby instead of the light burden and easie yoak of Christ and his Commands which are not grievous bring Christians under a harder yoak than that which the Jews were not able to bear When it seemed good to the Holy Ghost in the Apostles to impose but a few and necessary things Act. 15. 28. And how large a Law is all the Bible and all your Councils Decrees and Oral Traditions set together Do all your Priests themselves or one of an hundred understand them all or know what they are Q. 11. While you pretend a Necessity of your numerous Ceremonies as Fasting on Frydays and such other named by you do you not lay a snare of perpetual Division in the Churches and do you not make as many inconsistent Churches as there be Societies of Christians that differ and still will differ about any of those Traditions or Ceremonies Q. 12. And do you not lay open your own Church to the accusation of innovation mutability and corruption when it is not to be denyed but in such things as those they have been mutable or innovated Have you not long left the Custom of adoring on the Lords-days without genuflexion though the first great General Council Nic. Can. 20. and the ancient Fathers commonly made it a Tradition and Practice of the whole Church and it was Decreed to be so used by all Abundance of such Instances may be given Q. 13. You do very injuriously to your own Sect and Cause here to pretend Tradition as coming down from the Apostles for such things as your own Doctors plead but your Churches later Institution for It 's fully proved by Daleus de jejuniis that the Lent Fast was long but for a short time before it came to fourty days And it 's an odd thing if you will pretend Tradition from the Apostles for the Holy-days or the Vigil Fasts of those Saints that were born many hundred years after the Apostles death We confess our Faith is not so big as yours We have many score Texts of Scripture that promise Salvation to them that believe much less than the Bible it self containeth Yet we profess our selves ready to believe as much more as you shall ever prove to us to have been delivered by the Apostles to the Church to be believed II. And for the second that we receive not our Faith the way that you do that is from the Authority of the Pope and Papists and from your Tradition We crave your consideration of these Questions 1. When the Apostles and Disciples Act. 8. were scattered and preached the Gospel to many Nations Were they not true Christians and saved that received the Gospel from any one of them or from any Person whatsoever If Aquila or Priscilla Converted a Sinner such a one saved a Soul from Death though Peter did it not nor his Authority was known to such a one 2. Do you believe that if the Roman Bishop or Churches Revelation or Proposal were necessary to true Faith and to Salvation that Christ would never have told Men so Nor any of his Apostles have left it us on Record When there were Heresies and Schismes so wofully troubling the Churches as we find in Paul's Epistles to the Cor. Gal. Col. and in the Rev. 2. and 3. ch should we never have found one word for this speedy way of decision to appeal to the Church of Rome Would Paul have rebuked them for saying I am of Cephas and made him but a Minister by whom they believed without ever mentioning his
contentious Lawyers in the Land to have agreed falsly to inform us that our Statutes were made by such Kings and Parliaments But a domineering Faction alone might easilier have deceived men 3. Yea even as to Christs Promise we can better prove that the Universal Church or Body of Christians shall never lose the Faith than you can prove it of Rome alone or the Papal Sect. Bellarmine himself dare not say that Rome shall not cease to be the feat of the Papacy or shall not be utterly destroyed And then how can there be a Bishop of Rome when there is no Rome But you 'll say that if he dwell at Avignion he may be called Bishop of Rome But if he be called so when he is not so at least when there is no Rome or no Christian Church there sure a false Name is not an Essential part of our Religion If you say that at Avignion or Ravenna or Vienna he may be S. Peter's Successor and so the Universal Monarch still I answer Then it seems that the Council of Calcedon as afore-cited was in the right that Romes Priviledge was given by the Fathers because it was the Imperial Seat And so that the Pope is not S. Peter's Successor eo nomine because he is Bishop of Rome But if the Bishop of Avignion or Vienna might become S. Peter's Successor who never was Bishop there how shall we know that the Bishop of Rome is his Successor now We have hitherto had no better means to prove it and deceive the World than by saying that S. Peter dyed Bishop of Rome where the Pope is Bishop But S. Peter dyed not Bishop of Avignion If the Place prove not the Succession tell us if you can what doth Is it the Election By whom Who are those men that have the Power of chusing S. Peter a Successor You know I suppose that the Pope hath been chosen 1. Sometime by the People witness the blood-shed at the choice of Damasus in the Church 2. Sometime by the People and the Neighbour Ordaining Bishops 3. Sometime by a Synod 4. Sometime by the Emperours 5. And lastly by the Roman Cardinals If any of these may chuse then we may have four or five lawful Popes chosen four or five several ways at once If only one of these have the Power S. Peter had no Successors under all the other Elections So that the Claim will fall rather to Antioch than to Avignion or any other Town because they say it was S. Peter's first Bishoprick from which he removed for a greater If you are driven with poor Mr. Johnson alias Terret to say that Any way will serve which serveth for the truth of an Election of Princes c. then still we may have four Popes at least I doubt you must be forced to say as some that it is the acceptance of the Universal Church which must prove who is the Universal Monarch 1. But some must be Electors before it comes to acceptance And who hath the Power of Electing And 2. what if now the major part of the Church should prefer the Bishop of Constantinople I hope you are not so ignorant of Cosmography as not to know that the Greek Church when they first preferred the Bishop of Const was far greater than the Latine 3. And I suppose you know that it is not near half the Christian World that now accepteth of the Pope as their Governour 4. And I pray you do but get the Pope to suspend his claim till the Church Universal accept him and we shall not be troubled with him For how shall they signifie their acceptance If in a General Council you know how they of Constance Basil and Pisa are reviled by the Pope and those that now go for your Church for pretending to a power to depose and chuse Popes and how Eugenius the fourth prevailed against such a Deposition And if these Councils were not your Universal Church representative where shall we think to find it In sum we have the Tradition of a Church as big as three of the Roman for all our Religion and of all the Roman Church it self besides the Confession of the Enemies of the Church Pagans Infidels Mahometans Jews and Hereticks we have not one word that 's part of our Religion which your selves confess not to be true We believe that the Faith of the Universal Church shall never fail nor the Gates of Hell prevail against it And so you see that we may far better tell how Infallibly we have received our Religion from our Forefathers than you can do of yours But we believe not that this Universal Church hath any Head but Christ no Humane Vicarious Monarch or Governour of all the World We believe that Men must Believe in Christ before they can know that the Pope is his Vicar if it had been true We know as sure as History can tell us that the Pope's first Primacy and the rest of the Patriarchates were but the Humane Ordinances of the Clergie of one Empire and not of the whole Christian World And we know not nor you but Rome and its Church and Bishop may yet all cease together But you make me most admire at you that in this Book also you tell your Relations and other Readers of the uncertainty of notice by Books in Comparison of converse and talk with those of your present Party yea that your own Religion is not to be known by Books as being lyable to be misunderstood so well as by talking with Papists and asking them what is their Faith or Religion Sir I judge by your Stile that you are a man of zeal and conscience in your way and therefore that you write not this fraudulently against your conscience Sure then you must needs be a man of more than ordinary ignorance that can believe what you say 1. Is it your Objective or your Subjective Faith that we are disputing of If it be not the Rule and Object of your Faith every man indeed may tell us what he believeth himself but no man can tell us what another believeth And then you have as many Religions as men for every man hath one of his own and no two men in the world know and believe just all the same things neither more nor less And what shall those of us think of your Religion then who find that one of you affirmeth what another denyeth For instance A worthy Person of your Religion affirmed to me that notwithstanding the Fifth Commandment Honour thy Father and Mother a Mother hath not any Governing Power over a Child nor the Child oweth any obedience to the Mother during the Fathers life because it were confusion were there more Governours in a House than one though subordinate one to the other Is this your common Judgment May I say therefore that this is other mens belief You know that when we alledge the sayings of your most Learned Writers we are ordinarily told that it is not the judgment of
particular Doctors but of the Church in Councils which we must call your Churches Judgment You undertake not to justifie any more And if I talk with any of my Neighbours and ask him what he believeth have I any more than a single Doctors opinion Is his Answer the Faith of your Church But would you have any one past seven years old believe you that writing is of no more use to Memory for conservation of Antiquities when God would not trust his Ten Commandments to the Peoples Memories but would write them in Stone and put them in the Arke which you have so little skill in Antiquity as to say here was the first writing Sure if you will read your Jesuite Euseb Nirembergius de Antiqu. scripturae you will not say that your Grand-Father taught you truly that Opinion as the Tradition of the Church Why do you write to your own Relations if writing be so un-intelligible Could the Bible have been kept as well in Memory as by Writings Why were the Gospels written then Do you go to Tradition or to Books to decide any Controversie now of the various readings Did Pope Clem. 8. and Sixtus 5. reform the vulgar Latine by Memory or by Books Pope Pius's Trent Oath sweareth Men to Interpret Scripture according to the consent of the Fathers Do any of your Doctors know how that is by Memory and Oral Tradition or by Books Did Possevine and Sixtus Senensis and such others Correct Books by Oral Tradition or by Books Did Celestine and the Carthage Council debate the Case of the Nicene Canon a narrow Instance which Memory might have served for out of Mens Memories or out of written Records Why doth 〈◊〉 bring us out new Forged Canons and why do the Copies of many Councils differ in the recital of Canons if Memory and Universal un-written Tradition can reconcile the difference Was the Athenian Philosophy propagated and preserved better by Memory or by Books Why is not the Stoicks and Epicureans and others as fully known now as Aristotles and Plato's if Memory without Books could have done Have you as full notice now of the Acts of James John Matthew Thomas Bartholomew c. without Book as you have of Paul's by the Book Is memory sufficient to have preserved to us the Statures of the Land without Books and Records Yea or the Common-Law without any Records or Book Cases Why are all your Councils written and all the Decretals to say nothing of the Civil Roman Laws Institutes Pandects and Digests Can you decide the Controversies about the Decretals published by Isidore Mercator by Tradition What are all your Libraries for at the Vatican Florence Paris and in each Learned Mans House if Books be so useless and unintelligible If one of your Relations ask you what is in the Council of Trent Florence Laterane and so upward can you tell him fully without Book by Tradition And are not these Councils your very Religion Doth every Papist Neighbour carry them all in his brain more certainly than in Books Or could your Grandfather and Grandmother have told us more certainly what is in them than Crab Surius Binius Baronius Justellus Albaspinaeus Petavius Sirmondus c. could do Or is all left uncertain because it is written Through Gods Mercy our Essentials and somewhat more are delivered certainly down to us by two hands by Oral and Practical Tradition and by the Scripture because they lye in a narrow room But yet if you had the front to tell the World that your immutable Church hath never changed the Creed it self we could not believe you because Books contradict you Tradition from your Great Grandfather cannot assure us that Filioque was in the Creed from the days of the Apostles Nor that the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints and the other words mentioned in Vessius and Usher de Symbolis were in so long Nor that the Greeks added no words to their Creed at Nice nor afterward at Constantinople in General Councils nor that all S. Hilaries outcry against Creeds was in vain Nor can Tradition without Book yet assure us what were the very words of the Creed used commonly by the Greeks immediately before the Nicene Council nor who wrote that ascribed to Athanasius Nor among the various Formula's of that called the Apostles found as aforesaid in Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Ruffinus c. which of them was in constant use or whether liberty of such alteration of words was not then used And no Unwritten Report of your Grandfather can assure us that your Mass-Book or Liturgy was the same in the Apostles days as it is now nor that it was for 600 years the same in all the Churches of one Empire and that every Bishop had not power to use what Liturgy he pleased in his own City or Parochia Nor can your Tradition assure us that what the Father and Grandfather used was used from the Apostles when the Church of Neocaesarea clamoured at S. Basil for his singularity and innovations and S. Basil retorts on them that they at Neocaesarea had scarce left any thing unchanged I hope this is not the less credible because Basil hath written it At least I pray hereafter give over your ill practice of leading simple Readers into a Wood of Church-History to lose them and the Question there among a multitude of Citations of old Books when you know not what else to say as William Johnson did because there the ignorant know nothing themselves but may as well believe the Affirmer as the Denyer and at least the diversion to voluminous Controversies about particular mens words may hide your Errours Do not resolve all the Controversie yea the Faith of your Followers into a multitude of Books of Councils and Fathers which they never saw And do not take so much care to corrupt and alter Books for your interest as instances and your Indices Expurg tell us you have done Resolve without Book the Controversie about your great Laterane Council whether Dr. Taylor Dr. Pierson Dr. Gunning and Bishop Cousins lately that say Innocent 3. made and published the Canons and the Council did not consent to them be in the right or rather they that answered Dr. Pierson and Dr. Gunning and indeed your Church which holds the contrary which Mr. Dodwell seemeth to me lately to have fully proved in his Book about tolerating Papists Nay why may we not expect that you lay by your Book Catechisms your Office Books your Controversie Books and teach your People all without Book But by this Counsel to your Relations you fully shew that you would have them to have no certainty at all either what Christianity is or what Popery is For they shall never speak with the Universal Church or with a General Council while they live And all their Neighbours to whom you send them are fallible Persons I suppose you one of the chief of them and alas how failible you are you have in two Writings grosly
should on such Terms be of one Religion They believe Socrates and Sozomen who tell us of the great diversity of Rites and Orders in the ancient Churches which all consisted with the same Religion Faith and Love They abhor the Principle of hating persecuting yea and separating from one another for such differences as will unavoidably adhere to the imperfect condition of Christians here on Earth At this time in England a considerable part if not the far greatest of the silenced Ministers are for the Primitive Episcopacy and some Liturgie as you may see in their offer of A. Bishop Usher's Reduction to the King and their desires of a reformed Liturgie Among the old Non-conformists there were divers degrees such as Dr. Regnolds Mr. Perkins Dr. Humfrey Paul Bayn c. did yield to more than some others could do How can you tell then by the name of a Puritane what to charge any single Person with But it seemeth you take their Non-conformity in General and their temper of mind and life together But then you greatly wrong them and seem not at all to know what their Religion is There are two things which you say they mistake in 1. Their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness and the Covenant and not solicitously endeavouring after the acquisition of Virtue because they trust to the Imputed Righteousness your words are too large to recite You partly here unworthily injure them by ascribing to them the very opinions and words of the Antinomians whom they have better confuted than ever you did And as to their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness even Bellarmine in one sense owneth it And whether our sense be sound I provoke you to try particularly by your perusal of my own Writings on that Subject especially a late Treatise of Justifying Righteousness and Imputation and a Treatise called Catholick Theologie In which if there be nothing which you dare or can confute judge whether your meer derision of Imputative Righteousness be not delusory If you dare say that you trust not to Christs Sacrifice and meritorious perfect righteousness as procuring you pardon and life Jus ad Impunitatem Regnum Coelorum enjoy your self-confidence while you can But if you say in this as we then make publick Confession of the injury of your reproach of such Imputed Righteousness as you trust your salvation upon your self I imagine you will say that my judgment is no certain signification of the judgment of the Puritans for I am singular and therefore what I say in these Books is no proof of the sense of the Non-conforming Puritans But 1. my judgment of their sense is as good as yours 2. Do you know of any one Nonconformist that hath published any dissent to what I have written Dr. Tully was a Conformist 3. You profess before to borrow the name Puritan from the Prelatists And I have this to say for my Authority in declaring the sense of Puritans that one or more whose genius is of kin to the Roman but far less mild than yours who are Prelatical or super-Prelatical have about 17 years ago being Masters of that Language branded me with the Name of Purus putus Puritanus qui totum Puritanismum totus spirat The Pseudo-Tilenus hath just the same stile as the late Unmasker of the Presbyterians who revileth modest judicious pious and peaceable J. Corbet and in the most ingenious strain of wrath and malice doth valiantly militate against Love Therefore Prelatists being Judges I may as credibly as another tell you what is the Puritan Judgment 2. Your second accusation of the Puritan is that He begins to quarrel with all external Worship and Ceremonies But this is also spoken ignorantly and untruly You before mistook the Antinomian for the Puritan and here you seem to take the Separatist for the Puritan Read the Reformed Liturgy and other Papers offered at the Savoy to the Bishops and you may see that though they are not for silencing excommunicating and damning men for a Ceremony nor for making as many Religions as there are differences about Ceremonies yet they are for doing all things to edification decently and in order and for external as well as internal Worship of God As knowing that the Body is his and made to Worship him as well as the Soul and therefore should fall down and kneel before him and reverently and holily behave it self in his Service You say p. 5. He is much confirmed in this his imagination by considering the open profaneness and little sense of God he observeth generally in zealous Conformists And on the other side he taketh notice of his Brethren the Non-conformists that they are generally free from open and scandalous sins and at least sigh and breath after interior spirit and devotion which certainly must be that must give us a title to Heaven rather than a few Cringes and exterior Verbal Devotions which any one though never so prophane may easily exercise 1. But do you not here and in your former description quite contradict your self when you charge them as neglecting inherent righteousness 2. We are not so foolish as not to know that the unreverent hypocritical abuse of Gods external Worship by others whosoever will not excuse us for neglecting it Of the Conformists we must speak anon 3. By the way I would you could impartially consider if the Puritans be so good men as you fairly confess them to be what the reason is that Papists generally are far more fiery against them than against those whom you speak so meanly of as Prelatical Protestants Remember how your Writer after the London Fire answered by Dr. Lloid did flatter these as more suitable to the Papists genius in comparison of the Puritans And the Unmasker against J. Corbet will tell you out of Watson an honourable Witness hanged for Treason in Cobham's c. Conspiracy how bad the Puritans are comparing them with the Jesuites And if your Laws took place in England what abundance of these Puritans would you make Bonfires of yea your own Relations were not like to scape you They have told me to my face how quickly they would otherwise silence me than the Prelates do if I were in their power And the Decrees De Haereticis comburendis exterminandis more fully tell it us Yea whence is it that most certain experience proveth it that by how much the nearer any Protestants genius is to the Papists by so much the more bloody cruel malicious or slanderous and unmerciful he is to the Puritanes You 'll say for both that it is because the Puritans are most against them and Interest ruleth the World But I answer 1. God's Interest is highest with every true Christian 2. I confess it 's true that Puritans are most against Popery But truly as far as I have been acquainted with them they are not most against your Persons nor would have any injustice or cruelty exercised against you But the fear of your Faggots or Powder-Plots and such
all their Mercies to Body and Soul Remission Justification Holiness and Glory They put up all their Services as into and by the Hand of Christ and from his Mediatory Hand they expect all mercies They take the Holy Ghost within them to be Christ's Advocate and Witness to them of his Truth and Love and their Witness Earnest Seal Pledge and first Fruits of endless Life They take Eternal Glory for their full Felicity and this World and Flesh Pleasure Riches and Honour to be so far useful as they signifie Gods Love and further our Love and Service to him but to be Vanity as separated from God in our Hearts and Enmity or Mischief as Competitors or as against him In a word Faith working by Supream Love and Obedience to God and Brotherly Love to Man by Honour to our Superiours Justice to all and by all the good that we can do in the World and by Repentance for our Sins patience in sufferings and by a Heavenly Mind and Life is the Sum of their Religion or plainlier as is said at first The Gospel-Covenant as expounded in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue as the Summary of things to be believed desired and practised and the holy Scriptures as the full and comprehensive Records of the Doctrine Promises and Laws of God containing the Essentials Integrals and necessary Accidentals of Religion This is the Christian Religion and the Puritan in question is but the SERIOUS CHRISTIAN distinct from the HYPOCRITE or dead Formalist But if you add Non-conformity to the sense of the Word and to his Character so I need not tell you what the Impositions are which some deny Conformity to as to Oaths New-Covenants Subscriptions Declarations Practices c. which he protesteth that he would never deny Conformity to if after his best enquiry he did not believe that God forbiddeth it As you may see at large in their Savoy Petition for Peace to the Bishops These two it seems you join together and what their Objective Religion is I have better told you than you have told your Relations But as to the clearness of their Judgment in it and the measure of their Practice of it there are I think as various Degrees as there are Persons no two Men in the World being in all things just of the same Degree And now Sir give me leave patiently to ask you these two Questions 1. Why would you by temerity go about to deceive your Relations and other Readers by talking to them against that which you did not understand Even then when you blame others as dealing so by the Papists And why do you dishonour your own Relations so as to make so bad a Description of them Are they such as have no Love to God as God no delight in Holiness no Heavenly Minds nothing almost but fear and its effects Have they still the Flames of Concupiscence and greedy desires of Money and the things of this Life c. If it be not so you should not have told the World so of them If it be so I am sorry for them I suppose it is contrary to their profest Religion and you may have the greater hopes to make them Papists II. What wonder is it that you that were no better a Puritan than you describe are turned Papist You that profess you were a Puritan must needs be judged to tell us what a one you were your self when you tell us what they are Alas poor Man How came you to be so false to your own Profession against your Baptismal Vows as to keep so much of the World at your Heart in greedy desires after Money and to have no more Love to God and Man no more Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Could you think that a Man could be saved without Love and good works Were you deluded by such Antinomian conceits as you describe and took that for Puritanisme How else did you quiet your Conscience in such a state of Hypocrisie If God and Holiness had not your chief Love as well as Fear you were but an Hypocrite And here give me leave to repeat what I have oft written What wonder is it at any Mans turning Papist when according to your own Principles no Protestant Puritan or other Christian turneth Papist that doth not thereby declare that he was a false-hearted Hypocrite before and had no true Love to God in his Heart And was not this your case For 1. You affirm that all Men that have true prevalent Love to God are in a state of Grace and have right to Salvation till they lose it 2. You affirm that none of us are in a state of Grace and Salvation that are not of your Church that is the Subjects of the King or Pope of Rome 3. Therefore it followeth that you take none but such Subjects or Members of your Church to have the true prevalent Love of God But you know that in our Christian Covenant and Profession we all take God for our God the infinite and most amiable Good our Father in Christ and Love it self and that Faith working by Love is our Religion And if any Man saith Saint Paul love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha And he that loveth the World the Love of the Father is not in him 1 Joh. 2. 15. So that by turning Papist you confess that before you were no true Christian nor had any true Love to God and Godliness nor to Jesus Christ And if so you were a false-hearted Hypocrite For as a Christian you profest and Covenanted it And what wonder then if God forsook you and gave you up to strong delusions when you would not receive the Truth in the Love of it that you might be saved 2 Thes 2. And note here that if any Man know that he truly loveth God and Goodness you tell him that he is none of those that you perswade to Popery For you perswade none to it but those that are ungodly Hypocrites having no true Love of God within them But can you think Sir in good earnest that Popery tendeth more to fill Men with the Love of God than our simple Christianity doth Is not Popery a Religion of Bondage and Servitude consisting mainly in Terrour and its superstitious effects What are most of your Tasks of Pilgrimages Penances and abundance such but the effects of servile fear The best of Religion next Heaven should be that which is nearest to Heaven And do you think you can love God better in the Fire of Purgatory Torments than if he took you unto Christ in Paradise Could you love God better in this Life if he tormented you in the Fire than if he give you comfort by his mercies You say that the Puritan is made negligent by his trust in Christ to adorn his Soul with Piety Charity Meekness Patience Humility and other Christian Vertues partly thinking them impossible to be attained partly deeming there is no absolute necessity of them
be or can be unless Christianity come much nearer to be rooted out of the Earth and the Church brought into a narrower room V. But you have a reflecting Comparison between the Kings presiding and the Popes and between a National Council and the Bishops of the whole Christian World To begin at the later part Alas poor ignorant Man if you believe this your self And alas unfaithful Man if you believe it not and yet dare say it Do you yet know no difference between the orbis Romanus and the orbis universalis Or will you with William Johnson alias Terret prove your Councils to be Universal because such places as Thracia had Bishops there as if Thracia had been without the Empire or because such a name as Johannes Persidis is found at Nice Read all the subscribed names and return to a sounder mind Theodoret knew what he said when he gave the reason why James Bishop of Nisibis in Persia or near it was at the Council of Nice Because Nisibis was then under the Roman Emperour Do you not know that most of the Christian World two to one are not of the Pope's Subjects and are All the Bishops of the Christian World then on your side And do you not know that when Constantine presided at Nice his Dominion was full as large as the Bishop of Rome's was and a little larger VI. But because you shall find us reasonable we will tell you that we consent to General Councils where the Pope consenteth not We consent to what the great Councils at Calcedon and Constantinople before mentioned say of the Humane Institution of his Primacy and the Reason and Mutability of it and so doth not the Pope We consent to the Councils at Constance Basil Pisa that the Pope may be deposed as a Heretick and worse but the Pope doth not Is it not he then that dissenteth from all the Bishops of the World VII And for the Kings presiding we wholly own it He is the Governour of Clergy-men as well as of Physicians and he is to see that they abuse not their Function to the common hurt The difference is here 1. Our King Governeth but his own Dominions But your Pope would Govern all the World 2. Our King hath an undoubted Title Your Pope is an Usurper 3. And as to your name Head he hath given the World full satisfaction that he did never claim to be a Priest-Head or Governour a Constitutive Head of a properly called Church nor to have the power of Word Sacraments and Keys so as to administer them but to be a Civil Head and Governour of Priests and the Churches in his Dominions as he is of Physicians c. VIII And you mistake the Puritans if you think they are not for this Government Why else take they the Oath of Supremacy Yea and if you think that they are not for as much Unity and Concord of all the Churches in a Kingdom as can be had without a greater hurt than the lesser particularities of their concord will do good And they are not against National Synods for such Concord And they hold the King to be the Regular Head or Governour or Principium of that Concord But not principium essentiale ipsius Ecclesiae And therefore the Puritans differ from judicious Ric. Hooker who saith If the King be the Head of the Church he must needs be a Christian For we hold that an Infidel King may be so the Head that is the Rightful Governour of the Christians and Churches in his Dominion or else how should they be obliged to obey him IX And you are mistaken if you think that the Puritans and the Prelatists differ about submitting our Faith to the judgment of the Church We subscribe the same Articles which say that General Councils may erre and have erred even about matters of Faith X. But I must tell you that the Puritans who are accused of disorder and confusion do many of them loath disorder and confusion even in words and doctrine And they distinguish here between the Churches keeping and teaching the Christian Faith and the Churches judging in matters of Faith The first they are wholly for We must receive our Faith from our Teachers and oportet discentem fide humana credere But if by Judging you mean strictly a Decisive judgment in which we must rest which way soever the sentence pass as if the Church might not only teach us the truth of our Religion but judge in partem utramlibet whether it be true or not the Puritans own no such power in the Church nor will so submit their Faith to the judgment of it They believe that Pastors in Councils have power to judge that there is a God Almighty c. a Christ a Holy Ghost that Christ dyed rose c. that the Scripture is true that there is an absolute necessity of Holiness that there is a Resurrection and Life everlasting that Gods Commandments must be kept and sin not committed c. But that no Council hath power to judge that there is no God no Christ or the contrary to any one of these or any other revealed Truth of God XI And I must not let pass your Schismatical inference that else there should be as many Religions and ways of worship as Parishes or persons if some supreme Governour determined not in matters of worship For 1. It was not so when no Supreme Governour determined on earth 2. But either you mean the Substantials of Gods Worship or the Circumstantials In the first as faith is not to be got by force so neither is Godliness but yet Governours should here do their best But as to the other we abhor the Conceit that there are as many Religions as there is difference about vestures gestures days and meats But perhaps you take the word Religion in the Romane sense as you confine it to those that you call the Religious as if you took the people of your Church to be irreligious And so you have indeed too many Religious however they come to make one Church The Religion of the Carthusians is one and of the Benedictines another and of the Franciscans another I cannot name them all One eateth Herbs and Fish and another eateth Flesh seldom another often one weareth one habit and another weareth another one Religion hath one Rule of Life and another hath another But with us there is but one Religion which is the Christian though one man wear cloth and another stuffe one white and another black one eat Flesh and another Fish and another can seldom get either though one wear his Hair long and another short though one be old and another be young yet we are all of one Religion Yea though one preach and pray in English another in Welch another in French and another in Dutch yet we take not these to be so many Religions No nor though one think Free praying fitter for Ministers than an imposed Form and another think an
And in the Contest with them the case is commonly pleaded accordingly 4. Gregory Nazianzen would never have wished so earnestly that there were no inequality superiority or priority of Seats if he had taken them to be of Divine Institution Durst he have so opposed the Law and Order of God 5. But to put all out of doubt it is expresly determined by the most famous General Councils even two of the four which are likened to the four Gospels Constantinople and Calcedon that the Primacy was given to Rome by the Fathers so they called Councils because it was the Imperial Seat and therefore they give equal Priviledges to Constantinople because it is the Imperial Seat The words of the Council of Calcedon oft cited are these translated Act. 16. Binii pag. 134. We following always the definitions of the holy Fathers and the Canons and knowing those that have now been read of the 150 Bishops most beloved of God that were congregated under the Emperour of pious memory Theodosius the Greater in the Royal City of Constantinople New Rome have our selves also defined the same things concerning the Priviledges of the same most holy Church of Constantinople New Rome For to the Seat of old Rome because of the Empire of that City the Fathers consequently gave the Priviledges And the 150 Bishops most beloved of God being moved with the same intentions have given equal Priviledges to the most holy Seat of New Rome reasonably judging that the City adorned with the Empire and Senate shall enjoy equal Priviledges with old Regal Rome This Council was called by the Emperour Martian and his Lay-Officers were called the Judges And the Bishops to shew what they thought of Rome cryed out They that contradict it are Nestorians Let them that contradict it walk to Rome Bin. p. 98. If such a General Council be not to be believed farewell all the Papists Infallibility Authority Tradition and Religion If it be to be believed the Pope is a Humane Creature and not a Divine But Binius saith that Rome receiveth not the Canons of this Council of Constantinople which this confirmeth but only their condemnation of Macedonius And he saith That every Council hath just so much strength and authority as the Apostolick See bestoweth on it For saith he unless this be admitted no reason can be given why some Councils of greater numbers of Bishops were reprobated and others of a smaller number confirmed Vol. 2. p. 515. And yet must we hear the noise of all the Christian World and all the Bishops and General Councils and the Tradition of our Fore-fathers c. as against us when all is but the Pope of Rome and such as please him and it is He and his Pleasers that refuse the most General Councils and Tradition Away with this false deceitful talk 6. Once more hear their own Confession Their late English Bishop of Calcedon a fatal name R. Smyth in his Survey against Bishop Bromhall saith cap. 5. To us it sufficeth that the Bishop of Rome is S. Peter 's Successor and this all the Fathers testifie and all the Catholick Church believeth But whether it be jure divino or humano is no point of Faith Ans 1. Is not that a point of your Faith which the General Councils affirm at least of your Religion Who can tell then what is your Faith 2. If an historical point be not to be believed from General Councils why should the History of Peter's being at Rome and Bishop there be believed as from Fathers which Nilas hath said so much against 3. Do not the Fathers as much agree that Peter was first Bishop of Antioch If then you have no more to shew than they where is your Title 4. If your Divine Right of succeeding Peter be no point of Faith then he that believeth it not doth not sin against any point that God would have him believe as from him and therefore is not to be thought erroneous in the Faith 5. And yet upon this which is no point of Faith you build your Faith and Church and would have all Christians do the like on pain of damnation II. And as the Roman Primacy was but of Man's devising so I next prove that it was but over one Empire unless any Neighbours for their own advantage did afterward voluntarily subject themselves 1. Because the Powers that gave him his Primacy extended but to the Empire The Emperour and his Subjects ruled not other Lands 2. Because the four other Patriarchs made by the same Power had no power without the Empire As appeareth by the distribution of their Provinces in the Council of Nice and afterward Pisanus's Canons we regard not that take in Ethiopia Obj. The Abassins now receive their chief Bishop from the Patriarch of Alexandria That proveth not that ever they were under Rome For there is not the least proof that ever they did so till Dioscorus and his Successors separated from Rome being rejected by them as Hereticks and by long and slow degrees enlarged their power over many Neighbour Volunteers 3. Because the General Councils in which the Pope presided were but of the Empire And the Popes never claimed a more general extensive power then than the Councils Who indeed with the Emperours made the Papacy in its first state 4. Because when the Patriarch of Constantinople claimed the Primacy yea called himself Universal Bishop which Gregory sharply reprehendeth as Antichristian yet he never claimed the Government of the whole Christian World but only of the Empire And in all their Contests there is no intimation of any such different Claim of the Competitors as if Rome claimed all the World and Constantinople but the Empire or Roman-World Their Contest was about the same Churches or Circuit who should be Chief 5. The Instances of the several Countries that were never under the Pope do prove it Even the great Empire of Abassia and all the rest fore-named without the Empire Of which and the Exception more under the next III. The General Councils were all so called only in respect to the generality of the Empire and not as of all the Christian World which was never dreamed of Proved 1. Because the Emperours that called them Constantine Martian c. had no power out of the Empire 2. There is no credible History that mentioneth any further call much less of all the Christian World 3. It was the Affairs only of the Empire that the Councils judged of as is to be seen in all their Canons 4. The Names of the Bishops yet to be seen as Subscribers fully prove it 5. It was not a thing probable if possible that the Indians Persians and other Nations should send their Bishops into the Roman Empire which was usually at War with them or dreaded and detested by them 6. Theodoret's foresaid words of James Bishop of Nisibis sheweth it that he was at the Council of Nice for Nisibis was then under the Roman Empire 7. I have oft cited the
and allowed them so many and various Societies and with so great Priviledges as obliged them generally to uphold and serve him Though he cruelly persecuted all that were against his Power and Interest yet he allowed almost all the Diversities of such as would but unite in him and serve him 6. And as he so twisted his own and all his Clergies Interest that they were all ready to obey and defend him against their several Princes and thereby had a great power in every Christian State in Europe so keeping all his Clergie unmarryed their wealth still accumulated and flowed into the Church And the Eastern Empire being first weakned and then overthrown and the Western Nations kept weak and in continual Wars against each other there was none well able to resist his Pride but one party still was ready to flatter him partly to keep their own Clergy in Peace and partly to have his help against their Enemies And the grand Cheat by which they were commonly deceived was that they lookt more at his present possession of Primacie than at the reason and right by which he claimed it and so he that had been Prime Patriarch in one Empire set up by the Prince still claimed the right of the same places when the Empire was dissolved as if the Subjects of the Kings of France Spain c. must obey him because they did so when they were the Subjects of Constantine Theodosius Valentinian c. For by little and little he changed his Title mentioned in the Council of Calcedon into a pretended Divine Right and so they that would not have obeyed him as set up by Caesar and his Councils obeyed him as if he had been set up by God For the name of St. Peter and his Chair and Successour was used as the common blind And next to that he did by degrees change his claim of a Primacie in the Empire into a claim of Primacie in all the World and his claim of a meer Primacie into a claim of Soveraignty or Governing Monarchy If you ask me how could he blind Men so far as to make such a change You seem not to know Man-kind nor to observe common experience Do you not consider what power the Clergie had every where got with the People What an advantage possession and St. Peters name were And how lamentably ignorant they kept the People Do we not see that even in our more knowing times yea among Protestants yea with some Divines the evident distinction between their Humane Right and their pretended Divine Right and between an Universal Council or Church of the Empire and of the whole World have not been sufficiently observed in our Disputes against them And the additional Countries of voluntary Subjects in Brittain Hungary Sweden Denmark c. which of later times since his Imperial Primacie have fallen in to him have much helped to blind the people herein and to serve his Claim as by Divine Right For which ends his Emissaries have taken great pains at the East and West Indies in China and Japan and Congo and once they made an attempt in Abassia and among the Greeks and in many other Nations of the World laudably seeking to win some Heathens to Christ that they might win them to the Pope and turbulently seeking to disturb the Greeks and other Christian Churches to draw them to the obedience of the Pope The Doctrines by which they promote their design are more than I may now stay to open I. One of the chief is by depressing the Honour of the sacred Scriptures as insufficient to acquaint us with all Gods will that is necessary to our salvation without supplemental Tradition that so all men might be brought to depend on them as the Keepers of Tradition But 1. Is their Tradition yet written in any of their own Books or not If not where are they kept And who knoweth what they are Is it not strange that so many Doctors in so many Ages all remembring them would none of them ever write them down Are they in the Memory of the Pope only What of those that could not read or that were condemned as Hereticks of Infidels Then all the World must receive them from the Popes Memory If so must it be Word or Writing And had he no Memory of them before he was Pope But if it be in other Mens Memories that your unwritten Traditions are kept in whose is it If in all the Doctors of your Church why did not Luther Melancthon Pet. Martyr and the rest that turned from you know them Or did they suddenly forget them all when they turned Protestants And how vast must your necessary Religion be if yet it must have more in it unwritten than is to be found in all your great Volumes of Councils and your huge Library But I suppose you will say that all your unwritten Traditions are now written If so they are not unwritten And how long have they been written and by whom If Fathers and Sons could keep them unwritten in memory a thousand years why not 1100 and why not 1600 c. If they were written in the beginning where be the Books Are they not such as other Christians can read and understand as well as you or an illiterate Pope If there be a necessity of having them in writing now was there not the same necessity to former Ages 2. I suppose you will send us to your Councils for those Traditions But if the Bishops know them not before they come to the Council how do they begin to know them then Do they go thither for a new miraculous Revelation of an old Tradition left with the whole Church 1. But do not Councils oft determine things confessedly uncertain to the Church before and yet out of utter uncertainty it suddenly becometh an Article of Faith For Instance the great Council at Basil saith Bin. sess 30. p. 80. A hard Question hath been in divers parts and before this Synod about the Conception of the glorious Virgin Mary and the beginning of her Sanctification Some saying that the Virgin and her Soul was for some time or instant of time actually under Original Sin Others on the contrary saying that from the beginning of her Creation God loving her gave her Grace by which preserving and freeing that blessed Person from the Original Spot We having diligently lookt into the Authorities and Reasons which for many years past have in publick relation on both sides been alledged before this holy Synod and having seen many other things about it and weighed them by mature consideration do Define and Declare That the Doctrine affirming That the glorious Virgin Mary the Mother of God by the singular preventing and operating Grace of God was never actually under Original Sin but was ever free from all Original and actual Sin and was holy and immaculate is to be approved held and embraced of all Catholicks as godly and consonant to Church-worship Catholick Faith right Reason
a promiscuous confused popular multitude that is to raise again Babylon it self subjecting to themselves or the Community of the Church which they falsly pretended that they represented the very Head and Prince of the whole Church and him that is the Vicar of Christ himself in this his Kingdom and this against Order and Nature against the clearest light of Gospel Verity against all Authority of Antiquity and against the undoubted faith and judgment of the Orthodox Church it self And yet our Papists would perswade us that their Grandfathers much less great General Councils cannot bring in Novelties on pretense of Antiquity and mislead them Truly said Lud. Vives in August de Civ Dei l. 20. c. 26 Those are taken by them for Edicts and Councils which make for them the rest they no more regard than a meeting of Women in a Work-house or a Washing-place X. He claimeth a power of Legislation to all the Christian World Kings and States and single Subjects and that no Kings can nullifie his Laws to their own Subjects As also the power of receiving Accusations and Appeals and of judging and executing accordingly This needeth no proof being not denyed XI He claimeth power to Interdict whole Kingdoms that is when they think the Rulers give them Cause to forbid the preaching of the Gospel and publick worship of God to all the People of the Land yea forbidding the Clergie who are Subjects to obey their own Princes who shall command them as the Kings of Israel did the Priests and Levites to do their offices That is If the State or King offend them they will be avenged on God by denying him all Publick Worship and on the souls of millions of innocent people by doing their worst to send them to Hell where the unbelieving ignorant and those that worship not God must go The instances in Germany and the Venetian Interdict and others are too full proof of their Claim and Practice XII The Pope claimeth power even by the Decrees of an approved General Council to oblige all men to believe that all theirs and all other mens senses and perception upon sense are certainly deceived when they think that there is real Bread and Wine after Consecration And this denyal of all mens Common sense he hath made an Article of faith and necessary to salvation XIII He hath by the same Council decreed that all those that do not thus far renounce all their senses shall be exterminated and made uncapable to make any will c. And by other of his Laws that they be all burnt as Hereticks and delivered to that end to the secular power XIV By the same Council he hath decreed that Temporals Lords shall take an Oath to execute this Decree and shall be excommunicated if they exterminate not all such Believers of sense from their dominions And to dishonour Kings by Excommunications whom the fifth Commandment bids us honour is an act of Papal power XV. By the same Council he hath Decreed to depose all temporal Lords that will not thus destroy or exterminate their Subjects and to give their Dominions to Papists that will do it So that the Popes power to depose Princes is become an Article of their Religion And in his Roman Councils Greg. 7 declareth that he hath power to take down and set up Kings and Emperors And in his Letters to the German Clergy And what he said he did practise by bloody and unnatural wars to the great distraction of all the Empire Saith Innocent 3. Serm. 2. To me it is said I have set thee over Nations and Kingdoms to set up and destroy and scatter I am set up as a middle person between God and Man on this side God but beyond Man yea greater than Man who judge all and can be judged of none I am the Bridegroom c. XVI By the same Council he hath power to dispense with the Oaths of all the Subjects of such Princes and to disoblige them how many soever from their Allegiance so that the Popes Power thus to dissolve the obligation of Oaths is also become an Article of their Religion I prove all these together by giving you the words of the Council in English Once again though I have oft cited them c. 1. they say that No man can be saved out of their Universal Church And c. 2. that The Bread and Wine in the Sacrament of the Altar are transubstantiate into the Body and Blood of Christ the appearances remaining And c. 3. We excommunicate and anathematize every Heresie extolling it self against this holy Orthodox Catholick Faith which we have before expounded condemning all Hereticks by what Names soever they be called And being condemned let them be left to the present Secular Power or their Bayliffs to be punished the Clergy being first degraded of their Orders And let the Goods of such condemned ones be confiscate if they be Lay-men but if they be Clergy-men let them be given to the Churches whence they had their Stipends And those that are found to be noted only by suspicion if they do not by congruous purgation demonstrate their innocency according to the considerations of the suspicion and the quality of the person let them be smitten with the Sword of Anathema and avoided by all men till they have given sufficient satisfaction and if they remain a year excommunicate let them be condemned as Hereticks And let the Secular Powers in what Office soever be admonished and perswaded and if it be necessary compelled by Ecclesiastical censure that as they would be reputed and accounted Believers so for the defence of the Faith they take an Oath publickly that they will study in good earnest according to their power to exterminate all that are by the Church denoted Hereticks from the Countries subject to their jurisdiction So that when any one shall be taken into Spiritual or Temporal Power he shall by his Oath make good this Chapter But if the Temporal Lord being admonished by the Church shall neglect to purge his Country of heretical defilement let him by the Metropolitan and other com-Provincial Bishops be tyed by the bond of Excommunication And if he refuse to satisfie within a year let it be signified to the Pope that he may from thenceforth denounce his Vassals absolved from his fidelity and may expose his Country to be seized on by Catholicks who rooting out the Hereticks may possess it without contradiction and may keep it in the purity of Faith saving the Right of the Principal Lord so be it that he himself do make no hindrance hereabout nor oppose any impediment And the same Law is to be observed with them that are not Principal Lords And the Catholicks that taking the Sign of the Cross shall set themselves to the rooting out of the Hereticks shall enjoy the same Indulgences and holy Priviledges which were granted to those that go to the relief of the Holy Land Moreover we decree That the Believers Receivers Defenders
they confess that they prove not the Infallibility of him that doth them Valentine Greatreakâ— hath done and still doth more wonderous cures by touch or stroaking than ever I heard by any credible report that any Papist did and yet he pretendeth to no Infallibility And those Canonized Saints that have been most credibly famed for the greatest Miracles have born their Testimony against Popery and therefore Popery was not confirmed by them For instance St. Martin is by his Disciple and Friend Sulpitius Severus affirmed to have done more Miracles than I have ever credibly read done by any since the Apostles I scarce except Gregory Neocaesar And yet whereas the Papal Councils give high priviledges of pardon c. to those that will take the Cross to kill the Waldenses and compel Princes to it and uphold their Kingdom by such means St. Martin separated to the death from the Synods and Bishops about him for seeking the Magistrates Sword to be drawn against even Priscillian Gnosticks and he professeth that an Angel appeared to him and chastised him sharply for once communicating with the Bishops at the motion of Maximus when he did it only to save mens lives that were condemned as Priscillianists Here are Miracles against the very Pillars of Popery So also the Egyptian Monks were the most famous for Miracles of any People And yet as their Miracles were no confirmation of the errour of the Anthropomorphites which their simplicity and rashness involved them in so they renounced Communion with the Church of Rome and therefore confirmed it not by their Miracles How few Christians be there on Earth if none are such but those that by known Popish miracles believed the Pope to be infallible before they believed that there was a Christ And thus they must believe him to be Infallible not as Pope but somewhat else For to be Pope is to be Christs pretended Vicar And to believe that he is authorized or Infallible as Christs Vicar before they believe there is a Christ is a mad-mans contradiction and impossible What Infallible wight then is it that we must first believe the Pope to be before we believe him to be Pope To what impudence will interest and faction carry men I will again recite the words of an honest Jesuit Joseph Acosta de tempor novis li. 3. c. 3. To all the miracles of Antichrist though he do great ones the Church shall boldly oppose the belief of the Scriptures And by the inexpugnable testimony of this truth shall by most clear light expel all his juglings as Clouds Signs are given to Infidels Scriptures to Believers and therefore the primitive Church abounded with miracles when Infidels were to be called But the last when the faithful are already called shall rest more on the Scripture than on miracles yea I will boldly say that all miracles are vain and empty unless they be approved by the Scripture that is have a Doctrine conform to the Scripture But the Scripture it self is of it self a most firm argument of truth Obj. But he grants that Infidels had miracles Ans He lived long in the West-Indies among them and in his Treat of the Convers Ind. and his Hist Ind. he professeth that the Ignorance Drunkenness and Wickedness of the Roman Priests there was the great hinderance of their Conversion but that Miracles there were none God had not given them there any such gift Once more Did the Miracle which Thyraeus de Daemoniacis p. 76. reciteth out of Prosper that A person possessed by the Devil was cured by drinking the Wine in the Eucharist confirm the Popes Religion who hath cast out the Cup or the Protestants that use it XXXII Though S. Paul say Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers and give honour to whom honour is due the Pope as far as he is able exempteth all his Clergie from the Government of the Magistrate yea they are forbidden to fall down to Princes or eat at their Tables but Emperours must take them as equals The first part is commonly known Caranz pag. 395. reciteth this Decree of Pope Nicholas that No Lay man must judge a Priest nor examine any thing of his life And no Secular Prince ought to judge the facts of any Bishops or Priests whatsoever The Eighth General Council at Constantinople saith Can. 14. Ministers must not fall down to Princes nor eat at their Tables nor debase themselves to them but Emperours must take them as equals XXXIII The Pope confesseth every word of our Objective Religion to be true for all his killing and damning us as Hereticks Proved before We have not a word of our Objective Religion but the Sacramental Covenant and its Exposition in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and the Canonical Scripture which we receive And they confess all this to be infallibly true and so justifie all our Positive Religion XXXIV The Popes to this day will not tell the Church so much as what a Christian is and what must make a man a Member of their Church in the Essentials of a Member Of which more anon XXXV While the Decrees of General Councils are made quoad nos the Churches Faith the Pope will never let us know how big our Faith must be nor when we shall have all If every General Council add new Articles or many quoad nos who knoweth when they will have done and whether we have yet half the Christian Faith or not XXXVI The Popes Religion maketh Contradictions necessary to be believed that is impossibilities The Contradictions of Transubstantiation I have opened in my Full Satisfaction Confirmed General Councils they commonly agree do make Decrees which must necessarily be believed And it is notorious that such Decrees are Contradictory The General Council at Constance confirmed by Martin 5. and that at Basil confirmed by Foelix 5. do make it de fide for a Council to be above the Pope Bin. p. 43. 79. 96. Conc. Basil Sess ult they say Not one of the skilful did ever doubt but that the Pope was subject to the judgment of a General Council in matters of Faith and that he cannot without their consent dissolve or remove a General Council yea and that this is an Article of Faith which without destruction of salvation cannot be denyed and that de fide the Council is above the Pope and that he is a Heretick that is against this Eugenius also owned this Council Bin. ib. p. 42. But the Councils of Florence and at the Laterane sub Jul. 2. and sub Leone 10. say the clean contrary The 6. Council at Constant approved by Pope Adrian is now said by them to have many errors XXXVII The Pope arrogateth power to alter the constitutions of the Spirit of God in the holy Scriptures Proved The Council of Constance taking away the Cup saith Though in the Primitive Church this Sacrament was received by Believers under both kinds c. yea though Christ so instituted it yet they altered it I
elsewhere cited Pope Innocents words By the fulness of our Power we can dispense with the Law being above the Law And the Gloss oft saith The Pope dispenseth against the Apostle against the Old Testament c. The Council of Trent say Sess 21. cap. 1 2. that This power was always in the Church that in dispensing the Sacraments saving the substance of them it may ordain or change things as it should judge most expedient to the profit of the Receiver But is not the Cup of the substance as truly as the Bread Andrad Def. Conc. Trid. li. 2. p. 236. Hence it is plain that they do not erre that say the Popes of Rome may sometimes dispense with Laws made by Paul and the four first Councils And Vasquez saith To. 2. Disp 216. N. 60. Though we grant that this was a Precept of the Apostles yet the Church and Popes might on just causes abrogate it For the power of the Apostles was no greater than the power of the Church and Pope in bringing in Precepts One of Luthers Opinions opposed as Heretical by Leo 10. was this It is certain that it is not in the hand of the Church or Pope to make Articles of Faith See more in my Key p. 243 244. XXXVIII The Pope setteth up a Publick Worship of God in a Tongue not understood by most of the Worshippers and forbiddeth men without Licence to read the Scriptures in a known Tongue Practice and the Trent Council prove both these XXXIX The Pope determineth that the Image of Christ be reverenced with equal honour as the holy Scriptures So it is decreed Concil Constant the eighth General Can. 3. And yet Images are mans work and at the best unnecessary and the holy Scriptures are Gods work by his Spirit and the Law by which we must live and be judged at the last XL. And when all this Power over the whole Earth is thus claimed there is no possible means left for any mortal man much less for the Antipodes to know who is the man that hath this Power and whom on pain of damnation we must obey and believe in before we can believe in Christ Proved If there be any possibility of knowing it it must be either 1. By personal qualifications of mind 2. Or by right of election 3. Or of Ordination 4. Or of Possession 5. Or of Acceptance by the Church after Possession I cannot Imagine any other way But there is no possibility of knowing who is Pope by any of these wayes I. The first is not pretended by them But anon we shall thence prove their Nullity for want of necessary Qualifications II. If Election will tell us then it is either any Election whatsoever or else Election by authorized Persons Not the first else the Turks or the Greeks or the Adversaries of Rome might elect a Pope And an hundred might be elected at once several ways Not the later For if any one way of Election be necessary Popes were no Popes when that way failed Sometime they were elected by the People of Rome and were they the Chusers for all the World Sometimes by the People and the Presbyters Sometimes by the Neighbour Bishops and Ordainers Sometimes by the Emperours And lastly by the Cardinals If one way only be valid the rest were invalid And how shall we prove which If any of these ways are valid then six men or five may be chosen at once by the several ways And where is the proof III. If Ordination be the notifying Title then 1. Those Lay men that were put in full possession unordained were no Popes and where then is the Succession 2. And who is it that hath that ordaining Authority If some Bishops ordain one and some another and so twenty as they long did divers in many years Schism which of these is the true Pope or is it all IV. If Possession were the Title then the Turk may be Pope or he that can get it by the Sword Then there can be no Usurper but the strongest hath best Right Then he that kept at Rome had better title than he that was in Germany or at Avignion V. If it be the Churches after acceptance then 1. He was an Usurper before 2. And what or who is that Accepting Church Sure they that must make a Pope of no Pope by after acceptance should have the antecedent Election Else Popes must all be first Usurpers before they are true Popes But 1. If it must be the major part of the Christian World then there is no Pope because two parts are against him If it must be one Sect of Christians only like the Papists that will but think themselves the Church or better than the rest who is it that can prove their title to this Choice And must it be All of them or but Part If All 1. How shall we ever know it Never such a thing was tryed 2. And then there was no Pope in the 40 or 50 years Schism If it must be Part how shall we ever know which part it must be If the major or the melior how shall it be ever tryed and known in a division None to this day knoweth who had the major or melior part in many a Schism If they say that silent non-opposition is Consent I Answer That 's a known Falshood when most men even a thousand to one have neither Call nor Opportunity to signifie their dissent effectually and when no wise men that love their time and peace will run to Rome by thousands out of all Kingdoms to tell them their dissent 2. But it was no silent submission when several Popes were upheld by several Kingdoms So that there is no way of certain notice who is the true Pope but he must go for the man as Eugenius 4. did after his Deposition who can keep possession which is no title at all 2. Yea I prove certainly according to their own Principles that there is no Pope at Rome nor hath been for many an hundred years For they hold themselves that the Right must be derived by an uninterrupted Succession from S. Peter and call us no Ministers for want of Succession But that they have no such uninterrupted Succession is notorious For 1. An Infidel and Heretick Pope so openly judged can be no Pope Else a Turk might be Pope For he that is no Christian is no Christian Bishop But Popes before mentioned have been judged Infidels Hereticks incarnate Devils 2. A Pope actually deposed as an uncapable wicked Heretick by a General Council was no Pope Yet such was Eugenius 4. who yet kept the place and the rest are his Successors 3. There have been sometimes several years without any Pope at all And if two or three years make no interruption how shall we know how long time doth it 4. Baronius Genebrard and others aforementioned confess that for 50 of them together they were Apostatical and deserve not to be named among the Popes being wicked men made
the Votes of all the Christian World 3. And have all that were converted in the Apostles days and since first known the Major Vote of the Christians or were they converted by the foreknown Infallibility or Authority of the Majority or of the Pope Some will say we see the Madness of this Popery but how then do you say that the faith must be received if not from the Church I answer I have told you at large in a Treatise called The Reasons of the Christian Religion and briefly in a smaller Treatise called The certainty of Christianity without Popery Briefly Judging is one thing and Teaching is another thing Before I submit to the Decision of a Judge I must know his Commission or Authority and I must then stand to his Sentence which way ever he decide the Case Men be not converted to Christianity by such Judges but by Teachers Nor will I believe the Judge if he say there is no Christ no Life to come c. But a Teacher is to make intelligible to his Hearer or Scholar the evidence of truth which is in the matter taught and to draw men to believe by telling them those true reasons upon which he did believe himself And no man takes him for his Teacher that he is perswaded knoweth no more than himself And the greater reputation of Knowledge and Honesty the Teacher hath the easier we apply our minds to learn of him and a humane trust or faith prepareth us to receive that evidence of truth which may beget a Divine Faith by the help of Grace But still the Learner truly believeth no more than he thus learneth And I may hear a stranger tell what he hath to say and be convinced by the evidence that he giveth me of the truth though I know not of any Authority that he hath to teach me much less judicially to decide the Case I little doubt but most that were converted by the Apostles themselves were perswaded to believe in Christ by the evidence of truth proposed the Spirit co-operating before they knew of any Authority of the Apostles much less before they heard what they said in a General Council or what was the Vote of the Universal Church or what any Pope said as Ruler of the rest These things are very plain and sure and they that will be wilfully blinded by faction and prejudice and worldly interest against plain truth have no excuse if they perish in darkness II. A PAPIST of this sort is one that believeth that the Pope of Rome is the rightful Governour of all the world that is that all Christians immediately and all Infidels and Heathens mediately are bound by God to obey him as Christs Vicegerent on Earth And that he with his Council is thus an Universal Lawgiver and Judge to all Kings States and Persons that dwell round about the Earth But a Protestant denyeth this and holdeth that there is no Universal Monarch or Legislator to all the world but God and our Saviour and that he hath made no such Vice-Christ or Vicegerent and that such a Claim is High-Treason as usurping his Prerogative And that if Pride had not in tantum made them mad no men could think themselves thus capable of Governing all the World Protestants believe that there is no such thing on Earth as an Universal Church headed by any mortal Head Pope or Council but that Christ is the only Universal Governour or Head III. This Papist is one that holdeth that the Church of Christ on Earth is no bigger than the Popes Dominion and that it is necessary to salvation to be subject to the Pope and consequently he unchurcheth two or three parts of the Christian world and damneth most of the Body of Christ and robbeth him of the greatest part of his Kingdom as far as denying his Right amounts to And consequently is a notorious Schismatick or Sectary appropriating the Church title only to his Sect. This is proved before from the Masters of their Religion IV. This Papist is one that holdeth that those Councils which were General as to one Empire were General as to all the Christian world And that such General Councils there must be if it please the Pope to call them though they must come from all the Quarters of the Earth and whence they have no Sea passage and out of the Empires of many Princes and many that are Enemies to the Christian Name and perhaps at Wars with Christians and when the Voyage or Journey is such that if the Churches be deprived of a thousand Bishops twenty of them are never like to live to return home to the remotest Nations Nor could they converse as a Council by reason of the number and diversity of Languages if they were equally gathered Or they hold that if a small part of the Christian World assemble as at Trent when the rest cannot come this is an Universal Council of and to all the Christian World V. This Papist is one that holdeth If a fallible Pope and a fallible General Council do but agree their Decrees are infallible As if an unlearned Pope e. g. that understands not the Text of Scripture in the Original and an unlearned Council as to the most should agree their Decrees would be learned e. g. in judging which is the true Translation of a Tongue which they never understood As if ten purblind men if they meet together might produce the Effects of the clearest sight or Fools by conjunction become wise VI. He holdeth that Tradition from Fathers to Children is the sure way of conveying all the matter of Faith and Religion and yet that the greatest General Councils which are the Church representative may erre in matter of Faith and have erred unless a Pope who is fallible approve of their Decrees VII And when he hath trusted to this way of Tradition he denyeth the Judgment and Tradition professed by the greater half or the Christian World VIII He believeth that all men are bound on pain of damnation to believe that the Senses and perception of all men in the World are deceived in apprehending that after Consecration there is true Bread and Wine in the Sacrament And he that will so believe his own and others Senses should suffer as an Heretick and be rooted out of all the Dominions of all Christian Lords on Earth So merciful is he to his Neighbours For an approved General Council hath decreed this and such Councils are his Religion Were it his own Father or Mother Wife or Child that cannot thus renounce all his own and other mens Senses and believe that there is no Bread or Wine in spight of his sight taste touch c. he believeth that they should be burnt as Hereticks or exterminated He may be a good naetur'd man that is loth it should be so or he may be one that is ignorant of his own Religion and doth not know that this is one Article of Popery or he may be an unconscionable man that
will not obey that which he knoweth to be his Religion or he may be unable to execute such Laws But it is his Religion to believe that he ought to do it IX If he be a Temporal Lord of a Protestant Country it is part of his Religion to take himself obliged to root out destroy or burn all his Protestant Subjects and all others that deny Transubstantiation Obj. The King of France and some others do it not Ans No man is bound to do that which he cannot do But if he can do it and he be a Papist by the express words of an Approved General Council he is bound to do it and to believe that it is his duty I speak not of what men do but what their Religion binds them to do Though interest or good nature hinder them X. He believeth that all Temporal Lords that will not first take an Oath thus to root out their Subiects and then do it may be first Excommunicated by the Pope and then deposed if they repent not and their Dominions be given to be seized by another Papist that will do it The words of the Council are before cited XI He believeth that in this case the Pope may absolve all the Subjects of such Temporal Lords from their Oaths and Duties of Allegiance or Fidelity to such Rulers This also is express in the Councils words XII He is one that believeth that the Priviledges of the Roman Church were given it by the Fathers because it was the Imperial Seat and therefore Constantinople had after equal Priviledges For so saith the forecited General Council And yet he believeth the clean contrary even that Rome's Priviledges were given it by S. Peter and Constantinople's are not equal For Popes and Councils also are for this XIII He believeth that it is de fide that General Councils are above Popes and may judge them and depose them if there be cause even as Hereticks or Infidels Adulterers Murderers Simonists c. And yet he believeth that all this is false and the contrary true For the approved General Councils of Basit and Constance say the first and others and those fore-cited at the Laterane and Florence say the latter XIV He maketh uncharitableness and bold damning all others a comfortable mark of the safety of his state and the truth of his Religion and our Charity a mark that ours is worse whereas Christ hath said By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another It 's usual with them to say You say that a Papist may be saved and we say that a Protestant cannot therefore we are in the safer state As if our case were ever the more dangerous for their condemning us As if a man that doteth in a Fever should say to those about him You say that I may live and I say that all you are mortally sick therefore my case is better than yours God saith Judge not that ye be not judged and who art thou that judgest another mans Servant And these men hope their case is safe because they sin against this Law and damn the most of the Universal Church XV. A Papist thinketh that all the Bible is not big enough or hath not enough in it to save those that believe and practise it or to make us a saving Religion but other Tradition must be received with equal reverence and the Decrees of all the approved General Councils must make it up XVI He confesseth every Article and word of the Religion of the Protestants to be infallibly true and yet holdeth that they are to be burnt and damned as Hereticks For he confesseth every part of the Canonical Scripture to be true and we have no more in our objective positive Religion not a word Our Negations of Popery are not properly our Religion any more than our speaking against Diseases is our Health But as our health containeth our own freedom from an hundred diseases which we never thought of as well as those that we once had or feared so our Faith and Religion is free from Popery and containeth that which is against it XVII A Papist is for swearing men to take Scripture in that sense as the holy Mother Church doth hold and hath held it Whereas 1. Their Church hath given them no Commentary on the Scripture one way or other 2. And their Translations have been altered in many hundred places by Clement 8. and Sixtus 5. so that their Clergy is sworn to take one Translation to to be right one year and a different one to be right the next XVIII They are for swearing men to take or interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers and consequently never to interpret the most of it at all XIX A Papist hath a thriving Faith and Religion which groweth bigger and bigger as fast as General Councils add new Decrees so that they know not when they shall have all And yet they cry out against novelty and change and boast of Antiquity XX. He holdeth that Priests or Prelates may not fall down to Princes or eat at their Tables nor debase themselves to them but Emperours must take them as equals Concil Gen. 8. Const Can. 14. XXI He is satisfied that their Church hath a Judge of Controversies though he decide them not And he gloryeth in the Unity and great Concord of their Church whose Doctors differ de fide even in the Exposition of many hundred Texts of Gods Word and where they differ in the Morals before cited about Murder killing excommunicate Kings c. and in Volumes of Controversies And yet he looketh upon far smaller differences among us with great offense as if they were intolerable and were so many different Religions And all because in all their differences they agree in one Pope As if it were not as good an Union to agree in one God one Christ one Spirit one Body or Church of Christ one Faith Creed and Scripture one Baptismal Covenant and one Hope of life eternal Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. which is the Union that God describeth XXII He believeth that the Pope doth justly take away from the People one half of the substance of Christs own Sacrament and deny them that which they hold to be his very Blood XXIII They believe that they ought not to read the Scripture translated without a Licence So saith Con. Trid. XXIV They believe that the Image of Christ is to be reverenced equally with the holy Scriptures It is a Councils words before cited Yea they must believe the second Council at Nice that Latria is to be given only to God and yet a canonized S. Thomas 3. q. 25. a. 3. 4. maintaineth that Latria or Divine Worship is to be given 1. To the Image of Christ 2. To the Cross that he dyed on 3. And to the Sign of the Cross And how largely Jac. Nauclautus Cabrera and multitudes of the Schoolmen are for it see my Key p. 165
XVII Our Religion is for increasing true practical knowledge in all men by all our industry as knowing the Father of Lights saveth us by illumination and therefore we are for all mens reading or hearing the holy Scriptures and worshipping God in a known tongue But yet with the help of the skilfullest Teachers The Prince of darkness leadeth men in the dark to do the works of darkness that they may be cast into outer darkness How the case is with yours I have before shewed XVIII Our Religion is for so much fasting and austerities as is truly necessary to the subduing of Pride Worldliness or fleshly lusts or to express our self-abasement in due times of humiliation prescribed by Authority on publick occasions or discerned by our selves in private and so much as is truly helpful to us in Gods service or our preparations for death But how much you have turned these into unreasonable Ceremony and how much into a pretended satisfaction to Gods Justice by punishing our selves as if our hurt delighted God when it tends not to our healing I shall not now stay to open See Dallaeus de Poenis Indulgentis de Jejuniis of it at large XIX Our Religion teacheth us that all that truly believe in and are heartily devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as their God and Saviour and Sanctifier forsaking the Devil the World and the Flesh should be taken by Baptismal profession hereof into the Church and shall be saved if they prove not Hypocrites or Apostates And that we must judge men by this their Profession till they plainly or provedly nullifie it supposing every man under God to be the best Judge of his own heart But your Religion teacheth you to hold and say that if men are never so fully perswaded in themselves that they truly love God and holiness and are thus devoted to him yea and if their lives express it yet if they be not Papists they are all deceived and none but Papists so love God And every Papist thus knoweth the hearts of others better than we can know our own XX. Our Religion leaveth us room for Repentance and hope of Pardon if we mistake For we take not our selves to be impeccable or infallible in all that we hold though we are sure that our Rule and Objective Religion is infallible But your Church being founded in the false conceit of the Popes and Councils Infallibility you shut the door against repentance and amendment and when once a false Decree is past you take your selves obliged to defend it lest by Reformation you pluck up your Foundation and all should fall Were it not for this I am perswaded your Church would recant at least the Doctrine of Transubstantiation if not that of deposing Princes and some others And now I humbly present what I have written to W. H. and not without hope if he will but impartially read it of his reduction For the man seemeth to me to sin through Ignorance and to have an honester zeal than many others For my own part 1. I profess to him I write as I think and that after forty years reading I think as many of the Papists Books as of the Protestants 2. And that I would joyfully recant whatever it cost me if I could find that I do erre But I have shewed him that I differ not from them without that which to me appeareth to be constraining Reason 3. And that if he will prove to me that I have in one word of this Book unjustly accused either their POPE PAPISTS RELIGION or CHURCH I shall thankfully receive his conviction and repent And I agree with him wholly in professing my Religion to be The APOSTOLICAL CHRISTIANITY and whatever he proveth to be truly such I will receive The Name of The Protestant Religion I like not because meer Christianity is all our Religion and our Protestation against Popery denominateth not our Religion it self but our Rejection of their Corruptions of it But the Name of The Protestants Religion I approve and own that is APOSTOLICK CHRISTIANITY CLEANSED FROM POPERY Aug. 9. 1676. FINIS THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. WHether Christ hath not left us sure and easie notice what the Christian Religion is what it is and how delivered to us in three degrees 1. The Essentials generally in the Sacramental Covenant 2. The Exposition of the Essentials in three summaries the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue 3. The Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals in the whole Canonical Scripture p. 1 c. Our Confession Articles Books and Sermons are but the expressions of our Subjective Religion or fides mensurata and are not our Objective and fides mensurans in terminis p. 9. The Papists confess every word of our Objective Religion to be Divine and Infallible But we confess not the truth of all theirs They blame us only 1. As not having enough 2. And as not receiving it the right way p. 9. I. Whether the Papists Religion be better than ours as bigger Some Queries of the Antiquity of the belief of the Roman additions viz. the Apocrypha and the Decrees of all the Councils c. p. 10 c. What Implicite Faith we are agreed in and what not p. 12. The Papists confess that their Church hath not kept God's own written word without many hundred errours and so not all that is de fide p. 13. Therefore they must needs distinguish the Essentials of Christianity from other points Of Implicite belief in the Pope and Councils p. 13. c. II. Whether it was or is necessary to receive Christianity as from the Infallibility or Authority of the Pope and Papists or Councils p. 19. c. We have much more and surer Tradition for our Religion than that which the Papists would have us trust to 20. The difference of our Tradition from theirs Whether Rome or a Church there may not cease p. 22. Whether the Seat the Election or what doth prove the Pope to be St. Peter's successour p. 23. Whether Books or oral Tradition by Memory of all Generations be the surer preservative of the Faith p. 24. CHAP. II. THe Puritane is ambiguously named and falsly described p. 25. Of Imputed Righteousness p. 30. Puritanes not against external worship nor all Ceremonies p. 36. Of their Usage ibid. The Puritans judgment about Fasts Holy-days Ceremonies c. p. 38. The Papist writer knoweth not what the Puritans Religion is p. 40. The true Religion of a Puritane described p. 41 42. 1. The writer wrongeth his Relations 2. He declareth that he was before an ungodly perfidious Hypocrite and no true Puritane and therefore no wonder that he turned Papist p. 43. None but such can turn Papists without self Contradiction His slander of the Puritanes that they think Piety Charity Humility and other Christian Virtues not possible and necessary to salvation p. 45. CHAP. III. HIs hard Character of Prelatical Protestants p. 46. Many Nonconformists are Episcopal therefore not dislinguishable by that