which are plainly and perspicuously enough set down in the Scriptures without the help and assistance of the Churches infallible authority which the Scriptures cannot be supposed to teach but by places far more doubtful SECT XXII It is our Wisdom therefore to adhere to the Scriptures TO this Rule then let us stick keeping those words of our Saviour always in mind iii. Joh. 21 22. He that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved But he that doth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God Let that be his Guide who would not go astray in dangerous Paths into which he cannot fall who keeps close to the directions of the Holy Books wherein all necessary Truth being set down as the most ancient and best Doctors unanimously agree we are certain every way by believing them to believe all necessary Truth and if our lives be accordingly without which they tell us our belief will be vain it is impossible we should fail of everlasting Salvation To these alone as St. Austin speaks for himself in his Book of Nature and Grace we owe an absolute consent without refusing any thing they propound to us Whatsoever it be as his words are in his CXII Epistle that is confirmed by the perspicuous authority of the divine Scriptures those viz. which are canonical in the Church it must be believed without any doubting But as for any other witnesses or testimonies to which thou art perswaded to give credit thou mayest believe them or not believe them according as thou perceivest them to deserve or not deserve to be relied on A great reverence is due to the Church and its testimony though less to the present Church of Rome than others because it hath so grosly abused the World by false records and forged Miracles and such like things yet only as to an humane Testimony which cannot equal that of the Holy Scriptures SECT XXIII Which have more manifest notes of certainty than the Church FOR if we take their own way and method to assure our minds that we follow an infallible Guide there is no note which they give of the true Church which they say ought to be our Guide but pleads far more strongly for the Holy Scriptures that we should rather follow them and give an undoubted credit to them I shall not run over all those Notes nor examine the certainty of them but only briefly name some of them and show that if they prove any thing it is the Authority of the Scriptures above the Church First they say the very name of the Catholick Church is venerable and ought to be regarded But as that Name is not proper to them alone so if there be any power in Names to make us respect any thing what more awful than the Name of the Word of God and the Sacred Scriptures which were always given to these Books to which we advise all Christians to adhere The next Note which is Antiquity is on the side of the Scriptures also which more justly claim to be ancienter than all other Books which pretend to any Divinity than the Catholick Church can claim to be ancienter than all other Societies which call themselves by the Name of a Church Nay the Doctrine contained therein must be supposed as I have shown to be before the Church which is made by belief and profession of that Doctrine and the Old Testament certainly written long before the Church was made Catholick As for unity in that the Church is not comparable to the Scriptures whose agreement and consent of parts is admirable And if we speak of the surest bond of true Catholick Vnity it is as manifest as the Sun that the Holy Scriptures lay the foundation of it and preserve us in it if we adhere to them by keeping us close to one Lord one Faith one Baptism but the Church of Rome which hath usurped the Name of Catholick makes this blessed Unity impossible For there being but two ways to it either that we all agree in our Opinions about Religion or that while we differ it be no hinderance to Communion they have made the latter as impossible as the former because they make it absolutely necessary to communion and salvation to believe in every thing as they do The like might be said of Holiness and efficacy of Doctrine which depends upon the Churches speaking according to the Scriptures sanctity of the authors of our Religion which cannot be known but out of the Scriptures the glory of Miracles the light of Prophecy and all the rest but I shall only touch upon one more the Amplitude and Universality of the Church in which they make their boast But herein the Scriptures most evidently excel their Authority being there sacred where the Church of Rome whose Notes these are is not known or not regarded For all Christians in the World of whatsoever Sect they be believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God whereas they alone say that they are the only true Church of God All Christians besides who know any thing of this pretence of theirs absolutely deny it and maintain the Divinity and Authority of the Scriptures against all their Cavils SECT XXIV The great incouragement we have to do so BY following the Scriptures then we follow the surest Guide by their own confession For first by following the Scriptures we are certainly led by God but by following the Church we are only led by Men. And consequently the Faith we build upon the Scriptures is a Divine Faith but the Faith we build upon the authority of the Church meerly can be no more than humane For the Scriptures are fully and amply proved to be of Divine Authority by all those Arguments which are alledged in the Third Book of this Work the like to which cannot be produced to prove the infallible authority of the Church Which cannot so much as pretend that God hath bid us believe it but by sending us to the Holy Scriptures from whence it derives all its Authority Which is the second thing to be considered and here I will take the liberty to transcribe part of the discourse of a great Man on this Subject with some Additions that by following the Scriptures we follow that which they themselves are forced to follow as was noted before and on which they intirely depend for the proof of their own authority on which they would have us intirely depend Who have reason rather to rely on that which they rely and in so doing tacitely confess the Scriptures are of greatest authority and that they are surer of their Truth than of the Churches Infallibility And Thirdly by following the Scriptures we follow that which must be true if their Church which they would have us follow have any truth in it for their Church cannot but give attestation to them whereas if we follow their Church we must follow that which
should mistake in the sense of the Scriptures yet they secure us that if we with honest and upright hearts continue to inquire after the truth designing nothing else that error shall not prejudice us But God will either discover to us his mind or not condemn us for our error of weakness not of wilfulness SECT XX. The Vanity of their appeal to Traditions AS for Interpretations of Scripture by Tradition they may be pretended and talkt of but cannot be produced in most places where we are desirous of that help which we gladly receive when we can have it by a truly Universal consent But as for particular interpretations of the ancient Fathers they do not absolutely agree with each other in their Expositions of those Texts upon which controversies of greatest moment are now grounded Nay they oft times propound divers interpretations alike probable And sometimes plainly intimate their doubtfulness and make but imperfect conjectures in such a manner as if they intended to excite Posterity to seek for further resolution Therefore we shall not dissent from them though we do not assent to all their particular interpretations Nay we cannot more dissent from them than by following their interpretations on such strict terms as the Romanists would bind us all to do when they seem to make for their advantage For then there is not the least surmise or conjecture of any one Father but must suffice against the joynt Authority of all the rest To which Rule of serving their interest they are so true that they stick not to reject any interpretation of the Fathers when they think good and which is more to prefer their own expositions before theirs And so they do in the matter of all other Traditions though called Apostolical For instance the threefold immersion in Baptism which seems to have flowed from an Apostolical Canon is long ago abolished saith their Canus by a contrary custome And so is the custome of giving the communion to Infants which prevailed says their Maldonate for 600. Years in the Church not only antiquated by them but decreed to be unlawful Which clearly shows that they might if they pleased make an end of all the controversies that trouble the Church without any disparagement but rather with the increase of its Authority For challenging a power to alter even the Institutions of Jesus Christ as they have done in taking away the Cup from the People in the Holy Communion and much more those of the Apostles what need all this stir about Apostolical Traditions or the Decrees of the Church which they may lay aside at their pleasure and have laid aside as appears by many other instances besides those now named that may be given of it But it is sufficient for the direction of every honest hearted Man to know which is as certain as any thing of that nature can be and may be undoubtedly relyed on that nothing is clearer in the Tradition of the Church than this that the Doctors of it declare the Scriptures to be full and perspicuous in all needful matters And therefore there needs no other Tradition but the Tradition of the Scriptures which satisfie us abundantly in the Truth of all those things which are universally received SECT XXI And their guilt in what they say about the holy Scriptures THERE cannot therefore be a greater demonstration of their guilt than this that notwithstanding such evident testimonies from the Scriptures themselves and the concurrent stream of the ancient Doctors of Christ's Church they have been forced to avoid this trial by the Scriptures to say so many scandalous things as they have done in disparagement of the Sacred Writings Many of them are commonly known and I am not willing to repeat the rest but only say this great truth that whether they will or no their Church such as it is receives all its Authority from the Scriptures and not the Scriptures from it For we can have no notion as was said before of a Church or of its authority but from the Scriptures Which therefore must be of greater authority than that which receives authority from them and be first supposed to be infallible before they can make us believe any thing else is so For we must be secure of the proof before we can be sure of the thing proved by it otherwise it is no proof but leaves us as much in doubt as we were before it was alledged If they say and what else can be said with any colour of reason that we must indeed learn their Churches infallibility from the Scriptures but then learn the rest from their Church mark I beseech you what follows Then it is manifest First that they themselves make the Scriptures the Rule of Faith in this one Article at least concerning the Catholick Churches infallibility Which we must therefore believe and for no other reason because the Scriptures which we first infallibly believe do teach and prove it Whence it plainly follows that private Men may and must be assured of the Truth of Scriptures without the help of their Churches Authority before they can believe any thing else because it is the ground for their belief of that infallibility which their Church pretends which to them is the General Rule of Faith And from thence it follows further that the Scriptures which to us are the only Rule of Faith ought to be acknowledged by them to be more than so even the Rule of their Rule of Faith And if it be so what reason can any Man alledge why it should not be the immediate Rule of Faith without sending us elsewhere to seek it in all other Articles of the Creed as well as in that of their pretended infallible Church We may appeal to all the World and call Heaven and Earth Angels and Men to witness between us and the Roman Church as a worthy Champion of our Cause did long ago whether the Articles of Christ's Incarnation his Death Passion Burial Resurrection Ascension Intercession the Resurrection of the Dead and life everlasting c. be not much more plainly set down in the Scriptures to any Mans apprehension whatsoever than the infallibility of the present Roman Church is in such words as these Thou art Peter c. Feed my Sheep or any other from whence they challenge it And therefore why should we be required to learn these or any other part of Christian Faith meerly from their Church when we learn them so easily by the Scriptures in which they are to be found more clearly delivered than any thing we read about their Church Let no Man doubt but if the Holy Ghost will teach us that Article of the Churches Infallibility immediately by the Scriptures without the help of the Churches infallible Authority as they themselves are forced to confess because else the Church can have no authority then He will immediately teach us by the same Scriptures any other Article of our Creed and whatsoever is necessary to Salvation
though the Scriptures be true may be false nay which if the Scriptures be true must be false because the Scriptures testifie against it Further 4thly to follow the Scriptures we have God's express Warrant and Commandment without any colour for any prohibition but to believe their Church infallible we have no commandment much less any express Commandment nay have reason to think we are prohibited so to do in such words as those Beware of false Prophets Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God c. Which require us to examine before we trust and consequently not to give up our selves blindfold to those who confidently claim the infallibility of St. Peter but cannot produce any evidence of it Again 5thly by following the Scriptures we shall keep to that which was always believed and every where received But by following the Church of Rome we shall make our selves guilty of the changes and alterations which they have made as another great Champion of our Church hath observed in the Apostolical Creed by making a new one containing things that hold no conformity with the Apostles and in the Apostolical succession by ingrossing the whole succession to Rome and making other Bishops to be but the Pope's Deputies as to their Jurisdiction and in the Apostolical Government by erecting a new and Universal Monarchy in the Church and lastly in the Apostolical Communion by excommunicating the greatest part of the holy Catholick Church By 6thly following the Roman Church also we shall be bound to hold many things not only above Reason but against it whereas by following the Scriptures we shall only believe some Mysteries but no impossibilities some things above reason but nothing contrary to it For though there be things in Scripture which had they not been revealed reason could not have discovered yet there is nothing there which being revealed can by true reason be confuted 7thly Contrary to flesh and blood indeed there are many things contained in the Scriptures therefore by following them we shall believe a Religion which notwithstanding that great prejudice which Men had to it prevailed and inlarged it self over the World in a short time without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all these whereas the Roman Church hath got all its Authority over Mens Consciences by no other means than by devising false Records false Miracles and Reports as was said before and by complying with Mens corrupt affections or by persecuting those that would not comply and by all other such like worldly means whether of policy or force 8thly To which add that by following the Scriptures we shall believe a Religion whose first Preachers and Professors could have no worldly ends to serve as hath been demonstrated in the foregoing Books but rather were to expect as they every where found nothing but disgrace vile nay cruel usage by all manner of punishments whereas the head of the Roman Church it is even palpable makes their Religion the Instrument of his Ambition and seeks thereby to intitle himself directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the World And besides it is evident to him that hath but half an eye as we say that most of the Doctrines which they have added to the Scriptures make one way or other for the honour or temporal advantage of the Teachers of them 9thly Again following the Scriptures we shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity whereas the Roman Church and doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak childish unsavory Superstitions and Ceremonies under which its own Children have groaned and heavily complained 10thly Those Holy Books also teach us that we must not promise our selves salvation unless we effectually mortifie all our evil affections and lusts and forsaking every sin whatsoever betake our selves to the practice of all Christian Vertue But the Roman Church opens an easier and broader way to Salvation permitting at least this to be taught for as good and Catholick Doctrine as any other that though a Man have continued all his life long in a course of sin without the practice of any vertue he may notwithstanding be let into Heaven by an act of attrition at the hour of Death if joyned with confession or by an act of Contrition without Confession And therefore in this and several other regards the Religion of that Church is not so holy as the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles delivered in the Scriptures and consequently is not so likely to come from the Fountain of Holiness and Goodness 11thly But whatsoever ways they are pleased to devise to humour Mens depraved appetites we are sure of this advantage by following the Scriptures which they cannot pretend to by following their Church That if we happen to entertain an erroneous opinion grounded as we think upon some place of Scripture it is implicitly retracted and condemned by our precedent full and intire assent to all things contained in the Scriptures and our general resolution to hold nothing contrary to them nor admit any thing as necessary to salvation that cannot be proved by them Which makes the error that we unwittingly and unwillingly hold against the Scriptures less dangerous because our adherence to the Scriptures is nearer closer and firmer than it is to our particular error Whereas by following their Church not knowing what it is whether the whole Body of People in that Communion or a General Council or the Pope in or out of a Council we shall have no such excuse for our errors but they will be rather much aggravated by our adhering so strictly to a doubtful and uncertain Rule unto which the People in that Communion sticking closer than they do to the Word of God it lessens the value of all the Truths which they believe and doubles the guilt of all their errors And lastly as this is a great satisfaction to our selves so there is this to be added for the comfort of others also That by following the Scriptures we shall learn to bear with one another in our different opinions about things which cannot thereby be determined nay in things which are not directly against it or wherein we are not yet sufficiently instructed But by following the Roman Church we shall be taught to pass the heaviest sentences upon all those that believe not in all things as we do nay to take the severest courses with them though they be Men of the most innocent and useful lives conforming themselves in all things to the Precepts of Christ Jesus and to the Authority of their Governors for his sake where it doth not manifestly contradict Him To conclude this we for our parts are of the same mind even towards them which Grotius before observed the Apostles were of towards the Jews From whom saith he and let the words be taken as if spoken by us to those of the Roman Communion they would not so much as exact an acknowledgment of their happiness in being
more easily imprinted on the memory but touching the affections more powerfully and to the very quick than when otherwise spoken at large And therefore the publick Laws were in the most ancient times thus written as Aristotle informs us and that true Religion might be more easily conveyed into Peoples minds and fixed there Apolinarius translated all the Books of Moses as Sozomen tells us L. vi cap. 18. and the rest of the History of the Bible as far as the reign of Saul into Heroick verse in imitation of Homer's Poems Suidas says he put the whole old Testament into such Verse and it is not improbable for what he did upon the Psalms is still remaining If it were my present business I could trace this way of Instruction down to our own times and through our own Nation in which it hath been very effectual as the story of Aldelmus sufficiently informs us Who first brought in the composition of Latine verse among the English a little before Edward the Confessors time and by his excellent faculty in singing wrought such wonderful effects upon the People for the civilizing of their manners and for their instruction in the duties of Religion that Lanfrank by his own Authority thought good to make him a Saint The very same charms Grotius hoped would have the same effect upon the rude Seamen of his Country into whom he desired by his Rymes not only to instil a sense of piety but to inable them to convey it to other Nations with whom they traded And it seems this work was so much famed that it moved the curiosity of a great man in France into which Grotius went after his wonderful escape 1621. out of that Prison or rather Sepulchre as he calls it in a Letter to a Friend wherein it was first projected to ask him very often what the Contents of that Book were which he had written in Dutch upon this subject of Religion Whom he satisfied by translating the sense of it into the Latine Tongue in the Year 1628. and addressing it unto that excellent Person who made the inquiry viz. Hieronymus Bignonius Who together with Grotius and Salmasius the famous Cardinal Richlieu a notable Judge of Wits was wont to say * Epist Cl. Sarravii p. 146. were the only Persons of that Age whom he lookt upon as arrived to the highest pitch of Learning In which Translation he tells Sarravius in a Letter to him that Year he should find if nothing else that he had at least indeavoured brevity with perspicuity Which made it so acceptable every where though no longer in Verse but now in Prose that in the Year 1632. I find he tells Cordesius another Learned Man in France * Epist ad Gallos p. 331. 417. it was gone the third time to the Press with some Additions But not with so many it seems as some desired for there were those who wished he would have answered a Book of Bodins which seemed to impugn it This he thought a needless pains for whatsoever it is saith he in a Letter to the same person * Ib. pag. 407. that seems to shake the foundations I have laid upon which the Christian Faith relies I have already obviated it as far as is necessary to perswade a Reader that is not pertinacious As for those Opinions which are commonly received in Christianity but without the exact knowledge of which we may be Christians they do not belong to my Argument In the same Year also 1632 I find it Translated here into the English Language Which He himself afterwards takes notice of in a Letter to Gerrard Vossius 1638 * Inter Epist praestant virorum p. 748. Where he tells him that there were beside the English two High-Dutch Translations of this Book one French and that the English Embassador's Chaplain was turning it into Greek and the Romanists themselves into the Persian Tongue that by God's blessing it might convert the Mahometans None of these could see any Socinianism or other dangerous heresie in it which some of the duller sort of learned Men were forward to charge it with all because he doth not directly prove in this Book the Doctrine of the blessed Trinity Of which he gives this account in the forenamed Letter that he heard a great Man who was Franc. Junius as I take it condemn du Plessis and others for endeavouring to prove that Mystery by reasons fetcht from Nature and by Platonical Testimonies sometimes not very pertinent which ought not to came into a Disputation with Atheists Pagans Jews and Mahometans who must all be first drawn to believe the holy Scriptures that from thence they may learn such things as cannot be known but by Divine Revelation This was the Reason he medled not with the Doctrine of the Trinity directly But if any body doubted of his Orthodoxy in this Point They might see he tells him in another Letter what his opinion was in his Poems then newly come forth and the larger explication of it he reserved to his Notes And for the same cause he did not distinctly treat of some other things particularly about the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Satisfaction for which omission this Book was blamed as Sarravius writes to him by some who had nothing else to do but to find fault with the labours of others To which Grotius returned such an Answer as not only gave him he tells us most full satisfaction in those two Points but inabled him to silence those accusers He doth not intimate indeed what that reply was but as to the former Point it is apparent from his Annotations that he believed our Saviour to be indeed God of God And that passage in the Conclusion of the xxi Section of the fifth Book concerning the Messias being called in the holy Scriptures by the Name of God and Lord I should have translated thus The Messias is called by that august Name of God Jehovah and also of Lord viz. ELOHIM and ADONAI For so he explains himself I have since taken notice in his Annotations and adds this observation that the Talmud in Taanith says that when the time shall come spoken of xxv Isa 8 9. i. e. of the Messiah Jehovah shall be shown as we say with the finger that is Men shall be able to point others to him saying Lo there is Jehovah And as for the other thing it is possible his Answer might be to the same purpose with what he writ to * Epist praestant Viror p. 747. Vossius In which he tells him that if any one desired to know as he had already signified in a Letter to one that said he was accused of Socinianism what his opinion was in the business of Christ's satisfaction even since Crellius had written against him it would appear plainly enough out of his Translation of the LIII of Isaiah in his Disputation against the Jews which you may find here in the V. Book Sect. 19. and
in abundance of quotations and must after all believe that we report them truly and therefore may as well believe us when we say that they are ready at hand to attest every thing which is here affirmed from their Authority Since the finishing of this little Labour I was informed by a Friend that Mr. Clement Barksdale had translated part of this Work into English and upon search I found the three first Books among some other Discourses Printed 1669. And I am told further by another Friend that he hath lately added though I have not seen it the three last Books Which if I had known sooner it might have saved me I believe most if not all of the pains I have taken But I was perfectly ignorant of it as I perceive he was of any former Translation before his For in that Edition of his Discourses where he hath added the Third Book of this Work concerning the Authority of the Scriptures he saith it had not been till then in English But it will do no hurt though the same good thing be reached out to us by more hands than one and so I leave it to Gods Blessing upon the Readers serious perusal S. P. A CHRISTIAN PRAYER FOR THE Adversaries of true Religion O Merciful God who hast made all Men and hatest nothing that thou hast made nor wouldest the death of a sinner but rather that he should be converted and live Have mercy upon all Jews Turks Infidels and Hereticks and take from them all ignorance hardness of heart and contempt of thy Word And so fetch them home blessed Lord to thy Flock that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites and be made one Fold under one Shepherd Jesus Christ our Lord who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Spirit one God World without end Amen To the Honourable Hieronymus Bignonius The KING'S Advocate in the Supreme Court of PARIS Sir YOU are wont very often to ask me who am sensible how highly you have deserved of your Country of learning and if you will permit me to add that of me also what the Argument of those Books is which I wrote in my own Country Language in the behalf of Christian Religion Nor do I wonder you should make such a question for you who have read and that with so great judgment all that is worth the reading cannot be ignorant what pains hath been already taken in this matter by Raymundus Sebundus with Philosophical subtilty by Ludovicus Vices with variety of Dialogues but especially by your Mornay with no less Learning than Eloquence For which cause it may seem more profitable to translate some of them into the vulgar Tongue than to begin a new Work upon this subject But what other men will judg of this matter I know not my hope is that before you Sir who are so fair and easie a Judge I may be absolved if I say that having read not only those Authors but what the Jews have written for the old Judaical and Christians for our Religion I thought good also to use my own judgment such as it is and to allow that freedom to my mind which when I wrote it was denied to my body For I thought that Truth was not to be contended for but only with truth and with such truth also as I approved in my own mind knowing it would be but a vain labour to go about to perswade others of that which I had not first perswaded my self to believe Omitting therefore such arguments as seem'd to me to have little weight in them and the authority of such Books as I either knew or suspected to be counterfeit I selected those both out of the ancient and modern times which appeared to me to have the greatest force in them And what things I fully assented unto those I both cast into an orderly method and expressed in as popular a manner as I could invent and likewise included in verse that they might be the better committed to memory For my intention was to do some good service hereby to all my Country-men especially to sea-faring men that in their long Voyages wherein they have nothing to do they might lay out their time and imploy it rather than as too many do lose and mispend it Wherefore taking my rise from the commendation of our Nation which for diligent skill in Navigation much excels the rest I stirr'd them up to use this Art as a Divine benefit not meerly for their own gain but for the propagation of the true that is the Christian Religion For they would neither want matter for such endeavours when in their long Voyages they commonly met either with Pagans as in China and Guinea or with Mahometans as under the Turkish Empire the Persian and the Africans or with Jews who as they are now profest enemies of Christians so are dispersed through the greatest part of the World and there would always be store of impious men who are ready upon occasion to vent the Poison which for fear they keep concealed Against which mischiefs I wisht that our Country-men might be sufficiently armed and that they who are more ingenious than others would use their utmost endeavours to confute Errours and the rest would at least be so cautious as not to be overcome by them And that I might show Religion is no frivolous thing I begin in the first Book at the ground or foundation thereof which is that there is a God Now that I attempt to prove after this manner The First Book OF THE TRUTH OF Christian Religion SECT I. That there is a GOD. THat there are some things which had a beginning is clear to common sense and by the confession of all howbeit those things were not causes to themselves of their own being For that which is not cannot produce any thing neither had it power to be before it was therefore it follows that the said things had their beginning from some other thing different from themselves Which may be averred not only of such things as now we see or ever have beheld but of such also as gave original unto these and so upward until we come to some prime cause which never began to be and which as we say hath its existence by necessity and not after any contingent manner And this what ever it be whereof by and by we shall speak is that which is meant by Divine Power or God head Another reason to prove that there is some such divine Majestie is taken from the most manifest consent of all Nations such I mean as have not utterly lost the light of reason and good manners and become altogether wild and savage For since those things which proceed from Mans pleasure and appointment are neither the same among all Men and are often subject to change and yet there is no place where this notion is not found and it is not changed by the alterations of times as Aristotle himself notes who was
hand I now take into my hands to present unto thy Majesty under the form of Bread and Wine Him thou canst not reject nor me his Priest who offer Him unto Thee c. Or some such like words more befitting their present notions than desiring an Angel may carry what the Priest offers and present it unto GOD. But we find quite contrary which is the last thing I shall observe that in conclusion the Priest acknowledges that by Christ Jesus God always creates and sanctifies and quickens and blesses making a cross upon the Host and the Chalice at every one of those three last words all these good things Which can be meant of nothing but the Bread and Wine consecrated to the commemoration and representation of Christ's body and bloud sacrificed for us For Christ's own very natural body and bloud cannot in any tolerable sense be said to be continually created and quickned or made alive unless you will suppose him to have been dead before nay not to have been at all For creation implies the thing not to have been and vivification not to have been then alive when it was quickned Yet this fancy of Christs real presence in the Sacrament by Transubstantiation against which there are such numerous Testimonies in their own Communion Service is now become the main Article of their Religion For we all know to our great grief and astonishment that when the publick Authority of this Realm was on their side subscription was not urged to any Article of their Religion upon such violent and bloudy terms as unto this of the Real Presence The Mystery of which iniquity as a great Man of our own said in the Age before us cannot be better resolved than into the powerful and deceitful working of Satan who delights thus to do despite to our Lord and to his Religion by seducing his professed Subjects into a belief of such things as make them and Him ridiculous unto unbelievers and ingage them in the worst kind of Rebellion he could imagine by worshipping Bread and Wine instead of their Saviour and all this upon the least occasions and shallowest reasons SECT XIII Other Instances of it BUT besides these plain confessions of that Church against it self there are many other things which I shall but just name wherein we have the testimony of several of their own learned Men ready to be produced for our and against their belief proving clearly that the present is not the old Religion of that Church but that they have brought into it many Innovations by adding to the Canonical Books of Scripture by making their vulgar Latine Translation of the Bible about which they themselves cannot agree authentical by forbidding the People to read the holy Scriptures in their own Language and by denying them the publick Prayers in a Language they understand by giving the Pope not only a new Title of Universal Bishop but an authority and jurisdiction which was never heard of for many Ages by increasing the number of Sacraments and altering their nature by taking away the Cup from the People and turning the Sacrament of Christs body and bloud into a proper expiatory sacrifice by celebrating the Eucharist without any body to communicate by setting up Images in Churches and ordaining Religious Worship to be given to them by invocating Saints and Angels as was said before and by the Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences and many other together with a vast number of strange ceremonies in the making holy water consecrating bells c. For which no antiquity can be pretended The woful effect of which is this if we may speak the plain Truth that by pressing upon Mens belief a great deal too much and placing great vertue in trifles they have tempted Men to believe nothing at all As is apparent from hence that where and when as an excellent Writer of our own speaks this Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheism or Infidelity hath most abounded And how should it do otherwise when as he observes so many lying Legends have been obtruded upon Mens belief and so many false Miracles forged to justifie them as are very likely to make suspicious Men question the truth of all And so many weak and frivolous ceremonies devised and such abundance of ridiculous observances in Religion introduced as are no less apt to beget a secret contempt and scorn of it in witty Men and consequently Atheism and Impiety if they have this perswasion setled in their mind which is indeavoured to be rooted in them from their childhood that if they be not of that Religion they were as good be of none at all And when a great part also of the Doctrines now mentioned so apparently make for the temporal ends of those who teach them that sagacious Men can scarce forbear thinking they were on purpose devised to serve those designs That particular doctrine also of Transubstantiation being so portentous that joyned with the forenamed perswasion of No Papists no Christians it hath in all probability brought more than Averroes to this resolution since Christians eat that which they adore let my Soul be among the Philosophers And lastly the pretence which is so common that there is no ground to believe the Scriptures but their Churches infallibility and yet no ground to believe their Churches infallibility but some Texts of Scripture being too plain a way to lead those who discern the labyrinth wherein they are to believe neither Church nor Scripture SECT XIV Whereby they have spoil'd Christianity as the Pagans did the Natural Religion THESE things which have been already urged by the Writers of our Church for the conviction of those who are capable of it I repeat here again because they seem to me very powerful for the preservation of those who are not already tainted or too far gone in that delusion Which is so great that to summ up all belonging to this Head we may safely say Popery is just such a depravation of the true Christian Religion as Paganism was of the Natural Religion There cannot be a righter conception of it than this which appears too plainly in the absurd doctrines and opinions which they have mingled with the Christian Faith in their multiplied superstitions in their fabulous relations of the Saints wherein they have surpassed the very Poets themselves and to pass by the rest in their prostrating themselves before Images and giving religious worship to Men departed Which last instance furnished the Pagans of Cochin with this answer to the Jesuits as Christoph Borrus one of that Order relates when they pressed upon them the belief of one God and no more We do believe it said they but those whom you see us worship in their Images were Men of great Sanctity whom pious People therefore worship according to their merit just as you give to the Apostles and Martyrs and Confessors divers degrees of honour and religious service as you know them to have excelled in vertue
cannot wonder at the corruption of which we complain Let him but read First the censures which their own Authors have passed upon several Popes as meer Epicures and Men void of all Religion c. And then the bitter complaints which St. Bernard himself makes and that while he wrote to a Pope of the Vices which were then annexed even to the very Papacy and further the description which such Men as Marsilius of Padua make of the Church of Rome the whole Body of which he saith was so infected by the plenitude of power which is allowed to the Pope that it might be more truly called a shop of Traffique nay a Den of Thieves than a Church of Christ and to come nearer to our own times the forwardness of their People even since the Reformation to worship Men as Saints before they were canonized by the Pope and he will not think there hath been always such care and caution used about that and such like matters as they would have us believe We have a memorable instance of this thing last mentioned to meddle with no other in the Founder of the Jesuits Order Ignatius Loiola by whose merits People recommended themselves to God if we may believe the Pope himself before he was declared to be a Saint So Urban VIII informs us in his very Bull or Decretal Letters for his Canonization where several miraculous Works are said to have been done for those who fled to his help and religiously worshipped his Image and commended themselves to him as the words are with all their heart He was made indeed a Beato by the preceding Pope But the like stories are told of Xavier one of Ignatius his Companions unto whose intercession the People applied themselves and hoped in his merits as the Bull for his Sainting tells us even before he was made a Beato So exceeding prone they have been of late to run into Superstition as they were more long ago in the days of St. Martin who broke down an Altar which had been set up by former Bishops themselves in honour of a Martyr as the People called him who proved to be no better than a Highway-man as St. Martin discovered that had been executed for his Robberies and there buried SECT XVII Popery and Mahometism had the same Original WE may safely therefore affirm that the account which Grotius gives in the beginning of the VI. Book of the rise of Mahometism may serve as well for the Original of Popery Which took its rise from the great decay of true piety and the vain jangling that fell out among Christian People by imploying their time in curious Questions which made the vulgar at last not know what to believe and to lay the fault upon the Scriptures nay to avoid them as hurtful and dangerous And then it was easie to lead them any whither when they had for saken the Light which showed them their way and began also to place Religion not in purity of mind but in Rites and Ceremonies and to content themselves with such things as served rather to exercise the Body than to amend the Soul In short that false Prophet Mahomet and an Universal Bishop sprang up both together very near the same time as Treason and Idolatry setled themselves also together at the same time in the Age following For the Pope under the pretence of retaining Images which the Constantinopolitane Emperour destroyed revolted from him denyed him the tribute that was wont till then to be paid him even out of Rome it self as well as other places and denying him all obedience plainly thrust him out of Italy This account Zonaras and others give of Gregory the II.'s proceeding against Leo Isaurus and thus the Bishop of Rome by his Papal Authority became the first Author of defection from a lawful Prince upon the account of Religion SECT XVIII And supports its self by the same means IF we look further into what was said before about Mahometism we shall find that Popery stands and upholds it self by the very same shameful means which keep up the Religion of that false Prophet By force that is and violence compelling Men where they have any power to consent to what they say or rather to feign a consent to what they do not believe Which discovers the weakness of that Religion and of the reasons of those that profess it For he that extorts assent as was said in the Book foregoing by sense of pain or fear of punishment plainly confesses by that very proceeding that he distrusts his Arguments At the best they require belief of Men without all liberty of inquiring into Religion For the vulgar just as in Turky are prohibited to read the Books which are accounted holy which is a manifest sign of its iniquity as he there speaks of the Turkish Religion for justly may that merchandize be suspected which is obtruded upon this condition that it must not be lookt into not examined This is the way of the grossest deceivers who will not submit themselves to a trial and refuse to give any account but will have us submit to their Authority and take what such Men as they say upon trust Which is the Method of the Roman Church who are wont to put doubting of any part of their doctrine among mortal sins And so for fear what the issue may be will not suffer their People to try their Religion with indifference that is with true liberty of judgment and with a resolution to doubt of it if the grounds of it appear upon examination to be uncertain and to leave it if they prove apparently false It is true indeed as it there follows there is not in every Man the like capacity of knowledge and quicksightedness to discern between truth and falshood Many also are carried away into error by pride others by inordinate passions or affections and some by custome and imitation or by the weakness of their understandings and forwardness to judge without due consideration or advice with their proper Guides But those very Books which the Roman Church pretends may mislead Men and therefore will not let them use teach them in the first and principal place to purge themselves from all naughty affections and then to be sober-minded and not too forward to determine things on their own heads but to reverence their judgments who are over them in the Lord and not to pretend to Religion nor imagine they can judge a-right till they be humble and meek and without any other design than this alone of saving their Souls Now the Divine Goodness forbids us to think that such Men shall not be able to find the way to eternal Salvation who seek for it in God's own Word and in this manner without any by-respect to honour or worldly advantage and with intire submission of themselves and all they have to Him imploring his assistance that they may attain it Which are in effect the very words of Justin Martyr and Origen And