A DISCOURSE Wherein is held forth The Opposition of the DOCTRINE WORSHIP and PRACTICES OF THE Roman Church To the NATURE DESIGNS and CHARACTERS of the Christian Faith. By GILBERT BURNET D. D. LONDON Printed for J. Watts at the Angel in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXVIII Of the Doctrine Worship and Practices of the Roman Church c. HE that increaseth Knowledg increaseth Sorrow is an Observation which holdeth true of no part of Knowledg so much as of the Knowledg of Mankind It is some relief to him who knows nothing of foreign Wickedness to hope there are other Nations wherein Vertue is honoured and Religion is in esteem which allays his Regrates when he sees Vice and Impiety abound in his Country but if by travelling or reading he enlarge his Horizon and know Mankind better his Regrates will grow when he finds the whole World lies in Wickedness It argues a cruel and inhumane Temper to delight in beholding Scenes of Horror and Misery and certainly none who either honours his Maker and Redeemer or is a lover of Mankind can without sorrow look on and see the Indignities done to God and his Son Christ and see the Enemy of the humane Race triumphing over the World with such absolute Authority and so much enraged Cruelty and that not only in the dark Regions of it which the Sun of Righteousness hath not yet visited with his Gospel but that where Christ should have a Throne Satans Seat should also be is justly surprising and astonishng That almost all Christendom hath fallen from their first Love is what none whose Eyes are open can deny and it is little less evident that the greater part of it hath made shipwrack and erred from the Faith and that the Church whose Faith was once spoken of throughout the World is now become the Mother of the Fornications of the Earth It is true the Scriptures warned us of a falling away of a Mystery of Iniquity of an Antichrist to be revealed in due time and of a Babylonish Rome which should bewitch the Earth with her Sorceries but should be varnished over with fair Colours and specious Pretences so that Mystery should be on her Forehead Being then warned of so much danger to the Christian Religion it is a necessary though painful enquiry to see if this Antichrist be yet come or if we must look for another But because some have stretched the Notion of Antichristianism so far that things harmeless and innocent come within its compass and others have so much contracted it that they might scape free we are to take a view of the Nature and Designs of the Christian Religion and to conclude from that what must be Antichristianism It being not only a bare contradiction to some branches or parts of the Gospel for then every Error or Heresy were Antichristianism but a Design and entire Complex of such Opinions and Practices as are contradictory to and subversive of the Power and Life of Christianity And if we find any such thing to be broached and received in the World we may with the least hazard of uncharitableness pronounce it be Antichristianism and if it be acted or animated by any Head he may be concluded Antichrist The Designs of the Christian Religion run betwixt these four Heads The first is to give us right apprehensions of the Nature and Attributes of God that we may conceive aright of him and adore him sutably to his Nature and according to his Will and thereby be admitted to a free converse with him and become partakers of the Divine Nature How little of God was known by the twinkling's of Nature's Light even to the better and wiser part of the World Tully's Books of the Nature of the Gods do sufficiently inform us But if the Philosophers were so much to seek in it what shall we expect from the Vulgar And indeed Homer's Iliads and Ovid's Metamorphosis were wretched Systems of Divinity and yet such and such-like were the Sentiments of the Nations about the Godhead It is true the Seed of Abraham were delivered from that Darkness and knew God by his Name Jehovah and had Laws and Ordinances given them by God yet their Worship was so carnal and did so strike upon and affect the Senses that we will be soon satisfied it was not so sublime and free as became the Spirituality of the Divine Nature and so was only fitted for the Infancy of the People of God but by Christ the Mystery that lay hid from Ages and Generations was revealed for he declared the Father and revealed him and taught us to renounce Idols and Vanities and to serve the living God commanding all Men every where to repent the Times of Ignorance wherein God winked at Idolatry being then over That so Mankind being God's Off-spring might feel after him and not worship him any more in the blinding grossness of Idolatry but in a pure spiritual manner and whereas the Law came by Moses by Christ came Grace and Truth Grace in opposition to the Severity of the Law and Truth as opposed not to Falshood but to the Figures and Shadows of Moses his Law and therefore God is to be worshipped in Spirit and Truth in opposition to the Carnal Ordinances and Typical Rites which shadowed out the Truth in the Law. The second Branch of the Christian Religion is to hold forth the Method of Man's Reconciliation with his Maker For the Sense of all Mankind agrees in this that Sin is an Indignity done God which deserveth Punishment and cannot be expiated by any Service Man can do It was therefore necessary there should be a mean found for incouraging Sinners to imbrace a Religious Life of which all had reason to despair without Pardon were offered to Penitents upon the change of their Lives Now this was that the Heathen could not dream how to procure It is true the Jews had Sacrifices for expiating of Sin but these could never quiet their Consciences since the common Sense of Mankind tells that the Blood of Beasts cannot appease God. The Mystery therefore of the Reconciliation of Sinners to God is the proper Character of the Christian Religion which holds forth to us how the Eternal Word was made Man and endured unspeakable Sufferings for the Sins of Men even to the Death of the Cross and was raised up by God and carried to Heaven where he is vested with all Power and Authority and by the Merits of his Death hath a right to grant Pardon give Grace and confer Eternal Life on all that believe on him by whom God conveys all things to us and through whom we are to offer up all our Worship to God he being the Mediator betwixt God and Man. The third Head of the Christian Religion is to teach the perfectest clearest and most Divine Rules for advancing of the Souls of Men to the highest perfection of their Natures It is true noble pieces of Morality were acknowledged and taught by the Heathen Philosophers and
which we withdrew from her are additions to our faith for in this we mainly differ from that Church that whatever we acknowled they acknowledg likewise but with a great many additions We believe the Scriptures are a rule for Christians and they believe the same but they add Traditions and the authority of the Church to the Scriptures We believe that God is to be worshipped spiritually they believe the same but add that he may be worshipped by images and sensible Figures We believe Christ to be the Mediator betwixt God and Man they believe the same but add to this the intercession of Saints We hold that God and Christ are to be worshipped they hold the same but add Saints and Angels to their worship We believe Heaven and Hell to be the several States of the future life they believe the same but add Purgatory betwixt them to the day of Judgment We believe Baptism and the Lords Supper to be the Sacraments of the new Covenant they believe the same but add five more We believe Christ is spiritually and really present in the Lords Supper this they believe but add the unconceivable Tenent of his corporal presence In a word it might be instanced in many other particulars how they have driven us from their Communion by their additions to the truth and sincerity of the Gospel which they have adulterated by their Inventions and not only have they imposed all these things but thundered out Anathema's on all that question them and have so wreathed all their fopperies with that main and fundamental article of their belief of the infallibility of their Church that it is impossible to hope for their recovery till they renounce that Principle which is so dear to them For if their Church be infallible then in no matter of faith or practice can she decree amiss and therefore the lawfulness and sanctity of all her Decrees must be maintained with an equal vigor and zeal for if in one of them she step aside her infallibility is for ever gone And by this we may see to how little purpose it is to treat of accomodating matters with that Church since there is no possibility of our Union with them without we turn over entirely to them For they cannot part with one of their errors without they first renounce that which is the dearest of them all to wit the unerring authority of their Church How cruel then is that Church which addeth the severe sanction of an Anathema to all her decrees even about the most trifling matters and about things that are by their Confession of their own natures indifferent And a consectary to this is that cruel opinion they hold that none can be saved out of their Communion pretending there is no Salvation without the true Church which they restrict to those who are under the obedience of the Roman Bishop and this is what they usually frighten all with But it is to be considered what the true notion of the Church is that so we may see through this frightful Vizar The Church then is a Society of Christians united in the same faith for worshipping of God jointly And another definition of a Church cannot be proved from Scripture for the Church being called the Body of Christ its union with him as its Head is held forth by the Apostle in these words Col. 2.19 The head Christ from whom the whole body by joints and bonds having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God. From which words we see what constitutes a man a member of the true Church which is first his union to Christ as his head together with a dependance on him for growth and nutriture and next his being knit to all others who are thus united to Christ which is first the inward union of divine charity by which he loves all who cleave to Christ as their Head and next his associating himself with them in outward visible acts of worship which every Christian is bound to do with all that worship God in Spirit and Truth But if a Society of Christians do visibly swerve from Christ in many great and signal contradictions to the honour due to his Person and to the obedience due to his Laws and do grosly adulterate the worship so that communion cannot be had with that Church without departing from the Head Christ then it can be no departing from the Church to adhere to Christ and his true worship and to separate from the corruptions which are brought in upon the Christian Religion If then it appear that the Church of Rome hath departed from the truth and simplicity of the Gospel in so many great and main points those who attempted the reforming her to her first Purity and finding that not to be hoped for did unite among themselves for serving and worshipping God aright cannot be charged with separation from the true Church But by that cruel Tenent of theirs they breed up all their Children in the greatest uncharitableness imaginable condemning all who cannot believe their strange Doctrines or concur in their unhallowed worsh p. Thus they are the Schismaticks who have departed from the true Church and who force from their Communion all who adhere to it but this cruelty rests not in uncharitable censures but hath extended it self to as much bloody and barbarous rage as ever sprung from Hell for all the cruelty of the heathen Persecutors cannot match the practises of that Whore that hath been so often drunk with the blood of the Saints and of the Martyrs of Jesus What enraged cruelty appeared against the poor Waldenses for the separating from their Corruptions How many of all Sexes and Ages were cruelly butchered down by the procurement of the Rulers of that Church and because the Albigenses lived under the protection of Princes that favoured them how did the Popes depose their Princes and instigate other ambitious invaders to seize on their dominions Which to effectuate a Croissade was proclaimed that had been formerly practised against the Enemies of the Christian Faith and Heaven was promised to such as went against these poor innocents whereupon they were killed by thousands without all mercy Never was there any who had the zeal or honesty in these dark ages to witness against the apostacy of the Church but the Pope and Clergy used all means to get his zeal rewarded with a Faggot And when the time of Reformation came with what rage and spite did the Pope by his Letters and Legates instigate all the Princes of Europe to cruelty against them But as these things were not done in corners so they are still so fresh in our remembrance by the copious accounts we have of them that I need not tell what Arts the Popes and other Ecclesiasticks used to set all Germany on fire upon this account Nor need I tell the cruelty was exercised in the Netherlands in Charles the Fifth his time in which more than an hundred thousand are
tell us is Bread and Wine must be so still and cannot be imagined to have changed its substance upon the recital of the five words Shall I add to this that throng of absurdities which croud about this opinion For if it be true then a body may be in more places at once triumphing in glory in one and sacrificed in a thousand other places And a large body may be crouded into the narrow space of a thin Wafer they holding it to be not only wholly in the whole Wafer but also intirely in every crumb of it A body can be without dimensions and accidents without a subject these must be confessed to be among the highest of unconceivables and yet these Miracles must be believed to be produced every day in above a hundred thousand places Certainly he hath a sturdy belief who can swallow over all these absurdities without choaking on them It is little less unconceivable to imagine that a man of no eximious sanctity nay perhaps of noted impiety nor extraordinarily knowing nay perhaps grosly ignorant in Theological Matters shall have the Holy Ghost so absolutely at his command that whatever he decrees must be the Dictates of the Spirit And what an unconceivable mystery is the Treasure of the Church and the Popes Authority to dispence it as he will No less conceivable is the efficacy of the Sacraments by the work wrought nor is any thing more affronting to reason than the barbarous worship And of a piece with this is the blind subjection pleaded for the Confessarius his Injunctions and their opinions of expiating their sins by a company of little trifling penances which tend not to the cleansing the Soul nor killing of the life of Sin much less can be able to appease God either of their own inbred worth or by reason of any value God is pleased to set on them either by Command or Promise But should I reckon up every thing is among them that choaks reason I should dwell too long on this and reckon over most of the things have been through the whole Discourse hinted which seem to stand in the most diametrical opposition to the clearest impressions of all mens reasons But to bring my Enquiry to an issue Easiness and gentleness are by Christ applied to his yoke laws and burden and whatever opposition or trouble they may give to the carnal man by mortifying his lusts and contradicting all his inordinate and unlimited desires yet by the rational faculties and powers they are both easily understood and practised Indeed Religion lies in few things and its chief work is the reforming and purifying the inward man where it mainly dwells and exerts its force and virtue but these who have added so much both to be believed and done beyond what our Lord prescribed as they accuse his unfaithfulness so bring unsupportable burdens on the Consciences of Christians These therefore who lead out the mind by presenting a great many foreign objects to it do introduce superannuated Judaism instead of that liberty Christ brought with him unto the World. But shall I number up here all the Impositions of that Church whose numbers are great as well as their nature grievous for it is a study to know them all But what a pain must it be to perform them It is a work which will take up a great deal of time to understand the Rubricks of their Missals Breviaries Rituals and Pontificals In a word they have left the purity and simplicity of Religion and set up instead of it a lifeless heap of Ordinances which must oppress but cannot relieve the Consciences of their Disciples Shall I add to this the severity of some of their Orders into which by unalterable Vows they are engaged their whole lives Now whatever fitness might be in such Discipline upon occasions for beating down the body or humbling of the mind yet it must be very tyrannical to bind the perpetual observance of these on any by an Oath for thereby all the rest of their lives may become insupportably bitter to them wherein they stand obliged under perjury to the perpetual observance of some severe Discipline which tho at first in a novitious fervour might have had its good effects on them yet that drying up it will afterwards have no other effect but the constant dejecting of the soul and so their life will be a rack to them by their perpetual toil in these austerities This I speak of those who seem the chief Ornaments of that Church whose Devotion doth for most part turn to outwards and rests in the strict observance of their rules not without voluntary assumed mortifications which they add to them but wherein they for most part glory and so the life of pride and self-love the subtillest of all our enemies is fed and nourished by them Neither can we think that these whose exercises are so much external can be so recollected for the inward and serene breathings of the Mind after God and Christ without which all externals tho they seem to make a fair shew in the flesh yet are but a skelet of lifeless and insipid things But indeed they have studied to remove this objection of the uneasiness of their Religion by accommodating it so that the worst of men may be secure of Heaven and enjoy their lusts both according to the corrupt conduct of some of their spiritual Fathers But what I have hinted of the uneasiness of their Religion is taken from the Nature of their Devotions in their highest altitude and elevation And thus far I have pursued my Design in the tract whereof I have not been void of a great deal of pain and sorrow For what pleasure can any find by discovering so much wickedness and so many errors in the Christened Regions of the World and see the holy and beautiful Places wherein the former Ages worshipped God in the Spirit turned to be habitations of Idols and graven Images by which God is provoked to jealousie God is my witness how these thoughts have entertained me with horror and regret all the while I have considered them And that I am so far from being glad that I have sound so much corruption in the Roman Church that it is not without the greatest antipathy to my nature imaginable that I have payed this duty to truth by asserting it with the discovery of so many Impostures which have so long abused the Christian world and if any heat or warmth hath slipped from my Pen I must protest sincerely it is not the effect of anger or passion but of a tender and zealous compassion for those souls who are either already blinded with these delusions or do incline towards those paths which lead to the chambers of death I am none of those who justify rage or bitterness against those in errors for if we had the the Spirit of Christ in us we should mourn over and lament their misery who lie under so much darkness And this is a sure