are thought to make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace and that are set in the least opposition or competition with Christs Merits or in any place save commanded subordination to him nay he says he firmly holds That Works done with a conceit of obliging God by Merit in commutative Justice or as conceited sufficient without a Saviour and the pardon of their failings do more further their Damnation than Salvation Yea p. 97. none but Christ merited of strict distributive Justice according to the Law of Innocency nor by any Works that will save from the charge of sin and desert of death And that thou mayest know what he ascribes to our Graces Holiness or Works He tells us p. 119. we mean by Merit but the moral aptitude for the reward of a free Benefactor who also is Rector when the ordering of a free gift suspended on official conditions is sapientially made a means of procuring obedience This one Clause if understood and he is a bold Traducer of so great a Man that cannot understand words so plain will acquit Mr. B. and inform thee of the place of all Gospel Conditions 1. All Gospel-blessings are the free gifts of Christ as Benefactor they have their being without any regard to what we do therefore nothing in man is a jot of the righteousness or merit for which they are bestowed 2. Christ is our Rector or Governor he will rule us as well as be beneficent to us 3. As a means to incline us to comply with him as Rector he suspends these blessings on terms of what he makes our Duty and wisely orders them as Motives to our Obedience 4. Any Act of our Obedience is no more than a conformity to that Order of his and doth not hinder all we receive from him to be of free gift Obj. But he saith that good Works are necessary to Salvation Answ He doth so and how few deny it But 1. Not if a man dye as soon as he be converted but if he have time p. 94. 2. Their rewardableness is by Gods free Grace and Promise for the sake of Christs meritorious Righteousness Sacrifice and Intercession their imperfection being pardoned and their holiness amiable through him These are his words p. 76. 3. He saith Not without or as a supplement to the Sacrifice Merits and free Grace of Christ our Saviour and Faith in him p. 93 75. And we give our selves to Christ as our Prophet Priest and King to be saved by his Merits p. 94.4 He saith our best Works will not save a man from the charge of sin and desert of death p. 97. 5. He denies that external Obedience is necessary to our admission into a justified state as he shews in the Thief on the Cross And when he saith we are justified by our Faith Godliness and Works Justification is not taken by him for the pardon of sin which he ascribes wholly to the Merits of Christ but he takes Justification there for our acquittance against the accusation that we are Infidels Ungodly and Hypocrites And saith that against the charge that we are Sinners deserving Hell we are justified by Christ believed in p. 94. His meaning is plainly this Christ alone by his Merits forgives our sins and purchased eternal Life for us But seeing that Christ hath promised to forgive none but the penitent Believer and declared he will destroy all impenitent unbelieving ungodly sinners Now he thinks that we must be truly acquitted that we are not such or we shall not be saved by Christ Yea he thinks that when God justifies a man for Christs Merits he doth also declare a man to be a true Believer because he will justifie no other and will justifie all such and when God admits a man into Glory he doth even thereby adjudge him a believing penitent holy and upright man and free from the charge of being an infidel hypocritical unholy Enemy against whom the Gospel denounceth Vengeance and bars relief Let these things be weighed and none will wonder that he should say on his sick bed No works I will leave out works if he grant me the other And truly in health none spake more humbly of his own Works than he used to do But because some confident weak persons have inferred from that passage that he changed his Principles when he came to dye we shall inform thee that after that passage was utter'd by him even the night before his death Mr. Baxter was asked whether he was of the same sentiments as formerly about Justification He answered That he had told the World sufficiently his thoughts about it by several Writings and otherwise and thither he referr'd them And after a little pause with his Eyes lifted up to Heaven he cryed Lord pity pity pity the Ignorance of this poor City And in the time of his sickness he declared to us and others that his thoughts in these things were the same as formerly Our regards to Mr. B. force the Publication of what we here insert tho' we would not be judged so happy as to arrive at his Light to lead us to a full Agreement with all his Sentiments As to this Book we wish there be not still great need of such helps against Popery and we are assured it will give more light than some greater Volumes on this Subject That God may render it useful shall be the Prayer of Thy Servants in the Gospel Daniel Williams Matthew Sylvester Protestant Religion Truly Stated and Justified c. THE Deceiver calleth his Book The Touchstone of the Reformed Gospel as if he owned a Gospel distinct from that of the Reformed Church And he undertakes to name fifty two points which the Protestants affirm but tells you not where nor proveth his affirmation but you must believe him as a Touchstone of Truth Dec. The first Protestant affirmation feigned is That there is not in the Church One and that an infallible Rule for understanding the Holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith Answ A meer Lye if he mean that this is any part of Protestant Doctrine but he may find as crude confused words in some ignorant person that is called a Protestant The Reformed Catholicks hold that there is in the Church one and that an infallible Rule for understanding the holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith And that Rule is The Evidence of its own meaning as inherent in its self discernible or intelligible by men prepared and instructed by competent Teaching and Study and the necessary help of Gods Grace and Spirit This is that Rule But the Reformed believe not 1. That there is any Rule by which ignorant prejudiced heretical wilfully blind wicked uncapable men can understand such Scripture as they are hereby undisposed to understand unless by a great change made on themselves Nor that any Prince can make a Statute which on Man can misunderstand abuse or violate 2. Nor that Men can understand it
without teaching and that sound teaching nor by hearkening to Erroneous Deceivers 3. Nor that the Slothfull that will not meditate on it can understand it tho' they have the soundest teachers 4. Nor that Novices can understand as much in a short time and small Study as aged long exercised Students 5. Nor that wicked proud men that forfeit Gods help can savingly understand it without his Grace and Spirit 6. Nor that any man how holy soever perfectly understandeth every word in the Scriptures 7. Nor that a person may not be fallible and deceived that yet knoweth which is the Infallible Rule It maketh not all Infallible that know it 8. Nor that any Church or any Number of Christians on Earth have such a Vnity as consisteth in perfect knowledge and agreement in all matters of Faith that is of Scripture-record from God 9. Nor that God hath tyed this Infallible Regulation to the Bishop of Rome or made him this Rule seeing no such word of God is extant and General Councils have condemned Popes of Heresie Infidelity Ignorance and most brutish lust and wickedness 10. Nor that the Judgment of the major part of Christians or Bishops is the Infallible Rule for 1. The Papal part are but a third part And they will hardly believe that the other two or three parts Abissines Egyptians Syrians Armenians Georgians Circassians Greeks Muscovites Protestants are the Infallible rule 2. And if they met in an equal Council they that are most out of the Council would be the most in it And Ephes 2. and many others now condemned have had the Major part And Chrysostom that thought that few Bishops or Priests were saved thought not the greater number to be the infallible Rule 11. And Pope and Councils agreeing are not that Infallible rule for two fallibles makes not one infallible nor two Knaves one honest Man Popes and Councils have oft condemned one another yea they have oft agreed in evil as did that at Laterane the 4th under Innocent the 3d. that decreed the deposition of Princes that exterminate not all that renounce not all Senses and Humanity for those that have led into the Churches of the West all the horrid Errors of Rome to pretend yet that they are the Infallible rule of understanding Scripture is Impudency quite beyond that of Satan himself 12. If this Deceiver hold what is contrary to his accused Protestant Opinion he must condemn the Church of Rome that agreeth not of the sense of a thousand Texts of Scripture Horseloads of Commentators and Cartloads of School-contenders contradicting one another And he that will say that all revealed in Scripture is not matter of Faith reproacheth God as revealing that which is not to be believed All matters of Faith are not essential to Christianity but some are only for the perfection of it All is matter of Faith that we are bound to believe as Divine Revelation All the Scripture is such thô the ignorant must have time and help to understand it and explicitely receive it The Popes themselves e. g. Sixtus Quintus and Clem. 8. have differed in many hundred Texts about the very Latine Translation Many hundred Volumes of Controversies among them tell us how far they are from ending Controversies and agreeing in all matters of Faith But in so much as is necessary to Salvation all serious believing Protestants or Reformed Catholicks are agreed Now to trouble the Reader with the proof of any of these twelve particulars would be but to abuse Time and him as to prove that no Man is perfect and he that saith he hath no sin is a Lyar and to prove that the grand Deceivers of the Church are not Infallible and that Gods Word is not unevident and unintelligible and that such Villains as their own Councils and Historians say many Popes were speaks not more intelligibly and wisely than God and that the Volumes of Canons and Priests Writings are not of more evident meaning than Gods Word these need proof to none but those that are uncapable of it What Rule is there for the Infallible understanding the sence of all our Statute Laws none but what I mentioned The intelligible evidence in the words what else are words used for to men duely instructed and studyed The Judges govern by deciding particular causes by the Law but are not an Infallible Rule for all Men to understand the true sence of the Law by while Judges and Parliaments differ from each other as Popes and Councils did The Texts cited by the Deceiver are so vilely abused as if he purposed but to make sport by taking Gods Word in vain Point 2. Accused That in matters of Faith we must not rely on the Judgment of the Church and of her Pastors but only on the written word Ans The Deceiver would Cheat the Ignorant by Confusion and belying the Reformed Catholicks for 1. It 's false that the Reformed hold any of this undistinguishing Assertion They distinguish between humane Faith and Divine And I hope God and Man may be distinguished They say that it must be a Divine Faith that is The Belief of Gods word for the Infallible Veracity of God that must save us and not the belief of Man alone But that a humane Faith is needful in Subserviency to a Divine God hath appointed humane Teachers to the Flocks and Oportet discentem Credere He will never learn that will believe nothing on his Teachers Credit But he must believe Man but as Man an imperfect fallible Creature yet as like to know more than he that chooseth him for his Teacher And that which Man is to teach us is to see the Evidence of Gods own Word that we may believe it for that Evidence as our Teachers themselves must do For if the Teachers do but believe one another and not God or God only for Man's Authority this is not Religion nor Divne Faith but humane such as they had that believed Pythagoras Plato Mahomet c. If Boys learn of their School-Master to understand the Greek or Latin Testament and believe them as to Sence this is not Divine Faith but a help towards it The word of God is Infallible And by the help of fallible Men such as disagreeing Commentators be we are furthered for understanding it But false bloody Usurpers are not the likest to teach us the Truth nor fittest to be trusted His Citations of Scriptures to mistated Controversies are so putidly impertinent that I am ashamed to detect them by words which every Man may do The Third accused Point That the Scriptures are easy to be understood and therefore none are to be restrained from Reading them Ans Meer Cheat to the Ignorant by confusion and falshood 1. We and all Papists with us agree the more is the Guilt of the Deceivers Fraud that some of the Scripture is easy to be understood and is actually understood by all true Christians even all that is essentsal to Christianity and necessary to Salvation Bellarmine Castrus
World nor to have Men miraculously enabled to do it and give proof that it is Divine 3. We hold that God's written Word and Law is perfect in its kind Psal 19. and sufficient to its proper use and end Which Bellarmine Cassinus and the Council of Basil and many School-men in their Prologues on the Sentences confess extendeth to all things commonly necessary to Salvation yea and to be the Divine Rule of Faith 4. Yet we deny not that if God had seen meet to deliver any necessary part of Law or Gospel Faith or Practice as his will by bare word and Memory of Man we had been bound to believe and obey it when we had sound proof that it was indeed from God 5. We hold that for fullest certainty we have possession of the Bible it self and of the Essentials of Christianity brought us by two Means Conjunct that is The Scripture and practical Custom of the Church As the Scripture or written Word shineth to us by its own Light so Tradition tells us which be the Canonical Books and how the Church received them as Divine and that there are no other such And the practice of Baptismal Profession and Covenanting and of the Church Assemblies and reading Scripture and Catechizing and of Eucharistical Communion and Prayer c. tell us what in all Ages hath been taken for true Christianity As we hold a humane Belief needful in Subserviency as a means to Divine Belief so we hold humane Tradition needful to the conveyance of God's Word to us But by your leave we will distinguish the Messenger from the Authour If the King send me a Law or Mandate by a Messenger or by the Penny-Post I will receive and obey it and yet not take the Post or Messenger for King or Legislator or Infallible 6. And the Reformed Catholicks do own all true Tradition but are for a far surer Tradition than the Roman Sect. Our Tradition of Scripture and the great points of Christianity cometh to us by Evidence Infallible that may be called Natural with the greatest advantage of Moral Evidence also and not on the boast and bare word of one proud Sect that pretendeth to Fanatick Inspiration and Authority above all others I call that Natural Evidence which ariseth from such necessary Causes that cannot be otherwise nor can deceive And I call that the best Moral Evidence which cometh from Mens testimony of greatest credit for skill and honesty and we have both these Mans Soul hath some necessary acts that cannot but be and cannot be otherwise Such is sensation of sensible objects duely presented Intellectual perception of things presented according to the evidence in which they appear The Love of our selves and our own known welfare and any thing that is known to be an only and necessary means thereto and hath Omnimodam ratiomem boni The Love of Truth as Truth and Good as Good The hatred of misery c. These all Men have as men and that which dependeth on these dependeth not only on mens honesty And our evidence of Tradition is such as this It is from the Common Consent of all capable Witnesses of various Opinions Passions and Interests Friends and Foes whereas the Tradition of Sectarian Papists dependeth on the Credit of one Sect that falsly pretend a peculiar trust with both Scripture and Tradition tho' against the greater part of Christians And pretend Fanatically that even ignorant Popes and Prelates in Council have a gift of infallible knowledge For Example If there were a doubt raised Whether there be any such City in the World as Rome Paris Vienna or whether there was ever such persons as K. James K. Charles Ludovicus 14 of France c. Or whether the Statutes in our Books were really made by the Kings and Parliaments named in them and be the same unchanged c. There is Natural evidence of all this because it ariseth from necessary acts All sorts of men of contrary interests could never agree to lie and deceive men in such cases no more than they could all agree to kill themselves And if some would be falsifyers the rest would presently detect and shame them If any Lawyers would falsyfie or change the Statutes others would presently manifest the deceit they being commonly known and the cross interests of so many depending on them yea I say not only that this is Natural Infallible Evidence but that it is more than very much other Physical Evidence of many other things because we have better means to know Mans Natural necessary acts than we have to know most other Creatures of God And then for Moral Evidence we have all the Godly's attestation of all Ages and Nations and Sects of Christians and among the rest the Papists also agreeing that This Bible and This Creed and these Essentials of Christianity were all certainly transmitted to us from Christ and his Spirit in his Apostles And what 's the Tradition of the Papal Sect to all this who tell us falsely you cannot know the Scripture to be God's Word but by taking it on the belief of the Pope and Church of Rome as Endowed with the Power of Judgment and the gift of Infallibility Alas what abundance of Impossibilities must be proved true before any Man can by this method believe God's word 1. Before they can believe the Gospel and that Jesus is the true Christ they must believe that he hath a Vicar 2. And a Church 3. And the Pope is this Vicar and his Sect this Church And 4. That he hath the Office Power and Gift of infallible Judging which the Major number of Christians or Churches have not 5. And that Christ not yet believed in gave him power and Infallibility 6. And that he that now Reigneth is the true Pope by due Election Consecration Qualification c. With many more such Impossibilities And what is it to give up the Cause to the Infidels if this be not 7. But we judge that God's Law in Scripture secured from the charge of pretended Rememberers and Vsurpers is so sufficient to its proper use that there needeth no Supplemental Tradition as if it were but half God's Law but only subservient historical Tradition And we challenge the Papists to prove de facto 1. That any such supplemental Tradition is Existent 2. That they possess any other but what the other Churches know 3. That they are more than other Churches authorized to be the Keepers and Judges of that Tradition And 4. We fully prove them Innovators and that Popery is a meer Novelty It is copiously proved by Peter Moulin de novitate Papismi David Blondel de Ecclesia Andrew Rivet Defence of Morney against Coffetean and against Silvester and many others Can they without the most profligate Impudence pretend Apostolical Tradition for denying the Laity the Cup in the Eucharist and for their praying in an unknown Tongue and forbidding the Scripture and deposing Princes and dissolving Oaths of Allegiance and for tormenting and
lead them into all Truth and keep them from doing that Work Erroneously which they were commissioned to do Tho' not to make them absolutely free from Sin or Errour in all other things And therefore the Scripture written by them is free from Errour by Virtue of the special promise and Spirit 3. That all true Christians really regenerate are free from all Errour inconsistent with true saving Faith and Title to Salvation 4. That therefore the Church as it signifieth only the said regenerate true Christians hath no Damning Errour or none but what is pardoned as consistent with saving Faith and Holiness 5. That the Universal Visible Church is the whole Company of men on Earth that profess true saving Faith and are by Covenant Vow Baptized into this Profession And that all this true Visible Church professeth no Errour inconsistent with their Profession of the foresaid saving Faith Because the profession of saving Faith is essential to visible Christianity and to the visible Church For mark that I say not that they profess no Errour inconsistent with sincere Faith in themselves subjectively nor yet that as to objective Faith may not by unseen consequence overthrow it For there is such a concatenation of Divine revealed Truths that it is a doubtful case whether any one Errour which all men have do not by remote Consequence subvert the very Foundations But no true Visible Church or Christian so professeth any one Errour as not to profess the essential points of Faith and Godliness tho' they may think falsely that both are true Therefore Protestants teach that unseen Consequences are not to be so charged on those that see them not and hold fast the injured Truth as if it were a known or direct denyal of the Truth 6. But every Church and every man being imperfect both in knowledge Faith and Holiness have all some Errour For to be objectively de fide is to be of Divine Revelation And all the Scripture is Divine Revelation And if the question be Whether any Pope Council or Church understand all the Scripture without any Errour judge by Commentators and common Experience And now what saith the Deceiver against all this 1. He citeth Isa 59.21 God hath promised to preserve his Word in the Church Ergo the Church cannot Err A forged Consequence no more followeth but that the true Church shall not lose or forsake Gods Word For then it would cease to be the Church But 1. Not that the best Churches understand all that Word without any Errour 2. Nor that any particular Church visible may not apostatize or turn Hereticks or corrupt Gods Word and forbid men to use it in a known Tongue as the Papists do Next he citeth Joh. 14.16 As if all the Church had the same promise of the Spirit of Infallibility as the Apostles had If so then 1. Papists are none of the true Church because they have many Errours 2. And if the major part be the Church rather than a minor Sect then all other Christians that are against Popery are free from Errour for they are twice or thrice as many as the Papists 3. And when the far greater part were Arrians they were free from Errour Yea the Council of Sirmium to which Pope Liberius professed full consent Or did Christ break his promise to all these 4. If the Pope or all his Prelates have as full a promise of the Spirit as the Apostles then they may write us a new Bible and Word of God as they did No wonder then if the Canons and Decretals be as much Gods Word as the Bible But why then do they not confirm their Canons by Miracles as the Apostles did And why did so many Popes contradict each other Had both Stephanus Formosus Nicholas and the foresaid Johns that denyed the Life to come c. the same Gift as the Apostles Surely we may well say to them as St. James Shew me thy Faith by thy Works They did shew it by most odious Simony Gluttony Drunkenness Lying with Maids and Wives even at the Apostolick Doors Murdering Christs Members by Thousands Silencing faithful Preachers Deposing Emperours Commanding Perjury and Rebellion even to Sons against their own Fathers Forbidding all Church Worship of God to whole Kingdoms for many years when a King will not obey the Pope By such Works they shew their Faith O the power of Satan and the horrid pravity of man when such things are not only Justified but trusted to for Justification and made consistent with a Church that never Erred Indeed these Errours crept in by Degrees which maketh it difficult to Expositors of Scripture Prophesie to know just the year when the mischief became so ripe as to prove Rome to be Babylon Apostate to Pagano-Christianity and the Pope to be Antichrist But if I see a man Raging mad in Bedlam I will not make it an Article of my Faith that he is Sanae mentis because I know not just when his amentia deliratio or Melancholly became a Mania or Furor The Deceiver also citeth Mat. 18.17 viz. Because men must hear the Church where a Sinner dwelleth that calleth him to Repentance after due Proof and Admonition therefore the Pope and his Prelates cannot Err. An Argument liker a Derision than a serious Proof Did not the Pope then Err when Bishops and Councils have in vain called him to Repent Doth not the Church Err then most damnably that commandeth Murder Treason and most heynous Sin and is the Leader of the Impenitent Must we take such then as Heathens and Publicans But as the man thinketh so the Bell tinketh Do but Fancy that by the Church is meant only the Pope and his Clergy and that all is such Sin which the Pope calleth so tho' God command us and then all such Texts will seem to them to say what they would have them say The man also citeth Eph. 5.27 viz. Christ will present his Regenerate Church perfect and spotless in Judgment What then Ergo the Visible Church on Earth hath no Errour or Spot And Ergo the Pope and his Clergy are this Visible perfect Church And why not as well Constantinople Alexandria Antioch or Jerusalem the Mother Church Which part is it that is the whole or indefectible What is profaining Gods Word if this be not If any should be forbidden the Scripture it is these prophaning Priests The Eighth accused Point That the Church hath been hidden and Invisible Ans We do not think that the Pope and his Clergy-Church have been hidden and invisible Their Wars even in Italy and Rome for many Ages made them Visible Yea and palpable too The Kings and Emperours that they Fought against or Deposed knew them above 100000 Waldenses and Albigenses felt them to the Death Quae Regio in terris talis non plena laboris Whether this man knew not the Protestants Judgment herein or whether he would not have his Reader know it I cannot tell but I shall tell you what it
such thing as you falsly charge them with That the Church of Rome is not such a Church that is Is not the Vniversal Church indeed we not only say but think the contrary sitter for a man Drunk than Sober What is Rome all the World Is Abassia America Mesopotamia Muscovy Asia Thrace England Scotland Sweden Denmark no part of the World yea of the Christian World And is not the Christian World the Church Vniversal Reader here is a Controversy worthy the Wits Learning and Honesty of all the Famous Fathers and Doctors and Juglers of the Roman Catholick Church The Question is Which of the Rooms in the House is the whole House One saith that the Kitchin or the Cole-House or the House of Office is the whole House We Protestants say that no one Room is the whole but Hall Parlors Dining-Room and all the Chambers and Closets and Kitchin are the whole and if the Cole-House and House of Office will needs be parts we will not contend with them but we will never grant that they are either the whole or the best part Tho' by Fire and Stink they think to force us to it But the ancient Writers distinguish between the Catholick Church and a Catholick Church By the first is meant the whole Church By the second is meant such a particular Church as is not Schismatical but a true and sound part of the whole But what could these Self-Condemners say more against themselves than thus openly to confess that their Sect claimeth to be the whole Church and so Trayterously unchurcheth two or three parts of the Church of Christ and Damneth most Christians for not being Traytors to Christ as they To confute his base abuse of Scripture is needless and irksome The Tenth point accused That the Churches Vnity is not necessary in alâ— pâ—iâ—ts of Faith Ans This we verily hold for all that God hath revealed in Scripture to be believed are points of Faith if the Word be used intelligibly by these men But all the points of Genealogies Topography Chronology Prophecy in Scripture are revealed to be believed therefore they are points of Faith and if Unity in all these is necessary to the Unity of the Church then no Church on Earth hath Unity Certainly Rome hath not whose Commentators and Doctors disagree about many hundred Texts of Scripture and Sixtus 5th and Clemens 8th Popes about the very Translation of many hundred Texts These men must now say that we are not bound to believe all Gods Word or else they must confess that their Church hath not Unity That which Reformed Catholicks hold is 1. First points of Faith or revealed to be believed are some of them Essential to Christianity and of necessity to Salvation and some but Intergrals if not some Accidents The first all the True Church agreeth in The second not As who is Antichrist or Babylon or the Ten-Horned or Two-Horned Beast in the Revelations What is the Time Times and half a Time with an Hundred such But in general all believe that all Gods Word is true It might convince these men in that it was long before all the Churches received all the Canonical Books of Scripture and yet all received not all their Apocryphal Books And are these out of the Church Or are none of these Books to be believed The Eleventh Point accused That St. Peter was not Ordained by Christ the first Head or Chief among the Apostles and that among the Twelve none was greater or lesser than other Ans Meer Falsehood as undistinguisht The word Head is ambiguous this Writer hath a Head such as it is that other Heads much differ from Reformed Catholicks hold that Peter is called first in numbring them That he was by Christ in many instances preferred before others That he was an Eminent Speaker and worker of Miracles That all the Apostles were not Equal in parts and worth but some herein greater than other What was Judas no lesser than the rest that was a Thief and Traytor John was Eminently the Disciple whom Jesus loved But we hold 1. That as John was not made Lord or Ruler of the rest by being Loved more so Peter's Preheminence made him no Master or Ruler of the rest The twelve Apostles were chosen Relatively to the twelve Tribes Peter as Reuben was the first and denyed Christ and was called Satan with a Get behind me Mat. 16. as Reuben defiled his Fathers Bed But as Levi was the third so was James the first Sanctified Apostle And as Juda the fourth is called the Law-giver from whom the Scepter should not depart c. so John the fourth is the Disciple of Eminent Love and Love is the Everlasting Grace when Faith and Prophesie cease But Christ made no one of them Ruler of the rest Proved 1. No Text speaketh any such thing And the Headship of Governing Power would have been of such grand necessity to be known that Christ and his Apostles must needs have plainly and oft inculcated it 2. Peter never Exercised any such Power what mention is there of any Laws or Mandates of his to the other Apostles 3. The rest never sought to him for Laws or Orders 4. The Schism and Controversies of Christians were never decided by appealing to him as the Judge 5. When some at Corinth would have made him their Head and said I am of Cephas Paul reproveth them as carnal saying of all What are they but Ministers by whom ye believed 6. Paul reproveth him Gal. 2. 7. The Jewish Christians contend against him for Eating with Gentiles Act. 11. whom he satisfieth by proof from God and not by pleading his Supremacy 8. He never once claimed any such Power 9. Paul 1 Cor. 12. tells us of none in the Church greater than Apostles But the rest were Apostles as well as he 10. No such Article was ever put into the Churches Creed We grant that Christ did in instituting the Apostles Office institute a disparity of Ministers in his Church and this to be continued in the Ordinary continued part of their Works but not in the Extraordinary And we grant that in putting Peter first Christ intimated that among men of the same Office there may for Order sake be a Priority as the President of a Synod or Colledge or the Fore-man of a Jury or a Chief-Justice or the Speaker of a Parliament God is not the God of Confusion but of Order as in all the Churches If a Parish or an Independant Church have one grave Pastor with divers young Assistants that were but his Scholars nature will give him some awing Preheminence among them We are not against such a Primacy among Bishops or Arch-Bishops But this is nothing to a Governing Office And if Peter had had such what 's that to the Pope of Rome The Twelfth Point accused That a Woman may be Head or Supreme Governess of the Church in all Causes as the late Queen Elizabeth was Ans A cheat by Confusion and Equivocation
and many others tell us that for all that the Scripture is plain and sufficient Yea so it is in many Thousand particular Texts If this be not so let this Man tell us if he can how it cometh to pass that Papists Greeks and Protestant Commentators agree of the meaning of most of the Scripture perhaps of Nineteen Texts in Twenty if it be not plain But do Protestants say that there is nothing in the Scripture hard to be understood the Father of Lyes will scarce affirm this of them lest their Commentaries and Controversies shame him 2. But what Must the people be forbidden to Read Gods Word because some passages are dark Why not also forbidden to Read Statutes Canons Fathers Jesuits Fryars and the Loads of Papists Controversies Is there nothing hard in all these Volumes what not in all the Canons In all Chrysostom Austin Cyril c In all Lombard Aquinas Bonaventure Scotus Ockam Cajetane and all the Tribe In all Suarez Vasquez Huctado Albictine c In all Cajacius and his Tribe Why are not these forbidden Do but rub your Foreheads and tell me 1. Whether the Law was not darker than the Gospel and yet God charged them Deut. 6. and 11. To teach the words to their Children and that lying down and rising up at home and abroad and to write them on the posts of their Houses and their Gates And every blessed Man Psal 1. was to delight in the Law of the Lord and meditate in it Day and Night Read Psal 119. 2. Whether Christ did not Preach the words Recorded in the Gospel to the unlearned common people and Peter and Paul and all the Apostles to all the vulgar Jews and Gentiles 3. Whether they writ not their Recorded Epistles to the Vulgar even to all the Churches 4. Whether it is not Gods Word that we must all be Ruled and Judged by and is the Charter of our right to Heaven and should we be forbid to read it 5. Whether Hierom Chrysostom Austin and all the Fathers do not press Men and Women of all Ranks to read or learn and study the Scriptures 6. Whether he be not like Antichrist that will forbid Men to read that which God sent his Son from Heaven to Preach and Christ appointed Apostles Pastors and Teachers to communicate to all the World 7. Whether the Prince of Darkness and Pride himself would not be ashamed openly to say I have so much skill to speak Intelligibly and God so little that you must read my Books and not read his And whether Popes and Priests Volumes are not as unskilfully written as Gods and as like to draw Men to Heresie and Sin 8. Whether he that thus Condemneth God and his Law and extolleth Man's be like to make good his accusation at God's Barr Alas must such things as these be disputed by Men that would be our Infallible Rule 9. Either the knowledge of God's Word is needful or not If not why did God write part of it himself And send his Son to Preach it And his Spirit in his Prophets and Apostles to write and Record it Are blind Worms fit to accuse God of Folly and needless Work Can Men obey God's Law that know it not But if the knowledge of it be needful to our Obedience and Salvation ask common Reason whether the Difficulties should not rather oblige us to read and study it so much the more â—till we understand it rather than not to read it at all Do their ductile Followers that read it not understand it better than those that study it Day and Night The less we know of needless things the better and quieter we are If God's Law and Gospel be such what a God and Governour have we Can Heathens and Turks Blaspheme him more than to take him for so foolish a Governour of the World as to make a stir by his Son from Heaven and by Angels and Prophets to give them so needless yea pernicious a Law and Gospel as that Men must be kept from reading it lest it Poyson them with Heresie 10. Is it not essential to him that relatively we take for our God to be the Governour of the World and to be our Saviour and the Holy Ghost to deliver and Seal the Gospel as glad Tidings to all Nations And is it not by his Law that God Governeth and by his Gospel that Christ Saveth and the Holy Ghost doth illuminate and Sanctifie And doth not that Man or Clergy then put down God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and set up themselves in the stead who forbid the reading of God's Law and Gospel and Command the knowledge and observance of their own Canons and Dictates instead of them as more Intelligible and safe And is not this as Robert Grosthead told Innocent 4. next the Sin of Lucifer and Antichrist or rather plain Antichristianism it self 11. Is the Stage manner of Massing liker to make the people understand God's Law and Gospel by multitudes of Gestures Motions Crossings Ceremonies that need long Expositions that overwhelm the strongest Memories than the reading and study of the plain and full words of God in Scripture 12. Did this Deceiver ever hear Protestants say that the Apocalypse and Daniel and Ezekiel and the Canticles and the Chronologies of Scripture are all easy to be understood For if he have heard such a Fool did he ever read this in the Confessions of any Church Do not their Commentaries tell the difficulty And ask this Man or his fellow Creature whether the Infallible Pope or Councils have overcome all these difficulties to the Papists and made all this easy to them Or do not their Valuminous disagreeing Commentaries and Controversies shew that they are still as hard to them as to us 13. And ask them whether Pope or Council have ever yet written an Infallible Commentary on the Bible or all such difficult Texts If not is it because they cannot or because they will not And what the better then is their Church for their feigned skill and power infallibly to decide difficult Scripture Controversies What can be more shameless than this pretence in Men that will not do it nor ever did 14. And if still they tell you that the people were always bound to believe and obey the Churches Rites without dispute or Contradiction ask them whether it was not the Church Rulers that killed Christ and called him a Blasphemer and Deceiver and that Persecuted and accused the Apostles And whether the People were bound to believe them as Jewish Papists and whether all the Apostles and Christians were Rebels and Hereticks for not believing them And whether it was not for the Sins of Priests and Princes and the peoples complying with them that God by his Prophets reproved the Israelites and at last forsook them to Captivity 2 Chron. last Jer. 5 last 15. And if they tell you of the Peoples need of Teachers tell them that that is none of the Controversie But whether their Teachers
must teach them to understand God's Book or to throw it away May not the Teacher and the Book consist together Must School-Boys be forbid to Learn their Grammar because they must have a Teacher Must he teach them the Book or teach them without Book But all the Craft is to get all the World to take only such Cheaters as this for their Masters and then Bible or no Bible may serve turn 16. Is it not the Office of Teachers to Translate God's Word into known Tongues that the People may understand it This is the first part of Preaching it If not why do they use Translations in the Church of Rome the Septuagint and the Vulgar Latin And why did Sixtus 5th and Clem. 8. make such a stir to Correct the Latin And why do so many Comment on them And the Rhemists turn it into English But what is all this for but to help Men to understand the Book 17. Doth not all the Word of God cry down Ignorance and cry up Knowledge from End to End And what Knowledge is it but Divine of the Word and Law of God What else is the scope of all the first Nine Chapters of Solomons Proverbs and of Psal 1. 19. and 119 c. God saith Hos 4. 6. My People perish for lack of knowledge And Isa 27. 11. It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not save them Ignorance and Blindness are made the common cause of Errour Sin and Misery But we are so far from taking all parts of Scripture to be equally necessary to be understood that we are more than the Papists for first and most diligently teaching them the Essentials the Creed Lord's Prayer and Commandments and Baptism and Church Communion and the Lord's Supper and lesser parts as they grow up what they must learn first their Teachers must instruct them 18. If he say as they still do that the Ignorant will misunderstand the Scripture and every one turn it to his own Fancy and Heresie I answer The way to prevent this is to teach it them diligently what else is the Ministry for and not to forbid it them Every Knave may pervert the Law of the Land to maintain his own ill Cause and must the Law therefore be forbidden them Reason is far more commonly abused than Scripture There is no Heresie or Error no Villany Perjury Cruelty Persecution Oppression or Injustice but Reason is pleaded for it Must Reason therefore be renounced Heresies are for want of understanding God's word and must be cured by understanding it 19. And if all the World must take the Popes or Priests words instead of Gods or for their Rule how shall those in Aethiopia Syria America or here know what the Popes Word is That never see him or any that hath seen him And how shall we know when above twenty times there have been two Popes at once which of them is the Right And when they contradict and Damn each other which of them must we believe And when General Councils accuse them of Errour and Condemn them which is to be trusted with our Souls Or if it be Councils that must be to us instead of Scripture when they Damn each other which must we believe And so abundance of them have done When the Pope and they agreed to depose Christian Princes and give away their Dominions and disoblige their Subjects from all their Oaths of Allegiance is it as true as the word of God that all Subjects must believe and obey them But how shall all the poor People know what the Pope and Councils say and hold They can neither read their Volumes nor understand them nor know which are authentick and true Must they all believe their Parish Priest What if he be as very a Deceiver as the writer of this Touchstone that doth but Cheat from the beginning to the end Yet must we take his word instead of Gods Or when other Priests or Fryars contradict him which of them must we believe What if his Parishoners know him to be ignorant or a common Lyar Yet must our Salvation rest on his word and God's word be forbidden us What if we obey him in Error and Sin will he undertake to be Damned for us Or will his undertaking or Damnation save those whom he mislead c. As to his Citation of Scripture against Scripture it is so palpable a perversion that I will leave any Man that will but Read the Text to his own ability to answer him Rev. 5.1 No Man in Heaven or Earth was worthy to open the Sealed Books that John saw in his Vision What then must no Man therefore open the Bible Or because the Revelation is hard must therefore the People be forbidden to Read it and the rest of God's word which was written for them as sufficient to make them wise to Salvation yea to make the simple wise Psal 19. And with as shameless a Face doth he cite the Fathers against the drift of all their writings and Labours and the Judgment of all the Churches of Christ for many hundred years of its purest foundest Primitive times The Fourth accused Point That Apostolical Traditions and ancient Customs of the Church not Founded in the written word are not to be received nor do oblige us Ans This is but more Deceit by confusion and false report The Reformed Catholicks hold 1. That Memory is not so sure a way to deliver any Laws and Doctrines to Posterity through many hundred years as writing is For it must lie on the Memories of so many Thousands in so many Ages and so many parts of the World Of so many Languages Kingdoms and cross Interests and Opinions in their quarrels and the things to be remembred are so many that this needs no proof with any but Fools or Mad-men What a Religion should we have had if instead of the Bible it must have all been brought us down by the Memories of all the Rabble of ignorant and wicked Popes yea or of the best and by the Memories of all the Prelates and Priests that have pretended to be the Church Why do they themselves write their pretended Traditions if writing them were not needful And why have we all our Statutes Records and Law-Books if the Lawyers and Peoples Memories would keep and deliver them without these When Men's Memories Wits and Honesty are so weak that we can scarce get one Story carried without falsifying through many Hands 2. We hold that God in mercy hath therefore considered Man's Weakness and Necessity and before the Apostles died inspired them to Record so much of his Law and Gospel and Will as was universally necessary for all his Subjects to know in order to Divine belief Obedience and Salvation And hath left nothing of this importance and necessity unrecorded in the Law of Nature God's Visible works and Scripture knowing that after Ages were not to have new universal Legislators to make such Laws for all the
is 1. Protestants commonly hold That as the Word Church signifieth the Company of sincere Christians and Heart-consenters to the Baptismal Covenant so it is invisible to Man that knoweth not the Heart Inward Faith and Love which denominate them are not seen by others dare any deny this 2. But as the Word Church signifieth the Vniversality of men baptized professing Christianity in publick Assemblies so it was never invisible since such publick profession and Assemblies first began 3. But when the Pagan Persecutors forced their meetings into Woods and Cells and Pits called Conventicles and to Night-Meetings they were hidden from the Persecutors as well as they could hide themselves And so they were when they hid themselves from the Arrian Persecution of Valens Constantius Gensericus Hunnerichus and from the Persians And so were those of Tholouse Piedmont Bohemia and others that hid themselves and fled from the Crusado's under Simon Montford and St. Domonick and others that Murdered them Christ himself fled to Egypt and Galilee from Persecutors His Disciples were met secretly for fear of the Jews when Christ appeared to them when Peter was in Prison many were assembled by Night in a Conventicle at the House of Marks Mother to pray for him The Papists themselves keep hidden Meetings where they cannot have more publick 4. God hath not promised his Church such constant Prosperity as that in every Age any Nation shall have publick Liberty without all Persecution much less that they shall be still uppermost and Masters of the World and have Kings and Emperours always for them 5. But we cannot say that yet the Church hath been so low since the days of Constantine that all Princes have disowned the Essentials of Christianity and we hope it never will be so 6. But all Ages and parts of the Church have not been equally pure and sound In some Ages the Arrians were most In the Reign of Theodosius Junior Anastasius c. the Eutichians prevailed In the days of Philippicus the Monothelites prevailed so that at one of their Councils Binius saith There were Innumerable Bishops In one Emperours time those prevailed that were against Images in Irene's and Theodora's times those that were for them Sometime the Bishop of Rome had most Power and sometime the Bishop of Constantinople and Alexandria For an Hundred years even much of Italy forsook him and set up a Patriarch at Aquileia as their Head Through many Ages the Citizens of Rome themselves expelled him or Fought against him Now in all these Cases the Church as professing Christinanity was still Visible But which of all the parts was the purest and soundest was known to none but the sound parts themselves And when and where the Errours became so great as really to nullifie or invalidate the Profession of Christianity this was known only to those near that had opportunity to know the mind of the accused For Noxa Caput sequitur One man tho' a Prince or Prelate cannot make all his Subjects Hereticks by his Errour So that nothing hath been more Visible than that there have still been professed Christians and so an Universal visible Church on Earth But which parts of this Church have de facto been Sound and which Corrupt and what Errours have nullified their Profession and what only blemisht it this hath never been visible to the Erroneous For no man knoweth that he Erreth but it hath been visible to the Sound And so that the Church of Rome yet Professeth Christianity we know But whether their Errours prove them Babylon or nullifie their Christianity must be known only by trying the guilty Individuals Here the Cheaters say to the Ignorant If the Church hath been always Visible where was your Church before Luther Ans 1. Where-ever there were men professing Christianity and Baptized and not Apostatizing Were there none such in the World must we be put to prove where there were any Christians before Luther Were not the Hearers grosly Ignorant the Cheaters would have no Confidence in such Fopperies as these Obj. But the Church of Rome profest Christianity before Luther Ans It did so and as Christians we are of the same Church with them we know no Universal Church but the Christian as such that is all Christians as only Headed by Christ If you cannot tell whether before Luther there were any Christians in the World in Abassia Egypt Syria Armenia the Greeks Muscovites c. it 's your gross ignorance of History But whether Papists Arrians Eutychians Nestorians Monothelites Phantasians Image-Worshippers do invalidate their profession of Christianity by their contrary Errours and Crimes it much more concerneth themselves than us to enquire and judge But tho' those that nullify not their profession of Christianity are all of the same Church Universal that we are of yet we profess that their New humane Church which is only the Pope as Head and all that adhere to him as such are no Church of Christ at all All Christians as such are parts of the Christian Church But a Policy consisting of a Vice-Christ and his Subjects is a Rellellious Usurpation and no Church Forma denominat As Christ is the Head all are of the Church that truly cleave to him as Head As the Pope is the pretended Head they are all a pack of Rebels And now what an ignorant Cant is it to say The Church cannot Apostatize Ergo it cannot Err Ergo the Pope of Rome and his hireling Clergy cannot Apostatize and Ergo They cannot Err Tell me whether Rome be all the World And whether the Church of Rome and the Christian World be Words of the same signification in any Dictionary And whether an Alexandrian Catholick or a C.P. are Catholick be not as good Sence as a Roman Catholick And whether the Texts or Fathers that you name prophanely will prove that the Church of C.P. Alexandria Antioch or Jerusalem can never Err or Apostatize or be Invisible And whether your own Jesuits confess not that Rome shall do so too in the Reign of Antichrist In the mean time take this answer 1. The Church as intimately Sanctified and sincere was ever invisible 2. The Church Universal as professing Christianity was ever Visible tho' oft hid by Persecution 3. Whether Rome C.P. Jerusalem be a true Church or Apostate is invisible to those that knew them not 4. That the Papal Church as informed by a Universal Vice-Christ is a false Church is Notorious This is our Judgment The Ninth accused Point That the Church was not always to remain Catholick or Vniversal And that the Church of Rome is not such a Church Ans The first part is a meer flat Lye We hold that the Church is always to remain Universal till it be presented perfect in Glory If it remain not Universal what becomes of it Is it a part of something else or annihilated If Christ have no Church he is no Head of the Church and so no Christ What Protestant Church ever said any
The Church hath two sorts of Government One by the Word of God and the Keys called Ecclesiastical The other by the Sword called Princely or Magistratical We never had King or Queen that claimed the former and none but Enemies of Government deny the latter Queen Elizabeth and all our Kings since have publickly disclaimed the Priest by Office of Words Keys and Sacraments which maketh the Clergy Tryers and Judges what to Preach and whom to Baptize and receive to Church Communion absolve or Excommunicate But ask this Deceiver Must the Church have none to Govern by the Sword All Christians are the Church and so all Christian Princes are deposed because they are Christians Or must the Clergy have no such Government over them Yes the Pope say the Papal Canons he is Sword-bearer over the Clergy So you see what Church-power is come to But I trow few Papist Kings will grant that they have no Sword-Government over the Clergy lest every Priest be Master of their Houses Wives and Lives The King is no Physicain or Philosopher no Architect Shipwright Pilot c. but may he not be King and Ruler of all these He is no Clergy-man or Priest but the Ruler of the Clergy But they say it must not be in Causes Ecclesiastical Ans Causes Ecclesiastical have two sorts of Government in order to two Ends. As if one be accused for Preaching against God or Christ or the Life to come or for Perjury Adultery Murder c. Here the Bishops are Judges and the Church whether this man be Guilty in order to his Communion or Excommunication or admonition But the King and his Judges are to Judge whether he be Guilty and so whether to be Imprisoned Fined Banished c. so far as Causes of Religion or Church are to be punished by the Sword the King is Head or Governour and Judge who would think that a sort of men that deny this should have the Face to say that they are Loyal to Kings or any forcing Government Must Kings Burn or Kill as many Thousands at the Popes command as the Pope will call Hereticks and yet never have power to judge whether they are such and do deserve it O! how much worse than Hangmen would such men make all Kings and Magistrates Was not all the Christian World in a sad case then when the Pope was under the Arrian Goths and the Subject of a Foreign Arian must Rule all Kings and Kingdoms No man of Brains can be ignorant that Popedom or Prelacy do not always make men mortified Saints that oft have been scarce Men much less Christians nor that the Prince hath a great Power both in Choosing and Ruling the Clergy that are his Subjects It fell out happily that Theodorick the Arian and divers Spanish Arian Kings were an honest sort of men but sure they were very mighty Princes at Rome when one Subject of an Arrian Goth was Ruler of all the Kings and Souls on Earth de jure say our Deceivers And if the Turk should possess Rome as he doth C.P. all Kings and Nations must be subject to his Subject And what Power he hath over the four Patriarks of C.P. Alexandria Antioch and Jerusalem is too well known And when Baronius Binnius c. tell us of famous Whores Marozia and Theodora that made and Ruled and unmade Popes how was the World Governed As it was said by a Lord Mayors Child that he Ruled all London saying my Father Ruleth London and my Mother Ruleth my Father and I Rule my Mother so might it be said these Whores Ruled all the Kings and Nations of Christians on Earth if the Roman claim be Currant for they made and Ruled Popes that claimed the Rule of all the World O! how much greater was a Roman Whore Marozia Theodora c. than Pallas Venus or the great Diana of the Ephesians But the mischief was that they were mutable and could unmake a Pope as well as make him and set the City and Country by the Ears as Aequa Venus Teucris Pallas iuiqua fuit And if all Kings must be Subjects to the Subject or Chaplains of him that can win Rome let us wish that he may not be a Mahometan Pagan or Arian And why said I an Arian when an Anti-arian Pope can Murder Christians by Thousands when a Theodorick would not have hurt them The Thirteenth Point accused That Antichrist shall not be a particular man and the Pope is Antichrist Ans This is Popish Stating Cases Protestants find in the Creed the Name of Christ but not the Name of Antichrist and therefore while they know and trust Christ they think it not necessary to Salvation to know Antichrist But they believe Christ who said that many should come in his Name saying I am Christ and deceive many even before the Destruction of the Jews and rhey believe St. John that said there are many Antichrists already The Fathers and Papists say there is some one Great Antichrist to come towards the end of the World Most Protestants think it is Antichrist that is described in 2 Thes 2. and Rev. 12.13 17. To confute King James Bishop George Downame Dr. Henry More above all Mr. Mede Cluverus Grasserus c. will require more than this Writers Impertinencies There are many Protestants that think it a meer mistake that there will be any one Antichrist so Eminent as to obscure all the rest And they pretend not to judge of Antichrist by the Apocalyps but by the Ten Commandments and all the Gospel And they believe that he is Antichrist that usurpeth Christs Prerogative and yet opposeth his Kingdom And such they think the Eastern Antichrist Mahomet is the most notorious and the Western Antichrist the Pope is his Second in that he claimeth Christs Prerogative of Governing all Nations of the Earth as Vice-Christ and yet by Lies Malice and Blood suppresseth his true Gospel Grace and Kingdom confute this if you can Amending would be your best defence We doubt not but Antichrists past have been Individual men such was Barchocheba and some say Herod and some Dioclesian but undoubtedly Mahomet And if the Pope be the Western Antichrist it is the Individual Popes that are such but many of those Individuals may make a Succession of Antichristian Policy Answer Dr. More and Cluveruâ— of this if you are able We lay not our opposition to Popery chiefly on the dark Revelation Prophecy or on the question Who is the Antichrist But on the plain Word of God If we find a Succession of men claiming Omnipotency and Christs Prerogative to Govern all Kings and Nations on Earth and this by bare and base Vsurpation and Novelty and find these men set up their numerous false treasonable inhumane Canons and forbid and revile Gods Law and Word and find them turning Gods Worship into unintelligible Mummery and Stage-Shows and Ceremony and find them living at Leeches on Blood yea on the Blood of Thousands of the best Christians and damning and
to Effect 6. As for them that feign that we say that God decreeth that some shall be Saved and others Damned however they Live it is but the dictates of the Father of Lies We say that God at once decreeth the End and the Means as he doth not decree that men shall live though they neither Eat nor Drink nor that they shall have Corn though they neither Plow nor Sow but that they shall Eat and Drink and live thereby and that they shall Plow and Sow and mannure the Soil and so have Corn. So God doth at once decree that this and that man shall have the means of Grace especially a Saviour and the Gospel and shall faithfully use them and be Sanctified by them and sincerely obey God and overcome the World the Flesh and the Devil and persevere to the End and that for Christs Merits he will give them the Grace of his Spirit and pardon their Sins and bring them to Glory All this is our Decree of God But he doth not decree that men shall sin that they may be Damned For sin is no Work of God nor a means appointed by him for Men's Damnation no more than a Righteous King doth make men Traytors or Murderers that he may Hang them But he justly denyeth his Grace to many that forfeit it by willful Resistance Disobedience and Contempt though he take not the forfeiture of his Elect. He is deceived and wrongeth God that maketh him the Author of Men's sin And so doth he that feigneth God to send his Son to redeem the World and his Word and Ministers to call them and his Spirit to renew them and all this at Random not knowing whether it may not be all lost or leaving it chiefly to the Free-will of them whose wills are contrarily inclined and vitiated Whether Christ and all his Preparations shall be lost The plain Christian that holdeth but to these two points that our Destruction is of our selves but our help and Salvation of God and that God is the first and chief cause of all good and Men and Devils of all Evil is liker to be wise with Sobriety and Safety than the Ignorant Intruders into Gods Secrets and the prating Calumniators that speak Evil of the things which they understand not and reproach those that speak not as Rashly and Ignorantly as themselves even in some equivocal unexplained words Methinks Papists should be so kind to God as seeing the Pope can tell who is a Damned Heretick and to be kill'd even all that believe not in the Pope or are not his Subjects and who is in Purgatory and how long he shall stay there Or how many years Torment the Pope can shorten They should allow God to know a little more and that not as one whose Power and Grace is Conquered by impotent Worms against his absolute Will The Five and Twentieth accused Point That every one ought Infallibly to assure himself of his Salvation and to believe that he is of the number of the Predestinate Ans I would fain excuse the man as far as I can and therefore I hope that as the man was excusable that did eat Snakes for Snigs or Eels so he read some Pamphlet of an Antimonian either Crisp or Saltmarsh or some other such or talkt with some of their silly Novices and thought he had Convers'd with the Reformed Catholicks or read the Confessions of the Reformed Churches The first Sentence is a Fundamental Truth and a damnable Falshood as the Equivocal words are variously understood And is it not pity that the Priests of the Infallible Church should put things so different into the same words and that in an accusation of so many Churches and Nations when yet God himself is feigned by them to write by his Spirit so Unintelligibly that without these Doctors skilful Exposition it is but like to make men Hereticks that is Adversaries to the Pope and his Clergy To assure our selves of our Salvation may mean to give all diligence to make our Salvation infallibly sure This every one ought to do Or it may mean that every man ought to believe it as an infallible Truth that he shall be saved The next Sentence seemeth to make this his meaning in the first Which if it be he is a false Calumniator of the Reformed Churches But if the first be his meaning and he deny it he is an open Enemy to Man's Salvation What is all the Scripture for and all our Religion but to make sure of our Salvation 2 Pet. 1. 10. Give all diligence to make your Calling and Election sure And if no man can be sure to what purpose hath God made so many promises of it expressing the Conditions to them that believe that love God that forsake all for him if no man can know whether he perform the Condition and that he is within this promise Why doth God lay down so many signs to difference the Children of God from the Children of the Devil if they cannot be discerned Sure Heaven and Hell be not like and yet are the Heirs of Heaven and Hell undistinguishable Is the Image of God and the Devil so like that none can know them asunder No not the man that hath had them both And why doth God so aften call on Believers to Rejoyce if they cannot know whether they shall be in Heaven and Hell for ever If you say he is not sure to persevere many Papists grant that the Confirmed may And why may not Bradford Hooper Sanders and Thousands else that are Dying by the Sacred blood-thirsty Church be assured when they are Dying that they have forsaken Life and all for Christ But oportet mendacem esse memorem still Why do you not tell men when the Pope is selling them Pardons and saving them out of Purgatory that when all 's done they can have no assurance of Salvation yea that they ought not to endeavour to make it sure And whose now is the safe Church and Religion if a Papist can never be sure that he shall be saved in your Church and Religion nor sure that he is in a State of Salvation That is that he is a true Christian and hath Charity and is an honest man 2. A man that hath got true and clear Evidence that he hath a Confirmed Faith and Hope and loveth God as God above all ought consequently to take it for an infallible Truth that so Dying he shall be saved Else he must either give God the Lie that hath promised it or he must be supposed to be deceived when he thinketh that he believeth and loveth God But that every man must believe that he is of the Number of the Predestinate to Salvation is a damnable Doctrine because it requireth all the Millions of ungodly men to believe a Lie yea to believe it as a Divine Truth and to make God both the Author of the Lie and of the deceit of our selves by this Command And when Millions are not of the
God would have bid us do it if he would have us do it so we know that he is all sufficient to tell them what and when to doe for us and to pray to him is the way to secure their Service 9. And we know that there is one Mediator between God and Man whose Intercession is sufficient 10. And we know that Christians praying to Angels and separated Souls greatly hardeneth the Heathen World that pray to separated Souls and Daemons that are their Sub-deities 11. And when these men say not we must pray to Angels but we may do it what horrid Murderers are they that will Burn Kill and Damn men for not doing all that they think they may do without any must or Divine Obligation Why take they it not at best as part of their Works of Supererrogation 12. The Deceiver prophaning the Scripture 1. Puts Jacobs Benediction desiring the Angels guard on his Son to be a prayer to Angels Yea when the Fathers say that Angel was Christ himself 2. And Jacobs words to the Angel that appeared to him to be a reason for our praying to unseen Spirits If they appear to us we shall the better know what and when to speak to them The Nine and Twentieth accused Point That the Angels cannot help us Ans This is too gross stating of Controversies for a Collier or a Cobler tho' not for a Doctor of Infallible Church 1. We say that not only an Angel but a Man an Ass as Balaams a blast of Wind Flies Frogs Lice as in Egypt can help us when God sendeth them to help us 2. We believe that Angels are specially Empowred and willing for it So that they are Gods Eminent Ministring Spirits for the good of his Elect. 3. But we believe that they can do nothing for us but what God empowreth and Commissioneth them to do He that Curseth those that trust in man and make Flesh their Arm instead of trusting God will so Curse them that so trust in Angels But yet we may and must trust man and Angels according to their several measures of Gods authorizing and enabling them The great Mercies of Protection and assistance that God giveth us by Angels is the matter of much of our daily thanks to God And I am daily thankful to Angels themselves and I think I love them better than any Friends on Earth because they are better and love God better And I am the willinger to Die because I shall go to the World of Love where as God and Christ is Love so Angels love God and we for his sake better than I love my self while our Papists that pray to Angels devour the blood of Saints The Thirtieth accused Point That no Saint Deceased hath after appeared to any on Earth Ans A meer false Calumny What Protestant Confessions have any such Article How know we what hath been done of that kind in all the World to this day Read but Dr. More and Mr. Glanvils Books of Apparitions and Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Lawrences Books of our Communion with Angels Read Zanchius Luther Melaucton Manlius Lavalu c. and you may see that this is no Protestant assertion We know that Christ appeared to Saul and that many Bodies of Saints arose at Christs Death and appeared to many And what the Witch of Endor showed as Samuel we know not We only say 1. That it is much liker that Apparitions are oftest made by Devils or bad Spirits that dwell in the lower Regions than that blessed Spirits come from Heaven 2. But yet seeing Angels thence appear we cannot say that Holy Souls never do 3. But that God will not have it to be any ordinary or trusty means for Men's Salvation For we cannot know when it is a Holy Soul and when a Devil And they that will not believe Moses and the Prophets and Christ neither will they believe tho' one rose from the Dead It 's no Article of our Faith that they ever did appear or not And if these men think otherwise why must this Opinion more than Ten thousand such be obtruded as necessary on all others The One and Thirtieth accused Point That the Saints Deceased know not what passeth here on Earth Ans Confusion and Calumny There is knowledge Immediate by Intention and Mediate by Notification from others And there is knowledge perfect and in part 1. We take not on us to know the extent of the knowledge of separated Souls And these proud Infallible men know no more than we but so much less in that they know not their own Ignorance Yet neither Lilly nor any Astrologer nor Conjurer that ever I heard of that pretendeth the greatest acquaintance with Spirits did ever pretend to make their Opinions of them necessary to Salvation nor to kill all Dissenters as Hereticks but the Vice-Christ and his Church we cannot know all that they pretend to know And why must we needs know whether ever such Souls appeared If they did we will try what they are by the word of God which is our Rule And why must we know how much they know We know that they are not Omniscient nor Omnipresent And how much they know by present Intention not one of these Pretenders know That they know more than we and know much by the notices of Angels or one another and specially of the General State of Christs Kingdom on Earth we make no doubt And what Christ himself maketh known to them we know not O! what sort of men are these that forbid us to Read the Word of God and yet obtrude on us on dismal Penalties so many things more than all the Bible doth contain The Two and Thirtieth accused Point That the Saints pray not for us Ans Equivocal and false 1. All Saints on Earth pray for us It is part of the Communion of Saints 2. We say of the Prayer of departed Souls the same that we said before of the Prayer of Angels Their General Requests for the Church and against Enemies proveth not to us what extent their knowledge of particulars hath nor what particulars they ask nor that every Christian can say that they pray for him and that in his particular cases The Three and Thirtieth accused Point That we ought not to beseech God to grant our prayers in favour of the Saints or their Merits Nor do we receive any benefit thereby Ans This is before answered to the 17th Accusation I told you that we hold that God blesseth Children for their Holy Parents sakes their Relation making the welfare of the one to be the others And God blessed others for Josephs sake and sometimes preserveth whole Countries for the sake of the Godly there And on what account and how far I will not again repeat And the Union and Communion of Saints in Heaven and Earth are so near that I dare not say that God doth any good to any one faithful Soul that is not in some respect for the sake of all the rest as the
Cure of an aking Tooth is for the sake of all the Body That is 1. For the good of the whole 2. And done out of love to the whole But this will not satisfie confounding Deceivers No doubt it is dead Saints that he meaneth And what he meaneth by Merits I suppose he knoweth not himself or else he would have told us How far we own or abhor the pretence of Merits I shewed before All Saints are saved by the full sufficient Merits of Christ and have none at all of their own unless the amiableness of Grace freely given them be called their Merits as a thankful Child more deserveth his Fathers Love that is is more Lovely than a Rebel that scorneth him and a piece of Gold deserveth to be esteemed above Dirt and a Nightingale above a Toad Yea their own Jesuit Vasquez not only denieth all Merit of God in Commutative Justice as all save Romans and a few such Sots do but also in point of distributive Justice by which he seemeth to deny Merit more than Protestants do For by Merit we mean but Moral aptitude for the reward of a free Benefactor who is also Rector when the ordering of a free Gift suspended on official Conditions is sapientially made a means of procuring Obedience Whatever God hath promised to give us for other Men's sake that he will so give But our Faith shall not go beyond his Promise If God have told us any where who Saint Nicolas and St. Becket and St. Christopher and St. Joan and St. Jane and St. Winifrid are and what they were to us more than others and that they were real Saints and that he hath promised us Mercy for their sakes and bid us pray to him for their Meriting for us let them shew us this in his Word But if it be only the Popes Command and Promise let his Subjects obey and trust it We are certain that none but Saints are saved And why then must I go to God for the Merits of St. Nicholas or St. Bridget any more than for the Merits of all the rest which are many Millions As God is jealous of his Honour against Idols so is he of Christs Honour against Antichrists and false Mediators and we must do nothing that seemeth to ascribe any part of Christs proper Office of Mediation to any Creature And doth it not seem so if we pray Lord hear pardon and save me for the Merits of Becket or Bridget c. For what more can we say of the Merits of Christ But still mark that these men say not that we must pray thus for the Merit of Saints but that we may And must all be Burnt or Damned that will not do all that the Pope thinks they maey do That we receive no benefit by them is a forged Calumny and not our Doctrine We believe that the Jews had benefit by Abraham Moses David when they were Dead And that the Reformed Churches have had benefit by the Blood of the Martyrs shed by the Blood-thirsty Papists to this day and that the whole Church hath benefit by the Writings of Chrysostom Nazianzene Augustine c. Luther Calvin c. The Four and Thirtieth accused Point That we ought not expresly to pray them to pray or intercede to God for us Ans There was enough said of this before about praying to Angels When God bids us pray to dead Men's Souls we will do it Till then your saying we may do it proveth neither may nor must to us Why then cannot you keep your may to your selves Never a Conjurer in England can tell us how far Souls in Heaven can hear nor where and when they are present or within hearing nor which of them are so whether all or one or which No nor whether those Saints that understood not Latin on Earth do understand Latin Prayers sent up from Earth whâ—â—â— the Speaker himself understandeth them not Alas Christian Reader what a dark uncertain Worship like Charming would this Infallible Church compell men to offer the most Holy God while they accuse his Word of ensnaring dangerous obscurity We will pray to those alive that we know do hear us to pray to God for us for the sake of Christ But it 's but profanation of the Scripture to say that because Luke 16 a man in Hell supposed to see and hear Abraham did pray him to send Lazarus on Earth therefore we that neither see nor hear the Dead should pray to them But Dives prayed in vain and so may you And what if those Souls should prove to be in Purgatory Must we pray both to them that are in Purgatory and for them also And is it certain that the Pope and all his Church are sure which Saint is not in Purgatory when all are there or worse say they that ever sinned and did not Pennance for it The Five and Thirtieth accused Point That the Bones or Relicks of the Saints are not to be kept or reserved no Virtue proceeding from them after they be once dead Ans 1. Where hath God Commanded us to keep them for the Virtue that proceedeth from them 2. We deny not but a man may keep a Skeleton or Skull and if it be his Fathers we will accuse him no higher than of Imprudence and Passion But what proof have you of Virtue proceeding from Bones till you see it by experience Is it any appointed means for God to work Miracles by And how know you that all were Saints that the Pope calleth so Had all the Debauched Popes of Anno 800 900 1000 skill Infallible to know Saints from Hypocrites And hath God promised Virtue to all their Bones And are you sure that they are their Bones Alas what numerous Tricks have men to trust to to deceive themselves and others that yet will not obey Christs plain Commands and trust his promise The Six and Thirtieth accused Point That Creatures cannot be Sanctified or made more holy than they are already of their own Nature Ans A down-right slander 1. We believe that all men that shall be saved are or shall be Sanctified and made more holy than they are of their own Nature 2. We believe that to the Pure all things are Pure and are Sanctified by the Word and Prayer And that whatever we do we should do it to the glory of God And when a Christian devoteth and useth his Food Estate and all to Gods Service it is Sanctified 3. We believe that a Temple a Font a Table and Utensils may well be separated from common uses to Gods Worship And that Separation is a sanctifying of them To be Sanctified or Holy is but to be separated from common use to Gods special Service according to the nature of the thing used 1. Godly men are Sanctifyed and Saints because by Soul-consent and Devotion and Practice they are sincerely separated to God from the slavery of the World the Flesh and the Devil being Habitually and Predominantly lovers of God and Holiness by
the grace of Christ and the Holy Ghost 2. Professed Christians are Sacramentally Sanctifyed when by outward Baptism they are devoted to God in Christ 3. Even bad Ministers are externally sanctifyed as separated and consecrated to a Holy Office 4. Temples and Books and Church Utensils are sanctifyed when by men they are separated from common and unclean usage to Gods Worship So that tho' Holiness in all be this separation to God yet as the Persons and things are not the same so neither is their Holiness in specie but only in genere And there is a Superstitious and an Idolatrous Mock-Holiness when men will devote that to God and Holy uses which he abhorreth or accepteth not nor ever required of them And say as the Hypocrite Pharisees it is Corban who required this at their hands The Hypocrites and Idolaters have always been forward for this unrequired Mock-Holiness to quiet their Consciences instead of real saving Holiness It 's Cheaper and Easier to have Holy-Water Holy-Oil Holy-Spittle Holy-Images Holy-Crosses Holy-Vestments of many sorts Holy-Altars Holy-Shrines and Pilgrimages Holy-Bones and Chips and Places than to have Holy-Hearts and Lives which love God and Grace and Heaven above all this World and Life it self and by the Spirit mortify all fleshly Lusts The Seven and Thirtieth accused Point That Children may be saved by their Parents Faith without the Sacrament of Holy Baptism Ans Can you unriddle this charge Whether the man mean that they may be saved by Baptism without their Parents Faith Or that both must be conjoyned as necessary to Salvation He will not tell us that 1. That God hath made abundance of promises to the Seed of the Faithful and taketh them into the Covenant of Grace with their Parents and saith that they are Holy 1 Cor. 7.14 Protestants have copiously proved against Anabaptists and Papists But it is Gods Mercy and Christs Merit Grace and Covenant that they are saved by The Parents Faith is but that Qualification and Relation which maketh them receptive and capable of this saving Grace The Parenrs Faith saveth themselves but as the Moral qualifying disposition and condition of Gods saving Gift And to Infants it is required not that they be Believers but Believers Seed devoted to God by Parents or Pro-Parents whose they are 2. We doubt not but regularly where it may be had this Dedication should be solemnly made by Baptismal Covenanting Ask the Anabaptists whether we hold not this But we believe that as private Marriage maketh Husband and Wife before God but solemn Matrimony is necessary for publick Order without which they may be punished as Fornicators So if an Infant be the Child of one believing Parent dedicated to God he is Holy and in the same Covenant with the Parent and were else unclean But that before the Church he is not regularly to be judged in Covenant till it be solemnized in Christs appointed way by Baptism Still excepting where Baptism cannot be had and there even sober Papists say that the Votum the Vow or desire will serve And this necessity is manifold 1. When the Child dieth before Baptism could be had 2. Where there is no capable Person to do it or that will not utterly deprave it 3. When the Parent is an Antipoedo-Baptist and omitteth it thinking it a Sin If they think that the Infant is not saved by the Parents Faith why should they think that believing Parents Children are damned because the Parent Erreth in such an external thing But Papists that turn other parts of Holiness into Form and Ceremony and make a Religion of the Carkass mortifyed would here also perswade People that the very outward act of Washing is of so great moment with God that though it were the holyest Persons or their Seed a mistake or a delay or surprize of Death will damn them if they be not Baptized or Martyred This tendeth to Subject all to the Mercy and Dominion of the Priests that they may seem more necessary to Salvation than they are or at least their external Forms by Lay-men or Women Baptizers administred Constantine himself the Churches great Deliverer was not Baptized till near his Death Are they sure that he was till then in a state of Damnation and had been Damned if he had so Died Methinks in gratitude the Church of Rome should have cast him no lower than the Torments of Purgatory The Eight and Thirtieth accused Point That the Sacrament of Confirmation is not necessary nor to be used Ans You may so mean by the Word Sacrament and Confirmation as that we do deny them And you may so mean as that we are more for them than you are 1. If by a Sacrament you mean one of Gods Institution appointed by him to be his Solemn Delivery and Investiture in a state of Christianity or necessary Grace and if by Confirmation you mean Arch-Bishops anointing Infants or Ignorant Children or Persons with hallowed Oyl compounded once a year and his Ceremonious boxing them and such other Formalities then we deny that such Confirmation is any such Sacrament nor is necessary or to be used because Holy things are not to be mortyfied and profaned 2. But if by a Sacrament you mean but a Solemn renewal of our Covenant with God in Christ and by Confirmation you must that those Baptized in Infancy should at due Age understandingly under the Pastors hand or Care profess their serious personal Consent to that Covenant which by others they imputatively made in Baptism we are so far from denying this that we think till this Solemn personal Covenanting and owning their Baptism with understanding and seeming seriousness be made the Entrance into the state of Adult Church Communion the woful Corruption of the Church is never to be well healed but while one side turn Confirmation into a dead Shadow and Mockery and the Anabaptists scandalized Heresie are all for Rebaptizing instead of Confirmation Prophanation and Schism will gratifie Satan You know that the English Bishops practise Confirmation and the Liturgy describeth it as I here do And are the Church of England no Protestants And divers Protestant Non-Conformists here have about 29 and 30 years ago written full Treatises for Confirmation The Nine and Thirtieth accused Point That the Bread of the Supper of our Lord was but a Figure or Remembrance of the Body of Christ received by Faith and not his true and very Body Ans 1. Protestants hold that as all words are to be taken according to the usage of the Subject or Science that they are used about Physical Terms Physically Rhetorical Rhetorically Geometrical Astronomical Arithemetical accordingly Law Terms according to Law and Moral and Theological Terms Morally and Theologically so if as Naturalists we ask what the matter of that Sacrament is we say Bread and Wine If as Moralists and Theologues we say it is the Body and Blood of Christ As if you ask of a Gold and Silver Coyn what it is in a Natural Sence we say
it is Gold and Silver But if you ask in a Civil Political and Law-Sence we say it is a 20 s. piece a Jacobus a Carolus piece or it is a Crown or a Shilling So we say that Sacramentally and Morally and Relatively that which is naturally true Bread and Wine is yet also the true Body and Blood of Christ And we say not that it is only a Figure and Remembrance but it is such a Figure as is Representatively his very Flesh and Blood And it is to Deliver to us and Invest us in a Spiritual Vnion with Christ himself and right to his saving Grace A proxy that as Representative of a Prince Marrieth a Foreign Lady is more than a Remembrance and so is his Image if it be used in the Marriage A Key or a Twig and Turf by which Investiture in House and Land is delivered and a Staff and Ring by which Bishopricks were of old delivered by Investiture are all more than a bare Remembrance 2. As to your implied Doctrine of Transubstantiation that after the words of Consecration there is left no real Bread and Wine it is Copiously and undenyably proved a Novel Doctrine so monstrous as if it had been formed to engage Mankind in a Renunciation of Christianity Humanity and common Senses and to be an obliging profession of this Renunciation It is enough for us to believe that after the true Consecration it is no more meer Bread and Wine as after the Coyning a 20 s. Piece a Crown or a Noble or an Angel it is not meer Gold but the said named Coyn. But if ever Satan shewed himself a Dragon under the Name of an Angel of Light it was when he made the Canons of the 4th Laterane General Council under Innocent the 3d. that set up Transubstantiation and the Murdering of all that deny it of deposing Princes that will not exterminate them This adjuncts and effects will shew the difference between this Counterfeit Sacrament and Christ Christs Sacrament was instituted to be a Sacrament and Covenant of dearest Love between God and Man and one another But as Satan when he Covenanteth with Witches to sell him their Souls must have it sealed by his sucking their Blood so the seal that he set to the Monster of Transubstantiation was that his Church and it must live by the blood of those that own it not But what will convince men that by Noise and Worldly Interest have Conquered all that is proper to a man yea or a living sensible Animal 1. They pretend Christs Words This is my Body when they know that it was his ordinary parabolical phrase and they will take this Physically and singularly as different from all the rest Tho' he say I am the Door I am the Vine and ye are the Branches and my Father is the Husband-man and the Field is the World and the Tares are the Children of the Wicked one and the Harvest is the end of the World and the Reapers are the Angels they that received the Seed by the High-way are they that c. And so he speaketh usually 2. They know that in 1 Cor. 11. Paul calls it Bread after the Consecration three times in the three next Verses And would they have Burnt Paul for a Heretick What can they devise against these plain words 3. They sentence all to Death and Hell that will believe their Eyes Taste Feeling or any Sense of themselves and all others that perceiveth true Bread and Wine after Consecration 4. Hereby they make God as Creator the Grand Deceiver of the World by deluding all Men's Senses 5. And hereby they overthrow all certainty of Faith Divine and Humane For Sense and Humanity are before Faith and Christianity and their perception presupposed And if Sense be presupposed fallible yea false Faith must needs be so For we are not sure that ever we saw a Book or Man or Light or heard man speak or what he saith And how can he believe Gods Word or the Popes or Priests that is not sure that ever he heard or saw them 6. They feign every sottish filthy Priest to work more Miracles at his pleasure by his transubstantiating than Christ or his Apostles did 7. They enable a drunken Priest to undoe Bakers and Vintners by saying the words of Consecration Intentione Consecrandi over all their Bread and Wine And then they have none left 8. They feign Christ to have eaten his own Body by his Body and either that the same Body did eat it self or that he had two Bodies that did eat neither 9. They feign that his whole Body did eat his broken Body and that his Disciples did eat it before it was broken and drank his shed Blood before it was shed 10. When two General Councils C.P. the 5th and Nice the 2d tell us that Christs body in Heaven now is not Flesh and Blood and Paul saith 1 Cor. 15 that Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God yet they maintain that Christ hath had these 1600 years a body of Flesh and Blood 11. They feign abundance of Accidents without subject Substances that are the Accidents Quantity Quality c. of nothing 12. They feign a sottish Priest to make his Maker day by day 13. When Christ saith He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood shall live for ever they feign the most wicked men to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood 14. They feign Mice to eat God 15. They feign every wicked man to eat his God and digest part of him into his own Flesh and Blood and cast out the other part into the Jakes 16. They teach men to commit Idolatry by worshiping Bread as God 17. All this is enforced by Fire and Sword against the Blood of Holy men 18. All this is Novel Heresie contrary to the Doctrine of the Universal Church for a Thousand years after Christ and more 19. It 's contrary to Paul's Quere 1 Cor. 12. Are all workers of Miracles understood Negatively 20. It 's feigned a sufficient ground to depose Princes and destroy whole Lands But these things and specially the forged Miracles of the Transubstantiation are more largely confuted in many Treatises What hope of ending any Controversies with Papists that agree not with us in the credit of Senses as Heathens do Can we bring any Controversie to a plainer issue than to all Men's common Senses about due Objects and due Mediums And is there any disputing where no principle is agreed on The Fortieth accused Point That we ought to receive under both kinds and that one alone is not sufficient Ans It concerneth them that deny this either to keep men from Reading Gods Word or to tell them it is false and the Pope's is true that contradicteth it What is a flat defyance of God or his Word if this be not Christ saith Math. 26.27 28. Drink ye all of it For this is my Blood of the New-Testament which is shed for many for the remission of
sins And St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 11.23 I have received of the Lord that which I delivered to you That the Lord Jesus the Night in which he was betrayed took Bread c. Vers 25. After the same manner also he took the Cup when he had Supped saying This Cup is the New-Testament in my blood This do ye as oft as you drink it in remembrance of me For as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew the Lord's Death 'till he come Wherefore whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that Cup. These words do so plainly say it is bread after the Consecration and do so plainly require all to drink of the Cup as well as to eat of the Bread that the Infallible Clergy are fain to accuse the Light of Darkness the Text of deceitful Obscurity till the Pope and his Prelates have expounded it by giving it the Lye Just like the Knave in Ignoramus's Play that Proclaimed the man to be Mad from whom he intended to extort Money that is for binding and abusing him What is it to proclaim Christ and Paul to be Fools that could not speak Sense if this be not But the Doctors have also contradictions to charge on Christ even that else-where he saith He that eateth his Flesh shall live for ever Ans 1. That is He that trusteth in a Sacrificed Christ as the means of his Salvation as bread is the means of natural Life He that would not understand cannot understand the plainest Words But doth Christ say that any man eateth his flesh that drinketh not his blood Or that he shall have Life that doth the one without the other 2. And seeing they take every Rogue that eateth their Wafer to eat Christs Flesh do they not here falsly say that all such shall have Eternal Life O happy miserable Church that hath Eternal Life how wicked soever for eating the Wafer and calling it Christs Flesh And all this that Faith may not be thought to be meant by eating 3. But seeing it must needs be eating by the Teeth or by Flesh eating that is meant they have found out a crafty literal way Christ saith that he loveth and cherisheth his Church as his own Flesh and we are Members of his body of his flesh and of his bones And so they that Murdered a Million of the Albigenses c. and Massacred 40000 in France and 200000 in Ireland and Burnt them in England Germany the Low Countries and Tormented and Killed them in Bohemia and many other Lands did learn the literal way of eating Christs Flesh And who doubts but the Devil tells them that they shall thereby obtain everlasting Life But why then are they against drinking his blood when actually they draw it out by streams Perhaps by Burning his Bones as they did Buceâ—s Phagius Wickliffes and 1000 more they think that their Teeth scape the trouble of gnawing them and thus they feed on Christs body flesh and bones For their Masters beat Witches if they bring him not account at every Meeting of some mischief that they have done 3. And what but flat opposition to Christ should move these men to forbid one half of his Sacrament which he calls the New-Testament in his blood One would wonder what should be their Motive It is no matter of Pleasure Profit or Honour This very Deceiver had more wit than to pretend Antiquity for it or any one ancient Doctor of the Church They dare not deny save to Ignorants and Fools that it is a Novelty contrary to unquestioned Consent and Practice of all Christs Church for above a thousand years or near at least It is undenyably against Christs Institution and Command against his Apostles Doctrine and Scripture Practice against all the Judgment and Practice of the ancient Church against the Nature and Integrity of the Sacrament against the Concord of the Church that will never Unite against all these against the Sense and Comfort of Believers What then doth over-rule so many men to Tear the Church to Murder so many Bohemians as they did c. for such a thing as this is Reader I will tell thee all that I know The Devil is in constant War against Christ and his Kingdom and the Souls of men As he thought he could have triumphed in making Job curse God to his Face so he would fain shew that he can make Christs own pretended Ministers oppose and despise the plainest of his Commands and defie his Word and him to his Face To this he gets by the baits of Worldly Wealth Honour and Dominion a sort of Fleshly Worldly men to be Bishops whose very hearts are against the Laws of Christ And puffing up these men by degrees he tells them how they must be Great and arrogate Power equal to Christs Apostles and so domineer over the Souls of men and all this on pretence of honouring Christ And having gotten a Generation of gross ignorant debauched Villains into the Papal elevated Seat and the Ruling Church Power when some poor Woman once or twice shed some of the Wine or a Priest chanced to spill it their prophane Holiness decreed that they should drink the Wine no more save the Clergy but should eat Christs Blood which they said was in his Flesh and a while they dipt the Wafer in Wine and then pretended Infallibility being their vain Glory they must not change lest they should seem to be fallible and should Repent for Repenting undoes Satans Kingdom The One and Fortieth accused Point That there is not in the Church a true and proper Sacrifice and that the Mass is not a Sacrifice Ans True and proper if the words are intelligible are put against false and equivocal or figurative And what man can tell us which Sence of the word Sacrifice must be taken for the only proper Sence when with Heathens and Christians the word is used in so many Sences and there are so many sorts of Sacrifices This man would not tell you whether it be the Thing or the Name that he controverteth that would be to come into the Light If it be the thing we never doubted but divers things are and must be in the Church which are called Sacrifices some in Scripture and some by Papists And some things by them called Sacrifices are in their Church which God is against If it be the Name that is the question we know that in a General Sence it may be given to many things of different Species and equivocally yet to more but which Sence to call proper among so many let quibling Grammarians tell him We strive no further about Names than tendeth to preserve the due Judgment of things Sometime a Sacrifice signifieth a second thing offered to God by way of worship Sometime more strictly somewhat supposed
highly to gratifie or please him offered to expiate some Crime that displeaseth him or by pleasing to procure some benefit from him Among Heathens and Jews there were various sorts of Sacrifices Some Hilastical some Eucharistical Some of things Lifeless and some of Living Creatures where strictly part was burnt and so offered to God and part given to the Priest and part eaten by the Offerers We hold 1. That Jesus Christ offered his Body on the Cross a Sacrifice to God for the expiation of Sin as a thing pleasing to God in a sence which no other Sacrifice ever was or is not that God delighted in his Blood Pain or Death as such but as finis gratiâ it was the most excellent means to demonstrate his Wisdom Love Justice and Mercy and save a sinful race of men with the honour of his Law and Government 2. We hold that Christ hath instituted his Sacrament to be a visible Representation of this his Sacrifice both for Commemoration and for actual Investiture and Collation of Christ to be our Saviour and Head in Union and of his Grace and Benefits Pardon Reconciliation Adoption Justification Sanctification and Title to Glory And we know that the ancient Churches called this often a Sacrifice Not in the same sence as Christ was our Sacrifice nor as the Mosaical Types were Sacrifices but a Representative Sacrifice representing Christs own But we are the shier to use the name Sacrifice where Papists apply it to Idolatry 3. We know that all Christians are bound to dedicate themselves to God and even to lay down their Lives when he requireth it and bound to offer him penitent Confession Praise Thanksgiving and to give Alms to the poor and serve and honour him with all their Wealth and Power And all these are called Sacrifices in Scripture because they are sacred oblations acceptable to God through the merits of Christs Sacrifice Is not this man a Calumniator then that faith we hold that there is not in the Church a true and proper Sacrifice unless he call none true and proper but what no man can offer to God But what say we to the Sacrifice of the Mass We say that for the Priest to pretend that after his words Bread is turned into Christs Flesh in a Physical sence and Wine into his Blood and that this is our God and that he sacrificeth this God to God and eateth and drinketh him so sacrificed and that all that so receive him have Eternal Life This is a prophanation of Holy things a deceiving of Souls a blaspheming of Christ and Idolatry against God And all sacrificing in their Mass that is more than a Representation of Christs own sacrificing himself for Commemoration and Communication of the gifts of his Testament and the expression of our Gratitude and Devotedness to God by him is their own prophane invention How do they offer his broken body and blood shed any otherwise than Representatively unless they kill him and eat him when he is Dead It was only a Representation of his own sacrificed Body and Blood which he made at the Sacrament himself not then broken and shed but to be broken slain and shed soon after unless he had two bodies one dead and one alive The Sacrament indeed was called a Sacrifice by the ancient Churches to signifie that it is not Christs body as now glorified in Heaven that is there Represented but his body as once flesh and blood sacrificed on the Cross And how can it be that but by Representation sacrificing it was killing it Do they kill Christ a thousand thousand times over yea and kill his Gloryfied body He hath no existent Flesh and Blood in Heaven speaking properly and formally but a Spiritual glorified body that was Flesh and Blood on Earth And doth every Priest turn Christs Spiritual glorified body into Flesh and Blood again O what a Mass of prophanation is their Mass Tho Two and Fortieth accused Point That Sacramental Vnction is not to be used to the Sick Ans In those Hot-Countries anointing their bodies was used as a great refreshment for Delight and Health And Christ and his Apostles applyed it to the Miraculous use of Healing as Christ did Clay and Spittle to a blind Man And while that miraculous use continued St. James bids those that are sick as a punishment for some sin to send for the Elders of the Church that they may pray for the pardon of his sin and for his recovery and anoint him with Oil and if he have not sinned unto Death that is a Capital Crime which God would have Magistrates punish with Death and will do so himself his Sin shall be forgiven and he shall be healed See now the Malice of the Prince of Darkness He that tempteth men to cast out half the substance of the Lords Supper meerly to shew what they can and will and dare do against his Word and tempteth men to forbid the very Scripture it self yet to undoe he will overdoe and draw men to be wise and Righteous over much Who would think these men are against the sufficiency of Scripture that will turn its temporary occasional actions into perpetual Sacraments They make Conscience of washing Feet of bearing Palms of the Holy-Kiss but on the Pax and a Sacrament of anointing the sick And why they make not a Sacrament of anointing the Blind with Clay and Spittle of washing at Jordan or Siloam Pools and of the said Kiss and washing of Feet of bearing Palms of the Popes Riding on an Ass c. I know not But for the Name of a Sacrament bring first a Military and then a Church Term not used in Scripture we will not quarrel with them They may laxly extend it to almost any Ceremony or sign Religiously used rightly or wrongly But 1. They use that to the Dying when they judge them past hope which St. James spake of using for Recovery 2. They use that as an ordinary thing which was to be used only for miraculous Cures and yet shew not that they have the Faith or gift of Miracles nor cure any by it 3. They force men to that feigned Sacrament now ceased with that gift which was used to none but such as Voluntarily desired it Why are they not conâ—â—â—â—ed to use it themselves but they must force all others to it as necessary What Man Woman or Child do you read of in all the New-Testament that was anointed in order to Death save a Woman that meant no such thing that anointed Christ in Health Where read you that Dragoons or Inquisitors inforced it and draged naked the bodies through the Streets and Buryed them in Dunghils or where Dogs may eat them if they refuse it Whose Sacraments can we think are these The Three and Fortieth accused Point That no Interior Grace is given by Imposition of hands in Holy Orders And that ordinary Vocation and Mission of Pastors is not necessary in the Church Ans Contrarily the Reformed Catholicks hold
1. That God often gave miraculous interior gifts to men by the Imposition of the Apostles hands 2. And if he please he may now bless Ordination to the increase of men's mental fitness for the Ministry and when he doth so we know not But we hold 1. That men should be supposed by the Ordinances to be true Christians and to have competent Ministerial Abilities before they Ordain them 2. That now miraculous gifts cease no man can tell when any other inward Grace is given by Imposition of hands in Ordination than Relative which is Obligation and Authority for the work of the Ministry And Durandus and other of their School-men say that their Indelible Character is no other And the rest know not what to make of it 3. If we read of Multitudes of Debauched Ignorant Apostatical Popes and Prelates and many Ages of Church Barbarism and Bruitishness even in Baroniâ—s Genebrard and the fiercest Papists and if we see Priests after Ordination to be Ignorant Drunkards Fornicators unable and unapt to Teach haters of a Godly Life we cannot tell what Grace it is that these men are said to receive in Ordination Whatever it is it will not keep them out of Hell as it keeps them not from serving Satan 4. We take an ordinary Calling and Mission to be ordinarily needful to the Church Ministry This Calling consisteth 1. In necessary Abilities without which God sendeth none 2. In willingness and Consent 3. In the Ordination by Senior Pastors where it may be had 4. And to fix them in relation to particular Congregations the mutual consent of themselves and the Flocks 5. But we know Rules of meer Order are for the things ordered and the Edification of the Church for which all Church Power is given and God Commandeth that all be done And we know that God who will have Mercy and not Sacrifice would not have us destroy the substance by pretence of a Ceremony And that in several Cases Ministers may be lawfully called without Imposition of hands and Canonical Ordination As 1. In case men be cast into Infidel Countries where no Bishops or Pastors can be had As by Shipwrack or Merchants Factory or Embassadors or when a Bishop with them dyeth by the way They must not be without all publick Church Worship for want of an Imposing Bishop 2. In case Persecution drive all the Bishops out of reach 3. In case the persecuted Bishops refuse to Ordain for fear of suffering 4. In case the Bishops be Hereticks or intollerable Usurpers and no true Bishops wanting the Essentials of a Qualification and a Call 5. In case the Bishops impose any false Oath Subscription Covenant or Profession or any other Sin as the Condition without which they will not Ordain which is the case of all the Papists Prelates their Ordination in these cases is not necessary 6. We know that in such cases the Ministry faileth not but there may be a true succession of Pastors though regular Canonical Ordination be interrupted For there is nothing necessary after Gods Law which specifieth the Office by stated Institution but only the determining who the Persons are that God would have in this Office Which may be well known without Canonical Ordination where that cannot lawfully be had There are instances in the ancient Churches that when some Elected to be Bishops fled or hid themselves the Bishops Ordained them absent by writing without imposition of hands 7. Yea we know that if in any one Church or Nation the succession were totally interrupted for many years God hath left means sufficient to restore it 1. His Word describeth the Office and giveth the Authority and obligation to the Person when determined of 2. That Determination may be made 1. By the due Qualification of the Person 2. The inviting Necessities of the People and opportunity 3. Mutual Consent and without these the Ordination and Mission of a Bishop is vain 8. The Church of Rome more needeth this Doctrine than the Protestants For it is notoriously certain that regular Succession hath failed oft and long in the Papacy and consequently in its Clergy 1. There is no more notorious interruption than by the utter incapacity of the Unqualified And such have been those that were Children or declared Sots Beasts Simonists filthy Lechers Hereticks Infidels Schismaticks by General Council and the most Papal Historians Their Succession now is from Eugenius the 4th deposed as an Heretick by a General Council 2. When there have been two or three Popes above twenty times no man knoweth which was the right 3. Either Election is in the power of some in special or not if not the Turks or Heathens or Hereticks may choose a Pope If it be Then who have the Power It s known that at first the Bishop of Rome was chosen by the People of one Congregation After by the Clergy and people of the Christians of the City After that by the Bishops of the Diocess Sometimes by the Emperors Or Arrian Kings with the Clergy and people Sometimes by General Councils Sometimes against General Councils by an Armed Faction And of late times by things called a Colledge of Cardinals If all these were lawful no one sort have the Electing Power If any was unlawful the Succession hath been interrupted 4. Either the Ordination of a Superior is necessary or not If yea then the Pope having no Superior was never truly Ordained If not then a Presbyter may be Ordained without a Bishop Rome is more concerned to answer these things than we The Four and Fortieth accused Point That Priests and other Religious persons who have Vowed their Chastity to God may freely Marry notwithstanding their Vow Ans 1. Must none keep Vows but Priests and Religious People 2. The known Doctrine of the Protestants about Oaths and Vows which you may see in Sanderson de Juramento is 1. That Antecedently it is unlawful to ensnare our selves by unneecssary Vows of that which is out of our Power or so mutable that it may hereafter be made our Duty which now is not 2. But having once Vowed we must distinguish of the Imposing the making of the Vow and the Matter of it And that 1. Though it was by Parents or others unlawfully imposed 2. And by our selves by temerity unlawfully made or sworn 3. Yet if the Matter consideratis considerandis be necessary or lawful the Vow must be kept But if it be Sin that is Vowed it must not be done Because Man's Vows cannot abrogate or suspend Gods Laws Can any of your Casuists deny this Therefore if Boys or Girls Vow Chastity and it prove thar they cannot keep it without sin the Matter becometh to them unlawful and they must break it As for instance 1. If they cannot keep it without apparent hurt to their Souls by Lust 2. Or if the Heir of the Crown or some great Estate Vow it and if he keep it the Kingdom or Church is like to suffer by it 3. If Parents or
Prince countermand the Vow in Youth But if they can keep it and that keeping become not Sin by consequent accidents or changes they ought to keep it though they must repent of their rash unlawful making it Gods Law is perfect and maketh Duty enough for us and we should not foolishly make more as Law-givers to our selves when we are conscious how far short we come of keeping Gods own Laws The Five and Fortieth accused Point That Fasting and abstinence from certain Meats is not grounded on Holy Scripture nor causeth any Spiritual good Ans Still deceitful Confusion Protestants hold 1. Fasting is a needful Duty to several Persons in several cases As 1. To take down the Flesh when it groweth too strong in Lust 2. For the cure of many Diseases from fulness 3. To exercise our Humiliation in times of publick Danger and Calamity or of personal repentance for some great Sin or under some affliction that calleth for great Humiliation 2. They hold that Abstinence is needful in it's time and place as Fasting is in it's And that all Eating and Drinking is unlawful which gratifieth the Appetite by Quantity or Quality against Men's health and the just Rules by which we should judge what is healthful Yea that bare Eating and Drinking to please the Appetite which doth not some way conduce to fit us for our Duty is Sin 3. We know that the same Meat and Drink for Quality and Quantity which is best for one is hurtful and mortal to another And we know that Fasting is as Physick whether for Health or for the Soul and if we are fallen into the hands of such Physicians as will tye all the Land and all the World to take the same Physick and on the same days to take a Purge or a Vomit every Wednesday Friday and Holy Evens we shall obey them when we are a-weary of our Lives I think our London Colledges would deride such prescribers 4. And if any will tell us that we shall merit of God and save our selves by forbearing the coursest sort of Flesh and eating the more costly Fish Junkets Sweet-meats and drinking Wine and strong-Drink we abhor such Mock-Fasts for God will not be mocked But Hipocrites turn all Religion into a Mockery I have heard those called strict precise Protestants accused as being against abstinence and Fasting and upon enquiry I found that those of my acquaintance eat and drink less all the year than their accusers of my acquaintance do on their Mock-fasting days To such their Diet would seem a strict Fast even Calvin that macerated his body with eating but a few bits once a day is by some Papists called a sensual Glutton though Massonius saith the contrary The Six and Fortieth accused Point That Jesus Christ descended not into Hell nor delivered thence the Souls of the Fathers Ans 1. And do not these false Accusers know that both the Creed which we all profess and the Articles of the Church of England say expresly that Christ descended into Hell 2. And those ahat dislike the Translation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into Hell yet grant Christ went into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that 's all the Scripture saith So that all the doubt is but what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth Whether the Hell of Torment or more Generally the unseen state of separate Souls If you mean the last what Protestants deny it If you mean the first what presumptuous cruelty is it to believe that all the Souls of the Fathers were in Hell till the Death of Christ Christ alleadging I am the God of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob sure meant not that God was their God because they were in Hell Was Lazarus in Hell when Abraham said Now he is Comforted It was a Hell of Joy and Comfort Were Samuel Elisha Job Daniel c. in Hell Was Moses in Hell that appeared in Glory on the Mount with Elias But what is it that the Infallible Church cannot make good when they have once presumed to affirm it The Seven and Fortieth accused Point That there is no Purgatory Fire or other Prison wherein sin may be satisfied for after this Life Ans 1. Which way this Church came to be so much acquainted with Hell and Purgatory and Prisons and satisfying in them in the other World more than is revealed in the Word of God we know not unless some have told them that come thence or from Heaven But for our parts we think Gods Word more trusty than Dead men whom we know not God sendeth us to the Law and to the Testimony If they speak not according to these it is because there is no Light in them Isa 8.20 Abraham preferred Moses and the Prophets before one from the Dead The prophane citation of Scripture by him for such a Purgatory-Prison and Satisfaction needs no answer save the perusal of the Texts What mean these men by satisfying for Sin 1. If they mean that Satisfaction by the merits whereof God pardoneth sin without dishonour to his Justice Government or Law Christ and he only hath thus fully satisfied for sin already and there remaineth no more Sacrifice for sin for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified 2. But if by satisfying for sin they mean that all must suffer all the punishment that their sin deserveth then God forgiveth no sin at all For to forgive the sin is to forgive the punishment And then they renounce the Office Sacrifice and Blood of Christ which are for the pardon of Sin And they renounce Baptism and the Lords Supper that give and Seal it And they cast away all hopes of Salvation and damn all Mankind For all Sin deserveth some degree of Damnation in Hell But if the Pope can pardon sure God doth pardon some To deny pardon is to deny all the Scripture and all humane hope and mercy 3. But if by satisfying for sin they mean that God when he forgiveth through Christ the destructive everlasting Punishment will yet require some corrective temporal punishment with which he is said to be satisfied in that he requireth no more we confess de re that such a thing there is in this World Death as Death and Pain as Pain are such and the Curse on the Earth and the loss of some degrees of Grace they are all corrective Penalties And if any say that a lower degree of Glory for the loss of some degree of Grace is such or that the separation of the Soul from the Body till the Resurrection hath some nature of Penalty we strive with no man about such things But de nomine we justly here dislike the Word Satisfying because in common Sence it soundeth as some Compensation and somewhat that is of the same nature with Christs satisfaction and that is all that Justice requireth to purchase our pardon And it encourageth the ill use of it by Papists that make it meritorious And de re we believe no such
must understandingly joyn Doth their Priest celebrate their Mass alone out of the peoples sight or hearing in a Sanctuary while they are in the outer Court Do not their people assemble to their Mass Will they stand to it that their Church renounceth all worship of God in Holy Assemblies save by the Priest alone And is this the Holy Catholick Church And the man here professedly calls the Priests solitary action the publick Service which is for the people and not by them and therefore they need not understand and all the peoples Prayers are private and should be understood so that the Mystery opened either the Priest is all the Church or else they have no publick Church Service if they must meet that every one may have a secret Prayer of his own and may only see the Priests Service called publick And by this he pretends that he answereth Paul 1 Cor. 14. Adding most shamelesly 1. That it seemeth there by the Text that the common Service of the Church was not then in a Tongue commonly understood 2. Because there was one to supply the place of the Ideots to say Amen where he saith that the Geneva-men most deceitfully and maliciously Translated He that is an Ideot how shall he say Amen And raileth at them for putting So be it O! what is man and how incredible is the pretended infallible Clergy that can expect that all men trust their Souls on such palpable deceit When St. Paul spent a great part of the Chapter to disswade those that by Inspiration could speak strange Languages that they should not use them in the Church as being unedifying or at least not without an Interpreter this man gathers that the common Service was in an unknown Tongue As if this disswaded use of some Prophets gift were the common Service 2. And when he disswadeth them from Praying in an unknown Tongue or giving thanks in it saying else how can he that occupieth the Room of the unlearned say Amen this man feigneth that yet they were to give thanks in an unknown Tongue and one was to supply the place of the Ideot or unlearned in saying Amen See vers 23. Paul would have all say Amen this man says one was to do it for them Paul argueth that therefore they must speak to the understanding of the unlearned This man turneth his own words against him Doth his Supplier of the Ideots place himself understand or not If not Paul saith How can he say Amen If he do how doth he supply the place of the Ideots that are supposed should say Amen and cannot For the sake of this Chapter and Instance I shall never think any words so plain that Papists cannot turn against their most evident sense But what is the Man's pretence for this erroneous Confidence Why the Vulgar Latine Translateth it Qui supplet locum instead of Qui implet locum And that Latin Translator by supplet meant the same as implet possidet vel tenet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is well known to signifie to fill up Their own Expositors are many of them for the Sence which this Doctor chargeth as deceitfully and maliciously given Cornelius a Lapide saith that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Denuo implere vel simul Communiter omnes implere to fill again or all together or in common to fill It is not Qui supplet vicem indocti but Qui locum occupat inter in doctos or Idiotae locum tenet And so it is expounded by the ancients Chrysostom Occumenius Theophysact And are not these Roman Priests notoriously Perjured that all Swear to expound the Scripture according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers when as besides that the Fathers have but few of them written Commentaries on the Scriptures there are very few of them that unanimously agree of the Sence of the one half of the Scripture Texts but either say nothing of them or differ And not only in this but in most points named by this Doctors Touchstone he and others go flat against them And what meaneth the man to rail at them that say So be it instead of Amen Is it not a true Translation But he will prove that it should not be Translated and consequently that Servict may be said in an unknown Tongue for Amen is not Greek but Hebrew Ans 1 Who can stand before these Arguments if they be but backt with Guns and Swords or Smithfield Fires which are too hot for any Answer save Patience He may also prove it from Christs Words on the Cross Eloi Eloi Lamasabacthani For Christ was now the most publick Priest and was offering the most publick Service by his Sacrifice Ergo the publick Service should be in an unknown Tongue And it may be they may find some other untranslated word that shall confute not only all the Bible but all the Septuagint and Vulgar Latine Translations But seeing these Men's Arguments are too hot for me to answer as they might know that the Church of England refuseth not AMEN so neither will I though as I can prove that the Corinthian Church were Hebrews and Gentiles mixt and that Amen was understood by both so Protestants use it as a word understood From the Serpents Seed and his deceiving subtil Lies From Cain and his Successours and the malignant and Blood-thirsty Enemies of Abels faithful acceptable worship from such a worldly and fleshly Sacred Generation as take gain for Godliness and make their worldly carnal interest the Standard of their Religion and their proud Domination to pass for the Kingdom of Christ From an Vsurping Vice-Christ whose ambition is so boundless as to extend to the Prophetical Priestly and Kingly Headship over all the Earth even at the Antipodes and to that which is proper to God himself and our Redeemer From a Leprous Sect which Condemneth the far greatest part of all Christs Church on Earth and separateth from them and calleth it self the whole and only Church From that Church that decreeth Destruction to all that renounce not all humane Sense by believing that Bread is not Bread nor that Wine is Wine but Christs very Flesh and Blood who now hath properly no Flesh and Blood but a Spiritual Body and that decreeth the Excommunication Deposition and Damnation of all Princes that will not exterminate all such and absolveth their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance From that Beast whose Mark is PER Perjury Perfidiousness and Persecution and that think they do God acceptable Service by killing his Servants or tormenting them and that Religion which feedeth on Christs Flesh by Sacrificing those that he calleth his Flesh and Bones Ephes 5 From the infernal Dragon the Father of Lies Malice and Murder and all his Ministers and Kingdom of Darkness GOOD LORD make haste to deliver thy Flock and confirm their Faith Hope Patience and their Joyful desire of the great true final Glorious Deliverance AMEN AMEN AMEN FINIS This Book was delivered by Mr. Baxter himself to the