all of them by Inspiration from God which is most solid This therefore must needs be the sense of his Church which he may be acquainted with twenty wayes that I know not of And here his Protestant vizor which by and by he will utterly cast off fell off from him I presume at unawares That he be no more so entrapped I wish he would take notice against the next time he hath occasion to personate a Protestant that although for method purely adventitious and belonging to the external manner of writing Protestants may affirm that one Epistle is more methodical then another according to those Rules of method which our selves or other Worms of the Earth like to our selves have invented yet for their solidity which concerns the Matter of them and Efficacy for Conviction they affirm them all equal Nor is he more happy in what he intimates of the immethodicalness of that Epistle to the Romans For as it is acknowledged by all good Expositors that the Apostle useth a most clear distinct and exact method in that Epistle whence most Theological Systems are composed by the Rule of it so our Authour himself assigneth such a design unto him and the use of such wayes and means in the prosecution of it as argues a diligent observation of a method I confess he is deceived in the occasion and intention of the Epistle by following some few late Roman Expositors neglecting the Analysis given of it by the Antients but we may pass that by because I find his aim in mentioning a false scope and design was not to acquaint us with his mistake but to take an advantage to fall upon our Ministers and I think a little too early for one so careful to keep an handsom decorum for culling out of this Epistle Texts against the Christian Doctrine of good Works done in Christ by his special Grace out of obedience to his command with a promise of everlasting reward and intrinsick acceptability thence accrewing Thus we see still Incoeptis gravibus plerunque magna professis Purpureus latè qui splendeat unus alter Assuitur panâ—us Sed nunc nonerat his locus Use of Disputing has cast him at the very entrance of his Discourse upon as he supposeth a particular Controversie between Protestants and Roman-Catholicks quite besides his design and purpose But instead of obtaining any advantage by this transgression of his own Rule he is faln upon a new misadventure and that so much the greater because it evidently discovers somewhat in him besides mistake I am sure I have heard as many of our Ministers Preach as he and read as many of their Books as he yet I can testifie that I never heard or read them opposing the Christian doctrin of good works Often I have heard and found them pressing a universal Obedience to the whole Law of God teaching men to abound in good works pressing the indispensable necessity of them from the commands of Law and Gospel encouraging men unto them by the blessed promises of Acceptance and Reward in Christ declaring them to be the way of mens coming to the Kingdom of Heaven affirming that all that believe are created in Christ Jesus unto good works and for men to neglect to despise them is wilfully to neglect their own Salvation But opposing the Christian Doctrine of Good Works and that with sayings â—ulled out of St. Paul 's Epistle to the Romans I never heard I never read any Protestant Minister There is but one expression in that Declaration of the Doctrine of Good Works which he saith Protestants oppose used by himself that they do not own and that is their intrinsick acceptability which I fear he doth not very well understand himself If he mean by it that there is in good works an intrinsical worth and value from their exact answerableness to the Law and proportion to the Reward so as on rules of Justice to deserve and merit it he speaks daggers and doth not himself believe what he sayes it being contradictious for he lays their acceptability on the account of the promise If he intend that God having graciously promised to accept and receive them in Christ they become thereupon acceptable and rewardable this Protestant Ministers teach dayly Against the former Explication of their acceptability in reference to the Justice of God on their own account and the Justification of their persons that perform them for them I have often heard them speaking but never with any Authority or force of Argument comparable to that used by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans to the same purpose But this tale of Protestants opposing the Christian Doctrine of Good Works hath been so often told by the Romanists that I am perswaded some of them begin to believe it however it be not only false but from all circumstances very incredible and finding our Author hugely addicted to approve any thing that passeth for current in his Party I will not charge him with a studyed fraud in the finding it so advantagious to his cause he took hold of a very remote occasion to work an early prejudice in the minds of his Readers against them and their Doctrine whom he designeth to oppose When he writes next I hope he will mind the account we have all to make of what we do write and say and be better advised than to give countenance to such groundless Slanders CHAP. II. Heathen Pleas. General Principles WE have done with his Method or manner of proceeding our next view shall be of those general Principles and Suppositions which animate the paraenetical part of his work and whereon it is solely founded And here I would entreat him not to be offended if in the entrance of this Discourse I make bold to mind him that the most if not all of his Pleas have been long since insisted on by a very learned man in a case not much unlike this which we have in hand and were also long since answered by one as learned as he or as any the world saw in the age wherein he lived or it may be since to this day though he died now 1400 years ago The person I intend is Celsus the Philosopher who objected the very same things upon the same general grounds and ordered his Objections in the same manner against the Christians of old as our Author doth against the Protestants And the Answer of Origen to his eight books will save any man the labour of answering this one who knows how to make application of general Rules and Principles unto particular Cases that may be regulated by them Doth our Author lay the cause of all the Troubles Disorders Tumults Warrs wherewith the Nations of Europe have been for some season and are still in some places infested on the Protestants So doth Celsus charge all the Evils and Commotions Plagues and Famines wherewith mankind in those dayes was much wasted upon the Christians Doth our Author charge the Protestants that
this matter with him before any competent Judges Tu dic mecum quo pignore How else to end this matter I know not I see not then any Ground my Countrymen have to alter their thoughts concerning the Pope for any thing here tendred unto them by this Author yea I know they have great reason to be confirmed in their former apprehensions concerning him For all that truly honour the Lord Jesus Christ have reason to be moved when they hear another if not preferred before him nor set up in competition with him yet openly invested with many of his Priviledges and Preâ—ogatives especially considering that not only the person of Christ but his word also is debased to make way to his exaltation and advancement Thence it is that it is openly averred that were it not for his infallibility we should all this time have been at a loss for truth and unity Of so small esteem with some men is the wisdom of Christ who left his Word with his Church for these ends and his Word its self All is nothing without the Pope If I mistake not in the light and temper of my Countrymen this is not the way to gain their good opinion of him Had our Author kept himself to the general terms of a good Prince an universal Pastor a careful Guide and to general stories of his wisdom â—aâ—e and circumspection for publick good which discourse makes up what remains of this Paragraph he might perhaps have got some ground on their affection and esteem who know nothing concerning him to the contrary which in England are very few But these Notes above Ela these transcendent Encomiums have quiâ—e marred his Marker And if there be no medium but men must believe the Pope to be either Christ or Antichrist it is evident which way the general vogue in England will go and that at least until fire and faggot come which blessed be God we are secured from whilest our present Soveraign swayes the Scepter of this Land and hope our posterity may be so under his Off-spring for many Generations CHAP. XXIII Popery SECT 30. OUR Author hopes it seems that by this time he hath brought his Disciples to Popery that is the Title of the last Paragraph to his business not of his Book for that which follows being a parcel of the excellent speech of my Lord Chancellor is about a matter wherein his concernment lies not This is his close and farewell They say there is one who when he goes out of any place leaves a worse favour at his departure then he gave all the time of his abode and he seems here to be imitated The disingenuity of this Paragraph the want of care of truth and of common honesty that appears in it sends forth a worse favour then most of those if not than any or all of them that went before The design of it is to give us a parallel of some Popish and Protestant Doctrines that the beauty of the one may the better be set off by the deformity of the other To this end he hath made no Conscience of mangling defacing and defiling of the latter The Doctrines he mentions he calls the more plausible parts of Popery Such as he hath laboured in his whole discourse to gild and â—rick up with his Rhetorick nor shall I quarrel with him for his doting on them only I cannot but wish it might suffice him to enjoy and proclaim the beauty of his Church without open slandering and defaming of ours This is not handsome civil mannerly nor conscientious A few instances will manifest whether he hath fail'd in this kind or no. The first plausible piece of Popery as he calls it that he presents us in his Antithesis is the Obligation which all have who believe in Christ to attend unto good works and the merit and benefit of so doing in opposition whereunto he sayes Protestants teach that there be no such things as good works pleasing unto God but all be as menstruous raggs filthy odious and damnable in the sight of Heaven That if it were otherwise yet they are not in our power to perform Let other men do what they please or are able for my part if this be a good work to believe that a man conscientiously handles the things of Religion with a Reverence of God and a regard to the account he is to make at the last day who can thus openly calumniate and equivocate I must confess I do not find it in my power to perform it It may be he thinks it no great sin to calumniate and falsly accuse Hereticks or if it be but a venial one Such a one as hath no respect to Heaven or Hell but only Purgatory which hath no great influence on the minds of men to keep them from vice or provoke them to vertue Do Protestants teach There are no such things as good works pleasing to God or that those that believe are not obliged to good works In which of their Confessions do they so say In what publick writing of any of their Churches What one individual Protestant was ever guilty of thinking or venting this folly If our Author had told this story in Rome or Italy he had wronged himself only in point of Morality but telling it in England if I mistake not he is utterly gone also as to reputatioÌ„ But yet you 'l say That if there be good works yet it is not in our power to perform them No more will Papists neither that know what they say or are in their right wits That it is so without the help of the grace of God and the Protestant never lived that I know of that denyed them by that help and assistance to be in our power But they say They are all as filthy raggs c. I am glad he will acknowledg Isaiah to be a Protestant whose words they are concerning all our righteousness that he traduceth we shall have him sometime or other denying some of the Prophets or Apostles to be Protestants and yet it is known that they all agreed in their doctrine and Faith Those other Protestants whom he labours principally to asperse will tell him that although God do indispensibly require good works of them that do believe and they by the assistance of his grace do perform constantly those good works which both for the matter and the manner of their perforance are acceptable to him in Jesus Christ according to the tenor of the Covenant of Grace and which as the effect of his grace in us shall be eternally rewarded yet that such is the infinite purity and holiness of the great God with whom we have to do in whose sight the Heavens are not pure and who charges his Angels with folly that if he should deal with the best of our works according to the exigence and rigour of his Justice they would appear wanting defective yea silthy in his sight so that our workâ— have need of acceptation in Christ no less then our persons and they add this to their faith in this matter that they believe that those who deny this know little of God or themselves My pen is dull and the Book that was lent me for a few dayes is called for Ex hoc uno by this instance we may take a measure of al the rest wherein the same ingenuity and conscientious care of offending is observed as in this that is neither the one or other is so The residue of his Discourse is but a commendation of his Religion and the Professors of it whereof I must confess I begin to grow weary having had so much of it and so often repeated and that from one of themselves and that on principles which will not endure the tryal and examination Of this sort is the suffering for their Religion which he extols in them Not what God calls them unto or others impose upon them in any part of the world wherein they are not to be compared with Protestants nor have suffered from all the world for their Papal Religion the hundredth part of what Protestants have suffered from themselves alone for their refusal of it doth he intend but what of their own accord they undergo Not considering that as outward affliction and persecution from the world have been alwayes the constant lot of the true Worshippers of Christ in all Ages so voluntary Self-macerations have attended the wayes of false-worship among all sorts of men from the foundation of the world FINIS
but think that a sad profession of Religion which enforceth men to decry the use and excellency of that which let them pretend what they please is the only infallible Revelation of all that Truth by obedience whereunto we become Christians I do heartily pity Learned and Ingenious men when I see them enforced by a private corrupt Interest to engage in this woful work of undervaluing the word of God and so much the more as that I cannot but hope that it is a very ingrateful work to themselves Did they delight in it I should have other thoughts of them and conclude that there are more Atheists in the World than those whom our Author informs us to be lately turned so in England This then is the Remedy that Protestants have for their evils This the means of making up all their differences which they might do every day so far as in this World it is possible that that work should be done amongst men if it were not their own fault That they do not so blame them still blame them soundly lay on Reproofs till I cry Hold but let not I pray the word of God be blamed any more Methinks I could beg this of a Catholick especially of my Countrey-men That whatever they say to Protestants or however they deal with them they would let the Scripture alone and not decry its worth and usefulness It is not Protestants Book it is Gods who hath only granted them an use of it in common with the rest of men And what is spoken in disparagement of it doth not reflect on them but on him that made it and sent it to them It is no Policy I confess to discover our secrets to our Adversaries whereby they may prevent their own disadvantages for the future But yet because I look not on the Romanists as absolute Enemies I shall let them know for once that when Protestants come to that head of their Disputes or Orations wherein they contend that the Scripture is so and so obscure and insufficient they generally take great contentment to find that their Religion cannot be opposed without casting down the word of God from its excellency and enthroning somewhat else in the room of it Let them make what use of this they please I could not but tell it them for their good and I know it to be true For the present it comes too late For another main Principle of our Authors Discourse is VIII That the Scripture on sundry accounts is insufficient to settle us in the Truth of Religion or to bring us to an agreement amongst our selves and that 1. Because it is not to be known to be the word of God but by the Testimony of the Roman Church And then 2. Cannot be well Translated into any vulgar Language And is also 3. In its self obscure And 4. We have no way to determine of what is its proper sense Atqui hic est nigrae sumus Caliginis haec est Aerugo mera I suppose they will not tell a Pagan or a Mahumetan this story At least I heartily wish that men would not suffer themselves to be so far transported by their private Interest as to forget the general concernments of Christianity We cannot say they know the Scripture to be the word of God but by the Authority of the Church of Rome And all men may easily assure themselves that no man had ever known there was such a thing as a Church much less that it had any Authority but by the Scripture And whither this tends is easie to guess But it will not enter into my head that we cannot know or believe the Scripture to be the word of God any otherwise than on the Authority of the Church of Rome The greatest part of it was believed to be so before there was any Church at Rome at all and all of it is so by Millions in the World who make no account of that Church at all Now some say there is such a Church I wish men would leave perswading us that we do not believe what we know we do believe or that we cannot do that which we know we do and see that millions besides our selves do so too There are not many Nations in Europe wherein there are not Thousands who are ready to lay down their lives to give testimony that the Scripture is the word of God that care not a rush for the Authority of the present Church of Rome And what further evidence they can give that they believe so I know not And this they do upon that innate evidence that the word of God hath in it self and gives to its self the testimony of Christ and his Apostles and the teaching of the Church of God in all Ages I must needs say There is not any thing for which Protestants are so much beholding to the Roman Catholicks as this That they have with so much importunacy cast upon them the work of proving the Scripture to be of Divine Original or to have been given by inspiration from God It is as good a work as a man can well be imployed in and there is not any thing I should more gladly en professo ingage in if the nature of my present business would bear such a Diversion Our Author would quickly see what an easie Task it were to remove those his Reproches of a private spirit of an inward testimony of our own Reason which himself knowing the advantage they afford him amongst vulgar unstudied men trisles withal Both Romanists and Protestants as far as I can learn do acknowledge That the Grace of the Spirit is necessary to enable a man to believe savingly the Scripture to be the Word of God upon what Testimony or Authority soever that faith is founded or resolved into Now this with Protestants is no private Whisper no Enthusiasm no Reason of their own no particular Testimony but the most open noble known that is or can be in the World even the voice of God himself speaking publickly to all in and by the Scripture evidencing it self by its own Divine innate light and excellency taught confirmed and testified unto by the Church in all Ages especially the first founded by Christ and his Apostles He that looks for better or other Testimony Witness or Foundation to build his faith upon may search till Dooms-day without success He that renounceth this shakes the very root of Christianity and opens a door to Atheism and Paganism This was the Anchor of Christians of old from which neither the Storms of Persecution could drive them nor the subtilty of Disputations entise them For men to come now in the end of the World and to tell us That we must rest in the Authority of the present Church of Rome in our receiving the Scripture to be the word of God and then to tell us That that Church hath all its Authority by and from the Scripture and to know well enough all the while that no man can know
there is any Church or any Church Authority but by the Scripture is to speak Daggers and Swords to us upon a confidence that we will suffer our selves to be befooled that we may have the after-pleasure of making others like our selves Of the Translation of the Scripture into vulgar Tongues I shall expresly treat afterwards and therefore here passe it over 3. It s Obscurity is another thing insisted on and highly exaggerated by our Author And this is another thing that I greatly wonder at For as wise as these Gentlemen would be thought to be he that has but half an eye may discern that they consider not with whom they have to do in this matter The Scripture I suppose they will grant to be given by inspiration from God if they deny it we are ready to prove it at any time I suppose also that they will grant That the end why God gave it was that it might be a Revelation of himself so far as it was needful for us to know him and his mind and will so that we may serve him If this were not the end for which God gave his Word unto us I wish they would acquaint us with some other I think it was not that it might be put into a Cabinet and lock'd up in a Chest If this were the end of it then God intended in it to make a Revelation of himself so far as it was necessary we should know of Him and his Mind and Will that we might serve him For that which is any one end of any Thing or Matter That he intends which is the Author of it Now if God intended to make such a Revelation on of Himself his Mind and Will in giving of the Scripture as was said he hath either done it plainly that is without any such Obscurity as should frustrate him of his end or he hath not and that because either he would not or he could not I wish I knew which of these it was that the Roman Catholicks do fix upon it would spare me the labour of speaking to the other But seeing I do not that they may have no evasion I will consider them both If they say It was because he could not make any such plain Discovery and Revelation of himself then this is that they say That God intending to reveal Himself his Mind Will plainly in the Scripture to the sons of men was not able to do it and therefore failed in his Design This works but little to the glory of his Omnipotency and Omnisciency But to let that pass wherein men so they may compass their own ends seem not to be much concerned I desire to know Whether this plain sufficient Revelation of God be made any other way or no If no otherwise then as I confess we are all in the Dark so it is to no purpose to blame the Scripture of Obscurity seeing it is as lightsom as any thing else is or can be If this Revelation be made some other way it must be by God himself or some body else That any other should be supposed in good earnest to do that which God cannot though I know how some Canonists have jested about the Pope I think will not be pleaded If God then hath done this another way I desire to know the true reason why he could not do it this way namely by the Scripture and therefore desisted from his purpose But it may be thought God could make a Revelation of Himself his Mind and Will in and by the Scripture yet he would not do it plainly but Obscurely Let us then see what we mean by plainly in this business We intend not that every Text in Scripture is easie to be understood nor that all the matter of it is easie to be apprehended We know that there are things in it hard to be understood things to exercise the minds of the best and wisest of men unto Diligence and when they have done their utmost unto Reverence But this is that we mean by plainly The whole Will Mind of God with whatever is needful to be known of him is revealed in the Scripture without such Ambiguity or Obscurity as should hinder the Scripture from being a Revelation of him his Mind and Will to the end that we may know him and live unto him To say that God would not do this would not make such a Revelation besides the reflection that it casts on his Goodness and Wisdom is indeed to say that he would not do that which we say he would do The truth is all the Harangues we meet withal about the Obscurity of the Scripture are direct Arraignments of the Wisdom and Goodness of God And if I were worthy to advise my Roman-Catholick-Countreymen I would perswade them to desist from this Enterprize if not in Piety at least in Policy For I can assure them as I think I have done already that all their endeavours for the extenuation of the Worth Excellency Fullness Sufficiency of the Scripture do exceedingly confirm Protestants in the truth of their present perswasion which they see cannot be touched but by such horrible Applications as they detest 4. But yet they say Scripture is not so clear but that it needs interpretation and Protestants have none to interpret it so as to make it a means of ending differences I confess the interpretation of Scripture is a good and necessary work and I know that he who was dead and is alive for ever continues to give gifts unto men according to his Promise to enable them to interpret the Scripture for the edification of his Body the Church If there were none of these Interpreters among the Protestants I wonder whence it is come to pass that his Comments on and interpretations of Scripture who is most hated by Romanists of all the Protestants that ever were in the World are so borrowed and used that I say not stollen by so many of them And that indeed what is praise-worthy in any of their Church in the way of Exposition of Scripture is either borrowed from Protestants or done in imitation of them If I am called on for instances in this kind I shall give them I am perswaded to some mens amazement who are less conversant in these things But we are besides the matter It is of an infallible Interpreter in whâ—se Expositions and Determinations of Scripture-sense all Christians are obliged to acquiesce and such an one you have none I confess we have not if it be such an one as you intend whose Expositions and Interpretations we must acquiesce in not because they are true but because they are his We have infallible Expositions of the Scripture in all necessary Truths as we are assured from the Scripture it self But an infallible Expositor into whose Authority our faith should be resolved besides the Scripture it self we have none Nor do I think they have any at Rome what-ever they talk of to men that were never there nor I
with them in his temptations thrusting them on and intangling them in their persuit As to the Contests about Religion which I know not with what mind or intention he terms an empty airy business a ghostly fight a skirmish of Shaddows or Horse-men in the clowds he knows not what principle cause or sourse to asoâ—ibe them unto That which he is most inclinable unto is That there is something invisible above man stronger and more politick then he that doth this contumely to mankind that casts in these Apples of Contention amongst us that hisses us to warr and battail as waggish Boys do Doggs in the street That which is intended in these words and sundry others of the like quality that follow is that this ariseth from the intisements and impulsions of the Devil And none can doubt but that in these works of darkness the Prince of Darkness hath a great hand The Scripture also assures us that as the Scorpions which vexed the world issued out of the bottomless pit so also that these unclean spirits do stir up the powers of the Earth to make opposition unto the Truth of the Gospel and Religion of Jesus Christ. But yet neither doth this hinder but that even these religious fewds and miscarriages also proceed principally from the ignorance darkness and lusts of men In them lies the true cause of all dissentions in and about the things of God The best know but in part and the most love darkness more than light because their works are evils A vain conversation received by tradition from mens fathers with inveterate prejudices love of the world and the customs thereof do all help on this sâ—d work wherein so many are imployed That some preach the Gospel of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with all their strength in much contention and contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered unto the Saints as it is their duty so it is no cause but only an accidental occasion of differences amongst men That the invisible substances our Author talks of should be able to sport themselves with us as Children do with Dogs in the street and that with the like impulse from them as Dogs from these we should rush into our contentions might pass for a pretty notion but only that it over-throws all Religion in the world and the whole nature of man There is evil enough in corrupted nature to produce all these evils which are declaimed against to the end of this Section were there no Daemons to excite men unto them The adventitious impressions from them by temptations and suggestions doubtless promote them and make men precipitate above their natural tempers in their productions but the principal cause of all our evils is still to be looked for at home Nec te quaesiveris extra Sect. 3. Pag. 34. In the next Section of this Chapter whereunto he prefixes Nullity of Title he persues the perswasive unto Peace Moderation Charity and Quietness in our several perswasions with so many reasonings and good words that a man would almost think that he began to be in good earnest and that those were the things which he intended for their own sakes to promote I presume it cannot but at the first view seem strange to some to find a man of the Roman party so ingeniously arguing against the imposition of our senses in Religion magisterially and with violence one upon the other it being notoriously known to all the world that they are if not the only yet the greatest Imposers on the minds and consciences of men that ever lived in the earth and which work they cease not the prosecution of where they have power until they come to fire and fagot I dare say there is not any strength in any of his queries collections and arguings but an indifferent man would think it at the first sight to be pointed against the Roman interest and practice For what have they been doing for some ages past but under a pretence of Charity to the souls of men endeavouring to perswade them to their Opinions and Worship or to impose them on them whether they will or no But let old things pass it is well if now at last they begin to be otherwise minded What then if we should take this Gentleman at his word and cry A match let us strive and contend no more Keep you your Religion at Rome to your selves and we will do as well as we can with ours in England we will trouble you no more about yours nor pray do not you meddle with us or ours Let us pray for one another wait on God for light and direction it being told us that If any one be otherwise minded than according to the Truth God shall reveal that unto him Let us all strive to promote Godliness Obedience to the Commands of Christ Good works and Peace in the world but for this contending about Opinions or endeavouring to impose our several perswasions upon one another let us give it quite over I fear he would scarsely close with us and so wind up all our Differences upon the bottom of his own Proposals especially if this Law should extend it's self to all other Nations equally concerned with England He would quickly tell us that this is our mistake he intended not Roman-Catholicks and the differences we have with them in this Discourse It is Protestants Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Quakers that he deals with al and them only and that upon this ground that none of them have any Title or pretence of Reason to impose on one another and so ought to be quiet and let one another alone in matters of Religion But for the Roman-Catholicks they are not concerned at all in this Harangue having a sufficient Title to impose upon them all Now truly if this be all I know not what we have to thank you for Tantúmne est otii tibi abs re tua aliena ut cures eaque quae ad te nihil at tinent There are wise and learned men in England who are concerned in our differences and do labour to compose them or suppress them That this Gentleman should come and justle them aside and impose himself an Umpire upon us without our choyce or desire in matters that belong not unto him how charitable it may seem to be I know not but it is scarsely civil Would he would be perswaded to go home and try his remedies upon the distempers of his own family before he confidently vend them to us I know he has no Salves about him to heal diversities of Opinions that he can write Probatum est upon from his Roman-Church If he have he is the most uncharitable man in the world to leave them at home brawling and together by the ears to seek out practise where he is neither desired nor welcome when he comes without invitation I confess I was afraid at the beginning of the Section that I should be forced to change the Title before I came to
little purpose and it were easie to turn our Reply that way but because I have not clear Evidence for it I will not charge him with so horrid a presumptuous Insinuation when he declares his mind he shall hear more of ours But he further specifies his meaning in an enumeration of Doctrines that were preached by the first Planters of the Gospel in and unto the extirpation of Gentilism If saith he the Institution of Monasteries to the praise and service of God day and night be thought as it hath been now these many years a Superstitious folly If Christian Priests and Sacrifices be things of high Idolatry If the seven Sacraments be deemed vain most of them If it suffice to Salvation only to Believe whatever life we lead If there be no value or merit in Good Works If God's Laws be impossible to be kept If Christ be not our Law-maker and Director of doing well as well as Redeemer from ill If there be no Sacramental Tribunal for our Reconciliation ordained from by Christ on the Earth If the real Body of our Lord be not bequeathed unto his Spouse in his last Will and Testament If there be not under Christ a general Head of the Church who is chief Priest and Pastor of all Christians upon Earth under God whose Vicegerent he is in Spiritual Affairs all which things are now held forth by us manifestly against the Doctrine of the first Preachers of Christianity in this Land then I say Paganism was unjustly displaced by these Doctrines and Atheism must needs succeed for if Christ deceived us upon whom shall we rely and if they that brought us the first news of Christ brought along with it so many grand lies why may not the very story of Christ be thought a Romance I could wish there had been a little more clearness and ingenuity in this annumeration the mixing of what he takes to be Truths with some Negatives that he condemns in the same Series breeds some confusion in the Discourse And I am also compelled to complain of want of candor and ingenuity in his representation of the Protestant Doctrin in every particular wherein he takes occasion to mention it Let us then separate the things that have no place of their own in this Argument than what is ambiguously proposed after which what remains may be distinctly considered 1. What makes that enquiry in our way at this time If it suffice to Salvation to believe whatever life we lead Who ever said so taught so wrote so in England Is this the Doctrine of the Church of England or of the Presbyterians or Independents Or whose is it Or what makes it in this place If this be the way of gaining Catholicks let them that please make use of it Protestants dislike the Way as much as the End 2. What is the meaning of that which follows If there be no value or merit in good Works Who ever taught that there is no value in good Works that they are not commanded of God that they are not accepted with him that they are not our duty to be careful in the performance of that God is not honoured the Gospel adorned the Church and the World advantaged by them Do all these things put no value on them For their merit the expression being ambiguous unscriptural and as commonly interpreted derogatory to the glory of Christ and the Grace of God we shall let it pass as proper to his purpose and much good may it do him with all that he gains by it 3. If saith he God's Laws be impossible to be kept but Who said so Protestants teach indeed that men in their own strength cannot keep the Laws of God That the Grace received in this life extends not to an absolute sinless perfection in their observation which is inconsistent with the Covenant of Grace and mens walking with God therein but that the Laws of God were in their own nature impossible to be observed by them to whom they were first given or that they are yet impossible to be kept in that way of their sincere observation which is required in the Gospel Protestants teach not that I know of He proceeds 4. If Christ be not our Law-maker and Director of doing well as well as our Redeemer from ill This is a little too open and plain doth he think any man will believe him that Protestants or Presbyterians teach that Christ is not our Law-maker and Director of doing well c. I dare say he believes not one word of it himself what confidence soever he hath taken upon him of imposing on the minds of weak and unstable men Other things mentioned by him are ambiguous as If the seven Sacraments be deemed vain most of them c. Of the things themselves which they term Sacraments there is scarse any of them by Protestants esteemed vain that one of Unction which they judge now useless they only say is an unwarrantable imitation of that which was useful Of the rest which they reject they reject not the things but those things from being Sacraments and a practice in Religion is not presently condemned as vain which is not esteemed a Sacrament There is no less ambiguity in that other Supposition If the real Body of our Lord be not bequeathed to his Spouse in his last Will and Testament which no Protestant ever questioned though there be great contests about the manner of the Sacramental Participation of that real Body the same may be said of some other of his Supposals But I need not go over them in Particular I shall only say in General that take from amongst them what is acknowledged to be the Doctrine of the Papists and as such is opposed by the Church of England or by Presbyterians as Papal Supremacy Sacrifice of the Mass Monasteries of Votaries under special and peculiar Vows and Rules necessity of auricular Confession Transubstantiation which are the things gilded over by our Author and prove that they were the Doctrines all or any of them whereby and wherewith the first Preachers of Christianity in this Nation or any where else in the old known World displaced Paganism and for my part I will immediately become his Proselyte What then can be bound with this Rope of Sand The first Preachers of Christianity preached the Pope's Supremacy the Mass c. By these Doctrines Paganism was displaced If these Doctrines now be decryed as lyes why may not Christ himself be esteemed a Romance For neither did the first Preachers of Christianity preach these Doctrines nor was Paganism displaced by them nor is there any ground to question the Authority and Truth of Christ in case those that do first preach him do therewithal preach somewhat that is not true when they bring along with them an authentick conviction of their own mistakes as was manifested before and might be made good by innumerable other Instances I shall not need to follow him in his declamation to the end of this
Truth our Reason supposes all that it hath to do is but to judge of what is proposed to it according to the best Principles that it hath which is all that God in that kind requires of us unless in that work wherein he intends to make us more then men that is Christians he would have us make our selves less then Men even as Brutes That in our whole obedience to God we are to use our Reason Protestants say indeed and moreover that what is not done reasonably is not Obedience The Scripture is the Rule of all our Obedience Grace the Principle enabling us to perform it but the manner of its performance must be Rational or it is not the supposition of Rule or Principle that will render any act of a man Obedience Religion say Protestants is revealed in the Scripture proposed to the minds and wills of men for its entertainment by the Ministry of the Church Grace to Believe and Obey is supernaturally from God but as to the Proposals of Religion from Scripture they averre that men ought to admit and receive them as men that is judge of the sense and meaning of them discover their truth and finding them revealed acquiesce in the Authority of him by whom they are first revealed So far as men in any things of their concernments that have a moral good or evil in them do refuse in the choice or refusal of them to exercise that judging and discerning which is the proper work of Reason they un-Man themselves and invert the order of Nature dethroning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Soul and causing it to follow the faculties that have no light but what they receive by and from it It 's true all our carnal reasonings against Scripture-Mysteries are to be captivated to the Obedience of Faith and this is highly reasonable making only the less particular defective collections of reason give place to the more noble general and universal principles of it Nor is the denying of our reason any where required as to the sense and meaning of the words of the Scripture but as to the things and matter signified by them The former Reason must judge of if we are men the latter if in conjunction with unbelief and carnal lusts it tumultuate against it is to be subdued to the Obedience of Faith All that Protestants in the business of Religion ascribe unto men is but this that in the business of Religion they are and ought to be men that is judge of the sense and truth of what is spoken to them according to that Rule which they have received for the measure and guide of their Understandings in these things If this may not be allowed you may make a Herd of them but a Church never Let us now consider what is offered in this Section about Reason wherein the concernment of any Protestants may lye As the matter is stated about any one's setting up himself to be a new and extraordinary Director unto men in Religion upon the account of the irrefutable Reason he brings along with him which is the spring and sourse of that Religion which he tenders unto them I very much question Whether any instance can be given of any such thing from the foundation of the World Men have so set up indeed sometimes as that Good Catholick Vanine did not long since in France to draw men from all Religions but to give a new Religion unto men that this pretension was ever solely made use of I much question As true Religion came by Inspiration from God so all Authors of that which is false have pretended to Revelation Such were the pretensions of Minos Lycurgus and Nunia of old of Mahomet of late and generally of the first Founders of Religious Orders in the Roman-Church all in imitation of real Divine Revelation and in answer to indelible impressions on the minds of all men that Religion must come from God To what purpose then the first part of his Discourse about the coyning of Religion from Reason or the framing of Religion by Reason is I know not unless it be to cast a Blind before his unwary Reader whilest he steals away from him his Treasure that is his Reason as to its use in its proper place Though therefore there be many things spoken unduly and because it must be said untruly also in this first part of his Discourse until toward the end of Pag. 131. which deserve to be animadverted on yet because they are such as no sort of Protestants hath any concernment in I shall pass them over That wherein he seems to reflect any thing upon our Principles is in a supposed reply to what he had before delivered whereunto indeed it hath no respect or relation being the assertion of a Principle utterly distant from that imaginary one which he had timely set up and stoutly cast down before It is this That we must take the words from Christ and his Gospel but the proper sense which the words of themselves cannot carry with them our own reason must make out If it be the Doctrine of Protestants which he intendeth in these words it 's most disadvantagiously and uncandidly represented which becomes not an ingenious and learned person This is that which Protestants affirm Religion is Revealed in the Scripture that Revelation is delivered and contained in Propositions of Truth Of the sense of those words that carry their sense with them Reason judgeth and must do so or we are Brutes and that every ones Reason so farr as his concernment lies in what is proposed to him Neither doth this at all exclude the Ministry or Authority of the Church both which are entrusted with it by Christ to propose the Rules contained in his Word unto Rational Creatures that they may understand believe love and obey them To cast out this use of Reason with pretence of an antient sense of the words which yet we know they have not about them is as vain as any thing in this Section and that is vain enough If any such antient sense can be made out or produced that is a meaning of any Text that was known to be so from their Explication who gave that Text it is by reason to acquiesced in Neither is this to be make a man a Bishop much less a chief Bishop to himself I never heard that it was the office of a Bishop to know believe or understand for any man but for himself It is his Office indeed to instruct and teach men but they are to learn and understand for themselves and so to use their Reason in their Learning Nor doth the variableness of mens thoughts and reasonings inferr any variableness in Religion to follow whose stability and sameness depends on its first Revelation not our manner of Reception Nor doth any thing asserted by Protestants about the use of Reason in the business of Religion interfere with the rule of the Apostle about captivating our Understandings to the
Author are thoroughly canvassed Doth he not throughout his whole Disputation prove out of the Scriptures and them alone that Jesus was the Christ and his Doctrine agreeable unto them Is any such thing pleaded by Origen Tertullian Chrysostom or any one that had to deal with the Jews Do they not wholly persist in the way traced for them by Paul Peter and Apollos mightily convincing the Jews out of Scripture Let him consult their Answers he will not find them such poor empty jejune Discourses as that he supposes they might make use of pag. 148. and to the proofs whereof by Texts of Scripture he sayes the Rabbies could answer by another Interpretation of them He will find another Spirit breathing in their Writings another efficacy in their Arguments and other evidence in their Testimonies than it seems he is acquainted with and such as all the Rabbies in the World are not able to withstand And I know full well that these insinuations that Christians are not able justifiably to convince confute and stop the mouths of Jews from the Scripture would have been abhorred as the highest piece of blasphemy by the whole antient Church of Christ and it is meet it should be so still by all Christians Is there no way left to deny pretences of Light and Spirit but by proclaiming to the great scandal of Christianity that we cannot answer the Exceptions of Jews unto the Person and Doctrine of our Saviour out of the Scriptures And hath Rome need of these bold Sallyes against the vitals of Religion Is she no other way capable of a defence Better she perished 10000 times than that any such reproach should be justly cast on the Lord Jesus Christ and his Gospel But whatever our Author thinks of himself I have very good ground to conjecture that he hath very little acquaintance with Judaical Antiquity Learning or Arguments nor very much with the Scripture and may possibly deserve on that account some excuse if he thought those Exceptions insoluble which more learned men than himself know how to answer and remove without any considerable trouble This difficulty was fixed on by our Author that upon it there might be stated a certain retreat and assured way of establishment against al of the like nature This he assigns to be the Authority of the present Church Protestants the Scripture wherein as to the instance chosen out as most pressing we have the concurrent suffrage of Christ his Apostles and all the antient Christians so that we need not any further to consider the pretended pleas of Light and Spirit which he hath made use of as the Orator desired his Dialogist would have insisted on the Stories of Cerberus and Cocytus that he might have shewed his skill and activity in their Confutation For what he begs in the way as to the constitution of St. Peter and his Successors in the Rule of the Church as he produceth no other proof for it but that doughty one that It must needs be so so if it were granted him he may easily perceive by the Instance of the Judaical Church that himself thought good to insist upon that it will not avail him in his plea against the final resolution of our Faith into the Scripture as its senses are proposed by the Ministry of the Church and rationally conceived or understood CHAP. X. Protestant Pleas. HIs Sect. 13. p. 155. entituled Independent and Presbyterians Pleas is a merry one The whole design of it seems to be to make himself and others sport with the miscarriages of men in and about Religion Whether it be a good work or no that day that is coming will discover The Independents he divides into two parts Quakers and Anabaptists Quakers he begins withal and longest insists upon being as he saith well read in their Books and acquainted with their persons some commendation he gives them so farr as it may serve to the disparagement of others and then falls into a fit of Quaking so expresly imitating them in their Discourses that I fear he will confirm some in their surmises that such as he both set them on work and afterwards assisted them in it For my part having undertaken only the defence of Protestancy and Protestants I am altogether inconcerned in the entertainment he hath provided for his Readers in this personating of a Quaker which he hath better done and kept a better decorum in than in his personating of a Protestant a thing in the beginning of his Discourse he pretended unto The Anabaptists as farr as I can perceive he had not medled with unless it had been to get an advantage of venting his pretty Answer to an Argument against Infant-Baptism but the truth is if the Anabaptists had no other Objections against Infant-Baptism nor Protestants no better Answers to their Objections then what are mentioned here by our Author it were no great matter what become of the Controversie but it is Merriment not Disputation that he is designing and I shall leave him to the solace of his own fancies No otherwise in the next place doth he deal with the Presbyterians in personating of whom he pours out a long senseless rapsody of words many insignificant expressions vehement exclamations and uncouth terms such as to do them right I never heard uttered by them in preaching though I have heard many of them nor read written by them though I suppose I have perused at least as many of their Books as our Author hath done of the Quakers Any one with half an Eye may see what it is which galls the man and his Party which whether he hath done wisely to discover his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will inform him that is the Preaching of all sorts of Protestants that he declares himself to be most perplexed with and therefore most labours to expose it to reproach and obloquy And herein he deals with us as in many of their Stories their Demoniacks do with their Exorcists discover which Relick or which Saints name or other Engine in that bufle most afflicts them that so they may be paid more to the purpose Somewhat we may learn from hence Fas est ab hoste doceri But he will make the Presbyterians amends for all the scorn he endeavours to expose them to by affirming when he hath assigned a senseless Harangue of words unto them that the Protestants are not able to answer their Objections Certainly if the Presbyterians are such pitiful souls as not to be able any beter to defend their cause than they are represented by him here to do those Protestants are beneath all consideration who are not able to deal and grapple with them And this is as it should be Roman-Catholicks are wise learned holy angelical seraphical persons all others ignorant dolts that can scarse say Boe to a Goose. These things considered in themselves are unserious trifles but seria ducunt We shall see presently whither all this lurry tends for the sting of this whole Discourseis
unlearn their antient Barbarism and to encline to the Manners Fashions and Religion of the people to whom they were come and with whom after their heats were over and lusts satisfied they began to incorporate and coalesce Together I say with their manners they took up by various wayes and means the Religion which they did profess And the Bishop of Rome having kept his outward Station in that famous City during all those turmoils becoming venerable unto them unto him were many Applications made and his Authority was first signally advanced by this new race of Christians The Religion they thus took up was not a little degenerated from its Primitive Apostolical purity and splendor And they were among the first who felt the effects of their former barbarous inhumanity in their sedulous indeavour to destroy all Books and Learning out of the World which brought that darkness upon mankind wherewith they wrestled for many succeeding generations For having themselves made an intercision of the current and progress of studies and learning they were forced to make use in their entertainment of Christianity of men meanly skilled in the knowledg of God or themselves who some of them knew little more of the Gospel then what they had learned in the outward observances and practises of the places where they had been educated Towards the beginning of this hurry of the world this shuffling of the Nations was the Province of Brittain not long before exhausted of it stores of Men and Arms and defeated by the Romans invaded by the Saxons Picts Angles and others out of Germany who accomplishing the will of God exstirpated the greatest part of the British Nation and drove the remainders of them to shelter themselves in the Western Mountainous parts of this Island These new Inhabitants after they were somewhat civilized by the Vicinity of the Provincials and had got a little breathing from their own intestine feuds by fixing the limits of their Leader's Dominions which they called Kingdoms began to be in some preparedness to receive impressions of Religion above that rude Paganism which they had before served Satan in These were they to whom came Austine from Rome a man as farr as appears by the story little acquainted with the mystery of the Gospel yet one whom it pleased God gratiously to use to bring the Scripture amongst them that inexhaustible Fountain of Light and Truth and by which those to whom he preached might be infallibly freed from any mixture of mistakes that he might offer to them That he brought with him a Doctrine of Observances not formerly known in Brittain â—s notorious from the famous Story of those many Professors of Christianity 〈◊〉 which he caused to be murdered by Pagans for not submitting to his power and refusing to practise according to his Traditions whose unwillingness to the â—â—ain if they could have otherwise chosen is that which I suppose our Author call's their disturbing good St. Austine in his pious work But you neither will this Conversion of the Saxons begun by Austine the Monk at all advantage our Author as to his pretensions The Religion he taught here as well as he could was doubtless no other than that which at those dayes was profest at Rome mixtures of humane Traditions worldly Policies Observances trenching upon the Superstitions of the Gentiles in many things it had then revived but however it was farr enough from the present Romanism if the Writers and chief Bishops of those dayes knew what was their Religion Papal Supremacy and Infallibility Transubstantiation religious veneration of Images in Churches with innumerable other prime fundamentals of Popery were as great strangers at Rome in the dayes of Grâ—gory the great as they are at this day to the Church of England After these times the world continuing still in troubles Religion began more and more to decline and fall off from its pristine purity At first by degrees insensible and almost imperceptible in the broaching of new opinions and inventing new practises in the worship of God At length by open presumptuous transgressions of its whole rule and genius in the usurpation of the Pope of Rome and impositions of his Authority on the neâ—ks of Emperours Kings Princes and people of all sorts By what means this work was carried on what advantages were taken for what instruments used in it what opposition by Kings and learned men was made unto it what testimony was given against it by the blood of thousands of Martyrs others have at large declared nor will my present design admit me to insist on particulars What contests debates tumults warrs were by papall pretensions raised in these nations what shameful intreating of some of the greatest of our Kings what absolutions of subjects from their Allegiance with such like effluxes of an abundant Apostolical piety this nation in particular was exercised with from Rome all our Historians sufficiently testify Tantaemolis erat Romanam condere gentem The truth is when once Romanism began to be enthroned and had driven Catholicism out of the world we had very few Kings that past their days in peace and quietnesse from contests with the Pope or such as acted for him or were stirred up by him The face in the mean time of Christianity was sad and deplorable The body of the people being grown dark and profane or else superstitious the generality of the Priests and Votaries ignorant and vitious in their conversations the oppressions of the Hildebrandine faction intolerable Religion dethroned from a free generous obedience according to the rule of the Gospell and thrust into cells orders self-invented devotions and forms of worship superstitious and unknown to Scripture and antiquity the whole world groaned under the Apostacy it was fallen into when it was almost too late the yoak was so fastned to their necks and prejudices so fixed in the minds of the multitude Kings began to repine Princes to remonstrate their grievances whole Nations to murmure some learned men to write and preach against the superstitions and oppressions of the Church of Rome Against all which complaints and attempts what means the Popes used for the safe-guarding their Authority and opinions subservient to their carnal worldly interests deposing some causing others to be murdered that were in supream power bandying Princes and Great men one against another exterminating others with fire and sword is also known unto all who take any care to know such things what ever our Author pretends to the contrary This was the state this the peace this the condition of most Nations in Europe and these in particular where we live when occasion was administred in the providence of God unto that Reformation which in the next place he gives us the story of Little cause had he to mind us of this story little to boast of the primitive Catholick faith little to pretend the Romish Religion to have been that which was first planted in these Nations His concernments lye not in
themselves but in some additional terms supplyed by himself to make them appear Contradictions For instance to take those given by himself if one say the Papists worship stocks and stones another say they worship a piece of Bread here is no contradiction Again If one charge them with having their Consciences affrighted with Purgatory and Domesday and Penances for their sins that they never live a quiet life another that they carry their top and top gallant so high that they will go to Heaven without Christ or as we in the Countrey phrase it trust not to his merits and righteousness alone for salvation here may be no contradiction for all Papists are not we know it well enough of the same mould and form Some may more imbibe some Principles of Religion tending in appearance to mortification some those that lead to pride and presumption and so be liable to several charges But neither are these things inconsistent in themselves Men in their greatest consternation of spirit from sense of punishment real or imaginary wherewith they are disquieted may yet proudly reject the righteousness of Christ and if our Author knows not this to be true he knows nothing of the Gospel The next instance is of the same nature One he saith affirmes that Murders Adulteries Lies Blasphemies and all sin make up the bulk of Popery another that Papists are so wholly given to good Works that they place in them excessive confidence I scarce believe that he ever heard any thus crudely charging them with either part of the imagined contradictory Proposition Taking Popery as the Protestants do for the exorbitancy of the Religion which the Romanists profess and considering the product of it in the most of mankind it may be some by an usual hyperbole have used the words first mentioned but if we should charge the Papists for being wholly given to good works we should much wrong both them and our selves seeing we perfectly know the contrary The sum of both these things brought into one is but this that many Papists in the course of a scandalously sinful life do place much of their confidence in good works which is indeed a strange contradiction in Principles between their speculation and practise but we know well enough there is none in the charge Let us consider one more one affirmed that the Pope and all his Papists fall down to pictures and commit Idolatry with them another that the Pope is so farr from falling down to any thing that he exalts himself above all that is called God and is very Antichrist If one had said he falls down to Images another that he falls not down to Images there had been a contradiction indeed but our Author by his own testimony being a Civil Logician knows well enough that the falling down in the first Proposition and that in the second are things of a divers nature and so are no contradiction A man may fall down to Images and yet refuse to submit himself to the power that God hath set over him And those of whom he speaks would have told him that a great part of the Popes exalting himself against God consists in his falling down to Images wherein he exalts his own Will and Tradition against the Will and express commands of God The same may be shewed of all the following instances nor can he give any one that shall manifest Popery to be charged by sober Protestants with any other contradictions than what appears to every eye in the inconsistency of some of their Principles one with another and of most of them with their practise In the particulars by himself enumerated there is no other shew of the charge of contradictory evils in Popery then what by his Additions and wresting expressions is put upon them Weary of such preaching in England our Author addressed himself to travail beyond the Seas where what he met withal what he observed the weight and strength of his own Conversion being laid in pretence upon it indeed an Apology for the more generally excepted against parts of his Roman practise and worship being intended and persued must be particularly considered and debated CHAP. XV. Masse SECT 22. THe Title our Author gives to his first head of Observation is Messach on what account I know not unless it be with respect to a ridiculous Hebrew Etymologie of the word Missa as though it should be the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word quite of another signification If this be that which his title intends I wish him better success in his next Etymologizing for this attempt hath utterly failed him Missa never came out of the East nor hath any affinity with those tongues being a word utterly unknown to the Syrians and Graecians also by whom all Hebrew words that are used in Religion came into Europe He that will trouble himself to trace the pedigree of Missa shall find it of no such antient stock but a word that with many others came into use in the destruction of the Roman-Empire and the corruption of the Latine-tongue But as it is likely our Author having not been accustomed to feed much upon Hebrew roots might not perceive the insipidness of this pretended traduction of the word Missa so also on the other side it s not improbable but that he might only by an uncouth word think to startle his poor Countrymen at the entrance of the story of his Travels that they might look upon him as no small person who hath the Messach and such other hard names at his fingers ends as the Gnosticks heightned their Disciples into an admiration of them by Paldabâ—oth Astaphaeum and other names of the like hideous noise and found Of the Discourse upon this Messach what ever it is there are sundry parts That he begins with is a preference of the devotion of the Romanists incomparably above that of the Protestants This was the entrance of his Discovery Catholicks Bells ring oftner then ours their Churches are swept cleaner then ours yea ours in comparison of theirs are like stables to a Princely Pallace their People are longer upon their knees than ours and upon the whole matter they are excellent every way in their Worship of God we every way blame worthy and contemptible Unto all which I shall only mind him of that good old advice Let thy neighbour praise thee and not thine own mouth And as for us I hope we are not so bad but that we should rejoyce truly to hear that others were better Only we could desire that we might find their excellency to consist in things not either indifferent wholly in themselves or else disapproved by God which are the wayes that Hypocrisie usually vents it self in and then boast of what it hath done Knowledge of God and his Will as revealed in the Gospel real mortification abiding in spiritual Supplications diligent in Universal Obedience and fruitfulness in good works be as I suppose the things which render our profession
first from Superstition and the latter from being highly derogatory to the mediation of Christ both or either to have been known or practised in the first Churches he shall be attended unto To tell us fine Stories and to compare their invocation of Saints to the Psalmists Apostrophe's unto the works of the Creation to set forth the praise of the Lord which they do in what they are without doing more and to deny direct praying unto them is but to abuse himself his Church his Reader and the Truth and to proclaim to all that he is indeed ashamed of the Doctrine which he owns because it is not good or honest as the Orator charged Epicurus In the practice of his Church very many are the things which the Protestants are offended with Their Canonization framed perfectly after the manner of the old Heathen Apotheosis Their exalting men into the Throne of religious Worship some of a dubious existence others of a more dubious Saintship their Dedication of Churches Altars Shrines Dayes to them Their composing multitudes of Prayers for their people to be repeated by them Their divulging faigned ludicrous ridiculous Legends of their lives to the dishonour of God the Gospel the Saints themselves with innumerable other things of the like nature which our Author knoweth full well to be commonly practised and allowed in his Church These are the things that he ought to defend and make good their Station if he would invite others to a fellowship and Communion with him Instead of this he tells us that his Catholicks do not invocate Saints directly when I shall undertake what he knows can be performed to give him a Book bigger then this of his of Prayers allowed by his Church and practised by his Catholicks made unto Saints directly for help assistance yea grace mercy and heaven or desiring those things for their merit and upon their account which as I shewed are the two main parts of their doctrine condemned by Protestants I can quickly send him Bonaventure's Psalter Prayers out of the course of hours of the blessed Virgin our Ladies Antiphonies of her sorrows her seven corporeal joys her seven heavenly joyes out of her Rosary Prayers to St. Paul St. James Thomas Panoratius George Blase Christopher Who not all made directly to them and that for mercies spiritual and temporal and tel him how many years of indulgences yea thousands of years his Popes have granted to the saying of some of the like stamp and all these not out of musty Legends and the devotion of private Monks and Fryers but the Authentick Instruments of his Churches worship and Prayers Let our Author try whether he can justifie any of these opinions or practices from the words of the Lord in Jeremy Though Moses and Samuel should stand before me yet is not my Soul unto this people declaring his determinate counsel for their destruction not to be averted by Moses or Samuel were they alive again who in their dayes had stood in the gap and turned away his wrath that his whole displeasure should not arise or from the words of Moses praying the Lord to rememâ—er Abraham Isaac and Jacob his Servants which he immediately expounds as they are also in a hundred other places by remembring his Covenant made with them and the Oath he sware unto them these are pitiful poor Pillars to support so vast and tottering a Superstruction And yet they are all that our Author can get to give any countenance to him in his work which indeed is none at all Neither do we charge the Romanists with the particular fancies of their Doctors their Speculum Trinitatis and the like no nor yet with the grosser part of the people's practise in constituting their Saints in special presidentships one over Hoggs another over Sheep another over Cows and Cocks like the ruder sort of the antient Heathen which we know our Author would soon disavow but the known doctrine and approved practice of his whole Church he must openly defend or be silent in this cause hereafter This mincing of the matter by praying Saints not praying to them praying to them indirectly not directly praying them as David calls on Sun Moon and Stars to praise the Lord so praying to them as it is to no purpose whether they hear us or no is inconsistent with the doctrine and practise of his own Church to which he seemeth to draw men and not to any private opinion of his own And a wise piece of business it is indeed that our Author would perswade us that we may as well pray to Saints in the Roman-Mode as Paul desired the Saints that were then alive to pray for him We know it is the duty of living Saints to pray for one another we know a certain way to excite them to the performance of that duty in reference unto us we have Rule President and Command in the Scripture to do so the requests we make to them are no elicite acts of Religion we pray to them neither directly nor indirectly but desire them by vertue of our Communion with them to assist us in their prayers as we might ask an Alms or any other good turn at their hands I wonder wise men are not ashamed thus to dally with their own and others eternal concernments After all this at one breath he blows away all the Protestants as childish just as Pyrgopolenices did the Legions of his Enemies they are all childish Let him shew himself a man and take up any one of them as they are managed by any one learned man of the Church of England and answer it if he can If he cannot this boasting will little avail him with considering men I cannot close this Paragraph without marking one passage toward the close of it Laying down three Principles of the Saints Invocation whereof the first it self is true but nothing to his purpose the second is true in the substance of it but false in an addition of merit to the good works of the Saints and not one jot more to his purpose then the other the third is That God cannot dislike the reflexions of his divine Nature diffused in the Saints out of the fulness of his Beloved Son when any makes use of them the easier to find mercy in his sight These are good words and make a very handsome sound Wilt thou Reader know the meaning of them and withall discern how thy pretended Teacher hath colluded with thee in this whole Discourse The plain English of them is this God cannot but approve our pleading the merits of the Saints for our obtaining mercy with him A Proposition as destructive to the whole tenour of the Gospel and mediation of Jesus Christ as in so few words could well be stamped and divulged CHAP. XXI Purgatory SECT 28. WE are at length come to Purgatory which is the Pope's Indies his Subterranean Treasure-house on the Revenues whereof he maintains a hundred thousand fighting men so that it is not probable
souls of those that departed before the resurrection of the Messias did not enter heaven as though that was any thing to his purpose in hand but he is as I said marvellous unsucessful in that attempt also The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich man prove only that Lazarus's soul was in Abraham's bosom that Abraham's bosom was not in Heaven it doth not prove Peter in the second of the Asts proves no more than that the whole person of David body and soul was not ascended into Heaven the not ascending of his soul alone being nothing to his purpose But what he cannot evince by Testimonies we will win by dint of Arguments The Jews saith he could not believe what God had never promised but heavenly bliss was none of the promises of Moses 's Law nor were they ever put in hope of it for any good work that they should do It seems then that which was promised them in Moses's Law was Eternal Life in some place citra coelum or citra culum until the coming of the Messias for this he would fain prove that they believed and that rightly This I confess is a rare notion and I know not whether it be do fide or no but this I am sure that it is the first time that ever I heard of it though I have been a little conversant with some of his great masters But the truth is our Author hath very ill success for the most part when he talks of the Jews as most men have when they talk of what they do not understand Eternal life and everlasting reward the enjoyment of God in bliss was promised no less truly in the old Testament then under the new though less clearly and our Author grants it by confessing that the estate of the Saints in rest extra Coelum to be admitted thither upon the entrance made into it by the Messias was promised to them and believed by them though any such promise made to them or any such belief of them as should give us the specification of the reward they expected he is not able to produce The Promise of Heaven is made clear under the New Testament yet not so he tell us but that in the execution of this promise it is sufficiently insinuated that if any spirit issue out of his body not absolutely purified himself may indeed by the use of such Means of Grace as our Lord instituted be saved yet so as by fire 1 Cor. 3. I think I know well enough what he aims at but the sense of his words I do not so well understand Suppose a spirit so to issue forth as he talks seeing we must not believe that the blood of Jesus purges us from all our sins Who or What is it then that he means by himself Is it the spirit after it is departed Or is it the person before its departure If the latter to what end is the issuing forth of the spirit mentioned And what is here for Purgatory seeing the person is to be saved by the means of grace appointed by Christ If the former as the expression is uncouth so I desire to know Whether Purgatory be an instituted means of Grace or no and Whether it was believed so by Virgil or is by any of the more learned Romanists I think it my duty a little to retain my Reader in this stumbling passage Our Author having a mind to beg some countenance for Purgatory from 1 Cor. 3. and knowing full well that there is not one word spoken there about the spirits of men departed but of their trials in this life was forced to confound that living and dead means of grace and punishment things present and to come that somewhat might seem to look towards Purgatory though he knew not what Nor doth he find any better shelter for his poor Purgatory turned naked out of doors throughout the whole Scripture as injurious to the grace of God the mediation of Christ the tenor of the Covenant of Grace and contrary to express Testimonies in those words of our Saviour Mat. 5. who speaking of sinners dying in an unreconciled condition having made no peace or agreement with God says that being delivered into prison they should not go forth untill they had paid the utmost farthing For as the persons whom he parabolically sets forth are such as die in an absolute estate of enmity with God which kind of persons as I take it Roman-Catholicks do not believe to go to Purgatory so I think it is certain that those enemies of God who are or shall be cast into hell shall not depart untill they have paid the uttermost farthing and that the expression untill doth in Scripture alwayes denote a limitation of time to exspire and the accomplishment afterward of what is denyed before I suppose nay I know he will not say So that their lying in Prison untill they pay the uttermost farthing of their debts which is not Gods way of dealing with them whom he washes and pardons in the bloud of Christ who are not able to pay one farthing of them is their lying there to eternity And so also the sins of which it is said they shall not be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come in one Gospel it s said in another that they shall never be forgiven that is not really forgiven here nor declared or manifested to be forgiven hereafter Besides methinks this should make very little for Purgatory however the words should be interpreted for they are a great aggravation of the sins spoken of as the highest and most mortal that men may contract the guilt of that can be pardoned if they can be pardoned That the remission of such sins may be looked for in Purgatory as yet we are not taught Nay our own Author tells us That mortal sins must be remitted before a man can be admitted into Purgatory so that certainly there is not a more useless text in the Bible to his present purpose then this is though they be all useless enough in all Conscience But here a matter falls across his thoughts that doth not a little trouble him and it is this That St. Paul in his Epistles never makes use of Purgatory directly at least as a topick-place either in his exhortations to virtue or disswasions from vice and I promise you it is a shrewd Objection It cannot but seem strange that St. Paul should make no use of it and his Church make use almost of nothing else Little surely did St. Paul think how many Monasteries and Abbies this Purgatory would found how many Moncks and Fryers it would maintain what revenue it would bring into the Church that he passeth it by so slightly but St. Paul's business was to perswade men to virtue and dehort them from vice And he informs us that there is such a contemperation of heat and cold in Purgatory such an equal ballance between pains and hopes good and evill that it is not very meet to