Fathers and Governours within their several Families depending on them for Education life and maintenance Invict Christian Princes and Holy Bishops in their several distinct Provinces and Kingdoms in matters of peace and order and external Ceremony being publick Consciences in their several Dominions which are so many larger Bodies or Families yet none of these are absolute or infallible any further than they agree with a Superiour Soveraign will which alone being such is their Rule and guide communicating its Infallibity to them that follow it which all are bound to do Now who this Infallible Soveraign guide and judge is whether the Pope in his Chair and Bulls or Christ and his Scriptures written in the Bible and mens hearts and Consciences seems to be the Question between Rome and us The Roman Church affirms it belongs to the Pope being near and visible on Earth The Reformed will have it to belong to Christ who is far nearer to mens Souls though in Heaven With Protestants the Invisible Soul is correlate with God its Invisible Lord where is its rest and satisfaction With Papists it must be correlate to the Pope a visible judge and guide else it wanders in uncertainties like a lost sheep Or though both agree perhaps that Gods mind and will is the Law and Rule of the Soul yet they vastly disagree about its promulgation That is Gods will say the Papists what the Pope defines to be his will that his Scripture and sense thereof what he allows and nothing but the sense of the Pope must be the sense of God though never so sensual and Carnal or contrary to truth and to common sense But Protestants hold Gods mind and will to be and to have been knowable by men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at several times and several wayes Heb. 1.1 Not only in the time of the Old Testament and before by the light of nature and the Law and the Prophets and Angelical Revelations and Vrim and Thummim and Visions and Dreams But also in the last dayes by his Son in his Holy Gospel and other inspired Writs delivered to his Church and sufficiently attested to the sense and Conscience by Miracles and right Catholick Tradition And that it is the first and proper work and duty of all mankind as soon as they come out of their Infancy and Non-age as on the one hand to know the difference between God and the Creature and the right and wrong Soveraigns and Legislators of their Souls and to follow truth and vertue which are ever the Laws of the one and to shun vice and lyes which are the dictates and Impostures of the other so also carefully to discern between the Authority of the Master and the Servant or the Prince and his Officer between the Canonical Scripture which is the Divine will and Testament of Christ and humane Tradition which is the Testimony of his Ministers subject to and controllable by and by no means Superiour to the other for next to the confounding of God and Idols in our values who are so infinitely contrary The levelling of all distance and degrees between Master and Servant though subordinate and friendly is most absurd and abominable with all sober Christians saving them at Rome with whom the Authority of their Church or the Pope which with them is equivalent is usually exalted above the authority of the Holy Scriptures though the will and mind of Christ the undoubted and confessed Lord and Master And we also hold that truth in the General which is ever Gods will and mind may be well known by men divers wayes without the Pope As matters of fact and Tradition by the Testimony of honest men of good lives and clean hands and Holy minds and Inclinations free from all worldly ends and designes in their report For where God alone doth rule and possess the heart there we may be sure of truth and sincerity where any Carnal interest or Idol prevails instead there we are to expect lyes Legends and Impostures which are the Dialect of false Gods as truth is of the true God dwelling in the heart And in like manner by the Oaths of Credible Neighbours wherein God is called present to the heart and mouth and by the decrees and sentences of Magistrates and just Judges who in Scripture are called Gods and the General consent of Nations vox populi vox dei and by every mans diligence and search after Truth as after hid Treasure which God rewards and prospers Prov. 2.4 5. and his pains and study in History Languages Customs Criticism c. As in the use of means without which God is tempted But instead of all these methods with Papists the sole report and decision of a Pope though unlearn'd or swayed perhaps by Interest or Avarice or Ambition or Fear which mislead the heart and tongue from God and Truth shall nevertheless be relyed on as an Oracle Infallible more conclusive than the famous Delphick and the heart and Conscience in every man which were made to indent with God and truth be totally excluded and silenc'd in that Church under the notion and bear-skin of private Judgment and opinion which endangers all Yet Protestants resolve to follow the former methods in whole or in part let the Pope contradict or Curse as much as he please So Papists are led by Authority Forraign and often false Protestants by Truth Domestick and more sure They follow the Doctrines of men as did the Scribes and Pharisees heretofore we the voice of Christ and the Commandments of God as all Christs sheep ought to do Herein I say lyes the main difference between us and not so much in those other many points and and Articles wherein we are divided As Image-Worship Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation Purgatory Indulgences c. Which are and will be Learnedly and voluminously defended on each side to the Worlds end while each party resolves firmly to adhere to the God or Idol that either have chosen for their guide to the last gasp with stedfast zeal and constancy For if Protestants as well as Papists could believe the Pope or the Papists as well as Protestants did once believe Christ to be this Infallible Judge and guide all Controversie between us would soon cease and be laid asleep The whole Controversy lyes therefore in the choice or rejection in obedience or disobedience to the right guide or immediate Soveraign of the heart whether Christ or the Pope And exact obedience to the wrong becomes perfect disobedience to the right Superiour And that the Issue will lye here may further appear from each ones case stated by himself and their charge and imputation each against the other and from the state of the question naturally arising hereupon For the Protestants say they take Christ and Scripture and Conscience and what agrees thereto for the guide and rule of their hearts and judgments And that the Papists take the Pope and hold opinions and practices upon his Authority against
Impostures are less tolerable than the open Treason of a Cromwell or the Tyranny of the Turk because men may easier endure to be robbed than to be cheated and deprived of their purses or Estates against their will than of their Honour and understanding with consent And as it hath been largely proved that Popery consists in evident disobedience and Rebellion against the Right Heir and Soveraign of the heart And Papists in a greater concern to jump exactly with the old Sexton whose Clock went truer than the Sun so positively also further to clear and evince the Truth to be on the Protestant side in this main point and Issue which is the hinge of the Controversie between us I shall also instance how we Protestants Loyally adhere to our Right guide and Judge and how the heart in all our principles relies on God and none else and on Christ who is the sole foundation of the Church 1 Cor. 3 3 11. and the Rock whereon it is built against which the gates of Hell can never prevail Math. 16.18 We build our Faith upon the Holy Scriptures which are Gods word for hearts to rest on whose Divine Authority themselves dare not deny without being the most convicted Hereticks that ever disturbed Gods Church in any age however they Blaspheme and traduce them before the Vulgar We come to know the Scriptures to be Gods word being not present our selves at passages by the Testimony and tradition of others such a Testimony as is also Divine or nearest to Divine to be relied on by the heart Not upon the Testimony of the Church of Rome by any means who hath so much cracked her credit by legending forgeing expurgating c. for it were a great fault as well as folly in us who profess our Devotion to God and the Truth to confide in the Father of lies or such his followers but upon our own honest Christian Ancestors with other Churches especially the Primitive when most pure and Holy and therefore likest to God and to be believed by consequence from the heart and the rather when seconded with the Testimony of the Holy Spirit to Holy Livers who is God We believe our sences in their own Sphere in many points against the whole world because we believe God in them with our hearts who made our sences and speaks through them Prov. 20.12 We believe beyond sence and can see things absent as if they were present to us when we have Gods word to assure the same to our Faith and consequently to our hearts and can discern Christ present in the blessed Sacrament and the Bread to be present nevertheless in different respects and be assured of both in our hearts through the evidence and strength of God in whom our Faith and sences act and move But in a Religion without the heart as is the Roman It is hard if not impossible to conceive or imagine how any Sacrament of Bread can be at all amongst them without Transubstantiation in the Elements who will not and cannot admit of any other change by the heart and Faith which are not much in use in that Church in this or any other part of worship which shews the root and occasion of that monstrous errour in that carnal Catholick Church which cannot distinguish between the objects of sence and Faith and is observ'd to Apostatize herein from their own Antient Mass which doth We believe plain and manifest Truths of Scripture without need of guides against the Glosses or Sophistry or Authority of the whole world to the contrary for we believe God himself in them with our hearts who requires and deserves to be so believed because God himself leads us by the hand as it were yea with both hands in plain Texts of Holy writ on the one side and his manifest Instincts of good and evil on the other in such manifest duties And when God himself doth speak all the world must hold the tongue while the Sun is above the Horizon Stars and Candles which answer to guides and supplies abscond and give way Hawks and all other Birds quit the Air where the Eagle Towres what Stupidity were it in a man of years and knowledge of the City to ask the way from Charing-Cross to Temple-bar out of Reverence to his guide and distrust of himself in things obscure and Controversiall wherein neither we nor others can clearly and assuredly discern Gods mind and will for the heart to acquiesce in here we make use of Candles and guides and especially our lawful Superiours who are Gods deputies to direct us and all others that resemble God in their gifts or years or places or Major vote For the next to God is as God unto us when God himself cannot be heard and our hearts can rest on them but not with equal assurance as on plain and manifest duties as their importance also is not equal for there is a greater respect of the two due to the Principal than to his deputy In like manner in all Indifferent matters which are the proper Province of the Magistrate for where Scriptures end there humane Laws begin where God withdraws there his Deputies step in we submit to the determinations and publick orders of our lawful Governours as to Gods voice and Authority out of the obedience of our hearts to Christ present in our Superiours to our Faith and regard to the Churches peace which is his image and darling And they that refuse to submit and conform do it in adherence to their conscience as they pretend now conscience without a Rule is an Atheist as is the heart without the Lord and of no use like a Sun-diall in the dark It is not conscience but the Quakers dark-light within and the Rule is Christs Will or to come nearest to his Will which is the utmost satisfaction of the heart now whether we keep nearest to Christ in adhearing stiffly to private fancy or submitting modestly to publick Authority and Major vote is the Question which St. Paul puts of question 1 Cor. 14.33 For Christ is where peace and humility and order is and not where pride and strife and division are and are ever like to be while each prefer themselves not only before their equals which is pride but their Superiours likewise which is disobedience and contempt of Christ in his Magistrates added to it which all true Christian hearts will avoid more than death as being not from God as Papists truly object And so we Protestants hold no Principle or Opinion but what agrees with the mind of God and Christ which was the Rule and measure that was to be agreed upon by both to arrive at Truth and endeavour always to approve our hearts to Christ who alone is their Judge and Soveraign and no mortal man whatsoever believing and considering that as there can be no sin or vertue where there is no Law so a Law were to no effect or purpose without a Judge to reward and punish the observers
to trust then Mahomet shall pass for as good a Prophet as St. Peter and the Alcharon be equal to the Bible for to the blind all colours are the same But regulated Conscience is not a private Spirit wherein God himself speaks who is greater than all the World where it is kept pure from Worldly ends and Idols for nothing is more publick and Catholick than Conscience or reason or right or duty or holiness or justice which are synonymous and carry universality and eternity in their conceptions by reason of the Divine Impression and Authority they partake and answer to And nothing constitutes more a private Spirit than private ends and carnal designs and self advantage and profit and filthy lucre made chief ingredients in duties Doctrines and Religions with which Worldly and sordid mixtures the Roman Faith in all its parts is too well known to abound which unworthy copulations are discernable by the weakest judgments and condemn'd and hated by the most universal suffrages and censures of God and men An Infant can discerne them in his neglectful Nurse an Elephant in his unjust Feeder Clownes in States-men and Politicians and are abhorr'd and declaim'd against by Heathen Philosophers in their Schools and Christian in Pulpits and are those moral wild beasts that all Laws humane and Divine and right Discipline and education and all rules of honour are mainly bent to discover and hunt and chase out of all Societies and converse and hearts Besides a private Conscience proceeding in all its converse according to Christs mind Interest and direction and doing nought that is disallowed by him is Christ himself by fiction personated and acted and defended which is as far from a private Spirit as the East is from the West or the will of God from the ends and lusts of man It being not more natural and congruous in Christ himself to delight in good men and to abhorre the Congregations of the wicked and carnal and scandalous than it is for his faithful Servants and Trustees and Representatives who bear their Masters person and concern and holiness upon them by such a fiction to express and imitate by their own Communion and election of Societies the mind and Inclination of their Lord and soon to discern who are his Friends or Enemies or Traitors and Loyal Subjects in his Kingdom and vigorously and and indispensably to embrace the one and shun the the other for Servants act according to an accountable trust the Master being Lord of his own rights to remit or indulge out of favour as he pleases which is not lawful for the Servant to presume And this skill and instinct and shadows of private judgment to discerne friends from strangers to their Masters is visible in Domestick Creatures emblemes of fidelity who are Courteous to acquaintance but severe and unsociable to such as are not so till by converse and familiarity they prove their unity and friendship and take away private judgment and discretion the distinction and difference between faithful and unfaithful Servants Subjects Christians Churches wholly falls to the ground and Christians and Catholicks are set below the Irrational Creatures And for the Church of Rome to blast good Consciences that find out its faults as private Schismatical Spirits and to extol their own Carnal designes and Trade and Merchandize of godliness as Catholick Religion holy pure and publick and eternal is too visibly one of the uniform symptomes of their Antichristianism whereby they confound Heaven and Earth the Church and the World and reconcile yea change Mammon into Christ and Christ into Mammon Withall equal and coordinate Churches or Christians as we now suppose Rome and Brittain to be are not judges of one another where they separate from one another for Par in parem non habet potestatem is a rule in Law but act severally therein according to their respective duties and allegiance to their own liege and Superiour who is Christ the head and judge of both in the other World and in this also by a free and general Council which both parts ought for peace and unity to submit to which thereby becomes Superiour to both either by Divine Institution and custom Ecclesiastical or by their own consent and agreement as in the Case of Arbitrators And accordingly such general Synods have censur'd and sentenced and Excommunicated persons Churches Provinces Priests Bishops Patriarchs and Popes themselves when they walk'd awry from Christ's Rule As the first General Council at Nice against Arrius Priest of Alexandria The second at Constantinople against Macedonius Arch-Bishop of that See The third at Ephesus against Nestorius another Constantinopolitan Arch-Bishop the fourth at Chalcedon against Eutyches Dioscorus c. Priests and the fift at Constantinople against Diodorus and Theodorus Bishops reviving Origens errours and the sixth Oecumenical or general Council in Trullo at Constantinople against other Bishops and amongst them against the whole Church of Rome its Clergy and Laity for departing from the Catholick tradition of the Church about their Saturday fast wherein the Brittish Church was ever Orthodox with the rest of the Ancient Christian World as was shewed But the Church of Rome will allow of no Council or Canons or Fathers that shall offer to check its errours nor Scripture it self but with its own sence and Interpretation thereof whereby it shall be sure not to cross its Interest Being a manifest and notorious example therein of disobedience and Irregularity to all its Superiours and the most Schismatical Church in the Christian World for Baronius a Spondan An. 692. n. 5. cannot deny that the Greek writers declare their sence that the breach of Communion between the Greeks or Eastern and the Latine or Western Church of Rome was upon the disobedience of the Popes to yield and submit to the Council in Trullo wherein it had all other Churches of the World and the Canons of the Apostles of its side and undoubted Apostolical tradition mentioned in most of the Ancient Fathers as b Idem An. 34. n. 47. Baronius cannot and doth not deny A Church therefore that deserves to be shun'd and disown'd as scandalous for that and its other innumerable corruptions and infamous Usurpations and gross Idolatries and particularly its Blind Obedience and Implicit Faith that allows and directs to put confidence in man the head and fountain of all its damnable errours and superstitions whereof all that communicate with it must be approvers and partakers by the terms and Injunctions of its Communion which requires them to be all receiv'd as Catholick Articles and Doctrines and all contrary Truths to be abjur'd as Heresies whereby it becomes impossible for any understanding sober Christian to be at the same time within her Communion and pale and out of the curse of God Esa 1.5 20. Therefore it were lost and needless labour as to them or our selves to go about to disprove all their imputation and charge of Schism against us or to prove on the
Church and their own rules and principles first it is several wayes against the Canons in respect of their Invasions of the rights of other Metropolitans which was adjudg'd a Photii Nomoc. Tit. 1. p. 20. infamous and mulctable before that in the Council of Chalcedon and in Trullo power was yielded to the Emperours to erect or to translate Metropolitical Chaires and also against the Canons in respect of many Illegal Ordinations which made the Romish Church null in Law in England several wayes besides those nullities in fact and event we have before instanc'd Many are the Canons of the best and Ancientest Councils and the most general and Oecumenical that the Church of Christ ever had which condemn the first Entrance of Augustine and his Pope Gregory and the Re-entrance of Archbishop Theodore and his Successors upon our Brittish Church and Provinces under no less penalties than deposition or degradation of their Clergy from their several States and Dignities and Excommunication of their Laity from Christian Fellowship besides the making all their Ecclesiastical Acts and Ordinations to be utterly void and null to all intents If this were of any value or moment with them of the Church of Rome who boast and crack of a great respect they have above others for Fathers and Councils and Ancient Traditions but experience too much discovers it is all with Reservations and Provisoes that they offer not to touch or reflect upon their Church in any of its grossest errours or most enormous misdemeanours for if they do it in the lest the Canons of the Universal Church shall have no more respect at their hands than the Canonical Scriptures which are not allowed to have any sound or sense where they cross and disagree from the private interpretation of their Church I say private and suspicious because notoriously savouring of private ends and carnal designes and Worldly ambition and self-love above any Church or Haeresie whatsoever in all their Commentaries and Expositions and every point and Article of their Faith and Government wherein they differ from us Or they shall be openly disown'd and rejected for no lawful Councils either in whole or in part according to their liking or disliking of particulars who yet call for implicit obedience to their own petty Authorities and decrees how contrary soever to Common sense or reason while themselves dispute and contradict the power and jurisdiction of far greater Superiours acting and decreeing with the special assistance of the Spirit of God So that as to such Roman-Catholicks who are wedded and guided by their wills and Idols more than Truth or Conscience the Testimonies and Canons I shall produce will prove but Pearls ill cast yet with this advantage and satisfaction that they shall drive and force them either to submission or to rebellion either to confess and acknowledge themselves to be convict Schismaticks and Sacrilegious Robbers and Oppressors and their Popes and Missionaries depos'd and condemn'd in all their Titles Holy Orders and pretences by the Holy solemn Laws and Canons of the Universal and undoubtedly Catholick Church of Christ or manifestly detect themselves to be Antichrist in this as in their other practices and the Invaders of Gods Regiment and power in all its formes and varieties of of appearance as of God the Creator in disposing the Kingdoms of the World of God Redeemer in Lording over Souls and Consciences so of God the Holy Spirit and Sanctifier in slighting Scriptures and General Councils Which last part it is to be fear'd they 'l chuse to take as being thereto too much inclin'd by their Principles being one main cause if not perrhaps the principal that the spirit of truth and concord hath withdrawn it self in lamentable manner from Christian Churches and Councils these several last hundreds of years in whose Assemblies it cannot well appear with liberty and without diminution of its Divine Honour and Glory when its promis'd assistance to Gods Church gathered together in his name must be eftsoons check'd and controll'd by the Negative will and lust of one man that sets up himself above Both and the Interest of Rome made the mark to steer by instead of Truth and Holiness and Gods holy spirit thereby necessitated either to countenance Errour and Tyranny by its presence or to stand out whereby is left but a Carcass of a Church and not a Church for a Church without Gods spirit is but as the body without the Soul the one as ready moulders into errour and corruption as the other into stench and rottenness as is the condition of the Modern Roman Church too visibly The first Canon I shall instance in shall be the third General Council held at Ephesus than which hardly any president can be more apposite to the Case of Rome and Brittain and that Councill's determination upon the complaint of Cyprus against Antioch where three points may be observ'd 1. The state of their case and grievance 2. The sense and resentment of the Council 3. The decree and redress 1. Their complaint to the Council by Declaration and the Affirmation of their Bishops then and there present was that the Bishop or Patriarch of Antioch did send and Consecrate Bishops for the Isle of Cyprus in violation of their Ancient Rights and Customes The occasion of this encroachment was as is noted by Balsamon and Zonaras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Upon a pretence and imitation of the Duke of Antioch under the Romans sending thence a Deputy Governour for this Isle The plea of the Cypriots was as is imply'd in the Canon an Ancient immemorial right of chusing and consecrating their own Bishops among themselves On the other hand the Bishop of Antioch had his Patriarchal dignity and the Supremacy of St. Peters Chair to insist on from whom he deriv'd by undoubted Lineal Succession Now if this Controversy had come before the Pope of Rome and his Conclave or Lateran or Tridentine Council it is easie to coniecture who had gone by the worst but not so easie to know whom the prey should have been adjudg'd to whether to Antioch or rather to Rome her self although the other were the acknowledg'd Chaire of St. Peter establish'd for 7 years at Antioch at the lest before ever he arriv'd at Rome 2. But the sense and resentment of their wrong by this great Council is very remarkable who took this matter into their cognizance and Judicature though no lesâ— than the Patriarch of the East and as great as the Pope takes himself to be was one of the parties to aâ—ide their censure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus they represent the mischief and consequence of this encroachment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A new kind of Schismatical attempt in defiance of the Apostolical Laws of the Church and Canons of the Holy Fathers and striking at the common Liberty of Christendom yea the Spiritual Spiritual Liberty of men Souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Christ himself by his bloud hath purchas'd for us
Gods Truth resisting God therein and preferring man before him which is Papistry or making the Pope an Idol And the Papists on the contrary say they obey the Pope as Christs Infallibe Vicar on Earth in his decisions and thereby Christ himself by consequence and enjoy Peace and Union agmonst themselves as the reward of this Submission And that Protestants are guided by a Private spirit which cannot be seen or met under the colour of Christ and Scripture and are led and Imbroyled by it in Eternal Sects and Divisions which is a Fanaticism that cannot be of God And I suppose both sides will easily subscribe this repetition of their Case and main exceptions against each other to be faithful and true and agreeing with their minds Now there are Three Questions to be run over to find out the true wherein we differ The first of Right the second of Opinion the third of Fact The first or Questio juris whether in the General or the Abstract without relation to parties or circumstances whether I say by way of Major Proposition Truth as Gods mind is to be follow'd by the heart and errour to be shunned as contrary to his mind and the nature of our souls is out of question and by both agreed to The second that each side believe and suppose in their minds and perswasions their own Opinion to be Truth and their Adversaries to be an errour is also yeilded to and that the Opinion of the one or the other that is Gods mind too as well as mans mind is not the Private Opinion of man but the absolute Catholick Truth of God to be followed by all hearts which is a rule and measure to end the controversie by the Question therefore between us is of Fact or the Assumption and Minor Proposition What parties Opinion is the mind of God too whose Facts and principles agree with the right rule and guide who do as they should do or to put it in the words of my Text which party doth whatsoever it doth from the heart as unto the Lord and not unto men or who to men and therefore not from the heart unto the Lord or by way of Simile which Dyall most agrees with the Sun it being pre-allowed 1. That the Sun goes right 2. That the Dyall which best agrees with it is truest For the further clearing hereof the heart as I have shewed cannot be alone without its guide and confident to advize it no more than Ivie without an Oak or Wall to bear it or a stone without its weight and Bias towards its Center As of solitary persons it 's said they are either Angels or Beasts because of the objects the soul is sure to entertain though solitary so the heart can never be alone but through heed or heedlesness and want of grace will of necessity chuse a God true or false either Christ or bosom sin or a man of sin to be led by The will and design of the first if chosen for an head and Soveraign will be Gods glory and the souls bliss of the second the desires and satisfactions of the flesh of the third Secular Power and Authority over every thing that is called God 2 Thess 2.4 The Laws of Christ are in holy Scriptures of sin In the carnal fancy of the man of sin in blind obedience and strong delusions The force and Co-ercive Power of the first lyes in life and Death Eternal of the second in carnal joyes and sorrows which in fleshly minds make Jubiles and Earth-quaks equal to Heaven and Hell as to them of the third in false Salvation to his Catholicks and false damnation to his Hereticks as Satan was ever the Ape of the Almighty Christ will not admit of any Soveraign in the heart before or beside himself which is observed to be the reason he could not be received according to the desires of the Senate in the days of Tiberius into the number of their Gods at Rome for all were to be quitted to admit him but bosom sin is more Civil will allow of Religion to co-habit with it but if it offers to contradict or controul it must quit and pack the man of sin will admit both of sin and Christ will indulge and dispense with sin that may advance his Grandeur and by all means admit of Christ for Interest and Lustre to his designs and ambition but if sin or Truth shall offer to clash with or Impede his secular ends and Master Interest the one shall be discontinued the other excluded for expedience and all to give place to the Soveraign who is own'd To let pass the servitude and slavery of the heart to sin Rom. 6.12 Against which as our greatest misery and Captivity we stand upon our Christian Watch and Warfare throughout our whole life I 'le Instance in the slavery of the heart to a man of sin which is like unto the former and is the everlasting breach and difference between Protestancy and Popery and will fully discover and prove the point in Question who obey the right or the wrong Superiour of the heart who Christ and who a man that is contrary unto him The true Christian Church in her Christs Cross and her Baptismall vow doth bind and teach her Children to die to this world and its Pomps and Vanities and to live to Heaven and Christ But the Romish Church or its Rulers which is the same with them insists on nothing more than secular Grandeur and domination in this present world and on nothing less that on Christian Truths when they stand in contrariety to the former The first fundamental Article in the Popes Religion is Romes greatness and his own Supremacy and Perogative over all orders of men guarded with spirituall Lightning and Thunder-bolts as Paradice with a flaming Sword with the motto Noli me Tangere any Article of the Creed or precept of the Dialogue or Institution of Christ himself shall be sooner spar'd or dispensed with or dismissed yea Heaven and Earth shall pass away with them before any one jot of the Rights and acquisitions of the Triple Crown whether rightly or wrongly come by shall be curtailed or diminished in the least All Errours that favour this Interest must be believed to be Orthodox Truths all wickedness that promotes it Meritorious all Truths that oppose it to be Heretical and damnable by those that have surrendred that intire obedience and submission of heart and Judgement to a mortall guide which was due to none but the immortall Lord in my Text For as where sin rules the heart all virtue and sobriety shall be judged folly and Impertinence And miserable debauchery true Liberty and pleasure so where the man of sin gets into the same Throne all Truths that cross him shall be Heresies all errours that please him and advance his Interest shall become Orthodox Truths and Catholick traditions and no truce or accommodation can be settled between the subjects of either till such Antagonist
Preach Gods word without a License sued out from their See Nor the Scriptures themselves to be Gods word without their stamp or Allowance nor any hope of Salvation to any Soul out of the Pale of their Church The Corinthians Ephesians Thessalonians Phillipians Galatians had their Gospel not from St. Peter but from St. Paul for he had it not of man nor by men Gal. 1.1 And therefore not from St. Peter if St. Peter were a man but from Jesus Christ who is therefore God as likewise the Brittains had theirs from Christs Apostles and Companions before St. Peter ever had a Chair at Rome yet all these must be no Churches with the Church of Rome which is an absolute Haeretical affront to the Article in the Creed touching the Church which they deny to be Catholick and universal by limiting it to their Roman Communion Did the Haeresie of the Donatists heretofore speak higher or plainer Or of a Epiphanius in Simonianis the Pepusians who affirmed their own City Pepusa to be Jerusalem above if the Church of Rome in St. Augustine's dayes had been so Heretical as our Modern had it escap'd the impartial zeal and censure of that Learned Father and wherein was Basilides the Ancient Gnostick worse than these Modern Who maintain'd that God reveal'd his Truth to His party only a Epiphanius in Simonianis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they alone were men all others as Swine and Dogs as Protestants are esteem'd in the Romish Territories Or wherein exceeded by Simon Magus the Father of the Gnosticks who b Idem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said he was Christ as the Pope doth in effect who a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first Worshipped Images who made all Religion and the Cross of Christ subservient to their fleshly ends and pretended themselves to have Ecclesiastical Authority above any else or St. Paul himself though they were the enemies of Christ because the enemies of his Cross and Gospel and to be shunn'd therefore by all true Christians Phil. 3.18 as the Apostle there declares Whom no Oaths also can bind no more than they could the old Heretick c Epiphanus lib. 1. p. 24. Helxas in the Jewish Church who taught it was no sin to worship Idols in time of Persecution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and although he made profession with his mouth but denyed the same with mental reservation in his heart which is a Doctrine too well known at Rome he was not guilty of any offence at all Who lastly in a word not to enumerate any more particular Heresies whom they revive are our Apsychites as before who by their Principles and pactices deny the heart and its necessary use in Religious worship and by consequence deny Christ and God and all for without the heart or soul as a body is a dead body so a Church is a dead Church in reason and but the Carcass of a Church and as the death of the body contains most of the diseases that can be nam'd Deafness Blindness Apoplexy c. so deadness in a Church through the want and absence of the heart and soul pregnantly comprizes all sorts of errours and Heresies as Arrianism Nestorianism Pelagianism Manicheism Libertinism Antichristanism Atheism c. for take away the heart and take away God and take away God you take away all Religion whatsoever as take away smelling you take away odours or take away eyes and you take away light these being correlates to one another as was shewed before For the heart being intirely for Christ as its end and correlate as was shewed at the beginning when it loses its true end it ceases to be a heart the end in such things as are ordain'd for an end being as their life and soul and being whereof when depriv'd or frustrated in fiction of reason they cease to be as an eye that cannot see or an ear that cannot hear or a foot that cannot move is in reason no eye or ear or foot though the Ball or Organ or Limb remain in visible existence to the sense In like manner where the heart is seis'd or diverted by any Idol or vanity from Christ its end and life it ceases to be a heart To honour men for Christ's sake for any likeness to him bâ— Grace or Place or Quality may be done with the heart for it is not man so much as Christ himself is so honour'd by the heart which thereby attains its end and life by conjunction with him But to honour Christ upon the score of the Pope as is the way and Principle of Romanists with whom the Pope gives Authority to Scripture and Religion and to Christ himself by consequence It is not to honour or serve Christ so much as the Pope to whom the heart is thereby Principally directed and not to Christ but rather divided from him by the interposition and presence of another And whatever it be in like manner that severs and engrosses the heart from Christ its life and proper Element whether it be lust or Interest or wordly end or any sin or man of sin destroys and choaks it It is the extinction of reason to be besides it self the extinction of the heart to be besides its Christ The corps of a Religious Action remains in all Acts of Hypocrisie and Superstition and Idolatry but the heart and soul is lost and gone And generally the form of godliness no where more abounds than where the life and Power is wanting who more for outward zeal and show of Religion than the Hypocrite who hath none who more nice and exact in all minical Ceremonies than the Superstitious who wants the substance who more complemental than the hollow-hearted Forma viros neglecta decet men of great hearts and reality are more for deeds than words Now some superficial understandings that judge all by sense and outward appearance though but skin-deep are apt to mistake busie and zealous superstition and bigottry to be sincere and sober Religion whereas these differ in specie and are no more the same than a dying man sâ—picking bed câ—oaths is Family care or hollow Complement of the lip true friendship of the heart or an fâ—bullition of worms in a putrified Corps the Restoration of its former life unto it for in like manner as the cessation of natural life brings forth an unnatural bâ—ood of maggots in dead bodies so the departure of the heart and life from any Church ends in innumerable freaks of Religious whimsies and crossings and cringings without end There are several other Characteristical marks and effects of the want and absence of the heart and conscience in the Romish Religion wherein it goes beyond common Heresies and bids fair for Antichrist And waving the Principal or Lucifer-like Pride the womb of Antichrist and Universal Supremacy according to our Pope Gregory which hath been our game and Subject all along I shall instance but in three or four genuine properties very particular to that
a high degree who serve not their enemies with that measure as they have been and would again be serv'd by them had they power but though Papists are as Antichristian Idolators to them for a Christian Brother may be an Idolator according to St. Paul 1 Cor. 5.11 and they but as stubborn Hereticks at worst to Papists yet they have been never brought to the stake for their unsound opinions and practice by the writs of their own Invention nor to Tyburn ever but for their Treasons against the State They look upon Protestants but as Dogs though far better Christians than themselves But Protestants take them for what they are but have no malice to their persons though they abhor their errours and the severity of our Laws against them is only to secure our selves from their cruelties and unquietness For where Christ and the heart are excluded as in the Romish Church too much naught but burning and destroying all dissenters as Hereticks serves the turn when it is within their power and is never out of their Study and Inclination when it is not And O the malice they shew towards those that revolt from them to the Truth And this wisdom and temper descends not from above but is Earthly Sensual and Devilish as before Jac. 3.15 And what can be the cause of this Hellish Inhumanity towards Christian Brethren but the want and absence of the heart and Conscience or which equally destroys it the giving of it to the Pope instead of Christ whereby a Papist is of a piece with the Pope in all things which yet adds not one Cubit to his Stature nor to his virtue or Graces or humanity or Eternal Protection but he is still on Earth as he was before as a Christian is one with Christ in Heaven and partaker on Earth of his meek and gratious and Heavenly dispositions It 's another-guess perfection to be United to Christ than to the Pope which is the true difference between a Protestant and a Papist the one puts on Christ the other puts on the Pope by their several resignations of their private Wills and Judgements It 's more Heavenly and Divine to be of Christs mind and disposition than of the holy inquisitions ' A mans heart or his Will or his end aâ—e much allyed and ever go together and it ever chuses and adheres either to God or to an Idol And such is the man as his choice of his Lord is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He whose heart and end is joyn'd to Christ and Heaven is Holy and Heavenly as Christ is if to any Creature such as is the Will of the Master will be the Will of his Man also To be a Roman-Catholick therefore makes not a Disciple of Christ but a Mute or a resign'd Vassal of the Pope whose Will and height and carnal Interest must therefore be the Law of Heresie and distance and hatred and damnation with such a one And what crosses the Pope's gain or Authority is laesa Majestas or Ecclesiastical Atheism or high Treason against the Roman Heaven to be vindicated and destroyed by the Angels of that Heaven with utmost zeal and fury And BABYLON is observ'd more zealous and severe for its Idol than SION for its God the reason is for where Christ is out of the heart Offenders find no Mediator or mercy And herein the Popish far out-does the Turkish zeal in cruelty Truth can better breath in Turkie than at Rome and the horns of the Mahometan Antichrist are less curst in this respect than those of the Roman Satan was not a Lyar but a Murderer also from the beginning from whom the Romanists prove their descent as well by their stakes and fire-piles as by their Legends and dispensations And it is remarkable to use conjectures with submission on mystical Scriptures Of the Beast with two horns like a Lamb and speech like a Dragon that its special mark and Character was to make fire come down from Heaven Revel 13.12 13. as of the other Beasts with 7 heads and ten horns to overcome Gods Servants with the Sword v. 1.7 And which of these Beasts is Antichrist and who meant by either is the question 1. It s out of question that with the Ancients the Empire that should succeed the Roman should be Antichrist whether it be the Popish which takes place and precedence of the German or Turkish or both for both de facto have in great part succeeded it 2. That the number 666 pointed at 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as clear from Jreneus who lived near a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan the Apostolical times to know their key and secret tradition about this mystery Now there are three parts to be considered in the old Roman Empire The Magistracy Militia and the Mitre or its civil Authority its Military Conquests its Heathenish Idolatry It s civil Authority wherein several Kings succeeded it or rather were restored to their own by its fall cannot be Antichristian because Ordain'd and approved by God To be a terrour to evil workers and encouragement to the good Rom. 13.3 But the other two parts of Imperator and Pontifex Maximus might well descend to Antichristian successors by Gods just Judgement to be both a scourge and an intoxicating Cup for degenerate and divided Christians The first probably falling to the share of the Turk who hath made such Conquests over the Saints by his Sword such havock in the Churches of Christ by his Victories v. 7. being the same Beast with the Roman Heathen Empire in effect which Conquered all in like manner with the Sword but was wounded by Constantine and other Christian Emperours but afterwards is heal'd again of that deadly wound v. 3. to whose recovery the â—ope did contribute v. 12. The residence of both being Rome new and old And the special confidence and Character of the Turk being his Sword where with he does all And their Priests never read nor expound their Alcharon in their Mosch's but with a naked b Ricold contra sect Mahomet c. 10. Sword in their hands or hanging by for Terrour And Mahomet Prophesied his Sect should last as long as it could keep the Sword and no longer But the Popes bid as fair to the succession and reviâ—ing of the Heathenish Pontificat of Rome as well as of the Apostate Jewish as both were Enemies tâ— Christianity in the garb of Religion anâ— Ecclesiastical Authority For they wave the name of Bishop used amongst Christians and chuse that of Pontifex in 〈◊〉 with Heathen's only and never met in any Canonical Scripture neither are they deficient in Heathenish Polytheism having errected a Pantheon of as many tutelar Saints and Patrons to be call'd on as there were Gods at Rome withal as the Turk is the Heathen-Roman Power recovered so the Pope is the Image of both v. 15. as well in Empire and Dominion far and wide as in cruelty and shedding the bloud of Christians And yet this Infernal
worldly design and private ends shall be most Uncatholick and so the Catholicism of their Church is more like to fall and vanish likewise But if they call themselves Catholicks for distinction from Protestants who pass with them but for Hereticks they are again very grossly mistaken in their Criticism For Orthodox b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. tit 12. c. ◠is contrary to Heretick and Catholick to Jew which was the first and Original sense of this word upon the Gentiles being taken into the Church as well as Jews And Protestants are no more Jews than themselves as is not doubted Nor perhaps so much for they are liker to the Jews in confining Gods Church within the Roman Pale as the other did within their Palestine But we Protestants Catholickly extend and enlarge it to all Nations according to the promises made to Abraham the Catholic◠Fathe◠of many Nations as the name God gave him imports as well as the particular Father of the Jews Therefore the Title Catholick more belongs in Truth and reason to Protestants than to our Romanists who are so restrain'd and Vncatholick and Jewish-like in the bounds of their Church which they so confine to Rome And by their waving the Title Orthodoxe which had been more proper for their distinguishing design they fatally allow Protestants for such and disallow themselves They therefore are in Truth neither Orthodox nor Catholick but only New Roman or a private Earthly Church below or a modern Italian Jerusalem that is in exile and bondage with her Children Not favouring either of the Apostolical purity of the right Christian or the Orthodoxy of the Ancient Roman or the Heavenliness and Spirituality of Jerusalem which is above the Mother of all true Christians who are in Heaven by Faith They are therefore in Truth but New Roman-Catholicks as who should say an Old-New a Particular-universal a Spiritual-carnal a Heavenly-earthly Church made up of Contradiction and Hypocrisy and Earth Whose chief end and Interest is the Advancement and glory of Rome not of Christ high like Kites in their soring pretences to eye Dunghills for prey the better making silly Souls to believe the only way to be saved is to become their Spiritual Slaves and Tributaries and to go to Rome and Heaven to be all one Which with an answerable personal Holiness of life without which none can see God might well be true of the old Apostolical Rome and any other Church agreeing with it in the like sound Rule and Doctrine but it is far from true as to the Modern Apostatical for it is a great and a gross mistake to take or imagine the Church of Rome Ancient and present to be one and the same because of the same Sirname and patch'd Succession for it is not name-sake or Succession which yet goes far with superficial judgments unlike to God that by their principles neglect and lay by the heart but the same soundness of Life and Doctrine or hearts in the same Heaven not feet in the same house or Countrey that make Churches to be the same and true the want whereof or any notorious corruption in Faith or Manners by the rules of Christianity cuts off and debars the Communion of Christians Members much more the Succession of Christian Governours For how can any succeed to be Heads where by the Apostolical Law they are out of capacity to be members of a Christian Church 1 Cor. 5.11 The old Roman Church for the first 400 years before Rome was burnt and several times sack'd and brought to the dust as before did disapprove the wayes and Doctrines of the Modern and consequently its Communion as much as we Protestants for she did not Worship Saints or Images nor slight and suppress the Scriptures under colour of respect nor curtayle Sacraments and Divine Institutions Nor usurp'd upon Christ nor Crowns nor Churches nor Consciences nor upon the liberties of our Brittish Church in particular as they cannot Instance in one Pall or appeal in any Age or History Pope Gregorie's account upon diligent search above 1000 years agoe to omit other Arguments is abundant proof and certainty there was none nor endur'd to carry God about in a Cage and to create as many Christs and Saviours as there be Wafers in Churches and Cities and Altars and every one of equal Deity and Worship to our Saviour in Heaven God blessed for ever which amongst them cannot otherwise fall out as we have shewed but that a Wafer should be Christ and Christ but a Wafer by their Hypothesis which excludes the heart whereby Christ by consequence is excluded and a gross Capernaitical sense of such Spiritual Mysteries as necessarily introduc'd nor made the Authority of man more than that of Scripture the Rule of Faith and Heresie nor burnt fellow Christians for their Errours much less for the same Truths which themselves maintain'd as Protestants are or are in danger dayly to be serv'd by the present nominal Church of Rome with other innumerable Superstitions and Unchristian cruelties and loathsome Fraud and Legends and Infernal Dispensations for sins and duties But was Orthodox in her Faith and Regular and sober and Christian like in all her Church-Rites and Practices and well approved of and acccorded with by this and all Christian Churches by all brotherly love and Communion as the distance of places did permit yea with some preference of honour before many other lesser and obscurer Churches for its Imperial situation and numerous Martyrs yet without any danger of being caught in any Noose by such respect or honourable Appellations which no doubt were return'd to every Church though lesser with the like or greater humility and respect than they were given In which Christ-like victories and contests between Brethren and Churches the Christian ambition did heretofore consist but the present Church of Rome abuses and converts the Christian honour of her equals into aliment and fuel for her Pride not exalting others for their humility as God doth but concluding against them from it through the barbarous forgetfulness of her own mutual Divine and Christian part and no Eulogy shall occur in History but must bespeak Supremacy to her alone and Slavery and Subjection to the rest of Christendom like the Wolf going to School who could discern nothing but Agnus in every word and Syllable and letter pronounced unto him No this Church of Rome is no more the old than a Cock is a French-man because both are Gallus in Latine than there City or their People or their Language is the same being all of a new and a different Situation and dialect and descent The Race of Old Romans are sooner to be met and found in Venice and else-where than in Gothick Rome where more inclination not only after Roman civility but also after Ancient Roman or Protestant Orthodoxy doth appear as some of their wisest Clerks and later Historians have given a tast And the parties in this Bill and Plea for this Roman Supremacy
blessed Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul and Divine Truths to the contrary reproached as Heresies and all wayes and Arts yea fire and faggot us'd to â—ar them out least their slaves and captives should be undeceived and set free by them and so become unmanageable whereby their Conquest over Souls shall be at peace and the misery and slavery of mens immortal Spirits turn to account and the enriching of their Holy Church A provocation against Heaven of long continuance enough to raise new Goths and Vâ—â—â—â—â—s against their Church and State but that the prosperity it enjoyes is a greater plague and desolation than the Sword can bring The Spiritual servitude of the Soul under Idols far exceeding the outward slavery of the body under Conquerors as much as Apoplexy exceeds sleep or the pangs of Conscience the pain of the Teeth To live in the causes of damnation being a greater misery in reason than to endure the execution there being nothing of Gods hand or justice in the one being our own mala culpae as there is in the other being Gods mala penae or the correction which he sends and inflicts and therefore the less tolerable evil of the two if properly evil Further correction therefore can do little good upon them It must be the Infinite mercies of God and the zeal of Christian Princes that must do good upon them against their wills as it is expected by diligent a Divine Dialogues p. 226. searchers into Divine Prophecies that some great Prince will be shortly rais'd by God to cast a Vial of wrath upon their glory And they have a common Tradition in France saith b Review of the Council of Trent by W R. a French Roman-Catholick Writer that some of the Carolingians of the Race of Charlemaigne shall have an Emperour of France Charles by name who shall be Prince and Monarch over Europe and shall reform the Church and State But the Glory of such a Cure and Deliverance being as it were the Redemption a new of those whom Christ redeem'd from Spiritual slavery seems more probably reserv'd for this Isle above any other whatsoever as before And so since our Island is become Great Brittain again and the true Religion is recovered with our Brittish Line and Monarchy which were fallen together it is to be conjectured from foregoing Instances of Providence upon this Monarchy that such of our Princes as will appear favourers of Popery are like to be the most unfortunate and inglorious and unbelov'd acting therein against the grain and fate of this Empire as those of the contrary design and activity as having Providence of their side the most successful and renowned and the darlings of God and men SECTION XVI What the Roman-Catholicks truly mean by the term Heretick they so liberally bestow on others And that none are greater Hereticks in Truth and reality than themselves and of their Title Roman-Catholick which they so well like And Old Rome and Brittain both Heathen and Christian compar'd with the Modern And that the yoak of Rome is not better to us than our present condition BY their condemning Protestants so confidently for Hereticks because they believe not after the manifest errours of their single Church though they profess to believe after Christ and his Scriptures and his true and purest Catholick Church they do but call others such what they make and convict themselves to be thereby It hath been ever the Custom or craft of men when sin or Satan or any vile design hath possess'd the Throne of their heart instead of Christ to imploy his Name and Laws and Power against not the enemies of Christ and the truth but the opposers of that lust or private Interest which succeeds him Upon which score the Soberest and Holiest Protestants though Catholicks with God are Hereticks with the Pope for opposing his Christ that is his Carnal Will and Grandeur which rules his heart instead of its right Soveraign For if Christ and his mind did reign therein such Hereticks as right Protestants are would soon be embrac'd for Christian Brethren And he that judges of Heresie contrary to Christs mind and will finds the first Heretick in himself The right method heretofore to judge of Heresie was the Holy Scriptures for a rule and holy Churche's Authority proceeding by such a rule or Scriptura animatae or Christ himself speaking in men But with some now a dayes one mans absolute will and pleasure and his worldly concerns and acquisitions a Haereticus arguitur qui monitus non restituit bona Ecclesiae Spondan Anno 794. n. 6. whether just or unjust or Libido Sainct fiâ—ata or a speaking Antichrist is the only rule and touchstone for to run cross to the one out of Allegiance to the other shall more involve in Rebellious Heresie than the other Install in Orthodox Loyalty and this in uniform agreeableness to the Hypothesis touching the right and wrong Soveraign we are upon And the reason in Scripture why a Heretick is to be finally avoided is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 3.11 or the condemnation of his own heart in changing his Soveraign which is manifestly discernable in his Conversation by all Christians that hold to their Heart-Loyalty and by the sleepy Intoxicated party it self if of a loyal inclination after two or three admonitions or else belike never The Portuguees General us'd the like Divinity in the Field in a passion as these do in their Schools and Pulpits who when the Auxillary English too tamely suffered as he conceived the advance of the Enemy towards them cry'd out in indignation the English Hereticks have betrayed us But when after a suddain Volley three stories high they clear'd the field with but-end he then confessed and vowed with as great content that the English Hereticks were excellent Christians So that Protestants by dexterous application are not out of hope but that they may retain their Heresies and be Catholicks nevertheless upon an Orthodox Tribute to an indulgent Pope who is not averse to tolerate publick Stews and License Incest c. upon the like terms But in several respects and considerations none are gâ—eater Hereticks in all desert and reason than our Roman Catholicks who are first at criminaâ—inâ—â— who in the first place slight the whole Canon of Scripture and forbid it to several as a dangerous book next to Heretical which no Father 〈◊〉 â—he Church oâ— any Council ever did and the gâ—eatest Hereâ—icks that ever were have been bâ—â—ded and condemned for no more but clashing against a few certain Texts and parcells thereof Who next renounce the whole Catholick Church which all Christians in their Creed profess to believe saving that degenerate rump and shadow thereof they at Rome have to shew Allowing none to be Metropolitans without their Palls c Concil Lateranens Can. 18. none to be Bishops or Ministers any where without Ordination deriv'd from them c Concil Lateranens Can. 18. none to have Authority to