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A23646
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England's distempers, their cause and cure according to the judgment of famous princes, peers, parliaments &c., occasioned by a book of a learned frier, accusing the whole nation of perjury for abjuring transubstantiation and sent unto the author for a reply / written in defence of the true catholike faith by R.A.
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R. A. (Richard Allen)
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1677
(1677)
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Wing A1043; ESTC R32701
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10,647
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29
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ENGLAND's DISTEMPERS THEIR CAUSE and CURE According to the Judgment of Famous Princes Peers Parliaments c. OCCASIONED By a Book of a Learned FRIER Accusing the whole Nation of PERJURY For Abjuring TRANSUBSTANTIATION And sent unto the Author for a Reply Written in defence of The true Catholike Faith By R. A. Pastor of the Church at Henfield in Sussex Psal 60.2 Heal the breaches thereof for it shaketh London Printed for the Author to be sold by Thomas Dring at the Harrow at Chancery-lane end in Fleetstreet 1677. To the King 's most Excellent Majestie CHARLES II. by the grace of God King of England c. Defender of the true ancient Catholike and Apostolike Faith Dread Soveraign I Am one of your Majesties poor Subjects that alwaies loved Peace and Privacy But like him that was born dumb and never spake till he saw his Father ready to be murthered so when I saw my dear Mother the Church of England ready to be strangled between two Thieves the Roman and Rakovian who have already robbed her of her Goods and good Name and now have caught her by the throat to take away her Life I could not chuse but cry out for Help and to whom should I cry but to your Majesty the great Patron of our Church The common Cry is that the Church of England must go down I humbly beseech your Majesty she may have a fair hearing which she never had yet since the Reformation but hath always been opprest with monstrous Outcries and railing Accusations And not only the Protestant Religion but Christianity it self lies at stake whilst your Majesties good Subjects are deceived deluded and divided with vain Words without Truth right Reason or common Sense as in some particulars I have made appear in this ensuing Discourse And I humbly beseech your Majesty to continue your Royal Favour to the poorer Clergy who are many ways grievously opprest to the great scandal of the Church and shame of the whole Nation I never begged any thing for my self though I have lost a fair Temporal Estate in the Service of Your Royal Father For at Your Majesties happy Return I found Your Majesty pester'd with swarms of importunate Suitors that rather than be troublesome I sate down with that resolution of Mephibosheth 2 Sam. 19.30 Yea let them take all forasmuch as my Lord the King is come again to his own house in peace The Lord give your Majesty all the Blessings of this Life and that to come the Heart of David the Head of Solomon and the Hand of Gideon And let all the Enemies of Peace and Truth flee before the Sword of the Lord and King Charles the daily Prayer of Your Majesties most Humble Faithful and Obedient Subject RICH. ALLEN To the Right Honourable HENEAGE Lord FINCH Baron of Daventry Lord High Chancellor of England AND To the Honorable Parliament Most Noble Senators and Patriots THe Noble Lord Chancellour in his excellent Speech May 1662. calls to minde the excellent temper of the Time of Queen Elizabeth the blessed Condescention and Resignation of the People then to the Crown the awful Reverence they had then to the Governours and Government both of Church and State And we may better remember the sweet times of King James when we went all together to the House of God as Friends Now to reduce the People to their ancient sweet temper must be the work of God and under him we have no hopes but onely in the great Wisdome of his Majesty and this Noble Parliament His Majesty hath done so much already as if he had studied to do for this Nation what a Roman Caesar said of his City Marmoream se relinquere quam lateritiam accepisset Suet. And Your Honours have failed of nothing belonging to your high Trust The first Cause of Breach clearly discovered would doubtless point out the right way of Peace The famous Parliament of Paris told their King once That the onely way to extirpate Heresie Schism c. was first to reform their own Church after the example of the Primitive who resisted Heresie with Preaching the Word of God The Church of England is of an excellent Constitution if all her Members were of as good a Complexion her Beauty would allure many Thousands to return to her Communion that now are gone astray The Doctrine of our Church is pure her Discipline good neither of these so much as our vicious Lives that opens the mouths of our Adversaries so wide against us There be other Crimes more heinous in their own guilt but Drunkenness is the greatest Eye-sore If that beastly Vice were supprest our Adversaries could have nothing to say but what we can well answer and stop their mouths False Brethren have always done more mischief than profest Enemies This present Discourse I was provoked to by the Challenge of a Learned Frier and humbly present it to your Honours grave Judgment The most wise God be with you and direct you in all your Consultations to the good of our Church and Nation Your Honours most humble servant RIC. ALLEN May 21. 1677. THE PREFACE A Most Noble King of this Nation was of opinion That Discord among Subjects did alienate their minds not only one from another but also from their Prince insomuch that the Bond of Unity Peace and Love could never hold long between the Prince and his People if the People were at discord among themselves Moreover That the cause of Difference among People arose chiefly from difference in Religion and that difference in Religion was fomented with nothing so much as with names of Faction Hereto assenteth a Learned Remonstrant Groninchaev who saith That names of Faction were the Devils device and served to no other end but to make and maintain Division And hereof it seems his Majesty was very sensible as appears in his gracious Act of Oblivion There is a necessity of Names for distinction sake to avoid Confusion but the mischief is when Names or Titles are given and taken falsly to blast the reputation of some and make them odious to the world and advance others in the opinion of the world with Names and Titles that no ways belong unto them so that the world is meerly cheated with vain Words false Names and Titles without Truth falsely imposed on Persons and things as I shall endeavour to shew in these following particulars ENGLAND's Distempers THEIR CAUSE and CURE CHAP. I. Of Transubstantiation THis barbarous word hath been the occasion of much Idolatry and the cause of many Troubles in the World and I am engaged to take notice of it in in the first place upon this occasion A Person of Honour told me That my History of Transubstantiation should be answered After two years a learned Friar sends me a Book called An Answer wherein he chargeth our famous Church and Nation with Perjury for abjuring Transubstantiation in subscribing a Declaration set forth to that purpose by Authority of his Majesty and the Parliament
requiring of me a Reply My Reply is That the very first words of his Book are a notorious untruth as all the Nation can witness and but little truth in the rest save in two or three places where the poor Infidel confesseth his Ignorance of the true Faith and some other things that every School-boy knows A full Reply I shall give him in four Assertions 1. That Transubstantiation was never heard of or known in the Church till above 1000 years after Christ neither name nor thing 2. That it was never generally received by Learned Papists themselves till the Council of Trent 3. That their Grounds and Reasons for it are too weak to support it and that monstrous weight of Doubts and Difficulties that depend upon it 4. That the Doctrine of the Church of England in this point is most agreeable to Holy Scriptures and to all pure Antiquity and may be called Transmutation I. To the first the Frier saith It was ever known and believed in the Church quoad rem though not quoad nomen i. e. by certain equivalent terms and for that cites Five Fathers all rejected for spurious by their own Learned Men. His equivalent Terms are Mutatio Transmutatio Transelementatio the two first we admit in the same sense that the Fathers used them the last is a change Etiam ad materiam primam saith a famous Schoolman and will not serve his turn There be other terms used by the Fathers that will do him as little good but I shall take no notice of more than he sends me Anno Christi 420. About this time lived St. Augustine who Lib. 3. de Doctr. Christ printed at Paris Anno 1517. saith Those words Except ye shall eat the flesh of the Son of man c. are a Figure and a little before hath these words Literam sequi signa pro rebus quae his significantur accipere servilis est infirmitatis This I am sure of let the Frier make the best construction of it he can St. Augustine was a famous Bishop sate in several Councils and was President of some himself and must needs know the Catholick sense of the Church at that time better than our Frier Anno 850. About this time lived Bertram a famous Presbyter who in his Book De Corp. Sang. Christi saith That according to their substance the Bread and Wine remain in the Sacrament after Consecration The bold Frier calls this an Impertinency when the whole University of Doway in their censure of it could neither deny the Book nor answer it Anno 1057. About this time lived Berengarius Archdeacon of Anjou who denied Transubstantiation Pope Nicholas 2. Concil Lateran 2. made him recant and make this publick Confession That the very Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament was truely and sensually broken and bruised in pieces with the teeth of the Faithful and this Confession the Pope and Council allowed for Catholick Our bold Friar saith it is false I shall prove him a Liar presently For this Confession is recorded by Lombard l. 4. dist 12. D. and De Conser dist 2. Ca. Ego Berengarius And their own Carranza testifies That the Pope did force and compel him to it And that it was allowed for Catholick by Pope and Council appears clearly because Lanfranc of Canterbury who sate in that Council sharply rebukes Berengarius for recanting that Confession as afterwards he did This Confession was as near the Capernaites as could well be But where is now our bold Friars Catholick sense of the Church for Transubstantiation Here is no appearance of it name or thing according to the Friars own terms Anno 1150. About this time lived Peter Lombard Bishop of Paris the likeliest man alive to know the Catholic sense of the Church because he made it his study and business to search the Fathers and collect Sentences out of their Writings and yet he saith l. 4. dist 11. A Si autem quaeritur c. If it be demanded what manner of Conversion is in the Sacrament or of what kind Definire non sufficio I am not able saith he to determine We acknowledg a Conversion as well as they but if Lombard in all his reading could not learn what manner of Conversion it was then it may be the same that we allow and the Fathers understood no other II. My second Assertion is That Transubstantiation was never generally received by Learned Papists themselves till the Council of Trent For their most eminent School-men some of them Cardinals say That they receive it out of reverence to the Church because she hath so decreed but otherwise in their own judgment rather approve that Opinion which saith That the substance of Bread and Wine remains in the Sacrament as most agreeable to holy Scripture and right Reason and that Transubstantiation was a rash Opinion having no ground in Scripture This was the more common Opinion of the Schoolmen for above 200 years The Friar saith I wrong the Doctors and will prove it I know not when But let him unmask himself that I may see the right face and then I shall return him his own challenge and let him put it to trial when he dares III. My third Assertion is That their own Reasons or Grounds for Transubstantiation are too weak to support it and the monstrous weight of Doubts and Difficulties that depend upon it Their general ground is the power and truth of Christ God Almighty who made all the world by his word hence they infer Possibility Verity Necessity The Answer is that an Argument from the Creation is but à particulari ad particulare and holds not nor à posse ad esse from Possibility to Verity as to say It may be so therefore it is so or God can do this and that therefore he doth it or it is done all such Arguments are inconsequent irrational and ridiculous An Argument may well follow from the Will of God to his Power but not from his Power to his Will Particular Reasons or Grounds they have 1. The Time when Christ spake the words a time say they when all Figures were ended but that is apparently false for there is a plain Figure in the Cup which they neither deny nor can avoid 2. Some argue thus The Bread which Christ gave in his last Supper came down from Heaven But Bakers bread came not down from Heaven therefore he gave not Bakers bread but the substance of his own Body It is retorted thus The substance of Christ his natural Body was taken of the B. Virgin and came not down from Heaven But the bread which Christ gave came down from Heaven Therefore the Bread which Christ gave was not the substance of his natural Body Considering the weakness of their Argument and inconvenience of the retort they fly to other grounds as 3. To Ubiquity through Personal Vnion of both Natures But this overthrows the grounds of their own assertion For as they handle the matter their