and piety And that they might confirm this to be their sense of the Divinity they bid the Jesuites observe one part of the Altar in their Temple to be void of Images and to be hid in an obscure and dark place which they said was the proper seat of the most high God the Maker of Heaven and Earth who could not be represented in any form and shape and that the Images which stood about that place were the representations of their Intercessors with Him who having great power with the most high God did obtain many gifts and blessings for those that invocated them How this differs from the notions of the Roman Church I do not see unless it be in this that they have sometimes adventured to represent God himself in a shape Otherwise the worship is the very same the dead Men who are the objects of it only changed and may very well justifie us if we say and therein we speak very moderately that their worship is an Image at least of the ancient Idolatry And moves them to make the resemblance more perfect unto the very same rage and violence which was in the Pagans against all those that differ from them and cannot consent to worship God in that way prosecuting them with all manner of cruelty as if they were utter enemies of God and of all Religion By which we may certainly know that they are so far from being the only true Christians that they are a very degenerate part of Christs Church wanting that great mark of his faithful Disciples to love one another even as Christ loved us To which they are such strangers that quite contrary they not only hate and persecute but endeavour as I said to root out those from the face of the Earth who obediently believe all that they can find our Lord and his Apostles have delivered and profess they are ready with all their hearts to receive and do whatsoever any body can further teach them to be his mind Nay are very desirous and diligent to know it sparing no pains to understand the whole Truth as it is in Christ Jesus SECT XV. Answer to what they say about Miracles THEY pretend indeed abundance of Miracles wrought in their Church as a sufficient condemnation of those who obstinately refuse to invocate Saints to worship their Images and the consecrated Hoste to believe Purgatory and all other things for the proof of which these wonders are alledged But herein also they imitate the Pagans who were guilty of the like deceit and the same answer will serve here which Grotius gives there L. iv Sect. 8. in his confutation of the old Idolatry For First the wisest Men among them have rejected many of these Miracles as not supported by the testimony of any credible witnesses nay as plain fictions Others also of them which are pretended to be of better credit hapned in some private place in the night before one or two Persons whose eyes crafty Priests as he speaks might easily delude with false shows and counterfeit appearances of things And further there are others which only raise admiration among People ignorant of the nature of things and are no true miracles I deny not but there may have things been done among them which no humane power could effect by the strength of natural causes and yet no Divine that is omnipotent Power be needful to their production For those Spirits which are interposed between God and Man are able by their nimbleness cunning activity and strength to make such strange application of things very distant one to another as shall astonish the Spectators with wonderful effects But there is too great reason to think they are not good Spirits that do these feats because they revive hereby the ancient superstition or uphold the Image of it still in the Christian World to the great dishonour of our Saviour and the indangering the Souls of his People Who have been so far misled as not only to fancy great Virtue in the Images of the Saints and to cry up also some Images particularly of our Lady of Loretto for instance as indued with some singular power and vertue which is not to be found in others but to honour them so highly as for one Miracle said to be done by a Crucifix to report a hundred to be wrought at such or such a Shrine of hers It is very considerable also to omit the rest which he notes in the V. Book out of the Law of Moses that it supposes God might permit some wonders to be done only for their trial whether the People would persist in the worship of the true God which had been confirmed by undoubted and far greater and more numerous Miracles Read Deuteron xiii 1 2 3 c. This is excellently expressed and with advantage by a great Man of our own in these words or to this effect The Doctrine which we believe that is the Bible hath been confirmed as is confessed on all sides by innumerable supernatural and truly Divine Miracles and consequently the Doctrine of the Roman Church which in many points is plainly opposite to the Bible is condemned by them I mean the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles And therefore if any strange things have been done in that Church they prove nothing but the truth of Scripture which foretold that God's Providence permitting it and the wickedness of the World deserving it strange signs and wonders should be wrought to confirm false doctrine that they which love not the Truth might be given over to strong delusions So that now we have reason rather to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signs of false Doctrine than much to regard them as certain arguments of Truth Neither is it strange that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude those who have forged so many wonders to deceive the World SECT XVI Answer to another Objection BUT it is not likely they say that Religion should be thus depraved in the Roman Church because their Ancestors were Men of greater vertue and honesty than to suffer the least alteration Which is the very thing that is alledged by the Jews why they should not believe our Saviour was unjustly condemned and his Religion rejected by their Priests and Elders as Grotius observes in the Vth. Book Out of which I might produce several things as I have done out of the foregoing to prove the vanity of the Romish Traditions as well as of the Jewish and show also how they have brought back Judaism in a great measure by the vast burden of Rites and Ceremonies wherewith they have incumbered Christian Religion But I shall wave all this because I would make this Book as short as the rest and only observe in answer to what was now pretended that whosoever shall consider as he speaks of the Ancestors of the Jews what kind of Men for several Ages sate in the Chair of Rome and how ignorant the People generally were he
from hence also that in the Conclusion of this Work of the Truth of Christian Religion he doth not interpret those words i. Hebr. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the present tense making a purgation or expiating our sins as Socinus doth but in the past time expiatis peccatis nostris having expiated or purged away our sins How they come to be otherwise Translated in his Annotations on that place put forth since his death I can give no Account And in like manner I suppose he satisfied another doubt about a passage in this Book which Sarravius desired him to resolve though I cannot find his Answer to it For he gives a punctual Answer afterward to a Question propounded by a Minister of Rouen who askt him where he had that of Rabbi Nechumias who made that publick Declaration mentioned in the Fifth Book Sect. 14. concerning the appearing of Christ 50. Years before our Saviour to this effect That the time which Daniel had prefixed for the coming of the Messiah could not be prolonged above those Fifty Years Which he tells Sarravius * Epist Claud. Sarrav p. 52. is to be found in the Talmud in the Title Sanhedrin as he remembred and he thought also in Abenada upon Daniel This was in the Year 1640. when he first put out this Book with Annotations containing the Testimonies of those Authors in words at length whom he had alledged but had forgotten it seems to set down where he had this passage of Rabbi Nechumias Nor is it now to be found among the Annotations and therefore they that next Print the Book so inlarged will do well to supply it from hence out of Sarravius Who was the first Person * Epist ad Gallos p. 460. to whom he made a present of it after it came out with the Addition of Testimonies desiring to be admonished by him if in the midst of much business any thing had escaped him which was less exactly spoken while he studied to serve the Christian cause To which He replies immediately That as he could not but esteem it a very great honour to be acknowledged and beloved by the Coryphaeus of all Learning both Sacred and profane so he esteemed this as a Golden Book wherein Grotius had joyned Learning together with Piety consulting that is the Disease of the Age to whose Palate Piety of it self had little savour And as for the immense collection of Testimonies then added he made it appear by them that in all his studies the glory of Christ had alway been before his eyes his holy diligence and industry having discovered so many and such things which had escaped the sagacious eyes of others And not long after he propounded some doubts according to his own desire and mentioned some exceptions as was noted before which some who had no good will to him took at this Golden Book as he again calls it and notwithstanding the harsh censures of some Learned Men this excellent Person still persisted in his high esteem of the worth of this Author and believed all unprejudiced Men would ever look upon him with great Veneration So he tells Salmasius Five Years after * Epist Claud. Sarrav p. 146. 1645 Whether they will or no Grotius will alway be accounted a great Man by you and me and by all that love Equity and Goodness for he is full of envy who denies due praises to such a Hero And a little while after hearing of the news of his death he most sadly bewails it * Ib. p. 171. as the extinction of the bright Star of that Age whose Name would be great as long as either Books or Learning were in honour And while he had breath he saith he would glory in this that he once had familiar acquaintance with a Man who was re nomine Magnus no less great indeed than his Name imported This affection he seems to have carried with him to his Grave and honoured his Memory at such a rate that in the Year 1648. he still says he was proud of the Friendship of that Man by whom to have been known was glorious and who would be reverenced in all future Ages In conclusion he calls him that Blessed Soul even after he himself had pronounced this sentence against Grotius * Ib. p. 196. that he favoured the Papists and not only yielded too much to them in his later Writings but expressed too much disaffection to the reformed in those Countries All this he candidly passed over with this censure * Ib. p. 146. He is the best Man who hath fewest faults for there is no body to be found without some And the same favourable judgment I suppose all serious and considering men will pass upon him now and not be hindred by any prejudices which may have been taken up against him among our selves from reaping that benefit which they may receive by reading this excellent Book Which I present again to the view of the English World and have in a manner made a new Translation of it the former which came out near 50. Years ago being so defective that there were few Paragraphs in it which stood not in need of some amendment and in a great number the sense was quite mistaken Who the Translator was I am ignorant but it is certain he either did not understand the Latine Tongue or did not attend to what he was about as appears by innumerable Instances But one may suffice in the Third Book Sect. 3. where he Translates altera Petri the one Epistle of Peter Besides there is plain Arianism in his Translation Book V. Sect. 21. for he says the Son was not uncreate as the Father is when in Grotius the words are the Son is not ingenitus unbegotten as the Father is Yet where the Translation was passable I have let it go as it was that I might not seem to be too curious a Censurer of other Mens labours And I have added such passages as were not there the Book it self having been inlarged by Grotius since that old English Translation I know not how necessary it might be at that time when it was first put into our Language but now I think nothing can be more And to make it of larger use I have added also a Seventh Book of my own In which out of those Principles chiefly which Grotius builds upon in his Six Books I have shown that Christian Religion hath suffered very much by the Church of Rome and that we need not go thither to be assured of the Truth of that Religion but shall be better informed in our own Church by the Holy Scriptures and such works as these I have not quoted all my Authors no more than Grotius did in the first Editions of his Book And it would have made the Work also too long I thought to Translate his Testimonies and add the like of my own Nor would it have been so useful to common Readers who do but perplex themselves
lived in those times and was present when the things were done In like manner it ought to suffice us that whosoever wrote the Books we speak of both lived in the primitive Age and were endued with Apostolical gifts For if any body will say that these qualities might be feigned as the very Names might be in other Writings he says that which is not credible viz. that they who every where press the study of truth and piety would for no cause at all make themselves guilty of the crime of forgery which is not only detestable among all good Men but by the Roman Laws was to be punished with death SECT V. These Pen-men writ the Truth because they had certain knowledge of what they writ THIS therefore must be allowed that the Books of the new covenant were written by those Authors whose Names they bear or by such as bear sufficient witness of themselves To which if we farther add that they were also well acquainted with the matters whereof they wrote and had no purpose to lye or dissemble it will follow that the things which they committed to writing were both certain and true because every untruth proceeds either from ignorance or from a wicked desire to deceive As touching Matthew John Peter and Jude they were all of the society and fellowship of those Twelve whom Jesus did chuse to be witnesses of his Life and Doctrine so that they could not want notice of those things which they did relate The same may be said of James who was either an Apostle or as some think the next a-kin to Jesus and by the Apostles consecrated Bishop of Hierusalem Paul also could not erre through lack of knowledge about those Points which he professeth were revealed to him by Jesus himself reigning in Heaven nor could he or Luke either who was an inseparable companion to him in his travels be deceived about those things which were done by himself This Luke might easily know the certainty of those things which he writ concerning the life and death of Jesus For he was born in the places next adjoyning to Palestina through which Countrey when he travelled he saith he spake with such persons as were eye-witnesses of the things that were done For doubtless besides the Apostles with whom he had familiarity there lived many others at that time who had been cured by Jesus and had seen him both before his Death and after his Resurrection If we will give credit to Tacitus and Suetonius in those things which happened a long time before they were born because we are confident that they diligently enquired into the truth thereof how much more ought we to believe this Writer who saith that he received all the things which he relates from them that had seen the same It is credibly reported of Mark that he was a constant companion with Peter so that whatsoever he writ are to be lookt upon as dictated by Peter who could not be ignorant thereof Besides the same things that he writes are almost all extant in the Writings of the Apostles Neither could the Author of the Apocalypse be deceived or deluded in those Visions which he saith were sent unto him from Heaven Nor he that writ the Epistle to the Hebrews erre in those things which he professeth either to be inspired into him by the Spirit of God or else taught him by the Apostles SECT VI. As also because they would not lye THE other reason we spake of to prove the truth of the said Holy Writers because they had no will to tell an untruth is twisted with that which we handled above when in general we proved the truth of Christian Religion and of the history of the Resurrection of Christ Those that will accuse any Witnesses for the pravity of their will must produce something by which it may be thought credible their will might be diverted from uttering the truth but this cannot be averred of the said Authors For if any do object and say that they acted in their own cause and did their own business we must see why this should be thought their cause and interest Not that they might get any thing by it in this World or thereby avoid any danger when for the sake of this profession they both lost all the goods of this World and ventured upon all manner of dangers This therefore was not their cause and interest but only out of reverence to God which sure doth not perswade Men to lye especially in such a business whereupon depends the everlasting Salvation of Mankind Such an impious piece of villany we cannot believe they could be guilty of if we consider either their Doctrines every where most full of piety or their life which was never yet accused of any wicked deed no not by their greatest Enemies who objected nothing to them but their want of learning and unskilfulness which did not qualifie them sure for inventing falshoods And indeed if there had been the least spice as we speak of fraud and cheating in them they would not themselves have recorded their own faults and preserved the memory of them as of their all forsaking their Master when he was in danger and Peter's denial of him three times SECT VII A Confirmation of the Fidelity of these Authors from the Miracles which they wrought ON the other side God himself gave illustrious testimonies of their Fidelity by working wonders which either they or their Disciples with great boldness publickly avouched adding also the names of the persons places and other circumstances So that the truth or falshood of their assertion might easily have been discovered by the inquisition of the Magistrate Amongst which it is worthy our observation which they have most constantly delivered both concerning the use of Tongues which they had never learned among many thousand Men and their curing the diseases of the body upon a suddain in the sight of the People Neither were they any whit dismayed with fear either of the Jewish Magistrates of those times whom they knew to be most maliciously set against them or of the Romans who were far from having any good will to them and they were sure would lay hold on any thing on which they might ground a charge of their being inventors of a new Religion And yet neither Jews nor Pagans in the times immediately following durst ever deny that wonders were wrought by those Men. Yea the Miracles of Peter are mentioned by Phlegon in his Annals who lived under Adrian the Emperor Moreover the Christians themselves in those Books that contain a reason of their faith which they exhibited to the Emperors to the Senate and to the Governors do relate these things as most manifest and unquestionable truths yea they openly report that there continued a wonderful vertue of working strange effects at their Sepulchers for some Ages after their Death which if it had been false they knew that to their shame and punishment the Magistrates could have confuted
it very easily But there were such multitude of Miracles wrought at the Sepulchres I spoke of and so many Witnesses of them that they extorted even from Porphyry a confession of it SECT VIII The Truth of the Writings confirmed from hence that many things are found there which the event hath proved to be divinely revealed THESE things ought to suffice but there are other Arguments which we may heap upon these to prove the truth and fidelity of these Authors Writings For many things are therein foretold which were impossible for Men by their own power to know or bring to pass yet we see the truth thereof wonderfully confirmed by the event Thus it was foretold that this Religion should upon a sudden have a large and ample increase that it should continue for ever and though it were rejected by most of the Jews yet should it be imbraced by the Gentiles Thus likewise was foretold what hatred and spight the Jews would bear against them that professed this Religion and what grievous Persecutions they should undergo The siege also and destruction both of Hierusalem and of the Temple together with the miserable Calamities of the Jewish Nation SECT IX As also from God's care in preserving his People from false writings BESIDES this if it be granted that God out of his providence takes care of humane affairs specially such as belong to his honour and worship then it cannot be that he should suffer so great a multitude of Men who had no other design but to worship God after a holy manner to be cheated with lying Books And forasmuch as since the time that so many Sects have sprung up in Christianity there hath not been one that received not either all or the most of those Books excepting some few that contain no singular matter differing from the rest it is a great argument that no material thing could be objected against these writings specially since the said Sects were so partial and spitefully bent against each other that what one approved others rejected even for this reason because it was there approved SECT X. Answer to the Objection that divers Books were not received by all THERE were some indeed though very few among those that would be called Christians who rejected all those Books which they saw contradicted their peculiar Opinions Such for instance as out of hatred of the Jews reviled their God the Maker of the World and the Law which he had given them or on the other side such as for fear of the evils which Christians were to undergo chose to lurk and lye hid under the name of Jews who had liberty without any danger to profess their Religion But these very Men were renounced in those times by all other Christians throughout the World when as yet all that differed in their opinions with the safety of piety were tolerated by the order of the Apostles with great patience As for the former kind of these adulterate Christians I think they have been sufficiently confuted both by that which we have said before when we proved that there was but one only true God the sole framer of the whole World As also by those very Books which that they might have some semblance of Christians they did admit of specially the Gospel of Luke wherein is evidently shown that the same God whom Moses and the Hebrews worshipped was preached by Christ And the other sort we shall more fitly confute when we come to oppugne those that both are and would be called Jews For the present only this I say that their impudence is wonderful great who slight and extenuate the authority of Paul seeing there was not one of all the Apostles that founded and taught more Churches than he did and his Miracles were at that time reported to be exceeding numerous when as e're while we said there might easily have been trial and inquiry made of the truth of the matter If then it be true that he wrought wonders why may we not believe him concerning his Heavenly Visions and instruction received from Christ himself to whom if he was so dear it cannot be that he should teach any thing inglorious or ingrateful unto Christ as falsities or untruths would have been And as touching that particular which is the only thing whereof they accuse him namely his doctrine of the liberty and freedom which was purchased for the Hebrews from those Rites and Ceremonies that were formerly commanded them by MOSES He had no reason at all to teach it but only the truth of the thing which he asserted For he himself was both circumcised and did also of his own accord observe very many things which the Law enjoyned And then for the sake of the Christian Religion he both did more difficult and suffered harder things than the Law required or could be expected upon the account of the Law and taught also his Disciples to do and suffer the like Whence it appears that he uttered no flattering or enticing speeches unto his auditors who were taught in stead of the Sabbath to keep every day holy for divine worship and in stead of the little expences which the Law required to suffer the loss of all their goods and in stead of the bloud of Beasts to consecrate their own bloud unto God And further Paul himself plainly affirms that Peter John and James in token of their consent with him gave him the right hands of fellowship which he never durst have spoken if it had not been true because the same Men being then alive might have convicted him for a lyar These therefore of whom I have now spoken being excluded as scarce deserving the name of Christians the most manifest consent of so many Congregations of Christians who received these Books added to what hath been spoken of the Miracles which the Writers of them wrought and the singular care which God takes about matters of this kind ought to be sufficient to induce any indifferent Men to give credit thereunto specially considering that they are wont commonly to credit any other Books of History which have no such testimonies unless they see some plain reason to the contrary which cannot be said of any of those Books whereof we have spoken SECT XI Answer to an Objection that these Books seem to contain things impossible FOR if any body say that some things are related in these Books which are impossible to be done the Objection vanishes when we consider what hath been before discoursed that there are things which cannot indeed be done by Men but are possible with God such that is as include in themselves no repugnancy or contradiction as we speak and that in the number of such things are even those Miraculous Powers which we most of all admire and the recalling of the Dead to Life again SECT XII Or things contrary to Reason NEITHER are they to be more regarded who say that some doctrines are comprised in these Books which are disagreeing to right reason
sight The distinction of meats the Sabbaths and feast-days were but types and shadows of things which exist in Christ and in Christians In like manner by occasion of Mahumetisme these Admonitions are given that our Lord Jesus foretold that after his time there should arise false Christs and false Prophets which should lye and say they were sent of God But suppose that an Angel should come from Heaven yet we may not receive or entertain any other doctrine than that which Christ hath left us confirmed by so many testimonies For God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto the godly that lived in times past hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son the Lord of all things the brightness of his Fathers glory and the express Image of his substance by whom all things are created that ever were or shall be who upholdeth and governeth all things by his power and having purged our sins is now set at the right hand of God and hath obtained a dignity above Angels and therefore nothing can be expected more magnificent than this Law-giver Upon the same occasion Christians are remembred that the weapons of Christ and of their Christian warfare are not such as Mahumet used but spiritual able to cast down strong holds and every thing that exalteth it self against the Knowledge of God For our buckler we have the shield of faith whereby we may repel the fiery darts of the Devil For a brest-plate we have righteousness or integrity of life The hope of eternal salvation is a helmet which may cover the weakest part And for a Sword we have Words delivered from God which pierce into the most inward parts of the Soul After this follows the exhortation to mutual concord which Christ at his departure so solemnly and with such earnestness commended unto his Disciples There ought not to be many Masters and Doctors amongst us but we must have one Master even Jesus Christ All Christians are baptized unto one name wherefore there ought to be no Sects or Divisions among them for the cure and remedy of which evils those Apostolical sayings are suggested as let no man think more highly of himself than he ought to think but let Men be wise with sobriety according as God hath dealt to every Man the measure of faith If any do not so well conceive and rightly understand all things as they ought then their weakness must be born with that so without any brawlings or fallings out they may be sweetly united and knit together with us If any do excel the rest in understanding it is but meet also that they surpass them in love in holy affection and endeavours to do them good And as for those that in some points are of different opinion from such as hold the truth God's leisure must be waited for until it please him to reveal the same truth that yet lies hid from them and in the mean while those things which are agreed upon must be stedfastly kept and duly practised We know now in part only but the time shall come when all things shall be known most plainly and after a perspicuous manner This also I beg of every one that they do not unprofitably detain the talent committed to them upon trust but that they endeavour by all means possible to win others unto Christ For which purpose we must not only use good exhortations and wholsome speeches but also the example of good life that so the goodness of our Master may appear by his servants and the purity of the law by our landable actions Lastly my Discourse returning thither where it began I intreat such Readers as are my Country-men that if hereby they reap any good they would give thanks to God for it And if any thing be less pleasing to them they would have a regard both to the common infirmity of man's nature that is prone to errour and to the time and place wherein this work was rather hastily brought forth than elaborately composed THE SEVENTH BOOK OF THE TRUTH OF Christian Religion Against the Present ROMAN CHVRCH The Seventh Book OF THE TRUTH OF Christian Religion SECT I. An Introduction showing what makes the Addition of another Book necessary IF those Apostolical Exhortations which conclude the last Book had been carefully followed there would have been no need of saying any more for the confirmation of Mens minds in the belief of the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Religion But the unhappy differences which are among Christians and which are maintained with unspeakable animosities and hatreds nay with anathema's also which one part pronounces against the rest have made many Men doubtful which of these hold the true Christian Faith for which the Apostle exhorts us most earnestly to contend and in this doubtfulness there are some who embrace none at all For we see the Eastern Church disjoynted from the Western and the Western divided into three great parts every one of which condemn the other two and all of them are subdivided into several little parties by variety of opinions for which they contend with the same zeal that they do for the Faith of Christ Which is thereby disgraced and reputed by some to be of no greater certainty than those dubious opinions SECT II. Divisions among Christians no such objection against Christianity as is imagined BUT to a considering Man this will be no occasion of scandal but rather confirm him more in the true Christian Faith which every one of us ought to preserve with the greatest care as a most inestimable Treasure For as this is common to every Religion to have many disputes about it and different opinions in it and as Christ and his Apostles foretold there would many false Christs and false Apostles and false Prophets arise as was said before in the end of the foregoing Book who would lye and say they were sent when they were not introducing false doctrines and calling them by the Name of his Religion and as they give us a good reason also why it should be so that Mens probity and sincerity might be tried and brought hereby to the touchstone and that their diligence and care in preserving themselves might be exercised So blessed be our Lord the true Christian Religion is still retained and kept intire every where by all these disagreeing Parties notwithstanding the fierce quarrels they have one with another As appears by this which is a short easie and certain way to our satisfaction in this matter that the Faith into which they are all baptized is one and the same without any variation That is they all enter into the Church at the very same gate and upon the same terms and conditions neither more nor less are made members of Christ and have a title given them if they live according to this Faith unto Eternal Salvation SECT III. As appears even in the Roman Church which hath given the greatest scandal THE Church of Rome it self which
now makes the greatest differences in the Christian World requires nothing more at this day to be believed by those that are by Baptism received into the Church of Christ but only those things which are contained in the Creed commonly called the Apostles This Creed is recited there by the Priest and this alone when he comes to the Font and he interrogates the Persons to be baptized if they be adult or their undertakers if they be Infants about no other belief Upon the profession of which he bids them enter into the holy Church of God that they may receive the Celestial blessing from the Lord Jesus Christ and have a part with Him and with his Saints And having again examined adult Persons asking them Do ye believe in God the Father Almighty c. and mentioning no other Articles of Faith he baptizes them and declares them to be regenerate and to have remission of all sins And so do we do here nor is there any different practice in any other part of the Christian World but every where it is sufficient to consent to this Creed which is nothing but a brief explication what we are to believe concerning the Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost in whose Name we are baptized If there were any thing beyond this which we are necessarily bound to believe it should have been then propounded when we were admitted into the state of Christianity For Baptism gives us a right and title to Salvation if we do not forfeit it afterward by Apostasie or by a wicked life and this Faith with a promise to live according to it gives us a right to Baptism Herein indeed the Roman Church contradicts it self in decreeing many other Articles of belief without which it declares Men cannot be saved and yet receiving Men at Baptism into a state of Salvation without demanding their consent to any such Articles But so they do in many other things and cannot avoid it while they forsake the ancient Universal Rule and set up their own private Authority to impose what they please under pain of Damnation SECT IV. But both contradicts it self and departs from the Ancient and truly Catholick Church FOR that no such things as they would now oblige all Christians to believe were anciently exacted it appears most manifestly by Irenaeus and Tertullian to name no others in several places Who call the Creed now mentioned the Rule of Truth and the Rule of Faith which the Church throughout all the World saith Irenaeus though it be dispersed to the most extream parts of the Earth received from the Apostles and their Disciples and believes as if there were but one Soul and one Heart in so many Men and with a perfect consent preaches and teaches and delivers these things as having but one mouth For though there be divers Languages in the World yet one and the same Tradition prevails every where For neither the Churches in Germany believe otherways or deliver any thing else nor they in Spain nor they in France nor they in the East nor they in Egypt nor they in Libya nor they that are founded in the midst of the World But as the Sun is one and the same in the whole World So is the preaching of the Truth inlightning all Men who will come to the knowledge of it And neither he who is most eloquent among the Governours of the Church preaches any thing different for no man is above his Master nor doth he that is weakest in speech lessen in the least this Tradition For there being one and the same Faith he that hath most to say cannot inlarge it nor he that hath least diminish it Thus they declared their minds in those early days when there was no Catholick Man or Woman in the World required to believe any of those Doctrines now in controversie between us and the Roman Church and set down in the Creed of Pope Pius IV. as necessary to Salvation but they all contented themselves with the simple belief of those things which the Apostles have delivered in their Creed the greatest Men in the Church delivering no more nor the meanest saying less And with this wise and good Men satisfied themselves in times succeeding as appears by this remarkable passage of St. Hilary in his little Book which he himself delivered to the Emperour Constantius Where he thus complains Faith is now enquired after as if we had none Faith must be set down in writing as if it were not in the heart Being regenerated by Faith we are now taught what to believe as if that regeneration could have been without Faith WE LEARN CHRIST AFTER BAPTISM AS IF THERE COULD HAVE BEEN ANY BAPTISM WITHOUT FAITH IN CHRIST SECT V. Christianity therefore is not there in its purity but much corrupted WHICH is a sufficient Argument to prove that the Christian Religion is not sincerely preserved in that Church and ought to with-hold us from joyning with them in imposing thus upon the Christian World and thereby breaking the bond of Unity and turning Men away from the Faith by the palpable falsities and absurd mixtures which are brought into it and that as necessary parts of the Faith of Christ To the adulterating of which we ought by no means to consent but maintain it in that purity wherein the Apostles delivered it to their Successors as we find it set down in the Works of a great many following Doctors of the Church whose Names I forbear but are ready at hand to make good what I quoted just now out of Irenaeus Who acknowledges him for a sincere Christian who holds fast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Epiphanius recites his words which were then extant in Greek that Rule of Faith which he received in Baptism firm and unmoveable He cannot be a Heretick who thus believes on the Son of God in the sense wherein the Nicene Creed not adding any new Article of Faith but only declaring what was believed from the beginning hath explained the Word But they are Schismaticks who call him so and will not admit him into their Communion unless he consent to other things and hold them to be equally certain and necessary with the Ancient Rule of Faith SECT VI. Answer to an Evasion from the force of the foregoing Argument TO pretend that all those Articles of Faith which they now impose though not expresly mentioned in the Creed yet are contained in one Article of it Viz. in the belief of the Holy Catholick Church is in effect to make all the rest of the Creed unnecessary and to establish this sole Rule of Faith in the room of it For if by believing the Catholick Church we are to understand as they would have us whatsoever the Catholick Church propounds then it had been enough to have said to those Catechumens that came for Baptism Do you believe in the Holy Catholick Church and to add any more had been utterly superfluous But the vanity of this further appears in that
none of the ancient Doctors who have expounded the Creed and there are many of them have given any such sense of that Article of the Catholick Church Nay it was not in the most ancient forms of Faith nor doth the Church truly Catholick teach any thing as necessary to be believed to Salvation but what is contained in the Creed For we do in their own sense believe the Catholick Church but not the Roman Catholick Church which their Creed will have to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches because to omit many other absurdities which are in it there was a Catholick Church before there was a Roman and to say that they believe the Catholick Church meaning thereby the Roman is nothing more than to say they believe themselves SECT VII Their absurd Explication of the Unity of the Catholick Church NOTHING therefore can be further from the Truth than that Explication of the Vnity of the Catholick Church which is delivered in the Roman Catechism published by the Authority of the same Pope Pius IV. in pursuance of the Council of Trent Wherein the Catechumen is taught to believe and profess that the Catholick Church is one not only because of one Faith and other reasons mentioned by the Apostle Ephes iv and because it is subject to one invisible Governor which is Christ But because it is subject also to one visible Governor who holds the Roman Chair the legitimate Successor of St. Peter Concerning whom it is the unanimous opinion of all the Fathers that this visible Head is necessary to constitute and conserve the unity of the Church And to this Head or Pastor Christ hath given the authority of ruling and governing the whole Church as the Vicar and Minister of his Power Thus that Catechism teaches in the First Part the IX Article n. 11 12 13. Which besides that it is confuted by the plain demonstration now mentioned that Christ had a Catholick Church which had unity in it self when there was no Roman Church is directly contrary to the constant Doctrine not only of the Scripture but of all the Fathers whose consent they falsly boast of and of many Popes of Rome and of Councils also both General and particular even of the Councils of Lateran and Trent which by approving the Five First General Councils who condemn this Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome do in effect condemn it themselves SECT VIII Which forbids us to joyn in Communion with them upon such Terms TO that Church then we ought to adhere which hath kept the Rule of Faith once delivered to the Saints simple and unmixed with humane inventions Which if we admit as necessary to Salvation we betray the truth of Christ and are false and unjust to innumerable Christian Brethren who by Baptism are admitted into a state of Salvation but hereby unmercifully cut off from the Body of Christ though they have that Faith which makes them true Members of it This is the Great Crime of the Roman Church and may suffice instead of all other demonstrations to prove that they have corrupted themselves and departed from the simplicity that is in Christ For this very Article alone which is a part of their Faith that there is no Salvation but by union with the Roman Catholick Church and that by subjection to it thrusts out of Heaven not only the ancient Christian pious Emperors who refused such subjection But many of their ancient Popes who acknowledged their subjection was due to the Christian Emperors together with the ancient Patriarks and Fathers assembled in many Councils and the most famous Christian Churches the most glorious Martyrs and Saints of Christ that the best times of Christianity have known and to say nothing of after Ages the present Christians of Greece Russia Armenia Syria Ethiopia who by this Article of subjection to the Catholick Roman Church are all excluded from Christian communion and must perish everlastingly For Bellonius says that in his travels he met with Nine sorts of Christians at Jerusalem Eight of which Nine know nothing of this Universal Bishop or do not regard him and of the Ninth there is scarce half that acknowledges his Authority And yet there are Men among them of no mean note and number who have the confidence to tell us that by the Catholick Church which we are bound to believe is to be understood the Bishop of Rome whose Declarations when he will determine any thing to be of Faith we all ought to receive And though we are assured as much as are that there was such a Person as St. Peter that Christ never gave him much less his Successors any Authority at all over his whole Church Yet now to deny the Pope's Supremacy is such a Heresie that let a Man be never so Orthodox in all other points of the Catholick Faith this alone is sufficient to make him be excommunicated and cut off from the Body of Christ Witness our King Henry VIII who was excommunicated and his Kingdom given away for no other fault by a Bull of Paul the Third who affirms in the beginning of that Bull that herein he acted by Divine authority which according as God saith in the Prophet Jeremiah had set him over Nations and Kingdoms to root up and destroy as well as to build and plant having the supreme power over all Kings and People throughout the whole Earth Which certainly is such new Language never known in the Church for many Ages that they who are not convinced thereby of the corruption of Christian Religion in the Roman Church have their Eyes blinded with the Worldly Splendor of it SECT IX But on the other side not to slight Episcopal Authority YET on the other hand it must be acknowledged that this enormous power which they have usurped is a very strong proof of the high Authority of Christian Bishops in the Church and of the great reverence that was paid to them by Christian People Who otherways would never have thus submitted to their will and pleasure had not the obedience which they had been wont always to yield to their authority disposed them to be brought by little and little under an absolute subjection Nor would there have been reason for those Cautions which St. Peter gives to the Governors of God's Church not at Rome but elsewhere 1 Pet. 5. 2 3. not to Lord it over them if they had not been invested with a power which all Christians reverenced so much that it might more easily be abused than contemned and sooner perswade People to follow them with a blind obedience than to slight their judgment and refuse to conform to their Injunctions And therefore whosoever they are that now despise all Ecclesiastical Authority we may be sure they have swerved from the true Principles of Christianity and they also are altogether inexcusable who shake off the Episcopal Government and refuse to be subject to it under a pretence that there ought to be an equality among Christ's
Pagans among whom as Grotius observes it was lawful for the Poets to sing what they pleased though never so lewd concerning the Gods and for the Epicures to take Providence out of the World while the Jews were made ridiculous and the Christians most barbarously used as if they had been the vilest of Mankind Of which more anon SECT XII The Romanists themselves overthrow their own Religion THAT argument also which he urges for Christianity against the Pagans that the chief Points of Christian Doctrine were acknowledged by some or other of the best and greatest among them may be used by us also for the Faith to which we now hold there being several learned Writers in the Roman Church who have acknowledged our belief to be sufficient to Salvation and the Points which they have superadded having been lookt upon by the most excellent Persons among them only as meer Scholastical opinions and not certain Truths of which we can have a full assurance Here I might show how the sufficiency of the Scripture hath been owned and the Apostles Creed likewise confessed to contain all things that are absolutely necessary to be believed to salvation But because I would not have this Book swell above the bigness of the foregoing I shall let them alone and instance only in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which is now pressed with so much violence upon the Christian World but most plainly condemned by Gratian in their Canon Law and by the Author or Authors of the Canon of the Mass it self About the former we may be satisfied out of the Decretum if we look into the Third part and the second Distinction concerning Consecration Where in the XL VIII Chapter out of St. Austin and Prosper he says The heavenly bread which is truly Christs flesh suo modo after a sort or manner is called the Body of Christ whereas revera in truth it is the Sacrament of his Body which was hanged upon the Cross and the sacrificing of the flesh of Christ by the hand of the Priest is called his death and passion and crucifixion not in the Truth of the thing but in a signifying mystery Which words are so directly against the present sense of the Roman Church that no Protestant can speak more expresly and clearly against it nor desire a plainer confutation of it unless it be that of the Gloss upon those words which is this The celestial Sacrament which truly represents the flesh of Christ is said to be the Body of Christ but improperly whence it is said to be so suo modo sed non rei veritate after a manner but not in the truth of the thing So the sense is it is called Christs body that is it is signified thereby And if we look further into the LII Chapter we find he saith Christ was sacrificed but once in semet ipso in himself when he hung upon the Cross c. Yet is offered daily in Sacramento in the Sacrament which the Church frequents in memory of that thing Which Sacrifice in the next Chapter he calls exemplum the example or resemblance of that upon the Cross offered in remembrance of his Death Which is sufficient to convince us that they believed in those days as we do now and not as the Roman Church doth else He would not have called that which he says was truly the flesh of Christ the heavenly bread But to put all out of doubt let us turn to the lxxii Chapter and there we find these remarkable words out of St. Austin which fully explain the business Because it is not lawful for Christ to be devoured by our teeth therefore our Lord would have this Bread and this Wine in a Mystery by consecration of the Holy Spirit to be potentially created his flesh and blood and to be daily mystically offered for the life of the World They are potentially then or virtually made his Body and Blood though but Bread and Wine in themselves and of this Sacrifice which is thus wonderfully made in commemoration of Christ as he adds out of St. Hierom Chap. lxxvi it is lawful to eat but of that which Christ offered on the Cross secundum se according to it self none can eat But the Canon of the Mass will more abundantly convince us that he or they that made it did not believe any thing of Transubstantiation For First after the Consecration of the Bread and Wine the Priest signs them ten times at least with the sign of the Cross which can have no excuse made for it but is the greatest impudence if it be indeed Christ Himself who lies before the Priest whom he thus crosses For sure he doth not intend to bless Christ or to drive away the Devil from him or any such like thing for which those Crossings are used in that Church But more than this 2dly it is observable that after Consecration also the Priest still calls Christ's Body Panem Sanctum the holy Bread of Eternal life which shows that when this Rule was made they believed the Bread to be still remaining A further Indication of which is that 3dly the Priest proceeds to beseech God that He would vouchsafe to look upon that Sacrifice of his gifts with a propitious and ferene countenance and to accept them as He did the gift of his Servant Abel and the Sacrifice of Abraham and that which his High-Priest Melchisedeck offered to Him Which is most absurdly spoken if the Priest there offer Christ himself unto God For then he intercedes with him for our Intercessor as if he needed our Prayers and besides compares Him with the first-fruits of the Flock and the spoils of War which is so incongruous and so much below his heavenly glory that an unprejudiced Man cannot but think they who composed that Prayer looked upon those gifts which they offered as still Bread and Wine Which appears more fully 4thly from what follows in the next Prayer where bowing profoundly and laying his hands upon the Altar the Priest humbly intreats God in this manner Command these things to be carried by the hands of thy holy Angel to thy high Altar into the presence of thy Divine Majesty Where there are two plain testimonies against their present doctrine For First nothing but the Bread and Wine can be called haec these things which in no propriety of speech can signifie the very natural body of Christ Who secondly can by none of God's Angels be carried into Heaven being there already nor brought more than He is into the presence of the Divine Majesty where He was before the Priest said Mass and sits for ever there at God's right hand Had they that composed this Prayer believed any thing of Transubstantiation they would have said and could not have said otherways if they said any thing of this matter Almighty God behold here before me upon thy Altar lies thy only begotten Son Jesus Christ by my sacrifice unto Thee that very Christ who is at thy right
truly since GOD hath implanted in Mens minds the power and faculty of judging there is no part of truth that better deserves the imployment of this faculty about it than that of which we cannot be ignorant without hazard of our Salvation After this whosoever inquires with a godly mind he shall not dangerously erre And where should he enquire after it but in God's most holy Word without which we cannot know whether there be either Church or Priest or any thing else wherein they would have us trust SECT XIX And refuses to be tried by Scripture IT is a manifest sign therefore of imposture that when they cannot for shame but sometimes suffer their Religion to be tried yet they will not have it tried by the holy Scriptures In the reading of which as was excellently said in the conclusion of the foregoing Books no man can be deceived but he who hath first deceived himself For the Writers of them were more faithful and fuller of Divine Inspiration than either to defraud us of any necessary part of Divine Truth or to hide it in a Cloud so that we cannot see it Why then should any body decline this way of trial unless they see themselves so manifestly condemned by the holy Scriptures that they dare not let their cause be brought into so clear a light Which hurts indeed sore eyes but comforts and delights those that are sound showing us so plainly what we are to embrace and what to refuse and being so sure and so perfect a Guide in all such matters that S. Hilary not only commends and admires the Emperor Constantius for desiring a Faith according to what was written But saith He is an Antichrist who refuses this and an Anathema that counterfeits it And thereupon calls to him in this manner O Emperour thou seekest for faith hearken to it not out of new little Papers but of the Books of God There we must seek for it if we mean to find it and if they be silent and can tell us nothing says St. Ambrose who shall dare to speak Let us not therefore bring deceitful ballances they are the words of S. Austin in his second Book of Baptism Chap. vi wherein we may weigh what we list and as we list after our own liking saying This is heavy that is light But let us bring the Divine Ballance out of the holy Scriptures as out of the Lords Treasures and in that let us weigh what is most ponderous or rather let not us weigh but acknowledge those things which are already weighed by the Lord. Yes say they of the Church of Rome we will be put into that Ballance and tryed by the Scriptures but not by them alone Which is in effect to refuse to be tried by them for they give testimony to their own fulness and perfection and plainness too in things necessary and so do all other Christian Writers that succeeded the Apostles who do not send us to turn over we know not how many other Volumes but tell us here we may be abundantly satisfied In so much that the first Christian Emperor Constantine the Father of Constantius now mentioned admonished the Bishops in the famous Council of Nice to consult with these heavenly inspired Writings as their Guide and Rule in all their Debates because they perspicuously instruct us as his very words are what to believe in divine things and therefore they ought he told them to fetch from thence the Resolution of those things which should come in question To which Cardinal Bellarmine indeed is pleased to say that Constantine truly was a Great Emperour but no great Doctor But as herein he speaks too scornfully of him so he reflects no less upon the understanding and judgment of those venerable Fathers assembled in that Council which as Theodoret tells us in his Ecclesiastical History was composed of Men excelling in Apostolical gifts and many of them carried in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus and were for the far greater part a Multitude of Martyrs assembled together who all consented unto and followed this wholsome counsel of the Emperour as he there testifies knowing he did but speak the sense of the truly Catholick Church Which did not meerly bid Men hear it and bring all doctrines to its touchstone but confessed plainly that even the Church it self must be tried by the Scriptures It is the express sentence of the same S. Austin in his Book of the Vnity of the Church Where in the second Chapter he saith the question then was as it is now where is the Church Now what shall we do says he seek for it in our own words or in the words of our Head our Lord Jesus Christ I think we ought to seek it rather in his words who is the Truth and best knows his own Body And in the beginning of the third Chapter thus proceeds Let us not hear thus say I and thus sayest thou but let us hear thus saith the Lord. The Lords Books there are certainly to whose authority we both consent we both believe we both yield obedience there let us seek the Church there let us discuss our cause And to name no more the Author of the imperfect work upon St. Matthew carrying the name of S. Chrysostome declares this so fully that it leaves no doubt in us what course they took for satisfaction in this business Heretofore says he there were many ways whereby one might know what was the true Church of Christ and what was Gentilism but now there is no way to know what is the true Church of Christ but by the Scriptures Why so Because all those things which belong properly to Christ in truth and reality those heresies have also in show and in appearance They have Scriptures Baptism Eucharist and all the rest even Christ himself like as we have Therefore if any one would know which is the true Church of Christ how should he know it in such a confusion of multitude but only by the Scriptures which he repeats over again a little after he therefore that would know which is the true Church of Christ how should he know it but by the Scriptures To them let us go and in them let us rest and if you are the Disciples of the Gospel may we say to the Romanists as Athanasius does to the Followers of Apolinarius in his Book about the Incarnation of Christ Do not speak unrighteously against the Lord but walk in what is written and done But if you will talk of different things from what are written why do you contend with us who dare not hear nor speak beside those things which are written Our Lord telling us if you abide in the word even in my word you shall be free indeed What immodest frenzy is this to speak things which are not written and to devise things which are strangers to piety To which if we faithfully adhere there is this to be added for our incouragement that though we
should mistake in the sense of the Scriptures yet they secure us that if we with honest and upright hearts continue to inquire after the truth designing nothing else that error shall not prejudice us But God will either discover to us his mind or not condemn us for our error of weakness not of wilfulness SECT XX. The Vanity of their appeal to Traditions AS for Interpretations of Scripture by Tradition they may be pretended and talkt of but cannot be produced in most places where we are desirous of that help which we gladly receive when we can have it by a truly Universal consent But as for particular interpretations of the ancient Fathers they do not absolutely agree with each other in their Expositions of those Texts upon which controversies of greatest moment are now grounded Nay they oft times propound divers interpretations alike probable And sometimes plainly intimate their doubtfulness and make but imperfect conjectures in such a manner as if they intended to excite Posterity to seek for further resolution Therefore we shall not dissent from them though we do not assent to all their particular interpretations Nay we cannot more dissent from them than by following their interpretations on such strict terms as the Romanists would bind us all to do when they seem to make for their advantage For then there is not the least surmise or conjecture of any one Father but must suffice against the joynt Authority of all the rest To which Rule of serving their interest they are so true that they stick not to reject any interpretation of the Fathers when they think good and which is more to prefer their own expositions before theirs And so they do in the matter of all other Traditions though called Apostolical For instance the threefold immersion in Baptism which seems to have flowed from an Apostolical Canon is long ago abolished saith their Canus by a contrary custome And so is the custome of giving the communion to Infants which prevailed says their Maldonate for 600. Years in the Church not only antiquated by them but decreed to be unlawful Which clearly shows that they might if they pleased make an end of all the controversies that trouble the Church without any disparagement but rather with the increase of its Authority For challenging a power to alter even the Institutions of Jesus Christ as they have done in taking away the Cup from the People in the Holy Communion and much more those of the Apostles what need all this stir about Apostolical Traditions or the Decrees of the Church which they may lay aside at their pleasure and have laid aside as appears by many other instances besides those now named that may be given of it But it is sufficient for the direction of every honest hearted Man to know which is as certain as any thing of that nature can be and may be undoubtedly relyed on that nothing is clearer in the Tradition of the Church than this that the Doctors of it declare the Scriptures to be full and perspicuous in all needful matters And therefore there needs no other Tradition but the Tradition of the Scriptures which satisfie us abundantly in the Truth of all those things which are universally received SECT XXI And their guilt in what they say about the holy Scriptures THERE cannot therefore be a greater demonstration of their guilt than this that notwithstanding such evident testimonies from the Scriptures themselves and the concurrent stream of the ancient Doctors of Christ's Church they have been forced to avoid this trial by the Scriptures to say so many scandalous things as they have done in disparagement of the Sacred Writings Many of them are commonly known and I am not willing to repeat the rest but only say this great truth that whether they will or no their Church such as it is receives all its Authority from the Scriptures and not the Scriptures from it For we can have no notion as was said before of a Church or of its authority but from the Scriptures Which therefore must be of greater authority than that which receives authority from them and be first supposed to be infallible before they can make us believe any thing else is so For we must be secure of the proof before we can be sure of the thing proved by it otherwise it is no proof but leaves us as much in doubt as we were before it was alledged If they say and what else can be said with any colour of reason that we must indeed learn their Churches infallibility from the Scriptures but then learn the rest from their Church mark I beseech you what follows Then it is manifest First that they themselves make the Scriptures the Rule of Faith in this one Article at least concerning the Catholick Churches infallibility Which we must therefore believe and for no other reason because the Scriptures which we first infallibly believe do teach and prove it Whence it plainly follows that private Men may and must be assured of the Truth of Scriptures without the help of their Churches Authority before they can believe any thing else because it is the ground for their belief of that infallibility which their Church pretends which to them is the General Rule of Faith And from thence it follows further that the Scriptures which to us are the only Rule of Faith ought to be acknowledged by them to be more than so even the Rule of their Rule of Faith And if it be so what reason can any Man alledge why it should not be the immediate Rule of Faith without sending us elsewhere to seek it in all other Articles of the Creed as well as in that of their pretended infallible Church We may appeal to all the World and call Heaven and Earth Angels and Men to witness between us and the Roman Church as a worthy Champion of our Cause did long ago whether the Articles of Christ's Incarnation his Death Passion Burial Resurrection Ascension Intercession the Resurrection of the Dead and life everlasting c. be not much more plainly set down in the Scriptures to any Mans apprehension whatsoever than the infallibility of the present Roman Church is in such words as these Thou art Peter c. Feed my Sheep or any other from whence they challenge it And therefore why should we be required to learn these or any other part of Christian Faith meerly from their Church when we learn them so easily by the Scriptures in which they are to be found more clearly delivered than any thing we read about their Church Let no Man doubt but if the Holy Ghost will teach us that Article of the Churches Infallibility immediately by the Scriptures without the help of the Churches infallible Authority as they themselves are forced to confess because else the Church can have no authority then He will immediately teach us by the same Scriptures any other Article of our Creed and whatsoever is necessary to Salvation
which are plainly and perspicuously enough set down in the Scriptures without the help and assistance of the Churches infallible authority which the Scriptures cannot be supposed to teach but by places far more doubtful SECT XXII It is our Wisdom therefore to adhere to the Scriptures TO this Rule then let us stick keeping those words of our Saviour always in mind iii. Joh. 21 22. He that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved But he that doth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God Let that be his Guide who would not go astray in dangerous Paths into which he cannot fall who keeps close to the directions of the Holy Books wherein all necessary Truth being set down as the most ancient and best Doctors unanimously agree we are certain every way by believing them to believe all necessary Truth and if our lives be accordingly without which they tell us our belief will be vain it is impossible we should fail of everlasting Salvation To these alone as St. Austin speaks for himself in his Book of Nature and Grace we owe an absolute consent without refusing any thing they propound to us Whatsoever it be as his words are in his CXII Epistle that is confirmed by the perspicuous authority of the divine Scriptures those viz. which are canonical in the Church it must be believed without any doubting But as for any other witnesses or testimonies to which thou art perswaded to give credit thou mayest believe them or not believe them according as thou perceivest them to deserve or not deserve to be relied on A great reverence is due to the Church and its testimony though less to the present Church of Rome than others because it hath so grosly abused the World by false records and forged Miracles and such like things yet only as to an humane Testimony which cannot equal that of the Holy Scriptures SECT XXIII Which have more manifest notes of certainty than the Church FOR if we take their own way and method to assure our minds that we follow an infallible Guide there is no note which they give of the true Church which they say ought to be our Guide but pleads far more strongly for the Holy Scriptures that we should rather follow them and give an undoubted credit to them I shall not run over all those Notes nor examine the certainty of them but only briefly name some of them and show that if they prove any thing it is the Authority of the Scriptures above the Church First they say the very name of the Catholick Church is venerable and ought to be regarded But as that Name is not proper to them alone so if there be any power in Names to make us respect any thing what more awful than the Name of the Word of God and the Sacred Scriptures which were always given to these Books to which we advise all Christians to adhere The next Note which is Antiquity is on the side of the Scriptures also which more justly claim to be ancienter than all other Books which pretend to any Divinity than the Catholick Church can claim to be ancienter than all other Societies which call themselves by the Name of a Church Nay the Doctrine contained therein must be supposed as I have shown to be before the Church which is made by belief and profession of that Doctrine and the Old Testament certainly written long before the Church was made Catholick As for unity in that the Church is not comparable to the Scriptures whose agreement and consent of parts is admirable And if we speak of the surest bond of true Catholick Vnity it is as manifest as the Sun that the Holy Scriptures lay the foundation of it and preserve us in it if we adhere to them by keeping us close to one Lord one Faith one Baptism but the Church of Rome which hath usurped the Name of Catholick makes this blessed Unity impossible For there being but two ways to it either that we all agree in our Opinions about Religion or that while we differ it be no hinderance to Communion they have made the latter as impossible as the former because they make it absolutely necessary to communion and salvation to believe in every thing as they do The like might be said of Holiness and efficacy of Doctrine which depends upon the Churches speaking according to the Scriptures sanctity of the authors of our Religion which cannot be known but out of the Scriptures the glory of Miracles the light of Prophecy and all the rest but I shall only touch upon one more the Amplitude and Universality of the Church in which they make their boast But herein the Scriptures most evidently excel their Authority being there sacred where the Church of Rome whose Notes these are is not known or not regarded For all Christians in the World of whatsoever Sect they be believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God whereas they alone say that they are the only true Church of God All Christians besides who know any thing of this pretence of theirs absolutely deny it and maintain the Divinity and Authority of the Scriptures against all their Cavils SECT XXIV The great incouragement we have to do so BY following the Scriptures then we follow the surest Guide by their own confession For first by following the Scriptures we are certainly led by God but by following the Church we are only led by Men. And consequently the Faith we build upon the Scriptures is a Divine Faith but the Faith we build upon the authority of the Church meerly can be no more than humane For the Scriptures are fully and amply proved to be of Divine Authority by all those Arguments which are alledged in the Third Book of this Work the like to which cannot be produced to prove the infallible authority of the Church Which cannot so much as pretend that God hath bid us believe it but by sending us to the Holy Scriptures from whence it derives all its Authority Which is the second thing to be considered and here I will take the liberty to transcribe part of the discourse of a great Man on this Subject with some Additions that by following the Scriptures we follow that which they themselves are forced to follow as was noted before and on which they intirely depend for the proof of their own authority on which they would have us intirely depend Who have reason rather to rely on that which they rely and in so doing tacitely confess the Scriptures are of greatest authority and that they are surer of their Truth than of the Churches Infallibility And Thirdly by following the Scriptures we follow that which must be true if their Church which they would have us follow have any truth in it for their Church cannot but give attestation to them whereas if we follow their Church we must follow that which