ignorant souls that they know not what the Religion is which they are turned to nor are able to give a reason of their change I have spoke with some affected to your way and some turned to it that have thought our doctrine was yours and yours was ours for instance that we taught that men might live without sin and you taught otherwise and have denyed that you hold the doctrine of mans merits and divers the like Are not these good Catholikes and well converted that be of our mind and do not know it And I observe among your own Writers that usually those that write in the most heavenly strain are those that give some wound to your profession by some considerable opposition as Mirandula Gerson Bernard and many more And it hath more disaffected me to your way to observe how low the design of your Religion is in comparison of ours You can let the common people be as blind as Moles and worship they know not what And you almost confin Religion unto Votaries and Cloysters When as the design of our Religion is to make the generality of our Pastoral charge more holy by far then your retired Votaries And as far as I am able to learn I do verily think that there are in the small Town that I live in some hundreds of souls that have more true self-denyal humility acquaintance with the saving works of Grace abhorrence of sin delight in God and believing serious thoughts of heaven then is to be found in twenty of your Monasteries When I am in one of their meetings which you account but a cursed Schismatical conventicle I can behold their diligent attendance their humble learning their modest orderly serious devotions and afterwards their painful recollections and improvement of what they learn But among you I should see a dumbe shew a pompous ostentation compounded of Ceremonies and words which are as no words being not by the people understood And I am certainly informed by travellers that have known them and by your own confessions that you have Priests even like your people and your services Even unlearned men that are but able to read their Mass like some of the worst of our old Readers whom we have cast out However you may have learned Jesuites and Fryars that are bred up chiefly for your Theological wars while the people that live in peace under you are famished It hath also much increased my disaffection to observe by what gross kind of cheating you carry on your cause You make a noise with the ostentation of Miracles but we can never see one of them nor have certain proof of it I confess if I could see them they would work on me much and I would go from Sea to Sea to see one but I know not whither to go with the least hope of such a sight You talk much of perfection and keeping the Law of God without sin But how long will it be before you will shew us one of those sinless perfect men I have enquired of those that I thought most likely and they have told me that such men there be in the world but would not be intreated to shew me one of them Nay it amazeth me that you should glory of perfection where it is so hard to find sincerity and to meet with a man that will not curse and swear and whore and be drunk Yea more to find that after this ostentation of perfection you come so low as to make those to be perfect which we suppose to be in a damnable state For how many abominable sins do you make to be venial Do I need to tell you what some of your own Writers say of Fornication and of a Priest rather keeping a Concubine then a wife and what gaines have come to the Church by Whorehouses and what a trade it is at Rome and Venice c. To give instance but in the sin of lying how light do you make of it yea you fear not to teach your English Proselytes That A lye is a mortal sin when it is any great dishonor to God or notable prejudice to our neighbor Otherwise if it be meerly officious or jesting it is but a venial sin They are the words of H.T. they say Henry Turbervile in his Catechism pag. 160. Yea he saith pag. 268. That By this we must know when a sin is mortal and when venial Because to any mortal sin it is required both that it be deliberate and perfectly voluntary And then set altogether and consider what your Writers make of venial sin no worse then your Doctor Thomas saith that Venial sin hath not perfectam rationem peccati but is Analogically called sin and that non est contra Legem quia venialiter peccans non facit quod lex prohibet nec pretermittit id ad quod lex per praeceptum obligat sed facit praeter legem It is not against the Law nor forbidden by it but beside it 12. qu. 88. art 1. ad 1. And that it deserves not damnation and eternal punishment is not due to it but temporal onely 12. q. 87. a. 5. c. q. 88. a. 1. c. And that it induceth not a blot on the soul 12. q. 89. a 1. c. But onely as it hindereth the lustre of Grace and therefore may be done away without the infusion of habitual grace 3. q. 8.7.2 c. Apply this now to your last instanced case It seems now that the Law of God forbiddeth not Lying when it dishonoreth God but a little and not greatly or when it is a prejudice to another but not notable It forbids not men to lie Officiously or in jest as H.T. speakes Nay it seems if you curse or swear or blaspheam the name of God or kill your own Father or Mother it is but a venial sin if you do it not deliberately and perfectly voluntarily And is not here a fine doctrine to make men perfect Have you no way to make your selves perfect but by making the Law of God imperfect How can you perswade us to value such perfection Doth H.T. think that a man that hath the use of Reason is not bound by God to deliberate of all the weighty actions of his life And if a man shall kill and blaspheam in passion and say I did not deliberate and therefore it is no sin God did not forbid it me Shall this excuse him Or is such doctrine to be endured among Christians If God do not make it a reasonable mans duty to use his reason in the greatest things and to deliberate of what he saith or doth I know not what either Reason or Law is made for I think on the contrary that Not deliberating especially in weighty cases is a heinous sin and the principal cause of all other sin in many of the ungodly So I say of the other limitation that it be perfectly voluntary Passion may make a blasphemy or murder but imperfectly voluntary and yet that proveth not that God forbiddeth
it not For the will it self is under a Law which puts it upon duty and not onely restrains it from sinful volition or nolition And therefore if the will do but suspend its act in whole or in part and thereby let the commanded faculties miscarry I shall yet believe that this is forbidden and a proper sin What if you have a charge of the souls of your flock and you sleep while they are misled Or if you were a Physician and had charge of your patients lives and you fall asleep till they are past recovery are you no sinner and do you not go against the Law Yes you are a murderer For though the thing be not voluntary quoad actum voluntatis it is morally or imputatively voluntary propter omissionem actus If Wolverhampton Papists be fed with such doctrine as this they may well be many but they are unlikely to be good Inconsiderateness which I took for one of the most destroying sins it seems is a notable preservative from sin For be sure you deliberate not and you break no Law of God what ever you do And if there be no Law against Lying except the lyes of the higher strain that are by H.T. excepted no wonder then if Papists be Lyars And can you think it any injury to you if from hence I interptet not onely many of your Historical writings such as the Image of both Churches c. but also much of the jugâ—ing that is in England at this day If you put your selves in the Garbe of Quakers Enthusiasts Anabaptists c. and pretend that you are of their opinions and deny your selves to be what you are as long as you think that these lies are pious and rather honor God then greatly dishonor him and rather do good to others by promoting the Catholike cause then notably injure them can any man say that 's of your opinion that they are against the Law of God And why call you that a venial sin which is against no Law when sin is a transgression of the Law and where there â—s no Law there is no transgression 1 Ioh. 3.4 Rom. 4.15 And why say you â—hat veniam meretur when yet you say that â—aenam aeternam non meretur How can there â—e venia sine merito vel debito paenae What â—eed you any pardon of that which was never â—eserved by you And what need you ask forgiveness of these sins or be beholden to God â—or it if the punishment to be forgiven were never due Will you beg the remission of a debt which is no debt Aquinas makes venial and mortal sin to differ as Reparabile irreparabile because from an inward principle the one may be repaired but the other not without infused supernatural grace But is it ever the less sin because it is reparabile Nay what needs it reparation if it be not a transgression But what is this Reparation that he speaks of Is it the remission of the guilt and punishment No sure for eternal punishment he saith it deserveth not and internal principles do not sure forgive the punishment of sin Can we forgive our selves What is it then Is it the removing of the blot No properly peccatum veniale non inducit maculam as before said Is it that venial sin is easier conquered and forsaken then mortal No sure For Aquinas tells us that a man may live for a little while without venial sin but not long but without mortal sin they may easily live till death What this reparation then is I do not certainly know But whatever it is methinks it should suppose a proper sin and not onely Analogical an a desert of eternal punishment to be remitted And here I must adde that another thinâ— that lately hath much disaffected me to youâ— profession is to see by what actual fraud and jugling it is propagated Do you think I see not the game that you are now playing in the darke in England in the persons of Seekers Behmenists Paracelsians Origenists Quakers and Anabaptists I must confess I naturally abhor collusions and dissimulation in the matters of God If your way were of God it needed not such devices to uphold it nor would it suit so well with works of darkness If you have the truth produce it naked and deal plainly and play above board For my part I do not fear being cheated out of my Religion by any thing but seeming force of Argument for I mean to know what I receive before I take it and to taste and chew it before I let it down but the blind incautelous multitude and half witted giddy persons and discontented licentious half studyed Gentlemen may possibly be caught by such chaffe as this Another of your dissimulations which increaseth my dissatisfaction is Your pretending â—o the ignorant people that you are all of a mind and there are no divisions among you â—nd making our divisions the great Argument â—o raise â—n odium against our doctrine calling us Schismaticks Hereticks and the like When â—ndeed no one thing doth so much turn away my heart from you as your abominable Schism Do we not know of the multitudes of Opinions among you mentioned by Bellarmine and other of your Writers If you call me out to any more of this work I mean the next time to present to the world a Catalogue of your Divisions among your selves that it may appear how notable your unity is If the Jesuites are to be believed what a silly sottish generation are your secular Priests If your Priests are to be believed what a seditious hypocritical cheating packe are the Jesuites I speak not the words of your Protestant adversaries but of those of your own Church Do I not know what Guiliel de Sancto Amore and many another say of your own Church Do you think I never read Watsons Quodlibets and the many pretty stories of the Jesuites exploits there mentioned by him I do not think that you suffer many of your own followers to read these books that are written against one another by your selves But the great division among you that quite overthrows your cause in my esteem is that between the French and Italian in your very foundation which all your faith is resolved into You have no belief of Scripture nor in Christ no hope of heaven you differ not from Turkes and Infidels but onely upon the credit and authority of your Church And this Church musâ— be infallible or else your faith is fallible Aâ— least it must be of sovereign authority And when it comes to the upshot you are not agreeâ— what this Church is One saith it is the Pope with a General Council and another saith it is a General Council though the Pope dissent One saith the Pope is fallible and the other saith a Council is fallible One saith a Pope is above the Council and another saith the Council is above the Pope And now what is become of your Religion Nay is it not
any internal virtue but a profession of faith is sufficient The Members of the Church considered severally are The Clergy The Laity 2. That Clergy men are not held under civil Laws by any coactive but onely directive bond 3. That Clergy men breaking the Civil Law cannot yet be punished by any civil Judge nor be brought before the Tribunal of Secular Magistrates 4. That the goods of the Clergy both Ecclesiastical and Secular are free from the Tribute and Taxe of Secular Princes 5. That men are to be prepared for receiving Orders by the first shaving 6. By how much the higher degree of Order any one is in by so much the larger shaving is he to be crowned with 7. That single life is alwayes joyned to holy Orders by Divine right The Popish Clergy aâ—â— either Seculars and those either Regulars Of the lowest Order Of the higher Order which they call Priests and are both The less as Presbyters The greater as Bishops 8. That the Clergy men of the highest Order are Priests properly so called which they say are instituted to offer an external and real sacrifice 9. The choice of Bishops does belong to the Pope by Divine right That all the Bishops receive jurisdiction from the Pope 11. The Romane Church hath Cardinals for sides-men to the Pope upon whom the universal Church is turned as upon hinges 12. These are to be joyned with the Pope in the Government of the universal Church 13. That those whether they be Bishops or Presbyters or Deacons are not only to be preferred before other Bishops Archbishops Primates Patriarchs but to be equalled even with Kings § 20. Of Councils and Monastical vows 1. THey teach that there are Evangelical Councils distinct from commands which no man is bound to perform but they who profess perfection and would deserve more and greater things than eternal life 2. That the study of perfection is not of command but Councils 3. Such Councils are those of not seeking revenge of loving our adversaries of not swearing c. 4. Not to obey a Council is no fin 5. That some perfection is necessary to salvation and that consists in the full observation of the commands 6. That some other perfection is greater and is necessary not simply for salvation but for a more excellent degree of glory and that consists in the observation of Councils 7. By obedience to Councils men do supererogate 8. That vowed Virginity and single life are most acceptable worship to God 9. Yea and the greatest satisfaction for sin and merit of eternal life 10. A Monastick life is a state of Perfection 11. All that 's done by vow is a worship of God 12. Monastical vows do satisfie for sin and deserve eternal life 13. Our entrance into Religion is a second Baptism or in stead of a new Baptism by which satisfaction is made for all former sins 14. That perfection is to be placed in true Monastick vows as the vow of voluntary poverty the vow of perpetual chastity the vow of Monastical obedience 15. That voluntary poverty is rightly vowed to God 16. That its lawful Lawful yea a meritorious work a work of perfection and supererogation in Monks to live on begging 17. It is lawful yea meritorious for the younger men to vow single life for ever 18. The vow of single life is to he kept by them who have the gift of continency 19. There is none but may alwayes contain if he will 20. That 't is lawful for children to enter into a vow against their parents consent 21. They allow of great variety of vows which have various rules of life invented by men beside the holy Scripture And as if there were greater perfection in those rules then in the doctrine of the Gospel and a more compendious way to perfection and salvation they teach by the observation of them eternal life and a more excellent degree of glory is obtained 22. They give the obedience which is due onely to God unto the men that live after the Rules of the Franciscan Domincan order c. 23. That the Apostles were the first Christian Monks 24 To them who are buried in the Cowls of the Monkes especially of the Franciscans they promise remission of sin in some part 25. That Princes are not the supream Governors of their subjects on earth in all causes spiritual and temporal 26. They make Princes subject to the people as well as to the Pope §. 21. Of the Law Of Charity or things to be done the sum of which are in the Decalogue 1. THat regenerate and baptized persons may perfectly fulfill the Law so far as they are bound to fulfill it in this life 2. The fulfilling of the Law in this life is not onely possible but easie 3. That every degree of Grace is sufficient to fulfill the commandments and expel all sins 4. That we are not bound in this life to love God with all our hearts 5. And all our souls and all our strength Neither are we bound not to have evil concupiscence 6. That venial sins as they call them do not hinder that perfect obedience which is required in this life 7. That the regenerate can do more then the Law requires 8. They teach their Disciples to worship God under a humane shape or figure 9. That Angels are to be worshiped and called upon 10. Also Saints that are dead are to be worshiped and called upon 11. That a more than ordinary worship is due to the blessed Virgin such as they teach Christs humanity waâ— to be worshiped with but to the rest of the Saints ordinary worship 12. That the members of the Blessed Virgin are to be adored for so they touch them I worship and Bless thy feet with which thou didst tread down the Old Serpents head I worship and bless thy comely eyes c. 23. That according to the five letters of her name Maria she is the Mediatrix of God and men the Auxiliatrix or helper of God and men the repairer of the weak the illuminater of the blind the Advocate for all sin 14. They name her the Queen of heaven our Lady and Goddess the Lady of Angels the fountain of all graces Orat. Steph. Patracen in Concil Later Sess 10.666.6 f. 15. For her honor and worship they have composed Duties Letanies Rosaries and a Psaltery all full of Idolatry 16. In the Psaltery of Mary whatsoever almost David had spoken of God and Christ they blasphemously give to her as for example O Lady in thee have I put my trust deliver my soul from mine enemies In Psal 7. And I will praise thee O Lady with my whole heart Psal 9. I put my trust in thee O Lady Ps 10. Save me O Lady Psal 11. Keep me O Lady because I have hoped in thee Psal 15. The heavens declare thy Glory O Virgin Mary Psal 19. To thee O Lady have I lifted up my soul Psal 25. Have mercy on me O Lady who
3 4. And is your Doctrine like this Isay bids To the Law and the Testimony Is 8.20 And the Bereans are commended for searching the Scriptures daily to see whether the things were so that were taught them even by Apostles And will you forbid this and burn men for to promote their salvation Did not Paul write his Epistles to the Laity as well as to the Clergy You must strip me of the grace of God and reduce my mind to a state of darkness before I can ever entertain these principles of darkness For light and darkness will not have communion If by Arguments you would perswade me so plainly against the life of nature as that I am bound to blind or kill my self in order to my good there 's somewhat within me that would confute them besides reason And why should not the Life of Grace also be a principle of self-preservation As for your Reason that men must let alone the Scripture and hearken to their Teachers for fear of heresies it will never take with me till I can believe you to be less suspected guides then Christ and his Apostles and till I can believe that a Scholar may not learn of his Book his Teacher both without any contradiction And then for your devotions it is not all the Arguments in the world that would ever reconcile me to them while I have that Law in any prevailing measure written in my heart that teacheth me to worship God in Spirit and in truth What man of Spiritual experience can choose but distaste your way of worship that doth but read over one of your offices and Lady's Psalters and see the affected repetition of words and the ludicrous kind of devotions which you teach the people more like to charms then serious prayers to God! especially if he also observe the huge number of ceremonies which the very body of your worship is composed of As there is somewhat in nature that hindereth a man from delighting to eat chaffe or feeding upon meer air so is there somewhat in the new nature of a Christian that is against this trifling and jesting with God Another thing that hath encreased my distaste of your wayes is the common ungodliness of your followers I have endeavored as well as I could to be acquainted with them where I came and I have known but very few of them but have been either Whoremongers or Swearers or Drunkards or Gamesters or sensual livers nor did I ever meet with one to this day to my best remembrance that manifested a spiritual frame of heart or had any delight to speak of the workings of God upon the soul and the sweet communications of the love of Christ or could give any savory account of any such spiritual workings in them but all their Religion was to stick to the Romish Church and go on in their ceremonious forms of worship abstaining from this meat or that and rioting and pampering their flesh on Holidayes c. If I had known this to be the case onely of the common people in Italy or Spain or France I should not have wondered for I know that most of the people do take up their Religion but upon carnal accounts and accordingly will use it But to find it thus in England where your number is small and you pretend to hold your Religion in so much self-denyal the state being against you and therefore your party should be the purest zelots and shew the face of your doctrine in its greatest glory this makes me judge of the tree by the fruites And the observing of this hath made me admire that ever you can make the holiness of your Church the matter of so great ostentation as you do Yea that such men as H.P. de Cressy can have the face to pretend that your admirable holiness in comparison of ours was the means of their conversion to you Unhappy man with whom did he converse while he seemed a Protestant or where did he live But this was not his fate alone but of divers of his strain When they are carnal Protestants abhorring the power of the Religion which they profess and avoiding and reproaching the practicers of their own Religion and so have no communion with them nor experience of their holiness it is a righteous thing with God to leave them to so much blindness as to run from England to Rome for holiness and that because they abhorred purity they should be so blinded as not to discern the beauty of it and yet to dote on the name and coate of it which may be put on in the morning and off at night And indeed this hath somewhat increased my aversness to observe that by how much the more godly and conscionable any are of our profession the more they are against yours and that so few of this sort are turned to you that I yet know not certainly of one that ever seemed a Godly person And the common ignorant sort of people that know not what a Church is nor what Religion is and that live in sensuality and wickedness are the favourablest to your wayes yea so forward to promote them that many of them would quickly be yours if the times were but changed to you and these are the people that I have known become your proselites When we have lost our labor upon them and left them in their wickedness and they that were filthy are filthy still then some of them turn Papists and this forsooth in admiration of the holiness of your Church When I confess for some of them I have not been sorry to hear that they were turned to you for I thought it may be the liking they have to you might make them hearken more to your reproofs then to ours and possibly you might perswade them from Whoredoms and Drunkenness and Swearing and Lying when we were out of hope But when I perceived that they fled to you for an indulgence in their sin because some of these are but venial sins with you and they have a palliate ceremonial cure at hand to befool them I then acknowledged the justice of God against them I am none of those that think that there is none among you shall be saved I have read that in some of your Writers that perswadeth me it came from a sanctified heart I am ready to acknowledge and honor the Spirit of Christ wherever I can discern it But I must profess that I was never yet so happy as to converse with a Papist that manifested an experienced gracious heavenly mind though I am truely willing to make the best of them And that your Church should be as the sink or channel to receive the excrements and filth of ours is no great argument of its holiness in my eyes And if a few that are less sensual turn to you it is commonly as far as I can discern the Tenants or servants of some of your way that are led by worldly respects and they are such
undenyable that you are of two Churches specifically different Certainly a body Politick is specified from the summa potestas And therefore if the French make a Council the summa potestas the sovereign power and the Italians make the Pope the sovereign and a third party make the Pope and Council conjunctâ—only the sovereign are not here undenyably several Churches specifically different And then you have another deceit for the salving of all this that increaseth my disaffection You glory in your present judge of controversies and tell us it is no wonder if we be all in pieces that have no such judge And what the better are you for your judge when he cannot or dare not decide your controversies No he dare not determine this fundamental controversie whether himself or a Council be the sovereign power for fear of losing the French and those that joyn with them So that it must remain but dogma Theologicum and no point de fide what is the summa potestas and yet all that is de fide even our Christianity and Salvation must be resolved into it And doth not this directly tend to infidelity Would you have serious Christians deliver up themselves to such a maze as this for the obtaining of unity What the better are you for a judge of controversie in all those hundreds of differences that are among your selves when your judge either cannot or will not determine them Are not we as well without him as you are with him Plain things that are past controversie have no need of your judge It is no controversie with us whether Christ be the Messiah whether he rose ascended and will judge the world And if we go to darker points your own judge will say nothing or worse Why do you cry out so much against expounding the Scripture otherwise then according to the sence of the Church when your Church will give you no interpretation of them Do not your expositors differ about many hundred texts of Scripture and neither Pope nor Council will decide the controversies These are therefore meer delusions of the world with the empty name of a judge of controversies And indeed you sometime shew your selves that you have no such high conceit of your Pope whatever you would make the world believe as to trust his judgement Your own Priest Watson tells us in his Quodlib pag. 56.57 That the Jesuites Preached openly in Spain against Pope Sixtus the last of all holy memory and railing against him as against a most wicked man and monster on earth they have called him a Lutherane heretick they have termed him a Wolf they have said he had undone all Christendome if he had lived and Cardinal Bellarmine himself as judge paramount being asked what he thought of his death answered Qui sine paenitentia vivit sine paenitentia moritur proculdubio ad infernum descendit and to an English Doctor of our Nation he said Conceptis verbis quantum capio quantum sapio quamtum intelligo descendit ad infernum And yet we must hold our Belief in Christ on the credit of such a mans infallibility But yet I have not come to that point of your Schisme which above all things in the world doth alienate my mind from your profession And that is your separation from all other Christians in the world I find in my self so great an inclination to unity and the title Catholike is so honourable in my esteem to them that deserve it that if I had found you to have the unity and Catholike Religion and Church which you boast of it would have much inclined me to your Church and way But when I find you like the Donatists confining the Church to your party and making your selves a Sect and Faction and unchurching and damning the far greatest part of the Christians in the world this left me assured that you are most notorious Schismaticks When I saw so much knowledge and holiness comparatively among the Reformed Catholikes and so much ignorance and wickedness among the Papists even here where are but a remnant that adhere to their Religion against the course of the Nation and when I read so many plain promises in Scripture that Whoever believeth in Christ shall not perish and that if by the spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body we shall live and that if we Repent our sins shall be forgiven yea that Godliness hath the promise of this life and that to come and then when I find that the Papists for all these certain promises do unchurch and damne us all because we believe not in the Pope of Rome as well as in Christ this satisfied me as fully that you are most audacious Schismaticks as I am satisfied that you are Papists What! must I be a Papist on such grounds as these Must I believe because you tell me so that all the most conscionable heavenly Christians that I am intimately acquainted with are unsanctified ungodly and in a state of damnation When I am a witness of the earnest breathings of their souls after more communion with God When they would not live in one of those sins that you call venial for all the world When they mortifie the flesh and live in the spirit and wait for Christs appearance And yet that such as the Papists shall be saved that are so far below them because they believe in the Pope of Rome Why you may almost as well perswade me to become a Papist by telling me that you have eyes in your heads and noses on your faces and the rest of the world have none Doth Christ say He-that believeth and repenteth shall be saved and must I believe that all Protestants shall be damned let them believe and repent never so much This is to bid me cease to believe Christ that I may believe the Pope Cease to be a Christian that I may become a Papist I am confident I shall never be Papist if it may not be done but by believing that all the Godly that I am acquainted with are ungodly and in the way to hell And to speak of the quantity as well as the quality I feel a kind of universal charity within me extending to a Christian as a Christian and therefore to all the Christians in the world which will not give me leave to believe if a hundred Popes should swear it that the far greatest part of Christians shall be damned because they are not subjects to the Pope The Papists are but a handful of the Christians in the world at least the smaller part by far The most of them never acknowledged the sovereignty of your Pope And a few ages ago before Mahometanism and Heathenism diminished the number of Christians in Asia and Africa the Papists were but a small proportion There are but lately taken off from the Christian Religion its probable twice as many as all the Papists in the whole world If it were but the Kingdomes of Nubia and Tenduc how far would
present the far purest and renounce communion with them all and proclaim them Hereticks or Schismaticks and sentence them all to the flames of Hell Yea that dare do the like by all ages of Christians that have gone before them yea that dare unchurch and damne to Hell the whole Church of Christ for many hundred years For what do they less when they unchurch and damne all that acknowledge not their new made universal Bishop which the Primitive Church never did And when they make that to be essential to the Catholike Church which the first Catholike Church did never know I know there be some Enthusiasts and Anabaptists and such giddy persons that do as the Papists do condemn all the Churches of Christ except themselves But yet the Schisme that they have made hereby is nothing to that which was made by the Papists who have set the Christian world into a flame of dissention and make it their very business daily to bâ—ow â—t up and do nourish so many Colledges of Jesuites and other orders to that end What notorious impudency is it then in these men to tell us that we are schismaticks separate from them and aske us how we dare judge all our forefathers to damnation and why we will not be of our forefathers Religion and do not observe how they condemne themselves by all these questions What more evident then that the Papists have separated from all other Christians in the world How dare they condemne the far greatest part of Christians on earth to eternal torment yea and by plain consequence though they will not acknowledge it the whole Church of Christ for many hundred years were it but one soul that they should presume to censure they might well bethink them of an answer to Pauls Question Who art thou that judgest another mans servant to his own master doth he stand or fall When Paul wrote that to the Church at Rome he knew of none then that would justifie the judging of all the world and say They are my servants or subjects and therefore I must judge them Do the blind Papists think that any sober considerate impartial Christian can be of their mind and damne the most of Christs Church on earth meerly because they will not be subject to the Pope of Rome If this Article be so necessary to salvation Why do not we find it in any ancient Creed Why must we not say I believe in the Pope of Rome as well as I believe in God Or if indeed it be the Pope and Romanists that is meant by the holy Catholike Church why would not the composers of the Creed tell us so And why did none of the ancient Churches understand and expound it so And why did no age add the word Romane and call it the holy Romane Catholike Church 2. And then withal besides the present Schisme which they have made they have laid the ground of a perpetual schisme For they have made a new definition of the Catholicke Church and made it another thing then it was before and they have made a new head and center of its unity so that all the old sort of Christians to the end of the world that cannot change their Church and unite to the new head and center must needs be of a different body from the Romanists And if these men say that it is the rest of the Christian world that first withdraws from them 1. Let them prove that the Greek Abassins the rest of the Christian world that deny subjection to them except these in the West were ever under them 2. And as for the Reformed Churches if they were drawn in heretofore I mean their forefathers to countenance the Romish usurpation tyranny they withdraw only from that usurpation separate from Rome only as it is a faction not as from a Church If we be drawn into a schism separation from all the Christian world by the fraud of Rome is it unlawful for us to repent return to the unity of the Catholike Church and to renounce the Schism that we were guilty of This is our great sin we are schismaticks because we will not continue schismaticks we are Schismaticks by casting off the Schism of Rome because we will not be Schismaticks by continuing to separate from all the Churches else on earth 3. But let us come to the tryal with them who laid the first Schismatical Principle Was it not they that first defined the Catholike Church as equipollent with the Romane and first made the universal Headship of their Pope to be the center Did ever Peter or Paul or any Apostle do so Did they give us such a definition of the Catholike Church Or did the Church do so for many a hundred year after them Prove this well and take all and we promise to turn Papists without delay The plaine truth is this The Catholike Church for many hundred years after Christ was that Body of Christians who were united or centred only in Christ the head and held communion in the fundamentals or great and necessary points of faith and worship and had no mortal head or Center But the worldly greatness of the City of Rome occasioneth the inflation and proud usurpation of her Bishop and he will needs make himself the Center of union and universal head when there was no Center or head but Christ before And is not this the vilest Schisme that men can tell how to be guilty of suppose that the King of Spaine having his Dominions remote one part from another some in Europe and some in the Indies that for five or six hundred years the Indies should acknowledge no other head but the King of Spaine and the Governors of each Province should receive their several Commissions immediately from him and stand in no regimental subordination to one another but onely be bound by the King to have communion and hold correspondence for their mutual safety and the common good If now after so long time the Vice King of Mexico shall by Degrees make himself the sovereign of the rest first claiming onely the first place in their Assemblies because he is Governor of the greatest City and then requiring them to do nothing without him or his consent and at last proclaiming himself the head of the Indies under the King of Spaine and that none are subjects to the King but those that profess themselves also subjects to him but all the rest are rebels and traytors and to be used accordingly exhorting and commanding all to fall upon them and use them as such And all this upon pretence that Spain is so far off that the King there is invisible and inaccessible to them in the Indies and therefore the King hath given him a Commission to be his substitute as being more visible and accessible If now the rest of the Presidents Governors and Provinces shall refuse to acknowledge the Headship of this man and shall declare that they dare
its flourishing in the Apostles dayes Universality comparatively that is the greater part the Arrians had at least of the Bishops The doctrine of the Mâ—llenaries with many such like may plead more antiquity than Popery can And as for succession there is no doubt but a Bishop or Church in the line of succession may turn Heretical and have successors in their Heresie Have none of the Greek Churches nor Alexandria Antioch c. had a succession till it fell into the hands of a Heretick and it would have beeen no good plea for the first Heretical Bishop or Church to plead such succession If there be not a succession in Apostolical doctrine the succession of persons will be no proof of the truth or soundness of the Church 3. And for the Minor of your Argument I answer 1. The Ethiopian Alexandrian and other Churches can as truely boast of these qualifications as Rome 2. The Papists lay a higher claim to them then they can make good As 1. I have shewed already how far they are from unity who are not only of so many Religions or wayes of Discipline and of so great distance in many doctrinals as the controversies among themselves do manifest but also are so disagreed about the very center of their union their infallible soveraign Power whether it be in the Pope or a General Council or both Besides their unity is but of their own party the Romanists And so all other parties are at some unity among themselves or many at least If John of Constantinople had prevented the Pope and got the Title of universal Bishop or Pope as he did by composition of universal Patriarch and had pretended that this would have united the Churches I think it would not have justified his cause 2. How can the Papists for shame pretend to universality either as to the present or former ages Is it nothing that all the Ethiopian Greek and Reformed Churches are not of their party besides many a thousand more Or will they arrogantly condemne all the rest of the Christian world as heretical and then say that they are the whole Church Did they not learn this of the Donatists But what is become of their modesty who pretend to an universality for the time past when all the Christian world was against their present belief and there was not such a thing as a Papist known and revealed to us in the world of six hundred years after the birth of Christ 3. And for their succession we undertake to prove it interrupted long ago and that there were no true Bishops at Rome of a long time Though men have sat there that were chosen by Cardinals and call themselves Bishops or Popes yet if according to the Scripture and ancient Councils they were matter utterly uncapable of that form then its plain that they were but Statues and had but the name without the thing i. e. the office or authority and therefore are unworthy also of the name it self Let me name two or three of their own Writers that bear witness of this And first their great parasite Cardinal Baronius saith ad an 912. § 8. What then was the face of the holy Romane Church how exceeding filthy when the most potent and yet most sordid Whores did Rule at Rome by whose pleasure Sees were changed Bishops were given and which is a thing horrid to be heard and not to be spoken their sweet hearts or mates were thrust into Peters chair being false Popes who are not to be written in the Catalogue of the Romane Popes but onely for the marking out of such times And after he well addes to shew that the interruption was not like to be onely in the succession of true Bishops And what kind of Cardinal Priests and Deacons think you we must imagine that these monsters did choose when nothing is so rooted in nature as for every one to beget his like See more in Baron ibid. Platina speaking of the evil of those times de Benedict 4. saith that By ambition and bribery the holy chair of Peter was rather seized on then possessed Genebrard in Chronolog l. 4. secul 10. speaking of the great unhappiness of that age saith that In this one thing it was unhappy that for neer one hundred and fifty years about fifty Popes did wholly fall away from the vertue of their ancestors being Apotactici Apostaticive potius quam Apostolici Disorderly and Apostatical rather then Apostolical What shall we think of all those that murdered their predecessors to obtain the place were they capable of being true Bishops What shall we say of Pope Silvester the second who was a conjurer and agreed with the Devil to help him to be Pope and by the deceit of the Devil was again deprived of it by suddain death Doth the Devil make true Bishops of conjurers I know the deceiving Papists would make the simple people believe that all these things that we say of their Popes are lies of our own forging but men that have eyes in their heads may see who are the lyars Their own Writers do commonly affirm the same that we affirm A Cardinal of their own Benno in vita Hildebrandi affirmeth this of Pope Silvester and he lived in the times next him and therefore might know Platina another of their own affirms in vita Silvest that Gesbertus impelled by ambition and devillish desire of rule did first by bribery or Simony get the Archbishoprike of Rhemes then of Ravenna and at last of Rome the Devil giving him more of his help but on this condition that after his death he should be wholly his by whose deceits he had obtained such dignity The like hath Lyra in Gloss ad cap. 14. Maccab. l. 2. and a multitude of their Hystorians unanimously confirm it Yea Aeneas Sylvius who was a Pope himself de gest is Concil Basil l. 1. saith We are not ignorant that Pope Marcellinus did at Cesars command offer incense to Idols and that another which is a greater and more horrible thing did come to be Pope of Rome by the fraud of the Devil In a word if Murderers Adulterers Conjurers that come in by the Devil and Hereticks may be true Bishops of Rome and yet a man that believeth not the Popes Univerversal Vicarship can be no true Catholike Christian then it seems it is a greater sin not to Believe in the Pope then not to Believe in Christ or then it is to bargain with the Devil or be a Murderer or Adulterer Certainly these men were as uncapable of being true Bishops when these things were once publikely known of them at least as a Mahometane would be And therefore there hath been many an interruption in their succession And many a schism there hath been wherein two or three Popes have raigned at once and he that had the greatest strength hath carryed it when his Right was not the greatest QUERY Whether the Infallible Judgement of the Romane Pope or his Clergy must be the
and therefore took him not to be infallible and he parallell's him with the Ancient Hereticks Marcion Apelles Valentinus Basilides as bringing in error under pretence of Tradition as they did And saith And for them that are at Rome they do not in all things observe those things which were delivered from the beginning and do in vain pretend the Authority of the Apostles as may be seen in that about Easter and about many other Divine mysteries there are some diversities with them and they do not equally observe all things as at Hierusalem they are observed As also in many other Provinces many things are varyed according to the diversity of places and names and yet no breach of the Churches unity and peace for this Which now Stephen hath dared to do breaking the peace with us which his ancestors kept in love and honor and moreover defaming Peter and Paul as if he had this Tradition from them And in this I have just indignation at the open and manifest foolishness of Stephen that he that thus boasteth of the place of his Bishopricke and contendeth that he holdeth the succession of Peter upon whom the foundations of the Church are laid doth bring in many other Rocks and maketh new buildings of many Churches while by his authority he defendeth that there is Baptisme And as to the confutation of Custome which they seem to oppose to truth who is so vain as to prefer custom before truth Or that seeing the light will not forsake the darkness Except that when Christ that is the truth was come the most ancient custom would have in any thing helpt the Jews that leaving the new way of truth they remained in Antiquity Which you Africans may say against Stephen that having knowledge of the truth you have forsaken the error of custome But we do both joyn custome to truth and to the custome of the Romanes we oppose custome but of the truth from the beginning holding that which from Christ and his Apostles was delivered to us Nor can we remember any beginning of this Yea thou art worse then all the hereticks See then how ignorantly thou darest to reprehend them who strive for the truth against a lye For who should more justly be angry with the other he that defendeth Gods enemies or he that consenteth But that it is manifest that the ignorant are haughty and angry while for want of judgement and speech they easily turn to indignation so that of no man more then of thee doth Gods Scripture say An haughty man breedeth strife and an angry man heapeth up sins Prov. 29.22 For what strifes and dissenssions hast thou made through the Churches of the whole world And how great a sin hast thou heaped on thy self when thou hast cut off thy self from so many flocks For thou hast cut off thy self deceive not thy self For he is truely the schismatick who maketh himself an apostate from the communion of Ecclesiastical unity For while thou thinkest to suspend all from thy communion thou dost onely suspend thy self from the communion of all Can there be one Body and one spirit with such a a man whose soul perhaps is not one so slippery and mutable and uncertain is it And yet is not Stephen ashamed to patronize such against the Church and for the defence of hereticks to divide the brother hood and also to call Cyprian a false Christ and false Apostle and a deceitful worker who being conscious that all these were in himself did by prevention object all that to another by a lye which himself deservedly ought to hear So far Firmilianus The question is not whether Stephen of Rome or the Eastern Bishops were in the right but whether these passages do not sufficiently declare that they had then no conceits of the Popes infallibility and that when he excommunicated other Churches they took it but as an excommunicating of himself and therefore plainly called him a Schismatick In the Council of Carthage 87. Bishops decreed expresly against the sentence of the Bishop of Rome And Cyprian in Council speaks thus Let every man speak his judgement judging no man nor removing any man from the right of communion that thinks otherwise For none of us takes himself to be a Bishop of Bishops or by a tyrannical fear doth compell his Colleagues to obey seeing every Bishop hath by licence free choice of his own liberty and power and can neither be judged of another nor can judge another But let us all expect the judgement of our Lord Jesus Christ who onely and solely hath power to set us over his Church in Government and to judge of our actions If this be not as plain as need be spoken against the Papal usurpation I know not what can be accounted plain Yea Cyprian and the Council say the like to the Pope himself These things dear brother we speak to thy conscience for the common honor and for simple love But we know that some men will not lay down that which they have once drunk in nor easily change their purpose but saving the bond of Peace and concord among Collegues will retain some things of their own which are once grown into use among them Wherein we do neither use violence nor give Laws to any seeing that every Ruler or Bishop hath the free arbitration of his own will in the administration of the Church as one that must give account of his doings to the Lord. If this be not plain still against Papal and all Archiepiscopal government of Bishops I know not how a man should speak plain The Council of Carthage saith Gratian Dist 99 saith Even the Pope of Rome must not be called the universal Bishop Gregory called the great Bishop of Rome but a few years before Boniface claimed the universal Episcopacy wrote thus against John of Constantinople who would have had some such title None of my predecessors would use this prophane word viz. Universal Bishop because if one will call himself universal Patriarch the name of Patriarch is stoln from others But far be it from a Christian soul that any should falsly ascribe to himself that whereby he diminisheth any thing from the honor of his Brethren To consent to that unjust speech is no other thing then to fall from the faith One thing we owe to the unity of the faith and another to suppress pride And I say boldly that he who calleth himself universal Pastor or desireth so to be called surpasseth the Antichrist in pride So Epist 188. l. 6. He saith I have said that he cannot have place with us if he corrected not the vanity of that supersticious and ambitious word which hath been invented by the first Apostate And to speak nothing of the injury done to your honor if a Bishop be called universal that universal once falling the universal Church must also fall Here it is especially to be noted that this very reason by which Gregory condemneth universal Episcopacy
may change any thing that God appointeth about Sacraments except the substance And it were well if they would have left that unchanged The Council of Constance took the cup from the Laity Licet in primitiva Ecclesia hujusmodi sacramentum reciperetur a fidelibus sub utraque specie Though in the primitive Church this Sacrament was received of the faithful under both kinds So that they confess they contradict the Primitive Church Bellarmine plainly saith li. 4. de Pontif. c. 5. Si Papa erraret in praecipiendo vitia vel prohibendo virtutes teneretur Ecclesia credere vitia esse bona virtutes malas nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare That is If the Pope should erre in commanding vices and forbidding virtues the Church were bound to believe that vices are good and vertues bad unless they would sin against conscience And against Barelay cap. 31. he saith In bono sensu dedit Christus Petro Potestatem faciendi de peccato non peccatum de non peccato peccatum That is In a good sense Christ hath given power to Peter to make sin no sin and no sin to be sin compare this doctrine with the Fathers The Glasse in Can. Lector Dist 34. saith Papa dispensat contra Apostolum The Pope dispenseth against the Apostle Innocent 3. Decret de conces prebend tit 8. c. proposuit saith Secundum plenitudinem potestatis de jure supra jus possumus dispensare According to the fullness of our power we can dispense with the Law above Law And the Glosse addeth For the Pope dispenseth against the Apostle and against the old Testament as also in vows and oaths And another Gloss saith The Pope dispenseth with the Gospel in interpreting it More such Glosses you may find if not yet more gross and impious which I 'le not stand to recite Gregory de Valentia Tom. 4. disp 6. qu. 8. p. 5. § 10. saith Et certe quaedam posterioribus tempâ—ribus rectius constituta esse in Ecclesia quam initio se haberent That is And certainly some things are more rightly constituted in the Church in the latter times then they were in the beginning Andradius Defens Concil Trident. lib. 2. pag. mihi 236. saith Vnde etiam liquet minime eos errasse qui dicunt Romanos Pontifices posse nonnunquam in legibus dispensare a Paulo primisque quatuor Conciliis ad Ecclesiam exornandam moresque componendos pro temporum necessitate edictis qualis est illa quae interdicit ut digamos creari ne liceat Episcopos i. e. Whence it appeareth that they did not erre who say that the Pope of Rome may sometime dispense with Lawes made by Paul and the four first Councils for the necessity of the times to the adoring of the Church and the composing of manners such as is that which forbiddeth those to be made Bishops who are the husbands of two wives Cardinal Perron against King James li. 2. Obser 3. â— 3. p. 674. hath a Chapter purposely Of the Authority of the Church to alter matters contained in the Scriptures And pag. 1109. 1115. he saith that When in the form of the Sacraments some great inconvenicies are met withal the Church may therein dispense and alter And that the Lords words Drink yee all of it were a precept not immutable nor in dispensable for the Church hath judged that there may be a dispensation for â—t Bâ—ovius Observ on C. 24. constit Apost saith Ecclesia Romana quae Apostolica utens potestate singula pro conditione temporum in melius mutat i.e. The Church of Rome using Apostolical power doth according to the condition of times change all things for the better Cardinal Tolet saith Cum certum sit non omnia qâ—ae Apostoli instituerunt jure Divino esse instituta i. e. It is certain that all things which the Apostles instituted were not instituted by Divine right And the Council of Trent hath shewed its usurpation of power above Scripture in dispensing with the degrees of Marriage in Lev. 18. 20. adding to what God hath prohibited and relaxing what God hath restrained and that To Great Princes and for a publike cause When they make it sin to other men These and many more of their gross sayings and usurpations against Scripture and above it they have been long ago told of by Jewell Reignolds Whittakers Molinaeus and others and how sleight their evasions are the considerate and impartial may discern I have therefore recited thus much of their words here that you may compare them with the Ancients and then see who are the Changlings and Novelists and who they be that keep to the old Church and Religion And among other ancient Writers I would desire you besides all the forecited to compare the Popish frame with the Directions of Vicentius Lirinensis which he giveth us for the discovery of Truth and avoiding heresie in his book Contr. Haeres Which I the rather mention because I admire that the Papists should be so immodest as to boast so much of him as if he were on their side The sum of his advice to avoid heresie is this 10 Fidem munire Divinae legis authoritate 20 Ecclesiae Catholicae traditione To fortifie our faith 1. By the Authority of Gods Law 2. By the Tradition of the Catholike Church This way he saith he was himself directed to by all the holy Learned men that he enquired of Saepa magno studio summa attentioae perquirens a quamplurimis sanctitate doctrina praestantibus viris quonam modo possem certa quadam quasi generali ac regulari via Catholicae fidei veritatem ab haereticae pravitatis falsitate discernere hujusmodi semper responsum ab omnibus fere retuli cap. 1. Edit Colon. a. 1613 pag. 617. Edit Perionii Lugd. 1572. So that we are given to understand by this passage 1. That this was no private opinion of Vincentius but the common way that was then taken by Holy learned men to discern Truth from Heresie 2. And note well that he doth not once in all the book direct us to the Determination much less to the Inâ—allible determination of the Pope or the Romane Church as the way to discern Truth from Heresie And can any man of common reason that is willing to know the truth imagine that there is the least probability that Vincentius should silence this Romish decision in a Treatise written purposely and onely on that subject and wherein he undertaketh to give us the full and certain direction to avoid Heresies if the Church had then been of the Romanists opinion O intolerably forgetful negligent delusory man that would not give us one word of that which is now the foundation of all and into which our faith must be ultimately resolved What never a word to tell us that whatsoever the Pope or Clergy of Rome are for or against may be known accordingly to be true or false because he is the infallible Head
yet living in mortal bodies where they place them as behind the stage that they may be ready to act their parts in the fable oâ— Antichrist To the Article of creation is annexed the Article of providence 1. In this the Papists erre in making mans actions not to depend on Gods Providence but on mans Free-will which they make the absolute Lord of its own actions 2. And that they are not determined of God according to whose determinate Council things come to pass Act. 2.30 4.28 but that God rather who worketh all according to the Council of his will doth follow the determination of the will of man 3. And that he foreknows them from eternity only in mans will 4. Also in that they interpret the action of God as judge punishing sin with sin hardening men giving them over to their lusts and to the temptations of Satan to be naked permission as if the judge or Magistrate might not deliver a malefactor to the hangman as executioner of his judgement to be punished but should not onely permit him to be punished that is not hinder it § 3. Of Redemption IN the Doctrine of Redemption and Salvation we must consider 1. Whence we are redeemed to wit from sin and a state of obstinacy 2. By whom to wit by Christ who is the author and foundation of our Salvation 3. By what means the benefit of Redemption and Salvation is applyed to us where of the Covenant of God the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments 4. The effects of Gods Grace in Christ or the degrees of Salvation which are fruits of the Merits of Christ applyed to us In all these the Papists do filthily erre for as to sin which intercedeth between the works of Creation and Redemption as a medium they teach 1. That the blessed Virgin was free from all sin original and actual as being conceived without Original sin and having lived without actual sin 2. Under the name of the flesh which lusteth against the Spirit and is to be mortified among other things they mean the body of man 3. That all sin is not a transgression of the Law John defineth it 1. Jo. 3.4 Gal. 3.10 nor all transgression of the Law is sin 4. That there is no sin but what is voluntary which is not onely false of concupiscence habitual and actual which goes before the wills consent but of other sins also which are done of ignorance or infirmity for though the actions are voluntary by which they are committed yet the sin is not Sin is original or actual The Papists marvailously â—xtenuate original sin and amplifie and set forth the strength of nature 5. For some of them would have original sin to be only the guilt of Adams transgression most will have it to be onely the want of Original righteousness And so that the state of man after Adams fall and in pure naturals doth differ onely as a stript man and a naked man 6. Others would have it to be a very small sin and less then any venial sin and therefore needeth no repentance nor is punished with pain of sense but onely with pain of loss 7. Others deny original sin to be properly sin or that any thing is found in infants that properly hath the nature of sin 8. That we are not by nature dead in sin but sick nor do they acknowledge in us an impotency to spiritual good but a difficulty nor that Free-will to spiritual good is wholly taken from us but hindred and tyed 9. That men are naturally inclined to love God above all 10. They attribute to man a will that is the Ruler and Lord of it self such as belongeth to no creature Yea they say that the will of man is as free from Necessity as the Will of God 11. They deny the will of the unregenerate to be a servant 12. They deny also that all the works of the unregerate are sins or that the unregenerate sin when they do the works that are commanded 13. They say that before all grace a man hath freewill not onely to works natural and moral but also to works of piety and supernatural 14. That there is in mans free will not onely a possibility or passive power but also an active power to spiritural works 15. That the unregenerate can prepare and dispose themselves to justification 16. That a wicked man by doing his best may congruously merit the grace of justification 17. God necessarily giveth grace to him that doth his best 18. That the efficacy of preventing grace dependeth on the freedome of the will 19. That every transgresgression of the Law which yet pronounceth every man accursed that continueth not in all things commanded in the Law to do them deserveth not death But that there are many sins of themselves and of their own nature venial and deserving pardon 20. That charity is not violated by venial sins and that they are not aginst Gods precepts but besides them 21. That the blood of Christ is not necessary to wash them away but that they may be done away by Holy Water knocking the brest Episcopal benediction and other ridiculous means 22. That sin is called mortal because it brings death upon the soul that is depriveth it of Gods grace 23. And they teach that by every mortal sin grace is lost and charity expectorated 24. That this mortal sin is any that shall obtain the wills consent though the act be not performed 25. That the sins of the regenerate are in the same sence mortal even those committed of ignorance and infimity 26. And that it is such a mortal sin to neglect or not observe any Ecclesiastical law or tradition of the Romane Church 27. That the sin against the Holy Ghost is not unpardonable 28. Nor that its impossible for him that commits that sin to be renewed by Repentance § 4. Of Christ. IN Christ are considerable 1. His Person 2. His Office About his Person he erreth who thinks not rightly of his Godhead or of his Manhood 1. About Christs Godhead those Papists erre that deny Christ to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God of himself for that 's as much as to deny him to be Jehovah About the Humane Nature both Soul and Body they erre 2. For they deny that the soul of Christ did increase in wisdom and grace which Luke expresly affirmeth Luk. 2.52 3. Or that he was ignorant of the day and hour of the last judgement which yet himself confesseth Mat. 13.32 4. They seem to give him a phantastick body that neither consisteth of dimensions nor occupieth a place which when he was born did not open the wombe of his mother and when he rose did penetrate the stone of the sepulchre and when he instituted his Supper lay hid under the Species of Bread and Wine 5. Yea that they may stablish that monstrous opinion
were not all freely given 3. Grace making us acceptable they will not have to be the grace of God by which he loves us and makes â—s acceptable to him according to that Wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved but to be grace by way of habit remaining in us by which we love God therefore they call charity a grace making us acceptable as if by reason of its force and merit men were saved of God 4. Moreover when they divide grace into sufficient and efficacious grace they say â—ufficient grace is given to all and every man even without the Church by which they have a power to will and they can if they will believe and by believing be saved 5. If any want sufficient grace to avoid sin they â—o not truely sin neither are they guilty of sin before God 6 That in the first act of conversion the will is not passive 7. That it is in the power of mans free will to resist oâ— yeild to efficacious grace § 12. Of Justification BUt now the doctrine of Justification they utterly overthrow 1. For first they confound justification which is an act of God without us as Redemption Reconciliation Adoption with Sanctification and Inherent Righteousness and so confound not onely the Gospel with the Law but quite take away Justification it self the chief benefit we have by Christ in this life 2. They teach men to lay the cause of justification and the merit of salvation in themselves 3. They will have remission of sin to be a blotting of them out by which not only the guilt but also the irregularity it self is abolished 4. As in warming the cold is expelled by the coming of the heat so in justification sin is abolished by the infusion of righteousness 5. Neither will they understand justification in the Scripture as a Law-term to be opposed to condemnation and Sanctification to pollution 6. The Scripture teaches sanctification to be an action of God they make the second justification as they call it not Gods action but their own 7. Whereas the Scripture â—eacheth that we are justified by the grace of God intimating the inward moving cause of justification which is the free favor of God in Christ the Papists understand grace or rather graces inherent in us which yet in the Question of justification wherein the holy Ghost opposes works to grace are not more opposed to works then their first justification is to the second 8. When the Scripture teacheth that we are justified by the righteousness of God and the blood of God i. e. of Christ who is God for by his obedience and blood we are justified and he is our righteousness I say by a righteousness which is not revealed in the Law and therefore not inherent but which is revealed in the Gospel without the Law They understand a righteousness infused by God and inherent in us 9. When the Scripture teaches that we are made the righteousness of God in Christ as he is made sin for us and so that the obedience of Christ is communicated to us for justification as the disobedience of Adam for condemnation namely by imputation But they say we are justified not by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ but partly by the infusion of habitual righteousness viz. in the first justification partly by our own performance of actual righteousness or good works in the second justification 10. For they contend for a double justification the first which consists in the infused habit of charity the other in meritorious works When as the Scripture teacheth that we are justified by faith without works i. e. not-by inherent righteousness but by the righteousness of Christ apprehended â—y faith and therefore that we are not justified by faith as it is a part of inherent righteousness for so with other graces it sanctifies us nor by any other faith then that which apprehends the righteousness of Christ or by any other grace because there is no other beside faith that apprehends Christs righteousness and therefore by faith alone 11. The Papists on the contrary teach faith to justifie as it is a part of inherent righteousness 12. And not so much to justifie as to dispose us for justification by obtaining remission and deserving justification 13. For say they faith and Repentance do justifie as dispositions and meritorious causes ex congruo 14. But that charity is properly the justifying grace 15. And the form of justifying faith 16. And yet that true justifying faith may be separated from charity 17. And therefore that a man having true faith may be damned 18. Neither do they acknowledge any special faith which apprehends the righteousness of Christ but they say that is sufficient which consists in a general consent without all affiance yea even without knowledge which they call implicite faith 19 For they say faith is better defined by ignorance then knowledge 20. Neither can they indure by any means that we say faith only justifies 21. When as the Scripture plainly excludes works as causes from the act of justification though it require them in the subject or person justified as necessary fruits of justifying faith by which believers are justified that is declared to be just but they assert that we are not justified before God by faith onely but also by works as the causes of justification 22. And in this matter they make James plainly to contradict Paul 23. And they invert the disputation of Paul as if the Question he disputes were whether faith justifies without works but whether works justifie without faith 24. That men are justified by the observation of Gods and the Churches commands 25. That men deserve remission of mortal sins by repentance Almes deeds forgiving injuries converting an offending Brother and other duties of piety and charity by which we do not deny but our belief of the pardon of sin is confirmed 26. And that venial sins are purged away by the repetition of the Lords prayer by striking the brest by sprinkling of Holy Water and the Bishops blessing c. 27. That a wicked man may deserve justifying grace ex congruo and that this merit of congruity is when the sinner doth his utmost 28. They deny justificaon be to proper to the Elect. 29. That no man in this life ought certainly to determine that he is of the number of the elect 30. That every one must doubt of the remission of their sins 31. No man can be certain of his justification without a special revelation 32. That no man in this world ought to seek an infallible certainty of his salvation or justification 33. That doubting of the pardon of sin is not an infirmity but a vertue 34. For any one certainly to believe that his sins are forgiven him through Christ is abominable presumption 35. That
superstition and wil-worship yea meer hypoâ—â—isie or a form of godliness resting in external works and observations 31. They worship God after the commandments of men 32. they defend the ceremonies invented by themselves or taken from Jews or Heathens to be a part of worship pleasing to God 33. And to be observed as the Law of God 34 That their observation deserves remission of sin 35 That no ceremonies appointed by the Church can be omitted without mortal sin nor without scandal 36. That things consecrated by themselves as holy Water Dei's c. have spiritual effects to drive away divels to blot out sins c. 37. They conjure salt yea and herbs and consecrate it that it may be healthful to the mind and body of those that take it 38. They Baptize and consecrate the Bels making them Godfathers to fright away divels and drive away Tempests 39. That their ringing does profit the dead 40. The Chrism being consecrated the Bishop and Presbyters salute it in these words God save St. Chrisma Ave S. Chrisma 41. They give it a power to confer upon the anointed health to the body and holiness to the soul and so the Holy Ghost himself 42. That every Church solemnely consecrated is indued with a divine vertue 43. The many abuses of fasting and prayer I touched before 44. They teach men to swear by the creatures 45. They deny oaths to be fit for the perfect 46. Vows made to the Saints they defend 47. That the Pope can absolve from the bond of vows and oaths 48. They consecrate feast dayes to the worship of Saints 49. And some they consecrate to patronize their own errors as the feast of Conception the feast of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin the feast of Christs body and of Peters chair and of all souls c. 50. That feast dayes are in truth more holy then others 51. They exempt the Clergy from the secular yoke i.e. they exempt Ecclesiasticks both persons and goods from the obedience of Temporal Lords and from their jurisdiction in personals and reals in civil things and criminal and therefore that the civil judge cannot punish Clergy-men 52. That the Clergy is not bound to pay tribute to Princes 53. That the Rebellion of a Clergy-man against the King is not Treason 54. That the Pope can forbid subjects to keep the oath of fidelity to Christian Kings if they be such as acknowledge not the Roman sea 55. That the Pope can absolve subjects from the oath of fidelity 56. That the Pope has power to depose Princes 57. That the subjects of such Princes are bound to obey such a sentence if it be published 58. That if grave and learned men such as the Jesuites especially are shall judge any Prince to be a Tyrant it is lawful for their subjects to overthrow them and if they want power to poison them 59 That the subjects of the most Christian Kings whom they call Lutherans and Sacramentarians are free from all bonds and that they may lawfully destroy their Kings 60. That 't is not lawful for Christians to tolerate a King that is an Infidel or a heretick indeavoring to draw men to his Sect but they are bound to depose him 61. That the ancient Christians did not depose such because they wanted power 62. That the Pope may give the Kingdoms and Principalities and Lordships of all those whom he judges hereticks unto his Roman Catholikes or may adjudge them to those that can lay hold of them 63. That 't is not onely lawful but meritorious to kill Princes that are excommunicated by the Pope 64. They suffer Stews and stoutly defend their toleration 65. They forbid the Clergy to mary 66. That Priest does better say they that keeps a Concubine then he that marries a wife 67. That marriage after the vow of Chastity is worse then Adultery 68. That single life even as it is vowed and practised in the Roman Church is a worship most acceptable to God and satisfactory for sin and meritorious of eternal life 69. That the Pope with a whorish intention makes gain as Leno did by the prostitution of Whores 70. That all faults are sold at a certain price in the Popes Taxe 71. An officious lye they allow of 72. They approve and teach the Mistery of equivocation 73. The act of counterfeiting and dissembling with great men they commend as good and profitable 74. They say Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks 75. That the desires of the will going before assent are not sins 76. Neither is concupiscence a sin in the Baptized 77. That in concupiscence there is onely the evil of punishment not of sin 78. By that command thou shalt not covet it is not forbidden that we have no evil desires I have recited a huge Catalogue of errors to which I doubt not but many more may be heaped up As those which we are refuting in this book about Antichrist By all which it appears that the opposition of the Pope to Christs truth is not a particular opposition as in some hereticks but universal such as we may look for from Antichrist Thus far Bishop G. Downame FINIS * The abominable wickedness of your party even the Romane Cardinals themselves is proclaimed by many that have been your Priests and turned from you as Copley Sheldon Boxhorne and many more saith Sheldon in his Survey of Rome Miracles p. 18. having spoken of the Cardinals Sodomy Believe it Reader the abominations which are committed by these purpured Fathers and the Supream Fathers of that Synagogue are so detestable that they pass all narration either of modest or immodest pen. And it 's long since Petrarch Dante 's Aventine Parisiens Clemangis Sabellicus Grosthead Ferus and more of your own Writers have said enough to satisfie us of your sanctity Many a one that hath been â—iced to Popery in England have been cured by a journey to Rome seeing the abominations of that place Veniale culpa non est sed dispositio ad culpam Reinerius Cont. Waldens ubi infra Armeniorum Ecclesiae Ethiopum jndorum caeterae quas Apostoli converterunt non subsunt Romanae Ecclesiae Reinerius cont VValdens Catal. in Biblotheâ— Par. T. 4. p. 773. * Much contrary to Damascene who saith that the Rebaptized do crucifie Christ again Orthod fid li. 4. c. 5. p. mihi 296. Though I suppose he is as far on the other side * Religion in the first sence seems to be as Martinius propriè actio ejus qui res divinas studiose Relegit pictatis ergo though the word be thence variously used 2 Lactantius saith Instit li. 4. c. 28. Hac conditione gignimur ut generanti nos Deo justa debita obsequia prebcamus hunc sâ—lum noverimus hunc sequamur Hoc vinculo pietatis obstricti Deo Religati sumus unâ—e ipsa Religio nâ—men accepit non ut Cicero interpretatus est a Relegendo Melius id nomen Lucretius