that such Persons should resolve by a voluntary Banishment to dye to their Country and Friends and to the whole World by a Religious Profession and to bury themselves alive in a Cloyster than if they had restored Life to others and banish'd death from Graves and Monuments 7. Now after that our Protestant Gentleman hath considered our Catholick Monasteries let him examine whether in his own Church there hath been or now is any thing resembling so much Religion and super-natural Virtue as that which amongst us is not admired though admirable because so ordinary This kind of Life is as far from Protestants Practice and Doctrine as it is from natural Inclination Yet I have heard that Master Laud of Canterbury was once inclined to erect some Protestant Nunneries in England I believe it would occasion as great stirs as his Reformation did in England because nothing is more opposite to the Tenets of the reformed Gospel and first Reformers than to make Vows of Poverty Chastity and Obedience Protestancy begun and is founded upon the dissolving of Monasteries and Religious Vows and is not compatible with their observance if things must be carried on by the same means that acquired them a being 8. The Conversion of Nations to Christianity is not only a sign of the true Church but also the end of its Institution This is so proper to the Roman Catholick even at this present that none who heard the names of America Angola China Monomotappa India or Iaponia can be ignorant of our pious endeavours and miraculous success in preaching the Gospel to so remote Nations where nothing that is coveted in this World could be aimed at or expected by our Apostolical Preachers I will not say any more concerning the Signs of the true Church these being sufficient to convince any Person that desires to be saved that out of the Roman Church there is no Salvation seeing it alone hath supernatural and visible Signs whereby God doth declare sufficiently that it is an infallible guide to inform men of his Mysteries and direct them in the way he hath prescribed for his Divine Service commanding all men to hear and obey it as they would hear and obey God himself Now let us see what Luther the Apostate Apostle of Protestants says Velit nolit in praise of the Infallibility of the Roman Catholick in his Book against the Anabaptists who in hatred of the Pope of Rome did reject Infant Baptism Nos We confess sub papatu plurimum esse boni Christiani imo omne bonum Christianismum atque illinc ad nos devenisse quippe fatemur in papatu veram Scripturam Sacram esse verum Baptismum verum Sacramentum Altaris veras claves ad remissionem peccatorum verum praedicandi officium verum Catechismum ut sunt articuli fidei decem praecepta c. Dico insuper sub papatu esse veram Christianitatem imo verum nucleum Christianitatis esse O magna est veritas praevalet Mark what Calvin says Instit. c. 10. § 17. That St. Bernard was a godly and pious Writer Adding Et certe Papista fuit Bernardus nemo est Pius sine vera fide salutem veritatem ab inimicis habemus Mark lastly what Melancthon one of the first Followers of Luther said to his dying Mother whom he perverted from the old Religion to his new one Mother send for a Priest confess your sins before you die Illa securior haec plausibilior via ad salutem She did so and died in the Communion of the old Roman Catholick Faith in which she was born and bred This you will find in Florimundus de Ortu Haeresis lib. 1. cap. 9. What can be said more of the advantage of the Roman Catholick Church than what her mortal Enemies proclaim to the World for to undeceive men and guide them to the secure Ark of Sanctification and Salvation Now to deny this Infallibility so evidently demonstrated is the great crime Protestant pretended Reformers are charged with in this Infallibility is founded all the Power of Christ's Church obliging to believe the inviolableness of her Government the unjustifiableness of any Schism the firm security that Faith is certain and whatever in the Church is Sacred But Protestants never clear themselves from Schism upon any other grounds that those which if admitted would prove all Malefactors in the World innocent and make it lawful nay an obligation in conscience to dissolve the whole Fabrick of the Worlds Government whereas the very posture of a Fallibility of Faith first lays and in time hatches the Cockatrice Eggs of Anarchy and Atheism What Man ever arrived to that height of mistake as to endeavour to manifest his Innocency by the voluntary confession of a crime which implies the objected sin of Schism Now Protestants are accused of Schism they lay for the ground of their excuse that they acknowledge not Christs Churches Infallibility which is charged on them to be both Schism and Heresie and as the very sink of Infidelity Sure they clearing themselves by denying the Infallibility of the Church does the self-same as if some Male-contented Subject having first out-lawed himself by denying the Laws and rejecting the Government of the Land and afterwards this man becoming obnoxious to those Laws by Robbing or Murthering should endeavour to plead not Guilty by alledging that though indeed the Subjects who accept the Laws and allow the Government of England are liable to punishment if they offend against them Yet I quoth he who suppose this Government Tyrannical and the Laws unjust especially having a perswasion and thinking in my Conscience they are so cannot be obliged to obey them and therefore I must not be accounted a Factious Man nor liable to punishment if I break them Pray what will become of this Malefactor Sure Protestants will clear him in favorem Schismatis But I am perswaded wiser Judgments will think him more highly deserving the Gallows for refusing subjection to the install'd Government then it is manifest that Protestants do more deeply merit Excommunication for denying and rejecting Church-Government and her Infallibility CHAP. V. A Paraenetical Admonition to the People of England PRotestants regard the antient Faith of Christ whose Purity Ministers seek to blacken by insufferable Injuries Lyes Invectives and Calumnies of the deepest Dye They full well knowing that its Purity cannot be attacqu'd with solid evident Reasons nor Arguments they found out by experience that their Arguments to prove their new fangled false Doctrine makes but slight Impression in the Peoples minds And they daily see that when they but faithfully represent the Sentiments and real Doctrine of the Catholick Church they can neither justifie their Fatal Separation nor excuse the Extravagancies and Impudencies of their first Reformers they finding it impossible by these means to maintain the ground of their cursed Schism they have a recourse to a most unjust pernicious and hellish Artifice viz. to impute to the Roman Catholick Church an
relieving even in the dead of Winter and to the hazarding your life with extraordinary speed the City of Waterford when besieged eighteen days by the Vsurper Cromwell he having assured all his Adherents that that City was most extremely his These my Lord your Heroick Vndertakings to promote Loyalty the same Loyalty which now stands the top and most visible of your Grace's most Illustrious Titles and Characters which rendred you all along a great Favourite of our late deceased Sovereign and makes you now most dear unto his present Majesty King JAMES the Second These I say are so notoriously known both at home and abroad that even base Envy and Detraction have but rendred them to be the more acknowledged and most illustriously conspicuous These my Lord not common actings are patterns of your unbounded Merits these Heroick Efforts Vndertakings and brave never-to-be-forgotten Performances proceeded sure from that your Noble Genius or natural propension to Monarchy in detestation of Democracy and Anarchy Now my Lord you are to apply that your clear Eagle-ey'd Iudgment and great Wisdom in owning and honouring that great Monarchy which Christ established here on Earth governed by one Visible Head the Vniversal Pastor Vicegerent of Christ and Successor to St. Peter to whom he gave special warrant to govern his Flock And it 's an undoubted truth my Lord that the Interest and Conservation of Kingly Government is twisted with true ancient Christian Religion that it seems animated with one and the same Soul for like to Hippocrates's Twins they smile and weep together and live and die together For even as Rebellion is the bane of Civil Kingdoms and Peace and Concord the preservation of them even so Schism is the utter ruine of the Church of Christ Peace Vnity Vniformity the special gift of God therein and in the true Church above all Kingdoms or Common-wealths because it 's in all points a glorious conspicuous Monarchy tending every way to Vnity there being but one God one Christ one Flock one Pastor one Hope one Faith one Body one Head as the Apostle assures us To this heavenly Monarchy my Lord you are invited all Sects or false new-fangled Churches cannot pretend to be a Monarchy having no Head nor united Body but a confused Chaos I am confident that your Grace is a Master of more solid reason than to ground your Faith upon an uncertain Foundation or to pin the Salvation of your Soul on the bare sleeves of any Sect whose Guides are failable and fallible in all mens Opinions when you may enquire and find out a secure Infallible Guide leading to that Eternity of Glory you were created for The great reason my Lord the great motive that excited Dr. Vane Dr. Cressey Dr. King Bishop of London the Bishop of Glocester with very many more to separate from the Protestant blind Sect was because they found no safe secure certain human infallible unerring warrantable Iudge to interpret Scriptures and define questions of Faith without errour with any promise and privilege from Christ among the Protestants And consider my Lord that it 's very probable that the last Verdict and Sentence of the forlorn Protestant Sect is already written in Heaven that it must soon yield and fall to nothing as all other damn'd Heresies have done for it 's but folly to pretend to secure by human arts that which God is resolved to destroy Are you peradventure afraid or asham'd that Sectaries will blame you of inconstancy in changing or removing to the Roman Communion Sure we Mortals have above bruit Beasts the Resurrection of our Bodies we have above Devils to repent reclaim and flie from sin especially that most heinous sin of Schism and Heresie for Sectae non possi debunt Regnum Dei Galat. 5. So as that you must want constancy only to sin Sapientis est mutare consilium nullus pudor est ad meliora convertie Sure it was no blemish to St. Paul to turn to Christ from a Persecutor it was no shame to Constantine the Great of a Heathen to become a Roman Catholick Converted and Baptized by Pope Sylvester and it was no blemish to Louis I. King of France to be drawn to Christ's Faith by a Woman Then what shame can it be to your Grace to forsake Schism and come to the true Mother-Church the which King James I. of Blessed Memory did acknowledge in open Parliament to be the only Mother-Church of all Churches I hope my Lord you are none of those who say to God Job 21. Depart from us we will not have the knowledge of thy ways I hope you are none of those which abhor to hear good Inspirations flie and detest good Company and Books lest by such occasions they might be touched in conscience and so be converted and saved I hope you are none of those most unfortunate hard-hearted men whereof the Prophet Isa. 28. speaketh We have strucken a league with Death and made a bargain with Hell it self which is in effect as much as if they had said Trouble us not molest us not with thy persuasions spend not thy words and labour in vain talk to others who are not yet settled let them take Heaven that will we for our parts are resolved we are at a point we have made a league that must be kept we have made a bargain that must be performed yea though it be with Hell and Death everlasting O what a wonderful fury and obduration of an unrelenting heart is this My Lord when men are byass'd or prepossess'd they lie open to be imposed upon to the belief of a down-right Lye or to the disbelief of a manifest demonstration of an infallible Truth and so to be mis-led to a plausible Errour The great reason why there are few in comparison who now-adays come to a right understanding and a well-grounded persuasion in matters of Faith is because they are not many who make a due enquiry with sincerity and unbyassed disposition sure such who wilfully remain under the power of the false Principles which were instill'd in them in their Education or who blindly following failable and fallible Guides whose persons they have in admiration and veneration resolving never to trouble themselves with a free and impartial use of their own Iudgment concerning those Doctrines which they have in their own Opinion wisely and safely as they imagine taken upon trust led away by lofty conceits and opinion of their own Reason and Capacity will not suffer them to attempt any sincere ingenuous Examination of such things as imply a possibility of being deceived in points of Faith whence it comes to pass that they weigh only what is offered in favour of their own side and make it the great end of their search not to follow what shall appear to be true upon enquiry but rather to be confirmed in their present erroneous Persuasion it 's no wonder then that such as do enquire thus are rather hardned in Errour than convinced of the
th year of Nero's Region who first of the Roman Emperours began open Persecution against Christians and put to death St. Peter and St. Paul In this time I say of Toleration under the Roman Empire which continued the space of 36 years the blessed Apostles and Disciples had preached one uniform Gospel and Faith throughout all the World as may appear by their Acts recorded and by the peculiar Testimony of St. Paul to the Romans Rom. 1. which thing being most miraculously done by the Divine Power and Virtue of Christ Bishops Pastors and Governours being ordained in every Country and Church for guiding and directing the same by themselves and their Successors in perpetuum this I say being once brought to pass then the blessed Apostles for preventing of new false Doctrines that might afterward arise most earnestly exhorted and with all vehemency called upon the people to stand fast in the Doctrine Documents and Traditions then received to hold firmly the Faith and Doctrine already delivered as a Depositum or Treasure committed to them to be safely kept till the last day And above all other things they forewarned them to beware of new fangled Teachers whom they called Hereticks who should break from the Unity of the Universal Body already made and knit together and should devise new Glosses Expositions and Interpretations of Scripture bringing in new Sences Doctrines Opinions and damnable Divisions to the utter renting of Christ's Church Kingdom City already builded and all this to the perdition of infinite Souls Hence it is that St. Paul Tim. 1. pronounceth peremptorily of a contentious and heretical Man that he is damned by the testimony of his own Judgment or Conscience for that he abandoned the common direct publick way which all Men might see devising particular Paths and pernicious Turnings to himself and the ancient Fathers of the Primitive Church disputing against the same kind of People defended always that their Error was of Malice and wilful Blindness and not at all of Ignorance for they will not behold the plain direct sure safe unerring and infallible way among Christians wherein no man can err tho' never so simple but only of blind wilful and obstinate malice Yet by promises of Christ himself in the Gospel we are absolutely ascertained that the same visible Congegation Body Common-wealth Church Kingdom and Government which was established by Christ and propagated by the blessed Apostles shall endure and continue by Succession of Followers in perpetuum and that no new Teacher of later Doctrines dissenting from the first shall ever prevail against it albeit divers Errors and Heresies have sprung up and made great blustering and disturbance for a time yet have they been repress'd and condemn'd by the same Church and her visible Pastors and Doctors in the end For Example-sake in the first Age there arose up certain seditious fellows among the Iews as Simon Magus Nicolaus Cerinthus Ebion Meander c. that were Hereticks against these stood in defence St. Peter who broke the Neck and Black Art of Simon Magus even by his Prayer And after him St. Martialis St. Dionysius Areopagita St. Ignatius Policarpus and others In the second Age rose up Basilides Cerdon Marchion Valentinus Tacianus Apelles Montanus and divers others against these stood in battel Iustin Martyr Dionysius Bishop of Corinth St. Ireneus Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian with many others their equals And so all along downward from Age to Age unto cursed Luther's days whatsoever Heresie or new false Opinions hath been raised contrary to the general consent of Christ's universal Church it hath been check'd controul'd silenc'd and condemn'd by vigilant Pastors and Doctors chief Governours of the same Body by general Assemblies and Councils gathered from time to time as occasion serv'd in all Parts of the World Whereby it 's evidently most manifest that he who relieth upon this general consent of Christ's Church and the judgment thereof cannot err in matters of Belief but walketh in that sure secure and infallible Path wherein 't is said in Isaiah 35.8 That a very Fool cannot go amiss Hence one may be persuaded of the Churches perspicuity and infallibility in her Traditions and Doctrines through God's Divine Providence which did and will always preserve it from corruption having a warrant for it out of Scripture Isa. 59.21 My Spirit which is upon thee and the words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy Seed nor out of the mouth of thy Seed's Seed from henceforth for ever And St. Austin said Ep. 118. That to dispute against a living multitude of the whole Church is insolent madness And to say she may err through ignorance wilfulness or negligence is most absurd and blasphemous she having Christ for her Head and the holy Ghost for her Guide and Spirit who was sent by our Saviour to teach it all Truth wherefore to tax that heavenly Government with errors in Faith is either to tax the holy Ghost with them or to blaspheme against Christ our blessed Redeemer by saying He has not kept his word and promise in sending the holy Ghost to teach his Church all truth for ever King IAMES in a publick Speech made in his Parliament acknowledged the Church of Rome to be our Mother-Church saying I acknowledge the Church of Rome to be our Mother-Church This you may find in Stow pag. 840. Sure the Sacred Blood of his glorious Mother Queen Mary the ever blessed Martyr ran in the Veins of this her Royal Son King Iames who would do wonderful things in favour of the Roman Catholick Church if it were not for the black contriving of the Gun-powder Plot by the Matchevilian Policy of crooked Cicil only for to hinder King Iames from favouring the Church of Christ Sanguis mantirum semen Ecclesiae See Osburn Sure there is no other certain Testimony to any prudent considering Man no firm Ground or Motive to believe that the Primitive Church received her Doctrine from the blessed Apostles these from Christ Christ from God the Father nor any way to bring it down from those times to these our days but only the Tradition of the Church from hand to hand For we may observe three properties of the Doctrine of Divine Faith to be true to be revealed of God to be preached and delivered by the Apostles The highest ground by which a Man is perswaded that his Faith is true is the Authority of God speaking and revealing it the highest proof by which a Man is assured that his Faith is revealed is the Authority of Christ and his blessed Apostles who delivered the same as descending from God but the highest ground that moveth a Man to believe that his Faith was preached by the blessed Apostles is the perpetual constant Tradition of the Church succeeding the blessed Apostles unto this day assuring him so much according to the saying of Tertul. depraes c. 21. 37. who made his Ladder
saved and that they who believed not should be damn'd Math. 28.19 Mark 16.15 O Soveraign and Heavenly Promises Priviledges and Graces of the true Catholick Roman Churches Infallibility Add to this how the Apostles tell us that the Chuch of the living God is the Pillar and ground of truth 1 Tim 3.15 Sure we may securely rely upon her and they assure us that Christ gave his Son Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers for the perfection of the Saints that henceforth we may be no more Children tossed to and fro c. Eph. 4. Are not these plain and wondrous texts of Scripture and cannot you see clearly an infallible assistance promised to the directing and guiding men that they should not be carried about with every wind of false Doctrine by the slght and wiles of men and cunning craftiness whereby some lie in wait for to deceive No other Congregation under the Sun but the Roman Catholick Church can stand up or pretend to these great Priviledges it follows that Protestants are as they aver fallible saying so they tell all the World an Infallible truth and thereupon we may be infallibly assured that they always are failable and fallible And hence it follows whilst Protestants themselve declare they are fallible they can no ways pretend to be the infallible Church of Christ For if the Word of God should have the first place and serve as a basis for the perpetuating of a Church infallible as it is most reasonable I incessantly challenge Ministers to shew but one only Text of Scripture express formal and irreprovable contrary to the Articles of the Roman Catholick Church sure this they could never yet perform for hitherto they have produc'd nothing but Semblances Stories Lyes and Railings for to delude weak inferior Judgments of the giddy Multitude being unable to make them good before considering and learned understanding Men And if a lawful Succession sacred Mission Character and real Consecration of true Pastors be required which is absolutely necessary for the establishment of an Ecclesiastical Hierarchy the Roman Church can shew that from the Apostles hitherward our Popes and other inferior Pastors do all to this day successively follow one another above two hundred and thirty Popes Magna est veritas prevalet If the Authority of Councils be requisite which are the Sinews Mouths and living Oracles of Religion in the Revolution of sixteen Ages all Councils will be found call'd for to confirm the Roman Church confute and condemn her Adversaries If the Interpretations of Holy Doctors who have been the Lights of their times Instruments of the Holy Ghost and Secretaries of the Divinity they all with one accord and consent speak for the Roman Church condemning loudly the Errors and Schism of new Sects If Miracles which were wrought in all Ages and in the sight of all Mankind with so much approbation that they have evicted Confession even from the most Incredulous and Reverence from the most Stupid Millions and unfeigned Miracles were and are daily wrought in confirmation of the verity of the Roman Catholick Religion So as that there is not a Country wherein the Roman Catholick Religion is profess'd which doth not produce Testimonies so prudently and evidently credible of true Super-natural Miracles that to deny them were to destroy all Humane Faith. Did not Simon Magus impiously boast by the Spirit of his private Fancy that he would do wonders as St. Peter did who provok'd by the said Simon Magus did prove that he had the Spirit of God by raising a Child from Death which the other with all his Black Magick Art could not do yet boldly challenging St. Peter to fly from the Capitol to Mount Aventin while he was doing so by the Prayer of St. Peter loe he came tumbling down and brake his Leg whereof he died soon after Even so that false Apostle Calvin for the credit of his new Damn'd Doctrine he would fain make a shew to the People of doing a Miracle hir'd one that was Sick to counterfeit himself Dead who when Calvin should speak certain words was to arise as it were from the Dead but he not stirring was found dead indeed Withall mark how that the Son of Calvin being bitten by a Mad Dog his Father not being able to cure him sent him to St. Hubert in Arden where the Body of that Saint is kept with Veneration and frequent Miracles wrought thereby where he was perfectly made whole whereupon abjur'd his Fathers Sect became a Roman Catholick and lived and died so Yet Protestants object its strange themselves never see any Miracle being so desirous and miracles so frequent as we pretend Herod was also very desirous to see a Miracle but his curiosity excluded him from that favour Men who believe nothing but what they see deserve not to see Miracles because they are obstinate Yet there are few Protestants who do not see Miracles what greater Miracle than that all Catholicks turn not Protestants If the continual Victory over natural and vehement Inclinations doth require a Miracle of super-natural Grace we are as naturally and vehemently inclined to their Religion as we are to our own Liberties and Pleasures What greater Miracle than that Roman Catholick sober and learned Men should be perswaded that their Senses are deceived in the Sacrament of the Altar and that they should suffer death for the Mystery of Transubstantiation There must be effects of super-natural Grace and not of Ignorance or Obstinacy which cannot be laid to our charge seeing we submit our Judgments to every definition of the Roman Church and our very Adversaries know we are learned Men. Sanctity of Life is a super-natural sign and effect of Grace and of the true Church This Sanctity is evident in the Roman Church Not to speak of Antonies Hilarions or Stillitas let 's draw nearer our times and consider the Lives of St. Bernard St. Dominick St. Francis St. Vincent Ferrer St. Francis of Paula St. Charles Barromeus St. Teresa St. Francis Xaverius St. Anthony of Padua and many more who were known Roman Catholicks professing the same Tenets and Obedience to the Pope which we now maintain against pretended Reformation And not to speak only of the Dead let any indifferent Person consider how in all Vocations of both Clergy and Laity we have many Persons eminent in Virtue far above that degree of morality Let our English Protestant be pleased to weigh with himself whether young Ladies of as great Quality Fortunes and Gifts of Nature as England doth afford could forsake their native Country Kindred and Friends contemn all pleasures of the World and themselves by embracing a religious poor and penitent Life in perpetual Inclosure submitting their wills to the Obedience and Humour of a Woman could this I say be performed by so many so continually and with so great alacrity and content of mind without a miraculous and super-natural Grace of the Almighty In my judgment it is a greater Miracle