following ages we will be tryed by them in the articles of our faith and in the principal controversies we have with the Papists Yea but this will not serve their turn It is the present Church that must judge or none For say they if the ancient Church had power so hath the present and if the ancient Church had possession of the truth how shall we know it but by the present I answer 1. We may know it by the Records of those times far surer then by the reports of men without writing Controversies or numerous mysterious points are sorrily carryed in the memories especially of the most even of the Teachers And for the Records one diligent skilfull man will know more then ten thousand others One Baronius Albaspinaeus Petavius among the Papists and one Usher Blondell Salmasius Gataker c. among the Protestants knew more of the mind of antiquity then a whole Country besides or perhaps then some Generall Councils 2. Well! but if you appeal to the greater number to them shall you go You must be tried by the present Church Why then you are condemned Is it the lesser number or the greater or the better that must be judge You will not say the leser as such If you do you know where you are If you say the Better part shall be judge who shall be Judge which is the Better part we are ready to prove the Reformed Churches the Better part and if we do not we will give you the day and lose our cause But I suppose you will appeal to the Greater part Content Then the world knows you are lost The Greeks Moscovites Armenians Abassines and all other Churches in Asia Africa and Europe are far more then the Papists and your own pens and mouths tell us that these are against you Many of them curse you as Hereticks or Schismaticks the rest of them know you not or refuse your government They all agree against your Popes universall Headship or Soveraignty and so against the very form of your new Catholick Church So that the world knows the Judgement of the far greatest part of Christians on earth to be against you in the main so that you see what you get by appealing to the Catholick Church But I know you will say that all these are Schismaticks or Hereticks and none of the Catholick Church But they say as much by you some of them and all of them abhor your charge and how do you prove it and who shall be Judge whether they or you be the Catholick Church You tell us of your succession and of twenty tales that are good if you may be Judges your selves but so do they say as much which is good if they be Judges When we offer to dispute our case with you you ask us Who shall be Judge and tell us the Catholick Church must be Judge But who shall be Judge between you and them which is the Catholick Church you will not let us be Judges in our own cause and why then should you Are we Protestants the lesser number as to you so are you to all the rest that are against you And what reason have we to let the lesser number Judge over the Greater If still you say because you are the Better let that be first tryed but no reason you should there also be the Judges So that the case is plainly come to this Either the Papists must stand to the Greater number and then the controversie is at end or they must shamefully say we will not dispute with you unless we may be the Judges our selves though the fewer Or else they must lay by their talk of a Judge and dispute it equally with us by producing their evidence which we are ever ready for CHAP. XVIII Detect 9. THE most common and prevalent Deceit of the Papists is by ambiguous terms to deceive those that cannot force them to distinguish and to make you believe they mean one thing when they mean another and to mock you with cloudy words I shall here warn you to look to them therefore especially in three terms on which much of their controversies lies that is the words Church Pope and Council For there 's but few understand what they mean by any one of these words 1. When you come to dispute of the Church with them see that you agree first under your hands of the Definition of that Church of which you dispute And when you call them to Define it you will find them in a wood you will little think how many severall things it is that they call the Church For example sometime they mean the whole Body Pastors and People but more commonly they mean only the Pastors which are the far smallest part And sometime they mean the Church Reall and sometimes only the Church Representative as they call it in a Generall Councill But whether they mean the Pastors or People they exclude all saving the Pope of his subjects and so by the Church mean but a part or sect Sometime in the Question about Tradition some of the French take the Church for the community as fathers deliver the doctrine of Christ to their children c. And sometime they take it in its Politicall sence for a holy society consisting of a visible Head and members But then they agree not of that Head some setting the Pope highest and some the Councill But frequently they take the word Church for the supposed Head alone as in most questions about Infallibility Judging of Controversies expounding Scripture keeping of Traditions defining points of faith c. They say The Church must do these but commonly they mean the supposed Head And one part mean a Generall Councill and the Jesuites and Italians and predominant part do mean only the Pope so that when they talk of the whole Catholick Church and call you to its Judgement and boast of its Infallibility you would little think it they mean all this while but one poor sinfull man and such a man as sometime hath been more unlearned then many of your school boys of twelve or fourteen years of age and sometime hath been a Murderer Adulterer and if General Councils or the common vote may be believed an Heretick an Infidel an Incarnate Devil This man is their Church as Gretser Bellarmine and the rest of that strain profess So that if you do but force them to define and explain what they mean by the Church you will either cause them to open their nakedness or find them all to pieces about the very subject of the Dispute 2. So also when they use the name of a Pope in disputation make them explain themselves and tell you in a Definition what they mean by a Pope For though you would think this term were sufficiently understood yet you shall find them utterly at a loss and all to pieces about it Let us consider distinctly of the Efficient Matter and Form 1 As to the efficient cause of their Pope
as gross as common even an abuse of Cyprians words l. 1. Ep. 3. where Cyprian speaks for the necessity of obeying One in the Church meaning a particular Church as the whole scope of his Epistle testifieth And this man would make them simple believe that he speaks of the Universal Church His Reasons proceed thus First p. 128. c. he tells us that the invisible God thinks meet to Govern the world by visible men Answ And who denies that Christ also governeth his Church by men But he concludeth hence Num alia ratione c. Shall we believe that Christ doth govern his Church in another way then God governeth the whole world Answ Reader doth not this man give up the cause of the Pope and say as much against it fundamentally as a Protestant Saith Boverins We must not believe that Christ doth govern the Church in another way then God doth govern the world But saith common sense and experience God doth not govern the whole world by any one or two or ten Universal Vice-monarch Therefore Christ doth not Govern the Church by any one Universal Vice-monarch His next Reason is Because Christ was a visible Monarch once on earth himself And if the Church had need of a visible Monarch then it hath need of it still Answ 1. Here the Reader may see that it is to no less then to be Christs successor or a Vice-christ that the Pope pretendeth And then the Reason if it were of any worth would as well prove that there must be one on earth still that may give the Holy Ghost immediately and make Articles of Faith de novo and Laws for the Church with promise of Salvation and may appoint new Offices and orders in the whole Church c. And why not one also to live without sin and to die for our sins and rise again and be our Saviour And why not one to give us his own body and blood in the Sacrament 2. Christ himself doth oppose himself to all terrestrial inhabitans saying One is your Master even Christ And what then why Be not ye called Masters But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant And Be not ye called Rabbi for one is your Master even Christ and all ye are Brethren Mat. 23. 8. 9 10 11 12. where most evidently he shews that neither Peter or any of his own Disciples were to be called Masters as Christ was nor was any such to be on earth and so no Vice-christ yea that all his Apostles being Brethren were not to be Masters one to another but servants so that here is a plain bar put in against any of Peters Mastership or Headship of the Universal Church 3. We do on these and many other Reasons deny your consequence It follows not that we must still have a Christ on earth because we once had 4. Christ hath chosen another Vicar though invisible as Tertullian calls him and that is the Holy Ghost whom he sent to make such supply as was necessary by various gifts proportioned to the several states and members of the Church 5. If Christ would have left a Vice-christ upon earth which should have been an Essential part even the Head of his Church he would doubtless have plainly expressed it in Scripture and described his Office and Power and given him directions to exercise it and us directions how to know which is he and to obey him But there is not a word of any such matter in the Scripture nor Antiquity when yet it is a point if true of such unspeakable importance 6. You might at well feign that if it were then necessary to have twelve or thirteen Apostles it is so still and if then it was necessary to have the gift of tongues and miracles it is so still which yet the Pope himself is void of 7. It is not enough for your silly wit to say its fit that Christ have a Successor therefore he hath one but let him that claimeth so high an honour as to be the Vice-christ produce his Commission and prove his claim if he will be believed 8. Christ is still the visible Head of his Church seen in Heaven and as much seen over all the world except Judea and Egypt as ever he was When he was on earth he was not visible at Rome Spain Asia c. He that is Emperor of the Turkish Monarchy perhaps was never personally an hundred miles from Constantinople The King of Spain is no visible Monarch in the West-Indies And if all the world except Judea might be without a Present Christ then why that may not as well as the rest you must give him an account if you will tie him to be here resident 9. And yet if the Pope would usurp no more Power then Christ exercised visibly on earth it would not be all so bad as it is or hath been He would not then divide inheritances nor be a temporal Prince nor wear a Triple Crown nor keep so glorious a Court and Retinue nor depose Princes nor deny them tribute nor exempt his Prelates from it nor from their judgement Seats nor absolve their Subjects from their fidelity c. nor trouble the world as now he doth He would not exercise the power of putting any to death much less would he set up Inquisitions to burn poor people for reading the Scriptures or no being of his mind Pag. 133. He makes Christ the visible Pope while he was on earth and tells us that Promulgating the Gospel sending Apostles instituting Sacraments c. were Pontificalia munera Papal Offices Answ And indeed was Christ a Pope and is the Pope a Christ Jesus I know and Peter and Paul I know but this Vice-christ I know not If indeed the Vice-christ have power to do these Papal works to promulgate a new Gospel to send out Apostles to institute Sacraments c. as Christ did let us but know which be the Popes Sacraments and which be Christs which be the Popes Apostles and which be Christs and which is the Popes Gospel and which is Christs and we shall use them accordingly The Law and Testimony will help us to distinguish them Pag. 134. He comes to prove that Christ hath a Successor and his first proof is from Mic. 2. Let the Reader peruse it and judge without any help of mine what proof there is that the Pope is a Vice-christ The next is in Hosea 1. which speaketh of the return of the Israelites from Captivity Let the Reader make his best on it for the Pope for I think it not worth my labour to confute the Papists impudent perverting such Texts as these By the way he tells us as Card. Richlieu and the rest commonly do that its no dishonour to Christ to have a Deputy no more then for the King of England to have a Deputy or Vice-king in Ireland Answ 1. But our first question is Whether de facto such a thing be Prove that Christ hath Commissioned a
from or disobeyeth the uncharitable Clergy but he is stigmatized for an Heretick and charged with almost as much wickedness as their mouths are wide enough to utter and the ears of other men to hear What horrid things have they spoken of the poor Waldenses and Albigenses and Bohemians Of Luther Oecolampadius Calvin and who not Though I have had applauding flattering Letters from some of them that tryed whether I were flexible and ductile yet I doubt not but I shall have my share my self before they have done with me I wonder I hear not of it before now Hence among other reasons its like that Mr. Pierce became so destitute of Charity as to disgorge his sould of so many bitter reproaches and calumnies against the Puritans and Presbyterians whom if he know not he sinneth but as Paul did but if he know he terrifieth us from his principles by the fruits that which shews the want of Charity shews the want of saving Grace and consequently the want of right to Glory Hence it is that the greatest Schismaticks are the commonest accusers of their Brethren with schism Pharisaically saying I thank thee Lord that I am not as other men nor as these Schismaticks Hence also it is that so many learned well-meaning Papists do so pervert their studies and endeavors and abuse and lose and worse then lose their wits and parts to draw men to their way compassing Sea and Land to make a Romish Proselite especially of a Prince or man of power interest or ability to serve them What pains take they to draw Nations to their minds and to embroil the world in contentions and confusions to attain their ends What horrid persecutions Massacres and barbarous inhumane cruelties have multitudes of men of learning and good parts and natures been ingaged in by the very Principle that I now confute and for the promoting of their kind of Unity and Concord in wicked and impossible ways 7. Besides this it takes men off from seeking the true Peace of the hurch while they mistakingly pursue a false peace The Devil the cunning Enemy of Concord hath not a more effectual way to take men off from the ways and means of holy Concord then by starting them a false game and causing them to lay out all their labor to build a Babel when they should be building Zion Oh what a blessed state might the Church be in if all the Jesuites Fryers Prelates Priests and others had laid out that labor for a righteous possible Unity and Peace in Gods appointed way which they have vainly and impiously laid out to unite the world in a Vice-christ or Vice-god Fore seeing and at present feeling many of these calamitous consequences to the Church I think it of exceeding moment that mens judgements should be rectified that are misled concerning the nature of the unity of the Church Still professing that to me they are the dearest Christians and nearest to my heart that are most for Unity and Concord so it be in Christ and upon righteous possible conditions CHAP. II. The true State of the Controversie and how much we grant HAving given you an account of the Occasion and Motives that produced this Disputation I shall now briefly state the Controversie between us And because the terms are all plain and my sense of them explained in the fore-going part I shall think no more here necessary then to tell you in certain Propositions How much we Grant and How far we are Agreed and then to tell you what it is that we deny and wherein we differ Prop. 1. We are Agreed that Christ hath a true Catholick Church on earth and ever hath had since first he planted it and ever will have to the end of the world and that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it or hath it ever had an Intercision for a day or an hour and that this Church is so far Infallible as that it never was nor ever will be ignorant of or erroneous against any Article of faith or part of obedience that is of absolute Necessity to salvation otherwise by that error it should have ceased to be the Church of Christ Prop. 2. We are agreed that this Catholick Church in respect of the Internal faith and charity of the Members and their Communion with Christ by the quickening Spirit on his part and holy sincere returns of devotion on theirs may be called Mystical or Invisible The thing is utterly undenyable though some Papists in the perversness of contentious Disputations seem to deny it And doubtless when they assert that Christ hath no Invisible Church they must mean it simply and not quoad haeo interiora or else they speak against all sense and Reason No man is simply Invisible but every man as to his soul is Invisible Prop. 3. We are Agreed that this Catholick Church in regard of the outward Profession of this Inward Faith and Holiness and in regard of the discernable numbers of persons making this Profession hath ever been visible since first it began to be visible And that the visibility hath never had any intercision If some Protestanss say otherwise it 's clear that this is all that by the common judgement of Protestants is maintained viz. That Christians and the Catholick Church containing the Professing Christians through the world have ever since their first planting had a visible being but yet 1. That the Visibility was not such but that Hereticks as the Arrians did might make a controversie of it whether they or the true Christians were the Church indeed and by their greater numbers or Power might blind men that they should not see which was the true Church 2. And that in the Catholick Church some parts may be much more corrupt and others much more pure and the Purer part be so much the lesser and oppressed and vilified by the more corrupt that the most part should not discern their Purity but take them as they did the Waldenses for Hereticks 3. And that two parts or more of this Catholick Church may so fall out among themselves as that one of them shall deny the other to be part of the Catholick Church when yet they really for all that censure remain parts of it as much as they And hereupon may grow a contest between them which of the two is the true Catholick Church and one part may say It is we and not you and the other may say It is we and not you and no man shall be able to discern which of the two is the Catholick Church because it is neither of them but each are a part 4. And though the Bodies of the members are visible and their Worshipping actions Visible and their Profession audible yet the faith Professed is not Visible nor the Truth of their Profession or of their Christianity or Church Truth being the object of the Intellect and not of sence 5. And though the true members of the Church do know the true Church
and so it is apparent unto them yet most that are not members of it do not know it Arrians and Mahometans know us to be men professing such and such Articles of faith but they know not that to be the true faith nor us to be the true Church but judge the contrary In this sence contained in these Propositions it is that Protestants deny the Church to have been alwayes Visible and not as the Papists commonly mistake them Prop. 4. We are agreed that this Catholick Church is but One There are not two Visible nor two Mystical Catholick Churches Nor are the Mysticall and Visible two Bellarmine might have spared all his labour that he hath bestowed in vain upon this point to prove that the Visible and Invisible are not two Catholick Churches The Protestants are further from that Opinion then the Papists and it is more suitable to the Popish Interest and Cause to be of that Opinion then to the Protestants If it were not that they are past learning by the advantage of their Infallibility and especially of one man and one so mean condemned by them and that it is unlawfull to be a Teacher of Error I could tell them of a new device by the advantage of this distinction of Catholick Churches for the modelling their mistakes into a more specious plausible form then now it appeareth in to the rest of the Churches But we are glad of their company in any Truth and therefore will not disagree from them in that which makes against themselves One Objection I once heard a Learned Anabaptist cast in our way viz. There may be a Visible Church of hypocrites therefore the Mystical and Visible may be two Answ But the Question was of the Catholick Church and not of a particular Church We confess that some members of the Catholick Church are Mystical and Visible in the several respects before mentioned and that some are Visible and not Mystical or as Bellarmine well calls them Dead Members and not Living and that the Church as Visible is more comprehensive then the Church as Regenerate or Invisible and yet all but One Church though it have more members in it in one respect then in another And we confess that its possible for twenty or an hundred of these Dead members to constitute a particular Church by themselves though it is not usual for Visible Churches to be without Living members and so there may be a particular Visible Dead Member Analogically called a Member or a particular Visible Church that is thus Dead and these be parts of the Catholick Church as Visible But yet there is not two Catholick Churches One Visible and the other Invisible one alive and the other Dead In a Corn field there are 1. Good Corn. 2. Stricken blasted Corn that hath a name and shew but in deed no Corn. 3. Tares darnell cockle and such weeds It is called A Field as it conteineth them all It is called a Corn field only from the Corn. The Univocal proper parts of a Corn field is the Corn only The Visible and Analogical parts are also the blasted ears The darnel and cockle are no parts but noxious accidents There are not two fields of Corn one of true Corn and the of other blasted ears And yet the Corn field taken largely and Analogically hath more parties in it then true Corn and you may perhaps have some particular sheavs that are wholly of that which is blasted which you will call a sheaf of Corn Analogically only but a sheaf of weeds you will not at all call a sheaf of Corn. Even so in the Catholick Church there are sincere Christians which are true and living members and there are Hypocrites which are Analogically members and there are locally mixed many that by denying essential points of the Christian faith or by notorious Impiety do declare themselves to be weeds and no members of the Church at all Prop. 5. We are also Agreed that this One Visible Catholick Church is One Political Holy Society as united in Jesus Christ the Head who teacheth and ruleth it by his Ministers and other Officers in the several parts according to the necessity of each We call it One Political Society 1. Principally because that all the Church is united in this One Soveraign or Head the Lord Jesus and therefore it is called his body 2. They have all the same holy doctrine of faith and Law to live by and be judged by 3. They have all Church Officers of the same sort under Christ to teach and govern them 4. They have all the same kind of Holy Ordinances as Reading Preaching Praying Praise Sacraments c. appointed them by the Lord. 5. They are all engaged in One and the same Holy Covenant to the Lord More might be mentioned and shall be God willing in a peculiar Treatise of Catholicism or the Catholick Church And though Christ himself be not now seen among us yet may he truly be called a Visible Head For 1. He sometime lived visibly on earth 2. And is now the Visible King of all the Church as he is in the Heavens Though we see him not the Celestiall Inhabitants do It is but little of the world that seeth the Pope any more then they see Christ If one unseen to us may be a pretended Visible Head the other may be truly so So that the Body Head Laws Worship c. being Visible so is the Policy Prop. 6. We are agreed also that all these Christians and particular Churches are obliged by Christ even by the very Law of Nature and the ends of their calling and the General Laws of the Gospell to live in as much Love and Unity and Peace as they can and to hold as full and extensive communion as they can that is as far as their work requireth and their Capacity will permit and enable them those that are cohabitans and members of one Congregation must hold local communion in that Congregation unless Necessity prohibite Those that through distance are uncapable of joining in the same Assemblies should yet be conjoined 1. In the same Lord Faith Baptism Covenant Profession 2. In the same bond of Christian special Love 3. In the use of the same sort of holy worship as to the Substance though they differ in circumstances as in the Word Prayer Praises Sacraments c. 4. And in one sort of Church Officers and Government And as far as we have to do with each other all this should be manifested and we should readily own one another as Brethren and true Churches notwithstanding lesser differences Prop. 7. To these ends it is meet that the Bishops or Pastors of the Churches should hold in way of Association as frequent Assemblies as is needfull for the maintaining of mutual Love and Correspondency and right understanding of each other and to manifest their unity and assist each other in the work of God that it may be the more successfully carried on by united strength against
as well able to prove that a London Convocation was a General Council Pighius pleading for the Pope saith plainly that General Councils were the devise of Constantine And the Popes themselves do fetch the most specious Evidences for their primacy from the Decrees or Edicts of Emperors Valentinian Gratian and others And what power had those Emperors at the other side of the world 3. And then before the Nicene Council what General Councils were there since the Apostle days None doubtless that the world now knows of It 's senseless enough to think that 350 Roman Bishops at the second Council of Nice or the 150 Bishops in the third Council at Constantinople or the 165 Bishops at the second Council at Constantinople or the 150 Bishops at the first there were the Universal Church of Christ But it will be more ridiculous to say that the new-found Concilium Sinuessanum imagined without proof to meet in a certain Cave for the deposition of an Idolatrous Pope were a General Council Where then was the Head the unity the form of the Church for 300 years Was it governed all that time think you by a General Council yea or ever one day since the Apostles Well but was there ever such a thing at all Indeed men have a fairer pretence when the Church was contained in a family or a City or a narrow space to call the meetings of the Apostles or other Christians then by the name of a General Council but they are hard put to it if this be all The great Instance insisted on is the Council Act. 15. But were the Bishops of all the Churches there or summoned to appear Act. 14. 23. they had ordained them Elders in every Church but few of them were there Timothy Titus abundance were absent It 's plain that it was to the Apostles and Church at Hierusalem as the Fountain and best informers that they sent Not because these were the Universal Church but because they were of greatest knowledge and authority If it could be proved that all the Apostles were there it would no more prove them a General Council then that the Deacons of one Church were ordained by a General Council Act. 6. And Matthias and Justus put to the Lot by a General Council Act. 1. and that Christ appeared to a General Council after his Resurrection and gave the Sacrament of his Supper to a General Council before his death So that it is most evident from the event that Christ never made a General Council the Head or Governor of his Church and that there never was such a thing the world much less continually Argum. 3. The form or unity no nor the well-being of the Catholick Church dependeth not on that which is either unnecessary unjust or naturally or morally impossible But a true General Council is none such It cannot be or if it were it would be unnecessary and unjust Therefore it is not the Head or Soveraign Governor of the Church on which its being unity or well being doth depend I have nothing here to prove but the Minor And 1. I shall prove the Impossibility 2. The non-necessity 3. The unjustice of a General Council and so that no such thing is to be expected A true General Council consisteth of all the Pastors or Bishops of the whole world or so many as Morally may be called All. A General Council of Delegates from all the Churches must consist of so many proportionably chosen as may signifie the sense and consent of all or else it is a meer name and shadow Both these are Morally if not Naturally Impossible as I prove 1. From the distance of their habitations some dwell in Mesopotamia some in Armenia some in Ethiopia some in Mexico the Philippines or other parts of the East and West-Indies some at St. Thome's some dispersed through most of the Turks Dominions Now how long must it be before all these have tidings of a Council and summons to appear or send their Delegates Who will be at the cost of sending messengers to all these Will the Pope Not if he be no richer then Peter was How many hundred thousand pound will it cost before that all can have a lawful summons And when that is done it will be long before they can all in their several Nations meet and agree upon their Delegates and their instructions And when that is done who shall bear their charges in the journey Alas the best of the Churches Pastors have had so little gold and silver that they are unable themselves to defray it A few Bishops out of each of these distant Countries will consume in their journey a great deal of money and provision To provide them shipping by Sea and Horses and all other necessaries by land for so many thousand miles will require no small allowance And then consider that it must be voluntary contribution that must maintain them And most love their money so well and know so little of the need of such journeys and Councils that doubtless they will not be very forward to so great a contribution And it is not to be expected that Infidel Princes will give way to the transporting of so much money from their countries on the Churches occasions which they hate But suppose them furnished with all necessaries and setting forward How long will they be in their journey Shipping cannot always be had Many of them must go by land It cannot be expected that some of them should come in less than three or four if not seven years time to the Council And will ever a General Council be held upon these terms 2. Moreover the persons for the most part are not able to perform such journeys Bishops are Elders Most of them are aged persons The wisest are they that are fit to be trusted in so great a business by all the rest And few attain that maturity but the aged Especially in the most of the Eastern Southern Churches that want the helps of Learning which we have And will the Churches be so barbarous as to turn out their aged faithful Pastors upon the jaws of death Some of them are not like to live out so long time as the journey if they were at home They must pass through raging and tempestuous Seas through Deserts and enemies and many thousand miles where they must daily conflict with distress It were a fond conceit to think that without unusual providences ten Bishops of a thousand â—â—ould come alive to the Council through all these labors and difficulties And moreover it 's known how few bodies will bear the Seas and so great change of air How many of our Souldiers in the Indies are dead for one that doth survive And can ancient Bishops spent with studies and labors endure all this Most studious painful Preachers here with us are very sickly and scarse able to endure the small incommodities of their habitations And could they endure this 3. Moreover abundance of the Pastors of
the Papists to call for express Scripture for these that are not Articles of Faith in proper sence CHAP. XLIV Detect 35. ONE of their Practical Deceits consisteth in the choosing of such persons to dispute with against whom they find that they have some notable advantage 1. Commonly they deal with women and ignorant people in secret who they know are not able to gainsay their falsest silliest reasonings 2. If they deal with a Minister it is usually with one that hath some at least of these disadvantages 1. Either with some young or weak unstudyed man that is not verst in their way of Controversie 2. Or one that is not of so voluble and plausible a tongue as others For they know how much the tonguing and toning of the matter doth take with the common people 3. Or with one that hath a discontented people that bear him some ill will and are ready to hearken to any one that contradicteth him 4. Or else with one that hath fixt upon some unwarrantable notions and is like to deal with them upon terms that will not hold And if they see one hole in a mans way of arguings they will turn all the brunt of the Contention upon that as if the discovery of his peculiar Error or weakness were the Confutation of his Cause And none give them greater advantage here then those that run into some contrary extream They think to be Orthodox by going as far from Popery as the furthest About many notions in the matter of Justification Certainty of Salvation the nature of Faith the use of Works c. they will be sure to go with the furthest And a Jesuite will desire no better sport then to have the baiting of one that holds any such opinion as he knows himself easily able to disgrace One unsound Opinion or Argument is a great disadvantage to the most learned Disputant Most of all the insultings and success of the Papists is from some such unsound passages that they pick up from some Writers of our own as I said before And they set all those together and tell the world that This is the Protestant Religion Just as if I should give the Description of a Nobleman from all the blemishes that ever I saw in any Nobleman As if I have seen one crook-backt another blind another lame another dumb another deaf another a whoremonger another a drunkard c. I should say that A Nobleman is a whoremonger and drunkard c. that hath neither eyes nor ears nor limbs to bear him c. So deal they by Protestants And what a Character could we give of Papists on these terms But I would intreat all the Ministers of Christ to take heed of giving them any such advantage By over-doing and running too far into contrary extreams you will sooner advantage them and give them the day then the weakest Disputants that stand on safer grounds Inconsiderate heat and self-conceitedness and making a faction of Religion is it that carryeth many into extreams when Judgement and Charity and Experience are all for Moderation and standing on safe ground A Davenant a Lud. Crocius a Camero a Dallaeus c. will more successfully confute an Arminian then a Maccovius a so it is here The world sees in the Answer of Knot what an advantage Chillingworth had by his Principles when the Jesuite having little but the reproachful slander of a Socinian name and cause to answer with hath lost the day and shewed the world how little can be said for Popery CHAP. XLV Detect 36. ANother of their Practical frauds is in seeking to Divide the Protestants among themselves or to break them into Sects or poyson the ductile sort with Heresies and then to draw them to some odious practises to cast a disgrace on the Protestant Cause In this and such Hellish practises as this they have been more successful then in all their Disputations But whether the Cause be of Heaven or Hell that must be thus upheld I leave to the considerate to judge What they have done abroad in this way I leave others to enquire that are more fit But we all smart by what they have done at home Yet this I may well say that if their own secular Priests are to be believed as Watson and many more It is their Jesuites that have set many Nations in those flames whose cause the world hath not observed And I may well set down the words of a Priest of their own John Brown aged seventy two in his Voluntary Confession to a Committee of Parliament as it is in Mr. Prins Introduct pag. 202. Saith he The whole Christian world doth acknowledge the prediction which the University of Paris doth foresee in two several Decrees they made Anno 1565. When the Society of Jesuites did labour to be members of that University Hoc genus hominum natus est ad interitum Christianae Reipubliae subvertionem literarum They were the only cause of the troubles which fell out in Muscovie when under pretence to reduce the Latine Church and plant themselves and destroy the Greek Church the poor King Demetrius and his Queen and those that followed him from Polonia were all in one night murdered by the monstrous Usurper of the Crown and the true progeny rooted out They were the only cause that moved the Swedes to take Arms against their lawfull King Sigismund and chased him to Poland and neither he nor his successors were ever able to take possession of Sweden For the Jesuites intention was to bring in the Romish Religion and root out Protestants They were the only cause that moved the Polonians to take Arms against the said Sigismund because they had perswaded him to marry two sisters one after the other both of the house of Austria They have been the sole cause of the war entered in Germany since the year one thousand six hundred and nineteen as Pope Paulus 15. told the General of their Order called Vicelescus for their avarice pretending to take all the Church lands from the Hussites in Bohemia to themselves which hath caused the death of many thousand by sword famine and pestilence in Germany They have been the cause of civil wars in France during all which time moving the French King to take Arms against his own subjects the Protestants where innumerable people have lost their lives as the siege of Rochell and other places will give sufficient proof For the Jesuites intentions were to set their society in all Cities and Towns conquered by the King and quite to abolish the Protestants They were the cause of the murder of the last King of France They were the only projectors of the Gunpowder Treason and their Penitents the actors thereof They were the only cause namely Father Parsons that incensed the Pope to send so many fulminate Breves to these Kingdoms to hinder the Oath of Allegiance and lawfull Obedience to their temporal Prince that they might still fish in troubled waters Their
did consist in a General Council that must be fetched partly from the Antipodes they would have thought better on it before they had excommunicated Virgilius for saying that there were Antipodes or quod alius mundus alii homines sunt sub terras Dr. Heylin tels us in his Geography Lib. 1. pag. 25. that Bede de ratione temporum cap. 32. calleth it a fable that there are Antipodes and not to be believed and adds that Augustine Lactantius and some other of the Learned of those better times condemned it as a ridiculous incredible fable whose words saith he I could put down at large did I think it necessary And did that age dream that the Being or Unity of the Church or the salvation of the Believers soul depended on this Article that a General Council partly called from the Antipodes must be the Churches Head or Governours or that the Pope at least must be acknowledged and obeyed by every Christian soul that will be saved at the Antipodes And Sir Fradcis Drake and Cavendish would not have been so famous for compassing the world if men had understood that when the Gospel is spread through the earth so many poor old Bishops must ordinarily take half such Journies or voyages to do their business If the Decree of the Council of Constance had been executed to have had a General Council evry ten years many would scarce have had time to go and come But the charitable Church of Rome hath found out a Remedy not only by the rarity of their Councils let them decree what they will to the contrary but also by condemning the most of the Churches and the remotest as Hereticks and sending them to Hell to save them a journey to the General Council 12. Moreover such Councils are unjust because of the multi tude of Bishops that must there meet and cannot be heard speak As the case standeth already there are many more Bishops in the world then can meet and speak and hear in one or two or three Assemblies And many thousand more may be made If I should say that all the Rectors of particular Churches whom they call Parish Presbyters are Bishops and have votes in Councils they would easilyer deny it then disprove it or invalidate the proofs already brought But to proceed on their own grounds me thinks they that make him a Bishop who hath Presbyters and Deacons under him should admit all those Pastors of particular Churches that have Presbyters under them as their Curates which are many Or if they say that only Cities must have Bishops yet must they on their own grounds admit a Bishop for each City And if every City in a few Kingdoms in Europe had a Bishop in the Council there would be no room for all the rest of the world But how prove they that Countrey Parishes may not have Bishops Why may not on their own grounds every four or six parishes have one Hath God forbid it where and when sure they will not say it is of Divine institution that a Bishop have just so many Parishes and Presbyters under him and neither more nor less The number is confest to be left undetermined And what if Christian Princes Bishops and people agree to settle Bishops in every such small number of Parishes by what Law can they exclude them from a General Council If they say by the Canons of former Councils I answer 1. Those Canons are contrary to Scripture 2. They contradict one another 3. They themselves do not obey the Canons of many such Councils 4. Those Councils have no power to make Laws much less Laws that shall reach to this time and place But they will say Pauls command to Titus 1. 3 5. and the example Acts 14. 23. is only of ordained Elders or Bishops in every City therefore they may not ordain them any where but in Cities But I deny the consequence Most ancient interpreters by Elders Acts 14. 23. Understand meer Presbyters And then it would as much follow that Presbyters must be ordained no where but in Cities What if I can prove that the Apostles never gathered a solemn Assembly of Christians for Divine Worship any where but in Cities or that they never administred the Lords Supper any where but in Cities will it follow that therefore we ought not to Assemble or administer the Sacrament any where but in Cities But what if this were granted they cannot deny but every corporation such as most of our Burroughs and Market Towns in England are may truly be called Cities in that Scripture sence And if every such City had a Bishop Even England France Germany and Italy a little spot of the world would make Bishops enough for two or three Councils and more then could Assemble and do the work Two shifts they have against the over-greatness of the number One is the course now taken to have but one Bishop over many Cities and a very large Circuit of the Countrey The other is to depute one out of many from every Countrey to represent the rest and so it shall be a Representative General Council though not a Real But for the first 1. Who hath authority to make such diminutions 2. What if those that are supposed to have that authority shall be otherwise minded 3. It s apparently against the word of God and tendeth to the frustrating of the Office that true Bishops should be so rare By their own Rule each City should have one And let Brerewoods Enquiries or any such writers help you to conjecture how many that would be And for the other way 1. A Representative General Council is another thing quite different from a Real 2. What word of God have they to prove such a Representative Council Doubtless none And will they give us a Church form and center of Unity meerly of their own brains upon supposition that it is prudential 3. Men are of exceeding different degrees of understanding and of different judgements actually so that if e. g. England should send one or two or ten men to represent the rest to a General Council it s more then possible that they may give their judgements in many points so far contrary to the minds of those that sent them that twenty or an hundred to one at home may be against them For we cannot send our understandings and all our reasons with them to the Council when we send them And so no man can say that any such Council doth express the mind of the greater part of the Church 4. By this rule you may reduce a General Council to a dozen men or to the four or five Patriarks For all the rest may choose them as their representatives 5. But it s not to be expected that all the Churches should be satisfied of the lawfulness or fitness of such substitutions and representations And therefore they will not consent or elect men for such a power and work And who may justly force them 13. Moreover such