Man And is the scene so much chang'd that now it is become the black mark of a damnable Heretick The Prophets permitted the People to judg by the Scriptures which were true and which were counterfeit messengers from Heaven crying out to the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this word 't is because there is no Isa 8. 20. light in them And must we acknowledg these men for the Pillars of Truth and the Lights of the World without being allow'd the same liberty When our Saviour was ask'd by that young man what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life Our Lord answers him what saith the Law How Readest thou And shall ignorance be now accounted the surest Road to Heaven Search the Scripture was his precept but is the prohibition of the Romish Church Timothy and the Bereans were indeed commended by St. Luke and St. Paul as noble persons for their diligence in the Scriptures But if they had liv'd in the days of our Modern Saints this would have been thought a crime deserving the lash of the inquisition An Anathema would have been their spiritual reward and fire and faggot their civil recompence Certainly such a practice as this had need be back'd with good Apologies or else they will never be able to justify so great an abuse of the Lord Jesus But how weak are their pleas and how insignificant the excuses they make Is it because the People may wrest the Scripture to their perdition that they are forbidden their use Alas because some may abuse it must all therefore be depriv'd of it because some may make Scripture the support of their errors must it not therefore be the foundation of truth Because some dogs have trampled on the Bread of Life Must the Children therefore be withheld from their Spiritual Food Because Hereticks have taken too large draughts of the new Wine of the Gospel must all therefore be denied to tast of it Because some know not the worth of these Pearls must those therefore who know how to value them be hinder'd from their possession By the same reason the Scriptures should not be permitted in the Learned Languages for Learned Men have been generally the first broachers of Heresy and are most capable of perverting the Holy Writings Is it because Scripture is so obscure that if the common people did injoy it they could not understand it 'T is acknowledged there are mysteries in our Religion and God hath for wise ends left some things more dark and obscure to awaken our industry abate our Pride and show the most Learned his ignorance and infancy in knowledg and create in us all earnest longings after that Happy state where all the Riddles shall be unfolded and the mysteries clearly reveal'd But there is so much perspicuously laid down as is necessary to Salvation and every man that Reads it and sincerely endeavours to understand it shall with the help of Divine Grace arrive at so much Knowledg as if improv'd into practice will bring him to Heaven The great end why the Scripture was written was that we might have a constant Monitor of our duty and guide 2 Tim. 3. 16. to happiness now if the Scripture were so obscure that it answer'd not this end this would reflect upon the Divine Wisdom as if he had chosen an insufficient means and were defeated in his methods and expectations And it would equally reflect upon his goodness as if he envied his creatures happiness if after our sincere and humble endeavours we could not understand the things that are necessary to our Salvation The essentials are clearly reveal'd tho there be some obscure passages yet the Divine Goodness hath left them not that we should be debar'd from Reading but to prevent our loathing and contempt and the darkest phrases are incomparably more intelligible than the cloudy obscurities of their admired Authors The pious nonsence of Mother Juliana and the sanctifi'd gibberish of their mystical Divines are infinitely less perspicuous than the Prophecies of Daniel or mysteries of the Revelations And yet those which reflect on Christianity as if it consisted only in Enthusiastick heats and raprures are allow'd while the Scripture which gives so lovely a description of the Christian Religion must be shut up from the sight of the multitude But whatever slender pretences may be us'd to delude perverse Hereticks we have good ground to think that the true cause of this Restraint is the same which our Saviour mentions Joh. 3. 19. They love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil Should the Scriptures be read by all their Proselytes would be few and their Altars would no longer smoke the Grandeur of the Church must be abated the infallible Chair would totter and Rome would be no longér the Mistress of the Earth 2. Their pretence of Infallibility and the Scriptures dependance on the Authority of their Church This is another Invasion on Christs Prophetical Office For if Infallibility be lodg'd in either Pope or Council for they are not agreed where it is plac'd then tho Christ hath never so clearly explain'd his mind they may make what Expositions of his words they please and obtrude them on our belief Their great Champion Bellarmine asserts That if the infallible Head should condemn Vertue for Vice and commend Vice as Vertue we are bound to believe Vice as morally good and Virtue evil but if this be Gospel our great Master hath deceiv'd us and we have been led by our Saviour into an Error Then if that impure Cardinal that writ a Book in praise of the scarlet Sin of Sodom had been exalted to the Papal-chair and from thence proclaim'd that unnatural Vice to be morally good we should have been bound to believe it And tho some pretend that such a Supposition is not to be made because the Spirit of truth will guide the unerring Head into all truth yet sad experience hath taught us that the broadest Impieties have been canonized and miscal'd Virtue and Justice at Rome Besides what possible reason is there they should be secur'd from Error more than from Sin How can it be imagin'd that that Holy Spirit which is griev'd with impurity and will not dwell in the Habitations of uncleanness did infallibly assist those Monsters for Villany which are acknowledg'd by Baronius and Platina to have worn the Triple Crown in the ninth and tenth Centuries Surely if such a gift as this was ever given to the Guides of the Church How obscure soever the Scripture be in other things it will be highly necessary it should plainly lay down this important Doctrine But alas How impertinent are the Proofs they bring They are either such as will equally prove the Civil Magistrates and Judges in Westminster-Hall infallible Such is that Deut. 17. 10 11 12. Where Judges are appointed to decide matters of Difference between man and man to whose Decisions the People are bound to agree that their
lest ye corrupt your selves and worship Graven Images If the Heathen Idolatry were only forbidden of what inconsequent arguing would Moses here be guilty Take heed lest ye worship the Images of false gods for ye never saw any Representation of the true God But if all Worship of Images be here forbidden then the Argument is very pertinent and forcible Take heed how ye Worship God in any outward Representation for if such a thing were pleasing to him he would not have left it to your choice to do it in what form you pleas'd but would have appear'd in such a likeness as best pleas'd himself Besides the golden Calf which the Israelites worshipp'd as a resemblance of God was a breach of this Commandment and is called an Idol Acts 7. 41. For that the Israelites did make this as a resemblance of the true God is Exodus 32. clear from the Story Aaron says these be thy Gods O Israel that brought thee out of the Land of Egypt and Proclaims a Feast to Jehovah for either we must suppose the Israelites to be so stupidly sottish as to suppose this Calf to be really that God that brought them out of Egypt before it was made or if we cannot find in our hearts to believe them so absurd we must believe they fell back to the Egyptian Idolatry or worshipt the true God under this representation That it was not a resemblance of the Egyptian Gods is evident from hence that he is call'd Jehovah and is represented as the God that brought them out of Egypt for could they once imagine that the Egyptian Gods had destroy'd their own most zealous worshippers and wrought such wonders for them who abhor'd their worship and would give them no adoration is it not much more rational to suppose that the Israelites expected some symbol of the Divine Presence going before them as they might expound that promise Exod. 23. 20. And Moses being See more of this in Stillingsleets Defence of the Idolatry of R. C. Page 747 absent for 40 Days they doubting whether ever they should see him more devise with themselves what token to have of Gods presence with them and the most part being sway'd by their Education in Egypt where they worship'd their chief god Osyris in the form of a Bull compel Aaron to make a Golden Calf And if this be in them accounted Idolatry must not the same title be given to our Romish worshippers of Graven Images Of the same sin was Micah guilty in Judg. 17. who to ease himself of the trouble of travelling so often to Sbiloh to worship there made a molten and graven image as a representation of the Lord Jehovah builds a Chappel in his house and hires a Levite to be his Priest and in this rejoyces exceedingly now know I says he that the Lord will do me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest Judg. 17. 13. Of the same nature was that great sin of Jeroboam for which he is branded with so black a Character in Scripture he made two Calves in Dan and Bethel as a representation of God 'T is plain he design'd not to draw the Israelites from the Worshipping God but from going up to Jerusalem to Worship lest their converse with the Two Loyal Tribes should revive their principles of Loyalty also and reduce them to their subjection to their Lawful Sovereign and therefore his successors were look'd upon as worshippers of Jehovah Thus Jehu was zealous for the Lord 2 King 10. 16. Jehovah though he departed not from this sin of Jerobcam Thus it appears how plainly God hath forbidden all worship of him by images And that this Law was not only positive and temporary but unalterâ—bly obliging all men appears from the reason of the Law The unsuitableness of an image to the Divine Nature Isa 40. 18 25. The Prophet rhere after a stately and majestick description of the Divine Greatness concludes with this inference To whom then will ye liken God Or what likeness will ye compare unto him As if he should say Seeing God is so immensly Glorious a being your own reasons may convince you of the folly of making any representations of him John 4. 24. God is a Spirit and will be worship'd in spirit and truth That is as some interpret the words not in the Image of a Dove as the Samaritans Worship'd him on Mount Gerizim nor with the Typical Sliadows of the Jewish Law St. Paul when arguing with the Athenians bends his discourse against their Worshipping the Sovereign God in the likeness of silyer or gold or stone Acts 17. 29. and in Rom. 1. 23 He disputes against the wiser Philosophers and accuses them that when they knew God to be an Immensly Glorious being they fashion'd him like a man and Worship'd him by Images and the accusation will equally concern our present Romish pretenders to Wisdom The same apologies the wise men of Athens and Rome made to excuse their Heathenish Idolatry are adapted by the Popish Schools to justify their worshipping Images Plutarch and Celsus and Julian and Maximus Tyrius and many others tell us they look'd upon Images only as helps to remembrance and means of exciting their devotions nay the worshippers of the Sun and Moon and Stars might better apologize for themselves For these natural Images are great Monuments of the Divine Wisdom and Power and Goodness but the present artificial ones express only the Gravers skill and imperfect cunning Nay further the very same pleas might be us'd by the Priests of Egypt to justify their most ridiculous follies Leeks and Onions may as well draw forth my penitential tears deified Apes and Monkeys may as well be the objects of my adoration as the Monstrous Pictures of the Trinity in their Temples But how contradictory soever this practise be to Scripture Images may well agree to that Church which retains little more than the faine image and shadow of a Religion 2. Their Adoration of Saints and Angels and giving them the same Worship the Heathens gave to their Daemons or inferior Deities By Daemons the Heathens understood an inferior sort of deified powers as middle Beings between the Sovereign God and mortal men and because they thought the higher God too pure and sublime to meddle with Earthly affairs they placed these as Mediators to prefent the prayers of Men to God and convey the benefits of God to Men thus Plato and Hesiod and others that describe them To this opinion the Apostle seems to allude in 1 Cor. 8. 5. 6. As there be Gods many and Lords many yet to us there is but one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ i. e. Tho the Heathens Worship'd many Supreme See this confirm'd in Mede's Apostacy of the later times Gods and inferior powers as Presidents and Mediators in Earthly things yet we Christians acknowledg but one sovereign Deity and one Mediator who presents our Prayers to the Father and brings us back the rewards
to convince Hereticks and that was to call for express words of Scripture and absolutely deny whatever reason said against any of the Articles of their new Belief And now since their Doctrines are thus confessedly unreasonable we may be assur'd they came not from Heaven or the God of Reason 2. Are their Doctrines warranted by any Prophecies concerning them The Apostles compleated those Prophecies that had been long before made God had foretold his abolishing the Ceremonial Law and establishing a perfect standing-rule for Jews and Gentiles But doth he any where foretell That after the expiration of so many Years Judaism and Paganism should be mix'd together by his appointment On the contrary the Gospel is call'd an everlasting Gospel and at the closing of the Canon of Scripture a Rev. 22. 18. terrible curse is denounc'd against those who should dare to make any additions to Scripture There are some Prophecies indeed in Scripture which seem to concern them St. John and St. Paul have spoken many things concerning Antichrist and the Man of Sin which many think are clearly applicable to the Roman Church But I know she will say concerning these as Ahab of Micaiah I hate these men for they Prophecy not good but evil concerning me 3. Can they attest the truth of their Doctrine by Miracles Here I know they will make their boasts There is not a Saint among them but is famous for incredible wonders The Apostles were but puny Miracle-workers in comparison of their Modern Saints And the great St. Francis St. Bridget St. Catharine and St. Thomas of Canterbury far exceeded St. Peter or St. James or St. John or any of the other Disciples Who can question the lawfulness of Worshipping the Virgin Mary when he hears that the Angels brought wood and stone cross the Sea to Loretto and built her a Chappel there Who can forbear falling prostrate and crying St. Thomas help me when those very words from the mouth of a Sparrow struck a cruel Sparrow hawk dead that had almost fastned upon her as his prey Have not the wild beasts of the wood fallen down before the Host when casually let fall and the very Asses cast themselves into a worshipping posture And is it not mighty strange that men will still trust their own senses and remain Hereticks after such wonderful evidence I might instance in manyother pretty tales out of their Legends but they are so ridiculous and extravagant as plainly speak out their forgery and the wiser among them are forc'd to confess them Pious Frauds and Godly Cheats Our Saviour and his Apostles did their mighty works openly in the sight of their greatest enemies But these are all transacted in corners before friends and those that have already entertain'd their doctrines And surely there must be some Legerdemain in the business that so many Miracles should be done in Italy and Spain and none in England But the true reason why they can do no mighty works in our Country is because of our unbelief Protestants would soon discover their cheats and they were once so baffled in that intended miracle of the Boy of Bilson a known story that they have hardly ventur'd the exposing themselves since Their Miracles when they are not plain forgeries are either the curing of melancholly sumes or Hysterical-Distempers which frequently create fancies in persons as if they were possess'd of which instances have been given by Protestants particularly as I remember by Mr. Baxter who have cur'd such and might have gain'd the name of Miracle-workers as well as they Or if any of their Indian Apostles as Xavier and had a true miraculous power it was to confirm the truth of Christianity to the Heathens and not their additional corruptions Finally if God do permit them to do some strange unaccountable actions to confirm their errors 't is but as a trial to our faith to see whether we will forsake the true Doctrine confirm'd by greater miracles when we are fore-arm'd against such aslaults by being told that Antichrist shall come with lying wonders and we need not fear the sin against the Holy Ghost if we say that by Beelzebub do these men cast out Devils But I had almost forgot one great Miracle which is daily perform'd and that is Transubstantiation But those who believe this must live by faith or rather unreasonable credulity and not by sight And the greatest Miracle of all is That men who are Wise and Rational enough in common matters should swallow such an heap of Contradictions And thus have I made good the Charge against the Romish Church in the first Sense and tho much more might have been said yet this fully proves that they have corrupted Christianity with their impure mixtures and cover'd the excellent Foundations of our Faith with the Hay and Stubble of their own Inventions And thus I proceed to make good the Charge against them in the second Sense 2. Whether they have desturb'd the World by Principles of Religion This hath been so common a Theme of late years ' that I need not spend much time in proving it The Miter is by them exalted above the Crown and Peter's pretended Successor is so far from Preaching up his Doctrine of Subjection to the Civil Powers that he requires Kings and Emperors to stoop to him I need not laboriously prove this by Quotations out of their Authors If the Decrees of their Councils the Bulls of their Popes the Determinations of their Canon-Law the Assertions of not only Jesuits those known Enemies to Monarchy but of the most approv'd Doctors of all Orders among them may be taken to be the Sense of their Church the Learned Bp. of Lincoln hath lately Collected them together and thereby fully confirm'd the Title of his Book That Popish Principles are destructive to Protestant Princes There we may find such dangerous Assertions as these That Emperors and Kings are the Popes Subjects That they may be depos'd by him for Schism Heresie Laziness or unprofitableness and that he is the sole Judg of the Crime and Condemnation That Statutes made by Laymen bind not the Clergy That the Pope is the Vicar of God and every creature is subject to him That he that prefers the King before the Priest prefers the Creature before the Creator In a word He hath given such convincing Demonstration That King-killing Doctrines are authoriz'd at Rome that we may justly wonder at the daring-Impudence of the late Tyburn-Saint who pretended that none but Mariana ever publish'd such Doctrines But what truth can be so plain which the Confidence of a Jesuit dare not deny Neither have these been the idle Speculations of the Schools or the entertainment of the Cells and Cloysters but have been practically maintain'd many hundred Years and the History of the Church for some Centuries is nothing else but a Tragical and Bloody Comment on this Doctrine 'T is hardly possible to mention one King since Rome's rise to her greatness that hath been but