CHAP. II. Whether we have any reason to report the Faults of some Bishops and Councils, from the beginning of their Depravation till the last?
§ 1. THat I had great reason for it, I think what is before said will evince; when we see men destroying Chri∣stian Love, themselves, and us, and the Land, could they pre∣vail, by their erroneous endeavour to grant no Concord, Com∣munion nor Peace, to no Christians how conscionable otherwise soever, who cannot unite in a species of Prelacy which they be∣lieve (by such evidence as I have given) to be contrary to the Law of Christ. To the saving men from Heresie and Schism now, our opposers (and we) do judge it useful, to know how Hereticks and Dividers miscarried heretofore, that others may beware. And is it not as true if Bishops be the Dividers? And also when the Clergies Ambition and Usurpation have brought that upon the Christian World which it languisheth and groan∣eth under in East and West, is it not needful to open the be∣ginning and progress of the disease, by such as had rather it were cured, than the Church destroyed by it?
§ 2. Among the multitude of Protestant Church Historians and Chronologers, how few are there that do not do the same, though in various degrees? He that will read the Magdebur∣gense•, or Lucas Osiander, Illyrici Test. Verit. Melancthon himself, and Carion Func•ius, yea peaceable holy Bucholtzer, Micrelius, Meander, Phil. Pareus, Hen. Gut•erleth, &c. yea or Julius or Jos. Scaliger, Salmasius, H•ttoman, Hottinger, Morney, shall see the faults of Bishops opened before this day.
§ 3. The pious and moderate Papists themselves report and lament them: Such as Clemangis, Pelagius Alvarus, Mirandula, Fer••, Jos. Acosta, Lud. Vives, Gerson, Erasmus, and many other such.
§ 4. The antient Godly Bishops are they who for the most Page 53 part have been freest in reprehending the vices of the rest; espe∣cially Greg. Nazianzen, and Chrysostom, and many antient godly Presbyters have been as free, as Gildas, Isidore Pelusiota, Sal∣vian, Sulp. Severus, Bernard.
§ 5. And if I have wronged the Bishops or Popes in this Abridgment, their own Historians, yea their chief flatterers have wronged them. One Pope angered Platina by imprisoning him: Yet if he be partial, it is for the Clergy, and not against them. But who will believe that Binnius, Baronius, Crab, Genebrard, Bellarmine, Petavius, and such others have spoken too hardly of them. There is no one man that I took so much from as Binnius: And what should move him to name so many of the miscarriages of the Councils, but the necessity of reciting the Acts of the Councils historically as he found them?
§ 6. The Sacred Scriptures record the Crimes of the best men in all the Ages of which they write, even Adams, Noes, Lots, Aarons, Davids, Solomons, Hezekiahs, Josiahs, Peters, all the Apostles, &c. And it was not done out of spite or malice; but as a necessary warning to us all.
§ 7. The falshood of History is an intollerable abuse of man∣kind: To know nothing done before our times, is to shut up man∣kind in a dungeon; and false History is worse than none. And it may be false and deceitful in defect as well as excess. He that should record all that was good in the Popes, and omit all the rest, would be a dangerous deceiver of the world, and do more than hath been done to make all Christians Papists. You tell us your selves, that he that should write the History of Cromwell, c. g. or of any Sect that you are against, and should leave out all their faults, would be taken for a false Historian.
§ 8. They that write the History of mens Lives, do use to record their Parentage, Birth and Education: And so must he that will truly write the History of Church-Tyranny, Persecu∣tion and Schism. The end is not well understood without the beginning. Who is it that heareth how many Ages the Chri∣stian world hath been divided into Papists, Greeks, Jacobites, Ne∣storians, Melchites, &c. and that seeth what work the Papacy hath made, but will ask how all this came to pass? Did the man that died of Gluttony, swallow all at one morsel? or rather one bit after another? And when the Clergy have ven∣tured on one merry Cup, or one pleasant morsel in excesa, it's Page 54 easie to make them believe that one, and one, and one Cup more; one, and one, and one bit more, is no more unlawful than the first. Princip•is obsta, is the Rule of Safety.
If Papists intending the recovery of England to the Pope should say [
The usual Method is not to use Boccalines Roman Engine, which will help a man to swallow a Pompion that he may get down a Pill, but to swallow a lesser Pill first and a bigger next, till the Pompion will go down. Infancy is before manhood.
§ 9. But the great necessity was as aforesaid, from the reviv∣ed or rather Continued attempts, of imitating the fatal ambitious and Contentious malady. If Priscillians, or Gnosticks should rise now among us, were it not our duty to set before them the history of the miscarriage of their predecessours. And when men are so much set on restoring an Universal Supremacy, is it not meet to shew them where, and when, and with what success the aspiring humour did begin. If we have small visible probabili∣ty of escaping, we must yet before we come to Smithfield, satis∣fy our Consciences that we betrayed not the Church.
