they saw good c. To be brief with you on this point if you speak here of particular Persons in our Church it is utterly false since they are all obliged to believe that to be the Canon of Scripture which is set down in the Articles of our Church and there is not one Man of our Church that is at liberty to believe which he pleases and to reject which he pleases from being Canonical Scripture to him and for Traditions received in the Church no particular Man hath any more power over them than over the number of the Canonical Books But if you speak of our Church it self here which your words without stretching will not bear it is as false of Her since she believes and delivers those Books onely as Canonical which the Primitive Church believed and delivered down to her as such She rejects none as Apocryphal which were not also rejected as such by the Primitive Church as the Famous and most Learned Bishop Cosin hath most incomparably proved it for her in that his excellent Scholastick History of the Canon of Scripture And for Traditions she rejects none but such as have no evidence nor probability of their ever having been of use in the Primitive Church or such as are of no moment in which case I never saw reason why the National Church of England hath not as much Authority herein to judge of these things as the Church of Rome her self who for example sake hath left off giving the Communion to Infants tho' a Tradition of the Catholick Church So that I cannot for my Life see what you would fain tho' most ridiculously deduce from hence that all with us resolved it self into the Judgment of a Private Spirit pag. 3. and must be I suppose you mean the Private Spirit must be tho' your words are far from bearing it the chief or rather onely support of your Protestant Faith c. Since it is so palpably false as I have just now shewn nothing as to matters of Faith Discipline or Church Communion among us being either left to or guided by or depending upon any Man how great or how learned soever his private Spirit and so ridiculous that I could not forgive it any Man that had not abstracted himself from his reason but to doe you right you have almost a mind to come off it with your Methought and I am content without being angry that it should pass for your thought the abstracted-no-Religion Man's You go on to shew that you could not persuade your self that Scripture alone could be the Judge of Controversies pag. 3. and resolve your doubts when the Private Spirit was made the Judge of Scripture c. Let the private Spirit be excluded will you admit it then will you allow the Representative Church of England to interpret in new Emergencies which fell not within the care of Antiquity and the Four General Councils If you admit this there need be no dispute since long before your doubts the Church of England hath by publick Authority interpreted the Scripture in all matters of Faith and Discipline and tied up all her Members hath in all the points of Controversie betwixt us and Rome determined that the sense of the Scripture is directly against them and for us If you will not admit it I should be glad to see one reason against it that would not as fully fly in the face of the Church of Rome As to the Mischief upon this Principle of the Private Spirit pag. 3 4. the Wars and Murders c. You ought to have remembred that that Principle was not set up by but against the Church of England and that it was not the Church but the direct and sworn Enemies thereof that committed all those outrages you cannot be ignorant that it was She only that suffered during that Rebellion and Schism and therefore it is most unjust in you to insinuate as if She was cause of all that distraction whereas nothing is more apparent than the contrary to it And as to your Tanrum Religio c. I challenge you to shew any one Principle of the Church of England that encourages or does but glance towards Rebellion Sedition or disturbance of either Church or State This I 'll promise you for every one I 'll shew you Ten of your new Church I 'll shew you Councils for it your own most famous of all the European Councils the Fourth of Lateran leading the Van. Your Popes deposing Princes pag. 84. giving away their Kingdoms as they have done ours more than once setting up in Rebellion Son against Father I 'll shew you the Rebellious Holy League in France one King most barbarously Murdered by it a Pope Sixtus Quintus in a set Speech commending the Paricide the Sorbone it self making Rebellious Decrees against the Two Harries of France both Massacred by their Catholick as they call themselves Subjects but enough of this wherein you know or at least should that we have infinitely the advantage of your new Church as to Principles of Loyalty The result it seems of your Inquiry and search among us was that you could not comply with common reason if you did not disclaim the Judgment of your own or any Man 's private Spirit c. pag. 4. I have upon this but one Question to ask you and that is how you came to be a Roman Catholick if you disclaimed your own reason or private Spirit pray who chose your guide or Church for you if you disclaimed every ones else pray tell us how any Body else could doe it for you But notwithstanding this your disclaiming we find you busie enough up and down the Book acting as if you never had done any such thing discovering judging complying contemplating searching and Forty such expressions which used to denote the exercise of a Man's private Judgment and Reason CHAP. V. His Method farther exposed and the ridiculous Fruits of it THE Fruit of all your search hitherto hath been onely to find pag. 4. or at least to mistrust the ground you stood upon somewhat unsure c. What ground it was you then stood upon I cannot guess since before this you had abstracted your self from Religion and supposed your self as of no Religion so most certainly of no Church But all this is assuredly but a figure to bring in the Rock the Rock you think you were got upon when once a Romanist If I might have had a word with you before you had mounted your Rock for now I am afraid there is no speaking with you I would onely have been informed by you whether there is but one Rock and whether I must give (a) Orig. Hom. 1. in Matth. Origen the lie who tells me that all the Apostles were Rocks as well as Peter and what I must say to (b) Prescript c. 32. 36. Edit Franck. 1597. Tertullian and others that tell me other Apostles planted Churches as well as Peter
much a Madman as to believe S. N's Infallibility at Definitions and therefore now do wait for your proof of these two things First That this your espoused Definition is true that is that Christ his Catholick Church is Monarchical and governed supremely by one chief Pastor pag. 6. his Generalissimo a very fit Title in a literal sense for some of your Popes or Vicegerent here on Earth and Secondly That this Definition doth belong to the Church of Rome and not to the Church of England Do but prove me the first and I 'll forgive you the trouble of proving the Second and bestow it on you as a just reward for your pains about the first But before we begin I must desire you to remember not to confound Particular Churches with the Catholick Church and not to take that as said of the one which does certainly belong to the other You begin your Proofs with Scripture which a Man may easily see is not at all on your side you give us thence so few and those nothing to the purpose For as to the first out of Acts the Second pag. 7. Verse 1. how that which is onely an Historical Relation should be a Heavenly Representation I cannot imagine No Body will deny that they that meet as the Apostles then were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in one place not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you falsly quote it and as ill translate it at the same work should be as the Apostles then were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one accord or of one mind and which is more that every Particular Church over the World should be as to the Rule of Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one mind but I can never believe that for this reason they are can or ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always meet at the same place which your use of it would insinuate and must require the one as well as the other for your purpose But what this is to a Monarchical Church with a supreme Head I cannot guess nor your other from St. Pauls frequent Injunctions to his several Plantations that they should be all of one mind pag. 7. and speak the same things You had done well to have quoted some passages to have illustrated what you say or at least to have put down some references in the Margin but this alas was not convenient then even those that swallow what you say without examining could not avoid seeing the Fallacy for whereas St. Paul writing to Particular Churches exhorts them to be at Vnity among themselves you would fain turn it as if he should exhort them as to all particulars and circumstances to be at Vnity or to have the same with the other Churches as if writing to Ephesus for example he should exhort them to be of the same mind and to speak the same things with the Church of Corinth with the Church at Thessalonica c. Shew this and I 'll yield the point but remember that if you mean of the same mind and to speak the same things as to matters of Faith this as it need not be proved no Body gainsaying it so it does no ways serve what you cited it for to prove a Monarchical Church It cannot appear otherwise than very strange to all considering Persons that these People should generally with so much confidence affirm that our Saviour left his Church in such a condition with a Supreme Vicegerent over it and yet like you when they should come to make the thing apparent from the History of those first times penned in the Gospels Acts and Epistles are forc'd to drop the proof of it and to impose upon their Readers a scrap or two out of those writings not one jot to the purpose oftentimes You will easily find that I mean this of you and I must needs say that these your two useless proofs I mean Quotations for they are far from Proofs forced me upon this Remark CHAP. VII His Arguments for a Monarchical Church out of Antiquity refuted ONE comfort however you seem to promise us that you will make your Reader amends by your Testimonies out of the Fathers for your being so short and so destitute of 'em from Scripture You begin them in a quaint stile which I believe you took for a pretty fancy pag. 7. I followed say you I must confess a loof off her the Kings Daughter all glorious within Companions that followed her c. This passage is one of the pleasantest that I ever met with and the fullest of Figure I must profess till I saw your Book I always took St. Dennis Ignatius Irenaeus c. for Members of the Church and never in the least dreamed that these persons were her Companions or the Virgins that are her Fellows and I must own that it is the first time I ever heard of a Members being a companion to the Body or that a Man without the breach of common sense may say that his Hand or Foot is a Companion of his Body But you Sir had been contemplating just before the ravishing Beauty of the Kings Daughter all glorious within and the Virgins that be her Fellows and Companions did so run in your head that 't is no wonder you mistook Dennis the Areopagite and the rest you mention after him for the Queens Companions At present however we must let them pass as such whom you followed you tell us and lissened what they said of her and overheard First Dionysius the Areopagite St. Pauls Scholar Secondly Clemens Romanus c. 'T is commonly said it's ominous stumbling at the Threshold and a bad presage to trip at the first attempt and this truly is your very case for it is a great mistake you should overhear either of them two using those passages you mention since neither of them ever said the things St. Dennis having never left any thing writ at all nor St. Clemens any thing besides his two allowing the fragment of the Second to be his Epistles So that your two first quotations are pitifull Forgeries as I shall hereafter prove but granting the passages were true and as old as you would have 'em pag. 7. they are not one jot to your purpose The first of 'em saying onely that the Apostles desired their followers by their Instructions might be partakers of the Divine Nature the latter that Bishops should observe the Orders left by the Apostles pag. 8. both which are nothing to the purpose of a Monarchical Church but prove the contrary if it were worth the while to shew it Ignatius Saint and Martyr is the next you produce pag. 8. from him you tell us that People in all things should submit to their Bishop that no Man can be partaker of the Eucharist that abstains from the Bishops Altar A Man would guess by these passages that you had already forgot what you were about to prove You were to prove that Christ lest his Church under one
a thing he is always so carefull about when he speaks of any of those venerable Ancients Saint Hierome is as silent as to any Writings of his But that which is more than these two Negative Arguments the first Men that produced these supposititious Writings of Saint Dionysius were Hereticks and the first time was in the sixth Century at a Conference held in the Emperour Justinian's Palace betwixt the Catholicks and the Severian Hereticks who produced them but as dubious or probable at most sicut suspicamini Illa enâ—m Testimonia quae vos dicitis Dionysii Areopagitae te unde potestis ostendire vera esse sicut suspicamini si enim ejus erant non potuissent latere Beatum Cyrillum quando Beatus Athanasius si pro certo scisset ejus fuisse ante omnia in Nicaeno concilio testimoâ—ia protulisset adversus Arii-Blasphemias Collatio CP in T. 4. Conciliâ—r p. 176. Edit Cossart as the Catholicks told them but were rejected by the Catholick Bishops upon the very same reasons I have urged against them as I urged that Eusebius would have known of them had there been any such Writings so They urge that St. Athanasius would have made use of them at Nice against Arius as I urged that St. Hierom would have mentioned them so they urge that St. Cyril of Alexandria would have known of them But besides these sufficient reasons the Books themselves are the greatest Evidence of all they being writ in a style quite different from the Apostolical Times and treating of matters after such a different manner and of things unknown to those times if you desire to see these things proved and instanced in do but look into one of your own Writers the Learned Sorbonist I have mentioned above Du Pin's N. Bibliotheque p. 89 90 91 c. and then tell me how you could call these Arguments pitiful Objections which are perfect Demonstrations of these Writings of St. Dionysius their being forged so that we must set St. Denys aside and call in his Companion St. Martial But before we try him I would fain know what you mentioned him for you make no use of him or his Epistles in your Book this is such a strange piece of hardiness of you that I cannot but wonder at it Methinks you had business enough on your hands to prove the Genuineness of your other Authors and Liturgies and needed not to have brought in him by head and shoulders hither whom I will soon dispatch now he is here and tell you that there was no such Man in those Times and therefore no Epistles of his n Nouvelle Bibliotheque c. p. 496. Du Pin hath put the true Martial if there ever were really such a Person in the third Century but for the Epistles which o In Martiali Lemovicensi ap Lib. de scriptor E. Bellarmine had rejected at spurious long ago he sayes that no body doubts their being supposititious which is a great mistake in this Learned Man since you Mr. Sclater believe the contrary concerning them And truly I know not how to bring the honest Doctor off unless his meaning was that no body that had any learning or sense did as I verily believe he meant so that you may if you will tell him as the late Hierusalem Synod have in effect the famous Monsieur Claude that they are not ignorant and unlearned Having dispatch'd St. Martial St. Clemens Romanus is next put up whose genuine famous Epistle to the Corinthians we do with all Antiquity admit and admire the doubtfull fragment of the second Epistle with l Hist Eccles l. 3. c. 38. Edit Vales. Eusebius and Antiquity we cannot admit to the same honour the other enjoyes however we 'l not quarrel about it since I see nothing out of it in Controversy betwixt us the Constitutions are the things in question among us against the genuineness of which tho' you like your self offer not a syllable of Argument here for them I have this to say that m Hist Eccles l. 3. c. 38. Eusebius rejects them in express terms as spurious if they be the same work that in his time went under the name of Doctrina Apostolorum as the Opinion of some is but tho' these are not the same book yet ‖ Hist Eccl. l. 3. c. 38. Eusebius doth ex Consequenti condemn them when he admits of nothing either as genuine or probable besides the two Epistles We have the same silence in St. Hierom as to these Constitutions and therefore an Argument from him against them Photii Biblioth num 1.12 but without either of them I think it is enough to say they are infected with Arianism to omit other faults as Photius long since charged upon them and therefore cannot be the genuine work of Clemens Romanus S. Ignatius his seven genuine Epistles we receive with all readiness so that he does not suffer among us as well as his Master But for your next Author Andreas I must confess I am mightily at a loss I can hear no news of such an Author any where I have examined Eusebius and St. Hierom our Excellent Dr. Cave your Bellarmine and your learned Sorbonist Du Pin and cannot hear one word of such an Author However you quote him and in your Margin over against the Passage out of him I find Lib. de Passione D. by which I suppose you mean a book of St. Andrews concerning the Passion of our Lord. P. 30. I must now therefore question with you whether there be really such a book as you quote I am sorry I am forc't to tell you hereupon that you have discovered an intolerable and wretched Ignorance and have exposed it more to the World your own self than any enemy could have done it for you I must tell you that you have most sillily imposed upon your self and that I wonder that your new Superiours who I am assured perused and examined your book should suffer the cheat upon you and license you to put it upon the World. The Book you quote is the Passion of St. Andrew himself of which I hope I need not any Arguments to prove that himself was not the Author * Apud Sarium de vitis SS ad 30 Novem. p. 619. Edit Colon 1575. The book is said to have been writ by the Presbyters of Achaia present at his Martyrdom But that it is a spurious book I need not urge our own Men a Charto Phylo. Eccl. p. 5. Dr. Cave c. onely but your own Du Pin who upon reasons able to destroy the credit of it wholly says that b Nouvelle Bibliotheque des Auteurs Ecclesiastiques p. 48. at least it ought to be considered as a doubtfull writing which according to St. Hierom one cannot make use of to prove any Article of Faith as you have made Transubstantiation to be I have been the more particular about these Liturgies and Authors to let you see how
to make Bertram a good Catholick that is in your stile a true man for Transubstantiation at last when hitherto their Church had damned this Writer to the Pit of Hell and Mr. Sclater himself hath very chronologically put him among the followers of Berengarius who first disturbed the long peace p. 76. p. 75. and as long continued Faith of the Catholick Church of Transubstantiation This strange attempt was accompanied with Arts and Tricks as strange and unusual with all honest men that is with a violent perverting of the Authors sense and an unjust and most foolish Turn of the whole design of Bertram †In his â—emarks upon Bertram p. 207 208 c. Printed at the end of his Translation Paris 1686. This Gentle man makes Bertram to write his Book against some that held our Saviour's Natural Body was received in the Eucharist without any Vail or Figure that is to put it into downright English with the very same dimensions Skin Hair Flesh Head Feet and Armes that he had on the Cross But is it probable there ever were any such men No it is so far from it that it is impossible there ever could since this Opinion must be grounded upon their seeing it so which I am sure never was never could be this Gentleman thinks the very †Praes p. 21. knowing what stercoranism means is enough to confute it but is it not far stronger against this fancy of his for I dare not call it any mens Opinion since I am very well satisfied there never could be any men that held such a thing It is pleasant however to see how the Dean goes about to prove that there was such an Opinion and such men against against which our Author did write this Tract he tells us that one Abbaudus and one Gaultier Prior of St. Victor held that our Saviour's Natural Body was palpable and sensible in the Eucharist but since these men by his own Confession lived two or three hundred years at soonest after Bertram it is but a very odd way of proving that there were such men in or before Bertram's time because there were about three hundred years after Such proof is fitter for Children than Deans of Cathedrals to use and ought no more to pass from him p. 213 214. than if it came from them but to help himself and his ridiculous Authorities he tells us that it is not probable that they two were the first Authors of this Opinion now for brevity sake to set this aside which is pitiful begging and not proving were these two men after all the Abbaudus and Gualtier of this Opinion that our Saviour's Body is received in the Eucharist without any Vail or Figure This is so very false that I wonder how any man that hath common sense or any learning could have the face to assert it * Cogitavetam illis aliqua respondere qui dicunt ipsum Corpus non frangi sed in Albedine ejus Rotunditate aliquid factitari sed recogitans ineptum esse in Evangelio Christi de Albedine Rotunditate dispâ—tare c. Abbaudus p. 211. sensualiter non solum Sacramento sed etiam veriâ—ate manibus Sacerdotum tractari frangi fideliâ—m dentibus attèri Ecce Catholiâ—â— Eides Istâ— autem Scholasticus sic exponit vere quidem ait est sed in Sacramento tantum Gaultier p. 212. in the Remarks they say indeed that the Natural Body of Christ is palpable and sensible in the Eucharist but that they do not mean sensible to the Eye or visible is hence apparent because they talk of the Whiteness and and the Roundness which certainly are that which you call the vails of our Saviour's Body and all the intent of their Arguments was to prove that tho' our Saviour's Body was hid under the Accidents of Whiteness Roundness c. yet that it is palpable and subject to be broke since Whiteness and Roundness which are meer Accidents could not be broken or parted asunder So that now we find by this Dean's help at last that Rathramn's or Bertram's Book was writ against no body and about nothing since it is impossible there ever were such Persons or such an Opinion for any body to write against Certainly this Gentleman thought all the world asleep besides their own Party or he could never have had the courage to have writ such stuff and tho' I do not wonder at the French King 's giving his Royal Privilege to this Book and calling the Translator his dearly beloved because I suppose he does not desire to be thought to have read or examined the Book yet I am perfectly amazed to find the Approbation of the Sorbonne to this most ridiculous nonsensical Piece and can give my self no other reason for it than that those People are resolved to approve and license any thing against us tho' it be at the same time as much against common sense and reason I hope some one will do what I cannot have room or leasure to do here that is take this Dean Boileau's Translation and Remarks to task the very foundation of which I have perfectly ruined in that little I have said here But to return My fourth Corollary is 4 Coroll That the Illustrations and Comparisons by which the Fathers used to prove a Change in the Elements do prove their Opinions to have been opposite to Transubstantiation I will here instance in the several Comparisons (1) Greg. Nyssen Orat. in Bapt. Christi of the Water in Baptism (2) Ambros de Sacram l. 4. c. 4. of the Person baptized (3) Cyrit Hier. Catech. Mystag 3. of the Oyl in Chrism (4) Greg. Nyssen supra of the Ordained Person (5) Idem Ibidem and of the Altar These the Fathers made use of to prove such a change in the Elements of Bread and Wine Now there is no man of any learning or sense will say they taught any Transubstantiation of the Water of the Person baptized of the Oyl of the Stones of the Altar or of the Person ordained and therefore neither any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine They compare these several changes together and make them to be parallel and equal So that it is evident they meant an equal change in them and no Transubstantiation of one of them more than of the rest And farther all the change they attribute to any of these things the Water the Oyl the Baptized person c. is not at all as to their substance by removing it away but as to the Virtue Quality Office and Vse of them by the Accession or Influence of the Spirit of God as I have particularly shewed above in Gregory Nyssen Cyril of Hierusalem and St. Ambrose so that I may hence conclude that as the Primitive Fathers taught no substantial change of any of those things mentioned in order to the Effects they are dedicated to so they taught none of the Bread