at Anatolius his rising and the equaling him with Rome but they never excepted one word that ever I found against the saying that it was because of the Empire that Rome by the Fathers had the Primacy given it And the Reason given by themselves Concil Constant Can. 5. is because Constantinople is new Rome But Binnius saith that Rome receiveth not the Canons of this Council neither but only their condemnation of Macedonius And he saith that every Council hath just so much strength and authority as the Apostolick seat bestoweth on it For saith he unless this be admitted no reason can be given why some Councils of greater numbers of Bishops were reprobated and others of a smaller number confirmed Bin. Vol. 2. p. 515. What would you have more Sirs Do you not see yet what the Popish Catholick Church is and what they mean when they mouth it out to you and ask you whether your private Judgement be safer or wiser then that of the whole Church or of all the Christian world You see they mean all this while but one man whom Gretser and others plainly confess they call the Church So that indeed it is General Councils and all the Christian world or Church that are the ignorant fallible and oft erring part and it is one man that sometime is reputed an incarnate Devil by a General Council too that is the unerring Pillar of the Church and wiser then all they Do you not see that they make a meer nothing or mockery of General Councils any further then they please the Pope And can you expect that any thing should please them that is against his Greatness or as Julius the second calls it his holding the place of the great God the Maker of all things and all Laws What a vile abuse is it then of the Pope to trouble the world by the meetings and Consultations of General Councils when he can sit at Rome and contradict them infallibly and Good man is fain to save the Catholick Church from the Errors that General Councils the Representative Catholick Church would else lead them into and therefore could he not with less ado infallibly make us Laws Canons and Scriptures without them For sure that which the Pope can do against a General Council he can do without them If he can Infallibly contradict a General Council and Infallibly Rule us contrary to their Judgement he may no doubt Infallibly Rule us without them And therefore of late times they have learnt so much wit that you may look long enough before you see a General Council And I think the Council of Constance were no better Prognosticators then William Lilly nor no more effectuall Lawgivers then Wat Tyler when they Prognosticated or Ordained Decennial Councils And I will be judged by all the world And here also you may see what account the Papists make even of the first General Councils It s all one with them to judge others Hereticks for contradicting especially the four first General Councils compared to the four Evangelists as the Scripture it self and yet who would have thought it they profess themselves to reject the Canons or Decrees of both these the first of Constantinople and that of Calcedon in part And now I think on it by this priviledge I cannot see but the Pope is priviledged from all possibility of being an Heretick personally But these things are on the by I return to the point in hand which is to prove to you that not only the Romish Universal Monarchy and Vice-godhead but even its Patriarchal Primacy was no Apostolical Tradition but an Humane Institution founded on this Consideration that Rome was the Imperial Seat and City 5. And Humane it must needs be 1. For we find that Councils did not declare it as any part of the Law of God but Ordain it as an act of their own 2. We find them adding the Patriarchate of Constantinople which was a new seat neither Patriarch nor Bishop residing there in the Apostles dayes or long after 3. Yea we find them giving this new Patriarch the second place and once making him equal with old Rome which they would never have presumed to do if they had thought that the Patriarchship of Alexandria Antioch or Rome had been of Divine Institution for what horrible arrogancy would that have been when the Holy Ghost by the Apostles had made Alexandria second and Antioch third and Rome first for a Council to set Constantinople before two of them and equal with the first 6. And therefore we have reason to think that if Patriarchs be desirable creatures there may more and more new ones now be made as lawfully as Constantinople was 7. And we do not think that a General Council or Pope can make a man of one Nation to be Patriarch of the Church in another Nation that perhaps may be in wars with the Prince of the first Nation but that each Prince with the Church under their Power hath more to do in it then either Pope or Council And if Portugal and France set up Patriarchs at home they do as lawfully as the Patriarch of Constantinople was set up 8. And therefore we must needs judge that to disobey the Pope or withdraw from his subjection if he had never forfeited his Patriarchship by the claim of an Universal Headship were no greater a sin then to disobey or withdraw from the Patriarch of Alexandria Antioch or Constantinople either the Government by Patriarchs and Arch-bishops is of Gods ordaining and approving or not if not as most of the Protestants hold then it is no sin to reject any of them If it be of God then to reject any of them though in simple error is a sin of disobedience through ignorance but is far from proving a man to be no member of the Catholick Church for sure Patriarchs are far from being Essential parts of the Catholick Church For 9. We conclude as in the Papists own Judgement the Catholick Church may be without the Patriarch of Constantinople Alexandria or Antioch so may it therefore without the Pope of Rome CHAP. XX. Detect 11. THE great endeavour of the Papists is to advance Tradition The Council of Trent Ses 4. hath equalled it with the Scriptures as to the pious affection and reverence wherewith they receive it On pretence of this Tradition they have added abundance of new Articles to the faith and accuse us as Hereticks for not receiving their Traditions And this is a principall difference betwixt us that we take the Scriptures to be sufficient to acquaint us with the will of God as the Rule of faith and holy living and they take it to be but part of the word of God and that the other part is in unwritten Tradition which they equal with this as afore For the maintaining of Tradition it is that they write so much to the dishonour of the holy Scripture as you may find in Rushworths Dialogues and Tho. Whites Defence of them and
many others so like to the Arguments and Language of the Seekers and Infidels that we can scarcely know whom we hear when they speak to us For the discovery of their desperate fraud in this point and the right confuting of them 1. You must distinguish them out of their confusion 2. You must grant them all that is true and just which we shall as stiffly defend as they 3. You must reject their errors and confute them And 4. You may turn their own principall weapon against them to the certain destruction of their cause Of all these briefly in course 1. For the first two I have spoke at large in the Preface to the second part of the Saints Rest and in the determination in the first part of my Book against Infidelity But briefly to touch some of the most necessary things here 1. We must distinguish the Tradition of the Scriptures or the Scripture doctrine from the Tradition of other doctrines pretended to be the rest of the word of God 2. We must distinguish between a certain proved Tradition and that which is unproved and uncertain if not grosly feigned 3. We must distinguish between the Tradition of the whole Catholick Church or the greater part and the Tradition of the lesser more corrupted selfish part even the Roman part 4. We must distinguish between a Tradition of necessary doctrine or practice and the Tradition of mutable Orders 5. And we must distinguish between Tradition by way of Testimony or History or by way of Teaching Ministry and Tradition by way of Decisive Judgement as to the Universal Church suffer them not to jumble all these together if you would not be cheated in the dark 2. And then concerning Tradition we grant all these following Propositions so that it is not all Tradition that we deny 1. We grant that the Holy Scriptures come down to us by the certain Tradition of our fathers and Teachers and that what the seeing and hearing of the Apostles was to them that lived with them that Tradition and belief of certain Tradition is to us by reason of our distance from the time and place So that though the Scripture bear its own evidence of a Divine author in the Image and superscription of God upon it yet we are beholden to Tradition for the Books themselves and for much of our knowledge that these are the true writings of the Apostles and Prophets and all and not depraved c. 2. We thankfully acknowledge that the Essentials of the faith and more hath been delivered even from the Apostles in other wayes or forms besides the Scriptures as 1. In the Professions of the Churches faith 2. In the baptismal Covenant and signs and whole administration 3. In the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 4. In Catechisms or Catechizings 5. In the prayers and praises of the Church 6. In the hearts of all true believers where God hath written all the Essentials of the Christian saith and Law So that we will not do as the Papists perversly do when God delivereth us the Christian Religion with two hands Scripture compleatly and Verbal Tradition in the essentials they quarrell with the one hand Scripture on pretence of defending the other so will not we quarrell with Tradition the other hand but thankfully confess a Tradition of the same Christianity by unwritten means which is delivered more fully in the Scripture and this Tradition is in some respect subordinate to Scripture and in some respect co-ordinate as the spirits left hand as it were to hold us out the truth 3. We confess that the Apostles delivered the Gospel by voice as well as by writing and that before they wrote it to the Churches 4. By this preaching we confess there were Christians made that had the doctrine of Christ in their hearts and Churches gathered that had his ordinances among them before the Gospel was written 5. And we confess that the Converted were bound to teach what they had received to their children servants and others 6. And that there was a setled Ministry in many Churches ordained to preach the Gospel as they had received it from the Apostles before it was written 7. And that the said ordinances of Baptism Catechizing Professions Eucharist Prayer Praise c. were instituted and in use before the Gospell was written for the Churches 8. And that when the Gospel was written as Tradition bringeth it to us so Ministers are commissioned to deliver both the Books and the doctrine of this Book as the Teachers of the Church and to preach it to those without for their conversion 9. And that Parents and Masters are bound to teach this doctrine to their children and servants yea if a Minister or other person were cast into the Indies or America without a Bible he must teach the doctrine though he remembred not the words 10. We grant that to the great benefit of the Church the writers of all ages have in subserviency to Scripture delivered down the Sacred Verities and Historians the matters of fact 11. And that the unanimous Consent of all the Churches manifested in their constant professions and practices is a great confirmation to us 12. And so is the suffering of the Martyrs for the same truth 13. And the Declarations of such consent by Councils is also a confirming Tradition 14. And the Confessions of Hereticks Jews and other Infidels are Providentiall and Historical Traditions for confirmation 15. And we profess that if we had any Certain proof of a Tradition from the Apostles of any thing more then is written in Scripture we would receive it All this we grant them for Tradition 3. But in these points following we oppose them 1. We take the holy Scriptures as the Compleat universal Rule or Law of faith and Holy living and we know of no Tradition that containeth another word of God Nay we know there is none such because the Scripture is true which asserteth its own sufficiency Scripture and unwritten Tradition are but two wayes of acquainting the world with the same Christian doctrine and not with divers parts of that Doctrine so as that Tradition should add to Scripture yea contrarily it is but the substance of greatest verities that are conveyed by unwritten Tradition but that and much more is contained in the Scripture where the Christian doctrine is compleat 2. The manner of delivery in a form of words which no man may alter and in so much fullness and perspicuity is much to be preferred before the meer verbal delivery of the same doctrine For 1. The Memory of man is not so strong as to retain as much as the Bible doth contain and preserve it safe from alterations or Corruptions Or if one man were of so strong a memory no man can imagine that all or most should be so Or if one Generation had such wonderfull memories we cannot imagine that all their posterity should have the like If there were no statute Books Records or Law-books in
false So that here we must break with a Papist even where we might join in dispute with a heathen And how will Papists deal with Heathens if they will deny the proofs from sense and reason 3. But will they stand to the Validity of Proofs from Scripture No For 1. They take it to be but part of Gods word so that we may nor argue Negatively It is not in the holy Scripture therefore it is not an Article of faith or a Law of God For they will presently appeal to Tradition 2. And even so much as is in Scripture though they confess it to be true yet they confess it not to be by us intelligible and will not admit of any proof from it but with this limitation that you take it in that sense as the Church takes it For they are sworn by the Trent Oath to take it in that sence as the Holy Mother Church doth hold and hath held it in and never to take or interpret it but according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers So that they must know what sense all the Fathers are unanimous in before they can admit a proof from Scripture And before that can be done above a Cart-load of books must be read over or searched and when that 's done they will find that most texts were never medled with by most of those Fathers in their writings and in those that they did meddle with they disagreed in multitudes and where they disagree they are not unanimous and there the Papists are sworn to believe no sense at all And if they would have come down to a Major vote it is no short or easie matter to gather the votes And if they know the Fathers unanimous consent yet must they have the sense of the present Church too And is it not all one to make your adversary the Judge of your cause as the Judge of your Evidences and all your proofs 4. Well but at least may we not hope that they will stand to the Judgement of the Catholick Church And if so we will not take it for our adversary No they will not do so neither For 1. When they deny proof from sense and reason they must needs deny all that 's brought from the Church For the Church cannot judge it self but on supposition of the infallibility of sense 2. And when you argue from the judgement and practice of the greater part of the Church they presently disclaim them all as Hereticks or Schismaticks and will have no man be a Valid witness but themselves The Greeks the Aethiopians the Armenians the Protestants all are Hereticks or Schismaticks save they and therefore may not be witnesses in the case So that you see upon what terms we stand with the Papists that will admit of no proofs upon the Infallibility of Sense or Reason or the sufficiency of Scripture or the testimony of the Catholick Church but only from themselves CHAP. XIII Detect 4 UNderstand what the Papists mean when they are still calling to you for a Judge of Controversies If you would dispute with them they are presently asking you Who shall be the judge and perswading you that it is in vain to dispute without a living Judge for every man will be the Judge himself and every mans cause will be right in his own eyes and all the world will be still at odds till we are agreed who shall be the Judge To help you to see the sense of this deceit and then to confute it 1. You may easily observe that this is the plain drift of all to perswade you to make them your judges and yield the cause instead of disputing it For it is no other judge but themselves that they will admit Yield first that the Pope or his Council is the judge of all controversies and then its folly to dispute against them so that if you will yield them the cause first they will then dispute with you after 2. But what is to be said to the pretence of the Necessity of a Judge I answer 1. It s against all reason and experience to think that all enquiries or disputes are vain unless there be a Judge to decide the case A Judge is a Ruling decider not to satisfie mens minds so much as to preserve Order and Peace and Justice in the Society But there are thousands of cases to be privately discussed that we never need to bring to a Judge Every Husbandman and Tradesman and Navigator and other Artificer doth meet with doubts and difficulties in his way which he laboureth to Discern and satisfieth himself with a Judgement of Discretion without a Ruling Judge We eat and drink and clothe our selves and follow our daily labours without a Judge though we meet with controversies in almost all what meat or drink is best for quality or quantity and a hundred like doubts Men do marry and build and buy and sell and take Physick and dispatch their greatest worldly business without a Judge Judges are only for such controverted cases as cannot well be decided without them to the attaining of the Ends of Government 2. Is it not against the daily practice of the Papists to think or say that all disputes and controversies must have a Judge Who is the Judge between the Nominals Reals and Formalists the Dominicans Franciscans and Jesuites in all those controversies which have Cartloads of Books written on them Their Pope or Councils dare not Judge between them Do they not daily dispute in their Schools among themselves without a Judge and still write books against one another without a Judge 3. Understand well the use and differences of Judgement The sentence is but a means to the execution and Judges cannot determine the mind and will of man but preserve outward Order if men will not see the truth themselves Me thinks the Jesuits that are so eager for free will should easily grant that the Pope by his definition cannot determine the Will of man And they see that Hereticks remain Hereticks when the Pope hath said all that he can And if he can cure them all by his determinations he is much too blame that he doth not And if a mans mind be to be settled an Infallible Teacher is fitter then a Judge Judgement then being for Execution when you ask Who shall be the Judge I answer that Judgement is either total absolute and final or it is only to a certain particular end limited and subordinate from which there is an Appeal In the former case there is no Judge but Christ and the Father by him No absolute decision can be made till the great Judgement come and then all will be fully and finally decided And for the limited present Judgements of men they are of several sorts according to their several Ends. When the question is Who shall be corporally punished as an Heretick the Magistrate is Judge For coercive punishment being his work the Judgement must be his also But when the question is Who
when they had no being since the death of the Apostles 6. And also that we are able to prove the death and burial of many things that have gone long under the name of Traditions 7. And when we find so lame an account from your selves of the true Apostolical Traditions You are so confounded between your Ecclesiasticall Decrees and Traditions and your Apostolical Traditions that we despair of learning from you to know one from the other and of seeing under the hand of his Holiness and a General Council a Catalogue of the true Apostolical Traditions And sure it seems to us scarce fair dealing that in one thousand and five hundered years time if indeed there have been Popes so long the Church could never have an enumeration and description of these Traditions with the proofs of them Had you told us which are Apostolick Traditions but as fully and plainly as the Scriptures which you accuse of insufficiency and obscurity do deliver us their part you had discharged your pretended trust 8. And it is in our eyes an abominable impiety for you to equal your Traditions with the holy Scripture till you have enumerated and proved them And it makes us the more to suspect your Traditions when we perceive that they or their Patrons have such an enmity to the Holy Scriptures that they cannot be rightly defended without casting some reproach upon the Scriptures But this we do not much wonder at for it is no new thing with the applauders of Tradition We find the eighth General Council at Constantinople Can. 3. decreeing that the Image of Christ be adored with equal Honour with the Holy Scripture But whether that be an Apostolical Tradition we doubt 9. And if General Councils themselves and that of your own should be for the sufficiency of Scripture what then is become of all your Traditions Search your own Binnius page 299. whether it past not as sound doctrine at the Council of Basil in Ragusii Orat. Sup. 6. that faith and all things necessary to salvation both matters of belief and matters of 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 or necessary to salvation and not from those passages that are spoken by allegory or other spiritual sence Sup. 7. The Holy Scripture in the literal sense soundly and well understood is the infallible and most sufficient Rule of faith Is not here enough against all other Traditional Articles of faith A plain man would think so Yea but Binnius noteth that he meaneth that explicitely or implicitely it is so Well! I confess the best of you are slippery enough but let us grant this for indeed he so explaineth himself afterward yet that 's nothing for Tradition He there maintaineth that Scripture is the Rule of faith not part of the Rule For saith he when the intellect hapneth to err as in hereticks its necessary that there be some Rule by the deviation or conformity to which the intellect may perceive that it doth or doth not err Else it would be still in doubt and fluctuate it appeareth that no humane science is the Rule of faith It remaineth therefore that the Holy Scripture is this Rule of faith This is the Rule John 20. where be saith these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the son of God and believing might have life in his name And 2 Pet. 2. You have a more sure word of prophecy to which ye do well that ye attend as to a light c. And Rom. 15. Whatsoever things were written were written for our learning c. And its plain that the foresaid authorities are of holy Scripture and speak of the holy Scripture c. The second part also is plain because if the holy Scripture were not a sufficient Rule of faith it would follow that the Holy Ghost had insufficiently delivered it who is the author of it which is by no means to be thought of God whose works are all perfect Moreover if the Holy Scripture were wanting in any things that are necessary to salvation then those things that are wanting might lawfully and deservedly be superadded from some thing else aliunde or if any thing were superfluous be diminished But this is forbidden Rev. 22. From whence its plain that in Scripture there is nothing defective and nothing superfluous which is agreeable to its author the Holy Ghost to whose Omnipotency it agreeeth that nothing deminutely to his Wisdom that nothing superfluously and to his Goodness that in a congruous order he provide for the Necessity of our salvation Prov. 30. 5 6. The word of God is a fiery buckler to them that hope in him Add thou not to his words lest be reprove thee and thou be found a lyar How like you all this in a Popish General Council and in an Oration against the Sacrament in both kinds Well! but perhaps the distinction unsaith all again No such matter you shall hear it truly recited He proceeds thus But for the further declaration of this Rule as to that part it must be known that the sufficiency of any doctrine is necessarily to be understood two wayes one way Explicitely another way Implicitely And this is true in every Doctrine or science because no doctrine was ever so sufficiently delivered that all the Conclusions contained in its principles were delivered and expressed explicitely and in the proper terms and so it is in our purpose because there is nothing that any way or in any manner N.B. pertaineth to faith and salvation which is not most sufficiently contained in the holy Scripture explicitely or implicitely Hence saith Austin every truth is contained in the Scriptures latent or patent as in other sciences Speculative or Moral and Civil the Conclusions and determinations are contained in their principles c. and the deduction is by way of inference or determination This is the plain Protestant Doctrine There is nothing any way necessary to faith or salvation but what is contained in the Scriptures either expresly or as the Conclusion in the premises Good still we desire no more Let holy Reason then discern the Conclusion in the premises and let us not be sent for it to the Authority of Rome nay sent for some thing else that is no Conclusion deducible from any Scripture principles we grant Tradition or Church practices are very useful for our better understanding of some Scriptures But what is this to another Traditional word of God Prove your Traditions but by inference from Scripture and we will receive them Yet let us hear this Orator further clearing his mind Adding to a Doctrine may be understood four wayes 1. By way of explication or declaration 2. By way of supply 3. By way of ampliation 4. By way of destruction or contrary The first way is necessary in every science and doctrine and specially in Holy Scripture not for it self
which is most sufficient and most cleare in it self but for us This we all yield The second way is necessary to sciences diminutely and insufficiently delivered by their authors for their supplement so Aristotle is supplemented by Albertus Magnus c. The third way specially if it be not excessive is tolerable to the well being though it be not necessary The fourth way assertively is to be rejected as Poyson Thus are the authorities to be understood that forbid to add to or diminish from the Scripture Deut. 12 32. Well! by this time you may see that when such doctrine as this for Scripture sufficiency and perfection as the Rule of faith and life admitting no addition as necessary but explication nor any other as tolerable but moderate ampliation which indeed is the same I say when this doctrine past so lately in a Popish General Council you may see that the very Doctrine of Traditions equaled with Scripture or being another word of God necessary to faith and salvation containing what is wanting in Scripture is but lately sprung up in the world And sure the Traditions themselves be not old then when the conceit of them came but lately into the world 4. Well I have done the three first parts of this task but the chief is yet behind which is to shew 1 How little the Papists get by their Argument from Tradition 2. And how â—uch they lose by it even all their cause 1. Two things they very much plead Tradition for the one is their private doctrines and practices in which they disagree from other Christians and here they lose their labour with the judicious 1. Because they give us no sufficient proof that their Tradition is Apostolical 2. Because the dissent of other Churches sheweth that it is not universal with other Reasons before mentioned 2. The other Cause which they plead Tradition for is the Doctrine of Christianity it self And this they do in design to lead men to the Church of Rome as if we must be no Christians unless we are Christians upon the credit of the Pope and his Subjects And here I offer to their Consideration these two things to shew them the vanity of their arguing 1. We do not strive against you in producing any Tradition or Testimony of Antiquity for the Scripture or for Scripture Doctrine we make as much advantage of such just Tradition as you What do such men as White Vane Cressy c. think of when they argue so eagerly for the advantage of Tradition to prove the Scripture and Christian faith Is this any thing against us Nothing at all We accept our Religion from both the hands of Providence that bring it us Scripture and Tradition we abhor the contempt which these partial Disputers cast upon Scripture but we are not therefore so partial our selves as to refuse any collateral or subordinate help for our faith The more Testimonies the better The best of us have need of all the advantages for our faith that we can get When they have extolled the Certainty of Tradition to the highest we gladly joyn with them and accept of any certain Tradition of the mind of God And I advise all that would prove themselves wise defenders of the faith to take heed of rejecting Arguments from Providences or any necessary Testimony of man especially concerning matter of fact or of rejecting true Church History because the Papists over value it under the name of Tradition left such prove guilty of the like partiality and injuriousness to the truth as the Papists are And whereas the Papists imagine that this must lead us to their Church for Tradition I answer that in my next observation which is 2. We go beyond the Papists in arguing for just Tradition of the Christian faith and we make far greater advantage of it then they can do For 1. They argue but from Authoritative Decision by the Pope under the name of church-Church-Tradition excepting the French party whereas we argue from true History and certain Antiquity and prove what we say Where note 1. That their Tradition is indeed no Tradition for if it must be taken upon the credit of a man as supposed Infallible by supernatural if not miraculous endowment this is not Tradition but Prophesie And if they prove the man to be such a man it s all one to the Church whether he say that This was the Apostles doctrine or This I deliver my self to you from God For if he were so qualified he had the power and credit of a prophet or Apostle himself And therefore they must prove the Pope to be a Prophet before their kind of Tradition can get credit and when they have done that there is no need of it this their honest Dr. Holden was ware of upon which he hath so handsomely canvassed them 2. Note also that such as Dr. Holden Cressy Vane White and other of the French way that plead for Tradition mean a quite other thing then the Jesuited Italian Papist meanes and while they plead for universal Tradition they come nearer to the Protestants then to their Brethren if they did not contradict themselves when they have done by making meer Romish Tradition to be universal 3. Note also that when Papists speak of Tradition confusedly they give us just reason to call them to Define their Tradition and tell us what they mean by it before we dispute with them upon an ambiguous word seeing they are so divided among themselves that one party understands one thing by it and another another thing which we must not suffer these juglers to jumble together and confound 2. Another advantage in which we go beyond the Papists for Tradition is that as we argue not from the meer pretended supernatural Infallibility or Authority of any as they do but from rational Evidence of true Antiquity so we argue not from a sect or party as they do but from the Universal Church As far as the whole Church of Christ is of larger extent and greater credit then the Popish party so far is our Tradition more Credible then theirs And that is especially in three things 1. The Papists are fewer by far then the rest of the Christians in the world And the testimony of many yea of all is more then of a part 2. The Papists above other parties have espoused an interest that leads them to pretend and corrupt Tradition and bend all things to that interest of their own that they may Lord it over all the world But the whole Church can have no such Interest and Partiality 3. And the Papists are but one side and he that will judge rightly must hear the other sides speak too But the Tradition that we make use of is from all sides concurring yea Papists themselves in many points Yea our Tradition reacheth further then the Universal Church for we take in all rational Evidence even of Jews Heathens and Hereticks and Persecutors that bear witness to the matters of fact
Popes and Councils Their own Polidore Virgil de Inven. Rerum p. 410. lib 8. c. 4. calling us a Sect doth give you a just description of us Ita licentia pacta loquendi c. i. e. Having once got leave to speak that sect did marvailously increase in a short time which is called Evangelicall because they affirm that no Law is to be received which belongeth to salvation but what is given by Christ or the Apostles Mark what they confess themselves of our Religion And yet these very men have the face to charge us with Novelty as if Christ and his Apostles were not of sufficient Antiquity for them Our main quarrel with them is for adding new inventions in Religion and their principal business against us is to defend it and yet they call theirs the old Religion and ours the new Our Argument lieth thus That which is most conform to the Doctrine and Practice of Christ and his Apostles is the truly Antient Religion and Church But our Religion and Church is most conform to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles therefore it is the truly antient Religion and Church The Major they will yield For no older Religion is desirable further then as the Law of Nature and Moral Determinations of God are still in force I suppose they will not plead for Judaism For the Minor we lay our cause upon it and are ready to produce our evidence for the Conformity of our Religion and Churches to the doctrine and practice of the Apostles That Religion which is most conform to the Holy Scriture is most conform to the doctrine and practice of Christ and his Apostles But our Religion and Churches is most conform to the holy Scriptures therefore c. They can say nothing against the Major but that the Scripture is Insufficient without Tradition But for that 1. We have no Rule of faith but what is by themselves confessed to be true They acknowledge Scripture to be the true word of God So that the Truth of our Rule is Justified by themselves 2. Let them shew us as good Evidence that their Additional Articles of faith or Laws of life came from the Apostles as we do that the Scriptures came from them and then we shall confess that we come short of them Let them take the Controversies between us point by point and bring their proof and we will bring ours and let that Religion carry it that is Apostolicall But we are sure that by this means they will be proved Novelists For 1. Their Traditions in matter of faith superadded to the Scripture are meer Hereticall or Erroneous forgeries and they can give us no proof that ever they were Apostolicall 2. The Scripture affirmeth its own sufficiency and therefore excludeth their Traditions 3. I shewed you how in their own General Council at Basil the Scripture sufficiency was defended 4. I have shewed you in my Book called the Safe Religion that the ancient Fathers were for the sufficiency of Scripture 5. Their Traditions are the opinions of a dividing sect contrary to the Traditions or doctrine of the present Catholick Church the far greater part of Christians being against them 6. We are able to shew that the time was for some hundred years after Christ when most of their pretended Traditions were unknown or abhorred by the Christian Church and no such things were in being among them 7. And we can prove that the chief points of Controversie mantained against us are not only without Scripture but against it and from thence we have full particular evidence to disprove them If the Scriptures be true as they confess them to be then no Tradition can be Apostolicall or true that is contrary to them For example the Papists Tradition is that the Clergy is exempt from the Magistrates judgement But the holy Scripture saith Let every soul be subject to the higher power Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4 5. The Papists Tradition is for serving God publickly in an unknown tongue But the holy Scripture is fully against it Their Tradition is against Lay mens reading the Scripture in a known tongue without special License from their ordinary But Scripture and all antiquity is against them The like we may say of many other Controversies So that these seven wayes we know their Traditions to be deceitfull because they are 1. Unproved 2. Against the sufficiency of Scripture 3. Against their own former confessions 4. Against the concent of the Fathers 5. Contrary to the judgement of most of the Catholick Church 6. We can prove that once the Church was without them 7. And they are many of them contrary to express Scripture And if Scripture will but shew which of us is neerest the doctrine and practice of the Apostles then the controversie is ended or in a fair way to it For we provoke them to try the cause by Scripture and they deny it we profess it is the Rule and test of our Religion but they appeal to another Rule and test And thus you may see which is the old Religion which will be somewhat fullyer cleared in that which followeth II. And that our Church and Religion hath been continued from the dayes of Christ till now we prove thus 1. From the promise of Christ which cannot be broken Christ hath promised in his word that that Church and Religion which is most conform to the Scripture shall continue to the end But our Church and Religion is most conform to the Scripture therefore Christ hath promised that it shall continue to the end 2. From the event The Christian Religion and Catholick Church hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now But ours is the Christian Religion and Catholick Church therefore ours hath continued from the dayes of Christ till now The Major they will grant the Minor is proved by parts thus 1. That Religion which hath all the Essentials of Christianity and doth not deny or destroy any Essential part of it is the Christian Religion but such is ours therefore c. 2. That Religion which the Apostles were of is the Christian Religion But ours is the same that the Apostles were of therefore c. 3. That Religion which is neerer the Scripture then the Romish Religion is certainly the Christian Religion But so is ours therefore c. 4. They that believe not only all that in particular that is contained in the Ancient Creeds of the Church but also in generall all that is besides in the holy Scripture are of the Christian Religion But thus do the Reformed Churches believe c. 2. And for our Church 1. They that are of that one holy Catholick Church whereof Christ is the head and all true Christians are members are of the true Church For there is but one Catholick Church But so are we therefore c. 2. They that are Sanctified Justified have the love of God in them are members of the true Catholick Church But such are all that are sincere
Professors of our Religion therefore c. But all this will not serve them without a Catalogue and telling them where our Church was before Luther To this we further answer we have no peculiar Catholick Church of our own for there is but one and that is our Church Wherever the Christian Church was there was our Church And where-ever any Christians were congregate for Gods worship there were Churches of the same sort as our particular Churches And wherever Christianity was there our Religion was For we know no Religion but Christianity And would you have us give you a Catalogue of all the Christians in the world since Christ Or would you have us as vain as H. T. in his Manuall that names you some Popes and about twenty professors of their faith in each age as if twenty or thirty men were the Catholick Church Or as if those men were proved to be Papists by his naming them This is easie but silly disputing In a word Our Religion is Christianity 1. Christianity hath certain Essentials without which no man can be a Christian and it hath moreover many precious truths and duties necessary necessitate praecepti and also necessitate medii to the better being of a Christian Our being as Christians is in the former and our strength and increase and better-being is much in the latter From the former Religion and the Church is denominated Moreover 2. Our implicite and actuall explicite Belief as the Papists call them must be distinguished or our General and our particular Belief 3. And also the Positives of our Belief must be distinguished from the implyed Negatives and the express Articles themselves from their implyed Consectaries And now premising these three distinctions I shall tell you where our Church hath been in all Ages since the birth of Christ 1. In the dayes of Christ and his Apostles our Church was where they and all Christians were And our Religion was with them in all its parts both Essential and perfective That is we now Believe 1. All to be true that was delivered by the Apostles as from God with a General faith 2. We believe all the Essentials and as much more as we can understand with a Particular faith 3. But we cannot say that with such a particular faith we believe all that the Apostles believed or delivered for then we must say that we have the same degree of understanding as they and that we understand every word of the Scriptures 2. In the dayes of the A postles themselves the Consectaries and implied Verities and Rejections of all Heresies were not particularly and expresly delivered either in Scripture or Tradition as the Papists will confess 3. In the next ages after the Apostles our Church was the one Catholick Church containing all true Christians Headed by Jesus Christ and every such Christian too many to number was a member of it And for our Religion the Essential parts of it were contained both in the Holy Scriptures and in the Publick Professions Ordinances and Practices of the Church in those ages which you call Traditions and the rest of it even all the doctrines of faith and universal Laws of God which are its perfective parts they were fully contained in the holy Scriptures And some of our Rejections and Consectaries were then gathered and owned by the Church as Heresies occasioned the expressing of them and the rest were all implyed in the Apostolical Scripture doctrine which they preserved 4. By degrees many errors crept into the Church yet so that 1. Neither the Catholick Church nor one true Christian in sensu composito at least did reject any essential part of Christianity 2. And all parts of the Church were not alike corrupted with error but some more and some less 3. And still the whole Church held the holy Scripture it self and so had a perfect General or Implicite belief even while by evill consequences they oppugned many parts of their own profession 5. When in process of time by claiming the universall Soveraignty Rome had introduced a new pretended Catholick Church so far as their opinion took by superadding a New Head and form there was then a two fold Church in the West the Christian as Christian headed by Christ and the Papal as Papal Headed by the Pope yet so as they called it but one Church and by this usurped Monarchy as under Christ endeavoured to make but one of them by making both the Heads Essential when before one only was tolerable And if the Matter in any part may be the same and the same Man be a Christian and a Papist and so the same Assemblies yet still the forms are various and as Christians and part of the Catholick Church they are one thing and as Papists and members of the separating sect they are another thing Till this time there is no doubt of our Churches Visibility 6. In this time of the Romish Usurpation our Church was visible in three degrees in three severall sorts of persons 1. It was visible in the lowest degree among the Papists themselves not as Papists but as Christians For they never did to this day deny the Scriptures nor the Ancient Creeds nor Baptism the Lords Supper nor any of the substance of our Positive Articles of Religion They added a New Religion and Church of their own but still professed to hold all the old in consistency with it Wherever the truth of holy Scriptures and the ancient Creeds of the Church were professed there was our Religion before Luther But even among the Papists the holy Scriptures and the said Creeds were visibly professed therefore among them was our Religion And note here that Popery it self was not ripe for a corruption of the Christian faith professed till Luthers opposition heightned them For the Scripture was frequently before by Papists held to be a most sufficient Rule of faith as I shewed before from the Council of Basil and consequently Tradition was only pleaded as conservatory and expository of the Scripture but now the Council of Trent hath in a sort equalled them And this they were lately driven to when they found that out of Scripture they were unable to confute or suppress the truth 2. At the same time of the Churches oppression by the Papacy our Religion was visible and so our Church in a more illustrious sort among the Christians of the most of the world Greeks Ethiopians and the rest that never were subject to the usurpation of Rome but only many of them took him for the Patriarch primae sedis but not Episcopus Ecclesiae Catholicae or the Governour of the Universall Church So that here was a visibility of our Church doubly more eminent then among the Romanists 1. In that it was the far greatest part of the Catholick Church that thus held our Religion to whom the Papists were then but few 2. In that they did not only hold the same Positive Articles of faith with us but also among their Rejections
not the subject of the Pope as universal Monarch Nor can any other be saved as being without the Church 3. And that the Church of Rome is by Gods appointment the Mistris of all other Churches 4. And that the Pope of Rome is Infallible 5. That we cannot believe the Scriptures to be the word of God or the Christian doctrine to be true but upon the Authoritative Tradition of the Roman Church and upon the knowledge or belief of their Infallibility that is we must believe in the Pope as Infallible before we can believe in Christ who is pretended to give him that infallibility 6. That no Scripture is by any man to be interpreted but according to the sence of the Pope or Roman Church and the unanimous consent of the Fathers 7. That a General Council approved by the Pope cannot err but a General Council not approved by the Pope may err 8. That nothing is to us an Article of faith till it be declared by the Pope or a General Council though it was long before declared by Christ or his Apostles as plain as they can speak 9. That a General Council hath no more validity then the Pope giveth it 10. That no Pastor hath a valid Ordination unless it be derived from the Pope 11. That there are Articles of faith of Necessity to our Salvation which are not contained in the Holy Scriptures nor can be proved by them 12. That such Traditions are to be received with equal pious affection and reverence as the holy Scriptures 13. That Images have equal honour with the Holy Gospel 14. That the Clergy of the Catholick Church ought to swear obedience to the Pope as Christs Vicar 15. That the Pope should be a temporal Prince 16. That the Pope and his Clergy ought to be exempted from the Government of Princes and Princes ought not to judge and punish the Clergy till the Pope deliver them to their power having degraded them 17. That the Pope may dispossess Princes of their Dominions and give them to others if those Princes be such as he judgeth hereticks or will not exterminate Hereticks 18. That in such cases the Pope may discharge all the subjects from their allegiance and fidelity 19. That the Pope in his own Territories and Princes in theirs must burn or otherwise put to death all that deny Transubstantiation the Popes Soveraignty or such doctrines as are afore expressed when the Pope hath sentenced them 20. That the people should ordinarily be forbidden to read the Scripture in a known tongue except some few that have a license from the ordinary 21. That publick Prayers Prayses and other publick worship of God should be performed constantly in a language not understood by the People or only in Latine Greek or Hebrew 22. That the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist is Transubtantiate into the very body and blood of Christ so that it is no more true Bread or Wine though our eyes tast and feeling tell us that it is 23. That the consecrated host is to be worshipped with Divine worship and called our Lord God 24. That the Pope may oblige the people to receive the Eucharist only in one kind and forbid them the Cup. 25. That the sins called venial by the Papists are properly no sins and deserve no more but temporal punishment 26. That we may be perfect in this life by this double perfection 1. To have no sin but to keep all Gods Law perfectly 2. To supererogate by doing more then is our Duty 27. That our works properly merit salvation of God by way of Commutative Justice or by the Condignity of the works as proportioned to the Reward 28. That Priests should generally be fordidden Marriage 29. That there is a fire called Purgatory where souls are tormented and where sin is pardoned in another world 30. That in Baptism there is an implicite vow of obedience to the Pope of Rome 31. That God is ordinarily to be worshipped by the Oblation of a true proper propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead where the Priest only shall eat and drink the body and blood of Christ while the Congregation look on and partake not 32. That the Canon of Scripture is the same that is declared by the Council of Trent I will pass by abundance more to avoid tediousness And I will not stay to enquire which of these are proper to the Papists But I am resolved so to receive many of them as they can prove a Catholick succession of that is that they were in all ages the Doctrine of the Universal Church And I crave the charity of such a proof from some Papist or other if they have any charity in them and that they will no longer keep universal Tradition in their purses And I would desire H. T. to revise his Catalogue and instead of twenty or thirty dead and silent names that signifie no more then Blanks or Cyphers he would prove that both those persons and the Catholick Church did in every age hold these thirty two forementioned doctrines And when hath done then let him boast of his Catalogue Till they will perform this task let them never more for shame call to us for Catalogues or proof of succession But if they are so unkind that they will not give us any proof of such a Catholick succession of Popery we shall be ready to supererogate and give them full proof of the Negative That there hath been no such succession of these thirty two points as soon as we can perceive that they will ingeniously entertain it though indeed it hath been often done already But certainly it belongeth to them that superinduce more Articles of Faith to prove the continuation of their own Articles through all ages of which anon Well! but one of these Articles at least the Popes Soveraignty H. T. will prove successively if you will be credulous enough In the first age he proves it from Peters words Act. 15. 7 8 9 10. God chose Peter to convert Cornelius and his company therefore the Pope is the Universall Monarch Are you not all convinced by this admirable argument But he forgot that Bellarmine Ragusius in Concil Basil and others of them say that no Article can be proved from Scripture but from the proper literall sence To say somewhat more he unseasonably talks of the Council of Sardis and Calcedon an 400. 451. lest the first age have but a blank page In the second age he hath nothing but the names of a few that never dreamt of Popery and a Canon which you must believe was the Apostles that Priests must communicate Of which we are well content In the third Age he nameth fifteen Bishops of Rome of whom the last was deposed for offering incense to Saturn Jupiter c. But not a syllable to prove that one of these Bishops was the universal Monarch Much less that the Catholick Church was for such Monarchy But to excuse the matter he tells you that
the second and third Age produced no Councils the greater deceivers then are the Papists that have found us Councils then and so you have no Catholick succession proved Yea but he saith they have successions of Popes Martyrs and Confessors which is sufficient for their purposes See the strength of Popery Any thing is sufficient for your purposes it seems Rome had Bishops therefore they were the Universal Rulers of the Church A strong consequence Rome had Martyrs and Confessors therefore it was the Mistris of all Churches Who can resist these arguments But why did you not prove that your Confessors and Martyrs suffered for attesting the Popes Soveraignty If they suffered but for Christianity that will prove them but Christians and not Papists Thus you see to the confusion of the Papists that they have nothing to shew for the succession or antiquity of Popery for the three first Ages Yea worse then nothing For here he comes in with some of the Decretals forsooth of some of their Bishops Decretals unknown till a while ago in the world brought out by Isidore Mercator but with so little cunning as left them naked to the shame of the world the falshood of them being out of themselves fully proved by Blondell Reignolds and many more and confessed by some of themselves Here you see the first foundation of Papal succession even a bundle of fictions lately fetcht from whence they please to cheat the ignorant part of the world But in the fourth and fifth ages H. T. doth make us amends for his want of proof from the three first But suppose he do what 's that to a succession while the three first ages are strangers to Popery Well! but lets hear what he hath at last His first proof after a few silent names is from the Council of Nice And what saith that why 1. It defined that the Son of God is consubstantiall to his Father and true God And what 's that to Popery 2 But it defined the Popes Soveraignty But how prove you that Why it is in the thirty ninth Arab. Canon O what Consciences have those men that dare thus abuse and cheat the ignorant As if the Canons of the first General Council had never been known to the world till the other day that Alphonsus Pisanus a Jesuite publisheth them out of Pope Julius and I know not what Arabick book These men that can make both Councils and Canons at their pleasure above a thousand years after the supposed time of their existence do never need to want authority And indeed this is a cheaper way of Canon-making in a corner then to trouble all the Bishops in the world with a great deal of cost and travail to make them But if this be the foundation the building is answerable Their Bishop Zosimus had not been acquainted with these new Articles of an old Council when he put his trick upon the sixth Council of Carthage where for the advancement of his power though not to an universall Monarchy yet to a preparative degree he layeth his claim from the Council of Nice as saying Placuit ut si Episcopus accusatus fuerit c. which was that If an ejected Bishop appeal to Rome the Bishop of Rome appoint some of the next province to judge or if yet he destre his cause to be heard the Bishop of Rome shall appoint a Presbyter his Legate c. In this Council were 217. Bishops Aurelius being president and Augustine being one They told the Pope that they would yield to him till the true copies of the Council of Nice were searched for those that they had seen had none of them those words in that Zosimus alledged Hereupon they send abroad to the Churches of the East to Constantinople Alexandria Antioch c. for the ancient Canons From hence they received several copies which all agreed but none of them had either Zosimus forgery in nor the forged clause which Bellarmine must have in much less the eighty Canons of Pisanus the Jesuite or this one which H. T. doth found his succession on but only the twenty Canons there mentioned which have not a word for the Popes Soveraignty And here note 1. That Zosimus knew not then of Pisanus Canons or else he would have alledged them nor yet of Bellarmines new part of a Canon for the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome 2. That Zosimus himself had not the faith the wit or the memory to plead either Scripture Apostolical Institution or Tradition for his priviledge but only a false Canon of the Council of Nice as looking no higher it seems for his authority 3. How early the Roman Bishops begun both to aspire and make use of forgeries to accomplish it 4. That there was no such Apostolick or Church Tradition for this Roman power as our Masters of Tradition now plead for which all the Catholick Church must know For the whole Council with all the Churches of Constantinople Alexandria Antioch c. that is in a manner all save Rome were ignorant of that which Zosimus would have had them believe and Bellarmine and H. T. would have us to believe 5. Note also how little the Church then believed the Popes infallibility 6. Yea Note how upon the reception of the several Copies of the Nicene Canons they modestly convicted Zosimus of falshood And how the Council resolved against his usurpation See in the African Councils the Epistle of Cyril and Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople and the Epistles of the Council to Boniface and Celestine In their Epistle to Boniface before they had received their answers from other Churches about the Nicene Canons they tell him that they believed they should not suffer that Arrogancy non sumus istum typhum passuri But to Celestine they conclude more plainly though modestly Presbyterorum quoque sequentium c. i. e. Let your holiness as beseemeth you repell the wicked refuges of Presbyters and the Clergy that follow them because this is not derogate or taken from the African Church by any Definition of the Fathers and the Nicene Decrees most plainly committed both the inferiour Clergy and Bishops themselves to the Metropolitans For they did most prudently and most justly provide that all businesses N. B. all should be ended in the very places where they begun and the Grace of the holy Ghost will not or should not be wanting to each province which equity should by the Priests of Christ be prudently observed and most constantly maintained Especially because it is granted to every one to appeal to the Councils of their own Province or to a Universall Council if he be offended with the judgement of the Cognitors Unless there should be any one that can think that our God can inspire a justice of tryall into any one man N. B. and deny it to innumerable Priests that are congregated in Councill Or how can that judgement that 's past beyond sea be valid to which the necessary persons of the witness
a Catholick Christian Communion in several Assemblies under several Pastors acknowledging each other the true Churches of Christ and joining in Synods when there is need or at least giving each other as Christian Brethren the right hand of Fellowship 3. If that may not be attained the next Degree desirable is That we may take one another for Christians and Churches of Christ though under such corruptions as we think we are bound to disown by denying the present exercise of Communion as we do with particular Offendors whom we only suspend but not condemn 4. If this much may not be had but we will needs excommunicate each other absolutely the next degree of Peace desirable is That we may at least so far regard the common truths that we are agreed upon and the souls of the people as to consult on certain terms on which we may most peacably mannage our differences with the least hatred and violence and disturbance of the Peace of Christendom and with the least impediment to the generall success of those common truths that we are all agreed in 5. If this may not be attained the lowest Degree desirable is That at least we may take each other for more tolerable adversaries then Mahometans and Infidels are and therefore may make a common Agreement to cease our wars and blood-shed and turn all our Arms against the great and common enemy of the Christian name Were it not for the Devill and wicked minds all these might be attained but if men be not themselves incarnate Devils we may expect the last And understand that the terms of the lowest Degrees are all implyed in the Higher And now for the Highest and most desirable Degree of Peace viz. That we may meet in the same Assemblies under the same Pastors there is so little probability that ever it should be accomplished and withall the various apprehensions of Christians doth make it so necessary to bear with one another in this that I shall say but little of it as knowing that I am like to lose my labor Only this much concerning the terms If you will impose no more in point of Belief as necessary to Salvation but what is contained in the holy Scriptures yea and in the three Creeds and four first General Councils and will leave the Pastors of the particular Churches to worship God according to the Rule of the holy Scriptures prudentially themselves determining of meer Cireumstances left to their determination according to the general Rules of Order Decency and Edification and bearing with a difference herein according to the different state of the Churches or judgement of the Pastors this is the only probable way to bring us to this highest degree of Peace Though according to this course men should be left to some liberty to joyn with what particular Congregation they see best and so would most commonly joyn with those that are neerest to their own judgement yet the minds of most would be so mollified by mutual forbearance and by being satisfied in the way that is thus commonly agreed on that they would not scruple to joyn with one another in worship in the several Assemblies And here I shall further add that if these terms cannot be yielded to yet all that will yield to the terms of the next Degree of Peace may be admitted into our Assemblies though we cannot joyn with them in theirs For the Papists have much more in the manner of their worship to keep us back then we have in ours to keep them back For their errors lie in Excess and they suppose ours to lie but in Defect Now Conscience may well yield to perform one part of a duty when it cannot perform the rest But it can never yield to commit one actual sin by doing what is forbidden by God E. G. If the Papists think that we sinfully omit the Sacrament of extream unction they may nevertheless be present at the Sacrament of Baptism If they think we preach not all the truth that we ought they may nevertheless hear and receive that which we do preach But in their Assemblies we must do those positive actions which our Consciences tell us are sins against God And therefore unless they will yield as they will not to the above mentioned terms we cannot joyn in their Assemblies but upon the terms in the next Chapter we can admit them into ours But if the Churches have not a necessary Liberty in this they will never agree but be still breaking into pieces or persecuting one another to force men to joyn with such Assemblies as best please them that bear the Sword Though we readily grant that to hear and learn the principles of Religion and submit to the state and duty of Catechumens men may with less inconvenience be forced and ordinarily should so be CHAP. LII THe second Degree of Peace desirable below the former is That if we cannot live under the same particular Pastors and joyn in the same Assemblies yet we may hold a distant Catholick Communion in several Assemblies without condemning or persecuting one another and may afford the special Love of Christians to each other This will not be done as long as we take each other for Hereticks and therefore the causes of those censures must be removed partly by a neerer agreement in our Principles and partly by a greater Moderation in our Censures of one another And this a man would think among Christians might be obtained The terms on which it must be had are these Suffer us to confine our selves in Worship and Church-government to the Word of God and the Determination of our particular Churches or Pastors about meer Circumstantials left to their determination and do you confine your selves accordingly or not extending your practise beyond the Canons of the four first General Councils and the rest called Canones Ecclesiae Universalis published by Justellus Tillius or the Codex Dionysii Exigui and for matters of Faith we will all profess to receive the Scripture and what ever is contained in the said Councils and the three Creeds and to insist upon no more as necessary And on these terms we may live in Love as Brethren Here note 1. That in matter of Faith we will not be bound to take more then is in the Scripture and yet we will take all as aforesaid that is in the Creeds because we are perswaded that there is no more then is in the Scripture 2. We will not tie each other to profess on what Grounds we receive the Doctrine of these Creeds and Councils If you receive it as Tradition superadded to Scripture and if we receive it as being the same with Scripture Doctrine or a meet Exposition of it we will leave each other in this without examination to their liberty as long as it is the same things that we believe 3. In matters of Worship and Government we may not be compelled to take in all that is in all these Councils but only
to know the right Pope nor know him not to this day If England were fourty years thus divided between two Kings it were certainly two Kingdoms But the true Catholike Church of Christ is but one CHAP. VIII Argum. 6. THE true Catholike Church hath never ceased or discontinued since the founding of it to this day The Church of Rome hath ceased or discontinued therefore the Church of Rome is not the true Catholike Church I prove the Minor for the Major they will grant If the Head which is an Essential part hath discontinued then the Church of Rome hath discontinued But the Head hath discontinued therefore c. The Minor only needs proof and that I prove 1. There have been many years interregnum or vacancy when there was no Pope at all And where then was the Church when it had no Head 2. There have been long successions of such as you confess your selves were not Apostolical but Apostatical 3. Your own Popes and Councils command us to take such for no Popes For example Pope Nicolas in his Decretals see Caranza pag. 393. 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 Cardinall and the following religious Clergy let him not be taken for a Pope nor Apostolical but for Apostatical And even of Priests he commandeth Let no man hear Mass of a Priest whom he certaiâ—ly knoweth to have a Concubine or woman introduced Caranza pag. 395. and ibid. he saith Priests that commit fornication cannot have the honour of Priesthood 4. But our greater Argument is from the authority of God and the very nature of the office An infidel or notoriously ungodly man is not capable of being a Pastor of the Church in sensu composito while he is such But the Popes of Rome have been Infidels and notoriously ungodly men therefore they were uncapable of being Pastors of the Church and consequently that Church was Headless and so no Church The Major I prove 1. Where there is not the necessary matter and disposition of the matter there can be no reception of the form But Infidels and notoriously ungodly men are not matter sufficiently disposed to receive the form of Pastoral Power therefore they cannot receive it The Minor is proved 1. As every true Church is a Christian Church it being only a Congregation of Christians that we so call in our present case so every Pastor is a Christian Pastor but an Infidel or notoriously ungodly man is not a Christian Pastor therefore not a true Pastor 2. Otherwise a Mahometan Jew or Heathen may be a true Pope which I think they will deny themselves 3. If any Disposition or Qualification at all be necessary to the being of the Pastoral Office besides manhood then is it necessary that he own God the Father and the Redeemer that is be not notoriously an Infidel or ungodly But some qualification is necessary therefore c. None can be named more necessary then this And that Popes have been such as I here mention is proved before Not to mention Marcellinus that sacrificed to an Idol or Liberius that subscribed to the Arrian profession for I believe there is an hundred times more hope of their Salvation by Repentance then of an hundred of their Successors John the twenty second held that the soul dies with the body of which the Parisians and others condemned him John the twenty third as I shewed before denyed the life to come and so was an Infidel The Witchcraft Poysonings Simony Sodomy Adulteries Incest c. of others are sufficiently recorded by their own Historians CHAP. IX Argum. 7. TO the foregoing Arguments I add the recital of one formerly mentioned for the use of all that have the use of their wits and senses If a man may be sure that he knows bread to be bread and wine to be wine when he seeth feeleth and tasteth them then he may be sure that Popery is a deceit This Consequence they cannot question But a man may be sure that he knoweth bread to be bread and wine to be wine when he seeth feeleth and tasteth them therefore c. Note that I speak of such a knowledge as belongs to men of sound wits and senses and a convenient object and medium It is the senses of the whole world that I appeal to and not of one or two it is bread and wine that are near us in the hand or mouth that I speak of and not at a miles distance in the day-light and not in the dark So that take the bread and wine into your hand and judge of it and let this decide our Controversie If you can tell whether that be bread or no bread you may tell whether the Papists or we are in the right Those therefore that be not learned and subtile enough to judge by Disputations and writings of Learned men may yet judge by their sight and feeling Either you know bread and wine when you see it taste it feel it or you do not If you do then the Controversie is at an end for the senses of all sound men in the world will be against the Papists that say the bread after Consecration is no bread and the wine is no wine But if you cannot know bread when you see feel and eat it then see what follows 1. Then we are sure that the Pope and all his Council are not at all to be trusted for if sence be not to be trusted then the Pope and his Council know not when they read the Scripture and Canons and Fathers and hear Traditions but that they are deceived 2. Then we are uncertain of any Judgement that Pope or Council can give for when they spoke or wrote it we are uncertain whether our eyes and ears or reason judging by them are not deceived in the hearing or reading of their words 3. How ridiculously then do they call for a Judge of Controversies and what a foolish quarrel is it that they make who shall be the Interpreter of Scriptures or Judge of Controversies For what can a Judge do but speak or write his mind and when he hath done you know not what it is that you hear or read because your senses may deceive you It s a far harder matter to understand a sentence or book of the Pope or Council when you read or hear it then to know bread when you see and feel and eat it Many thousands know bread that know not the Popes sentence nor a word of a book 4. And by this rule it is uncertain whether Scripture be true or Christianity the true Religion For we cannot know it but by our sences and if they are so uncertain all our Religion must needs be uncertain 5. Yea we cannot tell what Revelation to desire that should end our Controversies and make us certain For if God should send an Angel or other Messenger from heaven to decide
and what was the doctrine and practice of the Christians in their times and what Books they made the ground of their faith so that as true Universal impartial naturally-or-rationally-infallible History or Testimony differeth from a private pretended-prophetical assertion or from the Testimony of one party only so doth our Tradition excell both the sorts of Popish Tradition both that of the Papal and that of the Councill party And now judge who may better boast of or extol Tradition they or we and to what purpose Cressy White and such men do bring their discourses of Tradition 2. But yet we have not so done with them till Tradition have given them their mortal stroak You appeal to Tradition to Tradition you shall go But what Tradition mean you The Tradition of the Catholick Church And where is this to be found and known but in the profession and practice of the Church and in the Records of the Church Well then of both these let us enquire The first and great Question between you and us is Whether the Pope be the Head and Soveraign Ruler of the whole Catholick Church and then whether the Catholick Church and the Roman are of equal extent What saith Tradition to this 1. Let us enquire of the present Church and there we have the profession and practice of all the Greek Church the Syrians the Moscovites the Georgians and all others of the Greek Religion dispersed throughout the Turks Dominions with the Jacobites Armenians Egyptians Abassines with all other Churches in Europe c. that disclaim the Headship of the Roman Pope all these do with one mouth proclaim that the Church of Rome is not and ought not to be the Mistriss of the world or of all other Churches but that the Pope for laying such a claim is an usurper if not the AntiChrist This is the Tradition of the Greeks this is the Tradition of the Abassines the far greatest part of the Church on earth agree in this Mark then what is become of the Roman Soveraignty by the verdict of Tradition even from the vote of the greatest part of the Church Rome hath no right to its pretended Soveraignty Babylon is faln by the judgement of Tradition If you have the faces again to say that all these are Hereticks or Schismaticks and therefore have no vote we answer If a minor party and that so partial and corrupt seeking Dominion over the rest may step into the Tribunal and pass sentence against the Catholick Church or the greatest part of it blame not others if on far better grounds they do so by that part And for shame do not any more hereafter use any such self-condemning words as to ask any Sect How dare you condemn the Catholick Church Do you think all the Church is forsaken but you c And let us ask you as you teach your followers to ask us If we must turn from the Universal Church to any Sect why rather to yours then another why not as well to the Anabaptists or other party as to the Papists But your common saying is that the Greeks Protestants and all the rest were once of your Church and departing from it they can have no Tradition but yours for their spring is with you To which we answer 1. The vanity of this your fiction shall by and by be answered by it self 2. You say so and they say otherwise why should we believe you that are a smaller partial and corrupted part 3. Well then let us go to former ages seeing it is not the present Church whose voice you will regard only by the way I pray forget not 1. That you do ill then to call us still to the Judgement of the present Church and dare not stand to it 2. And that you do ill to perswade men that the greater part of the Church cannot err if you sentence the greater part as Schismaticks or Revolters But how shall we know the way and mind of the ages past If by the present age then the greater part giveth us in their sence against you If by the Records of those times we are content to hear the Testimony of these And first when we look into the Antients themselves we find them generally against you and we find in that which is antiquity indeed no footsteps of your usurped Soveraignty but a contrary frame of Government and a consent of antiquity against it 2. When we look into later History we find how by the advantage of Romes temporal greatness and the Emperors residence there your greatness begun and preparation was made to your usurpation and how the translation of the Imperial Seat to Constantinople made them your Competitors yea to begin in the claim of an universal Headship and we find how it being once made a question you got it by a murdering Emperor resolved on your side for his own advantage We find that it was long even till Hildebrands dayes before you could get any great possession for all this sentence It would but be tedious here to recite our Historical Evidence we refer you to what is done already by Goldastus and Bishop Usher de statu success Ecclesiar and in his Answer to the Jesuits Challeng and in his Discourse of the Antient Religion of Ireland c. specially by Blondel in his French Treatise of Primacy and Dr. Field and many others that have already given you the testimony of Antiquity More then you can give a reasonable answer to I have produced in my Book called the safe Religion In plain English instead of Apostolical Tradition for your Soveraignty we find that eight hundred years after the dayes of Christ you had not neer so much of the Catholick Church in your subjection as you have now that at four hundred or five hundred if not till six hundred years after Christ you had no known part of the world that acknowledged your universal Soveraignty but only the Latine Western Church submitted to the Pope as their Patriarch and the Patriarch primae sedis the first in order among the Patriarchs and that before the dayes of Constantine and the Nicene Council he was but a Bishop of the richest and most numerous Church of Christians and we see no proof that of an hundred years after Christ he was any more then the chief Presbyter of a particular Church If all this will not serve we have National Evidences beyond all exception that the Ethiopian Churches of Habassia the Indians Persians c. were never your subjects to this day That England Scotland and Ireland here in your Western Circuits were not only long from under you but resisted you maintaining the Council of Calcedon against you and joyning with the Eastern Churches against you about Easter day c. And that the Eastern Churches and many great Nations as Tendue Nubia c. that now are revolted were never your subjects and some of them had little to do with you And yet if all this will not serve
whether you believe that the Oral Tradition of all the Church did preserve the Knowledge of Augustines Epiphanius Chrysostomes c. doctrine so much as their writings do Is the doctrine of Aquinas Scotus Gabriel c. yea the Council of Trent preserved now more certainly in mens memories then in writing If so they have better memories then mine that keep them and they have better hap then I that light of such keepers For I can scarce tell how to deliver my mind so in any difficult point but one or other is misunderstanding and misreporting it and by leaving out or changing a word perhaps make it another matter so that I am forced to refer them to my writings and yet there by neglect they misinterpret me till I open the book it self to them 6. Either the Fathers of the fifth age are intelligible in their writings or not If they be then we may understand them I hope with industry If they be not then 1. Much less were their transient speeches intelligible 2. And then the writings of the sixth age be not intelligible nor of any other and so we cannot understand the Council of Trent as the Papists do not that controvert its sense voluminously nor can we know the Churches judgement 7. By your leave the Roman Corrupters take on them so much Power to make new Laws and new Articles of Faith quoad nos by definitions and to dispense with former Laws that unless they are all Knights of the Post they can never swear that they had all that they have from their Fore-fathers 8. Well! but all this is the least part of my answer But I grant you that the sixth age understood and retained the doctrine of the fifth age and have delivered it to us But that there were no Hereticks or corrupters you will not say your selves Well then the far greatest part of the Catholick Church did not only receive from the fifth age the same Christian Religion but also kept themselves from the grossest corruptions of the Pope and his flatterers that were then but a small part And thus we stick to the Catholick Church succeeding to this day and you to an usurper that then was newly set on the Throne of universal Soveraignty So that your chief Argument treadeth Popery in the dirt because the greater part of the Catholick Church not only in the fifth and sixth age but in the seventh eighth nineth tenth thirteenth fourteenth fifteenth and sixteenth ages have been aliens or enemies to the Roman universal Monarchy therefore if one age of the Church knew the mind of the former age better then the Pope did we may be sure that the Pope is an usurper The third Argument of H. T. is that the Fathers of the first five hundred years taught their tenets therefore its impossible they should be for the Protestants Answ 1. Protestants are Christians taking the Holy Scriptures for the Rule of their faith If the Fathers were Christians they were for the Protestants but its certain they were Christians If you could prove that they were for some of your mistakes that would not prove them against the Protestants in the doctrine of Christianity and the holy Scriptures and so that we are not their Successors in Christianity and of the same Church which was it that you should have proved but forgot the question And of this we shall speak to you more anon Well! by this time I have sufficiently shewed the succession of our Church and continuation of our Religion from the Apostles and where it was before Luther and given you the Catholick Church instead of a dozen or twenty names in each age which it seems will satisfie a Papist but yet we have not done with them but require this following Justice at their hands Seeing the Papists do so importunately call to us for Catalogues and proof of our succession Reason and Justice requireth that they first give us a Catalogue of Papists in all ages and prove the succession of their Roman Catholick Church which they can never do while they are men And here I must take notice of the delusory ridiculous Catalogue wherewith H. T. begins his Manual His Argument runs thus That is the only true Church of God which hath had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this day very true But the Church now in Communion with the Sea of Rome and no other hath had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time therefore c. For the proof of the Minor he giveth us a Catalogue And here note the misery of poor souls that depend on these men that are deluded with such stuff that one would think they should be ashamed the world should see from them 1. What if his Catalogue were true and proved would it prove the Exclusion that no other Church had a succession Doth it prove that Constantinople or Alexandria had no such succession because the Romanists had it where is there ever a word here under this Argument to prove that exclusive part of his Minor 2. And note how he puts that for the Question that is not the Question between us A fair beginning The Question is not about Churches in Communion with you but about Churches in subjection to you But this is but a pious fraud to save men by decieving them The Ancient Church of Rome had the Church of Hierusalem Corinth Philippi Ephesus and many a hundred Churches in Communion with her that never were in subjection to her 3. And if the Papists can but prove themselves true Christians I will quickly prove that the Protestants are in Communion with them still as Christians by the same Head Christ the same spirit baptism faith love hope c. though not as Papists by subjection to the same usurper 4. Our question is of the Universal Church And this man nameth us twenty or thirty men in an age that he saith were professors of their Religion And doth he believe in good sadness that twenty or thirty men are either the universall Church or a sufficient proof that it was of their mind 5. But principally did this man think that all or any besides their subjects had their wits so far to seek as to believe that the persons named in his Catalogue were Papists without any proof in the world but meerly because they are listed here by H. T Or might he not to as good purpose have saved his labour and said nothing of them 6 But what need we go any further we will begin with him at lis first Century and so to the second and if he can prove that Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary or John Baptist or the Apostles or any one of the rest that he hath named were Papists much more all of them I am resolved presently to turn Papist But unless the man intended to provoke his reader to an unreverent laughter about this abuse of holy things one would think he should not have named
of any Father whereby it may appear that any account at all was made of it Where he citeth the full express words of the Fathers of those first ages against praying to Saints as Origen in Jus. Hom. 16. And in Rom. lib. 2. cap. 2. And Contr. Celsum lib. 8. page 432 433 406 411 412. lib. 5. pag. 239. Tertullian Apol. cap. 30. Tertullian and Cyprian of Prayer Athanasius Orat. 4. Cont. Arrium pag. 259 260. Eccles Smyrn apud Euseb Hist lib. 4. c. I am loth to recite what is there already given you 3. And when Prayer to the dead did come in how exceedingly it differed from the Romish Prayers to the dead I pray you read there in the same Author 4. And also of those Adorations and Devotions offered by the Papists to the Virgin Mary I desire you to read in the same Author and Place enough to make a Christian tremble and which for my part I am not able to excuse from horrid Blasphemy or Idolatry though I am willing to put the best interpretation on their words that reason will allow 5. The Reason why in the old Testament men were not wont to pray to Saints Bellarmine saith was because then they did not enter into heaven nor see God Bellar. de sanct Beat. li. 2. cap. 19. So Suarez in the third part Tom. 2. disp 42. Sect. 1. But abundance of the chief Doctors of the Church for divers Ages were of opinion that the Saints are not admitted into Heaven to the clear sight of God before the day of Judgement as most of the Eastern Churches do to this day therefore they could not be for the Popish Prayer to Saints And here again observe that men may be of the same faith and Church with us that differ and err in as great a matter as this The Council of Florence hath now defined it that departed souls are admitted into Heaven to the clear sight of God And yet Stapleton and Francis Pegna à Castro Medina Sotus affirm that Irenaeus Justin Martyr Tertullian Clemens Romanus Origen Ambrose Chrysostome Austin Lactantius Victorinus Prudentius Theodoret Aretas Oecumenius Theophilact Euthymius yea and Bernard have delivered the contrary sentence See Staplet Defens Eccles author cont Whitak lib. 1. cap. 2. with Fran. Pegna in part 2. Director Inquisitor com 21. Now as all these must needs be against the Popish Invocation of Saints so they were against that which is now determined to be de fide Whence I gather on the by 1. That the Romish faith increaseth and is not the same as heretofore 2. That they had not this Article by Tradition from any of these Fathers or from the Apostles by them unless from the Scriptures 3. That men that err in such points as are now defined by Councils to be de fide are yet accounted by Papists to be of their Church and faith And therefore they may be of ours notwithstanding such errours as this in hand 4. And note also by this tast whether the Papists be not a perjured generation that swear not to expound Scripture but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers 6. The Council of Laodicea condemned them as Idolaters that prayed to Angels Can. 35. which Caranza Crab and other Papists have turned into Angulos whose falsification you may see fully detected by the said Bishop Usher ibid. pag. 470. 471 472. Read there also the full Testimonies of Greg. Nissen Athanasius Epiphanius c. against praying to Saints and Angels and the detection of Bellarmines fraud that pretendeth the Fathers to speak of the Gentiles Idolatry when they mention the Virgin Mary and the Saints and say expresly they were not to be adored But for all this H. T. Manual page 291 c. hath Fathers for this Adoration of Angels and Saints And who are they The first is Dionysius to which I answer 1. There is never a such a word in the place cited in Dionysius in the Book that I have at hand printed Lugdun 1572. 2. We are for praying the Saints to pray for us too that is those on earth And the words cited by him mention not the Saints in heaven 3. That Dionysius is not Dionysius but a spurious Apochryphal Book Not once known and mentioned in the world till Gregory the greats dayes six hundred years after Christ as Bellarmine himself saith Lib. de Scriptor Eccles de Dionys And lib. 2. de Monach. cap. 5. The second is Clem. Apostol Constit 5. Answ 1. The words speak only of honouring the Martyrs which is our unquestioned duty but not of Praying to them 2. It s an Apochryphal forgery and neither the Apostles nor Clements Work which he citeth but any thing will serve these men Let him believe Bellarmine de scriptor Eccles pag. 38 39. where he proveth it and saith that in the Latine Church these Constitutions are of almost no account and the Greeks themselves Canon 2. Trul. reject them as depraved by Hereticks and that the receiving of them is it that misleadeth the Aethiopians See more against them in Cooks Censurâ pag. 17 18 19. and Rivets Crit. Sac. Dalaeus in Pseudepigrap The third Testimony of H. T. is from Justins second Apol. Answ It is not Praying to Angels that Justin seemeth to intend but giving them due honour which we allow of His intent is to stop the mouths of Heathens that called the Christians impious for renouncing their Gods To whom he replyeth that we yet honour the true God and his Angels c. His Testimony for the third age is only Origen and yet none of Origen First in his Lament Answ 1. Origen there mentioneth the Saints but not the dead Saints It may be all the Saints in the Church on earth whose prayers he desireth 2. If this satisfie you not at least be satisfied with this that you cite a forgery that is none of Origens works Not only Erasmus saith that This Lamentation was neither written by Origen nor translated by Hierom but is the fiction of some unlearned man that by this trick devised to defame Origen But Baronius Annal. Tit. 2. ad an 253. p. 477. witnesseth that Pope Gelasius numbers it with the Apocryphals But H. T. hath a second testimony from Origen in Cantic Hom. 3. Answ 1. That speaks of the Saints prayer for us but not of our prayers to them one word which is the thing in question 2. But Erasmus and others have shewed that neither is this any of Origens works Sixtus Senensis saith that some old Books put Hieroms name to it And Lombard and Aquinas cite passages out of it as Ambroses You see now what Testimonies H. T. hath produced for the first three Ages even till above four hundred years after Christ And yet no doubt but this is currant proof with the poor deluded Papists that read his Book 2. The next exception to be considered is Praying for the Dead which they say the ancient Church was for Answ 1. We are for
the fact without the Scripture The Scripture is sufficient to its own use to be Rule of Obedience and Judgement but it is not sufficient to every other use which it was never made for The Law said to Cain Thou shalt not murder But it said not to him Thou hast killed thy brother therefore thou shalt die It was the Judges part to deliver this 3. By this trick they would give a man leave to vent any Blasphemy or do any villany changing but the name But they shall find that the Law intended not bare words but by words to signifie things And if they do the things prohibited or hold the opinions condemned what ever names or words they cloath them with they shall feel the punishment 4. By this they would leave almost nothing provable by the Scripture seeing a Papist or Heretick may put the same into other terms and then call for the Proof of that For example they may ask where God commandeth or instituteth any one of the Sacraments in Scripture And when we tell them where Baptism and the Lords Supper were instituted they may reply that there is no mention of Sacraments and so turn real Controversies into verbal 5. Yea it seems by this they would make all Translations to be of little use And a man might lawfully sin in English because God for bad it only in Hebrew and Greek 6. If this be the way of it let us remember that they must in Reason stand to their own Rules Let them tell us then what Scripture saith that Peter was the Vicar of Christ or the Head of the Catholick Church or the Bishop of Rome or that the Pope is his Successor or that the Pope is the Vice-christ or Universal Bishop Where is there express Scripture for any of this Yea so much as Bellarmines Literal sense 7. And why do not these blind and partial men see that the same course also must be taken with their own Laws And that all their Decretals and Canons are insufficient according to these Rules It 's easie for any Heretick to form up his Error into other words then those condemned by Pope or Council And if you go again to the Pope and get him to condemn those new expressions the men in Mexico may use them long to the detriment of the souls of men before the damnatory sentence be brought to them And when it comes they can again word their Heresie anew The Jansenists in France shew how well the Popes decision of wordy Controversies is understood and doth avail But really if they will hold that no part of the Popes Laws oblige but in the literal sense or that none offend that violate not the Letter they will make a great alteration in their affairs And perphaps any of their subjects may Blaspheme the Pope himself in French Dutch Irish English Slavonian c. because he forbids it only in Latine For if Translations be not Gods Word then they are not the Popes word neither A pretty crochet for a Jesuite It is mendacium and not a Lye that the Pope forbids It is said that a Traytor or Murderer may be hang'd but it is not said that such or such a man shall be hang'd or that he was a traytor or murderer Their common instance is The Scripture no where calls it self the whole word of God nor no where tells us which be Canonical Books c. and yet these are Articles of Faith Answ 1. The Scripture doth call it self the Word of God and signifie its own sufficiency and several Books have particular testimonies to be Canonical 2. Though secondarily so far as Scripture affirmeth its own Divinity it be to be beleived yet Primarily that this is Gods Word and that these are the Books and that they are not corrupted and that they are all c. are points of knowledge antecedent in order of nature to Divine Belief of them There are two great Foundations antecedent to the Matter of Divine Faith The one is Gods veracity that God cannot lie The other is His Revelations that This is Gods Word The first is the Formal Object of Faith The second is a Necessary Medium between the formal object and the subject sine quo non without which there is no possibility of Believing The Material object called the Articles of Faith presuppose both these as points of Knowledge proved to us by their proper evidence And that this is All the Word of God is a meer Consequence from the actual Tradition of this much and no more To give you an undenyable illustration by instance Let us enquire which be the Administring Laws of this Common-wealth And we shall find that 1. The Authority of the Law-givers is none of them for that is in the Constitution before the Administration and it is the formale objectum of every Law which is more noble then the Material object 2. And the Promulgation of these Laws is not it self a Law but a necessary Medium sine quo non to the actual obligation of the Law 3. And that there is no other Laws but these is not a Law but a point known by the non-promulgation of more 4. And that all these Laws are the same that they pretend to be and that they are not changed or depraved since this is not a Law neither but a Truth to be proved by Common Reason from the Evidences that may be brought from Records Practise and abundance more So is it in our Case 1. That God is True and the Soveraign Rector is first a point to be known by evidence the one being the formal object of Faith and the other the formal object of obedience and easily proved by Natural Light before we come to Scripture 2. And that this is Gods Revelation or Promulgation of his Law is a point also first to be proved by Reason not before we see the Book or hear the Word but out of the Book or Doctrine it self propria luce together with the full Historical Evidence and many other reasons which in order of Nature lie before our Obligation fide divina to believe So that this is not Primarily an Article of Faith but somewhat higher as being the Necessary Medium of our believing 3. And that there is no other Law or Faith is not Primarily a Law or Article of Faith but a Truth proved by the Non-Revelation or Promulgation of any other to the world He that will prove us obliged to believe more must prove the valid Promulgation or Revelation of more 4. And that these Books are the same and not corrupted is not directly and primarily an Article of Faith but an Historical verity to be proved as abovesaid And yet secondarily Scripture is a witness to all or most of these and so they are de fide But of this I refer the Reader for fuller satisfaction to my Preface before my second Part of the Saints Rest And thus it is manifest that it is an unreasonable demand of
strongest and last dying sin in all and giveth strength to all the rest What hope then of Unity while every man hath a numerically different Center Principle End and so few forsake it and devote themselves to God the common Center and End of the Saints and those few so Imperfectly permitting self to live and do so much within them And though the Papists have devised a way to make this sand into a rope or cement innumerable selves together by finding out such a Carnal Head and Center where every man may find his own Carnal Interest involved in the Interest of that Head and his body and so may have a carnal unity of a multitude of carnal ones to glory in Yet Christ is another kind of Head and Center condemning and destroying carnal self and commanding all his followers upon pain of damnation to deny it though to nature it be the dearest thing in the world No wonder therefore if the number of his Adherents be few and the unity of those that center in him be less conspicuous and glorious in the world With strong Desires therefore but Low Expectations I propound these terms of Unity to the Church as knowing how many thousand of the Dark and selfish will not only neglect them and reject them but rise up against them if they come into their hands with no small self-conceited confidence and scorn But the Church is the Lords who hath purchased it by his blood his Interest in it is more then mine it is infinitely dearer to him then to me his wisdom is fittest to dispose of the success of our endeavours to determine of the season and measures of its cure He is the Physitian and hath undertaken the work and in the fittest way and time will perfect it and be the finisher as well as the Author of our faith The eye of the chief Shepheard is even now upon all his scattered flock and of those that are given him to be saved he will lose none he is neither insufficient for them nor careless of them but will gather into one the Elect that are dispersed and present them all pure unblamable and spotless to his Father at the last and as much as they seem now to us to be uncurably divided we shall then see them perfectly healed and united and made up One Glorified Body of our Head For that blessed Marriage day of the Lamb and the Glory of the New Jerusalem we therefore Pray and Hope and Wait in our passage through this sinful and distracted world THere are three common sayings in which I am much delighted that conduce to the Illustration of what I have said 1. Servanda in Necessariis Unitas In non-necessariis libertas in utrisque charitas Vulg. 2. Contra Rationem nemo sobrius Contra Scripturam nemo Christianus Contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus August Scripture is the test of Christianity and must shew us sound in the faith though the Church may shew us Peacable 3. Vnitatem Querit Homo Socialis Invenit Catholicus Speculativus Possidet Sanctus Charitativus  Vetitatem  Philosophia  Theologia  Religio  Felicitatem  Natura  Fides Historica  Charitas Therefore to seek for Unity Verity or Felicity by the loss or destruction of Sanctity Religion Charity is really to renounce oppose and lose them Satisfaction to certain CALUMNIATORS I Am informed from London and several parts of the Land that some of my Books having lately been sold at excessive rates by the Booksellers it is somewhat commonly reported that it is caused by my excessive gain which say they is at least three or four hundred pounds a year I thank the Lord that doth not only employ me in his service but also vouchsafe me the honor and benefit of being evil-spoken of for doing him the best service that I can Mat. 5. 11 12. 1 Pet. 4. 13 14 15 16. Blessed Augustine was put to vindicate himself by an oath from the infamy of a covetous design which was raised by one godly woman upon a disorderly action of other men and to that end he wrote his 225. Epistle I find no call to use his oath but yet I judge it my duty to imitate him in patience and in rescuing the slanderers from their sin that they abuse not their souls by uncharitable surmises nor their tongues by false reports To which end I give them this true information The two first Books I printed I left to the Booksellers Will for all the rest I agreed with them for the fifteenth Book to give to some few of my friends hearing that some others agreed for the tenth Sometime my fifteenth Book coming not to an hundred and sometime but to few more when of Practical Books I needed sometime 800. to give away Because I was scarce rich enough to buy so many I agreed with the Bookseller my Neighbour to allow 18. d. a Ream which is not a penny a quire out of his own gain towards the buying of Bibles and some of the practical Books which he printed for the poor Covenanting with him that he should sell my Controversal Writings as cheap and my Practical Writings somewhat cheaper then books are ordinarily sold To this hour I never received for my self one penny of mony from them for any of my Writings to the best of my remembrance but if it fell out that my part came to more than I gave my friends I exchanged them for other Books My accounts and memory tell me not of â—â—li that ever was returned for me on these accounts which was on literary occasions so that my many hundreds a year is come to never a penny in all but as abovesaid in some exchange of Books And the price I set on my Books which I exchanged for theirs at the dearest rates is as followeth Treat of Conversion 2. s. Treat of Crucifying the World 2. s. Disput of Justificat 2. s. 4. d. The Call to the Unconverted 8. d. Disput of saving Faith 5. d. Of the Grotian Religion 6. d. Directions for sound Conversion 1. s. 8. d. Disput of Right to Sacraments Edit secund 2. s. 4. d. These are all my bargains and my gains And I chose the honestest Booksellers that I could meet with according to my small measure of wit and acquaintance who told me they still made good their Promises And now censorious Slanderer tell me what thou wouldst have had me to have done more If I had got Food and Rayment out of my own hard labors had it been unlawful or dishonourable when Booksellers get so many hundred pounds by one Book that never studied nor spent their time and cost for it as I have done And yet dost thou reproach me that receive not a groat But because I will not oblige my self to the same course for the future and that thou mayst know at what rates I serve thee let me tell thee that in these labors early and late my body is wasted my precious time laid out and somewhat of my Estate and somewhat of the labor of my friends I cannot have twenty quire of my writing well transcribed under fifty pounds And who shall pay for this or maintain me in thy service I have troubled a Neighbour-Minister in the tedious work of transcribing my Characters for some books for which neither he nor I had ever one penny These personal matters are unsavory to me and I take it for a great injury that thou puttest upon me a necessity of mentioning them But I have yielded this once to thy unrighteous importunity that thou mayest hereafter learn what to believe and utter and make more conscience of thy censures and reports And that thou mayst have the utmost relief that I can procure thee for the time to come I shall agree with my Booksellers to sell all that I publish at three farthings a sheet and to print the price of every book at the bottom of the Title page October 11. 1658. Farewell Richard Baxter * The Right Honourable the Earl of Lauderdaile a person whose eminent Godliness and Learning occasioneth the sorrow of his Countrey that is deprived of him in such days as these when Piety is so much esteemed Dr. Hammond on 1 Tim. 3. e. saith And such all the particular Churches of the whole world considered together under the supream Head Christ Jesus disspensing them all by himself administring them severally not by any one oeconomus but by the several Bishops as inferiour Heads of Unity to the several bodies so constituted by the several Apostles in their plantations each of them having an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a several distinct Commission from Christ immediately and subordinate to none but the supream donor or plenipotentiary It was one of the Reasons of the Council of Carthage to P. Celestine to prove the invalidity of the Papal judgements up on appeals from other Countries because the witness necessary to a just decision could not go far The Papists confess that Pope and Council cannot make new Articles of faith in se but quoad nos only And they say they have received by Tradition the doctrines which they teach