inform his indifferent Reader of the sence of those hard places do but make the understanding thereof the more intricate and that the Commentary is not less obscure than the Text and nothing is more wonderful than that the illustration he makes to facilitate the understanding of what is conceived obscure by the Prayer in our Churches Liturgy which he says was borrowed from the Roman and I say was translated out of our own Lord from whom all good things come grant us thy humble servants that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good and by thy merciful guiding we may perform the same I say it is strange that he does not so far discern that this Prayer is so easie that no one pretends not to understand the perfect meaning and extent thereof whereas he cannot but know that some men of more than common understanding profess not to comprehend the other and therefore it is too magisterial a determination that whosoever hath not a capacity to understand Sancta Sophia is an enemy to mental Prayer which no body can be who understands it or in the least degree hath endeavoured to practise it Since it is the best if not the only way to keep the mind fixed upon the subject it is solicitous for and the object to whom the Prayers are directed which in the loud pronunciation of many words is it may be to many men the most difficult thing in the sacrifice of Prayer especially if there be any affectation of words which insensibly carries the mind away from what it should be intent upon and the least moment of diversion puts a period to mental prayer which without any sensible motion hath a vehemence that cannot bear interruption and as little any prescription of method from another man To the personal reflexions and invectives against the Doctor fuller of causeless passions and of bitterness and virulence than I have ever observed in so little room in any book I shall answer in a more proper place anon After Mr. Cressy hath spent many pages in commending to his friends the having a good opinion of Visions and Revelations and Miracles and very pathetically advises them to read the Histories of the lives of Saints which the more they have done they may probably be the less inclined to conform to his opinions he professes that the only ground of the Catholicks faith is divine Revelation made to the Church by Christ and his Apostles and conveyed to posterity in Scripture and Tradition and we say that the ground of the Faith of the Church of England is the same leaving out the two last words and tradition not that the Church of England is an enemy to or disclaims the use of tradition but is not guided and governed by it by reason of the incertainty of it Where the tradition is universal and uncontradicted we have as much resignation to it as they have and therefore we do acknowledge the reception of the Scripture to be by unquestionable and never doubted tradition and that having thereby received it it hath in it self enough to convince the Reader that it could not be formed and invented by the wit of man nor that it hath not been disguised or corrupted by the malice of man and so we are possessed of the Scriptures by the same tradition that they are and whatever they believe by as confessed a tradition we believe likewise as well as they But when they urge many things as necessary to be believed by the authority of tradition we do not reject the authority but deny the tradition and say there is no tradition that will warrant it and how fallible that pretence is needs no other manifestation than that controversie of the observation of Easter which continued half a hundred years only upon the point of tradition with so much bitterness and animosity the Greek Church alledging that tradition was for them and the Roman Church the contrary and if tradition was so doubtful a guide in those Primitive times when so few years had run out what must it be now when five times as many are since expired They therefore do not deal ingenously who amuse their auditors with telling them that we reject all tradition consider not antiquity submit to no authority but every man chuses a Religion according to his own spirit Whereas they well know that the Church of England doth as much respect tradition when it is agreed upon as all evidence must be that is submitted to and requires as much subjection to authority and leaves as little to the private fancy and imagination of men and pays as much reverence to the primitive Fathers where they concur together in opinion as the Church of Rome doth but denies any subjection to that Church and believes that her own children with others she meddles not should have the same reverence for her determinations as those others have for the Roman since her determinations are made with as much regularity as lawful authority and with the unanimous advice of as learned men as by the others of which we shall say more in the conclusion of this discourse If Mr. Cressy was not very confident that all for whom he writes will confidently believe all he says and had not a marvellous contempt of all other persons he would not so positively say That when examination is made of miracles in order to the Canonization of any Saint the testimony of women will not be received pag. 68. and gives the reason for it because naturally imagination is stronger in them than judgment and whatsoever is esteemed by them to be pious is easily concluded by them to be true which may likewise be the reason that his beloved Sancta Sophia is so much valued by women and his Miracles so much believed by them only and neither the one or the other in any degree regarded by any learned men of the Roman Church But his averment that the testimony of women is rejected in those cases is without any ground Was not the single testimony of the Nurse the only evidence of the first miracle that was wrought by his adored S. Benedict in the mending the Sieve or putting together the broken pieces of the Earthen pot If he were much conversant in the acts of Canonization as he ought to be before he publishes the Rules observed there he would have found that the seventh miracle wrought by Philip Nereus the Founder of the order of the Oratorians for which he was Canonized was that he cured diseases oftentimes by his word as particularly in the case of Maria Felici à Castro in Monasterio Turris speculorum Moniali quae continua febri correpta Philippo jubente statim convaluit And his eighth was that he cured many sick people meerly by his apparition Ac Drusilla Fantina quae praecipiti casuprostrata ac horribili capitis oculorum totius corporis collisione semiviva jacens tribus Philippi apparitionibus mirabiliter
the infancy of the Church and did no great harm No doubt S. Paul wished that all who were to preach Christ had had the same thoughts and had used the same words and had had the same affection towards each other which unity would much have advanced the propagation of Christianity but he knew that was impossible and that different apprehensions and different conceptions must be always attended with difference of expressions whilst the birth and life and death and resurrection of Christ was taught though they who preached him had their own passions and prejudices towards each other he was still glad that the number of the Christians were increased There may be much good done in the world without taking its rise purely from Conscience and only to please others or to imitate others and the like may be done to anger and to cross and contradict other men and though the Authors of that good have lost their reward yet there is matter of rejoycing still that good is done It is very well worth our reflexion how little pains our Saviour took who well foresaw what disputations would arise concerning Religion to the end of the world to explain any doctrinal points or indeed to institute any thing of speculative doctrine in his Sermon upon the Mount which comprehends all Christianity but to resolve all into practice and his Apostles though they met with a world of questions and disputes and in the highest points of the mystery of Religion were very short in their answers and determination and left no room for any contention in the understanding upon any matter of faith it depending purely upon believing what was past and done and of which they received unquestionable evidence but in the application of this faith to practice they were large in their discourses and clear to remove all doubts they had observed into how many Schisms and Sects the Church of the Iews had run by their several interpretations of the Law and the Prophets of both which they had all equal veneration and from both gathered arguments enough to found an animosity against each other that vented it self in all the acts of uncharitableness and denunciation of Hell-fire to their opponents and they did all they could that the Gospel and the professors thereof might not be exposed to the like mischiefs by the same disputations Men might set their wits on work to raise doubts and scruples and improve them to what degree they please by the subtilty of their own invention they were difficulties of their own making not finding Christ and his Apostles left their Declarations of what we are to believe and what we are to do so clearly stated that we cannot dangerously mistake and so much the more clearly by informing us what we are not to believe and what we are not to do by the obligations of Christianity and as they did no doubt foresee the weakness and the wilfulness of the succeeding times and that men would make use of the Scriptures themselves to the prejudice of Religion they took care that they might know that there is much in them above their understanding and that they should govern themselves by what is easie plain to be understood therein and above all that they should not presume to censure and judge those who differ from them in their opinions because Christ hath reserved all those differences to be determined by himself and except it were inflicting Ecclesiastical censures upon corruption of manners and transgressing against Christian duties It was some Ages before the Church expressed any great severity upon differences in opinions and used such circumspection in the expressions upon their determinations as rather pleased all persons concerned than strictly defined the matter in controversie The Primitive Church never prescribed any other rule to themselves to judge by than the sacred Scriptures by consent of which they made all their definitions and determinations and as no man yet at least with any countenance of authority hath pretended to understand the intire meaning of any one of the Prophets so it was some time a long time before the Revelation of S. Iohn was received into the Canon of the Church for the difficulty of it and whosoever hath since undertaken to understand it hath received more censure than approbation from pious and learned men nor have they attained to credit enough to be believed Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee neither search the things that are above thy strength is very good counsel and proportioned to mens different faculties and understandings he that is stronger than I may search for things that are too hard for me and there is no harm in that search but I who am weaker am in no degree obliged to make that search nor shall fare the worse because I am so weak The Dialogue between the Angel and the Prophet Esdras may be very good Divinity thoughs it be contained in the Apocrypha He that dwelleth above the Heavens may only understand the things that are above the heighth of the Heavens The more thou searchest the more thou shalt marvel for the world hasteth fast to pass away and it cannot comprehend the things that are promised to the righteous in time to come Let us endeavour to do the things which we are plainly enjoyned to do and which we can very well comprehend at least let us forbear doing any thing which we are as plainly forbidden to do and we shall in due time obtain those things which for the present we cannot comprehend It hath been an artifice introduced to perplex mankind and to work upon the conscience by amusing and puzling the understanding to perswade men to believe that there is but one Church and one Religion in which men may be saved that by their confident averring themselves to be that Church and of that Religion others may be prevailed with to be of their party and they who with most passion abhor their presumption and so withdraw from their Communion adhere to the same unreasonable conclusion and will not suffer them to be a Church at all or capable of salvation and form their own Church upon those principles only which most contradict the other whereas there is room enough in Heaven for them all and we may charitably and reasonably believe that many of all Christian Churches will come thither and that too many of every one of them will be excluded from thence There is indeed as was said before but one faith which no authority upon Earth can change or suspend or dispence with but Religion which is the uniting or the being united of pious men in the profession of that Faith may be exercised in several and different forms and ways and with several ceremonies according to the constitutions and rules of the several Countries and Kingdoms where it is practised and there are so many Churches united in one and the same faith and methinks the very stile
that he says is not to be imputed to want of authority in the Pope but to the unruliness of mens passions and pride and I say it serves the Doctor 's turn if his authority be not such as can curb and suppress the unruliness of the passions and pride of his own Subjects He will not understand how the Doctor can say that the Church of England makes no Articles of Faith but such as have testimony and approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self and in other things she requires subscription to them not as Articles of Faith but as inferiour truths which she expects submission to in order to her peace and tranquillity Mr. Cressy is the only man alive that can find obscurity in this clause and I confess his exception to it is so obscure that I will rather rely upon the Readers understanding of the most exact plainness of it than inlarge my self in any explanation and I wish that he could say as much for the Church of Rome that it makes no Article of Faith but such as have the testimony and approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages our complaint is that he multiplies articles of faith to that degree that he will not suffer us to be saved for believing all that most Christians believed for a thousand years together without the least doubt of their Salvation nor will he yet let us know the full extent he would have our faith reach to for we are no less obliged to submit to what he or his Successors shall declare hereafter to be matter of faith than to what is at present contained in the whole Canons of the Council of Trent which makes it absolutely necessary for the peace of Conscience as well as the peace of Kingdoms to protest against and as far as in us lies to restrain that exorbitant authority but of all arguments it is a most pleasant one that if the Church of England believes nothing as of faith but what the Popes and Church of Rome do likewise believe Therefore it follows that the Church of Rome notwithstanding its Idolatry Fanaticisme c. failes in no necessary point of faith which would be true if it added nothing to that confessed faith that must destroy it He then involves himself in his old circle of the Churches authority and of that Churches being the Church of Rome and of the residence of that authority being in the Person of the Pope which whosoever refuses to submit to must be an Heretick to all which enough hath been said before nor can I enlarge upon it without saying somewhat that I have said before which I have no mind to do We come now to the Seventh and Eighth Chapters concerning Penance c. upon which I shall enlarge the less because the Church of England is so far from condemning Confession or Penance that it uses and commends both and upon Confession always satisfaction is enjoyned there as much as in the Church of Rome it is true that with us it is not so positively enjoyned that is men are not compelled to it nor are those forms used in ours or those interrogatories administred by which those secrets are extorted from Men and Women which they would willingly conceal and which may lawfully be concealed as in their Church but Penitents are lest to their own liberty and their own method of drawing such information and comfort from their Confessors as they believe most useful to them which was the original end of Confession and from which very many good Catholicks believe there is at present too great a deviation God forbid the integrity and piety of any Church should be suspected much less condemned for the evil livers who remain within the pale of it No Church hath ever yet nor any will ever be but the triumphant without abundance of them yet it being the principal end and the most manifest perfection of Religion to introduce an innocence of life and a sincerity of manners into all those who profess it all Churches cannot too severely affect that Discipline which hath the greatest operation upon the lives and actions of their Children whether there are not some corruptions creeped into the common practice of auricular Confession whether the ordinary customary Confessors are not too remiss or over curious in examining and consequently in informing their Penitents or too easie and perfunctory in their absolutions will not become me to determine but Mr. Cressy well knows that very many learned and pious Catholicks do publickly lament the scandalous corruptions which have been practised and countenanced in that vital part of their Religion Who those Apostates from the Catholick Church are who have left their Monasteries out of carnal liberty and carnal lusts I am not at all informed but if they are so carnally minded I doubt some of them may be instructed by him to ask him how he forgot what he had formerly believed and whether he was in a moment inspired to answer to a new Catechisme full of new Articles of Faith If conscience hath had no influence upon them they have been very weak and not Roman Catholicks enough to be tempted by the Woman since they might have had the full use of her with much more good husbandry and less guilt without leaving their Monasteries for it is a ruled and a vowed case by most if not all their Casuists that fornication is a less sin than marriage and the reason they give is that the last is living in perpetual adultery Whoever hath lived in those places which are most inhabited by Religious Men is very little conversant with the Catholick same if he doth believe the major part of Religious Men to be enough mortified against that liberty though no doubt very many of them have subdued the temptation and it will not only be charity but common justice to think that those Apostates over whom Mr. Cressy so much infults have been governed by their Conscience since it was hardly possible they could be invited by the Woman having enough of that Sex at their devotion without the obligation and impediment of marriage and till Mr. Cressy informs us why Monasteries are better Schools of Holiness and Devotion than our Colledges are whose Discipline is as severe admitting cleanliness be to be preferred before slovenlines and doctrine much stricter enough hath been already said for their vindication and need not be repeated I think I understand the excuse that Mr. Cressy makes for the notorious transgressions which have been in the matter of confession and absolution in reference to which he says the Doctor is not ignorant that not very long since among several dangerous positions collected out of some modern Casuists such scandalous relaxations in administring the Sacrament of Penance had a principal place all which were not only condemned by the Bishops of France almost in every Diocess but also a Book the Author of which
think never saw that excellent Person to take upon them to asperse a Noble man of the most Prodigious learning of the most exemplar manners and singular good nature of the most unblemished integrity and the greatest Ornament of the Nation that any Age hath produced with the Character of a Socinian Mr. Cressy well knows that before that time of his Journey into Ireland in the Year One thousand six hundred thirty eight that Noble Lord had perused and read over all the Greek and Latine Fathers and was indefatigable in looking over all Books which with great expence he caused to be transmitted to him from all parts and so could not have been long without Mr. Dallies Book if Cressy's presenting it to him had not given him opportunity to have raised this scandal upon his memory nor could that Book have been so grateful to him if he had not read the Fathers For Mr. Chillingworth if Mr. Cressy had not been very wary in saying any thing that might redound to the honour of any of the present Prelates he cannot but know that the present Arch-Bishop of Canterbury had first reclaimed him from his doubtings and they were no more nor had he ever declared himself a Catholick except being at S. Omers amounts to such a Declaration before ever he was sent for by Arch-Bishop Laud and I am very much deceived which I think I am not in that particular if Chillingworth's Book against Mr. Knott was not published before the time of Cressy's Journey in thirty eight into Ireland and I know had been perused by him and therefore Mr. Dallies Book could not interrupt him in his study of the Fathers nor induce him to fix his mind upon Socinian grounds which now serves his turn to reproach all men and the Church of England it self for refusing to believe his miracles or to submit to that authority to whose blind guiding he hath lazily given up himself and all his faculties Yet he does so much honour to those grounds that he does confess that they obstructed a good while his entrance into the Catholick Church the contrary whereof I know to be true as much as negative can be true and that he never thought of entring into the Religion he now professes till long after the death of the Lord Falkland and Mr. Chillingworth nor till the same rebellious power that drove the King out of the Kingdom drove him likewise from the good preferments which he enjoyed in the Church and then the necessity and distraction of his fortune together with the melancholick and irresolution in his nature prevailed with him to bid farewell to his own reason and understanding and to resign himself to the conduct of those who had a much worse than his If the having read Socinus and the commending that in him which no body can reasonably discommende in him and the making use of that reason that God hath given a man for the examining of that which is most properly to be examined by reason and to avoid the weak arguments of some men how superciliously soever insisted upon or to discover the fallacies of others be the definition of a Socinian the party will be very strong in all Churches but if a perfect detestation of all those Opinions against the Person and Divinity of our Saviour or any other doctrine that is contrary to the Church of England and the Church of England hath more formally condemned Socinianism than any other Church hath done as appears by the Canons of One thousand six hundred and forty can free a man from that reproach as without doubt it ought to do I can very warrantably declare that that unparallel'd Lord was no Socinian nor is it possible for any man who is a true Son of the Church of England to be corrupted with any of those Opinions But in truth if Mr. Cressy hath that Prerogative in Logick as to declare men to be Socinians from some propositions which he calls Principles which in his judgment will warrant those deductions though he confesses he does not suspect the Doctor will approve such consequences yet he is confident with all his skill he cannot avoid them that is he is a Socinian before he is aware of it and in spight of his teeth this is such an excess in the faculty of arguing as must make him a dangerous Neighbour and qualifies him excellently to be a Commissioner of the Inquisition who have often need of that kind of subtilty that will make Heresies which they cannot find All this invention is to perswade his new friends of that which they call the old Religion that his old Friend's Religion is new that they have no reverence for antiquity no regard for the Authority of the Fathers and only make use of their natural reason to find out a new Religion for themselves whereas in truth whoever will impartially and dispassionately make the enquiry shall find that there is no one substantial controversie between the Roman and the Church of England but what is matter of Novelty and hath no foundation in Antiquity and that the Fathers are more diligently read and studied in our Church than they are in theirs and more reverence is paid to them by us than by them though neither they nor we nor any other Christian Church in the World do submit or concur in all that the Fathers have taught who were never all of one mind and therefore may very lawfully have their reasons examined by the reasons of other men This that I say concerning the reading and the reverence paid to the Fathers ought to be believed till they can produce one Prelate or Member of the Church of England who hath ever used such contemptuous words of the Fathers Ego ut ingenuè fatear plus uno summo Pontifici crederem in his quae fidei mysteria tangunt quà m mille Augustinis Ieronymis Gregoriis c. Credo enim scio quòd summus Pontifex in his quae fidei sunt non posse errare quoniam authoritas determinandi quae ad fidem spectant in Pontifice residet which are the words of Cornelius Mussus an Italian Bishop and much celebrated amongst them for his extraordinary learning in Epis. ad Rom. cap. 14. pa. 606. Michael Medina a man as eminent in the Council of Trent as any who sate there in the debate whether a Bishop was Superiour to a Presbyter jure Ecclesiastico or jure Divino when they who sustained the former alledged Saint Ierome and S. Augustine to support their opinion Medina said aloud Non mirum esse si isti nonnulli alii Patres re nondum eo tempore illustratâ in eam haeresim incidissent How would Mr. Cressy and his Friends insult if a Doctor of the Church of England should publish in Print by the authority of the Church Illud asserimus quo juntores eo perspicaciores esse Doctores contra hanc quam objectant multitudinem Respondemus inquit ex verbo
a short time they vanished and were no more heard of What was urged or insinuated by any Men of discretion and understanding that might make any impression upon sober unwary and misinformed Men was carefully and learnedly answered by Persons assigned to that purpose that the Church or the State might not undergoe any prejudice by want of seasonable advice without mingling any of the others froth or dregs in their compositions which they left to the chastisement of those who could as dexterously manage the same weapons and were fitter for their company And methinks grave and serious men or they who ought to be grave and serious should be afraid of imitating such adversaries in their licence and excesses lest they should get into a scoffing vein which they should not easily shake off or lose their credit with worthy Men for dishonouring the cause they maintain ironically A man will hardly be thought provident enough or solicitous for his own peace and credit who having discovered this unruly frantick disease will expose himself to the malignity thereof by approaching so near the company of those angry Wasps and Hornets who are like to be willing to take any opportunity to be revenged upon a Person who hath presumed to be offended with their manner of writing and in the same instant submitted his own to their censure which is like to be liable to as many exceptions of weakness and impertinence To which I shall only say that whatever other faults they shall discover in this short writing of mine they shall not find the same of which I complain I shall give no body ill words nor provoke them by contemning their Persons and I chuse rather to be at their mercy than not to endeavour the best way I can to divert men from that indecent way of reviling each other and instead of answering Arguments to traduce the Persons who urge them Truth is of so tender and delicate a constitution that it is defiled by rude handling and hath advantage enough to encounter and conquer its adversaries by the vigour of its own beauty without aspersing the deformity of the other farther than unavoidable reason makes it manifest I shall not interpose in those Arguments which are now most agitated in that scurrilous style that I complain of but chuse to take upon me to make Animadversions upon a Book lately published at least lately come to my sight Intituled Fanaticism Fanatically imputed to the Church of England by Doctor Stillingfleet and the imputation Refuted and Retorted by S. C. The Author whereof professes himself an avowed Enemy to the Church of England and would be thought as much an enemy to the foul custom introduced into the Controversies concerning it and the liberty men assume to deride Religion instead of vindicating it to wound the profession by a petulant and scornful mention of the Professors and by expressions full of pride and vanity and destructive to peace and government and yet how contrary soever this way of writing is to his practice and inclination he hath some jealousie of himself that upon the insupportable provocation he hath received some phrases of bitterness may have scaped his Pen which he doth believe he hath very good authority not to make any excuse for and there being such plenty of that noisom Gall scattered throughout his whole discourse it will be but just to take a view of his provocation and whether his revenge be no more than proportionable to the occasion and then whether the imputation be not rather confidently retorted than reasonably refuted and whether in the endeavoring the one or the other the bounds and limits of all modesty and civility are not so far transgressed that the Author is liable to just censure I do the rather enter into the List upon this occasion because I may infallibly presume that I know the Author of that Discourse for I no sooner read it which was long after it was published but that it was manifest to me by many particulars contained in it in which I cannot be deceived that it is written by Mr. Cressy with whom I have been acquainted very near fifty years and have very long esteemed him for his parts and learning and for his good nature and his good manners all of which were in as great perfection then as they have been ever since or are at present and therefore as I shall treat him with that candor that becomes an old Friend so I do not suspect his reception and interpretation of it will be such as is worthy of that temper of spirit which he professes to be of nor do I despair of presenting some considerations and reflections to him which may so work upon it as to induce him to believe that both in regard of the matter it self and the manner of treating Dr. Stillingfleet he hath swarved very much from those Rules which he prescribes to others and pretends to observe himself and then the tenderness of his own Conscience will instruct him what reparation he ought to make But before I enter into the debate I must first declare that the Religion I profess and defend is the Religion of the Church of England and not the particular opinions much less the expressions of any member of it how worthy soever and Mr. Cressy who professes to be an adversary to it ought to insist only upon what is owned and avowed by her and not hope to wound her through the sides or by the weakness or passions of those who have deserted her or still adhere to her And in the second place that I do not take upon me to write against the Catholick Church of which the Church of England is a vital part or against the Religion professed in any Catholick Country but against the Roman Catholick Subjects of his Majesties Dominions whose Religion I take to be different from that which is professed and established in any Catholick Country in Europe and disavowed by all the Catholick Countries out of Europe And one of the principal reasons that engages me in this Discourse is to endeavour to draw the dispute that is between the Church and the Laws of England and his Majesties Subjects of his own Dominions who profess to be of the Roman Faith into a narrower room and within that compass that properly contains it And I have always thought that they have had too much countenance and too great a latitude allowed them in reducing the contest to what concerns all the members of the Roman Church equally with themselves as if the Roman Catholicks of England withdraw their obedience from the Kings authority and oppose the Laws of the Land so much to the damage of their Estates and the danger of their lives if the Laws were prosecuted against them only for the support and in the defence of the cause common to all other Catholicks Whereas I say the difference between us depends wholly upon the personal authority of the Pope within the Kings
Dominions which is an argument never used for the support of the Catholick Religion if it were all Catholicks must be of the same opinion It was that and that only that first made the Schism and still continues it and is the ground of all the animosity of the English Catholicks against the Church of England and produced their separation from it and if they will renounce all that personal authority in the Pope and any obedience to it within his Majesties obedience which I say again is not admitted in any other Catholick Kingdom they will purge themselves of all such jealousie or suspicion of their fidelity as may prove dangerous to the Kingdom and against which the Laws are provided their opinions of Purgatory or Transubstantiation would never cause their Allegiance to be suspected more than any other error in Sence Grammar or Philosophy if those opinions were not instances of their dependance upon another Jurisdiction foreign and inconsistent with their duty to the King and destructive to the peace of the Kingdom and in that sence and relation the Politick Government of the Kingdom takes notice of those opinions which yet are not enquired into or punished for themselves let them disclaim that and they will find themselves at great ease This is the only Argument I wish should be insisted on between us and our fellow-subjects of the Roman profession not that I think that the other Doctrinal points between the two Churches are not worthy the insisting upon but that as much hath been said already upon them on both sides and as convincingly as is necessary Nothing new can be added at least no man will be convinced with what shall be added who is not moved with what is already said nor doth the meer difference upon any of those points naturally produce that uncharitableness those animosities of which we complain towards each other No man was ever truly and really angry otherwise than the warmth and multiplication of words in the dispute produced it with a man who believed Transubstantiation more than he would be with another who should come into a room where he was reading by a Candle and swear that the room was so dark that he could not see his hand but when he will for the support of this Paradox introduce an authority for the imperious determination thereof that the Word of God hath not commanded men to submit to and the word of Man the Law of the Land hath positively forbidden them to submit to it is no wonder if passion breaks in at this door and kindles a Fire strong enough to consume the House This is the Hinge upon which all the other controversies between us and the English Catholicks do so intirely hang and depend that if that only were taken off all the rest would quickly fall to the ground and therefore it concerns Mr. Cressy and the rest of his friends to fasten and make that Hinge strong that it may support the rest from falling And I cannot but observe how unwillingly they are brought to touch this point or if they do it is so lightly as if it were too hot for their fingers and upon the necessity of a through examination of this material Argument I shall be obliged to inlarge in the Conclusion of this Discourse There is another reason that hath principally invited me to this unequal undertaking that is my Zeal to the Church of England and a compassion of the very ill condition it is reduced to by an unworthy conspiracy that was never before entred into against it or any other established Church in undervaluing whatsoever is written by any Clergy-man how learned and vertuous soever in defence of it as if he were a party and spoke only in his own interest so that they who would undermine it by all the foul and dishonest arts imaginable have the advantage to be considered as Persons engaged in that accompt meerly and purely by the impulsion of their Consciences and for the discovery of such dangerous errors as are dangerous to the Souls of men whilst they who are most obliged and are best able to refute those vain and malicious pretences and to detect the fraud and the ignorance of those Seditious undertakers are looked upon as men not to be believed at least partial and that all they say is said on their own behalf This is a sad truth and a new Engine to make a Battery at which Atheism may enter without opposition with all its instruments and attendants that would make Christianity it self ridiculous that it may be contemptible God forbid that this Scarcrow should impose silence upon or seal up the mouths of any Learned and worthy Clergy-man who should open them the wider for this combination and contribute the more to the assistance and vindication of the best constituted Church in the world because it is in a distress by mockers and scoffers and neutral or unconcerned persons who make the approaches and sap the ground to open the way and make the access the more easie for more declared Enemies to oppress and destroy it This hath been a motive to me who have neither dependance upon or relation to any Clergy-man nor any temptation to imbark my self in this quarrel but my love of truth and the most abstracted duty to my Country and likewise because I think though the Clergy is best able to judge of any difficulties in matters of Religion the Laity is equally engaged in the consequences which will inevitably attend any prejudices it shall undergo or be exposed to and therefore ought in time to contribute their talent towards the securing it and not stand idle spectators of those stratagems which are no less designed against the State than the Church In the last place the particular esteem I have of the profound Learning and integrity of Dr. Stillingfleet to whom I am very little known and his great merit towards the Church of England whose worthy Champion he will not be thought the less for the untrue aspersions Mr. Cressy hath presumed to cast upon him and which will easily be wiped off hath disposed me to interpose in his Vindication which is so much due to him from other Men that I wish he may not trouble himself with it And having now observed Mr. Cressy's own method in giving first account of the reasons and motives which have prevailed with me for this engagement for which I cannot alledge another that was most powerful with him obedience to certain friends whose commands he ought in no wise to resist since I may honestly declare that no Friend I have is privy to my purpose or knows what I am doing I make hast to wait upon him by his own stages and shall make no excuse for not affixing my name to what I write which I do purposely decline not by the example of S. C. but by the assurance I have that the publishing my name would be so far from bringing any advantage to the cause
was manifest to them for God had shewed it to them There are no doubt many things fit to be known and which we should be the better for knowing which are not so manifest but it is not so necessary if it be not manifest and it is very observable that when he tells them what became of those under the Law and the sins of the Gentiles who did not like to retain God in their knowledge he mentions not what false opinions grew up amongst them by reason of their not retention of him in their knowledge but that God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which were not convenient Being filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murther debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despiteful proud boasters inventors of evil things disobedient to Parents He doth not so much as mention their Idolatry in that place because it was matter of opinion which was the greatest contradiction of the Majesty of God but those vices which had proved destructive to all humane relation and society and the same Apostle finding still that the infant Christians perplexed themselves with many difficulties between the Law and the Gospel took the pains as Moses had done to abridge the obligations of the Law as was mentioned before to abridge the Religion of the Gospel If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Iesus aud shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved He that cordially believes the History of our Saviour That he was the only begotten Son of God that he suffered death for the sins of mankind and that after he was put to death and buried he rose the third day the birth and death and resurrection of Christ hath faith sufficient to salvation and all that is absolutely necessary to be believed lies within that narrow compass Notwithstang the clearness of which definition and authority of the Apostle the wit of men and even the zeal of Religion produced many differences of opinion and much faction amongst the believers many men thinking that this excellent foundation would very well support this manner of building and others that it would as well or better bear another sort of building rather this deduction than that would result from the same proposition S. Paul still adhering fast to the foundation without much examining the superstructures tells them Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Iesus Christ If they would keep themselves steddy to that foundation let their superstructures be of gold or silver precious stones wood hay or stubble let their conceptions or deductions be of the finest allay the more probable and rational or more gross and irrational there will at last be such an examination of every one of them that the truth shall appear and be made manifest but for their comfort to abate the superciliousness of him who hath more reason to think himself in the right and to raise the spirits of them who may be terrified with the consequence of being in the wrong he tells them that they who have done their work best raised such doctrine upon and from the foundation as will endure the trial that doctrine shall stand and they shall receive a reward and that they who have built less skilfully raised imaginations too large or contracted opinions too narrow to be supported upon that foundation their doctrine shall not subsist their opinions shall be disavowed and condemned yet because they departed not from the foundation let their mistakes and errors in judgment be what they will they themselves shall be saved nor did he think the determination of those buildings how different soever and vile the materials might seem to be were proper for the judgment of any but the Master-builder the Architect who had directed the foundation who could only judge whether there were malice or hypocrisie in preparing such superstructures to rest upon that foundation Therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord come Whosoever takes upon him to judge before presumes to judge before the cause is ripe for judgment which is not only beside the office of an upright Judge but against the rules of Justice and it was very good husbandry as well as wisdom in the Master in the parable who though he saw the Tares Tares not grown up by chance out of the rankness of the soil but Tares maliciously and industriously sown by the labour and craft of an Enemy would not suffer his active servants to pull them up he rejected the providence Nay lest whilst you gather up the Tares ye root up also the Wheat with them let them both grow until the Harvest And lest men should think by the ripeness of the Tares that the harvest was come our Saviour himself interprets his own parable The Harvest is the end of the world and the Reapers are the Angels an unskilful hand will mistake the Wheat for Tares and a rude passionate hand will for expedition pull up both that he may be sure he hath destroyed one unskilful and unlearned men may believe that to be an error which in truth is none but enough consistent with the truth and angry men will not enough consider if it be in truth an error what root it may have taken from some unquestionable truth and how far it may have insinuated it self into the minds of good and pious men which ought to be undeceived by application and gentle remedies and by time but will violently tear it from the hold it had and make a greater wound than they found disturb the peace of a Kingdom rather than connive at an error till it be ripe and the mischief thereof fully discovered and when the malice of the disease is evident proportionable remedies may more easily be found Our Saviour was not more careful of the season than of the Reapers the season is the end of the world the Reapers are the Angels dispassionate and unpartial Reapers who understand the nature of the Tares and the hurt they have done to the Corn. It is a complaint and observation as ancient as S. Gregory Quam multi sunt fidelium qui imperito zelo succenduntur saepe dum quosdam quasi Haereticos insequuntur haereses faciunt Charity and discretion can only preserve men from splitting upon those rocks and the time prescribed in the parable can only determine all disputations It seems an expression of a wonderful latitude which S. Paul uses to the Philippians Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife and some also of good will what then Notwithstanding every way whether in pretence or in truth Christ is preached and I therein do rejoyce yea and will rejoyce S. Paul found opposition and contradiction as all other Preachers have done since even from some other Apostles and Disciples emulation was a strong passion and well grown in
Plantation of Christianity that where the age and the people were most inclined to superstition which in the first conversion and growth of Religion they were not disposed to at least to that worship and reverence which shortly after degenerated into superstition there was least care taken to introduce Forms and Ceremonies into the Church but when prophaneness broke in as a torrent and the lives of Christians discredited the doctrine of Christ and the power of Princes was found necessary to reform the manners of the Church such Forms and Ceremonies were brought into the exercise of Religion as were judged most like to produce a reverence into the professors towards it and to manifest that reverence in providing whereof General Councils medled very little knowing very well that they could not be the same in all places and that every State and Kingdom knew best what ways and means were most like to contribute to the general end the reverence for Religion and sure there cannot be too intent a care in Kings and Princes to preserve and maintain all decent Forms and Ceremonies both in Church and State which keeps up the veneration and reverence due to Religion and the Church of Christ and the duty and dignity due to Government and to the Majesty of Kings in an age when the dissoluteness of manners and the prophaneness and pride of the people too much inclines them to a contempt of Religion to a neglect of order and to an undervaluing and contending with the most Soveraign authority That the Secular power cannot provide for Ecclesiastical Reformations because Kings and Princes are not qualified to perform the offices and functions of Religion because they do not pretend to consecrate Bishops to ordain Priests or to administer the Sacraments is an argument to exclude them as well from the temporal as spiritual jurisdiction in the determination of matters of right between private men in the punishment of the most enormous crimes and offences Justice must be administred according to the established rules of the Law and not the will and inclination of the Iudge and it cannot be presumed that Kings can be so well versed in the Laws and customs which must regulate the proceedings of Justice and therefore may be excluded from the authority and power of judging the people and they are wonderful careful that you may not believe that they would bereave them of that inherent power and authority which they confess is committed to them alone but why the one and not the other since they can as well provide for the one as for the other is not so easie to be comprehended by any rules of right reason Kings provide for the good administration of justice by making learned men Iudges whose province it is to execute the Law in all cases and they provide for the advancement and preservation of Religion by making pious and learned men Bishops and use their advice and assistance in matters relating to the Church as he doth that of the Judges in cases pertaining to the Law and as he doth other Counsellors in such things as have an immediate dependance upon the Wisdom of State and both Bishops and Iudges are bound to render an account of their actions to Kings who have intrusted them and if they have been corrupt in the discharge of their several Offices they are equally liable to the Kings displeasure and to such punishments as the Laws have provided for such enormities which are inflicted upon them by the Kings authority And as no foreign power can be so competent as the King 's to administer this Justice since it must either controul it or be controuled by it so it is no easie matter for the Pope to prove himself a more spiritual Person than Kings are who have been in all Ages thought to have somewhat of the Priest and the Prophet by their very Office whereas some Popes have been pure Lay-men when they have been chosen to that Supreme office which is all the qualification they have to be more Ecclesiastical after and very many have been chosen Popes who never were Bishops which is not a necessary qualification for that dignity every Deacon-Cardinal being as capable to be elected Pope as the Priest and Bishop Cardinal and he that was a Bishop before consecrates no Bishops himself after he is Pope but that function is performed by other Bishops by vertue of his Commission or Bull and the same may as regularly be done by Bishops by vertue of Kings Commissions in their several Kingdoms otherwise it would be in the power of Popes to extinguish the function of Bishops in any Princes Dominions and therefore the French Ambassador declared in his Masters name to Innocent the Tenth that if he persisted in the refusal to make Bishops in Portugal upon that King's nomination they should chuse a Patriarch of their own who should supply that defect But God be thanked that senseless usurpation and exemption of the Clergie from the common justice of Nations is pretty well out of countenance and since the Republick of Venice so notoriously baffled Paul the Fifth upon that very point other Kings and Princes have chastised their own Clergie for transcendent crimes without asking leave of his Holiness or treating them in any other manner than they do their ordinary Malefactors For the unity proposed and professed by us in the Creed I believe one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church if it be well considered in what time that Creed was made which is not yet defined or determined by any Church and if it had been made by the Apostles themselves according to the fancy of some men that every one of the Apostles should contribute his Article it would then be Canonical Scripture which it is not pretended to be yet I think it is agreed by most learned men that it was framed in the infancy of Christianity and in or very soon after the time of the Apostles themselves and then it can have no other signification than Credo Sanctam Apostolicam Ecclesiam esse Catholicam which was a necessary Article at that time when the believing that the Church was to be universal and to consist equally of Gentiles as well as Iews was one of the most difficult points of Christianity and most opposed and for the Confirmation whereof the Apostles took most pains after they were all reconciled to it themselves and as it could have no other sence then so the restraining it to any one Church now or to make it serve for a distinction between Churches and Nations and to produce a separation between them must be very unnatural if any sence at all To conclude then this discourse of unity I know not how Mr. Cressy can refuse to submit to that good rule and determination that S. Gregory long since gave upon the third Interrogation administred to him by Austin the Monk Cum una sit fides cur sunt Ecclesiarum diversae consuetudines altera consuetudo Missarum
majoribus to determine the points of Catholick truth c. To which there can be nothing more substantially answered for confutation than that the State of the Church must have been very deplorable and desperate if that had been a Catholick verity when Pope Marcellinus sacrificed to Idols or when Pope Liberius turned Arrian and would be much more lamentable in these days when the Church must remain in perpetual wardship and servitude under the Pope since no man can rationally expect a general Council to relieve her and when there is no other definition of Heresie in the Coena Domini than that which contradicts or is contrary to the doctrine or practice of the Church of Rome and when the authority of the Pope is urged as the best expedient for the establishing peace and unity in the world can there be any thing replied more pertinently for the conviction than the mention of those Popes who by the assuming that authority and purely for the vindication of it have caused more Christian blood to have been spilt more horrible Massacres of Kings and Princes and People than all the Heresies in the world and all other politick differences have produced if you cast in the Wars for the Holy Land which may justly be cast upon the Popes account and which is a circumstance very infamous as well as lamentable much the greatest part of this destruction and ruine proceeded from the perjury of Popes themselves after they had promised and sworn to observe such pacts and agreements voluntarily entred into by themselves or from the Dispensations they granted to others to break their Faith and not to perform the contracts they had entred into all which he says being granted nothing will follow whereas certainly it must follow that the persons of such men are not capable or worthy of such trusts or authority which is as much as those arguments are urged for Mr. Cressy would be contented to confess that some Popes for about an Age or two did cause intolerable disorders in the Church and Empire which by the way is argument enough against those personal qualifications upon condition that we would gratifie him with acknowledging that the Government of Popes did for a thousand years produce excellent order in the world which we are so far from granting that as we must confess that they were so modest for half that time as to make no claim to any such authority in Church or State so from the time they did claim it it produced more blood-shed than all other quarrels whatsoever And as Mr. Cressy must have the assistance of very good Antiquaries to name one War of a years continuance that was ever composed by the authority or mediation of any Pope where there can very hardly be named one solemn bloody War upon what Politick pretence soever it was at first entred into but that hath been carried on either upon his immediate advice and interest or fomented under-hand by his Council and assistance of which the Rebellion in Ireland must be one of the latest instances It cannot be denied that some Ages have been so ignorant and barbarous that the Popes authority hath been sufficient to kindle the most cruel and the most unnatural bloody diffentions and he hath never failed in contributing his utmost power to that end and it can be as easily proved that in this last Age many rebellions and ravenous Wars have fallen out which might either have been prevented or quickly composed as the late Rebellions in France and those in Catalonia being both between Catholicks if he as a common Father would have interposed his special authority and excommunicated those who he could not doubt were in Rebellion but he never would be induced to apply his power to that good end The Supremacy and Soveraignty of the Bishop of Rome was never the product of peace it grew very fat and the bulk thereof encreased to that unruly size in and by the most bloody Wars which Christendom hath ever been infested with which makes it discernable enough what diet they chuse to feed upon of which appetite their late savage Bulls against the peace of Munster and that of Osningbrooke when the Empire was even at its last gasp for want of blood is too great a manifestation Nor have they to this day how little noise soever they now make disclaimed any of those principles or the pretence to any of that power by the exercise whereof so many intolerable disorders as Mr. Cressy confesses were caused for about an Age or two in the Church and in the Empire I wonder Mr. Cressy should accuse the Doctor for arguing less reasonably in mentioning the Schismes which have been in the Church of Rome and the more modern disorders by reason of the quarrels between Bishops and Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges c. But I wonder more at his unskilfulness in the Ecclesiastical History when he says that all the Schismes were after the Church was above twelve hundred years old for before there were scarce any which is so great a mistake that my old kindness will scarce suffer me to take notice of it The last Schisme as I think before the year twelve hundred was that between Alexander the third and Victor the fifth which was after the year eleven hundred and fifty and is reckoned by all Ecclesiastical Writers to be the twenty fourth or twenty fifth Schisme and it is an unreasonable objection that there can be no such power inherent in the Pope as he assigns to him when it is so frequently uncertain who is Pope and that uncertainty hath continued so long and all the Princes of Christendom divided in the reception of him and the anti-Pope sometimes three or four together act and do all that the true Pope pretends to do and is obeyed as such in the Dominions of several Christian Princes This sure cannot be thought a light argument by any but such who think the pretence too frivolous to require an argument against it and he says the mention of the quarrels between Bishops and Monastick Orders and between the Regulars and the Seculars and much more such stuff implies no more but that Subjects are often times Rebellious to their Superiours therefore it were better there were no Superiours at all when such stuff is an unanswerable argument that the authority with the which he would invest the Pope for peace and unity sake doth not produce either where it is most submitted to He says very true that it is not the Popes infallibility but his authority which ends Controversies which is a good argument that they must remain unended when either party doth not acknowledge his authority and it seems the case is not very different when both sides do confess it for he says that all Catholicks do acknowledge that they are obliged at least to silence when imposed by the Pope yet it cannot be denied but that some have not complied with the obligation but