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book_n	authority_n	church_n	council_n	1,729	5	6.6396	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52134	Mr. Smirke; or, The divine in mode: being certain annotations upon the animadversions on The naked truth : together with a short historical essay, concerning general councils, creeds, and impositions, in matters of religion / by Andreas Rivetus, Junior, anagr. Res Nuda Veritas.	Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678.	1676 (1676)	Wing M873; ESTC R214932	95,720	92

Bishops and Presbyters which as being the most easie to be answered he therefore referred to a Bishop But in good earnest after having confider'd this last Chapter so Brutal whether as to Force or Reason I have changed my resolution For he argues so despicably in the rest that even I who am none of the best Disputers of this World have conceiv'd an utter contempt for him He is a meer Kitchin-plunderer and attacks but the Baggage where even the Suttlers would be too hard for him P. 18. Does the Exposer allow that under Constantinus Pogonatus to have been a free General Council In the same page If the Exposer would have done any thing in his Dic Ecclesiae he should have proved that a General Council is the Church that there can be such a General Council or hath been that the Church can impose new Articles of Faith beyond the Express Words of Scripture that a General Council cannot erre in matters of Faith That the Church of his making cannot erre in matters of Faith Whereas our Church Article 19. saith thus far The Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch have erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not onely in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith This is an Induction from Particulars and remark the Title of the Article being of the Church Ours defines it The Visible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments be duly ministred according to Christs Ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same And then if the Reader please to look on the 20. and 21. Articles following one of the Authority of the Church the other of the Authority of General Councils unless a man will industriously mis-apply and mis-construe them those three are a Compendious and irrefragable Answer not onely to wh●… he saith here upon the Appendix but to his whole Book from one end to the other p. 19. I ask him when the Greek Church is excommunicate by the Roman when the Protestants left the Roman Church when we in England are neither Papists Lutherans nor Calvinists and when in Queen Maries time we returned to the Roman Church what and where then was the Catholick Church that was indefectible and against which the Gates of Hell did not prevail Was it not in the Savoy Moreover I ask him what hinders but a General Council may erre in matters of Faith when we in England that are another World that are under an Imperial Crown that are none of them as the Exposer words it but have a distinct Catholick Faith within our Four Seas did in the Reign before mentioned and reckon how many in that Convocation those were that dissented again make our selves one of them unless he has a mind to do so too which would alter the Case exceedingly P. 20. He quotes the Act I Eliz. cap. I. let him mind that clause in it by the express and plain words of Canonical Scripture and then tell me what service it hath done him whether he had not better have let it alone but that it is his fate all along to be condemn'd out of his own mouth which must alwayes succeed so when man urges a Real Truth against a Real Truth P. 23. I have reason to affirm and he will meet with it and has already in the Author that those General Councils howsoever called were no Repraesentatio totius nominis Christiani but nominally yea that such a Representation could not be P 22. He expounds Scriptures here and thinks he does wonders in it by assuming the Faculties of the whole Body to the Mouth which Mouth he saith and in some sense 't is very true if a man would run over the Concordance is the Clergy But I know not why the Mouth of the Church should pretend to be the Brain of the Church and understand and will for the whole Laity Let every man have his word about and 't is reason We are all at the same Ordinary and pay our souls equally for the Reckoning The Exposer's Mouth which is unconscionable would not onely have all the Meat but all the Talk too not onely at Church but at Council Table Let him read Bishop Taylor of Liberty of Prophecy P. 25 The Exposer that alwayes falsly Represents his Adversary as an Enemy to Creeds to Fathers as afterwards he does to Ceremonies to Logick to Mathematicks to every thing that he judiciously speaks and allows of here P. 25. saith the Author who delivers but the Church of Englands Doctrine herein and would not have Divine Faith impos'd upon nor things prest beyond Scripture in this matter of General Councils is guilty of unthought of Popery for the Papists really I think he partly slanders them herein cannot endure Councils General and Free They allow many a General Council more than we do If the Pope do not for some reason or other delight in some that are past or in having new ones it does not follow that the Papists do not I think those were Papists that ruffled the Pope too here in the West and that at the Council of Constance burnt John Hus and Hierome of Prague and resolv'd that Faith was not to be kept with Hereticks But pray Mr. Exposer if we must give divine Faith to General Councils let the Author ask you in his turn which are those General Councils How shall we know them Why onely such as accord with Scripture Why then we I mean you Mr. Exposer make our selves you still Judges of the General Councils the fault you so much condemn the Author for But what Popery thought or unthought of are you in the very next line guilty of that call the Popes Supremacy the Quintessence of Popery So that it seems the Quintessence of the Controversie betwixt ou●… Church and theirs is onely which shall be Pope for the Articles of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 compulsion though the Non-conformists may I thank you Mr. Exposer for your News I had often heard it before I confess but till now I did never and scarce yet can believe it it is rather to be wish'd then hoped for a thing so surprizingly seasonable But for the good news Mr. Exposer I will give you four Bottles which is all I had by me not for mine own use but for a friend upon occasion of the First Second Third and Fourth Essence But the Quintessence I doubt would be too strong for your Brain especially in the morning when you are writing Animadversions P. 28. of Ceremonies he sports unworthily as if the Author spoke Pro and Con Contradictions while as a Moderator he advises our Church to Condescension on the right and the Dissenters to submission on the left how are men else to be brought together He had as good call every man because he has two hands an Ambidexter He would turn every mans Stomach worse than the

thorow their Diocesses the number would appear inconsiderable upon this Easter Visitation Before men be admitted to so important an employment it were fit they underwent a severe Examination and that it might appear first whether they have any Sense for without that how can any man pretend and yet they do to be ingenious Then whether they have any Modesty for without that they can only be scurrilous and impudent Next whether any Truth for true Jests are those that do the greatest execution And Lastly it were not amiss that they gave some account too of their Christianity for the world has always hitherto been so uncivil as to expect somthing of that from the Clergy in the design and stile even of their lightest and most uncanonical Writings And though I am no rigid Imposer of a Discipline of mine own devising yet had any thing of this nature entered in to the minds of other men it is not impossible that a late Pamphlet published by Authority and proclaimed by the Gazette Animadversions upon a late Pamphlet entit●…led the Naked Truth or the true state of the Primitive Church might have been spared That Book so called The Naked Truth is a Treatise that were it not for this its Opposer needs no commendation being writ with that Evidence and Demonstration of Spirit that all sober men cannot but give their Assent and Consent to it unasked It is a Book of that kind that no Christian scarce can peruse it without wishing himself had been the Author and almost imagining that he is so the Conceptions therein being of so Eternal an Idea that every man finds it to be but the Copy of an Original in his own Mind and though he never read it till now wonders it could be so long before he remembred it Neither although there be a time when as they say all truths are not to be spoken could there ever have come forth any thing more seasonable When the sickly Nation had been so long indisposed and knew not the Remedy but having Taken so many things that rather did it harm then good only longed for some Moderation and as soon as it had tasted this seemed to it self sensibly to recover When their Representatives in Parliament had been of late so frequent in consultations of this nature and they the Physitians of the Nation were ready to have received any wholsome advice for the Cure of our Malady It appears moreover plainly that the Author is Judicious Learned Conscientious a sincere Protestant and a true Son If not a Father of the Church of England For the 〈◊〉 the Book cannot be free from the imperfections in●…ident to all humane indeavours ●…t those so small and guarded every where with so much Modesty that it seems here was none left for the Animadverter who might otherwise have blush'd to reproach him But some there were that thought Holy Church was concerned in it and that no true born Son of our Mother of England but ought to have it in detestation Not only the Churches but the Coffee-Houses rung against it they itinerated like Excise-●…pyes from one house to another and some of the Morning and Evening Chaplains burnt their lips with perpetual discoursing it out of reputation and loading the Author whoever he were with all contempt malice and obloquy No●… could this suffice them but a lasting Pillar of Infamy must be erected to eternize his Crime and his Punishment There must be an answer to him in Print and that not according to the ordinary rules of civility or in the sober way of arguing Controversie but with the utmost extremity of J●…ere Disdain and Indignation and happy the man whose lot it should be to be deputed to that performance It was Shrove-Tuesday with them and not having yet forgot their Boyes-play they had set up this Cock and would have been contet some of them to have ventur'd their Coffee-Farthings yea their Easter-Pence by advance to have a sting at him But there was this close youth who treads alwayes upon the heels of Ecclesiastical Preferment but hath come nearer the heels of the Naked Truth then were for his service that rather by favour the●… any tolerable sufficiency ●…ied away this employment as he hath done many others from them So that being the man pitched upon he took up an unfortunate resolution that he would be Witty Infortunate I say and no less Criminal for I dare aver that never any person was more manifestly guilty of the sin against Nature But however to write a Book of that virulence and at such a season was very improper even in the Holy time of Lent when whether upon the Sacred account it behoved hi●…●…ther to have subjugated and mortified the swelling of his passions or whether upon the Political reason he might well have forborn his young Wit as but newly Pigg'd or Calv'd in order to the growth of the yearly summer provisions Yet to work he fell not omitting first to ●…m himself up in the whole wardrobe of his Function as well because his Wit consi●…ing wholly in his Dres●…e he would and 't was hi●… concernment 〈◊〉 have it all about him as to the end that being hu●…'d up in all his Ecclesiastical 〈◊〉 he might appear more formidable and in the pride of his Heart and Habit out ●…niface an Humble M●…derator So that there was 〈◊〉 to do in ●…quipping of Mr. Smirke then there is about 〈◊〉 and the Di●…ine is M●…de ●…ight have vyed with Sir Fopling Flutter The Vestry and the Tir●…ng-Roome were both exhausted and 't is hard to say whether there went more attendants toward the Composing of Himself or of his Pamphlet Being thus drest up at last forth he comes in Print No Poet either the First or the Third day could be more concern'd and his little Party like men hired for the purpose had posted themselves at every corner to feigne a more numerous applause but clap'd out of time and disturb'd the whole Company Annotations upon his Animadversions on the Title Dedication c. AT first bolt in his Animadversions on the Title the Dedication and the Epistle to the Reader he denounces sentence before inquiry but against the Book it self forgetting already his subject so early his brain circulates and saith that Having perused the Book thorowly he is abundantly satisfied not only from his Stile which is something Enthusiastick his speech bewrays him but from his matter and Principles if he stick to any that the Author is a borderer upon Fanaticis●…e and does not know it Even as the Animadverter is upon Wit and Reason for I have heard that Borderers for the most part are at the greatest distance and the most irreconcilable What the Stile is of a Title and what the Principles of a Dedication and Epistle to the Reader for these if any the Animadverter ought here to have stuck to it 's indeed a weighty disquisition fit for a man of his Talent But I have read them over

have our wealth but that by Pauls Preaching that they be no Gods which are made with hands not only our Craft is in danger to be set at naught but also the Temple of the great Goddess and her Magnificence whom all Asia and the World Worship should be despised and destroyed And it is considerable that even the Jews though of a contrary Religion yet fomented as it usually chances this difference and egg'd the Ephesians on against the Apostle and his followers But when they had brought Alexander one of Paul's Companions into the Theatre the Recorder of Ephesus more temperate and wise than some would have been in that Office would not make any Inquisition upon the matter nor put Alexander upon his tryal and defence but although he himself could not have born that Office without being a great Dianist as he declared too in his discourse he tells the People They had brought those men which were neither robbers of Churches nor Blasphemers of their Goddess for that Judge would not Condemn men by any inferences or expositions of old Statutes which long after was Julian's practice and since imitated and therefore if Demetrius and his Crafts-men had any matter against them the Law was open and it should be determined in a Lawful Assembly but that the whole City was in danger to be called in question for that uproar there being no cause whereby they might give account of that concourse And by this he plainly enough signified that if Paul and his Companions had stoln the Church-Plate they might well be i●…ed but that Demetrius had no more reason in Law against them then a Chandler might have had if by Paul's Preaching Wax tapers as well as Silver-Candlesticks had grown out of fashion That it is matter of right and wrong betwixt man and man that the Justice of Government lookes too but that while Christianity was according to its own Principle carried on quietly it might so fall that the disturbers of it were guilty of a Riot and their great City of Ephesus deserve to be fin'd for 't And taking this to have been so he dismist the Assembly Acts 19. After these Testimonies which I have collected out of the History of the Acts as of greatest Authority I shall only add one or two more out of the same Book wherein Paul likewise was concern'd before Heathen Magistrates of greater eminence Acts 23. Ananias the High Priest these alwayes were the men having countenanc'd and instigated the Jews to a Conspiracy in which Paul's Life was indanger'd and aim'd at Lysias the chief Captain of Jerusalem interposes and sends him away to Foelix then Governour of Judaea signifying by Letter That he had been accused only of questions of their Law but he found nothing to be said to his Charge worthy of Death or of Bonds Whereof Foelix also though the High-Priest was so zealous in the Prosecution that he took the journey on purpose and had instructed an exquisite Orator Tertullus to harangue Paul out of his Life as a Pestilent-fellow a mover of Sedition and Ring-leader of the Sect of the Nazarenes not omitting even to charge Lysias for rescuing him by great violence from being Murdered by them was so well satisfied of the contrary upon full hearing that he gave him his Libery and a Centurion for his guard with command that none of his acquaintance should be debarr'd from comming and Ministring to him But being indeed to leave his Government afterwards left him in Prison partly to shew the Jews and their High-Priest another piece of complaisant Policy which 't is possible they paid well for seeing the other reason was because though he had sent for Paul the oftner and communed with him in hopes that he would have given him money to be discharged there came nothing of it Which was so base a thing in so great a Minister that the meanest Justice of the Peace in England would scarce have the face to do so upon the like occasion But his Successor F●…stus having called Agrippa and Berenice to hear the Cause they and three were of Opinion that 't was all on the Jews side calumny and impertinence but that Paul had done nothing worthy of death or of Bonds and might have been set free but that having appeal'd to Caesar he must be transmitted to him in safe Custody Such was the sense of those upon whom the Emperors then relyed for the Government and security of their Provinces and so gross were their Heathen understandings that they could not yet comprehend how quietness was Sedition or the innocence of the Christian Worship could be subject to forfeiture or penalty Nay when Paul appear'd even before Nero himself and had none to stand by him but all forsock him he was by that Emperor acquitted and permitted a long time to follow the work of his Ministry 'T is true that afterwards this Nero had the honour to be the First of the Roman Emperors that Persecuted Christianity whence it is that Tertullian in his Apologetick saith We glory in having such an one the first beginner and Author of our punishment for there is none that hath read of him but must understand some great good to have been in that Doctrine otherwise Nero would not have Condemned it And thence forward Christianity for about Three hundred Years lay subject to Persecution For the Gentile Priests could not but observe a great decay in their Parishes a neglect of their Sacrifices and diminution of their Profits by the daily and visible increase of that Religion And God in his wise Providence had so ordered that as the Jews already so the Heathens now having fill'd up their measure with iniquity Sprinkling the Blood of his Saints among their Sacrifices and the Christians having in a severe Apprentiship of so many Ages Learned the Trade of Suffering they should at last be their own Masters and admitted to their Freedom Neither yet even in those times when they lay exposed to Persecution were they without some Intervalls and catching seasons of Tranquility wherein the Churches had leisure to reap considerable advantage and the Clergy too might have been inured as they had been Exemplary under Affliction so to bear themselves like Christians when they should arrive at a full prosperity For as oft as there came a just Heathen Emperour and a lover of Mankind that either himself observed or understood by the Governours of his Provinces the innocence of their Religion and Practices their readiness to pay Tribute their Prayers for his Government and Person their faithful Service in his Wars but their Christian valour and contumacy to Death under the most exquisite Torments for their holy profession he forthwith relented he rebated the Sword of the Executioner and could not find in his heart or in his power to excercise it against the exercise of that Religion It being demonstrable that a Religion instituted upon Justice betwixt man and man Love to one another yea even their Enemies