to God I know not I love Cartesian Philosophy the worse because its principle is so congruous to this And their Doctrine of lawful hiding their Religion by Equivocation is commonly known And what they say about coming to our Churches I have formerly cited at large out of Thom. a Jesu and the lawfulness of denying the person of a Clergie-man or a Religious man And the ground of all because humane Laws for the most part bind not the Subjects Conscience when there is great hazard of life as Azorius hath well taught Inst Moral To. 1. l. 8. c. 27. See the Authors words de Convers Gent. li. 5. Dub. 4. pag. 218. and Dub. 5. p. 218 219. and Dub. 6. p. 220. We may find them in our Churches and garb when their interest requires it But again I must for all these points refer the Reader to my forementioned Book A Key for Catholicks The history of the Papacie being thus briefly given you I should next briefly tell you I. What a Pope is II. What a Papist is III. What the present Papal Church is But it requireth more than this short Writing to open any one of these to the full But take this breviate CHAP. VI. What the Pope is 1. WE are not to describe the Bishop of Rome as he was at the beginning but as in that Stature to which he is since grown up And so unmeasurable a Potentate must be described to you but by parts and inadequate Conceptions And I will no more undertake to enumerate all than to Name all the Kingdoms known and unknown to us Europeans which he claimeth the Government of But I remember who it was that shewed Christ all the Kingdoms of the world and said All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Math. 4. 9. Or as Luk. 4. 6. All this Power will I give thee and the Glory of them for that is delivered to me and to whomsoever I will I give it I. The Pope of Rome is an Usurper who from the lawful Episcopacy of one particular Church aspired to be a Bishop over many Churches and Bishops and a Metropolitan and thence to be a Patriarch and the first Patriarch in the Roman Empire in order of Dignity and entred a Contest for the Primacie with his Competitor of Constantinople which is not ended to this day And next claimed an Universal Government in the Empire as well as a Primacy And also the Government of such Neighbour Churches as had once been in the Empire or had been lately converted by any of his Clergie And lastly being made a King of Rome or Secular Prince in Italy he also claimed a Monarchy or Government over all the world under the name of Ecclesiastical All this is proved in the foregoing History of the Papacy and may better be found out by any that will peruse the History of the Church and Empire than by particular Citations II. By the name of Ecclesiastical power he understandeth not only that which is truly spiritual or sacerdotal by which Gods word is preached and applyed to particular persons by reception into Christian Communion and exclusion from it sententially But also a power of erecting Courts of Judicature in all Kingdoms to judge of cases about Ministers Temples Tythes Testaments Administration of Goods Lawfulness of Marriages Divorces and many such like in a manner of Constraint which is proper to the Magistrate Abusively calling this the Ecclesiastical Power in foro exteriore distinct from the sacerdotal in foro interiore cheating the World with words Experience fully proveth this III. For the performance of this Deceit they appropriate to Princes and other Magistrates the Titles of CIVIL or SECULAR making the world believe that as Soul and Body differ so the Pope and his Clergie being Governours of the Soul or in order to salvation excel Kings and Magistrates who are but Governours for bodily welfare and Civil Peace Whereas indeed the difference of the Offices of Christian Magistrates and Pastors is not that one is but for the Body and the other for the Soul for both are to further mens Salvation and true Religion and the obedience of Gods Laws in order thereto But it is in this that Princes and Magistrates have the Power of Governing men in things Secular and Religious within their true Cognisance by the Sword that is by external Compulsion and Coercion by Mulcts and Penalties forcibly executed whereas the Pastors have only the Charge of Teaching men Christs Doctrine and Guiding the Church in the administration of Gods Worship and by the Keys or Authority from Christ judging who is capable or uncapable of Church Communion and declaring pardon and Salvation to the penitent for their Comfort and the contrary to the impenitent for their humiliation and all this only by Word of Mouth without any Constraining force Proof of the Character Pope Innoc. 3. vid. Cosins Hist Transub p. 147 148 God made two great Lights in the Firmament of Heaven and of the Universal Church that is he instituted two Dignities which are the Pontifical Authority and the Regal Power But that which ruleth the Day that is things spiritual is the greatest and that which ruleth carnal things is the less that it may be known that the difference between Popes and Kings is such as is the difference between the Sun and the Moon If this were true the lowest Priest were incomparably more honourable or amiable than Kings as the Soul is more excellent than the Body But David Solomon Hezekiah Josiah and all good Kings did shew that Religion was the matter of their Government and the principal part of their care Read for this fully Bishop Bilson of Christian obedience Bishop Buckeridge for the Magistrates Power and Bishop Andrews Tortura Torti excellent discourses against the Papal Usurpation IV. The Office which he thus claimeth as over all the Earth is to be the Vicar of Christ or of God or the Vice-Christ or Vice-God as Kings have their Vice-Kings in remote Provinces Proved I have elsewhere cited the words of Popes saying that they are Vice-Christi and Vice-Dei at large And Pope Julius's words we holding the place of the Great God the Maker of all things and all Laws And Carol. Boverius's words Consult de Rat. fidei c. to our late King saying Besides Christ the Invisible Head of the Church there is a necessity that we acknowledge another certain visible Head subrogate to Christ and instituted of him c. And Card. Betrand's words in Biblioth Patrum that saith Almighty God had not been wise else if he had not sent One only to Govern the world under him And Boverius reason Christ was himself on Earth once a visible Monarch And if the Church had need of a visible Monarch it hath need of one still Christ said that it was necessary that he went away that the Paraclete might come whom Tertullian calleth his Agent But the Papists will not part
shewed Having said thus much more to shew that your Foundation is Sand who send us from Books to our Grandfathers as infallible and that this is no better a ground than the Abassines Greeks and others may build on as well as you and that we our selves have a far surer and Universal Tradition than the Papacy hath and have your own consent to every word of our Objective Religion I now proceed to consider of your Character of Parties CHAP. II. YOU describe to us four supposed Parties I. The Puritan II. The Prelatical Protestant whom your Fitz-Simmons calleth The Formalist III. The Papist as you suppose us falsly to describe him IV. The Papist as you suppose him truly described whom you call The Apostolical Christian In all which you shew that you are far from Infallibility and a man unfit for your Relations to trust in so great a Case I. I confess you give the Puritan a very laudable description in comparison of the Prelatist Protestant and the feigned Papist And you tell us that you were once a Puritan your self and you own still that which you describe as Puritanism only adding Popery to it which you think it wants I confess you speak incomparably more honourably and charitably of Puritans than some malicious interessed Persons of their own Protestant Profession will do But 1. You deal not informingly in your describing a Puritan before you distinguish that ambiguous ill-made word It hath three common acceptions among us at least First The ancientest as it signifieth the old or later Catharists who held that they were perfect if they are not belyed And none come nearer these than the Papists and Quakers certainly Protestants are far from it Secondly the old Non-conformists had the name of Puritanes put on them by those that were against them For what reason I leave them to answer to God Thirdly and because these Non-conformists lived strictly and were for much preaching and praying and holy conference and spending the Lords-day in holy Exercises and serious diligence in working out our Salvation and were sharp against drunkenness swearing and such other sins therefore the vulgar Rabble of vicious ones that durst not rail at Piety under the name of Piety took the advantage of the Bishops displeasure at the Non-conformists and of the name Puritane and put that name upon all Christians among them that were notably serious in practical Godliness perswading themselves that they were all but Hypocrites And so the name among the vulgar Rabble grew common to godly Conformists and Non-conformists And as if loquendum cum vulgo had been a Law by this means the Devil did more hurt both to godliness rendring it among the vulgar to he but odious Hypocrisie and Singularity and to Episcopacy making Multitudes that disliked the wickedness of the Rabble to think that all this came from the Bishops and it did more to advance and honour the Non-conformists because the name was formerly theirs as such than by any one thing that I remember in all my younger days This the godly Conformists grievously complained of as Bishop Downame in his Spitâ—le Sermon called Abrahams Tryal and Mr. Robert Bolton who saith that he believeth that never poor persecuted Word passed through the Mouths of wicked Men with more bitter scorn since Malice first entred into the Heart of Man Really the permitting of the common Rabble of all the debauched Sinners of the Land to make serious godliness a common scorn under the name of Puritanisme had as great a hand as any thing I know in all our Confusions Fourthly and it added Fuel to the Fire when some brought up a fourth sence of the Word some say Mar. Ant. de Dom. Spalatensis was the inventor of it and that was Doctrinal Puritanes by which name they understood those by some called Calvinists by others Anti-Arminians who held the Doctrine of your Dominicans or of the Jansenists Now who can well tell which of these sorts of Puritanes you were and talk of while you Characterize the second sort as well as the first and yet distinguish them from Prelatick Protestants 2. But which ever it is observe here that you own the Puritanes Religion still and say I have not so much left Puritanism as Prelaticks call it as added that to it wherein I found it come short of the holy Apostles Doctrine and Institutions p. 1. And when you have described the Puritane as one seriously conscionable and regardful of his Salvation at large you add If this be to be a Puritane would to God all the World were Puritanes I am so far from being Converted from thus much of a Puritane that I most heartily wish I could Convert all the World to it 3. But yet your description of him is so very false that I may conclude when you turned as you think from being a meer Puritane to be a Papist you never knew what a Puritane is nor indeed ever were a Puritane your self unless you take the word as fitted to your self and such as you If you had meant by a Puritane a meer Non-conformist as such you would not so laudably have described the work of God upon his Soul and Life as you have done For if most Non-conformists be such yet so are many others as well as they And it 's easie to see what a deceitful course it is to take up a name of many significations and such as signifieth no different Religion at all as to any one Article of Faith nor any more difference in or about Religion than such as is among most Christian Churches and much less than is among your selves Besides that the plainer name of a Non-conformist is of no determinate nor certain signification save only in general to notifie one that Conformeth not to all that is imposed on him but what that is the name doth not signifie A Non-conformist in Scotland is one thing in England another thing as the Impositions are different Non-conformity twenty years ago or fourty years was one thing Non-conformity since 1662. is quite another thing And Non-conformists differ among themselves If twenty things be imposed as necessary to the Ministry he is a Non-conformist who consenteth but to nineteen of them and so is he that consenteth but to eighteen or to seventeen or to sixteen and so on as well as he that consenteth to none of them And that there is so much difference among them is no wonder to them nor any considerate Man for they hold Christian Love and Communion with those that agree with them in the foresaid common Principles and Practice of Christianity as far as they require not them to sin And they are not of a different Religion from every one that fasteth not on Fridays or Saints Vigils c. as you seem to be nor from every one that doth so nor from every one that thinketh not in every thing as they think or that prayeth in other words than they for no two Men in the World
Spiritual Body is extensive and invisible to us cannot tell you where it is present or absent no more than of an Angel 2. But we all hold as a piece of Plate or Silver Barrs is really and truly turned into the Kings Coine so the Bread and Wine is really and truly turned into Christs Sacramental Body and Blood and yet one is Silver and the other is Bread and Wine still The change is true but Relative by its Separation to that holy use as a Common person may be Really Changed into a King or a Lord or a Judge or a Captain or a Bishop or a Doctor and yet be a man still This real change we all Confess But the question is whether there be no Bread V. You say The Prelatick Protestant wonders that the Puritan when he is going out of this world should find difficulty to make a particular Confession of his sins if any grievous matter lye on his Conscience and humbly desire the Prelatick Priests absolution saying c. Answ I know of no difference between the Prelatist and the Puritan about Confession or Absolution Dr. John Reynolds a true Puritan received Absolution before he dyed Meer Puritans believe that it is a duty to Confess our sins to men 1. In Case of such injury to any as must have a Confession towards the injured persons Satisfaction and forgiveness 2. In Case of such difficulty about either the nature of the sin or Consequent dangers or dutyes as make a particular Guide necessary who cannot resolve our doubts till he know the Case 3. In Case that the Conscience be so burdened with the sin as that the sinner cannot by other means find ease till he have disburdened himself by such Confession 4. In Case it be necessary to heal any scandal given to others It is a very great duty for drunkards fornicators deceivers and such others to go to their Companions and lament their sin and perswade them no more to do as they have done And if required by the Pastors to take publick shame before the Congregation and acknowledg that the doctrine of Christ never countenanced them in any such sin that Religion and the Church may not bear the reproach of their delinquency And to beg the prayers of the Congregation for their pardon and that the Pastor by virtue of his office will pronounce it But we are not ashamed to confess that neither Puritans nor Prelatists think it lawful to make the people believe that they must needs tell the Priest of all the sins that they commit and dutyes that they omit Nor to uphold pragmatical Priests in the trade of knowing all mens thoughts and secret actions even Princes by which they may betray them 1. The number of people and of their sins is so great as render it impossible In this Parish it 's thought there is above threescore thousand souls How many thousand sinful thoughts or words or deeds a great part of these may commit in a year I leave to your Conjecture only I must tell you that if all men High and Low that are called Papists about us should but tell the Priest of every time they are drunk and every Fornication they have committed every prophane Oath they have sworn every Lye they have told especially against the Protestants and of every filthy and prophane Word that they have spoken and every Oppression of the poor and every filthy or covetons thought that hath been in their hearts they had need of a very Traditional Memory to remember them or great plenty of Ink and Paper to record them and a whole Diocess of Clergy-men in one Parish to hear them How many hundred Priests must this Parish have if all should thus confess all sins of Commission and Omission every cold Prayer and omitted Prayer Exhortation Alms Example c. especially the great Omissions of the Soul in the defects of the exercise of Faith Hope Love and Patience c. 2. And what good will it do a man that is himself of sound understanding and integrity to open his Conseience to an ignorant or unconscionable man that will call evil good and good evil and will put him upon sin as you here do by your Relations or that dare himself sin as boldly as you here do when you accuse Puritans and Prolates as holding meer Imputed Holiness 3. And how great a temptation and injury may this be to your Priests in such instances as Montaltus the Jansenist mentioneth with which I will not defile my Paper when alas most of them are not men fit to bear such temptations What if twenty thousand People in one Parish should each make this Confession to a Papist Priest I am afraid I have sinned in believing the common Report that you are a very ignorant drunken sot and a common whoremaster and a proud covetous lying man would it not be like to enrage the Priest into an enmity against his Flock If all the Fornicators in such a Parish should tell such Priests of all their filthy thoughts and words and their immodest actions and actual Fornications how like were it to make such impressions on the poor Priests Phantasie as would pollute him with many filthy imaginations VI. You adde The Prelatick Protestant wonders at the Puritan's niceness that he can by no means be perswaded to bow at the Name of Jesus When Nature teacheth us a Relative Reverence c. The sound of the Name Jesus is vanished and gone before the superstitious Worshipper can make his mimical Congie Whereas the Picture a far more lively representation of the same great Lord remains Ans 1. The Puritans think it not unlawful to bow when God or Jesus are named But 1. They are loth to serve those men that would turn all serious Religion into a dead Image of it 2. And they like not bowing at the Name Jesus and not at the Name God or Christ or Immanuel or Jehovah or the Holy Ghost 2. As to Images I will but refer you to Dr. Stillingfleet's last Book against Godwin which hath fully proved that you use them as truly Idolatrously as did the Heathens VII Your next Instance is The Conformists rejecting the Popish Girdle Stole and Casuble and yet wondring at the Puritans rejecting the Surplice Ans The former Answers serve to this Some Puritans would use the Surplice if that would serve and satisfie But they see that if they say A first they must say B next and so on to the end of your Alphabet But still you tell us what great things your new Religion doth consist of and what great cause you had to turn from the Puritans to the Papists If you had known no more than Books can tell you and your Grandfather had not known better than Baronius himself what the Apostles did and instituted we should never have known that the Religion which is integrated by a Surplice Girdle Stole and Casuble had been herein Apostolical and not rather a novel thing VIII Your
words of Reynerius saying that the outer Churches planted by the Apostles were not under the Church of Rome 8. The executive part neither could nor ever was performed upon the Churches without the Empire When did any Patriarch or any Provincial or General Council send for any Bishop or other person out of India Scythia Ethiopia or any other exterior Nation to answer any Accusation or pass any Sentence of Deposition or Suspension against them or put any other into their places 9. General Councils are confessed by Papists to be but a Humane and not a Divine Institution and what Humane Power could settle them in and over the Church Universal If you say It is by Universal Consent prove to us that ever there was such a Consent or that ever there was any meeting or treaty for such Consent of all the Christian World and we will yield it to you Surely if there be any Christians at the Antipodes they were not sent to in those days when Lactantius Augustine and others denyed that there were any Antipodes and derided it nor when the Pope by our Countryman Boniface his Instigation excommunicated Virgilius for holding that there were Antipodes Hear their great disputer Pighius Hierarch Eccles lib. 6. c. 1. fol. 230. General Councils saith he have not a Divine or Supernatural Original but meerly an Humane Original and are the Invention of Constantine a Prince profitable indeed sometimes to find out in Controversie which is the Orthodox and Catholick Truth though to this they are not necessary seeing it is a readier way to advise with the Apostolick Seat So that General Councils are Novel Humane and only of the Empire then 10. But to end all the Controversie the names of the Subscribers are yet to be seen who were not the representatives of the Christian World but of the Empire as is notorious Aeneas Sylvius Epist 288. saith that before the Council of Nice there was little respect had to the Church of Rome And though when he was made Pope Interest caused him to revoke his judgment of the Councils being above the Pope he never revoked such historical narratives Their great Learned Mathematical yet militant Cardinal Cusanus li. de Concord Cathol c. 13. c. saith that the Papacie is but of Positive right and that Priests are jure Divino equal and that it is subjectional Consent which giveth the Pope and Bishops their Majority and that the distinction of Dioceses and that a Bishop be over Presbyters are of Positive Right and that Christ gave no more to Peter than the rest and that if the congregate Church should chuse the Bishop of Trent for their President and Head he should be more properly Peter 's Successor than the Bishop of Rome Object Oh but this Book is disallowed by the Pope Answ No wonder So is all that is against him The Exceptions which we grant are these 1. There were some Cities of the Empire that were near to other Nations where the Princes being Heathens Christians were underlings and few And the Bishops of these Cities extended their care to as many of the Neighbour Countries as would voluntarily submit to them So the Bishop of Tomys was Bishop of many Scythians and so some that were on the Borders of Persia had many Persians and were at Nice 2. There were some Countries that were sometimes under the Roman Power and sometime under the Persian or others as Victory carried it and these when they had been once of the Imperial Church took it when they fell under Heathens to be their Honour Strength and Priviledge to be so accounted still and so would come to their Councils after if they could So it was with the Armenians and the Africans when the 〈◊〉 had conquered them c. 3. There were some Bishops that lived on the Borders of the Empire under Heathens that needed the help of Neighbour Churches and accordingly were oft with them craving their help So it was with the old Britans as to the Bishops of France 4. There were some small Countries adjoining to the Empire who took the Friendship of the Roman Power for their great Honour and safety and therefore were glad to conform in Religion to the Empire and to let their Bishops join with them 5. And there were some Neighbour Countries who were turned to Christianity by the Emissaries of the Bishop of Rome who therefore rejoicing also in so powerful a Patronage were willingly his Subjects But this was long after the first great Councils These two last were the Saxons case in England Accordingly you may sometimes find two or three out of such Countries at some of the General Councils of the Empire Which yet were called General but as to the Empire and not as to the World To proceed in the History When Christians were mostly exempted from the Magistrates Judicatures that were most Heathens though under a Christian Prince and so the Bishops Canons were to them as the Laws of the Land are to us it is no wonder that Councils must then be very frequent and Canons of great esteem and hereupon Bishops by prosperity growing more and more worldly and carnal made use of their Synodical Power as is aforesaid to accomplish their own Wills So that the Synods of Bishops became the great Incendiaries and Troublers of the Empire You need no more to satisfie you of this but to read the Acts of the Councils and the words of Nazianzen called Theologus against Synods and contentious Bishops and the sad Exclamations of Hillary Pictav They that had too little zeal against Ungodliness Unrighteousness Pride and Malice were so zealous against any that withdrew from their Power and contradicted them that they easily stigmatized them for Hereticks and made even godly sober Christians suspected of Heresie for their sakes while notorious Vice was used gently in those that adhered unto them Even holy Augustine saith Drunkenness is a mortal sin si sit assidua if it be daily or constant what not else and that they must not be roughly and sharply dealt with but gently and by fair words Vid. Aquin. 22. q. 150. a. 1. 4. ad 4. a. 2. 1. And their Great Gregory That with leave they must be lest to their own wit or disposition lest they grow worse if they be pulled away from such a Custom as Drunkenness But when it came to such as withdrew from under them they were not so gentle Lucifer Calaritanus is made the Head of a Heresie because he was but too much against the receiving of such as had been Arrians The large Catalogues of Heresies contain many that never erred in Fundamentals They prosecuted the Priscillianists so hotly that if godly men were but given to fasting and strictness of life they were brought into suspicion of Priscillianism And the Vulgar took advantage of the Bishops turbulency and ill disposition to abuse the godly S. Martin therefore separated from the whole Synod of the Bishops about him and
in our reproach of the same pretended Schism 5. Note how shamelesly the Papists still tell us of all the Bishops of the Christian World being for them and asking us where was our Church before Luther that is a Society of Christians that obeyed not the Pope when they confess that Augustine and all the African Church for twenty years obeyed him not and alas soon after the Vandals came and conquered them and persecuted and destroyed those famous Bishops that did survive And that you may further know that they had yet more disobedient Resisters than African Bishops you may remember that even the Egyptian Monks so long famous for their great austerity and sanctity had renounced not only obedience but Communion with the Pope and his Adherents Fulgentius was about going to live with them for their holiness but he was told of this and turned his course vid. Vit. Fulgent And how great were all those Churches of Aethiopia Armenia exterior India and the rest which the Apostles converted which Reynerius aforesaid truly saith are not under the Church of Rome Cont. Waldens Catal. in Riblioth Patr. To. 1. p. 773. I have formerly recited the words of Melch. Canus one of their great Bishops saying Loc. Theolog. li. 6. c. 7. fol. 201. Not only the Greeks but almost ALL THE REST OF THE BISHOPS OF THE WHOLE WORLD have vehemently fought to destroy the priviledge of the Church of Rome And indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperours and the GREATER NUMBER OF CHURCHES and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the one Pope of Rome See here their own Confession 1. Where Christians opposing the Pope were before Luther 2. And of what credit their boast of Universality and Catholick Tradition is One while W. H. saith The Bishops of the whole World were for them But when their cause leads them to tell truth they say Almost all the Bishops of the whole World have vehemently fought against the Pope and the Arms of Emperors and the greater number of Churches were against them And indeed if it had been none but the Greeks he might well have said The greater number of Churches For the Contest which begun upon the Emperours removal to Constantinople and at the first General Council increasing more and more till Gregory opposed John's Claim of Universal Bishop as Antichristian at last Phoc as the cruel murderer of Mauritius gave the Title to the Bishop of Rome But that no whit ended the contest following Emperors being contrary minded and the Greeks continuing their Claim the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople excommunicating one another so that by this abominable striving which should be the Chief or Greatest the Churches that were of old in the Empire have been divided and so they continue to this very Day as unreconcileable as ever And when Gregory sent his Emissary hither to Preach to the Saxons they found the Christian Britans and Scots not only averse to the Government Orders and Ceremonies of Rome so that in many Kings Reigns neither words nor force could make them yield but also such as refused their Communion and would not so much as eat and drink with them in the same house No wonder then that Marinarius at the Council of Trent complain that the Church is shut up in the Corners of Europe and that Sonnius Bishop of Antwerp say Demonstr Relig. Christ li. 2. Tract 5. c. 3. I pray you what room hath the Catholick Church now in the habitable World Scarce three Elns long in comparison of the vastness which the Satanical Church doth possess The truth is saith Brierwood Divide the known World and alas how much is unknown into thirty parts and about nineteen are Heathens and six Mahometans and five Christians of all sorts And of these Christians the Papists at this day are as some think about a fifth part some think a fourth part and some think a third part And after the assuming of the Universal Title their Popes more and more degenerated to such odious wickedness at last as we hope few Pagans are guilty of which we speak not as from Enemies but from their own Historians and Flatterers such as Platina Baronius Genebrard c. Nay not so much from them as from Councils General and Provincial which have accused condemned and deposed them Read in my Key for Catholicks pag. 220 221 222. the words of Baronius Genebrard Platina CL. Espensaeus 〈◊〉 Muss Guicciardine c. Nic. Clemangis Bernard Alv. Pelagius say more Let any impartial man but read the Articles on which the Council at Constance condemned and deposed John 23. about 70 in number in which they make him almost as bad as a man out of Hell can be and indeed say he was commonly called The Devil incarnate Read the Articles on which the Council at Basil condemned and deposed Eugenius the Fourth as a perjured Wreteh an obstinate Heretick and all the rest Read the Articles on which another Council deposed John 13. alias 12. And read the Lives of many more in their own Historians And what came the Church to when it had such Heads when Baronius saith ad an 912. that the face of the holy Roman Church was exceeding filthy when the most potent whores did rule at Rome by whose pleasure Seats were changed Bishops were given and which is a thing horrid to be heard and not to be spoken their Lovers were thrust into Peters Chair being false Popes who are not to be written in the Catalogue of the Roman Popes but only for the marking of such times And what kind of Cardinals Priests and Deacons think you we must imagine that these Monsters did chuse when nothing is so rooted in Nature as for every one to beget his like For near 150 years saith Genebrard about fifty Popes were rather Apostatical than Apostolical And where was their uninterrupted Succession all this time Pope Nicolas in his Decretals Caranz p. 393. 395 saith He that by Money or the favour of Men or Popular or Military Tumults is intruded into the Apostolical Seat without the Concordant and Canonical Election of the Cardinals and the following religious Clergy let him not be taken for a Pope nor Apostolical but Apostatical And of the Clorgy he saith Priests that commit Fornication cannot have the honour of Priesthood Yea Let no Man hear Mass of a Priest whom he certainly knoweth to have a Concubine or Woman introduced And shall not Protestants forgive those that will not hear such or as bad Where then was the Papacy under such For above forty years together there were more Popes than one at once and sometimes more than two one dwelling at Rome and another at Avignion or elsewhere One set up and obeyed by one Party and another by another Party each condemning the other as an Usurper And had the Universal Church then any one Head And with what wickedness are they charged one destroying what the other was for see in
Difference Verily our Differences here in England and the Neighbour Protestant Churches have shewed in us much personal peevishness unskilfulness and other faults but in my judgment they are such as greatly commend our real concord in the same Religion and partly our Conscience in valuing it and being loth to lose it If you see Latine Grammarians reviling one another about the spelling or pronunciation of a word or two and critically contending with Varro Gellius c. which is the right when a man that never knew a word of Latine but Welch or Irish never strove about such Questions in his life which of these will you think have more agreement in their Language I would say that those men that disagree but about the pronunciation of a few words are very much agreed in comparison of a Barbarian that agreeth not with them in a Sentence or a Word Even the old Schoolmen were in Language more agreed with Erasmus Faber Hutten and other Critical Grammarians that derided them than any illiterate man was with any of them All Gruterus his Volumes of Grammatical Controversies shew not so much distance in Language as the peaceable silence of an unlearned man doth And no one strives much about that which he doth not much care for Countrymen can contemptuously laugh at Logical Disputes or Criticisms Horses or Oxen will not strive with us for our Gold or Jewels Clothes or Food as we do with one another and yet they are not so like us in the estimation of such things as we are to one another When I hear religious persons contentiously censuring each other about some little points of Ceremony Order Discipline or Form which are but the fimbria or the Welts and Laces of Religion I am angry at their weakness and defect of love but I must needs think that there is very great concord in the Faith and Religion Objective of these men who differ about no greater matters than such as these If men that were building a Palace would fall together by the Ears only about the driving of a Pin I should marvel at their concord that differed in no more though I could wish them like wrangling Children whipt for their folly and frowardness till they were quiet The great things that Protestants have paltrily wrangled about are 1. The Doctrinal Controversies called Arminian 2. And the matters of Discipline and Ceremonies The former I have shewed lately in a large Volume hath much more of verbal than of real difference and is cherished by the ambiguity of words and the unskilfulness of too many to discuss those ambiguities and find out exactly the true state of the Controversie It is oft but Stubble that maketh the greatest blaze And as for the other I would not undervalue the least things of Religion but I will say that Engagement Faction and worldly Interest are magnifying Glasses to many men and make a Mote to seem a Beam and a Gnat to seem a Camel And it is one of the Devils old Wiles to keep men from learning of Christ how to Worship the Father of Spirits in spirit and truth by starting such Questions as whether in this Mountain or at Jerusalem men ought to worship and to hinder godly edifying by doting about questions that gender strife And fighting for Shoo-buckles may shew the quarrelsomness of men but it proveth not the Greatness of the matter 2. Note further that though Subjective Religion the measures of our belief Love and Obedience be as various as persons are yet the Objective Religion of all true Protestants is the same Not only the same in the Essentials one God one Saviour and Lord one Baptismal Covenant one Creed one Spirit one Body of Christ and one Hope of Glory Eph. 4. 4 5 6. but also the same in all the Integral parts For it is Integrally the Holy Scripture which containeth all that they take with the Law of Nature to be the whole Law of God and so the Rule of Divine Faith Desire and Duty They may subjectively have some difference in understanding some Texts as the most Learned and holy in the world have But Objectively they have no other Divine Faith or Religion 3. And note that the Church that Protestants yea Greeks Armenians Syrians Abassines are of are all certainly one and the same Church For a Church is constituted of the Ruling and the Ruled Parts And they perfectly agree that Christ is the only Essentiating and Universal Head In him they all unite and confess that there is no other Even the Patriarch of Constantinople as I have shewed claimeth but a Primacie in the Empire and not the Government of all the World no not of us in England And as for the Ruled Constitutive part we are agreed that it is All Baptized Christians that have not apostatized nor forsaken any Essential part of Christianity nor are excommunicate by Power from Christ So that we are clearly all of one and the same Church But how far the Papists differ in the Greatness and number of their Controversies I think to tell you a little more anon IV. I may not stay to shew at large how they vary their shape and course as may fit their Interest How sometime they put on the person of Infidels or Atheists to plead men into an uncertainty of all Religion that they may be loose enough to follow them into theirs For even so Car. Boverius would have perswaded our late King Apparat. ad Consult The first thing is saith he seeing true Religion is to be inquired after by you that before you address your self to search for it you first have all Religions in suspicion with you and that you will so long suspend or take off your mind and will from the Faith and Religion of the Protestants as you are in searching after the truth Reader doth not this tell you whence much of our late Atheism and Infidelity cometh and what it tendeth to I tell thee not the words of a Novice but a person chosen to have seduced our King when he was Prince in Spain And is not this way very suitable to the end How must men become Papists Boverius will teach you First suspect all Religion and with your very Mind and will cease to believe that there is a God or that he is Powerfull Wise or Good or that we are his Creatures and Subjects or that there is any Heaven or Hell or Life to come or that Christ is not a Deceiver but a Saviour or that any of the Bible is true Cease from Loving Fearing Obeying or trusting God and from loving man for his sake Cease praying to him and forbearing any wickedness injustice cruetly perjury or filthiness as being forbidden by him and this as long as you are searching after the truth Verily this devilish counsel is so notoriously followed now by some that we may fear what truth it is that they are searching after Certainly this way is of the Devil and how it can lead
with him so but they will have his Body here still and yet a Vice-Christ or visible Monarch also in his stead See their own words which I have cited at large in my Answer to Mr. Johnson V. The pretended ground of this his Claim is that St. Peter received this power from Christ and that St. Peter was Bishop last at Rome and that the Pope succeedeth him in his Bishoprick and Power This is professed commonly by them But 1. It is false that St. Peter received any such Power from Christ as to be the Governour of all the rest of the Apostles and Christians in the World He never exercised or claimed such a Government but in cases of Controversie Act. 15. and Gal. 2 c. He dealeth but on equal terms with the rest And they that said I am of Cephas are as well rebuked as they that said I am of Paul And 1 Cor. 12. 28 29 c. Apostles are said to be but chief Members of the Church and Christ the only Head And when the Disciples strove who should be the greatest Christ giveth it not to Peter but forbideth it to them all And Peter himself as a fellow Elder exhorteth all Elders to oversee and feed the Flock not as Lords over the Heritage c. and never claimeth a Soveraignty to himself No word mentioneth any Power that St. Peter had greater than his Apostleship And Bellarmine professeth that the Pope hath not his power as succeeding him in his Apostleship but as an ordinary Pastor over the whole Church 2. There is no certainty that ever Peter was at Rome as Nilus hath shewed but a humane Testimony of many later Fathers upon the words of uncertain Reporters before them which are to be believed indeed as probable but no more There being as great a number of Papist Writers I think about 60 that tell us there was a Pope Joane and yet it is uncertain if not least probable But if he was at Rome Apostles were no where proper Bishops Bishops were the fixed Elders or Pastors of particular Churches Apostles were moveable and Itinerant having an Indefinite Commission to go preach the Gospel to all the world as far as they were able Though the ancient Fathers used to call them Bishops because pro tempore they Ruled perswasively where they came Though indeed their work was to settle Churches and Bishops and not to be settled Bishops themselves 3. Paul was certainly and long at Rome and liker to be as a Bishop there of the two If Paul was not one Peter was not for there is no more but less proof of his Government there If Paul was one then one City had two contrary to the old Canons 4. There is no proof that Peter's being last at Rome gave his Power to all or any following Bishops of Rome any more than to the Bishops of Antioch who are said to succeed him in his first Bishoprick or any more than Christs dying at Jerusalem the Mother Church did fix the Supremacie there or any more than the other eleven Apostles did leave their power which they had above all ordinary Bishops to the places where they abode either last or first If Peter's dying Bishop at Rome prove such a succession of Universal Monarchy the aforesaid Successions will be proved by the same Reason which yet none affirm Even Alexandria claimed but from St. Mark who was less than thirteen Apostles But no Testament of Peter declaring any conveyance of such a Monarchy is pretended by the Popes which is a wonder Nor any word that ever he used of such importance 5. I have shewed that General Councils Calced and Constant have declared that Romes primacy had a later humane rise Yet would they have exercised no other Government than St. Peter did the world would not have been troubled by them as they have been VI. The Papists seem not resolved themselves whether the Pope have an Universal Apostleship or Teaching office as well as the Universal Monarchy or Government Though Bellarmine say that he succeedeth not Peter as an Apostle but as a Pastor yet most others that I have seen medling with it say otherwise If he succeed not in the Apostleship he is no true Successour of St. Peter at all in any superemience of Power For what he had was as an Apostle If he do then he is bound to go preach himself to the Nations of the world as Peter was To send others to preach and not do it himself was no Apostleship They were sent themselves David and Solomon set up Priests and yet were themselves no Priests Hezekiah and Josiah sent and set up Preachers and yet undertook not that office themselves VII This Pope claimeth the sole Power of calling General Councils of all the Christian world yet never did it And consequently of being the Judge when any shall be called and so whether ever there shall be any or not And though former General Councils voted that they should be every ten years yet he prevaileth to the contrary VIII Also he claimeth the sole power of presiding in such Councils and also of making their Decrees either valid by his approbation or null or invalid by his Reprobation as he please so that nothing that they Decree is of force but as it pleaseth him whence we have distinct Catalogues of Approved and Reprobate Councils Yet no mortal man knoweth oftentimes how much of a Councils Acts and Decrees the Pope approveth When Martin the fifth had consented to all done by the Council of Constance the word Conciliariter acta seemed to the Council to mean all that they did de facto as a Council But the Popes ever since yet reject that Council on pretense that by conciliariter was meant all that de jure as a Council they might do Gregory the first approved of the four first General Councils receiving them as the four Gospels and if his Predecessors did not it was because their consent was not taken to be necessary nor much sought And yet now Bellarmine raileth at the Council of Calcedon and they tell us how much of it they receive and how much not And so of many others And nothing is more evident in such History than that the Emperors and not the Pope were they that called divers of the first Councils IX The Pope accordingly claimeth a supremacy above General Councils that he may dissolve them but they cannot question or depose him though General Councils have decreed the contrary I recited Binnius words before Vol. 2. p. 515. Pighius Gretser's Bellarmine's and multitudes more might soon be produced to the same sense The eighth General Council at Constantinople saith Can. 21. that None must compose any Accusations against the Pope Vid. Bellarm. de concil li. 2. c. 11. Saith Pighius Hier. Eccl. li. 6. The Councils of Constance and Basil went about by a new trick and pernicious example to destroy the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and instead of it to bring in the domination of
they confess that they prove not the Infallibility of him that doth them Valentine Greatreakâ— hath done and still doth more wonderous cures by touch or stroaking than ever I heard by any credible report that any Papist did and yet he pretendeth to no Infallibility And those Canonized Saints that have been most credibly famed for the greatest Miracles have born their Testimony against Popery and therefore Popery was not confirmed by them For instance St. Martin is by his Disciple and Friend Sulpitius Severus affirmed to have done more Miracles than I have ever credibly read done by any since the Apostles I scarce except Gregory Neocaesar And yet whereas the Papal Councils give high priviledges of pardon c. to those that will take the Cross to kill the Waldenses and compel Princes to it and uphold their Kingdom by such means St. Martin separated to the death from the Synods and Bishops about him for seeking the Magistrates Sword to be drawn against even Priscillian Gnosticks and he professeth that an Angel appeared to him and chastised him sharply for once communicating with the Bishops at the motion of Maximus when he did it only to save mens lives that were condemned as Priscillianists Here are Miracles against the very Pillars of Popery So also the Egyptian Monks were the most famous for Miracles of any People And yet as their Miracles were no confirmation of the errour of the Anthropomorphites which their simplicity and rashness involved them in so they renounced Communion with the Church of Rome and therefore confirmed it not by their Miracles How few Christians be there on Earth if none are such but those that by known Popish miracles believed the Pope to be infallible before they believed that there was a Christ And thus they must believe him to be Infallible not as Pope but somewhat else For to be Pope is to be Christs pretended Vicar And to believe that he is authorized or Infallible as Christs Vicar before they believe there is a Christ is a mad-mans contradiction and impossible What Infallible wight then is it that we must first believe the Pope to be before we believe him to be Pope To what impudence will interest and faction carry men I will again recite the words of an honest Jesuit Joseph Acosta de tempor novis li. 3. c. 3. To all the miracles of Antichrist though he do great ones the Church shall boldly oppose the belief of the Scriptures And by the inexpugnable testimony of this truth shall by most clear light expel all his juglings as Clouds Signs are given to Infidels Scriptures to Believers and therefore the primitive Church abounded with miracles when Infidels were to be called But the last when the faithful are already called shall rest more on the Scripture than on miracles yea I will boldly say that all miracles are vain and empty unless they be approved by the Scripture that is have a Doctrine conform to the Scripture But the Scripture it self is of it self a most firm argument of truth Obj. But he grants that Infidels had miracles Ans He lived long in the West-Indies among them and in his Treat of the Convers Ind. and his Hist Ind. he professeth that the Ignorance Drunkenness and Wickedness of the Roman Priests there was the great hinderance of their Conversion but that Miracles there were none God had not given them there any such gift Once more Did the Miracle which Thyraeus de Daemoniacis p. 76. reciteth out of Prosper that A person possessed by the Devil was cured by drinking the Wine in the Eucharist confirm the Popes Religion who hath cast out the Cup or the Protestants that use it XXXII Though S. Paul say Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers and give honour to whom honour is due the Pope as far as he is able exempteth all his Clergie from the Government of the Magistrate yea they are forbidden to fall down to Princes or eat at their Tables but Emperours must take them as equals The first part is commonly known Caranz pag. 395. reciteth this Decree of Pope Nicholas that No Lay man must judge a Priest nor examine any thing of his life And no Secular Prince ought to judge the facts of any Bishops or Priests whatsoever The Eighth General Council at Constantinople saith Can. 14. Ministers must not fall down to Princes nor eat at their Tables nor debase themselves to them but Emperours must take them as equals XXXIII The Pope confesseth every word of our Objective Religion to be true for all his killing and damning us as Hereticks Proved before We have not a word of our Objective Religion but the Sacramental Covenant and its Exposition in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and the Canonical Scripture which we receive And they confess all this to be infallibly true and so justifie all our Positive Religion XXXIV The Popes to this day will not tell the Church so much as what a Christian is and what must make a man a Member of their Church in the Essentials of a Member Of which more anon XXXV While the Decrees of General Councils are made quoad nos the Churches Faith the Pope will never let us know how big our Faith must be nor when we shall have all If every General Council add new Articles or many quoad nos who knoweth when they will have done and whether we have yet half the Christian Faith or not XXXVI The Popes Religion maketh Contradictions necessary to be believed that is impossibilities The Contradictions of Transubstantiation I have opened in my Full Satisfaction Confirmed General Councils they commonly agree do make Decrees which must necessarily be believed And it is notorious that such Decrees are Contradictory The General Council at Constance confirmed by Martin 5. and that at Basil confirmed by Foelix 5. do make it de fide for a Council to be above the Pope Bin. p. 43. 79. 96. Conc. Basil Sess ult they say Not one of the skilful did ever doubt but that the Pope was subject to the judgment of a General Council in matters of Faith and that he cannot without their consent dissolve or remove a General Council yea and that this is an Article of Faith which without destruction of salvation cannot be denyed and that de fide the Council is above the Pope and that he is a Heretick that is against this Eugenius also owned this Council Bin. ib. p. 42. But the Councils of Florence and at the Laterane sub Jul. 2. and sub Leone 10. say the clean contrary The 6. Council at Constant approved by Pope Adrian is now said by them to have many errors XXXVII The Pope arrogateth power to alter the constitutions of the Spirit of God in the holy Scriptures Proved The Council of Constance taking away the Cup saith Though in the Primitive Church this Sacrament was received by Believers under both kinds c. yea though Christ so instituted it yet they altered it I
will not obey that which he knoweth to be his Religion or he may be unable to execute such Laws But it is his Religion to believe that he ought to do it IX If he be a Temporal Lord of a Protestant Country it is part of his Religion to take himself obliged to root out destroy or burn all his Protestant Subjects and all others that deny Transubstantiation Obj. The King of France and some others do it not Ans No man is bound to do that which he cannot do But if he can do it and he be a Papist by the express words of an Approved General Council he is bound to do it and to believe that it is his duty I speak not of what men do but what their Religion binds them to do Though interest or good nature hinder them X. He believeth that all Temporal Lords that will not first take an Oath thus to root out their Subiects and then do it may be first Excommunicated by the Pope and then deposed if they repent not and their Dominions be given to be seized by another Papist that will do it The words of the Council are before cited XI He believeth that in this case the Pope may absolve all the Subjects of such Temporal Lords from their Oaths and Duties of Allegiance or Fidelity to such Rulers This also is express in the Councils words XII He is one that believeth that the Priviledges of the Roman Church were given it by the Fathers because it was the Imperial Seat and therefore Constantinople had after equal Priviledges For so saith the forecited General Council And yet he believeth the clean contrary even that Rome's Priviledges were given it by S. Peter and Constantinople's are not equal For Popes and Councils also are for this XIII He believeth that it is de fide that General Councils are above Popes and may judge them and depose them if there be cause even as Hereticks or Infidels Adulterers Murderers Simonists c. And yet he believeth that all this is false and the contrary true For the approved General Councils of Basit and Constance say the first and others and those fore-cited at the Laterane and Florence say the latter XIV He maketh uncharitableness and bold damning all others a comfortable mark of the safety of his state and the truth of his Religion and our Charity a mark that ours is worse whereas Christ hath said By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another It 's usual with them to say You say that a Papist may be saved and we say that a Protestant cannot therefore we are in the safer state As if our case were ever the more dangerous for their condemning us As if a man that doteth in a Fever should say to those about him You say that I may live and I say that all you are mortally sick therefore my case is better than yours God saith Judge not that ye be not judged and who art thou that judgest another mans Servant And these men hope their case is safe because they sin against this Law and damn the most of the Universal Church XV. A Papist thinketh that all the Bible is not big enough or hath not enough in it to save those that believe and practise it or to make us a saving Religion but other Tradition must be received with equal reverence and the Decrees of all the approved General Councils must make it up XVI He confesseth every Article and word of the Religion of the Protestants to be infallibly true and yet holdeth that they are to be burnt and damned as Hereticks For he confesseth every part of the Canonical Scripture to be true and we have no more in our objective positive Religion not a word Our Negations of Popery are not properly our Religion any more than our speaking against Diseases is our Health But as our health containeth our own freedom from an hundred diseases which we never thought of as well as those that we once had or feared so our Faith and Religion is free from Popery and containeth that which is against it XVII A Papist is for swearing men to take Scripture in that sense as the holy Mother Church doth hold and hath held it Whereas 1. Their Church hath given them no Commentary on the Scripture one way or other 2. And their Translations have been altered in many hundred places by Clement 8. and Sixtus 5. so that their Clergy is sworn to take one Translation to to be right one year and a different one to be right the next XVIII They are for swearing men to take or interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers and consequently never to interpret the most of it at all XIX A Papist hath a thriving Faith and Religion which groweth bigger and bigger as fast as General Councils add new Decrees so that they know not when they shall have all And yet they cry out against novelty and change and boast of Antiquity XX. He holdeth that Priests or Prelates may not fall down to Princes or eat at their Tables nor debase themselves to them but Emperours must take them as equals Concil Gen. 8. Const Can. 14. XXI He is satisfied that their Church hath a Judge of Controversies though he decide them not And he gloryeth in the Unity and great Concord of their Church whose Doctors differ de fide even in the Exposition of many hundred Texts of Gods Word and where they differ in the Morals before cited about Murder killing excommunicate Kings c. and in Volumes of Controversies And yet he looketh upon far smaller differences among us with great offense as if they were intolerable and were so many different Religions And all because in all their differences they agree in one Pope As if it were not as good an Union to agree in one God one Christ one Spirit one Body or Church of Christ one Faith Creed and Scripture one Baptismal Covenant and one Hope of life eternal Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. which is the Union that God describeth XXII He believeth that the Pope doth justly take away from the People one half of the substance of Christs own Sacrament and deny them that which they hold to be his very Blood XXIII They believe that they ought not to read the Scripture translated without a Licence So saith Con. Trid. XXIV They believe that the Image of Christ is to be reverenced equally with the holy Scriptures It is a Councils words before cited Yea they must believe the second Council at Nice that Latria is to be given only to God and yet a canonized S. Thomas 3. q. 25. a. 3. 4. maintaineth that Latria or Divine Worship is to be given 1. To the Image of Christ 2. To the Cross that he dyed on 3. And to the Sign of the Cross And how largely Jac. Nauclautus Cabrera and multitudes of the Schoolmen are for it see my Key p. 165
should on such Terms be of one Religion They believe Socrates and Sozomen who tell us of the great diversity of Rites and Orders in the ancient Churches which all consisted with the same Religion Faith and Love They abhor the Principle of hating persecuting yea and separating from one another for such differences as will unavoidably adhere to the imperfect condition of Christians here on Earth At this time in England a considerable part if not the far greatest of the silenced Ministers are for the Primitive Episcopacy and some Liturgie as you may see in their offer of A. Bishop Usher's Reduction to the King and their desires of a reformed Liturgie Among the old Non-conformists there were divers degrees such as Dr. Regnolds Mr. Perkins Dr. Humfrey Paul Bayn c. did yield to more than some others could do How can you tell then by the name of a Puritane what to charge any single Person with But it seemeth you take their Non-conformity in General and their temper of mind and life together But then you greatly wrong them and seem not at all to know what their Religion is There are two things which you say they mistake in 1. Their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness and the Covenant and not solicitously endeavouring after the acquisition of Virtue because they trust to the Imputed Righteousness your words are too large to recite You partly here unworthily injure them by ascribing to them the very opinions and words of the Antinomians whom they have better confuted than ever you did And as to their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness even Bellarmine in one sense owneth it And whether our sense be sound I provoke you to try particularly by your perusal of my own Writings on that Subject especially a late Treatise of Justifying Righteousness and Imputation and a Treatise called Catholick Theologie In which if there be nothing which you dare or can confute judge whether your meer derision of Imputative Righteousness be not delusory If you dare say that you trust not to Christs Sacrifice and meritorious perfect righteousness as procuring you pardon and life Jus ad Impunitatem Regnum Coelorum enjoy your self-confidence while you can But if you say in this as we then make publick Confession of the injury of your reproach of such Imputed Righteousness as you trust your salvation upon your self I imagine you will say that my judgment is no certain signification of the judgment of the Puritans for I am singular and therefore what I say in these Books is no proof of the sense of the Non-conforming Puritans But 1. my judgment of their sense is as good as yours 2. Do you know of any one Nonconformist that hath published any dissent to what I have written Dr. Tully was a Conformist 3. You profess before to borrow the name Puritan from the Prelatists And I have this to say for my Authority in declaring the sense of Puritans that one or more whose genius is of kin to the Roman but far less mild than yours who are Prelatical or super-Prelatical have about 17 years ago being Masters of that Language branded me with the Name of Purus putus Puritanus qui totum Puritanismum totus spirat The Pseudo-Tilenus hath just the same stile as the late Unmasker of the Presbyterians who revileth modest judicious pious and peaceable J. Corbet and in the most ingenious strain of wrath and malice doth valiantly militate against Love Therefore Prelatists being Judges I may as credibly as another tell you what is the Puritan Judgment 2. Your second accusation of the Puritan is that He begins to quarrel with all external Worship and Ceremonies But this is also spoken ignorantly and untruly You before mistook the Antinomian for the Puritan and here you seem to take the Separatist for the Puritan Read the Reformed Liturgy and other Papers offered at the Savoy to the Bishops and you may see that though they are not for silencing excommunicating and damning men for a Ceremony nor for making as many Religions as there are differences about Ceremonies yet they are for doing all things to edification decently and in order and for external as well as internal Worship of God As knowing that the Body is his and made to Worship him as well as the Soul and therefore should fall down and kneel before him and reverently and holily behave it self in his Service You say p. 5. He is much confirmed in this his imagination by considering the open profaneness and little sense of God he observeth generally in zealous Conformists And on the other side he taketh notice of his Brethren the Non-conformists that they are generally free from open and scandalous sins and at least sigh and breath after interior spirit and devotion which certainly must be that must give us a title to Heaven rather than a few Cringes and exterior Verbal Devotions which any one though never so prophane may easily exercise 1. But do you not here and in your former description quite contradict your self when you charge them as neglecting inherent righteousness 2. We are not so foolish as not to know that the unreverent hypocritical abuse of Gods external Worship by others whosoever will not excuse us for neglecting it Of the Conformists we must speak anon 3. By the way I would you could impartially consider if the Puritans be so good men as you fairly confess them to be what the reason is that Papists generally are far more fiery against them than against those whom you speak so meanly of as Prelatical Protestants Remember how your Writer after the London Fire answered by Dr. Lloid did flatter these as more suitable to the Papists genius in comparison of the Puritans And the Unmasker against J. Corbet will tell you out of Watson an honourable Witness hanged for Treason in Cobham's c. Conspiracy how bad the Puritans are comparing them with the Jesuites And if your Laws took place in England what abundance of these Puritans would you make Bonfires of yea your own Relations were not like to scape you They have told me to my face how quickly they would otherwise silence me than the Prelates do if I were in their power And the Decrees De Haereticis comburendis exterminandis more fully tell it us Yea whence is it that most certain experience proveth it that by how much the nearer any Protestants genius is to the Papists by so much the more bloody cruel malicious or slanderous and unmerciful he is to the Puritanes You 'll say for both that it is because the Puritans are most against them and Interest ruleth the World But I answer 1. God's Interest is highest with every true Christian 2. I confess it 's true that Puritans are most against Popery But truly as far as I have been acquainted with them they are not most against your Persons nor would have any injustice or cruelty exercised against you But the fear of your Faggots or Powder-Plots and such