But any thing must pass now to deceive the vulgar tho' Men of Sence see the contrary Another Argument he brings to delude the Authority of the Church of Rome is to make her apss only for a particular Church But how often have they been told that Catholics do not take the Church of Rome as it is the Suburbican Diocess to be the Catholic Church but all the Christian Churches in Communion with the Bishop of Rome And that this is the true Church appears by the marks of it deliver'd in the Nicene Creed no other Church being able to pretend to that Unity Sanctity Universality and Antiquity which she is manifestly invested with The true Church must be one and by conquence free from Schism which destroys that notion which some of late have held that the true Church is that Catholic Church which is composed of all Christians the Roman the Grecians the Armenians Prtoestants c. all which they acknowledge to be Members of the True Church tho' they may be rotten ones and this notion our Author seems to have of it when he tells us that the Roman Church has in all ages made up but a part of the Church Pag. 77. and that not always the greatest neither The true Church must be also Holy and must by consequence be free from Heresie and teach no Erroneous Doctrine which how it stands with that Idea which this Author insinuates that the Church of Rome has erred event in necessary points of Faith and is yet a Member of the True Church is worthy a mature Consideration This indeed made the first Reformers who accused the Roman Catholic Church of Idolatry and Superstition say that the Church of JESUS CHRIST was hidden fled into the Wilderness See the Protestant Authors cited by Brereley in his Protestant Apology Tract 2. Cap. 1. Sect. 4. and invisible for 1000 or 1200 years that the Pope was Antichrist and the Church of Rome Antichristian But the Men of our Age being sufficiently convinced that the Church of Christ was to have Kings and Queens for Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers that she was to have Pastors and Teachers in all Ages Whitakers contra Duraeum l. 3. p. 260. that the Administration of the Sacraments and the Preaching of the true word of God were the Essential Proprieties of the Church c. and that all these marks do necessarily denote a Visible Church and finding moreover they could never prove any Christian Kings before Luther Converted to Protestancy or any visible Pastors or Teachers of their Doctrine or any Assembly that Administred the Sacraments as they do or Preached the word of God in their Sence and finding they could not deny the Conversion of many Kings and Nations to the Religion established in the Church of Rome found themselves obliged also to admit her as a part of the True Church tho' a corrupted one and would rather destroy the Sanctity of Christs Church and her Vnity than acknowledge themselves to be justly cut off from being Members of her The third Mark is Catholic which is universal as to Place Time and Doctrine that Church cannot be the true Church the sound whereof is not gone through the whole Earth and is not it self spread over and visible in all Nations that cannot be the true Church which has not continued in all Ages Visible Holy and Uniform neither lastly can that be the true Church which either adds or diminishes from the Doctrines revealed by God to the Prophets and Apostles so that those are as guilty of the Breach of Faith who refuse to believe what has been taught as those who impose new Doctrines The last mark of the Church is that she must be Apostolic that is grounded upon the Doctrines and Faith of the Apostles and deriving a continual Succession from them All which marks are so far from being applicable to the Church of England or to the Universal Church according to the notion given of it be these late Writers that a Man of the smallest judgment if Impartial cannot but see the fallacy thereof ART XXII Authority of the Holy See and of Episcopacy AS for his two other Articles The Opinion of the Church of England as to the Authority of the Church and that of the See Apostolic and Episcopacy I have nothing to say to him but to desire him to remember his promises Pag. 81. and to enquire what is the Authority the Antient Councils of the Primitive Church have acknowledged and the Holy Fathers have always taught the Faithful to give to the Successour to St. Peter and whether the first Four General Councils might not be termed neither General nor Free with as much Reason as the Council of Trent or those others acknowledged by all the Western World and most of the Eastern Churches before the new pretended Reformation The Conclusion I Come now to his Close in which he sums up all the Poison of his Book lays what he pleases to our charge and draws what Consequences he will to inflame his Reader He tells us of Bitter and Vnchristian Hatred we have conceiv'd against them Pag. 82. and desires to know what warrant we have for it I desire all unprejudic'd Persons to consider whether we have not more reason to complain than he Here was a Church established in England Truths delivered to her with Christianity it self were here Practis'd and Preach'd Religious Houses were here endow'd with ample Revenues c. when behold a Pretended Reformation comes destroys this Church dissolves all the Constitutions of it changes the established Doctrines and alters many of its antientest Practices pulls down Religious Houses and Churches alienates the Revenues turns the Religious Inhabitants into the wide World make Laws against all those who should defend that Doctrine Imprisonment loss of Goods and Fortunes nay even of Life it self are the Punishments ordained for them who are found guilty of Practising or Preaching that Religion And what less could such a Church do than Excommunicate they who thus Renounc'd her Doctrines Contemned her Authority and persecuted her Children But this Excommunication must be called Severity and unchristian hatred And if we declare that all those who forsake the Unity of the Church are guilty of Schism and they who will not acquiess to those Points of Faith which God has Revealed and the Church which is the Pillar and Ground of Truth has declar'd to have been so Reveal'd are guilty of Heresie and that Heresie and Schism will bring inevitable damnation to all those who die without repenting of them we must be esteem'd uncharitable I must therefore Retort his Popular Argument and ask him and all unprejudic'd Protestants what they can find in all our Doctrines when truly Represented to warrant that bitter and unchristian hatred they have conceiv'd against us a hatred which has occasioned so many Penal and Sanguinary Laws and still makes them use all endeavours to keep them in full force against
least or more by the discretion of the Minister and so distributed And Men must not think less to be received in part than in the whole but in each of them the whole Body of JESVS CHRIST In the Proclamation it is ordain'd that it shall be commonly deliver'd under both kinds except necessity otherwise require which shews manifestly that the Church of England thought then that one kind was sufficient in case of necessity and that whole Sacrament was contained under one kind for half a Sacrament is no Sacrament And if a necessary occasion be sufficient to dispense with the Administration of it in both kinds who ought to be Judge but the Pastors and Teachers in every Age or the Church Representative which shews that this is a part of Discipline and not of Faith since both sides confess that in case of necessity it may be given in one kind and that by receiving each Particle one receives the whole Body of JESUS CHRIST as appears by the Annotation so that the Bishop of Condom's Argument against the Calvinists of France has its full force against the Church of England ART XX. Of the wrÃtten and unwritten Word IN the next Articlé we are agreed in the main Art 24. p. 75. We both acknowledge the unwritten Word to have been the first Rule of Christians and that it was so far from losing any thing of its Authority by addition of the Written Word that it was indeed the more firmly established We receive with equal veneration the Written and the Unwritten Word when we are assured they come from the Apostles And as we do not admit of every thing which is called Tradition so what is made appear to have been received in all Churches and in all Ages we are ready to embrace as coming from the Apostles Our difference consists only in this who shall be judge when this Tradition is Universal We rely upon the Judgment of the present Church in every Age either assembled in the most general Council that Age can afford or else declaring her Doctrine by her constant practice and the uniform Voice of her Pastors and People and are assured it is not sufficient for any Private Persons or Church to say we suppose or we are persuaded they are contrary to the Written Word or we find it not there to make the Churches Sentence void or justifie a dissent ART XXI Of the Authority of the Church IN his next Article Art 25. p. 76. of the Authority of the Church he grants many things which the Bishop of Meaux had asserted from which we might expect great Fruit but he presently nips all our hopes in the very bud He grants the Catholic Church to be the Guardian of the Holy Scriptures Pag. 76 77. and of Tradition and that it is from her Authority they reeeive both That they never deny the Church to have an Authority not only in matters of Order and Discipline Pag. 78. but even of Faith too That they neither fear the entire defection of the Catholic Church nor that she should fall into such an entire Infidelity as should argue her not to be a Church Pag. 80. And in his next Article he allows the Church a just Authority in matters of Faith and declares as a Doctrine of his Church that they allow such a deference to a Churches Decisions as to make them their directions what Doctrine they may or may not publicly maintain and teach in her Communion that they shew whatever submission they can to her Authority without violating that of God declared to us in the Holy Scripture And lastly that whatsoever deference they allow to a National Church or Council the same they think in a much greater degree due to a General In which none shall be more ready to assist nor to which none shall be more ready to submit These are fair offers to establish a Church-Authority and did he manifestly destroy all he has here said by some other exceptions we might have hoped some good effects of such a Submission He tells us Pag. 79. and that truly that any particular Church may either by errour lose or by other means prevaricate the Faith even in necessary points of it And yet notwithstanding he do's not only set up a particular Church to examin the Churches Decisions Pag. 78. which he tells us after all may err but even every individual Person who according to his Doctrine may not only examine the Decisions of the whole Church but glory in opposing them if he be but evidently convinced that his belief is founded upon the undoubted Authority of Gods Holy Word His words are these Pag. 79. Tho' we suppose the Scriptures are so clearly written that it can hardly happen that in necessary Articles of Faith any one Man should be found opposite to the whole Church in his Opinion He had told us a little before that any particular Church such as he esteem'd the Church of Rome to be might either by Errour lose or by any other means prevaricate the Faith even in necessary points of it and yet what he there wishes they had not too great cause to fear the Church of Rome has in effect done he here tells us can hardly happen to one particular Man But what follows is more intolerable and since he gives us it as a Doctrine of the Church of England I desire him to tell us in what Canon Article or Constitution it is contain'd But says he if such an one were evidently convinc'd that his belief was founded upon the undoubted Authority of Gods Holy Word so far would it be from any Errour to support it against the whole Church that it is at this day the greatest Glory of St. Athanasius that he slood up alone against the whole World in defence of Ghrists Divinity when the Pope the Councils the whole Church fell away Behold here a Doctrine which if admitted will not only maintain all the Dissenters that are but that ever can be from a Church a Doctrine which will establish as many Religions as there are Persons in the World every one of which may if he be but evidently convinced that is if he have but impudece enough to think he is so that his belief is founded upon the undoubted Authority of Gods Word not only oppose the whole Church but glory in it And a Doctrine backed by as false and Authority as the Assertion it self is false and scandalous for never any one yet before this Man said that the Pope the Councils and the whole Church fell in St. Athanasius his time on the contrary it is manifest to all those who have read any thing of History that the Pope and all the Western Churches and the approved General Councils of those times all stood up for St. Athanasius and if he said he was against all and all against him it was only to express the great number of Eastern Bishops that oppos'd his Doctrine
A VINDICATION OF THE BISHOP of CONDOM's EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE Catholic Church In Answer to a Book Entituled An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England c. With a Letter from the said Bishop Permissu Superiorum LONDON Printed by Henry Hills Printer to the King 's Most Excellent Majesty for His Houshold and Chappel 1686. A VINDICATION OF THE EXPOSITION of the DOCTRINE OF THE Catholic Church PART I. Containing an Answer to the Preface IT is no less strange than much to be deplored that Religion which ought to be the Common Band of Unity should by the subtilty of Satan become the Occasion of Discord and Contention amongst Christians And that all the Methods which the Catholic Church makes use of or the Means her dutiful Children can suggest should be so far from opening the Eyes of many otherwise clear-sighted and well-meaning Persons led away with the Prejudice of Education as to give them occasion to calumniate her Doctrines censure her Practices and condemn her Pastors One would have thought such a Book as is the Bishop of Condom's Exposition free from Passion grounded upon the Pure Doctrine of the Council of Trent and seconded by the greatest Authority in the Church next to that of the Council it self should have calm'd the Minds of them who pretend to be lovers of Peace and Unity and have made those who propose to themselves any thing of sincerity in matters of such high concerns to acknowledge the Doctrines of the Catholic Church to have been faithfully Expounded in it But we see the contrary and that a Book thus grounded upon the manifest Doctrine of a General Council approv'd as such by the Learned Prelates of divers Nations and by the Pope himself must be made to pass amongst our New Reformers as a Book which Palliates or Prevaricates the Doctrine of our Church and the very Approbations as meer Artifices to deceive the World and not as Sincere much less Authoritative Approbations either of the Nature or Principles of the same Doctrine Pref. p. 15. Had the Author indeed of this Calumny who pretends to lay down the Doctrine of the Church of England given us some more Authentic Testimonies for what he Publishes or taught us some better Method whereby to know the Doctrine of a Church he might have had a more plausible appearance of Reason to complain But when we see him giving us the Doctrines of his Church upon no better Testimony than his own and that of an Imprimatur when we see him to be so far from fixing himself to the known Doctrine of the Church of England exhibited in her Canons and Thirty nine Articles that in several places he asserts what is not to be found amongst them and when we hear him telling us he has forborn to set his Name to it Pref. p. 18. least perhaps any prejudice against his Person might chance to injure the Excellence of the Cause which he maintains I cannot without some wonder reflect upon his Censure and the Reception his Book is said to have had But it seems for him to tell us He is so assured he has not Palliated or Prevaricated the Doctrine of the Church of England in his Exposition Ibidem that he entirely submits himself and it to her Censure and the sight of an Imprimatur Carolus Alston R. P. D. Hen. Episc Lond. prefix'd before it is sufficient in some Mens Judgments to Authorize an Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England when the Approbation of so many Learned Judicious and Pious Prelates of the Church of Rome together with that of the whole Assembly of the Clergy of France and of the Pope himself at two several times must by our Author be noted as proceeding from a Peculiar Art unknown to Protestants who are accustomed as he says to sincere dealing Pref. p. 13. But we shall have occasion shortly to examine whether he has made use of that sincerity to which he makes so strong Pretentions Indeed an Answer to his Book seems so needless that I often thought it would be sufficient to tell this Nameless Author That when his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England has receiv'd from the Church of England as full and as Authentick a Testimony of being neither Palliated nor Prevaricated by him as hath the Exposition of the Bishop of Meaux from the Church Catholic and that when his Arguments appear so much as directly to confront the Bishops Exposition it would be time enough to Publish a Justification of that Work against his Calumnies But because this Author has declar'd tho rashly in the name of Protestants that they look upon those Opinions to be indefensible Pref. p. 16. which are not maintain'd against the Assaults of every one that pleases to write against them and that 't is an open and shameful forsaking of them not to take care to defend every thing that is Publish'd it may be some unwary Persons may look upon all he has said as Gospel unless his Discourse be unravell'd and the mistakes he has fallen under with the Sophistry of his Arguments be shewn But before I begin it will be necessary to give the Reader a short Account of the Bishop of Meaux's Intention in publishing this Book and what he expected from any one who should go about to Answer it which may serve for a true state of the Question And First as for his Intention having all along observ'd that our Doctrines were strangely Misrepresented and that not only the private Opinions of Scholastic Authors but even the Inventions of our Enemies were most commonly objected to us as the Tenets of our Church he thought it necessary to propose her Doctrine plainly and simply Expos p. 1. and to distinguish it aright from those Tenets which have been falsly imputed to her Note that the Quotations out of the Exposition are from the Impression published by His Majesty's Command by which he hop'd many of those false Notions of her Doctrine which divers Persons had form'd to themselves would have been remov'd and an Union much more easily obtain'd For it is a certain Truth That if the Doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church when truly Represented be Innocent and Pure and so far from destroying the acknowledg'd Foundations of the Christian Faith that it alone bears proportion and conformity to them then all the pretended Reformations of that Doctrine are but vain and unprofitable Labours and a Separation from that our ancient Mother-Church upon no better Grounds must be Schismatical and therefore all those who have broken the Unity of the Church upon such a pretended Reformation are oblig'd to return to her Bosom and Communion So that his Intentions were not so much to Argue or Dispute upon Points of Catholic Doctrine as to Propose them truly and render them Intelligible And therefore he pitch'd upon the Council of Trent as the fittest Compass by which he might