Columbia ^^uitier^ttp THE LIBRARIES JESUIT JUGGLING. FORTY POPISH FRAUDS DETECTED AND DISCLOSED BY RICHARD BAXTER, AUTHOR OF THE SAINT'S EVERLASTING REST. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS " I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the moutii of tho dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet ; for they are the spirits of devils, which go forth unto the whole world." — John. NEW- YORK: CRAIGHEAD & ALLEN, H. GRIFFIN & CO., EZRA COLLIER, HOWE & BAT1». BOSTON, GOULD, KENDALL & LINCOLN. PITTSBURG, P. PATTERSON. CINCININATI, COREY ^ V» EBSTEW. 1835. t3(o 1?, 3 2.^ Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1835, in the Clerk's office of the Southern District of New- York. CRAIGHEAD AND ALLRN, PRINTERS, 359 BR00ME-9T, N. T. THIS VOLUME, WHICH DISCLOSES THE JUGGLING OF JESUITS, BY RICHARD BAXTER ; '*AND BY IT, HE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETU*." IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO ALL JUNIOR THEOLOGIANS; WHO ALREADY ARE CONSECRATED TO THE « JVf/JV/STijy OF RECO^rCILMTIOJ^," OR WHO ARE PREPARING " EARNESTLY TO CONTEND FOR THE FAITH WHICH WAS ONCE DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS." WITH DEVOUT SOLICITUDE, THAT THEY MAY NOT "FIGHT THE DRAGON; AND THE BEAST; AND THE FALSE PROPHET ; AS ONE WHO BEATETH THE AIR," BUT THAT THEY MAY BE " MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US ! " NeiO'York, Qclober 12, IS35. INDEX. Introductoiiy Address, Epistle Dedicatory, Preface, Adoration of Anj^cls, AU)i(^onsos, Allcifiance tlenied, Ambiguity of Romanists, ArijuiniMits against. Popery, Baptism, lloiicncration. Belief of the Church, Belief of the Truth, Beza, Bohemians, Boy of Bilson, Brothels licensed at Rome, Calumnies on Protestant Ministeis, Calumny of Papists, Calvin, Canonized Saints, Catholic Church and the Popedom contrasted, Celibacy of Priests, Character of Popes, Character of Rome, Christian Profession, Church of Rome ceased, Concubines of Priests, Continuance of Popery, Corporeal presence of Christ in the mass, Corrui)tions of Authors, Council of Lyons, Controversies of Roman Priests, Crimes of Popes, Decision of Controversies, Denial of Faith, Denial of Marriage, Despotism of Popery, Divisions in the Popedom, i^^etection of Jesuits, Dispensation for oaths. Dispensations for conceal- ment. Pa^c, Pafre 7|End of controversy, 83 25 Equivocation of Papists, 298 33 l'>rors in faith overthrow 164| Popery, 310 Rncrnnins IV. Pope, 56 Evan. Ads \\\\. 28. xiii. 27. xv. 21. 1 Thess.x 27. Co/, iv. 16. Deut. xxxi. 1 1. Epk. iii. 4. Matt. xxiv. 15. Rev. i. 3. 2 Tim. iii. 16. John \, 39. Jlcis xvii. 2, 11. xviii. 28. Rom. XV. 4. 2 Ti?7i. iii. 15. /s^. viii. 16, 20. xl. 4. Rom. vii. I. James i. 25. Hos. viii. 12. 1 Cor. xiv. 31^//. xxvi. 27, 28. I Cor. xi. 25, 26, 27, 28. 1 Cor. x. 16. Eccl. vii. 20. Ja7}ies iii. 2. 1 JoAw i. 8. PA«7. iii. 12. LwA-e xi. 4. Dez^^. xii. 32. Gal iii. 10. 1 JoA/i iii. 4. I .Tm. iii. 2, 4, 5, 11, 12. Ti^ i. 6. 1 Ti?n. iv. 3. 1 Cor. ix. 5. I Cor. x. 16. 1 Cor. xi. 23, 26, 27, 28. Ads ii. 42. Ads xx. 7, 11. 2. They are contrary to themselves. Not only sev- eral persons, but several countries go several ways; the Trench are of one way, and the Italians of another, even in the fundamentals of their faith, into which all the rest is resolved. Their Popes have ordinarily been contrary to one another in their decrees ; which made PLatina say, following Popes do still either in- fringe or wholhj abrogate the decrees of the former Popes. Erasmus saith, that Pope John XXII. and Pope Nicholas are contrary one to another in their ichcle decrees., and in things that belong to matters of faith Had we no instances but of Sergiiis and For- mosus and their following partakers, it were enough. And Celestinc' s case puts Bellarmin to silly shifts. Their councils contradict each other. They confess that the Arians have had as many councils as general as ever the orthodox had: and if it be only the want of the Pope's approbation that nulliheth their authority, then let them tell us no more of councils and of all the church, but say plainly that it is but one man that they mean. But even their approved councils have been con- trary : The sixth council at Constantinople approved by Pope Adrian, is now confessed to have many er- 7* 78 JEStJiT rors. The council of Neocaesarea, confirmed by Pope Leo IV. and by the Nicene council, as saith the coun- cil of Florence ses. 7. condemned second marriages, contrary to Scripture. The council at Lateran under Leo. X. determines that the Pope is above a general council ; and the councils of Constance and Basil de- termine that the general council is above the Pope, and that it is heresy to deny it. CHAPTER III. Principles and Proof. If you enter into dispute tvith any Papist, inquire first what he will take for sufficient proof, aiid what common principles you aie agreed on by which the rest must be decided. Men that agree in nothing Q.i all, are not capable of a dispute. For the principles in which they are agreed, are those that the rest must be reduced to. And when you have made this in- quiry, you shall find that the Popish way of dispu- ting is to forbid you to dispute, unless you will first yield the cause to them as beyond dispute; and that they are not agreed with ihe rest of the world in any common principles to which the differences may be reduced for trial; and so there is no sort of proof that they will admit of as sufficient. If there be any ground of proof at all, it must be ; from the senses': or from reason: or from Scripture: or from the church; but they will stand to none of those. Begin at the bottom of all, and know of them wheth- er they will take that for a valid proof, which is fetch- ed from sense, even from the sound senses of all men in the world, supposing a convenient object and me- dium ? If they will not take this for proof, how can you dispute with them ? Or what proof can be ad- mitted, if this be not admitted? We havo this advan- tage in dealing, even with those heathen that have blotted out much of the law of nature itself, that yet they will yield to an argument from sense. JUGGLING. 79 But if they would yield to the validity of this proof: then they give away their cause, seeing sense telleth ua that it is bread which we see, feel, and eat after the consecration. They know this; and therefore they disown and deny that proof, But will they then admit of proofs from reason 1 No, that cannot be, if proof from sense be not admit- ted. For reason receiveth its object by means or oc- casion of the senses, and must needs be deceived if they are deceived. Reason hath not a principle that it holds faster, than that sense is to bo credited ; that this is white or black which my own eyes and the eyes of all other men do see to be so: and so that this is bread which we all see, and feel, and taste to be so. Therefore Papists tell us that reason must stoop to f:iith ; that is, they will not stand to reason when it contradicteth the doctrine of their sect. It seems they are in some parts of their religion unrea- sonable. But I would know, wliether tliey have any reason to be unreasonable. If they have, then why might not our reason be valid as well as their reason which they bring against reason? by which they con- tradict themselves. For if reason be vain, why rea- son they to prove its vanity or invalidity.'' But if they have no reason against reason, let them confess it, and offer us none, and then their disputes will do no harm. AV^e easily yield, that we have reason to be- lieve God's revelation, about those things whi<'h we had no reason to believe if they were not revealed: and that many of those revelations are above reason, so far as that reason cannot discern the truth of the thing without them : yea, it would rather judge the tilings improbable. But yet revelations are received by reason, and inform reason, and not destroy it ; nor do they so contradict sense or reason, as to make that cred- ible which sense and reason have sufficient ground to judge false. So that here we must break with a Papist, even where we might join in dispute with a heathen. And how will Papists deal with heathens if they will deny the proofs from sense and reason .'' But will they stand to the validity of proofs from so JEBtJlT Scripture ? No : for they take it to be but part of God's word, so that \vc may not argue negatively, it is not in the Holy Scripture : therefore it is not an article of faith or a law of God. For they will presently appeal to tradition, &•:, And even so much as is in Scripture, though they confess it to be true, yet they confess it not to be by us intelligible, and will not admit of any proof from it but with this limitation, that you take it in that sense as the church take it. For they are sworn by the Trent oath, to take it in that sense as the holy mother church doth hold and hath held it in, and never to take or interpret it, but according to the unanimous sense of the fathers. So that they must know what sense all the fathers are unanimous in before they can admit a proof from Scripture. And before that can be done, a load of books must be read over or searched: and when that is done, they will find that most texts were never meddled with by most of those fathers in their writings : and in those that they did meddle with they disagreed in mul- titudes, and where they agree they are not unanimous: and thus the Papists are sworn to believe no sense at all. If they would have come down to a major vote, it is no short or easy matter to gather the votes. If they know the fathers' unanimous consent, yet must they have the sense of the present church too : but is it not all one to make your adversary the judge of your cause, as the judge of your evidences and all your proofs .'' Will they stand to the judgment of the catholic church? No; for when they deny proof from sense and reason, they must needs deny all that is brought from the church : for the church cannot judge itself but on supposition of the infallibility of sense. When you argue from the judgment and practice of the great- er part of the church, they presently disclaim them all as heretics or schismatics, and will have no man to be a valid witness but themselves. The Greeks, the Ethio- pians, the Armenians, the Protestants, all are heretics or schismatics save they ; and therefore may not be witnesses in the case. So that you see that Papists will admit of no proofs from sense or reason, or the suffi- ciency of Scripture, or the testimony of the catholic church, but only from themselves. JUGaLIIIC. gl CHAPTER IV. Judge of Controversies. Understand what the Papists mean ivhcn they call ripon you for a judge oj controversies. If you dispute with them, they ask you, icho shall be the judge? and \ ersuado you tirit it is in vain to dis- pute witliout a living judge : for every man will be the judge himself; and every man's cause be right in his own eyes, and all the world will be still at odds till we are agreed who shall be the judge. 1. You may easily observe that this is the plain drift of all, to persuade you to make them your judges, and yield the cause instead of disputing it. For it is no oth- er judge but themselves that they will admit. Yield first that the Pope or his council is the judge of all con- troversies, then it is folly to dispute against them : so that if you will yield them the cause first, they will then dispute with you after. The necessity of a judge is a pretence : for it is against all reason and experience to think that all inquiries or dis- putes are vain, unless there be a judge to decide the case. A judge is a ruling decider ; not to satisfy men's minds, so much as to preserve order, and peace, and justice in society. But there are thousands of cases to be privately discussed, that we never need to bring to a judge. Every husbandman, or tradesman, or naviga- tor, or other artificer meets with doubts and difficulties in his way which he laboreth to discern, and satisfieth himself with a judgment of discretion without a ruling judge. We eat and drink, and clotlie ourselves, and fol- low our daily labors without a judge, though we meet with controversies in almost all. Men marry, and build, and buy, and sell, and take physic, and dispatch their greatest worldly business without a judge. Judges are only for such controverted cases as cannot well be decided without them, to the attaining of the ends of govern- ment. 2. Is it not against the daily practice of the Papists to think or say that all disputes and controversies must 82 JESUIT have a judge ? Who is the judge between the nominals, reals, and formalists, the Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits, in all those controversies which have cartloads of books written on them ? Their Popes or councils dare not judge between them. Do they not daily dis- pute in their schools among themselves without a judge? and still write books against one another without a judge? 3. Understand well the use and differences of judg- ment. The sentence is but a means to the execution : and judges cannot determine the mind and will of man : but preserve outward order, if men will not see the truth themselves. The Jesuits that are so eager for free will, should easily grant that the Pope by his definition can- not determine the will of man. They see that heretics remain heretics, when the Pope hath said all that he can : and if he can cure them all by his determinations, he is much to blame that lie doeth not. If a man's mind can be settled, an infallible teacher is fitter than a judge. Judgment then being for execution, w^hen you ask, who shall be the judge ? I answer, judgment is either total, absolute and final: or it is only to a certain particular end, limited and subordinate, from which there is an ap- peal. In the former case, there is no judge but Christ, and the Father by him. No absolute decision can be made till the great judgment come ; and then all will be fully and finally decided. And for the limited pres- ent judgments of men, they are of several sorts accord- ing to their several ends. When the question is, who shall be corporally punished as a heretic ? the magistrate is judge : for coercive punishment being his work, the judgment must be his also. But when the question is, who shall be excommunicated as a heretic ? as God's law hath told us who, so is the rule of decision about in- dividuals. To try individual persons, and cases accor- ding to this law, belongs to the governors of the church : but not to the governors of other churches a thousand miles off, that never received such an authority, and are not capable of the work : but to the governors of the church in which the party hath communion, and into which he shall at any time intrude and seek communion. All men have a judgment of discerning that are concern- ed in the execution. JUGGLING. 83 So thai if ti disputing Papist will sfiy tliat iiis business is not to dispute with you, but to cxconiniunicato, or hang, or burn you for a heretic, then 1 confess there is all the reason in the world that you should first agree upon the judge. But why the Po])c should be the judge, 1 know not. CHAPTER V. End of contrctversy. Papists tell you, that in their icay there is an end of co}itroversics, but in yours there is none : for if you ivill not stand to One^s judgment as infallible^ you may dis- pute as long as you live before you come to an end. In discussing this part of the deceit : — 1. We confess that on earth there will be no end of all controversies among the best : nor of the great controversies which salvation lieth on, between the believers and unbelievers : that is, there will be still infidelity and heresy in the world, and error in the godly themselves. IJath it not been so in every age till now \ And wh}'^ should we expect that it should now be otherwise ? Doth not Paul tell us that here we know but in part, and prophesy in part 1 and that which is imperfect will not be done away, until that which is perfect is come "? While we know but in part, we shall ditVer in part. 2. Hath your way put an end to controversies any- more than ours 1 Are you not yet at controversy with infidels, whether Christ be the Redeemer, and with here- tics whether he be true eternal (Jod ] Are you not yet as full of controversies among yourselves, as any Chris- tians on the face of the earth 1 In the many volumes of your schoolmen, casuists, and commentators, I can shew more controversies yet depending, than you can find among all Christians in the world together. 3. Is there any thing in your way that better tondeth to the deciding of controversies than in ours ? Con- trarily, you have made more controversies than you have ended. We have a certain infallible rule to decide 84 JESUIT our controversies by, such as you confess yourselves to be infallible; even the Holy Scriptures. But you have an uncertain rule, even the decrees of your Popes and councils, and the many volumes of the fathers, which are at odds among thcniseh es ; your very rule is self-contradictino-, and your judges are together by the ears. Our Faith consistcth in those points which are granted by yourselves, and so are beyond controversy between us and you. But yours lieth in a mixture of men's corruptions, which will ever be controverted and condemned. Our Faith consistcth in the few ancient articles by which the church was always known as to its essentials. But you confound the essentials with the integrals : and the number of your necessary articles is so great, as must need be matter of more controvers}' than ours. 4. We know our religion, and where to find it. It was perfect at the first, and receiveth no additions or diminutions. One generation cometh, and another goeth, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. But you never know when you have all, because you know not when your Pope will have done defining. That is an article of faith to you one year that was none the year before, nor ever before. 5. We need no judge to decide any controversies among us in the points of absolute necessity to salvation: both because the Scripture is so plain in those points, as to serve for decision without a judge ; and because we abhor to make a controversy of an}' of them ; and where there is no controversy there needs no judge. We are all agreed, through the plainness of the Scripture, that there is but one, eternal, most wise, and good, and om- nipotent God : and that there is one Mediator between God and man, wbo is himself both God and man, that was crucified, dead, buried, went to liadcs, rose again, ascended, intercedeth for us, and is king and head of the church : and will raise tlic dead, and judge the world, some to heaven, and some to hell. These and all the rest of the essentials of our fahh, and many more points that are not essentials, are so plain in Scripture, that we are past making them a matter of controversy. If any man deny an essential point of faith, he is none JUGGLING. 86 of US. But you are so deep iii infidelity, tlint you must have a judj^e to decide your controversies in the neces- sary articles of faitli. For wliatever is of faitli you make to he of sucli equal necessity, that you deride our distinguishing^ the fundamentals from the rest. Do you think Ciuistians need a judge, or must put it to a judge to decide, ivhethcr Christ be the 3Icssias or not? whether he died and rose again or not 1 whether he will judge the world or not ? W he he a judge, he must have power to oblige you to stand to his determination on which side soever he determine. And if John XXII. determine that the soul is not immortal, or John XXIII. that there is no resurrection or life to come, but a man dicth like a beast : would you stand to that de- cision? G. If you say that your judge hath power to oblige you only on one side, that is, when he judgeth right, and so make no judge of him, but a teacher, we have such judges as well as you, even teachers to show us the evi- dence of truth. 7. If you say that you have a judge to determine of iieresy in order to excommunication, so have we; even the pastors of the churches, who are bound to unite and assist each other in such works. What is to be account- ed heresy, the law of God sufficiently determineth : and what particular persons are to be judged heretics and excommunicated according to that law, the particular pastors that are on the place can better decide, than a , Pope that is a thousand, or five thousand miles off, and cannot hear the witnesses. And do you not yourselves decide almost all such cases of your subjection, by the present priests and prelates, and not by the Pope ? And why may not we do so then as well as you ? 8. But you lay all upon your Pope's and council's in- fallibility. Believe that infalibility if you can. I should think myself a miserable man, if I were not myself more infallible than your Popes have been. Every Christian, while such, is infallible in his belief of the Christian faith ; and the Scripture is an infallible ground of our be- lief. 9. Is it not a plain judgment of God upon you, that while you make the Scripture so dark and not intelligi- 86 jEsuif ble, and cry up the necessity of a living judge; you should not only swarm with difl'erences among yourselves, but should be utterly disagreed, and at a loss to know who is that judge of controversies ; one saying it is the Pope, and another that it is the council : and what the better are you for saying, there must be a judge, as long as you cannot tell who it must be 1 It is not only un- certain among you, whether Pope or council be the in- fallible judge, but also which is a true Pope, and which is a lawful general council? For forty years at least to- gether the church could not know the true Pope, but the more learned and upright men were divided : nor is it known to this day. Frequently the strongest carried it, and success was his best title. General councils them- selves knew not the right Pope. The council at Con- stance and Basil knew not tlie right Pope. They at Basil thought Felix Y. the true Pope, and Eugenius no Pope : but friends and strength confuted a general council, and proved that Eugenius was the Pope. Who knows which council to take for authority? What cata- logues have you of reprobated councils, and of doubtful councils, and partly approved, partly reprobate, and who knows wliich and how far ; but only that is approv- ed, that plcaseth the Pope, and tlmt reprobate that dis- ])leascth him, and yet perhaps approved by a former Pope. So that you are all confusion and uncertainty about your true Popes and general councils. What a loss are you at to know their decrees and ca- nons? What a fardel of false decretal epistles have you thrust upon the world ; decretals that use a translation of the Scripture that was formed a long time after the death of tlie supposed authors of those epistles. Decre- tals which make mention of persons and things that were many score hundred years after the death of the feigned authors. Those are your new Scriptures, and by those our faith must be regulated, and our controver- sies decided. Your canons are uncertain. Some have but twenty canons of the first general council at Nice : and others have the new found rabble of additions. Much more uncertainty or certain forgery there is in the canons called the apostles. JUGOLIiNC. S7 1 appeal to all tlic impartial reason in the world, wheth- er your voluniinousi, apocryphal uncertain faitii that needs a living judjie, and cannot find one, or agree upon him, tliat leaves your controversies still undecided, be u liker way to peace and unity, than our short and plain articles and infallible Scripture faith, that hath less mat- ter of contention, and better means to prevent it, even faithful teachers and judges in every church and com- monwealth, which shall so far determine as may preserve tiie peace of those societies, leaving the final full decis- ion of all to the eternal judge that is even at the door. 10. Is not God's hand of judgment yet more obser- vable against you, that when your Popes and councils have passed their ju Igment, the several sects are unable to understand them] Witness the sentence against the Jansenisls, of which the persons that seem to be condemn- ed, say, that there is no such thing or words in all Jan- senius' writings, as the Pope saith are in him, and con- ■demneth as his : and the controversy is as far from a de- cision, as if the Pope had held his peace. Your great disputer White, is the same, for all the Pope's determi- nation. Take another instance, whether the Pope or council be supreme ] The councils of Constance and Basil de- termined it one way as of faith, and yet that made no end of the controversy. The council of Lateran and Pope Leo X. determined it the other way ; and yet it is a controversy after two contrary decisions : and som« say one way, some the other: and others say, it is yet undecided, for fear of angering the French by casting them ofi' as heretics. The council at Basil, scss. 36., fully determined the controversy between the Franciscans and Dominicans about the Virgin Mary's immaculate concep- tion: and yet it is undetermined still ; and White afiirms, that certainly there is no tradition for it, nor any proba- bility that ever the negative will be defined. Apolog, for tradit. p. 64, 65, G(^. He carricth it as boldly out, as if no council had made or meddled with it. The words of the council are these: "A hard question hath been in divers parts, and before this holy synod, about the conception of the glorious Virgin Mary, and the begin- ning of her sanctification ; some saying that the Virgin 88 JESUIT and her soul were for some time or instant of time actu- ally under original sin : others on the contrary, saying, that from tlie heginning of her creation, God loving her, gave her grace by which preserving and freeing that blessed person from the original spot, ifcc. We, having diligently looked into the authorities and reasons, which for many years past have in public relation on both sides been alleged before this holy synod, and having seen many other things about it, and weighed ■them by mature consideration, do define and declare, that the doctrine affirming that the glorious Virgin Mary, the mother of God, by the singular preventing and operating grace of God, was never actually under origi- nal sin, but was ev^er free from all original and actual sin, and was holy and immaculate, is to be approved, held and embraced of all catholics as godly and consonant to church worship, catholic faith, right reason, and sacred Scripture: and that henceforth it shall be lawful for no man to preach and teach the contrary." Is not this plain defining'? But it is said, that was not an approved council. It was owned by Pope Eugcnius himself. The council of Basil was approved by the Pope : for Pope Felix V. ane of the best Popes that ever Rome had for a thous- and years past, approved it in this point : not only bv accepting their election, but in express terms "professing firmly to hold the faith of the councils of Constance and Basil, and to keep it inviolate to a tittle, and confirm it with his soul and blood : promising faithfully to labor to defend the catholic faith, and for the execution and ob- servation of the decrees of the councils of Constance and Basil, swearing to prosecute the celebration of gen-» eral councils, und confirmation of elections, according to the decrees of the holy council of Basil," sess. 40. " If they say that Felix was not a true Pope : then Martin y, chosen by the council at Constance was no true Pope ; and then where is your succession ? These things are plain and cannot be denied, though unconscionable shifters, that argue according to their wills, may find words to beguile the simple. Hence your catholic church representative is nothing if one man like it not. JUGGLING. 89 How largely hath the council of Trent dealt about original sin: and yet the foresaid White saith, that "If the people were taught that original sin is nothing but a dis- position to evil, or a natural weakness, which unlcs?; prevented brings infallibly sin and damnation : and that in itself it deserves neither reproach nor punishment, aa long as it proceeds not to actual sin, the heat of vulgar devotion would bo cooled, the imperial city. On the same reason they do the like by Constantinople ; for the council of Constantinople which had gone before them on those grounds : so that you have the vote of two councils, that it was not so from the be- ginning, nor an apostolical tradition, but the act of the fathers, because of the imperial city. If a general council can err. Popery is a deceit. If it cannot err, then the very primacy in the pope was then but new, and done by man, that might do the like by others, and therefore undo this again. But say they. Pope Leo confirmed not this. Then the church representative may err, and the pope only is in- fallible. Leo and his delegates never expected one word against the saying, that it was because of the ern- pire, that Rome by the fathers had the primacy given it. The reason given by themselves Concil. Constant, can. 5. is this, because Constantinople is new Rome. Binius saith that Rome receiveth not the canons of^ this council neither, but only their cuiideuuiation oi Macedonius : and that every council hath just so much strength and authority as the apostolic seat bestoweth on it. For unless this be admitted, no reason can be given why some councils of greater numbers of bishops were reprobated ; and others of a smaller number con- firmed." Vol. 2. p. 515. What would you have more ? Do you not see what the Popish church is ; and what they mean when they ask you, whether your private judgment be safer or wiser than that of the whole church, or of all the Chris- tian world ? You see they mean all this while but one man, whom Gretser and others plainly confess they call the church. So that indeed it is general councils, and all the Christian world or church that are the ig- 118 ' JESUIT norant, fallible, and oft erring part: and it is one man, who has been reputed an incarnate devil by a general council, that is the unerring pillar of the church, and wiser than all. They make a mere nothing or mockery of general councils, any further than they please the pope? And can you expect that any thing should please them that is agaiiist his greatness, or as Julius II. calls it, his holding the place of the great God, the maker of all things, and laws ? What a vile abuse is it then of the pope to trouble the world by the meet- ings and consultations of general councils, when he can sit at Rome and contradict them infallibly, and save the catholic church from the errors that general councils would else lead them into : and therefore could he not with less ado infallibly make us laws, canons and Scriptures without them? For that which the pope can do against a general council, he can do with- out them. If he can infallibly contradict a general council, and infallibly rule us without them. There- fore 3"0U may look long enough before you see another general council. The council of Constance were neither prognosticators nor effectual lawgivers, when they prognosticated and ordained decennial coun- ciis. Here also you may see what account the Papists make even of the first general councils. It is all one with them to judge others heretics for contradicting es- pecially the four first general councils, compared to the four evangelists as the Scripture itself: and yet they profess themselves to reject the canons or decrees of both those, the first of Constantinople, and that of Cal- cedon. Thus the pope is privileged from all possibility of being an heretic personilly: and not only the Romish universal monarchy and vice-godhead, but even its pa- triarchal primacy was no apostolical tradition, but a human institution, founded on this consideration, that Rome was the imperial seat and city. Human it must needs be: for councils did not de- clare any part of the law of God, but ordain it as an act of their own. They and the patriarchate of Con- stantinople, which was a new seat, neither patriarch JUGGLING. ' 119 nor bishop residing- tlicrc in tlio apostles' clays, or Ion"- after. Tlicy give this new patriarcii the second place and once made him equal with old Rome, which they would never have presumed to do, if they had thought that the jiatriarchship of Alexandria, Anlioch, or Rome had been of divine institution: for what horrible arro- gance would that have been, when the Holy Ghost by the apostles had made Alexandria second, and An- lioch third, and Rome first, for a council to set Con- stantinople befove two of them, and equal with the first. Therefore if patriarchs be desirable creatures, there may more new ones now be made, as lawfully as that of Constantinople. Therefore we judge, that to disobey the pope, or withdraw from his subjection, if he had never forfeited his patriarchship by the claim of an universal headship, were no greater a sin, than to disobey or withdraw from the patriarch of Alexandria, Antioch, or Constan- tinople. Either the government by patriarchs and archbishops is of God's ordaining and approving, or not: if not then it is no sin to reject any of them. If it be of God, then to reject any of them, though in sim- ple error, is a sin of disobedience through ignorance, but is far from proving a man to be no member of the catholic church : for patriarchs are far from being es- sential parts of the catholic church. As in the Papists' own judgment, the catholic church may be without the patriarch of Constantinople, Alex- andria, or Antioch; so may it therefore without the Pope of Rome. All the Greek church which hath set up the patriarch of Constantinople in competition with the pope, must needs hold that the universal primacy is of human institution: for Constantinople never pre- tended to a divine institution : and they could never have had the impudence to prefer a human before a di- vine : and therefore never thought the primacy of Rome to be of divine right. 120 JEsuit CHAPTER XI. Tradition. The great endeavor of the Papists is to advance tra- dition : the council of Trent ses. 4. hath equalled it with the Scriptures as to the pious affection and reverence wherewith they receive it. On pretence of this tradition they have added abundance of new articles to the faith, and accuse us as heretics for not receiving their tra- ditions. This is a principal difference betwixt us, that we take the Scriptures to be sufficient, to acquaint us with the will of God, as the rule of faith and holy liv- ing: and they take it to be but part of the word, knd that the other part is in unwritten tradition, which they equal with this. For the maintaining of tradition it is that they write so much to the dishonor of the Holy Scripture. For the discovery of their desperate fraud in this point, and the right confuting of them , you must dis- tinguish them out of their confusion : you must grant them all that is true and just, which we shall as stifly defend as they: you must reject their errors and con- fute them : and you may turn their own principal weap- on against them, to the certain destruction of their cause. We must distinguish the tradition of the Scriptures, or the Scripture doctrine, from the tradition of other doctrines, pretended to be the rest of the word of God : between a certain proved tradition, and that which is unproved and uncertain, if not grossly feigned: between the tradition of the whole catholic church, or the great- er part, and the tradition of the lesser more corrupted and selfish the Roman part ! between a tradition of necessary doctrine or practice, and the tradition of mu- table orders : between tradition of testimony, or history, or of teaching ministry, and tradition of decisive judg- ment, as to the universal church. Suffer them not to jumble all those together, if you would not be cheated in the dark. Concerning tradition, we grant the following propo- sitions. JUGGLING i<^l That the Holy Scriptures come down to us by the cer- tain tradition of our fathers and teachers ; and that what the seeing and hearing of the apostles was to tiiem that lived with them, that tradition and belief of certain tradi- tion is to us, by reason of our distance from the time and place. So that thougii the Scripture bears its own evi- dence of a divine author, in the image or superscription of God upon it, yet we are beholden to tradition for the books themselves, and for much of our knovvlt-dge that those are the true writings of the apostles and prophets, and all, and not depraved, &c. The essentials of the faith have been delivered even from the apostles in other ways and forms, besides the Scriptures: as in the professions of the faith of the churches. In the baptismal covenant and signs, and whole administration. In the Lord's Supper. In Cat- echisms. In the prayers and praises of the church. In the hearts of all true believers, where God hath written all the essentials of the Christian faith and law. So that we will not do as the Papists perversly do : when God delivereth us the Christian religion with two hands. Scripture completely and verbal tradition, in the essentials ; they quarrel with Scripture on pre- tence of defending the other: so will not we quarrel with tradition, but thankfully confess a tradition of the same Christianity by unwritten means, which is delivered more fully in the Scripture: and this tradition is in st)me respect subordmale to Scripture, and in some respect co-ordinate, to hold us out the truth. The apostles delivered the Gospel by voice as well as by writing, before they wrote it to the churches. By that preaching we confess there were Christians made, who had the doctrine of Christ in their hearts, and churches gathered that had his ordinances among them, before the Gospel was written. We confess that the converted were bound to teach what they had received to their children, servants and others: that there was a settled ministry in many churches ordained to preach the gospel as they had received it from the apostles before it was written : that baptism, catechising, profession, the eucharist, prayer, praise, &c, were instituted and in use, before the Gos- 11 ]22 JESUIT pel was written for the churches : that when the Gos- pel was written as tradition bringeth it to us, so minis- ters are commissioned to deliver both the books and the doctrine of that book, as the teachers of the church, and to preach it to those without, for their conversion ; that parents and masters are bound to teach that doc- trine to their children and servants: if a minister or other person were cast into the Indies or America with- out a Bible, he must teach the doctrine, though he re- membered not the words ; and by so doing might save souls : that to the great benefit of the church, writers of all ages in subserviency to Scripture have delivered down the sacred verities, and historians the matters of fact: that the unanimous consent of all tiie churches manifested in their constant professions, and practices, is a great confirmation to us : so are the sufferings of the martyrs for the same truth : the declaration of each consent by councils is also a confirming tradition : and the confessions of heretics, Jews and other infidels, are providential and historical traditions, for confirmation : and we also profess thai if we had any certain proof of a tradition from the apostles of any thing more than is written in Scripture, we would receive it. But we take the Holy Scriptures as the complete universal rule or law of faith and holy living. We know of no tradition that containeth another word of God; and we know there is none such because the Scripture is true, which asseiteth its own sufficiency. Scripture, and unwritten tradition are but two ways of acquainting the world with the same christian doctrine ; and not with divers parts of that doctrine, that tradition adds to Scripture. It is but the substance of greatest virtues that are conveyed by unwritten tradition : but that and much more is contained in the Scripture, where the christian doctrine is complete, and containeth the integrals as well as the essentials. The manner of delivery in a form of words, which no man may alter, and in so much fulness and perspi- cuity, is mucli to be preferred before the mere verbal delivery of the same doctrine. The memory of man cannot retain as much as the Bible doth contain, and preserve it safe from alterations or corruptions ; or if JUGGLING. 123 one man were of so strong a memor3% no man can ima- gine that all should be so ; or if one orcneration had such wonderful memories, we cannot imagine that all their posterity should have the liUe. If all the world had such Tniraculous memories, yet men arc apt to be negligent either in learning or keep- ing of lioly doctrine. All have not that zeal that ex- cites them to such wonderful diligence without which such a treasure could not be preserved. When so much matter is committed to bare memory without a form of unalterable words, new words may make an alteration before men are aware. The change of one word sometimes makes a whole discourse have another sense. There are so many carnal men in the world that love not the strictness of that doctrine which they do possess, and so many heretics that would pervert the holy doctrine, that it would purposely be altered by them if it could be done ; and it might much more easily be done, if it lay all upon mens' memories : for one party would set their memory against the others, and tradition would be set against tradition : especially when the far greater part of the church turn heretics, as in the Arians' days ; then tradition would be most at their keeping and interpretation ; and if we had not then had the unalterable Scriptures, what might they not have done ? A whole body of doctrine kept only in memory, will soon be disjointed; and if the matter were kept safe, yet the methud and manner would be lost. There could not be such satisfactory evidence given to another of the integrity or certainty of it, as when it is preserved in writing. We should all be diflident that the laws were corrupted, or that lawyers might combine to do it at their pleasure, if there were no law books or records, but all lay in their memories. If they were faithful, yet they could not give us evidence of it. The holy truths of God, historical, doctrinal, practi- cal, prophetical, &c., without a course of miracles, or extraordinary means, could not have been kept through all ages, as well without writing, as with it. 124 JESUIT If writing be not necessary, why have we so many fathers, histories, and canons? Why do they fetch their tradition from those and ridiculously call them unwritten verities ^ Are they unwritten, when they turn us to so many volumes for them? If man's writ- ing be necessary for their preserv^ation, men should thankfully acknowledge that God hath taken the best way in giving it us in his own unalterable phrase. If they prove that some matters of fact are made known to us by tradition that are not in the Scripture, or that any church orders or circumstances of worship then used are so made known to us, which yet we wait for the proof of, it will not follow that any of those are therefore divine institutions, or universal laws for the unchangeable obligation of the whole church. If there be some things historically related in the Scrip- ture, that were obligatory but for a season, and ceased when the occasion ceased, as the washing of feet, the abstaining from things strangled and blood, the anoint- ing of the sick, the prophesyings one by one, 1 Cor. xiv. 31. miraculous gifts and their exercise, &c. it will not follow, that they are universal laws to the church. We will never take the pope's decision for a proof of tradition: nor will we receive it from pretended au- thority, but from rational evidence. Their saying, ice. are the authorised keepers of tradition, shall not go with us for proof. It is not the testimony of the Papists alone, who are not only a lesser part of the church, but a part that hath espoused a corrupt interest against the rest, that we shall take for certain proof of a tradition, but we will prefer the testimony of the whole church before the Romish church alone. They that can produce the best records of anliquitv, or rational proof of the antiquity of the thing they plead for, are of more regard in the matter of tradition than millions of unlearned men. Universal tradition is preferred before the tradition of the Romish sect, and rational 7;roo/ of antiquity is preferred before ignorant surmises. But where both those concur w/iircrsa/ co«- $ent, and records or other credible evidence of antiqui- ty, it is most valid. JtGGLINO. 125 As for the Romish traditions which they take for part of God's word ; they must produce sufficient proof that they came from the apostles, before we can receive them as apostolic tradition : and also that it was deliv- ered by the apostles as a perpetual universal doctrine or law for the whole church. Either those traditions have evidence to prove them apostolical, or no evidence. If none, how can the pope know them ? If they have evidence, why may not we know it as well as the pope? If there be any proof of these traditions, it is either some ancient records or monuments : or it is the prac- tice of the church ; but then how shall we know how long- that practice hath continued, without recourse to the writings of the ancients:'' Reports are very uneer- tain. If it may be known without the search of ancient records, then we may know it as well as they. If the pope and his priests have been the keepers of it, have they in all ages kept it to themselves or declared it to the church ? If they have concealed it, then it be- longed not to others : or else they were unfaithful and unfit for the office. Then how do succeeding popes and priests know it ? If they divulged it, then others know it as well as they. We have had abundance of preachers from among the Papists, who were once Pa- pists themselves, as Luther, MelanrAhon, Zuingluie, Calvin, Beza, Peter Martyr, Bucer, S^*c., and yet they knew not apostolical traditions. It mars your credit with us, because we are nble to prove the beginning of some of your traditions, or a time when they had no being : also the death and burial^ of many things that have long gone under the name of traditions. You are so confounded between your ecclesiastical decrees and traditions, and your apostolical traditions, that we despair of learning to know one from the other and of seeing under the hand of the pope and a general council a catalogue of the true apostolical traditions. It seems to us scarce fair dealing that in one thousand years time, the church could never have an enumeration "and description of those traditions, with the proofs of them. 11* 12G JESUIT It is abominable impiety for you to equal your tradi- tions with the Holy Scripture, till you have enumerated and proved them. It makes us suspect your traditions, when we perceive that they or their patrons have such an enmity to the Holy Scriptures, that they cannot be rio^htly defended without casting some reproach upon tlie Scriptures, But this is no new thing with the ap- plauders of tradition. The eighth general council at Constantinople, Can. 3, decreed that the image of Christ should be adored with equal honor iciih (he holy Scripture. If your own councils themselves, are for the suffi- ciency of Scripture, what then has become of &il your traditions ? Binius, p. 299, Council of Basil, Ragusii Orat. — " Faith and all things necessary to salvation, both matters of belief and matters of practice, are founded in the literal sense of Scripture, and only from that may argumentation be taken for the proving of those things that are matters of faith, or necessary to salvation ; and not from those passages that are spoken by allegory, or other spiritual sense. The Holy Scripture in the literal sense soundly and well understood, is the infal- lible and most sufficient rule of faith.'' ^ This is the Protestant doctrine. There is nothing any way neces- sary to faith or salvation, but what is contained in the Scriptures, either expressly, or as the conclasion in the premises. We grant tradition or church practices are very useful for our better understanding of some Scrip- tures : but, what is this to another traditional word ot God? Prove your traditions by inference from Scrip- ture and we receive them. This is the doctrine for Scripture. Sufficiency and perfection are the rule of faith and life, admitting no ad- dition as necessary, but explication. When this doc- trine past so lately in a Popish council, you may sec that the very doctrine of tradition equalled with Scrip- ture, or being another word of God, necessary to faith and salvation, containing what is wanting in Scripture, is but lately sprung up in the world. Tiie Papists get liitle by their argument from tradi- tion : they lose by it all their cause. For two things they much plead tradition ; their pri- vate doctrines and practices, in which they disagree JUOOLING. 127 from all Christians ; and there they lose their lahor with the judicious : because tliey ^ive us no sufficient proof tjjat their tradition is apostolical, and because tlir> dissent of other churches showeth that it is not universal. Tlie other cause for which they plead tradition is the doctrine of Christianity itself; with a desic^n to lead jnen to the church of Rome : as if we must be no (chris- tians, unless we are Christians upon the credit of the pope, and his subjects. We do not strive against tradition or testimony of an- tiquity for the Scripture, or for Scripture doctrine : we make much advantage of such just tradition. We ac- cept our religion from both the hands of Providence that bring it us ; Scripture and tradition ; and we abhor the contempt which those partial disputers cast upon Scrip- ture ; but we are not tlierefore so partial ourselves as to refuse any collateral or subordinate help for our faith. Tlij more testimonies the better. The best of us have need of all the advantages for our faith that we can get. When they have extolled the certainty of tradition to the highest, we gladly join with them, and accept of any certain tradition of the mind of God. I advise all who would prove themselves wise defenders of the faith, to take heed of rejecting arguments from providences, or any necessary testimony of man, especially concerning matter of fact, or of rejecting true church history, be- cause the Papists overvalue it under the name of tra- dition, lest such prove guilty of the like partiality and injuriousness to the truth as the Papists are. Whereas the Papists imagine, that this must lead us to their church for tradition, I answer we go beyond the Papists in ar- guing for just tradition of the Christian faith, and make far greater advantage of it than they can do. They ar- gue but from authoritative decision by the pope, under the name of church tradition, whereas we argue from true history and certain antiquity, and prove what we say. Their tradition is no tradition : for it must be taken upon the credit of a man, supposed infallible iby super- natural, if not miraculous endowment ; which is not tra- dition but prophesy. If they prove the man to be such a man, it is all one to the church whether he say that 128 JESUIT this was the apostles' doctrine, or this I deliver myself to you from God. For he is so qualified, he has the pow- er and credit of a prophet or apostle himself : therefore they must prove tlie pope to he a prophet, before their tradition can get credit : and when they have done that there is no need of it. When Papists speak of tradition confusedly, they give us just reason to call them to define their tradition, and tell us what they mean by it, before we dispute with them upon an ambiguous word ; seeing they are so divid- ed among themselves, that one party understands one thing by it, and another another thing ; which we must not sufler tliose jugglers to jumble together and confound. Another advantage in which we go beyond the Papists for tradition, is, that as we argue not from the mere pre- tended supernatural infallibility or authority of any ; as they do, but from rational evidence of true antiquity ; so we argue not from a sect or party as they do, but from the universal church. As far as the whole church of Christ is of larger extent and greater credit than the Popish party, so far is our tradition more credible than theirs. The Papists are fewer by far than the rest of the nom- inal christians in the world. And the testimony of many is more than of a part. The Papists above other parties have espoused an interest that leads them to preten 1 and corrupt tradition, and bend all things to that inter- est of their own, that they may lord it it over all the world : but the whole church can have no such interest and partiality. The Papists are but one side ; and he that will judge rightly, must hear the other sides speak too. But the tradition that we make use of, is from all sides concurring ; even Papists themselves agree with us in many points. Our tradition reacheth farther than the universal church, for we take in all rational evidence of Jews, heathens, heretics, and persecutors ; that bear witness to the mat- ters of fact, and what was the doctrine and practice of the cluistians in their times, and what books they made tlie ground of their faith. So that as impartial history or testimony differeth from private assertion, or from the testimony of one party only ; so doth our tradition excel JUGGLING. 129 both the sorts of Popish tradition, both that of the Papal, and that of the council pariy. But \vc have not done with tiiom, till tradition has given them their mortal stroke. You appeal to tradition, to tradition you shall go. l>ut what tradition? The tradition of the catholic church'? and where is that to he found and known ? hut in the profession and practice of tlie church, and in the records of the church? The great questions between you and us, arc these : Whether the pope be the head and sovereign ruler of the whole catholic church ? and ichether the catholic church and the Roman are of equal extent? Inquire of the present church : and there we have the profession and practice of all the Greeks; the Syrians; the Moscovites ,* the Georgians; and all others dispers- ed throughout the Turk's dominions, with the Jacobites, Armenians, Egyptians, Abassines, and all other church- es in Europe, &-c. which disclaim the headship of the Roman pope. All those with one mouth proclaim that the church of Rome is not, and ought not to be the mis- tress of the world, or of all other churches, but that the l)0})e for la^'ing such claim is a usurper, and the anti- Christ. This is the tradition of the Greeks; of the Ab- assines, and the greatest part of the church on earth agree in this. What then is become of the Roman sov- ereignty, by the verdict of tradition ; even from the vote of the greatest part of the church ? Rome hath no right to its pretended sovereignty, Babylon is fallen by the judgment of tradition. If you say that all those are heretics or schismatics, and therefore have no vote, we answer : a minor party, ]>artial and corrupt, seeking dominion over the rest, may not step into the tribunal, and pass sentence against the catholic church, or the greatest part of it. But your common saying is, that the Greeks, Protestants, and all the rest were once of your church, and departing from it, they can have no tradition but yours. Go to former ages, seeing it is not the present church whose voice you will regard. But iiow shall we know the way and mind of the ages past ! If by the present age, then the greater part giveth us their sense against you. If by the records of 130 JUGGLING. those times, we arc content to hear the testimony of these. When we look into the ancients we find them against you ; and no footsteps of your usurped sover- eignty, but a contrary frame of government, and a con- sent of antiquity ajrainst it. When we look into later history we find, how by the advantages of Rome's tem- poral greatness and the emperor's residence there your greatness begun, and preparation was made to yout usurpation, and how the translation of the imperial seat to Constantinople made them your competitors, in the claim of an universal headship ; and how it being once made a question, you got it by a murdering emperor who took your side for his own advantage. It was not till Hildcbrand's days that you could get any possession. In- stead of apostolical tradition for your sovereignt\^ ; eight hundred years after the days of Christ, you had not so much of the catholic church in your subjection, as you have now. At six hundred years after Christ no known part of the world acknowledged your universal sover- eignty ; but only the Latin western church submitted to the pope as their patriach, and the first in order among the patriarchs. In the days of Constantino and the Nicene council, he was but a bishop of the richest and most numerous church of Christians : and for a hundred years after Christ, he was no more than the presbyter of a particular church. The Ethiopian churches of Habassia, the Indians, Per- sians, arts of Asia alone ex- ceeded in multitude the Christians both of the Greek and Latin Churches. Alas, how little a thing then was the Roman church ! If all this were not enough, the tradition of your own church destroys the papacy utterly. "A general coun- cil is above the pope, and may judge him and depose him ; that is of faith, it is heresy to deny it ; and this is so sure that no wise man ever doubted it." Tiiis is the judg- ment of the general council of Basil, with whom that of Constance doth agree. Whether those councils were confirmed or not, they confess them lawfully called and owned, and extraordinarily full. So they were their church representative ; and so the pope's sovereignty • over the council is gone by tradition. If a free general council should be called, all the churches in the world nmst be equally there represented : and if they were so, then down goes the usurped headship of the pope: for most of the churches in the world are against it : and therefore in council they would have the major vote. And thus by the concession of the Roman representa- tive church the pope is gone by tradition. CHAPTER XII. Papal Soveriignly. Another of the Roman frauds is this : The^ persuade men that the Greeks, the Protestants, and all other churches, icere once under the Pajjal sovereignty, and 132 JEsuit have separated themselves without any just cause : and therefore we arc all schismatics ; and have no vote in general councils, , and Pope Clement made in the vulgar Latin Bible, which is one part of their rule, and the other part is their decrees, of which Pope Leo. X. Bulla contr. Luth. saith, the popes our predecessors never erred in their canons and constitutions. And yet Pope Julius IL said is his general council at the Lateran with their approbation, Cont. pragmaf. sand, monitor. — Though the institutions of sacred canons, holy fathers, and popes of Rome — and their decrees be judged immutable, as made by divine inspiration ; yet the pope of Rome, who, thouch of unequal merits, holdcth the place of the eter- nal king, and the maker of all things, and all laws on earth, may abrogate these decrees when they are abused. You see here from the mouth of infallibility itself, if the Roman faith have any, of what continuance we may judire their immutable decrees to be, which are made as by divine inspiration: they are immutable till the pope abrogate them, who being in God's place, is of power to do it. We have a rule tliat was perfected by Christ and his apostles, to which nothing can be added, and therefore we are at a certainty for our religion : for we have a sure and perfect rule from heaven. Nothing may be ad- ded to it, or taken from it. But the Papists do profess that the determinations of the pope or council may make a point, and so five thousand points, for there is no cer- tain number, to be articles of faith, and necessary to 12* 188 JESUIT salvation. So that the Papists never know when their faith is perfect and grown to its full stature. For ought they know a thousand more articles may be added. And yet these men of uncertain growing faith, have the face to persuade men that we are mutable, and they are fixed. We never changed our head, our Lord, our faith, or one article of our faith : if malice itself be able to charge us with changing the smallest article of our faith, let them say their worst : we change not our rule, the Holy Scriptures, nor one clause or sentence of it, but endeav- or the preservation of the same, which at the first we re- ceived. In our contests with the Papists, our great of- fence is at their mutation from the ancient rule and way ; we contend but for the faith once delivered to the saints : the old way with us is the good way : we abhor a new religion. If we change in any thing, it is but by repenting of our former changeableness wliile our nation was Popish ; having then changed from the apostolic simplicii}^, we change from that sinful change, and return to the ancient way again. And if we have made any further changes since our first cliange at the reformation, it is but perfecting the change to antiquity and apostolic simplicity, which we tiien begun. Rome was not built in one day, and is not pulled down in a day. The work of reformation is but one change, though it be not done all at one time. If we find some spots of Romish dirt upon us, that escaped us at our first washing, it is no dangerous mutability yet to wash it ofl. If a man converted by saving grace be not perfect- ly rid of all his former sin the first day of his conversion, should he be reproached as mutable for striving against it all his life after, and casting it ofl' by degrees as he is able ? If a man did but recover by degrees from the relics of his disease, they will not therefore rej)roach him as mutable. If he sweep the dust or dirt out of his house every day, they will not say, he is mutable, and knows not where to rest. Those men might as well reproach us as mutable, because we rise in the morning and do not still lie in bed ; or because we go to bed at nicrht, and do not stay up entirely. But what is it that we are changeable in 1 We have JUGGLING. 130 changed none of the substance of worship: did we ha|)- tiso befoiv, and do we not so still 1 did we pray or admin- ister tiie Lord's Supper before, and do we not still ] what is the change 1 Do these men think us so sottish as to place our relitrion in circumstances 1 God hath bid us pray contiiuially: but he hath not told us whether we shall use a prayer-book or not, but left that to men's necessities or conveniences to determine. Doth a man change his religion or worshij) of Ciod, if he either begin or cease to use a book] but whether we use them, or not use them, is no part of our religion at all, but a mere accident, or common helj) and a|)purtenance. God hath not told jireachers whether they shall use notes for their memory in |)reaching : to one it is a hindrance, to an- other a help. Doth a man change his religion when he changeth a custom of using notes'? God hath not told us what chapter we shall read, or what psalm we shall sing, or what text we shall jireach on this day or that day. What if one age think it best that pastors shall read no chapter preach on no text, and sing no psalm but by direction : and the next age think it meeter to leave that to each minister, as thinking it unfit to ordain such ministers as have not wit enough to choose their text, chapter, or psalm according to occasions. Will you say that here is a change of religion 1 These outside hypocrites tell the world what a thing they take religion to be, and in what they place it. What if one read a chapter with spectacles, and another without, or if one preach in a pulpit, and another below : or if one preach in a white garment, and another in a black : are we therefore of several religions 1 or is this any part of the worship itselfl do we not all stand or sit at the hearing of a sermon, as we please? do we not kneel or stand at prayer as we please 1 Yea, do not men commonly in singing psalms or prayer or praise to God, sit or stand as they please ? Doth standing, kneeling, or sitting make another religion, or any part of it? And for mar- rying, burying, baptising, and the rest, we have altered no part at all of the worship of God ; what ignorant souls are these, that think that the using a book, or a ges- ture, or certain words to the same sense, make difl'erent religion, or ordinances of worship? Those are tricks i40 JESUIT that none but the ignorant will be deluded with, that know not what religion or worship is. They may as well say if I cliange my lecture day from Thursday to Friday, that I change my religion or the worship of God. But they have changed the very essence of their church ; the officers, the doctrine, the discipline, the worship, as though they had been born for change, to turn all upside down. In the primitive times the church had no universal monarch but Christ: but they have set up a new uni- versal monarch at Rome. In tlic primitive times the catholic church was the universality of Christians : they have changed it to be only the subjects of the pope. in. the primitive times Rome was but a particular church as Jerusalem and other churches were : but they have changed it, to be the mistress of all churches. For many hundred years after Christ, the Scripture was taken to be a sufficient rule of faith : but the}' have changed it to be hni part of the rule. In the ancient church all sorts were earnestly exhor- ted to read, or hear, and study the Scripture in a known tonsfue : but they have changed that into a desperate re- straint, proclaiming it the cause of all heresies. In the ancient church the bread and wine was the body and blood of Christ representative and relitive: but they have changed it into the real body and blood. Heretofore there was bread and wine remaining after the words of consecration : but they have changed so, that there remaineth neither bread nor wine, but the ({ualities and quantity, without the substance, and this must be believed, because they say it, against Scripture and antiquity, and sense itself. In the ancient church the Lord^s Suppc? ?vas admin- istered in both kinds, bread and wine to all : but they have lately changed this into one kind only to the peo- ))le, denying them one half of the sacrament. Of old the Lord^s Supper was but the commemora- tion of the sacificc of Christ upon the cross, and a sacrament of our communion icith him and his members: but now they have changed it into a propitiatory sa- critice for the sins of the quick and dead : and in it JUGGLING. 141 they adore a piece of bread as very God, wiili divine uorsliip. Of old, men were tauglit to make daili/ ronfrssfon of shi, and bcf^ pardun ; and when they had done all, to confess themselves unprofitable servants : but now they are so chanircd, that they pretend not only to be perfect without sin, and to merit by the condignity of their works with God, but to supererogate and be more perfect than innocence could make them, by doing more than their duty. Of old those things wore accounted sins deserving hell, and needing the blood of Christ for pardon, which now are changed into venial sins, which properly are no sins, and deserve no more than temporal punishment. Of old the saints had no proper merits to plead for themselves ; and now men have some to spare for the buying of souls out of purgatory. Of old the pastors of churches were subject to the rul- ers of the commonwealth; even every soul, not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake was obliged to be sub- ject : but now all the clergy are exempted from secular judgment, and the secular power is subject to them : for the pope hath power to depose princes, and dispossess them of their dominions, and put others in their room, and dissolve the bonds of oaths and covenants, in which the subjects were obliged to them, and to allow men to murder them. I might fill a volume with all the changes they have made in doctrines, and church orders, and discipline, and religious orders and their discipline, and in worship and ceremonies. Their Liturgy or Mass-book hath been changed, and abundance of additions it iiath had since the beginning of it. Now I am content that any impartial man shall judge whether Papists or the reformed churches are the more mutable and unsettled in their religion ? and which of them is at the greater certaintv, firmness, and immuta> bility ] 142 JESUIT CHAPTER XV. J^oveUy and Succession. xVnotlier fraud of the Papists, vvliich they place not the least of their confidence in, is this : the^ persuade the i^cople that our church and religion are but neto^ of the other day''s invention : and that theirs is the only old religion. And therefore they call upon us to give them a catalogue of the professors of our religion in all ages ; which they pretend we cannot do : and ask us where our church was before Luther. To this we sliall give them a hrief but satisfactory answer. We are so fully assured that the oldest relig- ion is the best since the date of the Gospel, that we are contented our whole cause shall stand or fall by this tri- al. Let him be esteemed of the true religion, that is of the oldest religion. This is the main difference between us and the Papists. We are for no religion that is not as old as the days of the apostles : but the\^ are for the novelties and additions of popes and councils. Poly- dore Virgil Inv en. Rcrum, lib. 8. c. 4. calling us a sect, gives 3'ou a just description of us, ''''having once got leave to speak that sect did marvelously increase in a short time; ivhich is called evangelical, because they affirm that no law is to be received which belongeth to salvation, but what is give?! by Christ or the apostles.'''' Yet these very men hav^e the face to charge us with nov- elty ; as if Christ and his apostles were not of sufficient antiquity for them. Our main quarrel with them is, for adding new inventions in religion, and their principal business against us is to defend it, and yet they call theirs the oM religion, and ours the new. That which is most conformed to the doctrine and practice of Christ and his apostles, is the truly ancient religion and church. But our religion and church is most conformed to the doctrine and practice of the apos- tles : therefore it is the truly ancient religion and church. That religion which is most conformed to the Holy Scripture is most conformed to the doctrine and practice of Christ and his apostles. But our religion and churches JUGGLING. 143 arc most coiilbrined to the Holy Scrii)tiiics. Tiiey c;iu say nothing against tiiis but that the Scri[)turc is insuf- ficient without tradition : hut wo have no rule of faith which is not hy themselves confessed to he true: they ac- knowledge Scripture to he tlu; true word of God ; so that the truth of our ride is justified hy themselves. Let tiiem sliow us as good evidence that their additional ar- ticles of faith or laws of life came from the apostles, as we do that the Scriptures came from them, and then we shall confess that we come short of them. Let tlicm take the controversies between us point by point, and hriuir their proof, and we will bring ours, and let tliat religion carry it that is apostolical. Tlieir traditions in matter of faith superadded to the Scripture, are mere heretical or erroneous forgeries, and they can give us no proof that ever they were apostolical. The Scripture alTu'meth its own sufficiency ; and therefore excludeth tlieir traditions. In their own general council at Basil, the Scripture sufficiency was defended. The ancient fathers were for the sufficency of Scripture. Their tra- ditions are the opinions of a dividing sect, contrary to the traditions or doctrine of the present catholic church : the far greater jmrt of Christians being against them. For some hundred years after Christ, most of their pre- tended traditions were unknown or abhorred by the Christian church, and no such things were in being among them. The chief points of controversy maintain- ed against us, are not only without Scripture, but against it, and thence we have full particular evidence to dis- prove them. If the Scri[)tures be true, as they confess them to be, then no tradition can be apostolical or true, that is contrary to them. The Papist's tradition is, that the clergy is exempt from the magistrate's judgment : but the Holy Scriptures saitii, Jet tvcri/ soul he subject to the higher powers, Rom. xiii. The Papists' tradition is for serving God lyublichj in an unhioum tongue : but the Holy Scripture is fully against it. Their tradition is against laymen's reading the Scripture in a known tongue, without special license from their ordinary : but Scrip- ture and all antiquity are against them. These seven ways we know tiieir traditions to be de- ceitful ; because they are unproved ; against the sufficien- 144 JESUIT cy of Scripture, their own former confessions, and the consent of the fathers ; contrary to the judgment of the catholic church ; once the church was without them ; and many of them are contrary to express Scripture. If Scripture will show which of us is nearest the doc- trine and practice of the apostles, then the controversy is ended. For we provoke them to try the cause by Scripture, and they deny it. We profess it is the rule and test of our religion; but they appeal to another rule and test. Thus you may see which is the old religion. Our church and religion have continued from the days of Christ till now. The promise of Christ cannot be broken. Christ promised in his word, that that church and religion which are most conformed to the Scriptures, shall continue to the end : but our church and religion are most conformed to the Scripture : therefore Christ hath promised that it shall continue to the end. The Christian religion and catholic church have con- tinued from the days of Christ till now. But ours is the Christian religion, and catholic church : therefore ours hath continued from the days of Christ until now. That religion which hath all the essentials of Christianity, and doth not deny or destroy any essential part of it, is the Christian Religion. That religion which the apostles were of is the Christian religion. They who believe all that is in the Holy Scripture are of the Christian reli- gion ; but thus do the reformed churches believe. They who are of that one holy catholic church, where Christ is the head and all true Christians are members, are of the true church ; for there is but one catholic church. They who are sanctified, and justified, have the love of God in them, are members of the true catholic church : but such are all that are sincere professors of our reli- gion. But all this will not serve them without telling them where our church was before Luther: to this we an- swer we have no peculiar catholic church of our own ; for there is but one, and that is our church : where- ever the christian church was, there was our church. Wherever any Christians were congregated for God's worship, there were churches of Uie same sort, as our jrflKGLlNQ. 145 particular churches. Wherever Christianity was, there our religion was ; for we know no religion but Chris- tianity. Would you have us give a catalogue of all the Christians in the world since Christ ? Or would you liave us as vain as Tuherville who names some popes, about twenty professors of their faith in each age, as if twenty or thirty men were the catholic church : or as if those men were proved to be Papists by his naming them ? Our religion is Christianity. Christianity hath cer- tain essentials, without which no man can be a Christian ; and it hath moreover many precious truths, and duties necessary to the better being of a Christian. Our being as Christians is in the former ; and our strength and in- crease and better being are much in the latter. From the former, religion and the church are denominated. Our implicit and actual explicit belief, as the papists call them, must be distinguished ; or our general and our particular belief. And also the positives of our belief must be distinguished from the implied negatives ; and the express articles themselves, from their implied con- sectaries. Now I shall tell 3'ou where our church hath been in all ages since the birth of Christ. In the days of Christ and his apostles our church was where they and all Christians were : and our religion was with them in all its parts, both essential and perfective. That is, we now believe all to be true that was delivered by the apostles as from God, with a general faith ; and ail the essentials and as much more as we can under- stand, with a particular faith. But we cannot say that with such a particular faith we believe all that the apos- tles belieN-TDd or delivered ; for then we must say that we h.ave the same degree of understanding as they ; and that we understand every word of the Scriptures, In the days of the apostles themselves, the consecta- ries, and implied verities, and rejection of all heresies were not particularly and expressly delivered either in Scripture or tradition. In the next ages after the apostles, our church was the one catholic church, containing all true Christians, headed by Jesus Christ : and every such Christian was a mem- 13 146 JESUIT ber of it. The essential parts of our religion were con* tained both in the Holy Scriptures, and in the public professions, ordinances, and practices of the church in those ages, which you call traditions; and the rest of it, even all the doctrines of faith and universal laws of God, which are its perfective parts, were fully contained in the Holy Scripture. And some of our rejections and consectaries, were then gathered and owned by the church, as heresies occasioned the expressing of them: and the rest were all implied in the apostolical Scrip- ture doctrine which they preserved. By degrees many errors crept into the church : so, that neither the catholic church, nor one true Christian did reject any essential part of Christianity. All parts of the church were not alike corrupted with error, but some more, and some less. The whole church held the Holy Scripture itself, and so had a perfect general or implicit belief, even while by evil consequences they oppugned many parts of their own profession. When in process of time by claiming the universal sovereignty, Rome had introduced a new pretended catholic church, by superadding a new head and form, there was then a two-fold church in the West; the Chris- tian as Christian headed by Christ ; and the Papal as Papal headed by the pope ; and by that usurped monarchy they endeavored to make but one of them, by making both the heads essential, when before one only was tolerable. If the matter in any part may be the same ; and the same man may be a Christian and a Papist, and so the same assemblies : yet still the forms are various : and as Christians and part of the catholic church, they arc one thing: but as Papists and members of the separat- ing sect, they are another thing. In the time of the Romish usurpation, our church was visible in the Imvest degree among the Papists them- selves, not as Papists, but as Christians. For they ne- ver did deny the Scriptures, nor the ancient creeds, nor baptism, the Lord's Supper, nor any of the substance of our positive articles of religion. They added a new re- ligion and church of their own, but still professed to hold all the old in consistency with it. Wherever the truth of the Hohj Scriptures and the JUGGLING. 147 ancient creeds of the church was professed, tliere was our relijOfion before Liitlier : but even among tbe Papists, the Holy Scriptures and tlie said creeds were visibly pro- fessed, theiefore among ibem was our religion. Popery itself was not ripe for a corruption of the Christian faith professed, till Luther's opposition height- ened them. For the Scripture was frequently before, by Papists held to be a most sufficient rule of faiih, as I have sliowed from the council of Basil; and consequently, tradition was only pleaded as conservatory and exposi- to) y of the Scripture, but now the council of Trent hath equalled them, when they found that out of Scripture ihey were unable to confute or suppress the truth. At the time of the Church's oppression by the Papa- cy, our Religion was visible, and so our Church: in a more illustrious sort, among the Christians of the most of the world, Greeks, Ethiopians, and the rest^ who never were subject to the usurpation of Rome, but only many of them took him for the first patriarch, but not the governor of the universal church. So that here was a visibility of our church doubly more eminent than among the Romanists ; in that it was the far greatest pari of the catholic church that thus held our religion, to whom the Papists were then but few ; and in that they did not only hold the same positive articles of faith with us, but also among their rejections did reject the chief of the Popish errors as we do. They rejected with us, the pope's Catholic Monarchy^ the pretended infallibility of the pope or his councils : the new form of the Papal church, as headed by him, with other points; which are the very fundamental con- troversies between us and the Papists. So that the ma- jor part of the catholic church did profess it, with the rejection of the Papacy and Papal church, and so you may as easily see where our religion was before Luther, as where the catholic church, or most of Christians were before Luther. Our religion was professed with a yet greater rejec- tion of Romish corruptions, by many thousands that lived in the western ehurcli itself, and under the pope's nose, and opposed him in many of his ill endeavors against the church and truth, together with them that gave him th« 148 JESUIT hearing, and were glad to be quiet, and gave way to his- tyranny, but never consented to it. Concerning those we have abundant evidence, though abundance more we might have had, if the power and subtilty of the Papal faction had not had the handling of them. Histories tell us of the bloody wars and conten- tions that the emperors of both East and West have had with the pope to hinder his tyranny ; and that they were forced by his power to submit to him, contrary to their former free professions. Treatises were written against him, both for the emperors and princes, and against his doctrine and tyranny. Histories and professions of the Albigenses, Waldenses, Bohemians and others were very numerous, and they affirmed about the year one thousand one hundred, that they had continued since the apostles, and no other original of them is proved. General Popish councils have contended and borne witness against the pope's superiority over a council. In that and other points, whole countries of their own are not yet brought over to the pope. They have still among themselves Dominicans, Jansenists, &c., who are reproached by the Jesuits. Most points of ours which we oppose to Po- pery, are maintained by some or other of them. But the fullest evidence is the certain history or knowledge of the case of the common people and clergy among them, who are partly ignorant of the main matters in controversies between us, and are generally kept under the fear of fire, and sword, and torments ; so that the truth of the case is this : the Roman bishops were as- piring by degrees to be archbishops, and so to be pa- triarchs, and so to have the first seat and vote, and to be called the chief bishoj)s or patriarchs^ and at last they made another thing of their office, and claimed, about six hundred years after Christ, to be universal monarchs or governors of all the church. But though that claim was soon laid, it was comparatively but icvf^ even in the West, that made it any article of their faith ; but multi- tudes sided with the princes that would have kept the pope lower, and the most of the people meddled not with tlie matter, but yielded to necessity, and gave place to violence, except the Albigenses, Bohemians, Wickliffites and the rest that more openly opposed. So that no man JtTOOLlNO. 149 could judge of the multitude clearly, which side they were on, being forced by fire and sword, and having not the freedom to profess their minds. Our religion was at first with the apostles, and the apostolic church : and for divers hundred years after, it was with the universal Clirislian church. Since Rome's usurpation, it was even with the Romanists though abus- ed, and with the greater part of tlie catholic church that renounced Popery then, and so do now ; and also with the opposers of the pope in the West. This is the succession we plead, and where our church and religion still was. If any deny that we are of the same church and re- ligion with all that is truly christian, I easily prove it. They tliat e then took to get and Weep his power: by sending to the secuhir commanders of the provinces, in whom they had special iulcrciit by their residence at Rome, to ex- ecute their wills by force. The council plainly accuse them of introducing secular arrogance into Christ's church, that better loveth simplicity and humility and light. They plainly require the bishop of Rome to do so no more. They tell him that Faustinus remaining any longer in Africa will not stand with that honesty and moderation of the bisliop of Rome which is neces- sary to brotherly charity. I give you the plain passages of the council, and screw no forced consequences from them. Now let Binius and liis brethren make childicn believe that it was not appeals to Rome, but a troublesome manner of trial that the council was aofainst : and tell men that take him for infallible, of a Nicene canon for the pope's su- premacyand monarchy: and persuade idiotsanddoiards that the catholic church in the fourth and fifth ages was for the universal government of the pope. The first Constantinople council, saith Tuberville, decreed the bishop of Constantinople to be chief next the bishop of Rome. Then that primacy was but the institution of councils. It was grounded on a secular reason ; for so sailh the canon, because it is new Rome. The pope's primacy was but honorary, and gave him no universal govern- ment; for the primacy here granted to Constantinople, gave them no government over Alexandria, Antioch, &c. And the second canon expressly limits all bish- ops without exception to their own diocess. The third canon affirmed, that according to the Nicene council^ in every j)i'oi'iiice the provi?icial cou?icil ought to ad- minister and govern all things. See how clearly the succession of the Roman monarchy is disproved to that time. The next proof is from the third act of the first coun- cil of Ephesus, that Peter yet lives and exercises judg- ment in his successors. The words, that Peter was the head of the apostles, though nothing to their pur- 160 JESUIT pose, are neither spoken nor approved by the council, but only by Celestine's legate. The council, though specially moved by his concurrence to extol Celestine to the highest, yet never spake a word of his governing pov^rer or sovereignty, but only his consent: and when they mention the Roman church, it is only their con- sent which they predicate. They extol Cyril equally with Celestine. Binivs, Tom. 2. Cap. 15. The next witness brought is the council of Chalce- don, as calling Leo, universal archbishop and patriarch of old Rome, and sentence is pronounced against Dio- scorus in the names of Leo and St. Peter. 'I'his is one of your common frauds. It was not the council that called him universal archbishop, but two deacons in the superscription of their libels, Theodorusand Ischirion. Were they the catholic church? By universal archbishop is plain that they meant no more than the chief in dignity and order of all arch- bishops, and not the governor of all. That universality was only in the empire, and not over the world. That very council in its canons not only gives the bishop of Constantinople equal privileges with the bishop of Rome, but expressly saith that Rome received this primacy of order from a council, because it was the seat of the emperor. When Bellarmin comes to that canon, he plainly charges that farnous fourth general council with falsehood, and says that the pope approved not this canon. But approved or not approved, if that was the catholic church representative, their testimony is valid to prove that there was then no reception of the Roman monarchy as of God, but con- trarily a mere primacy of dignity and honor given it newly by men. In the sixth and in the seventh age though then the sovereignty was claimed by Boniface, he citeth no council for it neither. In the eighth age he cites the second council of Nice, as approving an epistle of Pope Adrian, wherein he saith that the Roman church is the head of all churches. Whether Adrian himself by the head meant the chief in dignity, or the governor of all, is a great doubt. Tharasius seems to imply the contrary, as if his see JCOOLINO. 161 had llie privilege only of being the primate of Rome, and not tlie ruler of the world. That council did not openly own the Papal sovereignty. I am content that any impartial sober person may judge, whether here be a satisfactory proof of a catholic succession of the Papal sovereignty, when through so many ages, they bring not a word for any succession at all ; much less that it was owned by the catholic church : and least of all, that all the rest of Popery was so owned. Having showed you that Papists cannot prove any succession, or continuation, or tradition of their religion, let us consider their silly shift, in other points. I have already proved that ignorance or difference about many points not essential to Christianity, may consist with our being of one religion and catholic church, and therefore such differences are nothing to the point of succession of the catholic church or reli- gion : and Papists tolerate or plead for the toleration of greater differences among themselves, which yet they affirm to consist with the unity of faith. The Jesuits maintain, that if a man do but believe in their pope and church as infallible, he may not only as some say, be ignorant of some article of the creed itself, and yet be a true catholic, and be saved, but also be- lieve a f^ilse article as from 3od and the church. The former is commonly taught not only by such as Suarez, that say the article of Christ's Descent into Hell is not to all of necessity to salvation, but by many others in the doctrine of implicit faith. The latter clause you may see among others in AlbertiJius the Jesuit, Corol- lar. p. 250, where his objectors put this case : " Suppose twenty bishops preach to a countryman a false article, as if it were spoken by God and the church : that pro- posal of the twenty bishops is so sufficient, that the countryman prudently formeth an evident practical judgment, and morally certain, to believe with a specu- lative assent the article proposed by the twenty bishops, for the authority of God as the formal reason. Three absurdities seem hence to follow. That the country- man should be obliged under mortal sin, to believe the twenty bishops, and so the precept of faith should bind 14* 162 JESUIT to believe a falsehood. The countryman should be in God's grace without faith. In grace, because he com- mits no mortal sin, yea he obeys the command of be- lieving: yet without faith, because he believes a false- .hood opposite to faith, and so loseth faith. God should concur to deceive. To the first Albertinus an- swereth that its no absurdity that the command of faith do oblige to believe a falsehood. To the second he saith, that the countryman doth not lose his grace or faith; because the falsehood believed is not formally opposite to the true faith, but materially." A man there- fore may hold an article opposite to the faith materi- ally, and yet not only be a true Christian in grace and faith, but also in so doing obey by accident the com- mand of believing, so be it he believe in their church, If that be so, with what face can these men say that our church or religion is new, or not the same with the Greeks, &c., when we have the same formal object of faith, and differ in no essential material point ? See here their lubricity and partiality. The second Council of Nice that decreed for image worship, expressly decrees, that Latria, divine worship is to be given only to God : Thomas Aquinas Sum. 3. q. 25. art. 3 & 4, maintaineth that Latria, " divine wor- ship is to be given to the image of Christ, and to the Cross that he died on ; and to the sign of that CrossJ^ Here is an article of their faith expressly contradicted: yet Aquinas is a member of their church. If any say ne is no member, it is proved past doubt, for the pope hath canonized him for a saint : so that now it is a part of their religion to take him for a true believer. Alber- tinus, as he thinks, proved, that though in many other matters of fact the pope be fallible, yet in the canonizing of saints he is infallible, because of some promise of God's special assistance. Abundance of such instances might be brought to prove, that the Papists oicn men as true believers, who deny or contradict articles of their faith. But what need we more, than that France and thousands elsewhere are yet members of their church, that deny the Latcran and Florentin definition for the pope's supremacy above a general council ? and when most Papists hold that angels are incorporeal, contrary JUGGLING. 163 to the definition of the said second Council of Nice. Therefore by their own law, we may say, that those were of our religion that differed from us in nothing that is essential to the faith. Papists tell us tiiat Jerom. Austin, Ambrose, &c., held the invocation of saints. If any desire the de- parted saints to pray for them, as they do the living, we have reason enough to take it for their error. The primitive church was unacquainted with the Romish prayer to saints. Till the end of the fourth century, they are not able to prove that ever three men were for prayer to the dead at all, except such a condi- tional speech in an oration as Gregory Nazianz hath ; if holy souls have any f.are or feeling of such things as these, receive this oration, Orat. 11. Usher in his an- swer to the Jesuit, page 418, saith, that fo/ niju parts of the first four hundred years, the Jesuit is not able to 'produce one true testimony out of any father ivhcrehy it may appear that any account at all v:as made of it. He citeth the full express words of the fathers of those first ages against praying to saints, as Origen in Jos. Horn. 16 In Rom. lib. 2. cap. 2: and Contr. Celsum. lib. 8, lib. 5. Tertullian Apol. cap. 30. Tertullian and Cypiian on Prayer. Athanasius Orat. 4. Cont. Arium. Eccles. Smyrn. apud Euseb. Hist. lib. 4. When prayer to the dead came in, it exceedingly differed trom the Romish prayers to the dead. Those adorations and devotions offered by the Papists to the Virgin Mary, are enough to make a Christian tremble, and are horrid blasphemy or idolatry. The reason why in the Old Testament men were not wont to pray to saints, Bcllarmin saith, was because then they did not enter into Heaven nor see God. Bellar. dc sand. Beat. li. 2. cap. 19. Saurez Tom. 2. disp. 42. Sect. 1. But as the chief doctors of the church for divers ages were of opinion that the saints are not ad- mitted into Heaven to the clear sight of God before the day of judgment, as most of the Eastern churches do to this day, therefore they could not be for the Popish prayer to saints. Men may be of the same faith and church \vith us, who differ and err in as great a matter as this. The 164 JESUIT council of Florence defined it, that " departed souls are admitted into heaven to the clear sight of God. Yet Stapletonand Francis. Pegna.a Castro, Medina and So' tus, ajffirm that Irenceus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cle- mens Ronianus, Origen, Ariibrose, Chrysostome, Austin, Lacta?itius, Victorinus, Prudentius, Theodoret, Aretas, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Euthymius, and even Ber- nard, have delivered the contrary sentence. Staplet. Defens. Eccles. author, cojit Whitak. lib. 1. cap. 2. Pegna. Part 2. Director. Inquisitor, com. 21. ■ All those are against the Popish invocation of saints, so they were against that which now is determined to be of faith, whence I gather that the Romish faith in- creaseth, and is not the same as heretofore. That they had not this article by tradition from any ol those fathers, or from the apostles by them, unless from the Scrip- tures. That men that err in such points as are now defined by conncils to be of faith, are yet accounted by Papists to be of their church and faith: and therefore they may be of ours, notwithstanding such errors as this in baud. Whence the Papists are a perjured gen- eration, that swear not to e.xpound Scripture but accor- ding to the unanimous consent of the fathers. The council of Laodicea condemned them as idola- ters who prayed to angels, Can. 35. The full testimo- nies of Greg. Nyssen, Athanasius, Epiphaniiis, <^v. are against praying to saints and angels, and the de- tection of Bellarmin's fraud, that pretendeth the fathers to speak of the Gentile idolatry, when they mention the Virgin Mary and the saints, and say expressly they were not to be adored; may be found in Usher's An- swer; 470 — 472. But for all ttat Tahervillc hath fathers for his ado- ration of angels and saints. And who are they? The first is Dionysius : to which I answer, there is not such a word in the place cited in Dionysius. We are for praying the saints to pray for us too, that is, those on earth: and the words cited by him, mention not the saints in heaven. Dionysius is a spurious apocryphal book : not once known and mentioned in the world till six hundred years after Christ, as Bellarmin himself saith ; Lib. de Scriptor, Eccles. de Dionysi. et lib. 2. de Monach. cap. 5. JUGGLING. 165 The second is Clevi. Apostol. Conslit. 5. The words spealv only of honoring- the martyrs, which is our un- questioned duty; but not of praying to them. It is an apocryphal forgery, and neither the apostle's nor Cle- ment's work which he citeth. Let him believe Bcllar- mill de scriplor. Eccles. p. 38, 39, who saiih that in the Latin church, those constitutions are of almost no ac- count ; and the Greeks themselves, canon 2. Trul. reject them as depraved by heretics, and the receiving of them misleadeth the Ethiopians. The third testimony is from Justin's second Apol. It is not praying to angels that Justin intends, but giv- ing them due honor. His intent is to stop the mouths of heathens that called the Christians impious for re- nouncing their gods ; to them he replieth, that we yet honor the true God, and his angels, &c. His testimony for the third age is only Origen in his Lamentations. Origen there mentioneth the saints, but not the dead saints. It is the saints in the church on earth whose prayers he desireth. You cite a forgery that is none of Origen's works. Not only Erasmus saith that this lamentation was neither writ- ten by Origen, nor translated by Jerom, but is the fic- tion of some unlearned man, that by this trick devised to defame Origen. Baronius Annal. Tit. 2. ad an. 253. witnesseth that pope Gelasius numbers it with the apo- cryphals. The next exception to be considered is, praying for the dead : which they say the ancient church was for. We are for the commemoration of holy lives and sufferings of the saints. And the first sort of the an- cients' prayers for them began here, as the occasion. We are for thankful acknowledgment of God's mercies to the departed saints, and to the church by them. And the first prayers for them were such as those. Usher hath proved that they were saints, supposed to be in heaven or paradise, and not in purgatory, that were then prayed for : and therefore that it was not the Popish praying for tormented souls that was then prac- tised: and therefore their prayers then besides commem- orations and thanksgivings were the petitioning of all those following mercies for them which are not to bo 166 JESUIT received till the resurrection. Bellarmin himself prov- ing that though we were certain that the blessed souls shall have a raised glorified body, and be justified in the last judgment, yet may it be prayed for, because it is yet future. Now' we are far from being of another church or religion than those thai hold such an opinion as this. Usher when he had cited many testimonies saith ; " in those and other prayers of the like kind, we may descry evident (ootsteps of the primary intention of the church in her suppl ications for the dead : which was that the whole man, not the soul separated only, might receive public remission of sins, and a solemn acquittal in the judgment of that great day; and so obtain both a full escape from all the consequences of sin, the last enemy being now destroyed, and death swallowed up in victory, and a peifect consummation of bliss and hap- piness: all which are comprised in that short prayer of Paul for Onesiphoras, though made for him while he was alive, the Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day. Yea, divers prayers for the dead of that kind are still retained in the Roman offices; of which Medina thus writes : "Although I have read many prayers for the faithful deceased, which are contained in the Roman Missal, yet have I read in none of them that the church doth petition, that they may more quickly be freed from pains: but I have read that in some of them, petition is made, that they may be freed from everlasting pains. Again there be other prayers wherein petition is made, that God would raise the souls of the dead in their bodies unto bliss at the day of judgment." Here you may see the differences between the prayers for the dead which are used by the I^apists and by the Eastern churches to this day. Another point that they much ch illenge us about is ; the veneration or adoration of images, relics, and the cross, to which I may join peregrinations to places esteemed by them to be otjeminent holiness. Concerning peregrinations, Gregory ISyssen wrote purposely against going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He adviseth even the retired monastics, in those countries that were near to Judtea, to forbear such pilgrimages as dangerous JUGGLING. 167 and unnecessary, and not at all commanded in the Scripture. Tlie l^apists did as lon"^ as they could per- suade the world that this epistle was not by Gregory; and when they were made ashamed of that, they would expound it as prohibiting- pilgrimages to none but the monastics : and sure if it should be forbidden them, then much more should others be forbidden, that have not the leisure, and pretend not to their devotions. But it is one thing to use images, and another to use them Popishly, which is to make them mediate objects of divine worship, yea to worship the very image itself, and the cross and sign of the cross, with the same wor- ship as we do him that is signified by them : so that we confidently affirm, that the primitive church did make no use of images at all in the worship of God ; nor en- dui'e them in the place of worship. When they were first brought in, the Popish use of them was renounced and detested. Clemens Ale xandr inns Protrcpt. ad Gent, saith that, we are plainly forbidden to use that deceitful art of painting or image making : — we have no sensible image made of any sensible matter, but such an image as is to be conceived with the understanding. Origen against Celsus lib. 7. is large and plain against the use of images, as the Protestants are. The Eliber. concil. C. 36. saith it seemeth good to us, that pictures ought not to be in the church, lest that which is wor- shipped or adored should be painted on walls. Some Papists would fain find a sense for this canon contrary to the words: but Melch. Canus plainly saith, that the council did not only imprudently but impiously make this law to take away images. Loc. Theol. lib. 5. cap. 4. cone. 4. They have no better shift to save their credit, than to set their own school-men and general council together by the ears. The second council of Nice, that did most for images, did openly renounce the adoring them with divine honor, and Tharasius solemnly professed, they did refer and repose faith and divine worship in the true God alone. Aquinas Sii7n. 3. 9. 25., maintaineth that the images of Christ, and the cross, and the sign of the cross, are to be worshipped with divine worship. What saith Tuberville to this? This is a mere school 168 JESUIT opinion and not of faith with us: urge not therefore, whai some particular divines say, but hearken to the doctrine of God's church. Is not this a gross kind of juggling, that would never down if devout ignorance and implicit faith had not pre- pared the people? You see here that to contradict the determination of a general council, is not of faith with them. But is it not against your faith ? Do you give leave to mere school opinions to contradict general councils ? See here what's become of the Popish faith? If the determinations of councils be not articles of faith with you, then you have no faith, but give up your cause : and if they be, then Aquinas and his followers are heretics. Then what's become of the Pope's infal- libility in canonizing saints, that have sainted Thomas Aquinas, who is proved a heretic by your law : so that your cause is gone which way ever you turn. What it is to pray to saints, when some of them are made here- tics by your own laws ? Then also see, at what unity the church of Rome is among themselves, when it is the very common doctrine of their learned schoolmen, which contradictelh a general council. What a holy church you have, when your most learned divines are thus made heretics. Usher's allegations of Arundel's provincial council at Oxford, 1408. Naclantus in Rom. cap. 1. saith : " We must not only confess, that the faith- ful in the church do worship before the image, as some cautiously speak, but that they adore the image, with- out any scruple: yea and that they worship it with the same worship as the prototype; so that if it be worship- ed with divine w^orship, the image must have divine worship." Cabrera, part 3. Thorn., qu. 25. art. 3. aisp. 2. num. 15, saith : " it is of faith that images are to be worshipped, in churches and without : and we must give them signs of servitude and submission, by embracing, lights, offering incense, uncovering the head, &c. Images are truly and properly to be adored, with an intention to adore tliemselves, and not only the samplars represented in tliem. This conclusion is against Duiandus and his followers, whose opinion by the moderns is judged dangerous, rash, and savoring of heresy. Medina reporteth that Victoria reputed it iUOGLlNC. 169 heretical: but our conclusion is the common one of divines. If images be improperly only adored, then they arc not to be adored simply and absolutely; which is manifest heresy. And if images are to be worshipped only by way of remembrance, because they make us remember the samplars, which we thus adore as if they were present, it would follow that all creatures are to be adored with the same adoration as God — which is absurd. The opinion of Thomas, that the image must be worshipped with the same act of adoration, as the samplar which it representeth, is most true, most pious, and very consonant to the decrees of faith. Ca- brera adds, that this is the doctrine of Thomas and all his disciples, and almost all the old schoolmen, and particularly of Cajetan, Capreolus, Paludanus, Fer- rariensis, Antoninus, Soto, Alexander, Alesius, Albertus, Magnus, Bonaventura, Richardus de media villa, Dio- nysius Carthusianus, Major, Marsilius, Thomas, Wal- densis, Turrecremata, Clichtovaeus, Turrian, Vasquez ; &c. Azorius saith, it is the constant opinion of divines. Institui. Moral, torn. 1. lib. 9. cap. 6. In the Roman pontifical published by the authority of Clement, it is exprsssed, that the legate's cross shall have the right hand, because divine worship is due to it. Here the pope himself is a heretic; and the pontifical contains heresy: and all the schoolmen are heretics, by contra- dictingthe determination of the second general council at Nice, and the doctrine which they say, is the doctrine of God's church. Such is the faith and unity of th« Papists, But they also maintain "that though all those worship the very cross and Images themselves, and that with divine worship, yet there be some that do but worship God by the image. Do you think that rational pagans did not know as well as you that their images were not gods themselves, and so worshipped them not as gods, but as the representers and instruments of some deity ? Lactantius Instit. lib. 2. cap 2. brings them in saying thus ; we fear not them, but those whom they represent, and to whose names they are consecrated. Arnobius thus ; It is the gods that we worship by images. Au- gustin thus reporteth the pagans saying, I do not wor- 15 ifO JESUiJf ship that stone, nor that image, which is without sefls^/ Psal. 113. cojic. 2. I worship neither the image nor a spirit in it ; but by the bodily Hkeness I behold the sign of that which I ought to worship. That many of them renounced the worshipping of devils, appearelh by Auguslin's report of their words, in FsaL 96. " We worship not evil spirits : it is those that you call angels, that we worship, who are the powers of the great God, and the ministers of the great God." To whon\ Austin answers ; would you would worship them, that is honor them aright, then you would easily learn of them not ti3 worship them. Few could be so silly as to think there were as many Jupiters or ApoUos as there were images of them in the world. So that you see here that some of the pagans as to image-worship disclaimed that which the Papists ascribe to them, divine worship. Oh but, saith Tuberville, tell us not of particular doc- tors, but of the doctrine of God's church. What! not of Thomas 1 not of the army of school divines before mentioned.? not of the common judgment of divines'? for so they call it; not of that wliich is of faith, or con- sonant to it, and whose contrary is heresy, or savors of heresy 1 not of Pope Clement VIII. and the Roman pontifical? Wonderful! are all those no body in your church ? O admirable harmony that is in your united church ! But you agree to leave out the second commandment lest the very words should deter the people from image worship ; and to make an irrational division of the tenth to blind their eyes. Yet you cry up the testimony of the fathers, when you are fain to hide one of the ten commandments, so that thousands of your poor seduced followers, know not that there is such a thing. No won- der if you cast away Gregory Nyssen's epistle against pilgrimages; and Epiphanius in the end of his epistle to Joban. Hierosol. against images, and if \'asquez 3. Thom. disp. 105. c. 3. contrary to the plain words feigns that it was the image of a profane or common man that Epiphanins pulled down ; and Al. Cope Dial 5. c. 2L says, that the epistle is counterfeit and not by Epiphanius; and if Bellarmin de imag. c. 9. and Baronius an. 392 say that this part of the epistle is forged : and if Alphons. JTJCGLING, 171 Ti Castro, cont. IlcPros. do imag. reproach Epiplianius for it as an Iconoclast. So well are yon agreed in tlie con- futation of tlic lathers' testimonies, that any way will ■serve yonr turn, though each man liavc his several way. Vasquez plainly confesseth, *' indeed the Scripture doth forbid not only the worship of an image for God, but also the worshipping the true God in an image : but this commandment is now repealed, and therefore under the Gospel we mav do otherwise." Vasq. lib. 2. de Adorat. Disp. 4.' f . 3. 'Sect. 74. 75. et c. 4. Sect. 84. Many Christian churches do reject images from their churches as well as Protestants. More reject statutes that reject not pictures. Many that keep them, worship them not, nor God in them, or by them, as by a mediate object. General councils have been against images, that want nothing bnt the pleasure of the pope, to make them of as good authority as the council that was for them. That second council that was for them, of Nice, condemn oth the schoolmen and Pope Clement himself f^s heretics, for worshipping them, or the •cross with divine worship. Of the judgment of the an- cient catholic church against the Popish use of images, peruse what Cassander, an honest Papist hath written to that end, Consultat. de imag. et simulac. "In refer- ence to the images of saints, it is certain that at the be- ginning of the preaching of the Gospel, neither among Christians nor in the churches, images were not used, so Clement and Arnobius testify. At length, pictures were introduced into the churches, under the pretext of ex- plaining the sacred iiistorical facts." He also alleges antiquity against the Popish use of images. CHAPTER XVII. Popish false interpretations. Another of the Papists' deceits, and one of the prin- cipal juggleries with which they support their cause is this' False interpretations and applications of all the say- ings of the fathers, which they force to countenanct their usurped supremacy. 172 JESUIT 1. Any claim that ambitious prelates have made to pow- er, they use as an argument for their universal sover- eio-nty. There was too much pride and ambition in pre- lates, even in some that otherwise might be good men. Zosimus would have extorted a confession of his usurp- ed power, and a submission to it from vVurelius, Augus- tin, and the rest of the African council : but he could not do it. Leo I. and Gregory I. and others, were very busy for the extending of their power: the Roman pre- lates long endeavored to put tlie halter on the Africans* heads, and about the French before they got them under. Shall those ambitions men be witnesses ? and because they would have had more power, doth it follow that it was their due ? 2. If they find that any distressed churches or bishops sent to Rome for help, it is gathered thence that they took the pope to be Christ's vicar general. As when Chrys- tom sent to Innocent, and Basil and the rest in the East did send often for help into the West ; because Rome during the emperor's residence there, was the place where life or death was last pronounced on every man's cause by secular power ; and therefore the Bishop of Rome had the greater opportunity to befriend other churches : — afterwards Rome had a great secular influ- ence on the empire : — because in the diyisions of the Easterns about Arianism, they thought that the counte- nance of the orthodox in the West might have done some- what to turn the scales : — and because the Bishop of Rome being taken for the patriarch of the first place, his voice might do much against an adversary. Eusebius, Mclctiiis, Basil, and the rest of the ortho- dox, being both pestered with the Arians, and all to pieces also among themselves, sent for help to the West. Basil. Ep. 69. But whom? and for what ? not to the bishop of Rome only, nor by name, but equally to the bishops of Italy and France, without any mention of the Roman power. Not that the pope might cecide all by his sovereign power, which certainly was so near a way to their relief, that no wise man can imagine them so mad as to forget it, if it had been a thing then known and afjproved of : but only they desire that some may be sent to help them to be the stronger party in a synod, or JUOOLINO. 173 ^t least some one to comfort them, and put sonic coun- tenance on tlicir cause* Epist* 70, Basil writetli liiinself in the name of tiie rest : but to whom 1 to the hisho{)S ©f France and Italy ; and France before Italy ; without taking notice of a universal head of the church at Rome. What doth he importune them fori not that the pope would decide the controversy: but that they would ac- quaint the emperor with their state, because the West had an orthodox emperor, and the East an Arian, or send some to see how it stood with them. So that it was but either help from the emperor, or countenance from the number of bishops because they were over- vot- ed, tliat they desired. Epis. 74, Basil again writes to the bishops of the West, no more to the Roman bishop than the rest : and he giveth those reasons ; " for what we here speak is suspected, as if we spoke through private contention. — But for you, the fartlier you are remote from them by habitation, so much credit you have with the people, whereto is added that the grace of God helpeth you to relieve the oppressed : and if many of you unanimously decree the same things, it is manifest that the multitudo will produce a certain reception of your opinion." Wonderful ! if there were a vicar general of Christ at Rome, that it never came into their mind to crave his decision or help, as such.? O but say the Papists, that was because they had to do only with the Arians, that cared for no authority that was against them. But would the Arians have so much regarded the votes of the French and Italian bishops, or a few men sent from them, and yet not regard the head of the church 1 The Arians had heard of this headship, if any had. And would not the orthodox desire so much as a word from Rome for this advantage ? But it is false that against the Arians only they called for help. They expressly say; that it was also because they were divid- ed among themselves, by personal quarrels. How im- portunately doth Gregory Nyssen afterward call for help from others, and telf Flavianus, in his epistle to him, of their misery as if all were lost 1 And the only sad in- stance was, that Helladius had proudly neglected him, and made him stand at his door, when he went to visit him, a great while before he was let in ; and then did not 15* It4 JESuif bid him sit down ; and then did not speak to him first but two or three strange angry words: That was the great business. Basil. Epist. 77. chided the Western bisliops, lor not sending to them, nor regarding them and their communion : and to touch their pride, he adds, *• We have one Lord, one faith, one hope. Whether you think yourselves the head of the universal church, the head cannot say to the feet, I have no need of you, or if you place yourselves in the order of other church mem- bers, you cannot say to us, we need you not." Would you believe that the Papists cite this passage of Basil, for their headship, because here is the word head! When it is plain, tliat Basil by the head means but llie c/iiefesi part, and not the sovereign power. It is also most evi- dent, that he speaks to all the bishops of the West, and not to the Roman bishop ; and that he doth it as a smart reproof of their arrogancy, and not in any ap[)robation at all of their usurped power. 3. When the Papists find any heresy condemned by tlie Bishop of Rome, they cite tliis as a testimony of their sovereignty. As if other patriarchs and bishops con- demned them not as well as they ; or as if we knew not that the church desired the most general vote against heretics, and therefore would be loth to leave so great a bishop out. 4. When they find the pope excommunicating foreign bishops, they cry up this as a testimony of the headship : as if to refuse communion witli another church or bishop is an act of jurisdiction over them. Other bishops have also excommunicated the pope : Niccphorus lib. 17. cap. 26., sailh Vigilius, proceeded to that insolence, that ho excommunicated Mennas for four months. Mennas did the same by him ; but Justinian being moved to an- ger with such things, sent some to lay hold on him. Vigilius being afraid of himself, fled to the altar of Ser- gius the Martyr, and laid hold on the sacred pipes, and would not be drawn away till he had pulled them down. But by the mediation of tlie Empress Theodora, tho pope was pardoned, and Mennas and he absolved one another. A fair proof of llie vicarship ! Pope flonorius was condemned tor an heretic by two or three general councils. jtaoLiKG. 175 5. When they meet with any big words of tiieii own popes, they take it for a proof of the vicarshi[): as if big words did j>rove authority. Or as if we knew not iiow lowly they sj)oke to those tiiat were above them. Gregory was high enough towards tliose that he tlioiight he could master : but what low submissive language doth he use to secular governors above him ? VV hat llattering language did his successors use to the most base mur- derers and usurpers of the empire 1 6. Another Roman deceit is tliis : When thej find any mention of the exercise of the thriving Roman power, over their own diocess or patriarchal circuit, they would hence prove that universal power over all. By that rule the patriarcii of Alexandria or Constantinople may prove as much. 7. When they meet with passages that speak of the elevation of their pope to be the first patriarch in the Roman empire, or any power that by the emperors was given him, they cunningly confound the empire with the world, and especially if they find it called by the name of the world, and they would persuade you that all other Christians and churches on earth, did ascribe as much to the Bishop of Rome, as the Roman empire did. It is true that he was in the empire, ac- knowledged to be first in order or dignity, because of Rome the seat of his episcopacy, especially when gene- ral councils begfan to trouble themselves and the world about such matters of precedency. They usually called the empire all the world : and from such passages would the Papists prove tlie primacy at least of the pope over all the world. But put these Jugglers to it, to prove if they can, that beyond the river Euphrates, and beyond the bounds of the Roman empire, the pope did cither exercise dominion, or was once so niuch as regarded by them, any more than any other bishop, except there were atiy adjacent island or country that had their dependence upon the empire. They will not deny that the church extended much beyond the empire. Let them prove if they can, that ever any of those churches had any re- gard to the Roman bishop any more than to another man. Let them tell you where any empire out of tho line of the imperial power, was any whit subject to tho pope. ITC JESUIT 8. But their chief fraud is about names and words* When they meet with any high complimcntal title given to the Bishop of Rome, they presently conclude that it signifieth his sovereignty. ".Sometimes the Roman bishops are called Summi Pon- tifices, the chief popes : and hence some gather their supremacy. But Baronius their chief flatterer tells in Martyrolog. Roman, April, 9, that it was the ancient custom of the church to call bishops not only pontifices popes, but chief popes. And then citing a passage of Jerom. Epst. 99, he adds, " Those that understand not this ancient custom of speech, refer those words to the po])cdom of the church of Rome." The names Papa, Pope, Dorainus, Pater sanctissimus, beatissimus, dci amantissimus, ifcc, were commonly given to other prelates. What if Rome were called the mother of all churches? Basil saith, that the church of Ccesarea is the mother of all churches in a manner. Jerusalem has oft that title. Sometimes they find Rome called Caput Ecclesiaruni, and then they think they have won the cause. But it is no more than that priority of dignity which not Christ, but the emperors and councils gave them, that is intend- ed in the word. It is called the head, that is the chief seat in dignity, witliout any meaning that the pope is the universal monarch of the world. The pope is called the archbishop of tlie catholic church, or the universal bishop ? Three flattering monks at the council of Chalcedon, do so supersciibc their libels : but they plainly mean no more than the bishop that in order of dignity is above the rest, and many par- ticular churches are oft called catholic churches. Tliere is a diflercnce between a catholic church and the catho- lic church. Tiie prelate of Constantinople had that title, even by a council at Constant, an. 518, before the 15isliop of Rome had it publicly, or owned it. It was set- tled on the patriarch of Constantino[)le to be called the oecumenical or universal patriarch. Who knoweth not that emperors gave such titles at their pleasure ] Jus- tinian at one time would give the primacy to Rome, and at another time to Constantinople, saying, " the church of Constantinople is the head of all other churches." JUGGLING. 177 An. Dom. 530. C de Episcopis. I. 1. lege 24. Justi- nian who sonictinies calls Rome the head, when the sixth ircneral council iiad condemned Vigilius Pope of Rome, permitted Theodora his empress to cause him to he fetched to Constantinople, and dragged about the street in a halter, and then banished, till they had forced him to sub- scribe and submit to tlie council: even as they had de- posed Pope Silverius his predecessor. Baronius himself mentioned a Vatican monument which calls Agapetus cliief bishop so doth it call Mennas, the apostolic univer- sal bishop : which Baronius sailh, doth mean no more tlian that he was universal over his own provinces : and if that be so, any bishop may be called universal. One council of Carthage decreed that the bishop should be called, " not the chief priest, or the chief of priests, but tlie bishop of the first seat." And how long will they shut their eyes against the testimony of two of their own popes, Pelagius and Gregory who condemned the namo of universal bishop 1 They find the church of Rome called apostolic, and »o were others as well as that. The pope is called the pillar of the church ; and what of that ? so are many others as well as he ; as all the apostles were as well as Peter? the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The pas- tors of the church were ordinarily called the pillars and props of it. When the Papists read their popes called the succes- sors of Peter, they take this as a proof of their sover- eignty. Whereas Peter himself had no such sovereignty. They succeeded him not in his apostleship. They are called Paul's successors as well as Peter's. Others are called Peter's successors too as well as they, by the fathers. And other bishops ordinarily are called the apostles' successors, and other churches called apostolie churches. Hcsych. Hierosol. apud Plwtium Cod. 2G9. says of Andrew the apostle; "the first begotten of the apostolic choir, the first fixed pillar of the church ; the Peter of Peter, or the Rock of Peter, the foundation of the foun- dation ; the principal of the principal, who called before he was called, and brought others to Christ before ho was brought to him by any others." 178 JESUIT Hesychius also saith of James apud Photium Cod, 275. "with wliat praises may I set forth the servant and brother of Christ, the chief emperor or commander or captain of the new Jerusalem ; the prince or chief of priests, the president or principal of the apostles, the crown or leader among the heads, the principal lamp among the lights ; the principal planet among the stars ? Peter speaketh to the people ; but James giveth the law, or sets down the law." Where is more than this said of Peter himself] much less of the pope? CHAPTER XVIII. Popish For :^eries ; and Corruptions of authors. Another of the principal deceits of the Papists is this; they forge and corrupt councils and fathers, aiid then cite those forgeries. Be careful therefore how you receive their allegations, till you have searched and know the books to be genuine, and the particular words to be there, and uncorrupted. 1. Tiiey obtained the opportunity of possessing so many libraries, that they might the easilier play this abominable game. But God in mercy hath kept so many monuments of antiquity out of their hands, partly in the Eastern, and partly in the reformed churches, as suffice to discover abundance of their wicked forgeries and falsifications. 2. Of their forging canons and feigning councils which never were as Concil. Sinucssan. Concil. Rom. sub Sil- vester; Ushfr^s Ansiccr to the Jes. p. 12, 13. Of their forging Constant ineh Donation and Isidore Mcrcator''s forging a fardel of decretals; and of their falsifying and corrupting in the doctrine of the sacrament, read the works of Ambrose, Chrysostom, Fulbert, Raban, Bertram, Ratrannus, &c., who detect their horribly impious cheats. But their Indices expurgatorii will acquaint you with mu.^h more. Yet their secret expurgations are worst of all. James^ corruption of councils. 3. Andreas Schottus the Jesuit publishing Basil's JUGGLING. 179 works at Antwerp A. I). 1616. with Jesuitical fidelity, left out the epistle, in whicii is the followinij^ passage. Speaking of the Western bishops lie saith, "verily the manners of proud men grow more insolent, if they bo honored. If God he niercifid to us, what other addition have we need of t hut if (Jod's anger on us remain, what help can the pride of the West bring us? when they neither know the truth, nor can endure to speak it; but being prepossessed with false suspicions, they do the same things now, which they did in the case of Marcellus, contentiously disputing against those that taught the truth, but for heresy, confirming it by their authority. Indeed I was willing, not as representing the public person of the East, to write their leader Damasus, but nothing about church matters ; that 1 might intimate that they neither knew^ the truth of the things that are done with us, nor did admit the way by which they might learn them. And in general, that they siiould not insult over the calam- itous and alllicted, nor think that pride did make for their dignity, when that one sin alone is enough to make us hateful to God." In which you may see the Roman power in those days, in the consciences of Basil and other fathers in the East. 4. How Tertullian reverenced them, you may see lib. tic pudicit. where he condemns Zepherinus. The Asian bishops condemned A'ictor, and IreucKus reproved him. Cyprian and Firniilian condemned Stephen : Marcellin- us was condemned by all. Liberius was oft cftiathema- tized by Hilary. Tiie resistance of Zosimus and Boni- face by the Africans, «fcc. shows plainly in what esteem the now infallible universal head was then among the fathers and in all the churches. Wlien the Papists men- tion such passages, what juggling do they use? some- times they silence them : sometimes they pass them over in a few words that are buried in a heap of other mat- ters : and sometimes they bring in forgeries to obscure them. But commonly they make a nose of wax of coun- cils and fathers, as well as of Scripture, and put any ridiculous sense upon them that shall serve their turn, though perhaps six among them may have six expositions. An epistle of Cyril of Jerusalem to Austin is forged by one that Molanus calleth a barbarous impostor ; His- 180 JEStTt tor. Imag. I. 3. c. 36. about the miracles of Jeroni^ where purgatory and other errors are befriended. When Cyril died thirty years before Jerom. Yet Suarez and other most learned Papists make use of that forgery. Mendham'* s Policy of Home. Of their abominable legends the wiser sort of ihem- selve« are ashamed. If any ancients have abused the church by shameless forgeries, the Papists make use of such as confidently as if they were the word of God. Let any man but read the life and miracles of Thecla, and try his faith upon it, whether he be able to believe that "Thecla stood so long at the window to hear Paul while all those daily applications and orations were made to her 1 that Demas and llermogenes were there to stir up the people against Paul as a deceiver, under the cloke of being his companions; that any of those orations re- cited are true, that her mother Theoclaea, and her lover Thamiris were on the sudden so cru<^l as to burn her, while they are said so much to burn in love to her; that when Tliecla had lormed her body like a cross, and cast herself into the flaming pile, the flames in reverence of the cross, became as a chamber to her, covering her like a vault from the people's sight, and not approaching her ; and that the earth making a grevious noise, the showers and hail destroyed the people, and Thecla went her way without observance, finding Paul and Onesiphorus hid in a sepulchre at prayer for her: that Paul permitted lier to cut her hair, and change her habit, and become his fellow traveller ; that Alexander the governor was so inflamed with her beauty at Autioch, even before she came in full sight of the people in the city gate, that he could not forbear, but presently must leap upon her like a mad dog : that she tore his cloak and threw ofl' his crown, and so saved her virginity ; that for this she was cast and tied to wild beasts, and the lions couched to her, and one lioness fought for her, and killed the rest that assaulted her ; that yet they turned more upon her : that she leaped into the fish pond among the devouring gea calves ; and that (ire from heaven came down into the water, and there made her a chamber and saved her from those sea beasts ; that Falconilla's soul appeared to her mother Tryphaeua to beg Thecla's prayers that }UG6LING. 181 she might be admitted into heaven, telling her how much Tiiecla was admired in heaven. That at Thccla's pray- ers she was admitted into heaven ; Thelca was again tied to the wild hulls, and fire set to them to enrage them, the fire killed them, and burnt the bonds, and she was unhurt. That Thecla again put on man's clothes, and sought Paul: that Paul hereupon pronounced her an apos- tle and ordained her to go and preach the Gospel, and appointed her to one Pagan city ; that she fixed at Seleucia, and there converted and baptised many ; and at last after many miracles did not die, but entered alive into the earth, which opened itself for her in the place where the lioly table stood ; that after her death she wi'ought one and thirty miracles; appearing to Basil, and encour- aging him when he was weary, to go on in the writing of her praises, and plucking him by the ear, and so cur- ing his headache, which else would have prevented his oration in her praise the next day." I have instanced but this one case of Thecla, because it would be endless to tell you of their fictions. Nor do I mention this as one of their legends, nor as a piece of Metaphrastes, but as the works of an ancient father. Now either this is Basil's work, or it is not. If it be not, then what trust is to be given to the Papist antiquities, and supposed fathers : for this is one of them, and this story is vindicated by Petrus Pantinus, and Baronius, An. 47, who bringcth a whole army of fathers to attest the acts of Thecla, and approveth of this of Basil's, and the like of Metaphrastes. Two testimonies trouble him shrewdly. One is Tertullian, Baptis. cap. 18. who saith thus, "but if any women read the pretended writings of Paul, and the example of Thecla, for women's liberty to teach and baptise, let them know that a presbyter in Asia, that framed that writing, putting Paul's name in- stead of his own, was cast out of his place, being convict- ed of it, and confessing that he did it in love to Paul." The other is Jerom's testimony Script. Eccles. who quoting the fore-cited words, saith, "the travels therefore of Paul and Thecla, and the whole fable of the baptised lion, we reckon among Apocryphal writings: for how can it be, that Luke the inseparable companion of the apostle was ignorant of this only among all his matters ?" 16 182 jEsvtr But Baronlus thinks that tliose arc not the same books that TertuUian and Jerom speak against : and why so '? because here is no mention of Thecki's preaching and baptising, nor of the lion baptised ; and because so many fathers attest the story. But this is a visible falsehood, contrary to the express words of the story, which feign Paul to have sent her to preach as a true apostle, and mention her baptising the people of Seleucia. This shows how unfit the fathers are to be the authors of our faith, or to be esteemed infallible, who so easily believe and recite the forged stories of an Asiatic presbyter, even when TertuUian had before revealed the deceit. But if this book was written by Basil of Seleucia, and was not spurious, then they who rest ujion the Holy Scriptures alone for the matters of their faith, do take a surer and wiser way, than they who build on the credit of eredulous impudent fabulous fathers. By this you may see that the records and testimonies from antiquity are not to be trusted : even as Zosimus' report of the Nicene canon to the African council was not, who proved it a forgery, and so rejected it. When the writings are only in their keeping, and their interest call- eth them to deprave them, they are not to be trusted ; who venture to corrupt those which are in the hands of the Christian world. CHAPTER XIX. Popish Calwmuj. Another of the Popish devices is, when they have laid their oion cause upon so many forgeries^ and up- hold it by so many false reports, to make the people believe that it is we that are the liars, and that ice are not to be believed in any thing that ice say of them, and that we misreport the fathers, belie the Roman catholies: and therefore no man should read our books, or dis- course with us so as to afford us any credence. We cannot quote what is in their own writers, but the igno- rant people are taught to say we slander them. Though JUGGLING. 183 u'C cilc the book, aiul puijjc and line, and tell them tliat they were jirinted at Konie, or Antwerp, or Paris, by men of their own profession, yet they believe us not, for they are instructed to hold us for liars, that we may be incaj)able of doing them good. If we cite any of the fathers, they tell us wo misallege them, (tr have corruj)t- ed them or they say no such thing. If we show them the books published by their own doctors, and licensed by their superiors, and printed by Papists, yet they will not believe us. And so they are taught the easiest way in the world to repel the truth, and confute those that would do them good. It is no more but to say, "you lie," and all is done. In such a case as this, what is there to be done 1 igno- rance and incredulity thus purposely conjoined, are the wall of brass that is opposed to our endeavors. To what purpose should we speak to them that will not hear? In such a case 1 know but two ways. 1. Endeavor to revive the stupified humanity and reason of those men : and ask them, is religion the work of a man or of a beast '^ of a wise man or of a mad man ? Is it a reasonable or an unreasonable course ? if it be reasonable, why then will you go without reason upon other men's bare words 1 but if you are so liulc men as to venture your souls without reason, you should not venture against it? would you rest on the bare word of one of those men, if it went against reason? if so then you renounce your man-^ hood. But suppose you will be so unreasonable, yet you have your five senses still ? If a priest shall tell you that the crow is white, and the snow is black, or that you see not when you know^ you sec, will you be- lieve him ? If you will believe them before your eyes, and taste, and feeling, then I have done ^vith you. Who can dispute with stocks and stones, or men so far for- saken of God, as to renounce all their senses ? but if you will not believe a Papist against your eyes, and other senses, \vhy then do you believe that bread is not bread, and wine is not wine, when the eyes, and smell, and taste of all men say it is ? and if your senses tell you that your priests deceive you in one thing, you should not be so confident of them in olher things, as to believe aod hearken to none but them. 184 JESUIT 2. Try whether you can procure the priests to discuss those points hefore the incredulous people, that so they may hear both sides speak together. Get a conference between them, and some experienced judicious divine. But this will hardly be obtained. For if it be to dispute with one that is able, they pretend a danger of persecu- tion ; and no promise of security will satisfy them. But if it be a weak inexperienced man that challengeth them, then they will venture, and take the advantage. If nothing else can be done, the best way is to offer them some small book against Popery to read. If they are so captivated that they will neither hear nor read, and their leaders will not be drawn to a dispute, I know not what to do but leave them, and let them take what they get by their unreasonable obstinacy. They are un- worthy of truth that set no more value upon it. CHAPTER XX. Popish Miracles. Another of their deceits is hi/ pretended miracles. If they hear of a girl who hath hysterical })assions in any violent degree, they presently go to cast the devil out of her, that so they may make deluded people think that they have wrought a miracle. And weak people, and per- haps the diseased woman herself, may be so much unac- quainted with the disease, as verily to believe the priests, tlf^t they have a devil indeed : and so turn Papists when the cure is wrought, as thinking it was done by the fineer of God. The same course they take also in distractions of othe^" diseases ; and sometimes persons are trained up by them to dissemble and counterfeit a lunatic or possessed state. Because Tuberville pleads their miracles, I shall revive the memory of one of the great miracles that was done among their proselytes in the parish of Wolverhampton. At Bilson, in the parish of Wolverhampton in Stafford- shire there was a boy named William Perry, who througli Popish devices seemed to be possessed with a JtOOLING. 185 devil, about thirteen years old, but of special wit above Jiis age. In his fits he seemed to be deaf, and blind, writhini^ his mouth aside, continually groaninc^ and pant- ing, and when he was pricked, pinched, whipped, he professed not to feel. Ho seemed to take no food that would digest, but with it cast up rags, thread, straw, pins, &c., his belly almost as Hat as his back, his throat swelled and hard, his tongue stiff and rolled up towards the roof of his mouth, so that he appeared always dumb, save that once in a fortnight or three weeks he would speak a few words. It was thought he was bewitched by Joan Cocks, because he would discern when that woman was brought into the room, though it were secretly done, as was tried before the grand jury at Staflord. lie would not endure the repeating of tlie tirst verse of Jolm. In the beginning was the loonl., c^'c, but other texts he would endure. When the parents had been wearied with him, and the country flocked in to see him, a priest of the Romish religion was invited to cure him. The priest exorcised him, praying in Latin over him, hanging a stone about his neck, washing him with holy water, witch water, and anointing him with holy oil, &c., which seemed to ease him, and make him speak, and sometimes cure him for the time. They hallowed all his meat and drink. He would not so much as eat raisins, or smell to flowers, unless they were blessed by the priest. He told them that while the puritans stood by him he saw the devil assault him in the shape of a black bird. The priest required the chief fiend to show himself: then the boy put out his tongue swelled. Tiie priest commanded him to show the peo- ple by the sheet before him, how he would use those that died out of the Roman church : whereupon he pulled and bit and tossed the sheet, till the people cried out and wept. Then he commanded the devil to tell him, how he did use Luther, Calvin and John Fox : and he play- ed the same part more fiercely than before. Then the priest commanded him to show what power he had of a good catholic that died out of mortal sin : and then he thrust down his arms, and hanged down his head and trembled. The boy promised when his fit was over, that he would live and die a catholic, persuading his parents and friends, e or regard of good living : but unbridled and untamed lust, singular audaciousness, incredible wicked- ness. Would they had not fallen from religion to super- stition, from faith to infidelity, from Christ to antichrist, yea as men that had no souls from God to Epicurus, or Pythagoras, saying in an impious heart, and an impudent mouth, there is no God. And yet now of a long time, there hath been no pastor that would require, or seek them again; because they all sought their own things, but not one the things of Jesus Christ." Muss after the council wrote thus ; Scrm. 2. " The Roman name is hateful with all na- tions ; and see, how little esteem the church itself is of, be- cause of the scandals that are heard, seen and felt. I speak not now of enemies, that call it the whore of Ba- bylon, hell, and the sink of all errors : but I speak of friends, that groan and daily sigh within themselves, say- ing, O holy city, how art thou thus profaned ! O glorious city ! that are thus become vile, thus condemned and ne- glected." Rivet. White's Wat/ to the true Church, Guicciardin their historian saith ; "Those are called good popes, whose goodness is not worse than other men's wickedness." Claud. EspenccEus on Titus 1. complains, that the promises made by the pope, of reformation at the coun- cil of Trent, were all broken, and nothing done but de- ceit and shows. Of Pope Sixtus V. Bellarmin gave his judgment, that he thought, when he died he went to the devil, saying, "he that lives without repentance, and dieth without repentance, undoubtedly goeth to hell." Bellarmin also said, "as far as I can reach, as lar as I have any wisdom, as far as I understand, in plain terms, our Lord the pope is gone to hell." Barthol. JIarisof. life of Henry the great of France, caj). 17. saith; 19 218 JESUIT " When the Spaniards perceived his contrivances to for- sake their party, lest he should join witli the enemy, they caused liim to be stranirled in the night by a Franciscan, or one in a monk's habit, and the next day gave out that a domestic devil had strangled him ; and to make good the report a book was written of his life and printed, where all the wickedness of Pope Alexander ^ I. is charged on him. " How the popes are still chosen by impious jugglings and combinations, cardinal Perron, tells in his Legationes et Negotiat. Cardinal Ossatus Epist. 87. said concerning pope Clement VIII. esteem- ed one of the very best of them : who persuaded the King of France to join with the Spaniards in the inva- sion of England ; and when the cardinal answered that the King of France was under an oath of peace with the Queen of England ; their best pope replied, " the oath was made to a heretic, but he is bound by anoth- er oath to God and the pope. Kings and oiher sover- eign princes tolerate themselves in all things that make for their commodity, and it is now come to pass that it is not imputed to them, nor taken to be their fault." He alleged the saying of Francisc. Marice Duke of Urbin, " a noble man or great man that is not the sovereign, is blamed and counted infamous of all men. if he keep not his faith ; but supreme princes may make covenants, and break them again without any danger to their credit, and may Ife, betray, and commit such like practices.'* Those are the best popes, that can forgive other men's sins and pardon them the pains of purgatory, and can- not save their own souls from hell ! Can they not gov- ern the universal church well, that can no better govern themselves, or that one city where they dwell 1 are not those men worthy to be consulted as infallible oracles, by those that dwell at tlie antipodes, though it cost them their lives to sail or travel to them ? can he be a Chris- tian or be saved that bclievoth in one of those men? or can any man receive the Christian faith or Scriptures, till he first know those wicked men to be Christ's infallible vicars 1 How many thousands of prostitutes are licensed in Rome ; how sumptuously they live, and what revenues the popes derive from their fornication many Papist JUGGLING. 210 authors mention. Some of them defend it ; and even the present pope niaintains it. However the Jesuit Mariana, akiioii<:;h lie justified tiie murder of kin^^s ; Re- gis ct Regis instutiunc, lib. 1. cap. (i ; disallows that uncleanness, Spectaculis, cap. 16. Claude EspciiC(cus, Confine nfia^ lib. 3. cap. 4. laments that "all Rome is turned into one vast hrothel." "The Jews, says that Roman priest, so far shame you, that none of their daughters may hecome a harlot, unless they first turn Papists, and tiien they can obtain the license to live in lewdness," for the stipulated price. Of the gain that comes to the pope and prelates by the simoniacal market of benefices, read Clcmangis Tract, dc annatibus non solvendis. Alvar. Pclag. jjlanC' ill Eccles. lib. 2. art. 15; and I. 1. art. 67. Claude JEs- penc. Tit. 1. Cardinal Cusanus Concord, cathnl. lib. 2. cap. 40. JIarc. Ant. Rcpub. Eccles. lib. 9. c. 9. Bu- doeus lib. 5. dc Asse ; Duarenus Sacris Eccles. 3Iinist, lib. 5. c. 8. The odious sin of sodomy was common with many of the clergy and popes themselves; gluttony, drunken- ness and whoredom being the common smaller sins. Papirius INIassonius who wrote the deeds of the popes for their honor and sought his reward from Sixtus V. saith ; Episcop. urb. lib. 6. " No man doth now look for holiness in popes: those are judged the best, that are a little good or less wicked than other mortals used to be." Pius II. was one of the best that the Papal seat a long time had ; and yet in liis ej)istle to his father ; Epist. 15. who was angry with him for fornication, he saith ; " you say you are sorry for my crime. I know not what opinion you have of me. You know what you were yourself. Nor am I an hypocrite, that I should desire rather to seem good, than to be good. It is an ancient and usual sin* I know not who is without it. This plague is spread far and near ; though I see it not, seeing nature, which doth nothing amiss, hath bred this appetite in all living creatures, that mankind should be continued. " He who was the glory of the Papacy, knew none of all the Hierarchy without beasily sin. Orichovius informs Pope Julius III. that Pope Paul 220 JESUIT II. his predecessor had a daughter in the eyes of all men. Of Pope Julius III. Onuphrius saith, "being a car- dinal ho followed voluptuousness as by stealth, but being made popOj and having what he would have, he cast away all care, and gave up himself to his mirth and disposition. " Thuanus also declares ; Hist. lib. 6, *' he was very infamous as a cardinal, but afterwards past his life in greater infamy." Alvarus Pelagius, lib. 2. art. 73. lamenting whore- dom as a common sin, but specially of the clergy, tells us that the cause is, "because the religious of that age were gluttons or bell^'^-gods, arrogant, proud, incompar- ably beyond secular men, conversing with women, &c. And drink more wine in their religious state than before, and are commonly carnal. That the monks had their female devotees, with whom, by the prelate's license, they conversed. Being sent to preach they go to lewd- ness. That there was scarcely any of the nuns with- out her carnal male votary, by which they broke their faith with Christ." That was the holy Papacy. In book 2. art. 28, he says, " Most of the clergy mix themselves with gluttony, drunkenness and whoredom, which is their common vice, and most of them give themselves to tlie unnatural vice. Thus continually, yea and jjublicly, do they offend against that chastity which they promised to the Lord : besides those evils not to be named which in secret they commit, which papers will not receive, nor pen can write." Abundance more he hath of the same subject, and their putting their choicest youth into houses of sodomy. That book of Alvarus Pelagius, Bellarmin calls Liber insignis ; de Scriptor. JEcclesiast. Matth. Paris, p. 819, tells us of cardinal Hugo*s farewell speech to the people of Lyons when he departed with the pope's court; "Friends, said he, since we came to this city we have brought you great commodity and alms. When we came hither we found three or four brothels, but now at our departure we leave but one, but that one reacheth from the east gate to the west g«te." O holy pope ! and holy church ! Costerus the Jesuit easily answers all that is said, £»* JUGGLING. 5t2l chirid. cap. 2. dc JBccles. "The cliurch losotli not the name Holy, as long as there is but one wlio is truly iioly.'* Is tliis your sanctity? If the head be unlioly, an essen- tial part is unholy; and therefore the church cannot be lioly. One person is not the matter of the church, as one drop of wine cast into the sea doth not make it a sea of wine ; one Italian in England makes not England Ital- ian ; nor docs one learned man make England learned. Let the Pai)ists observe, that it is from the very words of their own authors, that I have spoken of them what is here recited, and not from their adversaries. And therefore I am so far from believing- the Gospel upon the account that their church is holy that recom- mendcth it, or from believing them to be the only church of Christ because of their holiness, that I must bless God that I live in a sweeter air and cleaner society, and should be loth to come out of the garden to go into their sink to be made clean or sweet. The traveller learned more wit, who left us his resolution ; — "Rom. a vale; vidi ; sati^ est vidisse ; revarta? Cum Icno aut ?nc/'etriz, sciirra, cinoidus ero.'*'^ *'Rome! Farewell; enough! Ihave seen thee. 1 will return to thee when I am a villain and a beast ! " 2. The second proof which they bring of the holiness of their church, is, the strict life of their friars, as Carthusians, Franciscans, and others. Travellers tell lamentable stories of friars ; and Guil. de Amore, and his companions have said much more, and many other Popish writers paint them in an odious garb. This also shows the pollution of your church in comparison to our churches, that holiness and religion are such rarities and next to miracles among you, that it must be cloistered up, or confined to certain orders that are properly called religious, as if the people had no religion or holiness. When our care and hope is to make all our parishes far more religious and holy than your monasteries or convents. 3. Their third proof of the holiness of the Papists is derived from tiieir unmarried priests. Because the es- sential parts of your church nearest concern your cause, I ask — Was it not Pope John XI. who had Theodora for 19* 222 JESUIT his mistress? Was it not Pope Sergius III. who was the father of Pope John XII. by Marosia? Did not John XII. or XIII., according to Luhprand and other Po- pish writers defile virgins ; and married women even at the doors of liis palace, and was finally killed by a hus- band who caught him in adultery? Did not a Papist write the following distich of Pope Innocent? ^^ Octo Nocens pueros genuit totidemque puellas, Hunc merito poi'uit dicere Rome patrem ! " " That sinner had eight sons and eight daughters. Rightly did Rome call him their Father!'''' Whose son was Aloisus, made Prince of Parma by Pope Paul III. ? For your archbishops, prelates, priests &c. I shall add but the words of Dominicus Soto de Instit. et Jure qu. 6. art. 1. "We do not deny that the clergy keep concubines, and are adulterers.'' Paul directed Timothy and Titus to ordain a bishop that was the husband of one wife, and ruled well his house, having his children in subjection. The church long held to that doctrine. Greg. Nyssen was a married bishop. But if you are wiser than the S))irit of God, or can change his laws, or can prove the Holy Ghost so im- mutable as to give one law by Paul and other apostles, and another by the pope, we will believe you and for- sake the Scripture, when you can bewitch and charm us to it. We believe that a single life may be of convenience to a pastor, when it can be held ; but that Christ's rule must be observed, " every man cannot receive this say- ing, but he that can, let him receive it;" but we do not teach, as the Jesuits do, that a man may lawfully go into a brothel, though he hath found by experience he is overcome. Lest the vices of your priests should be laid open and punished, you exempt them from the secular power, and will not have a magistrate question them for any crimes. It is one of Pope Nicholas' decrees, Caranza, p. 395 ; " No layman must judge a priest, nor examine any thing of his life. And no secular prince ought to judge the facts of any prelates or priests whatsoever." That is the way to be wicked quietly, and sin without noise and infamy. JUGGLING. U^Z Those among us who are known to he unj^odly and scandalous, are not owned hy us, nor arc niemhers of our church, or admitted to the Lord's Supper in tiiosc congregations that exercise churcli discipline ; hut thev arc only as catechumens, whom we preach to and in- struct, if not cast out. Your eighth general council at Constantino[)le, Can. 14. decreed, " ministers must not fall down to princes, nor eat at their tables, nor debase themselves to them ; but emperors must take them as equals." But we are so far from establishing pride and arrogancy by a law, that tliough we hate servile flattery and man pleasing, yet we think it our duty to be the servants of all, and to condescend to men of low estate, and much more to honor our superiors and God in them. The same council decreed, Canon. 21, *-'■ None must compose any accusations against the pope." No mar- vel then if all popes go for innocents. Because you charge our churches with unholiness, and that with such an height of impudence, as I am certain the devil himself doth not believe you, even that there is not one good among us, nor one that hath charity, nor can be saved, unless by turning Papist ; I tell you, that I doubt not but the churches in England, are purer far than those were in the days of Augustin, Jerom, &.c., and that the pastors of our churches are less scandalous than they were then. What if I should compare many of them to Augustin, Jerom, and such others, both in doctrine and holiness of life? Should I do so, I know you would account it arrogance. But yet I will pre- sume to make some comparison. As for the heavenliness of their writings, let some of ours be compared with them, and you will see at least that they spake by the same spirit. For their commen- taries on Scripture, did we miss it as oft as Ambrose, Jerom, and many more, we should bring ourselves very low in the esteem of the church. Even cardinal Cajetan doth boldly censure the fathers' commentaries. As to our lives, I have no pleasure in opening any of the faults of his saints, nor shall I mention any, but what are confessed by themselves, and to boast of our own purity I take to be a detestable thing, and contrary to 224 JESUIT that sense of sin that is in every Saint of God : but yet if the Lord's churches and servants are slandered and re- proached, as they were by the heathens of old, the vin- dicating them is a duty which we owe to Christ, and you are the cause of the inconveniences. Those ministers that I converse with, are partly mar- ried and partly unmarried. The married live soberly, in conjugal chastity, as burning and shining lights before the people, in exemplary holiness of life. The unmar- ried also give up themselves to the Lord and to his ser- vice. And for the people of our communion, through the mercy of God, open sins are so rare, that if one in a church be guilty once, we all lament it, and bring them to penitence, or disown them, and they are the pity of all the congregation. Were the churches better in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or following ages ] No. That is proved by the sad histories of the crimes of those times, and by the lamen- table complaints of Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory Nyssen, and Chrysostom, Austin, &c. What complaints are made by Gildas of the British Church ? What a doleful description have we of the Christian pastors and people in his days from Salvian de Guber- nat. 1 I judge also by the canons, and by the fathers' direc- tions concerning offenders. Thus Gregory saith of drunkards ; Quod cum venia siis ingcnio sunt relin- quendi, ne deteriores jiant^ si a tali cotisuetudine evel- lantur. Was this the Roman sanctity even then ? Was that Saint Gregory's sanctity, that drunkards must be let alone with j)ardon, lest if they be forced from their custom they be made worse 1 If such advice were but giv'On by one of us, it would cast us out of our ministry. We dare not lot one drunkard alone in our church com- munion, where church discipline is set up. Augustin saith ; " Drunkenness is a mortal sin, if it be daily or usual. And that they must be dealt with gently and by fair words, and not roughly and sharply." If one of us should make so light of drunkenness, what should we be thought 1 Aquinas 22. q. 150. art. 1. 4 ; art. 2. 1. Many canons determine, " Priests that will not part JUGGLING. 225 witli tlioir roiirnbincs, shall be suspended from ofTiria- tiiii^, till they let them go." Whereas with us, a man is ejected who should have a concubine but once. Gratian Distinct. 34, citeth c. 17, of the Tolotan coun- cil, saying, " He that bath not a wife, but a concubine in her stead, shall not be put from the communion." The whole canon is thus ; *' If any believer have a wife and a concubine, let him not communicate. But he that hath no wife, and hath a concubine instead of a wife, may not be put from the communion. Only let him be con- tent with one woman, either wife or concubine, which he will. He that liveth otherwise, let him be cast off, till he give over, and return to penitence." In an English council at Berghamsted an. 697, the se- venth canon is this; "If a priest leave bis adultery, and do not naughtily defer baptism, nor is given to drunken- ness, let him keep his ministry, and the privilege of his habit." Spelman. King Alured in the preface to his laws tells us ; " except treason and desertion of their Lords, the councils of the clergy did lay but some pecu- niary mulct on other sins." Spelman. Johnson's Laws and canons. All this shows that the church then was much more corrupt than ours now in England. The best of the fathers had such blots, that I may well make their confessions another discovery that our churches are as pure and holy as theirs. Augustin, whilst he leaned to the JManichces. confesseth himself guilty of fornication. Jerom that was so vehement for virginity and lived a monastic life, doth yet confess that he was not a virgin. Bernard, who lived so contem- plative a life, in his Serm.de beata virgine de Assumpt. confesseth se car ere virgmitate. When we tell the Papists of their licensing brothels at Rome, Bononia, 4fec., they fly to the words of Austin lib. de ordine ; " Take away harlots from among men, and you will disturb all things with lusts." Though this was written when Austin was but a young convert, and he afterwards changed his mind ; yet it shows that our times are far from the abominations of those, and our pas- tors are far more strict than Austin was. As for the holiness of their church by ceremonies, as 226 JESUIT holy water, holy oil, relics, altars and a hundred such things, it is not worthy of notice. All things are sanc- titied to us by the word and prayer. We devote our- selves and all that we have to God, and then to the pure all things are pure. We neglect no ordinance of God that we can know of and enjoy. He is a spirit, and seekefh such as will worship him in spirit and truth. This is the holiness that we look after. Bur for num- bering beads, and ylyeJ/arigs, and going on pilgrimages, and such inventions of arrogant men, we place no holi- ness in them ; as knowing tiiat God desireth not a mimi- cal or histrionical worship ; and that none knows what will please him so well as himself. CHAPTER XXVI. J^oveUy of Popish Corruptions. ' Another of their deceits is, hi/ calling us to tell them ichcn every one of their errors did first begin., and what pope did bring them in ; or else they tvill not believe but they are from the Apostles. 1. It belongs to you to prove the continuance of your opinions or practices, more than to us to prove the be- ginning. It sufficcth that we prove that there was a time when your errors were not in the church, and that we can do from the Scriptures and the Fathers. You know yourselves of abundance of changes which you know not who did first introduce. Who first adminis- tered the Lord's Supper in one kind only 1 that was not from the beginning"? Who first laid by the standing on the Lord's day, and used kneeling ? Can. 20. Council Niccn. 1. Alvarus Pelagius de planet. Ilccles. li. 2. art, 2. saith ; "The church bewaileth the sins of the people, but specially the clergy, as greater than the sin of Sodom. For we see that faith aud justice have forsaken the earth. The Holy Scri[)ture and sacred canons are accounted as fables. He is now a man of no knowledge that inventeth not novelties." You see that then novelties were brought in^ Vincentius Lirinensis complaineth of, and not only JUGGLING. 227 roniplaiiiotli of, hut irivoili diioction what to do; " If any novel coiitaii^ioii shall fiidcavor to stain not only a part of the church, hut the whole church alike." J lis advice is to appeal from novelty to antl<|uity, and not to the pope or present church. " This direction is hut for new heresies at their first rising ; hefore they falsify the rules of ancient faith, hefore they corrupt ancient writers, or can pretend to antic[uity, and hefore hy the larjre spreading of the venom, they endeavor to corrupt the volumes of our ancestors." But dilated and inveterate heresies are not to he set upon this w'ay, hecause they have had a long occasion of stealing truth ; and there- fore we must convince such ancient heresies and schisms by the only authority of the Scripture if there be need or avoid them. Lirincns. cap, 4. «fcc. Augustin ad Januariuni said ; " they load our religion w^ith servile burdens, which God in mercy would have to be free, with a very few and most manifest sacra- ments of celebration ; so that the condition of the Jews was more tolerable, that were subject to legal sacra- ments, and not to the presumptions of men." Gersoii. Vita Spirit, anima, led. 2. par 3, addeth, " If in thy days thou didst mourn, O wise Augustin, what wouldst thou have said in our time 1 where according to the variety and motion of heads, there is incredible variety and dissonant multiplicity of such servile burdens, and as thou callest them, of human presumptions. Among which as so many snares of souls, and entangling nets, there is scarce any man that walks secure, and is not taken, or caught." In the judgment of Augustin and Gerson, have any novelties been brought into the church? did all your presumptions and burdens, and as Gerson calls them, halters for souls, come from the apostles, or are they your own 1 When all is thus overcome with novelty, do you make any question whether any thing be new 1 Bernard thought that human traditions were too mucii befriended, when he thus describeth the assemblies that he approveth, Epist. 91 ; " Such a council do I delight in, in which the traditions of men are not obstinately defended, or superstitiously observed : but they do dili- gently and humbly inquire, what is the good and well pleasing, and perfect will of God" 228 JESUIT General councils by error introduced novelties, when later councils were fain to undo what the former had done: for so doth Augustin profess they did, saying, Z^c Bapiis. cont. Donat. lib. 2. cap. 6, " Councils them- selves that are gathered through several regions and provinces, do without any scruple yield to the authority of more plenary councils that are gathered out of the whole Christian world ; and those same plenary coun- cils do often yield or give place, the former to the later, when by some experiment of matters, that which was shut is opened, and that which lay hid is known." What should hinder the introduction of novelty when general councils do so often err ? If such councils be morally and interpretatively the whole church, as the Papists say, then the whole church doth err in the reception of some novelty, before they declare it by their decrees. If you say that general councils can- not err, nor introduce such novelties, Bellarmin and many give you the lie : for De concil. lib. 2. cap. 11, he saith, " it cannot be answered that those councils erred because they were not lawful ; for to most of them there was nothing wanting but the pope's assent. The second at Ephesus was altogether like that at Basil: for both were called by the pope; in both of them the pope's legate shortly after went away ; in both of them the pope was excommunicated; and yet, that the council of Ephe- sus erred; the adversaries will not den3^ Hence he con- cludeth that " the chief power ecclesiastical is not in the church, nor in the council, the pope being removed." What should hinder, when there is but one man's vote against it, even the pope's, but that novelty and error may enter at any time, and when that one man is so wicked and heretical as he is ? General councils are but mere name and mockery. The packing of them ; the paucity and non-universality of them ; and the man- agement of their affairs show it. They do nothing since the papal reign, but what the pope will, excepting the condemned councils. They have no being till he will, nor make any decrees but what he will, nor arc their decrees of any further power than ho is pleased to give them. So that his will is the sense of the general coun- cil or universal church. Sleidan and \ ergerius of Trent JUGGLING. 229 tell US ; "The Holy Ghost went to that council in a cloakbag from Rome." Espencccus Titus I. Bellar- min de coiicU. lib. 2. cap. 11, says; "We must know that the pope is vvout to send legates, instructed con- cerning- the judgment of the apostolic seat, with this condition, that if the council do consent to the judgment of the apostolic seat, it shall be formed into a decree; if not the forming of the decree shall be deferred till the Pope of Rome, being advised with, shall return his answer. In the council of Basil, Ses. 2, it was decreed by common consent, together with the pope's legate, that a council is above the pope; which certainly is now judged erroneous." The councils of Lateran and Florence decreed the contrary. Pighius saith, Hierarch. Eccles. 1. 6. " The councils of Constance and Basil went about, by a new trick and pernicious example, to destroy the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and instead of it to bring in the domination of a promiscu- ous confused popular multitude ; that is, to raise again Babylon itself, subjecting to themselvs, or to the com- munity of the church, which they falsly pretend that they represent, the very head and prince of the whole church, and him that is the vicar of Christ himself in this his kingdom; and this against order and nature, against the clearest light of Gospel verity, against the undoubted faith and judgment of the orthodox church itself" Thus general councils with the pope's nuncio may bring in novelties in faith, against the^clearest light of the Gospel, and the full consent of antiquity; and yet those councils affirmed their opinions to be matters of faith, and the opposite to be heretical and damnable, and con- trary to all antiquity. Hence novelties are matters of faith. The French to this day are guilty of those nov- elties, and charge their adversaries with innovation. General councils themselves are but novelties, though they are the foundation of the faith of one half of the Papists, as the pope is of the other ? Pighius Hie- rarch. Eccles. lib. 6. cap 1. saith; "General councils have not a divine or supernatural original, but merely human original and are the invention of Constantino; profitable indeed sometimes to find out in controversy 20 230 JESUIT which is the orthodox catholic truth : though to this they are not necessary, seeing it is a readier way to advise with the apostolic seat.*' Is your representative church the foundation of your faith, a novelty of Con- stantine's invention ; and yet are you in the old way, and must we be put to prove you to be novelists'? Do you think those popes did go the old way, of whom Alvarus Pelagius speaks, Planctu Eccles. art. 15. lib. 2; "They succeeded in authority, but not in sanctity, intruding themselves, procuring, bargaining, &c. building towers and palaces in Babylon, that is in Rome according to Jerom." Some foul innovation sure they were guilty of that so re-edified Babylon. This is my first proof that you are novelists; from the general accusations of others, and confessions of your own. 2. Another proof that changes may be, and yet the time and authors be kn wn ; is, from the instance of other churches, which have b*en corrupted or subvert- ed by innovations, and yet the time and authors are unknown. You accuse the churches in Habassia of many errors yourselves; and you are not able to tell us when they came in, or who introduced them. The same may be said of the Georgians, Armenians, Egyp- tians, and of the Greeks and Russians. Can you tell us when, and by whom, each error was introduced, that corrupted the churches mentioned in the Scripture .'* Corinth, Philippi, Colosse, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Lao- dicea, and the rest. You can give us no better account of that than we can of the authors of your own corrup- tions. Among the primitive fathers, whose writings are come to our hands, many errors had the major vote ; as that corporeity of angels, which your second general council at Nice owned, the millenary conceit, and many more which you confess to be errors. Tell us when any of those came in, if you can, unless you believe that Papias received the last from John, and then it is no error. Who did first induce the Asian churches to celebrate Easter at a season differing from yours? who first brought the Britons to it ? We know not certainly who first converted many nations on earth, nor when JUGGLING. 231 they first received tlioir Cliristianity : and how then should we know wlien they first received each error .' Good men did bring in novelties: and what was by them introduced as indifferent, by custom grew to seem necessary : and what they received as a doubtful opin- ion was esteemed a point of faith. The presbyters and whole clergy of Neocesarea were oflfended with Basil for his innovations ; for bringing in a new psalm- ody, or way of singing to God, and for his new order ■of monastics : and they told him that none of that was so in Gregory's days. What answered Basil ? He denieth not the novelty of this psalmody, but retorts again on them, that their litany also was new, and not knoNvn in the time of Gregory Thaumaturgus ; " How know you, says he, that those things were not in the days of Gregory? for you have kept nothing unchang- ed to this day of all that he was used to." You see what changing was then in the church among all sorts, when such an alteration was made in less than forty years. Yet Basil would not have any unity to be laid on any of those things, but addeth ; "We pardon all those things, though God will examine all things : only let the principal things be safe. " Basil Epist. 63. Isi- dore Pelusiota lib. 1. Epist. 90, saith ; "The apostles .of the Lord studying to restrain and suppress unmeet loquacity, and shewing themselves masters of modesty and gravity to us, did by wise councils permit women to sing in the churches. But as all God's documents are turned into the contrary, so this is turned to disso- luteness, and the occasion for sin. For they are not affected with deep compunction in singing divine hymns; but abusing the sweetness of the singing, to the irritating and provoking of lust, they take it for no better than stage-play songs." Therefore he adviseth that they be suffered to sing no more. Here you see ; that changes had happened about many divine things: that he adviseth himself the intro- ducing of this novelty, that wom^n be forbidden singing in the church, because of the abuse, though he confess it a wise apostolic order. So that for novelty by good men to creep into God's worship, is not strange. 3. Moreover the nature of the thing may tell all the 232 JESUIT world, that neither you nor we can account for the be- ginning of every error that crcepeth into the church; for the distance of time is great. Historians are not so exact: and what they tell us not, neither you, nor we can know — Much history is perished — Much is corrupted by your wicked forgeries — Mixtures of fables have hindered the credit of much of it — Nations are not individual persons, but consist of millions of individuals: and as it is not a whole nation that is con- verted to the faith at once, so neither is it whole nations that are perverted to heresy at once, but one receiveth it first, and then more and more, till it overspread the whole. Paul saitli that such doctrine eateth like gan- grene'; and that is by degrees, beginning on one part, and proceeding to the rest. That which is at first re- ceived but as an opinion and an indifl^erent thing, must have time to grow into a custom, and that custom maketh it a law, and makes opinions grow up to be articles of faith, and ceremonies grow to be necessary things. This is the common way of propagating opinions in the world. Usher dc successu, et statu Ecchs. Mornaifs Mysteiy of Iniquity, and Rivet in the defence of him against Costcrellus. Pet. Molinaus hath purposely written a book de Novitate Pa'pismi, et Antiqvitate veri Christianismi, showing the newness of Popery in the several parts of it. 4. Can you tell us yourselves, when many of your doctrines or practices sprung up ? When took you up your Sabbath'' s fast, for such you have been condemn- ed by a council ? When the twentieth canon of the Nicene council, and when the canons at Trull were made. It was the practice of the church through the known world, to pray and perform other worship stand- ing, and to avoid kneeling on the Lord's day: Tell us when this canon and tradition was first violated by you, and by whom 1 It was once the custom of your church to give infi\nts the Eucharist: Who first broke it of!'? It was once your practice to communicate in both kinds : Who first denied the cup to the Laity? At first it was only a doubtful opinion, that saints are to be prayed to, and the dead prayed for, which came into men's minds about the third or fourth century: But JUGOLINXJ. ^33 who first made them articles of faith ? Augustin began to doubt, whether there were not some kind of Purga- tory: But who first made this also a point of faith? Who was it that first added the books of the Maccabees, and many others to the canon of Scripture, contrary to the council of Laodicea, and all the rest of the consent of antiquity. Who was it that first taught and prac- tised the putting an oath to all the clergy of the Chris- tian church to be true to the Pope, and to obey him as the Vicar of Christ ? Wlio first taught men to swear that they would not interpret Scripture, but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers ? Who was the first that brought in the doctrine or name of Transub- stantiation 1 and who first made it an article of faith ? Who first made it a point of faith to believe that there are just seven sacraments, neither fewer nor more? Did any before the council of Trent swear men to re- ceive and profess without doubting, all things delivered by the canons and Oecumenical councils, when at the same time they cast off themselves the canons of many general councils, and so are generally and knowingly perjured? These and abundance more you know to be novelties with you, if wilfulness or gross ignorance bear not rule with you ; and without great impudence you cannot deny it. Tell us when these first came up, and satisfy yourselves. Apneas Sylvius, Epist 288, saith, " before the coun- cil of Nice, there was little respect had to the church of Rome." You see here the time is mentioned, when your foundation was not laid. Cardinal iVico/a5 Cusanus, de Concord. Cathol. c. 13, &c., as plainly tells you; "that the Papacy is but of positive right ] and that the priests are equal : and that it is subjectional consent that gives the pope and bishops their majority; and that the distinction of dio- cess, and thai a bishop be over presbyters, are of posi- tive right ; and that Christ gave no more to Peter than the rest; and that if the Congregate Church should choose the bishop of Trent for their president or head, he should be more properly Peter's successor than the bishop of Rome." Tell us now when did the contrary doctrine first arise? 20» 234 JESUIT Gregory de Valcntia, de leg. usu Euchar. ca'p. 10. states, '• that the receiving the sacrament in one kind, began not by the decree of any bishop, but by the very use of the churches, and the consent of believers : and that it is unknown when that custom first begun, or got head, but that it was general in the Latin Church, not long before the late council of Constance." And may you not see in this, how other points came in ? If Pope Zosimus had but had his will, and the fa- thers of the Carthage council had not diligently dis covered, shamed, and resisted his forgery, the world had received a new Nicene canon, and we should ne- ver have known the original of it. The Latin tongue was the vulgar tongue, when the Liturgy and Scripture was first written in it; at Rome, and far and near, it was understood by all. The service was not changed, as to the language: butthe language it- self changed : and so Scripture and Liturgy came to be in an unknown tongue. When did the Latin tongue cease to be understood by all? Tell us what year, or by whom the change was made? Erasmus Decl. ad ceiisur. Paris, tit. 12. sect. 41, saith ; "The vulgar tongue was not taken from the people, but the people departed from it" 5. Your errors were not in the times of the apostles, nor long after, and therefore they are innovations. If I find a man in a dropsy, or a consumption, I would not tell him, that he is well, and ought not to seek remedy, unless he can tell when he began to be ill, and what caused it. You take us to be heretical : and yet 3'ou cannot tell us when our errors did first arise. Will you tell us of Luther? You know the Albigenses whom you mur- dered by hundreds and thousands, were long before him. JDo you know when they begun ? Your Reine- rius saith, that some said, they were from Silvester's days; and some said since the apostles : but no other beginning do you know. 6. What need we any more than to find you owning the very doctrine and practice of innovation? When you maintain that you can make us new articles of faith, and new worship, and new discipline, and that JUGGLING. 235 the Pope can dispense with the Scriptures, and such like: what reason have we to believe that your church abhorreth novelty ? Pope Leo X., among other of Luther's opinions, reckoned and opposed this as licretical ; " It is certain that it is not in the hand of the church or pope, to make articles." Bulla co?tt. Luther. The council of Constance that took the supremacy justly from the pope, did unjustly take the cup from the laity in the Euciiarist; " Though in the primitive church this sacrament was received by believers under both kinds.-' The council of Trent say, Sess. 21. cap. 1,2; " This power was always in the church : that in dispensing the sacraments, saving the substance of them, it might ordain or change things, as it should judge most expe- dient to the profit of the receiver." Vasquez To. 2. Disp. 216. N. 60, saith : "Though we should grant that this was a precept of the apostles, nevertheless the church and pope might on just causes abrogate it : for the power of the apostles was no greater than the power of the church and pope, in bringing in precepts." Pope Innocent says ; by the fulness of our power, we candispense with the law above law. The Gloss therein saith; '-The pope dispenseth against the apostle; against the Old Testament. The pope dispenseth with the Gospel, interpreting it." Gregory de Valent. Tom. 4. disp, b. 8; saith; " Certainly some things in later times are more rightly constituted in the church than they were in the beginning." Cardinal Perron said, lib' '2: Obs. 3. cap. 3. against King .Tames; on the authority of the church to alter matters contained in the Scripture: and he instanced of the form of sacra- ments being alterable; and the Lord's command, drink ye all of it, mutable and dispensable. Tolet ; " It is cer- tain, that all things instituted by the apostles were not of divine right. Andradius Defens. Concil. Trid. lib. 2. p. 236 ; hence it is plain that they do not err that say the popes of Rome may sometime dispense with laws made by Paul and the four first councils. Bzovius saith : " The Roman church using apostolical power, 236 JESUIT doth according to the condition of times, change all things for the better," And yet will you submit to be taken for changers and novelists ? Chemniiius Exam- in. concil. Trident. Augustin Triumph, cle Ancon. q. 5. art. l,saith; "To make a new creed, belongs only to the pope : because he is the head of the Christian faith, by whose author- ity all things belonging to faith are confirmed and strengthened." Art. 2] "As he may make a new creed, so he may multiply new articles upon new arti- cles." I?}i Prafat. sum. ad Johan 22; " The pope's pow- er is infinite ; because the Lord is great, and his strength great, and of his greatness there is no end :" and Q 36 ; " The pope giveth the motion of direction, and the sense of knowledge, to all the members of the church ; for in him we live and move and have our being. The Vv'ill of God, and consequently the pope's will, who is his vicar, is the first and chief cause of all motions cor- poral and spiritual " Then no doubt he may change without blame. Abbas Panormitan. cap. C. Christus de hacret. n. 2. saith : " The pope can bring in a new article of faith," Peter de Anchoran. asserts: " The pope can make new articles of faith; such as now ought to be believed, when before they ought not to be believed." Tiirrecrcmat. sum. de Eccl. lib, 2. cap. 20d, said; "The pope is the m asiire and rule, and science of thing's to be believed." August, de Ancona shews us that "the judgment of God is not higher than the pope s, but the same ; therefore no man may appeal from the pope to God :" Qu. 6. Art, 1. The following is a great Popish argniiunt for the Papacy. " It will not be denied that the church of Rome was once a most pure, excellent, flourishing and mother church ; and her faith renowned, in the world, Ro?n. 1. 8. ct 6. et 16. Whitens Def. Wkiiaker^ s Answer to Sanders. Fulke cap. 21. Thes. 7. Reynolds Conclusion^. That church could not cease to be such, but she must fall either by apostacy. heresy, or schism. Apostacy is not only a renouncing of the faith of Christ; but of the name and title of Christianity. No man will say that the church of Rome had such a fall, or so fell. JUGGLING. 237 Heresy is an adhesion or fast cleaving" to some pri- vate or singular opinion, or error in faith, contrary to the generally approved doctrine of the church. If the church of Rome did ever adhere to any singu- lar or new opinion, disagreeable to the common receiv- ed doctrine of the Christan world, I pray you satisfy me in those particulars; by what general council was she ever condemned i* which of the fathers ever writ against her? by what authority was she otherwise re- proved / For it seems to be a thing very incongruous, that so great a church should be condemned by every private person, who hath a mind to condemn her. Schism is a departure or division from the unity of tlie church, whereby the bond and communion held with some former church ir^ broken and dissolved. If ever the church of Rome divided herself from any body of faithful Christians, or broke communion, or went forth from the society of any elder church, I pray you satisfy me in those particulars: whose company did she leave ? from what body went she forth? where was the true church she forsook / It appears not a little strange, that a church should be accounted schismatical, when there cannot be assign- ed any other church different from her, which from asfe to ag-e since Christ's time hath continued visible, from which she departed." ^inswer to the foregoing ^Irgument. If the author of this argument thinks as he speaks, it is a case to be lamented with tears of blood, that the church of Christ should be abused, and the souls of men deluded by men of so great ignorance. But if he knew that he doth but juggle and deceive, it is lamenta- ble that any matter of salvation should fall into such hands. The word church here is ambiguous, and either sig- nifieth, a particular church which is an association of Christians for personal communion in God's worship, or divers such associations, or churches associated for communion by their officers or delegates, for unity sake. Or else it may signify one mistress church that is the ruler of all the rest in the world. Or else it 238 JESUIT may signify the universal church itself, which contain- eth all the particular churches in the world. The Papist should not have played either the blind man or the juggler by confounding those, and never tel- ling us which he means. For the first we grant him that Rome vvas once an excellent flourishing church; and so was Ephesus, Jerusalem, Philippi, Colosse and many more. As to the :^econd sense, it is human or from church custom, so to take the word church ; for Scripture doth not so use it: but for the thing we are indifferent: though it cannot be proved that in Scripture times Rome had any more than one particular church. As to the third and fourth senses, we deny, as confi- dently as we do that the sun is darkness, that ever in Scripture times Rome was either a mother to all churches, or the raler and mistress of all, or yet the universal church itself. Prove that and I will turn Papist I But there is not a word for it in the texts cited, but an intimation of much against it. Paul calleth Rome a church and commendeth its faith : but doth he not so by the Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, Philip- pians, &c. and John by the Philadelphians, Pergamos, Thyatira, and others, as well .'' And will not this prove that Rome was but such a particular church as one of them ? Rome was once a true and famous particular church, but never the unitersal church, nor the ruler of the world, or of all other churches, in Paul's days. Would you durst lay your cause on this, and put it to the trial.? Why else did never Paul make one word of mention of this power and honor, nor send other churches to her to be governed ? What is it to me, whether Rome be turned either apostate, heretical, or schismatical, any more than whether Jerusalem, Ephesus, Philippi, or any other church be so fallen? if you are not fallen I am glad of it; if you are I am sorry for it; and so I have done with you, unless I knew how to recover you. Would you not laugh at the church of Jerusalem that was truly the mother church of the world, if they should thus reason; " We are not fallen away: therefore we must JUGGLING. 239 rule over all the world, and no man is a Christian that dotli not obey us? " We accuse you not of renouncing the name of Christ; but according to your own definition of heresy, you are guilty of many heresies. To your questions, I answer. What general coun- cils did ever condemn onehalf of the heresies mention- ed by Epiphanius, August in or Philastrius ? Was there ever a greater rubble of heresies than before ever a ge- neral council was known? and were they dead and buried before the first general council was born? Did you not smile when you wrote those delusory questions ; How can a general council condemn you, or any great part of the church ? for instance, the Greeks, &c. If you be not there, it is not a general council ? And will you be there to condemn yourselves ? You have more wit, and less grace. General councils did ever con- demn the Greeks, for those many errors charged on them ? If the Greeks themselves were not there, it was not a general council : so considerable a part are they of the professing church. And what general council hath condemned the Abassines, Egyptians, &c. Do you think general councils are so stark mad or horridly impious, as to condemn so many kingdoms with one condemnation for heresy? They know that men must be heard, before they be condemned, and a kingdom consisteth of many millions ot souls. It is not enough to know every man's faith, if we know the faith of the king, or pope, or arch-bishop, or prelates. How long shall they be examining each person in many kingdoms.? Yet I can say more of your church than of others. He that kills the head, kills the man. Your usurping head is an essential part of your new-formed church : but your head hath been condemned by councils ; there- fore your church in its essential part hath been con- demned by councils. Do you not know that all the world condemned your Pope Marcellinus for offer- ing to idols ? Know you not that two or three general councils condemned Pope Honorius as a monothelite ? that the second general council of Ephesus condemned and excommunicated your pope? And that the council 240 JESUIT of Basil, called by him, did the like 1 If you do not, see Bellarmin's parallel of them, de. ConcUiis lib. 2. cap. 11. Do I need to tell you what the council of Constance did ? Or for what Jo/m XXII, alias XXIII, and Johii XIII, and other Popes were deposed by coun- cils? Do I need to tell you how many Fathers condemned Marcellinus, Liberius, Honorius and others/ How oft Hilary Pictavius fragmentis in Epist. Liberii, doth cry out. Anathema iibi, Liberi, prcevaricator : presuming to curse and excommunicate your pope. Need I tell you what Tertullian saith against Zephe- rinus .'' what Alphonsus a Castro, and divers of your own, say against Liberius, Honorius, Anastasius, Ce- lestin; and tell us that many popes have been heretics .-' At least permit us to believe Pope Adrian VI., himself. Bannes in T. 2. q. 1. art. 10, proves at large against Pighius, that a pope may be a heretic; and laughs at Pighius that now, after two hundred years, would prove them false witnesses, who write that Pope Hon- orius was condemned for a heretic by three popes, Agatho, Leo II. and Adrian II. But though the popes have been condemned by councils, yet so have not your maintained doctrines. Did not the councils at Constantinoplecondemn the doc- trine of the second Nicene council for image-worship, and the council at Frankford do the like 7 and those two at Constantinople were much more general than your council of Trent was. That same council at Nice condemned the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, and your doctors commonly, of worshipping the image of Christ, and the cross, and sign of the cross, with Latria, divine worship. Did not your general councils at Lateran and Flor- ence declare that the pope i above a council, and that they cannot depose him ? Yet your general councils at Constance and Basil determine the contrary as an article of faith, and expressly affirm the former to be heresy. Then your own doctrine, even in a fundamen- tal point, is condemned by general councils of your own, which side soever you take, the pope's, or the council's. Did not the sixth eouncil of Carthage, of which JUGGLING. 241 Augustia was a priiicipal member, not only detect Pope Zosimus' forged canon of Nice, but also openly and prevalently resist and reject his usurpation, and refuse his Legates and Appeals? Pope Boniface, Epist. ad Eidalium, says, " Aurelius, sometime bishop of Carth- age, with his colleagues, did begin, by the deviTs insti- gation to wax proud against the church of Rome, in the times of our predecessors, Boniface and Celestin." Harding against Jewel's challenge, art. 4. sect. 19: says, " After the whole African church had persevered in schism the space of twenty years, and had removed themselves from the obedience of the apostolic seat, being deduced by Aurelius Bishop of Carthage." Aus- tin was one of them. But you say, that this was not a general council. True; for when part riseth against part, it cannot be the whole that is on either side. Do you not know that the Greeks have often con- demned you? Truly their councils have been much more general than yours at Trent was ; where about forty bishops altered the canon of Scripture, and made tradi- tion equal with it. This one county would have af- forded a far better council of a greater number. One general council hath condemned your very foundation; and that is the fourth general council at Calcedon, Act. 15. Can. 28, and Act. 16; where you may find, that the ancient privileges of the Roman throne were given them by the fathers in council. That the reason was, because Rome was the Imperial city. That they give equal privileges to the seat of Constantinople, because it was now become new Rome: and that the Roman Legates would not be present at that act. But the next day when they did appear, and pre- tended that this act was forced, the bishops all cried: " No man was compelled. It i.s a just decree. We all say thus. We approve it. AVe all approve it. Let that stand that is decreed. It is all right." That general council thought they needed not the pope's approbation for the validity of their decrees : when they pass them and take them for valid, even contrary to the will of the pope. Did that council think that their decrees were invalid, if the pope ap- 21 242 JESUIT prove them not? They did not. And who is now to be believed ? Bellarmin and his party, and the present prevalent party oi the Papists, that say, councils not approved by the pope are invalid or without authority: or the council of Calcedon that thought otherwise? The pope's legates called that proceeding; " A hum- bling, and depressing, and wronging of the Papacy ; and therefore entered their dissent." Bellarmin Con^ fession lib. 2. de Pontif. cap. 17. Binius Notes on that council. Baronius cm. 451. The shifts of Bellarmin, Binius, Baronius, Becanus,- Gretser, &c., are false which say that canon was sur- reptitiously brought into the council, j^tiiis, Act. 16, openly professed the contrary, and all the bishops gave their consent to the last. This is one of the four great councils which the Pa- pists themselves compare to the four Gospels; and in it were six hundred and thirty fathers. That great council is against them, and on the Pro- testant side, in the very foundation of all our differences, whether the Roman privileges be of divine or human right? And though it be but the privileges, and not the now claimed vicarship that was in question, yet the conclusion is the stronger against them, because the lesser was denied. But their last shift is, that this clause or canon was not approved, and so is null. Mark then ; we have general councils against you ; but we want the pope's approbation. Was that the meaning of your question, what council ? that is what pope condemned our church? Can it be expected that a man should con- demn himself? or, can you be no heretic till then? Did not your pope aprove of that council, when Gregory L likened it with the other three to the four Gospels? and said " I embrace it with my whole de- votion : I keep it with most entire approbation," Greg. 1. Regist. I. 1. Epist. 24. Decrees, Dist. 15. c. 2. This is expressly a full approbation, not without excepting any part only, but excluding all such exceptions. The like approbation of Gelasius in the Roman council, is cited there also in the decrees. It is no hard matter to prove you condemned by your JtlGOLING. 243 own popes. If you could but undorstand llio plaincsl words, there needed no talk to persuade you that Pope Gregory I. condemned the title of universal bishop or patriarch ; proressing earnestly that he was the fore- runner of antichrist that would usurp it. But the plain truth is, as sad experience tcachcth us, no words of fathers, popes or councils, much less of Scripture, arc intelliafible to you. But we may truly say of you, thai lay all on the will of the pope, as Lodovicus Vives freely speaketh, Schol. in August, lib. 20. de Civit. Del, cap. 20 ; " Those are taken by them for edicts and councils, which make for them, or are on their side : the rest they no more regard than a meeting of women in a workhouse or a \vashing place." Do you under- stand this lano-uaire o[ one too honest to have much company? You have a third question; "By what authority was she otherwise reproved?" By the authority of that precept, Levit 19. 17. By the same authority that Paul reproved Peter, Galatians 2, and withstood him to the face. By such authority as any man may quench a fire in his neighbor's house: or pull a man out of the water that is drowning : or as any one psistor may reprove another when he sinneth. By the same authority as Irenasus rebuked Victor, and the Asian bishops withstood him ; and as Cyprian and the coun- cil of Carthage repro^ved Stephen ; and the rest afore- cited did what they di'd. By as good authority as the church of Kome condemneth the Greek church, doth the Greek church and many others condemn the priests of Rome. The next case is about the Roman schism. To question whether Papists be schismatics, is to question whether Ethiopians be black. Do you not at this day divide from all the Christian world, save yourselves? do you not unchurch all the Christians on earth. O dreadful presumption ! when Christ is so tender of his interest and his servants, and is bound, as it were, by so many promises to save them and not forsake them. " You ask, what church you left.? and when was it.? and whose company .?" Senseless questions ! By a church, if you mean the universal church there is but one in 244 JESUIT all: and therefore one universal church cannot forsake another : but when part of it forsaketh the other part, and arrogateth the title of the whole to themselves, do you doubt whether that be schism 1 If you mean a par- ticular church: how can Spain, Italy, France, and many more kingdoms, go out of a particular church, that contain so many hundred particular churches in them? No more than London can go out of Paul's church. The catholic is but one, containing all true Christians on earth: and you have been guilty of a most horrid schism. You have set up a church in the church; universal church in the universal church; a new form destructive to the old. Your pope as Christ's representative, is now an essential part of it, and no man is a member of it, that is not a member of the pope's body, and subject to him. So that even the an- tipodes, and the poor Abassines, that know not whether the pope be fish or flesh, or never heard of such a name or thing, must all be unchristened, unchurched and damned, if you be judges. Bellarmin tells us, which indeed your church constitution doth infer, that all that are duly baptized, are interpretatively or implicitly baptized into the pope. As you have devised a new catholic church, so you hereby cast off and disown all the Christians of the world that be not of your party, determining that none of them can be saved : who yet had rather venture on your curse and censure than into your heresy and schism. You fix yourselves in this schism, and put us who unfeignedly long for peace, out of all hope of ever hav- ing peace with you ; because you will hearken to it on no terms, but that all men become subjects to your usurping representative-Christ : which we dare as soon leap into the flre as do. Do you know now where the church or body was that you forsook ? It was all over the world where ever there was any Christians. Were it not a great schism, think you, if a few Jes- uits should say, we are the whole church, and all oth- ers arc heretics or schismatics? Or was it not a great schism of the Donatisls to arrogate that title to them- selves, and unchurch so many others ? and what church JUGGLING. 245 did they forsake ? Augustin tells them over and over, what tlie catholic church was that they willidrcw from ; even all true Christians dispersed over the earth: or that churcli which began at Jerusalem, and thence dif- fused itself tjjrough the world. But he never blames them for separating from the universal Roman head or vicar. But from the conspicuous combination of par- ticular churches, Optatus and he do blame them for withdrawing. What if John of Constantinople, in piosecution of his title of universal patriarch, had concluded as you, that none in the world are Christ's members but his members, nor of the church but his subjects, had not this been a notorious schism ? Tell us then what church he had forsaken. But your last caution doth condemn yourselves. Must that church that is true be visible from Christ's timei* then Constantinople, nor most other, were never true churches, and Rome itself was never a true church. Did you think that there was a church at Rome in ChrisVs time? you are not so ignorant. By this rule there should be'no true church, but that at Jerusalem, and those in Judea. But suppose you had said, since the apostles' time; that also had excluded most churches on earth. ^ But if you mean the universal church; it hath been visible ever since Christ's time : but not always in one place or country. Is not the greater part of Christians in the world, whom you schismatically unchurch, a visi- ble company ? The Abassines and many churches out of the Roman empire did never so much as submit to your primacy of order, nor had you ever any thing to do with them, more than to own them as Christians; yet now are condemned by your arrogancy, because they will not begin, in the end of the world, to enter into a new church on which they nor their forefathers had ever any dependence. It was a shrewd answer of an old woman, that the emperor of Habassia's mother gave to Rodericus the Jesuit, pressing her to fee subject to the Pope as Vicar of Christ, or else shQ could not be subject to Christ. " We are in tht^ same belief as we were from the beginning: If it ^vere not right why did 246 JESUIT no man in so many ages warn us of our error till now'?''' Mark here a double argument against the pope : one from apostolical tradition ; for Godignus himself saitli, that no man doubts but Ethiopia received the faith from tlie beginning even from the Eunuch. The other is, that pope, who cannot in so many ages look after his flock, to send one man to tell them that they erred till about one thousand five hundred years after Christ, was never intended by Christ to be the universal governor of the world. Will Christ set any on an impossible work 1 or make it so necessary to people to olje}' one that they never so much as hear from ? But what said the Jesuit to the old woman ! he told her ; " The Pope of Rome who is ihe pastor of the whole church of Christ, was not able in the years past to send doctors into Hab- assia, because the Mohammedans compassed all, and left not any passage to them. But now the seas are open, he can do that which he could not do before." Liter. Gonzal. Roder. in Godign. de llch. Abass. lib. 2. cap. 18. As if Christ had set either the pope or the Abas- sines an impossible task; and appointed a governor that for so many hundred years could not govern : or the people must be so man}- hundred years no Christians, though they believed in Christ, till the pope could send to them ? and how should those and all such countries send prelates to a general council 1 Canus Loc. Tlieol. saith of the Jesuits'; so say I of your new church ; " You are called to the society of Jesus Christ, which society being undoubtedly the church of Christ, let them see to it, that arrogate this title to themselves, whether they do not imitate heretics by a lying affirmation that the church is only witli them." Lib. 4. c. 2. But we do not hence conclude that all that have lived and died in your profession, have been no members of the church, because your church is guilty of heresy, and notoriously of schism. Millions that live among you consent not to your usurpations ; and do not so much as understand your errors. Some hold them but no- tionally as inelTectual opinions. Every one is not a heretic that holdeth a point that is judged heretical, and which is heresy in another, that holdeth it in another JUGGLING. '247 sort. And then; arc errors callcil heresies \)y most, wliich are not destructive to the essentials of Chris- tianity, hut only to some integral j)art. There is a schism tliat doth not unchurch men, as well as a schism that doth. But your own writers put you hard to it, who conclude, as IJellarmin and many more do, that heretics and schismatics are no memhers of the churcii. Melch. Canus hoc. TlicoL lib. 4. cap. 2. saith ; " That heretics are no |)art of the church, is the common con- clusion of all divines; not only of those that have writ- ten of late, hut of them also that hy their antiquity are esteemed the most nohle : this is attested hy Cyprian Augustin, Gregory, the two councils of Lateraii and Florence. Rightly therefore did Pope Nicholas define that the church is a collection of catholics. " If this be true, it is an article of faith : and then Alphonsus a Castro, and all of his mind are heretics and lost men. Two ap- proved general councils have determined that a heretic is no member of the church: but multitudes of your own writers, and Pope Adrian, and many more of your popes have judged that a pope may be a heretic : and consequently no member of the church. What is be- come of your church, when an essential part of it is no part of the church 1 Your common shift, which Canus and others fl}' to, is, that "he must be a judged heretic before he is dismem- bered." But that is for manifestation to men; before God he is the same, if men never judge him. Where the case is notorious, the offender is cut off. Then it is in the pope's power, to let whole millions of heretics to be still parts of the church : and so the world shall be Christians or no Christians as he please. And why may he not let Turks and infidels on the same grounds be part of the church] for he may forbear to judge them, if that will serve. Then all the Christians in tlie world that the pope hath not yet judged and cast out, are members of the church. Millions thus are of the church that never were subjects of the pope. If you say it is enough that there is a general condemnation, of all that are guilty as they are : then it is enough to cut ofi' a pope, that there was a general condemnation against such as he is. 24S JESUIT Two or three councils and three popes did all judge Pope Houorius guilty of heresy, and consequently both popes and general councils have judged that a pope may be an heretic: therefore you have been judged hereti- cal in your head, which is an essential part of your church. ' Thus I have shewed what is the Romish schism, which being but a part, hath attempted to cut off all the rest, and so hath made a new pretended catholic church. As a part of the old church which con- sisteth of all Christians united in Christ, we confess, all those still to be a part, that destroy not this Christianity, but as you are new gathered to a Christ-representative, or vicar general, we deny you to be any church of Christ. If you be church members^ or saved,it must be as Chris- tians ; but never as Papists : for a Papist may be a Christian, but not as a Pap>ist. If you cannot see the church that you separate from, open your eyes and look into much of Europe, and all over Asia, where are any Christians: look into Armenia, Palestine, Egypt, Ethiopia, and many other countries, and you shall find that you are but a smaller part of the church. Antony Marinarius in the council of Trent complained ; " That the church is shut up in the corners of Europe, and yet domestic enemies arise, that waste this portion shut up in a corner. " Sonnius of Antwerp, l>cwo?i.9^ra^. Relig. Christian, lib. 2. Tract. 5. c. 8, saith ; " I pray you what room hath the catholic church now in the habitable world ? scarce three ells long in comparison of that vastncss which the Satanical church doth possess." If 3'et you boast tliat 3^ou have the same seat that formerly you had: I answer ; so have the bishops of Constantinople, Alexandria, and others whom you con- demn. Gregory Nazianz. Orat. dc laud. Athanasii, says ; " It is a succession of godliness that is properly to be esteemed a succession. For he that professeth the same doctrine of faith, is also partaker of the same throne : but he that embraceth the contrary belief, ought to be judged an adversary though he be in the throne. This indeed hath the name of succession ; but the other hath tiie thintr itself, and the truth. For JUGGLING. 249 he that brcakcth in hy force, as ahiindanco of poj)f'.s difl, is not to be cstcenied a successor; hut rather lie ihat sullereth force : nor he that breakctii tlic hiws ; but lie that is chosen in maimer agreeahli; to the laws : nor he tiiat iiokleth conlraiy tenets; but lie that is endued with tiie same faith. Unless any man call him a successor, as we say a sickness succeedeth health, or darkness succeedeth lii,dit, and a storm succeds a calm, or mad- ness or distraction succeedeth prudence. " To which may be added another Papist decision; " Because many princes and chief priests or popes and other inferiors, have been found to apostatize, the church consisteth in those persons in whom is the true knowl- edge and confession of faith and verity." Lijra Gloss. MaUhcio 16. CHAPTER XXVII. Succession of ('octfines. Another of their deceits is this : I'o charge lis with introducing new articles of faith or points of religion, hi cause ice contradict the neto articles ichich ihcj/ in- troduce, and then they recjiiire us to ijrove our doctrines inhirh are but the negatives of theirs. We receive no doctrine of faith or worship but what was delivered by the apostles to the church. Those men bring in abundance of new ones, and say without proof, that they received them from t.he apostles. And because we refuse to receive their novelties, they call our rejections of them, the doctrines of our religion; and feign us to be the innovators. By this device, it is in the power of any heretic to force the church to take up new points of faith. If a Papist shall say, that besides the Lord's prayer, Christ gave his disciples anotlier form, or two, or three, or many ; or that he gave them ten new commandments not mentioned in the Bible ; or that he oft descended after his ascension, and conversed with them ; or that Christ instituted twenty sacraments, how should we deal with those men, but by denying their 250 JESUIT fictions as sinful novelty, and rejecting them as corrupt additions to the faith? and were tliis any novelty in us? and should they hid us prove in the express words of Scripture or antiquity, our negative propositions, that Christ gave but one form of prayer, that he did not oft descend, that he gave no more decalogues, s?icraments, ^c. ? Is it not a sufficient proof of any of these, that they are not written ; and that no tradition of them from the apostles is proved ; and that they who hold the affirmative, and introduce the novelty, must prove, and not we ? Our articles of faith are the same, and not increased, nor any new ones added : but the Papists come in with a new faith, as large as all the novelties in the decretals and the councils : and those innovations of theirs we reject. Now our rejections do not increase the articles of our faith, no more than my beating a dog out of my house, or keeping out an enemy, or sweeping out the filth, doth enlarge my house or increase my fam- ily. They do not take all the anathemas and rejections in their own councils, to be canons or articles of faith. The pope hath made it an ariicle of faith, " no Scrip- ture is to be interpreted but according to the unanimous consent of the fatliers. " This we reject and make it no article of our faiih, bu^t an erroneous novelt}'. Do w^e hereby make a new article, because we reject a new one of theirs l part of the oath made bj/ Pope Pius after the council of Trent. If this be an article, j)rove it. If it be a truth and no novelty, which be fathers, and which not? help us to know certainly, when we have all or the unan- imous consent. Then tell us, whether every man is not forsworn with you,. that interprets any text of Scripture before he have read all the fathers; or any text which they do not unanimously agree on? We can easily prove to you, that this is a new article of your devising. Because else no man must expound any Scripture at all before those fathers were born. For how could the church before them have their unanimous consent l oth- erwise those fathers themselves wanted an article of faith ; unless it was an article to them, that they must expound no Scripture but by their own consent. Few of those fathers ex[)ound the twentieth part of the Scrip- ture. They took liberty to disagree among themselves, JUGGLING. 351 and thcrofoi'C do not unanimously consent in abundance of particular texts. Tliey tell us that tliey an; fallihle, and bid us not take it on their trust. The apostles have left us no such rule or |>recept, hut nuich to the contrary. Your own doctors, for all their oath, char<;ope interdicteth it not. Their way is this : all the old known Papists, especially of the poorer sort, shall bo forbidden to come to our assemblies, lest they bring the blot of levity and temporizing on their religion, and lest there should not be a visible party among them to countenance their cause. But the new j)roselylcs, espec- ially such as are of any power and interest in the world, and may do them more service in a masked way, and can fairly avoid the imputation of Popery, those shall have leave to come to our assemblies, when their cause may make advantage of it. That you may see I feign not all this of them, besides the proof from certain ex- perience which we daily see ; I lay before you the de- cisions of one of their principal directors, in this work of propagating their faith ; Thom a Jesu de Convcrs, Gentium. How far they are for favoring of heathens 298 JESUIT and infidels, and liberty of conscience for them, for all tlieir cruelty to Protestants, you may see; Lib. 5. Dub. 4. where he tells you that the sentence commonly re- ceived, in the schools is, that it is not lawful for Chris- tian princes to use any force against infidels, for sins against the law of nature itself: and citeth Cajet. Vic- toria, Covarruv. Greg de valent. He decides it in the . middle way of Azorius, " that pagans may not be pun- ished for despising the honor and worship of God, though they may for not giving every man his own, and for theft, murder, false witness, and other sins that are against men's right." Lib. 5. part. 1. Dub. 6. he teacheth, that " a catho- lic living among heretics ma}', when the scandalizing of others forbid it not, for fear of death, go to the tem- ples of heretics, and be among them in their meetings, and assemblies^, because of itself it is a thing indifferent ; for a man may for many causes go to the temples of heretics, and be among thorn in their assemblies ; that he may the easier and more effectually and com- modiously confute their errors, or on other just occa- sions, unless accidentally it scandalize others. As Azor- ius saith, he may do it to obey a prince, though he be an heretic, when he feareth the loss of his honor, main- tenance or life : for in this he only obeyeth his prince : especially if among the Papists he openly affirm, that he doth it only to obey his prince, and not to profess the heretical sect : for by that open attestation he avoid- eth the offence and danger of catholics, and well de- clineth the unjust vexation of the prince." Papists may eat ilesh on days when their church for- bids it, to hide themselves among heretics." Dub. 5. So that the Papists are abundantly provided for their security, against such as would discover them when it gtands not with their ends to disclose themselves. Another most effectual way of hiding themselves is, by equivocation or mental reservations, which we call lying, when they are examined about their religion, their orders or their actions. Lying that hurtetli not another, they maintain to be but a venial sin, which say they is properly no sin at all. To equivocate or reserve one half of your answer to yourselves, say the Jes- uits is- not lying, nor unlawful, in case a man's interest JUGGLING. 299 icqiiiretli him to do it^ Thnjiias a Jcsu the Cannclite, Dub. 4. seciirclh them sufl'»cienlly : his question is ; " Whether one tiiat tlenyeth it when he is asked of a heretic wiietlicr he he a priest, or a rclipfio\is man or whether lie heard divine service, do sin against the con- fession of faith 1" lie answereth ; No: for liiat is no denying himself to he a Christian, or catholic : for it is lawful to dissemble or hide the person of a clergy- nian or a religious man, without a lie in words, lest a man be betrayed and in danger of his life ; and for the same cause he may lay by his liabit, omit prayers, &,c. — because human laws for the most part bind noi the subject's conscience, when there is great hazard of life as in this case Azorius hath well taught." Just. Mor. Tom. 1. lib. 8. c. 27. So that by the con- sent of most, there is no danger to a Papist in any such case from his own confession. Another way of hiding their religion and them- selves, is by false oaths, which we call wilful perjury, but the Jesuits take for a lawful thing, when a mental reservation or equivocation supplieth the want of ver- bal truth. Who will ever want so easy, so obvious, so cheap a remedy against all danger of perjury, as a mental reservation is '? The pope can sufficiently dispense with any of their oaths of fidelity or allegiance,. Hear the words of one of their owji priests — Brown's Voluntary Con- fess, in Pri/nnc's Introducf. He saith ; "It is strange to see the stratagems which they use with their pen- itents concerning the oath of allegiance ! If they be poor, they tell them flatly when they are demanded to take the oath, that it is damnable and no ways to be allowed by the church : If they be of the richer sort, they say they may do as their conscience will inspire them. And there be some of them that make no conscience at all, to have it taken so oft as they are demanded. What would you have more, than such discoveries by themselves 1 II. What get they by this hiding? WHiy screen them- selves from danger, and more easily prevail to muln- ply their sect : for worldly persons would not so easily flock into them without some such security from suffering. They preserve those that are come 300 JESUIT over to them from revolting, by the discouragement of suffering, especially the rich and honorable. They an- gle for souls with the less suspicion, when they stand behind the bush. Papists are become so distasted with the people by the powder plot, and many other of their pranks, that they may take more with them, if they come masked under another name. By tliis means they may openly revile and oppose the min- istry, and ordinances, churches, and Protestant doc- trine, without disturbance by the magistrate. A Pa- pist in a Protestant's coat may rail at us and our doctrine in the open streets, and market place, and call us all to naught, and teach abundance of their own opinions without control. And many a poor soul will take a Papist into their bosom, and familiarly hear him, and easily swallow down what they say, that would be afraid of them if he knew them to be Papists. By this means they have easier access to a greater number than openly they could have : and they insinuate into our c<3unsels, and know all our ways, and how to resist us. But above all, by this means they are capable of any office and trust among us. It is easy therefore to discern that their principal artifice lyeth in hiding themselves, so there be a visible body of their open professors ; those deceivers who have such stretching consciences. III. But how shall these hiders be detected"? Suspect all tliat use a mask, and purposely hide their minds. A man that intendeth deceit, what ever his end be, should not take it ill to be suspected for a deceiver. God is so good a master that no body should be ashamed of him. Truth is so amiable, that the genuine sons of truth are not ashamed of it. True religion assureth men of that which will save them harmless, and bear out against all the malice of earth and hell, and repair all the losses that they can sustain in the defending of it. But saith one ; "Would you not hide your mind or re- ligion in Spain ? " I would not whenever I found my- self capable of serving God most by the discovery, not make use of positive juggling and dissembling to hide my religion. If Christians among infidels, or Protes- tants among Papists, had thought this dissimulation lawful, there had not been so many thousands of them martyred or murdered as were. What opinion is it that JUGOLINC. 301 brings men in England into any great danger at this (\a.Y? I will never be of a religion that is not worthy my open confession ; even to death, when there j.s .so much danger. The juggling Papists may be known thus, that they are always loosening people from their religion, and leading them into a dislike of what they have been taught; that they may be receptive of their new im- pressions. The juggling Papists may be much detected by this, that they are all upon the destructive part in their disputes, and very little on the assertive part. They pull down with both hands, but tell you not what they build up, till they have prepared you for the discovery. They tell you what they are against : but what they are for, you cannot draw out of them. As if any wise man will leave his house or grounds till he knows where to be better : or will forsake his staff that he leaneth on, or the food that he feedeth on, till he know where to have a better provision or support. Do they think wise men will be made irreligious? They deal by the poor people, as one that should say to passen- gers on shipboard; "What fools are you to venture your lives in such a ship that hath so much incumb- rance- and danger, and so many flaws, and but a few inches between you and death, and is guided by such a pilot as may betray you, or cast away your lives for aught you know ?'^ They know now that none but mad men v/ill be persuaded by such words as those to leap into the sea to escape those dangers ; and there- fore they do this but to make men willing to pass into their ship, and take them for their pilots. If you are wise therefore hold them to it, till they have shewed you a safer vessel and pilot. You may conjecture the quality of those jugglers, by their constant opposition against the ministry. It is ministers that are their eye-sore ; the hinderers of their kingdom. Could they but get down those, the day were their own. Therefore their main business, what- ever vizor they put on, is to bring the people mto a dislike or contempt of the ministry. They will rail at them. 26 302 JESUIT The juggling Papists, what vizor soever they wear, are commonly putting in the necessity of a judge of con- troversies, an infallible church, a state of perfection here, and the magnifying of our own inherent righteous- ness, without justification by the forgiveness of sin : and oppose the authority and sufficiency of Scripture ; which they impugn, and lead men aside to another rule, the Papal traditions. CHAPTER XXXVIII, Jesuit Proselytism of men of Wealth and Influence. Another of their practical frauds is; their exceed- ing industry for the jperverting of men of power and interest, that are likely to do much in helping or hin- dering them. \ Be not too confident of your own understandings to deal with such jugglers in your own strength, with- out assistance. They have made it their study all their days, and are purposely trained up to deceive . whereas you are much wanting in their way of study, and much unfurnished to resist, how highly soever you may think of yourselves. 2. Read learned solid writings against the Papists. 3. Hearken not to Papists secretly, nor masked, nor coming to you by indirect and juggling ways : but open their persuasions, and call to some able studied divines to deal with them in your hearing, if needs you will hear them, that so you may hear one side as well as the other. 4. Take heed_,! what retainers, servants, or familiars are about you. We fear not any thing that they can do in an open way, in comparison of their secret whis- pers and deceits, when there is no body to gainsay them. Had they the truth, we should be glad to en- tertain it with them. Let not all our peace and safety be hazarded by the self conceitedness, or imprudence of our rulers. Seeing it is you that must govern us or set the vulgar the pattern which they are so much JUGGLING 303 addicted to imitate; wc adjure you in the name of the most High God, that you hearken not to seducers, and •corrupt tliosc intellects in which the whole nation hath so great an interest, We are willing to be as chan table to that proud throne of Rome, and usurping Vice-Christ, as will stand with the safety of our souls and of the church. But God forbid that v/e should be so blind, as to run into their pest-house, and drink the poison by which they are intoxicated. CHAPTER XXXIX Popish Pet-jury and Treason. The most desperate of their practical frauds is this , Their treasons against the lives of 'princes, and the peace of nations, and their dissolving the bonds of oaths and covenants, and making perjury and rebellion duties and meritorious ivorks. Horrid treason and tyrannical usurpation over all ihe Christian Princes caused England, Denmark, Sweden, and many other princes to shake off the Roman yoke. Kings are not fully kings where the Pope is fully Pope. I need not tell the many treacheries since the refor- motion against our princes : or who it was that would have deposed as well as excommunicated Queen Eliz- abeth, and exposed her kingdoms to the will of others or who were the actors of the hellish powder plot. Do I need to mention their approving of the murdering of princes and the pretence of power to dispense with oaths of allegiance and fidelity, and who hath actually so oft pretended to expose princes and their dominions to the first occupant? Many in England disowned that doctrine : but the pope having owned and practis- ed it; by disowning it they disown popery itself. It is an article of their faith; and essential to their religion, and is determined by a pope and the approved general council at Lateran under Pope Innocent III. Albineus the Jesuit heard the murderer of Henry 304 JESUIT IV. confess before he did the fact, and put off the exam- iners with this answer, that God had given him that special gift to forget when once he had absolved a sin ner whatsoever was confessed by him. Why was it that France expelled the Jesuits and set up a pillar of remembrance of their villanies, till Henry IV. grati- fied the Pope by calling them in again, and told the Parliament the peril of it should be upon him and so it was; for it cost him his life. Why did the same Parliament of Paris, Novemb. 1610, condemn Bellar- min's book against Barclay, as an engine of treason and rebellion? And the Theological faculty of Paris, April 4. 1626, condemned Santarell's book as guilty of the same villany, stirring up people to rebellion and kinor-killinir: which the university confirmed : while the Parliament condemned the book to be burnt. Rivet recites of the answers of the Jesuits in Paris, when the Parliament asked them their judgment of that book: seeing: their general had approved the book, and judged the things that are there written to be cer- tain, whether the}'- were of the same mind ? They an- swered, that, " living at Rome he could not but approve what was there approved of." But say the Parliament: What think you ? say the Jesuits, " the contrary.'' Say the examiners, but what would you do if you were at Rome ? Say the Jesuits, "that which they do who are at Rome.'' At which said some of the Parliament, have thev one conscience at Rome, and another at -Paris .'' God deliver us from such confessors as those. But some of the Papists say that private men may not kill a king till he be deposed. Very true ! But it iS their doctrine, that. if once he be excommunicated, he is then no king, or if he be an heretic; and so bem^ no king, they may kill the man, and not kill the king. Suarez advers. Sect. Anglic, lib. 6. ca'p. 4. Sect. 14. Co.p. 6. Sect. 22, 24. Azorius Jcsuita Instil. Moral, 'part. 1. Z. 8. c. 13. Mysterium Patrum Jesui- farvm. Janseaian^s mystery of Jesuitism. Abbot's Antilogia ad Apolog. Eudccmojohan. But what need we more than the decrees of a pope and general coun- cil, and the practice of the church of Rome for ?o many JUGGLING "305 For the pope's power to absolve from all oaths of allegiance and ficlelity, Pope Innocent III. and his approved general council have told the world enough The Papists have lately had the confidence to atfirm that the powder plot and the Spanish invasion in 1588, were not a quarrel of religion, nor owned by the pope. Cardinal Ossatus in his 87. Epist. to Villeroy, tells us that Pope Clement VIII, pressed the King of France to join with Spain in the invasion of Eng-land, and the cardinal answered that the king was tied by an oath to the Queen of England : to which the pope replied, that " The oath was made to a heretic, but he was bound in another oath to God and the pope; that kings and other princes do permit themselves all things which make for their commodity; and that the matter is gone so far that, that it is not imputed to them, or taken for their fault : and he alleged the saying of Francis Duke of Urbin, that indeed every one doth blame a noble- man, or great man that is no sovereign, if he keep not his covenants, or fidelity, and they account him in- famous ; but supreme princes may without any danger of their reputation, make covenants and break them, lie, betray, and perpetrate other such like things " That was Pope Clement VI I L Can we look for better from the rest? Thuanus a moderate Papist and impartial historian, tells, lib. 89. p. 248, 249, an. 15S8. that, "the Spaniards pretended to undertake the expedition only for relig- ion's sake, and therefore took with them Alarco vicar general of the Holy Inquisition, with Capuchins and Jesuits : and that they had with them the Pope's Bull, which they were to publish as soon as they landed; and that cardinal Allan was appointed as the pope's legate, to land at the same time, and with full power to see to the restorinf? of relio-ion. That the said bull had these expressions. ' The pope, by the power given from God by lawful succession of the catholic church, for the defection of Henry VIII. who forcibly sepa- rated himself and his people from the communion of Christians, which was promoted by Edward VI. and Elizabeth, who being pertinacious and impenitent in the same rebellion and usurpation — therefore the poT[}e 25* ;-)ti6 JESUIT jnciicd by the continual persuasions of n^any, and by the suppliant prayers of the Englishmen themselves, hath dealt with divers princes, and specirally the most potent King of Spain — to depose that v/oman, and pun- ish her pernicious adherents in their kingdom.' That Pope Sixtus before proscribed the Q,ueen, and took from her all her dignities, titles, and rights to the Kingdom of England and Ireland, absolving her sub- jects from the oath of fidelity and obedience: he charg- eth all men on pain of the wrath of God, that they afford her no favor, help, or aid, but use all their strength to bring her to punishment ; and then that all the En- glish join with the Spaniards as soon as he is landed : offering revrards and pardon for sin, to them that will lay hands on the Queen ; and so shewing on what conditions he gave the Kingdom to Philip of Spain.'* Yet some of the jugglers that say they are no Papists, persuade the world that Papists hold not the deposing of princes, nor absolving their subjects from the oaths of fidelity and that the Spanish invasion was merely on civil accounts, and that they expected not any En- glish Papists to assist them. Dominicus Ba'/ines in Thorn. 22. qu. 12. art. 2. saith, •' Quando adest Evide?is notitio., &c. when there is evi- dent knowledge of the crime, subjects may lawfully exempt themselves from the power of their princes, be- fore any declaratory sentence of a judge, so they have but strength to do it. Hence it follows that the faithful Papists of England and Saxony are to be excused, that do not free themselves from the power of their superi- ors, nor make war against them : because commonly they are not strong enough to manage those wars, and great dangers hang over them." You may see now how far the Papists are to be trusted : even as far a? they are sufficiently disabled. August. Triumphus saith, de potest. Eccles. qu. 46. art. 2. " Duhium no^i c^t quhipapapossit omnes reges. cvm .^ubest causa ratio7f.abiIis, deponere : there is no doubt but the pope may depose all kings, when there iS reasoriable cause for it " Is not this a Vice-Christ and a Vice-God ? Add to this, that th^ pope^is judge when the cause JUGGLING. 307 is reasonable, far no doubt he must judjc, if he must e.xecute ; and then you have a pope in his universal sovereignty, spiritual and temporal. Suarez and others say; when the pope hath deposed a king, any man may kill him. Mariana directs to poison him or secretly despatch him : dc reg instit^ Lib. 1. caj). 7. Suarez says; Defens. fid. Cat hoi. li. 6. c. 4. sect. 14. ''Post se/itentiarn, &c. After sentence past he is altogether deprived of his kingdom, so that he cannot by just title possess it: therefore from thence forward he may be handled as a mere tyrant; and consequently any private man may kill him " I conclude with one testimony of a Roman Rabbi, cited by Usher, Epistol. J. R. 1609, who hath excused the powder-plot from the imputation of cruelty, "be- cause both seeds and root of an evil herb must be destroyed," and adds a derision of the simplicity of the king in imposing on them the oath of allegiance, in the most memorable expressions, worthy to be en- graven on a marble pillar. " Sed vide in tanta astutia, quanta sit simplicitas ! &c. But see what simplicity here is in so great a craft ! When he had placed all his security in that oath ; he thought he had framed such a manner of oath, with so many circumstances, which no man could any way dissolve with a safe con- science. But he could not see, that if the pope dis- solved the oath, all its knots, whether of being faithful to the king or admitting no dispensation, are accor- dingly dissolved. I will say a thing even more admi- rable. You know I believe, that an unjust oath, if it be evidently known to be such, or openly declared such, obligeth no man. That the king's oath is unjust, is sufficiently declared by the pastor of the church him- self. You see now that the obligation of it is vanished into smoke, and that the bond which so many wise men thought was made of iron, is less than straw." These are the words of Papists themselves Renounce your treacherous principles, and we will cease to charge you with them. Let a general coun- cil and pope but decree the contrary to what the fore- cited pope and general council have decreed; or else do you all declare that you think that pope and coun- 308 JESUIT cil erred, and then you will either cease to be true Pa pists, or at least become tolerable members of human societies. Why doth not the pope himself condemn those doctrines, if really he disowns them ? CHAPTER XL. Popish Persecution and Slaughter. Their last course when all others fail, is, to turn from fro.ud to force, and o'pen violence, stirring up princes to wars and bloodshed; that they may destroy the professors of the reformed religon, as far as they are able, and do that by flames and sword, by halters and hatchets, which they cannot do by argument. Hence have proceeded the bloody butcheries of the Waldenses and Albigenses, the wars in Bohemia, the league and wars and Massacres in France, the desola- ting wars of Germany, the plots, invasions and wars m England. Most of the flames in Christendom have been kindled for the pope by his agents, that he might warm him by that fire by which others are consumed. Hence his own pretences to the temporal sword, and so many volumes written to justify it, and so many tragedies acted in the execution. Yet these men cry up antiquity and tradition. What bishop in all the world for above three hundred years after Christ, did ever claim or exercise the temporal sword, as much as to be a justice of peace? It was their judgment that It did not belong to them. Neither the pope nor any bishop on earth, as such, hath anything to do with the coercive power of the sword; nor may not inflict the smallest penalty on body or purse, but only guide men by the word of God ; and the utmost penalty they can inflict is, to excommunicate them. They have nothing to do to destroy men, when they have excommunicated them, nor to cause the magistrate to do it : but rather should still endeavor their conversion. Synesius Epis- tol. 57. Why doth not the pope when he hath past his excouimunications, content himself that he hath JUGGLING. 309 done his part: but he must excite princes, and force them to execute his rage, and fall upon the lives and dominions of such princes as he will call heretical? He knows how small account would be made of his thunder-bolts, if he had not a secular arm to follow them. If it were not for arms and violence, lie would soon be cast out by the Christian world. The same doctrine also Bernard taught the pope himself, Ad Eiigeu. P. R. dc Considerat. I 2. ''Quid tibi dimisit Apostolus? &c. What did the holy apos- tle leave thee? Such as I have, saith he, that give I to thee ; and what was that ? One thing J am sure of; it was not gold, nor silver, when he said himself, sil- ver and gold have I none. It thou canst claim this by any other title, so let it be; but not by apostolical right: for he could not give thee that which he had not : such as he had, he gave, a care of the churches, but did he give thee a domination ? Hear himself. Nci as lords or ruling lords, saith he, in the heritage, but as examples of the flock. And lest thou think that he spoke it only in humility, and not in verity, it is the voice of the Lord himself in the Gospel : the kings of the Gentiles rule over them, and they that have power over them, are called benefactors, but you shall nor be so. It is plain that domination is forbidden the Apostles. Go thou therefore, and usurp ifthoudar- est, either apostleship whilst thou rulest as a Lord ; or a Lordly domination, while thou ar t Apostolic. Plainly thou art forbidden one of the two : U thou wilt have both alike, thou losest both." Thus the pope and his bishops are deprived of both, by grasping at both lone- ago The pope makes himself a temporal prince in every prince's dominion on earth, where he is able to do it. and takes all the clergy out of their government into his own. So that actually he hath dispossessed them of part of their dominion already, by taking so consid- erable a part of their subjects from under their power. If any believe not that th-.' pope doth not thus exempt his clergy from the secular power, it is because he knows not their most notorious principles and practi- se.'=^ Even in England, in King- Charles' articles for 310 JESTJIT the Spanish match, the pope had the confidence to de- mand that prerogative ; and therefore himself added to the sixteenth article, which freed them from laws about religion, " ecclesiastic persons shall be under no law, but of their superior ecclesiastics^ So that no church-man must be under any law of the land, or government of secular princes. When they have such a strength in our own garrison, a foreign enemy is easily lei in. To the exciting of whom they will never be wanting, having their agents, in one garb or other, at the ears of all the princes and states in Chris- tendom, and of most of the persons that are deeply interested in the government. With infidel princes sometimes, as Cyril the Patrick of Constantinople proved to the loss of his life, for being so much against the Papists. The more cause have all Christian princes and states to be vigilant against those incendiaries ; because they trust to war and violence, and build their kingdom on it, and therefore study it day and night. Because they have Jesuits all abroad continually upon the design ; whose contrivances and endeavors are day and night to bring nations to their will, and to kindle divisions and wars among them to attain their ends. If the Papists can but deceive the- rulers, they will give us leave to dispute, and write, and preach against them, and laugh at us that will stand talking only, while they are working : and when the sword is in their hand, they will soon answer all our argu- ments, with a fagot, a hatchet, or halter. Smithfield confuted the Protestants, that both the universities could not confute. Their inquisition is a school where they dispute more advantageously than in academies. Though all the learned men in the world could not confute the poor Albigenses, Waldenses and Bohemi- ans, jret by those iron arguments they had men that presently stopped the mouths of hundred thousands of them : even as Mohammedans confute the Christians. A strappado is a knotty argument. In how few days, did they confute thirty thousand Huguenots in and about Paris, till they left them not a word to say? In how few weeks space did the ignorant Irish thus stop the mouths of two hundred thousand Protestants ? Even JUGGLING. 311 in Ulster alone, about one hundred and fifty thousand men were mortally silenced. Alas i many of the poor Irish know little more of Christ, but that he is abetter man than Saint Patrick. How long might they have been before they could have silenced so many Protes- tants any other way ? There is nothing like stone- dead with a Papist. They love not to tire themselves with disputes, when the business may be more success- ful dispatched. Seeing this is the way that they are resolved on, and no peaceable motions will serve for the preventing it, all men that have any care of the church and cause of Jesus Christ, and the happiness of their posterity, have cause to stand on their watch guard : Not to be cruel to them, but to be secured from their cruelty. Let them have the rule, and then make the best you can of your arguments. If they can once get Protes- tant countries, into the case of Spain and Italy, their treachery shall not be cast in their teeth; for they will leave none alive and at liberty to do it. Therefore in the name of God be vigilant, and watch for the security of the chureh as those that must give account. Let all that love the Gospel, and the prosperity of the Christian world, and of their poster- ity, have their eyes in their heads, and take heed of that bloody hand, that hath already spilled so many streams of Christian blood. Some think that it is their safest way to please the pope and Jesuits, and so will be Papists on the same terms that some of the Indians worship the devil, be- cause he is so naught, that he may not hurt them. But those men were wiser, if they understood, that the ma- lice of infernal spirits is not to be avoided by pleasing them, but by resisting them. They are too bad to be ever pleased by any means, but what will be utter ruin. ■They are not stronger than the devil himself, who will fly if we resist him. If the best were not the most powerful, what would become of the world ? If God be stronger than the devil, he should rather be pleased than the devil ; for he is'able to defend you from the devil's displeasure : and he is mqst .able', to hurt you if you be despisers of iiis pQw^r.vwH>a>;jueitice will ' '• •>> ••'>•*. 46> 312 JErfUIT effect more certainly on the bad, than satan's malice :an do upon the good. Men think themselves wise, that shift for their safety by carnal and unlawful means : but they shall all find at last, that honesty is the best policy, and the favor of God the best security, a life of faith the most prudent life ; and that shifting for your- selves in unbelieving ways is the greatest folly. It is the design of the Papists to terrify, that none may dare to resist them, but may see that they have no hold of their lives while they are under their displeasure. But such as have most displeased thern have escaped best. Henry IV. of France, being persuaded to stand out against the Jesuits, answered, " Give me then security for my life." The security he found in his unbelief ■was assassination. The Papists are fixed in their errors, and there is a necessity lieth on them never to change. The pope and a general council have already decreed that the pope may depose Protestant princes, and absolve their subjects. To give up which abominable error is to cease to be Papists; so that all people must necessar- ily despair of their amendment. END COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES This book is due on the date indicated below, or at the expiration of a definite period after the date of borrowing, as provided by the rules of the Library or by special ar- rangement with the Librarian in charge. DATE BORROWED DATE DUE DATE BORROWED DATE DUE C2a