TO THE High and Mighty Monarch Charles the 11d: By the Grace of God, KING of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith.

Most Gratious and Dread Soveraign,
THat which never had been expos'd
unto a wittily-mistaking
and crooked world, but
in a dutiful submission to Your
Command; may at least for This, if
for no other reason, be justly offer'd to
Your Protection. And this is done with

A 2

success; because THE DEFENDER
OF THE FAITH which was once
deliver'd unto the Saints, cannot possibly
chuse but be so to him, who does earnestly
contend for the very same, because
for no other Faith then That
which was from the Beginning. If
for This I have contended with as much
earnestness from the Pulpit, as The
Romanists from the Press do contend
against it; I have not only the Exhortation
and Authority of a Text, but the
Exigence of the Time to excuse me in it.
Now as the Romans in the Time of
the second Punick War, could not
think of a fitter way for the driving of
Hanibal out of Italy, then Scipio's marching
with an Army out of Italy into
Afrique, giving Hanibal a Necessity
to go from Rome, for the raising of the
Siege which was laid to Carthage; So
could I not think of a fitter Course to disappoint
the Pontificians in their Attempts
on Our Church, then thus by making
it their Task to view the Infirmities
of their own. To which effect I was excited
to spend my self, and to be spent, if I
may speak in the phrase of our Great Apostle,
not from an arrogant Opinion of
any sufficiency in my self, who am one
of the least among the Regular Sons of the
Church of England; But as relying on
the sufficiency of the Cause I took in
hand, & especially on the Help of the Allsufficient,
who often loves to make use of
the weakest Instruments, to effect the
bringing down of the strongest Holds.
I suppose my Discourse, however innocent
in it self, will yet be likely to meet with
many, not onely learned and subtil, but
restless enemies; Men of pleasant Insinuations,
and very plausible, Snares;
nay, such as are apt where they have
Power to confute their Opponents
by Fire and Faggot. But when I consider
how well my Margin does lend Protection

A 3

on to my Text, for I reckon that my
Citations, which I could not with Prudence
represent out of a Pulpit, are the
usefullest part of my whole Performance,
because the Evidence and Warrant
of all the rest; I cannot fearfully apprehend,
what Wit or Language or ill
us'd Learning can do against it, so far
forth as it is arm'd with Notoriety of
Fact in its Vindication; and hath the
published Confessions of those their
Ablest Hyperaspistæ, who cannot certainly
by them of their own perswasion,
with honor, or safety, be contradicted.
If they are guilty in their Writings,
it is rather their own, then their Readers
Fault; Nor is it their Readers, but
Their misfortune, if they are found So to
be by their own Concessions. Nor can
they rationally be angry at their Reader's
Necessity to believe them; especially
when they write with so becoming a
proof of Impartiality, as that by which
they asperse and accuse Themselves. If
it finally shall appear, They are condemn'd
out of their mouthes, as Goliah's
Head was cut off by David, not
with David's, but with Goliah's own
Sword, and that I am not so severe in
taking Notice of their Confessions, as
They have been unto Themselves in the
Printing of them, for I cannot be said to
have revealed any secrets, by meerly
shewing before the Sun, what They
have sent into the Light, I think, however
They may have Appetite, They
cannot have Reason to complain.
I have intreated of many Subjects
within the Compass of an hour, on each of
which it would be easie to spend a year.
But I have spoken most at large of the Supremacy
of the Pope; as well because it
is a Point wherein the Honor and Safety
of Your Majesties Dominions are
most concern'd, as because it is the chief,
if not only Hinge, I have Bellarmines
assertion for what I say, on which
does hang the whole stress of the
Papal Fabrick.
If herein, as I have obey'd, I shall
also be found to have serv'd Your Majesty,
The sole Discharge of my Duty
will be abundantly my Reward; because
I am not more by Conscience and Obligations
of Gratitude, then by the Voluntary
Bent and Inclinations of my
Soul,
Your Majesties most devoted and most Dutiful Subject and Chaplain, THOMAS PIERCE.

MATTH. XIX. 8.

NoValue

But from the beginning it was not so.

THere are but very few things
either so little, or so great, whether
in Art, or Nature, whether
in Politie, or Religion, which
are not willing to take advantage
from the meer credit of their Antiquity.
First for Art; Any part of Philosophy penn'd
by Hermes Trismegistus, any Script of Geography
bearing the name of Anaximander, any Musical
Composition sung by Amphion to his Harp, any
piece of the Mathematicks said to be writ by
Zoroastres, any Relique of Carved worke from
inspir'd Bezaleel, or any remnant of Embroidery
from the Theopneust Aboliab, would at
least for the honor of being reckon'd to be the
first, be also reckon'd to be the best of any Antiquarie's
Keimelia.

B

And as it is in the Things of Art, so is it
also in those of Nature. How do the Gentlemen
of Venice delight themselves in their
Antiquity? and yet they travel for their Original
no farther back then the siege of Troy: whereas
the Arcadians derive their Pedigree even
from Jupiter and Calisto, and will needs have
their Nation exceed the Moon in Seniority.
Nay, though Ægypt in the Judgment of Diodorus
the Siceleote hath better pretensions
then any other, yet the Barbarians as well as
Greeks have still affected a Primogeniture. Nay
so far has this Ambition transported some, that
they will needs have been begun from before
the Protoplast, as it were itching to be as old as
the Julian period, 764 years before the beginning
of the World. Thus Antiquity hath been
courted in Art and Nature.
If in the third place we come to Politie, we
shall find Customs gaining Reverence from the
sole merit of their Duration. And as a Custom
by meer Continuance does wear it self into a
Law; so the more aged a Law is grown, the
less 'tis liable to a Repeal; by how much the
more it is stricken in years, by so much the less
it is decrepit: And that for this reason, because
the longer it endures, the more it inclines
to its perfection; that is to say, its immortality.
Last of all for Religion, the Case is clear out
of Tertullian. Id verius quod prius, id prius quod
ab initio. That Religion was the truest, which
was the first; and that the first, which was from
the beginning. And as He against Marcion, so
Justin Martyr against the Grecians, did prove
the Divinity of the Pentateuch from the Antiquity
of its Writer. The Jewes enjoy'd the first
Lawgiver by the Confession of the Gentiles. Moses
preached the God of Abraham, whilst Thales
Milesius was yet unborn. Nor was it a thing
to be imagin'd, that God should suffer the
Devil to have a Chappel in the world, before
himself had any Church. And thence Vincentius
Lirinensis, to prove the Truth of any
Doctrine, or the Legality of a Practice, does argue
the Case from a Threefold Topick; The Universality,
the Consent, and the Antiquity of a Tradition.
Which Rule if we apply unto the scope of
this Text, as it stands in relation unto the
Context, we shall have more to say for it then
for most Constitutions, divine, or humane: For That
of Mariage is almost as old as Nature. There
was no sooner one man, but God divided him
into two; And then no sooner were there
two, but he united them into one. This is
That sacred Institution which was made with
Mankind in a state of Innocence; the very
Ground and Foundation of all both sacred and

B 2

civil Government. It was by sending back
the Pharisees to the most venerable Antiquity,
that our Lord here asserted the Law of wedlock,
against the old Custom of their Divorce. Whilst
they had made themselves drunk with their
muddy streams, He directed them to the Fountain,
to drink themselues into sobriety. They insisted
altogether on the Mosaical Dispensation; But
He endeavour'd to reform them by the most
Primitive Institution. They alledged a Custom,
but He a Law. They a Permission, and that from
Moses; But He a Precept, and that from God.
They did reckon from afar off; But not, as He,
from the Beginning.
In that one Question of the Pharisees, Why
did Moses command us to give her a writing of
Divorce, and to put her away? they put a Fallacy
upon Christ, call'd Plurium Interrogationum.
For Moses onely permitted them to put her away;
but commanded them if they did to give her
a writing of Divorce. And accordingly their
Fallacy is detected by Christ in his Answer to
them. Moses did not command, but meerly
suffer'd you in your custom of making unjustifiable
Divorcements. NoValue, he permitted,
that is to say, he did not punish it; not
allowing it as good, but winking at it as the lesser
of two great evils. He suffer'd it to be safe
in foro Soli; could not secure you from the
Guilt, for which you must answer in foro Poli.
And why did he suffer what he could not
approve? Not for the softness of your heads,
which made you ignorant of your Duties; but
for the hardness of your hearts, which made you
resolute not to do them: you were so barbarous
and brutish upon every slight Cause, or Occasion
rather, that if you might not put her away,
you would use her worse. You would
many times beat, and sometimes murder, sometimes
bury her alive, by bringing another into
her Bed. So that the Liberty of Divorce, however
a poyson in it self, was through the hardness
of your hearts permitted to you for an Antidote:
But from the Beginning it was not so.
And you must put a wide difference betwixt
an Indulgence of Man, and a Law of God. To
state the controversie aright, you must compare
the first Precept with your customary Practice;
not reckoning as far as from Moses onely,
but as far as from Adam too; you must not onely
look forward from the year of the Creation
2400. but backward from thence unto the
year of the Creation. The way to understand
the Husband's Duty towards the Wife, and
so to reform, as not to innovate, is to consider
the words of God when he made the Wife out
of the Husband. For He that made them at

10

the beginning made them Male and Female, and
said For this cause, shall a man leave Father,
and Mother, and shall cleave unto his Wife, and they
twain shall be one Flesh.What therefore God hath
joyn'd together, let not man put asunder. The
Antecedent Command was from God the Father;
the Command in the sequel from God the Son.
And though the Practice of the Jewes had been
contrariant to them both, by a Prescription almost
as old as two thousand years; yet as old as
it was, 'twas but an overgrown Innovation. For
NoValue, from the beginning it was
not so.
Thus our Saviour, being sent to Reform the
Jews, made known the Rule of his Reformation.
And the Lesson which it affords us is in my
poor judgment of great Importance. For when
the Doctrine or Discipline of our Church establisht
here in England shall be attempted by the
Corruptions of Moderne Pharisees, who shall assert
against us as these here did against our Saviour
either their forreign Superstitions, to say
no worse or their domestick Profanations, to,
say no more; we cannot better deal with them,
then as our Saviour here dealt with the ancient
Pharisees; that is, we cannot better put them to
shame & silence, then by demonstrating the Novelty
and base extraction of their Pretensions,
whilst we evince at the same instant the Sacred
Antiquity of our owne. When they obtrude their
Revelations, or teach for Doctrines of God the meer
commandments of Men, we must aske them every
one, how they read in the beginning. We may not
draw out of their Ditches be the Currents never
so long, whilst we have waters of our own of a
nobler Taste, which we can easily trace back to
the crystal spring.
And first of all it concernes us to marke the
Emphasis, which our Ancient of dayes thought
fit to put on the Beginning, that no inferior Antiquity
may be in danger to deceive us. For
there is hardly any Heresie or Usurpation in the
Church, which may not truly pretend to some
great Antiquity, though not so old as the Old
man, much lesse as the Old Serpent. The
Disciplinarians may fetch theirs from as far as
the Heretick NoValue; who wanting merit to
advance him from a Presbyter to a Bishop,
wanted not arrogance and envy to lessen the
Bishop into a Presbyter. But His Antiquity
is a Junior, as well to that of the Anabaptists,
as to that of the Socinians. For the Anabaptists
may boast they are as old as Agrippinus,
and the Socinians as Sabellius. The Solifidians
and Antinomians are come as far as from
Eunomius. The Ranters from Carpocrates:
The Millenaries from Papias. The Irrespective
Reprobatarians from Simon Magus
and the Manichees. The Pontificians like the
Mahumetans have such a Rhapsody of Religion, a
Religion so compounded of several Errors and Corruptions,
which yet are blended with many
Doctrines most sound and Orthodox, that to find
out the age of their severall Ingredients, it will
be necessary to rake into several times too.

THe great Palladium of the Conclave, the
famous point of Infallibility which if you
take away from them, down goes their Troy,
it being absolutely impossible that the learned
Members of such a Church should glibly swallow
so many Errors, unless by swallowing
this first, That she cannot erre; I say, the point of
Infallibility which is a very old Article of their
very new Creed, a Creed not perfected by its
Composers until the Council at Trent, we cannot
better derive then from the Scholars of
Marcus in Irenæus, or from the Gnosticks in
Epiphanius. They had their Purgatory
from Origen, one of the best indeed in one
kind, but in another one of the worst of our
antient Writers, not onely an Heretick, but
an Hœrefiarcha, or at the farthest from
Tertullian, who had it from no better Authour
then the Arch-Heretick Montanus.
Nor does Bellarmine mend the matter, by deriving
it as far as from Virgil's Æneid, and
from Tully in his Tale of the Dream of Scipio,
and farther yet from Plato's Gorgias; unless
he thinks that an Heathen is any whit fitter
then an Heretick, to give Advantage to a
point of the Roman Faith. Their Denial of
Marriage to all that enter into the Priesthood,
is dated by themselves but from Pope Calixtus.
Their Transubstantiation is from
the Lateran Council. Their Half-Communion
is no older then since the times of Aquinas;
unless they will own it from the Manichees,
to give it the credit of more Antiquity.
Their publick praying before the people in
an unknown Tongue, may be fetcht indeed as
far as from Gregory the Great. Their Invocation
of Saints departed is no doubt an aged Error,
though not so aged as they would have it
for the gaining of honour to the Invention; because
St. Austin does deny it to have been in
his days. And not to be endless in the beginning
of such a limited Discourse, as must not
presume to exceed an hour; though in so
fruitfull a field of matter, 'tis very difficult not to

C

be endlesse; The Vniversall Superintendency
or Supremacy of the Pope hath been a visible
usurpation ever since Boniface the Third. And
so our Adversaries of Rome have more to plead
for Their Errours then all the rest, because the
rest were but as Mushroms in their severall
times, soon starting up, and as soon cut down;
whereas the Errours of Rome do enjoy the
pretence of Duration too.
But touching each of those Errours, I mean
the Errors of their Practice, as well as Judgment,
we can say with our Saviour in his present
Correption of the Pharisees, whose Error
was older and more authentick, that is, by
Moses his permission had more appearance of
Authority, and more to be pleaded in its excuse,
then those we find in the Church of
Rome, that from the beginning it was not so; and
we care not whence they come, unlesse they
come from the Beginning.
Indeed in matters of meer Indifference which
are brought into the Government or outward
Discipline of the Church, every Church has the
Liberty to make her own Constitutions, not
asking leave of her Sisters, much less her
Children; onely they must not be reputed as
things without which there is no Salvation, nor
be obtruded upon the People amongst the
Articles of their Faith. We are to look upon
nothing so, but as it comes to us from the Beginning.
And this has ever been the Rule I mean
the warrantable Rule whereby to improve or
reform a Church. When Esdras was intent
on the re-building of the Temple, he sent not to
Ephesus, much lesse to Rome; he did not imitate
Diana's Temple, nor enquire into the
Rituals of Numa Pompilius; but had recourse
for a Temple, to that of Solomon, and for a
Ritual, to that of Moses, as having both been
prescribed by God himself. And yet we know
the Prophet Haggai made the people steep their
Joy in a showre of Tears, by representing how
much the Copy had faln short of the Original.
The holy Prophets in the Old Testament,
shewing the way to a Reformation, advis'd the
Princes and the People to aske after the old
paths, and walk therein, as being the onely good
way for the finding of rest unto their souls, Jer.
6. 16. The Prophet Isaiah sought to regulate
what was amisse amongst the Jewes, by bidding
them have recourse unto the Law and the
Testimony: should not a people seek unto their God?
If any speak not according to this word, it is because
there is no light in them. And accordingly
their Kings, who took a care to reform
abuses, are in this solemn style commended
for it, That they walked in the ways of their

C 2

Father David; that is, reform'd what was amisse
by what had been from the Beginning.
So St. Paul in the New Testament, setting
right what was crooked about the Supper of the
Lord in the Church of Corinth, laid his line to
that Rule which he was sure he had receiv'd
from the Lord Himselfe. And
thus our Saviour in my Text, finding the
Pharisees very fond of a vicious practice, which
supported it self by an old Tradition, and had
something of Moses to give it countenance in the
world, though indeed no more then a bare
permission, could not think of a better way to
make them sensible of their Error, and such an
Error as was their Sin too, then by shewing
them the great and important difference betwixt
an old, and a primitive Custome; and
that however their breach of Wedlock had been
without check from the days of yore, yet 'twas
for this to be reform'd, that 'twas not so from the
Beginning.
In a most dutifull Conformity to which
example, our Reformers here in England
of happy memory having discover'd in
every part of the Church of Rome, not
onely horrible Corruptions in point of Practice,
but hideous Errors in point of Doctrine,
and that in matters of Faith too, as I shall
find an occasion to shew anon; and having
found by what degrees the severall Errors
and Corruptions were slily brought into the
Church, as well as the several times and seasons
wherein the Novelties received their birth and
breeding; and presently after taking notice,
that in the Council of Trent the Roman Partisans
were not afraid to make New Articles
of Faith, whilst the Sacrifice of the Mass,
the Doctrine of Purgatory, the Invocation of
Saints, the Worship of Images, and the like,
were commanded to be embraced under pain of
damnation, as it were in contempt of the Apostle's
denuntiation, Gal. 1. 8. by which that
practice of those Conspirators made them liable
to a curse; and farther yet, that in the
Canon of the Fourth Session of that Council, the
Roman Church was made to differ as well
from her ancient and purer self, as from all other
Churches besides her self, in that there were
many meerly humane I do not say profane
Writings, and many unwritten Traditions also,
not only decreed to be of equal Authority with
the Scriptures, but with the addition of an
Anathema to all that should not so receive
them: This I say being consider'd and laid
to heart by our Reformers, by our Kings, and
our Clergy, and Laiety too, met together in
their greatest both Ecclesiastical and Civil Councils,
they did not consult with flesh and bloud,
or expect the Court of Rome should become
their Physician, which was indeed their great
Disease; but having recourse unto the Scriptures
and Primitive Fathers of the Church, they
consulted those Oracles how things stood from
the Beginning: And onely separating from Them,
whom they found to have been Separatists
from the primitive Church, they therefore made
a Secession, that they might not partake of the
Romane Schisme. And whilst they made a Secession
for fear of Schism; which by no other
practice could be avoided, they studiously
kept to the Golden mean; neither destroying
the Body out of hatred to the Ulcers with
which 'twas spred, nor yet retaining any Ulcer
in a passionate dotage upon the Body.
One remarkable Infirmity it is obvious to
observe in the Popish Writers: they ever complaine
we have left their Church; but never
shew us that lot, as to which we have left the
Word of God, or the Apostles, or the yet uncorrupted
and primitive Church, or the Four first
Generall Councils. We are so zealous for Antiquity,
provided it be but antique enough, that
we never have despised a meer Tradition, which
we could track by sure footsteps from as far as
the times of the purest Christians. But this is
still their childish fallacy, be it spoken to the
shame of their greatest Giants in Dispute, who
still vouchsafe to be guilty of it, that they confidently
shut up the Church in Rome, as their
Seniors the Donatists once did in Africk; and
please to call it the Catholick Church, not formally,
but causally, saith Cardinal Peron, because
forsooth that particular doth infuse universality
into all other Churches besides it
self: The learned Cardinal forgetting, which
is often the effect of his very good memory,
that the preaching of Christ was to begin at
Jerusalem. So it was in the Prophesie, Isa. 2.
3. Mic. 4. 2. and so in the completion, Luke
24. 47. Nor was it Rome, but Antioch, in
which the Disciples were first call'd Christians,
Act. 11. 26. At Antioch therefore there
was a Church, before St. Peter went thence to
Rome. Nay 'tis expresly affirm'd by Gildas,
an Author very much revered by the Romanists
themselves, that Christianity was in Britain
in the latter time of Tiberius Cæsar; some
while after whose death, 'tis known that
St. Peter remain'd in Jewry. So that Rome
which pretends to be a Mother, can be no more
at the best then a Sister-Church, and not the eldest
Sister neither.
Neglecting therefore the pretended Universality
of the Roman that is to say, of a particular
Church; let us compare her Innovations
with what we find from the Beginning.
For this I take to be the fittest and the most profitable
Use, that we can make of the subject we
have in hand.
And first, consider we the Supremacy or
universall Pastorship of her Popes: which is indeed
a very old, and somewhat a prosperous
usurpation; an Usurpation which took its rise
from more then a thousand years ago. But
then, besides that it was sold by the Emperour
Phocas, at once an Heretick and a Regicide,
the Devillish Murderer of Mauritius,
who was the NoValue, the Royall Image or
Type of our late Royall Martyr of Sacred Memory;
I say, besides that it was sold by the
most execrable Phocas, that is to say, by the
greatest Villain in the world, excepting Cromwell
and Pontius Pilate; and besides that it was
sold to ambitious Boniface the Third, whose
vile compliance with that Phocas was the bribe
or price with which he bought it: and besides
that it was done, not out of reverence to the
Pope, but in displeasure to Cyriacus of Constantinople,
who from John his Predecessor
usurpt the Title of Vniversall before
any Pope had pretended to it: I say, besides, or
without all this, it is sufficient for us to say,
what our Saviour here said to the ancient Pharisees,
That from the beginning it was not so. For
looking back to the Beginning, we find The
Wall of God's City had Twelve Foundations, and in
them were the names of the Twelve Apostles of the
Lamb. Rev. 21. 14 Paul was equal at least
to Peter, when he withstood him to the face, and
rebuked him in publick for his Dissimulation.
Gal.2.11, 12, 13, 14 Nay St. Peter himself, as
well as James and John, who were his Peers,
although he seemed to be a Pillar, yet perceiving the
Grace that was given to Paul, gave to Barnabas
and Paul the right hand of Fellowship Gal.2.9.
And reason good: For S. Peter was but one of
the many Apostles of the Jewes; whereas St. Paul
was much more, the great Apostle of the Gentiles,
to whom the Jewes were no more then
as a River to an Ocean. Saint Peter was commanded
not to fleece, but to feed the flock:
Nor was it ever once known that he did
lord it over God's heritage, which himself had
so strictly forbid to others, 1 Pet. 5. 3. Indeed
a primacy of Order may very easily be
allow'd to the See of Rome: But for any one
Bishop to affect over his Brethren a supremacy
of Power and Jurisdiction, is a most impudent
opposition both to the Letter and the Sense
of our Saviour's precept, Mark 10. 42, 43,
44. Ye know, that they who are accounted to
rule over the Gentiles, exercise lordship over them,
and their great ones exercise authority upon them.
But so shall it not be among you: But whosoever will

D

22

be great among you, shall be your Minister; and
whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be the
servant of all.
That the Apostles were every one of equal
power and authority, is the positive saying of
St. Cyprian, Pari confortio præditi & honoris
& potestatis. And St. Jerome is as expresse,
That all Bishops, in all places, whether at
Rome, or at Eugubium, at Constantinople,
or at Rhegium, are of the very same merit, as
to the quality of their Office; how much soever
they may differ in point of Revenue or of Endowments,
Nay, by the Canons of the Two first
General Councils, Nice, and Constantinople,
every Patriarch and Bishop is appointed to
be chief in his proper Diocese; as the Bishop of
Rome is the chief in His: And a strict Injunction
is laid on all, the Bishop of Rome not
excepted, that they presume not to meddle in
any Diocese but their own. And the chief
Primacies of Order were granted to Rome and
to Constantinople, not for their having been the
Sees of such or such an Apostle, but for
being the two Seats of the two great Empires.
Witness the famous Canon of the Generall Council
at Chalcedon, decreeing to the Bishop of
Constantinople an equality of Priviledges with the
Bishop of Rome; not for any other reason,
then its having the good hap to be one of the
two Imperial Cities. Nay, no longer ago before
Boniface the Third, who was the first Bishop
of Rome that usurpt the Title of Universal,
I say, no longer before Him then his next
immediate Predecessor Pope Gregory the Great,
for I reckon Sabinian was but a Cypher,
the horrible Pride of succeeding Popes was
stigmariz'd by a Prolepsis; by way not of
Prophecy, but of Anticipation. For Gregory
writing to Mauritius the then reigning Emperour
and that in very many Epistles,
touching the name of Universal, which the
Bishop of Constantinople had vainly taken unto
himself, calls it a wicked and profane and blasphemous
Title; a Title importing, that the times
of Antichrist were at hand; little thinking that

D 2

Pope Boniface would presently after his decease
usurp the same, and prove the Pope to
be Antichrist by the Confession of a Pope. He
farther disputed against the Title by an Argument
leading ad absurdum; That if any one
Bishop were Universal, there would by consequence
be a failing of the Universal Church,
upon the failing of such a Bishop. An Argument,
ad homines, not easily to be answer'd,
whatsoever Infirmity it may labour with in
it selfe. And such an Argument is That, which
we bring against the Pope's pretended Headship.
For if the Pope is the Head of the Catholick
Church, then the Catholick Church must
be the Body of the Pope; because the Head and
the Body are the Relative and Correlative; and
being such, they are convertible in obliqun: And
then it follows unavoidably, That when
there is no Pope at all, which is very often,
the Catholick Church hath then no Head; and
when there are many Popes at once, which
hath been sometimes the case, then the Catholick
Church must have at once many Heads;
and when the Pope is Heretical, as by the
confession of the Papists he now and then is,
the Catholick Church hath such a Head as makes
her deserve to be beheaded. That Popes have
been Hereticks and Heathens too, not only by
denying the Godhead of the Son, and by lifting
him up above the other two Persons, but even
by sacrificing to Idols, and a totall Apostacy from
the Faith, is a thing so clear in the writings
of Platma and Onuphrius, that 'tis
the Confession of the most zealous and
partial Asserters of their Supremacy. I know
that Stella, and those of the Spanish Inqusition,
do at once confesse this, and yet adhere
to their Position, That with his
Colledge of Cardinals the Pope cannot erre,
and is the Head of the Church. But St. Hilary of
Poictiers was so offended at Pope Liberius his
espousing the Arian Heresie, that he affirm'd
the true Church to have been then onely in
France. Ex eo inter nos tantum Communio Dominica
continetur. So ill success have they met
withal, who have been Flatterers of the Pope
or the Court of Rome.
To conclude this first Instance in the fewest
words that I can use: Whosoever shall read
at large what I have time onely to hint the
many Liberties and Exemptions of the Gallican
Church, and the published Confessions of Popish
writers, for more then a thousand years together,
touching the Papal Usurpations, and
Right of Kings, put together by Goldastus in
three great Volumes; he will not be able to
deny, let his present perswasion be what it
will, that the Supremacy of the Pope is but a
Prosperous Vsurpation, and hath this lying against
it, that 'twas not so from the beginning.
Secondly 'Tis true that for severall Ages,
the Church of Rome hath pretended to be infallible;
as well incapable of error, as not erroneous.
But from the beginning it was not so. For, besides
that Infallibility is one of God's peculiar
and incommunicable Attributes, where there is
not Omniscience, there must be Ignorance in part;
and where Ignorance is, there may be Error.
That Heresie is Error in point of Faith, and that
Novatianism is Heresie, all sides agree: And 'tis
agreed by the Champions of the Papacy it selfe,
such as Baronius, Pamelius, and Petavius,
that Rome it self was the Nest in which
Novatianism was batcht; and not onely so, but
that there it continued from Cornelius to Cælestine,
which wants not much of two hundred
years. To passe by the Heresies of the Donatists
and the Arians, which strangely
prosper'd for a time, and spread themselves
over the world, the former over the West,
the later over the East, and as far as the Breast
of the Pope himself; one would have thought
that the Tenet of Infallibility upon Earth had
been sufficiently prevented by the Heresiese, of
the Chiliasts, wherewith the Primitive
Church her self I mean the very Fathers of
the Primitive Church, for the two first Centuries
after Christ, was not onely deceiv'd
by Papias, who was Disciple of St. John,
but for ought I yet learn without the
least Contradiction afforded to it. Nay the
whole Church of God in the opinion of St. Austin
and Pope Innocent the third, and for six hundred
years together, if Maldonate the Jesuit
may be believ'd thought the Sacrament of Eucharist
to have been necessary to Infants, as well
as to men of the ripest Age: and yet as Maldonate
confesseth at the very same time, it was so
plain and so grosse and Error, that notwithstanding
St. Austin did endeavour to confute the Pelagians
by it, as by a Doctrin of Faith, and of
the whole Church of God; yet the Council of
Trent was of a contrary mind, and did accordingly
in a Canon declare against it.

3. Pass we on to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation,
which if its Age may be measur'd
by the very first date of its Definition, may
be allow'd to be as old as the Lateran Council,
a Council held under Pope Innocent the
Third; since whom are somewhat more
then 400 years: But from the beginning it was
not so. For besides that our Saviour, just
as soon as he had said, This is my Blood, explain'd
himself in the same Breath, by calling
it expressly the fruit of the Vine, and such as He
would drink new in the Kingdom of God, Mat. 26.
29. Mark 14. 15. there needs no more to
make the Romanists even asham'd of that Doctrine,
then the Concession of Aquinas, and Bellarmine's
Inference thereupon. Aquinas so argues,
as to imply it is Impossible, and imports
a Contradiction, for one body to be locally in
more places then one, and in all at once. But
Bellarmine at this is so very angry, that
in a kind of Revenge upon Aquinas, though
held to be the Angelical Doctor, he needs will
infer 'tis as Impossible, and equally implies a
Contradiction, for any one body at once to be
so much as Sacramentally in more Places then
one. And therefore it cannot now be wonder'd
concerning Transubstantiation, if so long
ago as in the time of Pope Nicolas the Second,
either the Novelty was not forg'd and hammer'd
out into the shape in which we find it, or not
at all understood by the Pope Himself. For one
of the two is very clear by the famous Submission
of Berengarius, wherewith he satisfied
the Synod then held at Rome, and in which
were 113. Bishops, though not at all unto a
Trans, but rather a Consubstantiation. Which
divers Romanists themselves have not been
able not to Censure, though it was pen'd by a
Cardinal, and approved of by a Council, and
very glibly swallow'd down by the Pope himself.

4. 'Tis very true that their withholding the
Cup of blessing in the Lord's Supper from the secular
part of their Communicants, hath been in
practice little less then 400 years. But from the
beginning it was not so. For in our Saviour's Institution
we find it intended for every Guest.
NoValue is the word, Drink ye all of this Cup.
Mat. 26. 27. And S. Paul to the Corinthians
consisting most of Lay-men speaks as well of
their drinking the mystical blood, as of their cating
the Body of Christ. 1 Cor. 11. 26, 27, 28, 29. Nay
'tis confest by learned Vasquez as well as by

E

Cassander, and Aquinas Himself, to be a Truth
undeniable, That the giving of both Elements in the
Roman Church it self, until the time of Aquinas,
did still continue to be in use.
5. The Church of Rome for several Ages
hath restrain'd the Holy Scriptures from the
perusal of the People. But from the beginning
it was not so. For Hebrew to the Jews was
the Mother-Tongue, and in that 'twas read
weekly before the People. It pleased God
the New Testament should be first writen in
Greek, because a Tongue the most known to
the Eastern world. And to the end that this
Candle might not be hid under a Bushel, it was
translated by St. Jerome into the Dalmatick
Tongue, by Bishop Vulphilas into the Gothick,
by St. Chrysostom into Armenian, by
Athelstan into Saxon, by Methodius into Sclavonian,
by Jacobus de Voragine into Italian,
by Bede and Wiclef into English. And not
to speake of the Syriack, Æthiopick, Arabick,
Persian, and Chaldee Versions, which were all
for the use of the common people of those Countries,
the Vulgar Latine was then the Vulgar
Language of the Italians, when the Old and New
Testament were turn'd into it.
6. The publique Prayers of the Romanists
have been a very long time in an unknown
Tongue, I mean unknown to the common People,
even as long as from the times of Pope Gregory
the Great. But from the beginning it was not so.
For 'tis as scandalously opposite to the plain
sense of Scripture, as if it were done in a meer
despight to the 14th chapter of the first Epistle to
the corinthians, especially from the 13. to the 17.
ver. Not to speak of what is said by the Primitive
Writers: Aquinas and Lyra do both confess
upon the place, That the common Service of
the Church in the Primitive times, was in the
common language too. And as the Christians of
Dalmatia, Habassia, Armenia, Muscovia, Sclavonia,
Russia, and all the Reformed parts of
Christendom, have the Service of God in
their vulgar Tongues, so hath it been in divers
Places by Approbation first had from the Pope
himself.

7. Another Instance may be given in
their Prohibiting of Marriage to men in Orders,
which is deriv'd by some from the third century
after christ; by others from the eighth; and

E 2

in the rigour that now it is, from Pope Gregory
the Seventh. But from the beginning it was not so.
For Priests were permitted to have wives, both
in the Old and New Testament; as Maximilian
the Second did rightly urge against the Pope:
And the blessed Apostles many of them were
married men: for so I gather from Eusebius out
of Clemens Alexandrinus: and from the Letter
of Maximilian, who did not want the Advice
of the learnedst persons in all his Empire; and
from 1 Cor. 9. 5. where St Paul asserts his liberty
to carry a Wife along with him, as well as
Gephas. And 'tis the Doctrine of that Apostle,
that a Bishop may be an Husband, although he
may not be the Husband of more then one Wife.
1 Tim. 3. 2. Tit. 1. 6. Besides, the Marriage of the
Clergy was asserted by Paphnutius in the Council
at Nice; and even by one of those Canons
which the Romanists themselves do still avow
for Apostolical. And the forbidding men to marry
with Satuminus, and the Gnosticks, is worthicall'd
by God's Apostle, The Doctrine of Devils.
1 Tim. 4. 1. 3.
8. I shall conclude with that Instance
to which our Saviour in my Text does
more peculiarly allude; I mean the Liberty
of Divorce betwixt Man and Wife, for many
more Causes then the Cause of Fornication. For
so I find it is decreed by the Church of Rome,
with an Anathema to all that shall contradict
it. But from the Beginning it was not so. For 'tis
as opposite to the will of our Blessed Saviour
revealed to us without a Parable, in the next
verse after my Text as if they meant nothing
more, then the opening of a way to rebel against
him. For besides that in the Canon of
the Council at Trent, a Divorce quoad
ob multas Causas was decreed to be just in
the Church of Rome, although our Lord had
twice confin'd it to the Sole Cause of Fornication,
Matth. 5. 32. & 19. 9. And besides
that the word Totun was constantly reteined.
in four Editions, particularly in That, which
had the care and command of Pope Paul the
Fifth, Let it be granted that the council did
mean no more, then a meer Sequestration from
Bed and Board, to endure for a certain or uncertain
time; and not an absolute Dissolution of
the Conjugal Knot; yet in the Judgment of
chemnitius, yea and of Maldonat Himself,
who was as learned a Jesuite as that Society
ever had, it would be opposite even so to
the Law of Christ. For he who putteth away his
Wife for any Cause whatsoever, besides the Cause
of Fornication, commits Adultery saith the Jesuit
even for this very reason, because he
makes Her commit it, whom he unduly putteth away.
Nay, Chemnitius saith farther; That the
Papal Separation from Bed and Board, is many
ways a Dissolution of the conjugal Tye. Nor does
he content himself to say, or affirm it only,
but by a confluence of Scriptures does make it
good, That against the Command of our
blessed Saviour in the verse but one before
my Text, That which God hath joyned together,
the men of Rome do put asunder.

By these and many more Corruptions in
point of Practice and Doctrine too, which
were no more then Deviations from what had
been from the Beginning, and which the
learned'st Sons of the Church of Rome have
been forced to confess in their publick writings;
the awakened part of the Christian world were
compell'd to look out for a Reformation. That
there was in the See of Rome the most abominable
Practice to be imagin'd, we have the
liberal Confession of zealous Stapleton himself;
and of those that have publisht their Penitentials.
We have the published Complaints of
Armachanus, and Grostead, and Nicolas de Clemangis,
John of Hus, and Jerome of Prague,
Chancellor Gerson, and Erasmus, and the Archbishop
of Spalato. Ludovicus Vives, and Cassander,
who are known to have died in the same
Communion, did yet impartially complain of some
Corruptions. Vives of their Feasts at the
Oratories of Martyrs, as being too much of kin
unto the Gentiles Parentalia, which in the
judgment of Tertullian made up a species of
Idolatry. And Cassander confesses plainly,
that the Peoples Adoration paid to Images and
Statues, was equal to the worst of the ancient
Heathen. So the buying and selling of Papal
Indulgences and Pardons 'tis a little thing to
say of Preferments too was both confest and
inveigh'd against by Popish Bishops in Thuanus.

Now if with all their Corruptions in point of
Practice, which alone cannot justifie a People's
Separation from any Church, though the Cathari
and the Donatists were heretofore of that
opinion, we compare their Corruptions of
Doctrine too, and that in matter of Faith, as
hath been shewed, Corruptions intrenching
on Fundamentals; it will appear that That door
which was open'd by us in our first Reformers,
was not at all to introduce, but to let out Schism.
For the schism must needs be Theirs who give
the Cause of the Separation, not Theirs who
do but separate when Cause is given. Else S. Paul
had been to blame, in that he said to his Corinthians,
Come ye out from among them, and be
ye separate. 2 Cor. 6. 17. The actuall Departure
indeed was Ours, but Theirs the causal;
as our immortal Arch-Bishop does fitly
word it. we left them indeed when they
thrust us out; as they cannot but go whom
the Devil drives; But in propriety of speech,
we left their Errors, rather then Them. Or if
a Secession was made from them, 'twas in the
very same measure that they had made one
from Christ. Whereas they, by their Hostilities
and their Excommunications, departed properly
from us, not from any Errors detected in us.
And the wo is to them by whom the offence cometh,
Matth. 18. 7. not to them to whom 'tis
given. If when England was in a Flame by
Fire sent out of Italy, we did not abstein from
the quenching of it, until water might be drawn
from the River Tiber; it was because our own
Ocean, could not only do it sooner, but better
too; that is to say without a Figure,
It did appear by the Concession of the most
learned Popish Writers, that particular Nations
had still a power to purge themselves from
their corruptions, as well in the Church, as in
the State, without leave had from the See of
Rome; and that 'twas commonly put in
practice above a thousand years since. It did
appear that the Kings of England at least as
much as those of Sicily, were ever held to be
NoValue and that by the Romanists themselves;
until by gaining from Henry the First, the
Investiture of Bishops; from Henry the Second,
an Exemption of the Clergy from Secular Courts,
and from easie King John, an unworthy Submission
to forreign Power; the Popes became
strong enough to call their strength the Law of
Justice. And yet their Incroachments were still
oppos'd, by the most pious and the most learned
in every Age. Concerning which it were

F

easie to give a satisfactory account, if it were
comely for a Sermon to exceed the limits of an
hour. In a word, it did appear from the
Code and Novels of Justinian, from the
NoValue set out by the Emperour Zeno, from
the practice of Charles the Great, which
may be judged by the Capitulars sent abroad
in his Name, from the designs and endeavours
of two late Emperors, Ferdinand the First,
and Maximilian the Second, from all the commended
Kings of Judah, from the most pious
Christian Emperours as far as from Constantine
the Great, and from many Kings of
England in Popish times too; that the work of
Reformation belong'd especially to them in
their several Kingdoms. And this is certain;
that neither Prescription on the Pope's side, nor
Discontinuance on the Kings, could add a Right
unto the one, or any way lessen it in the other.
For it implies a contradiction, that what is
wrong should grow right, by being prosperous
for a longer or shorter season.

Had the Pope been contented with his
Primacy of Order, and not ambitiously affected
a Supremacy of Power, and over all other
Churches besides his own; we never had cast
off a Yoke which had never been put upon our
Necks: And so 'tis plain that the Usurper did
make the Schism. If Sacrilege anywhere, or
Rebellion, did help reform Superstition; That
was the Fault of the Reformers, not at all of
the Reformation; nor of all Reformers neither.
For the most that was done by some, was to
write after the Copy which had been set them
in my Text, by the Blessed Reformer of all
the World; which was so to reform, as not to
innovate, and to accommodate their Religion
to what they found in the Beginning.
Nay, if I may speak an Important Truth,
which being unpassionately consider'd, and
universally laid to heart, might possibly
tend to the Peace of Christendom; seeing it
was not so much the Church as the Court of
Rome, which proudly trod upon Crowns and
Scepters, and made Decrees with a non obstante
to Apostolical Constitutions, or whatsoever
had been enacted by any Authority whatsoever,
the Commandments of Christ being not excepted;

F 2

we originally departed with higher Degrees
of Indignation, from the Insolent Court, then
Church of Rome. Nor protested we so much
against the Church, though against the
Church too, as against the Cruel Edict first
made at Worms, and after cruelly reinforced
at Spire and Ratisbone, for the confirming of
those Corruptions from which the Church
was to be cleans'd. To the former we declar'd
a Vatinian Hatred; but to the latter of the
two, we have the Charity to wish for a Reconcilement.
That we who differ upon the way
in which we are walking towards Jerusalem,
may so look back on the Beginning from
whence at first we set out, and from which
our Accusers have foulely swerv'd, as to agree
in our Arrival at the same Journey's end.

But God forbid that our Love to the Peace
without, should ever tempt us to a loss of the
Peace within us. God forbid we should return
with the Dog to his vomit, or with the Sow in the
Hebrew Proverb which is cited by S. Peter
in his Epistle, to her wallowing in the mire.
When I wish for a Reconcilement, I do not
mean by our Compliance with any the least of
their Defilements, but by their Harmony with us
in our being Clean.
On this Condition and Supposal; Our
Church is open to receive the bitterest Enemies
of our Church. Our Arms are open to embrace
them, with Love, and Honour. Our Hearts
and Souls are wide open in servent Prayers and
Supplications to the God of Purity and of Peace,
that in his own good time he will bind up
the Breaches, and wipe off the stains, and raise
up the lapsed Reputation, of his divided, defiled,
disgraced Spouse; And all for the Glory, as well
as Merits, of the ever blessed Bridegroom of all
our Souls,
To whom, with the Father, in the Unity of
the Spirit, be ascribed by us, and by all the
World.
Blessing, and Glory, and Honour, and Power,
and Wisdom, and Thanksgiving, from this time
forwards for evermore.

FINIS.