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A56079 A Protestant antidote against Popery with a brief discourse of the great atheisticalness and vain amours now in fashion. Written in a letter to a young lady. By a Person of Honour. Person of honour. 1673 (1673) Wing P3820; ESTC R220564 36,838 182

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Rock meant sure our Saviour would never have removed it behind him and it would be not onely irrational but impious to believe that Christ would build his Church on Satan for so he calls St. Peter's person and 't were as unreasonable to believe that the Rock of Christs Church could be an offence to him as St. Peter's person was and as improbable again as all this that Christs Church the Foundation of all Christianity should savour not of the things that be of God but those that are of men as Peter's person did Therefore if you will but please to read the words of our Saviour carefully you shall find they are most plain for verse 13th When Jesus came into the Coast of Caesarea He ask'd his Disciples Whom do men say that I am and they said Some say that thou art John the Baptist some Elias and others Jeremias or one of the Prophets but whom say ye that I am and Simon Peter answered and said Thou art Christ the Son of the Living God And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and vpon this Rock not this person I will build my Church that is upon this Rock of Faith that I am Christ the Son of the Living God I build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Now this must necessarily relate to his faith not his person for the gates of Hell that 's the power of evil did prevail against Peter's person or he had not deny'd and forsworn his Lord and Master again and again and been afterwards proved blame-worthy by St. Paul to his face and indeed as blame-worthy as any of his Disciples so that 't is most plain that Christs words of making him the Rock of the Christian Church related not to his person but his faith of Christs being the Son of the Living God And for the other part whereas the Papists believe a particular favour and power given by our Saviour to S Peter of the Keys of Heaven that was given as much to the Eleven Disciples as to him as you may read in the 18th of St. Matthew in the 20th of St. John's Gospel and the 23 24. verses As my Father hath sent me even so send I you and when he had said this he breathed on them and saith unto them Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained So that you see this power is general to the Disciples and not in particular to St. Peter more than to any of the rest as the Papists mis-believe The Papists have many such Questions which I am sure Madam you have neither the patience to read nor I the time to write but those that are most material of them you will find I have here presented you truly answer'd by pure Scripture clear reasons plain arguments and all in few words fit for the weakest memory or smallest pocket to carry about them for true reason doth not consist in large Volumes long Gowns or gray Beards for many live to One and Twenty without attaining to years of discretion the degrees of Age being not still the measures of wisedom for the world will never be without old Fools and young Philosophers And truly Madam for my part I cannot so much as think of the Papists Religion without wonder that so many rational men of them should rather fasten their faith of salvation on the pretended infallibility of their Church which is deny'd by most Christians than on the Holy Scriptures which is granted by all to be the Will and Word of God and the very Foundation of their Churches Foundation as containing in it all things necessary to our salvation And we Protestants have at least this satisfaction and advantage that not onely the Papists but all sorts of Christians that are in the circumference of the whole world meet and joyn with us in this centre of Faith that the Scriptures contain all things necessary to our salvation which being a general granted Truth I confess I admire how any Papist can make the least scruple which is the safest Heavenly Guide the Pope or the Gospel If there be any rational man so extravagant as to put them in the same ballance and to commit a rape upon his reason I shall onely desire him to consider this plain Question If ●he were to go a Journey in an unknown way would he not think it more rational and safe to follow a certain true Guide that all the Christians in the world declare is certainly able and ready to shew him the right way than to follow a pretended Guide which the greatest part of the Christians in the world assures him will lead him out of it And this being the real difference between the Papist and Protestant in Gross concerning the Heavenly Guide the Bible and the Pope I think I need now say no more because so many have already said so much and I am sure enough to satisfie any except such who will believe a crooked Rule is better to draw a straight line by than a right one And now Madam I shall onely beg so much of your patience as to let me tell you that the plot and Heads of this following discourse I have Extracted out of the worthy Chilingworth Before I begin the discourse it self I know in writing a play to have Rank'd the plot in the Front of it and to make the whole design of the Prologue to be the Key to uncipher the plot of the play though anciently in use had been now not onely out of fashion but beside reason For the design of plays aiming chiefly to please the senses they ought to be compounded and mixt with hopes and fears certainties and uncertainties Expectations and de●ays of the event of the plot which being all so interwoven together creates the agreeableness of the play for when once the whole plot is discovered the pleasure of the play is ended like Hare-Hunting the sport lies not in presently taking the Hare but in following him in all his Rings and Doubles and those that love plays and such Huntings resemble jealous men who eagerly pursue what they apprehend to overtake or as old age which we all pray to attain but fear to approach But now I come to soar my discourse to a much higher pitch a more Elevated Subject and to treat of the most noble part of man the Soul and of true Religion the onely way to Heavenly felicity for without Holiness no man shall see the Lord We must therefore now Madam change the Scene of sense for a spiritual one and climb where earthly nature can never follow us to the pure and high Region of Heaven which will inform us that the earlier discovering our plot of attaining Heaven will but better the play and the more speed the better success for the joyes of Heaven are everlasting and admits of no increase or diminution not ●ike the
disagreeing with him which most plainly argues that the Western Bishops thought that not a sufficient ground of Excommunication which the Bishop of Rome did and therefore it must necessarily follow they did not esteem the Roman Bishop infallible nor the separation from the Church of Rome an Heresie And this I am sure is true and undeniable reason The Popish Story tells us That Optatus Bishop of Rome upbraided the Donatists as Schismaticks because they held no Communion with the Church of Rome by adding afterwards that they were Schismaticks for they held no Communion with the seven Churches of Asiae which occasions this Question of the Papist Whether a separation from these seven Apostolick Churches was a mark of Heresie or not if they say it was not how comes it that the Pope's Authority is a stronger Argument for the Popish Church than the Asian Authority for the Asian Churches And if the Papists say a separation from those seven Asian Churches was a mark of Heresie then they must confess their Church was for many years Heretical as separating many years from the Asian Churches And Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus and Metropolitan of Asia despised the Popes universal Supremacy and Authority and kept contrary to the Pope Easter-day the Fourteenth of March. And indeed though the Papists do so much quote the authority of the Fathers yet I find they as little befriend their Churches infallibility as the Asian Bishops themselúes have done for though the Papist say St. Hierome conceived it necessary to conform in matters of Faith to the Church of Rome yet before the Papist brag of that let them answer us this how came it then to pass that St. Hierome chose to believe the Epistle to the Hebrews Canonical upon the authority of the Eastern Church and to reject it from the Canon of the Roman Churches Authority And how comes it also that he dissented from the Roman Church touching the Canon of the old Testament let the Papist take heed of losing their Fort by endeavouring to maintain their out-works And now to conclude this point and excuse the Papists mistake concerning their universal Bishop we read in Scripture of the Prophet Elias who thought there was none left beside himself in the whole Kingdom of Israel who had not revolted from God and yet God himself is pleased to assure us he was deceived And if a Prophet and one of the greatest err'd in his judgment touching his own time and Country why may not the Papists subject to the same passions err in their opinion and judgment about the Popes being universal Bishop when plain reason tells them as well as us that there were other Bishops as much universal as the. Pope I now come to examine this infallible Pope whether he cannot make his infallible I Church more infallible than he has made himself and free the Popish Church from error though he could not the Pope from Heresie Now towards the disproving the pretended infallibility of the Roman Church I lay this as the foundation of my discourse that the whole Roman Church can be no better then a Congregation of men whereof every particular not one excepted and consequently the generality is nothing but a collection of men and if every one be polluted as who dare say he is free from sin how can the whole but be defiled with error as reasonably may a man brag he is in perfect health and strength and yet at the same time confess he hath not one sound part about him And truly it very much creates my wonder but does not in the least satisfie my reason what the Papists can pretend by the infallibility of their church for if they will allow their Pope to be no better than St. Peter was their Church to be composed of no better men than the Holy Apostles were I shall desire no more and I am sure they can never prove so much for they that pretend to it declare as great an ignorance as St. Peter did a sin in denying his Lord and Master and there are many other known circumstances which made St. Paul prove him blame-worthy to his face And for the Apostles being in error we have not onely the examples of the Apostles themselves who in the time of our Saviours Passion being scandalized lost their faith in him and I believe the Papists will not say they could lost their faith in our blessed Saviour Christ without error and therefore our Saviour after his Resurrection upbraided them with their incredulity and called Thomas incredulous for denying the Resurrection in the Twentieth of St. John And further 't is mod apparent that the very Apostles themselves even after the sending the Holy Ghost did through inadvertency or prejudice continue sometime in an error contrary to a revealed truth And if the Papists will not own to know this truth they may be fully satisfied of it in the story of the Acts of the Apostles where they may plainly read that notwithstanding our Saviours express warrant and injunction to the Apostles to go and preach to all Nations Yet notwithstanding till St. Peter was better informed by a vision from Heaven and by the conversion of Cornelius both St. Peter and the rest of the Church held it unlawful for them to go and Preach the Gospel to any but the Jewes Now since we can prove that St. Peter did err and that the Church composed partly of the Holy Apostles themselves who were blessed with and inspired by the Holy Ghost could mistake and that there is no man free from sin and yet that the Body of men that make up the popish Church should be infallible is I confess beside my Faith to believe or reason to comprehend For sure if the Roman Church had been esteem'd by the Apostles infallible what needed the Apostles any other Creed than this short Creed I believe the Roman Church infallible and that would have been more effectual to keep the believers of it from Heresie and in the true Faith then this Apostolical Creed we now have And sure the Papists cannot but believe with us that those holy men that wrote the New Testament were not onely good men but also men that were desirous to direct us in the plainest and surest way to Heaven And the Papists cannot also but believe with us that they were likewise men very sufficiently instructed by the Spirit of God in all the necessary points of the Christian Faith Therefore certainly 't is most rational to believe they could not be ignorant of this unum necessarium that all Faith is no Faith except we believe the Church of Rome was design'd by God to be the Guide of Faith as the Church of Roome believes and would have us believe so too We also further believe and that with great reason too that the Writers of the New Testament were wise men especially being they were assisted by the Spirit of wisedom and such that must know that an uncertain Guide was