the order you mention exclude that which you would introduce Or would you prove that Bishops by the Law of this Land have a jurisdiction superior unto Ministers who ever went about to deny it or what will the remembrance of it advance your pretensionâ— And yet neither is this fairly expressed by you For as no Protestants assert the King to be in his power and office interposed between Christ and Bishops or Ministers as to their ministerial office which is purely spiritual so the power of supream Jurisdiction which they ascribe unto him is not as you falsly insinuate granted unto him by the Laws of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth but is an inseparable Priviledge of his imperial Crown exercised by his Royal Predecessours and asserted by them against the inâ—rusions and usurpations of the Pope of Rome only diclared by those and other Laws But I perceive you have another design in hand You are entring upon a discourse wherein you compare your selves not only with Presbyterians and Independents but Prelate Protestants also in what you ascribe unto Kings in Ecclesiastical affairs preferring your selves before and above them all What just cause you have so to do we shall afterwards consider Your Confidence in it at first view presents its selâ— unto us â— on whereas there was not in the Animadversions any occasion of it administred unto you and your self confess that your whole discourse about it is besides your purpose pag. 66. yet waving almost every thing that was incumbent upon you to have insisted on if you would not plainly have appeared vadimonium deseruisse and to have given up your Fiat as indefensible you divert into a long harangue about it The Thesis you would by various florishes give countenance unto is this That Papists in their deference unto Kings even in Ecclesiastical matters and in their principles of their obedience unto them 〈◊〉 Protestants of all sorts That this is not to ouâ— present purpose your self cannot but see and acknowledge Hower your Discourse such as it is relating to one special head of Difference between us shall be a part considered by its self in our next Chapter CHAP. 16. The Power assigned by Papists and Protestants unto Kings in matters Ecclesiastical Their several Principles discussed and compared YOur Discourse on this head is not reducible by Logick its self unto any method or rules of Argument For it is in general 1. So loose Ambigucus and Metaphorically expressed 2. So Sophistical and inclusive 3. So inconsistent in sundry instances with the Principles and practices of your Church if you speak intelligibly 4. So false and untrue in many particulars that it is scarcely for these excellent qualifications to be paralleld with any thing either in your Fiat or your Epistola First It is loose and ambiguous 1. Not stating what you intend by the Head of the Church which you discourse about 2. Noâ— determining whither the King be such an head of Execution in matter of Religion as may use the Liberty of his own judgement as to what he puts in execution or whether he be not bound to execute your Popes Determinations on the penalty of the forfeiture of his Christianity which I doubt we shall find to be your opinion 3. Not declaring wherein the power which you assign unto him is founded whether in Gods immediate institution oâ— the Concession of the Pope whereon it should solely depend unto whom it is in all things to be made subservient Secondly Sophistical 1. In playing with the ambiguity of that expression Head of the Church and by the advantage thereof imposing on Protestants contradictions between their profession and practice as though in the one they acknowledged the King to be head of the Church and not in the other whereas there is a perfect consonancy between them in the sence wherein they understand that expression shrowding your own sence and opinion in the mean time under the same ambiguity 2. In supposing an absolute universal Head of the whole Catholick Church and then giving reasons why no King can be that Head when you know that the whole Question is whither there by any such head of the Catholick Church on earth or no. 3. In supposing the Principles and practises of the Primitive Church to have been the same with those of the present Roman and those of the present Roman to have been all known and allowed of old which begs all that is in Controversie between us and sundry other instances of the like nature may be observed in it Thirdly Inconsistent with the Principles and Practices of your own Church both 1. In what you ascribe unto Kings and 2. In your stating of the power and Jurisdiction of your Pope if the ambiguity of your words and expressions will allow us to conclude what you intend or aim at Fourthly False 1. In matter of fact as to what you relate of the obedience of your Church unto Kings 2. In the principles and Opinions which you impose on your Advertaries 3. In the declaration that you make of your own and 4. In many particular Assertions whose consideration will afterwards occur This is a business I could have been glad you had not necessitated me to the Consideraâ—ion of for it cannot be truly and distinctly handled 〈…〉 such reflections upon your Church and way as may without extraordinary indulgence redound unto your disadvantage Your have by your own voluntary choice called me to the discussion of those Principles which have created you much trouble in these Nations and put you oftentimes upon attempting their disquiet Now these are things which I desire not I am but a private man and am very well contented you should enjoy all that peace and liberty which you think not meet in other Nations where the Pâ—wer is at your disposal to grant unto them that dissent from you Lex talionis should be far from influencing the minds of Christians in this matter however the equity of it may at any time be pleaded or urged to relieve others in other places under bondage and persecution But I am sure if I judge your proceedings against other men dissenting from you in Conscience to be unjustifiable by the Scripture or Light of Nature or suffrage of the Antient Church as I do I have no reason to desire that they should be drawn into president against their selves in any place in the world And therefore Sir had you provided the best colour you could for your own Principles and palliated them to the 〈◊〉 so to hide them from the eyes of those who it may be are ready to seek their disturbance and trouble from an apprehension of the evil that may ensue upon them and had not set them up in comparison with the Principles of Protestants of all sorts and for the setting off your own with the better grace and luster untruly and individiously reported theirs to expose them unto those thoughts and that severity from supream powers which you seek
Church yield any obedience or perform any acceptable worship unto God but what was founded on and regulated by his Word given unto them antecedently unto their obedience and worship to be the sole foundation and Rule of it That you have no concernment in what is or may be truly spoken of the Church we shall afterwards shew but it is not for the interest of Truth that wee should suffer you without controul to impose such absurd notions on the minds of men especially when you pretend to direct them unto a Settlement in Religion Alike true is it that the Church gives Authority unto the Scripture Every true Church indeed gives witness or Testimony unto it and it is its Duty so to do it holds it forth declares and manifests it so that it may be considered and taken notice of by all which is one main End of the Institution of the Church in this world But the Church no more gives Authority to the Scripture than it gives Authority to God himself He requires of men the discharge of that Duty which he hath assigned unto them but stands not in need of their suffrage to confirm his Authority It was not so indeed with the Idols of old of whom Tertullian said rightly Si Deus homini non placuerit Deus non erit The reputation of their Deity depended on the Testimony of men as you say that of Christ's doth on the Authority of the Pope But I shall not farther insist upon the disprovement of this vanity having shewed already that the Scripture hath all its Authority both in its self and in reference unto us from Him whose Word it is and wee have also made is appear that your Assertions to the contrary are meet for nothing but to open a door unto all Irreligiousness Prophaneness and Atheism so that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing sound or savoury nothing which an heart carefull to preserve its Loyalty unto God will not nauseate at nothing not suited to oppugn the fundamentals of Christian Religion in this your Position This ground well fixed you tell us 11. That the Church is infallible or cannot erre in what she teacheth to be believed And we ask you what Church you mean and how far you intend that it is infallible The only known Church which was then in the world was in the Wilderness when Moses was in the mount Was it infallible when it made the golden Calf and danced about it proclaiming a feast unto Jebovah before the Calf was the same Church afterward Infallible in the dayes of the Judges when it worshipped Baalim and Aftaroth or in the dayes of Jeroboam when it sacrificed before the Calves at Dan and Bethel or in the other branch of it in the dayes of Ahaz when the High-Priest set up an Altar in the Temple for the King to offer Sacrifice unto the gods of Damascus or in the dayes of Jehoiakiâ— and Zedekiah when the High-Priest with the rest of the Priests imprisoned and would have slain Jeremiah for preaching the word of God or when they preferred the worship of the Queen of Heaven before that of the God of Abraham Or was it infallible when the High-Priest with the whole Councel or Saâ—edrim of the Church judicially condemned as far as in them lay their own Messias and rejected the Gospel that was preached unto them You must inform us what other Church was them in the world or you will quickly perceive how ungrounded your generall Maxim is of the Churches absolute infallibility As farre indeed as it attends unto the Infallible Rule given unto it it is so but not one jot farther Moreover we desire to know What Church you mean in your Assertion or rather what is it that you mean by the Church Do you intend the Mystical Church or the whole number of Gods Elect in all Ages or in any Age militant on the Earth which principally is the Church of God Ephes. 5. 26 Or do you intend the whole diffused body of the Disciples of Christ in the world separated to God by Baptism and the Profession of saving truth which is the Church Catholick visible Or do you mean any particular Church as the Roman or constantinopolitan the French Dutch or English Church If you intend the first of These or the Church in the first sense we acknowledge that it is thus far infallible that no true member of it shall ever totally and finally renounce lose or forsake that faith without which they cannot please God and be saved This the Scripture teacheth this Austin confirmeth in an bundred places If you intend the Church in the second sense we grant that also so far unerring and infallible as that there ever was and ever shall be in the world a number of men making Profession of the saving Truth of the Gospel and yielding professed subjection unto our Lord Jesus Christ according unto it wherein consists his visible Kingdome in this world that never was that never can be utterly overthrown If you speak of a Church in the last sense then we tell you That no such Church is by virtue of any Promise of our Lord Jesus Christ freed from erring yea so farre as to deny the fundamentals of Christianity and thereby to lose the very being of a Church Whilst it continues a Church it cannot erre fundamentally because such Errours destroy the very being of a Church but those who were once a Church by their failing in the Truth may cease to be so any longer And a Church as such may so fail though every Person in it do not so for the individual members of it that are so also of the Mysticall Church shall be preserved in its Apostasie And so the Mysticall Church and the Catholick Church of Professors may be continued though all particular Churches should fail So that no Person the Church in no sense is absolutely freed in this world from the danger of all errours that is the condition wee shall attain in Heaven here where we know butin part wee are incapable of it The Church of the Elect and every member of it shall eventually be preserved by the power of the Holy Ghost from any such errour as would utterly destroy their Communion with Christ in Grace here or prâ—vent their fruition of him in Glory hereafter or as the Apostle speaks they shall assuredly be kept by the Power of God through faith unto salvation The Generall Church of Visible Professors shall be alwayes so farre preserved in the world as that there shall never want some in some place or other of it that shall profess all needfull saving Truths of the Gospel in the belief whereof and obedience whereunto a man may be saved But for Particular Churches as such they have no security but what lyes in their diligent attendance unto that Infallible Rule which will preserve them from all hutfull Errours if through their own default they neglect not to keep close unto it And your
for our Saviour tells us in the next words that the world cannot receive him that is men of the world carnally minded men cannot do so for he is the peculiar inheritance of those that are called sanctified and do believe Now if ever there was any world in the world any of the world in the earth some many of your Popes have been so and therefore by the testimony of Christ could not receive the Spirit that he promised unto his Church Again it is promised unto the Church Mysticall or Catholick in the first and chiefest notion of it that all her children shall be holy all taught of God and all that are so taught as our Saviour informs us come to him by saving faith you will not I am sure for shame affirm that this Promise hath been made good to all either Children or Fathers of your Church Innumerable other Promises made to the Catholick Church may be instanced in which you can no better or otherwise apply unto your Church than one of your Popes did that of the Psalmist to himself Thou shalt tread on the Lion and the Basilisk when he set his foot on the neck of Fredrick the Emperour But the Arguments are endless whereby the vanity of this pretence may be disproved I shall only adde Sixtly That it is contrary to all Story Reason and common sense For it is notorious that far the greatest part of Christians that belong to the Catholick Church of Christ of have done so from the dayes that Christianity first entred the world successively in all Ages never thought themselves any otherwise concerned in the Roman Church than in any other particular Church of name in the world And is it not a madness to exclude them all from being Christians or belonging to the Catholick Church because they belonged not to the Roman This I could easily demonstrate throughout all Ages of the Church successively But we need not insist longer on the disproving of that Assertion which implyes a flat Contradiction in the very terms of it If any Church be the Catholick it cannot therefore be the Roman and if it be the Roman properly it cannot therefore be the Catholick 2. If you shall say that you mean only that you are a Particular Church of Christ but yet that or such a Particular Church as hath the great Priviledges of Infallibility and universall Authority annexed unto it which makes it of necessity for all men to submit unto it and to acquiesce in its Determinations I answer 1. I fear you will not say so you will not I fear renounce your claim unto Catholicism I have already observed that your self in particular affirm the Roman and Catholick Church to be one and the same It is not enough for you that you belong any way to the Church of Christ but you plead that none do so but your selves 2. Indeed you do not own your selves in this very Assertion to be a Particular Church your claim of Universall Authority and Jurisdiction which you still carry along with you is inconsistent with any such concession 3. To make the best of it that we can what ground have you to give us this Difference between the Churches of Christ that one is fallible another infallible that one hath power over all the rest that one depends on Christ all the rest on that one where is the least intimation given of any such thing in the Scripture where or by whom is it expresly asserted amongst the Antient Writers of the Church Was this Principle pleaded or once asserted in any of the Antient Councels Some ambiguous expressions of particular Persons most of them Bishops of Rome in the declining days of the Church you produce indeed unto this purpose But can any rationall man think them a sufficient foundation of that stupendious fabrick which you endeavour to erect upon them I suppose you will not find any such Persons hasty in their so doing Those who are already engaged will not be easily recovered For new Proselytes unto these Principles you have small ground to expect any unless it be of Persons whose lives are either tainted with sensuality which they would gladly have a refuge for against the accusations of their Consciences or whose minds are entangled with worldly secular advantages suited to their conditions tempers and inclinations Thus I have with what briefness I could shewed you the uncertainty indeed falsness of those Generall Principles from which you educe all your other pleas and reasonings into which they must be resolved And now I pray consider the ground-work you lay for the bringing of men unto a Settlement in the Truth and unto the unity of Faith in opposition to the Scripture which you reject as insufficient unto this purpose The summe of it is an acquiesceney in the proposals and Determinations of your Church as to all things that concern faith and the worship of God The two main Principles that concurre unto it we have apart considered and have found them every way insufficient for the end proposed Neither have they one jot more of strength when they are complicated and blended together as they usually are by you than they have in and of themselves as they stand singly on their own bottoms A thousand falshoods put together will be farre enough from making one Truth A multiplication of them may encrease a Sophism but not adde the least weight or strength to an Argument An army of Cripples will not make one sound man And can you think it reasonable that we should renounce our sure and firm Word of Prophecy to attend unto you in this chase of uncertain Conjectures and palpable untruths Suppose this were a way that would bring you and us to an Agreement and take away the evil of our Differences I can name you twenty that would do it as effectually and they should none of them have any evil in them but only that whch yours also is openly guilty of namely the Relinquishment of our Duty towards God and Care of our own Souls to come to some peace amongst our selves in this world which would be nothing else but a plain Conspiracy against Jesus Christ and rejection of his Authority At present I shall say no more but that he who is lead into the Truth by so many Errors and is brought unto establishments by so many uncertainties hath singular success and such as no other man hath reason to look for Or he is like Robert Duke of Normandy who when he caused the Saracens to carry him into Jerusalem sent word unto his friends in Europe that he was carried into Heaven on the backs of Devils It may also in particular be easily made to appear how unsuited your means of bringing men unto the unity of faith are unto that Supposition of the present Differences in Religion between you and us which you proceed upon For suppose a man be convinced that many things taught by your Church are false and contrary to the
over the flocks but Ministers of their faith By these are the flocks of Christ governed as by shepherds appointed by him the great Bishop and Shepherd of their souls according to the Rules by him prescribed for the rule of the one and obedience of the other But if by governed by another man you mean absolutely supreamly at his will and pleasure then we deny that any Disciple of Christ is in the things of God so to be governed by any man and affirm that to assert it is to cast down Jesus Christ from his Throne But you say if he be not immediate head unto all but Ministers head the people and Christ heads the Ministers this in effect is nothing but to make every Minister a Bishop Why do you not plainly say what it is more then manifest you would have All this while you heed no more the Laws of the Land then constitutions of the Gospel Answ. I have told you how Christ is the immediate Head unto all and yet how he hath appointed others to preside in his Churches under him and that this should infer an equality in all that are by him appointed to that work is most senseless to imagine nor did I in the least intimate any such thing but only that therefore there was no need of any one supream head of the whole Catholick Church nor any place or room left for such an one without the deposition of Christ himself Because the King is the only supream Head of all his people doth it therefore follow that if he appoint Constables to rule in every parish with that allotment of power which by his Laws he gives unto them and Justices of Peace to rule over them in an whole County that therefore every Constable in effect is a Justice of Peace or that there is a sameness in their office Christ is the head of every man that is in the Church be he Bishop or Minister or private man and when the Ministers are said to head the people or the Bishops to head them the expression is improper an inferiour Ministerial subordinate rule being expressed by the name of that which is supream and absolute or they head them not absolutely but in some respect only as every one of them dischargeth the Authority over and towards them wherewith he is intrusted This assertion of Christs sole absolute Headship and denial of any Monarchical state in the Church Catholick but what ariseth from thence doth not as every child may see concern the difference that is about the superiority of Bishops to Ministers or Presbyters For notwithstanding this there are degrees in the Ministry of the Church and several orders of men are engaged therein and whatever there are there might have been more had it seemed to our good Lord Christ to appoint them And whatever order of men may be supposed to be instituted by him in his Church he must be supposed to be the Head of them all and they are all to serve him in the Duties and Offices that they have to discharge towards the Church and one another This headship of Christ is the thing that you are to oppose and its exclusiveness to the substitution of an absolute Head over the whole Catholick Church in his place because of his bodily absence from the earth But this you cast out of sight and instead thereof fall upon the equality of Bishops and Ministers which no way ensues thereon Both Bishops and Presbyters agreeing well enough in the Truth we assert and plead for This you say is contrary to the Gospel and the Law of the Land What is I pray that Christ is the only absolute Head of the Catholick Church No but that Bishops and Ministers are in effect all one But what is that to your purpose will it advantage your Cause what way ever that problem be determined Was any occasion offered you to discourse upon that Question Nay you perceive well enough your self that this is nothing at all to your design and therefore in your following discourse you double and sophisticate making it evident that either you understand not your self what you say or that you would not have others understand you or that you confound all things with a design to deceive for when you come to speak of the Gospel you attempt to prove the appointment of one supream Pastor to the whole Catholick Church and by the Law of the Land the Superiority of Bishops over Ministers as though these things were the same or had any relation one to another whereas we have shewed the former in your sense to be destuctive to the latter Truth never put any man upon such subter fuges and I hope the difficulties that you find your self perplexed withall may direct you at length to find that there is a deceit in your right hand But let us hear your own words As for the Gospel the Lord who had been visible Governour and Pastor of his flock on earth when he was now to depart hence as all the Apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed him in his care so did he notwithstanding his own invisible presence and providence over his flock publickly appoint one And when he taught them that he who was greatest among them should be as the least he did not deny but suppose one greater and taught in one and the same breath both that he was over them and for what he was over them namely to feed not to tyrannize not to domineer and hurt but to direct comfort and conduct his flock in all humility and tenderness as a servant of all their spiritual necessities and if a Bishâ—p be otherwise affected it is the fault of his Person not his place And what is it that you would prove hereby is it that Bishops are above Ministers which in the words immediately foregoing you asserted and in those next ensuing confirm from the Law of the Land is there any tendency in your Discourse towards any such purpose Nay do not your self know that what you seek to insinuate namely the instiâ—ution of one supream Pastor of the whole Catholick Church one of the Apostles to be above and ruler over all the rest of the Apostles and the whole Church besides is perfectly destructive of the Hierarchy of Bishops in England as established by Law and also at once casting down the main if not only foundation that they plead for their station and order from the Gospel For all Prelate Protestants as you call them assert an equality in all the Apostles and a superiority in them to the 70. Disciples whence by a parity of reason they conclude unto he superiority of Bishops over Ministers to be continued in the Church And are you not a fair Advocate for your Cause and well meet for the reproving of others for not consenting unto them But waving that which you little câ—re for and are not at all concerned in let us see how you prove that which we know you
your selves to wave I should have wholly passed by this discourse unto which no occasion was administred in the Animadversions but now as you have hanâ—dled the matter unless I would have it taken for granted that the Principles of the Roman Church are more suited unto the establishment and promotion of the interest and Soveraignty of Kings and other supream Magistrates and in particular the Kings of these Nations then those of Protestants which in Truth I do not believe I must of necessity make a little further enquiry into your Discourse And I desire your pardon if in my so doing any thing be spoken that suits not so well your interest and designs neither expecting nor desiring any if ought be delivered by me not according to Truth To make our way the more clear some of the ambiguous expressions which you make use of to cloud and hide your intention in your enquiry after the Head of the Church must be explained 1. By the Church you understand not this or that particular Church not the Church of this of that Nation Kingdom or Countrey but the whole Catholick Church throughout the world And when you have explained your self to this purpose you endeavour by six Arguments no less p. 67 68. to prove that no King ever was or can be Head of it He said well of old In causa facili quemvis licet esse disertum I wonder you contented your self to give us six Reasons only and that you proceeded not at least unto the high hills of eighteenthly and nineteenthly that you talk of in your Fiat Lux where you scoff at the preaching of Presbyterians it may be you will scarely ever obtain such another opportunity of shewing the fertility of your invention So did he florish who thought himself secure from adversaries Caâ—ut altum in praelia tollit Ostenditque humeros latos alternaque jactat Brachia protendens verberat ictibus auras But you do like him you only beat the ayre Do you think any man was ever so distempered as to dream that any King whatever could be the absolute Head of the whole Catholick Church of Christ we no more think any King in any sence to be the Head of the Catholick Church then we think the Pope so to be The Roman Empire was at its hight and glory when first Christianity set forth in the world and had extended its bounds beyond those of any Kingdom that arose before it or that hath since succeeded unto it And yet within a very few years after the Resurrection of Christ the Gospel had diffused it self beyond the limits of that Empire among the Parthians and Indians and unto Britannorum Romanis inaccessa loca as Tertullian calls them Now none ever supposed that any King had power or Authority of any sort in reference unto the Church or any members of it without or beyond the precise limits of his own Dominions The Enquiry we have under Consideration about the Power of Kings and the obedience due unto them in Ecclesiastical things is limited absolutely unto their own Kingdoms and unto those of their subjects which are Christians in them And this Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta Pulveris exigui jactu concussa quiescunt A little observation of this one known and granted Principle renders not only your six Reasons altogether useless but surpersedes also a great part of your Rhetorick which under the ambiguity of that expression you display in your whole Discourse Secondly You pleasantly lead about your unwary Reader with the ambiguity of the other term the Head Hence p. 58. you fall into a great exclamation against Protestants that acknowledging the King to be the Head of the Church they do not supplicate unto him and acquiesce in his judgement in Religious affairs as if ever any Protestant acknowledged any King or any mortal man to be such an Head of the Church as you fancy to your selves in whose determinations in Religion all men are bound spiritually and as to their eternal concernments to acquiesce and that not because they are true according to the Scripture but because they are his Such an Head you make the Pope such an one on earth all Procestants deny which evacuates your whole Discourse to that purpose p. 58 59. It is true in opposition unto your Papal claim of Authority and Jurisdiction over the subjects of this Kingdom Protestants do assert the King to be so Head of the Church within his own Realms and Dommions as that he is by Gods appointment the sole fountain and spring amongst men of all Authority and Power to be exercised over the Persons of his subjects in matters of external cognizance and order being no way obnoxious to the direction supervisorship and superintendency of any other in particular not of the Pope He is not only the only striker as you phrase it in his Kingdoms but the only Protector under God of all his subjects and the only Distributor of Justice in rewards and punishments unto them not depending in the administration of the one or other on the determinations or orders of your Pope or Church Not that any of them do use absolutely that expression of Head of the Church but that they ascribe unto him all Authority that ought or can be exercised in his Dominions over any of his Subjects whither in things Civil or Ecclesiastical that are not meerly Spiritual and to be ministerially ordered in obedience unto Christ Jesus And that you may the better see what it is that Protestants ascribe unto the King and to every King that is Absolutely supream as his Majesty is in his own Dominions and withall how exceeding vain your unreasonable reproach is which you cast upon them for not giving themselves up unto an absolute acquiescency in humane determinations as meerly such on pretence that they proceed from the Head of the Church I shall give you a brief account of their thoughts in this whole matter First They say that the King is the supream Governor over all Persons whatever within his Realms and Dominions none being exempted on any account from subjection unto his Regal Authority How well you approve of this Proposition in the great astignations you pretend unto Kingly power we shall afterwards enquire Protestants found their perswasion in this matter on the Authority of the Scripture both Old Testament and New and the very Principles constituting Soveraign Power amongst men You speak fair to Kings but at first dash exempt a considerable number of their born subjects owing them indispensible natural Allegiance from their jurisdiction Or this sort are the Clergy But the Kings of Judah of old were not of your mind Solomon certainly thought Abiathar though High Priest subject to his Royal Authority when he denounced against him a sentence of death and actually deposed him from the Priest hood The like course did his successors proceed in For neither had God in the first provision he made for a
Apostasie also For why must that needs be the notion of these termes in the division you made that you now express Is it from the strict sense and importance of the words themselves or from the Scripturall or Ecclesiasticall use of them or whence is it that it must be so and that it is so None of these will give you any relief or the least countenance unto your fancie Both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in themselves of an indifferent signification denoting things or acts good or evill according to their accidentall limitations and applications It is said of some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they will depart from the faith 1 Tim. 4. 1. And the same Apostle speaking of them that name the name of Christ sayes let every one of them depart from iniquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 2. 19. so that the word it self signifies no more but a single and bare departure from anything way rule or practice be it good or bad wherein a man hath been ingaged or which he ought to avoid and fly from And this is the use of it in the best Greek Authors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are such in Homer who are farre distant or remote on any account from any thing or place And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Aristotle things very remote To leave any place company thing Society or Rule on any cause is the common use of the word in Thucydides Plutarch Lucian and the rest of their companions in the propriety of that language Apostasia by Ecclesiasticall writers is restrained unto either a back sliding in Faith subjective and manners or a causeless relinquishment of any Truth before professed So the Jews charge Paul Acts 21. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou teachest Apostasie from Moses Law Such also is the nature of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a speciall option choyce or way in profession of any Truth or Error So Paul calls Pharisaisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 26. 5. the most exact heresie or way of Religion among the Jews And Clemens Alexandrinus Strom lib. 8. calls Christian Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the best Heresie And the great Constantine in one of his Edicts calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Catholick or generall Heresie and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most holy Heresie The Latines also constantly used that word in a sense indifferent Cato faith Cicero est in ea heresi quae nullum orationis florem sequitur The words therefore themselves you see are of an indifferent signification having this difference between them that the one for the most part is used to signifie the Relinquishment of that which a man had before embraced and the other a choice or embracing of that which a man had not before received or admitted And this difference is constantly observed by all Ecclesiasticall writers who afterwards used these words in the worst or an evill sense so that Apostasie in this appropriation of it denotes the relinquishment of any Important Truth or way in Religion and Heresie the choice or embracement of any new destructive Opinion or Principle or way in the profession thereof A man then may be an Apostate by partiall Apostasie that is depart from the Profession of some Truth he had formerly embraced or the performance of some duty which he was engaged in without being an Heretick or choosing any new opinion which he did not before embrace Thus you signally call a Monke that deserts his Monasticall Profession an Apostate though he embrace no opinion which is condemned by your Church or which you think hereticall And a man may be an Heretick that is choose and embrace some new false opinion which he may coyn out of his own imagination without a direct renunciation of any Truth which before he was instructed in And this is that which I intended when I told you that your Church is fallen by partiall Apostasie and by Heresie Shee hath renounced many of the important Truths which the old Roman Church once believed and professed and so is fallen by Apostasie And she hath invented or coyned many Articles pretended to be of faith which the old Roman Church never believed and so is fallen by Heresie also Now what say you hereunto Why good S r in this division Apostasie is set to express a totall relapse in opposition to Heresie which is the partiall But who gave you warrant or leave so to set them It would it may be somewhat serve your turn in evading the Charge of Apostasie that lyes against your Church but Good S r will not prove that you may thus confound things for your advantage Idolatry is Heresie and Apostasie is Heresie and what not because you suppose you have found a way to escape the imputation of Heresie I say then yet again in answer to your enquiry that your Church is fallen by Apostasie in her relinquishment of many important truths and neglect of many necessary duties which the old Roman Church embraced and performed That these may be the more evident unto you I shall give you some few instances of your Apostasie desiring only that you would grant me that the primitive Church of Rome believed and faithfully retained the doctrine of truth wherein from the Scripture it was instructed That Church believed expresly that all they who die in the Lord do rest from all their labours Rev. 14. 8. which truth you have forsaken by sending many of them into the flames of Purgatory It believed that the sufferings of this life are not worthy of the glory that shall be revealed in us Rom. 8. 18. Your Church is otherwise minded asserting in our works and sufferings a merit of and condignity unto the glory that shall be received It believed that we were saved freely by grace by faith which is not of our selves but the gift of God not by works left any one should boast Eph 2. 8. Tit. 3. 5. and therefore besought the Lord not to enter into judgement with them because in his sight no flesh could be justified Psal. 130. 4. 143. 2. And you are apostatized from this part of their faith It believed that Christ was once only offered Heb. 10 12. and that it could not be that he should often offer himself because then he must have often suffered and died Heb. 9. 25. Which faith of theirs you are departed from It believed that we have one only Mediatour and Intercessour with God 1 Tim. 2. 5. 1 Joh. 2. 2. Wherein also you have renounced their perswasion as likewise you have done in what it professed that we may invocate only him in whom we do believe Rom. 10. 14. It believed that the Command to abstain from Meats and Marriage was the doctrine of Devils 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. Do you abide in the same faith It believed that Every soul without exception was to be subject to the higher Powers Rom. 13. 1. You will not