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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43788	The grand apostacy of the church of Rome, from her primitive purity and integrity with a vindication of the Church of England, in her separation from her, and the hazard of salvation in communion with her : discoursed in a sermon preached at St. Mary le Bow, London on Sunday the 28th of December, 1679 / by John Hill.	Hill, John, d. 1709.	1680 (1680)	Wing H1996; ESTC R12819	28,385	79

Abominations Thus in these two things you see our Separation lawful II. Now secondly I assert this Separation to be so lawful that the Romanists themselves cannot justly charge it as Schismatical I say justly though Stapleton Sanders Bellarmine and other Romanists brand our Separation from them with the odious name of Donatism and Schism because it is evident out of St. Augustine that as the Donatists never objected any thing against nor could blame any thing in the Church from which they separated either for Faith or Worship So they of the Church of Rome cannot justly blamo us for departing from them if we consider these two things 1. The manner how we separated 2. The ground for which we separated 1. The manner This was not uncharitable rash heady and ●…advised not before all means were used for the cure of the Romanists by the discovery of their errours notwithstanding which they still persist in them Our famous and learned Reformers would have healed Babylon but she would not be healed Many skilful Physicians have had her in hand but she grew so much the worse and instead of being reclaimed by them hath anathematized them with the most dreadful Curses excommunicated murdered and destroyed multitudes of them Nay more they were denied civil and religious Communion with her unless they received the beasts mark in their hands or foreheads All which considered we might safely forsake her nay could not safely do otherwise therefore Come out of her my people 2. Consider the ground and cause as well as the manner of the Separation which was not for some slight and tolerable Errours but damnable Heresies and gross Idolatries the Heresies fundamental and the Idolatries such as those who hold Communion with her cannot but partake of her sins If then to thrust Jesus Christ out of the Chair and place the Pope as infallible Doctor of the Church in it if to reject the Scriptures and set up Traditions if to take off Jesus Christ from being sole Mediator and thrust in Saints and Angels if to raze the second Commandment and introduce Image-worship be damnable Heresies and gross Idolatries then the Church of Rome is gullty of them and our Communion on this very account is expresly forbidden See 2 Cor. 6.14.17 What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness c. vers 17. Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate Our Adversaries themselves grant That in whatever Church any of these depravations are found Communion with it is to be broken off as dangerous and damnable which brings me to the third thing asserted viz. III. That our Compliance with this Church is dangerous and borders upon eternal Ruine This will appear if you consider this Church under these destructive circumstances 1. In her gross Idolatry and no Idolater shall ever enter into the kingdom of heaven look on her Image-worship Invocation of Saints Adoration of the Hoast what is all this but plain Idolatry The second Commandment not onely prohibits this sin but threatens a severe punishment to such sinners The wiser sort of the Heathens condemned the Worship of God by Images as incongruous to the divine nature and an horrid reflection on the Deity The old Romans as Varro tells us had no Images for a hundred and seventy years in their Divine Worship The Primitive Christians would rather die than defile themselves with Images Antisthenes condemns the use of them for Instruction because there is so great dissimilitude between God and any visible representation of him that no man can learn any thing of God from an Image And as for their common distinction of not worshipping them ●erminativè but relativè it 's vain and ridiculous And pray observe this viz. that their worshipping of Images came in with the decay of their Piety 2. In that Enmity and Opposition the Romanists have to the sacred Scriptures those lively Oracles of the living God and so consider 1. How they complain against them as not containing all things needful for Salvation that the best part of Religion is left out of them and onely made known to us by their unwritten Traditions 2. They forbid the people to read them and will not have them translated in the Mother-tongue of any Nation And if once as some of them boast they could get us out of Scriptures into Councils and Fathers they should do well enough with us 3. They make the Pope Judge over the sence of Scripture and forbid all other Interpretations but what agree with the Church and Pope of Rome 4. Their Mouths have been open against them and have belched forth bitter and blasphemous Invectives against them How often do they call the Scripture dead Ink and a dumb Judge that it is not Regula regulans but Regula regulata not made to rule our Faith but our Faith to rule it that it is not simply necessary and it receives all the Authority it hath from the Church and from Tradition without which it is of no credit at all What horrid Blasphemy is this Doth not God command us to consult his Oracles to apply our selves unto the Law and to the Testimony Isa 8.19 20. and makes it a renunciation of our Allegiance to him to go any where else for Counsel or Direction than to the written Word But we know wherein the insufficiency of the Scripture lyes they are sufficient enough for God's ends but not for the Pope's ends they are able to furnish every Christian in the world with Wisdom enough how he should save his Soul but they are not so useful to the Pope's triple Crown this Armory furnisheth him with no Artillery to defend the Lordly Power and God-like Infallibility that he claims and this is the only defect he charges them with To supply which the rabble-rout of Traditions is brought into the Church this way their fine Wits with the Devils help have taken that the Scripture may be declared as insufficient and uncertain minima particula revelatae veritatis as one of them impudently writes and so it needs the patchery of their Traditions to make it perfect Just as Andronicus served the Emperour Alexius who gave out that he was weak and insufficient to govern alone and so first got a joynt power with him and at last an absolute power over him to dethrone him And whether their Traditions have dealt better with the Scriptures let the world judge when These go up the Scriptures go down That we may say to them as Christ said to the Pharisees Mat. 15.6 You have made void the Commandments of God by your Traditions you have unlorded as the Septuagint renders it and supplanted its authority in the minds of men who leave Gods Word to hearken to your Traditions 3. Consider farther that most parts of Popery are directly absurd and offer violence to common Sense and the very light of Nature For who can rationally conceive That it should be the Popes right

to Lord it over Scriptures Fathers Councils Church and all the World What possibility is there that the Kingdoms of the world should be subject unto him What probability that Images should be worshipped Our Works merit Heaven That the body of Christ should be in a thousand places at one time That the Priest hath Judicial Power to forgive sins That the Saints in Heaven should be Mediators for us to God He that will but indifferently compare these shall finde them manifestly repugnant not onely to the Principles of Religion but offer violence to the Law of Nature 4. Consider farther that in this Church the most horrid Cruelties are not onely tolerated and approved but rewarded and accounted meritorious It teacheth Equivocation to murder Kings to undermine States and to blow up Parliaments it dispenseth with Murder Incest Sodomy and all this accounted Licitum Solenne From hence proceeds such Conspiracies against our King such Plots against our Church and State 't is not Religion they strive for but Soveraignty and this they will have or they will make all Protestant Nations their Shambles and swim to it through Oceans of Blood and they will this way if others fail reduce the Consciences of Subjects and the Crowns and Scepters of Princes to their Devotion This brands them with the Indelible Characters of the Ministers of Antichrist who being but Priests and confined to their Books having no other Commission than to go and preach the Gospel should thus creep into Thrones filling the world with Anarchy and Confusion and those whose Souls they should win to God by ministring the Word and Sacraments their Bloud they sacrifice to the Devil by stirring them up to Treason and Rebellion perswading them that they shall be Canoniz'd at Rome though they be hang'd at Tyburn and be glorious Saints in Heaven though they died great Rogues and Rebels on Earth These things duely considered in general will tell you that there is hazard not onely of Temporal Safety but of Eternal Salvation in our Communion with such a Church and therefore Come out of her c. This will the better appear if you consider secondly and more particularly this one Argument drawn from the Religion it self practised in that Church And this I will consider two ways 1. As the Jesuits have painted and adorned it 2. As 't is stript naked of all those adventitious Ornaments First As they have painted it and thereby recommended it to the view of their ignorant admirers We read of strange things of certain Painters how admirably they cast and shadowed their works but the skilfullest Painters that ever were are the Jesuits and School-men the workmen of the Church of Rome not the famous Zeuxis or antient Polignotus or Phidias did ever bestow such pains on their Images as these have done on their Idol the Papacie They have made choice of the most exquisite devices that all the Heresies in the world could afford to put the same into their Religion No Policy in Machiavel no Sophistry in Aristotle or Eloquence in Tully but they have contrived it into their Image and save Truth and Sincerity there is nothing wanting The Evangelical Prophet Isai 44.11 c. sets down a lively description of this matter whereby deriding the folly of the Gentiles he fitly shews us the Idolatry of Rome and the manner how the Idol-Religion thereof was framed and set on foot For at the first you see it was but a rude Block rough-hewn by bungling Workmen that were not their Crafts-masters till the Smith Carpenter and Painter came every one in his place and shewed his skill This is ingeniously applied by a very learned man of our own to the Church of Rome 1. The Canonists like Black-smiths blew with the Bellows of their Decrees and heated and hammered it in the Coals of the Popes Constitutions These were Gratian Pope John Gregory and Boniface with their Apprentices that served them Hostiensis Innocent Panormitane and others of that black and smutty Profession Secondly The Carpenters that took it in hand were the Fryars and School-men These stretched their line of Method over it planed it with Distinctions where it was rough and by their Logick and Philosophy brought it into better shape and form These were T. Aquinas Scotus Bonaventure Alexander Hales and others Having thus gotten an handsome shape and fashion the Council of Lateran polished it over again gave it Joynts to stand upon The Councils of Constance and Basil altered the fashion of it in some particular parts for Senensis and Cusanus thought the head stood too high above the shoulders and would have it bowed down a little lower At last they brought it to Trent to the hands of their best Workmen who moulded it à capite ad calcem and set it up again when the worms had well-nigh consumed it Since which came in the third sort of Workmen viz. Thirdly The Painters i. e. the Jesuits and there is no colour which they have not tried to render it beautiful Some with Varnish and Plaister stop up the cracks and Bellarmine was happily born to do them this service Others as Baronius and Surius cast a shadow over it with other colours Sextus Senensis and Possevine brag of the Workmanship flatter the Workmen and extol the Idol And thus at last they have polished their Idol and set it before the Lord's Ark And by this means they have attracted the eyes and hearts of their deluded followers insomuch that all that worship not this Image must into the fiery Furnace and be offered as a Sacrifice to the fury of their Romish Moloch Now that which they are so fond of in this Religion is its suitableness to their sensual interests and affections the greatest part of which easeth them from taking any pains in spiritual things As for Example They must serve God but there be ways to dispence and turn the Spiritual Service into a Corporal which is much easier Sinners must have Gods pardon or they cannot be saved but the dispensation hereof is committed with the Keys to Christs Vicar who hath power to release them by the Sacraments of the Altar and Penance Hence the Pope hath mens Consciences at his devotion into which he slides under the pretence of being St. Peter's Successor then blindes their eyes by taking away the Scriptures and stops their ears by perswading them to hear none but himself And hereby thousands are betrayed into the hands of Eternal Ruine This is the first thing shewn viz. that part of their Religion as set forth with Romish Glosses and Varnishes I am next to shew it you in its native Complexion as stript naked of all adventitious Ornaments and then you will easily perceive it to be the most monstrous and ridiculous the most bloudy and blasphemous Religion in the whole world 1. Ridiculous in it self 2. Blasphemous towards God and Christ 3. Bloudy to all that have and do oppose her I. The most ridiculous Religion as