The Successive Visibility of the Church, Letter 8
To Mr. T. L. (who called me to this work.)
Sir,
THough I am a stranger to you, I thought meet to take notice of the Letters which you sent your friend here (T. H.) It seems you urge hard for a Reply, and intimate somewhat of triumph in my delay: you speak as an incompetent Judge. God is the Master of my time and work; and him I must serve: and not neglect his greater work, for such trivial objections as your friend hath sent me, which are answered over and over by many so long ago. Had you read Blondel, Molineus de novitate Papismi, Whitaker, Sibrandus, Lubbertus, Chamier, Abbots, Crakenthorp, Spalatensis, or one of many that have confuted them, you would sure call for no more: Or if in English you had read Dr. Field, Dr. White; yea, or but Sir Humphery Lind (to pass by multitudes) you might have seen their vanity. Yea plainly read impartially my two books against Popery, and be a Papist if you can. But it seems you take it for a poor answer to be referred to books. Do not fear it. But yet let me tell you, that my hand is not more legible then my printed books: and if I had sent you this in print, would that have made it a poor answer? Or rather, is not this a poor exception, and shews that it is not truth that is look after: for truth may be printed as well as written. If you be deceived by the men of the Papal way, let me yet intreat you, but to read over those two books (The safe Religion, and the Key for Catholikes): If your soul be not worth so much labour, take your course: I did my duty.
But I must say, that it is doleful case that professors are so ungrounded, that such vanities should carry them away from Catholike verity and unity, to a faction that usurps the name of Catholikes. To be free with you, I think it is that pride and levity that brings them first to separation from our Churches into Sects, and the guilt which they there incur, that prepareth professors to be so far forsaken of God, as to be given up to believe a lie, and to turn Papists.
O dreadful case! that one Bishop cannot swell in pride, but men must make a Religion of his pride! yea and make a Catholike Church of it! yea and plead for it, and make the sin their own; yea condemn all Christians that list not themselves under this Prince of pride. He is culpably, if not wilfully blind, that hath read Scripture and Church history, and knoweth not, that the Pope for three hundred years after Christ, was not the creature that now he is; nor had for most of that time any more Government over other Bishops, then I have over neighbour Pastors: and after that time, he was no more an universal Head, or Governour, or Vicar of Christ, then the Archbishop of Canterbury was▪ having indeed a far larger Diocess then he, but never was more then the swelled Primate of one National (Imperial) Church. When Synods began to be gathered out of a Principality (the Emperours desiring that means of unity within their Empire), the pride of the Prelates set them presently a striving for superiority, who should sit highest, and write his name first, and have the largest Diocess, &c! And now men make a Religion of the fruits of this abominable pride. What are all their disputings for, and all this stir that they make in the world, but to set up one man over all the earth? and that to do a spirituall work, which consisteth not with force, but is managed on conscience: One wretched man must govern the Antipodes on the other side of the earth, that is indeed uncapable of truly and justly Governing the City of Rome it self. Popes, that their own Councils have condemned for ravishing maids and wives at their doors, for Murders, Simony, Drunkenness, Heresie, denying the Resurrection and the life to come (that is, being no Christians) these forsooth must be the universal Governours, or we are all undone; and we are damned if we believe it not: O how dreadfull are the effects of sin; and how great a judgement is a blinded mind! This comes of falling into Sects and parties, which leads men into the gulf of the most odious Schism (even Popery) in the world.
But if you are engaged in this party, its two to one but you are presently made partial, and will not so much as read what is against them; or will believe them if they do but tell you that we write lies; when they are things done in the open sun, and which they cannot confute, nor dare attempt, le…t they manifest their shame. Take from them their Clergies vast Dominions, Principalities, Lands and Lordships, Riches and worldly Honours, with which they so much abound, and then try how many will plead for the Pope: then they'l say, If Ba…l be a God, let him plead for himself. But I confess, I have little hopes of turning any of them, though I could shew it them written by an Angel from heaven that Popery is a deceit: for the Scripture that's above Angelical authority declareth it; and by making it a nose of wax, they take it as if it were not sense, nor intelligible without the Popes interpretation (which in difficult cases he dare not give). They cry up the Church, and when we would have them stand to the Church, they shamefully turn their backs; and when two or three parts of the Churches through the world are against the Papal Soveraignty, they refuse them as Hereticks or Schismaticks. They cry up Tradition, and when we offer them in the main point to be tried by it, they disclaim the Tradition of two or three parts of the universal Church as being all Hereticks. And may not any Sect do so too as honestly as they? yea among the ignorant that know not Chaffe from Corn, …hey have some of them the faces to perswade them that their Church is the greater half of the Christian world! when they know they speak notoriously falsly, or else they are unworthy to speak of such things that they understand not.
But to what purpose should any words be used with men, that have taught so great a part of the world, not to believe their eyes and other senses! Can any writing make any matter plainer to you, then that Bread is Bread, and Wine is Wine, when you see them, and tast, and eat, and drink them? And yet their general Councils approved by the Pope, have made it an Article of their faith, that the whole substance of the Bread and Wine is turned into the Body and Blood of Christ, so that there is left no Bread or Wine, but only that colour, quantity and tast that before belonged to it. And if you know not Bread when you eat it, or Wine when you drink it, and when the senses of all the sound men in the world concur with yours, is it not vain for me, or any man to dispute with you? Can you have any thing brought to a surer judgement then to all your senses? And yet no doubt but your seducers can say something to prove that Bread is not Bread when you see and eat it: No wonder then if they can confute me. But do they indeed believe themselves? how is it possible? there is no exercise of reason, and belief that supposeth not the certainty of sense. If I cannot know Bread and Wine when I see, touch, …ast them; then cannot I know the Pope, the Councils, the Scripture, the Priest, or any thing else. If you think to let go this point of Popery and hold the rest, you know not what Popery is: for a Pope and Council having determined it, you are damned by them for denying the faith: and if you depart from the infallibility of their Rule and judge in points of faith, or at least from the obligation of it, in one thing, they will confess to you that you may as well do it in more; False in this, and certain in nothing, is their own conclusion. Sir, I have not been unwilling to know the truth, having a soul to save or lose as well as you, and having as much reason to be loth to perish. If you have so far forfeited the Grace of God, as meerly to follow the pride of a pretended Vice-Christ (that hath turned doctrine into error, worship into superstition and dead formality, light into darkness, discipline into confusion mixt with tyranny); if meerly to set up one Tyrant over the consciences (and bodies too) of all believers in the world, you can fall into a Sect, deny Scripture, Reason, the Judgement and Tradition of most of the Church, and your own and all mens eye-sight, tast and other senses, the Lord have mercy on you, if you be not past it: I have done with you, yet remaining
An unfeigned desirer of your welfare, and lamenter of the Apostacies and giddiness of these times, Richard Baxter. May. 18. 1659.
Did you know what it is, by loose and false allegations, to be put to read so many Volumes (in great part) in folio, to try whether the alledger say true or false, you would not expect that I should return an answer, and read so much of so many folios in any less then ten or eleven daies, which I think hath been all that I have had to write and read so much.
The Reader must take notice that I wrote the former Letter to the person that sent Mr. Johnsons Letters, with a charitable jealousie, that if he were himself in doubt, he might be resolved: But in his return he fully disclaimed Popery, and assured me, that it is for the sake of some friends that he desired my labour, and not for his own.
R. B.