an argument than if he should prove that there have been no Jesuits in England of late years because though divers have been apprehended none have been brought to Tryal 50. Concerning the Franciscan at Bristol the oath of G. Cowlishaw Ironmonger in Bristol is upon record and printed in Mr. Pryns Quaker unmaskt edit. 2. p. 3. who p. 34 c. answers to what H. D. here objects to clear the Franciscan Besides him at Bristol I could tell Mr. Denne a strange story of his Father Whitebread saying Mass about London and of another disputing for the Quakers and presently proved a masked Papist at Wolverhampton but I had rather he should have these things from others who have more leisure When he shall have considered these and other like relations which will shortly be printed at large I will desire him to tell the world whether they be groundless and unproved calumnies 51. To the next words wherein he sayes No mans innocency will be able to protect him against suspition I answer That it is not fit any man should judge how hardly Mr. Denne shall be dealt with by any suspitions further then may appear by those propositions of his which are recollected in the close of this address 52. In the very next line H. D. saith that he for his part does very confidently assure himself that if an oath were tendred to ALL the Papists in this Nation they would willingly swear that neither they themselves nor any that they know did ever use any such practise or ever thought it lawful to dissemble their Religion Wherein H. D. expresses questionlesse a greater confidence in behalf of the Jesuits then either Clark or Watson would of Robert Parsons the Jesuite or the secular Priests at this day will for the body of that Society as appears by their books which for these sixty years they have writ one against another So that H. D. is a closer friend to the Jesuites then many Romish Priests be 53. This 15th begins thus we all know 't is a fallacious way of arguing to proceed a posse ad esse as they speak at Cambridge Do not they speak so at Doway and St. Omers too and yet no better is the Argument of the Papist's Adversaries in this case Here he blames some persons under the name of Popish Adversaries sure he means to exempt himself from the number And before he is gone to the middle of this page he falls again to undertaking for the Principles of Popery and passes his word that their principles contain nothing which allowes dissimulation in Religion 54. But in the last page he will needs have Mr. S. to be a Papist for asserting that we receive the Canon of Scripture upon the Authority of the Church of all Ages and the pure spouse of Christ I would fain be told by Mr. Denne what reason he can give to his brethren Anabaptists and the Quakers why the song of Solomon should be Canon and other usefull books which bare his name Apocrypha why the Revelation of St. John should be put into the Canon 300. years after Christ and some gospells bearing the Apostles names left out but the authority of the Jewish Church for the Old and of the Christian for the New Testament But I would have him remember that to talk of the pure spouse of Christ and the Church of all ages and exclude the 12. Apostles and the first Century out of it is a discourse not becoming Mr. Dennes profession 55. Sure H. D. never saw Dr. Cosin of the Canon of Scripture nor Hooker's Ecclesiastical policy nor heard of St. Augustines non Crederem Scripturis nisi me moveret Ecclestae authoritas If Mr. S. be a Papist for this he hath these and a multitude of such good Protestant-company Popish with him 56. You ask what other Church was there in all ages but the Roman I answer unless you and I agree now upon the terms of the question we must end where we should have begun therefore first I must desire you to tell me what you mean by the Roman Church Which I shall scarce know till you answer the 20. questions that Mr. T. S. puts in the close of his preface to Daille's apology But that you may not pass without one answer I pray tell me what other Church was there in all ages but the Greek Church and those that agree with her in all or most part of what she holds particularly in believing no infallibility or Soveraign jurisdiction over all in the Bishop of Rome for which among other good doctrines the present Roman Church refuseth her Communion 57. And here you mend all at last for you no sooner hear talk of a pure spouse of Christ the Church of all ages but you apprehend it can be understood of none but the Roman Church and say plainly that to talk of a pure spouse of Christ and the Catholick church in the creed the church of all ages for those are the words in the letter that you cite is doubtless in effect to justifie the church of Rome to be a pure church 58. Thus having examined Mr. Hen. Dennes new book and Religion I shall only recollect a few positions publisht by him and his friend George Whitehead the Quaker whom he would prove to be no Papist and therefore that no Papist is a Quaker and then leave Mr. D. to turn over his Aethiopick Testament all the books of Papists and ALL their histories and leave the Reader to judge how good Protestants this fit couple be H. D. and G. W. George Whitehead besides those particulars which are mentioned in the Queries hereto annexed especially p. 14. and 16. maintaines these seven following Romish doctrines 1. That justification is by inherent righteousness and so saith no Protestant but so saith Bellarmin l. 2. de justificat c. 3. 2ly That a man may perfectly keep the law without sin so saith not Protestants but Bell: l. 4. de justif. c. 11. 12. 13. 14. 3ly G. W. denies the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification so Bell: l. 2. de justif. c. 7. 4ly G. W. affirms that Scripture is not the supream rule for trial of spirits so Bell: l. 3. de verbo Dei c. 4. 5ly G. W. hath writ an whole book against Mr. Clapham to prove that the written word is but a dead letter and carnal So saith Costerus in enchyridio p. 44. 6ly G. W. pretends to immediate Revelations and pretended miracles see Clapham and the century of queries so do the Papists unchurching them who pretend not to them as triall of a Church 7ly G. W. and the Papist both alike place much of their holiness in their beggarly apparrell in going openly with sackcloath and barefooted which I find taxed by the ancient Fathers of the Church Thus far G. W. 59. Now for Mr. Hen. Denne I hope the Reader hath ere this observed that though this book of his before us be entituled for the Quakers as I am
Parkers dayes 16. Presently you add that T. S. dared not profess openly that they received their commission from Popish Bishops of K. Henry VIII's time Ans. true because he dares not speak a falsity for they received it in the time of Edw. VI Though what you suppose had been no impossible thing since good Protestants in the dayes of Edw. VI had received valid baptisme as all men do acknowledg in Henry the eights reign 17. In answer to the rest of this be pleased to know that the antient Church believed contrary to your Popish novelty that all Bishops had spiritual jurisdiction as being successors to the Apostles And 't is only the interest of the Pope to deny it who is wont to make titular Bishops without jurisdiction to serve himself in his pretended Councils 18. I hope I need not tell Mr. D. who tells others 15. how they speak at Cambridge that a Master and a Family an overseer and a charge are relata rise and fall together but I must tell him that Bishop Barlow and Miles Coverdale had the warrant of all their Ecclesiastical Superiors who then were over them to make Bishops in the diocess of London and that Bonner was not their superior 19. To what you speake at large of Q. Elizabeths being a Lay-person and not being able to give any power c. I answer What power that Queen had and ought to have in Ecclesiastical matters you may see in the Articles of the Church of England which no Papist nor Anabaptist H. D. or W. J. W. J. or H. D. was ever able to disprove or durst say one word against it 20. Reading forward I am at a stand and must plainly confesse I know not what you mean by what followes viz. your comparing the common people and Masters of Families with the Queen that then was I know not what your asserting that these have as much power as the Queen can drive at but casting off all authority like your brethren at Munster 21. To your 6th I answer that if there be any Churches beyond our seas who count it their glory to want a succession of Bishops yea to cry shame upon it and to reject it as a superstitious relique of Popery and mark of Antichrist we are no more engaged to defend such people then the Quaker is engaged to defend the Papist or the Papist a Quaker nor so much as appears by this Apology which I am now answering 22. This I know that not only the Reformed Churches in their Confession of Ausburg and again in their Apology for that Confession cap. de ordine ecclesiastico cap. de potestate eccles. and in their other colloquies at Wormes and Ratisbon and divers of their books beside but likewise Mr. Calvin who subscribed the Augustane confession in his book de necessitate reformandae ecclesiae to Cardinal Sadolet his old friend and in his epistles to Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Ridley and in his Institutions l. 4. c. 4. 4. And with him Mr. Beza too in his book de diversis gradibus ministr. c. 21. 23. I say I know and am as sure as a man that believes his eyes can be that these and Zanchy Diodati Cappellus Pet. Moulin Daillé and others the most learned French-men now living believe episcopacy and the government by Bishops to be lawfull at least And I am sure that Mr. T. S. if H. D. be so well acquainted with him as he pretends but I am told he confessed he did not know him so much as by sight the same hour that he owned this printed book to him will at his request give him a larger list of reformed forraign Divines on this subject and proofes that other protestant churches beside the English have a successsion of Bishops which I saw in his chamber But there is so much already printed of the L. Viscount Falklands Bp. Carleton and others against your ungrounded assertion that I shall deferr sending you a larger catalogue until you or your friend Knot the Jesuit who also hath writ against Episcopacy shall have answered Dr. Hamonds dissertations against Blondel otherwise than by your sword and sequestration 23. Your 7th conteining nothing to the purpose but a bare assertion that T. S. 16. and great numbers even of Episcopall men PRESBYTERIANS Independents and ALL professors besides Papists do refuse to take the oath of abjuration is in my opinion answered sufficiently till it be proved by a bare negation Though some of them have much more cause to refuse it than you who have taken away the former trial of Popery viz. Recusancy common by the Law to Papists Anabaptists and other Sectaries which names I hope you 'l not be angry at while you take them to your self p. 16. l. 14. 16. 24. In your 8th you argue against the oath thus No man can safely swear that he believes no purgatory unlesse he be as sure that there is no purgatory as that there is a God Ans. This looks like the saying of Fa. Knot against Chillingworth who thinks that what ever he believes in religion he believes with the same certainty wherewith he receives the highest articles of the Christian faith When passion and prejudice is laid aside I hope you 'l find time to consider whether if you were now disputing in the Divinity Schools you might not safely affirm that to be true which is your opinion in any matter of Religion and not expect that any Caviller who stands by and is no way concerned in the Act should thence inferr and cry out that you are as sure of it as that there is a God who made the world If this Caviller should go further single this assertion perhaps being only argumentum ad hominem out of your whole dispute and print a book against it would not he be as you say Mr. S. is not a little ridiculous And would not you your self take as little notice of him as Mr. Smith doth of you I should enlarge upon this your acception of the word believe but that Mr. Chillingworth hath said enough of it in his answer to your Brother Knot and T. S. in his defense of Chillingworth 25. In the last lines of this 12th page you have these words what do I know whether purgatory be revealed in Scripture or no You seem here plainly to profess that you do not know whether Papists or Protestants be in the right so far as to Gods revelation in Scripture which Protestants have alwayes made their rule By which we may judge what a Protestant you are And that Anabaptists either deny the H. Scripture to be their rule or affirm that they know no error in purgatory 26. To the 9th whereof I can scarce make common sence I might tell you that no Parliament is in any sense that which is signified by the word person But I rather answer that no Parliament can free any person from any oath of beliefe which he hath taken For example if one Parliament propound an
satisfaction if possible After you have answered the letter in Quaker Disarm'd taking in the enclosed printed paper entituled a Gag for lay-preachers which you may have neer the Little North-door of S. Pauls I shall entreat you to know because you complain of your books lying unanswered and therein a scandall and prejudice to the Protestant cause that there is a multitude of considerable books writ by Protestants in folio and other volumes against the Church of Rome which have been 20. or 30. years unanswered and are like to lye forty more 42. I shall name some first for your reading a new gag for an old goose by Bishop Mountague Bp. Franc. White and Bp. Laud and Bp. Chappell against Fisher Spalato's 3. tomes Bp. Hall Birckbeck Crackenthorp Bp. Mountague against Bullinger Dr. Tho. Jackson Chillingworth tho your friends the Jesuites have attempted to answer his pamphlet as they call it divers times and Mr. Knot was 19. or 20. years about one Then in a smaller volume so many that a bare catalogue of them would make a big book as Dr. Cosins Dr. Jer. Taylor Dr. Fern Dr. Featly Dr. Heylin Dr. Hammond of infallibility and his dispatcher dispacht These all new beside old ones Not to mention the heaps of excellent pieces of Forrainers Dailleus Moulin Blondell Calixtus Bochartus Placeus c. each of them as famous and considerable as your Jesuites 43. And yet you and they be the men that clamour against the Protestants as if they could say nothing for themselves when 't is as clear as the sun at noon that neither you in this apology nor they in their other writings have a word to alledg against us but what hath been unanswerably refelled by the forementioned Authors and others 100. times And yet you are so wise as to complain of our silence and the Jesuites for whom you here plead put forth books consisting only of questions to the same men insteed of giving them so much as one answer to their many demonstrations made against you and though some of them as Mr. G. Dr. H. c. never declined any meeting with the ablest of you and the Jesuites but attend the business as diligently as if they had nothing else to do and have been oft declined by you and them and can bring witnesses to depose where severall Romish Priests have appointed dayes and houres and at the very hour appointed sent a flam to prevent the meeting 44. But to come closer to you Mr. Denne For your part besides this scandalous false printed relation of your own here mentioned one may to use your own words guesse at the conscience and honesty of Mr. Hen. Denne by his saying not one word in his book of a publick conference held by him and the same person upon the same question at Castor in Northamptonshire But I suppose you 'l publish that when you print your publick dispute with Mr. Weller of Immanuel Colledge before the Committee at the Bear in Cambridge 45. Besides all this a reasonable man would think that Mr. Gunning having taken such paines when you disputed with him at S. Clements Church to keep the Auditors from hissing Mr. Hen. Denne quite off from the desk and dispute as divers who were there tell me they will witnesse deserves to be excused if he takes no paines to consider your pamphleting afterwards 46. The mentioning whereof minds me of your blaming Mr. T. S. for Arabick c. In answer to which I am told that though he ownes the dispute as a true matter of fact and so far his yet 't was penned by one of the auditors who took it in short-hand and then it was no absurdity to say Mr. Smith was doing that which all the University knowes he was appointed by the Vice-chancellour to do in reference to printing a Catalogue of all the Manuscripts in Cambridge which is now ready for the Press But suppose all this to be false yet it will be hard if Mr. T. S. who was deputed by Mr. Wheelock when he left Cambridge without hope of returning under hand and seal Arabick professour and hath taught that language to divers have not more skill in that tongue then you have in the Aethiopick who cannot read it and yet cited that and all other translations of the N. T. in the publick conference that you boast of at St. Clements Church without Temple-Bar saying you would stick to the AETHIOPIC And your respondent asking you whether you brought your argument from the Aethiopic copy or the Latin version You replyed with some smartness from both from both Sir Which passage together with your saying that Children cry because they are unwilling to be baptized though they neither will nor nill with divers others which you are so faithful a relater as to pass over in silence having made those thousands of people which heard you very merry might have remained buried in silence if looking into your two Books I had not met with your Aethiopic as well as Arabick 47. But now leaving your languages I returne to your Apology where 13. you say you can not see any great reason of fear or danger from the papists questionlesse your bare warrant shall secure all English men from Powder-plots hereafter 48. Your 14th you thus begin in their defence I am to say something concerning those common Brutes which are raised against Popish Priests and Jesuites as if they did secretly insinuate themselves into the Congregations of different professions in Religion To which I answer that Mr. Pryn Mr. Baxter and the rest whom you call Bedlams p. 6. 19. may cry you mercy for the report of secret insinuations for me thinks 't is open enough now or let the World judge by this book of yours 49. But let us hear what he reports these bedlams and bookmakers to say by the way did H. D. never furnish the tobacco-shop with wast paper They tell quoth H. D. of an idle fellow one Ramsey c. I wish Mr. Hen. Den were such an Idle fellow that he be likely to have the tithe of his Scholarship though he live as long again What this Mr. Ramsey is and was I desire Mr. Denne may learn from a book printed by some of very good repute in Newcastle and the depositions sent up by the Mayor of that Town with Mr. Ramsey to London some years before Mr. Prynne could hear any thing of his conference at Cambridge so that he was not imprisoned upon a bare suspicion as Mr. D. saith How he got out of the Gatehouse and what he did in Cambridge I had rather he should hear from Mr. Ratcliff and Mr. Griffith of Christs Colledge divers of St. Johns and other Colledges whom he taught Hebrew than from me who am confident I know his Religion design from other Reasons besides his frequenting Milton neer Cambridge But sure H. D's concluding that because Ramsey came not to further tryal therefore he was no disguised Papist is no better