believe not in him as well as in Christ but he flatly denyeth it and what he cannot get by Scripture and reason he would get by threatning and terrible words to affright the simple telling them that Protestants are not of the true Church or Religion nor in a safe way to salvation because they will not be the subjects of the Pope of Rome Well we shall briefly prove our way to be safe if not to the satisfaction of perverse ambitious or passionate and prejudiced men yet I doubt not to the satisfaction of all humble impartial diligent persons that are willing to know the truth and deny themselves that they may know it and do not stifle it by their lusts or imprison it in unrighteousness in their byassed resolutions And first we shall briefly open the termes By Religion here we mean the Doctrine de credendis agendis about matters to be believed and practised which we hold and profess as of Divine Revelation and injunction in order to Gods Glory and our salvation For though this be but the means towards those holy Affections and practices which are of neerer necessity to our salvation as being the necessary effects of the former yet is it not this later buâ— the former that we are now inquiring after Not of Subjective but Objective Religion not of the fides quâ but the fides quae â—creditur not whether we be true to our Religion and so truly Religious but whether we be of the True Religion or hold that Doctrine which will save them that are true to it in Belief and Practice I shall not much stop the plain Reader therefore with any further and unnecessary inquiry into the Etymology of the word Religion which some derive 1 a Relegendo some 2 a Religando and some 3 a Relegando Relinquendo But as long as we understand what is meant by the word we shall not stick at the Etymology or propriety By the Reformed Religion we mean the Christian Catholike Religion as it is separated from Popery and so by this word we do distinguish our Churches from the Romane Sectaries For it is not every Reformation much less every thing so called that here we have respect to but the Reformation by which we cast off Popery it self which because it was in one Countrey done by a solemn Protestation of certain Princes and Cities against Popery hath been since called the Protestant Reformation and our Churches the Protestant Churches and our Religion the Protestant Religion Our Religion is called Catholike because it is â—he Religion of the Catholicke Church which is so â—alled a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it is universal consisting not onely of Jews and their Proselites as heretofore nor of one Town like Rome and those that will be â—he subjects of the Bishop of that Town as the Papists dream but of all that Believe in the name of Christ through the whole world holding the Foundation or points of absolute necessity to salvation and not again denying them by any such contradicting Errors as will not consist with the practical belief of the said Fundamentals As that was called A Catholicke Epistle which was directed to the whole Church and not to any one person or people so is that the Catholike Church which containeth all Christians As Austin was wont to describe it against the Donatists who would have confined it to the adversaries of Caecilianus and followers of Donatus in Africke that the true Church was that which was spread over the world by the Gospel which was commanded to be preached to all Nations beginning at Jerusalem so do we By the Christian Religion I suppose we are agreed is meant the Religion of Believers in Christ or that whereof Christ is the Foundation and prescriber and faith in him the first act which must contain all the essential parts though it may possibly want many integrals or else it is not to be called the Christian Religion They that were called Christs Disciples were afterwards called Christians first at Antioch Act. 11.26 To be a Christian therefore and to be Christs Disciple is all one Note therefore that as the word Religion denoteth the sum of doctrines and way of salvation absolutely necessary so it is but One in all the worlâ— that 's true and saving and that is the Christian Religion So that if a Heathen Jew or Mahometane ask me what Religion I am of in opposition to theirs I will say I am a Christian and not onely that I am a Protestant But if a Christian aske me what Religion I am of I will say I am a Reformed Catholike Christian for such a question in the mouth of a Christian usually implieth that I am a Christian and intendeth the discovery of what sort or party of Christians I belong to But indeed Christianity is not many but one and therefore Christians as Christians are not of many Religions but of one No nor Christians at all that are truely such if by Religion you mean a systeme of doctrines in the main necessary or sufficient to salvation or conceited so to be For as there is no such Body of Doctrine but Christs so no man that is indeed a Christian can believe that there is seeing such a Belief contradicteth the essentia's of Christianity But among those that call themselves Christians there are some Hereticks that deny or plainly subvert some part of the essentials of Christian Religion And among those that are Christians some have such dangerous corruptions as do much hazard the salvation and tend to frustrate them of their benefits of the Christian Faith and these very corruptions they Entitle by the name of Part of their Religion as the Papists do In which sence I must say I am not of the same Religion with them though I hold the same Christian Doctrine as they because I hold not their mixture and add not those corruptioâ—s which they make a part of their Religion The name Protestant I reject not because it was taken up on a just occasion but I take it to be too extrinsecal and private to be the standing denomination of my Religion as being not taken from the nature of the thing but from an occasionall action of a few men in one Countrey though it intimateth that all of their judgement in all other Countries do virtually at least make the like Protestation in the maine I do therefore rather choose to say that I am a Reformed Catholike Christian and when I call my self a Protestant this is my meaning So that by the name Christian which expresseth all my Religion it self Positively considered I am differenced from Heathens Jews Mahometans and all Infidels and those by some called Hereticks who usurpe the name of Christians while they deny part of the very essentials of Christianity And by the name Catholike I adde nothing Positive to the former but onely intimate that I am of the Universal Church and negatively exclude my self from all divided
parties or from any that are yet in that Church and yet take up any dividing titles or wayes therein though they withdraw not from it as they are such I am none of them and therefore disclaim when I express my Religion such private names I am no Lutheran Calvinist Arminian Papist Socinian c. but a Catholike But yet when I say I am a Reformed Catholike I purposly disclaim the Corruptions of Popery and in that word renounce their Errors as such as by the word Catholike I renounced their Schisme And so I may agree with Luther Calvin or any man in Reformation so far as they hold to the word of God so that if malicious adversaries will put the name of Sect upon the Catholike verity and call it by the name of Zuinglianisme Lutheranisme Calvinisâ—â— or the like pretending that it had its spring from these men they shall not by such unworthy means remove me from the Catholike Religion nor yet cause me to own their Corruptions because they have named the opposition of them as a Heresie Augustine would not turn Donatist because they named the Catholikes Caecilians nor would Prosper turn Pelagian because they called the Orthodoxe Predestinarians or Fatalists nor would Athanasius before them turn Arrian because they called the Orthodoxe Tritheists It is not other mens fastening upon us the name of a man or of a Sect that proves us Sectaries or that we had our Religion originally from that man Yet do we so much reverence their names that we rejoyce in their labors for the Church and bless God for them and endeavor to imitate them in their holy doctrine and lives though we make none but Christ the Lord of our Faith As for the terms of the predicate they need no great explication By salvation we mean principally Everlasting Glory in Heaven By the way to it we mean the means appointed by God for the attaining it The principal means indeed is Christ himself who is eminently called The way and no man cometh to the Father but by him But in subordination to Christ all other means are the way By a safe way we mean a way that in suo genere is sufficient to the attainment of the end so that all that sincerely are that way shall attain that end A certain means of happiness to all that faithfully use it For it must be known that no Religion or sound Doctrines will save a man that is not faithful in the reception and improvement of them A True Religion will not save him that is not True to his Religion And therefore it is no wonder if multitudes even of Protestants do perish though their Religion be the onely Religion in the world For they are not heartily of the Religion which they profess They have that doctrine which is the seal and fit enough of its own nature quantum in se to imprint the image of God upon their souls But if they keep this seal in their Chests and apply it not effectually to their hearts they may have unholy hearts and lives though they profess a holy faith and Religion and therefore may perish for all that profession yea and perish most deplorably because their profession doth aggravate their sin If a mans Religion or believed doctrines be bad in the maine the man himself must needs be bad too and therefore no man of such a Religion can be saved But if a mans Religion or professed doctrines be never so good it is possible he may be bad that doth profess them and then no Religion can save a wicked man So that of the true Religion some are saved but not all but of a bad Religion in the main no man can be good or be saved I come to the Arguments by which I prove the Affirmative that The Reformed Catholike Christian Religion commonly called Protestant is a safe way to salvation Arg. 1. That Religion which best agreeth with the word of God above all other Religions in the world is a safe yea the safest way to salvation But the Reformed Catholike Christian Religion commoâ—â—â— called Protestant doth best agree witâ— the word of God therefore it is the safest way to salvation One would think among Christians the Major should be unquestionable But here the corrupt Romanists have presumed to make a new word of God that so the determination of the case might be impossible unless we will go up to these Philistines to sharpen our weapons For they deny the holy Scripture to be the whole word of God or sufficient to be the Rule for deciding of controversies in matter of saith and tell us that unwritten Traditions are another part And those Traditions are such as are received by the whole Church as delivered down from the Apostles and that whole Church is onely the Romane party and thus do they by their own Authority undertake to damne all the rest of the Christian world and make themselves onely the Catholike Church and by this trick of wit they have got one half of Gods word into their closets and that it is his word which they say is his word And that you may know that they are no blabs or revealers of secrets they have for some hundred years kept this close as a secret to themselves yea from themselves as well as to us so that when the common Proverb takes that to be a secret which one or two knows but not when three know it yet these men have a word of God which all the Catholike Church is the keeper of and yet those that keep it know it not themselves much less can we that stand by come to the knowledge of it but we must all wait till the last Pope have breathed out his last determination before the Catholike Church that is said to keep it can come to know what is the whole word of God And so among them it is â—ome to this pass that to be judged by Gods word is to be judged by the Pope and his entrusted Subjects But if any man whatever bring us forth a Tradition and say that this is the word of God and came down from the Apostles we shall desire more then â—his word for the proof of it And when he brings us as good proof that his Tradition came from the Apostles as we shall bring him that the Scripture came from them then will we cheerfully receive his Traditions but not without sufficient proof upon the boastings of corrupted interessed men As for the Minor that our Religion is most agreeable to the Scriptures I shall now say but this to the proof of it First we take the Scriptures for the only Test or Rule of our faith and practice and we tye not our selves to any other by-rule which may force us to a misunderstanding of it It is onely the Scripture that we still profess doth contain our Religion And it is the chief part of the quarrel between us and Rome that they will not take this word
that this is sufficient will surely warrant as to exclude their additions And we have oft proved that the first ages did maintain the Scripture sufficiency This one answer doth fully justifie us against this câ—vil of the Papists The Ancient Church and Fathers believed the Scripture and the sufficiency of that Scripture as containing all points of faith And so do we And so all Popish faith is excluded Though we â—onfess many Ceremonies and points of order â—ere then admitted as from the Church 4. Negatives became necessary to be expresly asâ—erted by occasion of Heresies And therefore who â—an wonder if many of them are never mentioned till â—hose heresies did call them out When there was â—o man so impudent as to say that The Pope of â—ome is the Universal Bishop and Governor of the whole Church or that God must be worshipped in â—n unknown tongue or that Images must be worâ—hipped who could expect that the Church should have occasion in words to express it as a part of their faith that The Pope is not the universal Bishop not infallible c. and so of the rest If Popery had risen sooner it had sooner been contradicted 5. There may be an hundred Negatives made necessary hereafter by heresies which it is not necessary now to put into our Creed or confessions because they are not yet sufficiently contained or implyed in the contrary Affirmatives If Hereticks arise that say that man hath seven souls that the soul returns to be Gods Essence and was so eternally that there are fourteen Sacraments that Infants must take Orders with a hundred the like then it might be necessary for us expresly to deny these and shall they then tell us that our Religion is new and theirs old because we cannot prove that any did before deny theirs So what if we could not prove that any before had said The Pope is not the Universal Governor that is because there was none so shamless for six hundred years as to say he was Whose Religion then is proved new by this ours or theirs But I shall say somewhat more to this anon in the end Obj. 3. That Religion which cannot be known 〈◊〉 having no certain test to discern it by can be no saâ—â— way to salvation But such is the Reformed Religion therefore c. The Minor is proved If they have any such test either it is Scripture or soâ—â— confessions of their own But neither of these therefore not Scripture For that is appealed to by many Religions and therefore can be no proper Test to discerne one of them from the rest Besides it knows not so much as the name of the Reforâ—â—â— Protestant Religion Not any confession for they have no one which they agree in but one disclaimeth what another owneth And they have none agreed on by a General Councel or by all themselves Ans 1. The Test of our Religion is the holy Scripture This we profess joyntly to be the Rule of our faith and life To this we still Appeal If we misunderstand it in any point we implicitely renounce all such eâ—rors because we explicitely in general renounce all that is contrary to the Scripture This may be the true Test of our Religion though others falsly preâ—end that theirs is more agreeable to it Many things may be tryed by the same Touchstone and weighed by the same ballance whereof some may be currant and others unfound or light May not the Law of the Land be the true Rule of our obedience to our Governors though in the Rebellious or disobedient should pretend to be Ruled by the same Laws 2. They are not all distinct Religions which the Papists call so Many appeal to the same Scriptures who agree in the maine concerning the sence and disagree onely in some inferior things These are not several Religions 3. Our confessions do shew how we understand the Scripture wherein we agree in the main as the Harmony of Confessions testifieth though in some lesser things we differ Obj. 4. They that have causlesly separated from all the Churches in the world are not of the true Religion nor in a safe way to Salvation But so have the Protestants done for they are divided both from Romane Church the Greeks Abassines Armenians and all therefore they are not in a safe way Ans It s one thing to withdraw from some corruption of a Church and another to withdraw from the Church 1. We that are now living did not withdraw from Rome or any of the rest for we were never among you or under you 2. Our Fathers withdrew not from the Church as Christian or Catholike but from the particular corruptions of the Romane faction in Doctrine Discipline and Worship rejecting their lately usurped Tyranny by which they would have still obliged them to sin against God As we are commanded to withdraw from each particular Brother that walketh disorderly so must we from a particular Church when they will be so disordered as to Tyrannize over the universal 3. The Church of Rome rejected us by a causeless excommunication who were not de jure under her power 4. We still profess our selves of the same Church with the Greeks Abassines Arminians Copties and all others on earth that hold the Scriptures and that so hold the Anticent Creeds or fundamentals of Christianity as that they do not evidently subvert it again by contradictory Errors If they hold no Errors but what may consist with a true belief of the Fundamentals in the same persons though by an unseen consequence they may contradict them we seperate not from that Church so as to disclaim it from being a true Church And therefore it s not true that we so separate from all the world but as to the Local Personal Communion or presence we dare not joyn with the truest Church in the least known sin But in that respect we cannot be said to separate from the Greeks or Abassines that we have no opportunity of Local Communion with While all men are imperfect one may see that Error which another seeth not and to separate meerly from a sin of one man or a Church is not simply to separate from the man or Church Obj. 5. That Religion which hath no unity in it self or consistency but is broken into many Sects and still running further is no safe way to salvation But such is the Protestant Religion therefore Answ We deny the Minor Our Religion is one simply one and most consistent and having one sure standing Rule not subject to changes as yours is even the word of God himself The same Rule that the first Churches had and the same Test by which the Christian Religion was known of old when the Belief of the Scripture and particularly the Ancient Creeds and the actual Communion with the true Church was the test of a Catholike the one in Doctrine the other in Communion as freeing him from Schismes We believe all the same Articles and we divide not from the
Catholick Church If any depart from Scripcures as to the sence in points absolutely necessary they cease to be of our Religion If any depart from it in lesser things they may yet be of the same Religion with us but so far we disown them if we know it Popery hath no sure test or means to prevent mutation But we have in that we fix on the Immutable Rock If Anabaptists Separatists or any erroneous persons live among us so far as they hold those errors so far they are none of us And if any err whom we dare not reject we yet reject their errors and take them for no part of our Religion And if this Argument hold it will much more condemne the Romanists who have more diversity of opinions and wayes among them then the Protestants as may in due place be shewed Obj. 6. That is not the true Religion nor a safe way to Heaven which men can have no Infallible certainty of But the Protestant Religion is such For they all profess their Church to be fallible Answ We must distinguish between a man that May be deceived and a man that Is deceived And between Infallibility in the Object and in the Subject or Intellect And between Infallibility in the absolutely necessary points and in some Inferior smaller matters And so I Ans 1. The Rule of our Religion viz. the word of God is Infallible yea the onely Infallible Rule of Religion and therefore we have an Infallible and the onely Infallible Religion 2. The weakness of the Recipient must be differenced from the Religion which hath no such weakness There is still the certainty and Infallibility of the Object when the believer through his own weakness may be uncertain 3. No man is Falsus actually deceived while he believes that doctrine of our Religion that is the holy Scripture And this we are certain of 4. No Christian in sensu composito nor no Church is fallible or can err in the Fundamentals or points absolutely necessary For if he do so he ceaseth to be a Christian and that to be a Church 5. In sensu diviso he that was a common believer may Apostatize from the faith and so may a particular Church and therefore is fallible but is not as is said Deceived till it turn from the Infallible truth 6. The best man or Church on earth doth know but in part and therefore erreth in part and therfore is fallible in part or in lower things So that it is not the least proof of the fallibility of Scripture or the Reformed Religion that men may Apostatize from it or that they may stagger in Believing an Infallible Truth or that we are fallible in lesser things All true Believers are actually Infalliblly perswaded of the Truth of Gods Word and particularly of all things absolutely necessary Obj. 7. That Religion is not true nor a safe way to heaven which wanteth many Articles of faith But the Protestant Religion wanteth many Articles of faith Therefore Answ 1. We must distinguish of our Religion as it is in the Professed Rule and as it is Impressed in the mindes of men In the former respect we say that our Religion wanteth no Article of faith for Gods perfect Word is our Religion But in the minds of men Religion is more or less imperfect according to the strength or weakness of mens faith 2. We must distinguish between true Articles of Faith and false ones made by the Church of Rome We are without the latter but want them not but we expect that they who call them Articles of faith do prove them so Obj. 8. Your Religion is unsafe by your own Testimony You condemne one another the Lutheran condemneth the Calvinist as Blasphemous impious and damnable the Calvinists condemne the Lutherans the Anabaptists both and every sect is condemned by others Therefore Ans 1. The Churches confessions pass no such condemnation nor any moderate sober men 2. If two children fall out call one another Bastard they are never the more Bastards for that nor will the father therefore call them so else what will become of your Jesuites and Dominicans Obj. 9. The very name of Lutherans Calvinists Protestants do plainly express a Sect or party different from the Name Catholike which denoteth the true Church which only holds the true Religion And the very name Reformed is novel and no proper title of the Catholike Church but onely a cloak for your Schisme which discloseth the novelty of your Church and way Answ 1. And of how much better signification think you is the name Papist or Romanist You call your selves Catholikes and we call our selves Catholikes You scornfully call us Lutherans and Calvinists which are names that we disclaime and then argue from your own imposed names Would you have us do so by you And as for the names of Protestants and Reformed we use them not to express the Essential nature of our Religion but the Accidental Removal of your Corruptions So that though Scripture or Antiquity talke not of A Protestant or Reformed Religion by name yet it commendeth to us that same Religion which we now call Protestant 〈◊〉 Reformed but then it could not so be called because you had not then hatched your corruptions and deformities which are presupposed to our Reformation The man that fell among thieves when his wounds were healed was a Cured man whereas before he was not a cured man because not a wounded man And yet he was the same man as before and the Theeves â—hat wounded him would have made but a foolish â—lea if they would have dispossessed him of his Inâ—eritance on pretence that he is not the same man and have proved him not the same because he hath â—ot the same name it being not a Cured man that owned that inheritance before Obj. 10. Where the Catholike Church is there the Catholike Religion is and no where else But the Catholike Church is not with you but with us For you found us in Possession of the name and thing and then departed from us as Hereticks in former ages did from the Church Therefore it is not you but we that have the true Catholike Religion which is the onely safe way to salvation Answ 1. The Church must be known to be true and Catholike by the Religion which it owneth and not the Religion by the Church You begin at the wrong end As if I would prove such a thing to be a Vertue because it is in such a man as I esteem when I should rather prove him to be honest and Virtuous because that which is first proved honesty Vertue dwelleth in him 2. Did we not find the Greek Ethiopian and other Churches in possession of the name of the Catholike Church as well as you Yet you would dispossess them 3. We found you in Possession of All in your own account and all is yours if your selves must be Judges But in the account of the Greek Abassine and other Churches
speculatively may yet hold the contrary truthes practically not discerning the contradiction I would gladly have shewed the vainty of the rest of that Pamphlet because I see he hath contracted most of their common cavils into a narrow room but the rest is less to our present purpose and the same things are already answered by many and therefore I shall no further Digress in the pursuit of this Confuter having already said so much against the chief of their objections as may leave the impartial Reader confirmed in it That notwithstanding the Popish cavils to the contrary it is apparent that the Christian Catholike Reformed Religion commonly called Protestant is a safe way to Salvation Query Whether Popery be a safe way to Salvation Neg. IT is not as other mens Judges that we determine this Question to their own master do they stand or fall but it is to render an account of our own Belief and practice and for our further confirmation in the truth for the defence of it against gain-sayers and for the establishing of our people against the sophistry and seduction of Deceivers For the explication of the terms I shall tell you 1. What I mean by Popery 2. What I mean by Salvation 3. What by the way to it 4. What by the word Safe 1. Popery is a certain farrago a mixture of many grievous errors in the doctrine of Faith Government and Worship expressed in their Authorized writings especially in their decretals and Councils corrupting the Christian Religion which they profess the whole being denominated from that one falshood that the Pope of Rome is the Universall Bishop and Visible Head of the Universal Church and Christs Vicar-General on earth and that only is the Catholike Church and those only Catholiks that so believe Where note 1. That the Papists professing to be Christians do first own the substance of Christian doctrine and then corrupt it and contradict it by this fardle of their own inventions superadded They profess to believe the holy Scriptures to be the word of God and to be true every Book that we believe and more They profess to believe all the Articles of the ancient Creeds commonly called the Apostles the Nicene or Constantinopolitane It is not the Christianity or true doctrine which they profess which we call Popery 2. It is therefore onely their own invented corruptions by which they contradict the Christian verity which they profess which we call Popery 3. Note That the common denominating corruption is the forementioned doctrine of the Popes Universal Episcopacy and Headship or a supreamacy at least if not Infallibility and that the Catholike Church and the Romane Church is all one and the Pope is the visible center of its Unity 4. Note also that as to the rest of their corruptions they agree not among themselves what is to be esteemed of their faith or Religion and what not and therefore it cannot be expected that we should give you an exact enumeration of the points of their faith and so a compleat description of Popery which is such a self-contradicting unreconcileable hodg podge But their errors may be distributed into these three rankes 1 Those that are established by the Pope and his supposed general Councel These they all receive and own 2. Those that are established by the Popes Decretals without a Council These some own as points of their faith and some reject them I will not adde as the third those that are established by a Council without the Pope not because there never was a Council that dissented from him in Good but because it is a difficult matter at least to find any Council that did go beyond or without him in Evil or erred without his Approbation 3. The third sort therefore shall be those opinions that are commonly maintained by their most Approved Writers which are published in books that are licensed and commended by the Popes Authorized agents but are not determined by the Pope or his Council These though they contend for and lay great weight on them in their disputations yet dare they not own them as any part of the matter of their faith lest they seem to be what they are divided and mutable A man would think that those volumnious hot disputes about Divine things did intimate that the Authors did fide divinâ— believe those points which they do so zealously dispute of But if it be their pleasure that we should so distinguish we will call the rest the Popish faith or Religion and these last the Popish opinions because we would fasten on them nothing but their own If you ask me which be those doctrines which they take for points of faith which we call Popery I must refer you to their Decretals and Councils on one side and Gods word on the other and all the Doctrines in those their Canons or determinations that are against the word of God are the doctrines which we mean by this name If they do lay greater stress upon any one point than others its likely to be on those that are put into their Creeds and Vows and therefore I shall onely recite the latter half of their Tridentine Creed seeing they will own that or â—othing When they have begun with the ancient Constantinopolitane Creed containing the true Principles of Christian Religion and have ended that they proceed thus as followeth The Apostolical and Ecclesiastical traditions and the rest of the Observations and constitutions of the same Church I do most firmely admit and embrace I admit also the sacred Scripture according to that sence which the Holy Mother the Church hath held and doth hold to whom it belongeth to judge of the true sence and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and I will never take and interpret it but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers I do profess also that there are seven truely and properly Sacraments of the new Law instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord and necessary to the salvation of mankind â—hough not all to every one to wit Baptisme Confirmation the Eucharist Pennance extreame Vnctiâ—n Order and Matrimony and that they confer â—race and that of these Baptisme Confirmation and Order cannot be reiterated without Sacriledge I do also receive and admit the received and approved Rites of the Catholike Church in the solemne Administration of all the aforesaid Sacraments I do embrace and receive all and singular things which in the Holy Council of Trent were defined and declared about Original sin and Justification In like manner I do profess that in the Mass there is offered to God a true pâ—per and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and fâ— the dead and that in the most holy Srcrament of â— Eucharist there is Truely Really and Substantiâ—â—y the body and blood together with the soul and Diâ—â—nity of our Lord Jesus Christ and that there 〈◊〉 change made of the whole substance of Bread â— the Body and of the whole substance of Wine 〈◊〉 blood which change
p. 16 Argument fourth p. 17. to 26. Obj. 1. True Religion is but one answered p. 26. Obj 2. The true Religion hath still had a visible Chuâ—ch professing it p. 32 Obj. 3. Your Religion hath no certain test to discover it p. 40 Obj. 4. You have separated from all the Churches in the world p. 41 Obj. 5. You are divided into Sects and have no unity among your selves p. 42 Obj. 6. You have no infallible certainty of your Religion p. 43 Obj. 7. You want many Articles of the faith p. 45 8â—ou â—ou condemn one another ibid. Obj. 9. Your titles shew you are Sectaries p. 46 Obj. 10. You found us in possession where was your Church before Luther 47. to 52 A Defence of Bishop Ushers Serm of the Churches unity against the confutation of Paulus Veridicus p. 52. to 77. Wherein the common Arguments of the Papists against us are refelled Disp 2. Q. Whether Popery be a safe way to salvation Neg. p. 78 The term Popery and the rest explained to p. 84 Twelve propositions for the full answering of the question p. 84 Argument 1. Popery is built upon and resolved into a a notorious falshood p. 91 Argument 2. They hold Christianity it self on a ground utterly uncertain if not certainly false p. 93 Argument 3. They are disagreed among themselves in the very fundamentals p. 104 Argument 4. Popery is a novel profession unknown to the Apostles and Primitive Church p. 106 Argument 5. They make a new Catholike Church p. 110 Argument 6. They are the greatest Schismaticks on earth p. 126 Argument 7. Popery is an uncertain changeable thing so that a man can never tell when he hath it all p. 128 Argument 8. They expresly contradict the word of God and set up man above it p. 142 Argument 9. They worship the creature with Divine worship p. 153 The monstrousness of Transubstantiation p. 154 Arg. 10. They turn Gods worship into scenical formalities and Ceremonies p. 161 Arg. 11. Popery is upheld by most wicked meanes and so by Satan p. 164 Arg. 12. They adde to all impenitency and uncureableness p. 171 Arg. 13. It plungeth men into certain perjury p. 172 Objections for Popery Obj. 1. It is delivered dowâ— from the Apostles p. 175. Obj. 2. They are â— true Church p. 177. Obj. 3. A Papist may be saved p. 179. Obj. 4. There is but one true Church and that 's theirs p. 180 Obj. 5. They have unity universality antiquity succession p. 181. Confuted Disp 3. Q. Whether the infallible judgeâ—ent of the Romane Pope and his Clergie must be the ground of our belief of the Christian doctrine or of our receiving the holy Scriptures as the word of God Neg. p. 186 The Resolution of the Protestants faith ibid The Popish confusion about the resolution of their faith p. 189 Three questions contained in this one 1. Whether the Pope and his Council be judge of controversies The truth opened in ten propositions p. 195 Arg. 1. p. 199. Arg. 2. p. 200. Arg. 3. p. 202. Arg 4 p. 20â— Obj. Shall every illiterate person be judge of the sence of Scripture p. 205 Q 2. Whether the Pope be infallibie in this decisive judgement which he pretendeth to p. 208. What infallibility we hold p. 209 An answer to that which Bellarmine saith for the Popes infallibility p. 213. to 221 An answer to Knots arguments against Chillingworth p. 221. to 240 Arg. 2. against their infallibility from common sense p. 240 Argument 3. from experience p. 248. arg 4. p 152. arg 5. p. 253. arg 6. p. 256. arg 7. p. 257. arg 8 p. 258. arg 9. p. 259. arg 10. p. 260. arg 11. p. 262. arg 12. p. 267. arg 13. p. 267. arg 14. p 268. arg 15. p. 207. arg 16. 17. p. 272. arg 18. p. 274. arg 19. p. 277. arg 20. p. 278. Q 3. Whether our faith must be resolved into the infallibility of the Romane authoritative judgment p 278 Two more Argu. against the Popes judgment p. 279 That we must not receive our Religion on the credit of his judgement manifested in twenty queres p. 281 How Dr. H. Holden shuns the circle p. 282 The ancient Fathers and Church fully against them p. 295. to 351 Their Obj. against us for our want of infallibility answered p. 351. to 356 More out of antiquity against them p. 357. to 364 Their own usuraption against Scripture p. 365 Vincentius Lirinensis against them p. 368. to 373 Dr. Fields Catalogue of Popish errors p. 375 Appendix Bishop Downames Catalogue of Popish errors p. 381. to the end Errata PAge 11. line 33. read go p. 12. l. 21. dele it p. 12. l. 25. r. from p. 20. l 8. r. necks p. 22. l. ult d. purposely p. 29 l. 3 r. good p. 3â— l. 22. r. satisfâ—ctory 38 l. 28. r. us p. 38. Mar. So Dr Whiâ—â— c. should be printed p. 39. l. 20. d. not p. 44. l. 13. r. the p. 41. l. 9. r. â—here p. 48. l 24. r decide's p. 50. l. 1 r. symptomes p. 52. l. 33 r. Aegyptian Châ—istians p 58. l. 6. r. Sacran l. 7. r. Eâ—tâ—ri l. 25. d. and the Maronites l 25 r. the p 59. l. 24. r. cause or as p. 60 l 11. r. The Lutheranâ— p â—â— l 26. r. will and p. 74. l. 1. r. of most of the p. 7â— l. 26. d. and by â—bsignation p 76. l 30. r hold p 86 l 1. r Councilâ— p. 86. l. 24. r dâ—ffident l. ult r. on p. 91. l. 29. r. seated p. 101. l. 30. r Iohn and p. 1â—7 l 17 r necessarily p. 1â—0 l. 8 r. nâ—wer l. 14. â— concâ—lâ—is l. 14. r. â—ractarentur p. 114. l. 28. d. to be new p. 115. l 29. r. Teminum p. 120. l. 17. r consequence p. 122 l. 1. r name p. 130. â— 29. r. there p. 131. l. 3 r. aâ— p 134. l. 24 d. not p 135 l 2. r. an uninterrupteâ— p â—38 l 14 r. school 140. l 13. r they l. 32. d. so p 146. l. ult 1 proâ—ul hinc p. 148. l 1 r. last p. 149. l 26. r 17 18 19. p 154. l. â— r. his p. 166 l. 22. r. they may p. 167 l. 11. r. Belsec p. 172 l 1. d. we p 7â— l. 26 r. is p. 17â— l. 25. r. safâ— way l. ult d it p 187 l. 27. add by p. 189 Mar add someâ—92 â—92 l. 4 add and p 202 l. 22. r. uâ— p 209. â— 7. d. the p. 226 l. 3. r. mentioned l. 2 r wasâ— â—6 r. unquestionably p. 233. l. 1 add not p 243 l. 7. r. â—lludiâ—g p. 247 l. 9. d. sell p 249. Mar. r. Krantzius p. 250 l 10. r the twâ—nty second l. 27. add not 251. l. 15. r. decrees p 255. Mar. r succeediâ—g p. 2â—8 l 33. r will p. 27â— l. 11. r. episcopis p 2â—1 l. 25. r. 〈◊〉 p. 283 l 11 r. â—xpâ—rtâ—m p. 2.4 l 2 r. the p. 28â— l ulâ— r. â—mpartito p. 286 l. 7. r. apâ—rtum
for the perfect or sufficient Rule of Judgement It is this word onely that we appeal to and desire to be judged by And the Papists wilful declining of this Tryal and Judgement doth give any impartial observer sufficient cause to suspect that they take the Scripture to be against their cause or else why should they not have as much confidence in it and commit their cause to it as well as we 2. To run over every point of difference between us and them and prove our part by Scripture would be a very easie work but it would make this Disputation swell too big And it is done so largely and often already by our Writers that it is less necessary If any of them complain for the omission â— this part let him but assure me that he will stand tâ— the Judgement of Scripture and I shall quickly aâ—â— willingly enter the lists with him and go over thâ—â— part of the task again In the mean time let it suâ—â—â— to tell young Students that Amesius his Bellarmiâ—â— Enervatus hath spoiled all their cause of this defence and manifested Scripture to be fully against them iâ— a little room which may spare them the reading oâ— many larger And for the meer English Reader Mr. Ri. Bernard in his book called Look beyond Luther in his help annexed to it hath given a brief and effectual discovery that Scripture is not on their side in an enumeration and proof of many of the pointâ— in difference between them and us which for brevity I refer them to In a word if the Scripture be true then that Religion which agreeth with them is a safe way to salvation But the Papists confess that the Scriptures are true Therefore c. The Major is plain in that Scripture affirmeth of it self that it is able to make us wise unto salvation and furnish us to every good work and is written that we might believe and believing might have life in Christs name c. Joh. 29.31 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Of which we have said somewhat in a sâ—ort Determination of that Question by it self Arg. 2. That Religion is a safe way to Salvation by which the Apostles and the Churches in their days were saved But by the Reformed Catholike Christian Religion now called Protestant were the Apostles and the Churches in their dayes saved therefore it is a safe way to salvation The Major with reasonable men needeth no proof There is not many Religions but only one that are a â—â—fe way to Salvation and that which the Apostles â—ent in and the Churches in their dayes is undoubâ—edly that one God hath not since taken down â—hat Religion and set up another and made â—hat way safe to us which was unsafe to them The Minor is thus proved The Apostles and Churches in their dayes were saved by that Religion which is contained or expressed in the holy Scriâ—tures But that is the same with this which is called â—he Protestant Religion For proof whereof I refer you and offer as abovesaid Yeeld once that Scripture shall be the Rule to judge by and the controversie will soon be ended betwixt us And I need not to say but these two things for proof of the point 1. That their own Writers confess that the Affirmative or Positive part of our Religion as it was here in England professed was not against the word of God contained in the holy Scriptures only they told us that the Negatives were of which we shall consider further anon 2. As it is the great care of the Papists to keep the Scriptures from the people accounting it the Original of Heresies to have them translated as Arboreus and many expresly say and burning men to ashes for reading the Scriptures when God will burn them in Hell if they obey them not which they are not like to do without knowing them so experience hath convinced them that where the reading of the Scriptures in a known tongue is but permitted there doth our Religion most encrease and Popery decay so that if this one means were but permitted in Spain and Italy as it is whether they will or no in other parts undoubtedly the Popes Kingdom would soon come down I say if they durst but permit men to read the Word of God in a known tongue They know this well enough or else they would never so torture poor Christians by the Inquisition for having a Bible in their houses They have sure some humanity in them as well as others and therefore could never go so exceeding far beyond the Turke in Cruelty to Christians themselves but that they know their whole cause and Kingdom is concerned in it and if once Scripture get in they are gone In a word multitudes of volumes have already proved that Scripture is against Popery Argu. 3. That Religion is a safe way to Salvation in which the Church in the three or four first Ages at least was saved But the Church in the three or four first Ages at least was saved in that Catholike Christian Religion which now is called the Reformed or Protestant Religion Therefore this is a safe way to salvation I mention not the former Ages as if all other following Ages had come to heaven by any other Religion then the former but 1. because in them alone there is a sufficient proof of the Major Proposition None could be saved in it especially not so many Ages of the purest times if it were not a safe way 2. Because some Popish Errors began among the worser sort of Ambitious Superstitious Prelates to creep in betimes and Popery it self appeared in the world soon after the six hundredth yeer and was openly established about the thousandth yeer And according to the degrees of corruption in the Church there was a greater difficulty of salvation because more impediments but still those that were saved were all saved in and by the same Religion of the former Ages and if they were saved in any Corruption yet not By it but from it or against it As for the proof of the Minor as it requireth a full volume of it self to produce the particular Testimonies of the Fathers for us so is it already done in many Volumes And because the continual clamor of the Papist is that Antiquity is on their side I shall anon disprove them in the fundamentaâ— difference between them and us in the following Disputation about their pretended Soveraignty and Infallibility and in other particulars desire them to give some reasonable answer to what is already alledged by Bishop Vsher Dr Field and many morâ— of our Writers before they expect we should regard their vain immodest pretences And still let is be remembred that for all the Positive part of our Religion they themselves cannot deny but that the Churches still held it Our Religion is the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and doubtless that was entertained by all the Churches and in that Religion they were saved Argu. 4. That Religion is a safe
Christ Jesus and their Religion teacheth and engageth them so to walk therefore there is no condemnation to them that do so and they may with the same Apostle Rom. 8.33 34. Challenge all the Papists in the world It is God that justifieth who shall condemne us Paul telleth Timothy that the holy Scriptures are able to make him wise to salvation 2 Tim. 3.15 therefore they may make us also wise to salvation And he addeth that All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works vers 16 17. It were endless to recite all that proveth the salvation of them that believe and obey the holy Scriptures But this all true Protestants do I shall therefore leave this taske and next hear what the Papists can say to the contrary and what they are able to produce to prove that we are not in a safe way to salvation Obj. 1. There is but one safe way to Heaven The Protestant Religion is not that one way Therefore not a safe way The Minor is proved thus That Religion which the Church hath owned from the Apostles dayes till now is that one way The Protestant Religion is not that which the Church hath so owned therefore it is not that one Religion The Minor is proved by parts 1. As to Doctrine 2. as to Discipline 3. as to worship 1. The Church ever since the Apostles dayes hath maintained the Doctrines of 1. Free-will to good or evil 2. of Predestination upon foreseen faith 3. of mans merits 4. of Justification by Inherent Grace 5. against the certain Perseverance of all the Justified and consequently against their certainty of salvation 6. Vowed Chastity and Monastical Life In Discipline the Church ever held 1. The Popes Supremacy and Universal Jurisdiction 2. The Government by Bishops over Presbyters 3. Ordination by them and not without them 4. Pennance and Confession of sin 3. In matter of Worship the Church hath still used 1. Chrysme to the Baptized 2. Imposition of hands in confirmation 3. The sacrifice of the Altar 4. The Cross 5. Holy dayes 6. Fasting dayes All which the Protestants have cast off Therefore they are not of the same Religion Answ 1. To the Major Proposition of the main Argument I answer The word safe referreth to some Danger that we are safe from The way may be called safe therefore either in respect of sin or damnation Also this way may be called one in respect of the Essentials of Religion or else in respect of some inferior truths and duties that are not of absolute necessity to salvation And so I say that there is but one Religion as to the Essential and absolutely necessary points in which a man can be safe from Damnation And there is but one Religion as comprehending all the Integral parts in which a man can be safe from sin But yet that Religion which in the Essentials and Absolutely necessary points is but one may yet consist with errors in lower and lesser things in the minds of those that hold it and yet be a safe way to salvation though not so safe as to freemen from all sin And consequently there may be differences among true Christians that shall be saved though there be nothing but perfect Harmony in the entire Doctrine of Christian Religion as delivered from Christ and his Spirit Because no man holds that Doctrine entirely and perfectly without any error or ignorance and therefore there will be much difference among those that shall be saved To the Major of the Pro-syllogisme I answer Implicitely and in Generals the Church hath owned the perfect truth in all ages because it hath Believed that all that God saith is true and that the Scripture is his word But explicitely and particularly the Church hath not held all the truth of Religion in any one age since the Apostles For every man on earth hath been Ignorant and the most knowing men erroneous in some things seeing we are all imperfect and here know but in part And so one particular Church might erre in one thing and another in another thing as the differences about Easter Rebaptizing the Millennium Infants Communicating c. shew they did And of the same Church one Member might erre in one thing and another in another thing it being as certain that no two men on the earth are in all things of the same minde as that none on earth are perfect in knowledge To the Minor I answer that the Religion called Protestant is the same in all points absolutely necessary to salvation which the Church hath still owned And in other inferior points the Churches having not been all or alwayes of one minde some ages were more pure and others more corrupt The Protestant Religion is neerer to that of the purer times then the Papists is It is the same in the Essentials it is the neerest it in the Integrals it is more remote from latter corruptions introduced in times more remote from the Apostolical purity To the particular instances of our differences from the former Churches I answer particularly 1. For Free will to God if you mean a natural freedome which is the wills self-determining Power so the Protestants maintain it as well as the Fathers If you mean a moral freedom from ill-inclining habits which is properly a right-disposition so the Fathers maintained it not Obj. Let Scultetus in Medulla Patruâ— and others of your own Writers be judge who still number this inter naevos Patrum Answ Scultetus and Calvin and others might mistake the Fathers sence and think that they spoke of moral Freedom when they spoke but of natural which is inseparable from the will And its like that they did so seeing the Fathers maintained Original sin which is that pravity of humane nature which is clean contrary to moral Free-will 2. And if the Fathers were for a Free-will in a moral-Ethical sence so is one part of the Protestants as much as they were And if they were in the right so are those Protestants If in the wrong then the other part of the Protestants are in this in the right 3. This is a point that men may differ in as much as the Fathers did from us and yet be in a safe way to salvation 4. The Dominicans and the Jesuites differ about it as much as we and the Fathers yea they cannot yet agree what natural free-will is 2. For Predestination upon foreseen faith 1. There is no Declaration of the Churches minde in those times about it but what is found in the wrigtings of particular Doctors 2. We confess that men are Elected to Glory and Justification from guilt upon foreseen faith But we say withall that they are Elected to that faith and that God did foresee it as a thing which he intended to give and not as a thing which corrupted unregenerate
nature would produce 3. And we say also that this is a point that men may differ in that yet are in a safe way to salvation 3. As to the point of mans merits we say that the Fathers differed from us but in word and not indeed It seemed good to them to call every moral aptitude or Ordination ad Praemium that is the Rewardableness of our actions by the name of merit and every Rewardable work meritorious We thinke it fittest to forbear this name This Verbal difference makes not two distinct Religions 4. As to the point of Justification we confess that the Fathers commonly called that Justification which we now call Sanctification And we our selves maintain that Sanctification doth consist in Inherent Graces This difference therefore being but verbal the Religion and the way to salvation is nevertheless the same 5. As for the points of Perseverance and certainty of Salvation and Virginity or vowed Chastity with the supposed merit thereof and of a Monastical or Eremetical life we think that most of the Churches since the first century have departed from the Apostles Doctrine in these points and therefore we appeal to the Scripture But yet we know that these are not points of absolute necessity to salvation so that whether those Churches or we were mistaken yet is our Religion the same and both they and we in a safe way to Heaven 2. For matters of Government and Discipline we say 1. That we undertake to manifest it as cleare as the light that the Popes Supreme Headship and universal jurisdiction is a novelty introduced above six hundred years after Christ 2. For Diocesane Episcopacy and their ordination some of the Reformed Churches do own it But it is not a matter so necessary to Salvation as that all men that will be saved must needs be of one minde in it 3. We confess and maintain the necessity of true Penitence and such confession of sin as is necessary to manifest Penitence to the Church after a notorious scandal and of confession to those that we have wronged and of private confession to our Pastors in case that we cannot have a through cure of our wounds or comfort to our consciences without it Lastly as for the Ceremonies mentioned which the former Churches used and as for the bare name of a Sacrifice and Altar while they agreed with us in sence we take them not to be matters of so great moment as must make them and us of two Religions as if both were not in a safe way to salvation The best men on earth may differ in as great a matter as one of these and if they in a mistaken zeal shall depart from the Apostles so that we cannot imitate both the Apostles and them we had rather of the two leave them then the Apostles yet holding with them still in the maine Obj. The Religion of Protestants differs from the Abassine and Greek Churches and all the world as well as the Romane and therefore cannot be a safe way Answ 1. If that be not a safe way which differs from the Greeks Abassines c. then the Papists way is much less safe then ours for they do not onely differ from them but un-Church them and condemne them to Hell and so do not we 2. We are of the same Religion with them onely we have by Gods great mercy cast out of that one way some stones of offence which they have not yet cast out Obj. 2. The true safe Religion hath had a visible Church professing it from Christs time till this day But the Protestant Religion hath not had a visible Church professing it to this day therefore it is not the true safe Religion Ans The Major I easily grant and disclaim the needless snift of them that would deny it But the Minor I deny If they call for the proof of that visible Church and aske where it was before Luther we say that it was wherever Christ had a Church From Christs time till many hundred years after even at Rome it self and many other places and from Christs time to this day it hath been in Ethiopia Greece Egypt Mesopotamia and many other Countries if not still among the Romanists themselves for full proof of which note that it is from the Essentials and points of great necessity that we denominate our Religion and every difference in â—esser things doth not make a distinct Religion else there were as many Religions in the world as men Note also that the main difference between us and the Papists is not that they deny the substance of our Religion directly but that they superadde a great many of new Articles to the old Creed and have made their Religion much larger then ours many of their new Articles consequently subverting the Fundamentals which they profess So that our Reâ—gion is and still hath been among the Papists and other Churches and if they â—dde morâ— to it that makes it not cease in it self to be what it was Our Religion is wholly contained in the Holy Scriptures â—nd that all the Churches have still allowed of The Papists themselves confess it all to be the Word of God which we appeal to as the onely Touch-stone â—nd rule of our faith Obj. So you would make our Religion and â—ours to be all one Ans As the word Religion sigâ—ifieth the Essentials of the Christian Faith or the â—oints of absolute necessity to Salvation so our â—eligion is with you and is owned or confessed by â—ou As it signifieth all those points that are conceitâ—d necessary to Salvation with the professors so your â—eligion is not all but part with us And as it comâ—rehendeth also all those Integral parts which a man â—ay confessedly be saved without so he do not wilâ—lly reject them so yours and ours do much differâ—nd that your Religion is not all with us is no loss to â— because the points of yours which we disown â—e both novel additions of your own brain and alâ—â— such as contradict the acknowledged verities Wherever then Christ had a Church that did believe all the Doctrine of the Scripture and specially thâ— Creed the Lords Prayer the Decalogue the Doctrine of the new Covenant Baptisme the Lord Supper and the Ministry there was our Religion before Luther If any added hay and stubble if theâ— work be burnt and they suffer loss yet our Religion among them is the same still Obj. But do not you make this Negative a part â— your Religion that nothing but Scripture is to â—â— believed fide divinâ and what Church was of thâ— Opinion Answ 1. We have oft at large shewed that mâ—â— of the ancient Doctors of the Church have asserâ—â— the Scriptures sufficiency at large and appealed â— them as the full Revelation of Gods will concerniâ—â— all things necessary to salvation and the sufficienâ— Rule to Judge of controversies 2. If they did 〈◊〉 of them think that the Church had a supperadâ—â— Revelation by Tradition in
points of order of â— necessity to salvation this doth not make them â—â— us to be of two Religions or wayes of Salvation as long as they do not introduce any dangerous â— destructive points under that pretence Obj. But the Church still held those things as â—â—cessary to Salvation which you deny Ans Wâ— deny that to be true Some of the points in differâ—â—â— are novelties of your own which the ancient Churâ—â— did never hold the rest are such as they never â— such a stress as mens salvation upon To conclude Let it be considered whether thâ— Argument may not damne your selves which I tâ— against you Thus. The true safe Religion hath 〈◊〉 a visible Church professing it from Christs time â— â—â—w But the Religion of the Romanists as comâ—â—ehending all points of their faith or made by them be necessary to salvation hath not had any visible â—â—urch professing it of many hundred years after â—â—rist Therefore it is not the true Religion nor a â—â—e way to salvation The Minor I shall undertake â—â—re seasonably to make good And our Divines â—â—e done it already No doubt but common reason and justice requirâ—â— that you that call to us so earnestly for a Cataâ—â—gue of the Professors of our Religion in all Ages â—â—uld be as much obliged your selves to give us a â—â—â—alogue of yours yea and to give it first because 〈◊〉 are the first in pleading the necessity of it Unâ—â—â—take this task therefore and perform it well and â—u shall carry the whole cause Give us a Cataâ—ue of any besides impeached Hereticks that did â—n your main points of Popery for many hundred â—â—rs after Christ and we will give you a full acâ—â—nt of such as contradicted those conceits and beâ—â—â—ed as we do and let both be compared together â— let the most satisfaction and the fullest evidence â—â—â—ry it You make a meer empty noise among the â—â—gar of Antiquity and Universality and call for â—roof of the perpetual or continued visibility of â— Church as if in this you had the advantage â— the ballance did turn on your side When as â—â—ough we know that there is no such necessity of â— proof in this as you pretend yet we know your â—dvantage here to be so great that if you will â— be perswaded to this way of tryal it will be to the â—â—â—er shame and confusion of your cause What 's the â—â—tter else that you still appeal to the latter or preâ—â—t Church and that is only to the Romane and that 's onely to your selves If we do but invite you to tryal by Scripture and the Fathers and Records the three first ages you presently scorn the moâ— and fall upon the Fathers with accusations as if thâ— had not understood or believed all that was necessaâ—â— to salvation or to the being of a Christian or Church for you say they did not meddle with thâ— controversies and so you call us down to the laâ— or present times as having equal authority with â— first To which we say 1. That the silence of â— first times concerning these matters if there wâ— no more as yet there is is sufficient to prove tâ— they were not then taken for any necessary points faith For Though our Records of the secâ— Age be very short yet both they and mâ— more those of the third and fourth Ages containe such purposely undertaken explicationâ— the Christian faith that we cannot imagine sucâ— multitude of necessary points would have been oâ—ted 2. And though the Pastors of the present â— have equal Authority in Ruling their Congregatioâ— with those of the second yet they cannot give â— sure an account what was the doctrine and pracâ— of the former Ages nor any way prove it to us â— by producing such records The Papists themselves are so far from denyâ— that the Ancient Fathers and Churches did hold â— Positive part of our Religion that they hold it theâ—selves For they themselves profess to believe â—â— book of holy Scripture that we do They say â— believe the Creed called the Apostles and the â—cene and Constantinopolitane Creed and that of â—â—thanasius and so do we still taking the holy Scâ—pture onely for our Rule so that their own tongâ— â—ust confess the Antiquity and Universality and â—ccession of our Religion For this is ours But all that they have to obâ—ject is this That we â—n name no Churches or Fathers that held our Negatives To which I say 1. The Negatives at least for the most part of them if not all are â—e meer consequences of the Affirmatives and Posiâ—ves and implyed or plainly included in them For â—xample when our Religion saith Thou shalt worâ—ip the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve â—is includeth the Negative Thou shalt â—ot worship or serve Saints Angels or â—ny other save only by a service and honour duely â—bservient to the service and worship of God and â—herefore that we give not Divine worship to the â—onsecrated host or the Virgin Mary or to any â—ther meer creature Our Religion teacheth us to â—o all things to edifying 1 Cor. 14.26 This includâ—th the negatives that we must not worship God in â—n unknown tongue or unedifying manner bleating â—nd bellowing out our prayers in hideous or ridicuâ—ous tones Our Religion maketh it the Ministerial Commission to teach the Nations and Baptize Mat. 28.19 20. This includeth the Negative that women or lay men should not so teach that is as Commissioned officers nor baptize This affirmative Peter was sent to Disâ—iple Nations includeth this Negative Peter was not sent to be the fixed Bishop of Rome and there â—o reside This affirmative The Apostles are the Foundation of the Church includeth this negative â— Peter alone is not the Foundation of the Church This Affirmative It is bread and wine which we take â—nd eat and drink in the Eucharist containeth or implyeth the Negative that It is not Christs flesh and blood which the bread and wine is transubstantiatâ—â— into I might thus instance in many more Our Nâ—gatives are contained or implyâ—â— in our Affirmatives which yoâ— hold or confess your selves 2. I answer further that we have express negatives also both in Scriptures and Fathers in the main points of difference between us and the Papists We have a plain Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image c. Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them c. We have a plaine Iâ— the Church I had rather speak five words with my understanding that I might teach others also theâ— ten thousand words in a tongue unknown 1 Cor. 14.19 We have a plain See thou do it not for I am thy fellow servant Rev. 22.9 And so of the chief differences through the rest 3. If we had but this one point proved that the holy Scripture is a sufficient Rule of Faith it fully warranteth all our Negatives wherein we differ from the Papists For to Believe all that is in Scripture and
we found you in Possession but of the name of A Church and not The Church a Part of the Church Catholike and not the whole a Corrupt part and not the Head 〈◊〉 the Purest part 4. We departed not from you as â— Church much less as the Catholike Church but â— corrupted Nor do we yet deny you to be a Church but to be a sound Church or the Catholike Church Concerning this and the former Queries especially when our Church was in all Ages before Lâ—ther we shall clear our selves by giving the true state of the case which will Justifie it self Christ came to be the Physician of diseased souls In his Gospel he proclaimeth his office and call them to himself for cure and prescribeth them the means But he takes the time of this life for the accomplishing it and cureth no man perfectly 〈◊〉 death His Church therefore is as an Hospital or â— City so infected that there is not one in it that is perfectly sound One of the deepest radical diseases is Pride which corrupted the blood even of the Apostles themselves So far that it broke out into such an Itch that they could not forbear contending who should be the greatest even in the presence of Christ himself He derides the controversie telling them with you it shall not be so but he that will be great shall be the servant of all This disease of Pride was still alive in part even wherever it was mortified so that such like desires of superiority were excited by it also in the Apostles successors the Pastors of the Church in following ages But it came but to a troublesome Itch till Constantines time For the nailes of Persecution did so claw it that the corrupt blood was let out and the Itch was frequently abated by the smart But when Constantine lifted up the Bishops with honors revenew and the adâ—unction of secular power to their wills or censures â—hen the itch turned to a plain Scab the corrupt â—lood continuing and the scarifying scratches of persecution ceasing But this overspread not the whole body the Catholike Church much less all aâ—ike but it seized mainly upon the Clergy who should have been examples of humility and self-denyal to the rest And principalâ—y on the Cleargy of the Romane Empire and some others that they â—nfected But on none so much as the Bishop of Rome and his Clergys For Rome being the Impeâ—ial seat and drawing to it the glory riches and observance of the world the Bishop of that place must needs be accordingly magnified and observed especially because that he being at the Emperors ear might have pleasured or displeasured almost any Prince or Prelate in the Empire At last by translation of much of the Glory to Constantinople the heat of the disease was conveyed thither too so that John of Constantinople and Gregory of Rome contended about the Universal Supremacy John laid the first â—laime to it because he was Bishop of the Imperial â—eat Gregory laies no claim to it himself but contradicteth Johns pronouncing it a note of Antichrist â—o claim the title of Universal Bishop little thinkâ—ng that his own successors would have claimed it so â—oon At last Phocas being helped by the Romane Bishop to possess the throne of his murdered Prince doth help the Pope to the Title of Universal Bishop â—nd the glory and strength of Constantinople abating Rome did the more easily hold what they had goâ— By this time the Seab was turned to a Leprosie which drew on many other concomitant diseases aâ— its symptuous The rest of the Church was some of it infected with some of the foresaid Scab some more 〈◊〉 some less and some of them still were onely troâ—bled with the old itch though none perfectly souâ— nor was that to be expected much of the Westeâ—â— parts comply with their Leprous Patriarch and â—â—mit to him while he calls himself Universal Bishoâ— and Head of the Catholike Church some conseâ—â— some say nothing though they dissent and indeâ—â— the power was got into his hand so that for fear â— persecution few durst contradict and specially wheâ— they saw no likelihood of doing good Yet some iâ— all Ages even under his nose did signifie their dislâ—â—â— and offer some help to the cure At last in Lutherâ— dayes whole Countries do withdraw from the Râ—mane Leprosie as thousands called Albigenses Wâ—â—denses c. had done before them and so free themselves from the infection and get off the very scab and make fair attempts for the Cure of the very itch Now what doth the Romane Clergy but cry out after us as Hereticks and Schismaticks and asâ—â— us where was our Church before Luther and who were of our Religion till then We answer them that if they have the Leprosie and the times before them had in most parts the scab and the former times the itch cannot we prove that we are Men as well as they unless we prove that we have the Leprosie Scab or Itch as they had Are these Essential or Integral parts of a man As humane nature is still with a Leper but Leprous and still with him that hath the Scab but scabbed so our Religion and Church was at Rome and still is but Leprous since the Usurpation before mentioned It was before that at Iâ—â—â—e but forely scabbed It was before that Rome troubled with the itch It is still in Greece Abassia and other parts but somewhat scabbed is in millions of the people free from that scab â—ho in all Ages disliked the Clergies usurpations â—â—ough we cannot expect to hear this from them in a â—eneral Councel where they are not to be But â—e take the people to be a true part of the Church â—e have separated from you as from Lepers not from the Dead We bury not your title of a â—hurch or Christians so you will adde Leprous â—nd a Leprosie proves most commonly a killing disâ—â—se We have reason to secure our selves from our infection though our love to you were never â— dear So that here 's the quarrel and here 's our defence â— all Christs Hospital in the Western part of the â—orld have much increased the disease that he would â—ave cured them of it doth not follow that any man â—â—at is cured of their Leprosie ceaseth presently to â—e a man that he that is reformed of those vices â—easeth to be a member of the Catholike Church â—r that such Reformed Churches are new things that â—ere not before The Reformation may be new as â—o the latter Ages since corruption prevailed but â—â—e Religion or Church-state is not new It s a sad case â—ith the Church when its corruptions are come to be â—â—counted of its essence so that he that will not reâ—ine the corruptions must not be accounted to be a â—hristian or a Catholike at least and he that will be â—ured must be accounted to be killed The Church â—as a Church before it catcht the Romish Scab or Leâ—rosie and therefore is a Church
where that is cuâ—ed and I think far better without it then with â—t By all this therefore it evidently appeareth that a Papists do most vainly charge us with novelty 〈◊〉 call for a Catalogue â— the professors of our Râ—ligion when the noâ—ty is theirs and theâ—selves do yet profess â— Religion though to â— they have added thâ— corrupting Leprosâ—â— Though we cannot â—â—der take to prove that thâ— Church was perfect nor never will be till it coâ— to heaven yet we have oft proved that it was maâ— Ages without their Popery and are ready to undeâ—take the further proof Of which the next Dispâ—â—tion shall give you a tast There is a Railing Pamphlet extant called â— brief confutation of certain absurd heretical 〈◊〉 damnable doctrines delivered by Master James Ushâ—â— in a Sermon preached before King James at Wansteâ— Jun. 20. 1624. The Author calls himself Paulâ— Veridicus Its printed at St Omers 1627. Because take the same way against the Romanists as this Reverend Bishop of Armagh taketh and hath led me iâ— that Sermon I think my self the more obliged 〈◊〉 consider of what is said against it The first onset of this Mr Maledious pag. 9.10 11 Is against our assertion that we are of the same Reâ—gion and Church as the Grecians Aegyptians Christians Aethiopians c. and that all these are not â— be damned as Hereticks and unchurched because they â—re not subjects of the Pope To this 1. He conâ—â—sseth that even the Greeks themselves are not subâ—ect to the Pope and that they soon departed â—om the seeming union made in the Councel of â—â—lorence about the year 1439. 2. He confesseth â—at their doctrine about the Procession of the Holy â—host a patre per silium and not a patre filioque was â—ch that when they had explicated it they were â—und to believe very Orthodoxly and Catholikely in â—e same matter and for such were admitted â— He affirmeth that he findeth not that in any subâ—â—antial point they do dissent from the Romane â—atholike Church excepting the matter of Primacy Let us first observe the consequences of this much â— From hence it followeth that the Greek Churches â—e guilty of no Heresie but non subjection to the â—ope of Rome 2. And that therefore indeed they â—re no Hereticks 3. And therefore it is not of neâ—essity to the being of a Church or Catholike Chriâ—ian to be subject to the Pope And that the Pope â—r Romane Church is not to enter the definition of â—he Catholike Church for as the Greeks may be Caâ—holikes without subjection to Rome so may others â— And therefore they are no General Councels â—here all those Churches are absent as at Trent Constance c. And that its a false excuse of Bellarâ—ine and the rest to say that the Greeks and the rest â—re Hereticks or Schismaticks 5. And therefore it â—eclareth to all the world both that the Popish deâ—gne and Religion is carnal and selfish to exalt â—hemselves above the whole Church of God and â—lso that they are more then barbarously tyranniâ—al censorious and most extreamly schismatiâ—al that will presume to cut off from Christ and the Church the greatest part of the Christiâ—â— in the world even those that themselves confess â— be in all other things Orthodoxe and that meâ—â— because they will not be the Popes subjects â— now proceed to the next The substance of his Answer consisteth of tâ—â— gross untruths in a publike matter of fact wherâ— many millions of men are able at the first hearing â— prove him a bold false witness making falshood â— prop of his ill cause The first untruth which â— layeth down is that the Grecians do claim that â—â—preamacy to their own Patriarke of Constantinople which they deny the Pope and therefore if it be hâ— it is as bad in them as the Papists and so they are â— Protestants To which I say it is not true whatever any private or particular man may say its weâ— known that it s not true of their Church in commâ—â— nor found in any of their Church confessions â— utterly and ordinarily disclaimed by them Thougâ— John of Constantinople did claim the title of Universal Bishop because of the Emperors residence there yet did he not get it much less to be the Universal Governor and yet much less is it now claimed whâ— the Christian Empire is removed To be Episcâ—pâ— prima sedis is as much as is desired by the Patriarcâ— himself which yet he is content to leave and taâ—â— the second place though neither of them concerâ—eth an Universal Episcopacy Can they read such books â— Nilus Archbishop of Thessalonica de primatu Paâ— Parham and many other of the Greeks and yet belieâ—â— themselves in these fictions Why do we read or hear nothing from the Patriache of Constantinople inâ—iting and perswading us all to submit to his Governâ—ent as we and all the Christian world almost have â—een solicited by the Popes Emissaries to submit our â—elves to him A short Reply may serve to such â—mmodest false assertions as this nicknamed Veriâ—ieus maketh the chiefest part of his confutaâ—ion The second untruth which constituteth this part of â—is answer is that The Grecians Moscovites and Egyptians do in one only point dissent from Rome and â—n no point at all agree with the Protestants sin quanâ—um such and dissent from their Catholike Church This one great falshood containeth two not small ones in it and each of those two contain abundance more 1. That all these Churches differ from you in no one point but the Popes supreamacy is a falshood beyond all modesty For besides the supremacy they believe not your pretended Infallibility nor do they pretend to the like of their own They believe not your Purgatory they own not your pardons for easing the pains of Purgatory nor prayers for the dead to that end nor the application of the treasury of the Saints Merits to that end or for satisfaction to the Justice of God They own not your Transubstantiation They have the Scripture in their known languages They worship God in their Liturgies in their known languages the Moscovites in the Moscovian tongue the Georgians in the Iberick the Arabians in the Arabick and so the Carmanians Slavonians Greeks in theirs They administer the Eucharist in both kinds and detest your Sacrilegious withholding of the cup They reject your confirmation so do they your extreme Unction They admit Priests to live with their wives which were married before ordination They reject tâ—e Religious use of graven Images or Statues They teach that the holy Scriptures are a sufficient and perfect rule of faith they believe that they should not be lockt up from the people They maintain that God is to be worshiped in understanding and they aâ—hor your praying by Beads and tale They think not to wash away sin or drive away the devil by holy water They take not Traditions to be one part of Gods Word necessary to supply the defects
duntaxat rebus in â—nibus ipsa defecit ab Apostolica atque adeo a seipâ— veteri pura Ecclesia neque alio discessimus zimo quam ut si correcta ad priorem Ecclesiae forâ—am redeat nos quoque ad illam revertamur â—mmunionem cum illa in suis porro caetibus habeamus Quod ut tandem fiat toto animo Domino Jesum preâ—mur Quid enim pio cuique optatius quam ut ubi â—r baptismum renati sumus ibi etiam in finem usâ—u vivamus modo in Domino Ego Hier. Zanchius Cum tota mea familia testatum hoc volo toti Ecclesiae Christi in omnem eternitatem Arg. 5. If Popery do make a new Catholike Church which was never known for many hundred years after Christ then is it no safe way to salvation But Popery doth make a new Catholike Church that was never known of many hundâ—ed years after Christ therefore it s no safe way to salvation The consequence of the Major will not be denyed for they confess that Christs Church is but one He had not a Church of one sort for the first ages and a Church of another sort since though its accidents may vary yet so doth not its essence The Minor I prove thus That which the Papists make to be the Catholike Church is only all those Christians that acknowledge the Pope to be the universal Bishop and head of the Catholike Church having universal supreme jurisdiction and the Church of Rome to be the Mother and Mistris of all other Churches and its only a Catholike Church convertible with the Romane Church But such a Catholike Church as this was never known by the Apostles or of many hundred years after Christ Therefore Popery maketh a new Catholike Church which the first ages never knew It s true that when Rome being then the ruling City of the world did come to own Christianity that the Glory of the Empire occasioned the Bishop to be called Primae sedis Episcopus as one that was to take place of the rest of the Patriarchs who had their several orders or places â—ssigned them as Alexandria to be the second Antioch the third c. which Bellarmiâ—â— confesseth might be after lawfully changed but as Alexandria had not the Government of Antioch by that predecency so neither had Rome any government of the rest And as Constantinople was afterward set up above Alexandria and Antioch and claimed to be above Rome so might it as lawfully have been set up above Rome But what ever be said about their quarrels of precedency which pride begun and cherished yet it s most evident in all antiquity that of many hundred years after Christ there was no such Catholike Church in being or known as was centred in the Pope as the head or universal Bishop or Governor or in Rome as the Mistris of the rest We have long ago challenged them to give us the least proof of such a Church in all antiquity and they give us nothing but such forced passages that are nothing to their purpose that its hard for the most charitable rational man to believe that they do indeed believe themselves and do not know that they hypocritically endeavor to cheat poor souls by their vain cavils All the Papists on earth will never be able to answer what our Divines have said already to prove the novelty of their Papal headship nor can all the Popes servants in the world bring us one word of currant antiquity for many hundred years after Christ to prove that ever such a Church was once dreamed of as they now call the Romane Catholike Church Indeed Rome was called then a Catholike Church and so was Alexandria Antioch and all that held the Catholike faith and were not heretical but it was never known till Boniface had usurped the Title of universal Bishop above 600. years after Christ which he procured by Phocas a Murderer that usurped the Empire when he had slain the Emperor Mauritius that the Romane Church and the Catholike Church was all one or that it was necessary to make any particular Church or person Catholike that they acknowledge the universal headship and jurisdiction of the Romane Pope much less his infallibility To heap up Records here would but stop the plain Reader in his course and somewhat shall be sâ—id of it in the next dispute Onely I now say that if any one question whether indeed the Romane Catholike Church as now constituted be a meer novelty I here offer my self to the fuller proof of it and shall desire no better recreation of such a sort then to entertain a dispute about it with any Papists that will undertake their cause And here I must needs annex this observation What a shameless cheat it is by which the Papists do delude the ignorant perswading them that theirs is the old Religion and the ancient Church which hath continued from the Apostles without interruption and that we are men of a new Religion and of a Church that had never a visible being till the dayes of Luther Costerous the Jesuite in the Preface to his Enchiridion instructeth his deluded novices how to deal with the Protestants by urging them with three Questions which we shall resolve anon to his shame and the last of them is a challenge to us To name one man before Luther that agreed with us in all things But we challenge and most confidently challenge all the Papists on earth to name one man for three hundred years after Christ I might say six hundred years that agreed with them not in all things but in their very Articles of Faith yea in theiâ— Church fundamentals yea in the very definition of the Catholike Church We challenge them to name us one man and prove it that ever knew or owned such a Church as Catholike that is now so called and owned by them We confidently affirm and challenge all the Papists in the world to dispute the point with us that their Church as Popish is a new thing unknown to our forefathers of the first ages that Popery is a fardel of new doctrines unknown to the first Churches We admire at the immodesty of these men to aske us where our Church was before Luther and to call it a new Religion which we profess and to ask us whether we think our selves wiser then all the world was heretofore in the purest times We do most confidently return on them their own demands We would know from any of them where their Church was for three hundred yea for six hundred years after Christs birth And we wonder how they can think to be saved in a way that was not known for so long time Do they think themselves wiser then Christ and his Apostles and all the Christian world for so many hundred years Again we challenge them to shew us the least proof that ever there was such a thing for so long time as a Catholike Church convertible with the Romane and headed by the Pope as the universal Bishop having a universal jurisdiction over the rest or an infallible Judgement in determining of controversies in matters of faith It is none of the least of our Reasons why we dare not be of the Romish faction or opinions called by them their Church and their Religion because it is so new and we dare not venture our souls upon new wayes nor dare we believe that Christ hath two sorts of Churches essentially
different since his Resurrection one sort before the Popes universal headship and the other since nor dare we once imagine that Christ had no true Church on earth till Pope Boniface would needs be the universal Bishop or till Rome was advanced to the dignity and titles which it doth now usurpe I desire no better issue then this of our difference Let any Papists living bring out their cause to the tryal of antiquity and let them that are of the most Ancient Church and Religion carry the cause If we prove not theirs new and ours the most ancient or if they prove theirs more Ancient then ours as since Christs Resurrection then we are contented to be of their Church and way Arg. 6. If the Papists be the greatest Schismaticks upon earth most desperately rending the Church and separating themselves from the maine body of the visible Church then Popery is not a safe way to salvation But the Papists are the greatest Schismaticks on earth most desperately rending the Church and separating themselves from the main body thereof Therefore Popery is no safe way to salvation The consequences of the Major will be confessed by themselves It is only the Minor therefore that is to be proved which is too easily done being a matter of fact First The Papists do actually rend themselves from the greatest part of Christs Church on earth condemning all others to everlasting fire 2. They do lay the grounds of a continual schisme in making a new center of the unity of the Church of these two in order 1. He that shall consider of all the Christians in the world at this day who subject not themselves to the Pope of Rome and may truly be reputed to be of the Catholike Church will see that the Papists are but a small part of the Church But especially if we consider them as they were not many ages ago much more numerous then now they be The Grecians the Syrians called Melchites the Moscovites and Russians the Georgians all of the Greek Religion besides the multitude of the same Religion dispersed throughout the Turkes dominions also the Abassins Egyptians Armenians Jacobites who are neer of a mind and differ from the Papists and submit not to their authority Besides all the Reformed Churches in Germany Sweden Denmark Hungary Transylvania Brittain Ireland France Belgia Helvetia and other parts with those in the Indies I say consider of all these Christians together and it will appear that the Papists are but a few to them or not neer so many as they But if you further consider of the state of the Christian world not many ages ago when the Turkes had not yet subdued the Eastern parts and when the Abassian Empire was much more large and Nubia and other Countries had not revolted it will appear that we may well say that it was but a small part of Christians comparatively that did acknowledge the universall headship and jurisdiction of the Pope or submit themselves to him besides many other points of Religion in which they differ from him I know that the Papists say that these are all either Hereticks or Schismaticks and so no part of the Catholike Church But the accusation of Schisme is the meer voice of Schisme and for Heresie its true that all men and Churches have their errors which yet deserve not the name of Heresie The Jacobites and the rest that are neer them are afraid of acknowledging two Natures in Christ lest it lead them to make two persons with the Nestorians but yet they are not plaine Eutichites and both they and the Nestorians acknowledge Christ to be perfect God and perfect man only the Nestorians do amiss have these two natures two persons and that the Euticheans in flying too far from them are afraid to call them two Natures though they confess the Godhead and Manhood to be really distinct yet they say that both are as it were conjoyned or coupled into one Nature so that wise impartial men think that the Eutichites or at least these Christians that are so called amiss by the Papists do but misuse the term Nature for the term Person and so deny two Persons onely in sence and two Natures only in name and that by the same misuse of the terms the Nestorians do affirm two Natures onely in sence and two Persons in words onely Of this I desire the Reader to consider What Luther hath said de Conciliis This I must needs say that if I did not exercise the same charity in judging of the Romanists as I do in this excuse of the Jacobites and other Christians that are not of their Communion I should be forced to censure the former much deeper then the latter and if by all their errors I must hold the rest to be Hereticks or Schismaticks I must by the same measure judge the Romanists to be doubly Heretical as I certainly know them to be most notoriously Schismatical For though I know that they are not so barbarous and unlearned as most of these forementioned Christians and also that they are free from many of their mistakes yet withall they have many more in stead of them which the other are free from And for the Protestants they are Hereticks only on this supposition that the Pope be Judge By this time then it partly appeareth how great a part of the Church of Christ the Papists do differ from But yet this is not all nay the smaller part For if you will but consider the state of the Church of Christ for the first three hundred yea five or six hundred years you will find that the Papists do differ from them all even from the whole Church For then the Popes universal Episcopacy and jurisdiction was not known in the world as is said before All these doth the Romane party now separate themseves from All these they do pronounce to be no true Churches or true Christians but Hereticks and Schismaticks All these do they condemn to the pit of Hell They have now concluded that onely those are of the true Church that acknowledge the Mastership or universal Headship of the Pope and the Mistrisship of the particular Romane Church which none of all those forementioned did They now conclude that none can be saved but who are of this new-framed Church of theirs Now I do appeal to any reasonable impartial man alive whether there be any more notorious Schismaticks on earth then these men that dare unchurch the far greatest part of Christs Church on earth at
that They will never take and interpret the Holy Scriptures but according to the unaniomous consent of the Fathers When as 1. The Fathers do not unanimously consent among themselves concerning the sence of the greatest part of Scripture and so they are sworn to take it in no sence because the fathers are not unanimous 2. He that knows not the unanimous sence of the Fathers where they are unanimous is sworn hereby to take and interpret the Scripture in No sence 3. If by The Church whose sence they also swear to admit be meant the present Romane Church then that Church and the Fathers do differ in the Interpretation of many Scriptures so that in one Article they must needs be forsworn 4. Nay there are divers particulars of the Popish faith yea which in this oath they swear to which are against much more without the unanimous consent of the Fathers The Fathers never consented to this very Article that we must take and interpret the Scripture onely in the unanimous sence of the Fathers They never consented that the Bread and Wine are truely really and substantially the whole Body and Blood of Christ by Transubstantiation Nay the consent of the Fathers is against these And yet these wretches swear not to take and interpret Scripture but in the unanimous sence of the Fathers and withal swear the contrary in particulars even that they believe that which the Fathers never consented to but against Never did the Fathers consent that There are seven truely and properly Sacraments Instituted by Christ Never did the Fathers consent who lived a thousand or fourteen hundred years before that the Council of Trent did not erre or could not erre Nor That in the Mass is offered a true proper propitiatory Sacrifice for the living and dead Nor that the Eucharist may be taken under one kind and the Cup withheld nor That there is a Purgatory or the souls there holpen by the suffrages of the faithful nor that the Saints with Christ are to be prayed to Nor that Images were to be worshiped nor the power of Popish indulgencies left by Christ in the Church and the use of them wholsome Never did the Fathers consent that the Romane Church is the Mistris of all Churches or that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ over them nor that all Christians or Bishops or Pastors should swear true obedience to the Pope as Christs Vicar Let these proud deceivers shew us if they can when the Fathers or any one of the Ancients did ever take any such oath himself or perswade others to it Yea or that they have consented to any one of these Articles of the Romish faith and Trent oath What more evident to any man that hath any acquaintance with the Fathers then that these wretches do here most palpably forswear themselves Even as if they should swear to believe nothing but according to the Ancient Creed and withal swear to believe that Christ never dyed rose or ascended or that there is no resurrection or everlasting life Certainly if the very faith of Papists be contradiction and the profession of it plain perjury then Popery is not a safe way to Salvation I would here have added as the fourteenth Argument That Popery is a mixture of old condemned errors formerly called Heresies which the ancient Church hath testified against and therefore it is no safe way to Salvation And here I should have tryed their particular errors not yet mentioned or insisted on as their Doctrine of Merits and Justification thereby Satisfactions and many Semipelagian errors Image-worship with many the like But that this is beyond my present intended scope and purposed brevity and is so fully performed already by so many unanswerable Treatises of our Divines Let us next here what is said of most moment to prove Popery to be a safe way to Salvation Obj. 1. That Religion which hath been delivered down from the Apostles to this day without interruption is a safe way to Salvation For it is the same that the Apostles and all the ancient Christians were saved in But the Religion of the Church of Rome is that which hath been delivered down from the Apostles Therefore c. Ans 1. There is a change of the very subject of the question It is Popery that we are disputing of and this argument instead of Popery speaks of The Religion of the Church of Rome The Religion of the Church of Rome hath two parts First the Christian Faith Secondly their own corruptions depraving and contradicting this Faith The first as it standeth alone uncontradicted in the Religion which â—e profess The second is it that we call Popery and â—ay It is no safe way to salvation 2. And of this I deny the Minor and say that Popery is not the ancient Religion the Apostles and Primitive Church never knew it There was no such creature as a Papist known in all the world till six hundred years after the birth of Christ It was about 606. when Pope Boniface did first claim his universal Papacy and Headship and after that it was not till about one thousand years that the usurpation and Tyranny was consented to any thing generally in thâ— West And even the multitudes still dissented and some opposition was still made against it and all the Esterne Churches and the rest of the Christian world did dissent Of these things there is enough said to silence all the Papists on earth in Bishop Vsher de contin successione slatu Eccles Occident and his Answer to the Jesuites Challenge and by Bishop Jewell and Doctor Field and in many of the old Treatises against the Pope published together by Goldastus which shew us that he setled not his Kingdom without continnual opposition and contradiction We affirm that Popery is a meer novelty and challenge all the Papists in the world to prove the Antiquity of it When they have once arrogated to themselves the name of the Catholike Church and taught the people to believe as the Church believes that is to believe that all is true which the Pope and his Clergy will report of themselves it is then an easie matter for them to prove any thing to be true which makes for their turn then they may say The Fathers are for them and that they have their Papal sovereignty from St Peter when there is never a true word in it Then they may frame and forge new Decretals and cut out of the Ancient Writers thâ— which is against them and bring forth spurious writings under their names and tell the people that our Religion begun with Luther for its easie to prove any thing where themselves are the Judges and no witnesses but their own must be heard But if they dare leave that hold and come into the light its easie to evince the novelty of Popery though not of every particular error they hold Obj. 2. If the Church of Rome be a true Church then Popery is a safe way to salvation
utmost him and his factious Clergy So also they are disagreed among themselves whether the Bishops in a General Council are Judges with the Pope or onely the Popes Counsellors Yea or what a General Council is Though they all agree that it is not necessary that it be out of all the Christian world much less the Bishops of all Churches but onely some of those that adhere to the Pope of Rome yet they agree not whether it must be freely elected by all the Bishops of the Romish faction or onely so many and of such Countries as the Pope shall choose and whether the major part of the Council must concur with the Pope or the Pope and the Minor part may not serve turn 5. So also they are exceedingly disagreed about the nature and extent or pretended infallibility of the Church of the Pope in judging Some say that the Church judgeth de mediis discursive sed de conclusione per doctrinam propheticam Divinam And so these men may affirm agreeably to this principle that the Popes Definitions are part of the holy Canonical Scripture as Melchior Canus affirmeth he heard a most excellent Divine confess and citeth Gratian and Innocent also as of the same mind And thus all the most wicked Popes are made Prophets and speak by inspiration of the Holy Ghost But others of them do deny this Though yet they know not how it is that the Pope is infallible without declaring themselves Enthusiasts Also though saith Bellarm. l. 4. de Pontif. c. 2. all yield that the Pope may personally erre through Ignorance yet they are disagreed among themselves whether he may be a Hereticke Some say he may not and others that its most pious and probable to think he may not Others reject that as false and say he may And one would think it should have been out of question by long experience before this time And Bellarmine confesseth that three General Councils did believe that the Pope might be a Hereticke ubi sup c. 11. some say that when the Pope is consulted and giveth his judgement in matters of faith he cannot err though in matters of fact he may and that he is Infallible in his Courts and Councils though not as a private Doctor Others say that he cannot err when he intendeth to binde the whole Church to receive his sentence or when he teacheth the whole Church Others say that the Pope may err even defining in Council but not in errors manifest to the Church but onely in new or not manifest points Others come yet neerer the matter and tell us merrily that the Pope cannot so err in judgement about matter of Faith because when he first erreth thus he ceaseth to be Pope but this is a hard conclusion in the eyes of their brethren The like disagreements there are among them about the Infallibility of a General Council some will make it the proper seat of Infallibility and say that the Pope cannot err if he be guided by the Council else he may Others say that a Generall Council may err if it be not confirmed by the Pope yea though the Popes Legates did consent or if they do not follow the Popes instructions But that they cannot erre if they follow them or be confirmed by him So Bellarmine Canus and the late champions And if the Pope and Council differ as they have shrewdly done when Councils have deposed Popes for heresie and wickedness some say that we may more safely follow the Council then the Pope But others say the clean contrary and place the Infallibility in the Pope onely and make it his work to reclaim the Council Though they are thus all in pieces among themselves even about these their fundamentals yet is it the custome of their deceitful Writers to make the simple people believe that they are all agreed and to tell them that they have the Consent of the Universal Church and of all the Christian world and they have Universal Tradition c. that by the noise of these big words they may do that which they cannot do by argument Thus Doctor Vane their late proselite and divers others do in their writings overlooking all their own disagreements and passing on as confidently in their boasts of the Universal Consent as if they were either such Novices as understand not their own Religion or such hardened seducers as are not willing that others should understand it Here are in this our Question contained three of the greatest controversies between us and the Papists 1. Whether it belong to the Pope or Romane Church to be the Judge of Faith and Scriptures to all the world 2. Whether the Pope or his Clergy be inâ—llible in judging of matters of Faith 3. Whether our Faith must be resolved into this infallible judgement of theirs Our intent in this present Dispute is to deal most with the second yet so as it is connexed with the other two and therefore shall take them in on the by but say less to them distinctly and the rather because there is so much said already by our Divines as all the Papists on earth will never be able solidly to answer To let pass all those beyond Sea that have effectually confounded them we have Brittans enough to hold them perpetual work as Jewell Reignolds Whitaker White Field Vsher Camero Baronius Davenant Chillingworth to whom they have lately lost their cause by shewing in a vain and frivolous Reply how little they have to say against him with many more who will either remain unanswered or the answers will be worse to the adversaries cause then silence it self which we have sufficient ground already to foretell As to the first of these controversies to dispatch it in short as we distinguish between Judicium Descretionis Directionis Decisionis a Judgement of Discretion of Direction and of Decision so we knâ—w that it is onely the later that properly denominateth a Judge in the publike and ordinary sence Take our doctrine in these few Propositions 1. We say that every Christian hath a judgement of Discretion to know that the Christian Faith is true and Scripture is the word of God Or else he were no Christian or faith were not an act of judgement or Reason but a bruitish thing This therefore we confess the Pope either hath or ought to have 2. Every Pastor of the Church hath a judgement of direction that is it belongeth to him by office to be a Director of the people and to teach those the Christian Faith that yet receive it not and to confirm those in it that have received it And they ought to have abilities for the work of this office If therefore the Pope were a true Pastor Bishop or Preacher this power we should confess to be in him as in others 3. It belongeth to these Teachers also to be specially careful to preserve the sacred Scriptures from corruption and
a Covenant Then when Paul saith This Rock was Christ it must proclaim that all the Israelites sences were deceived that thought it to be a true Rock when a Papist will confess that the meaning is This Rock represented or signified Christ As if among many Images you should say This is Peter and this John and this Paul this were plainly to say This signifieth Peter or representeth him c. and doth not proclaim that deceit of sence Bellarmine cannot deny but that it is called in 1 Cor. 10. 11. Bread and the Cup six times over as after the consecration and here his shifting answer is that things are said to be in Scripture what they seem to be as the brazen Serpent is called a Serpent and so here he pleadeth a Trope Good still The Scripture calls it Bread six times neer together after the consecration and it calls it Christs Body once when his living body sate by Now the Question is which of these speeches are Tropical And we must believe Bellarmine that the text which calls it six times Bread must needs be Tropical and that which calls it once Christs Body must needs be understood without a Trope And this is all the evidence they can bring that God hath proclaimed mens sences to be fallible Nay all that we need for our cause is but to take est for significat which is so common that one would think there should not such unnatural absurdities be admitted to avoid it as overthrow our humanity When we plead that Christ had a true body and that a true body may be seen and felt because Christ bids them Luk. 24. See and feel for a spirit hath not flesh and bones c. Bellarmine answereth that Sence is infallible in positives and therefore thence we may say This is a body because I see it self but not in Negatives and therefore we cannot say This is not a body because I see it not And what need we more then that which is here granted By his own confession then we may conclude that This is Bread and Wine because we see feel smell taste it Yet no doubt we may also argue that it is not a natural body because it is not visible or sensible So much for this second Argument which I may thus with full advantage enforce If sence be either fallible or infallible the Pope is fallible But sence is either fallible or infallible Therefore If sense be fallible the Pope is fallible and all his Church for their sences and the Apostles and their followers were fallible If sence be infallible the Pope and his Council are fallible because the common sences of all sound men take that for Bread and Wine which they expresly say as de fide to be believed is not either Bread or Wine Argu. 3. If the Pope and his pretended General Councils have erred already then are they not infallible But the Pope and his pretended General Councils have erred already Therefore they are not infallible As the first Argument was taken from the no proof of his infallibility and the second from the common senses of mankind so the third is taken from certain experience which is a medium so evident that their vain words and subtil evasions have the less force to elude or obscure it Of the validity of the consequence there is no question can be made He that hath erred is not infallible All the doubt therefore is of the Antecedent which hath by unquestionable evidence of History been put out of doubt by our Writers long ago I shall produce some few instances of many There are no less than fourty Popes whom Bellarmine himself takes notice of as charged with error or heresie for whom he frameth such poor excuses that I should think any impartial Reader might receive satisfaction enough from Bellarmine that the Pope is too fallible Yea that even judicially and in fundamentals he may err Did not Pope Liberius erre judicially when he subscribed to the Arrians confession in the Council of Sirmium Libenti animo suscepi in nullo contradicens which the Fathers condemn of Heresie and to the Councils condemnation of Athanasius as Athanasius himself and many more witness Did not Pope Vigilius err judicially when he condemned the Decree of the General Council for condemning dead Hereticks And when Pope Pelagius and Gregory the first and Adrian the first did all approve of the same Sure one party of these Popes erred unless contradictoryes may be true Yea when Pope Vigilius did afterward revoke his own constitution sure he erred either in making or revoking it And so did Pope Paschalis when they gave God thanks in open Council that they heard the Pope with his own mouth revok those grants which said they contained Heresie which he himself had before made to the Emperor Though Cajetans excuse be true that it was no Heresie yet either the making or revoking was an error What will they invent at last to hide the nakedness of Pope Honorius who in two several General Councils was condemned for a Monothelite Heretick which he judicially perswaded Sergius to when he sought his judgement Stapleton and many more of them confess the full certainty of the Councils condemning him of Heresie but forsooth they say the Council did mistake the case It seems then either a Pope may be a Heretick or a General Council err Moreover will any Papists deny that Pope Stephen six and Sergius erred when they judicially decreed that those should be ordained again that were ordained by Pope Formâ—sus And of Pope Celestines error Alphonsus a Castro faith that he himself saw it in the ancient Decretals as his Definition and therefore that it cannot be said that he erred as a private man and not as Pope What can they say of Pope John twenty two who denyed the immortality of the soul and was admonished of his heresie by the Doctors of Paris as not onely Pope Adrian the sixth Joh. Gerson Alphons a Castro and others witness but Bellarmine himself confesseth also But he excuseth him because that opinion was not there defined against and therefore was no heresie See here 1. Whether the Papists do not make themselves a new Faith and Religion when they please and that is a point of Faith with them one year that was none the year before so that the novelty and the mutability of their Religion is thus by themselves confessed 2. See here that a point declared in Scripture and held by the former Church is no point of Faith with them unless it be declared by a Pope or General Council 3. See here what men Bellarmine would make all the former Popes to have been that had determined whether the soul were immortal or not 4. Chamier truely noteth that Bellarmine himself forgetfully contradicteth himself and tells us elswhere that Innocent the third the ninteeneth Pope before John twenty two had taught the contrary in express words I shall
presbyter ordinatur Quid mihi profers unius urbis consuttudinem Quid paucitatem de qua ortum est supercilium in leges Eccesiae vindicas That is For what doth a Bishop except ordination which a Presbyter may not do Nor is the Church of the Romane City to be esteemed one and the Church of the whole world another Both France and Brittaine and Africk and Persia and the East and Jndia and all the Barbarous Nations do worship one Christ and observe one Rule of truth If you seek for Authority the worlds is greater than the Cities of Rome Wherever there is a Bishop whether at Rome or at Eugubium or at Constantinople or at Rhegium at Alexandria or at Tanis of the same Merit he is also of the same Priesthood The Power of riches and the lowness of poverty make not a Bishop high-eror lower But they are all the Apostles successors But you say How is it that at Rome a Presbyter is ordained on the testimony of a Deacon What tell you me of the custome of one City why do you defend a few of which superciliousness is arisen against the Laws of the Church It may be the Papists by their supereminent power of interpreting all Church writers can put such a sence on these words of Hierom as shall consist with that which he purposly doth oppose But I think an impartial man can hardly believe that when he wrote these words he was acquainted with Romes claim of universal jurisdiction and infallibility Nay when it is the scope of much of the former part of this Epistle to prove the equality of Bishops and Presbyters in the beginning and that at that time they differed in no power but that of ordaining when yet he saith the Presbyters of Alexandria did long make their own Bishops how then could Hierome believe the Popes universal jurisdiction Could he think that the Bishop of Rome had that power over the Church which he thought not any Bishop to have over the Presbyters of any one Church Greg. Nazianzene saith of Councils If I must write the truth I am of this mind that I will flye or avoid all Councils of Bishops for I never saw a glad or happy end of any Councils or which did not rather bring an addition or increase of evils then a removal of them To this of Nazianzene Bellarmine answereth that Gregory meant that in his time no Council could be wholly lawful for he lived between the first and second general Council where he had seen many Councils which because of the great number of Hereticks had a bad end And he names five of them Answ 1. But by what Authority doth Bellarmine confine Gregories words to some Councils which he speaks in general of all that he had seen or might do resolving to avoid all hereafter 2. Here note that Bellarmine confesseth that Councils may erre and then where is the French Religion 3. I would fain know where was the Churches infallibility and power of judging of matters of faith in Nazianzens dayes If there were no lawful General Councils nor could be then it was not in them therefore it must be either in the people and how shall we gather the world together to consult with them or else as Bellarmine will say in the Pope alone or in the Romane Clergy with him I hear not yet that they are very forward to prove that the Romane Clergy in particular are Infallible though Bellarmine hath given us his bold conjectures of that It must needs be therefore that at that time all the Churches infallible judicial power and so the foundation of our faith must be resolved into the Pope alone and so the faith of all the world must then be resolved into the credit of the word of a single and silly man I know the Italian faction will not abhor this at any time but then they should for shame speak out and deal plainly with the world and not talke of the whole Church and all the Church when they mean but one man 4. And I would fain know of any friend of Bellarmines how far the universal Church was visible at that time when all Councils were bad and none could be lawful The visibility was not in a Council to represent the whole and the â—aity are not much noted when Councils go wrong â—o that the Church was visible onely in one man or â— few particular persons according to the Papists common reckoning who judge by the Pastors visiâ—ility Yea the Church of Rome it self was invisible â—hen and divers times when their Bishop was a Hereâ—ick If therefore they will say either that the Church was visible in one man or in the Laity of many partes opprest by the Clergy and Magistracy and they have nothing more to say then we will â—ay as much of the visibility of our Church before Luther and more too 5. It s confest here also that â—ot onely a Council but the greater number by â—ery many of the Bishops of the Church may be â—eretickes or erre in faith 6. And then the Church may lye in the smaller oppressed part and why then may not the most erre now Stapleton himself confesseth â—hat Luther was not much out of the way when he said â—here were scarce five Bishops â—o be found that turned not Arrians And Hieromeâ—aith â—aith Dialog advers Lucifer The whole world â—â—aned and wondred that it was turned Arrian â— And did the authority of the Scripture at that time â—ll quoad nos when the judge was turned heretick â—ven Liberius and the Councils And if the high Elogies of the Romane Church would prove its Authority then see what Nazianâ—ene saith of the Church of Caesarea In his 22. Epistle ad Caesarienses patris nomine scripta found among his own works Edit Paris Tom. 1. pag. 785. and also in Basils works translated by Musculus Edit Basil 1565. Tom. 2. pag. 17. Seeing every Church as being Christs body is to be watched over or looked to with greatesâ— care and diligence then specially yours which anciently was and now is and is esteemed almost oâ— nigh the mother of all Churches on which thâ— whole Christian Commonwealth doth cast their eyes even as the encompassing circle doth on the center not onely for the soundness of doctrinâ— long divulged to all but also for that conspicuouâ— grace of Concord which God hath given them What would the Papists say but that this were foâ— their supremacy if they found but this much in him for the Church of Rome And I think there is no doubt but that in thosâ— ancient times the Church was acquainted with thâ— true way of Government as well as Rome is now and therefore I would know further 8. Whether thâ— truest Government may not stand with great desolations divisions of the Church and multitudes of errors Greg. Nazianzene saith Orat. 20 pag. mihâ— 345. That when Basil seâ— upon the great work of healing the Church The holy
they reckon amongst penal works 23. Fasting also and Almes deeds they teach to be satisfactory works 24. That one man may satisfie for another but less suffering is required of him that satisfies for another 25. That the satisfactory and penal works of the Saints may be communicated and applyed to others 26. That the vertue of Christs blood is applyed to us by the Priests absolution 27. That by vertue of the Prâ—â—sts absolution eternal punishment is turned into temporal which also the Priest imposes according to his discretion 28. That the words of absolution are not onely a sign but also a cause of remission of sin or that they do effect justification for by the Priests absolution is sin driven away removed ex operâ— operato as a cloud by the wind 29. That a man cannot be reconciled to God without a Sacramental absolution 30. That Sacerdotal absolution hath that force of justifying because many desiring reconciliation and believing in Christ are damned onely because they died before they could be absolved by a Priest or as they otherwise express their meaning do perish for that onely they could not have a reconciling Priest 31. To Papal absolution we refer the Jubilees and their sale of indulgences 32. Also in the year of Jubilee which they have reduced from the hundredth tâ— the fiftyeth and thence to the twenty fifth they promise full remâ—ssion of all sins to those that visit the Temples of Peter and Paul and the Lateran Church 33. They assert that there is a treasure of overflowing satisfactions in the Church not onely of Christ but also of the Saints which the Pope by indulgences can apply both to the living and dead by which they are delivered from the guilt of punishment before God 34. That souls are freed from Purgatory by indulgences 35. They confess there is no need to adde the satisfaction of the Saints to the satisfaction of Christ which they cannot deny to be infinite and alwayes overflowing yet they to whom gain â—s godliness think meet to add them 36. Neither do they bestow indulgences for a few dayes or years but for many thousands of years from whence it is manifest they do but make a jest of the Article of the day of judgement which according to their own opinion will put an end to Purgatory and all temporal punishments 37. To conclude in all their Sacramental penance they make no mention of faith at all and of Christ scarce any 38. For Repentance Penance which they will have to be a plank after shipwrack they say consists on the penitents part in contrition auricular confession and satisfaction on the Priests part in Sacramental absolution as the act of a Judge whose words are I do absolve thee from all thy sins in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost 39. That that is a pious prayer which some are wont to use in Monasteries after absolution given for sin let the merit of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed Virgin Mary and of all Saints the Merit of Order and the burthen of Religion the humility of Confession the contrition of heart the good works which thou hast done and wilt do for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ bestead thee for remission of sin and increase of merit and grace and for the reward of Eternal Life Amen § 10. Of extream Vnction 1. THat the extream Unction is truely and properly a Sacrament of the New Testament and indeed an ordinary one 2. That this Sacrament doth confer grace making us acceptable ex opere operato doth restore health to the sick and blot out sins if any remaine 3. That by this Unction which they apply to the eyes to the ears to the mouth to the loynes and to the hands God doth grant to the sick whatsoever is wanting by that fault of the sences 4. That by this Sacrament a man may sometimes be saved who should otherwise plainly be damned 1. That Ordination is truely and properly a Sacrament of the new Law conferring to the Ordained Grace making him acceptable ex opere operato 2. There are seven or rather eight Sacraments of Order all which are truely or properly called Sacraments viz. The Order of Porters of Readers of Exorsists of Servitors of Sub-Deacons of Deacons and Presbyters and Bishops 3. In every one of is given to the Ordained the seven fold Grace of the Spirit yea Grace making them acceptable and that ex opere operato 4. That anointing is required in Ordination Of Marriage 1. That Matrimony though it were instituted in Paradise is truely and properly a Sacrament of the new Law 2. And therefore does confer grace upon the married making them acceptable ex opere operato 3. That the Church has power to constitute impediments that shall hinder marriage 4. That the Church has power to dispense with the degrees of Consanguinity forbidden of God and to make more degrees which shall not onely hinder marriage but break it 5. That marriage confirmed not consummated is also dissolved in respect of the Bond by the entrance of one of the parties into a vow without the consent of the other 6. That the solemn Vow of Chastity and holy Orders are an impediment both hindring marriage to be made and breaking it being made 7. Also difference of Religion does not onely hinder marriage to be made but also break it being made 8. That marriage contracted between Infidels when either is converted to the faith is broken viz. because that marriage was not a Sacrament 9. That the Church of Rome did rightly prohibit marriage of old to the seventh but afterwards to the fourth degree of Consanguinity according to the Canonical rule of reckoning but the fourth degree of Canonical reckoning is the seventh and eighth in the Civil Law 10. The Spiritual kindred which ariseth forsooth from Baptism and Confirmation may hinder marriage to be made and break it being made § 11. Of the Effects of Grace NOw follow the Effects of Grace or the degrees of Salvation such are vocation justification c. 1. Where first the Papists do egregiously erre in expounding the word grace for when the holy Spirit speaking of these effects of Divine grace saith we are justifieâ— by grace and saved by grace c. By grace they understand not the free favour of God in Christ but the gift of grace inherent in us as if the Scripture did not say we are called justified and saved by the same grace we are elected and redeemed by 2. And then when they divide the grace of God into eternal grace which they call the everlasting love of God and temporary such as the benefit of vocation and justification are again they divide this temporary grace into grace freely given and grace making acceptable both which they will have to be a quality inherent in us as if either all grace which they call temporary did inhere in us or that which doth inhere in us
THE Safe Religion OR THREE DISPUTATIONS For the Reformed CATHOLIKE RELIGION AGAINST POPERY Proving that Popery is against the Holy Scriptures the Unity of the Catholike Church the consent of the Antient Doctors the plainest Reason and common judgment of sense it self By Richard Baxter Contra Rationem nemo sobrius Contra Scripturas nemo Christianus Contra Ecclesiam nemo Pacificus Senserit August de Trinit l. 4. c. 6. fine London Printed by Abraham Miller for Thomas Vnderhill at the Anchor and Bible in Pauls Church-yard and Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleet-street 1657. TO THE Protestant Reader WHen the motion was first made for the Publishing of these Papers it seemed to me to be as the Casting of water into the Sea so great is the Number of the Learned Writings of Protestant Divines against the Papists which will never be well answered that the most elaborate addition may seem superfluous much more these hasty Disputations prepared but for an exercise which is the Recreation of a few Countrey-Ministers at a monthly meeting when they ease themselves of their ordinary work But upon further consideration I saw it was The Casting of water upon a threatning fire which the Sea it self doth but restrain It 's more Engines than a few that are openly or secretly at work at this time to captivate these Nations again to the Romane Pope When so many hundreds if not thousands are night and day contriving our seduction under the name of Reconciling us to the Church if no body counterwork them what may they not do It 's not enough that we have had Defenders and that their Books are yet in the World Old Writings are laid by though much stronger than any new ones But new ones are sooner taken up and read The Papists have of late been very plentifull and yet very sparing in their Writings Plentiful of such as run among the simple injudicious people in secret so that the Countries swarm with them But sparing of such as may provoke any Learned man to a Confutation That so they may in time disuse us from those Studies and so disable the Ministry therein and catch us when we are secure through a seeming peace and fall upon us when we have lost our strength And I am much afraid that the generality of our people perhaps of the best are already so much disused from these studies as to be much unacquainted with the Nature of Popery and much more to seek for a preservative against it and a through confutation of them So that if Papists were once but as fully set out among us in their own likeness as they are under the names of Quakers and other Sects what work would you see in many places I doubt many would follow their pernicius wayes and fall like Sheep of a common rot or people in a raging pestilence especially if they had but the countenance of the times Not through their strength but because our people are naked and unmeet for a defence The work that now they are upon is 1. By Divisions and Reviling the Ministers to loosen the people from their Guides that they may be as a Masterless Dog that will follow any body that will whistle him 2. To take down the Ministers maintenance and encouragements that they may be disabled so vigorously to resist them 3. To hinder their union that they may abate their strength and find them work against each other 4. To procure a Liberty of seducing all they can under the name of Liberty of Conscience that so they may have as fair a game for it as we And ignorance and the common corruption of nature especially so heightened by a custome in sin doth befriend the Devils cause much more than Gods or else how comes it to pass that the Godly are so few and Error Idolatry and impiety doth so abound in all the earth 5. To break the common people into as many Sects and parties as they can that they may not onely employ them against one another but also may hence fetch matter of reproach against our profession in the eyes of the World 6. To plead under the name of Seekers against the certainty of all Religion that men may be brought to think that they must be either of the Popish profession or of none And indeed when all Sects have done their worst it is but two that we are in any great danger of And of those I think we are in more danger then the most are aware of And that is 1. Papists who plead not as other parties onely by the tongue but by exciting Princes and States against us and disputing with the Fagot or Hatchet in their hands And if we have not Arguments that will confute a Navy an Army or a Powder-plot we can do no good against them 2. Prophaneness animated by Apostate Infidels This is the Religion that men are born in And men that Naturally are so endeared to their lusts that they would not have the Scripture to be true will easily hearken to him that tells them it is false Yea so much doth Popery befriend men in a vicious course that some are apt to joyn these together thinking at the heart that Christianity is but a Fable but yet for fear it should prove true they will be Papists that they may have that easie remedy for a reserve If God will preserve us but from these two dangers Popery and Prophaneness animated by infidelitie it will goe well with England The most of my former Writings having been bent against the later I thought it not amiss to let go this one against the former That so I may entice the common professors to a little more serious Study of these points and furnish them with some familiar Arguments that are suited to their capacities that every deceiver may not find them unarmed And here I thought it best to defend our own profession and overthrow theirs in the main and not to stand long upon particular controversies except that one of the Resolution and Foundation of our Faith which is the great difference Yet that private unstudyed men may understand wherein the particular differences lie I have given them a Catalogue of them in other mens words in the end as resolving not to do it in my own In short I have here made it plain that Popery is against Scripture Reason Sense and against the Unity and Judgement of the Church 1. Either Scripture is True or not true If not Popery is not true which pleadeth its warrant from it And some of them argue as if they purposed to disprove the Scripture and to imitate Samson in pulling down the house on their own heads and ours in revenge for the dishonor they have suffered by the Scriture If it be true as nothing more true then Popery is not true which palpably contradicteth it as in the points of Latin service and denying the Cup in the Lords Supper and many other is most evident
undenyable that you are of two Churches specifically different Certainly a body Politick is specified from the summa potestas And therefore if the French make a Council the summa potestas the sovereign power and the Italians make the Pope the sovereign and a third party make the Pope and Council conjunctâ—only the sovereign are not here undenyably several Churches specifically different And then you have another deceit for the salving of all this that increaseth my disaffection You glory in your present judge of controversies and tell us it is no wonder if we be all in pieces that have no such judge And what the better are you for your judge when he cannot or dare not decide your controversies No he dare not determine this fundamental controversie whether himself or a Council be the sovereign power for fear of losing the French and those that joyn with them So that it must remain but dogma Theologicum and no point de fide what is the summa potestas and yet all that is de fide even our Christianity and Salvation must be resolved into it And doth not this directly tend to infidelity Would you have serious Christians deliver up themselves to such a maze as this for the obtaining of unity What the better are you for a judge of controversie in all those hundreds of differences that are among your selves when your judge either cannot or will not determine them Are not we as well without him as you are with him Plain things that are past controversie have no need of your judge It is no controversie with us whether Christ be the Messiah whether he rose ascended and will judge the world And if we go to darker points your own judge will say nothing or worse Why do you cry out so much against expounding the Scripture otherwise then according to the sence of the Church when your Church will give you no interpretation of them Do not your expositors differ about many hundred texts of Scripture and neither Pope nor Council will decide the controversies These are therefore meer delusions of the world with the empty name of a judge of controversies And indeed you sometime shew your selves that you have no such high conceit of your Pope whatever you would make the world believe as to trust his judgement Your own Priest Watson tells us in his Quodlib pag. 56.57 That the Jesuites Preached openly in Spain against Pope Sixtus the last of all holy memory and railing against him as against a most wicked man and monster on earth they have called him a Lutherane heretick they have termed him a Wolf they have said he had undone all Christendome if he had lived and Cardinal Bellarmine himself as judge paramount being asked what he thought of his death answered Qui sine paenitentia vivit sine paenitentia moritur proculdubio ad infernum descendit and to an English Doctor of our Nation he said Conceptis verbis quantum capio quantum sapio quamtum intelligo descendit ad infernum And yet we must hold our Belief in Christ on the credit of such a mans infallibility But yet I have not come to that point of your Schisme which above all things in the world doth alienate my mind from your profession And that is your separation from all other Christians in the world I find in my self so great an inclination to unity and the title Catholike is so honourable in my esteem to them that deserve it that if I had found you to have the unity and Catholike Religion and Church which you boast of it would have much inclined me to your Church and way But when I find you like the Donatists confining the Church to your party and making your selves a Sect and Faction and unchurching and damning the far greatest part of the Christians in the world this left me assured that you are most notorious Schismaticks When I saw so much knowledge and holiness comparatively among the Reformed Catholikes and so much ignorance and wickedness among the Papists even here where are but a remnant that adhere to their Religion against the course of the Nation and when I read so many plain promises in Scripture that Whoever believeth in Christ shall not perish and that if by the spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body we shall live and that if we Repent our sins shall be forgiven yea that Godliness hath the promise of this life and that to come and then when I find that the Papists for all these certain promises do unchurch and damne us all because we believe not in the Pope of Rome as well as in Christ this satisfied me as fully that you are most audacious Schismaticks as I am satisfied that you are Papists What! must I be a Papist on such grounds as these Must I believe because you tell me so that all the most conscionable heavenly Christians that I am intimately acquainted with are unsanctified ungodly and in a state of damnation When I am a witness of the earnest breathings of their souls after more communion with God When they would not live in one of those sins that you call venial for all the world When they mortifie the flesh and live in the spirit and wait for Christs appearance And yet that such as the Papists shall be saved that are so far below them because they believe in the Pope of Rome Why you may almost as well perswade me to become a Papist by telling me that you have eyes in your heads and noses on your faces and the rest of the world have none Doth Christ say He-that believeth and repenteth shall be saved and must I believe that all Protestants shall be damned let them believe and repent never so much This is to bid me cease to believe Christ that I may believe the Pope Cease to be a Christian that I may become a Papist I am confident I shall never be Papist if it may not be done but by believing that all the Godly that I am acquainted with are ungodly and in the way to hell And to speak of the quantity as well as the quality I feel a kind of universal charity within me extending to a Christian as a Christian and therefore to all the Christians in the world which will not give me leave to believe if a hundred Popes should swear it that the far greatest part of Christians shall be damned because they are not subjects to the Pope The Papists are but a handful of the Christians in the world at least the smaller part by far The most of them never acknowledged the sovereignty of your Pope And a few ages ago before Mahometanism and Heathenism diminished the number of Christians in Asia and Africa the Papists were but a small proportion There are but lately taken off from the Christian Religion its probable twice as many as all the Papists in the whole world If it were but the Kingdomes of Nubia and Tenduc how far would
Papists you are cruel and bloody for saying so When they have killed one half the other half is bloody if they desire to escape By my good will I 'le never come to the Bench for Justice where this Gentleman hath power For if I accuse a thief for robbing us or a murderer for murdering twenty of my friends I may on these terms expect to be accounted cruel for complaining Yea though I adde I pray Sir spare the person of the Murderer onely do your best to prevent the death of the rest of my friends I may look to be told its a bloody request But perhaps if leisure serve I may say more to this Gentleman in a full Reply to his paper Yea I am so far from desiring your blood that I hope I have given you no abusive language Sure I am I come far short of the language that you give one another where you may judge me to be most sharp I had once very Reverend thoughts of your Father Parsons when I read his book of Resolution and thought that if you had any good one it was he And yet your own Priest Watson calls him An Atheal stratagemitor pag. 160. A bastardly Vicar of hell p. 157. Judge paramount on earth under the Divel in Hell p. 156. The arch cousener p. 149. That he was a bastard unhonestly begot basely born a Wolsey in ambition a Midas in immundicity a traytor in action p. 108. That all Catholikes must depend upon the Archpriest the Archpriest upon father Garnet father Garnet upon father Parsons and father Parsons upon the devil the author of all rebellious conspiracies treasons murders disobedience heresies and all other such diabolical and bloody designments as this wicked Jesuite hath hitherto devised p. 151. One that as sure as you live on earth doth care no more for the lives of all the Catholikes themselves then for so many dogs lives in a time of infectious plague p. 153. Yea saith he questionless he could wish in his heart to see all the seculars and other Catholikes in England hanged rather then to be frustrate of his conceited Japonian Monarchy Yea I verily think he would be the hangman of them all himself rather then his platform should fail if it stood upon so desperate a point as a fitter office for such a base irregular bastard then to come neer Gods holy Altar c. Quodlib pag. 153.154 I will not foul my paper with any more concerning him And of the Jesuites in general I have thought that there are among them some temperate vertuous men but your Priest Watson saith Quodlib p. 346. I call them Jesuitical that is the Faction of Jesuites by aâ—breviation to avoid circumlocution in one word expressing them to be a factious seditious ambitious avaritious treacherous turbulent Machivilian Atheal consort that abusing the rules of their society and quite perverting the course cause institution and intent of their order c. The reasons he gives at large p. 340. And p. 108. The Jesuites have a special priviledge in two things One is to make all things to be believed as Gospel be it never so false that they speak or write another to make all things be judged false be it as true as the Gospel it self that any other shal write or speak without their approbation But if directly against them out upon it it is not to be heard spoken of or once looked upon And withal the vilest parts that can be played are counted acts of zeal among them if done by a Father so as it may be any way covered with either of their two principles scilicâ—t proptâ—r bonum societatis vel â—rdine ad Deum And p. 149. he makes their principles to be Omnia pro tempore â—et divide impera And p. 150.151 he affirmeth that it was the Jesuites own choice and doing that the Papists had not toâ—eration in England because by sufferings they would have the people more passionately serve their designs This is the language of your own brethren even more as well as he but not mine To conclude concerning these following Disputations I need not tell you that they are none of the elaborate writings of any champion of the Protestant cause challenging your Answer but a few hasty yet considered lines delivered in a monthly meeting of a few Country Ministers for mutual edification by one that never pretended to much skill or will for such Disputes If any of you have a mind to try your strength we boldy challenge you to do it on those mentioned by me in the end to whom let me add Dr. Crakenâ—horpe especially against Spalatens and Dallaeus on several particular subjects as de Paenis saâ—iâ—fact de Imaginitus de Iâ—juniis and the rest I pretend not in so small room to handle the particular differences between you and us but to give my general reasons against you and to choose out one particular about our foundation and yours For I had read in Costerus Enchir. c. de sum Pont. p. 151.152 That No men Petrae plus includat quam fundamentum fundamenta quippe edificium sustinent Petra autâ—m sâ—u Rupes ipsa fundamenta Apostoli aliâ— fundamenta dicuntur Petrus vero ut Rupes solidissima etiam fundamenta ipsa continet â— in errores vitia labantur detinet authoritatâ— pastorali And Skulkenius saith Apol. pro Bell c. 6. p. 255. Pontificia potestas est veiut cardo fundamentum ut uno verbo omnia complectar summa fidei Christianae Gretser saith Def. c. 1. l. 1. de verb. Dei p. 16. Id solum pro verbo Dei veneramur ac suscipimus quod nobis Pontifâ—x ex cathedra Petri tanquam supremus Christianorum magister omniumque controversiarum Iudex definiendo proponit Bellarm. saith lib. 4. de Pont. c. 1. In controversiis Religionis ultimum judicium est summi Pontificis cap. 3. solum Petrum Christus vocavit Petram fundamentum non petrum cum Concilio Et ibid. Petrus quilibet ejus successor est petra fundamentum Ecclesiae Ejus praedicatio confessio est radix mundi si illa errareâ— totus mundus erraret Ex quo apparet totam firmitatem conciliorum esse a Ponâ—ifice non partim a pontifice partim a Concilio The Pope then is your foundation yea your Church For saith Gretser Def. c. 10. l. 3. de Verb. Dei p. 1450. Per Ecclesiam intelligimus pontificem Romanum qui pro tempore Ecclesiae naviculam moderatur Et p. 1451. Ecclesiam papam interpretantur Non abnuo But the French have another foundation But that we renounce both yours and theirs I thought meet to tell you in the third Disputation Acept this account from Your friend Ri. Baxter THE CONTENTS Disp 1. Q WHether the Reformed Catholike Christian Religion commonly called Protestant be a safe way to salvation Aff. The terms explained to pag. 11 The first Argument p. 11 The second Argument p. 14 The third Argument
p. 29. l. 21 d. it p. 308 l. 18. r judicial p. 309 l. 28. r. confute p. 314. l. 28. r their 's p. 331. l 17. r. Montanus p 333. l. 8 r. Tatianuâ— p. 41. l â—2 r caeteri p 342. l. 1â— r. suburbi â—râ—â— l. 32. â— headed p. 34â— l â—6 r. to us p. 348 l. 2. r Râ—maâ—e l. 4. r. authors p. 355. l. â—0 r. word l. 23 r. proveâ—â— p. 356. l. 2. r. rather than p. 358. Marg. add de l. 28. r. literis p. 59. l. 31. r. secura p. 364 l. 11. d. i. e. p. 366. l. 8. r. Gloss p. 370. l. 8. r. fuâ—sse p. 371. l. 28. add in l 3. add other p. 377 l 5 r. knew l 28 r. these p. 380 l. 23. r. in p. 379 l. 12. r. â—ataloguâ— p. 217. l. â—2 after faith adde Or the object of faith even Christ himself which indeed is the true sence agreeable to 1 Cor. 10.4 And that Rock was Christ QUERY Whether the Reformed Catholike Christian Religion commonly called Protestant be a safe way to Salvation THE great business of the Divel the Enemy of Mankinde is to keep man from that Salvation which Christ hath so dearly purchased so graciously offered and hath appointed us such excellent helpes to attain To which end it is his first endeavor that men may not know or Believe that there is such a Felicity and what it is and how much to be desired and his next to keep them from knowing the way to it and the last is to keep them from walking in that way when they know it By the first means he keeps from Salvation all Atheists and Heathens that know not or believe not the life to come by the second all Infidels that Believe not Christ to be the way and all Hereticks that Believe not those Truths which are of absolute necessity in subordination to Christ and by the third all Hypocrites and unsanctified ungodly impenitent men in the visible Church that yet have a superficial Belief of these Truths Our Question in hand is for the escaping the second of these snares by discovering which is the safe way to Salvation The Policy of the Devil hath always endeavoured to hinder the world from knowing this way by these two means First if it be possible by keeping them in utter darkness that this way may not be revealed to them or being revealed may not be understood Secondly or if that will not do by making such a number of by-ways on every side that the true and onely way may hardly be discerned And this is his end in raising so many Heresies and this is the course he takes to mislead them that have escaped from the darkness of Infidelity He begun this trade betime even in the dayes of the Apostles They saw the multifarious off-spring of the Deceiver sprouting up apace in their own times yet did it never enter into their thoughts to tell the Church that by this all Heresies should be known That the Church of Rome should condemne them or to send it down to all posterity as the true touchstone to tell them which was the onely right way among all these Heresies to wit That which is believed by the Pâ—pe or Church of Rome This had been a ready and easie way for the Apostles to have prescribed and for us to have received if it had been true It might have saved them much labor in giving us that Body of sacred Doctrine which they have made indeed the Touchstone of the safe way and it might have spared us much more labor of searching and studying which is the way and we might all have sent to Rome and been resolved without any more ado Surely the Apostles were not so envious to our ease and safety as to have silenced this easie way if they had known it themselves But as every Heretick when he findeth out a New way doth condemne the Old as inconsistent with his New so do the Papists Since this new way hath been cryed up that No man can come to heaven but by Rome it is their business to deter people from any other way and to that end to tell them that there is no safe way but theirs As the Quakers tell us that there is no way to Heaven but theirs and some Anabaptists say there is no way to Heaven but by being Baptized again as they are so do the Papists tell us that there is no way to Heaven but by Believing in the Pope and Church of Rome and obeying him as the head of the Church I never saw the place but sure that Town hath some admirable excellency in it that the God of Heaven should so much set his heart upon it as to endow it with such a stupâ—ndious Prerogative that no man should be saved from everlasting Torment that doth not Believe in the Bishop of that City and obey him as the universal head It s a wonder to me that he that set not his heart so much on his Temple at Jerusalem or on that chosen people as not to forsake them for their sins and that hath the Heavens for his Throne and to whom the Sun it self is as Darkness should yet be so taken with a Town called Rome built and long inhabited by Idolaters defiled with the blood of thousands of Martyrs against which the fouls under the Altar cry out How long Lord Holy and true wilt thou not avenge our blood c. as to ordain that no man in the remotest parts of the world even the Antipodes that never heard of the name of Rome can be saved though he should never so much believe in Jesus Christ unless he Believe in the Bishop of this Town and obey him when yet with Andradius and other Papists it s a hard question whether a man may not be saved in those heathen Countries without believing in Christ himself Is it not a marvaile that we never read that Rome was once named by Christ himself and that it never was put into our Creed as one of the necessary Articles to salvation especially when we find there the Catholike Church and Communion of Saints which sure would have been some way intimated to be the Romane Church or that which is headed by their Bishop if it had been so indeed I find but three names strictly so called in the Creed and the Popes or Romane Churches is none of them One is Jesus Christ and the other is hers that bore him and the third is his that Judged him to death and this indeed was a Romane name and if the honor of it in the Creed will do them any service let them make their best of it But however this advantage the enemy of the Church hath got by it that the new Romane Title hath made the old Catholike Title seem questionable to many and now so great is the audacity of the usurping Pope that he not onely questioneth whether any Christians shall be saved that
way to Salvation whose faithful Professors have a promise of Salvation made them by God in his holy word But such is the Reformed Catholike Christian Religion commonly called Protestant therefore it is a safe way to Salvation The Major cannot be denyed for God cannot â—ye or break his promise And the Minor is easily proved by parts Our Religion is to believe all that is in the Holy Scripture to be the true word of Godâ— and more particularly we believe all the Articles â— the Creed called the Apostles the Nicene Creed and that of Athanasius with the Doctrine of the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper anâ— we confess that in a larger sence other sacred mysteries may be called Sacraments we believe that every man must unfeignedly Repent of all sin and tâ—â—â— from it to God and Love God above all and 〈◊〉 neighbor as himself and faithfully obey the whoâ—â— revealed will of God with other parciculars whicâ— may be seen at large in our several confessions Anâ— he that faithfully Believeth and doth all this hath mâ—ny promises of Salvation in the Scripture John 3.26 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotteâ— Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perisâ— but have everlasting life But Protestants believe in him and subvert not nor nullifie that belief by any contradiction therefore they shall not perisâ— if they be true to their profession but have everlasting life Mark 16.16 Go and preach the Gospel to every creature he that Believeth and is Baptized shall bâ— saved But Protestants believe and are baptized Obj. So Hereticks and wicked men may say Ans But not truely For 1. Hereticks truly so called that cannot be saved do not Believe the whole Doctrine which is fundamental or of Absolute necessity to Salvation Let them shew that by us if they can 2. As Hereticks have not the true faith so wickeâ— men are not true in the faith The former want the fides quae qua both that is both true objectivâ— and subjective faith and the later want true subjective faith at least And so they will confeâ—â— that many a Pope hath done Rom. 10.9 If thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God â—aised him from the dead thou shalt be saved For â—ith the heart man believeth to righteousness and â—ith the mouth confession is made unto salvation â—ut thus do the Protestants therefore they shall be â—â—ved The Doctrine which Peter preached to Cornelius as sufficient to save him and all his house Act. 10.14 â—ut every word of that is believed by the Protestants â—â—erefore it may save them The Jaylor is promised Act. 16.31 that if he â—â—ll believe on the Lord Jesus Christ he shall be savâ—â— So Heb. 10.39 Luk. 8.12 It is not said If â—â—ou wilt believe in Christ and the Pope of Romeâ—â—ou â—â—ou shalt be saved Act. 4.12 Neither is there â—alvation in any other for there is none other name â—â—der heaven given among men whereby we must be â—â—ved Therefore not the Popes name In Act. 15.1 â—â—s said that certain men came down from Judaeaâ—â—â—ught â—â—â—ught the brethren that except they were circumâ—â—sed after the manner of Moses they could not be â—â—ved against these Paul wrote the Epistle to the â—â—latians where you may see how to think of such â—nd in the like manner do the Papists teach men that â—â—cept they believe in the Pope of Rome and except â—â—ey believe that there is a Purgatory and that Imâ—â—es may be worshiped and that the consecrated â—â—st may be adored and that we may pray to â—â—ints departed and that the Priest must take the â—â—crament while the people only look on and that 〈◊〉 the Priest must receive it in both kinds and the â—ead alone may serve the people and that prayers and other Church-service should be in thâ— Latine tongue when the people understand it not with abundance more of their vile inventions I say those that believe not all this they say cannâ—â— be saved But what say the Apostles Elders anâ— Brethren at Jerusalem when the former case â— brought before them They would not have me tempt God by putting a yoak on the most of thâ— Disciples but believe that through the Grace of thâ— Lord Jesus Christ those that used none of thâ— ceremonies should be saved as well as the Jews Verâ— 10 11. And the sum of their Decrees or answer is that Those men who went out from them and troâ—bled people with such words did but subvert theâ— souls by saying that they must be circumcised aâ— keep the Law and that they gave them no such commandment and that it seemed good to the Holâ— Ghost and them to lay upon the Gentiles no greatâ—â— burden than these necessary things c. The Pâ—pists thus go out as from the Apostles pretendiâ—â— an Apostolical Tradition and impose upon the whoâ—â— Christian world a multitude of Ceremonies and Dâ—ctrines as necessary to salvation which are not â— be found in the holy Scripture How shall we knoâ— whether these men indeed have any command â— Tradition from the Apostles for any such course Why 1. Let them shew their Commission and tâ—â— proof of their Traditions 2. We fully disproâ—â— them from the Apostles owne words It seems goâ— to the Holy Ghost and the Apostles to lay â— the Gentiles no greater burden then the â—â—cessary things here named and by these they mâ— be saved and they that teach otherwise are pâ—nounced by them subverters of souls that had â— â—ommand from them for what they did But it â—emeth good to the Pope and his faction to lay on â—â—e Gentile Churches unnecessary things and mulâ—â—tudes of them pretending a necessity of them â—hen they are none of the four that are here onely â—ade necessary by the Apostles nor are so made by â—ny other word of Scripture and some they impose â—n pain of damnation which they will not pretend â—o be of necessity themselves By proportion thereâ—ore we may hence judge that the Papists are meer â—lse pretenders to Apostolical Tradition and subâ—erters of souls and that the Protestants may be saâ—ed for all their presumptuous sentence to the conâ—â—ary The Gospel which Paul preached to the Corinthiâ—â—s and which they received was such as would â—â—ve them if they kept it in memory viz. that â—hrist dyed for our sins according to the Scriptures â—nd that he was buryed and that he rose again the â—â—ird day c. as Paul witnesseth 1 Cor. 15.1 2 3 4 â—nd the Corinthians by the beliefe of this Doctrine â—ere a Church of God and sanctified 1 Cor. 1.1 2. â—ut the Protestants believe all that the Corinthiansâ—â—ceived â—â—ceived to make them such a Church and sanctiâ—â—ed and saved Therefore the Protestants are so â—o John wrote his Gospel that men might believe â—nd believing might have life Joh. 20.30 31. Thereâ—â—re he that believeth that Gospel shall have life at the Protestants believe all that Gospel
the Catholike Church câ—lâ— Trasubstantiation I confess also that under one 〈◊〉 onely whole and entire Christ and the true Saâ—â—ment is taken I do constantly hold that there is a Pâ—rgatory and that the souls there detained are hâ—lpâ—â— by the suffrages of the faithful As also that the Saiâ—â— raigning with Christ are to be reverenced and called upon and that they do offer prayers to God for mâ— and their reliques are to be reverenced or honoured I do most firmely assert that the Images of Christ and of the Mother of God-ever a Virgin as also of other Saiâ—â— are to be had and kept and that due honor and Vâ—â—ration is to be given them I affirm also that the power of Indulgences is left by Christ in the Church aâ— that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people I acknowledge that the holy Catholike and Apâ—stolike Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistris â— all Churches And I do promise and swear true Obedience to the Pope of Rome successor of Blessed Peter Prince of the Apostles and the Vicar of Jesus Chrisâ— Also all other things delivered defined and declareâ— by the sacred Canons and Oecumenical Councils aâ— especially of the holy Synod of Trent I do withâ—â— doubting receive and profess and also all things câ—â—trary and all heresies whatsoever condemned by thâ— Church and rejected and Anathematized do I iâ— like manner condemne reject and Anathematize This â—rue Catholike faith without which no man can be saâ—ed which at the present I do voluntarily professe â—nd truely hold the same will I take care to hold and â—onfess entire and inviolate by Gods help most conâ—antly even to the last breath of my life and as much â—s in me lyeth to be held taught and preached by â—hose that are under me or those whose care belongs to â—e in my office This I.N. do Promise Vow and â—wear so help me God and these holy Gospels of God So far the Trent Confession which I the raâ—her recite that you may see what their Religion is â— their own words and oaths where you see also â—â—at this is but a small part of it for it is moreover â— large as all the Council of Trent and all other â—ecumenical Councils and holy Canons of the Imâ—ossibilities and self-contradictions of which faith we â—hall say more anon So that I conclude that it is not Christianity but â—is additional Leprosie which we call by the name of â—opery they believe this much more then we or a â—reat part more and by believing more they believe â—ss while they destroy the sound faith which they â—efore seemed to profess 2 For the next term to be explained Salvation â—e mean by it principally Everlasting Glory and â—ithall those beginnings of it inclusively which we â—ve in this life consisting in our Justification Aâ—option Sanctification Consolation and Perseâ—erance 3. By the term Way we mean such necessary â—eans as are prescribed us by God for the attainment â— Salvation either as to our Belief or our Affection and Practice according to the directions of the doctrine which we do believe 4. As to the sence of the word Safe it signifieth that which is free from danger or which tendeth to a mans welfare Now here is a double safety considerable in Doctrines answerable to a double danger First it s one thing to be safe from any sin in the way to Salvation and so we may well say that Popery is no safe way which leadeth to so much sin But that 's not all that is here intended But it s another matter to be so deep in sin as not to be safe from the Everlasting Punishment but that salvation it self is endangered thereby and this we principally intend And whereas there are several Degrees of Danger we mean that true Popery heartily entertained and practiced doth leave but small probability if any possibility of the Salvation of any that do persevere impenitently therein to the end Though you may see what I deny in what is already said yet for the greater perspicuity I shall express my sence in these few Propositions following Prop. 1. That Christian doctrine contained in the holy Scriptures which the Papists do profess to believe is of it self without their corruptions a safe way to salvation Prop. 2. Whatever errors are held by Papists or any others which do consist with a true practicâ— belief of the foresaid Christian doctrine which they confess and we are agreed in those errors shâ—â—â— not exclude the erroneous from Salvation Prop. 3. The Papists do not expresly in terms and sence deny any fundamental point of faith Prop. 4. It s possible even practically to hold an error which by remote consequence contradicteth a fundamental Truth and yet to hold that truth practically and so to be saved For either all moral â—errots in Theology as Amesius thought do contradict the Foundation by consequence by reason of the necessary concatenation of Truthes or most at least Prop. 5. There are some errors so great that if they were cordially and practically held would be inconsistent with the cordial practical holding of the Foundation which yet may be held but speculatively and notionally in consistency with the cordial and practical belief of the fundamentals and the person not knowing the contradiction may be saved Prop. 6. Multitudes of people while they take common termes in Divinity in a wrong sence do maintain Propositions which by plain consequence if not directly contradict the Fundamentals according to the proper genuine sence of the words when yet in the sence as they mistake and misuse them in there is no contradiction Even as many on the other side do hold the Christian verity in words who in sence deny it Prop. 7. We have great reason to think that many millions of the Laity among the Papists if not the far greatest part of them do not cordially embrace the most of the Popish corruptions in doctrinals nor the most dangerous of them 1. Because they do not understand them and so cannot so much as speculatively receive them It is not one of a hundred perhaps of many hundreds among them that knows all contained in the Council of Trent alone much less in all the rest of the Council and Canons and customes wherein they place their Religion Nay perhaps it s but few of their Clergy that know this comparatively So that it is but an implicite general belief that they can give to such Canons as are unknown which is not a belief of the particular doctrines contained in them as such 2. Because I hope among most or many of them they are first taught the Creed the Lords Prayer and ten Commandments or at least the Creed and Decalogue though the Lords Prayer be usually taught them in Latine which contain the Fundamentals of Christian faith and practice and therefore we have reason to hope that these are deeper in their minds then any contradictory doctrines especially when they must have so
center to no head but the King of Spaine without his express Commission manifested and the Provinces of Mexico and the adjacent parts onely shall be otherwise minded and subject themselves to the usurper who is it that causeth the Schisme in the King of Spains dominions And which partie is it that holdeth to the ancient terms of unity and which are the dividers I need not stand to make a particular application It is even so between us and the Pope with his Romanists The Church of old was centred onely in Christ and headed onely by him At last the Pope pretending Christs distance and invisibility and a Commission that he hath from Christ to be his Vicar General written in letters that none can read but himself and his party will needs become the visible head and center and whereas before those onely were the rebels that rejected Christ now all must be rebels that are not subject to the Popes And to aggravate the crime by the addition of hipocrisie all this Schisme and separation must be carryed on by a pretence of unity They make the poor simple people believe that the Pope being the Head and center there is no unity to be held but in him and that we must all be guilty of Schisme that unite not in him and that all our divisions are caused by our departing from this center of unity when it is himself that hath divided from the rest of the Christian world and would drown the infamy of it by accusing others of the same sin that he is so notoriously guilty of By which we may well see that accusing others is none of the surest signs of innocency but too common a trick to divert the suspition from themselves When the Papists that are the greatest Schismaticks on earth do make such an outcry against us as Schismaticks because we have repented of our joyning with them in their Schisme and will not confederate with them in evil against the Laws of Christ and the necessary means of the unity of his Church Arg. 7. If the faith of Papists as Papists which is it that we call Popery be a meerly uncertain changeable thing so that a man can never tell when he hath it all then is it no safe way to Salvation But the faith of Papistâ— as such is such a meerly uncertain changeable thing Therefore it is no safe way to Salvation The consequence of the Major I suppose they will grant For how can that be a safe way 1. which is uncertain 2. and changeable when the true way to salvation is one and the same and changeth not since Christ had established and sealed his Laws All the question therefore is of the Minor which I prove 1. From the Popish principles 2. From their Practices both which do plainly shew that their new Religion is a meer Weather-cock that must fit with the winde of the mutable conceits of the Pope and his Clergy Even like the Religion of the Enthusiasts that wait still for new Revelations to be superadded to the Scripture And first for their principles one is that The Scripture is not the whole word of God or sufficient rule of faith or manners but onely a part of the Word and Rule and that unwritten Traditions are the other part Yea Rushworths Dialogues Bellarmine and the rest of them ordinarily tell us that Scripture was not chiefly given to be a Rule of faith at all saith Bellarm. de verbo dei li. 4. cap. 12. Finis Scripturae pracipuus non est ut sit Regula fidei sed ut variis documentis exemplis adhortationibus nunc terrendo nunc instruendo nunc minando nunc consolando adjuvet nos in hae peregrinatione that is The chief end of Scripture is not to be a Rule of faith but that by divers documents examples adhortations sometime by affrighting sometime by instructing sometime by threatning sometime by comforting it may help us in this our peregrination It is then unwritten Traditions that are part of Gods Word and at least part of the Rule of faith And where these Traditions are to be found and what they are and how many and by what notes they may all be known either they dare not tell us for fear of bringing mens faith to a certainty from under the lock and key of the Pope or else in telling us they do but cloud the business with general terms or else disagree among themselves That the Scripture it self is delivered to us infallibly we doubt not and thereby we know the Canonical books But this may be done without another word of God The act of Delivery from the Apostles is not a new Revelation or Word of God but the natural means of conveying the word to those for whom it was intended And the object of that Act of Delivery was not another Word of God but all and onely these same Canonical Books so that I know which is the Canon among other reasons because I can prove not by another Word of God but by infallible humane Testimony such as I have of the Laws of this Land that the Bible and these particular books in it were actually delivered by the holy Writers to the Churches If God write the two Tables of stone and therein make known that they are his Laws and then Deliver these to Moses this Delivering is not a new Word of God but a necessary act for the promulgation of the Word So that if you aske an Israelite how he knows whether onely the ten Commandments and all those ten were contained in the Tables He can prove it to you by the Tables Delivered and by proving the Act of Delivery though he could bring no other word of God which told you what was in those Tables And indeed if these must needs be another Word of God besides the Delivering Acts to prove the former to be the Word of God and tell us its parts then there must also be another word to discover that second Word to be the Word of God and another to discover that and so in infinitum Our acknowledged necessary Tradition therefoâ—â— is not another materia tradita or Word of God but onely one of the actus tradendi and act of delivering the same matter or word But for the Papists that will have another part of the Rule of Divine faith they will never be able to tell us what it is and where and to let us understand when we have all Bellarmine de verbo dei non Scripto li. 4. cap. 9. layes down five Rules by which we may know the true Traditions The first is When the whole Church embraceth any thing as a point of faith which is not found in the Scriptures of God we must needs say that this was had from the tradition of the Apostles The second is When the universal Church keepeth somewhat which none could constitute but God and which is not found written we must needs say that this was delivered from Christ and
and that his determination or Declaration that this or that is a point of faith doth make it to us a point of faith and necessary to be believed to salvation which before was not so So that according to the Papists the Churches faith must alter at the Popes pleasure at least with his Clergy And by new declarations and determinations he may make them a new Article of their Creed when he will so that their faith is as mutable and fallible as their Pope and this they are themselves aware of and therefore feign him to be infallible that they may prove their faith infallible which if they could do as they never can yet still their faith is mutable by their own confession if not by revocations yet by new additions as to us so that their Religion is in continual progress or flux and groweth in quantity as every Pope doth adde his Determinations Now I would know of any Papist in the world or of the Pope himself if he would condescend to such considerations whether they are sure that yet they have all that is made necessary to be believed to salvation upon supposal of their determination How can they tell but that their successors may make the Creed as long again as it is and make their Religion another thing I know they will say that as to them no more is de fide then the Pope determineth to be so But then 1. If he would not determine it no man should be bound to believe in Christ and so none be damned for unbelief 2 If it be a benefit to have all points of faith determined Why are they not done but one Pope must adde one and another adde another to the end of the world if Christ should let them go on 3. Sure the preaching of any one Apostle or other Preacher of the Gospel in the first age did leave the unbelievers without excuse and not onely the Cathedral Determination of Saint Peter And why then doth not any Preachers Revelation of Gods will from his Word oblige men now to believe as well as it did then And 3. It is evident and undenyable that their practice is according to their principles The Popish Religion changeth so fast by the new additions of several Popes that it is not the same thing now as it was heretofore Look but into the Oath or Trent Confession which I recited in the beginning and you may presently see how their Religion is swelled bigger then it was All the Popes Decretals or at least all the Canons of Trent and every General Council at least confirmed by the Pope do enlarge their faith as they adde any thing to what went before What a multitude of things are de fide now that were not so within a thousand years What man can give up himself to such a growing Religion where we must waite on the Pope as the Enthusiasts do on God for new Additional Revelations And cannot know when we have all or halfe How can they tell but their Creed may fill more volumes yet before that all their Popes have done with it Nay further note that the Pope can make not onely new wayes to Heaven but several wayes to Heaven at once He could once dispence with the Bohemians for receiving in both kinds and yet make it necessary to the salvation of others to take it but in one because he so decreed it to be given So that there shall be one Creed in one part of the world and another in the rest It is a damnable Heresie in parts that are absolutely under his power for the vuglar to read the Scripture in their own Tongue But in England he can make it Lawfull lest it hinder his designes though his Doctors have long determined that it is the Mother of all Heresies So that Popery is not the same thing in one Country as it is in another nor the same thing at Rome it self in one age as it is at another To give you a fresh example How long have the Dominicans and Jesuites the Jansenists and the Molinists been in contention about Predestination Freewâ—ll Predetermination Universal Redemption c. and one party condemned the other professing their opinions to be heretical and destructive to the Catholike faith as is to be seen in the writings between Petavius Ricardus and Vincentius Lenis alias Fremondus with many more before them But when they speak to us about these matters they perswade us that it is onely about certain Shool points that they differ and not about any points of faith For they are not points of faith to us till the Pope have determined them And while the eager contenders on either side endeavor to have the Pope determine the controversie on their side no Pope durst do it for fear of losing the reputation of his infallibility with the adverse party and so the unmerciful Popes have long suffered their Doctors to live in contention and to write voluminously against one another and their Romane Church to be broken into parties because they would not once open their mouths to decide the difference But now at last it pleased Pope Innocent the tenth though he durst not touch the principal points to favor his Jesuites so far as to determine five of the controverted points for the Molinists against the Jansenians when Pope Clement was once about determining all for the Dominicans as they thought Mark here the agreement of the Papists and the stability of their faith Before the determination each party maintained their way as de fide and accused the other as Heretical some boldly prognosticated as our Thomas Anglus alias White that the Pope would never determine the controversie about Predetermination And now the Pope hath tryed the stomacks of his Dominicans with the Determination of these five Articles First to see how they will digest them before he went further And he pronounceth them to be Heretical and some of them temerarious impious and blasphemous too condemning them with Anathema Now those become points of faith on one side and Heresies on the other which were none before Till this Determination the Church of Rome wanted five Articles of their Creed or had five fewer then now they have A man might have been saved before that had believed that Liberty from necessity is not necessary to Merit with the rest of them but now all of that belief must be damned And was not the Pope unmerciful to the poor Dominicans to send them all to Hell that cannot change their belief knowing how hard it is for a learned Tribe especially so countenanced by Augustine and Thomas to alter their mindes unfeignedly at a word And yet in the Trent Confession they must all solemnly swear and vow that all things delivered defined and declared by the sacred Canons and Oecumenical Councils especially that of Trent they do without doubting receive and profess though no man had ever heard the Popes Reasons yet if he do but see
supplication and holiness within him and hath known by experience what it is to walk with God and offer him acceptable sacrifices and to receive the tokens of his acceptance and approbation Arg. 11. If Popery be maintained commonly by most wicked and abominable meanes and so by the Devil then it is no safe way to Salvation But the Antecedent is too true Therefore c. I speak not here of the meer miscarriages of some of their party but of the Pillars by which the Popes Kingdome is supported which that it is by abominable wickednesse I shalâ— give you but these few instances following 1. The very business or prize which they so much contend for is Pompe Greatness Dominion yea Tyranny in the world so that it is evidently Pride Vain-glory and Covetousness that sets them on and is the Spring of all their contests What 's the chief part of the quarrel but whether the Pope and Cardinals of one City even Rome shall be the Rulers and Masters of all the Christian world and all Princes and People obey them What unprejudiced man can be so blind as not to see that this contest is Tyrannical and that their Dominion is their Religion and their Pride is their faith and that the question is but that which one would think Christ had once sufficiently determined Who shall be the greatest Did not Christ chide his Disciples for this contest and say With you it shall not be so But the Papists having no better way to prove the Scripture a nose of Waxe and as flexible and multiform as they accuse it to be then by making it so to themselves by abusive violence and perverting it puting by the plainest words that Christ can speak and will take his Decision for no Decision when it makes against the Decisive Power of their Pope 2. And this is yet further manifest in that such a multitude of their Popes have been Whoremongers Murderers Heretickes Simoniacall buying the Popedome with money and poysoning one another to obtain the Popedome and living in it liker beasts then men Of all which I onely appeal to Platina and other of their own Writers 3. Another Pillar of Popery is most unconscionable impiety They can dispense with the vilest sins for the promoting of their Kingdom They can dispense with Oaths and with obligations of subjects to their sovereignes with leagues of Peace and amity among Princes yea they can themselves actually promote and execute the most abominable impieties that will but help them to attain their ends I will now onely instance in that which is fresh before our own eyes in England The Papists know that Anabaptists and Separatists are erroneous they know that Ranters and Quakers are abominable and yet for their own ends dare they here in England put on the vizard of Anabaptists and Quakers and with all possible subtilty and zeal and unwearyedness go up and down to seduce the people to be Anabaptists and Quakers as they did a while ago to be Seekers if not Infidels This is sufficiently known and proved not only by the Popish pretended Jew that turned Anabaptist at Hexham and was taken at Newcastle and others of them taken but by many other Testimonies some upon oath of those that have heard such confessions from their mouthes and many have known them in the Quakers Assemblies that have seen them before elswhere And all this is done by them that they divide us and break us in pieces and steal a credit to their pretended unity and Church Government and turn the hearts of the people from our Ministery and unsettle them and make them more capable and receptive of their own opinions and that they may make others abroad believe that we are all running mad And can that doctrine be of God which teacheth men to do such abominable things Or is that like to be the cause of Christ that must be thus upheld Is that person guided by the Spirit of Christ that dares draw others to the vilest blasphemies and wickedness in a dissembling garbe that so he may promote his own cause certainly Christ needeth not such hypocrisie and wickedness for the promoting of his Kingdom but it seems the Pope doth need it for â—is 4. Another of the Pillars of Popery is most gross and impudent lying Did I not know it to be true I durst not accuse them of it I will give you but these three instances following 1. They do raise and with greatest confidence propagate most shameless lies of those whom they take for their leading adversaries We read them in the open writings of Cochlaeus Bolse Staphiluâ— Thyraeus and many more What abominable stories have they of the Death of Luther Oecolampadius Bucer Calvin and others which it is very unlikely that they can be so blinded with maliâ—e as to Believe themselves What conference do we ever manage with them which they do not misreport Witness the late ridiculous passage after the conference between Fisher and Doctor Featly and Doctor White when they boasted beyond Sea of the number of Converts and in particular of two Earles and this to the Earl of Warwick himself not knowing him who was fained to be one of them and who had been a witness of their weakness And how poorly doth Weston in his Pamphlet put this off 2. The next instance I will give is their abominable lying legends by which they have befooled the people and made themselves ridiculous to the world and occasioned others to question their reports in other things I shall give you a taste of some of them as Doctor Featly hath gathered them to my hand in his Epistle to the foresaid conference yet with the Authors that report them that you may try whether they be wronged As that Saint Brigit laid her wimble and Saint Aldelme his chesible upon a Beam of the Sun which supported them vit Sanct. Brigit vit S. Aldelmi That Saint Nicolas while he lay in his cradle fasted Wednesday and Friday these dayes he would suck but once a day Festivale de Sancto Nicol That Saint Patricke caused a stoln Sheep to bleat in the belly of him that had eaten him Legend de St. Patricio That the Corps of Saint Laurence at the coming of Saint Stephensâ—ody â—ody smiled for joy and turned himself to the other side of the Sepulcher to make room for him Legend de S. Steph. That Clemens wrote a letter to Saint James seven years after he was dead Clem. Ep. ad Jac. in Ep. Pontif. That Saint Denis carryed his head in his hand three miles and rested at each place of the posts that are set between Paris and Saint Denis Breu. pictur Dionys That Saint Dunstane held the Devil fast by the nose with a pair of Tongues Leg. de Dunst That the chamber of our Lady was carryed by Angels through the air from Palestine to Loretto in Italy Hist de Nostre Dame de Lorâ—tto That our Lady helped Saint Thomas Becket to mend or
must lye upon the exposition of them The points absolutely necessary to salvation are plainly delivered 2. Obscurity shews the need of a Teacher but not of a Judge At least its plain that when any Teacher shall remove the obscurity those texts oblige us as well as the plainest 3. As I said If the Pope be Judge of all difficult controverted texts he is an unfaithful Judge that will not expound them to us and decide so many controversies as yet depend What good will it be to the Church to have such a Judge of difficult controverted texts of Scripture as in the consciousness of his ignorance dare not give us his judgement but hath left them undecided these fifteen hundred years This dumbe Oracle that hath eyes and sees not and a mouth but speaks not is not a fit foundation for the Churches Faith 5. Where God calleth men to Office and Power he accomplisheth or fitteth them in some measure for the performance of it but God hath not fitted all Popes no nor any to Jugde Decisively of all controverted difficultyes in Scripture and Religion Therefore he hath not made them Judges of them The Minor shall be further proved anon Many Popes have been ignorant and unlearned many Heretickes unfit to decide all such controversies and they have shewed their unfitnesse by their non performance or ill performance The great Objection of the Papists is this Obj. 1. What! Shall every one be the Judge of Scripture and take it in what sence he please shall every unlearned man or woman expound it according to their own fancies then we shall have variety of expositions Whether is it fitter for the Church or every simple fellow to be Judge Answ 1. Neither Hath God made subjects to be Judges of his Lawes by which they must live and by which they must be judged Neither they nor your Pope must be Judges of the Lawes in a proper sence but obeyers of it 2. We say not that the people should expound the Scriptures as Teachers of others unless in their own callings as to the children servants c. when they are able This we reserve to the Officers of the Church 3. Nor do we say that any people must expound Scripture according to their own fancies or mis-guided conceits but according to the true meaning of them 4. Nor should they in difficult cases which are past their understandings presume of their own wit to know the right meaning but have recourse to the Teachers that God hath set over them that so by their help they may learn the meaning of that word which they understood not 5. And if their Teachers be singular or give them just cause to suspect their skill or fidelity they have more reason to regard the Judgement of the Judicious then of the ignorant and of the whole Church then of any one or few so far as the credit or authority of men must support a learner while he is a learning 6. But what Is it indeed such a monstrous heretical conceit in the eyes of a Papist that every Christian should have a Judicium discretionis a Judgement of discerning to perceive and discern which is truth and which is falshood Good Lord whether will the heat of contention carry men Why if they must not have this discerning judgement 1. Then God doth bind them all to be fools and ignorant 2. And then Religion and the Christian Faith are the endowments of bruits that know not what they hold or do and not of Reasonable men 3. Or else they that will be Christians must have no Faith or Knowledge which is a contradiction Is not Faith an act of discretion Must not he that believeth the Resurrection and Everlasting Life believe them with his own understanding And doth he not in believing them Judge them to be True and Judge the contrary doctrine to be false 4. Why will you read or preach Scripture to the people if you would not have them receive it by a judgment of discerning would you not have their judgment discern the Truth of what God hath written or the Priest shal preach to them 5. Doubtless you will allow them a judgement of Discretion about the Popes Decrees and Canons and your own Determinations How can they believe you if they do not by judgement discern the things you say to be true And why will you not allow them the like towards God and his Word Will you say It is their duty to believe the Pope and their sin to believe God Or it s their duty to understand the Popes Laws and their sin to understand Gods Laws Why what do you say less when you yield them a judgement of discretion as to the Pope or Church and deny it in Respect to the Word of God If you say that they will misunderstand the Scripture I ans 1. So will the Pope and the best and wisest man on earth in some part because while we are here we know but in part 2. Their error is their sin But doth it follow that they may not see at all for fear of missing their way Must they put out their eyes and be led by the Pope for fear of erring Must they not know or labor to know for fear of mistaking Will any Master take this well of his servant to put out his eyes or do nothing for fear of doing his work amiss Or refuse to go his journey lest he miss the way Then we must not judge of the Popes Laws neither and consequently not judge them to be true for fear of erring in our judgement When you prove that the Church of Rome is the true Church would you not have the people judge of your proof for fear of erring This is even to make beasts of Christians 3. What are Teachers for but to guide them and help them to understand If you are afraid lest they should erre be the more diligent in instructing them But this is the difference between the work of a Popish Teacher and ours They make it their work to put out mens eyes that they may have the loading of them because they are troubled with an imperfection in their sight and therefore will erre if those imperfect eyes be left in their heads we make it our work by all means we can use to cure their eye sight that they may be able to see themselves in the mean time advising them while their eyes are under cure not wholly to trust to them but to use the helpe of others to shew them the way and to tell them of dangers The Protestant will set his Childe to School that he may learn to know that which through childishness he knows not But according to the Popish way we should forbid them all books or learning lest they misunderstand them and let them never know any thing lest they know amiss The next step is to send them to Bedlam The Apostle would have men have their senses exercised to discern Good
the creation to this day and we must now begin to feign a Necessity of their infallibility Let it be sufficient that God and the extraordinarily inspired Prophets and Apostles are infallible and that we have Teachers that can infallibly prove to us what he requireth of us in his words in points of Necessity to our everlasting happiness And for themselves pretending to infallibility makes them not nor procureth them infallible whereas their voluminous errors and the wicked practices grounded thereupon and their frequent self-contradictions and mutations do proclaim aloud to the world that they are both deceivable deceived and deceivers while the holy Scriptures whose sufficiency they deny is by themselves confessed to be of infallible verity We are resolved therefore by the grace of God in a business of such moment as the everlasting saving or losing of our souls to venture and bottom all our Hopes on that word of God whose infallibility they confess then on the wordâ— of men who pretend to infallibility and notoriously declare the vainty of those pretences Some more of the Sence of Antiquity in the main Controversie between us and the Papists to declare further who it is that is of the New Religion CYrill Hierosol Cateches 4. Sect. de spiritu sancto pag. Edit Paris 1631. 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. For concerning Divine things and the holy mysteries of faith nothing no not the smallest thing ought to be delivered without the Divine Scriptures nor to be brought forth by simple probability nor by a train of words Nay do not simply believe me my self when I speak of these things to thee unless thou receive a demonstration of the things which I speak from the Divine Scriptures For the very safety of our faith resteth not on the elegancy of speech but on the proof of Divine Scriptures And pag. 36. Sect de Sacra Script he telleth you what Scriptures he meaneth earnestly disswading from the Apocryphal books and numbering the same onely which we own as Canonical save that he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and omitteth the Epist to Hebrews and the Apocalypse And Cateches 17. pag. 192. he saith And we now also ingeniously confess that we will not use humane reasonings but will only commemorate those things which are in the holy Scriptures for this is most safe as Saint Paul 1. Cor. 2.4 And Cateches 18. pag. 220 221 222. See how he describeth the Catholike Church without the least intimation of the Romane description August Cont. literas Petiliani li. 3. cap. 6. pag. Edit Paris 127. col 1. Proinde sive de Christo sive de ejus Ecclesia sive de quacunque alia re quae pertinet ad fidem utramque nostram non dicam nos nequaquam comparandi ei qui dixit Licet si nos sed omnino quod secutus adjecit Si Angelus de caelo vobis annunciaverit preterquam quod in Scripturis legalibus Evangelicis accepistis anathema sit Hac vobiscum cum omnibus quos Christo lucrati cupimus actitantes atque inter caetera sanctam Ecclesiam quam in Dei lieris promissam legimus sicut promissa est in omnibus gâ—ntibus reddi cernimus praedicantes ab iis quos ad ejus pacificum gremium attrahi cupimus pro actione gratiarum flammas meruinnus odiorum That is Moreover whether it be of Christ or of his Church or of any other thing which pertaineth to our faith and life I say not if we who are not to be compared to him who said Though we but that which he next added If an Angel from heaven shall preach to you any other thing then that which you have received in the Scriptures of the Law and the Gospel let him be accursed While we deal thus with you and with all men whom we desire to win to Christ and among other things do preach the holy Church which we find promised in Gods Scriptures and which we see to be placed in all Nations as was promised we have deserved or procured the flames of hatred from those whom we desire to draw into its pacifike bosome in stead of thanks And he proceedeth as if it were we that so long before had bid the Prophets and Apostles that they should not put in their books any Testimonies by which the faction or party of Donatus is proved to be the Church of Christ The Epistle ad Demetriadem commonly reckoned the 142. among Augustines cap. 9. saith Scito itaque in Scripturis divinis per quas solas potes plenam Dei intelligere voluntatem c. By the Divine Scriptures alone thou maist understand the full will of God I know the Lovaine Doctors put this Epistle in the Appendix and conjecture it to be of Pelagius but 1. it shews the doctrine of that age 2. Never did Austin contradict it but oft say the like August de peccat Merit Remiss li. 2. cap. 36. pag. mihi 304. saith Talis populus ut praedixi eruditus in Regno caelorum per duo testamenta vetus novum non declinans in dextram superba presumtione justitiae neque in sinistram secuva delectatione peccati in terram illius promissionis intrabit postea Vbi enim de re obscurissima disputatur non adjuvantibus Divinarum Scripturarum certis clarisque documentis cohibere se debâ—t humana presumptio nihil faciens in partem alteram declinando So that in Austius judgement the old and new Testament teach us enough to salvation and in the difficult points we must not so much as incline to either side without the Scriptures it being presumption to speak when they are silent And in his 49. Tract on John he saith Evangelista testatur multa Dominum Christum dixisse fecisse quae non scripta sunt electa sunt autem quae scriberentur quae saluti credentium sufficere videbantur i. e. The Evangelist testifieth that the Lord Christ spoke and did many things that are not written but those were chosen to be written which seemed sufficient for the salvation of Believers And li. de Nat. Grat c. 26. he saith to the Pelagians Solis Canonicis debeo sine â—ulla recusatione consensum That is I owe a consent without any refusal to the Canonical Scriptures alone An hundred more such sayings might be cited out of Augustine Hierom on the first Ch. of Hag. fol mihi 102. speaking of the use of Hereticks saith Sed alia quae absque authoritate testimoniis Scripturarum quasi traditione Apostolica sponte reperiunt atque confingunt percutit gladius Dei i. e. But other things which without the Authority and Testimonies of Scripture they do of their own accord find out and feign as of Apostolical tradition the sword of God will cut down And he instanceth in the fastings and other austerities of the Tatiani which he saith they suffer causlesly The same Hierom against Helvidius saith Vt haec quae
interpretatus est qui ait Religionum se nodos exolvere Hierome in c. 9. Amos August de via Rel. c. 55. Retract l. 1. c. 13. li. 10. de Civit. Dei c. 4. are for the same derivation 3 Macrob. Saturn li. 3. c. 3. Servius Sulpitius Religionem esse dictam tradidit quae propter sanctitatem aliquam remota ac seposita a nobis fit quasi a relinquendo dicta c. vid. Martin in verb. Sometime Religious is taken for the same with sacred and so is applyed to Persons Actions Things Places Times c. we here take it for a prescribed way to salvation or that which by us is Believed or professed to be such and this is our Religion * In this the Ancients differed among themselves Austin and his followers being for absolute Predestination and for Reprobation upon foreseen unbeâ—ief and others being for Predestination i. e. Election upon foreseen faith * Austin Prosper Fulgentius c â— fully maintain the Perseverance of all the Elect â—houâ—h not of all the Justified Mat 4.10 Mat. 28.19 So Dr. White confesseth that we cannot bring a Catalogue of those that in all ages have maintained our Negations of their corruptions because the Corrupters were 〈◊〉 then risen up and how should we prove that the Church opposed an error before it was hatched How far we account the Church of Rome a true Church and yet the Papacy no true Church See Junius in his exact book de Ecclesia Cant. Bellarm. oper Vol. 2. col 1019. And the judgement of several of our Divines by Bishop Hall in his Defence against Burton * You may see it in Mich Gâ—ldâ—stus dâ— Monarch pagâ— 30. Tom. 1. Dr. JT Blondell de Decret pag. 397.403 Roffeus Cont. Lutherum See Mr. Sing's Rejoynder in Defens of Bishop Usher p. 78.79 80 81 c. * Note that he calls the Papists a Sect as well as the Reformed a Bellar. de Verbo Dei li. 1. cap. 2. b Bellar. ibid. l. 4. cap. 3. c Bellar. ib. l. 3. c. 10. Gretsâ—r de Agnosc Script cap. 7. Col. 1908. Valent. Tom. 3. Disp 1. qu. 1. punct 7. §. 23. But say plainly that the judgement of the present Church is Gods word vid. Melcb Ganum li. 5. c. 5. q. 3. Turnebull in Tetragonis cap. 7. 8. d Vid. Malderum 22 aequ 1. Art 1. Sect. 6. Stanlet princip dâ—ct li. 8. c. 21. li. 9. c. 3. respons ad arg 5. Et in controv rel Contr. 4. q. 3. are 2. Denfens author Eccles l. 3. c. 16. §. 4. Turnebull Tetragonism c. 6. § 2.3 â— 8. §. 3. Bellarm. de Verbo Dei l. 4. c. 4. Gretser Defens istius capiâ—is col 1575 1576 Defens c. 10. de Verbo Col. 1451. sed è contra nelius scribentem leg Peter de Alliaco insent 1. qu. 1. art 3. litera E E. Lyranum Prolog in Biblia e Vid Turnebull Totragen c. 2. a § 5. ad sinem suarez Disput 3. de fide sect 2. § 5 Disput 2 sect 4 § 5. Disput 3. sect 12. § 4. Bellarm. li 3. de Verbo Dei c. 10. ad arg â—3 15. Et Lib. de libero Arbitr c. 3. § At Catholici Gretserâ— in Defens c. 10. li. 3. de Verbo col 1437. estius in sent 3. dist 23. § 4. Maldeâ— in 22 ae Thom. q. 1. a 1. sec 3. f Lege Riveti nostri Isagog sac script cap. 20. suarez Disp de fide 5. sect 7. § â—1 g Vid. valent Tom. 3. Disp 1. qu. 1. punct 7. § 12. Bellarm. l. 2. de Sacram. in Genere cap. 25. suarez Disput 5. de fide sect 5. §. 5. sed contra Melius Waldenfis li. 2. Doctrin fid an t c. 19. operum Tom. 1. c. 27. sic Alphons a Cast adu haeres li. 1. c. 2. Melch. Can lib. c. 3. li. 2. c. 1 â—etr Trigos in summam Bonaven qu. 1. ar 3. suarez contra scipsum de fide Disp 5. §. 3. Bellarm. contra scipsum generalia controv fine vid. Durand in 3. sent dist 24. qu. 1. â—erson de vita spirit an lect 2. Coroll 7. è contr Fâ—ann Driedon li. 1. de Eccl. Script dogmat cap. 1. Waldens li. 2. doctr fid antiq cap. 19. 20. Melch. Canum Loc. Theol. l. 2. c. 8. p. 26 27. c. h Vid. Mel. Canum ib. pag. 27. 28 c. contra Th. Waldensem i Melc Canus Loc. com l. 5. c. 5. fol. 162.163 k Mel. Canus l. 5. c. 5. fol. 164. l Staplet relect contr 4. qu. 2. in â—xpl art â—otab 2.3.4 Valenâ—a Tom. 3. Disput 1. punct 1. §. 5. m Canus l. 5. c. 5. fol. 164 165. n Mel. Canuâ— ubi sup l. 2. c. 7. f 27. Bellarm. de Concil l. 2. c. 2. suarez Tâ—sput 8. de fide sect 5. §. 4. Alphons a Castro adv haeres l. 1. c. 8 Waldensis doctr fid l. 2. c. 22. 23. Becanus Traâ—â— â—â— fide c. 2. qu. 5. §. 4. o Pighius li. 4. Hier. Eccles c. 8. Bellarm. li. 4. de Pont. c. 6. p Staplet contr 3. qu. 4. concl 2. Canus li. 6. c. 8. q Stâ—plet Contr. 3. qu. 4 Concl. 2. Rhimensin Luc. 22.31 Hart. in Conf. with Reignolds c. 7. sect 3. r Bellarm. l. 4. de Pontif c. 3. § â— suarez de fide Disp 5. sect 8. § 4. Valent. Tom. 3. Disp 1. qu. 1. p 7. § 40. Å¿ Turrecremat li. 2. summ de Eccles c. 12. li. 4 part 2. c. 16. Valent. ubi sup câ—l 233 t Vid Alphon. a Castro li. 1 adv haeres c. 4. u Bellarm. de Concil li. 2. cap. 2. Valent. Tom. 3. Disp 1. qu 1. pâ—â—ct 7. § 45. Col. 274 suarez Tract de fide Disp 7. sect 7. §. 10. Bellarm. de Concil li. 2. cap. 1â— x Turrecrem summ li. 2. c. 64. Andrad defens fid Trident. li. 1. pag. 86. y Vid. Bellarm. de Pontif. li. 4. cap. 3. Staplet Con. 6. qu. 3. art 5. Valentia Tom. 3. Disp 1. qu. 1. punct 7. §. 45. So Canus and others See Bannes in 2.2 q. 1. a. 10. p. 149. restraining the text to Peter alone a Baron an 1028. c. 5. b Antonin sum hist p. 3. tit 23. c. 4. § 6. c. 7. § 8. c. 1. § 4. Math. Paris hist Angl. in Henric. 2. pa. 92. c Vita Bern. prafixa cjâ—â— qaribuâ— Surius Bonavent Antonin Legend baec recitant d Hist Ang Henr 3 p. 329 ☜ a Opuscul de â—oncep Virg. c. 1. b â—art 1. tâ—t 8 c. c. c 2 Tim. 4 Digr 21. d Part. 1. e Whites Works fol. pag. 158. ☜ Bellarm. de Pontif. li. 4. cap. 8.9 10 11 12 13 14. a Vid. Binnium Tom. 1. Conc. part 1. p. 478 notis in 7. Epist Liberii p. 480. p. 422. Item Baron â—â—â—o 357. § 9.344 § 3.4.5 359. § 4 10 Bellar. de Pontif. l. 4 c. 9. b Vid.