living and speaking Judg. So that either this is not necessary to a Church or otherwise they are not a compleat Church And for the Body of the Church how shall a man find out their sense unless gathered together in some Assembly or must a Man go over Christendome and gather the Suffrages of all the Pastors of the Church Upon the whole matter it is plain that after all their Canting about the Church they must say that it is of Faith that the Pope is Infallible otherwise they have no Infallible Judg and since a Council cannot be called but by the Pope what ever Authority the Council has it can never be exercised but by the Popes leave And for all the sad consequences they say follow the want of a Common infallible Judg it appears they are under them as well as we but with this difference that we plainly acknowledg we have none but do the best we can without one But they as they have none no more than we yet are under the Tyranny of one and though they are not bound to believe him Infallible yet are as much enslaved to him and obliged to obey him as if he were really exempted from all possibility of Erring So that in short they are slaves and we are freemen And for these ill consequences they are we confess unavoidable for which we have very good Authority from his words who on all sides is acknowledged to be Infallible that said Wo be to the World for scandals for it is necessary that scandals do come But to discuss this Objection which works much on ignorant people let it be considered that sin and Error are the two things that do chiefly cross the design of the Gospel and of these two sin is the more dangerous and destructive since there is great reason to hope that Error cannot be so fatal when it infects a mind that is otherwise sincere as Sin which clearly defaces the Image of God in the Soul We ought not therefore to expect that the Gospel should give any further security against Error than it gives against Sin On the contrary we should rather expect a further security from Sin because it is most hurtful But all the Provision made against Sin is this that in the Scriptures we are warned of the evil of it and are directed to such methods and have the promises of such Assistance that if we use our endeavour we shall not be overcome by sin nor perish in it So as to Error we have the same security The Gospel affords us a very clear light for directing our Belief in the most important things which if we study with due humility and sincerity imploring God for the grace of his holy Spirit for our instruction we shall be preserved from Error And thus the same provision is made against Error that is against Sin And we have no reason to expect more And as it were not fit that Salvation should be offered without obliging men to use their utmost endeavours so it were not fit to give such an easie Remedy against Error as that a man should not need to employ his reason to discover Truth and avoid Mistakes If our Gospel be also hid it is hid in them that perish Therefore that our Searches after Truth may be both encouraged and rewarded God sets it before us in such a Light that it is our own fault if we do not see and follow it But if men will either blindly give themselves up to the conduct of such Guides whose interest it is to mislead them which is the case of the Church of Rome or out of humour or other base ends will invent or follow some erroneous Tenets as other Hereticks do they have themselves to blame and shall bear their own Iniquity but they have nor reason to cast the fault upon God or accuse the Scriptures of Darkness or Defectiveness in these things that are necessary to Salvation I come now to the last Prejudice which will require a fuller Discussion because it relates to matter of Fact which as it is better understood so it makes deeper Impressions on people that are not so much wrought on by speculative points as by these things that fall under their senses They first except to the Novelty of our Reformation and always insult with this Question Where was your Religion before Luther To this these things are to be opposed First we turn back the Question and ask them where was their Religion the first six hundred years after Christ Where was the Worship of Images the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence of Redeeming out of Purgatory of Deposing Princes and of the Worshipping Saints before the Eighth Century If the Reformation be now to be condemned because of its Novelty these things were then to be as much condemned because they were then Novelties Secondly If the Reformation had brought in any new Doctrine its Novelty were indeed a just Prejudice against it but it was only the throwing out of these Corruptions which had been brought in in some dark and Ignorant Ages Thirdly The Doctrine of the Reformed Church is no other than what Christ and his Apostles taught and what the Church believed for many Ages after them And as to the Positive part of it it has been still held by the Church of Rome and is yet acknowledged by them but with so many Additions that there was a Necessity of Reforming these And this is often to be inculcated in them that there is no Article of Faith nor any other material point of Religion among us that is condemned by the Church of Rome They only blame us because we do not in many other points believe as they do and this we ought not to do unless we could see an equal Authority binding us to all alike Another Exception is that in the Reformation we made a Schism and broke the Unity of the Church whereas if there had been any things amiss in the Church they say the Reformers should have endeavoured to remove them without tearing the Body of Christ in pieces But in answer to this we acknowledg if the things complained of could have been continued without sin they ought not to have departed from the Communion of other Churches but when the publick Liturgies and the Worship was found to be full of such Corruptions that without Idolatry and Superstition they could be no longer kept up then it was not time to stay for the leisure of their Neighbouring Churches Yet if there had been any probable hopes that the See of Rome would have concurred in such a Reformation it had been worth staying for as long as was possible But when it was on the contrary apparent that all the most just Remonstrances made to that Court were answered at best with delays and Excuses if not with Excommunications and other censures they had no reason to expect any concurrence from thence So the case being thus put that they discovered such Corruptions
Ages And as their Popes have wrested many Territories from Temporal Princes so for many Ages they set on Publick Robbery against the Eighth Commandment The Doctrine of Equivocating both taught and practised the breaking of safe Conducts and publick Faith decreed by their General Councils is also against the Ninth Commandment For the Tenth I shall say nothing of it because the meaning of it is not so generally agreed on But thus we see all the Rules of Morality are contradicted by that Church It might be justly added to swell up this Charge that of late there have been Doctrines published to the world by the approved Casuists of that Church with Licence which subvert all Justice destroy all security and take away the most sacred ties of mankind By the Doctrines of Probability and of Ordering the Intention aright there is no crime how black soever but a man may adventure on it with a good conscience These things were long and openly taught amongst them without any Censure And when many of the French Clergy complained of these at the Court of Rome perhaps more out of spite to the Jesuits than zeal for the Truth it was long before these so just Remonstrances were heard And in conclusion a trifling Censure was past on them by which they were declared Scandalous neither Impious nor Wicked and all were forbidden to teach them any more but they stand yet in the Books formerly published with Licence After all these particulars is it to be wondered at if the morals of the men of that Church be vitiated when their Doctrine is so corrupted for peoples practices are generally worse than their Opinions And thus the Second point is made good that in our Church we teach the same Rules of Living that are in the Scriptures which are grosly corrupted by their Doctrines The Third Branch of the Christian Religion is the Worship of God and that chiefly the use of the Sacraments For the Worship of God let it be considered that we pray to God and praise him only for all these things about which the Scriptures command us to address to him Our worship is in a Language that all the people understand and so are edified by it according to St. Paul who has enlarged so much on this matter in a whole Chapter that it is strange how any who acknowledg the Authority of that Epistle can deny it Our Liturgies are such that the Romanists cannot except to any part of them Our ceremonies are few and these be both decent and useful So that in all the parts of our Worship we do so exactly agree to the Rule of the Scriptures and the Primitive Church that they cannot blame us for any one Rubrick or Collect in it But for their worship It is in a Language not understood by the people who to be sure can receive no Edification from that they understand not nor can they say Amen to such Devotions This is as it were in spite to St. Paul who took special care that as long as his Authority was in any esteem in the Church such an abuse should never creep into it Nor is there a shadow of Authority for such a practice from the Primitive Church in which for many Ages the Worship was still in the vulgar Tongues Next their Worship is so overcharged with many Rites and Ceremonies that the seriousness of Devotion must needs be much alloyed by them A great part of the Worship is so whispered as if they were muttering Spells Their Books of Exorcisms are the most indecent things that can be full of Charms and other ridiculous Rites And for the Pontifical and Ceremonial of their Church they may match with Heathenism for Superstition Their Offices are so various and numerous and the Rubricks seem so full of disorder that a man may as soon learn a Trade as know all the several parts of them How this can be reconciled to the Simplicity of the Gospel or the Worshipping God in spirit and truth may be easily judged by those who can compare things For the Sacraments we have the Two that Christ Instituted Baptism and the Lords Supper And for Pennance Confirmation Ordination and Marriage we have them also among us as they were appointed by Christ and his Apostles though we do not call these Sacraments For Extream Unction we find no warrant at all for it as a sacred Ordinance and we are sure the Church for many Ages did not think of it For Baptism it is done among us in the very Form our Saviour appointed and this they do not deny But among them they cannot be assured that they are at all Baptized since according to the Doctrine of the necessity of the Intention of the Priest to the Being of a Sacrament they cannot be assured of it for an Atheistical Priest can spoil their Baptism so that unless they can be certain of that which is impossible for them to know I mean the Intention of the Priest they are not sure that they were ever truly Baptized But for the Lords Supper if any person will so far trust his own Reason and senses as to compare all the Warrants we have in Scripture for that Ordinance with the Practice of our Church and theirs they will soon see who agree most to them Christ took Bread which he blessed and gave saying This is my Body which is given for you He also took the Chalice and said Drink ye all of it c. All this we doe and no more so that it is indeed a Communion among us and those who have read the account that Iustin Martyr gives us of the Rites in the Communion in his days would think he were reading the very Abstract of our Office But in the Church of Rome besides the less material things of the Form of the Bread the Consecration of Altars and Vessels with the numberless little devices in the Canon of the Mass that they seem not of such importance let these considerable changes they have made be looked into 1. They have brought in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation against the clearest Evidence both of sense and reason against the nature of a Sacrament and its being a Memorial of Christs Death and that by the very words of Consecration the Bread and Wine are Christs Body and Blood as the one was given for us and the other shed for us on the Cross and not as he is now at the Right hand of God The belief of this crept in by degrees from the eighth Century in which it was first set on foot but much contradicted both in the Eastern and Western Church and was not fully setled till the 13th Century We are sure it was not the Doctrine of the Churches of Rome Constantinople Asia Antioch nor Africk in the 5th and 6th Centuries by express Testimonies from the most esteemed Authors of that time Gelasius Chrysostom Ephrem Theodoret and St. Austin 2. They deny the Chalice to the Laity against
the express words of the Institution and contrary both to the Doctrine and Tradition of the Church for 1300 years 3. They have declared the Priests saying Mass to be an Expiatory Sacrifice for the Dead and the Living though the Scripture plainly says That Christ was once offered for us It is true the Primitive Church used the words Sacrifice and Oblation as our Church yet does but their meaning by that was only in the general sense of these terms as Prayers Praises and Alms are called Sacrifices 4. They have brought in a new piece of Worship which is the hearing of Mass without receiving the Sacrament and it is now the great Devotion of their Church Though by the Institution it is as express as can be that the Consecration is only in order to its being a Communion And by the Apostolical Canons which some in their Church believe to be the work of the Apostles and are by them all acknowledged to be a Collection of the Rites of the first Ages all persons that were present at the Worship and did not communicate were to be severely censured 5. The adoring the Sacrament the exposing it on the Altar and carrying it about in solemn Processions to be worshipped as they are late Inventions so if Transubstantiation be not true they are by their own confession the grossest Idolatries that ever were And are not these considerable variations from the first Institution of this Sacrament As for their own Sacraments though there is no reason to equal them to either of these that were instituted by Christ yet some of them we use as they were at first appointed Persons Baptized are Confirmed with Imposition of hands the only Ceremony used by the Apostles We allow the use of Confession and do press it in many cases and give the benefit of Absolution but we do not make this an Engin to screw peoples secrets from them For which there is no warrant in Scripture nor was it thought necessary for many Ages after the Apostles Confession of publick Scandals was enjoyned and for private sins it was recommended but this latter was not judged simply necessary for obtaining the pardon of sin And what noise soever they make of the good that Confession and the enjoyning of Pennance may do if well managed we need only appeal to some of their own best Writers now in France whether as they have been practised they have not rather driven all true Piety out of the world If these abuses had been only the faults of some Priests the blame could not have been justly cast on their Church but when the publick Rules given to Confessors printed with Licence are their warrants for so doing then their Church is in fault So that nothing is more common among them than for persons after a confession made of their sins with a slight sorrow and some trifling pennance undergone together with the Priestly Absolution to fancy themselves as clean from all sin as if they had never offended God And this being the Doctrin of their Church it both lessens the sense of sin and takes men off from making such earnest applications to God through Christ as the Gospel commands For Orders they are among us with the same Rites that Christ and the Apostles gave them first And a learned Man of their own Church has lately published the most ancient Forms of Ordinations he could find From which it appears that all the Ceremonies in their Ordinations for the want of which they accuse us were brought in since the eighth Century so that even by their own Principles these things cannot be necessary to Ordination otherwise there were no true Orders in the Church for the first eight Ages For Marriage we honour it as Gods Ordinance and since the Scriptures declare it honourable in all without exception we dare deny it to none who desire it St. Paul delivers the Duty of Clergy-men towards their Wives with Rules for their Wives behaviour which had been very impertinent if Clergy-men might have no Wives We find a married Clergy in the first ten Centuries And we know by what base Arts the Caelibate of the Clergy was brought in and what horrid ill effects it has produced Neither do we allow of any devices to hinder Marriage by degrees of kindred not prohibited in the Law of God or the trade that was long driven in granting Dispensations in those degrees and afterwards annulling these and avoiding the Marriages that followed upon them upon some pretences of Law Thus it appears how they have corrupted the Doctrine of the Sacraments together with the Worship of God The last head of Religion is Government and as to this we can challenge any to see what they can except to us First in reference to the Civil Power we declare all are bound for conscience sake to obey every lawful Command of the Supream Authority and to submit when they cannot obey We pretend to no Exemption of Clarks from the Civil Jurisdiction but give to Caesar the things that are Caesars We do not obey the King only because he is of our Religion much less do we allow of Conspiracies or Rebellions upon our judging him an Heretick so that we deliver no Doctrin that can be of any ill consequence to the Society we live in And for the Ecclesiastical Government we have Bishops Priests and Deacons rightly Ordained and in their due subordination to one another every one administring these Offices due to his Function which has been the Governemnt of the Christian Church since the times of the Apostles So that we have a clear vocation of Pastors among us from whose hands every person may without scruple receive all the Sacraments of the Church But for the Church of Rome how unsafe is the Civil Government among them not to mention the Doctrin of deposing Princes for which I refer you to my former Letter What a security does the Exemption of Clerks from the Civil Courts in cases criminal give to loose and debauched Church-men and what disturbance must this breed to a Common wealth The denying the Civil Magistrate power to make Laws that concern Religion or oblige Churchmen takes away a great deal of his Rights for scarce any Law can be made but wrangling and ill-natur'd Churchmen may draw it within some head of Religion And that this was frequently done in former Ages all that have read History know The quarrels that were in the beginning of this Century between the Pope and the Republick of Venice were a fresh Evidence of it But for the Ecclesiastical Government they have spoiled it in all the parts of it The Pope has assumed a power of so vast an extent and so arbitrary a nature that all the ancient Canons are thrown out of doors by it We know that originally the Bishops of Rome were looked on by the rest of the Church as their Colleagues and fellow Bishops The Dignity of the City made the See
then other Churches are not in that case obliged to hold Communion with that See If therefore the possiblity of Error in that See be acknowledged then holding Communion with it cannot be the measure of the Unity of the Church So we bring it to this Issue It is not Heresie to say The Pope may Err Therefore this is no just prejudice against our Church because we have departed from Communion with him when he imposed his Errors on us So all the high things they boast of that See come to nothing except they say This Proposition is of Faith That the Pope is Infallible And for these Meetings that they call General Councils they were at best but the Councils of the Western Patriarchate artificially packt and managed with much Art as appears even from Cardinal Pallavicini's History of the Council of Trent For the Third Prejudice It is the most disingenuous thing that can be Because our Church is charitable and modest in her Censures and theirs is uncharitable and cruel in her Judgments therefore to conclude That Communion with them is safer than with us If confidence and Presumption Noise and Arrogance are the marks to judge a Church by we must yield to them in these but if Truth and Peace Charity and holy Doctrines be the better Standards then we are as sure that our Communion is much safer Let this Rule be applied to the other concerns of human life and it will appear how ridiculous an abuse it is to take measures from so false a Standard If a man were sick the Question comes Whether he shall use an approved Physitian or a Montebanks On the one hand the Montebank says He will certainly cure him and the Doctors will undoubtedly kill him On the other hand the Doctor modestly says he will undertake nothing but will do the best he can and for the Montebank he tells him It is very dangerous to trust to him though he will not deny but sometimes great cures are done by them The Insolence of the Montebank will never carry it against a Doctors modesty but among weak and credulous People and such must they also be who are taken with this Montebankry in Religion But if this be taken to pieces the folly of it will yet appear more manifest For First the reason we give for a possibility of Salvation in the Church of Rome is because we look on such and such things as the Essentials of Christianity which are yet retained in that Church And either this Reasoning is true or false If it be true then it is as true that we may be saved who retain these Essentials of Christianity If it is false then no Inference can be drawn from it Secondly Though we yield a possiblity of Salvation in that Church we declare that they are in great danger by many opinions among them which if fully understood and believed do even vitiate the Essentials of Christanity particularly that Foundation of Religion The Covenant between God and Man thorough Christ formerly insisted on So that we declaring a Certainty of Salvation to those who sincerely follow the rules of our Church and a great danger in their Church the preferring their Communion to ours upon this account is as unreasonable as to sleep without shutting our Doors because it is possible we shall not be robbed in so doing Or when we are at Sea to prefer a Cock-boat to a good clean Ship These are such absurdities that an ordinary measure of weakness cannot swallow them down Thirdly We are not so forward as they imagine in yielding a possibility of Salvation in their Church For our concession amounts rather to this that we do not deny it than that we positively affirm it And therefore they have no reason to draw these advantages from it 4. A great difference is to be made between what God in the Infiniteness of his mercy may do and what he is bound to by the Covenant made with man in the Gospel for the former we acknowledg it is impossible to fix the limits of that mercy which is as far above our thoughts as the heavens are above the Earth And how far it extends to all sincere minds we are not so presumptuous as to define therefore we will not Damn at pleasure as they do but we do assert Their Church is guilty of such gross Corruptions by which the vitals of Religion are vitiated that they have not that reason to claim the Mercies of the Gospel due by that Covenant 5. The Church of Rome has a dark and fair side the dark side is what the true consequence of their Opinions is the fair side is what some witty men have devised to palliate these corruptions with and to deceive the Vulgar by We know many of that Communion either do not at all know these corrupt Doctrines or have such a fair representation made of them that they are thereby both more easily and more innocently misled From hence it is that we are inclined to hope more charitably concerning some that are abused by them But for those that have examined things more fully or that having been bred among us yet reject the Truth and go over to them we are not so much enclined to have so good hopes of them as they imagine So this is a weak and ill grounded conceit in all the parts of it The Fourth Prejudice is concerning the necessity of Submitting to some Common Judg of distrusting our own reasons and believing the Church without which there must be many Sects and Divisions and this they aggravate from the many different Parties that are among us But these are only specious pretences to deceive weak people by For First If-it is necessary that there be a Common Judg it is most necessary that it be known who this Judg is otherwise it is to no purpose to talk of a Judge if they cannot point him out This is like him that came to discover a huge Treasure that he knew was hid under ground but being asked in what place it was he answered he did not know that and he believed no body else knew Some say the Pope is the Judge others as confidently that the Council is Judge even without the Pope others think it is sure work to say the Pope and Council together and others say the Body of the Church spread over the World For the Popes some of them have been condemned for Heresie and others for making Schism many of them have been most horrid men they are generally ignorant in Divinity being for most part bred to the Law so that a great part of their own Church rejects the Popes Infallibility For Councils they have had none these 115 years and the last was so over-ruled by the Popes that no other has been desired since so that if either a Council without the Pope or with him be the Infallible Judge they have lost their infallibility and except a Council were constantly sitting they can shew no