with one another and although there may be many other sorts of Vnity in the Church yet the essential Vnity of the Church they tell us lyes in conjunction of the members under one Head But what becomes then of the Unity of the Roman Church in the great number of Schisms and some of long continuance among them Were they all members united under one Head when there were sometimes two sometimes three several Heads Bellaâ—mine in his Chronologie confesseth twenty six several Schisms in the Church of Rome but Onuphrius a more diligent searchâ—r into these things reckors up thirty whereof some lasted ten years some twenty one fifty years And it seems very strange to any one that hears so many boasts of Unity in the Church of Rome above others to find more Schisms in that Church than in any Patriarchal Church in the World We should think if the Bishop of Rome had been designed Head of the Church and the fountain of Vnity that it was as necessary that Church should be freed from intestine divisions on that account as to be secured from errours in faith if it had the promise of Infallibility for errours are not more contrary to infallibility than divisions are to Vnity and the same Spirit can as easily prevent Schisms as Heresies But as the errours of that Church are the clearest evidence against the pretence of infalâ—ibility so are the Schisms of it against its being the fountain of Vnity for how can that give it to the whole Church which so notoriously wanted it in it self I shall not need to insist on the more ancient Schisms between Cornelius and Novatianus and their parties between Liberius and Felix between Damasus and Vrsicinus between Bonifacius and Eulalius between Symachus and Laurentius between Bonifacius and Dioscorus between Sylverius and Vigiâ—ius and many others I shall only mention those which were of the longest continuance in that Church and do most apparently discover the divisions of it I begin with that which first brake forth in the time of Formosus who was set up A. D. 821. against Sergius whom the faction of the Marquesse of Tuscany would have made Pope but the popular faction then prevailing Sergius was forced to withdraw and Formosus with continual opposition from the other party enjoyed the Papacy four years and six months not without the blood of many of the chief Citizens of Rome slain by Arnulphus in the quarrel of Formosus After his death Boniface 6. intruded saith Baronius into the Papal See but was after fifteen dayes dispossessed by Stephanus 7. who in a Council called for that purpose nulled all the acts of Formosus deprived all those of their orders who had been ordained by him and made them be Re-ordained and not content with this he caused his body to be taken out of the Grave and placed it in the Popes Chair with the Pontifical habits on where after he had sufficiently reviled him that could not revile again he caused the three Fingers to be cut off with which he used to give Benediction and Orders and the body to be thrown into Tiber. This last part Onuphrius would have to be a fable and Andreas Victorellus from him but Baronius saith they are mistaken who say so for not only Luitprandus who lived in that Age expresly affirms it although he attributes it to Sergius upon whose account the Schism begun but the acts of the Roman Council under Iohn 9. extant in Baronius make it evident and Papirius Massonus cites other ancient Historians for it Upon this nulling the Ordinations of Formosus a great dispute was raised in the Church for many of the Bishops would not submit to re-ordination and particularly Leo Bishop of Nola to whom Auxilius writ his Book in defence of the Ordinations of Formosus a short account whereof is published by Baronius from Papyâ—ius Masso but the whole Book is now set forth from ancient Manuscript by Morinus by which we understand the controversie of that time much better than we could before Two things were chiefly objected against Formosus his Ordinations 1. That against the Canons of the Church he was translated from one See to another being Bishop of Porto before he was made Bishop of Rome 2. That having been degraded by Iohn 8. although restored by his successour Marinus and absolved from his Oath he was not capable of conferring Orders Against the first of these Auxilius shews that translation from one See to another cannot null Ordination from the testimony of Pope Anterus the example of Greg. Nazianzen Perigenes Dositheus Reverentius Palladius Alexander Meletius and many others That the Nicene Canon against translations was interpreted by the Council of Chalcedon so as not to extend to all cases and it was so understood by Pope Leo and Gelasius and however that only nulls the translation and not the ordination Against the second he pleads that supposing it not to be lawful to remove from one Episcopal See to another yet the Ordination may be valid for Formosus was not Consecrated again himself but only reconciled by Marinus that the Popes Gregory and Leo had declared against Re-ordination as much as against Re-baptizing that the Canons of the Apostles had forbidden it that the Ordinations by Acacius were allowed by Anastasius that the Bonosiaci though Hereticks had their Orders allowed them that the Cathari were admitted to the Churches Communion by the Council of Nice only with imposition of hands that though Liberius fell to the Arian Heresie yet his Ordinations afterwards were not nulled neither those of Vigilius although he stood excommunicated by Silverius and added Homicide to it that the nulling these Ordinations was to say in effect that for twenty years together they had been without the Christian Religion in Italy that none but Hereticks could assert these things that if any Popes themselves speak or act against the Catholick faith or Religion they are not to be followed in so doing This is the substance of the first Book of Auxilius which things are more largely insisted upon in the second But by that Book it appears most evidently that the Barbarous usage of the body of Formosus was most true it being expresly mentioned therein and justified by him in the Dialogue that pleads for Re-ordination And now saith Baronius began those most unhoppy times of the Roman Church which exceeded the persecutions of Heathens or Hereticks but he out of his constant good will to civil Authority lays the fault altogether upon the power of the Marquesses of Tuscany who had then too great power in Rome but he strangely admires the providence of God in keeping the Heads of the Church from Heresie all that time Alas for them they did not trouble themselves about any matters of faith at all but were wholly given over to all manner of wickedness as himself confesseth of them when Theodora that Mother of the Church of Rome ruled in chief and her
Fornication Indeed he saith that this falling from that holy chastity which was vowed to God may in some sense be said to be worse than Adultery but he never imagined such a construction could be made of his words as though the act of Fornication were not a greater falling from it than meer marriage could be So much shall suffice for the Instances produced in the Roman Church of such things which tend to obstruct a good life and devotion § 14. The 3. argument I used to prove the danger a person runs of his salvation in the communion of the Roman Church was because it exposeth the faith of Christians to so great uncertainties which he looks on as a strange charge from the Pen of a Protestant As strange as it is I have at large proved it true in a full examination of the whole Controversie of the Resolution of faith between us and them to which I expect a particular Answer before this charge be renewed again To which I must refer him for the main proof of it and shall here subjoyn only short replyes to his Answers or references to what is fully answered already 1. His distinction of the authority of the Scripture in it self and to us signifies nothing for when we enquire into the proofs of the Authority of Scripture it can be understood no otherwise than in respect to us and if the Scriptures Authority as to us is to be proved by the Church and the Churches Authority as to us to be provved by the Scripture the difficulty is not in the least avoided by that distinction And as little to the purpose is the other that it is only an argument ad hominem to prove the Infallibility of the Church from Scriptures for I would fain know upon what other grounds they build their own belief of the Churches Infallibility than on the Promises of Christ in the Scripture These are miserable evasions and nothing else For the trite saying of S. Austin that he would not believe the Gospel c. I have at large proved that the meaning of it is no more than that the Testimony of the Vniversal Church from the Apostles times is the best way to prove the particular books of Scripture to be authentical and cannot be understood of the Infallibility of the present Church and that the testimony of some few persons as the Manichees were was not to be taken in opposition to the whole Christian Church Which is a thing we as much contend for as they but is far enough from making the Infallibility of our faith to depend on the Authority of the present Church which we say is the way to overthrow all certainty of faith to any considering man 2. To that of overthrowing the certainty of sense in the doctrine of transubstantiation he saith that divine revelation ought to be believed against the evidence of sense To which I answer 1. that divine revelation in matters not capable of being judged by our senses is to be believed notwithstanding any argument can be drawn from sensible experiments against it as in the belief of God the doctrine of the Trinity the future state of the soul c. 2. that in the proper objects of sense to suppose a Revelation contrary to the evidence of sense is to overthrow all certainty of faith where the matters to be believed depend upon matters of fact As for Instance the truth of the whole Christian doctrine depends upon the truth of Christs resurrection from the dead if sense be not here to be believed in a proper object of it what assurance can we have that the Apostles were not deceived when they said they saw Christ after he was risen If it be said there was no revelation against sense in that case that doth not take off the difficulty for the reason why I am to believe revelation at any time against sense must be because sense may be deceived but revelation cannot but if I yield to that principle that sense may be deceived in its most proper object we can have no infallible certainty by sense at all and consequently not in that point that Christ is risen from the dead If it be said that sense cannot be deceived where there is no revelation against it I desire to know how it comes to be deceived supposing a revelation contrary to it Doth God impose upon our senses at that time then he plainly deceives us is it by telling us we ought to believe more than we see that we deny not but we desire only to believe according to our senses in what we doe see as what we see to be bread that is bread that what the Apostles saw to be the body of Christ was the body of Christ really and substantially and not meerly the accidents of a body Besides if revelation is to be believed against sense then either that revelation is conveyed immediately to our minds which is to make every one a Prophet that believes transubstantiation or mediately by our senses as in those words this is my body if so than I am to believe this revelation by my senses and believing this revelation I am not to believe my senses which is an excellent way of making faith certain All this on supposition there were a revelation in this case which is not only false but if it were true would overthrow the certainty of faith 3. To that I objected as to their denying to men the use of their judgement and reason as to the matters of faith proposed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church he answers that this cannot expose faith to any uncertainty because it is only preferring the Churches judgement before our own but he doth not seem to understand the force of my objection which lay in this Every one must use his own judgement and reason in the choice of the Church he is to rely upon is he certain in this or not if he be uncertain all that he receives on the Authority of that Church must be uncertain too if the use of reason be certain then how comes the Authority of a Church to be a necessary means of certainty in matters of faith And they who condemn the use of a mans reason and judgement in Religion must overthrow all certainty on their own grounds since the choice of his Infallible Guide must depend upon it Now he understands my argument better he may know better how to answer it but I assure him I meant no such thing by the use of reason as he supposes I would have which is to believe nothing but what my reason can comprehend for I believe an Infinite Being and all the Doctrines revealed by it in Holy Scriptures although I cannot reconcile all particulars concerning them to those conceptions we call reason But therefore to argue against the use of mens judgements in matters of faith and the grounds of believing is to dispute against that which
friend or the Letters you receive or the Laws of the Land all which are lyable to be abused by evil persons but not by good people and modest understandings It is now become a part of your Religion to be Ignorant to walk in blindness to believe the man that hears your Confessions to hear none but him not to hear God speaking but by him and so you are lyable to be abused by him as he please without remedy You are gone from us where you are only taught to worship God through Jesus Christ and now you are taught to Worship Saints and Angels with a Worship at least dangerous and in some things proper to God for your Church Worships the V. Mary with burning Incense and Candles to her and you give her presents which by the consent of all Nations used to be esteemed a Worship peculiar to God and it is the same thing which was condemned in the Collyridians who offered a Cake to the V. Mary A Candle and a Cake make no difference in the Worship and your joyning God and the Saints is like the device of them that fought for King and Parliament the latter destroys the former To which he subjoynes that the points of difference between us and the Church of Rome are such as do evidently serve the ends of Covetousness and Ambition in them and that very many of her Doctrines are very ill Friends to a good life and that our Religion is incomparably beyond theirs in point of safety as in point of Praying to God alone and without Images relying on God as infallible which are surely lawful but it is at least hugely disputable and not at all certain that any man or society of men can be infallible that we may put our trust in Saints or Worship Images c. From whence he concludes So that unless you mean to preferr a danger before safety temptation to unholiness before a severe and holy Religion unless you mean to lose the benefit of yours prayers by praying what you perceive not and the benefit of the Sacrament in great degrees by falling from Christs Institution and taking half instead of all unless you desire to provoke God to jealousie by Images and man to jealousie in professing a Religion in which you may in many cases have leave to forfeit your faith and lawful trust unless you will choose a Catechism without the second Commandment and a faith that grows bigger or lesser as men please and a hope that in many degrees relyes on men and vain confidences and a Charity that damns all the world but your selves unless you will do all this that is suffer an abuse in your Prayers in the Sacrament in the commandments in faith in hope in Charity in the Communion of Saints and your duty to your Supream you must return to the bosome of your Mother the Church of England and I doubt not but you will find the comfort of it in all your life and in the day of your death and in the day of Judgement Thus far that excellent person and I leave you now to judge between the Motives on both sides as they are laid down by him whom my Adversary appeals to and I must thank him for the kindness of mentioning him against me without which I had wanted so good a representation of the Motives of either side and so full an Answer to the pretences brought for the Church of Rome The other Motives which he adds of Fathers Councils and Tradition he knows are utterly denyed by us and I wonder he should insist upon them since in the matters of our debate Antiquity is so evidently of our side as against Worship of Images and Saints against Purgatory Transubstantiation Prayers in an unknown tongue and he thinks it no great matter to allow us a thousand years against communion in one kind and yet all this while Scripture Fathers Councils and Tradition are all on their side For the testimony of the present Church we deny that S. Austin speaks of it as of it self sufficient and though he did that concerns not the Roman Church any more than other parts of the Catholick Church and he may assoon prove Tyber to be the Ocean or S. Peters at Rome to have been before the Temple at Hierusalem as prove the Roman Church to be the Catholick Church or the Mother of all others § 17. But I must conclude with the method he prescribes to you for satisfaction from me which is not to meddle with particular disputes which we know very well the reason of but to call upon me for a Catalogue of our grounds and to bring things to Grounds and Principles as they have learnt to Cant of late and then he saith Controversie will soon be at an end I should be glad to see it so notwithstanding his Friend I. S. accounts it so noble a Science unless he hath changed his mind since for so many years now he hath failed in the Defence of his Demonstrations But to satisfie the men of Principles and to let them see we can do more than find fault with their Religion I shall give an account of the faith of Protestants in the way of Principles and of the reason of our rejecting their impositions which is all we can understand by Negative Points and if we can give an account of the Christian faith independently on their Churches Authority and Infallibility it evidently follows that cannot be the foundation of faith and so we may be very good Christians without having any thing to do with the Church of Rome And I know no other Answer necessary not only to this present demand but to a Book called Protestants without Principles the falsity of which will appear by what follows Principles Agreed on both sides 1. THat there is a God from whom man and all other Creatures had their Being 2. That the notion of God doth imply that he is a Being absolutely perfect and therefore Justice Goodness Wisdom and Truth must be in him to the highest degree of perfection 3. That man receiving his Being from God is thereby bound to obey his will and consequently is lyable to punishment in case of disobedience 4. That in order to mans obeying the will of God it is necessary that he know what it is for which some manifestation of the will of God is necessary both that man may know what he hath to do and that God may justly punish him if he do it not 5. Whatever God reveals to man is infallibly true and being intended for the rule of mans obedience may be certainly known to be his Will 6. God cannot act contrary to those essential Attributes of Justice Wisdom Goodness and Truth in any way which he makes choice of to make known his will unto man by These thing being agreed on both sides we are now to inquire into the particular wayes which God hath made choice of for revealing his will to mankind 1. AN entire
by the terms of communion with that Church be guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry either of which are sins inconsistent with salvation Which I thus prove That Church which requires the giving the Creature the Worship due only to the Creator makes the members of it guilty of hypocrisie or Idolatry for it they do it they are guilty of the latter if they do it not of the former but the Church of Rome in the Worship of God by Images the Adoration of the Bread in the Eucharist and the formal Invocation of Saints doth require the giving to the creature the Worship due only to the Creator therefore it makes the members of it guilty of hypocrisie or Idolatry That the Church of Rome in these particulars doth require the giving the creature the honour due only to God I prove thus concerning each of them 1. Where the Worship of God is terminated upon a creature there by their own confession the Worship due only to God is given to the creature but in the Worship of God by Images the Worship due to God is terminated wholly on the creature which is thus proved the Worship which God himself denyes to receive must be terminated on the creature but God himself in the second Commandment not only denyes to receive it but threatens severely to punish them that give it Therefore it cannot be terminated on God but only on the Image 2. The same argument which would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry lawful cannot excuse any act from Idolatry but the same argument whereby the Papists make the Worship of the Bread in the Eucharist not to be Idolatry would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry not to be so For if it be not therefore Idolatry because they suppose the bread to be God then the Worship of the Sun was not Idolatry by them who supposed the Sun to be God and upon this ground the grosser the Idolatry was the less it was Idolatry for the grossest Idolaters were those who supposed their Statues to be Gods And upon this ground their Worship was more lawful than of those who supposed them not to be so 3. If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be a sufficient ground for formal Invocation then the Heathen Worship of their inferiour Deities could be no Idolatry for the Heathens still pretended that they did not give to them the Worship proper to the Supream God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papist in justification of the Invocation of Saints To these I expect a direct and punctual answer professing as much Charity towards them as is consistent with Scripture and Reason 2. Because the Church of Rome is guilty of so great corruption of the Christian Religion by such opinions and practices which are very apt to hinder a good life Such are the destroying the necessity of a good life by making the Sacrament of Penance joyned with contrition sufficient for salvation the taking off the care of it by supposing an expiation of sin by the prayers of the living after death and the sincerity of devotion is much obstructed in it by prayers in a language which many understand not by making the efficacy of Sacraments depend upon the bare administration whether our minds be prepared for them or not by discouraging the reading the Scripture which is our most certain rule of faith and life by the multitude of superstitious observations never used in the Primitive Church as we are ready to defend by the gross abuse of people in Pardons and Indulgences by denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the practice of the Church in the solemn Celebration of the Eucharist for a thousand years after Christ by making it in the power of any person to dispense contrary to the Law of God in Oathes and Marriages by making disobedience to the Church in disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to the Laws of Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication By all which practices and opinions we assert that there are so many hinderances to a good life that none who have a care of their salvation can venture their souls in the communion of such a Church which either enjoyns or publickly allows them 3. Because it exposeth the faith of Christians to so great uncertainty By making the authority of the Scriptures to depend on the infallibility of the Church when the Churches Infallibility must be proved by the Scripture by making those things necessary to be believed which if they be believed overthrow all foundations of faith viz. That we are not to believe our senses in the plainest objects of them as that bread which we see is not bread upon which it follows that tradition being a continued kind of sensation can be no more certain than sense it self and that the Apostles might have been deceived in the body of Christ after the resurrection and the Church of any Age in what they saw or heard By denying to men the use of their judgement and reason as to the matters of faith proposed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church by making the Churches power extend to make new Articles of faith viz. by making those things necessary to be believed which were not so before By pretending to infallibility in determining Controversies and yet not determining Controversies which are on foot among themselves All which and several other things which my designed brevity will not permit me to mention tend very much to shake the faith of such who have nothing else to rely on but the authority of the Church of Rome 3. I answer That a Protestant leaving the Communion of our Church doth incurr a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible ignorance and therefore cannot equally be saved with such a one For a Protestant is supposed to have sufficient convictions of the Errors of the Roman Church or is guilty of wilful ignorance if he hath not but although we know not what allowances God will make for invincible ignorance we are sure that wilful ignorance or choosing a worse Church before a better is a damnable sin and unrepented of destroyes salvation To the second Question I answer 1. I do not understand what is meant by a Christian in the Abstract or in the whole latitude it being a thing I never heard or read of before and therefore may have some meaning in it which I cannot understand 2. But if the Question be as the last words imply it Whether a Christian by vertue of his being so be bound to joyn in some Church or Congregation of Christians I answer affirmatively and that he is bound to choose the communion of the purest Church and not to leave that for a corrupt one though called never so Catholick The Proposer of the Questions Reply to the Answer Madam I
preserve the honour of Regicides it was but seven months and twenty four dayes before Ravaillac perfected that work which the other had begun This observation I owe to an ingenuous and learned Doctor of the Sorbon yet living who detests these practices and doctrines and himself lyes under the same censure there And the more to abuse the world on the same day a Book of Mariana's was suspended which those who look no farther than the name might imagine was the dangerous Book so much complained of but upon search it appears to be a Book quite of another nature concerning Coynes The latter instance concerns the Irish Remonstrance the account of which I take from Caron the publisher of it The Popish Clergy of Ireland a very few excepted were accused of Rebellion for opposing themselves to the Kings Authority by the instigation of the Popes Nuncio after which followed a meeting of the Popish Bishops where they banished the Kings Lieutenant and took the Royal Authority upon themselves almost all the Clergy and a great part of the people joyned with them and therefore it was necessary since the Kings return to give him better satisfaction concerning their Allegiance and to decline the Oath of Allegiance which they must otherwise have taken some of them agree upon this Remonstrance to present to the King the news of which was no sooner come to Rome but Cardinal Barberin sends a Letter to the Irish Nobility 8 July A. D. 1662. to bid them take heed of being drawn into the ditch by those blind guides who had subscribed to some propositions testifying their Loyalty to the King which had been before condemned by the Apostolick See After this the Popes Nuncio at Brussels Iuly 21. 1662. sends them word how displeasing their Remonstrance was at Rome and that after diligent examination by the Cardinals and Divines they found it contained Propositions already condemned by Paul 5. and Innocent 10. and therefore the Pope gave him order to publish this among them that he was so far from approving their Remonstrance that he did not so much as permit it or connive at it and was extremely grieved that the Irish Nobility were drawn into it and therefore condemned it in this form That it could not be kept without breach of faith according to the Decree of Paul 5. and that it denyed the Popes Authority in matters of faith according to that of Innocent 10. By this very late instance we see what little countenance they receive from Rome who offer to give any reasonable security to the King of their Loyalty and by the Popes own Declaration the giving of it is an injury to the faith and a denying his Supremacy For which we are to understand that A. D. 1648. when the Papists were willing to make as good terms for themselves as they could and it was objected to them that they held Principles inconsistent with Civil Government viz. that the Pope can absolve them from their obedience that he can depose and destroy Heretical Magistrates that he can dispense with all Oaths and contracts they make with those whom they call Hereticks upon which they met together and to save themselves from banishment resolved them in the Negative but no sooner was this heard at Rome but the sacred Congregation condemned this resolution as heretical and the subscribers as lyable to the penalties against those who deny the Popes Authority in matters of faith upon which they are cited to appear at Rome and Censures and Prisons are there prepared for them The summ of it then is that they can give no security of their Loyalty to the King against the Popes power to depose him and absolve his Subjects from whatever Oaths they make to him or they must be accounted Hereticks at Rome for so doing For this good old Cause is as much still in request at Rome as ever and it is in their power to be accounted Hereticks at Rome or bad Subjects in their own Countrey but one of them they cannot avoid So much may suffice to shew that the most dangerous Principles of Fanaticism either as to Enthusiasm or Civil Government are owned and allowed in the Church of Rome and therefore the number of Fanaticks among us is very unjustly charged upon the Reading the Scriptures in our own Language CHAP. V. Of the Divisions of the Roman Church The great pretence of Vnity in the Church of Rome considered The Popes Authority the fountain of that Vnity what that Authority is which is challenged by the Popes over the Christian World the disturbances which have happened therein on the account of it The first revolt of Rome from the Empire caused by the Popes Baronius his Arguments answered Rebellion the foundation of the greatness of that Church The cause of the strict League between the Popes and the posterity of Charles Martel The disturbances made by Popes in the new Empire Of the quarrels of Greg. 7. with the Emperour and other Christian Princes upon the pretence of the Popes Authority More disturbances on that account in Christendome than any other matter of Religion Of the Schisms which have happened in the Roman Church particularly those after the time of Formosus wherein his Ordinations were nulled by his successours the Popes opposition to each other in that Age the miserable state of that Church then described Of the Schisms of latter times by the Italick and Gallick factions the long continuance of them The mischief of those Schisms on their own principles Of the divisions in that Church about matters of Order and Government The differences between the Bishops and the Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges the history of that Controversie and the bad success the Popes had in attempting to compose it Of the quarrel between the Regulars and Seculars in England The continuance of that Controversie here and in France The Jesuits enmity to the Episcopal Order and jurisdiction the hard case of the Bishop of Angelopolis in America The Popes still favour the Regulars as much as they dare The Jesuits way of converting the Chinese discovered by that Bishop Of the differences in matters of Doctrine in that Church They have no better way to compose them than we The Popes Authority never truly ended one Controversie among them Their wayes to evade the decisions of Popes and Councils Their dissensions are about matters of faith The wayes taken to excuse their own differences will make none between them and us manifested by Sancta Clara's exposition of the 39 Articles Their disputes not confined to their Schools proved by a particular instance about the immaculate conception the infinite scandals confessed by their own Authors to have been in their Church about it From all which it appears that the Church of Rome can have no advantage in point of Vnity above ours 2. § 1. THE other thing objected as flowing from the promiscuous reading the Scriptures is the number of our Sects and the
disturbances which have been among us upon their account whereas among them the Government of the Church is so ordered as to keep all in peace and Vnity This makes it necessary to examine that admirable Vnity they boast so much of and either they mean by it that there hath been less disturbance in the world before the Reformation or no Schisms among themselves or no differences in the matters of Religion But I shall now prove 1. That there have never been greater disturbances in the World than upon the account of that Authority of the Pope which they look on as the Foundation of their Vnity 2. That there have happened great and scandalous Schisms among themselves on the same account 3. That their differences in Religion both as to matter of Order and Doctrine have been as great and managed with as much animosity as any among us 1. The disturbances in the World upon the account of the Popes Authority I meddle not barely with his usurpations which work is lately and largely done but the effects of them in these Western Churches For which we are to consider what authority that is which the Pope challenges and what disturbances hath been given to the peace of Christendome by it The Authority claimed by the Pope is that of being Vniversal Pastor over the Catholick Church by vertue of which not only spiritual direction in matters of faith but an actual jurisdiction over all the members of it doth belong unto him For otherwise they say the Government of the Church is imperfect and insufficient for its end because Princes may easily overthrow the Unity of the Church by favouring Hereticks if they be not in subjection to the Pope as to their temporal concernments because it may happen that they have a regard to no other but these if it were not therefore in the Popes power to depose Princes and absolve Subjects from their Alleagiance when they oppose the Vnity of the Church his power say they is an insignificant title and cannot reach the end it was designed for Besides they urge that all Princes coming into the Church are to be supposed to submit their Scepters to Christ so as to lose them in case they act contrary to the Catholick Church of which they are made members for whosoever doth not hate Father and Mother c. cannot be my Disciple And what officer is there so fit to take all Escheats and Forfeitures of Power as Christs own Vicar upon Earth But to adde more strength Bellarmin very prettily proves it out of Pasce oves for every Pastor must have a threefold power to defend his flock a power over wolves to keep them from destroying the Sheep a power over the Rams that they do not hurt them and a power over the Sheep to give them convenient food now saith he very subtilly if a Prince of a sheep should turn a Ram or a Wolf must not he have power to drive him away and to keep the people from following him This is then the only current doctrine concerning the Popes Authority in the Court of Rome although some mince the matter more than others do and talk only of an indirect power yet they all mean the same thing and ascribe such power to the Pope whereby he may depose Princes and absolve subjects from the duty they owe to them And how much in request this Doctrine continues at Rome appears by the Counsel given by Michael Lonigo Master of the Palace to Pope Greg. 15. Printed A. D. 1623. about perswading the Duke of Bavaria then newly made Elector to receive a confirmation of his title from the Pope to which end he saith some skilful person ought to be imployed to acquaint him that the power of the Empire was the meer issue of the Church and did spring from it as a Child from the Mother and that it was a great sin for any Christian to call this into Question and consequently the Popes power and authority to determine concerning the State and affairs of the Empire and this he attempts to prove by no fewer than nineteen arguments all of them drawn from the former Usurpations of the Popes and encroachments upon the Empire from whence he concludes that the Electorship could not be lawfully taken away from one and given to another without the Popes consent and authority and that such a disposal of it was in it self null and of no force The same year came forth a Book of Aphorisms concerning the restoring the state of the Church by the decree and approbation of the Colledge of Cardinals collected by the same person and by him presented to the Pope wherein the same power of the Pope is asserted and that it belongs to him to transferr the Electoral dignity from one to another and that it ought to be taken away from the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg for opposing his Authority and that to allow the Emperour authority in these things was to rob the Apostolick See of its due rights By which we may understand what that Authority over the Church is which is challenged by the Pope as supream Pastour in order to the preserving the Unity of it § 2. We now consider what the blessed effects of this pretended power hath been in the Christian World and I doubt not to make it appear that this very thing hath caused more warrs and bloodshed more confusions and disorders more revolts and rebellions in Christendome than all other causes put together have done since the time it was first challenged and this I shall prove from their own Authors and such whose credit is the greatest among them The revolt of Rome and the adjacent parts from the subjection due to the Roman Emperour then resident at Constantinople was wholly caused by the Pope The first Pope saith Onuphrius that ever durst openly resist the Emperour was Constantine 1. who opposed Philippicus in the matter of Images which the Emperour commanded to be pulled down because they were abused to Idolatry and the Pope utterly refused to obey and not only so but set up more in opposition to him in the Pertico of St. Peter and forbad the use of the Emperours name and title in any publick Writings or Coines The same command was not long after renewed by Leo 3. upon which saith Onuphrius Gregory 2. then Pope took away the small remainder of the Roman Empire from him in Italy and Sigonius more expresly that he not only excommunicated the Emperour but absolved all the people of Italy from their Alleagiance and forbad the payment of any Tribute to him whereupon the inhabitants of Rome Campania Ravenna and Pentapolis i.e. the Region about Ancona immediately rebelled and rose up in opposition to their Magistrates whom they destroyed At Ravenna Paulus the Emperours Lieutenant or Exarch was killed at Rome Peter the Governour had his eyes put out in Campania Exhilaratus and his Son Hadrian were both
Vnity they look after all such who hold opinions contrary to their Interest must be proceeded against and condemned but for others let them quarrel and dispute as long as they will they let them alone if they touch not the Popes Authority nor any of the gainful opinions and practices which are allowed among them And supposing their Interest be kept up which the Inquisition is designed for the Court of Rome is as great a Friend to toleration as may be only what others call different perswasions they call School points and what others call divisions they call disputes the case is the same with their Church and others only they have softer names for the differences among themselves and think none bad enough for those who cast off the Popes Authority and plead for a Reformation Here then lyes the profound mystrey of their Vnity that they are all agreed against us though not among themselves and are not we so against them too May not we plead for the Vnity that they have on the same grounds We are all agreed against Popery as much as they are against Protestants only we have some Scholastick disputes among us about indifferent things and the Episcopal Authority as they have we have some zealous Dominicans and busie and factious men such as the Iesuits among them are but setting aside these disputes we are admirably well agreed just as they are in the Roman Church § 15. 2. They say they doe not differ in matters of faith But this is as true as the other for are they agreed in matters of faith who charge one another with heresie as we have already seen that they doe But if they mean that they doe not differ in matters of faith because those only are matters of faith which they are agreed in they were as good say they are agreed in the things they doe not differ about for the parties which differ doe believe the things in difference to be matters of faith and therefore they think they differ from one another in matter of faith But they are not agreed what it is which makes a thing to be a matter of faith and therefore no one can pronounce that their differences are not about matters of faith for what one may think not to be de fide others may believe that it is we see the Popes personal infallibility is become a Catholick doctrine among the Iesuits and declared to be plain heresie by their Adversaries The deliverance of souls from Purgatory by the prayers of the living is generally accounted a matter of faith in the Roman Church but we know those in it who deny it and say it was a novel opinion introduced by Gregory 1. against the consent of Antiquity It is a matter of faith say the Dominicans and Iansenists to attribute to God alone the praise of converting grace and that grace efficacious by it self was the doctrine of Fathers and Councils and the Catholick Church and is it not then a matter of faith in their opinion wherein the Iesuits and they differ from each other To which purpose it was well said by the author of a Book printed at Paris A. D. 1651. containing essayes and reflections on the state of Religion that because of the Controversies between the Iansenists and the Iesuits it might with more reason be affirmed now than in the time of Arrianism it self that the whole Church seems to become heretical For admitting saith he what is most certain that the Church hath decreed Calvinism Pelagianism and Semipelagianism to be heresies and that the Doctors are those who sit in the Chair to be consulted withall upon points of Religion all Catholicks are reduced to a most strange perplexity For if a man shall address himself to those of the Iansenian party they will tell him that those who are termed Molinists are Pelagians or at least Semi-pelagians and on the other side the Molinists will bear him down that their Adversaries are Calvinists or else Novatians Now all the Doctors of the Catholick Church a very few excepted are either of the one or the other party I leave you then to consider to what prodigious streights mens minds are reduced since this is held as a general Maxime that whosoever fails in one point of faith fails in all It is a matter of faith say the Dominicans that all persons Christ only excepted were born in sin and therefore the contenders for the immaculate conception must in their judgment differ in a point of faith from them But if this distinction should be allowed to preserve the unity of their Church why shall it not as well cure the divisions of ours The most considerable in all respects of the dissenters from the Church of England declare that they agree with us in all the articles of doctrine required by our Church will this be enough in their opinion to make us at unity with each other if not let them not plead the same thing for themselves which they will not allow to us I cannot understand that the controversies about Ceremonies considered in themselves among us are of any greater weight than the disputes among the Fryars concerning their habits have been and yet this controversie only about the size of their hoods lasted in one Order almost an Age together and was managed with as great a heat and animosity as ever these have been among us and was with very much adoe laid asleep for a time by the endeavours of 4. Popes successively But if this signifies nothing to unity to say that the matters are not great about which the Controversies are if the disturbances be great which are caused by them that will reflect more sharply on their Church than on ours which hath so many differences which they account not to be about any matters of faith But if these differences in point of doctrine among them prove to be none in matters of faith it would be no difficult task upon the same grounds to shew that they have no reason to quarrel with us for breaking the unity of their Church because then we may differ from them as little in matters of faith as they doe from one another This I need not take upon me to shew at large because I find it already done to my hand by F. Davenport al. Sancta Clara in his paraphrastical exposition of the 39. articles of our Church about half of them he acknowledges to be Catholick as they are without any further explication The first he meets with difficulty in is that about the number of Canonical books point blank against the Council of Trent but he acknowledges that Cajetan and Franciscus Mirandula fully agree with our Church in it who quote Hierom Ruffinus Antoninus and Lyra of the same opinion as they might have done many others but because our Church doth not cast them wholly out of the Canon he dares not say it is guilty of heresie simply and the rather because Waldensis and Driedo
it becomes a duty to such a one But hold say they of the Church of Rome to S. Paul this is only meant of those whom the Church allowes to marry but if the Church once forbid it to any they are not to marry let their case be what it will Here then lyes the dispute between S. Paul and them S. Paul saith to avoid fornication a man ought to marry they say that to marry after the prohibition of the Church is worse than Fornication S. Paul might it may be ask what authority their Church had to determin contrary to what he had done in this case Or men to make vows against the most proper remedy of some of the Infirmities of humane nature and which God hath not promised to any to keep them from If obedience to the Church be indisputable it is only in such things which God hath not antecedently determin'd by his own Law but in the case between marriage and fornication God himself hath given a Law before hand which no Church in the world can reverse And however indifferent a thing in the general it be to marry or not yet when it comes to that point either marriage or Fornication I wonder at the confidence of any who dare upon any account whatsoever make marriage a greater crime than Fornication But he saith it seems strange to them who either cannot or will not take the word of Christ that is his counsel of chastity that marriage in a Priest should be a greater sin than Fornication It doth I assure you seem strange to us because we are desirous to keep the Commands of Christ and we are sure marriage is against none of them but Fornication is Doth that man take Christs counsel of chastity that rather chooses to commit Fornication than marry What admirable chastity is that and what a beastly institution must marriage be if Fornication be a less crime than that But what a reflection is this the mean while on the author of it and that state of innocency and purity wherein it was first appointed They must needs think themselves very holy men who look on that state as too impure for them which was allotted to man in his greatest Innocency But although the first Ages of the Christian Church were so full of hardship and difficulties that if ever it should have been required of the Governours of the Church to have been above this state it should have been at that time yet we find no such thing in the Apostolical times or afterwards when the necessities of affairs would most have required it But when the Christian Church came to have settlement in the world and by degrees persons were fixed with endowments to particular places and some care of affaires of the world was necessarily joyned with those of the Church there was far less reason to make such a prohibition of marriage to the Clergy than ever was before And the scandals were so abominable where those restraints were most in force that on that very account the wisest men though as fond as any of the Churches authority thought there was more reason to give liberty to Priests to marry than ever there had been to restrain them from it I am not bound to defend all the extravagant and indiscreet passages which fell from some of the Fathers concerning marriage but I am sure the Church preserved her liberty in it notwithstanding them as I might easily prove if it were suitable to my present designe And S. Cyprian speaking of those Virgins who came nearest to vows of virginity as Rigaltius observes saith that it were better for them to marry than to fall into bell by their sins when they either will not or cannot keep their promise the same thing is said by S. Augustin by Epiphanius by the author of the epistle ad Demetriadem as Bishop Iewel hath long since proved and need not here be repeated Two things he objects to prove marriage worse than fornication after a vow of continency one from the authority of S. Paul who saith the younger Widdows that marry after the dedicating themselves to the service of the Church doe incurre damnation because by so doing they made void their first faith i. e. as the Fathers expound it the vow they had made But doth he really think that they did not break their first faith and incurre damnation by Fornication as well as by Marrying If they did how can this prove marriage worse than Fornication I grant that by their first faith hath been understood the promise made to the Church and who denies the breach of promise to be a bad and scandalous thing which is that S. Paul means by damnation and is not Fornication much more so where a thing in it self evil is committed besides the breach of the promise Can any one think that is not more waxing wanton against Christ than meer marrying is Therefore S. Paul would have the younger Women to marry and not make any such promises which they would be in danger of breaking he would have none admitted into the condition of Church-widdowes but those that were 60. years of ages and so in reason to be supposed passed the temptations to Fornication Whereby he shews what rule ought to be observed in all such promises and that none ought to be brought under them but such as are to be supposed past the common temptations of humane nature in those things But his second authority is more to his purpose if it were good for any thing which is the 104. Cannon of the 4. Council of Carthage as it is called but he might have found in Iustellus his preface to the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africanae that this 4. Council of Carthage is of no Authority at all and we need not be concerned for any Canon contained therein which is not in the Code of the African Church as this is not but seems taken out of some Decretals of the Popes as will appear by comparing the 101. Canon in the Collection of Cresconius with the 104. of this Council And it would be very strange if S. Augustin were present in this Council that he should herein oppose what he had said elsewhere for he determins that the marrying again of the widdows that had vowed continuance in that state was no Adultery but a lawful marriage and that husband and wife ought not to be separated from each other upon such marriages and by that means make the husbands truely Adulterers when they separate from them and marry other wives and therefore saith he that which the Apostle condemns in them is not so much their marrying as their will to marry whether they doe or no whereby they break their first faith So that it is not marriage but lust which the Apostle condemns from whence it appears that S. Austin could never if he spake consonantly to himself condemn marriage after a vow of continency to be worse than
after the time of Formosus wherein his Ordinations were nulled by his successors the Popes opposition to each other in that Age the miserable state of that Church then described Of the Schisms of latter times by the Italick and Gallick factions the long continuance of them The mischief of those Schisms on their own principles Of the divisions in that Church about the matters of Order and Government The differences between the Bishops and the Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges the history of that Controversie and the bad success the Popes had in attempting to compose it Of the quarrel between the Regulars and Seculars in England The continuance of that Controversie here and in France The Jesuits enmity to the Episcopal Order and jurisdiction the hard case of the Bishop of Angelopolis in America The Popes still favour the Regulars as much as they dare The Jesuits way of converting the Chinese discovered by that Bishop Of the differences in matters of Doctrine in that Church They have no better way to compose them than we The Popes Authority never truly ended one Controversie among them Their wayes to evade the decisions of Popes and Councils Their dissensions are about matters of faith The wayes taken to excuse their own difference will make none between them and us manifested by Sancta Clara's exposition oâ— the 39. Articles Their disputes not confined to their Schools proved by a particular instance about the immaculate conception the infinite scandals confessed by theiâ— own Authors to have been in their Church about it From all which it appears that the Church of Rome can have no advantage in point of Vnity above ours p. 355 CHAP. VI. An Answer to the Remainder of the Reply The mis-interpreting Scripture doth not hinder its being a rule of faith Of the superstitious observations of the Roman Church Of Indulgences the practice of them in what time begun on what occasion and in what terms granted Of the Indulgences in Iubilees in the Churches at Rome and upon saying some Prayers Instances of them produced What opinion hath been had of Indulgences in the Church of Rome some confess they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are pious frauds the miserable shifts the defenders of indulgences were put to plain evidences of their fraud from the Disputes of the Schools about them The treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas and on what occasion The wickedness of men increased by Indulgences acknowledged by their own Writers and therefore condemned by many of that Church Of Bellarmins prudent Christians opinion of them Indulgences no meer relaxations of Canonical Penance The great absurdity of the doctrine of the Churches Treasure on which Indulgences are founded at large manifested The tendency of them to destroy devotion proved by experience and the nature of the Doctrine Of Communion in one kind no devotion in opposing an Institution of Christ. Of the Popes power of dispensing contrary to the Law of God in Oaths and Marriages The ill consequence of asserting Marriage in a Priest to be worse than Fornication as it is in the Church of Rome Of the uncertainty of faith therein How far revelation to be believed against sense The arguments to prove the uncertainty of their faith defended The case of a revolter and a bred Papist compared as to salvation and the greater danger of one than the other proved The motives of the Roman Church considered those laid down by Bishop Taylor fully answered by himself An account of the faith of Protestants laid down in the way of Principles wherein the grounds and nature of our certainty of faith are cleared And from the whole concluded that there can be no reasonable cause to forsake the communion of the Church of England and to embrace that of the Church of Rome p. 476 ERRATA PAg. 25. l. 19. for adjuverit r. adjuvet p. ibid. Marg. r. l. 7. de baptis p. 31. Marg. r. Tract 18. in Ioh. p. 64. l. 13. dele only p. 75. Marg. r. Trigaut p. 101. l. 24. for I am r. am I p. 119. l. 28. for is r. in p. 135. Marg. for 68. r. 6. 8. p. 162. l. 17. after did put not Ch. 3. for pennance r. penance p. 219. l. 10. for him r. them p. 257. l. 21. for or r. and l. 31. for never r. ever p. 350. l. 21. for their r. the p. 414. l. 18. for these r. their p. 416. Marg. for nibaldi r. Sinibaldi p. 417. l. 2. before another insert one p. 499. l. 16. after not insert at p. 526. Marg. for act r. art p. 546. l. 8. after for insert one Two Questions proposed by one of the Church of Rome WHether a Protestant haveing the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in the Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it 2. Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians Answer The first Question being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant yet continuing so doth imply a contradiction viz. That a Protestant continuing so should have the same Motives to become a Catholick takeing that term here only as signifying one of the communion of the Church of Rome which those have who have been born or bred in that communion But supposing the meaning of the Question to be this Whether a Protestant leaving the communion of our Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who are bred in it I answer 1. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the communion of a Church wherein salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them No more than it is for a man to leap from the plain ground into a Ship that is in danger of being wrackt because he may equally hope to be saved with those who are in it Nay supposing an equal capacity of salvation in two several Churches there can be no reason to forsake the communion of the one for the other So that to perswade any one to leave our Church to embrace that of Rome it is by no means sufficient to ask whether such a one may not as well be saved as they that are in it already but it is necessary that they prove that it is of necessity to salvation to leave our Church and become a member of theirs And when they do this I intend to be one of their number 2. We assert that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace it or continue in it And that upon these grounds 1. Because they must
or asked their opinion and Pope Adrian himself he saith in his defence of it against the Caroline Books never gives it the name or authority of an Oecumenical Council The same Council was rejected here in England as our Historians tell us because it asserted the adoration of Images which the Church of God abhors which are the words of Hoveden and others And we find afterwards in France by the Synod of Paris called by Ludovicus Pius upon the Letters of Michael Balbus Emperour of Constantinople in order to the Vnion of Christendome in this point that these Western Churches persisted still in the condemnation of the Nicene Council which they would not have done after so long a time to inform themselves if a meer mistake of their Doctrine at first had been the cause of their opposition But whosoever will read the Caroline Books or the Synod of Paris or Agobardus and others about that time will find that they condemn all religious worship of Images as adoration and contrary to that honour which is due to God alone and to the commands which he hath given in Scripture And I extreamly wonder how any men of common sense and much more any of learning and judgement that had read the Book of Charles the Great against the Nicene Synod could imagine it altogether proceeded upon a mistake of the meaning of it when it so distinctly relates and punctually answers the several places of Scriptures and Fathers produced by it for the worship of Images In the first Book an answer is given to many impertinent places of the Old Testament alledged in that Council which the second proceeds with and examines several testimonies of the Fathers and in the two remaining Books pursues all their pretences with that diligence that no one can imagine all this while that the Author did not know their meaning And that by adoration he means no more than giving Religious Worship to Images appears from hence because he calls the Civil worship which men give to one another by the name of adoration when he shewes that it is another thing to give adoration to a man upon a civil respect and to give adoration to Images upon a religious account when God challenges all religious worship or adoration to himself and whatever reason will hold for such a worship of Images will much more hold for the worship of men who have greater excellency in them and more honour put upon them by God than any Images can ever pretend to That God allows no other kind of adoration to be given to any but himself but that which we give to one another Can any be so senseless to think that by this civil adoration he meant we honoured every man we met as our Soveraign Prince And as little reason is there to say that by adoration given to Images he meant only the incommunicable worship due only to God in the sense of those Fathers Can we imagine saith he that S. Peter would allow the worship of Images who forbad Cornelius to worship him Or St. John whom the Angel checked for offering to worship him and bid him give that honour to God Or Paul and Barnabas who with such horror ran among the men of Lycaonia when they were about to worship them and yet surely Angels and such persons as these deserved more to be worshipped than any Images can do But we see by these examples that even these are not to be adored with any other kind of adoration than what the offices of civility require from us Besides in his language those who followed the Council of Constantinople are said not to adore Images by which nothing else can be meant than their giving no Religious worship to them and when he shews the great inconsequence of the argument from the adoration of the Statues of the Emperours to the adoration of Images because in matters of Religious Worship we are not to follow the customes of men against the will of God he thereby shews what kind of adoration he intended not the worship of Latria but supposed to be of an inferiour sort In so much that Binius confesseth that the design of these books was against all worship of Images It is true Pope Hadrian in the answer he sent to these Books which is still extant in the Tomes of the Councils doth deny that the Synod intended to give proper divine worship to Images but that is no more than the Synod it self had in words said before but that was not the Question what they said but what the nature of the thing did imply Whether that religious worship they gave to Images was not part of that adoration which was only due to God And he that expects an answer to this from him will find himself deceived who is so pitifully put to it for an answer to the demand of any example of words of the Apostles to justifie Image-worship that he is forced to make use of some Mystical passages of Dionysius the supposed Areopagite wherein the word Image hapning to be is very sufficient to his purpose And this answer of Hadrians gave so little satisfaction to the Western Bishops that A.D. 824. the Synod at Paris being called by Ludovicus Pius to advise about this point did condemn expressely Pope Hadrian for asserting a superstitious adoration of Images which they look on as a great impiety and say that he produces very impertinent places of the Fathers and remote from his purpose and that setting aside his Pontifical authority in his answer to the Caroline Books there were some things apparently false and they have nothing to excuse him by but his Ignorance And therefore they at large shew that the Religious worship of Images came first from Hereticks and that it was alwayes condemned by the Fathers of the Christian Church and answer the arguments produced on the other side out of the Writings of the Fathers And supposing that superstitious custome of worshipping Images had for some time obtained yet they shew by several testimonies that it ought to be abrogated No wonder then that Bellarmine is so much displeased with this Synod for offering so boldly to censure the Popes Writings and a Synod approved by him wherein the saith they exceed the fault of the Author of the Caroline Books because as he confesseth they offered to teach the Pope and resisted him to the face And yet no doubt they had read and considered Hadrians words wherein he disowns the giveing true divine honour to Images Not long after this Synod came forth the Book of Agobardus Archbishop of Lyons against Images occasioned saith Papirius Massonus by the stupendous superstition in that Age in the worship of them And this saith he is the substance of his Doctrine out of St. Augustine and other Fathers that there is no other Image of God but what is himself and therefore cannot be
to her Confessors they were strictly examined and after them by the Bishops and Divines of Sweden and approved as divine revelations from them they were sent as such to the Council of Basil from thence they were examined over again at Naples and there allowed and preached in the presence and by command of the Queen and Archbishop before all the people of the City again examined at Rome by Prelats and Cardinals A. D. 1377. by the Popes appointment and there approved and A. D. 1379. they are declared by those Vrban the sixth committed the new examination of them to to be authentick and to come from the Spirit of God and so much is declared by Boniface the ninth in the Bull of her Canonization and at last approved saith Wadding at the General Council of Basil. What could be expected less after this than that they should have been received as Canonical Scriptures they having never taken so much pains in examining and approving any controverted Books of the Bible as they had done about these revelations And no man knows how far their authority might have prevailed if the whole Sect of Dominicans had not been engaged in the opposite opinion For nothing else that I can find hath given any discredit to her revelations but this which makes Cajetan call them old Wives dreams as Wadding confesseth But it falls out very conveniently that S. Catharines revelation was just in the Dominican way in which she had been educated and for all that I can see wants little of the reputation of St. Brigitt For they were both very wonderful persons and had more familiar reyelations than any of the Prophets we read of S. Brigitt in her Childhood if we believe the account given of her in the Bull of Canonization by Bonifacius and her life by Vastavius had Visions as frequently as other Children have Babyes and was as well pleased with them the Virgin Mary was once her Midwife as the Pope very gravely tells us but her revelations after Christ took her for his Spouse have filled a great Volume Wherein a person that hath leisure enough may see strange effects of the power of imagination or a Religious Melancholy and to that Book the Pope in his Bull refers us and if any thing can be more considerable than the Popes authority the whole Roman Church in the prayers upon S. Brigitts day do confess these revelations to have come immediately from God to her and in one of the Lessons for that day do magnifie the multitude of her divine revelations But to say truth the Church of Rome allows fair play in the case for it magnifies S. Catharine as much as S. Brigitt for her holy Extasies are mentioned in the Lessons upon her day in one of which were five rayes coming from the five wounds of our Saviour to five parts of her body and she being wonderfull humble prayed our Lord that the wounds might not appear for fear she should have been thought as holy as S. Francis and immediately the colour of the blood was changed into pure light upon her hands and feet and heart And her Confessor Raimund who is alwayes a principal man in these things as Matthias a Suecia was to S. Brigitt without whom she was advised from Heaven to do nothing saw these splendid wounds upon her body but by what instrument did he see the wound in her heart Well though we Hereticks are not apt to be too credulous in these cases the Church of Rome very gravely tells us in the next Lesson that her learning was not acquired but infused by which she answered the most profound Doctors in the most difficult speculations in Divinity but these were nothing to her revelations and the service she did the Church of Rome by them in a time of Schisme But one gift she had above S. Brigitt which was that while she was on earth she could not only see but smell souls too and could not endure the stench of wicked souls as Raynaldus tells us from her Confessor Raimund a gift very few had besides her and Philip Nerius the Father of the Oratorians for Raynaldus one of his Order tells us from Bacius the Writer of his life that he was sometimes so offended with the smells of filthy souls that he would desire the persons to empty the Iakes of their souls Such divine Noses had these two Saints among them A degree of Enthusiasme above the Spirit of discerning any Quakers among us have ever pretended to Pope Pius the second in the Bull of Canonization of S. Catharine not only acknowledgeth a gift of Prophecy to have been in her but that sometimes her Extasies were so great that she was sensible of no kind of pain in them And S. Brigitt was often seen much above ground in her devotions and one saw Rivers and another Fire came out of her mouth but I think not at the same time These are things we rake not the old Kennells of the Golden Legends for but are at this day allowed and approved of in the Roman Church and their dayes kept and they prayed to upon the account of such things as these are § 3. Yet still we are to seek what is to be done when two Revelations contradict each other for the Dominicans are as peremptory for the revelation of S. Catharine as their adversaries are for that of S. Brigitt Two bold Fellows called Henricus de Hassia and Sybillanus knew no other way but to reject both as illusions and fancies but what becomes then of the Popes and Councils infallibility who have approved both Franciscus Picus Mirandula being a Learned and Ingenuous man confesseth himself at a loss both being concerning a thing passed there must be truth on one side and falshood on the other for the case is not the same saith he as to past and future things in which a condition may be understood By which means St. Bernard escaped when he promised great success to an expedition into the Holy Land and they who went in it found the quite contrary But at last gives us leave to conjecture his meaning when he saith That if any thing be false in a prophecy though some prove true we have cause to suspect all especially if it come from women whose judgements are weak and their passions vehement and imaginations easily possessed with what they are most desirous of and least able to distinguish between the strength of imagination and a divine revelation but as to that particular case of S. Catharine and S. Brigitt where both were women he saith The Divines were generally for the former and the Monks for the latter but which was in the truth he thinks cannot be known upon earth Martin Del Rio discoursing of the Revelations of Canonized Saints who were women in the Church of Rome reckons up S. Angela a Carmelitess whose Book of Revelations came out above four hundred years
with her Picture and a Book of her life and eminent sanctity by a person of great authority which were preserved as precious things by the Vice-roy's Lady But this is nothing to Gregory the thirteenth then Pope who writ a Letter of encouragement to her to go on in the same way of sanctity she had begun She had been examined by the Inquisition and her wounds were allowed by them after diligent search But at last they found what she aimed at which was the Revolt of Portugall from Spain which being once suspected she is brought before the Inquisition and her Sanctity is condemned her wounds declared to be a meer Imposture being artificially made by red Lead and her self sentenced by the Inquisitors to a very severe pennance all her dayes Decemb. 8. A. D. 1588. I suppose my Adversary having been upon the place hath often heard the truth of this but if he doubts it he may find it as I have related it in Ludovicus a Paramo By which it is very easie to ghess what it is which gives and preserves the reputation of these things in the Roman Church for if this Saint had dyed before her design brake forth we might have heard of her wounds in the Roman Breviary as well as those of St. Francis and a Festival might have been kept in commemoration of her sanctity and her self as religiously invocated as the rest of the Popes making But supposing Pope Alexander the fourths authority prevailed so much upon the people to believe that S. Francis had the same wounds which Christ had c. No wonder then it should be written in the Book called The Flowers of S Francis that those only were saved by the blood of Christ who lived before S. Francis but all that followed were redeemed by the blood of S. Francis No wonder this Petrus Iohannis made the Rule of S. Francis to be the very same with the Gospel and that which Christ and his Apostles lived by of which S. Francis was the greatest observer next to Christ and his Mother and that as Christ when he was to reform the world chose twelve Apostles so S. Francis had twelve Brethren by whom the Evangelical Order was founded that those who opposed this Order were the carnal persecuting Clergy in whom the Seat of the Beast is much more than in the people that in the time of this Mystical Antichrist the Carnal Church shall oppose the doctrine life and zeal of the Saints and burn as it were with fire against them but it shall be dryed up from all spiritual Wisdom and Grace and the riches of Christ and be exposed to errors and delusion as it was with the Iews and Greeks Those who will not take the pains to see how faithfully I have translated these words out of Eymericus would imagine I have borrowed some of the canting language of the modern Quakers But he goes on saying That as Vasthi the Queen being cast off from the Kingdom and Marriage of Ahassuerus the humble Esther was chosen to succeed in her place and the King made a great Feast to his Princes and Servants so in this last state of the Church the adulterous Babylon the carnal Church being rejected the spiritual Church must be exalted and a great and spiritual Feast be kept to celebrate these Nuptials with that under the Mystical Antichrist there shall be overturnings and commotions by which the Carnal Church shall be terribly stirred up and moved against the Evangelical Spirit of Christ but that the Whore of Babylon the Carnal Church shall fall in which time the Saints shall preach saying from this time it is no longer the Church of Christ but the Synagogue of Satan and the Habitation of Devils which before said in the pride of her heart I sit as a Queen in great honour and glory I rule over my Kingdom I sit at ease I am no Widow i. e. I have Bishops and Kings on my side that the Roman Church is that great Whore spoken of in the Revelations which hath committed fornication with this world having departed from the worship and sincere love and the delights of Christ her Spouse and embraced the world the riches and pleasures of it and the Devil and Kings and Princes and Prelates and all the lovers of this world That the Teachers of this spiritual State are more properly the Gates to lead men into the wisdom of Christ than the Apostles themselves These things are expresly delivered concerning the doctrine of this Franciscan Fryer by the Inquisitor Eymericus I know Wadding in his Franciscan Annals to preserve the reputation of his Order would clear him from all suspicion of Heresie but I suppose the credit of an Inquisitor having such opportunities to know the truth so near his own time and having the examination of many of his followers is to be relyed on rather than the testimony of one at such a distance and partial for the honour of his order Especially that being considered which Possevin saith of Eymericus that most of his accounts of the times a little before his own were the very same with what was contained in a Manuscript in the Vatican Library both as to order and words which is though to have been brought from Avignon to Rome where he was made Inquisitour General by Gregory 11. A. D. 1358. But it is not denyed by Wadding or others that the Beguini and Fratricelli the Beguardi and others were his followers and we shall find so great an agreement in their opinions that it would be strange they should be accounted the Disciples of any other Eymericus gives this account of them that in the time of Clement 5. there arose in the Province of Narbonne one Petrus Iohannis a Franciscan Fryer who published by Writing and Preaching a great many Errours and Heresies in the same Province and drew many after him who had spread themselves over France Italy Germany and other places and continued in his time being daily searched for condemned by the Inquisitours They all agreed that their doctrine was from God by immediate inspiration and that all the writings of Petrus Johannis were revealed to him from the Lord and that he had declared this to some of his Friends that he was so great a Doctor that from the time of the Apostles and Evangelists there have been none greater than he in Learning and Holiness and that his writings theirs only excepted wherein they fell short of the former Sect were the most useful to the Church § 10. Their doctrines may be reduced to these four heads 1. Evangelical poverty 2. Unlawfulness of Swearing 3. The Doctrine of perfection 4. Opposition to the carnal Church Which being joyned with that greater degree of light which they supposed themselves to have above all the rest of the world makes up a Sect of Quakers after the Order of St. Francis 1. Their Doctrine of Evangelical poverty about which they said That our
8. Febr. 4. A. D. 1625. not long after he comes into England and was received with so great kindness by their party here as made the Iesuits who are friends to none but themselves soon to become his enemies especially when he began to exercise his Episcopal jurisdiction here in laying restraints upon the Regulars which the Iesuits with other Regulars grew so impatient of that they soon revived the old quarrel concerning the authority and jurisdiction of Bishops and managed it with so great heat and fierceness that the titular Bishop was fain to leave the field and withdraw into France The bottom of the quarrel was they found the kindness of their party to them abated since the Bishops coming who before had sway'd all and lived in great plenty and bravery when the poor Seculars got scarce bread to eate as Watson very sadly laments in his answer to Parsons but now the necessary support of the dignity of a Bishop made the charity of their party run in another channel which the Provincial of the Iesuits complains of in a Letter to the Bishop of Chalcedon Therefore they endeavour all they can to make a party against him among the people too which they did so effectually as amounted to his withdrawing a more civil word for his exile And now both parties being sufficiently heated the battel begins in which not only England and Ireland but France and Flanders were deeply engaged The first who appeared was Dr. Kellison Professour of Doway in a Book in Vindication of the Bishops Authority to whom Knot then Vice-Provincial of the Iesuits returned his Modest and brief discussion c. under the name of Nicholas Smith a Iesuite then dead Soon after came out another written to the same purpose under the name of Daniel of Iesu whose true name was Iohn Fluide which the other writing Ioanes for Iohn was the Anagram of he was a Iesuit too and Professour at St. Omars which Books were first censured by the Arch-bishop of Paris then by the Sorbonne and at last by the Bishops of France in an Assembly of them at Paris but the Iesuits were so far from giving over by this that they new set forth their Books in Latin with large approbations of them and publish a Remonstrance against the Bishop of Chalcedon in the name of the Catholick party in England which was disowned by the greatest number of them and cast wholly upon the Iesuits the same year 1631. three Books were published by the secular Clergy here in opposition to the Iesuits Who were so far from quitting the Field by the number of their enemies that they begin a fresh charge against both the Sorbonne Doctors and the French Clergy under the fained name of Hermannus Loemelius whose chief Author was the fore-named Iesuite Lloyd with the assistance of his Brethren as the diversity of the style shews and another Book came out against the Faculty of Paris in Vindication of Knot or Nicholas Smith with many approbations of Bishops Vniversities and private Doctors and in Vindication of the Propositions of Ireland likewise censured at Paris another Book came forth under the name of Edmundus Vrsulanus whose true name was Mac-mahone Prior of the Franciscan Convent in Lovain About the same time the Iesuits published their Censure of the Apostolical Creed in imitation of the censures at Paris against their Doctrine as though their Doctrines were as certain as that and themselves as infallible as the Apostles wherein they charge the Bishops their enemies with reviving old Heresies and broaching new ones The Iesuits having now done such great things triumph unreasonably in all places as having utterly overthrown their enemies and beaten them out of the field when in a little time after Hallier and le Maistre two Doctors of the Sorbonne undertake the quarrel against them but none was so highly magnified and infinitely applauded by the French Clergy as a person under the disguised name of Petrus Aurelius whose atchievements in this kind they celebrate next to those of the Pucelle d' Orleans and Printed all his Works together at their own charge and writ a high Elogium of him which is prefixed before them And the secular Clergy of England sent him a letter of Congratulation for his Triumphs subscribed by Iohn Colleton Dean of the Chapter and Edmond Dutton Secretary wherein they sadly lament the discords that have been among them here and the Heresies broached by their Adversaries by occasion of them The main of-this Controversie did concern the dignity necessity and jurisdiction of the Episcopal Order as appears by the Censures of the Bishops of France and by Aurelius who saith that although the Dispute began upon occasion of the Bishop of Chalcedon and the English Clergy yet it was now carried farther whether the Episcopal Order was necessary to the Being of a particular Church Whether it was by divine right or no Whether confirmation might be given without Bishops Whether the Episcopal Order was more perfect than the Monastical Whether the Regulars were under the jurisdiction of Bishops And therefore the Iesuits are charged by their Adversaries with a design to extirpate and ruine the whole Order of Episcopacy Have not these men now great reason to insult over us that some of these questions have caused great differences among us when the Iesuits in England had laid the foundation of them by their quarrels of the same kind but a little before and furnished the enemies to Episcopacy and the Church of England with so many arguments to their hands to manage their bad cause with But what becomes of the Court of Rome all this while do the Pope and Cardinals only stand still to see what the issue of the Battel will be without ever offering to compose the difference between the two parties No. The Iesuits finding how hard they were put to it make their address to Rome as their greatest Sanctuary and A. D. 1633. obtained a Decree of the Sacred Congregation for suppressing the Books on both sides without judging any thing at all of the merits of the cause or giving any censure of the authority on either side And is not now the Popes authority an excellent remedy for all divisions in the Church When in so great a heat as this was the Pope durst not interpose at all in the main business for fear of losing either side which is a plain argument that they themselves look on his Authority as so precarious a thing that they must by no means expose it where it is like to be called in Question Were not here Controversies fit to be determined To what purpose is that authority that dare not be exercised when there is most need of it and when could there be greater need than in such a time when the Church was in a flame by these contentions And yet so timerous a Decree as this was could find no acceptance For at Paris immediately comes out a disquisition upon it shewing
not trust the Popes infallibility nor all the promises they pretend Christ hath made to their Church but govern their affaires wholly by the rules of humane Policy And on this account when the heats brake forth in France about Iansenism and both parties made application to the Court of Rome the Pope could never be prevailed with to suffer the main controversies to be touched or any decree to pass about them but at last condemned some ambiguous Propositions as taken out of Iansenius his book which both parties condemned according to their different senses and they were left to dispute it out which sense it was the Pope meant them in And therefore the Iansenists Advocate who was well versed in the practices of the Court of Rome gave them the truest account of the intentions of that Court in their affaire which was to delude both the one side and the other and that Cardinal Ginetti had told him that either nothing would be done or if any thing that which would doe neither good not hurt And therefore in stead of ending the controversies the Popes definition only produced more viz. whether the Propositions condemned were in Iansenius or no whether the Pope might not erre in matter of fact the Iansenists affirming this the Iesuits denying it and charging each other with no less than Heresie about it For upon the Iesuits asserting Octob. 12. A.D. 1661. that the Pope hath the same infallibility that Iesus Christ hath not only in Questions of right but in matters of fact and that thence those of their Church are bound to believe with a divine faith that the 5. condemned Propositions are in Iansenius the Iansenists publish a charge of heresie against the Iesuits and such as was never broached in the Church before being not only a solitary error or simple heresie but a whole source of errors or rather an universal heresie which overthrows all Religion Which they goe about at large to prove by shewing that this builds mens faith on the word of man and not on the word of God because it concerns a thing neither revealed nor attested by God as to know whether Propositions are really an Authors of this last Age and as he goes on to make the Popes word equal with the word of God is not only heresie but horrid impiety and a species of Idolatry for this is giving to man the honour due only to God because such an entire submission of our mind and of all our intellectuals comprehended in the act of our faith is that Adoration which we pay to the prime verity it self And I dare now leave any one to Judge whether upon so late an experiment of the Constitutions of two Popes Innocent 10. and Alexander 7. in order to the ending so great a Controversie as this was it be not apparent that the Popes Authority signifies no more to the ending Controversies than the parties who are concerned are willing that it should i. e. as far as they doe consent to obey them and no farther § 14. But it may be said that it is true there are differences among them about the Popes power and infallibility and therefore he may not be so fit to end Controversies but there is no dispute among them about Pope and Council together therefore in that case they are all agreed that they ought to submit These are fine things to be said and appeare plausibly to those who doe not search into them but those that doe will easily find this as ineffectual a remedy as the other For if we examine but the ways used by the several parties among them to avoid the decisions of some Councils against their particular opinions we may see how little the decrees of Councils can bind those who have no mind to be tyed up by them Either they say the decision depended on a matter of fact which the Council was not sufficiently informed in and they believe a Council may erre in a matter of fact or else it did not proceed after the way of a Council or it was not general or its decrees were not received by the Catholick Church or though some were received yet not all or however the infallibility of a Council is not absolute but supposing that it proceeds according to the constant tradition of the Church which unavoidably leaves the matter as much under debate as if the Council had never meddled with it But if they doe in earnest believe that the Pope and Council can put an end to all Controversies among them when they please I would fain know why they have not done this hitherto Is not unity desirable among them if not why doe they boast of it if it be why have they not obtained it since they can so easily doe it what made them so extremely cautious in the Council of Trent of meddling with any thing that was in Controversie among themselves or was it that they were all so much of a mind that they had nothing to doe but to condemn their enemies which was so far from being true that there were very few things which came into bebate that they were agreed in and therefore they were put sometimes to strange shifts to find out general and ambiguous terms which might not displease the dissenters and yet leave the disputes as great as ever They could not agree so much as about the Title of the Council many of the Bishops were for adding to the Title of the most holy Council Representing the Church Vniversal which was eagerly opposed by the Italians and with much adoe avoided by the Legats being no small controversie about words but of very great consequence about the power and authority of Pope and Council if they had been suffered to goe on in it But the Pope hearing of this dispute at the beginning sent word to the Legats not to broach any new difficulties in matter of faith nor to determine any of the things controversed among Catholicks and to proceed slowly in the Reformation Excellent instructions for the advancement of Peace and Holiness Whoever will for that end peruse that incomparable history of the Council will find how high the Controversies among themselves were between the Bishops and the Regulars about priviledges between the Dominicans and Franciseâ—ins in many weighty points between the Italian Bishops and others about Residence and the extent of Episcopal power between the Divines in most of the matters of doctrine as might easily be shewed at large if I loved the pains of transcribing but I had rather referre the Reader to that excellent history it self But I only renew my demand why must no controversies among Catholicks be ended in the Council could they be better decided any where else if so then the Council is not the best means of Vnity if not then it seems there is no necessity of ending controversies among them but they have Vnity enough without it And in truth it is Interest and not