we ought to have and therefore that we must beg pardon for our imperfections and fly to the blood and merits of Christ through whom God will accept both our works and us for all the imperfections which he pardoneth to us of his grace His seventh Accusation is Scripture saith that there are wicked men and reprobates that believe in Christ But you contend that they believe not but have only a shadow of faith which no Scripture saith Answ Again a quarrel about the name of faith unworthy serious men We say that Reprobates do believe and we say that they believe not taking belief in different senses We believe what ever the Scripture saith even that the Devils believe and tremble and yet as Believers and Christians are all one we are loath to call the Devils Believers and Christians but you may do it if you please As Belief signifieth a bare uneffectuall conviction or superficial Assent which you call fides informis so we still confess that the wicked may believe But as Belief signifieth our Receiving of Christ and Coming to him and being planted into him as his members and taking him heartily as Christ our Lord and Saviour and so becoming Christians and Disciples as it signifieth such a faith that hath the promise of pardon of sin of Adoption and of Glory so we say that the wicked have but a shew or shadow of it And this is the sense of the words of Calvin P. Martyr Beza and Danaeus whom you cite And do you not think so your selves Indeed you know not what to believe in this as I have shewed in Postscript to my Disput of Sacraments His eighth Accusation is this Scripture saith that there are some that believe for a time and after at another time believe not You deny that there are any that believe for a time and then fall from faith and that he that once believeth doth ever lose that faith which is not in any Scripture to be found Answ It is too light in serious matters to play thus upon words 1. We still maintain that there are some that believe but for a time and afterward fall away but we say it is but with an uneffectual or common assent that they believe such as you call fides informis Your accusation therefore is false The semen vitae and faith that Calvin speaks of in the place which you cite is meant only of a saving faith such as you call fides charitate formata If any of you think that faith is called charitate formata or justifying or saving faith only by an extrinsecal denomination from a concomitant and that there is no difference in the faith it self between that of the unjustified and of the justified you are mistaken against all reason Your own Philosophers frequently maintain that the will which is the seat of charity followeth the practical dictates of the Intellect which is the seat of Assent And therefore according to those Philosophers a Practical Belief must needs be accompanyed with charity And those that deny this do yet maintain that a powerfull clear Assent of the Intellect will infallibly procure the determination of the Will though every assent will not and though it do it not Necessarily So that on that account and in common reason there must needs be an intrinsick difference between that Assent which prevaileth with the will to determine it self and that which cannot so prevail And therefore your unformed and your formed faith have some intrinsick difference 2. the Lutherans that are half the Protestants do think that justifying faith may be lost So that be it right or wrong you cannot charge this on them all 3. The rest which be not of their mind do hold a brotherly communion with them and therefore take not that point to be of so much moment as to break communion 4. Are you not at odds among your selves about perseverance some laying it first on mans free will and some with Austin ascertaining perseverance to the Elect because Elect and laying it on Gods free Gift and some Jesuites and School men affirming that the confirmed in Grace are not only certain to persevere but that they necessarily believe and are saved and cannot mortally sin strange doctrine for a Jesuite Of all this controversie of perseverance I desire the Reader to see a few sheets called An Account of my Judgement hereabout When I wrote those I knew not whom Alvarez meant lib. 10. Disp 104. pag. 419. § 1. de Auxil When he disputed against this sort of men But since I find it in his Respons ad Object Lib. 2. cap. 9. pag. 522 c. Where he tells us that it is the Jesuite Greg. de Valentia Tom. 2. disp 8. q. 3. punct 4. § 2. Tom. 1. d 1. q. 23. punct 4. § 7. Ubi docet non solum esse praeelectos ut salventur sed ut necessario salventur ac per consequens non posse peccare Mortaliter Necessario persever are in gratia ac eatenus non libere sed necessario salvari And also that he meant Alexand. Ales 3. p. q. 9. Et Almainin 3. d. 11. q. 2. Qui asserunt confirmatos in Gratia non habere libertatem c. Quam sententiam Medina impugnat 3. p. q. 27. art 4. This is more then Protestants say And yet will you quarrell His ninth Accusation is this Scripture saith If thou will enter into life keep the commandments You say that there is no need of keeping the Commandments and that he that saith it doth deny Christ and abolish faith of which the Scripture speaketh not a word Answ Still confusion playes your game and you strive about words We distinguish between the keeping of that Law of Works or Nature which made perfect obedience the only condition of Life and the keeping of the Law of Moses as such and the keeping of the Law of Christ For the two first we say that no man can be justified by the works of the Law Is this a doubt among Papists that believe Pauls Epistles But as for the Law of Christ as such we must endeavour to keep it perfectly thats necessary necessitate praecepti and must needs keep it sincerely necessitate medii if we will be saved This all Protestants that ever I spoke with are agreed in And dare any Papist deny it If we be not all nor you neither agreed on the sense of that text of Scripture yet are we agreed on the doctrine and yet you quarrel His tenth Accusation is Scripture saith that some that were illuminated and made partakers of the Holy Ghost did fall and crucifie again to themselves the Son of God But you defend that whoever is once partaker of the Holy Ghost cannot fall from his Grace which Scripture speaketh not Answ The same again and a meer untruth We still maintain that those words of Scripture are of certain truth But we distinguish between the common and the speciall gifts of the Spirit The common
Religion as if they were so many Articles of our Faith or at least were the common doctrines of our Churches They will not give us leave to do so by them when yet we have much more reason for it For 1. They teach the People that they are bound to believe as their Teachers bid them and they reproach us for confessing that we are not in all points of Doctrine infallible And yet we still confess this fallibility and say in plain terms that we know but in part 2. Divers of their particular Doctors that we use to cite are such as the Pope hath Canonized for Saints and they tell us that in Canonizing he is infallible And therefore an Infallibly Canonized Saint must not be supposed to err in a point of faith 3. They boast so much of Unity and Concent among themselves that we may the better cite particular Doctors And yet we think our selves bound to stand to their own Law in this and to charge nothing on them as the faith of their Church but what their Church doth own and therefore while they refuse to stand to particular Doctors we will not urge them to it for its good reason that all men should be the Professors of their own belief But what reason is there then that we may not have the same measure from them which they expect We profess to take no man nor Council of men for the Lords of our faith but for the Helpers of our faith They tell us that they know not where to find our Religion We tell them it is entirely in the written word of God and that we know no other Infallible Rule because we know no other Divine Revelation supposing what in Nature is revealed They tell us that All Hereticks do pretend to Scripture and therefore this cannot be the Test of our Religion I answer that so all cavillers and defrauders and extortioners may pretend to the Law of the Land to undo poor men by quirks of wit or tire them with vexatious suits And yet it follows not that we must seek another Rule of Right and take the Law for insufficient And what if Hereticks pretend to Tradition to General Councils and the Decretals of the Popes as you know how frequently they do Will you yield therefore that these are an infufficient Rule or Test of your own Religion Open your eyes and judge as you would be judged But I will come to some of the particular Opinions which they charge us with And because I know not a more weighty renowned Champion of their cause then Cardinal Richleiu then Bishop of Lucion I shall take notice of his twelve great errors which he so vehemently chargeth on the Reformed Churches as contrary to the Scripture And sure I shall do much to make clean our Churches if I fully wipe off all the pretended blots of errour that so wise a man could charge upon them In his Defens contra script 4. Ministr Charenton cap. 2. pag. 12. c. he begins his enumeration thus 1. The Scripture saith Jam. 2. that a man is not Justified by Faith only but you say that he is Justified by Faith alone and by Faith only which is found in no place of Scripture and do you not then resist the Scriptures Answ 1. We believe both the words of Paul and James that a man is Justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law and saved through Faith not of works lest any man should boast Rom. 3. 28. Ephes 2. 8 9. and also that a man is Justified by works and not by Faith only Jam. 2 Did not this Learned man know that we believe all the Bible why then should he charge us with denying that which we retain and publickly read in our Churches as the word of God Did he think that we set so much by Luthers or any mans writings as by the Bible 2. But if he can prove that we understand not these words aright he should have evinced it better then by the use of the words Faith alone For our Churches by Faith alone do profess openly to mean no more then Paul doth by Faith without works And can they find fault with Paul 3. Indeed we are not all agreed upon the fittest Notion of the interest of Faith and works in our Justification but our difference is more in words and notions then matter of which see my Disput of Justification 4. And. why do you not quarrel with your own Cardinal Contarenus de Justif and others of your own that joyn with us in the doctrine of Justification His second Accusation is The Scripture saith that we can Love God with all the heart you say that no man can Love God with all the heart which is no where read in Scripture and yet do you not resist the Scriptures Answ 1. Unprofitable Confusion we distinguish between Loving God with all the Heart as it signifieth the sincerity and predominant degree of Love and so every true Christian hath it and as it signifieth some extraordinary degree above this meer sincerity and so some eminent stronger Christians have it and as it signifieth the highest Degree which is our duty and which excludeth all sinful imperfection And thus we say that no man actually doth Love God perfectly in this life nor do we think he speaks like a Christian that dare say Lord I Love thee so much that I will not be beholden to thee to forgive the imperfection of my Love or to help me against any sinful imperfection of it Your own Followers whom you admire as the highest Lovers of God do oft lament the imperfections of their Love as M. de Renty for instance in his Life But now if the question be only of the posse and not the act we say that the Potentia naturalis is in all and the Potentia Moralis which is the Habit is in the sanctified but this Moral Power is not perfect it self that is of the highest degree and without any sinful imperfection though yet it hath the perfection of sincerity and in some the perfection of an eminent degree And will not this content you His third Accusation is The Scripture saith that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ with the adjunction of those words that signifie a true Body and Blood you say that it is not Christs Body and Blood but only a figure sign and testimony which the Scripture no where saith Answ 1. The Scripture saith not that it is his Body and Blood substantially or by Transubstantiation And we say not as you feign that it is not his Body and Blood but a figure c. For we say that it is his Body and Blood Sacramentally and Representatively as he that personateth a King on some just account is called a King and as in actions of Investiture and Delivery the delivering of a Key is the delivering of the House and the delivery of a twig and turf is the delivery of the Land and the deliverer
and so it is apparent unto them yet most that are not members of it do not know it Arrians and Mahometans know us to be men professing such and such Articles of faith but they know not that to be the true faith nor us to be the true Church but judge the contrary In this sence contained in these Propositions it is that Protestants deny the Church to have been alwayes Visible and not as the Papists commonly mistake them Prop. 4. We are agreed that this Catholick Church is but One There are not two Visible nor two Mystical Catholick Churches Nor are the Mysticall and Visible two Bellarmine might have spared all his labour that he hath bestowed in vain upon this point to prove that the Visible and Invisible are not two Catholick Churches The Protestants are further from that Opinion then the Papists and it is more suitable to the Popish Interest and Cause to be of that Opinion then to the Protestants If it were not that they are past learning by the advantage of their Infallibility and especially of one man and one so mean condemned by them and that it is unlawfull to be a Teacher of Error I could tell them of a new device by the advantage of this distinction of Catholick Churches for the modelling their mistakes into a more specious plausible form then now it appeareth in to the rest of the Churches But we are glad of their company in any Truth and therefore will not disagree from them in that which makes against themselves One Objection I once heard a Learned Anabaptist cast in our way viz. There may be a Visible Church of hypocrites therefore the Mystical and Visible may be two Answ But the Question was of the Catholick Church and not of a particular Church We confess that some members of the Catholick Church are Mystical and Visible in the several respects before mentioned and that some are Visible and not Mystical or as Bellarmine well calls them Dead Members and not Living and that the Church as Visible is more comprehensive then the Church as Regenerate or Invisible and yet all but One Church though it have more members in it in one respect then in another And we confess that its possible for twenty or an hundred of these Dead members to constitute a particular Church by themselves though it is not usual for Visible Churches to be without Living members and so there may be a particular Visible Dead Member Analogically called a Member or a particular Visible Church that is thus Dead and these be parts of the Catholick Church as Visible But yet there is not two Catholick Churches One Visible and the other Invisible one alive and the other Dead In a Corn field there are 1. Good Corn. 2. Stricken blasted Corn that hath a name and shew but in deed no Corn. 3. Tares darnell cockle and such weeds It is called A Field as it conteineth them all It is called a Corn field only from the Corn. The Univocal proper parts of a Corn field is the Corn only The Visible and Analogical parts are also the blasted ears The darnel and cockle are no parts but noxious accidents There are not two fields of Corn one of true Corn and the of other blasted ears And yet the Corn field taken largely and Analogically hath more parties in it then true Corn and you may perhaps have some particular sheavs that are wholly of that which is blasted which you will call a sheaf of Corn Analogically only but a sheaf of weeds you will not at all call a sheaf of Corn. Even so in the Catholick Church there are sincere Christians which are true and living members and there are Hypocrites which are Analogically members and there are locally mixed many that by denying essential points of the Christian faith or by notorious Impiety do declare themselves to be weeds and no members of the Church at all Prop. 5. We are also Agreed that this One Visible Catholick Church is One Political Holy Society as united in Jesus Christ the Head who teacheth and ruleth it by his Ministers and other Officers in the several parts according to the necessity of each We call it One Political Society 1. Principally because that all the Church is united in this One Soveraign or Head the Lord Jesus and therefore it is called his body 2. They have all the same holy doctrine of faith and Law to live by and be judged by 3. They have all Church Officers of the same sort under Christ to teach and govern them 4. They have all the same kind of Holy Ordinances as Reading Preaching Praying Praise Sacraments c. appointed them by the Lord. 5. They are all engaged in One and the same Holy Covenant to the Lord More might be mentioned and shall be God willing in a peculiar Treatise of Catholicism or the Catholick Church And though Christ himself be not now seen among us yet may he truly be called a Visible Head For 1. He sometime lived visibly on earth 2. And is now the Visible King of all the Church as he is in the Heavens Though we see him not the Celestiall Inhabitants do It is but little of the world that seeth the Pope any more then they see Christ If one unseen to us may be a pretended Visible Head the other may be truly so So that the Body Head Laws Worship c. being Visible so is the Policy Prop. 6. We are agreed also that all these Christians and particular Churches are obliged by Christ even by the very Law of Nature and the ends of their calling and the General Laws of the Gospell to live in as much Love and Unity and Peace as they can and to hold as full and extensive communion as they can that is as far as their work requireth and their Capacity will permit and enable them those that are cohabitans and members of one Congregation must hold local communion in that Congregation unless Necessity prohibite Those that through distance are uncapable of joining in the same Assemblies should yet be conjoined 1. In the same Lord Faith Baptism Covenant Profession 2. In the same bond of Christian special Love 3. In the use of the same sort of holy worship as to the Substance though they differ in circumstances as in the Word Prayer Praises Sacraments c. 4. And in one sort of Church Officers and Government And as far as we have to do with each other all this should be manifested and we should readily own one another as Brethren and true Churches notwithstanding lesser differences Prop. 7. To these ends it is meet that the Bishops or Pastors of the Churches should hold in way of Association as frequent Assemblies as is needfull for the maintaining of mutual Love and Correspondency and right understanding of each other and to manifest their unity and assist each other in the work of God that it may be the more successfully carried on by united strength against
A Key for Catholicks To open the Jugling of the Jesuits and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand whether the Cause of the Roman or Reformed Churches be of God and to leave the Reader utterly unexcusable that after this will be a Papist The first Part. Containing some Arguments by which the meanest may see the Vanity of Popery and 40. Detections of their Fraud with Directions and Materials sufficient for the Confutation of their Voluminous Deceits particularly refelling Ts. Manual some Manuscripts c. With some Proposals for a hopeless Peace The Second Part sheweth especially against the French and Grotians that the Catholick Church is not United in any meerly Humane Head either Pope or Council By Richard Baxter a Catholick Christian and Pastor of a Church of such at Kederminster LONDON Printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster and are to be sold by him there and by Thomas Johnson at the Golden Key in St. Pauls Church-yard 1659. At 4. s. bound To his Highness RICHARD Lord Protector OF THE Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland c. SIR THese Papers presume to tender you their service because the Subject of them is such as it most neerly concerneth both us and you that you be well acquainted with The Roman Canons that batter the Unity Catholicism and Purity of the Church of Christ are mounted on the frame which I have here demolished The swords and pens and tongues that you are now engaged against and which you must expect from henceforth to assault you are whetted and managed by the senseless tyrannous ungodly principles which I have here Detected As unreasonable as they appear to the unprejudiced they are such as have animated the studies and diligent endeavours of thousands to captivate the Princes and Nations of the Earth to the Roman yoke As vain as they appear to us that see them naked they are such as have divided and distracted the Churches of Christ and troubled and dethroned Princes and laid them at the feet of the Roman Pope They have absolved subjects from their Oaths and other obligations to fidelity They have involved many a Nation in blood O the streams of the blood of Saints that have been shed by these Roman Principles in Savoy France Bohemia Poland Germany Ireland England and many other Lands As easie a war as here I manage it is against those adverse Principles that have armed Thousands and Millions against the innocent or against their lawful Soveraigns whom God had bound them to obey They have fastned knives in the breasts of the greatest Kings as the lamentable case of Henry the third and fourth of France doth testifie They have in a few days time in Paris and the adjoyning parts of France perfidiously butchered Nobles and other persons of eminency and people of all sorts to the number of neer thirty thousand as Thuanus reckoneth them if not forty thousand as Davilah The Doctrines which I here confound have invaded England by a Spanish Armado whether by the Popes consent and upon the account of Religion I have after shewed out of their own Writers they have prepared knives and poyson for our Princes which God did frustrate they have laid Gunpowder to blowup King and Parliament and hellishly execute the fury of the deluded zealots in a moment and then to have charged the Puritans with the fact They have in a time of Peace by a sudden insurrection murdered so many thousands in Ireland in a few days or weeks as posterity will scare believe They are dreadful Practicals and not meer speculations that we dispute against I beseech you therefore that you receive not this as you would do a Scholastick or Philosophical Disputation about such things as seem not to concern you but as you would interess your self in a Disputation upon the Question Whether you should be deposed or murdered as an Heretick And whether we should be Tormented and burnt as Hereticks And whether the lives of all the Princes and People upon earth whom the Pope judgeth Hereticks should be at his mercy c. so do in this cause I speak not this to provoke you to deal bloodily with them as they do with the servants of the Lord I abhor the thoughts of imitating their cruelty It is only the Necessary Defence of your Life and Dignity and the Lives of all the Protestants that are under your Protection and Government and the souls of men that I desire On what terms we stand with those men whose Religion teacheth them to kill us if they can and to venture their lives for it is easie to understand When we have no security from them for our lives but their disability to destroy us we must disable them or die I utter no melancholy dreams nor slanders I have here shewed it in the too plain and cepious Decrees of the approved General Council at Lateran that the deposing of Princes and absolving their Subjects from their fidelity and giving their Dominions to others not only for supposed Heresie but for not exterminating such as deny Transubstantiation c. is an Article of their Faith and no man can disown it without disowning Popery in the Essentials If once they will renounce the Decrees of General Councils approved by the Pope we shall be soon agreed Saith Costerus Enchirid. cap. 1. p. 46. Quae sanc Decreta si veritatem si obsignationem Spiritus Sancti si praesentiam Christi spectes idem habent pondus momentum quod Sancta Dei Evangelia They believe these Decrees to be as true as the Gospel I need not therefore tell you that Bozius Hostiensis and many more of them make the Pope to be the Lord of all the World Or that Bellarmine and the stronger side do carry it as The common judgement of all Catholick Divines see what a rabble he heaps up De Pontif. Rom. li. 5. c. 1. that the Pope ratione spiritualis habet saltem indirectè potestatem quandam eamque summam in temporalibus Which cap. 6. he saith is just such over Princes as the soul hath over the body or sensitive appetite and that thus he may change Kingdoms and take them from one and give to another as the chief Spiritual Prince if it be but necessary to the safety of souls cap. 78. He gives us his proof of this And whether the Pope do take your Government to be for the good of souls I need not tell you It is the stupendious judgement of God on Christian Princes for their sins that they have been so far blinded as to endure such an usurper so long and have not before this blotted out his name from among the sons of men Non licet c. It is not lawful saith Bellarmine ib. c. 7. for Christians to Tolerate an Infidel or Heretical King if he endeavour to draw his Subjects to his Heresie or unbelief but to judge whether a King do draw to Heresie or not belongeth to the Pope to
Columbanus the Abbot coming into France that the Scots do nothing differ from the Brittains in their Conversation For Bishop Daganus coming to us refused not only to eat with us but even to eat in the same House where we did eat Usher Epist Hibern 7. p. 18. Our most peaceable Bishop Hall was forct to write a Roma irreconciliabilis While we are thinking of Reconciliation they are about our ears with Plots and violence and with swarms of Rome-bred Sects and are day and night industriously undermining us so that by their continual Alarms I am called off to these defensive wars which here I have undertaken yet still resolving that the Desperateness of the Cure shall not make me run from them into a contrary extream nor be out of the way of Peace nor neglect any necessary means how hopeless soever of success The Work that here I have undertaken is 1. To give you briefly those Grounds on which you must go if you will keep your ground against a Papist 2. To give a few invincible Arguments which the weakest may be able to use to overthrow the principal grounds of the Papists 3. To detect their Frauds and give to the younger sort of Ministers sufficient Directions for the Confutation of all the Papists in the world 4. To propound though in vain such terms of Peace as we can yield to CHAP. II. BEfore I mention the Grounds or Cause that you must maintain I must premise this Advice to the Common People 1. Wrong not the Truth and your selves by an unequal conflict Enter not rashly upon Disputes with those that are Learned and of nimble tongues if you be ignorant or of weak capacities your selves Though I shall here shew you that Scripture Church Tradition Reason and Sense are on your side yet experience tels us how the words of Juglers have made millions of men deny belief to their eyes their taste and other senses An ignorant man is soon silenced by a subtile wit and many think that when they cannot answer they must yield though they deny both Sense and Reason by it If any of them secretly entice you desire them to debate the case with some able learned experienced Minister in your hearing It is the office of your Pastors to defend you from the wolves If you once despise them or straggle from them and the Flocks and trust to your own Reason that is unfurnished and unprepared for such work you may take that you get by it if you be undone You need the help of Pastors for your souls as well as of Physicians for your Bodies and Lawyers for your Estates or else God would never have set them over you in his Church Let them but come on equal terms and you shall see what Truth can do In this way we will not avoid a Conference with any of them But alas with ignorant unlearned people what may not such Deceivers do that can perswade so many thousand souls to give no Credit to their own eyes or taste or feeling but to believe a Priest that Bread is not Bread and Wine is not Wine 2. Yet I would have the weakest to endeavour to understand the reasons of their Profession and to be able to repell Deceivers And to that end I shall here give you first some Directions concerning the cause which you must defend And concerning this Observe these things following 1. Understand what the Religion is that you must hold and maintain It is the antient Christian Religion Do not put every Truth among the Essentials of your Religion Our Religion doth not stand or fall with every Controversie that is raised about it That which was the true Religion in the Apostles days is ours now that which all were baptized into the Profession of and the Churches openly held forth as their Belief Reformation brings us not a new Religion but cleanseth the old from the dross of Popery which by innovation they had brought in A man that cannot confute a Papist may yet be a Christian and so hold fast the true Religion It followeth not that our Religion is questionable or unsafe if some point in Controversie between them and us be questionable or hard The Papists would fain bring you to believe that our Religion must lie upon some of these Controversies but it s no such matter Perhaps you will say That then it is not about Religion that we differ from them I answer yes it is about the Essentials of their Religion but it is but for the preserving the Integrity of ours against the Consequences and additions of theirs They have made them a New Religion which we call Popery and joined this to the Old Religion which we call Christianity Now we stick to the old Religion alone and therefore there is more essential to their Religion then is to ours so that our own Religion even the ancient Christianity is out of Controversie between us The Papists do confess that the Creed the Lords Prayer the ten Commandments are true yea that all the Scripture is the word of God and certainly true so that our Religion is granted us as past dispute And therefore it is only the Papists Religion that is in question between us and not ours If you will make those lower Truths to be of the Essence of your Religion which are not you will give the Papists the advantage which they desire 2. If the Papists call for a Rule or Test of your Religion and ask you where they may find it assign them to the Holy Scriptures and not to any Confessions of Churches further then as they agree with that We know of no Divine Rules and Laws of Faith and Life but the holy Scripture and the hearts of Believers have an imperfect Transcript of them The Confessions of Churches are but part of the Holy Scripture or Collections out of them containing the points of greatest weight And if in phrase or order much more in matter there be any thing humane we make it not our Rule nor are we bound to make it good no more then the Writings of godly men A point is not therefore with us an Article of Faith because our Churches or a Synod put it into a Confession but because it is in the Word of God For a Councils determinations do with us differ but gradually from the Judgement of a single man in this respect And therefore we give them the Scripture only as the full Doctrine of our Faith and the perfect Law of God And those points in it which Life or Death is laid upon and God hath told us we cannot be saved without we take as the Essentials of our Religion and the rest as the Integrals only If they ask Why then we do draw up Confessions of Faith I answer 1. To teach and help the people by gathering to their hands the most necessary points and giving them sometimes an explication of them 2. To let our Accusers see that we misunderstand not the
my Lecture-day from Thursday to Friday that I change my Religion or the worship of God These are our great changes Well I will you now hear whether the Papists or we be the greatest Changlings 1. Some just changes they have made themselves that they know well enough are as great as ours It was so common in the antient Church to Pray only standing on every Lords day and not to kneel at all in any part of the worship of that day that it was taken for an universal Tradition and to kneel was taken for a great sin and condemned by General Councils many hundred years after Christ and yet the Church of Rome and other Churches as well as we have cast off this pretended Tradition violated this Decree of General Councils and forsaken this universal Custom of the Church And the Papists receive the Eucharist kneeling for all this Law and Custome In the primitive Church and in Tertullians dayes a Common Feast of the Church was used with the Lords Supper and the Sacrament taken then But now this Custom is also changed It was then the Custom to sing extempore in the Congregation to Gods praise But now Rome it self hath no such Custom It was once the Custom to give Infants the Lords Supper but now Rome it self hath cast off that Custom Once it was a Canon that Bishops must not read the books of Gentiles Concil Carthag 4. which yet Paul made use of and the Papists now do too much value Abundance such changes might be mentioned greater then ours in which we are justified by the Papists themselves 2. But they have yet other kind of changes then these They have changed the very Essence of the Catholick Church in their esteem they have changed the Officers the Doctrine the Discipline the Worship and what not as though they had been born for change to turn all upside down In the Primitive times the Church had no universal Monarch but Christ but they have set up a new universal Monarch at Rome In the primitive times the Catholick Church was the Universality of Christians and they have changed it to be only the subjects of the Pope In the Primitive times Rome was but a particular Church as Jerusalem and other Churches were but they have changed it to be the Mistris of all Churches For many hundred years after Christ the Scripture was taken to be a sufficient Rule of faith but they have changed it to be but part of the Rule In the antient Church all sorts were earnestly exhorted to read or hear and study the Scripture in a known tongue but they have changed this into a desperate restraint proclaiming it the cause of all Heresies In the antient Church the Bread and Wine was the Body and Blood of Christ Representative and Relative but they have changed it into the real Body and Blood Heretofore there was Bread and Wine remaining after the words of Consecration but they have changed so that there remaineth neither Bread nor Wine but the qualities and quantity without the substance and this must be believed because they say it against Scripture and Antiquity and in despight of sense it self In the antient Church the Lords Supper was administred in both kinds bread and wine to all but they have lately changed this into one kind only to the people denying them one half of the Sacrament Of old the Lords Supper was but the Commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross and a Sacrament of our Communion with him and his members but now they have changed it into a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the quick and dead and in it they adore a piece of Bread as very God with Divine worship Of old men were taught to make daily confession of sin and beg pardon and when they had done all to confess themselves unprofitable servants but now they are so changed that they pretend not only to be perfect without sin and to Merit by the Condignity of their works with God but to supererogate and be more perfect then innocency could make them by doing more then their duty Of old those things were accounted sins deserving Hell and needing the blood of Christ for pardon which now are changed into venial sins which properly are no sins and deserve no more then temporal punishment Of old the Saints had no proper merits to plead for themselves and now men have some to spare for the buying of souls out of Purgatory Of old the Pastors of the Churches were subject to the Rulers of the Commonwealth even every soul not only for wrath but for Conscience sake was obliged to be subject but now all the Clergy are exempted from secular Judgement and yet the secular power is subject to them for the Pope hath power to depose Princes and dispossess them of their Dominions and put others in their rooms and dissolve the bonds of Oaths and Covenants in which the subjects were obliged to them and to allow men to murder them by stabbing poysoning c. If you do not believe me stay but till I come to it and I shall give you yet some further proof Would you have any more of the Popish Changes Why I might fill a volume with them Should I but recite all the changes they have made in Doctrines and all that they have made in Church Orders and Discipline and Religious Orders and their Discipline and in Worship and Ceremonies I should be over tedious their very Liturgy or Mass-book hath been changed and made by changes such abundance of additions it hath had since the beginning of it What changes Sixtus the fift and Clement the eighth made in their Bibles I told you before as also what changes they have had in the election of their Popes And now I am content that any impartial man be judge whether Papists or the Reformed Churches are the more mutable and unsetled in their Religion and which of them is at the greater certainty firmness and immutability CHAP. XXIV Detect 15. ANother fraud of the Papists which they place not the least of their confidence in is this They perswade the people that our Church and Religion is but new of the other dayes invention and that theirs is the only old Religion And therefore they call upon us to give them a Catalogue of the professors of our Religion in all ages which they pretend we cannot do and ask us where our Church was before Luther To this we shall give them once more a brief but satisfactory answer I. We are so fully assured that the oldest Religion is the best since the date of the Gospell that we are contented that our whole cause do stand or fall by this tryall Let him be esteemed of the true Religion that is of the oldest Religion This is the main difference between us and the Papists We are for no Religion that is not as old as the dayes of the Apostles but they are for the Novelties and Additions of
of these two servants of Christ that are thus reviled even as their Master was before them that was said to do Miracles by the power of the Devil As for Luther he was oft taken with a great pain in his breast about the mouth of the stomack and thought his Death when it came would be sudden which made him say Feri Domine feri clementer quia ipse paratus sum strike Lord strike mercifully for I am ready Having preached his last Sermon at Wittenberge Jan. 17. he took his journey the 23. to Count Mansfields Countrey whither he was called When he came thither he was grown so weak that they almost despaired of his life yet by the use of somentations he had so much ease as that he preached sometime and did other work from Jan. 29. to Febr. 17. The last day of his life though he was weak yet he sate at the table with them and at Supper his discourse was upon the Question Whether we shall know one another in Heaven which he affirmed and proved in that Adam knew Eve as soon as he saw her that she was flesh of his flesh and therefore much more shall we know one another in Heaven c. After Supper he withdrew himself as he used for private prayer but the pain of his breast increased on him When he had taken a medicine he lay down on a Couch and slept sweetly two hours and then went to his Chamber saying to those about him Pray God to preserve the Doctrine of the Gospel to us for the Pope and Council of Trent have strange Contrivances When he was laid down and had slept a while he awakened and found by the increase of his pain that he was near his End and spoke to God as followeth in their hearing O my heavenly Father the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the God of all Consolation I thank thee that thou hast revealed to me thy Son Jesus Christ in whom I have believed whom I have professed whom I have loved whom I have Celebrated or Honoured whom the Pope of Rome and the rest of the rabble of the ungodly do persecute and reproach I beseech thee O my Lord Jesus Christ receive my soul O my heavenly Father though I am taken from this life and though my body must now be laid down yet I know certainly that I shall abide with thee for ever and that none can take me out of thy hands Then he said So God loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Then he repeated part of the 68. Psalm and when he had drunk a medicine that was given him he said I go hence I now return my spirit unto God presently adding Father into thy hands I commend my spirit thou hast Redeemed me O God of Truth And so he dyed as if he were setting himself to sleep without any sign of further pain but when they saw him dying Dr. Jonas and Caelius cryed to him Reverend Father do you die constant through Christ in his doctrine which you have hitherto preached And he answered Yea and never spoke more When he was dead at Islebe Count Mansfield would have kept his body but the Duke of Saxony would not suffer him but caused it to be brought back to Wittenberge and there with great solemnity interred This is the true report in brief of Luthers Death delivered to the world by those that stood by him and were eye witnesses And yet these impudent Lying Papists have perswaded their followers that the Devils were seen dancing about him that when he should be buryed there was a horrible thunder and the body was taken away out of the Coffin by the Devil and a stink of Brimstone left behind with more such stuff as this which they have printed and which one would think the Father of Lies should be ashamed of And for Calvin not only those before mentioned but also Bolsecus Surius Prateolus Demochares Lindanus Sanctesius Cahierus and others publish to the world not only that he was an Epicure but a Sodomite and was burnt on the shoulder for Sodomie with a hot iron at Noviodunum where he was born Yea Lessius the Jesuite impudently calls Christ to witness that shall judge all men according to their works that he doth not devise these things of his own brain but from good authors and forty years currant fame And his Authors are these Papists Bolsecus Brigerus Stapleton Campian Duraeus Surius and Reginaldus Hath Hell any greater calumnies then these to fill the mouths or writings of men withall Reader I shall shew thee what credit these men are of by this instance As for the time when they say he was stigmatized for Sodomie it was when he was a Papist and therefore if it had been true it had been a greater dishonour to them then to us But it s a meer forgery of the Devil and a Fryar Hierom Bolseck a Fryar seemed to turn Protestant and coming to Geneva he began to preach the Pelagian doctrine there and openly contend against the Pastors in the Congregation and being confounded by Calvin the Magistrates imprisoned him and banished him for sedition Then he betakes himself to the neighbour Towns to play the same game there but the Magistrates of Bern also banish them out of their Countrey Whereupon he turned Papist again and when Calvin was dead he wrote all these abominable lies of him and all the rest with Schlusselburgius the Lutheran an enemy of Calvins do take up the report from this one Lying heretical Papist and so it becomes a currant fame with them as if it were as true as the Gospel Whereupon our writers call to them provoke them challenge them to search the Records at Noviodunum where they say the thing was done and prove that ever there was such a thing or else bear the open shame of Lyars But they can bring no proof but call on us to disprove it When the City are Papists and haters of Calvin But after all this as God would have it the Papist Dean of that City called Jacobus le Vasseur publisheth at Paris 1633. the Annals of their Cathedral Church and therein pouring out his hatred against Calvin and saying what he can against him doth yet out of their records clear him of all these accusations and lets the world know that there was never any such thing and that they had no crime at all against him but that he turned from the Papists and that the Major or chief Governour of the City went away with Calvin when he was forced to fly from his native Countrey He recites all the passages of Calvins life there but professeth that they had no more against him Thus God confounded the Lying Papists by one of themselves and the Records of that City where they said the thing was done And yet they believe one another and carry on the Lye to this day Mr.
say that we are wanting and so far wanting that being out of the Church there is no true Holiness among us When in the Preface of my Book against Popery called The Safe Religion I had truly spoken my experience that I had never the happiness to be acquainted with any Papist of a serious spiritual temper and holy life but only some of a Ceremonious formall kind of Religion and but with very few that lived not in some gross sin I was passionately censured by some of the Papists as one that condemned all for some When as 1. I only spoke of my own acquaintance 2. And I added withall that yet I was confident that God had his servants among them though I had not the happiness to know them 3. And is it not a ridiculous business that these same men should be so passionate with me for speaking but the truth concerning the ungodliness of some of them when at the same time they make it an Article of their faith and an essential point of Popery That no one Protestant hath charity or can be saved yea that no Christian in the world is sanctified really and can be saved but a Papist O the partiality of these men 4. Yea when they necessitate us to mention their ungodliness by calling us to it and laying the stress of all our cause upon the point yea laying the very Christian faith it self upon the Holiness of their Church For we must not know that Scripture is Gods word or that Christianity is the true Religion till we first know that the Church of Rome is the true Church that we may receive it on their credit And we must know that they are the true Church by being the only Holy people in the world I must profess that if my faith lay on this foundation I know so much of the falshood of it that I must needs turn infidell and I can no more believe this then I can believe that the snow is not white They confess I thank them for nothing that their common people are bad but yet say they there is some good ones among us Inter haereticos autem nullus est bonus but among the hereticks not one is good So saith Thom. Ã Jesu de convers omn Gent. pag. 531. And saith H. Turbervile Manual p. 84. But I never yet heard of any Protestant Saints in the world O wonderfull perverseness of the hearts of Sectaries O wonderfull Patience of God! Did not this mans heart tremble or smite him to write so horrid so impudent a reproach against so many precious Saints of God Durst he thus attempt to rob the Lord of the fruit of his blood and to vilifie his Jewels and as Rabshakah to reproach the Israel of God to attempt to pluck them out of Christs hand that are given him by his Father and to shut them out of heaven that are redeemed and made heirs by so dear a Price and to spit in their faces whom Christ hath washed with his blood Did he not fear that dreadfull threatning of Christ Mat 18. 6. but who so shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea Though I see so much impiety among the Papists I dare not say I dare not think that God hath not some Holy ones among them It s dangerous condemning those that Christ will Justifie and making his members to be the members of the Devil and abusing so grosly the apple of his eye If I see a man live wickedly I dare say that he is of a wicked life but I dare not say that All are so unless it be among men whose principles I am sure are inconsistent with godliness and I know that they hold those principles practically or prevalently And therefore I must say again that I have been acquainted with some Papists learned and unlearned The unlearned few of them knew what Christianity was nor whether Christ were God or Man Male or Female nor whether ever he was the King Prophet or Priest of the Church nor for what end he dyed nor what faith or repentance is but were infidels under the name of Papists or Catholicks The learned and unlearned live in some gross sin or other either all or neer all that I have been acquainted with The better sort would ordinarily swear by their Lady and by the Mass and sometime greater oaths The rest were some fornicators or adulterers some drunkards or revellers and gamesters or such like And never had I the happiness to be acquainted with one that would speak experimentally and savourily of the work of Grace upon his soul of the life of faith of communion with God and of the life to come but their Religion lay in being the Popes subjects and in fasting on Fridayes and in Lent from some sorts of meat and in saying over so many Ave Maries Pater Nosters or the like and in observing dayes and hours and Cereremonies Yet I again say I fully believe that there be better among them though I am not acquainted with them But if these men that never heard of a Protestant Saint and that conclude there is no one saved but a Papist and build their salvation on this as an Article of their faith had known but those that I have known and yet know they would either have been of another mind or have been left unexcusable in a malicious reproaching of the Saints of the most high I bless the Lord that I can truly say that I know many and many that as far as the heart of another can be known by words and a holy life do live in much communion with God whose souls are daily longing after him and some of them that have vacancy from worldly necessities spending much of their lives upon their knees having had many a special extraordinary return to their importunate requests whose delight is in the Law of the Lord in which they meditate day and night which is lockt up among the Papists Whose hearts smite them for vain words or thoughs or the loss of a few minutes of time that live in exemplary humility meekness and self-denyal bearing wrongs patiently and doing good to as many as they can as the servants of all contemning the Riches and Honours of the world mortifying the flesh and some of them longing to be dissolved and to be with Christ in whom the world never knew either once drunkenness fornication or one rash oath or any other gross sin that I could ever hear of And is it certain that all these shall be damned because they believe not in the Pope Nay is it not certain by Promise that all such shall be saved I must again profess that when the Papists lay their faith and cause on this that their Church is Holy and ours and all other are every man unholy it s almost all one to me
Vice-christ and we will not presume to say that he hath dishonoured himself 2. Thought it should not dishonour Christ it is such a transcendent honour to man as we will not believe that any man hath that proveth not his claim It was no dishonour to the Godhead to be united to the manhood of Christ in Personal union but if the Pope say that the Godhead is thus united to his manhood verily I will not believe him 3. Though we should not have presumed to question Christ if he had done it yet we must presume to tell the Pope that he is guilty of dishonouring Christ by his usurpation 1. Because he sets up himself as Vice christ without his Commission and takes that to himself that is Christs Prerogative God saith This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased Hear him And the Papists say of the Pope This is the Vice-christ Hear him 2. Because the Power of a King is more communicable then the Power of Christ it being such as is fit for one meer man as well as for another But the Power of Christ is such as no meer man is fit for The capacity of the Subject is Considerable as Necessary to the reception of the form of Power He that is God as well as Man is fit for an Universal Monarchy when he that is meer man is not From whence we argue thus If there was never such a thing by Gods institution as a meer man to be the Christ or Universal Head of the Church then there is no such thing to be imagined now But there never was such a thing Therefore there is no such Christ that was the visible Head was God and Man when the Pope is so we will believe in him as his Successor 4. It would ruine the Church to have built on so sandy a foundation and to have laid so much work on one that is so unable to perform it Doubtless common reason tells us that if God made any one man the Monarch of the whole world especially leaving his Commission as obscure as the Popes is were it any and should not give him a divine or supra-humane strength to execute it it would be the confusion of the world I am not well acquainted with the Power of Angels but I hope without dishonouring them I may suspect that the due managing of such an Universal Monarchy is above their abilities At least I am confident it is an honour that their Modesty and Reverence of Christ will not permit them to own as the Pope doth If this Vice-christ be not a false Christ he may apply that of Heb. 1. Being made so much better then Angels as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name then they For unto which of the Angels said he at any time thou art the Successor of Christ thou art the Universal Head of the Church Whether the Pope will be called the Vice-son of God the Vice-saviour and say Let all the Angels worship him sit thou on my right hand c. I leave to his modesty to consider But I must profess here to the Reader that though my modesty and consciousness of my weakness hath made me so suspicious lest I understand not the Apocalips as to suspend my judgement whether the Pope be the Antichrist the Beast c. yet the reading of their serious immodest arguings to prove the Pope to be the Vice-christ on Earth doth exceedingly more increase my suspicion that he is The Antichrist For to be Peters Successor as a first Apostle is a contemptible thing in these men eyes This is not it that they plead for Bellarmine ubi supr expresly tells us that the Pope succeeds not Peter as an Apostle No it is as a Vice-christ to the whole Church as Boverius here professedly maintaineth And this they make the Foundation of their Catholick Church and the acknowledgement of it Essential to every member of it Which I even tremble to read and think of Next Boverius comes to his proofs from the New-Testament And those are the same that I have answered as Bellarmines in my Safe Religion and are an hundred times answered by our writers and therefore the Reader may excuse me if I put him to no long trouble about them The first is the old Tues Petrus in hanc Petram c. Answ 1. He doth not say Thou art Christ or the Vice-christ or my Successor or the Universal Monarch of the Church No such words as these 2. It is Christ himself her that is called the Rock and not Peter q. d. Thy name is Peter who confessest me in allusion to which I tell thee that I whom thou hast confessed am Petra the Rock upon which I will build me a Church which the gates of Hell shall not prevail against As the Apostle saith of the spiritual Rock 1 Cor. 10. That Rock was Christ So may I of this 3. But if it had been spoken of Peter it had been no more then is spoken of the other Apostles on whom as on a Foundation the Church is said to be built Jesus Christ himself being the head corner stone Eph. 2. 20. But what need we more if we put not out our eyes then to find in all the New Testament that Peter was never called or taken for a Vice-christ by the Apostles unless Secundum quid as every Embassador of Christ is that speaks his message in his stead 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. and that he never is said to exercise any Universal Government over the rest of the Apostles nor so much as give them a Law or Convent them before him or send them out or do any more in Ruling them then they in Ruling him nor so much as Paul did in rebuking him to his face for disorderly walking c. Gal. 2. Yea when Paul calls them carnall that sided with Peter though but in the same over-valuing way as others did of Apollos and Paul saying I am of Paul and I am of Apollo and I am of Cephas 1 Cor. 1. 12. He saith to them that said I am of Christ Is Christ divided as shewing that he was the common Universal Head and Master of them all But when he mentioneth meer men he hath no such word He saith not Is Peter divided But implying all in one he saith Was Paul crucified for you or were yee baptized into the name of Paul And Who then is Paul and who is Apollo implying also Who is Peter but Ministers by whom ye believed as the Lord gave to every man 1 Cor. 3. 5. See 1 Cor. 4 6. Pag. 144. Boverius playes his game with Metaphors and Similitudes and saith The Church is Christs Kingdom an Army a Sheepfold a House a Ship or Noahs Ark and what 's a Kingdom without a visible King or an Army without a Visible General or a Flock without a visible Shepheard or a House without a Housholder or a Ship without a Pilot Answ 1. The whole earth is Gods Kingdom And
at least be at a greater distance from them then before For such a war will never out of his mind nor will he think himself safe till he hath disabled them from doing the like again But if one part conquer it will be the King or the Puritans for so the Protestants must now be caled If the King prevail then will the Puritans be totally trod down and we by whose help the victory was got shall certainly be incomparably better then we are if not have presently all our will For our fidelity will be predicated the Rebells will be odious So that their very names will be a scorn and there will be no great resistance of us For saith Mr. Middleton in his Letter to the A. B. of Canterb. in Prins Introduct p. 142 143. The Jesuite at Florence lately returned from England who pretends to have made a strict discovery of the state of England as it stands for Religion saith that the Puritans are shrewd fellows but those which are counted good Protestants are fair conditioned honest men and think they may be saved in any Religion But if the Puritans get the day which is a most unlikely thing yet shall we make great advantage of it For 1. They will be unsettled and all in pieces and not know how to settle the Government And saith the Jesuites Letter found in the A. B. of Cant. Study in Prins Introduct pag. 89 90. Our foundation must be Mutation this will cause a Relaxation which serves as so many violent diseases as the Stone Gout c. to the speedy destruction c. 2. We shall necessitate the Puritan Protestants to keep the King as a Prisoner or else to put him to death If they keep him as a Prisoner his diligence and friends and their own divisions will either work his deliverance and give him the day again by our help or at least will keep the State in a continual unsettledness and will be an Odium on them If they cut him off which we will rather promote lest they should make use of his extremities to any advantage then 1. We shall procure the Odium of King-killing to fall upon them which they are wont to cast upon us and so shall be able to disburden our selves 2. And we shall have them all to pieces in distractions For 3. Either they will then set up a new King or the Parliament will keep the power changing the Government into a Democracy The first cannot be done without great concussions and new wars and we shall have opportunity to have a hand in all And if it be done it may be much to our advantage The second will apparently by factions and distractions give us footing for continual attempts But to make all sure we will secretly have our party among the Puritans also that we may be sure to maintain our Interest which way ever the world go The event with common reason and many full discoveries shew that this was the frame of the Papists plot And what power and interest they had in the Kings Armies and Counsels in the wars is a thing that needs no further discovery But had they any Interest in the Councils and Forces of the Parliament Answ It will be expected that he that asserteth any thing in matters of this moment should prove it by more then moral evidence of greatest probabilities and therefore I shall be sparing in my Assertions but yet I shall say in general that though the business would be troublesome chargeable and tedious to call together the Witnesses that are necessary yet Witnesses and Evidences may be had to prove that the Papists have had more to do in our affairs then most men are aware of without any positive Assertions therefore I desire them that can see a cause in its effects but to follow these streams till they find the Fountain 1. Whence came those motions against the Ministry and Churches into our Councils Whence was it that so many men of note did call the friends of the Ministry Priest ridden fellows and the Ministers Iack Presbyters to teach the Nation to bring them into scorn I well know that all this came from Hell But whether by the way of Rome I leave to your inquiry Yea whence was it that motions have been made to pull down all the Ministry at once Was this by Protestants 2. Whence came the doctrine contended for by Sir H. V. and others against the Power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion and for Universal Liberty in Religion I know the Papists are not for such liberty in Spain or any where where they can hinder it but with all I know that it is one of their fundamentals that such matters belong only to the Pope and Prelates and Magistrates must but be their Executioners and I know that its truly the Magistrates Power for which the usurping Pope contendeth and I know that the Papists are most Zealous for Liberty of Conscience in England though deadly enemies to it elsewhere 3. And whence came the Hiders Body of Divinity that hath infected so many high and low How come so many called Seekers to seem to be at a loss whether there be any Scripture Church or Ministry or which be they 4. How came we contrived into a war with Scotland and Holland when we could keep Peace with Spain with them or us or both there was some sorry cause 5. How came our Armies so corrupted with principles of impiety Licentiousness and Anarchy that so many turned Levellers to say nothing of all the rest and rose up against their Commanders and were fain to be subdued by force and some of them shot to death and many cashiered c. 6. How came it to pass that Papists have been discovered in our Armies and in the several parties in the Land 7. And where are the swarms of the English Jesuites and Fryars that are known to have emptyed themselves upon us from their Colledges beyond Sea 8. How came it to pass that the Petitions of the Protestant Presbyters of London and of other Protestants for the Life of the King could not be heard but that the Levelling party carryed on their work till they had set the forreign and domestick Papists on reproaching the Protestants as King-killers and had though very falsely turned the odium of that horrid kind of crime upon the innocent Protestants which the Papists are known to be most deeply guilty of And now in all Nations they make the ignorant people believe that the death of that King was the work of the Protestants or Presbyterians and the blot of their Religion 9. Whence came it to pass that Levelling went on with continued success till the House of Lords with the Regal Office was taken down and an engagement put on all those ductile souls that would take it to be True to the Common-wealth as established without a King or House of Lords 10. Whence came it that the Weekly News Books contained the
against the Papists such as Dr. Fields Crakenthorps Ushers Chillingworths Jewels Rivets Chamiers Ames Reignolds whittakers and such like beginning with Sir Humfrey Linds Via Devia via Tuta du Plessis of the Church and his Mysterie of Iniquity and Dr. John White c. 3. That you will not hearken to Papists secretly nor masked nor coming to you by indirect and Jugling ways but open their perswasions and call to some able studyed Divines to deal with them in your hearing if needs you will hear them that so you may hear one side as well as the other 4. That you take heed what Retainers Servants or Familiars are about you For some that pretend to be acquainted with these men are much mistaken if they be not more frequent at your elbows and in your Bed-chambers then many do imagine If they cannot be of your Councils and your neer attendants they will rather be your Porters or the Grooms of your Stables then they will be kept out We fear not any thing that they can do in an open way in comparison of their secret whispers and deceits when there is no body to gainsay them Had they the Truth we should be glad to entertain it with them It is not therefore Truth in their mouths that we are afraid of But seeing the Nations and our Posterity have so much dependance on your Integrity we call for so much Justice at your hands as that you will not cast open your ears to each deceiver especially in secret or on unequal tearms Let not all our peace and safety be hazarded by the self-conceitedness or imprudence of you that are our Rulers Seeing it is you that must give us Laws or set the Vulgar the pattern which they are so much addicted to imitate We adjure you in the Name of the most High God that you be not too forward and facile in hearkening to Seducers and corrupting those Intellects which the whole Nation hath so great an Interest in and that you be not henceforth as children tost to and fro and carryed about with every wind of doctrine by the the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4. 14. But we beseech you mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16. 17 18. Hearken not to every one that saith Lo here is Christ or Lo there is Christ here is the Catholick Church or there is the Catholick Church As if Christ were divided or the Catholick Church were more then One Or it were confined to a Sect or Party whether Papal or any other and did not contain all Christians through the world All parts of this Church are not equally pure but all are Parts Be you of the purest part but do not therefore take that part for the whole much less the polluted part Have compassion on the diseased and tumified part but do not therefore so far doat as to love the tumor or disease and say that none is the Church but this We are willing to be as Charitable to that Proud Throne of Rome and usurping Vice-christ as will stand with the safety of our souls and of the Church But God forbid that we should therefore be so blind as to run into their Pest-house and drink the poyson by which they are thus tumified intoxictaed Look on their Principles and see what an aspect they have on Christ on the Catholick Church and upon Princes Look back on their Practises and see what their Principles proved in the fruits Yea what need we go further for a warning then to remind you of that which one would think should be deep and fresh in your minds even what they have brought upon Kings Queens Lords Prelates and this whole Land But this leads me to the next Detection CHAP. XLVIII Detect 39. THE last of their Practical frauds at home and the most desperate is Their Treasons against the lives of Princes and the Peace of Nations and their dissolving the bonds of Oaths and Covenants and making Perjury and Rebellion to seem to be Duties and Meritorious works It would be a voluminous task to relate the Histories of the Papal Tresons How the Roman Vice-christ having laid a claim to both Swords Spiritual and Temporal hath plaid the Traytor against the Greek Emperors dispossessing them of the West and against the Emporors of Germany stirring up their own subjects and the Christian Princes and States against them setting his foot on the neck of one and making another wait barefoot long at the Roman gates and keeping many of them in wars It was this Horrid Treason and Tyrannical usurpation over all the Christians Princes that caused all those Treatises on that subject wrote against him in the Defense of Princes and their Rightt which Mich. Goldastus hath preserves and conjoyned in divers Volumes It was this that caused England Denmark Sweden and so many other Princes to be the readier to shake off his yoke Kings are not Kings where the Pope is fully Pope except only the House of Austria whom he is forced to gratifie as the only prop of all his tyrannie France that hath so much stood for its Liberties hath felt the fruits of the Roman Principles and League and two of their most renowned Kings successively have been basely and inhumanely butchered by them And to this day the numerous swarm of the Popes dependant Clergy doth not only devour as is thought about a third part of the Lands but also aws and swaies the Princes Even in Ireland before our wars a Bishop Bedle in his Letter to Laud in Prins Introduct pag. 102. doth open the Power of the Clergie and their insolencies as such that he concludes His Majesty is now with the greatest part of this Countrey as to their hearts and consciences King but at the Popes descretion And in another Letter to the said Archbishop ibid. pag. 112. he saith I that know that in this Kingdom of his Majesty the Pope hath another Kingdom far greater in number and as I have heretofore signified to the Lords Justices and Council which since is justified by themselves in print constantly guided and directed by the order of the new Congregation de propaganda fide lately erected at Rome see the rest Do I need to tell England of the many treacheries since the Reformation against our Princes Or who it was that would have deposed as well as Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth and exposed her Kingdoms to the will of others Or who it was that wrote against King James his Title to the Crown Or who were the Actors of the Hellish Powder-plot Or who it is that hath been still blowing the fire and casting all into disturbances for their ends Do I need to mention their approving of