challengeth an absolute power to make laws for the whole Church Whatsoever he appointeth though against Scripture and reason must be accounted good and be observed He must with authority interpret Scriptures and what he determineth must be received as the sense of them He declareth what is Heresie and Schism he judgeth all things and persons but must himself be judged of none Now this is a Divine power and God's prerogative that the reason and consciences of men should be subject to him We are to submit our reason to God because he cannot err and our conscience to him because he can command nothing but what is good yea things are good because he commands them therefore the Pope in usurping this power sits as God 3. He claims a power to dispense with Gods Laws to appoint new means whereby men should come to heaven He doth frequently dispense with marriages in all the forbidden degrees Concil Trid. Ses 24. Can. 3.4.6 and the Council of Trent curseth those that think the Church hath not power to forbid marriage in more degrees than the Scripture prescribes or to alter those there set down and to allow marriage in those cases as it shall see cause The Scripture saith marriage is honourable in all Heb. 13.3 but the Pope saith it is not only a disgrace but a damning sin for any of the Ministers of the Gospel to marry It is Gods law 1 Cor. 7.2 to avoid fornication every man should have his own Wife and every woman her own Husband but the Pope saith it is better for Priests to live in fornication than to marry yea and for all persons 't is meritorious of heaven to vow not to marry though they live in all uncleanness he dispenseth with Oaths and vows and nothing humane or divine is or can he obliging any further than he alloweth it he being the supreme judge and determiner of all things God alloweth us the use of all meats fit for food but the Pope forbiddeth the use of many yea annexeth merit and the promise of heaven to the forbearance of certain meats at certain times though they gorge and glut themselves with other sorts of dainties And here let us observe that the Apostle speaketh of an apostasie from the faith that should be in the latter times v. 1. and he giveth this as one character of this apostasie that these apostates should forbid marriage and the use of meats in an hypocritical pretence of godliness which doth so point out the Papists as if they had been named none but they teaching those doctrines especially that of forbidding marriage The Pope maketh it meritorious of pardon and great immunitys to wear the habits to certain Monks and Friers to be buried in a Monks cowle or in the gown of a Capuchin or Carmelite Frier but above all to the saying of so many Ave-maries or Pater Nosters in the 7. chief Churches of Rome which will procure some hundred thousand years pardon 4. He pretends to forgive sin The Jews could say Who can forgive sin but God only and he that taketh upon him to forgive sin Luke 5.21 maketh himself a God But with the Papists every Priest taketh upon him to forgive sin yea a man cannot be forgiven unless he be first absolved by the Priest much more doth the Pope claim a power to forgive all sin and that not declarative only to pronounce the promises of pardon to the penitent but authoritative also to give absolution and heaven to whom he pleaseth In his Jubilees he carrieth in his hand a golden hammer to break open Paradise for all the Pilgrims that come to Rome They do often publish and sell indulgences for all manner of sins it was one special thing that stirred up the spirit of Luther that Frier Teselius came into Germany with indulgencies from Leo the 10. publishing in all Markets and Fairs that he could grant pardon for all manner of sins even though a man had laid with the Virgin Mary The Pope can prevent mens going to Purgatory at all or shorten and lengthen their time there as he pleaseth though they teach Purgatory to be a place where men must satisfie for their sins Part. 3. tit 22. cap. 5.5.6 7. Antoninus maketh a grave Quere whether the Pope may empty Purgatory and release all the souls that be there and as gravely determineth that out of the fulness of his power he may without doubt do it though he thinketh it not expedient he should and so doth the Pope too for then the private Masses and prayers for the dead which are a great part of their service and by which the poor Priests get their livelyhood would cease 5. The Pope taketh to himself the name and titles of God and Christ Dominus Deus noster Papa our Lord God the Pope is the language of their Canon Law Paul the 5. caused a triumphal Arch to be set up at Tolentum under which he was to enter the City with this inscription Paulo quinto Vice deo to Paul the 5. the vice-God They say the Pope is the rock the foundation of the Church her head and husband Lord of Lords and King of Kings c. When some among themselves were offended at these blasphemous titles Bishop Beedle informs while he was in Italy about 70. years since there was a congregation appointed at Rome to redress these abuses Beed answer to Wodsw called congregatio de moderandis titulis but before they could do any thing to purpose the Pope forbid them to proceed because he said there were no titles given him but what dignitas praerogativa Sancti Petri c. the dignitys and prerogatives of Peter would well enough bear Thus this Roman State is the Beast in whose head are the names of Blasphemy Rev. 13.1 Hence it appears though the Pope call himself the servant of servants and the Vicar of Christ yet he doth indeed usurp the place of Christ and the honour and authority of God himself wherefore he is deservedly accounted the Antichrist in both senses of the word Hostis emulus Christi both the opposer of Christ and his competitour that contends with him for honour and usurps his place and dignity The Apostle saith that there were many Antichrists in the world in his time 1 John 2.18 and that the spirit of Antichrist was then entered into the world 1 John 4.3 and that these Antichrists were apostates from the Christian Church They went out from us chap. 2.19 but yet that there was one special Antichrist to come of which the Church was forewarned you have heard that Antichrist should come cap. 2.18 and surely there hath never been a more dangerous enemy of Christ than this apostate State of Rome The Heathens had but one way of opposing Christ viz. persecution which tended much to the honour of Christ and his grace by the sufferings of the faithful but these both destroy by persecution those that are most upright
wearied with their ill carriage And in the times of the Prophets there were usually false Prophets seducing the people 2 Pet. 2.1 Our Saviour foretold false Christs and false Prophets should arise soon after his days Mat. 24.24 And his Apostles that there should be false teachers in the Church privily bringing in damnable Heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and that many should follow their pernicious ways 2 Pet. 2.1 2. The Primitive times as they were most happy in Zeal and affection in the sound and Orthodox professours so they were as unhappy in the manifold errors Sects divisions that did disturb them as any of these latter Ages Augustin hath given us a Catalogue of 80. Heresies that troubled the Church in those days August Lib. de Haer. ad Quod vult Deus and yet he saith he omitted many and named but the principal It appears by their Epistles that the Apostles had no sooner planted Churches but the weeds of errors and opinions did straight ways spring up amongst them and this chiefly by these three means here mentioned 1. By pretence of the spirit When God did afford his spirit in extraordinary gifts and revelations to his Prophets and Apostles there never wanted men who pretended to the same spirit and the like revelations for their own devices most of them wilfully feigning some artificially and some by diabolical means procuring revelations and Enthusiasms and some weakly mistaking their own fancies and strong perswasions for dictates and inspirations of the Holy Ghost 1 Joh. 4.1 2. Believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they are of God for many false prophets are gone out into the world such as pretended to the spirit and that to the subversion of the greatest truths in the Gospel even to deny the person and coming of Jesus Christ as Simon Magus and his followers therefore he subjoyneth this mark v. 2 3. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God and every spirit that confesseth that he is not come is not of God The same direction is given 1 Cor. 12.2 3. I give you to understand that no man speaking by the spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed Such it seems there were that preten ding to the spirit the Apostles had rejected and reviled Jesus Christ 2. By pretence of a word or oral tradition They that could not pretend the spirit speaking in themselves pretended the judgment and sayings of Christ and his Apostles when absent for their own opinions sometimes forging their sayings sometimes mistaking the meaning of them affixing their own sence to them Thus a tradition was received as coming from the mouth of Christ that the beloved Disciple should not die Joh. 21.22 23. and is yet believed in the Greek Church who shew a place near Ephesus where they say that Apostle when old commanded himself to be buried alive where by some estuation or bubling of the earth they conclude he still breatheth St. Paul was often troubled by the Judaizing Christians who would have kept up the ceremonial law pretending the authority and practice of Peter and other Apostles that lived among the Jews which he refuteth at large Gal. 2. And it appeareth by almost all Pauls Epistles that this tradition was importunately urged and scattered through all the Churches by that sort of men even when the Apostles and Church of Jerusalem had declared that they never commanded such doctrine to be preached Acts 25.24 3. Thirdly By the pretence of Scripture our Epistle in the text And this either by pretence of forged Scripture or false and forced interpretations of the true Canonical writings Of the former sort were the writings of the false Prophets among the Jews and those fabulous Legends of Tobit Judith Susannah c. which were never received by the Jewish Church And such were the many suppositious writings in the primitive times as the Gospel of Peter Andrew Thomas Nicodemus and almost of all the Apostles the Gospel and Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans the Liturgie of James and the like mentioned by Eusebius and other writers Of the latter sort the Apostle speaketh 2 Pet. 3.15 16. That there were many unlearned and unstable Christians who did wrest some hard places in Pauls Epistles and the other Scriptures to their own destruction of this kind is this in the text as some suppose Cartwr in Locum that this opinion of Christs coming to judgment was rashly collected by some from those words in the former Epistle to the Thes ch 4. v. 15. We that are alive and remain unto the coming of our Lord shall not prevent those that are asleep hence they thought that the Apostle supposed that at least some of them who were then alive might live to the coming of Christ Though it seems that all these three means of pretended revelations traditions and Scriptures were used for this doctrine These arts have been all along used to disturb the Church and to pervert souls The Gnosticks Montanus and Manes pretended their inspired revelations Cont. Haer. De praeser and many others in latter ages Irenaeus and Tertullian tell us that many of the Hereticks of their days pretended traditions from one Apostle or other for their doctrine and practice as also others had their Apocryphal Scriptures or Canonical texts misapplied to maintain their errors The Papists make great use of all three of these pretences to establish their grossest errors The doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the bread of the worship of Saints and of religious Orders and Images is mainly built upon Revelations dreams and apparitions Lindanus ingenuously confessed that all those doctrines and practices wherein the Protestants do oppose them and dissent from them are to be proved by traditions of the Apostles not from the Scripture Their doctrines of Purgatory invocation of Angels equivocations and dissemblings are proved by the book of Tobit Judith Susan c. The Apostles Canons increased from 50 to 85 in the last age do them great services in the matters of their discipline and sometimes they wrest Scriptures for their purpose but they have been so baffled and shamed out of this since the Bible hath been common and studied by Protestants that they have forsaken this hold and the Jesuites think the poor secular Priests have betrayed their cause by undertaking to dispute for it out of the Scriptures These troubles by errors arise from the weakness of some who have more zeal than judgment and usually desire new things 2 Pet. 3.16 2 Tim. 4.3 People unlearned and unstable and that have itching ears from pride and conceit in others who that they may seem wiser than their brethren will be wise above or against what is written some teach perverse things to draw disciples after them some for secular interest There was no other reason why the Popes of Rome imbraced the worship of images transubstantiation and some such doctrines but because
them yet they must go through Purgatory hereby robbing them of the comfort of the Gospel and miserably enthralling their consciences to themselves and their Tradition By all this it is evident that the Papists have altered the nature and ends of Christian religion which was the doctrine and institution of Jesus Christ to exalt him as the only mediator of the Church by whom only we should come to God and have framed a new platform of a carnal worldly religion to exalt the Pope and his Clergy and to worship the creatures instead of the Creatour Let us add their doctrine of persecuting and destroying all Hereticks as they call them that is all that will not obey them The first Lateran Council Ann. Dom. 1215. decreeth Sub Innoc. 3. P. That if any Prince or Lord be a Heretick or favourer of Hereticks or will not destroy his own subjects being Hereticks he shall be deprived of his dominion and it be given to some other Catholick Prince Accordingly they gave away the Estates of divers Earls Ramund Earl of Tholouse the Earl of Besieres and others because the former favoured the other would not destroy the Albigenses their Subjects Vid. Hist Walden The Inquisition giveth orders not only to destroy Hereticks but also all such as favour them or habour them or give them any relief in their distress or conceal them or any of their goods Yea that those who do not discover and accuse their own relations or friends being Hereticks shall themselves be punished as Hereticks In Concil Constan Pope Martin the 5. decreed by a Bull That Hereticks should not be suffered to buy or sell or to injoy the benefit of humane society This Doctrine and their practice according to it makes them an Apostatical body or society maintaining it self in opposition to the pure Church of Christ and therefore to take part with them to joyn with or submit to their interest is to desert Christ and to side with or become a member of that great Apostasie Let us now take notice of the several characters or marks that the Apostle gives of this Apostasie which will further prove the Papists to be guilty of it The first is v. 3. That the Head of it is the man of sin the son of perdition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An Hebraism where the genitive of the substantive is put for the adjective and that by way of eminency The sinful or wicked man as he is afterward called v. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wicked or lawless man v. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the son of perdition this is exegetical of the former viz. such a wicked man as is ripe for and appointed to destruction By this is meant not a particular person but a state or government in the hands of one or more persons though perhaps some one of those governors may be intended in a special manner as more singularly wicked and active than others even as Nebuchadnezzer was said to be the head of Gold of the great image Dan. 2. i. e. in special manner though the whole series of the Assyrian and Babylonian Monarchs for 1300. years was represented thereby Thus the Devil is expressed singularly when the whole society of those wicked spirits is intended and no one particular meant And the four Monarchies are expressed by 4. Dan. 7. Beasts though they were possessed not only by many Kings but the last by the people of Rome for a long time consisting of the Senate and Plebeian The Papists would infer from these notes of particularity that Antichrist this man of sin must be but one particular person Vid. Whit. resp ad Sand. Q. 1. and therefore not the Popes who have been many But themselves grant what is here said v. 8. He that letteth will let till he be taken out of the way is meant of the Roman Empire which was in the hand of many successively though expressed as one man and it is common so to express States or Kingdoms when we speak of their constitutions prerogatives or Laws And when our Saviour Matth. 16.18 19. said to Simon Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and I will give thee the Keys of the Kingdom c. they will needs have it meant that this was granted to Peter and all his successours the Popes though none but Peters name is mentioned Why then may we not so understand the man of sin here The Apostles sense is there well come an apostasie of the Church a declining in and from religion which will encrease till the man of sin be revealed i.e. till these apostates shall frame themselves into a body and state of a most wicked government this is the Pope and his Clergy who successively govern and manage that Apostasie This will appear if we consider the wickedness of their Persons Doctrines and Practices 1. For their persons There was a series of Popes for about an hundred years in the 10. and 11. Centuries who were Magicians Murderers open Adulterers and destroyers of each other of whom Genebrard the Jesuite saith they were Apostatici potius quam Apostolici apostates rather than Apostolical men Gregory the 7. they report poysoned 6 Popes his Predecessours to obtain the Papacy and was himself a known Magician he threw the host his breaden God into the fire because it would not answer him in his Magical charms Many others of them have been professed Magicians some bold Atheists as Leo the 10. who said to Cardinal Bembus Behold what great riches we get by that fable of Christ Quantas opes nobis tulit ista fabula de Christo Most Adulterous Sodomites Simoniacks and some have lived in incest with their own Sisters and daughters insomuch that one of themselves gives this testimony Nemo hodie in Pentificibus Romanis virtutem aut pietatem requirit Invita Pauli tertii optimi putantur si vel mediocriter boni sint vel minus mali quam caeteri mortalium esse solent i. e. No man looks for virtue or godliness nowadays in the Popes they are accounted most excellent if they be but indifferently good or not quite so bad as other men The Cardinals and all their Clergy are like their head and father being allowed Sodomy fornication and adultery to keep them chast i. e. from marrying Where shall we find a man of sin if this be not him 2. Next consider we their wicked doctrines 1. That of absolute subjection to the Pope that whatsoever he commandeth must be done though never so wicked Bellarmine saith Etiamsi Papa erraret prohibendo virtutem praecipiendo vitium c. Though the Pope should forbid virtue and command vice he must be obeyed And their law saith si Papa totos populos secum in insernum traheret nemo potest ei dicere Domine cur ita facis i. e. Though the Pope should draw whole Nations into Hell with himself yet none may say to him why dost
Heathens they say they do not worship them as God the Heathens said the same and as truly but they do ascribe to them the praise trust homage and subjection fear and reverence which is due only to God which is above the condition and desert of our fellow Creatures who depend upon God and the merits of Christ as much as we and this doth take off the Heart from God and makes men believe that the Saints and Angels are nearer to us more merciful more ready to help us than God is and more concerned for our good than our blessed Lord whose whole work it is to redeem and interceed for us 6. Their imposing the belief of Transubstantiation and worship of the bread in the Sacrament Most of our Marian Martyrs were put to death upon this point only their not believing the real presence as they Papists call it of Christ in the Sacrament i. e. that the bread was substantially turned into the body of Christ If men would impose upon us the belief of the least untruth though in natural or civil things we must not submit to them much less when they impose such an untruth as this Tiansubstantiation which is against the plain letter of Scripture which saith that Christ did not only take which was before Consecration but also that he gave bread and wine to be eaten and drunk by his disciples which was after they were consecrated 1 Cor. 11.22 23. which is also against our senses the eye the smell the touch and taste all witnessing the Elements to be still bread and wine against Philosophie which teacheth such a change of one body into another especially so small a one as that of a Wafer into so large as the body of Christ to be absolutely impossible yea and against common reason which knows whence the bread and wine came how they were made how they go into the stomach are digested refresh and are carried off like other food should such a Paradox be admitted there can be no certainty in any thing For by the pretence of such a change or miracle all evidence may be evaded and so the Apostles that saw Christ in the body heard him handled him both before and after his Resurrection might for what we know be all mistaken and all the witnesses of the miracles that confirm both Testaments might all failin their sense and judgement of things and so nothing be certain in Religion seeing there is continually in innumerable places such a prodigie as the Host which is as they say the glorified body of Christ now in Heaven and yet sense and reason take it to be a bit of bread what may they not perswade and impose on people that can prevail with them to believe this The worshipping of the bread doth also destroy the nature and use of the Sacrament where instead of a comfortable remembrance of Christ and his death to increase faith in him and love to him men are taught only ignorantly to worship a bit of bread and that with more solemnity than Christ himself was honoured with on earth 7. Because they take away the cup from the people in the Sacrament hereby they take upon them to alter Christs institution at their pleasure they deprive the people not only of one part of the Sacrament but in so doing wholly obscure the meaning of the Sacrament for seeing they break not the bread but give it whole nor pour out the wine nor suffer the people to see and drink it the people have no representation of the death of Christ neither of the breaking or bruising of his body nor shedding his blood and in this the Papists are most insolent of any other their Corruptions for that their Councils of a Sess 13. Constance and b Sess 21. Trent do acknowledge that Christ gave both Elements to his disciples and that the Primitive Church continued the like custom for many ages and yet they can presume to alter it upon trivial reasons 8. The Papists greatly obscure the Doctrine of Justification the Gospel is the glad tydings of peace the word of reconciliation 2 Cor. 5. ch 19 20. v. that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself is the chief thing committed to the Ministers of the Gospel if therefore this be obscured the Gospel is in a great measure rendred ineffectual and the Ministry useless for the end it was appointed for It is the chief enquiry of sinful man what he should do to be saved Act. 16.31 and on this depends all his worship of God for till man be reconciled to God he cannot worship him acceptably nor can he trust love and fear God aright unless he know upon what grounds and in what way God will have this done If we lose the doctrine of Justification we lose the substance of the Gospel and of all Religion Now this the Papists do obscure so much that a man can scarce tell amidst their Doctrines what Christ hath done for him and what he must expect from Christ They say a natural man improving the gifts of nature doth in some fort merit the grace and spirit of God and when he hath that grace he doth ex condigno properly and of due debt merit the continuance of Gods favour and heaven it self yea over and above may merit for other men and if a man do commit sins after conversion his voluntary penances his patient bearing of Gods corrections in this world and Purgatory in the next together with alms-deeds fastings and such good works do make full satisfaction for all these sins and he that wants penance and satisfactions of his own may be supplied out of the treasury of the Church by Masses and the Popes indulgences Now this is not only the doctrine of Schoolmen but the chief part of Religion and worship among them and the chief things the Priests teach and are imploy'd about 9. The Popes claim of supremacy is blasphemous and not to be submitted to by the Churches Under the Gospel Christ hath appointed no high Priest to whom all Ministers should be subject no place of worship to which all Nations should repair no Mother Church on which they should depend none to be his Vicar on earth but all this the Pope and Church of Rome claim and usurp which tendeth to bring all the Churches on earth into bondage to them and to exclude the conduct of the spirit in the Ministers and Churches as if it were peculiar to them only it is also a power which no Creature is capable of and derogates from the honour of Christ who doth by his Godhead spirit and word preside in govern and guide his whole Church 10. Because the Papists have wholly changed the discipline of the Gospel into a pompous worldly Polity Christ appointed Pastors and teachers for the edifying of the Saints till they all come to the perfect man in Christ Eph. 4.12 13. but the Papists have changed this into a visible worldly Monarchy though under