Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	believe_v	forgive_v	forgiveness_n	3,528	5	10.5756	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26962	Naked popery, or, The naked falshood of a book called The Catholick naked truth, or, The Puritan convert to apostolical Christianity, written by W.H. opening their fundamental errour of unwritten tradition, and their unjust description of the Puritans, the prelatical Protestant, and the papist, and their differences, and better acquainting the ignorant of the same difference, especially what a Puritan and what a papist is / by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1677 (1677)	Wing B1315; ESTC R13884	120,987	206

Spiritual Body is extensive and invisible to us cannot tell you where it is present or absent no more than of an Angel 2. But we all hold as a piece of Plate or Silver Barrs is really and truly turned into the Kings Coine so the Bread and Wine is really and truly turned into Christs Sacramental Body and Blood and yet one is Silver and the other is Bread and Wine still The change is true but Relative by its Separation to that holy use as a Common person may be Really Changed into a King or a Lord or a Judge or a Captain or a Bishop or a Doctor and yet be a man still This real change we all Confess But the question is whether there be no Bread V. You say The Prelatick Protestant wonders that the Puritan when he is going out of this world should find difficulty to make a particular Confession of his sins if any grievous matter lye on his Conscience and humbly desire the Prelatick Priests absolution saying c. Answ I know of no difference between the Prelatist and the Puritan about Confession or Absolution Dr. John Reynolds a true Puritan received Absolution before he dyed Meer Puritans believe that it is a duty to Confess our sins to men 1. In Case of such injury to any as must have a Confession towards the injured persons Satisfaction and forgiveness 2. In Case of such difficulty about either the nature of the sin or Consequent dangers or dutyes as make a particular Guide necessary who cannot resolve our doubts till he know the Case 3. In Case that the Conscience be so burdened with the sin as that the sinner cannot by other means find ease till he have disburdened himself by such Confession 4. In Case it be necessary to heal any scandal given to others It is a very great duty for drunkards fornicators deceivers and such others to go to their Companions and lament their sin and perswade them no more to do as they have done And if required by the Pastors to take publick shame before the Congregation and acknowledg that the doctrine of Christ never countenanced them in any such sin that Religion and the Church may not bear the reproach of their delinquency And to beg the prayers of the Congregation for their pardon and that the Pastor by virtue of his office will pronounce it But we are not ashamed to confess that neither Puritans nor Prelatists think it lawful to make the people believe that they must needs tell the Priest of all the sins that they commit and dutyes that they omit Nor to uphold pragmatical Priests in the trade of knowing all mens thoughts and secret actions even Princes by which they may betray them 1. The number of people and of their sins is so great as render it impossible In this Parish it 's thought there is above threescore thousand souls How many thousand sinful thoughts or words or deeds a great part of these may commit in a year I leave to your Conjecture only I must tell you that if all men High and Low that are called Papists about us should but tell the Priest of every time they are drunk and every Fornication they have committed every prophane Oath they have sworn every Lye they have told especially against the Protestants and of every filthy and prophane Word that they have spoken and every Oppression of the poor and every filthy or covetons thought that hath been in their hearts they had need of a very Traditional Memory to remember them or great plenty of Ink and Paper to record them and a whole Diocess of Clergy-men in one Parish to hear them How many hundred Priests must this Parish have if all should thus confess all sins of Commission and Omission every cold Prayer and omitted Prayer Exhortation Alms Example c. especially the great Omissions of the Soul in the defects of the exercise of Faith Hope Love and Patience c. 2. And what good will it do a man that is himself of sound understanding and integrity to open his Conseience to an ignorant or unconscionable man that will call evil good and good evil and will put him upon sin as you here do by your Relations or that dare himself sin as boldly as you here do when you accuse Puritans and Prolates as holding meer Imputed Holiness 3. And how great a temptation and injury may this be to your Priests in such instances as Montaltus the Jansenist mentioneth with which I will not defile my Paper when alas most of them are not men fit to bear such temptations What if twenty thousand People in one Parish should each make this Confession to a Papist Priest I am afraid I have sinned in believing the common Report that you are a very ignorant drunken sot and a common whoremaster and a proud covetous lying man would it not be like to enrage the Priest into an enmity against his Flock If all the Fornicators in such a Parish should tell such Priests of all their filthy thoughts and words and their immodest actions and actual Fornications how like were it to make such impressions on the poor Priests Phantasie as would pollute him with many filthy imaginations VI. You adde The Prelatick Protestant wonders at the Puritan's niceness that he can by no means be perswaded to bow at the Name of Jesus When Nature teacheth us a Relative Reverence c. The sound of the Name Jesus is vanished and gone before the superstitious Worshipper can make his mimical Congie Whereas the Picture a far more lively representation of the same great Lord remains Ans 1. The Puritans think it not unlawful to bow when God or Jesus are named But 1. They are loth to serve those men that would turn all serious Religion into a dead Image of it 2. And they like not bowing at the Name Jesus and not at the Name God or Christ or Immanuel or Jehovah or the Holy Ghost 2. As to Images I will but refer you to Dr. Stillingfleet's last Book against Godwin which hath fully proved that you use them as truly Idolatrously as did the Heathens VII Your next Instance is The Conformists rejecting the Popish Girdle Stole and Casuble and yet wondring at the Puritans rejecting the Surplice Ans The former Answers serve to this Some Puritans would use the Surplice if that would serve and satisfie But they see that if they say A first they must say B next and so on to the end of your Alphabet But still you tell us what great things your new Religion doth consist of and what great cause you had to turn from the Puritans to the Papists If you had known no more than Books can tell you and your Grandfather had not known better than Baronius himself what the Apostles did and instituted we should never have known that the Religion which is integrated by a Surplice Girdle Stole and Casuble had been herein Apostolical and not rather a novel thing VIII Your

men leave to commit any sin for money or so pardon any sin after as you shall not be in the least danger of any punishment for it temporal or eternal in Purgatory or in Hell Ans I will take your part in this and prove that the Squib-maker who drew up this Charge doth do you wrong What a Sot was he to think that any Pope would ever be sick or sore or dye if he could forgive all temporal punishment Unless the unhappy man can forgive all others and not himself At least he would preserve some of his Friends in health and immortality on Earth And the Whores that Baronius himself saith made Popes at their pleasure would have found some Popes so grateful as to have saved them from dying if not from bringing forth in pain And truly I should hope that at least the Pope that by a Council was condemned for an Infidel and believing not any life to come in Heaven or Hell would have been so tender-hearted as to forgive all the world the punishment in Hell And it was a great mistake in these Slanderers of you to except no sin As if the Popes could forgive them that would diminish their Kingdoms or restrain their Domination much less that would depose them Could Pope Eugenius ever forgive the Universal Church as it 's called that is the great General Council which in vain condemned and deposed him When he can scarce forgive a poor Protestant the Rack and Fire for reading the Bible or serving God out of the Roman way And doubtless he is wronged by this Charge that he can nullifie all pain death Purgatory and Hell for I think you will say that quoad potentiam ordinatam Christ cannot do it or at least he will not And were this believed by all the World no wonder if they willingly obeyed him and called him Our Lord God the Pope For he could conquer any Kingdom by saving all his Souldiers from hurt and death It is enough that he can forgive some part or time of Purgatory Torments and that as great Doctors say he can and lesser Priests than he forgive the pains of Hell to a sinner that hath no true contrition for sin that is repenteth not out of any Love to God or Goodness but only Attrition and the Sacrament of Penance and Absolution that is repenteth only for fear of Hell and would sin still if he durst And though you may hope that there are no Copies of the old Pardons yet to be seen or any of Tecelius Merchandise now extant yet the sure History of them is common and if you deny it it will be proved to your shame What a multitude of Writers have better cited your practice and confuted it But yet I remember to do you right that even Hildebrand himself Greg. 7. in a Roman Council saith that neither the Sacrament of Baptism nor Penance is of any force to pardon any impenitent Hypocrite which is well said and as for true Penitent Believers we verily believe that they are pardoned ipso jure by the Gospel as to destructive or hellish Punishment and that every true Minister of Christ may validly deliver this pardon ministerially by true absolution in the Sacrament and without it But in what measure God himself will remit temporal Chastisements few men can know till the event tell it them And neither Pope nor Priest can forgive without him nor know what God will remit any more than another man may know that is by Gods Word and by the event And again I say if it were in the Popes power however you may absolve him from Bribery or the Love of Money that there would be more difference in point of bodily suffering between his Subjects or Favourites and other men than was ever yet perceived It 's policy therefore to confine the business to Purgatory that no witness may be able to disprove it You add to the Charge That of all Christ's Merits the Pope is the Supreme Lord to dispose of them to the living and the dead as he by his unerring Spirit thinks fitting Answ Here the Charger wrongs you too For seeing all mens Lives and Mercies are the Fruits of Christs Merits if this were true the Pope could kill all his Enemies at his pleasure and when he hath killed them could cast them into Hell or keep them out of Heaven And then no one in his wits would be against him or displease him It 's enough to be able to do as aforesaid III. Your next is the Papist honours the Virgin Mary much more than he does her divine Son or God the Father for one Prayer he says to God he says ten to the Virgin Answ This is injurious too whoever made it The Pagans honour not their Inferiour Gods so much as the Supreme And for the number of Prayers it 's not like that all Papists use the same or by the same Beads But whether you give inordinate honour to the Virgin Mary and put not up a very large proportion of your Prayers to her if Dr. Stillingfleet and abundance before him may not be trusted in their Citations I hope your own Prayer-books may be believed It 's bad enough to make her like Juno though you should not equal her with Jove Angels have refused smaller honour IV. You add His Prayers are a company of Latine words he neither understands or cares to understand them which if he do but patter over in such a number though his heart and mind be wholly taken up with worldly thoughts and desires he thinks c. Answ At the first line one would have thought you had grown past blushing and had denyed your Latine Prayers not understood but you never want one word to help you out in renouncing the whole Sentence You make me think of that sorry Religion which teacheth men that if one Article in a Vow among many be unlawful they may renounce all Obligation to any thing else that there is Vowed and so a Knave may be disobliged to all Vows and Covenants if he will but drop in any thing that is unlawful Do not your unlearned Multitude join in your Latine Prayers Do Mass-books and your daily Masses all deceive our Eyes and Ears No that 's not it what then must all be desirous to understand it if they cannot I rather think the Calumny is that his mind and heart may be wholly taken up with worldly desires But who was it that put in that into the Charge was it not your self We know that you say There should be some General kind of Devotion and good Desire though he know not what is said and a General Belief called Implicite which is no Belief of any of the Particulars and a General Implicite Desire which is no Desire of any express Particular being a Faith that is no Faith and a Prayer which is no Prayer would make a Religion which is no Religion if you had no better V. The next is If he do but

which way and why I must believe it If from Christ can I believe that the Pope hath Power from Christ before I believe that there is a Christ that hath such Power to give And can I believe in Christ and not believe that there is a God that sent him Can I believe that Jesus is the Christ and not believe that he is a Sacrifice for sin or a Mediator between God and Man and came to save his People from their sins And can I believe this and not believe that we are all sinners and that sin deserveth that punishment which Christ came to save us from Is not our Saviour and our Sin and Misery relatives as a Physician or Medicine and a Disease And can we believe that we have sin and desert of Punishment without believing that God is our Governour and gave us that Law which we broke and which obligeth us to Punishment Can we believe in Christ and not believe that he is God and Man that he dyed rose and ascended into Heaven and will judge us at last and that he pardoneth sin reneweth Souls by his Spirit and will give us life hereafter All these are included in believing in Christ as Christ And how must I believe that Christ hath given the Pope this Infallibility or Power By any written word which granteth it or by Oral Tradition If by the written Word then I must believe that that Word is true before I can believe that the Pope is made Pope or Infallible by it If by Oral Tradition whose must that be Then I must believe some bodies Oral Tradition as true and infallible before I believe in the Pope at all If it be the first Hearers of the Apostles then either the Pope was one of those or not If yea and he hath a Negative Voice in the credible report then I must believe him as Infallible before he is proved Infallible in order to my believing that he is Infallible which is a contradiction If Not Then I must believe the Infallibility of other Hearers of the Apostles before I can believe the Pope's And the Question will recur How I shall know them to be Infallible And who they were that were those Infallible Witnesses Whether Pastors only or the People Whether of some one Church or of all the Churches And how I shall prove that they gave such a Testimony So that your pretense of a Necessity of receiving Gods Word or the Christian Faith from the Pope and his Council cometh too late For it seemeth that we must believe it first before it be possible to believe in the Pope and Council as authorised by Christ And if my Implicite Faith be the Belief of this Article Any Church in all the world yea the greater part of all the Churches may err in matters of Faith or Apostatize and only the Pope of Rome and his Council cannot What Proof or whose Tradition doth this rest upon Q. 9. Do not Bellarmine Costerus and many of your Writers profess that the Scriptures contain all things ordinarily necessary to Salvation Yea many Writers that the Creed hath all that is absolutely to be believed Yea some that it hath more than all Yea abundance Cited by Fr. a Sancta Clara that the Belief in Christ is not necessary to all And will you say then that he that believeth Explicitely the whole Bible cannot be saved without believing also your pretended Traditions Q. 10. And do you not hereby instead of the light burden and easie yoak of Christ and his Commands which are not grievous bring Christians under a harder yoak than that which the Jews were not able to bear When it seemed good to the Holy Ghost in the Apostles to impose but a few and necessary things Act. 15. 28. And how large a Law is all the Bible and all your Councils Decrees and Oral Traditions set together Do all your Priests themselves or one of an hundred understand them all or know what they are Q. 11. While you pretend a Necessity of your numerous Ceremonies as Fasting on Frydays and such other named by you do you not lay a snare of perpetual Division in the Churches and do you not make as many inconsistent Churches as there be Societies of Christians that differ and still will differ about any of those Traditions or Ceremonies Q. 12. And do you not lay open your own Church to the accusation of innovation mutability and corruption when it is not to be denyed but in such things as those they have been mutable or innovated Have you not long left the Custom of adoring on the Lords-days without genuflexion though the first great General Council Nic. Can. 20. and the ancient Fathers commonly made it a Tradition and Practice of the whole Church and it was Decreed to be so used by all Abundance of such Instances may be given Q. 13. You do very injuriously to your own Sect and Cause here to pretend Tradition as coming down from the Apostles for such things as your own Doctors plead but your Churches later Institution for It 's fully proved by Daleus de jejuniis that the Lent Fast was long but for a short time before it came to fourty days And it 's an odd thing if you will pretend Tradition from the Apostles for the Holy-days or the Vigil Fasts of those Saints that were born many hundred years after the Apostles death We confess our Faith is not so big as yours We have many score Texts of Scripture that promise Salvation to them that believe much less than the Bible it self containeth Yet we profess our selves ready to believe as much more as you shall ever prove to us to have been delivered by the Apostles to the Church to be believed II. And for the second that we receive not our Faith the way that you do that is from the Authority of the Pope and Papists and from your Tradition We crave your consideration of these Questions 1. When the Apostles and Disciples Act. 8. were scattered and preached the Gospel to many Nations Were they not true Christians and saved that received the Gospel from any one of them or from any Person whatsoever If Aquila or Priscilla Converted a Sinner such a one saved a Soul from Death though Peter did it not nor his Authority was known to such a one 2. Do you believe that if the Roman Bishop or Churches Revelation or Proposal were necessary to true Faith and to Salvation that Christ would never have told Men so Nor any of his Apostles have left it us on Record When there were Heresies and Schismes so wofully troubling the Churches as we find in Paul's Epistles to the Cor. Gal. Col. and in the Rev. 2. and 3. ch should we never have found one word for this speedy way of decision to appeal to the Church of Rome Would Paul have rebuked them for saying I am of Cephas and made him but a Minister by whom they believed without ever mentioning his

Massacres as were in France of Thirty Thousand or Forty Thousand or in Ireland of Two Hundred Thousand hath made them think your Power inconsistent with their safety 3. And you must remember that the Positive Additions of the Church of Rome are in the Judgment of the Puritans very great sins But you have truly no charge against the Puritans for any one Article of their Religion but only for not receiving and for protesting against your Additions 4. But I perceive p. 5. your Instances of their defectiveness are that they are not for fasting days particular Garments for Priests set Forms Christmas-day Good-Friday Ascension Whitsuntide c. which they take for meer Humane inventions and Will-worship Because they think that the New Testament was written to instruct us Christians in the whold Body of Gospel-worship c. But you are best prove this only by telling us that you know some persons of that mind And when you have done I will demand your Proof that those Persons are no more than Puritans They have oft told you that their judgment is that for all that substance of God's Worship which is of Universal necessity to the Church and is of Divine Institution the holy Scripture is a sufficient Rule But that very many Circumstances and outward Acts have in Scripture but a General Law that they be all done to edification decently orderly in Concord c. and it is left to Humane Prudence to order them by such Rules We condemn no one that useth holy Fasts or Feasts but think them needful We judge not those that celebrate the Memorial of God's great Mercies to his Church by giving him thanks for the holy Life and Doctrine of his Eminent Saints c. But will you plainly have our judgment We think Saint Paul was in the right that taught the Church of Rome it self both the Rulers and the Flocks that they must neither judge nor despise each other for differences about Meats and Days but receive each other to Communion notwithstanding such differences as Christ received us Rom. 14. and 15. And we will not believe your Grand-Father nor Great-Grand-Father if they told us that the Apostles by Tradition did institute Holy-days and Vigils for St. Tecla or St. Bridgit or St. Thomas Becket or any that were not born till they were dead And any one Day or Order which you truly prove to us that the Apostles by Tradition ordained for the Universal Church we profess our selves ready and resolved to obey But if you plead not Tradition for any of these things but the Churches Commands as you must do or be singular or ashamed here you come to the quick of our difference 1. We know not of any Universal Vicarious Law-giver under Christ that hath any power to make Laws to the Universal Church throughout the World and we dare not own any such Usurper lest we be guilty of Treason against the only Head of the whole Church 2. We know not of any power that the chief Bishop in the Roman Empire hath over other Empires Kingdomes or Churches 3. But to our own true Pastors which are set over us according to Christ's order and his Apostles recorded in Scripture we Puritanes will submit in all such Circumstantials as aforesaid which are left to their prudent determination not putting us on any sin But 4. We detest making such things as you here name to be taken for the Characters of distinct Religions or distinct Churches as if we might not with Love Peace and Christian Communion differ about a Garment a Holy-day Fast or Vigil Thus far then you seem not to know what a meer Puritan is II. But Sir I have much more than all these little things against your Description of a Puritane I plainly perceive in your greatest praises of him that you know not what his very Religion it self is or else you would never describe him as only taken up with fears and cares and good desires to be better having yet greedy desires of the things of the World without any mention of the Love of God above all and of his Neighbour and a holy and heavenly Mind and Life with self-denyal mortification of the Flesh c. Either you judge of a Puritane by what you were your self or by what your acquaintance were or by what they commonly profess to be their Religion For the first you have no reason It followeth not that they have no better a Religion because you had no better For the second you had no reason For it 's ten to one you knew not the hearts of your acquaintance so well as to be able to know that they had not the Love of God c. And if you were so unhappy in your acquaintance what 's that to other Men Thirdly Therefore as you look that your own Religion should be described not as we find it in this or that man but as your Church professeth it so do we And I have told you before what our Religion is I have the more boldness in speaking the sense of others as I said both because I am as aforesaid stigmatized for a total Puritan and because the generality of all of them of my acquaintance as far as I can discern are of this mind A Puritan then as the Word is commonly taken by the Rabble is a serious Christian Protestant who truly believeth and practiseth what he doth profess and doth not mortifie that Profession which should help to mortifie his Sin His Religion is to be understandingly and sincerely devoted in the Sacramental Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Vanities of the World the Lusts of the Flesh and the Delusions of the Devil He believeth that all that truly consent to this Covenant have a right and part in and to the Love of God the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Chost and that he that hath the Son hath Life Pardon Adoption Justification and Right to Life Eternal and that this Right is continued he performing his Covenant and continuing in that Faith which worketh by Love and not living impenitently in sin but sincerely obeying God his Father Saviour and Sanctifier He taketh the fear of Gods Justi●● ●nd godly Sorrow to be but the lower steps of Holiness but that the Kingdom of God is not Meats and Days but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of Christ without which none are his is not the Spirit of Bondage but of Power Love and a sound Mind even a Spirit of holy LIFE LIGHT and LOVE which are the Essentials of true Holiness and the Spirit of Adoption and Supplication causeth us with Love to cry to God and trust him as a Father They take Christ to be the only Mediator between God and Man whose sufficient Sacrifice for Sin and perfect Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive as called advanced in dignity by the Divine Nature is the Meritorious cause of

the Greatest be it right or wrong In the best Countries the most are too bad And bad men will have a prospering Religion and not one that will expose them to Death Banishment Imprisonment Beggary Contempt or Silence Most will be on the upper side 2. And remember that you your self here confess the scandals of some of your Romish Party and what carnal prophane ones they are Had you not confessed it I would have desired you to read two Books 1. Josep Acosta of the wicked slothful Priests in the Indies as the great hindrance of their Conversion 2. Stephanus his World of Wonders taken most out of the Book of the Queen of Navarre of the horrid Villanies of your Priests And one thing I cannot disregard I marvel not if the Papists be most bad in Spain France Italy c. or the Lutherans in Denmark Saxony or Sweden or the Calvinists in Holland or the Prelatists and Conformists in England because the most who are commonly the worst will be of the stronger side But that Greeks should be ungodly in Turky or Protestants in France or Papists in England where they are singular and under the discountenance of the Times and most hold their Religion with some self-denyal this seemeth to me a more grievous thing And if it prove true that even in England where you make the World believe that you have suffered grievously your Followers are too often found meer Formalists living in Swearing Drinking Lying Uncleanness or some of these what shall we think of such a Religion as this as in a Land of uprightness would teach men to do unjustly I wonder not what should make a Drunkard Fornicator or other debaucht Sinner to be a Papist in France Spain or Italy But what should make such a one be a Papist in England unless his Religion favour sensuality or else he think that it will yet prove the upper side I cannot easily conjecture But you accuse the Prelatick Protestant for agreeing with the Puritan in expecting Salvation by the extrinsical righteousness of Christ without him not by any interior righteousness in his own Soul Answ I told you your memory faileth you Why did you before then describe the Puritan as so well qualified within and desiring after more But were you bred among Puritans and yet talk so ignoranly and falsly This had been more tolerable in a Cochleus a Genebrard or other transmarine Calumniator that never knew us here Read but Davenant de Just and see how you slander the Conformists And read my fore-named Books and Mr. Trumans Mr. Woodbridges the Morning Lectures at S. Giles of Justif Mr. Wotton de Reconciliat Mr. Bradshaw de Justif Praefat. c. Mr. Gataker in many Books Jo. Goodwin of Justif c. and see how you slander the Puritans In a few plain words Sir the Protestants do not expect Salvation by their own personal righteousness as coordinate with Christs but as subordinate to it nor as a Righteousness so denominated from the same Reason as Christs is but from a lower Reason and so as of a lower sort That is We all hold that Gods Law to perfect man was perfect being the Effect of his perfect Holiness and required personal perpetual perfect innocency and obedience in man And that man breaking this Law was according to the Justice of it lyable to its Penalty which is temporal spiritual and eternal death or to be forsaken of that God whom he forsook and to be under the sense of his displeasure or Justice We believe that Christ Redeemed us from this Punishment by the merit of his perfect Holiness and Obedience and the satisfactory sacrificing of himself on the Cross where he was in his measure forsaken of God as in our stead and for our sins whose punishment as far as was fit for him to undergo he voluntarily undertook to suffer We believe that he never intended by this Redemption to take man from under his subjection to God or make him an ungoverned lawless Wight but that by purchase he himself as Mediator became his Lord and King and Gods chief Administrator of the Redeemed World And his Lord-Redeemer with the Will and Authority of God his Creator made him a new Law and Covenant freely giving Right to Impunity saving paternal healing Corrections and temporal death and degrees of desertion if men neglect Grace and Right to the Heavenly Glory as thus merited for us by Christ and also the Communion of the Holy Ghost on Earth to fit us by Holiness for Heaven and to conquer our sins and this to all that will by a true effectual Faith accompanyed with Repentance unfeignedly accept the Gift of God that is that will truly consent to the Baptismal Covenant taking God for their reconciled God and Father Jesus Christ for their Saviour and the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier and Comforter renouncing the Devil the World and the Flesh and engaging themselves as in a Holy War against them as the Enemies of the blessed Trinity and them And this Covenant they must keep For as it giveth Right to Life to such Believers so it denounceth certain damnation to Unbelievers and unthankful Neglecters of so great Salvation So that when by RIGHTEOUSNESSE we mean that which answereth Gods perfect Law having no sinful imperfection we all profess that we have no such Righteousness of our own to trust in there being no man without sin and all sin by the Law of Innocency denominating the sinner unrighteous and punishable by death But instead of such a Righteousness Gods Justice is so far satisfied by the Sacrifice and perfect Righteousness of Christ as that he freely giveth us the foresaid Covenant and its Free Grace and Benefits But because we must be judged by the Redeemer according to his Law of Grace therefore we must in our selves personally have the Righteousness which that Law or Covenant hath made necessary to our Justification first and our Salvation afterwards which is first our foresaid Faith or Covenant-Consent and after to our salvation our keeping of that Covenant in true Obedience and Holiness to the end and our Victory over the three Enemies which we renounced So that briefly God justifieth as the Donor and the Judge Christ God and Man as Mediator justifieth us meritoriously as aforesaid and by donation and final sentence our Jus ad Impunitatem Gloriam our Right to Impunity and the Heavenly Glory justifieth us as our Formal Righteousness which is a Relation against the Accusation that we ought to be shut out of Heaven and damned to Hell The Covenant of Grace justifieth us by giving us Right to the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Ghost Even as Gods Donative and Condonative Instrument or Act of Grace Our Personal Faith including Repentance justifieth us as the matter of our Formal Righteousness against that particular Accusation that we are Impenitent Unbelievers and so have no part in Christ and his

And in the Contest with them the case is commonly pleaded accordingly 4. Gregory Nazianzen would never have wished so earnestly that there were no inequality superiority or priority of Seats if he had taken them to be of Divine Institution Durst he have so opposed the Law and Order of God 5. But to put all out of doubt it is expresly determined by the most famous General Councils even two of the four which are likened to the four Gospels Constantinople and Calcedon that the Primacy was given to Rome by the Fathers so they called Councils because it was the Imperial Seat and therefore they give equal Priviledges to Constantinople because it is the Imperial Seat The words of the Council of Calcedon oft cited are these translated Act. 16. Binii pag. 134. We following always the definitions of the holy Fathers and the Canons and knowing those that have now been read of the 150 Bishops most beloved of God that were congregated under the Emperour of pious memory Theodosius the Greater in the Royal City of Constantinople New Rome have our selves also defined the same things concerning the Priviledges of the same most holy Church of Constantinople New Rome For to the Seat of old Rome because of the Empire of that City the Fathers consequently gave the Priviledges And the 150 Bishops most beloved of God being moved with the same intentions have given equal Priviledges to the most holy Seat of New Rome reasonably judging that the City adorned with the Empire and Senate shall enjoy equal Priviledges with old Regal Rome This Council was called by the Emperour Martian and his Lay-Officers were called the Judges And the Bishops to shew what they thought of Rome cryed out They that contradict it are Nestorians Let them that contradict it walk to Rome Bin. p. 98. If such a General Council be not to be believed farewell all the Papists Infallibility Authority Tradition and Religion If it be to be believed the Pope is a Humane Creature and not a Divine But Binius saith that Rome receiveth not the Canons of this Council of Constantinople which this confirmeth but only their condemnation of Macedonius And he saith That every Council hath just so much strength and authority as the Apostolick See bestoweth on it For saith he unless this be admitted no reason can be given why some Councils of greater numbers of Bishops were reprobated and others of a smaller number confirmed Vol. 2. p. 515. And yet must we hear the noise of all the Christian World and all the Bishops and General Councils and the Tradition of our Fore-fathers c. as against us when all is but the Pope of Rome and such as please him and it is He and his Pleasers that refuse the most General Councils and Tradition Away with this false deceitful talk 6. Once more hear their own Confession Their late English Bishop of Calcedon a fatal name R. Smyth in his Survey against Bishop Bromhall saith cap. 5. To us it sufficeth that the Bishop of Rome is S. Peter 's Successor and this all the Fathers testifie and all the Catholick Church believeth But whether it be jure divino or humano is no point of Faith Ans 1. Is not that a point of your Faith which the General Councils affirm at least of your Religion Who can tell then what is your Faith 2. If an historical point be not to be believed from General Councils why should the History of Peter's being at Rome and Bishop there be believed as from Fathers which Nilas hath said so much against 3. Do not the Fathers as much agree that Peter was first Bishop of Antioch If then you have no more to shew than they where is your Title 4. If your Divine Right of succeeding Peter be no point of Faith then he that believeth it not doth not sin against any point that God would have him believe as from him and therefore is not to be thought erroneous in the Faith 5. And yet upon this which is no point of Faith you build your Faith and Church and would have all Christians do the like on pain of damnation II. And as the Roman Primacy was but of Man's devising so I next prove that it was but over one Empire unless any Neighbours for their own advantage did afterward voluntarily subject themselves 1. Because the Powers that gave him his Primacy extended but to the Empire The Emperour and his Subjects ruled not other Lands 2. Because the four other Patriarchs made by the same Power had no power without the Empire As appeareth by the distribution of their Provinces in the Council of Nice and afterward Pisanus's Canons we regard not that take in Ethiopia Obj. The Abassins now receive their chief Bishop from the Patriarch of Alexandria That proveth not that ever they were under Rome For there is not the least proof that ever they did so till Dioscorus and his Successors separated from Rome being rejected by them as Hereticks and by long and slow degrees enlarged their power over many Neighbour Volunteers 3. Because the General Councils in which the Pope presided were but of the Empire And the Popes never claimed a more general extensive power then than the Councils Who indeed with the Emperours made the Papacy in its first state 4. Because when the Patriarch of Constantinople claimed the Primacy yea called himself Universal Bishop which Gregory sharply reprehendeth as Antichristian yet he never claimed the Government of the whole Christian World but only of the Empire And in all their Contests there is no intimation of any such different Claim of the Competitors as if Rome claimed all the World and Constantinople but the Empire or Roman-World Their Contest was about the same Churches or Circuit who should be Chief 5. The Instances of the several Countries that were never under the Pope do prove it Even the great Empire of Abassia and all the rest fore-named without the Empire Of which and the Exception more under the next III. The General Councils were all so called only in respect to the generality of the Empire and not as of all the Christian World which was never dreamed of Proved 1. Because the Emperours that called them Constantine Martian c. had no power out of the Empire 2. There is no credible History that mentioneth any further call much less of all the Christian World 3. It was the Affairs only of the Empire that the Councils judged of as is to be seen in all their Canons 4. The Names of the Bishops yet to be seen as Subscribers fully prove it 5. It was not a thing probable if possible that the Indians Persians and other Nations should send their Bishops into the Roman Empire which was usually at War with them or dreaded and detested by them 6. Theodoret's foresaid words of James Bishop of Nisibis sheweth it that he was at the Council of Nice for Nisibis was then under the Roman Empire 7. I have oft cited the