An answer, to a little book call'd Protestancy to be embrac'd or, A new and infallible method to reduce Romanists from popery to Protestancy

SECT. I. Formal Protestants are Schis∣maticks.

AFter our Adversary had endeavoured, tho', as I hope you have sufficiently seen, in vain to prove positively that Protestants may be sav'd in his second Sect. pag. 43. His aim, is here to prove the same negatively i.e. that

in their Religion there is no hinderance of Salvation.

Two things only, as he Imagins; may hinder from Salvation, Schism and Heresie. But Pro∣testants are free from both; then they have no hin∣derance of Salvation, as he concluds. Schism, saies he, is a separation from the true Church, and the true Church is that of primative Christians. We, grant all this. But Protestants do not differ from the primative Christians, this we deny. And this which he should have chiefly proven, and one which lyes the whole force of debate between him and us, he passes over, and slips away, saying, it has been proven by others. This way of proving is indeed a new method, but not infallible. For, why shall I believe him that others have done that which he with all their Light given him and his own dar'd not undertake to do himself? Since he then could not prove that Protestants do not differ, from the primative Christians, I will not content my self to say that others have proven that they do differ, but I will prove it to him.

I suppose that Christians in the third age (I go no farther then the bounds he allows me) did not dif∣fer from the second, nor the second from the first in their rule of Faith, and this supposed, I say.

Protestants now have not the same Rule of Faith which Christians had in the first three Ages, then they differ from them. The Rule of Faith among those pri∣mative Christians was the Holy Scripture as interpret∣ed by Christ, the Apostles, and their Successors, not the Scripture as interpreted by every private Mans best un∣derstanding, which is the Rule now among Protestants refusing to submit to any Counsel, or Synods interpre∣tation of a passage of Scripture, if their Judgment stand against it. The Disciples of Christ, englightn'd as they were, did not understand the Scriptures before

Christ opened 'em to them, and St. Peter Vicar of Christ in that function explaining the Scripture to those of his time, told them, it did not belong to any private Man to Interpret it, 2 Petr. 1 v. 20 and Instanced that many had wrested or miss-Inter∣preted St. Pauls Words to their own Destruction. 2 Petr. 3. v. 16. CHRIST said to Peter, feed my Sheep, not with Bread, but with Doctrine. As, I cannot Feed that Child, who willfully refuses to open his Mouth to receive the Food, I offer him, no more could Peter Feed those Christians with Doctrine, had they refused to open their Ears, and to bear it with submission.

Those Christians then wisely submited to Peter; and their followers to his Sucessors being of an equal power to Instruct them; for Christ promising to be with his Apostles to the end of the, World did not mean with their Persons only, who were not to exceed a hundred Years, but also with those of their Lawful Successors. And so the perpetual Cu∣stome of the Church hath been to have recourse in Controversies of Religion to the Sea of Rome, it being necessary, as St. Ireneus said in the 2. Age for all Churches, to have their recourse to her.

Next to prove to me that the Protestants do not differ from the Primative Christians, you must not only say, but show me that your whole Church, not only some private men, takes the Scripture in the same sense, their whole Church or lead∣ing Church took it in.

Show me some General Counsel of yours or a Body of Pastors, to which you all unanimously submit, and then I will understand what your Church holds, otherwayes not. And because you will not submit to any such Body, I can never un∣derstand how you agree with the Christians of pri∣mative times.

Neither send me to your professions of Faith, ••o•• first in these all Protestants do not agree. We agree, say you, in Fundamentals, I ask what are the Fundamentals in which you agree with all other Protestant Churches? Here you are at a stand. And I also; For if you don't assign me them, how shall I know that in them precisely you all agree. Beside most of the Articles of those Professions are meer Negatives of Catholick Articles, unknown, (as you say, not I,) to the primitive Christians; and I say, if they did not know those our Articles, neither had they a knowledge of the Negations of them, which is posterior to the knowledge of the things of which they are Negations. And so not knowing those your Articles they did not in them agree with you.

But Romanists, say you, cannot say that they agree with the Christians who liv'd in the first three Ages, because they have brought in many Novel∣ties unheard of to them. As the Invocations of Saints, Adoration of the Holy Host, Veneration of Pictures, and the Popes power, in order to teach us what we ought to believe, for if you mean of the deposing power, you know, tho' some Ca∣tholicks hold it, none is bound to believe it, since the Church hath not defin'd it.

Ans. You say we have brought in Novelties, but you don't prove it. But I say if those our Tenets you call novelties were not heard of in the first three ages, neither were the denyals of them, for the denyal is alwayes posterior to the knowledge of the thing deny'd; these then denyals brought i•• by you, and believed by you with Divine Faith, are Novelties brought in by you, and consequent∣ly by them, you differ from the primitive Chri∣stians.

Do not you believe, for Example as an Article of Faith, that there is no Transubstantiation? If not, then we Catholicks who believe Transubstan∣tiation, believe nothing contrary to Divine Faith. And so of all the rest. And by this means you will be found Guilty of Schism for leaving us.

You say its certain that standing to the Funda∣mentals we are Guilty of a Superstruction. I ask once again what these Fundamentals of Christianity are? That every one may see clearly whither, or no, what I hold as a Tenet of Religion, is not found among them, but is a meer superstruction. Will you refuse to a considerable Person, who thinks certainly he has seen in the Law Book, a Law which justifies the Action for which he is con∣demn'd to Die? Will you, I say, refuse him a publick sight of that Book, to justifie your Sentence against him, but, notwithstanding the murmur of the People upon your refusal of his demand suspect∣ing him Innocent, savagely cast him? If not, do not condemn us, who hold for certainty Transub∣stantiation to be so Fundamental, that no Christi∣an of the first three Ages would have deny'd it.

A Subsect. Other Proofs that we agree in Faith, with those of the first three Ages.

I Ask our Adversary, did those Christians living then, believe as a Fundamental point, that they

were the true Church planted by CHRIST, and continued from the Apostles, or not? If not, then they could not say in their Creed, I believe in the Holy Catholick Church. If they did believe it, I ask again upon what ground was truth war∣ranted to them, for three hundred Years, and not to the Church till the end of the World? Was not Gods promise of Infallibility to his Church, made to it as well to the end of the World as for the first three hundred Years, Isaiah 59. v. 21. This is my Covenant with them saith the Lord, my Spirit which is upon thee (to wit the Church) and my Words which I have put in thy Mouth shall not depart out of thy Mouth, nor out of the Mouth of thy Seed, nor out of the Mouth of thy Seeds Seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever. And to the Ephes. 4. cap. v. 11, 12, 13, 14. And he gave some Apostles, some Prophets, and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints, &c. till we all come in the unity of the Faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, &c. That we hence∣forth be no more Children tost too and fro, and car∣ried about with every Wind of Doctrine by the slight of Men. If he avow the Church fail'd not in Fun∣damental Truths, I wonder how he can allow Luther and Calvin's Reforming the Church with so much Fire, Sword, and Confusion, for a matter that did not impede Salvation. If they Reform'd Her in Fundamentals, then She perish'd, which is against the Infallible promise of CHRIST. If you say, they did not Reform it as it lay pure in the Souls of some chosen, tho' unknown to others, but in the publick Pastors and Teachers, who, were reprehensible for their grievous Deviations, then, say I, where was the visible Church to which Men should have recourse for the hearing of the Word,

and receiving of the Sacraments? Isaiah cap. 2. v. 3.

A second Proof and Reason is drawn from that it seems morally impossible, that in the begining of the fourth Age (if he will have the fall of Reli∣gion then) the Pastors should propose a number of new Tenets to be believ'd, and perswade the Peo∣ple that they had heard them from their Fathers of the third Age, not one individual Person in the mean time remembring that he heard them from his. Is it credible that not only one Parish or Na∣tion, but all Countries, who liv'd afore in the U∣nion of the Catholick Church, should of a sudden have permitted themselves to be cheated into this perswasion, or rather bewitch'd, since not one was found for many Ages to have gainsaid it, or re∣claimed against it? Since this then is Morally im∣possible, conclude that these Tenets of R. Catho∣licks, which our adversary calls novelties, were the old tenets of the three first Centuries.

A third reason, 'tis remark'd that God never per∣mitted any notable Error to rise up in his Church, but alwayes stirred up at the same time some man or men to speak and write against it, and mov'd the whole Church to joyn with them to destroy it.

So Athanasius rose up against Arius. Cyrillus, Alexandrinus, against Nestorius; Augustin against Pelagius. All back'd by the whole Church for the total overthrowing of those Errors.

Now if the Mass be an Error, it is a most damn∣able one, an Idolatry insupportable to give Divine Worship to the Host, if it be only a piece of Bread. Yet after this Error was broach'd in Gregory the Great's time, in the sixth or seventh Age as Prote∣stants imagin, what University or private Man spoke

against it then, or three hundred Years after? Its true about four hundred Years after, Berengarius inveighed against it, but being better inform'd, and by a torrent of Arguments for its Truth over∣whelm'd, he Recanted and Dyed Penitent.

Consult then Reason, and not Passion, and you will see that R. Catholicks have made no super∣structurs on the Faith of the first three Ages.