are oft equal in Argumentation Greatly dishonouring Christ as if so near the end of the World the Albigenses and Waldenses and some Papists that found fault with the Papal Miscarriages had been all the known Church for Eleven hundred Years To tell the Mahometans that the Kingdom of Jesus after so long endeavours was scarce bigger than Wales is not the way to honour Protestants or Christ. And then they think to repair the dishonour by their Prophecy of the Millennial Kingdom which tieth the knot harder than before § X. Running from them into Errours on the other extream and spotting the Reformation with many such Errours hath greatly hardened and increased Papists Especially those Antinomian or Libertine Opinions that overthrow both Christianity and Morality and that which inferreth these which too many have promoted such are the wrong Opinions about Reprobation and the Cause of Sin and the extent of Redemption and the false sence of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness and of Justifying Faith and of the meaning of Works that justifie not and that to Believe we are justified and elected is to believe God's Word or is Fides Divina and that the Covenant of Grace hath no Condition and is made only with Christ and that both obeyed and suffered in our Person in Law sence so that we did in Law sence suffer in and by him and yet fulfil all righteousness by him and were reputatively sinless from first to last that therefore we are justified by the Law of Innocency or Works that condemneth us having perfectly kept it by Christ that our works being not meritorious are not rewardable Too many such Doctrines are Published here and abroad by such as Maccovius Cluto Cocceius and some before them And when Papists find one gross falshood they think all our Religion is such § XI It greatly confirmeth Papists when they find our Writers falsly to accuse them of any Doctrine which they hold not which is very ordinarily done by those that never read them on the meer credit of some Reverend Ministers that so accused them before For instance of the Point of Merit when men read their Books of Self-abnegation Annihilation Self-abasing and Nothingness renouncing Merit even in distributive Justice c. Some have wondered and said How much further are the Papists from trusting to or boasting of their Merits Works and Holiness than we are § XII But Protestants have no way promoted Popery more than by their manifold Divisions and Sects and their mutual enmity and miscarriages I need not name them God hath made Unity and Concord so necessary and amiable to Man that Nature and Grace abhor the contrary Satan is the Divider of Christ's Kingdom and a Kingdom divided cannot stand Multitudes turn and continue Papists not knowing where among so many Sects to fix their choice especially when they see and hear us Revile Censure Silence Imprison and Persecute one another as intolerable they think they may do so by us all and judge of us as we do by one another And to vilifie us is to value themselves Which Sect say they would you have me turn to if I turn § XIII Specially if we fall into odious Scandals as well as Sects the Crimes of Men seem the fault of our Religion When they have recited the Miscarriages here from 1642 till 1660. they think they have decided all the Controversies And also when they can recite the Munster Madness and others such § XIV Hath the Silencing of Two thousand such Ministers and shutting the Church Doors against desired Unity and Concord and keeping out Candidates and giving advantage to Papist Rulers to give full liberty for Popery done nothing to its increase What hath done more to advantage Popery by disabling Protestants and disgracing their Ministers of each Party and keeping up the hopes of Foreign and Domestick Enemies than casting the Nation into a kind of Intestine Hostility and keeping it so by the Dividing Laws and Canons which though it was principally the effects of secret Popish Projects yet had no Anti-Papists by false Prejudice Malice Revenge and worldly Interest had a hand in the effecting and since in defending it they had been more innocent And I would the Provocation had not driven many Nonconformists into harder thoughts of Bishops and Liturgy than they deserve or than they had before the experience of their usage But it 's hard when for Innocency and Duty men must lye and many die in common Jails and have all they have taken from them and be left to Beggary or Charity to keep up as great an esteem of the Authors or Abettors of such Hostility as if they were men of Love and Peace When they see men Hang'd for taking away a small part by Stealth or Robbery it must be more than ordinary Patience and Love that shall cause men to think and say no harm even by honourable and Right Reverend men that even by Law and Judgment said to be just shall take away all and much more than all We had not procured hatred by our importunity in 1660 and 1661. in Pleading and Petitioning to prevent all this if the certain foresight of it in its Causes had not seemed very dreadful to us And yet we do not see the End The Hostility continueth if not increaseth even while the Blood and Flames of Germany Hungary Transilvania Savoy Flanders and Ireland and partly Scotland loudly cry to us Fire Fire and instead of avoiding the like we are as busie as ever to bring more fewel and increase the flame And O dreadful odious Case All is as for God and Religion and the Church that is thus done against God Religion the Church and the whole Land our Posterity § XV. And by our several ways of Unjust and Causeless Impositions we have hardened the Papists in defending their more numerous Snares They say If an Independent Church may bind its Members to take their Covenants to submit to thei◠popular Examinations and Discipline to avoid Communion with the Parish Churches and not to forsake their Church but by tryed Reason or Consent And if a Convocation may impose what is done in England on terms so sharp why may not the Pastors and Councils that have greater Charge and Power do as much and more § XVI The Sectarian weak-headed part of Protestants have greatly advantaged Popery by their ignorant calling every Ceremony and Form and Opinion that they distaste by the Name of Antichristian and saying O this is Popish or taken out of the Mass-Book when some of them know not what Antichristianity is saving as every Sin against Christ is Antichristian nor know they what the Mass-Book is nor what Popery is And it s well if some knew better what Christianity is When men hear that a Bishop a Surplice a sumptuous Church Edifice a Ceremony the Liturgies a Holy-day and it 's well if not the use of the Creed and Lord's Prayer be Antichristian they are tempted to think
Supremacy in these parts of Christendom which I conceive no man of Learning and Sobriety would have grudged to grant him It was also condescended to in the Name of the Pope that Marriage might be permitted to Priests that the Communion might be administred sub utraque specie and the Liturgy be officiated in the English Tongue And though the Author adds not long after that it was to be suspected that so far as the inferior Clergy and the People were concerned the after-performance was to be left to the Pope's discretion yet this was but his own suspicion without any ground at all And to obtain a Reconciliation on these Advantages the Archbishop had all the reason in the world to do as he did in ordering the Lord's Table to be set where the Altar stood and making the accustomed reverence in all approaches towards it and accesses to it and in beautifying and adorning Churches and celebrating Divine Service with all due Solemnities in taking Care that all offensive and exasperating Passages should be expunged out of all such Books as were brought to the Press and for reducing the extravagancy of some Opinions to an evener temper His Majesty had the like reason also for tolerating lawful Recreations on the Sundays and Holidays the rigorous restraint whereof had made some Papists think those most especially of the vulgar sort whom it most concerned that all honest Pastimes were incompatible with our Religion And if he approved auricular Confession and shewed himself willing to introduce it into the use of the Church as both our Authors say he did it is no more than what the Liturgy commends to the care of the Penitent though we find not the word Auricular in it and what the Canons have provided for in the point of security for such as shall be willing to Confess themselves But whereas we are told by one of our Authors that the King should say he would use force to make it be received were it not for fear of Sedition among the People yet it is but in one of our Authors neither who hath no other Author for it but a nameless Doctor And in the way to so happy an Agreement though they all stand accused for it by The English Pope p. 15 Sparrow may be excused for Pleading for Auricular Confession and Watts for Pennance Heylin for Adoration towards the Altar and Mountague for such a qualified Praying to Saints as his Book maintaineth against the Papists If you would know how far they had proceeded towards this happy Reconciliation the Pope's Nuntio will assure us thus That the Universities Bishops and Divines of this Realm did daily embrace Catholick Opinions though they professed not so much with Pen or Mouth for fear of the Puritans For example they held that the Church of Rome is a true Church that the Pope is Superior to all Bishops that to him it pertaineth to call General Councils that it 's lawful to Pray for the Souls of the Departed that Altars ought to be erected of Stone In sum that they believed all that is taught by the Church but not by the Court of Rome Another of their Authors tells us that those among us of greatest Worth Learning and Authority began to love Temper and Moderation that their Doctrines began to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the visible Church of Christ As for example The Pope not Antichrist Prayers for the Dead Limbus Patrum Pictures that the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture About Free Will Predestination Universal Grace that all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works inherent Justice that Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledge the authority of Traditions Commandments possible to be kept that in Exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers And that the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars are used willingly in their Talk and Writings In which Compliances so far forth as they speak the truth for in some Points through Ignorance of the one and Malice of the other they are much mistaken there is scarce any thing which may not well consist with the established though for a time discontinued Doctrine of the Church of England the Articles whereof as the same Jesuit hath observed seem patient or ambitious rather of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick And such a sence is put upon them by him that calls himself Franciscus à Sancta Clara as before was said And if upon such Compliances as those before on the part of the English the Conditions offered by the Pope might have been Confirmed who seeth not that the greatest benefit of the Reconciliation must have redounded to this Church to the King and People His Majesty's Security provided for by the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance so far as it concerned his Temporal Power The Bishops of England to be Independent on the Pope of Rome The Clergy to be permitted the use of Marriage the People to receive the Communion in both Kinds and all Divine Offices officiated in the English Tongue no Innovation made in Doctrine but only in qualifying some Expressions and discharging some Outlandish Glosses that were put upon them And seeing this what Man could be so void of Charity so uncompassionate of the Miseries and Distractions of Christendom as not to wish from the very bottom of his Soul that the Reconciliation had proceeded on so good terms as not to magnifie the Men to succeeding Ages who were the Instrument Authors of so great a Blesâ—ing So far Dr. Heylin who was the Archbishop's Intimate and Agent Archbishop Laud's own words as laid down in his Book defended by Dr. Stillingfleet § 1. The Archbishop disclaimeth the Divine Institution and the Infallibility of General Councils But he thinks we must allow them external Obedience and that honour and priviledge which all other GREAT COURTS have that there be a Declaration of the invalidity of their Decrees as well as of the LAWS of other Courts before private Men can take Liberty to refuse Obedience Part. 3. c. 2. And page 540. It doth not follow because the Church may erre that therefore she may not govern For the Church hath not only a Pastoral Power to Teach and Direct but a Praetorian Power to controul and censure too where Errors and Crimes are against fundamental Points or of great Consequence Thus the Archbishop It is the Universal Church and Councils that he speaks of But 1. There is no such thing on Earth as he calls the Church that is One Universal Aristocracy that hath Power of Governing all the Christian World in one Council or otherwise as one Supream 2. General Councils of divers Kingdoms o're all the World are no more a Court than the Assembly at Nimeguen was 3. No Obedience is due to them but only consent for Concord so far as their Canons tend to true Concord
not too distant may for mutual help and Concord meet in Councils And none should needlesly break their just Agreements because of the general Command of Concord But 1. They hold that these Councils be no representers of all the Christian World 2. Nor have any Universal Jurisdiction 3. Nor any true Governing Power at all over the absent or dissenters but an Agreeing Power 4. And if they pretend any such Power they turn Usurpers 5. And if on pretence of Concord they make Snares or Decree things that are against the Churches Edification Peace or Order or against the Word of God none are bound to stand to such Agreements These being the Judgment of Protestants what do these Men but abuse their words of Reverence to Councils and Submission to their Contracts as if they were for their Universal Soveraign Jurisdiction § 13. And next he saith Whereas Mr. B. doth usher in his Discourse with an intimation that this was only a Doctrine of the Gallican Church he cannot but know that this was the sence of the Church of England in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign Answ. 1. I honour the Gallican Papists above the Italian but I am satisfied that both do erre 2. There is a double untruth in Matter of Fact in your words 1. That I cannot but know that which I cannot know or believe 2. That yours was the sence of the Church of England which I have disproved But what is your proof D. S. For the 20th Article saith The Church hath Power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith and the next Article doth suppose this Authority in General Councils Answ. The Church of England supposeth that Kingdoms should be Christian and the Magistrates and Pastors Power so twisted as that their Conjunction may best make Religion national as it was with the Jews But it never owned a foreign Jurisdiction or the Governing Power of the Subjects of one Kingdom over the Princes and People of another It followeth not that because the Church in England may Decree some Rites here that therefore foreign Churches may command us to use their Rites Our own Church Teachers no doubt have Authority in Controversies of Faith that is to teach us what is the truth and to keep Peace among Disputers but not to bind us to believe any thing against God's Word and therefore not meerly because it 's their Decree Therefore the Article cautelously calls the Church only a Witness and Keeper of holy Writ which we deny not And that besides Scripture they ought not to enforce any thing to be believed for Necessity to Salvation But you would have us believe the Soveraign Universal Jurisdiction of Councils yea and the lawfulness of all your Oaths and Impositions as necessary to escape damning Schism and is not that as necessary to Salvation 2. And one would think there needed no more than the next Articles to confute you which you cite as for you They knew that there had been Imperial General Councils which being gathered and authorized by the Emperors had the same Power in the Empire that National Councils have with us or in other Nations But there 's not a syllable of any Jurisdiction that they have out of the Empire Yea contrary it 's said 1. That they may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And therefore cannot Govern them without their Will nor have any Conciliar Power being no Council And one King cannot command the Subjects of another Indeed if Princes will make themselves Subjects to a Council or Pope who can hinder them 2. They are here declared to be Men not all governed by the Spirit and Word of God and such as may erre and have erred in things pertaining to God Therefore their meer Contracts and Advice are no further to be obeyed than they are governed by the Spirit and Word of God which we are discerning Judges of And it is concluded that things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scripture So that even their Expositions of the Articles of Faith which you make their chief Work hath no further Authority than it 's declared to be taken out of the Scripture it self nor yet their decision of the sence of controverted Texts And such proof must be received from a single Man § 14. Such another proof he fetcheth from the Statute 1 Eliz. c. 1. Forbidding to judge any thing Heresie but what hath been so judged by Authority of Canonical Scripture or the first four General Councils or any of them or any other General Councils Answ. As if forbidding private Heretication were the same with the Universal Soveraignty of Councils we are of the same Religion with all true Christians in the World and we are for as much Concord with all as we can attain But is Concord and Subjection all one or Contract and Government § 15. The like Inference he raiseth from a Canon 1571. forbidding any new Doctrine not agreeable to the Scripture and such as the Ancient Fathers and Bishops thence gathered Answ. And what 's this to an Universal Church Soveraignty § 16. The Church of England's Sence is better expounded Reform Leg. Eccles. c. 15. Orthodoxorum Patrum etiam authoritatem minime censemus esse contemnendam sunt enim permulta ab illis praeclare utiliter dicta Ut tamen ex eorum sententia de sacris literis judicetur non admittimus Debent enim sacrae literae nobis omnis Christianae doctrinae Regulae esse Judices Quin ipsi Patres tantum sibi deferri recusarunt saepius admonentes Lectorem ut tantisper suas admittat sententias interpretationes quoad cum sacris literis consentire eas animadverterit § 17. D. S. P. 358. Mr. B. saith The doubt is whom you will take for good Christians into your Communion But this can be no doubt when I except only the Jesuited part of the Roman and other Churches Answ. So you take in the Church of Rome which you cannot do without taking in the pretended Soveraignty Essential to it Was not that Church Papal before there were any Jesuites But hold Dr. It 's France that you are first Uniting with and they say that the Jesuites are there the Predominant part And are you against them there § 18. P. 360. He takes it ill that I suppose him to separate from the Church of England I have fully given him here my proof The Church of England took not it self for a part of an Universal humane Political Church But his Church doth and is thereby of another Political Species as a City differeth from a Kingdom I will not tire the Reader with following him any further Vain Contenders necessitate us to be over tedious § 19. I am loth here to answer the rest of his Book against our Nonconformity 1. Because I would not follow them that
hath authorized a Vicarious Soveraign Prelacy before he can believe that there is a Christ that had any Authority himself 2. And he must be so good a Casuist as to know what maketh a true Bishop 3. And so well acquainted with all the World as to know what parts of the Earth have true Bishops and what they hold And is this the way of making Christians Perhaps you will say That Parents Tutors and Priests tell them what all the Bishops of the World hold as a Soveraign Judicature I answer 1. If they did Holden confesseth that the Certainty of Faith can be no greater than our Certainty of the Medium And the Child or Hearer that knoweth not that his Parent and Teacher therein saith true can no more know that the Creed or Scripture is true on that account 2. The generality of Protestants believe not an Universal-Governing Soveraign under Christ but deny it Therefore they never Preach any such Medium of Faith And can you prove that those that are brought to Christianity by Protestant Parents Tutors or Preachers are all yet Unchristened or have no true Faith 7. Why should we make Impossibilities necessary while surer and easier Means are obvious It is impossible to Children to the Vulgar to almost all the Priests themselves to know certainly what the Major Vote of Bishops in the whole World now think of this or that Text or Article save only consequently when we first believe the Articles of Faith we next know that he is no true Bishop that denieth them And it is impossible to know that Christ hath authorized a Soveraign Colledge before we believe Christs own Authority and Word But the Protestant Method is obvious viz. To hear Parents Tutors and Preachers as humble Learners To believe them Fide humana first while they teach us to know the Divine Evidence of Certain Credibility in the Creed and Scriptures and when they have taught us that to believe Fide Divinâ by the Light of that Divine Evidence which they have taught us What that is I have opened as aforecited and also in a small Treatise against the Papists called The Certainty of Christianity without Popery in which also I have confuted your way Besides what I have said in the Second Part of The Saints Rest and my More Reasons for the Christian Religion 8. I cannot by all your Words understand how you can have any Faith on your Grounds 1. You that renounce Popery I suppose take not the Popish Prelates for any part of the Soveraign Colledge 2. I perceive that you take not the Southern and Eastern Christians for a part who are called Nestorians Eutychians or Jacobites 3. I find that you take not the Protestant Churches that have no Bishops for any part for the Soveraignty is only in Bishops 4. I find that you take not the Lutheran Churches or any other for a part whose Bishops Succession from the Apostles hath not a Continuance uninterrupted which Rome hath not 5. And me thinks you should not think better of the Greeks than of such Protestants on many accounts which I pass by Where then is that Universal Colledge on whose Judging-Authority you are a Christian Sure you take not our little Island for the Universal Church I would I knew which you take for the Universal Church and how you prove the Inclusion and Exclusion 9. I find not that the Universal Church hath so agreed as you suppose of the Canon of Scripture and the Readings Translations c. Four or five Books were long questioned by many General Councils have not agreed of the Canon Bishop Cousins hath given us the best account of the Reception of the true Canon Provincial Councils have said most of this Even the fullest at Laodicea hath left out the Revâ—lations The Romanists take in the Apocrypha Many Churches have less or more than others What Grotius himself thought of Job and the Canticles I need not tell you Nor how Augustine and most others strove for the Septuagint against Jerome And if the Universal Judicature have decided the many Hundred Doubts about the Various Lections I would you would tell us where to find it for I know not § II. Your second Use of the Soveraign Power is to judge of the Sense of Fundamental Articles of Faith because the Words may be taken in a false Sense 1. This is very cautelously spoken Is it only Fundamentals that they are to expound by Soveraign Judgment How then shall we know the Sense of all the rest of the S. Scriptures And how will this end a Thousand Controversies 2. And why may not the same Means satisfie us about Fundamentals which satisfieth us about the Integrals of Religion Yea we have here far better help The first Christians Catechized and taught the Sense of Baptism before they were Baptized They and their Tutors and Preachers taught the same to their Children and so on Baptism and the Fundamentals have been constantly repeated in all the Churches of the World There are as many Witnesses or Teachers of these as there are Understanding Christians And yet must all needs hear from the Antipodes or know the Sense of a Humane Soveraign of the World before they receive them 3. Can this Supreme Colledge speak the Fundamentals plainlier than God hath done and than the Parish Priest can do Are they necessary to tell us that Christ died rose ascended because Scripture speaketh it not plain enough We know that no Words of Creed or Scripture falsly understood make a true Believer But is not that as true of a Councils Words as of the Creed And are there any Words that Men cannot misunderstand Why hath Filioque continued such a Distraction in the Churches and Councils yet end it not To say nothing of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and other such Have we a necessity of a Soveraign Judicature to be to all Men in stead of a Schoolmaster to tell them what is the meaning of Greek and Hebrew Words And could not one Origen or Jerom tell that better than a General Council of Men that understand not those Tongues I must confess that what understanding of the Words of Creed or Scripture I have received was more from Parents Tutors Teachers and Books than from Soveraign Councils or Colledge of Bishops though Dr. Holden say he is no true Believer and Catholick that believeth an Article of Faith because his Reason findeth it in Scripture and not rather because all the Christian World believeth it There is more skill in Cosmography Arithmetick and History necessary to such a Faith than I have attained or can attain I can tell E. g. by Lexicons and other Books what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth in the Creed better than how all the Bishops in the World interpret it by an Authoritative Sentence § III. Your third Work of this Soveraign Power is Authoritatively to declare what Government of the Church was delivered by the Apostles 1. As I said of Scripture we