Against the Revolt to a Foreign Jurisdiction, Part 2 · Chapter 12
Chap. XII. A humble Expostulation to the zealous Antipapists, Conformists and Nonconformists, whether they are innocent as to promoting Popery?
THIS is not written to cast on you any contempt or reproach: I acknowledge that I take you for the best Ministry, that any Nation on earth enjoyeth: But it is to try if it may be to promote our common Repentance, and to Reform the Nominal mistaken Reformation, of those that have sinned by extreams; which by the assumed name of Reformation, have wronged God and Truth, and mens Souls, with the greater advantage and success: But especially, if it may be yet to stop such from a sinful progress, that they may not ignorantly set up Popery, by crying down the name, and persons.
§ I. We have not sufficiently considered, how the Popes came to the Greatness that they have attained, and how and by whom it is kept up: I mean, how much the zealous Godly Christians did and do contribute thereto.
1. It was the great shame of other Churches by multitudes of Heresies, Sects and Contentions, that made Rome seem as a Post for those to hold by, that had by turning round become so giddy, that they could not stand.
2. When the best Pastors were persecuted, by proud Courtiers, erroneous Councils, factious Bishops, and Arrian Hereticks, because Rome had more Concord, Quietness and Power, they used to seek help from the Bishop of Rome in their necessity, and he was ready to take the advantage by helping them, to get the reputation of Supremacy: So did he by Athanasius, and Chrysostom, and the Eastern Bishops under Valens and Constantius, though Basil complaineth of the Western Bishops for minding them no more: The Popes owning of Augustine and Prosper, was a great help to him against Pelagius.
3. When the Bishops under the Pagans had endured Martyrdom, and Torments, and Banishments for Christ, their godly Flocks, when Christianity had conquered, thought none so fit for honour and power to govern and protect them, as the tryed survivers: And who could then be so fit? And so it was first the most pious Christians that advanced the Bishops, and over-advanced them: And specially the Roman Bishops, because very many of their Predecessors had been Martyrs and Confessors. Tho' we had many able Lay-Magistrates here, which Constantine had not quickly, yet those that put down Bishops were glad that the Power of Institution and Induction, and of Universities and Church Maintenance, should be in the hands of Dr. John Owen, Dr. T. Goodwin, Mr. P. Nye, Mr. Bridge, Mr. Sydrach Sympson, and such other. And if the disposing of such advantages for Religion were now committed to Dissenters, whom would they sooner chuse for Power therein than their most esteemed Pastors?
3. When Emperors, Kings and Lords did pill and oppress the poor Commons, (as in England in the Reign of William the Conqueror▪ W. Rufus, &c.) the Bishops were the only men that by the Power of the Pope were able to controul them, and for the honour of their Office, oft attempted it: And therefore the innocent oppressed People were glad of the Pope's help and theirs, to ease their yoke.
4. It was the Godly People to promote Christianity, and honour the memory of the Martyrs and Saints, that bring in the Praying at their Graves, and building Altars first, and Churches after to retain the honour of their names; and that carried and kept their bones and cloaths as honourable Relicts, and recited their names in their Service, and kept and honoured their Pictures, and after prayed to them. Much of that Superstition that is now most decried by us, was brought by the most religious sort.
5. Almost all the Societies of Fryers and Nuns, Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, Carthusians, Jesuits, Oratorians, &c. have been set up by the most zealously Religious, when any fancied a peculiar way of strictness, the Bishops being against it, they made friends to the Pope to give them his Licence to serve God in their own devised way, and to have Government in their own Society without the Bishops controul: And the Pope craftily granted it, that they might all be his own, and maintain his Power which they were necessitated to depend on. So Dr. Goodwin and Dr. Owen told King Charles 2. that they desired of him but what the Religious Orders had of the Pope. To serve God according to their judgment, and hold their Liberty from the King, and not to be under the Bishops or Presbytery. More such instances I might produce to shew you by what sort of men much of Popery came in, (but Pride and Worldliness did most.)
§ II. I humbly desire it may be thought on, whether some have not ignorantly given up the whole Cause to a Foreign Jurisdiction, by their Prophetical Exposition of Christ's Epistles to the seven Asian Churches, Rev. 2. & 3. while they take them to mean seven Ages and States of the Catholick Church, and two of them to mean the blessed Thousand years State. For whether by the Angel be meant, the Bishop alone, or the Bishop with his Elders, or the Presbyters as a College, it is plain one Governing Power over each Church (whether Monarch or Aristocracy) is there mentioned by the word Angel. And if the Universal Church have such in all Ages, and that by Christ's Institution, should we be against it? Even that which the Thousand years shall have?
§ III. It is a very ordinary Doctrine with us, that the Jewish Church was the Universal then in Infancy, or at least a Type of it: And if so, that Church had one summa Potest…s, both in Magistracy and Ministry, sacredly Civil and Ecclesiastical: And Christ plainly offered to gather them under him, and continue their Polity (tho' not their Laws,) and set up twelve and seventy over them accordingly. You I say, Though one Aaron was their Head, yet Christ is now the only High Priest, it followeth not that the Universal Church must have one Humane Priest or King.
I answer; By your way it will follow, that it must have one Vniting Specifying Humane Soveraignty Civil and Ecclesiastical. If Aaron be down, so is not the Sanedrim, Civil or Priestly. Christ plainly offered to continue them in one Visible Body, by his choice of twelve and seventy. And it is an Aristocratical Universal Jurisdiction that is as bad as the Monarchical. 2. Christ was not a Priest according to the Order of Aaron, but of Melchizedeck. 3. Christ is Universal King as well as Priest; and hath National Kings under him supreme: Therefore his being King or Priest in Israel, would not exclude the necessity of a supreme King or Priest under him. And if Israel was the Catholick Church in Type or Infancy, it would follow that it also must have one such Head.
§ IV. Too few Protestants have sufficiently answered the Papists Argument fetcht from the instance of the Apostles, viz. The College of Apostles (Peter called Primus) were one Aristocratical Governing Power over the Universal Church: Ergo such a Polity was instituted by Christ. And Christ never revoked this institution. Government as well as Word and Sacraments, is an ordinary work to be continued. And not as Miracles, Writing Scripture, Witnessing what they saw and heard, the extraordinary part of the Apostles VVork. Ergo in this they have Successors.
This is the plausiblest of all Arguments for an Universal Jurisdiction. I have shewed you how it prevailed with Bishop Guning and other New Church-men (I am not willing to say, The new Church.)
How it is to be answered I have before shewed, and more fully in my Treatise of National Churches.
§ V. Have not the old and many later Nonconformists advantaged Popery by decrying all Episcopacy or Imparity of Ministers? VVhen it is so plain that Christ did set Twelve above Seventy, and kept up the number by Matthias? and gave power to Apostles, and they to other to be exercised over other Churches and Pastors? And when it is apparent that all the Churches for many hundred years, had Episcopal Government, (though not such as Popery and Tyranny hath since brought in:) Those called Hereticks and Schismaticks were for it: The Novatians and Donatists over zealous for it, Nestorians, Eutychians, Monothelites, Macedonians, Acacians, and all the Sects in the time of Heathen Persecution: I find not that Aerius (alone excepted) did ever call it unlawful, or saw that it was better for the Churches to be with them. But that the Bishops and Presbyters Officers were equal.
And will it not greatly confirm the Papists to find such Protestants reject the judgment and practice of all the ancient Churches, and differ from the rest of the Christian VVorld.
§ VI. But it advantaged them much more than our opinion; when the Scots Covenant was imposed as the necessary terms of Ministry and Magistracy: Thereby weakening the Protestants by a doleful Division, that by opinions were divided too much before. VVhen so great a part of the Kingdom, Clergy, Gentry and Vulgar were for the renounced Prelacy, to shut all these, and all of their mind that ever should come after, from Ministry and Magistracy, such men as Vsher, Beadle, Downame, Davenant, Brownrig, Ward, Prideaux, Field, &c. Oh how many and how great! was this to unite the Protestants, and to strengthen them against the United Papists?
§ VII. And alas how greatly have those Zealous Protestants confirmed the Papists, and dishonoured the Church and Christ their King, that maintain that the Church became Antichristian in Anno 300 or 400, or at least 606, if not as soon as Christ by Constantine took possession of the Imperial Visible Government. I will not aggravate this as it deserveth: But I wonder not if it make thousands of Papists.
§ VIII. And Protestants too many have greatly hardened Papists, by too bold and forced Expositions of the Apocalyps; and laying too much of the stress of their Cause on it (as that Pagan Rome is not the Babylon there meant, nor that Rome as the Mother or Nurse of Pagan Idolatry the Whore; nor the Pagan Empire the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns, nor the Pontifical, Oracular, Foretelling, and Literate Tribe, the Beast with two Horns, nor the Jew and Gentile Miracle-working persecuted Christians (radically Epitomized in Peter and Paul) the two Witnesses; and that Antichrist is spoken of in the Revelations; and that Christ intended it as a Prophecy of all the great Affairs and Changes of the Church to the end of the World.] I say, laying the stress of our Cause on these, is next to giving it away. When a Papist shall call for the proof of this, and ask whether John and the seven Churches understood it; and what one man on Earth so expounded it of a Thousand years, or a Thousand four hundred after Christ? and why Mr. Mede saith, That the Waldenses were the first of all Mortals that took the Pope to be Antichrist. And whether the Book was written for none but a few men that agree not of the sence of it, so near the End of the World?] It will puzzle the Hearers before all these, and many such Questions are well Answered. When we have so much plain Evidence against Popery in the whole Bible, to lay it mainly on these Expositions of the Revelation, (where I find not three men in thirty that differ not in great Material Points) is almost to betray it: when such a man as John Fox, P. 111. Vol. 1. Sweareth that he had a Revelation contrary to much of this, which he repeateth in his Comment on Revelations.
Specially those that venture to foretel thence the Year of Antichrist's fall, and other particulars, which time confuteth, do expose us to the Scorn of Confirmed Papists.
§ IX. Protestants have too often advantaged Popery, by ill answering the Question, Where was your Church before Luther? Pleading the Catholick Churches invisibility. When non apparere and non esse are oft equal in Argumentation: Greatly dishonouring Christ, as if so near the end of the World, the Albigenses and Waldenses, (and some Papists that found fault with the Papal Miscarriages, had been all the known Church for Eleven hundred Years: To tell the Mahometans that the Kingdom of Jesus after so long endeavours, was scarce bigger than Wales, is not the way to honour Protestants, or Christ.
And then they think to repair the dishonour by their Prophecy of the Millennial Kingdom, which tieth the knot harder than before.
§ X. Running from them into Errours on the other extream, and spotting the Reformation with many such Errours, hath greatly hardened and increased Papists. Especially those Antinomian or Libertine Opinions, that overthrow both Christianity and Morality; and that which inferreth these which too many have promoted: such are the wrong Opinions about Reprobation, and the Cause of Sin, and the extent of Redemption, and the false sence of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness, and of Justifying Faith, and of the meaning of Works that justifie not, and that to Believe we are justified and elected, is to believe God's Word, or is Fides Divina; and that the Covenant of Grace hath no Condition, and is made only with Christ, and that both obeyed and suffered in our Person in Law sence, so that we did in Law sence suffer in and by him, and yet fulfil all righteousness by him, and were reputatively sinless from first to last; that therefore we are justified by the Law of Innocency or Works that condemneth us, having perfectly kept it by Christ, that our works being not meritorious are not rewardable; Too many such Doctrines are Published here and abroad, by such as Maccovius, Cluto, Cocceius and some before them. And when Papists find one gross falshood, they think all our Religion is such.
§ XI. It greatly confirmeth Papists when they find our Writers falsly to accuse them, of any Doctrine which they hold not: which is very ordinarily done by those that never read them, on the meer credit of some Reverend Ministers that so accused them before; For instance, of the Point of Merit, when men read their Books of Self-abnegation, Annihilation, Self-abasing, and Nothingness, renouncing Merit, even in distributive Justice, &c. Some have wondered and said, How much further are the Papists from trusting to or boasting of their Merits, Works and Holiness than we are?
§ XII. But Protestants have no way promoted Popery more than by their manifold Divisions and Sects, and their mutual enmity and miscarriages. I need not name them. God hath made Unity and Concord so necessary and amiable to Man, that Nature and Grace abhor the contrary. Satan is the Divider of Christ's Kingdom: and a Kingdom divided cannot stand. Multitudes turn and continue Papists, not knowing where among so many Sects to fix their choice, especially when▪ they see and hear us Revile, Censure, Silence, Imprison and Persecute one another as intolerable, they think they may do so by us all, and judge of us as we do by one another. And to vilifie us, is to value themselves. Which Sect, say they, would you have me turn to, if I turn?
§ XIII. Specially if we fall into odious Scandals as well as Sects, the Crimes of Men seem the fault of our Religion, When they have recited the Miscarriages here from 1642, till 1660. they think they have decided all the Controversies: And also when they can recite the Munster Madness, and others such.
§ XIV. Hath the Silencing of Two thousand such Ministers, and shutting the Church Doors against desired Unity and Concord, and keeping out Candidates, and giving advantage to Papist Rulers to give full liberty for Popery, done nothing to its increase? What hath done more to advantage Popery, by disabling Protestants, and disgracing their Ministers of each Party, and keeping up the hopes of Foreign and Domestick Enemies, than casting the Nation into a kind of Intestine Hostility, and keeping it so by the Dividing Laws and Canons? which though it was principally the effects of secret Popish Projects, yet had no Anti-Papists by false Prejudice, Malice, Revenge and worldly Interest, had a hand in the effecting, and since in defending it, they had been more innocent. And I would the Provocation had not driven many Nonconformists into harder thoughts of Bishops and Liturgy than they deserve, or than they had before the experience of their usage. But it's hard when for Innocency and Duty men must lye [and many die] in common Jails, and have all they have taken from them, and be left to Beggary or Charity, to keep up as great an esteem of the Authors or Abettors of such Hostility, as if they were men of Love and Peace. When they see men Hang'd for taking away a small part by Stealth or Robbery, it must be more than ordinary. Patience and Love, that shall cause men to think and say no harm, even by honourable and Right Reverend men, that even by Law and Judgment said to be just, shall take away all, and much more than all. We had not procured hatred by our importunity in 1660 and 1661. in Pleading and Petitioning to prevent all this, if the certain foresight of it in its Causes, had not seemed very dreadful to us: And yet we do not see the End: The Hostility continueth, if not increaseth, even while the Blood and Flames of Germany, Hungary, Transilvania, Savoy, Flanders, and Ireland and partly Scotland, loudly cry to us, Fire, Fire; and instead of avoiding the like, we are as busie as ever to bring more fewel, and increase the flame. And O dreadful odious Case! All is as for God, and Religion and the Church, that is thus done against God, Religion, the Church and the whole Land & our Posterity.
§ XV. And by our several ways of Unjust and Causeless Impositions, we have hardened the Papists in defending their more numerous Snares. They say, If an Independent Church may bind its Members, to take their Covenants, to submit to thei… popular Examinations and Discipline, to avoid Communion with the Parish Churches, and not to forsake their Church but by tryed Reason or Consent: And if a Convocation may impose what is done in England on terms so sharp; why may not the Pastors and Councils that have greater Charge and Power, do as much and more?
§ XVI. The Sectarian weak-headed part of Protestants have greatly advantaged Popery, by their ignorant calling every Ceremony, and Form, and Opinion that they distaste, by the Name of Antichristian: and saying, O this is Popish, or taken out of the Mass-Book; when some of them know not what Antichristianity is, saving as every Sin against Christ is Antichristian, nor know they what the Mass-Book is, nor what Popery is; And its well if some knew better what Christianity is.
When men hear that a Bishop, a Surplice, a sumptuous Church Edifice, a Ceremony, the Liturgies, a Holy-day (and it's well if not the use of the Creed and Lord's Prayer) be Antichristian, they are tempted to think that Popery called Antichristianity is no worse a thing than these; and so honour Popery, and deride its Accusers.
I would these named were all the wrongs that Protestants have done to the Protestant Cause of Reformation, and all that they have ignorantly done for Popery. But we hope our great Intercessor will procure forgiveness for them that know not what they do. But must the Church still suffer so much by its zealous Friends?