A

DISSUASIVE FROM POPERY

TO THE

PEOPLE OF IRELAND.

THE INTRODUCTION.

THE questions of difference between our churches and the

church of Rome have been so often disputed, and the evidences on both sides so often produced, that to those who are strangers to the present constitution of affairs, it may seem very unnecessary to say them over again: and yet it will seem almost impossible to produce any new matter; or if we could, it will not be probable, that what can be newly alleged can prevail more than all that which already hath been so often urged in these questions. But we are not deterred from doing our duty by any such considerations: as knowing, that the same medicaments are with success applied to a returning or an abiding ulcer; and the preachers of God's word must for ever be ready to put the people in mind of such things, which they already have heard, and by the same scriptures and the same reasons endeavour to destroy their sin, or prevent their danger; and by the same word of God to extirpate those errors, which have had opportunity in the time of our late disorders to spring up and grow stronger, not when the keepers of the field slept, but when they were wounded, and their hands cut off, and their mouths stopped. lest they should continue or proceed to do the work of God thoroughly.

A little warm sun, and some indulgent showers of a softer rain, have made many weeds of erroneous doctrine to take root greatly, and to spread themselves widely: and the bigots of the Roman church, by their late importune boldness and indiscreet

B

frowardness in making proselytes, have but too manifestly declared to all the world, that if they were rerum potiti, masters of our affairs, they would suffer nothing to grow but their own colocynths and gourds. And although the natural remedy for this were to take away that impunity, upon the account of which alone they do increase, yet because we shall never be authors of such counsels, but confidently rely upon God, the holy scriptures, right reason, and the most venerable and prime antiquity, which are the proper defensatives of truth for its support and maintenance; yet we must not conceal from the people committed to our charges, the great evils to which they are tempted by the Roman emissaries, that while the king and the parliament take care to secure all the public interests by instruments of their own, we also may, by the word of our proper ministry, endeavour to stop the progression of such errors, which we know to be destructive of Christian religion, and consequently dangerous to the interest of souls.

In this procedure, although we shall say some things which have not been always placed before their eyes, and others we shall represent with a fittingness to their present necessities, and all with charity too, and zeal for their souls; yet if we were to say nothing but what hath been often said already, we are still doing the work of God, and repeating his voice, and by the same remedies curing the same diseases; and we only wait for the blessing of God prospering that importunity which is our duty; according to the advice of Solomon, In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike gooda.

a Eccles. xi. 6.

CHAPTER I.

The doctrine of the Roman church in the controverted articles is neither catholic, apostolic, nor primitive.

SECTION I.

Scripture the foundation of our faith, which was preserved entire in the first ages of the church. Roman doctrines unheard of then, being innovations. They pretend a power to make new articles of faith. Their expurgatory indices shew that they dare not trust the Fathers till they be purged. Instances of their dealing with their writings.

Ir was the challenge of St. Augustine to the Donatists, who (as the church of Rome does at this day) inclosed the Catholic church within their own circuits, "Ye say that Christ is heir of no lands, but where Donatus is coheir. Read this to us out of the Law and the Prophets, out of the Psalms, out of the Gospel itself, or out of the letters of the apostles. Read it thence, and we believe it." plainly directing us to the fountains of our faith, the Old and New Testament, the words of Christ, and the words of the apostles. For nothing else can be the foundation of our faith: whatsoever came in after these, foris est, it belongs not unto Christc.

To these we also add, not as authors or finishers, but as helpers of our faith, and heirs of the doctrine apostolical, the sentiments and catholic doctrine of the church of God, in the ages next after the apostles. Not that we think them or ourselves bound to every private opinion, even of a primitive bishop and martyr; but that we all acknowledge that the whole church of God kept the faith entire, and transmitted fathfully to the afterages the whole faith, TUTòv didaxis, the form of doctrine and sound words, which was at first delivered to the saints, and was defective in nothing that belonged unto salvation; and we believe that those ages sent millions of saints to the bosom of Christ, and sealed the true faith with their lives and with their deaths, and by both gave testimony unto Jesus, and had from him the testimony of his Spirit.

b De Unit. Eccles. c. 6.

Ecclesia ex sacris et canonicis scripturis ostendenda est, quæque ex illis ostendi non potest, Ecclesia non est, S. Aug.

de Unit. Eccles. c. 4. et c. 3. Ibi quæramus Ecclesiam, ibi decernamus causam

nostram.

And this method of procedure we now choose, not only because to them that know well how to use it, to the sober and the moderate, the peaceable and the wise, it is the best, the most certain, visible and tangible, most humble and satisfactory, but also because the church of Rome does with greatest noises pretend her conformity to antiquity. Indeed the present Roman doctrines, which are in difference, were invisible and unheard of in the first and best antiquity; and with how ill success their quotations are out of the Fathers of the first three ages, every inquiring man may easily discern. But the noises therefore which they make are from the writings of the succeeding ages; where secular interest did more prevail, and the writings of the Fathers were vast and voluminous, full of controversy and ambiguous senses, fitted to their own times and questions, full of proper opinions, and such variety of sayings, that both sides eternally and inconfutably shall bring sayings for themselves respectively. Now although, things being thus, it will be impossible for them to conclude, from the sayings of a number of Fathers, that their doctrine, which they would prove thence, was the catholic doctrine of the church; because any number that is less than all does not prove a catholic consent; yet the clear sayings of one or two of these Fathers, truly alleged by us to the contrary, will certainly prove that what many of them (suppose it) do affirm, and which but two or three as good catholics as the other do deny, was not then matter of faith or a doctrine of the church; for if it had, these had been heretics accounted, and not have remained in the communion of the church. But although for the reasonableness of the thing we have thought fit to take notice of it, yet we shall have no need to make use of it; since not only in the prime and purest antiquity we are indubitably more than conquerors, but even in the succeeding ages we have the advantage both numero, pondere, et mensura, in number, weight, and measure.

We do easily acknowledge, that to dispute these questions from the sayings of the Fathers is not the readiest way to make an end of them; but therefore we do wholly rely upon scriptures as the foundation and final resort of all our persuasions, and from thence can never be confuted; but we also admit the Fathers as admirable helps for the understanding of the scriptures, and as good testimony of the doctrine delivered from their forefathers down to them, of what the church esteemed the way

of salvation and therefore if we find any doctrine now taught, which was not placed in their way of salvation, we reject it as being no part of the Christian faith, and which ought not to be imposed upon consciences. They were wise unto salvation, and fully instructed to every good work; and therefore the faith which they professed and derived from scripture, we profess also; and in the same faith, we hope to be saved even as they. But for the new doctors, we understand them not, we know them not; our faith is the same from the beginning, and cannot become new.

But because we shall make it to appear that they do greatly innovate in all their points of controversy with us, and shew nothing but shadows instead of substances, and little images of things instead of solid arguments, we shall take from them their armour in which they trusted, and choose this sword of Goliah to combat their errors; for non est alter talis; it is not easy to find a better than the word of God, expounded by the prime and best antiquity.

The first thing therefore we are to advertise is, that the emissaries of the Roman church endeavour to persuade the good people of our dioceses from a religion that is truly primitive and apostolic, and divert them to propositions of their own, new and unheard of in the first ages of the Christian church.

For the religion of our church is therefore certainly primitive and apostolic, because it teaches us to believe the whole scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and nothing else, as matter of faith; and therefore, unless there can be new scriptures, we can have no new matters of belief, no new articles of faith. Whatsoever we cannot prove from thence, we disclaim it, as not deriving from the fountains of our Saviour. We also do believe the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene, with the additions of Constantinople, and that which is commonly called the Symbol of Saint Athanasius: and the four first general councils are so entirely admitted by us, that they, together with the plain words of scripture, are made the rule and measure of judging heresies amongst us and in pursuance of these, it is commanded by our church, that the clergy shall never teach any thing as matter of "faith religiously to be observed, but that which is agreeable to the Old and New Testament, and collected out of the same doctrine by the ancient Fathers and catholic bishops of the churchd." This was

* Lib. Can. Discip. Eccl. Angl. et Injunct. Regin. Elis. A. D. 1571. Can. de Concio

natoribus.