should on such Terms be of one Religion They believe Socrates and Sozomen who tell us of the great diversity of Rites and Orders in the ancient Churches which all consisted with the same Religion Faith and Love They abhor the Principle of hating persecuting yea and separating from one another for such differences as will unavoidably adhere to the imperfect condition of Christians here on Earth At this time in England a considerable part if not the far greatest of the silenced Ministers are for the Primitive Episcopacy and some Liturgie as you may see in their offer of A. Bishop Usher's Reduction to the King and their desires of a reformed Liturgie Among the old Non-conformists there were divers degrees such as Dr. Regnolds Mr. Perkins Dr. Humfrey Paul Bayn c. did yield to more than some others could do How can you tell then by the name of a Puritane what to charge any single Person with But it seemeth you take their Non-conformity in General and their temper of mind and life together But then you greatly wrong them and seem not at all to know what their Religion is There are two things which you say they mistake in 1. Their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness and the Covenant and not solicitously endeavouring after the acquisition of Virtue because they trust to the Imputed Righteousness your words are too large to recite You partly here unworthily injure them by ascribing to them the very opinions and words of the Antinomians whom they have better confuted than ever you did And as to their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness even Bellarmine in one sense owneth it And whether our sense be sound I provoke you to try particularly by your perusal of my own Writings on that Subject especially a late Treatise of Justifying Righteousness and Imputation and a Treatise called Catholick Theologie In which if there be nothing which you dare or can confute judge whether your meer derision of Imputative Righteousness be not delusory If you dare say that you trust not to Christs Sacrifice and meritorious perfect righteousness as procuring you pardon and life Jus ad Impunitatem Regnum Coelorum enjoy your self-confidence while you can But if you say in this as we then make publick Confession of the injury of your reproach of such Imputed Righteousness as you trust your salvation upon your self I imagine you will say that my judgment is no certain signification of the judgment of the Puritans for I am singular and therefore what I say in these Books is no proof of the sense of the Non-conforming Puritans But 1. my judgment of their sense is as good as yours 2. Do you know of any one Nonconformist that hath published any dissent to what I have written Dr. Tully was a Conformist 3. You profess before to borrow the name Puritan from the Prelatists And I have this to say for my Authority in declaring the sense of Puritans that one or more whose genius is of kin to the Roman but far less mild than yours who are Prelatical or super-Prelatical have about 17 years ago being Masters of that Language branded me with the Name of Purus putus Puritanus qui totum Puritanismum totus spirat The Pseudo-Tilenus hath just the same stile as the late Unmasker of the Presbyterians who revileth modest judicious pious and peaceable J. Corbet and in the most ingenious strain of wrath and malice doth valiantly militate against Love Therefore Prelatists being Judges I may as credibly as another tell you what is the Puritan Judgment 2. Your second accusation of the Puritan is that He begins to quarrel with all external Worship and Ceremonies But this is also spoken ignorantly and untruly You before mistook the Antinomian for the Puritan and here you seem to take the Separatist for the Puritan Read the Reformed Liturgy and other Papers offered at the Savoy to the Bishops and you may see that though they are not for silencing excommunicating and damning men for a Ceremony nor for making as many Religions as there are differences about Ceremonies yet they are for doing all things to edification decently and in order and for external as well as internal Worship of God As knowing that the Body is his and made to Worship him as well as the Soul and therefore should fall down and kneel before him and reverently and holily behave it self in his Service You say p. 5. He is much confirmed in this his imagination by considering the open profaneness and little sense of God he observeth generally in zealous Conformists And on the other side he taketh notice of his Brethren the Non-conformists that they are generally free from open and scandalous sins and at least sigh and breath after interior spirit and devotion which certainly must be that must give us a title to Heaven rather than a few Cringes and exterior Verbal Devotions which any one though never so prophane may easily exercise 1. But do you not here and in your former description quite contradict your self when you charge them as neglecting inherent righteousness 2. We are not so foolish as not to know that the unreverent hypocritical abuse of Gods external Worship by others whosoever will not excuse us for neglecting it Of the Conformists we must speak anon 3. By the way I would you could impartially consider if the Puritans be so good men as you fairly confess them to be what the reason is that Papists generally are far more fiery against them than against those whom you speak so meanly of as Prelatical Protestants Remember how your Writer after the London Fire answered by Dr. Lloid did flatter these as more suitable to the Papists genius in comparison of the Puritans And the Unmasker against J. Corbet will tell you out of Watson an honourable Witness hanged for Treason in Cobham's c. Conspiracy how bad the Puritans are comparing them with the Jesuites And if your Laws took place in England what abundance of these Puritans would you make Bonfires of yea your own Relations were not like to scape you They have told me to my face how quickly they would otherwise silence me than the Prelates do if I were in their power And the Decrees De Haereticis comburendis exterminandis more fully tell it us Yea whence is it that most certain experience proveth it that by how much the nearer any Protestants genius is to the Papists by so much the more bloody cruel malicious or slanderous and unmerciful he is to the Puritanes You 'll say for both that it is because the Puritans are most against them and Interest ruleth the World But I answer 1. God's Interest is highest with every true Christian 2. I confess it 's true that Puritans are most against Popery But truly as far as I have been acquainted with them they are not most against your Persons nor would have any injustice or cruelty exercised against you But the fear of your Faggots or Powder-Plots and such
in our reproach of the same pretended Schism 5. Note how shamelesly the Papists still tell us of all the Bishops of the Christian World being for them and asking us where was our Church before Luther that is a Society of Christians that obeyed not the Pope when they confess that Augustine and all the African Church for twenty years obeyed him not and alas soon after the Vandals came and conquered them and persecuted and destroyed those famous Bishops that did survive And that you may further know that they had yet more disobedient Resisters than African Bishops you may remember that even the Egyptian Monks so long famous for their great austerity and sanctity had renounced not only obedience but Communion with the Pope and his Adherents Fulgentius was about going to live with them for their holiness but he was told of this and turned his course vid. Vit. Fulgent And how great were all those Churches of Aethiopia Armenia exterior India and the rest which the Apostles converted which Reynerius aforesaid truly saith are not under the Church of Rome Cont. Waldens Catal. in Riblioth Patr. To. 1. p. 773. I have formerly recited the words of Melch. Canus one of their great Bishops saying Loc. Theolog. li. 6. c. 7. fol. 201. Not only the Greeks but almost ALL THE REST OF THE BISHOPS OF THE WHOLE WORLD have vehemently fought to destroy the priviledge of the Church of Rome And indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperours and the GREATER NUMBER OF CHURCHES and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the one Pope of Rome See here their own Confession 1. Where Christians opposing the Pope were before Luther 2. And of what credit their boast of Universality and Catholick Tradition is One while W. H. saith The Bishops of the whole World were for them But when their cause leads them to tell truth they say Almost all the Bishops of the whole World have vehemently fought against the Pope and the Arms of Emperors and the greater number of Churches were against them And indeed if it had been none but the Greeks he might well have said The greater number of Churches For the Contest which begun upon the Emperours removal to Constantinople and at the first General Council increasing more and more till Gregory opposed John's Claim of Universal Bishop as Antichristian at last Phoc as the cruel murderer of Mauritius gave the Title to the Bishop of Rome But that no whit ended the contest following Emperors being contrary minded and the Greeks continuing their Claim the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople excommunicating one another so that by this abominable striving which should be the Chief or Greatest the Churches that were of old in the Empire have been divided and so they continue to this very Day as unreconcileable as ever And when Gregory sent his Emissary hither to Preach to the Saxons they found the Christian Britans and Scots not only averse to the Government Orders and Ceremonies of Rome so that in many Kings Reigns neither words nor force could make them yield but also such as refused their Communion and would not so much as eat and drink with them in the same house No wonder then that Marinarius at the Council of Trent complain that the Church is shut up in the Corners of Europe and that Sonnius Bishop of Antwerp say Demonstr Relig. Christ li. 2. Tract 5. c. 3. I pray you what room hath the Catholick Church now in the habitable World Scarce three Elns long in comparison of the vastness which the Satanical Church doth possess The truth is saith Brierwood Divide the known World and alas how much is unknown into thirty parts and about nineteen are Heathens and six Mahometans and five Christians of all sorts And of these Christians the Papists at this day are as some think about a fifth part some think a fourth part and some think a third part And after the assuming of the Universal Title their Popes more and more degenerated to such odious wickedness at last as we hope few Pagans are guilty of which we speak not as from Enemies but from their own Historians and Flatterers such as Platina Baronius Genebrard c. Nay not so much from them as from Councils General and Provincial which have accused condemned and deposed them Read in my Key for Catholicks pag. 220 221 222. the words of Baronius Genebrard Platina CL. Espensaeus 〈◊〉 Muss Guicciardine c. Nic. Clemangis Bernard Alv. Pelagius say more Let any impartial man but read the Articles on which the Council at Constance condemned and deposed John 23. about 70 in number in which they make him almost as bad as a man out of Hell can be and indeed say he was commonly called The Devil incarnate Read the Articles on which the Council at Basil condemned and deposed Eugenius the Fourth as a perjured Wreteh an obstinate Heretick and all the rest Read the Articles on which another Council deposed John 13. alias 12. And read the Lives of many more in their own Historians And what came the Church to when it had such Heads when Baronius saith ad an 912. that the face of the holy Roman Church was exceeding filthy when the most potent whores did rule at Rome by whose pleasure Seats were changed Bishops were given and which is a thing horrid to be heard and not to be spoken their Lovers were thrust into Peters Chair being false Popes who are not to be written in the Catalogue of the Roman Popes but only for the marking of such times And what kind of Cardinals Priests and Deacons think you we must imagine that these Monsters did chuse when nothing is so rooted in Nature as for every one to beget his like For near 150 years saith Genebrard about fifty Popes were rather Apostatical than Apostolical And where was their uninterrupted Succession all this time Pope Nicolas in his Decretals Caranz p. 393. 395 saith He that by Money or the favour of Men or Popular or Military Tumults is intruded into the Apostolical Seat without the Concordant and Canonical Election of the Cardinals and the following religious Clergy let him not be taken for a Pope nor Apostolical but Apostatical And of the Clorgy he saith Priests that commit Fornication cannot have the honour of Priesthood Yea Let no Man hear Mass of a Priest whom he certainly knoweth to have a Concubine or Woman introduced And shall not Protestants forgive those that will not hear such or as bad Where then was the Papacy under such For above forty years together there were more Popes than one at once and sometimes more than two one dwelling at Rome and another at Avignion or elsewhere One set up and obeyed by one Party and another by another Party each condemning the other as an Usurper And had the Universal Church then any one Head And with what wickedness are they charged one destroying what the other was for see in
contentious Lawyers in the Land to have agreed falsly to inform us that our Statutes were made by such Kings and Parliaments But a domineering Faction alone might easilier have deceived men 3. Yea even as to Christs Promise we can better prove that the Universal Church or Body of Christians shall never lose the Faith than you can prove it of Rome alone or the Papal Sect. Bellarmine himself dare not say that Rome shall not cease to be the feat of the Papacy or shall not be utterly destroyed And then how can there be a Bishop of Rome when there is no Rome But you 'll say that if he dwell at Avignion he may be called Bishop of Rome But if he be called so when he is not so at least when there is no Rome or no Christian Church there sure a false Name is not an Essential part of our Religion If you say that at Avignion or Ravenna or Vienna he may be S. Peter's Successor and so the Universal Monarch still I answer Then it seems that the Council of Calcedon as afore-cited was in the right that Romes Priviledge was given by the Fathers because it was the Imperial Seat And so that the Pope is not S. Peter's Successor eo nomine because he is Bishop of Rome But if the Bishop of Avignion or Vienna might become S. Peter's Successor who never was Bishop there how shall we know that the Bishop of Rome is his Successor now We have hitherto had no better means to prove it and deceive the World than by saying that S. Peter dyed Bishop of Rome where the Pope is Bishop But S. Peter dyed not Bishop of Avignion If the Place prove not the Succession tell us if you can what doth Is it the Election By whom Who are those men that have the Power of chusing S. Peter a Successor You know I suppose that the Pope hath been chosen 1. Sometime by the People witness the blood-shed at the choice of Damasus in the Church 2. Sometime by the People and the Neighbour Ordaining Bishops 3. Sometime by a Synod 4. Sometime by the Emperours 5. And lastly by the Roman Cardinals If any of these may chuse then we may have four or five lawful Popes chosen four or five several ways at once If only one of these have the Power S. Peter had no Successors under all the other Elections So that the Claim will fall rather to Antioch than to Avignion or any other Town because they say it was S. Peter's first Bishoprick from which he removed for a greater If you are driven with poor Mr. Johnson alias Terret to say that Any way will serve which serveth for the truth of an Election of Princes c. then still we may have four Popes at least I doubt you must be forced to say as some that it is the acceptance of the Universal Church which must prove who is the Universal Monarch 1. But some must be Electors before it comes to acceptance And who hath the Power of Electing And 2. what if now the major part of the Church should prefer the Bishop of Constantinople I hope you are not so ignorant of Cosmography as not to know that the Greek Church when they first preferred the Bishop of Const was far greater than the Latine 3. And I suppose you know that it is not near half the Christian World that now accepteth of the Pope as their Governour 4. And I pray you do but get the Pope to suspend his claim till the Church Universal accept him and we shall not be troubled with him For how shall they signifie their acceptance If in a General Council you know how they of Constance Basil and Pisa are reviled by the Pope and those that now go for your Church for pretending to a power to depose and chuse Popes and how Eugenius the fourth prevailed against such a Deposition And if these Councils were not your Universal Church representative where shall we think to find it In sum we have the Tradition of a Church as big as three of the Roman for all our Religion and of all the Roman Church it self besides the Confession of the Enemies of the Church Pagans Infidels Mahometans Jews and Hereticks we have not one word that 's part of our Religion which your selves confess not to be true We believe that the Faith of the Universal Church shall never fail nor the Gates of Hell prevail against it And so you see that we may far better tell how Infallibly we have received our Religion from our Forefathers than you can do of yours But we believe not that this Universal Church hath any Head but Christ no Humane Vicarious Monarch or Governour of all the World We believe that Men must Believe in Christ before they can know that the Pope is his Vicar if it had been true We know as sure as History can tell us that the Pope's first Primacy and the rest of the Patriarchates were but the Humane Ordinances of the Clergie of one Empire and not of the whole Christian World And we know not nor you but Rome and its Church and Bishop may yet all cease together But you make me most admire at you that in this Book also you tell your Relations and other Readers of the uncertainty of notice by Books in Comparison of converse and talk with those of your present Party yea that your own Religion is not to be known by Books as being lyable to be misunderstood so well as by talking with Papists and asking them what is their Faith or Religion Sir I judge by your Stile that you are a man of zeal and conscience in your way and therefore that you write not this fraudulently against your conscience Sure then you must needs be a man of more than ordinary ignorance that can believe what you say 1. Is it your Objective or your Subjective Faith that we are disputing of If it be not the Rule and Object of your Faith every man indeed may tell us what he believeth himself but no man can tell us what another believeth And then you have as many Religions as men for every man hath one of his own and no two men in the world know and believe just all the same things neither more nor less And what shall those of us think of your Religion then who find that one of you affirmeth what another denyeth For instance A worthy Person of your Religion affirmed to me that notwithstanding the Fifth Commandment Honour thy Father and Mother a Mother hath not any Governing Power over a Child nor the Child oweth any obedience to the Mother during the Fathers life because it were confusion were there more Governours in a House than one though subordinate one to the other Is this your common Judgment May I say therefore that this is other mens belief You know that when we alledge the sayings of your most Learned Writers we are ordinarily told that it is not the judgment of
Massacres as were in France of Thirty Thousand or Forty Thousand or in Ireland of Two Hundred Thousand hath made them think your Power inconsistent with their safety 3. And you must remember that the Positive Additions of the Church of Rome are in the Judgment of the Puritans very great sins But you have truly no charge against the Puritans for any one Article of their Religion but only for not receiving and for protesting against your Additions 4. But I perceive p. 5. your Instances of their defectiveness are that they are not for fasting days particular Garments for Priests set Forms Christmas-day Good-Friday Ascension Whitsuntide c. which they take for meer Humane inventions and Will-worship Because they think that the New Testament was written to instruct us Christians in the whold Body of Gospel-worship c. But you are best prove this only by telling us that you know some persons of that mind And when you have done I will demand your Proof that those Persons are no more than Puritans They have oft told you that their judgment is that for all that substance of God's Worship which is of Universal necessity to the Church and is of Divine Institution the holy Scripture is a sufficient Rule But that very many Circumstances and outward Acts have in Scripture but a General Law that they be all done to edification decently orderly in Concord c. and it is left to Humane Prudence to order them by such Rules We condemn no one that useth holy Fasts or Feasts but think them needful We judge not those that celebrate the Memorial of God's great Mercies to his Church by giving him thanks for the holy Life and Doctrine of his Eminent Saints c. But will you plainly have our judgment We think Saint Paul was in the right that taught the Church of Rome it self both the Rulers and the Flocks that they must neither judge nor despise each other for differences about Meats and Days but receive each other to Communion notwithstanding such differences as Christ received us Rom. 14. and 15. And we will not believe your Grand-Father nor Great-Grand-Father if they told us that the Apostles by Tradition did institute Holy-days and Vigils for St. Tecla or St. Bridgit or St. Thomas Becket or any that were not born till they were dead And any one Day or Order which you truly prove to us that the Apostles by Tradition ordained for the Universal Church we profess our selves ready and resolved to obey But if you plead not Tradition for any of these things but the Churches Commands as you must do or be singular or ashamed here you come to the quick of our difference 1. We know not of any Universal Vicarious Law-giver under Christ that hath any power to make Laws to the Universal Church throughout the World and we dare not own any such Usurper lest we be guilty of Treason against the only Head of the whole Church 2. We know not of any power that the chief Bishop in the Roman Empire hath over other Empires Kingdomes or Churches 3. But to our own true Pastors which are set over us according to Christ's order and his Apostles recorded in Scripture we Puritanes will submit in all such Circumstantials as aforesaid which are left to their prudent determination not putting us on any sin But 4. We detest making such things as you here name to be taken for the Characters of distinct Religions or distinct Churches as if we might not with Love Peace and Christian Communion differ about a Garment a Holy-day Fast or Vigil Thus far then you seem not to know what a meer Puritan is II. But Sir I have much more than all these little things against your Description of a Puritane I plainly perceive in your greatest praises of him that you know not what his very Religion it self is or else you would never describe him as only taken up with fears and cares and good desires to be better having yet greedy desires of the things of the World without any mention of the Love of God above all and of his Neighbour and a holy and heavenly Mind and Life with self-denyal mortification of the Flesh c. Either you judge of a Puritane by what you were your self or by what your acquaintance were or by what they commonly profess to be their Religion For the first you have no reason It followeth not that they have no better a Religion because you had no better For the second you had no reason For it 's ten to one you knew not the hearts of your acquaintance so well as to be able to know that they had not the Love of God c. And if you were so unhappy in your acquaintance what 's that to other Men Thirdly Therefore as you look that your own Religion should be described not as we find it in this or that man but as your Church professeth it so do we And I have told you before what our Religion is I have the more boldness in speaking the sense of others as I said both because I am as aforesaid stigmatized for a total Puritan and because the generality of all of them of my acquaintance as far as I can discern are of this mind A Puritan then as the Word is commonly taken by the Rabble is a serious Christian Protestant who truly believeth and practiseth what he doth profess and doth not mortifie that Profession which should help to mortifie his Sin His Religion is to be understandingly and sincerely devoted in the Sacramental Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Vanities of the World the Lusts of the Flesh and the Delusions of the Devil He believeth that all that truly consent to this Covenant have a right and part in and to the Love of God the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Chost and that he that hath the Son hath Life Pardon Adoption Justification and Right to Life Eternal and that this Right is continued he performing his Covenant and continuing in that Faith which worketh by Love and not living impenitently in sin but sincerely obeying God his Father Saviour and Sanctifier He taketh the fear of Gods Justiâ—â— â—nd godly Sorrow to be but the lower steps of Holiness but that the Kingdom of God is not Meats and Days but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of Christ without which none are his is not the Spirit of Bondage but of Power Love and a sound Mind even a Spirit of holy LIFE LIGHT and LOVE which are the Essentials of true Holiness and the Spirit of Adoption and Supplication causeth us with Love to cry to God and trust him as a Father They take Christ to be the only Mediator between God and Man whose sufficient Sacrifice for Sin and perfect Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive as called advanced in dignity by the Divine Nature is the Meritorious cause of
the Greatest be it right or wrong In the best Countries the most are too bad And bad men will have a prospering Religion and not one that will expose them to Death Banishment Imprisonment Beggary Contempt or Silence Most will be on the upper side 2. And remember that you your self here confess the scandals of some of your Romish Party and what carnal prophane ones they are Had you not confessed it I would have desired you to read two Books 1. Josep Acosta of the wicked slothful Priests in the Indies as the great hindrance of their Conversion 2. Stephanus his World of Wonders taken most out of the Book of the Queen of Navarre of the horrid Villanies of your Priests And one thing I cannot disregard I marvel not if the Papists be most bad in Spain France Italy c. or the Lutherans in Denmark Saxony or Sweden or the Calvinists in Holland or the Prelatists and Conformists in England because the most who are commonly the worst will be of the stronger side But that Greeks should be ungodly in Turky or Protestants in France or Papists in England where they are singular and under the discountenance of the Times and most hold their Religion with some self-denyal this seemeth to me a more grievous thing And if it prove true that even in England where you make the World believe that you have suffered grievously your Followers are too often found meer Formalists living in Swearing Drinking Lying Uncleanness or some of these what shall we think of such a Religion as this as in a Land of uprightness would teach men to do unjustly I wonder not what should make a Drunkard Fornicator or other debaucht Sinner to be a Papist in France Spain or Italy But what should make such a one be a Papist in England unless his Religion favour sensuality or else he think that it will yet prove the upper side I cannot easily conjecture But you accuse the Prelatick Protestant for agreeing with the Puritan in expecting Salvation by the extrinsical righteousness of Christ without him not by any interior righteousness in his own Soul Answ I told you your memory faileth you Why did you before then describe the Puritan as so well qualified within and desiring after more But were you bred among Puritans and yet talk so ignoranly and falsly This had been more tolerable in a Cochleus a Genebrard or other transmarine Calumniator that never knew us here Read but Davenant de Just and see how you slander the Conformists And read my fore-named Books and Mr. Trumans Mr. Woodbridges the Morning Lectures at S. Giles of Justif Mr. Wotton de Reconciliat Mr. Bradshaw de Justif Praefat. c. Mr. Gataker in many Books Jo. Goodwin of Justif c. and see how you slander the Puritans In a few plain words Sir the Protestants do not expect Salvation by their own personal righteousness as coordinate with Christs but as subordinate to it nor as a Righteousness so denominated from the same Reason as Christs is but from a lower Reason and so as of a lower sort That is We all hold that Gods Law to perfect man was perfect being the Effect of his perfect Holiness and required personal perpetual perfect innocency and obedience in man And that man breaking this Law was according to the Justice of it lyable to its Penalty which is temporal spiritual and eternal death or to be forsaken of that God whom he forsook and to be under the sense of his displeasure or Justice We believe that Christ Redeemed us from this Punishment by the merit of his perfect Holiness and Obedience and the satisfactory sacrificing of himself on the Cross where he was in his measure forsaken of God as in our stead and for our sins whose punishment as far as was fit for him to undergo he voluntarily undertook to suffer We believe that he never intended by this Redemption to take man from under his subjection to God or make him an ungoverned lawless Wight but that by purchase he himself as Mediator became his Lord and King and Gods chief Administrator of the Redeemed World And his Lord-Redeemer with the Will and Authority of God his Creator made him a new Law and Covenant freely giving Right to Impunity saving paternal healing Corrections and temporal death and degrees of desertion if men neglect Grace and Right to the Heavenly Glory as thus merited for us by Christ and also the Communion of the Holy Ghost on Earth to fit us by Holiness for Heaven and to conquer our sins and this to all that will by a true effectual Faith accompanyed with Repentance unfeignedly accept the Gift of God that is that will truly consent to the Baptismal Covenant taking God for their reconciled God and Father Jesus Christ for their Saviour and the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier and Comforter renouncing the Devil the World and the Flesh and engaging themselves as in a Holy War against them as the Enemies of the blessed Trinity and them And this Covenant they must keep For as it giveth Right to Life to such Believers so it denounceth certain damnation to Unbelievers and unthankful Neglecters of so great Salvation So that when by RIGHTEOUSNESSE we mean that which answereth Gods perfect Law having no sinful imperfection we all profess that we have no such Righteousness of our own to trust in there being no man without sin and all sin by the Law of Innocency denominating the sinner unrighteous and punishable by death But instead of such a Righteousness Gods Justice is so far satisfied by the Sacrifice and perfect Righteousness of Christ as that he freely giveth us the foresaid Covenant and its Free Grace and Benefits But because we must be judged by the Redeemer according to his Law of Grace therefore we must in our selves personally have the Righteousness which that Law or Covenant hath made necessary to our Justification first and our Salvation afterwards which is first our foresaid Faith or Covenant-Consent and after to our salvation our keeping of that Covenant in true Obedience and Holiness to the end and our Victory over the three Enemies which we renounced So that briefly God justifieth as the Donor and the Judge Christ God and Man as Mediator justifieth us meritoriously as aforesaid and by donation and final sentence our Jus ad Impunitatem Gloriam our Right to Impunity and the Heavenly Glory justifieth us as our Formal Righteousness which is a Relation against the Accusation that we ought to be shut out of Heaven and damned to Hell The Covenant of Grace justifieth us by giving us Right to the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Ghost Even as Gods Donative and Condonative Instrument or Act of Grace Our Personal Faith including Repentance justifieth us as the matter of our Formal Righteousness against that particular Accusation that we are Impenitent Unbelievers and so have no part in Christ and his
And in the Contest with them the case is commonly pleaded accordingly 4. Gregory Nazianzen would never have wished so earnestly that there were no inequality superiority or priority of Seats if he had taken them to be of Divine Institution Durst he have so opposed the Law and Order of God 5. But to put all out of doubt it is expresly determined by the most famous General Councils even two of the four which are likened to the four Gospels Constantinople and Calcedon that the Primacy was given to Rome by the Fathers so they called Councils because it was the Imperial Seat and therefore they give equal Priviledges to Constantinople because it is the Imperial Seat The words of the Council of Calcedon oft cited are these translated Act. 16. Binii pag. 134. We following always the definitions of the holy Fathers and the Canons and knowing those that have now been read of the 150 Bishops most beloved of God that were congregated under the Emperour of pious memory Theodosius the Greater in the Royal City of Constantinople New Rome have our selves also defined the same things concerning the Priviledges of the same most holy Church of Constantinople New Rome For to the Seat of old Rome because of the Empire of that City the Fathers consequently gave the Priviledges And the 150 Bishops most beloved of God being moved with the same intentions have given equal Priviledges to the most holy Seat of New Rome reasonably judging that the City adorned with the Empire and Senate shall enjoy equal Priviledges with old Regal Rome This Council was called by the Emperour Martian and his Lay-Officers were called the Judges And the Bishops to shew what they thought of Rome cryed out They that contradict it are Nestorians Let them that contradict it walk to Rome Bin. p. 98. If such a General Council be not to be believed farewell all the Papists Infallibility Authority Tradition and Religion If it be to be believed the Pope is a Humane Creature and not a Divine But Binius saith that Rome receiveth not the Canons of this Council of Constantinople which this confirmeth but only their condemnation of Macedonius And he saith That every Council hath just so much strength and authority as the Apostolick See bestoweth on it For saith he unless this be admitted no reason can be given why some Councils of greater numbers of Bishops were reprobated and others of a smaller number confirmed Vol. 2. p. 515. And yet must we hear the noise of all the Christian World and all the Bishops and General Councils and the Tradition of our Fore-fathers c. as against us when all is but the Pope of Rome and such as please him and it is He and his Pleasers that refuse the most General Councils and Tradition Away with this false deceitful talk 6. Once more hear their own Confession Their late English Bishop of Calcedon a fatal name R. Smyth in his Survey against Bishop Bromhall saith cap. 5. To us it sufficeth that the Bishop of Rome is S. Peter 's Successor and this all the Fathers testifie and all the Catholick Church believeth But whether it be jure divino or humano is no point of Faith Ans 1. Is not that a point of your Faith which the General Councils affirm at least of your Religion Who can tell then what is your Faith 2. If an historical point be not to be believed from General Councils why should the History of Peter's being at Rome and Bishop there be believed as from Fathers which Nilas hath said so much against 3. Do not the Fathers as much agree that Peter was first Bishop of Antioch If then you have no more to shew than they where is your Title 4. If your Divine Right of succeeding Peter be no point of Faith then he that believeth it not doth not sin against any point that God would have him believe as from him and therefore is not to be thought erroneous in the Faith 5. And yet upon this which is no point of Faith you build your Faith and Church and would have all Christians do the like on pain of damnation II. And as the Roman Primacy was but of Man's devising so I next prove that it was but over one Empire unless any Neighbours for their own advantage did afterward voluntarily subject themselves 1. Because the Powers that gave him his Primacy extended but to the Empire The Emperour and his Subjects ruled not other Lands 2. Because the four other Patriarchs made by the same Power had no power without the Empire As appeareth by the distribution of their Provinces in the Council of Nice and afterward Pisanus's Canons we regard not that take in Ethiopia Obj. The Abassins now receive their chief Bishop from the Patriarch of Alexandria That proveth not that ever they were under Rome For there is not the least proof that ever they did so till Dioscorus and his Successors separated from Rome being rejected by them as Hereticks and by long and slow degrees enlarged their power over many Neighbour Volunteers 3. Because the General Councils in which the Pope presided were but of the Empire And the Popes never claimed a more general extensive power then than the Councils Who indeed with the Emperours made the Papacy in its first state 4. Because when the Patriarch of Constantinople claimed the Primacy yea called himself Universal Bishop which Gregory sharply reprehendeth as Antichristian yet he never claimed the Government of the whole Christian World but only of the Empire And in all their Contests there is no intimation of any such different Claim of the Competitors as if Rome claimed all the World and Constantinople but the Empire or Roman-World Their Contest was about the same Churches or Circuit who should be Chief 5. The Instances of the several Countries that were never under the Pope do prove it Even the great Empire of Abassia and all the rest fore-named without the Empire Of which and the Exception more under the next III. The General Councils were all so called only in respect to the generality of the Empire and not as of all the Christian World which was never dreamed of Proved 1. Because the Emperours that called them Constantine Martian c. had no power out of the Empire 2. There is no credible History that mentioneth any further call much less of all the Christian World 3. It was the Affairs only of the Empire that the Councils judged of as is to be seen in all their Canons 4. The Names of the Bishops yet to be seen as Subscribers fully prove it 5. It was not a thing probable if possible that the Indians Persians and other Nations should send their Bishops into the Roman Empire which was usually at War with them or dreaded and detested by them 6. Theodoret's foresaid words of James Bishop of Nisibis sheweth it that he was at the Council of Nice for Nisibis was then under the Roman Empire 7. I have oft cited the
words of Reynerius saying that the outer Churches planted by the Apostles were not under the Church of Rome 8. The executive part neither could nor ever was performed upon the Churches without the Empire When did any Patriarch or any Provincial or General Council send for any Bishop or other person out of India Scythia Ethiopia or any other exterior Nation to answer any Accusation or pass any Sentence of Deposition or Suspension against them or put any other into their places 9. General Councils are confessed by Papists to be but a Humane and not a Divine Institution and what Humane Power could settle them in and over the Church Universal If you say It is by Universal Consent prove to us that ever there was such a Consent or that ever there was any meeting or treaty for such Consent of all the Christian World and we will yield it to you Surely if there be any Christians at the Antipodes they were not sent to in those days when Lactantius Augustine and others denyed that there were any Antipodes and derided it nor when the Pope by our Countryman Boniface his Instigation excommunicated Virgilius for holding that there were Antipodes Hear their great disputer Pighius Hierarch Eccles lib. 6. c. 1. fol. 230. General Councils saith he have not a Divine or Supernatural Original but meerly an Humane Original and are the Invention of Constantine a Prince profitable indeed sometimes to find out in Controversie which is the Orthodox and Catholick Truth though to this they are not necessary seeing it is a readier way to advise with the Apostolick Seat So that General Councils are Novel Humane and only of the Empire then 10. But to end all the Controversie the names of the Subscribers are yet to be seen who were not the representatives of the Christian World but of the Empire as is notorious Aeneas Sylvius Epist 288. saith that before the Council of Nice there was little respect had to the Church of Rome And though when he was made Pope Interest caused him to revoke his judgment of the Councils being above the Pope he never revoked such historical narratives Their great Learned Mathematical yet militant Cardinal Cusanus li. de Concord Cathol c. 13. c. saith that the Papacie is but of Positive right and that Priests are jure Divino equal and that it is subjectional Consent which giveth the Pope and Bishops their Majority and that the distinction of Dioceses and that a Bishop be over Presbyters are of Positive Right and that Christ gave no more to Peter than the rest and that if the congregate Church should chuse the Bishop of Trent for their President and Head he should be more properly Peter 's Successor than the Bishop of Rome Object Oh but this Book is disallowed by the Pope Answ No wonder So is all that is against him The Exceptions which we grant are these 1. There were some Cities of the Empire that were near to other Nations where the Princes being Heathens Christians were underlings and few And the Bishops of these Cities extended their care to as many of the Neighbour Countries as would voluntarily submit to them So the Bishop of Tomys was Bishop of many Scythians and so some that were on the Borders of Persia had many Persians and were at Nice 2. There were some Countries that were sometimes under the Roman Power and sometime under the Persian or others as Victory carried it and these when they had been once of the Imperial Church took it when they fell under Heathens to be their Honour Strength and Priviledge to be so accounted still and so would come to their Councils after if they could So it was with the Armenians and the Africans when the 〈◊〉 had conquered them c. 3. There were some Bishops that lived on the Borders of the Empire under Heathens that needed the help of Neighbour Churches and accordingly were oft with them craving their help So it was with the old Britans as to the Bishops of France 4. There were some small Countries adjoining to the Empire who took the Friendship of the Roman Power for their great Honour and safety and therefore were glad to conform in Religion to the Empire and to let their Bishops join with them 5. And there were some Neighbour Countries who were turned to Christianity by the Emissaries of the Bishop of Rome who therefore rejoicing also in so powerful a Patronage were willingly his Subjects But this was long after the first great Councils These two last were the Saxons case in England Accordingly you may sometimes find two or three out of such Countries at some of the General Councils of the Empire Which yet were called General but as to the Empire and not as to the World To proceed in the History When Christians were mostly exempted from the Magistrates Judicatures that were most Heathens though under a Christian Prince and so the Bishops Canons were to them as the Laws of the Land are to us it is no wonder that Councils must then be very frequent and Canons of great esteem and hereupon Bishops by prosperity growing more and more worldly and carnal made use of their Synodical Power as is aforesaid to accomplish their own Wills So that the Synods of Bishops became the great Incendiaries and Troublers of the Empire You need no more to satisfie you of this but to read the Acts of the Councils and the words of Nazianzen called Theologus against Synods and contentious Bishops and the sad Exclamations of Hillary Pictav They that had too little zeal against Ungodliness Unrighteousness Pride and Malice were so zealous against any that withdrew from their Power and contradicted them that they easily stigmatized them for Hereticks and made even godly sober Christians suspected of Heresie for their sakes while notorious Vice was used gently in those that adhered unto them Even holy Augustine saith Drunkenness is a mortal sin si sit assidua if it be daily or constant what not else and that they must not be roughly and sharply dealt with but gently and by fair words Vid. Aquin. 22. q. 150. a. 1. 4. ad 4. a. 2. 1. And their Great Gregory That with leave they must be lest to their own wit or disposition lest they grow worse if they be pulled away from such a Custom as Drunkenness But when it came to such as withdrew from under them they were not so gentle Lucifer Calaritanus is made the Head of a Heresie because he was but too much against the receiving of such as had been Arrians The large Catalogues of Heresies contain many that never erred in Fundamentals They prosecuted the Priscillianists so hotly that if godly men were but given to fasting and strictness of life they were brought into suspicion of Priscillianism And the Vulgar took advantage of the Bishops turbulency and ill disposition to abuse the godly S. Martin therefore separated from the whole Synod of the Bishops about him and
neither would join with them nor have any Communion with them as supposing them proud men that suppressed piety and strengthened the wicked by their intemperate prosecution Whereupon they suspected and accused him also as an unlearned Fellow and a Favourer of the Priscillianists They did not only bring in the use of the Magistrates Sword in Religion against Heresie which Martin could not bear but they owned and flattered an usurping Emperour that they might have the help of his Sword to do their work So that in all those parts of France Germany and the Borders of Italy I find not a Bishop that refused to own the Usurper save S. Ambrose and Martin and one French Bishop And Sulpitius Severus tells us that they were men too bad themselves and that upon his knowledge Ithacius the Leader of them scarce cared what he said or did S. Cyril at Alexandria is noted by Socrates as the first Bishop there that used the Sword and his Kinsman S. Theophilus went beyond him and took upon him even to favour the Errour of the Anthropomorphites that he might have their help against such as he hated and prosecuted Chrysostom till he had procured his ejection which made a rupture in that Church and caused the separation of his Adherents whom the Bishop would have taken for a new Sect and called them Joannites such skill had the domineering sort of Prelates in making and multiplying Heresies and Sects and calling themselves still the Catholick Bishops because they kept the upper hand and major Vote except where the Arrians over-topt them who then claimed the Catholick Title to themselves And by what Arts some of them kept the favour of the Emperours to do their work and keep up their greatness Socrates tells you in the instance of the said S. Theophilus who sent one before the great Battel between Theodosius and Eugenius another Usurper with two Letters and a rich Present and bid him stay till the Battel was over and then give the flattering Letter and the Present to him whoever that got the better But though still since the World came into the Church and the Greatness Power and Honour of Prelacy made that Office a very alluring bait to the desires of the most worldly fleshly men yet God kept up some that maintained their integrity and bare their testimony against the pride and carnality of the rest and though the scandals of the Catholicks turned many to the Novatians and other Sects that profest more strictness yea Salvian makes the Arrians Gothes and Vandals themselves to be men of more honesty and temperance than the Catholick Clergie yet sound Doctrine had still some holy Men that did maintain it But what were the Popes doing all this while Sound Doctrine by the advantage of the soundness of the Western Emperour as is said yet kept out Arrianism Pelagianisme and such other Heresies there but they were still striving to be the Greatest Leo one of the best of them was one of the first that laid claim to an Universal Headship within the Empire I told you how Zosimus and his Followers strove with the Africans to have Appeals made to Rome from the African Bishops and Councils which the Africans stifly opposed as contrary to the Canons to Custom and to the reason of Discipline which required that Cases should be judged and ended where persons and things were known and not by Strangers afar off where Witnesses could not without intolerable charge and trouble be brought beyond Sea to prosecute the suite The words of the African Council translated are â—â—se Let your Holiness as beseemeth you repel the wicked refuges of Presbyters and the Clergie that follow them because this is not taken from the African Church by any definitions of the Fathers and the Nicene Decrees did most plainly commit both the inferior Clergie and the Bishops themselves to the Metropolitans for they did most prudently and most justly provide that all business should be ended in the very places where they began and the Grace of the Holy Ghost will not or should not be wanting to each province which Equity should by the Priests of Christ be prudently observed and most constantly maintained especially because it is granted to every one to appeal to the Councils of their own Province or to an Universal Council if he be offended with the sentence of the Cognitors unless there should be any one that can think that our God can or will inspire a Justice of tryal into any One Man and deny it to innumerable Priests that are Congregated in Council Or how can that sentence that is past beyond Seas be valid to which the necessary persons of the Witnesses could not be brought because of the infirmities of Sexe or Age many other impediments intervening For that any that is Legates should be sent from the side of your Holiness we find not constituted by any Synod of the Fathers it seems they never thought of a Divine right because that which you sent us by our Fellow Bishop Faustinus as done by the Nicene Council they prove was false send not your Clergy Executors or Agitators to potent men Do not yield to it lest we seem to bring the Secular arrogancy into the Church of Christ which preferreth the light of simplicity and day of humility for them that desire to see God For of our Brother Faustinus the Popes Legate we are secure that the saâ—â— Brotherly love in your Holinesses honesty and moderation can suffer him to stay no longer in Africa The Popes took this heinously from the Africans that they should stop them in their ascent to the Universal Monarchy So that Pope Boniface Epist ad Eulal saith Aurelius sometimes Bishop of Carthage with his Colleagues did begin by the Devils instigation to wax proud against the Church of Rome in the days of our Predecessors Boniface and Celestine O how little do proud men instigated by the Devil know themselves when they think that the Diabolical pride is in them that will not serve their pride And Harding against Jewel Art 4. Sect. 19. saith After the whole African Church had persevered in Schism the space of twenty years and had removed themselves from the obedience of the Apostolick Seat being seduced by Aurelius Bishop of Carthage c. Here note 1. That so numerous were the Bishops in Africa that one of their Provincial Councils had far more Bishops than the Council of Trent or divers others called General 2. That they were men of the most eminent learning and piety and that had kept up Discipline above almost any Church in the Empire S. Augustine was one that subscribed the foresaid Letter and were such Men like to be seduced by Aurelius 3. Note with what Impudencie even such men as Harding yet pretend that St Augustine was for their Papal Claim when yet he professeth him to be one of the Schismaticks that cast off obedience to the Seat of Rome 4. Note what good Company we have
and allowed them so many and various Societies and with so great Priviledges as obliged them generally to uphold and serve him Though he cruelly persecuted all that were against his Power and Interest yet he allowed almost all the Diversities of such as would but unite in him and serve him 6. And as he so twisted his own and all his Clergies Interest that they were all ready to obey and defend him against their several Princes and thereby had a great power in every Christian State in Europe so keeping all his Clergie unmarryed their wealth still accumulated and flowed into the Church And the Eastern Empire being first weakned and then overthrown and the Western Nations kept weak and in continual Wars against each other there was none well able to resist his Pride but one party still was ready to flatter him partly to keep their own Clergy in Peace and partly to have his help against their Enemies And the grand Cheat by which they were commonly deceived was that they lookt more at his present possession of Primacie than at the reason and right by which he claimed it and so he that had been Prime Patriarch in one Empire set up by the Prince still claimed the right of the same places when the Empire was dissolved as if the Subjects of the Kings of France Spain c. must obey him because they did so when they were the Subjects of Constantine Theodosius Valentinian c. For by little and little he changed his Title mentioned in the Council of Calcedon into a pretended Divine Right and so they that would not have obeyed him as set up by Caesar and his Councils obeyed him as if he had been set up by God For the name of St. Peter and his Chair and Successour was used as the common blind And next to that he did by degrees change his claim of a Primacie in the Empire into a claim of Primacie in all the World and his claim of a meer Primacie into a claim of Soveraignty or Governing Monarchy If you ask me how could he blind Men so far as to make such a change You seem not to know Man-kind nor to observe common experience Do you not consider what power the Clergie had every where got with the People What an advantage possession and St. Peters name were And how lamentably ignorant they kept the People Do we not see that even in our more knowing times yea among Protestants yea with some Divines the evident distinction between their Humane Right and their pretended Divine Right and between an Universal Council or Church of the Empire and of the whole World have not been sufficiently observed in our Disputes against them And the additional Countries of voluntary Subjects in Brittain Hungary Sweden Denmark c. which of later times since his Imperial Primacie have fallen in to him have much helped to blind the people herein and to serve his Claim as by Divine Right For which ends his Emissaries have taken great pains at the East and West Indies in China and Japan and Congo and once they made an attempt in Abassia and among the Greeks and in many other Nations of the World laudably seeking to win some Heathens to Christ that they might win them to the Pope and turbulently seeking to disturb the Greeks and other Christian Churches to draw them to the obedience of the Pope The Doctrines by which they promote their design are more than I may now stay to open I. One of the chief is by depressing the Honour of the sacred Scriptures as insufficient to acquaint us with all Gods will that is necessary to our salvation without supplemental Tradition that so all men might be brought to depend on them as the Keepers of Tradition But 1. Is their Tradition yet written in any of their own Books or not If not where are they kept And who knoweth what they are Is it not strange that so many Doctors in so many Ages all remembring them would none of them ever write them down Are they in the Memory of the Pope only What of those that could not read or that were condemned as Hereticks of Infidels Then all the World must receive them from the Popes Memory If so must it be Word or Writing And had he no Memory of them before he was Pope But if it be in other Mens Memories that your unwritten Traditions are kept in whose is it If in all the Doctors of your Church why did not Luther Melancthon Pet. Martyr and the rest that turned from you know them Or did they suddenly forget them all when they turned Protestants And how vast must your necessary Religion be if yet it must have more in it unwritten than is to be found in all your great Volumes of Councils and your huge Library But I suppose you will say that all your unwritten Traditions are now written If so they are not unwritten And how long have they been written and by whom If Fathers and Sons could keep them unwritten in memory a thousand years why not 1100 and why not 1600 c. If they were written in the beginning where be the Books Are they not such as other Christians can read and understand as well as you or an illiterate Pope If there be a necessity of having them in writing now was there not the same necessity to former Ages 2. I suppose you will send us to your Councils for those Traditions But if the Bishops know them not before they come to the Council how do they begin to know them then Do they go thither for a new miraculous Revelation of an old Tradition left with the whole Church 1. But do not Councils oft determine things confessedly uncertain to the Church before and yet out of utter uncertainty it suddenly becometh an Article of Faith For Instance the great Council at Basil saith Bin. sess 30. p. 80. A hard Question hath been in divers parts and before this Synod about the Conception of the glorious Virgin Mary and the beginning of her Sanctification Some saying that the Virgin and her Soul was for some time or instant of time actually under Original Sin Others on the contrary saying that from the beginning of her Creation God loving her gave her Grace by which preserving and freeing that blessed Person from the Original Spot We having diligently lookt into the Authorities and Reasons which for many years past have in publick relation on both sides been alledged before this holy Synod and having seen many other things about it and weighed them by mature consideration do Define and Declare That the Doctrine affirming That the glorious Virgin Mary the Mother of God by the singular preventing and operating Grace of God was never actually under Original Sin but was ever free from all Original and actual Sin and was holy and immaculate is to be approved held and embraced of all Catholicks as godly and consonant to Church-worship Catholick Faith right Reason
and ruled by Whores c. Where then is the succession And if it were possible for those at Rome to know that there is a Pope and to know who and which is he yet how should all the rest of the world have any assurance of it You 'll say it is not necessary Possession and common Report must satisfie them in China Congo Abassia and the Phillipines c. Answ No Building can be stronger than its Foundadation nor Conclusion than its Premises How then shall such men have assurance of their Religion when they must take it on the Credit of a Pope as infallible of whom they have no assurance And how shall they be certain that they are of the right Church when they are uncertain who is the Head whom they must be subjects to CHAP. VII What a PAPIST is II. HAving shewed what a Pope is I am next hence to tell you what we Protestants take a Papist to be And first as to the name it is equivocal There are so many sorts that are called commonly by the one name of Papists that it is hard to enumerate and describe them all 1. There are some that believe that the Pope is but a Humane Creature that hath run up his power into Tyranny by abuse and it were well if he were either down or reduced to his first state But they take themselves to be as those that live under other abusive oppressing or tyrannical Governours who must live in Patience and Submission and are not bound to ruine themselves by opposing him in vain and though he impose on them many things which they like not but had rather they were reformed yet it being not in their power and Princes and Magistrates commanding them the same they take Conformity to be orderly and Nonconformity to be unpeaceable and of ill fame And if any of the things commanded them prove sinful they hope God will forgive them for bowing in the house of Rimmon and will lay it on Popes Princes and Prelates and not on them that are not bound to study Controversies and who do what they do but in obedience and for peace pretenses that quiet their Consciences in self-saving Conformity I verily think that the greater part of those called Papists in all the world are of this self-saving sort As we see in all Countries that the greater number are or seem to be of the Religion of those in power be it what it will be And we ordinarily hear that the common people will thus talk against the Popes Doctrines and Practices and yet quiet themselves on such terms of Conformity as I here describe II. Another sort called Papists do believe that the Pope is a meer humane creature also not over all the world but in the Empire and where Princes let him And consequently as men set him up men might take him down But yet that it is an Orderly Institution as Kings and Emperors and that his place is Lawful and that it is the duty of the Church to obey him especially when Princes also do command it And that men have power from God to make as National Provincial and Patriarchal Churches and Rulers so also an Universal Church and Ruler for Order and Unity sake over many Countries and that it is good and desirable to these ends Of these there are two sorts 1. One sort take the Papacie and Patriarchs to be a lawful and laudable institution of Constantine confirmed by other Princes 2. The other sort take them to be laudable Institutions of General Councils or else of particular consenting Bishops before the first General Council whom thy call the Church III. Another sort called Papists do believe the Pope as the former to be a humane Creature viz. of the first or ancient Bishops by mutual consent but that it was a necessary thing which by Gods General Laws and his special Inspiration they did well and were bound to do for the Churches concord and strength and that it is not lawful for the Church now to alter it or any Prince in his Dominions These also are of three sorts 1. Some think that the Roman Seat may be altered and the Church upon just cause may remove the Primacy to another Bishop This seemeth to be the opinion of Cardinal Cusanus afore cited de Concord who saith The Church might make the Bishop of Trent chief 2. Others seem rather to think that God hath by Decree annexed the Supremacy to Rome and yet as R. Smyth the Bishop of Calcedon and Ruler of the English Popish Clergy afore cited think that it is not de fide that the Pope is Peters Successor 3. Others say that they are not sure but God may destroy Rome and remove the Primacy but Men may not do it IV. The whole Greek Church seem yet of the second or third opinion that the Pope had a just Primacy in one Empire which was justly removed to Constantinople But there are some that think the Pope had also a just Primacy in all the Christian World and yet that he hath it but by Humane Institution V. There are other that think the Pope is the Universal Head by Divine Institution even as S. Peter's Successor by derivation of the Power which Christ gave Peter And as about the Foundation so about the Subject and the Measure of Power yea who is the true Chief Ruler over the Uuniversal Church there are these several sorts of Popery I. Some believe that it is General Councils that are the Subject or Possessors of Supreme Church Power and Infallibility and that the Pope is but the first in order of the five Patriarchs in such Councils who hath no necessary right to call them nor no negative Voice in them nor any Government over the other Patriarchs or their Churches but only the first Seat if he be there just as the Patriarch of Alexandria first and of Constantinople after had when the Patriarch of Rome was absent And thus indeed it was in the Empire for a long time But those five Patriarchs ruled not all the World no more than our two Provincial Archbishops do II. Others called Papists do go farther and believe that General Councils indeed have the supreme Legislative Power and the chief Executive while they sit and are the Seat of Infallibility But because they are not to be always or ordinary God hath not left the four Patriarchs and all the World ungoverned in the Intervals but the Roman Pope is the Supreme Governour of the World when there is no General Council Yet so that he must Govern by their Laws or Canons III. Another sort and I think the most numerous among the Learned called Papists hold that Neither the Pope alone nor the Council alone are the Seat or Possessors of the supreme Legislative Power or the Infallibility nor of the supreme judging and executive power sedente concilio but it is both of them agreeing or conjunct And two Fallibles joyning become one Infallible IV. Another
the Votes of all the Christian World 3. And have all that were converted in the Apostles days and since first known the Major Vote of the Christians or were they converted by the foreknown Infallibility or Authority of the Majority or of the Pope Some will say we see the Madness of this Popery but how then do you say that the faith must be received if not from the Church I answer I have told you at large in a Treatise called The Reasons of the Christian Religion and briefly in a smaller Treatise called The certainty of Christianity without Popery Briefly Judging is one thing and Teaching is another thing Before I submit to the Decision of a Judge I must know his Commission or Authority and I must then stand to his Sentence which way ever he decide the Case Men be not converted to Christianity by such Judges but by Teachers Nor will I believe the Judge if he say there is no Christ no Life to come c. But a Teacher is to make intelligible to his Hearer or Scholar the evidence of truth which is in the matter taught and to draw men to believe by telling them those true reasons upon which he did believe himself And no man takes him for his Teacher that he is perswaded knoweth no more than himself And the greater reputation of Knowledge and Honesty the Teacher hath the easier we apply our minds to learn of him and a humane trust or faith prepareth us to receive that evidence of truth which may beget a Divine Faith by the help of Grace But still the Learner truly believeth no more than he thus learneth And I may hear a stranger tell what he hath to say and be convinced by the evidence that he giveth me of the truth though I know not of any Authority that he hath to teach me much less judicially to decide the Case I little doubt but most that were converted by the Apostles themselves were perswaded to believe in Christ by the evidence of truth proposed the Spirit co-operating before they knew of any Authority of the Apostles much less before they heard what they said in a General Council or what was the Vote of the Universal Church or what any Pope said as Ruler of the rest These things are very plain and sure and they that will be wilfully blinded by faction and prejudice and worldly interest against plain truth have no excuse if they perish in darkness II. A PAPIST of this sort is one that believeth that the Pope of Rome is the rightful Governour of all the world that is that all Christians immediately and all Infidels and Heathens mediately are bound by God to obey him as Christs Vicegerent on Earth And that he with his Council is thus an Universal Lawgiver and Judge to all Kings States and Persons that dwell round about the Earth But a Protestant denyeth this and holdeth that there is no Universal Monarch or Legislator to all the world but God and our Saviour and that he hath made no such Vice-Christ or Vicegerent and that such a Claim is High-Treason as usurping his Prerogative And that if Pride had not in tantum made them mad no men could think themselves thus capable of Governing all the World Protestants believe that there is no such thing on Earth as an Universal Church headed by any mortal Head Pope or Council but that Christ is the only Universal Governour or Head III. This Papist is one that holdeth that the Church of Christ on Earth is no bigger than the Popes Dominion and that it is necessary to salvation to be subject to the Pope and consequently he unchurcheth two or three parts of the Christian world and damneth most of the Body of Christ and robbeth him of the greatest part of his Kingdom as far as denying his Right amounts to And consequently is a notorious Schismatick or Sectary appropriating the Church title only to his Sect. This is proved before from the Masters of their Religion IV. This Papist is one that holdeth that those Councils which were General as to one Empire were General as to all the Christian world And that such General Councils there must be if it please the Pope to call them though they must come from all the Quarters of the Earth and whence they have no Sea passage and out of the Empires of many Princes and many that are Enemies to the Christian Name and perhaps at Wars with Christians and when the Voyage or Journey is such that if the Churches be deprived of a thousand Bishops twenty of them are never like to live to return home to the remotest Nations Nor could they converse as a Council by reason of the number and diversity of Languages if they were equally gathered Or they hold that if a small part of the Christian World assemble as at Trent when the rest cannot come this is an Universal Council of and to all the Christian World V. This Papist is one that holdeth If a fallible Pope and a fallible General Council do but agree their Decrees are infallible As if an unlearned Pope e. g. that understands not the Text of Scripture in the Original and an unlearned Council as to the most should agree their Decrees would be learned e. g. in judging which is the true Translation of a Tongue which they never understood As if ten purblind men if they meet together might produce the Effects of the clearest sight or Fools by conjunction become wise VI. He holdeth that Tradition from Fathers to Children is the sure way of conveying all the matter of Faith and Religion and yet that the greatest General Councils which are the Church representative may erre in matter of Faith and have erred unless a Pope who is fallible approve of their Decrees VII And when he hath trusted to this way of Tradition he denyeth the Judgment and Tradition professed by the greater half or the Christian World VIII He believeth that all men are bound on pain of damnation to believe that the Senses and perception of all men in the World are deceived in apprehending that after Consecration there is true Bread and Wine in the Sacrament And he that will so believe his own and others Senses should suffer as an Heretick and be rooted out of all the Dominions of all Christian Lords on Earth So merciful is he to his Neighbours For an approved General Council hath decreed this and such Councils are his Religion Were it his own Father or Mother Wife or Child that cannot thus renounce all his own and other mens Senses and believe that there is no Bread or Wine in spight of his sight taste touch c. he believeth that they should be burnt as Hereticks or exterminated He may be a good naetur'd man that is loth it should be so or he may be one that is ignorant of his own Religion and doth not know that this is one Article of Popery or he may be an unconscionable man that
c. XXV They will publickly pray to God and praise him in an unknown Tongue because the Pope will have it so XXVI They think that the far greatest part of the Body of Christ are tormented in the Flames of Purgatory to make satisfaction to Gods Justice for some Sins notwithstanding Christs sufficient satisfaction XXVII Expecting to go to the Flames of Purgatory when they dye they cannot possibly be willing to leave this World and consequently must be worldlings and never truly willing to dye For the basest condition on Earth will seem to them more desirable than Purgatory XXVIII They think that the Flames of Purgatory do perfect mens preparation for Heaven whereas he is readiest for Heaven that is likest to those in Heaven and most holy and that is they that most love God! And they that are angry here with every one that hurteth him and do not think that tormenting men will win their love yet look that the torments of Purgatory should help us to love God better than all the mercies on Earth will do XXIX The generality of Papists believe a fallible Priest or Printer or such other person telling them what is the Faith of the Universal Church and yet think that this is an Infallible Faith XXX A Papist is one that layeth his hopes of salvation upon his belief of and obedience to a Pope which by their own Principles is no Pope and a General Council which is no General Council never was nor never will be and on his Communion with a Catholick Church which is no Catholick Church but a Sect. All which hath been proved already and moreshall be I have told you in part what we take a Papist to be Some things before mentioned in the description of a Pope have been here necessarily repeated CHAP. VIII What the Papists Church is called the Roman Catholick Church WHat their CHURCH is may so easily be gathered from what is said that I shall say but little more of it In General It is a Society called Ecclesiastical constituted of such a Head and such Members as I have described Particularly I. It is a Humane Church as to the Efficient Cause of its Form made by Man as distinct from that Church-form which was instituted by Christ even by the Fathers because that Rome was the Imperial Seat As is proved before II. It is a Humane Church as to the constitutive Head as distinct from the true Universal Church which hath no Head single or collective Pope or Council that is not God III. It is a Sect consisting of about the third part of the Christian world calling themselves the whole Church and condemning all the rest for not subjecting themselves to this Usurping Head IV. It is a new Church in comparison of Christs Universal Church as having a new Humane Original As is proved V. It is a treasonable Church as set up without Christs Authority and challenging his Prerogative and weakning his Kingdom by unchurching the greatest part VI. It is an unholy Church as distinct from the holy Catholick Church and that both in the essential Matter and Form 1. In the Matter its Head which is a constitutive part having been oft a condemned Heretick Infidel Murderer and other flagitious wicked man 2. As to the Form being not of God it is not holy 3. Besides that as to the Head he was long made by the most wicked Whores All this is before proved at large VII It is a Church that hath had its pretended succession interrupted as is proved sometimes by long Vacances sometimes by long Schismes when no one was the Universal Head sometimes by the Incapacity of the Persons being Lay-men or Infidels Simoniaoal condemned deposed Hereticks and therefore no Bishops VIII It is a Schismatical Church that cuts off it self from all the rest of the Christian Church And by making a false Head and Principle and conditions of Unity which the Universal Church never did never will or can unite in is the grand cause of the greatest continued Schism IX It is a trayterous Church against Princes making it their very Religion to force bloody Oaths on them and to excommunicate and depose them and give away their Dominions and that tolerateth its most famous Doctors to maintain that being excommunicate they are no Kings and may be killed and to maintain that the Pope is above them in Temporals and may set up and pull down Kings when he seeth cause All this is expresly proved before X. It is a Church that believeth Contradictions as is proved in their Councils e. g. The Council of Basil Sess ult saying No one of the skilful did ever doubt but that the Pope was subject to the Judgment of a General Council in things that concern Faith c. And others saying the clean contrary As also in divers other things XI It was for above forty years sometimes two sometimes three Churches instead of one For the Head being an essential part two or three Heads make as many Churches XII It is at this day divers Churches really as to the Form that are by the ignorant supposed to be one Two or three Forms and Partes Imperantes being essential make as many Churches though the subjects live mixt The summa Potestas is a constitutive essential part Some called Papists take the Pope for the summa Potestas and some a Council and some both conjunct and some the Church real or diffused through the World XIII It is a Church made up of a tolerated hodge-podge of many Sects some utterly uncapable Members so they do but serve the Pope I have shewed out of many Doctors cited by Sancta Clara that many that believe not in Christ are of their Church He saith himself pag. 113. Deus Nat. Grat. What is clearer than that at this Day the Gospel bindeth not where it is not authentically preached that is that at this Day men may be saved without an explicite belief of Christ For in that sence speaks the Doctor concerning the Jews And verily what ever my illustrious Master hold with his learned Master Herera I think that this was the Opinion of Scotus and the COMMON one citing many that follow it And that men that hold all the different Opinions in the Jesuites Morals and the Schoolmen besides many various Religious Sects make up their Church is not denyed XIV It is a Church that pretendeth to have a Judge and end of Controversies but indeed hath a Judge that for the most part dare not decide them and that can make no end of them when decided For instance the Controversie of the Virgins immaculate conception decided at Basil is never the nearer an end Images were decreed up by some Councils and down by others Even S. Thomas stood not to the second Council of Nice about Image Worship The various Councils that decreed variously for and against a Councils Supremacy never the more ended the strife And indeed it is so hard to know approved from reprobate
shewed Having said thus much more to shew that your Foundation is Sand who send us from Books to our Grandfathers as infallible and that this is no better a ground than the Abassines Greeks and others may build on as well as you and that we our selves have a far surer and Universal Tradition than the Papacy hath and have your own consent to every word of our Objective Religion I now proceed to consider of your Character of Parties CHAP. II. YOU describe to us four supposed Parties I. The Puritan II. The Prelatical Protestant whom your Fitz-Simmons calleth The Formalist III. The Papist as you suppose us falsly to describe him IV. The Papist as you suppose him truly described whom you call The Apostolical Christian In all which you shew that you are far from Infallibility and a man unfit for your Relations to trust in so great a Case I. I confess you give the Puritan a very laudable description in comparison of the Prelatist Protestant and the feigned Papist And you tell us that you were once a Puritan your self and you own still that which you describe as Puritanism only adding Popery to it which you think it wants I confess you speak incomparably more honourably and charitably of Puritans than some malicious interessed Persons of their own Protestant Profession will do But 1. You deal not informingly in your describing a Puritan before you distinguish that ambiguous ill-made word It hath three common acceptions among us at least First The ancientest as it signifieth the old or later Catharists who held that they were perfect if they are not belyed And none come nearer these than the Papists and Quakers certainly Protestants are far from it Secondly the old Non-conformists had the name of Puritanes put on them by those that were against them For what reason I leave them to answer to God Thirdly and because these Non-conformists lived strictly and were for much preaching and praying and holy conference and spending the Lords-day in holy Exercises and serious diligence in working out our Salvation and were sharp against drunkenness swearing and such other sins therefore the vulgar Rabble of vicious ones that durst not rail at Piety under the name of Piety took the advantage of the Bishops displeasure at the Non-conformists and of the name Puritane and put that name upon all Christians among them that were notably serious in practical Godliness perswading themselves that they were all but Hypocrites And so the name among the vulgar Rabble grew common to godly Conformists and Non-conformists And as if loquendum cum vulgo had been a Law by this means the Devil did more hurt both to godliness rendring it among the vulgar to he but odious Hypocrisie and Singularity and to Episcopacy making Multitudes that disliked the wickedness of the Rabble to think that all this came from the Bishops and it did more to advance and honour the Non-conformists because the name was formerly theirs as such than by any one thing that I remember in all my younger days This the godly Conformists grievously complained of as Bishop Downame in his Spitâ—le Sermon called Abrahams Tryal and Mr. Robert Bolton who saith that he believeth that never poor persecuted Word passed through the Mouths of wicked Men with more bitter scorn since Malice first entred into the Heart of Man Really the permitting of the common Rabble of all the debauched Sinners of the Land to make serious godliness a common scorn under the name of Puritanisme had as great a hand as any thing I know in all our Confusions Fourthly and it added Fuel to the Fire when some brought up a fourth sence of the Word some say Mar. Ant. de Dom. Spalatensis was the inventor of it and that was Doctrinal Puritanes by which name they understood those by some called Calvinists by others Anti-Arminians who held the Doctrine of your Dominicans or of the Jansenists Now who can well tell which of these sorts of Puritanes you were and talk of while you Characterize the second sort as well as the first and yet distinguish them from Prelatick Protestants 2. But which ever it is observe here that you own the Puritanes Religion still and say I have not so much left Puritanism as Prelaticks call it as added that to it wherein I found it come short of the holy Apostles Doctrine and Institutions p. 1. And when you have described the Puritane as one seriously conscionable and regardful of his Salvation at large you add If this be to be a Puritane would to God all the World were Puritanes I am so far from being Converted from thus much of a Puritane that I most heartily wish I could Convert all the World to it 3. But yet your description of him is so very false that I may conclude when you turned as you think from being a meer Puritane to be a Papist you never knew what a Puritane is nor indeed ever were a Puritane your self unless you take the word as fitted to your self and such as you If you had meant by a Puritane a meer Non-conformist as such you would not so laudably have described the work of God upon his Soul and Life as you have done For if most Non-conformists be such yet so are many others as well as they And it 's easie to see what a deceitful course it is to take up a name of many significations and such as signifieth no different Religion at all as to any one Article of Faith nor any more difference in or about Religion than such as is among most Christian Churches and much less than is among your selves Besides that the plainer name of a Non-conformist is of no determinate nor certain signification save only in general to notifie one that Conformeth not to all that is imposed on him but what that is the name doth not signifie A Non-conformist in Scotland is one thing in England another thing as the Impositions are different Non-conformity twenty years ago or fourty years was one thing Non-conformity since 1662. is quite another thing And Non-conformists differ among themselves If twenty things be imposed as necessary to the Ministry he is a Non-conformist who consenteth but to nineteen of them and so is he that consenteth but to eighteen or to seventeen or to sixteen and so on as well as he that consenteth to none of them And that there is so much difference among them is no wonder to them nor any considerate Man for they hold Christian Love and Communion with those that agree with them in the foresaid common Principles and Practice of Christianity as far as they require not them to sin And they are not of a different Religion from every one that fasteth not on Fridays or Saints Vigils c. as you seem to be nor from every one that doth so nor from every one that thinketh not in every thing as they think or that prayeth in other words than they for no two Men in the World
sort of Papists and very numerous especially in Italy hold that the Pope alone is Supreme and Infallible in Legislation and Judgment and that Councils are but his Counsellors to prepare Laws to which his Fiat giveth Authority and Infallibility All these indeed are commonly called PAPISTS because that more or less they are Subjects of the Pope But who can give one definition or the same marks of men that are really of so many minds If I describe one sort the other will say this is not our Opinion you do us wrong And so of all the rest And here you may see that when the Question is Whether a Papist may be saved and Whether a Papist be a Heretick or the like that it cannot be well answered till we know of which sort of Papists you speak But because I find that already my Writing is swelled beyond my first intent I will give you the Properties or inadequate conceptions of only one sort of Papists which is the third sort in the last distribution who hold the Soveraignty and Infallibility to be in the Pope and Council conjunct and that by Divine Right Because if I speak of any of the other sorts I find they fly for refuge hither and most Writers go upon this ground and will own nothing as their Religion but what is in Approved General Councils And here I desire the Reader to peruse what I have said in my Full and easie satisfaction c. out of Veron and others as they describe their Faith themselves I. A PAPIST of this sort is one that believeth that the Pope and his Council or Church is Infallible in proposing the will of Christ and believeth in Christ and receiveth the Gospel as true for the Authority and Infallibility of this Pope and Council and hereon layeth all the hopes of his salvation as on the Churches Faith And all this Authority and Infallibility he believeth before he believeth that there is a Pope or a Church of Christ or a Christ indeed or a promise or gift from Christ of any Authority or Infallibility to them Much more before he knoweth who is the true Pope and which are true General Councils or whether ever there were any such or what it is that they have decreed to be believed 1. That they take all their Faith in Christ and the Gospel on the credit of the Church that is the Pope and Council proposing it the moderatest of all this sort profess as out of Veron and others I proved as afore-cited Hence it is that one tells us that the Scripture is so full of seeming Contradictions and Improbabilities that he would no more believe it than Esop's Fables were it not for the Authority of the Church Another said Would I ever believe the Trinity the Incarnation that if you lay a man to dye in a close Chest of Lead or Marble his Soul could get out to Heaven that the Body shall rise again c. were it not for the Authority of the Church 2. They believe this Infallibility and Authority of the Pope before they can believe that there is any Pope at all For to be a Pope is essentially to be Christs Vicar as they describe him And as I said it is impossible to believe that Christ hath a Vicar before they believe that he is Christ As it is to believe a Son without a Parent 3. They believe the Infallibility and Authority of the Church as they profess before they believe that there is any Church For to be a Church is essentially to be a Society of Christians And he that yet believeth not that Christ is truly Christ cannot believe that Christians are truly Christians save de nomine nor that Christ hath a Church For they are Relatives as Wife and Husband 4. They believe the Infallibility and Authority of the Church that is the Pope and Council before they believe that Jesus is the Christ For they profess to believe in him because of the said Churches Authority and Infallibility And the Premises go before the Conclusion 5. They believe the said Infallibility and Authority of the Church before they believe that ever Christ gave them such Authority and Infallibility For they cannot believe that Christ gave it them before they believe that there is a Christ and a Word of gift And now is not here a Riddle hard enough to pose the wisest Which way do all these Believers through all the world come to know that the Pope and Council or Church are authorized and Infallible before they believe that Christ ever gave it them Which way do they think that they came by it Let him unriddle it that can 6. They believe thus in the Pope before they know what a Pope is or who is he that they must thus believe in For alas how can all or any in the world know what is necessary to make a Pope what Election what Ordination what Qualification and whether the man had all these And of divers Pretenders which is he that hath the proofs of a true title 7. They believe thus in Councils when they know not what Councils are true and what not nay whether ever there were any For I have elsewhere fully proved that there never was any nor ever will be that are truly Universal as to all the Christian World 8. Much less do these beginners know certainly what General Councils have decreed to be believed by those that will be saved That which will be said to all this is that It is not necessary that all men receive their Faith from Councils it is sufficient if it be from the Church-real though not from the Representative Ans Very good 1. Else no man was a Christian nor could be before the first General Council which was above 300 years 2. But still this answereth none of the Contradictions about believing in and from the Pope May we all take our Faith from the Church-real without taking it from the Pope or not If yea we may possibly be good friends at last If not all the Contradictions about him are still upheld by you 3. And if you must take it from the Authority and Infallibility of the Church Real still all the Contradictions will follow as if you took it from Councils For can you believe that this Church is Christs Church and hath this power and gift from him before you believe that he is Christ and that ever he made such a gift or promise to them 4. And who or what is this Real Church that must be first known to be thus impowered and infallible Is it some few or many or must it be the most If a few or many you profess that they may be Hereticks and have not that authority or gift If it must be all or the greater part 1. Then the Church of Rome goeth down that is at most but a third part 2. How shall every poor man or any man know which is the judgment of the major part Can he take