Office and Dignity would he never have told the Church of Rome of their Mistris-ship and Infallibility above the rest Would so necessary a Fundamental of Faith have been so much silenced 3. Did the Apostles Evangelists or ancient Fathers use to Convert Infidels by any such Method and telling them that they must believe first the Infallibility of the Bishop of Rome and his Clergie and then believe the Gospel because he saith it is true Had this been the old Method would there not have been more Books necessary and written to prove this first Fundamental the Infallibility of the Roman Bishop and his Councils than to have proved the Gospel it self directly Is it not a wonder that we should have such Volumes as Eusebius his Praeparatio Demonstratio Evangel and so many written by those before and after him to prove the Gospel and none of them hit on this Method nor write at large to make it good The Churches Authority and Unity is ordinarily pleaded against Heresies and Schismes but who ever Converted Infidels by the Authority of the Papal Church either proved or asserted as the necessary Medium of Faith 4. Do you not confess that all other Churches may erre besides the Roman And their plea of Tradition you account invalid Your Book called Considerations on the Council of Trent by R. H. p. 40. saith All Conciliary Definitions are not only Declarations and Testifications of such Apostolical Traditions as were left by them evident and conspicuous in all Christian Churches Planted by them but are many times Determinations of Points deduced from and necessary consequents to such clear Traditionals whether written or unwritten 2. If the Acts of General Councils were only such Declarations of Apostolical Tradition yet it is possible that some particular Church may in time depart from such a Tradition entrusted to them else how can any Church become Heretical against any such Tradition Do you not at this day accuse the Greek Church the Muscovites the Armenians the Jacobites Syrians Copties Abassines the Protestants c. as having departed from or corrupted the first Tradition And how small a part of the Universality of Christians are the Papists And if the greater part of Christians may so forsake the Apostolical Tradition why may not the Pope of Rome and his Council How shall we be sure of their exemption from such danger You tell us over and over of our receiving this and that from our Fathers and Grand-Fathers And is that a certain Proof that it is Apostolical Why is it not so then with all the rest the Abassines the Armenians c. and the Majority of Christians But of this I have spoken in the former Treatise 5. And there I have desired you to tell us whether your Grandfather or his Priest was Infallible If yea how came he by it more than all those Churches If not do you not delude your Relations by drawing them to build their Faith on a fallible man or upon nothing Your Relations were not at the Council of Trent or Florence or Laterane How shall they be sure what the Pope and Council agreed on What Foundation but the words of your Priest or Grandfather have you for your assurance May not one of your Priests lye as well as all the Greek Abassine c. Churches When Pope Coelestine himself falsly urged the Nicene Council for Appeals to Rome contrary to Augustine and the Carthage Council Either tell your Readers plainly that it 's you and such as you that are the Infallible Foundation of their Faith or bid them stay and not go your way till they are certain what the Pope and his Council say and that he is a true Pope and it a true Council and that they are more Infallible than the major part of Christians And our Faith can be no stronger than the weakest necessary medium of it from whence it must arise 6. I have said so much of this in a small Book called The certainty of Christianity without Popery which I intreat you impartially to peruse where I have also shewed the utter uncertainty that Popery would reduce our Christianity to that I will now only tell you that after your talk of Tradition and Church and Fathers and Grandfathers if we had not much more testimony of Tradition for our Religion than you have for Popery we should think our Faith were very lame Compare ours with yours 1. Yours is A pretended Authoritative determination which rests upon a supposed Inspiration of some Persons by virtue of a special Priviledge peculiar to themselves 2. It is the Tradition of the minor part of Christians against the major 3. It rests on the pretended Infallibility of a Pope which great General Councils have said may be a Heretick and have deposed divers as Hereticks and worse And upon the Infallibility of General Councils which by Popes and other Councils are pronounced fallible unless confirmed by a Pope who may be a Heretick 4. It rests upon a Foundation viz. the Popes Divine Right of Primacy and Infallibility which is expresly denyed by two of the first four great General Councils approved to this day viz. that of Calcedon reciting the sense of that of Constantinople against the said Divine right affirming that the Popes Primacy was given him by the Fathers because Rome was the Imperial Seat 5. It rests upon an Authority of Popes and General Councils which being at first but the Clergie of one Empire hath thence claimed the same Power over all the Christian World which they had got in the Dominions of one Prince 6. It rests on a Claim downright contradictory to it self as aforesaid viz. That we must believe that the Pope hath this Power and Infallibility given him and his Councils by Christ and his Gospel before we can believe that there is a Christ and a Gospel authorized and true Now our Tradition is this For all the Essentials of our Religion the Sacramental Covenant and the three expository Symbols we have the currant Tradition both of the Papists and all the rest of the Christian World Yea that every Book that we call Canonical is the true Word of God not only the Papists but almost all the Christian World confess And defacto that these Books came down from the Apostles at least that the Gospel was preached by them we have the Testimony also of Enemies and Persecutors And are not all these more than the Testimony of one Sect alone 2. And in this we have as much to confirm us as you have of the wisdom piety care of the Church to preserve the Gospel and much more too for we have the Piety of all the Churches to plead and not your Sect alone And we undertake to prove such a moral Infallibility as is also Natural viz. That Mans Nature and Interests supposed it is no more possible for so many Persons and Nations of cross Interests to have agreed in their Testimony for the Gospel than for all the
particular Doctors but of the Church in Councils which we must call your Churches Judgment You undertake not to justifie any more And if I talk with any of my Neighbours and ask him what he believeth have I any more than a single Doctors opinion Is his Answer the Faith of your Church But would you have any one past seven years old believe you that writing is of no more use to Memory for conservation of Antiquities when God would not trust his Ten Commandments to the Peoples Memories but would write them in Stone and put them in the Arke which you have so little skill in Antiquity as to say here was the first writing Sure if you will read your Jesuite Euseb Nirembergius de Antiqu. scripturae you will not say that your Grand-Father taught you truly that Opinion as the Tradition of the Church Why do you write to your own Relations if writing be so un-intelligible Could the Bible have been kept as well in Memory as by Writings Why were the Gospels written then Do you go to Tradition or to Books to decide any Controversie now of the various readings Did Pope Clem. 8. and Sixtus 5. reform the vulgar Latine by Memory or by Books Pope Pius's Trent Oath sweareth Men to Interpret Scripture according to the consent of the Fathers Do any of your Doctors know how that is by Memory and Oral Tradition or by Books Did Possevine and Sixtus Senensis and such others Correct Books by Oral Tradition or by Books Did Celestine and the Carthage Council debate the Case of the Nicene Canon a narrow Instance which Memory might have served for out of Mens Memories or out of written Records Why doth 〈◊〉 bring us out new Forged Canons and why do the Copies of many Councils differ in the recital of Canons if Memory and Universal un-written Tradition can reconcile the difference Was the Athenian Philosophy propagated and preserved better by Memory or by Books Why is not the Stoicks and Epicureans and others as fully known now as Aristotles and Plato's if Memory without Books could have done Have you as full notice now of the Acts of James John Matthew Thomas Bartholomew c. without Book as you have of Paul's by the Book Is memory sufficient to have preserved to us the Statures of the Land without Books and Records Yea or the Common-Law without any Records or Book Cases Why are all your Councils written and all the Decretals to say nothing of the Civil Roman Laws Institutes Pandects and Digests Can you decide the Controversies about the Decretals published by Isidore Mercator by Tradition What are all your Libraries for at the Vatican Florence Paris and in each Learned Mans House if Books be so useless and unintelligible If one of your Relations ask you what is in the Council of Trent Florence Laterane and so upward can you tell him fully without Book by Tradition And are not these Councils your very Religion Doth every Papist Neighbour carry them all in his brain more certainly than in Books Or could your Grandfather and Grandmother have told us more certainly what is in them than Crab Surius Binius Baronius Justellus Albaspinaeus Petavius Sirmondus c. could do Or is all left uncertain because it is written Through Gods Mercy our Essentials and somewhat more are delivered certainly down to us by two hands by Oral and Practical Tradition and by the Scripture because they lye in a narrow room But yet if you had the front to tell the World that your immutable Church hath never changed the Creed it self we could not believe you because Books contradict you Tradition from your Great Grandfather cannot assure us that Filioque was in the Creed from the days of the Apostles Nor that the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints and the other words mentioned in Vessius and Usher de Symbolis were in so long Nor that the Greeks added no words to their Creed at Nice nor afterward at Constantinople in General Councils nor that all S. Hilaries outcry against Creeds was in vain Nor can Tradition without Book yet assure us what were the very words of the Creed used commonly by the Greeks immediately before the Nicene Council nor who wrote that ascribed to Athanasius Nor among the various Formula's of that called the Apostles found as aforesaid in Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Ruffinus c. which of them was in constant use or whether liberty of such alteration of words was not then used And no Unwritten Report of your Grandfather can assure us that your Mass-Book or Liturgy was the same in the Apostles days as it is now nor that it was for 600 years the same in all the Churches of one Empire and that every Bishop had not power to use what Liturgy he pleased in his own City or Parochia Nor can your Tradition assure us that what the Father and Grandfather used was used from the Apostles when the Church of Neocaesarea clamoured at S. Basil for his singularity and innovations and S. Basil retorts on them that they at Neocaesarea had scarce left any thing unchanged I hope this is not the less credible because Basil hath written it At least I pray hereafter give over your ill practice of leading simple Readers into a Wood of Church-History to lose them and the Question there among a multitude of Citations of old Books when you know not what else to say as William Johnson did because there the ignorant know nothing themselves but may as well believe the Affirmer as the Denyer and at least the diversion to voluminous Controversies about particular mens words may hide your Errours Do not resolve all the Controversie yea the Faith of your Followers into a multitude of Books of Councils and Fathers which they never saw And do not take so much care to corrupt and alter Books for your interest as instances and your Indices Expurg tell us you have done Resolve without Book the Controversie about your great Laterane Council whether Dr. Taylor Dr. Pierson Dr. Gunning and Bishop Cousins lately that say Innocent 3. made and published the Canons and the Council did not consent to them be in the right or rather they that answered Dr. Pierson and Dr. Gunning and indeed your Church which holds the contrary which Mr. Dodwell seemeth to me lately to have fully proved in his Book about tolerating Papists Nay why may we not expect that you lay by your Book Catechisms your Office Books your Controversie Books and teach your People all without Book But by this Counsel to your Relations you fully shew that you would have them to have no certainty at all either what Christianity is or what Popery is For they shall never speak with the Universal Church or with a General Council while they live And all their Neighbours to whom you send them are fallible Persons I suppose you one of the chief of them and alas how failible you are you have in two Writings grosly
you deny them this and make them to be as out of the true Church and state of Life If yea Q. 2. Did all that the Apostles Baptized believe all the Apocrypha and all the Decrees of your Councils and your Oral Traditions Q. 3. Did the ancient Fathers and Catechists teach all those to the Catechumens before they Baptized them Q. 4. And were not those all Christians and in the true Church and in a state of Life whom the Apostles Baptized without the profession of any such Belief Q. 5. What was the Creed the Symbolum fidei used for if not to distinguish the Faith of the Christian Church from Infidelity Heresie and all without And if all the Decrees of Councils be as necessary to be the Symbol of Faith why were they not all made up into a Creed and why is the Creed differenced from them all to this day And why do you not cause the Baptized to recite and profess all these Councils Decrees but only the old Christian Creed Q. 6. Doth not Christ at the Institution of his Sacrament Mat. 28. expresly promise that he that believeth according to Baptism in the Father Son and Holy Ghost shall be saved Q. 7. Is it not a reproach to God and the Christian Religion to tell the World that God hath written us by his Spirit so great a Book as the Bible is and yet there is not in it enough to Salvation but that abundance unnecessary to Salvation is in it and some necessary things left out Q. 8. Have your Oral superadded Traditions more Evidence of Truth than the Bible or more Evidence of Necessity to be believed Not more Evidence of Truth For you confess the certain Truth of all the Bible and that as fully manifest as your Additions If it have more Evidence of Necessity what is it It is not because it is a Divine Revelation For so you confess all the Bible to be And do you pretend to a Tradition that saith You may be saved without most of the Bible though it be of God but not without fasting on Frydays or on the Vigils of Saints-days or other such Traditions But if you will make both the whole Bible and Tradition necessary to be believed it must be either Explicitely or as you call it Implicitely If Explicitely that is as each Point is particularly understood and believed then it 's doubtful whether there be one Man in the World that is a Christian and can be saved If Implicitely that is Virtually as it is in some General Proposition what is that General Is it that All that God revealeth is true Or that All that the Spirit of Christ in his Apostles delivered to the Church as his word is true These we all agree in if this will serve the turn Is it that the Church is the Ministerial Keeper of the Sacred Doctrine as delivered This also we agree in Or is it that the Church de eventu shall never corrupt alter or lose this word or any part of it If you mean it of every particular Church we are agreed of the contrary You confess that many Churches have fallen to Heresie and many Apostatized from the Faith If you speak of the Universal Church we are agreed that the Universal Church shall never Apostatize for if Christ had no Church he were no Head of it And we are agreed that they shall never turn such true Hereticks as hold not truly all the Essentials of Christianity For such also are no Christians because each Essential part is necessary to the Essence But whether the Universal Church much more the Greater part may not make or receive some culpable alteration by Amission Omission or Commission we have reason to question We never heard any Proof that the Negative was necessary to Salvation nor is it held by all your selves and whether by any one man I cannot tell For you take the Bible to be Gods Word and your knowledge of the various Readings of the Hebrew and Greek Copies and the multitude of Errours in the Vulgar Latine corrected by P. Clem. 8. and Sixtus 5. do satisfie all the World that you hold that the Universal Church or the major part even your own may culpably erre or alter the very written Word of God And who would then believe you if you said But the Unwritten Word it cannot alter It 's true indeed the Essentials considered as Written or Unwritten all the true Church nor any one Christian while such cannot deny But sure if many thousand Errours may be found in that Book which you take your selves for the Word of God and this through the fault or failing of such as have had the keeping of it and all Divine Revelations are to be believed and all the Word of God is Divine Revelation it notoriously followeth That your own Church hath not kept all that is matter of Divine Faith from alteration So that though many of your Wranglers will not distinguish the Essentials of Christianity called Fundamentals from the Integrals and Accidentals as if Christianity were nothing and had no determinate Essence yet this sheweth that you must do it whether you will or not or else you must confess that your Church may alter any thing or every thing as it hath done all these fore-mentioned Which we will not confess of the Church Universal But I suppose that we have not yet met with the Faith that you account necessary to salvation It is that the Pope of Rome and a General Council cannot erre in delivering to us the Apostolical Doctrine to be believed And this is an implicite believing of all that is written in Scripture and that is delivered orally from the Apostles If so words and names go very far with you as to mens salvation Is this to believe a thousand things which a man never knew or heard of if he do but believe the Infallibility of your Church What! Believe that which I never once thought of But this is but Implicite Faith A cheating Name for No-belief of those things For by Implicite here you can mean only Virtual and that is no Actual Belief of that thing at all but of something else which would infer more were it known Nay Virtual is too high a Name for it But will this serve the turn to salvation to believe that the Pope and his Council are Infallible What! though the same Person believe not in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost nor any of the Articles of his Creed no not a Life to come If you say Yea Then will you call this Christianity to believe in the Pope and not in Christ Or do you mean that men may be saved without Christianity but not without Popery If so why was not the Popes Name rather than Christs put into Baptism and the Creed or at least with Christs But the insuperable difficulty is How must I believe that the Pope hath this Infallibility From Christ or otherwise If not from Christ tell me
which way and why I must believe it If from Christ can I believe that the Pope hath Power from Christ before I believe that there is a Christ that hath such Power to give And can I believe in Christ and not believe that there is a God that sent him Can I believe that Jesus is the Christ and not believe that he is a Sacrifice for sin or a Mediator between God and Man and came to save his People from their sins And can I believe this and not believe that we are all sinners and that sin deserveth that punishment which Christ came to save us from Is not our Saviour and our Sin and Misery relatives as a Physician or Medicine and a Disease And can we believe that we have sin and desert of Punishment without believing that God is our Governour and gave us that Law which we broke and which obligeth us to Punishment Can we believe in Christ and not believe that he is God and Man that he dyed rose and ascended into Heaven and will judge us at last and that he pardoneth sin reneweth Souls by his Spirit and will give us life hereafter All these are included in believing in Christ as Christ And how must I believe that Christ hath given the Pope this Infallibility or Power By any written word which granteth it or by Oral Tradition If by the written Word then I must believe that that Word is true before I can believe that the Pope is made Pope or Infallible by it If by Oral Tradition whose must that be Then I must believe some bodies Oral Tradition as true and infallible before I believe in the Pope at all If it be the first Hearers of the Apostles then either the Pope was one of those or not If yea and he hath a Negative Voice in the credible report then I must believe him as Infallible before he is proved Infallible in order to my believing that he is Infallible which is a contradiction If Not Then I must believe the Infallibility of other Hearers of the Apostles before I can believe the Pope's And the Question will recur How I shall know them to be Infallible And who they were that were those Infallible Witnesses Whether Pastors only or the People Whether of some one Church or of all the Churches And how I shall prove that they gave such a Testimony So that your pretense of a Necessity of receiving Gods Word or the Christian Faith from the Pope and his Council cometh too late For it seemeth that we must believe it first before it be possible to believe in the Pope and Council as authorised by Christ And if my Implicite Faith be the Belief of this Article Any Church in all the world yea the greater part of all the Churches may err in matters of Faith or Apostatize and only the Pope of Rome and his Council cannot What Proof or whose Tradition doth this rest upon Q. 9. Do not Bellarmine Costerus and many of your Writers profess that the Scriptures contain all things ordinarily necessary to Salvation Yea many Writers that the Creed hath all that is absolutely to be believed Yea some that it hath more than all Yea abundance Cited by Fr. a Sancta Clara that the Belief in Christ is not necessary to all And will you say then that he that believeth Explicitely the whole Bible cannot be saved without believing also your pretended Traditions Q. 10. And do you not hereby instead of the light burden and easie yoak of Christ and his Commands which are not grievous bring Christians under a harder yoak than that which the Jews were not able to bear When it seemed good to the Holy Ghost in the Apostles to impose but a few and necessary things Act. 15. 28. And how large a Law is all the Bible and all your Councils Decrees and Oral Traditions set together Do all your Priests themselves or one of an hundred understand them all or know what they are Q. 11. While you pretend a Necessity of your numerous Ceremonies as Fasting on Frydays and such other named by you do you not lay a snare of perpetual Division in the Churches and do you not make as many inconsistent Churches as there be Societies of Christians that differ and still will differ about any of those Traditions or Ceremonies Q. 12. And do you not lay open your own Church to the accusation of innovation mutability and corruption when it is not to be denyed but in such things as those they have been mutable or innovated Have you not long left the Custom of adoring on the Lords-days without genuflexion though the first great General Council Nic. Can. 20. and the ancient Fathers commonly made it a Tradition and Practice of the whole Church and it was Decreed to be so used by all Abundance of such Instances may be given Q. 13. You do very injuriously to your own Sect and Cause here to pretend Tradition as coming down from the Apostles for such things as your own Doctors plead but your Churches later Institution for It 's fully proved by Daleus de jejuniis that the Lent Fast was long but for a short time before it came to fourty days And it 's an odd thing if you will pretend Tradition from the Apostles for the Holy-days or the Vigil Fasts of those Saints that were born many hundred years after the Apostles death We confess our Faith is not so big as yours We have many score Texts of Scripture that promise Salvation to them that believe much less than the Bible it self containeth Yet we profess our selves ready to believe as much more as you shall ever prove to us to have been delivered by the Apostles to the Church to be believed II. And for the second that we receive not our Faith the way that you do that is from the Authority of the Pope and Papists and from your Tradition We crave your consideration of these Questions 1. When the Apostles and Disciples Act. 8. were scattered and preached the Gospel to many Nations Were they not true Christians and saved that received the Gospel from any one of them or from any Person whatsoever If Aquila or Priscilla Converted a Sinner such a one saved a Soul from Death though Peter did it not nor his Authority was known to such a one 2. Do you believe that if the Roman Bishop or Churches Revelation or Proposal were necessary to true Faith and to Salvation that Christ would never have told Men so Nor any of his Apostles have left it us on Record When there were Heresies and Schismes so wofully troubling the Churches as we find in Paul's Epistles to the Cor. Gal. Col. and in the Rev. 2. and 3. ch should we never have found one word for this speedy way of decision to appeal to the Church of Rome Would Paul have rebuked them for saying I am of Cephas and made him but a Minister by whom they believed without ever mentioning his
contentious Lawyers in the Land to have agreed falsly to inform us that our Statutes were made by such Kings and Parliaments But a domineering Faction alone might easilier have deceived men 3. Yea even as to Christs Promise we can better prove that the Universal Church or Body of Christians shall never lose the Faith than you can prove it of Rome alone or the Papal Sect. Bellarmine himself dare not say that Rome shall not cease to be the feat of the Papacy or shall not be utterly destroyed And then how can there be a Bishop of Rome when there is no Rome But you 'll say that if he dwell at Avignion he may be called Bishop of Rome But if he be called so when he is not so at least when there is no Rome or no Christian Church there sure a false Name is not an Essential part of our Religion If you say that at Avignion or Ravenna or Vienna he may be S. Peter's Successor and so the Universal Monarch still I answer Then it seems that the Council of Calcedon as afore-cited was in the right that Romes Priviledge was given by the Fathers because it was the Imperial Seat And so that the Pope is not S. Peter's Successor eo nomine because he is Bishop of Rome But if the Bishop of Avignion or Vienna might become S. Peter's Successor who never was Bishop there how shall we know that the Bishop of Rome is his Successor now We have hitherto had no better means to prove it and deceive the World than by saying that S. Peter dyed Bishop of Rome where the Pope is Bishop But S. Peter dyed not Bishop of Avignion If the Place prove not the Succession tell us if you can what doth Is it the Election By whom Who are those men that have the Power of chusing S. Peter a Successor You know I suppose that the Pope hath been chosen 1. Sometime by the People witness the blood-shed at the choice of Damasus in the Church 2. Sometime by the People and the Neighbour Ordaining Bishops 3. Sometime by a Synod 4. Sometime by the Emperours 5. And lastly by the Roman Cardinals If any of these may chuse then we may have four or five lawful Popes chosen four or five several ways at once If only one of these have the Power S. Peter had no Successors under all the other Elections So that the Claim will fall rather to Antioch than to Avignion or any other Town because they say it was S. Peter's first Bishoprick from which he removed for a greater If you are driven with poor Mr. Johnson alias Terret to say that Any way will serve which serveth for the truth of an Election of Princes c. then still we may have four Popes at least I doubt you must be forced to say as some that it is the acceptance of the Universal Church which must prove who is the Universal Monarch 1. But some must be Electors before it comes to acceptance And who hath the Power of Electing And 2. what if now the major part of the Church should prefer the Bishop of Constantinople I hope you are not so ignorant of Cosmography as not to know that the Greek Church when they first preferred the Bishop of Const was far greater than the Latine 3. And I suppose you know that it is not near half the Christian World that now accepteth of the Pope as their Governour 4. And I pray you do but get the Pope to suspend his claim till the Church Universal accept him and we shall not be troubled with him For how shall they signifie their acceptance If in a General Council you know how they of Constance Basil and Pisa are reviled by the Pope and those that now go for your Church for pretending to a power to depose and chuse Popes and how Eugenius the fourth prevailed against such a Deposition And if these Councils were not your Universal Church representative where shall we think to find it In sum we have the Tradition of a Church as big as three of the Roman for all our Religion and of all the Roman Church it self besides the Confession of the Enemies of the Church Pagans Infidels Mahometans Jews and Hereticks we have not one word that 's part of our Religion which your selves confess not to be true We believe that the Faith of the Universal Church shall never fail nor the Gates of Hell prevail against it And so you see that we may far better tell how Infallibly we have received our Religion from our Forefathers than you can do of yours But we believe not that this Universal Church hath any Head but Christ no Humane Vicarious Monarch or Governour of all the World We believe that Men must Believe in Christ before they can know that the Pope is his Vicar if it had been true We know as sure as History can tell us that the Pope's first Primacy and the rest of the Patriarchates were but the Humane Ordinances of the Clergie of one Empire and not of the whole Christian World And we know not nor you but Rome and its Church and Bishop may yet all cease together But you make me most admire at you that in this Book also you tell your Relations and other Readers of the uncertainty of notice by Books in Comparison of converse and talk with those of your present Party yea that your own Religion is not to be known by Books as being lyable to be misunderstood so well as by talking with Papists and asking them what is their Faith or Religion Sir I judge by your Stile that you are a man of zeal and conscience in your way and therefore that you write not this fraudulently against your conscience Sure then you must needs be a man of more than ordinary ignorance that can believe what you say 1. Is it your Objective or your Subjective Faith that we are disputing of If it be not the Rule and Object of your Faith every man indeed may tell us what he believeth himself but no man can tell us what another believeth And then you have as many Religions as men for every man hath one of his own and no two men in the world know and believe just all the same things neither more nor less And what shall those of us think of your Religion then who find that one of you affirmeth what another denyeth For instance A worthy Person of your Religion affirmed to me that notwithstanding the Fifth Commandment Honour thy Father and Mother a Mother hath not any Governing Power over a Child nor the Child oweth any obedience to the Mother during the Fathers life because it were confusion were there more Governours in a House than one though subordinate one to the other Is this your common Judgment May I say therefore that this is other mens belief You know that when we alledge the sayings of your most Learned Writers we are ordinarily told that it is not the judgment of
the Votes of all the Christian World 3. And have all that were converted in the Apostles days and since first known the Major Vote of the Christians or were they converted by the foreknown Infallibility or Authority of the Majority or of the Pope Some will say we see the Madness of this Popery but how then do you say that the faith must be received if not from the Church I answer I have told you at large in a Treatise called The Reasons of the Christian Religion and briefly in a smaller Treatise called The certainty of Christianity without Popery Briefly Judging is one thing and Teaching is another thing Before I submit to the Decision of a Judge I must know his Commission or Authority and I must then stand to his Sentence which way ever he decide the Case Men be not converted to Christianity by such Judges but by Teachers Nor will I believe the Judge if he say there is no Christ no Life to come c. But a Teacher is to make intelligible to his Hearer or Scholar the evidence of truth which is in the matter taught and to draw men to believe by telling them those true reasons upon which he did believe himself And no man takes him for his Teacher that he is perswaded knoweth no more than himself And the greater reputation of Knowledge and Honesty the Teacher hath the easier we apply our minds to learn of him and a humane trust or faith prepareth us to receive that evidence of truth which may beget a Divine Faith by the help of Grace But still the Learner truly believeth no more than he thus learneth And I may hear a stranger tell what he hath to say and be convinced by the evidence that he giveth me of the truth though I know not of any Authority that he hath to teach me much less judicially to decide the Case I little doubt but most that were converted by the Apostles themselves were perswaded to believe in Christ by the evidence of truth proposed the Spirit co-operating before they knew of any Authority of the Apostles much less before they heard what they said in a General Council or what was the Vote of the Universal Church or what any Pope said as Ruler of the rest These things are very plain and sure and they that will be wilfully blinded by faction and prejudice and worldly interest against plain truth have no excuse if they perish in darkness II. A PAPIST of this sort is one that believeth that the Pope of Rome is the rightful Governour of all the world that is that all Christians immediately and all Infidels and Heathens mediately are bound by God to obey him as Christs Vicegerent on Earth And that he with his Council is thus an Universal Lawgiver and Judge to all Kings States and Persons that dwell round about the Earth But a Protestant denyeth this and holdeth that there is no Universal Monarch or Legislator to all the world but God and our Saviour and that he hath made no such Vice-Christ or Vicegerent and that such a Claim is High-Treason as usurping his Prerogative And that if Pride had not in tantum made them mad no men could think themselves thus capable of Governing all the World Protestants believe that there is no such thing on Earth as an Universal Church headed by any mortal Head Pope or Council but that Christ is the only Universal Governour or Head III. This Papist is one that holdeth that the Church of Christ on Earth is no bigger than the Popes Dominion and that it is necessary to salvation to be subject to the Pope and consequently he unchurcheth two or three parts of the Christian world and damneth most of the Body of Christ and robbeth him of the greatest part of his Kingdom as far as denying his Right amounts to And consequently is a notorious Schismatick or Sectary appropriating the Church title only to his Sect. This is proved before from the Masters of their Religion IV. This Papist is one that holdeth that those Councils which were General as to one Empire were General as to all the Christian world And that such General Councils there must be if it please the Pope to call them though they must come from all the Quarters of the Earth and whence they have no Sea passage and out of the Empires of many Princes and many that are Enemies to the Christian Name and perhaps at Wars with Christians and when the Voyage or Journey is such that if the Churches be deprived of a thousand Bishops twenty of them are never like to live to return home to the remotest Nations Nor could they converse as a Council by reason of the number and diversity of Languages if they were equally gathered Or they hold that if a small part of the Christian World assemble as at Trent when the rest cannot come this is an Universal Council of and to all the Christian World V. This Papist is one that holdeth If a fallible Pope and a fallible General Council do but agree their Decrees are infallible As if an unlearned Pope e. g. that understands not the Text of Scripture in the Original and an unlearned Council as to the most should agree their Decrees would be learned e. g. in judging which is the true Translation of a Tongue which they never understood As if ten purblind men if they meet together might produce the Effects of the clearest sight or Fools by conjunction become wise VI. He holdeth that Tradition from Fathers to Children is the sure way of conveying all the matter of Faith and Religion and yet that the greatest General Councils which are the Church representative may erre in matter of Faith and have erred unless a Pope who is fallible approve of their Decrees VII And when he hath trusted to this way of Tradition he denyeth the Judgment and Tradition professed by the greater half or the Christian World VIII He believeth that all men are bound on pain of damnation to believe that the Senses and perception of all men in the World are deceived in apprehending that after Consecration there is true Bread and Wine in the Sacrament And he that will so believe his own and others Senses should suffer as an Heretick and be rooted out of all the Dominions of all Christian Lords on Earth So merciful is he to his Neighbours For an approved General Council hath decreed this and such Councils are his Religion Were it his own Father or Mother Wife or Child that cannot thus renounce all his own and other mens Senses and believe that there is no Bread or Wine in spight of his sight taste touch c. he believeth that they should be burnt as Hereticks or exterminated He may be a good naetur'd man that is loth it should be so or he may be one that is ignorant of his own Religion and doth not know that this is one Article of Popery or he may be an unconscionable man that
Massacres as were in France of Thirty Thousand or Forty Thousand or in Ireland of Two Hundred Thousand hath made them think your Power inconsistent with their safety 3. And you must remember that the Positive Additions of the Church of Rome are in the Judgment of the Puritans very great sins But you have truly no charge against the Puritans for any one Article of their Religion but only for not receiving and for protesting against your Additions 4. But I perceive p. 5. your Instances of their defectiveness are that they are not for fasting days particular Garments for Priests set Forms Christmas-day Good-Friday Ascension Whitsuntide c. which they take for meer Humane inventions and Will-worship Because they think that the New Testament was written to instruct us Christians in the whold Body of Gospel-worship c. But you are best prove this only by telling us that you know some persons of that mind And when you have done I will demand your Proof that those Persons are no more than Puritans They have oft told you that their judgment is that for all that substance of God's Worship which is of Universal necessity to the Church and is of Divine Institution the holy Scripture is a sufficient Rule But that very many Circumstances and outward Acts have in Scripture but a General Law that they be all done to edification decently orderly in Concord c. and it is left to Humane Prudence to order them by such Rules We condemn no one that useth holy Fasts or Feasts but think them needful We judge not those that celebrate the Memorial of God's great Mercies to his Church by giving him thanks for the holy Life and Doctrine of his Eminent Saints c. But will you plainly have our judgment We think Saint Paul was in the right that taught the Church of Rome it self both the Rulers and the Flocks that they must neither judge nor despise each other for differences about Meats and Days but receive each other to Communion notwithstanding such differences as Christ received us Rom. 14. and 15. And we will not believe your Grand-Father nor Great-Grand-Father if they told us that the Apostles by Tradition did institute Holy-days and Vigils for St. Tecla or St. Bridgit or St. Thomas Becket or any that were not born till they were dead And any one Day or Order which you truly prove to us that the Apostles by Tradition ordained for the Universal Church we profess our selves ready and resolved to obey But if you plead not Tradition for any of these things but the Churches Commands as you must do or be singular or ashamed here you come to the quick of our difference 1. We know not of any Universal Vicarious Law-giver under Christ that hath any power to make Laws to the Universal Church throughout the World and we dare not own any such Usurper lest we be guilty of Treason against the only Head of the whole Church 2. We know not of any power that the chief Bishop in the Roman Empire hath over other Empires Kingdomes or Churches 3. But to our own true Pastors which are set over us according to Christ's order and his Apostles recorded in Scripture we Puritanes will submit in all such Circumstantials as aforesaid which are left to their prudent determination not putting us on any sin But 4. We detest making such things as you here name to be taken for the Characters of distinct Religions or distinct Churches as if we might not with Love Peace and Christian Communion differ about a Garment a Holy-day Fast or Vigil Thus far then you seem not to know what a meer Puritan is II. But Sir I have much more than all these little things against your Description of a Puritane I plainly perceive in your greatest praises of him that you know not what his very Religion it self is or else you would never describe him as only taken up with fears and cares and good desires to be better having yet greedy desires of the things of the World without any mention of the Love of God above all and of his Neighbour and a holy and heavenly Mind and Life with self-denyal mortification of the Flesh c. Either you judge of a Puritane by what you were your self or by what your acquaintance were or by what they commonly profess to be their Religion For the first you have no reason It followeth not that they have no better a Religion because you had no better For the second you had no reason For it 's ten to one you knew not the hearts of your acquaintance so well as to be able to know that they had not the Love of God c. And if you were so unhappy in your acquaintance what 's that to other Men Thirdly Therefore as you look that your own Religion should be described not as we find it in this or that man but as your Church professeth it so do we And I have told you before what our Religion is I have the more boldness in speaking the sense of others as I said both because I am as aforesaid stigmatized for a total Puritan and because the generality of all of them of my acquaintance as far as I can discern are of this mind A Puritan then as the Word is commonly taken by the Rabble is a serious Christian Protestant who truly believeth and practiseth what he doth profess and doth not mortifie that Profession which should help to mortifie his Sin His Religion is to be understandingly and sincerely devoted in the Sacramental Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Vanities of the World the Lusts of the Flesh and the Delusions of the Devil He believeth that all that truly consent to this Covenant have a right and part in and to the Love of God the Father the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Chost and that he that hath the Son hath Life Pardon Adoption Justification and Right to Life Eternal and that this Right is continued he performing his Covenant and continuing in that Faith which worketh by Love and not living impenitently in sin but sincerely obeying God his Father Saviour and Sanctifier He taketh the fear of Gods Justiâ—â— â—nd godly Sorrow to be but the lower steps of Holiness but that the Kingdom of God is not Meats and Days but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of Christ without which none are his is not the Spirit of Bondage but of Power Love and a sound Mind even a Spirit of holy LIFE LIGHT and LOVE which are the Essentials of true Holiness and the Spirit of Adoption and Supplication causeth us with Love to cry to God and trust him as a Father They take Christ to be the only Mediator between God and Man whose sufficient Sacrifice for Sin and perfect Righteousness Habitual Active and Passive as called advanced in dignity by the Divine Nature is the Meritorious cause of
Answ 1. Here you shew what things they be that you turn Papist for Is not eating Flesh on Frydays Lent or Vigils a worthy matter to make another Religion of or to prove men to be of differing Churches 2. I told you before that the Puritans judgment is as Paul's that such things should be left indifferent or at least make no breach among us by our judging or despising one another And that neither the Pope nor any men on Earth have Authority to make Universal Laws for them to all the Christian World and that there is no true Tradition of Apostolical Institution of them But yet that such Fasts and Feasts as are appointed by true Authority of Prince or Pastors not against the Laws of God and such as shall be proved to be instituted by the Apostles they will observe 3. But the poor Puritan is indeed in hard Circumstances were there no life after this Some of them have no Flesh to eat either on Frydays or any day in the Week but live thankfully upon Bread and Milk and some such things Fish they would gladly eat if they could get it There are now among them such as with many Children have for a long time lived almost only on brown Rye-bread and Water Many of them take it for a sufficient quantity to eat one temperate Meal a day though they are in no want and the Papist that forbeareth Flesh and eateth better than the Puritan feasteth with or that fasteth with one Meal a day which is many Puritans fullest Dyet doth condemn the poor Puritan as an Heretick and perhaps burn him at a Stake or cast him into the Inquisition for not Fasting Poor John Calvin did eat but one small Meal a day and the Papist who fast much at the rate as Calvin feasted record him for a gluttonous person And so did the Pharisees by Christ and his Disciples why do not thy Disciples fast c. II. Your second Instance is The Prelatick Protestant wonders the Puritan should scruple adorning the Communion Table with two Wax Tapers c. Ans The former Answer serveth to this Hear O ye Puritans wherein the Roman Religion doth surpass yours Their Altars have lighted Tapers on Do you not deserve to be burnt your selves if you will not burn Candles on your Altars Yea the Pope who hath power to set up and take down Emperours and Kings being not only the King of Rome but the Monarch of the whole World doth appoint these Lights as a Professing sign before God and Man that he is of that Church which in the Primitive Times for fear of Persecution served God by Candle-light in Dens and Caves And is not this to prove the immutability of their Church that vary not in a Circumstance from the Apostolioal Institution Doth his domineering over Kings and Nations and the Hosts of Great Princes Cardinals Prelates Abbots Clergy Regulars Seculars that obey him shew also that he is of that old Candle-lighted Church But while you seem still to plead Apostolical Tradition for all these Great Parts of your Religion tell the poor Puritan whether it was by Prophesie or how else that the Apostles delivered to the Church the use of these Lighted Tapers in commemoration of that which was done in Dens long after the death of these Apostles I doubt rather the Pope doth by this practice condemn himself and sets up these Lights to shew the World how much he and his Church are changed since those forementioned days III. You next say The Prelatick Protestant wonders what hurt the Puritan can see in making the sign of that on the forehead of a new baptized Infant yet smiles at a Papist when he makes it on himself or his Victuals c. Ans None of us are ashamed of the Cross of Christ nor loth to profess this as openly as you But if we do it by Word by Writing by Obeying or by Suffering we are of another Religion from you it seems by you unless we will do it also by crossing The Jews were the Cross-makers And there are now so many Cross-makers in the World whose Trade we like not that we are not forward to set up their sign at our doors But yet there are Puritans and Prelatists that were they among the Deriders of a Crucified Christ where the use were not a Formality or worse but convenient to tell the Infidels their mind that they are not ashamed of the Cross of Christ would not refuse seasonably to Cross themselves But the Puritans think that when it is made a solemn stated sign of the Duty and Grace of the New Covenant dedicating there by the person to God as one hereby obliging himself to profess the Faith of Christ Crucified and manfully to fight under his Banner against the Devil the World and the Flesh to the death in hope of the Benefits of his Cross and Covenant and so is made a Badge or Symbol of our Christianity then it is made a Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace added to Christs Sacrament of the same use or at least too like it though the Name be denyed it And they think that Christ hath given none power to make such new Sacraments or Symbols of Christianity he having done that sufficiently himself They have a conceit that the King would not be pleased with them that either frame a new Oath of Allegiance added to his as the Badge of his Subjects Loyalty nor yet that would make a new Badge of the Order of the Knights of the Garter without his consent At least the Puritans think that Baptism and Christianity and Christian Burial should not be denyed to those Children whose Parents do not offer them to be baptized with this additional Symbol And if the poor men be deceived in such thoughts it is but in fear of sinning against Christ and not that they are more ashamed of his Cross than you or more disobedient to Authority IV. Your next instance is The Prelatick Protestant wonders that the Puritane can doubt the holy Euchrist is really and truly the body of Christ c. And you cite Dr. Cosins Hist Transub p. 44. Answ 1. The Prelatick Protestant and the Puritane differ not at all about the real presence of Christs body in the Sacrament as I have shewed you elsewhere What need you more proof than King Edwards old Rubrick against the Real Presence in a gross sence lately restored to the Liturgie And as for Dr. Cosins words and book I again tell you all the Doctors of the Roman Church are never able to answer his full proof that Transubstantiation is a late innovation and none of the doctrine of the ancient Churches We challenge you all to give any reasonable answer to that book And you still Cunningly bawke the main Controversie between us and you which is not whether Christs Body be there but whether Bread and Wine be there For I have told you 1. That we who know not how far a Glorified
in our reproach of the same pretended Schism 5. Note how shamelesly the Papists still tell us of all the Bishops of the Christian World being for them and asking us where was our Church before Luther that is a Society of Christians that obeyed not the Pope when they confess that Augustine and all the African Church for twenty years obeyed him not and alas soon after the Vandals came and conquered them and persecuted and destroyed those famous Bishops that did survive And that you may further know that they had yet more disobedient Resisters than African Bishops you may remember that even the Egyptian Monks so long famous for their great austerity and sanctity had renounced not only obedience but Communion with the Pope and his Adherents Fulgentius was about going to live with them for their holiness but he was told of this and turned his course vid. Vit. Fulgent And how great were all those Churches of Aethiopia Armenia exterior India and the rest which the Apostles converted which Reynerius aforesaid truly saith are not under the Church of Rome Cont. Waldens Catal. in Riblioth Patr. To. 1. p. 773. I have formerly recited the words of Melch. Canus one of their great Bishops saying Loc. Theolog. li. 6. c. 7. fol. 201. 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 Arms of Emperours and the GREATER NUMBER OF CHURCHES and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the one Pope of Rome See here their own Confession 1. Where Christians opposing the Pope were before Luther 2. And of what credit their boast of Universality and Catholick Tradition is One while W. H. saith The Bishops of the whole World were for them But when their cause leads them to tell truth they say Almost all the Bishops of the whole World have vehemently fought against the Pope and the Arms of Emperors and the greater number of Churches were against them And indeed if it had been none but the Greeks he might well have said The greater number of Churches For the Contest which begun upon the Emperours removal to Constantinople and at the first General Council increasing more and more till Gregory opposed John's Claim of Universal Bishop as Antichristian at last Phoc as the cruel murderer of Mauritius gave the Title to the Bishop of Rome But that no whit ended the contest following Emperors being contrary minded and the Greeks continuing their Claim the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople excommunicating one another so that by this abominable striving which should be the Chief or Greatest the Churches that were of old in the Empire have been divided and so they continue to this very Day as unreconcileable as ever And when Gregory sent his Emissary hither to Preach to the Saxons they found the Christian Britans and Scots not only averse to the Government Orders and Ceremonies of Rome so that in many Kings Reigns neither words nor force could make them yield but also such as refused their Communion and would not so much as eat and drink with them in the same house No wonder then that Marinarius at the Council of Trent complain that the Church is shut up in the Corners of Europe and that Sonnius Bishop of Antwerp say Demonstr Relig. Christ li. 2. Tract 5. c. 3. I pray you what room hath the Catholick Church now in the habitable World Scarce three Elns long in comparison of the vastness which the Satanical Church doth possess The truth is saith Brierwood Divide the known World and alas how much is unknown into thirty parts and about nineteen are Heathens and six Mahometans and five Christians of all sorts And of these Christians the Papists at this day are as some think about a fifth part some think a fourth part and some think a third part And after the assuming of the Universal Title their Popes more and more degenerated to such odious wickedness at last as we hope few Pagans are guilty of which we speak not as from Enemies but from their own Historians and Flatterers such as Platina Baronius Genebrard c. Nay not so much from them as from Councils General and Provincial which have accused condemned and deposed them Read in my Key for Catholicks pag. 220 221 222. the words of Baronius Genebrard Platina CL. Espensaeus 〈◊〉 Muss Guicciardine c. Nic. Clemangis Bernard Alv. Pelagius say more Let any impartial man but read the Articles on which the Council at Constance condemned and deposed John 23. about 70 in number in which they make him almost as bad as a man out of Hell can be and indeed say he was commonly called The Devil incarnate Read the Articles on which the Council at Basil condemned and deposed Eugenius the Fourth as a perjured Wreteh an obstinate Heretick and all the rest Read the Articles on which another Council deposed John 13. alias 12. And read the Lives of many more in their own Historians And what came the Church to when it had such Heads when Baronius saith ad an 912. that the face of the holy Roman Church was exceeding filthy when the most potent whores did rule at Rome by whose pleasure Seats were changed Bishops were given and which is a thing horrid to be heard and not to be spoken their Lovers were thrust into Peters Chair being false Popes who are not to be written in the Catalogue of the Roman Popes but only for the marking of such times And what kind of Cardinals Priests and Deacons think you we must imagine that these Monsters did chuse when nothing is so rooted in Nature as for every one to beget his like For near 150 years saith Genebrard about fifty Popes were rather Apostatical than Apostolical And where was their uninterrupted Succession all this time Pope Nicolas in his Decretals Caranz p. 393. 395 saith He that by Money or the favour of Men or Popular or Military Tumults is intruded into the Apostolical Seat without the Concordant and Canonical Election of the Cardinals and the following religious Clergy let him not be taken for a Pope nor Apostolical but Apostatical And of the Clorgy he saith Priests that commit Fornication cannot have the honour of Priesthood Yea Let no Man hear Mass of a Priest whom he certainly knoweth to have a Concubine or Woman introduced And shall not Protestants forgive those that will not hear such or as bad Where then was the Papacy under such For above forty years together there were more Popes than one at once and sometimes more than two one dwelling at Rome and another at Avignion or elsewhere One set up and obeyed by one Party and another by another Party each condemning the other as an Usurper And had the Universal Church then any one Head And with what wickedness are they charged one destroying what the other was for see in
ad infernum And as others report him Qui sine poenitentia vivit sine poenitentia moritur ad infernum descendit See Baronius forecited XXVII Though the Pope condemn and unchurch so many yet doth he tolerate in his own Church abundance of differences de fide and abundance of Controversies in Theologie and abundance of Differences and Errours in great and dangerous matters of Morality and abundance of Sects that variously serve God so they will serve him and uphold his Kingdom 1. The holy Scripture is all de fide that is a Divine Revelation to be believed The Popes tolerated Translations that differ in many hundred places or that erred so oft and Commentators that differ in many hundred Texts as to the Exposition yea they tolerate those that deny the immaculate conception of the Virgin after a General Council hath defined it 2. He tolerateth vast Volumes of Theological Differences in the School Doctors 3. He tolerateth all the Moral Doctrines for murdering Kings before mentioned and all those cited by Mr. Clarkson in his Practical Divinity of the Church of Rome and all those mentioned in the Provincial Letters and the Jesuites Morals about Murder Adultery Perjury Lying seldom loving God not loving him intensively above all c. See my Key c. p. 59. 4. He tolerateth abundance of Religious Sects Jesuites Augustinians Franciscans Carthusians c. who differ from each other in their serving God as much as many of the Sects of Protestants who are despised for their discord XXVIII He pretendeth a necessity to the ending of Controversies that he be the Judge and yet will not end them by his Judgment but continueth many hundred undecided If we dispute with a Papist and cite the Scriptures they ask us presently who shall be Judge of the meaning of them As if the Pope would decide all And yet to this day he will neither write any deciding Commentary on the Bible nor on one Book of it nor end the Controversies among his own Commentators Nor will he end any of the fore-mentioned Controversies in Morality of great importance XXIX He sweareth all his Clergie never to take or interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers see the Trent Oath when yet the Fathers do not unanimously expound the Scripture nor any one Book of it And few Priests know what the Fathers are unanimous in nor can do unless they read them all which by this Oath they seem obliged to do Was not Greg. Nazianz. one of the Fathers who saith Orat. 18. I would there were no Presidency nor Prerogative of place and tyrannical Priviledges that so we might be known only by Vertue or deserts But now this Right side and Left side and Middle and Lower Degree and Presidency and Concomitancy have begot us many contentions to no purpose and have driven many into the Ditch and have led them away to the Region of Goats Is not this Heresie or worse with you Was not Isidore Pelusiota a Father but a sharp Reprover of proud and wicked Priests and Prelates who saith lib. 3. Epist 223. ad Hieracem And when I have shewed what difference there is between the ancient Ministry and the present Tyranny why do you not crown and praise the lovers of Equality Doth not this deserve a Fagot with you How ordinarily doth Cajetan and others of yours reject deservedly the Expositions of Fathers Bellarmine chargeth Justin Irenaeus c. with error de Beat. SS li. 1. Cap. 6. He saith There is no trust to be given to Tertullian de Rom. Pont. li. 4. c. 8. He saith Eusebius was addicted to Hereticks and that Cypriâ—n seemed to sin mortally de Rom. Pont. li. 4. c. 7. Di. â—â—s Peâ—avius de Trinit citeth the words of most of the ancientest as favouring Arrianism almost like Sondius himself or Philostorgius and is fain to go to the Major Vote of the Nice ne Council as the proof that most of the ancients were not really of the Arrians mind Dallaeus hath told you more of the Fathers differences and unsatisfactory expositions XXX He confesseth all the Scripture to be Gods infallible word yea his Doctors have asserted its sufficiency as a Divine Law and yet his pretense of its Insufficiency without Traditional supplement is one of the Pillars of his Kingdom The second part needs no proof For the first the elder Popes oft assert it And the School-men in their Prologue to the Sentences Scotus Durandus and many others But when Reformers confuted them by Scripture they found that would not serve their turn as Micaiah of Ahab it prophesyed not good of them but evil And since then they cry up the Church and Tradition and depress the sufficiency of Scripture Even Card. Richlieu pag. 38. confesseth As for us we assert no other Rule but Scripture neither of another sort nor total yea we say that it is the whole Rule of our salvation and that on a double account both because it containeth immediately and formally the sum of our salvation that is all the Articles that are necessary to mans salvation by necessity of means and because it mediately containeth what ever we are bound to believe as it sends us to the Church to be instructed by her of whose infallibility it certainly confirmeth us Here the sum of our Religion is granted At the Council of Basil Ragusius's oration Bin. p. 299 saith That Faith and all things necessary to salvation both matters of belief and practice are founded in the literal sense of Scripture and only from that may argumentation be taken for the proving of those things that are matters of Faith and necessary to salvation and not from those passages that are spoken by allegory c. And sup 7. The holy Scripture in the literal sense soundly and well understood is the infallible and most sufficient rule of Faith See more of his oration opened in my Key pag. 93 94 95. The Testimony of Bellarmine Costerus and others I have formerly recited XXXI The Pope teacheth us that we cannot truly believe the Articles of our Faith or the truth of Scripture but because of the Authority and Infallibility of the Pope and his Church declaring them so that we must believe that the Pope is Christs Vicar and authorized by him and made infallible before we can believe that there is a Christ or that he hath given any authority or gifts to any This is not to be denyed And Knot against Chillingworth hath no other shift but to resolve their belief of the Churches infallibility and authority not into any word or donation of Christ but into Miracles wrought by the Church So that no man can be a Believer that is not first certain of the Papists Miracles and how can millions know them when they see them not and in all my life I could never meet with one that saw them And he must next be certain that those miracles prove the infallibility of the Pope when yet
will not obey that which he knoweth to be his Religion or he may be unable to execute such Laws But it is his Religion to believe that he ought to do it IX If he be a Temporal Lord of a Protestant Country it is part of his Religion to take himself obliged to root out destroy or burn all his Protestant Subjects and all others that deny Transubstantiation Obj. The King of France and some others do it not Ans No man is bound to do that which he cannot do But if he can do it and he be a Papist by the express words of an Approved General Council he is bound to do it and to believe that it is his duty I speak not of what men do but what their Religion binds them to do Though interest or good nature hinder them X. He believeth that all Temporal Lords that will not first take an Oath thus to root out their Subiects and then do it may be first Excommunicated by the Pope and then deposed if they repent not and their Dominions be given to be seized by another Papist that will do it The words of the Council are before cited XI He believeth that in this case the Pope may absolve all the Subjects of such Temporal Lords from their Oaths and Duties of Allegiance or Fidelity to such Rulers This also is express in the Councils words XII He is one that believeth that the Priviledges of the Roman Church were given it by the Fathers because it was the Imperial Seat and therefore Constantinople had after equal Priviledges For so saith the forecited General Council And yet he believeth the clean contrary even that Rome's Priviledges were given it by S. Peter and Constantinople's are not equal For Popes and Councils also are for this XIII He believeth that it is de fide that General Councils are above Popes and may judge them and depose them if there be cause even as Hereticks or Infidels Adulterers Murderers Simonists c. And yet he believeth that all this is false and the contrary true For the approved General Councils of Basit and Constance say the first and others and those fore-cited at the Laterane and Florence say the latter XIV He maketh uncharitableness and bold damning all others a comfortable mark of the safety of his state and the truth of his Religion and our Charity a mark that ours is worse whereas Christ hath said By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another It 's usual with them to say You say that a Papist may be saved and we say that a Protestant cannot therefore we are in the safer state As if our case were ever the more dangerous for their condemning us As if a man that doteth in a Fever should say to those about him You say that I may live and I say that all you are mortally sick therefore my case is better than yours God saith Judge not that ye be not judged and who art thou that judgest another mans Servant And these men hope their case is safe because they sin against this Law and damn the most of the Universal Church XV. A Papist thinketh that all the Bible is not big enough or hath not enough in it to save those that believe and practise it or to make us a saving Religion but other Tradition must be received with equal reverence and the Decrees of all the approved General Councils must make it up XVI He confesseth every Article and word of the Religion of the Protestants to be infallibly true and yet holdeth that they are to be burnt and damned as Hereticks For he confesseth every part of the Canonical Scripture to be true and we have no more in our objective positive Religion not a word Our Negations of Popery are not properly our Religion any more than our speaking against Diseases is our Health But as our health containeth our own freedom from an hundred diseases which we never thought of as well as those that we once had or feared so our Faith and Religion is free from Popery and containeth that which is against it XVII A Papist is for swearing men to take Scripture in that sense as the holy Mother Church doth hold and hath held it Whereas 1. Their Church hath given them no Commentary on the Scripture one way or other 2. And their Translations have been altered in many hundred places by Clement 8. and Sixtus 5. so that their Clergy is sworn to take one Translation to to be right one year and a different one to be right the next XVIII They are for swearing men to take or interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers and consequently never to interpret the most of it at all XIX A Papist hath a thriving Faith and Religion which groweth bigger and bigger as fast as General Councils add new Decrees so that they know not when they shall have all And yet they cry out against novelty and change and boast of Antiquity XX. He holdeth that Priests or Prelates may not fall down to Princes or eat at their Tables nor debase themselves to them but Emperours must take them as equals Concil Gen. 8. Const Can. 14. XXI He is satisfied that their Church hath a Judge of Controversies though he decide them not And he gloryeth in the Unity and great Concord of their Church whose Doctors differ de fide even in the Exposition of many hundred Texts of Gods Word and where they differ in the Morals before cited about Murder killing excommunicate Kings c. and in Volumes of Controversies And yet he looketh upon far smaller differences among us with great offense as if they were intolerable and were so many different Religions And all because in all their differences they agree in one Pope As if it were not as good an Union to agree in one God one Christ one Spirit one Body or Church of Christ one Faith Creed and Scripture one Baptismal Covenant and one Hope of life eternal Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. which is the Union that God describeth XXII He believeth that the Pope doth justly take away from the People one half of the substance of Christs own Sacrament and deny them that which they hold to be his very Blood XXIII They believe that they ought not to read the Scripture translated without a Licence So saith Con. Trid. XXIV They believe that the Image of Christ is to be reverenced equally with the holy Scriptures It is a Councils words before cited Yea they must believe the second Council at Nice that Latria is to be given only to God and yet a canonized S. Thomas 3. q. 25. a. 3. 4. maintaineth that Latria or Divine Worship is to be given 1. To the Image of Christ 2. To the Cross that he dyed on 3. And to the Sign of the Cross And how largely Jac. Nauclautus Cabrera and multitudes of the Schoolmen are for it see my Key p. 165
XVII Our Religion is for increasing true practical knowledge in all men by all our industry as knowing the Father of Lights saveth us by illumination and therefore we are for all mens reading or hearing the holy Scriptures and worshipping God in a known tongue But yet with the help of the skilfullest Teachers The Prince of darkness leadeth men in the dark to do the works of darkness that they may be cast into outer darkness How the case is with yours I have before shewed XVIII Our Religion is for so much fasting and austerities as is truly necessary to the subduing of Pride Worldliness or fleshly lusts or to express our self-abasement in due times of humiliation prescribed by Authority on publick occasions or discerned by our selves in private and so much as is truly helpful to us in Gods service or our preparations for death But how much you have turned these into unreasonable Ceremony and how much into a pretended satisfaction to Gods Justice by punishing our selves as if our hurt delighted God when it tends not to our healing I shall not now stay to open See Dallaeus de Poenis Indulgentis de Jejuniis of it at large XIX Our Religion teacheth us that all that truly believe in and are heartily devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as their God and Saviour and Sanctifier forsaking the Devil the World and the Flesh should be taken by Baptismal profession hereof into the Church and shall be saved if they prove not Hypocrites or Apostates And that we must judge men by this their Profession till they plainly or provedly nullifie it supposing every man under God to be the best Judge of his own heart But your Religion teacheth you to hold and say that if men are never so fully perswaded in themselves that they truly love God and holiness and are thus devoted to him yea and if their lives express it yet if they be not Papists they are all deceived and none but Papists so love God And every Papist thus knoweth the hearts of others better than we can know our own XX. Our Religion leaveth us room for Repentance and hope of Pardon if we mistake For we take not our selves to be impeccable or infallible in all that we hold though we are sure that our Rule and Objective Religion is infallible But your Church being founded in the false conceit of the Popes and Councils Infallibility you shut the door against repentance and amendment and when once a false Decree is past you take your selves obliged to defend it lest by Reformation you pluck up your Foundation and all should fall Were it not for this I am perswaded your Church would recant at least the Doctrine of Transubstantiation if not that of deposing Princes and some others And now I humbly present what I have written to W. H. and not without hope if he will but impartially read it of his reduction For the man seemeth to me to sin through Ignorance and to have an honester zeal than many others For my own part 1. I profess to him I write as I think and that after forty years reading I think as many of the Papists Books as of the Protestants 2. And that I would joyfully recant whatever it cost me if I could find that I do erre But I have shewed him that I differ not from them without that which to me appeareth to be constraining Reason 3. And that if he will prove to me that I have in one word of this Book unjustly accused either their POPE PAPISTS RELIGION or CHURCH I shall thankfully receive his conviction and repent And I agree with him wholly in professing my Religion to be The APOSTOLICAL CHRISTIANITY and whatever he proveth to be truly such I will receive The Name of The Protestant Religion I like not because meer Christianity is all our Religion and our Protestation against Popery denominateth not our Religion it self but our Rejection of their Corruptions of it But the Name of The Protestants Religion I approve and own that is APOSTOLICK CHRISTIANITY CLEANSED FROM POPERY Aug. 9. 1676. FINIS THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. WHether Christ hath not left us sure and easie notice what the Christian Religion is what it is and how delivered to us in three degrees 1. The Essentials generally in the Sacramental Covenant 2. The Exposition of the Essentials in three summaries the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue 3. The Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals in the whole Canonical Scripture p. 1 c. Our Confession Articles Books and Sermons are but the expressions of our Subjective Religion or fides mensurata and are not our Objective and fides mensurans in terminis p. 9. The Papists confess every word of our Objective Religion to be Divine and Infallible But we confess not the truth of all theirs They blame us only 1. As not having enough 2. And as not receiving it the right way p. 9. I. Whether the Papists Religion be better than ours as bigger Some Queries of the Antiquity of the belief of the Roman additions viz. the Apocrypha and the Decrees of all the Councils c. p. 10 c. What Implicite Faith we are agreed in and what not p. 12. The Papists confess that their Church hath not kept God's own written word without many hundred errours and so not all that is de fide p. 13. Therefore they must needs distinguish the Essentials of Christianity from other points Of Implicite belief in the Pope and Councils p. 13. c. II. Whether it was or is necessary to receive Christianity as from the Infallibility or Authority of the Pope and Papists or Councils p. 19. c. We have much more and surer Tradition for our Religion than that which the Papists would have us trust to 20. The difference of our Tradition from theirs Whether Rome or a Church there may not cease p. 22. Whether the Seat the Election or what doth prove the Pope to be St. Peter's successour p. 23. Whether Books or oral Tradition by Memory of all Generations be the surer preservative of the Faith p. 24. CHAP. II. THe Puritane is ambiguously named and falsly described p. 25. Of Imputed Righteousness p. 30. Puritanes not against external worship nor all Ceremonies p. 36. Of their Usage ibid. The Puritans judgment about Fasts Holy-days Ceremonies c. p. 38. The Papist writer knoweth not what the Puritans Religion is p. 40. The true Religion of a Puritane described p. 41 42. 1. The writer wrongeth his Relations 2. He declareth that he was before an ungodly perfidious Hypocrite and no true Puritane and therefore no wonder that he turned Papist p. 43. None but such can turn Papists without self Contradiction His slander of the Puritanes that they think Piety Charity Humility and other Christian Virtues not possible and necessary to salvation p. 45. CHAP. III. HIs hard Character of Prelatical Protestants p. 46. Many Nonconformists are Episcopal therefore not dislinguishable by that