matters of Faith do destroy Souls like as Wolves do destroy Sheep and that it is as impossible that their Followers should acquire by their teaching Divine Faith and True Sanctity as it is impossible that Thorns should bring out Grapes or Thisles Figgs The same Doctrine is taught by the Apostle who affirms That Hereticks are subverted Tit. 3. And Subvert the Faith of others 2 Tim. 2.18 That they make Shipwrak about Faith 1 Tim. 1.19 That they depart from the Faith 1 Tim. 4.1 That they are Reprobate about Faith 2 Tim. 3.8 and the like Which mischief they fall into themselves and bring upon their followers though they Err but in one Article of Faith as Himenaeus and Philetus did 2 Tim. 2.18 But Note here That the Apostle in the places cited doth not mean that Heretical Teachers do so Subvert and Ruine the Faith of their Followers that they leave them no Faith at all but that they subvert their Divine Faith which is the Gift of God wholly overthrowing that though they leave them store of Humane Faith to which seduced people firmly sticking yea sometimes even to Fetters and Death do reap thereby nothing at all but Temporal Commodities and Vain glory purchased with the Eternal loss of their Souls Secondly Doth appear out of the same Doctrine the great Obligation that Christian People have to keep themselves within the Bosom of the True and Catholick Church of Christ Because that this Church being continually assisted by Christ himself Matt. 28. 20. And taught all Truth by the Holy Ghost John 16.13 doth propose unto her followers in her Doctrine of Faith nothing buth Truth whereby their Faith doth easily come to be Divine and the Gift of God his Havenly Grace Co-operating with them It doth also appear how deeply they are obliged to take heed of and to shun and avoid false Prophets false and heretical Expounders of God's Word which run of their own accord not being sent authroized or allowed of by the Ordinary Doctors and Pastors of the Ever Visible and Catholick Church of Christ And how wary they ought to be not to have itching Ears after new Masters 2 Tim. 4.3 Or greedily to hearken to their Novelties in Matters of Faith which upon the reckoning will be found to be no better than Fables that is than the Fictitious and Self-inventions of mens brains Though these busie Teachers palliate them with specious terms and bear their Hearers in Hand That these their new devices are the Pure Light of the Gospel For by forsaking the Doctrine of the Church the Spiritual Mother and Mistress of all Nations and as the Apostle terms her 1 Tim. 3.15 The pillar and Ground of Truth and following such New Teachers they make shipwrack of their Divine Faith and run themselves assuredly upon the Rock of Perdition Thirdly It appears how dangerously those are deceived who think they have Faith enough to Salvation if they believe those Points of the Christian Religion about which Catholicks and Protestants agree esteeming themselves not obliged to believe any of those Articles about which the Learned of these two Religions do differ and contend As though Christian people were not obliged under pain of Damnation to beware of false Prophets Matt. 7. To shun Heretical Teachers Tit. 3. To obey their Lawful Prelates and to be subject unto them in matters of Faith and Religion Heb. 13. To hear those Teachers whom Christ doth send Luke 10. To hear and obey the Voice of his Church if they will not be held to be in as ill case as Publicans and Ethnicks are Matth. 18. Or as though they were not bound to know the right means by which they are to be Justified cleansed from Sin and Saved to Believe rightly and to Receive worthily the great Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ 1 Cor. 11. Joh. 6. And as though they were not obliged under the same Penalty to believe and profess the True Gospel the True Faith and Religion of Christ and to Serve and Worship God rightly Seeing those which believe not his Gospel that is the whole Sum of Divine Doctrine taught by his Apostles and by their Successors the Ordinary Doctors and Pastors of his Church are to be Damned Mark. 16 As those also are Which deny Christ before men Matth. 10.33 Which Crime all commit who deny themselves to be of the True Religion as is manifest by the Example of St. Peter who denying only that he was a follower of Christ and of his Company was reputed to deny Christ even as those will be who culpably profess a False Religion For such by their very Fact deny the True and themselves to be of the Communion thereof and of the Company and Society of the True Followers Disciples and Servants of Christ whereby at his Judgement-seat they will be reputed to have forsaken and denied him But to open this Point a little more because many even of the better sort are brought thereby into no small danger of Perdition this their conceit is not grounded upon any clear Text of Gods Word or upon the Authority of any Vnerring Church but meerly upon a Mistake of their own by which out of one or two Truths they infer a pernicious falshood upon which while they trust they trust to a broken staff which at their last Leap will let them fall into the deep Ditch of Perdition if before their Death they cast it not away Which presumptuous discarding of Divine Verities revealed by Christ to his Apostles for the direction of mankind to Eternal happiness and by them laid up in the Treasury of the Church as a Sacred Depositum 1 Tim. 6.20 under the sure Custody of the Holy Ghost is no less than High Treason against Christ our Saviour in regard that it raises a most pernicious Rebellion in his Spiritual Kingdom bringing part thereof again under the Tyranny of the Devil It frustrates the full Operation of his Passion extinguishes the true and right Worship of God despoils Christian People of Divine Faith and thereby of the true means of Salvation It deprives the Saints of due Honour defrauds the Faithful departed of necessary Relief It robs Heaven of Souls and inriches Hell with innumerable unwary and most unhappy People For which respects it is rightly stiled one of the greatest Sins and of the loudest crying Crimes that is Note That God cannot stir up and draw men by this his Heavenly Grace to believe these Verities unless they be proposed to be believ'd without all mixture of falshood for if any falshood be packt in among them and proposed with them for a Divine Truth revealed by God he cannot draw Men by his Grace to believe them thus mingled and preposed with Falshood as is manifest because he cannot induce men to believe any Falshood at all And therefore whosoever doth thrust in among some Divine Vereties any false Doctrine contrary to that which God hath revealed proposing the same to be believed as a
Corrupted Daniel 7. Being indeed the Pillar and ground of Truth as the Apostle affirms 1 Tim. 3. If I say the Doctrine of Protestant Teachers about the Erring of the Church of Christ being so contrary to the Word of God as it is be true I demand of Prudent and Understanding Protestants how it can be defended that God is truly Good hath a fatherly care of Men doth truly love them and tender their Spiritual good and hath a true desire of their Eternal Salvation Seeing that whereas he doth freely permit the Devil to fill the World with false and wicked Religions with Abominable and Detestable Worships to bring Men assuredly to ever lasting Dammation He himself though he could most easily do it doth not continue maintain and uphold in the World in all Ages so much as one True Religion so much as one Holy and Divine Worship to bring them to Salvation No not after that his Blessed Son made Man by Infinite Humility by Innumerable Labours undergone for his sake by shedding his most precious Blood had endeavour'd to appease his Indignation to mitigate his Wrath and to gain and purchase Love and Mercy for them What Christian Breast can believe so monstrous a thing as this Or who can Harbour so base a Thought of the Wisdom Goodness Sweetness and Mercy of God Or how come Discreet and Understanding Protestants to swallow so gross an Absurdity as this If the Tenet of the Protestant Teachers touching the Erring of the Church be true how is that true which Christ says John. 3.16 That God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that every one that believeth in him perish not but may have Life everlasting For God sent not his Son to judge that is to damn the World but that the World may be Sav'd by him Or that which St. Paul says 1 Tim. 2.4 God will have all men Sav'd and come to the knowledge of the Truth How I say are these Divine Assertions true if to bring Men to Salvation God doth not ever preserve a True Religion in the World Doth not ever uphold the Truth of his Gospel For by false Religions no man can be Saved in regard that the Devil and not God is the Author and Suggestor of False Religions by which he intends the Damnation of Men and not their Salvation as is manifest Yea he neither can nor will induce men to invent a Religion able and fit to save men in Mark this well and also Note that our Saviour in the Sentence alleadg'd by the word World doth not mean that only Age in which He and his Apostles liv'd nor those men only which then liv'd But all following Ages and all that were to live even till the day of Doom All which God would have to come to the knowledge of the Truth namely of his Divine Gospel and to save them all he sent his blessed Son into the World. And therefore we must of necessity grant that he provideth the People of all Ages of a True and Visible Church by which they may be Sav'd And that he ever preserves in all Ages the Truth of his Gospel of which the Apostle speaks in the Sentence alleadg'd that so men may come to the knowledge thereof For if the true Gospel of Christ be not extant in all Ages how hath God a true Will and Desire that the People of all Ages should come to the knowledge thereof Neither is it sufficient that it be extant in the BIBLE for all to come to the knowledge thereof For all cannot read the Bible neither can those which are skill'd in Reading thence pick out the true Gospel without the help of a True Interpreter But it must be ever extant in the Sums of Christian Doctrine left in the Church with the Ordinary Doctors and Pastors of the Church whom others are bound to Hear and Obey Luke 10. Heb. 13. And of whom they are to learn Divine Faith which is gotten by Hearing Rom. 10. which is clear out of Matth. 24. where Christ expresly foretells that his True Gospel viz. the same that he Taught should be Preached to all Nations even till the end of the World And therefore the True Gospel must not be reserved only in the Bible but be ever extant in the Preaching of the Church Out of that which hath been spoken in thsi Dicourse who doth not see that the Prime and Fundamental Article of the Protestant Religion doth not only extreamly Disgrace the Wisdom Goodness and Mercy of God and extenuate the Merits of Christ but doth also tend to the Denial of all Christianity to the utter neglect of God Yea and to plain Atheism it self For who will think that the Son of God really Dy'd for Mankind if he gain'd so little for them Or that there is a God that doth truly love Men and tender their good if he be so unmindful of them and of their Eternal Happiness and Salvation The tending then of the Protestant Religion so much to the Disgrace of Christ and of God doth clearly shew who was the first Founder of it Wherefore as certain as it is that there is a God who is Infinitely Wise Good and Merciful and who doth truly love Mankind and tender their Eternal Good And as certain as it is that Christ the Son of God Died for us took a most provident course for our Salvation and that his Merits are of inestimable worth So certain is it that God hath ever preserv'd in the World a True and visible Church in which Men may be Sav'd if they will. For Christ did rot Light up a Candle to put in under a Bushel Mat. 5. And so certain it is that the Protestant Religion which is Erected upon so bad a Foundation as the Erring of the Church is is neither good nor sufficient to Salvation Testimonies of the SCRIPTURE evidently convincing that there can be no hope of Salvation for such as are separated from the Church which is the Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church by Heresie or Schism I Beseech you St. Paul Rom. 16.17 18. Brethren observe those who make Schisms and Scandals contrary to the Doctrine which you have been taught and avoid them For such men serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own Belly and by kind Speeches and Benedictions seduce the hearts of the simple Now to manifest how much such Heretioks are to be Detested he writes thus to Titus Tit. 3.10 11. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid knowing that he is such an one is subverted and Sinneth being condemned by his own judgement To Prevent the making a Schism in this Body the Church he says 1 Cor. 1.10 I beseech you Brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all say one thing and that there be no Schisms among you but that you be perfect in one sense and in one knowledge Again Eph. 4.1 I beseech you that you walk worthy of
withal That without Faith in Jesus Christ no Man can be Saved This is not only the Belief of all that wear and deserve the Noble Title of a Christian but certain also out of the Word of God. Act. 4.12 There is not Salvation in any other for neither is there any other Name under Heaven given to Men to wit but the Name of Jesus wherein we must be saved Mark 16.16 But he that shall not believe namely the Gospel and Religion of Christ shall be condemned Heb. 11.6 Without Faith it is impossible to please God. Rom. 5.1 Being therefore justified by Faith let us have Peace toward God by our Lord Jesus Christ By whom also we have access through Faith to his Grace This Ground then is certain and cannot be denied by any Christian For my second Ground I lay That this Faith in Jesus Christ which by God's Ordination is of necessity required to Salvation is not a meer Natural Faith or Humane Credulity which Men may have by their own natural Forces without the help of God's special Grace such as is the Faith of Heathens of Jews and Turks and such indeed as is the Faith of all Hereticks But it is a Divine and Supernatural thing which Men acquire and attain to by the special Aid of God by the help of Divine Grace and therefore this Faith is called and truly is The Gift of God. This ground is certain first out of the Word of God which clearly teacheth That saving Faith is the gift of God Phil. 1.29 To you it is given for christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him Eph. 2.8 By Grace you are saved through Faith and that not of your selves for it is the gift of God Not of Works that no man may glory Joh. 6.44 No man can come unto me that is believe in me for our first step toward Christ is Faith unless the Father that sent me draw him And Verse 65. Therefore did I say to you that no Man can come to me unless it be given him of my Father Joh 15.5 I am the Vine you the Branches he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth much fruit for without me you can do nothing Namely appertaining to Salvation and therefore not believe as is requisite to Life Everlasting without the help of Christ that is of Divine Grace by Christ merited and purchased for us These places are clear Secondly This ground is strongly proved by Reason For the end of Man being to enjoy Supernatural Glory that is the clear Vision of God in his blessed Kingdom The means to obtain this high and divine End must be suitable to it that is Divine and Supernatural For who will say that Man of himself and by his own forces without the Aid and special Favour of God is able to make himself fit and proportionate to be associated to the Saints to the Angels to Christ to God in Eternal Glory Who will say that of himself he is able to cleanse his Soul from the stains and filth of Sin and to put upon her a Wedding Garment a Golden and Resplendent Vesture suitable to the Banquet and Banqueters of Heaven The special Operation then of Divine Grace must Purifie and Embellish the Soul of Man and Attire her in Holy and Divine Vertues that so she may be fit to be the Consort of God in the Fruition of his Eternal Glory And so Faith which is one of these Virtues and the very Ground and Foundation of the rest must be Divine and Supernatural and spring in Man from the help of God's Grace and be Adorned and Dignified by it that so there may be a fit proportion betwixt the Root and the Tree the Seed and the Fruit the Egg and the Brid a Christian Life and the Glory of Heaven Whosoever will deny this ground must not only forsake the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and go against the light of Reason but he must also fall into the Pelagian Heresie condemned by the Church of Christ Twelve Hundred years ago Which held That the Gospel of Christ being proposed by his Preachers men of themselves without any further help of Divine Grace are able to believe the same and do all therein required to Life Everlasting Which proud fancy of Pelagius St. Hierom St. Augustine and especially the Bishops of Rome by the invincible force of God's Word did crush confound and beat to the ground My third Ground is That as God cannot be the Author of a Lye of a false Doctrine of a false Faith of a false Religion That is of a Rligion and Doctrine of Faith that is mixed with falshood and is partly true and partly false So he neither doth neither can stir up and draw Men by his special Grace Aid and Operation to believe those Religions or Doctrines of Faith which are so mixed with Falshood This seems to be evident even by the light of Reason for as it is the proper work of the Devil to mix Religions and to pollute them with Falshood So it is his continual and studious endeavour to stir up and induce Men by proposing some pleasing and delectable thing or other to believe and embrace the same that so he may deprive them of Divine Faith which is the Gift of God and bring them assuredly to Everlasting Damnation Neither let any one be so simple as to imagine That the Devil is only the Author of those Religions which are wholly False For scarcely is there any Religion in the World that doth teach no Truth at all And therefore it is sufficient to prove a Religion to be the work of the Devil if there be any falshood in it at all at St. Paul doth seem to teach 1 Tim. 4.1 where foretelling the rising of the Manichean Heresie which long did pester the Chruch of God he calls the Doctrine thereof the Doctrine of Devils Notwithstanding that those Hereticks with some falshoods did teach many Truths even as all Hereticks do who nevertheless are the Instruments of the Devil to seduce and destroy Souls Wherefore whosoever do culpably Believe and follow Religions or Doctrines of Faith partly true partly false do never believe the same with Divine Faith which is the Gift of God though they esteem the Religion which they follow to be the best of all others yea to be the pure Light of the Gospel of Christ But their Faith is ever a meer Humane Credulity such as is the Faith of all Mis-believers which can never bring them to Eternal Happiness how laudably soever they live because without Divine Faith that is the Gift of God no Man can be saved according to the settled Ordination and Providence of God as I before have clearly shewed out of his Word Out of this Doctrine which is most true doth appear First The Reason of the Doctrine of of Christ deliverâ—d Matt. 7. where he declares That false Prophets that is false Expounders of the Word of God in
if you can whether your noble Progenitors almost for the space of a Thousand years were zealous Papists Cast your eyes then upon their Wisdom known by the Government and Laws which they established Upon their Piety blazon'd by the goodly Churches by the stately Monasteries by the renowned Colledges which they Erected and Endowed and censure them not to have been so stupid so ungodly that with so great zeal and costs they would have embraced honoured and established Papistry had it been so absurd so ungrounded so Superstitious and Idolatrous and so dangerous to Princes and their States as divers of your deceived or deceiving Teachers do give you to understand Neither think your Neighbours who live Papists amongst you so blockish that they would forsake the easie and flesh-pleasing Religion of Luther Calvin and other new Teachers to embrace with so great loss and hazards the austere Profession of Papists if the same were such as you are made to believe Let not therefore any prejudicate conceits defraud you of this fit opportunity to free your selves from the most dangerous mistakes and consequently from the fruitless pangs of too late Repentance where with every one will be fearfully afflicted that departs this life culpably in a wrong and false Religion when the judging light of Christ shall lay open to him how naked he is through his own willfull negligence of Divine Faith of Heavenly Charity and of other Coelestial Vertues absolutely necessary to Salvation Because divers Protestant Teachers endeavours to make their followers believe that the Fathers of the Primitive Church were Protestants which Followers know no otherwise but let them take notice that those Ancient Worthies and Lights of the Church of Christ were either Monks or Founders of Monastical Discipline or at least Approvers and Praisers of the same St. Anthony was a Monk and St. Athanasius his Praiser St. Basil the Great a Monk and the Founder of a Monastical Institute which in the Eastern part of the World is yet practised St. Gregory the Divine was a Monk St. Chrisostom a Monk St. Hierom a Monk the Great St. Augustine the Founder of a Monastical course of Life St. Martin a Monk St. Benedict a Monk and Founder of the famous Order of Monks which does yet flourish in the Western Church St. Gregory the Great was a Monk and by the labours of Forty Monks did first plant Christianity amongst the English Let any Man judge how likely or how true it is that these Men were Protestants Secondly take notice that these ancient and most Learned Fathers were great Praisers Practisers of Austere and Penitential Works consisting in frequent Prayer in much Watching in severe Fasting in hard Lodgings in course and spare Dyet in wearing of Hair-Cloath and the like they lived single lives many of them bestowed their Wealth upon the Poor and other Pious Uses and professed voluntary Poverty following therein the Counsel of Christ given Matth. 19.21 and they not only allowed of but also most highly extolled the observing of perpetual Chastity and Virginity preferring the same far above Matrimony Were not these men then strange Protestants Thirdly take notice that these Ancient Worthies even by the Confession of all Protestants were men of accute Wits of excellent Learning If then they had found in the Word of God as Protestants say they find that only Faith does justifie that good Works are not Meritorious That in Works of Grace men have not Free-will That they are not able to keep the Commandments That it is not in the power of man or woman to live perpetually Chaste that Virginity is not more pleasing to God than Matrimony that to give all to the Poor to Fast Pray and watch much and to undergo other Austerities and Mortifications of the Body doth not profit and enrich the Soul that there is no Purgatory no Pennance to be done no satisfaction to be made for Sin no punishment to be inflicted upon the Faithful for them after this Life If I say the Ancient Fathers had found these and the like Doctrines of Protestants in the Scriptures and why should they not have found them there if there they had been they being so wise so learned and so industrious searchers of the Word of God as they were If there I say they had found these things and had believed them as Protestants do they would have lived as Protestants do for why should they not If these pleasing Doctrines which are light and easie to flesh and the blood and the sweet liberty of the new Gospel has as feelingly pierced and as strongly possessed the Hearts of those Ancients as it did and doth the Breasts and Bowels of Luther Zuinglius Bucer Peter Martyr Beza and their followers the Teachers of the Protestant Religion they would without all doubt with these have preferred Pleasures before Pennance Feasting before Fasting the delights of the Conjugal Life before the continent and single and in a word Riches Honours Pleasures before Labours and smart of a Penitential and Mortified Life before voluntary Poverty and the vexing Attire of Hair-cloth or else they had been mad had they believed as most Protestants do that such exercises as these are needless fruitless yea and superstitious Toys But the truth is that those ancient and shining Lamps of Wisdom and Sanctity did not believe as Protestants do and therefore they liv'd not as they do for they were otherwise instructed in the School of Christ they read and learned another Lesson in his Divine Gospel even the same that Papists now do and therefore they instituted their Lives as they did and were in very deed as much Protestants as the Pope and His Priests and Fryars now are and no more most certainly unless we will have them to have been Sots and mad-men Let not then my noble and dear Country-men the mis-reports of some of your Teachers so far prevail with you as to make you believe the better to keep and quiet you in Protestantism that the Fathers of the Primitive Church were Protestants For certainly those blessed Servants of Christ were as far from being Protestants as the most zealous of your Teachers are from being Papists yea from being Monks or Fryars and from leading their Lives as those Ancients did If then you truly prize the Learning and Sanctity of the Primitive Church and Christianity become of that Belief which their Lives and Practises do preach unto you If you think them saved be not so hardy as to seek a new way to Heaven for the safety of your Souls is of greater moment than so to be exposed to hazard being there can be but one saving Faith Eternal Glory is not easily to be set upon the Dice when you may take secure way to it Become then of the Communion of the Church in which the Fathers lived and died that therein seconding your belief with a vertuous Life you may assuredly attain to Everlasting Happiness beseeching God to prosper your Reading Considering