any of his power I say that not a word of this should be mentioned by Christ or his Apostles even when there was so great occasion when Peter was among them when there was striving for supremacy when the Churches were lamentably contending about the preheminence of their teachers and some were for one and some for another and some for Cephas himself and when so many heresies arose and hazzarded the Churches as among the Corinthians Galathians and others there did This is a thing so hard to be believed by one that believeth the wisdom and love of Christ that I must say for my part it surpasseth my belief Especially as is said when also so much is said against the Supremacy contended for All this I speak of any earthly Head whether Pope or Council Object But say the Papists you can allow Princes to be the Heads of the Church why then not a Pope Answ We acknowledge Princes and Pastors over parts of the Church but not over the Church Universal Every Corporation may call the Major or Bayliff a subordinate Head of that Corporation but not of the Kingdom Object There may be a Prorex a Viceking and why not then a Vicarious Head of the Catholick Church Answ 1. Because a Kingdom is not so big as all the world or all that is and may be Christian 2. Because a King having Dominion hath power of doing all that by others that he cannot do himself But a Pastor being a Minister hath no such power given him but must do his work himself 3. Because the work of the Ministry requires far more labour and attendance So that it is an utter Imopssibility that any man should be able to do the work of a supream Ruler of all the Christian world yea or the hundreth part of it as it must be done 4. And lastly because Christ hath made no such Prorex or Vice-head and none can have it without his commission Object But the Civil power hath been exercised by an Emperour over more then all the Christian world And why then may not the Ecclesiastical Answ 1. It s notoriously false that ever Emperour had so extensive a Dominion 2. The Gospel must be preached over all the world and therefore we must consider the possible future extent of the Church and not only the present existent state 3. There are many millions of Christians mixt in the Dominions of Infidel Princes among other Religions which makes the Government of them the more difficult 4. I shewed before from the nature of the work many other difficulties which make a difference Object Monarchy is the best Government therefore the Church must have it Answ The Monarchy of God is best but among men it is according to the state of the Rulers and subject One way is better in some cases and another in others 2. For one man to be Monarch of all the Christian world is not best when by taking a thousand times more upon him then he can do he will ruine instead of ruling well 3. You may as well say An Universal Civil Monarch over all the world is best therefore so it must be but when will you prove that But if I mistake not in my conjecture it is the thing that the Jesuites have lately got into their heads that the Pope must have the Universal Soveraignty Ecclesiastical and Civil that so an Universal peace may be in the world Obj. There was but One High Priest before Christ Answ 1. No more there was but one Temple Will you therefore have no more Nor but one civil Monarch in that Church Would you have no more I partly believe it 2. It was easie for one to Rule so small a Nation as Judaea in comparison of all the world 3. Prove you the Institution of your Supremacy as we can prove the Institution of Aarons Priesthood and the taking of it down again and we will yield all 4. That Priesthood was a Type of Christ the Eternal Priest and is ended in him as the Epistle to the Hebrews shews at large Object There is a Monarchy among Angels and Devils Answ 1. It s a hard shift when you must go to another world for your pattern But for your Argument fetcht from Hell I will leave it with you but for that from Heaven I say there 's no proof of it And if there were till you can prove that our work and fitness for it is the same as Angels and that the Lord hath appointed the same form here you have said nothing But because this Question is largely handled by abundance of our Learned Writers I shall say no more to it here but conclude that by this which is already said in brief it is manifest that The Catholick Church of Christ is not one Visible Political Body as joined to any One Universal Visible Head or Soveraign besides Christ If any being driven from this hold shall say that yet there are several Patriarcks that Govern the several Provinces of the Christian world though there be no head but Christ I answer 1. If there be no earthly Head and Center of unity then I have the main cause These Patriarcks may and do at this day unreconcilably disagree among themselves This therefore will not serve for a unity 2. When as is aforesaid you have well proved the Institution of these Patriarcks and how many they be and who and the power of Princes to make new ones and not to forbear it and to pull down the old ones and when you have answered the foregoing Arguments as many of them as extend to Patriarchal power also as well as Unversal Headship then we shall take this further into consideration In the mean time I supersede as having done that which I think necessary to take off men from inclining to Rome and reproaching of Churches upon the erroneous Conceit of the Nature and unity of the Catholick Church as if it were One as under One Earthly Visible Head CHAP. IV. Opening the true Grounds on which the Churches Unity and Peace must be sought and the means that must be used to attain so much as is here to be expected Quest BUT if this be not the way of the Churches Unity which is and what should we desire and endeavour for the attaining it For the distractions of the Church are so great through our divisions that it makes us still apt to suspect that we are out of the way Though it be a great work to answer this question rightly and a hundred a thousand times greater to answer it satisfactorily that is to satisfie prejudiced incapable men with a right answer yet I shall attempt it by casting in my thoughts or to speak more confidently by declaring so much as I am certain is the will of God concerning this weighty thing And here I shall first lay down those grounds upon which we must proceed if we will do our duty for the union of the Church 2. I shall tell you what
Rob. Amstrowther Chaplain to the King of Englands Embassadors with the Emperour being at Vienna heard the Jesuites and other repeating confidently this slander of Calvin Whereupon he opened to them this Evidence against it and satisfied them of the flashood so that they told him they never knew so much before and promised him they would never mention it more If any would see the very words of their own Records and Doctor Vasseur he may read them in Rivets Sum. Contr. against Baily and again in his Jesuita Vapulans Cap. 2. And as for the life of Calvin after he forsook the Papists if you will but believe that the City of Geneva and all the Ministers and others that were about him in his life and at his death did know better then Bolseck a fugitive Apostate Papist that was his enemy and then far off you may see at large in Melchior Adamus and Beza the description of such a shining burning light as Rome hath not to boast of He was a man of admirable wit judgement industry and piety When he had forsaken his own Countrey for the Gospel sake and taken up in Geneva and planted the Gospel there with Farellus and Viretus at last the ungodly part getting the Head the Ministers were banished And so he setled in in another City The four Bayliffs of Geneva that banished the Ministers within two years were ruined by the judgements of God One of them accused of sedition seeking to scape through a window fell and was broken to death Another was put to death for murder The other two being accused of Mal-administration fled and were condemned Calvin is sent for and intreated to return to Geneva which by importunity and Bucers perswasion he yieldeth to There was he continually molested by the ungodly and loved by the good The Malignants whom he would restrain by Discipline from Whoredom drunkenness and other wickedness were still plotting or raging against him and called their Dogs by his name But shame was still the end of their attempts His revenge was to tell them I see I should have but sorry wages if I served man but it s well for me that I serve him that alway performeth his promises to his servants As for his work he preached every day in the week each second week and besides that he read three dayes a week a Divinity Lecture And every Thursday he guided the Presbyterie and every Friday at a meeting he held an Expository conference and Lecture so that the whole came to almost twelve Sermons a week Besides this he wrote Epistles to most Countries of Christendom in Europe to Princes Divines and others And he wrote all those great volumes of most Learned judicious Controversies Commentaries and other Treatises which one would have thought might have been work enough for a man that had lived an hundred years if he had done no other And many Hereticks he confuted and some convinced and reduced He set up among the Ministers a course of teaching every Family from house to house of which he found incredible fruit For all this his labour he endured the affronts contradictions and reproaches of the rabble yea and sometime hath been beaten by them because he would not administer the Sacrament to ungodly men that were rulers in the place he was at first banished and after threatned and continually molested by them and railing fellows set to preach and write against him And whether he were an Epicure you may soon judge He alwayes used a very spare dyet and for ten years before his death did did never taste one bit but at supper as his constant course so that every day was with him a better fast then the Papists use to make on their fasting dayes By this extream labour speaking and fasting and watching for he dictated his writings as he lay in bed much he overthrew his body and falling first into a Tertian and then into a Quartan after that he fell into a Consumption with the gout and stone and spitting of blood and the disease in the Hemorrhoid veins which at last ulcerated by over much fasting speaking and use of Aloes besides the head-ach which was the companion of his life In these sickness he would never forbear his labour but when he he was perswaded to it he told them that he could not bear an idle life And when he was near to death was still at work asking those that intreated him to forbear Whether they would have God find him idle Under all these pains of Gout Stone Collick Head-ach Hemorrhoids Consumption c. those that were about him testified to the world that they never heard him speak a word unbeseeming a patient Christian The worst was that oft repeated word How long Lord how long as being weary of a miserable world Witnesses he had enough for he could scarce have rest for people crowding to him to visit him On Mar. 23. he went among the Ministers to their Meeting and took his farewell of them there The next day he was wearyed by it but the twenty seventh day he was carryed to the Court to the Senate of the City where he made a speech to them and took his farewell of them with many tears on both sides April 2. he was carryed to Church and staid the Sermon and received the Sacrement Afterward the Senate of the City came to him and he made an heavenly Exhortation to them On April 25. he dictated his Will which I would his slanderers would read His Library it self and all his goods being prized came scarce to three hundred Crowns May 11. he wrote his farewell to Farellus May 19. all the Ministers came to him with whom he sate and did eat and cheerfully take his leave of them On the twenty seventh of May his voice seemed to be stronger and so continued till his last breath that day which was with such quietness as men compose themselves to sleep The next night and day the City Magistrates Ministers Schollars people and strangers were taken up in weeping and lamentation Every one crowded to see the Corps among whom the Queen of Englands Embassador to France was one He was buryed according to this desire in the common Church-yard without any Monument or Pomp and hath left behind him such a Name as in despight of all the Devils in Hell and all the Papists on earth shall be precious till the coming of Christ and such writings hath he left as are the comfort of the Disciples of Truth and the shame of the reproaching Adversaries Reader this is that Calvin that is so hated by the bad and loved and honoured by the good whom these Papists have called an Epicure and Sodomite and said that he died blaspheming and calling upon the Devil and was eaten with lice and worms Is not God exceeding patient that will suffer such wretches to live on the Earth What man could they have named since Augustine yea since the Apostles dayes that was more unfit
or Infidels that would creep into places of Council Command or Justice or any publick office If ever such as these should have a hand in your affairs or be our Rulers we know what we must expect The Reasons of our jealousies of such men are because we know that the design is agreeable to their principles and interests and we know it is their usual course and we find that such men swarm among us we hear their words we read their writings we see their practices for Popery and Infidelity The jealousies of many wise men in England are very great concerning the present designs of this Generation of men and not without cause We fear the Masked Papists and Infidels more then the bare-faced or then any enemy The men that we are jealous of and over whom we desire you to be Vigilant are these Hiders that purposely obscure and cover their Religion He that wilfully concealeth his Faith alloweth me to suspect it to be naught The chief of them are 1. The Seekers that have not yet found a Church a Ministry Ordinances or Scripture nor some of them a Christ to believe in 2. The Paracelsians Behmenists and other Enthusiasts that purposely hide themselves in self-devised uncouth cloudy terms and pretend to visible familiarity with spirits 3. The Vani whom God by wonders confounded in New England but have here prevailed far in the dark 4. The secret guides of the Quakers 5. Those that make it their business to argue against the Religion of all others but assert little of their own endeavouring to bring all men to uncertainties and loose them from the faith 6. Those that are still vilifying or undermining the faithfull Godly Ministry 7. Those that do secretly or openly plead the cause of Infidels which are alas too many whether ex animo or for promoting Popery time will disclose that deride the Scriptures and deny the Immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the body or that there are any Devils or is any Hell 8. The Libertines that would have liberty for all that they can call Religion though against the certain Principles of Christianity and that tell us the Magistrate hath nothing to do with mens Religion of which anon 9. The Democratical Polititions that are busie about the change of Government and would bring all into confusion under pretence of the Peoples Liberty or Power and would have the Major Part of the Subjects to be the Soveraign of the rest that is the worst that are still the most and the ignorant that cannot Rule themselves and the vicious that are enemies and hinderers of piety and the worldlings that mind nothing but what is under their feet and have no time to think of Heaven they have so much to do on earth and as Augustine saith had rather there were one Star less in Heaven then One Cow loss in their Pastures these must be our Soveraigns 10. Those that under pretence of defending Prelacy and of uniting us with Rome do adhere to the course of Grotius and Sancta Clara and Unchurch all the Reformed Churches degrade all the Ministers that are not of their way while they maintain the verity of the Church of Rome and the validity of her Ordination and would have the Pope to be the Principium Unitatis to all the Church and the Western Parts to obey him as their Patriatch yea and himself to be the Ruler of the whole so he do it by the Laws of General Councils and deprive not inferiour Bishops of their Priviledges These ten sorts of men we are Jealous of and if ever you advance them into places of Command or Power it will increase our jealousies God knows I have no personal grudge to any of them But the Gospel and the souls of men and the hopes of our posterity are not so contemptible as to be given away as a bribe to purchase these mens good will or to stop their mouths lest they should reproach us As it is the common but a poor redress that after the Massacres of thousands the surviving Protestants have still had from the Papists viz. to disclaim the fact or cast it upon some rash discontented men which will not make dead men alive again So will it be a poor relief to us when these men are our Masters and have deprived us of all that was dear to us in the world that we escaped their ill language while the work was doing 4. We also humbly beseech you that you will go on with the purging and encouraging of the Ministry Casting out the Ignorant and Ungodly and countenancing those that are Able and Faithfull They deny their ease and dignity and the riches of the world which other employments would afford to encounter with Satan and the worlds corruptions for the happiness of souls And therefore the more oppose them and revile them and unthankfully requite them the more are you obliged for the sake of Christ and mens salvation to assist them All their enemies contending to surpass the Devil in impudency accuse them of Covetousness Idleness and Ambition as if these were the things that they seek after in the world If our practice seconding our profession be not enough to confute these calumnies of malignant men let this be added to confute them that we make it our earnest request to your Highness that all such Ambitious Idle Covetous or otherwise scandalous Ministers may be cast out You have Commissioners in every County for this work Require them to do it faithfully If we desired this much against our Reproachers they would say we persecuted them We desire you therefore but to turn this persecution against our selves We also desire you that you will not advance us to Temporal Honours or Dignities or Power nor make us Lord Bishops nor to abound with the riches of this world These things agree not with our caling We only desire food and rayment and necessaries to furnish us for our work and express some charity to the needy that daily expect it from us and we crave of you that we may be no richer We also desire you never to put the sword into our hands nor enable us to execute any of our private passions upon any nor yet to touch mens Bodies or Estates but only to manage the word and Keyes of the Kingdom of Christ upon mens Consciences and Guide his Church according to our office and let it prevail as God shall bless it This is all the advancement we desire We have doubly renounced all the world as Christians and as Ministers of Christ we have given up our selves to a difficult flesh-displeasing work we crave no more of you but so far to countenance us as Christ commandeth you and the good of our peoples souls requires And God will be judge between us and our malitious reproachers whether these requests are Covetous Ambitious or Unreasonable 5. We also humbly crave your aid for the procuring and maintaining an Union and Concord
at least be at a greater distance from them then before For such a war will never out of his mind nor will he think himself safe till he hath disabled them from doing the like again But if one part conquer it will be the King or the Puritans for so the Protestants must now be caled If the King prevail then will the Puritans be totally trod down and we by whose help the victory was got shall certainly be incomparably better then we are if not have presently all our will For our fidelity will be predicated the Rebells will be odious So that their very names will be a scorn and there will be no great resistance of us For saith Mr. Middleton in his Letter to the A. B. of Canterb. in Prins Introduct p. 142 143. The Jesuite at Florence lately returned from England who pretends to have made a strict discovery of the state of England as it stands for Religion saith that the Puritans are shrewd fellows but those which are counted good Protestants are fair conditioned honest men and think they may be saved in any Religion But if the Puritans get the day which is a most unlikely thing yet shall we make great advantage of it For 1. They will be unsettled and all in pieces and not know how to settle the Government And saith the Jesuites Letter found in the A. B. of Cant. Study in Prins Introduct pag. 89 90. Our foundation must be Mutation this will cause a Relaxation which serves as so many violent diseases as the Stone Gout c. to the speedy destruction c. 2. We shall necessitate the Puritan Protestants to keep the King as a Prisoner or else to put him to death If they keep him as a Prisoner his diligence and friends and their own divisions will either work his deliverance and give him the day again by our help or at least will keep the State in a continual unsettledness and will be an Odium on them If they cut him off which we will rather promote lest they should make use of his extremities to any advantage then 1. We shall procure the Odium of King-killing to fall upon them which they are wont to cast upon us and so shall be able to disburden our selves 2. And we shall have them all to pieces in distractions For 3. Either they will then set up a new King or the Parliament will keep the power changing the Government into a Democracy The first cannot be done without great concussions and new wars and we shall have opportunity to have a hand in all And if it be done it may be much to our advantage The second will apparently by factions and distractions give us footing for continual attempts But to make all sure we will secretly have our party among the Puritans also that we may be sure to maintain our Interest which way ever the world go The event with common reason and many full discoveries shew that this was the frame of the Papists plot And what power and interest they had in the Kings Armies and Counsels in the wars is a thing that needs no further discovery But had they any Interest in the Councils and Forces of the Parliament Answ It will be expected that he that asserteth any thing in matters of this moment should prove it by more then moral evidence of greatest probabilities and therefore I shall be sparing in my Assertions but yet I shall say in general that though the business would be troublesome chargeable and tedious to call together the Witnesses that are necessary yet Witnesses and Evidences may be had to prove that the Papists have had more to do in our affairs then most men are aware of without any positive Assertions therefore I desire them that can see a cause in its effects but to follow these streams till they find the Fountain 1. Whence came those motions against the Ministry and Churches into our Councils Whence was it that so many men of note did call the friends of the Ministry Priest ridden fellows and the Ministers Iack Presbyters to teach the Nation to bring them into scorn I well know that all this came from Hell But whether by the way of Rome I leave to your inquiry Yea whence was it that motions have been made to pull down all the Ministry at once Was this by Protestants 2. Whence came the doctrine contended for by Sir H. V. and others against the Power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion and for Universal Liberty in Religion I know the Papists are not for such liberty in Spain or any where where they can hinder it but with all I know that it is one of their fundamentals that such matters belong only to the Pope and Prelates and Magistrates must but be their Executioners and I know that its truly the Magistrates Power for which the usurping Pope contendeth and I know that the Papists are most Zealous for Liberty of Conscience in England though deadly enemies to it elsewhere 3. And whence came the Hiders Body of Divinity that hath infected so many high and low How come so many called Seekers to seem to be at a loss whether there be any Scripture Church or Ministry or which be they 4. How came we contrived into a war with Scotland and Holland when we could keep Peace with Spain with them or us or both there was some sorry cause 5. How came our Armies so corrupted with principles of impiety Licentiousness and Anarchy that so many turned Levellers to say nothing of all the rest and rose up against their Commanders and were fain to be subdued by force and some of them shot to death and many cashiered c. 6. How came it to pass that Papists have been discovered in our Armies and in the several parties in the Land 7. And where are the swarms of the English Jesuites and Fryars that are known to have emptyed themselves upon us from their Colledges beyond Sea 8. How came it to pass that the Petitions of the Protestant Presbyters of London and of other Protestants for the Life of the King could not be heard but that the Levelling party carryed on their work till they had set the forreign and domestick Papists on reproaching the Protestants as King-killers and had though very falsely turned the odium of that horrid kind of crime upon the innocent Protestants which the Papists are known to be most deeply guilty of And now in all Nations they make the ignorant people believe that the death of that King was the work of the Protestants or Presbyterians and the blot of their Religion 9. Whence came it to pass that Levelling went on with continued success till the House of Lords with the Regal Office was taken down and an engagement put on all those ductile souls that would take it to be True to the Common-wealth as established without a King or House of Lords 10. Whence came it that the Weekly News Books contained the
and so it is apparent unto them yet most that are not members of it do not know it Arrians and Mahometans know us to be men professing such and such Articles of faith but they know not that to be the true faith nor us to be the true Church but judge the contrary In this sence contained in these Propositions it is that Protestants deny the Church to have been alwayes Visible and not as the Papists commonly mistake them Prop. 4. We are agreed that this Catholick Church is but One There are not two Visible nor two Mystical Catholick Churches Nor are the Mysticall and Visible two Bellarmine might have spared all his labour that he hath bestowed in vain upon this point to prove that the Visible and Invisible are not two Catholick Churches The Protestants are further from that Opinion then the Papists and it is more suitable to the Popish Interest and Cause to be of that Opinion then to the Protestants If it were not that they are past learning by the advantage of their Infallibility and especially of one man and one so mean condemned by them and that it is unlawfull to be a Teacher of Error I could tell them of a new device by the advantage of this distinction of Catholick Churches for the modelling their mistakes into a more specious plausible form then now it appeareth in to the rest of the Churches But we are glad of their company in any Truth and therefore will not disagree from them in that which makes against themselves One Objection I once heard a Learned Anabaptist cast in our way viz. There may be a Visible Church of hypocrites therefore the Mystical and Visible may be two Answ But the Question was of the Catholick Church and not of a particular Church We confess that some members of the Catholick Church are Mystical and Visible in the several respects before mentioned and that some are Visible and not Mystical or as Bellarmine well calls them Dead Members and not Living and that the Church as Visible is more comprehensive then the Church as Regenerate or Invisible and yet all but One Church though it have more members in it in one respect then in another And we confess that its possible for twenty or an hundred of these Dead members to constitute a particular Church by themselves though it is not usual for Visible Churches to be without Living members and so there may be a particular Visible Dead Member Analogically called a Member or a particular Visible Church that is thus Dead and these be parts of the Catholick Church as Visible But yet there is not two Catholick Churches One Visible and the other Invisible one alive and the other Dead In a Corn field there are 1. Good Corn. 2. Stricken blasted Corn that hath a name and shew but in deed no Corn. 3. Tares darnell cockle and such weeds It is called A Field as it conteineth them all It is called a Corn field only from the Corn. The Univocal proper parts of a Corn field is the Corn only The Visible and Analogical parts are also the blasted ears The darnel and cockle are no parts but noxious accidents There are not two fields of Corn one of true Corn and the of other blasted ears And yet the Corn field taken largely and Analogically hath more parties in it then true Corn and you may perhaps have some particular sheavs that are wholly of that which is blasted which you will call a sheaf of Corn Analogically only but a sheaf of weeds you will not at all call a sheaf of Corn. Even so in the Catholick Church there are sincere Christians which are true and living members and there are Hypocrites which are Analogically members and there are locally mixed many that by denying essential points of the Christian faith or by notorious Impiety do declare themselves to be weeds and no members of the Church at all Prop. 5. We are also Agreed that this One Visible Catholick Church is One Political Holy Society as united in Jesus Christ the Head who teacheth and ruleth it by his Ministers and other Officers in the several parts according to the necessity of each We call it One Political Society 1. Principally because that all the Church is united in this One Soveraign or Head the Lord Jesus and therefore it is called his body 2. They have all the same holy doctrine of faith and Law to live by and be judged by 3. They have all Church Officers of the same sort under Christ to teach and govern them 4. They have all the same kind of Holy Ordinances as Reading Preaching Praying Praise Sacraments c. appointed them by the Lord. 5. They are all engaged in One and the same Holy Covenant to the Lord More might be mentioned and shall be God willing in a peculiar Treatise of Catholicism or the Catholick Church And though Christ himself be not now seen among us yet may he truly be called a Visible Head For 1. He sometime lived visibly on earth 2. And is now the Visible King of all the Church as he is in the Heavens Though we see him not the Celestiall Inhabitants do It is but little of the world that seeth the Pope any more then they see Christ If one unseen to us may be a pretended Visible Head the other may be truly so So that the Body Head Laws Worship c. being Visible so is the Policy Prop. 6. We are agreed also that all these Christians and particular Churches are obliged by Christ even by the very Law of Nature and the ends of their calling and the General Laws of the Gospell to live in as much Love and Unity and Peace as they can and to hold as full and extensive communion as they can that is as far as their work requireth and their Capacity will permit and enable them those that are cohabitans and members of one Congregation must hold local communion in that Congregation unless Necessity prohibite Those that through distance are uncapable of joining in the same Assemblies should yet be conjoined 1. In the same Lord Faith Baptism Covenant Profession 2. In the same bond of Christian special Love 3. In the use of the same sort of holy worship as to the Substance though they differ in circumstances as in the Word Prayer Praises Sacraments c. 4. And in one sort of Church Officers and Government And as far as we have to do with each other all this should be manifested and we should readily own one another as Brethren and true Churches notwithstanding lesser differences Prop. 7. To these ends it is meet that the Bishops or Pastors of the Churches should hold in way of Association as frequent Assemblies as is needfull for the maintaining of mutual Love and Correspondency and right understanding of each other and to manifest their unity and assist each other in the work of God that it may be the more successfully carried on by united strength against
weighty a point without intolerable accusation of it The Soveraign Power or Headship of Pope or Council is not revealed in the Holy Scripture Therefore c. They have not yet produced a Text to prove either of them Those produced by the Italians for the Popes Headship are disclaimed by the French as meaning no such thing and our Writers have largely manifested their abusing of the Text. So have they done of those that are brought for the Headship of Councils These texts are spoke to so fully by Chamier Whitaker Amesius and abundance more that I think it in vain to do it here again That of 1 Tim. 3. 15. that the Church is the pillar and ground of Truth doth not speak a word of a General Council nor a word of Headship The whole Church united in Christ is the Pillar and Ground that is the certain Receptacle and retainer of the Truth the Law of Christ being written in their hearts None seems more to favour their concecit then Ephes 4. 15 16. which Grotius fastens on But even that is against them and not for them For 1. It is Christ and only Christ that is here said to be the head and all other parts contradistinguished and excluded from Headship and the Body is not said to be united in them 2. And it is by association and mutual communication of their several gifts that the parts are compacted together and edifie the whole and not by meeting in any one and deriving from it Object But were not the Apostles General Officers and so the Church united in General officers Answ This is little to the Question For 1. the Apostles had one among them to be the Soveraign or Head of the rest but were of equal power 2. Nor did a major part of their whole number make such a Head for the Church to unite in nor do we read that ever a Major vote carryed it among them against a Minor for they were all guided by the Spirit Yet its true that they met ofter together then a General Council can 2. The Apostles as extraordinarily qualified and as the Secretaries of the Spirit have no successors But the Apostles as ambulatory unfixed Ministers had even then many companions For Barnabas Luke Apollo and abundance more did then go up and down preaching as well as the Apostles yet had not any one of them a special charge of Governing all the Churches nor yet all of them united in a body For the Apostles called not the Evangelists and other fellow workers to consult in Councils about the Government of the whole But both they and their helpers did severally what they could to teach and settle the Churches 3. Who be they now that are the Apostles successors If all the Bishops in the world the case is as we left it If any small number of Primates or Patriarcks how shall we know which and how many If they be not twelve why should one Apostle have a successor and not others But there are no twelve only that lay claim to the succession And if you go further who can limit and say who and how many they be and how far the number may be increased or decreased and by whom In Cyprians dayes he and his fellows in the Council at Carthage declare that all Bishops were equal and none had power over other And so thought others in those times Nor was there then any number of Bishops that claimed to be the sole successors of the Apostles to rule all the rest And if they had when the Church increaseth the Rulers must increase But this is not to the main point Argum. 20. The Scripture doth appropriate the Universal Headship to Christ only and deny it to all others therefore neither Pope nor Council are the Universal Head Eph. 5. 23. It is the peculiar Title of Christ to be Head of the Church to whom it must be subject 1 Cor. 11. 3. The Apostle would have us know that the Head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the Head of Christ is God So that there is a particular Head over some parcell of the body below Christ but to be the Universal Head of every man is the proper Title of Christ In 1 Cor. 12. the unity of the body and diversity of the members is more largely expressed then any where else in Scripture and there when the said unity of the body had been so fully mentioned the Apostle comes to name the Head of that Unity Vers 27. which is only Christ Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular The Church is never called the body of the Pope or of a Council but the body of Christ yea as was even now said in the next words the Apostles Prophets and Teachers are enumerated to the particular members contradistinct from the Head so far are all or any one of them from being the head themselves And in Col. 2. 10 17 19. it is Christ only that is called the Head and the body is said to be of Christ and he only is mentioned as the Center of its Unity And not holding the Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God And Col. 1. 18. And he is the Head of the body the Church If any say that you cannot hence argue Negatively that therefore no one else is the Head I answer They may as well say when it is affirmed that the Lord he is God you cannot thence conclude that Baal is not God The Apostle plainly speaks this of Christ as his peculiar honour And he spoke to men that knew well enough that natural bodies have but one Head unless they be Monsters And he would not so oft insist on this Metaphor intending so great a disparity in the similitude and never discover any such intention So in Ephes 1. 22. He gave him to be Head over all things to the Church which is his Body the fulness of him that filleth all in all And in Ephes 4. the Apostle purposely exhorteth us to the observation of this unity and purposely telleth us by a large enumeration wherein it doth consist but in all he never mentioneth the Pope or a Council yea he plainly excludeth them Vers 3 4. c. Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace There is one body and one spirit even as you are called in one hope of your calling One Lord One Faith One Baptism One God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all But unto every one of us is given Grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the Edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the
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