body even as Christs natural body under one spirit and head united and compacted together and that without ceas even so long as that mystick body lasteth upon earth in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi till it receiv its final consummation negatively to prevent schismes and herefies which might otherwise render the Church in her members both contemptuous and liable to continual ruin whiles every particular person left to himself would be carried up and down like children with puffes of novelty blowing several wayes by the cunning subtilty of men pretending new light spirits reasons and such like stratagems in astutia in their knavery and pride of heart to bring people into a circumvention of errour all which inconveniences are avoided by following the guidance of the Church and the Pastours therein appointed over us A general spirit of truth in those that are set over the flock keeps them together and safe whereas particular lights in the sheep that are to be ruled would divide them from their pastour and from one another and division infers destruction Nor could that great Jewish argument be any way warded or put by but by recours to the Churches infallibility which can be no other but what Christ gave her and his own autority and truth revealed by this Church is the utmost foundation that supports the whole fabrick nor can there be any thing further assigned to support it but God with whom it is beleeved to be united for as all material buildings and their connexion are beheld with the eye but their foundation is not seen but is beleeved by the influence it hath in supporting the fabrick which it self is ultimately sustained by the center So may we discern some consequences of the points of religion upon a supposal of a great fundamental truth upon which they all depend as this is that Christ is a true and divine teacher but this cannot be seen or maintained otherwise than by a pure belief yielded unto that Church that first taught him and His truth sustains all his doctrin and the formal fabrick of the Church built upon him and it can be grounded upon nothing but God himself the center of all subsistence and verity This connexion of us to the apostles of the apostles to Christ and Christ to God St. Paul insinuates when he saith to the Christians of Corinth Omnia vestra sunt sive Paulus sive Apollo sive Kephas vos autem Christi Christus autem Dei The Christians might indeed reply to the Jew and say that Christ our Lord was a holy and sacred person divine innocent miraculous and unblamable in his whole life and conversation that he came from heaven by the mission of his eternal father and his own great benignity to plant upon earth an universal catholick Church amongst all nations which in the fulnes of time God was pleased to do whereas Moses had confined his Church by Gods command till that hour of general salvation was come unto the one family of Abraham and that he had received autority from God so to do which not only his own evangelists but even Moses and the prophets sufficiently attest who all do so speak forth the birth and life passion and resurrection of this our great Messias and the glory of his Church amongst the gentiles accordingly as himself promised and it hath now appeared to be and that nothing but rancour and prejudice and the scandal of his humility and the Jews mistake of the Messias his first and second coming did incens them against their own lord when he appeared amongst them who also looked even then for a Messias sodainly to come whom they were to obey and follow and cannot probably being then the onely select people of God ascribe their immense desolations exiles from their own homes and miseries these sixteen hundred years than to the guilt they have contracted upon themselvs by shedding the blood of that sacred person Nor are they to be excused sith all the ancient Rabbies before Christs coming did openly profess throughout all the Hebrew Church that they understood not the end and meaning of Moses law nor ever should till the great Messias came to teach them which was so beaten into their minds that all the Hebrewes beleeved it as appears by the saying of the woman of Samaria When the Messias comes he will teach as all things although through the hatred they bore to Jesus Christ they began after his coming to sing another song This I say and such like words they might reply and prove all by some autority or other but yet whatsoever they could alledge the Jewish Rabbies would give another interpretation to it or if it were their own gospel flatly deny it and so having no other further autority to rely upon but the truth of that Church that stands upon this foundation of Christs divinity there they must rest For there can be no hope either of satisfying a querent or conconvincing an opponent in any point of Christianity unles he will submit to the splendour of Christs autority in his own person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the reason why som of the Jews in Rome when S. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the prophets beleeved in him and some did not So then the great resolv of all doubts must be immediately upon the autority of the present Church which derived from the Church foregoing must by several concatenations bring us at length to the autority of Christ which is the root and firmitude and life of all and if this be once acknowledged and firm and firm it cannot otherwaies be than by captivating our wills and understanding to his love and obedience under that notion the Church hath revealed him it must equally support all future generations of Christians be they never so many in any temptation or difficulty that should afterwards happen and the whole Church and all her doctrin built upon it Nor can any at any time pretend rightfully and justly other motive of his beleef than what the apostles had for theirs the first age from the apostles the second age from the first c. and still the foregoing Church does but derive the faith and practise received unto its successour and both must equally stand upon the same foundation of one and the same autority which all generations take by the like resignation and faith-submission unto the worlds end So that he that departs in any age from the waies of the foregoing Church upon what pretence soever it be done of knowledge interiour light reason spirit or other discovery he leavs the foundation on which his faith was built and vertually forsakes Christ and would have had the same argument against him if he had lived in his time for if the Church the visible Church prove not to be even in that particular age a just keeper and deliverer of faith received then was the Church deceived not so
not in that manner the Evangelist uses or if he did he could not intend to affirm that which neither he nor God himself can make good Nor will we grant any thing to Christ but what we can do our selves or understand at least how it may be don If there were upon earth any speaking oracle unto whom all parties would submit in these affairs disputes would soon end if such a one be excluded or denied the very rising of them is as ominous as the blazing of a comet or coming of a whale into a river and portends great disturbance and desolation The world had that fearful apprehension when they first beard that Luther would shine with his own light and defy the stars of heaven But they were more than assured of much approaching mischief when they once understood that Calvin had left the Roman Sea to show himself and domineer and sport in the fresh waters of Geneva §. II. Reason WHo shall then set up himself for a guide to his neighbour in affairs of religion which must needs carry an obscurity far above all that is in nature and how and which way will he do it that a good disinterested judgment may approve of his pretensions There can no other way whereby any should now afresh after Christian religion has been above sixteen hundred years profest in the world set up himself a new extraordinary directour be thought of or imagined but either som high inconfutable reason internal special light or purer interpretation of formerly received Scripture And what man is there in the world can now wisely begin to pretend any of these things to the disparagement of the rest of the Christian world Reason carries the fairest show and seems most civil and manly and if it lean upon principles of faith formerly received it may do much good for the strengthning or securing of religion in weak beleevers but then it makes not saith but supposes it and must know withal and if it be right reason cannot but know that all argumentations are answerable which if they rely upon obscure suppositions may according to the height of the maisters conceit pretend much but can prove nothing irrefragably Did religion com at first by reason or must it only begin now A good beleever cannot but think that Christ the great maister had a reason for what he taught but he must beleeve first before he can think so and altho he had a reason himself yet since he taught us none we can have from him no other reason but his autority and this may be beleeved but not evidently proved for his miracles recorded and not seen are as pure an object of faith as his autority and person nay if I had seen them I could not have told my self unto whom the intricacies of whole nature are so much unknown whether nature and art might compas them or no and so might I conclude him to be some ingenious person or great naturallist but not a god Nor is it likely that Christ ever meant that reason should frame our religion both becaus he constituted such men to plant faith as were not any maisters of arts and if reason had been the business it had been fitter to send them about the world to learn than to teach as also becaus himself though he did oftentimes with subtil and most rational argumentations confute the Pharisees errours yet did he never by any reason that I can remember establish his own doctrin nor answer to any Quomodo though he was often put to it but still when the Jews demanded How can this or that be How can man forgiv sins How can this man give us his flesh to eat he repeated again his own assertion and doctrin and might perhaps confirm it by miracle but he proved it not by reason And it was very fitting if so be he were such a person as we beleev him to be that he should be taken upon his word and not stand to give his vassails a reason of his will If Christ our Lord had been no more than an ordinary wise legislatour yet could he not rationally intend at once both the unity of his Church upon earth and the guidance of all men in it onely by reason of their own for my reason is not his and may well prove contrary as well to it as that of my neighbours whence will result together not onely not one religion but also no religion whiles one neighbours reason differs from another and perhaps both from Gods Wherfore wise and holy Church hath in all ages both forbid her children to dispute their principles of religion in the sense they had received them and also refused to be tried before any Senate by the philosophy of any pure man to stand or fall by his axioms This is apparent not only by ancient writings of Christian doctours but by a fact of Emperour Julian who falling from Christian religion amongst other oppressions he deprived Christians of their schools of literature throughout the Roman Empire telling them by way of jeer that Christians need not any learning unto whom this one word Credo is sufficient And indeed it is sufficient for faith and must needs be both the sufficient and only means of conserving a Church in uniformity for religion must be somthing which may be common to all persons that profess it and equally proportioned to all capacities and conditions and such a thing is to Beleeve but not to ratiocinate all men both rich and poor wise and unlearned prince and peasant may equally beleev one and the same thing and so hold it uniformly from time to time but if that very thing were to be set up unto each one by his own proper reason the several kinds of beings in sensitiv or vegetative nature even from the oak to the mustard seed would not more differ than that one judgment in several men have there not been fifty or threescore several interpretations of these few words Hoc est corpus meum c. and almost a hundred opinions amongst the masters of reason about their summum bonum And if any say that it is enough for som great master in these times by the strength of his reason to rais a religion that is onely to be accepted and others of weaker abilities may either take all that from him or only follow and hold what themselvs are able by their own reason to reach This cannot satisfie at all for first if I must take a religion upon the credit of some great masters reason which my self cannot judg or comprehend I had as good take it from the first master and beleev as I do and not suffer another in these dayes to make himself lord over me and lead me another way of his own and he indeed that does so does not only by this slight put himself into the place of Him who conveighes faith but of Christ himself who made it for the sense is the life and spirit of all
words and Christ then should but only administer matter for this great new rising Sun to quicken On the other side if I be not to follow anothers reason but my own what variety would there be in the world about the same thing not only betwixt man and man but betwixt one man to day and the self same man to morrow for the opinions which be totally from our selves we change continually upon the variety either of our own intrinsick dispositions or casual alterations from without and in each seaven years resolution we find a whole volum of new thoughts and judgments within us contrary to former ones we had of the same things diet clothing pastimes company nature providence books and yet all must ever be true for generally in all the ages of our life we are equally obstinate in that we set upon so that whiles reason is licensed to create a religion not only all the religions which any particular man shall run through in his life time but those also what ever they be which whole kingdoms and nations shall at any time accept of in a word all the religions of the whole earth must needs be justified And he can mean no less who would have that to be religion and only that which reason makes forth Both heretick and catholick both Jew and Christian pagan and Mahometan do all and every one stifly defend that his religion is rational that his best reason is with it and for it and that no right reason can be against it If reason that should follow once go before and lead religion it will sodainly thrust Christ out of his chair and separate at once all his Church from him For if I hold nothing but what reason dictates then is not Christ my master nor will there be any Church that may any more belong to Christ than to Democritus Aristotle or at least dame Nature If any reply that we must take the words from Christ and his gospel but the proper sense which words of themselves cannot carry with them our own reason must make out This indeed is true thus far that as we do understand languages and human words so are we accordingly to conceiv of their meaning as we know those words were either at first imposed or by long use have got the power to make out and if those words speak faith the same Church gives both words and sens together expounding them by her very practis which we daily convers withal but if any will further by his pretens of reason give power to any or all men to make out at his pleasur a particular sense of his own differing from the ancient meaning conveighed together with those words this must needs justifie Calvins private interpretation from which this new doctrin differs but in words whiles that is here called reason which he calls spirit and both do equally exclude the guidance of any Church besides the temple of their own heads in both wayes every one is in deed and reality chief byshop to himself and equally will religion be as various and mutable as our thoughts and answerable to the natur either of our reason or spirit here wide there narrow there none at all Nay what is there in christianity that one reason or other as well as peculiarity of spirit may not deprave and frustrate the gospel may be made to speak Mahometisme with one reason the Alcoran to Evangelise by another S. Paul had no doubt a very sublime intellect and yet he declares that his own and every understanding in the world is to be captivated unto the obedience of Christ and his faith and that all Christians walk by faith and not by species or evidence which is a quite contrary way to this that would have no religion but what coms from reason According to this all are to walk by sight and not by faith but in St. Pauls judgment all Christians are to walk by faith and not by sight this would have faith captivated to the obedience of the understanding St. Paul would have the understanding captivated to the obedience of faith And good reason it should be so for are not most part of the things our Lord revealed contingent and hid from our eyes And if there can be made no demonstration in nature of the things we do see and touch and convers withall as is sufficiently insinuated how can things invisible be reached and confined and concluded by reason and this indeed is the very ratiocination of Jesus Christ to Nicodemus whose word I should beleev although I did not my self know either the antecedent to be true or the inference certain and necessary In my mind it is a poor imagination to think that doctrinal words delivered beleeved and practised in the world for almost two thousand years should now at length be to receiv their true sens from a new doctour in our times which hitherto the whole Christian world wanted and through the universall ignorance of mankind could not till now finde it out and to adde for further countenance of the way that the Church hath three times 't is pitty she is not allowed her quatuor tempora in the first she walked by credulity in the second by probability and in the third which begins in these daies of ours by scientifical demonstration is as weak a fansy as the other for one and the same Church must have the same motives and grounds and practise and articles of religion which must needs be all of them excessively divers if that were true The same conclusions and articles can never issue from a dark credulity a purblind probability and a staring demonstration I know that in the second and all ages of the Church preachers and doctours explicated and declared their faith by congruous similitudes and reasons but neither then nor in any time of Christianity did they frame their faith either by reason or probability nor yet allowed it either to stand or fall by those means St. Austin Eusebius and St. Bernard lived in that which is by our new Rationalists called the age of probability and yet the first in his book de utilitate credendi confutes the Manichees for saying that faith is not to be admitted till a clear reason of every thing be given Eusebius in the fifth book of his history condemns the Arthemonites for straitning faith within the limits of human wit St. Bernard in his epistles confutes Abailard for the same fault And they were all three backt with that great apostle who speaks confidently that fides est rerum non apparentium Heb. 11. And again by another if not the same as great as he who said we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a scandal to the Gentiles folly for the Jews ask a sign and the Gentiles require wisdom 1 Cor. 1. So that in St. Pauls divinity as 't is Judaisme not to beleev without a sign so likewise to suspend our faith upon philosophicall reason is pure paganisme
much in that age as in the first when she took her faith from him that did manifestly so comport himself as if he would be taken for a God and promised his Church by the general spirit he would send her to teach her all truth and strengthen her therein against all opposition even to the consummation of the world which none but God or one exceeding near unto him could make good and if this were not performed the imposture was in the first beginning That building must needs stand firm that rests upon a Deity which hath influence upon the whole fabrick to keep it up and if it be not so kept up and conserved the Church doth but vainly flatter her self when she boasts of the divinity of her support if she fail in her doctrin and faith Christ is not God Whensoever therfor we read either in the Acts of the apostles or other ancient story of the conversion of a Kingdom or people unto the right religion of Christianity we still find it was done not by any private illumination of any one who living before in darknes with the rest was now secretly called to teach others but by a resignation unto a former doctrin brought from Christ by his missioners and preachers by submission to a truth delivered to them from without not rising up within them Faith comes by hearing and every man upon earth that hath ever been approved Christian received it that way and was made thereby not a maister but disciple to the Church Wheras on the other side this spirit and light and such like discoveries we so frequently talk of makes us not schollers but maisters ipso facto and urges not to submit to foregoers but to condemn them not to resign our own but to captivate others understandings not to go to the Church but to go out of it and that upon the single motive of a new illumination which none had before us and we from no body I know well enough that a man cannot be converted and becom a good Christian without the assistance of Gods grace exciting and cooperating with us to our good when the truth is taught and revealed to us But this I suppose is not the Light men talk of for this is rather in the affection and will than in the understanding and bids us hearken to another not to our selves to join with a Church already planted not to begin a new one of our own heads It sayes not to us make a vineyard of your own but go into mine And the intellectuall Light men speak of if we have any we receiv it afterwards as a reward of our humility in that Church where we did not kindle it but found it already burning to guide our feet by it in the wayes of peace Crede intelliges said a great Prophet Beleev and you shall understand but we must beleev first and by that obscure step of beleef which is as a duksy twi-light between the darknes of infidelity we lived in before and the light of truth we go to arrive we to all future happines But we in England that pretend this new Light and secret Spirit are separated by it from a former Church but brought to none nor are we made disciples by it but maisters on the sudden and enabled to teach all men that which we never received from any which is absolutely against the whole cours of Christianity and will if it be admitted set open a gap unto all fanatick fansies St. Paul professes he was apostle not of men nor by men but by God and the reason is becaus his first call was extraordinary from heaven as was likewise the suggestion he had to his mission and yet that God that called him although he showed him so singular a favour yet would he not dispense with his own orders and constitutions even in him but sent him to the good Priest Ananias to be by him instructed and catechised and admitted into his Church and with those people St. Paul found in the profession of that faith did he often conferre even he that was so strangly called from heaven conferred the Gospel which afterwards he preached as himself speaks in his epistle to the Galatians with those people and with that Church he found in actuall possession and profession of that faith least saith he I should have run in vain that is least he should do or think or preach any thing amiss contrary to the truth received unto which he was called which he could no otherwaies by the constitutions Jesus himself had made be assured of but by comparing his doctrin with that which was believed and practised in the Church before him into which he was now incorporated as a member in that body by the assistance of the grace he had received to be first a disciple and then afterwards a maister and teacher and when he did become a doctour he did not make himself one no nor his calling by Christ sufficed to do it but he was made such a one under the hands of the apostles and by their approbation autority and sacred ordination as may be seen in the book of the Acts ch 13. Nor was he to teach without that Churches leav or contrary to her faith but by her direction and in subjection to her This is a faithful speech and worthy of all consideration which seriously pondered would dissipate in a moment all whatsoever pretences of light spirit reason or other thing that shall mov any to a new way by himself contrary to what he hath received seen practised in the Church before him And if any would seriously peruse the Acts of the apostles wherein the footsteps of primitive Christianity fufficiently appear he shall find that all that were called unto Christs religion were brought to the feet of the apostles and priests who received them at the door and brought them into the hous of God by the laver of Baptisme and imposition of hands and confession of sins and it was not onely the ordinary but sole ingress into that Church and none were ever esteemed to be of that body but only by those means which also the pastours of the Church were only to mannage He that comes not in at the door saith Christ is neither sheep nor shepheard but a theef and a robber And true Christian religion consists not in going out of a Church but coming in there to submit to the ancient dictates of piety which Christ revealed §. 13. Independent and Presbyterians Plea TO a judicious man whom a word sufficeth it will already appear that no opinion or way here in England can have any advantage over the other by vertue of discoveries made by any light spirit or reason since there can no such be legally pretended to set up any new religion apart from the former but to join rather with the old which if it be not absolutely true Christ is not God and all Christianity but a human invention But yet
And if the salt have lost his savour wherewith shall it be seasoned Nor can we be ignorant that this Episcopacy-power was set up in England many years after Reformation-ingress by the ambitious policy of som men who falling from their former humility-spirit set up that chair of a State-spirituall for themselves which when another sate in it they used all kind of endeavour force and power to throw it down Can prelate-affecters deny that Episcopacy-power was by the first and purest reformation-light utterly subverted If you know it not the smallnes of your judgment will comdemn you if you know it and do the contrary you are condemned in your own judgment and if the Reformation was impure in this then was Protestant Reformation corrupt both in its first birth and the most glorious of all its enterprises wherein our consciences were withdrawn from the tyrant-yoaks of inveigling men unto the sweet influences of Christ who as he is the great pastour of souls so he is sure not to mislead his flock by any such passions as do frequenty domineer in man when he is once set over his fellow servants pride ignorance self-will and interest And if we be once brought again to the same ancient servil yoak of conscience-tyranny to receive our light and influences from men as before we did under Popery why may we not by the same strong tide of an irresistable self-leading power be driven uncontroulably to the same or greater errours Except you will say that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a surer and more unerring guide than the Romish byshop both of them I am sure be men and equally fallible who standing either of them betwixt us and home may by their usurped power over consciences which be only subject to the invisible Lord of truth lead us again either into our ancient or some new invented errour and if they impose the yoak who can resist them But the Lord of truth cannot lye and the beams of his light falling immediately upon his peace-messengers as once upon the apostles in cloven tongues of fire untainted with the interposition of any intervening obstacle must needs be both clear and true I will teach you all things saith he to his apostles he said not that one of them should teach another nor did those cloven tongues descend first from Christ upon Peter from Peter to Andrew from Andrew to John and so forward in an hierarchical line which Papists imagine in their Church but from Christ alone immediately upon them all Nor can you move us at all by telling us as you do of ancient tradition for Episcopacy-power even from Christ time unto this present age sith all those times and places are concluded by the pious Reformation under popish darknes which began even in Pauls time when the mystery of iniquity even this mystery of papall tiranny began to work and so overwhelmed the whole earth till at length the Lord was pleased by the foolishnes of preaching to enlighten those little ones who were predestined to beleev a truth aforetime hidden to all the sons of men Did we not all appeal from such popish traditions to the oracle to the gospel to the word of God and to the truth that cannot lye And what other instrument did we make use of to the abolishing of that human supremacy over mens souls which now again by erroneous tradition you would contrary to your own principles obtrude upon us than that very word and oracle And the gospel which as it is now by Reformation-purity put into every mans hand so is every man the ministers successors to the apostles by the help of Christs light which by frequent prayer they unite to themselvs the people by light they receiv from gospel-ministers to interpret and understand it is totally with us and for us Look into the gospel of Matthew c. Hic subauditur longus textuum catalogus ab initio ad finem Biblii contra episcopatum If you reply that we must for the sense of all these places have recours unto the Church what Church do you mean yours out of which you say we are fallen or the popish Church which both you and we deserted Take which you will for the same reasons and gospel-verities equally reject them both and if we must hearken to your Church out of which you say we are fallen why then did not you obey that Church out of which you sell your selves if that were in errour and therefore to be deserted yours is in no better condition but the invisible congregation of the faithfull which in our first reformation we took to be the Church can never fail And if you begin now to take the Church in a popish sense for any hierarchicall prelacy you do at once condemn your selves both of inconstancy and dissimulation and also of violation of gospell and rebellion against that visible Church our forefathers found themselves in unto which it seems now by this tenour of your speech they were bound by their Christianity to obey Scripture autority you have none for you nay it is all against you human words and practises being now rid by Christ of all those servil yoaks we valiew not and the true light of purest Reformation which you have deserted sith it is with us as at the beginning we must not forfeit nor do any thing may obstruct the ingoings and out-goings of little Christ within us Whiles the Presbyterian is hotly busied in this his plea against the Prelate-Protestant the Independent touches his elbow and advises him to bethink himself least with the same weapon he wound his adversary and kill himself For if such reasonings saith he be of value what will then becom of the clerical Presbyterian black coat which being derived from popery finds no more grounds in scripture than episcopacy hath Are not all men equally subject to Christ and capable alike of his divine influences and so indeed it is said of the times of Christianity And they shall be all taught of God How then com other teachers to intrude betwixt us and God to obstruct and taint and variously infect his light those upon whom the Holy Ghost descended were all lay men as we be and som of them women too But as soon as the Presbyterian turning upon him called him fanatick the protestant cried In neither barrel better herring ye are both so It was presently replied by them both when did the spirit leav us to speak unto you by what light or scripture can you make that good you that are blinded in your own errours The Catholick coming by When theeves fall out quoth he honest men may hope to come to their own goods again §. 14. Protestant pro and con WHat advantage then can the pious Quaker have against the zealous Presbyterian or both of them against the honest Protestant whiles all of them find words enough out of scripture and reasons thence deduced to throw at one another and each side is both
time of our late civil warres wherein our Monarchy once subverted we all perished with it and our rights and welfare at such a loss that no man could say that aught he had remaining was his own It must needs be so for the government what ever it be is before the laws and the laws receiv all their strength and vigour from the acknowledged autority of that power from whence they are derived Now that the Christian Church was first monarchicall under one Sovereign Byshop when Christ who founded it was upon earth no man will deny for aristocracy or democracy it could not be sith all his twelve apostles were under him as his disciples and not fellow doctours or legislatours with him nor did he ever pretend to receiv his autority from men but immediately from God above unto whom he was personally united and this autority of his must first be accepted before his word can be believed or his law acknowledged and these must have all their force from that power which according to its firmitude of truth gives them all their life and vigour which remains and dies with it and with the government under which the laws and doctrin began It appears then that all the laws and rules and promises and whole doctrin of Christianity and founded upon the spiritual monarchy of Jesus who was Man-God that he might be both unto human kind a fit and proportioned head as man and uncontroulable independent and infallible as God And hence it must needs follow that the subversion of episcopacy which is the spirituall monarchy in which our Lord founded his Christianity must needs weaken and by degrees utterly destroy all faith for the ruin of the polity is the death of all its laws founded in it Nor will it suffice if an Independent or Presbyterian say that they are still under their head Christ who being in heaven hath his spirituall influences over them I say this suffices not for the true Church of Christ whersoever it is must have the very same head she had at first or else she cannot be the same body and that head was man-God personally present in both his natures with the body of his Church here on earth and although Christ may and does supply the invisible part of his God-head influence upon his mystick body yet a visible head or byshop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruin What then you will say cannot God preserv his Church without the help of man I answer we must not here dispute what God can do but what he will do God can warm the earth and make fruits to grow and us to see without the sun but if he have otherwise ordained we must expect those effects from the caus he hath set and no other wayes And that all truths are to be expected from his Church and from him he hath substituted in his place to govern us as our only visible Pastour is manifestly apparent both by his own law and practise and our experience By his law when he sayes that he who will not hear his Church must be as a publican and reprobate by his practise when he would not have his own supernatural vocation and endowment and light from heaven to suffice St. Paul either to make him a Christian or a Teacher till he had received both from the hands of his Church and pastors by our experience while we see from age to age that all those that withdraw themselves from the Catholick Church and from her chief Byshop and pastour let the occasion be what it will or never so little do run themselves restlesly into endles schisms denying one thing after another still from less to more till at length all Christianity be cancelled and beginning with schisme they end with atheisme all truth unity and peace being to be had onely from and in that one Church which as St. Paul does well and wisely call it Christs Body so is it only animated with his spirit of truth and from the government there appointed which is episcopal and in a special manner from the chief pastour there presiding ruling and directing in place of Jesus Christ unto whom all obey in yielding obeysance unto him in spiritual affairs according to his own order and appointment Nor is there any more certain rule of discerning the approaching ruin of Christianity in any person or people than when we see them either secretly to undermine or openly to oppugn papal autority No pope no byshop no byshop no Church no Church no salvation This being once well pondered as a thing of such weighty concernment deservs we shall begin both to suspect that the first reformers Luther and Calvin who being Priests under that Papal hierarchy flew out against the Church whereof they had been members and furiously cryed down both Pope and all episcopacy were not sent from God and likewise conclude that the counsel of Queen Elizabeth did wisely reassume that ancient form of Church government though it were opposite to the principles of reformation and judgment of all the first reformers becaus it was both most conformable to times of primitive Christianity and in all reason most likely to conserve the land in unity And if we were once by Gods grace freed from preconceived prejudice we should all of us as clearly see and love the beauty of papal doctrin as now some of us allow of papal government nor is there any thing commendable in any reformation but that and only that which it hath in it of Popery And lastly we shall easily discern that the the Presbyterian plea and all its arguments or whatever else they can have to say against episcopacy are of no value and indeed too slight for me to insist upon their solution I had a mind here to decipher the Protestants plea against the Papist but I finde that there cannot be made any one scheme of it as of the Independent and Presbyterians becaus these the first of them speaks so generally of all things that he seldom touches upon any one particular the other so insists upon one particular that he troubles himself with nothing else and a man may know what both of them would have But all these and several other reformations when they set their face against the Roman Catholick go all under the generall name of Protestants and yet speak several and contradictory things one accusing them for that which the other approves And generally they do neglect their doctrin and inveigh against the vices and follies which either they put upon them or are indeed found amongst som people or persons that do profess that faith in France Spain Italy or other parts as pride tyranny drunkennes leachery foolish gambols and usages of Countreys with which Protestant books against popery are lustily stuft up or if they do indeed speak to their doctrin it is either done onely with some
their devouring sport even Acteon the maister may seem a stag and be torn a pieces by them Wrath puts a new shape upon an adversary who through such a black medium though he be never so innocent in himself will appear all odious especially when the wrath is unjust and the occasion of it taken but not given for then 't is cursed and works marvellous dark effects in the heart of him that bears it And by this we may suspect our selves to be blasted with such an unwarrantable passion when upon a conceived prejudice of our own we do more hate those have don us good than such as really hurt us I cannot but take notice that our learned protestant all these many years he hath by the Puritan been outed of his ecclesiastical possessions he wrote little or nothing against him and with no considerable violence but most virulent books he put forth continually against the Papist who did him no harm and meddled not at all with him and then hanged with him upon the same cross of persecution and might justly reply unto him as the good thief to the evil one Nunquid tu non Deum times qui in eadem damnatione es And what evil hath the Protestant ever received from the Roman catholick that he should treat him thus even none at all but all good imaginable The Protestant hath been instructed in his Universities for Oxford and Cambridg were both of them built by Catholicks as well as the cathedrals and parish Churches he hath lived all his life upon their benefices studies their books preaches in their pulpits even that gospel which he had from catholick archives this is the harm the catholick ever did or the Protestant received from him and yet Lord what volumes of invectives do we powre forth even to this day against him who hath done us all good and never any harm at all neglecting in a manner the true adversary who hath utterly undon us Is not this a piece of phrensy what can one think it els when any nips us behinde to fly into the face and scratch him that innocently stands before us our maister and benefactour But the Protestant seeing that outrage done unto him which he had done to Catholicks before upon the very same motives and with the like words and deeds might fear perhaps that himself should now appear justly punished and the catholick at length be justified But let us see a little further if our hot contesting combatants can find any rational medium to conclude demonstrativly or maintain infallibly or know certainly any thing at all concerning points of religion If they cannot they have som reason to be silent none to quarrel either one with another or all of them against the Roman catholick The wayes and practis of a visible foregoing Church is concluded by a general consent of all the Catholick only excepted to be erroneous antiquity of former ages overwhelmed with Egyptian darknes conciliary meetings of byshops and pastours a conspiracy against purity of gospel and the Pope who was anciently beleeved sole judg and general pastour over all a grand seducer and now scripture though it be wrested out of the hands of Papists that somthing might be held by us which is plausible must be not the truth only but the sole judg of it too This is it we all pretend to stand upon Be it then admitted for truth who has the right meaning of it the Roman catholick who hath lived by it now above sixteen hundred years in all unanimity or the Protestants who wresting it out of catholick hands about one hundred year ago hath ever since been contesting and quarrelling about it not only with the catholick but amongst themselvs even to this present day The gospel is no doubt a good rule but if we for our own ends to avoid the judgment of any tribunal upon earth do constitute our selves each one the sole speaking judg by that rule we do thereby make our selves both judg and rule too for it is all one to arbitrate with a mans own words or to do it with another bodies words which he without controul will interpret and thus excluding one judg whom we found in actual possession of the chair we set up a thousand who will determin more rashly and yet as resolutely as he and we still further off from any final conclusion than before Do we not see this to be true by the daily fresh uprise of so many several sects which do all promote themselvs by vertue of the same pretens These twenty years last past the zelots who preached so vehemently against our innocent good King all the land over did they not all find a text in scripture for their purpos and not only one text to preach upon but hundred others to elucidate and confirm their doctrin which notwithstanding all wise men knew were not taken in their own genuin sens and meaning and yet who could convince them of that who had as much light within and without too as all Protestancy ever taught sufficient for judgment even against him who first sent us the scriptur and was then found in actual possession of the chair and a Protestant that should have gone about to confute them must have denied the principles by which he was himself first constituted Com com 't is more than manifest by all our proceedings this hundred year that our bitter invectives against the Pope who swayed Christianity had no other end but only this that we might all sway and none of us be controuled I would fain know if I should deny the great fundamental upon which all religion is built namely that the soul of man is an immortal substance and distinct not only from the grosser tangible parts but even from the very best and purest both animal and vital spirits which without doubt be mortal and that there is any other world for men to pass into after this life of mutability whether I could not sufficiently prove my negative out of scripture making use of all the advantages of semisentences parables figures stories tropes with as much reason light and spirit and as equal plausibility as any sect deduces their tenets and so another likewise who should hold that heaven and the world to com is nothing but a condition of serenity in this life a fourth that there is no hell angels or divels c. sith there is no tribunal to judg who can outbrave any such defendant when he faces his antagonist with the light of a text which none but himself must understand Scripture must do all by that light all walk how many soever several gainsaying paths they tread I will no further contest about the meaning of it What is this Scripture It is Gods word But you had it not immediately from God but found it in other mens hands all whom from one series to another till you come to the Pope who first sent it us we have all aforetime concluded to be
both and let me once give a freedom to my thoughts I shall as soon question one as the other and if I do reject one proceeding rationally I must cashier the other also Surely the Pope canot but smile to see his book which is the ground and guide of the catholick faith he delivered with it to be made by the Protestant to speak protestantisme presbyterisme by the Presbyterian anabaptisme by the Anabaptist and quakerisme by the Quaker even as doubtles it would be a sport to Virgil if he were alive to see his Arma virumque cano turned epithalamist by one a prophetist by another an evangelist by a third whereas the poem it self intends none of these things but only the travels and wars of Eneas and doubtles our scripture it self might be made by these tricks of wit to speak forth the passions of Queen Dido Without all doubt and controul it is a most high inconsequence so passionately as we do to plaspheme a byshop who is and ever was acknowledged in the world for Pape or Father of Christianity as the most wicked man alive and a grand seducer and yet to hugge a book in our bosomes which we took at first upon his credit as an oracle of truth and then again first to fall out with him and then with one another amongst our selves about the meaning of that book wherein his own catholick beleevers all the while unanimously agree without any end pelting one another with texts and verses unto the utter ruin of charity not understanding for the most part either the uncertainty of our own reasonings or the dangerous consequence of our wayes I will utter a bold word but what I know to be true both by experience and irrefragable reason As the gospel cannot prove any thing being separated from the Church and the living and speaking oracle of him that sent it unto whose judgment both defendant and disputant must submit so neither without the help of that autority can it prove it self either by any argument which it uses none or by vertue of miracle recorded in it sith those signs and wonders there related are now as far from my knowledg as be the truths of any doctrins to be ratified by them so that I shall have as much ado to beleev them as any piece of doctrin they may confirm being all of them equally either motives or objects of beleef as I pleas my self And it is all one to me that am born in these dayes so long after those signs were wrought to beleev the miracles by Gods incarnation or Gods incarnation by the miracles since I may beleev both but can evidently know neither of them to be true so far as that I may use one of them as a medium to demonstrate the other If the gospel laid before me should work of it self any strang wonder in my sight then I might haply have some motive to beleev it but we in England inveigh bitterly against the present miracles that are shown in the catholick Church ascribing them all if they be true unto the operations of Satan so that according to this way I should not know what to think neither if the bible should do som strang thing before me and as little conclude of the past miracles there recorded §. 16. Appeal AS it is impossible to be assured that the bible is the word of God if we condemn him from whom it first came of imposture so is it certain that upon that book wrested out of the hands of catholicks against him and his who first presented it we ground all the several wayes of religion here in England whereof each body and faction does so far presume as to condemn all to death who will not approve them And yet if we did but proceed like rational men we could not but remain all of us in great humility and fear upon these surmises Does not the Pope pretend the spirit of Christ as well as we do not all catholicks so had we not the bible from them do they not ratiocinate out of it and show their religion thence as well as we only they do it uniformly we differently and upon their principles they build up Church and State we pull down all Put case we were all at this instant in our antient state of paganisme and a Priest or two should com to us from Rome to convert us now as then they did to Christianity with the gospel in their hands which they should tell us to be pure truth and Gods word which we never heard before if we should reject and disesteem them as cheating seducers could we rationally accept and beleev the book or would we not therefor cast into the fire that volum of theirs wherein were contained the summe of all their mission and news if we looked upon the men that brought it as impostours Consider seriously and think not to pull the snail out of her shell and then to keep one apart and crush the other without which it cannot liv Church and Gospel were both born together but the Church first at least in a priority of nature and must both liv together Christ the head must be authorised before he could teach and the Church established before any of her children could write a gospel nor can they with authentick autority write any thing but what the mother Church constituted by her espous the sours of all heavenly truths that earth can expect shall set her seal unto So that in any age to deny the Church and to accept of her writings to profess Christ and condemn her that brought us the first news of him is at one and the same time to take her autority and reject it to say she is fals and yet true in the same affairs As she gave testimony to Christ so did Christ unto her The same gospel ratifies both Christ and his Church the same Church both Christ and the gospel the same Christ both gospel and the Church too which himself established So then reason light scripture power of interpretation being equally to be found at least pretended in all anticatholick wayes and the Roman catholick although he have withal a surplusage of true and right autority from the Church and her pastour whom he ever follows yet since he never denied but strongly and effectuoussy maintained that he hath with him as much of true interpretation light and reason as any can pretend and so far more peculiar and excelling as the judgment of the universal Church in all ages from whence he drew that reason and light of his is in matters of religion that are not invented but derived to be preferred before the conceit of any one person who contrary to the very essence and nature of antient Christianity shall go out of the Church wherein he found himself it may most manifestly appear that as the catholick hath all the right and preheminence that any other may pretend for himself and yet a far greater too even that
autority which can onely constitute religion so likewise all anticatholicks both Independent Presbyterian and Protestant have the same power and advantage each one against another which any other may pretend against him scripture easy scripture interiour light and spirit whiles none of them will in the interim admit of any living judg nor of the autority of a foregoing Church wherein they found themselvs when they first went out and changed And I have already said and truly said that no man ever yet was impowred even from heaven to go out of the general flock but to have recours unto it nor considering the order God hath set ever can be Nor is there any surer rule of discerning a fals pretension than that of the Apostle Exierunt ex nobis which if it held good in the Church when that apostle was alive it must needs do so unto all generations so long as the Church remains by vertue of him who promised to confirm it and therein his deity must chiefly appear even vnto the consummation of the world And if we consider the first ingress of all these religions we shall find that the catholick faith entred our land first and chased hence our antient paganisme after it had been here existent a thousand years the Protestant went forth out of it the Puritan by and by out of the Protestant not to mention any further subdivision and the catholick religion entered by vertue of her own powerful integrity all the others by force either of Parliament or Sword that Church as she entered peaceably so she remained quietly all the time of her stay in the Kingdom but the others neither stay nor enter without disturbance she hath a rule to go by and a judg to submit unto in all affairs others as they will be their own judg so must the rule speak as they list and no otherwise which manner of proceeding if it have its free cours must needs work much disorder in a kingdom I have often marvelled that these various wayes of religion here in England which multiply without end or any hope of reconciliation have not all this while appealed to the sacred majesty of the King who hath been acknowledged by all the parties to be supreme in all his kingdoms as well in spirituals as temporals and head as well of the Church as State Certainly had this been don and that all had rested upon his verdict as they ought by reason of their own acknowledgment to do much mischief had been prevented But we were so far all of us from doing so that on the contrary first we secretly murmured against both Queen Elizabeth and King James and then broke forth into open hostility against his son Indeed that private swelling of the murmuring waters were an ill boding omen of the vast tempest which followed afterwards in the reign of our good King Charls with so dismal and violent a rage that it both split the ship and drowned our pilot We did not appeal then with submission to his judgment as by our own law and agreement upon our revolt from Popery we ought to have don but forced him imperiously to our own and when in right reason he could not consent unto it we made no conscience to destroy and cut off not so much his head as our own which being a singular unparallel'd piece of insolent cruelty never yet acted before upon earth it will remain an eternal blemish both upon the men and religion too so long as the world lasteth Did we sincerely think our King to be head as well of Church as of State how then durst we subjugate him to our selves in the affairs of both and under pretens of purity of religion oppress him from whom under God all our religion should be derived as the head and sours of it The body may prepare blood and vital spirits to be presented to the head but of these are not made animal spirits till the head receivs and makes them such for the good of the whole and from the head com down all those influences that be fitted and proportioned unto that life which the animal lives So may and ought every kingdom either apart or in Parliament assemblies to propose affairs unto their head but can take none as authentick till he have determined and derived them to us whether civil or spiritual if so be he be head of both resting quiet within our selves both before and after he hath don it for what hand or foot ever questioned the spirits which the head derived it or pretended either to mend or make them But we have by these our proceedings condemned our selves if we do not indeed think him our spiritual head as we profess in words of vise hypocrisie if we do beleev him so of inconsequent madnes But to remove the Pope the King is head with us and to remove the King the people is head and to remove one another each particular person is his own head So arbitrary a thing it is with us to set up and pull down power at our pleasur It would seem very strang to a rational man that the Pope who is in our esteem the worst of men should keep together the people of many kingdoms which as they be not at all subject to him in civil affairs so are they very divers among themselves both in habits manners language lawes and other weighty respects and inclinations in a constant unity of religion from age to age and yet a noble vertuous prudent King should not be able to do so much among his own subjects all of one guarb one law one language for one age together the Pope all the while we beleev to be a fals and onely pretended Head the King an acknowledged and true one This is a greater secret and yet greater too upon this account that if any should fall away from the Popes religion the apostate runs himself into no more danger upon that account than what he willingly brings upon himself the loss of further communion with him and his Church for the Popes excommunication signifies no more and all the Pope can do is but to excommunicate him who before by his own voluntary act put himself out of his communion But the King hath a temporal sword in his hand to take corporal reveng upon rebellion and apostacy and the people subject to him in faith are likewise subject in other temporal respects and by their rebellion against him hazzard their estates and lives I know well enough that Popes are generally as civil and accomplished gentlemen as be in Europe and for the most part very learned yet can I never beleev but that there be others in the Christian world both priests doctours and byshops as learned as the pope himself and as wise too and accomplisht persons in any perfections either natural or moral and yet can none but He hit upon this feat of guiding the Christian flock in unity and peace Nay which yet augments the
Church as that our good works be all mortal sins and damnable before God that we have no will or power to do good or avoid evil that the commandements of God are impossible to be kept c. but rather all contrary as if we were ashmed of our own doctrin and afraid to speak before the people what we know in reason could not but offend Christian ears But all generally do preach when they preach any good thing the doctrin of catholicks though ever abused with their own modes and mixtures For every sect as it hath a peculiar spirit so hath it a mode and vein and method proper to it self The Independent speaks many good words but inconsequent and unconnexed so much roving up and down as if he had a mind to be prophet errant and before he gives over to say somthing of every thing The Presbyterian ever pursues some Platonick idea for example the ingoing and outgoings of Christ which is so thin and bodiles that he is forced to assign six or seven wayes to discern it then gives twelv consequent effects nineteen wayes to get c. in which wayes he does even tire himself as you may perceive by his melting and breathing when he comes to the high hills of eighteenthly and ninteenthly and after some months labour and travel in these his wayes at last with much ado he finishes his text which before he handled it was good and easy doctrin but is now by his tedious exercise rendered obscure intricate and full of doubts The Protestant cuts his text out logically into so many parts and then walks through them all with an even rhetorick adorned with witty conceits and flowers of common places still bringing un that parcel of the text he is handling with such proportion and measure in the close that a man must needs say when he has done that he has shewed a featous piece of art and when his or Presbyterian or Independents sermon is ended then is the great work of their religion done though all to little purpos for a dead mans foot say what you will to him will never warm is shoo But the Catholick if he speak like himself having gravely and pithily prest the intention of the gospel for such a day unto the peoples practis and devotion falls to the great works of sacrifice if it be in the morning and of evensong in the after noon adoration prayer and charity which is the summe wherein his religion consists and all his preaching servs but as a pair of bellows to make those coles burn Nor does any good old catholick that is well grounded in the constant practis of his faith care at all for any further instruction knowing aforehand that it can tend to nothing els than what before he knew and yet endeavours to practis For with him pure religion and undefiled is not to hear words but do deeds to reliev the orphan and widow and to keep our selvs unspotted in this world which unspottednes we attain by complying heart and hand unto the rule and sacraments of Jesus Christ Nor did the primitive Christians for three hundred years ever hear any sermon made to them upon a text all their whole life time but meerly flocked together at their priests appointment to their messach or dominicum or Leiturgy or by what other name for they used many at several times to avoid the pagans discovery their Christian sacrifice was called And it is most strang that we should pretend here in England to be Christians and the only good ones and yet reject those two great things which were by all Christendom esteemed in every age the very essences of Christianity the tribunal of absolution and the great Legacy of Jesus his body to his spous the Church insisting wholly upon preaching which as it is an accidental and relative work of our Christianity so is it common with us an all religions both Mahometan Jew and Pagan whose sermons if any should hear he could not tell by the morality of the master to what religion they belonged It is hard to say why against all the vogue of antiquity we should be so violent as to abolish the Christian sacrifice pull down the altars banish the priesthood yea and persecute it unto death except we mean to repaganise our selvs Our protestant forefathers when they first rose found manifestly all the Christian world over that this incruent sacrifice according to the order of Melchisedeck was and had ever been the sum of all apostolical devotion for which our many goodly fair Churches shrines and altars were built which hang now forlorn and desolate in our hands like great dead carkasses after the soul is departed for the inshrined body of Jesus was the life and soul of our Churches which then died all of them when he departed mouldring away ever since into dust and rottennes And therefor Martin Luther with his Kate the Adam and Eve of protetestancy did not for that reason presume to pull down the altars although they would not keep them up without the mixtur of som errour of their own But we in England in our strang heat tore down all without either president of the catholick world or our own reforming forefathers We cannot but see if indeed we see any thing that every law and religion hath been still annexed with a corresponding sacrfice Yea so surely and universally that sacrifice seems both to be born with religion and with religion to be extinguished The first men who worshipped God in the world as Cain and Abel are said to have don it with a sacrifice after the flood with religion again renewed was also sacrifice renewed by Noah and when afterwards through divers persecutions religion was brought into hazzard nothing did the prophets so much lament as the ceasing of their sacrifice as may be be seen in the book of Kings and Daniel And not without reason for all other kinds of good things offered or don to God are common also unto creatures only sacrifice is a worship so due to the Almighty as none either in heaven or earth may partake with him in it an other sacrifice properly socalled besides this according to the order of Melchisedeck there never was any amongst Christians For although faith hope and prais be by way of analogy called a sacrifice in an improper and translated locution to set forth the worth and acceptablenes of them yet this is so far from derogating to the great and solemn sacrifice properly so called that it presupposes and establishes it for the other could not have that analogical name except that thing were unto which they may bear analogy prais could not be commanded as sacrifice if there were no such thing as sacrifice thence the commendation should be drawn and to whose worth it should allude as it were impertinent and foolish to express the sweetnes of any oratory by the name of honey and sugred rhetorick if we did beleev there were no such
thing as honey and sugar in nature It is true also that the death of Christ upon the cross was both a true and solemn sacrifice but that is passed away and is the object of our faith not an external rite about which the Church may meet and com together at all times to worship God as is this representation of it which our Lord instituted for that very end before his death Nor is the passion of our Lord proper to us Christians alone as the real figuration of it which himself instituted for all the sacrifices of the old law were accepted in order to that passion to com even as ours in respect of it now past And since there were true sacrifices in the old law amongst the Jews why should there not be also in the new which is beleeved to be more perfect about which Christians should assemble to offer up with it and it order to it all their requests and praises For Christ our Lord took not away those things which God his father in the old law instituted as being not contrary to him but only perfected and changed them into better things both precepts sacraments and sacrifice too and of this last it behooved him to be more careful then all the rest for otherwise sith sacrifice is the only worship proper and peculiar unto God by utterly taking it away he had not augmented but dimished his Fathers glory All other kinds of worship we Christians have for certain which the Jews ever had invocation adoration vows hymnes feasts fasts faith hope charity and prais must only that which only is proper to the almighty be excluded especially sith we have all the reasons to honour God by sacrifice the Jewes ever had we are an extern and visible congregation as they were we have the passion of the Messias to be represetned before our eyes now with us past as with them it was to com we have the same God with the highest worship to be honoured for our sins to be appeased for favours to be invocated for received benefits to be praised But if any will be contentious and not heed all this which is nothing but pious reason let him look upon the primitive Church in the apostles time whereof we have some clear footsteps delivered us in the Acts of the Apostles and he shall find that the apostles and apostolical Christians placed their religion not in hearing or making sermons for they had none but in attending to their Christian liturgy and all antiquity will attest it The sermons mentioned in that book were only in defence of Christianity made to the Jews Pagans for their conversion not to any Christians at all Such was St. Peters first speech to the Jews and Gentiles that brake in amongst the Christians in Jerusalem after their Messach ended and the holy Ghost fallen upon them c. 2. after this to other Jews c. 3. c. 5. then to Cornelius a pagan c. 10. So likewise spake S. Stephen to the Hebrew Priests and Jews c. 7. Saint Philip to the Ethiopian Eunuch c. 8. St. Paul to the synagogue in Pisidia c. 13. to others in Iconium c. 14. to Gentiles in Macedonia c. 16. again to other Jews in Thessalolonica and heathen Philosophers in Athens c. 17. both S. Paul and Apollo to the Jews at Corinth and Ephesus c. 18. c. 19. at Troas also he defended Christ and his religion against all that resisted it speaking even till midnight c. 20. but this was dispute and so the text calls it rather than a preaching and made una sabbati saith the same text cum convenissemus ad frangendum panem so that it was not the work they came together for but an additament to it So likewise he spake to other Jews in Jerusalem c. 22. to Foelix and Agrippa painims c. 24. c. 26. to the Jews in Rome for their conversion c. 28. And no where was ever sermon made to formal Christians either by St. Peter or Paul or any other as the work of their religion they came together for nor be there other sermons in that book but what I have mentioned nor did the Christians ever dream of serving God after their conversion by any such means but only by their Eucharistian leiturgy and sacrifice bread-fraction or Messach as is apparent in that book I will mention but one place in the beginning of the 13. ch which speaks thus Ministrantibus illis Domino jejunantibus dixit spiritus sanctus c. Whiles they were administring to our Lord and fasting the holy Ghost said Separate me Paul and Barnabas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Erasmus renders well and truly sacrificantibus illis Domino which one text gives double testimony both to apostolical sacrifice and priestly ordination For that ministerial function no man can doubt but that it was a publick work of religion and it could be no other than their great Christian Sacrifice as the words do manifestly import since it was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to our Lord for other inferiour ministeries of the word and Sacraments are not made to God but to the people but the apostles were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 administring leiturgying sacrificing to our Lord whent his segregation of Paul and Barnabas from the laiety to the clergy which cannot otherwise be imagined to be done but by sacredotal consecration was to be effected And all that whole book testifies sufficiently that the apostles and primitive Christians ever came together to their Dominicum or Educhdrist to their liturgy or messach and not to any sermon not ad audiendam concionem but ad frangendum panem It would griev any Christian heart to see the poor Catholicks of England so miserably harassed pillaged imprisoned hated hanged by their own allies and countreymen as they have been now a hundred years for the profession of that great work of Christianity which Christ and his apostles taught them and that they should undergo the same disgrace and ruin by such as call themselves Christians yea the only pure ones for that very self same act of Religion for which both the Apostles themselves and all primitive Christians were so cruelly persecuted by Jew and Pagan But the God of mercies look in his good time both upon the persecutour and sufferer with compassion and favour them becaus they have done it ignorantly in incredulity these becaus for his fear and love they have persevered hitherto through many great afflictions in his service and patiently withstood all opposition even unto bloodshed and death until this day But Catholicks had their lession read them long ago and they have it by heart by this time They will saith their Lord and master lay their hands upon you and persecute you delivering you into custody and prisons dragging you before Kings and presidents for my names sake and ye shall be betraied by parents children kinsfolk and friends and some of you they will put to death and ye shall be a hatred unto all
experience hath proved it for every one hath a text both to defend himself and oppose his neighbour whether it be in earnest or as it often happens in sport and jest whether wrong or rightly applied Nor can the Bible be well translated for the original carries oftentimes so great a latitude and amplitude of senses that it cannot be brought into a vulgar tongue without confineing the signification to the great alteration and perhaps subversion of the holy penmans intention Besides when men write or speak with a special peculiarity of spirit as all indeed do but those holy writers much more this genius of theirs is so lapt up in their own words or sounds that by transmigration out of the coverture in which that Spirit was born and bred as a snail in her shell it doth in a manner quite expire and vanish We find daily that books translated out of one tongue into another lose much of their connatural grace and sweetness if not all the whole genuine power and life they carried in their own character So ticklish and volatile a thing is that hidden genius couched in the rinde of mens words Nor is a man better known by his face than writings I mean if he draw his discours and sens out of his own bowels for otherwise if he be only a book botcher or collectour out of other authours it will signifie little which I take to be the reason why many spiritual books written in these times out of antient contemplatives although the matter is the same and the language mended yet be they in these penmen but dry unsavory stuff which in the first authour was a fragrant ravishing devotion the good things therin contained have by their transmigration lost their own spirit and the latter authour if so I may call him had not another to give them answerable to their nature By all this I would say thus much that the Bible translated out of its own sacred phrase into a prophane and common one loses both its own property and amplitude of meaning and is likewise devested of its peculiar majesty holines and spirit which is reason enough if there were no other why it should be kept inviolate in its own stile and speech Sacred doctrin like the persons is not to pass de domo in domum but remain under that roof which first covered them And as for peoples instructions it is as I said before to be made by the priests and pastours of the religion on whose lips the sacred knowledg hangs and thence drops down upon the assembly out of that book according to occasion and times as holy Church whole book that is shall judge it fit We commit not to children the whole pot of honey whereby they may surfeit and hurt themselves but give them only some few drops upon a stick of licoras so much as they can digest and make use of for their health And if the book wherin religious rites be grounded lawfully may and in reason ought and in practise ever hath been kept segregated in a language not common to vulgar ears much more are the sacred solemn rites themselvs to be performed in a tongue that is segregated from common use answerable to the Book according to which they be executed which custom as it renders that great Act more majestick and venerable so doth it carry with it much of convenience and no inconvenience at all For thus the Church all over the world as opposite to Babel wherein were so many divisions of tongues shall as in heart and faith so also in lip and language be unanimous and linked together and the great work of Religion wherein all Christian people from one coast of heaven to another do unanimously conspire be so uniformly executed that men may in all places of the world meet with their own Christian Church in one mode and fashion both to acknowledg and joyn with it in their orisons Nor could otherwaies any one priest serve in several countries or administer presently in a place which himself or others with him had converted for which caus men studying to get that one language which is stretched as large and wide as is the catholick Church throughout the world have in all places one tongue and that no hard one to convers withall which did not the Church use it in her rites would in time be utterly neglected The Hebrew Church being immured in one Kingdom had not those many reasons which her younger sister whose territories are extended from East to West hath to keep her rites in a language differing from the vulgar and yet she did so Inconvenience in this practis there can be none assigned but only this that if the latin tongue be used at the altar then cannot the vulgar people understand what is said But this is not of any moment For first the people have all the whole scope and purpose and frame of sacred liturgy set down in their own prayer-books and if they will in their hearts and mind whereby they may if they pleas as equally conspire and go along with the priest in their devotions as if he spake in the mother tongue Secondly catholick people come together not for other busines at the Mass but only with fervour of devotion to adore Christ crucified before them and by the mediation of that sacred blood to pour forth their supplications for themselvs and others which being don and their good purpos of serving and pleasing that holy Lord that shed his blood for us renewed they depart in peace This is the general purpos of the Mass so that eyes and hands to lift up knees to bow and hearts to melt are there of more use than ears But thirdly there is no need at all for the people either to hear or understand the Priest when he speaks and prayes and sacrifices to God in their behalf Sermons to the people must be made in the peoples language but prayers presented to God for them if they be made in a language that God understands it is enough This was well enough conceived by the whole congregation of Israel who commonly stood in vaste multitudes without in a large outward court when the priest entered his sanctum sanctorum to offer and pray for them who all the while were so far from hearing that they could not see him this if any doubt he may both discern it in the old law and in our gospel too where Zacharias is said to be praying at the altar when all the people stood without Why then may not the younger sister Church of Christians likewise pleas and pacify her heavenly father with sacred words and rites addressed unto him in the behalf of the people although these do not understand nay not so much as hear what is said And what matters it if I pray for a friend whether he hear me or no so that God unto whom I pray do hear and accept of my humble addresses St. Paul wrote to Rome from
popish Breviary and Missal To revile and hate a custom whence we do our selves receiv so much benefit and no body and harm is fals latin in morality §. 26. Communion EVen as to pleas the people and to draw and keep them from the catholick Church we threw the Bible amongst them telling them withall that as it is easie to understand so is every man inabled to interpret it although our Protestant Church does now too late repent it and wish with all their hearts it had never been done so likewise another plausible advantage we took against the Pope and Church wherein those people communicate commonly but under one kind by giving all communicants a spoonful of wine together with their mouthful of bread which stratagem has given as ample content as if people had been treated at my Lord Majors Feast For who would not drink with their meat and what reason can be given that they should not or that a feast with wine should not caeteris paribus be better than without it But a little to abate our insulting over a grave religious people let me argue a little for them after my plain manner Protestant countreymen you cannot but know at least you ought to know that the catholick Church uses the cup in communion as much as we in England do and in sacrifice more for so I distinguish at this time that the sacrifice is for the priest communion for the people more I say than we ever mean to do for the deacon or minister at the altar after the priest had communicated the people with the hoast carries the cup after him to all the said communicants to drink before which action of communion the Priest to prefigure Christs passion upon the altar and his blood effused had both consecrated and consummated both the kinds himself Is not this enough to silence you I should think it were since you are taken so clearly in a dissimulation at least that I may speak no more when you say that Catholicks have not the cup in communion concealing what you ought to acknowledg both that the people have as much as ours and that the priest consecrates and consummates both which others do not Oh but you will say they give not the people the consecrated challice which is the very blood of Christ very good no more do Protestants do we give the people any more then a cup of natural wine they do so too if you answer it is blest wine know and remember that when you speak against the Priests consecration Oh then that blessing is nothing but when you would argue against the communion in one kind then you make something of it so likewise your own blessing of the cup when you talk against puriritans o 't is a great and venerable secret but when you plead against Catholicks then 't is but an empty ceremony Where shall any one hold such slippery cells But to omit these cavills May not Anti-Romans be ashamed to say that Catholicks use not the cup which they use as much as any and to as much effect as we will allow it to be used and yet more too The catholick people in communion I must say it again that I may be understood do drink of such a cup as Protestants do affirm to be the only cup and no other and over and above this communicate the very body of their redeemer animated with his soul and sacred blood and hypostatically united to his deity which thing Protestants neither do nor will allow it although gospel do both direct and command it And yet we will be talking of I know not what defect of catholick communion not remembring too as we forget other things that all the vertue of consecration is attributed by Protestants only to our feeding upon Christ by faith which no man can deny but that it may be totally done and compleated without touching either bread and drink and therfore have they mightily laboured to make good that when our Lord saith in St. John My flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed that he speaks not one word of sacramental eating or drinking but only of feeding upon him spiritually by the mouth of faith May not Catholicks say the like to any text that shall be brought for the people communion of the challice He is surely a mad man that so belabours his adversary in one argument that by the same he knocks out his own brains in another So then Protestants take from the people both the real body and blood of Christ united and effused and then exclaim against Catholicks for not using the effused species as well in communion as sacrifice We who hold neither as we ought condemn them for withholding one who hold both and call that in them a sacriledge with we our selves esteem but a ceremony The catholick Church feeds her people with real meat we feed ours with signs and husks Though others might upbraid the witholding of one kind if it were so yet surely we cannot ingenuously do it who have taken away the reallity of both Whatsoever Protestants do truly hold and teach concerning this sacrament the same do catholicks from whom they had it maintain too and what more ought to be done the Catholick Church does it and Protestants do it not Must we feed upon Christ crucified by faith Catholicks do it and it is the very end of their religion Must the Eucharist be taken in remembrance of him and commemoration of his death They do it Must both kinds be blest and taken they do that too Must the people drink wine out of a cup in communion Catholik people do the like On the other side Catholicks do really partake of the animated and living body of their Redeemer this ought to be done to the end we may have life in us And yet Protestants do it not Catholicks have it continually sacrificed before their eyes and the very death and effusion of their Lords blood prefigured and set forth before them for faith to feed upon This Protestants have not they do it not and yet this ought to be done for so our Lord commanded when he said to his apostles hoc facite this do ye which you have seen me to do and in that manner you see me do it exercising before your eyes my priestly function according to the order of Melchizedech with which power I do also invest you and appoint you to do the like even to the consummation of the world in commemoration of my death and passion exhibiting and shewing forth your Lords death till he com This I say Protestants do not and we are mad angry that the Papist does what his redeemer injoined him Thus far ad hominem The consecrated challice is not indeed ordinarily given by the priest to people in private communion And it is neither expedient it should be so nor necessary to any effect of communion nor yet is ther in gospel any precept for it It is not
necessary unto any effect either in the Protestants way which is fals or in the Catholick way which is true In the Protestants doctrin all the effect of communion is wholly attributed to the operation of faith and Christs words say they are to be taken spiritually and not literally for flesh and bloud profiteth nothing And therefore according to them one kind is enough nay if we have neither kind there is no loss but only of a ceremony which may be supplied well enough at our ordinary tables According to catholick doctrin whole Christ is really under either kind and so it is indifferent in which kind we receiv But it is not expedient ordinarily to communicate under the liquid species for danger of effusion as would somtimes happen in assemblies severally disposed And yet there may be reason by circumstance of the person to communicate rather in the liquid kind than the other as when the communicant is young or sick and not able to take down the other and therfore in antient times such people were ordinarily communicated in the liquid species only by the help of a spathula linguae or little pipe made on purpos for that use and for aught I know it may so be done still upon the like occasion As for any precept of communicating under both kinds I never heard or read of any none hath the great mother Church delivered either in her gospel or out of it For all the whole passage of the last supper whence Anticatholicks do principal ground their reasonings concerns only the sacrifice how the apostles and their successours should consecrate and bless it what they should take to bless and consecrate and how they should consummate after consecration And ther is not there any word or fact concerning the communicating of people nor were ther in that time and place any lay people at all to be communicated either man woman or childe but they were all excluded and if a man would draw negativ arguments as som do out of scripture he might conclude out of that place that lay people are to receive in neither kind sooner then in both And although learned Saint Paul may insinuate in his epstles that even the laiety did partake of Christs body yet it may readily be answered in the Protestants own grounds if he did plainly say so that he spake not of a corporall but spirituall communion Indeed the whole manner of giving communion to the laiety is wholly left to tradition and to the judgment and disposition of the Church which appears more probable for that the catholick Church hath according to her own prudence unto some persons in som times and places used only the communion of the challice to others only the sacred bread to others both no man ever finding fault therewith or startling at it as any new thing and if we consider the scrupulousnes of former ages we cannot but think they would have risen up and excepted against this if it had been deemed either new or ill or if it had not been in the breasts of all good Christians preconceived and fully known to be totally arbitrary and in the Churches power to communicate the laiety either in both kinds or only one and of the two in which she pleased or thought most fitting for the condition of the communicant This was certainly the opinion which Christians ever had concerning communion But as for consecration it seems necessary to the integrity of the sacrifice and the fruit thereof to the whole Church and determined under a precept that it should be made in both kinds for so it was instituted to declare and set forth before our eyes the Passion of Christ and his blood effused of which it could not be a compleat figure or representation except both kinds were consecrated and so the effusion exprest It was to exhibite whole Christ crucified both quoad continentiam and quoad significationem which signification is not requisite in communion where the thing contained is received and not the signification or mode exprest This indifferent use of communion amongst the antient Christians in either kind somtime one somtime the other somtimes both is enough to verify that of Saint Paul if it be taken as it ought to be in the literal sense We are all partakers of one bread and of one cup For though either kind were lawful for any one yet that any one kind was sufficient one may easily see was the opinion of that good apostle by what he speaks in the foregoing comma Whosoever shall eat this bread or drink this cup of our Lord unworthily c. and v. 24. and v. 25. repeating the institution as our Lord delivered it makes him after the consecration of the bread say absolutely Do this in commemoration of me but after the consecration of the challice he speaks with a limitation Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in commemoration of me So that the particle And in the other text must needs be taken disjunctively when he saith we are all partakers of one bread and of one cup that is to say all of us either partake of both or each one at least either of one or the other which manner of speech is very ordinary in all languages Mulier est domus salus ruina A woman saith the proverb is the safety and ruin of a hous yet not conjunctively or both together but either the one or the other according as she is her self either wise or foolish and nothing is more usual in common speech than to use this particle And disjunctively when we speak unto many at once or of many thus ten men rising from a feast may say we have fed heartily to day of flesh fish and fowl though one might haply eat only of one kind another of another as it chanced and yet not any one of all If a man do seriously peruse either the gospel or Acts of the apostles wherein is delineated the primitive religion of Christians he may easily gather that communion then was thought sufficient under one kind and that the species of Bread was most usual to such as were in health For first gospel speaks of as much effect of this one kind as of both This is a bread com down from heaven that if any eat thereof he dies not Joh. 6.50 again he that eats of this bread shall live for ever v. 25. If any one eateh me the same shall live by me v. 58. and he never there compares himself to wine as he does to bread nor mentions the drinking as he does the eating of him We are one bread and one body saith S. Paul all that do partake of one bread 1 Cor. 10.13 And what is there more to be expected but union with Christ and his mystical body immortality and life eternal with him which all follow upon our worthy communicating of the sacred bread Secondly when our Lord brake bread with his disciples in Emaus and so disappeared very great
to him or my self for my charity towards him as they would have been whiles he lived for I shall still have the merit of my own charity in complying with Gods precept of an unlimited love towards all all men and he may receiv too as much good by my praiers now he is com to such an end as when he was going to it especially if he were according to the doctrin of som Protestants so destined to ruin by Gods unresistable will and by the torrent of that unavoidable decree so inevitably hurried to damnation that all things even the best and most sacred means make only for his destruction Indeed if any ones final ruin should be revealed unto me as now is I think the condition of evil angels then in praying for any such I should formally resist Gods will and therefor I must not do it but so long as it lies hid let not me dive into his secrets but look unto my own duty which shall never turn to my blame tho it may hap not to concur with the beneplacite of his hidden purpos And in both cases either of the final bliss or ruin of him I pray for such kind of suffrages though they may prove not to be adjumenta mortuorum yet are they still consolationes vivâ—rum as great S. Austin speaks in the like case But lastly if he be in any third place in expectation of glory then without controul I may wish him what he is ordered unto and do any good thing I shall know by such means as I know all other points and pactices of religion may further his expiation And such an opinion have all Catholicks or ancient Christians ever had of their forefathers who died in the bosom of the Church that they were as capable of prayers after their death as before it and that heaven was not so easily attained even by good and holy professours without some antecedent expiation of their venial transgressions without which men do rarely depart out of the concretion of these earthly tabernacles inclining still to sensual propensions let their souls endeavour never so much by the help of Gods grace and sacraments to expiate and clear their thoughts or to raise themselves to the object of eternal purity whiles they breathed here below Thus the case stands concerning this point And that every soul that passes out of the concretion of a mortal body with any sensuall contagion after mortal sins remitted passes through some expiatory pains commonly called Purgatory declared by the antients sometimes by the notion of darknes somtimes of scorching fires before he can enter the place of glory where no inquinated thing can come as it is an opinion can never be demonstrativly either proved or disproved no more than other contingencies of Gods will so becaus it is a thing as constantly beleeved in all ages of Christianity and as unanimously practised as any one thing I know I do not see any reason it should be so slightly thought of or severely condemned as I see it is by som as an ungrounded popish superstition For it is not only the opinion of all orthodox Christians but of all people in the world excepting only the disciples of Luther who jeer at all things that ther be other places where souls departing this life may have their resort besides hell and heaven as if it were derived even with the souls immortality from the first inhabitants of the earth unto all their posterity The Pagans beleeved it as appears by Virgil Cicero Lucretius and the few remnants of their religion both under the Roman empire and elsewhere The Mahometans that rose a thousand years ago and took to a miscellan religion made out of Pagan Jew and Christian beleef hold it to this day and the Hebrews taught and profest it as appears by the antient Rabbies as if this opinion of a third place had come down even from Adam to all his whole progeny first to Cain and Seth by Cain to Enoch and his line by Seth to Enos and so down to Noah from him to Sem Ham and Japhet by Sem to the Assirians Aramites Persians by Ham to the Ethiopians Egiptians Palestines Cananites Sidonians Jebusites c. by Japhet to the Hebrews Medes Bactrians Indians Babylonians and isles of the Gentiles although it be severally mixed and modified according to the tenour of the various religions that profess it This opinion then of the souls immortality and its detention after death in som place citra coelum is not any new thing freshly taught either by our blessed Saviour or his Apostles as any peculiar doctrin of his own but taken up as granted by tradition of the Church of the Hebrews and supposed and admitted by all sides for true upon which our Lord built much of his own instructions And that may be the reason that in his parable of Dives and Lazarus which he recounted under the figur of a story then past he saies expresly that Dives was in hell torments but he does not likewise say of Lazarus that he was in heaven but in the bosom of Abraham Luc. 16. For heaven gates as they were indeed not opened unto any until the passion of the Messias who first entred there as primogenitus ex mortuis so neither did the Jews beleev that any should have access thither before his coming as I think it may appear to omit other places in the Acts of the Apostles For ther St. Peter preaching and proving before the Jews that Jesus was risen and ascended into heaven and was consequently the true Messias he takes his argument to prove it out of a psalm of David which speaks thus I foresaw the Lord alwaies before my face c. therefore did my heart rejoyce c. becaus thou wilt not leave my soul in hell c. thou hast made known to me the waies of life c. This is his first subsumption Then he goes on in his argument David was a Prophet and foreseeing the resurrection of Christ he spake those things of him therfor Christ is risen and our Jesus is the Christ This is St. Peters argument Then he anticipates an objection for some might say David spake not those words of the Messias but of himself unto this St. Peter replies with three reasons first David was a Prophet and therfore he spake them not of himself but of another whose resurrection he foresaw secondly he saith The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou on my right hand c. it was then the resurrection and ascension of one that was Davids Lord therfore not of himself again it could not be meant of David for David ascended not into heaven which is an argument ad hominem ex concessis as if he had said you all know and beleev that neither David nor any of the Patriarks ascended after their death to their finall rest but staid in some interjacent repose till the Messias should com and lead captivity captive that is to say take