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CERTAIN

CATHOLIC PROPOSITIONS,

WHICH

A DEVOUT SON OF THE CHURCH

HUMBLY OFFERS TO THE SERIOUS CONSIDERATION

OF ALL

INGENUOUS CHRISTIANS,

WHERESOEVER DISPERSED ALL THE WORLD OVER.

TO ALL THEM, WHO, THROUGH THE WHole israel of GOD, FOLLOW ABSALOM WITH A SIMPLE HEART.

BE not deceived any longer, Dear Christian Souls: be ye free, that ye may be safe. There is a certain Sacred Tyranny, that miserably abuses you; and so cunningly beguiles you, that you chuse rather to err and perish. God hath given you reason; and, above that, faith: do not so far wrong yourselves, as to be made the mere slaves of another's will, and to think it the safest way to be willingly blind. Lay aside, for a while, all prejudice and superstitious side-taking; and consider seriously these few words, which my sincere love to your souls and hearty ambition of your salvation hath commanded me, as before the Awful Tribunal of Almighty God, to tender unto you.

If what I say be not so clear and manifest to every ingenuous judgment, that it shall not need to borrow further light from abroad, condemn this worthless scroll; and, in your severe doom, punish the author with the loss of an hour's labour.

But, if it shall carry sufficient evidence in itself, and shall be found so reasonable, as that to any free mind it shall not persuade but command assent; give way, for God's sake and for your soul's sake, to that powerful truth of God, which breaks forth from hea ven upon you; and, at last, acknowledge, besides a world of foul errors, the miserable insolence and cruelty of that once-famous and renowned Church, which, to use Gerson's word, will needs make Faith of Opinion, and, too impotently favouring her own passions, hath not ceased to persecute with fire and sword the dear and holy servants of God; and, at last, notwithstanding all the vain thunderbolts of a proud and lawless fury, make much of those your trulyChristian and religious brethren, who, according to the just liberty of faithful men, refuse and detest those false and upstart points of a new-devised faith.

But, if any of you, which God forbid, would still rather to be deceived, and dote upon his received errors; and, as angry curs are wont, shall bark and bay at so clear a light of truth; my soul shall, in silence and sorrow, pity that man in vain. I wis, we have had disputing enough, if not too much. Away, from henceforth, with all these paper-brabblings. God, from heaven, shall stint these strifes. Wonder, O Catholics, and ye, whom it concerns, repent.

CERTAIN

CATHOLIC PROPOSITIONS,

WHICH A

DEVOUT SON OF THE CHURCH

HUMBLY OFFERS TO THE SERIOUS CONSIDERATION OF ALL INGENUOUS
CHRISTIANS, WHERESOEVER DISPERSED ALL THE WORLD OVER.

I. EVERY true Christian is, in that very regard, properly capable of salvation; and, for matter of faith, goes on in the ready way to

heaven.

II. Whosoever, being duly admitted into the Church of God by lawful Baptism, believeth and maintaineth all the main and essential points of Christian Faith, is, for matter of belief, a true Christian.

III. The sum of the Christian Faith are those principles of Christian Religion and fundamental grounds and points of Faith, which are undoubtedly contained and laid down in the Canonical Scriptures, whether in express terms or by necessary consequence; and in the Ancient Creeds, universally received and allowed by the

whole Church of God.

IV. There cannot be, now-a-days, any new Rule of Faith.

V. As there cannot be any new Rule of Faith, so there cannot now be any New Faith. It is not, therefore, in the power of any creature under heaven to make any point to be of faith, which before was not so; or to cause any point not to be of faith, which formerly was so.

VI. He cannot be a heretic, who doth not obstinately deny something which is truly a point of Faith; or hold some point, contrary to the foresaid Articles of Christian Faith.

VII. There are and may be many theological points, which are wont to be believed and maintained, and so may lawfully be, of this or that particular Church, or the Doctors thereof, or their Fol

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lowers, as godly doctrines and probable truths, besides those other essential and main matters of Faith, without any prejudice at all of the common peace of the Church.

VIII. Howsoever it may be lawful for learned men and particular Churches, to believe and maintain those probable, or, as they may think, certain points of theological verities: yet it is not lawful for them, to impose and obtrude the said doctrines upon any Church or Person, to be believed and held as upon the necessity of salvation; or to anathematize or eject out of the Church any Person or Company of men, that thinks otherwise.

IX. Notwithstanding any such unjust Anathema denounced against any such Person or Church, whosoever holds those principles and essential points of Christian Faith, however he be in place far remote from all the Visible Churches of Christ, and neither know not or receive not those other positions of theological determination, is thoroughly capable, in such condition, of Christian Communion; and, if many such be met together under a lawful pastor, there cannot be denied unto them both the truth and title of a True Visible Church of Christ.

X. The Church of Rome is only, and at the best, a Particular Church.

XI. All Christian Churches are no other than Sisters and Daughters of that great and Universal Mother, which furnisheth both heaven and earth: of equal privilege, in respect of God and his Faith; save only, that each one is so much more honourable, as it is more pure and holy. It is not, therefore, lawful for any one of them, in regard of the businesses of faith, to take upon herself the power and command over any other; or to prescribe unto any of them, what they must necessarily believe, upon pain of dam

nation.

XII. Those issues of controversy, in regard whereof the Reformed Catholics are wont to be condemned and anathematized by the Roman Church, are far from principles of Christian Faith; neither are any other, than their own theological positions, and the institutions and devises of that particular Church *.

* I perceive some readers have unheedily and unjustly stumbled at this proposition; as if I had herein slighted the differences betwixt us and the Roman Church: from which I am so far, as that I have ever professed to hold them to be, on their parts, no less than damnable errors; and such, as, by consequence do raze the foundation. If these words have seemed to sound otherwise, it is nothing but the reader's inconsiderate mistaking; who, if he please to bend his second and more serious thoughts upon the place, will easily see that my intention is herein, only to shew how unjustly the Church of Rome doth charge us with heresy in denving their doctrine, forasmuch as those positions of theirs, which we are condemned for refusing, are far from being principles of faith, but are things of their own devising and imposing. For example, they condemn us, for rejecting the doctrine of Transubstantiation; and refusing to hold, that the substance of the bread is, by the

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