first from Superstition and the latter from being highly derogatory to the mediation of Christ both or either to have been known or practised in the first Churches he shall be attended unto To tell us fine Stories and to compare their invocation of Saints to the Psalmists Apostrophe's unto the works of the Creation to set forth the praise of the Lord which they do in what they are without doing more and to deny direct praying unto them is but to abuse himself his Church his Reader and the Truth and to proclaim to all that he is indeed ashamed of the Doctrine which he owns because it is not good or honest as the Orator charged Epicurus In the practice of his Church very many are the things which the Protestants are offended with Their Canonization framed perfectly after the manner of the old Heathen Apotheosis Their exalting men into the Throne of religious Worship some of a dubious existence others of a more dubious Saintship their Dedication of Churches Altars Shrines Dayes to them Their composing multitudes of Prayers for their people to be repeated by them Their divulging faigned ludicrous ridiculous Legends of their lives to the dishonour of God the Gospel the Saints themselves with innumerable other things of the like nature which our Author knoweth full well to be commonly practised and allowed in his Church These are the things that he ought to defend and make good their Station if he would invite others to a fellowship and Communion with him Instead of this he tells us that his Catholicks do not invocate Saints directly when I shall undertake what he knows can be performed to give him a Book bigger then this of his of Prayers allowed by his Church and practised by his Catholicks made unto Saints directly for help assistance yea grace mercy and heaven or desiring those things for their merit and upon their account which as I shewed are the two main parts of their doctrine condemned by Protestants I can quickly send him Bonaventure's Psalter Prayers out of the course of hours of the blessed Virgin our Ladies Antiphonies of her sorrows her seven corporeal joys her seven heavenly joyes out of her Rosary Prayers to St. Paul St. James Thomas Panoratius George Blase Christopher Who not all made directly to them and that for mercies spiritual and temporal and tel him how many years of indulgences yea thousands of years his Popes have granted to the saying of some of the like stamp and all these not out of musty Legends and the devotion of private Monks and Fryers but the Authentick Instruments of his Churches worship and Prayers Let our Author try whether he can justifie any of these opinions or practices from the words of the Lord in Jeremy Though Moses and Samuel should stand before me yet is not my Soul unto this people declaring his determinate counsel for their destruction not to be averted by Moses or Samuel were they alive again who in their dayes had stood in the gap and turned away his wrath that his whole displeasure should not arise or from the words of Moses praying the Lord to rememâ—er Abraham Isaac and Jacob his Servants which he immediately expounds as they are also in a hundred other places by remembring his Covenant made with them and the Oath he sware unto them these are pitiful poor Pillars to support so vast and tottering a Superstruction And yet they are all that our Author can get to give any countenance to him in his work which indeed is none at all Neither do we charge the Romanists with the particular fancies of their Doctors their Speculum Trinitatis and the like no nor yet with the grosser part of the people's practise in constituting their Saints in special presidentships one over Hoggs another over Sheep another over Cows and Cocks like the ruder sort of the antient Heathen which we know our Author would soon disavow but the known doctrine and approved practice of his whole Church he must openly defend or be silent in this cause hereafter This mincing of the matter by praying Saints not praying to them praying to them indirectly not directly praying them as David calls on Sun Moon and Stars to praise the Lord so praying to them as it is to no purpose whether they hear us or no is inconsistent with the doctrine and practise of his own Church to which he seemeth to draw men and not to any private opinion of his own And a wise piece of business it is indeed that our Author would perswade us that we may as well pray to Saints in the Roman-Mode as Paul desired the Saints that were then alive to pray for him We know it is the duty of living Saints to pray for one another we know a certain way to excite them to the performance of that duty in reference unto us we have Rule President and Command in the Scripture to do so the requests we make to them are no elicite acts of Religion we pray to them neither directly nor indirectly but desire them by vertue of our Communion with them to assist us in their prayers as we might ask an Alms or any other good turn at their hands I wonder wise men are not ashamed thus to dally with their own and others eternal concernments After all this at one breath he blows away all the Protestants as childish just as Pyrgopolenices did the Legions of his Enemies they are all childish Let him shew himself a man and take up any one of them as they are managed by any one learned man of the Church of England and answer it if he can If he cannot this boasting will little avail him with considering men I cannot close this Paragraph without marking one passage toward the close of it Laying down three Principles of the Saints Invocation whereof the first it self is true but nothing to his purpose the second is true in the substance of it but false in an addition of merit to the good works of the Saints and not one jot more to his purpose then the other the third is That God cannot dislike the reflexions of his divine Nature diffused in the Saints out of the fulness of his Beloved Son when any makes use of them the easier to find mercy in his sight These are good words and make a very handsome sound Wilt thou Reader know the meaning of them and withall discern how thy pretended Teacher hath colluded with thee in this whole Discourse The plain English of them is this God cannot but approve our pleading the merits of the Saints for our obtaining mercy with him A Proposition as destructive to the whole tenour of the Gospel and mediation of Jesus Christ as in so few words could well be stamped and divulged CHAP. XXI Purgatory SECT 28. WE are at length come to Purgatory which is the Pope's Indies his Subterranean Treasure-house on the Revenues whereof he maintains a hundred thousand fighting men so that it is not probable
Obedience of Faith much less to his assertion That Christians walk by Faith and not by Sight seeing that without it we can do neither the one nor the other For I can neither submit to the truth of things to be believed nor live upon them or according unto them unless I understand the Propositions wherein they are expressed which is the work we assign to Reason For those who would resolve their Faith into Reason we confess that they overthrow not only Faith but Reason it self there being nothing more irrational than that belief should be the product of Reason being properly an assent resolved into Authority which if Divine is so also I shall then desire no more of our Author nor his Readers as to this Section but only this that they would believe that no Protestant is at all concerned in it and so I shall not further interpose as to any contentment they may find in its review or perusal CHAP. IX Jews Objections THe title of this Third Chapter is that No Religion or Sect or Way hath any advantage over another nor all of them over Popery To this we excepted before in general that that way which hath the truth with it hath in that wherein it hath the truth the advantage against all others Truth turns the scales in this business wherever and with whomsoever be found and if it lie in any way distant from Popery it gives all the advantage against it that need be desired And with this only enquiry With whom the Truth abides is this disquisition What wayes in Religion have advantage against others to be resolved But this course and procedure for some reasons which he knows and we may easily guess at our Author liked not and it it is now too late for us to walk in any path but what he has trodden before us though it seem rather a maze then a way for Travellers to walk in that would all pass on in their Journey His first Section is entituled Light and Spirit the pretence whereof he treats after his manner and cashiers from giving any such advantage as is inquired after But neither yet are we arrived to any concernment of Protestants That which they plead as their advantage is not the empty names of Light and Spirit but the truth of Christ revealed in the Scripture I know there are not a few who have impertinently used these good words and Scripture-expressions which yet ought no more to be scoffed at by others then abused by them But that any have made the plea here pretended as to their settlement in Religion I know not The truth is if they have it is no other upon the matter but what our Author cals them unto to a naked Credo he would reduce them and that differs only from what seems to be the mind of them that plead Light and Spirit that he would have them resolve their faith irrationally into the Authority of the Church they pretend to do it into the Scripture But what he aimes to bring men unto he justifies from the examples of Christians in antient times who had to deal with Jews and Pagans whose disputes were rational and weighty and pusled the wisest of the Clergy to answer So that after all their ratiocination ended whether it sufficed or no they still concluded with this one word Credo which in Logick and Philosophy was a weak answer but in Religion the best and only one to be made What could be spoken more untruely more contumeliously or more to the reproach of Christian Religion I cannot imagine It 's true indeed that as to the resolution satisfaction and settlement of their own souls Christians alwayes built their faith and resolved it into the Authority o◠God in his word but that they opposed their naked Credo to the disputes of Jews or Pagans or rested in that for a solution of their objections is heavenly-wide as far from truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I wonder any man who hath ever seen or almost heard of the Disputes and Discourses of Justin Martyr Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Theophilus Antiochenus Athenagoras Tertullian Lactantius Chrysostom Austin Theodoret and innumerable others proving the faith of the Christian Religion against the Jews from Scripture and the reasonableness of it against the Pagans with the folly and foppery of theirs could on any account be induced to cast out such a reproach against them But it seems Jacta est alea and we must go on and therefore to carry on the design of bringing us all to a naked Credo resolv'd into the Authority of the present Church a thing never heard of spoken of nor that it appears dreamed of by any of the ancient Christians The objections of the Jews against the Christian Religion are brought on the stage and an enquiry made how they can be satisfactorily answered His words are Pag. 142. In any age of the Christian-Church a Jew might say thus to the Christians then living Your Lord and Master was born a Jew and under the jurisdiction of the High Priests these he opposed and taught a Religion contrary to Moses otherwise how comes there to be a faction but how could he justly do it no humane Power is of force against God's who spak◠as you also grant by Moses and the Prophets and Divine Power it could not be for God is not contrary to himself And although your Lord might say as indeed he did that Moses spake of him as of a Prophet to come greater then himself yet Who shall judge that such a thing was meant of his person For suice that Prophet is neither specifyed by his name nor characteristical properties well said Jew who could say it was he more then any other to come And if there were a greater to come then Moses were surely born a Jew he would being come into the world rather exalt that Law to more ample glory then diminish it And if you will further contest that such a Prophet was to abrogate the first Law and bring in a new one Who shall judge in this case the whole Church of the Hebrews who never dreamed of any such thing or one member thereof who was born a subject to their judgments This saith he is the great Occumenical difficulty and he that in any age of Christianity could either answer it or find any bulwark to set against it so that it should do no harm would easily either salve or prevent all other difficulties c. The difficulty as is evident lay in this That the Authority and Judgment of the whole Church of the Hebrews lay against Christ and the Gospel That Church when Christ conversed on earth was a true Church of God the only Church on earth and had been so for 2000 years without interruption in its self without competition from any other It had its High Priest confessedly instituted by God himself in an orderly succession to those dayes The interpretation of Scripture it pretended was trusted with
Apostles were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Administring Liturgying Sacrificing to our Lord. For what he adds of Ordination it belongs not unto this discourse Authority and Reason are pleaded to prove I know not what Sacrifice to be intended in these Words Erasmus is first pleaded to whose interpretation mentioned by our Author I shall only add his own Annotations in the explication of his meaning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he Quod proprium est operantium sacris nullum autem Sacrificium Deo gratius quà m impartiri doctrinam Evangelicam So that it seems the Preaching of the Gospel or taking care about it was the Sacrifice that Erasmus thought of in his Translation and Exposition Yea but the word is truly translated Sacrisicantilus But who I pray told our Author so The Original of the word is of a much larger signification It s common use is to minister in any kind it s so translated and expounded by all learned impartial men and is never used in the whole new Testament to denote Sacrâ—ficing Nor is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ever rendred in the Old Testament by the 70. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Nor is that word used absolutely in any Author Profane or Ecclesiastical to signifie precisely Sacrificing And I know well enough what it is that makes our Author say It is properly translated Sacrificing and I know as well that he cannot prove what he sayes but he gives a Reason for what he sayes It 's said to be made to the Lord whereas other inferior Ministerial acts are made to the people I wish heartily he would once leave this scurvy trick of cogging in words to deceive his poor unwary Reader for what I pray makes his made here what is it that is said to be made to the Lord It is when they were Ministring to the Lord so the words are rendred not when they were making or making Sacrifice or when they made Sacrificing unto the Lord. This wild guord made puts death into his Pot. And we think here in England that in all Ministerial acts though performed towards the people and for their good yet men administer to the Lord in them because performing them by his appointment as a part of that worship which he requires at their hands In the close of our Authors discourse he complains of the persecutions of Catholicks which what ever they are or have been for my part I neither approve nor justifie and do heartily wish they had never shewed the world those wayes of dealing with them who dissented from them in things concerning Religion whereof themselves now complain how justly I know not But if it be for the Masse that any of them have felt or do fear Suffering which I pray God avert from them I hope they will at length come to understand how remote it is from having any affinity with the devotion of the Apostolical Churches and so free themselves if not from suffering yet at lest from suffering for that which being not accepted with God will yield them no solid Gospel-consolation in what they may endure or undergo CHAP. XVI Blessed Virgin SECT 23. Pag. 267. THe twenty second Paragraph concerning the blessed Virgin is absolutely the weakest and most disingenious in his whole discourse The work he hath in handâ— is to take off offence from the Roman Doctrine and Practice in reference unto her Finding that this could not be handsomely gilded over being so rotten and corrupt as not to bear a new varnish he turns his pen to the bespattering of Protestants for contempt of her without the least respect to truth or common honesty Of them it is that he says That they vilifie and blaspheme her and cast Gibes upon her which he sets off with a pretty tale of a Protestant Bishop and a Catholick boy and lest this should not suffice to render them odious he would have some of them thought to taunt at Christ himself one of them for ignorance passion and too much haste for his breakfast Boldly to calumniate that something may cleave is a Principle that too many have observed in their dealings with others in the world But as it containes a renuntiation of the Religion of Jesus Christ so it hath not alwayes well succeeded The horrid and incredible reproaches that were cast by the Pagans on the primitive Christians occasioned sundry ingenious persons to search more into their way then otherwise they would have done and thereby their conversion And I am perswaded this rude charge on Protestants as remote from truth as any thing that was cast on the first Christians by their adversaries would have the same effects on Roman-Catholicks might they meet with the same ingenuity and candor That any Protestant should be moved or shaken in his Principles by such Calumnies is impossible Every one that is so knows that as the Protestants believe every thing that is spoken of the blessed Virgin in the Scripture or Creed or whatever may be lawfully deduced from what is so spoken so they have all that honour and respect for her which God will allow to be given to any creature Surely a confident accusation of incivility and blasphemy for not doing that which they know they do and profess to all the world they do is more like to move men in their patience towards their accusers then to prevail with them to join in the same charge against others whom they know to be innocent as themselves Neither will it relieve our Author in point of ingenuity and truth that it may be he hath heard it reported of one or two brain-sick or frantick persons in England that they have cast out blasphemous reproaches against the blessed Mother of God It is credibly testified that Pope Leo should before witnesses profess his rejoycing at the advantages they had at Rome by the fable of Christ. Were it handsome now in a Protestant to charge this blasphemy upon all Papists though uttered by their head and guide and to dispute against them from the confession of the Jews who acknowledge the story of his death and suffering to be true and of the Turks who have a great honour and veneration for him unto this day Well may men be counted Catholicks who walk in such paths but I see no ground or reason why we should esteem them Christians Had our Author spoken to the purpose he should have proved the lawfulness or if he had spoken to his own purpose with any candor of mind or consistency of purpose in the pursuit of his design have gilded over the practise of giving Divine honour to the holy Virgin of worshipping her with Adoration as Protestants say due to God alone of ascribing all the Titles of Christ unto her turning Lord in the Psalms in most places into Lady praying to her not only to entreat yea to command her Son to help and save them but to save them her self as she
to whom her Son hath committed the administration of Mercy keeping that of Justice to himself with many other the like horrid blasphemies which he shall hear more of if he desire it But in stead of this difficult task he takes up one which it seems he looked on as far easier falsly to accuse Protestants of blaspheming her We usually smile in England at a short answer that one is said to have given Bellarmine's works I hope I may say without offence that if it were not uncivil it might suffice for an answer to this Paragraph But though most men will suppose that our Author hath overshot himself and gone too far in his Charge he himself thinks he hath not gone far enough as well knowing there are some bounds which when men have passed their only course is to set a good face upon the matter and to dare on still Wherefore to convince us of the truth of what he had delivered concerning Protestants reviling and blaspheming the blessed Virgin he tels us that it is no wonder seeing some of them in forrain parts have uttered words against the very honour of Jesus Christ himself To make this good Calvin is placed in the Van who is said to taunt at His ignorance and passion and too much haste for his breakfast when he curst the figtree who if as is pretended he had studyed Catholick Divines they would have taught him a more modest and pious interpretation It is quite beside my purpose and nature of the present discourse to recite the words of private men and to contend about their sense and meaning I shall therefore only desire the Reader that thinks himself concerned in this report to consult the place in Calvin pointed unto and if he finds any such taunts as our Author mentions or any thing delivered concerning our Lord Christ but what may be confirmed by the Judgement of all the antient Fathers and many learned Romanists I will be content to lose my reputation with him for any skill in judging at the meaning of an Author But what thoughts he will think meet to retain for this informer I leave to himself What Catholick Divines Calvin studyed I know not but I am sure if some of those whom his adviser accounts so had not studyed him they had never stole so much out of his Comments on the Scripture as they have done The next primitive Protestants that are brought in to make good this charge are Servetus Gibraldus Lasmaninus and some other Anti-trinitarian Hereticks in opposition to whose errors both in their first rise and after-progress under the management of Faustus Socinus and his followers Protestants all Europe over have laboured far more abundantly and with far greater success then all his Roman-Catholicks It seems they must now all pass for primitive Protestants because the interest of the Catholick-cause requires it should be so This is a communicable branch of Papal Omnipotency to make things and persons to be what they never were From them a return is made again to Luther Brentius Calvin Swinglius who are said to nibble at Arianism and shoot secrets darts at the Trinity though all impartial men must needs confess that they have asserted and proved the Doctrine of it far more solidly then all the Schoolmen in the world were able to do But the main weight of the discourse of this Paragraph lies upon the prety tale in the close of it about a Protestant Bishop and a Catholick Boy which he must be a very Cato that can read without smiling It is a little too long to transcribe and I cannot tell it over again without spoyling of it having never had that faculty in gilding of little stories wherein our Author excelleth The sum is that the boy being reproved by the Bishop for saying a Prayer to her boggled at the repetition of her name when he came to repeat his Creed and cryed My Lord here she is again what shall I do with her now To whom the Bishop replyed You may let her passe in your Creed but not in your Prayers Whereupon our Author subjoyns as though we might have Faith but neither Hope nor Charity for her Certainly I suppose my Countrimen cannot but take it ill that any man should suppose them such stupid blockheads as to be imposed on with Sophistry that they may feel through a pair of Mittens Tam vacui capitis populum Phaeaca putasti For my part I can scarce think it worth the while to relieve men that will stoop to so naked a lure But that I may pass on I will cast away one word which nothing but gross stupidity can countenance from needlesseness The blessed Virgin is mentioned in the Creed as the person of whom our Saviour was born and we have therefore faith for her that is we believe that Christ was born of her but do we therefore believe in her Certainly no more then we do in Pontius Pilate concerning whom we believe that Christ was crucified under him A bare mention in the Creed with reference to somewhat else believed in is a thing in its self indifferent and we see occasionally befell the best of Women and one of the worst of Men and what Hope and Charity should we thence conclude that we ought to have for her We are past charitable hopes that she is for ever blessed in heaven having full assurance of it But if by Hope for her he means the placing of our hope trust and confidence in her so as to pray unto her as his meaning must be how well this follows from the place she hath in the Creed he is not a man who is not able to judge CHAP. XVII Images SECT 24. THe next excellency of the Roman-Church which so exceedingly delighted our Author in his travails is their Images It was well for him that he travailed not in the days of the Apostles nor for 4 or 500 years after their decease Had he done so and in his choice of a Religion would have been influenced by Images and Pictures he had undoubtedly turned Pagan or else a Gnostick for those pretended Christians indeed wretches worse then Pagans as Epiphanius informes us had got Images of Christ which they said were made in the dayes of Pontius Pilate if not by him Their Temples being richly-furnished and adorned with them whilst Christian Oratories were utterly destitute of them To forward also his inclination he would have found them not the representations of ordinary men but of famous Hero's renowned throughout the whole World for their noble acchievements and inventions of things necessary to humane life and those pourtrayed to the life in the performance of those actions which were so useful to mankind and by which they had stirred up just admiration of their virtue in all men Moreover he would have found their learned men profound Philosophers devout Priests and Virgins contemning the Christians for want of those helps to devotion towards God which in those Images they
which is so called by him to be very farr from being truly Catholick the Romanists Doctrine of Concomitancy being a late Figment to countenance their spoyling the people of the legacy of Christ unknown to Antiquity and contrary to Scripture and enervating the Doctrine of the death of Christ whose most pretious bloud was truly separated from his body the benefit of which separation is exhibited unto us in the Sacrament by himself appointed to represent it we neither believe nor value As the necessity of it is denyed so also that there is any precept for it what think you then of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drink you all of it that is this Cup They think this to be a Precept to be observed towards all those who come to this Supper What Christ did that he commanded his Apostles to do he gives the Cup to all that were present at his Supper and commands them all to driâ—â— of it Why I pray are they not to do so Why is not this part of his command as Obligatory to them as any others Alass They were the Priests that were present all Lay people were excluded not one was excluded from the Cup that was there at any part of the Ordinance What if they were all Priests that were there as no one of them was Was the Supper administred to them as Priests or as Disciples or is there any colour or pretence to say that one kind was given to them as Priests another as Disciples Dic aliquem dic Quintiliane colorem Was not the whole Church of Christ represented by them Is not the command equal to all Nay as if on purpose to obviate this Sacrilegious figment Is not this word Drink you all of this added emphatically above what is spoken of the other kind Many strange things there are which these Gentlemen would have us believe about this Sacrament but none of them of a more incredible nature then this that when Christ says to all his Communicants Drink you all of this and commands them to do the same that he did his meaning was that we should say Drink you none of this They had need not of a Spatula linguae to let such things as those down our Throats but a Bed-staffe to cram them down or they will choak us in the swallowing and I am sure will not well digest when received He must have an Iron-Stomach that can concoct such crude morsels But if this will not do he would fain have us grant That the whole manner of giving the Communion unto the Laity whether under one or both kinds is left to the disposition of the Church I tell you truly I should have thought so too had not Christ and his Apostles before-hand determined it but as the case stands it is left so much to the disposition of the Church whether the blessed Cup shall be administred to the people as it is whether we shall have any Sacraments or no and not one jot more And let not our Author flatter himself that it was a pre-conceived Opinion of the arbitrariness of this business that made men scruple it no more in former ages when the Cup was first taken from them They scrupled it until you had roasted some of them in the fire and shed the bloud of multitudes by the Sword which was the old way of satisfying scruples At length our Author ventures on St. Paul and hopes if he can satisfie him he shall do well enough and tells us This indifferent use of Communion amongst the antient Christians in either kind sometimes the one sometimes the other sometimes both is enough to verifie that of St. Paul We are all partakers of one Bread and of one Cup. But what is this indifferent use and who are these antient Christians he tells us of Neither is the use of one or of both indifferent among the Papists nor did the antient Christians know any thing at all of this business of depriving the People of the Cup which is but a by-blow of Transubstantiation He knows they knew nothing of it whatever he pretends Neither doth the Apostle Paul say nakedly and only that We are all partakers of one Bread and one Cup but instructing the whole Church of Corinth in the right use of the Lords Supper he calls to mind what he had formerly taught them as to the celebration of it and this he tells them was the imitation of the Lord himself according as he had received it in command from him to give the blessed Bread and Cup to all the Communicants This he lays down as the Institution of Christ this he calls them to the right use and practice of telling the whole Church that as often as they eat this Bread and drink this Cup not eat the Bread without the Cup they do shew forth the Lord's Death until he come And therefore doth he teach them how to perform their duty herein in a due manner Ver. 28. Let saith he a man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. Adding the reason of his caution for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh c. intimating also that they might miscarry in the use of either Element For saith he whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this Cup unworthily In the administration of the whole Supper you may offend unless you give heed in the participation of either Element What can possibly be spoken more fully distinctly plainly as to Institution Precept Practice Duty upon all I know not And if we must yet dispute about this matter whilest we acknowledge the Authority of the Apostle I think there is small hopes of being quit of Disputes whilest this world continues The pitiful Cavils of our Author against the Apostle's express and often repeated words deserve not our notice yet for the sake of those whom he intends to deceive I shall briefly shew their insufficiency to invalidate St. Paul's Authority and Reasonings 1. He says That we may easily see what was St. Paul 's opinion from those words whosoever shall eat this bread or drink this cup of our Lord unworthily and so say I too the meaning of them is before declared but saith he repeating the institution as our Lord delivered he makes him after the consecration of the bread say absolutely Do this in commemoration of me But after the chalice he speaks with a limitation Do this as oft as you shall drink it in commemoration of me What then Pray What are the next words Are they not For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup Is not the same term as often annexed to the one as well as to the other Is it a limitation of the use of either and not a limitation of that kind of Commemoration of the Lord's Death to the use of both From these doughty observations he concludes that the particle and in the other Text must needs be taken disjunctively we are all
we mentioned was That the Gospel was originally from him and to him we are beholding for it This we cannot readily receive it is certainly untrue and fearfully blasphemous to boot The Gospel was originally from Christ and to him alone are we beholding for it as hath been before declared Another is That Kingly Authority amongst us and his Crown-Land is from him This is false and seditious Kingly Authority in General is from God and by his Providence was it established in this Land before the Pope had any thing to do here nor doth it lean in the least on his warranty but hath been supported without the Papacy and against all its Oppositions which have not been a few A third is that humanely speaking had not he been set over us we had not had this day either Truth or Unity I know not well what you mean by humanely speaking but I am sure so to blaspheme the care and love of Christ to his Church and the sufficiency of his Word and promised Spirit to preserve Truth in the World without the Pope whose aid in this work he never once thought of requested appointed is if not inhumane and barbarous yet bold and presumptuous That Christ hath no less shewed his Divinity in him then in his own person is an expression of the same nature or of a more dreadful if possible it may be I speak seriously I do not think this is the way to make men in love with the Pope No sooner is such a word spoken but immediately the wicked beastial lives the ignorance Atheisms and horrid ends of many of them present themselves to the thoughts of men and a tremor comes over their hearts to hear men open their mouths with such blasphemies as to affirm that the Lord Christ did as much manifest his Divinity and Power in such Beasts as in his own Person Yea that he is more miraculous in him then he was in himself What proof Sir is there of this Where is the Scripture where the Antiquity where the Reason for it We tell you truly we cannot believe such monstrous figments upon their bare affirmation Yea but this is not all Christ is beholding to him for all the faith of his Deity that is in the world Why so Why by the only Authority of his place and person he defended it When When it was opposed by the Arrians and he called his Council of Nice where he condemned them Who would not be sick of such trifles Is it possible that any man in his right wits should talk at such a rate Consult the writings of those dayes of Alexander of Alexandria of Athanasius Gregory Basil Chrysostom Austine who not Go over the Volumes of the Councils of those dayes if he can once find the Authority of the Pope of Rome and his Person pleaded as the Pillar of the Faith of Christs Diety or as any argument for the proof of it let him triumph in his Discovery Vain man that dares to make these flourishes when he knows how those antient Christian Hero's of those dayes mightily proved the Deity of Christ from the Scriptures and confounded their Adversaries with their Testimonies both in their Councils Disputes and Writings which remain to this day Was not the Scripture accounted and pleaded by them all as the Bulwark of this Truth and did not some of them Athanasius for instance do and suffer for the maintaining of it more then all the Bishops of Rome in those dayes or since and what a triffling is it to tell us of the Popes Council at Nice As though we did not know who called that Council who praesided in it who bare the weight of the business of it of whom none were Popes nor any sent by Popes nay as if we did not know that there was then no such Pope in the world as he about whom we contend Indeed it is not candid and ingenious for a man to talk of these things in this manner The like must be said of the six first Councils mentioned by him in some of which the power of the Bishop of Rome was expresly limitted as in that of Nice and that of Chalcedon and in the others though he was ready enough to pretend to more yet he had no more power then the Bishops of other Cities that had a mind to be called Patriarcks We do not then as yet see any reason to change our former thoughts of the Pope for any thing here offered by our Author and we cannot but be farr enough from taking up his if they be those which he hath in this discourse expressed they being all of them Erroneous the most of them Blasphemous But yet if we are not pleased with what he is we may be pleased with what he does being so excellent a well accomplished person as he is for he is one that was never known to let fall a word of passion That for casting off his Authority should procure thousands to be slain and burned without stirring up any Engine of Revenge these are somewhat strange stories Our Author grievously complains of uncivil carriage toward the Pope in England in all sorts Men Women and Children For my part I justifie no reviling accusation in any against any whatever but yet I must tell him that if he thinks to reclaim men from their hard thoughts of him that is not of the person of this or that Pope but of the office as by them managed it must not be by telling him he is a fine accomplisht Gentleman that he is a Prince a Stranger a Great way off whom it is uncivil and unmannerly to speak so hardly of but labour to shew that it is not his principle to impose upon the consciences of men his apprehensions in the things of God that he is not the great proclaimer of many false Opinions Heresies and Superstitions and that with a pretence of an Authority to make them receive them whether they will or no that he hath not caused many of their forefathers to be burned to death for not submitting to his dictates nor would do so to them had he them once absolutely in his Power that he hath never given away this Kingdom to strangers and cursed the lawful Princes of it that he pleads not a Soveraignty over them and their Governors inconsistent with the Laws of God and the Land Haec cedo â—dmoveant templis farre litabo For whilst the greatest part of men amongst us do look upon him as the Antichrist foretold in the Scripture guilty of the bloud of innumerable Martyrs and Witnesses of the truth of Christ Others who think not so hardly of him yet confess he is so like him that by the marks given of Antichrist he is the likeliest Person on the earth to be apprehended on suspition all of them think that if he could get them into his Power which he endeavours continually he would burn them to ashes and that in the mean time he is the corrupt Fountain
concerning Preaching to the Churches themselves and their Disciples we have in that book purposely designed to declare their first calling and planting not their progress and edification Should I trace the commands given for this work the commendation of it the qualifications and gifts for it bestowed on men by Christ and his requiring of their exercise recorded in the Epistles the work would be endless and a good part of most of them must be transcribed In brief if the Lord Christ continue to bestow Ministerial gifts upon any or to call them to the Office of the Ministry if they are bound to labour in the Word and Doctrine to be instant in Season and out of Season in Preaching the Word to those committed to their charge if that be one of the directions given them that they may know how to behave themselves in the Church the house of God if they are bound to trade with the Talents their Master entrusts them with to attend unto Doctrine with all diligence if it be the duty of Christians to labour to grow and encrease in the knowledge of God and his will and that of indispensable necessity unto salvation according to the measure of the means God is pleased to afford unto them if their perishing through ignorance will be assuredly charged on them who are called to the care and freedom and instructing of them This business of Preaching is an indispensible duty among Christians If these things be not so indeed for ought I know we may do what our Adversary desires us even burn our Bibles and that as books that have no truth in them Our Authors denial of the practice of Antiquity conformable to this of the Apostles is of the same nature But that it would prove too long a diversion from my present work I could as easily trace down the constant sedulous performance of this duty from the dayes of the Apostles until it gave place to that ignorance which the world was beholding to the Papal Apostacy for as I can possibly write so much paper as the story of it would take up But to what purpose should I do it Our Author I presume knows it well enough and others I hope will not be too forward in believing his affirmations of what he believes not himself The main design of this discourse is to cry up the Sacrifice that the Catholicks have in their Churches but not the Protestants This Sacrifice he tells us was the sum of all Apostolical Devotion which Protestants have abolished Strange that in all the writings of the Apostles there should not one word be mentioned of that which was the sum of their Devotion Things surely judged by our Author of less importance are at large handled in them That they should not directly nor indirectly once intimate that which it seems was the sum of their devotion is I confess to me somewhat strange They must make this concealment either by design or oversight How consistent the first is with their goodness holiness love to the Church the latter with their wisdom and infallibility either with their office and duty is easie to judge Our Author tells us They have a Sacrifice after the order of Melchizedeck Paul tells us indeed that we have a High Priest after the order of Melchizedech but as I remember this is the first time that ever I heard of a Sacrifice after the order of Melchisedech though I have read somewhat that Roman Catholicks say about Melchisedechs Sacrifice Our Priest after the Order of Melchisedech offered a Sacrifice that none ever had done before nor can do after him even Himself If the Romanists think to offer him they must kill him The Species of Bread and Wine are but a thin Sacrifice next door to nothing yea somewhat worse then nothing a figment of a thing impossible or the shaddow of a dream nor will they say they are any It is true which our Author pleads in justification of the Sacrifice of his Church That there were Sacrifices among the Jews yea from the beginning of the World after the entrance of sin and promise of Christ to come made to sinners For in the state of innocency there was no Sacrifice appointed because there was no need of an atonement But all these Sacrifices properly so called had no other use in Religion then to prefigure and represent the great Sacrifice of himself to be made by the Son of God in the fulness of time That being once performed all other Sacrifices were to cease I mean properly so called for we have still Sacrifices Metaphorical called so by Analogy being parts of Gods worship tendred unto him and accepted with him as were the Sacrifices of old Nor is it at all necessary that we should have Proper Sacrifices that we may have Metaphorical It is enough that such there have been and that of Gods own appointment And we have still that only one real Sacrifice which was the life and soul of all them that went before The substance being come the light shaddowing of it that was before under the Law is vanished The Apostle doth expresly place the opposition that is between the Sacrifice of Christian-Church and that of the Judaical in this that they were often repeated this was performed once for all and is a living abiding Sacrifice constant in the Church for ever Heb. 10.1 2. So that by this rule the repetition of the same or any other Sacrifice in the Christian-Church can have no other foundation but an apprehension of the imperfection of the Sacrifice of Christ For saith he where the Sacrifice is perfect and makes them perfect that come to God by it there must be no more Sacrifice This then seems to be the real difference between Protestants and Roman-Catholicks in this business of Sacrifice Protestants believing the Sacrifice of Christ to be absolutely perfect so that there is no need of any other and that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fresh and living way of going to God continually with whom by it obtaining remission of sin they know there is no more offering for sin they content themselves with that Sacrifice of his continually in its vertue and efficacy residing in the Church Romanists looking on that as imperfect judge it necessary to institute a new Sacrifice of their own to be repeated every day and that without any the least colour or warrant from the word of God or example of the Apostles But our Author puts in an exception and tells us those words of Luke Acts 13.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are well and truly rendred by Erasmus sacrificantibus illis Domino which one text saith he gives double testimony to Apostolical Sacrifice and Priestly Ordination and he strengthens the Authority of Erasmus with reason also for the word can import nothing but Sacrifice since it was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for other inferiour Ministeries of the Word and Sacraments are not made to God but the people but the