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
your Faith and your Theological Opinions and can scarce reasonably expect that any of you should say more to satisfie me then these contain For any of you to recite the Canons or Decretals of your Church or Popes in a writing to me is in vain For I have them at hand already or can have them at a trice And if you say any thing to me by way of Answer which is not in those Canons or Decretals or solemnly pronounced already by your Church to be de fide you can give me little assurance of its verity but your own writing must incur all those reproaches which Knot bestows on the Doctrine of Chillingworth and we hear from you so frequently for â—he defect of Infallibility But yet let what will come of it I shall leave some slender Teâ—timony to posterity that I dissented not from â—o many confident men without giving them â—ome of the Reasons of my dissent I was born and bred here among the Proâ—essors of the Reformed Catholik Christian Religion When I was young I judged of â—our Profession as I was taught and the preâ—udice which I received against it did grow up â—ith me as yours doth against us Yet receiving much good to my soul by Parsons Book of Resolution corrected when I was but sixteen years of Age it run much in my mind that sure there were some among you that had the Fear of God When I was capable of it by Age and Studies I made some diligent search into your Writers that I might know the true state of the controversies betwixt us But still I confess I read them with prejudice and partiality till at last I attained as far as I can understand by my own heart such a love to the truth and an impartiality in my Studies and judgement of these things that I read your Writers with as free a mind I mean as willing to find what truth was there to be found as I do the Writings of Protestants themselves When I had discovered undoubtedly that in some doctrinal points the differences were made by most on both sides much greater then they were and much greater then the most Learned on both sides thaâ— had any moderation did conceive them to be I was the more confirmed in my resolutions to be impartial in my Studies and so have proceeded if I be a competent judge of my own mind to this day And after all I am left in the dissatisfaction which I here manifest And by what sheps my averseness to your waâ— hath been brought on since I began to search in to it impartially I shall here further declare First I have been most offended with those doctrines and practices that did most notoriously run against the stream of the Holy Scripture for here the case was so plain that without any singular acuteness it might be discerned as in your Latin Service of God with those that understand it not your administring the Bread in the Lords Supper without the cup that Image-worship which your Writers do maintain forbidding Priests marriages with many such like And yet suspecting my own understanding I read what your Writers say also for these But when I saw how palpably they forced the text it increased my dislike And then knowing that you contradicted the Scriptures in these and finding withal that you build your faith upon your Churches Infallibility I was exceedingly turned against your profession when I saw your foundation so clearly overthrown But yet this was not all There was scarce any thing that more offended me then the tendency of your Doctrines to destroy the Knowledge of the people and lead them on in ignorance and please and deceive them by a company of ceremonies instead of a Reasonable service of God and the manner of your worship I could never digest Other things did grate very hard upon those truths which I was confirmed in but these went against the very bent of my heart and crossed the very ends of my Religion and my Life Your keeping the Scriptures from the Laity as far as you do and maintaining it so commonly to be the Original of Heresies to translate them into a known tongue and making it so deadly a crime to have a Bible which they can read with your Latin Service aforesaid and the formalities and scenical worship in which you train up the ignorant vulgar with many other things in your doctrine and practice are such as leave me but little room for deliberation whither I should own them or not because they are so plainely against the very end of the Christian Religion Had these things come under my consideration in a carnal state when the flesh was my end and not God I know not how I should have entertained them But your own Doctors consent that God must be my end and chiefly Loved desired and sought And will you teach a man this and whoodwinke him when you have done Will you bid him love God and keep him from the Knowledge of him Will you bid him desire and seek him and when you have done lock him up in the dark Or will you bid him serve and obey him and yet forbid him to search after the knowledge of his laws and will If you would bring me to be of these opinions your reasonings would be to as much purpose as if you should perswade me to put out my eyes and put them in your pockets for fear of missing my way in my race when my life is at the stake Or as if you should perswade me to be ignorant of Plowing and Sowing and Merchandize and yet to seek after provision and riches in the world I am as easily reconciled as another to those that step out of the path that I am in if they go towards the same end But if you would teach me to turn my back upon Heaven as the onely way to attain it this will not easily down with me I know that God is light and with him is no darkness and that Christ is the light of the world and his spirit is the illuminater of the Saints and the word is a light to our feet and giveth wisdome to the simple And yet would you have us refuse this Light and choose the Darkness I know that Satan is the prince of darkness a state of death is a state of darkness tending to outer darkness and that it is the saving way of God to translate men out of darkeness into his marvellous light And yet would you perswade me that this is the way of Life What a difference is there between this doctrine of yours and the very scope of Scriptures and antient Writers and the sense of a gracious soul Solomon would have men to Hide the commandment with them and incline their ear to wisdom and apply their hearts to understanding and cry after knowledge and lift up their voiec for understanding and seek for it as silver and search after it as for hid treasure Prov. 2.2
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
3. I would desire any Papists living to tell me why the Text doth not as much oblige him to believe that The Cup is the New Testament substantially without a figure as that The Bread is his Body For the Text as expresly saith one as the other Luk. 22.20 This Cup is the new Testament in my Blood Yet I suppose they will be content to say that by The New Testament is meant the Sacrament or Seal of the New Testament 4. Why will not these blind wretches believe the Holy Ghost who calls it Bread at the eating after the consecration 1 Cor. 11.26 27 28. three times together and tells us that the use of it is to remember and shew the Lords death till he come I might here adde to this in the next place their worshiping oâ— Saints especially of the Virgin Mary with prayers to her as the Queen of Heaven to forgive their sins and to command her Son to forgive them with abundance more of such impious idolatrous or sacrilegious expressions as might make the ears of a sober Christian even to tingle But these things have been so oft told them and are so visible in their Offices and other writings that I shall pass them over As also their worshiping of Images and publike using them to that end in their Churches Though most of their Laity that I have met with say that they use them but for a remembrance of the Saints and do not worship them and that 's bad enough in such cases yet their learned Schoolmen and Doctors tell us another tale as is too visible in many of their writings Arg. 10. That Doctrine which teacheth men to turn the most of Gods worship into meer unreasonable ceremonies and vain formalities of mans dev ising is not a safe way to salvation But such is the doctrine of Popery Therefore c The Major is certain For 1. God hath taken down the ceremonial Law which he himself had made and therefore will not give leave to man to set up another in its stead and to burden his Church with unncessary things 2. It is contrary to the freedom and spiritual state of the Gospel Church The Apostle bids us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free And Christ saith that God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and Truth for such worshipers the Father seeketh And he telleth the formal ceremonious Pharisees that they worshipped God in vain teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men Mat. 15.6 7 8 9. Joh. 4.23 24. Gal. 5.1 As for the Minor it were tedious to recite but half the Romish ceremonies and formalities with which â—hey both delude and burden poor sinners For the word of God in a tongue which they understand they must hear a sound of a strange language which they understand not Instead of singing praises with the heart as David and with the understanding as Paul requireth they sing over prayers and Scriptures and other things in uncouth notes and in the Latine tongue which the people understand not The Eucharist or Lords Supper is also celebrated in Latine and the prayers and praises adjoyned and the Cup taken from the people and all turned into a meer shew by elevation of the host adoration of it gaping while the Priest doth pop the Bread into their mouthes Prayers also are used in Latine so that the substance of publike worship is thus made a very Picture or unreasonable service Yea they teach them to pray partly in Latine in private and partly with vain repetitions multiplying over the name Jesu nine times together and rehearsing over their canting shreds and numbering their prayers on their beads to keep tale and observing such and such hours and praying to Saints to one Saint for this and another for that giving the elogies and prayers and praises to the Virgin Mary that are due to God alone Sacraments they multiply even Marriage which in the Clergy is a deadly sin and the avoiding it by the Laity is a work of supererogation yet must it be a Sacrament The Rules of their several Monastical orders were tedious to recite Touch not taste not handle not such meats must not be eaten on such a day such orders must use such meats and forbear such other Orders forbear other meats some must be thus shorn shaven clothed and some thus Much of their Devotion consisteth in being sprinkled with Holy Water anointed with Chrysme creeping to the Altar striking 〈◊〉 the breast making and wearing the Cross setting it up and worshiping it in high wayes and Church-yards worshiping Crucifixes and bowing before the Images of God the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove and of the Saints travelling to certain Images and shrines in Pilgrimage offering to them especially to our Lady at some famous places compassing the Church so oft formal penances observing multitudes of Holy-dayes for the Saints hearing so many Masses saying such or such words carrying Palms taking ashes carrying banners following the Cross and host in processions and worshiping it bearing candles In Baptisme salting crossing spathing exorcizing washing hands Also baptizing bels Ceremonious consecrations saying Dirges and Masses for departed souls forswearing marriage renouncing propriety pardons and indulgencies from the Pope with abundance of the like delusory carnal formalities in which much of the Popish devotion doth consist And how can any unprejudiced man that is but possessed with the Spirit of God and truely knoweth what it is to worship him imagine that God is pleased with such histrionical gandes and childish things I confess the reading of their very books of devotion their offices to our Lady and others the like which are stuffed with such superstitious and unreasonable passages seems enough to me to turn the heart of a sober man against their way For who can think that the Holy and Blessed God will be delighted in their vain bablings and childish cantings and affected ropetitions of words and saying and hearing we know not what would any wise man regard such expressions of love or honor If your friend or your child should express his Love and respects to you by mimick gestures and gambals and making strange faces or repeating over your name nine times in a breath or ridiculous cantings complements and actings like a Stage Player would you applaud or delight in such expressions of love and honor as these Or would you not rather say as the Philistine King of David when he spit and scraped on the Wall Have I need of mad men It is sure a carnal unreasonable doctrine that leadeth men to such carnal unreasonable services of that God who will be served reasonably in spirit and in truth They that have but an Image or shadow of Faith and Grace and can expect no more of Glory are like enough to be well pleased with these Images and meer shadows of Gods worship But its like to be otherwise with him that hath a spirit of
and therefore to be called upon to pray for us 12. That the Saints after death do obtain whatsoever they desire of God because they deserved it in this life 13. That their merits do profit us for salvation 14. That the Saints are helpers and coworkers of our salvation 15. That the faithful living are ruled and governed by the Spirits of blessed men 16. That the Saints are to be Canonized by the Pope and being Canonized to be worshiped 17. Therefore we must fly to the Saints in our misery § 16. Of the Church 1. THat the holy Catholike Church that we believe is visible 2. And alwayes is visible 3. That it depends not on Gods election nor on true faith and Charity that one belongs to this Church But even wicked and reprobate men are members of the Catholike Church 4. That the Catholike Church is no other than the Roman or that which the Roman Pope is over 5. That the Catholike Church and the Pope of Rome are the same terms 6. Neither are there any Catholicks but those of the Romish Church 7. That he is a Catholike who believes all that the Roman Church delivers whether it be written in the Bible or not 8. That there is no salvation out of the Roman Church 9. That the notes of universality antiquity unity and succession in the Apostles doctrine do agree unto it 10. That the sincere preaching of the Gospel and lawful administration of the Sacraments are not a certain note of the Church 11. To acknowledge the Roman Pope and to be under him as the Vicar of Christ the onely Pastor the head of the whole Church is a note of the true Church 12. That the particular Roman Church is the Mother Mistris and Lady of all Churches yea the Mother of Faith 13. That the Roman Church did obtain the primacy from our Lord and Saviour himself 14. That the Roman Church hath power of judging all neither is it lawful for any to judge her judgment 15. That the Roman Church hath authority to deliver doctrines of faith without or beside the Scriptures 16. That the Roman Church cannot erre in faith much less fail 17. That the Roman Church cannot erre in interpreting Scripture §. 17. Of the Roman Church The Head viz. The Pope The Members 1. THat the Roman Pope is the head foundation husband Monarch of the whole universal Church the universal Bishop or the Bishop of the whole world 2. That the Roman Pope is the rock upon whom the Church is built 3. The names which are given to Christ in the Scriptures from whence it appears he is above the Church all of them are given to the Pope Vnto this Antichristian throne he ascends by a gradation of most impudent lies such as these 4. That the universal Church cannot consist unless there be one in it as a visible head with chief power 5. Therefore the external regiment of the universal Church is Monarchical 6. That the Monarchy of the Church was instituted in Peter 7. That Peter in proper speech was Bishop of Rome and remained Bishop there untill death 8. That the Pope succeded Peter in the Ecclesiastical Monarchy 9. Neither do they give the Monarchy of Ecclesiastical power but of temporal also to the Pope 10 Neither do they make the Pope Christs General Vicar on earth but Gods also 11. They give a certain omnipotency to him 12. They give him power of deposing Kings and Emperors and absolving their subjects from the oath of fidelity 13. Moreover without shame they defend that the Pope teaching from his chair cannot erre 14. That his words when he teacheth from his chair are in a sort the word of God 15. That the Pope cannot erre even in those things which belong to good manners or in the commands of morality as well as in matters of Faith 16. We must piously believe that as the Pope cannot erre as Pope so as a private person he cannot be a heretick 17. That the chief authority of interpreting Scripture is in him 18. That the Pope is the chief judge in controversies of Religion 19. We must appeal from all Churches to him 20. They give him authority to dispense with humane and Divine Laws 21. They give him power of absolving men not onely from sin but from punishments censures laws vows and oaths 22. Also of delivering men from Pâ—rgatory 23. Of Canonizing Saints and giving them honors that they may be prayed to in the Publike Prayers of the Church that Churches and Altars may be built for their honor that Masses and Canonical hours be offered publikely for their honor and feast-dayes be câ—lebrated That their Pictures be drawn with a certain splendor that their Reliques be put into precious boxes and publikely honored 24. We must believe that the Pope who sometime puts Murderers Traitors King-killers and other Capital offenders into the Calendar of Saints and Martyrs never errs in the Canonizing of Saints § 18. The Members of the Church are considered either as Congregated in Councils or Severally 1. THe office of convocating General Councils properly belongs to the Pope 2 That in no case a true and perfect Council can be called without the Popes authority no not if it be necessary for the Church and yet the Pope will not or cannot call one nor if the Pope be a heretick And therefore that a Council held without the Popes Authority is an unlawful meeting or Conventicle not a Council 3. That 't is the proper office of the Pope that by himself or his Legates he be president of the universal Council and as the supreme judge do moderate all 4. That the decree of a General Council made without the consent of the Pope or his Legate is unlawful 5. That the Power of confirming or rejecting General Councils is in the Pope of Rome neither are the Councils authentical unless they be confirmed by the Pope 6. That the distinction of lawful and unlawful Councils does depend upon his onely will 7. That the sentence of a General Council in a matter of faith is the last judgement of the Church from which it cannot appeal yet that we may appeal from a General Council to the Pope 8. That the Pope can neither be judged nor punished by a Council or by any mortals 9. That the Pope cannot submit himself to the coactive judgement of Councils 10. That the Pope is absolutely over the universal Church and above a General Council so that he can acknowledge no judgement above him 11. We must believe with Catholike faith that General Councils confirmed by the Pope cannot erre neither in faith nor manners 12. That particular Councils approved by the Pope cannot erre 13. That the power of the Pope and Council together is not greater then the Popes alone Turrecrem l. 3. c. 41. § 19. Of the Members by themselves 1. THat to make a member of the Catholike Church there is not required grace or