CERTAIN QUERIES UPON Dr. PIERCES SERMON At Whitehall Feb. 1.  
LONDON, Printed in the Year 1663.   

CERTAIN QUERIES UPON Dr. PIERCES SERMON At Whitehall. Feb. 1.  
Query 1. 
 WHether it be seasonable at this time to exasperate the supreme Magistrate with any aggravations of dissenters opinions, when the dissenters sit down peaceably, and grant themselves erroneous; and therefore desire a toleration only for what is publicly judged an error, and not the establishment of any thing, to be publicly allowed as truth? If we the Heterodox part of this Nation were in the right, we would crave public countenance and settlement, whereas now we humbly desire only public favour and indulgence as those that are presumed to be in the wrong; and therefore it is but lost labour to spend whole Sermons to prove that we are so?  
Qu. 2. 
 To what end was this discourse directed? not to confirm his Majesty in the error of our ways? for he had declared his resolution against our doctrine before, not that I have hope to widen the breach between us: for that is not the work of a Minister of the Gospel of peace, not to instruct the people, for they can never satisfy themselver by your discourse, which leads them to fathers and other authors they do not know, to such quotations as they know not whether they are wrested or not: not to convert us who you knew should not hear you: nor when we have heard you, should we with freedom offer ourselves against what you say, which must be this since we are converted?  
Qu. 3. 
 But supposing, your discourse, seasonable and useful, what do you mean by that which was from the beginning? do you mean primitive examples, or primitive rules? if you mean primitive examples, they are not a rule of Reformation, because we are not to do as men have done, but as men ought to do? If you mean primitive rules, you mean either the Scripture, or something added to it, not any thing added to it: for you say Cursed is he that addeth any thing to it, or taketh away any thing from it? and if you mean the Scripture itself, the Query is, Wrether it be a rule of reformation, as some men understand it, or as all men do: not as all men do, for then either we should have no reformation, all men never agreeing to the rule of it: or we must have as many reformations as there are opinions in the world; and as you reform beyond us, according to your sense of Scripture, so the Presbyterian reforms beyond you in his sense of it, and the Fanatic beyond him according to his sense, and primitive rule of Reformation? If as some men do understand the Scripture it be a rule of Reformation, then either as you do, or as we do? If you say as you do, you are partial in yourselves, and you allow yourselves what you with so much bitterness deny us to be Lords over men's faith, to be judges of controversies? If as we do, than you in your whole discourse have beaten the air, you have prevailed in vain, and they have heard in vain.  
Qu. 4. 
 Whether when you have earnestly contended against the novelties of the Church of Rome, you have contended, as you say, for that which was from the beginning, seeing you contended only for the old Protestant way? And that besides the Church of Rome, the Eastern Churches claim a greater antiquity than yours; and if Popery were down, there are a world of Sects and ways that desire no more than to try with you out of the Scripture, and that which was from the beginning, the whole throng of non-conformists cry, To the Law and to the Testimony, i. e. Let us worship God according to the Scripture, Let us serve God in spirit and in truth, as he was served in the beginning, you teach for doctrines the traditions of men, making the Commandments of God of none effect. And you know who it was that said, the Scotch way comes nearest the primitive way than either yours (meaning the Catholic, and speaking to a Catholic Gentleman) or ours, meaning the old Protestant, and indeed.  
Qu. 5. 
 What pains you put yourselves upon, when you say we must reduce all things to what they were in the beginning? where do you find (saith the Fanatic) Lordbishops in the beginning? where were the Bishop's Courts in the beginning? where was Infant Baptism in the beginning? where was your Sunday a Sabbath in the beginning? you use Cross, Surplice, Copes, Altars, Organs, Church-music, but in the beginning it was not so? you impose upon tender consciences, say they? you undo poor men for things in themselves indifferent: you hinder men to preach the Gospel, necessary to salvation, for things in themselves not necessary to salvation, in the beginning it was not so: you sing your prayers, you use vain repetitions, you pray by book they say, in the beginning it was not so: you, they say, have rich Bishoprics, Deaneries, Prebendaries, Sinecures, Pluralities (as you yourself Dr. Benit are Rector of Brington, Precedent of Magdalen College in Oxford, Prebend of Canterbury, Canon of York, Chaplain to his Majesty) in the beginning it was not so: you have Lay chancellor's, Officials, Surrogates, Faculty-men, promoters, and a whole train (as they call them) of Popish officers, they tell you in the beginning it was not so: you preach in Gowns, you pray and preach by the hourglass, you meet in Steeple-houses, you are called Masters, you preach for hire, in the beginning (saith another sort) it was not so: the Question is then whether by examining our way by what there was in the beginning? you have not taught others to examine yours so too, and to cast off the authority of your way for a new reformation, as you have cast off the authority of ours for an old one, and whether you will not as little bear the rest of the Scripture, and the primitive times, in the Presbyterian sense of them, as you think we can bear the rest of them in your sense of them?  
Qu. 6. 
 Why should the Disciplinarians, i. e. the Presbyterians, deny themselves from Aerius, as you say p. 7. who only said, that a Bishop is no more a Minister than any other Minister, rather than from St. Peter, who 1 Pet. 5.12. saith, he was no more though an Apostle, than an ordinary Presbyter. The Presbyters that are among you I exhort, who also am a Presbyter, Feed the flock of God which is among you, performing the office of Bishops, or from Clemens Romanus, who saith Presbyters and Bishops are one: why should the reprobatorious derive themselves from Simon Magus, who believed no eternal way to which men might be reprobated, or the Manicheer, who only taught fate in things of this world, either than from the Apostle Paul, who writes of God thus, that before the children had done either good or evil, he says, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I ●ated. He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Why should the Solifidians and Antinomians derive themselves from Eunomius, who only said, That the Law saves us not, but faith; or from misunderstanding, the Scripture, which saith, We are not saved by the works of the law, but by faith. And the Anabaptists and Socinians look not upon Agrippinus and Subellus, who thought no such thing; however you mistake them in your cursory, and light way of reading and writing, but they all look as you advise them upon the Scripture, which (according to the Liberty you take yourselves and all on them) they understand every one as he pleaseth: you say you must ask every one how he reads in the beginning; and the Anabaptists saith he reads Repent, believe (which he saith a child cannot do) and be Baptised: The Socinian reads, The Father is higher than I: The Millonary reads, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.  
Quer. 7. 
 And why should the Papists derive their infallibility from the Gnostics, who only said, that every one may know all that is required to save him, rather than from the Scripture, which saith, to Peter thy faith shall not fail; which speaks of full assurance of faith; of the impossibility of deceiving the Elect; of the Church being the pillar and ground of the truth, against which the gates of bell shall not prevail. Why must the Romanists have their Purgatory from Tertullian, or Montanus, or the Heathens, (though truth is never the worse for being among them, for their errors and corruptions as you say the Papists were blinded with many doctrines most sound and Orthodox) rather then from the beginning, when it is written that some shall be saved, yet so as by fire; that Christ preached to the spirits in prison: why should you only upon the Emperor Maximilian the second's words, who was forced by Prorestants to write that Letter in Thuanus, said that Priest's marriage was never forbidden until Calvin's time: when S. Paul adviseth them not to marry, and that they that go a warfare do not entangle themselves with the affairs of this life: and our Saviour saith that in the Kingdom, or under the Gospel; as your beloved Hammond and Grotius explains it, you shall be as the Angels, who neither marry, nor are given in marriage; and you know the Priests are called the Angels of the Churches, & they are the Virgins that follow the Lamb: why should quote we Scotus that transubstantiation was not a truth before the Lateran Council, whereas he saith only forecast till then, whereas indeed, it was a truth since Christ said This is my Body, this is my Blood; and the Apostle saith he that eats or drinks it unworthily, eats or drinks his own damnation: no man is damned for eating a piece of bread, or drinking a drop of wine sure: therefore the bread and wine is the body and blood of Christ. Why should you say that the half Communion was only since Tho. Aquinas: when you do not find in the beginning any whole Communion? did Christ give the wine to any but Disciples or Ministers? did the Apostle in the 11. of the Corinthians say any more but that the Lord did suffer death, not the Scripture said that the Christians went from house to house only breaking of bread: And your Vasquez saith no more but that it was used in the Latin Church, he doth not say it was allowed; and indeed here once for all, I must needs say, that though you tell the King and the world, that your quotations are the usefulest part of your performance, as being the warrant and evidence of all the rest, yet when we examine them they are either misquoted, or impertinently used, was not the Jewish Liturgy in the Hebrew for all Nations, Tongues and Languages for Jews and Proselytes? were not the primitive Liturgies in Greek and Latin? and is Public Prayer before the people in an unknown tongue only preached, as for a form Gregory the Great: as bad manners occasioned Pope Gregory's decree, which established that by an Ecclesiastical Law, which was already established by primitive practice. If Invocation of Saints, when not heard of in S. Austin's days, it was heard of in S. Clement's days, and Ignatius': if those Epistles and genuine, the universal Supremacy of the Pope was from S. Peter by Right, though it pleased God he could not get his right until Boniface the third's time, who gave him that actually, which he had rightfully before; so that touching these errors as you call them, we may say from the beginning it was so.  
Qu. 8. 
 Whether God from the beginning of the world before, under, or after the Law, allowed Liberty for variety of Constitution, in several Countries professing one Religion? were not all the world under one way before Christ: is not all the world under one Faith, one Baptism, etc. one way since Christ; be of one accord, of one mind: what is a a particular Church? is not a particular Congregation under one Pastor meeting in the same place; if so, why do not you suffer the several congregations in England to enjoy their own Liberty in indifferent things? is it a Nation? where do you read that every Nation should have it's own way of serving God, or do you not rather read that they should be all: of one heart, and of one way.  
Qu. 9 
 In dutiful conformity to which example say you? the reformers here in England, etc. Were the Reformers here in England members of the Roman Church, or were they not? if they were not, they were of no Church, there being none then visible, and so were no Christians, and so not fit to reform a Christian Church: if they were members of the Roman Church, could they the members reform the Church? if they could, why may not other members of your Church which desire a further reformation, reform yours.  
Qu. 10. 
 Whether the Council of Trent may not as well add several points to be delivered, upon pain of damnation▪ as well as you add several things to be done upon pain of damnation: especially when as you say the things themselves bind not unto damnation, but the power that enjoins them: so those articles require not a belief upon pain of damnation, but the Church that establisheth them.  
Qu. 11. 
 But having recourse to the Scriptures, and the primitive Fathers of the Church, etc. where did they find the Scripture and the Primitive Fathers? did they not find them in the Church? and must they run from the Church to go to the Fathers and Scriptures? you say that as the Papists separate from the Primitive Christians, so the Reformers did from them: what Christians did the Papists separate from, when there were no Christians but in the Church of Rome? all the Religion that was then in the world was in the Church of Rome, all Christians holding Communion with it; and therefore as Rome could not make a schism unless from itself: so the need hath made schism from Rome.  
Qu. 12. 
 Whether the Protestants, leaving the Church of Rome, was not the leaving of the Scripture the Primitive Church, and the four general Councils which are all owned in Rome▪  
Qu. 13. 
 Whether though the Gospel was preached as Jerusalem (as you say) to the Jew, yet Rome may not be the mother Church of the Gentiles▪  
Qu. 14. 
 Whether Gildos' Report of Christianity in Britain, the later-time of Tiberius, do not make the British Church subject to the See of Rome, especially seeing Gildoes in the same Epistle, saith that Christianity was brought hither by S. Peter?