Christ to be the Pillar of Truth so as that she was never so over-clouded with error but that she hath enjoyed the fruition of that Promise Matth. 16. in some good measure ever since it was made Nor shall she ever so close with the gates of Hell as by general consent and full authority to dissert that Faith which having Christ for its object is the Rock she is built upon and therefore you see I hold the Church cannot err in some sense and indeed he that holds the contrary must for ought I see raze out that Promise Matth. 16. and many other And yet nothing from all this accrues to the Papal Church of Rome I alledged Stephen as defending the Truth by the authority of Scripture Only c. Nor can it be groundedly imagined that had it been the mind of God that such as are not of the Church should be summoned to her Tribunal Stephen being full of the holy Spirit the leader into all truth would have omitted the use of that means but he knew that such authority the Church had none as I shewed from 1 Cor. 5. What have I to do to judge them that are without do not ye also judge them that are within And therefore he could not mention any such power And though Stephen did many wonders among the People yet at this time when he so powerfully vanquished his adversaries he did none at all but only overcame them by the assistance of the Spirit speaking in the Scripture c. I desired you to shew me but one Instance where ever any of the Primitive Saints did appeal to the Church of which they were present Members as Judge between them and such as never received their Doctrine but you have not done it nor indeed can it be done As I shewed that Stephen appealed to Scripture ONLY c. so I also shewed That it was the way of Christ and his Apostles frequently to vindicate their Doctrine against such as were not of their Church by appealing to the Scriptue especially amongst such as owned the Scripture this you confess and also you tell me that your Church doth the same But this cannot be true of All your Doctrine because you have told me That many Points of your Faith are resolved without the written Word of God or else you never answered my first Antiquery which demandeth What Controversie in Religion you can resolve without the written Word of God And in your Answer you assigned The Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son Sabbath Infant-Baptism and MANY OTHER POINTS OF FAITH and I shall shew anon that we have it pro confesso from your Champions that there be some Points of your Faith which is not GROUNDED UPON nor MENTIONED IN the SCRIPTURES and therefore your Church cannot vindicate such Points of her Faith and Doctrine by the Scripture Although Christ sent Paul to Ananias for instruction yet it followeth not that we must take Romes instructions without Scripture Is there no difference between the time that now is and then was Much of the Scripture if not all the New Testament was then unwritten Again Ananias was immediatly sent of God If you are so sent prove it to us as Ananias did by shewing the Miracle of restoring Paul's sight If you are not so sent to what purpose do you alledge this Text I believe I might form you a monsirous Consequence here PAPIST You that will not trust the Churches Judgment lay down four wayes of resolving Doubts The first To argue it out till Truth prevail But if we must argue only out of Scripture and be our own Interpreters of it there can be no end of arguing as I have often shewed The second To appeal to God as the two Tribes did Josh 22. A rare way to end Controversies to look for Miracles in our Disputes The third To appeal to Scripture and right Reason But if I challenge them to be on my side who must take up the difference The fourth To cast Lots But though the Apostles did it who certainly were inspired to do so yet must not we presume to tempt God or to look for the like Miracles or to build our Faith upon such doubtful events BAPTIST You here wrong us to say that we will not trust the Judgment of the Church for the Church truly and universally taken we do credit as her that is appointed of the Father to be the Pillar and Ground of the Truth of which Church we take the Prophets and Apostles to be the principal Members and so in all Points of Faith to be credited in the first place But if by Church you mean the Papal Church of Rome I confess we dare not trust her Judgement at least not in all that she saith for example these following 1. Your Church tells us That it is not needful for the Scriptures to be read to or by the Laity in a tongue which they understand and that though they Pray after another in Latine though they understand not what they say yet such prayer is sufficient Rhem. Test Annot. in 1 Corinthians 2. Your Church tells us That the Sacrifice of your Masse is available to take away or obtain remission of sins by the work wrought Con. Trident. Sess 22. That the whole Masse is a propitiatory Sacrifice for the quick and dead and whoso saith it is only a commemoration of Christ's Death c. is accursed Con. Trent 3. Your Church holds That such as deny that the real Flesh and Blood of Christ is in the Bread and Wine of the Sacrament ought to be burnt to death 4. Your Church holds and tells us That Images and old clothes of Saints ought to be worshipped with religious Worship 5. That men are AS FULLY Justified by good Works AS THEY ARE DAMNED BY evil Works 6. That it is unlawful for Ministers of Christ to Marry 7. That the Scripture doth not contain all things necessary to Salvation To omit many other these are Points of your Churches Judgment which we dare not trust till by you or some other proved to be Truths I assigned the use of Lots as lawful in some doubtful cases to end Controversies and for proof I quoted Acts 7. and this you will not allow for two Reasons 1. Because you say the Apostles were inspired to use them but were it so as that you cannot prove yet it cannot be denied but we may do some things which they were inspired to do for the Holy Ghost was to lead them into all Truth and they were to lead us into the same Truth by their Example and Doctrine Joh. 16. 13. 1 Cor. 11. 1 2. And be it here observed That the Holy Ghost led those our Teachers to ordain the Ministry by Prayer and laying on of Hands Acts 6 and Acts 13. which practice of theirs is a good president to act by a president I say for this practice is not expresly commanded in Scripture no more than the use
of Lots in the election of Ministers If it here be objected That Christ might give laying on of hands in Precept when he was with his Apostles I Answer So also might he give them the other to be used when there might be persons found of seemingly equal fitness to serve the Church 2. You reckon the use of Lots Acts 1. amongst Miracles as your other Reason why we may not use them to decide any Controversie but why you should so do I see no more reason than to say Josh 22. mention'd any Miracles towards the composure of the difference between the two Tribes and Israel where in truth no such thing can be found though you seem to affirm it PAPIST In my last Paper I took notice how you sent us to Heaven for Miracles to take up our Quarrels after the Example of Moses whose cause was cleared that way Here you deny you brought in the Instance of Moses to this purpose which how true it is every one that can reade must needs see For are not these your words But you say Reason is on my side c. and demand by whom we must be tryed who must take up the quarrel I answ Even the same that took up quarrels of this nature in times past Exod. 7 c. Do you not here tell us plainly That God must take up our quarrels AS he did those of Moses And truly otherwise I might as you foresaw very possibly tell you that your Allegation was nothing to the Question Who must take up the quarrel It is pretty to see what stuff you make of it and then how you digress to rail at our Baptism and Pastours I say rail for you bring no proof at all BAPTIST I have said enough to satisfie any reasonable man that it doth not follow from my alledging Exod. 7. that I send you or any body else to Heaven for Miracles to decide our Controversies For at the first I shewed that in the case of Moses there was Miracle against Miracle only God gave a note of distinction between those signs insomuch as the Serpent that came of Moses Rod devoured the other from whence I only noted That it's God's way to give some powerful note of distinction between the Witness of his Servants and Deceivers And now is not this my Observation very pertinent to our case You say you are the Church We say we are the Church Here is Testimony against Testimony as there was Miracle against Miracle and if the Lord do not now give some powerful note of distinction between our Doctrine and yours concerning the Church as he did between Stephen's and the Alexandrians I pray who must take up the quarrel between U S Is it fit that you should be Judge in your own case here If so why may not we If the Councils and Fathers were of the Papal Church then it is not any more reasonable that you should summon us to their Arbitriment than it is for us to summon you to the Judgment of our Predecessors but forasmuch as you and we are agreed that the Prophets and Apostles were infallibly assisted to write the Mind of God for us to observe therefore it 's most reasonable that we should both appeal to them If you object the Prophets c. are not alive to interpret their Writings and that our difference is about the sense thereof I Answer This objection is every way as forceable against the Decrees of Councils and Volumns of Fathers for their Writings must be interpreted expounded c. and we differ about the meaning of them Secondly the way you assign us to agree them is to consult them together c. Now I would know why we may not be allowed this way to seek out the meaning of the Prophets and Apostles In a word there is not one Objection which yet I have met with levelled against our appealing to holy Scripture c. as the only infallible means to decide all Controversies between YOU and US but the same objections are more forceable against all that you appeal to for decision of the said Controversies PAPIST You except against our Miracles because we bring them to prove our Church by but if it appear as it doth that God works Miracles upon those that actually call upon his Blessed Mother and his other Saints or whilst they are performing some of our Religious practices which you abhor is it not an argument that God approves them It is God then and not we that brings Miracles to prove our Church BAPTIST You will still have your Miracles to be an infallible mark of the truth of your Church especially those of the Blessed Virgin you mean the Image so called at Loreto or as you phrased it in your third Paper The Lady of Loreto But let me tell you that there is small cause you should refer me to what is done there as an infallible mark that your Church is the Church of Christ For by the relation of two eye-witnesses which I have read it is a place of most gross Idolatry blind devotion and deceit One of which Authors was once a Teacher of your Church who before his separation from you travelled to Loreto to see if the Image of the Virgin would inform him of the truth or falshood of the Roman Church as it is now constituted for he was doubtful in this matter and had been informed that if any person were guilty of Mortal sin which if the Papal Church be the Church of Christ he concluded he must needs be guilty of in questioning her at least in the Judgment of the Fryers who waited there upon that Image he had been informed I say that if such as were guilty of Mortal sin did but pray before the Lady of Loreto the said Image would either blush or fall into a sweat and so resolve the Petitioner in the affirmative But if we may believe the Lady of Loreto and this Informant then it is no Mortal sin to think that the Papal Church is not the Church of Christ For this doubtful man prayed earnestly and beheld the Lady as stedfastly but no sweat nor change befel her at all Therefore according to the Fryers rule it is no Mortal sin to think the Papal Church of Rome is not the Church of Christ But this one thing is especially observable here That whereas you would perswade your self and others that I send men to Heaven for Miracles to decide Controversies it is manifest that you are the man that is herein guilty For the Controversie is Whether the Papal Church of Rome be the Church of Christ You affirm I deny To decide this Controversie you refer me to Miracles as the special means or chief mark whereby I may be resolved in this matter as is evident in this and your two former Papers So that what you would cast upon me falls clearly upon your self save that instead of sending me to Heaven you send me to Loreto In my Rejoynder
the necessity of Circumcision Act. 15. did they not assemble the Church and so pronounce Sentence conciliariter with a visum est Spiritui sancto nobis BAPTIST It is here worth noting how you dispute beyond the due bounds of the Query which as it concerns you Papists and us Baptists hath no relation to the Differences which arise in the Church as such and indeed you go amiss in this matter throughout the whole Discourse Here you seem to acknowledge that the Church ought to rule according to Scripture but you will allow me to judge whether she do so or not But I answer that there is a Judgment of Science as well as a Judgment Authoritative the latter I know cannot be exercised by me nor any other Member of the Church because this Power lyeth in the Church as imbodied together but the former to wit a Judgment of Science or Knowledge is particular to each individual and so my self if a Member of the Church am allowed the exercise thereof even in matters of Religion 1 Cor. 10. 15. I speak to wise men judge ye what I say The Apostle doth not here give any wise man at Corinth leave to judge of that which he said so as to censure what he had delivered yet he must exercise his understanding to judge of what Paul had said thereby to find out the verity of what was spoken But yet I do confess that our case and the case of Christians then do differ for Paul was a Foundation-layer a Master-builder so that the Members might not so well judge then as now yet the Church now is to build upon the Foundation which is laid already and you know that I have in my Rejoynder acknowledged that it very nearly concerns particular Members of the Church to have great regard to the Judgment of the Church when after serious debate they deliver their Sentence in any point disputable And further as touching your Church you tell me anon that even a Heathen may judge of the holiness of your Church by the Law of Conscience and then why may he not by the same Law judge your Church concerning her unholiness nay verily he must be able to speak both wayes or else he hath no Judgment And if a Heathen have this priviledge and ability then why not a man professing Christianity who hath not only the Conscience-Law but also the written Law of God by which he understands things more excellent Rom. 2. From all this I only conclude that each particular ought to have the free exercise of his Judgment in what he chuseth or refuseth sith without this he cannot chuse or refuse any thing with confidence nor to his comfort And concerning Controversies in the Church I do not see that in these dayes we are bound to follow the sentence of a multitude though assembled in Council SO as to hold their Sentence absolutely infallible for the promise of infallibility is not made to a certain select number of Bishops but to the Church taken collectively and we may remember that a great Assembly of Prophets in the old Church erred in Judgment with unanimous consent when yet the Lord had one Micaiah at home which understood the truth of his Will Wherefore I here conclude although the Members of the Church ought to weigh with great respect the things concluded of by their Pastors yet so may it be that they may swerve from the Truth whilst God clears it up by some particular rather than by such an Assembly And to this agrees very well a saying of Gerson If it should so happen that there should be a General Council assembled in which such a man were present as is well instructed If the greatest part should decline through Malice or IGNORANCE to the opposition of the Gospel such a LAY-Man may be objected against the said General Council And saith Panormitan In matters WHICH CONCERN FAITH the saying of a LAY-Man ought to be preferred before that of the Pope if his saying be more probable by better authority of Scripture than that of the Pope You often tell me that to appeal to the Spirit speaking in the Scriptures c. is not a sufficient way to decide OUR Controversies and that because you may challenge them to be for you c. To which I answer by retorting your Argument thus That which you call the living Voice of the Church to wit Volumns of Fathers and Decrees of Councils is therefore insufficient to decide OUR Controversies because your opposites do say they are for them and against you and now you must answer your own Query viz. Who must take up this Quarrel You answer that we must explicate them one by another the places which are obscure by such as are plain And then I still ask you why we may not as well agree our selves this way by the Volumns of the Prophets and Apostles I shewed before how you misapply that Text Matth. 18. and though the case is so plain as that you cannot defend your self yet you seem loth to decline your error and would fasten a very gross passage upon me namely that I should say That the Church is no Rule for those that are out of her Communion as not to be a light for such as grope in the dark A manifest wrong I only say and prove That those that are not of the Church are not within the power of her Discipline nor can she reasonably desire unconverted ones to appeal to her Judgment-seat in Controversies between them and her And I asked you If you would not scorn us if we should call upon you to appeal unto us as your Judges Whether we or you be the Church and not doubting but you would I concluded that it is equally absurd for you to desire us to appeal to you as our Judges But you may find it plain enough in my Papers That I do believe the Church SO to be a Rule to the world as to shew them the way of Life and so a good means for their Illumination and Conversion As for your three Texts 1 Tim. 3. Deut. 17. 8 9. Malachi 2. 7. As they do your cause no good so they do mine no harm I grant the Church is the pillar and ground of the Truth and that she hath Power to hear and determine all Controversies among her Members as aforesaid and that it is the duty of the Members to enquire of their Pastors what is the way of God concerning them But what of all this Ergo The Papal Church of Rome is the only infallible Judge and Moderatrix of all Contention about Religion Ergo we must all appeal to the Papal Church of Rome as our Judge in this Question Whether we be of the Church or not though we be in doubt Whether she her self be a true Church or not yea though we are satisfied she is not Are not these Monstrous Consequences Be it here observed That I do believe the Church of
that priviledge which Israel under the Law was allowed and yet they are as strictly bound to bring up their Children in the admonition of the Lord which they cannot do unless they have the Law in their heart that so they may talk of it to their Children But surely those that will not let the Law come within the sight of our eyes have no mind it should ever come in our hearts So then they labour to keep us in the dark What can they say against mens reading the Scripture which hath not the same force against the hearing of it preached Did not some conceive as gross opinions concerning Christ's saying men must eat his flesh as some have by reading them The Jews thought they were so to be understood as that they might eat his real flesh and that was not a greater nor a lesse Error than is found in the Papists who read the same word It is doubtless a shrewd sign that those who will not suffer us to see the Law of God do not intend that we shall hear very much of it peradventure such Points as talk of Tythes c. Yea it is evident that they intend not to let us hear much that shall profit us for they have devised that the very Prayers and Services of their Church be said and sung in a tongue which the People understand not Yea they tell us That it is enough for the People to understand that the Prayer is made to call upon God in all our desires and more than this is not necessary they say So that the poor People in the Papacy know not what are the things desired only they are told The Prayer is made to God in all that is therein desired Are not these People kept in darkness But saith Paul How should the unlearned say Amen 1 Cor. 14. That which is most strange is That the Papists should deliver this dark Doctrine from 1 Cor. 14. then which no Scripture more requireth an understanding in those that pray and in those that joyn with them nor doth any Scripture more clearly shew us to how little purpose it is to perform any Service in the Church in an unknown tongue Read the Chapter saith Paul If I come unto you speaking with tongues what shall I profit you but in the Church I will speak five words with my understanding that I may instruct others also rather than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue These are Paul's words as the Papists themselves translate them Another way whereby they keep men in darkness is this They cumber mens minds with such a MULTITUDE of Ceremonies and Repetitions in their Prayers that the mind is sufficiently charged to remember how many times over they must say some two or three words nay it 's evident this is no wrong witness their Beads which serve to supply the defect of their memories As I remember there is not less than fifty Orations and Postulations c. which the Priest is to make and act before the Bread be Consecrated when they say Mass and the like doings they have in the most of their Services which I can more desire the Lord would deliver them from than mention The Sixth Reason The present Papal Church is generally if not only at this day gathered of persons unregenerate or not new born as the Scriptures do require new-birth in that case Therefore she is not the Church of Christ The Sixth Reason maintained 1. THe Scripture saith That except a man or any one be born again SO as to be like the winde THAT BLOWETH and that bloweth in such sort as the sound thereof IS HEARD he cannot enter into the Kingdom or Church of God But the many millions of Infants whereof the Papal Church consists mostly if not only in respect of her Members Initiation are not thus regenerate So that the Papal Church is gathered generally of such Persons as are not so regenerate as Persons ought to be and must of necessity be before they be admitted into the Church of Christ The Seed of the Woman or Gospel-Church are all such as have the Faith of Jesus and keep the Commandments of God at least in Profession for that is the thing that is absolutely necessary in order to any Person 's admission into the Church of Christ John 3. 5 6. 2 Cor. 5. 16 17. Rev. 12. ult Gal. 3. 26 27 28. 2. All the Children of the new Covenant or Church of Christ do DIFFER from the Church under Moses SO as that they each individual do so know the Lord as that they need not in some sort teach one another saying Know the Lord Heb. 8. Jer. 31. But either all or the generality of the Papal Church differ nothing from the Church under Moses in respect of their KNOWLEDGE when admitted into their Church Being such as are not capable of the first or least degree of the knowledge of him 3. There appears no more sign of Regeneration or new-Birth in the Infants or Members of the Papal Church at their admission than there appears in such as the Papists say are not regenerate Now where the Spirit of regeneration is it is not without some demonstrable operation for saith Christ The wind bloweth c. and thou hearest the sound thereof c. SO IS EVERY One that is born of the Spirit So that I conclude That the Infants whom the Papists say they baptize are not born of the Spirit unless they can give some demonstrative sign of it 4. There can be no Regeneration in an ordinary way without preaching the Doctrine of Christ Rom. 10. But the Papal Church is generally if not only gathered without the Word preached in order to the regeneration of the Members before their admission Therefore they are not regenerate in an ordinary way And if they have an extraordinary regeneration let them shew it The Seventh Reason The present Papal Church of Rome maintaineth the Doctrine of Devils and that so violently as that they punish the Non-observation thereof with Excommunication and Death Therefore she is not the Church of Christ This Argument maintained THis Reason or Argument may seem to be harshly laid down yet if it be true there is necessity to propound it And for the truth of it I desire you weigh what followeth 1. To forbid Marriage and to command to abstain from Meats which God hath created to be received of such as believe and obey the Truth this is the doctrine of Devils But it is well known that the Papists do forbid the whole Calling of their Clergy to Marry and thousands beside of those that live in their Monasteries and Nunries c. and this under pain of Cursing and Death You shall hear them speak their own words wherein they do not only prohibit Marriage for ever to such as enter into the Ministry but if any be married and afterwards come into the Ministry they wholly deprive such of the enjoyment of their Yoke-fellows Thus they speak The