The Nullity of the Romish Faith, To the reader – Half title
To the Reader.
BEfore I come to the worke it selfe I know my Reader will require satisfaction in two things which I hold my selfe obliged to give in the first to the Protestant, in the latter to the Romanist. 1. It will be objected to me as the Iewish Tradition, tels us was objected to Moses by his Antagonists, who charged him with bringing Magicall operations among them, that he brought Straw into AEgypt, a country abounding with Corne: so it will be said that I trouble the World with needlesse repetitions, that I write an Iliad after Homer, and do that work which hath long since been d…n much better by our Protestant Heroes, and that Nil dictum est quod non est dictum prius; and particularly that this point of Infallibility hath been discussed by that formidable Adversary of Rome the most acute Mr Chillingworth, Lord Falkland, Dr Hammond, and lately by our Learned Mr Stillingfleet: To these my Apology is, 1. That the clamorous importunity of Popish Writers doth force us to these repetitions, it being the practise of most of their present Controvertists boldly to urge those things in English as unanswerable which they know have been so solidly disproved in Latin that they neither cannot have pretended to Answer. 2. I have made it my indeavour as much as I could to avoid repetitions, which are as displeasing to me as they can be to the Reader, which if I have in many places stumbled upon, it hath rather been the necessity of the thing or an unhappy chance then the choice and designe. 3. The Reader I hope will find foreign: If I had known of any Author, who had in so short a compasse and plain Method contracted and dissolved the strength of the Popish cause in this great point, I had willingly superseded; nor did I intrude my self into this work, but was invited to it by diverse worthy and learned friends, and afterwards incouraged in it by the approbation of such persons, whose judgments I think almost all the learned part of England doth reverence. 4. Here is a new plea (viz concerning the sufficiency of the Testimony of the present Church and the Infallibility of Oral Tradition) not at all considered by Mr. Chillingworth, nor fully discussed by any other that I know of, (except the ingenious Lord Falkland, who handles it quite another way, and hath left room for some Gleanings after his Harvest:) Nor is it debated by Mr. Stilling fleet, whose Adversaries led him to things of another nature. And besides it is known to diverse, that this Treatise was prepared for the Press before Mr. Stillingfleet's excellent Discourse came out, though retarded by some unhappy occurrences which it is needless here to recount.
The second particular is this: The Papists will pretend, that the Doctrines I charge upon them, and the Testimonies which I alledge against them, are onelyonly the particular opinions of private Doctors, and not of their whole Church. My defence is this.
1 The Authors which are here introduced, are not pedantick writers, but such as are of prime note and highest esteem in the Church of Rome, and the most zealous and considerable Champions of their cause, and such (for the generality of them,) whose writings came forth with the character of their Churches approbation upon them, concerning whom it will be very difficult to perswade any intelligent man, either that such persons did not understand the sense of the Church of Rome, (as well as the Objector) or that they did knowingly contradict the doctrine of their Church, or would be permitted so to do without any censure upon them.
2 The testimonies of those Authors are undoubtedly sufficient for that end for which I alledg them, which is to shew the falseness of those doctrines, and the weakness of those arguments which are disbelieved and disproved by their own learnedest and stoutest Champions, by which it may appear to all impartial persons, that it is not the ignorance nor prejudice of Protestants, (as some of their VVriters have the Effrontery to assert) which makes them reject the Popish Tenets, but meerly the want of Truth and evidence therein, confessed (as you will see all along in the following Treatise) by their own Brethren, and that it is a desperate madness in any Papist to hazard his everlasting concernments upon such principles, as so many of their acutest Scholars do publickly disavow: And that this is really the case of the unhappy Romanist I refer thee to the subsequent Discourse.
POOLE's Nullity of the Romish faith.