when this was don it had ceased again had not Presbyterian Anabaptist and Independent sprung out of the Puritan disturbed one another and all the land by the same stratagems Thus Haslerig and Vane two grand Puritans antient and mortal enemies both of them unto Roman catholicks when at length they fell out and jarred in this last Rump Parliament they did both in publick and private with the utmost rage imaginable object Popery to one another which they judged both of them to be both the extremest vilification could be cast upon any one and also most advantageous to him that objects it every mouth and book in the long Parliaments time said no less of the Kings army wherewith he defended himself that they were all Papists and Popishly affected all the adherents of Tectour Oliver after he had broken and shamefully dismist the long Parliament said the like of it the friends of the dissolved long Parliament which were a considerable part of the land asserted the like of Oliver and his souldiers and so did great store of good Protestants otherwise grave men say confidently that the red coat souldiers were all Jesuites and Papists and the same red coat soldiers both swindged and pillaged all the land upon the same account laying popery to us all and made us smart for it over and over as if the very notion and name of Popery had even turned our brains and made us all mad If we do but hear any one say of his neighbour that he is a Papist our blood rises presently against him whom we never saw and if we know him one we shall beleev any evil that is spoken of him be it never so incredible or even impossible and are apt to imagin and speak it our selves in any place A rational man would hardly beleev that som English men should report confidently even in Rome to the citisens there that the Parliament men and judges who murdered our good King here in England were most of them papists who indeed were all of them more profest enemies to the Papist or Catholick than to the King himself So that the malice of popery once taken away and as it expresses catholick religion it deserves none we should not know in our religious feudes what to object to one another for disparagement It would seem a strang thing if after all our warres and the mischiefs we have either done or intended one another upon the account of popery it should prove at last so good and sincere a religion that we can never more truly commend our neighbour than when we lay popery to his charg deservedly nor ever act greater iniquity than when we persecute him upon that account But indeed if popery be taken as it is now conceived for a fardel of iniquity fraud and treachery then it will least agree to them it is most put upon and is indeed proper only unto them who impose it upon others Hitherto I have endeavoured to take all men off from any basis of private interpretation reason or light within themselvs whereupon they may raise a new religion and wars and broils to maintain it against the Church out of which they sallied And by this the Independent loses his conceived advantage against the Presbyterian this his against the Protestant and the Protestant his against the Roman Catholick What we are to fix upon I have here and there intermingled although very sparingly and he told us it long ago who said If any will be my disciple let him deny himself Fourth Chapter All Religions who have opposition to the Catholick are equally innocent to one another as likewise is the Roman religion truly innocent and unblamable to them all §. 17. History of religion I Have proceeded hitherto with a kind of negligent carefulnes as I may so call it not lapping up my discours with pithy argumentations and a formal order but letting it flow loose and intermingled that it may delight all and withall profit any that will read seriously but now that these contents of my fourth chapter may connaturally appear unto the sight of every one I will to refresh my readers appetite a little leave even that method too and that he may discern of himself without any further discours of mine both how all the several wayes of religion here in England are equally innocent and withall that the Roman catholick is absolutely unblamable I will make a brief narration of the ingress and progress of Christianity in this land unto these present times and leav the concluding inference unto every mans own judgment Truth needs not the help of art and it s very natural appearance is the best argument can be made for it I know there be many eaglesighted men that are able to trace the proceedings of states and policy and religion from far yet becaus generally men live at home and see no further than the present which suffices nothing at all for judgment in these our turbulent affairs I must crave leav of those great heroes very briefly to run over that story which although they do well enough know already yet to the generality of Englishmen whom in this my discours I serv and labour for is so utterly unknown that they do not so much as dream of any such thing In the thirty fifth year of our Lord when Sulpitius Galba and Cornelius Sylla were consuls all the Christians in Jerusalem except only the apostles being disperst abroad upon that great persecution which cut off St. Stephen the Church of God did spread and propagate upon that occasion into several countries not only of Judea and Samaria but Phaenicia Cyprus Antioch Damascus and round about beyond the borders of Palestin At that time Lazarus Mary Magdalen Martha with Marcella her handmaid Maximin a disciple and Joseph of Arimathea that noble decurion against whom the Jews were more vehemently incensed were after much pillaging and many injurious affronts put together into a ship without sail in which notwithstanding by the conduct of that providence they worshiped they arrived safe at last in Marselles in France where Joseph of Arimathea so far companion of the common danger with them left them to divine protection and is said haply by means of some Brittish merchant in those coasts to have sailed thence into this our isle of Britanny where by the power of his words and holy life having converted many of our Brittons unto faith he ended his dayes the testimony of whose sanctity that strange thorn of Glasenbury abbey which grew green and flourished every Christmas day remained even to our times This story of a fact so long ago atchieved although it be obscured by that vicissitude of time which at length buries all things yet it servs so much as we have of it to shew that the religion he brought was catholick since the same antiquities that speak his arrival here and his conversion of people mention their erection of crosses shrines oratories altars monasteries and the like
FIAT LUX OR A general Conduct to a right understanding in the great Combustions and Broils about RELIGION here in ENGLAND Betwixt Papist and Protestant Presbyterian Independent To the end That Moderation and Quietnes may at length hapily ensue after so various Tumults in the Kingdom By Mr. J V C. a friend to men of all Religions Jam proximus ardet Vcalegon Tantaene animis coelestibus irae 1661. To the most Illustrious and most excellent Lady the Countess of Arundel and Surrey c. Madam IT often happens in Books what somtime in Children that although obscurely born they are by the benigne aspect of some great Person happily cast upon them entertained and bred up in princely pallaces and flourish as much by happy chance as they could have don by a greater birth I wish with all my heart that this little Off-spring of mine which coms running with a modest confidence to the feet of your glorious Vertues which have only moved it to such a boldnes may find favour in your eyes so that incouraged by the greatness of your Name it may chearfully go in and out conspicuous in the world and do the good my heart desireth To the end it may bear with it some possibility of acceptance both Madam with your Honour and with the world too I have to my power imprinted upon its forehead the general lineaments of noblenes Reason and Civillity But other Ornaments are so far wanting that it may not expect entertainment but where som great part of that Goodnes which hath rendred the Countess of Arundel so renowned and gracious may inhabite The Book carries no other intent but what a Person of Honour may own and its purpos written upon its face answers directly to its heart and spirit It would for sooth pacifie our rurall distempers about affairs of Religion and showes a Light that Madnes may see what it does where it mistakes and how irrationally it rages This is the very end and purpos of my Book laudable enough I may presume and not unworthy the Countenance of Honour were it accomplished with that art so good a purpos requireth Let your own excelling goodness Madam cover the other defects and graciously accept what I humbly offer a sincere though not very profound not a high and eloquent but which is harder in the rude distempers I am to deal withall a peaceable harmles well-meaning Book In my dark obscurity I dye daily but my ashes will joy If it should haply fall out that good be wrought in England unto the promoting of sobernes in any one by the Countess of Arundels FIAT LVX and so will those with me who may chance to receiv any satisfaction from this little Light be bound to your Ladiship whose countenance and favourable assistance has been the instrument of setting it forth wherein you shall ever oblige me to be Madam Your Honours most humble and most devoted Servant J V C. The Chapters First Page 19. THere is no colour of reason or just title may move us to quarrell and judge one another with so much heart about Religion Second Page 66. All things are so obscure that no man in prudence can so far presume of his own knowledge as to set up himself a guide in Religion to his neighbour Third Page 140. No religion or sect or way hath any advantage over another nor all of them over Popery Fourth Page 213. All religions who have opposition to the Catholick are equally innocent to one another as likewise is the Roman religion truly innocent and unblameable to them all Fifth Page 365. Morall topicks for charity and peace The Paragraffs § 1. DIversity of feuds pag. 19 § 2. Ground of quarrels p. 27 § 3. Nullity of title p. 34 § 4. Heats and resolution p. 48 § 5. Motives to moderation p. 54 § 6. Obscurity of God p. 66 § 7. Obscurity of nature p. 82 § 8. Item p. 90 § 9. Obscurity of Providence p. 106 § 10. Help p. 118 § 11. Reason p. 126 § 12. Light and Spirit p. 140 § 13. Puritan plea. p. 155 § 14. Protestant pro and con p. 170 § 15. Scripture p. 182 § 16. Appeal p. 198 § 17. History of religion p. 213 § 18. Item p. 223 § 19. Item p. 229 § 20. Item p. 235 § 21. Discovery p. 244 § 22. Messach p. 254 § 23. B. Virgin Mary p. 267 § 24. Images p. 272 § 25. Latin Service p. 280 § 26. Communion p. 292 § 27. Saints p. 303 § 28. Dirge p. 323 § 29. Pope p. 336 § 30. Popery p. 357 § 31. Conclusion p. 365 FIAT LUX Preface The motive matter and method of the Book THese twenty years of intestin wars and broils principally if not solely upon the account of Religion being now past and the tempest ceased upon the return of our great Pilot to whom such winds and seas ought to obey unto the government of his ship out of which our unruly passion cast him to our own great shame and ruin it is now high time for us to lay our hand upon our heart and be sober An irregular fire of zeal a meteor-lanthorn hath led us into lakes and precipices and there left us But God forbid that for the time to com we should any of us by such deceitfull lights be any more misled And this that we may all heed as it is the earnest desire of all good Christian spirits so is it the onely scope and endeavour of this little book which I humbly offer and present unto the hands of my Countrimen especially the gentler and more refined natures of whose favourable acceptance I do conceiv greater hopes than from any vulgar eye which expecting to read the old common places they are fore-acquainted with in the usual tract and method will I fear when they miss here of both like of nothing But gentlemen by the highnes of birth and greatnes of their education have put on other affections and do somtimes more heed a plain rationall discours unto a commendable end though destitute of all guard but its own single reason than the ordinary large retinue of autorities and texts which may indeed much strengthen and adorn a book but hinder a reader in his progres and generally they dislike any new book that differs no otherwise from former ones than a new moon from an old one These past times between 1640. and 1660. and the horrour of them wherin we were afraid even to think and that in our private closets I intend not here to speak of for posterity should I write true and fully would never beleev it and if fals or imperfectly the present age eywitnes of the truth would slight it Besides I would not willingly now offend any whom I have been aforetime so hugely afraid of Charity also towards my neighbour perswades me that the long Parliament and all their adherents had an appearance of som great good before their eyes which they were not able to wield
ever name it be intitled that transports as well those that are in the right as those that are in the wrong unto effects in every right judgement injurious and hatefull to the divine nature Not strangers but allies and friends and men otherwis of most agreeable natures under this colour of religion and by it becom first unsociable then uncharitable first half friends then full foes not for any harm either of word or deed but only a disparity of thoughts such thoughts too as concern not one another but onely pass betwixt man and his maker nor is it becaus one man will not but becaus he cannot think as another doth And God himself must patronise these our uncharitable divisions whiles purely for his sake we hate one another heartily we hate even to death such as otherwis be our dearest friends for his sake and upon his account who commands us to love our enemies and enmitie is our utmost profession in the mannaging of his Religion who told us himself that the fulfilling of his whole law is Love The primitive Christians were in all judgments good ones and yet their badge and practis quite contrary to ours theirs was love and peace even to the admiration of their enemies ours hatred and war even to the confusion of our friends they died for we by one another they by the vertue of their Religion cimented together who before by affection and blood stood far divided we by ours do separate in all we were before conjoined theirs made new friendship ours dissolves the old But when the honourable Lord Chancellour addes in the close This disquisition hath cost the King many a sigh many a sad-hour What honest heart would not at that word be ready to burst asunder Is that great princely innocence contristated by my self ruinous disorder Far be it from me to sadden that roiall breast in which the Almighty sits and swaies over me for my good My Reader be pleased to understand that I intend not directly in this my dicours to justifie or judg any opinion but only to show that wars and enmities upon such an account between neighbours is neither pious nor rationall But the acroamatick part which would prove our contentions about Religion to be irrationall fills up the book the moral which showes them to be unconformable to true piety and vertue is compendiously finished in the concluding paragraff And if I do let fall words that may favour any one opinion or way more than another it is only for this end that I may therby allay the heats of the other side which is intemperatly set against it more then any else if to depress any it is to abate the excessive both conceit we have of it and faction for it without any just caus that so the oppressed may be a little eased and raised up and the oppressor checkt by his own conscience which is the only way of introducing equallity of thoughts and unanimity amongst us And when we are once perswaded to think more moderately of that side we have hitherto hated and to discern som uncertainty in the other we so much doted of so that our affection may rise where before it was too low and where it was too high there begin to fall and that a smoothnes and equability may appear once in us then we shall be pretty well disposed to a right understanding and peace St. John Baptist the great precursor of the worlds Messias whose office was to prepare mankind to receiv him had nothing els to do for that purpos but only this very thing as if this kind of smoothnes and equability in mens affections were the best and only preparation unto the grace and peace of Jesus Christ within us The voice of a Crier in the desert saith the Prophet Isaias prepare the way of our Lord make the waies level every valley shall be raised up and every mountain and hill shall be brought down and crooked things shall become straight and rough make smooth and then all flesh shall see the salvation of God My matter is perceived by the prefixed generall contents of my five chapters 1. There is not any colour of reason or just title to move us to quarrell and judg one another with so much heat about Religion 2. All things are so obscure that no man in prudence can so far presume of his own knowledg as to set up himself a guide and leader to his neighbour in Religion 3. No Sect hath any advantage at all over another nor all of them together over Popery 4. All the serverall kinds of Religion here in England are equally innocent to one another and Popery as it stands in opposition to them is absolutely innocent and unblamable to them all 5. As there neither is nor can be any rationall motive for disputes and animosities about matters of Religion so is there an indispensable morall caus obliging us unto moderation if we either consider the various incommodities of hatred and rancour or the large sweetnes and convenience of charity and peace My method I do purposely conceal to keep therin a more handsom decorum for he that goes about to part a fighting fray cannot observ a method but must turn himself this way and that as occasion offers be it a corporal or mental duel So did good St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans which of all his other letters as it hath in it most of solidity so hath it least of method in the context The reason is becaus it was intended to allay som heats and feudes that were risen in Rome amongst the converted Jews and Gentiles there who began after their conversion to upbraid and disable one another as such childish heats will rise with their former unworthines The converted Jew esteemed himself the better man becaus his Nation was Gods chosen from the beginning out of which the Messias came and the Jews were in a continuall succession both before their conversion to Christianity and after it still Gods servants The converted Gentile on the other side maintained that he had notwithstanding the darkness of his condition so worthily behaved himself even by the meer light of reason that God was pleased of his love he therfore bore him to call him to the light of Gospel to serv that Lord of glory whom the Jews had crucified S. Paul to end this quarrell turns himself to and fro first on this side then on the other as occasion presented it self and finding the parties resolute in a question hard to decide as it was stated and both so deeply ingaged that they could not easily be reconciled that he might the better part them he knocks them both down and he dissipates all pretenses of their own worthines to the end they might both of them have recours to Gods mercy which was equally shewed to both and so have peace among them selves This is the occasion and end and summ of that Epistle which it seems our Ministers som of
you are able to bear upon your selvs even that you pretend you cannot look upon at a distance which is an odde kind of riddle The office of a priest and bishop which you say is onely to preach together with his state and means this you have not onely born very tamely these years of our confusion but earnestly thrust your selvs into it And is it not a strange tendernes to sweat under a burden which another man bears and not to be troubled at all when we bear it our selvs nay to thrust our selves into it their copes dislike you in the Church but in your own houses they make a goodly fine show and their very surplices pleas you well when they are next to your own skin What it was that the fox fell out with the lovely grapes it appeared afterward when they were seen griped so greedily within his teeth the only caus of his dislike and vehement invectivs against them was and a shrewd one it was that himself could not come at them Nay nay 't is the Popery 't is that we dislike If the fox could have spoke he would have called those grapes popish too for now adayes all that stands in our way and all that we would undermine and cannot immediately reach we cry out upon as popery which is a sound so inflames the vulgar ears that they all flock together at that alarm against father and mother Prince and neighbour Church and state without any further consideration to the assistance of that cunning wag who by that so taking a stratagem raised a publick help for the working of his own design The Popery you say you dislike This you may do without disturbing either your own or other mens peace there be a thousand thinks I dislike every day as I walk along through London streets which no prudence dictates me to check or seek to rectifie It is not the custom of a traveller and we are all pilgrims upon earth to cut up bushes or lop hedges that hang in their eyes as they pass but peaceably to go beside them without further nois or disquiet and if any should do otherwise he would be looked upon as a mad man and haply run himself into jeopardy but what if popery prove at length not to be any evil thing at all but good and pious how ever represented to us all this while as odious under the bug bear of that name I know you will startle at this word but you would not do so had you my experience Christ and his Christianity was long ago by such invectivs and ignominious appellations made as odious in the world as now it can possibly be under the name of popery insomuch that of the three Epicureans Christians and Atheists which were generally put together as a triplicity of abomination the professours of Christianity was ever put in the middle as the most impious of all the three not only in their lives but in their opinions and beleef and as such they were dealt with throughout all the Roman empire for three hundred years together whiles that empire was pagan contemned pillaged tortured as people of the most wicked profession the earth ever bore and all Europ wherein there were even then as many great wise heads and as morally honest persons as ever there were in the pagan world beleeved it such power hath a popular vogue once raised to the prejudice of any especially if autority do constantly conspire to their ruin It is not my purpose at this time either to oppugne popery or defend it for in oppugning it I may chance indeed to pleas som in defending it I am sure to pleas no body for the Catholicks although they know in general that by the name of papist and popery their persons and professions are aimed at yet what their adversary would express by popery when he objects it to them there is not one catholick in England understands If it be an expression of their religigion they have no rule for that but the gospel if of the superstitions idolatries murders treasons adulteries lyes pride gluttonies generally put upon them under that name they know no such religion And if popery should be proved in any part not good this of episcopacy and their decent ornaments may be no part of it that is naught nay whether it be any part of popery at all not we who do not know what popery is but they who profess it or at least profess a religion that is loaded with this name must judg and these do not acknowledg our Protestant Bishops or any of their rites if we mean by popery the religion they profess to be any popery at all Oh but if it be not popery 't is at least foppery and we will have it taken away Be it what it will have you peace within your self if it be any invention of man it will moulder away as mans inventions do if it be either instituted or approved of God who can resist him Be first assured what it is before you attempt to remove it and when you are resolved choose to do it no by tumult but by wayes of peace This prudent and honest method of proceeding in such cases as these is well set down by a Scribe or Justice of Peace amongst the Ephesians upon occasion of the like uproar There was made a loud cry of all the people saith the sacred text in the Acts of the Apostles as it were for two hours together crying out great is Diana of the Ephesians and every mans opinion is his Diana and when the clerk of the court had appeased the uproar he said Men of Ephesus what man is there amongst us that is ignorant that the City of the Ephesians is a worshipper of great Diana and the off-spring of Jove whereas therefor these things cannot be gain-said it behooves you to be quiet and to do nothing rashly Ye have brought hither men neither sacriligious nor blasphemers of your gods But if Demetrius and the artificers with him have aught against any one the courts are open and proconsuls ready let them accuse one another there if ye would any thing further in a lawful assembly it may be decided for we are in danger to be called in question for this dayes sedition whereas there is no one man in so great a tumult of whom we can give an account as authour of this concours Thus spake that wise pagan and the counsel is very good in all such cases whereof this of ours is one Oh but these bishops do captivate mens consciences and take away our Christian liberty they would force us to a belief and liking of their wayes Say you so then you may shake hands for you would force them and others to a liking of yours But we neither can nor will approve of them They neither can nor will assent to you They have no reason but their own pride The alledg pride to be all your reason The spirit and
much in that age as in the first when she took her faith from him that did manifestly so comport himself as if he would be taken for a God and promised his Church by the general spirit he would send her to teach her all truth and strengthen her therein against all opposition even to the consummation of the world which none but God or one exceeding near unto him could make good and if this were not performed the imposture was in the first beginning That building must needs stand firm that rests upon a Deity which hath influence upon the whole fabrick to keep it up and if it be not so kept up and conserved the Church doth but vainly flatter her self when she boasts of the divinity of her support if she fail in her doctrin and faith Christ is not God Whensoever therfor we read either in the Acts of the apostles or other ancient story of the conversion of a Kingdom or people unto the right religion of Christianity we still find it was done not by any private illumination of any one who living before in darknes with the rest was now secretly called to teach others but by a resignation unto a former doctrin brought from Christ by his missioners and preachers by submission to a truth delivered to them from without not rising up within them Faith comes by hearing and every man upon earth that hath ever been approved Christian received it that way and was made thereby not a maister but disciple to the Church Wheras on the other side this spirit and light and such like discoveries we so frequently talk of makes us not schollers but maisters ipso facto and urges not to submit to foregoers but to condemn them not to resign our own but to captivate others understandings not to go to the Church but to go out of it and that upon the single motive of a new illumination which none had before us and we from no body I know well enough that a man cannot be converted and becom a good Christian without the assistance of Gods grace exciting and cooperating with us to our good when the truth is taught and revealed to us But this I suppose is not the Light men talk of for this is rather in the affection and will than in the understanding and bids us hearken to another not to our selves to join with a Church already planted not to begin a new one of our own heads It sayes not to us make a vineyard of your own but go into mine And the intellectuall Light men speak of if we have any we receiv it afterwards as a reward of our humility in that Church where we did not kindle it but found it already burning to guide our feet by it in the wayes of peace Crede intelliges said a great Prophet Beleev and you shall understand but we must beleev first and by that obscure step of beleef which is as a duksy twi-light between the darknes of infidelity we lived in before and the light of truth we go to arrive we to all future happines But we in England that pretend this new Light and secret Spirit are separated by it from a former Church but brought to none nor are we made disciples by it but maisters on the sudden and enabled to teach all men that which we never received from any which is absolutely against the whole cours of Christianity and will if it be admitted set open a gap unto all fanatick fansies St. Paul professes he was apostle not of men nor by men but by God and the reason is becaus his first call was extraordinary from heaven as was likewise the suggestion he had to his mission and yet that God that called him although he showed him so singular a favour yet would he not dispense with his own orders and constitutions even in him but sent him to the good Priest Ananias to be by him instructed and catechised and admitted into his Church and with those people St. Paul found in the profession of that faith did he often conferre even he that was so strangly called from heaven conferred the Gospel which afterwards he preached as himself speaks in his epistle to the Galatians with those people and with that Church he found in actuall possession and profession of that faith least saith he I should have run in vain that is least he should do or think or preach any thing amiss contrary to the truth received unto which he was called which he could no otherwaies by the constitutions Jesus himself had made be assured of but by comparing his doctrin with that which was believed and practised in the Church before him into which he was now incorporated as a member in that body by the assistance of the grace he had received to be first a disciple and then afterwards a maister and teacher and when he did become a doctour he did not make himself one no nor his calling by Christ sufficed to do it but he was made such a one under the hands of the apostles and by their approbation autority and sacred ordination as may be seen in the book of the Acts ch 13. Nor was he to teach without that Churches leav or contrary to her faith but by her direction and in subjection to her This is a faithful speech and worthy of all consideration which seriously pondered would dissipate in a moment all whatsoever pretences of light spirit reason or other thing that shall mov any to a new way by himself contrary to what he hath received seen practised in the Church before him And if any would seriously peruse the Acts of the apostles wherein the footsteps of primitive Christianity fufficiently appear he shall find that all that were called unto Christs religion were brought to the feet of the apostles and priests who received them at the door and brought them into the hous of God by the laver of Baptisme and imposition of hands and confession of sins and it was not onely the ordinary but sole ingress into that Church and none were ever esteemed to be of that body but only by those means which also the pastours of the Church were only to mannage He that comes not in at the door saith Christ is neither sheep nor shepheard but a theef and a robber And true Christian religion consists not in going out of a Church but coming in there to submit to the ancient dictates of piety which Christ revealed §. 13. Independent and Presbyterians Plea TO a judicious man whom a word sufficeth it will already appear that no opinion or way here in England can have any advantage over the other by vertue of discoveries made by any light spirit or reason since there can no such be legally pretended to set up any new religion apart from the former but to join rather with the old which if it be not absolutely true Christ is not God and all Christianity but a human invention But yet
autority which can onely constitute religion so likewise all anticatholicks both Independent Presbyterian and Protestant have the same power and advantage each one against another which any other may pretend against him scripture easy scripture interiour light and spirit whiles none of them will in the interim admit of any living judg nor of the autority of a foregoing Church wherein they found themselvs when they first went out and changed And I have already said and truly said that no man ever yet was impowred even from heaven to go out of the general flock but to have recours unto it nor considering the order God hath set ever can be Nor is there any surer rule of discerning a fals pretension than that of the Apostle Exierunt ex nobis which if it held good in the Church when that apostle was alive it must needs do so unto all generations so long as the Church remains by vertue of him who promised to confirm it and therein his deity must chiefly appear even vnto the consummation of the world And if we consider the first ingress of all these religions we shall find that the catholick faith entred our land first and chased hence our antient paganisme after it had been here existent a thousand years the Protestant went forth out of it the Puritan by and by out of the Protestant not to mention any further subdivision and the catholick religion entered by vertue of her own powerful integrity all the others by force either of Parliament or Sword that Church as she entered peaceably so she remained quietly all the time of her stay in the Kingdom but the others neither stay nor enter without disturbance she hath a rule to go by and a judg to submit unto in all affairs others as they will be their own judg so must the rule speak as they list and no otherwise which manner of proceeding if it have its free cours must needs work much disorder in a kingdom I have often marvelled that these various wayes of religion here in England which multiply without end or any hope of reconciliation have not all this while appealed to the sacred majesty of the King who hath been acknowledged by all the parties to be supreme in all his kingdoms as well in spirituals as temporals and head as well of the Church as State Certainly had this been don and that all had rested upon his verdict as they ought by reason of their own acknowledgment to do much mischief had been prevented But we were so far all of us from doing so that on the contrary first we secretly murmured against both Queen Elizabeth and King James and then broke forth into open hostility against his son Indeed that private swelling of the murmuring waters were an ill boding omen of the vast tempest which followed afterwards in the reign of our good King Charls with so dismal and violent a rage that it both split the ship and drowned our pilot We did not appeal then with submission to his judgment as by our own law and agreement upon our revolt from Popery we ought to have don but forced him imperiously to our own and when in right reason he could not consent unto it we made no conscience to destroy and cut off not so much his head as our own which being a singular unparallel'd piece of insolent cruelty never yet acted before upon earth it will remain an eternal blemish both upon the men and religion too so long as the world lasteth Did we sincerely think our King to be head as well of Church as of State how then durst we subjugate him to our selves in the affairs of both and under pretens of purity of religion oppress him from whom under God all our religion should be derived as the head and sours of it The body may prepare blood and vital spirits to be presented to the head but of these are not made animal spirits till the head receivs and makes them such for the good of the whole and from the head com down all those influences that be fitted and proportioned unto that life which the animal lives So may and ought every kingdom either apart or in Parliament assemblies to propose affairs unto their head but can take none as authentick till he have determined and derived them to us whether civil or spiritual if so be he be head of both resting quiet within our selves both before and after he hath don it for what hand or foot ever questioned the spirits which the head derived it or pretended either to mend or make them But we have by these our proceedings condemned our selves if we do not indeed think him our spiritual head as we profess in words of vise hypocrisie if we do beleev him so of inconsequent madnes But to remove the Pope the King is head with us and to remove the King the people is head and to remove one another each particular person is his own head So arbitrary a thing it is with us to set up and pull down power at our pleasur It would seem very strang to a rational man that the Pope who is in our esteem the worst of men should keep together the people of many kingdoms which as they be not at all subject to him in civil affairs so are they very divers among themselves both in habits manners language lawes and other weighty respects and inclinations in a constant unity of religion from age to age and yet a noble vertuous prudent King should not be able to do so much among his own subjects all of one guarb one law one language for one age together the Pope all the while we beleev to be a fals and onely pretended Head the King an acknowledged and true one This is a greater secret and yet greater too upon this account that if any should fall away from the Popes religion the apostate runs himself into no more danger upon that account than what he willingly brings upon himself the loss of further communion with him and his Church for the Popes excommunication signifies no more and all the Pope can do is but to excommunicate him who before by his own voluntary act put himself out of his communion But the King hath a temporal sword in his hand to take corporal reveng upon rebellion and apostacy and the people subject to him in faith are likewise subject in other temporal respects and by their rebellion against him hazzard their estates and lives I know well enough that Popes are generally as civil and accomplished gentlemen as be in Europe and for the most part very learned yet can I never beleev but that there be others in the Christian world both priests doctours and byshops as learned as the pope himself and as wise too and accomplisht persons in any perfections either natural or moral and yet can none but He hit upon this feat of guiding the Christian flock in unity and peace Nay which yet augments the
things of catholick profession don by him and the people he converted But partly by the great succeeding persecutions raised by the Roman emperours against Christianity partly by the unwearied endeavours of the Pagan priests here in the land against it about the time of Marcus Aurelius the Roman emperour and year of our Lord 190. there were hardly any remnants of it left in this island Wherefore our noble Brittish King Lucius moved by the fame of that holy faith sent to Eleutherius then Pope in Rome to entreat he would destin into our countrey some of his special pastours to teach us his Christian faith The Pope sent him two good priests Fugatius and Damian who arriving here with some few others who were pleased to accompany them made both the King himself and his Queen and very many of his subjects Christian And this Christianity of the Brittons no man I think will doubt it to be catholick since the whole profession of it both while the Brittons lived in this land and after that they were expelled by the Pagan Saxes into the mountains of Wales doth clearly manifest it if Priests living together in monasteries some hundreds of them many times together and exercising in Churches their priestly functions upon the reall and mysticall body of Christ if praying before crucifixes erecting of crosses solemnizing of feasts keeping of Lent vigils and embers honouring of Saints making oblations and orisons for the dead may as it needs must signifie so much Nor can it be imagined that Pope Eleutherius sent to us by his Priests any other religion than his own And this is called Englands second conversion as that by Joseph of Arimathea the first and both of them equally to one and the same catholik faith and no other which however now by a strange judgment of heaven it be for a time traduced yet in primitive ages it was looked upon as a most sacred and blessed religion and then persecuted by none but such as were profest enemies to Christ himself as I could show at large but I must make haste After two or three hundred years this Religion all that while profest in the land was again banished by the utter overthrow and flight of the Brittons professors of it into our english Alps in Wales where Christian and Christianity lay hid together and the pagan Saxes who had driven them out equally hated both their faith and them Wherefor about the year of our Lord 596 the time of emperour Mauritius Pope Gregory the great of his own proper motion and good will towards us destined unto the conversion of the Saxes or Englishmen who being then pagans had possest themselvs of all the English territories S. Austin byshop and abbot who with forty other Priests his companions all good children of blessed S. Bennet preached here so powerfully that upon one Christmas day he baptised more then ten thousand souls for which good work of our conversion the Kingdom of England ever owned that good Pope for their spiritual patron and apostle And the children of S. Bennet are indeed our very fathers who first begat us in Christ and regenerated our English nation to the life of future bliss This Christian religion brought in by S. Austin the Brittons could not deny it to be conformable unto their own catholick faith received formerly from Pope Eleutherius in all matter of doctrin although they were so transported with passion against the Saxons their antient adversaries that they would neither let their own priests whereof they had more store then they had use of go forth to their conversion nor yet forbear to disturb good S. Austin in his so pious a work But such good Christians did our forefathers the Saxons after their conversion prove that they yielded nothing to the antient Brittons before them yea rather they exceeded them so that all the land was stored by them with goodly monasteries of S. Bennets order brave cathedral Churches fair colledges and libraries manuscript crosses shrines oratories sufficient and wholsom laws for all occasions hospitals corporations and all that might be necessary either to our temporal or spiritual welfar And all our people were wholly attentive to their devout contemplations of a life to com in Christ our great redeemer Church and State being now most piously and prudently provided for when William the Conquerour in the year of our Lord 1066 Constantine Duca being Emperour of the East came in upon us from France and conquered us This valiant captain finding our catholick religion conformable to his own Christianity although he abrogated much of our civil law and used in temporal affairs too too much of violence thereby to subjugate the land more perfectly to himself yet he medled not at all with any alteration in religion nor once excepted against it but lived himself with the rest of his subjects both saxes and normans and died contentedly therein building of his own devotion som fair monasteries to S. Bennet before his death wherein God might night and day be served and praised for his souls greater expiation from that tinctur of bloodshed it might have contracted in his wars and vehement proceedings with the saxon nobility after his victory And in this same catholick religion did both Norman and Saxon live peaceably together and without any the least disturbance upon that account though for civil respects York and Lancaster raised broils enough untill the end of King Henry the eighths reign about six hundred years together after the Conquerours ingress into the land the people offering daily their prayers and orisons before the altar and sacred crucifix together with their priests and prelats all Roman catholicks without any schisme or disturbance From whence we may note first that all the three conversions of our Kingdom wherein we lived unanimously so long together were all of them to one and the same catholick Roman faith secondly that this faith as it represents Christ its divine sours in purity which all men might see if they would have but patience to examine it so likewise both in unity and unchangeablenes as there is but one God and he immutable so is there but one faith and it unchangeable Thirdly that catholick religion is so far from being an enemy to the state-politick as som reformers to its greater disparagement would pretend that it is the great founder and maintainer of it Nor ever had this land for so many hundred years it was catholick upon the account of religion any disturbance at all whereas after the exile of that catholick beleef in our land from the period of K. Henries reign to these dayes we have ever been either in actual disquiet or at least in fears vulgar heads uncontroulable in their fansies since they were by the reformation constituted in effect both judges and contrivers of controversies ever raising som new fangled way or other to disturb or at least to threaten and indanger our peace And it is a thing of much wonder
that a nation such as England is so wise and serious in all other things so judicious and grave should be perswaded by any mans words against the dictamen of their own reason if they would but consult it to beleev any such thing of this innocent faith when they cannot but clearly see in all histories both our own and others that amongst all the pretended wayes of Christianity only catholick religion both sets up and preservs the Crown which giddy headed sects indanger Som of our english clergy tell us of a thousand I know not what dangers of the Pope thereby to get the assistance of secular power to their own ends but what is indeed the occasion they know assuredly that the Pope if he were once admitted would both separate them from the secular life they lead and bring into order their exorbitant opinions And what harm if both these things were done If we do but search antiquities we shall find that none of our ecclesiastiastical benefices were given by princes and people to maintain a wife and children but only such single abstracted contemplative men as had consecrated themselvs and all their whole affections to God to serv him in all singlenes of heart in prayer and fasting and perfect charity and in the sacrifice of the altar all the dayes of their life without any solicitude after this world as priests of antient Christianity did and not for women and children unto whose generation against ecclesiastical custom and constitutions our ministers give as much attendance as any secular man whatsoever and generate children which after their death unles they show in their life time more of wordly solicitude than their spiritual state permits must lie upon the parish and as for ordering our dissentions in points of faith I should think not only the Pope who would assuredly do it but any whatsoever thing in the world though it were but an owl in an ivy bush should deserv thanks if he effected it But I return to my story §. 18. Item NOt only the kingdoms of the continent Germany Hungary Italy France Spain but all the Northern coasts and islands Denmark Norway England Ireland and the isles about them were now in a full and quiet possession and profession of their catholick religion when upon a little occasion heaven so willing it for some great sin or neglect of mankind the whole scene was changed on the sodain and catholick faith in our northern coasts to the grief and amazement of all that were then alive utterly abolished even by the discontent of one person and he but a private one neither upon this occasion The Pastour of Christianity upon some solicitation of Christian Princes for a general compliance throughout all Christendom to their design sent forth in the year 1517. a plenary indulgence throughout the world in favour of the Cruciata against the Turk Albertus byshop of Mentz delegated by the Pope to see it executed in Germany committed the preaching and promulgation of it unto the Dominican friars which the hermits of St. Austin within the same place took ill but especially Martin Luther a preacher and professour in that order esteeming himself the best deserving man in the town grew exceeding wroth that any should be chosen before himself to execute that work which was likely to have as great an auditory and confluence of people as might happen in a mans life time to the no small repute of him who should be thought worthy before another to divulge the bull and make the exhortation sermon in the behalf as it were of the whole Christian world Vexed therfore that he was thus neglected and as he thought undervaliewed not only by words but books and papers secretly thrown about he diminished first the dominicans then the byshop then indulgences themselvs Catholick superiours and princes blamed this misdemeanour of Luther as a practis of much danger and sedition but he grew not any thing better thereby but rather more head-strong and furious as unlawful passion increases by the very means of mitigation inveighing now with more boldness as far as he durst both against Prince and Prelate too Insomuch that the duke of Saxony after a year or two invited friar Luther to his court where by dispute and colloquy with the eminent doctour Eckius if he could not make his caus good he might grow better principled at least for Gods sake and his own good condescend to moderation and peace But Luther after much tiresom talk told at last very boldly both the duke and his doctour too that the quarrel was not begun for God nor for God should it be ended And so departing thence he proceeded now with more virulent words to incens the people unto whom he promised liberty from their vowes and fastings and other penitential observances whereby he perverted much of the laity clergy and religious people both men and women who 't is strange to consider it violating their vowes deserted that Catholick Church besides which they had never known nor heard of other to follow the serpentine enticements of one private person and he if not the worst yet at least none of the best that ever were Thus when one ram has leapt over a hedg all the other poor sheep so many as be within ken of the fact are apt to follow So prone is man to go astray like sheep and do amiss to our own ruin without any other reason for it than the sight of a president acting before us what our own naturall inclination is apt of it self without the curb of religion or law of its own natur to embrace And so much was the world disposed at that ill hour to a dissolute loosnes that Luther was still gaining upon people even from his first apostacy But when he had once married himself unto Catherine Bore a Nun by him seduced out of the monastery of Mymick contrary to both theâ—r vowes so that he was now become a sure and fast enemy as well to continence as before he had shown himself to abstinence 't is wonder how fast they flocked to him on all sides not only from the vulgar laiety but even from all instutes and profession and countries even the priests and votaries of chastity Oecolampadius a monk of S. Briger Jacobus Praepositi an Augustine Andreas Carolstadius an archdeacon in Wittenberg Suinglius a cannon of Constance Martin Bucer a dominican fryar Lismanin a Franciscan Richerius a Carmelite John Calvin a curate priest Philip Melanchton out of Germany Michael Servetus out of Spain Bernardin Ochyn and Peter Martyr out of Florence John Alasco out of Poland Sebastian Castalio out of France Beza out of Burgundy Stancar and Valentine Gentile out of Italy Blandrate Alciate and David Georg out of Transylvania c. who being all hitherto catholicks took occasion now by the example of Luther to fall away whereby as the body of holy Church was purged of some unquiet spirits so was Luthers retinue in a short space
Church as that our good works be all mortal sins and damnable before God that we have no will or power to do good or avoid evil that the commandements of God are impossible to be kept c. but rather all contrary as if we were ashmed of our own doctrin and afraid to speak before the people what we know in reason could not but offend Christian ears But all generally do preach when they preach any good thing the doctrin of catholicks though ever abused with their own modes and mixtures For every sect as it hath a peculiar spirit so hath it a mode and vein and method proper to it self The Independent speaks many good words but inconsequent and unconnexed so much roving up and down as if he had a mind to be prophet errant and before he gives over to say somthing of every thing The Presbyterian ever pursues some Platonick idea for example the ingoing and outgoings of Christ which is so thin and bodiles that he is forced to assign six or seven wayes to discern it then gives twelv consequent effects nineteen wayes to get c. in which wayes he does even tire himself as you may perceive by his melting and breathing when he comes to the high hills of eighteenthly and ninteenthly and after some months labour and travel in these his wayes at last with much ado he finishes his text which before he handled it was good and easy doctrin but is now by his tedious exercise rendered obscure intricate and full of doubts The Protestant cuts his text out logically into so many parts and then walks through them all with an even rhetorick adorned with witty conceits and flowers of common places still bringing un that parcel of the text he is handling with such proportion and measure in the close that a man must needs say when he has done that he has shewed a featous piece of art and when his or Presbyterian or Independents sermon is ended then is the great work of their religion done though all to little purpos for a dead mans foot say what you will to him will never warm is shoo But the Catholick if he speak like himself having gravely and pithily prest the intention of the gospel for such a day unto the peoples practis and devotion falls to the great works of sacrifice if it be in the morning and of evensong in the after noon adoration prayer and charity which is the summe wherein his religion consists and all his preaching servs but as a pair of bellows to make those coles burn Nor does any good old catholick that is well grounded in the constant practis of his faith care at all for any further instruction knowing aforehand that it can tend to nothing els than what before he knew and yet endeavours to practis For with him pure religion and undefiled is not to hear words but do deeds to reliev the orphan and widow and to keep our selvs unspotted in this world which unspottednes we attain by complying heart and hand unto the rule and sacraments of Jesus Christ Nor did the primitive Christians for three hundred years ever hear any sermon made to them upon a text all their whole life time but meerly flocked together at their priests appointment to their messach or dominicum or Leiturgy or by what other name for they used many at several times to avoid the pagans discovery their Christian sacrifice was called And it is most strang that we should pretend here in England to be Christians and the only good ones and yet reject those two great things which were by all Christendom esteemed in every age the very essences of Christianity the tribunal of absolution and the great Legacy of Jesus his body to his spous the Church insisting wholly upon preaching which as it is an accidental and relative work of our Christianity so is it common with us an all religions both Mahometan Jew and Pagan whose sermons if any should hear he could not tell by the morality of the master to what religion they belonged It is hard to say why against all the vogue of antiquity we should be so violent as to abolish the Christian sacrifice pull down the altars banish the priesthood yea and persecute it unto death except we mean to repaganise our selvs Our protestant forefathers when they first rose found manifestly all the Christian world over that this incruent sacrifice according to the order of Melchisedeck was and had ever been the sum of all apostolical devotion for which our many goodly fair Churches shrines and altars were built which hang now forlorn and desolate in our hands like great dead carkasses after the soul is departed for the inshrined body of Jesus was the life and soul of our Churches which then died all of them when he departed mouldring away ever since into dust and rottennes And therefor Martin Luther with his Kate the Adam and Eve of protetestancy did not for that reason presume to pull down the altars although they would not keep them up without the mixtur of som errour of their own But we in England in our strang heat tore down all without either president of the catholick world or our own reforming forefathers We cannot but see if indeed we see any thing that every law and religion hath been still annexed with a corresponding sacrfice Yea so surely and universally that sacrifice seems both to be born with religion and with religion to be extinguished The first men who worshipped God in the world as Cain and Abel are said to have don it with a sacrifice after the flood with religion again renewed was also sacrifice renewed by Noah and when afterwards through divers persecutions religion was brought into hazzard nothing did the prophets so much lament as the ceasing of their sacrifice as may be be seen in the book of Kings and Daniel And not without reason for all other kinds of good things offered or don to God are common also unto creatures only sacrifice is a worship so due to the Almighty as none either in heaven or earth may partake with him in it an other sacrifice properly socalled besides this according to the order of Melchisedeck there never was any amongst Christians For although faith hope and prais be by way of analogy called a sacrifice in an improper and translated locution to set forth the worth and acceptablenes of them yet this is so far from derogating to the great and solemn sacrifice properly so called that it presupposes and establishes it for the other could not have that analogical name except that thing were unto which they may bear analogy prais could not be commanded as sacrifice if there were no such thing as sacrifice thence the commendation should be drawn and to whose worth it should allude as it were impertinent and foolish to express the sweetnes of any oratory by the name of honey and sugred rhetorick if we did beleev there were no such
and antient divines do teach that he did before them the same sacramental act he had himself instituted and done aforetime before his apostles and by that he was discerned which interpretation is very probable for there be set down the same words and gestures He took bread and blessed and brake it and gave it to them Luke 24.30 And if it were so then it seems the cup was not thought necessary either by Christ himself or his disciples otherwise neither Christ would have done his work imperfectly and vanished before he had given them the cup nor would the disciples have judged him by so doing to be their master but som evil spirit or impostour as who had kept the cup from them against their right Nay by this example it seems that the very consecration it self may be dispenced in case of necessity to be don only in one kind though the complete sacrifice and mode of signication would be unexprest Thirdly in the first and second chapters of the Acts of the apostles where mention is purposely made of the religious assemblies of the Christians and their sacred Synaxis ther is much speech there of their breaking of bread but not any word of the use of a cup amongst the people And it is enough insinuated as well directly in these forenamed places that that was the religious work of the primitive Christians as it is indirectly afterwards c. 20. One day of the sabboth saith the text when we came together to break bread No mention being made any where in all that book of the challice at all So that I must conclude as I said before that the communion of the challice is neither necessary to any effect of the sacrament nor expedient to be generally practised nor is there in gospel or sacred writ any either precept or president for it But the autority and practis of the catholick Church descended from the apostles is in this as in all other points the best and most irrefragable convincing argument which S. Paul in another case kept for his best and last refuge 1. Cor. 11. If any one saith he will be contentious we have no such custom nor the Church of God And if there be no such custom in the Church of God let not any of us be any further contentious §. 27. Saints I Do not remember that ever I took into my hands any catholick Breviary or Missal or other prayer book but it had prefixed before it a calendar or catalogue of great saints amongst them apostles martyrs confessours virgins of whom the Catholicks keep a very respectful memory as of the temples wherein God did once dwell and work wonders in the Church And although this act and custom of theirs be made by our voluntary interpretation a thing of much offence and scandal against them yet looking upon it with an unprejudiced eye I cannot discern it to be any other than the civility of a due respect For what ingenuous noble spirit would not do as much for the great heroes of his own family that have upheld and innobled the hous And what sayes Christ would he not have it done so to his surely if these things had not been don in his Church but all memorials of him and his blotted out according to the fansy of every reformer we had had by this no more certainty of him than of Jove or Mercury But what sayes he therefor He that loves me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and make my mansion in him c. he that leavs father or mother for my sake shall sit upon thrones c. he that shall overcome and keep my words unto the end I will give him power over nations as I have received from my father and I will give unto him a morning star c. and the like promimises of glory I stand not now to mention And I should think whom God and Christ so highly honours that we may honour them too nay I beleev we should for a good servant ought to respect him his maister loves And what are we afraid of least people by much reflecting upon such eminent examples of vertue should be moved therby to imitate them what can it be els If saints were proposed and described unto us like Mars Jove and Venus eminent both actours and patrons of vice then we might justly blame it But who can dislike of an example of heroick vertue though it were in a Romance And all those saints even from the first of January to the last of December are so commended for their sacred retirements ravishing contemplations of Gods love and the life to come carnal mortifications and castigations of body fastings abnegations of themselves excessive charity daily renewed resolutions against the world flesh and devill and valorous attempts for the love of Jesus to justifie his truth and gospel even to the effusion of their bloods that we read nothing els of them all which is but what Christ and his apostles both by example and word either prescribed or at least counselled both them and us to do And who can make bitter gibeing invectives against them and their legends but only he who is an enemy to the vertues there commended What my self and others in England have read and heard against Popish Saints it would be tedious to speak but I find it to be the spirit and genius of them that depart from the Popes religion Luther the Hectour rampant was excellently dextrous at this feat of disabling persons of renown and before him his grandsire Wicleph who publickly affirmed that St. Austin St. Bennet St. Bernard and other such like men were damned in hell for founding religious orders yea and even John Calvin himself that holy faced man was so intemtemperatly given to this theiomachy that he opened his mouth not only against all saints and their memorials in the register of the Church but even the renowned persons both of the old and new testament canonized in holy writ Noah Abraham Rebecca Jacob Rachel Job Moyses Josuah David Elias Jeremias Daniel The B. Virgin Mary S. Joseph S. Mary Magdalen Martha the haemorroiss Woman who touched Christs garments S. Peter S. Paul S. Matthew S. Luke S. Zacharias the husband of Elizabeth and S. Denyse Areopagite c. and his own words against all these I could easily set down but that I would not tire my reader nor foul my paper with his detracting unseemly speeches But I should being left to my own reason shrewdly suspect him to be an enemy to vertue whom I find to calumniate and disable all those persons who by authentick history are so much commended for it and by the same proposed unto us as an ensample of our lives It is not only their due but our benefit to keep the memory of saints before us Besides that man cannot easily forget his own imortality after our deceas who often ruminates upon such vertuous presidents whom being dead he honours as yet
day But thanks be to Him that provided a wise and vigilant Pilot with whom he sits himself invisibly at the stern to guide him and such as voiage in the same ship with him unto all truth even to the consummation of the world Histories will tell us how careful and more then humanly happy Popes have been in all ages in reconciling Christian princes and resolving difficulties between them in examining of doctrines in counselling and perswading high spirited children ready to fly out into heresies to humility and resignation in governing so many bodies of Religious which be all subjected under him as other parts of the Church be and are so numerous that one would hardly beleev ther should be so many religious houses in the Christian world all serving God night and day with that silence order and cleanlines every one in his way and institute that it is the goodliest thing in the world to behold St. Bennet rose in the sixth age of the Church about the year 529. and yet about the year 1480. it is written that ther were then of his order fifteen thousand monasteries in the world and the other families of S. Francis S. Augustine S. Dominick the Society and others are none of them much less numerous and all these families have still recours to the Pope both for their rule and statutes and for all difficulties that may occurre in their spiritual government And who can be sufficient for all these things None surely but he that is singularly assisted from heaven and Christ our Lord in my judgment hath no less shown his divinity and power in the Pope than in himself as much in his spirituall and mystick as he did in his natural body and the life indeed which by his Spirit he livs in his Church is in a manner the very same with his naturall one now praying now disputing amongst the doctours now fasting then watching then healing the sick and working miracles then persecuted maligned envied somtimes at a feast somtimes hungrying somtimes making merry with a loaf of bread and few fishes the disciples now defending their maister now the maister defending his disciples c. for so the Pope protects innocent beleevers and these again defend him But of all those glorious things our Lord did in his life time conversion of people confutation of pharisaical opposers releeving of poor healing of diseases and the like he hath shown greater abundance in his Church than in himself according as himself promised Ye shall do greater things than these Which confutes the antient calumny of our old adversary the Jew who ascribed all our Lords miraculous operations either to som gipsie tricks he learnt when he was in Egypt or to som evill spirit he had got to attend his person either of which had it been true had failed with his peson and his power had not extended to his Church And all things considered I think I may truly say that Christ in the Pope and Church is more miraculous than he was in his own person and I doubt not but the nativity of his Church and miraculous conversation passion resurrection and ascension shall be the same with his So that he who contemns the Pope contemns Christ who presides in him and he that contemns the Church villifies his spirit which lives and movs and animates that body I could be very copious in this subject but I must not be prolix in any thing I only desire my reader to consider this one thing which after serious thought he will find to be true that if there had not been Popes in all ages both to conserv and propagate faith we had either never heard any news of Christianity here in England or not kept it undisturbedly so long All the whole gospel and body of Christianity is his purely his and from him we received it Nay the first great fundamental of Christian religion which is the Truth and divinity of Christ had it not been for him had failed long ago in the world and what then had becom of all the rest For after Pope Sylvester according to the faith of his ancestors had by means of his three Legates great Osius bishop of Corduba White and Vincent two priests established in the first councel of Nice the said divinity of Christ our Lord wherein he is consubstantial to that almighty One who made the earth and stars against Arrius and his allies who began to teach the contrary it is incredible to say what frequent murmurations resorts and conciliar meetings were made afterward up and down the world by the priests and byshops who had drunk in the contrary opinion and in that point deserted him against their Pope and Pastour for three or four hundreed years together till in a manner all the whole Church not only clergy but laiety and the princes of Christendom opposed him in it while the Pope now left in a manner alone or with a very thin retinue of beleevers and all his successors one after another fought even to sweat and blood for the vindication of that great Christian article even against the whole world And he so far overcame at length that there be scarcely in these dayes any that doubt of that which the Pope only by the authority of his place and title wrought out of the very fire Whence I may truly say that Christ is the Popes God for if the Pope had not been or had not been so vigilant and resolute a pastour as he is humanly speaking Christ had not been taken for any such person as he is beleeved this day And let men talk what they will by their vain philosophy this I will boldly say and am assured of that if the Pope be not an unerring guide in matters of religion and faith all is lost A man once rid of the controul of his autority may as easily deride and as solidly confute the incarnation as the sprinkling of holy water nor could the reason of the whole earth be able to convince him And after all this shall children and boyes jeer and revile in our streets and pulpits this sacred majesty of the Pope whom the vertue wit valour and nobility of all Christendome hath ever so highly honoured and we if we consider things as we ought can never love too much shall we cast unjust and vile contumelies upon him who holding a solicitude for all the Churches of Christs has so many millions of the greatest spirits in the world depending upon his lips for direction and truth with whom and under whom have concurred in his general councels so many thousands of renowned prelates venerable byshops princely cardinals grave patriarchs subtile divines and doctours Abbots and Generals of orders oratours chancellors knights and barons sent to his assistance by the Kings and Potentates of Christendom the very stars of our earthly hemisphere met together either to make up or grace and strengthen his great counsell convened in subordination to his legates nay emperours
themselves have thought it an addition of honour to sit in that solemn and thrice venerable assembly though in a separated place Shall we I say mock and revile this sacred person Let not such a thing be said of us any more let it not be told in Gath or the streets of Askalon that we use any such rude behaviour lest the very uncircumcised Philistins condemn our vast inexcusable incivility Nor yet let us either envy or malign the respect which Pappists give to Him from whom they received their Christianity and by whose vigilance and care it hath been kept inviolate amongst them from its first ingres into the land even to this very day Shall our eye be therefor evil becaus theirs is good §. 30. Popery IN the more flourishing doctrins of the Catholick Church I could be largely copious but I have said as much as may suffice my intended purpos which was so far to excuse even that religion also that if all do not embrace yet none may persecute and hate it Wherefor I do purposly omit to speak of other more plausible parts of Popery viz. 1. The obligation which all who beleev in Christ have to attend unto good works and the merit and benefit of so doing 2. The possibility of keeping Gods commandements with the assistance of divine grace 3. The liberty and freedom of human will either to comply with grace or resist it 4. The sacred councel and excellency of divine vowes 5. The right and obligation to restitution when any one shall have wronged his neighbour either in his soul or body fame goods or estate 6. The power and autority of of the Church in her tradition and decisions 7. The fasts and abstinence at certain times from som kind of meats which is all the religion we read Adam was injoined to observ in Paradise that we may therby be more apt to acknowledg Gods gifts and goodnes at those times we enjoy other good things of his bounty and at other times them and to sanctify our spirit for divine retirements 8. The divine ordination and unspeakable comfort and benefit of Confession 9. The caelibate and single life of the clergy who thereby freed from much solicitude of this world though not without som troublesom struggling against unseemly lusts of youth may approach the altar like angels of God who neither marry nor are given in marriage 10. The doctrin of indulgencies which be nothing els but a releas from som temporal penalties due to sin after repentance and remission which the Church does generally bestow by commutation as when for example an indulgence of such penalties for so many daies or years is granted unto such as upon the time appointed shall repent and confess fast pray give almes and communicate for the Churches preservation and concord of Christian princes which is a doctrin as rational and well grounded as any in Christianity though we in England will not understand it 11. Finally the ecclesiastick hierarchy and supremacy whereby catholick religion like a flourishing fair tree spreads his boughs in several kingdoms of the earth even from sea to sea so united all of it in all its parts and connexed together that ther is no catholick upon earth but is under som priest all priests subordinated to their byshops these to their metropolitan all metropolitans to the Patriarchs and Patriarchs united in the Papal cone every leaf cleavs to som twig every twig to som branch every branch to som bough every bough to the bole and the bole to the root And several other such like points of the Roman religion which coming all together from once hand have stood unchangeable in all ages the same and depending all upon the verity of the first revealer have an equality of truth though not of weight These and several others with the other half dozen more offensive doctrins I have cleared and explicated our reformers cut off at one blow when they taught us that it would suffice to salvation only to beleev in Christ without any more ado and that other things were popish superstitions whereby we became a strang kind of servants that beleev their maister but heed not either to fulfil his orders or do his commands For they told us and we have hitherto beleeved it That ther be no such things as good works pleasing to God but all be as menstruous rags filthy odious and damnable in the sight of heaven That if it were otherwis yet are they not in our power That with the assistance of any grace to be had Gods commandements are impossible to be kept and it would be therefor vain to attempt it especially sith we have in us no strength of free will to act any thing but evil That it must needs be foolishnes to vow unto God sith we can do nothing we ought to do and no less foolish if we have vowed to pay it That what wrong soever we do to another God is merciful and restitution fruitles both becaus one sin cannot make satisfaction for another nor any thing clear us but the blood of Christ alone unto which if we should concurr our selves by doing good works or satisfying for ill we should be half our own redeemers That the Church which presumes to teach other things than we allow is a fals mistres distracted and knows not what she sayes That to fast from sin is fast enough without depriving our stomachs of good flesh when we have a mind to it and yet becaus we sin in every thing we do neither is that fast possible to be kept That confession is needless How can man forgive sins That our clergy find themselvs men and not angells and love women as well as others and first revolted from popery principally for their sakes preferring a good wife before the whore of Babylon and the altars that kept them asunder are thrown down the honest pulpit standing now solitary speaks for them and brings them happily together That of indulgencies there is no need since obligation to penalties is shaken off long ago by our own autority without any indulgence from another That papal supremacy is the only obstacle to our liberty and therefor it must be abolished And let popery hang together as close as it can it shall go hard but we will find a battery to shake it So much indeed hath sophistry and continual clamour against popery and state punishments lying ever most heavily upon the professours of it prevailed over our judgments that now ther is no goodnes no worth no truth in it no none at all it is all naught all and every part of it naught nothing but naughtines superstition and vanity All that I will say for the present is this If popery be a bad religion more is the pitty for the professors of it suffer as much for it as might well serv for a good one Millions of people for the beleef they have in it and the love they bear its holy counsels and