passage for its monstrous extravagancies through the Narrow way then for those of Barbary and Turky The Popery this Author describes seems to me a flat Contradiction to the Commandments and the Gospel and the Professors of it can have no other portion then with Idolaters Murderers and Adulterers whose Eternity is to be in utter darkness He declares plainly that Popery is really that Antichristian Religion which Protestants say it is that it teaches and practices all those Fopperies Superstitions and Non-sence which have been at any time charg'd against it by Protestants His very Title of A Papist not Mis-represented by Protestants is a condemnation of the Religion to all those horrid shapes and monstrous forms it has been at any time expos'd in by Members of the Reformation He tells his Reader in the name of all his Brethren We charge them the Papists with nothing but what they expresly profess to believe and what they practice And in this one Assertion vouches for the Truth of all that Infamy and prophaness which is laid at their doors And so gives assurance that their complaint of being Mis-represented is but vain and idle for that what they call a Mis-representation is in reality a Representation in all the material Points of the avow'd Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome That the Papist Represented excepting some very few cases professes to believe all that the Papist Mis-represented is charg'd with This the best and wisest Men he says viz. of the Reformation have believ'd of them And in Fox's book of Martyrs we read how many were burnt for not believing as the Papist Mis-represented believes This is the General Character of a Papist according to the freshest and most Modern draught of our Adversary So that now to receive a true information of the Papist's Creed we are not to consult the Council of Trent or the Catechism ad Parochos but the writings and Sermons of Protestants For however Papists may not know what they believe themselves yet Protestants give a true and exact account of them and are so far Infallible that the Papists certainly are what they say they are believe what they say they believe since they charge them with nothing but what they expresly profess to believe and what they practice Upon the assurance of this Affidavit me-thinks 't will not be amiss here to receive the satisfaction of knowing what a Papist really is and what he certainly believes beyond the possibility of all exception For since all that proceeds from a Popish hand of this nature is suspected and challeng'd and the double Character of a Papist Mis-represented and Represented about which as the Repliers says there is so much pother and noise is questioned as to its Method its Sincerity and exactness we 'l now follow our Authors call and learn what Popery is from the Pens of Protestants and especially from some of those who are supposed to know what Popery is but for the bad man which the Replier excepts against we 'l make no advantage of him but let a better Man take his room What Papists are according to the Character given by the most Reverend Father John sometime Lord Archbishop of York in his Book Written for the use of a Lady to preserve her from the danger of Popery where he brings in a Papist thus declaring the Belief and Doctrine of his Church WE must Believe the Church of Rome whether it teach true or false If the Pope Believe there is no Life to come we must Believe it as an Article of our Faith We teach that the Gospel is but a Fable of Christ That the Pope can dispence against the New Testament that he may check when he pleases the Epistles of St. Paul and controul any thing avouched by all the Apostles That there is an eternal Gospel to wit that of the Holy Ghost which puts down Christs That Christ is the Saviour of Men only but of no Women For Women are saved by St. Clare and Mother Jane That we put away Mortal sins by becoming Franciscans by a Bishops Pardon for Forty days and a Cardinals for a Hundred and the Popes for Ever That to become a Monk or a Nun is as good as the Sacrament of Baptism That Whoredom is allowed all the Year long and another sin for June July August which you must not know Allowed for this time by Sixtus Quartus to all the Family of the Cardinals of St. Lucie That the Pope can make that Righteous which is Vnrighteous That the Bishop of Rome is a God That the Pope may dispence with all Duties and that our Principles set Men loose from all obligations in all relations whatsoever between Magistrates and Subjects Lords and Tenants Husbands and Wives Parents and Children Masters and Servants Buyers and Sellers That there is not any sin but is or may be Indulged amongst us and scarce a known sin but there is a known price for it and at our Market-rate you may commit them when you will What is the Belief and Doctrine of the Papists as 't is deliver'd by Tho. Beard D.D. in his Book Entituled Antichrist the Pope of Rome THey Believe that Saints departed ought to be Worshipped and invocated with trust and confidence as God himself That the Pope can Canonize them to this Worship at his pleasure That Images are to be adored with the same degree of honour as is due to their Patterns contrary to an express precept of the Law That the Pardon of sins here in this Life and deliverance out of Purgatory in the Life to come may be bought for Mony and where no Mony there no remission They make their unwritten Traditions not one but the principal part of Gods word They place divers counterfeit Books disguised under the Name of some of the Apostles or their Disciples full of Fables Blasphemies and Contrarieties and yet commend them to the World as parcels of the written word of God and Believe in them as Holy Scripture it self as the Gospels of St. Nicodemus of St. Thomas c. The Pope hath set up a new God in the Church namely a piece of Bread in the Mass and to their Breaden God they ascribe power to forgive sins to defend from evil both Men and Beast and to bring to Heaven when as in the mean while most horrible Blasphemies against Christ himself are tolerated and slighted over The Pope is above Angels and Magistrates he exalteth himself above all that is called God yea above God himself They prefer their Saints before Christ They rely more upon the mediation and intercession of Saints then upon the mediation of Christ They not only equal St. Francis and St. Dominick unto Christ but in some things prefer them before him They affirm that whoever dies in St. Francis's habit cannot be Damn'd and that it is as forcible for the remission of sins as the Sacrament of Baptism What the Papists are as Represented by Mr. Sutcliffe
esteem'd as such by our Church he may then deserve a farther consideration What the Replier adds of this Subject p. 57. That the Pope permits the positive Assertors of the no-Deposing Power to pass without any Censure of Heresie because he wants Power to do it is spoke like an Oracle I confess but because these are ceas'd now a days we may very well suspend our assent till we have some better Argument than his bare assurance of what the Pope would do if he had Power The Last Argument is concerning the veneration of Images And tho the Answerer was willing without any more ado to condemn the Papists of Constructive Idolatry from some external Acts of Adoration us'd before Images Yet our Replier readily grants that those Actions are in themselves indifferent and capable of being paid to God and Men and to be us'd as the expressions either of a Civil or a Religious Honour But he has given us an infallible Mark by which to distinguish between Civil and Religious Honour notwithstanding the very same External Actions being us'd in both and 't is that Civil relates to this World and Religious to the Invisible Inhabitants of the next This he says is a distinction allow'd by all the rest of Mankind and though by all the rest he seems willing to exclude me yet since he has given his word for it I 'le come in for one of that number at lest so far as to suppose it So that here we have it now laid down as a Principle by common agreement that External Actions of Honour paid to things relating to this World is a Civil Honour Respect Veneration or Worship And when they are paid to things relating to the invisible Inhabitants of the next 't is a Religious Honour Respect Veneration or Worship And hence 't is concluded by him that these External Acts of Honour express'd to any Image that has Relation to some Invisible Being must of necessity be a Religious Honour This is what the Replier proves and we at present agree to But if he thinks as he says that this puts an end to the Dispute I think him mistaken we being as yet only in the beginning For tho it hence follows that Papists give a Religious Honour to Holy Images yet till it be proved that all Religious Respect and Honour is so a Divine Honour as to make a God of the thing to which it is paid at lest constructively he has not concluded Papists to be Idolaters or guilty of constructive Idolatry which is the thing he intended and undertook And that he cannot possibly prove it from these Principles without proving too much and bringing himself in for a share I think may easily be made appear For if Papists must be condemn'd of this constructive Idolatry because they use External Acts of Adoration to an Image which has a Relation to some invisible Being must not all those come into the same List who use the like External Acts of Adoration to other things which have a like Relation to the same invisible Being What excuse shall there be for him who Bows to the Altar or Communion Table to the Name of Jesus c. All these things Relate to the invisible Inhabitants of the next World and all External Acts express'd to them must by consequence be a Religious Worship then in the words of our Replier If to Worship any Invisible Being be to give Divine Honours to it then to be sure to Worship the thing Relating to such an Invisible Being must be Religious Worship also For if the Worship be refer'd to that Invisible Being which the thing relates to it cannot be Civil but Religious Honour and whosoever gives Religious Honour to a thing do's immediately ascribe Divinity to the object of that Worship and in our Repliers Phrase by construction of Fact is an Idolater And now how many here are included in this consequence Certainly as many as admit of any Religious Respect besides to God Which yet the Replier himself was not unwilling p. 60. to give to Reliques allowing a due Veneration and Religious Decency to the Bodies of Saints and Martyrs And the Learned Dr. Stillingfleet is well enough dispos'd to acknowledge a Reverence and Religious Respect due to Sacred Places and Things So that I believe the Replier has overshot himself in this Argument And that upon consideration he will admit of some Degrees in Religious as well as in Civil Honour And that every thing is not immediately set up for a God which is Honoured with a Religious Respect however this Honour may be ultimately terminated in God And this thought now brings into my mind a close piece of Arguing us'd by the Replier in urging this matter and it lies thus p. 66. Civil Respects are confin'd to this World But we have no intercourse with the other World but what is Religious Therefore as the different kinds and degrees of Civil Honour are distinguisht by the sight of the Object to which they are paid tho the External Acts are the same So says he the most certain mark of distinction between Civil and Religious Worship is this that the one relates to this World the other to the invisible Inhabitants of the next Here we have a Consequence and a Comparison and both so excellent in their kinds that if any better connexion can be found in them than betwixt the Monument and the May-pole it must be by one who has found one trick more in Logick then ever Aristotle knew If instead of his So in the end of his Conclusion he had made this application So are the different kinds and degrees of Religious Honour distinguisht by the Intention of the Givers or by some visible representation or determination of other circumstances This might have been infer'd with some dependance on the Premises And by it we might have compounded for the matter in hand but as the Replier has it it neither proves nor is any thing Another Argument we have just before this which proves again too much and is so unlucky as not to harm us without cutting the Throat of his own Cause The sorce of it may be thus express'd No intention can alter the nature of Actions which are determin'd by a Divine or Humane Law Therefore since the External Acts of kneeling or bowing to or before an Image are determinately forbidden by the Divine Law the intention of doing no evil in them cannot excuse them from Sin For do's not this as severely strike at the Bowing down to the Altar and Kneeling to the Sacrament as at us For those very Actions are part of the Divine Worship and Bowing down is the very Idolatrous Action exprefly forbid in the Commandment And then If there be any such thing as the Replier says here as External and Visible Idolatry it must consist in External and Visible Actions for we can never know what Mens intentions are but by their Actions and then says he if
in his Survey of Popery THere is no point almost wherein the Papist vary not from the antient Church the Article concerning the holy Trinity only excepted They teach novelties and false Doctrines concerning the very grounds of Faith for they believe the Church to be built upon the Pope They speak what they can in disgrace of the holy Scripture They give the Office of Christ's mediation to the Virgin Mary to Angels and to Saints they make also Saints our Redeemers c. For God they Worship Creatures not only giving divine honour to the Sacrament but also to Crucifixes and Images of the Trinity made of Wood c. and they do adore not only Saints but rotten bones and rags they know not of whom They overthrow grace and ascribe the merit of our salvation not to God's mercy through Christ nor to the merit of his passion but properly to our own works and merits They cut out the Second commandment because it cannot stand with the Popish worship of Images They pray before Stocks and Stones nay they put their trust in them They make no conscience to cut Christian mens throats for not yielding to all their abominations and think it conscience to obey the Popes decrees tho very unlawful The Fourth commandment concerneth the sanctifying the Sabbath but the Papists profane it by Worshiping Idols and frequenting the Idolatrous Mass Papists think they do God good service when they murder true Christians Amongst Papists Adultery and Fornication are reckoned among lesser sins By the Doctrine of Papists the Devils of Hell may be saved To this purpose they say that not only wicked and reprobate men but also the Devils of Hell may have true and justifying Faith Papists blasphemously make Christ not only a desperate Man without hope but also an infidel without Faith They deny Christ to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and affirming that his divine Essence had a beginning from some other they fall within the Compass of the errour of the Tritheites which Heresie doth tear the Vnity of the Godhead in pieces and plainly makes more Gods then one Papists do diminish the merit of Christ's satisfaction and enervate as much as in them lieth the Cross of Christ and the effect of his death and passion They are teachers of Antichrist opposite to Christ and enemies of his Cross That Christ is not the redeemer of all Man-kind They make Christ inferiour to Saints and Angels and prefer the Pope before Christ Papists make St. Francis and Dominick equal to Christ in divers things and in some things Superiour They give equal honour to a Cross of Wood and Metal and to Christ and looking on a Wooden crucifix they say thou hast redeem'd us They suppose the Virgin Mary more merciful then Christ Papists account it a small sin to use common Women Papists believe divers were by their Saints fetch'd out of Hell Papists by their irregular Doctrines and Traditions have not only corrupted but also disanul'd for the most part the law of God They deny the Gospel to be a rule of perfection but they doubt not to give that honour to the rules of Bennet c. they speak more Blasphemously of the Holy Scriptures then the Turks or Saracens To the Images of the Cross and crucifix they give as much honour as they do to God They fall down like Beasts before the Pope and Worship him as God ascribing to him most blasphemously the honour due to Christ Popery as a sink hath together with Heresie receiv'd into it self most gross and Heathenish Idolatry Papists say they put no trust in Images but never did the Gentiles trust so much in the Images of Juno or Jupiter as the Papists trust in the Images of our Lady of Loretto James of Compostella c. They give divine honour to Images which they themselves cannot deny to be Idolatrous They ascribe mans justification to his Works and exclude justification both by Christ's iustice and by Faith c. The Papists teach their disciples to distrust Gods grace and to trust rather in their own Works and Merits Popery is nothing else but a pack of old and new Heresies Papists despise marriage as Pollutions and fleshly life Bennet Dominick Francis and other authors of feigned religions took not their Rules from the Gospel but thought they could frame a more perfect religion then the Gospel As the Gentiles had one principal God and divers demy and inferior Gods so have the Papists As the Gentiles believed that every one had his good and bad Genius so the Papists assign to every Christian a good and bad Angel The second Council of Arles cap. 23. sheweth it to be a custom of Pagans to worship Trees or Stones or Fountains yet our English Papists cease not to go on pilgrimage to St. Winifrides well nor to worship Stock 's and Stones The Romish Church consists of a pack of Infidels They forbid honest Wedlock The Papist Preachers seldom teach the people and when they do it they preach their own inventions and tell idle tales without edification Both Priests and People are most ignorant of Matters of Faith where Popery is profes'd The Scriptures and Fathers they read not In a member of the Catholick Church they say neither inward Faith nor other vertue is requir'd but only that he profess outwardly the Romish Religion and be subject to the Pope The Papists promise Heaven to their followers so they profess and set forward the Popes cause whether they be Murderers of Kings or Massacrers or Robels or filthy Whoremongers or Sodomites They make more conscience to abstain from flesh on Friday then to murder Christians Divers points of Popish doctrine are specially said to proceed from the Devil It is a common practice amongst Papists to give divine Worship to dead men The Popish Church hath no true Bishops The Pope is Antichrist The Popish Synagogue hath no true Priests Popery in many points is more absurd and abominable then the doctrine of Mahomet Papists that positively hold the heretical and false doctrines of the modern Church of Rome can not possibly be saved What Papists are according to the Book of Homilies IMages in Churches and Idolatry go always both together Images in Churches have been be and ever will be none other but abominable Idols Oenomaus and Hesiod shew that in their time there were Thirty thousand Gods I think we had no fewer Saints to whom we gave the honour due to God and they have not only spoiled the true living God of his due honour in Temples Cities c. by such devices and inventions that the Gentile Idolaters have done before them but the Sea and Waters have as well special Saints with them as they had Gods with the Gentiles c. Papists make of true Servants of God false Gods and attribute to them the power and honour which is Gods and due to him only Image maintainers have the same opinion of Saints which the Gentiles had of their
false Gods Image maintainers Worship Stocks and Stones they give also the honour due to God to their Images even as did the gentile Idolaters to their Idols Who can doubt but that our Image maintainers agreeing in all Idolatrous opinions agree also with them in committing most abominable Idolatry In many points our Image maintainers have exceeded the Gentile Idolaters in all wickedness foolishness and madness and if this be not sufficient to prove them Image-Worshipers that is to say Idolaters Lo you shall hear c. The Learned and Vnlearned Laity and Clergy all Ages Sects and Degrees of Men and Women and Children of whole Christendome have been at once drown'd in abominable Idolatry the space of Eight hundred years and more This is the Protestant Character of a Papist and such as I always look'd upon no other than of a Papist Mis-represented and whoever will take the pains to compare it with what I set down under that Title will find there 's little other difference between them but that this is the Fouler But now it seems it must be no longer a Papist Mis-represented but Represented and 't is what the Best and Wisest Men have Believ'd of them And here now what shall I say Our Replier says these are Great and Good Authorities and we may well suppose they knew what Popery was And for my part because I love not quarelling I shall so far joyn with them that if this be the Popery they have hitherto prosecuted with so much Fervour and Zeal if this be the Popery from whose infection they have so industriously Laboured to deliver the Christian World they have done nothing but what is the duty of every true Believer And if 't was for the not Embracing this Popery those Martyrs Recorded by Fox pass'd the Fiery Trial their Cause was surely a Glorious Cause and I question not the Triumphs and Crowns of Glory that waited for them in Heaven were not inferior to what those enjoy'd who suffer'd under Decius or Dioclesian And for my part I am so far in earnest had I a Thousand lives I would rather choose by the assistance of Heaven to loose them all at the Stake than in the least assent to so much Heathenism to so Foul and Monstrous a Religion And what need now of any longer disagreement What necessity of keeping up Names of Division Protestant and Papist may now shake hands and by one Subscription close into a Body and joyn in a fair and amicable correspondence Popery has been hitherto the only cause of Separation one part seeming to avow and support it the other as Zealously endeavouring its overthrow And all the strife it seems has been about a Word For now we have been inform'd from Great and Good Authorities what this Popery is what Papist in the World is there that will not so far become Protestant as to give his hand for the utter suppressing this kind of Popery And when Protestants and Papists concur for the rooting out of Popery what possibility of Farther Divisions But if on the other side this Character of a Papist be intended for the setting forth the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome if this be design'd as a True Representation of the Faith and Religion of Roman Catholicks Then returns afresh my complaint of their being Mis-represented that they suffer under the greatest injustice imaginable that they are expos'd in Bears and Tigers Skins so to become a Bugbear to the Multitude That they are malign'd and render'd odious for the maintaining such Doctrines which they as heartily Detest as those that urge the charge and that 't is no wonder that Papists are put in the List with Turks and Infidels since their Religion is thus injuriously loaded with Calumnies and they made the Professors of such Tenets which bid open defiance to Truth Honesty and Christianity which strike at the Worlds Redeemer and are impossible to be entertain'd by any Creature that is one degree above a Beast I will not deny but whosoever will look into the Church of Rome as the Scavanger does into the City who stops no where but at a Dunghil may rake together so much as to defame her with the Inconsiderate and Unwary alas the Vices of Men in her Communion their abuses of the most Sacred things too abundantly furnish matter of this kind But yet whosoever shall expose this for the Doctrine and Practise of their Church and describe her and all in her Communion by these Rubbish Collections cannot possibly avoid the scandal of being unjust and might with as good reason decipher London by those loathsome heaps where all her filth is emptied And now since 't is evident the Adversaries of the Church of Rome do generally thus deal by her scraping out of every corner of that vast Communion and in every Age whatsoever can possibly contribute to make her infamous there is too too much reason to complain of her being Mis-represented and no just exception can be made against the Character of the Papist Misrepresented which lays open to the World the Artifice of these unwarrantable proceedings But here now strikes in the Replyer who undertakes to explain a Mystery in this Character and the Reflecter he says will have no reason to glory that he gave the occasion of it And this Mystery it seems are some faults he has discover'd in the Mis-representation 1st He says such things are put into this Character of a Papist as no Man in his wits ever charg'd them with And yet those very things almost in express terms and others far more absur'd we see charg'd as is shew'd above by the Best and Wisest of Men of great and good Authority with the Replyer as he confesses himself p. 2. And this too is to me a Mystery as well as to him that what no Man in his wits ever urg'd and what the former Answerer calls Childish and Ignorant or Willful mistakes should be now seen Father'd upon Men of so high a Character 2ly and 3ly He complains that the Opinions of Protestants and the consequences they draw from Popish Doctrines are put into the Character of a Papist Mis-represented as if they were his avow'd Doctrine and Belief This is a pretty speculative quarrel I confess and might deservedly find room here were it our business to consider the due method of Mis-representation in the abstract But as our present concern stands here 's a quaint conceit lost for coming in a wrong place For what had the Author of the Papist Mis-represented to do with these Rules He did not intend to Mis-represent any body His Province was only to draw forth the Character of a Papist as 't is commonly apprehended by the Vulgar or the Multitude with the common prejudices and mistakes that generally attend such a notion Now I would fain know whether this Character as it lies in the peoples heads is distinguish'd into Antecedents and Consequents Whether they when they hear one