used as a means to get Money 5. By these Indulgences men are hindred from a true Repentance for they pretend to release Men by them both from Sin and Punishment at least the People are suffer'd to think so if they do but say so many Prayers or go in Pilgrimage to such a place or fast so many days from some kinds of Meats or give a large sum of Money for the building of a Church or go to War against Infidels c. Quest. 15. Why do not you think Auricular Confession to a Priest necessary to Salvation Here you must Note That we are not against Confession in the Church of England nay our Church presses it both publick and private to God and Confession to a pious and able Minister if the Conscience be burden'd and upon a Death-bed but we dare not say as they do in the Church of Rome that a Man cannot be pardon'd or saved except he Confesses to a Priest 1. We allow not of it in the sense of the Church of Rome Because there is nothing in the Word of God that makes the neglect of it Damnable 2. The Confession used in the Primitive Church was made by scandalous Sinners publickly in the Congregation and therefore is not the same with that practis'd in the Church of Rome which commands the Confessing all mortal Sins with their Circumstances into the ear of a Priest at set times and before the receiving of the Sacrament 3. Since it is not of Divine but Ecclesiastical Institution it cannot be absolutely necessary to Salvation 4. It cannot be a Sacrament as they make it in the Chuch of Rome because it wants Christ's Institution 5. This Confession to a Priest as it is managed in the Church of Rome is no Check but rather an Encouragement to Sin Quest. 16. UUhy do not you believe that the Church of Rome is the only Catholick Church and the Mistriss of all other Churches Answ. I can never believe that the Church of Rome is the only Catholick Church 1. Because there are vast multitudes of Christians in the World which are not in actual Communion with the Church of Rome and yet are Members of the Catholick or which is the same of Christ's universal Church dispersed all the World over 2. To say That the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church is to say That a part is the whole or that a House is a whole City or that one Member is the whole Body 3. The Primitive Christians did not take the Church of Rome for the only Catholick Church 4. God hath no where in Scripture declared so much 5. To say the Church of Rome is the only Catholick Church is a most uncharitable Doctrine and to Damn the greater part of the Christian World 6. All Churches that do hold the ancient Faith contain'd in the three Creeds are Members of the Catholick Church 7. The Church of Rome is so far from being the only Catholick Church that her strange Doctrines make her at the best but a very unsound Member of the Catholick Church I do not believe That the Church of Rome is the Mistress of all other Churches in the World 1. Because there is no such Authority given her in the word of God 2. The Superiority she Claims is nothing but Usurpation 3. The Asian and African Churches heretofore rejected her Authority 4. The Eastern Churches at this day despise her Pride and pretended Authority 5. The Church of England was a free Church from the beginning and therefore justly maintains her Freedom and how should that Church be Mistress of all other Churches that takes Liberty to change Christ's Institutions and Commands and contradicts the Word of God Quest. 17. Doth the Church of Rome differ from the Church of England in any other Points Answ. Yes for she holds 1. That Extreme Unction is a Sacrament necessary to Salvation 2. That it is unlawful for Priests to Marry 3. That she is infallible 4. That the Scripture is not to be read in a vulgar Language by the common People 5. That the Books call'd Apocrypha are Canonical Scripture 6. That the Church of England had no Power to Reform her self All which we deny as contrary to Scripture and Reason Quest. 18. Why do not you believe that Extreme Unction is a Sacrament necessary to Salvation Ans. 1. Because that Unction or anointing sick Persons Jam. 5. 14 15. was a miraculous Gift and therefore not necessary to be continued 2. Christ did never institute this miraculous Unction as a Sacrament 3. The Unction they use in the Church of Rome hath no miraculous effects 4. The Apostles an̄ointed sick Persons that they might recover In the Church of Rome they anoint dying Persons who are past Recovery 5. In that place of St. James the saving of the sick Person is ascribed to the Prayer of Faith not to the anointing 6. The Sacrament of the Lords Supper is sufficient to comfort the dying Man Quest. 19. Why do you look upon their forbidding Priests to marry as unlawful Answ. 1. Because St. Paul permits a Bishop and indeed all Clergy-men to marry 1 Tim. 3. 2. 8. 11. Tit. 1. 6. 2. The same Apostle saith to all Men in general It is better to marry than to burn 1 Cor. 7. 9. 3. The same Apostle calls forbidding to marry a Doctrine of Devils 1 Tim. 4. 1. 3. 4. St. Peter himself an Apostle and a Priest was a married Man 5. Several of the Bishops in the Primitive Church were married Men such as Spiridion Chaereman Phileas Gregory Nyssen Gregory Nazianzen both Father and Son Hilary and others 6. It was Pope Hildebrand or Gregory VII the same that first presumed to depose Soveraign Princes that made the Clergy renounce their Wives contrary to Scripture a Man guilty of the greatest Crimes imaginable Quest. 20. Why do not you believe the Church of Rome infallible Answ. 1. Because it is only a Pretence founded neither in Scripture nor Antiquity 2. It is a Church that hath err'd both in Doctrine and the Worship of God most notoriously 3. God hath no where promis'd to make any one Church infallible 4. Themselves are not agreed where this Infallibility lies whether in the Pope or in a general Council or in the diffusive body of Christians 5. The Word of God is the only infallible Rule to walk by 6. There is no need of a visible infallible Judge for deciding of Controversies For 1st Controversies may be decided without such a Judge as they were in the Primitive Church the Bishops meeting in Council and arguing against Hereticks from the Word of God 2d A meek humble peaceable and charitable Temper would decide Controversies better than all the pretended infallible Judges in the World 3d. We do not find that when there were infallible Judges here on Earth such as Christ and his Apostles that all Controversies did cease Notwithstanding their presence there were Schisms and Heresies even among the Christians 1 Cor. 11. 19.
4th For all the pretences of Infallibility in the Church of Rome they cannot decide the Controversies that are among their own Members 5th Both Popes and General Councils have contradicted one another and therefore neither of them can be infallible 6th The pretence of Infallibility in the Church of Rome is nothing but a device to uphold their Temporal Grandeur and Dominion Quest. 21. Why do you think the Church of Rome is in an Error in forbidding the reading of the Bible to the Common People Answ. 1. Because Christ commands all sorts of Men to read the Scriptures Joh. 5. 39. 2. The Berrhaeans are commended for searching the Scriptures Acts 17. 11. 3. The Fathers in the Primitive Church exhorted the People to the frequent reading of the Scriptures 4. St. Paul charges the Thessalonians to take care that his Epistle be read to all the holy Brethren 1 Thess. 5. 27. 5. In the Jewish Church every Family was to have the Law in their Houses and to teach it their Children diligently Deut. 6. 7. 6. The pretence of the Obscurity of the Scripture in many places is insignificant since the Scripture is plain enough in things necessary to Salvation 7. The Church of Rome in forbidding the Bible to the Laity discovers her fear and the weakness of her Cause least the People should see her Errors and forsake her Quest. 22. UUhy do not you believe that the Books call'd Apocrypha are Canonical Scripture Answ. 1. Because the Oracles of the Old Testament were delivered to the Jewish Church Rom. 3. 2. and these were not 2. The Christian Church receiv'd from the Jews no other Books of Canonical Scripture but what are own'd as such by the Church of England 3. The Apocrypha were not written by Men inspired by the Holy Ghost and what is Scripture must be by Inspiration 2 Tim. 3. 16. 4. Some of the Authors beg the Readers pardon for their Mistakes which is not the Language of the Holy Ghost 5. The Antient Councils have rejected these Apocrypha as not Canonical particularly the Council of Laodicea 6. In the Primitive Churches they read these Apocrypha only for the Instruction of Mens Manners but did not resolve their Faith into them no more do we Quest. 23. UUhy do you find fault with the Church of Rome for asserting that the Church of England once a Member of her Communion had no power to reform her self Answ. 1. Because every Church hath a natural right to shake off the Abuses and Corruptions which are contrary to the Word of God 2. It is God's Command to private Men not to suffer themselves to be deluded by the slight of Men and cunning Craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive and therefore much more is a National Church concern'd to do so 3. In vain was any Reformation hoped for from the Bishop and Clergy of the Roman Church 4. It 's the proper Office of the Bishops of a National Church to take notice what Errors creep into their Churches and oppose them 5. And that they have right to do so appears from the Examples the Church of Judah had in the times of Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah or Josiah 6. In throwing off the power of the Pope of Rome we did not throw off Obedience to a lawful Soveraign but Subjection to an Usurper 7. We did no more than what the Orthodox Churches did after the Arian Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia in setting up the Nicene Faith again which those powerful Councils had banish'd 8. We made no new Religion but restor'd the old and built no new House but only swept out of the old the Rubbish which made it unwholesom and uninhabitable The End An Account of the Conference betwixt a Jesuit of the Savoy and my Self the 2d of January Present Mr. Stephens on my side Mrs. Chamberlain and Mr. Chamberlain and the Book-binder about whom the Conference was held he having been six years of the Church of Rome but somewhat unsatisfied and Mr. Lamb. About Seven of the Clock at Night THE first thing Discoursed was about the Doctrine of Calvinists which the Jesuit said made God the Author of Sin I told him that there are several Expressions which if a favourable Construction be put upon them will appear to be otherwise Next he fell upon Luther who should say that no Man could be damned if he would but for his Infidelity I said it was true that God condemned no Man that professed himself a Christian but for his Infidelity The Jesuit asked whether if a Man committed Theft he may be call'd an Infidel I said he acted like an Infidel and in that Act was so because he acted contrary to his Belief Mr. Chamberlain putting in something about that place 1 Tim. 2. about one Mediator The Jesuit argued he wonderd we should talk of one Mediator when every Man that pray'd for the other was a Mediator I told him in a large Sense he might be called so but in the Controversie before us were meant Mediators which are religiously worshipped Here happened a great rambling Discourse about Faith As distinguished from all good Works but I told them that by Faith I did not mean the bare Assent to the Doctrine but a practical Belief as it takes in the whole Word of God and living according to it The Book-binder was gone to call Mrs. Chamberlain and coming again by this time The Jesuit said they were come to satisfie Persons under some Doubts and therefore must fall upon some more material Points and since we Protestants sent people to the Scripture it was necessary we should begin to talk of the Rule of Faith and therefore he desired to know how we knew the Scripture to be the Word of God and from whom we had received our Bible I told him we had received it from the Catholick Church whose Testimony was very considerable in this Case He ask'd hereupon when we went off from the Church From what Church we did immediately receive it I answered him both from the Western or Roman and from the Churches of the East However I told him I would fairly grant him that we had received it immediately from the Church of Rome and I desired him to make the best of it Here he asked how we could receive the true Bible from a corrupt Church I asked him whether I might not receive a Pearl from a Chimney Sweeper He said we looked upon them for Rogues and Rascals Whereupon I told him we give them no such Language However sinc he used these Names whether a Man might not receive a 100 l. in very good Money from Rogues and Rascals He then argued That we look'd upon the Church of Rome as a corrupt Church and how can we be sure that we have the true Bible since we cannot be sure that a corrupt Church had not corrupted it I told him that they confessed themselves they had not corrupted it and besides they could not corrupt it for the Cheat
will to confess to this man of Wonders you naturally fell into a fancy that so much Formality and Ceremony different from that you had been used to in our Church had more charms in it than our plain and honest way and then laid the stress of your pardon upon the new Priests absolution in that formal manner wherewith your fancy being impregnated it soon diffused a cheerful air in your countenance and raised some gladness in your heart because you had now done something more than ordinary as an Antidote against your Sin And from hence arose your pretended peace and satisfaction or delusion rather because you laid the stress of your pardon upon the absolution of that Roman Priest and not upon the sincerity of your repentance If a Priest could forgive Sin 's whether men Repent or no Then indeed you might have laid the stress of your Pardon on that forgiveness of the Priest but since by your own Confession that absolution of the Priest signifies nothing except people truly repent for you to build your comfort on that Absolution when it should have been founded upon your sincere Repentance cannot but be a false fire and a counterfeit comfort if you say you did not fetch your Peace from that Absolution but from the sincerity of your Repentance you catch your self for if your true Repentance must be the foundation of it then you might have taken the same comfort in our Church If you still reply you could not you only mean you would not for true Repentance is true Repentance in any Church and if true Repentance causes true comfort it would have caused true comfort in our Church as well as in the Roman and therefore there must be some cheat in this comfort The fancy you have since taken up that the reason why you found comfort in the Church of Rome upon your Confession and Absolution and none in ours must needs be because the Priests of that Church are true Priests and those of ours are not is as solid as your Peace If we have no true Priests in the Church of England then most certainly the Church of Rome hath none The Bishops which in the beginning of our Reformation did ordain Bishops Priests and Deacons among us were ordained by Bishops of that Church and if the Character of Orders by their own confession be indelible then it was not all the Thunders and Lightnings of Excommunication at Rome could annul it It 's true your ghostly Father very confidently tells you a Quality incident to that sort of Men That our first Protestant Bishops never received Orders from Bishops of the Church of Rome but one would admire what Spirit doth possess these Men that they dare contradict all the publick authentick Records we have of their being consecrated by Bishops of the Church of Rome they might as well deny that there were no such Kings of England as Henry VII and Henry VIII for we have nothing but publick Records to shew for it as deny that the Bishops of the Reformation were never consecrated by Bishops of the Roman Perswasion I am perswaded that if any Papist should come into trouble about the title of an Estate he hath and did but know that the name of his Ancestors the manner of the Conveyance and his just Title were in some publick Record or Register he would soon make use of it alledge it as a sufficient proof and thank God for preserving a Record that is so much for his advantage I know not what can be a better Testimony in matters of fact next to Revelation than publick Records and Registers and we dare venture our Reputation upon it that in the Authentick Registers of the respective Arch-bishops of Canterbury where fear of being counted Knaves and Fools for putting in things contrary to what was publickly known may justly be supposed to have kept the publick Notaries from asserting things notoriously false In these Registers I say it will be found what Succession our first Protestant Bishops had how Arch-bishop Parker the first Arch-bishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth to go no higher was consecrated December 17. 1559. by four persons then actually Bishops and who had formerly been Ordained by Bishops of the Church of Rome viz. William Barlow in Henry the Eighth's days Bishop of St. Davids under Edward the sixth Bishop of Bath and Wells under Queen Mary driven into Exile and returned under Queen Elizabeth John Story formerly Bishop of Chichester Miles Coverdale formerly Bishop of Exeter and John Hodgkins Bishop Suffragan of Bedford Not to mention that the Queen's Letters Patents in case any of the other should be sick or forced to be absent were directed to three Bishops more that had formerly been Popish Bishops and were turned Protestants viz. Anthony Bishop of Landaff John Bishop Suffragan of Thedford and John Bale Bishop of Ossery But all this hath been so clearly demonstrated out of the publick Records first by Mr. Mason and since by Arch-bishop Bramhal that he that writes of it can only transcribe out of them and those that deny these Records must be Men of strange Foreheads and of the greatest Disingenuity From these Men that had their Priesthood from the Church of Rome our Priesthood is lineally derived so that if our Priesthood be not valid theirs cannot be and if Heresie doth not make the Episcopal Office void nor disable a Man from conferring Episcopal Order on other Men as is evident from the second Council of Nice with your Church an Oecumenical Council which received Bishop Anatolius though consecrated by Dioscorus a Heretical Bishop if I say Heresie doth not make the Episcopal Order void then suppose we were Hereticks our Priesthood which is derived from Popish Bishops that turned Protestants must be a true Priesthood still and to this purpose I remember one of your Church said lately Once a Priest for ever a Priest Madam if you desire to know the Truth be honest and sincere you should act like a Person that hath a mind to be satisfied and search the publick Records and till then believe not every Tale that 's told you The common plea of your Priests that our Records are sophisticated and that we have put in what we please argues only Boldness and Ignorance when they can shew neither where nor when nor by whom they were corrupted Those that talk so seem neither to understand what a publick solemn thing the Consecration of a Bishop is in England nor to reflect how difficult it is to fill a publick Register with Falsities as to matters of fact when there are so many hundred Men that know what is done at such a time and view the Records and would most certainly speak of it if they found a flaw in the Relation But if we should deal thus with the Church of Rome question all their Registers in the Vatican and say which we might do with far greater reason that they are things packed and invented by Men that
Suppose our Religion did but begin then why must people be always in an Error Must they never reform when they have done amiss if there were monstrous Errors in the Church of Rome which the aforesaid Persons saw would be the Death of Christianity and which they could not subscribe to without debauching their Reason or wronging both their own and other Mens Consciences was it not rational they should protest against such things to give their fellow Christians warning When the House is on fire would you have no body awake to alarm the Neighbours to look to themselves did they see so many thousand Men ready to be drown'd and would you have had them hold their Tongues and barbarously suffered them all to be drown'd Did they see the Christian Religion like to be swallow'd up by Darkness and Ignorance and was it not time to rouze the slumbering World But however that these Men were the first broachers of our Religion is notoriously false First because long before them there were Men that lived in the external Communion of the Church of Rome but dislik'd the Errors as they crept in and grew dangerous and though they were over-aw'd and silenc'd many times by the higher Powers of the Roman Court yet they both detested those Corruptions and as they had opportunity protested against them as were an easie matter to prove from age to age if it had not been done already over and over by Divines of our Church so that though these Men that lived long before Luther and whom God still rais'd to vindicate his Truth as it grew more and more polluted were not call'd Protestants by the People yet in effect they were so and consequently there were Protestants many years before Luther and Zwinglius And though they were not suffered by the Ignorant and imperious Ecclesiastical Powers to meet and assemble themselves in publick yet they made a Church as much as the followers of Holy Athanasius did when the whole World was turned Arian as much as Elijah and those seven thousand the Oracle mentioned made a Church when the whole Country was over-run with Idolaters These seven thousand we read lay hid and durst not appear in publick being oppress'd by the Idolatrous powers that sat at the Stern and thought there was no good fishing but in troubled waters And indeed in this manner our Church was dispers'd long before Luther among the greater multitude of the followers of the corrupted Roman Church as a handful of wheat lies scatter'd in a bushel of Chaff and though it it did not appear in Pomp and Grandeur yet that external Splendour is not essential to the truth of a Church your own men may be convinced by the aforementioned examples Secondly if your Champions speak strictly of the Religion which we profess in the Church of England they are under a mistake when they make Luther or Zwinglius the Authors of it for our Reformation began some time after and was both begun and carried on with great deliberation and consideration under Edward the 6th by publick Authority whose proper province it is to take notice of what is amiss in a Kingdom or Commonwealth whether it be in Church or State and to reform and mend it It 's no great matter when a Reformation begins so the Reformation be but just and if such a Reformation had begun but yesterday that would not have made it unlawful and that our Reformation was just and necessary hath been prov'd by our Divines beyond all reasonable contradiction and how could it but be just when the Decrees of the Church of Rome controll'd the Word of the Living God and vyed with the Oracles of the Gospel How and when the several Errors crept into that Church is not material to determine it 's enough we found them there and it was God's mercy not to give all the learned Men of that age over to believe a lye But it 's pretty to hear your Church-men talk of the novelty of our Religion when it is evident to all the understanding World that our first Reformers began no new Religion but desired only to keep to the Old All their endeavour was to keep to the Religion of the Bible and to cut off all superfluities and things prejudicial to Salvation and was there any hurt in that They saw that many things then in use in the Church of Rome were diametically opposite to the Doctrines and practises of the Primitive Church and they justly thought it their Duty to reduce the Church to the antient Pattern the prouder Clergy of the Roman Church would not yield to it but would have all their new fangles and all their additions to the antient Symbols received as Articles of Faith though all perish'd and the coat of Christ were rent into a thousand pieces the more humble and more moderate of the Clergy saw the pride and insolence of the other and trembled and thus we and they parted we kept to the old Religion and your Men chose the new and much good it may do you with it and pray Judge by this which is the Schismatick Church we or they we that would have healed Israel or they that would not be healed so that it is not our Religion that began so lately as 150 years ago about Luthers time but it 's yours that commenced then for you then embraced the new additions to the antient Catholick Creeds with greater greediness and were resolv'd to maintain that by Bravado's which you were not able to defend with Arguments It 's a very ordinary thing for people who once incline to the Communion of the Roman Church to demand of us before they go over whither a person may be saved in that Church The Charity and moderation our Divines usually express in their answer to this Query I am sensible hath done our Church some harm whereas the Roman Priests being bold in their uncharitableness and damning all that are out of their Communion make some weak people believe that they must be in the right because they are more daring in their Asseverations We have far greater reason to be peremptory in excluding the Members of the Church of Rome from Salvation than they have to exclude us for if that Church be guilty of Idolatry as I see your Divines find it a very hard task to answer the Arguments of our learned Men that prove it Those that are guilty of this Crime may soon be resolved by the Apostle what their lot is like to be in another World for No Idolater saith St. Paul meaning one that lives and dies so shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6. 9. yet we are modest and whatever the principles of that Church may lead Men to we hope there may be many in that Church that either while they live in the Communion of that Church have an aversion from the dangerous and Idolatrous practices of it or sometimes before they die do heartily repent of the absurd and unreasonable