seems to me that our Saviour said Drink ye All of this and therefore that you of the Roman Church may as well take the Bread as the Cup from the Laity It seems to me that St. Paul calls the Communion of Christ's Body Bread The BREAD which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ and your Church says 't is Bread no longer after Consecration It seems to me that the same St. Paul speaks for a whole Chapter against Praying in an Unknown Tongue and yet your Church doth it It seems also to me that the Author to the Hebrews doth absolutely say That Christ was offered once for all and that he sat down thenceforth at the right hand of God but you pretend to fetch him down from Heaven and offer him a thousand times in a day It seems to me that God has forbidden the making of Images to worship them as absolutely and universally as words could do it and yet you picture God and make Similitudes of the Blessed Trinity and Images of the Saints and worship them when you have done I demand now why I may not be certain of the true sence of these places upon as reasonable grounds as you suppose I may be of those which in your judgment conclude for the Infallibility of your Church If I may then I am sure the Scripture condemns what you say and do in these points but if I may not be reasonably assured that I understand these in my judgment plain places of Scripture because I want an Infallible Judge to interpret for me then I demand again why do you urge me with those Scriptures that as you pretend prove the Infallibility of your Church for as yet I am not perswaded of the Infallibility thereof though I would gladly be perswaded of it If you say this is the interpretation of the Church concerning them which is Infallible and therefore you are to believe it I think any body but a Child would reply that that is the very thing in question and therefore that you cannot convince any man of your Infallibility unless he will take your word for it because he cannot infallibly know the true sence of Scripture giving testimony to it before he believes it without any testimony from Scripture at all So that it is to no purpose to go about to perswade any reasonable man that your Church is Infallible till he doth already believe it that is till it is a needless thing to do it because he does believe it already And therefore when all is done we must be content to understand the plain places of Scripture without an Infallible Judge and to find out the rest as well as we can and if the Scripture plainly condemns what you say and do we have more reason from thence to conclude that you have erred than to conclude that you cannot err because you say so of your selves And indeed I look upon this Pretence to Infallibility to be an Errour of the most pernicious consequence because it seals them up under all the rest and adds incorrigibleness which is the highest degree of obstinacy to all their other Errours and it is so much the more shameless because the whole World that was in Communion with them groaned for a Reformation before the Council of Trent One of their own Popes said We confess many abominable Abuses and Grievances have been for these many years last past in the Holy See and we look upon our selves concerned to endeavour a Reformation the more because we see the whole World doth most earnestly desire it At the Council of Trent the Embassadours of several Princes desired earnestly the Cup for the People the Marriage of the Clergy Service in a known Tongue and the Reformation of divers other matters in which Christendom would have reformed it self if Italy would have suffered it Italy I say who to hinder a general Reformation filled the Council of Trent with more Bishops than came from all the parts of Christendom besides Secondly Upon this Supposition the Church of England might and ought to reform it self as it hath done for we find that the Church of Pergamos which was not over-run with so many false Doctrines and corrupt Practices as those of the Roman Church I have mentioned was required by our Lord Jesus himself to remove those Errours and Corruptions which had crept into her and if she did not presently return to her Primitive Purity she was threatned to be cut off Indeed it had been a much more desirable thing that the whole Western Church and more desirable still that the East and the West had both united in a Reformation it had been a blessed thing if by a Free and General Council of all the Bishops in the Christian World an Universal Reformation had been made but the latter perhaps was improbable by reason of the vast distances of some Christian Churches from one another and the former was made impossible by the over-ruling Power of Italy which therefore was to be done upon particular Churches by common consent and perhaps there must never be a farther Reformation till the Day of Judgment It was very reasonable and very necessary therefore that Christian Kingdoms should proceed in Provincial and National Councils to reform themselves as this Church hath done under her Kings and Bishops Parliaments and Convocations that is by all that Authority which could be desired to make a publick Reformation within the limits of this particular Church And this proceeding has been authorized by the Examples of the best Ages of the Church when it was thought fit not always to tarry for General Councils but very often for particular Churches to proceed out of hand to the rooting out of Errour and Heresie and to the reforming of whatsoever they thought amiss amongst themselves and for this we are to appeal to the Councils of Laodicea Gangra Carthage and many others which are no General Councils To conclude Such Errours as had overspread the Church before the Reformation were in their own nature and in their consequences so pernicious that every Christian Man ought to reform himself from them inasmuch as it is better to obey God than man Much more might a publick Reformation be made by due Authority But we had no regard to the Bishop of Rome in this matter who was to be considered either as Head of the whole Church or the Patriarch of the West or as the Converter of the English Nation and we were not only in Communion with him but in subjection to him when the Reformation was made so that what cause soever there might be for it the Reformation was however schismatical To all which I answer in short 1. As to the Universal Supremacy it is a point to which Antiquity is wholly a stranger Scripture and the Fathers say nothing of it Ignatius who so often requires that nothing should be done of moment in the Church without the Bishop would have found out
some one occasion at least to have said Let nothing be done without the Bishop of Rome if he had known of any such Priviledge and Power conferred on him by our Lord. But if Pergamos were justifiable in removing those Corruptions which were crept into that Church without staying for the consent of the Bishop of Rome England in removing more Corruptions and of equal danger was to proceed also without his leave if it could not be had 2. As to his Patriarchal Power over this Nation it did not anciently belong to him he had it not when the Council of Nice confined him to his own Province nor when the Council of Ephesus decreed That no Bishop should presume to invade any other Province which from the beginning had not been under his or his Predecessor's Jurisdiction or if any do and make it his own by force that he should restore it And then the Church of Britain was free acknowledging no foreign Jurisdiction the Power that the Bishop of Rome gained here in after-Ages was got by fraud and held by force and was ever and anon disputed and gainsayed and over-rul'd and surely no injury was done him when that Authority was resumed which he had usurped 3. As to the Conversion of the Saxons by Austin sent hither by Pope Gregory I say it follows not if long since the Inhabitants of this Island received any benefit from Rome therefore they should in all Ages be exposed to the Usurpations of that place afterwards nor that because we once received true Religion from Rome therefore Posterity must receive also false Doctrines from thence when it should please her to send them hither But in truth Christianity had been planted here long before by St. Paul himself in all probability and that in the Reign of Tiberius before Rome her self had received the Christian Faith. And the British Bishops whom Austin found here would by no means submit to the Authority of the Roman Legate And so much for the right that this particular Church had to reform her self I come now Thirdly To consider some of those specious Pretences and Objections by which they go about to weaken the stedfastness of our People in the Communion of our Church and to draw them to theirs 1. They say How was it possible that Errours could creep into the Church of that nature with those which we charge upon them There must have been great Opposition made to any the least design of such an alteration in the State of Religion and we meet with no such account of things in History Therefore these are not Innovations but the ancient Doctrine and Practice of the Church To omit this that concerning most of their Innovations we can very nearly shew the time when they were brought in but can plainly shew that there was a time when they were not I answer It is much more easie to conceive that in a thousand years time Errour should creep into that Church by degrees and without noise than that in a Church planted by an Apostle as Pergamos was guarded by the Angel or Bishop placed there by an Apostle as Pergamos was should so soon tolerate the Doctrines of the Balaamites and Nicolaitans even while their Apostle was alive and therefore very soon after he departed from them 2. They say that the perpetual Succession of their Bishops from St. Peter is an Argument of the Succession of true Doctrine amongst them in the purity thereof but behold an Apostolical Church in which a Bishop succeeded an Apostle yet alive corrupted in her Doctrine and Worship Can they have greater can they have as great an assurance of a perpetual uninterrupted Succession after so many Ages as the Church of Pergames had before one Age was gone or does their Infallibility grow with their Succession or the farther they are removed from the beginning of the Church are they the surer still that they teach nothing but what was taught at first 3. They say we are departed from the whole Church of Christ that was visible every-where upon the face of the Earth when the Reformation was begun seeing there was then no Communion in the World nor had been long before that professed the same Doctrine in all points which the Reformation brought in Now in great liberality to admit for once that the whole visible Church had corrupted its way as the Church of Rome has done which yet is not true but I say admitting it what will then come of it That we departed from the whole Church of Christ No but that we departed from the general Errours and Corruptions of it and by that could not be said to depart from the whole Church whereof we our selves were a part unless we departed also from our selves Nay but say they this is to fall into another damnable Errour and that is that the whole Church of Christ had failed from the Earth and so that the visible Church had perished for some Ages till the Reformation brought it to life again Not so neither For we do not say that the Errours of the Church were of that nature as to make it cease to be a Church but that they were in themselves damnable and that they made the Salvation of all that were in it extreamly hazardous but yet that we hope well of those who believing the fundamental Doctrines of Christianity maintained in the Church and wanting means to discover her Corruptions served God according to their knowledge so that we do not say the Church had perished but that her Purity had been lost even as Pergamos was a Church and so acknowledged by our Lord himself because she held fast the foundation of the Creed while yet she was corrupted with notorious Errors To this according to their usual way of arguing they would reply that the case is not the same between a Particular Church as Pergamos was and the whole Visible Church from which Luther and those that followed him separated themselves But then I would answer That the case is the same as to the matter we are upon for if a particular Church though under great Errours may yet be a part of the whole Church by like reasons if the whole Church were over-spread with foul Errours it would nevertheless still remain the whole Church and there is as great an obligation to depart from those Errors in the latter case as in the former and a particular Church by departing from such Errors does no more depart from the whole Church than she did from her self 4. They pretend Antiquity for their Errors and are often asking that shrewd Question as they deem it Where was your Religion before Luther I would answer this Question with another That after the Angel of the Church of Pergamos had purged away the Corruptions of that Church Where was the Church of Pergamos before that Reformation Every one of common sence would answer It was where it is now and where it ever was since it was first a
now having given you this Account of the State of the Church of Pergamos as it was represented by our Lord himself I am much mistaken if from this Authority we may not be able to justifie the Reformation of the Church of England against the most specious and popular Exceptions which they of Rome make against our Reformation And this I shall endeavour to do under these three heads First That in this Church whilst it was in Communion with and Subjection to the Church of Rome there were notorious Abuses and Errours both in Doctrine and Worship added to the Profession of the Common Faith. Secondly That upon this Supposition we might and ought to reform our selves as we have done Thirdly That the main Objections which they of the Roman Church do bring and whereby they seek to stagger those of our Communion and to fright them into their own may by this instance of the Message of Christ to the Church of Pergamos be demonstrated to be vain and fallacious and therefore by no means fit to remove us from our stedfastness First That in this Church as in all others that were in Communion with the Church of Rome there were notorious Abuses and Errours introduced into the Faith and Worship of Christians And first as in the Church of Pergamos so in these Churches there were Doctrines and Practices leading to Idolatry I wish that were all but it is not all for Idolatry it self if it be possible for us to know what it is was practised and that practice not only connived at but encouraged and commanded and of this sort were the practices of Adoring the Host Praying to Saints to dead Men and Women and Worshipping of Images contrary to the whole tenor of the Scripture providing that we should worship the Lord our God and that him only we should serve And it is very observable that when we urge them with these things they defend themselves from Idolatry by the use of such distinctions as 't is impossible for the common People to save themselves by if indeed these distinctions would do the business As for Doctrines tending to licenciousness of Life and Manners what can be more evidently such than the easie terms upon which they promised forgiveness of sins and security from Hell Confession to a Priest with attrition being reckoned sufficient to receive a Pretorial Absolution which shall be valid in Heaven as also the invention of Purgatory and the Power of the Church to shorten the pains of it by Indulgences by applying the treasure of the Churches Merits by Masses and Prayers with a great many abuses of this nature And besides all these what shall we say to their Doctrine of Transubstantiation their Half Communion their Latin Service their Sacrifice of the Mass for which there is no President or Rule in the Scriptures or in Antiquity but plain and full consent there is both of the one and of the other against them But now to all this they make one general Reply and tell us that the Church meaning the Roman Church hath not erred in these points because she cannot err at all for she is the Mother and Mistriss of all Churches and the Standard of Catholick Unity and Faith she is that One Catholick Church which cannot fail to which Christ has promised his perpetual Presence and Assistance that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against her and of which St. Paul said that she is the pillar and ground of the Truth In a word that whatsoever is by her defined is infallibly true and therefore that these Doctrines and Practices are neither damnable errors and sins nor errors and sins at all Now if indeed such promises were made to that Church we should be brought into a very great strait and not very well know whether we should believe the Scripture speaking against the Doctrines and Practices imposed by that Church or the Scripture speaking to us to believe and do as that Church requires But first of all we say that whatsoever Promises were made to the Catholick Church they do not belong only to the Church of Rome which is but a part of it and that these Promises that the gates of Hell should not prevail against the Church and that Christ would be with his Church to the end of the world amounted to no more than this that she should be preserved from so much error as would utterly destroy the Being of a Church not from all Error whatsoever but that no Promise in particular was made to the Church of Rome so much as to secure her from fundamental Errors utterly destructive of the Being of a Church especially since St. Paul writing to the Church of Rome plainly supposes that it was possible for them to be quite cut off from the Body of Christ Rom. 11.21 22. where speaking of the rejection of the Jews he hath these words For if God spared not the natural branches take heed lest he also spare not thee Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God on them which fell severity but towards thee goodness if thou continue in his goodness otherwise thou also shalt be cut off Which had been vain words if it had been impossible by virtue of any Priviledge conferred upon the See of Peter for the Church of Rome not to continue in God's goodness or it be an infallible truth that she shall not be cut off We do what we can to find the Infallibility of the Roman Church in the Scriptures but if we cannot find it there is much more reason to conclude that she hath erred because some of her Doctrines and Practices do seem to us apparently to contradict the Scripture than to believe she is infallible because she says so of her self But to this they say that we mis-interpret those Scriptures which seem to condemn what they profess and practise and in short that we cannot arrive to certainty of the true sence of Scripture without the Testimony of an Infallible Interpreter which the Church is Well for the present I will suppose this but then this will be the consequence of the Supposition that 't is impossible for that Church ever to convince me or any reasonable man of her own Infallibility by the Scriptures For when she tells me that Christ hath said Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it and that the Church is the pillar and ground of truth and Lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the world she supposes that the Promise of Infallibility to her self is so plainly made that every man who has a mind to understand the truth may be certain of the true sence of the words But if I may arrive at a certain sence of these Scriptures without the Testimony of an Infallible Interpreter then why may I not be as certain of the sence of other Texts as plain as these without such an Interpreter It