not in that manner the Evangelist uses or if he did he could not intend to affirm that which neither he nor God himself can make good Nor will we grant any thing to Christ but what we can do our selves or understand at least how it may be don If there were upon earth any speaking oracle unto whom all parties would submit in these affairs disputes would soon end if such a one be excluded or denied the very rising of them is as ominous as the blazing of a comet or coming of a whale into a river and portends great disturbance and desolation The world had that fearful apprehension when they first beard that Luther would shine with his own light and defy the stars of heaven But they were more than assured of much approaching mischief when they once understood that Calvin had left the Roman Sea to show himself and domineer and sport in the fresh waters of Geneva §. II. Reason WHo shall then set up himself for a guide to his neighbour in affairs of religion which must needs carry an obscurity far above all that is in nature and how and which way will he do it that a good disinterested judgment may approve of his pretensions There can no other way whereby any should now afresh after Christian religion has been above sixteen hundred years profest in the world set up himself a new extraordinary directour be thought of or imagined but either som high inconfutable reason internal special light or purer interpretation of formerly received Scripture And what man is there in the world can now wisely begin to pretend any of these things to the disparagement of the rest of the Christian world Reason carries the fairest show and seems most civil and manly and if it lean upon principles of faith formerly received it may do much good for the strengthning or securing of religion in weak beleevers but then it makes not saith but supposes it and must know withal and if it be right reason cannot but know that all argumentations are answerable which if they rely upon obscure suppositions may according to the height of the maisters conceit pretend much but can prove nothing irrefragably Did religion com at first by reason or must it only begin now A good beleever cannot but think that Christ the great maister had a reason for what he taught but he must beleeve first before he can think so and altho he had a reason himself yet since he taught us none we can have from him no other reason but his autority and this may be beleeved but not evidently proved for his miracles recorded and not seen are as pure an object of faith as his autority and person nay if I had seen them I could not have told my self unto whom the intricacies of whole nature are so much unknown whether nature and art might compas them or no and so might I conclude him to be some ingenious person or great naturallist but not a god Nor is it likely that Christ ever meant that reason should frame our religion both becaus he constituted such men to plant faith as were not any maisters of arts and if reason had been the business it had been fitter to send them about the world to learn than to teach as also becaus himself though he did oftentimes with subtil and most rational argumentations confute the Pharisees errours yet did he never by any reason that I can remember establish his own doctrin nor answer to any Quomodo though he was often put to it but still when the Jews demanded How can this or that be How can man forgiv sins How can this man give us his flesh to eat he repeated again his own assertion and doctrin and might perhaps confirm it by miracle but he proved it not by reason And it was very fitting if so be he were such a person as we beleev him to be that he should be taken upon his word and not stand to give his vassails a reason of his will If Christ our Lord had been no more than an ordinary wise legislatour yet could he not rationally intend at once both the unity of his Church upon earth and the guidance of all men in it onely by reason of their own for my reason is not his and may well prove contrary as well to it as that of my neighbours whence will result together not onely not one religion but also no religion whiles one neighbours reason differs from another and perhaps both from Gods Wherfore wise and holy Church hath in all ages both forbid her children to dispute their principles of religion in the sense they had received them and also refused to be tried before any Senate by the philosophy of any pure man to stand or fall by his axioms This is apparent not only by ancient writings of Christian doctours but by a fact of Emperour Julian who falling from Christian religion amongst other oppressions he deprived Christians of their schools of literature throughout the Roman Empire telling them by way of jeer that Christians need not any learning unto whom this one word Credo is sufficient And indeed it is sufficient for faith and must needs be both the sufficient and only means of conserving a Church in uniformity for religion must be somthing which may be common to all persons that profess it and equally proportioned to all capacities and conditions and such a thing is to Beleeve but not to ratiocinate all men both rich and poor wise and unlearned prince and peasant may equally beleev one and the same thing and so hold it uniformly from time to time but if that very thing were to be set up unto each one by his own proper reason the several kinds of beings in sensitiv or vegetative nature even from the oak to the mustard seed would not more differ than that one judgment in several men have there not been fifty or threescore several interpretations of these few words Hoc est corpus meum c. and almost a hundred opinions amongst the masters of reason about their summum bonum And if any say that it is enough for som great master in these times by the strength of his reason to rais a religion that is onely to be accepted and others of weaker abilities may either take all that from him or only follow and hold what themselvs are able by their own reason to reach This cannot satisfie at all for first if I must take a religion upon the credit of some great masters reason which my self cannot judg or comprehend I had as good take it from the first master and beleev as I do and not suffer another in these dayes to make himself lord over me and lead me another way of his own and he indeed that does so does not only by this slight put himself into the place of Him who conveighes faith but of Christ himself who made it for the sense is the life and spirit of all
body even as Christs natural body under one spirit and head united and compacted together and that without ceas even so long as that mystick body lasteth upon earth in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi till it receiv its final consummation negatively to prevent schismes and herefies which might otherwise render the Church in her members both contemptuous and liable to continual ruin whiles every particular person left to himself would be carried up and down like children with puffes of novelty blowing several wayes by the cunning subtilty of men pretending new light spirits reasons and such like stratagems in astutia in their knavery and pride of heart to bring people into a circumvention of errour all which inconveniences are avoided by following the guidance of the Church and the Pastours therein appointed over us A general spirit of truth in those that are set over the flock keeps them together and safe whereas particular lights in the sheep that are to be ruled would divide them from their pastour and from one another and division infers destruction Nor could that great Jewish argument be any way warded or put by but by recours to the Churches infallibility which can be no other but what Christ gave her and his own autority and truth revealed by this Church is the utmost foundation that supports the whole fabrick nor can there be any thing further assigned to support it but God with whom it is beleeved to be united for as all material buildings and their connexion are beheld with the eye but their foundation is not seen but is beleeved by the influence it hath in supporting the fabrick which it self is ultimately sustained by the center So may we discern some consequences of the points of religion upon a supposal of a great fundamental truth upon which they all depend as this is that Christ is a true and divine teacher but this cannot be seen or maintained otherwise than by a pure belief yielded unto that Church that first taught him and His truth sustains all his doctrin and the formal fabrick of the Church built upon him and it can be grounded upon nothing but God himself the center of all subsistence and verity This connexion of us to the apostles of the apostles to Christ and Christ to God St. Paul insinuates when he saith to the Christians of Corinth Omnia vestra sunt sive Paulus sive Apollo sive Kephas vos autem Christi Christus autem Dei The Christians might indeed reply to the Jew and say that Christ our Lord was a holy and sacred person divine innocent miraculous and unblamable in his whole life and conversation that he came from heaven by the mission of his eternal father and his own great benignity to plant upon earth an universal catholick Church amongst all nations which in the fulnes of time God was pleased to do whereas Moses had confined his Church by Gods command till that hour of general salvation was come unto the one family of Abraham and that he had received autority from God so to do which not only his own evangelists but even Moses and the prophets sufficiently attest who all do so speak forth the birth and life passion and resurrection of this our great Messias and the glory of his Church amongst the gentiles accordingly as himself promised and it hath now appeared to be and that nothing but rancour and prejudice and the scandal of his humility and the Jews mistake of the Messias his first and second coming did incens them against their own lord when he appeared amongst them who also looked even then for a Messias sodainly to come whom they were to obey and follow and cannot probably being then the onely select people of God ascribe their immense desolations exiles from their own homes and miseries these sixteen hundred years than to the guilt they have contracted upon themselvs by shedding the blood of that sacred person Nor are they to be excused sith all the ancient Rabbies before Christs coming did openly profess throughout all the Hebrew Church that they understood not the end and meaning of Moses law nor ever should till the great Messias came to teach them which was so beaten into their minds that all the Hebrewes beleeved it as appears by the saying of the woman of Samaria When the Messias comes he will teach as all things although through the hatred they bore to Jesus Christ they began after his coming to sing another song This I say and such like words they might reply and prove all by some autority or other but yet whatsoever they could alledge the Jewish Rabbies would give another interpretation to it or if it were their own gospel flatly deny it and so having no other further autority to rely upon but the truth of that Church that stands upon this foundation of Christs divinity there they must rest For there can be no hope either of satisfying a querent or conconvincing an opponent in any point of Christianity unles he will submit to the splendour of Christs autority in his own person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the reason why som of the Jews in Rome when S. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the prophets beleeved in him and some did not So then the great resolv of all doubts must be immediately upon the autority of the present Church which derived from the Church foregoing must by several concatenations bring us at length to the autority of Christ which is the root and firmitude and life of all and if this be once acknowledged and firm and firm it cannot otherwaies be than by captivating our wills and understanding to his love and obedience under that notion the Church hath revealed him it must equally support all future generations of Christians be they never so many in any temptation or difficulty that should afterwards happen and the whole Church and all her doctrin built upon it Nor can any at any time pretend rightfully and justly other motive of his beleef than what the apostles had for theirs the first age from the apostles the second age from the first c. and still the foregoing Church does but derive the faith and practise received unto its successour and both must equally stand upon the same foundation of one and the same autority which all generations take by the like resignation and faith-submission unto the worlds end So that he that departs in any age from the waies of the foregoing Church upon what pretence soever it be done of knowledge interiour light reason spirit or other discovery he leavs the foundation on which his faith was built and vertually forsakes Christ and would have had the same argument against him if he had lived in his time for if the Church the visible Church prove not to be even in that particular age a just keeper and deliverer of faith received then was the Church deceived not so
you are able to bear upon your selvs even that you pretend you cannot look upon at a distance which is an odde kind of riddle The office of a priest and bishop which you say is onely to preach together with his state and means this you have not onely born very tamely these years of our confusion but earnestly thrust your selvs into it And is it not a strange tendernes to sweat under a burden which another man bears and not to be troubled at all when we bear it our selvs nay to thrust our selves into it their copes dislike you in the Church but in your own houses they make a goodly fine show and their very surplices pleas you well when they are next to your own skin What it was that the fox fell out with the lovely grapes it appeared afterward when they were seen griped so greedily within his teeth the only caus of his dislike and vehement invectivs against them was and a shrewd one it was that himself could not come at them Nay nay 't is the Popery 't is that we dislike If the fox could have spoke he would have called those grapes popish too for now adayes all that stands in our way and all that we would undermine and cannot immediately reach we cry out upon as popery which is a sound so inflames the vulgar ears that they all flock together at that alarm against father and mother Prince and neighbour Church and state without any further consideration to the assistance of that cunning wag who by that so taking a stratagem raised a publick help for the working of his own design The Popery you say you dislike This you may do without disturbing either your own or other mens peace there be a thousand thinks I dislike every day as I walk along through London streets which no prudence dictates me to check or seek to rectifie It is not the custom of a traveller and we are all pilgrims upon earth to cut up bushes or lop hedges that hang in their eyes as they pass but peaceably to go beside them without further nois or disquiet and if any should do otherwise he would be looked upon as a mad man and haply run himself into jeopardy but what if popery prove at length not to be any evil thing at all but good and pious how ever represented to us all this while as odious under the bug bear of that name I know you will startle at this word but you would not do so had you my experience Christ and his Christianity was long ago by such invectivs and ignominious appellations made as odious in the world as now it can possibly be under the name of popery insomuch that of the three Epicureans Christians and Atheists which were generally put together as a triplicity of abomination the professours of Christianity was ever put in the middle as the most impious of all the three not only in their lives but in their opinions and beleef and as such they were dealt with throughout all the Roman empire for three hundred years together whiles that empire was pagan contemned pillaged tortured as people of the most wicked profession the earth ever bore and all Europ wherein there were even then as many great wise heads and as morally honest persons as ever there were in the pagan world beleeved it such power hath a popular vogue once raised to the prejudice of any especially if autority do constantly conspire to their ruin It is not my purpose at this time either to oppugne popery or defend it for in oppugning it I may chance indeed to pleas som in defending it I am sure to pleas no body for the Catholicks although they know in general that by the name of papist and popery their persons and professions are aimed at yet what their adversary would express by popery when he objects it to them there is not one catholick in England understands If it be an expression of their religigion they have no rule for that but the gospel if of the superstitions idolatries murders treasons adulteries lyes pride gluttonies generally put upon them under that name they know no such religion And if popery should be proved in any part not good this of episcopacy and their decent ornaments may be no part of it that is naught nay whether it be any part of popery at all not we who do not know what popery is but they who profess it or at least profess a religion that is loaded with this name must judg and these do not acknowledg our Protestant Bishops or any of their rites if we mean by popery the religion they profess to be any popery at all Oh but if it be not popery 't is at least foppery and we will have it taken away Be it what it will have you peace within your self if it be any invention of man it will moulder away as mans inventions do if it be either instituted or approved of God who can resist him Be first assured what it is before you attempt to remove it and when you are resolved choose to do it no by tumult but by wayes of peace This prudent and honest method of proceeding in such cases as these is well set down by a Scribe or Justice of Peace amongst the Ephesians upon occasion of the like uproar There was made a loud cry of all the people saith the sacred text in the Acts of the Apostles as it were for two hours together crying out great is Diana of the Ephesians and every mans opinion is his Diana and when the clerk of the court had appeased the uproar he said Men of Ephesus what man is there amongst us that is ignorant that the City of the Ephesians is a worshipper of great Diana and the off-spring of Jove whereas therefor these things cannot be gain-said it behooves you to be quiet and to do nothing rashly Ye have brought hither men neither sacriligious nor blasphemers of your gods But if Demetrius and the artificers with him have aught against any one the courts are open and proconsuls ready let them accuse one another there if ye would any thing further in a lawful assembly it may be decided for we are in danger to be called in question for this dayes sedition whereas there is no one man in so great a tumult of whom we can give an account as authour of this concours Thus spake that wise pagan and the counsel is very good in all such cases whereof this of ours is one Oh but these bishops do captivate mens consciences and take away our Christian liberty they would force us to a belief and liking of their wayes Say you so then you may shake hands for you would force them and others to a liking of yours But we neither can nor will approve of them They neither can nor will assent to you They have no reason but their own pride The alledg pride to be all your reason The spirit and
then presume of his knowledg and what motives has he in himself to do so which another wants Be it scriptures prophesies visions light or inward assurance boast of what you pleas all the earth will do the like and with the self-same confidence For let Philosphers speak what they pleas of the certainty of object which som men have over and above the certainty of subject I am not able to conceiv how an objectiv certainty can stand without evidence or how it may consist with that mutability I see to be in the world for men do depart as well from a good religion wherein they would have to be certainty of object as from a bad one wherein they allow only a certainty of subject which is nothing but a personal self-willed resolution in their wayes Since men therefor do thus abound all of them in their own sens haply without sence if a thousand voices may be of force against one single one how does it behoove us if we would be truly wise to walk all our dayes not in disputes and disquietness without end but in humility and fear But som will say all this is nothing to us since Christ our Lord hath revealed to us both God himself and all necessary truths concerning him of all which we may be confident But stay a while and ponder what I have already spoken do not all nations say as much for themselvs What then should we doubt of our faith in Christ no in no wise But I must speak a bold word these very dissentions of ours about that faith in its branches so hot so various so extravagant are apt to inferre a suspicion of it in its very root are not hundreds in our own countrey become atheists already upon that very motiv and these men supposing substantial change once made in religion and deliberately admitted are rather to be commended for their wit than blamed for they do but that sodainly which all the land will will come to by degrees If the Papist or Roman catholick who first brought the news of Christ and his Christianity into the land as all men must needs know that have either heard or read of Christianities ingress into England or other countreys and kingdoms for we do no sooner hear news of Christianity than Popery and his crucifixes monasteries reliques sacrifice and the like I say if the Papist be now becom so odious as we see he is and if the faith he brought and maintained a thousand years together be now rent all asunder by sects and factions which bandy all to the ruin of that mother religion if all her practical truths wherein chiefest piety consists be already abolished as erroneous does not this justify the pagan whom this catholick Christian displaced to make way for his own law And must not this be a certain way and means to introduce atheism which naturally follows that faith once removed even as a carkas succeeds a living body once deceased for one truth denied is a fair way to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very autority of the first revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself than he can his law for the same axe and instrument that cut down the branches can cut up the root too and if his reverence for which all the rest was beleeved defend not their truth it must needs at length utterly fail in his own For all the autority they had was purely from him and he falls in them before he falls in himself no man can deny this that shall seriously lay his hand upon his heart and ponder things as he ought And he that once ceases to beleev in Christ whom before he worshipped I am sure he will turn atheist if his wit and reason proceed consequently and beleev nothing A little more to specify my meaning If the institutions of monasteries to the praise and service of God day and night be thought as it hath been now these many years a superstitious folly if Christian Priests and sacrifices be things of high idolatry if the seven sacraments be deemed vain most of them if it suffice to salvation to beleev what ever life we lead if there be no value or merit in good works if Gods laws be impossible to be kept if Christ be not our law maker and directour of doing well as well as redeemer from ill if there be no sacramental tribunal for our reconciliation ordained for us by Christ upon earth if the real body of our Lord be not bequeathed unto his Spous in his last will and testament if there be not under Christ a general head of the Church who is chief Priest and Pastour of all Christians upon earth under God whose Vicegerent he is in spiritual affairs all which things are now held forth by us manifestly against the doctrin of the first preachers of Christianity in this land then say I paganisme was unjustly displaced by these doctrins and atheism must needs succeed for if Christ deceived us upon whom shall we rely and if they that brought us the first news of Christ brought along with it so many grand lyes why may not the very story of Christ himself be thought a Romance And erunt novissima pejora prioribus the latter condition of this land under atheism catholick faith once utterly extirpated must needs be far wors than it was in paganisme before it was planted Far sweeter is that body put case a statue of stone that was never animated than is any carkas of man after the soul is departed And are not we in a wood now who shall lead us out The maze is made greater by the consideration of the multitude of sects now reigning amongst us all which as they do unanimously conspire against that catholick Church they have deserted so do they wrangle now about every thing wherein they first agreed and conspired against her hating and execrating one another even unto war and bloodshed and the utter desolation of our distressed nation Quid est veritas and on whose side is God all this while does he not lie hid and say nothing and leav us wholly to our selvs by a judgment unsearchable in these our affairs even as in other courses of this world i th interim all opinions utter fine words all presume of themselvs all are peremptory and censur not only their neighbours but even the whole earth round about Where is truth here saith one nay not there but here quoth another neither there nor there but here saith a third but so many heres and there 's sounds nothing to a rational man but either every where or no where and which to conclude is impossible for man of himself stedfastly to resolv Here is Christ and there is Christ in the judgment of Christ himself signifies neither here nor there If they say saith our Lord here is Christ or there is Christ do not ye go forth or follow them and
liars so that you must take it then upon the credit of those who by your own principles may as well deceive you as you me Can you tell who wrote that book O yes you name me presently twenty several persons which you can no more prove to be authours of the books than any thing contained in the writings although their names may be there prefixed Those persons at least as they were men of several conditions priests kings lawyers poets historians fishermen doctours so did they live in several times and places of the world and differ both in these things and also in their very stile and manner of writing as much as any can do A brachman in India teacher of morality two thousand years ago William the conqueror King of England six hundred years ago dictatour of our law and our Sir Kenelm Digby Knight and Philosopher lately author of a Natural Philosophy Do these three differ any more then St. John Moses and Salomon either for time place condition or stile of writing I trow not how then came all those with so much diversity of their own to write the word of God more than these and how they and no other Who first gave them their autority or was it given or onely declared and by what power and vertue could it be declared by any that knew them not and lived so long after them How com laws poems sermons histories letters visions so many several fansies in such diversity of composure to be dictated from one divine hand and how do they conspire together in such variety of times to make at length one vlume of faith And yet too they must not all be either of signification or validity just as they lye and sound but some in this manner some in that Moses law must not bind in its judicial or ceremonial part which makes up in a manner all the whole Pentateuch but onely in the truth of story and morality some books must be taken according to the literal sense and not in any mystical one some in the mystery and not the letter and som again according to both What shall guide us in these things a parable must not be looked on as a story nor yet morallised in all its pars but onely in the capital intention no words must be culled forth to prove any thing out of the road of his mind and purpose who spake them no axiom of holy writ is to be taken by halves nor yet in any sense was not thought of by the authour an objection is not to be proposed for a conclusion nor any trope or metaphor perverted all words must speak to the writers scope not against it as he made them to do who brought texts against veneration of Saints out of St. Jo. Chrysostoms speeches made expresly in honour of them and others against monarchy drawn out of the book of Kings and many such like cautions there be I cannot now think of What autority or rule shall conduct us in all these uncertainties The Catholick indeed has one by which he passes on uniformly and quietly in the course of his religion as the sun in the firmament without noise or trouble but others jumble and justle one against another like coaches in a street O the Scripture and truth therein contained will discover it self Does it not very fairly whiles we are all of us together by the ears not for the Bible but with it You must beleeve What should I beleev and why I expect a perswasion to beleev not a command and to hear not that I must beleev but what and not onely what to credit but why and wherefore O but you may discern in these writings the very marks of Gods hand appearing Though there be such marks yet it seems by our many divisions we cannot read of our selves what those marks would have or what Church and doctrin they would establish and to whom can those marks appear to be Gods but to them only who have seen Gods hand aforetime or stood by him when he wrote Porphirius was as good a marks-man and understanding Philosopher as perhaps ever was and yet he deserted Christianity and all the whole Bible for want of the marks of divinity in it as others for the same reason have at times rejected many particular books I justifie neither him nor them but only speak thus much to show how instable a thing man is when he relyes upon his own judgment Have not we known wicked hypocrites to speak as fine words as any be in scriptur and by those their marks to deceiv many and I doubt not but Antichrist when he appears will do so But how came this book into England for it was not it seems any part of it written here It was brought hither you will say at the lands first conversion all of it together in one volume If this be true as true indeed it is then we had it from the Pope of Rome whether we speak of the conversion of Englishmen or Brittons And shall I build my beleef upon the autority of a book if indeed it could make it out sent us from him whom our own ministers do publickly proclaim to be an impostour and antichrist or can I in reason so condemn him and not suspect it If he did not onely present it us but made his catholick beleevers with so much labour and industry to transcribe it all the world over before printing was invented as a sacred and venerable thing a man might think in reason there were somthing in it to favour him and his religion which being once accepted under the notion of divine writings men would not easily dare to contradict and nothing at all against him O but the Pope did not make the book nor any of his predecessors This is more than either you or I can prove sith that book so much of it as belongs to Christianity was never found in our countrey but as taken and sent from him and it is no hard matter to make a book for my own ends and for its ampler autority to father it upon some renowned person the better to promote my design Truly such places as speak so plainly the Churches autority the real presence absolution of sins by man episcopal government and the like papal doctrin are apt enough to suggest such thoughts and some of our first reformers upon that very account did shrewdly suspect and were not afraid to say it that the Pope had at least a finger in many such like places which he might in their opinion easily do when he had once overwhelmed the earth with his mists of errour and made the people so credulous that he might do what he pleased And if I do indeed think the Pope to be Antichrist and a seducer I cannot rationally beleev or trust unto any book he sends me more than I do to his doctrin which he sayes is there grounded sith I have indeed but his word for the autority of
day But thanks be to Him that provided a wise and vigilant Pilot with whom he sits himself invisibly at the stern to guide him and such as voiage in the same ship with him unto all truth even to the consummation of the world Histories will tell us how careful and more then humanly happy Popes have been in all ages in reconciling Christian princes and resolving difficulties between them in examining of doctrines in counselling and perswading high spirited children ready to fly out into heresies to humility and resignation in governing so many bodies of Religious which be all subjected under him as other parts of the Church be and are so numerous that one would hardly beleev ther should be so many religious houses in the Christian world all serving God night and day with that silence order and cleanlines every one in his way and institute that it is the goodliest thing in the world to behold St. Bennet rose in the sixth age of the Church about the year 529. and yet about the year 1480. it is written that ther were then of his order fifteen thousand monasteries in the world and the other families of S. Francis S. Augustine S. Dominick the Society and others are none of them much less numerous and all these families have still recours to the Pope both for their rule and statutes and for all difficulties that may occurre in their spiritual government And who can be sufficient for all these things None surely but he that is singularly assisted from heaven and Christ our Lord in my judgment hath no less shown his divinity and power in the Pope than in himself as much in his spirituall and mystick as he did in his natural body and the life indeed which by his Spirit he livs in his Church is in a manner the very same with his naturall one now praying now disputing amongst the doctours now fasting then watching then healing the sick and working miracles then persecuted maligned envied somtimes at a feast somtimes hungrying somtimes making merry with a loaf of bread and few fishes the disciples now defending their maister now the maister defending his disciples c. for so the Pope protects innocent beleevers and these again defend him But of all those glorious things our Lord did in his life time conversion of people confutation of pharisaical opposers releeving of poor healing of diseases and the like he hath shown greater abundance in his Church than in himself according as himself promised Ye shall do greater things than these Which confutes the antient calumny of our old adversary the Jew who ascribed all our Lords miraculous operations either to som gipsie tricks he learnt when he was in Egypt or to som evill spirit he had got to attend his person either of which had it been true had failed with his peson and his power had not extended to his Church And all things considered I think I may truly say that Christ in the Pope and Church is more miraculous than he was in his own person and I doubt not but the nativity of his Church and miraculous conversation passion resurrection and ascension shall be the same with his So that he who contemns the Pope contemns Christ who presides in him and he that contemns the Church villifies his spirit which lives and movs and animates that body I could be very copious in this subject but I must not be prolix in any thing I only desire my reader to consider this one thing which after serious thought he will find to be true that if there had not been Popes in all ages both to conserv and propagate faith we had either never heard any news of Christianity here in England or not kept it undisturbedly so long All the whole gospel and body of Christianity is his purely his and from him we received it Nay the first great fundamental of Christian religion which is the Truth and divinity of Christ had it not been for him had failed long ago in the world and what then had becom of all the rest For after Pope Sylvester according to the faith of his ancestors had by means of his three Legates great Osius bishop of Corduba White and Vincent two priests established in the first councel of Nice the said divinity of Christ our Lord wherein he is consubstantial to that almighty One who made the earth and stars against Arrius and his allies who began to teach the contrary it is incredible to say what frequent murmurations resorts and conciliar meetings were made afterward up and down the world by the priests and byshops who had drunk in the contrary opinion and in that point deserted him against their Pope and Pastour for three or four hundreed years together till in a manner all the whole Church not only clergy but laiety and the princes of Christendom opposed him in it while the Pope now left in a manner alone or with a very thin retinue of beleevers and all his successors one after another fought even to sweat and blood for the vindication of that great Christian article even against the whole world And he so far overcame at length that there be scarcely in these dayes any that doubt of that which the Pope only by the authority of his place and title wrought out of the very fire Whence I may truly say that Christ is the Popes God for if the Pope had not been or had not been so vigilant and resolute a pastour as he is humanly speaking Christ had not been taken for any such person as he is beleeved this day And let men talk what they will by their vain philosophy this I will boldly say and am assured of that if the Pope be not an unerring guide in matters of religion and faith all is lost A man once rid of the controul of his autority may as easily deride and as solidly confute the incarnation as the sprinkling of holy water nor could the reason of the whole earth be able to convince him And after all this shall children and boyes jeer and revile in our streets and pulpits this sacred majesty of the Pope whom the vertue wit valour and nobility of all Christendome hath ever so highly honoured and we if we consider things as we ought can never love too much shall we cast unjust and vile contumelies upon him who holding a solicitude for all the Churches of Christs has so many millions of the greatest spirits in the world depending upon his lips for direction and truth with whom and under whom have concurred in his general councels so many thousands of renowned prelates venerable byshops princely cardinals grave patriarchs subtile divines and doctours Abbots and Generals of orders oratours chancellors knights and barons sent to his assistance by the Kings and Potentates of Christendom the very stars of our earthly hemisphere met together either to make up or grace and strengthen his great counsell convened in subordination to his legates nay emperours