to be very true when I look'd upon it with the Popish Spectacles which they give to all that read their Writings or study in their Schools and judged this Church to be the best and holiest Hath not Jesus Christ said I have promised to St. Peter that his Faith should never fail doth not he mean that his Successors should be always Infallible hath he not said in celebrating his Holy Supper that the Bread was his Body and the Wine his Blood expresly and in proper terms c. In this manner I did argue upon all the Articles of the Popish Faith concluding always to its advantage But when I had more narrowly Examined these matters alone without partiality I found that I was very far from Truth that all these Articles of Faith were not conformable to Holy Scripture but altogether contrary and the Popish Religion opposite to that of Jesus Christ of the Apostles and of the Primitive Fathers § For where shall we find any thing of the Pope's Infallibility in the Holy Scripture shall not we find rather that the holiest of men are liars Psal 115. 11. and 61.10 That we fail all in many things and that if any man fails not in word he may boast of being a perfect man Jam. 3. and St. John informs us that we are all Sinners Moreover this Infallibility is according to the judgment of the Popish Doctors one of its Divine Attributes stiled by them Uncommunicable how can they therefore say that God hath given it to a man and why to the Pope of all other men seeing that according to the Papists confession he is many times a very wicked man And St. Peter himself unto whom the Son of God had promised that his Faith should never fail from whence they would establish this Doctrine was guilty of a great mistake concerning the Circumcision of the Jews and Gentiles as St. Paul affirms I have resisted him to his face saith he for he was to be blamed Is it possible that the Pope chosen by a company of men who know not whom they pitch upon and promoted many times by Legerdemain by Bribes subtilty temporal Interests Princes favours Is it possible that these Popes who are to be all Italians born elected out of the number of Cardinals and so aged that they can scarce do any good but by others Is it possible that these Popes promoted by the assistance of Whores and the Cardinals Courtizans as Paronius and Bellarmin and others acknowledge should be more infallible than St. Peter chosen by Christ himself How can we imagin that such a man should be a Treasury intrusted with Divine knowledge and the will of God that his voice pronounced out of his Chair should be the voice of Heaven that he should be able to cause the Holy Ghost to go and come at his pleasure and to oblige God to ratifie and confirm all his Laws in the World to command when he commands to prohibit when he prohibits to damn when he damns and to save when he saith the word Before we can believe this they must deprive us of our judgments and make us become beasts before we can become Christians and deal with us worse than Mahomet deals with his Mussulmans The Pope being assisted by some of his Brethren hath pronounced the Sentence which they say is ex Cathedra and condemned Jansenius and his followers he hath declared them to be Hereticks must I believe it as an Article of Faith because he saith that in the Book of this Learned Bishop there are five Propositions the same as were condemned heretofore in Calvin and that only from the information of the holy Fathers the Jesuits Must I take all this as an Article of my Faith although Mr. Arnaldus and other Doctors of the Port-Royal have proved to all that can but read that these Propositions are not be found in his Books The Pope saith that Peter d'Acantara Francis de Sales and Pius V. are He-Saints in Heaven that Mary Magdelen of Pazzi Mother Rose and others are She-Saints he commands us to pray to them If I doubt of it and speak as the wise Son of Sirach Eccl. 9. whose Book is received amongst the Canonical That no body knows whether he be worthy of love or hatred much less doth he know this of others if I should say as the Gospel that it belongs to God to judge men and that all Judgment is left unto Jesus Christ or as St. Paul that the Judgments of God are unsearchable and that therefore I leave it to him I am an Heretick amongst the Papists Since these He and She-Saints have been Canonized it is become an Article of Faith to believe them in Heaven Before I was at my own choice to credit what I pleased but since that time I am no longer free the Pope hath said it we must therefore believe it if I despise their Mediation if I neglect to pray to them out of a distrust of their happiness and credit with God I am an Infidel and an Athiest in the judgment of the Papists Is not this to mock God and men Some of them answer that the Pope may erre in matters of fact but not in matters of right Bellarmin de Po. l. 4. cap. 2. But we all know that most of their questions of right depend upon matters of Fact and that the judgment of right which concerns not only the Doctrines of the Holy Scripture but an infinit number of other things received by Tradition proceeds from the testimony and information which they have received of several matters of Fact Suppose therefore that all these informations should be false as they may be for the Pope who only is to be look'd upon as Infallible according to the Papists Doctrine hath not seen all these things he believes it from the testimony of others For Example It is an Article of Faith amongst them that St. Peter hath been twenty five years Bishop of Rome that he hath added the word enim to the words of the Consecration saying Hoc est enim corpus meum and not as it is in the Gospel Hoc est corpus meum that he did mingle Water with the Wine in the Mass If these things that are all matters of fact which cannot be proved by Holy Scripture be false as we have cause to imagin what certainty can we have of the right and truth which depends upon it § Moreover I find the Papists Sacrament of the Lords Supper differing very much from the description which Christ and his Apostles have left us It is the bread of life say the Romanists the bread of Angels the Heavenly bread the Body and Bloud of Jesus Christ I have always believed it to be so I think there is no good Christian that doubts of it We all know that it is no common Bread no body will contradict them in this St. Justin shall not be condemned for affirming it That the Bread becomes the Body of Christ and
serious examination of all these things that there can be nothing more contrary than these two things the ancient Christian Rome and that which appears now the Church then with the modern the Faith and Christian Religion under the Popes Government with that Faith and Religion which the Romans first embraced and professed a long whiles under the Teachers and Bishops which the Apostles left them Let any man read over the Gospel and the Records of the Primitive Christians since the time of the Apostles until the fourth or fifth Centuries to seek what Church Jesus Christ established upon the unmoveable foundation of His Word and Merits let him take notice of that which St. Luke describes better with his Pen than with his skilful Pencil of that which all the approved Writers of the Ecclesiastical Affairs immediately succeeding do represent unto us which professed no other belief but in Jesus Christ which had rejected an Angel from Heaven if he had preached any other Doctrine but that which is contained in the Holy Gospel and in the other Books of Sacred Scripture This Church acknowledged no other but Christ looked upon such as named themselves of Apollo's Party of Peter's or Paul's as so many Sectaries and allowed of no other Judge of Controversies and Governour but Jesus Christ Call but to mind all that you have ever read or heard of this Church since its beginning until the time of the Bishop of Rome's usurpation of the Sovereign Power under the name of Pope and compare that Church of Rome with this in our days examine the Tenents Maxims Laws Behaviour and Customs of both and you will be forced to confess that they are not the same but two Churches as much differing the one from the other as the day from the night We must not therefore mention the Antiquity of this Church but as of a languishing and decayed Body we may say she is ancient in the same manner as we say of women that shamefully yield themselves to pleasure in their old age whilst they were young chast and beautiful they were worthily esteemed and admired of every one but since age and lechery time and debauchery seises upon them they become so strangely altered that they seem not to be the same persons We must look upon the Church of Rome in this manner She is no longer that beautiful Wonder that ravishing Spouse whose Picture Solomon labours to draw in chap. 4. of the Canticles but an old Whore the Mother of fornications and abominations of the earth mentioned by St. John Revel chap. 17. She is old I confess like unto those old Palaces which time and want of repair have brought to ruin I may express this by another resemblance She is ancient as are the old Bodies infected with Leprosie and abounding with vicious humours which putrefie the older they grow and corrupt the more with age the continuance of the disease having so changed their constitution that they are not to be known by the former idea's of their persons In this manner the Romish Church may be said to be ancient Antiquity doth but discover her shame reveal her Apostacy and declare her grievous Corruptions Let us say something more to the purpose Men are known by their speech the home-born Inhabitants of a Country are distinguishable from strangers by their language and pronunciation I desire no more to shew that the Church of Rome is not the true Church of Christ and that the present Church is not the same as that which was first established Listen to the language of both and you shall find a vast difference hearken to the Popes language and to that of Jesus Christ to what the one commands and the other forbids to what the first affirms and the latter denies to what Christ with his Apostles preach and the Pope with his Doctors declare and publish We need but read the Holy Gospel and the Decretals of Rome the Scripture and the Canons of the Council of Trent the Books of the ancient Fathers and the Belief of the Jesuits and of modern Authors to understand that the Church which stiles her self Christian Catholick Apostolick and Roman is nothing of all that and deserves none of those glorious Titles for she is neither Christian nor Catholick nor Apostolick nor Roman if we take the Roman Church for what she was anciently She cannot be properly named Christian because she acknowledgeth another Lord and Superiour besides Jesus Christ and denies Him to be the only Saviour of Men ascribing this honour to the Virgin Mary and others by saying that she may and doth save many by her interceding for them that the Pope is able to do the like by pardoning their sins and granting unto them his Indulgences and that they themselves may contribute to their own salvation by their good works c. She is not Catholick in that sense which the Romanists give to this word because she preaches a Doctrine not agreeable to that which God hath revealed to us by His Son and Ministers and prefers her own Traditions before the Oracles of the Holy Scripture because she invents many superstitious Laws which occasion grievous sins She is not Roman like unto that Church which was anciently so called for besides that primitive Church as we shall further take notice never did claim an universal Dominion for she did acknowledge the Churches of Antioch Alexandria and of Jerusalem and others to be her equals in all respects therefore her Bishops never believed themselves to be their superiours but their brethren and companions The Christians of those days understood nothing of Indulgences of Fraternities of Holy-water of Consecrated Crums of Relicks and Repositories of Medals and Beads and other such like Baubles in which the Church of Rome placeth the Holiness of Christianity They knew nothing of Holy Bread kept in little Tabernacles to be there worshipped they never had in their Churches Images like to those of Rome as may appear by the words of Epiphanius who lived in the fourth Century and writ to John the Patriarch of Jerusalem an Epistle which St. Jerome hath translated into Latin and therefore declares the Judgment of those two Eminent Persons In this Epistle he saith that when he went into a Church situate in a Country Village he perceived upon the door a veil where there was an Image to be seen therefore he caused it to be taken down and to be torn in pieces for saith he by this means men may introduce Idolatry amongst Christians By this passage we may understand that the Worship of Images was a strange thing in that Age as other Historians and after them Baronius are forced to confess Christians of those days did rather chuse to be burned alive and tormented than to suffer the least grain of Incense to fall from their hands into that fire which was intended to burn it in honour of an Image or Idol which they were required to worship Those wise and couragious Christians did
of an Apostle which he had renounced by his Apostacy from Christ He had denied his Master thrice therefore the Son of God proposes this question Lovest thou me three times All this is noted in the Roman Rubrick Thrice saith St. Cyril lib. 12. chap. 64. He commands him to feed His sheep to renew unto him the dignity and confirm him in the office of an Apostle for fear that the denial of his Lord which he had been guilty of through the weakness of the flesh should seem to have cashier'd him For it is to contradict what Jesus Christ said to all His Apostles when He appointed them to preach the Gospel to Mankind to teach and baptize c. to say that none but St. Peter had this power granted to him But a great many passages of Holy Scripture do expresly contradict this Doctrine You have but one Master but one Father which is in heaven saith Jesus Christ Matth. 23. vers 8. I am the good Shepherd I know my Sheep and lay down my life for them He saith not I am an hired Shepherd but the true Shepherd John 11. As there is but one Flock there can be but one Shepherd now who is this Shepherd Christ or the Pope My Father hath given me all power in heaven and in earth Matth. 28. I have power to pardon sins on earth Mark 2.10 God hath committed all judgment unto me and power to execute judgment John 5. How can these passages agree with the Popes Sovereign Authority Is it not a grievous affront offered to Jesus Christ to set this Divine Saviour aside as Bellarmin doth secluso Christo to help up the Pope to his Throne and invest him into his usurped Sovereignty If we are to acknowledge but one Shepherd but one Master but one Lord but one only Heir of the Fathers Power and Authority shall we not rob Christ of these His Divine Prerogatives if we should offer to bestow them upon the Pope I am not ignorant of all the distinctions made use of in this occasion to justifie the Pope from this Usurpation but they are but philosophical and aiery distinctions of the same nature as are commonly invented by the wit of man to justifie Aristotle from his Belief and Doctrine of the Worlds Eternity Thomas Aquinas and others from their saying that the Virgin Mary was conceived in sin Tertullian Origen St. Bernard and others from teaching that the Souls of Saints are not admitted to the Vision of God before the day of Judgment They are such like distinctions as the Pirrhenians invented to prove that white was black that a hat was the same as a slipper and an Ape like a Lion c. All these arguments and distinctions might be well resented from the mouth of Aristotle of Plato Pythagoras or from a Cartesian Philosopher but not from a Catholick Christian who ought not to mind what he might say but what he should believe in conscience not what he can maintain but what he is bound to embrace When an Article of our Faith is concerned such a one must set aside his disputing humour and the quirks and tricks of Logick taught him in the Schools to make a plain and sincere profession of the Truth For my part I think it is the best to declare ingenuously that there can be no solid reason found out to authorize our ascribing to a man that which belongs to Jesus Christ alone by his own words No man can justly condemn me for having denied to the Pope that which I read in the Gospel to be Christs Prerogative only It is not possible faith an ancient Father to give too much to God especially when man enters into competition with Him But listen I pray to what the Apostles and primitive Fathers say upon this Article There is one sovereign or great Shepherd of our Souls saith St. Peter Ep. 1. chap. 5. with whom when He shall appear we shall appear also with Him in glory such as feed the flock of Christ committed to their charge taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind neither as being lords over Gods heritage but c. Doth St. Peter establish here the Popes Monarchy doth not he rather undermine the foundation of it No man saith St. Paul can lay another foundation but that which is already laid Jesus Christ There is one Lawgiver Who art thou saith St. James that judgest another He hath the Keys of David that opens and none can shut that shuts and no man can open Revel 3. How doth this agree with that which the Papists would perswade us of St. Peter and of the Pope Ought we not to gather from these passages Doctrines contrary to their belief No man can lay another foundation c. They are therefore much deceived that affirm that St. Peter is the foundation of the Christian Church and that the Pope is the head There is but one Lawgiver the Pope therefore hath no authority to command and appoint Laws He is to be looked upon as a Deceiver when he would perswade us that they are all out of the Church that will not acknowledge his power Jesus Christ hath the Key of Heaven He opens and no man can shut c. I must therefore seek an entrance from Him if He opens me the door I shall be admitted maugre the Pope his Priests and Excommunications if He shuts it to me the Pope hath no Absolution nor Indulgence of a sufficient efficacy and power to open it All the primitive Doctors confirm this Doctrine they ascribe to Jesus Christ only that which the Papists ascribe to St. Peter and to the Pope whom they have made his Successor When Jesus Christ saith St. Chrysostome Tom. 3. Ser. de pent hath said upon this Rock I will build my Church He did not say upon Peter for He hath not built His Church upon a man but upon this Faith What means saith St. Austin Tract 10. in Epist Joan. what means He by these words upon this Rock I will build my Church He means upon this Faith because he had said Thou art Christ the Son of the living God St. Ambrose St. Hilary Theophylact and many others affirm the same thing Optat. Millevitanus speaking of Pope Siricius he doth not call him Master or Holy Father c. but Noster Socius our Companion Contra Parmen lib. 2. Art thou bordering upon Achaia saith Tertullian de Praet cap. 36. thou art near to Corinth if thou art joyning to Macedonia thou hast Philippi Thessalonica if thou canst go over into Asia thou shalt find Ephesus and if thou neighbourest upon Italy thou art not far from Rome where we have authority Thus the Primitive Fathers discourse unto us of the Church of Rome They never ascribed unto her any more power or priviledge than to all the other Churches Let any man therefore judge what impudency and presumption the Popes are guilty of in that they claim a
before he would suffer them by three Chirurgeons and the Physician of the Convent and that all of them had found and agreed together that the most part of these Relicks were the Bones of Horses nevertheless they were resolved not to burn them as they had been advised because their ancient Records did assuredly tell them that they were the Bones of these marcyred Virgins they did further say that it was possible in the massacre of these Virgins that there might be an Horse killed amongst them this did not make the rest less true and real Relicks I answered them It may be that the Bones of some of those cruel Butchers were killed by the Soldiers that guarded them were there also it is not therefore well done said I to kneel to them one of them answered You preach to us every day that we are saved by Faith This is the usual answer which they return every time that such like mistakes are objected to them As if Faith that looks upon God as its only object or upon the divine enjoyments had need of the Bones of a dead Horse to assist its contemplation as if it did require from us a veneration for the Relicks of a dead Beast or of an Idolater Let any man that questions the truth of what I say inquire or cause to be inquired from the Nuns of that Convent I am certain that they will confirm this relation From that time I took away all the Relicks that I had carefully kept and gave them to friends putting in their room another which was worth a great deal more than the former of which I was then more certain For in regard that men go in pilgrimage two or three hundred leagues to look upon our Saviours winding sheet the Virgin Mary's peruque St. John Baptist's head and other Relicks I did conceive that I could find one nearer that was worth all these It was the piece of linnen which is called the Corporal upon which we put the chalice and the consecrated bread in the Mass I took a piece of it upon which I had oft-times placed the consecrated wafer for it was old and decayed This hath been done by many besides my self If my Doctrine and Religion be true said I this is a good as Christ's winding sheet as His seamless coat the pillar and the holy Cross the crown of thorns the handkerchief of St. Veronica and the other Relicks which receive so many pilgrimages from far All their sanctity is derived from the Body of Jesus Christ which they have had the honour to touch Besides we are not certain if they be true for there are so many Churches that quarrel about them that we have cause to doubt but I am certain said I according to my belief that this linnen hath touch'd the Body of Jesus Christ This linnen therefore I laid up safe in my box of Relicks where I kept it along while after I am perswaded I had good reason to do so in regard of the nature of the thing and assurance that I had I think that every good Roman Catholick ought to do the same if he hath any belief in his Religion and Doctrine for if their excessive faith which they have for Relicks is pleasing to God and sufficient to cause Miracles to be done by them although these relicks be false as they themselves confess to happen sometimes what is the reason that their Religion doth not cause them to repose their trust in that which they believe to have certainly touch'd the Body of Jesus Christ and wherefore doth not this linnen produce Miracles Nevertheless we see that scarce any body respects it 't is cast aside with other linnen without respect a little bit of St. Francis's slipper is more reverenced than all such linnen and chalices of the Papists Wherefore do we not see their Zealots gather up the parings of their Priests nails that touch their God every day It is certainly because they have no faith where they should have or if they have it is but an erroneous faith that is not able to work a Miracle It hath not that efficacy as their belief or their mistaking of a ship nail for one of our Saviour's Cross and the bones of an horse for that of she Saints as the Vapists would perswade They may reply that the linnen the chalice and the Priests nails have touched only the elements But I answer are not these elements strictly united to the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ This is the reason they pretend for their adoring them Their Divines declare this union so strict and extraordinary that they make no difficulty to compare it to the Hypostatical Union for as they say both are divine and wonderful for as the humanity subsists in the incarnation without a natural and a proper subsistence likewise the bread and the wine remain in this Sacrament without their own and natural subsistency which they suppose to be destroyed to give way to a Transubstantiation These things being so wherefore may not the elements sanctifie a thing seeing that they are really united to Jesus Christ God-Man and why do the Papists so little regard that those things that are known to have touch'd them when they reverence others that are said without any likelihood of truth to have approached near to Christ's humanity This is unjust and a reproach to their Faith not only in regard of Relicks but also in regard of their Sacrament of the Altar § Let us proceed next to another Article of the Popish Faith That whosoever depends not upon the Pope whosoever don't acknowledge him for their Lord and the Head of the Church whosoever he be that lives out of his obedience shall be infallibly damned of which Article I could never be fully perswaded therefore I was always very favourable in enjoyning penances to them that did willingly in their Confessions discover that they doubted of the truth of this part of the Popish Creed For such as behold the manner of the Protestants living and their Christian behaviour cannot well be perswaded of it I have known some Ladies miserably tormented with despair because they could not be perswaded of the damnation of such persons My ghostly Father have they said to me I am damned and without hopes of salvation for I cannot possibly believe one of the Articles of our Creed I cannot be perswaded that such a Lady a Hugonot can be damned in regard she is so pious and virtuous in her conversation every morning I know that she is about an hour at her devotions in her closet afterwards she takes a religious book and reads or applies her self to work she is never idle all her discourse is of God's holy Word and her self appears so sensible of what she speaks that she forceth tears from the eyes of the assistants it is not possible to be more just charitable and fearing God than she is it is not possible to be more zealous in God's service and more