The Successive Visibility of the Church, Letter 1
Readers,
WEre not the Iudgements of God so dreadfull, and infatuation so lamentable in matters of everlasting consequence, and sin so odious, and the calamities of the Church, the dishonour of God, and the Damnation of Souls such deplorable things, as tolerate not a laughter in the standers by, it would seem one of the most ridiculous things in the World, that a man of seeming wisdom should be a Papist; and that so many Princes, and learned men, with the vulgar multitude, should be able so far to renounce or intoxicate their Reason while they are awake: And a Papist would be described, to be one that sets up his understanding to be the laughingstock of the sober rational World. There are abundance of Controversies among Physitians that concern mens lives; and yet I have heard of none so vain, as to step forth and challenge the Authority of being the universal Decider of them, or to charge God with solly or oversight, if he have not appointed some such universal Iudge in the World, to end all Controversies in matters of such weight. But if in Physick's, Law, or any of the Sciences, the Controversies should be never so many or so great, if yet you could resolve them into sense it self, and bring all to the judgement of mens eyes, and ears, and taste, and feeling, who would not laugh or hiss at him that would still make them the matters of serious doubts?
The Papists finding that man is …perfect, and knoweth but in part, and … the Scripture there are some things are hard to be understood, and that Earth hath not so much Light as Heaven, imagine that hereby they have a fair advantage to plead for an universal terrestrial Iudge, and to reproach God, if he have appointed none such, and next to plead that their Pope or his approved Councils must needs have this Authority. And when they come to the Decision, they are not ashamed to see after so many hundred years pretentions, that the World is but basfled with the empty name of a Judge of Controversies, and that Difficulties are no less Difficulties still, and Controversies are nowhere so voluminous as with them. But this is a small matter with them. Their Iudge s…ms much wiser when he is silent, then when he speaks. When he comes to a Decision, and formeth up thereby the Hodge-podge of Popery, they seem not to smile at, nor be ashamed of the Picture which they have drawn, which is, of an Harlot shewing her nakedness, and committing her lewdness in the open Assemblies, in the sight of the Sún. They openly proclaim their shame against the light of all the acknowledged Principles in the World, their own or others, and in opposition to all, or almost all that is commendable among men. The charge seems high, but (in a few words) take the proof.
1. They confess the Scripture to be the Word of God: and yet when we would appeal to that as the Rule of Faith and Life, or as a divine Revelation, in our Disputes, they fly off, and tell us of its obscurity, and the necessity of a Iudge. If they meet with a Hoc est corpus meum, they seem for a while to be zealous for the Scripture: But tell them that Paul in 1 Cor. 11.26, 27, 28. doth call it Bread after the Consecration, no less than three times in the three next Verses, and then Scripture is non-sense to them till the Pope make sense of it. It is one of their principal labours against us, to argue against the Scriptures sufficiency to this use. By no means can we prevail with them to stand to the Decision of the Scripture.
2. They excessively cry up the Church, and appeal to its Decision: and therefore we might hope, that here if anywhere, we might have some hold of them. But when it comes to the Point, they not only disown the judgement of the Church, but impudently call Christ's Spouse a Strumpet, and cut off (in their uncharitable imagination) two or three parts of the universal Church as Hereticks or Schismaticks. The judgement of the Churches in Armenia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Syria, the Greeks, and many more besides the Reformed Churches in the West, is against their Popes universal Vicarship or Soveraignty, and many of their Errours that depend thereon: And yet their judgement is not regarded by this Faction. And if a third or fourth part (such as it is) of the Universal Church, may cry up themselves as the Church to be appealed to, and condemn the far greater part, why may not a tenth or a twentieth part do the like? Why may not the Donatists, the Novatians, or the Greeks (much more) do so as well as Papists?
3. They cry up Tradition. And when we ask them, How we shall know it, and where it is to be found, they tell us, principally in the profession and practice of the present Church. And yet when two or three parts of the universal Church profess that Tradition is against the Papal▪ Monarchy, and other Points depending on it, they cast Tradition behind their backs.
4. They cry up the Fathers: and when we bring their judgements against the substance of Popery, they sometime vilifie or accuse them as erroneous, and sometime tell us, that Fathers as well as Scripture must be no otherwise understood, than their Church expoundeth them.
5. They plead for an appeal to Councils; and (though we easily prove that none of them were universal, yet such as they were) they call them all Reprobate, which were not approved by their Pope, let the number of Bishops there be never so great. And those that were approved, if they speak against them, they reject also, either with lying shifts denying the approbation, or saying, the acts are not de fide, or not conciliariter facta, or the sense must be given by their present Church, or one such contemptible shift or other.
6. At least one would think they should stand to the judgement of the Pope, which yet they will not: for shame forbids them to own the Doctrine of those Popes that were Hereticks or Infidels (and by Councils so judged:) And others they are forced to disown, because they contradict their Predecessors. And at Rome the Cardinals are the Pope, while he that hath the name is oft made light of. And how infallible he is judged by the French and the Venetians; how Sixtus the fifth was valued by the Spaniards, and by Bellarmine, is commonly known.
7. But all this is nothing to their renunciation of humanity, even of the common senses and reason of the world. When the matter is brought to the Decision of their eyes, and taste, and feeling, whether Bread be Bread, and Wine be Wine; and yet all Italy, Spain, Austria, Bravaria, &c. cannot resolve it; yea, generally (unless some latent Protestant) do pass their judgement against their senses, & the senses of all sound men in the World; & that not in a matter beyond the reach of sense (as whether Christ be there spiritually) but in a matter belonging to sense, if any thing belong to it, as whether Bread be Bread, &c. Kings and Nobles, Prelates and Priests, do all give their judgement, that all their senses are deceived. And is it possible for these men then to know any thing? or any controversie between us and them to be decided? If we say that the Sun is light, or that the Pope is a man, and Scripture legible, or that there are the Writings of Councils and Fathers extant in the World, they may as well concur in a denyal of all this, or any thing else that sense should judge of. If they tell us that Scripture requireth them to contradict all their senses in this point; I answer,
1. Not that Scripture before mentioned, that calleth it [Bread] after the Consecration, thrice in the three next Verses.
2. And how know they that there is such a Scripture, if all their senses be so fallible? If the certainty of sense be not supposed, a little learning or wit might satisfie them, that Faith can have no certainty. But is it not a most dreadful judgement of God, that Princes and Nations, Learned men, and some that in their way are conscientious, should be given over to so much inhumanity, and to make a Religion of this brutishness, (and worse) and to persecute those with Fire and Sword, that are not so far forsaken by God, and by their reason? and that they should so solicitously labour the perversion of States and Kingdoms for the promoting of stupidity or stark madness?
8. And (if we go from their Principles to their Ends, or Wayes, we shall soon see that) they are also against the Unity of the Church, while they pretend this as their chiefest Argugument, to draw men to their way. They set up a corrupted Faction, and condemn the far greater part of the Church; and will have no unity with any but those of their own Faction and Subjection: and fix this as an essential part of their Religion, creating thereby an impossibility of universal concord.
9. They also contradict the Experience of many thousand Saints; asserting that they are all void of the Love of God and saving Grace, till they become subject to the Pope of Rome; when as the Souls of these Believers have Experience of the Love of God within them, and feel that Grace that proveth their Iustification. I wonder what kind of thing it is that is called Love or Holiness in a Papist, which Protestants and other Christians have not, and what is the difference.
10. They are most notorious Enemies to Charity, condemning most of the Christian world to Hell, for being out of their subjection.
11. They are notorious Enemies to Knowledge under pretence of Obedience and Unity, and avoiding Heresie. They celebrate their Worship in a Language not understood by the vulgar Worshippers. They hinder the People from Reading the holy Scriptures, (which the ancient Fathers exhorted men and women to, as an ordinary thing.) The quality of their Priests and People, testifies this.
12. They oppose the Purity of divine Worship, setting up a multitude of humane Inventions instead thereof, and idolatrously (for no less can be said of it) adoring a piece of conserated Bread as their God.
13. They are Opposers of Holiness, both by the foresaid enmity to Knowledge, Charity, and purity of Worship, and by many unholy Doctrines, and by deluding Souls with an outside histrionicall way of Religion, never required by the Lord, consisting in a multitude of Ceremonies, and worshipping of Angels, and the Souls of Saints, and Images, and Crosses, &c. Let experience speak how much the Life of Holiness is promoted by them.
14. They are Enemies to common Honesty, teaching the Doctrines of Equivocations and Mental Reservations, and making many hainous sins venial, and many of the most odious sins to be Duties, as killing Kings that are excommunicated by the Pope, taking Oaths with the foresaid Reservations, and breaking them, &c. For the Jesuits Doctrine, Montaltus the Jansenist, and many of the French Clergy have pretty well opened it: And the Pope himself hath lately been fain to publish a condemnation of their Apology. And yet the power and interest of the Jesuites and their followers among them, is not altogether unknown to the World.
15. They are Enemies to Civil Peace and Government, (if there be any such in the World) as their Doctrine and Practice of killing and deposing excommunicate Princes, breaking Oaths, &c. shews. Bellarmine that will go a middle way, gives the Pope power in ordine ad spiritualia, and indirectly, to dispose of Kingdoms, and tells us, that it is unlawfull to tolerate Heretical Kings that propagate their Heresie, (that is, the ancient Faith.) How well Doctor Heylin hath vindicated their Council of Laterane in this, (whose Decrees stand as a Monument of the horrid treasonable Doctrine of the Papists) I shall, if God will, hereafter manifest: In the mean time, let any man read the words of the Council, and Iudge.
And now whether a Religion that is at such open enmity with 1. Scripture, 2. The Church, 3. Tradition, 4. Fathers, 5. Councils, 6. Some Popes, 7. The common senses and Reason of all the World, even their own, 8. Vnity of Christians, 9. Knowledge, 10. Experience of Believers, 11. Charity, 12. Purity of Worship, 13. Holiness, 14. Common Honesty, 15. and to Civil Government and Peace (which might all easily be fully proved, though here but touched) I say, whether such a Religion should be embraced and advanced with such diligence and violence, and mens souls laid upon it, is the controversie before us. And whether is should be tolerated (even the propagation of it, to the damnation of the peoples souls) is now the Question which the juggling Papists have set a foot among those that have made themselves our Rulers: and there are found men among us, that call themselves Protestants and godly, that plead for the said Toleration; (and consequently for the delivering up of these Nations to Popery, if not to Spanish, or other forreign Powers) which if they effect, and after their contrary Professions, prove such Traitors to Christ, his Gospel and their posterity, as they leave the Land of their Nativity in misery, they shall leave their stinking names for a reproach and curse to future Generations; and on such Pillars shall be written, [This pride, selfseeking, uncharitableness, and schism hath done.]
This was written and printed under the late Usurpers.)