Truth our Reason supposes all that it hath to do is but to judge of what is proposed to it according to the best Principles that it hath which is all that God in that kind requires of us unless in that work wherein he intends to make us more then men that is Christians he would have us make our selves less then Men even as Brutes That in our whole obedience to God we are to use our Reason Protestants say indeed and moreover that what is not done reasonably is not Obedience The Scripture is the Rule of all our Obedience Grace the Principle enabling us to perform it but the manner of its performance must be Rational or it is not the supposition of Rule or Principle that will render any act of a man Obedience Religion say Protestants is revealed in the Scripture proposed to the minds and wills of men for its entertainment by the Ministry of the Church Grace to Believe and Obey is supernaturally from God but as to the Proposals of Religion from Scripture they averre that men ought to admit and receive them as men that is judge of the sense and meaning of them discover their truth and finding them revealed acquiesce in the Authority of him by whom they are first revealed So far as men in any things of their concernments that have a moral good or evil in them do refuse in the choice or refusal of them to exercise that judging and discerning which is the proper work of Reason they un-Man themselves and invert the order of Nature dethroning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Soul and causing it to follow the faculties that have no light but what they receive by and from it It 's true all our carnal reasonings against Scripture-Mysteries are to be captivated to the Obedience of Faith and this is highly reasonable making only the less particular defective collections of reason give place to the more noble general and universal principles of it Nor is the denying of our reason any where required as to the sense and meaning of the words of the Scripture but as to the things and matter signified by them The former Reason must judge of if we are men the latter if in conjunction with unbelief and carnal lusts it tumultuate against it is to be subdued to the Obedience of Faith All that Protestants in the business of Religion ascribe unto men is but this that in the business of Religion they are and ought to be men that is judge of the sense and truth of what is spoken to them according to that Rule which they have received for the measure and guide of their Understandings in these things If this may not be allowed you may make a Herd of them but a Church never Let us now consider what is offered in this Section about Reason wherein the concernment of any Protestants may lye As the matter is stated about any one's setting up himself to be a new and extraordinary Director unto men in Religion upon the account of the irrefutable Reason he brings along with him which is the spring and sourse of that Religion which he tenders unto them I very much question Whether any instance can be given of any such thing from the foundation of the World Men have so set up indeed sometimes as that Good Catholick Vanine did not long since in France to draw men from all Religions but to give a new Religion unto men that this pretension was ever solely made use of I much question As true Religion came by Inspiration from God so all Authors of that which is false have pretended to Revelation Such were the pretensions of Minos Lycurgus and Nunia of old of Mahomet of late and generally of the first Founders of Religious Orders in the roman-Roman-Church all in imitation of real Divine Revelation and in answer to indelible impressions on the minds of all men that Religion must come from God To what purpose then the first part of his Discourse about the coyning of Religion from Reason or the framing of Religion by Reason is I know not unless it be to cast a Blind before his unwary Reader whilest he steals away from him his Treasure that is his Reason as to its use in its proper place Though therefore there be many things spoken unduly and because it must be said untruly also in this first part of his Discourse until toward the end of Pag. 131. which deserve to be animadverted on yet because they are such as no sort of Protestants hath any concernment in I shall pass them over That wherein he seems to reflect any thing upon our Principles is in a supposed reply to what he had before delivered whereunto indeed it hath no respect or relation being the assertion of a Principle utterly distant from that imaginary one which he had timely set up and stoutly cast down before It is this That we must take the words from Christ and his Gospel but the proper sense which the words of themselves cannot carry with them our own reason must make out If it be the Doctrine of Protestants which he intendeth in these words it 's most disadvantagiously and uncandidly represented which becomes not an ingenious and learned person This is that which Protestants affirm Religion is Revealed in the Scripture that Revelation is delivered and contained in Propositions of Truth Of the sense of those words that carry their sense with them Reason judgeth and must do so or we are Brutes and that every ones Reason so farr as his concernment lies in what is proposed to him Neither doth this at all exclude the Ministry or Authority of the Church both which are entrusted with it by Christ to propose the Rules contained in his Word unto Rational Creatures that they may understand believe love and obey them To cast out this use of Reason with pretence of an antient sense of the words which yet we know they have not about them is as vain as any thing in this Section and that is vain enough If any such antient sense can be made out or produced that is a meaning of any Text that was known to be so from their Explication who gave that Text it is by reason to acquiesced in Neither is this to be make a man a Bishop much less a chief Bishop to himself I never heard that it was the office of a Bishop to know believe or understand for any man but for himself It is his Office indeed to instruct and teach men but they are to learn and understand for themselves and so to use their Reason in their Learning Nor doth the variableness of mens thoughts and reasonings inferr any variableness in Religion to follow whose stability and sameness depends on its first Revelation not our manner of Reception Nor doth any thing asserted by Protestants about the use of Reason in the business of Religion interfere with the rule of the Apostle about captivating our Understandings to the
he be in good earnest indeed he calls us to an easie welcome imployment namely to defend the holy Word of God and the wisdom of God in it from such slight and trivial exceptions as those he layes against them This path is so trodden for us by the Antients in their Answers to the more weighty Objections of his Predecessors in this work the Pagans that we cannot well erre or faint in it If we are called to this task namely to prove that we can know and believe the Scriptrue to be the Word of God without any respect to the Authority or Testimony of the present Church of Rome that no man can believe it to be so with faith Divine and Supernatural upon that testimony alone that the whole counsel of God in all things to be believed or done in order to our last end is clearly delivered in it and that the composure of it is a work of infinite wisdom suited to the end designed to be accomplished by it that no difficulties in the interpretation of particular places hinder the whole from being a compleat and perfect rule of Faith and Obedience we shall most willingly undertake it as knowing it to be as honourable a service and employment as any of the sons of men can in this world be called unto If indeed himself be otherwise minded and believes not what he says but only intends to entangle men by his Sophistry so to render them plyable unto his further intention I must yet once more perswade him to desist from this course It doth not become an ingenious man much lesse a Christian and one that boasts of so much Mortification as he doth to juggle thus with the things of God In the mean time his Reader may take notice that so long as he is able to defend the Authority Excellency and Usefulness of the Scripture this man had nothing to say to him as to the change of his Religion from Protestancy to Popery And when men will be perswaded to let that go as a thing uncertain dubious useless it matters not much where they go themselves And for our Authour methinks if not for reverence to Christ whose book we know the Scriptures to be yet for the devotion he bears the Pope whose book he sayes it is he might learn to treat it with a little more respect or at least prevail with him to send out a book not liable to so many exceptions as this is pretended to be However this I know that though his pretence be to make men Papists the course he takes is the readyest in the world to make them Atheists and whether that will serve his turn or no as well as the other I know not 6. We have not yet done with the Scripture That the taking it for the only rule of faith the only determiner of differences is the only cause of all our differences and which keeps us in a condition of having them endless is also pretended and pleaded But how shall we know this to be so Christ and his Apostles were absolutely of another mind and so were Moses and the Prophets before them The antient Fathers of the Primitive Church walked in their steps and umpired all differences in Religion by the Scriptures opposing confuting and condemning Errors and Heresies by them preserving through their guidance the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace In these latter dayes of the world which surely are none of the best we have a few unknown persons come from Rome would perswade us that the Scripture and the use of it is the cause of all our differences and the means of making them endless But why so I pray Doth it teach us to differ and contend Doth it speak contradictions and set us at variance Is there any spirit of dissension breathing in it Doth it not deliver what it commands us to understand so as it may be understood Is there any thing needful for us to know in the things of God but what it reveales Who can tell us what that is But do we not see de facto what differences there are amongst you who pretend all of you to be guided by Scripture Yea and we see also what Surfeitings and drunkenness there is in the world but yet do not think bread meat and drink to be the causes of them and yet they are to the full as much so as the Scriptures are of our Differences Pray Sir do not think that sober men will cast away their Food and starve themseâ—â—es because you tell them that some continually abuse and surfeit on that very kind of food which they use Nor will some mens abuse of it prevail with others to cast away the food of their souls if they have any design to live eternally 7. The great safety and security that there is in committing our selves as to all the concernments of Religion unto the guidance rule and conduct of the Pope is another great principle of this Discourse And here our Author falls into a deep admiration of the Popes dexterity in keeping all his Subjects in peace and unity and subjection to him there being no danger to any one for forsâ—king him but only that of Excommunication The contest is between the Scripture and the Pope Protestants say the safest way for men in reference to their eternal condition is to believe the Scripture and rest therein The Romanists say the same of the Pope Which will prove the best course methinks should not be hard to determine All Christians in the world ever did agree That the Scripture is the certain infallible word of God given by him on purpose to reveal his mind and will unto us About the Pope there were great Contests ever since he was first taken notice of in the world Nothing I confess little or low is spoken of him Some say he is the head and spouse of the Church the Vicar of Christ the successor of Peter the supreme Moderator of Christians the infallible judge of Controversies and the like others again that he is Antichrist the man of sin a cruel Tyrant and Persecutor the evill Servant Characterized Mat. 24.48 49 50 51. But all as far as I can gather agree that he is a Man I mean that almost all Popes have been so for about every individual there is not the like consent Now the question is Whether we shall rest in the Authority and Word of God or in the Authority and Word of a Man as the Pope is confessed to be and whether is like to yield us more security in our assiance This being such another difficult matter and case as that before mentioned about the Bibles being the Popes book shall not be by me decided but left to the Judgment of wiser men In the mean time for his feat of Government it is partly known what it is as also what an influence into the effects of peace mentioned that gentle means of Excommunication hath had I know one that
unlearn their antient Barbarism and to encline to the Manners Fashions and Religion of the people to whom they were come and with whom after their heats were over and lusts satisfied they began to incorporate and coalesce Together I say with their manners they took up by various wayes and means the Religion which they did profess And the Bishop of Rome having kept his outward Station in that famous City during all those turmoils becoming venerable unto them unto him were many Applications made and his Authority was first signally advanced by this new race of Christians The Religion they thus took up was not a little degenerated from its Primitive Apostolical purity and splendor And they were among the first who felt the effects of their former barbarous inhumanity in their sedulous indeavour to destroy all Books and Learning out of the World which brought that darkness upon mankind wherewith they wrestled for many succeeding generations For having themselves made an intercision of the current and progress of studies and learning they were forced to make use in their entertainment of Christianity of men meanly skilled in the knowledg of God or themselves who some of them knew little more of the Gospel then what they had learned in the outward observances and practises of the places where they had been educated Towards the beginning of this hurry of the world this shuffling of the Nations was the Province of Brittain not long before exhausted of it stores of Men and Arms and defeated by the Romans invaded by the Saxons Picts Angles and others out of Germany who accomplishing the will of God exstirpated the greatest part of the British Nation and drove the remainders of them to shelter themselves in the Western Mountainous parts of this Island These new Inhabitants after they were somewhat civilized by the Vicinity of the Provincials and had got a little breathing from their own intestine feuds by fixing the limits of their Leader's Dominions which they called Kingdoms began to be in some preparedness to receive impressions of Religion above that rude Paganism which they had before served Satan in These were they to whom came Austine from Rome a man as farr as appears by the story little acquainted with the mystery of the Gospel yet one whom it pleased God gratiously to use to bring the Scripture amongst them that inexhaustible Fountain of Light and Truth and by which those to whom he preached might be infallibly freed from any mixture of mistakes that he might offer to them That he brought with him a Doctrine of Observances not formerly known in Brittain â—s notorious from the famous Story of those many Professors of Christianity 〈◊〉 which he caused to be murdered by Pagans for not submitting to his power and refusing to practise according to his Traditions whose unwillingness to the â—â—ain if they could have otherwise chosen is that which I suppose our Author call's their disturbing good St. Austine in his pious work But you neither will this Conversion of the Saxons begun by Austine the Monk at all advantage our Author as to his pretensions The Religion he taught here as well as he could was doubtless no other than that which at those dayes was profest at Rome mixtures of humane Traditions worldly Policies Observances trenching upon the Superstitions of the Gentiles in many things it had then revived but however it was farr enough from the present Romanism if the Writers and chief Bishops of those dayes knew what was their Religion Papal Supremacy and Infallibility Transubstantiation religious veneration of Images in Churches with innumerable other prime fundamentals of Popery were as great strangers at Rome in the dayes of Grâ—gory the great as they are at this day to the Church of England After these times the world continuing still in troubles Religion began more and more to decline and fall off from its pristine purity At first by degrees insensible and almost imperceptible in the broaching of new opinions and inventing new practises in the worship of God At length by open presumptuous transgressions of its whole rule and genius in the usurpation of the Pope of Rome and impositions of his Authority on the neâ—ks of Emperours Kings Princes and people of all sorts By what means this work was carried on what advantages were taken for what instruments used in it what opposition by Kings and learned men was made unto it what testimony was given against it by the blood of thousands of Martyrs others have at large declared nor will my present design admit me to insist on particulars What contests debates tumults warrs were by papall pretensions raised in these nations what shameful intreating of some of the greatest of our Kings what absolutions of subjects from their Allegiance with such like effluxes of an abundant Apostolical piety this nation in particular was exercised with from Rome all our Historians sufficiently testify Tantaemolis erat Romanam condere gentem The truth is when once Romanism began to be enthroned and had driven Catholicism out of the world we had very few Kings that past their days in peace and quietnesse from contests with the Pope or such as acted for him or were stirred up by him The face in the mean time of Christianity was sad and deplorable The body of the people being grown dark and profane or else superstitious the generality of the Priests and Votaries ignorant and vitious in their conversations the oppressions of the Hildebrandine faction intolerable Religion dethroned from a free generous obedience according to the rule of the Gospell and thrust into cells orders self-invented devotions and forms of worship superstitious and unknown to Scripture and antiquity the whole world groaned under the Apostacy it was fallen into when it was almost too late the yoak was so fastned to their necks and prejudices so fixed in the minds of the multitude Kings began to repine Princes to remonstrate their grievances whole Nations to murmure some learned men to write and preach against the superstitions and oppressions of the Church of Rome Against all which complaints and attempts what means the Popes used for the safe-guarding their Authority and opinions subservient to their carnal worldly interests deposing some causing others to be murdered that were in supream power bandying Princes and Great men one against another exterminating others with fire and sword is also known unto all who take any care to know such things what ever our Author pretends to the contrary This was the state this the peace this the condition of most Nations in Europe and these in particular where we live when occasion was administred in the providence of God unto that Reformation which in the next place he gives us the story of Little cause had he to mind us of this story little to boast of the primitive Catholick faith little to pretend the Romish Religion to have been that which was first planted in these Nations His concernments lye not in
purpose insisted on They acknowledge a pure and flourishing Church to have been once at Rome as they maintain there was at Hierusalem Antioch Ephesus Smyrna Laodicea Alexandria Babylon c. that in all these places such Churches do still continue they deny and particularly at Rome For that Church which then was they deny it to be the same that now is at least any more then Argo was the same ship as when first built after there was not one plank or pin of its first structure remaining That the Church of Rome in the latter sense was ever a pure flourishing Church never any Protestant acknowledged the most of them deny it ever to have been in that sense any Church at all and those that grant it to retain the Essential constituting Principals of a Church yet averr that as it is so it ever was since it had a being very far from a pure and flourishing Church For ought then that I can perceive we are not at all concerned in the following Queries the Supposition they are all built upon being partly sophistical and partly false But yet because he doth so earnestly request us to ponder them we shall not give him cause to complain of us in this particular at least as he doth in general of all Protestants That we deal uncivilly and therefore shall pass through them after which if he pleaseth he may deliver them to his friend of whom they were borrowed 1. Saith he This Church could not cease to be such but she must fall either by Apostacy Heresy or Schism But who told him so Might she not cease to be and so consequently to be such Might not the persons of whom it consisted have been destroyed by an earthquake as it happen'd to Laodicea or by the sword as it befel the Church of the Jews or twenty other wayes Besides might she not fall by Idolatry or false Worship or by Prophaneness or Licentiouss of Conversation contrary to the whole rule of Christ That then he may know what is to be removed by his Queries if he should speak any thing to the purpose he may do well to take notice that this is the dogme of Protestants concerning the Church of Rome that the Church planted there pure did by degrees in a long tract of time fall by Apostacy Idolatry Heresie Schism and Profaneness of life into that condition wherein now it is But sayes he 1. Not by Apostacy for that is not only a renouncing of the faith of Christ but the very name and title of Christianity and no man will say that the Church of Rome had ever such a Fall or fell thus I tell you truly Sir your Church is very much beholding unto men if they do not sometimes say very hard things of her Fall Had it been an ordinary slip or so it might have been passed over but this Falling into the mire and wallowing in it for so many Ages as she has done is in truth a very naughty business For my part I am resolved to deal as gently with her as possible and therefore say that there is a total Apostasie from Christianity which she fell not into or by and there is a partial Apostasie in Christianity from some of the Principles of it such as St. Paul charged on the Galatians and the old Fathers on very many that yet retained the name and title of Christians and this we say plainly that she fell by she fell by Apostasie from many of the most material Principles of the Gospel both as to Faith Life and Worship And there being no Reply made upon this instanâ—e were it not upon the account of pure civility we need not proceed any further with his Queries the business of them being come to an end But upon his entreaty we will follow him a little further Supposing that he hath dispatched the business of Apostasie he comes to Heresie and tells us That it is an adhesion to some private or singular Opinion or Error in Faith contrary to the general approved Doctrine of the Church That which ought to be subsumed is that the Church of Rome did never adhere to any singular Opinion or Error in Faith contrary to the general approved Doctrine of the Church but our Author to cover his business changes the terms in his proceeding into the Christian World to clear this to us a little I desire to know of him What Church he means when he speaks of the approved Doctrine of the Church I am sure he will say the Roman-Catholick Church and if I ask him What age it is of that Church which he intends he will also say That Age which is present when the Opinions mentioned are asserted contrary to the approved Doctrine We have then obtained his meaning viz. The Roman-Church did never at any time adhere to any Opinion but what the Roman Church at that time adhered unto or taught or approved no other Doctrine but what it taught and approved Now I verily believe this to be true and he must be somewhat besides uncivil that shall deny it But from hence to infer That the Roman-Church never fell from her first purity by Heresie that is a thing I cannot yet discern how it may be made good This conclusion ariseth out of that pitiful definition of Heresie he gives us coyned meerly to serve the Roman-Interest The rule of judging Heresie is made the approved Doctrine of the Church I would know of what Church of this or that particular Church or of the Catholick Doubtless the Catholick must be pretended I ask Of this or that Age or of the first Of the first certainly I desire then to know how we may come to discern infallibly what was the approved Doctrine of the Catholick-Church of Old but only by the Scriptures which we know it unanimously embraced as given unto it by Christ for its Rule of Faith and Worship If we should then grant that the approved Doctrine of the Church were that which a departure from as such gives formality unto Heresie yet there is no way to know that Doctrine but by the Scripture But yet neither can or ought this to be granted The formal reason of Heresie in the usual acceptation of the word ariseth from its deviation from the Scripture as such which is the Rule of the Churches Doctrine and of the Opinions that are contrary unto it Nor yet is every private or singular Opinion contrary to the Scripture or the Doctrine of the Church presently an Heresie That is not the sense of the word either in Scripture or Antiquity So that the foundation of the Queries about Heresie is not one jot better layed then that was about Apostasie which went before This is that which I have heard Protestants say namely That the Church of Rome doth adhere to very many Opinions and Errors in Faith contrary to the main Principles of Christian Religion delivered in the Scripture and so consequently the Doctrine approved by the Catholick Church
or future happiness So that neither are the Divisions that are among Protestants in themselves of any importance nor were they occasioned by their departure from Rome That all men are not made perfectly wise nor do know all things perfectly is partly a consequent of their condition in this World partly a fruit of their own lusts and corruptions neither to be imputed to the Religion which they profess nor to the Rule that they pretend to follow Had all those who could not continue in the Profession of the Errors and Practise of the Worship of the Church of Rome and were therefore driven out by violence and bloud from amongst them been as happy in attending to the Rule that they chose for their guidance and direction as they were wise in choosing it they had had no other differences among them than what necessarily follow their concreated different constitutions complexions and capacities It is not the work of Religion in this world wholly to dispel mens darkness nor absolutely to eradicate their distempers somewhat must be left for Heaven and that more is than ought to be is the fault of Men and not of the Truth they profess That Religion which reveals a sufficient Rule to guide men into Peace Union and all necessary Truth is not to be blamed if men in all things follow not it's direction Nor are the differences amongst the Protestants greater than those amongst the Members of the Roman-Church The imputation of the Errors and miscarriages of the Socinians and Quakers unto Protestancy is of no other nature then that of Pagans of old charging the follies and abominations of the Gnosticks and Valentinians on Christianity For those that are truly called Protestants whose concurrence in the same Confession of Faith as to all material points is sufficient to cast them under one denomination What evils I wonder are to be found amongst them as to Divisions that are not conspicuous to all in the Papacy The Princes and Nations of their Profession are or have all been engaged in mortal fewds and wars one against another all the World over Their Divines write as stiffly one against another as men can do mutual accusations of pernitious Doctrines and Practises abound amongst them I am not able to guess what place will hold the Books written about their intestine differences as our Author doth concerning those that are written by Protestants against the Papacy but this I know all publick Libraries and private Studies of learned men abound with them Their Invectives Apologies Accusations Charges underminings of one another are part of the weekly news of these dayes Our Author knows well enough what I mean Nor are these the ways and practises of private men but of whole Societies and Fraternities which if they are in truth such as they are by each other represented to be it would be the Interest of mankind to seek the suppression and extermination of some of them I profess I wonder whilst their own house is so visibly on fire that they can find leisure to scold at others for not quenching theirs Nor is the remaining agreement that they boast of one jot better than either their own dissentions or ours It is not union or agreement amongst men absolutely that is to be valued Simeon and Levi never did worse then when they agreed best and were Brethren in evil The grounds and reasons of mens agreement with the nature of the things wherein they are agreed are that which make it either commendable or desirable Should I lay forth what these are in the Papacy our Author I fear would count me unmannerly and uncivil But yet because the matter doth so require I must needs tell him that many wise men do affirm that Ignorance inveterate prejudice secular advantages and external force are the chief constitutive Principles of that union and agreement which remains amongst them But whatever their evils be it is pretended that they have a remedy at hand for them all But VII That we have no Remedy of our Evils no means of ending our Differences but by a Returnal to the Roman See Whether there be any way to end differences among our selves as farr and as soon as there is any need they should be ended will be afterwards enquired into This I know that a Returnal unto Râ—me will not do it unless when we come thither we can learn to behave our selves better then those do who are there already and there is indeed no party of men in the world but can give us as good security of ending our differences as the Romanists If we would all turn Quakers it would end our Disputes and that is all that is provided us if we will turn Papists This is the language of every Party and for my part I think they believe what they say Come over to us and we shall all agree Only the Romanists are likely to obtain least credit as to this matter among wise men because they cannot agree among themselves and are as unfit to umpire the differences of other men as Philip of Macedon was to quiet Greece whilst he his wife and children were together by the ears at home But why have not Protestants a remedy for their evils a means of ending and making up their differences They have the Word that 's left them for that purpose which the Apostles commended unto them and which the Primitive Church made use of and no other That this will not serve to prevent or remove any hurtful differences from amongst us it is not its fault but ours And could we prevail with Roman-Catholicks to blame and reprove us and not to blame the Religion we profess we should count our selves beholding to them and they would have the less to answer for another day But as things are stated it is fallen out very unhappily for them that finding they cannot hurt us but that their Weapons must pass through the Scriptures That is it which they are forced to direct their blowes against The Scripture is Dark Obscure Insufficient cannot be known to be the word of God nor understood is the main of their Plea when they intend to deal with Protestants I am perswaded that they are troubled when they are put upon this Work It cannot be acceptable to the minds of men to be engag'd in such undervaluations of the word of God Sure they can have no other mind in this Work than a man would have in pulling down hiâ— House to find out his Enemy He that shall read what the Scripture testifies of it self that is what God doth of it what the Antients speak concerning it and shall himself have any acquaintance with the nature and excellency of it must needs shrink extreamly when he comes to see the Romanists discourse about it indeed against it For my part I can truly profess That no one thing doth so alienate my mind from the present Roman Religion as this treatment of the word of God I cannot
by his example he commends unto them But it will be said He only shews the uncertainties that are about Scripture that men may not expect by or from them deliverance from the darkness and ignorance before spoken of Suppose then they come to be perswaded of such an uncertainty What course shall they take Apply themselves to the Roman-Church and they are safe But seeing the being of a Church much less the Roman-Church hath no foundation in the light of Nature and men can never know any thing of it especially of its Prerogative but by and from the Scripture whose Authority you have taught them to question and made doubtful to them What remains for rational men but to renounce both Scripture and Church and betake themselves to your commendable piece of witty Atheism This is the old lurry The Scripture cannot be known believed understood but by the Church the Church cannot be proved to have Being Constitution or Authority but by the Scripture and then if you doubt of the Authority of that proof of the Church you must return to the Church again and so on until all Faith and Reason vanish or men make shipwrack of their Faith and become brutish in their Understanding pretending to believe they know neither what nor why And this imployment of raising surmises and stirring up jealousies about the Word of God it's Pen-men and their Authority do men put themselves upon I will not say to gratifie the Roman-Court but I will say in obedience to their prejudices lusts and darkness and saddest drudgery that any of the sons of men can be exercised withal And if he would be believed he professeth himself an Anti-Scripturist and in that profession which he puts upon himself an Atheist For my part I am amazed to think how men are able to hold their Pens in their hands that an horrour of the work they have before them doth not make them shake them out when they are thus traducing the holy Word of Christ and exciting evil surmises about it Should they deal with a man of any Power and Authority they might not expect to escape his indignation even to publish to all the World that he is indeed an honourable person but yet if men will question his Honour Truth Honesty Authority and affirm him to be a Cheat Thief Murderer Adulterer they cannot see how they can be disproved at least he would have a difficult task in hand that should endeavour to free him from objections of that nature Yet thus men dare to deal with the Scripture that Word which God hath magnified above all his Name If this be the Spirit that breathed in the Apostles the holy Army of Martyrs of old and all the Fathers of the Primitive Church I am much mistaken nay I am greatly so if with one consent they would not denounce an Anathema against such a defence of any Religion whatever But you will say The same person defends also the Scripture just as he in the Poet did Pelilius Me Capitolinus convictore usus amicoque A puero est causaque mea permulta rogatus Fecit incolumnis laetor quod vivit in urbe Sed tamem admiror quo pacto Judicium illud Fugerit A defence worse and more bitter then a down-right accusation I am not now to observe what prejudice this excuse brings to the cause of our Author with all intelligent persons having noted it once and again before nor what contentment Protestants take to see that the Truth they profess cannot be shaken without inducing men to question the Fundamental Principles of Christian Religion and if this course be persisted in for ought that I can understand the whole Controversie between us and the Romanists must needs be at last reduced unto this head Whether the Scripture of the Old and New-Testament was given by Divine Inspiration For the present having in the consideration of the general suppositions of this Treatise spoken before to this head I shall not need to answer particular Exceptions given in against its Authority nor do I think it incumbent on me so to do unless our Author own them for his sense which if he be pleased to do I promise him if God give me life to give him a distinct answer to every one of them and all that is contained in them Moreover these things will again occurre in his 15. Section where he expresly takes the Scripture to task as to its pleas for judging of and setling Men in the Truth Proceed we to his next Section p. 126. CHAP. VIII Use of Reason Sect. 11. THis Section is set apart for the cashiering of Reason from having any hand in the business we deal about and the truth is if our Author can perswade us first to throw away our Bibles and then to lay aside the use of our Reason I suppose there is no doubt but we shall become Roman-Catholicks This work it seems cannot be effected unless men are contented to part with Scripture and Reason all that whereby they are Christians and Men. But unless our Author have emptyed Circe's Box of Oyntment whereby she transformed Men into Swine he will confess it somewhat a difficult task that he hath undertaken Methinks one of these demands might suffice at once But he presumes he hath put his Countrey-men into a good humor and knowing them free and open-hearted he plyes them whilest they are warm We have indeed in this Section as fair a flourish of words as in any other but there can be but little reason in the words that men make use of to plead against Reason it self And yet I am perswaded most Readers think as well of this 〈◊〉 as any in the Book To whom the unâ—easonableness of this is evident that of the others is so also and those who willingly imbibe the other parts of his Discourse will little strain at this Nothing is to be trusted unto Prejudice Nor if we will learn are we to think strange of any thing Let us weigh then impartially what is of Reason in this Discourse against the use of Reason What ever he pretends he knows full well that he hath no difference with any sort of Protestants about finding out a Religion by Reason and adhereing only to its dictates in the Worship of God All the World of Protestants profess that they receive their Religion wholly by Revelation from God and no otherwise Nor is it about ascribing a Soveraignty to Reason to judge of the particulars of Religion so Revealed to accept or refuse them according as that shall judge them suitable or not to its principles and liking This is the Soveraign dictate of Reason That whatever God reveals to be believed is true and as such must be embraced though the bottom of it cannot be sounded by Reason's line and that because 〈◊〉 reason of a man is not absolutely reason but being the reason of a man is variously limitted bounded and made defective in its ratiocinations An objective
Obedience of Faith much less to his assertion That Christians walk by Faith and not by Sight seeing that without it we can do neither the one nor the other For I can neither submit to the truth of things to be believed nor live upon them or according unto them unless I understand the Propositions wherein they are expressed which is the work we assign to Reason For those who would resolve their Faith into Reason we confess that they overthrow not only Faith but Reason it self there being nothing more irrational than that belief should be the product of Reason being properly an assent resolved into Authority which if Divine is so also I shall then desire no more of our Author nor his Readers as to this Section but only this that they would believe that no Protestant is at all concerned in it and so I shall not further interpose as to any contentment they may find in its review or perusal CHAP. IX Jews Objections THe title of this Third Chapter is that No Religion or Sect or Way hath any advantage over another nor all of them over Popery To this we excepted before in general that that way which hath the truth with it hath in that wherein it hath the truth the advantage against all others Truth turns the scales in this business wherever and with whomsoever be found and if it lie in any way distant from Popery it gives all the advantage against it that need be desired And with this only enquiry With whom the Truth abides is this disquisition What wayes in Religion have advantage against others to be resolved But this course and procedure for some reasons which he knows and we may easily guess at our Author liked not and it it is now too late for us to walk in any path but what he has trodden before us though it seem rather a maze then a way for Travellers to walk in that would all pass on in their Journey His first Section is entituled Light and Spirit the pretence whereof he treats after his manner and cashiers from giving any such advantage as is inquired after But neither yet are we arrived to any concernment of Protestants That which they plead as their advantage is not the empty names of Light and Spirit but the truth of Christ revealed in the Scripture I know there are not a few who have impertinently used these good words and Scripture-expressions which yet ought no more to be scoffed at by others then abused by them But that any have made the plea here pretended as to their settlement in Religion I know not The truth is if they have it is no other upon the matter but what our Author cals them unto to a naked Credo he would reduce them and that differs only from what seems to be the mind of them that plead Light and Spirit that he would have them resolve their faith irrationally into the Authority of the Church they pretend to do it into the Scripture But what he aimes to bring men unto he justifies from the examples of Christians in antient times who had to deal with Jews and Pagans whose disputes were rational and weighty and pusled the wisest of the Clergy to answer So that after all their ratiocination ended whether it sufficed or no they still concluded with this one word Credo which in Logick and Philosophy was a weak answer but in Religion the best and only one to be made What could be spoken more untruely more contumeliously or more to the reproach of Christian Religion I cannot imagine It 's true indeed that as to the resolution satisfaction and settlement of their own souls Christians alwayes built their faith and resolved it into the Authority o◠God in his word but that they opposed their naked Credo to the disputes of Jews or Pagans or rested in that for a solution of their objections is heavenly-wide as far from truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I wonder any man who hath ever seen or almost heard of the Disputes and Discourses of Justin Martyr Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Theophilus Antiochenus Athenagoras Tertullian Lactantius Chrysostom Austin Theodoret and innumerable others proving the faith of the Christian Religion against the Jews from Scripture and the reasonableness of it against the Pagans with the folly and foppery of theirs could on any account be induced to cast out such a reproach against them But it seems Jacta est alea and we must go on and therefore to carry on the design of bringing us all to a naked Credo resolv'd into the Authority of the present Church a thing never heard of spoken of nor that it appears dreamed of by any of the ancient Christians The objections of the Jews against the Christian Religion are brought on the stage and an enquiry made how they can be satisfactorily answered His words are Pag. 142. In any age of the christian-Christian-Church a Jew might say thus to the Christians then living Your Lord and Master was born a Jew and under the jurisdiction of the High Priests these he opposed and taught a Religion contrary to Moses otherwise how comes there to be a faction but how could he justly do it no humane Power is of force against God's who spak◠as you also grant by Moses and the Prophets and Divine Power it could not be for God is not contrary to himself And although your Lord might say as indeed he did that Moses spake of him as of a Prophet to come greater then himself yet Who shall judge that such a thing was meant of his person For suice that Prophet is neither specifyed by his name nor characteristical properties well said Jew who could say it was he more then any other to come And if there were a greater to come then Moses were surely born a Jew he would being come into the world rather exalt that Law to more ample glory then diminish it And if you will further contest that such a Prophet was to abrogate the first Law and bring in a new one Who shall judge in this case the whole Church of the Hebrews who never dreamed of any such thing or one member thereof who was born a subject to their judgments This saith he is the great Occumenical difficulty and he that in any age of Christianity could either answer it or find any bulwark to set against it so that it should do no harm would easily either salve or prevent all other difficulties c. The difficulty as is evident lay in this That the Authority and Judgment of the whole Church of the Hebrews lay against Christ and the Gospel That Church when Christ conversed on earth was a true Church of God the only Church on earth and had been so for 2000 years without interruption in its self without competition from any other It had its High Priest confessedly instituted by God himself in an orderly succession to those dayes The interpretation of Scripture it pretended was trusted with
it alone and traditions they had good store whose original they pleaded from Moses himself directing them in that interpretation Christ and his Apostles whom they looked upon as poor ignorant contemptible persons came and preacht a doctrine which that Church determined utterly contrary to the Scripture and their Traditions what shall now be answered to their Authority which was unquestionably all that ever was or shall be entrusted with any Church on the earth Our Author tells us that this great argument of the Jews could not be any way warded or put by but by recourse unto the Churches infallibility pag. 146. Which sit verbo venia is so ridiculous a pretence as I wonder how any block in his way could cause him to stumble upon it What Church I pray the Church of Christians When that argument was first used by the Jews against Christ himself it was not yet founded and if an absolute infallibility be supposed in the Church without respect to her adherence to the rule of infallibility I dare boldly pronounce that argument indissoluble and that all Christian Religion must be therein discarded If the Jewish-Church which had at that day as great Church-power and prerogative as any Church hath or can have were infallible in her Judgment that she made of Christ and his Doctrin there remains nothing but that we renounce both him and it and turn either Jews or Pagans as we were of old Here then by our Authors confession lies a plain Judgment and Definition of the only Church of God in the world against Christ and his Doctrine and it is certainly incumbent on us to see how it may be waâ—ed And this I suppose we cannot better be instructed in then by considering what was answered unto it by Christ himself his Apostles and those that succeeded them in the profession of the faith of the Gospel 1 For Christ himself its certain he pleaded his miracles the Works which he wrought and the Doctrine that he revealed but withall as to the Jews with whom he had to do he pleads the Scriptures Moses and the Prophets and offers himself and his Doctrine to be tryed to stand or fall by their verdict Joh. 5.39 46. Mat. 22.42 Luk. 24.27 I say besides the testimony of his Works and Doctrine to their authority of the Church he opposeth that of the Scripture which he knew the other ought to give place unto And it is most vainly pretended by our Author in the behalf of the Jews that the Messias or great Prophet to come was not in the Scripture specified by such Characteristicall Properties as made it evident that Jesus was the Messiah all the descriptions given of the one and they innumerable undeniably centring in the other The same course steered the Apostle Peter Act. 2. 3. And expresly in his second Epistle chap. 2. v. 17 18 19. And Paul Act. 13.16 17 c. And of Apollos who openly disputed with the Jews upon this Argument it is said that he mightily convinced the Jews publickly shewing by the Scripture that Jesus is the Christ Act. 18.28 And Paul perswaded the Jews concerning Jesus at Rome both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets from morning until evening Act. 28.23 Concerning which labour and disputation the censure of our Author p. 149. is very remarkable There can be no hope saith he of satisfying a Querent or convincing an Opponent in any point of Christianity unless he will submit to the splendor of Christs Authority in his own Person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the Reason why some of the Jews in Rome when St. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the Prophets believed in him and some did not Both the coherence of the words and design of the Preface and his whole scope manifest his meaning to be That no more believed on him or that some disbelieved notwithstanding all the pains he took with them And what was the reason of this failure Why St. Paul fixed on an unsuitable means of perswading them namely Moses and the Prophets when he should have made use of the Authority of the Church Vain and bold man that dares oppose his prejudices to the Spirit and Wisdom of Christ in that great and holy Apostle and that in a way and work wherein he had the express pattern and example of his Master If this be the Spirit that rules in the Roman-Synagogue that so puffes up men in their fleshly minds as to make them think themselves wiser then Christ and his Apostles I doubt not but men will every day find cause to rejoyce that it is cast out of them and be watchful that it return to possess them no more But this is that which galls the man The difficulty which he proposeth as insoluble by any wayes but an acquiescing in the Authority of the present Church he finds assoyled in Scripture on other Principles This makes him fall soul on St. Paul whom he finds most frequent in answering it from Scripture not considering that at the same time he accuseth St. Peter of the like folly though he pretend for him a greater reverence However this may be said in defence of St. Paul that by his Arguments about Christ and the Gospel from Moses and the Prophets many thousands of Jews all the World over were converted to the Faith when it 's hard to meet with an instance of one in an age that will any way take notice of the Authority of the Roman-Church But to return this was the constant way used by the Apostles of answering that great difficulty pleaded by our Author from the Authority of the Hebrew-Church They called the Jews to the Scripture the plain Texts and Contexts of Moses and the Prophets opposing them to all their Churches real or pretended Authority and all her Interpretations pretended to be received by Tradition from of old so fixing this for a perpetual standing Rule to all Generations that the Doctrine of the Church is to be examined by the Scripture and where it is found contradictory of it her authority is of no value at all it being annexed unto her attendance on that Rule But it may be replyed That the Church in the dayes of the Apostles was not yet setled nor made firm enough to bear the weight that now may be laid upon it as our Author affirms pag. 149. So that now the great Resolve of all doubts must be immediately upon the Authority of the present Church after that was once well cleared the fathers of old pleaded that only in this case and removed the Objections of the Jews by that alone I am perswaded though our Author be a great admirer of the present Church he is not such a stranger to Antiquity as to believe any such thing Is the Authority of the Church pleaded by Justine Martyr in that famous dispute with Trypho the Jew wherein these very Objections instanced by our
all the antient Fathers of the Church they are exhorted unto that they need noâ— understand those Prayers which they are commanded to pray with understanding and wherein lies a principal exercise of their faith and love towards God are the things which are here recommended unto us Let us view the arguments wherewith first the general custome of the Western Empire in keeping the Mass and Bible in an unknown tongue is pleaded But What is a general Custome of the Western Empire in opposition to the command of God and the evidence of all that reason that lies against it Have we not an express Command not to follow a multitude to do evill Besides What is or ever was the Western Empire unto the Catholicism of the Church of Christ spread over the whole world Within an hundred years after Christ the Gospel was spread to Nations and in places whither the Roman power never extended it self Romanis inaccessa loca much less that branch of it which he calls the Western Empire But neither yet was it the custom of the Western Empire to keep the Bible in an unknown Tongue or to perform the worship of the Church in such a Language Whilst the Latin Tongue was only used by them it was generally used in other things and was the vulgar Tongue of all the Nations belonging unto it Little was there remaining of those Tongues in use that were the Languages of the Provinces of it before they became so So that though they had their Bible in the Latin Tongue they had it not in an unknown no more than the Grecians had who used it in Greek And when any people received the Faith of Christ who had not before received the Language of the Romans good men translated the Bible into their own as Hierom did for the Dalmatians Whatever then may be said of the Latin there is no pretence of the use of an unknown Tongue in the worship of the Church in the Western Empire until it was over-run destroyed and broken in pieces by the Northern Nations and possessed by them most of them Pagans who brought in several distinct Languages into the Provinces where they seated themselves After those tumults ceased and the Conquerors began to take up the Religion of the people into whose Countries they were come still retaining with some mixtures their old Dialect that the Scripture was not in all places for in many it was translated for their use was the sin and negligence of some who had other faults besides The Primitive use of the Latin Tongue in the worship of God and translation of the Bible into it in the Western Empire whilst that Language was usually spoken and read as the Greek in the Grecian is an undeniable argument of the Judgement of the antient Church for the use of the Scripture and Church-Liturgies in a known Tongue What ensued on What was occasioned by that inundation of barbarous Nations that buried the world for some ages in darkness and ignorance cannot reasonably be proposed for our imitation I hope we shall not easily be induced either to return unto or embrace the effects of Barbarism But saith our Author Secondly Catholicks have the sum of Scripture both for history and dogm delivered them in their own Language so much as may make for their salvation good orders being set and instituted for their proficiency therein and what needs any more or why should they be further permitted either to satifie curiosity or to raise doubtâ— or to wrest words and examples there recorded unto their own ruin as we see now by experience men are apt to do What Catholicks have or have not is not our present dispute Whether what they have of story and dogm in their own Language be that which Paul calls the whole Counsel of God which he declared at Ephesus I much doubt But the question is Whether they have what God allows them and what he commands them to make use of We suppose God himself Christ and his Apostles the antient Fathers of the Church any of these or at least when they all agree may be esteemed as wise as our present Masters at Rome Their sense is That all Scripture given by inspiration from God is profitable for Doctrine it seems these judge not so and therefore they afford them so much of it as may tend to their good For my part I know whom I am resolved to adhere to let others do as seems good unto them Nor where God hath commanded and commended the use of all do I believe the Romanists are able to make a distribution that so much of it makes for the salvation of men the rest only serves to satisfie curiosity to raise doubts and to occasion men to wrest words and examples Nor I am sure are they able to satisfie me why any one part of the Scripture should be apt to do this more then others Nor will they say this at all of any part of their Mass. Nor is it just to charge the fruits of the lusts and darkness of men on the good word of God Nor is it the taking away from men of that alone which is able to make them good and wise a meet remedy to cure their evils and follies But these Declamations against the use and study of the Scripture I hope come too late Men have found too much spiritual advantage by it to be easily driven from it It self gives light to know its excellency and defend its use by But the Book is sacred he says and therefore not to be sullied by every hand what God hath sanctified let not man make common It seems then those parts of the Scripture which they afford to the people are more useful but less sacred than those that they keep away These reasons justle one another unhandsomly Our Author should have made more room for them for they will never lie quietly together But what is it he means by the Book the Paper Ink Letters and Covering His Master of the Schools will tell him These are not sacred if they are the Printers dedicate them And it 's a pretty pleasant Sophism that he adds That God having sanctified the Book we should not make it common To what end I pray hath God sanctified it Is it that it may be laid up and be hid from that people which Christ hath prayed might be sanctified by it Is it any otherwise sanctified but as it is appointed for the use of the Church of all that believe Is this to make it common to apply it unto that use whereunto of God it is segregated Doth the Sanctification of the Scripture consist in the laying up of the Book of the Bible from our profane Utensils Is this that which is intended by the Author Would it do him any good to have it granted or further his purpose Doth the mysteriousness of it lie in the Books being locked up I suppose he understands this Sophistry well enough which makes it the worse
past Practises of the men of that Church and Religion which he defends will not allow him to entertain such hard thoughts of the latter as he pretends unto so as to the former where he has made some progress in his work and either warmed his zeal beyond his first intendment for its discovery or has gotten some confidence that he hath obtained a better acceptance with his Reader then at the entrance of his Discourse he could lay claim unto laying aside those counsels of moderation and forbearance which he had gilded over he plainly declares that the only way of procuring Peace amongst us is by the extermination of Protestancy For having compared the Roman-Catholick to Isaack the proper Heir of the House and Protestants to Ishmael vexing him in his own Inheritance the only way to obtain Peace he tells us is Projiee ancillam cum filio suo Cast out the handmaid with her son that is in the gloss of their former practices either burn them at home or send them to starve abroad There is not the least reason then why I should trouble my self with his flourishes and stories his Characters of us and our neighbour-Nations in reference unto moderation and forbearance in Religion that is not the thing by him intended but is only used to give a false Alarum to his unwary Readers whilst he marches away with a Rhetorical Perswasive unto Popery In this it is wherein alone I shall attend his motions and if in our passage through his other Discourses we meet with any thing lying in a direct tendency unto his main end though pretended to be used to another purpose it shall not pass without some Animadversion Also I shall be farr from contending with our Author in those things wherein his Discourse excelleth and that upon the two general reasons of Wil and Ability Neither could I compare with him in them if I would nor would if I could His quaint Rhetorick biting Sarcasms fine Stories smooth Expressions of his high contempt of them with whom he has to do with many things of that sort the repetition of whose Names hath got the reputation of incivility are things wherein as I cannot keep pace with him for Illud possumus quod jure possumus so I have no mind to follow him CHAP. I. Our Author's Preface And his Method IT is not any Disputation or Rational debate about Differences in Religion that our Author intends nor until towards the close of his Treatise doth he at all fix directly on any thing in Controversie between Romanists and Protestants In the former parts of his Discourse his Design is sometimes covered alwayes carryed on in the way of a Rhetorical Declamation so that it is not possible and is altogether needless to trace all the particular passages and expressions as they lye scattered up and down in his Discourse which he judgeth of advantage unto him in the mannagement of the work he has undertaken Some Suppositions there are which lye at the bottom of his whole Superstructure quickning the Oratory and Rhetorical part of it undoubtedly it's best which he chose rather to take for granted then to take upon himself the trouble to prove These being drawn forth and removed what ever he hath built upon them with all that paint and flourish wherewith it is adorned will of it self fall to the ground I shall then first briefly discuss what he offers as to the method of his procedure and then take this for my own Namely I shall draw out and examin the Fundamental Principles of his Oration upon whose tryal the whole must stand or fall and then pass through the severals of the whole Treatise with such Animadversions as what remaineth of it may seem to require His method he speaks unto pag. 13. My method saith he I do purposely conceal to keep therein a more handsom decorum for he that goes about to part a fighting fray cannot observe a method 〈◊〉 must turn himself this way and that as occasion offers be it a corporal or mental Duel So did good Sc. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans which of all his other Epistles as it hath most of solidity so it hath least of method in the context the reason is c. These are handsom words of a man that seems to have good thoughts of himself and his skill in parting frays But yet I see not how they hang well together as to any congruity of their sense and meaning Surely he that useth no method nor can use any cannot conceal his method no though he purpose so to do No man's purpose to hide will enable him to hide that which is not If he hath concealed his method he hath used one if he hath used none he hath not concealed it for that which is wanting cannot be numbered Nor hath he by this or any other means kept any handsom decorum not having once spoken the sense or according to the Principles of him whom he undertakes to personate which is such an observance of a decorum as a man shall not lightly meet with Nor hath he discovered any mind so to part a fray as that the Contenders might hereafter live quietly one by another his business being avowedly to perswade as many as he can to a conjunction in one Party for the destruction of all the rest And what ever he saith of not using a method the method of his Discourse with the good words it is set off withall is the whole of his Interest in it He pretends indeed to pass through loca nullius anâ—â— Trita solo yet setting aside his mannagement of the Advantages given him by the late miserable Tumults in these Nations and the Provision he has made for the Entertainment of his Readeâ— are Worts boyled an hundred times over as he knows well enough And for the method which he would have us believe not to be and yet to be concealed it is rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather a crafty various distribution of entising words and plausible pretences to enveagle and delude men unlearned and unstable then any decent contexture of or fair progress in a Rational Discourse or Regular Disposition of nervous Topicks to convince or perswade the minds of men who have their eyes in their heads I shall therefore little trouble my self further about it but only discover it as occasion shall require for the Discovery of Sophistry is its proper Confutation However the course he steers is the same that good St. Paul used in his Epistle to the Romans which hath as he tells us most of solidity and least of method of all his Epistles I confess I knew not before that his Church had determined which of St. Paul's Epistles had most of solidity which least For I have such good thoughts of him that I suppose he would not do it of his own head nor do I know that he is appointed Umpire to determin upon the Writings that came
will follow Was it the Popes Religion they taught and preached Did the Pope first find it out and declare it Did they baptize men into the name of the Pope or Declare that the Pope was crucified for them You know whose arguings these are to prove men should not lay weight upon or contend about the first ministerial Revealers of the Gospel but rest all in Him who is the Author of it Christ Jesus Did any come here and preach in the Popes name declare a Religion of his Revealing or resting in him as the fountain and sourse of the whole business they had to do If you say so you say something which is near to your purpose but certainly very wide from the Truth But because it is most certain that God had not promised originally to send the rod of Christs strength out of Rome I shall take leave to ask Whence the Gospel came thither or to use the words made use of once and again by our Author Came the Gospell from them or came it to them only I suppose they will not say so because they speak to men that have seen the Bible If it came to them from others what Priviledge had they at Rome that they should not have the same respect for them from whom the Gospel came to them as they claim from those unto whom they plead that it came from themselves The case is clear St. Peter coming to Rome brought his Chair along with him after which time that was made the head spring and fountain of all Religion and no such thing could befall those places where the Planters of the Gospel had no Chaires to settle I think I have read this Story in an hundred writers but they were all men of yesterday in comparison who what ever they pretend know no more of this business than my self St. Peter speaks not one word of it in his writings nor yet St. Luke nor St. Paul nor any one who by Divine inspiration committed any thing to remembrance of the state of the Church after the Resurrection of Christ. And not only are they utterly silent of this matter but so also are Clemens and Ignatius and Justin Martyr and Tertullian with the rest of knowing men in those dayes I confess in after-ages when some began to think it meet that the chiefest Apostle should go to the then chiefest City in the world divers began to speak of his going thither and of his Martyrdom there though they agree not in their Tales about it But be it so as for my part I will not contend in a matter so dark uncertain of no moment in Religion this I know that being the Apostle of the Circumcision if he did go to Rome it was to convert the Jews that were there and not to found that Gentile-Church which in a short space got the start of the other But yet neither do these Writers talk of bringing his Chair thither much less is there in them one dust of that rope of Sand which men of latter dayes have endeavoured to twist with inconsistent consequences and groundless presumptions to draw out from thence the Popes Prerogative The case then is absolutely the same as to those in respect of the Romans who received the Gospel from them or by their means and of the Romans themselves in respect of those from whom they received it If they would win worship to themselves from others by pretending that the Gospel came forth from them unto them let them teach them by the example of their devotion towards those from whom they received it I suppose they will not plead that they are not now in rerum naturâ knowing what will ensue to their disadvantage on that plea. For if that Church is utterly failed and gone from whence they first received the Gospel that which others received it from may possibly be not in a much better condition But I find my self before I was aware faln into the borders of the second Principle or Presumption mentioned I shall therefore shut up my consideration of this first Pretence with this only that neither is it true that these Nations first received Christianity from Rome much less by any mission of the Pope nor if they had done so in the Exercise of a Ministerial work and authority would this make any thing to what is pretended from it Nor will it ever be of any use to the present Romanists unless they can prove that the Pope was the first Author of Christian Religion which as yet they have not attempted to do and thence it is evident what is to be thought of the second Principle before-mentioned Namely II. That whence and from whom we first receive our Religion there and with them we must abide therein to them we must repair for Guidance and return to their Rule and Conduct if we have departed from them I have shewed already that there is no privity of Interests between us and the Romanists in this matter But suppose we had been originally instructed in Christianity by men sent from Rome to that purpose for unless we suppose this for the pâ—â—sent our talk is at an end I see not as yet the verity of this Proposition With the Truth where-ever it be or with whomsoever it is most certainly our duty to abide And if those from whom we first received our Christianity ministerially abide in the Truth we must abide with them not because they or their Predecessors were the Instruments of our Conversion but because they abide in the Truth Setting aside this Consideration of Truth which is the Bond of all Union and that which fixeth the Center and limits the bounds of it one Peoples or one Churches abiding with another in any Profession of Religion is a thing meerly indifferent When we have received the Truth from any the formal reason of our continuance with them in that union which our reception of the Truth from them gives unto us is their abiding in the Truth and no other Suppose some Persons or some Church or Churches do propagate Christianity to another and in progress of time themselves fall off from some of those Truths which they or their Predecessors had formerly delivered unto these instructed by them If our Author shall deny that such a Supposition can well be made because it never did nor can fall out I shall remove his Exception by scores of Instances out of Antiquity needless in so evident a matter to be here mentioned What in this case would be their duty who received the Gospel from them Must they abide with them follow after them and imbrace the errors they are fallen into because they first received the Gospel from them I trow not It will be found their duty to abide in the Truth and not to pin their Faith upon the sleeves of them by whom ministerially it was at first communicated unto them But this case you will say concerns not the Roman-Church and Protestants for as these
c. THe Title of this Chapter was proposed the persuit of it now ensues The first Paragraph is a declamation about sundry things which have not much blame-worthy in them Their common weakness is that they are common They tend not to the furtherance of any one thing more then another but are such as any Party may flourish withal and use to their several ends as they please That desire of honour and applause in the world hath influenced the minds of men to great and strange Undertakings is certain That it should do so is not certain nor true so that when we treat of Religion if we renounce not the Fundamental Principle of it in Self-denyal this consideration ought to have no place What then was done by Emperours and Philosophers of old or by the later School-men on this account we are little concerned in Nor have I either desire or design to vellicate any thing spoken by our Author that may have an indifferent interpretation put upon it and be separated from the end which he principally persues As there is but very little spoken in this Paragraph directly tending to the whole end aimed at so there are but three things that will any way serve to leaven the mind of his Reader that he may be prepared to be moulded into the form he hath fancyed to cast him into which is the work of all these previous Harangues The first is his inâ—â—nuation That the Reformation of Religion is a thing pretended by aemulous Plebeians not able to hope for that Supervisorship in Religion which they see intrusted with others How unserviceable this is unto his Design as applyed to the Church of England all men know for setting aside the consideration of the influence of Soveraign Royal Authority the first Reformers amongst us were persons who as they enjoyed the right of Reputation for the Excellencies of Learning and Wisdom so also were they fixed in those places and conditions in the Church which no Reformation could possibly advance them above and the attempt whereof cost them not only their dignities but their lives also Neither were Hezekiah Josiah or Ezra of old aemulous plebeians whose lasting glory and renown arose from their Reformation of Religion They who fancy men in all great undertakings to be steered by desire of applause and honour are exceeding incompetent judges of those actions which zeal for the glory of God love to the Truth sense of their duty to the Lord Jesus Christ and compassion for the souls of others do lead men unto and guide them in and such will the last Day manifest the Reformation traduced to have been The Second is a gallant commendâ—tion of the Ingenuity Charity Candor and sublime Science of the School-men I confess they have deserved good words at his hands These are the men who out of a mixture of Philosophy Traditions and Scriptureâ— all corrupted and perverted have hammâ—â—ed that faith which was afterwards confirmed under so many Anathemaes at Trent So that upon the matter he is beholden to them for his Religion which I find he loves and hath therefore reason to be thankful to its Contrivers For my part I am as far from envying them their commendation as I have reason to be which I am sure is far enough But yet before we admit this Testimony hand over head I could wish he would take a course to stop the mouths of some of his own Church and those no small ones neither who have declared them to the world to be a pack of egregious Sophisters neither good Philosophers nor any Divines at all men who seem not to have had the least reverence of God nor much regard to the Truth in any of their Disputations but weâ—â— wholly influenced by a vain Reputation of Subtility desire of Conquest of leading and denominating Parties and that in a Barbarous Science barbarously expressed untill they had driven all Learning and Divinity almost out of the World But I will not contend about these Fathers of Contention let every man esteem of them as he seems good There is the same respect in that bitter reflection which he makes on those who have managed differences in Religion in this last Age the Third thing observable That they are the Writers and Writings that have been published against the Papacy which he intends he doth more than intimate Their Disputes he rells us are managed with so much unseemly behaviour such unmanerly expressions that discreet sobriety cannot but loath and abhor to read them with very much more to this purpose I shall not much labour to perswade men not to believe what he sayes in this matter for I know full well that he believes it not himself He hath seen too many Protestant Books I suppose to think this Cenâ—â—re will suit them all This was meet to be spoken for the advantage of the Catholick cause for what there hath been of real offence in this kind amongst us we may say Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra Romanists are Sinners as well as others And I suppose himself knows That the Reviling and Defamations used by some of his Party are not to be paralleld in any Writings of man-kind at this day extant About the Appellatioâ—s he shall think meet to make use of in reference to the Persons at variance we will not contend with him Only I desire to let him know That the reproach of Galilean from the Pagans which he appropriates to the Papists was worn out of the World before that Popery which he pleads for came into it As Roman-Catholicks never tasted of the sufferings wherewith that Reproach was attended so they have no special right to the honour that is in its remembrance As to the sport he is pleased to make with his Countrey-men in the close of this Paragraph about losing their wits in Religious contests with the evils thence ensuing I shall no further reflect upon but once more to mind the Reader that the many words he is pleased to use in the exaggerating the evils of mannaging differences in Religion with animosities and tumults so seemingly to perswade men to moderation and peace I shall wholly pass by as having discovered that that is not his business nor consequently at present mine It is well observed by him in his second Paragraph that most of the great Contests in the world about perishing things proceed from the unmortified lusts of men The Scripture abounds in Testimonies given hereunto St. James expresly From whence come wars and fightings among you come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members ye lust and have not ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain you fight and warr yet you have not chap. 4.1 2. Mens lusts put them on endless irregularities in unbounded desires and foolish sinful enterprizes for their satisfaction Neither is Satan the old Enemy of the well-fare of mankind wanting to excite provoke and stir up these lusts by mixing himself
the end and write over it Desinit in piscem The sum of this whole Paragraph is that all sorts of Protestants and others here in England do ridiculously contend about their several perswasions in Religion and put trouble on one another on that account whereas it is the Pope only that hath Title and Right to prescribe a Religion unto us all which is not to me unlike the fancy of the poor man in Bedlam who smiled with great contentment at their folly who imagined themselves either Queen Elizabeth or King James seeing he himself was King Henry the Eighth But seeing that is the business in hand let us see what is this Title that the Pope hath which Protestants can lay no claim unto It is founded on that of the Apostle to the Corinthians Did the Word of God come forth from you or came it unto you only This is pretended the only Rule to determin with whom the preheminence of Religion doth remain Now the Word came not out originally from Protestants or Puritans nor came it to them alone So that they have no reason to be imposing their conceptions on one another or own others that differ from them But our Author seems here to have fallen upon a great mis-adventure There is not as I know of any one single Text of Scripture that doth more fatally cut the throat of Papal pretensions than this that he hath stumbled on It is known that the Pope and his adherents claim a preheminence in Religion to be the sole Judges of all its concernments and the imposers of it in all the world What men receive from them that is Truth what they are any otherwise instructed in it is all false and naught On this pretence it is that this Gentleman pleads Nullity of Title amongst us as to all our contests though we know that Truth carries its Title with it in whose hands soever it be found Give me leave then to make so bold at least at this distance as to ask the Pope and his Adherents An à vobis verbum Dei processit an ad vos solos pervenit Did the Gospel first come from you or only unto you that you thus exalt your selves above your Brethren all the World over Do we not know by whom it first came to you and from whom Did it not come to very many parts of the World before you to the whole World as well as to you Why do you then boast your selves as though you had been the first revealers of the Gospel or that it had come unto you in a way or manner peculiar and distinct from that by which it came to other places Would you make us believe that Christ preached at Rome or suffered or rose from the dead there or gave the Holy Ghost first to the Apostles there or first there founded his Church or gave order for the empaling it there when it was built Would we never so fain we cannot believe such prodigious Fables To what purpose then do you talk of Title to impose your conceits in Religion upon us Did the Gospel first come forth from you or came it unto you only Will not Rome notwithstanding its seven Hills be laid in a level with the rest of the World by vertue of this Rule The truth is as to the Oral dispensation of the Gospel it came forth from Jerusalem by the Personal Ministry of the Apostles and came equally to all the world That Spring being long since dryed up it now comes forth to all from the written word and unto them who receive it in its Power and Truth doth it come and unto no other What may further be thought necessary to be discussed as to the matter of fact in reference to this Rule the Reader may find handled under that consideration of the first supposition which our Author builds his Discourse upon Sect. 4. Pag. 48. Heats and Resolution is the Title of this Section in which if our Author be found blameless his charge on others will be the more significant The Impartial Reader that will not be imposed on by smooth words will easily know what to guess of his temper In the mean time though we think it is good to be well-resolved in the things that we are to believe and practise in the worship of God yet all irregular and irrational Heats in the prosecution or maintenance of mens different conceptions and apprehensions in Religion we desire sincerely to avoid and explode Nor is it amiss that to further our moderation we be minded of the temper of the Pagans who in their Opinion-Wars we are told used no other Weapons but only of Pen and Speech For our Author seems to have forgotten not only innumerable other Instances to the contrary but also the renowned Battel between Ombos and Tentyra But this forgetfulness was needful to aggravate the charge on Christians that are not Romanists for their heat fury and Fightings for the promotion of their Opinions as being in this so much the worse than Pagans who in Religion used another manner of moderation And who I pray is it that manageth this charge Whence comes this Dove with an Olive-branch This Orator of Peace If we may guess from whence he came by seeing whither he is going we must say that it was from Rome This is their Plea this the perswasion of men of the Roman-Interest This their charge on Protestants To this height the confidence of mens ignorance inadvertency and fullness of present things amounts Could ever any one rationally expect that these Gentlemen would be publick decryers of Fury Wars and Tumults for Religion May not Protestants say to them Quae regio in terris nostri non plena cruoris Is there any Nation under the Heavens whereunto your power extends wherein our blood hath not given testimony to your wrath and fury After all your cursings and attempted depositions of Kings and Princes translations of Title to Soveraignty and Rule invasions of Nations secret Conspiracies Prisons Racks Swords Fire and Fagot do you now come and declaim about moderation We see you not yet cease from killing of men in the pursuit of your fancies and groundless Opinions any where but either where you have not power or can find no more to kill So that certainly whatever reproach we deserve to have cast upon us in this matter you are the unfittest men in the world to be mannagers of it But I still find my self in a mistake in this thing It is only Protestants and others departed from the Roman Church that our Author treats It is they who are more fierce and disingenious than the Pagans in their contests amongst themselves and against the Romanists as having the least share of Reason of any upon the earth His good Church is not concerned who as it is not lead by such fancies and motives as they are so it hath right where it hath power to deal with its Adversaries as seems good unto it This then Sir is
that which you intend that we should agree amongst our selves and wait for your coming with power to destroy us all It were well indeed if we could agree it is our fault and misery if we do not having so absolutely a perfect Rule and means of agreement as we have But yet whether we agree or agree not if there be another Party distinct from us all pretending a right to exterminate us from the earth it behooves us to look after their proceedings And this is the true state of all our Author's Pleas for Moderation which are built upon such Principles as tend to the giving us up unarmed and naked to the power and will of his Masters For the rest of this Section wherein he is pleased to sport himself in the miscarriages of men in their coyning and propagating of their Opinions and to gild over the care and success of the Church of Rome in stifling such births of pride and darkness I shall not insist upon it For as the first as generally tossed up and down concerns none in particular though accompanyed with the repetition of such words as ought not to be scosfed at so the latter is nothing but what violence and ignorance may any where and in any age produce There are Societies of Christians not a few in the East wherein meer darkness and ignorance of the Truth hath kept men at peace in Errors without the least disturbance by contrary opinions amongst themselves for above a 1000 years and yet they have wanted the help of outward force to secure their Tranquillity And is it any wonder that where both these powerful Engins are set at work for the same end if in some measure it be compassed and effected And if there be such a thing among the Romanists which I have reason to be difficult in admitting the belief of as that they can stisle all Opinions as fast as they are conceived or destroy them assoon as they are brought forth I know it must be some device or artifice unknown to the Apostles and Primitive Churches who notwithstanding all their Authority and care for the Truth could not with many compass that end Sect. 5. Pag. 54. The last Section of this Chapter contains motives to moderation three in number And I suppose that no man doubts but that many more might be added every one in weight out-doing all these three The first is that alone which Protestants are concerned to look unto not that Protestants oppose any motive unto moderation but knowing that in this Discourse Moderation is only the pretence Popery if I may use the word without incivility the Design and aim it concerns them to examine which of these pretended motives that any way regards their real principle doth tend unto Now this Motive is the great ignorance our state and condition is involved in concerning God his Works and Providence a great motive to Moderation I wish all men would well consider it For I must acknowledge that I cannot but suppose them ignorant of the state and condition of mortality and so consequently their own who are ready to destroy and exterminate their neighbors of the same flesh and bloud with them and agreeing in the main Principles of Religion that may certainly be known for lesser differences and that by such rules as within a few years may possibly reach their nearest Relations Our Author also layes so much weight on this Motive that he fears an anticipation by men saying That the Scripture reveals enough unto us which therefore he thinks necessary to remove For my part I scarse think he apprehended any real danger that this would be insisted on as an Objection against his motive to moderation For to prevent his tending on towards that which is indeed his proper end this obstacle is not unseasonably layed that under a pretence of the ignorance unavoidably attending our state and condition he might not prevail upon us to increase and aggravate it by entising us to give up our selves by an implicite faith to the conduct of the Roman-Church A man may easily perceive the end he intends by the Objections which he fore-sees No man is so madd I think as to plead the sufficiency of Scripture-Revelation against Moderation when in the Revelation of the Will of God contained in the Scripture Moderation is so much commended unto us and pressed upon us But against the pretended necessity of resigning our selves to the Romanists for a relief against the unavoidable ignorance of our state and condition besides that we know full well such a resignation would yield us no relief at all this plea of the sufficiency of Scripture-Revelation is full and unanswerable This put our Author on a work which I have formerly once or twice advised him to meddle no more being well assured that it is neither for his reputation nor his advantage much less for his souls health The pretences which he makes use of are the same that we have heard of many and many a time The abuse of it by some and the want of an Infallible Interpreter of it as to us all But the old tale is here anew gilded with an intermixture of other pretty stories and application of all to the present humours of men not forgetting to set forth the brave estate of our fore-fathers that had not the use of the Scripture which what it was we know well enough and better then the prejudices of this Gentleman will give him leave to tell us But if the lawful and necessary use of any thing may be decryed because of its abuse we ought not only to labour the abolishing of all Christian Religion in general and every principle of it in particular out of the world but the blotting out of the Sun and Moon and Stars out of the Firmament of Heaven and the destruction of the greatest and most noble parts at least of the whole Creation But as the Apostles continued in the work of Preaching the Gospel though by some the grace they taught was turned into lasciviousness so shall we abide to plead for the use of the Scripture whatever abuse of them by the wicked lusts of men can be instanced in Nor is there any reason in the world why food should be kept from all men though some have surfeited or may yet so do To have a compendious Narration of the Story and Morality of the Scripture in the room of the whole which our Author allows of is so jejune narrow and empty a Conception so unanswerable to all those divine Testimonies given to the excellency of the Word of God with Precepts to abide in the meditation and study of it to grow in the knowledge of it and the mysteries contained in it the commendations of them that did so in the Scripture it self so blasphemously derogatory to the Goodness Love and Wisdom of God in granting us that inestimable benefit so contrary to the redoubled Exhortations of all the Antient Fathers that I wonder
impenitent sinners what in the Covenant of his Grace to them that fly for refuge to the hope that is set before them even that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory would give unto us the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of him that the eyes of our understanding being enlightned we may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards them that believe according to the working of the might of his power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places that our hearts may be comforted being knit together in love and unto all riches of the FULL ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge and by whom alone we may obtain any saving acquaintance with them who also is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true This is the Port-Haven of Protestants whatever real darkness may be about them or whatever mists may be cast on them by the sleights of men that lye in wait to deceive That they need know no more of God that they may love him fear him believe in him and come to the enjoyment of him than what he hath clearly and expresly in Christ revealed of himself by his Word Whether the storms of this Gentleman's indignation be able to drive them or the more pleasant gales of his Eloquence to entise them from this Harbour time will shew In the mean while that indeed they ought not so to do nor will do so with any but such as are resolved to steer their course by some secret distempers of their own a few strictures on the most material passages of this Chapter will discover It is scarce worth while to remark his mistake in the foundation of his discourse of the Obscurity of God as he is pleased to state the matter from that of the Prophet asserting that God is a God who hides himself or as he renders it an hidden God His own Prophet will tell him that it is not concerning the Essence of God but the Dispensation of his Love and Favour towards his People that those words were used by the Prophet of old and so are unwillingly pressed to serve in the design he hath in hand Neither are we more concerned in the ensuing Discourse of the Soul 's cleaving to God by Affection upon the Metaphysicall representation of His excellencies and perfections unto it it being purely Platonical and no way suited to the revelation made of God in the Gospel which acquaints us not with any such amiableness in God as to endear the souls of sinners unto him causing them to reach out the wings of their love after him but only as he is in Christ Jesus reconciling the world to himself a consideration that hath no place nor any can obtain in this flourish of words And the reason is because they are sinners and therefore without the Revelation of an Attonement can have no other apprehension of the infinitely Holy and Righteous God but as of a devouring Fire with whom no sinner can inhabite Nor yet in the aggravation of the obscurity of God from the restless endeavours of mankind in the disquisition of him who as he sayes shew their love in seeking him having at their birth an equal right to his favour which they could no wise demerit before they were born being directly contrary to the Doctrine of his own Church in the head of Original Sin That which first draws up towards the design he is in persuit of is his Determination That the issuing of mens perplexities in the investigation of this hidden God must be by some Prophet or Teacher sent from God unto men but the uncertainty of coming into any better condition thereby is so exaggerated by a contempt of those wayes and means that such Prophets have fixed on to evidence their coming forth from God by Miracles Visions Prophesies ashew of Sanctity with a concourse of Threats and Promises as that means also is cashiered from yielding us any relief Neither is there any thing intimated or offered to exempt the true Prophets of God nor the Lord Christ himself from being shuffled into the same bag with false pretenders in the close that were brought forth to play their game in this pageant Yea the difficulty put upon this help of the loss we are at in the knowledge of God by Prophets and Prophesies seems especially to respect those of the Scripture so to manifest the necessity of a further evidence to be given unto them then any they carry about them or bring with them that they may be useful to this end and purpose And this intention is manifest a little after where the Scripture is expresly reckoned among those things which all men boast of none can come to certainty or assurance by Thus are poor unstable souls ventured to the Borders of Atheism under a pretence of leading them to the Church Was this the method of Christ or his Apostles in drawing men to the Faith of the Gospel this the way of the holy men of old that laboured in the Conversion of Souls from Gentilism and Heresie Were ever such bold assaults against the immoveable Principles of Christianity made by any before Religion came to be a matter of carnal Interest Is there no way to exalt the Pope but by questioning the Authority of Christ and Truth of the Scripture Truly I am sorry that wise and considering men should observe such an irreverence of God and his Word to prevail in the spirits of men as to entertain thoughts of perswading them to desert their Religion by such presumptious Insinuations of the uncertainty of all Divine Revelation But all this may be made good on the consideration of the changes of men after their profession of this or that Religion namely That notwithstanding their former pretensions yet indeed they knew nothing at all seeing that from God and the Truth no man doth willingly depart which if it be universally true I dare say there is not one word true in the Scripture How often doth God complain in the Old-Testament that his people forsook Him for that which was not God and how many do the Apostles shew us in the New to have forsaken the Truth It is true that under the notion of God the cheifest Good and of Truth the proper object and rest of the understanding none can willingly and by choyce depart but that the mindes of men might be so corrupted and perverted by their own lusts and temptations of Satan as willingly and by choyce to forsake the one or the other to embrace that which in their stead presents it self unto them is no less
is a fair way to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very Authority of the first Revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself then he can his Law For the same Axe and Instrument that cut down the branches can cut up the root too and if his reverence for which all the rest was believed defend not their truth it must needs at length utterly fail in his own for all the Authority they had was purely from him and he fails in them before he falls in himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Papists or Roman-Catholicks first brought Christ and his Christianity into this Land is most untrue and I wonder how any one that hath read any story of the Times that are past should so often averre what he cannot but know to be untrue The Gospel might have been brought into England by Romans and yet not by Papists for I cannot find nor can this Gentleman shew that the Romans St. Paul wrote unto were any one of them in any one poynt Papists But neither was it brought hither by Romans but came immediately out of the East from whence also about the same time it came to Rome Nor is it any jot truer That we no sooner heard news of Christianity than Popery with its Crucifixes Monasteries Reliques Sacrifice that is the Mass and the like Apage nugas What do we talk of tother-day things when we speak of the first news of Christianity The first planting and watering of these things was in after-Ages and their growing up to that consistency wherein they may justly be called Popery a work of many Centuries And yet I shall grant that most of them got the start in the World of that Papal Soveraignty whence Popery is peculiarly denominated But the first news we hear of Christianity is in the Gospel where there is not the least tidings of these trifles nor was there in some Ages that next succeeded the publication of it If this Gentleman give any further occasion the particulars shall be evinced to him For my part I know not how nor to whom a Papist is become odious which nextly he complains of I can and do love their persons pitty them in their mistakes hate only their vices But yet certain it is a Papist may be odious that is men may not love those parts of his Religion from whence he is so denominated without the least impeachment of that faith that extirpated Gentilism in the World It is for that faith which ruined Gentilism that we contend against Papists Let us have that and no more and there is an end of all our Contests The things we strive about sprang up since Gentilism was buryed the most of them out of its grave some from a deeper place if there be a deeper place For the practical Truths of the Papists which he complains to be abolished I was in good hope he would not have mentioned them their speculations are better then their practises whether he intends their moral Divinity or their agenda in Worshâ—p I would desire this Gentleman to mention them no more lest he hear that of them which I know he is not willing to do As for the Practical Truths of the Gospel they are maintained and asserted in the Church of England and by all Protestants and about others we are not solicitous What tendency then the Rejection of Popery which had no hand in supplanting Gentilism and which is no part of the Religion of Christ hath to the leading of men into Atheism is as hard to discover as the quadrature of a Circle or a Subterranean passage into the Indies But he gives his reasons If one truth be denyed a fair way is made to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very Authority of the first Revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself then he can his Law This first Revealer I take to be the Lord Christ he that grants a thing or doctrine to be taught and delivered by him yet denyes it to be true doth indeed deny his Authority However he will defend himself and his Law let men do what they please But he that denyes such a thing to be truth because it is not revealed by him nor consistent with what is revealed by him doing this out of subjection of soul and conscience to his Authority is in no danger of questioning or opposing that Authority Nay be it that it be indeed a truth which he denyes being only denyed by him because he is perswaded that it is not of Christ the first Revealer and therefore not true there is no fear of the danger threatned But the matter is That all that is brought from Christ by the same hand must be equally received It is true If it be brought from Christ by the same hand it must be so not because by the same hand but because from Christ They that preached Christ and withall that men must be circumcised had put men into a sad condition if in good sooth they had been necessitated to embrace all that they taught the same men teaching Christ to be the Messias and Circumcision to be necessary to life eternal Amongst those that were converted to the Gospel by the Jews that were zealous of the Law how easie had it been for their Teachers to have utterly frustrated St. Paul's Doctrine of Christian liberty by telling them that they could not forgo Circumcision but they must forgo Christ also for all those things they received by the same hand If indeed a man comes and delivers a Systeme of Religion upon his own Authority and Reputation only he that denyes any one point of what he delivers is in a fair way of everting all that he asserts But if he come as sent from another and affirm that this other commanded him to declare that which he delivers for Truth in his Name and produce for that end his Commission wherein all the Truths that he is to deliver are written if he deliver what he hath not received in Commission that may honestly be rejected without the least impeachment of any one Truth that was really committed unto him by him that sent him And this was the way this the condition of them who planted the Gospel in the Name of Christ not being themselves divinely inspired So that if in the second Edition of Christianity in some parts of this Nation by Austine and his Associates any thing was taught or practised that was not according to the Rule and Commission given by Christ it may be rejected without the least impeachment to the Authority of the first Revealer nay his Authority being once received cannot be preserved entire without such rejection I confess I do almost mistrust that by this Revealer of Christianity and his Authority which he discourses about our Authour intends the Pope which if so what we have discoursed of Christ is I confess to
for himself without order from any Protestant when he sets up an excuse for this change in them by a relinquishment of their first Principles and re-assuming Popish ones for their defence against the Presbyterians He that set him a work may pay him his wages Protestants only tell him that what was never done needs never be excused Nor will they give him any more thanks for the plea he interposes in the behalf of Episcopacy against Presbyterians and Independents being interwoven with a plea for the Papacy and managed by such arguments as end in the exaltation of the Roman-See and that partly because they know that their Adversaries will be easily able to disprove the feigned Monarchical Government of the Church under one Pope and to prove that that fancy really everts the true and only Monarchical State of the Church in reference to Christ knowing that Monarchy doth not signifie two heads but one and partly because they have better Arguments of their own to plead for Episcopacy then those that he suggests here unto them or then any man in the world can supply them with who thinks there is no communication of Authority from Christ to any on the Earth but by the hands of the Pope So that upon the whole matter they desire him that he would attend his own business not immix their cause in the least with his which tends so much to their weakning disadvantage If this may be granted which is but reasonable they will not much be troubled about his commendation of the Pope pag. 178. as the Substitute of Christ our only visible Pastor the chief Bishop of the Catholick Church presiding ruling and directing in the place of Christ and the like elogium's being resolved when he goes about to prove any thing that he sayes that they will consider of it But he must be better known to them then he is before they will believe him on his bare word in things of such importance and some suppose that the more he is known the less he will be believed But that he may not for the present think himself neglected we will run over the heads of his plea pretended for Episcopacy really to assert the Papal Soveraignty First he pleads That the Christian Church was first Monarchical under one Soveraign Bishop when Christ who sounded it was upon the Earth True and so it is still There is one sheepfold one Shepherd and Bishop of our souls he that was then bodily present having promised That presence of Himself with his Church to the end of the World wherein he continues its one Soveraign Bishop And although the Apostles after him had an equality of power in the Church among themselves as Bishops after them have also yet this doth not denominate the Government of the Church Aristocratical no more then the equality of the Lords in Parliament can denominate the Government of this Kingdom to be so The denomination of any Rule is from him or them in whom the Soveraignty doth reside not from any subordinate Rulers So is the Rule of the Church Monarchical The subversion of this Episcopacy we acknowledge subverts the whole Polity of the Church and so all her Laws and Rule with the guilt whereof Protestants charge the Romanists He addes It will not suffice to say that the Church is still under its Head Christ who being in Heaven hath his spiritual influences over it It will not indeed But yet we suppose that his presence with It by his Spirit and Laws will suffice Why should it not Because the true Church of Christ must have the very same Head she had at first or else she cannot be the same Body Very good and so she hath the very same Christ that was crucified for her and not another But that Head was Man-God Personally present in both his Natures here on Earth But is he not I pray the same Man-God still the same Christ though the manner of his presence be altered This is strange that being the same as he was and being presert still one circumstance of the manner of his presence should hinder him from being the same head I cannot understand the Logick Reason nor Policy of this Inference Suppose we should on these trisling instances exclude Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday to day and for ever from being the same Head of his Church as he was Will the Pope supply his room Is he the same Head that Christ was Is he God-Man bodily present or what would you have us to conclude A visible Head or Bishop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruine This too much alters the Question At first it was that she must have the same Head she had at first or she is not the same Now that she must have another Head that is not the same or she is not the same For the Pope is not Jesus Christ. These arguings hang together like a rope of Sand And what is built on this foundation which indeed is so weak that I am ashamed further to contend with it will of its own accord fall to the ground CHAP. XI Scripture and new Principles THe next Paragraph p. 182. is a naughty one A business it is spent in and about that I have now often advised our Author to meddle with no more If he will not for the future take advice I cannot help it I have shewed my good will towards him It is his debating of the Scripture and its Authority which I intend This with the intertexture of some other gentle suppositions is the subject of this and the following Section And because I will not tire my self and Reader in tracing what seems of concernment in this Discourse backward and forward up and down as it is by him dispersed and disposed to his best advantage in dealing with unwary men I shall draw out the Principles of it that he may know them where ever he meets them though never so much masked and disguised or never so lightly touched on and also what judgment to pass upon them Their foundation being so taken away these Sections if I mistake not will sink of themselves Some of these Principles are co-incident with those general ones insisted on in the entrance of our Discourse others of them are peculiar to the design of these Paragraphs The first I shall only point unto the latter briefly discuss 1. It is supposed in the whole Discourse of these Sections That from the Roman Church so stated as now it is or from the Pope we here in England first received the Gospel which is the Romanists own Religion and theirs by donation from them whom they have here pleased to accommodate with it This animates the whole and is besides the special life of almost every sentence A lifeless life for that there is not a syllable of truth in it hath been declared before nor
were it so that by the Ministry of the Roman-Church of old the Faith was first planted in these Nations would that one inch promote our Author's pretensions unless he could prove that they did not afterwards lose or corrupt at least that which they communicated unto us which he knows to be the thing in Question and not to be granted upon request though made in never so handsome words To say then That the Gospel is the Romanists own Religion from them you had it you contend about that which is none of your own hear them whose it is from whom you had it who have the precedency before you is but to set up scare-Crows to fright fools and children Men who have any understanding of things past know that all this bluster and noyse comes from emptiness of any solid matter or substance to be used in the case 2. It is also doughtily supposed That whatever is spoken of the Churnh in the Scripture belongs to the Roman Church and that alone The Priviledges the Authority the Glory of the Church are all theirs as the madd-man at Athens thought all the Ships to be his that came into the Harbour I suppose he will not contend but that if you deny him this all that he hath said besides is to little purpose And I believe he cannot but take it ill that any of his Readers should call him to an account in that which he every where puts out of question But this he knew well enough that all Protestants deny that they grant no one priviledge of the Catholick Church as such to belong to the Roman All that any of them will allow her is but to be a putrid corrupt member of it some say cut off dead and rotten But yet that the Catholick Church and the Roman are the same must be believed or you spoil all his market The Church is before the Gospel gives testimony unto it none could know it but by her Authority nothing can be accepted as such but what she sets her seals unto so that to destroy the Church is to destroy the Gospel What then I pray Suppose all this and all the rest of his Assertions about the Church pag. 199 200 c. to be true as some of them are most blasphemously false yet What is all this to his purpose Why this is the Roman-Church of which all these things are spoken It may be the Roman-Church indeed of which much of it is spoken even all that is sinfully derogatory to the glory of Christ and his Apostles upon whom and whose Authority the Church is built and not their Authority on it Ephes. 2.18 19 20. But what is truly spoken in the Scripture of the Church doth no more belong to the Roman then to the least Assembly of Believers under Heaven wherein the Essence of a true Church is preserved if it belongs unto it at all And yet this rude Pretence and palpable Artifice is the main Engine in this Section applyed to the removal of men from the Basis of the Scripture The Church the Church the Roman-Church the Roman-Church and these forsooth are supposed to be one and the same and the Pope to have Monopolized all the priviledges of the Church contrary to express Statute-law of the Gospel Hence he pretends That if to go out from the Catholick be evil then not to come into the Roman is evil when indeed the most ready way to go out of the Catholick is to go into the Roman 3. Moreover it is taken for granted That the Roman Church is every way what it was when first planted Indeed if it were so it would deserve as much particular respect as any Church of any City in the World and that would be all As it is the case is altered But its unalteredness being added to the former Supposition of its Oneliness and Catholicism it is easie to see what sweet work a witty man as our Author is may make with this Church among good company Many and many a time have the Romanists attempted to prove these things but failing in their attempt they think it now reasonable to take them for granted The Religion they now profess must be that which first entered England and there saith our Author it continued in peace for a thousand years when the truth is after the entrance of their Religion that is the corruption of Christianity by Papal usurpations these Nations never passed one age without tumults turmoils contentions disorders nor many without wars bloud and devastations and those arising from the Principles of their Religion 4. To this is added That the Bible is the Pope's own Book which none can lay claim to but by and from him This will be found to be a doubtful assertion and it will be difficult to conclude aright concerning it He that shall consider what a worthy person the Pope is represented to be by our Author especially in his just dealing and mercifulness so That he never did any man wrong and shall take notice how many he hath caused to be burned to death for having and using the Bible without his consent must need suppose that it is his Book For surely his heavenly mind would not have admitted of a provocation to such severity unless they had stoln his goods out of his Possession But on the other side he that shall weigh aright his vilifying under-valuing of it his preferring himself and Church before and above it seeing we are all apt to set a high price upon that which is our own may be ready to question whether indeed he have such a property in it as is pretended Having somewhat else to do I shall not interpose my self in this difference nor attempt to determine this difficulty but leave it as I find it free for every man to think as he seeth cause 5. But that which is the chief ingredieet of these Sections is the plea that We know not the Scripture to be the word of God but by the Church that is the present Church of Rome which he manageth by urging sundry objections against it and difficulties which men meet withall in their enquiry whether it be so or no. Nor content with that plea alone he interweaves in his discourse many expressions and comparisons tending directly to the slighting and contempt both of its Penmen and Matter which is said to be Laws Poems Sermons Histories Letters Visions several fancies in a diversity of composure the whole a book whereby men may as well prove their negative in denying the immortality of the soul heaven or hell or any other thing which by reason of many intricacies are very difficult if not impossible at all to be understood see p. 190 191 192 c. Concerning all which I desire to know whether our Author be in good earnest or no or whether he thinks as he writes or whether he would only have others to believe what he writes that he may serve his turn upon their credulity If
used in the late times to say of the Excommunication in Scotland He would not care for their Devil were it not for his horn and I suppose had not Papal Excommunication been alwayes attended with Warrs Bloud Seditions Conspiracies Depositions and Murders of Kings Fire and Faggot according to to the extent of their Power it would have been lesse effectual then our Author pretends it to have been Sir do but give Christians the liberty that Christ hath purchased for them lay down your carnal weapons your Whips Racks Prisons Halters Swords Faggots with your Unchristian Subtilties Slanders and fleshly Machinations and we and you shall quickly see what will become of your Papall Peace and Power These are the goodly Principles the honest Suppositions of the discourse which our Author ends his Third Book withal It could not but have been a tedious thing to take them up by pieces as they lie scattered up and down like the limbs of Medea's Brother cast in the way to retard her persuers The Reader may now take a view of them together and thence of all that is offer'd to perswade him to a relinquishment of his present profession and Religion For the Stories Comparisons Jests Sarcasms that are intermixed with them I suppose he will know how to turn them to another use Some very few particulars need only to be remarked As 1. No man can say what ill Popery did in the world untill Henry the Eighths dayes Strange when it is not only openly accused but proved guilty of almost all the evill that was in the Christian world in those dayes particularly of corrupting the Doctrine and Worship of the Gospel and debauching the lives of Christians 2. With the Roman Catholicks unity ever dwelt Never The very name of Roman Catholick appropriating Catholicism to Romanism is destructive of all Gospel-unity 3. Some Protestants say they love the Persons of the Romanists but hate their Religion the Reason is plain they know the one and not the other No they know them both And the pretence that people are kept with as from knowing what the Religion of the Romanists is is vain untrue and as to what colour can possibly be given unto it such an infant in comparison of that vast Giant which of the same kind lives in the Romish Territories that it deserves not to be mentioned 4. Protestants are beholding to the Catholicks that is Romanists for their Universities Benâ—fices Books Pulpits Gospel For some of them not all For the rest as the Israelites were to the Aegyptians for the Tabernacle they built in the Wilderness 5. The Pope was antiently believed sole Judge and general Pastor over all Prove it ask the antient Fathers and Councils whether they ever heard of any such thing they will universally return their answer in the Negative 6. The Scripture you received from the Pope Not at all as hath been proved but from Christ himself by the Ministry of the first planters of Christianity 7. You cannot believe the Scriptures to be the word of God but upon the Authority of the Church We can and do upon the authority of God himself and the influence of the Churches Ministry or Authority into our believing concerns not the Church of Rome 8. You account them that brought you the Scriptures as lyars No otherwise then as the Scripture affirms every man to be so not in their Ministry wherein they brought the Word unto us 9. The Gospel separate from the Church can prove nothing Yes it 's self to be sent of God and so doing is the foundation of the Church Sundry other passages of the like nature might be remarked if I could imagine any man would judge them worthy of consideration CHAP. XII Story of Religion THe fourth and last part of our Author Discourse is spent in two Stories one of Religion the other of himself His first of Religion is but a summary of what was diffused through the others parts of his Treatise being insinuated piece-meal as he thought he could make any advantage of it to his purpose Two things he aims to make his Readers believe by it First That we in these Nations had our Religion from Rome And secondly That it was the same which is there now professed Those whom he tels his Tale unto are as he professeth such as are ignorant of the coming into and progress of Religion amongst us wherein he deals wisely and as became him seeing he might easily assure himself that those who are acquainted before his Information with the true state of these things would give little credit to what he nakedly averrs upon his own Authority For my part I shall readily acknowledg that for ought appears in this Book he is a better Historian then a Disputant and hath more reason to trust to his faculty of telling a Tale than managing of an Argument I confess also that a slight and superficial view of Antiquity especially as flourished over by some Roman-Legendaries is the best advantage our Adversaries have to work on as a thorough Judicious search of it is fatal to their pretensions He that from the Scriptures and the Writings extant of the first Centuries shall frame a true Idea of the State and Doctrine of the first Churches and then observe the adventitious accessions made to Religion in the following ages partly by mens own inventions but chiefly by their borrowing from or imitation of the Jews and Pagans will need very little light or help from artificial Arguments to discover the defections of the Roman-Party and the true means whereby that Church arrived unto its present condition To persue this at large is not a work to be undertaken in this seambling chase It hath been done by others and those who are not unwilling to be at the cost and pains in the disquisition of the Truth which it is really worth may easily know where to find it Our present task is but to observe our Author's motions and to consider whether what he offers hath any efficacy towards that he aims at A triple Conversion he assigns to this Nation The first by Joseph of Arimathea about which as to matter of fact we have no contest with him That the Gospel was preached here in the Apostles daies either by him or some other Evangelist is certain and taken for granted on all hands nor can our Author pretend that it came hither from Rome but grants it to have come immediately from Palestine Whether this doth not overthrow the main of his plea in his whole Discourse concerning our dependance upon Rome for our Religion I leave to prudent men to judge Thus farr then we are equal As the Gospel came to Rome so it came to England to both from the same place and by the same Authority the same Ministry All the question is Whether Religion they brought with them that now professed in England or that of Rome If this be determined the business is at an issue We are perswaded Joseph
those things but only in that Tyrannical usurpation of the Popes and irregular devotions of some Votarys which latter ages produced CHAP. XIII Reformation THe story of the Reformation of Religion he distributes into three parts and allots to each a particular Paragraph the first is of its occasion and rise in general the second of its entrance into England the third of its progresse amongst us Of the first he gives us this account The pastor of Christianity upon some sollicitation of Christian Princes for a general compliance to their design sent forth in the year 1517. a plenary Indulgence in favour of the Cruciata against the Turk Albertus the Archbishop of Ments being delegated by the Pope to see it executed committed the promulgation of it to the Dominican Fryers which the Hermits of St. Augustine in the same place toâ—k ill especially Martin Luther c. Who vexed that he was neglected and undervalued fell a-writing and preaching first against Indulgencies then against the Pope c. He that had no other acquaintance with Christian Religion but what the Scriptures and antient Fathers will afford him could not buâ— be amazed at the canting Language of this Story it being impossible for him to understand any thing of it aright He would admire who this Pastor of Christianity should be what this plenary Indulgence should mean what was the preaching of plenary indulgence by Dominicans and what all this would avail against the Turk I cannot but pitty such a poor man to think what a loss he would be at like one taken from home and carried blindfold into the midst of a Wildernesse where when he opens his eies every thing scares him nothing gives him guidance or direction Let him turn again to his Bible and Fathers of the first â—or 500 years and I will undertake he shall come off from them as wise as to the true understanding of this story 〈◊〉 he went unto them The Scene in Religion is plainly changed and this appearance of an Universal Pastor Plenary indulgeâ—â—es Dominicans and Cruciata's all marching against the Turk must needs affright a man accustomed only to the Scripture-notions of Religion and those embraced by the Primitive Church And I do know that if such a man could get together two or three of the wisest Romanists in the world which were the likeliest way for him to be resolved in the signification of these hard names they would never well agree to tell him what this plenary Indulgence is But for the present as to our concernment let us take these things according to the best understanding which their framers and founders have been pleased to give us of them the Story intended to be â—old was indeed neither so nor so There was no such solicitation of the Pope by Christian Princes at that time as is pretended no Cruciata against the Turk undertaken no attempt of that nature ensued not a penny of indulgence-Money laid out to any such purpose But the short of the matter is that the Church of Mentz being not able to pay for the Archiepiscopal Pall of Albertus from Rome having been much exhausted by the purchase of one or two for other Bishops that died suddenly before the Pope grants to Albert a number of pardons of to say the truth I know not what to be sold in Germany agreeing with him that one half of the gain he would have in his own right and the other for the pall Now the Pope's Merchants that used to sell pardons for him in former dayes were the Preaching friers who upon Holy-dayes and Festivals were wont to let out their ware to the people and in plain terms to cheat them of their money and well had it been if that had been all What share in the dividend came to the venders well I know not probably they had a proportion according to the commodity that they put off which stirred up their zeal to be earnest and diligent in their work Among the rest one Fryer Tecel was so warm in his imployment and so intent upon the main end that they had all in their eye that Preaching in or about Wittenberg it sufficed him not in general to make an offer of the pardon of all sins that any had committed but to take all scruples from their Consciences coming to particular instances carryed them up to a cursed blasphemous supposition of ravishing the blessed Virgin so cocâ—sure he made of the forgiveness of any thing beneath it Provided the price were paid that was set upon the pardon Sober men being much amazed and grieved at these horrible impieties one Martin Luther a Professor of Divinity at Wittenberg an honest warm zealous Soul set himself to oppose the Fryers Blasphemies wherein his zeal was commended by all his discretion by few it being the joynt-opinion of most that the Pope would quickly have stopped his mouth by breaking his neck But God as it afterwards appeared had another work to bring about and the time of entring upon it was now fully come At the same time that Luther set himself to oppose the pardons in Germany Zwinglius did the same Switzerland And both of them taking occasion from the work they first engaged in to search the Scriptures so to find out the Truth of Religion which they discovered to be horribly abused by the Pope and his Agents proceeded farther in their discovery then at first they were aware of Many Nations Princes and people multitudes of learned and pious men up and down the world that had long groaned under the bondage of the Papal yoke and grieved for the horrible abuse of the worship of God which they were forced to see and endure hearing that God had stirred up some learned men seriously to oppose those corruptions in Religion which they saw and mourned under speedily either countenanced them or joyned themselves with them It fell out indeed as it was morally impossible it should be otherwise that multitudes of learned men undertaking without advising or consulting one with another in several farr distant Nations the discovery of the Papal Errors and the Reformation of Religion some of them had different apprehensions and perswasions in and about some points of doctrine and parts of Worship of no great weight and importance And he that shall seriously consider what was the state of things when they began their work who they were how educated what prejudices they had to wrestle with and remember withall that they were all Men will have ten thousand times more cause to admire at their agreeement in all fundamentals then at their difference about some lesser things However whatever were their personal failings and infirmities God was pleased to give testimony to the uprighâ—ness and integrity of their hearts and to bless their endeavours with such success as answered in some measure the Primitive work of planting and propagating the Gospel The small sallies of our Author upon them in some legends about what Luther should say
or do deserve not the least notice from men who will seriously contemplate the hand power and wisdom of God in the work accomplished by them The next thing undertaken by our Author is the ingress of Protestancy into England and its progress there The old story of the love of King Henry the Eighth to Ann Bullen with the divorce of Queen Katharine told over and over long ago by men of the same principle and design with himself is that which he chooseth to flourish withall I shall say no more to the story but that English-men were not wont to believe the whispers of an unknown Fryer or two before the open redoubled Protestation of one of the most famous Kings that ever swaid the Scepter of this Land before the union of the Crowns of England and Scotland These men whatever they pretend shew what reverence they have to our present Soveraign by their unworthy defamation of his Royal Predecessors But let men suppose the worst they please of that great Heroick Person What are his miscarriages unto Protestant Religion for neither was he the Head Leader or Author of that Religion nor did he ever receive it profess it or embrace it but caused men to be burned to death for its profession Should 〈◊〉 by way of Retaliation return unto our Author the lives and practices of some of many not of the great or leading men of his Church but of the Popes themselves the Head sum and in a manner whole of their Religion at least so farre that without him they will not acknowledge any he knows well enough what double measure shaken together pressed down and running over may be returned unto him A work this would be I confess no way pleasing unto my self for who can delight in raking into such a sink of Filth as the lives of many of them have been yet because he seems to talk with a confidence of willingness to revive the memory of such ulcers of Christianity if he proceed in the course he hath begun it will be necessary to mind him of not boxing up his eyes when he looks towards his own home That Poysonings Adulteries Incests Conjurations Perjuries Atheism have been no strangers to that See if he knows not he shall be acquainted from stories that he hath no colour to except against For the present I shall only mind him and his friends of the Comaedian's advice Dehinc ut quiescunt porro mâ—neo desinant Maledicere malefactae ne noscant suâ— The declaration made in the days of that King that he was Head of the Church of England intended no more but that there was no other person in the world from whom any Jurisdiction to be exercised in this Church over his Subjects might be derived the Supreme Authority for all exterior Government being vested in him alone That this should be so the Word of God the nature of the Kingly Office and the antâ—ent Laws of this Realm do require And I challenge our Author to produce any one Testimony of Scripture or any one word out of any general Council or any one Catholick Father or Writer to give the least countenance to his assertion of two heads of the Church in his sense an head of Influence which is Jesus himself and an head of Government which is the Pope in whom all the sacred Hierarchy ends This taking of one half of Christs Rule and Headship out of his hand and giving it to the Pope will not be salved by that expression thrust in by the way under him For the Headship of influence is distinctly ascribed unto Christ and that of Government to the Pope which evidently asserts that he is not in the same manner head unto his Church in both these senses but He in one and the Pope in another But whatever was the cause or occasion of the dissention between King Henry and the Pope it 's certain Protestancy came into England by the same way and means that Christianity came into the World the painful pious Professors and Teachers of it sealed its truth with their bloud and what more honourable entrance it could make I neither know nor can it be declared Nor did England receive this Doctrine from others in the days of King Henry it did but revive that light which sprung up amongst us long before and by the fury of the Pope and his adherents had been a while suppressed And it was with the blood of English-men dying patiently and gloriously in the flames that the truth was sealed in the dayes of that King who lived and dyed himself as was said in the profession of the Roman faith The Truth flourished yet more in the dayes of his pious and hopefull Son Some stop our Author tels us was put to it in the dayes of Queen Mary But what stop of what kind of no other than that put to Christianity by Trajan Dioclesian Julian a stop by fire and sword and all exquisite cruelties which was broken through by the constant death and invincible patience and prayers of Bishops Ministers and People numberless a stop that Rome hath cause to blush in the remembrance of and all Protestants to rejoyce having their faith tryed in the fire and coming forth more pretious than Gold Nor did Queen Elizabeth as is falsly pretended indeavour to continue that stop but cordially from the beginning of her Reign embraced that faith wherein she had before been instructed And in the maintenance of it did God preserve her from all the Plots Conspiracies and Rebellions of the Papists Curses and Depositions of the Popes with Invasions of her Kingdomes by his instigation as also her renowned Successor with his whole Regal posterity from their contrivance for their Martyrdom and ruin During the Reign of those Royal and Magnificent Princes had the Power and Polity of the Papal world been able to accomplish what the men of this innocent and quiet Religion professedly designed they had not had the advantage of the late miscarriages of some professing the Protestant Religion in reference to our late King of glorious Memory to triumph in though they had obtained that which would have been very desirable to them and which we have but sorry evidence that they do not yet aim at and hope for As for what he declares in the end of his 10th Paragraph about the Reformation here that it followed wholly neither Luther nor Calvin which he intermixes with many unseemly taunts and reflexions on our Laws Government and Governours is as far as it is true the glory of it It was not Luther nor Calvin but the Word of God and the practise of the primitive Church that England proposed for her rule and pattern in her Reformation and where any of the Reformers forsook them she counted it her duty without reflexions on them or their wayes to walk in that safe one she had chosen out for her self Nor shal I insist on his next Paragraph destined to the advancement of his interest
beautiful and according to the mind of God If our Author be able to make a right Judgement of these things and find them really abounding amongst his party I hope we shall rejoyce with him though we knew the Spring of them is not their Popery but their Christianity For the outside-shews he hath as yet instanced in they ought not in the least to have influenced his Judgement in that disquisition of the Truth wherein he pretends he was engaged He could not of old have come amongst the Professors and Mystae of those false Religions which by the light and power of the Gospel are now banished out of the World where he should not have met with the same Vizards and appearances of Devotion so that hitherto we find no great discoveries in his Messach From the Worship of the Parties compared he comes to their Preaching and finds them as differing as their devotion The Preaching of Protestants of all sorts is sorry pittiful stuffe Inconsequent words senseless notions or at least Rhetorical flourishes make it up the Catholicks grave and pithy Still all this belongs to persons not things Protestants preach as well as they can and if they cannot preach so well as his wiser Romanists it is their unhappiness not their fault But yet I have a little reason to think that our Author is not altogether of the mind that here he pretends to be of but that he more hates and fears then despises the Preaching of Protestants He knows well enough what mischief it hath wrought his Party though prejudice will not suffer him to see what good it hath done the world and therefore doubting as I suppose lest he should not be able to prevail with his Readers to believe him in that which he would fain it may be but cannot believe himself about the excellency of the Preaching of his Catholicks above that of Protestants he decryes the whole work as of little or no use or concernment in Christian Religion This it had been fair for him to have openly pleaded and not to have made a flourish with that which he knew he could make no better work of Nor is the preaching of the Protestants as is pretended unlike that of the Antients The best and most famous Preacher of the antient Church whose Sermons are preserved was Chrysostom We know the way of his proceding in that work was to open the words and meaning of his Text to declare the Truth contained and taught in it to vindicate it from Objections to confirm it by other Testimonies of Scripture and to apply all unto practise in the close And as farr as I can observe this in general is that method used by Protestants being that indeed which the very nature of the work dictates unto them wherefore mistrusting lest he should not be able to bring men out of love with the Preaching of Protestants in comparison of the endeavours of his Party in the same kind he turns himself another way and labours to perswade us as I said that preaching its self is of little or no use in Christian Religion for so he may serve his own design he cares not it seems openly to contradict the practise of the Church of God ever since there was a Church in the world To avoid that Charge he tells us That the Apostles and Apostolical Churches had no Sermons but all their Preaching was meerly for the Conversion of men to the faith and when this was done there was an end of their preaching and for this he instanceth in the Sermons mentioned in the Acts ch 2 3 5 10 7 8 13 14 16 18 19 20 22 24 26 28. I wonder what he thinks of Christ himself whether he preached or no in the Temple or in the Synagogues of the Jews and whether the Judaical Church to whose Members he preached were not then a true yea the only Church in the world and whether Christ was not anointed and sent to preach the Gospel to them If he know not this he is very ignorant if he doth know it he is somewhat that deserves a worse name To labour to exterminate that out of the Religion of Christ which was one of the chief works of Christ for we do not read that he went up and down singing Mass though I have heard of a Fryer that conceived that to be his imployment is a work unbecoming any man that would count himself wronged not to be esteemed a Christian. But what ever Christ did it may be it matters not the Apostles and Apostolical Churches had no Sermons but only such as they preached to Infidels and Jews to convert them that is they did not labour to instruct men in the knowledge of the mysteries of the Gospel to build them up in their Faith to teach them more and more the good knowledg of God revealing unto them the whole counsel of his will And is it possible that any man who hath ever read over the New Testament or any one of Paul's Epistles should be so blinded by prejudicies and made so confident in his assertions as to dare in the face of the Sun whilst the Bible is in every ones hand to utter a matter so devoid of truth and all colour or pretence of probability Methinks men should think it enough to sacrifice their consciences to their Moloch without casting wholly away their reputation to be consumed in the same flames It is true the design of the story of the Acts being to deliver unto us the progress of the Christian faith by the Ministry of the Apostles insists principally on those Sermons which God in an especial manner blessed to the conversion of souls and encrease of the Church thereby but Is there therefore no mention made of Preaching in it to the edification of their Converts or Is there no mention of Preaching unless it be said that such a one preached at such a time so long on such a Text When the people abode in the Apostles Doctrine Acts 2.42 I think the Apostle taught them And the Ministry of the Word which they gave themselves unto was principally in reference unto the Church Ch. 7.4 So Peter and John preached the Word to those whom Philip had converted at Samaria Ch. 18.25 A whole year together Paul and Barnabas assembled themselves together with the Church of Antioch and taught much people Ch. 12.26 At Troas Paul preached unto them who came together to break bread that is the Church until midnight Ch. 20.7 9. which why our Author calls a dispute or what need of a dispute there was when only the Church was assembled neither I nor he do know And ver 20. 27. he declares that his main work and employment was constant Preaching to the Disciples and Churches giving commands to the Elders of the Churches to do the same And what his practice was during his imprisonment at Rome the close of that book declares And these not footsteps but express examples of and precepts
to whom her Son hath committed the administration of Mercy keeping that of Justice to himself with many other the like horrid blasphemies which he shall hear more of if he desire it But in stead of this difficult task he takes up one which it seems he looked on as far easier falsly to accuse Protestants of blaspheming her We usually smile in England at a short answer that one is said to have given Bellarmine's works I hope I may say without offence that if it were not uncivil it might suffice for an answer to this Paragraph But though most men will suppose that our Author hath overshot himself and gone too far in his Charge he himself thinks he hath not gone far enough as well knowing there are some bounds which when men have passed their only course is to set a good face upon the matter and to dare on still Wherefore to convince us of the truth of what he had delivered concerning Protestants reviling and blaspheming the blessed Virgin he tels us that it is no wonder seeing some of them in forrain parts have uttered words against the very honour of Jesus Christ himself To make this good Calvin is placed in the Van who is said to taunt at His ignorance and passion and too much haste for his breakfast when he curst the figtree who if as is pretended he had studyed Catholick Divines they would have taught him a more modest and pious interpretation It is quite beside my purpose and nature of the present discourse to recite the words of private men and to contend about their sense and meaning I shall therefore only desire the Reader that thinks himself concerned in this report to consult the place in Calvin pointed unto and if he finds any such taunts as our Author mentions or any thing delivered concerning our Lord Christ but what may be confirmed by the Judgement of all the antient Fathers and many learned Romanists I will be content to lose my reputation with him for any skill in judging at the meaning of an Author But what thoughts he will think meet to retain for this informer I leave to himself What Catholick Divines Calvin studyed I know not but I am sure if some of those whom his adviser accounts so had not studyed him they had never stole so much out of his Comments on the Scripture as they have done The next primitive Protestants that are brought in to make good this charge are Servetus Gibraldus Lasmaninus and some other Anti-trinitarian Hereticks in opposition to whose errors both in their first rise and after-progress under the management of Faustus Socinus and his followers Protestants all Europe over have laboured far more abundantly and with far greater success then all his Roman-Catholicks It seems they must now all pass for primitive Protestants because the interest of the Catholick-cause requires it should be so This is a communicable branch of Papal Omnipotency to make things and persons to be what they never were From them a return is made again to Luther Brentius Calvin Swinglius who are said to nibble at Arianism and shoot secrets darts at the Trinity though all impartial men must needs confess that they have asserted and proved the Doctrine of it far more solidly then all the Schoolmen in the world were able to do But the main weight of the discourse of this Paragraph lies upon the prety tale in the close of it about a Protestant Bishop and a Catholick Boy which he must be a very Cato that can read without smiling It is a little too long to transcribe and I cannot tell it over again without spoyling of it having never had that faculty in gilding of little stories wherein our Author excelleth The sum is that the boy being reproved by the Bishop for saying a Prayer to her boggled at the repetition of her name when he came to repeat his Creed and cryed My Lord here she is again what shall I do with her now To whom the Bishop replyed You may let her passe in your Creed but not in your Prayers Whereupon our Author subjoyns as though we might have Faith but neither Hope nor Charity for her Certainly I suppose my Countrimen cannot but take it ill that any man should suppose them such stupid blockheads as to be imposed on with Sophistry that they may feel through a pair of Mittens Tam vacui capitis populum Phaeaca putasti For my part I can scarce think it worth the while to relieve men that will stoop to so naked a lure But that I may pass on I will cast away one word which nothing but gross stupidity can countenance from needlesseness The blessed Virgin is mentioned in the Creed as the person of whom our Saviour was born and we have therefore faith for her that is we believe that Christ was born of her but do we therefore believe in her Certainly no more then we do in Pontius Pilate concerning whom we believe that Christ was crucified under him A bare mention in the Creed with reference to somewhat else believed in is a thing in its self indifferent and we see occasionally befell the best of Women and one of the worst of Men and what Hope and Charity should we thence conclude that we ought to have for her We are past charitable hopes that she is for ever blessed in heaven having full assurance of it But if by Hope for her he means the placing of our hope trust and confidence in her so as to pray unto her as his meaning must be how well this follows from the place she hath in the Creed he is not a man who is not able to judge CHAP. XVII Images SECT 24. THe next excellency of the roman-Roman-Church which so exceedingly delighted our Author in his travails is their Images It was well for him that he travailed not in the days of the Apostles nor for 4 or 500 years after their decease Had he done so and in his choice of a Religion would have been influenced by Images and Pictures he had undoubtedly turned Pagan or else a Gnostick for those pretended Christians indeed wretches worse then Pagans as Epiphanius informes us had got Images of Christ which they said were made in the dayes of Pontius Pilate if not by him Their Temples being richly-furnished and adorned with them whilst Christian Oratories were utterly destitute of them To forward also his inclination he would have found them not the representations of ordinary men but of famous Hero's renowned throughout the whole World for their noble acchievements and inventions of things necessary to humane life and those pourtrayed to the life in the performance of those actions which were so useful to mankind and by which they had stirred up just admiration of their virtue in all men Moreover he would have found their learned men profound Philosophers devout Priests and Virgins contemning the Christians for want of those helps to devotion towards God which in those Images they
But we have other things yet pleaded as the Example of the Hebrew Church who neither in the time of Moses nor after translated the Scripture into the Syriack yea the book was privately kept in the Ark or Tabernacle not touched or looked on by the people but brought forth at times to the Priest who might upon the Sabbath day read some part of it to the people and put them in mind of their Laws Religion and Duty I confess in this passage I am compelled to suspect more of ignorance then fraud notwithstanding the flourishing made in the distribution of the old Testament into the Law Prophets and Hâ—giography For first as to the Translation of the Scripture by the Jews into the Syriack Tongue to what purpose doth he suppose should this be done it could possibly be for no other than that for which his Masters keep the Bible in Latine I suppose he knows that at least until the Captivity when most of the Scripture was written the Hebrew and not the Syriack was the vulgar language of that people It 's true indeed that some of the noble and chief men that had the transaction of affairs with Neigbhour-Nations had learned the Syriack language toward the end of their Monarchy but the body of the people were all ignorant of it as is expresly declared 2 Kings 18.26 To what end then should they translate the Scripture into that Language which they knew not out of that which alone they were accustomed to from their infancy wherein it was written Had they done so indeed it would have been a good argument for the Romanists to have kept it in Latine which their people understand almost as well as the Jews did Syriack I thought it would never have been questioned but that the Judaical Church had enjoyed the Scripture of the Old Testament in their own vulgar language and that without the help of a Translation But we must not be confident of any thing for the future For the present this I know that not only the whole Scripture that was given the Church for its use before the Captivity was written in the Tongue that they all spake and understood but that the Lord sufficiently manifests that what he speaks unto any he would have it delivered unto them in their own Language and therefore appointing the Jews what they should say unto the Chaldean Idolaters he expresseth his mind in the Caldee Tongue Jerem. 10.11 Where alone in the Scripture there is any use made of a Dialect distinct from that in vulgar use and that because the words were to be spoken unto them to whom that Dialect was vulgar And when after the Captivity the people had learned the Caldee Language some parts of some books then written are therein expressed to shew that it is not this or that Language which on its own account is to confine the compass of Holy Writ but that that or those are to be used which the people who are concerned in it do understand But what Language soever it was in it was kept privately in the Arâ— or Tabernacle not touched not looked upon by the people but brought forth at times to the Priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what Book was kept in the Ark the Law Prophets and Hagiography who told you so A Copy of the Law indeed or Pentateuch was by God's command put in the side of the Ark Deut. 31.26 That the Prophets or Hagiography were ever placed there is a great mistake of our Author but not so great as that that follows that the Book placed in the side of the Ark was brought forth for the Priest to read in on the Sabbath days when as all men know the Ark was placed in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Tabernacle and Temple which only the High Priest entred and that once a a year and that without liberty of bringing any thing out which was in it for any use whatever And his mistake is grossest of all in imagining that they had no other copies of the Law or Scripture but what was so laid up in the side of the Ark. The whole people being commanded to study in it continually and the King in special to writeout a Copy of it with his own hand Deut. 17.18 out of an Authentick Copy yea they were to take sentences out of it to write them on their fringes and posts of their doors and houses and on their gates all to bind them to a constant use of them So that this Instance on very many accounts was unhappily stumbled on by our Author who as it seems knows very little of these things He was then evidently in haste or wanted better provision when on this vain surmise he proceeds to the encomiums of his Catholick Mother's indulgence to her children in leaving of the Scripture in the hands of all that understand Greek and Latin how little a portion of her family and to a declamation against the preaching and disputing of men about it with a commendation of that reverential ignorance which will arise in men from whom the means of their better instruction is kept at a distance Another Discourse we have annexed to prove That the Bible cannot be well translated and that it loseth much of its grace and sweetness arising from a peculiarity of Spirit in its writers by any Translation whatever I do for my part acknowledg that no Translation is able in all things universally to exhibit that fulness of sense and secret vertue to intimate the Truth it expresseth to the mind of a believer wâ—â— is in many passages of Scripture in its Original Languages but how this will further the Romanists pretensions who have enthroned a TranslatioÌ„ for the use of their whole Church and that none of the best neither but in many things corrupt and barbarous I know not Those who look on the Tongues wherein the Scripture was Originally written as their Fountains if at any time they find the streams not so clear or not to give so sweet a rellish as they expected are at liberty if able to repair to the fountains themselves But those who reject the Fountains and betake themselves to one only stream for ought I know must abide by their own inconveniencies without complaining To say the Bible cannot be well translated and yet to make use principally at least of a Translation with an undervaluing of the Originals argues no great consistency of Judgement or a prevalency of Interest That which our Author in this matter sets off with a handsome flourish of words and some very unhandsome similitudes considering what he treats of he sums up p. 283. in these words I would by all say thus much The Bible Translated out of its own Sacred phrase into a prophane and Common one loseth both its propriety and amplitude of meaning and is likewise devested of its peculiar Majesty Holiness and Spirit which is reason enough if no other why it should be kept inviolate in its own style and
speech So doth our Author advance his Wisdom and Judgment above the Wisdom and Judgment of all Churches and Nations that ever embraced the Faith of Christ for a 1000 years all which notwithstanding what there is of truth in any of his insinuations judged it their duty to translate the Scripture into their Mother Tongues very many of which Translations are extant even to this day Besides he concludes with us in general ambiguors terms as all along in other things his practice hath been What means he by the Bible's own Sacred phrase opposed to a prophane and common one Would not any man think that he intended the Originals wherein it was written but I dare say if any one will ask him privately he will give them another account and let them know that it is a Translation which he adorns with those Titles so that upon the matter he tells us that seeing the Bible cannot be without all the inconveniences mentioned it 's good for us to lay aside the Originals and make use only of a Translation or at least preferre a Translation before them What shall we do with those men that speak such Swords and Daggers and are well neither full nor fasting that like the Scripture neither with a Translation nor without it Moreover I fear he knows not well what he means by its own Sacred phrase and a prophane common one Is it the Syllables and words of this or that language that he intends How comes one to be Sacred another prophane and common The languages wherein the Scriptures were originally written have been put to as bad uses as any under Heaven nor is any Language prophane or common so as that the Worship of God performed in it should not be accepted with him That there is a frequent loss of Propriety and amplitude of meaning in Translations we grant That the Scriptures by Translations if good true and significant according to the capacity and expressiveness of the Languages whereinto they are translated are divested of the Majesty Holiness and Spirit is most untrue The Majesty Holiness and Spirit of the Scriptures lyes not in words and Syllables but in the Truths themselves expressed in them and whilest these are incorruptedly declared in any language the Majesty of the Word is continued It is much that men preferring a Translation before the Originals should be otherwise minded especially that Translation being in some parts but the Translation of a Translation and that the most corrupt in those parts which I know extant And this with many fine words prety Allusions and Similitudes is the sum of what is pleaded by our Author to perswade men to forgo the greatest priviledg which from Heaven they are made partakers of the most necessary radical duty that in their whole lives is incumbent on them It is certain that the giving out of the holy Scripture from God is an effect of infinite love and mercy I suppose it no less certain that the end for which he gave it was that men by it might be instructed in the knowledge of his will and their obedience that they owe unto him that so at length they may come to the enjoyment of him This it self declares to be its end I think also that to know God his mind and Will to yield him the obedience that he requires is the bounden duty of every man as well as to enjoy him is their blessedness And can they take it kindly of those who would shut up this gift of God from them whether they will or no or be well pleased with them that go about to perswade them that it is best for them to have it kept by others for them without their once looking into it If I know them aright this Gentleman will not find his Countrey-men willing to part with their Bibles on such easie tearms From the Scripture concerning which he affirmeth That it lawfully may and in reason ought and in practise ever hath been segregated in a language not common to vulgar ears all which things are most unduly affirmed and because we must speak plainly falsly he proceeds to the worship of the Church and pleads that that also ought to be performed in such a language It were a long and tedious business to follow him in his guilding over this practise of his Church we may make short work with him As he will not pretend that this practise hath the least countenance from Scripture so if he can instance in any Church in the world that for 500 years at least after it set out in the use of a Worship the Language whereof the people did not understand I will cease this contest What he affirms of the Hebrew Church keeping her Rites in a language differing from the Vulgar whether he intend before or after the Captivity is so untrue as that I suppose no ingenious man would affirm it were he not utterly ignorant of all Judaical Antiquity which I had cause to suspect before that our Author is From the dayes of Moses to the captivity of Babylon there was no Language in vulgar use among the people but only that wherein the Scripture was written and their whole Worship celebrated After the captivity though insensibly they admitted corruptions in their language yet they all generally understood the Hebrew unless it were the Hellenists for whose sakes they translated the Scripture into Greek and for the use of the residue of their people who began to take in a mixture of the Syro-Chaldean Language with their own the Targum were found out Besides to the very utmost period of that Church the solemn Worship performed in the Temple as to all the interest of words in it was understood by the whole people attending on God therein And in that language did the Bible lye open in their Synagogues as is evident from the offer made by them to our Saviour of their Books to read in at his first entrance into one at Capernaum These flourishes then of our Orator being not likely to have the least effect upon any who mind the Apostololical advice of taking heed lest they be beguiled with inticing words we shall not need much to insist upon them This custom of performing the Worship of God in the Congregation in a Tong unknown to the Assembly renders he tells us that great act more majestick and venerable but why he declares not A blind veneration of what men understand not because they understand it not is neither any duty of the Gospel nor any part of its Worship St. Paul tells us he would pray with the Spirit and pray with Understanding also of this Majestick shew and blind Veneration of our Author Scripture Reason Experience of the Saints of God Custom of the Antient Churches know nothing Neither is it possible to preserve in men a perpetual veneration of they know not what nor if it could be preserved is it a thing that any way belongs to Christian Religion Nor can any
be made a Topick for these ends and purposes that is that indeed that is of no use in Religion The trouble and comfort of it are by a due mixture so allaid as to their proper qualities that they can have no operation upon the minds of men to sway them one way or other Had some of our Forefathers been so far illuminated all things had not been at the state wherein they are at this day in the Papacy but it may be much more is not to be expected from it and therefore it may now otherwise be treated than it was yerst-while when it was made the sum and substance of Religion However the time will come when this Platonical Signet that hath no colour from Scripture but is opposite to the clear testimonies of it repugnant to the grace truth and mercy of God destructive to the mediation of Christ useless to the souls of men serving only to beget false fears in some few but desperate presumptions from the thoughts of an after-reserve and second venture after this life is ended in the most abused to innumerable other Superstitions utterly unknown to the first Churches and the Orthodox Bishops of them having by various means and degrees crept into the Roman-Church which shall be laid open if called for shall be utterly exterminated out of the confines and limits of the Church of God In the mean time I heartily beg of our Romanists that they would no more endeavour to cast men into real scorching consuming fire for refusing to believe that which is only imaginary and phantastical CHAP. XXII Pope SECT 29. IT is not because the Pope is forgotten all this while that he is there placed in the rear after Images Saints and Purgatory It is plain that he hath been born in mind all along yea and so much mentioned that a man would wonder how he comes to have a special Paragraph here alloted to him The whole book seems to be all-Pope from the very beginning as to the main design of it and now to meet Pope by himself again in the end is somewhat unexpected But I suppose our Author thinks he can never say enough of him Therefore lest any thing fit to be insisted on should have escaped him in his former discourses he hath designed this Section to gather up the Paralipomena or ornaments he had forgotten before to set him forth withall And indeed if the Pope be the man he talks of in this Section I must acknowledge he hath had much wrong done him in the world He is one it seems that we are beholding unto for all we have that is worth any thing particularly for the Gospel which was originally from him for Kingly Authority and his Crown land with all the honour and power in the Kingdom One that we had not had any thing left us at this day either of Truth or Unity humanely speaking had not he been set over us One in whom Christ hath no lesse shewen his Divinity and Power than in himself in whom he is more miraculous then he was in his own person One that by the only Authority of his place and person defended Christ's being God against all the world without which humanely speaking Christ had not been taken for any such person as he is believed this day So as not only we but Christ himself is beholding to him that any body believes him to be God Now truly if things stand thus with him I think it is hightime for us to leave our Protestancy and to betake our selves to the Irish mans Creed That if Christ had not been Christ when he was Christ St. Patrick the Pope would have been Christ. Nay as he is having the hard fate to come into the World so many ages after the Ascension of Christ into heaven I know not what is left for Christ to be or do The Scripture tells us that the Gospel is Christ's originally from him now we are told It is the Popes originally from him That informes us that by Him the wisdom of God Kings Reign and Princes execute Judgement now we are taught That Kingly Authority with his Crown-land is from the Pope That instructs us to expect the preservation of Faith and Truth in the world from Christ alone the establishment of his Throne and Kingdom for ever and ever His building guidance and protection of his Church but we are now taught that for all these things we are beholding to the Pope who by his only Authority keeps up the faith of the Deity of Christ who surely is much ingaged to him that he takes it not to himself Besides what he is for our better information that we may judge aright concerning him we may consider also what he doth and hath been doing it seems a long time He is one that hath never been known to let fall the least word of passion against any nor move any engine for revenge one whose whole life and study is to defend innocence c. That by his general Councels all held under and by him especially that of Nice hath done more good than can be expressed Careful and more than humanely happy in all ages in reconciling Christian Princes c. One who let men talk what they will if he be not an unerring guide in matters of Religion and Faith all is lost But how shall we come to know and be assured of all this Other men as our Author knows and complains speak other things of him Is it meet that in so doubtful and questionable a business and of so great importance to be known we should believe a stranger upon his word and that against the vehement affirmations at least of so many to the contrary The Scripture speaks never a word that we can find of him nor once mentions him at all The antient Stories of the Church are utterly silent of him as for any such person as he is here described speaking of the Bishop of Rome as of other Bishops in those dayes many of the Stories of after-ages give us quite another Character of him both as to his personal qualifications and imployment I mean of the greatest part of the series of men going under that name In stead of Peace-making and Reconciliation they tell us of fierce and cruel warrs stirred up and mannaged by them of the ruine of Kings and Kingdoms by their means and instead of the meekness pretended their breathing out threatnings against men that adore them not persecuting them with Fire and Sword to the utter depopulation of some Countreys and the defiling of the most of Europe with bloudy cruelties What course shall we take in the contest of assertions that we may be able to make a right Judgment concerning him I know no better than this a little to examine apart the particulars of his Excellency as they are given us by our Author especially the most eminent of them and weigh whether they are given in according to truth or no. The first that