but reckoning their sayings to be, or not to be catholic, according as they agree to their present opinions: which is infinitely against the candour, ingenuity, and confidence of truth, which needs none of these arts. And besides all this, how shall it be possible to find out tradition by succession, when they so interrupt and break the intermedial lines? And this is beyond all the foregoing instances very remarkable in their purging of histories. In Munster's Cosmography, there was a long story of Ludovicus, the emperor of the house of Bavaria, that made very much against the see of Rome. It is commanded to be left out; and "in illius loco inseratur, si placet, sequens historia":" and then there is made a formal story not consonant to the mind of the historian. And the same Lewis of Bavaria published a smart answer to the bull of pope John XXII., an information of the nullity of the pope's proceedings against him: but the records and monuments of these things they tear out by their expurgatory tables; lest we of later ages should understand how the popes of Rome invaded the rights of princes, and by new doctrines and occasions changed the face, the body, the innocence, and the soul of Christian religion. The whole apology of the emperor Henry IV., and the epistles of prince Frederic II., they pull out of the fifth tome of the writers of the German affairs, "Neque in ipsos modò auctores, sed in libros quoque ́eorum sævitum" (that I may use the words of Tacitus, complaining), "delegato Triumviris ministerio, ut monumenta clarissimorum ingeniorum in comitio ac foro urerentur. Scilicet, illo igne vocem populi Romani et libertatem senatûs et conscientiam generis humani aboleri arbitrabantur, expulsis insuper sapientiæ professoribus, atque omni bonâ arte in exsilium actâ, ne quid usquam honestum occurreret."-For thus they not only destroy the liberty of the church, and the names of the honourable, and the sentences of the wise; but even hope to prevail upon the consciences of all mankind, and the history of the world, that nothing may be remembered. by which themselves may be a Index Belg. p. 161. Impres. A. D. 1611. Hanoviæ. b Cancellarius Bavariæ egregiè vindicavit principis sui memoriam à Bzovianis imposturis. In vitâ Julii Agric. c. 2. reproved. But this is not agreeable to the simplicity and ingenuity of the Christian religion. Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis But what Arnobius said to the heathen, in their violent and crafty arts to suppress the growth of Christianity, may be a good admonition to these artists of the inquisition; "Intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deum defendere, sed veritatis testificationem timere." 6 One thing more I am to add here, that they are so infinitely insecure in their errors, and so unsatisfied with the learning of the world, and they find it so impossible to resist the frequent and public testimonies of truth; or indeed rather they so grow in error, and so often change their propositions; that they neither agree at one time, nor does one time agree with another, in their purgations; that a saint to-day may be a common person to-morrow; and that which is an allowed doctrine now, next year may be heretical, or temerarious, or dangerous. The Speculum Oculare' of Johannes Capnio, was approved by pope Leo X. It was afterwards rejected by pope Paul IV.; and him the council of Trent following, and rejecting the sentence of pope Leo, did also condemn it; and the inquisitors, to whom the making of the index was committed by Paul IV., caused it to be burnt: but afterwards the censors of Douay permit the book, and so it is good again. What uncertainty can be greater to consciences, than what the ignorance or faction of these men cause? Here is pope against pope, a council against the pope; and the monks inquisitors of Douay, against both pope and council; and what can be the end of these things? When the Quirogian Index came forth, a man would think, there had been an end of so much as was there purged: and certain it is, they were cautious enough, and they purged all they thought deserved it: but yet when they of Salamanca published the Bible of Robert Stephens, and strictly had observed the rules of cardinal Quiroga, "Ita ut in contextu pauca, in annotationibus plurima omiserint ";" yet other inqui d Lib. iii. adv. gentes. e Vide Præfationem ad Lectorem in Ind. Sandov. sitors, being wiser by a new light, did so blot and raze, and scratch out many things more, that the Bible, which was a very fair one in A. D. 1584, came forth exceedingly defaced and spoiled in the year 1586. I need not observe, that in all the expurgatory indices you shall not find Gasper Schioppius, or the Jesuits censured; nor Baronius, although he declared the kingdom of Sicily to belong to the pope, and not to the king of Spain; but if any thing escape which lessens the pope's omnipotence (it is their own word), then it is sure to fall under the sponges and the razor: so that this mystery of iniquity is too evident to be covered by the most plausible pretences of any inte rested advocate. But if this be the way, to stop all mouths, but those that speak the same thing, it is no wonder if they boast of unity: they might very well do so; but that the providence of God, which overrules all events, hath by his almighty power divided them, in despite of all their cunning arts to seem to be sons of one mother: only it will be now a much more hard province, to tell when their errors first began, since they have taken order to cut out the tongues of them that tell us. And this they have done to their own canon law itself, and to the old glosses, in which there were remaining some footsteps of the ancient and apostolical doctrine; upon which the craft of the enemy of mankind, and the arts of interested persons, had not quite prevailed; as is largely to be seen in the very censures themselves upon the glosses, published by the command of pope Pius V., 1580 f. SECTION VII. The Uncharitableness of the Church of Rome in her judging of others. 4. THE next thing I charge upon them, is, that having done these things to propagate their new doctrines, and to suppress those which are more ancient and catholic; they are so implacably angry at all that dissent from them, that they not f Imprimebantur etiam Hanoviæ, procurantibus Junio et Pappo. 1611, 6 only kill them (where they have power), but damn them all, as far as their sentence can prevail. If you be a Roman catholic, let your life be what it will; their sacrament of penance is πάσης ἁμαρτάδος ἀναιρετικόν, ' it takes away all their sins' in a quarter of an hour: but if you differ from them, even in the least point they have declared, you are not to be endured in this world, nor in the world to come. Indeed this is one of the inseparable characters of an heretic; he sets his whole communion and all his charity upon his article; for to be zealous in the schism, that is the characteristic of a good man, that is his note of Christianity: in all the rest he excuses you or tolerates you, provided you be a true believer; then you are one of the faithful, a good man and a precious, you are of the congregation of the saints, and one of the godly. All solifidians do thus; and all that do thus are solifidians, the church of Rome herself not excepted; for though in words she proclaims the possibility of keeping all the commandments; yet she dispenses easier with him that breaks them all, than with him that speaks one word against any of her articles, though but the least; even the eating of fish, and forbidding flesh in Lent. So that it is faith they regard more than charity, a right belief more than a holy life; and for this you shall be with them upon terms easy enough, provided you go not a hair's breadth from any thing of her belief. For if you do, they have provided for you two deaths and two fires, both inevitable and one eternal. And this certainly is one of the greatest evils, of which the church of Rome is guilty for this in itself is the greatest and unworthiest uncharitableness. But the procedure is of great use to their ends. For the greatest part of Christians are those that cannot consider things leisurely and wisely, searching their bottoms, and discovering the causes, or foreseeing events, which are to come after; but are carried away by fear and hope, by affection and prepossession: and, therefore, the Roman doctors are careful to govern them as they will be governed; if you dispute, you gain, it may be, one, and lose five; but if you threaten them with damnation, you keep them in fetters; for they that are "in fear of death, are all their lifetime in bondage," saith the apostlea: and there is in the world nothing so potent as fear of the two a Heb. ii. 15. He deaths, which are the two arms and grapples of iron by which the church of Rome takes and keeps her timorous or conscientious proselytes. The easy protestant calls upon you from Scripture, to do your duty, to build a holy life upon a holy faith, the faith of the apostles, and first disciples of our Lord; he tells you, if you err; and teaches you the truth; and if ye will obey, it is well; if not, he tells you of your sin, and that all sin deserves the wrath of God; but judges no man's person, much less any states of men. knows that God's judgments are righteous and true; but he knows also, that his mercy absolves many persons, who in his just judgment were condemned: and if he had a warrant from God to say, that he should destroy all the papists, as Jonas had, concerning the Ninevites; yet he remembers that every repentance, if it be sincere, will do more, and prevail greater, and last longer than God's anger will. Besides these things, there is a strange spring, and secret principle in every man's understanding, that it is oftentimes turned about by such impulses, of which no man can give an account. But we all remember a most wonderful instance of it, in the disputation between the two Reynolds's, John and William; the former of which being a papist, and the latter a protestant, met, and disputed, with a purpose to confute, and to convert each other, and so they did for those arguments which were used, prevailed fully against their adversary, and yet did not prevail with themselves. The papist turned protestant, and the protestant became a papist, and so remained to their dying day. Of which some ingenious perşon gave a most handsome account, in an excellent epigram, which for the verification of the story, I have set down in the margent. But further yet, he considers the natural and b Bella, inter geminos, plusquam civilia, fratres Ille reformatæ fidei pro partibus instat: Quod fuit in votis, fratrem capit alter uterque ; Quod fuit in fatis, perdit uterque fidem. Captivi gemini sine captivante fuerunt, Quod genus hoc pugnæ est, ubi victus gaudet uterque ; |