2. It is also doughtily supposed, " That whatever is spoken of the church in tiie Scripture belongs to the Roman church, and that alone:" the privileges, the authority, the glory of the church, are all theirs; as the madman at Athens thought all the ships to be his that came into the liarbour. I suppose he will not contend but that, if you deny him this, all that he hath said besides is to little purpose. And I believe he cannot but take it ill that any of his readers should
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call him to an account in that which he everywhere puts out of ques- tion. But this he knew well enough that all Protestants deny, — that they grant no one privilege of the catholic church, as such, to belong- to the Roman. All that any of them will allow her, is but to be a putrid, corrupt member of it; some say cut off, dead and rotten. But yet that the catholic church and the Roman are the same must be believed, or you spoil all his market. " The church is before the gospel, gives testimony unto it; none could know it but by her autho- rity, nothing can be accepted as such but what she sets her seals unto : so that to destroy the church is to destroy the gospel " ! What then, I pray? Suppose all this, and all the rest of his assertions about the church, pp. 199, 200, etc., to be true, as some of them are most blasphemously false, yet what is all this to his purpose? "Why, this is the Roman church of which all these things are spoken." It may be the Roman church, indeed, of which much of it is spoken, even all that is sinfully derogatory to the glory of Christ and his apostles; upon whom and whose authority the church is built, and not their authority on it, Eph. ii. 19, 20. But what is truly spoken in the Scripture of the church doth no more belong to the Roman than to the least assembly of believers under heaven, wherein the essence of a true church is preserved, if it belongs unto it at all ; and yet this rude pretence and palpable artifice is the main engine, in this section, applied to the removal of men from the basis of the Scripture. The church, the church! the Roman church, the Ro- man church ! And these, forsooth, are supposed to be one and the same; and the pope to have monopolized all the privileges of the church, contrary to express statute law of the gospel. Hence he pre- tends, that if to go out from the catholic be evil, then not to come into the Roman is evil ; when, indeed, the most ready way to go out of the catholic is to go into the Roman.
3. Moreover, it is taken for granted, " That the Roman church is every way what it was when first planted." Indeed, if it were so, it would deserve as much particular respect as any church of any city in the world ; and that would be all : as it is, the case is altered. But its unalteredness being added to the former supposition of its oneli- ness and Catholicism,, it is easy to see what sweet work a witty man, as our author is, may make with this church among good company. Many and many a time have the Romanists attempted to prove these things; but, failing in their attempt, they think it now reasonable to take them for granted. The religion they now profess must be that which first entered England. " And there," saith our author, " it con- tinued in peace for a thousand years ;'' when the tnitb is, after the en- trance of their religion, — that is, the corruption of Christianity by papal usurpations, — these nations never passed one age without tumults,
90 ANIMADVERSIONS ON A TREATISE
turmoils, contentions, disorders; nor many A\dthout wars, blood, and devastations; — and those arising from the principles of their religion.
4. To this is added, " That the Bible is the pope's own book, which none can lay claim to but by and from him." This will be found to be a doubtful assertion, and it will be difficult to conclude aright con- cerning it. He that shall consider what a worthy person the pope is represented to be by our author, especially in his just dealing and mercifulness, so that " he never did any man wrong," and shall take notice how many he hath caused to be burned to death for having and using the Bible without his consent, must need suppose that it is his book ; for surely his heavenly mind would not have admitted of a provocation to such severity unless they had stolen his goods out of his possession. But, on the other side, he that shall weigh aright his vilifying and undervaluing of it, his preferring himself and church before and above it, — seeing we are all apt to set a high price upon that which is our own, — may be ready to question whether indeed he have such a property in it as is pretended. Having somewhat else to do, I shall not interpose myself in this difference, nor attempt to determine this difficulty, but leave it as I find it, free for every man to think as he seeth cause.