the Commemoration of the holy lives and sufferings of the Saints and the first sort of the ancients prayers for them began here as the occasion 2. We are for thankfull acknowledgement of Gods Mercies to the departed Saints and to the Church by them And the first prayers for them were such as these 3. Bishop Usher hath copiously proved that they were Saints supposed to be in Heaven or Paradise and not in Purgatory that were then prayed for and therefore that it was not the Popish praying for tormented souls that was then practised And therefore their prayers then were besides Commemorations and Thanksgivings the petitioning of all those following Mercies for them which are not to be received till the resurrection Bellarmine himself proving that though we were certain that the blessed souls shall have a raised glorified body and be justified in the last Judgement yet may it be prayed for because it is yet future Now we are far from being of another Church or Religion then those that hold such an opinion as this Saith Usher pag. 224. when he had cited many testimonies In these and other prayers of the like kind we may descry evident footsteps of the primary intention of the Church in her supplications for the dead which was that the whole man not the soul separated only might receive publick remission of sins and a solemn acquittal in the judgement of that great day and so obtain both a full escape from all the Consequences of sin the last enemy being now destroyed and death swallowed up in victory and a perfect consummation of bliss and happiness all which are comprized in that short prayer of S. Paul for Onesiphorus though made for him while he was alive The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day Yea divers prayers for the dead of that kind are still retained in the Roman offices of which the great Spanish Doctor John Medina thus writeth Although I have read many prayers for the faithfull deceased which are contained in the Roman Missal yet have I read in none of them that the Church doth petition that they may more quickly be freed from pains but I have read that in some of them petition is made that they may be freed from everlasting pains Again there be other prayers saith Medina wherein petition is made that God would raise the souls of the dead in their bodies unto bliss at the day of judgement You see then that our Question is not whether the dead may be prayed for but what prayers may be made for them And therefore to find that about three hundred years after Christ more or less men begun to pray for the dead is no proof that they were not of our Church or Religion or that therefore we want succession It was not a praying to be sooner out of Purgatory that then was used as Papists do but a Praying for the mercies promised at the Resurrection And thus we think it lawfull to pray for the dead were it not for the accidental evil that might follow with them that will misunderstand and abuse it And its further to be noted that as Pegna Stapleton and others confess the Fathers Greek and Latine before mentioned did believe that men had not their perfect Joyes till the Resurrection and therefore they had the far stronger motive to pray for the dead And if Protestants had not been partly of this mind save only that we put not the soul into hidden receptacles nor anywhere but with Christ Bellarmine had not found so much occasion of that unworthy calumny against Calvin for the words cited by him in his Instit as if he denyed the beatifical vision if not the immortality of the soul Even because he took not our bliss to be perfect till the Resurrection but somewhat short of what we shall then be Now seeing the Fathers were so commonly of that mind and the Greeks and Aethiopians are still of that mind and Bellarmine saith Luther and Calvin are of that mind you may see that neither in that nor the point of praying for the dead as used by the ancients is our distance so great as to weaken the proof of our succession or make us to be of two Churches or Religions And here you may see the differences between the Prayers for the dead which are used by the Papists and by the Eastern Churches to this day And yet if upon private unsound opinions any should go somewhat further in this point it followeth not that such error changeth the faith I desire the Reader that would have a fuller sight of the face of Antiquity in this point to read Bishop Usher of it in the forementioned Answer to the Jesuite 3. Another point that they much challenge us about is The Veneration or Adoration of Images Reliques and the Cross to which I may join peregrinations to places esteemed by them to be of eminent holiness Concerning Peregrinations you may see by a plain Epistle of Gregory Nyssen in the end of his printed works but in the midst of a M. S. in Paris Library written purposely against going on Pilgrimage to Jerusalem what is to be thought of this He adviseth even the retired Monasticks even in those Countreyes that were near Judaea to forbear such Pilgrimages as dangerous and unnecessary and not at all commanded in the Scripture The Papists did as long as they could perswade the world that this Epistle was none of Gregories and when they were made ashamed of that they would expound it as prohibiting Pilgrimages to none but the Monasticks And sure if it should be forbidden them then much more should others be forbidden that have not the leisure and pretend not to the devotions which these pretend to Read but the Epistle it self without either Molinaeus his notes on our side or Gretsers frivilous answers and judge as thou seest cause As for Images we allow the Historical use of them and the setting them up in Churches the Lutherans allow and we dislike it only as dangerous and a needless snare but take not our selves to be of another Church or Religion from those that are otherwise minded No nor from those that Reverence them as they respect the persons whom they signifie But it s one thing to use Images and another thing to use them Popishly which is to make them mediate objects of Divine worship yea to worship the very Image it self and the Cross and the sign of the Cross with the same worship as we do him that is signified by them So that we confidently affirm 1. That the Primitive Church did make no use of Images at all in the worship of God no nor endure them in the place of Worship 2. That when they were first brought in the Popish use of them was still renounced and detested Clemens Alexandrinus Protreptic ad Gent. saith that We are plainly forbidden to use that deceitfull Art of painting or image-making And We have no
What though some in England took the King to be the Soveraign and some the Parliament and soom thought it was in both Conjunct did this prove that you were more than one Common-wealth Answ Where the Soveraignty is mixt and not in either alone if any one shall set up the one as the only Soveraign and subject the other to them they change the form of the Commonwealth but do not set up two Commonwealths but if half take one for the Soveraign and the other half take the other for the Soveraign they plainly divide the Commonwealth into two if they do it only in mind and the secret thoughts of their hearts this cannot be known to others and so cannot be the ground of a Society but if they do it by a publike consent and practice they evidently make two Commonwealths What else brought us into a war which ended not till one party was subdued It is not possible that one Political body should have two Soveraigns specifically distinct Indeed it may have five hundred natural persons in the Soveraignty as in a Senate but they are but one Political person or one summa potestas 2. But I prove the Minor by another Argument Where there are two three or four Heads or Soveraigns at once numerically distinct there are two or three or four Churches But the Roman Church pretending to be Catholike hath had two or three or four Heads at once numerically distinct therefore it was two or three or four Churches The Major is a known truth to all that are verst in any degree in the doctrine of Politicks It is not only two species of Soveraignty but two individual Soveraigns that are inconsistent with the numerical Unity of a Political body Two or ten or two hundred may joyn in one Soveraignty as one Political person as I said but if there be two Soveraigns there are certainly two Societies for if both be Supream neither is Subordinate The Minor is not to be denyed for the Papists lay their very foundation on a supposed division for sooth Peter and Paul were both at once their Bishops And there is not many of them that adventure to tell us that Peter only was the Supream and that Paul was under him but they make them as equals or coordinate and some of them say that Paul was the Bishop of the uncircumcision and Peter of the Circumcision and then Peters Church is confined to the Jews And they do not tell us that one Headship was divided between them For then that example would direct them still to have two Popes or two Bishops to a Church so that Peter being a Head and Paul a Head they had sure distinct bodies But whether they stand to this or not they cannot deny their many following divisions The twenty third schisme as Wernerus a zealous Papist in fasciculo tempor reckons them was between Felix the fifth and Eugenius of which the said Wernerus speaking saith That hence arose great contention among the writers of this matter pro contra and they cannot agree to this day for one part saith that a Council is above the Pope the other part on the contrary saith No but the ' Pope is above the Council God grant his Church peace c. Of the twenty second schisme the same Wernerus saith thus ad annum 1373. the twenty second schisme was the woâ—st and most subtile schisme of all that were before it For it was so perplexed that the most Learned and Conscientious men were not able to discuss or find out to whom they should adhere And it was continued for fourty years to the great scandal of the whole lergy and the great loss of souls because of Heresies and other evils that then sprung up because there was then no discipline in the Church against them And therefore from this Urbane the sixtht to the time of Martin the fifth I know not who was Pope After Nicolas the fourth there was no Pope for two years and an half and Celestine the fifth that succeeded him resigning it Boniface the eighth entered that stilled himself Lord of the whole world in Spirituals and Temporals of whom it was said He entered as a Fox lived as a Lyon and dyed like a Dog saith the same Wernerus The twentieth schisme saith the same Author was great between Alexander the third and four Schismaticks and it lasted seventeen years The nineteenth schisme was between Innocent the second and Peter Leonis and Innocent get the better because he had more on his side saith he The thirteenth schisme saith Wernerus was between another and Benedict the eighth The fourteenth schisme saith the same Author was scandalous and full of confusion between Benedict the ninth and five others which Benedict saith he was wholly vitious and therefore being damned appeared in a monstrous and horrid shape his head and tail were like an Asses and the rest of his body like a Bear saying I thus appear because I lived like a beast In this schisme saith Wernerus there were no less then six Popes at once 1. Benedict was expulsed 2. Silvester the third gets in but is cast out again and Benedict restored 3. But being again cast out Gregory the sixt is put into his place who because he was ignorant of letters and yet infallible no doubt caused another Pope to be Consecrated with him to perform Church Offices which was the fourth which displeased many and therefore a third is chosen which was the fifth instead of the two that were fighting with one another but Henry the Emperor coming in deposed them all and chose Clement the second who was the sixth of all them that were alive at once But above all schisms that between Armosus and Sergius and their followers was the fowlest such saying and unsaying doing and undoing there was besides the dismembring of the dead Pope and casting him into the water And of eight Successors saith Wernerus I can say nothing observable of them because I find nothing of them but scandalous because of the unheard of contention in the holy Apostolike sea one against another and together mutually against each other Reader wouldst thou be troubled with any more of these Relations I tell thee nothing but from their own Historians and that which multitudes of them agree in I go not to a Protestant for a word But one Pope in those contentious times I find lived in some peace and that was Silvester the second of whom saith Wernerus as others commonly This Silvester was made Pope by the help of the Devil to whom he did homage that all might go as he would have it but he quickly met with the usual End as one that had placed his Hope in deceitful Devils Well! I shall now appeal to reason it self whether this were one Church that for fourty or say others fifty years together had several Heads some of the people following one and some another and the most Learned and most Conscientious not able
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
readeth their own writers or liveth among them and seeth their lives will hardly think so He that had but seen the Murders of their Popes for the obtaining of the Popedom or how Pope Stephen raged against the Carcass of Pope Formosus drawing it out of the grave and changing its Pontifical habit to a secular and cutting off his fingers or he that had seen Pope Christopher casting the Corps of Pope Leo the fift into the River Tiber or Pope Sergius keeping the said Christopher bound in prison or Pope Boniface the seventh putting out his Cardinals eyes would scarce believe that the Holy Seat of Peter were indeed Holy all which Platina and others of their own writers give us notice of He that readeth Baronius himself telling us To. 10. an 897. n. 6. how Pope Stephen the seventh defiled St. Peters seat with unheard of sacriledge not to be named and sect 4. ib. and how the Princes of Tuscia were brought into Peters Chair and Christs Throne being monstrous men of most filthy lives and desperate manners and every way most filthy He that shall read the same flattering Cardinal saying Can. 900. sect 1. that ugly monsters were thrust into the Papacy that it was dawbed with dung infected with stinks defiled with filthiness and collowed by these with a perpeutal infamy And an 912. sect 8. that at Rome the most powerful and the most sordid whores did Rule at whose will the seats were changed Bishops were made and which is horrid to be heard and not to be spoken their sweet-hearts false Popes were thrust into Peters seat And that for an hundred and fifty years the Popes were wholly faln from the vertue of their Predecessors being disorderly and Apostatical rather then Apostolical not entring by the door but by the back-door saith a passionate Papist Genebrard Chron. l. 4. an 901. I say he that shall read these impartially will scarce think the Head of their Church hath been Holy which is an Essential part of it nor that their succession is uninterrupted But if besides these you would read but Nic. Clemangis Alvarus Pelagius de planctu Ecclesiae lib. 2. art 2. fol. 104. and many such like or their Poets Mantuan Pantes c. or Petrarch Mirandula c. you would think the Holiness of Rome-should be the poorest proof in the world of their being the only Church Their Espensaeus and others recite that Distich Vivere qui cupitis sanctè discedite Româ Omnia cùm liceant non licet esse bonum Platina saith in vita Marcellini Our vices are so increased that they have scarce left us any place for mercy with God How great is the Covetousness of the Priests especially of those that rule all how great lust how great ambition and pomp how great ignorance of themselves and of the Christian doctrine how little Religion and that rather counterfeit then true how corrupt manners even such as in the prophanest secular men were to be detested its not worth the speaking when they sin so openly and so publikely as if they sought Praise by it Their Claudius Espensaeus on Tit. pag. 75. saith Where is there under the Sun a greater liberty clamor impunity of all evil that I say not infamy and impudency then at Rome verily it is such as no man can believe but he that hath seen it and no man can deny it that hath seen it This was written since the Council of Trent And in the Council of Trent their Cornelius Muss a Bishop there and the wonder of his age among the Papists saith that there was no monsters of filthiness or sink or plague of uncleanness with which both people and Priest was not defiled In the very Sanctuary of God there was no shame no modesty no hope or regard of good living but unbridled and untamed lust singular audaciousness incredible wickedness And after more of the like he adds Would they had not faln from Religion to superstition from faith to infidelity from Christ to Antichrist yea as men that had no souls from God to Epicurus or Pythagoras saying in an impious heart and an impudent mouth there is no God And yet now of a long time there hath been no Pastor that would require or seek them again I say there was none to seek them because they all sought their own things but not one the things of Jesus Christ The same Bishop Cornelius Muss after the Council writes thus To. 2. Serm 2. Dom. V. Quadr. The Roman Name is hatefull with all Nations and see I pray you how little esteem the Church it self is of because of the scandals that are heard seen and felt I speak not now of enemies that call it Babylon Hell the Whore and say it is the sink of all Errours But I speak of friends that groan and daily sigh within themselves saying O holy City how art thou thus profaned O glorious City that art thus become vile thus contemned and neglected These and many more such Testimonies of their own writers Rivet and many of ours have oft set before them Guicciardine their Historian saith that Those are called Good Popes whose Goodness is not worse then other mens wickedness And if you think that now the matter is much mended read but Claud. Espensaeus in Tit. 1. pag. 75. complaining that the promises made by the Pope of Reformation at the Council of Trent were all broken and nothing done but deceit and shews And of Pope Sixtus the fifth Bellarmine gave out his judgement that he thought when he dyed he went to the Devil saying Qui sine paenitentia vivit sine paenitentia moritur proculdubio ad infernum descendit He that lives without Repentance and dyeth without Repentance undoubtedly goes to Hell And saith Watson of him in Quodl b. pag. 56 57. Bellarmine said to an English Doctor Conceptis verbis quantum capio quantum sapio quantum intelligo Dominus noster Papa descendit ad infernum As far as I can reach as far as I have any wisdom as far as I understand in plain terms our Lord the Pope is gone to Hell But which way he went thither all the world knows not but Barthol Morisot in the Life of Henry the Great of France cap. 17. saith That when the Spaniards perceived his contrivances to forsake their party lest he should join with the enemy they caused him to be strangled in the night by a Franciscan or one in a Monks habit and the next day gave out that a Domestick Devil had strangled him and to make good the report a Book was written of his life and printed where all the wickedness of Pope Alexander the sixth is charged on him And how the Popes are still chosen by impious Juglings and combinations Rivet tells you out of your own champion Cardinal Perron his Legationes Negotiat And of the saying of Cardinal Ossatus ad D. Ville roy Epist 87. concerning Pope Clement the eighth esteemed one of the very best of
Corrector reciteth the whole Canon thus If any Believer have a wife and a Concubine let him not Communicate But he that hath no Wife and hath a Concubine instead of a Wife may not be put from the Communion only let him be content with one woman either Wife or Concubine which he will He that liveth otherwise let him be cast off till he give over and return to penitence In an English Council at Berghamsted an 697. the seventh Canon is this If a Priest leave his Adultery and do not naughtily defer Baptism nor is given to drunkenness let him keep his Ministry and the priviledge of his habit Spelman pag. 195. King Alured in the Preface to his Laws tells us that except Treason and Desertion of their Lords the Councils of the Clergy did lay but some pecuniary mulct on other sins Spelm. pag. 362. All this shews that the Church then was much more corrupt then ours now in England Yea the best of the Fathers had such blots that I may well make their Confessions another discovery that our Churches are as pure and holy as theirs I will name but few of the chief because I would not rake into their faults needlesly who are pardoned glorified Saints in Heaven St. Augustine whilest he leaned to the Maniches had a bastard and confesseth himself guilty of fornication St. Hierom that was so vehement for Virginity and lived a Monastick life doth yet confess that he was not a Virgin St. Bernard that lived so Contemplative a life in his Serm. de beata virgine post serm 5. de Assumpt confesseth se carere virginitate that he lacked his virginity And though Bellarmine de scriptor Ecccles pag. 224. do from that only reason question whether it be Bernards yet it is in the second Tome among his undoubted writings and this reason is a poor disproof Now if one of our ordinary Ministers should be but guilty of such a sin though but once and that before Conversion no doubt but it would lye heavye on their Consciences and I am sure it would leave such a blot on their names that were never likely to be worn off while they live When we tell the Papists of their Licensing Whore-houses at Rome Bononia c. they commonly fly to the words of Austin lib. de Ordine saying Aufer Meretrices de rebus humanis turbaveris omnia libidinibus i. e. Take away Whores from among men and you will disturb all things with lusts Though this was written when Austin was but a young convert and it seems that he after changed his mind yet this shews that our times are far from the abominations of those and our Pastors are far more strict then Austin then was 4. As for the Holiness of their Church by Ceremonies as Holy Water Holy Oil Relicks Altars and an hundred such things I think it not worth the speaking of all things are sanctified to us by the word and prayer We devote our selves and all that we have to God and then to the Pure all things are Pure We neglect no Ordinance of God that we can know of and enjoy He is a spirit and seeketh such as will worship him in spirit and truth This is the Holiness that we look after But for numbring of Beads and Ave Maries and going pilgrimages and such inventions of arrogant men we place no Holiness in them as knowing that God desireth not a Mimical or Histrionical worship and that none knows what will please him so well as himself CHAP. XXXV Detect 26. ANother of their Deceits is by calling us to tell them when every one of their Errors did first begin and what Pope did bring them in or else they will not believe but they are from the Apostles To this Bishop Usher and abundance of our writers have answered them at large I shall therefore speak but these few but satisfactory words 1. It belongs to you to prove the continuance of your Opinions or Practices more then to us to prove the Beginning 2. It sufficeth that we prove that there was a time when your errors were not in the Church and that we can do from the Scriptures and the Fathers and oft have done 3. You know your selves of abundance of changes which you know not who did first introduce Who first administred the Lords Supper in one kind only dare you say that this was from the beginning Who first laid by the standing on the Lords day and used kneeling forbidden Can. 20. Concil Nicen. 1. and in other General Councils Alvarus Pelagius de planct Eccles li. 2. art 2 fol. 104. saith The Church bewaileth the sins of the people but specially of the Clergy as greater then the sin of Sodom For we see that faith and Justice have forsaken the earth The Holy Scripture and sacred Canons are accounted as fables He 's now a man of no knowledge that inventeth not Novelties You see that then Novelties were brought in The same Vincentius Lirinensis complaineth of And not only complaineth of but giveth Direction what to do in case that Novella aliqua contagio non jam portiunculam tantum sed totam Pariter Ecclesiam commaculare conetur If any novell contagion shall endeavour to stain not only a part of the Church but the whole Church alike And then his advise is to appeal from Novelty to Antiquity and not to the Pope or the present Church And withall he addeth that This Direction is but for new heresies at their first rising before they falsifie the rules of ancient faith that is before they corrupt antient Writers or can pretend to Antiquity and before by the large spreading of the venome they endeavour to corrupt the volumes of our ancestors But dilated and inveterate Heresies are not to be set upon this way because by the long tract of time they have had a long occasion of stealing Truth and therefore we must convince such antient heresies and schisms by no means but by the only Authority of the Scripture if there be need or avoid them Lirinens cap. 4 c. Were there not abundance of Novelties introduced when Augustine ad Januarium said that They load our Religion with servile burdens which God in mercy would have to be free with a very few and most manifest Sacraments of Celebration so that the condition of the Jews was more tolerable that were subject to Legall Sacraments and not to the presumptions of men These words of Austin your own Joh. Gerson reciting de vita spirit animae lect 2. par 3. addeth of his own Si tuo tempore c. If in thy dayes thou didst thus mourn Oh wise Augustine what wouldst thou have said in our time where according to the variety and motion of heads there is incredible variety and dissonant multiplicity of such servile burdens and as thou callest them of humane presumptions Among which as so many snares of souls and entangling nets there 's scarce any man that walks secure and is not
to these witnesses some more of your worthies August Triumph de Ancon q. 5. art 1. saith To make a new Creed belongs only to the Pope because he is the Head of the Christian faith by whose authority all things belonging to faith are confirmed and strengthened Et Art 2. As he may make a new Creed so he may multiply new Articles upon Articles And in Praefat. sum ad Johan 22. he saith that the Popes power is Infinite because the Lord is great and his strength great and of his greatness there is no end And q. 36. ad 6. he saith that the Pope giveth the Motion of Direction and the sense of Knowledge into all the members of the Church For in him we live and move and have our being And the Will of God and consequently the Popes Will who is his Vicar is the first and chief cause of all motions corporall and spiritual And then no doubt may change without blame Abbas Panormitan in cap. C. Christus de haeret n. 2. saith The Pope can bring in a new Article of faith And Petr. de Anchoran in idic The Pope can make new Articles of faith that is such as now ought to be believed when before they ought not to be believed Turrecremat sum de Eccl. lib. 2. cap. 203. saith that the Pope is the Measure and Rule and Science of things to be believed And August de Ancona shews us that the Judgement of God is not higher then the Popes but the same and that therefore no man may appeal from the Pope to God qu. 6. art 1. And therefore be not offended if we suppose you to have changes A Confutation of a Popish Manuscript on this point Just as I was writing this I received another Popish M. S. sent from Wolverhampton to Sturbridge to which I shall return an answer before I go to the next point Pap. M. S. An Argument for the Church IT will not be denyed but that the Church of Rome was once a most pure excellent flourishing and Mother Church and her faith renowned in the whole world Rom. 1. 8. 6. 16. Whites Def. p. 555. King James speech to the Parliament Whitaker in his Answer to Dr. Sanders Fulk cap. 21. Thes 7. Reynolds in his fifth Conclusion This Church could not cease to be such but she must fall either by Apostacy Heresie or Schism Apostacy is not only a renouncing of the faith of Christ but of the name and Title of Christianity No man will say that the Church of Rome had such a fall or fell so Heresie is an adhesion or fast cleaving to some private or singular Opinion or error in faith contrary to the generally approved doctrine of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common received doctrine of the Christian world I pray you satisfie me in these particulars 1. By what General Council was she ever condemned 2. Which of the Fathers ever writ against her 3. By what Authority was she otherwise reproved For it seems to be a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemned by every private person who hath a mind to condemn her Schism is a departure or division from the unity of the Church whereby the bond and Communion held with some former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided her self from any body of faithfull Christians or broke Communion or went forth from the Society of any Elder Church I pray you satisfie me in these particulars 1. Whose company did she leave 2. From what body went she forth 3. Where was the true Church she forsook For it appears not a little strange that a Church should be accounted Schismatical when there cannot be assigned any other Church different from her which from age to age since Christs time hath continued visible from whence she departed Thus far the Papists Manuscript An Answer to the foregoing Argument IF the Author of this Argument thinks as he speaks it s a case to be lamented with tears of blood that the Church of Christ should be abused and the souls of men deluded by men of so great ignorance But if he know that he doth but juggle and deceive it s as lamentable that any matter of Salvation should fall into such hands 1. This Argument I have before answered Detect 13. The word Church here is ambiguous and either signifieth 1. A particular Church which is an Association of Christians for personal Communion in Gods worship 2. Or divers such Associations or Churches Associated for Communion by their officers or delegates for unity sake 3. Or else it may signifie some one Mistris Church that is the Ruler of all the rest in the world 4. Or else it may signifie the Universal Catholick Church it self which containeth all the particular Churches in the world The Papist should not have plaid either the blind man or the Jugler by confounding these and never telling us which he means 1. For the first we grant him that Rome was once an excellent flourishing Church And so was Ephesus Hierusalem Philippi Colosse and many more 2. As to the second sence it is humane or from Church custom so to take the word Church for Scripture that I find doth not so use it But for the thing we are indifferent Though it cannot be proved that in Scripture times Rome had any more then a particular Church yet it s all one as to our cause 3. As to the third and fourth senses we deny as confidently as we do that the Sun is darkness that ever in Scipture times Rome was either a Mother to all Churches or the Ruler and Mistris of all or yet the Universal Church it self Prove this and I will turn Papist But there 's not a word for it in the Texts cited but an intimation of much against it Paul calleth Rome a Church and commendeth its faith True but doth he not so by the Thessalonians Colossians Ephesians Philippians c. and John by the Philadelphians Pergamus Thyatira and others as well And will not this prove that Rome was but such a particular Church as one of them The citation of Protestants are done it seems by one that never read them nor would have others read them which makes him turn us to whole books to search for them if we have nothing else to do and to miscited places But we know that all our Divines confess that Rome was once a true and famous particular Church but never the Universall Church nor the Ruler of the world or of all other Churches in Pauls dayes Would you durst lay your cause on this and put it to the tryal Why else did never Paul make one word of mention of this Power and honour nor send other Churches to her to be Governed And now I pray consider to what purpose is the rest of your reasoning What is it to me whether Rome be turned either
damnable doctrine to destroy and depose Kings hath been the cause of the Civil wars likely to befall these Kingdoms if God in mercy do not stop it So far the Popish Priest You see here if their own pens are to be credited those very Actions of the Swedes Germans French which they cast as a reproach in the face of the Protestant as you may see in a Book called The Image of the two Churches were indeed their own and to be laid at their own doors I omit abundance of better proof because I will give them the words of none but themselves in this How far they were the causes of the old broils in Scotland Knox and Spotswood and all their later Histories will tell you How busie they were in England in Queen Elizabeths dayes the Popes Bulls and the many Treacheries committed signifie Even in King James his dayes who wrote against them they so far prevailed as to cause him to swear to those Articles for Toleration of Popery in order to the Spanish Match which you may read in Prins Introduct pag. 44 45. Yea so far as to prevail with King James before the Lords of his Council to say that His Mother suffered Martyrdom in this Realm for the profession of the Catholick Religion a Religion which had been publikely professed for many ages in this Realm confirmed by many great and excellent Emperours and famous in all Ecclesiastical Histories by an infinite number of Martyrs who had sealed it with their blood that the Catholicks well knew that there was in him a grand affection to the Catholick Religion in so much that they believed at Rome that he did but dissemble his Religion to obtain the Crown of England That now he had maturely considered the penury and calamities of the Roman Catholicks who were in the number of his faithfull subjects and was resolved to relieve them and therefore did from thenceforth take all his Roman Catholick subjects into his protection permitting them the liberty and entire exercise of their Religion and liberty to celebrate the Mass with other Divine offices of their Religion without any inquisition process or molestation from that day forwards And so he goes on restoring them to their estates commanding all Officers to hold their hands and for what cause so ever it be not to attempt to grieve or molest the said Catholicks neither in publick or private in the liberty of the excercise of their Religion upon pain of being reputed guilty of high Treason c. Prin ubi sup p. 30. Mercur. Gal. To. 9. p. 485. So far prevailed they with Prince Charls our late King as to cause him to write that Letter to the Pope which you may read Mercur. Franc. To. 9. An. 1623. p. 509 510. and in Prins Introduct p. 38. which I have no mind to recite and also they prevailed with him to swear to the Spanish conditions and also that he would permit at all times that any should freely propose to him the Arguments of the Catholick Religion without giving any impediment and that he would never directly or indirectly permit any to speak to the Infanta against the same What a hand the Papists had in the late Innovations and wars in England and Scotland and Ireland is too evident How they designed the reducing of England to the Pope in the Spanish and after in the French match and how in prosecution of it they had their Nuntio's here at London and erected their houses of Jesuites Capuchins and Nuns how far they instigated the Court and Prelates to silence and suspend and banish Godly Ministers and to ensnare them by the bowing to Altars by the Book for dancing on the Lords dayes and many such things how far they urged them on against the Scots I had rather you would read in Mr. Prins Works of Darkness brought to Light and Canterburies Tryall and his Romes Master piece and his Royall Favorite then hear it from me And if any reader be disaffected to the reciter of it let them at least peruse impartially the Evidences produced by him It was one of their own Religion who in remorse of Conscience opened the Plot in which they were engaged to Andreas ab Habernfield Physitian to the Queen of Bohemia who told it Sr. Wil. Boswell the Kings Agent at Hague which was to subvert the Protestant Religion and set up Popery and reconcile us to Rome and to that end to attempt the perverting of the King and to engage us in a war with Scotland and if the King would not be perverted then to poyson him The Jesuites of whom four sorts were planted in London and had built them a Colledge having Cardinal Barbarino for their Protector crept into all Societies and acted all parts save the peace-makers and being a foreseeing Generation they lookt further before them then the short witted men whom they over-reacht When they had by the Countenance of the Queen got so considerable a strength at the Court and so much interest in the Prelates and influence on all Ecclesiastical affairs they set afoot the foresaid innovations in worship against the Lords Day c. and the foresaid persecutions of faithfull yea and conformable Ministers and still they went Dilemmatically to work thinking to make sure which way ever things went to effects their ends They see that either their first attempt would prevail without opposition or not If it do then the Calvinifts and Puritan and Protestant Preachers will be removed and the places filled with Arminians and masked Papists and ignorant men unable to resist them and ductile worldlings that will alway be on the stronger side and their ends will be easily attained But if there be any Opposition Murmuring Discontents either it will provoke the Discontented to open Defence and Resistance or not If not their Discontents will hurt none but themselves If it do then either they will be crusht in the beginning or able to bring it to a war If the first then we shall have the Day and this to boot that they will lie under the Odium of Rebellion and be trod the lower and be the less able ever to rise and we shall be able with ease to drive on the change to a higher degree in Opposition to so odious a party But if they he able to make a war of it either they will be conquered or conquer or make Peace The last is most unlikely because Jealousies and Engagements will presently be multiplyed so that an apparent necessity will seem to lie on each party not to trust the other And the flames are easier to be kept in then kindled And if so unlikely a thing should come to pass yet it must needs be to our advantage For we will openly all appear for the King and so in England and Ireland we shall be considerable He will remember that he was helpt by us and look on the Protestants and Puritans as Rebels and take his next advantage against them or
Faith c. so then you see there is but one Lord of the Church therefore the Pope or Council is not Lord in name or deed And Apostles Prophets Pastors and Doctors are the member contradisting guished from this One Lord and whose diversity is purposely mentioned they being the matter or parcels that must have their unity in some other but not the Church to be united in them Here is then no mention among all these Ones of one earthly Head whether Pope or Council not of One Apostle that was the Head of the rest If such a thing had ever come into the Apostles mind he would sure have mentioned it on such occasions as these and not have quite forgotten it yea and contradict it so evidently 1 Cor. 6. 15 17. Our bodies are the members of Christ not of the Pope and he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit not he that is joined to the Pope Gal. 3. 28. We are all one in Christ Jesus not in an earthly Head Many and many times doth the Apostle exhort them to be of one mind and acord and take heed of schism and maintain peace and he reproveth their divisions at large yet doth he never mention such a sin as dividing from an earthly Head nor ever once direct them to a Pope or General Council as the Center of their unity or the necessary means of curing divisions Peter himself exhorteth them to be all of one mind 1 Pet. 3. 8. but never to be all united in him as their head The Apostle Paul is punctual in describing the Officers of the Church and the peoples duty to them But he never describeth a Pope or any earthly Head of that Church nor ever telleth the people of their duty to such And if such a supposed fundamental should be quite forgotten by men that belieived it and taught others that which was necessary to be believed it were incredibly strange That Paul writing to the Romans should never mind them of the honour of their Sea or their duty to their supereminent Prelate was his forgetfulness or unbelief And surely he would never have so sharply reproved them of Corinth for contentions in saying I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ if he had thought they must have been united in Cephas without once telling them of such a means of union and reconciliation He saith Is Christ divided as much as to say you must be all united in him but he saith not Is Cephas divided but plainly makes the exalters of Cephas a party that was guilty of division and Chap. 3. 3 4 5. tells them plainly that this shewed that they were carnal And speaking of all others in his own person and Apollos saith Who then is Paul or who is Apollo but Ministers by whom ye believed They had not then learned to answer Why Cephas is the Head of the Church And 1 Cor. 46. He speaks as if it were purposely to a Papist All these things brethren I have in a figure transferred to my self and to Apollo for your sakes that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written that no one of you be puffed up for one against another What not for Peter no not for Peter himself And doubtless Paul did not believe his supremacy when he so presumed to reprove him to his face Gal. 2. So 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. there is mention of our being all one bread and one body but that 's because we are all partakers of that one body of Christ and not because we are united in the Pope or any other Moreover when the Disciples strove who should be greatest Christ expresly rebuketh such thoughts and instead of granting any of them that desire he denyeth it to them all Mat. 22. 25 26. Luke 22. 26. The Kings of the Gentiles rule over them and are called gracious Lords but with you it shall not be so Bellarmine indeed can merrily hence gather that there must be one appointed to be the greatest because Christ saith He that will be Greatest let him be the servant of all This is to make good their charge against the Scripture that it is a nose of Wax by their presumptuons abuse of it as some men would prove the Apostacy of the Saints by their own Apostatizing when yet they prove it not though they ruine themselves Did not Christ by these words reprehend their seeking of a Supremacy And yet doth he grant it Oh but it is only Tyranny that Christ forbiddeth them Answ That which Christ acknowledgeth in the Kings of the Nations without reprehension that is it which he denyeth to his Disciples But it is not Tyranny but Dominion which Christ thus acknowledgeth in and alloweth to the Kings of the Nations therefore it is not Tyranny but Dominion which he forbiddeth to his Disciples That which Christ here speaketh of the Kings of the Nations is somewhat common to all Kings and so as Kings But Tyranny was not common to all Kings nor to them as Kings therefore it is not Tyranny that he speaks of Moreover its plain that it is a Greatness in Desire and Affectation that is the subject of Christs speech and not an allowed supremacy and that he forbids this Supremacy in the following words Let him be the servant of all q. d. I allow in my Kingdom to the Preachers of the Gospel no other Greatness or superiority above others but what consisteth in holiness and humility and doing good and so in disclaiming of Ruling Greatness In Luke 9. there 's mention of him that was least c. It follows not thence that one was appointed to be the lowest And if the will of Christ were known to them that one should be the Supream and this was Peter what need they strive any further about it or why doth he not rebuke them for resisting their Supream Again I say that I cannot see how it can stand with the wisdom or goodness of Christ the Law-giver of his Church or the perfection of his Laws or how it can be any way probable that he should be wholly silent of so great a point as the Headship and Center of the Churches Unity never giving us either the Name or Titles of such a Head nor the seat of his Empire nor appointing him his work nor directing him how to do it when he hath the greatest work in the world to do as these men suppose and such as surpasseth the strength of man yea of a thousand men never giving him any advice and direction for the determining of his very many occurrent difficulties nor once giving us any of his power nor telling us of his prerogative nor telling us what officers he shall appoint under him and how nor once telling any man of his duty to obey him never telling us any thing of the succession of this Soveraign in whom it shall reside nor once telling us historically of the exercise of