of our Religion and bring those back that have revolted from us into the Romish Communion we have endeavour'd to give a satisfactory Answer to this their Question Where was your Religion before the times of Luther Not to trouble our selves with such Legends as these and Uncharitableness along with them the Answer is thus 1. Telling them plainly where our Religion was before Luthers time 2. By shewing what errors and mistakes are included in the Question 3. To turn the Question upon themselves and ask them some others of the like Nature 1. The plain Answer to the Question is this That our Religion was long before the times of Luther and believed and setled in many Kingdoms and Nations of the World and hath neither Novelty nor Singularity in it 'T is an old Religion I am sure 't is of Age and can speak for it self It hath lasted now these 1600 years and more founded at first by Christ and his Apostles handed down to us through many Sufferings and Persecutions and here it is preserved It contracted indeed in the coming down a great deal of rust by the Falseness and Carelesness of its keepers particularly by the Church of Rome we scowr'd off the rust and kept the mettal that 's the Romish Religion this is the English They added False Doctrins to the Christian Faith we left the one and kept to the other this is Ancient those are New Our Religion is the same with that of the Early Christians Martyrs and Confessors believed in the first 300 years and defended by all Councils truly General Our Religion in those first Ages was in Palestine and Greece in Agypt in Antioch where the Disciples were first called Christians and in Rome it self and wherever the great labours of her first Apostles carry'd her to the different and remote Countries of the World Then and there our Religion liv'd where Peter Linus and Cletus and all the first and Pious Bishops of Rome did It suffered indeed great variety of changes and conditions by the interest and Wickedness of men sometimes more Adulterated and sometimes more Pure it flitted from Country to Country sometimes Greater and sometimes Smaller in its number sometimes in a Dejected and sometimes in a more Flourishing State but somewhere or other it was intire and without mixture as it was at first given unto the World and such an old Religion as this we are of holding fast neither more nor less neither adding to nor diminishing what Christ and his Apostles taught and it Antiquity must evidence the Truth of our Religion we are safe and secure that we have right on our side And this will appear if we consider these following things 1. What Conformity our Religion carries to that of Christ and his Apostles Let any impartial eye compare them both together and he will find the features and complexion the whole body of Religion the same in both Whatever they deliver'd out at first as Fundamental to Salvation whatever they Instituted as parts of Devotion Discipline and Order we still faithfully retain in our Church and if any Truth of moment hitherto by fraud or negligence be concealed from her she is ready to receive it whenever it is made plain not having stopt up the way of Truth by a pretence of Infallibility or want of Modesty to confess an error She hath the same sense of the Nature Offices the Design and whole Undertakings of Christ that the truly Ancient Church had She receives the Creed and Bible and any Traditions that can be made out to be truly Divine in the same meaning and understanding that Christ and his Apostles gave to the first Christians and they to us What their thoughts of Saints and Holy Souls departed were ours are thoughts of respect remembrance and imitation not Divine Worship Christ Instituted proper Figures and Symbols of Bread and Wine to represent and confirm to conveigh and commemorate his Bloody Passion and Benefits to Mankind in this sense She preserves the Institution Sacred and doth not really Sacrifice or Crucify the Lord of Life again Christ Commanded good Works under the Penalty of Eternal Damnation She doth the same and in our Masters Language bids the doers of them call themselves unprofitable Servants beating down Pride and Merit Christ and his Apostles told the World what departing Souls must expect her sense is the same that there are no second ventures and tryals to be made neither can a kind Friend with a good estate left for Masses or Monks compound for a life ill spent Run through the whole Constitution of our Church in Articles of Faith and Rules of manners you may trace them to Christ and his Apostles time and all other parts of Her Government and Order are truly primitive And it must needs be so if She sincerely follows her Rule of Faith the Holy Scriptures so Ancient so Divine and whatever is declared there Essential to Salvation She Brings into Creed and resolves to keep it like a mighty treasure Faithfully unto Death And indeed the Church of Rome confesses that what we do retain is Ancient and Apostolical but pretends that we are defective in many things and want some necessaries which they have to make an intire Faith But we challenge them to prove that those opinions wherein we differ from them were delivered by Christ or any Men Divinely inspired in those times And they seem to acknowledge we do not and therefore to make up the matter pretend a Divine Authority in the Church to cast new Articles and Truths ferè de fide almost fit for a Creed and some others of them confess that some of their Opinions as Image-Worship and others were not maintain'd in the first Ages of Christianity for fear of coming too near the Heathens Worship and out of other Prudential considerations so that whosoever doth compare the Doctrine of our Church with that of Christ and his Apostles must needs conclude that our Religion is Ancient Christianity and that the charge of Novelty is groundless 2. The Nature of Reformation which was not to found a New Church but correct an old one Christianity that Pearl of great price was hid with trash and filth that the Romish Church had heapt upon it our reformers remov'd only what loaded and obscur'd it and restor'd it to its first Beauty and Lustre Such a Reformation indeed is later then their errors and it must needs be so it naturally supposing them before otherwise 't is not Reformation but a Destructive change but Primitive Christianity which is our Religion was long before the Disease of Popery though the cure of this Disease was after or later then the Disease it self but the sound Body of Christianity for which we are concern'd was before them both for 't is not Reformation barely that we are pleased withal no more then with a Pill or Potion but only as necessary to drive away an inveterate Disease and recover an old Religion to its
record never to be forgotten or forgiven so long we have clear evidences of strong resistance made to the Romish Religion before the times of Luther And in most Countries and times where and when the Romish corruptions began from small and obscure beginnings to be gross and plain some or other in greater or lesser numbers began to Renounce and Protest against them What though some of these early Reformers might hold some erroneous Opinions which we our selves condemn yet however they opposed the Romish Church in her corruptions and these tended to a Reformation which was compleated only by degrees and 't is no wonder some Stumbled in such a night of Ignorance And have not the Agents of Rome destroy'd the Papers and Records disguiz'd their Adversaries and falsify'd their Opinions to serve the Power and Interest of their great Mistriss They therefore branded the Waldenses with the name of Manichaism and that they affirm'd two Principles or Originals of all things because they asserted that the Emperour was Independent of the Pope and that they deny'd Christ to be the Son of God because they could not believe a crust of Bread to be Christ And they have fram'd as lewd stories against many excellent Men of the later Ages who withstood the approches of their Doctrine and Government which we certainly know and the more Ingenuous among them confess to be Notoriously false Though we have reason to believe because of the severity and industry of the Romish Factors ever warm against those who oppos'd her practises a great number of Honest and Learned Men as those Ages would afford are buried in obscurity and their names unknown there being an Expurgatorian Index for the merits of such Men as well as Books and Editions yet we have a sufficient Catalogue of them who kept up the Title and claim of old Christianity and would not suffer their new Errors to plead prescription 2. By shewing what Errors and Mistakes are included in the Question 1. That these new Errors of Rome are absolutely necessary to the being of a Christian Church For though we believe all that Christ and his Apostles taught all things that are contain'd in the Holy Scriptures all things that undoubted Tradition or good Reason proves to derive themselves from both or either yet because we do not Assent and Subscribe to the new Articles of Faith that Rome hath invented for us we cease to be a Christian Church are markt for Hereticks which are worse than Pagans with them and must be certainly Damn'd Nay should we embrace all the other Doctrines of Rome and deny only the Popes Authority and Supremacy that Epitome of their Christianity it would avail us little we are Heathens still Should we reject but one Article of Pope Pius's Creed suppose the Doctrine of Purgatory or Merit yet because this Questions Infallibility the centre of all their Religion we are in the State of Damnation still Should we receive their Doctrines as probable and in a larger and more favourable meaning yet because we do not entertain them as Articles of Faith in the fense of the Church our case is not mended we shall meet with Fires here and hereafter for our reward Should we wink and swallow them all down with a good Catholick Stomach yet if the Bishop of Rome should give out a new Edition of Faith enlarg'd with many more Monstrous Doctrines and Opinions yet if we bogle and keck at them all our former righteousness shall not be remembred we are Apostates worse than Turks and Infidels and who can tell what this Infallible and Powerful Guide of Christendom will do For when things obscure or of an Indifferent Nature when things wherein they differ among themselves and only serve a Temporal Interest when Opinions which they can dispense withal upon occasion when only the modes and manner of Truth when contradictories and Doctrines directly leading unto Impiety and things Barbarous and Blasphemous have been Christen'd Articles of Faith and Fundamentals of Religion have we not just reason to suspect as ill or worse may be done again And the intrigues of Trent be acted once more and as many new Articles of Faith as Titular Bishops by the same Spirit moving in the same manner were not the first and early Christians sound Members of Christs body though they never thought of such wild Opinions as these and publisht Truths directly contrary to them And could I suppose them to have known these Innovations out of Zeal and Fidelity to their trust would have detested amd abhor'd them Was Christ negligent in the discharge of his mighty office and his Apostles defective in their duties and Ministry not to accquaint the first Christians with these great Truths and were they reveal'd in the Tridentine Council only to us upon whom the ends of the World are come These Primitive Disciples of Christ thought themselves secure of Heaven by this short Creed that Jesus was the Christ the son of God And the contrary was the Character of the Man of Sin that deny'd that Jesus was come in the Flesh that he was the God incarnate and the true Messiah and were Scandaliz'd at his meanness and obscurity St. Paul told the Jaylor that certainly he would be sav'd if he believed that Jesus was the Christ all other Fundamentals of Christianity one way or other being necessarily included in that belief And thought that he made sincere and sound Disciples if they believ'd what he Preacht only Jesus and the Resurrection in their full compass and latitude Though we believe all this in a more express and explicit sense all that is contain'd in Scripture in the Apostles Creed or the two other Creeds drawn up by the Church to explain the Christian Religion in some Articles and to oppose the Doctrines of Hereticks yet the first Christians shall be Sav'd and we shall be Damn'd they shall be the elect and the Church of God we must be Reprobates and the Synagogue of Satan Or let Rome shew her wonted Charity and say She doubts also of their Salvation Or did Christ connive at that time of Ignorance or had he as a Lawgiver forgot to declare some part of the will and pleasure of God and upon better remembrance after so many hundred years suggested it to his careful Vicar Or did Christ knowing their Nature and Circumstances of it that they could not bear them at that time therefore delay the discovery so long Or did these new Articles lye hid so long conceal'd by his Apostles or buried by some lewd Hereticks in the rubbish of those Churches they pull'd down but afterwards found as they say the Cross was and now restored to light Or are these new Articles some way or other contain'd in the Ancient Creeds which we believe and by easy and natural consequences deduc't from them Some such fine reasons as these must be pretended otherwise we can safely conclude that our Church is truly Ancient and Apostolical though She disowns
later Fathers yet is was not positively affirm'd till about the year 1140. and not made an Article of Faith till the Council of Trent then indeed a good estate became a surer way to Heaven then then a good Life and Conversation The use of Indulgences was the Moral to the Fable of Purgatory and began to grow much what about the same time though it came not to the height and perfection till Pope Leo the Tenths time when Luther so stoutly opposed them then Heaven was set to Sale and the best Chap-Man was the greatest Saint though they boast of the second Council of Nice for the Antiquity of their Image Worship And if it will do them any good so they may of Simon Magus who was of an elder date and a very fit Patron of such an Opinion yet the Council of Frankfurt condemn'd it and the purest times did not so much as allow the making of Images And it was not the Catholick Doctrine in France for almost 900. years after Christ nor in Germany till after the twelfth Century then indeed such a Doctrin might be very proper when true Religion was turn'd into Pageantry and a form of Godliness The number of the seven Sacraments is now an Article of the Romish Faith yet the Council of Florence ended in the year 1439. was the first Council and Peter Lombard the first Man that precisely fixt that number That the Laity ought to receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper only in one kind was never made an Article of Faith till the Council of Constance concluded in the year 1418. then indeed that Council with the greatest insolence and a direct Invasion of the Authority of Christ took the Cup from the Lay Mens mouths notwithstanding as 't was then acknowledg'd the Institution of Christ to the contrary and they may as well Christen the Laicks Children only in the name of the Holy Ghost leaving out the Father and the Son by the way of concomitancy it being as Lawful to Baptize as to Communicate by the halfs For what cannot such a pretended Power do The prohibiting of Priests to Marry was not in perfection as 't is now till Pope Gregory the Sevenths time Let them tell us where 't is said by Christ or his Apostles or any of the truly Ancient Writers of the Christian Church that Pennance is a Sacrament or that Auricular Confession is necessary to Salvation or that Prayers ought to be made in an unknown Tongue or that good works are strictly meritorious or where can they find they many Impieties and Absurdities of their Mass in those early times of Antiquity And since they are fond of asking us this Question we might ask them many more about the many Fopperies and Innovations in their Faith and Devotion and many they are and large is the invntory almost as many as are the Christian Truths in direct opposition to them or prevarication from them But they seem to confess the newness of their Religion when they arrogantly set up a Power in their Church to frame new Articles of Faith and many things only Opinions and Notions at first have grown up by degrees to Fundamental Truths and having once slipt into error they are bound to maintain it for the Reputation and Authority of of Holy Church And who knows how many of this Nature are upon the Romish forge ready to be put into their Creed and where must we end not till it be believ'd that consecrated Feathers and Holy Water can conveigh Divine Grace to us and drive away Wicked Spirits and the Weathercocks of our Churches be thought Pillars of it Would the Champions of Rome speak out they would tell us as their Eckius did the Duke of Bavaria that the Doctrine of Luther might be overthrown by the Fathers though not by the Scriptures 't is a plain confession that we have the truest Antiquity on our side and in the beginning it was not so But we add that we have the Fathers also on our side for otherwise what mean their Expurgatorian indices of the Fathers and other Ancient Writers but that they very well know that these are old Enemies to Pope Pius's new Creed and the Truth in them confounds their error Such an account as this about the Original and Progress of their new additions to the old Faith was convenient to be given not because the Nature of the thing did necessarily require it for it had been sufficient only to have prov'd that these Romish additions to the Christian Faith are contrary to the Word of God and no where to be found in any of the Divine Writings the only Infallible Rule of Faith and that they have no power of minting new Articles Fundamental to Salvation but because the Disciples of Rome so frequently ask us the Question and lay so much stress upon it if these are Innovations crept into their Church who was the first Author of them when did he begin in whose Reign and in what place did he live who did oppose him what company believ'd on him and what his new Opinions were as they instance in Arianism and other Heresies and because they Fancy we cannot make all these particulars so absolutely plain therefore they say we have falsly charg'd the Romish Church with new errors and that their Faith is truly Ancient and by an uninterrupted Succession of Infallible Bishops hath been conveigh'd down from Christ and his Apostles in its full purity to this present Age. To satisfy their curiosity the defenders of the reformation have done this but suppose they could not have been so particular about the birth of these new errors or had made some mistakes in the compass of time yet however the charge of Innovation against the Romish Church stands firm and good upon these accounts 1. That Reformation carries not so much a respect to the error when it began as to the error it self Not whether it be sooner or later but whether it be an error contrary to the True Christian Faith It may serve some honest purposes to know the who and the when the where and the how and other circumstances of its beginning and proceeding but the necessity of Reformation springs from the Nature of the error which came from the Invention of Men and not the Authority of Christ And matters not much whether Simon Magus who was contemporary with the Apostles was the first Author of it or Pope Hildebrand at so great a distance 'T is enough that we are certain and sure that the Popish Doctrins which we condemn by comparing them with the Scriptures are not Christ and his Apostles have none of their Images or Superscriptions upon them who only had full Authority to make them current and True Articles of Faith They have indeed Christianity among them but like Josephs Coat so dipt in Blood so over-lac't with Fopperies and undecent Ceremonies and so many new pieces stitcht to the old Cloth that the old Fathers if alive