Popes and Councils Their own Polidore Virgil de Inven. Rerum p. 410. lib 8. c. 4. calling us a Sect doth give you a just description of us Ita licentia pacta loquendi c. i. e. Having once got leave to speak that sect did marvailously increase in a short time which is called Evangelicall because they affirm that no Law is to be received which belongeth to salvation but what is given by Christ or the Apostles Mark what they confess themselves of our Religion And yet these very men have the face to charge us with Novelty as if Christ and his Apostles were not of sufficient Antiquity for them Our main quarrel with them is for adding new inventions in Religion and their principal business against us is to defend it and yet they call theirs the old Religion and ours the new Our Argument lieth thus That which is most conform to the Doctrine and Practice of Christ and his Apostles is the truly Antient Religion and Church But our Religion and Church is most conform to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles therefore it is the truly antient Religion and Church The Major they will yield For no older Religion is desirable further then as the Law of Nature and Moral Determinations of God are still in force I suppose they will not plead for Judaism For the Minor we lay our cause upon it and are ready to produce our evidence for the Conformity of our Religion and Churches to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles That Religion which is most conform to the Holy Scriture is most conform to the doctrine and practice of Christ and his Apostles But our Religion and Churches is most conform to the holy Scriptures therefore c. They can say nothing against the Major but that the Scripture is Insufficient without Tradition But for that 1. We have no Rule of faith but what is by themselves confessed to be true They acknowledge Scripture to be the true word of God So that the Truth of our Rule is Justified by themselves 2. Let them shew us as good Evidence that their Additional Articles of faith or Laws of life came from the Apostles as we do that the Scriptures came from them and then we shall confess that we come short of them Let them take the Controversies between us point by point and bring their proof and we will bring ours and let that Religion carry it that is Apostolicall But we are sure that by this means they will be proved Novelists For 1. Their Traditions in matter of faith superadded to the Scripture are meer Hereticall or Erroneous forgeries and they can give us no proof that ever they were Apostolicall 2. The Scripture affirmeth its own sufficiency and therefore excludeth their Traditions 3. I shewed you how in their own General Council at Basil the Scripture sufficiency was defended 4. I have shewed you in my Book called the Safe Religion that the ancient Fathers were for the sufficiency of Scripture 5. Their Traditions are the opinions of a dividing sect contrary to the Traditions or doctrine of the present Catholick Church the far greater part of Christians being against them 6. We are able to shew that the time was for some hundred years after Christ when most of their pretended Traditions were unknown or abhorred by the Christian Church and no such things were in being among them 7. And we can prove that the chief points of Controversie mantained against us are not only without Scripture but against it and from thence we have full particular evidence to disprove them If the Scriptures be true as they confess them to be then no Tradition can be Apostolicall or true that is contrary to them For example the Papists Tradition is that the Clergy is exempt from the Magistrates judgement But the holy Scripture saith Let every soul be subject to the higher power Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4 5. The Papists Tradition is for serving God publickly in an unknown tongue But the holy Scripture is fully against it Their Tradition is against Lay mens reading the Scripture in a known tongue without special License from their ordinary But Scripture and all antiquity is against them The like we may say of many other Controversies So that these seven wayes we know their Traditions to be deceitfull because they are 1. Unproved 2. Against the sufficiency of Scripture 3. Against their own former confessions 4. Against the concent of the Fathers 5. Contrary to the judgement of most of the Catholick Church 6. We can prove that once the Church was without them 7. And they are many of them contrary to express Scripture And if Scripture will but shew which of us is neerest the doctrine and practice of the Apostles then the controversie is ended or in a fair way to it For we provoke them to try the cause by Scripture and they deny it we profess it is the Rule and test of our Religion but they appeal to another Rule and test And thus you may see which is the old Religion which will be somewhat fullyer cleared in that which followeth II. And that our Church and Religion hath been continued from the dayes of Christ till now we prove thus 1. From the promise of Christ which cannot be broken Christ hath promised in his word that that Church and Religion which is most conform to the Scripture shall continue to the end But our Church and Religion is most conform to the Scripture therefore Christ hath promised that it shall continue to the end 2. From the event The Christian Religion and Catholick Church hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now But ours is the Christian Religion and Catholick Church therefore ours hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now The Major they will grant the Minor is proved by parts thus 1. That Religion which hath all the Essentials of Christianity and doth not deny or destroy any Essential part of it is the Christian Religion but such is ours therefore c. 2. That Religion which the Apostles were of is the Christian Religion But ours is the same that the Apostles were of therefore c. 3. That Religion which is neerer the Scripture then the Romish Religion is certainly the Christian Religion But so is ours therefore c. 4. They that believe not only all that in particular that is contained in the Ancient Creeds of the Church but also in generall all that is besides in the holy Scripture are of the Christian Religion But thus do the Reformed Churches believe c. 2. And for our Church 1. They that are of that one holy Catholick Church whereof Christ is the head and all true Christians are members are of the true Church For there is but one Catholick Church But so are we therefore c. 2. They that are Sanctified Justified have the love of God in them are members of the true Catholick Church But such are all that are sincere
Believed in this our own Profession as well as you are in yours when you make the Decrees of Popes and Councils to be your Law and Rule and Tests We perform therefore more then you demand You ask us Where was our Church before Luther And we answer Where our Religion was You ask us Where was that and we tell you Where ever the Christian Religion was and the Holy Scriptures were received This were enough for us in answer to your Question But we do more We tell you not only where our Church and Religion was but where there were men that owned not your grand Corruptions no more then we What can you demand more of us when you call for a succession of Protestants then that we tell you of a succession of Christians which are of our Religion and which were no Papists yea against Popery which therefore were of our integrity And who knoweth not that the foresaid Abassines Armenians Egyptians Greeks c. are against your Papal Soveraignty Infallibility and all that is by us renounced as Essential to Popery O but say the Juglers these are not Protestants they differ from you in many particulars I answer Call them by what name you please they are not only Christians but also Anti-papists or free from Popery and then they are of our Religion and Church But indeed must the world be made believe that all that we Believe is essential to our Religion and that no man that differeth from us can be of our Religion be the difference never so small But say they tell us of a Church that professes your 39 Articles Silly deceivers Do not those very Articles profess that The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation so that whatever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of the Faith or be thought requsite or necessary to Salvation Art 6. We never took these Articles instead of the Scripture but the Articles and all Protestants profess the Scripture to be the only Rule and Test of their Faith and Religion The substance of the 39 Articles may easily be proved to have been successively held by the Church from the beginning but it is not incumbent on us to prove that every word in the writings of every Divine or Church hath been so continued no more then you will own the writings of any Divines or Provincial Synods of your own as being the Rule of your Faith As you profess that the Decrees of Popes and general Councils approved by him besides the Scriptures are the Rule and Test of your Religion so do we profess that the Scriptures alone with the Law of Nature is the Rule of ours But what say they will you be of the same Church with Nestorians Eutichians and other Hereticks I Answ 1. We will not take all for Nestorians or Eutichians that a railer can call such that never knew them nor can prove it 2. Hereticks indeed that deny any essential part of Christianity are no Christians anh therefore none of the Church that we are of but if you will call those Hereticks that have all the essentials of Christianity because they err in lesser points we know that there are such in the Catholick Church We will be none of them our selves if we can escape it yet indeed have no hope of escaping all error till we are perfect in knowledge But we will not run out of the family of God because there are children and sick persons in it Nor will we for sake the Catholick Church because there are erring persons in it O but saith the Papist We acknowledge not your distinction of points Essential and not Essential all points of Faith are Essential with us and of necessity to Salvation Answ Reader thou shalt see here such impudent and faithless jugling as may make thee blush to think that Christianity hath such professors 1. The Outside of their assertion damneth no aess then all the world that live to the use of Reason 2. The Inside of their deceitful meaning is almost clean contrary and leaveth Heathens and Infidels in the Church or in a state of salvation as well as Christians 3. It leaveth no one Article of faith essential to a Christian or to one that shall be saved and leaveth the Church an Invisible thing clean contrary to their own assertions of its Visibility 4. And when they have thus wrangled themselves into a wood of contradictions and Unchristian absurdities the wisest of them say as we say in the main point All this I will now manifest to thee 1. The Out-side of their assertion is that Every point that we are bound to belive by a Divine faith is fundamental or essential to Christian faith or of necessity to salvation And if so then no man breathing can be saved For no man knoweth all that he is bound to know And no man believeth that which he understandeth not It is impossible to believe that such a Proposition is a truth distinctly and actually when I understand not what the Proposition is And that we all know but in part even what we are obliged to know no man will deny but he that is mad by pride or faction All that God hath revealed in his word is the matter of our faith There is to man can say I have no culpable ignorance of any one Truth of God that I should believe Had we been more perfect in our diligent studies and prayers and use of all means and had we never sinfully grieved the spirit that should illuminate us to say nothing of our Original sinfull darkness there is not one of us but might have known more then we do If sin of the will and life be consistent with true faith then some sin in the understanding is consistent with faith But the former is true therefore c. But according to the out-side of their doctrine no man that hath any sinfull ignorance and consequently unbelief in his understanding can be saved that is no man in the world If he that thinks he knowth any thing knoweth nothing as he ought to know 1 Cor. 8. 2. what shall be said of these men that think they and all the Church do know all things that they ought to know and that their understandings have no sin And must we needs be of that faith that damneth all men and of that Church where none are saved 2. As the Out-side of their Assertions is made for a bug-bear to frighten fools so that the In-side as expounded by many of them is that Heathens and Infidels may be of their Church or saved and that nothing of the Chrian faith at all is necessary to salvation is plain For they ' tell us that they mean that all points are of necessity where they are sufficiently proposed and mens ignorance is not invincible but where there is no sufficient proposal but mens ignorance is invincible or
Professors of our Religion therefore c. But all this will not serve them without a Catalogue and telling them where our Church was before Luther To this we further answer we have no peculiar Catholick Church of our own for there is but one and that is our Church Wherever the Christian Church was there was our Church And where-ever any Christians were congregate for Gods worship there were Churches of the same sort as our particular Churches And wherever Christianity was there our Religion was For we know no Religion but Christianity And would you have us give you a Catalogue of all the Christians in the world since Christ Or would you have us as vain as H. T. in his Manuall that names you some Popes and about twenty professors of their faith in each age as if twenty or thirty men were the Catholick Church Or as if those men were proved to be Papists by his naming them This is easie but silly disputing In a word Our Religion is Christianity 1. Christianity hath certain Essentials without which no man can be a Christian and it hath moreover many precious truths and duties necessary necessitate praecepti and also necessitate medii to the better being of a Christian Our being as Christians is in the former and our strength and increase and better-being is much in the latter From the former Religion and the Church is denominated Moreover 2. Our implicite and actuall explicite Belief as the Papists call them must be distinguished or our General and our particular Belief 3. And also the Positives of our Belief must be distinguished from the implyed Negatives and the express Articles themselves from their implyed Consectaries And now premising these three distinctions I shall tell you where our Church hath been in all Ages since the birth of Christ 1. In the dayes of Christ and his Apostles our Church was where they and all Christians were And our Religion was with them in all its parts both Essential and perfective That is we now Believe 1. All to be true that was delivered by the Apostles as from God with a General faith 2. We believe all the Essentials and as much more as we can understand with a Particular faith 3. But we cannot say that with such a particular faith we believe all that the Apostles believed or delivered for then we must say that we have the same degree of understanding as they and that we understand every word of the Scriptures 2. In the dayes of the A postles themselves the Consectaries and implied Verities and Rejections of all Heresies were not particularly and expresly delivered either in Scripture or Tradition as the Papists will confess 3. In the next ages after the Apostles our Church was the one Catholick Church containing all true Christians Headed by Jesus Christ and every such Christian too many to number was a member of it And for our Religion the Essential parts of it were contained both in the Holy Scriptures and in the Publick Professions Ordinances and Practices of the Church in those ages which you call Traditions and the rest of it even all the doctrines of faith and universal Laws of God which are its perfective parts they were fully contained in the holy Scriptures And some of our Rejections and Consectaries were then gathered and owned by the Church as Heresies occasioned the expressing of them and the rest were all implyed in the Apostolical Scripture doctrine which they preserved 4. By degrees many errors crept into the Church yet so that 1. Neither the Catholick Church nor one true Christian in sensu composito at least did reject any essential part of Christianity 2. And all parts of the Church were not alike corrupted with error but some more and some less 3. And still the whole Church held the holy Scripture it self and so had a perfect General or Implicite belief even while by evill consequences they oppugned many parts of their own profession 5. When in process of time by claiming the universall Soveraignty Rome had introduced a new pretended Catholick Church so far as their opinion took by superadding a New Head and form there was then a two fold Church in the West the Christian as Christian headed by Christ and the Papal as Papal Headed by the Pope yet so as they called it but one Church and by this usurped Monarchy as under Christ endeavoured to make but one of them by making both the Heads Essential when before one only was tolerable And if the Matter in any part may be the same and the same Man be a Christian and a Papist and so the same Assemblies yet still the forms are various and as Christians and part of the Catholick Church they are one thing and as Papists and members of the separating sect they are another thing Till this time there is no doubt of our Churches Visibility 6. In this time of the Romish Usurpation our Church was visible in three degrees in three severall sorts of persons 1. It was visible in the lowest degree among the Papists themselves not as Papists but as Christians For they never did to this day deny the Scriptures nor the Ancient Creeds nor Baptism the Lords Supper nor any of the substance of our Positive Articles of Religion They added a New Religion and Church of their own but still professed to hold all the old in consistency with it Wherever the truth of holy Scriptures and the ancient Creeds of the Church were professed there was our Religion before Luther But even among the Papists the holy Scriptures and the said Creeds were visibly professed therefore among them was our Religion And note here that Popery it self was not ripe for a corruption of the Christian faith professed till Luthers opposition heightned them For the Scripture was frequently before by Papists held to be a most sufficient Rule of faith as I shewed before from the Council of Basil and consequently Tradition was only pleaded as conservatory and expository of the Scripture but now the Council of Trent hath in a sort equalled them And this they were lately driven to when they found that out of Scripture they were unable to confute or suppress the truth 2. At the same time of the Churches oppression by the Papacy our Religion was visible and so our Church in a more illustrious sort among the Christians of the most of the world Greeks Ethiopians and the rest that never were subject to the usurpation of Rome but only many of them took him for the Patriarch primae sedis but not Episcopus Ecclesiae Catholicae or the Governour of the Universall Church So that here was a visibility of our Church doubly more eminent then among the Romanists 1. In that it was the far greatest part of the Catholick Church that thus held our Religion to whom the Papists were then but few 2. In that they did not only hold the same Positive Articles of faith with us but also among their Rejections
to penitence that hath found by experience that when he comes there he is naught with them himself Or whether a man may lawfully lie and calumniate to put by a calumny Or speak falsly with mentall reservations Or forbear loving God many years together if not all his life Are these points no whit Material You know that one part of you with a Pope and General Council are for deposing Heretical Kings and murthering and stabbing them and others of you disavow it Is this no whit material And yet you are all of one Church and Religion A hundred more of your differences I could name Argum. 4. From instances of the Fathers that have erred in Material points and yet are taken to be of the same Church and Religion How many Churches differed about Easter day what abundance of errors are in your Clementines and other such writers owned by you Justin Martyr was a Millenarie Numbered divers Infidels with Christians thought that Angels lived by meat and generated with Devils c. Athenagoras thought that second Marriages were comely Adultery and that the Angels fell by the love of women and begot Gyants of them c. Irenaeus hath the like Theophilus Antioch worse Tertullian and Orrigen you will confess had yet worse Clem. Alexand. was for the salvation of Infidels and Heathens against swearing and many such besides those before mentioned Greg. Thaumaturgus hath divers if the confession and other works be his that are ascribed to him Cyprian Firmilian and the whole Council at Carthage were for rebaptizing those baptized by hereticks Against all Wars and Oaths Lactantius with many more was a Millenary and hath too many great errors I have no delight to rake into their faults but if it be necessary I shall quickly prove many and great errors by fourty more of them at the least And yet all these or most are confessed by you to be of one Church and Religion Argum. 5. From your own Confessions Bellarmine lib. 1. de Beat. SS cap. 6. faith that he seeth not how the sentence of Justin Irenaeus c. can be defended from error Of Tertullian he saith There 's no trust to be given to him lib. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 8. Eusebius he saith was addicted to the Hereticks Cyprian he saith did seem to sin mortally de Rom. Pont. lib. 4. cap 7. Augustine is accused by many Jesuites for going too far from Pelagius Hierom is oft pluckt by you And so are many more of the Fathers And yet you confess some of them at least were of the true Church and Religion Argum. 6. If there be no perfect concord to be expected till we come to the place of perfect knowledge and happiness then it is not perfect concord that is necessary to prove us of the same Church or Religion But the Antecedent is alas too far past doubt Therefore c. Argum. 7. If the godly and learned Doctors of the Church and all men have some alas how many culpable errors in matters of Religion yea of faith if you call that de fide which we are obliged to believe then those that have such errors may be of the same Church and Religion But the Antecedent is so true and evident that I think none but a blind proud Pharisee will deny himself to beg of God daily to pardon and heal his culpable errors So much to prove that men of errors and differing minds if not about the essence of the Church may be of the same Church 2. But why is it that they must all needs explicitely hold the thirty nine Articles 1. I pray you tell us whether all your own Church do explicitely hold and believe all your Articles that is all that Popes and General Councils have defined or declared Dare you say that one of five hundred of five thousand doth explicitely believe all this And why then is it necessary in our case that all must explicitely believe all those Articles 2. Yea with us it is far more unnecessary For we take not those Articles for the Rule of our faith but only the holy Scripture And therefore you may as well tell us that no man is of our Religion that did not write or speak all the same words that Jewell Reignolds Perkins or such other have written in their whole works 3. It s easie to prove for all that that the sense and substance of those Articles have been owned by the Churches in all ages 3. But what if we grant your conclusion that else they cannot be esteemed Protestants what of that As if none but Protestants were of the same Church and Religion with us Sure you think we make a sect of our selves like you and exclude all others from the Church and Salvation as you do The word Protestant is not the first denomination of our Religion from its essence for so we call our selves Christians only But it is a title that accidentally accrewed to our Religion from our Protesting against your innovations and corruptions and our Rejecting the errors contrary to our Religion which you had introduced Now those that were not involved in your errors as our forefathers were but lived at a further distance from you might have no occasion to make such a Protestation and yet be of the same Church and Religion as we are Now to your particular Laws 1. Saith H. T. Let him not name the Waldenses for they held the Real presence that the Apostles were Lay men that all Magistrates fall from their dignity by any mortal sin that it is not lawful to swear c. and Waldo lived but in one thousand one hundred and sixty Answ 1. We have better assurance of the faith of the Waldenses in their own published Confessions then from the mouth of their Adversaries 2. The Lutherans hold the real presence and yet are of the same Religion and Church with us 3. The Apostles were Lay-men in the Jews account and sense as not being Priests or Levites but not in Christians account that believed their mission and thus thought the Waldenses 4. They thought that Magistrates and Ministers do by Mortal sin forfeit all the right and title to their office from which themselves may have comfort and justification in judgement But they never thought that they were not to be obeyed by others or that their actions were not valid for the Churches good 5. Many of the ancientest Fathers thought it unlawfull to swear at all that yet are cited by you as of your Church But the Waldenses are slandered in these points 6. Though Waldo was but about one thousand one hundred and sixty yet the same Religion and Church under other names and before those names were fastned on them was much elder as Raynerius may satisfie you So that for all this the Waldenses and we are of one Church and Religion He adds Let him not name the Hussites for they held Mass Transubstantiation and seven Sacraments that the universal Church consisted only of the
of Necessity to salvation or not I before cited the words of Albertinus the Jesuite I shall now give you many more and more fully which Frans à Sancta Clara hath gathered to my hands in his Deus Natura Gratia Problem 15. 16. pag. 109 c. And 1. pag. 110. he tells us himself that the Doctors commonly teach that a just and probable ignorance ought to excuse and that it is probable when one hath a probable foundation or ground as a Country-man when he believes that a thing is lawfull drawn by the Testimony of his Parish Priest or Parents or when a man seeing reasons that are probable on both sides doth choose those which seem to him the more probable which yet indeed are against the truth to which he is otherwise well affected in this case he erreth without fault though he err against the truth and so labour of the contrary ignorance Hither is it to be reduced when the Articles of Faith are not propounded in a due manner as by frivolous reasons or by impious men for then to believe were an act of imprudence saith Aquin. 2. 2. q. 1. ar 4. So that if the truth of Scripture be so propounded as to seem most improbable it is no sin to disbelieve it and if such are excused as by a Parent or Parish-Priest are seduced and that have not a due proposal of the Truth then it must follow that the Heathens and Infidels are innocent that never had Christ proposed any way to them and by their Parents have been taught Mahometanism or Paganism But what if I can prove that even the want of a due proposal is a punishment for their sin and that they ought themselves to seek after the truth and that it is long of their own sins that necessary truths do seem improbable to them will sin excuse sin And pag. 111. he telleth us That as to the Ignorance of things necessary as means to salvation the Doctors differ for Soto 4. d. 5. q. 5. l. denatur grat c. 12. And Vega l 6. c. 20. sup Trid. will have no more explicite faith required now in the Law of Grace then in the Law of Nature Yea Vega loco citato and Gab. 2. d. 21. qu. 2. art 3. 3. d. 21. qu. 3. think that in the Law of Nature and in cases in the Law of Grace a man may be saved with only Natural Knowledge and that the habit of faith is not required And Horantius being of the contrary opinion saith that they are men of great name that are against him whose gravity and great and painfull studies moved him not to condemn them of heresie in a doubtfull matter not yet judged O happy Rome that hath a judge that can put an end to all their controversies And yet cannot determine whether it be Necessary to salvation to be a Christian Yea saith S. Clara Alvarez de Auxil disp 56. with others seems to hold that to Justification is not required the knowledge of a supernatural object at all Other say that both to Grace and to Glory an explicite faith in Christ is necessary as Bonavent 3. d. 25. and others Others say that to salvation at least an explicite faith in the Gospel or Christ is required though not to Grace or Justification And this is the commoner in the Schools as Herera declareth and followeth it And for Scotus S. Clara saith I take him to be of that opinion that is not necessary as a Means to Grace or Glory to have an explicite Belief of Christ or the Gospel ut 4. d. 3. q. 4. he seems at large to prove Pag. 113. he adds What is clearer then that at this day the Gospell bindeth not where it is not authentically preached that is that at this day men may be saved without an explicite belief of Christ for in that sence speaks the Doctor concerning the Jews And verily what ever my illustrious Master hold with his Learned Master Herera I think that this was the Opinion of the Doctor Scotus and the common one which also Vega a faithfull Scotist followeth and Faber 4. d. 3. Petigianis 3. d. 25. q. 1. and of the Thomists Bannes 22. q. 2. a. 8. Cano and others And he gathers it to be the mind of the Council of Trent Ses 6. cap. 4. and adds pag. 113. Its effectually proved by the Doctor from Joh. 15. If I had not come and spoke to them they had not had sin I know the Dictors of the contrary opinion answer that such are not cendemned for the sin of Infidelty precisely but for other sins that binder the illumination and special help of God But verily the Doctor there argueth that the Jews might by circumcision be cleansed from Original sin and saved without the Gospel and accordingly he may argue as to all others to whom the Gospel is not authentically promulgate Else his reason would not hold And our most grave Corduba l. 2. qu. Theol. q. 5. subscribes to this opinion saying since the promulgation of the Gospel an Explicite Belief of Christ is necessary except with the invincibly ignorant to whom an implicite sufficeth to the life of grace but whether it suffice to the life of glory is a probleme but it is more probable that here also an implicite sufficeth Page 114. he addeth the consent of Medina re recta in Deum fide lib. 4. cap. ult and of Bradwardine fol. 62. that an Implicite belief of Christ is sufficient to salvation And pag. 115. he saith that this is the way to the end debates of them that think the Article of the Trinity of Christ of the incarnation c. are necessary to salvation though not to Justification and answering them he saith that such are not formally without the Church You see then formally Insidels are in their Church and may be saved in his opinion And pag. 116. after a blow at Vellosillus he citeth also Victoria Relect. 4 de Indis Richard de Med. Villa 3. 25. art 3. qu. 1. and others for this opinion And tells you what his Implicite faith is to believe as the Church believeth And page 118. he answereth from Scotus the Question Whether such persons may hold the contrary error to the truth that they are ignorant of and saith No out of Scotus while it is preached but in some one place till he know it to be believed as a truth by the Church and then he must firmly adhere to it Which the charitable Fryar applieth to England as excusable for not believing some of their Articles And he citeth Petigianis saying If a simple old woman shall hear a false opinion from a false Prophet as that the substance of the bread remains with Christs body in the Eucharist and believe it doth she sin because of this No This were too hard and cruell to affirm Pag. 119. he citeth Angles and agreeth with him that such as have no knowledge of these things to stir them up are
are together by the ears who say that Merit of Condignity is but ex pacto by vertue of Gods Promise And now I leave it to the Conscience of any sober Papist whether we be guilty in any one point that this great Cardinal chargeth us with And whether Papists and Protestants were not in a fair way for reconciliation if we differed not more in other things then in these And here again I must let them know that Scripture only is the Rule and Test of our Faith and Religion Their Polidor Virgil in this speaks truly of us saying They are called Evangelical because they maintain that no Law is to be received in matters of Salvation but what is delivered by Christ or his Apostles so sapless and putid is their scorn of the Evangelium quintum If therefore Luther Calvin or any man speak in any word amiss blame the man that spoke it for that word but blame not all or any others for it if you are men Austin Retracted his own errors and which of us dare Justifie every word that hath faln from our mouths or pen before God How many hundred points do Schoolmen and Commentators charge on one another as Erroneous among yourselves shall all the errors of the Fathers be charged on the Catholick Church or all your writers errors upon yours And that we do well to stick to the Holy Scriptures as the sufficient Rule we are the more encouraged to think by the concessions of our adversaries of greatest Note as well as by the Testimony of the Scripture it self and the concent of the ancient Doctors of the Church and the unprovedness of of their pretended additonals Among others even this great Cardinal Richlieu saith thus pag. 38. Nos autem nullam aliam c. i. e. As for us we put or assert no other Rule but Scripture neither of another sort nor totall Yea we say that it is the Whole Rule of our Salvation and that on a double account both because it containeth immediately and formally the summ of our salvation that is all the Articles that are necessary to mans salvation by necessity of means N. B. and because it mediately containeth whatsoever we are bound to believe as it sends us to the Church to be instructed by her of whose infallibility it certainly confirmeth us Note here that 1. He grants us that all Articles necessary to our Salvation as Means are immediately and formally in the Scripture And then surely they may be saved that believe no more then is in the Scripture 2. That we are to believe no Church but that which the Scripture sends us to and to believe its infallibility no further then the Scripture doth confirm it And that the Scripture is our whole and only Rule O that all Papists would stand to this But let them not blame us now for standing to it Had this Cardinall done no more by Policie and Power then by Disputing against the Reformation he might easily have been dealt with CHAP. XL. Detect 31. ANother of their frauds is By ranking the Protestants among the rabble of Sects and Heresies that are in the world and then asking ignorant souls If you will needs be of any sect how many are here before you and what reason have you rather to be of the Protestants then of any other Answ Indeed this question is worth the considering by a Papist or any sectary but the true Catholick is quite out of the reach of it The Church of Christ is one and but One. This one Catholick Church containeth all the true Christians in the world This is the Church that I am a member of which is far wider then the Roman Church The Church that I profess my self a member of containeth three parts 1. The most sound and healthfull part and that is the Reformed Churches 2. The most unsound in doctrine though possest of many Learned men and that is the Papists themselves not as Papists simply but as Christians though infected with Popery 3. The middle part which is sounder then the Papists in doctrine but less learned and below the Protestants in both and that is all the Greeks and other Eastern and Southern Churches that are no subjects of the Pope All these even all true Christians are members of the Church that I belong to though some of them be more sound and some be leprous or lamentably polluted To these I may add many particular lesser sects that subvert not the foundation as some Anabaptists and divers others And will you ask me now why I will not be of another sect as well as of the Protestants Why my answer is ready A Sect divided from the body I abhor I am of no Sect It is the Unity Universality and Antiquity of the Church that are its honourable attributes in my eyes Protestants that unchurch all the rest of the world and count themselves the whole Church of Christ do in some sort make themselves a Sect But where is there any such I know none such nor I hope ever shall do And therefore I may say that Protestants are no more a sect then the Patients in an Hospital that are almost healed or then the higher form of Scholars in a school or then the Merchants or richer sort of Tradesmen in a City And such a Sect God grant that I may be of even one in the Church that shall be of soundest understanding and of purest worship and of the most carefull holy honest life But still I shall acknowledge them of the lowest form even them that learn the A. B. C. to be in the same School with me And if they Papists or any others will disclaim me that shall not unchurch me as long as Christ disclaims me not Nor shall it provoke me to disclaim them any further then I see Christ leading me the way So that the Papists may see that if they will deny the Church that I am of they must deny their own and all the Christian world But how will they answer this themselves Seriously I profess that besides their other errors it is one of the greatest reasons why I dare not be a Papist because then I know I must be a Sectary What is a Papist but as meer a sectary as any that retaineth a name in the Church They are a company of men that have set up a Humane Usurping Head or Vice-christ over the Catholick Church owning him themselves and unchurching and condemning all the Church that will not own him The Church that I am of is neer thrice as big as the Papists Church is Theirs is but a piece and a polluted piece that would divide it self from all the rest by condemning them And now I would seriously desire any Papist living to resolve the question If he will needs be of a sect and forsake the Universal Church why of the Popish sect rather then another If because it is the greatest I answer it s less then the whole If because it
the fact without the Scripture The Scripture is sufficient to its own use to be Rule of Obedience and Judgement but it is not sufficient to every other use which it was never made for The Law said to Cain Thou shalt not murder But it said not to him Thou hast killed thy brother therefore thou shalt die It was the Judges part to deliver this 3. By this trick they would give a man leave to vent any Blasphemy or do any villany changing but the name But they shall find that the Law intended not bare words but by words to signifie things And if they do the things prohibited or hold the opinions condemned what ever names or words they cloath them with they shall feel the punishment 4. By this they would leave almost nothing provable by the Scripture seeing a Papist or Heretick may put the same into other terms and then call for the Proof of that For example they may ask where God commandeth or instituteth any one of the Sacraments in Scripture And when we tell them where Baptism and the Lords Supper were instituted they may reply that there is no mention of Sacraments and so turn real Controversies into verbal 5. Yea it seems by this they would make all Translations to be of little use And a man might lawfully sin in English because God for bad it only in Hebrew and Greek 6. If this be the way of it let us remember that they must in Reason stand to their own Rules Let them tell us then what Scripture saith that Peter was the Vicar of Christ or the Head of the Catholick Church or the Bishop of Rome or that the Pope is his Successor or that the Pope is the Vice-christ or Universal Bishop Where is there express Scripture for any of this Yea so much as Bellarmines Literal sense 7. And why do not these blind and partial men see that the same course also must be taken with their own Laws And that all their Decretals and Canons are insufficient according to these Rules It 's easie for any Heretick to form up his Error into other words then those condemned by Pope or Council And if you go again to the Pope and get him to condemn those new expressions the men in Mexico may use them long to the detriment of the souls of men before the damnatory sentence be brought to them And when it comes they can again word their Heresie anew The Jansenists in France shew how well the Popes decision of wordy Controversies is understood and doth avail But really if they will hold that no part of the Popes Laws oblige but in the literal sense or that none offend that violate not the Letter they will make a great alteration in their affairs And perphaps any of their subjects may Blaspheme the Pope himself in French Dutch Irish English Slavonian c. because he forbids it only in Latine For if Translations be not Gods Word then they are not the Popes word neither A pretty crochet for a Jesuite It is mendacium and not a Lye that the Pope forbids It is said that a Traytor or Murderer may be hang'd but it is not said that such or such a man shall be hang'd or that he was a traytor or murderer Their common instance is The Scripture no where calls it self the whole word of God nor no where tells us which be Canonical Books c. and yet these are Articles of Faith Answ 1. The Scripture doth call it self the Word of God and signifie its own sufficiency and several Books have particular testimonies to be Canonical 2. Though secondarily so far as Scripture affirmeth its own Divinity it be to be beleived yet Primarily that this is Gods Word and that these are the Books and that they are not corrupted and that they are all c. are points of knowledge antecedent in order of nature to Divine Belief of them There are two great Foundations antecedent to the Matter of Divine Faith The one is Gods veracity that God cannot lie The other is His Revelations that This is Gods Word The first is the Formal Object of Faith The second is a Necessary Medium between the formal object and the subject sine quo non without which there is no possibility of Believing The Material object called the Articles of Faith presuppose both these as points of Knowledge proved to us by their proper evidence And that this is All the Word of God is a meer Consequence from the actual Tradition of this much and no more To give you an undenyable illustration by instance Let us enquire which be the Administring Laws of this Common-wealth And we shall find that 1. The Authority of the Law-givers is none of them for that is in the Constitution before the Administration and it is the formale objectum of every Law which is more noble then the Material object 2. And the Promulgation of these Laws is not it self a Law but a necessary Medium sine quo non to the actual obligation of the Law 3. And that there is no other Laws but these is not a Law but a point known by the non-promulgation of more 4. And that all these Laws are the same that they pretend to be and that they are not changed or depraved since this is not a Law neither but a Truth to be proved by Common Reason from the Evidences that may be brought from Records Practise and abundance more So is it in our Case 1. That God is True and the Soveraign Rector is first a point to be known by evidence the one being the formal object of Faith and the other the formal object of obedience and easily proved by Natural Light before we come to Scripture 2. And that this is Gods Revelation or Promulgation of his Law is a point also first to be proved by Reason not before we see the Book or hear the Word but out of the Book or Doctrine it self propria luce together with the full Historical Evidence and many other reasons which in order of Nature lie before our Obligation fide divina to believe So that this is not Primarily an Article of Faith but somewhat higher as being the Necessary Medium of our believing 3. And that there is no other Law or Faith is not Primarily a Law or Article of Faith but a Truth proved by the Non-Revelation or Promulgation of any other to the world He that will prove us obliged to believe more must prove the valid Promulgation or Revelation of more 4. And that these Books are the same and not corrupted is not directly and primarily an Article of Faith but an Historical verity to be proved as abovesaid And yet secondarily Scripture is a witness to all or most of these and so they are de fide But of this I refer the Reader for fuller satisfaction to my Preface before my second Part of the Saints Rest And thus it is manifest that it is an unreasonable demand of
what is the thing whose succession is questioned A Protestant is a Christian that holdeth to the holy Scriptures as the sufficient Rule of faith and holy living and protesteth against Popery The Protestant Churches are Societies professing the Protestants Religion The Protestant Religion is an improper speech but the Protestants Religion is a phrase that we shall own For Protestancy is not our Religion it self but the Rejection of Popish corruptions of Religions or defiling Additions If my Rejections of other mens Additions be themselves Additions then is it in the power of any Heretick in the world to force me to Add to my Religion at his Pleasure A thousand new Articles Forms of Worship he may devise and then must I add to my Religion by rejecting them all even as I add to my Apple by wiping the dirt of it or to my Cloaths by brushing them The Protestants Religion is only the Christian Religion the naked Christian Religion alone The Papists the Christian Religion corrupted with abundance of additions The Protestants ever disavowed any Confessions of men as pretended to be the Rule or Law of their Religion The Protestants Religion is the Holy Scriptures alone The Papists Religion is all that is decreed by the Pope and Councils Our Religion containtd in the Scoipture hath its Essentials and Integrals All the Essentials and as much of the Integrals as in the use of means we are able to understand we believe particularly and explicitely the rest we believe generally and implicitely to be all true So that as the Papists will not give us leave to take the writings of Greâ—ser Bellarmine or any of their Doctors yea the Articles of their Divines at Thoren Ratisbone c. to be therefore Articles of their faith but only those that are contained in General Councils approved by the Pope so we require the same justice of them that they call Nothing the Articles of our Faith but what is contained in the Holy Scripture which is the only Rule of our Religion Do they know our Religion better then we do This is our Religion and this we stand to Well! Consider now whether any thing be easier then for a Protestant to shew you a visible Church that hath successively been of his Religion 1. The Christian Religion hath been in all ages since Christ in visible Societies The Religion of Protestants is the Christian Religion therefore the Religion of Protestants hath been in all ages since Christ in visible Societies 2. That Religion which is contained in the Holy Scripture as its Rule or sufficient Revelation hath been professed in all ages in visible Churches But the Religion of Protestants is contained in the Holy Scriptures as its Rule or sufficient Revelation therefore the Religion of Protestants hath been professed in all ages in visible Churches We name the Societies from the places of their residence Our Church as Augustine tels the Donatists begun at Hierusalem and thence was dispersed into Asia Africa and Europe it hath continued in Syria Aethiopia Aegypt India Greece c. If I could name but one Nation that had been of my Religion I should suspect it were not the true Religion It is the Christian world that is instead of a Catalogue to us O but say the Juglers This is a General answer to say you are Christians there are more sorts of Christians then One I Reply It is the General or Catholick that we are speaking of and therefore if it were not such a General answer it were not pertinent to the Question There are no more sorts of Christians but One that is there is no Essential difference among them but there is a gradual integral and modal difference But may not Christians of several Degrees of Knowledge be in the same Catholick Church Our question is not Where any Sect or any particular Church hath had its succession but where that Catholick Church hath been of which we are members And surely Christ hath but One Catholick Church O but say they would you make men believe that Ethiopians Armenians Greeks c. are Protestants you may be ashamed of so gross a fiction I answer Is it the Name of Protestants or their Religion that you would have us prove a succession of These deceivers cheat abundance of poor souls by this one device even supposing that the word Protestant doth denominate our Church from its Essential parts and so call for a Catalogue of Protestants But I would ask them whether we or they do better know our Religion and consequently what a Protestant is If they know it at all it is from our writings or expressions For sure they will not pretend without signs to know our hearts and that better then our selves You must take it from us if you will know what our Religion is as we must take it from you if we will know yours And therefore delude not silly souls by perswading them that you know what our Religion is better then we If you will believe our Books that tell you believe our sayings also and believe me that here tell you my own Religion A Protestant is a Christian that protesteth against Popery Christianity is our Religion Protesting against Popery is our Negation or Rejection of your Corruptions of Religion Men that never heard of the name of Papist or Protestants may be of the same Religion with us If many Nations of the world never received Popery and we reject it if they never knew it and we know it and disown it are we not both of one Religion even in the Integrals One man never heard of the Leprosie another catcheth it and is cured of it and a third flyeth from it and preventeth it And I think all these are truly men yea and in tantum sound men When you call to us for a proof of our succession either you mean it of the Essentials of our Religion and Church or of the Negation of your Corruptions Either you mean it of the points that we are Agreed in or of those we differ in Christianity is it that we are Agreed in and that is our Religion and nothing but that Protestancy as such is but our wiping off the dirt or curing the scab that you have brought upon our Religion Is he not a man as well as you that will not tumble with you in the dirt or come into your Pesthouse If we know not our own Religion then we cannot tell it you and then you cannot know it And if we do know it believe us when we profess our own Belief We still profess before men and Angels that we own no Religion but the Christian Religion nor any Church but the Christian Church nor dream of any Catholick Church but one containing all the true Christians in the world united in Jesus Christ the Head We protest before men and Angels that it is the Holy Scriptures that are the Law and Rule and Test of our Religion And why are we not to be
such as comes not from a wilfull neglect of means there no ignorance of the articles of faith is damnable and so no article absolutely necessary so that the question indeed is not Whether men believe or not but Whether they are Unbelievers or Heathens or ignorant persons by a willfull neglect of sufficiently proposed Truth or not So that all that part of the Heathen or Infidell world O how great that have no such proposals of the Gospel may not only be saved but be better and safer then most Christians if not all who certainly are sinfully ignorant of some truth which they ought to know Obj. But say they it will not stand with faith to deny belief to God in any thing sufficiently revealed for he that believeth him in one thing believeth him in all Answ Very true if they know it to be the Word of God And if this be all the Protestants are ready to averre upon their most solemn Oaths that they believe every thing without exception which they know to be a Divine Revelation and no wonder for so doth every man that believes that there is a God and that he is no lyar If this will serve your turn you have no more to say against us your mouths are stopt But may it not stand with faith to be ignorant and that through sinfull neglect of some revealed truth of God or of the meaning of his word If you are so proud as to think that all the justified are perfect and have no sin yet at last consider whether a man that liveth in Heathenism til fourscore years of age and then turns Christian is not afterward ignorant through his former sinfull negligene But dare you say that you have no sinfull ignorance to bewail Will you confess none nor beg pardon or be beholden to Christ to pardon it That they make no point of faith necessary while they seem to make all necssary see but what I have after cited from Frans à S. Clara probl 15 16 17. and abundance more that are mentioned there by him 3. And that by this Protean jugling they make the Church invisible is apparent For what man breathing knoweth the secrets of the souls of others whether they have resisted or not resisted the light and whether they are ignorant of the articles of faith upon sinfull contempt or for want of some due means of faith or internal capacity or opportunity We are as sure that all men are ignorant of some thing that God hath revealed to be known in nature and Scripture as that they are men But now whether any one of these men be free from those aggravations of his ignorance and that in every point upon which the Papists make him an unbeliever is unknown to others When the Faith or Infidelity of men and so their being in the Church or out of it must not be known by the Matter of Faith which they profess but by the secret passages of their hearts their willingness or unwillingness resistance or not resistance and such like the Church then is invisible no man can say which is it nor who is of it He that professeth not the Faith may be a Catholick and he that professeth it for ought they know may be an Infidel as being sinfully yet ignorant of some one truth that is not in his express confession thus by confusion the bulders of Babel marre their work 4. And that the wisest of them say in the main as we say see here in some proofs Bellarm. de Verbo Dei lib. 4. cap. 11. In the Christian Doctrine both of Faith and Manners some things are simply necessary to salvation to all as the Knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed of the ten Commandements and of some Sacraments The restore not so necessary that a man cannot be saved without the explicite Knowledge belief and profession of them These things that are simply necessary and are profitable to all the Apostles preached to all Allthings are Written by the Apostles which are Necessary to all and which they openly preacht to all see the place Costerus Echirid c. 1. p. 49. Non inficiamur praecipua illa fidei capita quae omnibus Christianis cognitu sunt ad salutem Necessaria perspicuè satis esse Apostolicis scriptis comprehensa That is We deny not that those Chief Heads of the Faith which are to all Christians necessary to be known to salvation are perspicuously enough comprehended in the Writings of the Apostles Judge by these two to spare the trouble of citing more whether they be not forced after all their Cavils to say as we in distinguishing of Articles of Faith And they cannot be ignorant that the Church hath still had Forms of Profession which were called her Symbols as being the Badge of her Members and did not suspend all upon uncertain conjectures about the frame and temper of the Professors minds But if indeed it be not the want of Necessary Articles of Faith that they accuse us of but the want of willingness or diligence to know the truth let them prove their accusations and let those persons that they prove guilty bear the blame Do they think we would not as willingly know the truth as they and that we do not pray as earnestly for Divine illumination Do we not read their Books I verily think incomparably more then they do ours and are we not willing to confer with the wisest of them that can inform us I have often privately and publickly desired you that if any of them can say more then all these Schoolmen Fryars and Jesuites say which I have read they would let me hear it that I may want no means they can afford me for my fuller information But yet they have not done with us When we prove a succession of our Religion by proving a succession of such as adhered to the Scriptures which are the Doctrine of our Religion an Argument that no Papist under heaven can confute they vainly tell us that All Hereticks pretend to Scripture and therefore that will not prove the point But 1. Doth it follow that Scripture is not a sufficient Rule of our Religion because Hereticks may pretend to it You take the 39 Articles for our Religion and yet may Hereticks that are far from our minds pretend to them It 's the liker to be the Rule because all Hereticks pretend it and would borrow credit from it to their Heresies The Law of the Land is the Rule of our Justice and yet Lawyers and their Clients that are contrary to each other do plead it for their contrary Causes The Creed it self is pretended by Arrians for their Heresie What must we have no Rule or Test or discovery of our Religion which a Heretick can pretend for his impiety What words of God or man are not capable of being misinterpreted If we should give you every day a confession of Faith some Hereticks might pretend to hold the same No wonder then if they
Columbanus the Abbot coming into France that the Scots do nothing differ from the Brittains in their Conversation For Bishop Daganus coming to us refused not only to eat with us but even to eat in the same House where we did eat Usher Epist Hibern 7. p. 18. Our most peaceable Bishop Hall was forct to write a Roma irreconciliabilis While we are thinking of Reconciliation they are about our ears with Plots and violence and with swarms of Rome-bred Sects and are day and night industriously undermining us so that by their continual Alarms I am called off to these defensive wars which here I have undertaken yet still resolving that the Desperateness of the Cure shall not make me run from them into a contrary extream nor be out of the way of Peace nor neglect any necessary means how hopeless soever of success The Work that here I have undertaken is 1. To give you briefly those Grounds on which you must go if you will keep your ground against a Papist 2. To give a few invincible Arguments which the weakest may be able to use to overthrow the principal grounds of the Papists 3. To detect their Frauds and give to the younger sort of Ministers sufficient Directions for the Confutation of all the Papists in the world 4. To propound though in vain such terms of Peace as we can yield to CHAP. II. BEfore I mention the Grounds or Cause that you must maintain I must premise this Advice to the Common People 1. Wrong not the Truth and your selves by an unequal conflict Enter not rashly upon Disputes with those that are Learned and of nimble tongues if you be ignorant or of weak capacities your selves Though I shall here shew you that Scripture Church Tradition Reason and Sense are on your side yet experience tels us how the words of Juglers have made millions of men deny belief to their eyes their taste and other senses An ignorant man is soon silenced by a subtile wit and many think that when they cannot answer they must yield though they deny both Sense and Reason by it If any of them secretly entice you desire them to debate the case with some able learned experienced Minister in your hearing It is the office of your Pastors to defend you from the wolves If you once despise them or straggle from them and the Flocks and trust to your own Reason that is unfurnished and unprepared for such work you may take that you get by it if you be undone You need the help of Pastors for your souls as well as of Physicians for your Bodies and Lawyers for your Estates or else God would never have set them over you in his Church Let them but come on equal terms and you shall see what Truth can do In this way we will not avoid a Conference with any of them But alas with ignorant unlearned people what may not such Deceivers do that can perswade so many thousand souls to give no Credit to their own eyes or taste or feeling but to believe a Priest that Bread is not Bread and Wine is not Wine 2. Yet I would have the weakest to endeavour to understand the reasons of their Profession and to be able to repell Deceivers And to that end I shall here give you first some Directions concerning the cause which you must defend And concerning this Observe these things following 1. Understand what the Religion is that you must hold and maintain It is the antient Christian Religion Do not put every Truth among the Essentials of your Religion Our Religion doth not stand or fall with every Controversie that is raised about it That which was the true Religion in the Apostles days is ours now that which all were baptized into the Profession of and the Churches openly held forth as their Belief Reformation brings us not a new Religion but cleanseth the old from the dross of Popery which by innovation they had brought in A man that cannot confute a Papist may yet be a Christian and so hold fast the true Religion It followeth not that our Religion is questionable or unsafe if some point in Controversie between them and us be questionable or hard The Papists would fain bring you to believe that our Religion must lie upon some of these Controversies but it s no such matter Perhaps you will say That then it is not about Religion that we differ from them I answer yes it is about the Essentials of their Religion but it is but for the preserving the Integrity of ours against the Consequences and additions of theirs They have made them a New Religion which we call Popery and joined this to the Old Religion which we call Christianity Now we stick to the old Religion alone and therefore there is more essential to their Religion then is to ours so that our own Religion even the ancient Christianity is out of Controversie between us The Papists do confess that the Creed the Lords Prayer the ten Commandments are true yea that all the Scripture is the word of God and certainly true so that our Religion is granted us as past dispute And therefore it is only the Papists Religion that is in question between us and not ours If you will make those lower Truths to be of the Essence of your Religion which are not you will give the Papists the advantage which they desire 2. If the Papists call for a Rule or Test of your Religion and ask you where they may find it assign them to the Holy Scriptures and not to any Confessions of Churches further then as they agree with that We know of no Divine Rules and Laws of Faith and Life but the holy Scripture and the hearts of Believers have an imperfect Transcript of them The Confessions of Churches are but part of the Holy Scripture or Collections out of them containing the points of greatest weight And if in phrase or order much more in matter there be any thing humane we make it not our Rule nor are we bound to make it good no more then the Writings of godly men A point is not therefore with us an Article of Faith because our Churches or a Synod put it into a Confession but because it is in the Word of God For a Councils determinations do with us differ but gradually from the Judgement of a single man in this respect And therefore we give them the Scripture only as the full Doctrine of our Faith and the perfect Law of God And those points in it which Life or Death is laid upon and God hath told us we cannot be saved without we take as the Essentials of our Religion and the rest as the Integrals only If they ask Why then we do draw up Confessions of Faith I answer 1. To teach and help the people by gathering to their hands the most necessary points and giving them sometimes an explication of them 2. To let our Accusers see that we misunderstand not the
false So that here we must break with a Papist even where we might join in dispute with a heathen And how will Papists deal with Heathens if they will deny the proofs from sense and reason 3. But will they stand to the Validity of Proofs from Scripture No For 1. They take it to be but part of Gods word so that we may nor argue Negatively It is not in the holy Scripture therefore it is not an Article of faith or a Law of God For they will presently appeal to Tradition 2. And even so much as is in Scripture though they confess it to be true yet they confess it not to be by us intelligible and will not admit of any proof from it but with this limitation that you take it in that sense as the Church takes it For they are sworn by the Trent Oath to take it in that sence as the Holy Mother Church doth hold and hath held it in and never to take or interpret it but according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers So that they must know what sense all the Fathers are unanimous in before they can admit a proof from Scripture And before that can be done above a Cart-load of books must be read over or searched and when that 's done they will find that most texts were never medled with by most of those Fathers in their writings and in those that they did meddle with they disagreed in multitudes and where they disagree they are not unanimous and there the Papists are sworn to believe no sense at all And if they would have come down to a Major vote it is no short or easie matter to gather the votes And if they know the Fathers unanimous consent yet must they have the sense of the present Church too And is it not all one to make your adversary the Judge of your cause as the Judge of your Evidences and all your proofs 4. Well but at least may we not hope that they will stand to the Judgement of the Catholick Church And if so we will not take it for our adversary No they will not do so neither For 1. When they deny proof from sense and reason they must needs deny all that 's brought from the Church For the Church cannot judge it self but on supposition of the infallibility of sense 2. And when you argue from the judgement and practice of the greater part of the Church they presently disclaim them all as Hereticks or Schismaticks and will have no man be a Valid witness but themselves The Greeks the Aethiopians the Armenians the Protestants all are Hereticks or Schismaticks save they and therefore may not be witnesses in the case So that you see upon what terms we stand with the Papists that will admit of no proofs upon the Infallibility of Sense or Reason or the sufficiency of Scripture or the testimony of the Catholick Church but only from themselves CHAP. XIII Detect 4 UNderstand what the Papists mean when they are still calling to you for a Judge of Controversies If you would dispute with them they are presently asking you Who shall be the judge and perswading you that it is in vain to dispute without a living Judge for every man will be the Judge himself and every mans cause will be right in his own eyes and all the world will be still at odds till we are agreed who shall be the Judge To help you to see the sense of this deceit and then to confute it 1. You may easily observe that this is the plain drift of all to perswade you to make them your judges and yield the cause instead of disputing it For it is no other judge but themselves that they will admit Yield first that the Pope or his Council is the judge of all controversies and then its folly to dispute against them so that if you will yield them the cause first they will then dispute with you after 2. But what is to be said to the pretence of the Necessity of a Judge I answer 1. It s against all reason and experience to think that all enquiries or disputes are vain unless there be a Judge to decide the case A Judge is a Ruling decider not to satisfie mens minds so much as to preserve Order and Peace and Justice in the Society But there are thousands of cases to be privately discussed that we never need to bring to a Judge Every Husbandman and Tradesman and Navigator and other Artificer doth meet with doubts and difficulties in his way which he laboureth to Discern and satisfieth himself with a Judgement of Discretion without a Ruling Judge We eat and drink and clothe our selves and follow our daily labours without a Judge though we meet with controversies in almost all what meat or drink is best for quality or quantity and a hundred like doubts Men do marry and build and buy and sell and take Physick and dispatch their greatest worldly business without a Judge Judges are only for such controverted cases as cannot well be decided without them to the attaining of the Ends of Government 2. Is it not against the daily practice of the Papists to think or say that all disputes and controversies must have a Judge Who is the Judge between the Nominals Reals and Formalists the Dominicans Franciscans and Jesuites in all those controversies which have Cartloads of Books written on them Their Pope or Councils dare not Judge between them Do they not daily dispute in their Schools among themselves without a Judge and still write books against one another without a Judge 3. Understand well the use and differences of Judgement The sentence is but a means to the execution and Judges cannot determine the mind and will of man but preserve outward Order if men will not see the truth themselves Me thinks the Jesuits that are so eager for free will should easily grant that the Pope by his definition cannot determine the Will of man And they see that Hereticks remain Hereticks when the Pope hath said all that he can And if he can cure them all by his determinations he is much too blame that he doth not And if a mans mind be to be settled an Infallible Teacher is fitter then a Judge Judgement then being for Execution when you ask Who shall be the Judge I answer that Judgement is either total absolute and final or it is only to a certain particular end limited and subordinate from which there is an Appeal In the former case there is no Judge but Christ and the Father by him No absolute decision can be made till the great Judgement come and then all will be fully and finally decided And for the limited present Judgements of men they are of several sorts according to their several Ends. When the question is Who shall be corporally punished as an Heretick the Magistrate is Judge For coercive punishment being his work the Judgement must be his also But when the question is Who
shall be excommunicated as an Heretick as Gods Law hath told us who in specie and so is the Rule of decision about individuals so to try individual persons and cases according to this Law belongs to the Governours of the Church but not to the Governours of other Churches a thousand miles off that never received such an authority and are not capable of the work but to the Governours of the Church in which the party hath Communion and into which he shall at any time intrude and seek communion And all men have a Judgement of discerning that are concerned in the Execution So that if a disputing Papist will say that his business is not to Dispute with you but to Excommunicate or hang or burn you for an Heretick then I confess it s all the reason in the world that you should first agree of the Judge But why the Pope should be the Judge I know not unless it be in his own charge CHAP. XIV Detect 5. VVHen you have proceeded on these grounds the Papists will tell you that in their way there is an End of Controversies but in yours there is none For if you will not stand to ones Judgement as infallible you may dispute as long as you live before you come to an End To direct you in discussing this part of the Deceit also 1. We confess that on earth there will be no End of all controversies among the best nor of the great controversies which salvation lyeth on between the believers and the unbelievers that is there will be still Infidelity and Heresie in the world and errour in the godly themselves 1. Hath it not been so in every age till now And why should we expect that it should now be otherwise 2. Doth not Paul tell us that here we know but in part and prophesie in part and when is it that that which is imperfect will be done away but when that which is perfect is come While we know but in part we shall differ in part 2. Hath your way put an End to controversies any more then ours Are you not yet at controversie with Infidels Whether Christ be the Redeemer and with Hereticks whether he be true eternall God Are you not yet as full of controversies among your selves as any Christians on the face of the earth I do not believe but in the many Volumes of your Schoolmen Casuists and Commentators I can shew more controversies yet depending then you can find amongst any sort of Christians in the world yea then you can find among all other Christians in the world set together 3. And is there any thing in your way that better tendeth to the deciding of controversies then in ours Nothing at all but contrarily you have made more Controversies then you have ended For 1. We have a Certain infallible Rule to decide our controversies by even such as you confess your selves to be infallible Even the Holy Scriptures but you have an uncertain Rule even the Decrees of your Popes and Councils and the many Volumes of the Fathers which are at odds among themselves your very Rule is self-contradicting and your Judges are together by the ears as hath been shewed 2. Our Faith consisteth in those points which are granted by your selves and so are beyond Controversie between us and you But yours lyeth also in a mixture of mens corruptions which will ever be controverted and condemned 3. Our Faith consisteth in the few ancient Articles by which the Church was alwayes known as to its essentials But you confound the Essentials with the integrals and the Number of your necessary Articles is so great as must needs be matter of more controversie then ours 4. We know our Religion and where to find it For it is perfect at the first and receiveth no additions or diminutions One generation cometh and another goeth but the word of the Lord endureth for ever But you never know when you have all because you know not when your Pope will have done defining that is an article of faith to you one year that was none the year before nor ever before 5. We need no Judge to decide any controversies among us in the points of Absolute necessity to salvation both because the Scripture is so plain in those points as to serve for decision without a Judge and because we abhor to make a controversie of any of them and where there is no controversie there needs no Judge We are all agreed through the plainness of the Scripture that there is but one Eternal most Wise and Good and Omnipotent God and that there is one Mediator between God and man who is himself both God and man that was crucified dead buried went to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rose again ascended intercedeth for us and is King and Head of the Church and will raise the dead and judge the world some to Heaven and some to Hell These and all the rest of the Essentials of our faith and many more points that are not essentials are so plain in Scripture that we are past making them matter of Controversie If any man deny an Essential point of faith he is none of us no more then of you But you are it seems so deep in infidelity that you must have a judge to decide your Controversies in the necessary Articles of Faith For whatever is de fide you make to be of such equal necessity that you deride our distinguishing the Fundamentals from the rest as may be seen in Knots Infidelity unmaskt against Chillingworth Seriously tell us Do you think Christians need a Judge or must put it to a Judge to decide whether Christ be the Messias or not whether he died and rose again or not Whether he will judge the world or not or any such points If he be a Judge he must have power to oblige you to stand to his Determination on which side soever he determine And what if John 22. determine that the soul is not immortal or John 23. that there is no resurrection or life to come but a man dieth like a beast would you stand to this decision 6. If you say that your Judge hath power to oblige you only on one side that is when he judgeth right and so make no Judge of him but a Teacher we have such Judges as well as you even Teachers to shew us the Evidence of truth 7. If you say that you have a Judge to determine of heresies in order to the Punishing of them by the sword So have we as well as you and better then you For your Pope is a Priest that hath nothing to do with the sword at least out of his own Principalities but our Princes and other Rulers are lawful Magistrates that are appointed to be a terror to evill doers Rom. 13. 4 6. 8. If you say that you have a Judge to determine of heresie in Order to Excommunication so have we in every Church even the Pastors of the Churches who are
bound to unite and assist each other in such works What is to be accounted Heresie the Law of God sufficiently determineth And what particular persons are to be Judged hereticks and excommunicated according to that Law the particular Pastors that are on the place can better decide then a Pope that is a thousand or five thousand miles off and cannot hear the witnesses And do you not your selves decide almost all such cases through the world that is of your subjection by the present Pastors or Bishops and not by the Pope And why may not we do so then as well as you 9. But if you lay all upon your Popes or Councils Infallibility I desire you but to read my third Disputation in a Book against Popery called the Safe Religion and then believe that Infallibility if you can I should think my self a miserable man if I were not my self more Infallible then many of your Popes have been Every Christian while such is infallible in his belief of the Christian faith And the Scripture is an infallible ground of our belief 10. Is it not a plain Judgement of God upon you that while you make the Scripture so dark and not intelligible and cry up the Necessity of a living Judge you should not only swarm with differences among your selves but should be utterly disagreed and at a loss to know who is this Judge of Controversies one saying it is the Pope and another that its the Council and what the better are you for saying There must be a Judge as long as you cannot tell Who it must be It s not only uncertain among you Whether Pope or Councill be the Infallible Judge but also which is a true Pope and which is a lawfull General Council For fourty years at least together the Church could not know the true Pope but the more learned and conscionable men were divided Nor is it known to this day Frequently the strongest hath carried it and success been his best title Nay General Councils themselves knew not the right Pope The Council at Constance and Basil knew not the right Pope They of Basil thought Felix the fifth the true Pope and Eugenius no Pope But friends and strength confuted a General Council and proved deposed Eugenius the Pope And for Councils themselves who knows which to take for currant and of Authority What Catalogues have you of reprobated Councils and of doubtfull Councils and partly approved partly reprobate and who knows which and how far but only that is approved that pleaseth the Pope and that reprobate that displeased him and yet perhaps approved by a former Pope So that you are all in a confusion and uncertain about your true Popes and General Councils And if you knew them yet what a loss are you at to know their Decrees and Canons What a Fardel of false Decretall Epistles have you thrust upon the world as Blondell Dalleus Reignolds and others have fully proved Forsooth decretals that use a translation of the Scripture that was formed a long time after the death of the supposed Authors of those Epistles And Decretals which make mention of persons and things that were many score or hundred years after the death of the said Authors These are your new Scriptures and by these our faith must be regulated and our controversies decided And your Canons are abundance of them as uncertain some of your own will have but twenty Canons of the first General Council at Nice some will have the new found rabble of additions Much more uncertainty or certain forgery there is in the Canons called the Apostles and the like we may say of abundance more And now I appeal to all the impartial Reason in the world whether your voluminous apocriphal uncertain faith that needs a living Judge and cannot find one or agree upon him and that leaves your controversies still undecided be a liker way to peace and unity then our short and plain Articles and infallible Scripture faith that hath less matter of contention and better means to prevent it even faithful Teachers and Judges in every Church and Commonwealth which shall so far determine as may preserve the peace of those societies levaing the final full Decision of all to the Eternal Judge that is even at the door 11. Yea and is not Gods hand of Judgement yet more observable against you that when your Popes and Councils have past their judgement the several Sects are unable to understand them witness the late sentence against the Jansenists of which the persons that seem to be condemned say that there is no such thing or words in all Jansenius writings as the Pope saith are in him and condemneth as his and the Controversie is as far from a decision as if the Pope had held his peace Yea your great Disputer here in England Thomas White the Novelist is the same for all the Popes determination Take another instance in the forementioned Case Whether the Pope or Council be supream The Councils of Constance and Basil determined it one way as de fide and yet that made no end of the Controversie The Council of Lateran and Pope Leo determined it the other way and yet it is a Controversie after two contrary decisions and some say one way and some the othe and some say It is yet undecided for fear of angring the French by casting them off as Hereticks Another instance The Council at Basil Sess 36. pag. 80. in Binnius hath fully determined the Controversie between the Franciscans and Dominicans about the Virgin Maries immaculate conception and yet it is undetermined still and Thomas White presumes to affirm that Certainly there is no Tradition for it nor any probability that ever the Negative will be defined Apolog. for Tradit pag. 64 65 66. yea he carryeth it as boldly out as if never Council had made or medled with it I will therefore recite the words of the Council which are these A hard question hath been in divers parts and before this holy Synod about the Conception of the glorious Virgin Mary and the beginning of her Sanctification some saying that the Virgin and her soul was for some time or instant of time actually under Original sin others on the contrary saying that from the beginning of her Creation God loving her gave her grace by which preserving and freeing that blessed person from the Original spot we having diligently looke into the authorities and reasons which for many years past have in publike relation on both sides been alledged before this holy Synod and having seen many other things about it and weighed them by mature consideration do Define and Declare that the doctrine affirming that the glorious Virgin Mary the Mother of God by the singular preventing and operating grace of God was never actually under Original sin but was ever free from all Original and actual sin and was holy and immaculate is to be approved held and embraced of all Catholikes as godly and Consonant
at Anatolius his rising and the equaling him with Rome but they never excepted one word that ever I found against the saying that it was because of the Empire that Rome by the Fathers had the Primacy given it And the Reason given by themselves Concil Constant Can. 5. is because Constantinople is new Rome But Binnius saith that Rome receiveth not the Canons of this Council neither but only their condemnation of Macedonius And he saith that every Council hath just so much strength and authority as the Apostolick seat bestoweth on it For saith he unless this be admitted no reason can be given why some Councils of greater numbers of Bishops were reprobated and others of a smaller number confirmed Bin. Vol. 2. p. 515. What would you have more Sirs Do you not see yet what the Popish Catholick Church is and what they mean when they mouth it out to you and ask you whether your private Judgement be safer or wiser then that of the whole Church or of all the Christian world You see they mean all this while but one man whom Gretser and others plainly confess they call the Church So that indeed it is General Councils and all the Christian world or Church that are the ignorant fallible and oft erring part and it is one man that sometime is reputed an incarnate Devil by a General Council too that is the unerring Pillar of the Church and wiser then all they Do you not see that they make a meer nothing or mockery of General Councils any further then they please the Pope And can you expect that any thing should please them that is against his Greatness or as Julius the second calls it his holding the place of the great God the Maker of all things and all Laws What a vile abuse is it then of the Pope to trouble the world by the meetings and Consultations of General Councils when he can sit at Rome and contradict them infallibly and Good man is fain to save the Catholick Church from the Errors that General Councils the Representative Catholick Church would else lead them into and therefore could he not with less ado infallibly make us Laws Canons and Scriptures without them For sure that which the Pope can do against a General Council he can do without them If he can Infallibly contradict a General Council and Infallibly Rule us contrary to their Judgement he may no doubt Infallibly Rule us without them And therefore of late times they have learnt so much wit that you may look long enough before you see a General Council And I think the Council of Constance were no better Prognosticators then William Lilly nor no more effectuall Lawgivers then Wat Tyler when they Prognosticated or Ordained Decennial Councils And I will be judged by all the world And here also you may see what account the Papists make even of the first General Councils It s all one with them to judge others Hereticks for contradicting especially the four first General Councils compared to the four Evangelists as the Scripture it self and yet who would have thought it they profess themselves to reject the Canons or Decrees of both these the first of Constantinople and that of Calcedon in part And now I think on it by this priviledge I cannot see but the Pope is priviledged from all possibility of being an Heretick personally But these things are on the by I return to the point in hand which is to prove to you that not only the Romish Universal Monarchy and Vice-godhead but even its Patriarchal Primacy was no Apostolical Tradition but an Humane Institution founded on this Consideration that Rome was the Imperial Seat and City 5. And Humane it must needs be 1. For we find that Councils did not declare it as any part of the Law of God but Ordain it as an act of their own 2. We find them adding the Patriarchate of Constantinople which was a new seat neither Patriarch nor Bishop residing there in the Apostles dayes or long after 3. Yea we find them giving this new Patriarch the second place and once making him equal with old Rome which they would never have presumed to do if they had thought that the Patriarchship of Alexandria Antioch or Rome had been of Divine Institution for what horrible arrogancy would that have been when the Holy Ghost by the Apostles had made Alexandria second and Antioch third and Rome first for a Council to set Constantinople before two of them and equal with the first 6. And therefore we have reason to think that if Patriarchs be desirable creatures there may more and more new ones now be made as lawfully as Constantinople was 7. And we do not think that a General Council or Pope can make a man of one Nation to be Patriarch of the Church in another Nation that perhaps may be in wars with the Prince of the first Nation but that each Prince with the Church under their Power hath more to do in it then either Pope or Council And if Portugal and France set up Patriarchs at home they do as lawfully as the Patriarch of Constantinople was set up 8. And therefore we must needs judge that to disobey the Pope or withdraw from his subjection if he had never forfeited his Patriarchship by the claim of an Universal Headship were no greater a sin then to disobey or withdraw from the Patriarch of Alexandria Antioch or Constantinople either the Government by Patriarchs and Arch-bishops is of Gods ordaining and approving or not if not as most of the Protestants hold then it is no sin to reject any of them If it be of God then to reject any of them though in simple error is a sin of disobedience through ignorance but is far from proving a man to be no member of the Catholick Church for sure Patriarchs are far from being Essential parts of the Catholick Church For 9. We conclude as in the Papists own Judgement the Catholick Church may be without the Patriarch of Constantinople Alexandria or Antioch so may it therefore without the Pope of Rome CHAP. XX. Detect 11. THE great endeavour of the Papists is to advance Tradition The Council of Trent Ses 4. hath equalled it with the Scriptures as to the pious affection and reverence wherewith they receive it On pretence of this Tradition they have added abundance of new Articles to the faith and accuse us as Hereticks for not receiving their Traditions And this is a principall difference betwixt us that we take the Scriptures to be sufficient to acquaint us with the will of God as the Rule of faith and holy living and they take it to be but part of the word of God and that the other part is in unwritten Tradition which they equal with this as afore For the maintaining of Tradition it is that they write so much to the dishonour of the holy Scripture as you may find in Rushworths Dialogues and Tho. Whites Defence of them and
nothing can be added and therefore we are at a Certainty for our Religion for we have a sure and perfect Rule from Heaven Nothing may be added to it or taken from it But the Papists do profess that the Determinations of the Pope or Councill may make a point and so five thousand points for there is no certain number to be de fide articles of faith and necessary to salvation though not in se yet quoad nos as to us And what it is for a Law to be obligatory in se and not quoad nos is hard to understand So that the Papists never know when their faith is perfect and grown to its full stature For ought they know a thousand more Articles yet may be added And yet these men of uncertain growing faith have the face to perswade men that we are mutable and they are fixed You see our several Principles now to our Practices For our part 1. We never changed our Head our Lord our Faith or one Article of our Faith if malice it self be able to charge us with changing the smallest Article of our Faith let them say their worst we change not our Rule the holy Scriptures nor one clause or sentence of it but endeavour the preservation of the same which at the first we received In our contests with the Papists our great offence is at their mutation from the antient Rule and way we contend but for the faith once delivered to the Saints the old way with us is the good way we abhor a Religion that is new sprung up or is less then one thousand five hundred and fifty years standing at least If we change in any thing it is but by repenting of our former changeableness while our Nation was Popish having then changed from the Apostolick simplicity we change from that sinful change and return to the antient way again And if we have made any further changes since our first change at the Reformation it is but a perfecting the change to Antiquity and Apostolick simplicity which we then begun Rome was not built in a day and is not pulled down in a day The work of Reformation is but one change though it be not done all at one time If we find some spots of Romish dirt upon us that escaped us at our first washing it is no dangerous mutability yet to wash it off If a man converted by saving grace be not perfectly rid of all his former sin the first day of his Conversion should he be reproached as mutable for striving against it all his life after and casting it off by degrees as he is able If a man did but recover by degrees from the relicks of his disease they will not therefore reproach him as mutable If he sweep the dust or dirt out of his house every day they will not say He is mutable and knows not where to rest These men might as well reproach us as mutable because we rise in the morning and do not still lie in bed or because we go to bed at night and do not stay up still But what is it that we are changeable in we have changed none of the substance of worship did we baptize before and do we not so still Did we pray or administer the Lords Supper before and do we not so still what is the change why 1. We before used the common Prayer book and now we do not 2. Before we used prayers at the buria of the dead which now are omitted 3. Before we used the Cross and Surplice and kneeled at the Sacrament which are now omitted And what then therefore we have changed our Religion Even as a man changeth his cloaths by brushing them or his house by sweeping it or his face by washing it Do these men think us so sottish as to place our Religion in these Circumstances God hath bid us Pray continually but he hath not told us whether we shall use a Prayer book or not but left that to mens necessities or conveniences to determine of And doth a man change his Religion or Worship of God if he either begin or cease to use a Book If any man had so little wit or Religion as to place their Religion in a Prayer book it s no great loss to them if they have lost their Religion when the Prayer book is taken from them We doubt not but Prayer books are profitable to some and hinderances to others some should use them and some should not but whether we use them or not use them is no part of our Religion at all but a meer Accident or common help and appurtenance God hath not told preachers whether they shall use any Notes for their memory in Preaching to one it is an hinderance to another an help Doth a man change his Religion when he changeth a custome of using Notes God hath not told us what Chapter we shall read or what Psalm we shall sing or what Text we shall Preach on this day or that day What if one age think it best that some Pastors give Laws to all the rest that they shall read no Chapter preach on no Text and sing no Psalm but by their direction and the next age think it meeter to leave it to each Minister as thinking it unfit to Ordain such Ministers that have not wit enough to choose their Text or Chapter or Psalm according to occasions Will you say that here is a change of Religion These outside Hypocrites tell the world what a thing they take Religion to be and in what they place it What if one man use an hour-glass in preaching and another use none What if one read a Chapter with spectacles and another without or if one preach in a Pulpit and another below or if one preach in a white garment or another in a black or if one stand at the Sacrament and another sit and another kneel Are we therefore of several Religions or is this any part of the worship it self Do we not all now either stand sit or kneel at the hearing of a Sermon as we please Do we not kneel or stand at Prayer as we please Yea do not men commonly in singing Psalms of Prayer or Praise to God sit or stand as they please And what if we do so at the Sacrament Is it not all one Or doth standing kneeling or sitting make another Religion or any part of it And for Marrying Burying Baptizing and the rest we have altered no part at all of the worship of God but order them in that manner as seemeth most convenient What ignorant souls are these that think that the using a Prayer book or praying without book or the using this gesture or that these words or those words that are to the same sence doth make different Religions or Ordinances of worship These are tricks that none but the sottishly ignorant will be deluded with that know not whâ—â— Religion or worship is They may as well say If I change
not the subject of the Pope as universal Monarch Nor can any other be saved as being without the Church 3. And that the Church of Rome is by Gods appointment the Mistris of all other Churches 4. And that the Pope of Rome is Infallible 5. That we cannot believe the Scriptures to be the word of God or the Christian doctrine to be true but upon the Authoritative Tradition of the Roman Church and upon the knowledge or belief of their Infallibility that is we must believe in the Pope as Infallible before we can believe in Christ who is pretended to give him that infallibility 6. That no Scripture is by any man to be interpreted but according to the sence of the Pope or Roman Church and the unanimous consent of the Fathers 7. That a General Council approved by the Pope cannot err but a General Council not approved by the Pope may err 8. That nothing is to us an Article of faith till it be declared by the Pope or a General Council though it was long before declared by Christ or his Apostles as plain as they can speak 9. That a General Council hath no more validity then the Pope giveth it 10. That no Pastor hath a valid Ordination unless it be derived from the Pope 11. That there are Articles of faith of Necessity to our Salvation which are not contained in the Holy Scriptures nor can be proved by them 12. That such Traditions are to be received with equal pious affection and reverence as the holy Scriptures 13. That Images have equal honour with the Holy Gospel 14. That the Clergy of the Catholick Church ought to swear obedience to the Pope as Christs Vicar 15. That the Pope should be a temporal Prince 16. That the Pope and his Clergy ought to be exempted from the Government of Princes and Princes ought not to judge and punish the Clergy till the Pope deliver them to their power having degraded them 17. That the Pope may dispossess Princes of their Dominions and give them to others if those Princes be such as he judgeth hereticks or will not exterminate Hereticks 18. That in such cases the Pope may discharge all the subjects from their allegiance and fidelity 19. That the Pope in his own Territories and Princes in theirs must burn or otherwise put to death all that deny Transubstantiation the Popes Soveraignty or such doctrines as are afore expressed when the Pope hath sentenced them 20. That the people should ordinarily be forbidden to read the Scripture in a known tongue except some few that have a license from the ordinary 21. That publick Prayers Prayses and other publick worship of God should be performed constantly in a language not understood by the People or only in Latine Greek or Hebrew 22. That the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist is Transubtantiate into the very body and blood of Christ so that it is no more true Bread or Wine though our eyes tast and feeling tell us that it is 23. That the consecrated host is to be worshipped with Divine worship and called our Lord God 24. That the Pope may oblige the people to receive the Eucharist only in one kind and forbid them the Cup. 25. That the sins called venial by the Papists are properly no sins and deserve no more but temporal punishment 26. That we may be perfect in this life by this double perfection 1. To have no sin but to keep all Gods Law perfectly 2. To supererogate by doing more then is our Duty 27. That our works properly merit salvation of God by way of Commutative Justice or by the Condignity of the works as proportioned to the Reward 28. That Priests should generally be fordidden Marriage 29. That there is a fire called Purgatory where souls are tormented and where sin is pardoned in another world 30. That in Baptism there is an implicite vow of obedience to the Pope of Rome 31. That God is ordinarily to be worshipped by the Oblation of a true proper propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead where the Priest only shall eat and drink the body and blood of Christ while the Congregation look on and partake not 32. That the Canon of Scripture is the same that is declared by the Council of Trent I will pass by abundance more to avoid tediousness And I will not stay to enquire which of these are proper to the Papists But I am resolved so to receive many of them as they can prove a Catholick succession of that is that they were in all ages the Doctrine of the Universal Church And I crave the charity of such a proof from some Papist or other if they have any charity in them and that they will no longer keep universal Tradition in their purses And I would desire H. T. to revise his Catalogue and instead of twenty or thirty dead and silent names that signifie no more then Blanks or Cyphers he would prove that both those persons and the Catholick Church did in every age hold these thirty two forementioned doctrines And when hath done then let him boast of his Catalogue Till they will perform this task let them never more for shame call to us for Catalogues or proof of succession But if they are so unkind that they will not give us any proof of such a Catholick succession of Popery we shall be ready to supererogate and give them full proof of the Negative That there hath been no such succession of these thirty two points as soon as we can perceive that they will ingeniously entertain it though indeed it hath been often done already But certainly it belongeth to them that superinduce more Articles of Faith to prove the continuation of their own Articles through all ages of which anon Well! but one of these Articles at least the Popes Soveraignty H. T. will prove successively if you will be credulous enough In the first age he proves it from Peters words Act. 15. 7 8 9 10. God chose Peter to convert Cornelius and his company therefore the Pope is the Universall Monarch Are you not all convinced by this admirable argument But he forgot that Bellarmine Ragusius in Concil Basil and others of them say that no Article can be proved from Scripture but from the proper literall sence To say somewhat more he unseasonably talks of the Council of Sardis and Calcedon an 400. 451. lest the first age have but a blank page In the second age he hath nothing but the names of a few that never dreamt of Popery and a Canon which you must believe was the Apostles that Priests must communicate Of which we are well content In the third Age he nameth fifteen Bishops of Rome of whom the last was deposed for offering incense to Saturn Jupiter c. But not a syllable to prove that one of these Bishops was the universal Monarch Much less that the Catholick Church was for such Monarchy But to excuse the matter he tells you that
of any Father whereby it may appear that any account at all was made of it Where he citeth the full express words of the Fathers of those first ages against praying to Saints as Origen in Jus. Hom. 16. And in Rom. lib. 2. cap. 2. And Contr. Celsum lib. 8. page 432 433 406 411 412. lib. 5. pag. 239. Tertullian Apol. cap. 30. Tertullian and Cyprian of Prayer Athanasius Orat. 4. Cont. Arrium pag. 259 260. Eccles Smyrn apud Euseb Hist lib. 4. c. I am loth to recite what is there already given you 3. And when Prayer to the dead did come in how exceedingly it differed from the Romish Prayers to the dead I pray you read there in the same Author 4. And also of those Adorations and Devotions offered by the Papists to the Virgin Mary I desire you to read in the same Author and Place enough to make a Christian tremble and which for my part I am not able to excuse from horrid Blasphemy or Idolatry though I am willing to put the best interpretation on their words that reason will allow 5. The Reason why in the old Testament men were not wont to pray to Saints Bellarmine saith was because then they did not enter into heaven nor see God Bellar. de sanct Beat. li. 2. cap. 19. So Suarez in the third part Tom. 2. disp 42. Sect. 1. But abundance of the chief Doctors of the Church for divers Ages were of opinion that the Saints are not admitted into Heaven to the clear sight of God before the day of Judgement as most of the Eastern Churches do to this day therefore they could not be for the Popish Prayer to Saints And here again observe that men may be of the same faith and Church with us that differ and err in as great a matter as this The Council of Florence hath now defined it that departed souls are admitted into Heaven to the clear sight of God And yet Stapleton and Francis Pegna à Castro Medina Sotus affirm that Irenaeus Justin Martyr Tertullian Clemens Romanus Origen Ambrose Chrysostome Austin Lactantius Victorinus Prudentius Theodoret Aretas Oecumenius Theophilact Euthymius yea and Bernard have delivered the contrary sentence See Staplet Defens Eccles author cont Whitak lib. 1. cap. 2. with Fran. Pegna in part 2. Director Inquisitor com 21. Now as all these must needs be against the Popish Invocation of Saints so they were against that which is now determined to be de fide Whence I gather on the by 1. That the Romish faith increaseth and is not the same as heretofore 2. That they had not this Article by Tradition from any of these Fathers or from the Apostles by them unless from the Scriptures 3. That men that err in such points as are now defined by Councils to be de fide are yet accounted by Papists to be of their Church and faith And therefore they may be of ours notwithstanding such errours as this in hand 4. And note also by this tast whether the Papists be not a perjured generation that swear not to expound Scripture but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers 6. The Council of Laodicea condemned them as Idolaters that prayed to Angels Can. 35. which Caranza Crab and other Papists have turned into Angulos whose falsification you may see fully detected by the said Bishop Usher ibid. pag. 470. 471 472. Read there also the full Testimonies of Greg. Nissen Athanasius Epiphanius c. against praying to Saints and Angels and the detection of Bellarmines fraud that pretendeth the Fathers to speak of the Gentiles Idolatry when they mention the Virgin Mary and the Saints and say expresly they were not to be adored But for all this H. T. Manual page 291 c. hath Fathers for this Adoration of Angels and Saints And who are they The first is Dionysius to which I answer 1. There is never a such a word in the place cited in Dionysius in the Book that I have at hand printed Lugdun 1572. 2. We are for praying the Saints to pray for us too that is those on earth And the words cited by him mention not the Saints in heaven 3. That Dionysius is not Dionysius but a spurious Apochryphal Book Not once known and mentioned in the world till Gregory the greats dayes six hundred years after Christ as Bellarmine himself saith Lib. de Scriptor Eccles de Dionys And lib. 2. de Monach. cap. 5. The second is Clem. Apostol Constit 5. Answ 1. The words speak only of honouring the Martyrs which is our unquestioned duty but not of Praying to them 2. It s an Apochryphal forgery and neither the Apostles nor Clements Work which he citeth but any thing will serve these men Let him believe Bellarmine de scriptor Eccles pag. 38 39. where he proveth it and saith that in the Latine Church these Constitutions are of almost no account and the Greeks themselves Canon 2. Trul. reject them as depraved by Hereticks and that the receiving of them is it that misleadeth the Aethiopians See more against them in Cooks Censurâ pag. 17 18 19. and Rivets Crit. Sac. Dalaeus in Pseudepigrap The third Testimony of H. T. is from Justins second Apol. Answ It is not Praying to Angels that Justin seemeth to intend but giving them due honour which we allow of His intent is to stop the mouths of Heathens that called the Christians impious for renouncing their Gods To whom he replyeth that we yet honour the true God and his Angels c. His Testimony for the third age is only Origen and yet none of Origen First in his Lament Answ 1. Origen there mentioneth the Saints but not the dead Saints It may be all the Saints in the Church on earth whose prayers he desireth 2. If this satisfie you not at least be satisfied with this that you cite a forgery that is none of Origens works Not only Erasmus saith that This Lamentation was neither written by Origen nor translated by Hierom but is the fiction of some unlearned man that by this trick devised to defame Origen But Baronius Annal. Tit. 2. ad an 253. p. 477. witnesseth that Pope Gelasius numbers it with the Apocryphals But H. T. hath a second testimony from Origen in Cantic Hom. 3. Answ 1. That speaks of the Saints prayer for us but not of our prayers to them one word which is the thing in question 2. But Erasmus and others have shewed that neither is this any of Origens works Sixtus Senensis saith that some old Books put Hieroms name to it And Lombard and Aquinas cite passages out of it as Ambroses You see now what Testimonies H. T. hath produced for the first three Ages even till above four hundred years after Christ And yet no doubt but this is currant proof with the poor deluded Papists that read his Book 2. The next exception to be considered is Praying for the Dead which they say the ancient Church was for Answ 1. We are for
that changes may be and yet the time and Authors be unknown is from the instance of other Churches that have been corrupted or subverted by Innovations and yet the time and authors are unknown You accuse the Churches in Habassia of many errors your selves and you are not able to tell us when they came in or who introduced them The same may be said of the Georgians Armenians Egyptians yea and of the Greeks and Russians Can you tell us when and by whom each error was introduced that corrupted the Churches mentioned in the Scripture as Corinth Philippi Coloss Thessalonica Ephesus Laodicaea and the rest you know you can give us no better an account of this then we can of the Authors of your Corruptions nor so good You know that among the Primitive Fathers whose writings are come to our hands many errors had the Major vote as that of the Corporeity of Angels which your second General Council at Nice owned and their Copulation with women before the flood the Millenary conceit and many more which you confess to be errors Tell us when any of these came in if you can unless you will believe that Papias received the last from John and then it s no error Who did first bring the Asian Churches to celebrate Easter at a season differing from yours Who first brought the Brittains to it Nay we know not certainly who first Converted many Nations on earth nor when they first received their Christianity and how then should we know when they first received each error And we find that good men did bring in Novelties and what was by them introduced as indifferent would easily by custom grow to seem Necessary and what they received as a doubtfull opinion would easily grow to be esteemed a point of Faith The Presbyters and whole Clergy of Neocaesarea were offended with Basil for his Innovations viz. for bringing in a new Psalmodie or way of singing to God and for his new order of Monasticks and they told him that none of this was so in Gregories dayes and what answereth Basil He denyeth not the Novelty of his Psalmodie but retorts again on them that their Letany also was new and not known in the time of Gregory Thaumaturgus yea saith he How know you that these things were not in the dayes of Gregory For you have kept nothing unchanged to this day of all that he was used to you see what chopping and changing was then in the Church among all sorts when such an alteration was made in less then forty years Yet Basil would not have unity to be laid on any of these things but addeth But we pardon all these things though God will examine all things only let the principal things be safe Basil Epist 63. Isidore Pelusiota lib. 1. Epist 90. saith that the Apostles of the Lord studying to restrain and suppress unmeet loquacity and shewing themselves Masters of modesty and gravity to us did by wise Council permit women to sing in the Churches But as all Gods documents are turned into the contrary so this is turned to dissoluteness and the occasion of sin For they are not affected with deep compunction in singing Divine Hymns but abusing the sweetness of the singing to the irritating and provoking of lust they take it for no better then stage-play songs therefore he adviseth that they be suffered to sing no more Here you see 1. That changes had happened about many Divine things 2. That he adviseth himself the introducing of this novelty that women be forbidden singing in the Church because of the abuse though he confess it a wise Apostolick Order So that for Novelty by good men to creep into Gods worship is not strange 3. Moreover the Nature of the thing may tell all the world that neither you nor we can be accountable of the beginning of every error that creepeth into the Church For 1. The distance of time is great 2. Historians are not so exact and what they tell us not neither you nor we can know 3. Much History is perished 4. Much is corrupted by your wicked forgeries as hath been oft proved to you 5. Mixtures of Fables have hindred the credit of much of it 6. Nations are not individual persons but consist of millions of individuals And as it is not a whole Nation that is converted to the faith at once so neither is it whole Nations that are perverted to Heresie at once but one receiveth it first and then more and more till it over-spread the whole Paul saith that such doctrine eateth like a Gangrene and that is by degrees beginning on one part and proceeding to the rest 7. As I said before that which is at first received but as an Opinion and an Indifferent thing must have time to grow into a Custom and that Custom maketh it a Law and makes Opinions grow up to be Articles of Faith and Ceremonies grow to be Necessary things You know that this is the common way of propagating opinions in the world 4. I have in another Book shewed you out of many of your own writers the rise of divers of your vanities And Usher hath told the Jesuite more and so he hath told you of your thriving to your present height in his Book de success statu Eccles And so hath Mornay in his Mysterie of Iniquity and Rivet in the Defense of him against Cofferellus and Pet. Molinaeus hath purposely written a Book de Novitate Papismi Antiquitate veri Christianismi shewing the Newness of Popery in the several parts of it To these therefore I remit you for Answer to this Objection 5. Can you tell us your selves when many of your doctrines or practices sprung up When took you up your Sabbaths fast for which you have been condemned by a Council You know that when the twentieth Canon of the Nicene Council was made and when the Canons at Trull were made it was the Practice of the Church through the known world to pray and perform other worship standing and to avoid kneeling on the Lords Day Tell us when this Canon and Tradition was first violated by you and by whom It was once the custom of your Church to give Infants the Eucharist who first broke it off It was once your practice to Communicate in both kinds who first denyed the Cup to the Laity At first it was only a doubtful Opinion that Saints are to be Prayed to and the dead prayed for which came into mens minds about the third or fourth Century But who first made them Articles of faith Augustine began to doubt whether there were not some kind of Purgatory But who first made this also a point of faith Who was it that first added the Books of the Maccabees and many others to the Canon of Scripture contrary to the Council of Laodicaea and all the rest of the concent of Antiquity which Dr. Reignolds Dr. Cosin and others have produced Who was it that first taught and practised the
putting an Oath to all the Clergy of the Christian Church within your power to be true to the Pope and to obey him as the Vicar of Christ Who first taught men to swear that they would not interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous Consent of the Fathers Who was the first that brought in the doctrine or name of Transubstantiation and who first made it an Article of faith Who first made it a point of faith to believe that there are just seven Sacraments neither fewer nor more Did any before the Council of Trent swear men to receive and profess without doubting all things delivered by the Canons and Oecumenical Councils when at the same time they cast off themselves the Canons of many General Councils and so are generally and knowingly perjured as e. g. the twentieth Canon of Nice forementioned These and abundance more you know to be Novelties with you if wilfulness or gross ignorance bear not rule with you and without great impudence you cannot deny it Tell us now when these first came up and satisfie your selves One that was afterward your Pope Aeneas Sylvins Epist 288. saith that before the Council of Nice there was little respect had to the Church of Rome You see here the time mentioned when your foundation was not laid Your Learned Cardinal Nicol. Cusanus lib. de Concord Cathol c. 13. c. tells you how much your Pope hath gotten of late and plainly tells you that the Papacy is but of Positive right and that Priests are equall and that it is subjectional consent that gives the Pope and Bishops their Majority and that the distinction of Diocesses and that a Bishop be over Presbyters are of Positive right and that Christ gave no more to Peter than the rest and that if the Congregate Church should choose the Bishop of Trent for their President and Head he should be more properly Peters Successor then the Bishop of Rome Tell us now when the contrary doctrine first arose Gregory de valentia de leg usu Euchar. cap. 10. tells you that the Receiving the Sacrament in one kind began not by the decree of any Bishop but by the very use of the Churches and the consent of believers and tels you that it is unknown when that Custom first begun or got head but that it was General in the Latine Church not long before the late Council of Constance And may you not see in this how other points came in If Pope Zosimus had but had his will and the Fathers of the Carthage Council had not diligently discovered shamed and resisted his forgery the world had received a new Nicene Canon and we should never have known the Original of it It s a considerable Instance that Usher brings of using the Church service in a known tongue The Latine tongue was the Vulgar tongue when the Liturgy and Scripture was first written in it at Rome and far and neer it was understood by all The service was not changed as to the language but the language it self changed and so Scripture and Liturgy came to be in an unknown tongue And when did the Latine tongue cease to be understood by all Tell us what year or by whom the change was made saith Erasmus Decl. ad censur Paris tit 12. § 41. The Vulgar tongue was not taken from the people but the people departed from it 5. We are certain that your errors were not in the times of the Apostles nor long after and therefore we are sure that they are Innovations And if I find a man in a Dropsie or a Consumption I would not tell him that he is well and ought not to seek remedy unless he can tell when he began to be ill and what caused it You take us to be Heretical and yet you cannot tell us when our errors did first arise Will you tell us of Luther You know the Albigenses whom you murdered by hundreds and thousands were long before him Do you know when they begun Your Reinerius saith that some said they were from Silvesters dayes and some said since the Apostles but no other beginning do you know 6. But to conclude what need we any more then to find you owning the very doctrine and practise of Innovation When you maintain that you can make us new Articles of faith and new worship and new discipline and that the Pope can dispense with the Scriptures and such like what reason have we to believe that your Church abhorreth Novelty If you deny any of this I prove it Pope Leo the tenth among other of Luthers opinions reckoneth and opposeth this as Hereticall It is certain that it is not in the hand of the Church or Pope to make Articles of faith in Bulla cont Luth. The Council of Constance that took the supremacy justly from the Pope did unjustly take the Cup from the Laity in the Eucharist Licet in primitivâ Ecclesiâ hujusmodi Sacramentum reciperetur a fidelibus sub utraque specie i. e. Though in the primitive Church this Sacrament was received by Believers under both kinds The Council of Trent say Sess 21. cap. 1 2. that this power was alway in the Church that in dispensing the Sacraments saving the substance of them it might ordain or change things as it should judge most expedient to the profit of the receiver Vasquez To. 2. Disp 216. N. 60. saith Though we should grant that this was a precept of the Apostles nevertheless the Church and Pope might on just causes abrogate it For the Power of the Apostles was no greater then the power of the Church and Pope in bringing in Precepts These I cited in another Treatise against Popery page 365. Where also I added that of Pope Innocent Secundum plenitudinem potestatis c. By the fulness of our power we can dispense with the Law above Law And the Gloss that oft saith The Pope dispenseth against the Apostle against the Old Testament The Pope dispenseth with the Gospell interpreting it And Gregor de valent saying Tom. 4. disp 6. q. 8. Certainly some things in later times are more rightly constituted in the Church then they were in the beginning And of Cardinal Peron's saying lib. 2. Obs 3. cap. 3. pag. 674. against King James of the Authority of the Church to alter matters conteined in the Srripture and his instance of the form of Sacraments being alterable and the Lords command Drink ye all of it mutable and dispensable And Tolets Its certain that all things instituted by the Apostles were not of Divine right Andradius Defens Concil Trid. lib. 2. pag. 236. Hence it is plain that they do not err that say the Popes of Rome may sometime dispense with Laws made by Paul and the four first Councils And Bzovius The Roman Church using Apostolical power doth according to the Condition of times change all things for the better And yet will you not give us leave to take you for changers and Novelists But let us add
conversed with them or that there are many more worlds of men besides this earth or that Christ instituted twenty Sacraments how should we deal with these men but hy denying their fictions as sinfull Novelty and rejecting them as corrupt additions to the Faith And were this any Novelty in us And should they bid us prove in the express words of Scripture or antiquity our Negative Propositions that Christ gave but one form of prayer that he did not oft descend that he gave no more Decalogues Sacraments c. Is it not a sufficient proof of any of these that they are not written and that no Tradition of them from the Apostles is proved and that they that hold the Affirmative and introduce the Novelty must prove and not we Our Articles of faith are the same and not increased nor any new ones added But the Papists come in with a new faith as large as all the Novelties in the Decretals and the Councils and these innovations of theirs we reject Now our Rejections do not increase the Articles of our faith no more then my beating a dog out of my house or keeping out an enemy or sweeping out the filth doth enlarge my house or increase my family They do not take all the Anathema and Rejections in their own Councils to be Canons or Articles of faith For example The Pope hath made it an Article of faith that no Scripture is to be interpreted but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers This wereject and make it no Article of our faith but an erroneous Novelty Do we hereby make a new Article because we reject a new one of theirs yea a part of the Oath of their Church made by Pope Pius after the Council of Trent 1. If this be an Article prove it if you can 2. If it be a Truth and no Novelty I pray you tell us which be Fathers and which not and help us to know certainly when we have all or the unanimous Consent And then tell us whether every man is not forsworn with you that interprets any text of Scripture before he have read all the Fathers or any text which six of them never expounded or any text which they do not unanimously agree on And yet though it be not our necessary task we can easily prove to you that this is a New Article of your devising 1. Because else no man must expound any Scripture at all before these Fathers were born For how could the Church before them have their unanimous consent And 2. Because that otherwise these Fathers themselves wanted an Article of faith unless it was an Article to them that they must expound no Scripture but by their own Consent 3. Because these Fathers do few of them expound all or half or the twentieth part of the Scripture 4. Because they took liberty to disagree among themselves and therefore do not unanimously consent in abundance of particular texts 5. Because they tell us that they are fallible and bid us not take it on their trust 6. Because the Apostles have left us no such rule or precept but much to the contrary 7. Your own Doctors for all their Oath do commonly charge the Fathers with error and misexpounding Scripture as I shewed before Canus and many others charge Cajetan a Cardinal and pillar in your Church with making it his practise to differ from the Fathers and choosing expositions purposely for the Novelty pro more suo as his custom And when he hath highly extolled Cajetan Loc. Theol. lib. 7. pag. 223. he adds that yet his doctrine was defiled with a Leprosie of errors by an affection and lust of Curiosity or confidence on his wit expounding Scripture as he list happily indeed for the most part but in some few places more acutely then happily because he regarded not antient Tradition and was not verst in the reading of the Fathers and would not learn from them the Mysteries of the sealed book And in another place he blames him that he alway followed the Hebrew and Greek text And many other Papists by him and others are blamed for the same faults Andradius and more of the later plead for it And yet these men are counted members of your Church that go against an Article of your new faith and Oath So Transubstantiation is one of your New Articles in that Oath Do we make a New one now if we reject it Or need we be put to prove the Negative And yet we can easily do it And Edm. Albertinus among many others hath done it unanswerably Another of your Articles is that it belongeth to your Holy Mother the Church to judge of the true sence of Scripture And you mean the Roman Church and that they must judge of it for all the Christian world Prove this to be the Antient doctrine if you can If we reject this Novelty are we Innovators or need we prove the Negative And yet we can do it and have oft done it at large Did Athanasius Basil Nazianzen Nyssen Augustine Hierom Chrysostome Epiphanius and the rest of the Fathers send to Rome for the sence of the Scriptures which they expound or did they procure the Popes Approbation before any of them published their Commentaries You know sure that they did not The like may be said of all the rest of your New Articles and Practises We stand our ground Some of your Novelties we reject as trifles some as smaller errors and some as greater but still we keep to our antient faith of which the Scripture is a full and sufficient Rule as Vincentius Lirinens ubi supra though we are glad of all helps to understand it we say with Tertullian de carne Christi cap. 6. Nihil de eo constat quia Scriptura non exhibet Non probant quia non Scriptum est His qui insuper argumentantur nos resistemus CHAP. XXXVII Detect 28. ANother of their Deceits is this They make advantage of our charitable Judgement of them and of their uncharitable judgement of us and all other Christians to affright and entice people to their sect They say that we cannor be saved nor any that are not of the Roman Church But we say that a Papist may be saved They say that we want abundance of the Articles of faith that are of necessity to salvation We say that the Papists hold all that is necessary to salvation Luther saith that the Kernel of true faith is yet in the Church of Rome therefore say they Let Protestants take the shell And hence they make the simple people believe that even according to our own Confessions their Church and way is safer then ours I have answered this formerly in my Safe Religion but yet shall here once more shew you the nakedness of this Deceit 1. The Papists denying the faith and salvation of all other Christians doth no whit invalidate our faith nor shake our salvation Our Religion doth not cease to be true when ever a peevish
can he not Govern it without a Visible Monarch Why then did the world never hear of such a man Yea the whole world is the Kingdom of Christ himself though not in that special sort as his Church is For all Power in heaven and earth is given him Mat. 28. 18 19. and for that end he Dyed Rose and Revived that he might be Lord of the Dead and Living Rom. 14. 9. and he is made Head over all things to the Chruch Eph. 1. 22 23. And hath this Kingdom an Universal Visible Monarch Yes the Pope is the man Long hath he laid claim to it Princes you see whose hands your Crowns and Kingdoms are in Deceive not your selves they are the Popes For certainly they are all Christs and if he be to be believed he is the Vice-christ and so succeedeth him in the Monarchy of the world But then why doth not this simple Pope lay claim to the Empire of Indostan and Tartarie and China and Constantinople as well as of these smaller Kingdoms of Europe 2. And for the Metaphorical title of an Army I answer It sufficeth that it hath an Universal General in Heaven that can command it twice as well there as the Pope can on earth yea and is as Visible to the Antipodes yea to me as ever the Pope was All the world is Gods Army But I will not say that the Pope or any man is Generall of it save Christ nor will I call him The Lord of Hosts 3. And for the Sheepfold of Christ he ahth appointed particular Shepheards to watch for the several parts of the flock But if one man were to look to all the sheep in the world he would make such work as the Pope would do with the sheep of Christ If you tell us still that Christ is out of sight I answer He is even at hand he is coming he will not be long In the mean time it is the duty of every Pastor to feed the flock of God that is among them not as Lords over Gods Heritage as the Vice-christ would be and when the chief Shepheard doth appear we shall receive the Crown 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3 4. Peter never dreamed poor man that he was the chief Shepheard himself 4. For the Metaphor of a Family I answer That God can Govern all the Families in the world and when the Pope can do so then all the world shall acknowledge him the Master of the Family Till then we have learned that the whole Family of Heaven and Earth is named of God and of the Redeemer-God-and-Man but not of the Pope of Rome 5. And for the similitude of a Ship I answer One man can Govern a ship of the common size but a ship as big as all the world I think no man but Christ can govern And so confident am I in this opinion that I profess I will not be in that ship as big as the world which the Pope shall undertake to Govern if I do but know how to get out of it Pag. 146. He goes on to tell us that even the bruits have their Governours and instanceth in the Bees Answ I am not well acquainted with Irrational Governours or Governments but seriously it is no Article of my faith that one Bee can Govern all the Bees in the world Nor one Ape all the Apes in the world Let it suffice the Pope that every particular Church be a Bee-hive and every Hive have its proper Governour Next he again tells Prince Charls that we should not deny that to the Church which we see is necessary to all humane Societies Answ Was this man in his wits Have all Societies or any Society an Universal Humane Governour Who is it that is the Universal Chancellor of all the Academics on Earth Who is it that is the Ruler of all the Colledges of Physitians in the world I know what Schoolmaster we have in our own School here but I never heard of an Universal Schoolmaster for all the world nor for all England who is the Universal Governour of all the Companies of Merchants in the world Or who is the Universal King In the Conclusion he gathers up all into seven reasons Why the Church should have a Vice-christ 1. That the militant Church might be like the triumphant who have one Invisible Head Answ 1. Christ is visible to the Church in Heaven 2. When you have proved that any meer man is Christ or Head in Heaven then we will grant that a meer man shall be Christ and Head on earth 3. Earth is not yet fit to be conformed to Heaven in its Government 4. Is it not the truest conformity that Heaven and Earth have one and the same Lord though visible to them and not to us yet ruling us by visible officers 5. But if this will not serve le ts have on earth a visible Government therefore let us have no Pope that is invisible to almost all the world but Pastors that are visible in their particular Churches The second Reason is That the militant Church differ not from it self but as each particular Church hath one Visible Head or Pastor so the whole should have Answ 1. Content if the Pope can shew as good a Commission for the whole and be as able to Govern the whole and will really be present with the whole and visible to them 2. Is the world unlike it self if all the world have not one King as every particular Kingdom hath Or one Schoolmaster as every particular School hath The third Reason is For preserving Unity Answ 1. And well it is done by you And what unity will you keep at the Antipodes Or in the vast dominions of Heathen and Mahometan Princes where Christians are dispersed but you come not neer them 2. We have a better unity already in One God One Christ One Spirit One Gospel One Baptism One Hope c. 3. The Mahometans have more unity then you The fourth Reason is To fulfill the doctrine of the Prophets and Christ Answ You should have better shewed such a doctrine before you had made use of it as a reason The fifth Reason is That the Christian Church may be like the Jewish Answ When the Christian universal Church is no bigger then the Jewish that one may Govern it as well we will hearken to you Let the Pope undertake no larger a Circuit The sixth Reason is That there may be some one Supream judge to punish Bishops and define matters of faith call Councils extinguish heresies and schisms Answ 1. One Christ is enough for the Catholick Church for all these uses I find the Articles of saith as well defined by Christ as by the Vice-christ I have searcht the writings both of Christ and the Vice-christ and in my poor judgement there is no comparison between them nor hath the Pope one jot mended the Scripture 2. And for Heresies and Schisms Christ hath extinguisht many but for ought I see the Pope rather increaseth them In
Heathens Atheists or Infidels These carry their judgement as to the positive part as close as any of the rest and are grown in England to a far greater number and strength then is commonly imagined It is not only Leviathan or his Ocean that is guilty of this Apostasie however they use the name of Christ but abundance that lurk under several names A great while I knew not what to make of this close Generation but now I have found out that which should make a believing tender heart to bleed even gross Infidelity causing them secretly to scorn at Christ and the holy Scripture and the life to come as bitterly as ever Julian did And this is crept so high and spred so far that it is dreadful to those few that are acquainted with its progress Some that have lately professed to turn Papists for what ends I know not are known to be stark Infidels And some that have long gone for leading men with them have satisfied us by their writings that they are Romanists of the most ancient strain even of the Roman Religion that was ancienter then Peter and Paul And many of the unsetled sort of Protestants are so far forsaken of God as to Apostatize to the same condition Montaltus the Jansenian takes the Jesuites for false unworthy calumniators for giving out that they have long had a design at Port-Royal to overthrow the Gospel and set up Infidelity and meer Deism But I am sure they deserve much harder words of us in England between them for doing so much to destroy the Christianity of many in order to the setting up of Popery I do not charge it all and only on the Papists I know the Devil hath more sorts of Instruments then one But that they have had a notable hand in this Apostasie we have good reason to satisfie us Not that they desire that men should be absolutely and finally Infidels But 1. they would make the world believe that all must be Infidels that will not receive the Christian Faith upon the Roman account and terms And in order to this they industriously seek to disgrace the Scripture and overthrow all the grounds of the Faith of such as they dispute with And so make them Infidels in order to the proof of that their affirmation 2. And then they think that they must take them off all Religion as Boverius afore cited to prepare them for the Popish Religion 3. And the malice of some of them is such that they had rather men were Infidels then Protestants or at least they will venture them upon Infidelity in the way rather than not take them off from being Protestants And no wonder when they allow Infidels so much more charity then Protestants as to their salvation as all the Authors cited by S. Clara before do signifie And when Rome burneth Protestants but giveth toleration for Jews And thus by these Devilish devices the Hiders in England that keep close their Religion are discovered at last to be one part of them Infidels or Heathens and another part of them Papists And no wonder if they would lately have introduced the Jews here into England and if they have so many other designs to promote this Apostasie 4. Another sort that Popery hath here hatch or cherished are the Socinians a Sect with whom both Papists and Heathens do joyn hands as the Bond of their Conjunction Yet I know that they were not bred at first by Popery and I know that the genuine Papist that holds fast the Articles of their Faith must needs disown the Socinian But however it comes to pass I am sure there are too many of late self-conceited men innovaters in Philosophie that have reduced their Theologie to their novel Philosophie and expounded Scripture by such conceits as suit with the Socinians I shall say nothing of the Millenaries the Levellers and many such like But here in the close I would desire any Papist that is conscious of the promoting of any of these fore-mentioned abominations to tell us whether this be like to be the way of God Or whether Peter or Paul did ever take such a course as this to plant the Gospel or build up the Church And whether it be like to be the Cause of God that must be maintained by such means Is not their damnation just that say Let us do evill that good may come thereby Should not the means be suited to the end Hath the glory of God any need of a lie This course will never ingratiate your opinions with any wise considerate men This is but working with the Devil for God like one that doth consult with a Witch or Conjurer to find the goods of the Church when they are stoln Do you think God needs the Devils help Or is it like to be help that comes from him But the truth is it is your bad Cause that requires these evils means and it is your bad hearts that set you on work to use them Though you think perhaps that you do God service by it yet you know not what Spirit you are of Christ owneth not such ways as these and therefore his servants will not own them CHAP. XLVI Detect 37. ANother Practical fraud of the Papists is In hiding themselves and their Religion that they may do their work with the more advantage I shall tell you briefly 1. The way by which they do this and 2. The advantage they get by it And 3. Help you to detect them 1. The principal means by which they conceal themselves is By thrusting themselves into all Sects and Parties and putting on the vizor of any side as their cause requireth It 's well known that formerly we had abundance of them that went under the name of Protestants and were commonly called by the name of Church-Papists But there is great reason to think that there are more such now Some of them are Prelatists and some of them call themselves Independants some creep in among the Anabaptists and some go under the cloak of Arminians and some of Socinians and some of Millenaries and all the other Sects before mentioned They animate the Vanists the Behmenists and other Enthusiasts the Seekers the Quakers the Origenists and all the Juglers and Hiders of the times It is they that keep life in Libertinisms and in Infidelity it self Among every one of these parties you may find them if you have the skill of unmasking them 2. Another way of Hiding themselves is by having a Dispensation to come to any of our Assemblies or join in worship with any party good or bad Or else they will prove it lawfull without a Dispensation where the Pope interdicteth it not And their way is this that all the old known Papists especially of the poorer sort shall be still forbidden to come to our Assemblies lest they bring the blot of levity and temporizng on their Religion and lest there should not be a visible party among them to countenance their cause But
a Catholick Christian Communion in several Assemblies under several Pastors acknowledging each other the true Churches of Christ and joining in Synods when there is need or at least giving each other as Christian Brethren the right hand of Fellowship 3. If that may not be attained the next Degree desirable is That we may take one another for Christians and Churches of Christ though under such corruptions as we think we are bound to disown by denying the present exercise of Communion as we do with particular Offendors whom we only suspend but not condemn 4. If this much may not be had but we will needs excommunicate each other absolutely the next degree of Peace desirable is That we may at least so far regard the common truths that we are agreed upon and the souls of the people as to consult on certain terms on which we may most peacably mannage our differences with the least hatred and violence and disturbance of the Peace of Christendom and with the least impediment to the generall success of those common truths that we are all agreed in 5. If this may not be attained the lowest Degree desirable is That at least we may take each other for more tolerable adversaries then Mahometans and Infidels are and therefore may make a common Agreement to cease our wars and blood-shed and turn all our Arms against the great and common enemy of the Christian name Were it not for the Devill and wicked minds all these might be attained but if men be not themselves incarnate Devils we may expect the last And understand that the terms of the lowest Degrees are all implyed in the Higher And now for the Highest and most desirable Degree of Peace viz. That we may meet in the same Assemblies under the same Pastors there is so little probability that ever it should be accomplished and withall the various apprehensions of Christians doth make it so necessary to bear with one another in this that I shall say but little of it as knowing that I am like to lose my labor Only this much concerning the terms If you will impose no more in point of Belief as necessary to Salvation but what is contained in the holy Scriptures yea and in the three Creeds and four first General Councils and will leave the Pastors of the particular Churches to worship God according to the Rule of the holy Scriptures prudentially themselves determining of meer Cireumstances left to their determination according to the general Rules of Order Decency and Edification and bearing with a difference herein according to the different state of the Churches or judgement of the Pastors this is the only probable way to bring us to this highest degree of Peace Though according to this course men should be left to some liberty to joyn with what particular Congregation they see best and so would most commonly joyn with those that are neerest to their own judgement yet the minds of most would be so mollified by mutual forbearance and by being satisfied in the way that is thus commonly agreed on that they would not scruple to joyn with one another in worship in the several Assemblies And here I shall further add that if these terms cannot be yielded to yet all that will yield to the terms of the next Degree of Peace may be admitted into our Assemblies though we cannot joyn with them in theirs For the Papists have much more in the manner of their worship to keep us back then we have in ours to keep them back For their errors lie in Excess and they suppose ours to lie but in Defect Now Conscience may well yield to perform one part of a duty when it cannot perform the rest But it can never yield to commit one actual sin by doing what is forbidden by God E. G. If the Papists think that we sinfully omit the Sacrament of extream unction they may nevertheless be present at the Sacrament of Baptism If they think we preach not all the truth that we ought they may nevertheless hear and receive that which we do preach But in their Assemblies we must do those positive actions which our Consciences tell us are sins against God And therefore unless they will yield as they will not to the above mentioned terms we cannot joyn in their Assemblies but upon the terms in the next Chapter we can admit them into ours But if the Churches have not a necessary Liberty in this they will never agree but be still breaking into pieces or persecuting one another to force men to joyn with such Assemblies as best please them that bear the Sword Though we readily grant that to hear and learn the principles of Religion and submit to the state and duty of Catechumens men may with less inconvenience be forced and ordinarily should so be CHAP. LII THe second Degree of Peace desirable below the former is That if we cannot live under the same particular Pastors and joyn in the same Assemblies yet we may hold a distant Catholick Communion in several Assemblies without condemning or persecuting one another and may afford the special Love of Christians to each other This will not be done as long as we take each other for Hereticks and therefore the causes of those censures must be removed partly by a neerer agreement in our Principles and partly by a greater Moderation in our Censures of one another And this a man would think among Christians might be obtained The terms on which it must be had are these Suffer us to confine our selves in Worship and Church-government to the Word of God and the Determination of our particular Churches or Pastors about meer Circumstantials left to their determination and do you confine your selves accordingly or not extending your practise beyond the Canons of the four first General Councils and the rest called Canones Ecclesiae Universalis published by Justellus Tillius or the Codex Dionysii Exigui and for matters of Faith we will all profess to receive the Scripture and what ever is contained in the said Councils and the three Creeds and to insist upon no more as necessary And on these terms we may live in Love as Brethren Here note 1. That in matter of Faith we will not be bound to take more then is in the Scripture and yet we will take all as aforesaid that is in the Creeds because we are perswaded that there is no more then is in the Scripture 2. We will not tie each other to profess on what Grounds we receive the Doctrine of these Creeds and Councils If you receive it as Tradition superadded to Scripture and if we receive it as being the same with Scripture Doctrine or a meet Exposition of it we will leave each other in this without examination to their liberty as long as it is the same things that we believe 3. In matters of Worship and Government we may not be compelled to take in all that is in all these Councils but only
by force The Pastors are the Judges of Heresie and Vice ad hoc thus far so as to judge who shall be Denounced by themselves unmeet for the Churches Communion and Judges of sound Doctrine so far as to resolve what is by themselves to be taught to the people and Judges of that Magistrate so far as to determine whether he be a fit subject for their Administrations and Communion For every man is to judge when he is to act and execute in these cases and therefore when the Question is Who is to be tolerated or forcibly restrained the Magistrate is the only Judge and the Minister but a teacher But the Question is whom should I admit or not admit to my Communion and whom should I perswade and require the Church to avoid or to receive Here the Pastors are the Judges And when the Question is Whether the Pastor go according to Gods Word or not here the people have Judicium Discretionis and cannot be forced though they ought to obey where they see not sufficient reason to the contrary Mat. 28. 18 19. Heb. 13. 17. 1 Thes 5. 12. 1 Cor. 4. 1. Luk. 12. 42 44. 1 Sam. 28. 18. Dan. 9. 8 10. Joh. 20. 23. 2 Chron. 36. 14 15 16. 19. The honor and power of the Pastors is for their work And so great is that work that as to fleshly accommodations it layeth us under abundance more trouble then the power and honor affordeth us relief from All true Pastors therefore should be so far from striving for Power Greatness and Rule and extent of their Diocess as matters of advantage that they should still look on their Power but as Power to thresh or plough or sow or reap a Power to give alms to all the poor in the Town to visit all the sick to cure mad men that will abuse me c. such a Power to labor and suffer in doing good And thus he that will be the Greatest but think of no other kind of greatness but a power to become the servant of all If men had these true apprehensions of the Episcopal office they would be no more forward in contending for power and large Diocesses then now they are in contending who shall Instruct most of the ignorant or go to the poor ungodly families to further their reformation or intreat beseech exhort most of the obstinate from man to man or who should relieve the most of the poor of all the Countrey about And if this be it they contend for they may Rule without a Commission from the Prince Who will hinder them that hath any fear of God 1 Cor. 4. 9 10 11 12 13 16. Act. 20. 18. to the end 2 Cor. 1. 24. Mark 10. 44. 1 Thes 2 9. Luk. 10. 2. 20. No man is called by God to more work then he can possibly do nor should desire and undertake more And therefore if Prelates and Councils and Popes would but conscionably bethink them of the work what it is and how to be done of what weight and how strict will be the account and then consider how they can do it our differences would quickly be at end For though godly men would put off no service they can do yet when they lookt on the undertaking of these Impossibles they would tremble to think on it All conscionable men are sensible of their weakness and the weight of the work and say who is sufficient for these things And I dare say the strongest of them all would feel the weight of the burden of one Parish and be readyer to beg and seek about for help then to contend for a a larger Diocess unless as the meer necessity of the Church for want of laborers might call them to labor in other parts Duty supposeth Authority and Authority supposeth ability and opportunity even natural ability and mental qualifications Psal 131. 1 2. 2 Cor. 2. 16. BY this much you may see what Unity may be expected in the Church on earth 1. A unity of internal Faith and Love and Spirit among all real Christians 2. A Unity of Profession all professing the same Belief that is of the word of God in General and of the Creed and Essentials of Religion in particular and as many more of the particular truths as they can reach 3. A Unity of Professors in local communion in the same Assemblies in Gods publick Worship in the Word Prayer Praises Sacraments c. Where they cohabite or have opportunity for such communion 4. Among those that are out of our reach or being neer us yet differing in some smaller things where a difference is tolerable we may yet in word writing and deed own each other as Brethren and combine for the promoting of the common good and the commonly received truths and duties So that we have in these four the unity of the spirit in the bond of Peace One Body the Catholick Church comprehending all properly called Christians One Spirit The sanctifying Spirit of Christ One Hope of our calling One Promise or Gospel and One Heaven and End One Lord even Christ the only Head of the Church One Faith Both objective in Scripture and the Creed and subjective specifical which is our Reception of Scripture doctrine and of Christ with his benefits One Baptism entring all one and the same Covenant with Christ to be his and take him for our Lord and Saviour renouncing the world the flesh and devil and signifying this by external washing in the name of that Father Son and Holy Ghost One God and Father Our Creator Preserver our End and Happiness Ephes 4. 3 4 5. And is all this Nothing to you that seemed so much to Paul that unless you have also an Earthly Universal Head and an Unity in Ceremonies wherein all must be of your mind and conform to you as if you were Gods you will revile at our divisions and run to Rome for further Unity HAving laid down those Grounds or Principles on which the Unity and Peace of the Church must be built there appears not any great need of adding any more for the reducing these to practice if these were but received the way of practice would be obvious But briefly I shall lay down these few Propositions implyed in those exprest before 1. Let every man profess his belief of the Holy Scriptures in General and in particular of all that Scripture hath exprest to be of Necessity to Salvation by denouncing death to them that have it not And let them also Profess to consent that God be their God and Christ their Saviour and the Holy Ghost their Sanctifier and that they renounce the flesh the world and Devil resolving to live a holy life And let this be by a credible way of Professing And all that do thus let us esteem love and use them as Christians till they some way plainly disown this Profession 2. Let every such Baptized Professor owning also the Ministry Church and Worship Ordinances plainly required
without my own asking his opinion by that Learned Judicious man Arch-Bishop Usher a man well known to be acquainted with the Judgement and practice of the Antients if any other whoever His words were these Councils are not for Government but for Unity not as being in order of Government over the several Bishops but that by consultation they may know their duty more clearly and by agreement maintain Unity and to this end they were anciently celebrated Himself a Primate recommended to others these moderate Principles And this middle way of Reverend Usher is the true healing Mean between them that would have properly Governing Councils and them that would have none or think them needless or but indifferent things But yet as is before mentioned in the tenth Proposition consequentially we are obliged to perform the Agreements of these Councils if they be agreeable to the General Rules of the Scriptures or if our performance be not forbidden by the Word of God Because we are under the General obligation to do all things in as much unity concord and peace as we can Gal. 2. per totum 1 Cor. 3. 5 22. 2 Cor. 13. 11. 1 Cor. 1. 10. 4. 6. Mat. 20. 25. Phil. 3. 16. 4. 2. Mat. 23. 8 9 10. 1 Pet. 5. 3. And I grant that Pastors are related to the Universal Church as well as to a particular and are to have a common care of the whole though they have a special charge only of their particular flocks Therefore many Pastors in a Synod are Pastors as well as disjunct and therefore their acts are authoritative Governing Acts as to the flock But 1. to the Pastors themselves they are not properly Governors no more in Synods then out 2. And as to the flocks they are not in a direct superiour order above their particular Pastors but only from their concord are accidentally more to be regarded and obeyed then a single Pastor as a Colledge of Physitians is more to be regarded then a single Physitian not as being of higher authority but of greater credit in cases where men must be trusted 5. A Council consisting of Bishops or Pastors that by distance are not uncapable of ordinary local Communion whether it be a General Council as they are commonly called which are not such properly or National or Provincial 1. As they are Christians singly have a Judgement of Discerning what is sound Doctrine and whom to judge Catholicks and fit for their Communion And 2. As they are single Pastors they have the Judgement of Direction what Doctrine to recommend as found to their people limited to the Superiour Direction of God by his Word and whom they must hold or not hold Communion with And this is an Authoritative Direction which may be accompanyed with a Commanding as an Herald or Pursevant may command in the Princes name 3. And as they are many Pastors in Council assembled they have a Judgement of Concord or Power to enter solemnly into Consultations for mutual information and then into Agreements for the right performance of their duty in recommending that which is sound Doctrine to their people and receiving the true members of the Catholick Church and rejecting such as are to be rejected So that the most General Councils of true Pastors caeteris paribus are to be most reverenced by the Princes and people and in cases where they are sure it is lawful to follow their Agreements though they be not satisfied of the necessity of it à natura rei they ought to follow them on the account of unity and also in cases meerly doubtful to them in point of Doctrine to be ballanced by their judgements rather then by the Judgement of single Pastors and more then by any other humane judgement caeteris paribus which exception I add because a smaller Assembly yea a single Pastor or private man speaking according to the Word of God is to be believed and regarded more then the greatest Assembly contradicting the Word yet we are not easily to think without evident proof that one man should be rather in the right then so many seeing it is easier for one to err then so many and the promises are more to the publick then any single persons so far as they can be known to others And yet an Assembly of an hundred or twenty or ten apparent humble holy Judicious men is likelier to be in the right and more to be regarded then an Assembly of a thousand ignorant unlearned wicked Bishops One clear eye may see further then ten thousand purblind ones Act. 6. 5. Act. 5. 34. 1 Thes 2. 14. 1 Cor. 11. 16. 14. 33. 10. 32. 6. As the properest matter for such General Assemblies to Consult and Agree upon is General things as What Doctrine is sound and what unsound in General what persons in General fit for the Churches Communion and what unfit c. so smaller Assemblies that are capable of ordinary personal Communion and know the persons and circumstances of the cases are fittest to consult and agree whether such or such particular persons are fit for their own Communion yea and for their Churches Communion in difficult cases And also may consult and agree what Doctrines and practises to recommend to their own people as most agreeable to the Word of God And thus far these two sorts of Synods may be said to have a power of Judging viz. ad hoc in order to such agreements and practice Act. 6. 5 6. Rom. 15. 26 27. 2. Cor 8. 19. 7. The Postors of particular Worshipping Churches are the Authorized Guides Rulers or Teachers of those Churches and each Member thereof and must first discern in their own minds and next if they be many over a Church Agree among themselves and then teach the people what is to be believed and practised and with whom in General and in Particular to hold Communion and whom to avoid and may charge the people in Christs name to obey their just directions and when they have done must themselves execute their own part herein as by avoiding the Rejected and not delivering them the Symbols or Sacrament of Communion c. And though they must consult with neighbor Churches for carrying on the work of God in unity and to the best advantage of the Common cause yet are they not under the proper Government of them or any Assemblies Ecclesiastical though obliged in all just things to Agree with them So that Canons as Canons I mean the Conclusions of such Assemblies are but properly Agreements and not Laws though by consequence they may be said to oblige or rather we by another Law obliged to accord and practise them Heb. 13. 17. 1 Thes 5. 12 13. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. Act. 20. 28. 8. The work of Councils how large so ever is not to make new Scriptures to be the Rule of our Faith and Life nor to make new Articles or Doctrines of Faith nor to frame God a new Worship in whole
or in part But by Consultations and Agreements to strengthen each other and Direct the people in the faith of Christ and the maintaining and propagating the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and doing those duties in the Worship of God and in Righteousness and Mercy to men which the Scriptures do impose and in agreeing upon those Modes and Circumstances of Worship which God hath made necessary in genere and left to occasional humane determination in specie Nor may they under this pretence either contradict the just determination of the Magistrate concerning such Circumstances or impose any ensnaring needless Ceremonies upon the Church but only order the service of God according to the General Directions of the Scripture and the Light of Nature which by the consideration of the case may help to discern the fittest order It is therefore a strange assertion of some that Governours have nothing to do if they may not appoint new Ordinances or Symbolical Ceremonies on the Church and make new Laws seeing God hath done the rest already As if it were nothing to see to the execution of Gods Laws Or as if this were not the fittest work for such kind of Rulers whose Rule is only by Ministerial Guidance Or as if the determination of Necessary Circumstances requisite ex natura rei were not enough for them to do beside what is written There being no more necessary to the reducing of the Laws of God into practice Me thinks meer servants and Embassadors should not be very forward in making Laws if they understand their office Jam. 4. 12. Heb. 8. 10 16. Gal. 3. 15. Deut. 12. 32. Ezek. 2. 7. 3. 10 11. 1 Cor. 3. 5. 4. 1 2. 2 Cor. 1. 24. 1 Cor. 6. 12. 9. Those necessary Circumstances in Religious Worship which are of humane determination and left undetermined by God are unfit matter for General Councils or remote Assemblies to make standing General Laws of For 1. the Nature of the things are such as are mutable and unfit to be fixt but must be frequently varied as occasions require 2. The occurring circumstances will be the fittest guide to determine them 3. They may be meet in one Countrey or Church which are unmeet in another 4. Upon such reasons God himself hath left them undetermined Therefore he left them not to any fixed General determination 5. The Pastors that are in the place are the fittest Judges of those occasions that must determine them 6. And it is the office and in the Commission of those Pastors to be the Guides of their own actions and Congregations 7. And Councils are not their Lords So that all this laid together may tell us that it is rather the work of particular Pastors or Bishops and of neerest Associations in those cases where Concord is requisite then of Provincial or National or General Councils to determine of such Circumstances For example The command of preaching reading administring the Sacraments singing Psalms c. do imply that I must have some time and place to do them in I must use some gesture vesture necessary utensils but it tells not what in particular I must read some particular Chapter Psalm c. or so much of it Now common prudence will tell me what to do in these cases my self or else I am not fit to be a Pastor or entrusted with so great a work as Gods publick Worship or the care of souls Shall a Council now make Laws that all the Ministers in the World or in this Nation shall preach only on such a day and only at such an hour and in this or that part of the Church and only on such Texts such days appointing them a Text for every day or that they shall use only such words in praying and preaching as is written for them or shall pray or preach just so long or shall sing only such a Psalm in such a tune using only such cloaths and such gestures with an hundred the like This is to make themselves Masters of the Church and use their power to the destruction of Ministry Worship and Church and not to the Edification of it The present state of the flock by sin or affliction or the like may make such a Text fittest for me to preach on and such a Chapter to be read or such a Psalm to be sung when by the Impositions of proud usurpers I am commanded to use the contrary viz. Subjects of Joy in a time of Humiliation or of Humiliation in the time of Joy c. Many the like inconveniencies might easily be manifest These unnecessary Impositions are the Engines of Division Act. 15. 28. Rom. 14. throughout Rom. 15. 1 7. Phil. 3. 15 16. Mat. 23. 4. 11. 28. 1 Cor. 6. 12. 2 Cor. 1. 24. 10. Where some Impositions by Magistrates or Agreements by Ministers in such Circumstances are thought lawful or fit yet must not the Churches Unity or Peace be laid upon them So that if through the weakness of Christians they could not perceive the lawfulness of them but did think they should sin against God if they used them it is a cruel dividing course for Magistrates here by sore penalties or Pastors Excommunications to seek to drive them upon that which they think is the way to hell or the wrath of God when in the Judgement of the Imposer it is a thing indifferent The peace of the Church and of Conscience is more worth then a Ceremony and better kept by gentle recommending such things if fit and a tender rebuke or check to the weak then by forcing all to that which they neither can nor need to use But some say if all may use what way they will what order shall we have I answer therefore make no unnecessary Laws cast not a foot-ball of contention before them These presumptuous Impositions are the fire brands of the Church For example we had here a Law that Ministers should read only such a peece of a Chapter called an Epistle and Gospel such a day which yet I would not disobey here now arose contention about it The same Ministers were left at liberty what Text to preach on and this liberty made no breach in the Church Ministers were commanded to wear a Surplice and this raised contention But what kind of hat or cap or shooes or hose to wear they were left at liberty and this made no contention nor occasioned any undecency The Lords Supper was to be taken only kneeling and this raised contention But they were left at liberty whether to kneel or stand or sit at Sermon or reading or singing Psalms and this bred no undecency nor division They were enjoyned to bow at the name of Jesus in the reading of the Gospel only And this raised division But they were left at liberty to bow or not to the Name of God Christ Lord c. and to the Name Jesus in Sermon or the Epistle or the same Gospel read in the whole Chapter and this bred no