quiver are these arrows taken Is this fair sober Candid Christian dealing have you no way to defend the Authority of your Church but by Questioning the Authority of the Scripture Did ever any of the Fathers of old or any in the world before your selves take this course to plead their interests in any thing they professed Is this Practice Catholick or like many of your Principles singular your own Donatisticall Is it any great sign that you have an interest in that living Child when you are so ready he should be destroyed rather than you would be cast in your Contest with Protestants 2. Do you think that this course of proclaiming to Atheists Turks and Pagans that the Scripture which all Christians maintain against them to be the Word of the Living GOD given by inspiration from Him and on which the Faith of all the Martyrs who have suffered from their opposition rage and cruelty and of all others that truly believe in Jesus Christ was and is founded and whereinto it is resolved hath no Arguments of its Divine Original implanted on it no lines of the Excellencies and Perfections of its Author drawn on it no power or efficacy towards the Consciences of men evidencing its Authority over them no ability of its self to comfort and support them in their tryals and sufferings with the hope of things that are not seen Is this think you an acceptable service unto the Lord Christ who will one day judg the secrets of all hearts according unto that Word or Is it not really to expose Christian Religion to scorn and contempt And do you find so much sweetness in Delus an Virtus quis in hoste requirat as to cast off all Reverence of God and his Word in the pursuit of the supposed Adversaries of your earthly Interests 3. If your Arguments and Objections are effectuall and privalent unto the end for which you intend them will not your direct issue be the utter overthrow of the very foundation of the whole Profession of Christians in the world And are you like Sampson content to pull down the house that must fall upon your selves also so that you may stifle Protestants with its sall It may be it were well you should do so were it an house of Dagon a Temple dedicated unto Idols but to deal so with that wherein dwels the Majesty of the Living GOD is not so justifiable It is true Evert this Principle and you overthrow the foundation on which the faith of Protestants is built but it is no less true that you do the same to the foundation of the Christian Faith in generall wherein wee hope your own concernment also lyes And this is the thing that I am declaring unto you namely that either you acknowledg the Principles on which Protestants build their Faith and Profession or by denying them you open a door unto Atheism at least to the extirpation of Christian Religion out of the world I confess you pretend a relief against the present instance in the Authority of your Church sufficient as you say to give a Credibility unto the Scriptures though its own self-evidencing Power and Efficacy with the Confirmation of it by Catholick Tradition exclusive to your present suffrage be rejected Now I suppose you will grant that the Prop you supply men withall upon your casting down the foundations on which they have laid the weight of their eternall Salvation had need be firm and immoveable And remember that you have to do with them who though they may be otherwise inclineable unto you Non tamen ignorant quid distent aera a lupinis and must use their own judgement in the Consideration of what you tender unto them And they Ask you 1. What will you do if it be as you say with them who absolutely reject the Authority of your Châ—â—ch which is the condition of more than a moyety of the Inhabitants of the world to speak sufficiently within compass And 2. What will you advise us to say to innumerable other Persons that are pious and rational who upon the meer consideration of the lives of many of the most of the guides of your Church your bloody inhumane practices your pursuit of worldly carnall designs your visible secular interest wherein you are combined and united cannot perswade themselves that the Testimony of your Church in and about things that are invisible spirituall heavenly and eternall is at all valuable much less that it is sufficient to bear the weight you would lay upon it 3. Was not this the way and method of Vaninus for the Introduction of his Atheism first to question sleight and sophistically except against the old approved Arguments and Evidences manifesting the beeing and existence of a Divine self-subsisting Power substituting in their room for the confirmation of it his own Sophisms which himself knew might be easily discussed and disproved Do you deal any better with us in decrying the Scripture's self-evidencing Efficacy with the Testimony given unto it by God himself substituting nothing in the room thereof but the Authority of your Church A man certainly can take up nothing upon the sole Authority of your Church untill contrary to the pretensions Reasons and Arguments of far a greater number of Christians than your selves he acknowledge you to be a true Church at least if not the only Church in the world Now how I pray will you bring him into that state and condition that he may rationally make any such judgement How will you prove unto him that there is any such thing as a Church in the World that a Church hath any Authority that its Testimony can make any thing credible or meet to be believed You must prove these things to him or whatever assent he gives unto what you say is from fanaticall credulity To suppose that he should believe you upon your word because you are the Church is to suppose that he believes that which you are yet but attempting to induce him to believe If you persist to press him without other proof not only to believe what you first said unto him but also even this that whatever you shall say to him hereafter that he must believe it because you say it Will not any rationall man nauseate at your unreasonable importunity and tell you that men who have a mind to be befooled may meer with such Alchymisticall pretenders all the world over Will you perswade him that you are the Church and that the Church is furnished with the Authority mentioned by rational Arguments I wish you would inform me of any one that you can make use of that doth not include a Supposition of something unproved by you and which can never be proved but by your own Authority which is the thing in Question or the immediate Authority of God which you reject A number indeed of pretences or it may be Probabilities you may heap together which yet upon examination will not be found so much neither unless a
Church yield any obedience or perform any acceptable worship unto God but what was founded on and regulated by his Word given unto them antecedently unto their obedience and worship to be the sole foundation and Rule of it That you have no concernment in what is or may be truly spoken of the Church we shall afterwards shew but it is not for the interest of Truth that wee should suffer you without controul to impose such absurd notions on the minds of men especially when you pretend to direct them unto a Settlement in Religion Alike true is it that the Church gives Authority unto the Scripture Every true Church indeed gives witness or Testimony unto it and it is its Duty so to do it holds it forth declares and manifests it so that it may be considered and taken notice of by all which is one main End of the Institution of the Church in this world But the Church no more gives Authority to the Scripture than it gives Authority to God himself He requires of men the discharge of that Duty which he hath assigned unto them but stands not in need of their suffrage to confirm his Authority It was not so indeed with the Idols of old of whom Tertullian said rightly Si Deus homini non placuerit Deus non erit The reputation of their Deity depended on the Testimony of men as you say that of Christ's doth on the Authority of the Pope But I shall not farther insist upon the disprovement of this vanity having shewed already that the Scripture hath all its Authority both in its self and in reference unto us from Him whose Word it is and wee have also made is appear that your Assertions to the contrary are meet for nothing but to open a door unto all Irreligiousness Prophaneness and Atheism so that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing sound or savoury nothing which an heart carefull to preserve its Loyalty unto God will not nauseate at nothing not suited to oppugn the fundamentals of Christian Religion in this your Position This ground well fixed you tell us 11. That the Church is infallible or cannot erre in what she teacheth to be believed And we ask you what Church you mean and how far you intend that it is infallible The only known Church which was then in the world was in the Wilderness when Moses was in the mount Was it infallible when it made the golden Calf and danced about it proclaiming a feast unto Jebovah before the Calf was the same Church afterward Infallible in the dayes of the Judges when it worshipped Baalim and Aftaroth or in the dayes of Jeroboam when it sacrificed before the Calves at Dan and Bethel or in the other branch of it in the dayes of Ahaz when the High-Priest set up an Altar in the Temple for the King to offer Sacrifice unto the gods of Damascus or in the dayes of Jehoiakiâ— and Zedekiah when the High-Priest with the rest of the Priests imprisoned and would have slain Jeremiah for preaching the word of God or when they preferred the worship of the Queen of Heaven before that of the God of Abraham Or was it infallible when the High-Priest with the whole Councel or Saâ—edrim of the Church judicially condemned as far as in them lay their own Messias and rejected the Gospel that was preached unto them You must inform us what other Church was them in the world or you will quickly perceive how ungrounded your generall Maxim is of the Churches absolute infallibility As farre indeed as it attends unto the Infallible Rule given unto it it is so but not one jot farther Moreover we desire to know What Church you mean in your Assertion or rather what is it that you mean by the Church Do you intend the Mystical Church or the whole number of Gods Elect in all Ages or in any Age militant on the Earth which principally is the Church of God Ephes. 5. 26 Or do you intend the whole diffused body of the Disciples of Christ in the world separated to God by Baptism and the Profession of saving truth which is the Church Catholick visible Or do you mean any particular Church as the Roman or constantinopolitan the French Dutch or English Church If you intend the first of These or the Church in the first sense we acknowledge that it is thus far infallible that no true member of it shall ever totally and finally renounce lose or forsake that faith without which they cannot please God and be saved This the Scripture teacheth this Austin confirmeth in an bundred places If you intend the Church in the second sense we grant that also so far unerring and infallible as that there ever was and ever shall be in the world a number of men making Profession of the saving Truth of the Gospel and yielding professed subjection unto our Lord Jesus Christ according unto it wherein consists his visible Kingdome in this world that never was that never can be utterly overthrown If you speak of a Church in the last sense then we tell you That no such Church is by virtue of any Promise of our Lord Jesus Christ freed from erring yea so farre as to deny the fundamentals of Christianity and thereby to lose the very being of a Church Whilst it continues a Church it cannot erre fundamentally because such Errours destroy the very being of a Church but those who were once a Church by their failing in the Truth may cease to be so any longer And a Church as such may so fail though every Person in it do not so for the individual members of it that are so also of the Mysticall Church shall be preserved in its Apostasie And so the Mysticall Church and the Catholick Church of Professors may be continued though all particular Churches should fail So that no Person the Church in no sense is absolutely freed in this world from the danger of all errours that is the condition wee shall attain in Heaven here where we know butin part wee are incapable of it The Church of the Elect and every member of it shall eventually be preserved by the power of the Holy Ghost from any such errour as would utterly destroy their Communion with Christ in Grace here or prâ—vent their fruition of him in Glory hereafter or as the Apostle speaks they shall assuredly be kept by the Power of God through faith unto salvation The Generall Church of Visible Professors shall be alwayes so farre preserved in the world as that there shall never want some in some place or other of it that shall profess all needfull saving Truths of the Gospel in the belief whereof and obedience whereunto a man may be saved But for Particular Churches as such they have no security but what lyes in their diligent attendance unto that Infallible Rule which will preserve them from all hutfull Errours if through their own default they neglect not to keep close unto it And your
acknowledge her a true Church as a theif is a true man who will not acknowledge her to be a pure Church much less most pure God be mercifull to poor worms this boasting doth not become us it is not unlike hers who cryed Is it as a Queen and shall see no sorrow I wish you begin to be sensible and ashamed of it But yet I fear it is otherwise for whereas in your Fiat you had proclaimed your Roman Church and Party to be absolutely innocent and unblameable you tell us pag. 10. of your Epistle that you can make it appear that it is far more innocent and amiable than you have made it more than absolutely innocent it seems a note so high that it sounds harshly And whereas we shall manifest your Church to have lost her native beauty we know that no painting of her which is all you can do will render her truly amiable unto a spirituall eye She hath too often defiled her self to pretend now to be lovely But to this you say I reply The Church that then was in the Apostles time was indeed true not the Roman Church that now is and adde So so then I say that former true Church must fall sometime or other when did she fall and how did the sall by Apostasie Heresie or Schisme S r you very lamely represent my Answer that you might seem to say something unto it when indeed you say nothing at all I discover unto you the equivocation you use in that expression the Church of Rome and shew you that the thing now so called by you had neither being nor name neither essence nor affection in the dayes of old it s very being is but the terminus as quem of a Churches fall I shewed you also that the Church of old that was pure fell not whilest it was so but that the men who succeeded in the place where they lived in the profession of Religion gradually fell from the purity of that profession which the Church at its first planting did enjoy But all that discourse you pass by and repeat again your former Question to which you subjoyn my first Answer which was it was possible she might fall by an Earthquake as did those of Colosse and Laodicea to which you We speak not here of any casuall or naturall downfall or death of mortals by Plague Famine or Earthquake but a morall and voluntary lapse in faith What do you speak to me of Earthquakes It is well you do so now explain your self your former enquiry was only in generall how or by what means she ceased to be what she had been before as though it were impossible to assign any such neither did I exclude the sense whereunto you now restrain your words And had I only shewed you that it was possible she might fall and come to nothing and yet not by any of the wayes or means by you mentioned without proceeding unto the consideration of them also yet your especiall enquiry being resolved into this generall one from whence it is taken how a pure flourishing Church may cease to be so I had rendred your enquiry useless unto your present purpose though I had not answered your intention For certainly that which ceaseth to be ceaseth to be pure seeing non entis nullae sunt affectiones The Church of the Brittains in this part of the â—sland now called England was once as pure a Church as ever was the Church of Rome yet she ceased to be long since and that neither by Apostasie Here sie nor Schisme but by the sword of the Saxons And to tell you the truth I do not think the old Church of Rome unconcerned in this instance then especially when Rome was left desolate by Totilas and without inhabitant for the Church of Rome is urbis and not as you vainly imagine orbiâ— Ecclesia Again I told you she might fall by Idolatry and so neither by Apostasie Heresie or Schisme To which you reply Good S r Idolatry is a mixt misdemeanour both in faith and manners I speak of the single one of faith and he that falls by Idolatry if he keep still some parts of Christianity entire he falls by Heresie by Apostasie if he keep none I am perswaded you are the first that ever gave this description of Idolatry and the last that will do so it is a mixt misdemeanour in faith and manners Manners you speak of in contradistinction to Faith and you so explain your self in which sense they relate only unto morall conversation regulated by the second Table That Idolatry hath been and is constantly attended with corruption in manners the Apostle declares Rom. 1. and I willingly grant but how in its self or its own nature it should come to be a mixt misdemeanour in faith and in manners I know not neither can you tell me which is the fleshy which is the fishy part of this Dagon what it is in it that is a misdemeanour in faith and what in manners According to this description of yours an Idolater should be an ill mannered or an unmannerly Heretick But you speak of the single misdemeanour in faith but who gave you leave so to restrain your enquiry I allowed you before to except against one instance whereby many a Church hath fallen but if you will except Idolatry and Manners also your endeavour to provide a shelter for your guilt is shamefull and vain For what you except out of your enquiry if you confess not to have been yet you do that it may be or might have been And you do wisely to let your Adversary know that he is to strike you only where you suppose your self armed but by all means must let your naked parts alone and doubtless he must needs be very wise who will take your advice The Church of Judah was once a pure Church in the dayes of David how came she then to fall by Apostasie Heresie or Schisme I answer if you will give me leave she fell by Idolatry and corruption of manners against both which the Prophets were protestants 2 King 17. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God protested against them by his Prophets Again the same Church reformed in the dayes of Ezra Nehemiah Zerubbabel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the men of the Great Congregation was a pure Church how did it fall not by Idolatry as formerly but by corruption of life unbelief and rejecting the Word of God for superstitious traditions untill it became a den of Thieves You see then there are other wayes of a Churches falling from its pristine purity than those by you insisted on And if you shall enquire how it may fall you must exclude nothing out of your enquiry whereby it may do so and whereby some Churches have done so And if you will have my thoughts in this matter they are that the beginning of the fall of your Church and many others lay in unbelief corruption of life conformity to the world and other sins
to give us an unquestionable settlement in Religion Whether it be meet to hearken unto God or men judge you For our parts wee seek not for the foundation of our settlement in long uncertain discourses doubious conclusions and inferences fallible conjectures sophisticall reasonings such as you would call us unto but in the express direction and command of God Him we can follow and trust unto without the least fear of miscarriage Whither you would lead us wee know not and are not willing to make desperate experiments in things of so high concernment But since you have been pleased to overlook what hath been discoursed unto this purpose in the Animadversions and with your usuall confidence to affirm that I no where at all speak one word to the Case that you proposed I shall for your further satisfaction give you a little enlargement of my thoughts as to the Principles on which Protestants and Romanists proceed in these matters and compare them together that it may be seen whether of us build on the most stable and adequate foundation as to the superstruction aymed at by us both Two things you profess if I mistake not to ayme at in your Fiat at least you pretend so to do 1. Moderation in and about our differences whilest they continue 2. The reduction of all dissenters unto an unity in faith and Profession Things no doubt great and excellent He can be no Christian that aymes not at them that doth not earnestly desire them You profess to make them your Design Protestants do so also Now let us consider whether of the two you or they are fitted with Principles according unto the diversity of Professions wherein you are engaged for the regular accomplishment and effecting of these ends And in the consideration of the latter of them you will find your present Case fully and clearly resolved For the first of Moderation I intend by it and I think so do you also the mutuall forbearance of one another as to any effects of hatred enmity or animosities of any kind attended with offices of Love Charity Kindness and Compassion proceeding from a frame of heart or gracious habit of mind naturally producing such effects with a quiet peaceable deportment towards one another during our present differences in or about any thing in Religion Certainly this Moderation is a blessed thing earnestly commended unto us by our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles and as necessary to preserve peace among Christians as the Sunne in the firmament is to give light unto the world The very Heathen could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moderation is the life of all things and nothingis durable but from the Influence which it receives from it Now in pressing after moderation Protestants proceed chiefly on two Principles which being once admitted make it a Duty indispensable And I can assure you that no man will long follow after moderation but only he that looks upon it as his Duty so to do Incident provocations will quickly divert them in their course who pursue it for any other ends or on any other accounts The first Principle of the Protestants disposing them to moderation and indispensably exacting it of them as their Duty is that amongst all the Professours of the Name of Christ who are known by their Relation unto any Church or Way of Note or Mark in the world not actually condemned in the Primitive or Apostolicall times there is so much saving Truth owned and taught as being received with faith and submitted unto with sincere obedience is sufficient to give them that profess it an Interest in Christ and in the Covenant of Grace and Love of God and to secure their salvation This Principle hath been openly defended by them and I profess it to be mine It is true there are wayes whereby the Truth mentioned may be rendred ineffectuall but that hinders not but that the Principle is true and that the Truth so received is sufficient for the producing of those effects in its kind and place And let men ptetend what they please the last day will discover that that Faith which purifieth the heart and renders the person in whom it is accepted to God by Jesus Christ may have its objective Truths confined in a very narrow compass yet it must embrace all that is indispensably necessary to salvation And it is an unsufferable Tyranny over the Souls and Consciences of men to introduce and assert a necessity of believing whatever this or that Church any or indeed all Churches shall please to propose For the proposall of all the Churches in the world cannot make any thing to be necessary to be believed that was not so antecedently unto that proposall Churches may help the faith of Believers they cannot burthen it or exercise any dominion over it He that believeth that whatever God reveales is true and that the holy Scripture is a perfect Revelation of his mind and will wherein almost all Christians agree need not fear that he shall be burdened with multitudes of particular Articles of Faith provided he do his Duty in sincerity to come to an acquaintance with what God hath so revealed Now if mens common Interest in Christ their head and thereby their participation of the same Spirit from him with their union in the bond of the Covenant of Grace and an equall sharing in the Love of God the Father be the Principles and upon the matter the only grounds and reasons of that speciall Love without dissimulation which Christians ought to bear one towards another from whence the moderation pleaded for must proceed or it is a thing of no use in our present case at least no way generally belonging to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and if all these things may be obtained by vertue of that Truth which is professed in common among all known Societies of Christians doth it not unavoidably follow that we ought to exercise moderation towards one another however differing in or about things which destroy not the Principles of Love and Union Certainly we ought unless we will resolvedly stifle the actings of that Love which is implanted in all the Disciples of Christ and besides live in an open disobedience unto his commands This then indispensably exacts moderation in Protestants towards them that differ from them and that not only within the lines of Protestancy because they believe that notwithstanding that dissent they have or may have for ought they know an interest in those things which are the only reasons of that Love which is required in them towards the Disciples of Christ. There is a moderation proceeding from the Principles of Reason in generall and requisite unto our common interest in humanity which is good and an especiall ornament unto them in whom it is especially if they are Persons exalted above others in place of Rule and Goveanment Men fierce implacable revengefull impatient treading down all that they dislike under their feet are the greatest defacers of the
man will swallow amongst them that which is destitute of all Probability but what is included in the evidence given unto it by Divine Revelation which is not yet pleaded unto him It may be then you will work Miracles to confirm your Assertions Let us see them For although very many things are requisite to manifest any works of wonder that may be wrought in the world to be reall Miracles and good Caution be required to judge unto what end Miracles are wrought yet if we may have any tolerable evidence of your working Miracles in Confirmation of this Assertion that you are the true and only Church of God with the other Inferences depending thereon which we are in the Consideration of you will find us very easie to be treated withall But herein also you fail You have then no way to deal with such a man as we first supposed but as you do with us and produce Testimonies of Scripture to prove and confirm the Authority of your Church and then you will quickly find where you are and what snares you have cast your selves into Will not a man who hears you proving the Authority of your Church by the Scripture ask you And whence hath this Scripture its Authority yea that is supposed to be the thing in Question which denying unto it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you yet produce to confirm the Authority of that by whose Authority alone its self is evidenced to have any Authority at all Rest in the Authority of God manifesting its self in the Scripture witnessed unto by the Catholick Tradition of all Ages you will not But you will prove the Scripture to be the Word of God by the Testimony of your Church and you will prove your Châ—â—â—h to be enabled sufficiently to testifie the Scriptures to be of God by the Testimonies of the Scripture Would you knew where to begin and where to end But you are indeed in a Circle which hath neither beginning nor ending I know not when we shall be enabled to say Inventus Chrysippe tui finitor acervi Now do you think it reasonable that we should leave our stable and immoveable firm foundations to run round with you in this endless Circle untill through giddiness we fall into Unbelief or Atheism This is that which I told you before you must either acknowledge our Principle in this matter to be firm and certain or open a door to Atheism and the Contempt of Christian Religion seeing you are not able to substitute and thing in the room thereof that is able to bear the weight that must be laid upon it if we believe For how should you do so shall man be like unto God or equall unto him The Testimony we rest in is Divine fortified from all Objections by the strongest humane Testimony possible namely Catholick Tradition That which you would supply us with is meerly Humane and no more And 4. your Importunity in opposing this Principle is so much the more marvellous unto us because therein you openly oppose your selves to express Testimonies of Scripture and the full Suffrage of the Ancient Church I wish you would a little weigh what is affirmed 2 Pet. 1. 19 20. Psal. 119. 152. Joh. 5. 34 35 36 39. 1 Thess. 2. 13. Act. 17. 11. 1 Joh. 5. 6 10. 1 Joh. 2. 20. Heb. 11. 1 Tim. 1. 15. Act. 26. 22. And will you take with you the consent of the Ancients Clemens Alexand. Strom. 7. speaks fully to our purpose as he doth also lib. 4. where he plainly affirms that the Church proved the Scripture by its selfâ— and other things as the Unity of the Deity by the Scripture But his own words in the former place are worth the recital 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the beginning of Faith or Principle of what we teach we have the Lord who in sundry manners and by divers parts by the Prophets Gospel and holy Apostles leads us to knowledge And if any one suppose that a Principle stands in need of another to prove it he destroys the nature of a Principle or it is no longer preserved a Principle This is that we say The Scripture the Old and New Testament is the Principle of our Faith This is proved by its self to be of the Lord who is its Author and if we cause it to depend on any thing else it is no longer the Principle of our Faith and Profession And a little after where he hath shewed that a Principle ought not to be disputed nor to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of any debate he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is meet then that receiving by Faith the most absolute Principle without other demonstration and taking demonstrations of the Principle from the Principle its self that we be instructed by the voice of the Lord unto the knowledge of the Truth That is we believe the Scripture for its own sake and the Testimony that God gives unto it in it and by it and do prove every thing else by it and so are confirmed in the faith or knowledge of the Truth So he further explains himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we do not simply or absolutely attend or give heed unto men determining or defining against whom it is equall that we may define or declare our judgements So it is whilest the Authority of man or men any Society of men in the world is pleaded the Authority of others may be as good reason be objected against it as whilest you plead your Church and its definitions others may on as good grounds oppose theirs unto you therein And therefore Clemens proceeds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if it be not sufficient meerly to declare or assert that which appears to be truth but also to make that Credible or fit to be believed which is spoken we seek not after the Testimony that is given by men but we confirm that which is proposed or enquired about with the voice of the Lord which is more full than any demonstration or rather is its self the only demonstration according to the knowledge whereof they that have tasted of the Scriptures are believers Into the voice the Word of God alone the Church then resolved their Faith this only they built upon acknowledging all humane Testimony to be too weak and infirm to be made a foundation for it And this voice of God in the Scripture evidencing its self so to be is the only Demonstration of Faith which they rested in whereupon a little after he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so wee having perfect Demonstrations out of the Scriptures are by Faith demonstratively assured or perswaded of the Truth of the things proposed This was the Profession of the Church of old this the resolution of their faith This is that which Protestants in this Case adhere unto They proved the Scripture to be from God as he elswhere speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as
your selves to wave I should have wholly passed by this discourse unto which no occasion was administred in the Animadversions but now as you have hanâ—dled the matter unless I would have it taken for granted that the Principles of the Roman Church are more suited unto the establishment and promotion of the interest and Soveraignty of Kings and other supream Magistrates and in particular the Kings of these Nations then those of Protestants which in Truth I do not believe I must of necessity make a little further enquiry into your Discourse And I desire your pardon if in my so doing any thing be spoken that suits not so well your interest and designs neither expecting nor desiring any if ought be delivered by me not according to Truth To make our way the more clear some of the ambiguous expressions which you make use of to cloud and hide your intention in your enquiry after the Head of the Church must be explained 1. By the Church you understand not this or that particular Church not the Church of this of that Nation Kingdom or Countrey but the whole Catholick Church throughout the world And when you have explained your self to this purpose you endeavour by six Arguments no less p. 67 68. to prove that no King ever was or can be Head of it He said well of old In causa facili quemvis licet esse disertum I wonder you contented your self to give us six Reasons only and that you proceeded not at least unto the high hills of eighteenthly and nineteenthly that you talk of in your Fiat Lux where you scoff at the preaching of Presbyterians it may be you will scarely ever obtain such another opportunity of shewing the fertility of your invention So did he florish who thought himself secure from adversaries Caâ—ut altum in praelia tollit Ostenditque humeros latos alternaque jactat Brachia protendens verberat ictibus auras But you do like him you only beat the ayre Do you think any man was ever so distempered as to dream that any King whatever could be the absolute Head of the whole Catholick Church of Christ we no more think any King in any sence to be the Head of the Catholick Church then we think the Pope so to be The Roman Empire was at its hight and glory when first Christianity set forth in the world and had extended its bounds beyond those of any Kingdom that arose before it or that hath since succeeded unto it And yet within a very few years after the Resurrection of Christ the Gospel had diffused it self beyond the limits of that Empire among the Parthians and Indians and unto Britannorum Romanis inaccessa loca as Tertullian calls them Now none ever supposed that any King had power or Authority of any sort in reference unto the Church or any members of it without or beyond the precise limits of his own Dominions The Enquiry we have under Consideration about the Power of Kings and the obedience due unto them in Ecclesiastical things is limited absolutely unto their own Kingdoms and unto those of their subjects which are Christians in them And this Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta Pulveris exigui jactu concussa quiescunt A little observation of this one known and granted Principle renders not only your six Reasons altogether useless but surpersedes also a great part of your Rhetorick which under the ambiguity of that expression you display in your whole Discourse Secondly You pleasantly lead about your unwary Reader with the ambiguity of the other term the Head Hence p. 58. you fall into a great exclamation against Protestants that acknowledging the King to be the Head of the Church they do not supplicate unto him and acquiesce in his judgement in Religious affairs as if ever any Protestant acknowledged any King or any mortal man to be such an Head of the Church as you fancy to your selves in whose determinations in Religion all men are bound spiritually and as to their eternal concernments to acquiesce and that not because they are true according to the Scripture but because they are his Such an Head you make the Pope such an one on earth all Procestants deny which evacuates your whole Discourse to that purpose p. 58 59. It is true in opposition unto your Papal claim of Authority and Jurisdiction over the subjects of this Kingdom Protestants do assert the King to be so Head of the Church within his own Realms and Dommions as that he is by Gods appointment the sole fountain and spring amongst men of all Authority and Power to be exercised over the Persons of his subjects in matters of external cognizance and order being no way obnoxious to the direction supervisorship and superintendency of any other in particular not of the Pope He is not only the only striker as you phrase it in his Kingdoms but the only Protector under God of all his subjects and the only Distributor of Justice in rewards and punishments unto them not depending in the administration of the one or other on the determinations or orders of your Pope or Church Not that any of them do use absolutely that expression of Head of the Church but that they ascribe unto him all Authority that ought or can be exercised in his Dominions over any of his Subjects whither in things Civil or Ecclesiastical that are not meerly Spiritual and to be ministerially ordered in obedience unto Christ Jesus And that you may the better see what it is that Protestants ascribe unto the King and to every King that is Absolutely supream as his Majesty is in his own Dominions and withall how exceeding vain your unreasonable reproach is which you cast upon them for not giving themselves up unto an absolute acquiescency in humane determinations as meerly such on pretence that they proceed from the Head of the Church I shall give you a brief account of their thoughts in this whole matter First They say that the King is the supream Governor over all Persons whatever within his Realms and Dominions none being exempted on any account from subjection unto his Regal Authority How well you approve of this Proposition in the great astignations you pretend unto Kingly power we shall afterwards enquire Protestants found their perswasion in this matter on the Authority of the Scripture both Old Testament and New and the very Principles constituting Soveraign Power amongst men You speak fair to Kings but at first dash exempt a considerable number of their born subjects owing them indispensible natural Allegiance from their jurisdiction Or this sort are the Clergy But the Kings of Judah of old were not of your mind Solomon certainly thought Abiathar though High Priest subject to his Royal Authority when he denounced against him a sentence of death and actually deposed him from the Priest hood The like course did his successors proceed in For neither had God in the first provision he made for a
of the slaughter'd Disciples of Christ. So that what the Historiâ—n said of the old Râ—mâ—ns in reference unto the Galls or Cimbrians usque ad nostram memoriam Romanâ— alla omniâ— virtuti suae prone esse cum Gall is pro salute non proglorta certari we may apply unto them it is not Truth only but our Temporal safety also that we are enforced to contend with them about And whom they cannot reach with outward violence they endeavour to lade with curses and by precipitate censures and determination to eject them out of the limits of Christianity as to the spiritual and eternal priviledges wherewith it is attended And these things make all hopes of Reconciliation for the future and of present moderation languid and weak as all endeavours after them hither to have been fruitless For whilest they contend that every proposall of their Church every way and mode in the worship of God that is in usage amongst them is not only true and right but of necessity to be embraced and submitted unto and therefore impose them by all sorts of penalties on the consciences and practises of all men is it not evidenâ— that there can be no peace nor agreement in the world but what waste and solitude arising from an extermination of persons otherwise minded then themselves will produce some oâ— them I confess to serve their present supposed advantages have of late declâ—â—med about moderation in matters of Religion and I wish that herein that may be sincerely indeavoured by some which for sinister ends is corruptly pretended by others For mine own part there are no sort of men from whose frame of spirit and waies I shall labour a greater distance then theirs who set themselves against that moderation towards persons differing from them and others in the result of their thoughts upon an humble sincere investigation of the truth and wayes of Christ which himself and his Apostles commend unto us or that refuse to consent unto any way of Reconciliation of dissenters wherein violence is not offered unto the commands of God as stated in their consciences Let the Romanists renounce their principles about the absolute necessity of the subjection of all persons unto the Pope in answer unto that groundless and boundless Authority which in things sacred and civil they assign unto him with their resolution of imposing the dictates of their Church per fas nefas upon our consciences and we shall endeavour with all quietness and moderation to plead with them about our remaining differences and to joyn with them in the profession of those important truths wherein we are agreed But whilest they propose no other forms of Reconciliation but our absolute submission unto their Papal Authority with our assent unto and profession of those doctrines which we are perswaded are contrary to the Scripture with the sense of Catholick Antiquity derogatory to the Glory of God and prejudicial to the salvation of those by whom they are received and our concurrence with them in those wayes of Religious worship which themselves are fallen into by degrees they know not how which we believe dishonourable unto God and pernitious to the souls of men I see no ground of any other peace with them but that only which we are bound to follow with all men in abstaining from mutual violences performing all offices of Christian love and in a special praying for their repentance and coming to the acknowledgment of the Truth On this account was it that some while since upon the desire of some friends I undertook the examination of a discourse entituled Fiat Lux whose Author under a pretence of that moderation which is indeed altogether inconsistent with other principles of his profession endeavoured to insinuate a necessity of the reception of Popery for the bringing of us to peace or agreement here and the interesting of us in any hope of eternal rest and peace hereafter Whether that small labour were seasonable or no or whether any service were done therein to the interest of Truth is left to the judgement of men unprejudiced Not long after there was published an Epistle pretending a Reply unto that discourse being indeed a meer flourish of empty words and a giving up of the cause wherein the Author of Fiat Lux was engaged as desperate and indefensible However I thought it not meet to let it pass without some consideration partly that the design of that Treatise with others of the like nature of late published amongst us might be further manifested and partly that the ends of moderation and peace being fixed between us I might farther try and examine whose and what principles are best suited unto their pursuit and accomplishment I have not therefore confined my self unto an Answer unto the Epistle of the Author of Fiat Lux which indeed it doth not deserve as I suppose himself being judge but have only from it taken occasion to discuss those principles and usages in Religion wherein the most important differences between Papists and Protestants do lie For whereas the whole difference between them and us is branched into two general heads the first concerning those principles which they and we severally build our profession upon and resolve our faith into and the other respecting particular instances in doctrines of faith and practice in Religious worship I have laid hold of occasion to treat of them both of the former absolutely and of the latter in things of most weight and concernment And because the Judgement of Antiquity is deservedly of moment in these things I have not only manifested it to lie plain and clear against the Romanist in instances sufficient to impeach their pretended infallibility which is enough to dissolve that whole imaginary fabrick that is built upon it and centers in it but also in most of the material controversies that are between them and us These things Christian Reader I thought meet to premise towards the prevention of that offence which any may really take or for corrupt ends pretend so to do at the differences in general that are amongst Christians or those in especial which are between us and the Roman Church as also to give an account of the occasion design and end of the ensuing consideration of them THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS CHAP. 1. AN Answer to the Preface or Introduction of the Reply to the Animadversions page 1. CHAP. 2. A Vindication of the first Chapter of the Animadversions The method of Fiat Lux. Romanists Doctrine of the Merit of Good Works p. 27 CHAP. 3. A defence of the second Chapter of the Animadversions Principles of Fiat Lux re-examined Of our receiving of the Gospel from Rome Our abode with them From whom we received it p. 37 CHAP. 4. Further Vindication of the first Chapter of the Animadversions Church of Rome not what she was of 〈◊〉 Her Fall and Apostacy Difference between Idâ—laâ—ry Apostacy and Heresie Schism Principles of the Church of Rome condemned by the
lay a speciall claim to the Priesthood And indeed for your part if your present perswasion be as you sometimes pretend it to be that your Fiat Lux is not a perswasive unto Popery you have given a sufficient testimony that you can be of an opinion that no man else in the world is of nor will be do what you can But the insufficiency of your Principles and Arguments to accomplish your design hath been in part already evinced and shall God willing in our progress be further made manifest This is the summe of what appears in the first part of your prefatory discourse concerning my mistake of your design which how little it hath tended unto your advantage I hope you being to understand Your next labour consists in a pacifick charitable Enquiry after the Author of the Animadversions with an endeavour by I know not how many Reasons to confirm your surmize that he is a Person that had an interest in the late troubles in the Nation or as you phrase it was a part of that dismall tempest which overbore all before it not only Church and State but Riâ—son Right Honesty all true Religion and even good Nature too See what despair of managing an undertaking which cannot well be deserted will drive men unto Are you not sensible that you cry Vos ô miht manes Este boni quoniam Superis aversa voluntas Or like the Jews who when they were convinced of their errours and wickedness by our Saviour began to call him Samaritane and Devil and to take up stones to cast at him Or as Crescens the Cynick dealt with Justin Martyr whom because he could not answer after he had engaged in a dispute with him he laboured to bring him into suspition with the Emperour and Senate of Rome as a person dangerous to the Commonwealth And so also the Arians dealt with Athanasius It were easie to manifest that the spring of all this discourse of yours is smart and not Loyalty and that it proceeds from a sense of your own disappointment and not zeal for the welfare of others but how little it is to your purpose I shall shew you anon and could quickly render it as little to your advantage For what if I should furmize that you were one of the Friers that stirred up the Irish to their rebellion and unparralleld murthers Assure your self I can quickly give as many and as probable Reasons for my so doing as you have given or can give for your conjecture about the Author of the Animadversions on your Fiat Lux. You little think how much it concerns him to look to himself who undertakes to accuse another and how easie it were to make you repent your accusation as much as ever Crassus did his accusing of Carbo But I was in good hope you would have left such reflections as are capable of so easie a retortion upon your self especially being irregular and no way subservient unto your design and being warned beforehand so to do Who could imagine that a man of so much piety and mortification as in your Fiat you profess your self to be should have so little regard unto common honesty and civillity which are shrewdly entrenched upon by such uncharitable surmizes I suppose you know that the Apostle reckons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereof you have undertaken the management of one amongst the things that are contrary to the Doctrine that is according unto godliness otherwise suspicion is in your own power nor can any man hinder you from surmizing what you please This he knew in Plautus who cryed Ne admittam culpam ego meo sum promus pectori Suspicio est in pectore alieno sita Nam nune ego te si surripnisse suspicer Jovi coronam de capite è Capitolio Quod in culmine astat summo si non id feceris Atque id tamen mihi lubeat suspicarier Qui tu id prohibere me potes ne suspicer And I know that concerning all your dispute and arguings in these Pages you may say what Lucian doth about his true Story 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You write about the things which have neither been seen nor suffered heard nor much enquired after such is the force of faction and sweetness of revenge in carnall minds To deliver you if it may be from the like miscarriages for the future let me inform you that the Author of the Animadversions is a Person who never had a hand in nor gave consent unto the raising of any War in these Nations nor unto any politicall alteration in them no nor to any one that was amongst us during our Revolutions but he acknowledgeth that he lived and acted under then the things wherein he thought his duty consisted and challengeth all men to charge him with doing the least personall injury unto any professing himself ready to give satisfaction to any one that can justly claim it Therefore as unto the publick affairs in this Nation he is amongst them who bless God and the King for the Act of Oblivion and that because he supposeth that all the Inhabitants of the Kingdome which lived in it when his Majesty was driven out of it have cause so to do which some Priests and Friers have and that in reference unto such actings as he would scorn for the saving of his life to give the least countenance unto among whom it is not unlikely that you might be one which yet he will not averre nor give Reasons to prove it because he doth not know it so to be But you have sundry Reasons to justifie your self in your Charge and they are as well worthy our consideration as any thing else you have written in your Epistle and shall therefore not be neglected The first of them you thus express pag. 12. You cannot abide to hear of Moderation it is with you most wicked hypocriticall and divelish especially as it comes from me for this one thing Fiat Lux suffers more from you than for all the Contents of the Book put together My reason is your passion my moderation enftames your wrath and you are therefore stark wilde because I utter so much of sobriety This is your first Reason which you have exactly squared to the old Rule Calumniare fortiter aliquid adhaerebit Calumny will leave a scar would you were your self only concerned in these things But among the many wofull miscarriages of men prosessing the Religion of Jesus Christ whereby the beauty and glory of it have been stained in the world and it self in a great measure rendred ineffectuall unto its blessed ends there is not any thing of more sad consideration than the endeavours of men to promote and propagate the things which they suppose belong unto it by wayes and means directly contrary unto and destructive of its most known and fundamentall Principles For when it is once observed and manifest that the actings of men in the promotion of any Religion are forbidden and condemned in that Religion which
walk in the steps of their faith herein It believed that all Image-worship was forbidden Exod. 20. And whether you abide in the same perswasion we shall afterwards examine And many more instances of the like kind you may at any time be minded of You hast to that you would fain be at which will be found as little to your purpose as those whose consideration you so carefully avoid You say Did she fall by Heresie in adhering to any errour in Faith contrary to the approved doctrine of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and Catholick Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto S r I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad hominem to one that doth not take them so And then if indeed the Roman Church had ever swerved in faith as you say she has and be her self as another ordinary particular Church as you say she is them might you find some one or other more generall Church if any there were to judge her some Oecumenicall Councell to condemn her some Fathers either Greek and Latin expresly to writs against her as Protestants now do some or other grave Authority to censure her or at least some company of Believers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell None of which since you are not able to a assign wherein you have spoken more rightly than you were aware of for not to be able to assign none of them infers at least an ability to assign some if not all of them my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was Answ. 1. You represent my Answer lamely I desire the Reader to consult it in the Animadversions pag. 66 67 68. What you have taken notice of discovers only your fineness in making Heresie an adherence to an errour in faith contrary to the doctrine of the Church and your selves the Church whereby you must needs be secured from Heresie though you should adhere to the most hereticall Principles that ever were broached in the world But nothing of all this as I have shewed will be allowed you 2. As we have seen some of the Reasons why you were so unwilling to try the Cause of your Church on the heads of Idolatry and Apostasie so here you discover a sufficient Reason why you have passed over your other head of Schism in silence You avow your self one of the most schismaticall Principles that were ever adhered unto by any professing the name of Christ. The Roman Church and the Catholick are with you one and the same Is not this Petilianus his in parte Donati nay Basilides his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan Heres 4. We only are men all others are Dogs and Swine Macte virtute If this be not to shew modcration and to persue reconciliation at once to shut out all men but your selves from the Church here and consequently Heaven hereafter what can be thought so to be In earnest S r you may talk what you please of moderation but whilest you avow this one wretched schismaticall Principle you do your endeavour to exclude all true Christian moderation out of the world 3. Why do you conclude that your Query is not answered Suppose one Question could not be answered doth it necessarily follow that another cannot I suppose you take notice that this is another Question and not that at first proposed as I told you before Your first enquiry was about your Churches crime this is about her conviction and condemnation and your Conclusion hath no strength in it but what is built on this unquestionable Maxim that None ever offended who was not publickly judged as though there were no Harlot in the world but those that have been carted It is enough S r that her condition is sub judice as it will be whether you or I will or no and that there is not evidence wanting for her conviction nor ever was since her fall though it may be it hath not at all times been so publickly managed And yet so vain is your triumphant Conclusion that we rest not here but prove also that she hath been of old judged and condemned as you will hear anon And thus I have once more given you an Answer to your enquiry how your Church fell namely that she hath done so by all the wayes and means by which it is possible for a Church to fall She failed under the just hand of God when the persons of that Vrbick Church were extirpated partly by others but totally by Totilas as the Brittish Church in England fell by the sword of the Saxons She hath fallen by Idolatry and corruption of life as did the Church of the Jews before the Captivity She hath fallen by her relinquishment of the written Word as the only rule of faith and worship and by adhering to the uncertain traditions of men as did the Church of the Jews after their return from captivity She hath fallen by Apostasie in forsaking the profession of many important truths of the Gospel as the Church of the Galatians did for a season in their relinquishment of the doctrine of Justification by grace alone She hath fallen by Heresie in coyning new Articles of faith and imposing them on the consciences of the Disciples of Christ as the Montanists did with their new Paraclete and rigid observances She hath fallen by Schisme in her self as the Judaical Church did when divided into Essenes Sadduces and Pharisees setting up Pope against Pope and Councell against Councell continuing in her intestine broils for some ages together and from all others by the wretched Principle but-now avowed by you as the Donatists did of old She hath fallen by Ambition in the Hildebrandine Principle asserting a Soveraignty in the Pope over the Kings and Potentates of the earth whereof I can give you no precedent instance unless it be of him who claimed the Kingdomes of the world to be his own and boasted that he disposed of them at his pleasure Mat. 4. And now I hope you will not take it in ill part that I have given you a plain Answer unto your Question which as I suppose was proposed unto us for that end and purpose But although these things are evident and sufficiently proved yet I see nothing will satisfie you unless we produce testimonies of former times to manifest that your Church hath been arraigned judged condemned written against by Fathers Councils or other Churches Now though this be somewhat an unreasonable expectation in you and that which I am no way bound unto by the Law of our Discourse to satisfie you in yet to prevent for the future such Ivasions as you have made use of on all occasions in your Epistle I shall in a few pregnant and unquestionable Instances give you an account both when how and by whom the falls of your Church have been
sunt Nam intantum se Catholicos judicant ut nos ipsos titulo Haereticae praevitatis infament quod ergo illi nobis sunt hoc nos illis They are hereticks but they know it not they are hereticks unto us but not unto themselves for they so far judge themselves to be Catholick that they condemn us for the guilt of Heresie So then what they are to us that we are to them Especilly was your whole practice in this matter solemnly condemned in the Case of Priscillianus recorded by Sulpitius Severus in the end of his second Book the only Instance the Bellarmine could fix upon in all Antiquity for the putting of any men to death upon the account of Religion for the other whom he mentions he confesseth himself to have been a Magitian Ithacius with some other Bishops his Associates procured Maximus the Tyrant to put Priscillianus a Gnosticke with some others to death and to banish some of their followers What saith the Historian thereon Hoc modo saith he homines luce indignissimi pessimo exemplo necati aut exili is mulctati On this manner were those unworthy wretches either slain or punished by banishment by a very evil precedent And what was the success of this zeal Non solum saith he non repressest haeresis sed confirmata latius propagata The heresis was so farre from being repressed by it that it was the more confirmed and propagated And what ensued hereupon in the Church its self Inter nostros perpetuum discordiarum bellum exarsit quod jam per quindecim annos foedis dissensionibus agitatum nullo modo sopiri poterat Et nunc cum maximè discordiis Episcoporum turbari â—isceri omnia cernerentur cunctáque per eos odio aut gratia metu inconstantia invidia factione avâ—aritâ—a arrogantia somno desidia essent depravata postremo plures adver sum paucos bâ—nè consulentes insanis consiliis pertinacibus studiis certabant Inter haec plebs Dei optimus quisque probro atque ludibrio habebatur With which words he shuts up his Ecclesiasticall story Amongst ours a lasting war of discord was kindled which after it hath now for fifteen years been carried on with shamefull contentions can by no means be allayed And now especially when all things appear to be troubled and perverted by the discord of the Bishops and that all things are depraved by them through hatred favour fear inconstancy envy faction covetousuess pride sleepiness and sloth the most with mad counsels and pertinacious endeavours opposing themselves to the sew that are better advised Amongst all these things the people of God and every honest man is become a reproach and scorn Thus that Historian complaining of the consequents of this proceeding But good men lest not the matter so Martinus Turonensis presently refuseth all communion with them who had any hand in the death or banishment of the persons mentioned So doth Ambrose declare himself to have done Epist. 27. as did the rest of the sober godly Bishops of those dayes At length both Ithacius and Idacius the promoters of this work were solemnly excommunicated though one of them had before for very shame foregone his Bishoprick See Prosp. Chron. 389. and I sidore de Viris Illustribus So that here also the judgment and practice of your Church which she is fallen into is publickly eondemned and written against 1300 years ago Should I insist on all the Testimonies that of this kind might be produced Antè diem clauso componet vesper olympo than I could make an end of them I have added this Instance to the former as knowing them to be the two great pillars on which the tottering fabrick of your Church is raised and which if they were removed the whole of it would quickly fall to the ground and you see how long ago they were both publickly condemned 3. Your Papall Oecumenicall Supremacy hath two main Branches 1. Your Popes spirituall Power over all Persons and Churches in the things of Religion 2. His Power over Emperors Kings and Potentates in reference unto Religion or as you speak in ordine ad spiritualia The first your Church stumbled into by many degrees from the dayes of Victor who made the first notable halt to this purpose The latter you stumbled into in the dayes of Gregory the seventh or Hildebrand It were endless to declare how this fall of your Church hath been declared written against opposed condemned by Churches Councels Fathers Princes and learned men in all Ages Some few evidences to this purpose to satisfie your request I shall direct you unto It was written against and condemned by Cyprian Bishop of Carthage and that in a Councell at Carthage an 258. upon an attempt made by Stephen Bishop of Rome looking in some small degree towards that usurped Supremacy which afterwards was attained unto You may if you please there see him rebuked and the practice of your Church condemned The same Cyprian had done no less before in reference unto some actings of Cornelius the predecessor of Stephen Epist. ad Cornel. Though the pretensions of Cornelius and Stephen were modest in comparison of your present vast Claim yet the Churches of God in those dayes could not bear them It is prejudged in the most famous Councell of Nice which assigned bounds unto the Jurisdiction of Bishops giving to severall of them equall Authority Can. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the ancient Customes be observed that as to Egypt Lybia and Pentapolis the Bishop of Alexandria have power over them or the Churches in them for so is the custome of the Bishop of Rome that is to have power over the adjoyning Churches likewise about Antioch and in other Provinces that the ancient Rights of the Churches be preserved Your Great Pope whom you so frequently call the Pastor of Christendome was here but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Bishop in the City or Church of Rome or of the Church in the City of Rome And bounds are assigned unto the Authority which he claimed by custome as to his of Alexandria and Antioch It is true the Church of Alexandria hath some power assigned ascribed or granted unto it above other Churches of Egypt Lybâ—a and Pentapolis for a warranty whereof the usage of the Roman Church in reference unto her neighbour Churches is made use of which to deal freely with you and to tell you my private thoughts was a confirmation of a disorder by your example which you were from that day forward seldome wanting to give plenty of So to this purpose Concil Antioch Can. 13 and 15. an 341. Concil Constantinop Can 2. an 381. But this Canon of the Nicene Fathers openly condemneth and is perfectly destructive of your at present claimed Supremacy Three Councels together in Africk within the space of twenty years warned your Church of her fall into this Heresie and opposed her attempts for the promotion of it The first at Carthage an 407. which
forbids all appeals unto any beyond the Sea which Rome was to them in Africk no less than it is unto us in England The next was the second Milevitan an 416. where the same prohibition is revived with express respect unto the See of Rome as Binius acknowledgeth The same order is again asserted by another Councell in Africk wherein the pretensions of Boniface unto some kind of superintendency over other Churches are sorely reproved and his way of prosecuting his attempt by pretended Canons of the Councell of Nice after great pains taken and charge disbursed in the discovery of the forgery censured and condemned All these testimonies of the condemnation of this fall of yours by Fathers and Councels you have gathered unto your hand in the Cod. Can. Conc. Afric and by Binius with others Also the substance of all these Canons of Provinciall Synods is confirmed in the fourth Chapter of the Decree of the third Oecumenicall Councell at Ephesus an 431. Act. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It seemeth good to the holy and generall Councell that every Province retain its Rights pure and inviolate which according unto ancient custome it had from the beginning The Decree I confess was purposely framed against the Bishop of Antioch who had taken on him to ordain Bishops in Cyprus out of his Province but it is built on that generall Reason which expresly condemns the Roman pretensions to an unlimited Supremacy The great and famous Councell of Chalcedon an 451. condemned the same Heresie and plainly overthrow the whole foundation of your Papall plea Act. 15. Can. 18. as the Canons of that Councell are collected by Balsamon and Zonaras though some of them with intolerable partiality would separate this and some others from the Body of the Canons of that Councell giving them a place by themselves The Decree contains the Reasons of the Councel's assigning priviledges next unto and equall with the Roman unto the Constantinopolitan Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Fathers our Predecessors granted priviledges to the See of ancient Rome because that was the Imperiall City Do you see from whence proceeded all the priviledges of the Roman throne meerly from the grants and concessions of former Bishops and I wish they had been liberall only of what was their own And what was the reason of their so doing Because the City was Imperiall in which one sentence both their Supremacy and the grounds of it are discarded and virtually condemned for their pretensions are utterly inconsistent with this Synodicall determination They proceed for the same reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They the hundred and fifty Bishops assigned the same or equal Priviledges unto the holy See of new Rome rightly determining that the City which is honoured with the Empire and Senate should enjoy equal Priviledges in things Ecclesiasticall with the ancient Queen-Rome or Rome regent of old Is not your present Supremacy here sufficiently condemned and that by as famous a Councell as ever the Christian world enjoyed And it will not avail you that you fell into this Heresie fully afterwards and not before the determination of this Councell for he that falls into an Heresie after the determination of a Councell is no less condemned therein than he that fell into it before and gave occasion to the Sentence yea his guilt is the greater of the two because he despised the Sentence which he knew which the other it may be neither did nor could foresee I gave you an Instance before how it was condemned and written against by the Brittish Church here in this Island and many more Instances of the same nature might be added The Hildebrandine branch of your Supremacy I mean the power that you challenge over Kings and Potentates in ordine ad spiritualia which having made some progress by insensible degrees was enthroned by Pope Gergory the seventh hath as little escaped opposition censure and condemnation as any Heresie whereinto your Church is fallen This Gregory may be accounted the chief Father of this Heresie for he sicked the unshapen Monster into that terrible form wherein it hath since ranged about in the earth What this mans Principles and Practices were I shall not desire you to learn of Cardinall Benno whom yet I have reason to judge the more impartiall Writer of the two but of Cardinall Baronius who makes it his business to extoll him to the skies Facit eum apud nos Deum virtutes narrat he makes almost a god of him or at least 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Socrates tells us the Lacedaemonians called an excellent man Plato in Menn The chief Kingdoms of Europe as England and Spain with Sicilia and Sardinia and sundry other Principalities he claimed as his own unquestionable fee. The Empire he accounted his proper Care making the deposing of Emperors much of his business The Principles he proceeded upon the same Cardinall informs us of in his Annals ad 〈◊〉 1076. n. 30. And he hath done well to record them that they might be preserved In perpetuam rei memoriam that we might learn what your great Father exercised himself about Dum succus pecori lac subducitur agnis whilest the poor sheep famished for want of knowledge and instruction They are called Dictata Papae and ex tripode we may not doubt being in number twenty seven whereof I shall mind you of a few The first is Quod Romana Ecclesia à solo Domino sit fundata That the Roman Church was founded by the Lord alone 2. Quod solus Romanus Pontifex jure vocatiur Vniversalis That the Roman Bishop is rightfully called Vniversall So some think indeed ever since Pope Gregory the first taught them that he who assumed that Title was a forerunner of Antichrist 3. Quod ille solus possit deponere Episcopos vel reconciliare That he alone can depose Bishops or restore them which agrees well with the practice of all the Councels from that of Antioch which deposed Paulus Samosatenus 7. Quod illi soli licet pro temporis necessitate novas leges condere That he alone as necessity requires can make new Laws Let him proceed 8. Quod solus possit uti Imperialehus insigniis He alone can use Imperiall ensigns It is a great kindness in him doubtless to lend them to any of his neighbours or rather subject Kings 9. Quod slius Papo pedes omnes Principes deosculaetur That it is the Pope alone whose feet all Princes may or ought to kiss Yea and it is a kindness if he kick not their Crowns from their heads with his foot as one did our King John's or tread upon their necks as another did on the Emperor Frederick's 11. Quod unicum sit nomen in mundo Papa scilicet That there is only one name in the world to wit that of the Pope no other name it seems given under heaven Once more 12. Quod illi liceat Imperatores deponere That it
And that A man once rid of his Authority may as easily deride and as solidly confute the Incarnation as the Sprinkling of Holy water so resolving our faith of the Incarnation of Christ into his Authority or Testimony Yea and in the same page That if it had not been for the Pope Christ himself had not been taken in the world for any such Person as he is believed this day And p. 378. to the same purpose The first great fundamental of Christian Religion which is the Truth and Divinity of Christ had it not been for him had failed long ago in the world with much more to the same purpose Hence it is evident that in your judgment all Truth and Certainty in Region depends on the Popes Anthority and Infallibility or as you express it his unerring guidance This is your Principle this you propose as the only medium to bring us unto that Settlement in Religion which you suppose the Scripture is not able to do What course should we now take would you have us believe you at the first word without further triall or examination would you have a man to do so who never before heard of Pope or Church We are commanded to try all things and to hold fast that which is good to try pretending Spirits and the Beraeans are commended for examining by the Scripture what Paul himself preached unto them An implicit Credulity given up to such Dictates is the height of Fanaticism Have wee not reason then to call you and your copartners in this design to an accoun â—how you prove that which you so strenuously assert and suppose and to examine the Principles of that Authority whereunto you resolve all your faith and Religion If upon mature consideration these prove Solid and the Inferences you make from them Cogent it is good Reason that you should be attended unto If they prove otherwise if the first be false and the latter Sophistical you cannot justly take it ill of him that shall advise you to take heed that whilest you are gloriously displaying your Colours the ground that you stand upon do not sink under your feet And here you are forced to go many a step backward to fix your first footing untill you leave your Pope quite out of sight from whence you advance towards him by severall degrees and so arive at his Supremacie and Infallibility and so we shall have Reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri 1. Your first Principle to this purpose is That Peter was the Prince of the Apostles and that in him the Lord Jesus founded a Monarchy in his Church So pag. 360. you call him the head and Prince of the whole Congregation Now this wee think no meet Principle for any one to begin withall in asserting the foundation of Faith and Religion Nor do we think that if it were meet so to be used that it is any way subservient unto your design and purpose 1. A Principle fundamental or first entrance into any way of Settlement in Faith or Religion it cannot possibly be because it presupposeth the knowledg of and assent unto many other great fundamental Articles of Christian Religion yea upon the matter all that are so For before you can rationally talk with a man about Peters Principality and the Monarchical state of the Church hereon depending you must suppose that he believes the Scripture 〈◊〉 be the Word of God and all things that are taught therein concerning Jesus Christ his Person Nature Offices Work and Gospell to be certainly and infallibly true for they are all supposed in your Assertion which without the knowledg of them is uncouth horrid insignificant and forraign to all notions that a man can rationally entertain of God or Religion Nay no attempt of proof or confirmation can be given unto it but by and from Scripture whereby you fall directly into the Principle which you seek so carefully to avoid namely that the Scripture is the only way and means of setling us in the Truth since you cannot settle any man in the very first proposition which you make to lead him into another way but by the Scripture So powerfull is Truth that those who will not follow it willingly it will lead them captive in Triumph whether they will or no. 2. It is unmeet for any purpose because it is not true No one word from the Scripture can you produce in its confirmation wherein yet if it be not revealed it must pass as a very uncertain and frivolous conjecture You can produce no suffrage of the Ancient Church unto your purpose which yet if you could would not presently render any Assertion so confirmed infallibly certain much less fundamental Some indeed of the 4 th Century call Peter Principem Apostolorum but explain themselves to intend thereby 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first or Leader not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince or Ruler And when the ambiguity of that word began to be abused unto pretensions of Preeminence the Council of Carthage expresly condemned it allowing none to be termed Princeps Sacerdotum Many in those dayes thought Peter to be among the Apostles like the Princeps Senatus or Princeps Civi atis the chief in their Assemblies or Principall in dignity how truly I know not but that he should be amongst them and over them a Prince in Office a Monarch as to Rule and Power is a thing that they never once dreamed of and the Asseveration of it is an open untruth The Apostles were equall in their Call Office Place Dignity Employments All the difference between them was in their Labours Sufferings and Success wherein Paul seems to have had the pre-eminence who as Peter and all the rest of the Apostles every one singly and for himself had the care of all the Churches committed unto him thought it may be for the better discharge of their Duty ordinarily they divided their work as they found it necessary for them to apply themselves unto it in particular See 2 Cor. 11. And this equality between the Apostles is more than once insinuated by Paul and that with speciall reference unto Peter 1 Cor. 1. Gal. 1. 18 19. ch 2. 9. And is it not wonderfull that if this Assertion should not only be true but such a Truth as on which the whole faith of the Church was to be built that the Scripture should be utterly silent of it that it should give us no Rules about it no directions to use and improve it afford us no one instance of the exercise of the Power and Authority intimated no not one but that on the contrary it should lay down Principles exclusive of it Matth. 22. 25 26. Luk. 22. 26. And when it comes to make an enumeration of all the Offices appointed by Christ in his Church Eph. 4. 11. should pass over the Prince and his Office in silence on which all the rest were to depend You see what a Foundation you begin to build upon a meer
God in his Word than unto these Principles of yours is rejected by you out of the limits of the Catholick Church that is of Christianity for they are the same To make good your judgement and censure then you vent endless Cavils against the Authority Perfection and Perspicuity of the Scriptures pretending to despise and scorn whatever is offered in their viâ—dication This rope of Sand composed â— false suppositions groundless presumptions inconsequent inferences in all which there is not one word of infallible Truth at least that you can any way make appear so to be is the great Bond you use to gird men withall into the Unity of Faith In brief you tell us that if wee will all submit to the Pope wee shall be sure all to agree But this is no more but as I have before told you what every party of men in the world tender us upon the same or the like condition It is not a meer agreement wee aym at but an agreement in the Truth not a meer Vnity but a Unity of Faith and Faith must be built on Principles infallible or it will prove in the close to have been fancy not Faith carnall imagination not Christian belief otherwise wee may agree in Turcism or Judaism or Paganism as well as in Christianity and to as good purpose Now what of this kind do you tender unto us Would you have us to leave the sure word of Prophesie more sure than a voyce from Heaven the Light shining in the dark places of this world which wee are commanded to attend unto by God himself the Holy Scripture given by Inspiration which is able to make us wise unto Salvation the Word that is perfest sure right converting the Soul enlightning the eyes making wise the simple whose observation is attended with great reward to give heed yea to give up all our Spirituall and eternall concernments to the credit of old groundless uncertain Stories inevident presumptions fables invented for and openly improved unto carnal secular and wicked ends Is your request reasonable Would wee could prevail with you to cease your importunity in this matter especially considering â—the dangerous consequence of the admission of these your Principles unto Christianity in generall For if it be so that S t Peter had such an Episcopacy as you talk of and that a continuance of it in a Succession by the Bishops of Rome be of that indispensable necessity unto the preservation of Christian Religion as is pretended many men considering the nature and quality of that Succession how the means of its continuation have been arbitrarily and occasionally changed what place formerly popular Suffrage and the Imperial Authority have had in it how it came to be devolved on a Conclave of Cardinals what violence and tumults have attended one way what briberies and filthy respects unto the lusts of unclean Persons the other what Interruptions the Succession it self hath had by vacancies Schisms and contests for the place and uncertainty of the Person that had the best right unto the Popedome according to the customes of the dayes wherein he lived and that many of the Persons who have had a place in the pretended Succession have been plainly men of the world such as cannot receive the Spirit of Christ yea open enemies unto his Cross would find just cause to suspect that Christianity were utterly failed many Ages ago in the world which certainly would not much promote the Settlement in Truth and Unity of Faith that we are enquiring after And this is the first way that you propose to supply that Defect which you charge upon the Scripture that it is insufficient to reconcile men that are at variance about Religion and settle them in the Truth And if you are able by so many uncertainties and untruths to bring men unto a Certainty and Scttlement in the Truth you need not despair of compassing and thing that you shall have a mind to attempt But you have yet another Plea which you make no less use of than of the former which must therefore be also now you have engaged us in this work a little examined This is the Church its Authority and Infallibilâ—ty The truth is when you come to make a practical Application of this Plea unto your own use you resolve it into and confound it with that foregoing of the Pope in whom solely many of you would have this Authority and Infallibility of the Church to reside Yet because in your mannagement of it you proceed on other Principles than those before mentioned this pretence also shall be apart considered And here you tell us 1. That the Church was before the Scripture and giveth Authority unto it By the Scriptures you know that wee understand the Word of God with this â—ne Adjunct of its being written by his command and appointment We do not say that it belongs unto the Essence of the Word of God that it be written Whatever is spoken by God wee admit as his Word when wee are infallibly assured that by Him it was spoken and that wee should do so before himself doth not require at our hands for he would have us use our utmost diligence not to be imposed upon by any in his Name Therefore wee grant that the Word of God was given out for the Rule of men in his Worship two thousand years before it was written but it was so given forth as that they unto whom it came had infallible assurance that from Him it came and his Word it was And if you or any man else can give us such assurance that any thing is or hath been spoken by him besides what we have now written in the Scripture wee shall receive it with the same faith and obedience wherewith wee receive the Scripture its self Whereas therefore you say That the Church was before the Scripture if you intend no more but that there was a Church in the world before the word of God was written wee grant it true but not at all to your purpose If you intend that the Church is before the Word of God which at an appointed time was written it may possibly be wrested unto your purpose but is farre from being true seeing the Church is a society of men called to the knowledg and worship of God by his Ward They become a Church by the call of that Word which it seems you would have not given untill they are a Church of Effects produce their Causes Children beget their Parents Light brings forth the Sunne and Heat the Fire So are the Prophets and Apostles built upon the foundation of the Church whereof the Pope is the Corner stone So was the Judaical Church before the Law of iâ— constitution and the Christian before the Word of Promise whereon it was founded and the Word of Command by which it was edified In brief from the day wherein Man was first created upon the earth to the days wherein we live never did a Person or
the only Church of Christ in the earth at least that others are so only so far as they agree with us we being our selves the Rule and Standard of all Gospell Church state laying weight upon what we differ from others in for the most part exceedingly above what it doth deserve Were the Same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus the same frame of spirit that was in his blessed Apostles we should be willing to try the effects of his love and care towards all that profess his Name by a Sedate Consideration at least how far he hath instructed them in the knowledg of his will and what effects this learning of him may produce And to tell you truly I do not think there is a more horrid monster in the earth than that opinion is which in the great diversity that there is among Christians in the world includes happiness and Salvation within the limits and precincts of any party of them as though Christ and the Gospell their own faith obedience and sufferings could not possibly do them any good in their station and condition This is that Alâ—cto Cuitristia bella Iraque insidiaeque crimina noxia Cordi Odit ipse pater Plâ—ton odere sorores Tartareae Monstrum Tot sese vertit in ora Tam saevae facies tot pullulat atra Colubris Whereever this opinion takes place which indeed bidâ— defiance to the Goodness of God and the blood of Christ with a Gigantick boldness for men to talk of Moderation Vnity and Peace is to mock others and to befool themselves in things of the greatest importance in the world altera manu ostentant panem alter a lapidem ferunt for my own part I have not any firmer perâ—wasion in and about these things nor that yields more satisfaction and contentment unto my mind in reflections upon it than this that if a man sincerely beleive all that and only that wherein all Christians in the world agree and yield obedience unto God according to the guidance of what he doth so beleive not neglecting or refusing the knowledg of any one Truth that he hath sufficient means to be instructed â— he need not go unto any Church in the world to secure his Salvation Hic murus aheneus esto It is true it is the Duty of such a man to joyn himself unto some Church of Christ or other which walks in professed subjection unto his institutions and in the observation of his appointments But to think that his not being of or joyning with this or that Society should out him off from all hopes of a blessed eternity is but to entertain a viper in our minds or to act suitably to the Principles of the old Serpent and to put â—orth the venome of of his poyson Some of the Antients indeed tell us that out of the Catholick Church there is no Salvation And so say I also buâ— withall that the beleif mentioned of the Truths generally embraced by Christians in their present divisions in the world I still speak of the most famous and numerous Societies of them and its profession do so constitute a man a member of the Catholick Church that whilest he walks answerably to his profession it is not in the power of this or that no not of all the Churches in the world to divest him of that Priviledge Nor can all these cryes that are in the world We are the Church and we are the Church you are not the Church and you are not the Church perswade me but that as every Assembly in the generall notion of it is a Chorch so every Assembly of Christians that ordinarlly meet to worship God in Christ according to his appointment is a Church of Christ Haec mi pater Te dicere aequum fuit id defendere when you talked of Moderation and Unity such Principles as these had better become you than those which you either privately couched in your Discourse or openly insisted on Men that think of Reducing unity among Christians upon the precise terms of that Truth which they suppose themselves insolidum possessors of Ipsi fibe somnia fingunt do but entertain themselves with pleasant dreams which a little Consideration may awake them from Charity condescension a retrenchment of opinions with a rejection of secular interests and a design for the pursuit of generall obedience without any such respect to the Particular enclousures which diversity of opinions and different measures of Light and Knowledge have made in the field of the Lord as should confine the effects of any Duty towards the Disciples of Christ unto those within them with the like actings of minds suited unto the example of Jesus Christ must introduce the desired Vnity or wee shall expect it in vain These are some of my hasty thoughts upon the Principles of Protestants before mentioned which you and others may make use of as you and they please In the mean time I shall pray that we may amidst all our Differences love one another pray for one another wait patiently for the communication of farther Light unto one another leave evil surmizes and much more the condemning and seeking the ruine of those that dissent from us which men usually do on various pretences most of them false and coyned for the present purpose And when we can arrive thereunto I shall hope that from such generall Principles aâ— before mentioned somewhat may be advanced towards the Peace of Christians and that there will be so when the whole concernment of Religion shall in the Providence of God be unravelled from that worldly and secular interest wherewith it hath been wound up and entangled for sundry Ages and when men shall not be ingaged from their cradles to their graves in a precipitate Zeal for any Church or way of Profession by outward Advantages inseparably mixed and blended with it before they came into the world In the mean time to expect unity in profession by the Reduction of all men to a precise agreement in all the Doctrines that have been and are ventilated among Christians and in all Acts and wayes of worship is to refer the Supream and last Determination of things evangelical to the sword secular power and violence and to inscribe vox ultima Christi upon great guns and other engines of war seing otherwise it will not be effected and what may be done this way I know not Sponte tonat coeunt ipsae sine flamine nubesâ— CHAP. 10. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of the Animadversions the remaining Principles of Fiat Lux considered IT is time to return and put an end unto our review of those Principles which I observed your Discourse to be built upon The next as laid down in the Animadversions p. 103. is That the Pope is a good man one that seeks nothing but our good that never did us harm but hath the Care and inspectirn of us committed unto him by Christ. In the Repetition hereof you leave out all
Scriptures could be of no more Authority then Aesops Fables were they not confirmed by the Testimony of your Church we are informed by one Brentius and we believe the information to be true because the saying is defended by Hosius de Authoritat Script Lib. 3. who adds unto it of his own Revera nisi nos Authoritas Ecclesiae doceret hanc scripturam esse Canoncam perexiguum apud nos pondus haberet the truth is if the Authority of the Church did not teach us that this Scripeure is Canomical it would be of very light weight unto us Such Cordial respects do you bear unto it And the forementioned Andradius Defens Con. Trid. Lib. 2. to the same purpose Neque enim in ipsis libris quibus sacra mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam in est Divinitatis quae nos ad credendum quae in illis continentur religione aliqua constring at sed Ecclesiae quae codices illos sacros esse docet antiquorum Patrum fidem pietatem commendat tanta inest vis amplitudo ut illis nemo sine gravissimâ impietatis nota possit repugnare neither is there in those books wherein the Divine Mysteries are written any thing or any character of Divinity or divine original which should on a religious account oblige us to believe the things that are contained in them But yet such is the force and Authority of the Church which teacheth thâ—se books to be sacred and commendeth the faith and piety of the Antient fathers that no man can oppose them without a grievous mark of impiety How by what means from whom should we learn the sense of your Church if not from your Council of Trent and such mighty Champions of it Do you think it equitable that we should listen to suggestions of every obscure Frier and entertain thoughts from them about the sense of your Church contrary to the plain assertion of your Councils and and great Rabbies And if this be the respect that in Catholick Countries is given to the Scripture I hope you will not find may of your Countrymen rivals with them therein It is all but Hayle and Crâ—cifie We respect the Scriptures but there is another part of Gods word besides them we respect the Scriptures but Traditions contain more of the Doctrine of Truth we respect the Scriptures but think it not meet that Christians be suffered to read them we respect the Scripture but do not think that it hath any character in it of its own Divine original for which we should believe it we respect the Scripture but yet we would not believe were it not commended unto us by our Church we respect the Scripture but it is dark obscure not intelligible but by the interpretation of our Church Pray Sir keep your respects at home they are despised by the Scripture it self which gives Testimony unto its own Authority Perfection Sufficiency to guide us to God Perspicuity and Certainty without any respect unto your Church or its Authority And we know its Testimony to be true And for our parts we fear that whilest these Joabs kisses of respect are upon your lips you have a sword in your right hands to let out all the Vitals of Divine Truth and Religion Do you think your general expressions of respect and that unto admiration are a covering long and broad enough to hide all this contempt and reproach that you continually poure upon the Scriptures Deal thus with your Ruler and see whether he will accept your Person Give him some good words in general but let your particular expressions of your esteem of him come short of what his state and regal dignity do require will it be well taken at your hands Expressions of the same nature with these instanced in might be collected out of your chiefest Authors sufficient to fill a volume and yet I never read nor heard that any of them were ever stoned in your Catholick Countreys whatever you intimate of the boyling up of your zeal into a rage against those that should go about to diminish it Indeed whatever you pretend this is your faith about the Scripture and therefore I desire that you would accept of this account why I cannot comply with your wish and not speak any more of Papists slighting the Scripture seeing I know they do so in the sense and way by me expressed and other wayes I never said they did so From the account of your Faith we may proceed to your Charity wherewith you close this Discourse Speaking of your Roman Catholicks you say the Scripture is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who will one day plead their Cause What do you mean Sir by theirs Do you intend it exclusively to all others so theirs as not to be the right and portion of any other It is evident that this is your sense not only because unless it be so the words have neither sense nor emphasis in them but also because suitably unto this sense you elsewhere declare that the Roman and the Catholick Church are with you one and the same This is your Charity fit to accompany and to be the fruit of the faith before discoursed of This is your Chatholicism the impaling of Christ Scripture the Church and consequently all acceptable Religion to the Roman Party and Faction down right Donatism the wretchedest Schism that ever rent the Church of God which makes the wounds of Christendome incurable and all hope of coalition in Love desperate Saint Paul directing one of his Epistles unto all that in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that no countenance from that expression of our Lord Jesus Christ might be given unto any surmize of his appropriating unto himself and those with him a peculiar interest in Jusus Christ he adds immediately both their Lord and ours the Lord of all that in every place call upon his name 1 Cor. 1. This was the old Catholicism which the new hath as much affinity unto as darkness hath to light and not one jot more The Scripture is ours and Christ is ours and what have any else to do with them what though in other places you call on the name of Jesus Christ yet he is our Lord not yours This I say is that wretched Schism which cloathed with the name of Catholicism which after it had slain it robbed of its name and garments the world for some ages hath groaned under and is like to do so whilst it is supported by so many secular advantages and interests as are subservient unto it at this day CHAP. 14. Of Reason Jews objections against Christ. PAg. 27. You proceed to vindicate your unreasonable Paragraph about Reason or rather against it What reason we are to expect in a dispute against the use of Reason in and about the things which are the highest and most proper object of it is easie for any one to imagine For by Reason in Religion we understand not meerly the Raâ—ocination
of Episcopacy under a pretence of establishing it and which insteed of asserting them to be Bishops in the Church would have rendred them all Curates to the Pope You would have us believe that Christ hath appointed one Episcopal Monarch in his Church with plenitude of power to represent his own Person which is the Pope and from him all other Bishops to derive their power being substituted by him and unto him unto their work And must not this needs be an acceptable defensative or Plea unto Prelate Protestants which if it be admitted they can be no longer supposed to be made Overseers of their flocks by the Holy Ghost but by the Pope which forfeits their Prelacy and besides asserts his Supremacy which destroyes their Protestancy Upon this occasion you proceed to touch upon somewhat of great importance concerning the Head of the Church wherein you know a great part of the difference between your self and those whom you oppose to consist In your passage you mention the use of true Logick but I fear we shall find that in your Discourse laudatur alget I should have been glad to have found you making what use you were able of that which you commend It would I suppose have directed you to have stated plainly and clearly what is it that you assert and what it is that you oppose and to have given your Arguments Catasceuastical of the one and Anasceuastical of the other but either you know not that way of proceedure or you considered how little advantage unto your end you were like to obtain thereby And therefore you make use only of that part of Logick which teacheth the nature and kinds of Sophisms in particular that of confounding things which ought to be distinguished However your Discourse such as it is shall be examined and that by the rules of that Logick which your self commend You say pag. 51. The Church says I must have a Bishop or otherwise she will not have such a visible Head as she had at first This that you may enervate you tell me that the Church hath still the same Head she had which is Christ who is present with his Church by his Spirit and his Laws and is man God still as much as ever he was and ever the same will be and if I would have any other visible Bishop to be head then it seems I would not have the same head and so would have the same and not the same This is but one part of my answer and that very lamely and imperfectly reported The Reader if he please may see the whole of it Ch. 10. p. 223 c. and therewithall take a specimen of your ingenuity in this Controversie It were very sufficient to render your following exceptions against it useless unto your purpose meerly to repeat what you seek to oppose but because you shall not have any pretence that any thing you have sayd is passed over undiscussed I shall consider what you offer in way of exception to so much of my answer as you are pleased your self to express and as may be supposed thought your self qualified to deal withal Thus then you proceed I cannot in Reason be thought to speak otherwise if we would use true Logick of the Identity of the head then I do of the Identity of the body of the Church This body is not numerically the same for the men of the first age are long ago gone out of the world and another generation come who yet are a body of Christians of the same kind though not numerically the same So do I require that since Jesus Christ as man the head immediate of other believing men is departed hence to the glory of his father that the Church should still have an Head of the same kind as visibly now present as she had in the beginning or else say I she cannot be compleatly the same body or a body of the same kind visible as she was But this she hath not this she is not except she have a visible Bishop as she had in the beginning present with her guiding and ruling under God Christ our Lord is indeed still Man God but his manhood is now separate nor is he visibly present as man which immediately headed his believers under God on whose influence their nature depended His Godhead is still the same in all things not only in its self but in order to his Church also as it was before equally invisible and in the like manner believed but the nature delegate under God and once ruling visibly amongst us by words nnd examples is now utterly withdrawn And if a nature of the same kind be not now delegate with a power of exterior Government as at the first then was then hath not the Church the same head now which she had then qui habet aures andiendi audiat How you have secured your Logick in this Dicourse shall afterwards be considered your Divinity seems at the first view lyable unto just exceptâ—ons For 1. You suppose Christ in his humane nature only to have been the Head of his Church and therefore the absence of that to necessitate the constitution of another Now this supposition is openly false and dangerous to the whole being of Christianity It is the Son of God who is the Head of the Church who as he is man so also is he over all God blessed for ever And as God and man in one person is that Head and ever was since his incarnation and ever will be to the end of the world To deny this is to overthrow the foundation of the Churches faith preservation and consolation it being founded and built on this that he was the Son of the living God Matth. 16. and yet into this supposition alone is your imaginary necessity of the Substitution of another Head in his room resolved 2. You plainly confess that the present Church hath not the same head that the Church had when our Lord Christ conversed with them in the dayes of his flesh That you say was his humane nature delegate under God which being now removed and separate another Person so delegate under God is substituted in his place Which not only deprives the Church of its first Head but also deposeth the humane nature of Christ from that office of headship to his Church which you confess that for a while it enjoyed leaving him nothing but what belongs unto him as God wherein alone you will allow him to be that unto his Church which formerly he was Confessing I say the humane nature of Christ to have been the head of the Church and now denying it so to be you do what lyes in you to depose him from his Office and Throne allowing his humane nature as far as I can perceieve to be of little other use then to be eaten by you in the Mass. 3. You make your intention yet more evident by intimating that the Humane Nature of Christ is now no more Head of
greatly desire to give some countenance unto that is an universal visible Pastor over the whole Catholick Church in the place and room of Christ himself First You tell us that the Apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed Christ in his care But to have one succeed another in his care infers that that other â—â—â—sâ—â— o take and exercise the Care which formerly he haâ— and exercised which in this case is highly blasphemous once to imagine I wish you would â—ake more Care of what you say in things of this nature aâ—d not suffer the impetuous 〈…〉 your interest to cast you upon expressions so 〈◊〉 to thâ— honour oâ— Christ and safety of his Churâ—â— And how do you prove that the Apostles had any such expectations as that which you mention Our Saviour gave them equal commission to teach all Nations told them that as his father had sent him so he sent them that he had chosen them twelve but that one of them was a Devil never that one of them should be Pope Their Institution Instruction Priviledges Charge Calling were all equal How then should they come to have this expectation that one of them should be chosen to succeed Christ in his Care when they were all chosen to serve under him in the continuance of his care towards his Church That which you obscurely intimate from whence this expectation of yours might arise is the contest that was amongst them aâ—â—â—t preheminence Luk. 22. 24. There was a strife â—mongst them which of them should be the greatest 〈◊〉 you suppose was upon their perswasion that one should be chosen in particular to succeed the Lord Christ in his Care whereupon they fell into difference about the place But 1. Is it not somewhat strange unto your self how they should contest about a succession unto Christ in his absence who had not once thought that he would ever be absent from them nor could bear the mention of it without great sorrow of heart when afterwards he began to acquaint them with it 2. How should they come in your apprehension to quarrel about that which as you suppose and contend was somewhile before determined For this contest of yours was somewhile after the promise of the Keys to Peter and the saying of Christ that he would build his Church on the Rock Were the Apostles think you as stupid as Protestants that they could not see the Supremacy of Peter in those passages but must yet fall at variance who should be Pope 3. How doth it appear that this strife of theirs who should be greatest did not arise from their apprehension of an earthly Kingdom a hope whereof according to the then current perswasion of the Judaical Church to be erected by their master whom they believed in as the true Messiah they were not delivered from until after his Resurrection when they were filled with the Spirit of the New Testament Act. 1. Certainly from that root sprang the ambitious desire of the Sons of Zebedee after preheminence in his Kingdom and the designing of the rest of them in this place from the manner of its management by strife seems to have had no better a spring 4. The stop put by our Lord Jesus unto the strife that was amongst them makes it manifest that it arose from no such expectation as you imagine or that at least if it did yet your expectation was irregular vain and groundless For 1. He tells them that there should be no such greatness in his Church as that which they contended about being like to the Soveraignty exercised by and in the Nations of the earth from which he that can shew a difference in your Papal Rule erit mihi magnus Apollo 2. He tells them that his Father had equally provided a Kingdom that is heavenly and eternal for all them that believed which was the only greatness that they ought to look or enquire after 3. That as to their Priviledge in his Kingdom it should be equal unto them all for they should all fit on Thrones judging the twelves tribes of Israel so ascribing equal power Authority and dignity unto them all which utterly overthrows the figment of the supremacy of any one of them over the rest Luk. 22. 30. Matth. 19. 28. And 4. Yet further to prevent any such conceit as that which you suppose them to have had concerning the prelation of any one of them he tells them that one was their Master even Christ and that all they were brethren Mat. 23. 8. so giving them to understand that he had designed them to be perfectly every way equal among themselves So ill have you layed the foundation of your Plea as that it guides us to a full determination of the contrary to your pretence and that given by our Saviour himself with many reasons perswading his Disciples of the equity of it and unto an acquiescency in it And what you add that he presently appointed one to the preheminence you imagine is altogether inconsistent with what you would conclude from the striâ—e about it For the appointment you fancy preceded this contention and had it been real and to any such purpose would certainly have prevented it Thus you do neither prove from the Gospel what you pretend unto namely that Bishops are above Ministers so well do you plead your Cause nor what you intend namely that the Pope is appointed over them all Only you wisely add a caution about what a Bishop ought to be and do de jure and what any one of them may â—o or be de facto because it is impossible for any â—an to find the least difference between the domination which our Saviour expresly condemns and that which your Pope doth exercise Although I know not whither you would think meet to have him devested of that Authority on the pretence whereof he so domineers in the world Finding your self destitute of any countenance from the Gospel you proceed to the Laws of the Land To what purpose to prove that Christ appointed one amongst his Apostles to preside with plenitude of Power over all the rest of them and consequently over the whole Catholick Church succeeding him in his care certainly you will find little countenance in our Laws to this purpose But let us hear your own words again As for the Laws of the Land say you it is there most strongly decreed by the consent and Authority of the whole Kingdom not only that Bishops are our Ministers but that the Kings Majesty is head of the Bishops also in the line of Hierarchy from whose hand they receive both their places and jurisdiction This was established not only by one but by several Parliament Acts both in the reign of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth What will hence follow that there is one universal Bishop appointed to succeed Christ in his Care over the Church Catholick the thing you attempted to prove in the words immediately foregoing Do not the same Laws which assert
the order you mention exclude that which you would introduce Or would you prove that Bishops by the Law of this Land have a jurisdiction superior unto Ministers who ever went about to deny it or what will the remembrance of it advance your pretensionâ— And yet neither is this fairly expressed by you For as no Protestants assert the King to be in his power and office interposed between Christ and Bishops or Ministers as to their ministerial office which is purely spiritual so the power of supream Jurisdiction which they ascribe unto him is not as you falsly insinuate granted unto him by the Laws of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth but is an inseparable Priviledge of his imperial Crown exercised by his Royal Predecessours and asserted by them against the inâ—rusions and usurpations of the Pope of Rome only diclared by those and other Laws But I perceive you have another design in hand You are entring upon a discourse wherein you compare your selves not only with Presbyterians and Independents but Prelate Protestants also in what you ascribe unto Kings in Ecclesiastical affairs preferring your selves before and above them all What just cause you have so to do we shall afterwards consider Your Confidence in it at first view presents its selâ— unto us â— on whereas there was not in the Animadversions any occasion of it administred unto you and your self confess that your whole discourse about it is besides your purpose pag. 66. yet waving almost every thing that was incumbent upon you to have insisted on if you would not plainly have appeared vadimonium deseruisse and to have given up your Fiat as indefensible you divert into a long harangue about it The Thesis you would by various florishes give countenance unto is this That Papists in their deference unto Kings even in Ecclesiastical matters and in their principles of their obedience unto them 〈◊〉 Protestants of all sorts That this is not to ouâ— present purpose your self cannot but see and acknowledge Hower your Discourse such as it is relating to one special head of Difference between us shall be a part considered by its self in our next Chapter CHAP. 16. The Power assigned by Papists and Protestants unto Kings in matters Ecclesiastical Their several Principles discussed and compared YOur Discourse on this head is not reducible by Logick its self unto any method or rules of Argument For it is in general 1. So loose Ambigucus and Metaphorically expressed 2. So Sophistical and inclusive 3. So inconsistent in sundry instances with the Principles and practices of your Church if you speak intelligibly 4. So false and untrue in many particulars that it is scarcely for these excellent qualifications to be paralleld with any thing either in your Fiat or your Epistola First It is loose and ambiguous 1. Not stating what you intend by the Head of the Church which you discourse about 2. Noâ— determining whither the King be such an head of Execution in matter of Religion as may use the Liberty of his own judgement as to what he puts in execution or whether he be not bound to execute your Popes Determinations on the penalty of the forfeiture of his Christianity which I doubt we shall find to be your opinion 3. Not declaring wherein the power which you assign unto him is founded whether in Gods immediate institution oâ— the Concession of the Pope whereon it should solely depend unto whom it is in all things to be made subservient Secondly Sophistical 1. In playing with the ambiguity of that expression Head of the Church and by the advantage thereof imposing on Protestants contradictions between their profession and practice as though in the one they acknowledged the King to be head of the Church and not in the other whereas there is a perfect consonancy between them in the sence wherein they understand that expression shrowding your own sence and opinion in the mean time under the same ambiguity 2. In supposing an absolute universal Head of the whole Catholick Church and then giving reasons why no King can be that Head when you know that the whole Question is whither there by any such head of the Catholick Church on earth or no. 3. In supposing the Principles and practises of the Primitive Church to have been the same with those of the present Roman and those of the present Roman to have been all known and allowed of old which begs all that is in Controversie between us and sundry other instances of the like nature may be observed in it Thirdly Inconsistent with the Principles and Practices of your own Church both 1. In what you ascribe unto Kings and 2. In your stating of the power and Jurisdiction of your Pope if the ambiguity of your words and expressions will allow us to conclude what you intend or aim at Fourthly False 1. In matter of fact as to what you relate of the obedience of your Church unto Kings 2. In the principles and Opinions which you impose on your Advertaries 3. In the declaration that you make of your own and 4. In many particular Assertions whose consideration will afterwards occur This is a business I could have been glad you had not necessitated me to the Consideraâ—ion of for it cannot be truly and distinctly handled 〈…〉 such reflections upon your Church and way as may without extraordinary indulgence redound unto your disadvantage Your have by your own voluntary choice called me to the discussion of those Principles which have created you much trouble in these Nations and put you oftentimes upon attempting their disquiet Now these are things which I desire not I am but a private man and am very well contented you should enjoy all that peace and liberty which you think not meet in other Nations where the Pâ—wer is at your disposal to grant unto them that dissent from you Lex talionis should be far from influencing the minds of Christians in this matter however the equity of it may at any time be pleaded or urged to relieve others in other places under bondage and persecution But I am sure if I judge your proceedings against other men dissenting from you in Conscience to be unjustifiable by the Scripture or Light of Nature or suffrage of the Antient Church as I do I have no reason to desire that they should be drawn into president against their selves in any place in the world And therefore Sir had you provided the best colour you could for your own Principles and palliated them to the 〈◊〉 so to hide them from the eyes of those who it may be are ready to seek their disturbance and trouble from an apprehension of the evil that may ensue upon them and had not set them up in comparison with the Principles of Protestants of all sorts and for the setting off your own with the better grace and luster untruly and individiously reported theirs to expose them unto those thoughts and that severity from supream powers which you seek
as Tenants at will and should they not appear to do so were his force wit and courage answerable to his will and pretence of Authority But be it that because you cannot help it you suffer them to live at peace and quietness in the main of their Rule yet you still curb them in their own Dominions for 6. You exempt all the Clergy from under their Rule and Power See your Bellarmine sweating to prove that they are not bound to their Laws so as to be judged by them without their leave if they transgress or to pay any tribute De Cleric Lib. 1. Cap. 28. They are all reserved to the Power and Jurisdiction of the Pope And he that shall consider into what a vast and boundless multitude by reason of the several disorderly orders of your City Monks and Friars your Clergy is swelled into in most places of Europe will easily perceive what your interest is in every Kingdom of it I am perswaded there is scarce a Considerable Nation wherein the Profession of your Religion is enthroned in which the Pope hath not an 100000. able fighting men that are his peculiar subjects exempted from the Power and jurisdiction of Kings themselves which you must needs conceive to be a blessed interpretation of that of the Apostle Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers And 7. You extend the Papal Power to Things as well as Persons in the Dominions of all Kings and Commonwealths For the Lands and Possessions that are given unto any of the Popes especial Subjects you will have to be exempted from Tributes and publick burdens of the state And you farther contend that it is not in the power of any Kings or Rulers to hinder such alienations of Lands and Possessions from their Dominions By this means no small part of the Territories of many Princes is subduced from under their power The dreadful consequences of which Principles so startled the wise state of Venice that you know they disputed it to the utmost with your Vice-god Paul the V. In dealing with them as I remember their attempt was successless for notwithstanding the defence made of the Papal process against them by Baronius Bellarmine and others yet the actings of that sober state in forbidding such alienation of Lands and Fees from their Rule and power without their consent with their plea for the subjection of Ecclesiasticks unto them in their own Dominions was so vindicated by Doctor Paul Suave Marsilius of Padua and others that the horns of the Bull which had been thrust forth against them into so great a length were pulled in again I told you in the entrance of this Discourse how unwilling I should have been to have given you the least disquietment in your way had you only attempted to set off your own respects unto Royal Power unto the best advantage you could but your setting up your Principles and Practices in competition with those of Protestants of any sort whatever and preferring them before and above them as unto your deference unto Kings and that in matters Ecclesiastical hath made these few instances expressive of the real sense of your Church in this matter as I suppose necessary and equal CHAP. 17. Scripture Story of the Progress and declension of Religion vindicated Papal Artifices for the promotion of their Power and Interest Advantages made by them on the Western Empire YOu proceed pag. 70. unto the Animadvèrsions on your 13. Paragraph entituled Scripture wherein how greatly and causelesly it is by you undervalued is fully declared But whatever is offered in it for the discovery of your miscarriage and your own conviction you wisely pass over without taking notice of it at all and only repeat again your Case to the same purpose and almost in the very same words you had done before Now this I have already considered and removed out of our way so that it is altogether needless to divert again to the discussion of it That which we have to do for the answering of all your Cavils and objections in and about the case you frame and propose is to declare and manifest the Scriptures sufficiency for the Revelation of all necessary Truths therein affording us a stable Rule of faith every way suited to the decision of all differences in and about Religion and to keep Christians in perfect peace as it did of old And this we have already done Why this proper work of the Scripture is not in all places and at all times effected proceeds from the Lusts and prejudices of men which when by the Grace of God they shall be removed it will no longer be obstructed Your next attempt p. 72. is upon my story of the progress and Corruption of Christian Religion in the world with respect unto that of your own Yours you tell us is serious temperate and sober every way as excellent as Suffenus thought his verses Mine you say is wrought with defamation and wrath against all Ages and People very good I doubt not but you thought it was fit you should say so though you knew no reason why nor could fix on any thing in it for your warrant in these intemperate reproaches Do I say any thing but what the stories of all Ages and the Experience of Christendome do proclaim Is it now a defamation to report what the learned men of those dayes have recorded what good men bewayled and the sad effects whereof the world long groaned under and was at length ruined by What wrath is in all this may not men be warned to take heed of falling into the like evils by the miscarriages of them that went before them without wrath and defamation Are the books of the Kings Chronicles and Prophets fraught with wrath and defamation because they report complain of and reprove the sad Apostasies of the Church in those dayes with the wickedness of the Kings Priests and People that it was composed of and declare the abomination of those wayes of false worship licenciousness of life violence and oppression whereby they provoked God against them to their ruine If my story be not true why do you not disprove it if it be why do you exclaim against it Do I not direct you unto Authors of unquestionable credit complaining of the things which I report from them And if you know not that many others may be added unto these by me named testifying the same things you know very little of the matter you undertake to treat about But we need go no further then your self to discover how devoid of all pretence your reproaches are and that by considering the exceptions which you put in to my story which may rationally be supposed to be the most plausible you could invent and directed against those parts of it which you imagined were most obnoxious to your charge I shall therefore consider them in the order wherein they are proposed and discover whether the keeness of your assault answer the noise of
ipsa consecratione consistere quin è contrario consecratio ad rationem Sacramenti potius quam ad naturam Sacrificii pertinet Alii existimant Sacrificii rationem tribus Sacerdotis actionibus constare consecratione oblatione sumptione Alii quidem seâ—sere ad rationem hujus Sacrificii quat uor imo quinque actiones concurrere Consecrationem oblationem fractionem sumptionem Alii rationem Sâ—crificii ponunt in duobus actibus consecratione oblatione Alii constituunt totam rationem Sacrificii in 〈◊〉 actione viz. Consecratione There are who think the nature of the Sacrifice to consist in the words rayers ceremonies and rites which are used in the Consecration because say they the nature of the Sacrifice cannot consist in the Consecration it self which rather belongs unto the nature of a Sacrament then of a Sacrifice Others think that the Sacrifice consists in three actions of the Priest Consecration Oblation and Sumption or receiving of the Host. Others in four or five as Consecration Oblation Fraction Sumption Others in two Consecration and Oblation and some in one Consecration And is not this a brave business to impose on the Consciences of all men when you know not your selves what it is that you would so impose A Sacrifice must be believed and they are all accursed by you that believe it not but what the Sacrifice is and wherein it doth consist you cannot tell And an easie matter it were to manifest that all the particulars which you assign as those that either belong necessarily unto the integrity of a Sacrifice or those wherein some of you or any of you would have its essence to consist are indeed of no such nature or importance but that is not my present business I am only enquiring what your Sacrifice is according unto you own sense and imagination And that we may not mistake I shall set down such a general description of it as the Canon of the Mass the general rubrick of the Missal the rites and cautels of its celebration will afford unto us Now in these it is represented as a sacred action wherein a proper Priest or Sacrificer arrayed with various consecrated attire standing at the Altar taketh bread and wine about which he useth great variety of â—ostures and gestures inclinations bowings kneelings stretching out and gathering in his arms with a multitude of Crossings at the end and in the midst of his pronunciation of certain words of Scripture turns them into the real natural body and blood of Christ the Son of God worshiping them so converted with religious adoration shewing them to the people for the same purpose and then offering that body and blood unto God praying for his acceptance of them so offered and that it may be available for the living and the dead for the pardoning of their sins and saving of their souls after which he takes that body of Christ so made worshipped and offered and eats and deavours it by all which Christ is truly and properly Sacrificed This is the Sacrifice of your Church wherein as you inform us the main of your Devotion and Worship doth consist Of this Sacrifice I told you formerly the Scripture is silent and I now add that so also is Antiquity You cannot produce any one approved writer for the space of 600. years that gives testimony to this your Sacrifice For what ever florish you may make with the ambiguity of the word Sacrifice which we cleared before your Transubstantion and other things asserted by you to belong unto the integrity if not the Essence of your Sacrifice are strangers unto Antiquity as hath been lately proved unto you and will no doubt be yet further confirmed so to be I told you as you observe that this Sacrifice is an utter stranger to Scripture as also that it is inconsistent with what is therein delivered The Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews plainly affirms that the Sacrifice of the Church of the Christians is but one and that once offered for all whereas those of the Jews by reason of their imperfection were often repeated which you choose out to reply unto and say It is true the Sacrifice of our Lords Passion of which the Apostle in that whole discourse intends only to treat in opposition unto that of Bulls and goats was so done but once that it could not be done twice But as the Sacrifices of the Old Law were instituted by Almighty God to be often iterated before the Passion of the Messias for a continual exercise of Religion so did the same Lord for the very same purpose institute another to be iterated after his death unto which it was to have reference when it should be past as the former had to the same death when it was to come So you But first This begs the Question for you only repeat and say that such a Sacrifice was institued by Christ which you know is by us utterly denyed 2. It plainly contradicts the Apostle and overthrows his whole argument and design 1. It contradicts him in express terms for whereas he sayes not only that Christ once offered himself but also that he was once offered for all that is no more to be offered you affirm that he is often offered and that every day 2. His design is to demonstrate the excellency of the Condition of the Church of the New Testament and the worship of God therein above that of the Old And this he proves to consist here in a special manner that they had many Sacrifices which were of necessity to be reiterated because they could not take away sin for saith he if they could then should they not have been repeated nor would there have been need of any other Sacrifice But now saith he this is done by the one Sacrifice of Christ which hath so taken away sin as that it hath made the repetition of its self or the institution of any other Sacrifice needless and therefore we have no more but that one and that one once performed Now unless you will deny the Apostles Assertions either 1. That if one Sacrifice can take away sin there is no need of another or 2. That the one Sacrifice of Christ did perfectly take away sin as to Attonement and also 3. assert that the condition of the Gospel Church is still the same with that of the Jews and that we have need of a Sacrifice to be repeated not only as theirs was year by year from whence he argues the imperfection of the greatest solemn Sacrifice of Expiation but day by day with a further and greater weakness repetition in the judgement of the Apostle being an evidence thereof there will be no place left for your Sacrifice that is your main worship belongs not to the Church of God at all 4. You pretend that in this worship Christ himself is Sacrificed unto God but incruenter and without suffering but the Apostle plainly tells us that if he be often offered he must often
against Protestants for dishonouring her and all that you say in in your Epistle in its Vindication is railing at me for minding you of your miscarriage My whole Book you say is nothing but calumnies a bundle of slanders a meer quiver of sharp arrows of desolation I am not sorry that you are sensible that it hath arrows in it tending to the desolation of your Abominations But I challenge you to give an instance of any one calumny or slander in it from the beginning to the end If you do not do so I here declare you to be really and highly guilty of that which you would falsly impose upon another Free your self by some one instance if you can if you cannot your reputation will follow your Conscience whether it will be hard for you to find them again The substance of that Chapter is this which is all that I shall now say to your nothing against it Protestants yield to the blessed Virgin all the honour that the Scripture allows them or direct them unto or that the Primitive Church did ascribe unto her and the Papists give her the honour due to God alone whereby they horribly dishonour God and her CHAP. 21. Images Doctrine of the Council of Trent Of the second Nicene The Arguments for the Adoration of Images Doctrine of the antient Church Of the chief Doctrine of the Roman Church Practice of the whole Vain foundations of the pretences for Image Worship examined and disproved YOur next procedure is to your Discourse of Figures or Images and my Animadversions upon it And here you say you will come up close unto me you mean in replying unto what I delivered about it But Sir I thought this had been contrary to your design You professed at the beginning of your Epistle that it was so and have made good use of that declaration of your self by avoiding every thing in my discourse that you found your self pressed with and too difficult a task for you to deal withal Why do you now begin to forget your self and to cast off the pretence you have hitherto shaddowed your self under and excused your self by from tergiversation Surely you think you are upon this head able to say somewhat to the purpose which you despaired of doing upon others of as great importance and therefore now you may argue and dispute which before the design of your Fiat would not permit you to do As far as I can observe you speak nothing at any time but what you think is at present for your turn But whether it have any consistency with that which elsewhere you have delivered you make it not much your concernment to enquire But we shall quickly see whether you had any just ground of encouragement to harness your self and to come up as you speak close to me in this business or no. It may be before the close of our Discourse you will begin to think it had been as well for you to have persisted in your former avoidance as to make this profession of a close dispute and whatever you pretend to the contrary really you have done so You hide the opinion and practice of your Church about the Worship of Images which you seem to be ashamed of instead of defending them and except against some passages in my Animadversions instead of answering the whole which you seem to pretend unto I shall therefore declare what is the true judgement of your Church in this matter and then vindicate the passages of my Discourse which you take notice of in your exceptions and under both heads declare the abomination of your faith and practice in your Doctrine about Images and Worship of them The Doctrine of your Church in this matter I suppose we may be acquainted with from the Determinations of your Councils the explication of your most famous Doctors the Practice of your people and the distinctions used by you to quit your selves from Idolatry in your Doctrine and Practice And you will thereby learn or may at lest to what purpose it is for you to seek to palliate and hide the deformity of that which your Mother and her wise men have made naked to all the world Your Council of Trent is very wary in this matter as it was in most of its other affairs and indeed seeing it was resolved not to give place to the Truth it became it so to be that it might keep any footing in the minds of men and not tumble headlong into contempt and reproach Many difficulties it had to wrestle withal It saw the practice of their Church which was not totally to be deserted least the great mysterie of its Infallibility should be impaired and its nakedness laid open the general complaint on the other side of learned and sober men that under a pretence of Image Worship as horrible Idolatry was brought into the Church of God as ever was practiced amongh the Heathen did not a little perplex it It had also the various and contradictory opinions of the great Doctors of your Church and Masters of your Faith about the kind of Worship which is due to Images all which had great followers ready to dispute endlesly in the maintenance of their several conceits Amidst these rocks and oppositions the Fathers found no way to sail safely but by the help of general and ambiguous words a course which in the like difficulties had frequently before stood them in good stead Wherefore they so expressed themselves that no party at variance among them might think their opinions condemned that the general practice of their Church might be countenanced and yet no particular asserted that was most obnoxious to the exceptions of the Lutherans Thus then they speak Imagines porro Christi Deiparae Virginis aliorum Sanctorum in Templis praeertim habendas retinendas eisque debitum honorem venerationem impertiendam non quod credatur quoniam honos qui eis exhibetur refertur ad Prototypa quae illae representant with much more to that purpose And we may observe That the Decree speaks only of the Images of Christ the blessed Virgin and other Saints not expresly mentioning the Images of God the Father of the Trinity and of the Holy Ghost nor of Angels which they knew to be made and to be had in veneration in their Church nor do they anywhere reject the use makeing or worshipping of them Yea in their following words they do plainly allow of the figuring of the Deity Quod say they si aliquando historias narrationes 〈◊〉 Scripturae cum id indoctae plebi expediet exprimi figurari contigerit doceatur populus non 〈◊〉 divinitatem figurari quasi corporeis oculis conspâ—i vel coloribus aut figuris exprimi possit The words are as most of the rest in this particuâ—ar as an bigâ—ous as the Oracles of Delphos This cannot be denyed to be in them however That the unlearned people are to be taught that the Deity is not painted or figured
in sacrificing according to the Order of that then in preaching of the Mysterie and Doctrine of this Did never any man inform you that one end of preaching the word was to regenerate the whole souls of men and to beget them anew unto God that it was also to open their eyes and to illuminate them with the saving knowledge of God in Christ that it was to beget and encrease faith in them that it was to be a means of their growth in Grace and in the knowledge of God that the Word preached is profitable for reproof Correction Dotrine and instruction in righteousness that it is appointed as the great means of working the souls of men into a likeness and conformity unto the Lord Jesus or the changing of them into his Image that it is appointed for the refreshment of the weary and consolation of the sorrowful and making wise of the simple Did you never hear that the word preached hath its effect upon the understanding and will as well as upon the Affections and upon these consequentially only unto its efficacy on them if they are not deluded Is growth in knowledge faith grace holiness conformity unto Christ Communion with God for which end the word is commanded to be preached nothing at all with you is being made wise in the mysterie of the Love of God in Christ to have an insight into and some understanding of the unsearchable treasures of his Grace and by all this the building up of souls in their most holy faith of no value with you Are you a stranger unto these things and yet think your self a meet person to perswade your Countreymen to forsake the Religion they have long professed and to follow you they know not whither Or do you know them and yet dare to thrust in your scurrility to their exclusion Plainly Sir the most charitable judgement that I can make of this Discourse of yours is that it proceeds from ignorance of the most important truths and most necessary works of the Gospel You next proceed to your plea from the Cherubims set up by Moses in the Holy place over the Ark and thence you will needs wrest an argument for your Images and the worship of them Although your Vasquez is ashamed of it and hath cashiered it long ago and that worthily as not at all belonging unto thus matter For 1. The Cherubims were not Images to which you say since the real Cherubims are not made of beaten Gold those set up by Moses must be only figures but it is of Images that we are speaking precisely and not in general of figures figures may include Types and Hieroglyphicks and any representation of things Images represent Persons and such alone are those about which we treat And if a Person be not presented by an Image it is not his Image Now I pray tell me what personal subsistences these Cherubims with their various wings and faces did represent Do you believe that they give you the shape and likeness of Angels It is true John the Bishop of Thessalonica in your Synod of Nice with the approbation of the rest of his company affirms that it was the opinion of the Catholick Church that Angels and Archangels were not altogether incorporeal and invisible but to have a slender body of ayre or fire Act. 5. But are you of the same mind or do you not rather think that the Catholick Church was belyed and abused by the Synod And if they are absolutely incorporeal and invisible how can an Image be made of them Should a man look on the Cherubims as Images of Angels would not the first thing they would teach him be a ley namely that Angels are like unto them which is the first language of any Image whatever The truth is the Mosaical Cherubims were meer Hieroglyphicks to represent the constant tender love and watchfulness of God over the Ark of his Covenant and the people that kept it and had nothing of the nature of Images in them 2. I say suppose of them what you please yet they were not set up to be adored as your Images are To which you reply It is not to my purpose or yours that they were not set up to be adored for Images in Catholick Churches are not set up for any such purpose nor do I anywhere say so No man alive hath any such thought no Trâ—â—â—tion no Council hath delivered it no practice infers it And do you think meet to talk at this rate have you no Tradition amongst you that you plead for the Adoration of Images hath no Council amongst you determined it doth not your practice speak it were you awake when you wrote these things did you never read your Tridentine Decree or the Nicene Canons commended by them is not the adoration of Images asserted an hundred times expresly in it hath no man alive such thoughts are not only Thomas and Bonaventure but Bellarmine Gregory de Valentia Baronius Suarez Vasquez Azorius with all the rest of your great Champions now utterly defeated and have not one man left to be of their judgement I would be glad to hear more of this matter Speak plainly do you renounce all adoration and worship of Images is that the Doctrine of your Church prove it so and I shall publickly acknowledge my self to have been a long time in a very great mistake But it was for this cause that I gave you a little Image of the Doctrine and practice of your Church in this matter at the entrance of our discourse foreseeing how you would prevaricaâ—e in our progress Come Sir if Image Worship be such a shameful thing that you dare not avow it deal ingenuously and acknowledge the failings of your Church in this matter and labour to bring her to amendment If you think otherwise and in truth yet like it well enough dâ—al like a man and dare to deteâ—d it at least as well as you can and more no 〈◊〉 can look for at your hands You mention somewhat of the different opinions of your Schoolmen in this matter which you sleight But Sir I tell you again that you and all your Masters are agreed that Images are to be adored and venerated that is worshipped and their disputes about that honour that rests absolutely on the Image and that which passeth on to the Prototype with the kind of the one and the other are such as neither themselves nor any other do understand You tell us indeed All Catholick Councils and practice declare such sacred figures to be expedient assistants to our thoughts in our divine meditations and prayers and that is all you know of it But if you intend Councils and practice truly Catholick or Primitive you can give no instance of allowing so much to Images as here you ascribe unto them no not one Council can you produce to that purpose for some hundreds of years but a constant current of Testimonies for the rejection of such pretend expediencies and assistances
able to except against in that discourse will speedily appear In the mean time pray take notice that I have no eagerness to oppose either you or your Church so you will let the Truth alone I shall for ever let you alone without opposition It was the defence of that and not an opposition to you that I was engaged in In the same design do I still persist in the vindication of what I had formerly written and shall assure you that you shall never be opposed by me but only so far and wherein I am fully convinced that you oppose the Truth Manifest that to be on your side and I shall be ready to embrace both you and it For I am absolutely free from all respects unto things in this world that should or might retard me in so doing But that I may hereafter speak somewhat more to the purpose in opposition unto you or else give my consent with understanding unto what you teach pray inform me how I may come to the knowledge of the customs of your Church which you say I neither do nor will understand I have read your Councils those that are properly yours your Mass Book and Rituals many of your Annalists or Historians with your writers of Controversies and Casuists all of the best note same and reputation amongst you Can none of them inform us what the Customs of your Church are If you have such Egyptian or Elâ—usinian mysteries as no man can understand before he be initiated amongst you I must despair of coming unto any acquaintance with them For I shall never engage into the belief of I know not what For the present I shall declare you my apprehension as to that Custome of your Church as you call it which we have now under consideration and desire your charity in my direction if I understand it 〈◊〉 aright It is your Custome to keep the Scriptures from the people in an unknown tongue somewhat contrary to this your former custome in this last age you have made some Translations out of a Translation and that none of the best the use whereof you permit to very few by virtue of special dispensation pleading that the use of it in the Church among the body of its members is useless and dangerous Again it is the Custome of your Church to celebrate all its publick worship in Latine whereof the generality of your people understand nothing at all and you forbid the exercise of your Church worship in a vulgar tongue understood by the Community of your Church or people These I apprehend to be the Customes of your Church and to the best of my understanding they are directly contrary 1. To the End of God in granting unto his Church the inestimable benefit of his Work and worship and 2. To the Command of God given unto all to read meditate and study his Word continually And 3. Prejudicial to the souls of men in depriving them of those unspeakable spiritual advantages which they might attain in the discharge of their duty and which others not subject unto your Auâ—hority have experience of And 4. Opposite unto yea destructive of that edification which is the immediate end of all things 〈◊〉 to be done in publick Assemblies of the Church And 5. Forbidden expresly by the Apostle who inforceth his prohibition with many cogent reasons 1 Cor. 14. And 6. Contrary to the express practice of the primitive Church both Judaical and Christian all whose worship was performed in the same language wherein the People were instructed by preaching and exhortations which I presume you will think it necessary they should well understand being 7. Brought into use gradually and occasionally through the 〈◊〉 negligence of some who pretend in the Churches of those dayes when the Languages wherein the Scripture was first written and whereinto for the use of the whole Church it had been of old translated as the Old Testament into Greek and the whole into Latine through the Tumults and Wars that fell out in the world became corrupted or were extirpated And 8 A means of turning the worship of Christ from a rational way of strengthening faith and increasing Holiness into a dumb histrionical shew exciting brutish and irregular affections and 9 Were the great cause of that darkness and ignorance which spread its self in former dayes over the whole face of your Church and yet continueth in a great measure so to do And in summ are as great an Instance of the power of inveterate prejudices and carnal interests against the light of the Truth as I think was ever given in the world These are my apprehensions concerning the Customs of your Church in this matter with their nature and tendency I shall now try whither you who blame my misunderstanding of them can give me any better information or Reason for the change of my thoughts concerning them But Carbones pro thesauro instead of either further clearing or vindicating your Customs and practice you fall into Encomiums of your Church a story of a Greek Bishop with some other thing as little to your purpose Fur es ait Pedo Pedius quid crimina rasis Librat in Antithetis doctas posuisse figuras Lundatur You are accused to have robbed the Church of the use of the Scripture and the means of its Edification in the worship of God and when you should produce your defensitive you make a fine Discourse quite to other purposes Such as it is we must pass through it First you say I have heard many grave Protestant Divines ingenuously acknowledge that divine Comfort and Sanctity of life requisite unto Salvation which Religion aymes at may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the Customs of the Roman Church then that of ours For Religion is not to fit perching upon the lips but to be got by heart it consists not in reading but doing and in this not in that lives the substance of it which is soon and easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a Compendium of all divine Truths in two words which our great Apostle again abridged into one Ans. 1. I hope you will give me leave a little to suspend my assent unto what you affirm Not that I question your veracity as to the matter of fact related by you that some Persons have told you what you say but I suppose you are mistaken in them For whereas the Gospel is the Doctrine of Truth according unto Godliness and the promotion of Holiness and Consolation which cannot at all be promoted but in wayes and by means of Gods appointment is the next end of all Religion they can be no Protestant Divines who acknowledge this end to be better attainable in your way then their own because such an acknowledgement would be a vertual renunciation of their Protestancy The judgement of this Church and all the reall grave Divines of it is perfectly against you and should you condescend unto them in other things would not embrace
tempore Tiberii Caesaris that is extremo about the end of the raigh of Tiberius Caesar who died in the thirty ninth year of Christ five or six years at least before the foundations of the Roman-Church were layed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These things we must speak unto because you suppose them of importance unto your Cause The second Assertion ascribed unto your Fiat in the Animadversions is That whence and from whom we first received our Religion there and with them we must abide therein to them we must repair for guidance and return to their rule and conduct if we have departed from them To which you now say This Principle as it is never delivered by Fiat Lux though you put it upon me so is it in the latitude it carries and wherein you understand it absolutely false never thought of by me and indeed impossible For how can we abide with them in any truth who may not perhaps abide in it themselves Great part of Flanders was first converted by English men and yet are they not obliged to accompany the English in our now present wayes I am glad you confess this Principle now to be false it was sufficiently proved so to be in the Animadversions and your whole Discourse rendred thereby useless For to what purpose will the preceding Assertion so often incuicated by you serve if this be false For what matter is it from whence or whom wereceive the profession of Religion if there be no obligation upon us to continue in their communion any further than as we judge them to continue in the truth And to what purpose do you avoid the consideration of the Reasons and Causes of our not abiding with you and manage all your Charge upon the generall head of our departure if we may have just cause by your own concession so to do It is false then by your own acknowledgement and I am as sure in the sense which I understand it in that it is yours And you labour with all your art to prove and confirm it both in your Fiat pag. 44 45 46 47. and in this very Epistle pag. 38 39 40 41 c. On the account that the Gospel came unto us from Rome you expresly adjudge the preheminence over us unto Rome and determine that her we must all hear and obey and abide with But if you may say and unsay assert and deny avow and disclaim at your pleasure as things make for your advantage and think to evade the owning of the whole drift and scope of your Discourse by having expressed your self in a loose flourish of words it will be to no great purpose further to talk with you Quo teâ—eam vultus mutantem Protea nodo To lay fast hold and not startle at a new shape was the counsell his daughter gave to Menelaus And I must needs urge you to leave off all thoughts of evading by such changes of your hue and to abide by what you say I confess I believe you never intended knowingly to assert this Principle in its whole latitude because you did not as it should seem consider how little it would make for your advantage seeing so many would come in for a share in the priviledge intimated in it with your Roman Church and you do not in any thing love competitors But you would fain have the Conclusion hold as to your Roman Church only those that have received the Gospel from her must alwayes abide in her communion That this Assertion is not built on any generall foundation of Reason or Authority your self now confess And that you have no speciall priviledge to plead in this Cause hath been proved in the Animadversions whereof you are pleased to take no notice CHAP. IV. Further Vindication of the first Chapter of the Animadversions Church of Rome not what she was of old Her Falls and Apostacy Difference between Idolatry Apostacy Heresie and Schism Principles of the Church of Rome condemned by the antient Church Fathers and Councels Imposing Rites unnecessary Persecution for Conscience Papall Supremacy The Branches of it Papall Personall Infallibility Religious veneration of Images THe third Assertion which you review is That the Roman profession of Religion and practice in the worship of God are every way the same as when first we received the Gospel from Rome nor can they ever otherwise be whereunto you say This indeed though I do no where formally express it yet I suppose it because I know it hath been demonstratively proved a hundred times over You deny it hath been proved why do you not then disprove it because you decline say you all common places All that I affirmed was that you did suppose this Principle and built many of your Inferences on the supposition thereof which you here acknowledge And so you have already owned two of the Principles whereof in the foregoing Page you affirmed that you could hardly own any one and that in the sense wherein by me they are proposed and understood But what do you mean that you no where formally express it If you mean that you have not set it down in those syllables wherein you find it expressed in the Animadversions no man ever said you did you do not use to speak so openly and plainly To do so would bring you out of the corners which somewhat that you pretend unto never lead you into But if you deny that you asserted and laboured to prove the whole and entire matter of it your following Discourse wherein you endeavour a vindication of the Sophisme wherewith you pleaded for it in your Fiat will sufficiently confute you And so you have avowed already two of the hardly any one Principles ascribed unto you And this you say hath been demonstratively proved an hundred times over and ask me why I do not disprove it giving a ridiculous Answer as from me unto your Enquiry But pray S r talk not of Demonstrations in this matter palpable Sophismes such as your Masters use in this Cause are far enough from Demonstrations And if you think it enough for you to say that it hath been proved why is it not a sufficient Answer in me to remind you that it hath been disproved and your pretended proofs all refuted And according to what Rules of Logick do you expect Arguments from me to disprove your Assertion whilest I was only answering yours that you produced in its confirmation But that you may not complain any more I shall make some addition of the proofs you require by way of supererrogation when we have considered your vindication of your former Arguments for the confirmation of this Assertion wherewith you closed your Discourse in your Fiat Lux. This you thus propose again The Roman was once a true flourishing Church and if she ever fell she must fall either by Apostasie Heresie or Schisme So you now mince the matter in your Fiat it was a most pure flourishing and Mother Church and you know there are many that yet
greatest moment and of most indispensible necessity unto Salvation whereby you render it perfectly useless according to the old Rule Quod non potest intelligi debet negligi it is fit that should be neglected which cannot be understood And 8. There is a book lately written by one of your party after you have been frequently warned and told of these things entituled Fiat Lux giving countenance unto many other hard reflections upon it as hath been manifested in the Animadversions written on that Book 9. Your great Masters in their writings have spoken very contemptuously of it whereof I shall give you a few instances The Council of Trent which is properly yours determines as I told you that their Traditions are to be received and venerated pari pietatis affectu reverentia with an equal affection of piety and reverence as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament which is a setting up of the Altar of Damascus with that of God himself in the same Temple Sess. 4. Dec. 1. And Andradius no small part of that Convention in his defence of that Decree tells us that cum Christus fragilitati memoriae Evangelio scripto succurrendum putavit it a breve compendium libris tradi voluit ut pars maxima tanquam magni precii thesaurus traditionibus intimis Ecclesiae visceribus infixis relicta fuerit As our Lord Christ thought meet to relieve the frailty of memory by the written Gospel so he would have a short compendium or abridgement committed unto books that the greatest part as a most precious treasure might be left unto Traditions fixed in the very inward bowels of the Church This is that cordial and absolute respect even unto admiration that your Catholicks bear unto the Scripture And he that doth not admire it seems to me to be very stupid It contains some small part of the mysteries of Christian Religion the great treasure of them lying in your Traditions and thereupon he concludes Canonem seu Regulam fidei exactissimam non esse Scripturam sed Ecclesiae judicium that the Canon or most exact Rule of Faith is not the Scripture but the judgement of the Church Much to the same purpose as you plead in your Fiat and Epistola Pighius another Champion of your Church Ecclesiast Hierarch Lib. 1. c. 4. after he hath given many reasons to prove the obscurity of the Scripture with its flexibility to every mans sense as you know who also hath done and referred all things to be determined by the Church concludes Si hujus Doctrinae memores fuissemus haereticos scilicet non esse informandos vel convincendos ex Scripturis meliore same loco essent res nostrae sed dum ostentandi ingenii eruditionis gratia cum Luthero in certamen discenditur Scripturarum excitatum est hoc quod proh dolor nunc videmus incendium Had we been mindful of this Doctrine that Hereticks are not to be instructed nor convinced out of the Scriptures our affairs had been in a better condition then now they are but whilest some to shew their wit and learning would needs contend with Luther out of the Scriptures the fire which we now with grief behold was kindled and stirred up And it may be you remember who it was that called the Scripture Evangelium nigrum and Theologiam atramentariam seeing he was one of the most famous champions of your Church and Cause But before we quite leave your Council of Trent we may do well to remember the advice which the Fathers of it who upon the stirs in Germany removed unto Bononia gave to the Pope Julius the third which one that was then amongst them afterwards published Denique say they in their letters to him quod inter omnia consilia quae nos hoc tempore dare possumus omnium gravissimum ad extremum reservavimus Oculi hic aperiendi sunt omnibus nervis adnitendum erit ut quam minimum Evangelii poterit praesertim vulgari lingua in iis legatur Civitatibus quae sub tua ditione potestate sunt sufficiatque tantillum illud quod in missa legi solet nec eo amplius cuiquam mortalium legere liceat Quam diu enim pauculo illo homines contenti fuerunt tam diu res tuae ex sententia successêre â—aedemq in contrarium labi caeperunt ex quo ulterius legi vulgo usurpatum est Hic ille in summa Est liber qui praeter caeteros hasce nobis tempestates ac turbines conciliavit quibus prope abreptisumus Et sane siquis illum diligenter expendat deinde quae in nostris fieri ecclestis consueverunt singula ordine contempletur videbis plurimum inter se dissidere hanc doctrinam nostram ab illa prorsus diversam esse ac saepe contrariam etiam Quod simul atque homines intelligant à docto scilicet aliquo adversariorum stimulati nou ante clamandi finem faciunt quam rem plane omnem divulgaverint nosque invisos omnibus reddiderint Quare occultandae pauculae illae chartulae sed abhibita quadam cautione diligentia ne ea res majores nobis turbas ac tumultus excitet Last of all that which is the most Weighty of all the advices which that at this time we shall give unto you we have reserved for the close of all Your eyes are here to be opened you are to endeavour with the utmost of your power that as little as may be of the Gospel especially in any vulgar tongue be read in those Cities which are under your government and Authority but let that little suffice them which is wont to be read in the Mass of which mind you also know who is neither let it be lawful for any man to read any more of it For as long as men were contented with that little your affairs were as prosperous as heart could desire and began immediately to decline upon the custome of reading any more of it This is in brief that book which above all others hath procured unto us those tempests and storms wherewith we are almost carryed away headlong And the Truth is if any one shall diligently consider it and then seriously ponder on all the things that are accustomed to be done in our Churches he will find them to be very different the one from the other and our Doctrine to be divers from the Doctrine thereof yea and oftentimes plainly contrary unto it Now this when men begin to understand being stirred up by some learned man or other amongst the adversaries they make no end of clamouring until they have divulged the whole matter and rendred us hateful unto all Wherefore those few sheets of Paper are to be hid but with caution and diligence least their concealment should stir us up greater troubles This is fair and open being a brief summary of that admiration of the Scriptures which so abounds in Catholick Countreys That Hermannus one of some account in your Church affirmed that the