Catholic Charity Complaining and Maintaining that Rome is Uncharitable, Chapter 4
CHAP. IV.
Opposed to the Cavaliers second Chapter, wherein he labours to excuse the uncharitable censure of Papists in damning Protestants.
SECT. I.
The Protestants Religion is declared to be a saving Religion, In respect 1. of the Object of faith. 2. Of the meanes of beleeving the Word and Sacraments. 3. Of the effects of faith, charity and repentance.
WEe are told in this Chapter, that when Romists give the sentence of damnation against us, they doe it not against us, but against our heresie; or, if you will, Protestancy. But I answer, If Protestancy doe not damne us, then Papists doe damne us: for as a guiltlesse person, whom his owne crime doth not condemn, may be truly said to be slaine and condemned by the witnesses which falsely accuse him; so Protestants not being condemned by Protestancy, are damned by the false witnesses of Rome. And indeed, if they would suspend their uncharitable censures of damnation untill they had manifestly proved the faith of Protestants to be damnable, the Cavalier on this quarrell might have had no need to put on his defensive Armour: yea, if hee had but considered the whole verse, whereof he takes a part, therewith to conclude this Chapter, hee needed not to have begun it:… …6.16. his peece is this; Hee that beleeveth not shall bee co…demned: and that which he left out is this; He that beleeveth and is baptized shall bee saved: now hereunto I subjoyn, But, Protestants do beleeve, and are baptized; and how can it chuse but follow, Therefore Protestants shall bee saved? And that there may be no quarrell about saving faith, Let the Author and Finisher of our faith, the Judge of quick and dead, bee Judge betweene us. Heare the Word of that Word which is God;Joh. 6.40. This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Sonne, and beleeveth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day. And if this Word who is Truth had any need of witnesses, it were easie to produce them:John 1.12.15.16. Joh. 3.36. Act. 10.43. Rom. 9.33. So that whatsoever distance betweene Christ and a soule this Author doth speake of, it is taken away by that justifying faith which uniteth us to Christ, and makes us one spirit with him: For by faith wee being made his Spouse, flesh of his flesh, Rom. 8.32.bone of his bone, and spirit of his spirit, Christ is ours, and we are Christs; our debts are his, his merits are ours: for indeed, if Christ bee ours, all things are ours;Rom. 8.1. and among those all things are Christs merits. And now being in Christ Jesus, let Rome, and the present Romists say what they will, Saint Paul to the pure and primitive Romans plainely said, There is to us no condemnation. None can separate whom God hath thus put together; no,Rom. 8.38, 39. not the gates of Hell, though set open in the Papacie, and sending sorth Champions against us, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus.
Againe, for the meanes and furtherance of this uniting and saving faith, the advantage is incomparably on our side. The ordinary and maine meanes of begetting and increasing this faith, is the preaching of the Gospel,Gal. ….2, 5. Rom. 10.14, 17 Joh. 1.12.13. Rom. 1.16. 1 Cor. 1.21. Eph. 1.13. Jam. 1.18. 1 Pet. 1.21. &c. if wee will beleeve the Spirit of God speaking in the Apostles. And let the Pope take a survey of his Dominions, and I thinke it will palpably appeare, that hee comes farre short of matching this Nation with any proportionable part of his Kingdome, in the Gifts, Abilities, and Numbers of solide and profitable Preachers: These gifts then being given by Him that ascended on high, for the edifying and saving of his Body, wee will make no doubt, but that the Harvest is great where the Labourers sent forth with these gifts, are so many: And withall, hereby wee may learne, That to obtaine th…se gifts from on high, by which soules may bee saved, and to obtaine salvation by the ministry of those gifts; there is no need of being subject to the Popes Supremacy, seeing wee have both very plentifull without it.
But this Champion is still angry, because we have not great store of Sacraments; and yet he knoweth that his owne Doctors do confesse that a man may bee saved,Those which flowed é later… Christi. if hee have no more Sacraments then we doe use and acknowledge. And indeed, if a man in Regeneration, whereof Baptisme is a seale, doe put off originall sinne with the guilt of it, and receive a new life of Grace, and by the use of the Lords Supper, put off the guilt of actuall sinne, and nourish and increase this new life, I doubt not but hee may goe safe and sound from strength to strength, untill he see God in Sion.
And therefore the French aTria siquidem nobis sunt ad profectum christianae religionis proposita, sed ad cō summatam justitiam perinde necessaria, ut in his tota humanae salutis summa consistat: horum primū est intelligere & firmiter tenere mysterium Trinitatis, & unius veritatem Deitatis. Secundum, salutaris Baptismi rationē nosce, vel causam. Tertium, in quo duo vitae Sacramenta, id est, Dominici corporis & sanguinis continentur. Fulbert. Carnot. Epist. 1.Bishop Fulbertus, said, five hundred years past; that in three things; A right Faith in the Trinity, To know the reason of Baptisme, And of the Lords Supper, the whole summe of Mans salvation did consist.
As for charity and pennance, which the Author would commend to us, wee acknowledge that charity is the sap which issueth from the true vine Christ Iesus, into those that are ingrafted in him by faith. But wee must be in the vine, before wee can draw this sap from him: And if wee be in him, then (as Saint Paul told us before,) wee are, even at the same instant, those to whom there is no condemnation. And penitence (for I hope that is the best pennance) also is the fruit of this union, and of the new life which wee receive by it: For Regeneration makes a Well of water in the soule, which springeth up to eternall life. Now the nature of a Well, is, by an ever springing purity, to purge and cast out the filth that is cast into it: And thus doth the Well of Grace in our soules cast out the filth of actuall sins by repentance. And, indeede, to both these doth our Church call us in our preparations to the Lords Supper: so that in regard of the care of our Church and her Remembrancers, wee have no need of Popish admonitions, towards charity and repentance; and in regard of the Lords Supper, which is Christs remembrance of these duties to us, wee have no need of more Popish Sacraments.
And now, if there were cause, I could say much more of the sufficiency of our faith: for wee beleeve that which aQuae summa est fidei, seu omnium credendorum? Symbolum Apostolorum in duodecim distinctum Articulos. Canisii Catechismus.Canisius the Jesuite saith, is the summe of things to be beleeved, the Creed of the Apostles. And if there were yet need of a larger faith, bKing Iames his premonition to christian Kings.Let us heare King James of ever glorious memory, what he saith of his Protestant faith: I am such a Catholique Christian as beleeveth the three Creeds, I reverence and admit the foure first generall Councells as Catholique and Orthodox.
Briefly, wee have so full and saving a faith in Jesus Christ and his Gospell,2. Cor. 11.4. that, except the Pope bring us another Jesus, and another Gospell, wee neede not to heare him;Gal. 1.8, 9. and if hee bring another Jesus, and another Gospell, then hee is accursed.
SECT. II.
The presumption of Papists in condemning this saving faith, & whereas the Cavalier denyes, that they hold Protestants to be in the case of those who sinne against the Holy Ghost, it is shewed, by a fearfull example, that denying the Doctrine of the Protestants hath been taken for the sin against the holy Ghost.
ANd now being justified by God in Jesus Christ, through a saving faith, who shall condemne us? Certainely the faith which saveth us, will not condemne us: Therefore, if Romists condemne us when wee have this saving faith, they are to bee condemned for unjust condemning us.Mat. 7.1, 2. They must have that judgement wherewith they have judged others; and so they have not so much condemned us as themselves. They draw the woe and curse upon themselves,Esay 5.20. which is denounced against those that call good evill, and take the righteousnesse of the righteous from him. And thus doing,Pro. 17.15. they are far from taking the place of Almighty God in judging his servants, which this man saith som of ours do lay against them as a charge: For indeed, to speak more rightly, they might say, that herein Romists take the place of the Accuser of the Brethren: Rev. 12.1….They put themselves into the place of that Father of untruth and uncharitablenesse that falsely accused Job as an Hypocrite,Job 1.9, 10, 15 & 2.3, 4, 5. and assayed to provoke God and Men against the Children of God.
Yet doth not the Divell (nor his instruments) falsly accuse and terrifie the faithfull without an especiall craft: For hee is a cunning Fowler; and a Fowler, when hee hath spread his net before some cleft of a Rock where birds rest in safety, he assayes by noyses, out-cries, and terrors to fright them out of their safety, that so they may come into his net: So the Divell, when he seeth soules safely resting by faith in the Rock Christ Iesus, hee assayeth to fright them out of their safety, by the out-cries and terrors of damnation. And the Romists joyne with them in these terrible noyses, so to fright Protestants from their Rock of safety, into their net of errors, superstitions, idolatries, and especially that large Net of Idolatry, the Popes Deity and Supremacy. But, as the onelyonly safety of the bird is not to feare these out-cries, neither by feare of a false danger to runne into a true one; so it is the safety of Protestants not to feare these noyses, nor for the feare of a false damnation, to runne into a true one: Let them keepe close to their Rock of safety, Christ Iesus, and from this safety they may assuredly expect salvation. But contrarily, the false Accusers, and affrighters, and casters of damnation, shall be truely in danger of the same damnation which they have falsely laid on the heires of salvation.
This Author speakes yet further, of a charge laid by us on Romists, That they say, Protestancy is as the sinne against the Holy Ghost. I thinke the meaning of this charge is onelyonly to this purpose; That Romists, in saying that unrepented Protestancie doth damne men, doe make it, in effect, as mortall as the impenitent sinne against the Holy Ghost. But for every way of charging them for their uncharitable censure, I doe not undertake; for it may suffice mee any way to shew that this censure is uncharitable. Yet seeing wee are fallen into the mention of comparing Protestancy to the sin against the Holy Ghost, let us behold in a patterne how neerely falling from Protestancie hath been taken for the sin against the Holy Ghost.
F. Spira, a learned Lawyer, dwelling neere Padua,Sl…ydan. Com. lib. 21. Gowlart. Admir. Hist. ex S…ringe…o, teste oculato. having embraced the true Religion with great zeale, and making open profession of the same, was complained of to the Popes Legate; which when hee understood, and saw the danger, after hee had long deliberated and consulted what was best to bee done, hee resolved at last to goe to the Legate; accordingly he went to him to Venice, craved pardon, and promised future obedience: The Legate, for an example to others, commanded him after his returne to make an open recantation; which accordingly hee performed. But having done this against his conscience, to maintaine himselfe and his charge, being returned to his house, hee could not rest an houre, no, not a minute, nor feele any ease of his continuall anguish. And even from that night hee was so terrified, and had such horror of his actions, as hee held himselfe for lost: For, as he himselfe did confesse, hee saw plainely before his eyes all the torments of hell, and the damned; and in his soule did heare the fearfull sentence, being drawn before the Judgment seat of Iesus Christ. Hee was carried to Padua, where famous and excellent Physicians did visit him, and gave him Physicke with singular affection: but they soone found that he was little sick in body, but grievously in minde. Nothing came out of his mouth that was lightly or foolishly spoken, or that might discover any raving in him. They asked him if hee thought his sinne to bee so foule, that it could not be pardoned through the bounty and infinite merciemercy of God. His answer was, That hee had sinned against the Holy Ghost, which was so great a sinne, as it is called a sinne unto death; whereof this wretched man discoursed amply, learnedly, and too subtly against himselfe: Hee said, that hee did acknowledge the severity of Gods judgement, who had chosen him to make him a spectacle rather then any other, and to admonish all by one mans mouth, to abstaine from all impiety, confessing that there was no reproach nor punishment which hee had not deserved by reason of his foule offence.
After hee had discoursed gravely of the Divine Justice, hee said, That they should not account strange this his speech, for that oftentimes God doth wrest out of the mouth of Reprobates most assured testimonies of his Majestie, his Justice, and his fearefull Vengeance; as wee see in Iudas, confessing his owne sin, and justifying his Master.
Many testimonies of Scripture being alledged to divert him from this fearfull apprehension, and being exhorted to receive into his heart a hope and a trust of salvation by Iesus Christ; hee said, even in that whereby you doe exhort mee to gather some hope, I see all meanes of health and pardon taken from mee. For, if the Testimonies of the holy Scripture have any authority (as they have) doe you thinke that Iesus Christ said in vaine, that he which renounceth him before men, hee will renounce him before his heavenly Father? Doe you not see that this concerns mee, and that it is as it were particularly verified in my person? What shall become of him whom the Sonne hath disavowed before his Father, when, as you say, wee must hope for no salvation but in Iesus Christ?
It cannot bee beleeved with what gravity and vehemency his words were delivered; neither was there ever man heard pleading better for himselfe, then Spira against himselfe: Hee said, That God did set the precious bloud of Iesus Christ, and the dignity of his obedience, as an high and strong Rampart, that sinners, repenting them, might not bee drowned with the overflowing of their sinnes, and offences: As for himselfe, seeing hee had renounced our Saviour Iesus Christ, hee had (as one should say) overthrown this strong Rampart with his owne hands, so as the deluge of the waters of vengeance had covered and swallowed up his soule. One of his most familiars said unto him; that his great torment proceeded from abundance of Melancholy which troubled his braine. Spira remembring that hee had many times refuted this opinion, said; You may thinke what you please, but God in truth hath troubled my spirit, seeing it is impossible for me to have any hope of salvation. Thus hee continued, and withall, refused to eate any more meate, and so being carried from Padua to his owne house, in this despaire hee died.