a strange spirit of contradiction or superstition or deflection from the Christian Rule greatly prevailing in the Church of Rome it were impossible that this practise should be so countenanc'd by them and defended so to no purpose with so much scandal and against the natural reason of mankind and the very Law of Nature it self For the Heathens were sufficiently by the light of nature taught to abominate all Pictures or Images of God Sed nulla effigies simulachraque nulla Deorum Majestate locum sacro implevere timore They in their earliest ages had no Pictures no Images of their gods Their Temples were filled with Majestie and a sacred fear and the reason is given by Macrobius Antiquity made no Image viz. of God because the Supreme God and the mind that is born of him that is his Son the eternal Word as it is beyond the Soul so it is above nature and therefore it is not lawful that sigments should come thither Nicephorus Callistus relating the Heresie of the Armenians and Iacobites sayes they made Images of the Father Son and Holy Ghost quod perquam absurdum est Nothing is more absurd then to make Pictures or Images of the Persons of the Holy and Adorable Trinity And yet they do this in the Church of Rome For in the windows of their Churches even in Country Villages where the danger cannot be denied to be great and the scandal insupportable nay in their books of devotion in their very Mass-books and Breviaries in their Portuises and Manuals they picture the Holy Trinity with three noses and four eyes and three faces in a knot to the great dishonour of God and scandal of Christianity it self We add no more for the case is too evidently bad but reprove the errour with the words of their own Polydore Virgil Since the world began never was any thing more foolish than to picture God who is present every where SECT X. THe last instance of Innovations introduc'd in Doctrine and practice by the Church of Rome that we shall represent is that of the Popes universal Bishoprick That is not only that he is Bishop of Bishops superior to all and every one but that his Bishoprick is a plenitude of power and as for other Bishops of his fulness they all receive a part of the ministry and sollicitude and not onely so but that he only is a Bishop by immediate Divine dispensation and others receive from him whatsoever they have For to this height many of them are come at last Which Doctrine although as it is in sins where the carnal are most full of reproach but the spiritual are of greatest malignity so it happens in this Article For though it be not so scandalous as their Idolatry so ridiculous as their superstitions so unreasonable as their doctrine of Transubstantiation so easily reprov'd as their half Communion and Service in an unknown tongue yet it is of as dangerous and evil effect and as false and as certainly an Innovation as any thing in their whole conjugation of errors When Christ founded his Church he left it in the hands of his Apostles without any prerogative given to one or eminency above the rest save onely of priority and orderly precedency which of it self was natural necessary and incident The Apostles govern'd all their authority was the sanction and their Decrees and writings were the Laws of the Church They exercis'd a common jurisdiction and divided it according to the needs and emergencies and circumstances of the Church In the Council of Ierusalem S. Peter gave not the decisive Sentence but S. Iames who was the Bishop of that See Christ sent all his Apostles as his Father sent him and therefore he gave to every one of them the whole power which he left behind and to the Bishops Congregated at Miletum S. Paul gave them caution to take care of the whole stock of God and affirms to them all that the Holy Ghost had made them Bishops and in the whole New Testament there is no act or sign of superiority or that one Apostle exercised power over another but to them whom Christ sent he in common intrusted the Church of God according to that excellent saying of S. Cyprian The other Apostles are the same that S. Peter was endowest with an equal fellowship of honour and power and they are all Shepheards and the flock is one and therefore it ought to be fed by all the Apostles with unanimous consent This unity and identity of power without question and interruption did continue and descend to Bishops in the primitive Church in which it was a known doctrine that the Bishops were successors of the Apostles and what was not in the beginning could not be in the descent unless it were innovated and introduc'd by a new authority Christ gave ordinary power to none but the Apostles and the power being to continue for ever in the Church it was to be succeeded to and by the same authority even of Christ it descended to them who were their successors that is to the Bishops as all antiquity does consent and teach Not S. Peter alone but every Apostle and therefore every one who succeeds them in their ordinary power may and must remember the words of S. Paul We are Embassadors or Legates for Christ Christs Vicars not the Popes Delegates and so all the Apostles are called in the Preface of the Mass quos operis tui Vicarios eidem conâ—ulisti praeesse Pastores they are Pastors of the Flock and Vicars of Christ and so also they are in express terms called by S. Ambrose and therefore it is a strange usurpation that the Pope arrogates that to himself by Impropriation which is common to him with all the Bishops of Christendom The consequent of this is that by the law of Christ one Bishop is not superior to another Christ gave the power to all alike he made no Head of the Bishops he gave to none a supremacy of power or universality of jurisdiction But this the Pope hath long challenged and to bring his purposes to pass hath for these six hundered years by-gone invaded the rights of Bishops and delegated matters of order and jurisdiction to Monks and Friers insomuch that the power of Bishops was greatly diminished at the erecting of the Cluniac and Cistercian Monks about the year ML but about the year MCC it was almost swallowed up by privileges granted to the begging Friers and there kept by the power of the Pope which power got one great step more above the Bishops when they got it declared that the Pope is above a Council of Bishops and at last it was turn'd into a new doctrine by Cajetane who for his prosperous invention was made a Cardinal that all the whole Apostolick or Episcopal power is radical and inherent in the Pope in whom is the fulness of the Ecclesiastical authority and that Bishops receive their portion of it from
helps for the understanding of the Scriptures and as good testimony of the Doctrine deliver'd from their fore-fathers down to them of what the Church esteem'd the way of Salvation and therefore if we find any Doctrine now taught which was not plac'd in their way of Salvation we reject it as being no part of the Christian faith and which ought not to be impos'd upon consciences They were wise unto salvation and fully instructed to every work and therefore the faith which they profess'd and deriv'd from Scripture we profess also and in the same faith we hope to be sav'd even as they But for the new Doctors we understand them not we know them not Our faith is the same from the beginning and cannot become new But because we shall make it to appear that they do greatly innovate in all their points of controversie with us and shew nothing but shadowes instead of substances and little images of things instead of solid arguments we shall take from them their armour in which they trusted and choose this sword of Goliah to combat their errors for non est alter talis It is not easie to finde a better than the Word of God expounded by the prime and best Antiquity The first thing therefore we are to advertise is That the Emissaries of the Roman Church endeavour to perswade the good people of our Dioceses from a Religion that is truly Primitive and Apostolick and divert them to Propositions of their own new and unheard of in the first ages of the Christian Church For the Religion of our Church is therefore certainly Primitive and Apostolick because it teaches us to believe the whole Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and nothing else as matter of faith and therefore unless there can be new Scriptures we can have no new matters of belief no new articles of faith Whatsoever we cannot prove from thence we disclaim it as not deriving from the Fountains of our Saviour We also do believe the Apostles Creed the Nicene with the additions of Constantinople and that which is commonly called the Symbol of S. Athanasius and the four first General Councils are so intirely admitted by us that they together with the plain words of Scripture are made the rule and measure of judging Heresies amongst us and in pursuance of these it is commanded by our Church that the Clergy shall never teach any thing as matter of Faith religiously to be observed but that which is agreeable to the Old and New Testament and collected out of the same Doctrine by the Ancient Fathers and Catholick Bishops of the Church This was undoubtedly the Faith of the Primitive Church they admitted all into their Communion that were of this faith they condemned to Man that did not condemn these they gave Letters communicatory by no other cognisance and all were Brethren who spake this voice Hanc legem sequentes Christianorum Catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti reliquos verò dementes vesanosque judicantes haeretici dogmatis infaemiam sustinere said the Emperors Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius in their Proclamation to the People of C. P. All that believ'd this Doctrine were Christians and Catholicks viz. all they who believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost one Divinity of equal Majesty in the Holy Trinity which indeed was the summe of what was decreed in explication of the Apostles Creed in the four first General Councils And what faith can be the foundation of a more solid peace the surer ligaments of Catholick Communion or the firmer basis of a holy Life and of the hopes of Heaven hereafter than the measures which the Holy Primitive Church did hold and and we after them That which we rely upon is the same that the Primitive Church did acknowledg to be the adaequate foundation of their hopes in the matters of belief The way which they thought sufficient to go to Heaven in is the way which we walk what they did not teach we do not publish and impose into this faith entirely and into no other as they did theirs so we baptize our Catechumens The Discriminations of Heresie from Catholick Doctrine which they us'd we use also and we use no other and in short we believe all that Doctrine which the Church of Rome believes except those things which they have superinduc'd upon the Old Religion and in which we shall prove that they haue innovated So that by their confession all the Doctrine which we teach the people as matter of Faith must be confessed to be Ancient Primitive and Apostolick or else theirs is not so for ours is the same and we both have received this Faith from the Fountains of Scripture and Universal Tradition not they from us or we from them but both of us from Christ and his Apostles And therefore there can be no question whether the Faith of the Church of England be Apostolick and Primitive it is so confessedly But the Question is concerning many other particulars which were unknown to the Holy Doctors of the first Ages which were no part of their Faith which were never put into their Creeds which were not determined in any of the four first General Councels rever'd in all Christendom and entertain'd every where with great Religion and veneration even next to the four Gospels and the Apostolical writings Of this sort because the Church of Rome hath introduc'd many and hath adopted them into their late Creed and imposes them upon the people not only without but against the Scriptures and the Catholick Doctrine of the Church of God laying heavie burdens on mens Consciences and making the narrow way to Heaven yet narrower by their own inventions arrogating to themselves a Dominion over our Faith and prescribing a method of Salvation which Christ and his Apostles never taught corrupting the Faith of the Church of God and Teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men and lastly having derogated from the Prerogative of Christ who alone is the Author and Finisher of our faith and hath perfected it in the revelations consign'd in the Holy Scriptures therefore it is that we esteem our selves oblig'd to warn the People of their danger and to depart from it and call upon them to stand upon the wayes and ask after the old paths and walk in them lest they partake of that curse which is threatned by God to them who remove the ancient Land-marks which our Fathers in Christ have set for us Now that the Church of Rome cannot pretend that all which she imposes is Primitive and Apostolick appears in this That in the Church of Rome there is pretence made to a power not only of declaring new Articles of Faith but of making new Symbols or Creeds and imposing them as of necessity to Salvation Which thing is evident in the Bull of Pope Leo the Tenth against Martin Luther in which amongst other things he is condemn'd for saying It is certain that it is not in the power
worshipped as did the Gentiles These things they did but against these things the Christians did zealously and piously declare We have no Image in the world said S. Clemens of Alexandria It is apparently forbidden to us to exercise that deceitful art For it is written Thou shalt not make any similitude of any thing in Heaven above c. And Origen wrote a just Treatise against Celsus in which he not onely affirms That Christians did not make or use Images in Religion but that they ought not and were by God forbidden to do so To the same purpose also Lactantius discourses to the Emperor and confutes the pretences and little answers of the Heathen in that manner that he leaves no pretence for Christians under another cover to introduce the like abomination We are not ignorant that those who were converted from Gentilisme and those who lov'd to imitate the customs of the Roman Princes and people did soon introduce the Historical use of Images and according to the manner of the world did think it honorable to depict or make Images of those whom they had in great esteem and that this being done by an esteem relying on Religion did by the weakness of men and the importunity of the Tempter quickly pass into inconvenience and superstition yet even in the time of Iulian the Emperor S. Cyril denies that the Christians did give veneration and worship to the Image even of the Cross it self which was one of the earliest temptations and S. Epiphanius it is a known story tells that when in the village of Bethel he saw a cloth picture as it were of Christ or some Saint in the Church against the Authority of Scripture He cut it in pieces and advis'd that some poor man should be buried in it affirmed that such Pictures are against Religion and unworthy of the Church of Christ. The Epistle was translated into Latine by S. Hierome by which we may guess at his opinion in the question The Council of Eliberis is very ancient and of great fame in which it is expresly forbidden that what is worshipped should be depicted on the walls and that therefore Pictures ought not to be in Churches S. Austin complaining that he knew of many in the Church who were Worshippers of Pictures calls them Superstitious and adds that the Church condems such customs and strives to correct them and S. Gregory writing to Serenus Bishop of Massilia sayes he would not have had him to break the Pictures and Images which were there set for an historical use but commends him for prohibiting to any one to worship them and enjoyns him still to forbid it But Superstition by degrees creeping in the Worship of Images was decreed in the seventh Synod or the second Nicene But the decrees of this Synod being by Pope Adrian sent to Charls the Great he convocated a Synod of German and French Bishops at Francfurt who discussed the Acts pass'd at Nice and condemn'd them And the Acts of this Synod although they were diligently suppressed by the Popes arts yet Eginardus Hinâ—marus Aventinus Blondus Adon Amonius Regino famous Historians tell us That the Bishops of Francfurt condemn'd the Synod of Nice and commanded it should not be called a General Council and published a Book under the name of the Emperor confuting that unchristian Assembly and not long since this Book and the Acts of Francfurt were published by Bishop Tillius by which not only the infinite fraud of of the Roman Doctors is discover'd but the worship of Images is declar'd against and condemned A while after this Ludovicus the Son of Charlemain sent Claudius a famous Preacher to Taurinum in Italy where the Preached against the worshipping of Images and wrote an excellent Book to that purpose Against this Book Ionas Bishop of Orleans after the death of Ludovicus and Claudius did write In which he yet durst not assert the worship of them but confuted it out of Origen whose words he thus cites Images are neither to be esteemed by inward affection nor worshipped with outward shew and out of Lactantius these Nothing is to be worshipped that is seen with mortal eyes Let us adore let us worship nothing but the Name alone of our only Parent who is to be sought for in the Regions above not here below And to the same purpose he also alleges excellent words out of Fulgentius and S. Hierom and though he would have Images ratain'd and therefore was angry at Claudius who caus'd them to be taken down yet he himself expresly affirms that they ought not to be worshipped and withal addes that though they kept the Images in their Churches for History and Ornament yet that in France the worshipping of them was had in great detestation And though it is not to be denied but that in the sequel of Ionas his Book he does something praevaricate in this question yet it is evident that in France this Doctrine was not accounted Catholick for almost nine hundred years after Christ and in Germany it was condemned for almost MCC years as we find in Nicetas We are not unskill'd in the devices of the Roman Writers and with how much artifice they would excuse this whole matter and palliate the crime imputed to them and elude the Scriptures expresly condemning this Superstition But we know also that the arts of Sophistry are not the wayes of Salvation And therefore we exhort our people to follow the plain words of Scripture and the express Law of God in the second Commandment and add also the Exhortation of S. Iohn Little children keep your selves from Idols To conclude it is impossible but that it must be confessed that the worship of Images was a thing unknown to the Primitive Church in the purest times of which they would not allow the making of them as amongst divers others appears in the Writings of Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian and Origen SECT IX AS an Appendage to this we greatly reprove the custom of the Church of Rome in picturing God the Father and the most Holy and Undivided Trinity which besides that it ministers infinite scandal to all sober minded men and gives the new Arrians in Polonia and Antitrinitarians great and ridiculous entertainment exposing that Sacred Mystery to derision and scandalous contempt It is also which at present we have undertaken particularly to remark against the Doctrine and practise of the Primitive Catholick Church S. Clemens of Alexandria sayes that in the Discipline of Moses God was not to be represented in the shape of a man or of any other thing and that Christians understood themselves to be bound by the same law we find it expresly taught by Origen Tertullian Eusebius Athanasius S. Hierom S. Austin Theodoret Damascen and the Synod of Constantinople as it is reported in the sixt Action of the second Nicene Council And certainly if there were not