which move Planets or bodies unto us here altogether invisible except we either rise higher or they descend towards us in their motion warmed and vegetated by their fires as we by our sun If it be thus as well it may for aught I can know of my self what a strange consort of hymnes and praises rise up in the univers continually and without ceas as incens in several keys of musick unto that great holy One who made us all to supply the defects of those small pittiful services we poor worms perform unto him in this our earthly system This may seem far more rationall thank to think that we gross corporeall creatures and sensuall sinners are the only people in the univers who serv the almighty and that all those eminent bright shining systems above us whose order method properties bulk and nature is so obscure are there set and appointed for nothing else but onely for our use which we cannot yet say what it is and when we have imagined our utmost is not of the value of any one star in the firmament or that bodies of their vast capacity should be utterly empty and have no creature at all within them I should of my self be so far from thinking that the stars of the firmament are onely for our use that I should doubt whether the very elements amongst which we live and breath earth aier and water and the beasts minerals and plants contained in them are onely made to serv us tho chiefly intended for our benefit The very gradual perfections of nature hath in it self a worth and decency beseeming the Creatour tho man had never been And if all had been onely aimed for our use would not a less sea have served our turn and fewer birds beasts fish and plants What use have we of all the great depth of earth under us to the center or larg vast aether about us And if we were such absolute lords of the world as we conceiv our selves to be how is it that nothing at all in natur is at our command not the sea not the aier not the earth it self nor any thing upon it or in it will either come or go or alter or stop his course at our pleasure which King Canutus observed well when standing with his nobles by the Thames side he perceived the tide to rush upon him altho he had commanded it to com no nearer What kind of vassails be these inferiour natures under man that will obey us in just nothing Besides when any one is absolute maister of a hous wholly destined to his use surely such a one can go and com into any room thereof without controul but let man walk down either into the bottom of his seas to see his fish there or into the cellars of his earth amongst the mettals and tell me if he be not stifled as soon as other creatures But if he once attempt to mount the upper rooms of his habitation tho it be but into the first or second region of the aier he shall fail at the very first step for his ethereal greeces will not bear the gross unweildly bulk of their Lord so ill is the house fitted for the maisters constitution from the very top to the bottom Can we not honour and bless God for the use he hath lent us of all these things which is great and various but we must by the vanity of our hearts appropriate and monopolise the univers to our selvs as if it were for no other use at all but ours The manifold use and services we have of the stars and elements beasts birds fish and plants which do all administer unto man in somthing or other according to the exigence either of his necessities thence to be supplied or his corporal delight or mental speculation to be furnished from that great body which the divine goodnes therefor made before man that in the first instant of his being he should want nothing ought to make us thankful but not proud And so the holy prophet admiring the excellency and perfection of place that mankind by his creators goodnes hath over other visible creatures amongst whom he livs and the various uses he hath of them doth in one of his sweet psalms invite man thereupon to magnifie this his great benefactour who set him in so high a place when he needed not to have put him in any and if man do so he shall do well But he must not appropriate more to himself than is given or instead of being thankful for the dominion he has received vainly conceit a dominion he has not Aristotle fansied our earth to be the center of the Univers and the stars to be a sift essence differing from all the four elements placed in the circumference but the great wits of the world that lived before him Pythagoras Empedocles Anaxagoras Democritus Epicure were of another mind And although our Christian Schoolmen have now for five of six hundred years explicated and defended the principles of their religion even in the way of Aristotle by which for a thousand years it had been opposed by the pagan yet do they not intend to mix his philosophy with those principles of their faith nor does the great Christian Church therefore canonise his philosophy for truth becaus she suffers her own truths to be declared and explicated by it If Christianity be true it fears no antagonists but will bear the test of any right philosophy but yet philosophy that it may be right indeed must be corrected and ordered by this divine truth as well as this explicated in som things by it And if another Christian philosopher should explicate his faith now afresh in the way of Democritus or Pythagoras as in the first times of the Church it was declared in the way of Plato and in these latter ages by Aristotle so he do it piously and warily and square not his rule of faith by them but them by it I cannot see why it may not commendably be done But then as he does use those explications to satisfy a pythagorean or epicurean so must he confidently reject as dissonant to right reason what he finds unapt to square with the received truths of Jesus Christ as we do now deal with Aristotle This if it were done as Christian religion will be justified when it is perceived to stand with the right reason of any Philosophy so likewise when another Philosophy contrary to Aristotles is once understood all the whole univers both for number weight and measure its essences relations concatenation origin life and qualities would hang as loose suspence and doubtful as if nothing had been ever said of it Aristotles reasons will make Democritus and his disciples doubted and again the great learning and subtility of Democritus Anaxagoras Epicurus Empedocles will as much disable Aristotle and the doubt may be as pregnant among Christians as other men where the catholick Church interposes not the autority of some received tradition to cast
time of our late civil warres wherein our Monarchy once subverted we all perished with it and our rights and welfare at such a loss that no man could say that aught he had remaining was his own It must needs be so for the government what ever it be is before the laws and the laws receiv all their strength and vigour from the acknowledged autority of that power from whence they are derived Now that the Christian Church was first monarchicall under one Sovereign Byshop when Christ who founded it was upon earth no man will deny for aristocracy or democracy it could not be sith all his twelve apostles were under him as his disciples and not fellow doctours or legislatours with him nor did he ever pretend to receiv his autority from men but immediately from God above unto whom he was personally united and this autority of his must first be accepted before his word can be believed or his law acknowledged and these must have all their force from that power which according to its firmitude of truth gives them all their life and vigour which remains and dies with it and with the government under which the laws and doctrin began It appears then that all the laws and rules and promises and whole doctrin of Christianity and founded upon the spiritual monarchy of Jesus who was Man-God that he might be both unto human kind a fit and proportioned head as man and uncontroulable independent and infallible as God And hence it must needs follow that the subversion of episcopacy which is the spirituall monarchy in which our Lord founded his Christianity must needs weaken and by degrees utterly destroy all faith for the ruin of the polity is the death of all its laws founded in it Nor will it suffice if an Independent or Presbyterian say that they are still under their head Christ who being in heaven hath his spirituall influences over them I say this suffices not for the true Church of Christ whersoever it is must have the very same head she had at first or else she cannot be the same body and that head was man-God personally present in both his natures with the body of his Church here on earth and although Christ may and does supply the invisible part of his God-head influence upon his mystick body yet a visible head or byshop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruin What then you will say cannot God preserv his Church without the help of man I answer we must not here dispute what God can do but what he will do God can warm the earth and make fruits to grow and us to see without the sun but if he have otherwise ordained we must expect those effects from the caus he hath set and no other wayes And that all truths are to be expected from his Church and from him he hath substituted in his place to govern us as our only visible Pastour is manifestly apparent both by his own law and practise and our experience By his law when he sayes that he who will not hear his Church must be as a publican and reprobate by his practise when he would not have his own supernatural vocation and endowment and light from heaven to suffice St. Paul either to make him a Christian or a Teacher till he had received both from the hands of his Church and pastors by our experience while we see from age to age that all those that withdraw themselves from the Catholick Church and from her chief Byshop and pastour let the occasion be what it will or never so little do run themselves restlesly into endles schisms denying one thing after another still from less to more till at length all Christianity be cancelled and beginning with schisme they end with atheisme all truth unity and peace being to be had onely from and in that one Church which as St. Paul does well and wisely call it Christs Body so is it only animated with his spirit of truth and from the government there appointed which is episcopal and in a special manner from the chief pastour there presiding ruling and directing in place of Jesus Christ unto whom all obey in yielding obeysance unto him in spiritual affairs according to his own order and appointment Nor is there any more certain rule of discerning the approaching ruin of Christianity in any person or people than when we see them either secretly to undermine or openly to oppugn papal autority No pope no byshop no byshop no Church no Church no salvation This being once well pondered as a thing of such weighty concernment deservs we shall begin both to suspect that the first reformers Luther and Calvin who being Priests under that Papal hierarchy flew out against the Church whereof they had been members and furiously cryed down both Pope and all episcopacy were not sent from God and likewise conclude that the counsel of Queen Elizabeth did wisely reassume that ancient form of Church government though it were opposite to the principles of reformation and judgment of all the first reformers becaus it was both most conformable to times of primitive Christianity and in all reason most likely to conserve the land in unity And if we were once by Gods grace freed from preconceived prejudice we should all of us as clearly see and love the beauty of papal doctrin as now some of us allow of papal government nor is there any thing commendable in any reformation but that and only that which it hath in it of Popery And lastly we shall easily discern that the the Presbyterian plea and all its arguments or whatever else they can have to say against episcopacy are of no value and indeed too slight for me to insist upon their solution I had a mind here to decipher the Protestants plea against the Papist but I finde that there cannot be made any one scheme of it as of the Independent and Presbyterians becaus these the first of them speaks so generally of all things that he seldom touches upon any one particular the other so insists upon one particular that he troubles himself with nothing else and a man may know what both of them would have But all these and several other reformations when they set their face against the Roman Catholick go all under the generall name of Protestants and yet speak several and contradictory things one accusing them for that which the other approves And generally they do neglect their doctrin and inveigh against the vices and follies which either they put upon them or are indeed found amongst som people or persons that do profess that faith in France Spain Italy or other parts as pride tyranny drunkennes leachery foolish gambols and usages of Countreys with which Protestant books against popery are lustily stuft up or if they do indeed speak to their doctrin it is either done onely with some
both and let me once give a freedom to my thoughts I shall as soon question one as the other and if I do reject one proceeding rationally I must cashier the other also Surely the Pope canot but smile to see his book which is the ground and guide of the catholick faith he delivered with it to be made by the Protestant to speak protestantisme presbyterisme by the Presbyterian anabaptisme by the Anabaptist and quakerisme by the Quaker even as doubtles it would be a sport to Virgil if he were alive to see his Arma virumque cano turned epithalamist by one a prophetist by another an evangelist by a third whereas the poem it self intends none of these things but only the travels and wars of Eneas and doubtles our scripture it self might be made by these tricks of wit to speak forth the passions of Queen Dido Without all doubt and controul it is a most high inconsequence so passionately as we do to plaspheme a byshop who is and ever was acknowledged in the world for Pape or Father of Christianity as the most wicked man alive and a grand seducer and yet to hugge a book in our bosomes which we took at first upon his credit as an oracle of truth and then again first to fall out with him and then with one another amongst our selves about the meaning of that book wherein his own catholick beleevers all the while unanimously agree without any end pelting one another with texts and verses unto the utter ruin of charity not understanding for the most part either the uncertainty of our own reasonings or the dangerous consequence of our wayes I will utter a bold word but what I know to be true both by experience and irrefragable reason As the gospel cannot prove any thing being separated from the Church and the living and speaking oracle of him that sent it unto whose judgment both defendant and disputant must submit so neither without the help of that autority can it prove it self either by any argument which it uses none or by vertue of miracle recorded in it sith those signs and wonders there related are now as far from my knowledg as be the truths of any doctrins to be ratified by them so that I shall have as much ado to beleev them as any piece of doctrin they may confirm being all of them equally either motives or objects of beleef as I pleas my self And it is all one to me that am born in these dayes so long after those signs were wrought to beleev the miracles by Gods incarnation or Gods incarnation by the miracles since I may beleev both but can evidently know neither of them to be true so far as that I may use one of them as a medium to demonstrate the other If the gospel laid before me should work of it self any strang wonder in my sight then I might haply have some motive to beleev it but we in England inveigh bitterly against the present miracles that are shown in the catholick Church ascribing them all if they be true unto the operations of Satan so that according to this way I should not know what to think neither if the bible should do som strang thing before me and as little conclude of the past miracles there recorded §. 16. Appeal AS it is impossible to be assured that the bible is the word of God if we condemn him from whom it first came of imposture so is it certain that upon that book wrested out of the hands of catholicks against him and his who first presented it we ground all the several wayes of religion here in England whereof each body and faction does so far presume as to condemn all to death who will not approve them And yet if we did but proceed like rational men we could not but remain all of us in great humility and fear upon these surmises Does not the Pope pretend the spirit of Christ as well as we do not all catholicks so had we not the bible from them do they not ratiocinate out of it and show their religion thence as well as we only they do it uniformly we differently and upon their principles they build up Church and State we pull down all Put case we were all at this instant in our antient state of paganisme and a Priest or two should com to us from Rome to convert us now as then they did to Christianity with the gospel in their hands which they should tell us to be pure truth and Gods word which we never heard before if we should reject and disesteem them as cheating seducers could we rationally accept and beleev the book or would we not therefor cast into the fire that volum of theirs wherein were contained the summe of all their mission and news if we looked upon the men that brought it as impostours Consider seriously and think not to pull the snail out of her shell and then to keep one apart and crush the other without which it cannot liv Church and Gospel were both born together but the Church first at least in a priority of nature and must both liv together Christ the head must be authorised before he could teach and the Church established before any of her children could write a gospel nor can they with authentick autority write any thing but what the mother Church constituted by her espous the sours of all heavenly truths that earth can expect shall set her seal unto So that in any age to deny the Church and to accept of her writings to profess Christ and condemn her that brought us the first news of him is at one and the same time to take her autority and reject it to say she is fals and yet true in the same affairs As she gave testimony to Christ so did Christ unto her The same gospel ratifies both Christ and his Church the same Church both Christ and the gospel the same Christ both gospel and the Church too which himself established So then reason light scripture power of interpretation being equally to be found at least pretended in all anticatholick wayes and the Roman catholick although he have withal a surplusage of true and right autority from the Church and her pastour whom he ever follows yet since he never denied but strongly and effectuoussy maintained that he hath with him as much of true interpretation light and reason as any can pretend and so far more peculiar and excelling as the judgment of the universal Church in all ages from whence he drew that reason and light of his is in matters of religion that are not invented but derived to be preferred before the conceit of any one person who contrary to the very essence and nature of antient Christianity shall go out of the Church wherein he found himself it may most manifestly appear that as the catholick hath all the right and preheminence that any other may pretend for himself and yet a far greater too even that
vex one another unto the daily disquiet and overthrow of our Kingdom as also becaus I beleeve he would soon answer the doubt and by the test of this great oracle carry away the precedency from us all and we all found to have no more truth in us than we have conformity unto Roman-catholicks Wherefore gentlemen I shall never ingage my self in any of your feudes and I would to God none els would do it till you answer me to this my question which I make to you all in generall and to each party in particular An à vobis verbum Dei processit an ad vos solos pervenit did the Gospell first com from you or only to you If either tell me which and on what side it is and I shall be on that if neither I can be of no side to follow it as my guide for though each party may haply have in it some reliques of truth amongst other fals inventions and all truths are not utterly abolished on the sodain yet can no such party hold forth any doctrin I may safely build upon That person or that See or that congregation from whom the gospel came or those people at least unto whom it first came legally delivered and not extorted and totally accepted without diminishment commensuratively unto his mind who sent it these are the onely persons unto whom of divine right precedency so much belongs as all that will be of Christs mystical body not onely may safely but must universally follow them But where this body of men may be the Pope and Papists from whom and unto whom alone the gospel first came being by us concluded under errour is so obscure that I for my part having lost them cannot find out whom I may safely adhere unto in the opinions and practises of religion sith none of us in England besides them can according to this great oracle of St. Paul pretend any right to guide his neighbour in those wayes Wherfor it were good wisdom in my judgment to sheath both our swords and pens and be at peace till we can find out a party among us that can make good this canonical title of preheminence for she that can do it is the onely pure and mother Church whom all must hear and obey unto and all other factions that be unconformable unto that holy Church from whom or unto whom first the gospel came are little better perhaps then stark naught I cannot see then as yet why we should all of us Presbyterian Protestant and Independent inveigh so furiously either one against another within our selves or all of us against the Papist or why upon this account any one should be puft up against his neighbour or hate and prosecute him as an execrable thing but that we should rather study mutual comiseration charity and peace §. 4. Heats and resolution THere have ever been variety of opinions in the world and considering the diversity of our constitution and complexion will ever still be unto the end so long as we be left to our selves In the small knowledge we have of times past there is enough to certifie the division of mindes and opinions in all ages and places But it is to be noted that none of these ever submitted to another nor fell into unity by conviction of any one reason above the rest and yet doubtles there was ever som such reason extant But they rested notwithstanding at length like boisterous whirlwinds after some ages puffing one against another well broken tired and decaying for want of further matter but that which never fails is truth Nor do I find that they used in former times of old among the Pagans other weapons offensiv or defensiv in the heats of their opinion-wars but onely pen and speech Our Christians those huge eminent professours of humility peace and moderation are the onely hot-spur opiniasters and surely the sharpest darers and eagerest fighters for their self-wills and conceits that were ever yet brought upon this worlds amphitheater And as they show the greatest fury so do they exhibite the least reason of all controvertists upon earth For the spirit the light the Lord the word and such like motives of a new fansy what can these things signifie between men of the same profession that pretend all to the same things but onely this that the Papal chair being once removed every one may advance his own seat in the place for all are equally infallible equally resolute and unmoveable in their decrees Nor does any ever heed the invalidity of his motives not for the most part understand when he is confuted even by his own weapons so eager we are and withal impertinent and resolute In truth opinions and controversies once raised were never yet allaied by reason nor ever can be for the first founder and forger of the novelty being moved thereunto by passion and interest as in time it proves evident to the world put on a resolv never to yield whether he held forth a natural or supernatural light as a weapon of his warfar and therefor he will onely be tried by his own weapon and that too shall signify nothing but in his own hand which is a certain way of victory at least in the eyes of the vulgar whom he seeks to inveigle and consequently both of interest and glory to himself And let there be never so many opinions they all overcome How shall he be confuted that brings with himself I mean in appearance and his own pretens the Lord or light or word or spirit or tradition or reason with open defiance to the whole world as utterly devoid of all such helps which himself and he alone enjoyes in all abundance confute him that can Let truth and wisdom flow like streams from the lips of his opponent let all sort of rhetorick conspire to his satisfaction if he do not laugh at it as empty sounds and not the true word as flesh and not spirit as man and not the Lord as darknes and not light as folly and not reason as humane inventions and no divine tradition let me lose belief for ever And what end can there be made of such new started doubts or where lies the defect or reason of their indeterminables but only in the pride and obstinacy of the first prophet and his disciples who indeed are not such if they be not self-willed and self-conceited like himself And this may be the reason of that sage advice the Apostle gives to Titus Haereticum hominem post unam alteram correptionem devita c. An heretical man check him once or twice and then avoid him for he is utterly subverted and condemned in his own judgment As if he had said dispute not with him but check him if that will do no good avoid him for he is past hopes But how is such a one condemned in his own judgment and why should we therfor treat no further with him Namely becaus he knows aforehand in his own
the scales But whether she do this or no is not to my purpos now in hand who intend onely to insinuate unto such as multiply opinions about religion both without and against that Church that even nature it self is vastly obscure and unknown to man who lives in it and nothing in a manner but only what enters our senses can be so certainly known and concluded by any that he may prudently either swagger or fight for his opinion And religion and the things of another world must needs be yet more obscure than those of this It is observable that Christ and Moses and other holy Apostles and Prophets when in their discours they touch incidentally upon things of nature their chief purpos being ever to teach the way of vertue and true piety they comply oftentimes to the capacity and judgement of the hearer what ever it be So Christ our Lord told us that at the finall day the stars shall fall from heaven insinuating by that amongst his other expressions the great disturbance of nature then to happen wherein comets which the vulgar calls stars may shoot indeed but the Philosophers stars cannot fall upon us out of the firmament except all return to the old Chaos and one System mix with another Moses calls the sun and moon the two greater lights and the stars of the firmament the lesser altho contrary to philosophicall truth when he intended to declare unto the people that have vulgarly such conceptions of them that sun and moon and all the other stars and planets were created by that God he revealed The Psalmist under the similitude of an Eagle which renews his youth expresses moral renovation which he might well do sith men had so fansied of the eagle whether indeed he do so or not The like compliance was used by him who told the people that the stars in their ranks fought against their enemies in which phrase he insinuated Gods providence in battles condescending to the peoples imagination who looked upon the stars as a pitched field of champions under the Lord of those hosts of heaven to defend the innocent Thus leaving us in the same imagination about things of nature they found us in they endeavoured all of them onely to chalk us out the right way unto that felicity whereof the knowledg of these and other wonderments of Gods power shall be the least part by serving him as we ought from whom have issued prodigies we shall never know in this life and who is himself the wonder of all wonders onely to be seen and known in the other Having seriously perused the Schools and learning of the ancient Pagan Philosophers this I finde that their disciples however conceited of their demonstration and knowledg did rather beleev than know any thing and the first maister invented himself properly speaking not so much a philosophy as faith Take Aristotle and his School on one side Democritus and Epicure on the other these two schools were mainly opposite both in their principles and whole body of learning And yet none that understand them well can tell by any strength of nature or force of their arguments which of them is with truth According to learned Democritus and Epicure all things began in time by a fortuite concours of atomes which in all eternity filled the immensity of space and as these made the world so do they by their incessant mobility work continually insensible alterations till after long time they fly all asunder again and make casually another world either here again or in som other part of the immens space quite of another mode and fashion unto this so that matter upon this account is all and does all According to Aristotle the world had no beginning but partiall generations daily wherin form gives the act and essence and matter is so far from being all that it is but a pure potentiallity and prope nihil almost just nothing These were the opposite principles of two differing Philosophies But were they known or evident to either of the maisters If they had sought for an argument to prove them they had laboured in vain one therfor conceited that matter was all things the other that matter was nothing c. and upon this conceit which nothing but the autority of the maister to whom they would adhere fastened upon the disciples they raised a Philosophy which being thus founded upon a human faith or fansy all their following ratiocinations could never effect that it should be rather called knowledg than beleef or fantosme And this is the reason why the ancient Christian Priests grave and learned men who had entertained an esteem of their maister above all mortall men would never give way that the articles of Christian faith should be tried by the principles either of Aristotelian or Epicurean beleef and since the disciples of those men would adhere so firmly to fals and indemonstrated principles of human teachers they thought it much more reasonable that they should hold constantly what they had received from a divine maister and not submit to the test of such ungrounded inevident and contradicting principles of men as much opposite one to another as all perhaps to Christian faith even Aristotles philosophy as well as the rest What more assured pillars be there in Aristotles school than these Ex nihilo nihil fit 2. quod incipit esse desinit esse 3 quae conveniunt in aliquo tertio conveniunt inter se 4 accidentis esse est inesse 5. ex duobus entibus in actu non fit unum 6. Ã privatione ad habitum non datur regressus not to mention others And yet those catholik priests perceived well enough that Christian principles were contrary unto these and these to them the first to creation the second to the souls immortality the third to the Trinity fourth to the Eucharist fifth to the Incarnation sixth to the resurrection Some ages after rose our Christian philosophers whom we commonly call Schoolmen and raised a fine piece of art upon Christian principles defended and made good even in Aristotles way And these becaus the forenamed and such other Aristotelian axioms carried a plausible appearance of truth in the ear they did accept them indeed but in a sens of their own so that they do not in this Christian school make out that sens they did in the others though they bear the same sound And it is pretty to see how one and the same axiom is made in several schools to butteres up waies that be destructive to one another God made the world in time saith the Christian and none but he could do it for it is not in the power of any creature no not of the highest intelligence to make a thing of nothing for ex nihilo nihil fit of nothing is nothing made namely by the power and force of nature though it may by God the first caus so speaks he The world is eternal saith Aristotle and could not be made
himself once to any one opinion here in England he sodainly entertains such a prejudice against all the rest that there is left in him no further place for counsel for all other wayes besides his own are condemned as soon as his own is accepted and he does no sooner think himself sure but all others must in the same time be lost And yet he hath but his own judgment for it neither supported only with the appearances of I know not what spirit or internal light which he and his enjoy and all others want And if a man press him once to further difficulties than himself hath thought on though without the reflection upon them he could never be able to settle any firm judgment about these things in particular one shall soon find that he heeds not any of those things without which the other could not be judiciously concluded nor is able even by the help of that light or spirit of his to satisfy therein either himself or other man which argues plainly that the spirit and light he pretends is nothing but his own private resolution not sufficiently amplified and yet irrationally fixed against all autority and counsel The Christians in antient times especially for the first four hundred years after Christ had many serious and grave disputes with the Jew and pagan which being rational and weighty and about the foundations of Christianity whereon the other articles were built did pusle even the wisest of their clergy to answer but after all the ratiocination ended whether it sufficed or no they still concluded with this one word Credo which the love of Christ had fastned upon them as emperour Julian comonly surnamed the Apostate testifies of them And this although in philosophy and logick it had been a weak answer yet in religion it was the best and only one to be made so that all the burden fell at length upon the autority of Jesus Christ who being both a man and one too that was crucified as a malefactor undertook to send forth religion into the world under the title of a divine Prophet and the onely Son of God almighty maker of heaven and earth which could not but at first make a disturbance both among the Jewes and Gentiles where it should be preached And the great mystery begins here and here it must end for this autority being once admitted from the Church that brings it all other catholick truths will follow by a kind of consequence from the same hands and therefor this autority of his which can never be demonstratively proved unto us that live now but only by vertue of the Church that derives it us Christ must maintain himself by signs and wonders and such signall proofs of his divine providence over his Church from time to time that his deity may somewhat appear in his Churches progres and defence and all other doctrins must be made good by it and the Church that first preached it to us In any age of the Christian Church a Jew might say thus to the Christians then living Your Lord and maister was born a Jew and under the jurisdiction of the high Priests these he opposed and taught a religion contrary to Moses otherwise how coms there to be a faction but how could he justly do it no human power is of force against Gods who spake as you also grant by Moses and the Prophets and divine power it could not be for God is not contrary to himself And although your Lord might say as indeed he did that Moses spake of him as of a Prophet to com greater than himself yet who shall judg that such a thing was meant of his person for since that Prophet is neither specified by his name or characteristicall properties who could say it was he more than any other to come And if there were a greater to com than Moses were surely born a Jew he would being com into the world rather exalt that law to more ample glory than diminish it And if you will further contest that such a Prophet was to abrogate the first law and bring in a new one who shall judge in this case the whole Church of the Hebrews who never dreamed of any such thing or one member thereof who was born a subject to their judgments This is the great oecumenicall difficulty and he that in any age of Christianity could either answer it or find any bullwark to set against it so that it should do no harm would easily either solv or prevent all other difficulties should arise by the same autority by which it was cleared For if Christ were not only a lawfull Teacher but even one that was greater than Moses as Christians beleev him to be and both the one and the other pretended this great work of establishing a Church surely Christ must do it in as great an excellency as Moses and with some advantage the doctrin and disciplin must be as sublime and stated as permanently as his and Christ who wrote no law must so provide notwithstanding that his Church might otherwise have one from him and keep it as uniformly as the Hebrew Church did theirs Wherefore as Moses after he had done all things which belonged to himself to do constituted Aaron and his Successours to be guides rulers overseers and judges of all Controversies that might arise in the tribes about any points of their religion he had written them So must St. Peter and his Successours be inabled by some equall if not more speciall means sith they also were constituted by Christ to govern his flock to captivate all men to the obedience of Christs will otherwise his Church could not go on so uniformly in all ages which uniformity is the glory and indeed the very life and conservation of a Church as that of the Hebrewes did Nor may any body prudently imagin that the Spirit of Jesus in his Church and all the members thereof cooperates in every one immediately unto truth as it does to grace for then why should he constitute doctours and pastours and bishops over us as the good apostle learnedly asserts in his epistle to the Ephesians Ipse de dit quosdam quidem apostolos quosdam autem prophetas alios vero Evangelistas alios autem pastores doctores ad consummationem sanctorum in opus ministerij in aedificationem corporis Christi donec occurramus omnes in unitatem fidei agnitionem filii dei in virum perfectum in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi ut jam non simus parvuli fluctuantes circumferamur omni vento doctrinae in nequit â hominum in astutia ad circumventionem erroris Most excellent pathetical words where we have first the doctrin that pastours are set over us in the Church to guide us then the end of that constitution which he declares first positively then negatively the positive end is a perfect unity of faith which by that means must vegetate and fructify and grow up in one
much in that age as in the first when she took her faith from him that did manifestly so comport himself as if he would be taken for a God and promised his Church by the general spirit he would send her to teach her all truth and strengthen her therein against all opposition even to the consummation of the world which none but God or one exceeding near unto him could make good and if this were not performed the imposture was in the first beginning That building must needs stand firm that rests upon a Deity which hath influence upon the whole fabrick to keep it up and if it be not so kept up and conserved the Church doth but vainly flatter her self when she boasts of the divinity of her support if she fail in her doctrin and faith Christ is not God Whensoever therfor we read either in the Acts of the apostles or other ancient story of the conversion of a Kingdom or people unto the right religion of Christianity we still find it was done not by any private illumination of any one who living before in darknes with the rest was now secretly called to teach others but by a resignation unto a former doctrin brought from Christ by his missioners and preachers by submission to a truth delivered to them from without not rising up within them Faith comes by hearing and every man upon earth that hath ever been approved Christian received it that way and was made thereby not a maister but disciple to the Church Wheras on the other side this spirit and light and such like discoveries we so frequently talk of makes us not schollers but maisters ipso facto and urges not to submit to foregoers but to condemn them not to resign our own but to captivate others understandings not to go to the Church but to go out of it and that upon the single motive of a new illumination which none had before us and we from no body I know well enough that a man cannot be converted and becom a good Christian without the assistance of Gods grace exciting and cooperating with us to our good when the truth is taught and revealed to us But this I suppose is not the Light men talk of for this is rather in the affection and will than in the understanding and bids us hearken to another not to our selves to join with a Church already planted not to begin a new one of our own heads It sayes not to us make a vineyard of your own but go into mine And the intellectuall Light men speak of if we have any we receiv it afterwards as a reward of our humility in that Church where we did not kindle it but found it already burning to guide our feet by it in the wayes of peace Crede intelliges said a great Prophet Beleev and you shall understand but we must beleev first and by that obscure step of beleef which is as a duksy twi-light between the darknes of infidelity we lived in before and the light of truth we go to arrive we to all future happines But we in England that pretend this new Light and secret Spirit are separated by it from a former Church but brought to none nor are we made disciples by it but maisters on the sudden and enabled to teach all men that which we never received from any which is absolutely against the whole cours of Christianity and will if it be admitted set open a gap unto all fanatick fansies St. Paul professes he was apostle not of men nor by men but by God and the reason is becaus his first call was extraordinary from heaven as was likewise the suggestion he had to his mission and yet that God that called him although he showed him so singular a favour yet would he not dispense with his own orders and constitutions even in him but sent him to the good Priest Ananias to be by him instructed and catechised and admitted into his Church and with those people St. Paul found in the profession of that faith did he often conferre even he that was so strangly called from heaven conferred the Gospel which afterwards he preached as himself speaks in his epistle to the Galatians with those people and with that Church he found in actuall possession and profession of that faith least saith he I should have run in vain that is least he should do or think or preach any thing amiss contrary to the truth received unto which he was called which he could no otherwaies by the constitutions Jesus himself had made be assured of but by comparing his doctrin with that which was believed and practised in the Church before him into which he was now incorporated as a member in that body by the assistance of the grace he had received to be first a disciple and then afterwards a maister and teacher and when he did become a doctour he did not make himself one no nor his calling by Christ sufficed to do it but he was made such a one under the hands of the apostles and by their approbation autority and sacred ordination as may be seen in the book of the Acts ch 13. Nor was he to teach without that Churches leav or contrary to her faith but by her direction and in subjection to her This is a faithful speech and worthy of all consideration which seriously pondered would dissipate in a moment all whatsoever pretences of light spirit reason or other thing that shall mov any to a new way by himself contrary to what he hath received seen practised in the Church before him And if any would seriously peruse the Acts of the apostles wherein the footsteps of primitive Christianity fufficiently appear he shall find that all that were called unto Christs religion were brought to the feet of the apostles and priests who received them at the door and brought them into the hous of God by the laver of Baptisme and imposition of hands and confession of sins and it was not onely the ordinary but sole ingress into that Church and none were ever esteemed to be of that body but only by those means which also the pastours of the Church were only to mannage He that comes not in at the door saith Christ is neither sheep nor shepheard but a theef and a robber And true Christian religion consists not in going out of a Church but coming in there to submit to the ancient dictates of piety which Christ revealed §. 13. Independent and Presbyterians Plea TO a judicious man whom a word sufficeth it will already appear that no opinion or way here in England can have any advantage over the other by vertue of discoveries made by any light spirit or reason since there can no such be legally pretended to set up any new religion apart from the former but to join rather with the old which if it be not absolutely true Christ is not God and all Christianity but a human invention But yet
FIAT LUX OR A general Conduct to a right understanding in the great Combustions and Broils about RELIGION here in ENGLAND Betwixt Papist and Protestant Presbyterian Independent To the end That Moderation and Quietnes may at length hapily ensue after so various Tumults in the Kingdom By Mr. J V C. a friend to men of all Religions Jam proximus ardet Vcalegon Tantaene animis coelestibus irae 1661. To the most Illustrious and most excellent Lady the Countess of Arundel and Surrey c. Madam IT often happens in Books what somtime in Children that although obscurely born they are by the benigne aspect of some great Person happily cast upon them entertained and bred up in princely pallaces and flourish as much by happy chance as they could have don by a greater birth I wish with all my heart that this little Off-spring of mine which coms running with a modest confidence to the feet of your glorious Vertues which have only moved it to such a boldnes may find favour in your eyes so that incouraged by the greatness of your Name it may chearfully go in and out conspicuous in the world and do the good my heart desireth To the end it may bear with it some possibility of acceptance both Madam with your Honour and with the world too I have to my power imprinted upon its forehead the general lineaments of noblenes Reason and Civillity But other Ornaments are so far wanting that it may not expect entertainment but where som great part of that Goodnes which hath rendred the Countess of Arundel so renowned and gracious may inhabite The Book carries no other intent but what a Person of Honour may own and its purpos written upon its face answers directly to its heart and spirit It would for sooth pacifie our rurall distempers about affairs of Religion and showes a Light that Madnes may see what it does where it mistakes and how irrationally it rages This is the very end and purpos of my Book laudable enough I may presume and not unworthy the Countenance of Honour were it accomplished with that art so good a purpos requireth Let your own excelling goodness Madam cover the other defects and graciously accept what I humbly offer a sincere though not very profound not a high and eloquent but which is harder in the rude distempers I am to deal withall a peaceable harmles well-meaning Book In my dark obscurity I dye daily but my ashes will joy If it should haply fall out that good be wrought in England unto the promoting of sobernes in any one by the Countess of Arundels FIAT LVX and so will those with me who may chance to receiv any satisfaction from this little Light be bound to your Ladiship whose countenance and favourable assistance has been the instrument of setting it forth wherein you shall ever oblige me to be Madam Your Honours most humble and most devoted Servant J V C. The Chapters First Page 19. THere is no colour of reason or just title may move us to quarrell and judge one another with so much heart about Religion Second Page 66. All things are so obscure that no man in prudence can so far presume of his own knowledge as to set up himself a guide in Religion to his neighbour Third Page 140. No religion or sect or way hath any advantage over another nor all of them over Popery Fourth Page 213. All religions who have opposition to the Catholick are equally innocent to one another as likewise is the Roman religion truly innocent and unblameable to them all Fifth Page 365. Morall topicks for charity and peace The Paragraffs § 1. DIversity of feuds pag. 19 § 2. Ground of quarrels p. 27 § 3. Nullity of title p. 34 § 4. Heats and resolution p. 48 § 5. Motives to moderation p. 54 § 6. Obscurity of God p. 66 § 7. Obscurity of nature p. 82 § 8. Item p. 90 § 9. Obscurity of Providence p. 106 § 10. Help p. 118 § 11. Reason p. 126 § 12. Light and Spirit p. 140 § 13. Puritan plea. p. 155 § 14. Protestant pro and con p. 170 § 15. Scripture p. 182 § 16. Appeal p. 198 § 17. History of religion p. 213 § 18. Item p. 223 § 19. Item p. 229 § 20. Item p. 235 § 21. Discovery p. 244 § 22. Messach p. 254 § 23. B. Virgin Mary p. 267 § 24. Images p. 272 § 25. Latin Service p. 280 § 26. Communion p. 292 § 27. Saints p. 303 § 28. Dirge p. 323 § 29. Pope p. 336 § 30. Popery p. 357 § 31. Conclusion p. 365 FIAT LUX Preface The motive matter and method of the Book THese twenty years of intestin wars and broils principally if not solely upon the account of Religion being now past and the tempest ceased upon the return of our great Pilot to whom such winds and seas ought to obey unto the government of his ship out of which our unruly passion cast him to our own great shame and ruin it is now high time for us to lay our hand upon our heart and be sober An irregular fire of zeal a meteor-lanthorn hath led us into lakes and precipices and there left us But God forbid that for the time to com we should any of us by such deceitfull lights be any more misled And this that we may all heed as it is the earnest desire of all good Christian spirits so is it the onely scope and endeavour of this little book which I humbly offer and present unto the hands of my Countrimen especially the gentler and more refined natures of whose favourable acceptance I do conceiv greater hopes than from any vulgar eye which expecting to read the old common places they are fore-acquainted with in the usual tract and method will I fear when they miss here of both like of nothing But gentlemen by the highnes of birth and greatnes of their education have put on other affections and do somtimes more heed a plain rationall discours unto a commendable end though destitute of all guard but its own single reason than the ordinary large retinue of autorities and texts which may indeed much strengthen and adorn a book but hinder a reader in his progres and generally they dislike any new book that differs no otherwise from former ones than a new moon from an old one These past times between 1640. and 1660. and the horrour of them wherin we were afraid even to think and that in our private closets I intend not here to speak of for posterity should I write true and fully would never beleev it and if fals or imperfectly the present age eywitnes of the truth would slight it Besides I would not willingly now offend any whom I have been aforetime so hugely afraid of Charity also towards my neighbour perswades me that the long Parliament and all their adherents had an appearance of som great good before their eyes which they were not able to wield
histories make mention and it is a pleasant speculation to consider it But the method and severall wais of enhancing fame by inventions and discoveries of truths prosecuted by contemplativ heads what and how various they have been in the Pagan world we may in part gather out of Aristotle Plato Lucretius M. Tullius Cicero and som other few monuments yet kept amongst us What they have been in the Christian world lives more fresh in our memories but these are of two sorts one in explication and defens of faith against all opposition possible to be made by any kind of adversaries Jew Heretick or Pagan and this hath been the emploiment of the most sublime eagles that ever the Christian Church had S. Austin Magister sententiarum Alensis S. Thomas Aquinas Bonaventure Gandavensis Scotus and the like The other in opposition to faith which rose up in severall ages for the exercise of this mystick Body who was in his own person not onely opposed by outward adversaries but deserted by his own I love those eminent Pagan wits and this commendation they have that they are our first masters in all our Sciences that they performed what they undertook to write most solidly acutely and exactly both for judgment clearnes and method and thirdly that they confuted one another for they were divided in opinions as well as we and it was expedient they should be so not in reviling words as we Christians do but in sober and purest reason although the arguments of their discours inferred somtimes very little to the confutation of an adversary becaus they often proceeded upon severall principles not ever rightly understood or at least for more particular advantage wilfully mistaken And in this method of sobriety do our two great Schollers the Lawyer and Physician write when they put forth treatises either one body of art against another or one member and person in particular against another in the same body So likewise did our subtile Schoolmen proceed five hundred years ago with no lesse sweetnes of spirit than profundnes of reason whose intention was to explicate and defend Christianity even in the way of Aristotles Philosophy by which the Pagans had for a thousand yeaâ—… opposed it to the much prejudice of Christian Religion which the Priests and Doctours of ancient times would not undertake to defend by a Philosophy they found so much tending to atheism and in so many things fals that is to say contrary to the principles and faith they had received from Jesus whose word they preferred before all the Philosophers reasons in the world These Schoolmen divided into divers branches by occasion of a severall interpretation of Aristotle either in the way of S. Thomas of Aquin the Dominican whose doctrine for the most part was followed in Cambridge or of subtile Scotus the Franciscan whose chair was at Oxford And in other parts of the Christian world they had their chairs erected according either as chance or favour pleased But all was then don with no less exact charity than sublime reason for they had nothing els to do in their Schools but onely by argument and disputation to try the grounds and solutions whether if a Pagan himself or others antagonist whose person every opponent represents should dispute against them they could then be able to come off in their defensions with applaus and honour and without prejudice of their Faith But when we come to view the opposite judgments in matters of religion commonly called heresies especially in this last age for the rest before these daies have perished by the prevalency of one party against which all the rest bandied together as these be very gross and homly disputes so are they mannaged on the opponents side with so much unseemly behaviour such unmanly expressions that discreet sobriety cannot but loath and abhorr to read them Not reason but defiances not charity but execrations not subtilties but downright defamations not civil respect but vilest disesteem not cool perswasion but precipitous condemnation fills each page we look on and fire and stones fly about where meeknes peace and charity should most appear And all these religion-disputes whether we consider the subject they are about or the manner they are handled or the distracting variety into which they run concerning faith revealed which can be but one I do not see what other effect they can hav upon mankind but to subvert all civill respect and charity and good manners and laws and kingdoms where they come For no man is content if he pretend to have discovered a new way of religion unless all other men embrace it and press and pulpit must ring with loud cries against all that do not be they neighbours or superiours untill the sword it self be sharpened in our hands for battle Thus beginning with the spirit we end with the flesh It is not my meaning to interpose in any particular controversy whose multitude hath already made the world to nauseate but to hold up my discours in such generall tearmes as I shall think may serve if we lay our hands upon our heart and ponder them with a Christian seriousnes so many of us as be now uncharitably bent against our neighbour somewhat to allay and mitigate the many flaming heats of discord raging here in England as much or rather more than any other countrey for opinions concerning faith which as they are taken up at first upon self-conceit interest as experience hath sufficiently shown so are they upon all rules of Christian vertue and prudence if we ever mean to be happy to be deposed Be not many maisters for where all would sway there none obay and so ruin and mischief must needs follow The difficultie is I know not how to express the parties in this religion-feud that I may not offend for so bitterly is each side bent against the other that they will not endure to have them called by their own names But I notwithstanding should deem it not only a civility but a due debt so to do for that is every ones name by which himself will be called and not what an enemy gives him The Protestant is such a one and so to be named though his foe on one side sirname him Papist and his adversary on the other call him heretick so the Catholick likewis by his junior foe is called Papist by his elder enemy a Galilean and altho he may if he will yet do not think him bound to answer either to that appellation or this and therfore if I behave my self civilly towards him I can use neither And as it is for nomination of persons so likewis for the verities of their opinions no party will endure that any one truth of the other side should be acknowledged and he that shall do it will be looked upon as a common enemy by the rest Insomuch danger is even ordinary neighbourhood and civility amongst us when these feuds are once raised I have known good Protestants endangered these times
along with him in his train and service all those holy prophets and patriarks of the old law who had in their place of detention waited for the consolation of Israel I say St. Peter must suppose that proposition on which the firmitude of his whole discours was chiefly grounded to be admitted by the Jews for true otherwise his argument had been inefficacious and had neither proved Christs ascension nor yet Jesus to be Christ and if the Jews had beleeved Davids soul to be in heaven though not his body yet still the argument in my judgment had fallen short All this infers that the Hebrew Church did beleev a detention of spirits citra coelum and that the Rich man might go to hell before Christ but Lazarus the happy went but into Abrahams bosom that is to say unto that repose where Abraham David and all the antient patriarks expected the light and redemption of Israel and not into heaven it self And they might very well so beleev for how can any one hope for that upon anothers gift which he never promised when he promised all other things but it heavenly bliss amongst all the fair promises made in the law of Moses was never so much as mentioned nor those people ever put in hope of it for any good work they should do But in the new testament of our Messias heaven which himself should open to his faithful is frequently promised as an immens motive and incitement to good words they should for his love by the assistance of his grace act and persever in unto the end Yet so too as that in the execution of this promis it is sufficiently insinuated that if any spirit issue out of his body not absolutely purified himself may indeed by the use of such means of grace as our Lord instituted be saved yet so as by fire 1 Cor. 3. And therfore our blessed Saviour speaking of the severall trespasses we make in this life gives us this counsel to set all right and straight as far as we can while we are here in via in the way of this life for if once by death we be delivered up to the place of hold detention or prison ther will be no getting forth thence till the utmost farthing be paid Math 5. that is as holy fathers do jointly interpret the place till absolute satisfaction be made either by sufferance or suffrages And that redemption or remission of some sins may be had after this life is enough insinuated unto us by himself when he tells us that there be some sins that shall never be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come For if any should tell me here in England that som criminall offences will neither be pardoned at the Sessions nor at the Kings bench at Westminster he sufficiently insinuates if he speak properly that releas may be had for som other offences in both the places S. Paul in his epistles although he do somtimes indirectly hint at this doctrin of expiation after this life yet does he not directly make use of it as a topick place either in his exhortation to vertue or disswasion from vice But the reason is manifest for being a thing mixt of good and ill it could serv sufficiently to neither purpos and heaven being now lately promised to all those that walk piously in Christ Jesus was a more full and stronger motive of perswasion as also was hell a greater argument of affrightment then the interjacent place of expiation however penall could be which by reason of the temporality of the sufferance and hopes of approaching glory admits some comfort to mitigate the terrour and again by reason of the penalty of that condition and trouble of expectation carries enough of terrour to allay to comfort of the place And yet incidentally and without design ther is there to be found as much of purgatory as of the liturgy the trinity primitive absolution and other mysteries of faith In a word the thought of heaven served well both to incourage people to the utmost perfection of charity and good works and to comfort them also in tribulations which the memory of their expiation before it could not do And on the other side if any were wicked for such a one purgatory would neither be a seasonable nor sufficient menace Yet both all their life time and especially when they came to dye all records of primitive times will tell us how careful the antient Christians were to provide for their souls assistance after death And accordingly S. Austin commends the piety of his mother Monica in that she begged so earnestly of him her son to be mindful of her soul when he stood at the altar to pray heartily for her after her deceas and he sets down at large in the ninth book of his Confessions c. 12. and 13. the dirge and sacrifice and prayers he made both for her and her husband Patricius And the doctrin of expiatory punishments after this life he teaches in several places of his many learned volumes In his 20 book de civitate dei c. 9.13.16 and 24. In his comment upon the 37 psalm In his book of fifty homilies hom 16. In his 41 sermon de sanctis In the 110 chapter of his Enchiridion In his book de cura pro mortuis c. 2. and 4. By which and other places we may see that S. Austin was not only of this catholick opinion but he was also a priest himself who both taught and practised it sacrificing at the altar for souls departed And so was S. S. Bede German Constantinopolitanus Jo. Damascen and Alcuin in the eight age of the Church not to mention later times S. S. Isidore Eligius and the fathers of the eleventh councel of Tolledo in the seventh age S. S. John Climacus Gregory the great and the Fathers of the councel of Valentia in the sixt S. S. Jo. Chrysostome with the above-named S. Austin Paulinus Eucherius Lugdunensis Victor Vticensis Socrates and Theodores in the fist S. S. Eusebius Caesariensis Athanasius Basilius Magnus Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus Gregorius Nazianzen and Nyssen Epiphanius Ambrosius and Hieronimus in the fourth S. S. Eusebius Alexandrinus Zeno Veronensis and Origen in the third S. S. Ireneus Hermes and Tertullian in the second who were all of them priests catholick Roman priests and publickly taught as I am able to make it apparent out of their works this venerable religious doctrin of the souls expiation after death before it arrive to heavenly bliss by the prayers and pennances and alms deeds of the faithful left behind them in this world and did it and practised it themselvs in their houses altars and oratories according as they had received it from the first age which they found in an universal beleef and practis of the same truth as even yet appears by the antient liturgies and testimonies of S. Matthews S. Mark S. James the elder and the younger S. Clement and S. Denyse the Areopagite Thus Popery did
restore the antient disciplin much abated by wars and factions recovered the exclesiastick investitures out of the hands of emperour Henricus who had invaded them and moved Christian princes to a war in the holy land for the caus of Jesus Christ there blasphemed where he should principally be honoured and the assistance of distressed Christianity against the Turk good works all and which none but he would have heeded to effect 10. Pape Innocent the second when Peter de Lions his antipope had filled Christendom with wars and factions and Peter de Bruis had no less corrupted their judgments with heresies against baptism temples almes deeds and offerings rose up and manfully fought them both for the recovery of truth and peace of Christianity in his tenth oecumenical councel at Lateran an 1139. 11. Some while after in the time of pape Alexander the third the Christian world was no less rent asunder both by the faction of a competitour of his called Victor the second and the heresies of the Waldenses or Albigenses against both which the said Pape called his eleventh Councel at Lateran an 1179 and made provision there most carefully against any the like disturbance upon such occasion 13. Pape Innocent the third did the world no les good service in his twelfth general councel at Lateran an 1215 where he judged and condemned the heresies of those times which infected and troubled the world censured abbot Joachim his book against Magister sententiarum and wicked Almaricus who denied the real presence and resurrection c. and exhorted all Christian princes to the recovery of the holy land which had been regained by the joint endeavours of the Christian world in Pape Vrban the seconds time Godfrey of Bullen being there made king of Jerusalem but after 90 years was lost again in the daies of pape Vrban the third whose successour Gregory the eight and his followers till this Innocent the third did much lament and labour to help the loss but Innocent had more hopes by reason that Baldwin earl of Flanders was then made emperour of Constantinople 13. Pape Innocent the fourth found a great deal of trouble in the world and to heal the malady he called a general synod at Lions an 1245 which was the thirteenth oecumenical councel against the cruelties of emperour Frederick who filled Christendom with wars and bloodshed whence arose the faction of the Gwelfs and Gibellines against the tirrany of the saracens the perfidiousnes of the greeks who plotted at Constantinople the destruction of all the Latines and against the irruption of the Tartarians who ruined Poland and Hungary 14. A little afterwards when now Michael Paleologus had got the empire of greece by the expulsion of Baldwin and the greeks began to fall back to som of their former errours denying the Holy Ghosts procession sacrifice in unleavened bread and some fasts so that much combustion happened upon this occasion in the oriental Church Pape Gregory the tenth called the fourteenth councel at Lions an 1274 for the healing these disorders recovery of the holy land and union of the Greeks 15. In the year 1311 when the knights Templers began to give some offence in the Christian world or at least the king of France and other princes pretended so and the Bogards and Beguines a kind of religious people in Germany sowed some errours up and down to the great scandal of people Pape Clement the fift called a councel at Vienna to rectify both as also for recovery of the holy land and reformation of discipline then much decayed in the Church 16. But still there was much division in the oriental part of the Church among the greeks who denied many of them the procession of the Holy Ghost from the second person of the Trinity the felicity of the blessed and purgatory in the Churches antient sens and the primacy of the Roman See which although they held in the primitive times for many ages together yet they sank into that dangerous errour by degrees for after that they had got an emperour in Constantinople absolute and independent they motioned in councels kept in those times for the most part in the oriental parts first that the byshop of that Sea for the honour of the empire might be made a Patriarch then afterwards that he might have place before other antient patriarchs who had the right of precedency before him and then at last they would have him independent as the emperour himself was in temporals thus by degrees running themselvs into schisms To prevent these errours and factions Pape Eugenius the fourth called the sixteenth general councel at Florence an 1439 where by means of Josephus patriarch of Constantinople and other grave grecian prelates there assembled the union betwixt the greeks and latins was made up 17. In the year 1512 was kept the seaventeenth councel at Lateran under Pape Julius the second and Leo the tenth to mitigate a great schisme raised by means of an episcopal conversion at Pisa called together by cardinal Caravaial and Sanseverin without the Papes autority both which came in here and submitted as also to bring Christian princes to mutual concord to stop the frequent argumentations that were too vehemently urged in schools out of Aristotle against the souls immortality and to hasten an expedition against the Turk 18. And lastly three Popes one after another Paulus Julius and Pius fought successively with equal resolution against Luther and Calvin and several others of their apostate priests for internal justification the possibility and merit of doing well the truth and efficacy of the seaven sacraments prayers for the dead intercession of saints and indulgences in the great oecumenical councel of Trent There have been in the Church besides these greater councels six hundred other national provincial diocesan synods over and above those which S. Peter kept with the apostles in Jerusalem which being called together upon several occurrencies were all licensed guided and directed by the Papes of those times who kept continual correspondence with the prelates while they sate in councel and if any synod either opposed him or swarved from his directions it was looked upon by the rest of Christendom as reprobate on that account I should be too tedious if I should declare the indefatigable industry high wisdom and piety of Popes in steering the Ship of the Church both in the calms of peace that she might not then lye hulling and idle but make good progress towards bliss and also in the strang storms and tempests that the malignity of this world hath raised against her which have been so great and various that one would have thought by the many leaks that sprang in her at times the excessive beatings of decuman billows upon her sides the dangerous hidden rocks on which she has dasht unawares and the greater apparent ones she has been carried upon by the violence of wind and weather not humanly to be avoided that she could never have lasted to this
themselves have thought it an addition of honour to sit in that solemn and thrice venerable assembly though in a separated place Shall we I say mock and revile this sacred person Let not such a thing be said of us any more let it not be told in Gath or the streets of Askalon that we use any such rude behaviour lest the very uncircumcised Philistins condemn our vast inexcusable incivility Nor yet let us either envy or malign the respect which Pappists give to Him from whom they received their Christianity and by whose vigilance and care it hath been kept inviolate amongst them from its first ingres into the land even to this very day Shall our eye be therefor evil becaus theirs is good §. 30. Popery IN the more flourishing doctrins of the Catholick Church I could be largely copious but I have said as much as may suffice my intended purpos which was so far to excuse even that religion also that if all do not embrace yet none may persecute and hate it Wherefor I do purposly omit to speak of other more plausible parts of Popery viz. 1. The obligation which all who beleev in Christ have to attend unto good works and the merit and benefit of so doing 2. The possibility of keeping Gods commandements with the assistance of divine grace 3. The liberty and freedom of human will either to comply with grace or resist it 4. The sacred councel and excellency of divine vowes 5. The right and obligation to restitution when any one shall have wronged his neighbour either in his soul or body fame goods or estate 6. The power and autority of of the Church in her tradition and decisions 7. The fasts and abstinence at certain times from som kind of meats which is all the religion we read Adam was injoined to observ in Paradise that we may therby be more apt to acknowledg Gods gifts and goodnes at those times we enjoy other good things of his bounty and at other times them and to sanctify our spirit for divine retirements 8. The divine ordination and unspeakable comfort and benefit of Confession 9. The caelibate and single life of the clergy who thereby freed from much solicitude of this world though not without som troublesom struggling against unseemly lusts of youth may approach the altar like angels of God who neither marry nor are given in marriage 10. The doctrin of indulgencies which be nothing els but a releas from som temporal penalties due to sin after repentance and remission which the Church does generally bestow by commutation as when for example an indulgence of such penalties for so many daies or years is granted unto such as upon the time appointed shall repent and confess fast pray give almes and communicate for the Churches preservation and concord of Christian princes which is a doctrin as rational and well grounded as any in Christianity though we in England will not understand it 11. Finally the ecclesiastick hierarchy and supremacy whereby catholick religion like a flourishing fair tree spreads his boughs in several kingdoms of the earth even from sea to sea so united all of it in all its parts and connexed together that ther is no catholick upon earth but is under som priest all priests subordinated to their byshops these to their metropolitan all metropolitans to the Patriarchs and Patriarchs united in the Papal cone every leaf cleavs to som twig every twig to som branch every branch to som bough every bough to the bole and the bole to the root And several other such like points of the Roman religion which coming all together from once hand have stood unchangeable in all ages the same and depending all upon the verity of the first revealer have an equality of truth though not of weight These and several others with the other half dozen more offensive doctrins I have cleared and explicated our reformers cut off at one blow when they taught us that it would suffice to salvation only to beleev in Christ without any more ado and that other things were popish superstitions whereby we became a strang kind of servants that beleev their maister but heed not either to fulfil his orders or do his commands For they told us and we have hitherto beleeved it That ther be no such things as good works pleasing to God but all be as menstruous rags filthy odious and damnable in the sight of heaven That if it were otherwis yet are they not in our power That with the assistance of any grace to be had Gods commandements are impossible to be kept and it would be therefor vain to attempt it especially sith we have in us no strength of free will to act any thing but evil That it must needs be foolishnes to vow unto God sith we can do nothing we ought to do and no less foolish if we have vowed to pay it That what wrong soever we do to another God is merciful and restitution fruitles both becaus one sin cannot make satisfaction for another nor any thing clear us but the blood of Christ alone unto which if we should concurr our selves by doing good works or satisfying for ill we should be half our own redeemers That the Church which presumes to teach other things than we allow is a fals mistres distracted and knows not what she sayes That to fast from sin is fast enough without depriving our stomachs of good flesh when we have a mind to it and yet becaus we sin in every thing we do neither is that fast possible to be kept That confession is needless How can man forgive sins That our clergy find themselvs men and not angells and love women as well as others and first revolted from popery principally for their sakes preferring a good wife before the whore of Babylon and the altars that kept them asunder are thrown down the honest pulpit standing now solitary speaks for them and brings them happily together That of indulgencies there is no need since obligation to penalties is shaken off long ago by our own autority without any indulgence from another That papal supremacy is the only obstacle to our liberty and therefor it must be abolished And let popery hang together as close as it can it shall go hard but we will find a battery to shake it So much indeed hath sophistry and continual clamour against popery and state punishments lying ever most heavily upon the professours of it prevailed over our judgments that now ther is no goodnes no worth no truth in it no none at all it is all naught all and every part of it naught nothing but naughtines superstition and vanity All that I will say for the present is this If popery be a bad religion more is the pitty for the professors of it suffer as much for it as might well serv for a good one Millions of people for the beleef they have in it and the love they bear its holy counsels and
body even as Christs natural body under one spirit and head united and compacted together and that without ceas even so long as that mystick body lasteth upon earth in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi till it receiv its final consummation negatively to prevent schismes and herefies which might otherwise render the Church in her members both contemptuous and liable to continual ruin whiles every particular person left to himself would be carried up and down like children with puffes of novelty blowing several wayes by the cunning subtilty of men pretending new light spirits reasons and such like stratagems in astutia in their knavery and pride of heart to bring people into a circumvention of errour all which inconveniences are avoided by following the guidance of the Church and the Pastours therein appointed over us A general spirit of truth in those that are set over the flock keeps them together and safe whereas particular lights in the sheep that are to be ruled would divide them from their pastour and from one another and division infers destruction Nor could that great Jewish argument be any way warded or put by but by recours to the Churches infallibility which can be no other but what Christ gave her and his own autority and truth revealed by this Church is the utmost foundation that supports the whole fabrick nor can there be any thing further assigned to support it but God with whom it is beleeved to be united for as all material buildings and their connexion are beheld with the eye but their foundation is not seen but is beleeved by the influence it hath in supporting the fabrick which it self is ultimately sustained by the center So may we discern some consequences of the points of religion upon a supposal of a great fundamental truth upon which they all depend as this is that Christ is a true and divine teacher but this cannot be seen or maintained otherwise than by a pure belief yielded unto that Church that first taught him and His truth sustains all his doctrin and the formal fabrick of the Church built upon him and it can be grounded upon nothing but God himself the center of all subsistence and verity This connexion of us to the apostles of the apostles to Christ and Christ to God St. Paul insinuates when he saith to the Christians of Corinth Omnia vestra sunt sive Paulus sive Apollo sive Kephas vos autem Christi Christus autem Dei The Christians might indeed reply to the Jew and say that Christ our Lord was a holy and sacred person divine innocent miraculous and unblamable in his whole life and conversation that he came from heaven by the mission of his eternal father and his own great benignity to plant upon earth an universal catholick Church amongst all nations which in the fulnes of time God was pleased to do whereas Moses had confined his Church by Gods command till that hour of general salvation was come unto the one family of Abraham and that he had received autority from God so to do which not only his own evangelists but even Moses and the prophets sufficiently attest who all do so speak forth the birth and life passion and resurrection of this our great Messias and the glory of his Church amongst the gentiles accordingly as himself promised and it hath now appeared to be and that nothing but rancour and prejudice and the scandal of his humility and the Jews mistake of the Messias his first and second coming did incens them against their own lord when he appeared amongst them who also looked even then for a Messias sodainly to come whom they were to obey and follow and cannot probably being then the onely select people of God ascribe their immense desolations exiles from their own homes and miseries these sixteen hundred years than to the guilt they have contracted upon themselvs by shedding the blood of that sacred person Nor are they to be excused sith all the ancient Rabbies before Christs coming did openly profess throughout all the Hebrew Church that they understood not the end and meaning of Moses law nor ever should till the great Messias came to teach them which was so beaten into their minds that all the Hebrewes beleeved it as appears by the saying of the woman of Samaria When the Messias comes he will teach as all things although through the hatred they bore to Jesus Christ they began after his coming to sing another song This I say and such like words they might reply and prove all by some autority or other but yet whatsoever they could alledge the Jewish Rabbies would give another interpretation to it or if it were their own gospel flatly deny it and so having no other further autority to rely upon but the truth of that Church that stands upon this foundation of Christs divinity there they must rest For there can be no hope either of satisfying a querent or conconvincing an opponent in any point of Christianity unles he will submit to the splendour of Christs autority in his own person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the reason why som of the Jews in Rome when S. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the prophets beleeved in him and some did not So then the great resolv of all doubts must be immediately upon the autority of the present Church which derived from the Church foregoing must by several concatenations bring us at length to the autority of Christ which is the root and firmitude and life of all and if this be once acknowledged and firm and firm it cannot otherwaies be than by captivating our wills and understanding to his love and obedience under that notion the Church hath revealed him it must equally support all future generations of Christians be they never so many in any temptation or difficulty that should afterwards happen and the whole Church and all her doctrin built upon it Nor can any at any time pretend rightfully and justly other motive of his beleef than what the apostles had for theirs the first age from the apostles the second age from the first c. and still the foregoing Church does but derive the faith and practise received unto its successour and both must equally stand upon the same foundation of one and the same autority which all generations take by the like resignation and faith-submission unto the worlds end So that he that departs in any age from the waies of the foregoing Church upon what pretence soever it be done of knowledge interiour light reason spirit or other discovery he leavs the foundation on which his faith was built and vertually forsakes Christ and would have had the same argument against him if he had lived in his time for if the Church the visible Church prove not to be even in that particular age a just keeper and deliverer of faith received then was the Church deceived not so
disputant and moderatour both opponent and maister of the chair both interpreter and judg The Roman catholick I do not here mention for the taking Him for his guide and judg from whom he first received his scriptur and faith and expecting all resolutions of doubts only from his lips can never stagger or fall into perplexity But with Protestant Presbyterian and Independent whose utmost resolv is in their own hands the case is otherwayes And the combat that is amongst them is the most desperate imaginable whiles any visible speaking judg being excluded by them all each one fights against all the rest with the same topick ratiocinations that none but he that uses them must judg Scripture is for us scripture is easy and we have it the spirit that is in us teaches all truth the light from above us is only to direct us and not men who are lyers c. And these if they prevail overthrow him that uses them so that to the same combatant must needs happen by the same means both death and victory and the same autorities and argumentations if any of them obtain his desire must bear both a probility for him and a prejudice against him Thus the Protestant if he do or will pretend to convince the Presbyterian then must he at the same time and for the same reasons yield to the Roman catholick with whose discourse and arguments he flourishes and triumphs against him and yet being uttered from the mouths and pens of Catholicks against himself he contemned and jeered them And if the Presbyterian texts and reasons be of force against the Protestant then must the Protestant fall by that instrument by which himself stands and subsists against the Papist against whom he hath ever used those very assertions and arguments and the Presbyterian too must stand and fall upon the same account the same weapon laying him dead before the Independent which against the Protestant supports him The Independent if he be able by strength of his light and spirit to maintain himself against all his foregoers Presbyterian Protestant and Papist then by the same reasons must he needs fall when a new fansy rises by any succeding generation A strang case and indeed a meer riddle but a certain truth And the Catholick all this while to a disinterested understanding whiles all his enemies condemn one another stands uncontroulably justified in his oppositions to them The Independent is in the wrong saith the Presbyterian and Protestant the Presbyterian erres saith the Protestant and Independent the Protestant is deceived saith the Independent and Presbyterian you are all mad men quoth the Roman Catholick you first abused and supplanted me and now by the same wayes and means you do supplant and abuse one another But if I may interpose my judgment the Protestant although I honour his gravity above all the rest seems to be in a wors case than either Presbyterian or Independent for these in maintaining themselvs and their wayes do but strike home the first principles of protestant reformation whereas the Prelate-protestant to defend himself against them is forced to make use of those very principles which himself aforetime when he first contested against popery destroyed as be the difference betwixt clargy and laiety the efficacy of episcopal ordination the autority of a visible Church unto whom all are to obey and the like so that upon him falls most heavily even like thunder and lightning from heaven utterly to kill and cut him asunder that great oracle delivered by S. Paul in his letter he wrote to the Christians of Galatia Sī quae destruxi iterum haec aedifico praevaricatorem me constituo If I build up again the things I formerly destroyed I make my self a prevaricatour an impostour a reprobate A heavy sentence But truth will out and wisdom will be justified at long running even by her greatest adversaries It seems that those pieces of popery we so desperately inveighed against for our own interest were indeed not evil but good The Protestant may indeed with some plausible show excuse himself and say that the first Reformers though sent from God yet might they notwithstanding have some little mixture of humane passion and infirmity and so out do their work and decry more then in truth they ought to have don as he that would straighten a crooked wand bends it as much the other way to the end that by that over force it may at length recover its mediocrity and straightnes and what ever is done amiss by earnestnes of passion may by a second thought be mended And this excuse would find place in any busines of humane concernment but whether it may be of any weight in affairs of religion and divine faith I leav others to judg for what may be pretended by all unto endles changes can never be rightly said by any and S. Paul having assigned that property as a signal mark of a prevaricatour I should think we may beleeve it without further dispute However by the reassuming of this episcopacy be it the substance or shadow of Popery or what you pleas our English Protestant Church became by that means the very best and choisest flower of all the Reformation no order no decency no peace no uniformity in all the world where Protestancy was received like unto that we here enjoyed under our bishops in England nor could any man by the force of nature suspect any the least rottennes in the foundation of such a handsom fabrick I am sure I had not but by a strang chance that happened to me in my childhood And although our Prelate-Protestant is not able to answer the Presbyterian objection standing upon his own first principles of reformation which do indeed and ever will justify all revolts to the worlds end yet by the principles of his Recovery those I mean by which he reassumed Episcopacy too precipitously decried by the first reformers which principles be firm and good and right Christianity he will easily frustrate and dissolv all opposition but then he must creep into the bosom of Roman catholicks and beg the assistance of their arguments which before he foolishly contemned For every Body be it what it will natural politick or spiritual must so long as it remains entire and sound have the same principal parts and organs it was born withal and cannot endure long even in a contrary posture of them without dissolution and ruin Take any kingdom that is settled in monarchy and if you endeavour once the subversion of that Polity you do at the same time take away the life of all her laws and rights and utterly disturb her happines and peace which are so mixed and intangled in the very nerves and sinews of her laws and these again so settled upon the polity as upon the prime innate influent Calid and radicall primogeneal Humid that all goes together and take part alike either in weal or woe This truth we have had a sad experience of in the
in old times and so it doth still And I hope none of us hereafter will have the heart to hate and persecute that religion whose charity and goodnes is so great that it extends beyond the very horison and utmost limits of this world §. 29. Pope THe catholicks as I perceived by their books and practises do all the world over pray for their Pape and pastour with a most tender affection which I esteemed a piece of most civil piety practised in all ages for the comfort and good of him they look upon as supreme head and governour of their religion under God upon earth We may perceiv in the epistles of good St. Paul that to pray for one another was a thing very familiar to the primitive Christians but when S. Peter their prince and head fell into danger the whole Church then united their supplications in his behalf as one in whose welfar they were universally and in a more peculiar manner all of them concerned Peter was kept in prison saith the sacred text in the Acts and prayer was made without intermission by the Church unto God for him I doubt not but that they praied likewise for other apostles too that God would keep and bring them out of danger but the writer of that Story gives us no notice of any universal praier made for any one but only Him the head and prince of all the whole congregation therby to intimate the singular respect and love they did universally bear him But we in England do not more ordinarily call a Spade a Spade than we do traduce defame execrate the Pope and proclaim him whom also we do not know leud wicked sensual proud seducer serpent Antichrist and I know not what and that not only in our ordinary society but in books and sermons not only som of us but all hate him not in England only but all protestant places not now only but in all times since Protestancy began and our very children by that time they com to be eight or nine year old are by our example and imitation inabled to say after us like parrets Pope is a rogue pope is a rogue This behaviour of ours if it be not impious yet no man I should think will after serious consideration deny it to be unmannerly And what kind of spirit must this be that delights so much in defamations and curses Surely the spirit of God is a meek civil and quiet spirit Either the Pope is good or evil if he be good why do we hate him if bad why do we not pray for him as gospel teaches us to do even for our enemies and sinners but still defame and curs him to make him wors I know much good he has don our land even so much good as the Christianity we had from him hath ever wrought amongst us but never any evil no not in the least kind Ministers above all others stand excessively ingaged to him even for the very bread they eat for the formality of their clothes and cassocks they wear for the pulpits they preach in for the parishes and tithes they liv upon for the universities they were brought up in for the degrees they have taken there and the canon of their ordination for the catholick learned books they study and the very gospel they either do or seem to preach all which were originally from the Pope And as for others of the laety if the Churches they meet in once a week and the hopes they have of a life to com if the good wholsom laws of the land if corporations or other orderly dispositions in the kingdom if the antient militia now almost abolished wherein earls and marquesses command the counties dukes over them and the King over the dukes that in a moment all the land might be up at his Majesties beck and the like militia by sea where admiral vice admiral and reere admiral were all subjected to the king besides the train bands for defence of cities so orderly and wisely instituted if kingly autority and his crownland if the orderly sittings and proceedings in Parliament if dignities and titles of honour if the decency of gowns and caps and modes and rules of government in colledges halls and Innes of law if our very fashion of preaching and administring sacraments if all these and several such like things ordered and constituted amongst us be of any worth or commendable or may deserv any thanks we must then be civil towards the Pope and his catholick beleevers who invented disposed and ordered all these things for our good And yet we are so far from thinking of any of these things which might civilise us towards him that transported we cannot our selves tell how with animosity and passion we inveigh endlesly not only against Papists but even against the Pope himself who as he never hurt us so likewise doth he even to this day wish us all both temporal and spiritual good And I should think we might hereupon take occasion to admire at the Popes great civility and temperance not again to be paralel'd in the world who though he hath seen so many hundred virulent books writ against him and heard more words yet hath he never been known to let fall the least word of passion against any nor move any engine for revenge And thus much several of our countrimen have experienced of late years in Rome where railing at the Pope even under his nose as a wicked proud Antichrist they received being called before him no other check but this My friends be peaceable while you are in my territories least the people should fall upon you and hurt you when you are out of my territories say of me what you please I have seldom known any noble person but if his honour were traduced especially if falsly undeservedly and by an inferiour person and frequently and in a high degree but he would move more or less to a just reveng of his right Only the Pape goes quietly on in his cours as the full moon in the firmament which heeds not at all the barkings of so many curres that vainly open their mouths against her But in the interim can there be any thing more unseemly than a young Minister in a pulpit here in England vapouring and talking before a congregation that come thither to hear Gods word against a gentleman a grave venerable person a byshop a Prince who also living a thousand miles off hears not a word he saies and if he did would heed it as little We read a story in the book of Kings of a company of boies that mockt at Eliseus a grave and venerable person as he was going up to Bethel crying Vp baldpate up baldpate and the very bears issuing sodainly out of the woods tore them in sunder May not we justly fear som such like event for the like if not greater crime of ours shall fall upon us who do not only call that venerable person and his priests Baldpate but