holy Trinity especially God the Father to be pourtrayed at all And if now they suffer it they have for it I make no doubt a sufficient reason especially since they heed not at all however your Disswader imagines any natural similitude in any of their pictures If they be so made as to raise the sansie to thoughts above and the love and vertues that may bring us thither they care not whether for example Saint Bennet were a man just of that complexion or Christ their Redeemer of those direct features the limner has given him They come not into their Churches nor do they cast their eyes upon their pictures for any such end And if God the Father be represented to their eyes as he is to their ears when he is called Father I see no harm in it If we may use such a form of words when we speak to God as this world we live in may afford our ears why may not the eyes have such an answerable form too But this is a busines which your Disswader if he were a Catholik might well propound in the next general Councel and do otherwise in the mean time if so he please in his own Diocess For neither books nor picturs can be used in any Diocess but what the Ordinary of the place allows And the Byshop still guides himself by the general doctrin and discipline the faith and custom the tradition and laws of the Church in the whole mannagement of his care And when these do not clearly descend to any particular which he is to deal with he uses therin his own discretion going that way if he do well that he findes comes nearest to the rule as temporal superiours also do in their affairs O but the Roman Church with much scandal and against nature and the reason of mankind in their mass-books and breviaries portuises and manuels picture the holy Trinity with three noses and four eyes and three faces in a knot And do they so I have seen I think as many Catholik countreys and mass-books and breviaries portuises and manuels as your Disswader ever did and yet I never saw any such picture therin all my life He has been it seems an earnest pryer into the front and faces of books But did he not mistake trow you and take some fortune-book written in old letters for a mass-book and thence conclude that all breviaries and mass-books portuises and manuels were stored with such figures However it were the picture was to blame For three noses and three faces ought to have more than four eyes And if ther were but four eyes I cannot see how ther should be three whole faces although ther were there three noses in it But this is as good stuff and as true and as pertinent too as any other part of this his book which he calls a Disswasive from Popery §. 10. Which is against Papal authority Sayes that the Popes universal byshoprick is another novelty though not so ridiculous yet as dangerous as any other And a novelty it is for Christ left his Church in the hands of the Apostles without any superiority of one above another And in the Councel of Jerusalem James and not Peter gave the decisive sentence Christ sent all his Apostles with the same whole power as his Father sent him Therfor S. Paul bid the byshops of Miletum feed the whole flock And well said S. Cyprian that the Apostles were all the same that S. Peter was And this equality of power must descend to all byshops who succeed the Apostles in their ordinary power as embassadours for Christ. So then by the law of Christ one byshop is not superiour to another Christ made no head of byshops Beyond the byshop is no step till you rest in the great shepheard and byshop of souls Under him every byshop is supream in spirituals and in all power which to any byshop is given by Christ. And that this was ever beleeved in ancient times is proved by Pope Eleutherius his epistle to the byshops of France by S. Ambrose S. Cyprian Pope Symmachus S. Denyse Ignace Gelasius Jerom Fulgentius and even Pope Gregory the great Wherfor S. Paul expresly sayes that Christ appointed in his Church first Apostles but not S. Peter first Nor did Peter ever rule but by common councel as S. Chrysostom witnesses And it is even confest by som of the Romish party that the succession is not tyed to Rome as Cusanus Soto Driedo Canus and Segovius Nor was any thing known therof in the primitive times when the byshops of Asia and Africa opposed Pope Victor and Pope Stephen and all byshops treated with the Roman byshop as with a brother not superiour and a whole general Councel gave to the byshop of C. P. equal right and preheminence with the byshop of Rome Finally Christ gave no commandment to obey the byshop of Rome and probably never intended any such thing A man would surely think Sir that this nail is knocked in to the head What could be said more But to be brief with you If all the other sections of this your Disswasive have said nothing this I may say speaks somthing wors than nothing For his reasons are senceles his testimonies either impertinent or manifestly against himself and his whole discours contrary to the laws and constitutions of our English Protestant Church To begin with the last whether you look upon the statutes and acts of Parliament wherby our English Church and government were first settled in England upon the reformation in the dayes of Edward the sixth and afterwards ratified or the articles canons and constitutions that were agreed upon by the byshops and clergy and confirmed both by King Edward Queen Elizabeth King James and our good King Charles we shall clearly see that our English Protestant Church and government is Monarchical and that byshops are as much subjected to their Arch-byshops as Ministers to Byshops and Arch-byshops in like manner to the King in whom the Episcopal power is radical and inherent and in whom is the fulness of ecclesiastical authority and from whom byshops do receiv their place authority power and jurisdiction And that Parson Vicar or other Doctour who shall write or speak contrary to this by the constitutions and canons ecclesiastical made in the time of our late good King Charles he is to be suspended and by the Canons and constitutions ecclesiastical made and confirmed in the Reign of King James he is excommunicated ipso facto and by the laws of Queen Elizabeth and King Edward to be further punished How comes it then that this your disswading Doctour utterly dissolves all this frame of government under pretence of talking against papal power as contrary to the mind and will of Christ which will and mind is notwithstanding most resolutely asserted by the constitutions and laws of this our very English Church and Kingdom which rejected indeed the Roman seat and person but retained still the power and ordination of
unto a particular end of future bliss whereas all states do of themselves aim no further then the peace and happines of this life And so for the particular end and means answerable therunto which religion uses it will require a particular and special overseer Thus Aristotle though he conceited the celestial orbs to be contiguous and so all rapt together in a motion from East to West yet becaus they had special motions of their own he therfor allowed them particular intelligences to guide those motions So we see in ordinary affairs a man that hath several wayes and ends is guided by several directours in this by a lawyer in that by a physician by a gardener by a tradesman c. Fistly becaus head of the Church absolutely must be one that succeeds in his chair whom Jesus the master left and appointed personally to feed his flock No King upon earth ever pretended to sit in that Fishermans chair or to succeed him in it which the Pope to my knowledg for sixteen hundred years hath both challenged as his right and actually possest And Catholiks are all so fixt in this judgment that they can no more disbeleev it then they can ceas to beleev in Jesus Christ. 11 ch from page 228. to 246. Your eleventh chapter falls directly upon my fifteenth paragraff of Scriptur And therfor I may here expect you should insult over me to the purpos But Sir I told you before and now tell you again that I know no other rule to Christians either for faith or manners no other hope no other comfort but what scriptur and holy gospel affords But this is not any part of the debate now in hand however you would perswade the world to think so When four or five men Sir of several judgements collected from the very scriptur you and I talk of rise up one against another with one and the same scriptur in their hands with such equal pretence of light power and reason that no one will either yield to another or remain himself in the same faith but run endles divisions without controul does scriptur prevent this evil does it has it can it remedy it can any one man make a religion by the autority of scriptur alone which neither himself nor any other upon the same grounds he framed it shall rationally doubt of This is our case Sir and only this which you do not so much as take notice of to the end you may with a more plausible rhetorick insult over me as a contemner of Gods word Nor do you heed any particle of my discours in this paragraff but according to your manner collect principles to the number of seven out of it you say which I do not know to be so much as hinted in it that as you did before so you may now again play with your own bawble and confute your self And they are in a manner the very same you sported with before in your second chapter 1. from the Romans we received the gospel 2. what is spoken in scripture of the Church belongs to the Roman 3. the Roman every way the same it was c. of all which I do not remember that I have in that my paragraff so much as any one word Sir either speak to my discours as you finde it or els hold your peace As if then you had overheard me afore-hand to give you this deserved check at the close of your chapter you bring in som few words of mine with a short answer of your own annext to the skirts of it which I here set down as you place them your self No man can say speaks Fiat Lux what ill popery ever did in the world till Henry the eights dayes when it was first rejected Strange say you in your Animadversions when it did all the evils that ever were in the Christian world With the Roman catholiks unity ever dwelt Never Protestants know their neighbour catholiks not their religion They know both Protestants are beholding to Catholiks for their benefices books pulpits gospel For som not all The Pope was once beleeved general pastour over all Prove it The scriptur and gospel we had from the Pope Not at all You cannot beleev the scriptur but upon the autority of the Church We can and do You count them who brought the scriptur as lyars No otherwise The gospel separated from the Church can prove nothing Yes it self This short work you make with me And to all that serious discours of mine concerning scriptur which takes up sixteen pages in Fiat Lux we have got now in reply thereunto this your Laconick-confutation Strang. Never Know both Som not all Prove it Not at all Can and do No otherwis Yes it self 12 ch from page 246. to 262. Your twelfth chapter meets with my history of religion as a flint with steel only to strike fire For not heeding my story which is serious temperate and sober you tell another of your own fraught with defamations and wrath against all ages and people and yet speak as confidently as calm truth could do First you say that Joseph of Arimathea was in England but he taught the same religion that is in England now But what religion is that Sir Then you tell us that the story of Fugatius and Damian missioners of Pope Eleutherius you do suspect for many reasons But becaus you assign none I am therfor moved to think they may be all reduced to one which is that you will not acknowledg any good thing ever to have come from Rome Then say you succeeded times of luxury sloth pride ambition scandalous riots and corruption both of faith and manners over all the Christian world both princes priests prelates and people Not a grain of vertue or any goodnes we must think in so many Christian kingdoms and ages Then did Goths and Vandals and other pagans overflow the Christian world To teach them we may think how to mend their manners These pagans took at last to Christianity Haply becaus it was a more loose and wicked life than their own pagan profession These men now Christened advanced the Popes autority when Christian religion was now grown degenerate And now we come to know how the Roman byshop became a patriark above the rest by means namely of new converted pagans It was an odde chance they should think of advancing him to what they never knew either himself or any other advanced before amongst Christians whose rotten and corrupt faith they had lately embraced And yet more odde and strange it was that all Christendom should calmly submit to a power set up anew by young converted pagans no prince or byshop either there or of any other Christian Kingdom either then or ever after to this day excepting against it Had not all the byshops and priests of Africa Egypt Syria Thrace Greece and all the Christian world acknowledged by a hundred experiments the supreme spiritual autority of the Roman patriarch in all times before
that every other Church saith Irenaeus comply with the Roman by reason of her greater principality First becaus he sayes it is necessary secondly that every Church thirdly for the Roman Church's more potent principality to comply with her the Centurists are much displeased at it and censure it for a very corrupt speech And indeed the papal power and jurisdiction was so eminent in all ages that Philip Nicolai in his comment de regno Christi refers the beginning of it to the infirmity of the Apostles and byshops succeeding them For there speaking of the origin and increas of papal power Primatus affectatio saith he communis suit infirmit as apostolorum ac etiam primorum urbis episcoporum Finally in the first age that St. Peter had a primacy above the other apostles is acknowledged by Calvin The twelve apostles had one among them to govern the rest by Musculus The celestial spirits are not equal the apostles themselves were not equal Peter is found in many places to have been chief amongst the rest which we deny not by Mr. Whitgift Amongst the Apostles themselves ther was one chief and by Dr. Covel who in his examinations teaches at large against the Puritans both that there was one appointed over the rest amongst the apostles to keep them in unity and that that government was not to ceas with the apostles but ever to continue in the Church and that it is the only way to prevent dissention and suppress heresies and that otherwise the Church would be in a far wors case than the meanest Commonwealth nay almost than a den of thieves But the Centurists like not this and therfor do they in their 4 Cent. reprehend many of the Fathers for entituling Peter the head of the apostles and the byshop of byshops So indeed Optatus calls him apostolorum caput and therfor Cephas Origen apostolorum principem Cyril of Jerusalem principem caput caeterorum Cyril of Alexandria Pastorem caput ecclesiae Arnobius Episcoporum episcopum the Councel of Chalcedon Petram verticem ecclesiae Cathobais Thus much for that point which by all this is proved to be far from any novelty As for Saints invocation and the antiquity of that beleef and custom it is acknowledged by the Centurists Chemnitius our Dr. Whitgift and Fulk Dr. Whitgift in his defence hath these words Almost all the byshops and writers of the Greek Church and Latin also for the most part were spotted with doctrins of Free-will of merit of invocation of Saints and such like Fulk in his rejoynder to Brittow I confess saith he that Ambrose Austin and Jerom held invocation of Saints to be lawful and in his book against the Rhemish Testament In Nazianzen Basil and Chrysostom I confess faith he is mention of invocation of Saints and again that Theodoret also speaketh of prayers to martyrs and again in the same book that Leo ascribeth much to the prayers of S. Peter for him and again that many ancient fathers held that Saints departed pray for us Chemnitius in his examen acknowledges as much of S. Basil Nazianzen Gregory Nyssen Theodoret S. Jerom and even S. Austin himself The Centurists charge the same upon S. Cyprian who is ancienter than S. Austin and again upon Origen who was ancienter than Cyprian adding that there are manifest steps of Saints invocation in the doctors of that ancient age So this is no novelty then Lastly as for the Sacrifice of Mass and Altars which as Dr. Reynolds sayes well in his conference with Hart are linked together Peter Martyr in his common places reproveth Peter of Alexandria for attributing more as he speaks to the outward altar than to the living temples of Christ and he checks Optatus also for saying what is the altar even the seat of the body and blood of Christ such sayings as these saith Peter Martyr edified not the people and lastly all the fathers in general he finds sault with for their abusing so frequently the name Altar which indeed is spoken of even by S Ignatius the Apostles undoubted schollar who is therfor carped at by Cartwright Calvin Fulk and Field acknowledg that most ancient fathers S. Athanasius Ambrose Austin Arnobius talked much of the Christian Sacrifice and Altar and Priests who offer and pour out daily on the holy table adding that the fathers without doubt received that their doctrin from the Jews and Gentiles whom therin they imitated The Centuriators in 3. Cent. Hame Cyprian as superstitious in that point and in their 2 Cent. say that S. Irenaeus and Ignatius though disciples of the apostles were dangerously erroneous in that account Sebastianus Francus in his epistle de abrogandis in universum omnibus statutis ecclesiasticis affirms that presently after the apostles times the supper of our Lord was turned into a sacrifice Andreas Chrastovius in his book de opificio missae charges the most ancient fathers with using a propitiatory sacrifice And our own Ascham in his Apologet. pro coena Domini is found to acknowledg that sacrifice for the dead and living is so ancient in the Christian Church that no beginning of it can be found although he thinks also with Calvin that it was derived whensoever it first began from the custom either of the Jews or Gentiles or both thus bespattering with his rash pen the very first sproutings of Christianity in the world However it is in the mean time no novelty at least And let any one in any age of Christianity look all over the Christian world on any of those who prosess that name whether they kept communion with the Roman Church or brake by schisme from it or perhaps never heard of it as they say the Church in Ethiopia did not and he shall find that they all had this Christian sacrifice amongst them as the great capital work of their Religion The Grecians under their Patriarch of Constantinople even still after their schisme have their Priests celebrating in all their ancient robes this their sacred liturgy to this day in the learned greek tongue all over the world where they live and may serv God not only in Greece Epirus Macedon and islands of the Egoean sea but in many parts of Natolia Circassia Russia Thrace Bulgaria Rascia Servia Bosnia Walachia Moldavia Dalmatia Croatia Thracia and up as far North as Trebisond The Assyrians or Melchites who are under the Archbyshop of Damascus whom they intitle Patriarch of Antioch The Georgians that dwell between the Euxin and Caspian sea under their Metropolitan who resides in the monastery of S. Catherin in Mount Sinai The Circassians that live between them and the river Tanais The Muscovites or Russians under the primate of Mosco The Nestorians dispersed up and down in Assyria Mesopotamia Parthia Media even to Cataia and India under their Patriarch residing either in Muzal or the monastery of S. Ermes fast by it The Indians or Christians of S. Thomas about the cities of Coulan and Maliapar Angamal
worst effects of feuds then is the plea of parties specified their probabilities acknowledged and lastly an impossibility of ever bringing our debates to a conclusion either by light or spirit reason or scriptur texts so long as we stand separated from any superiour judicative power unto which all parties will submit is I think with a strong probability if not demonstrative evidence concluded And therfor is it thought by Fiat Lux to be more rational and Christian-like to leav these endles groundles and ruinous contentions and resign our selvs to humility and peace This is the design and whole summe of my book And although I speak up and down here for Papists there for Protestants elswhere for Presbyterians or Independants commonly out of the very discourses they make for themselvs yet do I not defend either their wayes or their arguments Nor do I teach any doctrin at all or hold there any opinion But I only give to understand in that one little book what is largely discoursed in a hundred That all parties do make out to themselves such a probability which as it stands joyned with the actours resolution and separated from any superiour visible power to which they will submit can never be subdued And hath not long experience proved this as true as any thing els What then is ther in Fiat Lux that can be denied Is it not evident that we are now at variance and too long indeed have been Is it not also clear that peace charity and neighbourhood is better then variance dissention and wars Do not parties strongly plead for themselvs so far perswaded each one that himself is in the right that he will not yield the truth to be with any but himself Is not all this evident I am sure it is and all England will witnes it And if any one should be able to evince that any reasonings made in Fiat Lux either for Papists Protestants or others be not certain or perhaps not probable yet he does nothing except he be able to prove likewise that they are not probable to Fiat Lux or to those that use them whether Protestants or Papists which he can no more do than he can pull a star out of the firmament I say Sir again and mark I pray you what I say If you should chance to evince that the reasons brought by Fiat Lux either for the doctrin or practises of Papists or others be either not probable or untrue yet is your labour all in vain except you be able to demonstrate likewise that they are not probable to Fiat Lux or to Papists and others who use those reasons which you can no more do then any thing that is absolutely impossible By this time Sir you may discern how hard it is to deal with Fiat Lux and impossible to confute him Sith he speaks nothing but what is as clearly true and evident as what we see at mid-day Nor do I in this any way exalt the ability of the Authour whom you are pleased so much and frequently to disable A Tom-fool may say that which all the wisemen in the world cannot gain-say as he did who said the Sun was higher at noon than any other hour of the day It was Fiat Lux his fortune rather then chois to utter words which will no sooner be read than acknowledged And it was your misfortune Sir to employ your greater talents in refuting evident truths perhaps for no other reason but becaus they issued from the pen of a man who is not so great a friend to faction as you could wish And although you proceed very harsh and furiously yet am I verily perswaded you now discern though too late for your credit that you had all this while according to our English proverb good Mr. Doctor a wrong sow by the ear Thus far in general Now briefly to give you som account in particular You spend four Chapters and a hundred and eighteen pages which is the fourth part of your book before you com to the first line and paragraff of mine The applaus and honour of this world c. And it is not unwittily done For being to be led as you heavily complain out of your ordinary road of controversies by the wilde chase of Fiat Lux it behoved you to draw som general common places of your own for your self to walk in and exercise your rhetorick and anger before you pursue a bird that slies not you say in any usual tract Preface from page 1. to page 19. Your preface wherin you speak of my subtilty and your own pretence affords me nothing but the beginning of your own mistake which will run quite through your book 1 Chap. from page 19. to 29. Your first chapter beats me about the pate for saying that I conceal my method with a terrible syllogistical dilemma He that useth no method say you cannot conceal it and if he hath concealed it he hath used one But I must pass by store of such doughty stuff being only fit for the young Oxford Schollar who being com home to take air would prove before his father and mother that two eggs were three Then going on you deny that Protestants ever opposed the doctrin and merit of good works which at first I wondered at seeing the sound of it has rung so often in mine own ears and so many hundred books written in this last age so apparently witnes it in all places till I found afterwards in my thorow perusal of your book that you neither heed what you say or how much you do deny But you perhaps love to talk of them better than your fore-fathers did though your thoughts be all the same And you will all equally bless your selvs from building of Churches as the Papists have don however your prattle goes 2 Chap. from page 29. to 110. Your second chapter collects our of Fiat Lux as you say ten general conclusions spread all over like veins and arteries in the body of that my book And this you do that you may make your self a campus Martius to sport in without confinement to my method But you name not any page of my book where those principles may all or any of them be found And you do wisely For in the sence those words do either naturally make out or in which you understand them of all the whole ten I cannot own any one for mine own set down in my book The first of my principles must be this That we received the Gospel first from Rome In your sence I never spoke this We that is we English first received it thence But you talk against it as if I meant that Brittans had it first from Rome We had it not first from Rome say you but by Joseph of Arimathea from Palestin as Fiat Lux himself acknowledges Sir if Fiat Lux say both these things he cannot mean in your contradictory fals sence but in his own true one We that is we Englishmen the
now actual inhabitants of this Land and progeny of the Saxons received first our Gospel and Christendom from Rome though the Brittans who inhabited this Land before us differing as much from us as Antipodes had some of them been Christned long before us And yet the Christendom that prevailed and lasted among the Brittans even they also as well as we had it from Rome too mark this likewise But you reply Though persons from Rome did first plant Christianity among the Saxons was it the Popes Religion they taught did the Pope first finde it out or did they Baptise in the name of the Pope Good Sir it was the Popes Religion not invented by him as your cavil fondly imagines but owned professed and put in practice by him and from him derived unto us by his missioners You adde Did not the Gospel come to Rome as well as to us for it was not first preached there Sir properly speaking it came not so to Rome as it came to us For one of the twelve fountains nay two of the thirteen and those the largest and greatest was transferred to Rome which they watered with their blood we had never any such standing fountain of Christian Religion here but only a stream derived to us from thence My second assertion must be From whom we first received our Religion with them we must still abide This principle as it is never delivered by Fiat Lux though you put it upon me so is it in the latitude it carries and wherin you understand it absolutely fals never thought of by me and indeed impossible For how can we abide with them in any truth who may perhaps not abide in it themselvs Great part of Flanders was first converted by Englishmen and yet are they not obliged either by Fiat Lux or any lux whatsoever to accompany the English in our now present wayes If Rome first taught us Christianity she may then rather plead a power to guide us than we her This or some such like thing I might speak and rationally speak it But that we or any other should be obliged still to abide or rather to follow them who first taught us Religion though they should themselvs forsake their own doctrin as you would make me speak is a piece of folly never came into my thoughts And you may be ashamed to put it upon me Why do you not set down my own words and the page of my book where I delivered this principle My third must be The Roman Religion is still the same This also I do no where formally express nor enter into any such common place You will say I suppose it But doth this justifie you who say here that I assert it as a principle let it then be supposed for I do indeed suppose it becaus I know it hath been demonstrativly proved a hundred times over You deny it has bin proved why do you not then disprove it Becaus you decline say you all common places Very good so do I let us com to proper ones You fall then upon my Queries in the end of my book The Roman was once a true flourishing Church and if she ever fell she must fall either by apostasie heresie or schism c. So I speak there And to this you reply that the Church that then was in the Apostles time was indeed true not that Roman Church that now is So so then say I that former true Church must fall then som time or other when did she fall and how did she fall by apostacy heresy or schism Perhaps say you neither way for she might fall by an earthquake Sir we speak not here of any casual or natural downfall or death of mortals by plague famine or earthquake but a moral and voluntary laps in faith What do you speak to me of earthquakes You adde therfor the second time that she might fall by idolatry and so neither by apostacy heresy or schism Good Sir idolatry is a mixt misdemeanour both in faith and manners I speak of the single one of faith And he that falls by idolatry if he keep still some parts of Christianity entire he falls by heresy by apostacy if he keep none At last finding your self pusled in the third place you lay on load She fell say you by apostacy idolatry heresy schism licentiousnes and prophanenes of life And in this you do not much unlike the drunken youth who being bid to hit his masters finger with his when he perceived he could not do it he ran his whole fist against it But did she fall by apostacy By a partial one say you not a total one Good Sir in this division apostasy is set to expres a total relaps in opposition to heresy which is the partial Did she then fall by heresy or partial apostasy in adhering to any error in faith contary to the approved doctrin of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and Catholik Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto Sir I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad hominem to one that does not take them so And then if indeed the Roman Church had ever swerved in faith as you say she has and be her self but as another ordinary particular Church as you say she is then might you find som one or other more general Church if any ther were possitively to judg her som Oecumenical councel to condemn her som fathers either greek or latin expresly to write against her as Protestants now do som or other grave solemn autority to censur her or at least som company of beleevers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell Since you are no wayes able to assign any of these particulars my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was The fourth assertion frequently say you pleaded by our Authour is that all things as to religion were ever quiet and in peace before the Protestants relinquishment of the Roman Sea This principle you pretend is drawn out of Fiat Lux not becaus it is there but only to open a door for your self to expatiate into som wide general discours about the many wars distractions and factious altercations that have been aforetime up and down the world in som several ages of Christianity And you therfor say it is frequently pleaded by me becaus indeed I never speak one word of it And it is in truth a fals and fond assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account If you had either cited the place or set down my own words they would have spoke their meaning I might say perhaps that our Land had no part of those disturbances upon the account of religion all the thousand years it was Catholik which
that lives the substance of it which is soon and easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine truths into two words which his great apostle again abridged into one And if the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all catholiks the chiefest particles of divine epistles books of sacred history and meditation upon all the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberles amongst catholiks adjoyned to the many several rites of examination of conscience daily and continual practis of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things God hath wrought for us throughout the year which all by law are tied to observ and do observ them may not give a sufficient acquaintance of what concerns our salvation and promote them enough towards it I am to seek what it is that can or what further good it may do to read the letter of Saint Pauls epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherin questions and cases and theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingeniously and without heat what more of good could accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practis than by the conceived substance of Gods will to me and my own duty towards him or what is ther now here in England when the letter of scriptur is set open to every mans eye any more either of peace or charity piety or justice than in former catholik times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those ancient catholik times they flockt every day in the week to their Churches which stood continually open there to pray and meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles all over the land both day and night they built all our churches that we have at this day remaining amongst us and as many more which we have razed and pulled down they founded our universities established our laws set out tythes and glebe-land for their clergy built hospitals erected corporations in a word did all the good things we found don for our good in this our native kingdom But Quid agitur in Anglia Consulitur de religione The former Christians practised and we dispute they had a religion we are still seeking one they exercised themselves in good works by the guidance of their holy catholik faith which leads to them all these works we by our faith evacuate as menstruous rags they had the substance of true religion in their hearts we the text in our lips they had nothing to do but to conform their lives to Gods will all our endeavour is to apply Gods word to our own factions Sir mistake me not The question between us is not Whether the people are to have Gods word or no but whether that word consists in the letter left to the peoples disposal or in the substance urgently imposed upon people for their practis And this becaus you understand not but mistake the whole business all your talk in this your eighteenth chapter vades into nothing Where Fiat Lux sayes in that forenamed paragraff that the Pentateuch or hagiography was never by any High-priest among the Jews put into a vulgar tongue nor the Gospel or Liturgy out of greek in the Eastern part of the Christian Church or latin in the Western You slight this discours of mine becaus hebrew greek and latin was say you vulgar tongues themselvs I know this well enough But when and how long ago were they so not for som hundreds of years to my knowledge And was the Bible Psalms or Christian liturgy then put into vulgar tongues when those they were first writ in ceased to be vulgar This you should have spoke to if you had meant to say any thing or gain-say me Nor is it to purpos to tell me that S. Jerome translated the Bible into Dalmatian I know well enough it has been so translated by some special persons into Gothish Armenian Ethiopian and other particular dialects But did the Church either of the Hebrews or Christians either greek or latin ever deliver it so translated to the generality of people or use it in their service or command it so to be don as a thing of general concernment and necessity So far is it from this that they would never permit it This I said and I first said it before you spoke and your meer gainsay without further reason or probability of proof cannot disposses me Dr. Cousins now byshop of Durham lately sojourneying in Paris when he understood of a grecian byshops arrival there did with some other English Gentlemen in his company give him a visit and with the same or like company went afterwards to see him The articles of our English Church were translated into greek and shown him Many questious were asked him about the service of the grecian Church praying for the dead invocation of Saints real presence confession c. Dr. Cousins can tell himself what answer he received from that venerable grave prolate Cyrillus archbishop of Trapesond for that was his name and title In brief he owned not those articles as any way consonant to the faith of the Greeks who beleeved and had ever practised the contrary He also told them distinctly and openly that Mass or Liturgy was and had ever been the great work of their Christianity all over the greek Church that confession of sins to a priest praying for the dead invocation of saints and such like points wherein we in England differ from papists were all great parts of their religion and their constant practis Finally he let them know that all the Liturgies both those of St. Basil St. Chrysostom St. Gregory Nazianzen were ever kept in the learned greek differing from the vulgar language And withall showed his own greek book of Liturgy which he used himself at the altar Dr. Cousins did himself see him officiate with his lay-brother a monk of St. Basil belonging to St. Catherins monastery in mount Sina ministring to him at the altar and found both by his words and practis that in all those and other essential parts and observances of Christianity the Greeks agreed perfectly with the Roman Church This testimony Sir of a venerable arch-byshop to such a worthy person as Dr. Cousins might I should think suffice to justifie my words and make you beleev with me that Christian Liturgies have ever been used as Fiat Lux speaks in a learned language distinct from the vulgar But we need not go far from home for a testimony Neither the Bible nor Service-book was ever seen here in England for a thousand years space in any
man thus to disable his own chief prelate before his face and say peremptorily that a Metropolitan can do nothing that his grace of Canterbury hath no jurisdiction I know and am fully assured ther is not one of those poor catholik priests who were lately banished out of England but would have defended even to extremity if need were this one most certain verity That a Metropolitan hath a jurisdiction as solid and good a jurisdiction over byshops as any these can have or plead for over parish priests And by as firm and good and ancient law is the one established as the other and indeed by the very same whilst a minister of his own presumes to tell the Arch-byshop his own prelate to his face that he hath no jurisdiction at all His 9 ch from page 91. to 169. Is wholly fanatick There he tells us plainly That neither Convocations Byshops nor Parliaments are judges of our faith That the English Church doth not punish for difference in opinions nor require that all should beleev as she beleevs or submit to her determinations but leaves every man to the liberty of his own judgment so he do not make factions against her Who ever urged men saith he to beleev as the Church beleevs p. 101. Also that no decrees of any Church are further to be admitted then they appear to particular ' mens judgments to agree with scriptur That every private man must make use of his own reason to judg or reject doctrin and rites propounded though scriptur be his guide That the business must there end without resigning to any further authority which is all as fallible as we be our selves That points fund amental are as perspicuous as the sun-beam and points not fundamental the Church doth not determin them and if any dispute should rise about them she silences indeed but expects not her children should be of her opinion only would not have them gainsay her That that Church does but mock us which expects a beleef to her proposals becaus she pretends to guide her self by scriptur For if scriptur must bend to their decrees and we must have no sence of scriptur but what they think fit then their decrees and not scriptur is our last rule And it is a pretty devise quoth he first to rule the rule and then be ruled by it c. Can a good Quaker say more for himself or desire more to be said for him If we be not bound to beleev we are not bound to hear Nay we are bound not to hear any such Church lest we should chance to beleev what aforehand we condemn and they themselvs dare not justifie He hath much of this talk up and down in his book Faith saith he p. 439. cannot be compelled By taking this liberty of discretion from men we force them to becom hypocrits and so profess outwardly what inwardly they disbeleev And again p. 450. We allow not any man openly to contradict the Churches decrees But when he thinks contrary to the determination of our Church he must keep his judgment to himself only refusing obedience with all humility till he be better informed No fanatick will desire to refuse obedience any longer Thus doth this champion deliver up himself and Church unto the will and disposal of all whatever sects and cares not so he may avoid catholik obeysance to make himself a prey to those who upon these grounds here laid down will soon turn him out of Church and pulpit too and strip him not only of his cloak but his coat also At last he answers the catholik arguments for the Churches assured and infallible guidance just as he did before your others for supremacy Seeing him there you see him every where Finally he brings in for a certain testimony of the Churches liability to errour the two opinions so rife in old time about communicating infants and the Millenaries thousand years of blessedness with Christ in this world after dooms-day Which are both of them now condemned saith he by a contrary beleef and practice of the present Church although they were held by not a few very antient Fathers in the primitive times And in this he triumphs exceedingly Surely without caus I should think Those primitive doctors we may be assured knew somthing more then their Catechism and committed to writing somthing of that they conceived beyond their Christian faith as well as the present Fathers and Doctors of the Church now do And if there were so great varieties of opinion among them concerning those two things as there are now adayes among catholik doctors about a thousand others it is a sign that those two points did not belong to their Catechisme of faith then assuredly known but only to scholastical Theology especially sith they had neither clear scriptur or general councel nor assured tradition for either side And it is of no moment that som of them should be so confident of their opinion as to think it to be a right firm Christian beleef For so I have heard my self many a school Divine in catholik countreys to say of his Thesis or school position the better to countenance his own divinity that it was either faith or very near it Besides I do not know that the present Church hath ever declared in any cannon of her faith either that the faithfull shall not reign upon earth a thousand years with Christ after dooms day or that we may not communicate the Eucharist to children although this last is declared not necessary His 10 ch from page 169. to 180. Is against prayer for the dead and Purgatory Where both by the testimonies which you Sir do cite in your book and by the authorities he brings himself Mr. Whitby acknowledges that praying and offering for the dead is a very ancient and general custom amongst Christians Nay that S. Paul himself prayed for his deceased friend Onesiphorus This I say he plainly grants p. 182. But he addes that all this does not infer Purgatory or that Purgatory is a place under ground near hell where is fire and darknes or that all are in pain and torments there And so he pusles to the end of his chapter acknowledging faith and denying only theology For whether Purgatory signifie any one place as our imagination is apt to fancy or only a state and condition of som souls departed out of this visible world I see Mr. Whitby understands not that it is no Christian faith but a meer scholastical divinity But that our prayers offerings penances and good deeds do benefit the souls deceased this the very testimonies cited by Mr. Whitby himself as they do sufficiently evince so do they confirm catholik faith though they touch not upon theology at all And so while he oppugns the divinity of som catholiks he establishes the catholik faith of all Divines In the interim he ought to remember although in this he often forgets himself that by the very testimonies not only which you Sir do
the fancy And the respect if we will speak properly does not terminate upon the pictur but upon the person whom it represents which infers a worship of God in it not by it Chap. 15. from page 247 to 273. Is very earnest for scriptur and liturgy in a vulgar tongue This plea of Protestant ministers makes a plausible found And they know it well enough For it was the first thing that by their rhetorical colours cast upon it commended them to the people after the A postacy of the first reformers by whose perswasion the people was then made to beleev they should now be as gods all of them knowing good and evil The word of God saith Whitby is kept from the knowledge of the vulgar people in the Roman Church And thus they all say and ever will say be they never so much satisfied by Catholik writers to the contrary becaus it is to their own advantage it should be so thought in England and all other places where Protestants have invaded and now actually sit upon the Catholick Clergies benefice and byshoppricks But is ther any part or particle of Christian faith or religion or of the word of God that is kept from Catholiks or not made known to them in Books Catechisines Sermons all in their own language and in daily practis of that Church wherof they are members Do they not hear and read and see all the mysteries of our Christian faith Christ our Lords birth and passion resurrection and ascension into glory what he acted what he suffered what he taught what he constituted and ordained for our salvation what we are to hope what to beleev what to practice in order thereunto set before their eyes not only by continual sermons made to them all over the catholik world in their own vulgar tongue but by their Gospels and Epistles which they have lying by them collected for the cours of the whole year and translated into their own language together with several pious treatises and meditations upon all these rules and mysteries of faith unto so ample use that if they do but walk accordingly which is all that religion intends they cannot miss salvation Is not all this Gods word It is nothing els And what is ther more of the word of God except we will count letters and syllables The word of God then is not kept from the knowledg of the vulgar people in the Roman Church But why have they not the Bible translated as it lies in all languages where catholik faith is prosest Becaus it is obscure as it lies in that short and ambiguous phrase and under so many several tropes of rhetorick and schemes also of logick wherin it was wrote apt therby to be perverted and misunderstood as we see by experience to be true unto endles factions Nor does the word of God consist so much in letters and syllables as in the marrow and meaning of his will And not the sence and meaning but the letter of the scriptur is that which makes hereticks But is not that the word of God which is kept from the people It is the word of God but not kept from the people For it is but the same with that which is delivered and made known unto the people So much as it contains whatever it be either of saith or morality either of what is to be beleeved or hoped or practised they have it all but disintangled from those artificiall schemes of logick and rhetorick wherof the holy writ is fuller then any book was ever writ by man which there inwrap and render it obscure Ther is no instruction no rule of piety no particle of comfort either for this world or the other in St. Pauls epistles for example but Catholiks have it they read it in their own language if they be able to read they know it all And they have it in a better and more facil manner then they could find it out by perusing those high theological discourses of his which the learnedst of men can hardly and very hardly understand The like I say of other portions of holy writ Only the disputative part with the interwoven systems of rhetorick this may exercise great and more sublime divines who by help of their various litterature may consider not only the plain truths therin contained which are common to them with other vulgar beleevers but the nature of the Metonymies Synechdoche's Metaphors together with the several modes of argumentation refutation objections and inopinate transitions in the context This if my adversary OeN had understood it had saved one fourth part of his Animadversions upon Fiat Lux and Whitby here had been utterly silent But it is their only advantage both in this and other controverted points of faith with Roman Catholiks either to be ignorant or dissemble their knowledg And therfor I have good reason to think they will never seem to understand But God grant they may The wonder is that English Protestants should still be as fiercely eager in this point when they write controversies as ever they were when they do themselves most heartily repent I have heard several great clergy-men amongst them speak it that they had ever given the Bible in that short ambiguous phrase it is penned into the hands of people in their own tongue to be thus perverted as it is every one his own way unto endles and irreconcilable schismes It would glad their hearts no doubt to see the Roman Church do indiscreetly as they have don But that will never be Holy catholik Church has revealed translated and several wayes made known the will of God to her people appointing most divine wayes and methods such as she had her self received from God to inure and keep them in the practis of that their holy faith And the disputative and sublimer divinity or as I may so speak the philosophical part of holy writ such as can may read on Gods name and the Church will commend them for it while these with all the rest attend unto those duties and good works every one in his calling which their holy faith prescribes These are and ever were the wayes and method of the now present and ancient catholik Church most wise and holy And her subjects and beleevers have profited therby many thousands of them unto angelical sanctity and all of them unto somthing more than otherwise they would have had whilst others that swerv from these wayes promote themselvs unto wildness and schisme without end missing indeed the word of God in the very scripture they read and never attaining to the true life and power in that form of words which they use not unto intended sanctification but by their own misinterpretations wrest and deprave daily unto their own destruction Nor will people be ruled now by their ministers but thinking it their own right to interpret as they pleas make it their only work to read and cant sentences and coin opinions as they list Excepting only this
themselvs and temptations plausible they still advance one ability or vertue to depress another In primitive times of the Church they exalted that of the right hand to depress the left in these later times they exalt the vertue of the left hand to depress the right Thus marriage is good and continence also is good they are both good Nay S. Paul sayes that continence is better or the vertue of the right hand For he that is unmarried only cares sayes he how to serve God well and pleas him but he that is married is solicitous for many worldly affairs concerning his wife and children and so is distracted and divided two wayes To exalt then the one of these two which are both good things unto such a monopoly of goodnes and excellency that the other shall be thought unlawful and evil this is doctrina daemoniorum the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning Thus faith is good and other works of piety justice and sobriety unto which Christ and his apostles exhort us are good also and necessary and healthful He therfor that so magnifies the one as to evacuate the other teaches doctrinam daemontorum the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning Meat is good and fasting is good good to eat with thanksgiving and good in times and occasions to abstain But that man who so exalts the one as to exclude the other out of Christianity is a seducer and teaches the doctrin of demons So likewise doth he who either so highly magnifies free will as to exclude Gods grace or so defends grace that he abolishes all concurrence of free will unto works of piety and merit teach both of them equally the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning In a word not to mention more examples wherin I might be copious so to commend continence as to make marriage unlawful is the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning And so agian to set up marriage as to teach continence to be both sinful and impossible is the doctrin both of demons and devils too implacable enemies both to truth and continence And Christ is equally crucified between both the theeves Ch. 18. from page 410. to 420. Begins to justifie the departure or schisme of the English from the Roman Church as good and lawful For if Schisme faith he be a crime it lies upon the Church not which separated but which gave the caus of separation the Roman not the English Church Causal schisme which gives the occasion bears all the blame but formal schisme which separates from an offensive society is an action of necessary vertue Nor can there be quoth he any necessity of communicating with others in wicked actions but a necessty rather of going out of Babylon Nor does every schisme turn the Church of Christ into a synagogue of Satan but only schisme in sundamentals which fundamentals he saith elswhere are as clear and perspicuous to all men as that twice two make four These Sir be his capital assertions in this chapter which howlittle they will serve his purpos against the Roman Church he that seriously reads your book against which this reply is made will soon perceiv But how much they will disadvantage him before the Presbyterian Quaker and other wayes here in England who separating from our English Church do thus justifie their schisme either by mincing the fault or laying it upon her from whom they have revolted it behoovs him well to consider Ch. 19. from page 420 to 428. Endeavours yet more to diminish the fault and justifie the secession Schisme faith he that proceeds from weaknes in persons that desire to know the truth and endeavour after it is free from crime And again External unity is not essential to the Church And schisme that is contrary to that unity divides not from Christs body in things absolutely necessary to be united but only in things not so necessary as in the same liturgies or ceremonies about matters not sundamental wherein an union is neither necessary nor yet possible This is I am sure the voice of a Presbyterian and no Prelatick Protestant as Whitby speaks himself to be And if it be indeed the sence of our English Church as her spokes-man here would make us beleev it is then are surely our English Byshops in charity all obliged earnestly to intercede with his royal Majesty who for civil respects hath forbidden all meetings out of ordinary Churches and Chappels that the poor Quaker who endeavours after truth and light with an innocent and unfeigned heart may be permitted for religious respects to meet at Bull and Mouth and other such like places where they may think fit being now resolved never to resort more to Protestant Steeple-houses or to any of their liturgies or ceremonies which communion is neither necessary unto any unity any substantial unity in Christs body nor yet possible that they may declare amongst themselvs the sons of light the power and truth in simplicity of heart without impeachment of the wicked Ch. 20. from page 428. to 448. Falls again to speak against Infallibility which he had battered before in his whole 9 chapter of above 30 pages and that with as much earnestness here as if nothing had been yet said of it But this chapter was written haply by som other hand which knew not what the former had performed till coming together both of the papers to the Press it was perceived they might both pass And here all general Councels and their determinations are disabled as destitute of any assurance of truth Is this Infallibility quoth he out of Chillingworth in the Councel alone or Pope alone c. What shall we do if they run counter c. To whom must we hearken when many pretend to the Popedom c. What if the Popes misdemeanour be the thing to be judged c. How can we be assured that any one is true Pope not Synioniacally ordained not illegally elected not invalidly baptised c. which are saith he uncertainties propounded by Mr. Chillingworth not possible to be resolved This kind of discours fills up this whole chapter By vertue of these uncertainties we can never tell whether Mr. Whitby be any minister or no or whether he be a Christian or so much as a Whitby If titulus coloratus and moral evidence may not suffice us we can be sure of no authority either spritual or civil in this world And if any one should learn by this wise master thus to except against the obliging power of acts and decrees of King or Parliament Is that power in the King alone or in the Parliament alone c. What if they run counter c. What if they should not be rightly chosen c. would he not talk as wise as this man and his little Doctor Chillingworth It ought to suffice an honest man and a good subject that an authority is set over him and
fundamentals And yet which does not a little encreas our admiration he acknowledges withall p. 439. That general Councels have 1 a greater assistance of the Spirit of God 2 greater means of finding out the truth 3 better reason of discovering what is the opinion of the whole Church 4 an authority delegated from Christ to decide controversies After all this and with all this it is neither impossible with him nor unprobable that general councels may erre even in fundamentals which himself affirms as perspicuous as if they were writ with a sun-beam as clear and evident as that twice two make four Prelates Christian Prelates these must be the only natural fools of the world Ch. 22. from page 456. to 465. Descends to Patriarchal Councels which saith he may be disobeyed and rejected becaus such conventions are fallible and may obtrude heresies and unlawful practises upon the world and that a judgment of discretion is to be allowed unto private men whether they are to submit to their determinations or no. This whole chapter might well have been spared For if a greater much more may a particular and lesser Church obtrude heresies and unlawful practises upon men But Mr. Whitby is desirous that all should be made plain and not any rub lie in the Presbyterian and good Quakers way when he shall plead an excuse for his separation from a Metropolitan Church here in England which he hath made with a judgment of discretion here allowed him Ch. 23. from page 465 to 478. Sayes that the Protestant never separated from the internal communion of the universal Church which unity is only essential but only from external union with som. And such an union external with any Church on earth is no wayes necessary to any ones being a member of the Church Why then is the poor Quaker so grievously persecuted imprisoned and beaten only for separating from an external communion with other Protestants Especially since he separates from it for no other end but to have the internal communion in pure faith and light and grace and charity more perfect Let any man read the Quakers books which are now not a few and see if they speak not for themselvs as Whitby here does for his own caus But the profest errours of the Roman Church justifie the Protestant separation And does not the Quaker justifie his separation both from Roman and Protestant too by the same argument of notorious abuses errours sins falsities disorders superstitions excesses of ministers priests byshops deanaries chapters lawn sleeves universities and steeple-houses Ch. 24. from page 478 to 494. Endeavours finally to justifie the English reformation upon the account that it was made here by the supream magistrate who may reform the Church either with a Synod or without it And that supream power I hope then may be permitted to set up the Presbyterian or Quaker at least to give them freedom of Conscience if himself pleas without any bishops consent no man daring to gain-say or murmur against it which not a few do heartily wish to see in this Land Ch. 25. with the Appendix from p. 494 to 512. Prescribes conditions and forms of disputing and replying with som additions to his former discourses Thus have you Sir the particular design of each several chapter of Mr. Whitby's book the negative part wherof denies your Church and the positive betrayes his own Why he gainsayes yours it is not hard to read But why he should so much endanger his own I cannot so easily say whether it be ignorance malice or necessity moves him to it Surely no Son of the English Church as Whitby professes himself to be could thus open a gap for the incursion of all sects who are now ready to swallow her up if he be in sound sences but he must either not have what he may or not will what he should or not know what positively he ought to affirm and teach for her better preservation This book of Whitbies can never bring any man to that Church nor keep any in that is there If an enemy attempt the subversion of a hous it may chance to scape But if the owner and inhabitant begin once to pull it down himself he that passes by may not improbably conjectur it will not long stand Well may the Church of England take up that heavy complaint against this her either ignorant or malicious son If an enemy had don me mischief I could have endured it And if one who openly hated had maligned me I could have kept my self from him But thou man thou my intimate friend thou my leader and acquaintance Thus unworthily to be betrayed by her own White boy must be no small aggravation to the mothers sorrow I might easily gather out of Whitbies own words consequently put together a compleat play for all the several wayes that are now of late risen up against our English Church even so compleat that they never have nor ever need to say more This sad fate accompanies erroneous wayes that even in defending they destroy themselvs If witty Presbyterians assisted him in his book they did their own work not his And if he did it himself by som Presbyterian principles received accidentally from them he hath don therby not his own work but theirs Notable is this Gentlemans art in citing of authorities which he does in most of his chapters against the points of catholik beleef which are either not expressed in his book where they may be found or not there found where they are exprest or express no such thing as he cites them in his book to utter I had in my chamber but one of those many authors which Whitby cites for himself and I found in it all this to be true But this Sir to spare here partly the mans modesty and partly my own pains and expence of time I now omit And indeed what would it avail to give you or the world to understand that Whitby never read the authors himself cites or understood not or wilfully wrested them Let him live and learn And God give him grace to make use of his time to his own advantage This thing I may assure you of that Whitby is an enemy not only to Catholiks but Protestants also of all profession here in England or if you had rather have me so speak an equal friend to all For he will not have the Church of Christ to be any organical body as he calls it or company of people linked together in Sacraments lyturgy beleef and government but to be only such and all such people who hold God and a life to com and som other fundamentals which he names not himself all of them and therfor as I suppose leavs unto others each man as he pleases to determin Nor will he have men bound either to an internal beleef or any exteriour conformity to any Church This himself avers in many several places of his book that we may not miss his meaning This new way
of his I think he borrowed of som French Hugonots For all the wayes that be here now in England concur each one unto a body an organical body not only Roman Catholiks but our English Prelacy and Presbyterians too Yea the very Quakers to my knowledg esteem none to be so much as Christians who assemble not with them And they have with them som ministers of the gospel too though extemporary ones A wary reader may observ by the sole mirrour of this book of Whitbies which is a collection of most of the chief authors that have written against Popery since the Reformation how unsettled all Protestants be in all the controverted points of religion wherof ther is not any one by som of them denied but is by som others of them assirmed They know what Church to oppose but how much of her doctrin they should evacuate they could never yet unanimously agree nor what answer to fix steadily to any Catholik ground He will find also amongst other things that our present Protestants now adayes do generally swerv from the first reformers almost in all points both of disciplin and faith about supremacy good works free will possibility of keeping Gods commands the real presence prayer for the dead tradition c. which former Protestants for the first forty years would not abide to hear of but now they are all in a manner so allowed by most Protestants that there appears little difference between their way and catholik faith but only that this stands unchanged the other may alter again to morrow Indeed every Protestant writer is in one thing or other a new reformer as Whitby is here And every half-score years brings forth new scenes nor is there any now that heeds any Protestant writer that is gon if he speak contrary to him though he were never so eminent even in the very point and busines of Reformation This is enough for Whitby I heard Sir above half a year ago that Dr. Barlow had made ready for the Press another book of his own against Mr. Cressy and therfor deteined this my letter with me till I might give you an account of his with it Truly Sir I watched as earnestly for it as any cat watches for a mous But it will not yet appear In the interim one Mr. Stillingfleet has lately written a great book against Popery even so big a book in folio that none may buy it but only such as hate Popery more than they love sixteen shillings And he also proceeds this new french Hugonot way insisted on by Whitby He is only for a Church diffusive that holds fundamentals what ever they be and makes no account of any Church organical Wherby he utterly disables not the Roman Hierarchy only but even our English Protestant Church and government if men do but understand what he sayes And yet this man is mightily applauded by our English by shops which I cannot but marvel at and do thence conclude that they all begin now to think our English Church it self that it may be made good must be pulled down Councels he holds with Whitby that they can have no autority to move our assent although they be general as ther has never been any he sayes these thousand years And what is ther then for Gods sake shall move the Presbyterians Independents and others here in England to approve of the constitutions and government of our English Church set up by a far lesser assembly In a word this whole book of Stillingfleets is a large discours against a Theological argument of some Catholik disputant The argument it seems was this Christian faith cannot be divine except it have its birth from an infallible proposer and consequently the Church must either be infallible or els our faith is not divine The answer of this argument is the very life and vitals of Mr. Stillingfleets whole book That same argument of the Catholik Gentleman is indeed a pretty theological ratiocination and Stillingfleets answer evasions and distinctions both concerning the argument in general and all the particulars it runs into are not unwitty But this is no part of our busines Alas we in our controversies about religion are not come thus far Such a discours had been handsomly fitted to theologicall schools and very proper amongst learned divines there but here not so What is it to our busines in hand whether faith can or cannot be divine except the proposer be infallible and as it were divine This is a meer theological dispute And he that answers Stillingfleets book defends not faith immediately but an argumentators syllogisme Religion indeed as soon as ever it is questioned or disputed runs presently into Philosophy And therin if great heed be not taken it is quite lost And thence it comes to pass that most part of our controversie books is about school philosophy and human reasonings I blame not the Catholik Gentleman who ever he was for his argumenting Nor will Stillingfleet be blamed for defending his place But I let my countreymen spectators of the contest understand that in deed and truth so often as we dispute we are beyond the busines All writers of controversie speak more then faith when they either defend or oppose it And in reading controversies we see not so much the nature of the faith as the wit of him who opposes or defends it and so much this some times that the other is nothing at all discerned This the world must know and understand well or els they will be miserably mistaken as indeed I see all men are When two lawyers plead about a case of right perhaps three hours together all that three hours talk is not law or the right they talk of but only their ratiocinations about it And such are all our controversies about religion And he does best therin who still puts his adversary in mind what is his talk and what is the faith they talk of But he that defends both of them equally forgets himself And thus I see that generally men do miscarry on both sides the Protestant by calling that Romanish doctrin which is but a Catholiks discours for it and the Catholik by maintaining that talk of his which it is not a pin matter whether it stand or fall For faith is firm and constant though all my talk for it be miserably weak Now all the whole busines of faith which Stillingfleet and his adversary talk of is as I take it only this That the Church of Christ hath by Gods divine promis of being ever with her a power to oblige her subjects to hear and obey her if they mean to be happy in their way The Catholik affirms this Stillingfleet with his Protestants deny it And this is all the faith that is in it which is not here touched And a theological busines of Infallibility only spoke of And therfor Stillingfleet is much to blame when he speaks so often in his book of the Romanists way of resolving faith the
those ugly colours which so injuriously defaced that Religion that most innocent Religion which under the name of Popery lies here traduced by the pen of her own ungrateful Scribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Doctour Taylor against Popery And such a Disswasive as this But my amazement Sir is now blown over The Doctour appeared to me after some serious thoughts to be for a special reason that touches none so much as himself in some manner excusable That none should love Popery or ever come to know it concerns not only his wealth and dignity and life of ease which is the common caus of others also with himself but all the honour and fame he hath hitherto got by transcribing popish as now he calls but in former times named Catholik authors For having bin twenty years and upwards deeply plunged in reading and transcribing som of the innumerous spiritual books that are amongst Catholiks not only in Latin but other languages of several Kingdoms where that Religion flourishes he hath culled out thence many fine treatises which he hath set forth in his own name and language to his much renown and no small wealth and dignity amongst us Nor is it to be doubted but that he means for his yet further glory reaped from other mens labours and that spirit of piety which thence he got into his own pen to write out yet one book more The same store-house that furnished him with the life of Christ will dictate to him also the lives of his twelve Apostles and many other raptures of divine love and heavenly devotion And if people be but kept from Popery as he hopes and labours they may it will never be known whence he gathers those his fragrant pieties It was not handsom yet a piece of wisdom it was in the Grecian Cynick to spit in the dish which pleased him best lest others should taste how good it was and deprive him therby of som of his content This book of Doctour Taylors called a Disswasive printed in Dublin and as I understand reprinted here in London I suppose in the very same words by reason of the Authors absence is large enough containing 173 pages in quarto marvellously bitter and contumeliously insulting over that Religion which he cannot but know he misreports Indeed Sir there is more popery in one page of Dr. Taylors Life of Christ which he transcribed from popish Authors than is in all this whole book which he writes against those Authors popery that is owned by them to be their religion all this he puts upon them under the notion of popery throughout his whole hundred and seventy three pages except haply som three or four words whose sence also he perverts no Catholik upon earth acknowledges for any parcel of his faith Is not this strange disingenuous dealing How he comes to act thus and what is the feat he makes use of to discolour their Religion you shall hear by and by when I have first opened his book and the things contained in it His Disswasive hath three chapters and each chapter several sections The first chapter is intitled thus The Doctrin of the Roman Church in the conroverted articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive The second thus The Church of Rome as it is at this day disordered teaches doctrins and uses practices which are in themselvs or in their true and immediat consequences direct impieties and give warranty to a wicked life The third thus The Church of Rome teaches doctrins which in many things are destructive of Christian society in general and of Monarchy in special both which the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland does by her doctrins greatly and Christianly support These three be things of importance and must either be great notorius crimes in the Defendant or monstrous slanders in the Plaintiff A Religion that is new impious and unsociable that is against antiquity piety and society is hardly good enough for Hell Who is he that shall dare to profess or countenance such a religion upon earth But let us see in order how all this is demonstrated to us by an old pious and sociable Doctour His first Chapter First then That the doctrin of the Roman Church in the controverted Articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive he declares in eleven sections which make up that his first chapter First section sayes that the Roman Church pretends a power to make new Articles of faith and doubtles uses that power and for that end corrupts the Fathers and makes expurgatory Indices to alter their works The second that this power of making new articles is a novelty and yet beleeved by Papists Third that the Roman doctrin of Indulgences is unknown to antiquity Fourth that Purgatory is another novelty Fift Transubstantiation another Sixt Half-communion another Seventh Liturgy in an unknown tongue another Eighth Veneration of Images the like Ninth Pictures the same Tenth the Popes general Episcopacy likewise And the eleventh and last speaks almost as many more all of a heap to make up his one last section as Invocation of Saints sufficiency of scriptures absolving sinners before pennance simple Priests giving Confirmation selling Masses for nine pence circumgestation of the Eucharist intention in Sacraments Mass-sacrifice and supper without Communion All this is Popery all new and therfor the Roman Church is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive This is the sum of his first Chapter What in the name of God does this Author of the Disswasive your learned Doctour mean by the Church of Rome and by the doctrine of the Roman Church This Sir is a main busines and ought if he had meant sincerity to have been firmly stated before any thing were treated either of the one or the other But this he utterly here omits which he should principally have heeded that he may speak loosely and hand over head anything he may deem fit to black his own paper and other mens fame If he take them as he ought the Church of Rome for that universality of Catholik beleevers who live in several kingdoms of the world united in faith and sacraments under the Spirit of Jesus Christ and one visible Pastour and the doctrin of that Church for the body of faith and religion handed to them from age to age as taught and delivered from Christ and his Apostles which they call in the phrase of St. Paul Depositum fidei or treasure of faith I say if he mean this by the Roman Church and doctrin of that Church as he ought to do I will be bold to aver that ther is not any one claus or period in his book true and three parts of his book absolutely impertinent If he mean otherwis then Catholiks themselvs conceiv or profess he was bound in honour to make his mind known that the renown of an innocent Religion and worthy persons might not suffer prejudice by his ambiguous speech But perhaps he studied how to abuse that Religion that he may
they may have written many other most excellent catholik and pious things yet through humane infirmity in this and that particular may they at one time or other trip and fail And particular mens failings are to be rectified by the straightnes and integrity of the General Canon but they are not to be esteemed that Canon as your Doctor Taylor not inclined to mend things but marre them rather would here have them to be thorowout this whole book of his Disswasive where whatever he can read or hear of amongst the writings of any one in the Catholik world that may either swerv or be wrested from the universal judgment and beleef of Papists that he calls Popery and what they speak that the Roman Church must pretend O the strange perversness and wickedness of mans heart And yet this book of his thus made up has carried away not the weaker sort of men only but it seems has made even your discretion Sir to stagger For when I gave you lately a visit I perceived within a while that I had but gon forth to see a reed shaken with the wind What the Church can do is but one of the Questions of School-divinity and no Catholik faith Consequently no Popery And if two or three in the Schools should chance to aver this power in the Church where more then two or three thousands deny it why should not the opinion of three thousand Papist doctours be esteemed Popery as well as that of only three Whilst all of them agree in their faith which is that the Church hath a power authoritatively to decide controversies and dispute only of a further power then their faith reaches unto I should think that the opinion of three thousand Papist doctours is rather to be esteemed Popery if one of them must be called so rather then the single opinion of two or three if any such be to the contrary But truth is ther is no such opinion of any one I know to the contrary Nor does Turrecremata nor any els teach that the Church hath power to make new articles in that sence your Dr. Taylor means who therby would infer that Catholik faith is therfor not primitive but new Nay it is rather Popery and a part of Catholik faith that no new articles can be made For General Councels have determined that nothing is to be beleeved or held but id quod traditum est that which has been received from Christ and his Apostles Nor can the Religion otherwise be the faith of Christ or Christian Religion Sir if you do but seriously peruse the last one general Council which all Protestants hold to be rank popish that I mean which was kept at Trent you will find that they testifie almost in every Session and profes to make all their determinations according to that which had been delivered according to that they had received according to that which had been conserved by continual succession to that which was conformable to Apostolical tradition to that which had been perpetually and uninterruptedly retained to that which ancestours profest to that which the Church of God ever taught ever understood ever beleeved that which hath been received down by hands that which was the ancient judgment and custom that which has been approved since the apostles dayes c. These are all the very words of the Councel in several of their Sessions And shall a Doctor Taylor com now after all this and tell the world that Popery is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive and that Papists pretend to make new faith c. after a general Synod which all Protestants look upon as the most popish Councel that ever was and that too the last and nearest to us hath so manifestly so pathetically so generally profest the contrary What should we say to such a Doctor And other general Councels in like manner never determined any thing for the quieting of dissentions for which end they met together but what was latent at least in the seed of Christs word and so no new article in this Doctours sence as did that Councel for example which determined two wills in Christ which was no new article becaus the former old faith which had made known two perfect natures in our Lord the one divine the other humane apparently dictated that truth against all those who would acknowledg but one will in him And this being defined by the Councel received a new strength against a novel heresie but not a new birth For this caus Councels do not determin the varieties that are in Schoolmen becaus these are superstructures and none of them more latent in ancient tradition than is the opinion that is opposit to it But Turrecremata Triumphus Ancoran and Panormitan teach that the Church can make new articles If they should say any such thing I have already made it enough evident that it cannot be thence inferred to be popery or any part of popery But what if they speak no such thing What shall we think then of this your Dr. Taylor Turrecremata in the place cited by him never so much as dreamed as any man may there see that the Pope is the rule of faith as the Doctour would have him speak but in that whole chapter labours only to shew that it belongs to him principally to regulate disputes in faith as being the chief Prelate In the like manner does he most unworthily abuse the other three brought by him as witnesses that the Pope can make new Creeds and new faith wheras Panormitan teaches expresly that he cannot make but only declare faith Ancorano sayes the like adding that what he so declares may be new to us though not in it self and Triumphus no less manifestly speaks in the very place cited by him that ther is one and the same faith in the ancients and moderns and that in our holy Creed are inserted all those things which universally pertain to Catholik faith although he say withall which is also very true that to adde explicate or declare a truth which is contained in holy Scripture hath alwayes been lawful for the Church But is this to make new faith which is not Apostolik and primitive as this your Doctour would have them to assert Do you Siry your self judg And him that thus abuses the world God Almighty judg So that when we come to the close of all ther is not any one Catholik Doctour that ever said that the Church can make new articles of faith in Doctour Taylors sence Why then did Pope Leo the 10. condemn Luther for denying the Pope to have this power Neither did Luther or Pope Leo ever dream of any such thing For Luther wholly busied himself about his old Catholik Religion from which he had revolted which he called an Egyptian darkness that had overspread the earth even from the Apostles dayes and never thought of this school question which in his dayes was not heard of And he denied the then present Pope
The Canon or Article of saith concerning this point runs thus Si quis dixerit parvulis antequam ad annos discretionis pervenerint necessariam esse Ettcharistiae communionem anathema sit And this is all the articles of faith determined in that Councel upon this affair wherein the faithful are forbid to hold that the Communion of Infants is necessary to salvation If any one sayes the Councel shall say that communion of the Eucharist is necessary to babes before they come to years of discretion let him be Anathema And this doctrin I am perswaded your Disswader himself holds for good But this would not make him sport enough And therfor he lets pass the Canon or Article of saith and speaks of the doctrin or Declaration of it which is not propounded for faith at all to any beleever although all Catholiks that know it adhere to it as good and solid And this is his first legerdemain to propound that for an Article of faith which is only a doctrin or declaration of faith His next trick is to make it run short like a Canon of faith wheras it is a large and serious explication wherein those words he catches at are so connexed with others that their rationality there appears which here is hid Third is that he makes it the Councels busines to determin only a matter of fact of the ancient Fathers not beleeving infants communion necessary though themselves used it which was none of the Councels intention but insinuated only by way of anticipation to cut off the arguments of hereticks who strengthned their errour about the necessity of infants communion by example of the ancient Fathers who practised it Denique eadem sancta Synodus docet parvulos ufu rationis carentes nulla obligari necessitate ad Sacramentalem Eucharistiae Communionem Siquidein per Baptismi lavacrum regencrati Christo incorporati adeptam jam filiorum Dei gratiam in illa aetate amittere non possunt Neque ideo tamen daninanda est antiquitas si eum morent in quibusdam locis aliquando servavit Ut enim sanctissimi illi Patres sui sacti probabilem causam pro illius temporis ratione habuerunt ita certe eos nulla salutis necessitate id fecisse sine controversia credendum est Thus speaks the Councel in their doctrin or declaration of that Article of faith Si quis dixerit But enough of this busines And although your Disswaders talk deserv it not yet your own satisfaction concerning these three novelties here specified becaus I thought it might haply require what I have said therof pray take it in good part And be assured that faith and Christianity in the Roman Church increases not like the moon although out of that Church it decreas indeed like the moon in her wain daily and in all Reformations to the wors §. 3. Which is about Indulgences Sayes that the doctrin of Indulgences is wholly new and unknown to antiquity as Antonius Prierias Byshop Fisher Agrippa and Durandus Popish doctours do acknowledg And hence it is that Gratian and Magister sententiarum both of them eminent doctors among the Papists have not a word of them Indeed in primitive times when the Byshop imposed several pennances and that they were almost quite performed and a great caus of pitty intervened or danger of death or an excellent repentance or that the martyrs interceded the Byshop did somtimes indulge to the penitent and relax som remaining parts of his pennance But the Roman doctrin of Indulgence is another thing They talk of Jubilees and treasure of the Church and pilgrimages which ancient Fathers either speak against or never heard of In sine theirs is becom a doctrin of solution not absolution that is the sinner is to go free without any punishment which is destructive to true repentance and right hope to Christs merits and free pardon nourishes pride and brings in money condemned by holy Scriptures and ancient Fathers who teach repentance reducing to a good life faith in Christs merits and hope in his promises Neither can any Papists tell what they are the better for their Indulgences or whether they be absolutions or compensations whether they take off actual pennances or potential such as be due in the court of man or of God whether they avail if the receiver do nothing for them or not whether they depend only of Christs satisfaction or the Saints likewis And therfor the Councel of Trent durst determin nothing about all these things but contented themselves only to declare this That ther is in the Church a power of granting Indulgences advising Catholiks to set other superfluous and curious questions aside Sir if I had had the opportunity to print the four paragraffs which to lessen the book I left out of my Fiat Lux becaus one of them was about Indulgence I should need to say the less to this section wherin I must notwithstanding be brief that I may speak somwhat also to those that follow Three things are in this his third section consusedly jumbled together by your Disswader concerning this busines of Indulgence Faith School-philosophy and Abuses Catholik faith and Tradition he sets down himself p. 17. and acknowledges it for good Now lest the Roman Emissaries saith he should deceiv any of the good sons of the Church we think it fit to acquaint them that in the primitive Church when the Byshop imposed severe pennances and that they were almost quite performed and a great caus of pitty intervened or danger of death or an excellent repentance or that the Martyrs interceded the Byshop did somtimes indulge to the Penitent and relax som of the parts of his pennance and according to the example of S. Paul in the case of the incestuous Corinthian gave them ease left they should be swallowed up with too much sorrow These are his words And in them he hath set down exactly not only the faith but all the faith of Roman Catholiks in this point to stop the mouths of Roman Emissaries which faith and practise he acknowledges also expresly to be antient and primitive And thus much he would have us beleev that Protestants hold and allow although not their books and writings only which manitestly gainsay it but their very practise which hath long ago abandoned and is now utterly ignorant either of confession or pennance or relaxation or indulgence and the very Articles of the English Protestant Church refute him But he that writes against Popery need not heed what he sayes If another say the contrary so that he speak against Popery too they will both pass for good But the Papists laith your Disswader they are quite gone from this primitive way their doctrin of Indulgence is another thing quite another thing And then jumbles together heaps of their school-disputes about solutions absolutions compensations relaxations and such like stuff which together with som abuses that time has brought forch as well in that as other affairs and
an Antichristian assembly or that they published any book to that purpos What strange confidence then is this of your Disswader to talk thus at random without book and besides all rule and against truth The occasion of assembling this Councel of Frankford were the misdemeanours of Elipandus Byshop of Tolledo in Spain For Faelix Urgelitanus his Countreyman having consulted Elipandus concerning that scholastick difficulty Whether Christ as man ought to be called the natural or only the adoptive Son of God by means of his discours and a book written by him upon that subject beleeved and said against the ancient language of the Church that Christ was to be held an adoptive child of God and not his natural son And these two together with Claudius Taurinensis who came to them from Italy filled all Spain with the clamour This act of theirs was fond as well as wicked For though in the schools it might haply be held that Christ as man is not the natural but only the adoptive Son of God if that particle as be taken for a note of reduplication yet they could not be igrant that beleevers have nothing to do with such nice logical points These conceiv Christ altogether specifically as he is in himself And so they had ever beleeved him to be the only begotten natural Son of God and we all so many as are made partakers of his grace adopted in him And he that shall preach Christ to be as man only his adoptive Son whether that as of his be taken reduplicatively or specificatively he makes but an ass of himself and a knave to boot But these three though often admonished yet would they not desist And therfor in a Councel at Ratisbone Faelix by name was condemned respect being then had to the person and dignity of the Archbyshop of Toledo and the other Byshop Faelix therfor was brought to the Emperour Charles his Court who then wintered at Rheginum where after a while he humbly submitted to the Councel there then met together and from thence sent to the presence of Pope Adrian in the Cathedral of S. Peter he publickly acknowledged his errour and returned home to his own City Elipand when he heard of all this grew more violent than before and laboured not only with his whole endeavour to reclaim Faelix to his former errour but by letters patent and large dated to all the Byshops of France and Germany to draw those two Kingdoms to his opinion Wherupon Faelix returned again to his vomic And least the infection should spread any further by the agreement of the Pope and Charles the Emperour a Councel was called at Frankford This was the very busines and occasion of that Councel wherby every one may discern himself not only the improbability that the said Councel of Frankford which purposely met together to maintain the honour of Christ should deface his figures but the falsity also of this your Disswader who tells us that a while after this Councel of Frankford Ludovicus son to Charles the great sent Claudius a famous Oratour to preach against images in Italy p. 60. Wheras Claudius had troubled Italy and Spain too three or four years before that Councel nay before the Councel of Ratisbone which was two years before and his way was condemned with himself both at Ratisbone and Frankford too These things being so how in the name of God comes your Disswader here against so much reason to aver that the Councel of Frankford declared against images that they condemned the second Nicen Synod wherin the use of Images had been maintained that they published a book wherin that Synod was declared Antichristian and that Ludovicus Charlemains son sent down Claudius after that Councel to preach against Images in Italy I know that other Protestants have been guilty too of some part of this his story so far at least as to say in particular that the Frankford Councel was against images But they never set down any of that Councels declaration against them nor is ther any extant Binius who set forth all the Councels at large both shows and copiously proves that the acts of the second Nicen Councel were all confirmed in the Councel of Frankford which is also averred by Alanus Surius Vasquez and several other learned men And since it is likely enough that somthing was done in this Councel about Images wherof ther is so much talk in the world ther can nothing be thought more rational than that Pope Adrian whose legates presided in both the Councels should according to the Churches custom send those decrees of Nice about the same time lately finished unto the Councel now at Frankford that the definition of the Nicen Councel might be made known to all the West by their acceptation and promulgation at Frankford Which also that it was absolutely done and no other thing done but it may sufficiently be gathered by the authority of the Councel of Senon which in the 14. of their decrees speaks thus Carolus magnus Francorum rex Christianissimus in Francosordiensi conventu ejusdem erroris I conomachorum suppressit insaniam quam infaelicissimus quidam Faelix in Gallias Germanias invexerat And the same is ratified by Platina who in the life of Pope Adrian Biennio post saith he Theophylactus Stephanus Episcopi insignes Adriani nomine Francorum Germanorum Synodum habuerunt in qua Synodus quam septimam Graeci appellabant haeresis Faeliciana de tollendis imaginibus abrog at a est as also by Paulus Emilius who in his second book de gestis Francorum speaking of that Councel of Frankford Et imaginibus saith he suus honor restitutus est The like may be proved out of Blondus in his Decads Sabellicus his Aeneads Gablisards Chronology Alanus his Dialogues Nauclerus c. All which various testimonies joyned in one together with the motives of that Frankford Councel the great procurer and protectour of that Councel Charles the great an eminent Champion of the Roman Church the Presidents of that Councel Theophylact and Stephen legates of the same Pope Adrian who had lately finished and confirmed the second Councel of Nice may suffice I should think to refute the trifling humour of this Disswader But his confidence is greater in his readers light beleev then either the weight or truth of his own words But all the devices of Roman writers to palliate this their crime he sayes are frivolous What are these devices and what is their crimes Sir where there is no crime there needs not any palliating devices Is it a crime to keep an image of Christ crucified for us that we may be often put in mind of the good and vertue of his holy passion and our fansie assisted and kept in at our prayers within the compass of their object This is the busines Sir speak directly unto this before you go any further You will make all sorts of prophane Images either to some civil use or indifferent
or perhaps a naughty end This is no crime with you If it be how comes it to pass that never any byshop or other minister in England who seribble with such a stiff impertinency against Popish Images have never laboured at all against these Protestant pictures O but Protestants do not worship these pictures Do they not I would to God that all good Catholiks could so heartily love imitate and worship those blessed persons represented in their portraictures as Protestants do theirs who by such amorous faces in their curious dresses are brought I fear too often on their knees Motives to filthy iniquity they may stand but representation of austerity of contemplation of martyrdom of divine extasies of charity of our Lord Jesus and his Saints these are popish these are antichristian these are abominable If the God of holiness will not have any sacred figures to be made surely he cannot allow lascivious prophane and light ones But though he do not our Ministers will O but the Papists give the same worship to the representation and the thing represented This your Disswader may gather haply by his own experience For the figure of a King a father and a wife if they do raise any affections or thoughts these must needs be so much differing as the persons represented are For the shadow figure or representation if we would speak according to right philosophy neither does nor can terminate any such respect though it may its own For example that I may declare this my speech put case I have three or four Crucifixes before me of a several make or form and of a much differing art All these four figures have but one and the same representation becaus they represent but one and the same thing Christ Jesus our Lord crucified for our reconciliation and redemption and whatever good affection may arise in my heart upon the sight and thought of it must needs be the same to that representation and thing represented becaus it is terminated upon the thing represented by means of the representation of it And that is but one and the same respect though the figures be many For the representation or figure can terminate no such thought although it be a means of directing it But yet all those four figures have respects of their own which they bound and terminate themselves by reason for example of the excellency of their colours the material on which they are wrought the exactness of art in limning every part to the life and the proportions of the whole in its due and full measure These and such like considerations are ended fully in the picture without any consideration had to its object represented And they may be of such concerment in the business that a man may be moved to prefer one of those four pictures before all the other three This is that I mean Sir when I say that a shadow figure or representation neither does nor can terminate any such respect as refults naturally upon the samplar or prototype though it may its own And this is no sophistry of Aristotle but meer natural and vulgar reason common to all mankind O but the Papists make their pictures their gods I this is the talk of black ministers in the dark to fools and children while they sit warm in the Roman Catholik Benefices which they have invaded it behooves them to say what ever they can think against Popery be it right be it wrong be it sence or nonsence All goes down by a people once inveigled And if they be not still kept warm in their mistake the minister is lost Good God in what a world do we live I did my self beleev all this once And I wondred when I first saw Roman Catholiks to tear their pictures somtime and put them into the fire It is no such marvel if Epiphanius should tear a Saints picture which your Disswader here tells us although that story be not found in that epistle of Epiphanius translated by St. Jerom Roman Catholiks do it ordinarily For they use picturs but as they do their prayer-books and when they are so fullied and worn they can use them no more they are turned both into ashes which is the last end of picturs books and men And the respect they give to pictures is but the very same kind with what they give to the holy Gospels save only that the Gospel is looked on as the inside and a Crucifix the outside of their Redeemer but both are still but shadows of him I could say more concerning this busines and make it appear both that Christians have ever in all ages had images of their Lord and his Saints in their houses and Churches and how profitable and useful they are and that they are neither against the will of God nor any right reason And this I could clearly prove out of S. Basil Eusebius Caesariensis S. Gregory Nazianzen and Nyssen S. Austin Bede Jo. Damascen Athanasius Ambrose Chrysostom But I have here said enough if I have enough demonstrated as I think I have that your Disswader has said nothing §. 9. Which is an appendage to the former Reprovs the picturing of God the Father and holy Trinity which many of the holy Fathers speak against much to the blame of the Roman Church which in their mass-Mass-books and Breviaries Portuises and Manuals picture the holy Trinity with three noses and four eyes and three faces in a knot Though the Catholik Christian Church hath ever used and approved of the use of Images as well as spiritual books yet they allow not of any abuse in either And Ordinaries Byshops Visitors and Superiours in all places are to look to that So that in this his appendage as he calls it your Disswader acts but the part of a good Visitour to blame and mend that which is amiss which must continually be done and continually is done all over the Catholick world as well in this as other affairs And if any Ordinary be negligent herein he is worthy of blame But Sir this is nothing of Popery or Catholik Religion which allows only in general the use of pious figures to forward our thoughts and desires to that eternal felicity above which so many holy Virgins Confessours Martyrs Apostles Monks Hermits and pious Princes portrayed all before our eyes arrived unto by their austerities alms-deeds purity fastings disciplines meditations watchings and patient sufferings in love and conformity to their holy Redeemer who is the prince and leader and crown of all those his glorious Saints redeemed and sanctified by the vertue of his precious blood and passion out of the thraldom of Satan and this wicked world Nor has Catholik Religion ever descended unto the particular circumstances of these figures This belongs to the care of Bishops and Ordinaries Catholiks have generally no figures but of such only as once have lived amongst them in their Church either as head or members of it Nor of many ages would byshops permit the
things specified here by your Disswader for popish novelties as they are rightly understood in the catholik sence and meaning Indulgences the real presence under the apperances or species of material symbols Communion in one kind Liturgy in hebrew greek or latin tongus unknown generally to vulgar people Use and respect of images and sacred figures Spiritual Supremcay in one byshop over the rest Saints invocation and sacrifice of mass are all acknowledged by former Protestant Reformers for old errours errours indeed but old very old ones a thousand years older than your Disswader makes them who would here make us beleev they are but fresh novelties As for the antiquity of Indulgences so far as they belong to Catholik beleef I need not trouble my self with further testimonies then the only one of your Disswader himself who is instar omnium For p. 17. he acknowledges their use to be ancient and primitive As for the real prefence Humpred in his Jesuitism sayes that Gregory the great who lived a thousand years ago taught Transubstantiation The Century writers Cent. 5. teach that Chrysostom who was two hundred years before Gregory is thought to confirm transubstantiation and Cent. 4. they place under the title of hurtsul opinions and errours of the fathers that saying of S. Greg Nyssen in his catechist sermon de devin◠sacramento Not becaus it is eaten doth the bread becom the body of the word but forthwith by the word it is changed into the body as it is said by the word This is my body And they say in the same century c. 10. That Eusebius Emissenus did speak unprofitably of Transubstantiation Antony de Adamo in his anotomy of the mass sayes That the book of Sacraments ascribed to Ambrose affirms the opinion of Christs bodily presence in the sacrament Peter Martyr in his defence wholly dislikes the judgment of St. Cyril in this point Mr. Whitgist in his defence against Cartwright testifies of St. Ignatius disciple to St. John the Evangelist that he should say of some hereticks in his time That they do not admit Eucharist and oblations becaus they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ. which flesh suffered for our sins Adamus Francisci in his margarita theologica saith Commentum papistarum de transubstantiatione maturè in ecclesiam irrepsit And Antony de Adamo in his anatomy of the Mass saith I have not yet hitherto been able to know when this opinion of the real and bodily being of Christ in the Sacrament did begin This then according to the acknowledgment of Protestants and those very learned men is no novelty The indifferency of communion either in one kind or both is manifestly affirmed by Luther in his epistle ad Bohemos by Melanchton in his century of theological epistles and several other Protestants convinced therof by the current of primitive antiquity That the Christian Liturgy was in ancient times ever celebrated in Greek Chaldee Latin or other language unknown to vulgar Christians and in a part of the Church where lay people might not approach and great part of it secretly and out of the hearing of any body and with much pomp of vestments gold and silver chalices c. is amply testified by Theodore Beza in his eight epistle theological And therfor Queen Elizabeth did not think she acted against antiquity when she caused the Service to be read in English all over Wales where the people understand it not For which very same reason the great Cardinal Richlieu deservedly taxed heretical ministers who except at least in outward show against this ancient custom for their practising the very same thing as convinced in their own consciences that it was the ancient practice both in Bearn Narbo Province and other places where the ministers of those places read Service in the French Tongue which was not the language of those Provinces nor by any of those people any more understood than is Latin by the vulgar of mankind And yet the cafe is far otherwise in this affair affair amongst Catholiks than other people For these do but only come together to hear and attend to the Minister what he sayes But the Priests in the Catholik Church comes to make atonement for the people which may well be done so long as the said people are in a general disposition of heart fitly disposed to present themselves before the face of their Lord for that end whether they hear and know the sighs and requests of their petitioner in particular for them or no so long as they are assured they are of that true Church by whom their priests are directed in their duty For thus it was in the law of Moyses dictated by God himself There shall be no man saith the sacred text Lev. 16. in the tabernacle of the congregation when the priest goeth in to make an atonment in the holy place untill he come out and have made an atonement for himself and for his houshold and for all the congregation of Israel If God allowed of this custom four thousand years ago it can neither be a novelty nor ill As for images and their due respect the Magdeburgian Centuriators in their 4. Century testifie That Lactantius affirms many superstitious things concerning the efficacy of Christs image And in their 8. century That S. Bede erred in the worshipping of images So Bale in his pageant of Popes sayes That Gregory by his indulgences established pilgrimages to images and defended worshipping of images As also That S. Leo allowed the worshipping of Images Functius another Protestant in his chronology at 494. addes That Xenaias who lived thirteen hundred years ago was specially noted and condemned for being the first that stirred up wars against images This is then no novelty neither As for Purgatory and prayer for the dead Fulk in his Retentive affirms That it prevailed within three hundred years after Christ. And in his confutation of Purgatory That Ambrose allowed prayer for the dead and that it was the common errour of his time And again in the same book That Chrysostom and Jerom allowed prayer for the dead and in another place of the same book That Austin blindly defended it and again there That Tertullian Cyprian Austin Jerom and many others affirm that sacrifice for the dead is the tradition of the Apostles As also he had acknowledged about ten pages before in the same book That prayers for the dead is taught in the writings now extant under the name of Dionysius Areopagita mentioned in the acts of the Apostles which book though he doubt whether it be his or no yet himself writing against the Rhemish upon the 2. Thessalonians allows it to have been written above thirteen hundred years ago Chemnitius in his Examen sayes That it was taught by Austin Epiphanius and Chrysostom as nine pages before that he had said It was taught by Origen Ambrose Prudentius and Jerom. Mr. George Gifford in his Demonstration sayes That it was generally in
the Church long before Austin as may be seen in Cyprian and Tertullian And Bucer in his Enarrations upon the Gospels speaks That prayer and alms were made for the dead almost from the very beginning of the Church This is not a novelty then As for Papal Superiority the Protestant Centuriators acknowledge That in the fift age of the Church above a thousand years ago the Roman Byshops applyed themselves to establish dominion over other Churches and That they usurped to themselves right of granting priviledges and ornaments to other Archbyshops and That they confirmed Archbyshops in their Sees and That they deposed and excommunicated some and absolved others That they arrogated power to themselves of citing other Archbyshops to declare their caus before them That against a byshop appealing to the Apostolick See nothing should be determined but what the byshop of Rome censured That they appointed their legates in remote Provinces challenging autority to hear and determin all uprising controversies especially in questions of faith That they took upon them power of appointing general councels and to preside therein either by themselves or their deputies rejecting for unlawful those Synods that were called without their authority They also adde in the same century That Roman Byshops had flatterers in those times who affirmed that without permission of the Roman byshop none might undertake the person of a judge Nay forgetting themselves they averre in the same century Collat. 775. That antiquity had attributed the principality of Priesthood to the Roman byshop above all I could alledg also the like confession of Beza Mr. Whitgift and Cartwright but those eminent Protestant Centuriators may serv for all who testifie further in that fifth century That Victor called the Roman Church the head of all Churches That Turbius Asturiensis flattered Pope Leo and acknowledged his superiority That sometimes byshops condemned in Synods appealed to the See of Rome as did say they Flavianus Patriarch of Constantinople in the Councel of Ephesus and that Councels also requested to have their acts confirmed by the byshop of Rome And so indeed did not only Flavianus appeal to Pope Leo but Talida Patriarch of Alexandria deposed by the Emperour Zeno appealed also to Pope Simplicius S. Athanasius to Pope Julius c. So did the Councel of Chalcedon request to be confirmed by Pope Leo the Councel of Carthage by Pope Innocent the Councel of Ephesus by Pope Celestin c. The like superiority of the Roman byshop not only over the neighbour Churches and Byshops of Italy but over remote provinces and the greatest Archbyshops and Patriarks of the world is acknowledged by Protestants to have been practised also before that in the fourth age when the Church first lift up her head by favour of Constantine the great and appeared openly in the world In this age say the Centuriators the mystery of iniquity was not idle And they say also that then the byshop of Rome challenged by ecclesiastical canon the disallowing of those Synods where at they were absent That Theodoret a greek father who lived about the latter end of this age deposed by the Councel of Ephesus was restored to his byshoprick by Pope Leo unto whom he had made his appeal and that S. Chrysostom appealed likewise to Pope Innocentius who thereupon decreed his adversary Theophilus to be excommunicated and deposed That the famous and ancient Councel of Sardis consisting of above 300 byshops assembled from Spain France Italy Sardinia Greece Egypt Thebias Lybia Palestin Arabia and sundry other places of the world and wherat sundry fathers of the Nicen Councel were present decreed appeals to the byshop of Rome for which fact the Centuriators blame the said councel as do also Osiander Calvin Peter Martyr and others And lastly that wheras the Arrians had expelled Athanasius byshop of Alexandria Paulus byshop of Constantinople and other Catholick byshops of the East and brought their accusation to Julius then byshop of Rome that he might ratifie what they had done he the said byshop summoned Athanasius according to the canons and when he had heard all sides speak he restored Athanasius and his fellow byshops to their own place fretus ecclesiae Romanae praerogativa as the Centurists there speak In the age before this when raging persecution obscured both the government and most of the written monuments of that time yet want there not monuments of the Popes power in confirming deposing restoring byshops Then it was that S. Cyprian as himself testifies moved Pope Stephen by his letters to depose Martianus from his byshoprick and appoint another in his place and he tells us likewise in his fourth epistle how Basilides went to Rome hoping to beguile Pope Stephen then ignorant of the whole matter so to procure himself to be restored to his byshoprick from which he had been justly saith S. Cyprian deposed In this age the foresaid learned Centuriators reprove Pope Stephen for his undertaking to threaten excommunication to Helenus and Firmiltanus and all others throughout Cilicia Cappadocia and Asia for rebaptizing hereticks they reprove also as became Protestants to do both S. Cyprian and Tertullian in this point Tertullian for saying that the keyes were committed to S. Peter and the Church built on him S. Cyprian for affirming the Church to be built upon S. Peter and one chair founded by our Lords voice upon the rock for calling Peters chair the principal Church from whence Priestly unity ariseth and for saying that there ought to be one byshop in the Catholik Church and that the Roman Church ought to be acknowledged of all other for the mother and root of the Catholik Church In the second age the next after the apostles wherof fewer monuments remain yet be there some testimonies of this superiority acknowledged even by Protestants Pope Victor is owned even by our Mr. Whitgift in his defence to be a godly byshop and martyr and the Church in his time in great purity not being long after the apostles times and yet Amandus Polonus a Protestant Professour at Basil sayes in his theological thesis of the same Pope Victor That he shewed a Papal mind and arregancy and Mr. Spark in his answer against John Albines thinks him somewhat Pope-like to have exceeded his bounds when he took upon him to excommunicate the byshops of the East and Whitaker charges him with exercising jurisdiction upon other Churches So that these three Protestants discerned a papal power even in this second pure age of the Church although they liked it not But the Protestant Centuriators do much except against a saying of S. Irenaeus who lived in this age next after the apostles and might well remember the apostles own lively preachings as Hamelmannus a Protestant writer in his book of traditions speaks both of Irenaeus and Polycarp recorded in the third chapter of his third book Ad hanc enim ecclesiam Romanam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam It is necessary