the unquestionably Divine Predictions of the Old and New Testament when God poured out the Spirit of Prophecy upon his Servants there have been now and then in the Church some sprinklings of it and that several Persons have foretold Things by Divine Revelation which had no Evidence of it comparable to what the great strokes of Scripture-Prophecy have Such a Prediction I would allow that of Benedict to be which the Cardinal cites if one had good reason to believe it And I would not much quarrel with that which Gofrid tells of St. Bernard though I have no great Opinion of it But for St. Francis I desire to be wholly excused Which I do not say as if there were any danger of granting that there has been something of this lower degree of Prophecy amongst some in the Roman Communion for if Prophetick Light were a Note of the Church 't is not the foretelling of a few Events that happen not long after the Prediction which will amount to it tho there may be more reason upon the account of the Holiness of the Person or some such other Consideration to ascribe it to a Divine Revelation than to any other Cause As there are some Divine Miracles that have the Finger of God while others are hard to be distinguished from Delusions and Lying Wonders So some Divine Predictions there are which have the Characters of God's Omniscience upon them while others are capable of being resolved into other Causes But he must be at a great loss for Church-Marks that would mark his Church by Prophetick Light without the former As for the latter I have said once already and I say it again that they may nay I am apt to think that they have had some such in the Roman Communion But the Cardinal is very unlucky in his Instances as some others of that Church are whom I have consulted I cannot see why such a-doe should be made about the Predictions of Philippus Nerius the Florentine that care must be taken to preserve the Attestations of them Vita Phil. Ner. p. 76. Mog When he could not perswade a Jew to pray to Christ for himself he desired the Standers-by to pray for him promising them that he would be converted which came to pass as we are told in a few Days Again P. 100. when one of his Converts had lent a sum of Mony to a Banker he made him go and fetch it back before Night tho he knew not the Man and within a few Days the Banker broke Sometimes he foretold that such a Sick Man would dye and sometimes that such an one would recover Which Predictions are as modest as may be but no other reason can be given I think why Nerius must for such Things as these pass for a Prophet but that they cannot write the Lives of their Saints without stuffing them as with Miracles and Visions and Extasies so sometimes with Prophecies too and then they must be content with such as can be had S. Rosae Vita c. 18. The Good Writer of St. Rose's Life took great pains to make her a Prophetess not long before her Death For she forsooth knew by Divine Inspiration that a Convent of St. Catherine of Siena would be built and this ten Years before the Foundation was laid she had it shewn sometimes by Signs and Figures sometimes in the exact Fashion and Model and would talk of it as if she had it before her Eyes she drew it out upon a Paper and she could tell who would be the first Abbess there knew her by Face and after a sort consecrated her by a Kiss insomuch that some thought she was mad It is as hard to believe that the Spirit of Prophecy should be given to a Maid for no other end as it should seem by this Story but to get her the Fame of a Prophetess as that the Ludicrous Miracles that do no manner of Good are the Marks of Divine Power It may be reasonable to believe that some measure of this Gift is imparted when not only the Event answers the Prediction but when the End aimed at is Great and Good and of General Use as when God sent Prophets to his People to bring them back to the Law. I should therefore make no Difficulty to allow that Hieronymus Savonarola a very Religious Friar in Florence was sometimes enlightned with Prophetick Knowledg because he did not only foretell several Things that happened some in his Life-time some after his Death and others that are yet to come to pass but his Business was plainly this to awaken Men to Repentance and to forewarn the Great Ones themselves of the Judgments of God hanging over them if they would not do their parts to restore good Discipline and good Manners to the Church Thus as Philip de Comminees tells us Chron. du Roy c. ch 25. p. 338. he assured Charles the VIII that he should be very prosperous in his Voyage into Italy and this that he might reform the corrupt State of the Church which if he should neglect to do he should return with Dishonour and God would reserve that Work for another and so it happened He was a Man of singular Vertue and Piety and obtain'd the Reputation of a Prophet not only with †Guicciard Hist lib. ii p. 42. the greatest part of the People but with such Men as Philip de Comminees who knew him well and that Noble Earl Jo. Franciscus Picus who wrote his Life To which we may add that he was served as God's Prophets sometimes have been being put to Death at the Instigation of the Pope And for what reason do we think but because he prophesied against the Simony Whoredoms and Prophaneness that reigned in the Church for which he was accus'd of Preaching scandalously against the Manners of the Clergy and Court of Rome Lib. iii. p. 94. In short he was silenced by Pope Alexander the VIth and at length upon the Pope's Process against him he with two of his Companions were tormented and all to make him deny that he had received those things from God which he had said Vita Savonar and after horrible Tortures which he endured with great Patience he and they were at once hanged and burned to the everlasting Infamy of some-body and no less to their Confusion who will needs have it believed that there have been Prophets in the Roman Communion Savonarola was put to Death in the Year 1498 a little before the Reformation It was about an 150 Years before that that Joannes de Rupe Scissa such an other Man as Savonarola and a Monk prophesied to the same purpose that he did after-him foretelling several Things that happened afterwards in the Kingdom of France but running out into the Reproof of the Luxury and Vices of the Pope and the Great Church-men Pope Innocent laid hold on him Frossard Chron. Tom. 1 2. and kept him in Prison as Frossard acquaints us who
be no Note of the true Church III. That in case it were the Protestant Church would be the true Church rather than the Church of Rome I. I shall premise these five Things as preparatory to what follows 1. That by an unhappy End Bellarmin means That which is so in outward Appearance to the Eye of Sense or according to the Judgment of the World. Such as a violent or sudden or infamous or any kind of strange or unusual Death especially such in which there is an appearance of the Divine Vengeance As to be devour'd by Dogs or eaten up of Vermin to be flea'd or burnt alive for a Man to kill himself or to be kill'd by his Servants to be smitten by a Thunderbolt c. In a word any such End as either in its Nature or in its Circumstances is not the usual or common End of Men. 2. Bellarmin meant this not barely for the Note of a Church but of that which is the only true Church For since besides the common Faith in which all Christians agree there are many points in which they differ and by which they are divided among themselves into several Parties he supposing that no more than one of these can be a true Church and therefore that that one must be the only true Church his work was to furnish us with such Notes by which this one Church might be known and distinguish'd from all the rest And therefore 3. The Instances he produces of Unhappy Deaths are for the greater part impertinent because the Persons were such as were Enemies not to this or that Christian Church as distinguished from another but to Christianity it self and endeavour'd the total extirpation of it out of the World. So did the Emperors Nero Domitian Dioclesian the Apostate Julian c. And those Hereticks Simon Magus Manichaeus c. were not more opposite to the Church of Rome than to any other Christian Church There is nothing therefore in these Instances by which one Christian Church may be distinguish'd from another nothing by which the Church of Rome may be marked out for the true Church rather than the Church of Antioch or Alexandria And as those direful Deaths of the Heathen Persecutors and Apostate Christians gave no peculiar advantage to the Church of Rome then so they make much against the Church of Rome now For if they signified as Bellarmin would have them that Church to be the true Church which was then opposed by them it plainly follows that the Church of Rome now is not a true Church and that the Church of England is because the Church of Rome now is not the same Church it was then it hath now another Faith by which it is become another Church whereas the Church of England is the same now it was at first yea the same now that the Church of Rome was then it having purged her self from those Corruptions which have been since introduced by the Church of Rome and reduced it self to the Primitive Faith. Those other Examples of Tragical Deaths which if they had been true would have been more to the purpose shall be anon considered 4. Observe that the unhappy End of those who defend it must be a Note of a false Church if the unhappy End of those who oppose it be a Note of the true The Reason is plain because those who defend it in doing so they must oppose that Church that opposes it if they therefore have an unhappy End the opposite Church will have this Note of the only true Church and by Consequence that Church they defend in opposition to it must be a false Church 5. Observe that from God's Judgments against particular Persons nothing can be concluded against that Church of which they are Members The Reason is manifest because God's Judgments upon particular Persons are usually inflicted for particular personal Crimes as in the case of Nadab and Abihu Ananias and Sapphira These things being premised I proceed to shew II. That this can be no Note of the true Church which I might prove at large by shewing that it is destitute of all those Conditions which Cardinal Perron (b) Reply to K. James l. 1. c. 5. and Bellarmin himself (c) De Not. Eccles c. 2. makes necessary to every true Note But because this Method hath been already observed in the Examination of some of the foregoing Marks I shall therefore wave the Advantages it would afford me nor do I indeed stand in need of them because the Vanity and Falsity of it will be otherwise sufficiently manifest both by Scripture Experience and Reason First By Scripture And 1. By all those Scriptures which declare that all things come alike to all Men That in the common course of Providence there is no difference put between the Righteous and the Wicked between him that sacrificeth and him that sacrificeth not (d) Eccles 9.1 2 3. and by a plain Parity of Reason he that persecutes the true Religion and he that defends it he that worships God aright and he that worships him amiss or not at all as to outward Events hath frequently the same Lot As King Josiah the Restorer and Maintainer of the true Religion and who served the Lord with all his Heart died the same unnatural Death that Ahab did who served Baal and provoked the Lord to Anger more than all the Kings of Israel that were before him Nor was this promiscuous Dispensation of Events taken notice of only by wise Solomon but we find it long before affirmed by Job that God destroys both the Perfect and the Wicked (e) Job 9.22 Righteous Abel the first Man that ever died was a Proof of it he whose Sacrifice was by God accepted fell himself a Sacrifice to his wicked Brother's Envy Nor was it thus only before the Law and under the Law but it continues so still now under the Gospel The Tares and the Wheat though sown by different Hands the one by the Son of Man the other by the Devil yet as they grow up together in the same Field so they are gathered and cut down by the same Reapers by the same Sickle and are not sever'd the one for the Fire and the other for the Barn till the End of the World. Yea in plain Contradiction to this Note the Scripture tells us That there are just Men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the Wicked and there are wicked Men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the Righteous (f) Eccl. 8.14 And that not only in the Course of their Lives but when they die too For there is a just Man that perisheth in his Righteousness and there is a wicked Man that prolongeth his Days in his Wickedness (g) Eccl. 7.15 The good Man is sometimes cut off by an early Death because he is better than others and the Wicked whose Sins cry aloud for Vengeance prolongs his Days in his Wickedness and after a long and
prosperous Life hath an honourable Death and Burial for I saw says Solomon the Wicked buried (h) Eccles 8.10 that is as Cardinal Cajetan expounds the Words in such a pompous Sepulchre as transmits an honourable Memory of them to Posterity I grant that the Notes of Divine Vengeance are in some Mens Deaths fairly legible But then as I have before observed from God's Judgments against this or that Person nothing can be concluded against that Church of which they are Members 2. Besides these general Declarations the Scripture further assures us by a particular Instance that a true Church may be without this Mark and that the Enemies of the true Church may have it Thus the Church of Israel was without it and the uncircumcised Philistins had it when the High Priest fell backward and brake his Neck and his two Sons Hophni and Phineas with thirty thousand of the Israelites fell in one day by the Sword of the Philistins (i) 1 Sam. 3. Again when Zedekiah the Defender of the true Church was taken his Nobles slaughtered his Sons slain before his Eyes his Eyes then put out and he carried Captive to Babylon and put in Prison till the day of his Death If this was then a Note of the Church the Babylonians were the only true Church of God for their Enemies had then the most unhappy Ends So contrary is this Note to what we find in Scipture Secondly Nor is it less repugnant to daily Observation and the History of foregoing Ages For 1. All the World can testify that the same kind of Death happens to Men of different yea of opposite Churches That as dies the Christian so dies the Jew as dies the Catholick so dies the Heretick That the Protestant and Papist lie down ALIKE in the Dust to use Job's Phrase (k) Job 21.26 That as they often agree in their Deaths who while they lived were of different Churches so they often widely differ who were united in the same One hath a natural another a violent Death one falls by the Hand of God another by the Hand of his Neighbour one goes off gently in a Calm another is hurried away in a Storm one lives out the Term of Nature another is cut off in the midst of his Days one dies leisurely another is snatched away suddenly one finds a Grave in the Earth another in the Sea another finds none at all but is exposed as a Prey to Beasts and Birds This is so obvious that it is needless to produce Instances for the Confirmation of it 2. Whosoever has any Acquaintance with the History of the Christian Church knows that for several of the first Ages at least the best Men had generally the worst Deaths That the Apostles of our blessed Lord were set forth as a Spectacle to the World suffered the Deaths of the basest Malefactors that St. Peter and St. Andrew were crucified St. James the Just stoned and his Brains knocked out with a Club St. Bartholomew flead alive That not one of the Apostles can be named who did not end his Life by an unnatural Death except only St. John who escaped it by Miracle for he was cast into a Cauldron of boiling Oil. That the first Bishops their Successors followed them in the like Tragical Deaths That St. Clemens Bishop of Rome was thrown into the Bottom of the Sea St. Simeon Bishop of Jerusalem crucified St. Ignatius Bishop of Antioch exposed to the Lions St. Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna burnt at a Stake Yea that the Christians for the most part for three hundred Years together met with the most horrid Deaths One was torn in pieces by wild Beasts another was roasted on a Spit another was broiled on a Gridiron another had his Flesh scraped off to the Bones with sharp Shells and Salt and Vinegar poured into his green Wounds and for one of their bloody Persecutors an hundred Christians may be found who died a terrible Death These were the happy Ends that the first and best Christians were blessed with happy indeed if we respect the Cause for which they died and the blessed Reward they were crowned with but none ever more unhappy in the Eye of the World. As they had been of all Men the most miserable had they had Hope in this Life only so if this Note be true their Hope could not have reached beyond it 3. Nor is this Note more repugnant to Scripture and Experience than it is to Reason One prime fundamental Principle of Reason is That Contradictions cannot be true or that the same thing cannot be and not be This we are as sure of as that we our selves are or that any thing else is whatsoever therefore it be from whence it plainly follows that Contradictions may be true we are as sure that it is false and therefore that the Note now under consideration is so because if it be true the most palpable Contradictions will be true also Of those many that offer themselves I shall mention a few As 1. That that was a false Church which was most certainly the true Church For if the burning alive of Valens the Arian Emperor was a certain Sign that the Arian Faith is false the burning alive of many of the first Christians is as certain a Note that the Primitive Faith is false If it follows that Manichaeus was a damnable Heretick because he was flead alive must we not conclude that St. Bartholomew was as bad and by consequence all the holy Apostles because he suffered the same kind of Death 2. That a Church remaining the same without any Change in Doctrine Worship or Discipline may be to day a false Church to morrow the only true Church So the Church of Israel was a false one when the High Priest fell backward and brake his Neck within a few days after when the Hand of the Lord was against the Philistines and they were smitten with a foul Disease of which they miserably died it was a true Church again Thus the Church of Rome in the Year 1656 when a dreadful Pestilence for that is one of Bellarmin's unhappy Ends swept away three hundred thousands in three Months time in the Kingdom of Naples and made great havock at Rome and Genoa †Athanas Kircheri Scrutin Physico-Med Contag Luis quae dicitur Pestis P. 426. was a false Church but in the Year 1665 when the like dreadful Pestilence raged in London it became a true Church again Yea 3. That there is no one Church in the World but by this Note it may be and it may not be the true Church because the Opposers and the Defenders of any one and the same Church may have both of them unhappy and both of them happy Ends. Now as the Opposers have unhappy Ends it is a true Church as the Defenders have unhappy Ends it is by the fourth thing premised a false one Again as the Opposers have an happy End it is a false Church as the Defenders have
the receiving of Apocryphal Books into the Canon of Scripture and other Opinions and Practices in the Christian Church And for the Doctrine of Transubstantiation as it is against the common Sense of Mankind and destroys the certainty of every thing else so the Jews upon all occasions object against it We have a Witness beyond Exception even of the Roman Church who brings in the Jews objecting against this Doctrine Fortalitium Fidei Lugd. Anno 1525. and representing the unreasonableness and absurdity of it from fourteen several Heads of Argument which I may not here represent to the Reader because it would be too great a Digression Nor do I find this Learned Author who writes in Defence of the Roman Church and attempts to answer these Objections alledging that this was the Doctrine which was taught by the Hebrew Doctors The Jews have so far abhorred this Doctrine Decret Gregor l. v. Tit. vi cap. 13. Accepimus autem c. and so far detested Christians upon this account that they were wont when they made use of Christian Nurses to force them to throw away their Milk for three Days together before they gave suck when it happened that at Easter these Nurses had received the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ This Pope Gregory complains of and decrees upon it that Christians should not for the future be Servants to the Jews J. Albo Ikkarim And Josephus Albo disputes against this Doctrine of Transubstantiation very vigorously And so do many others V. Nizach vet p. 255. in their Books against Christians And many more Testimonies might be produced Lipman Nizachon p. 11. were not most of their Books printed in Italy where it is not safe for them to be too plain And Learned Men do very well know that the Passage in Joseph Albo against this Doctrine of the Roman Church hath been expunged in one Edition of that Author 'T is very well known that all the later Jews are against this Doctrine And that Trypho the Jew and the most ancient Writers have not objected it against Christians is only an Argument that this Doctrine was not so old as that time in which they lived This Doctrine the Jews are certain cannot be true because if they are not certain of the Falsity of this they have no Certainty of their own Religion nor can ever be convinced of the Truth of ours The Truth is this is one great occasion of hardening them against Christianity and we are never like to see them come into the Christian Church till this Doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Worship of Images be removed out of it But then the Practice annexed to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation of worshipping a Creature is so dangerous that even they who own the Doctrine confess if that be not true they cannot be excused from Idolatry God give us a just Sence of these things that we may not hereafter have besides our own Sins which will be load great enough the Obstinacy of the Jews in great measure to answer for THE END LONDON Printed by J. D. for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1687. The Fourteenth Note of the CHURCH EXAMINED VIZ The unhappy End of the Church's Enemies Decima quarta Nota est Infelix exitus seu finis eorm qui Ecclesiam oppugnant Bellarm. L. iv c. 17. de Notis Ecclesiae IMPRIMATUR July 27. 1687. Guil. Needham IF he be an unwise Builder who pulls down what he intends to build up then Cardinal Bellarmin tho one of the Master-Builders of the Church of Rome deserves not to be reckon'd one of the wisest For he must shut his Eyes close who does not plainly see that he frequently defeats his own Design by giving Notes which conclude that Church to be false which he design'd to prove was the only true one Such for instance is that which is now to be consider'd as shall in the Sequel of this Discourse be made appear The Confutation of which cannot be difficult since I find nothing in the whole Chapter that hath so much as the shew of an Argument Whereas some of his Notes are guarded with a pretence at least of Scripture Reason and Antiquity this is exposed naked to the Assaults of its Adversaries without so much as a Paper Shield to protect it He tells us indeed many Tragical Stories of unhappy Deaths some of which are true some doubtful and others false some of Persons who were deadly Enemies other of Persons who were zealous Defenders of the true Church But had the Stories been all certainly true and had the Persons who thus died been all of them implacable Enemies of the Church of Rome yet what does it signify unless he had also proved That when a Person dies an unnatural Death the meaning of it is That that Church of which he professed himself a Member is false and the Church he opposed the only true one But how unwise soever he was in the choice of his Note he was so wise as not to attempt the proof of this unless the Citation of this Scripture may pass for a Proof Praise his People O ye Nations for he will avenge the Blood of his Servants and will render Vengeance to his Enemies (a) Deut. 32.43 God will avenge the Blood of his Servants therefore if a Protestant die an uphappy Death the Church of Rome is the only true Church But why did the Cardinal send out this Note so forlorn For a good Reason because no Defence could be found for it But why did he then bring it into the Field Because he knew it was Popular and might serve the Cause better than another that was never so well fenc'd For will not he dread to oppose the Church of Rome who is persuaded that God will set a Note of Vengeance upon those that do so Will not he stedfastly adhere to it who believes that that is a certain way to an happy Death In short whosoever can be persuaded to believe that the Church of Rome is by this Note distinguish'd from all other Churches he will as much dread to turn Protestant as he does to die the most prodigious sort of Death But the Mischief is That however serviceable this pretended Note may be to them among weak and undiscerning Persons it will do there as much disservice among those who are judicious and able to examine it For when they shall once see what a palpable Cheat it is and in case that it were a Note of the true Church that the Church of Rome hath the least Reason of any Church in the World to pretend to it they will be thereby disposed to break off from the Communion of that Church which contradicts its own Marks and betake themselves to some other Church which hath a better Title to them For the effecting of which I shall proceed in this Method I. I shall premise some Things as preparatory to what follows II. Shew that this can