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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77347	Saul and Samuel at Endor, or The new waies of salvation and service, which usually temt [sic] men to Rome, and detain them there Truly represented, and refuted. By Dan. Brevint, D.D. As also a brief account of R.F. his Missale vindicatum, or Vindication of the Roman Mass. By the same author.	Brevint, Daniel, 1616-1695.	1674 (1674)	Wing B4423; ESTC R212267	257,888	438

to his Successor his special Commission and Apostleship over the Jews Did St Paul leave either at Rome or in any other Cities he was in proper Apostles to succeed him in all his Prerogatives among the Gentiles Let any one shew me where the twelve are whom James John and Thomas and all the rest of the Apostles left endued with equal Power in their rooms and then let if you please the Popes in quality of Peters Successors reign over them Thirdly Suppose there were any where in the World such an Apostolical Sacred College What claim hath Rome more then another place to the Headship of this College Is it not as likely that St. Peter would have left his Throne at Antioch where he made the first Christians as at Rome where no Scripture saies he was ever to make any Would not one think that his first Chair namely that of Antioch which alwaies hath bin honored with a kind of Holy-day thro Christendom should assoon be the Seat of their Universal Empire as his other second Chair at Rome which if it have now the same Honor hath it but i Bell. de Rom. Pontif. l. 2. c. 6. since the other day They say that this was k Ibid. c. 12. his last Throne wherein he died and never removed any whither else but they should prove that this was his last Will also it should stand there He removed this Seat no whither else because there he was put to death Thus Nero made it his last Throne as about six hundred Years after Phocas made l Paul Diacon Gest Longob l. 4. c. 11. Vet. Edit Platina in Pelagio 3. Anastas ibid. it Universal This last did it to vex his Bishop Cyriacus for having m Theophanes Graecorum Annal. apud Baron ad An. 606. saved out of his Bloody Hands the Empress Constantina and her two Daughters and to gratifie the Bishops of Rome who were so base as to flatter him So these two renowned Worthies the Murderer of his own Mother and the Murderer of his own King have first founded that Universal Eminence which hath made Rome thus Catholic The Foundation being thus laid down both for Primacy over other Churches and for Reverence and Dignity among most Christian Potentates who ever shewed themselves exceeding liberal on these accounts for as yet the Roman Papacy went but thus far the next task was to raise it up from this degree to in absolute Monarchy Both the Invasions of Turks and the Broils and Dissentions that happened among the Christian Princes helped the Popes to shake off all Subjection and Gregory the seventh understood and practiced so well the Art of Building upon Ruins that he left to his Successors partly in Design partly in actual Usurpation very fair ground to advance farther by these Rules commonly called the Popes Dictates n Dictatus Papae Greg. l. 2. post Ep. 55. 1. That the Pope alone is the Universal Bishop 2. The Pope alone can make new Laws 3. That the Pope alone can take the Arms of Empire and Soveraignty 4. That the Pope alone must have his Feet kissed by all Princes 5. That the Pope alone hath the Power to Depose Kings 6. That the Pope alone can release Subjects from Allegiance 7. That the Pope cannot be judged by any Man 8. That the Roman Church never erred hitherto nor can ever err hereafter 9. That he is not a Catholic that is a Christian whosoever dissents from Rome There are many more Dictates of the same sort but these are enough to intimate how Popes would master the whole World After Gregory the Seventh comes Pope Boniface the 8th to hoist this immense Power from this World both up towards Heaven thence fetching Angels o Wessel Groning de Potest Papae c. 8. sect Neque parum by his Bulls for the care of his dead Pilgrims and then down to Purgatory thence pulling p Ibid. up such tormented Souls some three or four at one bout as his Croisado-men shall require Hell it self is related to the Popes Dominions for if he be pleased by negligence or otherwise q Gratian Dist. 40. Si Papa to send whole Nations to Hell and to deliver them as well as himself to the Prince of the Devils many are of an Opinion that no Man ought to rebuke him for it The Project of this vast Empire comes fully either to the Infernal Pride that St. Gregory r Registr l. 4. Ind. 13. Ep. 34. charges him with who would be call'd Universal Bishop I will saith he exalt my Throne above the Stars of God and I will ascend unto Heaven Isa 14.13 or to their Bedlam Distemper who whatsoever they hear or see imagine it to be their own But take the whole work as you please either as mad or as impious it becomes well its three Builders The first is Phocas a Villain who Å¿ Theophan Miscell l. 17. Murthered both his own Master and Emperor his Masters Roial Family his Wife his six Sons and two Daughters His Holiness I say ows his first Title of Universal Bishop to this abominable Massacre The second is Gregory the Seventh before called Hildebrand who is branded among many for a Magician of the worst fort and for a pestilent Incendiary both in arming Subjects against their Princes and which is more unnatural the very Children against their Fathers And at last being at the point of death he himself confessed in the presence u Matth Paris Willelm 2. Anno 1086. of his Cardinals That by the Devils perswasion he had provoked the wrath of God against Mankind The third is Boniface the Eighth who is reported in the x Fasciculus Temporum in Bonifac. 8. Chronicles To have crept up to the Popedom like a Fox and there reigned like a Lyon and at the last died like a Dog These are the Men that have preferred the Church of Rome to the Dignity she takes upon her of being the Catholic Church Thus it appears that the Church of Rome is the Catholic Church in no sense neither formally or properly as it signifies the whole Universal Church of Christ nor virtually or eminently in their unproper and unusual notion by having any lawful universal Dominion and Headship over all other Churches t Benno Cardinalis de Gest. Hildebr Now I come to the second part of the matter in question to demonstrate That the Church of Rome is no truly Catholic Church at all much less the Catholic Church further then it agrees with ours and that the proper notion of Catholic excludes as inconsistent with the Apostolical and Christian Religion whatsoever she pretends as proper to the Popish Faith First I begin with the Doctrine concerning St. Peter and the Roman Dominion Ask them that know what is properly Catholic they will tell you after honest Lirinensis x Vincent Lirin c. 3. 'T is that which is believed by all Christians in all ages and every where I have

SAVL and SAMVEL AT ENDOR OR THE New Waies OF SALVATION and SERVICE Which usually temt Men to ROME and detain them there Truly Represented and Refuted By DAN BREVINT D. D. As also A Brief Account of R. F. his Missale Vindicatum or Vindication of the ROMAN MASS By the same Author They have hewed them out Cisterns broken Cisterns that can hold no water Jerem. c. 2. v. 13. OXFORD At the THEATER 1674. The Preface I Never expected that my Book against the Mass should have the liberty to go abroad two Years together without meeting opposition nor that two Points so dear and so fundamental to Rome as Mass Sacrifice and Priest-hood are could be left so long in the Dirt and under the Impeachment of that Lewdness and Impiety that I have accused and I hope convicted them of without an Advocate to defend them and therefore am not at all surpriz'd that after so long a time an Answer is pretended to be made to it But such an Answer so emty and impertinent I must confess I did not expect imagining the Cause as bad as it was tho it could not find good Reason would yet have had good Sophistry and Artificial Colour to defend it But since that Roman Catholics are pleased to take up with these most trivial Shifts and Cavils and in spight of both Sense and Grace persist in an Abuse which neither they nor any body else can in any tolerable manner justifie the next thing which I have to do is to examine what the special Attractives are which can draw Men to and detain them in such a strange and unchristian kind of Worship Here I do not propose to my self the cure of such as are already prepossessed and throughly sick with wilful Ignorance He that can cure the Deaf and the Dumb is alone the immediate and proper Physitian for that Disease But I do what I ought when I do what I can to hinder the Plague from spreading and them which are desperatly ill with it from infecting others The Roman Church abounds with prudent and politic Men who can infuse their Mysteries in as plausible and Christian Words as the Assyrian Envoy did his Designs in good and true Jewish Language Isa 36. The very Jansenists a more reformed kind of Papists whom therefore one might less suspect exceed sometimes the Missionaries and the Jesuits in this black Art of disguising and I have had in Conferences such Experience of some of the best of this sort both at the French Court and the Sorbone that tho I may here spare their Names I may not with any Charity spare to warn others to take heed of their Companies The proper Genius and as it were the Vniversal Spirit of that Church consists much in a Confidence to raise any thing which they have altho that were but a Dung-hill into a Castle and by the noise of strange Expressions to perswade you out of your own knowledge that you may believe the Enchantment Transubstantiation the Mass Sacrifice Purgatory and their pretended Infallibility had bin as soon tumbled down as started up had they not bin kept on foot by this kind of Roman Hectorism and the better to turn both Mens Brains and Hearts to that side their pretended Catholicness Miracles Suffrages Confraternities Church Tresury Indulgences c. the very Dirt and Dung of that Church are by the same Art and Valor erected into plausible Means of Worship and Salvation Therefore my present business is to remove these and other-like Snares out of the way and to let impartial Men see that the very Meat and Drink wherewith they are allur'd and baited to Popery are the very Poison and Imostume that should deter them from it To this end I fetch out the Soot and Ashes which lie hidden in the skin of a Sodom when it passes for a Golden Apple and as the Fathers did before me under the first Christian Emperors I expose to public view the Vermine the Cats the Crocodiles and other such foolish Idols which are adored by vulgar People upon the credit and account of pompous and stately Temples In this unbowelling of Rome I fear not what Papists shall say and some unexperienced Christians perhaps suspect as if I made the case worse for I make it such as I have seen it and not to be mine own witness such as I find it in their Authors I might have bin as charitable and as ignorant in these Affairs as those who know little of Popery but what they read in Bellarmin or what they heard of subtile Jesuits discoursing among raw Strangers had I not bin made wiser then so both by the Times of Rebellion that kept me 17 Years abroad among the Romanists themselves and by the special favor of great Persons who during nine whole Years of that long Banishment procured me the advantage of being pretty well acquainted with all sorts and degrees of their Roman Learned Clergy And to say this also by the way the undeserved Conceit of some of them and my Friends too who were pleased to look upon me as a fit Man to be imploy'd about the great design then in hand of Reconciling the two Religions gave me such an Access into every corner of that Church that it is much my Fault if I do not know as well all that which is within its entrails as those Men do who make it their great Business to Disguise and Paint its outside As to the Safety and Savingness which it promiseth the great Imposture of the times I do sincerely represent here both what it is and what it can do The truth is Ignorant Sinners run generally for shelter to Rome as broken Merchants do to the Kings Bench with hope of being there secured against the ordinary course of Justice So that as long as God and the Kings Laws keep Men in awe and that there shall be ranting and spending neither that Prison nor that Church can want good store of Proselytes In order to make them throng in when the Roman Church hath the good luck to meet with tender Consciences she will be ambitious to exceed all the degrees of Christian Severity and if she meet with Men of a contrary temper she will accommodate them also with all the Condescentions of the loosest Indulgence So let these Fishers cast out their Nets at which side of the Ship they please both the Superstitious the Profane if they have the Grace but to fear Hell shall be sure to become their Prey And upon this one account it is a very great Wonder to me and as I hope a great Mercy of God upon a better Posterity that in this both most ignorant and sinful Age all as well as many do not run away from us to that promising Sanctuary And this is the motive wherefore in opposition to a more general Apostacy I do here endeavor to break the main strength and course of the present Temtation to discover and break the most dangerous

which tho they do not sanctifie Sinners yet overflow them with Pardons I mean the Bulls and Indulgences the Confraternities the Masses upon priviledged Altars Pr●iers before certain Images Stations and Jubilees upon visiting of certain Churches great and extraordinary Powers conferred on certain Priests whensoever occasion requires it for dispensing with ugly things at easie rates poor Protestants I say want altogether all these Blessings and blessed Catholics abound with them And if any of these waies of attaining Salvation seem to some Men inconceivable this very inconceivableness is thought by others a proper Character to set out all for Mysteries And if that do not fully satisfie all Mens Consciences this must namely that their Roman is the undoubted Catholic Church and that the Catholic Church cannot err Such things as these have a great weight with Ignorant and sometimes too with intelligent Sinners who find themselves both loaden with their sins and unwilling to part with them And who could blame poor Creatures for going to Rome for such Pardons as it is certain they can never find among us nor in the Gospel nor in Heaven nor any where else but at Rome Therefore I think it charity to undeceive men in these matters and convince unhappy Saul if his obdurate Heart be not altogether incapable of reasonable Instruction that what he sees or hears at Endor tho perhaps sounding like the Voice and looking like the Appearance of Samuel in the night time will be found in the day light not to be any thing but the Enchantment or Cheat of a poor and silly Witch I will begin with the Catholic Church because it is the first Varnish that they adorn their Errors with and the general Illusion whereby they inveigle both themselves and others CHAP. II. How far and in what sense Papisls may be called Catholics and how the Roman Church is neither the true Catholic nor a truly Catholic Church THE Papists are much pleased with calling themselves Catholics and take it a Bellarm. de Eccles l. 4. c. 4. for the first Mark and Acknowledgment of their Church when sometimes others call them so not considering in the mean while that Titles in all kinds of Tongues do continue most commonly long after the things signified by them are gon and that we may call Rome the Catholic upon the same account that St. Matthew 4.5 calls still Jerusalem the Holy City tho this hath lost her Holiness as that hath depraved her Religion Catholic Doctrine and Service rightly applied and called so is the most essential Jewel and the very Soul of true Churches The first Title they ever had after Christ was gon up to Heaven was to be called Christian the second was after the blessed Apostles had planted them in most Countries to be called Apostolical the third if Churches did keep faithfully that Gospel which had bin Preached by the Apostles every where both such Churches and such Doctrines were entitled Catholic This last Title is the essential Seal and Character of the two other for whatsoever is thus Catholic that is thus grown Universal thro-out all Churches and in all times since the preaching of Christ and his Apostles let it be where it will at Rome or at Jerusalem is both Apostolical and Christian and therefore S. Paul Coloss 1.6 and 23. uses it twice as an infallible evidence to demonstrate that the Doctrine which the Colossians had heard either from him or from Epaphras was the true Gospel of Christ because it was come to them and all the world and was preached to every Creature under Heaven Men may set up small Candles that can fill with light private Rooms and if carried about lead Travellers some part of their way but none but God alone can make such a Light as the Sun is that can in a moment as the Sun doth spread a bright day over the whole world No Philosophers that we know were ever able with all their wit to extend their Opinions beyond their Scholes nor the greatest Kings with their might settle their Laws beyond their Dominions nor the worst Heretics spread their Errors much farther then their several Abodes The true Doctrine of Christ only and all such other holy Precepts Ordinances and Traditions as are proper to his Gospel as they went forth with a divine commission had sutable Power to carry them and to maintain them thro-out all parts and to all Creatures every where whom God would call in the whole world Matth. 26.13 Mark 14.9 Hence come such Doctrines and the Churches on their account to be called Catholic As for all other private Tenets Customes and Traditions whatsoever however intended by their Authors to follow close after them they could never reach half the way they staied behind they wanted breath they had not the Arm of the Lord nor the power of his Spirit which the Gospel had to carry and convey them so far Thus without any exception whatsoever you can find has bin made thus general among Christians from its very beginning and nothing else is Christian and Apostolical and truly Catholic by this infallible token and upon this account because it had the strength and Almighty Spirit of God to make it so and without which it could not be so Thus one may judg of the Catholicness which Romanists brag of and challenge on two accounts the first when they give it to their Church and themselves the honor of being the Catholic Church the second when they give it to their new Doctrines and Traditions and obtrude all as Catholic By the Catholic Church in the first sense nothing else can be understood but an Universal Collection of all the Churches in the world and of all Christians in those Churches which by the same faith join together into one Communion of Christ their Savior and their Head as all the Boughs of a Tree however spread and scattered one from the other unite into one stem as all Rivers into one Sea and as the twelve Tribes of Israel into one Kingdom After this rate if the Pope be the Universal or Catholic Bishop you must needs conclude thence against him as Pope Gregory the great did several b Gregor Magn. l. 4. Indict 13. Ep. 32. item Ep. 36. item l. 7. Ind. 1. Ep. 30. times against the Constantinopolitan Patriarch if one saith he be called the Universal Bishop this one hath all and all the other Bishops have nothing left and thus if Rome be the Catholic Church the other Churches are no Churches Rome alone is the whole World and this Tiber the whole Ocean To this some are pleased to say that the Roman is the Catholic Church not collectively or extensively that is not by being in her self the collective and extended body of all the Churches but virtually and as the eminent Cardinal Du Perron expresses it eminently that is the Roman hath an eminent Power Influence and Empire over other Churches Thus Rome is all Christendom as if one

and Primitive ones that had bin wrought by Moses by Joshua and by the first Judges Whereas the second sort of Miracles are all branded with such black Marks and discredited in all respects with such heavy Charges and Warnings as must needs affright all Christians from being mis-led but those who are pleased or given over to be seduced by them Maricon g Tertull. cont Marcion l. 3. c. 3. and Donatus h August de Vnitate Eccl. c. 16. and other worse i Hieron Ep. ad Galat. c. 3. v. 5. Tertull. de Praescript c. 44. sorts of Heretics seldom wanted these last Miracles Thirdly I say True Christian Miracles are intended for the confirming of Christian Truth This is their chief and ultimate end tho in order to it they may and do serve commonly for other more immediate accounts Thus when Christ cured the Sick and cast out Devils these Miracles were to be lookt on both as extraordinary effects of his Divine Power and most signal Expressions of his Mercy to those persons whom he did cure Yet the main thing Christ aimed at was this that both those who were cured and those who saw that they were so might be perswaded by such wonders that the expected Messias was come that it was He and that whatsoever he said and commanded was to be believed and obeied So Miracles were both to Christ Christs Ministers what Credential letters badges and robes are to all Public Officers and also were to the Gospel which they preached what Signs and Seals are to the Articles Patents and other Commissions which are brought by those Officers that is to say such Confirmations and Evidences that if all those to whom they were expresly sent would not believe them upon their word or upon the hearing of their Doctrine which many did without more ado they might do it by seeing their works Hence it is that both our Savior and his Apostles ever preached the Gospel in the first place and confirmed it by the words taken from the Law or the Prophets and in the second place if what they said required in the hearers any farther Confirmation then in that case they shewed Miracles They went forth saies St. Mark 16.20 and preached every where the Lord working with them inwardly by his spirit and confirming the word with the Signs that followed Therefore the following Signs having such a special dependence and proper aspect on the Gospel which went before if no Gospel nor any thing essential to it is preached or delivered some other way these Miracles are just like Seals and Signs that are merely put to a Blank and as to Christian Doctrine can signifie nothing at all And so these Signs if true are merely Providential If they be put to any true and real Deed but enterlined afterwards with Clauses that cannot well agree with it you may be sure those Seals relate not to any one of the forged Additions And if all was blank before all afterwards be filled with a whole false Commission the Seals and Miracles pretended for it must needs be utterly false and if real utterly Devilish it being utterly impossible that God the God of Truth would put either his own hand or the hand of his good Angels to the countenancing of an untruth and to the contradicting any Truth which he hath confirmed before So to prevent Delusion some care and skill must be used in understanding and construing the voice and Signification of Miracles For instance when God sent Lions among those Heathenish Colonies who used no other Religion in Israel then what they had learned in Babel or in Ava 2 Kings 17.25 this extraordinary Judgment said nothing at all to countenance what Jeroboam and the ten Tribes had adulterated in Gods Service for such language in a Miracle should contradict and not confirm the clear Voice of God in his Law it declared nothing but this truth to wit that God would have alway the Memorial of his Name kept in that Land and that in order to this will of his he would rather bear with any Corruption then with the utter Abolition of his Service in that Country till his Son should come to reform it Thus the Angel moving the water once every year at Bethesda S. John 5. or the other Angel that at one time dried up or removed twice the water which a Novatian k Socrat. Hist Eccles l. 1. c. 17. Bishop had consecrated for the Christening of a Jew who had bin Christened already who thought of nothing else then of surprizing by this means the Liberality of Christians which then was very great upon such occasions neither of these true Miracles I say are understood if you draw them either to favor the Traditions which the Scribes then taught in the Temple or to countenance the long Schism which this Novatian Bishop with others did keep and foment in the Church These two Miracles must be applied to their own proper and fit ends or to such things as Christian Truth can allow of That of Bethesda to declare the continuance of some temporal Mercies upon a corrupted then but before an elected People and to signifie to all men the Blessing of holy Baptism and the admittance into the Christian Church which was fitly represented by the said Pool of Bethesda that is the Laver of Regeneration in the House of Gods Mercies And the other to vindicate the Honor of this same holy Baptism which the Novatians kept entire and which this wandering Jew thought to abuse By this means the true Miracles done in Christs Name and power too sometimes by false men Matth. 7.22 shall recommend only Christs Gospel not their Iniquity who work them No simple Ignorants shall turn the wonderful Acts of God as S. Peter saies some do the Scriptures to their own Destruction 2 Pet. 3.6 nor the foulest Hereties as otherwise they may toward their foulest Blasphemies and whatever be don or reported to be so among men of mixt and corrupted Religions shall give them no ground of bragging in their Error or Heresie Thus suppose which for my part I might very well wish it were true that the great Cures done anciently at the Graves of the holy Martyrs were yet to be seen every day these Acts of God how great soever wrought at the touching the Relics of St. Stephen in Africa or of St. Andrew at Constantinople or of Gervasius and Protasius at Milan would justifie neither Turcism nor any other Impiety now believed or practised in those Countries they could attest nothing but this that those Martyrs howsoever killed and cast out like Dogs were holy men and that what they taught and died for when they were taken for Seducers is proved by these great works to be most true Thereupon enquire what they taught what they did and what they believed for this certainly and this only is attested by those Miracles and if the Heads of Peter or Paul shewed yet yearly upon great holy