is lawfull for him to depose Emperours I hope you will not be offended at the calling over these Heresies because the so doing is not suited to our present design I took them out of your Cardinal Baronius in the place above quoted who hath placed them as on a pillar V. D. P. L. P. where they may be easily read by all men And that you may not think that these were the Heresies of Gregory alone the same Baronius affirms that these Dictates were confirmed in a Synod at Rome whereby they became the Heresies of your whole Church Did Peter thus feed the sheep of Christ seeing Pasce oves meas is the great pretence for all these exorbitances Alas Hic alienus oves custos his mulget in horâ— all this is but the shearing milking and slaying of a stranger the shepherds being driven into corners But have these noisome Heresies of your Church think you passed without controll Was she not judged censured written against and condemned in the person of her chief Pastor You must be a very stranger unto all History if you can imagine any such thing A Councell assembled by the Emperor at Worms in Germany reckons up the miscarriages of this Hildebrand and pronounceth him deposed with all those that adhered unto him Another Synod an 1080. at Brixia in Bavaria condemns him also for the same causes All the Heroick Potentates of Europe especially the Emperors of Germany the Kings of England and France with whole Assemblies of their Clergy have alwayes opposed and condemned this branch of your Supremacy And to this purpose hundreds of their Laws Decrees Edicts and Declarations are at this day extant 4. Your Pope's Personall Infallibility with the requisite Qualifications is another Hereticall Opinion that your Church hath fallen by And herein you are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned of your selves and we need no further witness against you you have been often taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very fact I know there is an Opinion secretly advancing amongst some of you whereby you would cast out of the bounds of your defence this Personall Infallibility of your Pope but we have no more reason to esteem that opinion the Doctrine of your Church than we have to conclude that the Jesuits new Position asserting him Infallible in matter of fact is so And though I know not perfectly what your opinion is in this matter yet I may take a time to shew how utterly unserviceable unto your purpose the new way of the explication of Infallibility is For it hath but these two generall inconveniences attending it First that it is not the opinion of your Church Secondly if that be the only Infalliblity we are to rest on the whole claim of your Church and its interest therein falls to the ground both which I hope to have an opportunity to manifest In the mean time we take that for the Doctrine of your Church which is declared by its self so to be which is explained and defended by her most famous Champions And indeed you in your Fiat assert as I have shewed the Pope Personally to be an unerring guide which is that we enquire after Bellarmine tells us that all Catholicks agree in these two things 1. Pontificem cum Generali Concilio non posse errare in condendis decretis fidoi vel generalibus praeceptis morum That the Pope with a generall Councell cannot erre in making decrees of faith or generall precepts concerning manners 2. Pontificem solum vel cum suo particulari Concilio aliquid in re dubia statuentem sive errare possit sive non esse ab omnibus fidelibus obedienter audiendum All believers must willingly obey the Pope either alone or with his particular Councell determining in doubtfull matters whether he may erre or no. I confess if this be so and he must be obeyed whether he do right or wrong whether he teacheth truly or falsly it is to no great purpose to talk of his Infallibility for follow him we must whither ever he leads us though it should be to Hell And the Catholick Proâ—osition that he asserts himself is that Summus Pontifex cum totam Ecclesiam docet in his quae ad fidem pertinent nullo casu errare potest The Pope when he teacheth the whole Church can in no Caseerre in those things which appertain unto faith De Rom. Pontif. lib. 4. cap. 2 3. What a Blind that is of teaching the whole Church children can see The Pope can no way teach the whole Church but as he declares his opinion or judgement which may be divulged unto many as those of another man Let us see then how well they have made good this their Infallibility and how well their judgement hath been approved of by the Church of old I will not here mind you of the Decree fathered on Clemens wherein he determines that all things among Christians ought to be common and among them wives because I know it is falsly imposed on him though you may be justly charged with it who are the Authors of those forgeries whereof that is a part Nor shall I rake the Epistles which you ascribe unto divers of the Ancient Bishops of Rome that are full of ignorance errors and pittifull non-sence because they are questionless Pseudopigraphcall though you who own them may be justly charged with their follies Nor will I much insist on the Testimony of Tertullian in his Book against Praxeas that the Bishop of Rome owned the Prophesies of Montanus untill Praxeas perswaded him to the Contrary because it may be you will say that perhaps Tertullian spake partially in favour of a Sect whereunto he was himself addicted though for ought I know he is as sufficient a Witness in matter of fact as any one man upon the Roll of Antiquity But what say you to Marcellinus Did he not sacrifice to Idols which according unto you is a mixt misdemeanour in faith and manners Con. Tom. 1. Vita Marcell and therefore certainly a shrewd impeachment of his Infallibility and was he not judged for it What think you of Liberius did he not subscribe to Arianism Soomen tells you expresly that he did so Lib. 4. cap. 15. And so doth Athanasius Epist. ad Solitarios giving the reason why he did so namely out of fear And so doth Hierome both in Script Ecclesiast Fortunat. and in Euseb. Chron. Pope Honorius was solemnly condemned for a Monothelite-Heretick in the sixth generall Councell Act. 12 13. which Sentence was afterwards ratified by your own darling the second of Nice Act. 3 and Act. 7. and is mentioned in a decretall Epistle of Pope Leo the second So Infallible was he during his life so infallible was he thought to be when he was dead whilest he lived he taught Heresie and when he was dead he was condemned for an Heretick and with him the Principle which is the hindg of your present faith Neither did Vigilius behave himself one jot better in his Chair
gathered out of your Fiat which you thus lay down It is say you frequently pleaded by our Author that all things as to Religion were ever quiet and in 〈◊〉 before the Protestants Relinquishment of the Roman Sea That ever is your own addition but let it pass what say you hereunto This Principle you pretind is drawn out of Fiat Lux not because it is there but only to open a door to your self to exspatiate into some wide generall discourse about the many wars distractions alterations that have been aforetime up and down in the world in some severall Ages of Christianity And you thereforê say it is frequently pleaded by me because indeed I never spake one word of it and it is in truth a false and fond Assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with the Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account S r I take you to be the Author of Fiat Lux and if you are so I cannot but think you were a sleep when you talk'd at this rate The Assertion is false and fond you speak not one word of it Pray S r take a little advice of your Son Fiat not to talk on this manner and you will wonder your self how you came to swallow so much confidence as in the face of the world to vent such things as these He tells us from you p. 234 235 236. Chap 4. Ed. 2. that After the conversion of this Land by the Children of blessed S t Benet notwithstanding the interposition of the Norman Conquest that all men lived peaceably together without any the least disturbance upon the account of Religion untill the end of King Henry the eighth's raign about five hundred years after the Conquest See also what in generall you discourse of all places to this purpose p. 221 222 And p. 227. you do in express terms lay down the position which here you so exclaim against as false and fond but you may make as bold with it as you please for it is your own Never had this Land say you for so many hundred years as it was Catholick upon the account of Religion any disturbance at all whereas after the exile of the Catholick belief in our Land from the period of King Henry the seventh's Raign to these dayes we have been in actuall disquiet or at least in fears Estne haec tunica filii tui Are not these your words Doth not your Son Fiat wear this livery And do you not speak to this purpose in twenty other places Is it not one of the main suppositions you proceed upon in your whole discourse You do well now indeed to acknowledg that what you spake was fond and false and you might do as much for the most that you have written in that whole discourse but now openly to deny what you have asserted and that in so many places that is not so well done of you There are S t many wayes to free your self from that dammage you feel or fear from the Animadversions When any thing is charged on you or proved against you which you are not able to defend you may ingenuously acknowledg your mistake and that without any dishonour to you at all Good men have done so so may you or I when we have just occasion It is none of your Tenents that you are all of you Infallible or that your personall mistakes or miscarriages will prejudice your Cause Or you might pass it by in silence as you have done with the things of the most importance in the Animadversions and so keep up your reputation that you could Reply to them if you would or were free from flyes And we know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Menander speaks Silence is with many the best Answer Or you might attempt to disprove or answer as the case requires But this that you have fixed upon of denying your own words is the very worst course that you could have chosen upon the account either of Conscience or Reputation However thus much we have obtained One of the chief pretences of your Fiat is by your own confession false and fond It is indeed no wonder that it should be so it was fully proved to be so in the Animadversions but that you should acknowlâ—dge it to be so is somewhat strange and it would have been very welcome news had you plainly owned your conviction of it and not renounced your own off-spring But I see you have a mind to the benefit you aymed at by it though you are ashamed of the way you used for the obtaining of it and therefore adde That neither you nor I can deny that such as keep the unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out on that account But this on the first consideration seems to mee no very singular Priviledge me-thinks a Turk a few an Arian may say the same of their Societies It being no more but this So long as you agree with us you shall be sure to agree with us They must be very unfriendly minded towards you that will call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into question Yet there remains still one Scruple on my mind in reference unto what you assert I am not satisfied that there is in your Church any such unity of faith as can keep men from falling out or differing in and about the Doctrines and Opinions they profess If there be the children of your Church are marvellous morose that they have not all this while learned to be quiet but are at this very day writing volumes against one another and procuring the Books of one another to be prohibited and condemned which the writings of one of the learnedest of you in this Nation have fately not escaped I know you will say sometimes that though you differ yet you differ not in things belonging unto the unity of faith But I fear this is but a Blind an Apron of Fig-leaves What you cannot agree in be it of never so great importance you will agree to say that it belongs not unto the unity of faith when things no way to be compared in weight and use with them so you agree about them shall be asserted so to do And in what you differ whilest the scales of Interest on the part of the combatanfs hang eeven all your differences are but in School and disputable points But if one party prevail in Interest and Reputation and render their Antagonists inconsiderable as to any outward trouble those very Points that before were disputable shall be made necessary and to belong to the Vnity of Faith as it lately happened in the Case of the Jansenists And here you are safe again The Unity of the Faith is that which you agree in and that which you cannot agree about belongs not unto it as you tell us though you talk at another rate among your selves But wee must think that the Unity of
A VINDICATION â—F THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX Wherein the Principles OF THE ROMAN CHURCH As to Moderation Unity and Truth are Examined And sundry Important Controversies concerning the Rule of Faith Papal Supremacy the Mass Images c. Discussed By John Owen D. D. LONDON Printed for Ph. Stephens at the Gilded-Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard and George Sawbridge at the Bible on Ludgate Hill 1664. Imprimatur Tho. Grigg R. in Christ. P. D. Humfr. Episc. Lond. à Sac. domesticis Decemb. 9. 1663. TO THE READER Christian Reader ALthough our Lord Jesus Christ hath laid blessed and stable foundations of Unity Peace and Agreement in judgement and affection amongst all his Disciples and given forth Command for their attendance unto them that thereby they might glorifie him in the world and promote their own spiritual advantage yet also foreknowing what effect the crafts of Satan in conjunction with the darkness and lusts of men would produce that no offence might thence be taken against him or any of his wayes he hath sorewarned all men by his Spirit what Differences Divisions Schisms and Heresies would ensue on the publication of the Gospel and arise even among them that should profess subjection unto his Authority and Law And accordingly it speedily came to pass For what Solomon sayes that he discovered concerning the first Creation namely that God made man upright but he sought out many inventions or immixed himself in endless questions the same fell out in the new creation or erection of the Church of Christ. The state of it was by him formed upright and all that belonged unto it were of one heart and one soul. But this harmony and perfection of beauty in answer to his Will and Institution lasted not long among them many who mixed themselves with those Primitive converts or succeeded them in their profession quickly seeking out perverse inventions Hence in the dayes of the Apostles themselves there were not only schisms and divisions made in sundry Churches of their own planting with disputes about Opinions and needless impositions by those of the Circumcision who believed but also opposition was made unto the very fundamental Doctrines of the Deity and Incarnation of the Son of God by the Spirit of Antichrist then entring into the world as is evident from their Writings and Epistles But yet as all this while our Lord Jesus Christ according to his promise preserved the root of Love and Vnity amongst them who sincerely believed in him entire as he doth still and will do to the end by giving the one and selfsame spirit to guide sanctifie and unite them all unto himself so the care and Authority of the Apostles during their abode in the flesh so far prevailed that notwithstanding some temporary impeachments of Love and Union in or amongst the Churches yet no signal prejudice of any long continuance befell them For either the miscarriages which they fell into were quickly retrieved by them the truth infallibly cleared and provision made for Peace Vnity and Moderation in and about things of less concernment or else the evil guilt and danger of them remained only with and upon some particular persons the notoriety of whose wickedness and folly cast them out by common consent from the communion of all the Disciples of Christ. But no sooner was that sacred Society 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with their immediate successors as Egesippus speaks in Eusebius departed unto their rest with God but that the Church it self which untill then was preserved a pure and incorruppted Virgin began to be vexed with abiding contention and otherwise to degenerate from its primitive original purity From thence forward especially after the heat of bloody and fiery persecutions began to abate far the greatest part of Ecclesiastical Records consists in relations of the Divisions Differences Schisms and Heresies that fell out amongst them who professed themselves the Disciples of Christ. For those failings errors and mistakes which were found in men of peaceable minds the Church indeed of those dayes extended her Peace and Vnity if Justin Martyr and others may be believed to such as the seeming warmer zeal and really colder charity of the succeeding Ages could not bear withal But yet divisions and disputes were multiplyed into such an excess as that the Gentiles fetcht advantage from them not only to reproach all Christians withall but to deterr others from the proâ—ession of Christianity So Celsus in his third Book deals with them for saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 At first when they were but a few they were of one mind or agreed well enough But being increased and the multitude of them scattered abroad they were presently divided again and again and every one would have his own party or division and as in a divided multitude opposed and reproved one another so that they had no communion among themselves but only in name which for shame they retain So doth he for his purpose as is the manner of men invidiously exaggerate the differences that were in those early times amongst Christians for he wrote about the dayes of Trajan the Emperour That others of them took the same course is testified by Clemens Stromat lib. 7. Augustin lib. de Ovib. c. 15. and sundry others of the antient Writers of the Church But that no just offence as to the truth or any of the wayes of Christ might hence be taken we are as I said before forewarned of all these things by the Lord himself and his Apostles as also of the use and necessity of such events and issues Whence Origen cryes out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Most admirable unto me seems the saying of Paul There must be Heresies amongst you that those who are approved may be manifest Nor can any just excception be hence taken against the Gospel it self For it doth not belong unto the excellency or â—ignity of any thing to free it self from all opposition but only to preserve it self from being prevailed against and to remain victorious as the sacred truths of Christ have done and will do unto the end Not a few indeed in these evil dayes wherein we live the ends of the world and the difficulties with which they are attended being come upon us persons ignorant of things past and regardless of things to come in bondage to their present lusts and pleasures are ready to make use of the pretence of divisions and differences among Christians to give up themselves unto Atheism and indulge to their pleasures like the beasts that perish Let us eat and drink for too morrow we shall dye Quid aliud inscribi poterat sepulchro bovis But whatever they pretend to the contrary it may be easily evinced that it is their personal dislike of that holy obedience which the Gospel requireth not the differences that are about the Doctrines of it which alienates their minds from the truth They will not some of them foregoe all Philosophical inquiries after the
they never opposed the Merit of Good works as you fain me to say in your Epistle neither the one nor the other but I say that Protestants teach the Christian Doctrine of Good works as revealed in the Gospell and oppose the Merit of Good works by you invented and as by you explained and now avowed And whilest you talk at this rate as if you were perfectly innocent you begin your story as if you had nothing to do but to accuse another of fraud like him that cried Nec si me miserum fortuna Sinonem Finxit vanum etiam mendacemque improba fingit when you know what his business was But the truth is when you talk of the merit of Good works you stand in a slippery place and know not well what you would have nor what it is that you would have me believe Your Tridentine Convention hath indeed provided a limber Cothurnus to fit if it were possible your severall statures and postures But generall words are nothing but the proportion of a Cirque or Arena for Dogmatists to contend within the limits of The Antient Ecclesiasticall importance of the word Merit wherein as it may be proved by numberless instances it denoted no more than to obtain you have the most of you rejected and do urge it in a strict Legall sense denoting working for a reward and performing that which is proportionable unto it as the labour of the Hireling is to his wages according unto the strict Rules of Justice See your Rhem. An. 1 Cor. 3. Heb. 6. 10. So is the judgment I think of your Church explained by Suarez Tom. 1. in Thom. 3. d. 41. A Supernaturall work saith he proceeding from Grace in its self and in its own nature hath a proportion unto and condignity of the reward and 〈◊〉 of sufficient value to be worth the same And you seem to be of the same opinion in owning that description of Merit which Protestants reject which I gave in my Animadversions namely an intrinsecall worth and value in works arising from the exact answerableness unto the Law and proportion unto the reward so as on the Rules of Justice to deserve it Of the same mind are most of you See Andrad Orthodox Explic. lib. 6. Bagus de Merit Op. Lib. 1. cap. 9. Though I can assure you Paul was not Rom. 6. 23. Ch. 8. 18. so that you must not take it ill If Protestants oppose this Doctrine with Testimonies out of his Epistle to the Romanes as well as out of many other portions of the holy Writ for they look upon it as an opinion perfectly destructive of the Covenant of Grace Nay I must tell you that some of your own Church and way love not to talk at this high and lofty rate Ferus speaks plain unto you on Mat. 20. If you desire to hold the Grace and favour of God make no mention of your own merits Durand slicks not to call the opinion which you seem to espouse temerarious yea blasphemous Quest. 2. d. 27. In the explication of your distinction of congruity and condignity how wofully are you divided as also in the application of it there is no end of your altercations about it the termes of it being horrid uncouth strangers to Scripture and the antient Church of an arbitrary signification about which men may with probabilities contend to the worlds end and yet the very soul and life of your Doctrine of Merit lies in it Some ascribe Merit of Congruity to works before Grace and of Condignity to them done in a state of Grace some Merit of Congruity to them done by Grace and Merit of Condignity they utterly exclude Some give Grace and the Promise a place in Merit some so explain it that they can have no place at all therein Generally in your Books of Devotion when you have to do with God you begin to bethink your selves and speak much more humbly and modestly than you do when you endeavour to dispute subtilly and quell your Adversaries And I am not without hope that many of you do personally believe as to your own particular concernments far better than when you doctrinally express your selves when you contend with us As when that famous Emperour Charles the fist after all his bustles in and about Religion came to die in his retirement he expresly renounced all merit of works as a proud sigment and gave up himself to the sole Grace and Mercy of God in Jesus Christ on whose purchase of Heaven for him he alone relied Toto pectori in Deum revolutus sic ratiocinabatur saith the renowned Thuanus Hist. lib. 21. se quidem indignum esse qui propriis meritis regnum Caelorum obtineret sed Dominum Deum suum qui illud duplici jure obtinuit patris haereditate passionis merito altero contentum esse alterum sibi donare ex cujus dono illud sibi merito vindicet hacque fiducia fretus minime confundatur neque enim oleum misericordiae nisi in vase fiducia poni hanc homines fiducium esse à se deficientis innitentis Domino suo alioqui propriis meritis fidere non fidei esse sed perfidiae peccata remitti per Dei indulgentiam ideoque credere nos debere peccata deleri non posse nisi ab eo cuisoli peccavimus in quem peccatum non cadit per quem solum nobis peccata condonantur Words worthy of a lasting memory which they will not fail of where they are recorded Casting himself saith that excellent Historian with his whole soul upon God he thus reasoned That for his part he was on the account of any merits of his own unworthy to obtain the Kingdom nf Heaven but his Lord and God who hath a double right unto it one by inheritance of his Father the other by the merit of his own passion contented himself with the one granted the other unto him by whose grant he rightly or deservedly laid claim thereunto and resting in this faith or confidence he was not confounded for the oyl of mercy is not powred but into the vessel of faith this is the faith or confidence of a man fainting or despairing in himself and resting on his Lord and otherwise to trust to our own merits is not an act of faith but of infidelity or perfidiousness that sins are forgiven by the mercy of God and that therefore we ought to believe that sins cannot be blotted out or forgiven but by him against whom we have sinned who sinneth not and by whom alone our sins are pardoned This S r is the faith of Protestants in reference unto the merit of works which that Wise and Mighty Emperour after all his Military actings against them found the only safe Anchor for his soul in extremis his only relief against crying out with Hadrian Animula vagula blandula Hospes comesque corporis Quae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula frigida nudula Nec ut soles dabis jocos The only
Apostasie also For why must that needs be the notion of these termes in the division you made that you now express Is it from the strict sense and importance of the words themselves or from the Scripturall or Ecclesiasticall use of them or whence is it that it must be so and that it is so None of these will give you any relief or the least countenance unto your fancie Both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in themselves of an indifferent signification denoting things or acts good or evill according to their accidentall limitations and applications It is said of some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they will depart from the faith 1 Tim. 4. 1. And the same Apostle speaking of them that name the name of Christ sayes let every one of them depart from iniquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 2. 19. so that the word it self signifies no more but a single and bare departure from anything way rule or practice be it good or bad wherein a man hath been ingaged or which he ought to avoid and fly from And this is the use of it in the best Greek Authors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are such in Homer who are farre distant or remote on any account from any thing or place And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Aristotle things very remote To leave any place company thing Society or Rule on any cause is the common use of the word in Thucydides Plutarch Lucian and the rest of their companions in the propriety of that language Apostasia by Ecclesiasticall writers is restrained unto either a back sliding in Faith subjective and manners or a causeless relinquishment of any Truth before professed So the Jews charge Paul Acts 21. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou teachest Apostasie from Moses Law Such also is the nature of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a speciall option choyce or way in profession of any Truth or Error So Paul calls Pharisaisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 26. 5. the most exact heresie or way of Religion among the Jews And Clemens Alexandrinus Strom lib. 8. calls Christian Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the best Heresie And the great Constantine in one of his Edicts calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Catholick or generall Heresie and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most holy Heresie The Latines also constantly used that word in a sense indifferent Cato faith Cicero est in ea heresi quae nullum orationis florem sequitur The words therefore themselves you see are of an indifferent signification having this difference between them that the one for the most part is used to signifie the Relinquishment of that which a man had before embraced and the other a choice or embracing of that which a man had not before received or admitted And this difference is constantly observed by all Ecclesiasticall writers who afterwards used these words in the worst or an evill sense so that Apostasie in this appropriation of it denotes the relinquishment of any Important Truth or way in Religion and Heresie the choice or embracement of any new destructive Opinion or Principle or way in the profession thereof A man then may be an Apostate by partiall Apostasie that is depart from the Profession of some Truth he had formerly embraced or the performance of some duty which he was engaged in without being an Heretick or choosing any new opinion which he did not before embrace Thus you signally call a Monke that deserts his Monasticall Profession an Apostate though he embrace no opinion which is condemned by your Church or which you think hereticall And a man may be an Heretick that is choose and embrace some new false opinion which he may coyn out of his own imagination without a direct renunciation of any Truth which before he was instructed in And this is that which I intended when I told you that your Church is fallen by partiall Apostasie and by Heresie Shee hath renounced many of the important Truths which the old Roman Church once believed and professed and so is fallen by Apostasie And she hath invented or coyned many Articles pretended to be of faith which the old Roman Church never believed and so is fallen by Heresie also Now what say you hereunto Why good S r in this division Apostasie is set to express a totall relapse in opposition to Heresie which is the partiall But who gave you warrant or leave so to set them It would it may be somewhat serve your turn in evading the Charge of Apostasie that lyes against your Church but Good S r will not prove that you may thus confound things for your advantage Idolatry is Heresie and Apostasie is Heresie and what not because you suppose you have found a way to escape the imputation of Heresie I say then yet again in answer to your enquiry that your Church is fallen by Apostasie in her relinquishment of many important truths and neglect of many necessary duties which the old Roman Church embraced and performed That these may be the more evident unto you I shall give you some few instances of your Apostasie desiring only that you would grant me that the primitive Church of Rome believed and faithfully retained the doctrine of truth wherein from the Scripture it was instructed That Church believed expresly that all they who die in the Lord do rest from all their labours Rev. 14. 8. which truth you have forsaken by sending many of them into the flames of Purgatory It believed that the sufferings of this life are not worthy of the glory that shall be revealed in us Rom. 8. 18. Your Church is otherwise minded asserting in our works and sufferings a merit of and condignity unto the glory that shall be received It believed that we were saved freely by grace by faith which is not of our selves but the gift of God not by works left any one should boast Eph 2. 8. Tit. 3. 5. and therefore besought the Lord not to enter into judgement with them because in his sight no flesh could be justified Psal. 130. 4. 143. 2. And you are apostatized from this part of their faith It believed that Christ was once only offered Heb. 10 12. and that it could not be that he should often offer himself because then he must have often suffered and died Heb. 9. 25. Which faith of theirs you are departed from It believed that we have one only Mediatour and Intercessour with God 1 Tim. 2. 5. 1 Joh. 2. 2. Wherein also you have renounced their perswasion as likewise you have done in what it professed that we may invocate only him in whom we do believe Rom. 10. 14. It believed that the Command to abstain from Meats and Marriage was the doctrine of Devils 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. Do you abide in the same faith It believed that Every soul without exception was to be subject to the higher Powers Rom. 13. 1. You will not
observed reproved condemned and written against Only unto what shall be discoursed unto this pnrpose I desire liberty to premise these three things which I suppose will be granted Dabitur ignis tamen et si ab inimicis petam The first is that What is by any previously condemned before the embracing and practice of it is no less condemned by them than if the practice had preceded their condemnation Though you should say that your avowing of a condemned errour would make it no errour yet you cannot say that it will render it not condemned for that which is done cannot be undone say you what you will Secondly that Where any opinion or practice in Religion which is embraced and used by your Church is condemned and written against that then your Church which so embraceth and useth it is condemned and written against For neither do Protestants write against your Church or condemn it on any other account but of your opinions and practices and you require but such a writing and condemnation as you complain of amongst them Thirdly I desire you to take notice that I do not this as though it were necessary to the security and defence of the Cause which we maintain against you It is abundantly sufficient and satisfactory unto our consciences in your casting us out from your communion that all the wayes whereby we say your Church is fallen from her pristine purity are judged and condemned in the Scripture the Word of truth whither we appeal for the last determination of the differences between us These things being premised to prevent such evasions as you have accustomed your self unto I shall as briefly as I can give you somewhat of that which you have now twice called for 1. Your Principle and Practise in imposing upon all Persons and Churches a necessity of the observation of your Rites and Ceremonies Customes and Traditions casting them out of Communion who refuse to submit unto this your great Principle of all the Schisms in Europe was contradicted written against condemned by Councels and Fathers in the very first instance that ever you gave of it Be pleased to consider that this concerns the very Life and Being of your Church For if you may not impose your Constitutions observances and customes upon all others actum est there is an end of your present Church State Let us see then how this was thought of in the dayes of old Victor the Bishop of Rome An Dom. 96. condemns and excommunicates the Churches of Asia because they would not joyn with him in the Celebration of Easter precisely on the Lords day Did this practise escape uncontrolled He was written against by the great Irenaeus and reproved that he had cast out of Communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whole Churches of God for a triviall cause His fact also was condemned in the justification of those Churches by a Councell in Palestine where Theophilus presided and another in Asia called together for the same purpose by Polycrates Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. 5. cap. 22 23 24 25. This is an early instance of a considerable Fall in your Church and an open opposition by Councels and Fathers made unto it And do not you S r deceive your self as though the fact of Victor were alone concerned in this censure of Irenaeus and others The Principle before mentioned which is the very life and soul of your Church is condemned in it It was done also in a repetition of the same Instance attempted here in England by you when Austine that came from Rome would have imposed on the Brittish Churches the observation of Easter according to the custome of the Roman Church the Bishops and Monks of these Churches not only rejected your Custome but the Principle also from whence the attempt to impose it on them did proceed protesting that they owned no subjection to the Bishop of Rome nor other regard than what they did to every good Christian. Concil Anglican p. 188. 2. Your Doctrine and Practise of forcing men by carnall weapons corporall penalties tortures and terrors of death unto the embracement of your profession and actually destroying and taking away the lives of them that persist in their dissent from you is condemned by Fathers and Councels as well as by the Scriptures and the light of Nature its self It is condemned by Tertullian Apol. cap. 23. Videte saith he ne hoc ad irreligiositatis elogium concurrat adimere libertatem Religionis interdicere optionem Divinitat is ut non liceat mihi colere quod velim sed cogar colere quod nolim with the like expressions in twenty other places All this externall compulsion he ascribes unto profaneness So doth Clemens Alexand. Stromat 8. So also did Lactantius all consenting in that Maxim of Tertullian Lex nova non se vindicat ultore gladio The Law of Christ revengeth not its self with a punishing sword The Councell of Sardis Epist. ad Alexand. expresly affirms that they disswaded the Emperour from interpesing his Secular power to compell them that dissented And you are fully condemned in a Canon of a Councell at Toledo Cap. de Judae distinc 45. Praecipit sancta Synodns nemini deinceps ad credendum vim inferre cui enim vult Deus miseretur quem vult indurat The holy Synod commandeth that none hereafter shall by force be compelled to the faith for God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth Athanasius in his Epistle ad Solitar falls heavily on the Arians that they began first to compell men to their heresie by force prisons and punishments whence he concludes of their Sect atque ita seipsam quam non sit pia nec Dei cultrix manifestat it evidestly declares it self hereby to be neither pious nor to have any reverence of God In a Book that is of some credit with you namely Clemens his Constitutions you have this amongst other things for your comfort 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ left men the power of their wills free in this matter not punishing them with death temporall but calling them to give an account in another world And Chrysostome speaks to the same purpose on Joh 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He asked them saying Will you also go away which is the Question of one rejecting all force and necessity Epiphanius gives it as the character of thesemi-Arâ—ians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They persecute them that teach the Truth not confuting them with words but delivering them that believe aright to hatreds wars and swords having now brought destruction not to one City or Countrey alone but to many Neither can you relieve your selves by answering that they were true believers whom they persecuted you punish Hereticks and Schismaticks only for they thought and said the same of themselves which you assert in your own behalf So Salvian informs us Haeretici sunt sed non scientes denique apud nos sunt Haeretici apud se non
involve the whole interest of Christianity in its ruine Where is the defect where the hinderance why all men upon these Principles however differing at present may not come to a full Settlement and Agreement I hope you will find none but what are in them selves and for them ipsi-viderint the Scripture is blameless Here is Certainty of Revelation from God Fullness of that Revelation as to our Duty Clearness and perspicuity for our understanding of it Means appointed and sanctified for that end what I pray is wanting All Truths wherein it is the Duty of men to agree are fixed and stated so that it can never be lawfull for any man in any generation to call any of them into question plain and evident that no man can mistake the mind of God in them in things wherein his Duty is concerned without his own crime and guilt You will say then it may be But why then do not men agree why do you not agree among your selves but I would hope that it is scarcely possible for any man to be so ignorant of the Condition of mankind and amongst them of the best of men as seriously to ask this Question Are not all men naturally blind in the things of God Do not the best of men know only in part have not the different tempers constitutions and Educations of men a great influence upon their understandings and judgements Besides do not Lusts Corruptions Carnall Interests and Respect unto Worldly things bear sway sin the minds of many that profess Christian Religion Are not many prepossessed with prejudices traditions customes and usages against the Truth And are not these things and the like sufficient to keep up variance in the world without the least suspition of any disability in the Scripture to bring them to an holy agreement and immoveable Settlement Neither is there any other way for men to come unto Settlement and Agreement in Religion according to the mind of God but that only which hath been now proposed and this they will come unto when all men shall be perswaded to captivate their understandings to the obedience of Faith I deny not but that by outward force and compulsion by supine negligence of their own concernments by refusing to btehink themselves and such other wayes and means some men may come to some Agreement amongst themselves in the things of Religion But this Agreement we say is not of God it is not built upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of faith towards God and so is of no esteem with him That such is all the Vnity which on your Principles you are able to bring men unto wee shall manifest in our next Discourse For the present I dare challenge you or any man in the world to question or oppose any one of the Principles before laid down and which whilest they stand firm it is evident unto all how the Scripture is able to seâ—tle men unquestionably in the Truth and that for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall close this Discourse with a passage out of Chrysostome which fully confirms all that I have asserted it is in Homil 33. in Act. Apost Chap. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What shall wee say unto the Gentiles A Gentile cometh and faith I would be a Christian but I know nat unto whom amongst you I should adhere Let us hear the reasons of his haesitation saith hee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are many contentions seditions and tumults amongst you what opinion to choose I know not every one sayes I am in the Truth and I am utterly ignorant of what is in the Scripture about these things Do you know whose Objections these are and by whom they have been lately mannaged Will you hear what Chrysostome answers Saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This makes wholly for us for if wee should say that wee believe on probable reasonings thou maist justly be troubled but seeing wee profess that we believe in the Scriptures which are plain and true it is easie for thee to judg and determine He that yeilds his consent unto them he is a Christian and he that contends against them is farre from the Rule of Christianity And in the process of his Discourse which is well worth the perusall before you write any more familiar Epistles he requires no more of a man to settle him in the Truth but that he receive the Scripture and have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mind and judgment to use in the consideration of it It remaineth now that wee consider what it is that you propose unto men to bring them unto a Settlement in Religion and all Christians to the Vnity of Faith with the Principles that you proceed upon to that purpose which because I would not too far lengthen out this Discourse I shall refer to the next Chapter CHAP. VIII Principles of Papists whereon they proceed in bringing men to a Settlement in Religion and the Vnity of Faith examined YOur Plea to this purpose is blended with a double pretence of Pope and Church Sometimes you tell us of the Pope and his succession to S t Peter And sometimes of the Church and its Authority Sometimes you speak as if both these were one and the same And sometimes you seem to distinguish them Some of you lay most weight upon the Papall suceession and Infallibility and some on the Churches Jurisdiction and Authority I shall crave leave to take your pleas a-sunder and first to consider what force they have in them as unto the End whereunto they are applied severally and apart and then see what in their joint concurrence they can contribute thereunto And what ever you think of it I suppose this course of proceeding will please ingenuous persons and Lovers of Truth because it enables them to take a distinct view of the things whereon they are to give judgment Whereas in your handling of them something you suppose something you insinuate something you openly averr yet so confound them with other heterogenious Discourses that it can hardly be discerned what grounds you build upon A way of proceeding which as it argues a secret guilt and fear of bringing forth your Principles to Light so a gross kind of Sophistry exploded by all Masters of Reason whatsoever They would not have us fumum ex fulgore sed ex fumo dare lucem darken things clear and perspicuous in themselves but to make things dark and confused perspicuous And the Orator tells us that Epicurus his discourse was ambiguous because his Sententia was inhonesta his Opinion shamefull And to what purpose should any one contend with you about such generall ambiguous expressions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall then begin with the Pope and his Infallibility because you seem to lay most weight thereon and tell us plainly pag. 379 of your Fiat Edit 2 d That if the Pope be not an unerring guide in Affairs of Religion all is lost
And what was herein done or spoken amiss as yet I cannot discern But I am perswaded that if you had not supposed that you had some of little judgement and less ingenuity to give satisfaction unto you would never have pleased your self with the writing of such empty Trifles in a business wherein you pretend so great a concernment Pag. 31. You observe that I say the Schoolmen were the hammerers and forgers of Popery And add Alas Sir I see that anger spoyls your memory for in the twelfth and thirteenth Chapter you make Popery to be hammered and forged not a few hundreds of years before any Schoolmen were extant And thorefore tell me that I hate the Schoolmen as the Frenchmen do Talbot for having been frightened with them formerly Sed risu inepto res ineptior nulla est I confess the language of your Schoolmen is so corrupt and barbarous many of the things they sweat about so vain curious unprofitable their way of handling things and expressing the notions of their minds so perplexed dark obscure and oftentimes unintelligibe divers of their Assertions and suppositions so horrid and monstrous the whole system of their pretended Divinity so aliene and forreign unto the mysterie of the Gospel that I know no great reason that any man hath much to delight in them These things have made them the sport and scorn of the learnedest men that ever lived in the Communion of your own Church What one said of old of others may be well applyed unto them Statum lacessunt omnipotentis Dei Calumniosis litibus Fidem minutis dissecant ambagibus Vt quisque est linguar nequior Solvunt ligantque quaestionum vincula Per Syllogismos plectiles Indeed to see them come forth harnassed with Syllogismes and Sophisms attended with Obs and Sols speaking part the language of the Jews and part the language of Ashdod fighting and contending amongst themselves as if they had sprung from the teeth of Cadmus Serpent subjecting all the properties decrees and actions of the holy God to your profane bablings might perhaps beget some fear in the minds of men not much guilty of want of Constancy as the sight of the Harpyes did of old to Aenaeas and his Companions of whom they gave that account Tristius hand illis monstrum nec saevior ulla Pestis ira Deum Stygiis sese extulit undis Viaimus subita gelidus formidine sanguis Diriguit cecidêre animi But the Truth is there is no real cause of fear of them They are not like to do mischief to any unless they are resolved aforehand to give up their faith in the things of God to the Authority of this or that Philosopher and forego all solid rational consideration of things to betake themselves to Sophistical canting and the winding up of subtilty into plain non-sence which oftentimes befalls the best of them Whence Melchior Canus one of your selves sayes of some of your learned Disputes Puderet me dicere non intelligere si ipsi intelligerent qui tractarunt I should be ashamed to say I did not understand them but that they understood not themselves Others may be entangled by them who if they cannot unty your knots they may break your webbs especially when they find the Conclusions as oftentimes they are directly contrary to Scripture right reason and natural sense it self For they are the genuine off-spring of the old Sophisters whom Lucian talks of in his Menippus or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and tells us that in hearing the Disputations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That saith he which seemed the most absurd of all was that when they disputed of things absolutely contrary they yet brought invincible and perswasive reasons to prove what they said so that I durst not speak a word against him that affirmed hot and cold to be the same although I knew well enough that the same thing could not be hot and cold at the same time And therefore he tells us that in hearing of them he did like a man half asleep sometimes nod one way and sometimes another which is certainly the deportment of the generality of them who are conversant in the wrangles of your Schoolmen But whatever I said of them or your Church is perfectly consistent with its self and the Truth I grant that before the Schoolmen set forth in the world many unsound opinions were broached in and many Superstitious practices admitted into your Church and a great pretence raised unto a Superintendency over other Churches which were parts of that Mass out of which your Popery is formed But before the Schoolmen took it in hand it was rudis indigestaque moles an heap not an house As Rabbi Juda Hakkadosh gathered the passant Traditions of his own time among the Jews into a body or Systeme which is called the Mishnae or Duplicate of their Law wherein he composed a new Religion for them sufficiently distant from that which was professed by their fore-fathers so have your Schoolmen done also Out of the passant Traditions of the dayes wherein they lived blended with Sophistical corrupted notions of their own countenanced and gilded with the sayings of some Ancient Writers of the Church for the most part wrested or misunderstood they have hammered out that Systeme of Philosophical Traditional Divinity which is now enstamped with the Authority of the Tridentine Council being as far distant from the Divinity of the New Testament as the Farrago of Traditions collected by Rabbi Juda and improved in the Talmuds is from that of the old Pag. 33 34 35. Having nothing else to say you fall again upon my pretended mistake of considering that as spoken absolutely by you which you spake only upon supposition and talk of Metaphysical Speculations in your Fiat which you conceive me very unmeet to deal withal and direct me to Bellarmines Catechism as better suiting my inclination and capacity But Sir we are not wont here in England to account cloudy dark Sophistical declamations to be Metaphysical Speculations nor every feigned supposition to be a Philosophical abstraction I wish you would be perswaded that there is not the least tincture of any solid Metaphysicks in your whole Discourse It may be indeed you would be angry with them that should undeceive you and cry out Pol me occidistis amici Non Servâstis As he did Cui demptus per vim mentis gratissimus Error You may perhaps please your self with conceits of your Metaphysical atchievements but yonr friends cannot but pitty you to see your vanity The least youth in our Vniversities will tell you that to make a general Supposition true or false and to flourish upon it with words of a seeming probability without any cogency or proof belongs to Rhetorick and not at all to Metaphysicks And this is the very nature of your Discourse Nor do I mistake your aim in it as you pretend I grant in the place you would be thought to reply unto though you speak not one word to
then that of any of them And therefore on what terms and reasons soever a man may relinquish the opinions and renounce the Communion of any other Church upon the same may he renounce the Communion and relinquish the Opinions of yours And if there be no reasons sufficiently cogent so to deal with any Church whatever I pray on what grounds do you proceed to perswade others to such a Course that they may joyn with you Dicisque facisque quod ipse Non Sani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes To disintangle you out of this Labyrinth whereinto you have cast your self I shall desire you to observe that if the Lord Christ by his Word be the Supream Revealer of all Divine Truth and the Church that is any Church whatever be only the Ministerial proposer of it under and from him being to be regulated in all its propositions by his Revelation if it shall chance to propose that for Truth which is not by him revealed as it may do seeing it hath no security of being preserved from such failures but only in its attendance unto that Rule which it may neglect or corrupt A man in such a Case cannot discharge his Duty to the Supream Revealer without dissenting from the Ministerial proposer Nay if it be a Truth which is proposed and a man dissent from it because he is not convinced that it is revealed he is in no danger to be induced to question other Propositions which he knows to be so revealed his faith being built upon and resolved into that Revelation alone All that remains of your discourse lyes with its whole weight on this presumption because some men may either wilfully prevaricare from the Truth or be mistaken in their apprehensions of it and so dissent from a Church that teacheth the truth and wherein she so teacheth it without cause therefore no man may or ought to relinquish the errors of a Church which he is really and truly convinced by Scripture and solid reason suitable thereunto so to be An inference so wild and so destructive of all assurance in every thing that is knowable in the world that I wonder how your Interest could induce you to give any countenance unto it For if no man can certainly and infallibly know any thing by any way or means wherein some or other are ignorantly or wilfully mistaken we must bid adiew for ever to the certain knowledge of any thing in this world And how slightly soever you are pleased to speak of Scripture Light Spirit and Reason they are the proper names of the wayes and helps that God hath graciously given to the sons of men to come to the knowledge of himself And if the Scripture by the assistance of the Spirit of God and the light unto it communicated unto men by him be not sufficient to lead them in the use and improvement of their Reason unto the saving knowledge of the will of God and that assurance therein which may be a firm foundation of acceptable obedience unto him they must be content to go without it for other wayes and means of it there are none But this is your manner of dealing with us All other Churches must be sleighted and relinquished the means appointed and sanctified by God himself to bring us unto the knowledge of and settlement in the Truth must be rejected that all men may be brought to a fanatical unreasonable resignation of their faith to you and your Church if this be not done men may with as good reason renounce Truth as Error and after they have rejected one error be inclined to cast off all that Truth for the sake whereof that error was rejected by them And I know not what other inconveniences and mischiefs will follow It must needs be well for you that you are Gallinae filius albae Seeing all others are Viles pulli nati infelicibus ovis Your only misadventure is that you are fallen into somewhat an unhappy age wheréin men are hard-hearted and will not give away their Faith and Reason to every one that can take the confidence to beg them at their hands But you will now prove by instances that if a man deny any thing that your Church proposeth he may with as good reason deny every Truth whatever I shall follow you through them and consider what in your matter or manner of proposal is worthy that serious perusal of them which you so much desire To begin See if the Quakers deny not as resolutely the regenerating power of Baptisme as you the efficacy of Absolution See if the Presbyterians do not with as much reason evacuate the Prelacy of Protestants as they the Papacy All things it seems are alike Truth and Error and may with the same reason be opposed and rejected And because some men renounce errors others may on as good grounds renounce the Truth and oppose it with as solid and cogent reasons The Scripture it seems is of no use to direct guide or settle men in these things that relate to the worship and knowledge of God What a strange dream hath the Church of God been in from the dayes of Moses if this be so Hitherto it hath been thought that what the Scripture teacheth in these things turned the scales and made the embracement of it reasonable as the rejection of them the contrary As the woman said to Joab They were wont to speak in old time saying they shall surely ask counsel at Abel and so they ended the matter They said in old time concerning these things To the Law and the Testimonies search the Scriptures and so they ended the matter But it seems tempora mutantur and that now Truth and Falsehood are equally probable having the same grounds the same evidences Quis leget haec min tu istud ais Do you think to be believed in these incredible figments fit to bear a part in the stories of Vlysses unto Alcinous Yet you proceed See if the Socinian Arguments against the Trinity be not as strong as yours against the Eucharist But where did you ever read any Arguments of ours against the Eucharist Have you a dispensation to say what you please for the promotion of the Catholick Cause Are not the Arguments you intend indeed rather for the Eucharist then against it Arguments to vindicate the nature of that holy Eucharistical Ordinance and to preserve it from the manifold abuses that you and your Church do put upon it That is they are arguments against your Transubstantiation and proper sacrifice that you intend And will you now say that the Arguments of the Socinians against the Trinity the great fundamental Article of our Prosession plainly taught in the Scripture and constantly believed by the Church of all Ages are of equal force and validity with those used against your Transubstantiation and Sacrifice of the Mass things never mentioned no not once in the whole Scripture never heard of nor believed by the Church of old and
the order you mention exclude that which you would introduce Or would you prove that Bishops by the Law of this Land have a jurisdiction superior unto Ministers who ever went about to deny it or what will the remembrance of it advance your pretensionâ— And yet neither is this fairly expressed by you For as no Protestants assert the King to be in his power and office interposed between Christ and Bishops or Ministers as to their ministerial office which is purely spiritual so the power of supream Jurisdiction which they ascribe unto him is not as you falsly insinuate granted unto him by the Laws of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth but is an inseparable Priviledge of his imperial Crown exercised by his Royal Predecessours and asserted by them against the inâ—rusions and usurpations of the Pope of Rome only diclared by those and other Laws But I perceive you have another design in hand You are entring upon a discourse wherein you compare your selves not only with Presbyterians and Independents but Prelate Protestants also in what you ascribe unto Kings in Ecclesiastical affairs preferring your selves before and above them all What just cause you have so to do we shall afterwards consider Your Confidence in it at first view presents its selâ— unto us â— on whereas there was not in the Animadversions any occasion of it administred unto you and your self confess that your whole discourse about it is besides your purpose pag. 66. yet waving almost every thing that was incumbent upon you to have insisted on if you would not plainly have appeared vadimonium deseruisse and to have given up your Fiat as indefensible you divert into a long harangue about it The Thesis you would by various florishes give countenance unto is this That Papists in their deference unto Kings even in Ecclesiastical matters and in their principles of their obedience unto them 〈◊〉 Protestants of all sorts That this is not to ouâ— present purpose your self cannot but see and acknowledge Hower your Discourse such as it is relating to one special head of Difference between us shall be a part considered by its self in our next Chapter CHAP. 16. The Power assigned by Papists and Protestants unto Kings in matters Ecclesiastical Their several Principles discussed and compared YOur Discourse on this head is not reducible by Logick its self unto any method or rules of Argument For it is in general 1. So loose Ambigucus and Metaphorically expressed 2. So Sophistical and inclusive 3. So inconsistent in sundry instances with the Principles and practices of your Church if you speak intelligibly 4. So false and untrue in many particulars that it is scarcely for these excellent qualifications to be paralleld with any thing either in your Fiat or your Epistola First It is loose and ambiguous 1. Not stating what you intend by the Head of the Church which you discourse about 2. Noâ— determining whither the King be such an head of Execution in matter of Religion as may use the Liberty of his own judgement as to what he puts in execution or whether he be not bound to execute your Popes Determinations on the penalty of the forfeiture of his Christianity which I doubt we shall find to be your opinion 3. Not declaring wherein the power which you assign unto him is founded whether in Gods immediate institution oâ— the Concession of the Pope whereon it should solely depend unto whom it is in all things to be made subservient Secondly Sophistical 1. In playing with the ambiguity of that expression Head of the Church and by the advantage thereof imposing on Protestants contradictions between their profession and practice as though in the one they acknowledged the King to be head of the Church and not in the other whereas there is a perfect consonancy between them in the sence wherein they understand that expression shrowding your own sence and opinion in the mean time under the same ambiguity 2. In supposing an absolute universal Head of the whole Catholick Church and then giving reasons why no King can be that Head when you know that the whole Question is whither there by any such head of the Catholick Church on earth or no. 3. In supposing the Principles and practises of the Primitive Church to have been the same with those of the present Roman and those of the present Roman to have been all known and allowed of old which begs all that is in Controversie between us and sundry other instances of the like nature may be observed in it Thirdly Inconsistent with the Principles and Practices of your own Church both 1. In what you ascribe unto Kings and 2. In your stating of the power and Jurisdiction of your Pope if the ambiguity of your words and expressions will allow us to conclude what you intend or aim at Fourthly False 1. In matter of fact as to what you relate of the obedience of your Church unto Kings 2. In the principles and Opinions which you impose on your Advertaries 3. In the declaration that you make of your own and 4. In many particular Assertions whose consideration will afterwards occur This is a business I could have been glad you had not necessitated me to the Consideraâ—ion of for it cannot be truly and distinctly handled 〈…〉 such reflections upon your Church and way as may without extraordinary indulgence redound unto your disadvantage Your have by your own voluntary choice called me to the discussion of those Principles which have created you much trouble in these Nations and put you oftentimes upon attempting their disquiet Now these are things which I desire not I am but a private man and am very well contented you should enjoy all that peace and liberty which you think not meet in other Nations where the Pâ—wer is at your disposal to grant unto them that dissent from you Lex talionis should be far from influencing the minds of Christians in this matter however the equity of it may at any time be pleaded or urged to relieve others in other places under bondage and persecution But I am sure if I judge your proceedings against other men dissenting from you in Conscience to be unjustifiable by the Scripture or Light of Nature or suffrage of the Antient Church as I do I have no reason to desire that they should be drawn into president against their selves in any place in the world And therefore Sir had you provided the best colour you could for your own Principles and palliated them to the 〈◊〉 so to hide them from the eyes of those who it may be are ready to seek their disturbance and trouble from an apprehension of the evil that may ensue upon them and had not set them up in comparison with the Principles of Protestants of all sorts and for the setting off your own with the better grace and luster untruly and individiously reported theirs to expose them unto those thoughts and that severity from supream powers which you seek
only and absolute head and Monarch of the Catholick Church which you would perswade us to believe that he is Kings then may even in Church affairs be strikers under him be the servants and executioners of his will and pleasure but Authority from God immediately in and about them they have none nor can have any whilest your Imaginary Monarchy takes place This one fundamental Principle of your Religion sufficiently discovers the insignificancy of your florish about Kingly Authority in Ecclesiastical things seeing upon a supposition of it they can have none at all But you stay not here for 3. You ascribe unto your Popes an universal Dominion even in Civil things over all Christian Kings and their subjects In the explanation of this Dominion I confess you somewhat vary among your selves but the thing it self is generally asserted by you and made a foundation of practice Some of you maintain that the Pope by Divine right and Constitution hath an absolute supream Dominion over the whole world This opinion Bellarmine Lib. 5. de Pont. cap. 1. confesseth to be maintained by Augustinus Triumphus Alvarus Pelagius Hostiensis and Panoruitanus And himself in the next words condemns the opinion of them who deny the Pope to have any such temporal power as that he may command secular Princes and deprive them of the Kingdoms and Principalities not only as false but as down right Heresie And why doth he name the first opinion as that of four or five Doctors when it is the Common opinion of your Church as Baronius sufficiently manifests in the life of Gregory the seventh That great preserver of your Pontificial omnipotency in his Bull against Henry the German Emperour affirms that he hath power to take away Empires Kingdoms and Principalities or what â—ver a mortal man may have as Platina records it in his life As also Pope Nicholas the second in his Epistle ad Mediolanens asserts that the rights both of the heavenly and earthly Empires are committed unto him And he that hath but looked on the Dictates of the forenamed Gregory confirmed in a Council at Rome and defended by Baronius or into their Decretals knows that you give both swords to the Pope and that over and over Whence Carerius Lib. 1. c. 9. affirms that it is the Common opinion of the School Divines that the Pope hath plenissimam Potestatem plenary power over the whole world both in Ecclesiastical and Temporal matters and you know the old comparison made by the Canonists cap. de Major Obed. between the Pope and the Emperour namely that he is as the Sun the Emperour as the Moon which borrows all its light from the other Bellarmine and those few whom he follows or that follow him maintain that the Pope hath this Power only indirectly and in order unto spiritual things the meaning of which assertion as he explains himself is that besides that direct power which he hath over those Countreys and Kingdoms which on one pretence or other he claims to be Feaudatory to the Roman See which are no small number of the chiefest Kingdoms of Europe he hath a Power over them all to dispose of them their Kings and Rulers according as he judgeth it to conduce to the good and interest of the Church which as it really differs very little from the â—ormer opinion so Barclay tells us that Pope Sixtus was very little pleased with that seeming depression of the Papal Power which his words intimate But the stated Doctrine of your Church in this matter is so declared by Bozius Augustinus Triumphus Carerius Schioppius Marta and others all approved by her Authority that there can be no question of it Moreover to make way for the putting of this indirect Power into direct Execution you declare 4. That the Pope is the supream Judge of faith and his Declarations and Determinations so far the Rule of it as that they are to be received and finally submitted unto not to do so is that which you express Heresie or Schism or Apostacy About this Principle also of your Profession there have been as about most other things amongst you great Disputes and wranglings between the Doctors and props of your Church Much debate there hath been whither this power be to be attributed unto the Pope without a Council or above a Council or against one About these Chimaera's are whole volumes filled with keen and subtil argumentations But the Popes Personal or at least Cathedral Determination hath at length prevailed For whatever some few of you may whisper unto your own trouble and disadvantage to the impeachment of his Personal Infallibility you are easily decryed by the general voice of your Doctors and besides those very persons themselves wherever they would place the Infallibility of the Church that they fancy are forâ—ed to put it so far into the Popes hand and management as that whatever he determines with the necessary solemnities in matters of faith is ultimately at least to be acquiesced in So your self assure us averring that he who doth not so forfeits his Christianity and consequently all the Priviledges which thereby he enjoyes and we have reason sufficient from former experience to believe that the Pope have he ability unto his will is ready enough to take the forfeiture Whither upon a Princes falling into Heresie in not acquiescing in your Papal determinations his subjects are discharged ipso facto from all obedience unto him as Dominicus Bannes and others maintain or whither there needs the Denunciation of a sentence against him by the Pope for their absolution you are not agreed But yet 5. You affirm that in Case of such Disobedience unto the Pope he is armed with Power to depose Kings and Princes and to give away and bestow their Kingdoms and Dominions on others Innumerable are the instances whereby the Popes themselves have justified their claim of this Power in the face of the world and it were endless to recount the Emperours Kings and free Princes that they have attempted to ruine and destroy in the persuit of some wherof they actually succeeded with the desolations of Nations that have ensued thereon I shall mention but one and that given us in the dayes of our Fathers and it may be in the memory of some yet alive Pope Pius V takes upon him contrary to the advice and entreaties of the Emperour of Germany and others to depose Queen Elizabeth and to devote her to destruction To this end he absolved all her Subjects from their Allegiance and gave away her Kingdoms and Dominions to the Spaniard assisting him to his utmost in his attempt to take possession of his grant and all for refusing obedience to the See of Rome You cannot I presume be offended with my mention of that which is known unto all for these things were not done in a corner And is it not hence evident that all the power which you grant unto Kings is meerly precarious which they hold of your Pope
against Protestants for dishonouring her and all that you say in in your Epistle in its Vindication is railing at me for minding you of your miscarriage My whole Book you say is nothing but calumnies a bundle of slanders a meer quiver of sharp arrows of desolation I am not sorry that you are sensible that it hath arrows in it tending to the desolation of your Abominations But I challenge you to give an instance of any one calumny or slander in it from the beginning to the end If you do not do so I here declare you to be really and highly guilty of that which you would falsly impose upon another Free your self by some one instance if you can if you cannot your reputation will follow your Conscience whether it will be hard for you to find them again The substance of that Chapter is this which is all that I shall now say to your nothing against it Protestants yield to the blessed Virgin all the honour that the Scripture allows them or direct them unto or that the Primitive Church did ascribe unto her and the Papists give her the honour due to God alone whereby they horribly dishonour God and her CHAP. 21. Images Doctrine of the Council of Trent Of the second Nicene The Arguments for the Adoration of Images Doctrine of the antient Church Of the chief Doctrine of the Roman Church Practice of the whole Vain foundations of the pretences for Image Worship examined and disproved YOur next procedure is to your Discourse of Figures or Images and my Animadversions upon it And here you say you will come up close unto me you mean in replying unto what I delivered about it But Sir I thought this had been contrary to your design You professed at the beginning of your Epistle that it was so and have made good use of that declaration of your self by avoiding every thing in my discourse that you found your self pressed with and too difficult a task for you to deal withal Why do you now begin to forget your self and to cast off the pretence you have hitherto shaddowed your self under and excused your self by from tergiversation Surely you think you are upon this head able to say somewhat to the purpose which you despaired of doing upon others of as great importance and therefore now you may argue and dispute which before the design of your Fiat would not permit you to do As far as I can observe you speak nothing at any time but what you think is at present for your turn But whether it have any consistency with that which elsewhere you have delivered you make it not much your concernment to enquire But we shall quickly see whether you had any just ground of encouragement to harness your self and to come up as you speak close to me in this business or no. It may be before the close of our Discourse you will begin to think it had been as well for you to have persisted in your former avoidance as to make this profession of a close dispute and whatever you pretend to the contrary really you have done so You hide the opinion and practice of your Church about the Worship of Images which you seem to be ashamed of instead of defending them and except against some passages in my Animadversions instead of answering the whole which you seem to pretend unto I shall therefore declare what is the true judgement of your Church in this matter and then vindicate the passages of my Discourse which you take notice of in your exceptions and under both heads declare the abomination of your faith and practice in your Doctrine about Images and Worship of them The Doctrine of your Church in this matter I suppose we may be acquainted with from the Determinations of your Councils the explication of your most famous Doctors the Practice of your people and the distinctions used by you to quit your selves from Idolatry in your Doctrine and Practice And you will thereby learn or may at lest to what purpose it is for you to seek to palliate and hide the deformity of that which your Mother and her wise men have made naked to all the world Your Council of Trent is very wary in this matter as it was in most of its other affairs and indeed seeing it was resolved not to give place to the Truth it became it so to be that it might keep any footing in the minds of men and not tumble headlong into contempt and reproach Many difficulties it had to wrestle withal It saw the practice of their Church which was not totally to be deserted least the great mysterie of its Infallibility should be impaired and its nakedness laid open the general complaint on the other side of learned and sober men that under a pretence of Image Worship as horrible Idolatry was brought into the Church of God as ever was practiced amongh the Heathen did not a little perplex it It had also the various and contradictory opinions of the great Doctors of your Church and Masters of your Faith about the kind of Worship which is due to Images all which had great followers ready to dispute endlesly in the maintenance of their several conceits Amidst these rocks and oppositions the Fathers found no way to sail safely but by the help of general and ambiguous words a course which in the like difficulties had frequently before stood them in good stead Wherefore they so expressed themselves that no party at variance among them might think their opinions condemned that the general practice of their Church might be countenanced and yet no particular asserted that was most obnoxious to the exceptions of the Lutherans Thus then they speak Imagines porro Christi Deiparae Virginis aliorum Sanctorum in Templis praeertim habendas retinendas eisque debitum honorem venerationem impertiendam non quod credatur quoniam honos qui eis exhibetur refertur ad Prototypa quae illae representant with much more to that purpose And we may observe That the Decree speaks only of the Images of Christ the blessed Virgin and other Saints not expresly mentioning the Images of God the Father of the Trinity and of the Holy Ghost nor of Angels which they knew to be made and to be had in veneration in their Church nor do they anywhere reject the use makeing or worshipping of them Yea in their following words they do plainly allow of the figuring of the Deity Quod say they si aliquando historias narrationes 〈◊〉 Scripturae cum id indoctae plebi expediet exprimi figurari contigerit doceatur populus non 〈◊〉 divinitatem figurari quasi corporeis oculis conspâ—i vel coloribus aut figuris exprimi possit The words are as most of the rest in this particuâ—ar as an bigâ—ous as the Oracles of Delphos This cannot be denyed to be in them however That the unlearned people are to be taught that the Deity is not painted or figured
readiness to receive it when it shall be so manifest upon the Authority of the Author of the whole is not in the least danger to be induced by that disbelief to question any thing of that which he is convinced so to be revealed But as I said your Concernment lyes not therein who are not able to prove that Protestants have rejected any one part much less substantial part of Religion and your conclusion upon a supposition of the rejection of errours and practises or the contrary to the Gospel or principles of Religion is very infirm The ground of all your Sophistry lyes in this that men who receive Christian Religion are bound to resolve their faith unto the Authority of them that preach it first unto them whereupon it being impossible for them to question any thing they teach without an impeachment of their absolute Infallibility and so far the Authority which they are to rest upon they have no firm foundation left for their assent unto the things which as yet they do not question and consequently in process of time may easily be induced so to do But this presumption is perfectly destructive to all the certainty of Christian Religion For whereas it proposeth the subject matter of it to be believed with divine faith and supernatural it leaves no formal reason or cause of any such faith no foundation for it to be built upon or Principle to be resolved into For how can Divine faith arise out of humane Authority For acts being specificated by their objects such as is the Authority on which a man believes such is his faith humane if that be humane divine if it be divine But resolving as we ought all our faith into the Authority of God revealing things to be believed and knowing that Revelation to be entirely contained in the Scriptures by which we are to examine and try whatever is by any man or men proposed unto us as an object of our faith they proposing it only upon this consideration that it is a part of that which is revealed by God in the Scripture for us to believe without which they have no ground nor warrant to propose any thing at all unto us in that kind we may reject any of their proposals which we find and discern not to be so revealed or not to be agreeable to what is so revealed without the least weakning of our assent unto what is revealed indeed or making way for any man so to do For whilest the formal reason of faith remains absolutely unimpeached different apprehensions about particular things to be believed have no efficacy to weaken faith its self as we shall farther see in the examination of your ensuing Discourse The same way and means that lopt off some branches will do the like to others and root too but the errours and mistakes of men are not branches growing from the root of the Gospel A Vilification of that Church wherein they find themselves who have a mind to prevaricate upon pretence of Scripture and power of interpreting it light spirit or reason adjoyned with a personal obstinacy that will not submit will do it roundly and to effect This first brought off the Protestants from the Roman Catholick Church this lately separated the Presbyterians from the English Protestant Church the Independent from the Presbyterian and the Quakers from the other Independent And this left good maintains nothing of Christian Religion but the moral part which indeed and truth is but honest Paganism This speech is worthy of all serious Consideration That which this Discourse seems to amount unto is that if a man question or reject any thing that is taught by the Church whereof he is a member there remains no way for him to come unto any certainty in the remaining parts of Religion but that he may on as good grounds question and reject all things as any As you phrase the matter by mens vilifying a Church which a mind to prevaricate upon pretence of Scripture c. though there is no consequence in what you say yet no man can be so mad as to plead in justification of such a proceeding For it is not much to be doubted but that he who layeth such a foundation and makes such a beginning of a separation from any Church will make a progress suitable thereunto But if you will speak unto your own purpose and so as they may have any concernment in what you say with whom you deal you must otherwise frame your hypothesis Suppose a man to be a member of any Church or to find himself in any Church state with others and that he doth at any time by the light and direction of the Scripture discover any thing or things to be taught or practised in that Church whereof he is so a member which he cannot assent unto unless he will contradict the Revelation that God hath made of himself his mind and will in that compleat Rule of all that Religion and worship which are pleasing unto him and therefore doth suspend his assent thereunto and therein dissent from the determination of that Church then you are to assert for the promotion of your design that all the Consequents will follow which you expatiate upon But this supposition fixes immoveably upon the penalty of forfeiting their interest in all saving truth all Christians whatever Greeks Abissines Armenians Protestants in the Churches wherein they find themselves and so makes â—â—ustrate all their attempts for their reconciliation to the Church of Rome For do you think they will attend unto you when you perswade them to a relinquishment of the Communion of that Church wherein they find themselves to joyn with you when the first thing you tell them is that if they do so they are undone and that for ever And yet this is the summ of all that you can plead with them if there be any sense in the Argument you make use of against our relinquishment of the opinions and practises of the Church of Rome because we or our forefathers were at any time members thereof or lived in its communion But you would have this the special Priviledge of your Church alone Any other Church a man may leave yea all other Churches besides he may relinquish the principles wherein he hath been instructed yea it is his duty to renounce their Communion only your Church of Rome is wholly sacred a man that hath once been a member of it must be so for ever and he that questions any thing taught therein may on the same grounds question all the Articles of faith in the Christian Religion And who gave you leave to suppose the only thing in Question between us and to use it as a medium to educe your Conclusion from is it your business to take care bullatis ut tibi nugis Pagina turgescat dare pondus idonea fumo We know the condition of your Roman Church to be no other then that of other Churches if it be not worse