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preserved to this day with due veneration in using for this purpose all instruments, all the Protestant Churches;'(1) and, lastly, whether of good or of evil; professing rewith Whitgift, as that so notable a bishop, verence for all holy things, that it may win so learned a man, so stout a champion of true the holy, and practising indulgence to all religion, so painful a prelate.'-' Pardon me,' sin, that it may retain the sinner.(1) More. he concludes, as we will conclude also, over they had before their eyes, and were though I speak somewhat earnestly; it is in brought into immediate contact with, that the behalf of a Jewel that is contemned and final and matured development of Popery, defaced. He is at rest, and not here to its great engine and full representative, the answer for himself. Thus have I answered system of Jesuitism; of which we in this in his behalf, who both in this, and other day know little, and believe less; but which, like controversies, might have been a great though expelled from every country where stay to this Church of England, if we had it had settled, as if its very existence was been worthy of him. But whilst he lived, incompatible with either society or religion, and especially after his notable and most profitable travails, he received the same reward of ungrateful tongues, that other men be exercised with, and all must look for that will do their duty.'(2.)

had been created, and is now again restored, unchanged and uncensured, by the Romish Church, to wield in her service a machinery of such gigantic power, and such atrocious principles, that the best and greatest men, not only of our own, but of the Roman communion, have been compelled to confess that, if the foreshadowed form of the Antichrist, which is still to come, can anywhere be traced, it must be here.

Such are some of the considerations which entitle the judgment of our old Divines to the highest respect from every true member of the Church; and the more they are studied, the more there will be found in them those marks of All this must be borne in mind, when we discretion and temperance that absence approach the writings of our divines of the of partial views, renunciation of self as an seventeenth century; and especially it will authority, adherence to primitive antiquity, prepare us for many facts which must strike dislike of needless change, and yet willing- a student, when he inquires into their mode ness to change for good; refusal to com- of managing that controversy with Popery promise truth for peace, and yet earnest and Puritanism, which the English Church, struggles after peace; patient and labori- now, as throughout the whole of her exist ous pursuit of accurate information, strict ence, will in some shape or other be obliged and accurate reasoning, and largeness of to sustain. comprehension, which, as was said before, when a witness is summoned to give evidence, compel respect to his testimony, even without reference to his statements. One point more is deserving of attention. It is their profound and extensive knowledge of Popery in all its bearings. They did not shape their judgment of it by some imaginary hope of effecting an impossible reconciliation; nor from some favourable specimen of the Gallican Church, the least popish of all popish communions; nor from the face which Popery can assume when addressing itself to an educated mind; nor from the Catholic portions retained in it, and by some confounded with the Papal. They saw it before them, practically engaged in its real and characteristic work; that work which it has been about from the beginning, and which constitutes the very charter and essence of its existence,-the acquisition of power-power of all kinds, at all hazards, by all means, over all minds;

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I. There is a disposition in the present day to shrink from all strong and harsh expressions, when speaking of Popery. It may be that the general tone of our mind is relaxed in regard to strict lines of religious truth; or the infection of a spurious liberality has crept in, even where it is most repudiated; or we think little of the sins of Popery, as compared with those of Dissent; or so much of our own sins, that we dare not condemn the sins of others. Or we overvalue the preservation of many outward apostolic ordinances in the Church of Rome, till we undervalue its departure from an apostolical spirit; as if succession without Doctrine was not rather a curse than a blessing. Or, what is most probable, we know little of its real nature; or we are shocked by the unthinking abuse and calumny, which have

(1) See the masterly Survey of the Popish System by Sir Edwin Sandys, Hooker's pupil, in his Europæ Speculum, an account which is as accurate at this day as ever, and well deserves to be reprinted. See also J. Taylor's Letter I., to One seduced to the Church of Rome, Works, vol. xi. p. 187; and (2) Defence of the Answer to the Admonition, Bishop Bull's Sermon on the Necessity of Works

(1) Works, vol. ii. pp. 439, 457.

pp. 423, 435.

of Righteousness, vol. i. p. 9, et seq.

been too often heaped on it by men who would equally revile our own Church; or are perplexed in drawing the line between the good and evil of the Romish system, and so fear to censure at all; or are unwilling that one sister Church (much less an indi vidual) should sit in judgment upon another. Whichever of these reasons prevails (and many of them are symptoms of an humble and amiable spirit,) it is certain that the tendency of our modern theologians on all sides is, to use a language in respect to Rome far milder than that of our old divines.

All these do, indeed, write, as Bishop Morton, one of the most eminent among them, wrote, adopting the words of St. Augustine :

Although they be divided from our body, yet we, confessing one head, Christ, let us deplore them as our brethren; for we will not cease to call them brethren, whether they will or no, so long as they say "Our Father" in invocation of one God, and do celebrate the same sacraments which we do, and answer, although not with us, the same " Amen." (1)

Nor, although nearly the whole of their labours were, from the necessity of the times, controversial, was it any harsh spirit of controversy that animated them to their tasks.

and say, "Dominus dixit," the Lord hath said it, and he hath not said it. If we had put these severe censures upon the Popish doctrine charitable; but, because the holy fathers do so, of tradition, we should have been thought unwe ought to be charitable, and snatch our charges from the ambient flame.' (1)

There is therefore in all a sternness of warning against what Hooker calls 'the gross and grievous abominations' of Popery, even while yet he gladly acknowledges that Papists may be of the family of Jesus Christ '(2)

which may prove of salutary example to those who have the same battle to fight, and the same watch to exercise over the fold intrusted to their care, against the seductions of a most subtle enemy.(3)

Thus Field, in his time esteemed a principal maintainer of Protestancy, and so admirable well-knowing in the controversies between the Protestants and Papists, that few or none went beyond him-and one that much laboured to heal the breaches of Christendom, and whose desires, prayers, and endeavours were for peace, not to widen differences, but to compose them,'(4) sums up his great work on the Church:

'We are well assured that all these (apostolical traditious, general councils, and primitive fathers) do witness against her, that she is an Far more comfort it were for us,' says Hook-erring, heretical, and apostatical church; that er, and Bishop Nicholson with him, '(so small is the joy we take in these strifes,) to labour under the same yoke, as men that look for the same eternal reward of their labours, to be enjoined with you in bands of indissoluble love and amity, to live as if, our persons being many, our souls were but one; rather than in such dismembered sort to spend our few and wretched days in a tedious prosecuting of wearisome contentions: the end whereof, if they have not some speedy end, will be heavy, even on both sides.'(2)

Nor should we forget a remark of Bishop Taylor, where he employs the very words which the Fathers used in condemning the doctrine of tradition as now held by Po

pery :

she hath forsaken her first faith; departed from her primitive sincerity; plunged those that adhere unto her into many gross and damnable errors, and defiled herself with intolerable superstition and idolatry, so that, as well in respect of her errors in faith, superstition and idolatry in divine worship, as of her slanderous, treacherous, bloody, and most horrible and hellish practices, to overthrow and destroy all that do but open their mouths against her abominations, we may justly account her to be the synagogue of Satan, the faction of Antichrist, and that Babylon out of which we must flee, unless we will be partakers of her plagues.'

Thus Jackson, speaking of Jesuitism, with Popery, as the creature and instrument which he, like the rest, most justly identifies of its policy:

'Now let any man judge whether it be not our 'Our purpose is not to charge them with forduty, and a necessary work of charity, and the proper office of our ministry, to persuade our gery of any particular, though grossest Herecharges from the "immodesty of an evil heart," from having a "devilish spirit," from doing that "which is vehemently forbidden by the Apos tle," from "infidelity and pride;" and, lastly, from that "eternal woe which is denounced' against them that add other words and doctrines than what is contained in the Scriptures,

(1) Preface to A Catholic Appeal for Protestants. (2) Preface to Eccles. Pol. s. 9. Apology, p. 240.|

(1) Preface to Dissuasive from Popery, vol. x. p. cxviii.

(2) Eccles. Pol, book iii. s. 1.

(3) See the remarkable Epilogue to Bishop Hall's Old Religion, vol. ix. p. 385, where he sums up his admonitions thus: Shortly, let us hate their opinions, strive against their practice, pity their misguiding, neglect their censures, labour their recovery, pray for their salvation.'

(4) Wood's Athen. Oxon., by Bliss, vol. ii. p. 184.

sies; or Blasphemies, though most hideous; | holy leagues and pious frauds through Christenbut for erecting an entire frame, capacious of all dom, and particularly among us)-which, as it Villanies imaginable, far surpassing the hugest without reason damneth, so it would by any mathematical form human fancy could have means destroy all that will not crouch thereconceived of such matters, but only from in- to.' (1) spection of this real and material pattern, which by degrees insensible hath grown up with the Mystery of Iniquity as the bark doth with the tree.' (1)

Again :

'If all such particulars [speaking of papal dispensations] were duly collected, and examined with the circumstances, we might refer it to any heathen civilian, to any whom God hath not given over to a reprobate sense to believe lies, whether the supposed infallibility of the Romish Church, of the prerogative given to the Pope by his followers, be not, according to the evangelical law and their own tenets, worse than Heresy, and worse than any branch of infidelity whereof Jew or Heathen is capable; yea, the very axun or period of Antichristianism ... because 'it makes sin to be no sin.'

any

So even Thorndike, a little before his death, giving his judgment of the church of

Rome:-

I do not allow salvation to any that shall change, having these reasons before him. ... How can any Christian trust his soul with that Church which hath the conscience to bar him of such helps' [service in a known tongue, and the Eucharist in both kinds] 'provided by God ?' (2)

So Hickes:-
:-

*If false and dangerous, or absurd and impossible, nay, pernicious and impious doctrines, contrary to Scripture expounded by Catholic tradition, derogatory to the honour of Jesus Christ and the Christian religion, and destructive of the rights and liberties of the Catholic Church, be damnable heresies, then your religion, by which I mean the Popery of it, is a multiform damnable heresy: as we doubt not but a truly free and general council, could such a one be had, would soon determine; and to such a council we are ready to appeal.' (3)

So Barrow blesses God,

who rescued us from having impious errors, scandalous practices, and superstitious rites, with merciless violence obtruded upon us by that Romish zeal and bigotry-(that mint of woeful factions, and combustions of treasonable conspiracies, of barbarous massacres, of horrid assassinations, of intestine rebellions, of foreign invasions, of savage tortures and butcheries, of

(1) Vol. i. p. 365; vol. iii. p. 899.

Even Laud, who pleads so strongly against the use of ill language against an adversary '(2)—that is, of coarse words, which imply only abuse without discriminating truth -yet, when truth is to be spoken, speaks out :

For a church may hold the fundamental point literally, and as long as it stays there be without control; and yet err grossly, dangerously, nay damnably, in the exposition of it. And this is the Church of Rome's case.' ‘All Protestants unanimously agree in this, "that there is great peril of damnation for any man to live and die in the Roman persuasion." (3)

So Bishop Montague, esteemed one of the most indulgent among them ;'(4) ‘I do not, I cannot, I will not deny that idolatry is grossly committed in the Church of Rome.' And, though he would not allow that the Bishop of Rome personally was that Antichrist,' the individual man of sin,—'an Antichrist,' he adds, 'I hold him or them, carrying themselves as they do in the Church.' And, in another place,—

'Surely if the general of the Jesuits' order should once come to be Pope, and sit in Peter's chair, as they call it, I would vehemently sus pect him to be the party designed “the Antichrist:" for out of what nest that accursed bird should rather come abroad than out of that se |raphical society, I cannot guess.' (5)

So Bishop Bull :

'I look upon it as a wonderful both just and wise providence of God, that he hath suffered the Church of Rome to fall into such gross errors, (which otherwise it is scarce imaginable how men in their wits, that had not renounced not only the Scriptures, but their reason, yea, and their senses too, could be overtaken with,) and to determine them for articles of faith.(6) So Brett::

The Bishop of Rome, the grand subverter and confounder of the true primitive and apos tolical discipline, as well as doctrine of the Christian church, in all places where he could at any time usurp an authority and find the means to execute it.' (7)

(1) Sermon on Gunpowder Treason, vol. i. p. 113.
(2) History of the Troubles, p. 398.
(3) Conference with Fisher, pp. 197, 208.
(4) Bramhall, Just Vindic., tom. i. Dis. iii. p. 358.
(5) Appeal to Cæsar, pp. 249, 145, 159. Answer

(2) Hickes, Several Letters, vol. i. Appendix, to the Gagger, p. 75. Pap. i.

(3) Several Letters, vol. i. p. 174.

(6) Works, vol. ii. p. 187.

(7) On Church Government, p. 443.

So Stillingfleet:-

Popery, considered as a system, without reference to individual members of it, is We charge them [the Romanists] with not only in error,' and 'superstitious,' those reasons for separation which the Scrip- but 'heretical,' in schism,' rebellious,' ture allows, such as idolatry, perverting the gos-idolatrous,'(1) an Antichrist,' if not the pel and institutions of Christ, and tyranny over the consciences of men in making those things Antichrist; that it is a wonder how any necessary to salvation which Christ never made learned man can with a good and quiet So. But none of these can with any appearance conscience continue in it;' (2) and that, of reason be charged on the Church of England notwithstanding the validity of its ordi-since we profess to give religious worship only nances, it risks the salvation of those who to God; we worship no images; we invocate trust to it is the uniform language of no saints; we adore no host; we creep to no

crucifix; we kiss no relics. We equal no tradi- the men who have always been held up tions with the gospel; we lock it not up from by our Church as her greatest ornaments the people in an unknown language; we preach and pillars, and as the firmest defenders no other terms of salvation than Christ and his of her catholic and apostolical character, apostles did; we set up no monarchy in the especially against Church to undermine Christ's, and to dispense inent and learned bishops of our Church, Popery--those emwith his laws and institutions. We mangle no that have stood up in the gap, and fought sacraments, nor pretend to know what makes

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more for the honour of his blood than he did the battles of the Lord against that Gohimself. We pretend to no skill in expiating liath of Rome;' that have borne the men's sins when they are dead; nor in turning burden and heat of the day, and have beatthe bottomless pit into the pains of purgatory en these Philistines at their own weaby a charm of words and a quick motion of the pons; '(3) and who, in the judgment of hand. We do not cheat men's souls with false Laud, laid grounds in their works, from bills of exchange, called indulgences; nor give out that we have the treasure of the Church in which, whensoever the Church of Engour keeping, which we can apply as we see oc- land shall depart, she shall never be able, casion. We use no pious frauds to delude the before any learned and disengaged Chrispeople, nor pretend to be infallible, as they do tians, to make good her difference with, when they have a mind to deceive. These are things which the divines of our Church have with great clearness and strength of reason made good against the Church of Rome; and since they cannot be objected against our Church, with what face can men suppose the cases of those who separate from each of them to be parallel?' (1)

So Bramhall says:

and her separation from the Church of
Rome.'(4) And when called to answer for
this language before God, they will have
a noble defence to make-that they spoke,
not as enthusiasts of the day now speak,
condemning what ought to be praised,-
and substituting abuse for reason, but
thoughtfully and deliberately ;(5) with dis-
crimination of truth from falsehood; with
the records of Catholic antiquity as their
guide; and with a deep insight into the
whole mystery of iniquity. They con-
demned Rome, not for exalting, but de-
stroying episcopacy; not for magnifying,

'That church which hath changed the apostolical creed, the apostolical succession, the apostolical regiment, and the apostolical communion, is no apostolical, orthodox, or catholic church. But the Church of Rome hath changed the apostolical creed, the apostolical succes- but degrading sacraments; not for revesion, the apostolical regiment, and the apostolical constitution. Therefore the Church of Rome is no apostolical, orthodox, or catholic

church.'

And again

The Church of Rome resolves its faith, not into divine revelation and authority, but into the infallibility of the present church, not knowing, or not according, what that present church is. Therefore the Church of Rome hath not true faith.'(2)

There is no pleasure in multiplying such passages, nor is it necessary. That

(1) Works, vol. ii. p. 649.

(2) Works, tome i. Disc. i. pp. 43, 44. See also tome i. Dis. iii. p. 165.

rencing, but despising antiquity; not for honouring saints, but for dishonouring God through them; not for observing forms, but for converting religion into forms; not for retaining, but for abandoning tradition, and setting up a religion of novelty; not for preserving scriptural truth in apostolical creeds as well as in Scripture, but for tampering with those

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creeds and adding to them; not for se- deep, hearty, unshaken affection and deverity of discipline, but for laxity and li-votion to their dear Mother Church of centiousness. They will plead with England.' They did not contemplate it Hooker, with Sanderson, with Stilling-as perfect. No institution that passes fleet, with Hall, that they did not con- through human hands can be perfect. found the persons of Papists with the sys- They felt, in the spirit of the martyr tem which oppresses them that they Charles, that, the draught being excelrejoiced and blessed God for all the good lent as to the main, both in doctrine and and holy men within it whom He had government, some lines, as in very good saved from its pollutions, as men escape figures, may haply need some sweetening the plague in a pest-house.(1) They spoke or polishing.'(1) With Laud, they would as members of a Church who had spoken not deny that, if the liturgy of the Church strongly also. As her children, they were were well' as it is, and might easily be called on to justify her acts before Christ- made worse,' it might in the order of the endom-under her, as the only repre- prayers' also be made better.'(2) They sentative of the Catholic Church capable prayed with Bishop Andrewes 'that its of raising her voice with effect, to protest deficiencies be supplied.'(3) But deficienin behalf of Catholic truth, though all cies- defectus' (4)--with Bishop Anaround were silent, and to speak none drewes did not mean faults and vices in the but their mother's tongue.'(2) With her constitution of the Church, but the want they warned both those who refused to of means for carrying on its work and come within her fold, and those whom a practising its principles-the wants which most subtle enemy was seducing from her, we all feel at this day-of more bishops, of the peril of defection; warned them more clergy, more learning, more indiwith no uncertain sounds-by bold words vidual piety, more alms, more developed -not putting bitter for sweet, and sweet organisation for missionary exertions, for bitter, or drawing subtle lines which more institutions for the nurture and edu. common eyes could not discern-not do- cation of souls at home-more blessings ing small benefit to the Church of God from heaven to rain down its dew upon by disputing with them according unto the us, and bring out in full perfection all the finest parts of their dark conveyances, seeds of holiness and power which are ly and suffering that sense of their doctrine ing in the womb of our Church ready to to go uncontrolled, wherein by the com. spring forth. mon sort it is ordinarily received and Still less did they condemn the Church practised ;'(3) nor yet presumptuously, for the faults of her individual members, from their own private passion, but as or for the evils of the times with which men set in authority and answerable for the souls which might be lost, either by blinding papists to their danger, or offending weak brothers by provoking their suspicion. And they might add, what in this day of weak indulgence would be heard with most excuse, that to speak with words of the utmost severity of the system, but in the spirit of charity to individuals, is found, by experience, the surest mode of awaking attention without provoking bitterness. To speak softly is to exasperate the more, because, if there is little evil in Popery why needlessly oppose it?

II. There is another remarkable feature in this body of divines. It is their

[1] See a noble passage in Sanderson's VI. Serm. ad Pop. s. 17, quoted by Stillingfleet, Works, vol. vi. p. 51. Hooker, book iii. s. i.; and Life of Hooker, by I. Walton. See also Usher's Sermon on the Universality of the Church of Christ.

[2] Bishop Hall, Christ. Mod. Works, vol. vi. p. 446.

[3] Hookes, b. iii. s. 7.

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she had to struggle. If such a principle of judgment be once admitted-if the existence of sin, and anarchy, and dissension, be an argument against the goodness of that government under which they may break out-let men look to the very grounds of their faith, and think how they can stand to defend (with all reverence let us venture to speak) the government of God himself. (5)

If anything could have tempted them to waver in their faith and allegiance, it must have been the state into which Eng

(1) Icon Basil., p. 138.

(2) Troubles, pp. 115, 208.

(3) Prayers, Monday, Intercession.

(4) This word defectus' has been sometimes referred to as if it implied in the mind of Bishop Andrewes distrust and dissatisfaction at the system of the Church of England. How far this was from his meaning may be seen in the concluding passage, too long to be quoted, in his Concio in Discessu Palatini, 1613.

(5) See this whole question admirably argued in Hickes' Apologetical Vindication of the Church of England.

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