Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A31518
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Certain queries upon Dr. Pierces sermon at Whitehall Feb. 1
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1663
(1663)
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Wing C1745; ESTC R18163
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5,055
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12
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CERTAIN QUERIES UPON Dr. PIERCES SERMON At Whitehall Feb. 1. LONDON Printed in the Year 1663. CERTAIN QUERIES UPON Dr. PIERCES SERMON At White-hall Feb. 1. Querie 1. WHether it be seasonable at this time to exasperate the supream Magistrate with any aggravations of dissenters opinions when the dissenters sit down peaceably and grant themselves erroneous and therefore desire a toleration only for what is publickly judged an errour and not the establishment of any thing to be publickly allowed as truth If we the Heterodox part of this Nation were in the right we would crave publick countenance and settlement whereas now we humbly desire only publick favour and indulgence as those that are presumed to be in the wrong and therefore it is but lost labour to spend whole Sermons to prove that we are so Qu. 2. To what end was this discourse directed not to confirm his Majesty in the errour of our waies for he had declared his resolution against our doctrine before not that I have hope to widen the breach between us for that is not the work of a Minister of the Gospel of peace not to instruct the people for they can never satisfy themselver by your discourse which leads them to fathers and other authours they do not know to such quotations as they know not whether they are wrested or not not to convert us who you knew should not hear you nor when we have heard you should we with freedom offer our selves against what you say which must be this since we are converted Qu. 3. But supposing your discourse seasonable and useful what do you mean by that which was from the beginning do you mean primitive examples or primitive rules if you mean primitive examples they are not a rule of Reformation because we are not to do as men have done but as men ought to do If you mean primitive rules you mean either the Scripture or something added to it not any thing added to it for you say Cursed is he that addeth any thing to it or taketh away any thing from it and if you mean the Scripture it self the Query is Wrether it be a rule of reformation as some men understand it or as all men do not as all men do for then either we should have no reformation all men never agreeing to the rule of it or we must have as many reformations as there are opinions in the world and as you reform beyond us according to your sense of Scripture so the Presbyterian reforms beyond you in his sense of it and the Fanatick beyond him according to his sense and primitive rule of Reformation If as some men do understand the Scripture it be a rule of Reformation then either as you do or as we do If you say as you do you are partial in your selves and you allow your selves what you with so much bitterness deny us to be Lords over mens faith to be judges of controversies If as we do then you in your whole discourse have beaten the air you have prevailed in vain and they have heard in vain Qu. 4. Whether when you have earnestly contended against the novelties of the Church of Rome you have contended as you say for that which was from the beginning seeing you contended only for the old Protestant way And that besides the Church of Rome the Eastern Churches claim a greater antiquity than yours and if Popery were down there are a world of Sects and waies that desire no more than to try with you out of the Scripture and that which was from the beginning the whole throng of non-conformists cry To the Law and to the Testimony i. e. Let us worship God according to the Scripture Let us serve God in spirit and in truth as he was served in the beginning you teach for doctrines the traditions of men making the Commandments of God of none effect And you know who it was that said the Scotch way comes neerest the primitive way than either yours meaning the Catholick and speaking to a Catholick Gentleman or ours meaning the old Protestant and indeed Qu. 5. What pains you put your selves upon when you say we must reduce all things to what they were in the beginning where do you find saith the Fanatick Lordbishops in the beginning where were the Bishops Courts in the beginning where was Infant Baptism in the beginning where was your Sunday a Sabbath in the beginning you use Cross Surplice Copes Altars Organs Church-musick but in the beginning it was not so you impose upon tender consciences say they you undoe poor men for things in themselves indifferent you hinder men to preach the Gospel necessary to salvation for things in themselves not necessary to salvation in the beginning it was not so you sing your prayers you use vain repetitions you pray by book they say in the beginning it was not so you they say have rich Bishopricks Deanaries Prebendaries Sinecures Pluralities as you your self Dr. Benit are Rector of Brington President of Magdalen Colledge in Oxford Prebend of Canterbury Canon of York Chaplain to his Majesty in the beginning it was not so you have Lay chancellors Officials Surrogates Faculty-men promoters and a whole train as they call them of Popish officers they tell you in the beginning it was not so you preach in Gowns you pray and preach by the hour-glass you meet in Steeple-houses you are called Masters you preach for hire in the beginning saith another sort it was not so the Question is then whether by examining our way by what there was in the beginning you have not taught others to examine yours so too and to cast off the authority of your way for a new reformation as you have cast off the authority of ours for an old one and whether you will not as little bear the rest of the Scripture and the primitive times in the Presbyterian sense of them as you think we can bear the rest of them in your sense of them Qu. 6. Why should the Disciplinarians i. e. the Presbyterians deny themselves from Aerius as you say p. 7. who only said that a Bishop is no more a Minister than any other Minister rather than from St. Peter who 1 Pet. 5.12 saith he was no more though an Apostle than an ordinary Presbyter The Presbyters that are among you I exhort who also am a Presbyter Feed the flock of God which is among you performing the office of Bishops or from Clemens Romanus who saith Presbyters and Bishops are one why should the reprobatorious derive themselves from Simon Magus who believed no eternal way to which men might be reprobated or the Manicheer who only taught fate in things of this world either than from the Apostle Paul who writes of God thus that before the children had done either good or evil he says Jacob have I loved Esau have I â—ated He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth Why should the
Solifidians and Antinomians derive themselves from Eunomius who only said That the Law saves us not but faith or from misunderstanding the Scripture which saith We are not saved by the works of the law but by faith And the Anabaptists and Socinians look not upon Agrippinus and Subellus who thought no such thing however you mistake them in your cursory and light way of reading and writing but they all look as you advise them upon the Scripture which according to the Liberty you take your selves and all on them they understand every one as he pleaseth you say you must ask every one how he reads in the beginning and the Anabaptists saith he reads Repent believe which he saith a child cannot do and be Baptized The Socinian reads The Father is higher then I The Millonary reads and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years Quer. 7. And why should the Papists derive their infallibility from the Gnosticks who only said that every one may know all that is required to save him rather then from the Scripture which saith to Peter thy faith shall not fail which speaks of full assurance of faith of the impossibility of deceiving the Elect of the Church being the pillar and ground of the truth against which the gates of bell shall not prevaile Why must the Romanists have their Purgatory from Tertullian or Montanus or the Heathens though truth is never the worse for being among them for their errours and corruptions as you say the Papists were blinded with many doctrines most sound and Orthodox rather then from the beginning when it is written that some shall be saved yet so as by fire that Christ preached to the spirits in prison why should you onely upon the Emperour Maximilian the second 's words who was forced by Prorestants to write that Letter in Thuanus said that Priests marriage was never forbidden untill Calvin's time when S. Paul adviseth them not to marry and that they that goe a warfare do not entangle themselves with the affairs of this life and our Saviour saith that in the Kingdome or under the Gospel as your beloved Hammond and Grotius explains it you shall be as the Angels who neither marry nor are given in marriage and you know the Priests are called the Angels of the Churches they are the Virgins that follow the Lamb why should quote we Scotus that transubstantiation was not a truth before the Lateran Council whereas he saith onely forecast till then whereas indeed it was a truth since Christ said This is my Body this is my Bloud and the Apostle saith he that eats or drinks it unworthily eats or drinks his own damnation no man is damned for eating a piece of bread or drinking a drop of wine sure therfore the bread and wine is the body and bloud of Christ Why should you say that the half Communion was onely since Tho. Aquinas when you do not find in the beginning any whole Communion did Christ give the wine to any but Disciples or Ministers did the Apostle in the 11. of the Corinthians say any more but that the Lord did suffer death not the Scripture said that the Christians went from house to house onely breaking of bread And your Vasquez saith no more but that it was used in the Latine Church he doth not say it was allowed and indeed here once for all I must needs say that though you tell the King and the world that your quotations are the usefulest part of your performance as being the warrant and evidence of all the rest yet when we examine them they are either misquoted or impertinently used was not the Jewish Liturgy in the Hebrew for all Nations Tongues and Languages for Jews and Proselytes were not the primitive Liturgies in Greek and Latine and is Publick Prayer before the people in an unknown tongue onely preached as for a form Gregory the Great as bad manners occasioned Pope Gregory's decree which established that by an Ecclesiastical Law which was already established by primitive practice If Invocation of Saints when not heard of in S. Austin's dayes it was heard of in S. Clement's dayes and Ignatius's if those Epistles and genuine the universal Supremacy of the Pope was from S. Peter by Right though it pleased God he could not get his right untill Boniface the third's time who gave him that actually which he had rightfully before so that touching these errours as you call them we may say from the beginning it was so Qu. 8. Whether God from the beginning of the world before under or after the Law allowed Liberty for variety of Constitution in several Countries professing one Religion were not all the world under one way before Christ is not all the world under one Faith one Baptisme c. one way since Christ be of one accord of one mind what is a a particular Church is not a particular Congregation under one Pastor meeting in the same place if so why do not you suffer the several congregations in England to enjoy their own Liberty in indifferent things is it a Nation where do you read that every Nation should have it 's own way of serving God or do you not rather read that they should be all of one heart and of one way Qu. 9. In dutiful conformity to which example say you the reformers here in England c. Were the Reformers here in England members of the Roman Church or were they not if they were not they were of no Church there being none then visible and so were no Christians and so not fit to reform a Christian Church if they were members of the Roman Church could they the members reform the Church if they could why may not other members of your Church which desire a further reformation reform yours Qu. 10. Whether the Council of Trent may not as well adde several points to be delivered upon pain of damnation as well as you adde several things to be done upon pain of damnation especially when as you say the things themselves bind not unto damnation but the power that enjoins them so those articles require not a belief upon pain of damnation but the Church that establisheth them Qu. 11. But having recourse to the Scriptures and the primitive Fathers of the Church c. where did they find the Scripture and the Primitive Fathers did they not find them in the Church and must they run from the Church to goe to the Fathers and Scriptures you say that as the Papists separate from the Pâ—imitive Christians so the Reformers did from them what Christians did the Papists separate from when there were no Christians but in the Church of Rome all the Religion that was then in the world was in the Church of Rome all Christians holding Communion with it and therefore as Rome could not make a schisme unlesse from it self so the need hath made schisme from Rome Qu. 12. Whether the Protestants leaving the Church of Rome was not the leaving of the Scripture the Primitive Church and the four general Councils which are all owned in Rome Qu. 13. Whether though the Gospel was preached as Jerusalem as you say to the Jew yet Rome may not be the mother Church of the Gentiles Qu. 14. Whether Gildos's Report of Christianity in Britain the later-time of Tiberius do not make the British Church subject to the See of Rome especially seeing Gildos in the same Epistle saith that Christianity was brought hither by S. Peter