the Catholike Church câ—lâ— Trasubstantiation I confess also that under one 〈◊〉 onely whole and entire Christ and the true Saâ—â—ment is taken I do constantly hold that there is a Pâ—rgatory and that the souls there detained are hâ—lpâ—â— by the suffrages of the faithful As also that the Saiâ—â— raigning with Christ are to be reverenced and called upon and that they do offer prayers to God for mâ— and their reliques are to be reverenced or honoured I do most firmely assert that the Images of Christ and of the Mother of God-ever a Virgin as also of other Saiâ—â— are to be had and kept and that due honor and Vâ—â—ration is to be given them I affirm also that the power of Indulgences is left by Christ in the Church aâ— that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people I acknowledge that the holy Catholike and Apâ—stolike Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistris â— all Churches And I do promise and swear true Obedience to the Pope of Rome successor of Blessed Peter Prince of the Apostles and the Vicar of Jesus Chrisâ— Also all other things delivered defined and declareâ— by the sacred Canons and Oecumenical Councils aâ— especially of the holy Synod of Trent I do withâ—â— doubting receive and profess and also all things câ—â—trary and all heresies whatsoever condemned by thâ— Church and rejected and Anathematized do I iâ— like manner condemne reject and Anathematize This â—rue Catholike faith without which no man can be saâ—ed which at the present I do voluntarily professe â—nd truely hold the same will I take care to hold and â—onfess entire and inviolate by Gods help most conâ—antly even to the last breath of my life and as much â—s in me lyeth to be held taught and preached by â—hose that are under me or those whose care belongs to â—e in my office This I.N. do Promise Vow and â—wear so help me God and these holy Gospels of God So far the Trent Confession which I the raâ—her recite that you may see what their Religion is â— their own words and oaths where you see also â—â—at this is but a small part of it for it is moreover â— large as all the Council of Trent and all other â—ecumenical Councils and holy Canons of the Imâ—ossibilities and self-contradictions of which faith we â—hall say more anon So that I conclude that it is not Christianity but â—is additional Leprosie which we call by the name of â—opery they believe this much more then we or a â—reat part more and by believing more they believe â—ss while they destroy the sound faith which they â—efore seemed to profess 2 For the next term to be explained Salvation â—e mean by it principally Everlasting Glory and â—ithall those beginnings of it inclusively which we â—ve in this life consisting in our Justification Aâ—option Sanctification Consolation and Perseâ—erance 3. By the term Way we mean such necessary â—eans as are prescribed us by God for the attainment â— Salvation either as to our Belief or our Affection and Practice according to the directions of the doctrine which we do believe 4. As to the sence of the word Safe it signifieth that which is free from danger or which tendeth to a mans welfare Now here is a double safety considerable in Doctrines answerable to a double danger First it s one thing to be safe from any sin in the way to Salvation and so we may well say that Popery is no safe way which leadeth to so much sin But that 's not all that is here intended But it s another matter to be so deep in sin as not to be safe from the Everlasting Punishment but that salvation it self is endangered thereby and this we principally intend And whereas there are several Degrees of Danger we mean that true Popery heartily entertained and practiced doth leave but small probability if any possibility of the Salvation of any that do persevere impenitently therein to the end Though you may see what I deny in what is already said yet for the greater perspicuity I shall express my sence in these few Propositions following Prop. 1. That Christian doctrine contained in the holy Scriptures which the Papists do profess to believe is of it self without their corruptions a safe way to salvation Prop. 2. Whatever errors are held by Papists or any others which do consist with a true practicâ— belief of the foresaid Christian doctrine which they confess and we are agreed in those errors shâ—â—â— not exclude the erroneous from Salvation Prop. 3. The Papists do not expresly in terms and sence deny any fundamental point of faith Prop. 4. It s possible even practically to hold an error which by remote consequence contradicteth a fundamental Truth and yet to hold that truth practically and so to be saved For either all moral â—errots in Theology as Amesius thought do contradict the Foundation by consequence by reason of the necessary concatenation of Truthes or most at least Prop. 5. There are some errors so great that if they were cordially and practically held would be inconsistent with the cordial practical holding of the Foundation which yet may be held but speculatively and notionally in consistency with the cordial and practical belief of the fundamentals and the person not knowing the contradiction may be saved Prop. 6. Multitudes of people while they take common termes in Divinity in a wrong sence do maintain Propositions which by plain consequence if not directly contradict the Fundamentals according to the proper genuine sence of the words when yet in the sence as they mistake and misuse them in there is no contradiction Even as many on the other side do hold the Christian verity in words who in sence deny it Prop. 7. We have great reason to think that many millions of the Laity among the Papists if not the far greatest part of them do not cordially embrace the most of the Popish corruptions in doctrinals nor the most dangerous of them 1. Because they do not understand them and so cannot so much as speculatively receive them It is not one of a hundred perhaps of many hundreds among them that knows all contained in the Council of Trent alone much less in all the rest of the Council and Canons and customes wherein they place their Religion Nay perhaps it s but few of their Clergy that know this comparatively So that it is but an implicite general belief that they can give to such Canons as are unknown which is not a belief of the particular doctrines contained in them as such 2. Because I hope among most or many of them they are first taught the Creed the Lords Prayer and ten Commandments or at least the Creed and Decalogue though the Lords Prayer be usually taught them in Latine which contain the Fundamentals of Christian faith and practice and therefore we have reason to hope that these are deeper in their minds then any contradictory doctrines especially when they must have so
for the perfect or sufficient Rule of Judgement It is this word onely that we appeal to and desire to be judged by And the Papists wilful declining of this Tryal and Judgement doth give any impartial observer sufficient cause to suspect that they take the Scripture to be against their cause or else why should they not have as much confidence in it and commit their cause to it as well as we 2. To run over every point of difference between us and them and prove our part by Scripture would be a very easie work but it would make this Disputation swell too big And it is done so largely and often already by our Writers that it is less necessary If any of them complain for the omission â— this part let him but assure me that he will stand tâ— the Judgement of Scripture and I shall quickly aâ—â— willingly enter the lists with him and go over thâ—â— part of the task again In the mean time let it suâ—â—â— to tell young Students that Amesius his Bellarmiâ—â— Enervatus hath spoiled all their cause of this defence and manifested Scripture to be fully against them iâ— a little room which may spare them the reading oâ— many larger And for the meer English Reader Mr. Ri. Bernard in his book called Look beyond Luther in his help annexed to it hath given a brief and effectual discovery that Scripture is not on their side in an enumeration and proof of many of the pointâ— in difference between them and us which for brevity I refer them to In a word if the Scripture be true then that Religion which agreeth with them is a safe way to salvation But the Papists confess that the Scriptures are true Therefore c. The Major is plain in that Scripture affirmeth of it self that it is able to make us wise unto salvation and furnish us to every good work and is written that we might believe and believing might have life in Christs name c. Joh. 29.31 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Of which we have said somewhat in a sâ—ort Determination of that Question by it self Arg. 2. That Religion is a safe way to Salvation by which the Apostles and the Churches in their days were saved But by the Reformed Catholike Christian Religion now called Protestant were the Apostles and the Churches in their dayes saved therefore it is a safe way to salvation The Major with reasonable men needeth no proof There is not many Religions but only one that are a â—â—fe way to Salvation and that which the Apostles â—ent in and the Churches in their dayes is undoubâ—edly that one God hath not since taken down â—hat Religion and set up another and made â—hat way safe to us which was unsafe to them The Minor is thus proved The Apostles and Churches in their dayes were saved by that Religion which is contained or expressed in the holy Scriâ—tures But that is the same with this which is called â—he Protestant Religion For proof whereof I refer you and offer as abovesaid Yeeld once that Scripture shall be the Rule to judge by and the controversie will soon be ended betwixt us And I need not to say but these two things for proof of the point 1. That their own Writers confess that the Affirmative or Positive part of our Religion as it was here in England professed was not against the word of God contained in the holy Scriptures only they told us that the Negatives were of which we shall consider further anon 2. As it is the great care of the Papists to keep the Scriptures from the people accounting it the Original of Heresies to have them translated as Arboreus and many expresly say and burning men to ashes for reading the Scriptures when God will burn them in Hell if they obey them not which they are not like to do without knowing them so experience hath convinced them that where the reading of the Scriptures in a known tongue is but permitted there doth our Religion most encrease and Popery decay so that if this one means were but permitted in Spain and Italy as it is whether they will or no in other parts undoubtedly the Popes Kingdom would soon come down I say if they durst but permit men to read the Word of God in a known tongue They know this well enough or else they would never so torture poor Christians by the Inquisition for having a Bible in their houses They have sure some humanity in them as well as others and therefore could never go so exceeding far beyond the Turke in Cruelty to Christians themselves but that they know their whole cause and Kingdom is concerned in it and if once Scripture get in they are gone In a word multitudes of volumes have already proved that Scripture is against Popery Argu. 3. That Religion is a safe way to Salvation in which the Church in the three or four first Ages at least was saved But the Church in the three or four first Ages at least was saved in that Catholike Christian Religion which now is called the Reformed or Protestant Religion Therefore this is a safe way to salvation I mention not the former Ages as if all other following Ages had come to heaven by any other Religion then the former but 1. because in them alone there is a sufficient proof of the Major Proposition None could be saved in it especially not so many Ages of the purest times if it were not a safe way 2. Because some Popish Errors began among the worser sort of Ambitious Superstitious Prelates to creep in betimes and Popery it self appeared in the world soon after the six hundredth yeer and was openly established about the thousandth yeer And according to the degrees of corruption in the Church there was a greater difficulty of salvation because more impediments but still those that were saved were all saved in and by the same Religion of the former Ages and if they were saved in any Corruption yet not By it but from it or against it As for the proof of the Minor as it requireth a full volume of it self to produce the particular Testimonies of the Fathers for us so is it already done in many Volumes And because the continual clamor of the Papist is that Antiquity is on their side I shall anon disprove them in the fundamentaâ— difference between them and us in the following Disputation about their pretended Soveraignty and Infallibility and in other particulars desire them to give some reasonable answer to what is already alledged by Bishop Vsher Dr Field and many morâ— of our Writers before they expect we should regard their vain immodest pretences And still let is be remembred that for all the Positive part of our Religion they themselves cannot deny but that the Churches still held it Our Religion is the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and doubtless that was entertained by all the Churches and in that Religion they were saved Argu. 4. That Religion is a safe
the Determination of their Church he must presently not onely believe the contrary to what he believed before but do it also without doubting though they 'l confess millions are saved that believe Christ to be the Son of God though not without doubting Well but see what unity is procured by the addition of these new Articles to their Creed The French Doctors ascribe to his holiness that the said Articles may be taken in several sences The one sence is Heretical Lutheran or Calvinian but that is a sence That the words lawfully used will not hear but onely may malignantly be fastened to them say they The other sence which is genuine and proper they Defâ—nd themselves as true and as pertaining to the Belief of the Church as the Doctrine of Augustine and as defined by the Council of Trent and the contrary Opinion of Molina and the adversaries others maintain to be Pelagian or Semipelagian See here what the Papists themselves now do implicitely charge upon the Pope That he by his express unlimited condemnation doth malignantly fasten an Heretical sence on the words which properly they will not bear or else that he contradicteth Augustine and the Council of Trent and Anathematizeth the Christian faith and maintaineth the Semipelagian Heresie of Molina And yet must we judge either their Pope to be infallible or their Church to be at such unity in faith as they would make the ignorant vulgar believe More of the like contention about his holiness Determinations you may see in Tho. Whites Appendicula ad sonum Buccinae and Franscus Macedo his Lituus Lusitanus In all which you may see that all the comfort that the poor Dominicans have left them even their hope of salvation if they be Papists indeed consisteth in this that the Pope speaks one thing and means another and that as White so merrily saith in so sad a matter The wise father of the Church was necessitated for the appeasing of contentions to grant the more turbulent party their words and the more obedient party their sence so that when the Pope hath done all that he can to determine their controversies they will still say that he determineth but the words nay he doth but grant one party their words and not the meaning and so not onely sence but bare terms must be made Articles of faith And here you may see the great force of the Papists arguing for a necessity of a living Judge to determine of the sence of Scripture because the Scripture is so ambiguous that each one will else wrest it his own way And do we not see that the Pope cannot after so many years deliberation determine five short Articles so expresly and plainly even when he doth it of purpose to decide the controversie as to make his learned Doctors understand him but that each party doth take his words to be either for or not against their opinions and hold their opinions as fast since his determination as before And so they do by Augustine Thomas and the Council of Trent each party confidently perswading the world that they were of their side And may not God have the honor of speaking as plainly as the Pope or Thomas or the Council of Trent and cannot we well be without the Decision of such a Judge as cannot speak so as to be understood by his greatest Doctors himself So that the Principles and Practices of the Romanists do assure us that their faith is unfixed growing and mutable they may be one year of one Religion and another year of another as pleasâ— the Pope A Dominican might have been saved at any time since the creation till May 31. 1653. when the Popes Determination was dated but now they must all be damned for heresie There is a new way to heaven made 1653. that never was before and for ought they know to the contrary before their Popes have done Determining there may be five hundred Articles more in their Creed So that for my part I desire not either to be shut out of heaven at the pleasure of every new Pope nor to be of so uncertain and changeable a Religion And I cannot think therefore that Popery is a safe way to salvation Arg. 8. That Doctrine which derogateth from the written Word of God and setteth the Decrees of men above it enabling them to contradict its most express institutions is no safe way to salvation But such is the Doctrine of Popery therefore it is no safe way to salvation The Major is unquestionably true among true Christians For the proof of the Minor I shall only give you three instances of the Popish Doctrine because I intend not to be too particular left I be too large The first is their affirming the Scripture both to be insufficient to discover the whole doctrine of faith as being but one part of Gods Word and Tradition the other part and also to be no Word of God at all to us till the Pope and his Clergy do authoritatively determine it so to be or that we cannot know the Scripture to be Gods word but upon the Authority of the Churches determination But of this I have spoken before and shall do more in another dispute The second instance that I give is Their changing Christs most express institution by withholding the Cup in the Lords Supper from the people and giving them but half the Sacrament I am not now disputing about the efficacy or inefficacy of one half so delivered but proving the intolerable Arrogancy of the Papists that dare set up the will of man above Gods Word and give power to the Pope to change Christs Institutions and not onely to adde but to diminish and expresly to contradict Christ and forbid what he commandeth I know they pretend that it was but to the twelve Apostles that Christ gave the Cup and not to the Laity True nor the bread neither but then if he intended that none but the Clergy have the Cup why may they not as well say so of the Bread But do not these deceivers know 1. That Christ gives this reason of his administring the Cup Drink yee All of it For this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the Remission of sins So that if this reason hold to others if his blood be shed for the sins of others as well as for the Clergie then the command extendeth to others Drink ye all of it And do they not know that Luke further intimateth this in his narration of the words of Christ This Cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you So that those whom it is shed for and we may discern to be Believers it may be applyed to 2. And do they not know that Paul delivereth the doctrine both of the Bread and Cup as from the Lord to the whole Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 11. and not onely to the Clergy Is it not all that he expresly commandeth to Examine themselves
that They will never take and interpret the Holy Scriptures but according to the unaniomous consent of the Fathers When as 1. The Fathers do not unanimously consent among themselves concerning the sence of the greatest part of Scripture and so they are sworn to take it in no sence because the fathers are not unanimous 2. He that knows not the unanimous sence of the Fathers where they are unanimous is sworn hereby to take and interpret the Scripture in No sence 3. If by The Church whose sence they also swear to admit be meant the present Romane Church then that Church and the Fathers do differ in the Interpretation of many Scriptures so that in one Article they must needs be forsworn 4. Nay there are divers particulars of the Popish faith yea which in this oath they swear to which are against much more without the unanimous consent of the Fathers The Fathers never consented to this very Article that we must take and interpret the Scripture onely in the unanimous sence of the Fathers They never consented that the Bread and Wine are truely really and substantially the whole Body and Blood of Christ by Transubstantiation Nay the consent of the Fathers is against these And yet these wretches swear not to take and interpret Scripture but in the unanimous sence of the Fathers and withal swear the contrary in particulars even that they believe that which the Fathers never consented to but against Never did the Fathers consent that There are seven truely and properly Sacraments Instituted by Christ Never did the Fathers consent who lived a thousand or fourteen hundred years before that the Council of Trent did not erre or could not erre Nor That in the Mass is offered a true proper propitiatory Sacrifice for the living and dead Nor that the Eucharist may be taken under one kind and the Cup withheld nor That there is a Purgatory or the souls there holpen by the suffrages of the faithful nor that the Saints with Christ are to be prayed to Nor that Images were to be worshiped nor the power of Popish indulgencies left by Christ in the Church and the use of them wholsome Never did the Fathers consent that the Romane Church is the Mistris of all Churches or that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ over them nor that all Christians or Bishops or Pastors should swear true obedience to the Pope as Christs Vicar Let these proud deceivers shew us if they can when the Fathers or any one of the Ancients did ever take any such oath himself or perswade others to it Yea or that they have consented to any one of these Articles of the Romish faith and Trent oath What more evident to any man that hath any acquaintance with the Fathers then that these wretches do here most palpably forswear themselves Even as if they should swear to believe nothing but according to the Ancient Creed and withal swear to believe that Christ never dyed rose or ascended or that there is no resurrection or everlasting life Certainly if the very faith of Papists be contradiction and the profession of it plain perjury then Popery is not a safe way to Salvation I would here have added as the fourteenth Argument That Popery is a mixture of old condemned errors formerly called Heresies which the ancient Church hath testified against and therefore it is no safe way to Salvation And here I should have tryed their particular errors not yet mentioned or insisted on as their Doctrine of Merits and Justification thereby Satisfactions and many Semipelagian errors Image-worship with many the like But that this is beyond my present intended scope and purposed brevity and is so fully performed already by so many unanswerable Treatises of our Divines Let us next here what is said of most moment to prove Popery to be a safe way to Salvation Obj. 1. That Religion which hath been delivered down from the Apostles to this day without interruption is a safe way to Salvation For it is the same that the Apostles and all the ancient Christians were saved in But the Religion of the Church of Rome is that which hath been delivered down from the Apostles Therefore c. Ans 1. There is a change of the very subject of the question It is Popery that we are disputing of and this argument instead of Popery speaks of The Religion of the Church of Rome The Religion of the Church of Rome hath two parts First the Christian Faith Secondly their own corruptions depraving and contradicting this Faith The first as it standeth alone uncontradicted in the Religion which â—e profess The second is it that we call Popery and â—ay It is no safe way to salvation 2. And of this I deny the Minor and say that Popery is not the ancient Religion the Apostles and Primitive Church never knew it There was no such creature as a Papist known in all the world till six hundred years after the birth of Christ It was about 606. when Pope Boniface did first claim his universal Papacy and Headship and after that it was not till about one thousand years that the usurpation and Tyranny was consented to any thing generally in thâ— West And even the multitudes still dissented and some opposition was still made against it and all the Esterne Churches and the rest of the Christian world did dissent Of these things there is enough said to silence all the Papists on earth in Bishop Vsher de contin successione slatu Eccles Occident and his Answer to the Jesuites Challenge and by Bishop Jewell and Doctor Field and in many of the old Treatises against the Pope published together by Goldastus which shew us that he setled not his Kingdom without continnual opposition and contradiction We affirm that Popery is a meer novelty and challenge all the Papists in the world to prove the Antiquity of it When they have once arrogated to themselves the name of the Catholike Church and taught the people to believe as the Church believes that is to believe that all is true which the Pope and his Clergy will report of themselves it is then an easie matter for them to prove any thing to be true which makes for their turn then they may say The Fathers are for them and that they have their Papal sovereignty from St Peter when there is never a true word in it Then they may frame and forge new Decretals and cut out of the Ancient Writers thâ— which is against them and bring forth spurious writings under their names and tell the people that our Religion begun with Luther for its easie to prove any thing where themselves are the Judges and no witnesses but their own must be heard But if they dare leave that hold and come into the light its easie to evince the novelty of Popery though not of every particular error they hold Obj. 2. If the Church of Rome be a true Church then Popery is a safe way to salvation
must lye upon the exposition of them The points absolutely necessary to salvation are plainly delivered 2. Obscurity shews the need of a Teacher but not of a Judge At least its plain that when any Teacher shall remove the obscurity those texts oblige us as well as the plainest 3. As I said If the Pope be Judge of all difficult controverted texts he is an unfaithful Judge that will not expound them to us and decide so many controversies as yet depend What good will it be to the Church to have such a Judge of difficult controverted texts of Scripture as in the consciousness of his ignorance dare not give us his judgement but hath left them undecided these fifteen hundred years This dumbe Oracle that hath eyes and sees not and a mouth but speaks not is not a fit foundation for the Churches Faith 5. Where God calleth men to Office and Power he accomplisheth or fitteth them in some measure for the performance of it but God hath not fitted all Popes no nor any to Jugde Decisively of all controverted difficultyes in Scripture and Religion Therefore he hath not made them Judges of them The Minor shall be further proved anon Many Popes have been ignorant and unlearned many Heretickes unfit to decide all such controversies and they have shewed their unfitnesse by their non performance or ill performance The great Objection of the Papists is this Obj. 1. What! Shall every one be the Judge of Scripture and take it in what sence he please shall every unlearned man or woman expound it according to their own fancies then we shall have variety of expositions Whether is it fitter for the Church or every simple fellow to be Judge Answ 1. Neither Hath God made subjects to be Judges of his Lawes by which they must live and by which they must be judged Neither they nor your Pope must be Judges of the Lawes in a proper sence but obeyers of it 2. We say not that the people should expound the Scriptures as Teachers of others unless in their own callings as to the children servants c. when they are able This we reserve to the Officers of the Church 3. Nor do we say that any people must expound Scripture according to their own fancies or mis-guided conceits but according to the true meaning of them 4. Nor should they in difficult cases which are past their understandings presume of their own wit to know the right meaning but have recourse to the Teachers that God hath set over them that so by their help they may learn the meaning of that word which they understood not 5. And if their Teachers be singular or give them just cause to suspect their skill or fidelity they have more reason to regard the Judgement of the Judicious then of the ignorant and of the whole Church then of any one or few so far as the credit or authority of men must support a learner while he is a learning 6. But what Is it indeed such a monstrous heretical conceit in the eyes of a Papist that every Christian should have a Judicium discretionis a Judgement of discerning to perceive and discern which is truth and which is falshood Good Lord whether will the heat of contention carry men Why if they must not have this discerning judgement 1. Then God doth bind them all to be fools and ignorant 2. And then Religion and the Christian Faith are the endowments of bruits that know not what they hold or do and not of Reasonable men 3. Or else they that will be Christians must have no Faith or Knowledge which is a contradiction Is not Faith an act of discretion Must not he that believeth the Resurrection and Everlasting Life believe them with his own understanding And doth he not in believing them Judge them to be True and Judge the contrary doctrine to be false 4. Why will you read or preach Scripture to the people if you would not have them receive it by a judgment of discerning would you not have their judgment discern the Truth of what God hath written or the Priest shal preach to them 5. Doubtless you will allow them a judgement of Discretion about the Popes Decrees and Canons and your own Determinations How can they believe you if they do not by judgement discern the things you say to be true And why will you not allow them the like towards God and his Word Will you say It is their duty to believe the Pope and their sin to believe God Or it s their duty to understand the Popes Laws and their sin to understand Gods Laws Why what do you say less when you yield them a judgement of discretion as to the Pope or Church and deny it in Respect to the Word of God If you say that they will misunderstand the Scripture I ans 1. So will the Pope and the best and wisest man on earth in some part because while we are here we know but in part 2. Their error is their sin But doth it follow that they may not see at all for fear of missing their way Must they put out their eyes and be led by the Pope for fear of erring Must they not know or labor to know for fear of mistaking Will any Master take this well of his servant to put out his eyes or do nothing for fear of doing his work amiss Or refuse to go his journey lest he miss the way Then we must not judge of the Popes Laws neither and consequently not judge them to be true for fear of erring in our judgement When you prove that the Church of Rome is the true Church would you not have the people judge of your proof for fear of erring This is even to make beasts of Christians 3. What are Teachers for but to guide them and help them to understand If you are afraid lest they should erre be the more diligent in instructing them But this is the difference between the work of a Popish Teacher and ours They make it their work to put out mens eyes that they may have the loading of them because they are troubled with an imperfection in their sight and therefore will erre if those imperfect eyes be left in their heads we make it our work by all means we can use to cure their eye sight that they may be able to see themselves in the mean time advising them while their eyes are under cure not wholly to trust to them but to use the helpe of others to shew them the way and to tell them of dangers The Protestant will set his Childe to School that he may learn to know that which through childishness he knows not But according to the Popish way we should forbid them all books or learning lest they misunderstand them and let them never know any thing lest they know amiss The next step is to send them to Bedlam The Apostle would have men have their senses exercised to discern Good
elswhere Quia nolo humanis documentis c. Because I will not have the holy Church to be demonstrated by humane documents but by Gods Oracles For if the holy Scriptures have placed the Church in Africa alone and in a few places of Rome c. then whatsoever may be brought out of other papers the Church is onely with the Donatists Si autem c But if the Church of Christ is placed by the Divine and most certain testimonies of the Canonical Scriptures in all Natitions then what ever they bring and whence ever they recite it who say Lo here is Christ or lo there let us rather if we be his sheep hear the voice of our Shepherd saying Believe them not For those parcels are not found in many Nations where that Church is but it which is every where is found even where they are therefore let us seek it in the holy Canonical Scriptures And thus he goes on and proves at large by the Scriptures the true Church fitting all as meet to the present schisme of the Papists almost as if he had seen and named it Cap. 18. Begins thus Because therefore the holy Church is manifestly known in the Scriptures c. Remotis ergo omnibus c. Laying aside therefore all such matters let them demonstrate their Church if they can not in the speeches and rumors of the Africans not in the Councils of their Bishops not in the writings of any disputers not in signes and fallacious Miracles because we are prepared and cautioned against such things by the word of God but in the writings of the Law in the predictions of the prophets in the Psalms in the words of our Pastor himself in the preachings and labors of the Evangelists that is in all the Canonical authorityes of the sacred Books Next he shews that it must not be out of Parables Allegories or such Scriptures that make no more for one side then the other what then doth he tell them that it is all such and send them to Rome to know the sence no but it is the plain Scripture of which he produceth abundance that must tell us which is the true Church And he thus begins the 19 Chap. Omissis ergo c. Letting pass therefore the snares of delayes let him shew their Church c. and so shew it as not to say It s true because I say it or because my collegue said it or these collegues of mine or those Bishops or Clerks or our Layity or therefore its true because these or those wonders were done by Donatus or Pontius or any other or because men pray and are heard at the Memories or shrines of ours that are dead or because such or such things happen there or because that brother of ours or that sister of ours saw such a sight waking or had such a dreaming vision sleeping Away with these either fictions of lying men or wonders of deceiving spirits For either the things that are said are not true or if any wonders are done by hereticks we must the more beware seeing the Lord when he told us there would come deceivers who by doing certain signs would deceive if it were possible even the elect addeth Lo I have foretold you And if any be heard praying at the Memories of hereticks it is not for the desert of the place but the desert of his desire that he receiveth good or evil No man can have Christ for his head that is not in his Body which is the Church which Church we must know as we do Christ himself in the sacred Canonical Scriptures and not to inquire into the various rumors of men and their opinions and deeds and sayings and sights But let them shew me whether they have the Church no way but by the Canonical books of the divine Scriptuers Because neither do we therefore say that they ought to believe us that we are in the Church of Christ because that Church which we hold is commended by Optatus Melevitanus or by Ambrose of Millan or innumerable other Bishops of our communion or because it is predicated or praised by the Councils of our Collegues or because through the whole world in the holy places which are frequented by our communion so great marvailes of hearings or healings are done here some are named What ever things of this sort are done in the Catholike Church are therefore to be approved because they are done in the Catholike Church but it is not therefore manifested to be the Catholike Church because these things are done in it This he testifieth is written in the Law and the Prophets and Psalms this we have commended by his own mouth These are the documents of our cause these are its foundations these its upholders or confirmers We read in the Acts of the Apostles of some Believers that they daily search't the Scriptures whether those things were so What Scriptures but the Canonical of the Law and prophets Hereto are added the Gospels the Epistles of the Apostles the Acts of the Apostles and the Revelation of John Search all these and produce somewhat manifest which will demonstrate that the Church either remaineth in Africke alone or is to be from Africk so that it may be fulfilled which the Lord saith This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world c. But bring somewhat that needeth nor an interpreter that you may not be convinced that it speaks of another matter and that you strive to turn it to your own sence Chap. 25. The question is not dark in which they may deceive you You see the Church is every where diffused and increaseth to the harvest This whole Book of Austin is written as if it had been purposed as a confutation of the Papists that will have the Church to contain onely the Romane faction and exclude all the rest of the world and will try the Scripture by the Church and not the Church by the Scripture but fly to I know not what visions and pretended miracles to prove their Church which Austin professeth are not a proof no not of the true Church though there be much more then there to boast of so that the Papists cannot here say that Austin thus dealeth with the Donatists because they denyed the Church of Rome and believed the Scripture he expresly enough preventeth all such expositions of his words August con Cresconium li. 2. cap. 33. p. 177. Saith Ego hujus Epistolae c. I am not bound by the authority of this Epistle of Cyprians ad Jubai because I take not Ciprians Epistles be Canonical but by the Canonical I consider them and that in them which agreeth to the authority of the Divine Scriptures I accept with his praise but that which disagreeth I refuse with his peace And so if thou hadst recited those things which he wrote to Jubajan out of some Canonical book of the Apostles or Prophets I should have had
spirit But I find that even there Durandus destroyeth the Romane cause For he immediately addeth that Hoc quod dictum est de approbatione Scripturae per Ecclesiam intelligitur solum de Ecclesia quae fuit tempore Apostolorum qui fuerunt repleti spiritu sancto nihilominus viderunt Miracula Christi audierunt ejus doctrinam ob hoc fuerunt convenientes testes omnium quae Christus fecit aut doâ—uit ut per eorum testimonium scriptura continens facta dicta Christi approbaretur That is This which is said of the approbation of the Scripture by the Church is onely meant of the Church which was in the times of the Apostles who were filled with the Holy Ghost and also saw the Miracles of Christ and heard his doctrine and therefore were fit witnesses of all that Christ did or taught that by their testimony the Scripture containing the deeds and words of Christ might be approved This he proveth from Scripture and concludeth that the Gospels which that Church approved cannot now be rejected because there is not the like cause and that Immo tenens contrarium haereticus est cujuscunque status aut conditionis existat Yea he that holdeth the contrary is a heretick of what state or condition soever he be Not excepting the Pope himself Is this liker the doctrine of Papists or of Protestants Yea one word to Master Knot and those of his that will resolve their faith into the Miracles of the present Rome Church If those Miracles which they glory in be indeed regardable then the Church of Rome is not infallible for the author of those Miracles do witness them to be fallible The old Saint Austin and the rest of his time and before whose testimonies about Miracles they bring in as I have sufficiently proved are against their usurped jurisdiction and infallibility Their Saint Maud saith that the Romane Church shall ere long Apostatize from the faith totally and openly which did obscurely Apostatize of a long time before Their Saint Elizabeth saith That Christ the head of the Church cryeth out but his members are dead that the Apostolike seat is possessed with pride and the flocks go astray The supposed Prophet Abbat Joachim saith There is yet another figtree withered by the curse of prevarication the Latin Church or the Ship of Peter whose temporal leaves are made covers to excuse sin with which both Adam the Pope and Eve the subjects of the Church do cover the dishonesty of their lives and miserably hide themselves in the wood of Ecclesiastical Glory But I will trouble my self and the Reader with no more of this work fearing that I have trespassed in doing more than needs in so plain a case already I will therefore shut up all that I have to say from humane Testimony with the words of Chrysostom or whoever else is the author of the imperfect work on Math. and his own certain expressions elsewhere In the Imperfect Comment Edit Commel an 1617. in Math. 20. Hom. 35. pag. 900.901 it is said as followeth Fructum humilitatis terrestris posuit primatum caelestem primatus terrestris fructum posuit confusionem caelestem Quicunque ergo defiderat primatum caelestem sequatur humilitatem terrestrem quicunque autem desiderat primatum in terra inveniet confusionem in caelo ut jam inter servos Christi â—on sit de primatu certamen That is He hath made the Celestial primacy to be the fruit of terrestrial humility and the fruit of earthly Primacy he hath appointed to be Celestial confusion Whosoever therefore desireth Celestial primacy let him follow terrestrial humility but whosoever desireth Primacy on earth shall find confusion in heaven That so a mong the servants of Christ there may be no strife for Primacy And afterward he addeth Primatum autem Ecclesiasticum concupiscere neque ratio est neque causa quia neque justum est neque utile Quis enim sapiens ultro se subjicere festinar servituti labori dolori quod majus est periculo tali ut det rationem pro omni Ecclesia apud justum judicem nisi forte qui nec credit judicium Dei nec times uti abutens primatu suo Ecclesiastico seculariter convertat eum in secularem That is But to desire an Ecclesiastical Primacy there is neither reason nor cause because it is neither just nor profitable For what wise man will voluntarily hasten to subject himself to servitude labor grief and which is more to such a danger as to be accountable to the righteous judge for all the Church unless it be one that perhaps doth neither believe the judgement of God nor feareth it that abusing secularly his Ecclesiastical primacy he may turn it into a secular One would think this should be plain enough against the Papal usurpation If they tell me that this is none of Chrysostomes works but some hereticks I answer When they have use for it they can magnifie it Let their Sixtus Senensis words be weighed which are printed before this book especially what he saith of some ancient Copies which have the errors onely in the Margin written by some Arrian hand and withall that it is very observable that the errors are so intermixed that yet you may take them out and not maim any of the sence but leave the rest entire yea they seem as parenthentical or superfluous and then conjecture whether yet it may not be Crysostomes But whos 's so ever it is it is ancient and commonly much commended But let that go which way it will as long as in the undoubted works of Crysostome there is over and over again the like In his Homil. 66. alias 67. in Mat. 20. pag. 577. he saith They that seek Primacy are a disgrace to themselves not knowing that by this means they shall thrust themselves into the lowest state The like he hath in Homil. on Math. 18. I shall now leave it to the consideration of the impartial by this smal taste of the judgement of former tmes whether the Romane infallibility and universal government were a thing known to the Church of Christ of old or yielded as soon as ambitiously sought And whether this be a sit ground for us to build our faith upon or resolve it into And if any would see more of the resistancy of their usurpations even when it was at the highest he may read in Mich. Goldastus a multitude of Volumes that will give him further information or in Bishop Vsher de Success stat Eccles he may find enough in narrower room The last part of this disputation should consist of an answer to the Popish Arguments for their cause but I can find so little in any of their writings that 's worthy to be taken notice of more then what is answered before that I shall not need to stand long upon this They tell us that if our Church be not infallible then people
the creation to this day and we must now begin to feign a Necessity of their infallibility Let it be sufficient that God and the extraordinarily inspired Prophets and Apostles are infallible and that we have Teachers that can infallibly prove to us what he requireth of us in his words in points of Necessity to our everlasting happiness And for themselves pretending to infallibility makes them not nor procureth them infallible whereas their voluminous errors and the wicked practices grounded thereupon and their frequent self-contradictions and mutations do proclaim aloud to the world that they are both deceivable deceived and deceivers while the holy Scriptures whose sufficiency they deny is by themselves confessed to be of infallible verity We are resolved therefore by the grace of God in a business of such moment as the everlasting saving or losing of our souls to venture and bottom all our Hopes on that word of God whose infallibility they confess then on the wordâ— of men who pretend to infallibility and notoriously declare the vainty of those pretences Some more of the Sence of Antiquity in the main Controversie between us and the Papists to declare further who it is that is of the New Religion CYrill Hierosol Cateches 4. Sect. de spiritu sancto pag. Edit Paris 1631. 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. For concerning Divine things and the holy mysteries of faith nothing no not the smallest thing ought to be delivered without the Divine Scriptures nor to be brought forth by simple probability nor by a train of words Nay do not simply believe me my self when I speak of these things to thee unless thou receive a demonstration of the things which I speak from the Divine Scriptures For the very safety of our faith resteth not on the elegancy of speech but on the proof of Divine Scriptures And pag. 36. Sect de Sacra Script he telleth you what Scriptures he meaneth earnestly disswading from the Apocryphal books and numbering the same onely which we own as Canonical save that he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and omitteth the Epist to Hebrews and the Apocalypse And Cateches 17. pag. 192. he saith And we now also ingeniously confess that we will not use humane reasonings but will only commemorate those things which are in the holy Scriptures for this is most safe as Saint Paul 1. Cor. 2.4 And Cateches 18. pag. 220 221 222. See how he describeth the Catholike Church without the least intimation of the Romane description August Cont. literas Petiliani li. 3. cap. 6. pag. Edit Paris 127. col 1. Proinde sive de Christo sive de ejus Ecclesia sive de quacunque alia re quae pertinet ad fidem utramque nostram non dicam nos nequaquam comparandi ei qui dixit Licet si nos sed omnino quod secutus adjecit Si Angelus de caelo vobis annunciaverit preterquam quod in Scripturis legalibus Evangelicis accepistis anathema sit Hac vobiscum cum omnibus quos Christo lucrati cupimus actitantes atque inter caetera sanctam Ecclesiam quam in Dei lieris promissam legimus sicut promissa est in omnibus gâ—ntibus reddi cernimus praedicantes ab iis quos ad ejus pacificum gremium attrahi cupimus pro actione gratiarum flammas meruinnus odiorum That is Moreover whether it be of Christ or of his Church or of any other thing which pertaineth to our faith and life I say not if we who are not to be compared to him who said Though we but that which he next added If an Angel from heaven shall preach to you any other thing then that which you have received in the Scriptures of the Law and the Gospel let him be accursed While we deal thus with you and with all men whom we desire to win to Christ and among other things do preach the holy Church which we find promised in Gods Scriptures and which we see to be placed in all Nations as was promised we have deserved or procured the flames of hatred from those whom we desire to draw into its pacifike bosome in stead of thanks And he proceedeth as if it were we that so long before had bid the Prophets and Apostles that they should not put in their books any Testimonies by which the faction or party of Donatus is proved to be the Church of Christ The Epistle ad Demetriadem commonly reckoned the 142. among Augustines cap. 9. saith Scito itaque in Scripturis divinis per quas solas potes plenam Dei intelligere voluntatem c. By the Divine Scriptures alone thou maist understand the full will of God I know the Lovaine Doctors put this Epistle in the Appendix and conjecture it to be of Pelagius but 1. it shews the doctrine of that age 2. Never did Austin contradict it but oft say the like August de peccat Merit Remiss li. 2. cap. 36. pag. mihi 304. saith Talis populus ut praedixi eruditus in Regno caelorum per duo testamenta vetus novum non declinans in dextram superba presumtione justitiae neque in sinistram secuva delectatione peccati in terram illius promissionis intrabit postea Vbi enim de re obscurissima disputatur non adjuvantibus Divinarum Scripturarum certis clarisque documentis cohibere se debâ—t humana presumptio nihil faciens in partem alteram declinando So that in Austius judgement the old and new Testament teach us enough to salvation and in the difficult points we must not so much as incline to either side without the Scriptures it being presumption to speak when they are silent And in his 49. Tract on John he saith Evangelista testatur multa Dominum Christum dixisse fecisse quae non scripta sunt electa sunt autem quae scriberentur quae saluti credentium sufficere videbantur i. e. The Evangelist testifieth that the Lord Christ spoke and did many things that are not written but those were chosen to be written which seemed sufficient for the salvation of Believers And li. de Nat. Grat c. 26. he saith to the Pelagians Solis Canonicis debeo sine â—ulla recusatione consensum That is I owe a consent without any refusal to the Canonical Scriptures alone An hundred more such sayings might be cited out of Augustine Hierom on the first Ch. of Hag. fol mihi 102. speaking of the use of Hereticks saith Sed alia quae absque authoritate testimoniis Scripturarum quasi traditione Apostolica sponte reperiunt atque confingunt percutit gladius Dei i. e. But other things which without the Authority and Testimonies of Scripture they do of their own accord find out and feign as of Apostolical tradition the sword of God will cut down And he instanceth in the fastings and other austerities of the Tatiani which he saith they suffer causlesly The same Hierom against Helvidius saith Vt haec quae
may change any thing that God appointeth about Sacraments except the substance And it were well if they would have left that unchanged The Council of Constance took the cup from the Laity Licet in primitiva Ecclesia hujusmodi sacramentum reciperetur a fidelibus sub utraque specie Though in the primitive Church this Sacrament was received of the faithful under both kinds So that they confess they contradict the Primitive Church Bellarmine plainly saith li. 4. de Pontif. c. 5. Si Papa erraret in praecipiendo vitia vel prohibendo virtutes teneretur Ecclesia credere vitia esse bona virtutes malas nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare That is If the Pope should erre in commanding vices and forbidding virtues the Church were bound to believe that vices are good and vertues bad unless they would sin against conscience And against Barelay cap. 31. he saith In bono sensu dedit Christus Petro Potestatem faciendi de peccato non peccatum de non peccato peccatum That is In a good sense Christ hath given power to Peter to make sin no sin and no sin to be sin compare this doctrine with the Fathers The Glasse in Can. Lector Dist 34. saith Papa dispensat contra Apostolum The Pope dispenseth against the Apostle Innocent 3. Decret de conces prebend tit 8. c. proposuit saith Secundum plenitudinem potestatis de jure supra jus possumus dispensare According to the fullness of our power we can dispense with the Law above Law And the Glosse addeth For the Pope dispenseth against the Apostle and against the old Testament as also in vows and oaths And another Gloss saith The Pope dispenseth with the Gospel in interpreting it More such Glosses you may find if not yet more gross and impious which I 'le not stand to recite Gregory de Valentia Tom. 4. disp 6. qu. 8. p. 5. § 10. saith Et certe quaedam posterioribus tempâ—ribus rectius constituta esse in Ecclesia quam initio se haberent That is And certainly some things are more rightly constituted in the Church in the latter times then they were in the beginning Andradius Defens Concil Trident. lib. 2. pag. mihi 236. saith Vnde etiam liquet minime eos errasse qui dicunt Romanos Pontifices posse nonnunquam in legibus dispensare a Paulo primisque quatuor Conciliis ad Ecclesiam exornandam moresque componendos pro temporum necessitate edictis qualis est illa quae interdicit ut digamos creari ne liceat Episcopos i. e. Whence it appeareth that they did not erre who say that the Pope of Rome may sometime dispense with Lawes made by Paul and the four first Councils for the necessity of the times to the adoring of the Church and the composing of manners such as is that which forbiddeth those to be made Bishops who are the husbands of two wives Cardinal Perron against King James li. 2. Obser 3. â— 3. p. 674. hath a Chapter purposely Of the Authority of the Church to alter matters contained in the Scriptures And pag. 1109. 1115. he saith that When in the form of the Sacraments some great inconvenicies are met withal the Church may therein dispense and alter And that the Lords words Drink yee all of it were a precept not immutable nor in dispensable for the Church hath judged that there may be a dispensation for â—t Bâ—ovius Observ on C. 24. constit Apost saith Ecclesia Romana quae Apostolica utens potestate singula pro conditione temporum in melius mutat i.e. The Church of Rome using Apostolical power doth according to the condition of times change all things for the better Cardinal Tolet saith Cum certum sit non omnia qâ—ae Apostoli instituerunt jure Divino esse instituta i. e. It is certain that all things which the Apostles instituted were not instituted by Divine right And the Council of Trent hath shewed its usurpation of power above Scripture in dispensing with the degrees of Marriage in Lev. 18. 20. adding to what God hath prohibited and relaxing what God hath restrained and that To Great Princes and for a publike cause When they make it sin to other men These and many more of their gross sayings and usurpations against Scripture and above it they have been long ago told of by Jewell Reignolds Whittakers Molinaeus and others and how sleight their evasions are the considerate and impartial may discern I have therefore recited thus much of their words here that you may compare them with the Ancients and then see who are the Changlings and Novelists and who they be that keep to the old Church and Religion And among other ancient Writers I would desire you besides all the forecited to compare the Popish frame with the Directions of Vicentius Lirinensis which he giveth us for the discovery of Truth and avoiding heresie in his book Contr. Haeres Which I the rather mention because I admire that the Papists should be so immodest as to boast so much of him as if he were on their side The sum of his advice to avoid heresie is this 10 Fidem munire Divinae legis authoritate 20 Ecclesiae Catholicae traditione To fortifie our faith 1. By the Authority of Gods Law 2. By the Tradition of the Catholike Church This way he saith he was himself directed to by all the holy Learned men that he enquired of Saepa magno studio summa attentioae perquirens a quamplurimis sanctitate doctrina praestantibus viris quonam modo possem certa quadam quasi generali ac regulari via Catholicae fidei veritatem ab haereticae pravitatis falsitate discernere hujusmodi semper responsum ab omnibus fere retuli cap. 1. Edit Colon. a. 1613 pag. 617. Edit Perionii Lugd. 1572. So that we are given to understand by this passage 1. That this was no private opinion of Vincentius but the common way that was then taken by Holy learned men to discern Truth from Heresie 2. And note well that he doth not once in all the book direct us to the Determination much less to the Inâ—allible determination of the Pope or the Romane Church as the way to discern Truth from Heresie And can any man of common reason that is willing to know the truth imagine that there is the least probability that Vincentius should silence this Romish decision in a Treatise written purposely and onely on that subject and wherein he undertaketh to give us the full and certain direction to avoid Heresies if the Church had then been of the Romanists opinion O intolerably forgetful negligent delusory man that would not give us one word of that which is now the foundation of all and into which our faith must be ultimately resolved What never a word to tell us that whatsoever the Pope or Clergy of Rome are for or against may be known accordingly to be true or false because he is the infallible Head
quod coram omnibus juste vivant bene omnia de Deo credant omnes articules qui in symbolo continentur solummodo Romanam Ecclesiam blasphemant et Clerum That is Among all the Sects that yet are and have been there is not a more pernicious to the Church then that of the Lyonists and that for three causes 1. Because it is the more 〈◊〉 or of longer continuance for some 〈◊〉 it hath endured from the time of Silvester other from the time of the Apostles 2. Because it is more general for there is scarce any land in which this â—ect â—s not 3. Because when all other sects do by the immanity of their blasphemy bring horror into the hearers this of the Lyonists hath a great shew of godliness in that they live righteously before all men and they believe all things well concerning God and all the articles that are contained in the Creed onely they blasphem the Romane Church and the Clergy To this adde what I cited out of Canus and others before Lastly Give us some tolerable answer to all that voluminous evidence of your oppositions by Princes Prelates Divines and Lawyers which Mich. Goldastus hath collected and published on his volumes de Monarche constitut Imperial APPENDIX A Translation of Bishop Downames Catalogue of Popish Errors lib. 3. de Antichristo cap. 7. To satisfie the earnest desires of some of the unlearned who would fain know wherein the Papists differ from us that they may be the better furnished against them and may the better understand those that under other Titles carry about their doctrines BEcause I find many ignorant persons both unacquainted with the Errors of the Papists and yet very desirous to know them I have adventured to translate a larger Catalogue of them gathered by Bishop George Downame in his Book written to prove the Pope Antichrist lib. 3. cap. 7. pag. 189. c. though it cannot be expected that in such brief expressions the true point of the difference should in all lie plain before them that are unacquainted with the controversies yet because I was resolved not to give you any such Catalogue of my own gathering and knew not where to find one so large as to the number of errors and brief as to the expressions I give you this as I find it Bishop G.D. Chap. 7. A Catalogue of the Errors of the Church of Rome THe Errors of the Papists are either about the Principles of Divinity or the parts of it The principles of Theology are the Holy Scriptures Here the Papists have many errors 1. They deny the Holy Scripture which is of Divine inspiration to be the onely Rule and Foundation of Faith 2. They take certain Apocryphal Books into the Canon of the old Testament which neither the Jewish Synagogue to which the Oracles of God were committed nor yet the purer Christian Church did receive 3. They make two parts of Gods word that is the Scriptures and their own Traditions 4. They contend that the Customes and unwritten Opinions of the Church of Rome are most certain Apostolical Traditions 5. These Traditions or as they call them unwritten veritys they make equal with the Holy Scriture and receive and reverence them with equal pious affection and reverence 6. They number the Popes Decretal Epistles with the holy Scriptures 7. They say its heresie for any to say that it is not altogether in the Power of the Church or Pope to appoint Aâ—ticles of faith 8. They prefer the faith and judgement of the Church of Rome which they say is the internal Scripture written by the hand of God in heart of the Church bâ—fore the Holy Scripture 9. That the Scripture in which God himself speaketh is not the voice of a Judge but the matter of strife 10. They accuse the Scripture which is the light to our feet and giveth understanding to children of too much obscurity 11. They condemn it also of imperfection and insufficiency 12. They say that even in matters of faith and the worship of God we cannot argue Negatively from Scripture as thus It is not in the Scripture therefore it is not necessary or lawful 13. That the Scripture is not sufficient for the refuting of all heresies as if there were any heresie but what is against Scripture 14. That heresie is not so much to be defined by the Scripture authority as by the Churches determination 15. That the authority of the Catholike Church that is the Romane is greater â—en of the Scriptures â—nd the Popes authority greater then the Church 16. That the Church is ancienter than the Scripture that is then the word of God which is now written because it is ancienter then the writing of it As if it were not the same word of God which was first delivered by voice That is now then in writing 17. That the Scripture dependeth on the Catholike Church that is the Romane and not the Church on the Scripture 18. Also that the sence of the Scripture is to be sought from the See of Rome and that the Scripture is not the word of God but as it is expounded according to the sence of the Church of Rome 19. They make seven Principles of the Christian doctrine which are all grounded in the authority of the See and Pope of Rome 20. They take the vulgâ— Translation only for authentical preferring it before the originals though it is so manifestly corrupt that the Copies lately published by the Popes themselves Sixtus the fifth and Clement the eighth do in many places differ 21. That either the holy Scriptures ought not to be Translated into vulgar tongues or if it be yet it must neither be publikely read in a known tongue nor permitted to be privately read by the common people § 2. Of the Belief The Parts of Theology are 1. Of faith or things to be believed 2. Of Charity or things to be done Matters of faith are 1. Of God his works 2. Of the Church The works of God are specially 1. Of Creation and Government of the world 2. Of Redemption of mankind 1. ABout the Creation the Papists erre in saying that concupiscence was then natural to man though John saith that it is not of God 1 Jo. 2.16 and themselves sometime confess it to be evil and contrary to nature 2. In the denying that original righteousness was natural to man before the fall created after Gods Image in Righteousness and holiness 3. In affirming that mortality was natural to man before the fall which yet is not from God the author of nature 4. In placing Paradise where the waters of the flood did not reach it which yet covered all the earth and were fifteen cubits higher then the highest mouâ—taines 5. Forsooth they would have that Paradise or Eden yet untouched that it may be a pleasant habitatian to Henâ—ch and Elias
any internal virtue but a profession of faith is sufficient The Members of the Church considered severally are The Clergy The Laity 2. That Clergy men are not held under civil Laws by any coactive but onely directive bond 3. That Clergy men breaking the Civil Law cannot yet be punished by any civil Judge nor be brought before the Tribunal of Secular Magistrates 4. That the goods of the Clergy both Ecclesiastical and Secular are free from the Tribute and Taxe of Secular Princes 5. That men are to be prepared for receiving Orders by the first shaving 6. By how much the higher degree of Order any one is in by so much the larger shaving is he to be crowned with 7. That single life is alwayes joyned to holy Orders by Divine right The Popish Clergy aâ—â— either Seculars and those either Regulars Of the lowest Order Of the higher Order which they call Priests and are both The less as Presbyters The greater as Bishops 8. That the Clergy men of the highest Order are Priests properly so called which they say are instituted to offer an external and real sacrifice 9. The choice of Bishops does belong to the Pope by Divine right That all the Bishops receive jurisdiction from the Pope 11. The Romane Church hath Cardinals for sides-men to the Pope upon whom the universal Church is turned as upon hinges 12. These are to be joyned with the Pope in the Government of the universal Church 13. That those whether they be Bishops or Presbyters or Deacons are not only to be preferred before other Bishops Archbishops Primates Patriarchs but to be equalled even with Kings § 20. Of Councils and Monastical vows 1. THey teach that there are Evangelical Councils distinct from commands which no man is bound to perform but they who profess perfection and would deserve more and greater things than eternal life 2. That the study of perfection is not of command but Councils 3. Such Councils are those of not seeking revenge of loving our adversaries of not swearing c. 4. Not to obey a Council is no fin 5. That some perfection is necessary to salvation and that consists in the full observation of the commands 6. That some other perfection is greater and is necessary not simply for salvation but for a more excellent degree of glory and that consists in the observation of Councils 7. By obedience to Councils men do supererogate 8. That vowed Virginity and single life are most acceptable worship to God 9. Yea and the greatest satisfaction for sin and merit of eternal life 10. A Monastick life is a state of Perfection 11. All that 's done by vow is a worship of God 12. Monastical vows do satisfie for sin and deserve eternal life 13. Our entrance into Religion is a second Baptism or in stead of a new Baptism by which satisfaction is made for all former sins 14. That perfection is to be placed in true Monastick vows as the vow of voluntary poverty the vow of perpetual chastity the vow of Monastical obedience 15. That voluntary poverty is rightly vowed to God 16. That its lawful Lawful yea a meritorious work a work of perfection and supererogation in Monks to live on begging 17. It is lawful yea meritorious for the younger men to vow single life for ever 18. The vow of single life is to he kept by them who have the gift of continency 19. There is none but may alwayes contain if he will 20. That 't is lawful for children to enter into a vow against their parents consent 21. They allow of great variety of vows which have various rules of life invented by men beside the holy Scripture And as if there were greater perfection in those rules then in the doctrine of the Gospel and a more compendious way to perfection and salvation they teach by the observation of them eternal life and a more excellent degree of glory is obtained 22. They give the obedience which is due onely to God unto the men that live after the Rules of the Franciscan Domincan order c. 23. That the Apostles were the first Christian Monks 24 To them who are buried in the Cowls of the Monkes especially of the Franciscans they promise remission of sin in some part 25. That Princes are not the supream Governors of their subjects on earth in all causes spiritual and temporal 26. They make Princes subject to the people as well as to the Pope §. 21. Of the Law Of Charity or things to be done the sum of which are in the Decalogue 1. THat regenerate and baptized persons may perfectly fulfill the Law so far as they are bound to fulfill it in this life 2. The fulfilling of the Law in this life is not onely possible but easie 3. That every degree of Grace is sufficient to fulfill the commandments and expel all sins 4. That we are not bound in this life to love God with all our hearts 5. And all our souls and all our strength Neither are we bound not to have evil concupiscence 6. That venial sins as they call them do not hinder that perfect obedience which is required in this life 7. That the regenerate can do more then the Law requires 8. They teach their Disciples to worship God under a humane shape or figure 9. That Angels are to be worshiped and called upon 10. Also Saints that are dead are to be worshiped and called upon 11. That a more than ordinary worship is due to the blessed Virgin such as they teach Christs humanity waâ— to be worshiped with but to the rest of the Saints ordinary worship 12. That the members of the Blessed Virgin are to be adored for so they touch them I worship and Bless thy feet with which thou didst tread down the Old Serpents head I worship and bless thy comely eyes c. 23. That according to the five letters of her name Maria she is the Mediatrix of God and men the Auxiliatrix or helper of God and men the repairer of the weak the illuminater of the blind the Advocate for all sin 14. They name her the Queen of heaven our Lady and Goddess the Lady of Angels the fountain of all graces Orat. Steph. Patracen in Concil Later Sess 10.666.6 f. 15. For her honor and worship they have composed Duties Letanies Rosaries and a Psaltery all full of Idolatry 16. In the Psaltery of Mary whatsoever almost David had spoken of God and Christ they blasphemously give to her as for example O Lady in thee have I put my trust deliver my soul from mine enemies In Psal 7. And I will praise thee O Lady with my whole heart Psal 9. I put my trust in thee O Lady Ps 10. Save me O Lady Psal 11. Keep me O Lady because I have hoped in thee Psal 15. The heavens declare thy Glory O Virgin Mary Psal 19. To thee O Lady have I lifted up my soul Psal 25. Have mercy on me O Lady who
necessary and the ancient Churches used and we must use before it will be well with us 9 10. Some of them by satisfying God mean no more then the answering of his will concerning so much of duty or suffering as he hath laid upon us But others worse 11. The everlasting punishment being remitted the temporal punishment of God by the Magistrate or by fatherly castigation may remain And part of it doth remain on us all For he chasteneth whom he loveth 15. As satisfying God signifieth but a sincere doing our duty we may be said to satisfie him But to make him reparation for the wrong we have done him or satisfie his Law by perfect obedience or his Vindictive Justice by our sufferings here is impossible 18. Chastisement is a true and proper species of punishment agreed on 20 28 c. As satisfying God is but pleasing him all our duties satisfie 22. Prayer and a holy life is a delight and great benefit but accidentally may be troublesome so far as we are carnal and therefore requireth some self-denyal 24. One man may do a duty that conduceth to anothers spiritual good but not by merit 26. The Right use of Absolution applyeth Christâ—s blood declarâ—â—â—â—ly And is too much laid by in most Churches 1. Gods love or favor is our Radicall Grace from which flow both Relative effects in pardon justification adoption and Physical in our Renovation all which are called also Grace 3. To deny either Relative or Inherent Grace is to deny that without which there is no salvation The necessity of Pardon at least many of them confess 4. No doubt but all have so much grace that they may believe and be saved if they will sincerely Because though velle credere be not credere as Doctor Twiss answers it yet credere est voluntatis as Austin answers it But the Papists especially the Dominicans â—ffirm not sufficient grace to believe to be given to those that hear not the Gospel but onely sufficient grace to â—â— that which tendeth to this further grace 6. The will is first passive in receiving the Divine influx but active in the eliciting its oâ—â—wâ—a 7. The will hath natural Power or faculty to resist or yield which will not be brought into act for yielding because it wanteth moral power that is it is dis-inclined But to resist it hath too much moral Power which is impotency yet such as grace can heal 1. Perverting the term they cause a strife about a word 2. Some of them make merit of congruity which they say precedeth Justication to be properly no merit And some of them deny that there is any proper merit of condignity at all But others are gross in this 3. The term Remission also they abuse meaning by it the change of our qualities or putting away sin it self though forgiveness they take in with it And so they make many verbal controversies 4. This is true of Sanctification which is the thing they mean by Justification But by this abuse of the terms they misinterpret Scripture And also they so much hide the very being of pardon by perverting the words that signifie it that its hard to find in some of them whether they confess any such thing as pardon 6. As to the Act they make it their own by merited grace but the habits and the grace assisting they say is of God and the act say most 7. This is their verbal error no doubt that which they mean by justification that is Sanctification consisteth in Inherent grace 8. This they say of justification taken for sanctification but not as taken for Pardon But they are led still to misinterpret Scriptures by misunderstanding the word 9 Still they mean sanctification when they speak of justification But they confess that Christs sufferings and obedience are the meritorious cause of our Pardon and Renovation both which they use to comprize in the word Justification 16. They may as well talk of a third and fourth justification for sanctification hath more degrees then two But doubtlesse there is such a thing as that which they mean by a second justification if they leave out merit for there is actual obedience and increase of grace The Scripture saith we are justified by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ that is By assenting to his Gospel and accepting him entirely as Christ that is by becoming true Christians or Christs Disciples For a believer and a Disciple in the Gospel usually signifie the same thing 11. It doth sanctifie as a part of inherent righteousness and it is the receptive condition of Pardon 12. I would they said no more but that it disposeth to it for then they would not say it deserveth it 14. Still they mean Sanctifying 15. An absurd speech but they adde that it s not the form of faith as faith but of faith and all other graces as saving or as a new Life And we agree that faith is principally in the will and the Velle is by the Schoolmen called the Diligere 16. It s unreasonable for them to call that justifying faith which wants that which they take to be the form of it 18. They say it must be explicite in some points which we call essential and that we must believe in Christ as satisfying justice and meriting for us pardon and sanctification 19. That 's but some of them 20. They manage this controversie in the dark not agreeing with us in the sence of the termes of the Question 21. Neither faith nor works are proper causes 28. So did the Ancients even Augustine himself and too many Protestants 29. This also was too common with the Ancients and is now with the said Protestants 30 Some of them yield a certainty of present Remission and justifiâ—â—â—ion and moral conjectural certainty of Salvation 34. To be certain of it is a great mercy but to believe that it is a thing written in Scripture that I am pardoned is not a duty for it is not there 35. About this they differ See Magro in sent that faith hath certaine evidence which Ariminensis and others confute â—aying it hath evidence of credibility but not of cerâ—ainty 1. The meer appetite is no sin but the corruption and rebellion of it is 2. I would we could see one of them do it once It s a shameful arguing for perfection by bare words when none of them will give us a proof of it by their own example 3. They that believe this know not themselves 5. Piscator and other of ours maintain this Though a meritorious efficiency we all deny 7. The Scotists and many more of them deny this but so do not Bellarmine and many others 8. Waldensis und others of them deny all merit but that 's not common see instances in my Confession 6. Some of them say they are punished also with the pain of senses See Concius Tractat. in the end of Jansenii Augustin 16. Bellarmine confesseth that in such cases of fact and particular judgement thereâ—n the Pope may erre And so no Papists living can be certain but that they pray to the damned souls in hell whom the Pope mistakingly canonized 1 2. Yet we confess a Catholike visible continued Church 3. Some of our own say as much of late but they mean it of the visible Church onely 4. This is the heart of Popery 1. Hence Popery and Papists are denominated 17. Much of these by the French is ascribed to a General Council and denyed to the Pope so well are they agreed in their fundamentals 5. The French agree not to these 1. Of the visible Church we say the same 10. The Spaniards hindred the passing of that in the Council of Trent 5. 6. Have the Quakers learn't this distinction of perfection yet 25. In all causes materially they are but not in all formally for they are not the supreme in every sort of Government that is in Ministerial Directive but in their own sort that is coactive 2. What need you confess sin that can fulfill the Law so easily out of your own mouthes are you judged now that do not that which you think so easie 4. Others of them say the contrary 35. I would they had no company in this error 72 73. This may give us some light into the juglings of our times
THE Safe Religion OR THREE DISPUTATIONS For the Reformed CATHOLIKE RELIGION AGAINST POPERY Proving that Popery is against the Holy Scriptures the Unity of the Catholike Church the consent of the Antient Doctors the plainest Reason and common judgment of sense it self By Richard Baxter Contra Rationem nemo sobrius Contra Scripturas nemo Christianus Contra Ecclesiam nemo Pacificus Senserit August de Trinit l. 4. c. 6. fine London Printed by Abraham Miller for Thomas Vnderhill at the Anchor and Bible in Pauls Church-yard and Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleet-street 1657. TO THE Protestant Reader WHen the motion was first made for the Publishing of these Papers it seemed to me to be as the Casting of water into the Sea so great is the Number of the Learned Writings of Protestant Divines against the Papists which will never be well answered that the most elaborate addition may seem superfluous much more these hasty Disputations prepared but for an exercise which is the Recreation of a few Countrey-Ministers at a monthly meeting when they ease themselves of their ordinary work But upon further consideration I saw it was The Casting of water upon a threatning fire which the Sea it self doth but restrain It 's more Engines than a few that are openly or secretly at work at this time to captivate these Nations again to the Romane Pope When so many hundreds if not thousands are night and day contriving our seduction under the name of Reconciling us to the Church if no body counterwork them what may they not do It 's not enough that we have had Defenders and that their Books are yet in the World Old Writings are laid by though much stronger than any new ones But new ones are sooner taken up and read The Papists have of late been very plentifull and yet very sparing in their Writings Plentiful of such as run among the simple injudicious people in secret so that the Countries swarm with them But sparing of such as may provoke any Learned man to a Confutation That so they may in time disuse us from those Studies and so disable the Ministry therein and catch us when we are secure through a seeming peace and fall upon us when we have lost our strength And I am much afraid that the generality of our people perhaps of the best are already so much disused from these studies as to be much unacquainted with the Nature of Popery and much more to seek for a preservative against it and a through confutation of them So that if Papists were once but as fully set out among us in their own likeness as they are under the names of Quakers and other Sects what work would you see in many places I doubt many would follow their pernicius wayes and fall like Sheep of a common rot or people in a raging pestilence especially if they had but the countenance of the times Not through their strength but because our people are naked and unmeet for a defence The work that now they are upon is 1. By Divisions and Reviling the Ministers to loosen the people from their Guides that they may be as a Masterless Dog that will follow any body that will whistle him 2. To take down the Ministers maintenance and encouragements that they may be disabled so vigorously to resist them 3. To hinder their union that they may abate their strength and find them work against each other 4. To procure a Liberty of seducing all they can under the name of Liberty of Conscience that so they may have as fair a game for it as we And ignorance and the common corruption of nature especially so heightened by a custome in sin doth befriend the Devils cause much more than Gods or else how comes it to pass that the Godly are so few and Error Idolatry and impiety doth so abound in all the earth 5. To break the common people into as many Sects and parties as they can that they may not onely employ them against one another but also may hence fetch matter of reproach against our profession in the eyes of the World 6. To plead under the name of Seekers against the certainty of all Religion that men may be brought to think that they must be either of the Popish profession or of none And indeed when all Sects have done their worst it is but two that we are in any great danger of And of those I think we are in more danger then the most are aware of And that is 1. Papists who plead not as other parties onely by the tongue but by exciting Princes and States against us and disputing with the Fagot or Hatchet in their hands And if we have not Arguments that will confute a Navy an Army or a Powder-plot we can do no good against them 2. Prophaneness animated by Apostate Infidels This is the Religion that men are born in And men that Naturally are so endeared to their lusts that they would not have the Scripture to be true will easily hearken to him that tells them it is false Yea so much doth Popery befriend men in a vicious course that some are apt to joyn these together thinking at the heart that Christianity is but a Fable but yet for fear it should prove true they will be Papists that they may have that easie remedy for a reserve If God will preserve us but from these two dangers Popery and Prophaneness animated by infidelitie it will goe well with England The most of my former Writings having been bent against the later I thought it not amiss to let go this one against the former That so I may entice the common professors to a little more serious Study of these points and furnish them with some familiar Arguments that are suited to their capacities that every deceiver may not find them unarmed And here I thought it best to defend our own profession and overthrow theirs in the main and not to stand long upon particular controversies except that one of the Resolution and Foundation of our Faith which is the great difference Yet that private unstudyed men may understand wherein the particular differences lie I have given them a Catalogue of them in other mens words in the end as resolving not to do it in my own In short I have here made it plain that Popery is against Scripture Reason Sense and against the Unity and Judgement of the Church 1. Either Scripture is True or not true If not Popery is not true which pleadeth its warrant from it And some of them argue as if they purposed to disprove the Scripture and to imitate Samson in pulling down the house on their own heads and ours in revenge for the dishonor they have suffered by the Scriture If it be true as nothing more true then Popery is not true which palpably contradicteth it as in the points of Latin service and denying the Cup in the Lords Supper and many other is most evident
2. Either the Catholike Church is one or not If not then Popery is deceitful which maketh this its principal pretence for the usurping the Universal Headship If it be One then Popery is deceitful which is renounced by the far greater part of the Catholike Church and again renounceth them and separateth from them because they will not be subject to the Pope who never yet in his greatest height had the actual Government of half the Christian world 3. Either the Judgement of the Antient Doctors is sound or not If not then the Church of Rome is unsound that is sworn to expound the Scripture onely according to their concent If it be sound then the Church of Rome is unsound that arrogate a Uiniversal Government and Infallibility and build upon a foundation that was never allowed by the Antient Doctors as in the third Disput I have fully proved and which most Christians in the world do still reject 4. Either Reason it self is to be renounced or not If it be then none can be Papists but mad men If not then Popery must be renounced which foundeth our very faith upon impossibilities and teacheth men of necessity to believe in the Pope as the Vicar of Christ before they believe in Christ with many the like which are afterwards laid open 5. Either our five Senses and the Judgement made upon them is certain and Infallible or not If not then the Church of Rome both Pope and Council are Fallible and not at all to be tâ—â—â—â—ed For when all their Tradition is by hearing or reading they are uncertain whether ever they heard or read any such thing and we must all be uncertain whether they speak or write it And then we must not onely subscribe to Fransc Sanchez Quod nihil scitur but also say that Nihil certo creditur But if sense be certain and Infallible then the Church of Rome even Pope and Council are not onely Fallible but certainly false deceivers and deceived For the Pope and his Council tell the Church that it is not Bread and Wine which they take eat and drink in the Eucharist But the senses of all sound men do tell them that it is I see that its Bread and Wine I smell it I feel it I taste it and somewhat I hear to further my assurance And yet if Popery be not false it s no such matter One would think the dullest Reader might be quickely here resolved whether Popery be true or false Look on the consecrated Bread and Wine touch it smell it taste it and if thou canst but be sure that it is indeed Bread and Wine thou maist be as sure that Popery is a delusion And if thou canst but be sure that it is not Bread and Wine yet thou maist be sure that the Pope or his Council nor any of his Doctors are not to be believed For if other mens senses be deceitful theirs and thine are so too But these things are urged in the following Disputations It s worth the observing how much they are at odds among themselves about the Resolution of their Faith and how neer some of them come to us of late as in White 's Sonus Buccinae and Doctor H. Holden de Resol fidei and in Cressy and Vane and others may be seen And their silly followers in England think verily that theirs is the common Doctrine of that Church And how solicitous Cressy and others are to take that Infallibility out of our way as a stumbling stone which the Italians and most of them make the Foundation and chief corner-stone What a task were it to Reconcile but Bellarmine and Holden Knot and Cressy both in English White had so much wit in his Defence of Rushworths Dialogues when he wrote in English to carry on the matter as smoothly as if they had been all of a mind But when he writes in Latin How many wayes of Resolution of Faith that are unsound can he find among the Papists as different from his own Vid. de fide Theolog Tract 1. Sect. 28.29 Reader Adhere to God and the Righteousness of Christ and the Teachings of the Holy Ghost by the Holy Scriptures and a faithful Ministry in the Communion of the Saints and as a member of the Catholike Church which arising at Jerusalem is dispersed over the world containing all that are Christians renounce not right Reason or thy senses and live according to the light which is vouchsafed thee and then thou shalt be safe from Popery and all other pernicious damning errors Marc. 10. 1656 7. R.B. To the Literate Romanists that will read this Book Men and Brethren A Writing that so much concerneth your cause I think should tender you some account of its publication especially when I know that not onely the divulging but the holding of the Doctrine contained therein is so hainous a matter in your eyes that if I were in your power the suspicion of it might bring me to the Rack and the Strappado and the confession of it would expose me to the flames I have many times considered that you could never sure endure to torment men in your Inquisition and consume them to ashes and so industriously to embroyle the Nations of the earth in blood and miseries to work them to your minds and set up your own way if you did not think it right and think them exceeding bad whom you thus destroy I find that my own heart would serve me to use Toads and Serpents and destroying Vermine half as bad as you do Protestants that is to put them to death though not to torment them so long but for gentler and more harmeless creatures I could not do it without a great reluctancy of my nature I must needs therefore by your works bear you record that you have a zeal for God but so had some before you that guided it not by knowledge Rom. 10.2 And I suppose your way is undoubtedly right in your own eyes or else you durst never prosecute it with such violence And yet one that was once as zealous in his way and shut up the Saints in prison and received authority from the high Priests to put them to death and compelled them to blaspheam did afterward call all this but madness Acts 26.9 10 11. But methinks I find my self obliged when I see men differ from me with such height of confidence to give them some Reason of my differing thoughts And yet it is no great matter of success that I can expect from this account To make any addition or alteration in your belief I have no great reason to expect while you read my words with this prejudice that they are damnable heresie and depend upon him whom you suppose infallible for the fashioning of your Faith And if I should say that I expect satisfaction from you with any great hope I should but dissemble For I have not been negligent in reading such writings of your own as might acquaint me both with
your Faith and your Theological Opinions and can scarce reasonably expect that any of you should say more to satisfie me then these contain For any of you to recite the Canons or Decretals of your Church or Popes in a writing to me is in vain For I have them at hand already or can have them at a trice And if you say any thing to me by way of Answer which is not in those Canons or Decretals or solemnly pronounced already by your Church to be de fide you can give me little assurance of its verity but your own writing must incur all those reproaches which Knot bestows on the Doctrine of Chillingworth and we hear from you so frequently for â—he defect of Infallibility But yet let what will come of it I shall leave some slender Teâ—timony to posterity that I dissented not from â—o many confident men without giving them â—ome of the Reasons of my dissent I was born and bred here among the Proâ—essors of the Reformed Catholik Christian Religion When I was young I judged of â—our Profession as I was taught and the preâ—udice which I received against it did grow up â—ith me as yours doth against us Yet receiving much good to my soul by Parsons Book of Resolution corrected when I was but sixteen years of Age it run much in my mind that sure there were some among you that had the Fear of God When I was capable of it by Age and Studies I made some diligent search into your Writers that I might know the true state of the controversies betwixt us But still I confess I read them with prejudice and partiality till at last I attained as far as I can understand by my own heart such a love to the truth and an impartiality in my Studies and judgement of these things that I read your Writers with as free a mind I mean as willing to find what truth was there to be found as I do the Writings of Protestants themselves When I had discovered undoubtedly that in some doctrinal points the differences were made by most on both sides much greater then they were and much greater then the most Learned on both sides thaâ— had any moderation did conceive them to be I was the more confirmed in my resolutions to be impartial in my Studies and so have proceeded if I be a competent judge of my own mind to this day And after all I am left in the dissatisfaction which I here manifest And by what sheps my averseness to your waâ— hath been brought on since I began to search in to it impartially I shall here further declare First I have been most offended with those doctrines and practices that did most notoriously run against the stream of the Holy Scripture for here the case was so plain that without any singular acuteness it might be discerned as in your Latin Service of God with those that understand it not your administring the Bread in the Lords Supper without the cup that Image-worship which your Writers do maintain forbidding Priests marriages with many such like And yet suspecting my own understanding I read what your Writers say also for these But when I saw how palpably they forced the text it increased my dislike And then knowing that you contradicted the Scriptures in these and finding withal that you build your faith upon your Churches Infallibility I was exceedingly turned against your profession when I saw your foundation so clearly overthrown But yet this was not all There was scarce any thing that more offended me then the tendency of your Doctrines to destroy the Knowledge of the people and lead them on in ignorance and please and deceive them by a company of ceremonies instead of a Reasonable service of God and the manner of your worship I could never digest Other things did grate very hard upon those truths which I was confirmed in but these went against the very bent of my heart and crossed the very ends of my Religion and my Life Your keeping the Scriptures from the Laity as far as you do and maintaining it so commonly to be the Original of Heresies to translate them into a known tongue and making it so deadly a crime to have a Bible which they can read with your Latin Service aforesaid and the formalities and scenical worship in which you train up the ignorant vulgar with many other things in your doctrine and practice are such as leave me but little room for deliberation whither I should own them or not because they are so plainely against the very end of the Christian Religion Had these things come under my consideration in a carnal state when the flesh was my end and not God I know not how I should have entertained them But your own Doctors consent that God must be my end and chiefly Loved desired and sought And will you teach a man this and whoodwinke him when you have done Will you bid him love God and keep him from the Knowledge of him Will you bid him desire and seek him and when you have done lock him up in the dark Or will you bid him serve and obey him and yet forbid him to search after the knowledge of his laws and will If you would bring me to be of these opinions your reasonings would be to as much purpose as if you should perswade me to put out my eyes and put them in your pockets for fear of missing my way in my race when my life is at the stake Or as if you should perswade me to be ignorant of Plowing and Sowing and Merchandize and yet to seek after provision and riches in the world I am as easily reconciled as another to those that step out of the path that I am in if they go towards the same end But if you would teach me to turn my back upon Heaven as the onely way to attain it this will not easily down with me I know that God is light and with him is no darkness and that Christ is the light of the world and his spirit is the illuminater of the Saints and the word is a light to our feet and giveth wisdome to the simple And yet would you have us refuse this Light and choose the Darkness I know that Satan is the prince of darkness a state of death is a state of darkness tending to outer darkness and that it is the saving way of God to translate men out of darkeness into his marvellous light And yet would you perswade me that this is the way of Life What a difference is there between this doctrine of yours and the very scope of Scriptures and antient Writers and the sense of a gracious soul Solomon would have men to Hide the commandment with them and incline their ear to wisdom and apply their hearts to understanding and cry after knowledge and lift up their voiec for understanding and seek for it as silver and search after it as for hid treasure Prov. 2.2
3 4. And is your Doctrine like this Isay bids To the Law and the Testimony Is 8.20 And the Bereans are commended for searching the Scriptures daily to see whether the things were so that were taught them even by Apostles And will you forbid this and burn men for to promote their salvation Did not Paul write his Epistles to the Laity as well as to the Clergy You must strip me of the grace of God and reduce my mind to a state of darkness before I can ever entertain these principles of darkness For light and darkness will not have communion If by Arguments you would perswade me so plainly against the life of nature as that I am bound to blind or kill my self in order to my good there 's somewhat within me that would confute them besides reason And why should not the Life of Grace also be a principle of self-preservation As for your Reason that men must let alone the Scripture and hearken to their Teachers for fear of heresies it will never take with me till I can believe you to be less suspected guides then Christ and his Apostles and till I can believe that a Scholar may not learn of his Book his Teacher both without any contradiction And then for your devotions it is not all the Arguments in the world that would ever reconcile me to them while I have that Law in any prevailing measure written in my heart that teacheth me to worship God in Spirit and in truth What man of Spiritual experience can choose but distaste your way of worship that doth but read over one of your offices and Lady's Psalters and see the affected repetition of words and the ludicrous kind of devotions which you teach the people more like to charms then serious prayers to God! especially if he also observe the huge number of ceremonies which the very body of your worship is composed of As there is somewhat in nature that hindereth a man from delighting to eat chaffe or feeding upon meer air so is there somewhat in the new nature of a Christian that is against this trifling and jesting with God Another thing that hath encreased my distaste of your wayes is the common ungodliness of your followers I have endeavored as well as I could to be acquainted with them where I came and I have known but very few of them but have been either Whoremongers or Swearers or Drunkards or Gamesters or sensual livers nor did I ever meet with one to this day to my best remembrance that manifested a spiritual frame of heart or had any delight to speak of the workings of God upon the soul and the sweet communications of the love of Christ or could give any savory account of any such spiritual workings in them but all their Religion was to stick to the Romish Church and go on in their ceremonious forms of worship abstaining from this meat or that and rioting and pampering their flesh on Holidayes c. If I had known this to be the case onely of the common people in Italy or Spain or France I should not have wondered for I know that most of the people do take up their Religion but upon carnal accounts and accordingly will use it But to find it thus in England where your number is small and you pretend to hold your Religion in so much self-denyal the state being against you and therefore your party should be the purest zelots and shew the face of your doctrine in its greatest glory this makes me judge of the tree by the fruites And the observing of this hath made me admire that ever you can make the holiness of your Church the matter of so great ostentation as you do Yea that such men as H.P. de Cressy can have the face to pretend that your admirable holiness in comparison of ours was the means of their conversion to you Unhappy man with whom did he converse while he seemed a Protestant or where did he live But this was not his fate alone but of divers of his strain When they are carnal Protestants abhorring the power of the Religion which they profess and avoiding and reproaching the practicers of their own Religion and so have no communion with them nor experience of their holiness it is a righteous thing with God to leave them to so much blindness as to run from England to Rome for holiness and that because they abhorred purity they should be so blinded as not to discern the beauty of it and yet to dote on the name and coate of it which may be put on in the morning and off at night And indeed this hath somewhat increased my aversness to observe that by how much the more godly and conscionable any are of our profession the more they are against yours and that so few of this sort are turned to you that I yet know not certainly of one that ever seemed a Godly person And the common ignorant sort of people that know not what a Church is nor what Religion is and that live in sensuality and wickedness are the favourablest to your wayes yea so forward to promote them that many of them would quickly be yours if the times were but changed to you and these are the people that I have known become your proselites When we have lost our labor upon them and left them in their wickedness and they that were filthy are filthy still then some of them turn Papists and this forsooth in admiration of the holiness of your Church When I confess for some of them I have not been sorry to hear that they were turned to you for I thought it may be the liking they have to you might make them hearken more to your reproofs then to ours and possibly you might perswade them from Whoredoms and Drunkenness and Swearing and Lying when we were out of hope But when I perceived that they fled to you for an indulgence in their sin because some of these are but venial sins with you and they have a palliate ceremonial cure at hand to befool them I then acknowledged the justice of God against them I am none of those that think that there is none among you shall be saved I have read that in some of your Writers that perswadeth me it came from a sanctified heart I am ready to acknowledge and honor the Spirit of Christ wherever I can discern it But I must profess that I was never yet so happy as to converse with a Papist that manifested an experienced gracious heavenly mind though I am truely willing to make the best of them And that your Church should be as the sink or channel to receive the excrements and filth of ours is no great argument of its holiness in my eyes And if a few that are less sensual turn to you it is commonly as far as I can discern the Tenants or servants of some of your way that are led by worldly respects and they are such
it not For the will it self is under a Law which puts it upon duty and not onely restrains it from sinful volition or nolition And therefore if the will do but suspend its act in whole or in part and thereby let the commanded faculties miscarry I shall yet believe that this is forbidden and a proper sin What if you have a charge of the souls of your flock and you sleep while they are misled Or if you were a Physician and had charge of your patients lives and you fall asleep till they are past recovery are you no sinner and do you not go against the Law Yes you are a murderer For though the thing be not voluntary quoad actum voluntatis it is morally or imputatively voluntary propter omissionem actus If Wolverhampton Papists be fed with such doctrine as this they may well be many but they are unlikely to be good Inconsiderateness which I took for one of the most destroying sins it seems is a notable preservative from sin For be sure you deliberate not and you break no Law of God what ever you do And if there be no Law against Lying except the lyes of the higher strain that are by H.T. excepted no wonder then if Papists be Lyars And can you think it any injury to you if from hence I interptet not onely many of your Historical writings such as the Image of both Churches c. but also much of the jugâ—ing that is in England at this day If you put your selves in the Garbe of Quakers Enthusiasts Anabaptists c. and pretend that you are of their opinions and deny your selves to be what you are as long as you think that these lies are pious and rather honor God then greatly dishonor him and rather do good to others by promoting the Catholike cause then notably injure them can any man say that 's of your opinion that they are against the Law of God And why call you that a venial sin which is against no Law when sin is a transgression of the Law and where there â—s no Law there is no transgression 1 Ioh. 3.4 Rom. 4.15 And why say you â—hat veniam meretur when yet you say that â—aenam aeternam non meretur How can there â—e venia sine merito vel debito paenae What â—eed you any pardon of that which was never â—eserved by you And what need you ask forgiveness of these sins or be beholden to God â—or it if the punishment to be forgiven were never due Will you beg the remission of a debt which is no debt Aquinas makes venial and mortal sin to differ as Reparabile irreparabile because from an inward principle the one may be repaired but the other not without infused supernatural grace But is it ever the less sin because it is reparabile Nay what needs it reparation if it be not a transgression But what is this Reparation that he speaks of Is it the remission of the guilt and punishment No sure for eternal punishment he saith it deserveth not and internal principles do not sure forgive the punishment of sin Can we forgive our selves What is it then Is it the removing of the blot No properly peccatum veniale non inducit maculam as before said Is it that venial sin is easier conquered and forsaken then mortal No sure For Aquinas tells us that a man may live for a little while without venial sin but not long but without mortal sin they may easily live till death What this reparation then is I do not certainly know But whatever it is methinks it should suppose a proper sin and not onely Analogical an a desert of eternal punishment to be remitted And here I must adde that another thinâ— that lately hath much disaffected me to youâ— profession is to see by what actual fraud and jugling it is propagated Do you think I see not the game that you are now playing in the darke in England in the persons of Seekers Behmenists Paracelsians Origenists Quakers and Anabaptists I must confess I naturally abhor collusions and dissimulation in the matters of God If your way were of God it needed not such devices to uphold it nor would it suit so well with works of darkness If you have the truth produce it naked and deal plainly and play above board For my part I do not fear being cheated out of my Religion by any thing but seeming force of Argument for I mean to know what I receive before I take it and to taste and chew it before I let it down but the blind incautelous multitude and half witted giddy persons and discontented licentious half studyed Gentlemen may possibly be caught by such chaffe as this Another of your dissimulations which increaseth my dissatisfaction is Your pretending â—o the ignorant people that you are all of a mind and there are no divisions among you â—nd making our divisions the great Argument â—o raise â—n odium against our doctrine calling us Schismaticks Hereticks and the like When â—ndeed no one thing doth so much turn away my heart from you as your abominable Schism Do we not know of the multitudes of Opinions among you mentioned by Bellarmine and other of your Writers If you call me out to any more of this work I mean the next time to present to the world a Catalogue of your Divisions among your selves that it may appear how notable your unity is If the Jesuites are to be believed what a silly sottish generation are your secular Priests If your Priests are to be believed what a seditious hypocritical cheating packe are the Jesuites I speak not the words of your Protestant adversaries but of those of your own Church Do I not know what Guiliel de Sancto Amore and many another say of your own Church Do you think I never read Watsons Quodlibets and the many pretty stories of the Jesuites exploits there mentioned by him I do not think that you suffer many of your own followers to read these books that are written against one another by your selves But the great division among you that quite overthrows your cause in my esteem is that between the French and Italian in your very foundation which all your faith is resolved into You have no belief of Scripture nor in Christ no hope of heaven you differ not from Turkes and Infidels but onely upon the credit and authority of your Church And this Church musâ— be infallible or else your faith is fallible Aâ— least it must be of sovereign authority And when it comes to the upshot you are not agreeâ— what this Church is One saith it is the Pope with a General Council and another saith it is a General Council though the Pope dissent One saith the Pope is fallible and the other saith a Council is fallible One saith a Pope is above the Council and another saith the Council is above the Pope And now what is become of your Religion Nay is it not
Christ Jesus and their Religion teacheth and engageth them so to walk therefore there is no condemnation to them that do so and they may with the same Apostle Rom. 8.33 34. Challenge all the Papists in the world It is God that justifieth who shall condemne us Paul telleth Timothy that the holy Scriptures are able to make him wise to salvation 2 Tim. 3.15 therefore they may make us also wise to salvation And he addeth that All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works vers 16 17. It were endless to recite all that proveth the salvation of them that believe and obey the holy Scriptures But this all true Protestants do I shall therefore leave this taske and next hear what the Papists can say to the contrary and what they are able to produce to prove that we are not in a safe way to salvation Obj. 1. There is but one safe way to Heaven The Protestant Religion is not that one way Therefore not a safe way The Minor is proved thus That Religion which the Church hath owned from the Apostles dayes till now is that one way The Protestant Religion is not that which the Church hath so owned therefore it is not that one Religion The Minor is proved by parts 1. As to Doctrine 2. as to Discipline 3. as to worship 1. The Church ever since the Apostles dayes hath maintained the Doctrines of 1. Free-will to good or evil 2. of Predestination upon foreseen faith 3. of mans merits 4. of Justification by Inherent Grace 5. against the certain Perseverance of all the Justified and consequently against their certainty of salvation 6. Vowed Chastity and Monastical Life In Discipline the Church ever held 1. The Popes Supremacy and Universal Jurisdiction 2. The Government by Bishops over Presbyters 3. Ordination by them and not without them 4. Pennance and Confession of sin 3. In matter of Worship the Church hath still used 1. Chrysme to the Baptized 2. Imposition of hands in confirmation 3. The sacrifice of the Altar 4. The Cross 5. Holy dayes 6. Fasting dayes All which the Protestants have cast off Therefore they are not of the same Religion Answ 1. To the Major Proposition of the main Argument I answer The word safe referreth to some Danger that we are safe from The way may be called safe therefore either in respect of sin or damnation Also this way may be called one in respect of the Essentials of Religion or else in respect of some inferior truths and duties that are not of absolute necessity to salvation And so I say that there is but one Religion as to the Essential and absolutely necessary points in which a man can be safe from Damnation And there is but one Religion as comprehending all the Integral parts in which a man can be safe from sin But yet that Religion which in the Essentials and Absolutely necessary points is but one may yet consist with errors in lower and lesser things in the minds of those that hold it and yet be a safe way to salvation though not so safe as to freemen from all sin And consequently there may be differences among true Christians that shall be saved though there be nothing but perfect Harmony in the entire Doctrine of Christian Religion as delivered from Christ and his Spirit Because no man holds that Doctrine entirely and perfectly without any error or ignorance and therefore there will be much difference among those that shall be saved To the Major of the Pro-syllogisme I answer Implicitely and in Generals the Church hath owned the perfect truth in all ages because it hath Believed that all that God saith is true and that the Scripture is his word But explicitely and particularly the Church hath not held all the truth of Religion in any one age since the Apostles For every man on earth hath been Ignorant and the most knowing men erroneous in some things seeing we are all imperfect and here know but in part And so one particular Church might erre in one thing and another in another thing as the differences about Easter Rebaptizing the Millennium Infants Communicating c. shew they did And of the same Church one Member might erre in one thing and another in another thing it being as certain that no two men on the earth are in all things of the same minde as that none on earth are perfect in knowledge To the Minor I answer that the Religion called Protestant is the same in all points absolutely necessary to salvation which the Church hath still owned And in other inferior points the Churches having not been all or alwayes of one minde some ages were more pure and others more corrupt The Protestant Religion is neerer to that of the purer times then the Papists is It is the same in the Essentials it is the neerest it in the Integrals it is more remote from latter corruptions introduced in times more remote from the Apostolical purity To the particular instances of our differences from the former Churches I answer particularly 1. For Free will to God if you mean a natural freedome which is the wills self-determining Power so the Protestants maintain it as well as the Fathers If you mean a moral freedom from ill-inclining habits which is properly a right-disposition so the Fathers maintained it not Obj. Let Scultetus in Medulla Patruâ— and others of your own Writers be judge who still number this inter naevos Patrum Answ Scultetus and Calvin and others might mistake the Fathers sence and think that they spoke of moral Freedom when they spoke but of natural which is inseparable from the will And its like that they did so seeing the Fathers maintained Original sin which is that pravity of humane nature which is clean contrary to moral Free-will 2. And if the Fathers were for a Free-will in a moral-Ethical sence so is one part of the Protestants as much as they were And if they were in the right so are those Protestants If in the wrong then the other part of the Protestants are in this in the right 3. This is a point that men may differ in as much as the Fathers did from us and yet be in a safe way to salvation 4. The Dominicans and the Jesuites differ about it as much as we and the Fathers yea they cannot yet agree what natural free-will is 2. For Predestination upon foreseen faith 1. There is no Declaration of the Churches minde in those times about it but what is found in the wrigtings of particular Doctors 2. We confess that men are Elected to Glory and Justification from guilt upon foreseen faith But we say withall that they are Elected to that faith and that God did foresee it as a thing which he intended to give and not as a thing which corrupted unregenerate
and so to eat of this Bread and Drink of this Cup Alas they know all this they cannot but know it and yet they will contradict the express word of God God saith Drink ye all of it and Let a man examine himself and so drink The Pope saith Let none of the people drink of it but the Clergy only What is this but to abrogate Gods Laws and set up the Popes above and against it Yea unless it were to shew the world their Power to contradict Christ and destroy his word who can imagine what should move them to this attempt If there were any temptation of profit or honor in the business as there is in the maintaing of the Popes supremacy Purgatory Indulgences Pardons c. we should not wonder at it But what profit or honor or pleasure is it thus to contradict Christ and for them that adde such a multitude of their own Ceremonies to affect so to cut off one half of the Sacramental Rite and matter which Christ ordained Nay thirdly Do not these men know that the Bread and Cup were both given to the people by the Primitive Church and that it so continued for many hundred years and that their alteration is a meer novelty Yes they know all this For the matter is so far past doubt that they cannot but know it And yet these deceivers would make the people believe that they are of the old Religion and our Region is new These are they that cry out against our casting off Apostolical Traditions and the Churches constitutions and customs and going in new wayes which our forefathers knew not These are they that make it a mark of an Apostolical Tradition that the whole Church hath received it and that as from the Apostles And yet these men dare cast off not onely that which they know the whole primitive Church received and practised as from the Apostles as Justin Martyr Tertullian and all antiquity profess but also is expresly contained in the Scripture With what face can these that exclaim against novelty introduce such a palpable novelty into the Church with what face can they that so cry up antiquity gainsay all antiqiuty and they that cry up the whole Churches consent so go against the consent of the whole Church for so many Ages after the Apostles They dare not deny but this part of Popery is utterly New against the constant practice and Canons of all Churches The third point which I shall instance in is Their performing Gods publike service in Latine and forbidding the people to read the Scriptures in their known vulgar Tongue when as the Apostle Paul hath written the greatest part of a whole Chapter 1 Cor. 14. expresly against this opinion and practice and for using of a known tongue that others may understand and be edified The evasions by which they would elude that part of Scripture are so senceless that I think it not necessary to recite them but rather suppose that they need no other confutation than the bare considerate reading of the Text and therefore I shall venture the Reader if he have common capacity and impartiality and be but willing to know the truth upon any thing that the Papists shall be able to say for their Latine Service and locking up the Scriptures so be it he will but read that Chapter considerately And are not these good Teachers in Christs School that will lock up the Grammar from their Schollars when it is the very office of the Presbyters to teach it the people And to hide from them that word of the living God which he hath given the world to be their Directory to salvation The Prophets and Christ and the Apostles did speak and write this word in a knowâ— tongue to the people to whom they did immediately direct it And must All hear and read it then and onely the Learned now Are not these the men that take away the Key of knowledge and will neither enter in themselves nor suffer others to enter They do expresly contradict the Commands of God and bid the people not read the Scripture when God hath charged them to write it on the very posts of their houses and on their doors and that it be as a frontlet between their eyes and that they teach it their children speaking of it lying down and rising up at home and abroad Deut. 6 11. God makes it the mark of the Blessed man Psal 1.2 3. To meditate day and night in his Law as making it his delight and the Papists commonly maintain in their writings that to have the Scripture in the vulgar tongue is the root of all heresies God maketh the study of his word the duty and mark of all his Disciples and the Papists make it the mark of a Heretick and have burned many a one for it here in Queen Maries dayes and tormented and burnt many by their bloody inquisition for it abroad The very Pharisees thought that their vulgar were cursed that knew not the Law and the Papists will not let it be made known to them lest it make them accursed God saith To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Isa 8.20 The Papists cry out precul hinc away let it alone meddle not with it it will make you Hereticks And indeed they have had large experience that the way which they call heresie and contradicteth their impieties is most effectually promoted by the word of God and therefore they think they have some reason to speak against it Saint John saith These things are written that ye might believe and that believing yee might have life throagh his name Joh. 20.31 The Papists say Read not these holy writings lest they destroy your faith and bring you to damnation When the man Luk. 10.26 asketh Christ What shall I do to inherit eternal life Christ answereth him thus What is written in the Law how readest thou directing to the course which the Papists do forbid The Apostle saith that Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our Learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope Rom. 15.4 But the Papists will not have men learn that which was written for their Learning Comfort and Hope Johâ— wrote to fathers young men and children 1 John 2.12 13 14. Gods anger against the Jews was that He had written to them the great or wonderful things of his Law and they had accounted them as strange things Hos 8.12 And the Papists will force people to be strange to these writings Yet how familiar comparatively they were to the vulgar Jews and their very children â—s known and acknowledged Is it not a high advancement of the Gospel Church above the legal Jewish Church which the Papists do vouchsafe it That we may not have the same liberty or means of knowledge as the very children of the Jews had Their children must be taught
the Scripture lying down and rising up and our eldest people even to the lest breath must not read them unless they can learn the tongues which they were first written in The Jewes had the Septuagints Translation or that so called when the Hebrew grew strange to them which the Apostles used in their ordinary citations and they heard the Gospel preached in the Syriack which was then their vulgar tongue But we may not read the same in our Vulgar tongue by the Papists consent Moses Joshua Josiah Nehemiah Read the Scriptures to all the people Exod 24.7 Josh 8.34 35. 2 King 23.1 2 3. Neh. 8.3.8.18 9 3 13.1 And it was their custome to read Moses and the Prophets to the people every Sabbath day Act. 13.27 15.21 2 Cor. 3.15 Luk 4.16 And Christ useth to reprehend their strangeness to Scripture passages as if they had not read them with such words as these Have ye not read c and Have ye never read c Mat 12.3.5 19.4 21.26 22.21 Mark 12.10.26 Luk 6.3 Luk. 10.26 And Moses commandeth Israel the Priests Levites and all the Elders thus Deut. 31.11 12 13. When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose thou shalt read this Law before all Israel in their hearing Gather the people together men and women and children and the stranger that is within thy gates that they may hear and that they may learn and fear the Lord your God and observe to do all the words of this Law and thaâ— their children which have not known any thing may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long aâ— ye live in the Land c. It was therefore in a known tongue that it must be read And when the people understood not the old Hebrew tongue in which the Law was written by reason of the change of their speech in the captivity Nehemiah caused them to understand the Reading Neh. 8.8 No doubt by expressing it in the language which they understood And yet the Papists forbâ—d the unlearned that have most need of teachings the use of the holy Scriptures in a known tongue and make it the mother of all Heresies How impiously against God and how cruelly against men is this committed Must the God of heaven send down his Spirit to dictate an illuminating Doctrine to his Prophets and Apostles for the world must he give them a perfect Law by which Truth and Heresie must be discerned Must he send his own Son to preach the Gospel and cause his instruments to write it in a language best known to those that they conversed with or to the world that was to be converted by it And must this Doctrine now be made the mother of Heresies and kept from the eyes of the people that should learn it What must the onely rule that condemneth Heresies be made the cause of them Must the light which God hath given the world be blamed for all the Darkness of mens errors Or must men be kept from the light for fear least it lead them into Darkness This is the Popish Piety and Charity In stead of helping to Illuminate the dark world as all preachers of the Gospel should do Act. 26.17 10. they â—ust have all the unlearned to put out their eyes â—d be led by their guides and trust their souls with them for fear lest if they have any eyes in their heads and any light to walk by they should stumble or erre through the imperfection of their sight And yet the Papists who so much pretend to unity are various and changeable in this high point of their abomination as well as in other things For when they once see that they cannot keep the Scriptures from the people because the Protestants Translations are among them then they will permit them to read their own Translations And upon this account the Rhemists translated the New Testament into English when they saw they could not wholly suppress and hide that light And on this account it is that our Papists in England and some other parts where the Protestants abound among them are permitted by their Priests with some warnings of the needlessness and the danger of it to read the Scripture in their Country tongue When as to a Papist in Spaine or Italy it is no less a crime then to merit the Rack or Strappado of the Inquisition and its strange if they be not burnt for it at a stake So that I have met with some seduced Papists in England so ignorant of their course abroad and so gulled by the lies of their companions or Priests that they would not believe that they do any where forbid the vulgar to read the Scripture in their own tongue but were confidently perswaded that it was our slander of them so that these poor people believe that the Sun is not set in Spaine at midnight because it shines at noon in England Let them read but Joh. Arboreus Theosoph l. 8. c. 9. Andradius Defens Concil Trident. l. 4. Petrus Lizetus Dialog de sacris libris in vulg Floq non evertendis Hosius Dialog de Communion c. Petrus sutor de Translatione Bibliae Bellarm. de verbo Dei l. 2. c. 15. 16. Salmeron in 1 Cor. Disp 30. Bellarmine himself mentioneth the Index librorum prohibit of Pope Pius 4. Reg. 4. which forbiddeth the reading of the Scripture in the vulgar tongue except only to those that the ordinary shall think will receive good and not harm by it and so shall have a licence from him in writing and they pronounce that the common permission of the Scriptures thus doth more harm then good The same Index was after encreased and approved by Pope Sixtus 5. and Clemens 8. And how few they are that their Ordinaries will grant Licences to for the reading of Scripture is too well known by common experience The Kings of Spaine forbid all Translations of the Bible into the vulgar tongues and Alphonsus a Castro commendeth them for it and many a one hath been burnt to ashes for selling keeping or reading such Bibles in Spaine Italy and Savoy And Bellarmine mentioneth the Sess 22. cap. 8 and Can. 9. of the Council of Trent forbidding both the Common reading of such Bibles and also the publike use of them in the Churches in both which we must have them onely in Hebrew Greek and Latine Bellarm. ubi supr If these be not notorious enemies of the Light who are David faith Psal 119. That the word was a Lanterne to his feet and a Light to his Paths Isaiah sends us to the Law and to the testimony saying that if they speak not according to these it is because there is no light in them Isa 8.20 And the Phpists say as Arboreus ubi supra that the reading the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue is the Rise or Root of all Heresies And so the Sun must be taken out of the firmament as
that Christs body admitteth of augmentation and either daily or weekly receiveth new made parts or else that he hath new bodies made daily 15. Also it followeth that a creature either the Baker or the Priest may make God or make his Saviour at least instrumentally which is a horrid imagination 16. It followeth that either Christs body hath the accidents of colour taste dimension c. which are there sensible or else that those Accidents have no subject which is a contradiction 17. It followeth also that Christ hath not indeed a true humane body if it be such as is before implyed 18. And it followeth that the body of Christ is part of it condemned hated of God and tormented by the Devil Because his body was turned into the bodies of many millions of wicked men which must be so condemned hated and tormented 19. Also it followeth that the Scriptures are not true which tell us that the heavens must receive him in that humane nature which ascended from earth till the times of the restitution of all things Act. 3.21 and that he shall come again to judge the world 20. Lastly it will follow that a man must not trust his sences that though my eyes my smell my taste my feeling tell me that this is Bread and Wine yet they are all deceived and not mine only but all the senses in the world to which they are objected And if that be true 1. What reason have I to trust any Papist living For all my good opinion of him must be ultimately resolved into something that I see or hear of him And it seems I am uncertain whether I see or hear him indeed or not 2. And then how can I tell that I or any man is sure of any thing For if the senses of millions in perfect health may be all deceived in this why not in other things for ought we know 3. And then how can any Papist tell that the Bread is turned into Christs body If he say because the Church or the Scripture saith so How knoweth he that but by hearing or seeing and therefore for ought he knows his senses may be deceived when he thinketh he heareth or readeth such a thing as well as when he thinketh that he seeth feeleth smelleth and tasteth Bread and Wine And is there not need of very strangely cogent evidence now to impell them to believe against the concurrent vote of Scripture sense and reason And what is the ground of their contrary belief Not the Ancient Church unless they willfully or negligently deceive themselves for the stream of antiquity is full against them so full that its hard to believe that any of them that 's verst in antiquity can truly think that antiquity is for them if they have but the common reason of men to understand what they read What is it then that bringeth them to this belief Is it the Scriptures That 's not likely because they make so light of it and swear to take it in the sence of the Church or ancient Doctors in which last they are here and oft most desperately forsworn It must be then upon the Authority of the present Church that is the Pope and his Clergy that they entertain this hard belief That is The Pope and his Clergy believe it because they say it themselves and the rest believe it because the Pope saith it And is it truely possible that any man should have so good a conceit of himself yea or any other think so well of him as to believe unfeignedly so great a thing upon so weak a ground Can the Pope therefore believe it because he doth believe it Or is it not too probable that thousands of them are of that Belief which Melancthon sometime told them of very smartly You Italians saith he Believe Christ is in the Bread before you Believe that there is any Christ in heaven while they pretend to a faith above men that is to believe Impossibilities upon the Popes credit I wish they prove to have the common belief of Christians and that in heart they do not as once one of their Popes did account the Gospel but a commodious fable But let us suppose that indeed it is the word of God that is the ground of their strange belief and that Hoc est Corpus meum This is my body is the very word that doth convince them as some of them do pretend I would here be bold to aske them that say so a Question or two 1. What if the Ancient Church had intecpreted this Text as we do against your Transubstantiation would you then have believed it upon the bare Authority of this Text What need I ask this Your own Oaths and Profession saith No It is not then any evidence in this Text that compelleth your belief And let me adde that if I prove not in a fair debate upon a just call that the ancient Church for many hundred years after Christ was against Transubstantiation I will give all the Papists in England leave to spit in my face for all the high expressions of the Eucharist that some fathers have 2. What is there in those words This is my body that can perswade any sober Christian to their strange belief What is it because that they are properly and not figuratively to be understood And how is that proved Is it because we must not force the Scripture but take it in the plainest obvious sence I easily grant it But who knows not that both in Scripture and in all our common speech the figurative sence is oft the most plain and obvious and the literal the most improbable What three sentences do we use to speak together without some figurative expression I will appeal to any unprejudiced man of reason whether a Christian that should newly read those words of Christ and had never heard them or read them before would not sooner take them in our sence then in the Papists They may easily try this upon a new convert if they please and I dare make their own consciences judge if they have any left to befriend a common truth What is there more in This is my Body being a Sacramental business then for a man that is in a room among many Images to say This is Peter or Paul or this is Augustine or Hierom or Chrysostome And would not any unprejudiced stander by suppose that the most obvious sence of those words is This is the picture of Peter Paul c. Or would a man easily believe that it was the meaning of the speaker that this Picture was the very real flesh and blood of Peter and Paul and all other Pictures that ever should be made after the same exemplar should be so transubstantiated So what is the obvious signification of those words This is my body but This is the Sacrament or Representation of my Body Especially when his real body was distinctly there present and he expresly biddeth them Do this in remembrance of me
supplication and holiness within him and hath known by experience what it is to walk with God and offer him acceptable sacrifices and to receive the tokens of his acceptance and approbation Arg. 11. If Popery be maintained commonly by most wicked and abominable meanes and so by the Devil then it is no safe way to Salvation But the Antecedent is too true Therefore c. I speak not here of the meer miscarriages of some of their party but of the Pillars by which the Popes Kingdome is supported which that it is by abominable wickednesse I shalâ— give you but these few instances following 1. The very business or prize which they so much contend for is Pompe Greatness Dominion yea Tyranny in the world so that it is evidently Pride Vain-glory and Covetousness that sets them on and is the Spring of all their contests What 's the chief part of the quarrel but whether the Pope and Cardinals of one City even Rome shall be the Rulers and Masters of all the Christian world and all Princes and People obey them What unprejudiced man can be so blind as not to see that this contest is Tyrannical and that their Dominion is their Religion and their Pride is their faith and that the question is but that which one would think Christ had once sufficiently determined Who shall be the greatest Did not Christ chide his Disciples for this contest and say With you it shall not be so But the Papists having no better way to prove the Scripture a nose of Waxe and as flexible and multiform as they accuse it to be then by making it so to themselves by abusive violence and perverting it puting by the plainest words that Christ can speak and will take his Decision for no Decision when it makes against the Decisive Power of their Pope 2. And this is yet further manifest in that such a multitude of their Popes have been Whoremongers Murderers Heretickes Simoniacall buying the Popedome with money and poysoning one another to obtain the Popedome and living in it liker beasts then men Of all which I onely appeal to Platina and other of their own Writers 3. Another Pillar of Popery is most unconscionable impiety They can dispense with the vilest sins for the promoting of their Kingdom They can dispense with Oaths and with obligations of subjects to their sovereignes with leagues of Peace and amity among Princes yea they can themselves actually promote and execute the most abominable impieties that will but help them to attain their ends I will now onely instance in that which is fresh before our own eyes in England The Papists know that Anabaptists and Separatists are erroneous they know that Ranters and Quakers are abominable and yet for their own ends dare they here in England put on the vizard of Anabaptists and Quakers and with all possible subtilty and zeal and unwearyedness go up and down to seduce the people to be Anabaptists and Quakers as they did a while ago to be Seekers if not Infidels This is sufficiently known and proved not only by the Popish pretended Jew that turned Anabaptist at Hexham and was taken at Newcastle and others of them taken but by many other Testimonies some upon oath of those that have heard such confessions from their mouthes and many have known them in the Quakers Assemblies that have seen them before elswhere And all this is done by them that they divide us and break us in pieces and steal a credit to their pretended unity and Church Government and turn the hearts of the people from our Ministery and unsettle them and make them more capable and receptive of their own opinions and that they may make others abroad believe that we are all running mad And can that doctrine be of God which teacheth men to do such abominable things Or is that like to be the cause of Christ that must be thus upheld Is that person guided by the Spirit of Christ that dares draw others to the vilest blasphemies and wickedness in a dissembling garbe that so he may promote his own cause certainly Christ needeth not such hypocrisie and wickedness for the promoting of his Kingdom but it seems the Pope doth need it for â—is 4. Another of the Pillars of Popery is most gross and impudent lying Did I not know it to be true I durst not accuse them of it I will give you but these three instances following 1. They do raise and with greatest confidence propagate most shameless lies of those whom they take for their leading adversaries We read them in the open writings of Cochlaeus Bolse Staphiluâ— Thyraeus and many more What abominable stories have they of the Death of Luther Oecolampadius Bucer Calvin and others which it is very unlikely that they can be so blinded with maliâ—e as to Believe themselves What conference do we ever manage with them which they do not misreport Witness the late ridiculous passage after the conference between Fisher and Doctor Featly and Doctor White when they boasted beyond Sea of the number of Converts and in particular of two Earles and this to the Earl of Warwick himself not knowing him who was fained to be one of them and who had been a witness of their weakness And how poorly doth Weston in his Pamphlet put this off 2. The next instance I will give is their abominable lying legends by which they have befooled the people and made themselves ridiculous to the world and occasioned others to question their reports in other things I shall give you a taste of some of them as Doctor Featly hath gathered them to my hand in his Epistle to the foresaid conference yet with the Authors that report them that you may try whether they be wronged As that Saint Brigit laid her wimble and Saint Aldelme his chesible upon a Beam of the Sun which supported them vit Sanct. Brigit vit S. Aldelmi That Saint Nicolas while he lay in his cradle fasted Wednesday and Friday these dayes he would suck but once a day Festivale de Sancto Nicol That Saint Patricke caused a stoln Sheep to bleat in the belly of him that had eaten him Legend de St. Patricio That the Corps of Saint Laurence at the coming of Saint Stephensâ—ody â—ody smiled for joy and turned himself to the other side of the Sepulcher to make room for him Legend de S. Steph. That Clemens wrote a letter to Saint James seven years after he was dead Clem. Ep. ad Jac. in Ep. Pontif. That Saint Denis carryed his head in his hand three miles and rested at each place of the posts that are set between Paris and Saint Denis Breu. pictur Dionys That Saint Dunstane held the Devil fast by the nose with a pair of Tongues Leg. de Dunst That the chamber of our Lady was carryed by Angels through the air from Palestine to Loretto in Italy Hist de Nostre Dame de Lorâ—tto That our Lady helped Saint Thomas Becket to mend or
Ground of our Belief of the Christian Doctrine or of our Receiving the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God N. HAving already enquired whether the Romanists or the Reformed Churches are in the safe way to Salvation we shall now more particularly enquire whether their faith or ours be built on the surer grounds Our Belief is thus resolved we believe the Christian Doctrine to be True because the True God is the Author of it We discern that God is the Author of it both by his Intrinsicke and Extrinsicke Seals or attestations of it in that it beareth his image and superscription and is confirmed by his undoubted uncontroled Miracles and other effects which lead us to the cause The revealing containing signs or characters are the the holy Scriptures That these Books were written by the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists and were confirmed by Miracles and are uncorrupted in the main we are infallibly assured of by the evident certainty of the historical attestation and Tradition For we depend not barely on the credit of a deceivable or deceitful man such as is the Pope of Rome or of any fallible society of men but on such History as we can prove by plain reason to be infallible containing in it besides the Testimony of the Pope and all his party the same Testimony also of all the rest of the Christians in the world yea and of the very Hereticks who were enemies to much of the truth and enough also even from the mouths of Infidels to confirm us so that by this infallible history and universal Tradition we have a fuller discovery that these Books are the same that were written by the Apostles c. then we have that the Statutes of Parliaments in the Reign of King James or Queen Elizabeth are the same that they pretend to be And to a man that heareth not God himself or the Lord Jesus or the Apostles and hath not their immediate inspirations we know not how the Laws of heaven should be more fitly delivered in an ordinary rational way nor what surer other means such as we can expect who live at such a distance from the first receivers of it unless we would have God to speak to every man as he did to Moses or have Christ or Apostles still among us or unless God must make us all Prophets by his extraordinary inspirations And lastly the true meaning of this word we understand as we do the meaning of other Laws or writings having moreover the assistance of the spirit which is necessary because of the sublimity and spirituality of the matter and the necessity of the great effects upon our hearts Our Teachers by Translation and further instructions are our helpers as they must be in other things that we would learn and by the help of them without and of the spirit within we are able to understand the meaning of the words especially comparing text with text and so receive the sanctifying impress upon our hearts And thus is the Faith of the Reformed Catholike Resolved He receiveth the Bible from the hands or mouth of his Teachers and perhaps first believeth them fide humana that it is Gods Word He knoweth that this Book was written in Hebrew and Greeke by the Prophets and Apostles by Infallible Hystory or Universal Tradition He knoweth that they did it by Inspiration of the Holy Ghost by the Image of God which he findeth on it and by the uncontroled Miracles by which they sealed it He believeth it to be True because it thus proceeded from the Holy Ghost and so is the Word of God who is most True Of the Resolution of our Faith according to the Protestant Doctrine See L. du Plessis of the Church cap. 4. Translat pag. 121.122 123. and Conradus Bergius Prax. Cathol Can. p. 208.209 210. Disp 2. § 125 126. To this same sence Vid. Sibrand Lubbert Princip Christ Dogm li. 1. pag. 20 c. What the Resolution of the Romane faith is the Question which we are now to discuss doth intimate in part for it cannot be laid down in one proposition because they are of so many minds themselves Indeed we may see in this their foundation that Popery is a very maze and dungeon for the builders of this Babel are all in confusion at the laying of their first stone Yet this much they seem to be mostly agreed in That the Scripture is the word of God and part of the Rule of faith and duty but not the whole Rule nor the whole Word of God but that unwritten Traditions are the other part and the judgement of the present Church is Gods Word after a sort as they speak That the Scripture hath its Authority in it self from God the prime truth but quoad nos as to us it hath its Authority from the Church That it is the act of Tradition or the unwritten part of Gods word to tell us that the Scriptures are the word of God or a Divine Revelation And that it is the Office of the Church to judge both of this Tradition and the Scripture as also to decide all controversies in Religion and to judge which is the true sence of Scripture and that this Church must be one only visible infallible authorized thus to judge by Christ and this is onely the Romane Church Thus far the most of them seem to be agreed But when these mysteries of iniquity come to be opened they fall all to pieces For 1. Sometimes they say that the judgement of the Church is Gods word after a sort sometime that it is some middle thing between a Testimony Divine and Humane 2. And what the formal object of faith is they are not all of a mind whether it be only the Prime Truth or whether the Revelation of the Material object be any part of the formal But I confess this controversie is more verbal then real 3. And what place here to assign to the Testimony of the Church they are not agreed neither 4. Especially they are divided in the main viz. what this Church is which is the infallible Judge and into whose judgement their faith is resolved whether it be the present Church or the former Church Whether it be the Pope only at least in case of difference between him and his Council or whether it be a General Council though the Pope agree not as the French and Venetians say Yea whether it be the Clergy only or the Laity also that are this Church Nay some of them plead Universal Tradition as Holden White Vane and divers other Englishmen of late as if that were the same with the Romane Tradition or as if it were the point in controversie between us and them And ordinarily they use to tell us of All the Church and All the Christian world and to mouth it in such swelling words that the simple hearer would little think that by All the Church they meant but one man or at the
utmost him and his factious Clergy So also they are disagreed among themselves whether the Bishops in a General Council are Judges with the Pope or onely the Popes Counsellors Yea or what a General Council is Though they all agree that it is not necessary that it be out of all the Christian world much less the Bishops of all Churches but onely some of those that adhere to the Pope of Rome yet they agree not whether it must be freely elected by all the Bishops of the Romish faction or onely so many and of such Countries as the Pope shall choose and whether the major part of the Council must concur with the Pope or the Pope and the Minor part may not serve turn 5. So also they are exceedingly disagreed about the nature and extent or pretended infallibility of the Church of the Pope in judging Some say that the Church judgeth de mediis discursive sed de conclusione per doctrinam propheticam Divinam And so these men may affirm agreeably to this principle that the Popes Definitions are part of the holy Canonical Scripture as Melchior Canus affirmeth he heard a most excellent Divine confess and citeth Gratian and Innocent also as of the same mind And thus all the most wicked Popes are made Prophets and speak by inspiration of the Holy Ghost But others of them do deny this Though yet they know not how it is that the Pope is infallible without declaring themselves Enthusiasts Also though saith Bellarm. l. 4. de Pontif. c. 2. all yield that the Pope may personally erre through Ignorance yet they are disagreed among themselves whether he may be a Hereticke Some say he may not and others that its most pious and probable to think he may not Others reject that as false and say he may And one would think it should have been out of question by long experience before this time And Bellarmine confesseth that three General Councils did believe that the Pope might be a Hereticke ubi sup c. 11. some say that when the Pope is consulted and giveth his judgement in matters of faith he cannot err though in matters of fact he may and that he is Infallible in his Courts and Councils though not as a private Doctor Others say that he cannot err when he intendeth to binde the whole Church to receive his sentence or when he teacheth the whole Church Others say that the Pope may err even defining in Council but not in errors manifest to the Church but onely in new or not manifest points Others come yet neerer the matter and tell us merrily that the Pope cannot so err in judgement about matter of Faith because when he first erreth thus he ceaseth to be Pope but this is a hard conclusion in the eyes of their brethren The like disagreements there are among them about the Infallibility of a General Council some will make it the proper seat of Infallibility and say that the Pope cannot err if he be guided by the Council else he may Others say that a Generall Council may err if it be not confirmed by the Pope yea though the Popes Legates did consent or if they do not follow the Popes instructions But that they cannot erre if they follow them or be confirmed by him So Bellarmine Canus and the late champions And if the Pope and Council differ as they have shrewdly done when Councils have deposed Popes for heresie and wickedness some say that we may more safely follow the Council then the Pope But others say the clean contrary and place the Infallibility in the Pope onely and make it his work to reclaim the Council Though they are thus all in pieces among themselves even about these their fundamentals yet is it the custome of their deceitful Writers to make the simple people believe that they are all agreed and to tell them that they have the Consent of the Universal Church and of all the Christian world and they have Universal Tradition c. that by the noise of these big words they may do that which they cannot do by argument Thus Doctor Vane their late proselite and divers others do in their writings overlooking all their own disagreements and passing on as confidently in their boasts of the Universal Consent as if they were either such Novices as understand not their own Religion or such hardened seducers as are not willing that others should understand it Here are in this our Question contained three of the greatest controversies between us and the Papists 1. Whether it belong to the Pope or Romane Church to be the Judge of Faith and Scriptures to all the world 2. Whether the Pope or his Clergy be inâ—llible in judging of matters of Faith 3. Whether our Faith must be resolved into this infallible judgement of theirs Our intent in this present Dispute is to deal most with the second yet so as it is connexed with the other two and therefore shall take them in on the by but say less to them distinctly and the rather because there is so much said already by our Divines as all the Papists on earth will never be able solidly to answer To let pass all those beyond Sea that have effectually confounded them we have Brittans enough to hold them perpetual work as Jewell Reignolds Whitaker White Field Vsher Camero Baronius Davenant Chillingworth to whom they have lately lost their cause by shewing in a vain and frivolous Reply how little they have to say against him with many more who will either remain unanswered or the answers will be worse to the adversaries cause then silence it self which we have sufficient ground already to foretell As to the first of these controversies to dispatch it in short as we distinguish between Judicium Descretionis Directionis Decisionis a Judgement of Discretion of Direction and of Decision so we knâ—w that it is onely the later that properly denominateth a Judge in the publike and ordinary sence Take our doctrine in these few Propositions 1. We say that every Christian hath a judgement of Discretion to know that the Christian Faith is true and Scripture is the word of God Or else he were no Christian or faith were not an act of judgement or Reason but a bruitish thing This therefore we confess the Pope either hath or ought to have 2. Every Pastor of the Church hath a judgement of direction that is it belongeth to him by office to be a Director of the people and to teach those the Christian Faith that yet receive it not and to confirm those in it that have received it And they ought to have abilities for the work of this office If therefore the Pope were a true Pastor Bishop or Preacher this power we should confess to be in him as in others 3. It belongeth to these Teachers also to be specially careful to preserve the sacred Scriptures from corruption and
other doth not The Text speaks but to the same person and not in one half to one and in the other half to others I may well argue therefore in this manner To whomsoever Christ here promiseth that his faith shall not fail to him onely doth he speak in this text But he promiseth onely to Peter here that his faith should not fail therefore it is onely Peter and not the Popes that he speaks of The Major is clear according to the intelligible sence of the words and Bellarmine hath not yet proved a mystical sence The Minor is confessed by himself Lastly Bellarmine saith de verbo dei li. 3. c. 3. that Onely out of the litteral sence of Scripture effectual arguments are to be fetched But this great argument of his for the Popes infallibility is not fetcht out of the literal sence of Scripture therefore by his own confession it is uneffectual and unjust The second Text which he cites to this use is Mat. 16. On this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it A double argument he would fetch from hence One from the Name Rocke the other from the nature of a Foundation which both imply firmeness Ans 1. Note that here is in the Text not one word of the Pope of the Church of Rome more then any other or of infallibility 2. How doth he prove that by the Rocke is not meant Peters Faith or that Doctrine which he confessed but Peter himself 3 If he had proved it are not all the Prophets and Apostles as well as Peter called the foundation Eph. 2.20 So that here is no more promised to him then what was elswhere promised and given to the rest Onely his present confession occasioned the promise to be made expresly and particular at that time to him 4. As the rest of the Apostles were the Foundation on which we are built and yet their successors are not so So though Peter were the Foundation it followeth not that all or any of his successors are so The third text which Bellarmine citeth is Joh. last Feed my Sheep Where note again 1. That here is not a word of the Pope or Rome or infallibility 2. Did not Christ bid the rest of the Apostles Feed as well as Peter Sure Mat. 28. He bid them all Go teach all Nations baptizing them and teaching them to observe all things whatever he commanded them And what could Peter do more in Feeding Yea thirdly Are not all Pastors though inferior to Apostles bound to Feed the Sheep of Christ and yet it follows not thence that they are infallible 4. Bellarmine would next prove this from The High Priests wearing the Urim and Thummim Exod. 28. When he first confesseth that it is not agreed among Jews or Christians what these are And yet it will serve him for a proof 2. The Priests were not infallible for all their Urim and Thummim therefore no more is the Pope They judged Christ not to be the Messiah and therefore crucified him They lived and died Infidels and hardened the people in the same Infidelity for which they were broken off and unchurched 3. And whereas he argueth that the High Priest was infallible because the people were to go to him for resolution of difficulties and obey them Deut. 17. I must say that Bellarmine had some fault in his eyes that caused him to overlook the Judge and name onely the High Priest God sendeth them to the Judge who was the chief Magistrate in those dayes as well as to the High Priest as any man that will read the text may see If therefore the one of them be infallible because of this why is not the other so too But perhaps they will make the Pope to be the successor both of the Magistrate and Priest and so to be the universal Emperor as well as the universal Bishop and use both his swords that so this promise may belong onely to him For he will hardly grant every King or Judge to be infallible 4. By this rule the rest of the Priests also should be infallible For the people were also to receive the Law at their mouthes 5. When was there ever one Priest in any age so impudent at Bellarmine and his faction are to plead for or pretend an infallibility in themselves Let them name one Priest or person if they can that ever had such a conceit of themselves except it were Gods Prophets in the matters of their Prophecy 6. What if the Jews High Priest had been infallible What 's that to the Pope of Rome any more then to another man Hath he indeed yet proved himself successor of the Jews High Priest Except as a corrupter of the Law and a persecutor of the Church of Christ Well! you have heard all the Scripture arguments that Bellarmine had to bring for he brings no more to prove the pretended infallibility of the Pope May I not well say that it is no marvaile that they are such ill friends to Scripture who have no more Scripture that is none at all to befriend the very foundation of their cause And may I not justly recite again Bellarmines own conclusion lib. 3. de verbo Dei c. 3. and from thence shew them that their cause is built upon confessed fraud and vanity It is agreed bâ—tween us saith Bellarmine that onely out of the literal sence of Scripture effectual Arguments are fetcht But Bellarmine bringeth no one Argument for the Popes infallibility out of the literal sence of Scripture therefore he bringeth no one effectual Argument from Scripture But yet one other Argument he hath though not from Scripture and no more and that is from a double pretended experience And his first experience is That in all the other Patriarchal seats there have been Hereticks but not in that of Rome But here 1. Bellarmine must be judge or the Pope who is a party before all the Patriarchs can be thus condemned 2. And what if that were true Can he say the like of all the Bishops as well as Patriarchs If not they may as well hence prove themselves infallible as the Pope can do 3. Whether ever there were in the chair at Rome either Pope Liberius an Arrian Pope Honorius a Monothelâ—te Pope John denying the immortality of the soul with abundance more such like we shall have fitter opportunity to open anon to the shame of this experinemt of Bellarmines His second experiment is that The Pope without a Council hath condemned many Heresies which upon that very account have been taken for true Heresies by the whole Church of Christ Ans But you must first unchurch the greatest part of the Catholike Church and damne most of the Christians on earth the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. and make your own faction to be the whole Church of Christ before you will ever give us the least proof of this All the Church doth not do that which your flatterers do Nor did
ride or go as far as our horse or legs can carry us to see it what can we take you for but the most shameless sort of cheaters If you could accuse us of negligence as if we might see your Miracles if we would but travail for it or of unbelief as if we denyed that which we have evidence of we might bear the blame but there 's no such thing I profess as weak as I am I would go many a hundred miles to see such Miracles as you boast of if I had sufficient ground of expectation that I might not lose my labor And I would read over any Volumes that I were able to find suciffient Testimony of them But where is this testimony Knot refers us to Brierly and others to such like reciters of their Fables And when all is done there are three sorts of Miracles that they speak of 1. The Miracles of the Apostles and first Churches mention in Scripture and these are against Popery so that we may well say that the doctrine which contradicteth Popery is confirmed by Miracles in that the Scripture is so confirmed 2. The Miracles of the following Churches till six hundred These were comparatively few and less certain and fabulous mixtures in many of the reports of them But whatever they were they were no confirmation of the Popes Infallibility or universal Episcopacy or Jurisdiction which neither the Instruments of those Miracles nor any man else on earth as far as can be proved did then believe And whereas there were some Ceremonious fopperies that were then used which the Papists do yet use and would perswade us that these Miracles were confirmations of them we deny it and profess the nullity of their pretended proofs They say If they be not infallible in all things how can we believe them in any thing I answ Because that 1. Their Miracles are expressed Attestations to some thing that is to Christianity but not to all things that they may think Nor could they ever work a Miracle to confirm such private opinions 2. And the substance of Christianity which their Miracles do attest were more unquestionable before attested by Scripture and former Miracles whereas the errors which they introduced are contradicted by Scripture and the Miracles that attested it And whereas they would make the Apostles case to be like that of the Fathers It is very much different For though the Apostles Miracles were attestations to all their doctrine as well as to some part that was because they were Officers Commissioned by Christ to that work to deliver his doctrine first to the world as inspired infallible men and to seal it to posterity for future certainty But the Fathers had no such work in Commission but onely to preach the doctrine thus sealed and delivered them by the Apostles and therefore their Miracles were to another more private and restrained use according to their Commissions and work that is to convert those persons to the faith that knew of them by a subservient attestation so that it could oblige none to believe them in other things much less in their mistakes 3. The third sort of Miracles are those of later times contained in their Legends And seriously would the Jesuites perswade us that these are of equal authority with the Miracles mentioned in Scripture or any whit like them I have given you a taste of some of them in the former Disputation more you may see of their ridiculous vanity in Doctor Franc. Whites Defence of his Brother pag. 147.148 We must believe Baronius that Saint Fulbeck suck't our Ladyes brests And Antonine that Saint Dominick walk't in the rain and was not wet and his Books lying all night in the river were taken out dry and without hurt That the same Fryer spyed the Devil sitting in the Church like a Sparrow and calling him to him deplumed him and so put him to a great reproach And that he made the Divel hold him the candle in his bare fingers till they were burnt that a leacherous Priest by kissing his hand was cured of incontinency That Saint Bernard by blessing their Ale and giving it some lewd persons to drink caused Gods Grace to enter into them That he made an old Grandame of above fourscore years old to give suck to the Infant when the mother was dead That he killed Flyes by Excommunication and excommunicated the Divel and thereby disabled him from lying with women That Saint Francis turned a Capon into a Fish and water into wine made the Rock send forth water and Anchors to swimme Preacheth to Birds and Beasts to praise God till they were so attentive to his doctrine that they would let him touch them and would not depart till he gave them leave and had blessed them with the sign of the Cross converted a cade Lamb by preaching to him so that he would frequent the Church of his own accord and kneel before the Altar of our Lady at the Elevation of the Host By which example Surius calleth on the Hereticks to learn to worship the Blessed Virgin and to adore the Sacrament Also that he caused Swallows Grashoppers and a wild Falcon to joyn with him in the Praises of God Abundance more of the like more foppish and too many to be here meddled with their Legends are full of And these are their proofs of their true Church and infallibility by which they may be known by them that believe not the Scripture I think indeed that these proofs are well said to be Independent of Scripture for the less a man believes the Scripture the more he is like to believe these But by what certain or probable Testimony shall we know that ever such things were done What! must we needs believe every doting Fryer that gives us but his bare word and that many a year if not age after these Miracles are supposed to be wrought Must we believe them that so shamefully contradict one another Math. Paris saith that Saint Francis was branded with his five wounds fifteen dayes before he dyed But Bonaventure Vincentius and Surius say he had them two years before he dyed Nay must we belive as the very foundation of our Faith that which the Papists themselves believe not How commonly do they among themselves deride these stories as pious fraudes and some of them soundly chide the Authors I will at this time cite but the words of one and that is no Babe even Melch. Canus whom Bellarmine referreth us to so oft Lib. 11. cap. 6. pag. mihi 33.34 Quidam enim corum aut veritatis amore inducti aut ingenuâ— pudoris c. That is Some of them the Heathen Historians either induced with the love of Truth or in ingenuous modesty did so far abhor a lye that perhaps we should be now ashamed that some heathen Historians were truer then ours I speak rather with grief then in reproach the Lives of the Philosophers are much more severely that is truely
written by Laertius than the Lives of the Saints are by Christians and Suetonius did far more incorruptly and more entirely set forth the affairs of the Romane Caesars then Catholikes have set forth I say not the affairs of Emperors but of Martyrs Virgins and confessors For they But ours do for the most part either follow their own affections or else of set purpose forge so many things that indeed I am not onely ashamed of them but also aweary of them For I know that these have brought to the Church of Christ small profit but much disprofit I spare mens names because It is certain that they who write Church History feignedly and deceitfully cannot be good and sincere men and that their whole Narration is invented either for lucre or for error whereof one is filthy and the other pernicious The complaint of Ludovicus is most just of some feigned Histories in the Church He doth indeed prudently and gravely reprove them that take it to be a matter of piety to forge lyes for Religion A thing that is very pernicious and no whit necessary For we are wont not to believe a Lyar even when he tells truth They therefore who by false and lying writings would stir up the minds of mortal men to worship the Saints these seem to me to have done nothing else then to make men deny belief to truths because of falshoods To what purpose is it to pretend the name of History to fictions and fables As if the holy men of God did need our Lyes But while some do too much indulge their own affections and write those things which the writers mind and not the Truth doth dictate they make us such Saints sometime as the Saints themselves would not be if they could Can any man believe that Saint Francis was used to take the Lice on him again which he had shak't off him The Writer thought this was part of the mans holiness but so do not I who know that the holy man was pleased with poverty but not with filthyness And how ridiculous is this that the Divel raging on a time against our father Dominicke was constrained by this Saint to hold the candle so long in his hands till it did not onely trouble him but incredibly pain him Such examples cannot be numbred but in these few most of the rest may be understood which have darkened the histories of the most famous Saints They do therefore exceedingly wrong the Church of Christ who think they do not well set forth the excellent deeds of the Saints unless they adorn them with feigned Revelations and Miracles Wherein the impudency of men hath neither spared the Holy Virgin nor the Lord Christ Of late years when I was at the Council of Trent I heard by some that Aloysius Lippomannus was healing this disease by writing a history of the Lives of the Saints in a constant and grave speech But I could never yet see this nor any other which I could allow of all those that have come into my hands So far for Melch. Canus And do their own most Learned and Judicious Writers cry out of Lyes and Histories so much more false then the Heathens and impudent forgeries and say that they never saw any of these Histories which they could allow of and yet must we needs make these the Foundation of our Faith instead of the sealed Word of God What a Religion have the Papists that is built on such a foundation Yea of the reports of some of the late Writers that were next before Popery I will add a few more words of Canus ib. li. 11. pag. 337. Cicero thought Demosthenes nodded somtime and Horace thought so of Homer himself For though they were excellent yet but men And the same perhaps may I say justly and truly of Beda and Gregory One of them in his History of the English the other in his Dialogues do write certain Miracles talk't of and believed by the vulgar which the criticks of this age will judge to be uncertain I should have more approved those Histories if their authors had according to the aforesaid rule to severity of judgement joyned more care in their choice And how he lets fly at the lyes of Antonius and Valvacen The next page shews And page 338.339 how he censures Eusebius himself But I must forbear more such citations lest I weary the Reader It is now long since Doctor John White told them of their Cajetans words who saith It cannot be known infallibly that the Miracles upon which the Church groundeth the Canonization of Saints are true And their Antoninus Florent saith of the visions of Bernard and Brigit about the Virgin Maries conception They are fantastick visions and mens dreams And their Claudius Espeucaeus saith No stable is so full of dung as the Legends are full of fables Yea very fictions are in their portesses And Gerson All these the Church receives and permiteth them to be read not as certainly true but more attending to what might be in pious recogitation then to what indeed was done And Doctor White then made a challenge to them that we will admit of all those Miracles which are reported by such men as some of their own Writers do openly Note for Lyars Which challenge the Popish Replyer had no mind it seems to take up But though it belong to the Romanists to prove their Miracles which prove their Infallibility without Scripture and not to us to prove the Negative yet I shall try to shame their confidence by a few pertinent Questions when it shall appear how little they have to say in answer to them Q. 1. And first I desire to know of them whether the Miracles that prove their infallibility without Scripture are wrought by the Present Church or by the Church of former ages onely If by the present why cannot we see them Why are we still sent to Saint Brigit or Saint Francis or Saint Somebody that is long ago dead and gone We thought once we had had one neer us here I mean the Boy of Bilson who did wondrous things in favor of the Papists but in the Issue by the industry of Bishop Morton he was proved to be a counterfeit and confessed himself trained up by the Papists for the cheat But if it onely the Generations that are dead and gone that wrought Miracles then I would further aske 1. Doth it not seem then that your Church is Apostate in that it hath lost the gift of Miracles which you suppose so necessary And how will the Gifts of your predecessors prove your present infallibility any more then the Gifts of the predecessors of the Greek Bishops will prove their infallibility that now are 2. If past Miracles may serve without present then what need any more than the old Miracles of the Apostles And then why are not all the Apostles successors infallible as well as the Pope Seeing all the Apostles had the gift of Miracles
and many thousand more Therefore those past Miracles should prove all Bishops infallible that succeeded them 2. Quest I desire also to know whether it be your Pope himself that Works these Miracles or some other persons And if others whether it be onely some of your Church or all If it be the Pope himself why then have we more murthers then Miracles charged on your Popes by your own historians and why will not his holiness do some Miracles in charity to poor Hereticks Why do you boast no more of you Popes Miracles One I confess we read of in the Golden Legend that Pope Leo the first by the means of a woman kissing his hand was so vehemently tempted with lust that he was fain to cut his hand off but the Virgin Mary having compassion on him joyned his hand to his body again But this is no foundation of our faith But it s plain that it is Saint Becket and Saint Brigit and Saint Katharine that you send us to for Miracles and not to the Pope And then I would further know whether one mans Miracles will prove another man infallible unless they were wrought in confirmation of the assertion of that other mans infallibility It should rather prove Saint Brigit and Saint Katharine infallible that are said to have the Revelations and Miracles then the Pope that had none Would it prove the Patriarch of Constantinople infallible if any one that is under his Government should work a Miracle Or are you sure that there is no Miracle wrought among the Grecians Abassines or Armenians Moreover if you are All Miracle Workers why can we never see one nor have certain proof of one But if it be but some very few of you as good as none how will that prove the infallibility of your whole Church When the Apostles wrought Miracles that proved their own infallibility but that proved not the infallibility of all in the Church nor of every teacher in it nor of the greater number of them 3. Quest If your Pope and Church be proved infallible by such Miracles as the Apostles were doth it not follow then that all your Popes are inspired persons or Prophets as the Apostles were by which the gift of infallibility was conveyed to them 4. Quest Yea will it not follow that all your Church are inspired Prophets if all your Church be thus infallible But you cannot expect that we should too easily believe these If you have Apostolick infallibility grounded on the like Miracles then must you not be each one dis-junctly infallible as the Apostles were and not onely altogether 5. Quest And is it not plain then that all your dictates are Gods word if you have the same seal and inspiration as the Apostles had And so your Pope at least if not each one of you must make us new Revelations or new Scripture And is not this hainous arrogancy thus to equal your selves with Prophets and Apostles when you are none They could but be infallible and so you say is the Pope They could but seal their doctrine by Miracles and so you say doth your Church 6. Quest Will you grant that we are all infallible here in England if we can prove any Miracles done among us and by us 7. Quest Is it not absolutely necessary to the validity of the Testimony of a Miracle that it be not controled by some greater Miracle or evidence Otherwise the Magicians in Egypt and â—imon Magus might have gone away with better reputation But your pretended Miracles are conâ—rolled by far greater and surer and therefore of no force For yours are to confirm a doctrine contrary to the Scripture which was confirmed by many surer Miracles This we are still ready to prove though here we take it for certain but you use to decline that tâ—yal 8. Quest Is not every Priest infallible and every Church that hath the Eucharist according to your doctrine For sure Transubstantiation is a Miracle I do not think you will deny it And a Priest even in deadly sin may be an instrument of this Miracle if your Church be infallible Is there then no Eucharist among the Abassines Greeks or any that subject not to you Or are they all infallible And if Miracles be as common as Transubstantiation the priviledge proved by them must be as common So much to Master Knots first proof of his Infallibility without Scripture His second Independent proof is Sanctity But Sir 1. Are all Saints infallible Sure you dare not say so 2. Will the Sanctity of one man as Saint Francis or Saint Dominicke prove the infallibility of the Pope that hath no Sanctity By what means Rather if Saints be infallible a Murdering Simoniacal Drunken Fornicating Pope as yours confess many of them were are not like to be infallible especially Saint Brigit cannot make the Pope infallible by that Sanctity that would not make or prove her self infallible 3. Who must be judge of your Sanctity and ours Your selves no doubt For my part if my salvation lay wholly upon the passing of a righteous censure between us in this point I must needs profess that even in England where the Papists should be of their best sort because it is not the common way of the Nation but a discountenanc't way and where they are but few yet I have known so few of them that have not been common Swearers Cursers Drunkards Whoremongers or the like and yet fewer that ever manifested any serious minding of God and the life to come or any experience of the work of Sanctification on their hearts and who shewed any more holiness than what say in certain ceremonies words gestures or other formalities and on the contrary I know so many Protestants of heavenly hearts as far as I can judge and obedient lives that there is no comparison in my most impartial judgement between Papists and Protestants in matter of holiness If this therefore be the proof of infallibility sure God will excuse me if I take England to be as infallible as Rome because he requires me not to put out my eyes nor to say the Swan is black and the Crow white because the Pope shall say so before me And yet we still disclaim all pretences to such infallibility The third mark that Knot brings is their Sufferings But 1. Sure the Pope suffers but little in this life but in the next let him look to himself How then do other mens sufferings prove him infallible 2. Do not the poor Greek Churches and other Christians under the Turks suffer more then the Romanists 3. Do they not make us suffer incomparably more then they Is it not impudence almost inhumane after the murder of so many thousands of the Albigenses Waldenses Bohemians after the Massacres in France Savoy Ireland the burnings in England the Powder-Plot after their bloody inquisition of so long continuance and the rest of this kind to tell the remnant of their surviving neighbors that their sufferings prove them
a Covenant Then when Paul saith This Rock was Christ it must proclaim that all the Israelites sences were deceived that thought it to be a true Rock when a Papist will confess that the meaning is This Rock represented or signified Christ As if among many Images you should say This is Peter and this John and this Paul this were plainly to say This signifieth Peter or representeth him c. and doth not proclaim that deceit of sence Bellarmine cannot deny but that it is called in 1 Cor. 10. 11. Bread and the Cup six times over as after the consecration and here his shifting answer is that things are said to be in Scripture what they seem to be as the brazen Serpent is called a Serpent and so here he pleadeth a Trope Good still The Scripture calls it Bread six times neer together after the consecration and it calls it Christs Body once when his living body sate by Now the Question is which of these speeches are Tropical And we must believe Bellarmine that the text which calls it six times Bread must needs be Tropical and that which calls it once Christs Body must needs be understood without a Trope And this is all the evidence they can bring that God hath proclaimed mens sences to be fallible Nay all that we need for our cause is but to take est for significat which is so common that one would think there should not such unnatural absurdities be admitted to avoid it as overthrow our humanity When we plead that Christ had a true body and that a true body may be seen and felt because Christ bids them Luk. 24. See and feel for a spirit hath not flesh and bones c. Bellarmine answereth that Sence is infallible in positives and therefore thence we may say This is a body because I see it self but not in Negatives and therefore we cannot say This is not a body because I see it not And what need we more then that which is here granted By his own confession then we may conclude that This is Bread and Wine because we see feel smell taste it Yet no doubt we may also argue that it is not a natural body because it is not visible or sensible So much for this second Argument which I may thus with full advantage enforce If sence be either fallible or infallible the Pope is fallible But sence is either fallible or infallible Therefore If sense be fallible the Pope is fallible and all his Church for their sences and the Apostles and their followers were fallible If sence be infallible the Pope and his Council are fallible because the common sences of all sound men take that for Bread and Wine which they expresly say as de fide to be believed is not either Bread or Wine Argu. 3. If the Pope and his pretended General Councils have erred already then are they not infallible But the Pope and his pretended General Councils have erred already Therefore they are not infallible As the first Argument was taken from the no proof of his infallibility and the second from the common senses of mankind so the third is taken from certain experience which is a medium so evident that their vain words and subtil evasions have the less force to elude or obscure it Of the validity of the consequence there is no question can be made He that hath erred is not infallible All the doubt therefore is of the Antecedent which hath by unquestionable evidence of History been put out of doubt by our Writers long ago I shall produce some few instances of many There are no less than fourty Popes whom Bellarmine himself takes notice of as charged with error or heresie for whom he frameth such poor excuses that I should think any impartial Reader might receive satisfaction enough from Bellarmine that the Pope is too fallible Yea that even judicially and in fundamentals he may err Did not Pope Liberius erre judicially when he subscribed to the Arrians confession in the Council of Sirmium Libenti animo suscepi in nullo contradicens which the Fathers condemn of Heresie and to the Councils condemnation of Athanasius as Athanasius himself and many more witness Did not Pope Vigilius err judicially when he condemned the Decree of the General Council for condemning dead Hereticks And when Pope Pelagius and Gregory the first and Adrian the first did all approve of the same Sure one party of these Popes erred unless contradictoryes may be true Yea when Pope Vigilius did afterward revoke his own constitution sure he erred either in making or revoking it And so did Pope Paschalis when they gave God thanks in open Council that they heard the Pope with his own mouth revok those grants which said they contained Heresie which he himself had before made to the Emperor Though Cajetans excuse be true that it was no Heresie yet either the making or revoking was an error What will they invent at last to hide the nakedness of Pope Honorius who in two several General Councils was condemned for a Monothelite Heretick which he judicially perswaded Sergius to when he sought his judgement Stapleton and many more of them confess the full certainty of the Councils condemning him of Heresie but forsooth they say the Council did mistake the case It seems then either a Pope may be a Heretick or a General Council err Moreover will any Papists deny that Pope Stephen six and Sergius erred when they judicially decreed that those should be ordained again that were ordained by Pope Formâ—sus And of Pope Celestines error Alphonsus a Castro faith that he himself saw it in the ancient Decretals as his Definition and therefore that it cannot be said that he erred as a private man and not as Pope What can they say of Pope John twenty two who denyed the immortality of the soul and was admonished of his heresie by the Doctors of Paris as not onely Pope Adrian the sixth Joh. Gerson Alphons a Castro and others witness but Bellarmine himself confesseth also But he excuseth him because that opinion was not there defined against and therefore was no heresie See here 1. Whether the Papists do not make themselves a new Faith and Religion when they please and that is a point of Faith with them one year that was none the year before so that the novelty and the mutability of their Religion is thus by themselves confessed 2. See here that a point declared in Scripture and held by the former Church is no point of Faith with them unless it be declared by a Pope or General Council 3. See here what men Bellarmine would make all the former Popes to have been that had determined whether the soul were immortal or not 4. Chamier truely noteth that Bellarmine himself forgetfully contradicteth himself and tells us elswhere that Innocent the third the ninteeneth Pope before John twenty two had taught the contrary in express words I shall
Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lye They that receive not the love of the truth that they may be saved are threatened to be given up to delusions and therefore have no certainty of being infallible They that choose their own wayes God will choose their delusions Isa 64.4 There is no communion between light and darkness Christ and Belial therefore no infallibility with the children of Belial Of all men naturally till Christ illuminate them by special grace it is said in Scripture that they are blind deceived lyars of no understanding receiving not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness to him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2.14 Prov. 28.5 Rom 3.11 Prov. 6.32 9.4.10 15.21 7.7 12.11 2 Pet. 1.9 2 Tim. 3.13 Tit. 3.3 It is onely the elect that cannot be deceived even in the foundation Mat. 24.24 None of the wicked shall understand but the wise shall understand Dan. 12.10 They are threatned to be given over to blindness that they may not understand Isa 6.9.10 Act. 28.26 27 Mar. 4.12 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom Psal 111.10 God promiseth to teach the humble Psal 25. but the proud he still resist when he giveth to the humble his grace 1 Pet. 5.5 Jam. 4.6 And not onely the minds of the wicked but their tongues are deceitful even when they know the truth so that a wicked Pope may lye and deceive Psal 36.3 Prov. 12.5 Mar. 7.22 Rom. 3.13 I confess that a wicked man may have some kind of superficial knowledge of all those doctrines dis-junctly at least which are known to true Believers but as he hath no solid knowledge of them so he hath no promise or assurance of infallibility in that which he is capable of knowing Nor is it so like that a blind deceitful man should be universally orthodox And for the Minor that many Popes have been notoriously wicked I need not prove it while their own Historians and disputers too do so commonly confess it It s well known what wickedness the Councils that deposed them charged upon some and what poisoning and other murders Simony conjuration incest common adulteries and other wickedness is by the writers of their lives and other Historians charged on so many more that I should but trouble the weary Reader to no purpose to cite them Read the lives of Pope Sylvester the Witch the 2. Alexander the 3. and the 6. John 13. and the 22. and the 23. Gregory the 7. Vrbane the 7. c. in Platina Luitprandus Fasciculus temporum Martinus Polonus c. Ticinus hist li. 6. of John 13. shews that his sins were proved in Council that he ravished and committed filthiness with maids widows and wives at the Apostolick doors committed many murders drunk to the Devil and at Dice ask't help of Jupiter and Venus and at last was slain in the act of adultery See of Sylvester 2. Fascic temp an 1004. Martin Polonus Anno. 1007. Platin. in ejus vita Of Boniface the 7. See Baronius himself anno 985. n. 1. Of Alexander the 6. see Guicciardine hist li. 1. and Onuphrius vit Alex. 6. But I will name no more Argu. 15. Other Bishops and Churches who have as good a pretence to plead for their infallibility as the Bishop and Church of Rome are yet generally acknowledged fallible even by themselves and by the papists Therefore the Pope and Church of Rome also are fallible All that 's doubtful is whether any other Churches or Bishops have as fair a plea for infallibility as the Romane which I prove thus 1. The Plea of the Romanists is that their Bishop is the successor of an Apostle who was infallible and so the Promises belonging to him do belong also to his successors And the successors of the rest of the Apostles may have the same plea For all the Apostles after the Holy Ghost fell on them were infallible as well as Peter And therefore their successors have as fair a plea as Peters successors Obj. But there was not the like promise made to the rest for their successors stability as was to Peter Answ 1. There can no greater a promise to Peters successors be shewed then was made Mat. 28.29 to them all Lo I am with you alwayes even to the end of the world 2. The Papists according to their new fundamentals must not plead Scripture promises for their infallibility for they say their infallibility is in order first known evidenced and to be proved before it be known that Scripture is Gods word 2. The plea of the Romanists for their Popes infallibility is that he is the successor of Peter But the Bishop of Antioch might as well pretend to be the successor of Peter and yet he pretendeth not to infallibility Therefore c. That History which telleth us that Peter was Bishop of Rome doth tell us that he was Bishop of Antioch also yea and that he was Bishop of Antioch before he was Bishop of Rome so that Antioch is undoubtedly the ancienter Church What reason then can the Papists give why the Bishop of Antioch might not as well plead that he is Peters successor as the Bishop of Rome Unless they could prove that Peter did by his last Will and Testament bequeath the honor of succession and the priviledges of infallibility to Rome onely which they have not yet that I can find been so bold as to go about to prove Otherwise if one must needs be preferred why should not the eldest unless they be disinherited and the younger hath the blessing which must be proved Whence is it but from the honor of their Antiquity that Antioch Hierusalem Alexandria and Rome should be preferred as Patriarchates before all other Churches And if Antiquity be a good reason for that then why should not Jerusalem and Antioch on the same account be preferred before Rome seeing its beyond all doubt that they were both the more ancient Churches and Antioch the more ancient seat of Peter in the judgement of them that make him Bishop of either So that its clear that other Churches have as much or more to say for infallibility then Rome who yet make no prentence to it Argu. 16. The Apostles themselves were not infallible till the holy Ghost fell on them nor by any other help without the extraordinary inspiration of the Holy Ghost for before they understood not that Christ must dye rise and ascend till it was done but Peter Mat. 16.20 disswadeth him from suffering therefore the Pope if he might plead succession from Peter cannot expect more then Peter himself had and therefore cannot expect his infallibility without his spirit and inspiration And therefore those Popes that have not the Holy Ghost and that inspiration as Peter had cannot pretend to be infallible as his
successors For they must succeed him in the cause if they will succeed him in the effects Argu. 17. If the Catholike Church be infallible then the Pope and the Church of Rome are not infallible But the Papists say the Catholike Church is infallible therefore according to their own doctrine it must follow that the Pope and Church of Rome are not infallible The argument being ad hominem and the Antecedent their own all the doubt is of the consequence which I prove thus either it is the real or representative body which they must call the Catholike Church But both these are against the Popes infallibility Therefore 1. For the real no man can possibly know all their minds nor ever expect that they should in this life be all of a minde therefore it is the Major part that we must have respect to as its usual in all such Bodies or Assemblies Now the greater part of the Catholike Church on earth is and hath been against the Popes infallibility That it is so now is well known seeing all the Greeks Abassin Armenian Reformed and other Churches are far more then the Papists 2. And that it hath been so formerly the Papists themselves confess I will note at this time but one of the most learned and sober of them Melch. Canus Loc. Theol. li. 6. cap. 7. fol. mihi 201. Pugnatum est siquidem vehementer non a Graecis solum sed ab aliis plerisque totius orbis apiscopis ut Romanâ— Ecclesiae privilegium labefactaretur Atque habebant pro se illi quidem Imperatorum arma Majorem Ecclesiarum numerum nunquam tamen efficere potuerunt ut unius Romani Pontificis potestatem abrogarent That is Not only the Greeks but almost all the rest of the Bishops of the whole world have vehemently fought to destroy the priviledge of the Church of Rome And indeed they had on their side both the Armes of Emperors and the Greater number of Churches and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of one Pope of Rome Mark here that it is only success that he pleadeth but confesseth that most of the Bishops of the whole world and the greater number of Churches besides the Arms of Emperors were against the Romane priviledges as they call them the Popes power So that by this you may see the conscience and modesty of these men that not onely call themselves the whole Church as if all other besides them were some inconsiderable parcels but also would make the simple people believe that before Luthers time there were scarce any that denyed their pretended power we may see from themselves then where our Chruch was before Luther so far as Christians opposing the Romish usurpations are our Church even most of the Churches and Bishops of the whole world by the Papists own confession And therefore this may stop their mouthes that use to call out to us for a catalogue of their names would they have the names of Most of the Bishops and Churches in the whole world 2. And then for the Representative Church if there be such a thing it must be a General Council And I have shewed before that many such as themselves call General Councils have contradicted the Pope deposed and condemned him This Bellarmine Canus and the rest of them do confess and therefore I need not say more to prove it Argu. 18. That General Councils may erre is proved fully both by the errors that they have committed and by their contradicting one another It s too well known that the Arrians had as General Councils as most ever the Orthodoxe have had Bellarmine and Canus give more instances of erring Councils then can be answered by the contrary minded Pope Adrian and the second Council of Nice by him confirmed decree for adoration of Images And the Council of Frankford determined the contrary against the said Council of Nice though the Popes Legates contradicted them So did the Council of Paris anno 825. who examined judged and reprehended the Council of Nice and and Pope Adrians confirmation and defence of it and therefore Bellarmine saith They judged the judge of the whole world Their words are recited by Bellarmine Append. de Imag. c. 3. Baronius anno 825. n. 5. It s commonly known how Nazianzene complained that He never yet saw a Council have a good end but things were made worse by it and not better And Hierom in Epist ad Galat. saith That is the doctrine of the Holy Ghost which is delivered in the Canonical Scriptures against which if Councils determine any thing I account it wicked Instances of the errors of Councils we have too many The Council of Neocesarea confirmed by Leo the fourth and by the first of Nice as saith the Council of Florence sess 7. condemned second marriages contrary to Scripture 1 Cor. 7. Though Bellarmine vainely excuseth them by plaine forcing their words The fourth Council at Carthage forbad Bishops to read the Gentiles Books which yet the Apostle makes use of and the Church hath ever since allowed The Council of Toletane 1. Ordain that he whâ— instead of a wife hath a Concubine shall not be kept from the Communion which Bellarmine also falsly excuseth The sixth General Council at Constantinople hath many errors which Bellarmine confesseth and layeth the cause on this that they had not the Popes authority Whereas Pope Adrian approved them and the seventh Council judged them genuine Adrian saith Se sextam synodum cum omnibus canonibus recipere he receiveth the sixt Synod with all its Canons and confesseth it to be Divine The Council at Constance decreed that a General Council is above the Pope and the Council at the Laterane under Julius 2. and Leo 10. decree that the Pope is above a General Council Sess 11. The Council of Calcedone abrogated the Acts of the second Council of Ephesus and decreed the contrary The Council of Trent is notoriously erroneous and contradicteth the Council of Laodicea and Carthag 3. about the Canon of Scripture The number of their contradictions and errors is too great for me here to recite Many of our writers against the Papists give you large Catalogues and full proof of them See Doctor Sutline li. 2. de Concil cap. 1. What Gregor Nazianz. And â—ierome say of them I toucht before Hilary li. de Synodis exclaimeth against the errors and blasphemies of the Councils of Syrmium and Ancyra Augustine saith li. 3 cont Maximni c. 14. Nec ego Nicenum nec tu debes Ariminense taâ—quam praejudicaturus profere concilium nec ego hujus authoritate nec tu illius detinenis He saith also lib. 2. de Baptis Concilia plenaria priora a posterioribus emendari That is Former Councils that were full have been mended by later Bellarmines deceitful shifting answers to these testimonies are not worth the repeating Isidore saith Quotiescunque in gestis Conciliorum discors stâ—tentia invenitur illius
thousand years been ever a true General Council in the world The Popish Doctors as Doctor Holden de Resolut fid li. 1. cap. 9. pag. 156. say that It must arise to that degree of universality that there may not be any suspicion of conspiracies and combined factions that so every prudent man may be able heartily to say that the Assemblies are truely General And is it so when there are none but the sworn obliged vassals of the Pope of Rome and the Greeks Ethiopians Protestants c. and most of the Church are absent and when it is a known combination to promote their own espoused cause Quest 12. And then is the whole foundation of Divine faith extinct and lost when there is no General Council It may be we may have no General Council of a hundred or six hundred or a thousand years together Have we no Church then Or no certainty of Scripture or of the faith If they say that we are certain by the determinations of former Councils then they speak of the Church that is past and gone of which I moved the doubts before And the Canons of these we can read and understand as well as the Pope But when we appeal to former Councils and Ages they would hold us to the present Church and that must be their own and so be sure to be judges in their own cause Q. 13 I would know also whether it were by the judgment of a General Council that the first Churches believed the Scripture to be Gods word Did not the Church of Rome believe the Epistle to the Romanes and the Church of Corinth believe the Epistle to the Corinthians and so the rest to be the word of God as soon as they received them by an undoubted messenger from Paul Or did they stay till they had the judgement of a General Council or of all the Churches Indeed they made use of the intervening humane but certain testimony of him that was the messenger or bearer of the Epistle to know that it was the writing of Paul indeed and so we still maintain the necessity of a credible humane Testimony that these writings came from the Apostles hands But Tychicus or Trophimus or Timothy or Onesâ—mus were not a General Council nor the whole Church And doubtless those Epistles that were written to each particular Church were received by all the rest of the Churches upon the credit of that particular Church as having received it from an Apostle and not that the particular received it from the universal How did the universal Church know that those Epistles were written by Paul to Titus Timothy Philemon to the Ephesians c. but on the report of the persons and Church to whom they were written or else of those particular persons or Churches to whom the Apostle did communicate a copy of them Quest 14. And how did all the Church know the Scripture to be Gods word before the Council of Nice when there had been no General Council to â—etermine the business Quest 15. Dare a Papist undertake to justifie at Gods judgement all that part of the unbelieving world for not taking the Scripture for the word of God who have seen or heard it and had all other â—estimonies of it but never knew of the Testimony of the Pope or a General Council Shall none of â—hese perish for this unbelief Quest 16. And if it be the Pope that they call â—he Church and take it to be this infallible judge â— then demand How knows the Pope that the Scripture is Gods word or that the Christian Faith is â—rue The like also I ask of a Council How doth that Council know it themselves from whom we must know it Either the Pope and Council must believe it because they first believe themselves and so take it on their own words or else on the words of some others â—f the former then they Believe it because they Believe â—t then they are the original of their own belief and believe themselves first and then would have all the world to believe them And this is not onely to be â—o arrogant as to be the God of themselves and the Church but also so impudent and unreasonable as to believe themselves without reason and to expect that all others should do so too But if it be not from themselves that the Pope and Council believe the Scriptures from whom then is it not from any others of the present Church doubtless therfore it must be from the former Church And if so 1. Have not we the same means to know that the former Church believed the Scriptures as the Pope hath and therefore may believe it without recourse to him and as infallibly as he 2. And then it seems that acccording to their doctrine the Pope and his Council receive not their faith or the Scriptures on the same ground as all the rest of the Church must do so that the Church must have a twofold foundation of her faith whereof one is necessary only to one part and not to the other that is All the rest of the Church must believe the Scripture to be Gods word because the presenâ— Pope or Council saith so having first believed the infallibility but the Pope and Council themselveâ— need not any such ground of their faith And this distinction is not made between the Laity and the Clergy in general But even the Clergy themselves out of Council or who never were of the Council which sure is more then a hundred for one must thuâ— differ from the Pope and Council in the foundation of their Faith This is another taste of the famous Romane unity Paul saith there is One Faith bâ—â— if two divided Foundations or Reasons of Belieâ— do make two Beliefs surely the Church of Rome hatâ— two Quest 17. Do you believe that the Lord Jesâ— Christ understood the doctrine of your Papal Authority and infallibility when he so chid his Apostles foâ— striving who should be greatest and telleth them so expresly that the Kings of the Gentiles exercise Authority over them and are called Gracious Lords but with you it shall not be so And when he sets before them a little child and telleth them that he that will be greatest among them must be as that child that is that humility is the thing that they must strive to be great or excell in and so to serve one another in love Also when he commandeth them to call no man on earth Father or Master that is of their Faith Did ever Christ direct the world to go to the Church of Rome to know whether he be the Christ or whether the Scripture be his word or not Quest 18. Where is the Faith of the Church when the Pope is dead and when there are three or four at a time and when there is an interruption by Schisme thirty years together as it is known there hath been Hath not the Church then lost her faith by losing the foundation of it Or
whether then must poor Pagans have recourse to know that Scripture is the Word of God If Infallibility survive in other Pastors then it seemes it is not the Pope onely that is infallible but others as well as he And was not the Churches Faith resolved into the Infallibility of a Woman in Pope Joanes dayes I know the shifts of Bellarmine and Onuphrius to make the world believe that the Story of Pope Joane is but a Fable Florimondus Remondus is common on this subject But the case is out of question thus farre that we have neer fifty of their own Writers especially old Historians that give us the History of this Pope Joane as Platina in vit Joh. 8. Sabellicus Enead l. 1. Antoninus Archbishop of Florence part 2. li. 16. Chalcondyla li. 6. Marianus Scotus Martinus Polonus Fasciculus Temporum Nauclerus Volaterane Textor Caryon Sigebertus Gemblacensis Mat. Palmerius Massaeus c. And I marvaile why the Papists should be so industrious in refelling it as if their cause lay more on this then other things If a Conjurer a common Whoremonger a Murderer a Simonist a Heretick may be the infallible judge of the faith why may not a woman Hath Christ laid more on the Sex then on all these specially if she had but kept her self honest I should have thought Joane had been better then John the 22. or 23. and many another that yet was of the more worthy gender Quest 19. And further I would know If the City of Rome were consumed with fire or the Pope-dome removed from that Sea which Bellarmine confesseth it is not impossile to be done where then were the infallible head of the Church and what were become of the Romish faith If they say that this can never be and that Christs promise implyeth the preservation of the City of Rome I answer 1. It will be long before they will give us any proof of that 2. Their own writers confess the contrary 3. Let the end determine it But if they say that infallibility is not tyed to the place but to the Person who shall be Peters successor I answer we thought hitherto that to be Peters successor and to be the Bishop of Rome had been all one with them If another man that is no Bishop of Rome may be Peters successor then how shall we know who have succeeded him all this while Why not the Bishop of Alexandria Hierusalem Ephesus or other place as well as the Pope specially why not the Patriarch of Antioch who is said to be the eldest son of Saint Peter as inheriting his first chaire I doubt if Rome were extinct and the Bishop of Mentz or Cullen or Vienna or Rhemes or Paris or any other should pretend to be the infallible head of the Church not only the old Patriarchs but their neighbor Bishops would much contradict it and the world would be at a great loss to find the Popish faith or infallible head Quest 20. Lastly I will appeal to the conscience of any Papist that hath any conscience left and hath read the Fathers or History of the first Ages of the Church whether the rest of the Bishops and Curches in those times did believe the Scripture upon the credit of the infallibility of the Pope or the Romane Church Did the rest of the Apostles receive the Gospel on the credit of Peter or were they sent by him or did they receive their authority from him Do they find that ever the Apostles or any following Bishops of the Church did take such a course to bring men to the faith as first to teach them that the Romane Pope or Clergy were infallible and therefore to perswade them to believe the Scriptures or Christian faith because they say its true Is it possible that any learned Papists can seriously believe that this was the ancient way of believing Do they think in good sadness that the world was converted to Christianity by this means Sure it is scarce possible that they should be so far distracted by their prejudice and faction Do they read in Clemens Rom. or Alexandrin in Ignatius Justin Irenaeus Tertullian Origen Cyprian or any other of those times that the preachers that went abroad the world to perswade men to Christianity did ever use this Popish Medium or go this way to work Did they first preach the Pope and Romane Church before they preach't Christ or Scripture Did they first preach men into a belief of the Romane infallibility and then bring them to Christ or to believe the Scripture upon the credit of that O that these men would but shew us in what history we may find the reports of this way of preaching Or tell us what parts of the world were converted by this argument How many and large Orations Apologies and other discourses do we find in the Fathers writings for the Christian Faith to convince the unbelieving world in Clem Alexand. Tertullian Origen Athenagoras Tatianus Minutius Faelix Arnobius Lactantius Greg Nazianz. Nissen Athanasius Basil Eusebius Cyril Alexandr Augustine and many others And can any man of brains imagin that if the infallibility â—ea or but the authority of the Romane Pope or Church must needs be known before we can believe the Scripture or the Christian faith and that it must be received upon the credit of that Church that all these Fathers and others defenders and propagators of the Faith would have quite forgotten and left out this great and necessary point What! Would all the preachers and defenders of the faith overlook and omit the very foundation into which all mens faith must be resolved Undoubtedly if this had been then thought to be true which the Papists now teach we should have had the first part and a great if not the greatest part of all thoâ—e Apologies and discourses laid out in the proof of the Romane infallibility What man will go to evince a whole systeme of doctrines to be true and quite forget that medium by which onely it is first to be proved Would not this have found one place at least if not the chief among Eusebius his Preparations or Demonstrations Where was there ever in all Antiquity found such an Argument as this to convince an unbeliever Whatsoever the Pope and Church of Rome determineth is true But they do determine that Scripture is the word of God or that Christianity is the right Religion therefore this is true Nay further consider If this kind of arguing had been then used may not any man see that hath not renounced his wits that the Heathens would have sorely stuck at the Major proposition and that it would have met with so many objections and contradictions from them that surely we should have found some of them remembred to posterity Did Julian never stick at this very principle of the faith the Romane infallibility who stuck at so many things in the faith it self Or have Cyril Alexandr and others quite forgot to mention these among the rest
of his contradictions Did it never come into the mind of Celsus Porphyry or any other unbeliever that we read of to doubt of and object against this fundamental infallibility O what an incredible thing is this Yea and yet the more incredible will it appear if you consider that all the whole cause between the Christians and the Infidels according to the Popish conceit must depend upon this one point of their infallibility For what man will be so mad as to contradict the Church if he once believe that the Church is infallible Can they think that all the learned Heathens were such fools It must needs be therefore that their first stop must be at the Major proposition even at this principle of the Churches infallibility and therefore certainly their most objections would have been against it and the most of the Christian Doctors labor would have been in the defending of it But that its certain they then believed no such thing and the Church was at that time utterly unacquainted with the foundation of the present Romish faith Moreover if this Popish foundation had been then known do you think that the Fathers would not have appealed to Rome for a decision of all their perplexing controversies What readier way to have silenced all gain-sayers and ended all strifes and to have saved the labor of so many volumes then to have bestowed their pains with all dissenters upon this one point alone That Rome is infallible and then have sent them thither for satisfaction in all the rest Common reason must needs have told men of such principles that this was the way But do we find that this way was taken How come we then to have so many volumes of the Fathers controversal writings and not one Book or Chapter or leaf or line to prove the Romane infallibility And because the order of our discourse hath brought us up to the judgement of the Fathers I shall here give you a brief taste of their judgement in this point and so conclude this argumentation In the contention about Easter day between the Eastern Western Churches Policrates with the Asian Bishops resisted the Popes judicial determination anno 198. And therefore doubtless they believed not his infallibility nor universal jurisdiction In the Council of Nice the first that subscribed was Eustathius Patriarch of Antioch before the Legates of the Bishop of Rome Theodor. li. 1. c. 7. So did Hosius Bishop of Corduba in Spain as Athanas Apolog. 2. In the Council of Africk the Popes Legates had the last place Conc. Afric Can. 100. In the Council of Calcedon there was 157. subscribed before Philip the Popes Legate In the fifth Council of Constantinople Menna their Bishop was President Evangri l. 4. c. 38. And if the Pope had not then so much as the Presidency how much less an universal jurisdiction with infallibility When Stephen the Bishop of Rome determined judicially against rebaptizing Hereticks and excommunicated Firmilianus for not assenting and wrote to Cyprian about it what did they do Did they either submit to the judgement of the Pope as infallible or obey him as their universal Ruler No but Cyprian Firmilian with the rest of the Bishops did unanimously joyn against the Popes decree I would fain know by what spectacles the Papists can read these words of Cyprians to find out their infallibility in them In his Epist 74. ad Pempeium he saith thus I have sent a Copy of our Brother Stephens letters which when you read you will see his error more and more who endeavoureth to maintain the cause of Hereticks against the Christians and against the Church of God For among things which he writeth either proudly or nothing to the purpose or contrary to himself and ignorantly and unadvisedly he addeth c. Here mentioning Pope Stephens pleading of Tradition he saith Whence is that tradition Is it from the Authority of the Lord and the Gospel Comes it from the commands and Epistles of the Apostle For that we must do those things that are written God testifieth and propoundeth to Joshua saying Let not this Book of the Law depart out of thy mouth c. If therefore it be contained in the Gospel Epistles or in the Acts then let this Divine and holy Tradition be observed What obstinacy is this And what presumption to prefer Humane Tradition before Divine appointment and not to consider that God is angry and offended as oft as humane Tradition doth lose or pass by the commands of God As Isaiah saith This people honoureth me with their lips but their hearts are far from me in vain do they worship me teaching the doctrines and commendements of men and as the Lord in the Gospel reproveth them Yee reject the commandments of God to establish your Tradition So Paul 1 Tim. 6.3 If any teach otherwise and rest not in the wholsome words of our Lord Jesus Christ and of his doctrine he is proud or lifted up with stupidity knowing nothing from such we must depart The custome which hath crept in with some ought not to hinder the truth from prevailing and overcoming For custome without Truth is but antiquity of error therefore leaving error let us follow truth It is through a study of presumption and contumacy that a man will rather defend his own wicked and false opinions than consent to anothers that are right and true Paul therefore saith that a Bishop must be no quarreller but mild and teachable for a Bishop must not onely teach but be taught And there is a speedy way for Religious and simple minds to lay down error and to find and disclose the Truth For if we return to the Head and Original of Gods tradition humane error ceaseth and whatsoever was in cloudy darkness it opened in the light of truth If the water Pipes be stopt do we not run to the fountain to see what 's the matter So now must the Priests of God that keep his commandement that if in any point Truth have changed or wavered we may return to the original even the Tradition by the Lord by the Gospel and by the Apostles and the Reason of our action may rise from thence from whence both order and beginning did arise So far Cyprian If the Papists can make their followers now believe that Cyprian believed the Popes infallibility or that the Church of Rome was the onely keeper of Tradition or that Traditions were not to be tryed by the Scriptures then you may see to what purpose it is that they must needs be the judges of Controversie and the sence of Scripture and why they call it a Nose of wax even that it may be at their service and so flexible as to yield to what sence they will put upon it when they will needs exercise the same Authority on the Fathers themselves who in their familiar Epistles speak as plain as they can Firmilianus a famous Bishop writeth a confutation of Pope Stephens Epistle
presbyter ordinatur Quid mihi profers unius urbis consuttudinem Quid paucitatem de qua ortum est supercilium in leges Eccesiae vindicas That is For what doth a Bishop except ordination which a Presbyter may not do Nor is the Church of the Romane City to be esteemed one and the Church of the whole world another Both France and Brittaine and Africk and Persia and the East and Jndia and all the Barbarous Nations do worship one Christ and observe one Rule of truth If you seek for Authority the worlds is greater than the Cities of Rome Wherever there is a Bishop whether at Rome or at Eugubium or at Constantinople or at Rhegium at Alexandria or at Tanis of the same Merit he is also of the same Priesthood The Power of riches and the lowness of poverty make not a Bishop high-eror lower But they are all the Apostles successors But you say How is it that at Rome a Presbyter is ordained on the testimony of a Deacon What tell you me of the custome of one City why do you defend a few of which superciliousness is arisen against the Laws of the Church It may be the Papists by their supereminent power of interpreting all Church writers can put such a sence on these words of Hierom as shall consist with that which he purposly doth oppose But I think an impartial man can hardly believe that when he wrote these words he was acquainted with Romes claim of universal jurisdiction and infallibility Nay when it is the scope of much of the former part of this Epistle to prove the equality of Bishops and Presbyters in the beginning and that at that time they differed in no power but that of ordaining when yet he saith the Presbyters of Alexandria did long make their own Bishops how then could Hierome believe the Popes universal jurisdiction Could he think that the Bishop of Rome had that power over the Church which he thought not any Bishop to have over the Presbyters of any one Church Greg. Nazianzene saith of Councils If I must write the truth I am of this mind that I will flye or avoid all Councils of Bishops for I never saw a glad or happy end of any Councils or which did not rather bring an addition or increase of evils then a removal of them To this of Nazianzene Bellarmine answereth that Gregory meant that in his time no Council could be wholly lawful for he lived between the first and second general Council where he had seen many Councils which because of the great number of Hereticks had a bad end And he names five of them Answ 1. But by what Authority doth Bellarmine confine Gregories words to some Councils which he speaks in general of all that he had seen or might do resolving to avoid all hereafter 2. Here note that Bellarmine confesseth that Councils may erre and then where is the French Religion 3. I would fain know where was the Churches infallibility and power of judging of matters of faith in Nazianzens dayes If there were no lawful General Councils nor could be then it was not in them therefore it must be either in the people and how shall we gather the world together to consult with them or else as Bellarmine will say in the Pope alone or in the Romane Clergy with him I hear not yet that they are very forward to prove that the Romane Clergy in particular are Infallible though Bellarmine hath given us his bold conjectures of that It must needs be therefore that at that time all the Churches infallible judicial power and so the foundation of our faith must be resolved into the Pope alone and so the faith of all the world must then be resolved into the credit of the word of a single and silly man I know the Italian faction will not abhor this at any time but then they should for shame speak out and deal plainly with the world and not talke of the whole Church and all the Church when they mean but one man 4. And I would fain know of any friend of Bellarmines how far the universal Church was visible at that time when all Councils were bad and none could be lawful The visibility was not in a Council to represent the whole and the â—aity are not much noted when Councils go wrong â—o that the Church was visible onely in one man or â— few particular persons according to the Papists common reckoning who judge by the Pastors visiâ—ility Yea the Church of Rome it self was invisible â—hen and divers times when their Bishop was a Hereâ—ick If therefore they will say either that the Church was visible in one man or in the Laity of many partes opprest by the Clergy and Magistracy and they have nothing more to say then we will â—ay as much of the visibility of our Church before Luther and more too 5. It s confest here also that â—ot onely a Council but the greater number by â—ery many of the Bishops of the Church may be â—eretickes or erre in faith 6. And then the Church may lye in the smaller oppressed part and why then may not the most erre now Stapleton himself confesseth â—hat Luther was not much out of the way when he said â—here were scarce five Bishops â—o be found that turned not Arrians And Hieromeâ—aith â—aith Dialog advers Lucifer The whole world â—â—aned and wondred that it was turned Arrian â— And did the authority of the Scripture at that time â—ll quoad nos when the judge was turned heretick â—ven Liberius and the Councils And if the high Elogies of the Romane Church would prove its Authority then see what Nazianâ—ene saith of the Church of Caesarea In his 22. Epistle ad Caesarienses patris nomine scripta found among his own works Edit Paris Tom. 1. pag. 785. and also in Basils works translated by Musculus Edit Basil 1565. Tom. 2. pag. 17. Seeing every Church as being Christs body is to be watched over or looked to with greatesâ— care and diligence then specially yours which anciently was and now is and is esteemed almost oâ— nigh the mother of all Churches on which thâ— whole Christian Commonwealth doth cast their eyes even as the encompassing circle doth on the center not onely for the soundness of doctrinâ— long divulged to all but also for that conspicuouâ— grace of Concord which God hath given them What would the Papists say but that this were foâ— their supremacy if they found but this much in him for the Church of Rome And I think there is no doubt but that in thosâ— ancient times the Church was acquainted with thâ— true way of Government as well as Rome is now and therefore I would know further 8. Whether thâ— truest Government may not stand with great desolations divisions of the Church and multitudes of errors Greg. Nazianzene saith Orat. 20 pag. mihâ— 345. That when Basil seâ— upon the great work of healing the Church The holy
Nation the Kingly Priesthood was so far amiss that it was distracted into six hundred opinions and errors And spoiled and wasted by the Devil If the Popes Monarchical Government was then a foot then it seemâ— that Government will no more prevent sects and errors then the worst If it were not then 1. They are now usurpers 1. And they cannot prove ouâ— way of Government to be wrong by the multitude of errors that are in the Church Basil was far from resolving his faith into the Popes infallibility when he wrot his Ascetica or at least Eustathius Sebastienus if they be his when pag. 195. Tom. 2. translat Musculi Basil he saith It is a manifest lapse of faith and apparent vice of pride either to refuse any thing which the Scripture containeth or to bring in any thing which is not written seeing Christ saith My sheep hear my voice and premiseth But another they will not follow but flye from him because they know not a strangers voice And pag. 193. he saith that sometimes he had used unwritten sayings against hereticks But never aliene from the Scripture sence c. and that now he was resolved To make use of what he had learned from Scripture and but sparingly to use the very names and words which are not literally conform to the divine Scripture though they do retain the Scripture sence The same Basil Epist 80. To. 2. p. mihi 74. renouncing the argument from custome saith Let us stand therefore to the arbitration of the Scriptures inspired from God and with whomsoever is found the opinions which are agreeable to the Divine oracles to him let the sence or sentence of truth be wholly adjudged This is Basils judgement of the judge of controversies Hilarius Pictav in his Epistle de Synodis adversus Arrianos pag. mihi 318 319. and fully sheweth his thoughts that Councilâ— have erred and that even those of the Orthodox are to be tryed by the Apostolical doctrine And lib. 2. de Trinitate pag. 16. col 2. he saith Commendat autem fidei hujus integritatem c. The integrity of this faith is commended by the Authority of the Gospel and Apostolical doctrine For this foundation standeth strong and unmoved c. And he maketh it a remedy against all Heresies And in his Commentary on Mat. Canon 8. pag. 498. he saith Igitur secundum haec Ecclesiae intra quas verbum Dei non vigilaverit naufragae sunt c. i. e. The Churches in which the word of God doth not watch are shipwrackt And most fully lib. 4. de Trinitate pag. 31. col 2. Nemini autem dubium esse oportet c. that is No man ought to doubt but that we must use Gods doctrine for the knowing of divine things For humane weakness cannot of it self attain the knowledge of heavenly things It is God himself that we must believe concerning himself and those things which he offereth to our knowledge of himself must we obey For either we must deny him as the Gentiles do if we disallow his testimonies or if he be believed to be God as he is nothing of God can be understood but as he hath witnessed of himself Let mens own opinions therefore cease or be laid by and let not mens judgements extend themselves beyond Gods constitutions For the understanding of sayings must be fetcht from the causes of the speech because the thing is not subject to the words but the words to the matter And li. 4. de Trinitate pag. 29. col 1. when he sheweth that the hereticks use to plead Scripture misunderstood he doth not send them to Rome for a judgement of the sence but still concludeth Respondendum esse existimo haereticorum perversitati omnes corum stultas ac mortiferas institutiones Evangelicis atque Apostolicis Testimoniis coarguendas That is I judge that we must answer hereticks perverseness and all their foolish and deadly institutions by the testimonies of the Gospel and of the Apostles And the same Hilary doth largly perswade to a close adhering to the Gospel and the sum of Faith called the Apostles Creed without adding or altering under any pretence of amending and sheweth the divisions and depravations that have followed since the Council of Nice would make one emendation and on their example other Councils had made and mended done and undone so oft that they had marr'd all by it and he perswadeth the Emperor to hearken to the ancient Gospel faith and not to Synods His words are in Epist vel Lib. ad Constant August pag. Edit Paris 307.308 where having shewed how he had erred in looking after Councils he saith Recognosce fidem quam c. that is Reacknowledge that Belief which thou desirest to hear from the Bishops but hearest not For they of whom it is required do write their own things and do not preach the things of God they have drawn about an endless and perpetual circle For the modesty of humane infirmity should have contained all mysteries of divine knowledge in those bounds of conscience onely which he believed in and not after a Belief confessed and sworn in Baptism in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost to doubt or innovate any thing else Under the improbable occasion of this necessity the custome is come up of writing and renewing the Belief Which after that it began rather to frame new things then to retain what was received it neither defended the old nor confirmed the new and Belief is now become rather a belief of the times than of the Gospels while it is written according to the years and not held according to the Confession of Baptism It is a most perillous and miserable thing that we have as many Beliefs as Wills and as many Doctrines as manners and that as many causes of blasphemy spring up as there are vices And when according to one God and one Lord and one Baptism there is one Belief we are faln from that Belief which is but one and while many are made they therefore begin to be that there may be none For we are on both sides conscious that since the meeting of the Council of Nice we have wrote nothing but Beliefes While there is quarrel about the words and questions about the newness and occasion about the ambiguityes and complaints about the Authors and strife about the parties and difficulty in consents and while every one begins to be an Anathema to another almost no one now is Christs For we are carryed about by an uncertain wind of Doctrine and either while we teach we trouble or while we are taught we erre And what is the change that is in the last years belief The first decreeth that the word homousion shall be silenced The next decreeth and preacheth the homousion The third doth by indulgence excuse the word usia which was simply before used by our fathers The fourth and last doth not excuse it but condemn
have small reason to hear us or regard us or to trust their salvation on the doctrine which we deliver to them seeing for ought we know or they know we may but deceive them as being first our selves deceived so that this makes way to infidelity or uncertainty of the faith if the Church be not infallible This is their all the first and last for ought I can find that 's worth the repeating and of how little value this arguing is me thinks should be very easie to apprehend 1. Look back to the stating of the Question and remember how far we say the Church is fallible and how far infallible and it may suffice to confute all this 2. It s not all one to be absolutely infallible and to be actually Not-mistaken Nor to be certain of some things and to be certain of all things that ought to be known or believed Nor to be certain by such external evidence of verity and internal grace as is ordinary to the faithful and to be certain by a pretended priviledge above all the rest of the world even knowing the conclusion as such without knowing the medium We are certain that Scripture is Gods word and certain that we are certain and therefore pro tempore infallibly certain And if we should say that we are certain that no true Believer shall ever fall from this certainty we should speak more agreeably to the Protestant doctrine then to yours who say that they may fall away And we maintain that there is still an Objective certainly or Infallibility if I may use the word actively in the word of God and every sentence of it which can never fail if our faith should fail And we can manifest to our hearers such grounds of their belief as are infallible and will never deceive those that trust in them Your argument therefore most vainly supposeth that mens saith must be grounded on the word and credit of their Teachers and that therefore they can have no stronger a faith then is answerable to our credit with them But it s no such matter It is Gods Veracity and not ours that is the formal object of the hearers faith We do not desire as it seems the Papists do that they should take their faith on trust from us and believe all on our words We do but reveal to them that word of God which is the ground of faith and we prove it to be the word of God and shew them that in it which will prove it self to be so so that as long as our Reasons Proofs Evidences are infallible what necessity is there that the speaker must be infallible and that in every thing that ought to be believed Are all the Preachers of the Romish faction infallible You will say no your selves Must they not therefore be heard Or may not the doctrine which they preach beget a certain belief in the hearer You will I know with one voice say that I may and doth How then do fallible men among you by preaching bring men to an infallible faith in tantâ—m and why may it not be so with us Will you say that you preach in the name of the Pope who is infallible Why but how do your hearers know that Must they take it on the preachers word who proclaimeth himself fallible Why then may they not as well take it on our words that Christ and Scripture is infallible When we say we preach in Christs name as confidently as you say that you preach in the Popes name and so your doctrine and ours should be both uncertain if both rested on the fallible preachers word But if you will not bid your hearers take your word but will undertake to demonstrate to thtm by cogent evidence that you are sent by the Pope and that he is infallible and that you speak nothing but what he infallibly warranteth you to speak all which will be incumbent on you to prove then will we much more easily and truly prove that God is true and that Scripture is his word which is all that is incumbent on us to prove seeing an infallible word of an infallible God must be heard how fallible soever we may be so that you might easily see if you would that your task is incomparably harder then ours even as much as to prove a falshood is harder then to prove a truth How will you approve of such reasoning as your own in other cases What if ten men that have been at a fight come home and tell you which side had the better though they are all fallible may they not possibly give you such infallible proof of what they say as may make it certain What if all the Lawyers in the Land are fallible men yea and all other men in the Land and do not know all things nor all that should be known about the Lawes Doth it follow that these fallible men may not infallibly know themselves and infallibly prove to others even by certain humane testimony uncapable of deceit that this or that is indeed a statute Law of the Land made by King and Parliament Do all men hold their lands and lives by Law and so many dye at the Gallows by Law and yet is it uncertain whether they be the Laws indeed or not and all because the men that say so are not infallible and all are dead that saw them made Why but a man may be certain of many a thing that yet is not infallible in all things nor in all that he ought to know Your argument therefore is strong against your selves who resolve mens saith into humane credit but it s nothing against us who resolve it into Gods veracity and teach not men to take all upon trust from our bare words It is sufficient that God is infallible when we perswade them to believe and that we can infallibly prove to them that the Scripture is Gods word and what it containeth in the points of necessity to salvation We can without infallibility in all other matters infallibly prove to them what God requireth them to Believe and Do as Necessary to Salvation It is the infallibility of our proofs and not of our bare words that is necessary to mens belief But the Papists expect their misled flock should take their bare word and so make the faith of their followers a humane faith and to blind the business they pretend to a certain infallibility as if their sayings were Divine Men will make use of Phisicians for their bodies though they be not infallible Much more might they do it with encouragement if they could infallibly tell them the true cure of every mortal disease though there were an hundred smaller diseases that they could not cure or a hundred questions in Anatomy and about the nature of diseases which they could not resolve Why then should men conceit that the Ministry is vain that is not infallible and knoweth not all things Hath Gods Church been without infallible ordinary guides from
of the Church and decider of controversies 3. Observe also that Vincentius doth fully and purposely acknowledge the Scripture sufficiency and never once mention any Traditions as necessary to supply the defects of Scripture or as part of Gods word when Scripture is but the other part Not a word of such Traditions But onely of Tradition subordinate to Scripture finaliter for the true expounding of them Hear himself Cap. 2. Hic forsit an requirat aliquis cum sit perfectus scripturarum Canon sihique ad Omnia satis superque sufficiat quid opus est ut ei Ecclesiasticae intelligentiae jungatur authoritas Quia videlicet scripturam sacram pro ipsa sua altitudine non uno eodemque sensu universi accipinut And in his recapitulation Cap. 41. Diximuâ— in superioribus hanc fuisset semper est esse hodie Catholicorum consuetudinem ut fidem veram duobus his modis approbent Primum divini Canonis authoritate deinde Ecclesiae Catholicae Traditione Non quia Canon solus non sibi ad universa sufficiat sed quia verba Divina pro suo plerique arbitratu interpretantes varias opiniones errores que concipiant So that Scripture is sufficient ad omnia ad universa onely the Churches tradition that is interpretation is the safe way to avoid heresie for the understanding of it 4 Note also that the Catholike Church which Vincentius mentioneth is not the Romane Church any more then any other but the Tradition that he referreth us to is that which hath been taught or held ubique semper ab omnibus every where alwayes and by all 5 Note also that it is not any authoritative Determination of any person or persons whomsoever but universal consent that he referreth uâ—to 6. And it is not in lesser probable or controverted points but in those great necessary points which the Church hath wholly every where in all ages agreeed in 7. Note diligently that one of the cases he putteth is this cap 4. Quid si novella aliqua contagio non jam portiunculam tantum sed totam pariâ—er Ecclesiam commaculare conetur i. e. But what if any novel contagion shall not onely stain a small part of the Church but also the whole Church A presumptuous Question in the Papists sence But what saith he to it doth he say it is impossible no but Tunc item providebit ut Antiquitati inhaeteat quae prorsus jam non potest ab ulla novitatis fraude seduci i. e Then let him see that he stick to antiquity which cannot at all now be seduced by any fraud of novelty Here 1. he supposeth that the present Church may all erre 2. He makes the remedy to be an appeal to the ancient Church and not as the Papists to appeal in all cases to the present Church or Pope Costerus seeks by a citation out of Tertullian in his Annot. to detort both 8. Lastly note diligently that it is not in all cases that Vincentius leadeth us to the exposition of the Church and Fathers but onely as in the weighty use beforesaid so in case of the newness of errors when they first arise before they falsifie the Rules of the ancient faith let them be forbidden by the straights of time and before by the large spreading of the poison they endeavor to vitiate the volumes of our Ancestors But dilated and inveterate heresies are to be set upon this way because by the long tract of time they have had a long occasion of stealing truth that is Antiquity and other signs of truth And therefore as for all those Ancient prophanesses of schismes or heresies we must by no means convince them but by the onely authority of Scripture if there be need or avoid them as certainly already of old convicted and condemned by the General Councils of Catholike Priests They are his own words translated pag. 677. Edit Perionii pag. 87 88. Edit Colon. 1613. So that you see Vincentius supposeth error may infect all the Church and may grow old and so seem to be the Truth and in such cases onely Scripture must be pleaded against it unless also we can produce some ancient Council that hath condemned it This is the very case between us and the Papists Their heresies are old and far spread though not universal nor of utmost antiquity therefore between us and them the Scripture only must be pleaded Where there is no need of a judge by reason of its plainness we need not go to the Ancient Church where there is need of an Expositor we are content to deal with them on Vincentius grounds and to admit of that which ubique semper ab omnibus hath been held in point of faith if they will do the like And indeed this is our very Religion Will the Papists but dispute their cause with us on these terms we shall readily joyn issue with them and doubt not of a good success Of this see more in our Conradus Bergius Prax. Cathol divin Canonis THe Dispute which we have hitherto managed being only against Popery in the gross and two or three branches of it onely in particular I had thought to have annexed a Brief enumeration of the particular errors of the Papists that the vulgar might observe and avoid them and therein I thought to have endeavored the true stating of the differences between us both for the avoiding of error on the other extream and also that we may take out of the Papists hands the greatest of all their advantages against us which is the false-opposed opinions and unsound Arguments of such as thus erre on the other side But perceiving how it would lengthen this work beyond the intended limits and how certainly all those that so run into extreams would fall a quarrelling with me for not stating the controversies according to their fancies I have thought best for answering all my ends at cheaper rates to give you the chief of the Popish errors in the words of Doctor Feild and to that end to tranâ—â—ribe his seventh Chapter of the third Book that so the simple Reader may have some help to inâ—orm him without a commixed means to pervert him And for those that desire to see the Protestant Doctrine solidly defended and cannot have time to read many books I know not of any one that they may more profitably and safely read to that end then the said Book of Doctor Field on the Church and especially the Appendix to the third part which is but the Defence of this very Chapter proving it in particulars that the Western Church was Protestant and not Popish even in the worst times before Luthers Reformation and that the Papists were but a seducing tyrannical party in the Church endeavoring to obtrude their errors against the mind of the generality of good men In which he hath quite broken down those pretences of Vniversality and All the Church which the Papists do so fondly boast in Dr. Feild of the
That it is Ecclesia vel quacunque re alia that Austin speaks 2. That its cum omnibus and therefore not an Argument onely for such as deny the Church and right grounds 3. So do we procure the flames of Popish hatred ☞ 4. So may wâ— say As if we had bid the Apostles put nothing in the Bible to prove the Romane Catholike Church Andradius Defen l. 2. Vainly replyeth that this is spoken onely to those Hereticks that plead only Tradition and reject Scriptures 1. That 's plainly false for Tatianus did not so 2. He speaks of all such traditions therefore of the Popish * That is Savingly Constantinus Magnus See Andrad Tâ—ef l. 2. fol. 110 c Where are the rest of his cavils Salvianus Massil de Provid li. 3. pag. mihi 62. The sum of Vincentius Lirinensis adv Heres * That is before they corrupt antient Writers or grow so old as to pretend to antiquity themselves Because many of these Errors are delivered onely by particular Doctors and all be not of a mind as to the sence and some of the words may admit a tolerable and Orthodox meaning I thought meet to adde these Animadversions to acquaint you in what sence we reject them What I pass by without Animadversion I leave upon them as it is here charged and also suppose the difference to lie plain a 1. That is as the Authenticke sign of Gods will For we all confess that Christ and his Apostles are the foundation of faith as the Authorized chief revealers and God himself onely as the principal efficient and Christ the Mediator as the first corner stone of the matter revealed and the Catholike Church as the keeper or subject in quo of true Belief for the Law is written 〈◊〉 the hearts of its members and it is the Pillar and ground or foundation of truth 3. This erorr is one of the fundamentals of the Romish Fabrike 6. When yet it is most clearly proved by many especially Blondel in a just volume that abundance of them are forgeries and Dalaeus proves it particularly of the Clementines 7. At least quoad nos So that they never know when their faith is at its full stature 8. By this you may conjecture from whence the Quakeâ—s have their doctrine of the light within us 9. It is the voice of the Law giver and the Law is the Rule of life and of judgement 10. We confess as Peter saith of Pauls Epistles that there are somethings in them hard to be understood which the ignorant pervert as they do the other Scriptures to their own destruction But we maintaine that they have so much light as sufficeth to their ends that is to be the Rule of our faith and life 11. This is one of their greatest errors 15. The last clause that the Popes authority is greater then the Churches the French do not hold And so they are divided in their foundation 16. They yield that the Doctrine is elder then the Church and we yield that the Church is elder then â—â—â—ings But we affirme that the doctrine as fetcht from these writings is now before the present Church in order of nature as the cause of it at least as to the generality of members 17. The Negative is their master error but the Affirmative Proposition is not denyed of us as to every kind of dependance but of some special sorts of which I have spoken in the Pref. to the Saints Rest Part. 2. Edit 2. c. 18. The height of Romish arrogancy 20. And yet I would that vulgar Translation might but be allowed to be the deciding â—â—le for there is eâ—â—ugh in it against them 21. This error is an accusation of the Wisdom of God and contrary to express Scripture and destructive to the progress of knowledge and godliness and such as the experience of gracious souls should provoke them to detest and had they but this â—ne they could never expect that the Catholike Church should unite upon their principles 1. As concupiscence is taken improperly for the corrupted sensitive appetite so it was of God But as it signifieth the appetite distempered or corrupted or the corruption of the will inclining it to evil it is not of God 2. See Rada's first controversie 3. A posse mori and a posse non mori were not then Natural But a non posse mori or an actual non mori were to be the reward of obedience and is now given by Christ And a non posse non mori or an actual death are the fruits of sin 4 5. I would they would prove this Tradition to be Apostolical 1. In this they no more agree among themselves then with us 2. Saith Davenant the point of Predetermination is a controversie between the Dominicans and Jesuites which Protestants have no mind to trouble themselves with But they that do are not of a mind in it no more then they 4. God doth not cause sin even when it is a punishment but onely permitteth it But by such a permission as proceedeth from a punishing intention And so he justly withholdeth his grace and giveth men over to the power of the devil their own lusts 2. The body is not to be mortified by self-murder but the corrupt inclinations and actions of the sensitive appetite are to be mortifyed and all its motions subjected to holy Reason And this is called in Scripture the mortifying of the flesh and our corruption would never be called in Scripture so often The flesh and the body if it were not that the fleshly appetite is much of the seat of it and the pleasing of that appetite and imagination much of the end that I say not the whole 4. Sins are called voluntary either because they are in the Will or from the will In the first sence the vicious habits of the will are voluntary in the second the ellicite and imperate acts Also they are voluntary directly and formally as are the wills owne acts and habits or participative as are the acts and habites of all the imperate faculties And there is nothing sin but what is voluntary in one of these senses nor any further then voluntary 5. Neither they nor we are agreed about the quiddity of original sin 8. Metaphors are not usually the fittest terms to state controversies in We have vicious habits and the abscence of Rectifying habits call this what you will Free will is either Physical and that all men have as they are men or moral which is 1. To be free from a legal restraint from good and this all have or to be free from vicious Habits and this onely the sanctified have and that but in part 9. It is the most noble controversie among the Schoolemen and Thomists and the greatest part seem rather to erre on the other extream and the Scotists that hold this to rectifie them do giâ— such explications of their doctrine as are well worth our study as you may see in Rada's first controversie
p. 29. l. 21 d. it p. 308 l. 18. r judicial p. 309 l. 28. r. confute p. 314. l. 28. r their 's p. 331. l 17. r. Montanus p 333. l. 8 r. Tatianuâ— p. 41. l â—2 r caeteri p 342. l. 1â— r. suburbi â—râ—â— l. 32. â— headed p. 34â— l â—6 r. to us p. 348 l. 2. r Râ—maâ—e l. 4. r. authors p. 355. l. â—0 r. word l. 23 r. proveâ—â— p. 356. l. 2. r. rather than p. 358. Marg. add de l. 28. r. literis p. 59. l. 31. r. secura p. 364 l. 11. d. i. e. p. 366. l. 8. r. Gloss p. 370. l. 8. r. fuâ—sse p. 371. l. 28. add in l 3. add other p. 377 l 5 r. knew l 28 r. these p. 380 l. 23. r. in p. 379 l. 12. r. â—ataloguâ— p. 217. l. â—2 after faith adde Or the object of faith even Christ himself which indeed is the true sence agreeable to 1 Cor. 10.4 And that Rock was Christ QUERY Whether the Reformed Catholike Christian Religion commonly called Protestant be a safe way to Salvation THE great business of the Divel the Enemy of Mankinde is to keep man from that Salvation which Christ hath so dearly purchased so graciously offered and hath appointed us such excellent helpes to attain To which end it is his first endeavor that men may not know or Believe that there is such a Felicity and what it is and how much to be desired and his next to keep them from knowing the way to it and the last is to keep them from walking in that way when they know it By the first means he keeps from Salvation all Atheists and Heathens that know not or believe not the life to come by the second all Infidels that Believe not Christ to be the way and all Hereticks that Believe not those Truths which are of absolute necessity in subordination to Christ and by the third all Hypocrites and unsanctified ungodly impenitent men in the visible Church that yet have a superficial Belief of these Truths Our Question in hand is for the escaping the second of these snares by discovering which is the safe way to Salvation The Policy of the Devil hath always endeavoured to hinder the world from knowing this way by these two means First if it be possible by keeping them in utter darkness that this way may not be revealed to them or being revealed may not be understood Secondly or if that will not do by making such a number of by-ways on every side that the true and onely way may hardly be discerned And this is his end in raising so many Heresies and this is the course he takes to mislead them that have escaped from the darkness of Infidelity He begun this trade betime even in the dayes of the Apostles They saw the multifarious off-spring of the Deceiver sprouting up apace in their own times yet did it never enter into their thoughts to tell the Church that by this all Heresies should be known That the Church of Rome should condemne them or to send it down to all posterity as the true touchstone to tell them which was the onely right way among all these Heresies to wit That which is believed by the Pâ—pe or Church of Rome This had been a ready and easie way for the Apostles to have prescribed and for us to have received if it had been true It might have saved them much labor in giving us that Body of sacred Doctrine which they have made indeed the Touchstone of the safe way and it might have spared us much more labor of searching and studying which is the way and we might all have sent to Rome and been resolved without any more ado Surely the Apostles were not so envious to our ease and safety as to have silenced this easie way if they had known it themselves But as every Heretick when he findeth out a New way doth condemne the Old as inconsistent with his New so do the Papists Since this new way hath been cryed up that No man can come to heaven but by Rome it is their business to deter people from any other way and to that end to tell them that there is no safe way but theirs As the Quakers tell us that there is no way to Heaven but theirs and some Anabaptists say there is no way to Heaven but by being Baptized again as they are so do the Papists tell us that there is no way to Heaven but by Believing in the Pope and Church of Rome and obeying him as the head of the Church I never saw the place but sure that Town hath some admirable excellency in it that the God of Heaven should so much set his heart upon it as to endow it with such a stupâ—ndious Prerogative that no man should be saved from everlasting Torment that doth not Believe in the Bishop of that City and obey him as the universal head It s a wonder to me that he that set not his heart so much on his Temple at Jerusalem or on that chosen people as not to forsake them for their sins and that hath the Heavens for his Throne and to whom the Sun it self is as Darkness should yet be so taken with a Town called Rome built and long inhabited by Idolaters defiled with the blood of thousands of Martyrs against which the fouls under the Altar cry out How long Lord Holy and true wilt thou not avenge our blood c. as to ordain that no man in the remotest parts of the world even the Antipodes that never heard of the name of Rome can be saved though he should never so much believe in Jesus Christ unless he Believe in the Bishop of this Town and obey him when yet with Andradius and other Papists it s a hard question whether a man may not be saved in those heathen Countries without believing in Christ himself Is it not a marvaile that we never read that Rome was once named by Christ himself and that it never was put into our Creed as one of the necessary Articles to salvation especially when we find there the Catholike Church and Communion of Saints which sure would have been some way intimated to be the Romane Church or that which is headed by their Bishop if it had been so indeed I find but three names strictly so called in the Creed and the Popes or Romane Churches is none of them One is Jesus Christ and the other is hers that bore him and the third is his that Judged him to death and this indeed was a Romane name and if the honor of it in the Creed will do them any service let them make their best of it But however this advantage the enemy of the Church hath got by it that the new Romane Title hath made the old Catholike Title seem questionable to many and now so great is the audacity of the usurping Pope that he not onely questioneth whether any Christians shall be saved that
believe not in him as well as in Christ but he flatly denyeth it and what he cannot get by Scripture and reason he would get by threatning and terrible words to affright the simple telling them that Protestants are not of the true Church or Religion nor in a safe way to salvation because they will not be the subjects of the Pope of Rome Well we shall briefly prove our way to be safe if not to the satisfaction of perverse ambitious or passionate and prejudiced men yet I doubt not to the satisfaction of all humble impartial diligent persons that are willing to know the truth and deny themselves that they may know it and do not stifle it by their lusts or imprison it in unrighteousness in their byassed resolutions And first we shall briefly open the termes By Religion here we mean the Doctrine de credendis agendis about matters to be believed and practised which we hold and profess as of Divine Revelation and injunction in order to Gods Glory and our salvation For though this be but the means towards those holy Affections and practices which are of neerer necessity to our salvation as being the necessary effects of the former yet is it not this later buâ— the former that we are now inquiring after Not of Subjective but Objective Religion not of the fides quâ but the fides quae â—creditur not whether we be true to our Religion and so truly Religious but whether we be of the True Religion or hold that Doctrine which will save them that are true to it in Belief and Practice I shall not much stop the plain Reader therefore with any further and unnecessary inquiry into the Etymology of the word Religion which some derive 1 a Relegendo some 2 a Religando and some 3 a Relegando Relinquendo But as long as we understand what is meant by the word we shall not stick at the Etymology or propriety By the Reformed Religion we mean the Christian Catholike Religion as it is separated from Popery and so by this word we do distinguish our Churches from the Romane Sectaries For it is not every Reformation much less every thing so called that here we have respect to but the Reformation by which we cast off Popery it self which because it was in one Countrey done by a solemn Protestation of certain Princes and Cities against Popery hath been since called the Protestant Reformation and our Churches the Protestant Churches and our Religion the Protestant Religion Our Religion is called Catholike because it is â—he Religion of the Catholicke Church which is so â—alled a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it is universal consisting not onely of Jews and their Proselites as heretofore nor of one Town like Rome and those that will be â—he subjects of the Bishop of that Town as the Papists dream but of all that Believe in the name of Christ through the whole world holding the Foundation or points of absolute necessity to salvation and not again denying them by any such contradicting Errors as will not consist with the practical belief of the said Fundamentals As that was called A Catholicke Epistle which was directed to the whole Church and not to any one person or people so is that the Catholike Church which containeth all Christians As Austin was wont to describe it against the Donatists who would have confined it to the adversaries of Caecilianus and followers of Donatus in Africke that the true Church was that which was spread over the world by the Gospel which was commanded to be preached to all Nations beginning at Jerusalem so do we By the Christian Religion I suppose we are agreed is meant the Religion of Believers in Christ or that whereof Christ is the Foundation and prescriber and faith in him the first act which must contain all the essential parts though it may possibly want many integrals or else it is not to be called the Christian Religion They that were called Christs Disciples were afterwards called Christians first at Antioch Act. 11.26 To be a Christian therefore and to be Christs Disciple is all one Note therefore that as the word Religion denoteth the sum of doctrines and way of salvation absolutely necessary so it is but One in all the worlâ— that 's true and saving and that is the Christian Religion So that if a Heathen Jew or Mahometane ask me what Religion I am of in opposition to theirs I will say I am a Christian and not onely that I am a Protestant But if a Christian aske me what Religion I am of I will say I am a Reformed Catholike Christian for such a question in the mouth of a Christian usually implieth that I am a Christian and intendeth the discovery of what sort or party of Christians I belong to But indeed Christianity is not many but one and therefore Christians as Christians are not of many Religions but of one No nor Christians at all that are truely such if by Religion you mean a systeme of doctrines in the main necessary or sufficient to salvation or conceited so to be For as there is no such Body of Doctrine but Christs so no man that is indeed a Christian can believe that there is seeing such a Belief contradicteth the essentia's of Christianity But among those that call themselves Christians there are some Hereticks that deny or plainly subvert some part of the essentials of Christian Religion And among those that are Christians some have such dangerous corruptions as do much hazard the salvation and tend to frustrate them of their benefits of the Christian Faith and these very corruptions they Entitle by the name of Part of their Religion as the Papists do In which sence I must say I am not of the same Religion with them though I hold the same Christian Doctrine as they because I hold not their mixture and add not those corruptioâ—s which they make a part of their Religion The name Protestant I reject not because it was taken up on a just occasion but I take it to be too extrinsecal and private to be the standing denomination of my Religion as being not taken from the nature of the thing but from an occasionall action of a few men in one Countrey though it intimateth that all of their judgement in all other Countries do virtually at least make the like Protestation in the maine I do therefore rather choose to say that I am a Reformed Catholike Christian and when I call my self a Protestant this is my meaning So that by the name Christian which expresseth all my Religion it self Positively considered I am differenced from Heathens Jews Mahometans and all Infidels and those by some called Hereticks who usurpe the name of Christians while they deny part of the very essentials of Christianity And by the name Catholike I adde nothing Positive to the former but onely intimate that I am of the Universal Church and negatively exclude my self from all divided
its flourishing in the Apostles dayes Universality comparatively that is the greater part the Arrians had at least of the Bishops The doctrine of the Mâ—llenaries with many such like may plead more antiquity than Popery can And as for succession there is no doubt but a Bishop or Church in the line of succession may turn Heretical and have successors in their Heresie Have none of the Greek Churches nor Alexandria Antioch c. had a succession till it fell into the hands of a Heretick and it would have beeen no good plea for the first Heretical Bishop or Church to plead such succession If there be not a succession in Apostolical doctrine the succession of persons will be no proof of the truth or soundness of the Church 3. And for the Minor of your Argument I answer 1. The Ethiopian Alexandrian and other Churches can as truely boast of these qualifications as Rome 2. The Papists lay a higher claim to them then they can make good As 1. I have shewed already how far they are from unity who are not only of so many Religions or wayes of Discipline and of so great distance in many doctrinals as the controversies among themselves do manifest but also are so disagreed about the very center of their union their infallible soveraign Power whether it be in the Pope or a General Council or both Besides their unity is but of their own party the Romanists And so all other parties are at some unity among themselves or many at least If John of Constantinople had prevented the Pope and got the Title of universal Bishop or Pope as he did by composition of universal Patriarch and had pretended that this would have united the Churches I think it would not have justified his cause 2. How can the Papists for shame pretend to universality either as to the present or former ages Is it nothing that all the Ethiopian Greek and Reformed Churches are not of their party besides many a thousand more Or will they arrogantly condemne all the rest of the Christian world as heretical and then say that they are the whole Church Did they not learn this of the Donatists But what is become of their modesty who pretend to an universality for the time past when all the Christian world was against their present belief and there was not such a thing as a Papist known and revealed to us in the world of six hundred years after the birth of Christ 3. And for their succession we undertake to prove it interrupted long ago and that there were no true Bishops at Rome of a long time Though men have sat there that were chosen by Cardinals and call themselves Bishops or Popes yet if according to the Scripture and ancient Councils they were matter utterly uncapable of that form then its plain that they were but Statues and had but the name without the thing i. e. the office or authority and therefore are unworthy also of the name it self Let me name two or three of their own Writers that bear witness of this And first their great parasite Cardinal Baronius saith ad an 912. § 8. What then was the face of the holy Romane Church how exceeding filthy when the most potent and yet most sordid Whores did Rule at Rome by whose pleasure Sees were changed Bishops were given and which is a thing horrid to be heard and not to be spoken their sweet hearts or mates were thrust into Peters chair being false Popes who are not to be written in the Catalogue of the Romane Popes but onely for the marking out of such times And after he well addes to shew that the interruption was not like to be onely in the succession of true Bishops And what kind of Cardinal Priests and Deacons think you we must imagine that these monsters did choose when nothing is so rooted in nature as for every one to beget his like See more in Baron ibid. Platina speaking of the evil of those times de Benedict 4. saith that By ambition and bribery the holy chair of Peter was rather seized on then possessed Genebrard in Chronolog l. 4. secul 10. speaking of the great unhappiness of that age saith that In this one thing it was unhappy that for neer one hundred and fifty years about fifty Popes did wholly fall away from the vertue of their ancestors being Apotactici Apostaticive potius quam Apostolici Disorderly and Apostatical rather then Apostolical What shall we think of all those that murdered their predecessors to obtain the place were they capable of being true Bishops What shall we say of Pope Silvester the second who was a conjurer and agreed with the Devil to help him to be Pope and by the deceit of the Devil was again deprived of it by suddain death Doth the Devil make true Bishops of conjurers I know the deceiving Papists would make the simple people believe that all these things that we say of their Popes are lies of our own forging but men that have eyes in their heads may see who are the lyars Their own Writers do commonly affirm the same that we affirm A Cardinal of their own Benno in vita Hildebrandi affirmeth this of Pope Silvester and he lived in the times next him and therefore might know Platina another of their own affirms in vita Silvest that Gesbertus impelled by ambition and devillish desire of rule did first by bribery or Simony get the Archbishoprike of Rhemes then of Ravenna and at last of Rome the Devil giving him more of his help but on this condition that after his death he should be wholly his by whose deceits he had obtained such dignity The like hath Lyra in Gloss ad cap. 14. Maccab. l. 2. and a multitude of their Hystorians unanimously confirm it Yea Aeneas Sylvius who was a Pope himself de gest is Concil Basil l. 1. saith We are not ignorant that Pope Marcellinus did at Cesars command offer incense to Idols and that another which is a greater and more horrible thing did come to be Pope of Rome by the fraud of the Devil In a word if Murderers Adulterers Conjurers that come in by the Devil and Hereticks may be true Bishops of Rome and yet a man that believeth not the Popes Univerversal Vicarship can be no true Catholike Christian then it seems it is a greater sin not to Believe in the Pope then not to Believe in Christ or then it is to bargain with the Devil or be a Murderer or Adulterer Certainly these men were as uncapable of being true Bishops when these things were once publikely known of them at least as a Mahometane would be And therefore there hath been many an interruption in their succession And many a schism there hath been wherein two or three Popes have raigned at once and he that had the greatest strength hath carryed it when his Right was not the greatest QUERY Whether the Infallible Judgement of the Romane Pope or his Clergy must be the
nothing at all to gain-say But now seeing what thou recitest is not Canonical by that liberty to which the Lord hath called us I refuse it c. And he compareth it to Peters compelling the Gentiles to Judaize Gal. 2. shewing that even Peter should have been so refused in error The words of Austin in Epist 19. ad Hieron are commonly cited I have learned to give onely to those writings which are now called Canonical this reverence and honor as that I dare say that none of them erred in writing but others I so read that how holy and learned soever they be I do not therefore think it true because they so judged but because they perswade me either by those Canonical books or by probable reason that they say true As commonly cited is that li. 3. Cont. Maximin Arrian c. 14. pag. mihi 306. Sed nunc nec ego c. But now neither ought I as fore-judging or for prejudice to bring forth the Nicene Council nor thou the Council of Ariminum I am not bound by the authority of this noâ— thou of that Let matter contend with matter causâ— with cause reason with reason by the authoritie of the Scriptures which are witnesses not proper to either of us but common to both It were too long to recite the fourtieth part which Augustine hath to this purpose He that would seâ— more let him read his Epist 112. de Morib Ecclesâ— Cathol c. 7. Epist 111. Contr. Faustum li. 11. c. 5 de Trintat li. 3. c. The words of Optatus lib. 5. advers Parmen arâ— frequently cited by our writers which are thuâ— Quaerendi sunt judices c. We must seek judges Iâ— Christians they cannot be admitted on either side because by siding the truth is hindred We must seek a judge abroad or without If a Pagan he cannot know the Christians secrets If a Jew he is an enemy to the Christian Baptism On earth there can no judgment of this matter be found We must seek a Judge from heaven But wherefore should we go knock at heaven when we have it here in the Gospel A Testament I say because here we may well compare earthly things to heavenly is such as that a man that hath many sons doth command them all himself as long as the father is present there is then no need of a Testament So Christ as long as he was present on earth though yet he be not wanting or absent commanded the Apostles whatever was needful for the time But as a father when he feeleth himself neer to death fearing lest after his death the Btethren should unpeaceably quarrel doth before witness put his Will out of his dying brest into writings which may endure And if there shall rise any contention among the Brethren they go not to the Grave but seek the Testament and he that resteth in the Grave doth silently speak by the writings The Living Lord whose the Testament is is in heaven Let his will therefore be sought in the Gospel as in a Testament The Author of the imperfect work on Mat. commonly imputed to Chrysostome Homil. 49. saith At this time since heresie hath possessed these Churches there can be no proof of true Christianity nor any other refuge of Christians that would know the truth of Belief but the Divine Scriptures For before it was declared by many means which was the Church of Christ and which was Gentilism But now it is by no way known to them that would know which is the true Church of Christ but only by the Scriptures How therefore should he that would know which is the true Church of Christ come to know it but onely by the Scriptures One would think this were plain enough if the Papists were not the Judges of the meaning of all writings as well as the holy Scriptures which condemne their cause Junilius ad Primasium â— part divin legis li. 2. qu. 29 Saith Vnde probamus libros c. How do we prove that the Books of our Religion are written by Divine inspiration Many wayes of which the first is the truth Scripturâ— it self then the order of things the agreement oâ— precepts the manner of speech without affectation or compasses and the purity of words Therâ— is added also the quality of the writers and preachers that meer men could not have delivered such Divine things and vile men such high things and uneloquent men such subtile things unless they were filled with the Holy Ghost And the force oâ— the preaching of it which it had when it was preached though by a few contemned men Hereto is added the witness of the contrary party as the Sybils or Philosophers the expulsion of adversaries the utility of the consequents the event which by acceptations and figures and predictions were foretold and lastly the Miracles which were continually wrought till the Scripture it self was received by the Nations of which this sufficeth for the next Miracle that it is known to be received by all Saith Chamier citing this passage Here are arguments enough to prove the authority of Scripture internal and external but no mention of the Churches antecedent judgement to determine it The same may be said of Eusebius Anstia and the rest that prove the Scripture and Christian Religion Hieromes words are frequently cited on Math. 23. Hoc quia de Scripturis c. This is as easily contemned as proved because it hath not authority from the Scriptures And on Isaiah 8. He saith Side aliquo dubitatis c. If you doubt of any thing know what is written If you would know the things that are doubtful rather give up your selves to the law and to the testimonies of the Scriptures And on the 86. Psalm He saith Quamvis sanctus aliquis c. Though there be some Saint after the Apostles never so eloquent yet he hath not authority And Epist ad Rustic Since covetousness entered into the Church as into the Empire the Law is perished from the Priests and the vision from the Prophets And the same Hierome Epist ad Evagr. fol. 150. Edit Basil per Froben 1516. Tomo 3. pag. 329. Edict Basil 1536. Tomo 2. Saith thus Quid â—uim facit excepta ordinatione Episcopus quod presbyter non faciat Nec altera Romana urbis Ecclesia altera totius orbis existimanda est Et Gallia Britannia Africa Persis Oriens Judia omnes Barbarae nationes unum Christum adâ—rant unam observant regulam veritatis Si Authoritâ—â— quaritur Orbis major est Vrbe Vbicunque fuerit Episcopus sive Romae sive Fugubii sive Constantinopoli sive Rhegii sive Alexandriae sive Tanis ejusdem meriti ejusdem est sacerdotii Potentia divitiarum paupertatis humilitas vel sublimiorem vel inferiorem Episcopum non facit Caeteram omnes Apostolorum successores sunt Sed dicis Quomodo Romae ad testimonium Diaconi