hundred years we were never exempted from civil Wars Here many of our sacred Kings have been deposed and murthered by their near Blood and Kindred how much innocent Blood was shed for the space of five years in Queen Marys days and how many Popish Conspiraces were there in Queen Elizabeths days And this addeth exceedingly to his wickedness that the Pope pretendeth to be a common Father of Christians and the Vicar or Deputy of Christ and under this mask acteth so mischievously against Christ and Christians Other Errours are of the Papists concerning the Church That there are no Catholicks but those of the Roman Church That he is a Catholick who believes all that the Roman Church delivereth whether it be written in the Bible or not That there is no Salvation out of the Roman Church That the sincere preaching of the Gospel and lawful administration of the Sacraments Bp. Downham Caâ—al are not a certain note of the Church That to acknowledg the Roman Pope and to be under him as the Vicar of Christ the only Pastor the Head of the whole Church is a note of the true Church That the particular Roman Church is the Mother Mistress and Lady of all Churches yea the Mother of Faith That the Roman Church did obtain this Primacy from our Lord and Saviour himself That the Roman Church hath power of judging all neither is it lawful for any to judg her Judgment That the Roman Church as it cannot err much less can it fail That there is no sure ground for the authority of the Scriptures but the infallible testimony of their Pope and Catholick Roman Church But the true Church must be discerned by the Scripture and not the Scripture by the Church unless a man would in the dark seek to find out the candle by the candlestick whereas he should rather seek out the candlestick by the light of the candle for the Church is as the candlestick and the Scripture as the light or candle Finally the Papists assert that we are to be subject to the Church without limitation So when in the maintenance of their Opinions they are beaten off from the Scripture they fly to the Church and make use of its authority which is with them in effect the Pope whom they make the Head of the Church and whose Sentence among them giveth all force and authority to that which the Church is said to define Howsoever the Church doth but signifie such a Society as consisteth of Men and Women and therefore set the Pope aside to be absolutely subject to the Church what is it but to be the Servants of Men which Saint Paul forbiddeth and presseth his Prohibition with an argument drawn from the precious Blood of Christ the price of our Redemption And therefore when once Cochlaeus a Champion of Popish Superstition speaking for the gross Idolatry of worshipping Images used this reason Quod Mater Ecclesia hâc in parte audienda esset cui hoc visum fuisset that our Mother the Church herein is to be obeyed whose pleasure it is that Images should be worshiped Brentius a learned Divine is said to have answered Quid si Pater diversum praecipiat what if our Father forbid it no Command of our Mother the Church on Earth can bear us out if our Father which is in Heaven speak the contrary And therefore in yielding obedience to the Church we must except our duty to God and obey her no farther than her commands are allowed by him much more must we reject the tyrannical and presumptuous Mandates of the Whore of Babylon pretending her self to be the Spouse of Christ wanting that authority which belongeth to the Church and yet still challenging far more than the Churches right A great misery of so many millions of poor wretched souls it is to be thus enslaved and a most cursed practice it is of those who go about to bring them again into such Antichristian bondage who now are out of Babylon But among all other Papists how desperately wicked are the Jesuits and how slavish swearing absolute obedience to the General of their Society binding themselves by Oath to do whatsoever he commandeth them Vide Gages Survay of 〈◊〉 Wâ—st Indies without exception though it be to murther Kings and blow up Parliaments with Gunpowder and any such like villanies Of the Members of the Church THe Members of the Church considered severally are The Clergy The Laity Their Errours are 1. That to make a Member of the Catholick Church Bp. Downham Caâ—â—aâ— there is not required Grace or any internal vertue but a profession of Faith is sufficient 2. That the Clergy are not held under civil Laws by any coactive but only directive Bond that is that the Clergy are not subject to the civil Magistrate 3. That Clergy-men are not bound to keep and observe the positive Laws of Princes if they be contrary to the Canons of the Church neither ought they to be cited before the civil Magistrate for any cause or to be judged by him It is absurd saith Bellarmine that the sheep should judg the Shepherd 4. That the goods of the Clergy both ecclesiastical and secular are free from the Tribute and Taxe of secular Princes 5. That the election of Bishops dependeth upon the Pope and that they all receive Jurisdiction from the Pope 6. That single life is always joyned to holy Orders by divine right that Marriage in the Clergy is a greater sin than Whoredom 7. That men are to be prepared for holy Orders by the first shaving 8. That the Clergy-men of the first Order are Priests properly so called which they say are instituted to offer an external and real Sacrifice 9. That preaching is not necessary to the Priesthood and in the Roman Church the greatest part of Priests do not preach They must have some other Charge or Commission besides the Priesthood for to be Preachers 10. There is that which they call Irregularity that which hinders a man from being capable of the holy Orders or performing the Functions belonging thereunto after they have received them Ignorance maketh not a man uncapable of holy Orders Some of their Bishops could not read 〈…〉 l. 1. c. 61. but they give them a co-adjutor for they hold that a man may serve God by an Attorney Yea they confer the sacred Orders upon Infants in the Cradle as Cardinal Tolet the Jesuit teacheth No man can receive nor exercise the Priesthood that hath any notable defect in his Body especially if he hath lost one of the Fingers wherewith they handle the Host That man is irregular also that hath had two Wives An Hermophrodite is not irregular provided that the virile Sexe do prevail as Emanuel Sa in his Aphorisms teacheth Item that man is irregular that hath cut off a member from any other man An Heretick also though converted is uncapable of Orders his Children likewise and his Childrens Children yet in this nevertheless the Pope gives
corruptions about Relicks viz. a superstitious confidence in the worship of true Relicks and a sacrilegious forging of false Relicks triumphant Wood they speak not to God which is not Wood Or if men speak to any thing in honour of God they must always understand that which is spoken to it Richard the first King of England redeemed from the Turks in Palestine a Chest full of holy Reliques which they had gotten at the taking of Jerusalem so great as four men could scarce carry any away And though saith my Author some know no more than Esops Cock how to prize these Pearls let them learn the true value of them from the Roman Jewellers First they must carefully distinguish between publick and private Reliques In private ones some forgery may be suspected lest quid be put for quo which made Saint Augustine put in that wary Parenthesis Si tamen Martyrum if so be they be the Reliques of Martyrs But as for publick ones approved by the Pope and kept in Churches such no doubt as these of King Richards were Oh let no Christian be such an infidel saith my Author as to stagger at the truth thereof If any object that the Head of the same Saint is shewed at several places the whole answer is by a Synechdoche that a part is put for the whole As for the common exception against the Cross that so many several pieces thereof are shewn which put together would break the back of Simon of Cyrene to bear them it is answered saith he Distrahitur non diminuitur and like the Loaves in the Gospel it is miraculously multiplied in the dividing If all these fail Baronius hath a Rasor that shaveth all scruple clear away Baron annal Eâ—cl in an 1226. For saith he Quicquid sit fides purgat facinuâ— So that he that worshippeth the false Reliques of a true Saint God takes his good intention in good part though he adore the hand of Esau for the hand of Jacob. But enough of these fooleries Now as for those true Reliques or Remembrances of the Saints they are not those which the Papists do so magnifie and superstitiously reverence not their old shooes not pieces of bones and the like but their holy instructions and examples which should be had in remembrance for our furtherance in the way of Godliness after their death And as for the Bones of Saints and such kind of Reliques of them I shall conclude with the words of King James If I had any such saith he that I were assured were members of their Bodies I would honourably bury them and not give them the reward of condemned mens members Premonit p. 9. which are ordained to be deprived of burial but for worshipping them or Images I must account it Idolatry Of the Vigils and night-watches annexed to festival-dayes THe Papists were wont upon Saints Eeves to give themselves to fasting and watching But their night-vigils or watches they do not now so strictly observe because of the great abuses which did grow thereupon yet they have not altogether left them for they have their nocturns or mid night mattens and their prime hours in the Morning It is true the Christians in time of persecution had their antelucanos hymnos their early Songs and Hymns before day-light they met together to worship God before the Sun arose because they could not assemble together in safety in the day-time But that is no reason why the Church now should use Vigils or Nocturns seeing we now have free exercise of religion in the day-time saith Dr. Willet no more than St. Pauls example is to be urged that prayed by the Rivers side with the people and there preached unto them because in idolatrous Cities they could have no places of meeting that therefore we now ought to do the like having Churches and Oratories to assemble in How well they kept their Vigils may appear by that Decree of Innocentius Decret Greg. lib. 3. tit 41. ca. 9. we speak it with grief that certain not only inferiour Priests but Prelats spend the time in eating and drinking till midnight c. Of their Wax-Candles and Tapers THey have another superstitious custom to set up Wax-Candles and Taper-light before Images and upon the Altar to carry them about in procession and even at mid-day and high-noon And Bellarmine would authorize this custom by the continual burning of the Lamps day and night as he saith in the Tabernacle among the Jews But the Lamps among the Jews who abounded in Types and Ceremonies were lighted in the evening and so burned all night for those that kept the Watch in the Temple 2 Chron. 13.1 and in the morning again they were put out 1 Sam. 3.3 And St. Hierome upon those words Before the Lamp of God went out thus writeth Intelligi oportet antequam lux diurna fieret it must be understood before it was day when the Lamp was put out Tertullian speaks against this use of Gentilism in burning Candles by day Let them set up Lights daily which have no Light saith he the testimony or sign of Darkness well agreeth unto them This then having been taken up by the Heathen is worse to be liked of than if it had been a Jewish Ceremony for it is a less fault to play the Jews than the Heathen The ancient Eliberine Synod in Spain misliking the superstitious use of Candle-light by day decreed thus It seemeth good unto us that Candles should not be lighted in Church-yards by day Pope Zosymus ordained Beacons Reliques of Rome that the Paschal Taper should be hallowed on Easter even and set up in every Parish Church and also that a fire should be made in every Church on that day and hallowed Again that the Paschal should be lighted with the flame of that fire and all other Candles in the Church Of their Holy Water POpe Alexander the first they say ordained Water mingled with Salt to be hallowed and afterwards to be sprinkled upon the people to put away their sins and to make them pure and holy He also commanded that it should be kept in Churches and in Houses to chase away Devils and wicked Spirits not only out of houses where men dwell but also out of the hearts of the faithful as though Faith and the Devil could dwell together in one heart The words of Pope Alexanders Canon are these we bless the Water mingled with Salt for this purpose that all that be sprinkled therewith may be made holy and pure which thing we command all Priests likewise to do For saith he if the Ashes of an Heifer sprinkled made holy and cleansed the people from venial sins much more Water sprinkled with Salt and hallowed with holy Prayers doth sanctifie make holy and cleanse the people from venial sins And if the Salt being sprinkled by Elizeus the barrenness of the Water was healed how much more Salt being hallowed by Godly Prayers takes away the barrenness of such as appertain to man
Acts of Foronosus his Predecessor John the ninth disannulled all the Acts of Stephen and Sergius the third all the Acts that Formosus had done and so that which John had done and approved the Acts of Stephen some of these must err In the 1408. in the Council of Pisa consisting of 1000 Divines and Lawyers two Popes were deposed at once viz. Gregory the eleventh and Benedict the thirteenth the Tenour of whose Deprivation calleth them Schismaticks Hereticks departed from the Faith scandalizing the whole Church unworthy the Papacy cut off from the Church And whereas Benedict continued Pope still for all this a second Council holden at Constance deposed him again commanding all men to esteem him as an Heretick and Schismatick John Gerson testifieth of Pope John the two and twentieth that he held that the Souls of just men separated from their Bodies do not see God nor rejoyce with him till the day of Judgment This was a publick Errour of his for he taught it publickly and commanded it to be held by all men But for this Errour of his he was condemned before the French King by the Divines of the University of Paris and made to recant it with Sound of Trumpet And Alphonsus a Castro saith that he saw a Decretal Epistle of Pope Celestine wherein he publickly erred in matter of Marriage Pope Pius the fourth decreed that it should be lawful for him to allow degrees of Marriage forbidden in Leviticus and to forbid what God allowed Eastern Bishops and antient Fathers have sharply reproved the Bishop of Rome as namely Polycrates the Bishop of Ephesus and as Irenaeus the Bishop of Lions did Victor for his rash proceeding against the Eastern Churches Antient Councils have withstood the Pope as that of Chalcedon wherein were six hundred and thirty Bishops withstanding Leo in the Question of Supremacy The sixth Council of Carthage of two hundred seventeen Bishops resisted three Popes one after another in that they would do contrary to the Council of Nice These judged that Popes may err Such have been made Popes that any wise man may think might err Some have been unlettered Ideots no Grammarians that could hardly write their Names in Latin some Lay-men as Constantius the second and Bennet the eighth and very Boys for age Bennet the ninth a Child of ten years old John the twelfth a Bastard a mad Lad about eighteen years old and one Woman as Pope Joan of whom Mantuan that elegant Poet writeth thus Hic pendebat adhuc sexum mentita virilem Faemina cui triplici Phrygiam diademate Mitram Extollebat apex c. lib. 3. Here did as yet in shew a Man a Woman sit Whose Head a costly Crown did fit Some Popes have been Blasphemers Dishonorers of Parents Sorcerers Adulterers Covetous breakers of Promises Pope Alexander the sixth upon Festival days gave himself to hear Plautus his Comedies and to be present at other Pâ—ays Pope Paul the third poisoned his Mother and his Nephew that the whole Inheritance of the Farnesians might come unto him 34. That Saint Peter was Prince of the Apostles and had a Primacy of power and authority above all the Apostles They assert that Saint Peter was Head of the Church that Saint Peter was the only Vicar of Christ here on earth Their Errours concerning the Sacraments in general 1. Rhem. Act. 22. Sect. 1. THat much is to be attributed to the bare outward Work that the Sacraments do confer Grace ex opere operato 2. That the Sacraments are not Seals of the Promises or Covenant of God nor instituted to confirm the Promise 3. That Circumcision was a Seal of the Righteousness of Faith only to Abraham 4. Vide Bp. Downham Catal. That Grace is contained in the Sacraments as in a vessel nay that the Sacraments are Physical instrumental causes of Grace and that they do work holiness by the power put into them by God as the heat of the fire is the cause of the burning of the Wood. 5. Bellarm. cap. 27. That there is necessarily required the intention of the Administrator to the truth of the Sacrament at least of doing what the Church doth 6. Vide Rhem. Aâ—mot in 2 Cor. 1 That in the Sacraments of Baptism Confirmation and Order there is imprinted in the Soul by God a character or certain spiritual and indelible sign or mark so that they cannot be reiterated In the other Sacraments viz. according to the Popish account there is only an ornament or dress imprinted instead of a mark or character 7. That the Observation of the Ceremonies which they use in the Administration of Sacraments though invented by themselves through will-worship is meritorious and part of Divine Worship 8. They add five Sacraments to the other two instituted by Christ Concil Trid. Sâ—ss 7. Can. 1. viz. Confirmation Penance Orders Extreme Unction And say they if any of these are not truly and properly Sacraments Rhem. Annot. Apoc 1. Sect. 3. or that they are not of Christs Institution let him be anathema or accursed Their Arguments are 1. The number of seven is mystical prophetical perfect The Prophet commanded Naaman to wash himself seven times The Altar must be cleansed seven days Exod. 29.37 So in the Apocalypse seven Churches seven Angels seven Stars seven Candlesticks seven Thunders c. And why not also seven Sacraments saith Bellarmine 2. Man hath seven Wounds to be healed ergo there ought to be seven Sacraments as Remedies against the same Baptism say they is a remedy against Original sin Penance against Actual sin Bellarm. l. 2. c. 26. Extreme Unction against the Reliques of sin Confirmation against infirmity of Faith the Eucharist against Malice Orders against Ignorance Their Errours concerning Baptism 1. Bellarm. lib. 1. de Baptism THey define Baptism to be a Sacrament of Regeneration by Water in the Word that is not which signifieth and sealeth unto us our Regeneration and assureth us of Remission of sins but actually justifieth and regenerateth us 2. Bellar. de Baptismâ— lib. 1. c. 3. They affirm that this form of Baptism to baptize in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is not fully concluded out of Scripture but delivered by Tradition for say they the Command of Christ to baptize in the name of the Trinity may be understood thus to baptize them into the Faith of the Trinity or by the authority of the Trinity 3. They affirm that Baptism is simply necessary to Salvation by Gods appointment Concil Trid. Sâ—ss 7. can 7. so that all which die unbaptized unless the want of Baptism be recompensed either by Martyrdom or Penance must needs perish and be deprived of eternal Life 4. They grant power to baptize Bellarm. c. 7. not only to any rank of men but even to Women in case of necessity they grant this also to Lay men and Pagans in like case 5. They affirm that the Baptism of Infants is grounded upon Tradition and