Europe and Asia who deflowred faire Italy and set fire to the Suburbs of Rome And yet against Gregory the fourth the Sea of their incursions found its bounds that its waves should goe no further The Duke of Burbon saith Fox died censured being slain in the assault of Rome whose Faith hath still prevailed in spight of German Scismes or the powerfull oppositions of Dalmatia Slavonia Bulgaria or the entertainement of Luthers dissolutenesse in Dania Suevia or Calvins subtilities in Zelandia Franciae Genevah and all other blindnesses and powers of the rest of the world Julian dyed with a Vicisâ—i Galileae thou hast overcome ô Galilean meaning our Saviour The Arrian Emperors opposed and were confounded The Jacobines Armenians and Grecians are under the Tyranny of the Turkish Empire whilst they deny obedience to the Church of Rome How many Pagans Emperors before Constantine opposed it and almost all dyed miserably Foure hundred Heretiques before Luther Bernard Lutzen catalog Haeret. whose malice was all dasht into froath upon this Rocke How many of the Kings of Scotland England Portugal France Emperors have been miserable deposed slaine who have contended with this Sea in its jurisdiction Bede lib. 3 4 5. hist Like successe had those Saxon Kings who opposed the Faith of that Sea some whereof submitted and became religious men and those that were Apostates miserably put to death The British Kings disobeyed Rome in the observation of Easter and manner of shaving of the Crownes of Priests a leaven thousand of their Munks who defended this opposition were wrapt up in the sad catastophre of being slaine by the Pagans sword their Country mastred and awed by their hired souldiers and of Kings over them were made subjects to them Upon the stage of every Kingdome these parts have been acted and have concluded in direfull Tragedies from whose every parcell and passage in our conquerors life Edwards Henries Richards the observation of men might store themselves with most stupendous examples of their sufferings in and from their contests with the Roman Sea the revolt defection and falling away from which I shall shew to be pregnant with the unheard of mutations distractions wars and tumults which threatens such fatall trepidations and concussions in the bowels of all moderne States and as effects which are included in their causes so all these evills to be shut up and vertually contained in the principall upon which their departure from Rome is made propositions which seemingly blausible yet the higher they get into esteeme and reputation so much the more powerfully doe they showre downe upon their followers desolation destruction one may behold them at first like little Aery soft and tender strings exhaled and ascending drawn with the more powerful aspect of the Son yet with you shall ere long find descending upon you in hard condensed thunder stone with wild flaming expansions breaking forth of the wombe of that cloude that bred it or like the woodden horse peaceably at first let in yet streight filling the Towne with bands of Armed men A way certainely as Solomon saith which seeming right in a Man 's owne eyes yet the end thereof is death I will first take a view of some of their perticular opinions and see what a dangerous influence they have upon Governments Calvin teaches That the Lawes of the Magistrate doe not binde the Conscience Luther Preaches That it is the nature of the Gospel to rayse wars and seditions among Christians c. that there is no hope of remedy till all humane Laws be taken away and then that which is the Foundation and ground of all Reformation so called that all things are to be setled ordered changed according to their agreeing or disagreeing with Scripture the interpretation whereof must be the perticular judgements of private Men. This rule is equally strong for all sides too stiffe to recant or yeeld to others judgements and this same rule must patronize as many opinions sects as the various fancies of men busied in Scripture can invent or suggest thus naturally flowes from this rule of Reformation not onely diversity of opinions various judgements and opposite Doctrines but strong and numerous parties that cry up such a man for their Apostle or imbrace such an opinion for their Faith severall bodies of considerable strength whose obligations are the defence of such opinions New and severall interests whereby every one studies their owne preservations and upholdings though never so contrary to each other or destructive to the Government where they live so that those who in a contemplative way and abstracted consideraon did but lately talke of the purity of the Gospel of light and truth finde themselves by and by plunged in all practises turbulent seditious unjust oppressive A wrong principle in the understanding doth not onely multiply notionall absurdities but begets and produces sinister actions these numbers of men of severall perswasions and Doctrines comes to be variously planted and spread in severall Countries and Governments whether brought in by way of Traffick negotiating one with another or that such men being banished their own Countries they sow their ill seed in others Provinces or whether the errors be native and sprung up there or that as infection they catch and spred by way of example and imitation yet thus the world becomes to be blended and the subjects in all sorts of Governments get a new Primum mobile to their Allegiance and duty and instead of intending the good of the community where they live they are busied in the advancing of that body which for conformity and holding the same Tenents with them they become concerned in so that if in one Government a sort of them be opprest for their seditious practises presently in all others those of the same opinion are alarumed so that Governors streight finde their Laws silent distractions multiplying and none secured of their owne subjects who doe either profusely throw away on their confederates that treasure and mony which should be the support of their own Country or if those opinions have taken hold of active and generous spirits which endevour still to make others of the same opinion with them presently they expect Forraine ayde and help to change their proper policies and Governors Then through the innate reverence that all people beare to the opinion of Divinity beleeving that the spirit moves upon the Face of their Preachers watry discourses they become powerfull like the winds to make the people as the Sea swell and become unpeaceable whilst each bandies against other and all against the State thus are all the veins of Christendome fil'd with these unwholesome and noxious humors whilst Ambition and Heresie often shake hands together for Ambition seeks but under any pretence to procure the affections and services of men and to apply them to their owne uses and now so great bodies of men wanting but countenance and great persons to be their head and encourage them these two
Thoughts into the smooth and pleasant waters of Devotion which wash the beautifull Walls of Sion rather then into the boysterous Sea of Controversie for which my Barke is too little and I ever returning thence Sea-sicke but onely induced Madam to give your selfe and some other of my worthy Friends satisfaction In the performance of which I shall little value the Censure of those who suffer themselves to be carried away with that easie fault of Fault-finding And doe beseech your Ladyship to give me your Blessing Your Ladyships most humble and most obedient Son R. T. The Contents CAP. I. COnsideration of Religion under the Notion of Reformations Wherein is discourst of severall of their Tempers and Opinions and perticularly of the Church of England CAP. II. Pag. 29. against Melatair An Answer to the particulars of that grand Objection repeated in the Words of Doctor Bramhal If you seeke to obtrude upon us the Roman Church with its Adherents for the Catholique Church excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World from the Communion of Christ Or the Opinions thereof for Articles and Fundamentals of Catholique Faith neither our Reason nor our Religion nor our Charity will suffer us to listen to you 1. Wherein is related the Opinion of Antiquity Of the necessity of keeping communion with the Church of Rome 2. How Protestants agree and how they exclude one another 3. The Catholique Church excludes none but whom their owne errors exclude 4. Of the use of Reason in the Election of Religion CAP. III. A View of some of the chiefe Doctrines pretended to be the cause of their departure 1. Transubstantiation 2. Praying to Saints 3. Vse of Images 4. Praying for the Dead and Purgatory 5. Confession and Satisfaction 6. Of Fre-will CAP. IV. The falling away from the Church under the Notion of Reformation the cause of troubles of State and from the same grounds they build their opinions on arises the grounds of the disturbance of Governments 1. Wherein is declared the ill and unfortunate ends of those who in severall Ages and Kingdomes opposed the jurisdiction of the Sea of Rome 2. True Religion no Enemy to Governments CAP. V. An Invitation of Wits to the Study of Arts and to leave opposing the Church wherein 1. Of the excellency of the Fruits of Piety 2. That they proceed onely from true Religion CAP. I. Consideration of Religion under the Notion of Reformations THe esteeme and value men put on the finding of what is Truth makes all men so plausibly vent their perticular Opinions under the Notion of Reformation so that by the gate and entrance of that word mens understandings are delivered into an inextricable labyrinth of error and no sooner men withdraw their wary steps from one deluding path but they are insensibly conveyed into another and doe but still by the variety of falshoods tend to the Center of those Maeanders nor is there any way to get out of those toyles till by a neglect of all those artificiall fences that each party inclose their opinions with despising the Laws of their mazes men redeeme themselves into the liberty of a dis-interested judgement which neither the name of Calvin or any perticular opinion or nationall alterations hath shut up with prejudice There are sufficient Alarums to hearken to that precept of trying all things and as it is said by one of the Fathers the Church shall never be free from two sorts of persecution outward affliction to try mens affections to God and errors in faith to try their right knowing him but I perceived men subject and tide to any party or to men of perticular opinions rise to no further acknowledgements then of such Tenents and Articles which those men are Patrons of who cry up the Champions of them and are wholly frozen in charity towards those who using the freedom of their reasons make a retreat from their precipices Grotius the glory of his Country and Learning eminent through a universal knowledge and who drew his experience of the state of Christendom at the Fountain head of great affairs imployed all his Junior endevours for reconciling Protestants and bringing them under one band of government yet in the later deliveries of his judgement acknowledges that an impossibility and that there was a necessity to return to Catholique obedience or to communion with the Church of Rome as a Rock against which hitherto all Heresies had beat themselves into froath He made me with more equall eye look upon the ingenuous retractions of Doctor Vaine and Doctor Cressey against whom notwithstanding I had an edge for deserting that which as I thought should have centred all judgements and devotions but after finding them fetch from deep search of antiquity their resolutions of returning to that Church from which the ill accidents and obliquity of late times had misled men with reluctancy I found their testimonies true and my most rebelling understanding their reasons most imperiously brought to capitulate finding that though men professe to become ready captives of Truth yet they are unwilling to think but that they are in its fetters allready wherefore I obtained of my selfe to discharge all pre-ingaged affections all byas of Faction and interest resolving to pay that Homage to my Creator which I should finde he required of me knowing that when he commands a Sacrifice nature must sleep affections be silent I found this likewise a great deale more plausible to my selfe than easie with faithfulnesse to put in practice I perceived that a constant and steddy Judgement was required to enter upon the quarrellings of Polemick Discourses where were used so much subtilty in arguing partiall proceeding ingenious diversion where wits were imployd for conquest ayded with the advantages of Language and Science not for to be rewarded with the triumph of Truth but to beare the Lawrell for having conquered men with words though not satisfied them with reason Wherefore I considered the difference between what may be said what should be thought and therefore to discharge that duty which a man owes his own reason for the utmost examination and scrutiny of Truth I consider'd the Foundations and Authorities upon which severall parties at the same time did challenge mens devotions 1. The Presbyterians who acknowledging and ingeniously professing to be more convinced by then tyde to the Fathers or Antiquity equall their owne Interpretations and Preachings to the dignity and verity of the Text extolling and crying up their imaginary discipline to the meanes of setting up of which they sacrifice all Morall Civill Ecclesiasticall obligations counting it want of Zeale in Gods service to be true in any relation when for the promotion of the Covenant it is expedient to be failing in them this is their invention to which they ascribe an Apotheosis they dresse it up and adorne it with Scripture Phrase making the two Attributes of Gods Mercy and Justice all the threats and promises of either but to damn and crown mens
under which they doe so peevishly militate A Satyre would be the best stile to describe the animosities they prosecute each others Opinion with and no lesse would it become all those angry fits that they expresse in their severall wandrings and errors they throw a Sea of gall and bitternesse after those who upon mature examination relinquish those Mazes they leade their followers in What should one speake of the fruitfull Independency big with all sorts of Opinions Brownists Anabaptists Arminian Zwinglian Aecolampadian and all these the English Church Protestant Episcopall banishes excludes from them The bosome of the Catholique Church is spread wide to intertaine all whom with earnest Prayers and endevors it invites and desires zealous of their salvation which onely in an ordinary way is to be had there The ancient Heretiques Arrians Nestorians Vtichians whose reliques yet possesse some place in the World are excluded likewise by themselves who make this objection and besides their owne Reformation hath been a varied unconstant one that except they would fal in love with this Word Reformation I know not well what can be understood by it H. 8. first onely threw out the Pope but retained the seven Sacraments after by degrees they were taken away and new Doctrines brought in with relaxations of Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and sometime it hath been wholly submitted to the Presbyterian humour in confusedly going to their Churches and so generally using their Directory whereas according to their own opinions vvithout Bishops no Ordination can be Quo teneam nodo They complaine That the opinion of the Church of Rome are obtruded upon them for Artikles and Fundamentals in Faith Doth not all the Wildernesse of their opinions their opiniotive Idolatries each one avouching their Doctrine with Thus saith the Lord Doth not all their Anarchies and irregularities flow in upon them by letting those antient bulworks goe into neglect which stood betwixt a Sea of error and themselves that is in stead of standing upon the old wayes to view and discover truth from they have onely disdainefully trampled upon them and in stead of asking the Fathers to see vvhat they held and thought they will make bold to thinke the Fathers mistaken if they finde themselves contradicted by them and hold and thinke of them as not worth asking Thus doe they discountenance Tradition and the establishments of the Church The Apostle saith When he should come he would order things Now saith the Father what hath beene universally observed was ordered by him St. Augustine de Bap. contra Donatist That which the Universall Church holds and is not Instituted by Councels but alwayes retained it s probably beleeved not to be delivered but by Apostolicall authority Their error that oppose the authority of the Church and the prerogative of the Apostolicall Seat flowes from this wretched pudled Fountaine that is Reducing Reformation to the Scripture it selfe interpreted by mens perticular judgements The holy and sacred letters are the blessed records of our salvation Celestiall Messages Angels of peace winged with love which hover over mens soules with celestiall protections comforts and graces they are the glasse wherein is beheld the beauty of holinesse the splendor of the Eternall Father the Image of his Sonne Yet as S. Austine saith The words of the Scripture are to be so understood as the world hath beleeved which it self foretold should beleeve they were writ upon severall occasions to perticuler Churches which faithfully kept what was committed unto them whether by writing or by word of mouth the Scripture confessing That if all had been writ the world would not have contained the Books and every where they enjoyne the hearkning to the Church which who should not heare are excluded from Christian communion by their holy censure The Church was then establisht when divers of these sacred letters were directed to them and by them and what other rules were delivered taught them they governed taught administred corrected and absolved so that they were like the Testimony in the Arke the Church of God had the custody and interpretation of them so that who should Sacrilegiously steale the testimony out of the Ark and run away with Scripture and impaile Congregations about with new goverments and cry The Word of the Lord and quarrell at the other orders and Traditions of the Church he would be judged by all to have ravisht the spheares of government to have disordered the Divine dispensation of his goodnesse towards us Neither can they pretend any right over those Laws who are condemned by those Laws Waters out of their own channels beget strange and forraine tasts and this is the grand and unhaypy sophistry of this age a bene conjunctis ad male divisa Scripture divided from the Church seems to countenance every party in their fancies making it like a Looking-glasse wherin they doe but see their owne Image not Gods and by an inward delusion view the reflections of their owne wits flattering their understandings whilst by a foreprepared conceipt they finde some countenance to their own inward thoughts Whereas Scriptures the Oracles of God are truth not the Pen or the Presse being writ because they were true not true because they were writ They say neither their Religion Reason nor Charity will permit them to acknowledge the Church of Rome for their Mother I shall now view the use of Reason in the election of Religion and see if it well directed doth hinder them When that which flows from well establisht authority shall be call'd in question or disputed through the violence and disorder of Factions the upholders of Government and Justice have recourse to the Origens and Fountaines of Justice shewing how all their Acts and Decrees received their obligatory nature from the agreement they had with those rules of Reason and those severall Laws which constituted them to be good and just so that they who before found onely the effects of peace by a due obedience to them now search into the reasons and causes why they were of such power to produce such effects And those who before pleasantly lived in the building laboriously now seeks the Foundation The mysteries of Religion being above reason were confirmed with mirakles which are above nature but whether this or that Religion be the same with that which was so confirmed must be examined according to all those rules which though divinely given must now by reason be examined whether they be conformable to them or not The protitipe was from Heaven the originall supernaturall but for to prove the continuance of it we must compare and examine it according to all that hath been delivered concerning the same formerly And it s no small difficulty to chase truth through its severall channels The Laws of Gods Church challenge our obedience the opposing wherof is Scisme because we are kept in one intire body by the observation of them the neglect whereof cuts us off from that communion Civill Governments and
Policies have their Acts and Statutes the opposing whereof makes men guilty of sedition and faction because there is a solution of continuity made and a dividing of them into parts which threatens destruction of the whole the preservation whereof is the end of all good Governments The Laws of Reason distinguish Vice and Vertue What way is there to distinguish Ecclesiasticall obedience from Scismaticall combinations but to prove the universality of the Church its constant succession with the exercise of its jurisdiction and that those who have seperated themselves from it bears a later date begun from some accidentall change in Government the Pride of their Leaders or the ignorance and heap'd up errors of the people What differences Vice and Vertue not a locall distinction of being placed in the midst of Vice but as such actions observe the dictates of right Reason which assignes them their end their degrees of heats and motion Who views not the establishment of ancient Common-wealths in their first and Primitive Laws their Records Acts of State and a constant exercise of a Supreme Authority When men with the armes of reason encounter the desert soules of Atheists doe they not prove the Impression of a Deity ingraven on the soules of all though they erre in paying their Homage Doe they not bring reasons from severall Sciences for the demonstration of à natura naturans or first mover or Supreme Governor Those who prove the truth of Christian Religion against Turkes and Jews doe they not pleade the innocency and simplycity of those men that first Preached Christ crucified that they could have no end but the hope of an Immortall Glory to beare them out in all their sufferings they deliver'd a Doctrine to the world an enemy to carnall pleasures and the ambition of the world and with disarmed innocency to prevaile over the furious malice of their Persecutors must needs prove an omnipotent power that ayded them and having brought them to the acknowledgement that God is the Author of our Faith then they finde a necessity to receive the speaker for a full demonstration of the truth of all that is spoke Then doe they all to heavenly rules give place Which passions kill reason doth deface The Church is builded upon the Divine promises That the gates of Hell should not prevaile against it and we see that neither Tyrants whose angers are Massacres nor an Angel of Light-seeming falshood hath prevailed against his Church neither the courses nor discourses of mens Pens and Wits have been prevalent against it In hanc manca ruâ—s fortuna It hath continued in the Succession of two hundred and sixty Popes and according to the Sibils Prophesie The Fishers hooke hath subdued the Roman Empire and conquered the World verified in St. Peters Successors Thus Reason may have its satisfactions and hath a latitude of discussing and being active in those things which are its proper spheare which are arguments of credibility the light of nature will conduct us a great way in our duties which we may carry in our hands till they be obscured with the clearer lights of grace A Starre conducted the Wise Men to the Sonne of Righteousnesse and though illuminations from Heaven sometime beate downe the fiercest Saul to the ground that is at once to make them humble and to know his will and though sometimes by his omnipotent grace he as it were casts his servants at once in a mould as Saint Paul was called Apostolus fusilis yet reason otherwhile which is Gods Law too must be summon'd up to our ayde whilst by degrees we recover our falling steps and unwinde our selves out of error Hos quaesitum munus in usus Is there any way to weane mens minds nurst in the imbraces of error but the imployment and use of their reason To discover what their opinions owe to their cradle what to a rationall examination men beare an affection to opinions as to the places where they were borne though it be the rude rugged mountains of the Swisses The soule with difficulty parts with its first imbibitions and with pain climes the rising Hill of Truth Many are the innate delusions of mens soules occult adhesions and secret fastnesses which are not cassierd till their judgements are informed from what source they spring till by the thred of reason they unwinde themselves out of that Labyrinth nature or their first course delivered them into Mens judgements suffer from society and example retorts upon our understanding Custome and Affection are mediums which represent things different from their true proportions nothing can infranchise mens minds or set them free from those inchanting imbraces but the Power and Soveraignty of Reason Stultus non accipit verba prudentiae Nisi ea dixeris quae sunt in corde ejus Now as Reason compels them to return to the Church so will the tenents of their own Religion if great soule-killing opinions be not found to make the Gulph and the mega kasma Some perticulars whereof in the next Chapter I shall examine and then I hope their Charity is such to themselves and others that they will be as good as their words Thus in a short Map I have let you see That the Church of Rome with its adherents doth necessarily challenge their Vnion with and obedience to by the Voyce of Antiquity which hath still kept its ancient deposited Doctrines written and unwritten whose bosome is ever open to receive all but whom their owne Scisme and Error excludes and that both their Reason Religion and Charity command a returne CAP. III. A View of the perticular Doctrines pretended to be the cause of their not returning THe just exceptions against any opinion is either want of Truth or want of Piety but they being convertibilia I shall shew That as these Doctrines excepted against are true so likewise they have the Impressions of God ingraven on them though there be two pretences of exception that they make First Objecting to generall Councels new creation of Truths when they doe no more then declare what are so Nextly From the words they make use of to condemne Error and Heresie They would have it that the Councels make new Artikles when as they pretend to signifie no other thing by those words then that which is certainely knowne to be the Ancient and Orthodox Doctrine The Reformed Religion so called thus stands in opposition and is a contradictory and a negative one and is an angry and verball contention oppositions of Science falsely so called There hath not wanted those in the Church of Rome that have exactly tride the depths of all those studies whether in the knowledge of Languages for knowing the Text in the Originall or of History or Schoole-reasoning wherein any opponents can pretend to contest with them in Convect Lond. 1562. Art 16. If they will appeale to Scripture as sometimes they doe how many Catholique Champions have faithfully studied the literall sence the mysticall the Historicall