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A55374 A dialogue between a popish priest, and an English Protestant. Wherein the principal points and arguments of both religions are truly proposed, and fully examined. / By Matthew Poole, author of Synopsis Criticorum. Poole, Matthew, 1624-1679. 1667 (1667) Wing P2828; ESTC R40270 104,315 254

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the command and usage of the Roman and universal Inquisition At best it seems I must not obey Christs command of searching the Scriptures unless the Bishop give me leave But I pray you tell me Do your people use to ask and the Bishops to give them leave to read the Bible Pop. I will not dissemble with you They do not And the truth is an approved Writer of ours Ledesima puts the question What if a man should come to the Bishop and desire liberty to read the Bible and that with a good intention to which he replies that the Bishop should answer him in the words of Christ Matt. 20. 20. Ye know not what ye ask and Indeed saith he and he saith it truly the root of this demand is an heretical disposition Prot. Then I perceive in this as well as in other things you are more careful to deceive people with pretences than to inform them But indeed you tell me no more than I had read or heard out of your own Authors It was the speech of your Pope Innocent That the Mountain which the Beasts must not touch is the high and holy Scriptures which the unlearned must not read and your Doctors commonly affirm that people must not be suffered to read the Scriptures because we must not give holy things to Dogs nor cast Pearls before swine My fourth General consideration against your Religion is this That it grosly contradicts the great designs and ends of the Christian Religion which all confess to be such as these the glorifying of God and his Son Jesus Christ and the humbling and abasing of men the beating down of all sin and the promoting of serious holiness Are not those the chief ends of Religion Pop. I do freely acknowledge they are and our Religion doth most answer these ends Prot. That you and I will now try And for the first Your Religion doth highly dishonour God sundry ways What can be a greater dishonour to God than to make the holy Scriptures which you confess to be the Word of God to depend upon the Testimony and Authority of your Pope or Church and to say that the Word of God is but a dead letter and hath no authority over us without their Interpretation and Approbation By which means malefactors for such all men are Rom. 3. 9 10. your Pope not excepted are made Judges of and superiour to that Law whereby they are condemned Tell me would not the French King take it for a great dishonour if any of his Subjects should say That his Edicts and Decrees had no Authority over his People without their approbation Pop. Yes doubtless he would Prot. Just so you deal with God and what can be a fouler dishonour to God than that which your great Stapleton affirmed and Gretser and others justified and your Church to this day have never disowned it That the Divinity of Christ and of God in respect of us depends upon the Authority of the Pope And what more dishonourable to God than what your great Champion Bellarmine saith That if the Pope should erre in forbidding Virtues which God hath commanded and commanding Vices which God hath forbidden And that he may so erre divers of your most famous and approved Authors confess the Church were bound to believe Vices to be good and Vertues bad unless she would sin against Conscience that is in plain terms the Pope is to be obeyed before God Again is it not highly dishonorable to God to give the Worship which is proper to God unto the Creature I confess the Prophet Isaiah hath convinced me of it Isa. 42 8. I am the Lord that is my Name and my glory will I not give to another neither my praise to graven Images Pop. I also am of the same mind but it is a scandal of your Ministers to say we give Gods honour to the Creature I know where about you are you mean it of Images whereas we worship them with a lower kind of Worship Prot. You worship them with such a kind of worship as neither Angels nor Saints durst receive Cornelius did not worship Peter with a Divine Worship as God for he knew he was but Gods Minister yet Peter durst not receive it It was an inferiour Worship which the Devil required of Christ for he acknowledges at the same time God to be his Superiour and the giver of that power he claimeth Luke 4. 6. And yet that was the Worship which Christ saith God hath forbidden to be given to any Creature You are a valiant man that dare venture your immortal soul upon a nice School distinction I pray you do you not worship the Bread in the Sacrament with that worship which you call Latria which is proper to God Pop. We do so and that upon very good reason because it is not Bread but the very Body of Christ into which the Bread is turned Prot. But what if the Bread be not converted in Christs Body Is it not then an high dishonour to God and indeed damnable Idolatry Pop. Yes our Fisher the famous Martyr and Bishop of Rochester saith No man can doubt if there be nothing in the Eucharist but Bread that the whole Church hath been guilty of Idolatry for a long time and therefore must needs be damned but we are well assured that it is no longer Bread and yet I must add this If peradventure it should still remain Bread yet for as much as we believe it to be the Body of our Lord our ignorance I hope would excuse us from Idolatry and God would not impute it to us Prot. Tell me I beseech you Will all kind of ignorance excuse a man Pop. No certainly There is a wilful and affected ignorance which because it is against clear light will not excuse Prot. Tell me farther Did this excuse the Iews from their sin of crucifying Christ and the damnation due to it that they did it ignorantly Act. 3. 17. Pop. No because they shut their eyes against the plain light and clear evidence of that truth that Christ was the Messias Prot. No less do you in the doctrine of the Sacrament for they had no greater evidences against them than Sense and Reason and Scripture all which you reject as I shall prove by Gods help And as your Religion dishonours God so doth it also highly dishonour Jesus Christ whom he hath sent who is expresly called the one Mediatour 1 Tim. 2. 5. But you have conferred that honour upon many others Saints and Angels Pop. True there is but one chief Mediatour but there may be other secondary Mediatours Prot. In like manner to that which the Apostle there saith there is but one God it might be said there are other secondary gods and so we might introduce the Heathen gods into the Church It is the great Prerogative of Jesus Christ that he is the Redeemer of the World yet your Bellarmine was not afraid to communicate this honour to