And that A man once rid of his Authority may as easily deride and as solidly confute the Incarnation as the Sprinkling of Holy water so resolving our faith of the Incarnation of Christ into his Authority or Testimony Yea and in the same page That if it had not been for the Pope Christ himself had not been taken in the world for any such Person as he is believed this day And p. 378. to the same purpose The first great fundamental of Christian Religion which is the Truth and Divinity of Christ had it not been for him had failed long ago in the world with much more to the same purpose Hence it is evident that in your judgment all Truth and Certainty in Region depends on the Popes Anthority and Infallibility or as you express it his unerring guidance This is your Principle this you propose as the only medium to bring us unto that Settlement in Religion which you suppose the Scripture is not able to do What course should we now take would you have us believe you at the first word without further triall or examination would you have a man to do so who never before heard of Pope or Church We are commanded to try all things and to hold fast that which is good to try pretending Spirits and the Beraeans are commended for examining by the Scripture what Paul himself preached unto them An implicit Credulity given up to such Dictates is the height of Fanaticism Have wee not reason then to call you and your copartners in this design to an accoun â—how you prove that which you so strenuously assert and suppose and to examine the Principles of that Authority whereunto you resolve all your faith and Religion If upon mature consideration these prove Solid and the Inferences you make from them Cogent it is good Reason that you should be attended unto If they prove otherwise if the first be false and the latter Sophistical you cannot justly take it ill of him that shall advise you to take heed that whilest you are gloriously displaying your Colours the ground that you stand upon do not sink under your feet And here you are forced to go many a step backward to fix your first footing untill you leave your Pope quite out of sight from whence you advance towards him by severall degrees and so arive at his Supremacie and Infallibility and so we shall have Reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri 1. Your first Principle to this purpose is That Peter was the Prince of the Apostles and that in him the Lord Jesus founded a Monarchy in his Church So pag. 360. you call him the head and Prince of the whole Congregation Now this wee think no meet Principle for any one to begin withall in asserting the foundation of Faith and Religion Nor do we think that if it were meet so to be used that it is any way subservient unto your design and purpose 1. A Principle fundamental or first entrance into any way of Settlement in Faith or Religion it cannot possibly be because it presupposeth the knowledg of and assent unto many other great fundamental Articles of Christian Religion yea upon the matter all that are so For before you can rationally talk with a man about Peters Principality and the Monarchical state of the Church hereon depending you must suppose that he believes the Scripture 〈◊〉 be the Word of God and all things that are taught therein concerning Jesus Christ his Person Nature Offices Work and Gospell to be certainly and infallibly true for they are all supposed in your Assertion which without the knowledg of them is uncouth horrid insignificant and forraign to all notions that a man can rationally entertain of God or Religion Nay no attempt of proof or confirmation can be given unto it but by and from Scripture whereby you fall directly into the Principle which you seek so carefully to avoid namely that the Scripture is the only way and means of setling us in the Truth since you cannot settle any man in the very first proposition which you make to lead him into another way but by the Scripture So powerfull is Truth that those who will not follow it willingly it will lead them captive in Triumph whether they will or no. 2. It is unmeet for any purpose because it is not true No one word from the Scripture can you produce in its confirmation wherein yet if it be not revealed it must pass as a very uncertain and frivolous conjecture You can produce no suffrage of the Ancient Church unto your purpose which yet if you could would not presently render any Assertion so confirmed infallibly certain much less fundamental Some indeed of the 4 th Century call Peter Principem Apostolorum but explain themselves to intend thereby 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first or Leader not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince or Ruler And when the ambiguity of that word began to be abused unto pretensions of Preeminence the Council of Carthage expresly condemned it allowing none to be termed Princeps Sacerdotum Many in those dayes thought Peter to be among the Apostles like the Princeps Senatus or Princeps Civi atis the chief in their Assemblies or Principall in dignity how truly I know not but that he should be amongst them and over them a Prince in Office a Monarch as to Rule and Power is a thing that they never once dreamed of and the Asseveration of it is an open untruth The Apostles were equall in their Call Office Place Dignity Employments All the difference between them was in their Labours Sufferings and Success wherein Paul seems to have had the pre-eminence who as Peter and all the rest of the Apostles every one singly and for himself had the care of all the Churches committed unto him thought it may be for the better discharge of their Duty ordinarily they divided their work as they found it necessary for them to apply themselves unto it in particular See 2 Cor. 11. And this equality between the Apostles is more than once insinuated by Paul and that with speciall reference unto Peter 1 Cor. 1. Gal. 1. 18 19. ch 2. 9. And is it not wonderfull that if this Assertion should not only be true but such a Truth as on which the whole faith of the Church was to be built that the Scripture should be utterly silent of it that it should give us no Rules about it no directions to use and improve it afford us no one instance of the exercise of the Power and Authority intimated no not one but that on the contrary it should lay down Principles exclusive of it Matth. 22. 25 26. Luk. 22. 26. And when it comes to make an enumeration of all the Offices appointed by Christ in his Church Eph. 4. 11. should pass over the Prince and his Office in silence on which all the rest were to depend You see what a Foundation you begin to build upon a meer
readiness to receive it when it shall be so manifest upon the Authority of the Author of the whole is not in the least danger to be induced by that disbelief to question any thing of that which he is convinced so to be revealed But as I said your Concernment lyes not therein who are not able to prove that Protestants have rejected any one part much less substantial part of Religion and your conclusion upon a supposition of the rejection of errours and practises or the contrary to the Gospel or principles of Religion is very infirm The ground of all your Sophistry lyes in this that men who receive Christian Religion are bound to resolve their faith unto the Authority of them that preach it first unto them whereupon it being impossible for them to question any thing they teach without an impeachment of their absolute Infallibility and so far the Authority which they are to rest upon they have no firm foundation left for their assent unto the things which as yet they do not question and consequently in process of time may easily be induced so to do But this presumption is perfectly destructive to all the certainty of Christian Religion For whereas it proposeth the subject matter of it to be believed with divine faith and supernatural it leaves no formal reason or cause of any such faith no foundation for it to be built upon or Principle to be resolved into For how can Divine faith arise out of humane Authority For acts being specificated by their objects such as is the Authority on which a man believes such is his faith humane if that be humane divine if it be divine But resolving as we ought all our faith into the Authority of God revealing things to be believed and knowing that Revelation to be entirely contained in the Scriptures by which we are to examine and try whatever is by any man or men proposed unto us as an object of our faith they proposing it only upon this consideration that it is a part of that which is revealed by God in the Scripture for us to believe without which they have no ground nor warrant to propose any thing at all unto us in that kind we may reject any of their proposals which we find and discern not to be so revealed or not to be agreeable to what is so revealed without the least weakning of our assent unto what is revealed indeed or making way for any man so to do For whilest the formal reason of faith remains absolutely unimpeached different apprehensions about particular things to be believed have no efficacy to weaken faith its self as we shall farther see in the examination of your ensuing Discourse The same way and means that lopt off some branches will do the like to others and root too but the errours and mistakes of men are not branches growing from the root of the Gospel A Vilification of that Church wherein they find themselves who have a mind to prevaricate upon pretence of Scripture and power of interpreting it light spirit or reason adjoyned with a personal obstinacy that will not submit will do it roundly and to effect This first brought off the Protestants from the Roman Catholick Church this lately separated the Presbyterians from the English Protestant Church the Independent from the Presbyterian and the Quakers from the other Independent And this left good maintains nothing of Christian Religion but the moral part which indeed and truth is but honest Paganism This speech is worthy of all serious Consideration That which this Discourse seems to amount unto is that if a man question or reject any thing that is taught by the Church whereof he is a member there remains no way for him to come unto any certainty in the remaining parts of Religion but that he may on as good grounds question and reject all things as any As you phrase the matter by mens vilifying a Church which a mind to prevaricate upon pretence of Scripture c. though there is no consequence in what you say yet no man can be so mad as to plead in justification of such a proceeding For it is not much to be doubted but that he who layeth such a foundation and makes such a beginning of a separation from any Church will make a progress suitable thereunto But if you will speak unto your own purpose and so as they may have any concernment in what you say with whom you deal you must otherwise frame your hypothesis Suppose a man to be a member of any Church or to find himself in any Church state with others and that he doth at any time by the light and direction of the Scripture discover any thing or things to be taught or practised in that Church whereof he is so a member which he cannot assent unto unless he will contradict the Revelation that God hath made of himself his mind and will in that compleat Rule of all that Religion and worship which are pleasing unto him and therefore doth suspend his assent thereunto and therein dissent from the determination of that Church then you are to assert for the promotion of your design that all the Consequents will follow which you expatiate upon But this supposition fixes immoveably upon the penalty of forfeiting their interest in all saving truth all Christians whatever Greeks Abissines Armenians Protestants in the Churches wherein they find themselves and so makes â—â—ustrate all their attempts for their reconciliation to the Church of Rome For do you think they will attend unto you when you perswade them to a relinquishment of the Communion of that Church wherein they find themselves to joyn with you when the first thing you tell them is that if they do so they are undone and that for ever And yet this is the summ of all that you can plead with them if there be any sense in the Argument you make use of against our relinquishment of the opinions and practises of the Church of Rome because we or our forefathers were at any time members thereof or lived in its communion But you would have this the special Priviledge of your Church alone Any other Church a man may leave yea all other Churches besides he may relinquish the principles wherein he hath been instructed yea it is his duty to renounce their Communion only your Church of Rome is wholly sacred a man that hath once been a member of it must be so for ever and he that questions any thing taught therein may on the same grounds question all the Articles of faith in the Christian Religion And who gave you leave to suppose the only thing in Question between us and to use it as a medium to educe your Conclusion from is it your business to take care bullatis ut tibi nugis Pagina turgescat dare pondus idonea fumo We know the condition of your Roman Church to be no other then that of other Churches if it be not worse
though in generall the matter in debate between us seems to be your Principall concernment But now you have seen that Discourse and as you inform me have read it over which I believe and take not only upon the same score of present Trust but upon the Evidence also which you give unto your Assertion by your carefull avoiding to take any further notice of the things that you found too difficult for you to reply unto For any impartiall Reader that shall seriously consider the Animadversions with your Epistle will quickly find that the main Artifice wherein you conside is a pretence of saying somewhat in general whilst you pass over the things of most importance and which most press the cause you defend with a perpetuall silence These you turn from and fall upon the Person of the Author of the Animadversions If ever you debated this procedure with your self had I been present with you when you said with him in the Poet Dubius sum quid faciam Tene relinquam an rem I should have replied with him me sodes but you were otherwise minded and are gone before Ego ut contendere durum est Cum victore sequar I will follow you with what patience I can and make the best use I am able of what offers its self in your Discourse Two Reasons I confess you adde why you chose vadimonium deserere and not reply to the Animadversions which to deal plainly with you give me very little satisfaction The first of them you say is because to do so would be contrary to the very end and design of Fiat Lux which shall immediately be considered The other is the threats which I have given you that if you dare to write again I will make you know what manner of man I am S r Though it seems you dare not reply to my Book yet you dare do that which is much worse you dare write palpable untruths and such as your self know to be so as others also who have read those Papers By such things as these with sober and ingenious Persons you cannot but much prejudice the interest you desire to promote as well as in your self you wrong your conscience and ruine your reputation Besides all advantage springing from untruth is fading neither will it admit of any covering but of its own kind which can never be so encreased but that it will rain through Only I confess thus far you have promoted your design that you have given a new and cogent instance of the Evils attending Controversies in Religion which you declame about in your Fiat which yet is such as it had been your duty to avoid What it is that you make use of to give conntenance unto this fiction for malum semper habitat in alieno fundo I shall have occasion afterwards to consider For the present I leave you to the discipline of your own thoughts Prima est haec ultio quod se Judice nemo nocens absolvitur And I the rather mind you of your failure at this entrance of our discourse that I may only remit your thoughts unto this stricture when the like occasion offers it self which I fear it will do not unfrequently But S r it will be no advantage unto mee or you to contend for the Truth which we profess if in the mean time we are regardless of the observance of truth in our own hearts and spirits Two Principall Heads the Discourse which you premise unto the Particular consideration of the Animadversions is reducible unto The first whereof is your endeavour to manifest that I understood not the design and end of Fiat Lux a Discourse as you modestly testifie hard to deal with and impossible to confute The other your Enquiry after the Author of the Animadversions with your attempt to prove him one in such a condition as you may possible hope to obtain more advantage from than you can do by endeavouring the refutation of his Book Some other occasionall passages there are in it also which as they deserve shall be considered Unto these two Generall Heads I shall give you at present a Candid Return and leave you when you are free from Flies to make what use of it you please The Disign or Fiat Lux I took to be the promotion of the Papall Interest and the whole of it in the relation of its parts unto one another and the generall End aimed at in it to be a perswasive induction unto the embracement of the present Romane Faith and Religion The means insisted on for this end I conceived principally to be these 1. A declaration of the evils that attend differences in Religion and disputes about it 2. Of the good of Union Peace Love and Concord among Christians 3. Of the impossibility of obtaining this good by any other wayes or means but only by an embracement of the Roman Catholick Faith and Profession with a submission to the deciding Power and Authority of the Pope or your Church 4. A defence and illustration of some especiall parts of the Roman Religion most commonly by Protestants excepted against This was my mistake unto this mistake I acknowledge my whole discourse was suited In the same mistake are all the persons in England that ever I heard speak any thing of that discourse of what perswasion in Religion soever they were And Aristotle thought it worch while to remember our of Hesiod Moral Nicom lib. 7. that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That report which so many consent in is not altogether vain But yet least this should not satisfie you I shall mind you of one who is with you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of as much esteem it may be as all the rest and that is your self you are your self in the same mistake you know well enough that this was your End this your Designe these the means of your persuing it and you acknowledge them immediately so to have been as we shall see in the consideration of the evidence you tender to evince that mistake in me which you surmize First you tell me pag. 4. That I mistake the drist and design of Fiat Lux whilest I take that as absolutely spoken which is only said upon an Hypothesis of our present condition here in England This were a grand mistake indeed that I should look on any thing proposed as an Expedient for the erding of Differences about Religion without a supposition of Differences about Religion But how do you prove that I fell into such a mistake I plainly and openly acknowledge that such differences there are all my discourse proceeds on that supposition I bewaile the evil of them and labour for moderation about them and have long since ventured to propose my thoughts unto the world to that purpose All that you suppose in your Discourse on this account I suppose also yea and grant it unless it be some such thing as is in controversie between you and Protestants which you are
believed to belong to the Unity of Faith Lastly The Determinations of your Church you make to be the next efficient Cause of your Unity now these not being absolutely infallible leave it like Delos flitting up and down in the Sea of Probabilities only This we shall manifest unto you immediately at least we shall evidence that you have no cogent reasons nor slable grounds to prove your Church infallible in her Determinations At present it shall suffice to mind you that she hath Determined Contradictions and that in as eminent a manner as it is possible for her to declare her sense by namely by Councils confirmed by Popes and an infallible determination of Contradictions is not a Notion of any easie digestion in the thoughts of a man in his right wits We confess then that we cannot agree with you in your Rule of the Unity of Faith though the thing its self we press after as our Duty For 2. Protestants do not conceive this Vnity to consist in a precise Determination of all Questions that are or may be raised in or about things belonging unto the Faith whether it be made by your Church or any other way Your Thomas of Aquine who without question is the best and most sober of all your School Doctors hath in one Book given us 522 Articles of Religion which you esteem mraculously stated Quot Articuli tot Miracula All these have at least five Questions one with another stated and determined in explication of them which amount unto 2610 Conclusions in matters of Religion Now we are farre from thinking that all these Determinations or the like belong unto the Unity of Faith though much of the Religion amongst some of you lyes in not dissenting from them The Questions that your Bellarmine hath determined and asserted the Positions in them as of faith and necessary to be believed are I think neer 40 times as many as the Articles of the antient Creed of the Church and such as it is most evident that if they be of the nature and importance pretended it is impossible that any considerable number of men should ever be able to discharge their duty in this business of holding the Vnity of Faith That a man believe in generall that the holy Scripture is given by inspiration from God and that all things proposed therein for him to believe are therefore infallibly true and to be as such believed and that in particular he believe every Article or point of Truth that he hath sufficient means for his instruction in and conviction that it is so revealed they judg to be necessary unto the holding of the Unity of Faith And this also they know that this sufficiency nf means unto every one that enjoys the benefit of the Scriptures extends its self unto all those Articles of Truth which are necessary for him to believe so as that he may yield unto God the obedience that he requireth receive the holy Spirit of promise and be accepted with God Herein doth that Vnity of Faith which is amongst the Disciples of Christ in the world consist and ever did nor can do so in any thing else Nor doth that variety of Apprehensions that in many things is found among the Disciples of Christ and ever was render this Vnity like that you plead for various and incertain For the Rule and formall Reason of it namely Gods Revelation in the Scripture is still one and the same perfectly unalterable And the severall degrees that men attain uuto in their Apprehensions of it doth no more reflect a charge of variety upon it than the difference of Seeing as to the severall degrees of the sharpness or obtuseness of our bodily eyes doth upon the Light given by the Sunne The Truth is if there was any common measure of the Assents of men either as to the intension of it as it is subjectively in their minds or extension of it as it respecteth Truths revealed that belonged unto the Vnity of Faith it were impossible there should be any such thing in the world at least that any such thing should be known to be Only this I acknowledg that it is the Duty of all men to come up to the full and explicit acknowledgment of all the Truths revealed in the word of God wherein the Glory of God and the Christians Duty are concerned as also to a joynt consent in Faith objective or propositions of Truth revealed at least in things of most importance though their faith subjective or the internal assent of their minds have as it will have in severall Persons various degrees yea in the same Persons it may be at different seasons And in our labouring to come up unto this joynt-acknowledgment of the same sense and intendment of God in all revealed Truths consists our endeavour after that perfection in the Vnity of Faith which in this life is attainable as our moderation doth in our walking in peace and love with and towards others according to what we have already attained We may distinguish then between that Unity of Faith which an interest in gives Vnion with Christ unto them that hold it and Communion in Love with all equally interested therein and that Accomplishment of it which gives a sameness of Profession and consent in all acts of outward Communion in the worship of God The first is found in and amongst all the Disciples of Christ in the world where-ever they are the latter is that which moreover it is your Duty to press after The former consists in an Assent in generall unto all the Truths of God revealed in the Scripture and in particular unto them that we have sufficient means to evidence them unto us to be so revealed The latter may come under a double consideration for either there may be required unto it in them who hold it the joynt perception of and assent unto every Truth revealed in the Scripture with an equall degree of certainty in adherence and evidence in perception and it is not in this life wherein the best of us know but in part attainable or only such a concurrence in an assent unto the necessary Propositions of Truth as may enable them to hold together that outward Communion in the worship of God which we before mentioned And this is certainly attainable by the wayes and means that shall immediately be layed down And where this is there is the Vnity of Faith in that compleatness which we are bound to labour for the attainment of This the Apostolicall Churches enjoyed of old and unto the recovery whereof there is nothing more prejudiciall than your new stating of it upon the account of your Churches Proposals This Unity of Faith we judg good and necessary and that it is our Duty to press after it So also in generall do you It remains then that we consider what is the way what are the means and Principles that Protestants propose and insist upon for the attainment of it that is in answer
to your Question What it is that can settle any man in the Truth of Religion and unite all men therein And then because you object this unto us as if we were at some loss and incertainty therein and your selves very secure I shall consider what are the grounds and principles that you proceed upon for the same ends and purposes namely to settle any man in the Truth of Religion and to bring all men to an harmony and consent therein Now I shall herein manifest unto you these two things I. That the Principles which the Protestants proceed upon in the improvement whereof they obtain themselves assured and infallible settlement in the Truth and labour to reduce others unto the Unity of Faith are such as are both suited unto and sufficient for the end and work which they design to effect by them and also in themselves of such unquestionable Truth Certainty and Evidence that either they are all granted by your selves or cannot be denied without shaking the very Foundations of Christianity 2. That those which you proceed upon are some of them untrue and most of them dubious and questionable none of them able to bear the weight that you lay upon them and some of them such as the admission of would give just cause to question the whole Truth of Christian Religion And both these S r I crave leave to manifest unto you whereby you may the better judg whether the Scripture or your Church be the best way to bring men unto settlement in Religion which is the thing enquired after 1. Protestants lay down this as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the very beginning and first Principle of their confidence and Confession that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God as the Holy Ghost teacheth them 2 Tim. 3. 16. That is that the Books of the Old and New Testament were all of them written by the immediate guidance direction and inspiration of God the hand of the Lord as David speaks 1 Chron. 28. 19. being upon the Penmen thereof in writing and his Spirit as Peter informs us speaking in them 1 Pâ—t 1. 11. So that whatever is contained and delivered in them is given out from God and is received on his Authority This Principle I suppose you grant to be true do you not if you will deny it say so and we will proceed no farther untill we have proved it I know you have various wayes laboured to undermine the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Holy Scriptures many Queries you put unto men How they can know it to be from God to be true from Heaven and not of men many scruples you indeavour to possess them with against its Authority it is not my present business to remove them It is sufficient unto mee 1. That you your selves who differ from us in other things and with whom our contest about the best way of coming to settlement in the Truth alone is do acknowledg this Principle were proceed upon to be true And 2. That yee cannot oppose it without setting your selves to digge up the very foundations of Christian Religion and to open a way to let in an inundation of Atheism on the world So our first step is fixed on the grand fundamentall Principle of all the Religion and acceptable worship of God that is in the world 2. They affirm that this Scripture evidenceth it self by many infallible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be so given by Inspiration from God and besides is witnessed so to be by the Testimony of the Church of God from the dayes of Moses wherein it began to be written to the dayes wherein we live our Lord Christ and his Apostles asserting and confirming the same Testimony which Testimony is conveyed unto us by uninterrupted Catholick Tradition The first part of this Position I confess some of you deny and the latter part of it you generally all of you pervert confining the Testimony mentioned unto that of your present Church which is a very inconsiderable part of it if any part at all But how groundlesly how prejudicially to the verity and honour of Christian Religion in generall you do these things I shall briefly shew you Some of you I say deny the first part of this Assertion so doth Andradius Defens Concil Trident. Lib. 3. Neque enim saith he in ipsis Libris quibus Sacra Mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam inest Divinitatis quod nos ad Credendum qua illis continentur religione aliqua constring at Neither is there in the Books themselves wherein the holy Mysteries are written any thing of Divinity that should constrain us by vertue of any religious respect thereunto to believe the things that are contained in them Hence Cocleus Lib. 2. de Authoritate Eccles. Script gathers up a many instances out of the Book of the Scripture which he declares to be altogether incredible were it not for the Authority of the Church I need not mention any more of your Leaders concurring with them you know who is of the same mind with them if the Author of Fiat Lux be not unknown to you Your resolving Vniversal Tradition into the Authority of your present Church to which end there is a Book written not long since by a Jesuit under the name of Vincentius Severinus is no less notorious Some of you I confess are more modest and otherwise minded as to both parts of our Assertion See Malderus Episcop Antwerp de Object Fidei qu. 1. Vaselius Groningen de Potestat Eccles. Epist. ad Jacob. Hock Alliacens in Lib. 1. Sentent Artic. 3. Gerson Exam. dos part 2. Consid. 1. Tom. 1. sol 105. and in twenty other places But when you come to deal with Protestants and consider well the Tendency of this Assertion you use I consess an hundred rergiversations and are most unwilling to come to the acknowledgment of it and rather then suffer from it deny it downwright and that with Scurrilous reflections and Comparisons likening it as to any characters of Gods truth and Holiness upon it unto Livy's Story yea Aesops Fables or a Piece of Poetry And when you have done so you apply your selves to the canvasing of Stories in the Old Testament and to find out appearing Contradictions and tell us of the uncertainty of the Authors of some particular Books that the whole is of its self a dead letter which can prove nothing at all enquiring Who told us that the Penmen of it were divinely inspired seeing they testify no such things of themselves and if they should yet others may do and have done so who notwithstanding were not so inspired and ask us Why we receive the Gospel of Luke who was not an Apostle and reject that of Thomas who one with many the like Cavilling Exceptions But 1. That must needs be a bad Cause which stands in need of such a Defence Is this the voice of Jacob or Esau Are these the expressions of Christians or Pagans from whose
his Apostleship If you will then have any to succeed him in the enjoyment of any or of all these Privileges you must bespeak him to succeed him in his Apostleship and not in his Bishoprick Besides as I said before this imaginary Episcopacy which limits and confines him unto a particular Church as it doth if it be an Episcopacy properly so called is destructive of his Apostolical Office and of his Duty in answering the Commission given him of preaching the Gospel to every Creature following the Guidance of Gods Providence and conduct of the Holy Ghost in his way Many of the Ancients I confess affirm that Peter sate Bishop of the Church of Rome but they all evidently use the word in a large sense to imply that during his abode there for that there he was they did suppose be took upon him the especial Care of that Church For the same Persons constantly affirm that Paul also was Bishop of the same Church at the same time which cannot be otherwise understood than in the large sense mentioned And Ruffinus Prafat Recog Clement ad Gâ—udent unriddles the mystery Linus saith he Clâ—tus fuerunt ante Clementem Episcopi in â—rbe Roma sed superstite Petro videlicet at illi Episcopatûs Curam gererent iste verò Apostolatûs simpleret officium Linus and Cletus were Bishops in the City of Rome before Clemens but whilest Peter was yet alive they performing the Duty of Bishops Peter attending unto his office Apostolical And hereby doth he utterly discard the present new plea of the foundation of your faith For though he assert that Peter the Apostle was at Rome yet he denies that he ever sate Bishop there but names two others that ruled that Church at Rome joyntly during his time either in one Assembly or in two the one of the Circumcision the other of the Gentile-Converts And if Peter were thus Bishop of Rome and entred as you say upon his Episcopacy at his first coming thither whence is it that you are forced to confess that he was so long absent from his charge Five years saith Bellarmine but that will by no means salve the Difficulty Seven saith Onuphrius at once and abiding at one place the most part of his time besides being spent in other places and yet allowing him no time at all for those places where he certainly was Eighteen saith Cortefius strange that he should be so long absent from his especiall Cure and never write one word to them for their instruction or consolation whereas in the mean time he wrote two Epistles unto them who it seems did not in any speciall manner belong unto his Charge I wish we could once find our way out of this maze of uncertainties This is but a sad disquisition after Principles of faith to settle men in Religion by them And yet if we should suppose this also wee are farre enough from our journeys end The present Bishop of Rome is as yet behind the curtain neither can he appear upon the stage untill hâ— be ushered in by one pretence more of the same nature with them that went before And this is V. That some one must needs succeed Peter in his Episcopacy But why so why was it not needfull that one should succeed him in his Apostleship Why was it not needfull that Paul should have a successor as well as Peter and John as well as either of them Because you say that was necessary for the Church not so these But who told you so where is the proof of what you averre who made you judges of what is necessary and what is not necessary for the Church of Christ when himself is silent And why is not the succession of an Apostle necessary as well as of such a Bishop as you fancie had it not been better to have had one still residing in the Church of whose Infallibility there could have been no doubt or question One that had the power of working Miracles that should have no need to scare the people by shaking fire out of his slieve as your Pope Gregory the 7 th was wont to do if Cardinall Benno may be believed But you have now carried us quite off from the Scripture and Story and probable conjectures to attend unto you whilest you give the Lord Jesus prudentiall advice about what is necessary for his Church It must needs be so it is meet it should be so is the best of your proof in this matter Only your fratres Walenburgici adde that never any man ordained the Government of a Community more weakly than Christ must be supposed to have done the Government of his Church if he have not appointed such a Successour to Peter as you imagin But it is easie for you to assert what you please of this nature and as easie for any one to reject what you so assert if he please These things are without the verge of Christian Religion 〈◊〉 Towers and Palaces in the ayr But what must S t Peter be succeeded in his Episcopacy and what therewithall his Authority Power and Jurisdiction over all Churches in the world with an unerring judgement in matters of faith But all these belonged unto Peter as far as ever they belonged unto him as he was an Apostle long before you fancie him to have been a Bishop As then his Episcopacy came without these things so for ought you know it might goe without it This is a matter of huge importance in that Systeme of Principles which you tender unto us to bring us unto settlement in Religion and the Unity of Faith would you would consider a little how you may give some tolerable appearance of proof unto that which the Scripture is so utterly silent in yea which lyes against the whole Oeconomy of the Lord Jesus Christ in his ordering of his Church as delivered unto us therein dic aliquem dic Quintiliane colorem But we come now to the Pope whom here we first find latentem post Priâ—cipia and coming forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with his Claim For you say VI. That the Bishop of Rome is the man that thus suecceds Peter in his Episcopacy which though it were settled at Rome was over the whoee Catholick Church So you say and so you profess your selves to believe And we desire that you would not take it amiss if we desire to know upon what grounds you do so being unwilling to cast away all Consideration that we may embrace a fanatical Credo in this unlikely business We desire therefore to know who appointed that there should be any such succession who that the Bishop of Rome should be this Successor Did Jesus Christ do it we may justly expect you should say He did but if you do we desire to know when where how seeing the Scripture is utterly silent of say such thing Did S t Peter himself do it Pray manifest unto us that by the appointment of Jesus Christ he had power so to do and that
Church yield any obedience or perform any acceptable worship unto God but what was founded on and regulated by his Word given unto them antecedently unto their obedience and worship to be the sole foundation and Rule of it That you have no concernment in what is or may be truly spoken of the Church we shall afterwards shew but it is not for the interest of Truth that wee should suffer you without controul to impose such absurd notions on the minds of men especially when you pretend to direct them unto a Settlement in Religion Alike true is it that the Church gives Authority unto the Scripture Every true Church indeed gives witness or Testimony unto it and it is its Duty so to do it holds it forth declares and manifests it so that it may be considered and taken notice of by all which is one main End of the Institution of the Church in this world But the Church no more gives Authority to the Scripture than it gives Authority to God himself He requires of men the discharge of that Duty which he hath assigned unto them but stands not in need of their suffrage to confirm his Authority It was not so indeed with the Idols of old of whom Tertullian said rightly Si Deus homini non placuerit Deus non erit The reputation of their Deity depended on the Testimony of men as you say that of Christ's doth on the Authority of the Pope But I shall not farther insist upon the disprovement of this vanity having shewed already that the Scripture hath all its Authority both in its self and in reference unto us from Him whose Word it is and wee have also made is appear that your Assertions to the contrary are meet for nothing but to open a door unto all Irreligiousness Prophaneness and Atheism so that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing sound or savoury nothing which an heart carefull to preserve its Loyalty unto God will not nauseate at nothing not suited to oppugn the fundamentals of Christian Religion in this your Position This ground well fixed you tell us 11. That the Church is infallible or cannot erre in what she teacheth to be believed And we ask you what Church you mean and how far you intend that it is infallible The only known Church which was then in the world was in the Wilderness when Moses was in the mount Was it infallible when it made the golden Calf and danced about it proclaiming a feast unto Jebovah before the Calf was the same Church afterward Infallible in the dayes of the Judges when it worshipped Baalim and Aftaroth or in the dayes of Jeroboam when it sacrificed before the Calves at Dan and Bethel or in the other branch of it in the dayes of Ahaz when the High-Priest set up an Altar in the Temple for the King to offer Sacrifice unto the gods of Damascus or in the dayes of Jehoiakiâ— and Zedekiah when the High-Priest with the rest of the Priests imprisoned and would have slain Jeremiah for preaching the word of God or when they preferred the worship of the Queen of Heaven before that of the God of Abraham Or was it infallible when the High-Priest with the whole Councel or Saâ—edrim of the Church judicially condemned as far as in them lay their own Messias and rejected the Gospel that was preached unto them You must inform us what other Church was them in the world or you will quickly perceive how ungrounded your generall Maxim is of the Churches absolute infallibility As farre indeed as it attends unto the Infallible Rule given unto it it is so but not one jot farther Moreover we desire to know What Church you mean in your Assertion or rather what is it that you mean by the Church Do you intend the Mystical Church or the whole number of Gods Elect in all Ages or in any Age militant on the Earth which principally is the Church of God Ephes. 5. 26 Or do you intend the whole diffused body of the Disciples of Christ in the world separated to God by Baptism and the Profession of saving truth which is the Church Catholick visible Or do you mean any particular Church as the Roman or constantinopolitan the French Dutch or English Church If you intend the first of These or the Church in the first sense we acknowledge that it is thus far infallible that no true member of it shall ever totally and finally renounce lose or forsake that faith without which they cannot please God and be saved This the Scripture teacheth this Austin confirmeth in an bundred places If you intend the Church in the second sense we grant that also so far unerring and infallible as that there ever was and ever shall be in the world a number of men making Profession of the saving Truth of the Gospel and yielding professed subjection unto our Lord Jesus Christ according unto it wherein consists his visible Kingdome in this world that never was that never can be utterly overthrown If you speak of a Church in the last sense then we tell you That no such Church is by virtue of any Promise of our Lord Jesus Christ freed from erring yea so farre as to deny the fundamentals of Christianity and thereby to lose the very being of a Church Whilst it continues a Church it cannot erre fundamentally because such Errours destroy the very being of a Church but those who were once a Church by their failing in the Truth may cease to be so any longer And a Church as such may so fail though every Person in it do not so for the individual members of it that are so also of the Mysticall Church shall be preserved in its Apostasie And so the Mysticall Church and the Catholick Church of Professors may be continued though all particular Churches should fail So that no Person the Church in no sense is absolutely freed in this world from the danger of all errours that is the condition wee shall attain in Heaven here where we know butin part wee are incapable of it The Church of the Elect and every member of it shall eventually be preserved by the power of the Holy Ghost from any such errour as would utterly destroy their Communion with Christ in Grace here or prâ—vent their fruition of him in Glory hereafter or as the Apostle speaks they shall assuredly be kept by the Power of God through faith unto salvation The Generall Church of Visible Professors shall be alwayes so farre preserved in the world as that there shall never want some in some place or other of it that shall profess all needfull saving Truths of the Gospel in the belief whereof and obedience whereunto a man may be saved But for Particular Churches as such they have no security but what lyes in their diligent attendance unto that Infallible Rule which will preserve them from all hutfull Errours if through their own default they neglect not to keep close unto it And your
satisfaction the things which they do believe and let men be esteemed to beleive and to have attained degrees in the faith according as they are taught of God with an allowance for every ones measure of means light grace gifts which are not things in our own Power and we shall be nearer unto quietness than most men imagine When Christians had any unity is the world the Bible alone was thought to contain their Religion and every one endeavoured to learn the mind of God out of it both by their own endeavours and as they were instructed therein by their guides neither did they pursue this work with any other end but only that they might be strengthened in their faith and hope and learn to serve God and obey him that so they might come to the blessed enjoyment of him Nor will there ever I fear be again any Unity among them untill things are reduced to the same state and condition But among all the vanities that the minds of men are exercised with in this world there is none to be compared unto that of their hoping and endeavouring to bring all Persons that profess the Religion of Jesus Christ to acquiesce in the same opinions about all particulars which are any way determined to belong thereunto especially considering how endlesly they are multiplied and branched into instances such for ought appears the first Churches took little or no notice of nay neither knew nor understood any thing of them in the sense and termes wherin they are now proposed as a tessera of Communion among Christians In a word leave Christian Religion unto its primitive Liberty wherein it was beleived to be revealed of God and that Revelation of it to be contained in the Scripture which men searched and studied to become themselves and to teach others to be wise in the knowledg of God and living unto him and the most of the Contests that are in the world will quickly vanish and disappear But whilest every one hath a Confession a Way a Church and its Authority which must be imposed on all others or else he cryes to his nearest relations Lupis agnis quanta sortito obtigit Tecum mihi discordia est We may look for peace Moderation and Vnity when we are here no more and not sooner So that III. If those Theologicall Determinations that make up at this day amongst some men the greatest part of those Assertions Positions or Propositions which are called Articles of Faith or Truth which are not delivered in the words that the Spirit of God teacheth but in termes of Art and in Answer unto Rules and Notions which the world might happily without any great disadvantage been unacquainted withall unto this day had not Aristotle found them out or stumbled on them might be eliminated from the City of God and Communion of Christians and left for men to exercise their wits about who have nothing else to do and the Doctrine of Truth which is according unto Godliness left unto that Noble Heavenly Spirituall generous amplitude wherein it was delivered in the Scripture and beleived in the first Churches innumerable Causes of strife and Contentions would be taken away but ferri video meà gaudia ventis small hopes have I to see any such impression and consent to besall the minds of concerned men and yet I must confess I have not one jot more of the reuniting the Disciples of Christ in love and concord But most men that profess any thing of Divinity have learned it as an Art or humane Science out of the road compass and track where of they know nothing of the mind of God nay many scarce know the things in themselves and as they are to be believed which they are passing skilfull in as they are expressed in their arbitrary termes of Art which none almost understand but themselves And is it likely that such men who are not a few in the world will let go their skill and knowledge and with them their repntation and advantage and to sacrifice them all to the peace and agreement that we are seeking after Some learn their Divinity out of the late and Modern Schools both in the Reformed and Papall Church in both which a Science is proposed under that name consisting in a farrago of Credible Propositions asserted in termes suited unto that Philosophy that is variously predominant in them What a kind of Theology this hath praduced in the Papacy Agricola Erasmus Vives Jansenius with innumerable other Learned men of your own have sufficiently declared And that it hath any better success in the Reformed Churches many things which I shall not now instance in give me cause to doubt Some boast themselves to learn their Divinity from the Fathers and say they depart not from their sense and idiome of expression in what they beleive and profess But we find by experience that what for want of wisedom and judgement in themselves what for such reasons taken from the writings which they make their Oracles which I shall not insist upon much of the Divinity of some of these men consists in that which to avoid provocation I shall not express Whilest men are thus preing aged it will be very hard to prevail with them to think that the greatest part of their Divinity is such that Christian Religion either as to the matter or at least as to that mode wherein alone they have imbibed it is little or not at all concerned in nor will it be easie to perswade them that it is a Mystery layed up in the Scripture and all true Divinity a Wisedom in the Knowledg of that Mystery and skill to live unto God accordingly without which as I said before we shall have no Peace or agreement in this world Nobis curiositate opus non est post Jesum Christum nec inquisitione post Evangelium sayes Tertullian Curiosity after the Doctrine of Christ and Philosophicall inquisitions in Religion after the Gospel belongs not unto us As we are IV. It were well if Christians would but seriously consider what and how many things they are wherein their present Apprehensions of the mind and will of God do center and agree I mean as to the substance of them their nature and importance and how far they will lead men in the wayes of pleasing God and coming to the enjoyment of him Were not an endeavour to this purpose impeded by many mens importunate cryes of all or none as good nothing at all as not every thing and that in this or that way mode or fashion it might not a litlle conduce to the Peaâ—e of Christendom And I must acknowledg unto you that I think it is prejudice Carnall interest love of Power and present enjoyments with other Secular Advantages joyned with Pride Self-will and contempt of others that keep the professours of Christianity from conspiring to improve this Consideration But God help us we are all for Partyes and our own exact being in the right and therein
the first news of Christianity be once rejected as they are now amongst us as Romish or Romanical and that rejection or Reformation be permitted then may other parts and all parts if the gap be not stopped be looked upon at length as points of no better a condition I have given you sundry instances already undeniably evincing that some opinions of them who first bring the news of Christian Religion unto any may be afterwards rejected without the least impeachment of the Truth of the whole or of our faith therein Yea men may be necessitated so to reject them to keep entire the Truth of the whole But the rejection supposed is of mens opinions that bring Christian Religion and not of any parts of Christian Religion it self For the mistakes of any men whatever whither in Speculation or Practice about Religion are no parts of Religion much less substantial parts of it Such was the Opinion of the necessity of the observation of Mosaical Rites taught with a suitable practice by many believers of the Circumcision who first preached the Gospel in sundry places in the world And such were the Rites and Opinions brought into England by Austin that are rejected by Protestants if any such there were which as yet you have not made to appear There is no such affinity between Truth and Errour however any men may endeavour to blend them together but that others may separate between them and â—eject the one without any prejudice unto the other male sartâ— gratia nequaquam coit Yea the Truth and Light of the Gospel is of that nature as that if it be once sincerely received in the mind and embraced it will work out all those false notions which by any means together with it may be instilled As rectum is index sui obliqui Whilest then we know and are perswaded that in any Systeme of Religion which is proposed unto us it is only error which we reject having an infallible Rule for the guidance of our judgement therein there is no danger of weakning our assent unto the Truth which we retain Truth and falshood can never stand upon the same bottom nor have the same evidence though they may be proposed at the same time unto us and by the same Persons So that there is no difficulty in apprehending how the one may be received and the other rejected Nor may it be granted though their concernment lye not therein at all that if a man reject or disbelieve any point of Truth that is delivered unto him in an entire Systeme of Truths that he is thereby made enclinable to reject the rest also or disenabled to give a firm assent unto them unless he reject or disbelieve it upon a notion that is common to them all For instance He that rejects any Truth revealed in the Scripture on this ground that the Scripture is not an infallible Revelation of Divine and supernatural Truth cannot but in the persuit of that apprehension of his reject also all other Truths there in revealed at least so far as they are knowable only by that Revelation But he that shall disbelieve any Truth revealed in the Scripture because it is not manifest unto him to be so revealed and is in a readiness to receive it when it shall be so manifest upon the Authority of the Author of the wholâ—â— is not in the least danger to be induced by that disbelief to question any thing of that which he is convinced so to be revealed But as I said your Concernment lyes not therein who are not able to prove thâ—â— Protestants have rejected any one part much less substantial part of Religion and your conclusion upon a supposition of the rejection of errours and practises of the contrary to the Gospel or principles of Religion is very infirm The ground of all your Sophistry lyes in this that men who receive Christian Religion are bound to resolve their saith into the Authority of them that preach it first unto them whereupon it being impossible for them to question any thing they teach without an impeachment of their absolute Infallibility and so far the Authority which they are to rest upon they have no firm foundation left for their assent unto the things which as yet they do not question and consequently in process of time may easily be induced so to do But this presumption is perfectly destructive to all the certainty of Christian Religion For whereas it proposeth the subject matter of it to be believed with divine faith and supernatural it leaves no formal reason or cause of any such faith no foundation for it to be parts of it Such was the Opinion of the necessity of the observation of Mosaical Rites taught with a suitable practice by many believers of the Circumcision who first preached the Gospel in sundry places in the world And such were the Rites and Opinions brought into England by Austin that are rejected by Protestants if any such there were which as yet you have not made to appear There is no such affinity between Truth and Errour however any men may endeavour to blend them together but that others may separate between them and reject the one without any prejudice unto the other male sarta gratia nequaquam coit Yea the Truth and Light of the Gospel is of that nature as that if it be once sincerely received in the mind and embraced it will work out all those false notions which by any means together with it may be instilled As rectum is index sui obliqui Whilest then we know and are perswaded that in any Systeme of Religion which is proposed unto us it is only error which we reject having an infallible Rule for the guidance of our judgement therein there is no danger of weakning our assent unto the Truth which we retain Truth and falshood can never stand upon the same bottom nor have the same evidence though they may be proposed at the same time unto us and by the same Persons So that there is no difficulty in apprehending how the one may be received and the other rejected Nor may it be granted though their concernment lye not therein at all that if a man reject or disbelieve any point of Truth that is delivered unto him in an entire Systeme of Truths that he is thereby made enclinable to reject the rest also or disenabled to give a firm assent unto them unless he reject or disbelieve it upon a notion that is common to them all For instance He that rejects any Truth revealed in the Scripture on this ground that the Scripture is not an infallible Revelation of Divine and supernatural Truth cannot but in the persuit of that apprehension of his reject also all other Truths therein revealed at least so far as they are knowable only by that Revelation But he that shall disbelieve any Truth revealed in the Scripture because it is not manifest unto him to be so revealed and is in a
Scriptures could be of no more Authority then Aesops Fables were they not confirmed by the Testimony of your Church we are informed by one Brentius and we believe the information to be true because the saying is defended by Hosius de Authoritat Script Lib. 3. who adds unto it of his own Revera nisi nos Authoritas Ecclesiae doceret hanc scripturam esse Canoncam perexiguum apud nos pondus haberet the truth is if the Authority of the Church did not teach us that this Scripeure is Canomical it would be of very light weight unto us Such Cordial respects do you bear unto it And the forementioned Andradius Defens Con. Trid. Lib. 2. to the same purpose Neque enim in ipsis libris quibus sacra mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam in est Divinitatis quae nos ad credendum quae in illis continentur religione aliqua constring at sed Ecclesiae quae codices illos sacros esse docet antiquorum Patrum fidem pietatem commendat tanta inest vis amplitudo ut illis nemo sine gravissimâ impietatis nota possit repugnare neither is there in those books wherein the Divine Mysteries are written any thing or any character of Divinity or divine original which should on a religious account oblige us to believe the things that are contained in them But yet such is the force and Authority of the Church which teacheth thâ—se books to be sacred and commendeth the faith and piety of the Antient fathers that no man can oppose them without a grievous mark of impiety How by what means from whom should we learn the sense of your Church if not from your Council of Trent and such mighty Champions of it Do you think it equitable that we should listen to suggestions of every obscure Frier and entertain thoughts from them about the sense of your Church contrary to the plain assertion of your Councils and and great Rabbies And if this be the respect that in Catholick Countries is given to the Scripture I hope you will not find may of your Countrymen rivals with them therein It is all but Hayle and Crâ—cifie We respect the Scriptures but there is another part of Gods word besides them we respect the Scriptures but Traditions contain more of the Doctrine of Truth we respect the Scriptures but think it not meet that Christians be suffered to read them we respect the Scripture but do not think that it hath any character in it of its own Divine original for which we should believe it we respect the Scripture but yet we would not believe were it not commended unto us by our Church we respect the Scripture but it is dark obscure not intelligible but by the interpretation of our Church Pray Sir keep your respects at home they are despised by the Scripture it self which gives Testimony unto its own Authority Perfection Sufficiency to guide us to God Perspicuity and Certainty without any respect unto your Church or its Authority And we know its Testimony to be true And for our parts we fear that whilest these Joabs kisses of respect are upon your lips you have a sword in your right hands to let out all the Vitals of Divine Truth and Religion Do you think your general expressions of respect and that unto admiration are a covering long and broad enough to hide all this contempt and reproach that you continually poure upon the Scriptures Deal thus with your Ruler and see whether he will accept your Person Give him some good words in general but let your particular expressions of your esteem of him come short of what his state and regal dignity do require will it be well taken at your hands Expressions of the same nature with these instanced in might be collected out of your chiefest Authors sufficient to fill a volume and yet I never read nor heard that any of them were ever stoned in your Catholick Countreys whatever you intimate of the boyling up of your zeal into a rage against those that should go about to diminish it Indeed whatever you pretend this is your faith about the Scripture and therefore I desire that you would accept of this account why I cannot comply with your wish and not speak any more of Papists slighting the Scripture seeing I know they do so in the sense and way by me expressed and other wayes I never said they did so From the account of your Faith we may proceed to your Charity wherewith you close this Discourse Speaking of your Roman Catholicks you say the Scripture is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who will one day plead their Cause What do you mean Sir by theirs Do you intend it exclusively to all others so theirs as not to be the right and portion of any other It is evident that this is your sense not only because unless it be so the words have neither sense nor emphasis in them but also because suitably unto this sense you elsewhere declare that the Roman and the Catholick Church are with you one and the same This is your Charity fit to accompany and to be the fruit of the faith before discoursed of This is your Chatholicism the impaling of Christ Scripture the Church and consequently all acceptable Religion to the Roman Party and Faction down right Donatism the wretchedest Schism that ever rent the Church of God which makes the wounds of Christendome incurable and all hope of coalition in Love desperate Saint Paul directing one of his Epistles unto all that in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that no countenance from that expression of our Lord Jesus Christ might be given unto any surmize of his appropriating unto himself and those with him a peculiar interest in Jusus Christ he adds immediately both their Lord and ours the Lord of all that in every place call upon his name 1 Cor. 1. This was the old Catholicism which the new hath as much affinity unto as darkness hath to light and not one jot more The Scripture is ours and Christ is ours and what have any else to do with them what though in other places you call on the name of Jesus Christ yet he is our Lord not yours This I say is that wretched Schism which cloathed with the name of Catholicism which after it had slain it robbed of its name and garments the world for some ages hath groaned under and is like to do so whilst it is supported by so many secular advantages and interests as are subservient unto it at this day CHAP. 14. Of Reason Jews objections against Christ. PAg. 27. You proceed to vindicate your unreasonable Paragraph about Reason or rather against it What reason we are to expect in a dispute against the use of Reason in and about the things which are the highest and most proper object of it is easie for any one to imagine For by Reason in Religion we understand not meerly the Raâ—ocination
then some of them have been If this be to blaspheme then some of your own Councils all your Historians many of the most learned men of your Church are notorious blasphemers But you wilfully mistake and begg that their Schismatical Papal faction may be esteemed the innocent Catholick Church of Christ without a Concession whereof your inferences and perswasions are very weak and feeble Of the like nature unto this is your ensuing discourse about the Contradictions which you fancied in your Fiat Lux to be imposed on Papists pag. 77. Two things you insist upon waving those that you had formerly mentioned as finding them in their examination unable to yield you the advantage you thought to make of them you feign a new contradiction which you say is imposed on Papists For say you while our Kings reign in peace then the Papist Religion is persecuted as contrary to Monarchy when we have destroyed that Government then is the Papist harrassed spoyled pillaged murdered because their Religion is wholly addicted unto Monarchy and Papists are all for Kings These are Contradictions is there not somewhat of the power of darkness in this But you again mistake and that I fear because you will do so There was no Persecution of Papists in this Land at any time but what was in persuit of some Laws that were made against them Now not one of those Laws intimate any such thing as that they were opposite unto Monarchy but rather their design to promote a double Monarchy on different accounts in this Nation the one of the Pope and the other of him to whom the Kingdom was given by the Pope and who for many years in vain attempted to possess himself of it And on that account were you charged with an opposition to our Monarchs but not unto Monarchy it self And yet I must say that if what hath been before discoursed of your faith and perswasion concerning the Papal Soveraignty be well considered it will be found that if not your Religion yet the Principles of some of the chief Professors of it do carry in their womb a great impeachment of Imperial Power Nor can I gather that in the times of our Confusion you suffered as Papists for your friendship and love to Monarchy whatever some individual Persons amongst you might do Seeing some of you would have been contented with its everlasting Seclusion so that your interest in the land might have been secured And whether your Popes themselves be not of that mind I leave to all men to judge who know how much they are wont to preferr their own interest before the rights of other men In the mean time you may take notice that whilest men are owned to persue one certain End they may at several times fix on mediums for the compassing of it opposite and contrary one to another Haec non successit alia aggrediamur via when one way fails another quite contrary unto it may be fixed on And whilest it is supposed that their end is the promotion of the Papal Interest it is not improbable but that at several times you may make use of several wayes and means opposite and contrary one to another and that this may be imputed unto you without the charge of Contradictions upon you But you may if you please omit discourses of this nature I am none of those that would charge any thing upon you to your disadvantage in this world Neither do I desire your trouble any more then mine own My aim is only to defend the Truth which you oppose Your next attempt is to vindicate your self from any such intention in your application of ejice ancillam cum puero suo as I apprehended Whither what you say to this purpose will satisfie your Reader or no I greatly question For my part as I shall speak nothing but what I believe to be according unto truth so if I am or have been at any time mistaken in my apprehension of your sense and mind I am resolved not to defend any thing because I have spoken it Homo sum and therefore subject to mistakes though I am not in the least convinced that I was actually mistaken in my conceptions of your sense and meaning in your Fiat But that we may not needlesly contend about words yours or mine I shall put you into a way whereby you may immediately determine this difference and manifest that I mistook your intention if I did so indeed And it is this Do but renounce those Principles which if you maintain you constantly affirm all that in those words I supposed you to intimate and this strife will be at an end And they are but these two 1. That all those who refuse to believe and worship God according to the Propositions and Determinations of your Church are Hereticks 2. That obstinate Hereticks are to be accursed persecuted destroyed and consumed out of the world Do but renounce these Principles and I shall readily acknowledge my self mistaken in the intention of the words you mention If you will not so do to what purpose is it to contend with you about one single expression ambiguously as you pretend used by you when in your avowed Principles you maintain whatever is suggested to be intimated in it Thus easily might you have saved your longsome discourse in this matter And as for the embleme which you close it with of the Rod of Moses which as you say taken in the right end was a walking staff in the wrong a Serpent it is such a childish figment as you have no cause to thank them that imposed it upon your credulity CHAP. 19. Of preaching the Mass And the Sacrifice of it Transubstantiation Service of the Church WE are arrived at length unto the Consideration of those particulars in your Roman faith which in your Fiat you chose out either to adorn and set off the way in Religion which you invite your Countreymen to embrace or so to gild it as that they may not take any prejudice from them against the whole of what you profess The first of these is that which you entituled Messach which you now inform us to be a Saxon word the same with Mass. But why you make use of such an absolete word to amuze your Readers withal you give us no account Will you give me leave to guess for if I mistake not I am not far from your fancy Plain downright Mass is a thing that hath gotten a very ill name amongst your Countreymen especially since so many of their forefathers were burned to death for refusing to resort unto it Hence it may be you thought meet to wave that name which both the thing known to be signified by it in its own nature and your procedure about it had rendred obnoxious to suspicion So you call it by a new old name or an old new name that men might not at first know what you intended upon your invitation to entertain them withal and yet it may be
Assemblies would not drop one word of any indignity shewed to any of their sacred images when they pass not by their wrath against their houses goods and cattel Such things are fond to imagine 2. Many of the Antients do note it as an abomination in some of the first Hereticks that they had introduced the use of Images into their worship with the adoration of them Theodoret. haeret sub lib. 1. tells us that Simon Magus gave his own image and that of Selene to be worshistped by his followers And Iraeneus Lib. 1. cap. 23. that the followers of Basilides used images and invocations and cap. 24. that the Gnosticks had images both painted ones and carved and that of Christ which they said was made originally by Pontius Pilate and this they adored And so doth Epiphanius also Tom. 2. lib. 1. Haer. 27. Carpocrates procured the images of Christ and Paul to be made and adored them and the like is recorded of others Now do you think they would have observed and reproved this practice as an abomination in the haereticks if there had been any thing in the Churches usage that might give countenance thereunto or at least that they would not have distinguished between that abuse of images which they condemned in the hereticks and that use which was retained and approved among themselves But they are utterly silent as unto any such matter contenting themselves to report and reprove the superstition and idolatry of the Hereticks in their Adoration of them But this is not all 3. They positively deny that they had any images or made any use of them and defend themselves against the charge of the Pagans against them for professing an imageless Religion Clemen Alexand. Strom Lib. 6. plainly and openly confesseth and testifieth that Christians had no Images in the world And in his Adhortat ad Gent. he positively asserts that the arts of Painting and Carving as to any religious use were forbidden to Christians and that in the worship of God they had no sensible image made of any sensible matter because they worshipped God with understanding What was the judgement of Tertullian is known from his book de Idololatria from whence if we should transcribe what is argumentative against image worship very little would be remaining But of all the Antients Origen doth most clearly manifest what was the doctrine and practice of the Church of God in his dayes as in other places so in his seventh book against Celsus he directly handles this matter Celsus charged the Christians that they made use of no images in the worship of God telling them that therein they were like the Persians Scythians Numidans and Seres all which impious nations hated all images as the Turks do at this day To which discourse of his Origen returning answer grants that the Christians had no images in their sacred worship no more then had the Barbarous nations mentioned by Celsus but withall adds the difference that was between those and these and tells you that their abstinence from Image worship was on various accounts And after he hath shewed wherefore those Nations received them not he adds that Christians and Jews abstained from all sacred use of Images because of Gods command Thou shalt fear as he reads the text the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve and thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath and adds that they were so far from praying to the images as the Pagans did that saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing expresly commanded in the Nicene Conventicle we do not give any honour at all to Images least we should give countenance to the error of ignorant people that there were somewhat of Divinity in them with very much more to the same purpose expresly condemning all the use of Images in the worship of God and openly testifying that there was no such usage among the Christians in those dayes heard of in the world Arnobius or Minutius Faelix acknowledgeth the same Cruces nec colimus nec optamus we do no more worship Crosses then desire them and grants that Christians had nulla note simulachra because no image could be made to or of him whom alone they worshipped What was the judgement of the Elibertine Council I have before told you Lactantius in his Institut ad Constant. lib. 2. by an happy anticipation answers all the arguments that you use to this day in defence of your image worship and concludes peremptorily that where there are any Images there is no Religion shewing how perverse a thing it is that the image of a dead man should be worshipped by a living image of God The time would fail me to relate the words of Eusebius Athanasius Hilarius Ambrosius Cyrillus Chrysostome Epiphanius Hierom Austin and others to the same purpose I cannot but think that it is fully evident to any one that consults antiquity that the image use and worship which is become the Tessera of your Church Communion by your espousing the Canons and Determinations of the second Nycene Synod was in part utterly unknown unto and in part expresly condemned by the whole Primitive Church for 600. years after Christ and that you have plainly by your Tridentine decree and Nicene Anathematismes cut off your selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church of Christ and all particular Assemblies that worship him in sincerity for the space of some hundreds of years in the world Thus things went in the Church of God before your Nicene Convention How did they succeed afterwards did image worship presently prevail upon their determinations or was that then the faith of the generality of the Church of Christ which was declared by the fathers of that Convention nothing less no sooner was the rumor of this horrible innovation in Christian Religion spread abroad in the world but that upon it there was a full assembly of 300. Bishops of the Western Provinces assembled at Franckeford in Germany wherein the superstition and folly of the Nicene Assembly was layed open their Arguments confuted their determinations rejected and image worship absolutely condemned as forbidden by the word of God and contrary to the Antient constant known practice of the whole Church of God And now Sir as I said you may begin to see what you have to do if you intend to speak any thing to the purpose concerning your figures and Images You must take the Decree of your Council of Trent and the Nicene Canons therein confirmed and prove confirm and vindicate them from the opposition made to them by Tertullian Arnobius Origen Lactantius the Synod of Franckeford and others of the Antients innumerable by whom they are rejected and condemned and yet when you have done so if you are able so to do your work is not one quarter at an end You can make nothing of this business untill you have confuted or burned the
antient Church-Fathers and Councils Imposing Rites unnecessary Persecution for Conscience Papal Supremacy The Branches of it Papal Personal Infallibility Religious Veneration of Images p. 48 CHAP. 5. The Principles of Fiat Lux re-examined Things not at quiet in Religion before Reformation of the first Reformers Departure from Rome no Cause of Divisions Returnal unto Rome no means of Vnion p. 89 CHAP. 6. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of the Animadversions Scripture sufficient to settle men in the Truth Instance against it examined removed Principles of Protestants and Romanists in reference unto Moderation compared and discussed p. 99 CHAP. 7. Vnity of Faith wherein consists Principles of Protestants as to the setling men in Religion and Vnity of Faith proposed and confâ—rmed p. 121 CHAP. 8. Principles of Papists whereon they proceed in bringing men to a setlement in Religion and the Vnity of Faith examined p. 161 CHAP. 9. Proposals from Protestant Principles tending unto Moderation and Vnity p. 204 CHAP. 10. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of the Animadversions The remaining Principles of Fiat Lux considered p. 301 CHAP. 11. Judicious Readers Schoolmen the Forgers of Popery 〈…〉 Discourse in Fiat Lux. p. 308 CHAP. 12. False Suppositions causing false and absurd consequences Whence we had the Gospel in England and by whose means What is our Duty in reference unto them by whom we receive the Gospel p. 315 CHAP. 13. Faith and Charity of the Roman Catholicks p. 351 CHAP. 14. Of Reason Jews objections against Christ. p. 362 CHAP. 15. Pleas of Prelate Protestants Christ the only supream and absolute Head of the Church p. 370 CHAP. 16. The Power assigned by Papists and Protestants unto Kings in matters Ecclesiastical Their several Principles discussed and compared p. 398 CHAP. 17. Scripture Story of the Progress and declension of Religion vindicated Papal Artifices for the promotion of their Power and Interest Advantages made by them on the Western Empire p. 423 CHAP. 18. Reformation of Religion Papal contradictions Ejice ancillam p. 447 CHAP. 19. Of preaching the Mass And the Sacrifice of it Transubstantiation Service of the Church p. 452 CHAP. 20. Of the Blessed Virgin p. 47â— CHAP. 21. Images Doctrine of the Council of Trent Oâ— the second Nicene The Arguments for the Adoâ—ration of Images Dctrine of the antient Church Of the chief Doctrine of the Roman Church Practice of the while Vain foundations of the pretences for Image Worship examined and reproved p. 477 CHAP. 22. Of the Latine Service p. 526 CHAP. 23. Communion p. 558. CHAP. 24. Heroes Of the Asses Head whose worship was objected to Jews and Christians p. 559 ERRATA PAge 2. l. 13. r. caeterarum p. 3. l. 23. r. advantage p. 4. l. 1. r. ultio l. 2. r. uocens p. 5. l. 16. r. up p. 7. l. 5. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 11. l. 1. r Crescens p. 12. l. 16. r. you have neither p. 15. l. 1. r. pleadable p. 16. l. 11. r. â—v l. 29 r. parcas p. 67. l. 22. r. that p. 69 l. 5. r. what p. 71. l. 26. r. revengeth p. 75. l. 15. r. tumbled p. 76. l. 22. r. Lybya p 77. l. 24. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 82 l. 10. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 84. l. 1. r. pseudopigraphall p. 85. l. 30 r. Tharasius p. 87. l. 12. r. Demetriad l. 31 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 91 l. â— r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 105 l. 32. r. from p. 106. l. 27. l. feat l 34. after that add they p. 117 l. 33. r. indispeasible p. â—19 l. 9. r. Bogomilus p. 127. l. 5. r. infallibly p. 132. l. 14. r. the p. 139. l 28. r. produce p. 144 l. 6. r. gencri l. 32. r. utique p. 145. l. 34. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 152. l. 8. dele it p. 335. l 7. r. retritius p. 337 l 4. r. suprstitious p. 343. l. 14. r. ipse p. 353. l. 1. r. quoi p. 355. l. 8. r. your Church p 357. l. 31. r. homines p. 359. l. 3 r. Brentius p. 375. l. 3. r. your p. 383. l. 13. r. the Church l. 14. r. affect it p. 389. l. 29. r. preside p. 393. l. 14. r. to p. 396. l. 12. r. preside p. 410. l. 24. r. whereas p. 417. l. 32. r. Panoruitanus p. 419. l. 16. r. with p. 420. l. 7 r. He l. 8. r. the p 439. l. 8. r. with p. 441. l. 22. r. nor p 455. l. 16. add part corr In divers places the Copy was mistaken the Church is Printed instead of our Church the intelligent Reader may easily see the mistake and do the Author right therein A Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux. CHAP. I. SIR I Have received your Epistle and therein your excuse for your long silence which I willingly admit of and could have been contented it had been longer so that you had been advantaged thereby to have spoken any thing more to the purpose than I find you have now done Sat citò si sat benè Things of this nature are alwayes done soon enough when they are done well enough or as well as they are capeable of being done But it is no small disappointment to find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fruitless flourish of words where a serious debate of an important cause was expected and looked for Nor is it a justification of any man when he has done a thing amiss to say he did it speedily if he were no way necessitated so to do You are engaged in a Cause unto whose tolerable defence opus est Zephyris hirundine multa though you cannot pretend so short a time to be used in it which will not by many be esteemed more than it deserves for all time and pains taken to give countenance to errour is undoubtedly mispent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the great Apostle We can do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth which Rule had you observed you might have spared your whole time and labour in this business However I shall be glad to find that you have given me just cause to believe what you say of your not seeing the Animadversions on your Bock before February As I find you observant of Truth in your Progress or failing therein so shall I judg of your veracity in this unlikely story for every man gives the best measure of himself And though I cannot see how possibly a man could spend much time in trussing up such a fardle of trifles and quibbles as your Epistle is yet it is somewhat strange on the other side that you should not in eight moneths space for so long were the Animadversions made publick before February set eye on that which being your own especiall concernment was to my knowledg in the hands of many of your party To dial friendly with you nolim caeterarum rerum te socordem codem modo Yea I doubt not but you use more diligence in your other affairs
somewhat frequent in the supposall of unto your Advantage and thereon would perswade them unto a relinquishment of Protistancy and embracement of Popery which is the end of your Book and will be thought so if you should deny it a thousand times For quid ego verba audiam facta cum video your Protcstation comes too late when the fact hath declared your mind neither are you now at liberty to coyn new designes for your Fiat But this must be my mistake which no man in his wits could possibly fall into neither is it an evidence of any great sobriety to impure it to any man whom we know not certainly to be distracted But this mistake you tell me caused me to judge and censure what you wrote as impertinent impious frivolous c. No such matter my right apprehension of your hypothesis End or Designe occasioned me to shew that your discourses were incompetent to prevail with rationall and sober Persons to comply with your desires You proceed to the same purpose pag. 15. and to manifest my mistake of your designe give an account of it and tell us that one thing you suppose namely that we are at difference So did I also and am not therefore yet fallen upon the discovery of my mistake 2. You commend Peace I acknowledge you do and joyn with you therein neither is he worthy the name of a Christian who is otherwise minded that is one great Legacy that Christ bequeathed unto his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you And he is no Disciple of Christ who doth not long for it among all his Disciples This you tell us is the whole summe of Fiat Lux in few words You will tell us otherwise immediately and if you should not yet we should find it otherwise You adde therefore that to introduce a disposition unto peace you made it your work to demonstrate the useleslness endlesness and unprofitableness of Quarrels yet my mistake appears not I perceived you did speak to this purpose and I acknowledge with you that Quarrels about Religion are useless and unprofitable any otherwise than as we are bound to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the Saints and to stand fast in our Liberty not giving place to seducers with labouring by sound doctrine to convince and stop the mouthes of gainsayers all which are made necessary unto us by the commands of Christ and are not to be called quarreling And I know that our Quarrels are not yet actually ended that they are endless I believe not but hope the contrary You proceed and grant that you labour to perswade your Countreymen of an Impossibility of ever bringing our debates unto a conclusion either by Light or Spirit or Reason or Scripture so long as we stand separated from any superiour Judicative Power unto which all Parties will submit and therefore that it is rationall and Christian like to leave these endless contentions and resigne our selves to humility and peace This matter will now quickly be ended and that ex ore tuo give me leave I pray to ask you one or two plain Questions 1. Whom do you understand by that Superiour Judicative Power unto whom you perswade all Parties to submit Have you not told us in your Fiat that it is the Church or Pope of Rome or will you deny that to be your intention 2. What do you intend by resigning our selves to humility and Peace Do you not ayme at our quiet submission to the determinations of the Church or Pope in all matters of Religion Have you not declared your self unto this purpose in your Fiat And I desire a little further to know of you whither this be not that which formally constitutes a man a member of your Church that he own the Judicative Power of the Pope or your Church in all matters of Religion and submit himself thereunto If these things be so as you cannot deny them I hope I shall easily obtain your pardon for Affirming that you your self believed the same to be the design of your Book which I and other men apprehended to be so for here you directly avow it If you complain any more about this matter pray let it be in the words of him in the Comoedian Egomet meo judicio miser quasi sorex hodie perii This inconvenience you have brought upon your own self Neither can any man long avoid such misadventures who designs to cloud his aymes which yet cannot take effect if not in some measure understood Naked Truth mannaged in sincerity whatever perplexities it may meet withall witâ— never leave his owners in the bryars whereas the Serpentine turnings of Errour and falshood to extricate themselves do but the more entangle their Promoters I doubt not buâ— you hope well that when all are become Papiliâ— again that they shall live at peace though your â—ope be very groundless as I have elswhere demonsirated You have at best but the shadow or shell of peace and for the most part not that neither Yea it may be easily shewed that the peace you boast of is inconsistent with and destructive of that peace which is left by Christ unto his Disciples But the way you propose to bring us to Peace is the embracement of Popery which is that that was fixed on by me as the design of your Book which now acknowledging you have disarmed your self of that imaginary advantage which you flourish withall from a Capitall Mistake as you call it in me in misapprehending your design You were told before that if by Moderation and Peace you intended a mutuall for bearance of one another in our severall perswasions waiting patiently untill God shall reveal unto us the precise Truth in the things about which we differ you shall have all the furtherance that I can contribute unto you but you have another aim another work in hand and will not allow that any Peace is attainable amongst us but by a resignation of all our Apprehensions in matters of Religion to the guidance determination and decision of the Pope or your Church a way no where prescribed unto us in holy Writ nor in the Councels of the Primitive Church and besides against all Reason Law and Equity your Pope and Church in our Contests being one Party litigant yet in this perswasion you say you should abide were there no other persons in the world but your self that did embrace it And to let you see how unlikely that Principle is to produce Peace and Agreement amongst those multitudes that are at variance about these things I can assure you that if there were none lest alive in the Earth but you and I we should not agree in this thing one jot better than did Cain and Abel about the Sacrifices though I should desire you that we might manage our differences with more moderation than he did who by vertue of his Primogeniture seemed to
lay a speciall claim to the Priesthood And indeed for your part if your present perswasion be as you sometimes pretend it to be that your Fiat Lux is not a perswasive unto Popery you have given a sufficient testimony that you can be of an opinion that no man else in the world is of nor will be do what you can But the insufficiency of your Principles and Arguments to accomplish your design hath been in part already evinced and shall God willing in our progress be further made manifest This is the summe of what appears in the first part of your prefatory discourse concerning my mistake of your design which how little it hath tended unto your advantage I hope you being to understand Your next labour consists in a pacifick charitable Enquiry after the Author of the Animadversions with an endeavour by I know not how many Reasons to confirm your surmize that he is a Person that had an interest in the late troubles in the Nation or as you phrase it was a part of that dismall tempest which overbore all before it not only Church and State but Riâ—son Right Honesty all true Religion and even good Nature too See what despair of managing an undertaking which cannot well be deserted will drive men unto Are you not sensible that you cry Vos ô miht manes Este boni quoniam Superis aversa voluntas Or like the Jews who when they were convinced of their errours and wickedness by our Saviour began to call him Samaritane and Devil and to take up stones to cast at him Or as Crescens the Cynick dealt with Justin Martyr whom because he could not answer after he had engaged in a dispute with him he laboured to bring him into suspition with the Emperour and Senate of Rome as a person dangerous to the Commonwealth And so also the Arians dealt with Athanasius It were easie to manifest that the spring of all this discourse of yours is smart and not Loyalty and that it proceeds from a sense of your own disappointment and not zeal for the welfare of others but how little it is to your purpose I shall shew you anon and could quickly render it as little to your advantage For what if I should furmize that you were one of the Friers that stirred up the Irish to their rebellion and unparralleld murthers Assure your self I can quickly give as many and as probable Reasons for my so doing as you have given or can give for your conjecture about the Author of the Animadversions on your Fiat Lux. You little think how much it concerns him to look to himself who undertakes to accuse another and how easie it were to make you repent your accusation as much as ever Crassus did his accusing of Carbo But I was in good hope you would have left such reflections as are capable of so easie a retortion upon your self especially being irregular and no way subservient unto your design and being warned beforehand so to do Who could imagine that a man of so much piety and mortification as in your Fiat you profess your self to be should have so little regard unto common honesty and civillity which are shrewdly entrenched upon by such uncharitable surmizes I suppose you know that the Apostle reckons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereof you have undertaken the management of one amongst the things that are contrary to the Doctrine that is according unto godliness otherwise suspicion is in your own power nor can any man hinder you from surmizing what you please This he knew in Plautus who cryed Ne admittam culpam ego meo sum promus pectori Suspicio est in pectore alieno sita Nam nune ego te si surripnisse suspicer Jovi coronam de capite è Capitolio Quod in culmine astat summo si non id feceris Atque id tamen mihi lubeat suspicarier Qui tu id prohibere me potes ne suspicer And I know that concerning all your dispute and arguings in these Pages you may say what Lucian doth about his true Story 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You write about the things which have neither been seen nor suffered heard nor much enquired after such is the force of faction and sweetness of revenge in carnall minds To deliver you if it may be from the like miscarriages for the future let me inform you that the Author of the Animadversions is a Person who never had a hand in nor gave consent unto the raising of any War in these Nations nor unto any politicall alteration in them no nor to any one that was amongst us during our Revolutions but he acknowledgeth that he lived and acted under then the things wherein he thought his duty consisted and challengeth all men to charge him with doing the least personall injury unto any professing himself ready to give satisfaction to any one that can justly claim it Therefore as unto the publick affairs in this Nation he is amongst them who bless God and the King for the Act of Oblivion and that because he supposeth that all the Inhabitants of the Kingdome which lived in it when his Majesty was driven out of it have cause so to do which some Priests and Friers have and that in reference unto such actings as he would scorn for the saving of his life to give the least countenance unto among whom it is not unlikely that you might be one which yet he will not averre nor give Reasons to prove it because he doth not know it so to be But you have sundry Reasons to justifie your self in your Charge and they are as well worthy our consideration as any thing else you have written in your Epistle and shall therefore not be neglected The first of them you thus express pag. 12. You cannot abide to hear of Moderation it is with you most wicked hypocriticall and divelish especially as it comes from me for this one thing Fiat Lux suffers more from you than for all the Contents of the Book put together My reason is your passion my moderation enftames your wrath and you are therefore stark wilde because I utter so much of sobriety This is your first Reason which you have exactly squared to the old Rule Calumniare fortiter aliquid adhaerebit Calumny will leave a scar would you were your self only concerned in these things But among the many wofull miscarriages of men prosessing the Religion of Jesus Christ whereby the beauty and glory of it have been stained in the world and it self in a great measure rendred ineffectuall unto its blessed ends there is not any thing of more sad consideration than the endeavours of men to promote and propagate the things which they suppose belong unto it by wayes and means directly contrary unto and destructive of its most known and fundamentall Principles For when it is once observed and manifest that the actings of men in the promotion of any Religion are forbidden and condemned in that Religion which
God may be acceptably worshipped and themselves saved And why may I not plead the Cause of Protestancy against that imputation of demeric which you heap upon it Neither would I be thought to be any thing in Religion but what I am Neither have I any sentiments therein but what I profess But it may be you will say in some things I differ from other Protestants wisely observed and if from thence you can conclude a man unqualified for the defency of Protestancy you have secured your self from opposition seeing every Protestant doth so and must do so whilest there are differences amongst Protestants But they are in things wherein their Protestancy is not concerned And may I be so bold as to ask you how the case in this instance stands with your self who certainly would have your competency for the defence of your Church unquestionable Differences there are amongst you and that as in and about other things so also about the Pope himself the head and spring of the Religion you profess Some of you maintain his Personall Infallibility and that not only in matters of Faith but in matters of Fact also Others disclaim the former as highly erroneous and the latter as grosly blasphemous Pray what is your judgment in this matter for I suppose you are not of both these opinions at once and I am sure they are irreconcileable Some of you mount his Supremacy above a Generall Councill some would bring him into a Coordination with it and some subject him unto it though he hath almost carried the Cause by having store of Bishopricks to bestow whereas a Councill has none which was the Reason given of old for his prevalency in this Contest May we know what you think in this Case Some of you assert him to be de jure Lord of the whole world in Spirituals and Temporals absolutely some in Spirituals directly and in Temporals only in ordine ad Spiritualia an Abyss from whence you may draw out what you please and some of you in Temporals not at all and you have not as yet given us your thoughts as to this difference amongst you Some of you assert in him a Power of deposing Kings disposing of Kingdoms transferring Titles unto Dominion and Rule for and upon such miscarriages as he shall judg to contein disobedience unto the Sea Apostolick Others love not to talk at this haughty rate neither do I know what is your judgment in this matter This as I said before I am sure of you cannot be of all these various contradictory judgments at once Not to trouble you with Instances that might be multiplied of the like differences amongst you if notwithstanding your adherence unto one part of the Contradiction in them you judg your self a Competent Advocate for your Church in generall and do busily employ your self to win over Proselytes unto her communion have the patience to think that one who in some few things differs from some other Protestants is not wholly incapacitated thereby to repell an unjust charge against Protestancy in generall I have done with the two generall heads of your prefatory Discourse and shall now only mark one or two incident particulars that belong not unto them and then proceed to see if we can meet with any thing of more importance than what you have been pleased as yet to communicate unto us Pag. 5. Upon occasion of a passage in my discourse wherein upon misinformation I expressed some trouble that any young men should be entangled with the Rhetorick and Sophistry of your Fiat Lux you fall into an harangue not inferiour unto some others in your Epistle for that candour and ingenuity you give your self unto First You make a Plea for Gentlemen not once named in my Discourse That they must be allowed a sense of Religion as well as Ministers that they have the body though not the cloak of Religion and are masters of your own reason But do you consider with your self who it is that speaks these words and to whom you speak them Do you indeed desire that Gentlemen should have such a sense of Religion and make use of their reason in the choice of that which therein they adhere unto as you pretend Is this pretence consistent with your Plea in your Fiat Lux wherein you labour to reduce them to a naked fanaticall Credo Or is it your interest to court them with fine words though your intention be far otherwise But we in England like not such proceedings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing dislikes us more than dissimulation And to whom do you speak Did I doth any Protestant deny that Gentlemen may have Do we not say they ought to have their sense in Religion and their senses exercised therein Do we deny they ought to improve their reason in being conversant about it Are these the Principles of the Church of Rome or of that of England Do we not press them unto these things as their principall duty in this world Do we disallow or forbid them any means that may tend to their furtherance in the knowledge and profession of Religion Where is it that if they do but look upon a Bible Furiarummaxima juxta Accubat manibus prohibet contingere mentes The Inquisitor lays hold upon them and bids them be contented with a Rosary or our Ladies Psalter Do we hinder or disswade them from any Studies or the use of Books that may encrease their knowledge and improve their reason And hath not the Papacy felt the fruits and effects of these Principles in the writings of Kings Princes Noblemen and Gentlemen of all sorts And do not you your self know all this to be true And is it ingenuous to insist on contrary insinuations Or do you think that truly generous Spirits will stoop to so poor a lure But you proceed This is one difference between Catholick Countreys and ours that there the Clergy man is only regarded for his vertue and the power he hath received or is at least believed to have received from God in the great Ministery of our Reconciliation and if he have any addition of learning besides it is looked upon as a good accidentall ornament but not as any essentiall complement of his profession so that it often happens without any wonderment at all that the Gentleman-Patron is the learned man and the Priest his Chaplain of little or no science in comparison But here in England our Gentlemen are disparaged by their own black Coats and not suffered to use their judgement in any kind of learning without a gibe from them The Gentleman is reasonless and the scribling Cassock is the only Scholar he alone must speak all know all and only understand S r if your Clergy were respected only for their vertue they would not be over burthened with their honour unless they have much mended their manners since all the world publickly complained of their lewdness and which in many places the
English men received it first from thence Well then this is one Principle of the Ten this you own and seek to defend If you do so in reference unto any other what will become of your hardly one that you can own You have already one foot over the limits which you have newly prescribed your self and we shall find you utterly forsaking of them by and by For the present you proceed unto the defence of this Principle and say But against this you reply that we received it not first from Rome but by Joseph of Arimathea from Palestine as Fiat Lux himself acknowledgeth S r if Fiat Lux say both these things he cannot mean them in your false contradictory sense but in his own true one Wee that is wee Englishmen the now actuall inhabitants of this Land and progeny of the Saxons received first our Gospell and Christendome from Rome though the Brittans that inhabited the Land before differing as much from us as Antipodes had some of them been Christened long before us and yet the Christendome that prevailed and lasted among the Brittans even they also as well as we had it from Rome too mark this likewise This matrer must be called over again afterwards and therefore I shall here be the more brief upon it In my first Answer I shewed you not only that your position was not true but also that on supposition it were so it would not in the least advance your intention Here you acknowledg that the Brittans at first received not the Gospell from Rome but reply two things first that belongs not unto us Englishmen or Saxons To which I shall now only say that if because the Brittans have been conquered we who are now the inhabitants of Brittain may not be thought to have received the Gospell from them from whom the Brittans at first received it seeing it was never utterly extinct in Brittany from its first plantation then much less can the present inhabitants of the City of Rome which hath been conquered oftener than Brittain be thought to have received the Gospell from them by whom it was first delivered unto the old Romans For though I confess that the Saxons Jutes and Angles made great havock of the Antient Brittans in some parts of this Island yet was it not comparable unto that which was made at Rome which at length Totilas after it had been taken and sacked more than once before marching out of it against Belisarius left as desolate as a wilderness without one living soul to inhabit it Ipse Totilas cum suarum copiarum parte progreditur Romanos qui Senatorii erant ordinis secum trahens alia omni urbanorum multitudine vel virilis muliebrisque sexus puer is in Campaniae agres missis ita ut Romae nemo hominum restaret sed vasta ibi esset solitudo saith Procopius Hist Goth. l. 3. Concerning which action saith Sigonius de Imper. Occid lib. 19. Vrbs Roma incolis omnibus amotis prorsus est destituta memorandum inter pauca exempla humanae fortune ludibrium ac spectaculum ipsis etiam hostibus quanquam ab omni humanitate remotissimis miserandum The City of Rome all its Inhabitants being removed was wholly desolate an unparallel'd reproach of humane condition and a spectacle of pity to the very enemies though most remote from all humanity Tbe next inhabitants of it were a mixture of Greeks Tbracians and other Nations brought in by Belisarius You may go now and reproach the Brittans if you please with their being conquered by the Saxons in the mean time pray give me a reason why the present Inhabitants of England may not date their reception of Christianity from the first planting of it in this Island as well as you suppose the present Inhabitants of Rome may do theirs from the time wherein it was first preached unto the old Romans But you except again that the Christendom that prevailed and lasted among the Brittans before the coming of the Saxons came from Rome too you bid me mark that likewise I do consider what you say and desire you to prove it wherein yet I will not be very urgent because I will not put you upon impossibilities and your incompetency to give the least colour unto this Remarkable Assertion shall be discovered in our further progress For the present I shall only mind you that the Christianity which prevailed in Brittany was that which continued among the Brittans in Wales after the conquest of these parts of the Island by the Saxons and that that came not from Rome is manifest from the customes which they observed and insisted on differing from those of Rome and your refusall to admit those of that Church the story whereof you have in Beda lib. 2. cap. 2. I know it may be rationally replied that Rome might after the time of the first preaching of the Gospell in Brittain have invented many new customs which might be strange unto the Brittans at the coming of Austin for indeed so they had done but this exception will here take no place for the customes the Brittish Church adhered unto were such as having their Rise and occasion in the East were never admitted at Rome and so from thence could not be transmitted hither But there were also other Exceptions put in unto your Application of this Principle unto your purpose upon supposition that there were any Truth in the matter of Fact asserted by you For suppose that those who from beyond Sea first preached the Gospell to the Saxons came from Rome yea were sent by the Bishop or if you please the Pope of Rome I ask whether it was his Religion or the Religion of Jesus Christ that they brought with them Did the Pope first find it out or did they publish it in the name of the Pope You say It was the Popes Religion not invented but professed by him and from him derived unto us by his Missioners Well and what more for all this was before supposed in my enquiry and made the foundation of that which we sought further after I supposed the Pope professed the Religion which he sent and your Courtly expression derived unto us by his Missioners is but the same in sense and meaning with my homely phrase they that preached it were sent by him On this I enquire whether it were to be esteemed his Religion or no that is any more his than it is the Religion of every one that professeth it Or did those that were sent baptize in his name or teach us that the Pope was crucified for us You answer that he sent them to preach I see Nil opus est te Circumagi quendam volo visere non tibi notum you understand not what I enquire after but if that be all you have to say as it was before supposed so what matter is it I pray who planted and who watered it was the Religion of Christ that was preached and God that gave the encrease Christ
liveth still his Word abideth still but the planters and waterers are dead long ago Again What though we received the Gospell from Rome doth it therefore follow that we received all the Doctrines of the present Church of Rome at the same time Pope Gregory knew little of the present Romane Doctrine about the Pope of Rome What was broached of it he condemned in another even John of Constantinople who fasted for a kind of Popedome and professed himself an obedient servant to his good Lord the Emperour Many a good Doctrine hath been lost at Rome since those old dayes and many a new fancy broached and many a tradition of men taught for a doctrine of truth Hipolyte sic est Thesâ—i vultus amo Illos priores quos tulit quondam puer Quum prima puras barba signaret genas Et ora flavus tenera tingebat rubor We love the Church of Rome as it was in its purity and integrity in the dayes of her youth and chastity before she was deflowred by false worship but what is that to the present Roman carnall confederacy If then any in this Nation did receive their Religion from Rome as many of the Saxons had Christianity declared unto them by some sent from Rome for that purpose yet it doth not at all follow that they received the present Religion of Rome Hei mihi qualis quantum mutatur ab illa which of old she prosessed Multa dies variusque labor mutabilis aevi Rettulit in pejus And this sad alteration declension and change we may bewail in her as the Prophet did the like apostacy in the Church of the Jews of old How is the faithfull City become an harlot it was full of judgement righteousness lodged in it but now murderers thy silver is become dross thy wine mixt with water He admires that it should be so was not ignorant how it became so no more are others in reference unto your Apostacy And what if we had received from you or by your means the Religion that is now professed at Rome I mean the whole of it yet we might have received that with it namely the Bible which would have made it our duty to examine try and reject any thing in it for which we saw from thence just cause so to do unless we should be condemned for that for which the Bereans are so highly commended So that neither is your Position true nor if it were so would it at all advantage your pretensions I adde also Did not the Gospel come from another place to Rome as well as to us or was it first preached there This you have culled out as supposing your self able to say something unto it and what is it Properly speaking it came not so to Rome as it came to us for one of the twelve fountains nay two of the thirteen and those the largest and greatest were transferred to Rome which they watered with their blood We had never any such standing fountain of our Christian Religion here but only a stream derived unto us from thence It is the hard hap it seems of England to claim any priviledge or reputation that may stand in the way of some mens designs No Apostle nor Apostolicall Person must be allowed to preach the Gospel unto us lest we should peirk up into competition with Rome But though Rome it seems must alwayes be excepted yet I hope you do not in generall conclude our condition beneath that of any place where the Gospel at first was preached by one or two Apostles so as to cry Properly speaking it came not to us at all What think you of Jerusalem where Christ himself and his twelve Apostles all of them preached the Gospel Or what think you of Capernaum that was lifted up to Heaven in the priviledge of the means of light granted for a while unto them Do you think our condition worse than theirs The two fountains you mention were opened at Antioch in Syria as well as at other places before they conveyed one drop of their treasures to Rome which whether one of them ever did by his personall presence is very questionable And by this Rule of yours though England may not yet every place where S t Peter and St Paul preached the Gospel may contend with Rome as to this priviledge And what will you then get by your trumphing over us Non vides id manticae quòd à tergo est When men are intent upon a supposed advantage they oftentimes overlook reall inconveniencies that lye ready to seize upon them as it befalls you more than once Besides there is nothing in the world more obscure than by whom or by what means the Gospel was first preached at Rome By S t Paul it is certain it was not for before ever he came thither there was a great number converted to the faith as appears from his Epistle written about the fourteenth year of Claudius and the fifty third of Christ. Nor yet by Peter for not at present to insist on the great incertainty whether ever he was there or no which shall afterwards be spoken unto there is nothing more certain than that about the sixth year of Claudius and fourty fifth of Christ he was at Antioch Gal. 2. Baronius makes the third of Claudius and the fourty fifth of Christ to contemporize but upon a mistake and some say he abode there a good while sundry years and that upon as good authority as any is produced for his coming to Rome But it is generally granted that there was a Church founded at Rome that year but by whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Socrates said of the preference of the condition of the living or dead is known to God alone of mortall men not to any Jam sumus ergo pares For to confess the truth unto you I know not certainly who first preached the Gospel in Brittain some say Peter some Paul some Simon Zelotes most Joseph of Arimathea as I have elsewhere shewed by whom certainly I know not but some one it was or more whom God sent upon his arrand and with his message No more do you know who preached it first at Rome though in generall it appears that some of them at least were of the Circumcision whence the very first Converts of that Church were variously minded about the observation of Mosaicall Rites and Ceremonies And I doubt not but God in his infinitely holy wisdome and providence left the springs of Christian Religion as to matter of fact in the first introductions of it into the Nations of the world in so much darkness as to the knowledge of after-times to obviate those towring thoughts of preheminency which he foresaw that some men from externall advantages would entertain to the no small prejudice of the simplicity of the Gospel and ruine of Christian humility As far as appears from Story the Gospel was preached in England before any Church was founded at Rome It was so saith Gildas Summo
tempore Tiberii Caesaris that is extremo about the end of the raigh of Tiberius Caesar who died in the thirty ninth year of Christ five or six years at least before the foundations of the roman-Roman-Church were layed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These things we must speak unto because you suppose them of importance unto your Cause The second Assertion ascribed unto your Fiat in the Animadversions is That whence and from whom we first received our Religion there and with them we must abide therein to them we must repair for guidance and return to their rule and conduct if we have departed from them To which you now say This Principle as it is never delivered by Fiat Lux though you put it upon me so is it in the latitude it carries and wherein you understand it absolutely false never thought of by me and indeed impossible For how can we abide with them in any truth who may not perhaps abide in it themselves Great part of Flanders was first converted by English men and yet are they not obliged to accompany the English in our now present wayes I am glad you confess this Principle now to be false it was sufficiently proved so to be in the Animadversions and your whole Discourse rendred thereby useless For to what purpose will the preceding Assertion so often incuicated by you serve if this be false For what matter is it from whence or whom wereceive the profession of Religion if there be no obligation upon us to continue in their communion any further than as we judge them to continue in the truth And to what purpose do you avoid the consideration of the Reasons and Causes of our not abiding with you and manage all your Charge upon the generall head of our departure if we may have just cause by your own concession so to do It is false then by your own acknowledgement and I am as sure in the sense which I understand it in that it is yours And you labour with all your art to prove and confirm it both in your Fiat pag. 44 45 46 47. and in this very Epistle pag. 38 39 40 41 c. On the account that the Gospel came unto us from Rome you expresly adjudge the preheminence over us unto Rome and determine that her we must all hear and obey and abide with But if you may say and unsay assert and deny avow and disclaim at your pleasure as things make for your advantage and think to evade the owning of the whole drift and scope of your Discourse by having expressed your self in a loose flourish of words it will be to no great purpose further to talk with you Quo teâ—eam vultus mutantem Protea nodo To lay fast hold and not startle at a new shape was the counsell his daughter gave to Menelaus And I must needs urge you to leave off all thoughts of evading by such changes of your hue and to abide by what you say I confess I believe you never intended knowingly to assert this Principle in its whole latitude because you did not as it should seem consider how little it would make for your advantage seeing so many would come in for a share in the priviledge intimated in it with your Roman Church and you do not in any thing love competitors But you would fain have the Conclusion hold as to your Roman Church only those that have received the Gospel from her must alwayes abide in her communion That this Assertion is not built on any generall foundation of Reason or Authority your self now confess And that you have no speciall priviledge to plead in this Cause hath been proved in the Animadversions whereof you are pleased to take no notice CHAP. IV. Further Vindication of the first Chapter of the Animadversions Church of Rome not what she was of old Her Falls and Apostacy Difference between Idolatry Apostacy Heresie and Schism Principles of the Church of Rome condemned by the antient Church Fathers and Councels Imposing Rites unnecessary Persecution for Conscience Papall Supremacy The Branches of it Papall Personall Infallibility Religious veneration of Images THe third Assertion which you review is That the Roman profession of Religion and practice in the worship of God are every way the same as when first we received the Gospel from Rome nor can they ever otherwise be whereunto you say This indeed though I do no where formally express it yet I suppose it because I know it hath been demonstratively proved a hundred times over You deny it hath been proved why do you not then disprove it because you decline say you all common places All that I affirmed was that you did suppose this Principle and built many of your Inferences on the supposition thereof which you here acknowledge And so you have already owned two of the Principles whereof in the foregoing Page you affirmed that you could hardly own any one and that in the sense wherein by me they are proposed and understood But what do you mean that you no where formally express it If you mean that you have not set it down in those syllables wherein you find it expressed in the Animadversions no man ever said you did you do not use to speak so openly and plainly To do so would bring you out of the corners which somewhat that you pretend unto never lead you into But if you deny that you asserted and laboured to prove the whole and entire matter of it your following Discourse wherein you endeavour a vindication of the Sophisme wherewith you pleaded for it in your Fiat will sufficiently confute you And so you have avowed already two of the hardly any one Principles ascribed unto you And this you say hath been demonstratively proved an hundred times over and ask me why I do not disprove it giving a ridiculous Answer as from me unto your Enquiry But pray S r talk not of Demonstrations in this matter palpable Sophismes such as your Masters use in this Cause are far enough from Demonstrations And if you think it enough for you to say that it hath been proved why is it not a sufficient Answer in me to remind you that it hath been disproved and your pretended proofs all refuted And according to what Rules of Logick do you expect Arguments from me to disprove your Assertion whilest I was only answering yours that you produced in its confirmation But that you may not complain any more I shall make some addition of the proofs you require by way of supererrogation when we have considered your vindication of your former Arguments for the confirmation of this Assertion wherewith you closed your Discourse in your Fiat Lux. This you thus propose again The Roman was once a true flourishing Church and if she ever fell she must fall either by Apostasie Heresie or Schisme So you now mince the matter in your Fiat it was a most pure flourishing and Mother Church and you know there are many that yet
acknowledge her a true Church as a theif is a true man who will not acknowledge her to be a pure Church much less most pure God be mercifull to poor worms this boasting doth not become us it is not unlike hers who cryed Is it as a Queen and shall see no sorrow I wish you begin to be sensible and ashamed of it But yet I fear it is otherwise for whereas in your Fiat you had proclaimed your Roman Church and Party to be absolutely innocent and unblameable you tell us pag. 10. of your Epistle that you can make it appear that it is far more innocent and amiable than you have made it more than absolutely innocent it seems a note so high that it sounds harshly And whereas we shall manifest your Church to have lost her native beauty we know that no painting of her which is all you can do will render her truly amiable unto a spirituall eye She hath too often defiled her self to pretend now to be lovely But to this you say I reply The Church that then was in the Apostles time was indeed true not the Roman Church that now is and adde So so then I say that former true Church must fall sometime or other when did she fall and how did the sall by Apostasie Heresie or Schisme S r you very lamely represent my Answer that you might seem to say something unto it when indeed you say nothing at all I discover unto you the equivocation you use in that expression the Church of Rome and shew you that the thing now so called by you had neither being nor name neither essence nor affection in the dayes of old it s very being is but the terminus as quem of a Churches fall I shewed you also that the Church of old that was pure fell not whilest it was so but that the men who succeeded in the place where they lived in the profession of Religion gradually fell from the purity of that profession which the Church at its first planting did enjoy But all that discourse you pass by and repeat again your former Question to which you subjoyn my first Answer which was it was possible she might fall by an Earthquake as did those of Colosse and Laodicea to which you We speak not here of any casuall or naturall downfall or death of mortals by Plague Famine or Earthquake but a morall and voluntary lapse in faith What do you speak to me of Earthquakes It is well you do so now explain your self your former enquiry was only in generall how or by what means she ceased to be what she had been before as though it were impossible to assign any such neither did I exclude the sense whereunto you now restrain your words And had I only shewed you that it was possible she might fall and come to nothing and yet not by any of the wayes or means by you mentioned without proceeding unto the consideration of them also yet your especiall enquiry being resolved into this generall one from whence it is taken how a pure flourishing Church may cease to be so I had rendred your enquiry useless unto your present purpose though I had not answered your intention For certainly that which ceaseth to be ceaseth to be pure seeing non entis nullae sunt affectiones The Church of the Brittains in this part of the â—sland now called England was once as pure a Church as ever was the Church of Rome yet she ceased to be long since and that neither by Apostasie Here sie nor Schisme but by the sword of the Saxons And to tell you the truth I do not think the old Church of Rome unconcerned in this instance then especially when Rome was left desolate by Totilas and without inhabitant for the Church of Rome is urbis and not as you vainly imagine orbiâ— Ecclesia Again I told you she might fall by Idolatry and so neither by Apostasie Heresie or Schisme To which you reply Good S r Idolatry is a mixt misdemeanour both in faith and manners I speak of the single one of faith and he that falls by Idolatry if he keep still some parts of Christianity entire he falls by Heresie by Apostasie if he keep none I am perswaded you are the first that ever gave this description of Idolatry and the last that will do so it is a mixt misdemeanour in faith and manners Manners you speak of in contradistinction to Faith and you so explain your self in which sense they relate only unto morall conversation regulated by the second Table That Idolatry hath been and is constantly attended with corruption in manners the Apostle declares Rom. 1. and I willingly grant but how in its self or its own nature it should come to be a mixt misdemeanour in faith and in manners I know not neither can you tell me which is the fleshy which is the fishy part of this Dagon what it is in it that is a misdemeanour in faith and what in manners According to this description of yours an Idolater should be an ill mannered or an unmannerly Heretick But you speak of the single misdemeanour in faith but who gave you leave so to restrain your enquiry I allowed you before to except against one instance whereby many a Church hath fallen but if you will except Idolatry and Manners also your endeavour to provide a shelter for your guilt is shamefull and vain For what you except out of your enquiry if you confess not to have been yet you do that it may be or might have been And you do wisely to let your Adversary know that he is to strike you only where you suppose your self armed but by all means must let your naked parts alone and doubtless he must needs be very wise who will take your advice The Church of Judah was once a pure Church in the dayes of David how came she then to fall by Apostasie Heresie or Schisme I answer if you will give me leave she fell by Idolatry and corruption of manners against both which the Prophets were protestants 2 King 17. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God protested against them by his Prophets Again the same Church reformed in the dayes of Ezra Nehemiah Zerubbabel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the men of the Great Congregation was a pure Church how did it fall not by Idolatry as formerly but by corruption of life unbelief and rejecting the Word of God for superstitious traditions untill it became a den of Thieves You see then there are other wayes of a Churches falling from its pristine purity than those by you insisted on And if you shall enquire how it may fall you must exclude nothing out of your enquiry whereby it may do so and whereby some Churches have done so And if you will have my thoughts in this matter they are that the beginning of the fall of your Church and many others lay in unbelief corruption of life conformity to the world and other sins
sunt Nam intantum se Catholicos judicant ut nos ipsos titulo Haereticae praevitatis infament quod ergo illi nobis sunt hoc nos illis They are hereticks but they know it not they are hereticks unto us but not unto themselves for they so far judge themselves to be Catholick that they condemn us for the guilt of Heresie So then what they are to us that we are to them Especilly was your whole practice in this matter solemnly condemned in the Case of Priscillianus recorded by Sulpitius Severus in the end of his second Book the only Instance the Bellarmine could fix upon in all Antiquity for the putting of any men to death upon the account of Religion for the other whom he mentions he confesseth himself to have been a Magitian Ithacius with some other Bishops his Associates procured Maximus the Tyrant to put Priscillianus a Gnosticke with some others to death and to banish some of their followers What saith the Historian thereon Hoc modo saith he homines luce indignissimi pessimo exemplo necati aut exili is mulctati On this manner were those unworthy wretches either slain or punished by banishment by a very evil precedent And what was the success of this zeal Non solum saith he non repressest haeresis sed confirmata latius propagata The heresis was so farre from being repressed by it that it was the more confirmed and propagated And what ensued hereupon in the Church its self Inter nostros perpetuum discordiarum bellum exarsit quod jam per quindecim annos foedis dissensionibus agitatum nullo modo sopiri poterat Et nunc cum maximè discordiis Episcoporum turbari â—isceri omnia cernerentur cunctáque per eos odio aut gratia metu inconstantia invidia factione avâ—aritâ—a arrogantia somno desidia essent depravata postremo plures adver sum paucos bâ—nè consulentes insanis consiliis pertinacibus studiis certabant Inter haec plebs Dei optimus quisque probro atque ludibrio habebatur With which words he shuts up his Ecclesiasticall story Amongst ours a lasting war of discord was kindled which after it hath now for fifteen years been carried on with shamefull contentions can by no means be allayed And now especially when all things appear to be troubled and perverted by the discord of the Bishops and that all things are depraved by them through hatred favour fear inconstancy envy faction covetousuess pride sleepiness and sloth the most with mad counsels and pertinacious endeavours opposing themselves to the sew that are better advised Amongst all these things the people of God and every honest man is become a reproach and scorn Thus that Historian complaining of the consequents of this proceeding But good men lest not the matter so Martinus Turonensis presently refuseth all communion with them who had any hand in the death or banishment of the persons mentioned So doth Ambrose declare himself to have done Epist. 27. as did the rest of the sober godly Bishops of those dayes At length both Ithacius and Idacius the promoters of this work were solemnly excommunicated though one of them had before for very shame foregone his Bishoprick See Prosp. Chron. 389. and I sidore de Viris Illustribus So that here also the judgment and practice of your Church which she is fallen into is publickly eondemned and written against 1300 years ago Should I insist on all the Testimonies that of this kind might be produced Antè diem clauso componet vesper olympo than I could make an end of them I have added this Instance to the former as knowing them to be the two great pillars on which the tottering fabrick of your Church is raised and which if they were removed the whole of it would quickly fall to the ground and you see how long ago they were both publickly condemned 3. Your Papall Oecumenicall Supremacy hath two main Branches 1. Your Popes spirituall Power over all Persons and Churches in the things of Religion 2. His Power over Emperors Kings and Potentates in reference unto Religion or as you speak in ordine ad spiritualia The first your Church stumbled into by many degrees from the dayes of Victor who made the first notable halt to this purpose The latter you stumbled into in the dayes of Gregory the seventh or Hildebrand It were endless to declare how this fall of your Church hath been declared written against opposed condemned by Churches Councels Fathers Princes and learned men in all Ages Some few evidences to this purpose to satisfie your request I shall direct you unto It was written against and condemned by Cyprian Bishop of Carthage and that in a Councell at Carthage an 258. upon an attempt made by Stephen Bishop of Rome looking in some small degree towards that usurped Supremacy which afterwards was attained unto You may if you please there see him rebuked and the practice of your Church condemned The same Cyprian had done no less before in reference unto some actings of Cornelius the predecessor of Stephen Epist. ad Cornel. Though the pretensions of Cornelius and Stephen were modest in comparison of your present vast Claim yet the Churches of God in those dayes could not bear them It is prejudged in the most famous Councell of Nice which assigned bounds unto the Jurisdiction of Bishops giving to severall of them equall Authority Can. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the ancient Customes be observed that as to Egypt Lybia and Pentapolis the Bishop of Alexandria have power over them or the Churches in them for so is the custome of the Bishop of Rome that is to have power over the adjoyning Churches likewise about Antioch and in other Provinces that the ancient Rights of the Churches be preserved Your Great Pope whom you so frequently call the Pastor of Christendome was here but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Bishop in the City or Church of Rome or of the Church in the City of Rome And bounds are assigned unto the Authority which he claimed by custome as to his of Alexandria and Antioch It is true the Church of Alexandria hath some power assigned ascribed or granted unto it above other Churches of Egypt Lybâ—a and Pentapolis for a warranty whereof the usage of the Roman Church in reference unto her neighbour Churches is made use of which to deal freely with you and to tell you my private thoughts was a confirmation of a disorder by your example which you were from that day forward seldome wanting to give plenty of So to this purpose Concil Antioch Can. 13 and 15. an 341. Concil Constantinop Can 2. an 381. But this Canon of the Nicene Fathers openly condemneth and is perfectly destructive of your at present claimed Supremacy Three Councels together in Africk within the space of twenty years warned your Church of her fall into this Heresie and opposed her attempts for the promotion of it The first at Carthage an 407. which
this that where any persons or Churches are at variance or difference about any thing concerning Religion or the worship of God the Scripture is not sufficient for the Vmpirage of that Difference so that they may be reconciled and center in the Profession of the same Truth I wish you would now tell me what discrepancy there is between the Assertion which I ascribed unto you and that which your self here avow I suppose they are in substance the same and as such will be owned by every one that understands any thing of the matters about which we treat And this is so spoken unto in the Animadversions that you have no mind to undertake the examination of it but labour to divert the discourse unto that which may appear something else but indeed is not so 3. For your Distinction between Protestants and Puritans in England I know not well what to make of it I know no Puritans in England that are not Protestants though all the Protestants in England do not absolutely agree in every punctilio relating to Religion nor in all things relating unto the outward worship of God no more than did the Churches in the Apostles dayes or than your Catholicks do You give us then a Distinction like that which a man may give between the Church of Rome and the Jesuits or Dominicans or the Sons of S t. Benet or of S t Francis of Assize A Distinction or Distribution of the Genus into the Genus and one Species comprehended under it as if you should have said that Animal is either Animal or Homo 4. Though I had rather therefore that you had placed your Instance between the Church of Rome and Protestants yet because any instance of Persons that have different Apprehensions about things belonging to the worship of God will suffice us as to the present purpose I shall let it pass Only I desire you once more that when you would endeavour to render any thing way or acting of men odious that you would forbear to cast the Scripture into a Copartnership therein which here you seem to do The Puritan you say with the Scripture rose up and rebelled Rebellion is the name of an outragious Evil such as the Scripture giveth not the least Countenance unto And therefore when you think meet to charge it upon any you may do well not to say that they do it with the Scripture It will not be to your comfort or advantage so to do This is but my advice you may do as you see cause Tales Casus Cassandra canebat 5. The Differences you suppose and look upon as undeterminable by the Scripture are about things that in themselves really and in truth belong unto Christian Religion or such as do not so indeed but are only fancied by some men so to do If they are of this latter sort as the most of the Controversies which we have with you are as about your Mass Purgatory the Pope we account that all Differences about them are sufficiently determined in the Scriptures because they are no where mentioned in them And this must needs be so if the Word of God be as you here grant the sufficient and only means both of our Conversion and Settlement as well in Truth as in Vertue S r I had no sooner written these words in that haste wherein I treat with you but I suspected a necessity of craving your pardon for supposing my Inference confirmed by your Concession For whereas you had immediately before set down the Assertion supposed to be yours about the Scriptures you adde the words now mentioned Gods Word is the sufficient and only means of our Conversion and Settlement in the Truth I did not in the least suspect that you intended any Legerdemain in the business but that the Scripture and Gods Word had been only various denominations with you of the same precise Thing as they are with us Only I confess at the first view I wondred how you could reconcile this Assertion with the known Principles of your Church and besides I knew it to be perfectly destructive of your design in your following Enquiry But now I fear you play hide and seek in the ambiguity your Church hath put upon that Title Gods Word which it hath applyed unto your unwritten Traditions as well as unto the written Word as the Jews apply the same term unto their Orall Law And therefore as I said before I crave your pardon for supposing my Inference confirmed by your Concession wherein I fear I was mistaken and only desire you that for the future you would speak your mind plainly and candidly as it becomes a Christian and Lover of Truth to do But my Assertion I esteem never the worse though it have not the happiness to enjoy your approbation especially considering that in the particular Instances mentioned there are many things delivered in Scripture inconsistent with and destructive of your notions about them sufficient to exterminate them from the Confines of the City of God 6. Suppose the matters in difference do really belong unto Religion and the worship of God and that the Difference lyes only in mens various Conceptions of them you ask Can the Scripture alone of its self decide the business What do you mean by alone of its self If you mean without mens application of themselves unto it and subjecting of their Consciences unto its Authoritative decisions neither it nor any thing else can do it The matter its self is perfectly stated in the Scripture whether any men take notice of it or no but their various apprehensions about it must be regulated by their applications unto it in the way mentioned On this only Supposition that those who are at variance about things which really appertain unto the Religion of Jesus Christ will refer the determination of them unto the Scripture and bring the Conâ—eptions of their minds to be regulated thereby standing unto its Arbitriment it is able alone and of its self to end all their differences and settle them all iu the Truth This hath been proved unto you a thousand times and confirmed by most clear Testimonies of the Scripture its self with Arguments taken from its Nature Perfection and the End of its giving forth unto men as also from the practise of our Lord Jesus and his Apostles with their directions and commands given unto us for the same Purpose from the Practise of the First Churches with innumerable Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers and Doctors Neither can this be denied without that horrible Derogation from its Perfection and Plenitude so reverenced by them of old which is objected unto you for your so doing Protestants suppose the Scripture to be given forth by God to be unto the Church â—a perfect Rule of that Faith and Obedience which he requires at the hands of the sons of men They suppose that it is such a Revelation of his Mind or Will as is intelligible unto all them that are concerned to know
it if thy use the means by him appointed to come unto a right understanding of it They suppose that what is not taught therein or not taught so clearly as that men who humbly and heartily seek unto him may know his mind therein as to what he requireth of them cannot possibly be the necessary and indispensable Duty of any one to perform They suppose that it is the Duty of every man to search the Scriptures with all diligence by the help and assistance of the means that God hath appointed in his Church to come to the knowledg of his mind and will in all things concerning their Faith and Obedience and firmly to believe and adhere unto what they find revealed by him And they moreover suppose that those who deny any of these Suppositions are therein and so farre as they do so injurious to the Grace Wisedem Love and Care of God towards his Church to the Honour and perfection of the Scripture the Comfort and establishment of the Souls of men leaving them no assured Principles to build their Faith and Salvation upon Now from these Suppositions I hope you see that it will unavoidably follow that the Scripture is able every way to effect that which you deny unto it a sufficiency for For where I pray you lyes its defect I am afraid from the next part of your Question Has it ever done it that you run upon a great mistake The defect that follows the failings and miscarriages of men you would have imputed unto the want of sufficiency in the Scripture But wee cannot allow you herein The Scripture in its place and in that kind of Cause which it is is as sufficient to settle men all men in the Truth as the Sunne is to give light to all men to see by But the Sunne that giveth light doth not give eyes also The Scripture doth its work as a Morall Rule which men are not necessitated or compelled to attend unto or follow And if through their neglect of it or not attendance unto it or disability to discern the mind and will of God in it whether proceeding from their naturall impotency and blindness in their laps'd condition or some evil habit of mind contracted by their giving admission unto corrupt prejudices and Traditionall Principles the work be not effected this is no impeachment of the Scriptures sufficiency but a manifestation of their weakness and folly Besides all that unity in faith that hath been at any time or is in the world according to the mind of God every Decision that hath been made at any time of any difference in or about Religion in a right way and order hath been by the Scripture which God hath sanctified unto those ends and purposes And it is impossible that the miscarriages or defects of men can reflect the least blame upon it or make it esteemed insufficient for the end now enquired after The pursuit then of your Enquiry which now you insist upon is in part vain in part already answered In vain it is that you enquire whether the written Word can settle any man in a way that neither himself nor present adherents nor future Generations shall question For our enquiry is not after what may be or what shall be but what ought to be It is able to settle a man in a way that none ought to question unto the worlds end So it setled the first Christians But to secure us that none shall ever question the way whereinto it leads us that it is not designed for nor is it either needfull or possible that it should be so The Orall preaching of the Sonne of God and of his Apostles did not so secure them whom they taught The way that professed was every where questioned contradicted spoken against and many after the profession of it again renounced it And I wonder what feat you have to settle any one in a way that shall never be questioned The Authority of your Pope and Church will not do it Themselves are things as highly questioned and disputed about as any thing that was ever named with reference unto Religion If you shall say But yet they ought not to be so questioned and it is the fault of men that they are so You may well spare me the labour of answering your Question seeing you have done it your self And whereas you adde or with as much probability dissent from it either totally or in part as himself first set it when the very preceding words do not speak of a mans own setting but of the Scriptures setling the man only embracing what that setleth and determineth It is answered already that what is so setled by the Scripture and received as setled cannot justly be questioned by any And you insinuate a most irrationall Supposition on which your Assertion is built namely that Errour may have as much probability as Truth For I suppose you will grant that what is setled by the Scripture is true and therefore that which dissents from it must needs be an errour which that it may be as probable indeed as Truth for we speak not of appearances which have all their strength from our weaknesses is a new notion which may well be added to your many other of the like rarity and evidence But why is not the Scripture able to settle men in unquestionable Truth When the people of old doubted about the wayes of God wherein they ought to walk himself sends them to the Law and to the Testimony for their instruction and settlement Isa 8. 20. And we think the counsell of him who cannot deceive nor be deceived is to be hearkned unto as well as his command to be obeyed Our Saviour assures us that if men will not hear Moses and the Prophets and take direction from them for those wayes wherein they may please God they will not do it whatsoever they pretend from any other means which they rather approve of Luk. 16. 29 31. Yea and when the great Fundamental of Christian Religion concerning the Person of the Messiah was in question he sends men for their settlement unto the Scriptures Joh. 5. 39. And we suppose that that which is sufficient to settle us in the foundation is so to confirm us also in the whole superstructure Especially considering that it is able to make the man of God perfect and to be thoroughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. What more is required unto the settlement of any one in Religion wee know not nor what can rationally stand in competition with the Scripture to this purpose seeing that is expresly commended unto us for it by the Holy Ghost other wayes are built on the conjectures of men Yea the Assurance which we may have hereby is preferred by Peter before that which any may have by an immediate voyce from Heaven 2 Pet. 1. 19. And is it not an unreasonable thing now for you to come and tell us that the Scripture is not sufficient
Image of God in the world and upon the matter the only troublers of humane Society But the moderation which the Gospel requireth ariseth and proceedeth from the Principles of Vnion with Christ before mentioned which is that that proves us Disciples of Christ indeed and will confirm the mind in suitable actings against all the provocations to the Contrary which from the infirmities and miscarriages of men we are sure to meet withall Neither doth this at all hinder but that we may contend earnestly for the Truth delivered unto us and labour by the wayes of Christ's appointment to reclaim others from such opinions wayes and practises in and about the things of Religion and worship of God as are injurious unto his Glory and may be destructive and pernicious to their own souls Neither doth it in the least put any discouragement upon endeavours to oppose the impiety and Prophaneness of men in their corruption in life and Conversation which certainly and unquestionably are inconsistent with and destructive of the Profession of the Gospel let them on whom they are found be of what party Church or way of Religion they please And if those in whose hearts are the wayes of God however diversifyed among themselves by various apprehensions of some Doctrines and Practises would sincerely according to their Duty set themselves to oppose that prophaneness wickedness of Life or open vitiousness of Conversation which is breaking in like a flood upon the world and which as it hath already almost drowned the whole glory of Christian Religion so it will undoubtedly if not prevented end in the woful calamity and finall ruine of Christendome they would have less mind and leasure to wrangle fiercely among themselves and breathe out destruction against one another for their mistakes and differences about things which by their own experience they find not to take off from their Love to Christ nor weaken the obedience he requires at their hands But whilest the whole power of Christianity is despised Conversion to God and separation from the wayes of the perishing World are set at nought and men think they have nothing to do in Religion but to be zealously addicted to this or that party amongst them that profess it it is no wonder if they think their chiefest Duty to consist in destroying one another But for men that profess to be leaders and guides of others in Christian Religion openly to persue carnall and worldly interests greatness wealth outward Splendour and Pomp to live in Luxury and pride to labour to strengthen and support themselves by the adherence of Persons of prophane and wicked lives that so they may destroy all that in any opinion differ from themselves is vigorously to endeavour to drive out of the world that Religion which they profess and in the mean time to render it so unomely and undesirable that others must needs be discouraged from its embracement But these things cannot spring from the Principles of Protestants which as I have manifested lead them unto other manner of actings And it is to no purpose to ask why then they are not all affected accordingly For they that are not so do live in an open contradiction to their own avowed Principles which that it is no news in the world the vicious lives of many in all places professing Christianity will not suffer us to doubt For though that Religion which they profess reacheth them to deny all ungodliness and wordly lusts to live soberly and righteously and godlily in this present world if they intend the least benefit by it yet they will hold the profession of it in a contrary practise And for this self-deceiving attended with eternall ruine many men are beholding unto such notions as yours about your Church securing Salvation within the pale of its externall Communion laying little weight on the things which at the last day will only stand them in stead But for Protestants setting aside their occasionall exasperations when they begin to bethink themselves they cannot satisfie their own Consciences in a resolution not to love them because of some differences whom they believe that God loves or may love notwithstanding those Differrences from them or to renounce all Vnion with them who they are perswaded are united unto Christ or not to be moderate towards them in this world with whom they expect to live for ever in another I speak only of them on all sides who have received into their hearts and do express in their lives the Spirituall Power and energy of the Gospel who are begotten unto Christ by the Word of Truth and have received of his Spirit promised in the Covenant of Grace unto all them that believe on him For not to dissemble with you I believe all others as to their present state to be in the same condition before God be they of what Church or way they will though they are not all in the same condition in respect of the means for their Spirituall advantage which they enjoy or may do so they being much more excellent in some Societies of Christians than others This then to return is the Principle of Protestants derived down unto them from Christ and his Apostles and hereby are they eminently furnished for the exercise of that moderation which you so much and so deservedly commend And more fully to tell you my private judgement which whether it be my own only I do not much concern my self to enquire but this it is Any man in the world who receiveth the Scripture of the Old and New Testament as the Word of God and on that account assents in generall to the whole Truth revealed in them worshipping God in Christ and yeelding obedience unto him answerable unto his light and Conviction not contradicting his profession by any practise inconsistent with true piety nor the owning of any opinion or perswasion destructive to the known fundamentals of Christianity though he should have the unhappiness to dissent in some things from all the Churches that are at this day in the world may yet have an internall supernaturall saving Principle of his faith and obedience and be undoubtedly saved And I am sure it is my Duty to exercise Moderation towards every man concerning whom I have or ought to have that Perswasion 2. Some Protestants are of that judgement that externall force ought to have no place at all in matters of faith however Laws may be constituted with Penalties for the preservation of publick outward order in a Nation most of them that Hareticidium or putting men to death for their misapprehensions in the things of God is absolutely unlawfull and all of them that Faith is the Gift of God for the communication whereof unto men he hath appointed certain means whereof externall force is none Unto which Two last Positions not only the greatest Protestant but the greatest Potentate in Europe hath lately in his own words expressive of an heavenly benignity towards mankind in their infirmities declared his
fuerit haec ratio firmiter adharendi quòd in ea veritas sit solidior quamvis non clarior Habet enim omnis veritas vim inclinativam major majorem maxima maximam Sed cur ergo omnes non credunt Evangelio Respondeo quod non omnes trahuntur à Deo And again Inest ergo Scripturis Sacris nescio quid Natur â sublimius idest inspiratio facta divinitus divinae irradiation is influxus certus But whence are wee perswaded that it is from the First Verity but from it Self It s own Authority draws us to believe it But whence obtains it this Authority â— we see not God preaching writing teaching but yet as if we had seen him we believe and firmly hold that which we read to have come from the Holy Ghost It may be that this is a reason of our firm adhering unto it that the Truth in it is more solid though not more clear than in any other way of proposall and all truth hath a power to incline unto belief the greater the Truth the greater its power and the greatest Truth must have the greatest power so to incline us But why then do not all believe the Gospell I answer because all are not drawn of God There is then in the holy Scripture somewhat more sublime than Nature that is the Divine Inspiration from whence it is and the Divine Irradiation wherewith it is accompanied This is the Principle of Protestants The Sacred Scripture is credible as proceeding from the first Verity this it manifests by its own Light and Efficacy and we are enabled to believe it by the effectuall working of the Spirit of God in our hearts Whence our Saviour asks the Jews Joh 5. If you believe not the writing of Moses how will you believe my words They who will not believe the written Word of the Scripture upon the Authority that it hath in its self would not believe if Christ should personally speak unto them So saith Theophylact on the place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. Protestants believe and profess that the End wherefore God gave forth his Word by Inspiration was that it might be a stable Infallible Revelation of his mind and will as to that knowledge which he would have mankind entertain of him with that Worship and Obedience which he requireth of them that so they may please him in this world and come unto the fruition of him unto all eternity God who is the formal object is also the prime Cause of all Religious worship What is due unto him as the first Cause last End and Soveraign Lord of all as to the substance of it and what he further appoints himself as to the manner of its performance suited unto his own Holiness and the Condition wherein in reference unto our Last end we stand and are making up the whâ—le of it That he hath given his Word to reveal these things unto us to be our Rule Guide and Direction in our wayes walkings and universal deportment before him is as I take it a fundamentall Principle of our Christian Profession Neither do I know that this is denied by your Church although you startle at the inferences that are justly made from it I shall not need therefore to adde any thing in its Confirmation but only mind you again that the calling of it into question is directly against the very heart of all Religion and the unanimous consent of all that in the world are called Christians or ever were so Yea and it must be granted or the whole Scripture esteemed a Fable because it frequently declares that it is given unto us of God for this End and Purpose And hence do Protestants inferre two other Conclusions on which they build their Perswasion concerning the Vnity of Faith and the proper means of their Settlement therein 1. That therefore the Scripture is perfect and every way compleat namely with respect unto that end whereunto of God it is designed A Perfect and compleat Revelation of the Will of God as to his Worship and our Obedience And we cannot but wonder that any who profess themselves to believe that it was given for the end mentioned should not have that sacred Reverence for the Wisdome Goodness and Love of its Author unto mankind as freely to assent unto this Inference and Conclusion He is our Rock and his work is perfect And lest any men should please themselves in the imagination of contributing any thing towards the effecting of the end of his Word by a supply unto it he hath strictly forbidden them any such addition Deut. 4. 2. 12. 12. Prov. 30. 6. Which if it were not compleat in reference unto its proper End would hold no great correspondency with that Love and goodness which the same Word every where declares to be in Him I suppose you know with how many express Testimonies of Scripture its self this Truth is confirmed which added unto that light and evidence which as a deduction from the former fundamental Truth it hath in its self is very sufficient to render it unquestionable You may at your leasure besides these forenamed consult Psal. 19. 8. Esa. 8. 20. Ezek. 28. 18. Mat. 15. 6. Luk. 1. 3 4. ch 16. 29 31. ch 24. 25 27. Job 5. 39. ch 20. 10 Act. 1. 11. ch 17. 2 3. ch 20. 27. chapt 26. 22. Rom. 10. 17. ch 15. 4. 1 Cor. 4. 6. Gal. 1. 8. Eph. 2. 19 20. 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. Heb. 1. 1. 2 Pet. 1. 19. Rev 22. 18. For though Texts of Scripture are not appointed for us to throw at one anothers heads as you talk in your Fiat yet they are for us to use and insist on in the Confirmation of the Truth if we may take the example of Christ and all his Apostles for our warrant And it were endless to recite the full and plain Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers and Councels to this purpose Neither is that my present design though I did somwehat occasionally that way upon the former Principle It shall suffice me to shew that the deny all of this Assertion also as it is inferred from the foregoing Principle is Prejudiciall if not pernicious to Christian Religion in Generall The whole of our Faith and Profession is resolved into the known Excellencies and Perfections of the Nature of God Amongst these there are none that have a more immediate and quickning influence into them than his Wisdom Goodness Grace Care and Love towards them unto whom he is pleased to reveal himself Nor is there any property of his Nature that in his Word he more frequently gives testimony unto And all of them doth he declare himself to have exalted and glorified in a signall manner in that Revelation which he hath made of himself his Mind and Will therein I suppose this cannot be denied by any who hath the least sense of the importance of the things revealed Now if the Revelation made for the End before proposed be not perfect
flattering your selves with an imagination of any other Priviledge is that which hath wrought your ruine You are deceived if in this matter you are of Menander's mind who sayed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all will of its own accord fall out well with you though you sleep securely As for all other Churches in the world besides your own wee have your concession not only that they were and are fallible but that they have actually erred long since and the same hath been proved against yours a thousand times and your best Reserve against particular charges of Errour lyes in this impertinent generall pretence that you cannot erre It may be you will ask for you use so to do and it is the design of your Fiat to promote the â—nquiry If the Church be fallible that is to propose unto us the things and Doctrines that we are to believe How can we with faith infallible believe her proposals And I tell you truly I know not how we can if we believe them only upon her Authority or she propose them to be believed solely upon that account but when she proposeth them unto us to be believed on the Authority of God speaking in the Srciptures we both can and do believe what she teacheth and proposeth and that with faith infallible resolved into the Veracity of God in his Word and we grant every Church to be so farre infallible as it attends unto the only Infallible Rule amongst men When you prove that any one Church is by any promise of Christ any grant of Priviledge expressed or intimated in the Scripture placed in an unerring condition any farther than as in the use of the means appointed she attends unto the only Rule of her preservation or that any Church shall be â—ecessitated to attend unto that Rule whether she will or no whereby she may be preserved or can give us an instance of any Church since the foundation of the world that hath been actually preserved and absolutely from all errour other than that of your own which you know we cannot admit of as you will do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great and memorable work so we shall grant as much as you can reasonably desire of us upon the account of the Assertion under consideration But untill you do some one or all of these your crying out The Church the Church the Church cannot erre makes no other noyse in our ears than that of the Jews The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Law shall not fail did in the ears of the Prophets of old Neither do we speak this of the Church or any Church as though we were concerned to question or deny any just Priviledges belonging unto it thereby to secure our selves from any pretensions of yours but meerly for the sake of Truth For we shall manifest anon unto you that you are as little concerned in the Priviledges of the Church be they what they will more or less as any Society of the Professours of Christianity in the world if so be that you are concerned in them at all So that if the Truth would permit us to agree with you in all things that you assign unto the Church yet the difference between you and us were never the nearer to an end for we should still differ with you about your share and interest therein and for ever abhor your frowardness in appropriating of them all unto your selves And herein as I sayed hath lyen a great part of your ruine Whilest you have been sweetly dreaming of an Infallibility you have really plunged your selves into errours innumerable and when any one hath jogged you to awake you out of your fatall sleep by minding you of your particular errours your dream hath left such an impression upon your imagination as that you think them no errours upon this only ground because you cannot erre I am perswaded had it not been for this one errour you had been freed from many others But this perfectly disiâ—ables you for any candid Inquisition after the Truth For why should he once look about him or indeed so much as take care to keep his eyes open who is sure that he can never be out of his way Hence you inquire not at all whether what you profess be Truth or not but to learn what your Church teacheth and defend it is all that you have to do about Religion in this world And whatever Absurdities or Inconveniencies you find your selves driven unto in the handling of particular points all is one they must be right though you cannot defend them because your Church which cannot erre hath so declared them to be And if you should chance to be convinced of any Truth in particular that is contrary to the determination of your Church you know not how to embrace it but must shut your eyes against its light and evidence and cast it out of your minds or wander up and down with a various assent between Contradictions Well said he of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is flat folly namely for a man to live in rebellion unto his own light But you adde III. That your selves that is the Pope with those who in matters of Religion adhere unto him and live in subjection unto him are this Church in an assent unto whose infallible teachings and Determinations the Vnity of Faith doth consist Could you prove this Assertion I confess it would stand you in good stead But before we enquire aftes that we shall endeavour a little to come unto a right understanding of what you say When you affirm tâ—at the Roman Church is the Church of Christ you intend either that it is the only Church of Christ all the Church of Christ and so consequently the Catholick Church or you mean that it is a Church of Christ which hath an especiall Prerog ative enabling it to require obedience of all the Disciples of Christ. If you say the former we desire to know 1. when it became so to be It was not so when all the Church was together at Hierusâ—lem and no foundation of any Church at all laid at Rome Acts 1. 1 2 3 4 5. It was not so when the first Church of the Gentiles was gathered at Antioch and the Disciples first began to be called Christians for as yet we have no tydings of any Church at Rome It was not so when Paul wrote his Epistles for he makes express mention of many other Church in other places which had no relation unto any Churches at Rome more than they had one to another in their common Profession of the same faith and therein enjoyed equall gifts and Priviledges with it It was not so in the dayes of the Primitive Fathers of the first three hundred years who all of them not one excepted took the Roman to be a local particular Church and the Bishop of Rome to be such a Bishop as they esteemed of all other Churches and Bishops
for our Saviour tells us in the next words that the world cannot receive him that is men of the world carnally minded men cannot do so for he is the peculiar inheritance of those that are called sanctified and do believe Now if ever there was any world in the world any of the world in the earth some many of your Popes have been so and therefore by the testimony of Christ could not receive the Spirit that he promised unto his Church Again it is promised unto the Church Mysticall or Catholick in the first and chiefest notion of it that all her children shall be holy all taught of God and all that are so taught as our Saviour informs us come to him by saving faith you will not I am sure for shame affirm that this Promise hath been made good to all either Children or Fathers of your Church Innumerable other Promises made to the Catholick Church may be instanced in which you can no better or otherwise apply unto your Church than one of your Popes did that of the Psalmist to himself Thou shalt tread on the Lion and the Basilisk when he set his foot on the neck of Fredrick the Emperour But the Arguments are endless whereby the vanity of this pretence may be disproved I shall only adde Sixtly That it is contrary to all Story Reason and common sense For it is notorious that far the greatest part of Christians that belong to the Catholick Church of Christ of have done so from the dayes that Christianity first entred the world successively in all Ages never thought themselves any otherwise concerned in the Roman Church than in any other particular Church of name in the world And is it not a madness to exclude them all from being Christians or belonging to the Catholick Church because they belonged not to the Roman This I could easily demonstrate throughout all Ages of the Church successively But we need not insist longer on the disproving of that Assertion which implyes a flat Contradiction in the very terms of it If any Church be the Catholick it cannot therefore be the Roman and if it be the Roman properly it cannot therefore be the Catholick 2. If you shall say that you mean only that you are a Particular Church of Christ but yet that or such a Particular Church as hath the great Priviledges of Infallibility and universall Authority annexed unto it which makes it of necessity for all men to submit unto it and to acquiesce in its Determinations I answer 1. I fear you will not say so you will not I fear renounce your claim unto Catholicism I have already observed that your self in particular affirm the Roman and Catholick Church to be one and the same It is not enough for you that you belong any way to the Church of Christ but you plead that none do so but your selves 2. Indeed you do not own your selves in this very Assertion to be a Particular Church your claim of Universall Authority and Jurisdiction which you still carry along with you is inconsistent with any such concession 3. To make the best of it that we can what ground have you to give us this Difference between the Churches of Christ that one is fallible another infallible that one hath power over all the rest that one depends on Christ all the rest on that one where is the least intimation given of any such thing in the Scripture where or by whom is it expresly asserted amongst the Antient Writers of the Church Was this Principle pleaded or once asserted in any of the Antient Councels Some ambiguous expressions of particular Persons most of them Bishops of Rome in the declining days of the Church you produce indeed unto this purpose But can any rationall man think them a sufficient foundation of that stupendious fabrick which you endeavour to erect upon them I suppose you will not find any such Persons hasty in their so doing Those who are already engaged will not be easily recovered For new Proselytes unto these Principles you have small ground to expect any unless it be of Persons whose lives are either tainted with sensuality which they would gladly have a refuge for against the accusations of their Consciences or whose minds are entangled with worldly secular advantages suited to their conditions tempers and inclinations Thus I have with what briefness I could shewed you the uncertainty indeed falsness of those Generall Principles from which you educe all your other pleas and reasonings into which they must be resolved And now I pray consider the ground-work you lay for the bringing of men unto a Settlement in the Truth and unto the unity of Faith in opposition to the Scripture which you reject as insufficient unto this purpose The summe of it is an acquiesceney in the proposals and Determinations of your Church as to all things that concern faith and the worship of God The two main Principles that concurre unto it we have apart considered and have found them every way insufficient for the end proposed Neither have they one jot more of strength when they are complicated and blended together as they usually are by you than they have in and of themselves as they stand singly on their own bottoms A thousand falshoods put together will be farre enough from making one Truth A multiplication of them may encrease a Sophism but not adde the least weight or strength to an Argument An army of Cripples will not make one sound man And can you think it reasonable that we should renounce our sure and firm Word of Prophecy to attend unto you in this chase of uncertain Conjectures and palpable untruths Suppose this were a way that would bring you and us to an Agreement and take away the evil of our Differences I can name you twenty that would do it as effectually and they should none of them have any evil in them but only that whch yours also is openly guilty of namely the Relinquishment of our Duty towards God and Care of our own Souls to come to some peace amongst our selves in this world which would be nothing else but a plain Conspiracy against Jesus Christ and rejection of his Authority At present I shall say no more but that he who is lead into the Truth by so many Errors and is brought unto establishments by so many uncertainties hath singular success and such as no other man hath reason to look for Or he is like Robert Duke of Normandy who when he caused the Saracens to carry him into Jerusalem sent word unto his friends in Europe that he was carried into Heaven on the backs of Devils It may also in particular be easily made to appear how unsuited your means of bringing men unto the unity of faith are unto that Supposition of the present Differences in Religion between you and us which you proceed upon For suppose a man be convinced that many things taught by your Church are false and contrary to the
mind of God as you know the case to be between you and us what course would you take with him to reduce him unto the Unity of Faith would you tell him that your Church cannot erre or would you endeavour to perswade him that the particulars which he instanceth in as Errours are not so indeed but real Truths and necessarily by him to be believed The former if you would speak it out down-right and openly as becometh men who distrust not the Truth of their Principles for he that is perswaded of the Truth never fears its strength would soon appear to be a very wise course indeed You would perswade a man in generall that you cannot erre whilest he gives you instances that you have actually erred Do not think you have any Sophisms against Motion in generall that will prevail with any man to assent unto you whilest he is able to rise and walk to and fro Besides he that is convinced of any thing wherein you erre believes the opposite unto it to be true and that on grounds unto him sufficiently cogent to require his assent If you could now perswade him that you cannot erre whilest he actually believes things to be true which he knows to be contrary to your Determination what a sweet condition should you bring him into can you enable him to believe Contradictions at the same time Or when a man on particular grounds and evidences is come to a setled firm perswasion that any Doctrine of your Church suppose that of Transubstantiation is false and contradictory unto Scripture and right Reason if you should abstracting from particulars in generall puzzle him with Sophisms and pretences for your Churches Infallibility do you think it is an easie thing for him immediately to forego that perswasion in particular which his mind upon cogent and to him unavoidable grounds and arguments was possessed withall without a rationall removall of those grounds and Arguments Mens belief of things never pierces deeper into their Souls than their imagination who can take it up and lay it down at their pleasure I am perswaded therefore you would take the latter course and strive to convince him of his mistakes in the things that he judgeth erroneous in the Doctrine of your Church And what way would you proceed by for his Conviction Would you not produce Testimonies of Scripture with Arguments drawn from them and the Suffrage of the Fathers to the same purpose Nay would you not do so if the errour he charge you withall be that of the Authority and Infallibility of your Church I am sure all your Controversie-Writers of note take this course And do you not see then that you are brought whether you will or no unto the use of that way and means for the reducing of men unto the Unity of Faith which you before rejected which Protestants avow as sufficient to that purpose CHAP. IX Proposals from Protestant Principles tending unto Moderation and Unity YOu may from what hath been spoken perceive how upon your own Principles you are utterly disenabled to exercise any true moderation towards Dissenters from you And that which you do so exercise we are beholding for it as Cicero said of the Honesty of some of the Epicureans to the Goodness of their Nature which the illness of their Opinions cannot corrupt Neither are you any way enabled by them to reduce men unto the Vnity of Faith so that you are not more happy in your proposing of Good Ends unto your self than you are unhappy in chusing mediums for the effecting of them It may be for your own skill you are able like Archimedes to remove the earthly-Bull of our Contentions but you are like him again that you have no where to stand whilest you go about your work However we thank you for your Good intentions In magnis voluisse is no small commendation Protestants on the other side you see are furnished with firm stable Principles and Rules in the pursuit both of Moderation and Unity And there are some things in themselves very practicable and naturally deducible from the Principles of Protestants wherein the compleat exercise of Moderation may be obteined and a better progress made towards Vnity than is likely to be by a rigid contending to impose different Principles on one another or by impetuous clamours of lo here and lo there which at present most men are taken up withall Some few of them I shall name unto you as a pacifick Coronis to the preceding â—ristical Discourse and Si quid novisti rectius ist is Candidus imperti si non his ntere mecum And they are these 1. Whereas our Saviour hath determined that our happiness consisteth not in the knowing the things of the Gospell but in doing of them and seeing that no man can expect any benefit or advantage from or by Christ Jesus but only they that yeeld obedience unto him to whom alone he is a Captain of Salvation the first thing wherein all that profess Christianity ought to agree and consent together is joyntly to obey the commands of Christ to live godlliy righteously and soberly in this present world following after holiness without which no man shall see God Untill we all agree in this and make it our business and fix it as our end in vain shall we attempt to agree in notionall and speculative Truths nor would it be much to our advantage so to do For as I remember I have told you before so I now on this occasion tell you again It will at the last day appear that it is all one to any man what party or way in Christian Religion he hath been of if he have not personally been born again and upon mixing the Promises of Christ with faith have thereupon yeilded obedience unto him unto the end I confess men may have many advantages in one way that they may not have in another They may have better means of instruction and better examples for imitation But as to the event it will be one and the same with all unbelievers all unrighteous and ungodly Persons And men may be very zealous believers in a Party who are in the sight of God unbelievers as to the whole design of the Gospell This is a Principle wherein as I take it all Christians agree namely that the Profession of Christianity will do no man the least Good as to his eternall concernments that lives not up to the power of it yea it will be an aggravation of his condemnation And the want hereof is that which hath lost all the â—ustre and splendour of the Religion taught by Jesus Christ in the world Would Christians of all Parties make it their business to retrive its reputation wherein also their own bliss and happiness is involved by an universall obedience unto the precepts of it it would insensibly sink a thousand of their Differences under ground Were this attended unto the world would quickly say with admiration Magnus ab integro sêcloram
nascitur ordo Jam nova progenies Coelo demittitur alto The old glorious beautifull face of Christianity would be restored unto it again which many deform more and more every day by painting a dead carcass in stead of the living Spouse of Christ. And if ever we intend to take one step towards any agreement or unity it must be by fixing this Principle in the minds of all men that it is of no advantage to any man whatever Church or way in Christian Religion he be of unless he personally believe the promises and live in obedience unto all the precepts of Christ. And that for him who doth so that it is a trampling of the whose Gospel underfoot to say that his salvation could be endangered by his not being of this or that Church or way especially considering how much of the world hath immixed its self into all the known wayes that are in it Were this once well fixed on the minds of men and did they practically believe that men shall not be dealt with all at the last day by gross as of this or that party or Church but that every Individuall Person must stand upon his own bottome live by his own faith or perish for want of it as if there had been no other persons in the world but himself wee should quickly find their keenness in promoting and contending for their severall parties taken off theirheat allayed and they will begin to find their business and concernment in Religion to be utterly another matter than they thought of For the present some Protestants think that when the Roman Power is by one means or other broken which they expect that then wee shall agree and have peace Romanists on the other side look for and desire the extirpation of all that they call Heresy or Hereticks by one way or other some pretending highly to Moderation on both sides especially among the Protestants hope that it may be attained by mutuall condescension of the Parties at variance contemperation of opinions and practises unto the present distant apprehensions and interests of the chief leaders of either side what issue and event their desires hopes and attempts will have time will shew to all the world For my part until by a fresh powring out of the Spirit of God from on high I see Christians in profession agreeing in pursuing the end of Christianity endeavouring to be followers of Jesus Christ in a conversation becoming the Gospell without trusting to the Parties wherein they are engaged I shall have very little hopes to see any Unity amongst us that shall be one jot better than our present Differences To see this if any thing would make me say O mihi tam longe maneat pars ultima vitae The present face of Christianity makes the world a wearisome wilderness Nor should I think any thing a more necessary Duty than it would be for Persons of Piety and ability to apologize for the Religion of Jesus Christ and to shew how inconcerned it is in the wayes and practises of the most that profess it and how utterly another thing it is from what in the world it is represented to be so to put a stop unto that Atheism which is breaking in upon us from the contempt that men have of that Idaea of Christian Religion which they have taken from the manner of its profession and lives of its Professors were it not that I suppose it more immediately incumbent on them and us all to do the same work in a reall expression of its power and excellency in such a kind of goodness holiness righteousness and heavenliness of conversation as the world is only as yet in sacret acquainted withall When this is done the way for a farther agreement will be open and facile and untill it be so men will fight on Ipsique nepotesque Et nati natorum qui nascentur ab illis We shall have no end of our Quarrels Could I see an Heroick temper fall on the minds of men of the severall parties at variance to bid adieu to the world its customs manners and fashions which are all vain and perishing not in a locall corporall retirement from the men and lawfull businesses of it or a relinquishment of the necessary callings and employments in it but in their spirits affections could I see them taking up the Cross of Christ not on their backs in its figure but on their hearts in its power and in their whole conversation conforming themselves unto his blessed example so teaching all others of their parties what it is that they build upon for a blessed Eternity that they may not please and deceive themselves with their conceited Orthodoxie in the trifling Differences which they have with other Christans I should hope the very name of persecution and every thing that is contrary to Christian Moderation would quickly be driven out of Christendome and that errour and what ever is contrary to the Vnity of Faith would not be long lived after them But whilest these things are farre from us let us not flatter our selves as though a windy flourish of words had any efficacy in it to bring us to Moderation and unity At variance we are and at variance we must be content to be that being but one of the Evils that at this day triumph in the world over conquered Christianity This being suposed 11. Whereas the Doctrine of God is a Mystery in the knowledge where ofmen attain unto Wisedome according to that measure of light and Grace which the Spirit who devides unto every man as he will is pleased to communicate unto them if men would not frame any other Rule or standard unto that Wisedom and the various degrees of it but only that which God himself hath assigned thereunto the fuell would upon the matter be wholly taken away from the fire of our Contentions All men have not nor let men pretend what they please to the contrary ever had nor ever will have the fame light the same knowledg the same spirituall Wisdome and understanding the same degree of assurance the same measure of comprehension in the things of God But whilest they have the same Rule the same objective Revelation the use of the same means to grow spiritually wise in the knowledg of it they have all the agreement that God hath appointed for them or calls them unto To frame for them all in Rigid confessions or Systemes of supposed credible Propositions a Procrustes bed to stretch them upon or crop them unto the size of so to reduce them to the same opinion in all things is a vain and fruitless attempt that men have for many Generations wearâ—ed themselves about and yet continue so to do Remove out of the way Anathemas upon Propositions arbitrarily composed and expressed Philosophical Conclusions Rules of faith of a meer humane composure or use them no otherwise but only to testifie the voluntary consent of mens minds in expressing to their own
or English had the first news of our Christianity immediately from Rome and from Pope Gregorius the Roman Patriarch by the hands of his Missioner St. Austin Sith then the Categorick Assertions are both clear namely that the Papists first brought us the news of Christianity and Secondly that the Papist is now become odi us unto us What say you to my Consequent that the whole story of Christianity may as well be deemed a Romance as any part of that Christianity we at first received is now judged to be a part of a Romance This Consequence of mine it behoved a man of those great parts you would be thought to have to heed attentively and yet you never minded it Some few Observations upon this Discourse of yours will further manifest the Absurdity of that Consequence which you seign not to have been taken notice of in the Animadversions for which you had no cause but that you might easily discern that it did not deserve it 1. Then you grant that the Gospel came out of the East into this Land So then we did not first receive the Gospel from Rome much less by the means of Papists But the Land was then called Albion or Brittany and the people Brittans or Kimbrians not Englishmen What then though the names of places or people are changed the Gospel whereever it is is still the same But the Brittans lost the Gospel until they had a new Conversion from Rome by the means of Eleutherius But you fail Sir and are either ignorant in the story of those times or else wilfully pervert the truth All the Fathers and favourers of that Story agree that Christianity was well rooted and known in Brittain when Lucius as is pretended sent to Eleutherius for Assistance in its propagation Your own Baronius will assure you no less ad An. 183. n. 3 4. Gildas de Excid will do it more fully Virunnius tells us that the Brittans were then strengthened in the faith not that they then received it Strengthened in what they had not newly converted though some as it is said were so And the dayes of Lucius are assigned by Sabellicus as the time wherein the whole Province received the name of Christ publicitus cum ordinatione by publick decree That it was received there before and abode there as in other places of the world under persecution all men agree In this interval of time did the British Church bring forth Claudia Ruffina Elvanus and Meduinus whose names amongst others are yet preserved And to this space of time do the Testimonies of Tertullian ad Judae and of Origen Hom. 4. in Ezek. concering Christianity in Brittain belong Besides if the only prevalent Religion in Brittany were as you fancy that which came from Rome how came the Observation of Easter both amongst the Brittans as Beda manifests and the Scots as Petrus Cluniacensis declares to be answerable to the Customs of the Eastern Church and contrary to those of the Roman Did those that came from Rome teach them to do that which they judged their duty not to do But what need we stay in the confutation of this sigment The very Epistle of Eleutherius manifests it abundantly so to be If there be any thing of Truth in that rescript it doth not appear that Lucius wrote any thing unto him about Christian Religion but about the Imperial Laws to govern his Kingdom by and Eleutherius in his answer plainly intimates that the Scripture was received amongst the Brittans and the Gospel much dispersed over the whole Nation And yet this figment of your own you make the Bottom of a most strange contemplation namely that God in his Providence would have all that Christianity fail which came not from Rome That is the meaning of those expressions be would have nothing stand firm or lasting but what was immediately fixed by and seated on that Rock for all other Conversions have vanished Really Sir I am sorry for you to see what wofull shelves your prejudicate Opinions do cast you upon who in your self seem to be a well meaning goodnatured man Do you think indeed that those Conversions that were wrought in the world by the means of any Persons not coming from Rome which were Christ himself and all his Apostles were not fixed on the Rock Can such a blasphemous thought enter into your heart If those primitive Converts that were called unto the faith by Persons coming out of the East were not built on the Rock they all perished everlastingly every soul of them and if the other Churches planted by them were not immediately fixed and seated on the Rock they went all to Hell the Gates of it prevailed against them Do you think indeed that God suffered all the Churches in the world to come to nothing that all Christians might be brought into subjection to your Pope which you call cementing in an Vnity of one Head If you do so you think wickedly that he is altogether like unto your self but be will reprove you and set your faults in order before your eyes Such horrible dismal thoughts do men allow themselves to be conversant withall who are resolved to sacrifice Truth Reason and Charity unto their prejudices and interests Take heed Sir least the Rock that you boast of prove not seven hills and deceive you In the persuit of the same Consideration you tell me that I will laugh at your Observation that the Tables written by Gods own hand were broken but those written by Moses remained that we may learn to give a due respect to him whom God hath set over us But you do not well to say so I do not laugh at your observation but I really pitty you that make it Pray Sir what were those Tables that were written by Moses when those written by God were broken Such mistakes as these you ever and anon fall into and I fear for want of being conversant in Holy Writ which it seems your Principles prompt you unto a neglect of Sir the Tables prepared by Moses were no less written with the finger of God then those were which he first prepared himself Exod. 24. 28. Deut. 10. 1 2 4. And if you had laid a good ground for your notion that the Tables prepared by God were broken and those hewed by Moses preserved and would have only added what you ought to have done that there was nothing in the Tables delivered unto the people by Moses but what was written by the finger of God I should have commended both it and the inference you make from it As it is built by you on the sand it would fall with its own weight were it no heavier then a feather But you lay great stress I suppose on that which follows namely that the Brittans being expelled by the Saxons the Saxons first received their Christianity from Rome You may remember what hath been told you already in answer to this Case about Romes being left without inhabitants by
greatest moment and of most indispensible necessity unto Salvation whereby you render it perfectly useless according to the old Rule Quod non potest intelligi debet negligi it is fit that should be neglected which cannot be understood And 8. There is a book lately written by one of your party after you have been frequently warned and told of these things entituled Fiat Lux giving countenance unto many other hard reflections upon it as hath been manifested in the Animadversions written on that Book 9. Your great Masters in their writings have spoken very contemptuously of it whereof I shall give you a few instances The Council of Trent which is properly yours determines as I told you that their Traditions are to be received and venerated pari pietatis affectu reverentia with an equal affection of piety and reverence as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament which is a setting up of the Altar of Damascus with that of God himself in the same Temple Sess. 4. Dec. 1. And Andradius no small part of that Convention in his defence of that Decree tells us that cum Christus fragilitati memoriae Evangelio scripto succurrendum putavit it a breve compendium libris tradi voluit ut pars maxima tanquam magni precii thesaurus traditionibus intimis Ecclesiae visceribus infixis relicta fuerit As our Lord Christ thought meet to relieve the frailty of memory by the written Gospel so he would have a short compendium or abridgement committed unto books that the greatest part as a most precious treasure might be left unto Traditions fixed in the very inward bowels of the Church This is that cordial and absolute respect even unto admiration that your Catholicks bear unto the Scripture And he that doth not admire it seems to me to be very stupid It contains some small part of the mysteries of Christian Religion the great treasure of them lying in your Traditions and thereupon he concludes Canonem seu Regulam fidei exactissimam non esse Scripturam sed Ecclesiae judicium that the Canon or most exact Rule of Faith is not the Scripture but the judgement of the Church Much to the same purpose as you plead in your Fiat and Epistola Pighius another Champion of your Church Ecclesiast Hierarch Lib. 1. c. 4. after he hath given many reasons to prove the obscurity of the Scripture with its flexibility to every mans sense as you know who also hath done and referred all things to be determined by the Church concludes Si hujus Doctrinae memores fuissemus haereticos scilicet non esse informandos vel convincendos ex Scripturis meliore same loco essent res nostrae sed dum ostentandi ingenii eruditionis gratia cum Luthero in certamen discenditur Scripturarum excitatum est hoc quod proh dolor nunc videmus incendium Had we been mindful of this Doctrine that Hereticks are not to be instructed nor convinced out of the Scriptures our affairs had been in a better condition then now they are but whilest some to shew their wit and learning would needs contend with Luther out of the Scriptures the fire which we now with grief behold was kindled and stirred up And it may be you remember who it was that called the Scripture Evangelium nigrum and Theologiam atramentariam seeing he was one of the most famous champions of your Church and Cause But before we quite leave your Council of Trent we may do well to remember the advice which the Fathers of it who upon the stirs in Germany removed unto Bononia gave to the Pope Julius the third which one that was then amongst them afterwards published Denique say they in their letters to him quod inter omnia consilia quae nos hoc tempore dare possumus omnium gravissimum ad extremum reservavimus Oculi hic aperiendi sunt omnibus nervis adnitendum erit ut quam minimum Evangelii poterit praesertim vulgari lingua in iis legatur Civitatibus quae sub tua ditione potestate sunt sufficiatque tantillum illud quod in missa legi solet nec eo amplius cuiquam mortalium legere liceat Quam diu enim pauculo illo homines contenti fuerunt tam diu res tuae ex sententia successêre â—aedemq in contrarium labi caeperunt ex quo ulterius legi vulgo usurpatum est Hic ille in summa Est liber qui praeter caeteros hasce nobis tempestates ac turbines conciliavit quibus prope abreptisumus Et sane siquis illum diligenter expendat deinde quae in nostris fieri ecclestis consueverunt singula ordine contempletur videbis plurimum inter se dissidere hanc doctrinam nostram ab illa prorsus diversam esse ac saepe contrariam etiam Quod simul atque homines intelligant à docto scilicet aliquo adversariorum stimulati nou ante clamandi finem faciunt quam rem plane omnem divulgaverint nosque invisos omnibus reddiderint Quare occultandae pauculae illae chartulae sed abhibita quadam cautione diligentia ne ea res majores nobis turbas ac tumultus excitet Last of all that which is the most Weighty of all the advices which that at this time we shall give unto you we have reserved for the close of all Your eyes are here to be opened you are to endeavour with the utmost of your power that as little as may be of the Gospel especially in any vulgar tongue be read in those Cities which are under your government and Authority but let that little suffice them which is wont to be read in the Mass of which mind you also know who is neither let it be lawful for any man to read any more of it For as long as men were contented with that little your affairs were as prosperous as heart could desire and began immediately to decline upon the custome of reading any more of it This is in brief that book which above all others hath procured unto us those tempests and storms wherewith we are almost carryed away headlong And the Truth is if any one shall diligently consider it and then seriously ponder on all the things that are accustomed to be done in our Churches he will find them to be very different the one from the other and our Doctrine to be divers from the Doctrine thereof yea and oftentimes plainly contrary unto it Now this when men begin to understand being stirred up by some learned man or other amongst the adversaries they make no end of clamouring until they have divulged the whole matter and rendred us hateful unto all Wherefore those few sheets of Paper are to be hid but with caution and diligence least their concealment should stir us up greater troubles This is fair and open being a brief summary of that admiration of the Scriptures which so abounds in Catholick Countreys That Hermannus one of some account in your Church affirmed that the
out of his way that you speak not one word unto it yet I will say that it is a thing of that kind whereof there are frequent instances in your whole Discourse and for what reason is not very difficult for any man to conjecture CHAP. 15. Pleas of Prelate Protestants Christ the only supream and absolute Head of the Church PAg. 49. You take a view of the tenth Chapter of the Animadversions opposed unto the thirteenth and fourteenth Paragraph of your Fiat Lax wherein you pretend to set forth the various Pleas of those that are at Difference amongst us in matters of Religion These you there distribute into Independents Presbyterians and Protestants Here omitting the Consideration of the two former you apply your self unto what was spoken about Prelate Protestants as you call them You endeavour say you to disable both what I have set down to make against the Prelate Protestant and also what I have said for him I said in Fiat Lux that it made not a little against our Protestants that after the Prelate Protestancy was setled in England they were forced for their own preservation against the â—uritans to take up some of those Principles again which former Protestants had cast down for Popish as is the Authority of the visible Church efficacy of ordination difference between Clergy and Laity Here first you deny that these Principles are Popish But Sir there are some Jews even at this day who will deny any such man as Pontius Pilate to to have ever been in Jewry I have other things to do then to fill volumes with useless texts which here I might easily do out of the books both of the first Reformers and Catholick Divines and Councils What acquaintance you have with the Jews we have in part seen already and shall have occasion hereafter to examine a little further In the mean time you may be pleased to take notice that men who know what they say are not easily affrighted from it by a shew of such Mormoes as he in the Comaedian was from his own house by his servants pretence that it was haunted by Sprights when there were none in it but his own debauched companions I denyed those Opinions to be Popish and should do so still were I accused for so doing before a Roman Judge as corrupt and wicked as Pontius Pilate For I can prove them to be more Antient then any part of Popery in the sense explained in the Animadversions and admitted generally by Protestants We never esteem every thing Popish that Papists hold or believe Some things in your Profession belong unto your Christianity some things to your Popery And I am perswaded you do not think this Proposition Jesus Christ is the Son of God to be Heretical because those whom you account Hereticks do profess and believe it Prove the Principles you mention to be invented by your selves without any foundation in the Scripture or constant suffrage of the Antient Churches and you prove them to be Popish to be your own If you cannot do so though Papists profess them yet they may be Christian. This is spoken as to the Principles themselves not unto your explanation of them which in sundry particulars is Popish which were never owned by Prelate Protestants You proceed You challenge me to prove that these Principles were ever denyed by our Prelate Protestants And this you do wittily and like your self You therefore bid me prove that those principles were ever denyed by our Prelate Protestants because I say that our Prelate Protestants here in England as soon as they became such took up again those forenamed Principles which Protestants their forefathers both here in England and beyond Seas before our Prelacy was set up had still rejected When I say then that our Prelate Protestants affirmed and asserted those Principles which former Protestants denyed you bid me prove that ever our Prelate Protestants ever denyed them But whatever you can prove or cannot prove you have made it very easie for any man to prove that you have very little regard unto truth and sobriety in what you aver so that you may acquit your self from that which presseth you and which according to the rules of them you cannot stand before You tell us in the entrance of this discourse that you said that Prelate Protestants for their own preservation took up some of those Principles again which former Protestants had cast down for Popish And here expresly that you said not that they took up the Principles which themselves had cast down but only those which other before them had so dealt withall Now pray take a view of your own words whereby you express your self in this matter Chap. 3. S. 14. p. 189. ed. 2. Are they not these The Prelate Protestant to defend himself against them the Presbyterians and Independents is forced to make use of those very Principles which himself afore time not other Protestants but himself when he not others first contended against Popery destroyed So that upon him falls most heavily even like Thunder and Lightning from Heaven utterly to kill and cut him a sunder that great Oracle delivered by St. Paul If I build up again the things I not another formerly destroyed I make my self a prevaricator an Impostor a Reprobate What think you of these words do you charge the Prelate Protestant with building up what others had pulled down or what he had destroyed himself Is your Rule out of St. Paul applicable unto him upon any other account but that he himself was both the builder and destroyer Sir such miscarriages as these Protestants know to be mortal sins and if without contrition for them you have celebrated any Sacrament of your Church it cannot be avoided but that you have brought a great inconvenience on some of your Disciples Besides suppose you had spoken as you now faign your self to have done I desire to know who they are whom you intend when you say our Prelate Protestants so soon as they became such as though they were first Protestants at large and destroyed those Principles which afterwards they built up when they became Prelate Protestants seeing all men know that our Reformation was begun by Prelates themselves and such as never disclaimed the Principles by you instanced in But you tell me I do not only reject what you object against Prelate Protestants but also what you alledge in their behalf I do so indeed though I laugh not at you or it as you pretend and so must any man do who pleading for Protestancy hath not a mind openly to prevaricate For your Plea for them is such as if admitted would not only overthrow your Prelacy which you pretend to assert but also destroy your Protestancy which you will not deny but that you seek to oppose Nay it is no other but what was contradicted in the very Council of Trent by the Spanish Prelates as that which they conceived to have been an engine contrived for the Ruine
the order you mention exclude that which you would introduce Or would you prove that Bishops by the Law of this Land have a jurisdiction superior unto Ministers who ever went about to deny it or what will the remembrance of it advance your pretensionâ— And yet neither is this fairly expressed by you For as no Protestants assert the King to be in his power and office interposed between Christ and Bishops or Ministers as to their ministerial office which is purely spiritual so the power of supream Jurisdiction which they ascribe unto him is not as you falsly insinuate granted unto him by the Laws of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth but is an inseparable Priviledge of his imperial Crown exercised by his Royal Predecessours and asserted by them against the inâ—rusions and usurpations of the Pope of Rome only diclared by those and other Laws But I perceive you have another design in hand You are entring upon a discourse wherein you compare your selves not only with Presbyterians and Independents but Prelate Protestants also in what you ascribe unto Kings in Ecclesiastical affairs preferring your selves before and above them all What just cause you have so to do we shall afterwards consider Your Confidence in it at first view presents its selâ— unto us â— on whereas there was not in the Animadversions any occasion of it administred unto you and your self confess that your whole discourse about it is besides your purpose pag. 66. yet waving almost every thing that was incumbent upon you to have insisted on if you would not plainly have appeared vadimonium deseruisse and to have given up your Fiat as indefensible you divert into a long harangue about it The Thesis you would by various florishes give countenance unto is this That Papists in their deference unto Kings even in Ecclesiastical matters and in their principles of their obedience unto them 〈◊〉 Protestants of all sorts That this is not to ouâ— present purpose your self cannot but see and acknowledge Hower your Discourse such as it is relating to one special head of Difference between us shall be a part considered by its self in our next Chapter CHAP. 16. The Power assigned by Papists and Protestants unto Kings in matters Ecclesiastical Their several Principles discussed and compared YOur Discourse on this head is not reducible by Logick its self unto any method or rules of Argument For it is in general 1. So loose Ambigucus and Metaphorically expressed 2. So Sophistical and inclusive 3. So inconsistent in sundry instances with the Principles and practices of your Church if you speak intelligibly 4. So false and untrue in many particulars that it is scarcely for these excellent qualifications to be paralleld with any thing either in your Fiat or your Epistola First It is loose and ambiguous 1. Not stating what you intend by the Head of the Church which you discourse about 2. Noâ— determining whither the King be such an head of Execution in matter of Religion as may use the Liberty of his own judgement as to what he puts in execution or whether he be not bound to execute your Popes Determinations on the penalty of the forfeiture of his Christianity which I doubt we shall find to be your opinion 3. Not declaring wherein the power which you assign unto him is founded whether in Gods immediate institution oâ— the Concession of the Pope whereon it should solely depend unto whom it is in all things to be made subservient Secondly Sophistical 1. In playing with the ambiguity of that expression Head of the Church and by the advantage thereof imposing on Protestants contradictions between their profession and practice as though in the one they acknowledged the King to be head of the Church and not in the other whereas there is a perfect consonancy between them in the sence wherein they understand that expression shrowding your own sence and opinion in the mean time under the same ambiguity 2. In supposing an absolute universal Head of the whole Catholick Church and then giving reasons why no King can be that Head when you know that the whole Question is whither there by any such head of the Catholick Church on earth or no. 3. In supposing the Principles and practises of the Primitive Church to have been the same with those of the present Roman and those of the present Roman to have been all known and allowed of old which begs all that is in Controversie between us and sundry other instances of the like nature may be observed in it Thirdly Inconsistent with the Principles and Practices of your own Church both 1. In what you ascribe unto Kings and 2. In your stating of the power and Jurisdiction of your Pope if the ambiguity of your words and expressions will allow us to conclude what you intend or aim at Fourthly False 1. In matter of fact as to what you relate of the obedience of your Church unto Kings 2. In the principles and Opinions which you impose on your Advertaries 3. In the declaration that you make of your own and 4. In many particular Assertions whose consideration will afterwards occur This is a business I could have been glad you had not necessitated me to the Consideraâ—ion of for it cannot be truly and distinctly handled 〈…〉 such reflections upon your Church and way as may without extraordinary indulgence redound unto your disadvantage Your have by your own voluntary choice called me to the discussion of those Principles which have created you much trouble in these Nations and put you oftentimes upon attempting their disquiet Now these are things which I desire not I am but a private man and am very well contented you should enjoy all that peace and liberty which you think not meet in other Nations where the Pâ—wer is at your disposal to grant unto them that dissent from you Lex talionis should be far from influencing the minds of Christians in this matter however the equity of it may at any time be pleaded or urged to relieve others in other places under bondage and persecution But I am sure if I judge your proceedings against other men dissenting from you in Conscience to be unjustifiable by the Scripture or Light of Nature or suffrage of the Antient Church as I do I have no reason to desire that they should be drawn into president against their selves in any place in the world And therefore Sir had you provided the best colour you could for your own Principles and palliated them to the 〈◊〉 so to hide them from the eyes of those who it may be are ready to seek their disturbance and trouble from an apprehension of the evil that may ensue upon them and had not set them up in comparison with the Principles of Protestants of all sorts and for the setting off your own with the better grace and luster untruly and individiously reported theirs to expose them unto those thoughts and that severity from supream powers which you seek
your selves to wave I should have wholly passed by this discourse unto which no occasion was administred in the Animadversions but now as you have hanâ—dled the matter unless I would have it taken for granted that the Principles of the Roman Church are more suited unto the establishment and promotion of the interest and Soveraignty of Kings and other supream Magistrates and in particular the Kings of these Nations then those of Protestants which in Truth I do not believe I must of necessity make a little further enquiry into your Discourse And I desire your pardon if in my so doing any thing be spoken that suits not so well your interest and designs neither expecting nor desiring any if ought be delivered by me not according to Truth To make our way the more clear some of the ambiguous expressions which you make use of to cloud and hide your intention in your enquiry after the Head of the Church must be explained 1. By the Church you understand not this or that particular Church not the Church of this of that Nation Kingdom or Countrey but the whole Catholick Church throughout the world And when you have explained your self to this purpose you endeavour by six Arguments no less p. 67 68. to prove that no King ever was or can be Head of it He said well of old In causa facili quemvis licet esse disertum I wonder you contented your self to give us six Reasons only and that you proceeded not at least unto the high hills of eighteenthly and nineteenthly that you talk of in your Fiat Lux where you scoff at the preaching of Presbyterians it may be you will scarely ever obtain such another opportunity of shewing the fertility of your invention So did he florish who thought himself secure from adversaries Caâ—ut altum in praelia tollit Ostenditque humeros latos alternaque jactat Brachia protendens verberat ictibus auras But you do like him you only beat the ayre Do you think any man was ever so distempered as to dream that any King whatever could be the absolute Head of the whole Catholick Church of Christ we no more think any King in any sence to be the Head of the Catholick Church then we think the Pope so to be The Roman Empire was at its hight and glory when first Christianity set forth in the world and had extended its bounds beyond those of any Kingdom that arose before it or that hath since succeeded unto it And yet within a very few years after the Resurrection of Christ the Gospel had diffused it self beyond the limits of that Empire among the Parthians and Indians and unto Britannorum Romanis inaccessa loca as Tertullian calls them Now none ever supposed that any King had power or Authority of any sort in reference unto the Church or any members of it without or beyond the precise limits of his own Dominions The Enquiry we have under Consideration about the Power of Kings and the obedience due unto them in Ecclesiastical things is limited absolutely unto their own Kingdoms and unto those of their subjects which are Christians in them And this Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta Pulveris exigui jactu concussa quiescunt A little observation of this one known and granted Principle renders not only your six Reasons altogether useless but surpersedes also a great part of your Rhetorick which under the ambiguity of that expression you display in your whole Discourse Secondly You pleasantly lead about your unwary Reader with the ambiguity of the other term the Head Hence p. 58. you fall into a great exclamation against Protestants that acknowledging the King to be the Head of the Church they do not supplicate unto him and acquiesce in his judgement in Religious affairs as if ever any Protestant acknowledged any King or any mortal man to be such an Head of the Church as you fancy to your selves in whose determinations in Religion all men are bound spiritually and as to their eternal concernments to acquiesce and that not because they are true according to the Scripture but because they are his Such an Head you make the Pope such an one on earth all Procestants deny which evacuates your whole Discourse to that purpose p. 58 59. It is true in opposition unto your Papal claim of Authority and Jurisdiction over the subjects of this Kingdom Protestants do assert the King to be so Head of the Church within his own Realms and Dommions as that he is by Gods appointment the sole fountain and spring amongst men of all Authority and Power to be exercised over the Persons of his subjects in matters of external cognizance and order being no way obnoxious to the direction supervisorship and superintendency of any other in particular not of the Pope He is not only the only striker as you phrase it in his Kingdoms but the only Protector under God of all his subjects and the only Distributor of Justice in rewards and punishments unto them not depending in the administration of the one or other on the determinations or orders of your Pope or Church Not that any of them do use absolutely that expression of Head of the Church but that they ascribe unto him all Authority that ought or can be exercised in his Dominions over any of his Subjects whither in things Civil or Ecclesiastical that are not meerly Spiritual and to be ministerially ordered in obedience unto Christ Jesus And that you may the better see what it is that Protestants ascribe unto the King and to every King that is Absolutely supream as his Majesty is in his own Dominions and withall how exceeding vain your unreasonable reproach is which you cast upon them for not giving themselves up unto an absolute acquiescency in humane determinations as meerly such on pretence that they proceed from the Head of the Church I shall give you a brief account of their thoughts in this whole matter First They say that the King is the supream Governor over all Persons whatever within his Realms and Dominions none being exempted on any account from subjection unto his Regal Authority How well you approve of this Proposition in the great astignations you pretend unto Kingly power we shall afterwards enquire Protestants found their perswasion in this matter on the Authority of the Scripture both Old Testament and New and the very Principles constituting Soveraign Power amongst men You speak fair to Kings but at first dash exempt a considerable number of their born subjects owing them indispensible natural Allegiance from their jurisdiction Or this sort are the Clergy But the Kings of Judah of old were not of your mind Solomon certainly thought Abiathar though High Priest subject to his Royal Authority when he denounced against him a sentence of death and actually deposed him from the Priest hood The like course did his successors proceed in For neither had God in the first provision he made for a
only and absolute head and Monarch of the Catholick Church which you would perswade us to believe that he is Kings then may even in Church affairs be strikers under him be the servants and executioners of his will and pleasure but Authority from God immediately in and about them they have none nor can have any whilest your Imaginary Monarchy takes place This one fundamental Principle of your Religion sufficiently discovers the insignificancy of your florish about Kingly Authority in Ecclesiastical things seeing upon a supposition of it they can have none at all But you stay not here for 3. You ascribe unto your Popes an universal Dominion even in Civil things over all Christian Kings and their subjects In the explanation of this Dominion I confess you somewhat vary among your selves but the thing it self is generally asserted by you and made a foundation of practice Some of you maintain that the Pope by Divine right and Constitution hath an absolute supream Dominion over the whole world This opinion Bellarmine Lib. 5. de Pont. cap. 1. confesseth to be maintained by Augustinus Triumphus Alvarus Pelagius Hostiensis and Panoruitanus And himself in the next words condemns the opinion of them who deny the Pope to have any such temporal power as that he may command secular Princes and deprive them of the Kingdoms and Principalities not only as false but as down right Heresie And why doth he name the first opinion as that of four or five Doctors when it is the Common opinion of your Church as Baronius sufficiently manifests in the life of Gregory the seventh That great preserver of your Pontificial omnipotency in his Bull against Henry the German Emperour affirms that he hath power to take away Empires Kingdoms and Principalities or what â—ver a mortal man may have as Platina records it in his life As also Pope Nicholas the second in his Epistle ad Mediolanens asserts that the rights both of the heavenly and earthly Empires are committed unto him And he that hath but looked on the Dictates of the forenamed Gregory confirmed in a Council at Rome and defended by Baronius or into their Decretals knows that you give both swords to the Pope and that over and over Whence Carerius Lib. 1. c. 9. affirms that it is the Common opinion of the School Divines that the Pope hath plenissimam Potestatem plenary power over the whole world both in Ecclesiastical and Temporal matters and you know the old comparison made by the Canonists cap. de Major Obed. between the Pope and the Emperour namely that he is as the Sun the Emperour as the Moon which borrows all its light from the other Bellarmine and those few whom he follows or that follow him maintain that the Pope hath this Power only indirectly and in order unto spiritual things the meaning of which assertion as he explains himself is that besides that direct power which he hath over those Countreys and Kingdoms which on one pretence or other he claims to be Feaudatory to the Roman See which are no small number of the chiefest Kingdoms of Europe he hath a Power over them all to dispose of them their Kings and Rulers according as he judgeth it to conduce to the good and interest of the Church which as it really differs very little from the â—ormer opinion so Barclay tells us that Pope Sixtus was very little pleased with that seeming depression of the Papal Power which his words intimate But the stated Doctrine of your Church in this matter is so declared by Bozius Augustinus Triumphus Carerius Schioppius Marta and others all approved by her Authority that there can be no question of it Moreover to make way for the putting of this indirect Power into direct Execution you declare 4. That the Pope is the supream Judge of faith and his Declarations and Determinations so far the Rule of it as that they are to be received and finally submitted unto not to do so is that which you express Heresie or Schism or Apostacy About this Principle also of your Profession there have been as about most other things amongst you great Disputes and wranglings between the Doctors and props of your Church Much debate there hath been whither this power be to be attributed unto the Pope without a Council or above a Council or against one About these Chimaera's are whole volumes filled with keen and subtil argumentations But the Popes Personal or at least Cathedral Determination hath at length prevailed For whatever some few of you may whisper unto your own trouble and disadvantage to the impeachment of his Personal Infallibility you are easily decryed by the general voice of your Doctors and besides those very persons themselves wherever they would place the Infallibility of the Church that they fancy are forâ—ed to put it so far into the Popes hand and management as that whatever he determines with the necessary solemnities in matters of faith is ultimately at least to be acquiesced in So your self assure us averring that he who doth not so forfeits his Christianity and consequently all the Priviledges which thereby he enjoyes and we have reason sufficient from former experience to believe that the Pope have he ability unto his will is ready enough to take the forfeiture Whither upon a Princes falling into Heresie in not acquiescing in your Papal determinations his subjects are discharged ipso facto from all obedience unto him as Dominicus Bannes and others maintain or whither there needs the Denunciation of a sentence against him by the Pope for their absolution you are not agreed But yet 5. You affirm that in Case of such Disobedience unto the Pope he is armed with Power to depose Kings and Princes and to give away and bestow their Kingdoms and Dominions on others Innumerable are the instances whereby the Popes themselves have justified their claim of this Power in the face of the world and it were endless to recount the Emperours Kings and free Princes that they have attempted to ruine and destroy in the persuit of some wherof they actually succeeded with the desolations of Nations that have ensued thereon I shall mention but one and that given us in the dayes of our Fathers and it may be in the memory of some yet alive Pope Pius V takes upon him contrary to the advice and entreaties of the Emperour of Germany and others to depose Queen Elizabeth and to devote her to destruction To this end he absolved all her Subjects from their Allegiance and gave away her Kingdoms and Dominions to the Spaniard assisting him to his utmost in his attempt to take possession of his grant and all for refusing obedience to the See of Rome You cannot I presume be offended with my mention of that which is known unto all for these things were not done in a corner And is it not hence evident that all the power which you grant unto Kings is meerly precarious which they hold of your Pope
as Tenants at will and should they not appear to do so were his force wit and courage answerable to his will and pretence of Authority But be it that because you cannot help it you suffer them to live at peace and quietness in the main of their Rule yet you still curb them in their own Dominions for 6. You exempt all the Clergy from under their Rule and Power See your Bellarmine sweating to prove that they are not bound to their Laws so as to be judged by them without their leave if they transgress or to pay any tribute De Cleric Lib. 1. Cap. 28. They are all reserved to the Power and Jurisdiction of the Pope And he that shall consider into what a vast and boundless multitude by reason of the several disorderly orders of your City Monks and Friars your Clergy is swelled into in most places of Europe will easily perceive what your interest is in every Kingdom of it I am perswaded there is scarce a Considerable Nation wherein the Profession of your Religion is enthroned in which the Pope hath not an 100000. able fighting men that are his peculiar subjects exempted from the Power and jurisdiction of Kings themselves which you must needs conceive to be a blessed interpretation of that of the Apostle Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers And 7. You extend the Papal Power to Things as well as Persons in the Dominions of all Kings and Commonwealths For the Lands and Possessions that are given unto any of the Popes especial Subjects you will have to be exempted from Tributes and publick burdens of the state And you farther contend that it is not in the power of any Kings or Rulers to hinder such alienations of Lands and Possessions from their Dominions By this means no small part of the Territories of many Princes is subduced from under their power The dreadful consequences of which Principles so startled the wise state of Venice that you know they disputed it to the utmost with your Vice-god Paul the V. In dealing with them as I remember their attempt was successless for notwithstanding the defence made of the Papal process against them by Baronius Bellarmine and others yet the actings of that sober state in forbidding such alienation of Lands and Fees from their Rule and power without their consent with their plea for the subjection of Ecclesiasticks unto them in their own Dominions was so vindicated by Doctor Paul Suave Marsilius of Padua and others that the horns of the Bull which had been thrust forth against them into so great a length were pulled in again I told you in the entrance of this Discourse how unwilling I should have been to have given you the least disquietment in your way had you only attempted to set off your own respects unto Royal Power unto the best advantage you could but your setting up your Principles and Practices in competition with those of Protestants of any sort whatever and preferring them before and above them as unto your deference unto Kings and that in matters Ecclesiastical hath made these few instances expressive of the real sense of your Church in this matter as I suppose necessary and equal CHAP. 17. Scripture Story of the Progress and declension of Religion vindicated Papal Artifices for the promotion of their Power and Interest Advantages made by them on the Western Empire YOu proceed pag. 70. unto the Animadvèrsions on your 13. Paragraph entituled Scripture wherein how greatly and causelesly it is by you undervalued is fully declared But whatever is offered in it for the discovery of your miscarriage and your own conviction you wisely pass over without taking notice of it at all and only repeat again your Case to the same purpose and almost in the very same words you had done before Now this I have already considered and removed out of our way so that it is altogether needless to divert again to the discussion of it That which we have to do for the answering of all your Cavils and objections in and about the case you frame and propose is to declare and manifest the Scriptures sufficiency for the Revelation of all necessary Truths therein affording us a stable Rule of faith every way suited to the decision of all differences in and about Religion and to keep Christians in perfect peace as it did of old And this we have already done Why this proper work of the Scripture is not in all places and at all times effected proceeds from the Lusts and prejudices of men which when by the Grace of God they shall be removed it will no longer be obstructed Your next attempt p. 72. is upon my story of the progress and Corruption of Christian Religion in the world with respect unto that of your own Yours you tell us is serious temperate and sober every way as excellent as Suffenus thought his verses Mine you say is wrought with defamation and wrath against all Ages and People very good I doubt not but you thought it was fit you should say so though you knew no reason why nor could fix on any thing in it for your warrant in these intemperate reproaches Do I say any thing but what the stories of all Ages and the Experience of Christendome do proclaim Is it now a defamation to report what the learned men of those dayes have recorded what good men bewayled and the sad effects whereof the world long groaned under and was at length ruined by What wrath is in all this may not men be warned to take heed of falling into the like evils by the miscarriages of them that went before them without wrath and defamation Are the books of the Kings Chronicles and Prophets fraught with wrath and defamation because they report complain of and reprove the sad Apostasies of the Church in those dayes with the wickedness of the Kings Priests and People that it was composed of and declare the abomination of those wayes of false worship licenciousness of life violence and oppression whereby they provoked God against them to their ruine If my story be not true why do you not disprove it if it be why do you exclaim against it Do I not direct you unto Authors of unquestionable credit complaining of the things which I report from them And if you know not that many others may be added unto these by me named testifying the same things you know very little of the matter you undertake to treat about But we need go no further then your self to discover how devoid of all pretence your reproaches are and that by considering the exceptions which you put in to my story which may rationally be supposed to be the most plausible you could invent and directed against those parts of it which you imagined were most obnoxious to your charge I shall therefore consider them in the order wherein they are proposed and discover whether the keeness of your assault answer the noise of
and righteousness of his wayes against their proud repinings Pray be as angry with me as you please but take heed of justifying any against God The task will prove too hard for you And yet to this purpose are your following contemptuous expressions For unto my observation that after these times the Goths and Vandals with others overflowed the Christian world you subjoyn either to punish them we may believe or to teach them how to mend their manners Sir I know not what you believe or do not believe or whither you believe any thing of this kind or no. But I will tell you what I am perswaded all the world believes who know the story of those times and are not Atheists and it is that though the Goths and Vandals Saxons Huns Francks and Longobards with the rest of the barbarous Nations who divided the Provinces of the Western Empire amongst them had it may be no more thoughts to punish the Nations professing Christianity for their sins wickedness and superstition though one of their Chief Leaders proclaimed himself the Scourge of God against them then had the King of Babylon to punish Judah for her sins and Idolatry in especial yet that God ordered them no less then he did him in his Providence for those ends which you so scorn and despise that is either to punish them for their sins or to provoke them to leave them by repentance Take heed of being a scoffer in these things least your bands be made strong God is not unrighteous who exerciseth judgement The Judge of all the world will do right Nor doth he afflict any people much less extirpate them from the face of the earth without a Cause Many wicked provoking sinful Idolatrous Nations he spareth in his patience and forbearance and will yet do so but he destroyes none without a Cause And all that I intended by the remembrance of the sins of those Nations which were exposed unto devastation was but to shew that their destruction was of themselves You leap unto another clause which you rend out of mydiscourse that these Pagans took at last unto Christianity and say happily because it was a more loose and wicked life then their own Pagan Profession But are you not ashamed of this trifling doth this disprove my Assertion Is it not true Did they not do so Did not the above mentioned Nations when they had settled themselves in the Provinces of the Empire take upon them the Profession of the Christian Religion Did not the Saxons do so in Brittany the Francks in Gaule the Goths and Longobards in Italy the Vandals in Africk the Huns in Bannonia I cannot believe you are so ignorant in these things as your exceptions bespeak you Nor do I well understand what you intend by them they are so frivolous and useless nor surely can any man in his right wits suppose them of any validity to impeach the evidence of the known stories which my discourse relates unto But you lay more weight on what you cull out in the next place which as you have layed it down is That these now Christened Pagans advanced the Popes authority when Christian Religion Was now grown degenerate and say now we come to know how the Roman Bishop became a Patriarch above the rest by means namely of the new converted Pagans But I wonder you speak so nicely in their chief affair As though that were the Question whether the Bishop of Rome according unto some Ecclesiastical constitutions were made a Patriarch or no and that whither he were not esteemed to have some kind of preheminence in respect of those other Bishops who upon the same account were so stiled When we have occasion to speak of this Question we shall not be backward to declare our thoughts in it For the present you represent the Pope unto us as the absolute Head of the Church Catholick the supream Judge of all controversies in Religion the sole fountain of Unity and spring of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction c. Nor did I say that your Pope was by these Nations after their conversion advanced unto the height you labour now to fix him in but only that his Authority was signally advanced by them which is so certain a Truth that your own Historians and Annalists openly proclaim it and you cannot deny it unless you would be esteemed the most ungrateful Person in the world But this is your way and manner all that is done for you is meer duty which when it is done you will thank no man for Are all the Grants of Power Priviledges and Possessions made unto your Papal See by the Kings of this Nation both before and since the Conquest by the Kings of France and Emperours of the Posterity of Charles the Great by the Kings of Poland Denmark and Sweden by the Longobards in Italy not worth your thanks It is well you have got your ends the net may be cast away when the fish is caught But an odd chance you say it was that they should think of advancing him to what they never heard either himself or any other advanced unto before among Christians but yet this was done and no such odd chance neither Your Popes had for a season before been aspiring to greater heights then formerly they had attained unto and used all wayes possible to commend themselves and their Authority not what truly it was but what they would have it to be unto all with whom they had to do and thereupon by sundry means and artifices imposed upon the nations some undue conceits of it though it was not fully nor so easily admitted of as it may be you may imagine But in many things they were willing to gratifie him in his pretensions little knowing the tendency of them many things he took the advantage of their streights and divisions to impose upon them many things he obtained from them by flattery and carnal compliances untill by sundry serpentine advances he had brought them all unto his bow and some of the greatest of them to his stirrup It was yet more odd say you and strange that all Christendome should calmly submit unto a power set up anew by young converted Pagans no Prince or Bishop either here or of any either Christian Kingdom either then or ever after to this day excepting against it Had not all the Bishops and Priests of Africa Egypt Syria Thrace Greece and all the Christian world acknowledged by an hundred experiments the supream Spiritual Authority of the Roman Patriarch in all times before this deluge of Goths and Vandals But why do I expostulate with you who write these things not to judicious Readers but to fools and children who are not more apt to tell a truth then to believe a lye But Sir you shall quickly see whose discourse yours or mine stand in need of week and credulous Reader That which you have in this place to oppose is only this that your Papal Authority received a signal advancement
was Let a man be never so partially addicted unto him and his work he must acknowledge that their frivolousness and impertinency considering the work he had in hand discover somewhat besides learning and wisdom in him So also did his driving of 10000. men besides an innumerable company or women and children altogether into the river Swale in Yorkshire and there causing them to baptize one another His Contest with the British Bishops about the time of the observation of Easter breaking the peace for a Circumstance of a Ceremony that hath cost the Church twenty times more trouble then it is worth is of the same nature And I desire to know whence you have your story of his inexpressible suffering here amongst us All that I can find informs us that he was right meetly entertained by King Ethelbert at his first Landing by the means of Berda his wife a Christian before his coming with all plentifull provision for himself and his companions The next news we hear of him is about his Archiepiscopacy his Pall and his Throne from whence he would not rise to receive the poor Brittans that came to confer with him Further of his sufferings as yet I can meet with nothing And these are the things which you thought your self able to except against in my story or the Progress and Declension of Religion The summ of it I shall now comprize in some few Assertions which you may do well to consider and get them disproved 1. The First is That the Gospel was preached in this Island in the dayes of the Apostles by persons coming from the East directed by the Providence of God for that purpose most probably by Joseph of Arimathea in chief without any respect to Rome or mission from thence 2. That the Doctrine preached then by them was the same that is now publickly professed in England and not that taught by the Church of Rome where there is a discrepancy between us 3. That the story of the coming of Fugatius and Damianus into the Province of Brittain sent by Eleutherius unto Lucius is uncertain improbable and not to be reconciled unto the state and condition of the Affairs in these Nations at the time supposed for its accomplishment 4. That about the fourth fifth and sixth Centuries the Generality of the Professors of Christian Religion in the world were wofully declined from the 〈◊〉 zeal piety faith love and purity in the worship of God which their Predecessors in the same Profession glorified God by and that in particular the 〈◊〉 Church was much degenerated 5. There the Bishops of Rome for five hundred years never laid claim unto that Soveraign Power and Infallibility which they have challenged since the dayes of Pope Gregory the seventh 6. That the Bishops of Rome in that space of time pretending unto some disorderly Supremacy over other Bishops and Churches though incomparably short of their after and present pretences were rebuked and opposed by the best and most learned men of those dayes 7. That the distraction of the Provinces of the Western part of the Empire by Goths Vandals Hunns Saxons Alans Franks Longobards and their associates was to less just in the holy Providence of God upon the account of the moral evils and Superstitions of the Professors of Christianity amongst them then was that which afterwards ensued of the Eastern Provinces by the Saracens and Turks 8. That these Nations having planted themselves in the â—rovinces of the Empire together with Christianity either received anew or retained many Pagaâ—ish Customs Ceremonies Rites and Opinions therewithal 9. That their Kings by Grants of Priviledges Donations and Concessions of Power made partly out o blind zeal partly to secure some interests of their own exceedingly advanced the Papal Power and confirmed their formerly rejected pretensions 10. That when they began to perceive and feel the pernicious effects and consequences of their own facility their grants being made a ground of farther incroachments they opposed themselves in their Laws and Edicts and Practices against them 11. That there was on all hands a sad declension in the Western Church in Doctrine Worship and Manners continually progressive unto the time of Reformation These are the principal Assertions on which my story is built and which it supposeth If you have a mind to get them or any of them called to an account and examined I shall if God will and I live give them their confirmation from such undoubted records as you have no just cause to except against CHAP. 18. Reformation of Religion Papal contradictions Ejice ancillam SOme of your following leaves are such as admit of no useful consideration Wilful mistakes diversions from the Cause under debate with vain flourishes make up both pages in them I shall pass through them briefly and give you some account from them of your self and your prevarication in the Cause whose defence you have undertaken Pag. 75. you undertake the thirteenth chapter of the Animadversions which discusseth the Story of the Reformation of Religion which you took up on common fame Fama malum quo non aliud velocius ullum And that you may be able to say somewhat to the discourse before you or to make a pretence of doing so you wholly pass by every thing that is contained in it and impose upon me that which is not in it at all which you strenuously exagitate For whereas a little to take off your edge in reflecting on the Persons whom you supposed instrumental in the Reformation especially King Henry the eighth I minded you how easie a thing it was to deprive you of your pretended Advantage by giving you an account oâ— the wicked lives with the brutish and Diabolical practâ—ces of many of your Popes whom you account the Heads of your Church and the very Center wherein all the lines of your Profession meet you feign as though I had imposed all the crimes I intimated them to be guilty of and many more whose names you â—eap together upon Popery or the Relâ—gion that you profess yea that I should say that it is nothing else but only an heap of the wickconâ—sses by you enumerated Now this I did not do but you feign it of your own heads that you may have somewhat to speak against and a pretence of intimating in the close of your discourse that you have considered the Chapter about Reformation whereas in truth you have not spoken one word unto it nor unto any thing contained in it And yet when you have done as if you had been talking about any thing wherein I am in the least measure concerned you come in in the close with your grave advice That I should take heed of blaspheming that innocent Catholick flock which the Angels of God watch over to protect them As though a man could not remember the wicked crimes of your nocent Popes but he must be thought to blaspheme the innocent flock of Christ which never had greater enemies in this world
able to except against in that discourse will speedily appear In the mean time pray take notice that I have no eagerness to oppose either you or your Church so you will let the Truth alone I shall for ever let you alone without opposition It was the defence of that and not an opposition to you that I was engaged in In the same design do I still persist in the vindication of what I had formerly written and shall assure you that you shall never be opposed by me but only so far and wherein I am fully convinced that you oppose the Truth Manifest that to be on your side and I shall be ready to embrace both you and it For I am absolutely free from all respects unto things in this world that should or might retard me in so doing But that I may hereafter speak somewhat more to the purpose in opposition unto you or else give my consent with understanding unto what you teach pray inform me how I may come to the knowledge of the customs of your Church which you say I neither do nor will understand I have read your Councils those that are properly yours your Mass Book and Rituals many of your Annalists or Historians with your writers of Controversies and Casuists all of the best note same and reputation amongst you Can none of them inform us what the Customs of your Church are If you have such Egyptian or Elâ—usinian mysteries as no man can understand before he be initiated amongst you I must despair of coming unto any acquaintance with them For I shall never engage into the belief of I know not what For the present I shall declare you my apprehension as to that Custome of your Church as you call it which we have now under consideration and desire your charity in my direction if I understand it 〈◊〉 aright It is your Custome to keep the Scriptures from the people in an unknown tongue somewhat contrary to this your former custome in this last age you have made some Translations out of a Translation and that none of the best the use whereof you permit to very few by virtue of special dispensation pleading that the use of it in the Church among the body of its members is useless and dangerous Again it is the Custome of your Church to celebrate all its publick worship in Latine whereof the generality of your people understand nothing at all and you forbid the exercise of your Church worship in a vulgar tongue understood by the Community of your Church or people These I apprehend to be the Customes of your Church and to the best of my understanding they are directly contrary 1. To the End of God in granting unto his Church the inestimable benefit of his Work and worship and 2. To the Command of God given unto all to read meditate and study his Word continually And 3. Prejudicial to the souls of men in depriving them of those unspeakable spiritual advantages which they might attain in the discharge of their duty and which others not subject unto your Auâ—hority have experience of And 4. Opposite unto yea destructive of that edification which is the immediate end of all things 〈◊〉 to be done in publick Assemblies of the Church And 5. Forbidden expresly by the Apostle who inforceth his prohibition with many cogent reasons 1 Cor. 14. And 6. Contrary to the express practice of the primitive Church both Judaical and Christian all whose worship was performed in the same language wherein the People were instructed by preaching and exhortations which I presume you will think it necessary they should well understand being 7. Brought into use gradually and occasionally through the 〈◊〉 negligence of some who pretend in the Churches of those dayes when the Languages wherein the Scripture was first written and whereinto for the use of the whole Church it had been of old translated as the Old Testament into Greek and the whole into Latine through the Tumults and Wars that fell out in the world became corrupted or were extirpated And 8 A means of turning the worship of Christ from a rational way of strengthening faith and increasing Holiness into a dumb histrionical shew exciting brutish and irregular affections and 9 Were the great cause of that darkness and ignorance which spread its self in former dayes over the whole face of your Church and yet continueth in a great measure so to do And in summ are as great an Instance of the power of inveterate prejudices and carnal interests against the light of the Truth as I think was ever given in the world These are my apprehensions concerning the Customs of your Church in this matter with their nature and tendency I shall now try whither you who blame my misunderstanding of them can give me any better information or Reason for the change of my thoughts concerning them But Carbones pro thesauro instead of either further clearing or vindicating your Customs and practice you fall into Encomiums of your Church a story of a Greek Bishop with some other thing as little to your purpose Fur es ait Pedo Pedius quid crimina rasis Librat in Antithetis doctas posuisse figuras Lundatur You are accused to have robbed the Church of the use of the Scripture and the means of its Edification in the worship of God and when you should produce your defensitive you make a fine Discourse quite to other purposes Such as it is we must pass through it First you say I have heard many grave Protestant Divines ingenuously acknowledge that divine Comfort and Sanctity of life requisite unto Salvation which Religion aymes at may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the Customs of the Roman Church then that of ours For Religion is not to fit perching upon the lips but to be got by heart it consists not in reading but doing and in this not in that lives the substance of it which is soon and easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a Compendium of all divine Truths in two words which our great Apostle again abridged into one Ans. 1. I hope you will give me leave a little to suspend my assent unto what you affirm Not that I question your veracity as to the matter of fact related by you that some Persons have told you what you say but I suppose you are mistaken in them For whereas the Gospel is the Doctrine of Truth according unto Godliness and the promotion of Holiness and Consolation which cannot at all be promoted but in wayes and by means of Gods appointment is the next end of all Religion they can be no Protestant Divines who acknowledge this end to be better attainable in your way then their own because such an acknowledgement would be a vertual renunciation of their Protestancy The judgement of this Church and all the reall grave Divines of it is perfectly against you and should you condescend unto them in other things would not embrace
your communion whilest you impose upon them a necessity of Celebrating the worship of God in a tongue unknown unto them amongst whom and for whose sâ—ke it is publickly celebrated The reasons you subjoyn to the concession you mention I presume are your own they are like to many others that you make use of The best sense of the entrance of your words that I can make is in that description they afford us of the worship of your Church as to the peoples concernment in it The words of it may â—it perching upon your lips as on the tongue of a Parrot or it may be may be got by heart or as we say without Book when the sense of them affects not your minds nor understandings at all If in these vain loose expressions you design any thing else it seems to be an opposition between reading and studying the Scriptures or joyning with understanding in the prayers of the Church the things under Consideration and the getting of the power of the word of God to dwell in the heart which is skilfully to oppose the means and the end and those placed in that relation not only by their natural aptitude but also by Gods express appointment and command So wisely also do you oppose reading and doing in general as though reading were not doing and a part of that obedience which God requires at our hands and a blessed means of helping and furthering us in the remainder of it For certainly that we may do the will of God it is required that we know it And what better way there is to come to the knowledge of the will of God then by reading and me litating in and upon the word of Truth wherein he hath revealed it with the advantage of the other means of his appointment for the same end in the publick preaching or proposition of it I am not as yet informed And I wish you had acquainted us with those two words of our Saviour and that one of the Apostle wherein they give us a Compendius of all Divine Truths For if it be so I am perswaded you will be to seek for your warrant in imposing your long Creeds and almost Volumes of Propositions to be believed as such But you cannot avoid mistakes in things that you might omit as not at all to your purpose Our Saviour indeed gives us the two general heads of those duties of Obedience which are required at our hands towards God and our Neighbours and the Apostle shews the Perfection of it to consist in Love with its due exercise but where in two or three words they give us the Compendium of all Divine Truths which we are to believe that we may acceptably perform the Obedidience that in general they describe we are yet to seek and shall be so for any information you are able to give us In your following Discourse you make a florish with what your Church hath in Gospels Epistles Good books Anniversary observations and I know not what besides But Sir we discourse not about what you have but what you have not nor will have though God command you to have it and threaten you for not having it You have not the Scripture ordinarily in a language that they can understand who if they are the Disciples of Christ are bound to read study and meditate in it continually which are therefore hindred by you in the discharge of their duty whilest you neither enter into the Kingdom of heaven your selves nor suffer them that would Nâ—y you have burned men and their Bibles together for attempting to discharge that duty which God requireth of them and wherein so much of their spiritual advantage is enwrapped Neither have you the entire worship of God in a tongue known to the people whereby they might joyn in it and pray with understanding and be edified by what they hear which the Apostle makes the end of all things done or to be done in publick Assemblies but are left to have their brutish affections led up and down by dumb shews pestures and gestures whereunto the Scripture and Antiquity are utter strangers These things you have not and which renders your Condition so much the worse you refuâ—e to have them though you may though you are entreated by God and man to make use of them yea where great and populous nations under your power have humbly petitioned you that by your leave and permission they might enjoy the Bible and that Service of God which they could understand you have chosen rather to run all things into confusion and to fall upon them with fire and sword then to grant them their request O curvae in terris animae caelestium inanes But you add Besides what you mention what can promote your Salvation for say you What further Good may it do to read the letter of St. Paul ' s Epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherein Questions and Cases and Theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingenuously and without heat what more of Good could acrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practice then by the conceived substance of Gods will unto me and my own duty towards him Sir I shall deal with you without any blameable heat yet so as he deserves to be dealt withall who will not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord. And 1. who taught you to make your apprehensions the measure of other mens faith and practice If you know not of any thing needfull to promote Salvation but what you reckon up in the usage of your Church hinder not them that do It is not so much your own practice as your Imposition of it on others that we are in the consideration of Would it worth suffice you to reject as to your own interest the means appointed of God for the furtherrance of our Salvation and that you would not compell others to joyn with you in the refusal of them Is it possible that a man professing himself a Divine a Priest of the Catholick Church an Instructor of the Ignorant an undertaker to perswade whole Nations to relinquish the way of Religion wherein they are engaged to follow him and his in wayes that they have not known should profess that he knows not of what use unto the promotion of the Salvation of the Souls of men the use of the whole Scripture given by inspiration of God is Be advised not to impose these conceptions of your fancy and mind as it seems unexercised in that heavenly treasury on those who have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 senses exercised therein so as to be able to discern between good and evil It no other reason can prevail with you I hope experience may give you such a despair of success as to cause
of the slaughter'd Disciples of Christ. So that what the Historiâ—n said of the old Râ—mâ—ns in reference unto the Galls or Cimbrians usque ad nostram memoriam Romanâ— alla omniâ— virtuti suae prone esse cum Gall is pro salute non proglorta certari we may apply unto them it is not Truth only but our Temporal safety also that we are enforced to contend with them about And whom they cannot reach with outward violence they endeavour to lade with curses and by precipitate censures and determination to eject them out of the limits of Christianity as to the spiritual and eternal priviledges wherewith it is attended And these things make all hopes of Reconciliation for the future and of present moderation languid and weak as all endeavours after them hither to have been fruitless For whilest they contend that every proposall of their Church every way and mode in the worship of God that is in usage amongst them is not only true and right but of necessity to be embraced and submitted unto and therefore impose them by all sorts of penalties on the consciences and practises of all men is it not evidenâ— that there can be no peace nor agreement in the world but what waste and solitude arising from an extermination of persons otherwise minded then themselves will produce some oâ— them I confess to serve their present supposed advantages have of late declâ—â—med about moderation in matters of Religion and I wish that herein that may be sincerely indeavoured by some which for sinister ends is corruptly pretended by others For mine own part there are no sort of men from whose frame of spirit and waies I shall labour a greater distance then theirs who set themselves against that moderation towards persons differing from them and others in the result of their thoughts upon an humble sincere investigation of the truth and wayes of Christ which himself and his Apostles commend unto us or that refuse to consent unto any way of Reconciliation of dissenters wherein violence is not offered unto the commands of God as stated in their consciences Let the Romanists renounce their principles about the absolute necessity of the subjection of all persons unto the Pope in answer unto that groundless and boundless Authority which in things sacred and civil they assign unto him with their resolution of imposing the dictates of their Church per fas nefas upon our consciences and we shall endeavour with all quietness and moderation to plead with them about our remaining differences and to joyn with them in the profession of those important truths wherein we are agreed But whilest they propose no other forms of Reconciliation but our absolute submission unto their Papal Authority with our assent unto and profession of those doctrines which we are perswaded are contrary to the Scripture with the sense of Catholick Antiquity derogatory to the Glory of God and prejudicial to the salvation of those by whom they are received and our concurrence with them in those wayes of Religious worship which themselves are fallen into by degrees they know not how which we believe dishonourable unto God and pernitious to the souls of men I see no ground of any other peace with them but that only which we are bound to follow with all men in abstaining from mutual violences performing all offices of Christian love and in a special praying for their repentance and coming to the acknowledgment of the Truth On this account was it that some while since upon the desire of some friends I undertook the examination of a discourse entituled Fiat Lux whose Author under a pretence of that moderation which is indeed altogether inconsistent with other principles of his profession endeavoured to insinuate a necessity of the reception of Popery for the bringing of us to peace or agreement here and the interesting of us in any hope of eternal rest and peace hereafter Whether that small labour were seasonable or no or whether any service were done therein to the interest of Truth is left to the judgement of men unprejudiced Not long after there was published an Epistle pretending a Reply unto that discourse being indeed a meer flourish of empty words and a giving up of the cause wherein the Author of Fiat Lux was engaged as desperate and indefensible However I thought it not meet to let it pass without some consideration partly that the design of that Treatise with others of the like nature of late published amongst us might be further manifested and partly that the ends of moderation and peace being fixed between us I might farther try and examine whose and what principles are best suited unto their pursuit and accomplishment I have not therefore confined my self unto an Answer unto the Epistle of the Author of Fiat Lux which indeed it doth not deserve as I suppose himself being judge but have only from it taken occasion to discuss those principles and usages in Religion wherein the most important differences between Papists and Protestants do lie For whereas the whole difference between them and us is branched into two general heads the first concerning those principles which they and we severally build our profession upon and resolve our faith into and the other respecting particular instances in doctrines of faith and practice in Religious worship I have laid hold of occasion to treat of them both of the former absolutely and of the latter in things of most weight and concernment And because the Judgement of Antiquity is deservedly of moment in these things I have not only manifested it to lie plain and clear against the Romanist in instances sufficient to impeach their pretended infallibility which is enough to dissolve that whole imaginary fabrick that is built upon it and centers in it but also in most of the material controversies that are between them and us These things Christian Reader I thought meet to premise towards the prevention of that offence which any may really take or for corrupt ends pretend so to do at the differences in general that are amongst Christians or those in especial which are between us and the Roman Church as also to give an account of the occasion design and end of the ensuing consideration of them THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS CHAP. 1. AN Answer to the Preface or Introduction of the Reply to the Animadversions page 1. CHAP. 2. A Vindication of the first Chapter of the Animadversions The method of Fiat Lux. Romanists Doctrine of the Merit of Good Works p. 27 CHAP. 3. A defence of the second Chapter of the Animadversions Principles of Fiat Lux re-examined Of our receiving of the Gospel from Rome Our abode with them From whom we received it p. 37 CHAP. 4. Further Vindication of the first Chapter of the Animadversions Church of Rome not what she was of 〈◊〉 Her Fall and Apostacy Difference between Idâ—laâ—ry Apostacy and Heresie Schism Principles of the Church of Rome condemned by the