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A34067
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Friendly and seasonable advice to the Roman Catholicks of England by a charitable hand.
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Comber, Thomas, 1645-1699.
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1677
(1677)
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Wing C5468; ESTC R1768
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62,503
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180
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chuses his own delusion and desperately hazards his own salvation S. Ambrose adviseth us if we choose a Guide to be careful he be endued with two properties Honesty and Prudence for his Honesty will be a security that he will not deceive us and his Prudence will prevent our suspicion of his being deceived himself which wise Counsel if you follow you must no longer adhere to these unfaithful Leaders Nor ought you to fear to forsake them either because your Forefathers fathers relied on them or because the Doctrines that they teach were once so generally received here since your Forefathers lived in an Age wherein there was little means to detect these Forgeries whereas you are by Providence fallen into those times wherein all the Dishonest Arts of that Church are discovered so plainly that if your Forefathers had seen as much as you may see they would have forsaken Rome long since and not have left you this Objection to make Nor are the Doctrines ever the better for being generally received when as they were imposed on the World by such evil means as Force and Fraud which being thus made evident you can no longer wonder how these Innovations came to be so generally beleived being propagated by as wicked means as they were invented for evil ends So that now what the Roman Church thought would secure her Opinions if it could have been kept close must needs make them odious being once laid open and the Impostures which they designed should tye men to their Church will as some of their own Doctors have prophesied be an Occasion to make all Discerning men turn from it for Religion is to be defended saith Lactantius not with wickedness but fidelity for if you attempt to defend Religion by Evil Arts you do not defend but pollute and violate it SECTION IV. Whether the said Opinions tend to advance the Ends of true Religion NOw though it be altogether unlikely those Principles should be either true or good which stand in need of such Arts to propagate and defend them yet because you have been so long accustomed to call these things Religion and it is not easie to lay aside our rooted Prepossessions we will pass to the Third Enquiry viz. Whether the things themselves be good in their own nature and Parts of true Religion Now we may try this by considering what are the ends of True Religion and whether these Principles serve to advance those ends True Religion therefore hath three Principal Ends 1. To advance the honour of God 2. To assist us in the Devout worshipping of him 3. To teach us to imitate him by a holy life and conversation Let us here therefore examine whether the peculiar Articles of the Roman Church do not hinder rather than promote these Ends For if it appear these Principles are dishonourable to God impediments to Devotion and hindrances to a holy life then those Doctrines are also Evil in their own nature and they can be no real parts of a good or True Religion Nor must you retain them because you have once judged them good if upon Tryal they prove to be otherwise We must be firm to our Principles saith Epictetus yet not to all of them but only to those which are right we must begin at the right end and first lay the foundation by considering whether our Principles be good or evil and after build upon that by constancy and firmness of Resolution Wherefore let me desire you patiently and impartially to enquire First If there be not some of your Principles and Practices which tend not to the honour of God if it be a dishonour to the Divine Majesty for a mortal man to contradict his Laws by contrary Constitutions I fear your Church will hardly be found innocent For do they not command things which God hath forbidden in as plain words as can be spoken as in the case of Images Exod. xx 4 and Prayer in an unknown Tongue 1 Con. xiv 28. Do they not forbid things which God hath allowed as in the case of Priests Marriage Heb. xiii 4. 1 Cor. vii 2 Chap. ix 5. 1 Tim. iii. 2. 12 and taking the Cup from the People which they have decreed with a Non obstante that is notwithstanding our Lord Jesus appointed the contrary Do they not presume to dispense with the very Laws of God in many cases of Matrimony and Divorce of Vows Oaths Leagues and Contracts So that laying aside the Commandment of God ye hold the Tradition of men as our Saviour speaks Mark vii 8. Your Holy Father who doth all this may think himself the greatest upon Earth but if our Lord Jesus tell us the Truth He shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven Matth. v. 19. Secondly Is it not a great derogation to an Infinite and Invisible Being to be represented by an Image and worshipped under such Representations Agreeable to the worship which Heathens gave to their false gods and some Hereticks to our Saviour but contrary to the Decrees and Practice of the Primitive Christians and to the great scandal of Modern Jews who call your Churches Houses of Idols upon this account Thirdly Doth not the Doctrine of Merits cast a palpable dishonour upon the glorious Redemption wrought by Jesus Christ Sure I am divers of the Ancients as well as of your later Writers think so Nor can we think it to be less than Blasphemy which Bellarmine affirmeth viz. That a man may be said to be his own Redeemer without any injury to Christ Doubtless those who fancy they can redeem themselves and satisfie for their own sins cannot but have a mean esteem of Christ's Merits and Satisfaction Fourthly Your praying to Angels and Saints especially the blessed Virgin making them your Mediators and Patrons and asking the greatest things of them hath made Prayers to God by Jesus Christ to be generally neglected by the vulgar people who say ten times as many Ave Mary's as Pater Noster's and wickedly fancy the Blessed Virgin and Holy Saints are more compassionate than our Lord Jesus This Doctrine saith a very wise man hath wrought that general effect in all Countreys subject to the Papacy that men have more affiance and assume to themselves a greater conceit of comfort in the Patronage of the creatures and servants of God than of God himself the Prince and the Creator A fault which St. Paul lays to the Heathens charge Rom. i. 25. How dishonourable must it needs be to leave Jesus that one Mediator 1 Tim. ii 5. who always doth certainly hear us and is most apt to pity us and best able to help us to pray to God by those concerning whom your own Doctors doubt whether they know any thing done here and the Scripture plainly saith they do not Reason shews it is impossible they should hear many Prayers in divers places at once To have the worship paid to the
Emperor Anastasius The Vicar of God by the Divine command presiding over the Earth An Authority like this also was exercised by the Western Emperors of the French Line being stayled The Rulers of the True Religion a Title given to Charles the Great and to Ludovicus by two several Councils which they had called and the present French Kings do claim the Supremacy over the French Churches as may be seen in â—â—ohellus and P. Pithâ—us cited before Sect. 5. One of the French Writers telling us it is the Opinion of his Nation that Le Royiassisté de son Conseil d'estate est â—â—â—es Diâ—â— Chief Terrieâ— de l'Eglise de son Royanme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pape And it may be proved concerning other Christian Princes that they allow not the Pope to impose his Decrees on their Kingdoms nor to exercise any Jurisdiction among them but by their special License and consent and prohibite his exercising any power over their Subjects when they please And why may not the King of England being a free and absolute Monarch be allowed as great a Priviledge in his own Dominions Do you not tell us that Pope Eleutherius called King Lucius by the Title of Vicar of Christ and doth not King Edgar call himself Christs Vicar and none taxed this Title then Did not the Saxon Kings preside in all National Councils and make Laws for Religion by the advice of their own Bishops by their own Authority Did they not erect new Sees for Bishops and change them as they saw fit Did they not invest all Bishops by delivering the Ring and Pastoral Staff And the same power was still exercised by K. William the Conqueror for all things both Divine and Humane depended on his Order saith an Old Historian And when the Pope began to encroach upon the King's Supremacy here in England he was generally opposed as we noted before And in the aforesaid Parliament of Richard the Second the Nation declared That they would not endure that the Crown of England should be submitted to the Pope and the Laws and Statutes of this Realm by him defeated and avoided at his pleasure for Bracton our most famous Lawyer affirms that The Kings of England have no Supream on earth but God And accordingly the Kings and Parliaments of this Nation made Laws in reference to Religion as they saw expedient and among the rest they enacted many Laws in a direct opposition to the Pope's Spiritual as well as Temporal Jurisdiction declaring thereby that they esteemed him no Head of this Church but an ambitious and dangerous Encroacher upon the Rights of the Crown as you will find by perusal of those several Statutes cited in the Margin By which Laws long since enacted it is declared to be Treason to receive or harbour any Agents or Emissaries from Rome against the King's Proclamations and without his special License Upon all which Considerations the Judges have declared that the Act of Parliament for Restoring the Supremacy over the Church unto the Crown was not the introducing a New Law but a declaration of the Old For it was many hundred years before that King Henry the Second did declare That be would account it high Treason in any man that should affirm the Pope's Authority was above his And before that Anselm was told That it was impossible for him to keep the Faith which he owed to the King and to pay Obedience to the Pope contrary to his Royal Pleasure Which methinks may fitly admonish you who do own the Pope's Supremacy over England and yet glory much in your Loyalty to the King to enquire how these two can stand together Our Saviour saith No mancan serve two Masters Matth. vi 24. however not two Supream Lords neither can there be two highest Powers in one Kingdom nor can any Subjects obey both since they will sometimes command contrary things 'T is true if the Roman Bishop would profess to our King as his Predecessor Leo the Fourth did to Lotharius of France Concerning your Capitulars or Imperial Precepts we through the assistance of Christ promise as much as we are able to keep and conserve the same for ever If he would acknowledge himself subject to our King in his Dominions as his Predecessors were to the Emperours of Old if he behaved himself toward his Majesty as S. Gregory did to Mauritius who calls that Emperour his Lord and himself his Servant declaring that He was subject to the Emperours Commands and accordingly had done his duty in publishing a Law which the Emperour ordered him to promulge though for his own part he thought it not agreeable to the Laws of God If the present Popes claimed no more than a Primacy of order and precedency among other Bishops then the case might easily be determined But you know of later times the pretences of Rome are much higher for she challenges a Supremacy over all Christian Princes a power to depose them an Authority to abrogate or dispense with their Laws and absolve their Subjects from their Allegiance a Priviledge to be appealed unto as to the last and highest Tribunal on Earth so that Clement the Fifth is recorded in the Acts of the Council of Vienna to have said That all the Right of Kings depended on him alone and Boniface the Eighth owned himself not only Lord of France but of all the World for So great was the Impudence of this Boniface saith the French Chronologer that he presumed to affirm the Kingdom of France was a Fee of the Papal Majesty And as to this Kingdom Pope Innocent the Fourth saith That the King of England was his Vassal and his Slave and they esteem England also a Fee of the Papacy and so is Ireland too it seems Whereupon the Pope hath dared to nominate a King of Ireland and hath given away the Kingdom of England to those who attempted to conquer it he hath condemned our Laws and absolved the Subjects of England from their Allegiance upon which many of your Party have entred into Conspiracies and Rebellion So that now it appears the Pope claims an Absolute Supremacy over our King and his Realms and how he can be a good Subject of the King of England who professes Obedience to this Forreign Princely Prelate is very hard to be understood if you believe this claim and own the Pope to be above the King you must then obey him even when his Orders contradict those of your lawful Sovereign and so you are the Pope's Subjects not the King 's nor can his Majesty have any security of your Allegiance any longer than he pleases the Roman Bishop so that he Reigns over you at the Pope's mercy I know many of you English Catholicks have so Loyal an affection for the King that your Church-men are forced to invent many plausible pretences to perswade you that the Supremacy claimed by the Pope