do and has the same Creed and the same Sacraments that we have And so she must be a Church But yet she is corrupt and foully stained by the many additions that have been made to her Faith to her Sacraments to her Worship to her Government and to her primitive rule of Faith and all this in virtue of an usurped Authority and vainly pretended Infallibility All these things we charge upon Rome and we think the Charge high enough and if our Authour could have distinguished betwixt Errour and Schism he might have spared all his impertinent Queries concerning Separation from her self or Separation from the Catholick Church and where that Catholick Church is to be found for all this is but trifling in an over eager pursuit of Consequences from a possible sense of a word If Rome has thus erred she may be said to have left and gone from or be separated from that first holy Catholick and Apostolick Church without the making of an open Schism or Schismatical Separation For seeing particular Churches are called Catholick as the Catholick Church in Smyrna Euseb lib. 4. cap. 15. and the Catholick Church of Alexandria upon the accompt of their continuance in the true Faith with the rest of the Church of God or from their coherence with that Church which was properly and originally called so upon which accompt Clemens Alexandrinus Stro. 7. joins those two words together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ancient and Catholick Church So far then as any Church now in being shall depart from the Doctrine of that Ancient Catholick Church and profess great and many Errours and broach new Doctrines unknown to the Primitive Churches and lay mighty stresses upon them so as to make them necessary for Communion here and to Salvation hereafter Such a Church may be said to depart or separate it self from that ancient one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church And now our Authour may have that satisfaction which he says he must have and I agree with him that his Salvation is highly concerned in it He would know where that Catholick Church from which she Rome separated remained and where she may be found I am sorry he knows it not but he may easily be taught that she was and is in Heaven There are all the glorious Company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble Army of Martyrs There are all the Servants and Saints of Jesus Christ who have lived and died in the true faith of him and thither all the faithfull Members of the true holy Catholick Church now living hope by the grace of Jesus Christ in the methods of the Gospel by keeping close to the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints in their due times to come and be received into that most happy and everlasting Communion This is my opinion and for once I will pray our Authour not to blame me for it I know he may bring against me Supreme lawfull Authority in the name of Pope John XXII who really designed and heartily indeavoured to make the contrary Doctrine to pass for an Article of Faith and if he had lived a little longer would have declared ex Cathedra that the Souls of the Saints do not come to bliss and happiness untill the general Resurrection I beseech him not to meddle with this but if he does I 'll promise to defend my Opinion from Scripture and Fathers and Councils and doubt not by my little Reason sufficiently to repell him and his Authority too But if he can think with me that the Members of the first Churches the holy Apostles and blessed Servants of our Lord are in bliss and happiness and is willing to find them and be with them He ought then to think again of the change of his Religion and of this accompt that he has given of the Motives to it for if he seriously reflects upon his own Salvation and is heartily concerned for it he will be ashamed and repent of all his rude and unseemly treatment of the Reverend Fathers of this Church It is not huffing and braving that speaks a religious Mind it is not saying In good faith Fathers my Salvation is concerned in it that speaks a pious and hearty sense of that great blessing of God He that with humility and reverence studies the mind and good pleasure of his Saviour cannot rant where he is ignorant despise his betters trample upon those whom he calls Reverend Fathers Such actions may be agreeable to a Man that has no sense of Salvation He that has thrown off one Religion and forgot to take up another He that can easily say and so good night to Christianity may doe this But a Convert to any Sect or Party of Christians or such as are willing to be reputed Christians should not doe it Because such actions speak a Man to be proud and ambitious and designing upon this World and something worse than I am willing to say I must stop onely in requital for some Texts of Scripture which p. 25. he advises us to consider I request him to reade these Rev. 2.5 Remember from whence thou art fallen and repent and doe the first works Eph. 4.14 That we henceforth be no more Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive 2 Cor. 2.17 We are not as many which corrupt the word of God but as of sincerity but as of God in the fight of God speak we in Christ Our Authour goes on p. 27. But I must not follow him in all his Impertinencies P. 27. I shall speak of Augustine the Monk afterwards And shall at present onely teach him one thing which he there says he does not understand And that he gives us in these words How you should rise a pure Church after you had been buried so many hundred years in a corrupt Church I do not easily understand Thus he says but yet certainly he may understand it for the same way that I advise him to take that he may become a good man was taken by our Predecessours and by virtue of that proceeding they ceased to be a corrupt Church and became a pure one and that was by remembring from whence they were fallen and by repentance and by reformation they saw the Errours which Rome had taught and proudly imposed they were sorry to have been so long abused they withdrew themselves from slavery and knockt off the chains and fetters that an unjust Power had laid upon them they studied and learnt their true Rites and Liberties their duties to God and to their Saviour and to their Prince and when they knew these they practised them And so they did their first works that which Christ and his Apostles taught and so became a pure Church This was then done but such an answer as this will not satisfy our Authour for he inquires in the next Paragraph by what Authority
Errour about keeping of Easter The Britains observed the Rule which they had received with their Christianity and they received that as our Authour says in the days of the Apostles The Asiaticks received the same Rule and the famous Martyr Polycarp defended it stoutly as an Apostolical Tradition a whole Council under Polycrates in the Year 197. declared it to be the Rule of St. John taught and practised by him Upon this accompt if we suppose it an Errour it can be no great one For there is no Traditional Doctrine either in Rome or any other Church which solely stands upon the credit of Tradition and has no support from Scripture that can be better evidenced to come from an Apostle and with the first Christianity than this Tradition which the Britains Scots Asiaticks Greeks alledged in very early times to have received in one and the same way For if this be so great an Errour though it be so well attested and so strongly urged to be an Apostolical Tradition what security can we have for the truth of any other Tradition whatsoever The great St. Augustine shews us in his Epistle Casulano S. August Ep. 86. that the name of St. Peter can give no more Authority to a Tradition than the name of St. John nor has any Tradition more grounds of credit because it comes to us by the way of Rome than if it came by the way of Ephesus the Eastern Church is as creditable a Conveyancer of Tradition as the Western Therefore if the Britains must be accused of any great errour for following of this Tradition the Roman Church must be highly condemned for requiring the observance of so many things by virtue of Tradition when they have not the least appearance of such Arguments as the Britains had to prove their Traditions Apostolical The Britains kept close to their first Rule never in the least varied from it The Roman Church oft changed and altered and that before this Augustine the Monk's days as the Learned Dean of St. Paul's has accurately shown in his Discourse against Mr. Cressey And when those of the Roman Communion argued against the Asiaticks and Britains they could not disprove the Tradition or shew that this practice was an Innovation but they alledged Reasons and external Arguments to shew the inconveniency of it from the mischiefs that might come by such a compliance with the Jews Thus the Tables were changed Romanists were for Reason against Tradition and so they ever will be when it is for their Interest 2. The second Errour charged upon the Britains is dissent from the Church of Rome in the administring of Baptism Now this I suppose is put in to make weight in the Accusation for though Bede has those words yet he tells not wherein their practice differ'd from the Romans nor yet wherein they were to be blamed and has not one word in all his History besides wherein he blames either the Britains or the Irish whom he calls in the language of those times Scots for any errour in the administration of Baptism He says lib. 2. cap. 4. of the Scots that they had the same ways and methods that the Britains had Bede lib. 2. cap. 4. similem vitam ac professionem egisse and there having been according to Bede several Disputes between the Romanists and the Scots in lesser matters had this been their fault this would have been charged too upon them Our Authour adds P. 31. Although in some other matters they differ'd from the Church of Rome yet Augustine promised to tolerate them provided they would rectify these which the British Bishops consented to This is the worst Passage in all our Authour's Book for it is manifestly false point-blank against Bede's words who expresly says that they would not consent and then in the manner of citing the Passage there is that shuffling and juggle that plainly shews he designed falshood Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. The words in Bede are these Si in tribus his mihi obtemperare vultis ut Pascha suo tempore celebretis ut ministerium Baptizandi quo Deo renascimur juxta morem Romanae sanctae Ecclesiae Apostolicae Ecclesiae compleatis ut genti Anglorum una nobiscum praedicetis verbum Domini caetera quae agitis quamvis moribus nostris contraria aequanimiter cuncta tolerabimus At illi nihil horum se facturos neque illum pro Archiepiscopo habituros esse respondebant There cannot be a more plain denial than this How then comes our Authour to say that they consented The truth is he seems resolved to say it true or false and therefore he leaves the last words wherein Bede declares the Britains dissent Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. P. 31. and adds to them these Cum. Britones confitentur intellexisse se veram esse viam justitiae quam praedicaret Augustinus Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. And from thence would infer that the Britains did consent But these words belong to another matter they are part of Bede's Narration of the first meeting that Augustine had with the Britains then it seems Augustine did a Miracle and the Britains had a great sense of it and did confess that Augustine's way was the right way But yet for all this stound and hasty words they immediately recollected themselves and in the next moment tell him as Bede says Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. Non se posse absque suorum consensu ac licentiâ priscis abdicare moribus That without the leave and consent of their own Clergy and Laity or a Synod which was upon it forthwith called they could not depart from their ancient Customs Thus we see that the Britains who confessed as our Authour says yet would not consent till they had the Opinion and Judgment of a Synod and when Augustine proposed his Matters to the Synod they flatly denied either to receive his Doctrine or himself as their Archbishop So then it is plainly false that the Britains consented But yet our Authour puts down that Confession first in English and after another quite different discourse he puts it down in Latine and that on purpose to prove a consent Now this must be designed to cheat and couzen some I hope he meant it for the Roman Catholicks I do not fear that any Protestant can be gulled by such a sleight But from this Discourse our Authour observes that it may be inferred that Augustine and the Britains agreed in Substantials this may be allowed if he means onely those things which are necessarily to be held by every one that is a Member of the true Catholick Apostolick Church They agreed in the same Saviour in the same Scriptures in the same Creeds and in all the Doctrine that was maintained and declared in the first four General Councils But this will not suffice for our Authour imagines that they agreed in all the Doctrines which the Church of Rome at this day indeavours to impose upon others In order to this
and will not give us the least intimation of their Dogm's wherein his schemes did agree with theirs yet I think it very probable that he might light upon some of the same thoughts with them because I find a wonderfull agreement between the Followers of those two and this Gentleman For they had no reverence at all for Scripture and very small regard to Reason sometimes they would throw away Ed. Erasmi Basil 8vo 1571. and easily reject a great part of Scripture Iren. lib. 3. cap. 11. and at other times they would receive all Iren. lib. 3. cap. 12 pag. 302. but upon this condition that they might interpret it they made novel Inventions to be great and necessary Articles of Faith Id. lib. 3. cap. 11. p. 288. In tantum processerunt audaciae uti quod ab his non olim conscriptum est veritatis Evangelium titulent in nihilo conveniens Apostolorum Evangeliis they had a profound veneration for Authority and entirely submitted themselves to the Doctrines of Ebion and Cerinthus for they supposed that these men had a secret or mystery derived down by Tradition to them which alone was able to fix the sense of Scriptures and therefore whenever an Argument was directed against them out of Scriptures they still brought it to this Tradition without this they undervalued and slighted all the Scriptures and were the Inventers of the chiefest Arguments against them that our Authour and his Friends at this day do use All this will appear Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 2. if we look upon Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 2. Cum ex Scripturis arguuntur in accusationem convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum quasi non rectè habeant neque sunt ex Authoritate quia variè sunt dictae quia non possit ex his inveniri veritas ab his qui nesciunt Traditionem non enim per literas traditam illam sed per vivam vocem and then farther toward the latter end of that Chapter they challenge something that speaks the great confidence they had in their way perhaps as much as the Infallibility of a Guide se indubitatè incontaminatè sincerè absconditum scire Mysterium The proceedings of those men are so like to the method of our Authour that I do not in the least wonder if he found in his Schemes something very agreeable to their Doctrines Some mens brains for all what that learned Spaniard teaches may be exactly of the same temper and consequently their wits of the same height I have heard of a fool who by thinking the very same thoughts with his Brother could find him out when all the wise men in the Town could not do it Thus far therefore I will be obliging to our Author and give him more credit than I will upon some other occasions I will though with some reluctancy of reason believe that whilst he was reading the Scriptures some thoughts might come into his mind agreeable enough with some of those that Ebion and Cerinthus had But after this high civility allowed him I hope he will not impose upon my Faith so far as to require me to believe that he found any thing in the Holy Scriptures that agreed with the idle whimsies and mad dreams and blasphemous prate of his two other friends Nailor and Muggleton This is such an impudence as R. C's aswell as Protestants must abhor all Popes and Councils that have ever been with wrath and indignation would have detested any man that should have dared to put so profane and vile a scandal upon those sacred writings What Anathema's would the Council of Trent have thundred out against Luther if ever he had wrote or spoken any thing so base as this It is certain that there is nothing in Scripture that can in the least seem to favour the blasphemies of those two wretches and I am unwilling to think that there was any thing in our Authour's schemes that would deserve the punishment which they justly suffered It is possible that he might have been of their acquaintance and have had very particular respects for their persons and so he might be over-easie to think that some of his thoughts might be like unto theirs This I am willing to guess because I can with confidence presume that he has kept very ill Company for though his natural temper carries him to speak soft and smooth things yet in spight of nature he is forced to be rude and saucy For why cannot he write a Book without pointing his discourse at the breasts of the Right Reverend Fathers of our Church why does he treat them with contempt and scorn why does he presume to daule 'em to twitch 'em by the Nose and pull 'em by the Beard and stand over 'em with Fescue and Ferula and tell 'em that here they were out and there they were out and that here and there and at every point he can instruct them All this comes from want of manners and good converse Muggleton would have done the same and so would Nailor and none but such as they For certainly a respect is due to them for their Character and a respect is due upon their Personal accompt they are men of excellent worth and great learning prudence piety and integrity and so conspicuously eminent in all these that our Authour is not able to match them in any one Countrey though he take as large a view of Bishops as he does of Conversions in his 14th page through Europe Asia Africa and America But when Reason and the Holy Scriptures are to be thrown down it is no great wonder if the Bishops of the Church of England fall with them I begin to be warm and you my Friend may be offended at it yet allow a little to a just indignation it may well move a man of a cold complexion to see a pert unknown come up so briskly to the heads of our Reverend Fathers and Address to them in a formal speech intimating thousands of mistakes miscarriages and errours in them and yet in all that speech the man says nothing but what is old and dull and flat insipid stuff all and every thing in it has been answer'd five hundred times since the Reformation and at least twenty within these two years This looks like perverse stupidity for men to pretend to be writers when they do not reade if our Authour had read the late Books by this writing he gives plain proof that his Reason serves as little in drawing up Plea's for Authority as it did before in making Schemes of Christian Doctrine out of the Scriptures All that he says is this that he heartily wished that God would have pleased to have left us some unerring Authority and Sovereign Guide p. 6. and then that God has not left the World without Government and given us Laws without lawfull Judges and Interpreters p. 10. From thence he presumes that there is such a thing and resolves to go in quest after it he
this could be done and would not have us to pretend to derive Authority from the Church of Rome when she was in her purity and perfection Now this is wonderfully wise to inquire by what Authority we presume to obey God to amend our ways to throw off Errours to follow Truth Let him be assured that we shall not pretend to have derived Authority from Rome neither in her corruption nor in her purity to doe this And our Authour in the next Paragraph owns that we need not in case the one be an Errour and the other be a Truth But he adds we are now seeking for that Authority which shall declare this Truth and set forth this Errour Now this is honestly said that he is seeking for that Authority I am sure he has made no discovery of it as yet He undertook pag. 21 22. to shew that and the Infallibility of the Church of Rome and has talkt out eight Pages and has not given us the least Argument for either of them now he says he is seeking for it and he may seek all his days at this rate for he seeks just as one did for the Hare in the top of the Steeple If there were any such Authority and Infallibility as he pretends it must be as apparent and as visible as the Church it self there would need no long seeking for it He must be blind or fool or mad that did not see it or know it I rather think that our Authour is seeking for Arguments to prove it and in this he is unhappy for he finds none But Pag. 28 29 30. he endeavours for one and that is to this purpose that there are Errours and Heresies in the World He tells us of Socinians of Luther and Calvin and Beza and I know not how many more of late days And from thence P. 30. p. 30. he talks in these words Fathers if these instances be not sufficient to require a Supreme Judge to determine the right Faith and silence the wrong then and then and I know not what but at last then pray excuse me if my reason and piety and the reverent notion which I have of a Just God and a mercifull Saviour totally force my Judgment and Conscience to dissent from you in this particular Now this is no Argument that there is such an Authority in the Church either Eastern or Western Roman or Graecian but a wheedling Discourse to persuade weak Persons that there may be such an one because in our Authour's Opinion it would be fit or requisite or proper for God Almighty in this method to direct the interests of his Church And to bring People on to this belief here is an audacious and presumptuous intimation that God would neither be wise nor good in case he did it not Here we beg our Authour's pardon we will believe God to be wise and good and mercifull whether he sets up such an Authority or no He knows what is fit and requisite and proper much better than such pert confident men He permits sins great and most enormous in the World though he could as easily give a stop to them as to Errours and Heresies There are Errours amongst Protestants and there are Errours amongst Romanists and if the Temporal Authority did not doe more than the Spiritual they themselves would complain of many more than now they do There are Errours and Heresies of late days and there were so from the first beginnings of Christianity in all times and places St. Paul tells of some in his days and Ignatius of others and Irenaeus of others and those most gross and vile and filthy Now if God had made provision of the pretended Authority and Infallibility to give stop to them it were most improbable if not impossible that ever these should have been Their existence therefore is plain argument and demonstration that there are no such powerfull means set up and appoionted by God to prevent hinder stop or silence them He has done enough against them as he has done against all sins it is presumption not to acquiesce in his Wisedom or to challenge that he must doe that which we cannot prove that he has done But our Authour leaves this and says he must proceed P. 30. p. 30. and that he does yet not to evidence the Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Church by better Arguments but to plead the interest of it in general from the performances of Augustine the Monk This is an Argument that pleases him he had been nibling at it three times before p. 18. p. 21. p. 27. There he intimates that this Augustine first taught the English Nation Christianity and that he taught them those very Doctrines as Christian Truths which we at this day oppose He says p. 21. That all the Controverted Points particularly and by name were declared by some of your selves to have been brought into England by Augustine the Monk above a thousand years since I suppose he means that his Friend the famous Napper or some of his Apocalyptical Acquaintance had declared this But after all he comes to treat more closely upon this Argument pag. 30 31 32. I shall consider what he says and then give a full accompt of the whole matter But before I begin I must complain for it is a grief that I have an Adversary so weak and yet so consident For those two learned Men their Mr. Cressey and our Reverend Dean of St. Paul's have accurately considered and weighed all the particulars of this Dispute and made the best advantages of it But the man knows nothing of their Writings Pope Gregory he names and Bede he names but gives us not any ground to think that ever he has read over Bede's History or consulted Pope Gregory's Epistles and both these ought to have been well studied by a Writer upon this Subject if he had due regard for Truth or his own Credit 1. First he says If you tell me a Story of the Abbat of Bangor I answer that the particular ground of it is evidently false and forged Now Bede is the man that tells us a Story of the Abbat of Bangor and the numbers of Monks in that Abbey Bede l. 2. c. 2. And the Story as it lies in Bede gives all the advantage to Protestants that they can wish lib. 2. cap. 2. And if there be something added to that Story from an Ancient Record found and published by Sir Henry Spelman the skill and integrity of that excellent Person would persuade an indifferent man not presently to damn it for a forgery for he was not likely either to contrive one or to be cheated with one But be this what it will the Story that Bede gives is sufficient for our uses and that I hope he will not say is false or forged 2. P. 30. He says that the Britains received the Christian Faith in the Apostles days but being persecuted by Romans Picts and Saxons Religion fled to the Mountains