contentious Lawyers in the Land to have agreed falsly to inform us that our Statutes were made by such Kings and Parliaments But a domineering Faction alone might easilier have deceived men 3. Yea even as to Christs Promise we can better prove that the Universal Church or Body of Christians shall never lose the Faith than you can prove it of Rome alone or the Papal Sect. Bellarmine himself dare not say that Rome shall not cease to be the feat of the Papacy or shall not be utterly destroyed And then how can there be a Bishop of Rome when there is no Rome But you 'll say that if he dwell at Avignion he may be called Bishop of Rome But if he be called so when he is not so at least when there is no Rome or no Christian Church there sure a false Name is not an Essential part of our Religion If you say that at Avignion or Ravenna or Vienna he may be S. Peter's Successor and so the Universal Monarch still I answer Then it seems that the Council of Calcedon as afore-cited was in the right that Romes Priviledge was given by the Fathers because it was the Imperial Seat And so that the Pope is not S. Peter's Successor eo nomine because he is Bishop of Rome But if the Bishop of Avignion or Vienna might become S. Peter's Successor who never was Bishop there how shall we know that the Bishop of Rome is his Successor now We have hitherto had no better means to prove it and deceive the World than by saying that S. Peter dyed Bishop of Rome where the Pope is Bishop But S. Peter dyed not Bishop of Avignion If the Place prove not the Succession tell us if you can what doth Is it the Election By whom Who are those men that have the Power of chusing S. Peter a Successor You know I suppose that the Pope hath been chosen 1. Sometime by the People witness the blood-shed at the choice of Damasus in the Church 2. Sometime by the People and the Neighbour Ordaining Bishops 3. Sometime by a Synod 4. Sometime by the Emperours 5. And lastly by the Roman Cardinals If any of these may chuse then we may have four or five lawful Popes chosen four or five several ways at once If only one of these have the Power S. Peter had no Successors under all the other Elections So that the Claim will fall rather to Antioch than to Avignion or any other Town because they say it was S. Peter's first Bishoprick from which he removed for a greater If you are driven with poor Mr. Johnson alias Terret to say that Any way will serve which serveth for the truth of an Election of Princes c. then still we may have four Popes at least I doubt you must be forced to say as some that it is the acceptance of the Universal Church which must prove who is the Universal Monarch 1. But some must be Electors before it comes to acceptance And who hath the Power of Electing And 2. what if now the major part of the Church should prefer the Bishop of Constantinople I hope you are not so ignorant of Cosmography as not to know that the Greek Church when they first preferred the Bishop of Const was far greater than the Latine 3. And I suppose you know that it is not near half the Christian World that now accepteth of the Pope as their Governour 4. And I pray you do but get the Pope to suspend his claim till the Church Universal accept him and we shall not be troubled with him For how shall they signifie their acceptance If in a General Council you know how they of Constance Basil and Pisa are reviled by the Pope and those that now go for your Church for pretending to a power to depose and chuse Popes and how Eugenius the fourth prevailed against such a Deposition And if these Councils were not your Universal Church representative where shall we think to find it In sum we have the Tradition of a Church as big as three of the Roman for all our Religion and of all the Roman Church it self besides the Confession of the Enemies of the Church Pagans Infidels Mahometans Jews and Hereticks we have not one word that 's part of our Religion which your selves confess not to be true We believe that the Faith of the Universal Church shall never fail nor the Gates of Hell prevail against it And so you see that we may far better tell how Infallibly we have received our Religion from our Forefathers than you can do of yours But we believe not that this Universal Church hath any Head but Christ no Humane Vicarious Monarch or Governour of all the World We believe that Men must Believe in Christ before they can know that the Pope is his Vicar if it had been true We know as sure as History can tell us that the Pope's first Primacy and the rest of the Patriarchates were but the Humane Ordinances of the Clergie of one Empire and not of the whole Christian World And we know not nor you but Rome and its Church and Bishop may yet all cease together But you make me most admire at you that in this Book also you tell your Relations and other Readers of the uncertainty of notice by Books in Comparison of converse and talk with those of your present Party yea that your own Religion is not to be known by Books as being lyable to be misunderstood so well as by talking with Papists and asking them what is their Faith or Religion Sir I judge by your Stile that you are a man of zeal and conscience in your way and therefore that you write not this fraudulently against your conscience Sure then you must needs be a man of more than ordinary ignorance that can believe what you say 1. Is it your Objective or your Subjective Faith that we are disputing of If it be not the Rule and Object of your Faith every man indeed may tell us what he believeth himself but no man can tell us what another believeth And then you have as many Religions as men for every man hath one of his own and no two men in the world know and believe just all the same things neither more nor less And what shall those of us think of your Religion then who find that one of you affirmeth what another denyeth For instance A worthy Person of your Religion affirmed to me that notwithstanding the Fifth Commandment Honour thy Father and Mother a Mother hath not any Governing Power over a Child nor the Child oweth any obedience to the Mother during the Fathers life because it were confusion were there more Governours in a House than one though subordinate one to the other Is this your common Judgment May I say therefore that this is other mens belief You know that when we alledge the sayings of your most Learned Writers we are ordinarily told that it is not the judgment of
Answ 1. Here you shew what things they be that you turn Papist for Is not eating Flesh on Frydays Lent or Vigils a worthy matter to make another Religion of or to prove men to be of differing Churches 2. I told you before that the Puritans judgment is as Paul's that such things should be left indifferent or at least make no breach among us by our judging or despising one another And that neither the Pope nor any men on Earth have Authority to make Universal Laws for them to all the Christian World and that there is no true Tradition of Apostolical Institution of them But yet that such Fasts and Feasts as are appointed by true Authority of Prince or Pastors not against the Laws of God and such as shall be proved to be instituted by the Apostles they will observe 3. But the poor Puritan is indeed in hard Circumstances were there no life after this Some of them have no Flesh to eat either on Frydays or any day in the Week but live thankfully upon Bread and Milk and some such things Fish they would gladly eat if they could get it There are now among them such as with many Children have for a long time lived almost only on brown Rye-bread and Water Many of them take it for a sufficient quantity to eat one temperate Meal a day though they are in no want and the Papist that forbeareth Flesh and eateth better than the Puritan feasteth with or that fasteth with one Meal a day which is many Puritans fullest Dyet doth condemn the poor Puritan as an Heretick and perhaps burn him at a Stake or cast him into the Inquisition for not Fasting Poor John Calvin did eat but one small Meal a day and the Papist who fast much at the rate as Calvin feasted record him for a gluttonous person And so did the Pharisees by Christ and his Disciples why do not thy Disciples fast c. II. Your second Instance is The Prelatick Protestant wonders the Puritan should scruple adorning the Communion Table with two Wax Tapers c. Ans The former Answer serveth to this Hear O ye Puritans wherein the Roman Religion doth surpass yours Their Altars have lighted Tapers on Do you not deserve to be burnt your selves if you will not burn Candles on your Altars Yea the Pope who hath power to set up and take down Emperours and Kings being not only the King of Rome but the Monarch of the whole World doth appoint these Lights as a Professing sign before God and Man that he is of that Church which in the Primitive Times for fear of Persecution served God by Candle-light in Dens and Caves And is not this to prove the immutability of their Church that vary not in a Circumstance from the Apostolioal Institution Doth his domineering over Kings and Nations and the Hosts of Great Princes Cardinals Prelates Abbots Clergy Regulars Seculars that obey him shew also that he is of that old Candle-lighted Church But while you seem still to plead Apostolical Tradition for all these Great Parts of your Religion tell the poor Puritan whether it was by Prophesie or how else that the Apostles delivered to the Church the use of these Lighted Tapers in commemoration of that which was done in Dens long after the death of these Apostles I doubt rather the Pope doth by this practice condemn himself and sets up these Lights to shew the World how much he and his Church are changed since those forementioned days III. You next say The Prelatick Protestant wonders what hurt the Puritan can see in making the sign of that on the forehead of a new baptized Infant yet smiles at a Papist when he makes it on himself or his Victuals c. Ans None of us are ashamed of the Cross of Christ nor loth to profess this as openly as you But if we do it by Word by Writing by Obeying or by Suffering we are of another Religion from you it seems by you unless we will do it also by crossing The Jews were the Cross-makers And there are now so many Cross-makers in the World whose Trade we like not that we are not forward to set up their sign at our doors But yet there are Puritans and Prelatists that were they among the Deriders of a Crucified Christ where the use were not a Formality or worse but convenient to tell the Infidels their mind that they are not ashamed of the Cross of Christ would not refuse seasonably to Cross themselves But the Puritans think that when it is made a solemn stated sign of the Duty and Grace of the New Covenant dedicating there by the person to God as one hereby obliging himself to profess the Faith of Christ Crucified and manfully to fight under his Banner against the Devil the World and the Flesh to the death in hope of the Benefits of his Cross and Covenant and so is made a Badge or Symbol of our Christianity then it is made a Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace added to Christs Sacrament of the same use or at least too like it though the Name be denyed it And they think that Christ hath given none power to make such new Sacraments or Symbols of Christianity he having done that sufficiently himself They have a conceit that the King would not be pleased with them that either frame a new Oath of Allegiance added to his as the Badge of his Subjects Loyalty nor yet that would make a new Badge of the Order of the Knights of the Garter without his consent At least the Puritans think that Baptism and Christianity and Christian Burial should not be denyed to those Children whose Parents do not offer them to be baptized with this additional Symbol And if the poor men be deceived in such thoughts it is but in fear of sinning against Christ and not that they are more ashamed of his Cross than you or more disobedient to Authority IV. Your next instance is The Prelatick Protestant wonders that the Puritane can doubt the holy Euchrist is really and truly the body of Christ c. And you cite Dr. Cosins Hist Transub p. 44. Answ 1. The Prelatick Protestant and the Puritane differ not at all about the real presence of Christs body in the Sacrament as I have shewed you elsewhere What need you more proof than King Edwards old Rubrick against the Real Presence in a gross sence lately restored to the Liturgie And as for Dr. Cosins words and book I again tell you all the Doctors of the Roman Church are never able to answer his full proof that Transubstantiation is a late innovation and none of the doctrine of the ancient Churches We challenge you all to give any reasonable answer to that book And you still Cunningly bawke the main Controversie between us and you which is not whether Christs Body be there but whether Bread and Wine be there For I have told you 1. That we who know not how far a Glorified
And in the Contest with them the case is commonly pleaded accordingly 4. Gregory Nazianzen would never have wished so earnestly that there were no inequality superiority or priority of Seats if he had taken them to be of Divine Institution Durst he have so opposed the Law and Order of God 5. But to put all out of doubt it is expresly determined by the most famous General Councils even two of the four which are likened to the four Gospels Constantinople and Calcedon that the Primacy was given to Rome by the Fathers so they called Councils because it was the Imperial Seat and therefore they give equal Priviledges to Constantinople because it is the Imperial Seat The words of the Council of Calcedon oft cited are these translated Act. 16. Binii pag. 134. We following always the definitions of the holy Fathers and the Canons and knowing those that have now been read of the 150 Bishops most beloved of God that were congregated under the Emperour of pious memory Theodosius the Greater in the Royal City of Constantinople New Rome have our selves also defined the same things concerning the Priviledges of the same most holy Church of Constantinople New Rome For to the Seat of old Rome because of the Empire of that City the Fathers consequently gave the Priviledges And the 150 Bishops most beloved of God being moved with the same intentions have given equal Priviledges to the most holy Seat of New Rome reasonably judging that the City adorned with the Empire and Senate shall enjoy equal Priviledges with old Regal Rome This Council was called by the Emperour Martian and his Lay-Officers were called the Judges And the Bishops to shew what they thought of Rome cryed out They that contradict it are Nestorians Let them that contradict it walk to Rome Bin. p. 98. If such a General Council be not to be believed farewell all the Papists Infallibility Authority Tradition and Religion If it be to be believed the Pope is a Humane Creature and not a Divine But Binius saith that Rome receiveth not the Canons of this Council of Constantinople which this confirmeth but only their condemnation of Macedonius And he saith That every Council hath just so much strength and authority as the Apostolick See bestoweth on it For saith he unless this be admitted no reason can be given why some Councils of greater numbers of Bishops were reprobated and others of a smaller number confirmed Vol. 2. p. 515. And yet must we hear the noise of all the Christian World and all the Bishops and General Councils and the Tradition of our Fore-fathers c. as against us when all is but the Pope of Rome and such as please him and it is He and his Pleasers that refuse the most General Councils and Tradition Away with this false deceitful talk 6. Once more hear their own Confession Their late English Bishop of Calcedon a fatal name R. Smyth in his Survey against Bishop Bromhall saith cap. 5. To us it sufficeth that the Bishop of Rome is S. Peter 's Successor and this all the Fathers testifie and all the Catholick Church believeth But whether it be jure divino or humano is no point of Faith Ans 1. Is not that a point of your Faith which the General Councils affirm at least of your Religion Who can tell then what is your Faith 2. If an historical point be not to be believed from General Councils why should the History of Peter's being at Rome and Bishop there be believed as from Fathers which Nilas hath said so much against 3. Do not the Fathers as much agree that Peter was first Bishop of Antioch If then you have no more to shew than they where is your Title 4. If your Divine Right of succeeding Peter be no point of Faith then he that believeth it not doth not sin against any point that God would have him believe as from him and therefore is not to be thought erroneous in the Faith 5. And yet upon this which is no point of Faith you build your Faith and Church and would have all Christians do the like on pain of damnation II. And as the Roman Primacy was but of Man's devising so I next prove that it was but over one Empire unless any Neighbours for their own advantage did afterward voluntarily subject themselves 1. Because the Powers that gave him his Primacy extended but to the Empire The Emperour and his Subjects ruled not other Lands 2. Because the four other Patriarchs made by the same Power had no power without the Empire As appeareth by the distribution of their Provinces in the Council of Nice and afterward Pisanus's Canons we regard not that take in Ethiopia Obj. The Abassins now receive their chief Bishop from the Patriarch of Alexandria That proveth not that ever they were under Rome For there is not the least proof that ever they did so till Dioscorus and his Successors separated from Rome being rejected by them as Hereticks and by long and slow degrees enlarged their power over many Neighbour Volunteers 3. Because the General Councils in which the Pope presided were but of the Empire And the Popes never claimed a more general extensive power then than the Councils Who indeed with the Emperours made the Papacy in its first state 4. Because when the Patriarch of Constantinople claimed the Primacy yea called himself Universal Bishop which Gregory sharply reprehendeth as Antichristian yet he never claimed the Government of the whole Christian World but only of the Empire And in all their Contests there is no intimation of any such different Claim of the Competitors as if Rome claimed all the World and Constantinople but the Empire or Roman-World Their Contest was about the same Churches or Circuit who should be Chief 5. The Instances of the several Countries that were never under the Pope do prove it Even the great Empire of Abassia and all the rest fore-named without the Empire Of which and the Exception more under the next III. The General Councils were all so called only in respect to the generality of the Empire and not as of all the Christian World which was never dreamed of Proved 1. Because the Emperours that called them Constantine Martian c. had no power out of the Empire 2. There is no credible History that mentioneth any further call much less of all the Christian World 3. It was the Affairs only of the Empire that the Councils judged of as is to be seen in all their Canons 4. The Names of the Bishops yet to be seen as Subscribers fully prove it 5. It was not a thing probable if possible that the Indians Persians and other Nations should send their Bishops into the Roman Empire which was usually at War with them or dreaded and detested by them 6. Theodoret's foresaid words of James Bishop of Nisibis sheweth it that he was at the Council of Nice for Nisibis was then under the Roman Empire 7. I have oft cited the
XVII Our Religion is for increasing true practical knowledge in all men by all our industry as knowing the Father of Lights saveth us by illumination and therefore we are for all mens reading or hearing the holy Scriptures and worshipping God in a known tongue But yet with the help of the skilfullest Teachers The Prince of darkness leadeth men in the dark to do the works of darkness that they may be cast into outer darkness How the case is with yours I have before shewed XVIII Our Religion is for so much fasting and austerities as is truly necessary to the subduing of Pride Worldliness or fleshly lusts or to express our self-abasement in due times of humiliation prescribed by Authority on publick occasions or discerned by our selves in private and so much as is truly helpful to us in Gods service or our preparations for death But how much you have turned these into unreasonable Ceremony and how much into a pretended satisfaction to Gods Justice by punishing our selves as if our hurt delighted God when it tends not to our healing I shall not now stay to open See Dallaeus de Poenis Indulgentis de Jejuniis of it at large XIX Our Religion teacheth us that all that truly believe in and are heartily devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as their God and Saviour and Sanctifier forsaking the Devil the World and the Flesh should be taken by Baptismal profession hereof into the Church and shall be saved if they prove not Hypocrites or Apostates And that we must judge men by this their Profession till they plainly or provedly nullifie it supposing every man under God to be the best Judge of his own heart But your Religion teacheth you to hold and say that if men are never so fully perswaded in themselves that they truly love God and holiness and are thus devoted to him yea and if their lives express it yet if they be not Papists they are all deceived and none but Papists so love God And every Papist thus knoweth the hearts of others better than we can know our own XX. Our Religion leaveth us room for Repentance and hope of Pardon if we mistake For we take not our selves to be impeccable or infallible in all that we hold though we are sure that our Rule and Objective Religion is infallible But your Church being founded in the false conceit of the Popes and Councils Infallibility you shut the door against repentance and amendment and when once a false Decree is past you take your selves obliged to defend it lest by Reformation you pluck up your Foundation and all should fall Were it not for this I am perswaded your Church would recant at least the Doctrine of Transubstantiation if not that of deposing Princes and some others And now I humbly present what I have written to W. H. and not without hope if he will but impartially read it of his reduction For the man seemeth to me to sin through Ignorance and to have an honester zeal than many others For my own part 1. I profess to him I write as I think and that after forty years reading I think as many of the Papists Books as of the Protestants 2. And that I would joyfully recant whatever it cost me if I could find that I do erre But I have shewed him that I differ not from them without that which to me appeareth to be constraining Reason 3. And that if he will prove to me that I have in one word of this Book unjustly accused either their POPE PAPISTS RELIGION or CHURCH I shall thankfully receive his conviction and repent And I agree with him wholly in professing my Religion to be The APOSTOLICAL CHRISTIANITY and whatever he proveth to be truly such I will receive The Name of The Protestant Religion I like not because meer Christianity is all our Religion and our Protestation against Popery denominateth not our Religion it self but our Rejection of their Corruptions of it But the Name of The Protestants Religion I approve and own that is APOSTOLICK CHRISTIANITY CLEANSED FROM POPERY Aug. 9. 1676. FINIS THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. WHether Christ hath not left us sure and easie notice what the Christian Religion is what it is and how delivered to us in three degrees 1. The Essentials generally in the Sacramental Covenant 2. The Exposition of the Essentials in three summaries the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue 3. The Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals in the whole Canonical Scripture p. 1 c. Our Confession Articles Books and Sermons are but the expressions of our Subjective Religion or fides mensurata and are not our Objective and fides mensurans in terminis p. 9. The Papists confess every word of our Objective Religion to be Divine and Infallible But we confess not the truth of all theirs They blame us only 1. As not having enough 2. And as not receiving it the right way p. 9. I. Whether the Papists Religion be better than ours as bigger Some Queries of the Antiquity of the belief of the Roman additions viz. the Apocrypha and the Decrees of all the Councils c. p. 10 c. What Implicite Faith we are agreed in and what not p. 12. The Papists confess that their Church hath not kept God's own written word without many hundred errours and so not all that is de fide p. 13. Therefore they must needs distinguish the Essentials of Christianity from other points Of Implicite belief in the Pope and Councils p. 13. c. II. Whether it was or is necessary to receive Christianity as from the Infallibility or Authority of the Pope and Papists or Councils p. 19. c. We have much more and surer Tradition for our Religion than that which the Papists would have us trust to 20. The difference of our Tradition from theirs Whether Rome or a Church there may not cease p. 22. Whether the Seat the Election or what doth prove the Pope to be St. Peter's successour p. 23. Whether Books or oral Tradition by Memory of all Generations be the surer preservative of the Faith p. 24. CHAP. II. THe Puritane is ambiguously named and falsly described p. 25. Of Imputed Righteousness p. 30. Puritanes not against external worship nor all Ceremonies p. 36. Of their Usage ibid. The Puritans judgment about Fasts Holy-days Ceremonies c. p. 38. The Papist writer knoweth not what the Puritans Religion is p. 40. The true Religion of a Puritane described p. 41 42. 1. The writer wrongeth his Relations 2. He declareth that he was before an ungodly perfidious Hypocrite and no true Puritane and therefore no wonder that he turned Papist p. 43. None but such can turn Papists without self Contradiction His slander of the Puritanes that they think Piety Charity Humility and other Christian Virtues not possible and necessary to salvation p. 45. CHAP. III. HIs hard Character of Prelatical Protestants p. 46. Many Nonconformists are Episcopal therefore not dislinguishable by that
imposed Form only fit and a third think as the meer Puritan that both having their Conveniences and Inconveniences there should be seasons for both And I pray you here tell me two things if you can 1. Whether the great difference of Liturgies which are the very Words and Order of the Churches Worship be not liker a difference of Religions than the colour of our cloaths or the meat we eat or the lighting of a Candle c. And yet do I need to tell you how many Liturgies are recorded in the Bibliotheca Patrum Yea that it was six hundred years and more before the Churches in one Empire used all one and the same Liturgy and for some hundred years that every Church used what the Bishop pleased Yea that the first restraint of free-praying that we find was by a Council ordaining that the Presbyter should first shew his Prayer to the Fathers that they might be sure it was sound And had Basil and Chrysostome and all others that varyed as divers Religions as Liturgies 2. Whether all the doctrinal Controversies among your selves as between all your School Doctors about Predestination Grace and free will about Perseverance about the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary about the Power of the Pope over all Kings in Temporals and about the killing of excommunicate Kings and the absolving their Subjects and whether after excommunication they are Kings or no of which Hen. Fowlis hath cited great store on one side and all the Moral Controversies about loving God about Perjuries Vows Murder Fornication Lying Stealing Drunkenness Gluttony of which you may see great store in Montaltus's Letters The Mystery of Jesuitisme and Mr. Clarksons late Book called The Practical Divinity of the Church of Rome I say is not Religion as much concerned about all these differences and all the rest among you which make many Horse-loads yea I think Cart-loads of Volumes as it is in the colour of the Preachers Cloaths or the Meat he eateth And are not Protestants that is meer Christians disowning Popery as justifiable in their Unity and Charity for taking Men to be of the same Religion who use not the same Garments Gestures and Ceremonies and that bear with differences herein as your Church that beareth with all these loads of different Doctrines in your most Learned Famous Doctors and not in the weaker Priests alone even whether excommunicate Kings may be killed or no and whether the Pope hath Power to put down and set up Emperours and Kings If you say that your One Religion and One Church hath no such difference it must be by saying that you all agree to Gregory the seventh in Concil Rom. Innoc. 3. in Concil Lateran on the worser side and all own the Doctors cited by H. Fowlis aforesaid But indeed I must speak better of you even that some are of a better mind whom Goldastus hath gathered and preserved and divers of the Learned Men of France and some in Spain But we think the difference even between the Prelatists Presbyterians Independants yea and the moderate Anabaptists to be far less than these which your unanimous agreeing Church doth constantly bear with without Silencing Imprisoning Ejecting or Condemning or so much as disowning the judgments of the worser side He that readeth Parsons on one side and Watson's Quodlibets on the other Barclay and Witherington on one side and Zuarez and the far greater prevalent Party on the other will either wonder at the strength of your Unity which no doctrinal differences even about the Blood of Kings can at all dissolve or else he may wonder at the laxe and sandie temperament of such Protestants as cannot bear with a Man that readeth not in their Book and singeth not in their Tune and is still crying out against others as Sectaries because they have piped to them and they have not danced and such as no Man can live quietly within reach of unless they swallow every Morsel which they cut for them having Throats neither wider or at least no narrower than theirs As if King Henry the eighth's days were the measure of true Discipline when one Man was burnt for being too far from Popery and another hanged or beheaded for being Popish and it was hard to know the middle Region and harder to know how long it would be calm till strangers cryed Deus bone quomodo hic vivunt Gentes But as none are more cruel in Wars than Cowards nor in Robberies than Women nor any more gentle and pitiful than valiant experienced Souldiers so few are so insolent and bloody obtruders of their Dictates and Wills upon the World as those that being least able to prove them good have nothing but Inquisitions and Prisons Silencings and Banishings Fire and Faggot effectually to make them good But if St. James be in the right who saith that Pure Religion and undefiled is this to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their adversity and to keep our selves unspotted of the World then certainly the Jesuits Morals and the Mystery of Jesuitism and Clarkson's Roman Practical Divinity and Fowlis's Treasons of the Papists contain more of the concerns of Religion than preaching in a consecrated or unconsecrated place and than eating Flesh Fish or neither in Lent or on Fridays doth O the strange difference between your Unity and Concord and the Protestants How fast is yours How loose is ours And it is to be considered we pretend not to so much perfection in this world as ever to expect that all Men should be just of the same Size and Complexion or speak the same Language or have all the same Opinions Thoughts or Words If we can keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace in the seven Points named by the Apostle Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. so far as we have attained do walk by the same Rule of Love and Peace and mind the same things till God reveal more to such as differ Phil. 3. we shall be glad of such a measure of Union For we believe it impossible to be perfect in Concord while most yea all are so wofully imperfect in Knowledge Faith Love and Obedience We wait for perfection of all in Heaven and we find that few things in the World ever did so much against Unity as pretending to more than is to be hoped for and laying ill on so high terms and so many as we know will never be received Therefore our Mutual Love and forbearance with different Forms and Circumstances is agreeable to the Principles of our Religion But for you that pretend to Unity Concord and Infallible Judgement to tolerate Cart-loads of Doctrinal Controversies divers Expositions of many hundred Texts of Scripture divers readings of the Text it self contrary Doctrines about God's Grace about all the Ten Commandments about the Estates and Lives of Kings and never so much as to condemn either side nor silence the Preachers never imprison them or banish them five miles from Cities and
had commanded his Servants to serve him in as much Unity and Concord as they could duty and necessity drove the Pastors of the Churches to Correspondencies and to meet together on all just occasions and at last to Associations for the ordering of these Meetings In which they agreed in what Compass and in what Place or by whose Call such Meetings should be held and what Bishops in those Meetings should preside or sit highest and first speak and subscribe And usually they thought that to follow the Order of the Civil Government and give precedency to those that were Bishops of such Cities as had precedency in the Civil Government was the most convenient Order And in these Meetings they agreed on such Canons or Orders for all in that Compass to observe as they thought best tended to their ends And having no forcing Power as is aforesaid they formed their Impositions on voluntarily penitents so as might serve instead of the Power of the Sword Even Murderers Incestuous Adulterers they could not punish with Death Stripes or Mulcts and they were loth to disgrace Christianity so much as to accuse such to the Heathen Magistrates and therefore they laid the greater shame upon them forbidding them Communion with Christians for so many years as they thought meet and before they restored them they were humbly to beg the Prayers and Communion of the Church But yet these Synods were small and few and rare and never any dreamt of them as a Council of all the Church on Earth But when God blessed the Rome World with a Christian Emperour after the sharp Persecution of Dioclesian and this Emperour had by Religion and Interest made the Christian Souldiers his chief confidents or strength he studied the utmost increase of the Christians and to that end invited all to Christianity by the favour of the Court and by such Honours Commands Wealth and Dignities as they were capable of and above all he exalted the Christian Bishops whom he found the Rulers of the Christian Societies He gave them Honours and Wealth and Power He made a Law that no Christians should be forced to go to the Civil Heathen Judicatures from their Bishops and gave Power to the Bishops to be the Christians Judges some few hainous Crimes being in time excepted And so the Bishops were by his Law made Civil Magistrates or Arbitrators yet not with any Power of Life or Limbs or Estate So that all that would become Christians and would be subject to the Bishops Canons and Church Discipline were freed from Death Stripes and Mulcts for many Crimes which all others were lyable to and Excommunication and some Penance was instead of all By such means Multitudes of worldly Men and by the Preaching of the Gospel Multitudes that were sound Christians came together into the Churches And Bishopricks being now very desirable for their Power Honour and Wealth Men that most loved Power Honour and Wealth that is Proud Worldly Carnal Men did earnestly seek them and strive for Precedency in them But yet while the People had the choice or a Negative therein and the old Spirit of Christianity remained in many of the Bishops in many places bad ones were kept out and many excellent Men were preferred The Heresie of Arrius and the Alexandrian Contentions thereabout required a remedy for the Churches Peace The Bishops could not end it themselves It spread so far that it was Constantine's great grief to see Christians so quickly disgrace themselves and weaken their Religion in the Eyes of the Heathens Therefore he called a Council of Bishops consisting mostly of those of the Eastern parts where the troubles arose Two Priests of Rome were there but not the Bishop nor but few of the West Where the Emperours open Rebukes and Lamentation for their Contention and his earnest Exhortation to Peace and his burning all the Libells or Accusations which the Bishops brought in against each other and his continual presence and moderating oversight of them brought that meeting at last to that good and peaceable End which else it was never like to have attained It never came into Constantine's mind to call this Council as an Universal Representative of the whole Christian World or as the Governours of the Churches that were out of his Dominions but as a fit expedient to end the strife that was raised in those Parts For as few of the West were there so none of all other Kingdoms were once called For who should call them Constantine that called the Council neither did it nor ever pretended to a power to do it The Pope called not the Council much less did he call the rest of the Christian World Socrates tells us l. 1. c. 15. that St. Thomas had Preached to the Parthians and Bartholomew to the Indians and Matthew to the Ethiopians though the middle India was not Converted till Constantine's days by Frumentius and Edesius and Iberia by a Maid And so Euseb l. 3. c. 3. who saith that St. Andrew Preached to the Scythians and in Vit. Constant l. 4. c. 8. that there were many Churches in Persia And no doubt these Apostles Preached not in vain Scotland and other Countries that were out of the Roman Empire had Churches Yet any Neighbour Bishop that desired it might voluntarily be present When Theodoret in his Life tells us that James Bishop of Nisibis in the borders of Persia was at the Council of Nice For Nisibis was then under the Government of the Roman Empire he plainly intimateth that none but the Subjects of the Empire were called And the names yet visible of the Subscribers prove it Notwithstanding this Councils decisions the Contentions continue and the Major part of the Bishops went that way usually as the Emperours went And so in the Reign of Constantius and Valens they most turned to the Arrians at least in words And many General Councils so called of the Empire the Arrians had in which they prevailed and made Creeds for their turn as they at Nice had done against them and brought Persecution on the Orthodox silencing and ejecting them and scattering their Meetings as prohibited Conventicles the Emperour himself sometime executing their dispersions and restraint And among other Liberius the Bishop of Rome against his Conscience Subscribed to them The Fathers at the Council of Nice did determine of the bounds of the Patriarchs of the Empire which being at first but three Rome Alexandria and Antioch Jerusalem was after added and after that Constantinople For Constantine having now strengthned himself by the Christian Interest and being further out of the danger of mutable Souldiers than his Predecessours did that which none of them was ever able to do by removing the Imperial Seat from Rome to Constantinople and so leaving that Famous City as naked and almost neglected Whereby two great changes befell the Clergie 1. The Bishop of Rome was left more absolute and uncontrouled in the West 2. And the Bishop of Constantinople set up against
the Votes of all the Christian World 3. And have all that were converted in the Apostles days and since first known the Major Vote of the Christians or were they converted by the foreknown Infallibility or Authority of the Majority or of the Pope Some will say we see the Madness of this Popery but how then do you say that the faith must be received if not from the Church I answer I have told you at large in a Treatise called The Reasons of the Christian Religion and briefly in a smaller Treatise called The certainty of Christianity without Popery Briefly Judging is one thing and Teaching is another thing Before I submit to the Decision of a Judge I must know his Commission or Authority and I must then stand to his Sentence which way ever he decide the Case Men be not converted to Christianity by such Judges but by Teachers Nor will I believe the Judge if he say there is no Christ no Life to come c. But a Teacher is to make intelligible to his Hearer or Scholar the evidence of truth which is in the matter taught and to draw men to believe by telling them those true reasons upon which he did believe himself And no man takes him for his Teacher that he is perswaded knoweth no more than himself And the greater reputation of Knowledge and Honesty the Teacher hath the easier we apply our minds to learn of him and a humane trust or faith prepareth us to receive that evidence of truth which may beget a Divine Faith by the help of Grace But still the Learner truly believeth no more than he thus learneth And I may hear a stranger tell what he hath to say and be convinced by the evidence that he giveth me of the truth though I know not of any Authority that he hath to teach me much less judicially to decide the Case I little doubt but most that were converted by the Apostles themselves were perswaded to believe in Christ by the evidence of truth proposed the Spirit co-operating before they knew of any Authority of the Apostles much less before they heard what they said in a General Council or what was the Vote of the Universal Church or what any Pope said as Ruler of the rest These things are very plain and sure and they that will be wilfully blinded by faction and prejudice and worldly interest against plain truth have no excuse if they perish in darkness II. A PAPIST of this sort is one that believeth that the Pope of Rome is the rightful Governour of all the world that is that all Christians immediately and all Infidels and Heathens mediately are bound by God to obey him as Christs Vicegerent on Earth And that he with his Council is thus an Universal Lawgiver and Judge to all Kings States and Persons that dwell round about the Earth But a Protestant denyeth this and holdeth that there is no Universal Monarch or Legislator to all the world but God and our Saviour and that he hath made no such Vice-Christ or Vicegerent and that such a Claim is High-Treason as usurping his Prerogative And that if Pride had not in tantum made them mad no men could think themselves thus capable of Governing all the World Protestants believe that there is no such thing on Earth as an Universal Church headed by any mortal Head Pope or Council but that Christ is the only Universal Governour or Head III. This Papist is one that holdeth that the Church of Christ on Earth is no bigger than the Popes Dominion and that it is necessary to salvation to be subject to the Pope and consequently he unchurcheth two or three parts of the Christian world and damneth most of the Body of Christ and robbeth him of the greatest part of his Kingdom as far as denying his Right amounts to And consequently is a notorious Schismatick or Sectary appropriating the Church title only to his Sect. This is proved before from the Masters of their Religion IV. This Papist is one that holdeth that those Councils which were General as to one Empire were General as to all the Christian world And that such General Councils there must be if it please the Pope to call them though they must come from all the Quarters of the Earth and whence they have no Sea passage and out of the Empires of many Princes and many that are Enemies to the Christian Name and perhaps at Wars with Christians and when the Voyage or Journey is such that if the Churches be deprived of a thousand Bishops twenty of them are never like to live to return home to the remotest Nations Nor could they converse as a Council by reason of the number and diversity of Languages if they were equally gathered Or they hold that if a small part of the Christian World assemble as at Trent when the rest cannot come this is an Universal Council of and to all the Christian World V. This Papist is one that holdeth If a fallible Pope and a fallible General Council do but agree their Decrees are infallible As if an unlearned Pope e. g. that understands not the Text of Scripture in the Original and an unlearned Council as to the most should agree their Decrees would be learned e. g. in judging which is the true Translation of a Tongue which they never understood As if ten purblind men if they meet together might produce the Effects of the clearest sight or Fools by conjunction become wise VI. He holdeth that Tradition from Fathers to Children is the sure way of conveying all the matter of Faith and Religion and yet that the greatest General Councils which are the Church representative may erre in matter of Faith and have erred unless a Pope who is fallible approve of their Decrees VII And when he hath trusted to this way of Tradition he denyeth the Judgment and Tradition professed by the greater half or the Christian World VIII He believeth that all men are bound on pain of damnation to believe that the Senses and perception of all men in the World are deceived in apprehending that after Consecration there is true Bread and Wine in the Sacrament And he that will so believe his own and others Senses should suffer as an Heretick and be rooted out of all the Dominions of all Christian Lords on Earth So merciful is he to his Neighbours For an approved General Council hath decreed this and such Councils are his Religion Were it his own Father or Mother Wife or Child that cannot thus renounce all his own and other mens Senses and believe that there is no Bread or Wine in spight of his sight taste touch c. he believeth that they should be burnt as Hereticks or exterminated He may be a good naetur'd man that is loth it should be so or he may be one that is ignorant of his own Religion and doth not know that this is one Article of Popery or he may be an unconscionable man that
Councils and what parts of them the Pope meant to approve and what not as by Pope Martin 5. his Conciliariter appeareth that there is no certainty and no end XV. It is a Church that hath almost laid by the ancient Discipline of Christs appointment and instead of it hath set up partly Auricular Confession when it should be Publick and partly a tyrannical sort of hostile proclaiming their Adversaries excommunicate without hearing them and forbidding Gods Word and Worship to whole Kingdoms Saith Learned Albaspineus a Bishop Observ 1. pag. 1. If ever any one in this Age was deprived of Communion which I know not whether it ever fell out it was only from the receiving of the Eucharist In the other parts of his life he retained the same familiarity and converse with other Believers which he had before he was excommunicated XVI It is a Church that is upheld by Flames and Blood distrusting the ancient Discipline and the meer Protection of the Magistrate and the proper work of his Office The foresaid 12. General Council at Laterane proveth it besides Inquisitions and bloody Executions XVII It is a Church that cherisheth ignorance in the matters of Salvation Proved 1. By forbidding the reading of the Scriptures translated without Licence 2. Their Prayers in an unknown Tongue 3. The quality of their commonest Members XVIII It is a Church that militateth against Christian Love 1. By their foresaid condemning the most of Christians 2. By the foresaid bloody Religion and Execution XIX It is a Church which hath often damned it self one Pope and Council damning others As is proved XX. It is a Church which indeed is no Church according to their own Rules the Pope indeed being no Pope and the General Councils no General Councils as is proved And if it were one it could not possibly be certainly known to be so because the Pope who is an essentiating part cannot be certainly known As is proved both as to Election Ordination and all that is necessary to a Right and Title As to the Doctrines which they hold contrary to the Scriptures I have named many of them elsewhere in my Key pag. 39. 142 143 c. And others more largely And thus I have told you what I take a Pope a Papist and the Papal Church to be But you must remember that as the same man may be a visible Christian or Member of the true Universal Church as headed by Christ and a visible Papist or Member of the Sectarian Church as headed by the Pope so I judge none of you as in the first respect but allow you the same Charity proportionably as I do other erring Sects And especially to those many thousands who adhere to a Church which they understand not and profess that in gross which in particulars they themselves abhor Of which number I am not hopeless your self W. H. to be one CHAP. IX How our Religion differeth from the Papists AND now out of all this it is easie for you to gather how our Religion differeth from the Papists I shall recite but a few of the Differences leaving you to collect the rest from what is said of theirs I. Our Religion is wholly Divine or made by God For so is the holy Scripture which is all ours But the Papists super additions are made by men Even Popes and Councils under pretence of Declaring Expounding Governing Judging c. II. The Religion of Protestants is no bigger nor no other in the Essentials than the Sacramental Covenant with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost expounded in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue And in the Integrals no bigger nor other than the holy Canonical Scriptures But the Papists is as big as all the Decrees of all General Councils added to all the Bible if not the Popes Decretals also and uncertain Traditions Tell us not of our 39 Articles and other Church Confessions as contrary to this For those Confessions all profess what I here say And you may as well tell us of our other Books and Sermons Our question is not of mens Subjective Religion For so each person hath one of his own And it cannot be known but by knowing what is in each mans mind And our Books and Confessions are as is aforesaid but the Expression of our sense of that which is our Regular Objective Religion And we are ready to confess and amend any misconception but our Objective Religion which is the Rule and Law of our Faith is only Divine III. Our Religion is known even the Sacred Bible But yours is unknown what are approved Councils and what decrees are intended to be de fide and what temporal and what perpetual and how far the Popes Decretals bind and whether all Isidore Mercator's Decretals be the Popes with abundance of the like IV. Our Religion is owned by you and every word confessed to be Divine and Infallible But your added Popery is disowned by us as sinful presumptuous and false V. Our Religion is fixed and unchangeable for so you confess the holy Scriptures to be But yours is still swelling bigger and bigger while Councils will increase it and hath no certain bounds VI. Our Religion is only that ancient one delivered by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles and so is certainly Apostolical your additions are Novelties since brought in VII Our Religion is Infallible Holy Pure your additions are fallible contradictory sinful oft contrary to plain Scripture condemning one another VIII Our Religion is Universal owned by all the Christian World in the Essentials and in the Main in the Integrals that is the Scripture Greeks Papists Armenians Abassines and all other parties that are Christians own it But your additions are some disowned by one part of Cristians and some by another and some by all save your selves IX Our Religion therefore is the true terms of Catholick concord according to Vincent Lerinens Doctrine quod ab omnibus semper ubique receptum est But your additions are the very Engine of the dividing Enemy by which he hath long kept the Christian World distracted by discord with all the calamitous effects and consequents X. Our Religion hath a certain Rule for the ending of all controversies so far as there is hope of ending them in this world All men will rest in the Judgment of God and his word in all such necessary things is plainer than all your General Councils But your Humane Authority is such as fighteth with it self and all the world and which the Universal Church never yet received nor will ever rest in XI Our Religion owneth a certain lawful Government appointed by God which well used may keep just order in the world That is Parents in Families Pastors in such particular Churches as Christ hath instituted as join for personal Communion in holy Doctrine Worship and Conversation which they are indeed capable of Overseeing and Governing by Sacred Doctrine in Christs way And Associations or Correspondencies of these Pastors for concord And
substance and sense and most of the very words all Churches used the same And when the Council of Nice taught them the way of making new Creeds which Hilary Pictav so sadly complaineth of yet still the matter of the old Creed was the substance of them all And the Eastern Creed which was used before the Nicene Council for that such a one there was the most Learned Antiquaries give us sufficient proof was but the same in sense as the Western even the Exposition of the Baptismal Faith and this the Baptized did profess before Baptism And the work of Catechists was to teach this and the sense of it to the Catechumens And that He that believeth and is baptized that is truly devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost by the Baptismal Covenant shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned is by Christ himself made the sum of his Gospel or Law of Grace As the Image of the blessed Trinity on mans Soul is Life Light and Love so the summaries of that sacred Doctrine which must imprint it on us is the Symbolum Fidei the Creed the summary of things to be believed and the Lords Prayer the Symbolum and summary of things to be willed desired and sought and the Decalogue the summary of things to be practised being the Directory of Mans three Faculties the Intellect the will and the Executive Power And all this we believe was delivered to the Churches by the Apostles and received by all Christians many years eight at least before any Book of the New Testament was written And for the fuller understanding and improvement of it and for all the integral parts of Religion that were to be added the Apostles and Evangelists more enlargedly preached them to the People in their Sermons as Christ himself had done much of them We receive all that as Gods Word which by these Apostles was delivered as such to the Churches because they had the promise of the Holy Ghost to lead them into all truth and to bring all things that Christ taught and commanded to their remembrance We are assured that all that is contained in the New Testament was written by such inspired Persons and that the Spirit of God will knew that when they were to dye without written Records the memory of Mankind would not faithfully retain and deliver to Posterity such copious matter as the Integrals and useful Accidentals of Religion and therefore caused them to write it and leave it to Posterity So that our Christian Religion is contained and delivered to us in three Formulas or Prescripts The first containeth the whole Essence of Christianity and is the Sacramental Covenant in which we are believingly given up to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and God to us in the Relation of a God and Father a Saviour and a Sanctifier This is done initially ad esse in Baptism and after ad robur in the Lords Supper This is delivered to us by Tradition Naturally Infallible de facto For all Christians as such have received and entred this Sacramental Covenant and full History assureth us that the very same Form of it is come down in all the Churches to this day The second Formula is the Exposition of the three Articles of this Sacramental Covenant in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue which hath been delivered by memory also and kept unchanged save the foresaid additions of some explicatory words in the Creed to all the Churches to this day The third Form is all the holy Canonical Scriptures the Old Testament being as preparatory to the New which contain all the Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals Our Religion then is all from Christ and his Spirit in inspired men commissioned to deliver it and is well called as you do the Apostolical Christianity We own no other It is all brought down to us by Tradition from the Apostles The Essentials in the Covenant and the explicatory Symbols or Summaries are delivered to us two ways First by Memory and Practice most currant and certain from Generation to Generation being no more than what Memory might well retain whereto yet the helps of the Ancients Writings reciting the Forms were used for the fuller certainty of Posterity Secondly in the holy Scriptures where they are contained as the Brain Heart and Stomach in the Body among all the rest as the Principal Parts The third form is so large that Memory could not preserve it and therefore God would have it delivered us in that Writing which we all call the Sacred Bible or Canonical Scripture This containeth thousands of words more than are of absolute necessity to Salvation but no more than is useful or helpful to Salvation In all this I have shewed you what our Religion is Objectively taken and which way we receive it Where you are therefore to note 1. That all our Sermons Writings Church-Articles c. are but the Expressions of our Subjective Religion telling other Men how particular Men and particular Churches understand those Divine Forms which are our Objective Religion These are various as Churches and Persons are every one having his own Faith and Religion in different measures and such expressions being but our sides mensurata may be altered and amended and we pretend not to perfection in them But the former being our sides vel Religio mensurans our Divine Objective Faith or Religion is inculpable and unalterable 2. Note that you Papists do grant all our Objective Faith and Religion even every word of it to be true infallible and of God You own I say every word of our Religion That is all the Sacramental Covenant all the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and all that which we call the holy Canonical Scriptures But we own not all yours So that you do not you cannot find fault with the least Particle of our Religion as to the truth of it but 1. You think that it is not enough And 2. That we come not to it the right way that is we take not our Faith upon the word of Papists as Papists Is not this the difference And is not this all that you cry out against us for And now let us see whether your way be better and surer than this of ours is I. Your Religion is much Bigger than ours II. You hold it on other Reasons and plead another way of receiving it I. Your Religion Objective containeth besides all our Bible all the Apocryphal Books and all the Decrees of General Councils and all the other un-written Traditions if there be any more who knows what you name your self here fasting on Frydays and on the vigils of Saints Ember-days Lent and Images and such like Here now we humbly propose to your consideration 1. Whether you will take all these into the Essentials of Christianity or not If not a Man may be a Christian and consequently of the Church or Body of Christ and in a state of Salvation without them Why then do
Office and Dignity would he never have told the Church of Rome of their Mistris-ship and Infallibility above the rest Would so necessary a Fundamental of Faith have been so much silenced 3. Did the Apostles Evangelists or ancient Fathers use to Convert Infidels by any such Method and telling them that they must believe first the Infallibility of the Bishop of Rome and his Clergie and then believe the Gospel because he saith it is true Had this been the old Method would there not have been more Books necessary and written to prove this first Fundamental the Infallibility of the Roman Bishop and his Councils than to have proved the Gospel it self directly Is it not a wonder that we should have such Volumes as Eusebius his Praeparatio Demonstratio Evangel and so many written by those before and after him to prove the Gospel and none of them hit on this Method nor write at large to make it good The Churches Authority and Unity is ordinarily pleaded against Heresies and Schismes but who ever Converted Infidels by the Authority of the Papal Church either proved or asserted as the necessary Medium of Faith 4. Do you not confess that all other Churches may erre besides the Roman And their plea of Tradition you account invalid Your Book called Considerations on the Council of Trent by R. H. p. 40. saith All Conciliary Definitions are not only Declarations and Testifications of such Apostolical Traditions as were left by them evident and conspicuous in all Christian Churches Planted by them but are many times Determinations of Points deduced from and necessary consequents to such clear Traditionals whether written or unwritten 2. If the Acts of General Councils were only such Declarations of Apostolical Tradition yet it is possible that some particular Church may in time depart from such a Tradition entrusted to them else how can any Church become Heretical against any such Tradition Do you not at this day accuse the Greek Church the Muscovites the Armenians the Jacobites Syrians Copties Abassines the Protestants c. as having departed from or corrupted the first Tradition And how small a part of the Universality of Christians are the Papists And if the greater part of Christians may so forsake the Apostolical Tradition why may not the Pope of Rome and his Council How shall we be sure of their exemption from such danger You tell us over and over of our receiving this and that from our Fathers and Grand-Fathers And is that a certain Proof that it is Apostolical Why is it not so then with all the rest the Abassines the Armenians c. and the Majority of Christians But of this I have spoken in the former Treatise 5. And there I have desired you to tell us whether your Grandfather or his Priest was Infallible If yea how came he by it more than all those Churches If not do you not delude your Relations by drawing them to build their Faith on a fallible man or upon nothing Your Relations were not at the Council of Trent or Florence or Laterane How shall they be sure what the Pope and Council agreed on What Foundation but the words of your Priest or Grandfather have you for your assurance May not one of your Priests lye as well as all the Greek Abassine c. Churches When Pope Coelestine himself falsly urged the Nicene Council for Appeals to Rome contrary to Augustine and the Carthage Council Either tell your Readers plainly that it 's you and such as you that are the Infallible Foundation of their Faith or bid them stay and not go your way till they are certain what the Pope and his Council say and that he is a true Pope and it a true Council and that they are more Infallible than the major part of Christians And our Faith can be no stronger than the weakest necessary medium of it from whence it must arise 6. I have said so much of this in a small Book called The certainty of Christianity without Popery which I intreat you impartially to peruse where I have also shewed the utter uncertainty that Popery would reduce our Christianity to that I will now only tell you that after your talk of Tradition and Church and Fathers and Grandfathers if we had not much more testimony of Tradition for our Religion than you have for Popery we should think our Faith were very lame Compare ours with yours 1. Yours is A pretended Authoritative determination which rests upon a supposed Inspiration of some Persons by virtue of a special Priviledge peculiar to themselves 2. It is the Tradition of the minor part of Christians against the major 3. It rests on the pretended Infallibility of a Pope which great General Councils have said may be a Heretick and have deposed divers as Hereticks and worse And upon the Infallibility of General Councils which by Popes and other Councils are pronounced fallible unless confirmed by a Pope who may be a Heretick 4. It rests upon a Foundation viz. the Popes Divine Right of Primacy and Infallibility which is expresly denyed by two of the first four great General Councils approved to this day viz. that of Calcedon reciting the sense of that of Constantinople against the said Divine right affirming that the Popes Primacy was given him by the Fathers because Rome was the Imperial Seat 5. It rests upon an Authority of Popes and General Councils which being at first but the Clergie of one Empire hath thence claimed the same Power over all the Christian World which they had got in the Dominions of one Prince 6. It rests on a Claim downright contradictory to it self as aforesaid viz. That we must believe that the Pope hath this Power and Infallibility given him and his Councils by Christ and his Gospel before we can believe that there is a Christ and a Gospel authorized and true Now our Tradition is this For all the Essentials of our Religion the Sacramental Covenant and the three expository Symbols we have the currant Tradition both of the Papists and all the rest of the Christian World Yea that every Book that we call Canonical is the true Word of God not only the Papists but almost all the Christian World confess And defacto that these Books came down from the Apostles at least that the Gospel was preached by them we have the Testimony also of Enemies and Persecutors And are not all these more than the Testimony of one Sect alone 2. And in this we have as much to confirm us as you have of the wisdom piety care of the Church to preserve the Gospel and much more too for we have the Piety of all the Churches to plead and not your Sect alone And we undertake to prove such a moral Infallibility as is also Natural viz. That Mans Nature and Interests supposed it is no more possible for so many Persons and Nations of cross Interests to have agreed in their Testimony for the Gospel than for all the
should on such Terms be of one Religion They believe Socrates and Sozomen who tell us of the great diversity of Rites and Orders in the ancient Churches which all consisted with the same Religion Faith and Love They abhor the Principle of hating persecuting yea and separating from one another for such differences as will unavoidably adhere to the imperfect condition of Christians here on Earth At this time in England a considerable part if not the far greatest of the silenced Ministers are for the Primitive Episcopacy and some Liturgie as you may see in their offer of A. Bishop Usher's Reduction to the King and their desires of a reformed Liturgie Among the old Non-conformists there were divers degrees such as Dr. Regnolds Mr. Perkins Dr. Humfrey Paul Bayn c. did yield to more than some others could do How can you tell then by the name of a Puritane what to charge any single Person with But it seemeth you take their Non-conformity in General and their temper of mind and life together But then you greatly wrong them and seem not at all to know what their Religion is There are two things which you say they mistake in 1. Their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness and the Covenant and not solicitously endeavouring after the acquisition of Virtue because they trust to the Imputed Righteousness your words are too large to recite You partly here unworthily injure them by ascribing to them the very opinions and words of the Antinomians whom they have better confuted than ever you did And as to their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness even Bellarmine in one sense owneth it And whether our sense be sound I provoke you to try particularly by your perusal of my own Writings on that Subject especially a late Treatise of Justifying Righteousness and Imputation and a Treatise called Catholick Theologie In which if there be nothing which you dare or can confute judge whether your meer derision of Imputative Righteousness be not delusory If you dare say that you trust not to Christs Sacrifice and meritorious perfect righteousness as procuring you pardon and life Jus ad Impunitatem Regnum Coelorum enjoy your self-confidence while you can But if you say in this as we then make publick Confession of the injury of your reproach of such Imputed Righteousness as you trust your salvation upon your self I imagine you will say that my judgment is no certain signification of the judgment of the Puritans for I am singular and therefore what I say in these Books is no proof of the sense of the Non-conforming Puritans But 1. my judgment of their sense is as good as yours 2. Do you know of any one Nonconformist that hath published any dissent to what I have written Dr. Tully was a Conformist 3. You profess before to borrow the name Puritan from the Prelatists And I have this to say for my Authority in declaring the sense of Puritans that one or more whose genius is of kin to the Roman but far less mild than yours who are Prelatical or super-Prelatical have about 17 years ago being Masters of that Language branded me with the Name of Purus putus Puritanus qui totum Puritanismum totus spirat The Pseudo-Tilenus hath just the same stile as the late Unmasker of the Presbyterians who revileth modest judicious pious and peaceable J. Corbet and in the most ingenious strain of wrath and malice doth valiantly militate against Love Therefore Prelatists being Judges I may as credibly as another tell you what is the Puritan Judgment 2. Your second accusation of the Puritan is that He begins to quarrel with all external Worship and Ceremonies But this is also spoken ignorantly and untruly You before mistook the Antinomian for the Puritan and here you seem to take the Separatist for the Puritan Read the Reformed Liturgy and other Papers offered at the Savoy to the Bishops and you may see that though they are not for silencing excommunicating and damning men for a Ceremony nor for making as many Religions as there are differences about Ceremonies yet they are for doing all things to edification decently and in order and for external as well as internal Worship of God As knowing that the Body is his and made to Worship him as well as the Soul and therefore should fall down and kneel before him and reverently and holily behave it self in his Service You say p. 5. He is much confirmed in this his imagination by considering the open profaneness and little sense of God he observeth generally in zealous Conformists And on the other side he taketh notice of his Brethren the Non-conformists that they are generally free from open and scandalous sins and at least sigh and breath after interior spirit and devotion which certainly must be that must give us a title to Heaven rather than a few Cringes and exterior Verbal Devotions which any one though never so prophane may easily exercise 1. But do you not here and in your former description quite contradict your self when you charge them as neglecting inherent righteousness 2. We are not so foolish as not to know that the unreverent hypocritical abuse of Gods external Worship by others whosoever will not excuse us for neglecting it Of the Conformists we must speak anon 3. By the way I would you could impartially consider if the Puritans be so good men as you fairly confess them to be what the reason is that Papists generally are far more fiery against them than against those whom you speak so meanly of as Prelatical Protestants Remember how your Writer after the London Fire answered by Dr. Lloid did flatter these as more suitable to the Papists genius in comparison of the Puritans And the Unmasker against J. Corbet will tell you out of Watson an honourable Witness hanged for Treason in Cobham's c. Conspiracy how bad the Puritans are comparing them with the Jesuites And if your Laws took place in England what abundance of these Puritans would you make Bonfires of yea your own Relations were not like to scape you They have told me to my face how quickly they would otherwise silence me than the Prelates do if I were in their power And the Decrees De Haereticis comburendis exterminandis more fully tell it us Yea whence is it that most certain experience proveth it that by how much the nearer any Protestants genius is to the Papists by so much the more bloody cruel malicious or slanderous and unmerciful he is to the Puritanes You 'll say for both that it is because the Puritans are most against them and Interest ruleth the World But I answer 1. God's Interest is highest with every true Christian 2. I confess it 's true that Puritans are most against Popery But truly as far as I have been acquainted with them they are not most against your Persons nor would have any injustice or cruelty exercised against you But the fear of your Faggots or Powder-Plots and such
Massacres as were in France of Thirty Thousand or Forty Thousand or in Ireland of Two Hundred Thousand hath made them think your Power inconsistent with their safety 3. And you must remember that the Positive Additions of the Church of Rome are in the Judgment of the Puritans very great sins But you have truly no charge against the Puritans for any one Article of their Religion but only for not receiving and for protesting against your Additions 4. But I perceive p. 5. your Instances of their defectiveness are that they are not for fasting days particular Garments for Priests set Forms Christmas-day Good-Friday Ascension Whitsuntide c. which they take for meer Humane inventions and Will-worship Because they think that the New Testament was written to instruct us Christians in the whold Body of Gospel-worship c. But you are best prove this only by telling us that you know some persons of that mind And when you have done I will demand your Proof that those Persons are no more than Puritans They have oft told you that their judgment is that for all that substance of God's Worship which is of Universal necessity to the Church and is of Divine Institution the holy Scripture is a sufficient Rule But that very many Circumstances and outward Acts have in Scripture but a General Law that they be all done to edification decently orderly in Concord c. and it is left to Humane Prudence to order them by such Rules We condemn no one that useth holy Fasts or Feasts but think them needful We judge not those that celebrate the Memorial of God's great Mercies to his Church by giving him thanks for the holy Life and Doctrine of his Eminent Saints c. But will you plainly have our judgment We think Saint Paul was in the right that taught the Church of Rome it self both the Rulers and the Flocks that they must neither judge nor despise each other for differences about Meats and Days but receive each other to Communion notwithstanding such differences as Christ received us Rom. 14. and 15. And we will not believe your Grand-Father nor Great-Grand-Father if they told us that the Apostles by Tradition did institute Holy-days and Vigils for St. Tecla or St. Bridgit or St. Thomas Becket or any that were not born till they were dead And any one Day or Order which you truly prove to us that the Apostles by Tradition ordained for the Universal Church we profess our selves ready and resolved to obey But if you plead not Tradition for any of these things but the Churches Commands as you must do or be singular or ashamed here you come to the quick of our difference 1. We know not of any Universal Vicarious Law-giver under Christ that hath any power to make Laws to the Universal Church throughout the World and we dare not own any such Usurper lest we be guilty of Treason against the only Head of the whole Church 2. We know not of any power that the chief Bishop in the Roman Empire hath over other Empires Kingdomes or Churches 3. But to our own true Pastors which are set over us according to Christ's order and his Apostles recorded in Scripture we Puritanes will submit in all such Circumstantials as aforesaid which are left to their prudent determination not putting us on any sin But 4. We detest making such things as you here name to be taken for the Characters of distinct Religions or distinct Churches as if we might not with Love Peace and Christian Communion differ about a Garment a Holy-day Fast or Vigil Thus far then you seem not to know what a meer Puritan is II. But Sir I have much more than all these little things against your Description of a Puritane I plainly perceive in your greatest praises of him that you know not what his very Religion it self is or else you would never describe him as only taken up with fears and cares and good desires to be better having yet greedy desires of the things of the World without any mention of the Love of God above all and of his Neighbour and a holy and heavenly Mind and Life with self-denyal mortification of the Flesh c. Either you judge of a Puritane by what you were your self or by what your acquaintance were or by what they commonly profess to be their Religion For the first you have no reason It followeth not that they have no better a Religion because you had no better For the second you had no reason For it 's ten to one you knew not the hearts of your acquaintance so well as to be able to know that they had not the Love of God c. And if you were so unhappy in your acquaintance what 's that to other Men Thirdly Therefore as you look that your own Religion should be described not as we find it in this or that man but as your Church professeth it so do we And I have told you before what our Religion is I have the more boldness in speaking the sense of others as I said both because I am as aforesaid stigmatized for a total Puritan and because the generality of all of them of my acquaintance as far as I can discern are of this mind A Puritan then as the Word is commonly taken by the Rabble is a serious Christian Protestant who truly believeth and practiseth what he doth profess and doth not mortifie that Profession which should help to mortifie his Sin His Religion is to be understandingly and sincerely devoted in the Sacramental Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Vanities of the World the Lusts of the Flesh and the Delusions of the Devil He believeth that all that truly consent to this Covenant have a right and part in and to the Love of God the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Chost and that he that hath the Son hath Life Pardon Adoption Justification and Right to Life Eternal and that this Right is continued he performing his Covenant and continuing in that Faith which worketh by Love and not living impenitently in sin but sincerely obeying God his Father Saviour and Sanctifier He taketh the fear of Gods Justiâ—â— â—nd godly Sorrow to be but the lower steps of Holiness but that the Kingdom of God is not Meats and Days but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of Christ without which none are his is not the Spirit of Bondage but of Power Love and a sound Mind even a Spirit of holy LIFE LIGHT and LOVE which are the Essentials of true Holiness and the Spirit of Adoption and Supplication causeth us with Love to cry to God and trust him as a Father They take Christ to be the only Mediator between God and Man whose sufficient Sacrifice for Sin and perfect Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive as called advanced in dignity by the Divine Nature is the Meritorious cause of
all their Mercies to Body and Soul Remission Justification Holiness and Glory They put up all their Services as into and by the Hand of Christ and from his Mediatory Hand they expect all mercies They take the Holy Ghost within them to be Christ's Advocate and Witness to them of his Truth and Love and their Witness Earnest Seal Pledge and first Fruits of endless Life They take Eternal Glory for their full Felicity and this World and Flesh Pleasure Riches and Honour to be so far useful as they signifie Gods Love and further our Love and Service to him but to be Vanity as separated from God in our Hearts and Enmity or Mischief as Competitors or as against him In a word Faith working by Supream Love and Obedience to God and Brotherly Love to Man by Honour to our Superiours Justice to all and by all the good that we can do in the World and by Repentance for our Sins patience in sufferings and by a Heavenly Mind and Life is the Sum of their Religion or plainlier as is said at first The Gospel-Covenant as expounded in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue as the Summary of things to be believed desired and practised and the holy Scriptures as the full and comprehensive Records of the Doctrine Promises and Laws of God containing the Essentials Integrals and necessary Accidentals of Religion This is the Christian Religion and the Puritan in question is but the SERIOUS CHRISTIAN distinct from the HYPOCRITE or dead Formalist But if you add Non-conformity to the sense of the Word and to his Character so I need not tell you what the Impositions are which some deny Conformity to as to Oaths New-Covenants Subscriptions Declarations Practices c. which he protesteth that he would never deny Conformity to if after his best enquiry he did not believe that God forbiddeth it As you may see at large in their Savoy Petition for Peace to the Bishops These two it seems you join together and what their Objective Religion is I have better told you than you have told your Relations But as to the clearness of their Judgment in it and the measure of their Practice of it there are I think as various Degrees as there are Persons no two Men in the World being in all things just of the same Degree And now Sir give me leave patiently to ask you these two Questions 1. Why would you by temerity go about to deceive your Relations and other Readers by talking to them against that which you did not understand Even then when you blame others as dealing so by the Papists And why do you dishonour your own Relations so as to make so bad a Description of them Are they such as have no Love to God as God no delight in Holiness no Heavenly Minds nothing almost but fear and its effects Have they still the Flames of Concupiscence and greedy desires of Money and the things of this Life c. If it be not so you should not have told the World so of them If it be so I am sorry for them I suppose it is contrary to their profest Religion and you may have the greater hopes to make them Papists II. What wonder is it that you that were no better a Puritan than you describe are turned Papist You that profess you were a Puritan must needs be judged to tell us what a one you were your self when you tell us what they are Alas poor Man How came you to be so false to your own Profession against your Baptismal Vows as to keep so much of the World at your Heart in greedy desires after Money and to have no more Love to God and Man no more Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Could you think that a Man could be saved without Love and good works Were you deluded by such Antinomian conceits as you describe and took that for Puritanisme How else did you quiet your Conscience in such a state of Hypocrisie If God and Holiness had not your chief Love as well as Fear you were but an Hypocrite And here give me leave to repeat what I have oft written What wonder is it at any Mans turning Papist when according to your own Principles no Protestant Puritan or other Christian turneth Papist that doth not thereby declare that he was a false-hearted Hypocrite before and had no true Love to God in his Heart And was not this your case For 1. You affirm that all Men that have true prevalent Love to God are in a state of Grace and have right to Salvation till they lose it 2. You affirm that none of us are in a state of Grace and Salvation that are not of your Church that is the Subjects of the King or Pope of Rome 3. Therefore it followeth that you take none but such Subjects or Members of your Church to have the true prevalent Love of God But you know that in our Christian Covenant and Profession we all take God for our God the infinite and most amiable Good our Father in Christ and Love it self and that Faith working by Love is our Religion And if any Man saith Saint Paul love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha And he that loveth the World the Love of the Father is not in him 1 Joh. 2. 15. So that by turning Papist you confess that before you were no true Christian nor had any true Love to God and Godliness nor to Jesus Christ And if so you were a false-hearted Hypocrite For as a Christian you profest and Covenanted it And what wonder then if God forsook you and gave you up to strong delusions when you would not receive the Truth in the Love of it that you might be saved 2 Thes 2. And note here that if any Man know that he truly loveth God and Goodness you tell him that he is none of those that you perswade to Popery For you perswade none to it but those that are ungodly Hypocrites having no true Love of God within them But can you think Sir in good earnest that Popery tendeth more to fill Men with the Love of God than our simple Christianity doth Is not Popery a Religion of Bondage and Servitude consisting mainly in Terrour and its superstitious effects What are most of your Tasks of Pilgrimages Penances and abundance such but the effects of servile fear The best of Religion next Heaven should be that which is nearest to Heaven And do you think you can love God better in the Fire of Purgatory Torments than if he took you unto Christ in Paradise Could you love God better in this Life if he tormented you in the Fire than if he give you comfort by his mercies You say that the Puritan is made negligent by his trust in Christ to adorn his Soul with Piety Charity Meekness Patience Humility and other Christian Vertues partly thinking them impossible to be attained partly deeming there is no absolute necessity of them
eighth Instance is about praying for the dead But whatever you say of the Rector of S. Martins in Oxford there is no difference between the Puritans and the Prelatick Protestants in that point You mistake the matter It is another passage or two or three at Burial which the Puritan sticks at viz. which pronounceth of every individual person in the Kingdom Atheists Infidels Papists and Impenitent Sinners that we bury except only the Excommunicate Unbaptized and Self-murderers that God of his mercy hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother out of the miseries of this sinful life c. IX Your last Instance indeed toucheth the quick of our Controversie with Rome You say The Prelatick Protestant wonders at the Puritan's Pride that he will not submit his judgment in matters of Faith to the determination of a Council of all the Reverend Bishops of the Land his Majesty as Supreme Head and Governour presiding yet submit not to the determination of a General Council of all the Learned Bishops of the Christian World his Holiness the Pope as Supreme Pastor presiding and believe as the Universal Church of Christ believeth It 's fitting says the Conformist that for Order sake in Christs Church there should be in every Nation some Supreme Governours to whose Directions in matters of Divine Worship all should submit else we shall have as many Christian Religions and ways of Worship as there are Parishes Families or Persons The Puritan replyeth It seems as rational that Christ should for the same Reasons of conserving union decency and order in his Church appoint one Supreme Pastor over all Christians dispersed in all the Nations of the World whom all should obey in the vacancy of General Councils Ans This desenveth our wakeful Remarks I. So your sacred Cardinal Bertrand in Biblioth Patrum said that God had not been wise else if he had not placed one Supreme as his Vicar over the World And so you can tell what God hath done by your superlative Wit which can tell us what he ought to do God doth all wisely But if he had not made an Universal Head of the World under him he had not done wisely ergo he hath made such an Head c. This is Historical Logick II. But is this Monarch the Head in Civil Government or only in Ecclesiastick Why is your One Church no more One in answering this Question Nay why were poor Barclay Withrington and such others whose Writings Goldastus hath preserved so hardly judged of for pleading for Kings Supremacy in Civil Government And if you are of their mind tell us if you can why God must not be judged as unreasonable and unwise if he have not made One Universal Civil Monarch of all the World I undertake when you will come to a due tryal to prove that Civil Government is such as may as well and far better be done by Officers and Deputies than the Ecclesiastical Government can And I pray who is the Universal Monarch Or who must be he Or how must he be chosen I would have our King have no mortal King set over him at least without a chusing Vote And shall they meet in a General Council of Kings to chuse one By that time the Place and Time be agreed on and the Kings have all left their Kingdoms and be come from the Antipodes and the Terra Australis incognita and all other Kingdoms to that Council to chuse a Monarch of the World they will be too old to return home again Or shall they fight it out till one have Conquered all the rest Alas who shall bear the charge of the Conquest at the Antipodes and who shall answer for all the Blood When one cannot get all Europe at a cheaper rate than will be expressed by many Kingdoms groans and the Soil dunged with mens flesh and blood I have long ago on this subject given in my Key for Catholicks an Answer to Richlieu and to Carol. Boverius who wrote for the Honour of Ecclesiastick Monarchy from the similitude of Civil to have perverted our late King as if he would have made him believe that the World must have one mortal Monarch Contrarily If it be Madness and Hostility to all Kings and States for any one man on earth to claim and seek to be the Monarch of all the World in Civil Government it is madness and hostility to Kings Pastors and People for any one man to claim and seek to be the Monarch of all the World in Ecclesiastick Government But the former is true Ergo so is the latter I am ready to make good the Comparison III. But Sir if the Pope be S. Peter's Successor is not his Apostolick office as Universal as his Monarchy or Ruling office Surely the first part of the Apostles office was to preach and baptize and make Christians and gather Churches and the Governing of them was but the second part And is the Pope the Apostle of all the world Then it seemeth that he is a betrayer of most of the whole earth to the Devil that neither preacheth to them per se vel per alios But S. Peter's Charge was not Vniversal but Indefinite And even as to Government why did he never so much as send his Deputies to govern the Abassins for so many hundred years Nay hence it seemeth to follow that all the preaching and Church-order that hath been for so many hundred years either there or in any other Nation by which millions have been turned to Christianity and edified without the mission or Commission of the Roman Monarch should have been left undone and all was unlawful IV. But must your Pope be obeyed as Supreme but in the Vacancy of General Councils Dare you preach this at Rome 1. How then come the Councils of Constance and Basil for such Doctrine to be unapproved or reprobate Councils How came Pope Eugenius to keep up and continue the succession when so great a General Council had deposed him as Heretical Simoniacal and many ways flagitious 2. And what Have we a Catholick Church with two Heads that are pervices the Vicars of Christ A Pope one year and a Council another Then sure they are two Churches seeing the Pars imperans is the specifying part 3. But the best is it is at the Pope's will whether ever there shall be a General Council more And he knoweth which side his Bread is Buttered on Nay they say no Decree is valid without his approbation And if ever a John or Eugenius of them all will approve of his own Deposition for Heresie Simony Adultery c. he is not the Man that I took him for 4. But if the name General Council be not a Cheat and taken for a Council very far from being General as to the whole Christian World let the Pope set his heart at rest I will undertake to secure him from the danger of such a Council and to prove that such there never ought to be will
be or can be unless Christianity come much nearer to be rooted out of the Earth and the Church brought into a narrower room V. But you have a reflecting Comparison between the Kings presiding and the Popes and between a National Council and the Bishops of the whole Christian World To begin at the later part Alas poor ignorant Man if you believe this your self And alas unfaithful Man if you believe it not and yet dare say it Do you yet know no difference between the orbis Romanus and the orbis universalis Or will you with William Johnson alias Terret prove your Councils to be Universal because such places as Thracia had Bishops there as if Thracia had been without the Empire or because such a name as Johannes Persidis is found at Nice Read all the subscribed names and return to a sounder mind Theodoret knew what he said when he gave the reason why James Bishop of Nisibis in Persia or near it was at the Council of Nice Because Nisibis was then under the Roman Emperour Do you not know that most of the Christian World two to one are not of the Pope's Subjects and are All the Bishops of the Christian World then on your side And do you not know that when Constantine presided at Nice his Dominion was full as large as the Bishop of Rome's was and a little larger VI. But because you shall find us reasonable we will tell you that we consent to General Councils where the Pope consenteth not We consent to what the great Councils at Calcedon and Constantinople before mentioned say of the Humane Institution of his Primacy and the Reason and Mutability of it and so doth not the Pope We consent to the Councils at Constance Basil Pisa that the Pope may be deposed as a Heretick and worse but the Pope doth not Is it not he then that dissenteth from all the Bishops of the World VII And for the Kings presiding we wholly own it He is the Governour of Clergy-men as well as of Physicians and he is to see that they abuse not their Function to the common hurt The difference is here 1. Our King Governeth but his own Dominions But your Pope would Govern all the World 2. Our King hath an undoubted Title Your Pope is an Usurper 3. And as to your name Head he hath given the World full satisfaction that he did never claim to be a Priest-Head or Governour a Constitutive Head of a properly called Church nor to have the power of Word Sacraments and Keys so as to administer them but to be a Civil Head and Governour of Priests and the Churches in his Dominions as he is of Physicians c. VIII And you mistake the Puritans if you think they are not for this Government Why else take they the Oath of Supremacy Yea and if you think that they are not for as much Unity and Concord of all the Churches in a Kingdom as can be had without a greater hurt than the lesser particularities of their concord will do good And they are not against National Synods for such Concord And they hold the King to be the Regular Head or Governour or Principium of that Concord But not principium essentiale ipsius Ecclesiae And therefore the Puritans differ from judicious Ric. Hooker who saith If the King be the Head of the Church he must needs be a Christian For we hold that an Infidel King may be so the Head that is the Rightful Governour of the Christians and Churches in his Dominion or else how should they be obliged to obey him IX And you are mistaken if you think that the Puritans and the Prelatists differ about submitting our Faith to the judgment of the Church We subscribe the same Articles which say that General Councils may erre and have erred even about matters of Faith X. But I must tell you that the Puritans who are accused of disorder and confusion do many of them loath disorder and confusion even in words and doctrine And they distinguish here between the Churches keeping and teaching the Christian Faith and the Churches judging in matters of Faith The first they are wholly for We must receive our Faith from our Teachers and oportet discentem fide humana credere But if by Judging you mean strictly a Decisive judgment in which we must rest which way soever the sentence pass as if the Church might not only teach us the truth of our Religion but judge in partem utramlibet whether it be true or not the Puritans own no such power in the Church nor will so submit their Faith to the judgment of it They believe that Pastors in Councils have power to judge that there is a God Almighty c. a Christ a Holy Ghost that Christ dyed rose c. that the Scripture is true that there is an absolute necessity of Holiness that there is a Resurrection and Life everlasting that Gods Commandments must be kept and sin not committed c. But that no Council hath power to judge that there is no God no Christ or the contrary to any one of these or any other revealed Truth of God XI And I must not let pass your Schismatical inference that else there should be as many Religions and ways of worship as Parishes or persons if some supreme Governour determined not in matters of worship For 1. It was not so when no Supreme Governour determined on earth 2. But either you mean the Substantials of Gods Worship or the Circumstantials In the first as faith is not to be got by force so neither is Godliness but yet Governours should here do their best But as to the other we abhor the Conceit that there are as many Religions as there is difference about vestures gestures days and meats But perhaps you take the word Religion in the Romane sense as you confine it to those that you call the Religious as if you took the people of your Church to be irreligious And so you have indeed too many Religious however they come to make one Church The Religion of the Carthusians is one and of the Benedictines another and of the Franciscans another I cannot name them all One eateth Herbs and Fish and another eateth Flesh seldom another often one weareth one habit and another weareth another one Religion hath one Rule of Life and another hath another But with us there is but one Religion which is the Christian though one man wear cloth and another stuffe one white and another black one eat Flesh and another Fish and another can seldom get either though one wear his Hair long and another short though one be old and another be young yet we are all of one Religion Yea though one preach and pray in English another in Welch another in French and another in Dutch yet we take not these to be so many Religions No nor though one think Free praying fitter for Ministers than an imposed Form and another think an
Souls in Purgatory or for praying to the Virgin Mary and abundance such if Holy Water alone would do all the Business Was not he much overseen or did grosly prevaricate that drew up this Charge Might I but chuse my Adversaries Advocate and agree with him to say nothing but what I can disprove I would certainly have the better and be justified VII The next part is And as for his obedience to Magistrates if they be not of his Religion he owes them no allegiance And if he have by Oath obliged himself he has a holy Father can dispense with him for that or any other Oath for a piece of Money If his Prince persecute him for his Religion let him but have so much desperate courage as to sacrifice his own life to stab or poyson his said Persecutor he shall at Rome be canonized for a Saint Nor can private Persons expect any fidelity from him when he is thus traiterously rebellious against his Liege Lord and Soveraign c. Ans Now I perceive you are over bold and do too hardly blush when you have the face to bring in such an instance and by the inserting of a word or two of your own to dare to wash off from your Religion the blot of Perfidiousness and Rebellion when it is part of the Decrees of your approved General Council The Prevaricator wrongeth you 1. By making not of his Religion to be all that 's necessary to free you from allegiance 2. By putting in or any other Oath for a piece of Money I have not yet found that the Pope undertaketh to dispense with a man that will swear to believe the Roman Church or the rest in Pope Pius his Trent Oath nor yet with the Vow of Baptism if seconded by an Oath 3. By saying only If his Prince persecute him for the Doctors say that he must be first excommunicate or a Heretick at least and some say he must have the Pope's Order before he may kill a King and the Council only speaketh of Deposing and not of killing 4. And the Prevaricator too rashly promised Canonizing He that murdered one of the French Kings was but praised in an Oration by the Pope proved by many but not Canonized Garnet was not every one But because I see you grow so bold and also in what follows return to what you had said before I will instead of following you farther tell you what such as I mean by a Papist and what some other men mean by him CHAP. V. The true History of the Papacy its original and growth THough I reserve the opening of the ambiguities of the word Papist till near the end I shall so far anticipate that as to tell you here also that the word PAPIST is equivocal I. In the sense of Grotius and all our Reverend Country-men that are of his judgment Papists are those that without any difference do approve of all the sayings and doings of Popes for honour or lucre sake as is usual Discus p. 15. If of all then of all the Adulteries Murders Simonie Heresie Infidelity charged on some of them by their own Writers and by Councils I am sorry if this be usual I hope yet that there are few of these Papists in the World and that few Popes themselves will deny that they are sinners But he elsewhere desireth the Reformation 1. Of some bold disputes of the School-men 2. And the ill lives of the Clergie 3. And some Customs which have neither Councils nor Tradition II. Some who are for the Supremacy of General Countils above the Pope do call those Papists that are for the Pope's Supremacy above such Councils or that give him the Legislative as well as the Judicial Power over the Universal Church Though themselves give him the Supreme Judicial Power when there is no General Council III. Protestants call those Papists who hold that the Roman Pope is rightfully the Governour of the Universal Church on Earth either as to Legislative or Judicial-executive Power either with Councils or without Two things are here included in our Judgment 1. That there is no rightful Universal Governour under Christ over all the Church on Earth either as to Legislation or Judgment 2. That the Roman Pope therefore is no such Governour In this third sense now I am to tell you what we Protestants mean by a Papist more particularly And first I must tell you what a POPE is before I can well tell you what a Papist is Which I shall do I. De facto Historically II. De jure as to the Power which he claimeth I. A long time the Bishops of Rome were seldome called Popes and other Bishops were so called as well as they At first the Bishops of Rome were pious persecuted Men and many of them Martyrs and usurped no Power over any Churches but their own which with Alexandria were the two first that brake Ignatius his Test of Unity who saith To every Church there is one Altar and one Bishop with his fellow Presbyter and Deacons But Rome having long called her self the Mistris of the World and being the Seat of the Empire and Senate and of the Governing Power of the orbis Romanus the Christians there grew greater than others and the Bishop as it increased kept it under his Power And when Christians had peace which was under the far greatest part of the Heathen Emperours and for the far longest time the Greatness of Rome giving Greatness to that Church and so to the Bishop and great opportunity to help other Churches because the Governing Power of the Empire was there this Bishop grew to be of greatest wealth and interest And in times of Peace the Strife which Christ once ended was taken up among the Bishops which of them should be the greatest And St. Paul having taught Christians that they should not go voluntarily to Law against each other before Heathens if there were but a wise man among them to be an Arbitrator the Christians supposing that they had none wiser or fitter than their Bishop made him their Common Arbitrator in things Civil as well as Ecclesiastical By which means Custom making it like a Law Bishops became de facto Church-Magistrates But they had no Power to execute any Penal Laws either Jewish or Roman or to make any of their own except as Arbitrators or Doctors to those that would voluntarily receive them And they had no Power of Life and Death nor to dis-member any nor to beat or scourge them nor to Fine them or Confiscate their Estates But being entrusted by Christ as his Ministers with the Power of the Church-Keys and by the People with the Power of Civil Arbitrations they were by this the stated Governours of all Christians who yet obeyed the Roman Heathen Magistrates but brought none of their own differences voluntarily before them And because that Multitudes of Heresies took advantage of the Churches liberty and swarmed among them to their great weakning and disgrace and christ
words of Reynerius saying that the outer Churches planted by the Apostles were not under the Church of Rome 8. The executive part neither could nor ever was performed upon the Churches without the Empire When did any Patriarch or any Provincial or General Council send for any Bishop or other person out of India Scythia Ethiopia or any other exterior Nation to answer any Accusation or pass any Sentence of Deposition or Suspension against them or put any other into their places 9. General Councils are confessed by Papists to be but a Humane and not a Divine Institution and what Humane Power could settle them in and over the Church Universal If you say It is by Universal Consent prove to us that ever there was such a Consent or that ever there was any meeting or treaty for such Consent of all the Christian World and we will yield it to you Surely if there be any Christians at the Antipodes they were not sent to in those days when Lactantius Augustine and others denyed that there were any Antipodes and derided it nor when the Pope by our Countryman Boniface his Instigation excommunicated Virgilius for holding that there were Antipodes Hear their great disputer Pighius Hierarch Eccles lib. 6. c. 1. fol. 230. General Councils saith he have not a Divine or Supernatural Original but meerly an Humane Original and are the Invention of Constantine a Prince profitable indeed sometimes to find out in Controversie which is the Orthodox and Catholick Truth though to this they are not necessary seeing it is a readier way to advise with the Apostolick Seat So that General Councils are Novel Humane and only of the Empire then 10. But to end all the Controversie the names of the Subscribers are yet to be seen who were not the representatives of the Christian World but of the Empire as is notorious Aeneas Sylvius Epist 288. saith that before the Council of Nice there was little respect had to the Church of Rome And though when he was made Pope Interest caused him to revoke his judgment of the Councils being above the Pope he never revoked such historical narratives Their great Learned Mathematical yet militant Cardinal Cusanus li. de Concord Cathol c. 13. c. saith that the Papacie is but of Positive right and that Priests are jure Divino equal and that it is subjectional Consent which giveth the Pope and Bishops their Majority and that the distinction of Dioceses and that a Bishop be over Presbyters are of Positive Right and that Christ gave no more to Peter than the rest and that if the congregate Church should chuse the Bishop of Trent for their President and Head he should be more properly Peter 's Successor than the Bishop of Rome Object Oh but this Book is disallowed by the Pope Answ No wonder So is all that is against him The Exceptions which we grant are these 1. There were some Cities of the Empire that were near to other Nations where the Princes being Heathens Christians were underlings and few And the Bishops of these Cities extended their care to as many of the Neighbour Countries as would voluntarily submit to them So the Bishop of Tomys was Bishop of many Scythians and so some that were on the Borders of Persia had many Persians and were at Nice 2. There were some Countries that were sometimes under the Roman Power and sometime under the Persian or others as Victory carried it and these when they had been once of the Imperial Church took it when they fell under Heathens to be their Honour Strength and Priviledge to be so accounted still and so would come to their Councils after if they could So it was with the Armenians and the Africans when the 〈◊〉 had conquered them c. 3. There were some Bishops that lived on the Borders of the Empire under Heathens that needed the help of Neighbour Churches and accordingly were oft with them craving their help So it was with the old Britans as to the Bishops of France 4. There were some small Countries adjoining to the Empire who took the Friendship of the Roman Power for their great Honour and safety and therefore were glad to conform in Religion to the Empire and to let their Bishops join with them 5. And there were some Neighbour Countries who were turned to Christianity by the Emissaries of the Bishop of Rome who therefore rejoicing also in so powerful a Patronage were willingly his Subjects But this was long after the first great Councils These two last were the Saxons case in England Accordingly you may sometimes find two or three out of such Countries at some of the General Councils of the Empire Which yet were called General but as to the Empire and not as to the World To proceed in the History When Christians were mostly exempted from the Magistrates Judicatures that were most Heathens though under a Christian Prince and so the Bishops Canons were to them as the Laws of the Land are to us it is no wonder that Councils must then be very frequent and Canons of great esteem and hereupon Bishops by prosperity growing more and more worldly and carnal made use of their Synodical Power as is aforesaid to accomplish their own Wills So that the Synods of Bishops became the great Incendiaries and Troublers of the Empire You need no more to satisfie you of this but to read the Acts of the Councils and the words of Nazianzen called Theologus against Synods and contentious Bishops and the sad Exclamations of Hillary Pictav They that had too little zeal against Ungodliness Unrighteousness Pride and Malice were so zealous against any that withdrew from their Power and contradicted them that they easily stigmatized them for Hereticks and made even godly sober Christians suspected of Heresie for their sakes while notorious Vice was used gently in those that adhered unto them Even holy Augustine saith Drunkenness is a mortal sin si sit assidua if it be daily or constant what not else and that they must not be roughly and sharply dealt with but gently and by fair words Vid. Aquin. 22. q. 150. a. 1. 4. ad 4. a. 2. 1. And their Great Gregory That with leave they must be lest to their own wit or disposition lest they grow worse if they be pulled away from such a Custom as Drunkenness But when it came to such as withdrew from under them they were not so gentle Lucifer Calaritanus is made the Head of a Heresie because he was but too much against the receiving of such as had been Arrians The large Catalogues of Heresies contain many that never erred in Fundamentals They prosecuted the Priscillianists so hotly that if godly men were but given to fasting and strictness of life they were brought into suspicion of Priscillianism And the Vulgar took advantage of the Bishops turbulency and ill disposition to abuse the godly S. Martin therefore separated from the whole Synod of the Bishops about him and
and allowed them so many and various Societies and with so great Priviledges as obliged them generally to uphold and serve him Though he cruelly persecuted all that were against his Power and Interest yet he allowed almost all the Diversities of such as would but unite in him and serve him 6. And as he so twisted his own and all his Clergies Interest that they were all ready to obey and defend him against their several Princes and thereby had a great power in every Christian State in Europe so keeping all his Clergie unmarryed their wealth still accumulated and flowed into the Church And the Eastern Empire being first weakned and then overthrown and the Western Nations kept weak and in continual Wars against each other there was none well able to resist his Pride but one party still was ready to flatter him partly to keep their own Clergy in Peace and partly to have his help against their Enemies And the grand Cheat by which they were commonly deceived was that they lookt more at his present possession of Primacie than at the reason and right by which he claimed it and so he that had been Prime Patriarch in one Empire set up by the Prince still claimed the right of the same places when the Empire was dissolved as if the Subjects of the Kings of France Spain c. must obey him because they did so when they were the Subjects of Constantine Theodosius Valentinian c. For by little and little he changed his Title mentioned in the Council of Calcedon into a pretended Divine Right and so they that would not have obeyed him as set up by Caesar and his Councils obeyed him as if he had been set up by God For the name of St. Peter and his Chair and Successour was used as the common blind And next to that he did by degrees change his claim of a Primacie in the Empire into a claim of Primacie in all the World and his claim of a meer Primacie into a claim of Soveraignty or Governing Monarchy If you ask me how could he blind Men so far as to make such a change You seem not to know Man-kind nor to observe common experience Do you not consider what power the Clergie had every where got with the People What an advantage possession and St. Peters name were And how lamentably ignorant they kept the People Do we not see that even in our more knowing times yea among Protestants yea with some Divines the evident distinction between their Humane Right and their pretended Divine Right and between an Universal Council or Church of the Empire and of the whole World have not been sufficiently observed in our Disputes against them And the additional Countries of voluntary Subjects in Brittain Hungary Sweden Denmark c. which of later times since his Imperial Primacie have fallen in to him have much helped to blind the people herein and to serve his Claim as by Divine Right For which ends his Emissaries have taken great pains at the East and West Indies in China and Japan and Congo and once they made an attempt in Abassia and among the Greeks and in many other Nations of the World laudably seeking to win some Heathens to Christ that they might win them to the Pope and turbulently seeking to disturb the Greeks and other Christian Churches to draw them to the obedience of the Pope The Doctrines by which they promote their design are more than I may now stay to open I. One of the chief is by depressing the Honour of the sacred Scriptures as insufficient to acquaint us with all Gods will that is necessary to our salvation without supplemental Tradition that so all men might be brought to depend on them as the Keepers of Tradition But 1. Is their Tradition yet written in any of their own Books or not If not where are they kept And who knoweth what they are Is it not strange that so many Doctors in so many Ages all remembring them would none of them ever write them down Are they in the Memory of the Pope only What of those that could not read or that were condemned as Hereticks of Infidels Then all the World must receive them from the Popes Memory If so must it be Word or Writing And had he no Memory of them before he was Pope But if it be in other Mens Memories that your unwritten Traditions are kept in whose is it If in all the Doctors of your Church why did not Luther Melancthon Pet. Martyr and the rest that turned from you know them Or did they suddenly forget them all when they turned Protestants And how vast must your necessary Religion be if yet it must have more in it unwritten than is to be found in all your great Volumes of Councils and your huge Library But I suppose you will say that all your unwritten Traditions are now written If so they are not unwritten And how long have they been written and by whom If Fathers and Sons could keep them unwritten in memory a thousand years why not 1100 and why not 1600 c. If they were written in the beginning where be the Books Are they not such as other Christians can read and understand as well as you or an illiterate Pope If there be a necessity of having them in writing now was there not the same necessity to former Ages 2. I suppose you will send us to your Councils for those Traditions But if the Bishops know them not before they come to the Council how do they begin to know them then Do they go thither for a new miraculous Revelation of an old Tradition left with the whole Church 1. But do not Councils oft determine things confessedly uncertain to the Church before and yet out of utter uncertainty it suddenly becometh an Article of Faith For Instance the great Council at Basil saith Bin. sess 30. p. 80. A hard Question hath been in divers parts and before this Synod about the Conception of the glorious Virgin Mary and the beginning of her Sanctification Some saying that the Virgin and her Soul was for some time or instant of time actually under Original Sin Others on the contrary saying that from the beginning of her Creation God loving her gave her Grace by which preserving and freeing that blessed Person from the Original Spot We having diligently lookt into the Authorities and Reasons which for many years past have in publick relation on both sides been alledged before this holy Synod and having seen many other things about it and weighed them by mature consideration do Define and Declare That the Doctrine affirming That the glorious Virgin Mary the Mother of God by the singular preventing and operating Grace of God was never actually under Original Sin but was ever free from all Original and actual Sin and was holy and immaculate is to be approved held and embraced of all Catholicks as godly and consonant to Church-worship Catholick Faith right Reason
Difference Verily our Differences here in England and the Neighbour Protestant Churches have shewed in us much personal peevishness unskilfulness and other faults but in my judgment they are such as greatly commend our real concord in the same Religion and partly our Conscience in valuing it and being loth to lose it If you see Latine Grammarians reviling one another about the spelling or pronunciation of a word or two and critically contending with Varro Gellius c. which is the right when a man that never knew a word of Latine but Welch or Irish never strove about such Questions in his life which of these will you think have more agreement in their Language I would say that those men that disagree but about the pronunciation of a few words are very much agreed in comparison of a Barbarian that agreeth not with them in a Sentence or a Word Even the old Schoolmen were in Language more agreed with Erasmus Faber Hutten and other Critical Grammarians that derided them than any illiterate man was with any of them All Gruterus his Volumes of Grammatical Controversies shew not so much distance in Language as the peaceable silence of an unlearned man doth And no one strives much about that which he doth not much care for Countrymen can contemptuously laugh at Logical Disputes or Criticisms Horses or Oxen will not strive with us for our Gold or Jewels Clothes or Food as we do with one another and yet they are not so like us in the estimation of such things as we are to one another When I hear religious persons contentiously censuring each other about some little points of Ceremony Order Discipline or Form which are but the fimbria or the Welts and Laces of Religion I am angry at their weakness and defect of love but I must needs think that there is very great concord in the Faith and Religion Objective of these men who differ about no greater matters than such as these If men that were building a Palace would fall together by the Ears only about the driving of a Pin I should marvel at their concord that differed in no more though I could wish them like wrangling Children whipt for their folly and frowardness till they were quiet The great things that Protestants have paltrily wrangled about are 1. The Doctrinal Controversies called Arminian 2. And the matters of Discipline and Ceremonies The former I have shewed lately in a large Volume hath much more of verbal than of real difference and is cherished by the ambiguity of words and the unskilfulness of too many to discuss those ambiguities and find out exactly the true state of the Controversie It is oft but Stubble that maketh the greatest blaze And as for the other I would not undervalue the least things of Religion but I will say that Engagement Faction and worldly Interest are magnifying Glasses to many men and make a Mote to seem a Beam and a Gnat to seem a Camel And it is one of the Devils old Wiles to keep men from learning of Christ how to Worship the Father of Spirits in spirit and truth by starting such Questions as whether in this Mountain or at Jerusalem men ought to worship and to hinder godly edifying by doting about questions that gender strife And fighting for Shoo-buckles may shew the quarrelsomness of men but it proveth not the Greatness of the matter 2. Note further that though Subjective Religion the measures of our belief Love and Obedience be as various as persons are yet the Objective Religion of all true Protestants is the same Not only the same in the Essentials one God one Saviour and Lord one Baptismal Covenant one Creed one Spirit one Body of Christ and one Hope of Glory Eph. 4. 4 5 6. but also the same in all the Integral parts For it is Integrally the Holy Scripture which containeth all that they take with the Law of Nature to be the whole Law of God and so the Rule of Divine Faith Desire and Duty They may subjectively have some difference in understanding some Texts as the most Learned and holy in the world have But Objectively they have no other Divine Faith or Religion 3. And note that the Church that Protestants yea Greeks Armenians Syrians Abassines are of are all certainly one and the same Church For a Church is constituted of the Ruling and the Ruled Parts And they perfectly agree that Christ is the only Essentiating and Universal Head In him they all unite and confess that there is no other Even the Patriarch of Constantinople as I have shewed claimeth but a Primacie in the Empire and not the Government of all the World no not of us in England And as for the Ruled Constitutive part we are agreed that it is All Baptized Christians that have not apostatized nor forsaken any Essential part of Christianity nor are excommunicate by Power from Christ So that we are clearly all of one and the same Church But how far the Papists differ in the Greatness and number of their Controversies I think to tell you a little more anon IV. I may not stay to shew at large how they vary their shape and course as may fit their Interest How sometime they put on the person of Infidels or Atheists to plead men into an uncertainty of all Religion that they may be loose enough to follow them into theirs For even so Car. Boverius would have perswaded our late King Apparat. ad Consult The first thing is saith he seeing true Religion is to be inquired after by you that before you address your self to search for it you first have all Religions in suspicion with you and that you will so long suspend or take off your mind and will from the Faith and Religion of the Protestants as you are in searching after the truth Reader doth not this tell you whence much of our late Atheism and Infidelity cometh and what it tendeth to I tell thee not the words of a Novice but a person chosen to have seduced our King when he was Prince in Spain And is not this way very suitable to the end How must men become Papists Boverius will teach you First suspect all Religion and with your very Mind and will cease to believe that there is a God or that he is Powerfull Wise or Good or that we are his Creatures and Subjects or that there is any Heaven or Hell or Life to come or that Christ is not a Deceiver but a Saviour or that any of the Bible is true Cease from Loving Fearing Obeying or trusting God and from loving man for his sake Cease praying to him and forbearing any wickedness injustice cruetly perjury or filthiness as being forbidden by him and this as long as you are searching after the truth Verily this devilish counsel is so notoriously followed now by some that we may fear what truth it is that they are searching after Certainly this way is of the Devil and how it can lead
and Favourers of Hereticks shall be Excommunicate firmly decreeing that after any such is noted by Excommunication if he refuse to satisfie within a year he shall from thenceforth be ipso jure infamous and may not be admitted to publick Offices or Councils or to the choice of such or to bear witness And he shall be intestate and not have power to make a will nor may come to a succession of Inheritance And no man shall be forced to answer him in any Cause but he shall be forced to answer others And if he be a Judge his sentence shall be invalid and no Causes shall be brought to his hearing If a Notary or Register the instruments made by him shall be utterly void and damned with the damned Author And so in other like cases we command that it be observed They further command Bishops by themselves or their Archdeacons or other fit persons once or twice a year to search every Parish where any Heretick is found to dwell and to put all the Neighbourhood to their Oathes whether they know of any Hereticks there or of any private meetings or any that in life and manners do differ from the Common Conversation of the faithful c. And the Bishops that neglect this are to be cast out and others put into their places that will do them Here you see that no man must live on Earth for all Kingdoms must be subject to the Pope that will not renounce his humanity and animality or common senses and declare himself below a Beast That all Kings are the Popes Subjects commanded by him and must take a new Oath when they are crowned to destroy all their Subjects that believe their senses That even the suspected are undone if they prove not the Negative That Princes must be a thousand fold worse than hang-men who hang not whole Countries but a few condemned Maleafctors That Popes can and must depose Kings and Lords that will not do such things as these and give their Dominion to others That the sign of the Cross is the Cross Makers sign That all the promises of the pardon and happiness that were made to the invaders of the holy Land are given to those Wretches that when they have lived in filthiness and wickedness will expiate it by murdering the innocent as they did say Historians by above an hundred thousand This is the Roman way to heaven That the very favorers of these men that will not renounce humanity are to be also utterly ruined That as in the Japan persecution of the Christians all the neighbour-hood must be Sworn to detect them And the office of a Bishop is to see all this done And now if you will see you see how the Church of Rome is upheld and propagated And what the Religion called Popery is And consider whether as Angels and Saints are near of Kin or like in disposition it be not so also with Devils and wicked men And whether all Protestants be not Dead men in Law or condemned where the Papal Religion and Laws are received And what will follow hereupon And besides Gregory the first 's Declaration in his Roman Councils before mentioned he saith in Epist 7. l. 4. And for the conspiracy of Hereticks and the King we believe it is not unknown to you that are near them how it may be impugned by the Catholick Bishops and Dukes and many others in the German parts For the faithful of the Church of Rome are come to such a number that unless the King shall come to satisfaction they may openly profess to chuse another King and observing Justice we have promised to favour them and will keep our promise firm c. XVII The Pope though pretending to be the infallible Judge of Controversies doth tolerate his most famous Learned Doctors in great numbers without any Condemnation or disowning to write that excommunicate Kings are no Kings and may lawfully be killed as some say by the Popes consent or direction or as others say without it Henry Fowlis in his Book of Popish Treasons hath so largely proved by citing the express words of their chief Doctors Jesuits Dominicans and others that this is their ordinary assertion that I must remit the Reader thither for full satisfaction beyond all denyal I briefly refer you but to the words of Learned Suarez advers sect Angl. l. 6. Cap. 4. sect 14. and Cap. 6. sect 22. 24. Azorius Instit Mor. part 1. l. 8. c. 13. And Dom. Bannes in Thom. 22. q. 12. a. 2. saith When there is evident knowledg of the Crime Subjects may lawfully exempt themselves from the Power of their Princes before any declaratory sentence of a Judge so they have but strength to do it Hence it followeth that the faithful Papists of England and Saxonie are to be excused that do not free themselves from the Power of their Superiours nor make war against them because commonly they are not strong enough to manage those wars and great dangers hang over them So then the disability of the Papists is all the security we can hope for from them Augustine Triumphus saith de potest Eccl. q. 46. a. 2. There is no doubt but the Pope may depose all Kings when there is reasonable cause for it Part of Suarez words are Defens fid Cath. l. 6. c. 4. § 14. After sentence he is altogether deprived of his Kingdom so that he cannot by just title possess it Therefore from thence-forward he may be handled as a meer Tyrant and consequently any private man may kill him I have elsewhere cited Card. Perrons words out of Bishop Usher professing that if the Pope may not depose Kings it will follow that he is Antichrist who hath so long professed it I grant the consequence XVIII The Pope professeth the fallibility of General Councils but that he is infallible himself The first is proved by his reprobating many For the second saith Leo 10. in Bull. cont Luth. in Bin. p. 655. The holy Popes our predecessours never erred in their Canons and Constitutions XIX They hold this gift of infallibility to be by supernatural Inspiration beyond all natural faculties and means even to men that cannot Read or have no Learning at least none in the Text of Scripture to judge of such Texts the translation and exposition of them That they pretend to be Judges in Controversies de fide I need not prove Nor that some have been Lads and some Men unlearned as I proved before of Greg. 6. Their own Histories agree in this XX. Though the Decrees of General Councils be their very Religion and pretended immutable the Pope pretendeth to a Power to change them And yet they pretend that all is old and from their forefathers Both these foregoing parts are proved by Pope Julius 2. in his General Council at the Laterane with their approbation Monitor cont Prag Sanct. Bin. Vol. 4. p. 560. Though the Institutions of sacred Canons holy Fathers and Popes of Rome and their Decrees
ad infernum And as others report him Qui sine poenitentia vivit sine poenitentia moritur ad infernum descendit See Baronius forecited XXVII Though the Pope condemn and unchurch so many yet doth he tolerate in his own Church abundance of differences de fide and abundance of Controversies in Theologie and abundance of Differences and Errours in great and dangerous matters of Morality and abundance of Sects that variously serve God so they will serve him and uphold his Kingdom 1. The holy Scripture is all de fide that is a Divine Revelation to be believed The Popes tolerated Translations that differ in many hundred places or that erred so oft and Commentators that differ in many hundred Texts as to the Exposition yea they tolerate those that deny the immaculate conception of the Virgin after a General Council hath defined it 2. He tolerateth vast Volumes of Theological Differences in the School Doctors 3. He tolerateth all the Moral Doctrines for murdering Kings before mentioned and all those cited by Mr. Clarkson in his Practical Divinity of the Church of Rome and all those mentioned in the Provincial Letters and the Jesuites Morals about Murder Adultery Perjury Lying seldom loving God not loving him intensively above all c. See my Key c. p. 59. 4. He tolerateth abundance of Religious Sects Jesuites Augustinians Franciscans Carthusians c. who differ from each other in their serving God as much as many of the Sects of Protestants who are despised for their discord XXVIII He pretendeth a necessity to the ending of Controversies that he be the Judge and yet will not end them by his Judgment but continueth many hundred undecided If we dispute with a Papist and cite the Scriptures they ask us presently who shall be Judge of the meaning of them As if the Pope would decide all And yet to this day he will neither write any deciding Commentary on the Bible nor on one Book of it nor end the Controversies among his own Commentators Nor will he end any of the fore-mentioned Controversies in Morality of great importance XXIX He sweareth all his Clergie never to take or interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers see the Trent Oath when yet the Fathers do not unanimously expound the Scripture nor any one Book of it And few Priests know what the Fathers are unanimous in nor can do unless they read them all which by this Oath they seem obliged to do Was not Greg. Nazianz. one of the Fathers who saith Orat. 18. I would there were no Presidency nor Prerogative of place and tyrannical Priviledges that so we might be known only by Vertue or deserts But now this Right side and Left side and Middle and Lower Degree and Presidency and Concomitancy have begot us many contentions to no purpose and have driven many into the Ditch and have led them away to the Region of Goats Is not this Heresie or worse with you Was not Isidore Pelusiota a Father but a sharp Reprover of proud and wicked Priests and Prelates who saith lib. 3. Epist 223. ad Hieracem And when I have shewed what difference there is between the ancient Ministry and the present Tyranny why do you not crown and praise the lovers of Equality Doth not this deserve a Fagot with you How ordinarily doth Cajetan and others of yours reject deservedly the Expositions of Fathers Bellarmine chargeth Justin Irenaeus c. with error de Beat. SS li. 1. Cap. 6. He saith There is no trust to be given to Tertullian de Rom. Pont. li. 4. c. 8. He saith Eusebius was addicted to Hereticks and that Cypriâ—n seemed to sin mortally de Rom. Pont. li. 4. c. 7. Di. â—â—s Peâ—avius de Trinit citeth the words of most of the ancientest as favouring Arrianism almost like Sondius himself or Philostorgius and is fain to go to the Major Vote of the Nice ne Council as the proof that most of the ancients were not really of the Arrians mind Dallaeus hath told you more of the Fathers differences and unsatisfactory expositions XXX He confesseth all the Scripture to be Gods infallible word yea his Doctors have asserted its sufficiency as a Divine Law and yet his pretense of its Insufficiency without Traditional supplement is one of the Pillars of his Kingdom The second part needs no proof For the first the elder Popes oft assert it And the School-men in their Prologue to the Sentences Scotus Durandus and many others But when Reformers confuted them by Scripture they found that would not serve their turn as Micaiah of Ahab it prophesyed not good of them but evil And since then they cry up the Church and Tradition and depress the sufficiency of Scripture Even Card. Richlieu pag. 38. confesseth As for us we assert no other Rule but Scripture neither of another sort nor total yea we say that it is the whole Rule of our salvation and that on a double account both because it containeth immediately and formally the sum of our salvation that is all the Articles that are necessary to mans salvation by necessity of means and because it mediately containeth what ever we are bound to believe as it sends us to the Church to be instructed by her of whose infallibility it certainly confirmeth us Here the sum of our Religion is granted At the Council of Basil Ragusius's oration Bin. p. 299 saith That Faith and all things necessary to salvation both matters of belief and practice are founded in the literal sense of Scripture and only from that may argumentation be taken for the proving of those things that are matters of Faith and necessary to salvation and not from those passages that are spoken by allegory c. And sup 7. The holy Scripture in the literal sense soundly and well understood is the infallible and most sufficient rule of Faith See more of his oration opened in my Key pag. 93 94 95. The Testimony of Bellarmine Costerus and others I have formerly recited XXXI The Pope teacheth us that we cannot truly believe the Articles of our Faith or the truth of Scripture but because of the Authority and Infallibility of the Pope and his Church declaring them so that we must believe that the Pope is Christs Vicar and authorized by him and made infallible before we can believe that there is a Christ or that he hath given any authority or gifts to any This is not to be denyed And Knot against Chillingworth hath no other shift but to resolve their belief of the Churches infallibility and authority not into any word or donation of Christ but into Miracles wrought by the Church So that no man can be a Believer that is not first certain of the Papists Miracles and how can millions know them when they see them not and in all my life I could never meet with one that saw them And he must next be certain that those miracles prove the infallibility of the Pope when yet
will not obey that which he knoweth to be his Religion or he may be unable to execute such Laws But it is his Religion to believe that he ought to do it IX If he be a Temporal Lord of a Protestant Country it is part of his Religion to take himself obliged to root out destroy or burn all his Protestant Subjects and all others that deny Transubstantiation Obj. The King of France and some others do it not Ans No man is bound to do that which he cannot do But if he can do it and he be a Papist by the express words of an Approved General Council he is bound to do it and to believe that it is his duty I speak not of what men do but what their Religion binds them to do Though interest or good nature hinder them X. He believeth that all Temporal Lords that will not first take an Oath thus to root out their Subiects and then do it may be first Excommunicated by the Pope and then deposed if they repent not and their Dominions be given to be seized by another Papist that will do it The words of the Council are before cited XI He believeth that in this case the Pope may absolve all the Subjects of such Temporal Lords from their Oaths and Duties of Allegiance or Fidelity to such Rulers This also is express in the Councils words XII He is one that believeth that the Priviledges of the Roman Church were given it by the Fathers because it was the Imperial Seat and therefore Constantinople had after equal Priviledges For so saith the forecited General Council And yet he believeth the clean contrary even that Rome's Priviledges were given it by S. Peter and Constantinople's are not equal For Popes and Councils also are for this XIII He believeth that it is de fide that General Councils are above Popes and may judge them and depose them if there be cause even as Hereticks or Infidels Adulterers Murderers Simonists c. And yet he believeth that all this is false and the contrary true For the approved General Councils of Basit and Constance say the first and others and those fore-cited at the Laterane and Florence say the latter XIV He maketh uncharitableness and bold damning all others a comfortable mark of the safety of his state and the truth of his Religion and our Charity a mark that ours is worse whereas Christ hath said By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another It 's usual with them to say You say that a Papist may be saved and we say that a Protestant cannot therefore we are in the safer state As if our case were ever the more dangerous for their condemning us As if a man that doteth in a Fever should say to those about him You say that I may live and I say that all you are mortally sick therefore my case is better than yours God saith Judge not that ye be not judged and who art thou that judgest another mans Servant And these men hope their case is safe because they sin against this Law and damn the most of the Universal Church XV. A Papist thinketh that all the Bible is not big enough or hath not enough in it to save those that believe and practise it or to make us a saving Religion but other Tradition must be received with equal reverence and the Decrees of all the approved General Councils must make it up XVI He confesseth every Article and word of the Religion of the Protestants to be infallibly true and yet holdeth that they are to be burnt and damned as Hereticks For he confesseth every part of the Canonical Scripture to be true and we have no more in our objective positive Religion not a word Our Negations of Popery are not properly our Religion any more than our speaking against Diseases is our Health But as our health containeth our own freedom from an hundred diseases which we never thought of as well as those that we once had or feared so our Faith and Religion is free from Popery and containeth that which is against it XVII A Papist is for swearing men to take Scripture in that sense as the holy Mother Church doth hold and hath held it Whereas 1. Their Church hath given them no Commentary on the Scripture one way or other 2. And their Translations have been altered in many hundred places by Clement 8. and Sixtus 5. so that their Clergy is sworn to take one Translation to to be right one year and a different one to be right the next XVIII They are for swearing men to take or interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers and consequently never to interpret the most of it at all XIX A Papist hath a thriving Faith and Religion which groweth bigger and bigger as fast as General Councils add new Decrees so that they know not when they shall have all And yet they cry out against novelty and change and boast of Antiquity XX. He holdeth that Priests or Prelates may not fall down to Princes or eat at their Tables nor debase themselves to them but Emperours must take them as equals Concil Gen. 8. Const Can. 14. XXI He is satisfied that their Church hath a Judge of Controversies though he decide them not And he gloryeth in the Unity and great Concord of their Church whose Doctors differ de fide even in the Exposition of many hundred Texts of Gods Word and where they differ in the Morals before cited about Murder killing excommunicate Kings c. and in Volumes of Controversies And yet he looketh upon far smaller differences among us with great offense as if they were intolerable and were so many different Religions And all because in all their differences they agree in one Pope As if it were not as good an Union to agree in one God one Christ one Spirit one Body or Church of Christ one Faith Creed and Scripture one Baptismal Covenant and one Hope of life eternal Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. which is the Union that God describeth XXII He believeth that the Pope doth justly take away from the People one half of the substance of Christs own Sacrament and deny them that which they hold to be his very Blood XXIII They believe that they ought not to read the Scripture translated without a Licence So saith Con. Trid. XXIV They believe that the Image of Christ is to be reverenced equally with the holy Scriptures It is a Councils words before cited Yea they must believe the second Council at Nice that Latria is to be given only to God and yet a canonized S. Thomas 3. q. 25. a. 3. 4. maintaineth that Latria or Divine Worship is to be given 1. To the Image of Christ 2. To the Cross that he dyed on 3. And to the Sign of the Cross And how largely Jac. Nauclautus Cabrera and multitudes of the Schoolmen are for it see my Key p. 165
c. XXV They will publickly pray to God and praise him in an unknown Tongue because the Pope will have it so XXVI They think that the far greatest part of the Body of Christ are tormented in the Flames of Purgatory to make satisfaction to Gods Justice for some Sins notwithstanding Christs sufficient satisfaction XXVII Expecting to go to the Flames of Purgatory when they dye they cannot possibly be willing to leave this World and consequently must be worldlings and never truly willing to dye For the basest condition on Earth will seem to them more desirable than Purgatory XXVIII They think that the Flames of Purgatory do perfect mens preparation for Heaven whereas he is readiest for Heaven that is likest to those in Heaven and most holy and that is they that most love God! And they that are angry here with every one that hurteth him and do not think that tormenting men will win their love yet look that the torments of Purgatory should help us to love God better than all the mercies on Earth will do XXIX The generality of Papists believe a fallible Priest or Printer or such other person telling them what is the Faith of the Universal Church and yet think that this is an Infallible Faith XXX A Papist is one that layeth his hopes of salvation upon his belief of and obedience to a Pope which by their own Principles is no Pope and a General Council which is no General Council never was nor never will be and on his Communion with a Catholick Church which is no Catholick Church but a Sect. All which hath been proved already and moreshall be I have told you in part what we take a Papist to be Some things before mentioned in the description of a Pope have been here necessarily repeated CHAP. VIII What the Papists Church is called the Roman Catholick Church WHat their CHURCH is may so easily be gathered from what is said that I shall say but little more of it In General It is a Society called Ecclesiastical constituted of such a Head and such Members as I have described Particularly I. It is a Humane Church as to the Efficient Cause of its Form made by Man as distinct from that Church-form which was instituted by Christ even by the Fathers because that Rome was the Imperial Seat As is proved before II. It is a Humane Church as to the constitutive Head as distinct from the true Universal Church which hath no Head single or collective Pope or Council that is not God III. It is a Sect consisting of about the third part of the Christian world calling themselves the whole Church and condemning all the rest for not subjecting themselves to this Usurping Head IV. It is a new Church in comparison of Christs Universal Church as having a new Humane Original As is proved V. It is a treasonable Church as set up without Christs Authority and challenging his Prerogative and weakning his Kingdom by unchurching the greatest part VI. It is an unholy Church as distinct from the holy Catholick Church and that both in the essential Matter and Form 1. In the Matter its Head which is a constitutive part having been oft a condemned Heretick Infidel Murderer and other flagitious wicked man 2. As to the Form being not of God it is not holy 3. Besides that as to the Head he was long made by the most wicked Whores All this is before proved at large VII It is a Church that hath had its pretended succession interrupted as is proved sometimes by long Vacances sometimes by long Schismes when no one was the Universal Head sometimes by the Incapacity of the Persons being Lay-men or Infidels Simoniaoal condemned deposed Hereticks and therefore no Bishops VIII It is a Schismatical Church that cuts off it self from all the rest of the Christian Church And by making a false Head and Principle and conditions of Unity which the Universal Church never did never will or can unite in is the grand cause of the greatest continued Schism IX It is a trayterous Church against Princes making it their very Religion to force bloody Oaths on them and to excommunicate and depose them and give away their Dominions and that tolerateth its most famous Doctors to maintain that being excommunicate they are no Kings and may be killed and to maintain that the Pope is above them in Temporals and may set up and pull down Kings when he seeth cause All this is expresly proved before X. It is a Church that believeth Contradictions as is proved in their Councils e. g. The Council of Basil Sess ult saying No one of the skilful did ever doubt but that the Pope was subject to the Judgment of a General Council in things that concern Faith c. And others saying the clean contrary As also in divers other things XI It was for above forty years sometimes two sometimes three Churches instead of one For the Head being an essential part two or three Heads make as many Churches XII It is at this day divers Churches really as to the Form that are by the ignorant supposed to be one Two or three Forms and Partes Imperantes being essential make as many Churches though the subjects live mixt The summa Potestas is a constitutive essential part Some called Papists take the Pope for the summa Potestas and some a Council and some both conjunct and some the Church real or diffused through the World XIII It is a Church made up of a tolerated hodge-podge of many Sects some utterly uncapable Members so they do but serve the Pope I have shewed out of many Doctors cited by Sancta Clara that many that believe not in Christ are of their Church He saith himself pag. 113. Deus Nat. Grat. What is clearer than that at this Day the Gospel bindeth not where it is not authentically preached that is that at this Day men may be saved without an explicite belief of Christ For in that sence speaks the Doctor concerning the Jews And verily what ever my illustrious Master hold with his learned Master Herera I think that this was the Opinion of Scotus and the COMMON one citing many that follow it And that men that hold all the different Opinions in the Jesuites Morals and the Schoolmen besides many various Religious Sects make up their Church is not denyed XIV It is a Church that pretendeth to have a Judge and end of Controversies but indeed hath a Judge that for the most part dare not decide them and that can make no end of them when decided For instance the Controversie of the Virgins immaculate conception decided at Basil is never the nearer an end Images were decreed up by some Councils and down by others Even S. Thomas stood not to the second Council of Nice about Image Worship The various Councils that decreed variously for and against a Councils Supremacy never the more ended the strife And indeed it is so hard to know approved from reprobate
name p. 47. What men many Bishops and Conformists have been and are in England p. 48. The Religion which is uppermost right or wrong will be professed usually by the most and therefore by bad men p. 49. It is worse with the Papists who are many very bad even where they differ from superiours and suffer ibid. His accusations of Puritanes and Prelaticks Protestants about imputed Righteousness and inherent confuted A true description of the Protestants judgment of justifying Righteousness p. 51 52 c. His derision of Imputed Righteousness as a Mummery p. 54 55. His gross slander that we are for meer Imputed Holiness p. 55. The true middle way about Indifferent Rituals p. 56. I. Of his charge on Prelatists for silencing Puritanes for not observing Fasts c. which they neglect themselves p. 57. Puritanes and Papists fasting 2. Of wax tapers on the Altar p. 58. 3. Of the Sign of the Cross p. 58 59. 4. Of the real presence p. 60. 5. Of Confession and Absolution p. 61. 6. Of bowing at the Name Jesus and Images p. 62. 7. Of the Surplice Girdle Stole and Casuble p. 63. 8. Of praying for the Dead p. 64. 9. Of the Government of the Pope and Councils p. 65. 1. Whether Gods Wisdom require it 2. Civil and Ecclesiastick Monarchy of the whole world Compared p. 66 67. 3. Is the Pope Universal Apostle or Teacher p. 55. 4. Whether the Pope be Head but in the Vacancy of Councils p. 66. 5. Most of the Christian World by far are no Papists 68. 6. The Pope dissenteth from General Councils and so far from the Universal Church we own them when he doth not 69. 7. The difference between the Kings Headship and the Popes 37. 8. Puritanes are for the Kings supremacie 70. 9. How far they submit their judgment to the Churches p. 70. 10. The Church teacheth us the Faith but may not judge in partem utramlibet viz. that there is no God no Christ no Heaven c. p. 71. II. It 's Schismatical and worse to feign that various habite Gestures Meats c. make various Religions Q. 1. Do variety of Liturgies make various Religions 2. Is not Religion more concerned in the Papists Doctrinal Differences among themselves about Predestination Grace Free-will the immaculate conception and hundreds more in the School Doctors and about the deposing excommunicating and killing Kings and about all the Controversies mentioned by the Jansenists in the Jesuits Morals and by Mr. Clarkson in the Practical Divinity of the Papists than in variety of Clothes Formes or Ceremonies And is it not as laudable for Protestants to hold Union and Communion with them that use not the same words or rites as in the Church of Rome to tolerate without so much as any disowning censure the foresaid Doctrinal Differences about King killing when excommunicate Murder Adultery Fornication Perjury Lying Stealing c. mentioned in the foresaid Books p. 72. CHAP. IV. H. W's ill forming Accusations which he can best answer p. 77. What Grotius meant by Papists p. 79. I. Of Papists Image-worship p. 79. II. Of Popes Pardons p. 80. III. Their praying to the Virgin Mary 83. IV. Latine prayers 84. V. Implicite belief in Teachers 85. VI. Preferring the Churches Laws to Gods 87. VII Obedience 88. CHAP. V. THe true History of the Papacie its original and growth 94. 1. The ancient Church took not the Papacie to be of Gods institution but Mans fully proved p. 99. c. 2. The Roman Primacie was ever but one Empire and not all the Christian People in the world proved p. 103 c. 3. Councils were General only as to the Empire and not the World p. 104. Five exceptions p. 106. Remarks upon the Africans pretended schism Austin being one p. 112. The not able words of Mel. Canus against the Roman Universality 113. The means of the Popes last growth to maturity 119. The doctrines by which they do their work p. 122. 1. Depressing the Scriptures sufficiency and crying up their Traditions which are again conjuted 123. 2. Pretending Antiquity and Universality 125. Both confuted The objection of Heresie and Schism to other Churches answered p. 127. 3. Aggravating our Divisions and boasting of their Unity p. 128. Even the scandalous contending Sects among Protestants have more Unity with each other than the Papists proved 4. Their vile Counsel to men to suspect all Religion and suspend it to make them Papists Boverius to our late King p. 131. CHAP. VI. WHat the Pope is in forty Characters or inadequate conceptions of him p. 134. c. CHAP. VII WHat a Papist is The word PAPIST is equivocal Many sorts are called Papists that differ both in the Foundation and the very Form and the Subject and the Terminus of Church Power and are not formally one Church as is commonly thought pag. 165. A PAPIST of the most learned sort described who placeth the Authority Universal and the Infallibility in the Pope and Council agreeing Thirty Properties or Characters of them The first about the Resolution of their Faith into the Authority or Infallibility of the Church proposing How Protestants resolve their Faith and how they take it from their Teachers p. 169. c. See the rest CHAP. VIII WHat the Papists Church called the Roman Catholick Church is in twenty Characters p. 184. CHAP. IX TWenty Properties of the Protestant's Religion as it differeth from Popery 187. ERRATA PAge 26. line 28. for Turrian read Pisanus p. 76. l. 7. for in r. it p. 97. l. 21. r. Presbyters p. 93. l. 20. r. Roman p. 94. l. 2. for or r. of p. 107. l. 1. for Gothes r. Vandals p. 110. l. 4. dele and. p 115. l. 13. for Com. r. Corn. p. 123. l. 11. r. Libraries p. 156. l. 28. r. Greatreaks Errata in Roman Tradition c. Page 18. l. 1. for most real r. Moral p. 20. l. 5. r. Georgians p. 29. l. 16. r. Sirmium p. 37. l. 5. for sind r. said