were never necessary they have other devices to perswade you into a belief of coming off well at the end of your life howsoever ill you have spent it The Hereticks in Tertullians time said It was a meritorious thing to be of their Party And you are told it is a ready way of Salvation to die in the Communion of the Roman Church and if you can but receive the Sacraments of that Church and be Absolved by one of their Priests you scarce doubt of obtaining Heaven at last and if you have no good works of your own they perswade you the Church can sell you the Merits of the Saints or if you should drop into Purgatory by the way the pains of that they say are not endless and if you give liberally on your Death-beds or if any others afterwards give for you to purchase so many Masses and other Prayers for your Soul you will ere long be delivered from thence All which notorious delusions do miserably deceive poor men and most mischievously encourage them to put off their Repentance and to resolve not to be troubled with holiness in the way since they fancy they shall come off so easily in the end and alas they are as false as they are mischievous for the Ancient Fathers unanimously affirm no mans estate can be altered after this life But as the last day of a mans life finds him so the last day of the World finds him Nor will any thing help thee saith S. Augustine but what is done while thou art here Out of innumerable such Testimonies that of S. Salvian may serve Although a man should have so pious a Son who for alleviating his Fathers punishment would desire to give all the goods he left behind him it would do him no good for the Piety of the Son can do nothing to procure that Rest to a man after Death which his own Impiety and Infidelity hath denied him Finally these and the like Principles make so many infamous men and women so many Thieves and Murtherers debauched and prophane persons to take Sanctuary in the Roman Church because the Tenets thereof seem not to oblige them to forsake their evil ways but reconcile wickedness and Salvation together so that this Religion tends not to perswade men to Holiness of life and therefore is no good Religion I grant there are some Persons in that Church who live better than these Opinions engage them to do and do not draw those Conclusions into their practice which naturally follow from these Principles but that is only an evidence of the excellent vertue of such Persons but no proof of the goodness of these Doctrines and if these men be Holy in a Religion which gives such encouragement to evil doubtless they would be more holy by far if they were taught better things I shall only add that as the Roman Church is too loose in matters pertaining to Gods Laws so she is too strict in matters pertaining to her own Constitutions like the Old Pharisees who Tithed Mint and Annise and neglected the weightier matters of the Law Matth. xxiii which is a great obstruction to real Holiness when men place Religion in Ceremonies and slight things for while they are curious in these matters they neglect greater and think by observing the Rules of the Church they compensate for passing by the Laws of God your own Ordinary Gloss saith That is Superstition when Religion is placed in observing the Ordinances of men And if so then your wonderful strictness in Crossing Bowing using Holy Water Abstinence on certain days wearing Crosses c. in which you have placed so much Religion are no better than Superstition It cannot be denied that most Roman Catholicks are more afraid to eat flesh on a Fasting-day than to curse or swear they will be drunk on a Holy-day which God forbids but not work on it because the Church forbids it many of them dare fornicate and debauch who dare not neglect Confession nor read a book written by a supposed Heretick And generally they are punctual in crossing sprinkling bowing and observing all Orders of the Church even such as live in the open breach of Gods Commandements and yet fancy themselves more sure of Heaven than the most pious and holy Protestant Thus this Religion is too strict where God gives us more liberty and too remiss where his Holy Law hath bound us with Eternal and Indispensable bonds and it is designed to promote Obedience to the Roman Church rather than Inward holiness towards God The effect of all which Considerations is this That whosoever sincerely desires to glorifie God and worship him with a rational Devotion and whoever would imitate him by a Holy Life ought not to chuse or retain such a Religion whose Principles tend so evidently to the dishonour of Gods Name the hindrance of true Devotion and to the rendring a Holy life unnecessary And as it was proved before that the appropriated Articles of the Roman Faith were not Ancient nor induced for pious ends nor propagated by honest means so now it is evidenced the Articles are not good in their own nature and therefore there is no reason why you should not renounce them unless you retain them in meer Reverence to the Authority of the Pope who doth impose them which Matter is the Subject of our last Enquiries SECTION V. Whether the Roman Bishop have sufficient Authority to impose the said Opinions upon all Christian Churches THe Last and almost the only shelter that your Doctors flie to at this day for the defence of your Principles is That the Bishop of Rome is the sole Vicar of Christ the Infallible and only Judge of Controversies and the Supream Head of the Vniversal Church and hereby their Adherents are awed into the retaining all his Decrees of what nature soever they be But let me beg leave to advise you not to lay so much stress upon these Titles and Authority till you have seriously examined by what Right the Pope laies claim to them for his Power had need be very great and his Proofs very good upon the Credit whereof you receive so many new and suspicious Articles of Religion some of which we ought not to receive though preached by an Angel Gal. 1. 8 9. And first though we stand not much upon Titles you may note that the name of Vicar of Christ is never given to the Pope in the first Ages and when this Title came into use it was not appropriated to the Bishop of Rome but other Bishops and Priests are styled Vicars of Christ also even by a Pope of Rome as also by the Old French Emperours and by our own Saxon Law So that there is no reason for the Roman Bishop to challenge any propriety in this Title or any special Priviledge by virtue thereof Secondly As to his being an Infallible Judge and the Supream Head of the Catholick Church throughout the World you may remember
we have proved there are more Christians in the World who deny this Supremacy of Rome than there are who do acknowledge it And if the belief of this Infallible Headship be the reason why you receive other Articles of Faith this then is the most fundamental Article of all others and ought to be the best attested And if our Lord Jesus had designed to make S. Peter and his Successors at Rome not at Antioch such Supream Infallible Judges we may expect he would have set down this Article plainly in Holy Scripture and not have left his sole visible Vice-gerent to the suspicion of bearing witness to himself As for that place Matth. xvi Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church it is indeed by the Popes in their Forged Decretals expounded as a confirmation of their pretences to Supremacy but the Fathers take this Rock not for S. Peter's Person but for his Faith which he confessed and for Christ himself the Object thereof So S. Augustine Nazianzen S. Cyril S. Chrysostome S. Ambrose and Hilary expound the place and if so this belongs no more to S. Peter than to the rest of the Apostles who confessed the same Faith and belongs no otherwise to the Pope than as he varies not from S. Peter's Faith and so far it belongs to all Orthodox Bishops with respect to their several Churches And for the Keys of the kingdom of Heaven ver 19. they were given as much to the other Apostles as to S. Peter Matth. xviii 18. as also the aforesaid Fathers do observe being all equally sharers in the Power of the Keys and all Foundations as well as S. Peter so that S. Cyprian plainly tells us The rest of the Apostles were as great as Peter endowed with an equal share of Honour and Power Nor do we find that ever S. Peter pretended to any Power over the other Apostles Peter James and John though preferred by Christ saith Eusebius before the rest challenged not to themselves the glory of Primacy but chose James the Just Bishop of the Apostles And if any were greatest it was S. James who was President in that first Council at Jerusalem and did determine the Question there though S. Peter was present Yea Clemens Bishop of Rome in the first Decretal Epistle a good evidence against the Inventors thereof styles this very S. James Bishop of Bishops governing the Holy Church of the Hebrews at Jerusalem and also all the Churches which were every where founded by the Providence of God And an Ancient Council calls Jerusalem the Mother of all Churches but as for the Primacy of Rome there is no genuine Author for the first Three Centuries takes any notice of it and Aeneas Sylvius afterwards Pope confesseth There was little respect paid to Rome before the Nicene Council If Polycrates and the Asian Bishops had known of this Infallibility and Supremacy they would not have opposed Pope Victor's Opinion nor despised his Excommunication so boldly as they did neither would Irenaeus who calls the Bishops of Rome no more but Presbyters have presumed to reprove the same Victor for his arrogance and indiscretion as we find he did S. Cyprian surely never heard of this Power of the Roman Bishop who calls Cornelius Bishop of that See no more but Brother and Colleague and gives to Pope Stephen his Successor at Rome the Titles of False Apostle Schismatick friend to Hereticks and enemy to Christians utterly despising his Judgment and not regarding his Determinations Besides if this Supremacy had been believed in the first Ages of the Church the Roman Bishops sense would have been enquired of concerning all controverted places of Scripture his Decrees cited to silence Hereticks and all Appeals must have been made finally to him He also should have called and presided in all eminent Councils whereas Cardinal Cusanus affirms That the Emperours or their Deputies were Presidents in Eight General Councils Nor did the Fourth General Council at Chalcedon suppose that the Roman Bishop had any Supremacy given him from Christ when that Council saith Rome hath justly had the Priviledges given unto it by the Fathers because it was the Seat of the Empire and for the same Reason they grant equal Priviledges to the Bishop of Constantinople Yea S. Gregory Bishop of Rome saith The Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon were they who offered his Predecessors the Title of Universal Bishop which yet they accepted not And to convince us that this Vniversal Supremacy is a late Device it is evident that it was not only unknown to others in the first Age but to the very Popes themselves as these few Instances will shew Liberius Bishop of Rome An. 350. sending the Confession of his Faith to Athanasius desireth his Approbation thereof That I may know saith he whether I am of the same Judgment with you in matters of Faith and that I may be more certain and readily obey your commands And when the Bishop of Constantinople began to call himself Vniversal Bishop Pope Gregory in his Epistle to Mauritius the Emperour saith He admires at the Arrogance of assuming this New Title which none of the Bishops of Rome had ever accepted of a Title blasphemous to Christian Ears and with many other words he inveighs against this Title as unfit for any Christian Bishop as may be seen at large in his Epistles And in his Epistle to Eulogius Patriarch of Alexandria he is displeased that Eulogius writes to him by the proud Title of Universal Bishop desiring him wholly to forbear that language for saith he That is a diminution to you which is afforded to another beyond what reason doth require And he there tells Eulegius That the Council of Chalcedon had offered this Title to the Old Bishops of Rome but they would not accept it Of which he gives this Reason in another Epistle Because if one Patriarch be called Universal the name of Patriarch is taken from the rest And so little did Pope Boniface think of deriving his Supremacy from Christ that with intreaty he obtained of the intruding Emperour Phocas to decree That the Roman Church should be Head of all Churches as the Ancient Historians witness But this Imperial Constitution will scarce justifie the Supremacy and Jurisdiction which the Pope now claimeth over all the World and it utterly destroys the pretences of a Divine Right to it It would be too tedious to relate at large all the steps by which the Bishops of Rome attained to their present Grandeur I shall therefore only note that the first Ages began early to complain of his Encroachments and Ambition and all succeeding Times frequently opposed the Pope's Pretences herein The Sixth Council of Carthage allowed not his claim of Appeals The Bishops of France complain of his sending a Legate to Dedicate a
but must be confessed to aim at the present and future happiness of all that we shall address our selves to in this Matter And I shall rejoyce if my pains herein may attain these blessed ends and let you particularly understand how gladly I would encourage your Love to the Church of England and comply with all your Pious desires since I am Sir Your affectionate and faithful Friend Friendly and Seasonable ADVICE TO THE Roman Catholicks OF ENGLAND The Introduction My Friends and Country-men IT is observed by others and complained of by your selves That you lie under many inconveniences by reason of your stiff adherence to those Opinions which Rome calls Religion the charges you are at to maintain a forreign Jurisdiction and your want of the Communion of those Christians among whom you live the uneasie Rites imposed on you here and the great hazard of your Salvation hereafter are reckoned by others to be evils appendant to your professing the Faith of that Church But if you your selves do not feel or not fear these things and so account them no grievance yet you are sensible of other pressures and frequently complain that your Estates are obnoxious to the penalties of the Law and your Persons exposed to the general hatred of the People You tell us you want many Priviledges of other Subjects and lie under many burthens from which others are free You perceive that your actions are observed your designs suspected and your Party accused to be the cause of all Publick evils How far some of your own Perswasion have contributed hereunto I shall not take upon me to judge esteeming it a more charitable employment to offer some expedient to free you from those sad effects which you complain of than either to enquire after the cause of the Nations general Antipathy to your Religion or dispute about the Occasion thereof Wherefore whilst some accuse your practices and others deride your worship I have so much affection for your Persons as my Countrymen and so much charity for your Souls since you bear the name of Christian as to present you with some useful Advice 'T is true the common apprehension concerning you might almost discourage such an Attempt it being generally believed that a Roman Catholicks prejudice is like theirs in St. Augustine who being descended of misbelieving Ancestors preferred their Extraction before the Truth and like the resolution of Cotta in Cicero who says That no discourse of either learned or unlearned men should ever remove him from the Opinion received from his Fore-fathers concerning the worship of the Immortal gods But I know many of you are masters of more reason than to ground your Faith upon so uncertain a Foundation It is not the part of wise men saith a learned Father to be enslaved to a received Opinion nor rashly to give up themselves to their Fathers customes but to endeavour to find out the Truth And it is the advice of the great Apostle to prove all things and hold fast that which is good 1 Thess 5. 21. because it is a zeal without knowledge and a foolish obstinacy to be confident of that which we never did examine I can easily believe your Spiritual Guides will esteem no sin more mortal than to enquire into those Principles which you receive from them and they will scarce allow you the liberty to peruse a few lines presented by so charitable a hand But their Prohibitions methinks should make you more suspicious and inquisitive and cause you to resolve to try that Coyn which shuns the Touchstone knowing that Truth seeks no Corners and that which is Real fears no Test The Church of England puts no such Restraints upon her adherents nor is she unwilling to have her Doctrines tried by Scripture and the best Antiquity because she finds those are her best Sons that have enquired most narrowly Evil needs a mask and a disguise said the brave Agesilaus but Light makes true goodness to be more illustrious and more lovely And a greater than he saith Every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved but he that doth turth cometh to the light S. John iii. 20. 21. If therefore you have but so much consideration as to suspect and so much courage as to examine I should not be without hope that my Advice might take place since as Plato notes Every soul is unwillingly deprived of Truth which men cannot resist when once it appears unto them I shall ask no more of you than to search impartially whether the Doctrines wherein you differ from the Church of England deserve so firm an assent as you give them and he that dares not do this is not a Disciple but a Slave It may be those Counsellours may please the heady Bigots of your Perswasion better who advise them to ease their mind by reproaching the Laws and the Government or to attempt the shaking off their Grievances by more desperate courses But I do not believe the wiser and more sober Romanists can approve such cursed motions there are many of them too noble to admit such thoughts It is the Stoicks character in Galen That they would rather betray their Country than renounce their Maxims But I take those of your Party to be generally of a better temper and therefore I hope you will account it to be far more Friendly and Seasonable Advice to try these your Principles strictly before you expose your Country or your Selves to suffer all the ill-consequences of your rigid maintaining of them and if you once rightly understand them I hope you will discern they do not deserve to be retained at so dear a rate so that it is possible you may resolve to quit your mistaken Opinions and your real Sufferings together However though your Enquiry shall not have this effect yet this Trial of your Principles ought not to be wholly declined for I would advise you to examine the Roman Doctrines if it were but only to declare that your Religion is not a blind and accidental choice and to vindicate your selves from the charge of the Old Samaritans who worshipped they knew not what SECTION 1. Whether the Roman Opinions which differ from the Church of England be the Old Religion I doubt not but these who have been educated in the Romish Religion as well as those who have inconsiderately turned to it do please themselves in fancying they are of the Old Religion and hence they assume and appropriate to themselves the Name of Catholicks upon this presumption that they do intirely and in all things agree with the Ancient and Universal Church But my Friends if you have the patience to enquire you will find there is no good ground for this perswasion it being evident the Roman is not the Old Religion in any other Articles but only in those which are found in the Apostles Creed or founded upon the plain words of Holy Scripture for that is the
notwithstanding their mouldy Pretences as if they had come from far and were descended from Ancient Times their true Original is much later and nearer to this present Age. And now Secondly it will be easie to determine That as the Roman is not the Old Religion so neither ought the Professors of it to appropriate to themselves the Name of Catholick For whether we take it in the Primary and Grammatical sense for Vniversal or in its common acceptation for True Believers The Romanist hath no peculiar Right to this Venerable Title First because their Faith in those Points wherein it differs from the Church of England is not Universal for as the judicious Mr. Brerewood computes the Christians holding the Faith of Rome are not above a fourth part of those who believe in Christ And the excellent Author of Europae Speculum thus makes out the Account The Greek Church saith he in number exceeds any other and the Protestants in number and circuit of Territory are very near equal to the Papal part these are two fourth parts to which if we add the Oriental Christians which are not of the Roman Communion and those under Prester John or the Abassine Christians we have another fourth part of the Christian people and then the Romanists are but one fourth part of Christians only And it is very odd to say that the fourth part is the whole And surely my Friends you cannot seriously think the Roman Church to be the Vniversal or Catholick Church in this sense when you remember that the Pope's Authority is not acknowledged by the Generality of those Christians living in England Scotland and Ireland with the Plantations thereunto belonging nor by those of Denmark and Sweden nor by those of Transylvania Walachia and Moldavia nor by the large Church of Russia nor by the populous States and Provinces of the Dutch with their many Plantations abroad nor by at least five parts of six of the vast Country of Upper Germany nor by two parts of three of the Switzers nor by those of Geneva and Piedmont nor by very many in France Hungary Poland c. How many Millions of Christians are there in the Eastern World who have no dependance on the Roman Church The Christians of the Greek Church properly so called under the three Patriarchs of Constantinople Alexandria and Antioch those of Armenia who are professed Enemies of Rome and yearly Excommunicate the Pope The Georgian Christians with many other lesser Names in Asia the Abassine Christians in Africa all these are not of the Communion of the Roman Church and therefore how can that Church pretend to the Title of Vniversal or Catholick in this sense But secondly if you say you are Catholicks that is true Believers in all Points I desire you to consider that none say so but your Selves and 't is suspicious their Witness is not true who bear witness to themselves S. John v. 31. And where so many Articles of Faith are New it is probable some are False since the Oldest things in Religion are the truest and the best So that upon the whole Enquiry the Church of England may more justly claim the Title of Catholick because the Principles thereof are few and clearly deduced from Scripture believed in the Primitive Church and universally received by all sorts of Christians who differ in some Ceremonies but for the Points which this Church accounts necessary to Salvation the whole Christian World generally agrees in them And since the Religion of the Church of England is the most Ancient and most Vniversal you will be more truly of the Old Religion and more properly styled Catholicks by embracing the Faith professed in your own Country and disowning those who damn all Christians but them of their own Party although it be Evident there are in the World Christians far more in number than they and among those many equal in Learning and superior in Piety to the best of the Roman Church who are reprobated and sentenced to Eternal Flames by their uncharitable Anathema's SECTION II. Whether the said Opinions were not introduced for evil Ends ALthough all this be matter of Fact and acknowledged by your own Writers yet I must expect the venerable Esteem you have so long had for the Roman Church will make you slow to believe this deserved Charge of Innovation and perhaps you will wonder how so pure so Celebrated and so Orthodox a Church as Rome Primitive was should vary so much from her first Faith yet since the Change is so Evident and so well attested I hope at least your Curiosity will tempt you to Enquire First For what ends she should bring in these New Doctrines Secondly By what means they became so generally believed Thirdly Of what nature the things themselves are Fourthly Whether there be Authority sufficient in the Roman Church to Impose them on the whole Christian World Fifthly Whether the Catholicks of England ought to be swayed by that Authority to embrace them And if in examining these Particulars any thing shall be spoken which sounds harshly to your ears accustomed to hear nothing but Encomiums of Rome I shall desire you to consider that Truth is seldom grateful to Offenders and I must say with one of the Writers of the Popes Lives We relate these things because they were done and if the Popes would not have base or evil things reported of them they must do no such things or if they do them not fancy they can be so concealed as that they shall not be known nor related to Posterity Papyrius Masson de Vit. Pont. For my own part I profess I take no delight in Accusations nor shall I say any thing out of malice to that Church but out of pity to the Souls of those who without reason dote upon it If you enquire What ends the Roman Church could have to bring in these New Doctrines I Reply The first decay of that Church began in her Manners For after there were Christian Magistrates saith S. Hierome the Church became fuller of Riches and emptier of Vertue And for the Roman Bishops they began very early to affect a Dominion beyond the bounds of Priesthood as Socrates notes which made S. Basil say thirteen hundred years ago I hate the Pride of that Church and caused a Heathen Historian of that Age to say The Roman Bishops were richly clad carried in Litters and profuse in their feastings But the faults of that Age were small in respect of After-times for as their wealth and power increased their manners grew still worse and worse as we find by the complaints of Salvian and many others till at length about the ninth Age your own Baronius saith The face of the Roman Church was become most filthy when lewd and potent Curtezans swayed all there At whose pleasure Sees were changed Bishops placed and which is horrid to Pious ears their Paramors were thrust into S. Peter ' s Chair false Popes which
only serve to fill up so great a space of Time in the Catalogue of Roman Bishops And a Writer who lived in those Times tells us The World was amazed at the Manners of the Romans It is strange saith another Historian how far in that Age they were degenerated from the Piety of the Old Popes This Age as Another speaks was especially unhappy in this that for about an hundred and fifty years there were fifty Popes wholly fallen from the Vertue of their Predecessors being disorderly and Apostatical rather than Apostolical And if our brevity would permit it we could shew out of Platina Onuphrius and Others of your own Writers that there was no Reformation in all the Ages while these New Doctrines were in coyning Now it is the Great Philosopher's observation That Wickedness is destructive of good Principles So that it is no wonder if in such Decays of Piety and such a flood of Iniquity the Roman Church did bring in many New Articles suitable to her Manners and I think when Pride Luxury and Covetousness possess the Chair we can hardly expect any other Laws but such as shall gratifie these affections And the Practices as well as the Decrees of Rome for divers of the latter Centuries have so apparently tended this way that it hath been taken notice of by all those of her own Communion whose affection hath not rob'd them of their discerning Powers yea even in Catholick Countries it hath abated much of the Reverence formerly paid to that See by reason the designs thereof are so apparently Secular tending not to the Salvation of Souls but the support of their own Grandeur Which makes me admire our English Romanists should hug their Chains and adore those who abuse their well-meaning Devotion with Articles of Faith serving rather to carry on the Designs of the Imposers than the Salvation of their over credulous Believers Methinks an easie apprehension might discover that the Roman Guides govern you by Principles that have more of Machiavel in them than of Conscience or Gospel-simplicity and a little consideration will inform you that those things which they teach you to call Religion are Arts to enslave and impoverish you and Engines to advance themselves to the highest pitch of honour and abundance S. Bernard though a great friend to the Roman Church saw this when he said At Rome all regard is given to Honour but to Holiness none at all Were this the fault of particular mens Evil management from which no Society is free it were more excusable but there are Doctrines added to the Old Catholick Faith even most of the Tenets wherein they differ from the Church of England which are plain Artifices to increase the power and wealth of Rome Doctrines for which they dispute with us upon Demetrius's Principle because thereby they have their gain Act. xix 25. And many think the Guides of your Church contend for some of these Principles not because they believe them but because it is their Interest the people should be perswaded of them which makes them secretly laugh at their Credulity who will be imposed on by them as that great Cardinal did when he gave the People who flocked about him his Benediction in these words Qui vult decipi decipiatur And it is a vile suspicion of this which we may gather from that observation of Hospinian That in Italy the name Christian is used for an Ideot or Fool But to be more particular let us look over some Instances of such New Doctrines as are taught in the Roman Church for Secular ends We begin with the Doctrine of Implicit Faith or believing as the Church believes a Doctrine unknown in S. Cyrils time who speaking to his young Christians Bids them not meerly believe the things he spoke because he affirmed them unless he did demonstrate them to be so out of the Divine Scripture And truly this Novel Doctrine may agree with Pythagoras's Ipse dixit and is a good shelter for Paganism the best Argument for which Balbus saith is this That he had received it from his Fore-fathers The Jewish Rabbins told their Disciples They must believe whatever they taught them though they should say that their right hand was their left and it was becoming enough in Apelâ—es the Heretick to charge his seduced Scholars not to examine his Principles by Reason But it is below the Honour of true Religion to desire to be taken upon Trust so that this Doctrine is a policy of your Priests to secure their evil Principles from being enquired into and a device to make you depend on them as Infallible Oracles who can by this means lead you blind-fold whither they will and impose any thing on you which serves their Interest under the pretence of true Religion 2. Auricular Confession to a Priest was voluntary of Old and only used in case of a troubled Conscience or a strong Temptation But it is now made necessary at stated times in all probability to make the Priest master of every mans Secrets to discover the least inclination of their Proselytes to leave them to keep the Laity in awe and make them venerate and depend upon their Spiritual Guide who hereby hath them at his Mercy And their Doctors do affirm that in some cases it is lawful to discover what is revealed to them in Confession especially if it concern the Roman Church And thus they have an Intelligencer in the breast of every Great man of their Communion The Exempting the Regular Clergy from their Lawful Bishops Jurisdiction which S. Bernard complains of as an unjust thing And the freeing Ecclesiasticks from their Natural Princes Authority is that the Pope may have Subjects numerous and potent to give Intelligence and abet his Interest in the bowels of all Kingdoms The Popes Supremacy Appeals to Rome the Collation of Benefices and other Preferments the Creating their Maker in the Mass with many others do all aim at the Honour of the Church of Rome and the making its most inferior Priests revered But because the Honour of the Church of Rome cannot be maintained without vast riches it is obvious to all that many of their New Doctrines and Practices have been introduced with design to fill the Churches Treasuries or if Ignorance and Superstition were the Mother of these gainful Devices it is certain Covetousness hath been an officious Nurse unto them As in the case of Purgatory and Prayers to deliver Souls from thence a Novel fancy feared and suspected at first by some but countenanced and Decreed by that Church thereby to oblige the people to give liberally for themselves or their deceased Friends to those who sell their Prayers so commonly that they occasioned that Proverb No penny no Pater Noster It is impossible to reckon the vast sums that this Opinion brings in for so many Masses Dirige's Requiems for those Trentals Obits and Anniversaries which the deluded Romanists purchase
if they be tolerably good or less wicked than other men are Papyr Masson in Vit. Julii 31 An. 1550 and the rest of his Clergy and People are suitable for It cannot be dissembled saith a late exact Observer that the whole Country is strangely overflowd with Wickedness with filthiness of Speech with beastliness of Actions both Governors and Subjects both Priests and Fryers each striving as it were with other in an Impudentness therein Europ Spec. p. 27. But I will not pursue this most ungrateful Subject which I profess I do not relate out of any envy or delight in telling such sad stories but I am forced to say these unpleasing Truths to rescue your Souls from those who serve the ends of their Ambition and Covetousness out of your Devotion from those who perswade you to call that Religion which maintains them in the highest plenty and luxury from those who Decree that Good works merit Salvation not because they believe this Doctrine for if they did they would do more Goodworks themselves but because this Perswasion among the people fills the Churches Treasures and hath made the Old Pious and poor Priests and Deacons of Rome Illustrious Cardinals who in Magnificence and Pomp dare vye with the greatest Estates of Christendom and their Great Master scorns to have Kings and Emperors thought his Equals Wherefore when you have duly weighed all this and considered the Pride and insatiable Avarice of the Roman Church and withal observed how all the Doctrines in which they differ from us tend meerly to advance these ends you cannot think it unlikely that such men with such designs should alter and add to their Old Faith especially when you hear S. Paul say The love of Mony is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the Faith 1 Tim. vi 10. It is nothing that is truly Ancient or really good that we perswade you to renounce but Novel Policies and Devices which minister to Secular designs and you ought to account him your Friend who would rescue you from this abuse and perswade you into that Church whose Principles are Primitive plain and honest whose Clergy are content with the Revenues which the Laws of the Land allow them having none of these Vnchristian Artifices of extraordinary gains nor no design to teach you any Doctrines but such as will make you good and direct you in the way to Heaven SECTION III. Whether the said Opinions were not established by evil means THe next Enquiry is By what means these New Doctrines became so generally believed And here first we may note your Church hath good reason to use this Proverb Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion because the wretched blindness of those Ages wherein these Opinions were propagated did hugely contribute to their Reception for it is not to be denied that from the time of the decay of the Western Empire and the Irruptions of the Goths and Vandals into Europe there began to be a great decay of Learning and Barbarism crept in by degrees which is evident by the different style and way of writing which the later Fathers use in comparison of those who lived in the first four or five Centuries and at length this Ignorance became so universal That the study of the liberal Arts was generally laid aside as an Old Historian complains and that Age which bred many of these Errors is commonly by your own Writers called The Obscure Age being wholly without any persons eminent for Wit or Learning the very inferior Priests being not able to translate an Epistle into Latin which Aegyptian darkness continued in all the Western world till a few years before the Reformation as your own Espencaeus confesseth Now this gross stupidity must needs make the World apt and easie to be abused with the most absurd and monstrous Doctrines for Ignorance is the Mother of all Errors as an Old Council affirms and not of true Devotion as you now pretend This made way for the Politick Guides of Rome to impose such Opinions on the Church as might best serve their own ends These Tares were sowed while men slept Matth. xiii 25. and there were many Circumstances concurring in those unlucky Ages which contributed to the furthering the Roman designs the withdrawing of the Emperors into the East and first the Decay of the Western Empire then the destruction of the Eastern and the desolation of all the famous Oriental Churches by the spreading Inundation of Turks and Saracens so that the Pope had neither Emperor nor Patriarch for a long time that could oppose him the Miseries of all Christendom giving him opportunity to make himself the sole Governor of these Parts of the World and none were able to contend with him though many complain'd of his Vsurpation Johan Sarisburiensis telling Adrian 4 th who asked him what men thought of the Roman Church That they esteemed it a Stepmother not a Mother and the Pope of Rome himself was grievous to all and almost intolerable I shall not now be so tedious to you as to relate how this Church by force and by taking all advantages did attempt to suppress all that did oppose her Impositions and Grandeur what wars the Popes raised against the German Emperors what occasions they took to enslave the Greek Church when they petitioned for relief against the conquering and cruel Turks what Persecutions they raised against the Albigenses Bohemians and Wicklevists and how they destroyed all that resisted their Innovations with Fire and Sword only desiring you to remark That the Roman Church was the first Author of putting men to death for that which they call Heresy A practice wholly differing from the Rules of Christianity from the Opinion and Practice of the Ancient Church It being a New and unheard of way of Preaching saith your S. Gregory to force men by stripes to believe yet by Fire and Fagot the modern Church of Rome affrights the World into the Embracing these Articles or by Inquisitions and Racks awes them into silence not daring to question them Her Greatness Riches Interest and Severity to Opposers hath been one means to obtrude the belief of her gainful Articles upon men and her Policies and Frauds have been another for you cannot think it unlikely that they who have so little Piety as to turn Religion into Policy should have so little honesty as to equivocate for the defence of their Politick Religion and verily the Ignorance and Credulity of those blind Ages were such that your Church never sought for solid Arguments to confirm their New Decrees but built them usually upon Fictions and proved them by notorious Forgeries and accounted this way of proceeding not only lawful but Pious so that whosoever reads those Discourses of your Jesuites in defence of these Deceits called by them Piae fraudes will conclude the High-Priests of Rome-Christian as well as Rome-Heathen to have been of Opinion
That it was expedient the people should be deceived in their Religion as Scaevola the Pagan Pontifex M. in S. Augustine saith and no doubt your Church agrees with the Heathen Varro in the same Author where he saith There are many Truths in Religion which it is not expedient for the people to know and though divers things therein be false yet the people ought to think them true The instances of some particulars will make this more evident 1. Miracles were the foundation and most authentick proofs for Invocation of Saints Veneration of Images and Relicks Pilgrimages Purgatory Monastical Vows and most of the gainful Articles of the Roman Church and yet S. Chrysostome saith that there were no footsteps of the power of Miracles left in the Church in his time And your S. Gregory thinks them unnecessary among Believers and so do many others Yet in the dark Ages nothing was more frequently pretended than Miracles wrought by Saints living and dead as appears by the stories of their Lives and the Legends of your Church which Relations are so senseless and so ridiculous so impossible and unlikely so little agreeing with Chronology History or Geography that the Modern Writers of the Roman Party are ashamed of them Hence your own Canus complains that these Authors of Saints Lives with false and counterfeit Fables have blemished the Lives of Saints And the same Writer saith there that the Author of your so famed Golden Legend was a man of an Iron forehead and a Leaden soul Harding also affirmeth That there be many vain Fables in it Simeon Metaphrastes is another of these Miracle-Writers and is so eminent that he is read in the Modern Roman Breviaries and yet Cardinal Bellarmine blames him for incredible stories and relations not agreeing to Ancient Writers He adds saith he many things out of his own wit not as they were really done but as they might have been done And is not this notorious forgery Yea the Popes themselves in the latest sort of Breviaries have left many of these fabulous Miracles out since they have done the work now for which they were invented the Doctrines supported by these lies are now generally embraced and when the Arch is compleated the Props on which it was raised may be laid aside yet still you ought to ask If these stories were false how came the Infallible Church to put them into her Offices if they were true why doth she now reject them And it is observable that the Roman Church at present pretends but to very few Miracles and the Doctors thereof in this knowing Age are very shy of believing any at all as one of your own Priests proves at large The Reason of which must needs be because they fear this Inquisitive and learned Generation should discover the fraud of them For since Miracles are especially necessary to convince unbelievers there is far more need of them since the Reformation when so many disbelieve the Religion of your Church than was before when all the Nations of the West were at the Devotion thereof Yet then many Miracles are recorded and now few or none an Argument sufficient to make a wary man believe there were few real Miracles at any time since the settlement of Christianity only the superstitious and ignorant credulity of the former Ages was fit to be abused with such Pretences And now why are you so stiff in maintaining those Opinions which were believed at first upon so slight and false inducements as these Legends and Miracles are confessed to be But this Argument is of late so fully handled by two excellent Pens that I may dismiss it with my hearty wish you would read those Tracts without Prejudice being not written to abuse real Religion as some tell you but to undeceive you and unmask that hypocrisie which hath long walked in the venerable Mantle of Truth Nor ought you to be angry at the Relators but at the Inventors of such falshoods who have got many fair Houses and Lands vast sums of Mony and innumerable costly Oblations by these Fictions to the scandal of Christianity it self My second instance shall be of the Artifice of Forging Records for to attest their Novel Doctrines especially that of the Pope's Supremacy they put out divers spurious Tracts under illustrious names which served to wheadle an illiterate Age into a Reverence for the Roman Church and her Opinions whereas now the cheat is so palpable that your modern Doctors though they keep the Conclusions disown those feigned books that were the Premises from whence they were inferred Of this nature are the Decretal Epistles of all the Popes from Clemens down to Pope Syricius An. 385. formerly cited as good Authorities and transcribed some parts of them into your Canon Law but now the most learned Romanists confess a great part of them to be meer forgeries Baronius styles divers of them Apocryphal And Cardinal Cusanus saith That being applied to the times of those Holy men they do betray themselves And indeed these Epistles were never cited by any good old Author and were first brought into France by one Riculfus Arch. B. of Ments five hundred years after those Popes were dead as Hincmarus Arch. B. of Rhemes a Writer of that Age affirms and Baronius also confesseth Nor did the Roman See blush some Centuries ago to alledge for its Supremacy the most fabulous Donation of Constantine the Great wherein he is pretended to make the Pope head over the whole Church and superiour to all the four Patriarchs of the East naming Constantinople for one which City was not yet built giving him in fee the City of Rome and all Italy with all the Provinces of the Western Empire though he gave all these to one of his Sons afterwards This senseless Edict was pleaded by several of the Popes in former times to countenance their ambitious pretences and of Old was received without suspicion by the gravest and learnedst Doctors saith Binius who yet confesseth there it was a meer forgery devised he thinks by the Greeks and now adaies all Romanists generally disown it and indeed it is as ridiculous a forgery as ever the world saw My Brevity will not allow me to enlarge upon this Subject otherwise I could add innumerable Examples of like dealing The absurd Council of Sinuessa The monstrous Recognitions of Clement The threescore new Canons father'd by Turrian and others upon the famous General Council of Nice The Pontifical ascribed to Pope Damasus with innumerable other Tracts of the same Metal being all apparent Forgeries and yet were long countenanced by Rome to support her unjust Supremacy and other Innovations My third Instance shall be of Suppressing or corrupting true Records of which take a few Examples The Legates of Rome within less than a hundred years after the general Council of Nice did produce two Canons to prove the Popes Right
Master and the Servants the same in all outward expressions only differing in a nice School-distinction must needs be an affront to the King of Saints If you have any tenderness or zeal for the honour of Jesus it cannot but be offensive to you to observe how your Legends tell of greater miracles wrought by some of their fabulous Saints than ever Jesus wrought To hear one of your Church say That Christ did nothing which S. Francis did not do yea that he did more than Christ himself What is more injurious to the honour of the Divine Majesty than your S. Bonaventure's putting in the name of the Virgin Mary into Davids Psalms instead of the name of God To have her adored by the Heathenish Title of the Queen of Heaven and invocated by the impious name of Mother of the whole Trinity These things are rather Blasphemy than Devotion and as dishonourable to God as they are Dissonant from Antiquity Let none saith Epiphanius adore Mary but why do I mention a Woman nay not any Man this Reverence is due only to God nor are the Angels capable of such glorification Fifthly The supposing a necessity of superadding the Saints Merits and the daily Sacrifice of the Mass to the Merit of that one Offering for sin which Jesus made on the Cross Heb. ix 28. is an evident lessening the value and sufficiency of the Death of Christ Sixthly The calling of the Holy Scripture a Nose of Wax a Leaden Rule and an Inky Gospel The putting in the Apocryphal books wherein are some things wicked and others notoriously false into an equal rank with the Word of God indited by the Spirit own Traditions to be equal in value to it are palpable dishonours to God who writ the Holy Scripture These things my Friends can hardly be reckoned matters tending to the honour of God unless you can suppose the cancelling his Laws disparaging his Nature undervaluing the Merits the Mercies and the Miracles of Jesus by cheap and odious Comparisons the diminution of his worship and making him sharer with his Servants therein and the vilifying of his Divine word be no dishonour to him you pretend to serve Secondly Let us examine whether these Doctrines do assist you in the Devout worshipping of God It is very suspicious that Church doth not teach a right way of serving God which deceives you in the first Principle of Religion viz. That God alone is to be worshipped a Sentence so odious to the Roman Doctors that the Index Expurgatorius blots it out of the indices of S. Athanasius and S. Augustines Works and if they could do it undiscovered they would blot it out of the Bible also Matth. iv 10. But there it shall stand for ever to reprove those who divide Religious worship between God and his Creatures thereby diminishing that Devotion which intirely belongs to the Divine Majesty since affections are most vigorous when placed upon one Object and if they be dispersed among many grow weak and trifling whence we may conclude the Protestant who worships none but God is the greater lover of him and worships with a more united and servent Devotion As for your Publick worship it is attended with so many Ceremonies as must needs disturb the Devotion as well of the Priests as the People there is such frequent bowing crossing prostration sprinkling with Holy water beating the breast smoaking with Incense c. that the mind is taken off from a steady intention upon the inward and main part of the Duty while it is entertained with such variety of outward Rites For our mind saith Quintilian cannot sincerely intend its whole self upon many things at once whatever new object it looks upon it gives over the thoughts of that which it first propounded to it self And this is most evident where the Objects are so different as sensible and intellectual things are For where the Senses and their perceptions are vigorously employed there the Intellectual Powers cease to act as a great Philosopher observes So that it is your Passions and your Fancies that are wrought upon not your Mind nor the higher faculties of your Soul by these numerous Ceremonies and therefore that which you think Devotion I doubt is but a fantastical and false fire not kindled by the love of God nor warming your nobler Powers at all and those steady rational and spiritual desires which flow from an undisturbed contemplation of the Divine Goodness and are the very life of Prayer I fear you are strangers to being so often taken off and diverted by variety of sensible Representations Again the making all your Publick prayers in an Vnknown Tongue destroys all true Devotion in the People S. Clemens of Alex. tells us of some Heathens who thought those Prayers most effectual which were uttered in a barbarous Language But Christians know that Prayer is the desiring something of God and if the Mind be not exercised in this desire it avails nothing but where the words are not understood the mind cannot desire the things mentioned so that none can properly pray in an Vnknown Tongue nor so much as rationally say Amen 1 Cor. xiv 16. By this absurd Practice therefore you who are unlearned spend the time of the Publick offices in admiring and gazing not in joyning with the Priest or Praying And because the people have no employment while the Mass lasteth they spend the whole time usually in talking and laughing privately as those who Travel in Catholick Countries do inform us And it may occasion your wonder why the Roman Church should so obstinately refuse to reform so irrational a Custom which S. Paul hath written a whole Chapter to condemn 1 Cor. xiv The force of whose Arguments and Authority hath made your wisest Doctors declare against it By S. Paul ' s Doctrine saith Card. Cajetan it is better for the edifying of the Church that Publick prayers were made in the Vulgar Tongue than in Latin To the same purpose Lyra And your Rhemish Annotators say When a man prayeth in a strange Tongue which himself understandeth not it is not so fruitful for Instruction to him as if he knew particularly what he prayed Gabriel Biel also gives several Reasons why Prayers should be in a known Tongue saying It is better 1. For stirring up Devotion 2. for enlightning the Mind 3. for retaining the things in memory 4. for keeping the thoughts from wandring Yet your admired Church will oppose Reason and Scripture and deprive all the Common people that are of her Communion of the exercise of their Devotion in her Offices rather than so far seem to confess a fault as to amend it chusing rather to let you lose the benefit of worshipping God than to reform the most unjust Customes which she hath once espoused but if you be wise if that Church will not pray in such a Language as you can
own Liberty and men of an un-inslaved Understanding SECTION VII Advice to the English Catholicks to forsake the Opinions of Rome and embrace the Religion of the Church of England TO Conclude as my pity to see you so miserably imposed on hath moved me to endeavour by these plain and Cogent Arguments to rescue you from that yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear So my desire of your perfect Freedom and my unfeigned wishes for your Temporal Spiritual and Eternal welfare do prompt me to advise you to comply with the Religion of the Church of England and this Advice is not only grounded upon the foregoing considerations but may be further pressed upon these motives 1. If you consider the excellent method of our Reformation which was so necessary at that time that for some Ages before the wisest and best men of the Roman Church had not only confessed there was great need of it but had complained for want thereof and pressed the Pope earnestly thereunto witness the Judicious Epistle of Rob. Grosthead that pious Bish of Lincoln to Pope Innocent the Fourth yet to be seen in our Historians the publick complaint of the English Church in the Council of Lyons the private Writings of John Gerson Nich. Clemangis Aeneas Sylvius afterwards Pope and many others And at least One Hundred Years before Luthers time a Reformation was urged for in the Pisane Council and that so strongly that before the Election of a Pope the Cardinals solemnly promised Who ever of them should be chosen Pope that he would before the dissolution of that Council Reform the Catholick Church as well in the Head as the Members And when Alexander the Fifth was chosen He promised to take Care of a General Reformation and that pious and Learned Men should be chosen in every Nation to treat with the Cardinals about it But after all neither he nor his Successors would ever Reform either their Doctrines or Practices being more intent upon their private advantage than the general good and more moved with Cardinal Scombergs Counsel than by all the former complaints who told the Pope That by the Reformation it would be confessed that the things provided against were deservedly reproved by the Lutherans which would be a great abetting to their whole Doctrine Hist Counc Trent l. 1. p. 83. which is to resolve to Err always rather than to be thought to have once erred and herein the Roman Church is of the same humour with those Gentiles to whom Arnobius speaks What you have once done without reason ye defend lest you should seem formerly to have been ignorant and you account it better not to be overcome than to yield to plain and confessed Truth Wherefore since Rome resolved not to Reform England having first restored her King to his Ancient and just Supremacy resolved to reform it self without the Popes leave or consent knowing full well they had Authority sufficient among themselves to order the Affairs of Religion which had been Regulated many Hundred years in this Land by the King and his own Bishops without any dependence on the Pope at all Thus the Kings of Judah reformed their Kingdoms of Old Thus the King of Spain with Leander Bishop of Sevil reformed that Kingdom from Arianism without the Pope and thus King Edgar intended to proceed in the Reformation of the English Church of Old when he told his own Clergy I have Constantines Sword in my hands and you have Peters in yours That is we need no further Authority or power to reform Than what we have within our selves The Kings of this Nation with the advice and consent of their Bishops Barons and Commons had been always wont to order Ecclesiastical affairs as they thought meet not heeding whether the Pope were pleased or displeased thereat And accordingly this happy Reformation was made by the Supreme Power of this Kingdom upon mature deliberation in a Regular Orderly and Legal way and it was managed with so much moderation and prudence that the Romanists of England said little against it but Communicated with this Church after the Reformation till the Pope for his own ends forbid them so to do but I hope his Prohibition without any just reason shall not outweigh the Supreme Authority of your own Nation with you who profess your selves to be Loyal Subjects and for the interest of England and since there was such need of Reformation such obstinacy in Rome such Authority here and so orderly proceedings in this Reformation I think all Good Christians and sober men being Natives of this Land ought to submit unto it II. You will be further perswaded hereunto by considering the Doctrine of this Church which agrees with Primitive Christianity in that it obliges you to believe nothing as of necessity to Salvation but what may be plainly proved our of Holy Scripture and for this reason you must still hold the three Creeds of the Apostles of Nice and of Saint Athanasius all which the Church of England intirely believes And he only is a Heretick which follows not this Holy Rule say the Constitutions of Theodosius and Gratian but they are Catholicks that embrace it In this Church we give as much honour to and obey more Canons of the first Four General Councils than they of Rome do we approve of that Exposition of Scripture which hath the consent of the Fathers of the first three or four Centuries yea we hold all that the Church of Rome it self held as necessary to Salvation for Five or Six hundred Years together and it is very remarkable that a Romanist may turn Protestant without adding any one Article to his Faith but a Protestant cannot turn to Rome unless he embrace many new Articles for our Doctrines are generally confessed by both sides to be true but those of the Roman Church are rejected by our Reformers as Novel Additions and such as have no good foundation in Scripture nor Genuine Antiquity And therefore the Protestant Doctrines are the surer and safer as in which both sides agree For Example we and they both hold there are two States after this life Heaven and Hell but they add a third which is Purgatory and this we deny We and they both say that sins are to be remitted by the merits of Christs death but they add the merits of the Saints and their own satisfactions with the merit of their own good works which we deny to be Expiatory or such as can merit Remission for us We hold there be two Sacraments Baptism and the Eucharist these they confess are the Chief but add Five more to which we affirm the name of Sacraments doth not properly belong We say that God alone is to be worshipped they confess he is chiefly to be worshipped but then they say the Blessed Virgin Mary Angels and Saints are to be worshipped also which Additions we deny We say Christ is our only Mediator and Advocate