the reason is very good for the true Church wherein Christ really resides is ever in a posture of quietness and defens But they that go out of her and set up new wayes of their own are ever in clamour and dissention which of them should do it best and the cry is heard aloud and without ceas Here Here. Christ is here saith the Protestant and not amongst the Papists nay quoth the Presbyterian by your favour he is Here nay then sayes the Anabaptist Here he is if you be at that quoth the Quaker you are all blinded men if any would find the true light com to us for here it is and no where but here But when all is done truth is not in division but unity not in sedition and clamour but meekness and peace If ten men stand gazing in a street and all agree that they see a thing there but disagree all in the description of it a stranger coming by will rather guess they are all mad than that they see any thing at all One thing I am sure of if all men would be humble minded and sober and cast out of their hearts the great prejudice they have taken up against one another they would see the better for it To conclude this subject for I would say no more than what may help to lop the vain and superfluous excrescencies of faction and dissentions about religion which perhaps none of us do rightly understand and would be loth to cut the tree it self to the quick it may appear sufficiently by what I have said and yet far more if we joyn our own experimental knowledg and ratiocination of further things which I do purposely omit that God is in himself an unsearchable abyss and his essence and counsels past finding out nay he is the great primo genial and father-abyss of all others not to be approached by angels or men but according to such few exteriour conceptions himself hath either revealed or imprinted in them which be far from reaching home either to his counsels or proper essence And who hath been his mate or counsellour that he should tell us news of him never heard before If any news there be of him it is surely to be had from Christ whom we beleev to be his very substantial word and the splendour of his glory and if Christ hath left any secrets of him to be revealed unto mankind we must have them from his Church which is the pillar and foundation and treasury of all his truth and if any Church is to be consulted I should think it should be that and only that which by an uninterrupted succession hath descended from himself which is that very same that first brought Christian religion into this land which without all controversy is the Catholick now by contempt surnamed Papist and if any one be otherwise minded etiam hoc Deus ipsi revelabit In the mean time let us be peaceable and sober §. 7. Obscurity of nature THe second abyss is that of Gods works and the whole creation which all men that have considered it aright find unfoardable and if any have not let me crave his company a while but in a slight survay of this wondrous fabrick and then tell me what he thinks When we confider those myriads of intelligencies angels and spirits and the whole intellectual world the first exteriour issue of divine brightness we are not then much nearer apprehension of any thing in particular than in the first abyss what they are either for substance or place or operation or extent of presence or knowledg or power or motion or order or any thing els in particular In the visible world we begin a little to find our feeling and know at least where we are but not much more Here we see a wonderful face of things but what els what is the basis on which all the frame stands and how is it setled upon it in its various and stupendious motions the order of things little or nothing appears their essences altogether unknown their properties dependances and mutual connexion obscure their limits and vigour and duration and influences doubtful their motions uncertain the mode method and chain of operation utterly hidden And what is it then we know wherein consists the excellency of our science that we should boast our selves and contemn the world and what are we able to determin in the truth of these things without uncertainty and errour This our ignorance of nature is sufficiently insinuated and evinced in that solid piece of moral-divinity in sacred writ commonly called Job from ch 38 to 42. It were worth my pains to insert here all that eloquent discours But becaus the Bible is in every mans hand he that pleases may read it there at leasure And although Doctor Brown say in his Vulgar errours as I remember that the difficulties of nature there propounded will now adayes be easily answered by every puny scholler yet those words of his be unwary both becaus those intricacies of the creation are there propounded by no less a person than almighty God as insoluble and not to be dived into by man as also becaus the Doctour if he consider right cannot but know that he that were able to give a full satsifactory reason even of the smaller things in nature as the winde or rain would be able to tell what weather it would be or what wind would blow every day in the year in any part of the earth until the worlds end so sure and fixed is the whole frame of nature But such kind of puny schollers the world never yet saw And although man sees and knows enough in nature to make him admire and adore the Authour yet not to contend with him in questions and replies about it The whole world is an immens intangled gordian knot which the wisest of men could never yet untye or discern the intermingled series of the many voluminous causes concatenated therein Even the progress of a poor plant from its seed to its decay who can declare or conceiv it so many several seeds both of plants and animals how do they shoot forth so orderly into their parts and organs peculiar each one to themselvs where lies that celestial particle in the little seminal origen which is the spring of life and motion in every thing In the first primogenial sours how is distinguished either kind from kinde or part from part in the same kind and which is that part that is to run forth into the head and which into the arms and how is it done I see wheat and barley elm and oak hors and man to shoot up constantly each one from their own seed in their own proper and peculiar mode and method and perhaps an angel or intelligence may distinctly see the reason of all in the very seeds for som reason is certainly there to be seen but what man can do it how comes such variety of bulk parts odour and colour unto
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
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
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
then presume of his knowledg and what motives has he in himself to do so which another wants Be it scriptures prophesies visions light or inward assurance boast of what you pleas all the earth will do the like and with the self-same confidence For let Philosphers speak what they pleas of the certainty of object which som men have over and above the certainty of subject I am not able to conceiv how an objectiv certainty can stand without evidence or how it may consist with that mutability I see to be in the world for men do depart as well from a good religion wherein they would have to be certainty of object as from a bad one wherein they allow only a certainty of subject which is nothing but a personal self-willed resolution in their wayes Since men therefor do thus abound all of them in their own sens haply without sence if a thousand voices may be of force against one single one how does it behoove us if we would be truly wise to walk all our dayes not in disputes and disquietness without end but in humility and fear But som will say all this is nothing to us since Christ our Lord hath revealed to us both God himself and all necessary truths concerning him of all which we may be confident But stay a while and ponder what I have already spoken do not all nations say as much for themselvs What then should we doubt of our faith in Christ no in no wise But I must speak a bold word these very dissentions of ours about that faith in its branches so hot so various so extravagant are apt to inferre a suspicion of it in its very root are not hundreds in our own countrey become atheists already upon that very motiv and these men supposing substantial change once made in religion and deliberately admitted are rather to be commended for their wit than blamed for they do but that sodainly which all the land will will come to by degrees If the Papist or Roman catholick who first brought the news of Christ and his Christianity into the land as all men must needs know that have either heard or read of Christianities ingress into England or other countreys and kingdoms for we do no sooner hear news of Christianity than Popery and his crucifixes monasteries reliques sacrifice and the like I say if the Papist be now becom so odious as we see he is and if the faith he brought and maintained a thousand years together be now rent all asunder by sects and factions which bandy all to the ruin of that mother religion if all her practical truths wherein chiefest piety consists be already abolished as erroneous does not this justify the pagan whom this catholick Christian displaced to make way for his own law And must not this be a certain way and means to introduce atheism which naturally follows that faith once removed even as a carkas succeeds a living body once deceased for one truth denied is a fair way to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very autority of the first revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself than he can his law for the same axe and instrument that cut down the branches can cut up the root too and if his reverence for which all the rest was beleeved defend not their truth it must needs at length utterly fail in his own For all the autority they had was purely from him and he falls in them before he falls in himself no man can deny this that shall seriously lay his hand upon his heart and ponder things as he ought And he that once ceases to beleev in Christ whom before he worshipped I am sure he will turn atheist if his wit and reason proceed consequently and beleev nothing A little more to specify my meaning If the institutions of monasteries to the praise and service of God day and night be thought as it hath been now these many years a superstitious folly if Christian Priests and sacrifices be things of high idolatry if the seven sacraments be deemed vain most of them if it suffice to salvation to beleev what ever life we lead if there be no value or merit in good works if Gods laws be impossible to be kept if Christ be not our law maker and directour of doing well as well as redeemer from ill if there be no sacramental tribunal for our reconciliation ordained for us by Christ upon earth if the real body of our Lord be not bequeathed unto his Spous in his last will and testament if there be not under Christ a general head of the Church who is chief Priest and Pastour of all Christians upon earth under God whose Vicegerent he is in spiritual affairs all which things are now held forth by us manifestly against the doctrin of the first preachers of Christianity in this land then say I paganisme was unjustly displaced by these doctrins and atheism must needs succeed for if Christ deceived us upon whom shall we rely and if they that brought us the first news of Christ brought along with it so many grand lyes why may not the very story of Christ himself be thought a Romance And erunt novissima pejora prioribus the latter condition of this land under atheism catholick faith once utterly extirpated must needs be far wors than it was in paganisme before it was planted Far sweeter is that body put case a statue of stone that was never animated than is any carkas of man after the soul is departed And are not we in a wood now who shall lead us out The maze is made greater by the consideration of the multitude of sects now reigning amongst us all which as they do unanimously conspire against that catholick Church they have deserted so do they wrangle now about every thing wherein they first agreed and conspired against her hating and execrating one another even unto war and bloodshed and the utter desolation of our distressed nation Quid est veritas and on whose side is God all this while does he not lie hid and say nothing and leav us wholly to our selvs by a judgment unsearchable in these our affairs even as in other courses of this world i th interim all opinions utter fine words all presume of themselvs all are peremptory and censur not only their neighbours but even the whole earth round about Where is truth here saith one nay not there but here quoth another neither there nor there but here saith a third but so many heres and there 's sounds nothing to a rational man but either every where or no where and which to conclude is impossible for man of himself stedfastly to resolv Here is Christ and there is Christ in the judgment of Christ himself signifies neither here nor there If they say saith our Lord here is Christ or there is Christ do not ye go forth or follow them and
in time either by the meeting of atomes for their concours is disorderly and casuall and opus naturae opus intelligentiae nor yet by the first caus himself out of pure nothing for ex nihilo nihil fit of nothing can nothing be made either by God or nature The world is not eternal saith Epicure but made in time without the assistance of any deity which if any there be must be ever at rest out of the eternall matter of ever moving atomes it must be made either of them or of nothing and ex nihilo nihil fit of nothing can nothing be made and the same atomes by their own connaturall mobility do make and marre do and undo all things In these and a thousand such like contests that employ the world does not a credulity once fixed fill up both the pages of the book and all consequent ratiocination disputes and arguments are they any thing els but colourable explications of this fore-conceived inevident credulity Since then all sciences stand upon som one or other basis of beleef which is a postulatum not to be examined this world may indeed be esteemed credulous but not knowing and all maisters of any whatever schools have equall need to set this motto over their school doors Oportet discentem credere He that will learn must beleeve and when he has learned all truths can be taught him he does but only beleev that he had learned any And so I take my leav of this second great abyss of nature §. 9. Obscurity of providence THe third and last abyss is the great gulf of Gods Providence in the government of the world equally as deep and unfoardable by man as the former tho we may sometimes perceiv some little glimmerings of it as an owl of the sun but even these are uncertain and doubtful and it is so much the more perillous than either of the rest for that in the other and in particular that of his works we follow Gods power wisdom and goodness so much the more admiring all things by how much the less we understand but in this we are apt to call every thing in question and our thoughts if they be not well bridled ready at every turn to accuse God and plead against him and cite him to judgment to the peril of his heavy displeasure And therefor he did very cautiously and wisely who finding a doubt to rise within himself concerning providence subscribed before-hand to Gods inerrable justice before he would enter into any parly about his proceedings Justus es Domine saith he Just art thou O Lord but why doth the way of the wicked prosper Is there any man lives upon earth from the lowest hinde to the highest philosopher that hath not perceived the depth of providence and the absolute inscrutability of Gods wayes in the government of the whole creation as a gulf without bottom where resignation adores and presumption drowns My thoughts have frequently hovered upon the shore of this ocean but I durst never pass further on than so far as I saw ground there dipping my hands and feet to follow God and pray but no further nor did I ever receiv from any writings of discours of man any satisfaction therein and none I expect For what are those immortal laws God hath fixedly prescribed either to the earth elements or stars which they never transgress who is it can tell They are many no doubt and various in order to him the first caus in order to the several things contained within them and in order to one another for they must all make up one great Pan or univers be it never so big And all things doubtles within the whole body of this univers are don regularly truly and justly according to the prescribed idea rule and measure the will order and law of the first caus disposer and governour who is the way truth and life to all the whole creation What the angels know hereof cannot be certainly conjectured nor whether any one be absolute and universal overseer under God of the whole visible creation It may seem not improbable that if any intelligence stand limited to the oversight and guidance of any one place put case our earth or a star that he may not know the laws of another no further than they concern his own system nay perhaps not all the laws of his own but such onely as himself is to mannage for even some of these which concern him not to use may lye covert in that great will on whose revelation every intellect depends and thus a miracle may be wrought by God almighty even beside or contrary to the cours of nature which is administred by angels But man he knows none of these laws no not any let him exalt himself never so much in his own vanity he knows not I say any of those rules by which either the whole univers or our own earth and elements are governed Man is of a certain the highest creature visible upon earth and the most excellent species known to our eyes but who can therefor say there be not others above him more knowing and more powerful than he and more conversant in the government even of this our visible world tho they appear not to our sight We have indeed a preheminence of perfection but not of operation over any thing in nature which is a superiority natural not moral And therefor in all probability there must be som creatur over us with both the precedencies far more perfect then any under them and guiding also the motions of all well known to himself if namely God have committed the administration of this present world unto any other under his own influence and ordination St. Paul seems to conceit that these spirits are evil ones whom he calls rectores tenebrarum harum but there must be good ones too to moderate the ill influence of those malign agents or els man that lives upon earth is in a sad condition But as for us what do we know of all this for certain or what can we do we can neither rais a wind nor any other meteor nor asswage the sea nor still an earthquake c. not only destitute of power to do it but also of knowledg how it should be done There be many creaturs under us that is to say inferiour in perfection of nature as birds beasts and plants but they are not under us at all either in direction or subordination of motion We neither teach the birds to build their nest or to ingender or provide for their young or put forth the wing to flight or to appear and hide themselvs in their season nor the fish to swim to get food and defence against annoiances or to choose their resort and stations in the liquid main or those several wayes they have for multiplication and livelihood nor do we put the fansy into the bee or little ant to work their tasks in season with the art and industry they show
intention both of our selves and others unto that almighty goodnes who having placed us in this world of darknes will expect no more from us than lies within our reach and power and if any thing be such 't is a rational resignation and quietnes As several opinions have been advanced and maintained in the world maugre all opposition of word or pen without any the least tottering or fear of yielding on the defendents side so am I assured that any whatever opinion either old or new and hitherto unheard of may be defended against the reason of all mankind joined together against it if but resolution and contempt of the opponent go along as generally it does with him that is respondent and defender of it whether he guide himself by reason authority or other light if he go by the first no reason but his own shall be admitted for reason if by the second his own autority shall be cast in to counterballance to any autority brought against him and his own be it what it will shall be of force all others against him either not genuine or impertinent or corrupted if by the third what should any one go about to talk with him that will be judged by nothing but a light which is onely within himself who as soon as he is opposed pitties the ignorance and darknes of his antagonist for such he peremptorily concludes all men to be that gainsay his judgment which only he deems light And well then may any one defend any thing when nothing can convincingly be proved against him either through the inevidence of the matter or self-conceit and obstinacy of the authour In the interim every opinion contemns and is contemned and in that state will it remain till long time and that mutability which laies hold on all things make it to expire if there be not som speaking oracle unto which both parties will submit I need not for proof of this invincible pertinacy appeal unto the antient Philosophers none of whom could ever be brought to yield unto the others though they were all great masters of reason Our present controversies in England which proceed for the most part upon autority and yet by no autority will be laid down may sufficiently justifie my words And all this happens by the unnaturall coupling together of darknes and passion little knowing ignorance and all presuming pride self-conceit and folly which though they be as dissonantly put together as the ox and ass in a plow team yet are they so unhappy is our condition seldom or never asunder Indeed he that is truly learned in theologicall affairs who hath read all histories greek and latin that may concern Christianity from its first beginning to this day perused the councels thoroughly well understood the ancient fathers maistered the subtile schoolmen and so penetrated all the books of the Bible that he is able to resolve logically every treatis and discours thereof into its final scope such a man may haply discern where the truth lies in a dispute between two sects or men grounded only upon tradition or autority if it be in one or perhaps in neither of them although for default of learning or excess of passion they may neither of them discern it But yet notwithstanding if he even that knowing person shall let his mind walk on yet further and call that very autority to account as in natural reason well he may how it came hither where it resided in every age since its first being who first authorised it and what sufficient ground he could have so to do what marks it may exhibite that it is indeed the off-spring of such a father under whose name it goes or that he erred not whoever he was in that particular who either first wrote or afterwards transcribed it and the transcribers may have been some thousands of indifferent affections and capacities whether nothing in reason or other autority may gainsay it whether the words in the original character by some art or other whereof there be tricks good store may not speak another meaning or at least by some trope or scheme of rhetorick be otherwaies interpreted c. then I say even that knowing person shall find himself in a mist and so thick a one too as that except he rely upon the autority of some living oracle whom in these and whatever such like things without further question or doubt he may beleev he shall never be able to get out of it Especially if he dive yet further into the secrets of providence concerning such things and question first how divine goodnes should permit the world to wander in darkness and in the errour of their waies so many hundred years without that truth so necessary as it is reported unto mans salvation how a company of ignorant men who are ordinarily transported with their own fansies as oraculous visions should be chosen to be our maisters in it how these should be so particularly inspired and never any since them though of the same profession nor yet they till their maister was departed if ever they did presume or give out any such thing for in their writings we do not find they did one indeed saies of the old Prophets that they were inspired but speaks not any such thing either of himself or coevangelists and although the maister promised after his departure to send them his Spirit to teach them in his place all things they were to know yet does it not thence follow that they wrote no more nor otherwaies than they should besides many appearing contradictions and other humane infirmities that seem ever and anon to occurr unto a critick judgment as well in their writings as other mens might easily move one to think that those illiterate men might as well fail in somthing as all holy fathers greek and latin and Senatours of all sacred Councells since Christs time professours of the same Christianity and pretenders to the same Spirit have in some mens opinions erred and failed in many namely all things wherein we finde them to gainsay us And indeed we do in effect deal little otherwise with the apostles writings when we give a peremptory interpretation to such places as gainsay our opinions quite contrary to the express words and the natural sens they be apt to make out unto us according to which all antiquity understood them adjoyning withal our own natural reasons why the text cannot otherwayes be true but only in som trope or figur though we cannot our selves tell what for example the places in gospel that plainly speak forth the the real presence of Christs body in the Eucharist which is no other but to say plainly thus much If that writer let him be Evangelist or what he will really meant as he spake in his story he is not to be beleeved against the plain experience both of our eyes touch and tast and so many improbabilities if not impossibilities of reason and Christ himself either spake
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
And if the salt have lost his savour wherewith shall it be seasoned Nor can we be ignorant that this Episcopacy-power was set up in England many years after Reformation-ingress by the ambitious policy of som men who falling from their former humility-spirit set up that chair of a State-spirituall for themselves which when another sate in it they used all kind of endeavour force and power to throw it down Can prelate-affecters deny that Episcopacy-power was by the first and purest reformation-light utterly subverted If you know it not the smallnes of your judgment will comdemn you if you know it and do the contrary you are condemned in your own judgment and if the Reformation was impure in this then was Protestant Reformation corrupt both in its first birth and the most glorious of all its enterprises wherein our consciences were withdrawn from the tyrant-yoaks of inveigling men unto the sweet influences of Christ who as he is the great pastour of souls so he is sure not to mislead his flock by any such passions as do frequenty domineer in man when he is once set over his fellow servants pride ignorance self-will and interest And if we be once brought again to the same ancient servil yoak of conscience-tyranny to receive our light and influences from men as before we did under Popery why may we not by the same strong tide of an irresistable self-leading power be driven uncontroulably to the same or greater errours Except you will say that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a surer and more unerring guide than the Romish byshop both of them I am sure be men and equally fallible who standing either of them betwixt us and home may by their usurped power over consciences which be only subject to the invisible Lord of truth lead us again either into our ancient or some new invented errour and if they impose the yoak who can resist them But the Lord of truth cannot lye and the beams of his light falling immediately upon his peace-messengers as once upon the apostles in cloven tongues of fire untainted with the interposition of any intervening obstacle must needs be both clear and true I will teach you all things saith he to his apostles he said not that one of them should teach another nor did those cloven tongues descend first from Christ upon Peter from Peter to Andrew from Andrew to John and so forward in an hierarchical line which Papists imagine in their Church but from Christ alone immediately upon them all Nor can you move us at all by telling us as you do of ancient tradition for Episcopacy-power even from Christ time unto this present age sith all those times and places are concluded by the pious Reformation under popish darknes which began even in Pauls time when the mystery of iniquity even this mystery of papall tiranny began to work and so overwhelmed the whole earth till at length the Lord was pleased by the foolishnes of preaching to enlighten those little ones who were predestined to beleev a truth aforetime hidden to all the sons of men Did we not all appeal from such popish traditions to the oracle to the gospel to the word of God and to the truth that cannot lye And what other instrument did we make use of to the abolishing of that human supremacy over mens souls which now again by erroneous tradition you would contrary to your own principles obtrude upon us than that very word and oracle And the gospel which as it is now by Reformation-purity put into every mans hand so is every man the ministers successors to the apostles by the help of Christs light which by frequent prayer they unite to themselvs the people by light they receiv from gospel-ministers to interpret and understand it is totally with us and for us Look into the gospel of Matthew c. Hic subauditur longus textuum catalogus ab initio ad finem Biblii contra episcopatum If you reply that we must for the sense of all these places have recours unto the Church what Church do you mean yours out of which you say we are fallen or the popish Church which both you and we deserted Take which you will for the same reasons and gospel-verities equally reject them both and if we must hearken to your Church out of which you say we are fallen why then did not you obey that Church out of which you sell your selves if that were in errour and therefore to be deserted yours is in no better condition but the invisible congregation of the faithfull which in our first reformation we took to be the Church can never fail And if you begin now to take the Church in a popish sense for any hierarchicall prelacy you do at once condemn your selves both of inconstancy and dissimulation and also of violation of gospell and rebellion against that visible Church our forefathers found themselves in unto which it seems now by this tenour of your speech they were bound by their Christianity to obey Scripture autority you have none for you nay it is all against you human words and practises being now rid by Christ of all those servil yoaks we valiew not and the true light of purest Reformation which you have deserted sith it is with us as at the beginning we must not forfeit nor do any thing may obstruct the ingoings and out-goings of little Christ within us Whiles the Presbyterian is hotly busied in this his plea against the Prelate-Protestant the Independent touches his elbow and advises him to bethink himself least with the same weapon he wound his adversary and kill himself For if such reasonings saith he be of value what will then becom of the clerical Presbyterian black coat which being derived from popery finds no more grounds in scripture than episcopacy hath Are not all men equally subject to Christ and capable alike of his divine influences and so indeed it is said of the times of Christianity And they shall be all taught of God How then com other teachers to intrude betwixt us and God to obstruct and taint and variously infect his light those upon whom the Holy Ghost descended were all lay men as we be and som of them women too But as soon as the Presbyterian turning upon him called him fanatick the protestant cried In neither barrel better herring ye are both so It was presently replied by them both when did the spirit leav us to speak unto you by what light or scripture can you make that good you that are blinded in your own errours The Catholick coming by When theeves fall out quoth he honest men may hope to come to their own goods again §. 14. Protestant pro and con WHat advantage then can the pious Quaker have against the zealous Presbyterian or both of them against the honest Protestant whiles all of them find words enough out of scripture and reasons thence deduced to throw at one another and each side is both
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
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
their devouring sport even Acteon the maister may seem a stag and be torn a pieces by them Wrath puts a new shape upon an adversary who through such a black medium though he be never so innocent in himself will appear all odious especially when the wrath is unjust and the occasion of it taken but not given for then 't is cursed and works marvellous dark effects in the heart of him that bears it And by this we may suspect our selves to be blasted with such an unwarrantable passion when upon a conceived prejudice of our own we do more hate those have don us good than such as really hurt us I cannot but take notice that our learned protestant all these many years he hath by the Puritan been outed of his ecclesiastical possessions he wrote little or nothing against him and with no considerable violence but most virulent books he put forth continually against the Papist who did him no harm and meddled not at all with him and then hanged with him upon the same cross of persecution and might justly reply unto him as the good thief to the evil one Nunquid tu non Deum times qui in eadem damnatione es And what evil hath the Protestant ever received from the Roman catholick that he should treat him thus even none at all but all good imaginable The Protestant hath been instructed in his Universities for Oxford and Cambridg were both of them built by Catholicks as well as the cathedrals and parish Churches he hath lived all his life upon their benefices studies their books preaches in their pulpits even that gospel which he had from catholick archives this is the harm the catholick ever did or the Protestant received from him and yet Lord what volumes of invectives do we powre forth even to this day against him who hath done us all good and never any harm at all neglecting in a manner the true adversary who hath utterly undon us Is not this a piece of phrensy what can one think it els when any nips us behinde to fly into the face and scratch him that innocently stands before us our maister and benefactour But the Protestant seeing that outrage done unto him which he had done to Catholicks before upon the very same motives and with the like words and deeds might fear perhaps that himself should now appear justly punished and the catholick at length be justified But let us see a little further if our hot contesting combatants can find any rational medium to conclude demonstrativly or maintain infallibly or know certainly any thing at all concerning points of religion If they cannot they have som reason to be silent none to quarrel either one with another or all of them against the Roman catholick The wayes and practis of a visible foregoing Church is concluded by a general consent of all the Catholick only excepted to be erroneous antiquity of former ages overwhelmed with Egyptian darknes conciliary meetings of byshops and pastours a conspiracy against purity of gospel and the Pope who was anciently beleeved sole judg and general pastour over all a grand seducer and now scripture though it be wrested out of the hands of Papists that somthing might be held by us which is plausible must be not the truth only but the sole judg of it too This is it we all pretend to stand upon Be it then admitted for truth who has the right meaning of it the Roman catholick who hath lived by it now above sixteen hundred years in all unanimity or the Protestants who wresting it out of catholick hands about one hundred year ago hath ever since been contesting and quarrelling about it not only with the catholick but amongst themselvs even to this present day The gospel is no doubt a good rule but if we for our own ends to avoid the judgment of any tribunal upon earth do constitute our selves each one the sole speaking judg by that rule we do thereby make our selves both judg and rule too for it is all one to arbitrate with a mans own words or to do it with another bodies words which he without controul will interpret and thus excluding one judg whom we found in actual possession of the chair we set up a thousand who will determin more rashly and yet as resolutely as he and we still further off from any final conclusion than before Do we not see this to be true by the daily fresh uprise of so many several sects which do all promote themselvs by vertue of the same pretens These twenty years last past the zelots who preached so vehemently against our innocent good King all the land over did they not all find a text in scripture for their purpos and not only one text to preach upon but hundred others to elucidate and confirm their doctrin which notwithstanding all wise men knew were not taken in their own genuin sens and meaning and yet who could convince them of that who had as much light within and without too as all Protestancy ever taught sufficient for judgment even against him who first sent us the scriptur and was then found in actual possession of the chair and a Protestant that should have gone about to confute them must have denied the principles by which he was himself first constituted Com com 't is more than manifest by all our proceedings this hundred year that our bitter invectives against the Pope who swayed Christianity had no other end but only this that we might all sway and none of us be controuled I would fain know if I should deny the great fundamental upon which all religion is built namely that the soul of man is an immortal substance and distinct not only from the grosser tangible parts but even from the very best and purest both animal and vital spirits which without doubt be mortal and that there is any other world for men to pass into after this life of mutability whether I could not sufficiently prove my negative out of scripture making use of all the advantages of semisentences parables figures stories tropes with as much reason light and spirit and as equal plausibility as any sect deduces their tenets and so another likewise who should hold that heaven and the world to com is nothing but a condition of serenity in this life a fourth that there is no hell angels or divels c. sith there is no tribunal to judg who can outbrave any such defendant when he faces his antagonist with the light of a text which none but himself must understand Scripture must do all by that light all walk how many soever several gainsaying paths they tread I will no further contest about the meaning of it What is this Scripture It is Gods word But you had it not immediately from God but found it in other mens hands all whom from one series to another till you come to the Pope who first sent it us we have all aforetime concluded to be