nor ever so called; but because they hold the Pope's judgement to be supreme and infallible, and so build their faith on him, as on the foundation thereof, which their own Church never did till the time of Leo X. It is not, then, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, but the Lion of that Laterane synod, who is the first godfather of that name unto them, when he had once laid the Pope as the foundation of faith instead of Christ : they who then builded their faith upon this new foundation, were fitly christened with this name of Papists, to distinguish them and their present Roman Church from all others who held the old, good and sure foundation." CRAKANTHORP'S Vigilius Dormitans, p. 188. fourth he is made Lord of the Catholic | Christians did, and yet were not Papists, faith, and Antichrist triumphant, set up as God in the Church of God, ruling, nay tyrannizing, not only in the external and temporal estates, but even in the faith and consciences of all men, so that they may believe neither more, nor less, nor otherwise than he prescribeth, nay that they may not believe the very Scriptures themselves, and word of God, or that there are any scriptures at all, or that there is a God, but for this reason, ipse dixit, because he saith so: and his saying, being a transcendent principle of faith, they must believe for itself, quia ipse dixit, because he saith so. In the first and second he usurped the authority and place but of Bishops; in the third, but of Kings; but in making himself the Rock and Foundation of faith, he intrudes himself into the most proper office and prerogative of Jesus Christ. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ.” - CRAKANTHORP's Vigilius Dormitans, p. 185. Origin and Propriety of the word Papist. "BELLARMINE' glorieth of this very name of Papists, that it doth attestari veritati, give testimony to that truth which they profess. Truly we envy not so apt a name unto them only the Cardinal shows himself a very unskilful herald in the blazonry of this coat, and the descent of this title unto them. He fetcheth it forsooth from Pope Clement, Pope Peter, and Pope Christ! Phy, it is of no such antiquity, nor of so honourable a race. Their own Bristow3 will assure him that this name was never heard of till the days of Leo X. Neither are they so called, as the Cardinal fancieth, because they hold communion in faith with the Pope, which for six hundred years and more all What the Fathers did not know and did not do. "IF you please to believe it, all the doctrines of the Romish Church are no other than such as have been handed to them from the Apostles by all the ancient Fathers in an uninterrupted succession. I believe I could instance in twenty several articles of the Romish Church for which they have no colour of authority from any of the Fathers. But this may suffice for a specimen of that respect which the Papists have for the Fathers, when they do not comply with their humours. The Fathers were so ignorant for a thousand years together that they did not understand, or so negligent that they did not instruct their people in, that great mystery of Transubstantiation (than which none was more necessary to be taught, because none more difficult to believe). The Fathers were so hard-hearted and cruel that they would suffer souls to fry in Purgatory for hundreds of years together, whom they might certainly have released by the help of Indulgences. The Fathers were so indiscreet that they allowed their hearers to read the Scriptures, and have them in a vulgar tongue; but now it is not fit to be granted, they, the Pope cannot command sin, and cannot lead men to Hell: and this, if true, were a plausible evasion."-POOLE's Nullity of the Romish Faith, p. 243. saith Sixtus Senensis. The Church of Rome | Infallibility can never be fulfilled; for, say hath got a monopoly of all knowledge, fidelity, tender-heartedness (which you will wonder at), discretion, and all good qualities, and Infallibility into the bargain.”— POOLE'S Nullity of the Romish Faith, p. 52. Bellarmine's Passage. "If the people owe an absolute subjection of their faith to their teachers, the teachers have an absolute dominion over the faith of the people.”—This sottish doctrine of an implicit faith must needs be apocryphal so long as the Epistle to the Galatians is canonical, and especially Gal. i. 8, 'Though he or an angel from Heaven preach any other gospel-let him be accursed.' And he is not contented with a single assertion, but adds, as we said before so say it over again, Let him be accursed. Which if the reader compare with that abominable Variations of the Romish Church. "As for the points between the Jesuits and Dominicans, how material they are we will take their own judgements: if we may believe either one or other of them, the points are of great moment. If you ask the Jansenists or Dominicans their opinion of the Jesuitical doctrine, they tell you that it is the very poison of the Pelagian heresy, yea it is worse than Pelagianism; that they are contemners of Grace,—such as rob God of his honour, taking half of it to themselves; that it is here disputed whether God alone be God, or whether the will of man be a kind of inferior, yet in fact an independent Deity.' And for the Jesuits, they are not one jot behind-hand with them in their censure of the Dominican doctrine, which (say the Jesuits) brings back the stoical paradox, robs God of the glory of his goodness, makes God a liar and the author of sin. And yet when we tell them of these divisions, the breach is presently healed; these savages are grown tame, their differences trivial, and only some school niceties wherein faith is not concerned. And now both Stoics and Pelagians are grown orthodox; and the grace, glory, sovereignty and holiness of God, are matters but of small concernment; and so it seems they are to them, else they durst not so shamelessly dally with them. But it is usual with them to make the greatest points of faith like counters, which in computation sometimes stand for pounds, sometimes for pence, as interest and occasion require. And it is worth observation, these very points of dif 2 passage of Bellarmine's, ' If the Pope should err, in commanding vices and forbidding virtues, the Church were bound to believe vices to be good and virtues to be evil;' he will be able to judge whether the faith of the present Romish Church be the same with that of the Apostle's days or not; and whether they who are so liberal in dispensing their anathemas to all that differ from their sentiments, do not justly fall under the anathema here denounced."POOLE'S Nullity of the Romish Faith, p. 93. “WHEN Bellarmine delivers that desperate doctrine that if the Pope should command us to sin we are bound to obey him; and when others have said that if the Pope | should lead thousands to Hell we must not reprove him; their followers mollify the harshness of those assertions with this favourable construction, that the propositions are only hypothetical, depending upon such conditions as by reason of the promise of He has just quoted St. Paul, Not that we have dominion over your faith. 2 Cor. i. 24. 2 These are Mr. White's words in his Sonus Buccinæ, Quæst. Theolog. in Epis., and in pa rag. 7. ference when they fall out among Protestants, between Calvin and Arminius, are represented by our adversaries as very material and weighty differences; but when they come to their share they are of no moment."-POOLE's Nullity of the Romish Faith, p. 161. Growth of her Corruptions. "As Jason's ship was wasted, so Truth Nemo was lost one piece after another. repentè fit turpissimus. We know very well, posito uno absurdo sequuntur multa, one error will breed an hundred, yet all its children are not born in one day. St. Paul tells us, the mystery of iniquity began to work in his days; he tells us that heresy eats like a canker or gangrene, by degrees, and is not worst at first, but increaseth to more ungodliness (2 Tim. ii. 16, 17). As that cloud which, at first appearance, was no bigger than a man's hand, did gradually outspread the whole face of the heavens, so those opinions which at first were only the sentiments of the lesser part, might by degrees improve and become the greater, or at least by the favour of princes, or power and learning of their advocates, become the stronger, until at last, like Moses's rod, they devoured the other rods; and monopolizing to themselves the liberty of writing and professing their doctrines, and suppressing all contrary discourses and treatises, their doctrines being proposed by them as Catholic doctrines, and the doctrines of their own and former ages (which are frequently pretended by several heretics), and this proposition not contradicted by considerable sons (which in some ages were few, and those easily biassed), or the contradiction being speedily suppressed (which is very possible, and hath been usual), it could not probably fall out otherwise but that their opinion should be transmitted to their successors for the Faith of their age: Rome was not built in a day, neither in a civil, nor in a spiritual notion."-POOLE's Nullity of the Romish Faith, p. 165. per Relics of Transubstance. "A SYNOD of bishops in Italy decreed that when the true flesh of Christ and his true blood appears at the celebration of the Sacraments in their proper kind, both the flesh and the blood should be reserved in the midst of the altar for especial relics. Now I would know of you, sir priest, what rhyme or reason you have to make a relic of your God? Of the relics of Saints I have heard some talk; but of the relics of God, or rather that God himself should be kept for a relic, I think never man heard but out of a Papist's mouth."-Work for a Mass Priest, § 8. Fasting, how explained by the Casuists. "THEIR casuists, as far as I can find, are agreed in these things. “1. That a man may eat a full meal of what is not forbidden, and yet not break the Church's precept of Fasting, provided vespers be first said. And the later casuists blame Coverruvias for making any scruple about it. If a man's excess comes to be a mortal sin, yet for all that, saith Reginaldus,' he shall not be judged as a breaker of his fast. Nay Lessius goes farther, and saith, He doth not lose the merit of fasting. Quamvis aliquis multum excedet non solvit jejunium, saith Card. Tolet.3 And Paulus Zacchias saith this is the common opinion; and he thinks the intention of the Church is sufficiently answered. And so doth Pasqualigus in his Praxis of Fasting. "2. A man may drink wine, or other drink, as often as he pleaseth, without breaking his fast. He may toties quoties bibere, saith 1 Reginald. Praxis 1. 4, c. 14, n. 163. 2 Less. de Justit. 1. 4, c. 2, dub. 2, n. 10, 3 Instruct. Sacerd. 1. 6, c. 2, n. 4. P. Zacch. Qu. Medico-legales, 1. 5, tit. 1, qu. 1, pp. 29, 30, 31. Pasqual. Decis. 120, n. 5. Diana.1 Zach. Pasqualigus who hath written most fully on this subject, shews, that it is the general opinion that no quantity of wine or other drink, though taken without any necessity, is a violation of the precept of fasting; no, not although the wine be taken for nourishment, because the Church doth not forbid it. But this last, he saith, is not the general, but the more probable opinion. "3. A man may eat something when he drinks, to prevent its doing him hurt. Besides his good meals, he may take what quantity he pleases of sweetmeats or fruit; he may have a good refection at night, and yet not break this strict precept of fasting. For the eating as often as one drinks, it is the common opinion, saith the same casuist" (who was no Jesuit), that it is not forbidden, because it is taken by way of a medicine; and he quotes a great number of their casuists for it. A collation at evening is allowed, saith he.4 And Lessius saith, there is no certain rule for the quantity of it. And Card. Tolet" saith, very large ones are allowed at Rome by the Pope's connivance; even in the court of Rome, saith Reginaldus." And now I leave the reader to judge of the severity of fasting required in the Church of Rome.". ·Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome truly Represented, 1686, p. 128. "§ 16. I READ in your books that your Pope, for delivering of souls out of Purgatory, prescribes sometimes no more but the saying of a mass at such an altar in such a church, or the saying of a Pater-noster twice or thrice, &c. Now I would know with what justice God could keep him in such horrible torments as are in Purgatory for want of the saying of a mass, or two or three Pater-nosters, whom in mercy he meant to deliver upon the saying of a mass or two or three Pater-nosters ? 66 "§ 17. And seeing I read in your books that your Pope hath power to empty Purgatory at once, and if the saying of a mass and a Pater-noster will help to empty it, I would know, how you can excuse your Pope from unspeakable uncharitableness and hard-heartedness, in that he himself saith no more masses nor Pater-nosters for Christian souls than he doth, nor setteth more of his priests on that work?"— Work for a Mass Priest. A Papist playing the Puritan. “I REMEMBER," says CRAKANTHORP, “a narration, not unworthy observing, which long since a man of great gravity and judgement in law, and now one of the chief Judges in this realm, related unto me; how one of the most notorious traitors in the time of our late Queen of happy memory, having by solemn vow, by oath, by receiv ing the holy sacrament, bound himself to murder his sovereign, returned home from Italy, but with such a share of zeal towards our religion, our state, and his sovereignthat in open Parliament (being chosen a Burgess) he made a very spiteful and violent invective against Recusants, and especially against Jesuits. His paymasters and friends of Rome expostulating with him then about the matter, Oh, quoth he, it was needful I should thus do; now all fear, all suspicion of me is quite removed; I have by this my open speech gained trust and credit with the Prince, with the Council, and the whole State. I have now made an easy and free access to perform that holy work.' And if God had not watched over Israel and his anointed, many times without suspicion and danger he might have done, and had done it indeed."-Vigilius Dormitans, p. 488. Effects of the Doctrine of Infallibility. "HAVING Once set down this transcendant principle, the foundation of all which they believe, that the Pope's judgement in causes of faith is infallible, they do by this exclude and utterly shut out all manifestation of the truth that can possibly be made unto them. Oppose whatever you will against their error, Scriptures, Fathers, Councils, reason and sense itself, it is all refuted before it be proposed: seeing the Pope, who is infallible, saith the contrary to that which you would prove, you in disputing from those places do either mis-cite them, or mis-interpret the scriptures, fathers, and councils; or your reason from them is sophistical; and your sense of sight, of touching, of tasting, is deceived; some one defect or other there is in your opposition: but an error in that which they hold, there is, nay there can be none, because the Pope teacheth that, and the Pope in his teaching is infallible. Here is a charm which causeth one to hear with a deaf ear whatever is opposed the very head of Medusa if you come against it, it stuns you at the first, and turns both your reason, your sense, and yourself also, into a very stone. By holding this one fundamental position, they are pertinacious in all their error, and that in the highest degree of pertinacy which the art of man can devise; yea and pertinacious before all conviction, and that also though the truth should never by any means be manifested unto them. For by setting this down, they are so far from being prepared to embrace the truth, though it should be manifested unto them, that hereby they have made a fundamental law for themselves, that they never will be corrected nor ever have the truth manifested unto them. The only means in likelihood to persuade them that the doctrines which they maintain are heresies, were, first to persuade the Pope who hath decreed them to be orthodoxal, to make a contrary decree that they are heretical. Now although this may be morally judged to be a matter of impossibility, yet if his Holiness could be induced hereunto, and would so far stoop to God's truth as to make such a decree, even this also could not persuade them, so long as they hold that foundation. They would say either the Pope were not the true Pope; or that he defined it not as Pope, and ex cathedrâ; or that by consenting to such an heretical decree, he ceased ipso facto to be Pope; or the like; some one or other evasion they would have still: but grant the Pope's sentence to be fallible, or heretical, whose infallibility they hold as a doctrine of faith, yea as the foundation of their faith, they would not. Such and so unconquerable pertinacy is annexed, and that essentially, to that one position, that so long as one holds it (and whensoever he ceaseth to hold it he ceaseth to be a member of this Church) there is no possible means in the world to convict him, or convert him to the truth."CRAKANTHORP's Vigilius Dormitans, p. 211. Consequences of the Pope's shaking off the Imperial Authority. "So long as the Emperor, being Christian, retained his dignity and imperial au |
