Popes and Councils Their own Polidore Virgil de Inven. Rerum p. 410. lib 8. c. 4. calling us a Sect doth give you a just description of us Ita licentia pacta loquendi c. i. e. Having once got leave to speak that sect did marvailously increase in a short time which is called Evangelicall because they affirm that no Law is to be received which belongeth to salvation but what is given by Christ or the Apostles Mark what they confess themselves of our Religion And yet these very men have the face to charge us with Novelty as if Christ and his Apostles were not of sufficient Antiquity for them Our main quarrel with them is for adding new inventions in Religion and their principal business against us is to defend it and yet they call theirs the old Religion and ours the new Our Argument lieth thus That which is most conform to the Doctrine and Practice of Christ and his Apostles is the truly Antient Religion and Church But our Religion and Church is most conform to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles therefore it is the truly antient Religion and Church The Major they will yield For no older Religion is desirable further then as the Law of Nature and Moral Determinations of God are still in force I suppose they will not plead for Judaism For the Minor we lay our cause upon it and are ready to produce our evidence for the Conformity of our Religion and Churches to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles That Religion which is most conform to the Holy Scriture is most conform to the doctrine and practice of Christ and his Apostles But our Religion and Churches is most conform to the holy Scriptures therefore c. They can say nothing against the Major but that the Scripture is Insufficient without Tradition But for that 1. We have no Rule of faith but what is by themselves confessed to be true They acknowledge Scripture to be the true word of God So that the Truth of our Rule is Justified by themselves 2. Let them shew us as good Evidence that their Additional Articles of faith or Laws of life came from the Apostles as we do that the Scriptures came from them and then we shall confess that we come short of them Let them take the Controversies between us point by point and bring their proof and we will bring ours and let that Religion carry it that is Apostolicall But we are sure that by this means they will be proved Novelists For 1. Their Traditions in matter of faith superadded to the Scripture are meer Hereticall or Erroneous forgeries and they can give us no proof that ever they were Apostolicall 2. The Scripture affirmeth its own sufficiency and therefore excludeth their Traditions 3. I shewed you how in their own General Council at Basil the Scripture sufficiency was defended 4. I have shewed you in my Book called the Safe Religion that the ancient Fathers were for the sufficiency of Scripture 5. Their Traditions are the opinions of a dividing sect contrary to the Traditions or doctrine of the present Catholick Church the far greater part of Christians being against them 6. We are able to shew that the time was for some hundred years after Christ when most of their pretended Traditions were unknown or abhorred by the Christian Church and no such things were in being among them 7. And we can prove that the chief points of Controversie mantained against us are not only without Scripture but against it and from thence we have full particular evidence to disprove them If the Scriptures be true as they confess them to be then no Tradition can be Apostolicall or true that is contrary to them For example the Papists Tradition is that the Clergy is exempt from the Magistrates judgement But the holy Scripture saith Let every soul be subject to the higher power Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4 5. The Papists Tradition is for serving God publickly in an unknown tongue But the holy Scripture is fully against it Their Tradition is against Lay mens reading the Scripture in a known tongue without special License from their ordinary But Scripture and all antiquity is against them The like we may say of many other Controversies So that these seven wayes we know their Traditions to be deceitfull because they are 1. Unproved 2. Against the sufficiency of Scripture 3. Against their own former confessions 4. Against the concent of the Fathers 5. Contrary to the judgement of most of the Catholick Church 6. We can prove that once the Church was without them 7. And they are many of them contrary to express Scripture And if Scripture will but shew which of us is neerest the doctrine and practice of the Apostles then the controversie is ended or in a fair way to it For we provoke them to try the cause by Scripture and they deny it we profess it is the Rule and test of our Religion but they appeal to another Rule and test And thus you may see which is the old Religion which will be somewhat fullyer cleared in that which followeth II. And that our Church and Religion hath been continued from the dayes of Christ till now we prove thus 1. From the promise of Christ which cannot be broken Christ hath promised in his word that that Church and Religion which is most conform to the Scripture shall continue to the end But our Church and Religion is most conform to the Scripture therefore Christ hath promised that it shall continue to the end 2. From the event The Christian Religion and Catholick Church hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now But ours is the Christian Religion and Catholick Church therefore ours hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now The Major they will grant the Minor is proved by parts thus 1. That Religion which hath all the Essentials of Christianity and doth not deny or destroy any Essential part of it is the Christian Religion but such is ours therefore c. 2. That Religion which the Apostles were of is the Christian Religion But ours is the same that the Apostles were of therefore c. 3. That Religion which is neerer the Scripture then the Romish Religion is certainly the Christian Religion But so is ours therefore c. 4. They that believe not only all that in particular that is contained in the Ancient Creeds of the Church but also in generall all that is besides in the holy Scripture are of the Christian Religion But thus do the Reformed Churches believe c. 2. And for our Church 1. They that are of that one holy Catholick Church whereof Christ is the head and all true Christians are members are of the true Church For there is but one Catholick Church But so are we therefore c. 2. They that are Sanctified Justified have the love of God in them are members of the true Catholick Church But such are all that are sincere
Professors of our Religion therefore c. But all this will not serve them without a Catalogue and telling them where our Church was before Luther To this we further answer we have no peculiar Catholick Church of our own for there is but one and that is our Church Wherever the Christian Church was there was our Church And where-ever any Christians were congregate for Gods worship there were Churches of the same sort as our particular Churches And wherever Christianity was there our Religion was For we know no Religion but Christianity And would you have us give you a Catalogue of all the Christians in the world since Christ Or would you have us as vain as H. T. in his Manuall that names you some Popes and about twenty professors of their faith in each age as if twenty or thirty men were the Catholick Church Or as if those men were proved to be Papists by his naming them This is easie but silly disputing In a word Our Religion is Christianity 1. Christianity hath certain Essentials without which no man can be a Christian and it hath moreover many precious truths and duties necessary necessitate praecepti and also necessitate medii to the better being of a Christian Our being as Christians is in the former and our strength and increase and better-being is much in the latter From the former Religion and the Church is denominated Moreover 2. Our implicite and actuall explicite Belief as the Papists call them must be distinguished or our General and our particular Belief 3. And also the Positives of our Belief must be distinguished from the implyed Negatives and the express Articles themselves from their implyed Consectaries And now premising these three distinctions I shall tell you where our Church hath been in all Ages since the birth of Christ 1. In the dayes of Christ and his Apostles our Church was where they and all Christians were And our Religion was with them in all its parts both Essential and perfective That is we now Believe 1. All to be true that was delivered by the Apostles as from God with a General faith 2. We believe all the Essentials and as much more as we can understand with a Particular faith 3. But we cannot say that with such a particular faith we believe all that the Apostles believed or delivered for then we must say that we have the same degree of understanding as they and that we understand every word of the Scriptures 2. In the dayes of the A postles themselves the Consectaries and implied Verities and Rejections of all Heresies were not particularly and expresly delivered either in Scripture or Tradition as the Papists will confess 3. In the next ages after the Apostles our Church was the one Catholick Church containing all true Christians Headed by Jesus Christ and every such Christian too many to number was a member of it And for our Religion the Essential parts of it were contained both in the Holy Scriptures and in the Publick Professions Ordinances and Practices of the Church in those ages which you call Traditions and the rest of it even all the doctrines of faith and universal Laws of God which are its perfective parts they were fully contained in the holy Scriptures And some of our Rejections and Consectaries were then gathered and owned by the Church as Heresies occasioned the expressing of them and the rest were all implyed in the Apostolical Scripture doctrine which they preserved 4. By degrees many errors crept into the Church yet so that 1. Neither the Catholick Church nor one true Christian in sensu composito at least did reject any essential part of Christianity 2. And all parts of the Church were not alike corrupted with error but some more and some less 3. And still the whole Church held the holy Scripture it self and so had a perfect General or Implicite belief even while by evill consequences they oppugned many parts of their own profession 5. When in process of time by claiming the universall Soveraignty Rome had introduced a new pretended Catholick Church so far as their opinion took by superadding a New Head and form there was then a two fold Church in the West the Christian as Christian headed by Christ and the Papal as Papal Headed by the Pope yet so as they called it but one Church and by this usurped Monarchy as under Christ endeavoured to make but one of them by making both the Heads Essential when before one only was tolerable And if the Matter in any part may be the same and the same Man be a Christian and a Papist and so the same Assemblies yet still the forms are various and as Christians and part of the Catholick Church they are one thing and as Papists and members of the separating sect they are another thing Till this time there is no doubt of our Churches Visibility 6. In this time of the Romish Usurpation our Church was visible in three degrees in three severall sorts of persons 1. It was visible in the lowest degree among the Papists themselves not as Papists but as Christians For they never did to this day deny the Scriptures nor the Ancient Creeds nor Baptism the Lords Supper nor any of the substance of our Positive Articles of Religion They added a New Religion and Church of their own but still professed to hold all the old in consistency with it Wherever the truth of holy Scriptures and the ancient Creeds of the Church were professed there was our Religion before Luther But even among the Papists the holy Scriptures and the said Creeds were visibly professed therefore among them was our Religion And note here that Popery it self was not ripe for a corruption of the Christian faith professed till Luthers opposition heightned them For the Scripture was frequently before by Papists held to be a most sufficient Rule of faith as I shewed before from the Council of Basil and consequently Tradition was only pleaded as conservatory and expository of the Scripture but now the Council of Trent hath in a sort equalled them And this they were lately driven to when they found that out of Scripture they were unable to confute or suppress the truth 2. At the same time of the Churches oppression by the Papacy our Religion was visible and so our Church in a more illustrious sort among the Christians of the most of the world Greeks Ethiopians and the rest that never were subject to the usurpation of Rome but only many of them took him for the Patriarch primae sedis but not Episcopus Ecclesiae Catholicae or the Governour of the Universall Church So that here was a visibility of our Church doubly more eminent then among the Romanists 1. In that it was the far greatest part of the Catholick Church that thus held our Religion to whom the Papists were then but few 2. In that they did not only hold the same Positive Articles of faith with us but also among their Rejections
which are not destructive to the Essentials of Christianity but only to some Integral part And there is a schism that doth not unchurch men as well as a schism that doth of which this is no place to treat But ad hominem me thinks your own writers put you hard to it who conclude as Bellarmine and many more do though Alphonsus à Castro and others be against it that Hereticks and Schismaticks are no members of the Church And Melch. Canus Loc. Theol. lib. 4. cap. 2. fol. 117. saith that that Hereticks are no parts of the Church is the common conclusion of all Divines not only of those that have written of late but of them also that by their Antiquity are esteemed the most Noble This is attested by Cyprian Augustine Gregory the two Councils of Lateran and Florence Rightly therefore did Pope Nicolas define that the Church is a collection of Catholicks If this be true it is an Article of faith And then Alphonsus à Cast and all of his mind are Hereticks and lost men And I pray you note what a case you are in Two Approved General Councils have determined that a Heretick is no member of the Church But multitudes of your own writers and Pope Adrian and many more of your Popes have judged that a Pope may be a Heretick and consequently no member of the Church And consequently judge what 's become of your Church when an Essential part of it is no part of the Church Your common shift which Canus ibid. and others fly to is that He must be a judged Heretick before he is dismembred But 1. Sure that is but for manifestation to men for before God he is the same if men never judge him 2. Where the case is notorious the offendor is ipso jure cut off 3. Then it is in the Popes Power to let whole millions of Hereticks to be still parts of the Church And so the world shall be Christians or no Christians as he please and why may he not let Turks and Infidels on the same grounds be parts of the Church For he may forbare to judge them if that will serve 4. Then all the Christians in the world that the Pope hath not yet judged and cast out are members of the Church And then millions and millions are of the Church that never were subjects of the Pope If you say It is enough that there is a General condemnation of all that are guilty as they are I answer then it is enough to cut off a Pope that there was a General condemnation against such as he 5. But if all this satisfie you not yet I told you before that two or three Councils and three Popes did all judge Pope Honorius guilty of Heresie and consequently both Popes and General Councils have judged that a Pope may be an Heretick therefore you have been judged Heretical in your Head which is an essential part of your Church And thus I have shewed you what is the schism of the Church of Rome which being but a part hath attempted to cut off all the rest and so hath made a new pretended Catholick Church As a part of the Old Church which consisteth of all Christians united in Christ we confess all those of you still to be a part that destroy not this Christianity But as you are new gathered to a Christ-Representative or Vicar General we deny you to be any Church of Christ If you be Church members or saved it must be as Christians but never as Papists For a Papist may be a Christian but not as a Papist And if yet you cannot see the Church that you separate from open your eyes and look into much of Europe and all over Asia almost where are any Christians look into Armenia Palestine Egypt Ethiopia and many other Countries and you shall find that you are but a smaller part of the Church If you will not believe what I have before proved of this hear what your own say Anton. Marinarins in the Council of Trent complaineth that the Church is shut up in the Corners of Europe and yet Domestick enemies arise that waste this portion shut up in a corner Sonnius Bishop of Antwerp in Demonstrat Relig. Christian lib. 2. Tract 5. c. 3. saith I pray you what room hath the Catholick Church now in the habitable world scarce three elnes long in comparison of that vastness which the Satanical Church doth possess If yet you boast that you have the same seat that formerly you had I answer so have the Bishops of Constantinople Alexandria and others whom you condemn And we say as Gregory Nazianz Orat. de land Athanasii It is a succession of Godliness that is properly to be esteemed a succession For he that professeth the same doctrine of faith is also partaker of the same throne But he that embraceth the contrary belief ought to be judged an adversary though he be in the throne This indeed hath the name of succession but the other hath the Thing it self and the Truth And he next addeth such words as utterly break your succession in pieces saying For he that breaketh in by force as abundance of Popes did is not to be esteemed a successor but rather he that suffereth force nor he that breaketh the Laws but he that is chosen in manner agreeable to the Laws nor he that holdeth contrary tenets but he that is endued with the same faith Unless any man will call him a Successor as we say a sickness succeedeth health or darkness succeedeth light and a strom succeeds a calm or madness or distraction succeedeth prudence Thus Nazianz pag. 377. We conclude therefore with one of your own Lyra Glos in Math. 16. Because many Princes and chief Priests or Popes and other inferiors have been found to Apostatize the Church consisteth in those persons in whom is the true knowledge and confession of Faith and Verity And so much to this empty Manuscript CHAP. XXXVI Detect 27. ANother of their Deceits is this To charge us with introducing New Articles of faith or points of Religion because we contradict the New Articles which they introduce and then they require us to prove our doctrines which are but the Negatives of theirs We receive no Doctrines of faith or worship but what was delivered by the Apostles to the Church These men bring in abundance of New ones and say without proof that they received them from the Apostles And because we refuse to receive their Novelties they call our Rejections of them the Doctrines of our Religion and feign us to be the Innovators And by this device it is in the Power of any Heretick to force the Church to take up such as these men call New points of faith If a Papist shall say that besides the Lords Prayer Christ gave his Disciples another Form or two or three or many or that he gave them ten New Commandments not mentioned in the Bible or that he oft descended after his Ascension and
content with this to govern Volunteers The other is by Commands that shall be seconded with force And this is proper to the Magistrate But if they will be deluded to give up their Crowns and Scepters to the Pope let them stand as the objects of the compassion of Spectators Much more then I have here given you I had prepared of the Testimony of Antiquity against them But here is more then they are able solidly to answer and I was afraid of over-whelming the capacity of ordinary Readers I understand not the French Tongue but by the Testimony of Learned men that understand them and especially by the help of a Noble friend that hath vouchsafed to translate some part of them for my use I am imboldened to a confidence that the two famous Confutations of the great Perron will stand to the perpetual shame of Popery which none of them will be ever able to Reply to without as great a dishonour to their Cause as will follow their not daring to Reply I mean Blondell's Book De Primatu in Ecclesia which overwhelms them utterly with the witness of Antiquity Pet. Molinaeus de Novitate Papismi which I hope his Reverend Son of his name may live to help us to in English But if any of the Romanists that dare not meddle with those Champions nor dash themselves upon those Pillars shall yet vouchsafe an Answer to this smaller work I do hereby assure him that if he wil do it soberly in the fear of God in a way of close and solid Arguing he will perform a task that will be very acceptable to me But niblers snarlers cavillers and senseless praters I shall contemn Richard Baxter The Contents CHap. 1. Popery no way to Unity page 1. Chap. 2. Directions for them that will deal with a Papist p. 5. Chap. 3. Argum. 1. Against Popery by which every honest godly man is secured from them p. 9. Chap. 4. The second Argument p. 16. Chap. 5. Argum. 3. That deposing Kings that will not exterminate us and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance and giving their Dominions to others is an Article of the Papists Faith p. 17 18. Chap. 6. Argum. 4. The Church of Rome unholy in its Essentials p. 21 22 c. Chap. 7. Argum. 5. The Papists of more then One Church yet each part pretending to be the Catholick Church p. 26. Chap. 8. Argum. 6. The Church of Rome hath discontinued p. 31. Chap. 9. Argum. 7. From sense securing all men from Popery that will believe their eyes or any of their or others senses T 's frivolous answer refelled p. 34. Chap. 10. Detect 1. Prove them but guilty of one Error in Faith and all Popery is confuted p. 38. Chap. 11. Detect 2. A Doctrine so contrary to Scripture and it self cannot be free from Error p. 39. Chap. 12. Detect 3. Agree on the way of proof before you dispute Papists will take neither Sense Reason Scripture nor the Tradition or Judgement of the greater part of the Church for judge or proof p. 41. Chap. 13. Detect 4. Understand what they mean when they call to you for a Judge of Controversies How far a Judge is necessary and who p. 43. Chap. 14. Detect 5. They pretend that in their way there is an End of Controversies but in ours there is none Detected p. 46. Chap. 15. Detect 6. Their boast of Unity and reproaching us with Divisions Detected p. 52. Chap. 16. Detect 7. Their confounding the Essentials and Integrals of Christianity Detected p. 63. Chap. 17. Detect 8. Their extolling the judgement of the Catholick Church Detected It is against them p. 71. Chap. 18. Detect 9. Some of their deluding Ambiguities Detected 1. In the word Church 2. In the word Pope 3. A General Council Bring them to Define what they mean by these and you break them p. 73. Chap. 19. Detect 10. Their Confounding 1. An humane Ordinance and a Divine 2. Meere Primacy with Soveraignty 3. An alterable Order with an unalterable Essential Detected p. 81. Chap. 20. Detect 11. The vanity of their pretending Tradition detected p. 86. How far we are for Tradition p. 87. Tradition confoundeth Popery p. 98. Chap. 21. Detect 12. Their pretence that the Greeks and all other Churches were once under the Pope Detected p. 102. Chap. 22. Detect 13. Their plea that the Church of Rome is a True Church and therefore we are Schismaticks for separating from it Detected p. 103. Chap. 23. Detect 14. Their pretending to fixed Unity and settledness and that we are at uncertainty incoherent and changelings Detected p. 107. Chap. 24. Detect 15. Their plea that our Church and Religion is new and theirs old and their calling for a Catalogue and proof of the Succession of our Church before Luther Detected and our Church made known to them p. 115. And vindicated from Turbervile's exceptions Proved fully that persons differing in points of Faith are Christians and of the same Church p. 125 127 c. And that the Abassines Armenians Copties Greeks c. are of the same Church with us proved T 's proof of their Succession confuted to p. 141. Chap. 25. Detect 16. Their jumbling all our differences together and then making lesser or common differences to be the Protestant Religion Detected p. 141. Thirty two points of Popery named which they are challenged to prove a Succession of with my promise to receive what is so proved T 's Arguments for the Succession of their Doctrine confuted to p. 155. Papists have those in their Church that differ in point of Faith p. 155. No such difference between us and the most of the Christian world as can prove us not of the same Catholick Church proved against H. T. in the instances 1. Of Invocation of Saints p. 157. 2. Praying for the dead p. 160. 3. Veneration or Adoration of Images Cross and Reliques p. 162. 4. Transubstantiation 5. Satisfaction and Purgatory 6. Of Fasts Free-will c. Chap. 26. Detect 17. Their false interpretation of the sayings of Ancients from whence they would extort a proof of their Soveraignty Detected in eight instances p. 169. Chap. 27. Detect 18. Their corrupting Councils and Fathers and citing such Detected p. 176. Chap. 28. Detect 19. Their perswading the people that we are all Lyars that nothing we say and write may be regarded p. 182. Chap. 29. Detect 20. Their feigned Miracles 184. The story of the Boy of Bilson p. 185. Chap. 30. Detect 21. Their Impudent slanders The horrid Lyes against Luther and Calvin insisted on by the Marquess of Worcester and their common Writers fully detected p. 189. Chap. 31. Detect 22. Their quarrels at our Translations of Scripture p. 200. Chap. 32. Detect 23. Their design to make the Ministers odious to the people Their riches and ours compared p. 201. Chap. 33. Detect 24. Their cavils against our Ministry Ordination and Succession confuted p. 205. Chap. 34. Detect 25. Their pretence of the Holiness of their Church
Columbanus the Abbot coming into France that the Scots do nothing differ from the Brittains in their Conversation For Bishop Daganus coming to us refused not only to eat with us but even to eat in the same House where we did eat Usher Epist Hibern 7. p. 18. Our most peaceable Bishop Hall was forct to write a Roma irreconciliabilis While we are thinking of Reconciliation they are about our ears with Plots and violence and with swarms of Rome-bred Sects and are day and night industriously undermining us so that by their continual Alarms I am called off to these defensive wars which here I have undertaken yet still resolving that the Desperateness of the Cure shall not make me run from them into a contrary extream nor be out of the way of Peace nor neglect any necessary means how hopeless soever of success The Work that here I have undertaken is 1. To give you briefly those Grounds on which you must go if you will keep your ground against a Papist 2. To give a few invincible Arguments which the weakest may be able to use to overthrow the principal grounds of the Papists 3. To detect their Frauds and give to the younger sort of Ministers sufficient Directions for the Confutation of all the Papists in the world 4. To propound though in vain such terms of Peace as we can yield to CHAP. II. BEfore I mention the Grounds or Cause that you must maintain I must premise this Advice to the Common People 1. Wrong not the Truth and your selves by an unequal conflict Enter not rashly upon Disputes with those that are Learned and of nimble tongues if you be ignorant or of weak capacities your selves Though I shall here shew you that Scripture Church Tradition Reason and Sense are on your side yet experience tels us how the words of Juglers have made millions of men deny belief to their eyes their taste and other senses An ignorant man is soon silenced by a subtile wit and many think that when they cannot answer they must yield though they deny both Sense and Reason by it If any of them secretly entice you desire them to debate the case with some able learned experienced Minister in your hearing It is the office of your Pastors to defend you from the wolves If you once despise them or straggle from them and the Flocks and trust to your own Reason that is unfurnished and unprepared for such work you may take that you get by it if you be undone You need the help of Pastors for your souls as well as of Physicians for your Bodies and Lawyers for your Estates or else God would never have set them over you in his Church Let them but come on equal terms and you shall see what Truth can do In this way we will not avoid a Conference with any of them But alas with ignorant unlearned people what may not such Deceivers do that can perswade so many thousand souls to give no Credit to their own eyes or taste or feeling but to believe a Priest that Bread is not Bread and Wine is not Wine 2. Yet I would have the weakest to endeavour to understand the reasons of their Profession and to be able to repell Deceivers And to that end I shall here give you first some Directions concerning the cause which you must defend And concerning this Observe these things following 1. Understand what the Religion is that you must hold and maintain It is the antient Christian Religion Do not put every Truth among the Essentials of your Religion Our Religion doth not stand or fall with every Controversie that is raised about it That which was the true Religion in the Apostles days is ours now that which all were baptized into the Profession of and the Churches openly held forth as their Belief Reformation brings us not a new Religion but cleanseth the old from the dross of Popery which by innovation they had brought in A man that cannot confute a Papist may yet be a Christian and so hold fast the true Religion It followeth not that our Religion is questionable or unsafe if some point in Controversie between them and us be questionable or hard The Papists would fain bring you to believe that our Religion must lie upon some of these Controversies but it s no such matter Perhaps you will say That then it is not about Religion that we differ from them I answer yes it is about the Essentials of their Religion but it is but for the preserving the Integrity of ours against the Consequences and additions of theirs They have made them a New Religion which we call Popery and joined this to the Old Religion which we call Christianity Now we stick to the old Religion alone and therefore there is more essential to their Religion then is to ours so that our own Religion even the ancient Christianity is out of Controversie between us The Papists do confess that the Creed the Lords Prayer the ten Commandments are true yea that all the Scripture is the word of God and certainly true so that our Religion is granted us as past dispute And therefore it is only the Papists Religion that is in question between us and not ours If you will make those lower Truths to be of the Essence of your Religion which are not you will give the Papists the advantage which they desire 2. If the Papists call for a Rule or Test of your Religion and ask you where they may find it assign them to the Holy Scriptures and not to any Confessions of Churches further then as they agree with that We know of no Divine Rules and Laws of Faith and Life but the holy Scripture and the hearts of Believers have an imperfect Transcript of them The Confessions of Churches are but part of the Holy Scripture or Collections out of them containing the points of greatest weight And if in phrase or order much more in matter there be any thing humane we make it not our Rule nor are we bound to make it good no more then the Writings of godly men A point is not therefore with us an Article of Faith because our Churches or a Synod put it into a Confession but because it is in the Word of God For a Councils determinations do with us differ but gradually from the Judgement of a single man in this respect And therefore we give them the Scripture only as the full Doctrine of our Faith and the perfect Law of God And those points in it which Life or Death is laid upon and God hath told us we cannot be saved without we take as the Essentials of our Religion and the rest as the Integrals only If they ask Why then we do draw up Confessions of Faith I answer 1. To teach and help the people by gathering to their hands the most necessary points and giving them sometimes an explication of them 2. To let our Accusers see that we misunderstand not the
did Reject the chief of the Popish errors as we do Besides many particular points named in my Safe Religion they Rejected with us the Popes Catholick Monarchy the pretended Infallibility of the Pope or his Councils the new form of the Papall Catholick Church as Headed by him with other such points which are the very fundamentall controversies between us and the Papists So that besides that the Papists themselves profess our Religion the major part of the Catholick Church did profess it with the Rejection of the Papacy and Papall Church and so you may as easily see where our Religion was before Luther as where the Catholick Church or most of Christians were before Luther 3. And beside both these our Religion was professed with a yet greater Rejection of Romish corruptions by thousands and many thousands that lived in the Western Church it self and under the Popes nose and opposed him in many of his ill endeavours against the Church and truth together with them that gave him the hearing and were glad to be quiet and gave way to his tyranny but never consented to it Concerning these we have abundant evidence though abundance more we might have had if the power and subtilty of the Papall faction had not had the handling of them 1. We have abundance of Histories that tell us of the bloody wars and contentions that the Emperours both of East and West have had with the Pope to hinder his tyranny and that they were forced by his power to submit to him contrary to their former free professions 2. And we have abundance of Treatises then written against him both for the Emperours and Princes and against his doctrine and tyranny some store of them Goldastus hath gathered And intimations of more you have in their own expurgatory Indices 3. And we have the histories and professions of the Albigenses Waldenses Bohemians and others that were very numerous and if Raynerius say true they affirmed about the year one thousand one hundred that they had coutinued since the Apostles and no other Originall of them is proved 4. Particular evidence unanswerable is given in by Bishop Usher de Succes statu Eccl. and Answer to the Jesuites and the Ancient Religion of Ireland and in Dr. Field and Morneyes Mysterie of Iniquity and of the Church and Illyricus and many others 5. Even Generall Popish Councils have contended and born witness against the Popes superiority over a Councill 6. And in that and other points whole Countreyes of their own are not yet brought over to the Pope 7. They have still among themselves Dominicans Jansenists c. that are reproached by the Jesuites as siding with Calvin in many Controversies as Catharinus and many more in others Most points of ours which we oppose to Popery being maintained by some or other of them 8. But the fullest evidence is the certain history or knowledge of of the case of the common people and Clergy among them who are partly ignorant of the main matters in Controversies between us as we see by experience of multitudes for one to this day and are generally kept under the fear of fire and sword and torments so that the truth of the Case is this the Roman Bishops were aspiring by degrees to be Arch-bishops and so to be Patriarchs and so to have the first seat and vote and to be called the Chief Bishops or Patriarchs and at last they made another thing of their office and claimed about six hundred years or more after Christ to be universal Monarchs or Governours of all the Church But though this claim was soon laid it was comparatively but few even in the West that made it any Article of their faith but multitudes sided with the Princes that would have kept the Pope lower and the most of the People medled not with the matter but yielded to necessity and gave place to violence except such as the Albigenses Bohemians Wicklefists and the rest that more openly opposed So that no man could judge of the multitude clearly which side they were on being forced by fire and sword and having not the freedom to profess their minds So that in summ our Religion was at first with the Apostles and the Apostolick Church and for divers hundred years after it was with the universal Christian Church And since Romes usurpation it was even with the Romanists though abused and with the greater part of the Catholick Church that renounced Popery then and so do now and also with the opposers of the Pope in the West under his own nose You see now what Succession we plead and where our Church and Religion still was If any deny that we are of the same Church and Religion with the Greeks Abassines and most of the Christian world yea all that is truly Christian I easily prove it 1. They that are Christians joyned to Christ the Head are all of the same Church and Religion for none else are Christians or united to Christ but the Church which is his Body But the sincere Greeks Abassines c. and we are Christians united to Christ the Head therefore we are all of one and the same Church and Religion 2. They that believe the same holy Scripture and differ in no essential part of the Christian faith are of the same Church and Religion but so do both we and all true Christians therefore we are all of one Church and Religion 3. They that are truly regenerate and Justified hating all known sin longing to be perfect Loving God above all and seeking first his Kingdom and Righteousness and accounting all things but as dung in comparison of Christ these are all of the true Catholick Church and the true Christian Religion but such are all that are sincere both of the Greeks Abassines c. and the Reformed Churches as we prove 1. To others by our Profession and Practice by which only they are capable of judging of us 2. To ourselves infallibly against all the Enemies of our salvation in Hell or Earth by the knowledge and acquaintance with our own hearts and the experience of the work of God upon them All the Jesuites in the world cannot perswade me that I love not God and hate not sin and prefer not the Love of Christ before all the world when I feel and know that I do till they can prove that they know my heart better then I do 4. If Christ Consent to it and we Consent to it then we are all that are sincere in their profession of the true Catholick Church and Religion for if he consent and we consent who is there that is able to break the match But Christ consenteth and we consent as we prove by parts 1. His consent is expressed in his Gospel that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life and whoever will may drink of the water of life freely 2. And our consent we openly professed at Baptisme and have frequently renewed and our own
souls are acquainted with the sincerity of it whatever any that know not our hearts may say against it 5. All that are truly Baptized and own their Baptismal Covenant are visible members of the true Catholick Church For it is the very nature and use of Baptisme to enter us into that Church But Greeks Abassines Georgians Armenians c. and Protestants are all truly Baptized and own their Baptismal Covenant therefore we are all of the true Catholick Church What is ordinarily said against this succession of our Church I have answered in my safe Religion I now add an answer to what another viz H. Turbervile in his Manuall saith against us in the present point The easiness of his Arguments and the open vanity of his exceptions will give me leave to be the shorter in confuting them His first Argument pag. 43. is this The true Church of God hath had a continued Succession from Christ But the Protestant Church and so of all other Sectaries hath not a continued Succession from Christ to this time therefore c. Answ 1. I pray thee Reader be an impartial Judge what this man or any Papist ever said with sense and reason to prove that the Eastern and Southern Churches have no true Succession Let them talk what they please of their Schisme the world knows they have had as good a Succession as Rome Are they not now of the same Church and Religion as ever they have been All the change that many of them have made hath been but in the entertaining of some fopperies common to Rome and them And if any of these which you call Sectaries can prove their Succession it destroyes your Argument and Cause Me thinks you should not ask them where their Church was before Luther 2. But how doth this Disputer prove his Minor that we have no Succession Only by a stark falshood forsooth by the Concession of the most Learned Adversaries who freely and unanimously Confess that before Luther made his separation from the Church of Rome for nine hundred or one thousand years together the whole world was Catholick and in obedience to the Pope of Rome Answ O horrid boldness that a man that pleads for the sanctity of his Church dare thus speak so notorious an untruth in the face of the world At this rate of Disputing the man might have saved the labour of writing his Book and have as honestly at once have perswaded his Disciples that his Adversaries unanimously consess that the Papists cause is best What if the fifteen cited by him had said so when I can bring him one thousand five hundred of another mind and cite him fifteen for one of another mind is that the unanimous confession of his Adversaries But unless his Adversaries were quite beside themselves there is not one of them could say as he feigneth them to say For doth not the world know that the Eastern and Southern Churches far exceeding the Romanists in number did deny obedience to the Pope of Rome Would this perswade his poor Disciples that we all confess that there are or were no Christians in the world but Protestants and Papists His first cited Confession is Calvins that all the Western Churches have defended Popery A fair proof Doth this Disputer believe in good sadness that the Western Churches are all the world or a sixth part of the world But this is the Popish arguing What Calvin speaks of the Western Churches that is the prevailing power in each Nation of them he interprets of all the world So he deales with Dr. White who expresly in the words before those which he citeth affirmeth the visibility of the Churches of Greece Ethiope Armenia and Rome but only saith that at all times there hath not been visible distinct companies free from all corruption which one would think every penitent man should grant that knows the corruption of his own heart and life It would be tedious to stand to shew his odious abuse of the rest when they that say most of the word world but as it is used Luk. 2. 1. so much of his first argument His second is this Without a continued number of Bishops Priests Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same faith from Christ and his Apostles to this time a continued succession cannot be had But Protestants have no continued number c. Answ And how proves he the Minor No how at all but puts us to disprove it and withall gives us certain Laws which we will obey when they grow up to the honour of being reasonable His first Law is that We must name none but only such as held explicitely the thirty nine Articles all granting and denying the same points that the late Protestants of England granted or denyed for if they differ from them in any one materiall point they cannot be esteemed Protestants Answ A learned Law And what call you a material point You may yet make what you list of it If they differ in any point Essentiall to Christianity we grant your imposition to be necessary But there is not the least Chronologicall or Geographicall or other truth in Scripture but is a Materiall Point though not Essential Must you needs know which these Essentials are In a word Those which the Apostles and the ancient Church pre-required the knowledge and profession of unto Baptism And because all your fond exceptions are grounded on this one point I shall crave your patience while I briefly but sufficiently prove that Men that err and that in points materiall may yet be of the same Church and Religion Argum. 1. If men that err in points material that is precious truths of God which they ought to have believed may yet be true Christians and hold all the Essentials of Christianity then may they be of the same true Church and Religion But the former is true therefore so is the later The Antecedent is proved in that all truths which may be called Materiall are not of the essence of Christianity Argum. 2. The Apostle Thomas erred in a Materiall point which is now an essentiall when he would not believe Christs Resurrection and yet was a member of the true Church therefore c. Argum. 3. The Papists err in material points and yet think themselves of the same true Church therefore they must confess that differing in Material points may be the case of members of the same true Church For proof of the Minor I demand Are none of the points Material that have been so hotly agitated between the Jesuites and Dominicans and Jansenists the Papall party and the Councill party The Thomists Scotists Ockamists c. At least review the Jesuite Casuists cited by the Jansenists Mysterie of Jesuitism and tell us whether it be no whit Material Whether a man may kill another for a Crown or may kill both Judge and witnesses to avoid an unjust sentence Or whether a man should go with good meanings into a Whore-house to perswade them
Religion as if they were so many Articles of our Faith or at least were the common doctrines of our Churches They will not give us leave to do so by them when yet we have much more reason for it For 1. They teach the People that they are bound to believe as their Teachers bid them and they reproach us for confessing that we are not in all points of Doctrine infallible And yet we still confess this fallibility and say in plain terms that we know but in part 2. Divers of their particular Doctors that we use to cite are such as the Pope hath Canonized for Saints and they tell us that in Canonizing he is infallible And therefore an Infallibly Canonized Saint must not be supposed to err in a point of faith 3. They boast so much of Unity and Concent among themselves that we may the better cite particular Doctors And yet we think our selves bound to stand to their own Law in this and to charge nothing on them as the faith of their Church but what their Church doth own and therefore while they refuse to stand to particular Doctors we will not urge them to it for its good reason that all men should be the Professors of their own belief But what reason is there then that we may not have the same measure from them which they expect We profess to take no man nor Council of men for the Lords of our faith but for the Helpers of our faith They tell us that they know not where to find our Religion We tell them it is entirely in the written word of God and that we know no other Infallible Rule because we know no other Divine Revelation supposing what in Nature is revealed They tell us that All Hereticks do pretend to Scripture and therefore this cannot be the Test of our Religion I answer that so all cavillers and defrauders and extortioners may pretend to the Law of the Land to undo poor men by quirks of wit or tire them with vexatious suits And yet it follows not that we must seek another Rule of Right and take the Law for insufficient And what if Hereticks pretend to Tradition to General Councils and the Decretals of the Popes as you know how frequently they do Will you yield therefore that these are an infufficient Rule or Test of your own Religion Open your eyes and judge as you would be judged But I will come to some of the particular Opinions which they charge us with And because I know not a more weighty renowned Champion of their cause then Cardinal Richleiu then Bishop of Lucion I shall take notice of his twelve great errors which he so vehemently chargeth on the Reformed Churches as contrary to the Scripture And sure I shall do much to make clean our Churches if I fully wipe off all the pretended blots of errour that so wise a man could charge upon them In his Defens contra script 4. Ministr Charenton cap. 2. pag. 12. c. he begins his enumeration thus 1. The Scripture saith Jam. 2. that a man is not Justified by Faith only but you say that he is Justified by Faith alone and by Faith only which is found in no place of Scripture and do you not then resist the Scriptures Answ 1. We believe both the words of Paul and James that a man is Justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law and saved through Faith not of works lest any man should boast Rom. 3. 28. Ephes 2. 8 9. and also that a man is Justified by works and not by Faith only Jam. 2 Did not this Learned man know that we believe all the Bible why then should he charge us with denying that which we retain and publickly read in our Churches as the word of God Did he think that we set so much by Luthers or any mans writings as by the Bible 2. But if he can prove that we understand not these words aright he should have evinced it better then by the use of the words Faith alone For our Churches by Faith alone do profess openly to mean no more then Paul doth by Faith without works And can they find fault with Paul 3. Indeed we are not all agreed upon the fittest Notion of the interest of Faith and works in our Justification but our difference is more in words and notions then matter of which see my Disput of Justification 4. And. why do you not quarrel with your own Cardinal Contarenus de Justif and others of your own that joyn with us in the doctrine of Justification His second Accusation is The Scripture saith that we can Love God with all the heart you say that no man can Love God with all the heart which is no where read in Scripture and yet do you not resist the Scriptures Answ 1. Unprofitable Confusion we distinguish between Loving God with all the Heart as it signifieth the sincerity and predominant degree of Love and so every true Christian hath it and as it signifieth some extraordinary degree above this meer sincerity and so some eminent stronger Christians have it and as it signifieth the highest Degree which is our duty and which excludeth all sinful imperfection And thus we say that no man actually doth Love God perfectly in this life nor do we think he speaks like a Christian that dare say Lord I Love thee so much that I will not be beholden to thee to forgive the imperfection of my Love or to help me against any sinful imperfection of it Your own Followers whom you admire as the highest Lovers of God do oft lament the imperfections of their Love as M. de Renty for instance in his Life But now if the question be only of the posse and not the act we say that the Potentia naturalis is in all and the Potentia Moralis which is the Habit is in the sanctified but this Moral Power is not perfect it self that is of the highest degree and without any sinful imperfection though yet it hath the perfection of sincerity and in some the perfection of an eminent degree And will not this content you His third Accusation is The Scripture saith that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ with the adjunction of those words that signifie a true Body and Blood you say that it is not Christs Body and Blood but only a figure sign and testimony which the Scripture no where saith Answ 1. The Scripture saith not that it is his Body and Blood substantially or by Transubstantiation And we say not as you feign that it is not his Body and Blood but a figure c. For we say that it is his Body and Blood Sacramentally and Representatively as he that personateth a King on some just account is called a King and as in actions of Investiture and Delivery the delivering of a Key is the delivering of the House and the delivery of a twig and turf is the delivery of the Land and the deliverer
among all the Pastors and Churches in your Dominion All that fear God are Agreed in the main and they have a special Love to one another and these are good preparatives to their fuller reconcilement I know that there is no such distance in their principles but that they may in blessed Concord carry on the work of God Our poor people need this that are offended at our smallest distances All our strength united is too little to bear down the oppositions of Hell and Earth that we must daily encounter in our work Your help may do much to procure our Concord of which I shall presume to say more to you in another address 6. Lastly we beseech you that Toleration may be limited by Execution as well as by Law And therefore that as the Approved Ministers must have an Instrument of Approbation and must be responsible before the Commissioners of ejection for any thing that forfeiteth it so the Tolerated may be tryed according to your Laws of Toleration and may have an Instrument for their Toleration before they have Liberty publikely to propagate their Opinions to others and that they may be as responsible before the Commissioners for ejection as we And that publikely nor privately Papists nor Infidels nor any that deny the essentials of the faith may not be suffered to seduce the people If any think that this is desired by us because we fear the power of truth or would deprive them of any just freedom of debate I provoke them solidly to answer what is here said in the following Dispute and we disswade not your Highness if you were in any doubt which we do not imagine of the truth of the Christian or Reformed Doctrine to invite us to an equal Disputation and try whether we shall not open the shame of Infidelity and Popery the two great evils that threaten this land at any time But if you are resolved of the wickedness of both these wayes we have reason to expect that you suffer not the poyson to be administred to your people Give not leave to every seducer to do his worst to damn mens souls When you will not tolerate every Traytor to draw your Armies or people into Rebellion nor to every wicked man to solicite others to whoredom murder theft or deceit And verily if men have leave to preach against the Scripture Churches Ministry Ordinances yea and against the life to come under the name of Seekers Quakers or such other Sects we had far rather that they had leave to pull off their vizor and do it openly in the name of Papists For as Papists they will disown abundance of the abominations which as Seekers c. they propagate on design And as plain dealing in Religion is better then jugling so we had rather that open quiet Papists were tolerated then these jugling deceivers They that pretend to know the Jesuites and Fryars do profess that they are more common in Princes Councils and Families and in the houses if not the closets of Noble men Commanders and persons of publick trust or service then we that live and mean simply do imagine And who would have thought that had not know it that they had so insinuated into the several sects among us and that they were so industrious in their work as the Newcastle Scottish Jew was to be circumcised or become Jew and then rebaptized c. and all to decieve Judge I beseech you by these three Reasons how far their seduction is to be tolerated 1. That they preach Treason against Princes and States I have shewed undenyably is part and a principal part of their Religion 2. Their doctrine corrupteth almost all Morality What need we fuller clearer proof then the Jansenian hath given us in his Mysterie of Jesuitism and much more may be added Morton hath long ago produced enough to tell us what to expect from such men Apolog. Part. 1. l. 2. c. 13. As from Tollet himself l. 4. de instruct sacerd c. 9. Quantum ad intentionem dilectionis non tenemur sub praecepto Deum plus omnibus diligere Stapleton l. 6. de justif c. 10. Valent. l. de Votis c. 3. Hoc praeceptum diligendi Deum ex tota mente doctrinale est non obligatorium See here a precept and the greatest precept even to Love God above all is not Obligatory A strange precept And p. 322. he reciteth the words of Tollet ibid. l. 4. c. 21. 22. teaching Equivocation upon oath before a Magistrate and so maintaining perjury And p 327. he citeth the same Author maintaining that Murder and Blasphemy in a passion and not deliberate is no mortal sin unless in one that is used to Blaspheme And p. 329. how Bellarm. Costerus Valentia maintain that Fornication in a Priest is better or a smaller sin then to marry The like he shews of their doctrine of Theft False witness c. p. 332 333 c. This from him 3. But above all their other mischiefs the Propagating of Infidelity by them is the greatest Which they do in two wayes 1. Under the Vizard of Infidels and Seekers they plead against Scripture and Christianity in design to loosen men from all Religion and perswade them that they must needs be Infidels or Papists Veron and his followers have given them full Directions to manage this design And while with debauched Consciences they thus perswade men to be Infidels in jest they have made abundance such in good sadness so that upon my knowledge there are many such swarm among us that sometime seemed pious persons that plead against Christianity it self 2. And no wonder when some of the leading Papists do seem to be Christians in jest and Infidels in good sadness themselves I shall instance now but in their Champion Tho. White who in his Euclid Metaphys Stoech K. pr. 16. maintaineth that in a manner or almost all incorporated souls shall be saved by the world as the Instrument or else the world were substantially evil and the souls that fail of Blessedness non sint sufficientes ad partem considerabilem totius multitudinis constituendam He that believeth this cannot believe Christ nor well perswade men to believe in Christ This happy news to the Pagans and Mahometans might somewhat affright the Christians being the fewest lest they should be that inconsiderable number but that he that talks of the damnation of so few its like by his Arguments believeth it of none The same he asserts in his Treatise of the middle state of souls Rat. 5. p. 41. And Rat. 10. he disputeth against Vindictive Justice as a thing not becoming God and p. 88. denyeth that sinners injure God forsooth because he suffereth it willingly Pag. 95 Translat he saith that souls are exempt from all such pains as may be caused by any outward agent And pag. 111. That God Governeth not the world as a Monarch but as an Engineer And pag. 134. he saith the punishment of sin whether external or internal
such as comes not from a wilfull neglect of means there no ignorance of the articles of faith is damnable and so no article absolutely necessary so that the question indeed is not Whether men believe or not but Whether they are Unbelievers or Heathens or ignorant persons by a willfull neglect of sufficiently proposed Truth or not So that all that part of the Heathen or Infidell world O how great that have no such proposals of the Gospel may not only be saved but be better and safer then most Christians if not all who certainly are sinfully ignorant of some truth which they ought to know Obj. But say they it will not stand with faith to deny belief to God in any thing sufficiently revealed for he that believeth him in one thing believeth him in all Answ Very true if they know it to be the Word of God And if this be all the Protestants are ready to averre upon their most solemn Oaths that they believe every thing without exception which they know to be a Divine Revelation and no wonder for so doth every man that believes that there is a God and that he is no lyar If this will serve your turn you have no more to say against us your mouths are stopt But may it not stand with faith to be ignorant and that through sinfull neglect of some revealed truth of God or of the meaning of his word If you are so proud as to think that all the justified are perfect and have no sin yet at last consider whether a man that liveth in Heathenism til fourscore years of age and then turns Christian is not afterward ignorant through his former sinfull negligene But dare you say that you have no sinfull ignorance to bewail Will you confess none nor beg pardon or be beholden to Christ to pardon it That they make no point of faith necessary while they seem to make all necssary see but what I have after cited from Frans à S. Clara probl 15 16 17. and abundance more that are mentioned there by him 3. And that by this Protean jugling they make the Church invisible is apparent For what man breathing knoweth the secrets of the souls of others whether they have resisted or not resisted the light and whether they are ignorant of the articles of faith upon sinfull contempt or for want of some due means of faith or internal capacity or opportunity We are as sure that all men are ignorant of some thing that God hath revealed to be known in nature and Scripture as that they are men But now whether any one of these men be free from those aggravations of his ignorance and that in every point upon which the Papists make him an unbeliever is unknown to others When the Faith or Infidelity of men and so their being in the Church or out of it must not be known by the Matter of Faith which they profess but by the secret passages of their hearts their willingness or unwillingness resistance or not resistance and such like the Church then is invisible no man can say which is it nor who is of it He that professeth not the Faith may be a Catholick and he that professeth it for ought they know may be an Infidel as being sinfully yet ignorant of some one truth that is not in his express confession thus by confusion the bulders of Babel marre their work 4. And that the wisest of them say in the main as we say see here in some proofs Bellarm. de Verbo Dei lib. 4. cap. 11. In the Christian Doctrine both of Faith and Manners some things are simply necessary to salvation to all as the Knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed of the ten Commandements and of some Sacraments The restore not so necessary that a man cannot be saved without the explicite Knowledge belief and profession of them These things that are simply necessary and are profitable to all the Apostles preached to all Allthings are Written by the Apostles which are Necessary to all and which they openly preacht to all see the place Costerus Echirid c. 1. p. 49. Non inficiamur praecipua illa fidei capita quae omnibus Christianis cognitu sunt ad salutem Necessaria perspicuè satis esse Apostolicis scriptis comprehensa That is We deny not that those Chief Heads of the Faith which are to all Christians necessary to be known to salvation are perspicuously enough comprehended in the Writings of the Apostles Judge by these two to spare the trouble of citing more whether they be not forced after all their Cavils to say as we in distinguishing of Articles of Faith And they cannot be ignorant that the Church hath still had Forms of Profession which were called her Symbols as being the Badge of her Members and did not suspend all upon uncertain conjectures about the frame and temper of the Professors minds But if indeed it be not the want of Necessary Articles of Faith that they accuse us of but the want of willingness or diligence to know the truth let them prove their accusations and let those persons that they prove guilty bear the blame Do they think we would not as willingly know the truth as they and that we do not pray as earnestly for Divine illumination Do we not read their Books I verily think incomparably more then they do ours and are we not willing to confer with the wisest of them that can inform us I have often privately and publickly desired you that if any of them can say more then all these Schoolmen Fryars and Jesuites say which I have read they would let me hear it that I may want no means they can afford me for my fuller information But yet they have not done with us When we prove a succession of our Religion by proving a succession of such as adhered to the Scriptures which are the Doctrine of our Religion an Argument that no Papist under heaven can confute they vainly tell us that All Hereticks pretend to Scripture and therefore that will not prove the point But 1. Doth it follow that Scripture is not a sufficient Rule of our Religion because Hereticks may pretend to it You take the 39 Articles for our Religion and yet may Hereticks that are far from our minds pretend to them It 's the liker to be the Rule because all Hereticks pretend it and would borrow credit from it to their Heresies The Law of the Land is the Rule of our Justice and yet Lawyers and their Clients that are contrary to each other do plead it for their contrary Causes The Creed it self is pretended by Arrians for their Heresie What must we have no Rule or Test or discovery of our Religion which a Heretick can pretend for his impiety What words of God or man are not capable of being misinterpreted If we should give you every day a confession of Faith some Hereticks might pretend to hold the same No wonder then if they
Well and what 's that to the question O Sir is it not the holy truth of God that you are about and should you thus abuse it and the souls of men you knew the question is Whether sense and the intellect thereby be infallible in judging Bread to be Bread when we see feel and eat it Had you never a word to say to this to perswade men that they have eyes and see not and hands and feel not or that the world knoweth not certainly what they seem to know by seeing and feeling I pray you hereafter deal by us as fairly as Bellarmine did and yet we will thank you for nothing who quite gave away the Roman cause by granting and pleading that sense is infallible in Positives and therefore we may thence say This is a Body because I see it and so this is Bread or wine because I see feel and taste it but not in Negatives and therefore we cannot say this is not a Body because I see it not I pray you give over talking of the Pope or Church or Religion or Men if you are uncertain of substances which are suppose but per accidentia the Objects of your sense And take nothing ill that I write of you till you are more certain that you see it and know what you see 3. But you 'l say Sense and Reason must here vail bonnet to faith Answ In the Negative case let it be granted and any case where faith can be faith But if sense and the Intellect therewith be fallible in Positives so that we cannot know Bread when we see and eat it faith cannot be faith then What talk you of faith if you credit not the soundest senses of all the men in the world when sense and reason are presupposed to faith How know you that faith here contradicteth sense You 'l say because the Church or Scripture saith This is my Body and that there is no Bread But how know you that there is any such thing in Scripture or that the Church so holdeth you think you have read or heard it But how know you that your sense deceived you not He that cannot know Bread when he seeth and eateth it is unlikely to know letters and their meaning when he seeth them See more of my answer to such Objections in a Book entitled The Safe Religion p. 241. to 248. The simplest Reader that hath honesty and charity is secured against Popery by the first Argument which he may make good to his own soul against all the Jesuites on earth And he that is unable to proceed on that account may by the evidence of this last Argument confute any Papist living if he be a man of sense and reason And having brought all our controversie so low that sense it self may be the judge I shall go no further in Argument as thinking it vain to use any reason with that man that will not believe his own eye-sight nor the sight and feeling and taste of all the world besides CHAP. X. I Come now to the next and principal part of my task which is to open to you their Deceits and give you Directions for the discovery and confutation of them that by the help of these you may see the Truth Detect 1. Remember this ground which they have given you that If you prove them guilty but of any one Error in points of belief determined by their Church you thereby disprove the whole body of Popery as such For you pull up the foundation which they build on and the Authority into which they resolve their faith They will grant you that if they are deceived by the Church in one thing they have no Certainty of any thing upon the Churches credit So that if you read Pauls discourse against Praying in an unknown tongue or the many precepts for our reading and meditating in the Law of God or the like and can but perceive that the Popish Latine service or their forbidding men to read the Scripture c. are contrary hereto or if you find out but any one of their Errors you cannot be a Papist if you understand their Profession But it is not so with us for though we know that the Scripture and all that is in it is of infallible Truth and that every true Christian while such is infallible in the Essentials of Christianity for else he were no Christian yet we profess that we know but in part and that our own Writings and Confessions may possibly in some things be besides the sense of Scripture and there being much more propounded in Scripture to our faith then what is of absolute necessity to salvation we may possibly after our studying and praying mistake in some things that are not of the Essence but the Integrity of Christianity and are necessary to the Melius esse the strength or comfort though not to the being of a Christian So that every Error in their faith destroyes their grounds and so their new Religion but so doth not every Error of ours Or to speak more distinctly let us distinguish between the Fides quae qua their Objective faith and our Subjective faith 1. Their Objective Faith hath Errors in it but ours hath none by their own confession For theirs is all the Decrees of their Popes and Councils and ours is only the Holy Scripture which they confess to be infallible Our own writings do but shew how we understand the Scriptures and so whether our subjective faith be right or not 2. We confess that it is not only possible but probable that we are mistaken in some lower points about the meaning of the Scriptures and yet our foundation is still sure But they have in a sort confounded their Subiective and Objective faith and one believes it on that account because others do believe it and so one age or part do but seek for the Object of their faith in the Actual faith of the other Yea 3. They conclude that every point which is of faith that is that 's determined by the Church to be so is of such necessity to salvation that no man can be saved that denyeth it or that doth not believe it if sufficiently proposed But we are assured that though all that is in Scripture be most true yet through misunderstanding some points there proposed to our faith may possibly be denyed and disputed against by a true believer and yet his salvation not be overthrown by it The Papists cry out against us for distinguishing between the Fundamentals or essentials of Religion and the Integrals but we know it to be necessary CHAP. XI Detect 2. WHEN you have brought the matter thus far and see that if they have one errour in faith their whole cause is lost then consider Whether it be Possible for that Doctrine which is so contrary to Scripture and to it self to be free from all Error 1. How contrary it is to Scripture 1. To forbid the reading of Scripture in a known
And they extoll Cyril equally with Celestine Novo Paulo Celestine they forgot Peter Novo Paulo Cyrillo Unu◠Celestinus Unus Cyrillus c. The next witness brought is the Council of Calcedon as caling Leo Universal Archbishop and Patriarch of old Rome and sentence is pronounced against Dioscorus in the names of Leo and Saint Peter Answ 1. This is but one of your common frauds It was not the Council that called him universall Archbishop but two Deacons in the superscription of their Libels viz. Thedodorus and Ischirion And were they the Catholick Church 2. By Universal Archbishop it s plain that they meant no more then the chief in dignity and order of all Archbishops and not the Governour of all 3. I have shewed you before that this very Council in its Canons not only give the Bishop of Constantinople equal priviledges with the Bishop of Rome but expresly say that Rome received this primacy of order à patribus from a Council because it was Sedes Imperii the seat of the Emperour I thought I had given you enough of this Council before Sure I am when Bellarmine comes to this Canon he hath nothing to say for his cause but plainly to charge this famous fourth General Council with lying or falshood and to say that the Pope approved not this Canon But approved or not approved if this was the Catholick Church representative sure I am that their testimony is valid to prove that there was then no Catholick reception of the Roman Monarchy as of God but contrarily a meer primacy of Dignity and Honour given it newly by men In the sixth age he had not one Council to pretend it seems for the Roman Soveraignty for he cites none but about other matters of which anon In the seventh age which he calls the sixth though then the Soveraignty was claimed by Boniface he citeth no Council for it niether In the eighth age from the year seven hundred he cites the second Council of Nice as approving an Epistle of Pope Adrian wherein he saith that the Roman Church is the Head of all Churches Answ 1. But whether Adrian himself by the Head meant the chief in Dignity or the Governour of all is a great doubt 2. But whatever he meant the Synods approving his Epistle for Images is no proof that they approved every word in it 3. Yea Tharasius seems to imply the contrary calling him only Veteris Romae primas testatorum principum successor as if his Sea had the Priviledge only of being the Primate of Rome and not the Ruler of the world 4. But if this Council did as it did not openly own the Papal Soveraignty it had been no great honour to him For as in their decrees for Images they contradicted two Councils at Constantinople and that at Frankford contradicteth them so might they as well contradict the Church in this Even as they defined Angels to be corporeal which the Council of Laterane afterward contradicted But the plain truth is it was the scope of Adrians Epistle as for Images which they expressed themselves to approve And that their Image-worship it self hath no Catholick succession me thinks they should easily grant considering not only 1. That there is nothing in the first ages for them 2. And that Epiphanius and many before him speak expresly against it 3. But specially that there have been more General Councils of those ages against them then for them and that before this of Nice decreed for them the representative Catholick Church except still the Pope be the Catholick Church did condemn them I suppose by this time you will think it needless for me to follow H. T. any further in his Catalogue I am content that any impartial sober person judge whether here be a satisfactory proof of a Catholick succession of the Papal Soveraignty when through so many ages they bring not a word for any succession at all much less that it was owned by the Catholick Church and least of all that all the rest of Popery was so owned Object But at least some other points of Popery are proved by H. T. to have such a succession Answ Peruse his proofs and freely judge Two of the thirty two Articles which I mentioned before he speaks to The one is that Bishops Priests and Deacons should abstain from their Wives or be degraded But 1. The Council which he cites for this is but a Provincial Council in Spain in the fifth Age and what 's this to Catholick succession 2. The Evidences for the Antiquity of Priests marriages are so clear and numerous that I will not thank any of them to confess their doctrine a Novelty 1 Cor. 9. 5. Have we not power to lead about a Sister a Wife as well as other Apostles and as the brethren of the Lord and Cephas I hope they will not deny that Peter had a Wife 1 Tim. 3. 2 4. A Bishop must be blameless the husband of one Wife One that ruleth well his own house having his children in subjection with all gravity ver 12. Let the Deacons be the husbands of one wife ruling their children and their own houses well Tit. 1. 7. If any be blameless the husband of one Wife having faithfull children The Antient Canons called the Apostles say Can. 6. Let not a Bishop or Presbyter put away his own Wife on pretence of Religion And if he reject her let him be excommunicated but if he persevere let him be deposed Let Bellarmine perswade those that will believe him that this Canon speaks but of denying them maintenance Canons as well as Scripture are unintelligible to these men The Canons at Trull of the fifth and sixth Council do expresly expound this Apostolick Canon as I do here and they profess it was the Apostles concession then to the Bishops to marry and they themselves forbid any to separate Priests from their Wives and professedly oppose the Roman Church in it Can. 12 13. For this Bellarmine lib. 2. cap. 27. de Pontif. Rom. reproacheth them and that 's his answer Forsooth the Pope approved not these Canons 1. Let Adrians words be read and then judge 2. What if he did not Our enquiry is of Catholick Tradition and succession and not of the Popes opinion But it s easie to bring much more for this Another point that H. T. proves is The same Canon of Scripture which they own And for this he brings one Provincial Council Carth. 3. as in the sixth Age. An excellent proof of Catholick succession through all Ages But have we not better proof of the contrary Let him that would be satisfied peruse these records and judge Euseb Eccles Hist l. 3. cap. 9. vel 10. and there Joseph li. 1. cont Apion Constitut Apostol whosoever was the author lib. 2. cap. 57. Canon Apostult Dionys Eccl. Hier. cap. 3. Melet. in Euseb Eccl. Histor lib. 5. cap. 24. Origen in Niceph. hist Eccles lib. 5. cap. 16. Orig. Philocal cap. 3. Euseb Hist l. 6. cap.
as if they said that no men but Papists have souls in their bodies and laid their faith on this and as soon I think should I believe them if this were their belief It s a good preservative against Popery when a man cannot turn Papist without putting out his eyes and renouncing his wit and reason and common experience as well as his charity yea without denying of what he knoweth by his own soul But let us come to their Evidences 1. They say We have no Canonized Saints I answer 1. All the Apostles and Saints of the first ages were of our Religion and many of them have been beholden to the Pope for Canonizing them 2. We have no usurper among us that pretendeth Infallibly to know the hearts of others nor to number Gods Saints But with us the Holy Ghost maketh Saints and their lives declare it and those that converse with them discern it so far as to be highly confident and men discern it in themselves so far as to be Infallibly though not perfectly certain 3. It seems the Pope takes Saints to be rare with them that they must be named and written with red Letters in an Almanack And H. T. Man pag. 84. is fain to send us for proof to their Chronicles and Martyrologies and he nameth four Saints that they have had viz. Saint Austin the Monk Saint Bennet Saint Dominick and Saint Francis Now we all know that none but Saints are saved and that without holiness none can see God Heb. 12. 14. So that it seems if sanctity be so rare among the Papists salvation must be rare But as for us we make it our care to admit none but Saints to our Church Communion though we preach to others to prepare them for it For we believe that the Church is a Holy Society and find Paul calling the whole Churches that he writes to by the title of Saints and we believe it is the Communion of Saints that is there to be held And if we had no more Saints in one County at once yea in some one Parish at once then would fill up the Popes Calendar so as to have one for every day in the year we should betake our selves to bitter lamentation Whereas the Church of Rome takes in all sorts of the unclean and is so impure and polluted a society that its a wonder how they should have the face to boast of their holiness to men that live among them and know them Thousands of their members are stark Infidels as not knowing the Essentials of the Christian Faith It s known here in Ireland that abundance of them know not who Christ was but that he was a better man than Saint Patrick Bishop Usher saw it and lamented it that they perished as Heathens for want of knowing Christianity it self while they went under the name of Catholicks and therefore he would have perswaded the Popish Priests to have Consented that they should be all taught a Catechism of the common principles that we are agreed in but he could not procure it when Dr. Jo. White asked one of them in Lancashire who Jesus Christ was she answered that sure it was some good thing or else it should not have been put into the Creed And how much swearing whoredom drunkenness and other wickedness is in their Church is known not only by the complaints of their own writers but by the too common experience of Travailers We have known Papists that have turned from them by the experience of one journey to Rome and seeing what is there And for Church censures by which any of these should be purged out they are laid by and reserved for other uses even as thunder-bolts for the Popes Adversaries and the servants of Christ whom they take for Hereticks and for Princes whom the Pope would have deposed and murdered These things are not meer words but the lives of many Kings and Princes have been the sacrifice of the Roman Holiness And what need you any further proof that their Church is as the common wilderness and not as the Garden of Christ and is a Cage of all unclean birds then that they actually keep them all in their Communion It made my heart rise at their hypocrisie and filthiness to read one sentence in one of the most learned and sober and honest of all their Bishops that have written and that is Albaspinaeus Observat 1. pag. 1. saith he Siquis unquam hoc seculo quod nescio an acciderit Communione fuit privatus sola fuit Eucharistiae perceptione in reliquis suae vitae partibus quam ante Excommunicationem habuit eandem cum caeteris fidelibus consuetudinem usum retinuit That is If ever any one man in this age was put from the Communion which I know not whether such a thing hath come to pass it was only from the receiving the Eucharist in the other parts of his Life be retained the same familiarity and converse with other believers which he had before his Excommunication Here you see from a credible Bishop that lived in the thickest of their Clergy in France that he knew not that any one person in the age that he lived in was ever kept from the Lords Supper but if he were yet that was all he was still a member of their Church and familiar with the rest Let the Christian world then observe by their practice what an abominable hypocritical contest they make for to prove the Power of Church-government to be only in their Pope and the Prelates to whom he giveth it and when they have done do make no more use of the Power which they so pretend to as not to exercise the Censures of the Church upon one offendor there in an age How were that man worthy to be thought of or to be used that would set all the world on fire by contending that no Schoolmaster or Physitian should be suffered in the whole world but himself and such as he giveth power to and when he hath done will not by himself or his subjects and dependants teach or heal one person in an age were such an one meet to live on the earth Or should we judge that man in his wits that would believe him O what a stye is the Roman Society what dunghills are in their Assemblies and yet must not the Shovel or the Beesom be used once in an Age what no weed pulled up no super fluous branch cut off Is this the use of all the Canons of their Church concerning Excommunication and abstention Must the Christian world be at such a vast expence to maintain so rich and numerous a Clergy for this And must we cast out our Pastors to receive such as these when we should be ashamed if we had not exercised more of the cleansing power of the Keyes in one Parish Church then Albaspinaeus knew of among the Papists in a whole age But perhaps there is little of this filth among them to be cast out He that
would have the causes taken away What! When I recite his very words Or was I deeply silent of the particular causes Do you mean Here or Throughout If Here so I was deeply silent of ten thousand things more which either it concerned me not to speak or I had not the faculty of expressing in one sentence If you mean Throughout you read without your eyes or wrote either with a defective Memory or Honesty Read again and you shall find that I recite the causes 3. But did I not all that my task required by reciting the Negation of the causes It was not saith Grotius the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons And I shewed you partly and the Canons shew you fully that that Primacy is the Universall Headship which Protestants I mean not Roman Grotian Protestants have ever used to call Popery But saith Mr. P. Grotius chargeth the Papists with it Answ 1. True but the Protestants much more as making many more faults by their withdrawing from Rome then they mended 2. And he chargeth not that which we have called Popery with it though he charge the Papists with it That some sins of the Papists did occasion it he confesseth and all the Papists that ever I spoke with of it do confess But I am referred for these causes charged on the Papists to Grot. Votum pag. 7 8. and thither I 'le follow Mr. P. that I may know how much he chargeth on the Papists himself And there I find that the things that Grotius found faulty in the Papists were but these two 1. That to the true and ancient doctrine many quirks of the Schoolmen that were better skli'd in Aristotle then the Scriptures were introduced out of a liberty of disputing not out of the Authority of Universal Councils And the Opinions stablisht in the Church were less fitly explicated 2. That Pride and Covetousness and manners of ill example prevailed among the Prelates c. And really did you think that he is no Papist that is but against the Schoolmens Opinions and the Prelates Pride Covetousness and Idleness and holdeth all that they call the Decrees of General Councils Hath not the Council at Lateran and Florence decreed that the Pope is above a General Council and the Council at Lateran decreed that Princes are to be deposed and their Subjects absolved from their fidelity if they exterminate not Hereticks such as Protestants out of their Dominions Is he no Papist that holds all that is in the Council of Trent if he be against some School-points not determined and against the Prelates Pride Well Sir I understand you better then I did And though you thought meet that your words might be conform to one another and not to truth to say that I called you Arminian and Pelagian I purpose if I had done so to call you an Arminian no more But I beseech you cry not out of persecution till the men of your mind will give us leave to be Rectors of Churches in their Dominions as you and others of your mind are allowed to be in these And demand not of Mr. Hickman the bread he eats nor the money he receives as if it were yours till we can have license to be maintained Rectors or at least to escape the Strappado in your Church But I promised you some more of Grotius in English to stop your mouth or open it whether you see cause and you shall have it Discus pag. 14. Grotius distinguisheth between the Opinions of Schoolmen which oblige no man for saith Melchior Canus our School alloweth us great liberty and therefore could give no just cause of departing as the Protestants did and between those things that are defined by Councils even by that of Trent The Acts of which if any man read with a mind propense to peace he will find that they may be explained fitly and agreeably to the places of the holy Scriptures and of the ancient Doctors that are put in the Margin And if besides this by the care of Bishops and Kings those things be taken away which contradict that holy doctrine and were brought in by evil manners and not by authority of Councils or Old Tradition then Grotius and many more with him will have that with which they may be content This is Grotius in English Reader is it not plain English Durst thou or I have been so uncharitable as to have said without his own consent that Mr. Pierce would have defended this Religion and that we have Rectors in England of this Religion and that those that call themselves Episcopal Divines and seduce unstudied partial Gentlement are crept into this garb and in this do act their parts so happily If words do signifie any thing it here appears that Grotius his Religion is that which is contained in the Council of Trent with all the rest and the reformation which will content him is only against undetermined School-Opinions and ill manners that Cross the doctrines of the Councils I 'le do the Papists so much right as to say I never met with a man of them that would not say as much Especially taking in all Old Tradition with all the Councils how much together by the ears now matters not as Grotius doth Yet more Discus p. 185. He professeth that he will so interpret Scripture God favouring him and pious men being consulted that he cross not the Rule delivered both by himself and by the Council of Trent c. Pag. 239. The Augustine Consession commodiously explained leath scarce any thing which may not be reconciled with those Opinions which are received with the Catholicks by Authority of Antiquity and of Synods as may be known out of Cassander and Hoffmeister And there are among the Jesuites also that think not otherwise Pag. 71. He tels us that the Churches that join with Rome have not only the Scriptures but the Opinions explained in the Councils and the Popes Decrees against Pelagius c. They have also received the Egregious Constitutions of Councils and Fathers in which there is abundantly enough for the correction of vices but all use them not as they ought They lye for the most part hid in Papers as a Sword in the Scabbard And this is it that all the lovers of piety and peace would have corrected And gives us Borromaeus for a president Pag. 48. These are the things which thanks be to God the Catholicks do not thus believe though many that call themselves Catholicks so live as if they did believe them but Protestants so live by force of their Opinions and Catholicks by the decay of Discipline Pag. 95. What was long ago the judgement of the Church of Rome the Mistris of others we may best know by the Epistles of the Roman Bishops to the Africans and French to which Grotius will subscribe with a most willing mind Rome you see is the Mistris of other Churches Pag 7. They accuse the Bull of Pius Quintus that it
give the Presbyterians and the Presbyterians take them to be Antichristian Some of you are Arminians some Calvinists some say Christ dyed for all and some say no some are for Justification only by Christs Passive Righteousness and some also by his active with other such differences even in these fundamentall points I repeat their words just as I have heard they make use of them with the people and now I shall open the deceit of them in particular Answers to each part And 1. For the matter of unity I have spoken of it before and dare leave it to all the world that are judicions whether the Papists or we are more unanimons or more divided Only to the Instances of division I shall speak further now 1. For the matter of Church Government we are all agreed in the substance of it except a very few straglers As concerning the duty of Penitence Confession Restitution Contrition and of the excommunicating the obstinate and Absolving the penitent c. All this we agree is the duty of the Presbyters and we agree that these Presbyters may have a President only some think that the President is ejusdem ordinis of the same order differing but in degree and hath no power jure divino but what the Presbyters have but only the exercise is restrained as to the Presbyters by men but others think that the President is a Bishop eminently of another order having not only the exercise but the power above the Presbyters And is this difference so great a business And do not these cheaters know that if for this they would reproach us they must do so by themselves Know they not that among their own Schoolmen there is the same difference or in most points the same And know they not that if differences in Ceremonies or Modes should unchurch us or disgrace us it would fall as foul on the whole Catholick Church and that in the very primitive times Did they never read of the difference between the Asian and the Roman Churches about the celebration of Easter day and how Polycrates and the rest did plead Tradition against the Church of Romes Tradition and how Irenaeus did reprehend the Bishop of Rome for his uncharitable censure of the Churches for so small a difference And how Polycarp and Anicetus Bishop of Rome could not agree as building upon contrary Traditions but yet maintained Christian peace as Eusebius out of Irenaeus his Epistle to Victor tels us lib. 5. Hist Eccl. cap. 26. And the English and Irish Churches long after that adhered to the Asian way even after the Councill of Nice had ended the controversie on the Roman side And who knows not how many more controversies greater then these of ours have been among the Churches of Christ without their unchurching or disparagement to Religion And for the Doctrinal Controversies mentioned most of them lie more in words then in sence and all of them are far from the foundation though they be about Christ who is the Foundation If one of your picture-drawers mistake the complexion of Christ or if one should say he was not buried in a sheet these are errours about Christ that is the foundation and yet far from the foundation Those of us that say Christ dyed for all and those that say he dyed not for all do agree as your School-men do that he dyed for all as to the sufficiency of his death and price but he dyed not for all as to the actuall efficiency of pardon and salvation Is not this your doctrine and is not this ours and are not you as much disagreed about it as we what else meant the late decision against the Jansenists and what meaneth the present persecution of them in France And yet have you the faces to make this a reproach of us And for the righteousness of Christ we are commonly agreed that it is both his Obedience and Passion that we are justified and saved by though we are not all of a mind about the reason of their several interests which difference is so far from unchristening us that it makes no considerable odds among our selves who are censorious enough in cases of difference And for different forms of worship sure these men do wilfully forget what a number of Offices and Mass books have been among themselves and other Churches and what a number of Letanies or Liturgies of several ages and Churches they have given us in the Bibliotheca Patrum but more of this anon 2. And as for the changes and unfixedness which they charge us with we are contented that 1. Our principles 2. And our practises be compared with the Papists and then let even modest and judicious enemies be judges which of us are more fixed or more mutable 1. For our Principles we take only Christ to be the chief Foundation of our Faith and his inspired Prophets and Apostles to be the secondary foundation whereas the Papists build upon many a most ungodly ignorant man because he is the Pope of Rome And which of these is the firmer foundation 2. We take nothing for our Rule but the sure word of God contained in the holy Scriptures but the Papists take the Decrees of all Popes and Councils for their Rule Our Rule they confess to be Divine and infallible Their Rule we affirm to be humane and fallible Which then is like to be more firm Our Rule the sacred Scriptures in the Originall languages as to the words and the matter of them as to the sence the Papists themselves confess unchangeable but whether they will say as much of their own I will try by two or three Instances 1. What an alteration Pope Sixtus and Pope Clement made in the Vulgar Latine Bible which is one part of their Rule I told you before and Dr. James his Bellum Papale will tell you the particulars 2. The other part is their Decrees of which Pope Leo the tenth in Bulla contr Luth. in Binnius page 655. saith the holy Popes our predecessors never erred in their Canons and Constitutions And yet hear what Pope Julius the second saith in his General Councill at the Laterane with their approbation Cant. pragmat sanct monitor Binnius vol. 4. pag. 560. Though the Institutions of sacred Canons holy Fathers and Popes of Rome and their Decrees be judged immutable as made by Divine Inspiration yet the Pope of Rome who though of unequal merits holdeth the place of the Eternal King and the Maker of all things and all Laws on earth may abrogate these Decrees when they are abused You see here from the mouth of Infallibility it self if the Roman faith have any of what continuance we may judge their Immutable Decrees to be of which are made as by Divine inspiration they are Immutable till the Pope abrogate them who being in Gods place though of unequal merits O humble confession is of power to do it 3. We have a Rule that was perfected by Christ and his Apostles to which
nothing can be added and therefore we are at a Certainty for our Religion for we have a sure and perfect Rule from Heaven Nothing may be added to it or taken from it But the Papists do profess that the Determinations of the Pope or Councill may make a point and so five thousand points for there is no certain number to be de fide articles of faith and necessary to salvation though not in se yet quoad nos as to us And what it is for a Law to be obligatory in se and not quoad nos is hard to understand So that the Papists never know when their faith is perfect and grown to its full stature For ought they know a thousand more Articles yet may be added And yet these men of uncertain growing faith have the face to perswade men that we are mutable and they are fixed You see our several Principles now to our Practices For our part 1. We never changed our Head our Lord our Faith or one Article of our Faith if malice it self be able to charge us with changing the smallest Article of our Faith let them say their worst we change not our Rule the holy Scriptures nor one clause or sentence of it but endeavour the preservation of the same which at the first we received In our contests with the Papists our great offence is at their mutation from the antient Rule and way we contend but for the faith once delivered to the Saints the old way with us is the good way we abhor a Religion that is new sprung up or is less then one thousand five hundred and fifty years standing at least If we change in any thing it is but by repenting of our former changeableness while our Nation was Popish having then changed from the Apostolick simplicity we change from that sinful change and return to the antient way again And if we have made any further changes since our first change at the Reformation it is but a perfecting the change to Antiquity and Apostolick simplicity which we then begun Rome was not built in a day and is not pulled down in a day The work of Reformation is but one change though it be not done all at one time If we find some spots of Romish dirt upon us that escaped us at our first washing it is no dangerous mutability yet to wash it off If a man converted by saving grace be not perfectly rid of all his former sin the first day of his Conversion should he be reproached as mutable for striving against it all his life after and casting it off by degrees as he is able If a man did but recover by degrees from the relicks of his disease they will not therefore reproach him as mutable If he sweep the dust or dirt out of his house every day they will not say He is mutable and knows not where to rest These men might as well reproach us as mutable because we rise in the morning and do not still lie in bed or because we go to bed at night and do not stay up still But what is it that we are changeable in we have changed none of the substance of worship did we baptize before and do we not so still Did we pray or administer the Lords Supper before and do we not so still what is the change why 1. We before used the common Prayer book and now we do not 2. Before we used prayers at the buria of the dead which now are omitted 3. Before we used the Cross and Surplice and kneeled at the Sacrament which are now omitted And what then therefore we have changed our Religion Even as a man changeth his cloaths by brushing them or his house by sweeping it or his face by washing it Do these men think us so sottish as to place our Religion in these Circumstances God hath bid us Pray continually but he hath not told us whether we shall use a Prayer book or not but left that to mens necessities or conveniences to determine of And doth a man change his Religion or Worship of God if he either begin or cease to use a Book If any man had so little wit or Religion as to place their Religion in a Prayer book it s no great loss to them if they have lost their Religion when the Prayer book is taken from them We doubt not but Prayer books are profitable to some and hinderances to others some should use them and some should not but whether we use them or not use them is no part of our Religion at all but a meer Accident or common help and appurtenance God hath not told preachers whether they shall use any Notes for their memory in Preaching to one it is an hinderance to another an help Doth a man change his Religion when he changeth a custome of using Notes God hath not told us what Chapter we shall read or what Psalm we shall sing or what Text we shall Preach on this day or that day What if one age think it best that some Pastors give Laws to all the rest that they shall read no Chapter preach on no Text and sing no Psalm but by their direction and the next age think it meeter to leave it to each Minister as thinking it unfit to Ordain such Ministers that have not wit enough to choose their Text or Chapter or Psalm according to occasions Will you say that here is a change of Religion These outside Hypocrites tell the world what a thing they take Religion to be and in what they place it What if one man use an hour-glass in preaching and another use none What if one read a Chapter with spectacles and another without or if one preach in a Pulpit and another below or if one preach in a white garment or another in a black or if one stand at the Sacrament and another sit and another kneel Are we therefore of several Religions or is this any part of the worship it self Do we not all now either stand sit or kneel at the hearing of a Sermon as we please Do we not kneel or stand at Prayer as we please Yea do not men commonly in singing Psalms of Prayer or Praise to God sit or stand as they please And what if we do so at the Sacrament Is it not all one Or doth standing kneeling or sitting make another Religion or any part of it And for Marrying Burying Baptizing and the rest we have altered no part at all of the worship of God but order them in that manner as seemeth most convenient What ignorant souls are these that think that the using a Prayer book or praying without book or the using this gesture or that these words or those words that are to the same sence doth make different Religions or Ordinances of worship These are tricks that none but the sottishly ignorant will be deluded with that know not whâ—â— Religion or worship is They may as well say If I change