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A48849 A sermon preached before the King at White-Hall The 24th. of Novemb. 1678. By William Lloyd, D.D. Dean of Bangor, and Chaplain in ordinary to His Majesty. Published by his Majesties Command. Lloyd, William, 1627-1717. 1678 (1678) Wing L2710; ESTC R217682 63,317 74

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known in all Countrys where the Scripture was written And they writ it for every one to read as it appears in plain words in their writings And the Ancient Fathers required all men to read it all the Laity even the meanest of the Laity they Condemned the neglect of it they commended them that read it day and night There is nothing more frequent in the writings of the Ancient Fathers Yet now it is found out that the Laity may hurt themselves with reading it How so It will make them Hereitics One would little expect it that had read what the Fathers say of this matter But now it is Heresie to disbelieve the Roman Church And no doubt to read the Scripture will bring men to this But whose fault is it Surely theirs that instead of reforming their Church have rather chosen to silence the Scriptures Which being done in favour of their Doctrines it appears that they themselves I mean the governours of their Church have been sensible that some at least of their Doctrines are not the Doctrines of the Apostles In the next place for the Apostles Fellowship which I have interpreted to be Union under lawful Pastors and Governors They can by no means allow this Character to our Church or to any that submits not to their Universal Pastor Which title they appropriate to the Bishop of Rome and him they swear in their forementioned profession of Faith to be the Vicar of Christ and the successor of St. Peter the Apostle And to shew how far they dare go against evidence they swear also that his Roman Church is not only Mistress but also the Mother of all Churches Not to say in how many things he that will be Supream Pastor invades the just rights of other Pastors who are all in the judgment of Primitive times the Successors of the Apostles of Christ Or how little he hath to shew for his claim to a succession in that Power from St. Peter either in Scripture Story or in the writings of the Primitive Church I shall only desire you to consider these beginnings of Christianity in my Text. When the whole Church was comprehended in three or four thousand believers and they were all together with the Apostles at this time in Ierusalem It is certain that then there was no Bishop nor no Christian at Rome So that then for the Bishop or Church of Rome to be any thing which they swear they are in those Articles of their Faith was surely no part of the Apostles Doctrine Nor did the Fellowship of the Apostles consist in subjection to St. Peter Though he was the first in Order yet that he had Authority over the rest there is no ground to assert There is much evidence against it as I have shewn from sundry places of Scripture Nor granting this to St. Peter which they can never prove can they bring down a title from him to the Roman Bishop He hath a better pretence to succeed the Roman Emperors in Monarchy than he hath to succeed any of the Apostles And indeed that was the design as they know that are skild in the writers of antient times Rome seemed a place designd for Empire and when the Emperors faild then the Bishops set up in their stead What the Emperors could not hold by Arms the Bishops would fetch in by Religion And so they obtrude upon all Christians in truth a Secular Monarchy instead of that which my Text calls the Fellowship of the Apostles Thirdly for the two Sacraments of the Apostles they tell us of seven which were instituted by our Lord Iesus Christ. In this Chapter we read of Baptism p. 41. and we read of breaking of Bread in my Text. Here are two but where are the other five They were not thought of at that time for ought that appears to us in Scripture Nay it doth not appear in a thousand years after It was eleven hundred years after when Peter Lombard wrote his Book of the Sentences before which they cannot find the least mention of that number of Sacraments But to speak of no more than that mentioned in my Text. Where is the breaking of bread As they receive it in the Roman Church there is neither breaking nor bread in their Sacrament Where is the Communion of Christs Body and Blood Their daily Worship is the Mass. But their Mass is no Communion The Priest only Consecrates and eats while all the people stand by and adore Was there ever such a thing heard of in the Primitive times In those times none were suffered to be present but only such as received And if any were present they were punishable if they did not receive What could they have thought of such a Sacrament as is now the daily Worship of the Roman Church Sure enough in the Apostles Church as oft as they met to Worship God they All did eat of that one bread 1 Cor. x. 17. And they All were made to drink into one Spirit 1 Cor. xii 13. And whereas of this last our Saviour having said to his Disciples who were then Lay-men Drink ye all of it St. Mark takes particular notice that they all drank of it which practice we see was followed in the Apostolic Church The Roman Church will let her Laity drink none of it None of the Cup of blessing which we bless But the Cup of Unblessed Wine the Ablution as they call it A trick which they brought up in those corrupt ignorant times I know not why if not on purpose to deceive the people that they may not miss the Wine though they have none of the Blessing So far they are removed from the Original Church in her Sacraments Lastly for the Worship of God here called the Apostles Prayers There are many things in the Roman Church whereof some were forbidden by the Apostles and others cannot consist with their Doctrine The chief part of her Worship is the Sacrifice of the Mass and that is declared in the Creed before-mentioned to be a true proper propitiatory Sacrifice for the living and the dead This horrible affront of Christs Sacrifice and abuse of his Sacrament together was brought in upon the back of that Doctrine of the Corporeal Presence When according to that Doctrine the Priest hath made Christ Next he is to kill him or do somthing as bad for they pretend to sacrifice him to God How this is done the Divines of that Church are not yet agreed It were well if at least they could tell Why they do it For they had need for such a Sacrifice to have a clear Institution from God But they cannot pretend to that There is nothing clearly for it in all the Texts that they bring out of Scripture This they were told aloud at the Council of Trent and others since have acknowledged it They
pain according to the Degrees of their sins All the Fathers were of some or other of these Opinions which are all inconsistent with the Roman Doctrine of Purgatory b Aúg. de Fide Operibus c. 15. Tom. IV. p. 69. E. saith Some think men that die in sin may be purged with Fire and then be saved holding the Foundation For so they understand that Text. 1 Cor. iii. 13. They shall be saved as by Fire So Enchirid. ad Laurent c. 67● Tom. III. p. 175. C. Ibid. de Fide Operibus p. 71. B. He saith that this is one of those places which St. Peter saith are hard to be understood which men ought not to wrest to their own Destruction Ibid. c. 16. p. 73. B. He saith for his own part he understandeth that Text to be meant of the Fire of Tribulation in this life So Enchir. ad Laur. Ib. c. 68. But for the Doctrine he saith that some such thing may be is not Incredible and whether it be so it may be enquired and it may be found or it may not So Enchir. ad Laur. c. 69. p. 176. D. All these Texts he repeats again in his answer to the first of the eight Questions of Dul●itius De Civitate Dei l. XXI c. 26. Tom. V. p. 1315. B. He again delivereth the same meaning of that Text. And as to the Doctrin he saith I do not find fault with it for Perhaps it is true Ibid. p. 1316. B. I suppose St. Austin would not have said this of the Doctrine of Christs Incarnation c Pope Gregory I. in his Dialogues where among many idle tales he hath some that are palpably false andd such as bewray both his Ingorance and Credulity together For Example that of St. Paulins being a Slave in Afric till the Death of the King of the Vandals who could be no other than Genseric that out-lived St. Paulin five and forty years And yet Gregory saith I heard this from our Elders and this I do as firmly believe as if I had seen it with my own Eyes lib. 1. Praef. c. 1. d Bishop Fisher against Luthers Assert Art 18. p. 132. saith it was a good while unknown and then it was believed by some pedetentim by little and little and so at last it came to be generally received by the Church e Platina who then lived in the life of Eugenius IV. Edit Colon. 1593. p. 310. saith After many meetings and much contention about it the Greeks at last being overcome with reasons did believe there was a place of Purgatory But he adds that not long after they returned to what they held before And in the life of Nicolas V. p. 323 324. he saith that he would fain have reduced them to the Catholic Faith but he could not Bishop Fisher ubi supra saith There is none or very seldom mention of it among the Ancients and it is not believed by the Greeks to this day Alphonsus de Castro adv Haeres l. 8. Tit. Indulg hath the same words and l. 12. Tit. Purgatorium saith That this is one of the most known Errors of the Greeks and Armenians Bzov. contin Baron Anno 1514. n. 19. saith The Muscovites and Russians believe no Purgatory Most of these believe a middle State as those Ancients did but that will not stand with this Doctrin a For the Age of it scarce any go higher than the Stations of Pope Gregory I. Who lived about the year Six hundred And to fetch it from those Times they have no antienter Author than Thomas Aquinas for neither Gratian nor Peter Lombard have so much as one word of this matter So Cardinal Cajetan Opusc. Tom. I. tract 15. c. 1. saith This only has been written within these three hundred years as concerning the Antient Fathers that Pope Gregory instituted the Indulgences of Stations as Aquinas hath it So likewise Bishop Fisher and Alphonsus a Castro both ubi Supra Cardinal Bellarmin de Indulg l. 3. offers some kind of proof from Elder Times in such a manner as if he would not oblige us to believe it But for the Instance of Pope Gregory I. he saith we are Impudent if we deny it But with Bellarmins leave a French Oratoire Morinus de Poenit. l. 10. ● 20. does deny it and convicts this and all his other Proofs of Indulgences before Gregory VII to be nothing but Forgery and Imposture It seems probable indeed that Gregory VII commonly known by his former name Hildebrand was the first that granted any Indulgences and that was above a thousand years after Christ. Cardinal Tolet. casuum l. VII c. 21. 1. saith that Paschal II. was the first that granted Indulgences for the Dead That must be about the year eleven hundred And Ibid. lib. VI. c. 24. 3. he saith that the first that granted Plenary Indulgences was Pope Boniface VIII who lived about the year thirteen hundred So antient is this new Catholic Faith b The Ground of this Faith according to Bellarmin de Indulg l. 2 3. is made up of a number of School Opinions put together about which Opinions as he there saith the School-men have differed among themselves But all his comfort is that they that did not hold his way were ready to acquiess in the Iudgment of the Church if she held otherwise He might as well have said that the Church when they lived was so far from having declared her Judgment of this Doctrine that she had not yet declared her sense of those Opinions which were to be the Ground of it in after-times c The design of Hilde●ands Indulgences was to engage men to fight in his quarrel and to do other Services to the Papacy Greg. VII Epist. II. 54. and VI. 10 15. and VII 13. and VIII 6. The design of Pope Boniface in his farther Improvement of this Invention was to get Mony Chron. Citiz. Anno 1289. He was greedy of Mony and to gather it he sent his Legates into divers parts of the world to trade with Indulgences And with these he raised very great sums enough to have maintained a Holy War But what became of it we shall know at Doomsday a Transubstantiation for the Honour of the Clergy Confession for their Power and Authority Image Worship to bring in Oblations to the Church Purgatory for the Profit of Masses to the Lower Clergy Indulgences for the Profit of the Superior Plenary Indulgences for the Popes own Coffers a For Transubstantiation the first that wrote was Paschas Rathertus about the year 820. And he tells us of sundry Persons that had seen instead of the Host one a Lamb another a Child another flesh and blood Paschas de corp sang Dom. c. 14. And after the year 1200 when it was defined to be of Faith Caesarius of Heisterbach wrote a whole Volume of Miracles that were wrought in that Age to confirm the Truth of it more in number than are Recorded in Scripture to confirm the whole Divine Revelation