CHAP. XLI. Another of their juggling’s is, By working upon the people’s natural affections, and asking
CHAP. XLI. Another of their juggling's is, By working upon the people's natural affections, and asking them, Where they think all their forefathers are that died in the communion of the Roman Church?
D etect. 32. Another of their juggling's is, By working upon the people's natural affections, and asking them, Where they think all their forefathers are that died in the communion of the Roman Church?
Dare they think they are all damned? Intimating that its cruelty to say their ancestors are in Hell; and if they say they be in Heaven, then there is but one way thither, and therefore you must go the way that they went.
But a weak understanding may easily deal with this kind of Sophistry, if it be not mastered by affection. For 1. What if we grant that many of our forefathers that died Papists are in Heaven? Doth it follow that we must therefore be Papists? No: because it was not by Popery that they came to Heaven, but by Christianity. What if many recover and live that eat not only
Earth and Dirt, but Hemlock or Spear-wort, or other poisons; must I therefore eat them? Or doth it follow that there is no other way to health?
2. Our forefathers were all saved that were holy, justified persons, and no others. But among so many and great impediments as Popery cast in their way, we have great reason to fear that far fewer of them were saved, then are now among the Reformed Churches. And must I needs go that difficult way to Heaven, because that some of them get thither? Must I needs travail a way that is commonly beset with thieves, because some that go that way do scape them? This is our case.
3. If this were a good way of Reasoning, then may all the Heathens, Infidels, Mohammedans, use it, that have been educated in darkness. And indeed it is the Argument which the barbarous Heathens use, when the Gospel is preached to them; [What think you, say they, is become of our fathers? If they were saved without the Gospel, so may we.] The story of that Infidel Prince is common, that being ready to go to the water to be baptized, stepped back, and asked, Where are all my Ancestors now? And when he was told that they were in Hell, and that the Christians go to heaven, he told them then he would be no Christian, for he would go where his Ancestors are.
4. If this be good reasoning, then we may use it much more then you. For we would ask you, where be all our fore fathers that are dead since the Reformation? And where be all those that died between the Resurrection of Christ and the appearing of Popery, or the prevailing of it in the world? And where be all that die in the Eastern and Southern Churches, that are no subjects of the Pope of Rome? Have we not as little reason to think that all these millions of men are damned, as to think so of our Popish Ancestors.
5. Why should we be more foolish for our souls then for our bodies? I would not be poor because my Ancestors were so: Nor would I have the Stone or Gout because my Ancestors had them: Nor will I say that they are
no diseases, for fear of dishonoring my Ancestors that had them. And why then should I willfully lick up any Popish errors, because my Ancestors by the disadvantage of the times and of their education were cast upon them.
6. It is not our forefathers but God that we must follow: It is he, and not they, that is the Lord of our faith and of our souls. It will not excuse us in judgment for disobeying God, to say that our forefathers led us the way;
Nor will it ease us in Hell to suffer with our forefathers. Christ tells us, Luk.
16, of a Rich man that in Hell would have had his brethren warned, lest they should follow him: But these men would have us to follow our forefathers, even in their sin against God. Whereas the Scriptures constantly make it an aggravation of a people's sin, when they follow their fathers in it, and take not warning by their falls. The Jewish Christians were redeemed from the vain conversation, received by Tradition from their fathers, 1 Pet. 1:18.
Stephen tells the Jews, Act. 7:51,52. [As your Fathers did, so do yet which of the Prophets have not your Fathers persecuted?] Christ condemneth the Jews for allowing the deeds of their fathers, Luk. 11:47,48; Matth. 23:32.
Nay God asketh wicked men where their fathers are, with a clean contrary meaning to this question of the Papists, [Zach. 1:4,5,6. Turn unto me saith the Lord of Hosts be not as your fathers unto whom the former Prophets have cried, Turn—your fathers, where are they, and the Prophets, do they live forever?] Ezek. 20:18,27,30. [I said unto their children,—walk ye not in the Statutes of your Fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their Idols: I am the Lord your God, walk in my Statutes—
30. Say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? And commit ye whoredom after their abominations? Jer. 44:9. [Have ye forgotten the wickedness of your fathers
—They are not humbled even to this day.] The 18th of Ezek. is almost all of
this, that the son that followeth his father in his sins, shall die, and he that takes warning and avoideth his fathers sins, shall live. A hundred more such texts there are.
7. Our forefathers might be saved that sinned in the dark, and yet we be damned if we will follow them in the Light, or at least we shall be beaten with more stripes than they, if both must perish. They had not our means, or liberty: If they had seen and heard what we have done, many of them would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Shall we sin willfully after the knowledge of the Truth, because our fathers sinned ignorantly for want of information?