to your Question What it is that can settle any man in the Truth of Religion and unite all men therein And then because you object this unto us as if we were at some loss and incertainty therein and your selves very secure I shall consider what are the grounds and principles that you proceed upon for the same ends and purposes namely to settle any man in the Truth of Religion and to bring all men to an harmony and consent therein Now I shall herein manifest unto you these two things I. That the Principles which the Protestants proceed upon in the improvement whereof they obtain themselves assured and infallible settlement in the Truth and labour to reduce others unto the Unity of Faith are such as are both suited unto and sufficient for the end and work which they design to effect by them and also in themselves of such unquestionable Truth Certainty and Evidence that either they are all granted by your selves or cannot be denied without shaking the very Foundations of Christianity 2. That those which you proceed upon are some of them untrue and most of them dubious and questionable none of them able to bear the weight that you lay upon them and some of them such as the admission of would give just cause to question the whole Truth of Christian Religion And both these S r I crave leave to manifest unto you whereby you may the better judg whether the Scripture or your Church be the best way to bring men unto settlement in Religion which is the thing enquired after 1. Protestants lay down this as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the very beginning and first Principle of their confidence and Confession that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God as the Holy Ghost teacheth them 2 Tim. 3. 16. That is that the Books of the Old and New Testament were all of them written by the immediate guidance direction and inspiration of God the hand of the Lord as David speaks 1 Chron. 28. 19. being upon the Penmen thereof in writing and his Spirit as Peter informs us speaking in them 1 Pâ—t 1. 11. So that whatever is contained and delivered in them is given out from God and is received on his Authority This Principle I suppose you grant to be true do you not if you will deny it say so and we will proceed no farther untill we have proved it I know you have various wayes laboured to undermine the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Holy Scriptures many Queries you put unto men How they can know it to be from God to be true from Heaven and not of men many scruples you indeavour to possess them with against its Authority it is not my present business to remove them It is sufficient unto mee 1. That you your selves who differ from us in other things and with whom our contest about the best way of coming to settlement in the Truth alone is do acknowledg this Principle were proceed upon to be true And 2. That yee cannot oppose it without setting your selves to digge up the very foundations of Christian Religion and to open a way to let in an inundation of Atheism on the world So our first step is fixed on the grand fundamentall Principle of all the Religion and acceptable worship of God that is in the world 2. They affirm that this Scripture evidenceth it self by many infallible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be so given by Inspiration from God and besides is witnessed so to be by the Testimony of the Church of God from the dayes of Moses wherein it began to be written to the dayes wherein we live our Lord Christ and his Apostles asserting and confirming the same Testimony which Testimony is conveyed unto us by uninterrupted Catholick Tradition The first part of this Position I confess some of you deny and the latter part of it you generally all of you pervert confining the Testimony mentioned unto that of your present Church which is a very inconsiderable part of it if any part at all But how groundlesly how prejudicially to the verity and honour of Christian Religion in generall you do these things I shall briefly shew you Some of you I say deny the first part of this Assertion so doth Andradius Defens Concil Trident. Lib. 3. Neque enim saith he in ipsis Libris quibus Sacra Mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam inest Divinitatis quod nos ad Credendum qua illis continentur religione aliqua constring at Neither is there in the Books themselves wherein the holy Mysteries are written any thing of Divinity that should constrain us by vertue of any religious respect thereunto to believe the things that are contained in them Hence Cocleus Lib. 2. de Authoritate Eccles. Script gathers up a many instances out of the Book of the Scripture which he declares to be altogether incredible were it not for the Authority of the Church I need not mention any more of your Leaders concurring with them you know who is of the same mind with them if the Author of Fiat Lux be not unknown to you Your resolving Vniversal Tradition into the Authority of your present Church to which end there is a Book written not long since by a Jesuit under the name of Vincentius Severinus is no less notorious Some of you I confess are more modest and otherwise minded as to both parts of our Assertion See Malderus Episcop Antwerp de Object Fidei qu. 1. Vaselius Groningen de Potestat Eccles. Epist. ad Jacob. Hock Alliacens in Lib. 1. Sentent Artic. 3. Gerson Exam. dos part 2. Consid. 1. Tom. 1. sol 105. and in twenty other places But when you come to deal with Protestants and consider well the Tendency of this Assertion you use I consess an hundred rergiversations and are most unwilling to come to the acknowledgment of it and rather then suffer from it deny it downwright and that with Scurrilous reflections and Comparisons likening it as to any characters of Gods truth and Holiness upon it unto Livy's Story yea Aesops Fables or a Piece of Poetry And when you have done so you apply your selves to the canvasing of Stories in the Old Testament and to find out appearing Contradictions and tell us of the uncertainty of the Authors of some particular Books that the whole is of its self a dead letter which can prove nothing at all enquiring Who told us that the Penmen of it were divinely inspired seeing they testify no such things of themselves and if they should yet others may do and have done so who notwithstanding were not so inspired and ask us Why we receive the Gospel of Luke who was not an Apostle and reject that of Thomas who one with many the like Cavilling Exceptions But 1. That must needs be a bad Cause which stands in need of such a Defence Is this the voice of Jacob or Esau Are these the expressions of Christians or Pagans from whose
somewhat frequent in the supposall of unto your Advantage and thereon would perswade them unto a relinquishment of Protistancy and embracement of Popery which is the end of your Book and will be thought so if you should deny it a thousand times For quid ego verba audiam facta cum video your Protcstation comes too late when the fact hath declared your mind neither are you now at liberty to coyn new designes for your Fiat But this must be my mistake which no man in his wits could possibly fall into neither is it an evidence of any great sobriety to impure it to any man whom we know not certainly to be distracted But this mistake you tell me caused me to judge and censure what you wrote as impertinent impious frivolous c. No such matter my right apprehension of your hypothesis End or Designe occasioned me to shew that your discourses were incompetent to prevail with rationall and sober Persons to comply with your desires You proceed to the same purpose pag. 15. and to manifest my mistake of your designe give an account of it and tell us that one thing you suppose namely that we are at difference So did I also and am not therefore yet fallen upon the discovery of my mistake 2. You commend Peace I acknowledge you do and joyn with you therein neither is he worthy the name of a Christian who is otherwise minded that is one great Legacy that Christ bequeathed unto his Disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you And he is no Disciple of Christ who doth not long for it among all his Disciples This you tell us is the whole summe of Fiat Lux in few words You will tell us otherwise immediately and if you should not yet we should find it otherwise You adde therefore that to introduce a disposition unto peace you made it your work to demonstrate the useleslness endlesness and unprofitableness of Quarrels yet my mistake appears not I perceived you did speak to this purpose and I acknowledge with you that Quarrels about Religion are useless and unprofitable any otherwise than as we are bound to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the Saints and to stand fast in our Liberty not giving place to seducers with labouring by sound doctrine to convince and stop the mouthes of gainsayers all which are made necessary unto us by the commands of Christ and are not to be called quarreling And I know that our Quarrels are not yet actually ended that they are endless I believe not but hope the contrary You proceed and grant that you labour to perswade your Countreymen of an Impossibility of ever bringing our debates unto a conclusion either by Light or Spirit or Reason or Scripture so long as we stand separated from any superiour Judicative Power unto which all Parties will submit and therefore that it is rationall and Christian like to leave these endless contentions and resigne our selves to humility and peace This matter will now quickly be ended and that ex ore tuo give me leave I pray to ask you one or two plain Questions 1. Whom do you understand by that Superiour Judicative Power unto whom you perswade all Parties to submit Have you not told us in your Fiat that it is the Church or Pope of Rome or will you deny that to be your intention 2. What do you intend by resigning our selves to humility and Peace Do you not ayme at our quiet submission to the determinations of the Church or Pope in all matters of Religion Have you not declared your self unto this purpose in your Fiat And I desire a little further to know of you whither this be not that which formally constitutes a man a member of your Church that he own the Judicative Power of the Pope or your Church in all matters of Religion and submit himself thereunto If these things be so as you cannot deny them I hope I shall easily obtain your pardon for Affirming that you your self believed the same to be the design of your Book which I and other men apprehended to be so for here you directly avow it If you complain any more about this matter pray let it be in the words of him in the Comoedian Egomet meo judicio miser quasi sorex hodie perii This inconvenience you have brought upon your own self Neither can any man long avoid such misadventures who designs to cloud his aymes which yet cannot take effect if not in some measure understood Naked Truth mannaged in sincerity whatever perplexities it may meet withall witâ— never leave his owners in the bryars whereas the Serpentine turnings of Errour and falshood to extricate themselves do but the more entangle their Promoters I doubt not buâ— you hope well that when all are become Papiliâ— again that they shall live at peace though your â—ope be very groundless as I have elswhere demonsirated You have at best but the shadow or shell of peace and for the most part not that neither Yea it may be easily shewed that the peace you boast of is inconsistent with and destructive of that peace which is left by Christ unto his Disciples But the way you propose to bring us to Peace is the embracement of Popery which is that that was fixed on by me as the design of your Book which now acknowledging you have disarmed your self of that imaginary advantage which you flourish withall from a Capitall Mistake as you call it in me in misapprehending your design You were told before that if by Moderation and Peace you intended a mutuall for bearance of one another in our severall perswasions waiting patiently untill God shall reveal unto us the precise Truth in the things about which we differ you shall have all the furtherance that I can contribute unto you but you have another aim another work in hand and will not allow that any Peace is attainable amongst us but by a resignation of all our Apprehensions in matters of Religion to the guidance determination and decision of the Pope or your Church a way no where prescribed unto us in holy Writ nor in the Councels of the Primitive Church and besides against all Reason Law and Equity your Pope and Church in our Contests being one Party litigant yet in this perswasion you say you should abide were there no other persons in the world but your self that did embrace it And to let you see how unlikely that Principle is to produce Peace and Agreement amongst those multitudes that are at variance about these things I can assure you that if there were none lest alive in the Earth but you and I we should not agree in this thing one jot better than did Cain and Abel about the Sacrifices though I should desire you that we might manage our differences with more moderation than he did who by vertue of his Primogeniture seemed to
gathered out of your Fiat which you thus lay down It is say you frequently pleaded by our Author that all things as to Religion were ever quiet and in 〈◊〉 before the Protestants Relinquishment of the Roman Sea That ever is your own addition but let it pass what say you hereunto This Principle you pretind is drawn out of Fiat Lux not because it is there but only to open a door to your self to exspatiate into some wide generall discourse about the many wars distractions alterations that have been aforetime up and down in the world in some severall Ages of Christianity And you thereforê say it is frequently pleaded by me because indeed I never spake one word of it and it is in truth a false and fond Assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with the Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account S r I take you to be the Author of Fiat Lux and if you are so I cannot but think you were a sleep when you talk'd at this rate The Assertion is false and fond you speak not one word of it Pray S r take a little advice of your Son Fiat not to talk on this manner and you will wonder your self how you came to swallow so much confidence as in the face of the world to vent such things as these He tells us from you p. 234 235 236. Chap 4. Ed. 2. that After the conversion of this Land by the Children of blessed S t Benet notwithstanding the interposition of the Norman Conquest that all men lived peaceably together without any the least disturbance upon the account of Religion untill the end of King Henry the eighth's raign about five hundred years after the Conquest See also what in generall you discourse of all places to this purpose p. 221 222 And p. 227. you do in express terms lay down the position which here you so exclaim against as false and fond but you may make as bold with it as you please for it is your own Never had this Land say you for so many hundred years as it was Catholick upon the account of Religion any disturbance at all whereas after the exile of the Catholick belief in our Land from the period of King Henry the seventh's Raign to these dayes we have been in actuall disquiet or at least in fears Estne haec tunica filii tui Are not these your words Doth not your Son Fiat wear this livery And do you not speak to this purpose in twenty other places Is it not one of the main suppositions you proceed upon in your whole discourse You do well now indeed to acknowledg that what you spake was fond and false and you might do as much for the most that you have written in that whole discourse but now openly to deny what you have asserted and that in so many places that is not so well done of you There are S t many wayes to free your self from that dammage you feel or fear from the Animadversions When any thing is charged on you or proved against you which you are not able to defend you may ingenuously acknowledg your mistake and that without any dishonour to you at all Good men have done so so may you or I when we have just occasion It is none of your Tenents that you are all of you Infallible or that your personall mistakes or miscarriages will prejudice your Cause Or you might pass it by in silence as you have done with the things of the most importance in the Animadversions and so keep up your reputation that you could Reply to them if you would or were free from flyes And we know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Menander speaks Silence is with many the best Answer Or you might attempt to disprove or answer as the case requires But this that you have fixed upon of denying your own words is the very worst course that you could have chosen upon the account either of Conscience or Reputation However thus much we have obtained One of the chief pretences of your Fiat is by your own confession false and fond It is indeed no wonder that it should be so it was fully proved to be so in the Animadversions but that you should acknowlâ—dge it to be so is somewhat strange and it would have been very welcome news had you plainly owned your conviction of it and not renounced your own off-spring But I see you have a mind to the benefit you aymed at by it though you are ashamed of the way you used for the obtaining of it and therefore adde That neither you nor I can deny that such as keep the unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out on that account But this on the first consideration seems to mee no very singular Priviledge me-thinks a Turk a few an Arian may say the same of their Societies It being no more but this So long as you agree with us you shall be sure to agree with us They must be very unfriendly minded towards you that will call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into question Yet there remains still one Scruple on my mind in reference unto what you assert I am not satisfied that there is in your Church any such unity of faith as can keep men from falling out or differing in and about the Doctrines and Opinions they profess If there be the children of your Church are marvellous morose that they have not all this while learned to be quiet but are at this very day writing volumes against one another and procuring the Books of one another to be prohibited and condemned which the writings of one of the learnedest of you in this Nation have fately not escaped I know you will say sometimes that though you differ yet you differ not in things belonging unto the unity of faith But I fear this is but a Blind an Apron of Fig-leaves What you cannot agree in be it of never so great importance you will agree to say that it belongs not unto the unity of faith when things no way to be compared in weight and use with them so you agree about them shall be asserted so to do And in what you differ whilest the scales of Interest on the part of the combatanfs hang eeven all your differences are but in School and disputable points But if one party prevail in Interest and Reputation and render their Antagonists inconsiderable as to any outward trouble those very Points that before were disputable shall be made necessary and to belong to the Vnity of Faith as it lately happened in the Case of the Jansenists And here you are safe again The Unity of the Faith is that which you agree in and that which you cannot agree about belongs not unto it as you tell us though you talk at another rate among your selves But wee must think that the Unity of
unto one of your great Masters to be acquainted with the genuine sense of one of your Churches Proposals this being the way that he takes for his satisfaction First he speaks unto the Article or Question to be considered in Generall then gives the different senses of it according to these and those famous Masters the most of which he confutes who yet all of them professed themselves to explain and to speak according to the sense of your Church and lastly gives his own interpretation of it which it may be within a few moneths is confuted by another 3. Suppose a man have attained a knowledge of all that your Church hath determined and proposed to be believed and to a right understanding of her precise sense and meaning in all her determinations and proposals which I believe never yet man attained unto yet what assurance can he have if he live in any place remote from Rome but that your Church may have made some new Determinations in matters of faith whose embracement in the sense which she intends belongs unto his keeping the Unity of Faith which yet he is not acquainted withall Is it not simply impossible for him to be satisfied at any time that he believes all that is to be believed or that he holds the Vnity of Faith Your late Pontific all Determination in the Case of the Jansenists and Molinists is sufficient to illustrate this instance For I suppose you are equally bound not to believe what your Church condemneth as Hereticall as you are bound to believe what it proposeth for Catholick Doctrine 4. I desire to know when a man who lives here in England begins to be obliged to believe the Determinations of your Church that are made at Rome It may be he first hears of them in a Mercury or weekly News book or it may be he hath notice of them by some private Letters from some who live near the place or it may be he hath a knowledge of them by common report or it may be they are printed in some Books or that there is a brief of them published somewhere under the name of the Pope or they are put into some Volume written about the Councels or some Religious Persons on whom he much relyes assures him of them I know you believe that your Churches Proposition is a sufficient means of the Revelation of any Article to make it necessary to be believed but I desire to know what is necessary to Cause a man to receive any Dictate or Doctrine as your Churches proposition not only upon this account that you are not very well agreed upon the Requisita unto the making of such a Proposition but also because be you as infallible as you please in your Proposals the means and wayes you use to communicate those Proposals you make unto Individuals in whom alone the faith whereof we treat exists are all of them fallible Now that which I desire to know is What is or what are those certain means and wayes of communicating the Propositions of your Church unto any Person wherein he is bound to acquiesce and upon the application of them unto him to believe them fide divina cui non potest subesse falsum Is it any one thing or way or means that the hinge upon which his assent turns Or is it a Complication of many things concurring to the same purpose If it be any one thing way or medium that you fix upon pray let us know it and we shall examine its fitness and sufficiency for the use you put it unto I am sure we shall find it to be either infallible or fallible If you say the former and that particular upon which the Assent of a mans mind unto any thing to be the proposall of your Church depends must in the testimony it gives and evidence that it affords be esteemed infallible then you have as many infallible Persons things or writings as you make use of to acquaint one another with the determinations of your Church that is upon the matter you are all so though I know in particular that you are not If the latter notwithstanding the first pretended infallible Proposition your faith will be found to be resolved immediately into a fallible information For what will it advantage me that the proposall of your Church cannot deceive me if I may be deceived in the Communicating of that Proposall unto me And I can with no more firmness certainty or assurance believe the thing proposed unto me than I do believe that it is the Proposall of the Church wherein it is made For you pretend not unto any self-evidencing efficacy in your Churches Propositions or things proposed by it but all their Authority as to me turns upon the Assurance that I have of their relation unto your Church or that they are the Proposals of your Church concerning which I have nothing but very fallible evidence and so cannot possibly believe them with Faith Divine and Supernaturall If you shall say that there are many things concurring unto this Communication of your Churches Proposals unto a man as the notoritty of the Fact suitable proceedings upon it books written to prove it Testimonies of good men and the like I cannot but mind you that all these being sigillatim every one apart fallible they cannot in their Conspiracy improve themselves into an Infallibility Strengthen a Probability they may testifie infallibly they neither do nor can So that on this account it is not only impossible for a man to know whether he holds the Vnity of Faith or no but indeed whether he believe any thing at all with Faith Supernaturall and Divine seeing he hath no infallible evidence for what is proposed unto him to believe to build his faith upon 5. Protestants are not satisfied with your generall implicit assent unto what your Church teacheth and determineth which you have invented to solve the difficulties that attend your Description of the Vnity of Faith Of what use it may be unto other purposes I do not now dispute but as to this of the preservation of the Vnity of Faith it is certainly of none at all The Vnity of Faith consists in all mens express believing all that all men are bound expresly to believe be it what it will Now you would have this preserved by mens not believing what they are bound to believe For what belongs to this keeping the Vnity of Faith they are bound to believe expresly and what they believe implicitly they do indeed no more but not expresly disbelieve for if they do any more than not disbelieve they put forth some act of their understanding about it and so farre expresly believe it So that upon the matter you would have ment to keep the Unity of Faith by a not believing of that which that they may keep the Unity of Faith they are bound expresly to believe Nor can you do otherwise whilest you make all the Propositions of your Church of things to be
believed to belong to the Unity of Faith Lastly The Determinations of your Church you make to be the next efficient Cause of your Unity now these not being absolutely infallible leave it like Delos flitting up and down in the Sea of Probabilities only This we shall manifest unto you immediately at least we shall evidence that you have no cogent reasons nor slable grounds to prove your Church infallible in her Determinations At present it shall suffice to mind you that she hath Determined Contradictions and that in as eminent a manner as it is possible for her to declare her sense by namely by Councils confirmed by Popes and an infallible determination of Contradictions is not a Notion of any easie digestion in the thoughts of a man in his right wits We confess then that we cannot agree with you in your Rule of the Unity of Faith though the thing its self we press after as our Duty For 2. Protestants do not conceive this Vnity to consist in a precise Determination of all Questions that are or may be raised in or about things belonging unto the Faith whether it be made by your Church or any other way Your Thomas of Aquine who without question is the best and most sober of all your School Doctors hath in one Book given us 522 Articles of Religion which you esteem mraculously stated Quot Articuli tot Miracula All these have at least five Questions one with another stated and determined in explication of them which amount unto 2610 Conclusions in matters of Religion Now we are farre from thinking that all these Determinations or the like belong unto the Unity of Faith though much of the Religion amongst some of you lyes in not dissenting from them The Questions that your Bellarmine hath determined and asserted the Positions in them as of faith and necessary to be believed are I think neer 40 times as many as the Articles of the antient Creed of the Church and such as it is most evident that if they be of the nature and importance pretended it is impossible that any considerable number of men should ever be able to discharge their duty in this business of holding the Vnity of Faith That a man believe in generall that the holy Scripture is given by inspiration from God and that all things proposed therein for him to believe are therefore infallibly true and to be as such believed and that in particular he believe every Article or point of Truth that he hath sufficient means for his instruction in and conviction that it is so revealed they judg to be necessary unto the holding of the Unity of Faith And this also they know that this sufficiency nf means unto every one that enjoys the benefit of the Scriptures extends its self unto all those Articles of Truth which are necessary for him to believe so as that he may yield unto God the obedience that he requireth receive the holy Spirit of promise and be accepted with God Herein doth that Vnity of Faith which is amongst the Disciples of Christ in the world consist and ever did nor can do so in any thing else Nor doth that variety of Apprehensions that in many things is found among the Disciples of Christ and ever was render this Vnity like that you plead for various and incertain For the Rule and formall Reason of it namely Gods Revelation in the Scripture is still one and the same perfectly unalterable And the severall degrees that men attain uuto in their Apprehensions of it doth no more reflect a charge of variety upon it than the difference of Seeing as to the severall degrees of the sharpness or obtuseness of our bodily eyes doth upon the Light given by the Sunne The Truth is if there was any common measure of the Assents of men either as to the intension of it as it is subjectively in their minds or extension of it as it respecteth Truths revealed that belonged unto the Vnity of Faith it were impossible there should be any such thing in the world at least that any such thing should be known to be Only this I acknowledg that it is the Duty of all men to come up to the full and explicit acknowledgment of all the Truths revealed in the word of God wherein the Glory of God and the Christians Duty are concerned as also to a joynt consent in Faith objective or propositions of Truth revealed at least in things of most importance though their faith subjective or the internal assent of their minds have as it will have in severall Persons various degrees yea in the same Persons it may be at different seasons And in our labouring to come up unto this joynt-acknowledgment of the same sense and intendment of God in all revealed Truths consists our endeavour after that perfection in the Vnity of Faith which in this life is attainable as our moderation doth in our walking in peace and love with and towards others according to what we have already attained We may distinguish then between that Unity of Faith which an interest in gives Vnion with Christ unto them that hold it and Communion in Love with all equally interested therein and that Accomplishment of it which gives a sameness of Profession and consent in all acts of outward Communion in the worship of God The first is found in and amongst all the Disciples of Christ in the world where-ever they are the latter is that which moreover it is your Duty to press after The former consists in an Assent in generall unto all the Truths of God revealed in the Scripture and in particular unto them that we have sufficient means to evidence them unto us to be so revealed The latter may come under a double consideration for either there may be required unto it in them who hold it the joynt perception of and assent unto every Truth revealed in the Scripture with an equall degree of certainty in adherence and evidence in perception and it is not in this life wherein the best of us know but in part attainable or only such a concurrence in an assent unto the necessary Propositions of Truth as may enable them to hold together that outward Communion in the worship of God which we before mentioned And this is certainly attainable by the wayes and means that shall immediately be layed down And where this is there is the Vnity of Faith in that compleatness which we are bound to labour for the attainment of This the Apostolicall Churches enjoyed of old and unto the recovery whereof there is nothing more prejudiciall than your new stating of it upon the account of your Churches Proposals This Unity of Faith we judg good and necessary and that it is our Duty to press after it So also in generall do you It remains then that we consider what is the way what are the means and Principles that Protestants propose and insist upon for the attainment of it that is in answer
it partly in a repetition in other words of what you had before insisted on The former I shall no further endeavour to disturb your contentment in It is a common error Neque est quisquam Quem non in aliquare videre Suffenum Possis I am not your Rivall in the admiration of it and shall therefore leave you quietly in the embracements of your Darling And for the latter we have had enough of it already and so by this time I hope you think also The close only of your Discourse is considerable and therefore I shall transcribe it for your second thoughts And it is this But Sir what you say here and so often up and down your book of Papists contempt of the Scripture I beseech you will please to abstain from it for the time to come I have conversed with the Roman Catholicks of France â—â—anders and Germany I have read more of your Books both Histories Contemptative and Scholastical Divines thâ—n I believe you have ever seen or heard of I have seen the Colledges of Sacred Priests and Religious houses I have communed with all sort of people and perused their Counsells And after all this I tell you and out of my love I tell you that their respect to Scripture is real absolute and cordial even to admiration Others may talk of it but they act it and would be ready to stone that man that should diminish Holy Writ Let us not wrong the innocent The Scripture is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who also will plead their Cause when he sees time What you mention of your own diligence and atchievements what you have done where you have been what you have seen and discoursed I shall not trouble you about It may be as to your souls health Tutior poter as esse domi But yet for all the report that you are pleased to make of your self it is not hard to discern that you and I Nec pondera rerum Nec momenta sumus And notwithstanding your Writings it would have been very difficult for any man to have guessed at your great reading had you not satisfied us by this your own information of it It may be if you had spared some of the time which you have spent in the reading of your Catholick Books unto the study of the Scripture it had not been unto your disadvantage In the mean time there is an Hyperbole in your confidence a little too evident For it is possable that I may and true that I have seen more of your Authors in half an hour then you can read I think in an hundred years unless you intend alwayes to give no other account of your reading then you have done in your Fiat and Epistola But we are weary of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quin tu alium quaer as quoi centones farcias But to pass by this boasting there are two parts of your Discourse the one concerning the faith the other expressing the Charity of Roman Catholicks The first contains what respect you would be thought to have for the Scripture the latter what you really have for all other Christians besides your selves As to the former you tell me that I speak of the Papists contempt of the Scripture and desire me to abstain from it for the time to come Whither I have used that expression anywhere of contempt of the Scripture well I know not But whereas I look upon you as my friend at least for the good advice I have frequently given you I have deserved that you should be so and therefore shall not deny you any thing that I can reasonably grant and whereas I cannot readily comply with you in your present request as to the alteration of my mind in reference unto the respect that Papists bear unto the Scriptures I esteem my self obliged to give you some account of the reasons why I persist in my former thoughts which I hope as is usual in such cases you will be pleased to take in friendly part For besides Sir that you back your request with nothing but some overconfident asseverations subscribed with teste meipso I have many reasons taken from the practice and Doctrine of your Church that strongly induce me to abide in my former perswasion As 1. You know that in these and the neighbouring Nations Papists have publickly burned the Scriptures and destroyed more Copies of them then ever Antiochus Epiphanes did of the Jewish Law And if you should go about to prove unto me that Protestants have no great regard to Sacred Images that have been worshipped because in these and the neighbouring Nations they brakes and burned a great number of them I should not readily know what to answer you Nor can I entertain any such confidence of your abilities as to expect from you a satisfactory answer unto my instance of the very same nature manifesting what respect Papists bear unto the Scriptures 2. You know that they have imprisoned and burned sundry persons for keeping the Scripture in their houses or some parts of them and reading them for their instruction and comfort Nor is this any great sign of respect unto them no more then it is of mens respect to treason or murder because they hang them up who are guilty of them And 3. Your Church prohibiteth the reading of them unto Lay-men unless in some special cases some few of them be licenced by you so to do and you study sweat for arguments to prove the reading of them needless and dangerous putting them as translated into the Catalogue of Books prohibited Now this is the very mark and stamp that your Church sets upon these books which she disapproves and discountenanceth as pernicious to the faithful 4. Your Councel of Trent hath decreed that your unwritten Traditions are to be received with the same faith and veneration as the Scripture constituting them to be one part of the Word of God and the Scriptures another then which nothing could be spoken more in contempt of it or in reproach unto it For I must assure you Protestants think you cannot possibly contract a greater guilt by any contempt of the Scripture then you do by reducing it into order with your unwritten Traditions 5. You have added Books not only written with an humane and fallible Spirit but farced with actual mistakes and falshoods unto the Canon of the Scripture giving just occasion unto them who receive it from you only to question the Authority of the whole And 6. You teach the Authority of the Scripture at least in respect of us which is all it hath for Authority is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and must regard some in relation unto whom it doth consist depends on the Authority of your Church the readiest way in the world to bring it into Contempt with them that know what your Church is and what it hath been And 7. You plead that it is very obscure and unintelligible of its self and that in things of the
Scriptures could be of no more Authority then Aesops Fables were they not confirmed by the Testimony of your Church we are informed by one Brentius and we believe the information to be true because the saying is defended by Hosius de Authoritat Script Lib. 3. who adds unto it of his own Revera nisi nos Authoritas Ecclesiae doceret hanc scripturam esse Canoncam perexiguum apud nos pondus haberet the truth is if the Authority of the Church did not teach us that this Scripeure is Canomical it would be of very light weight unto us Such Cordial respects do you bear unto it And the forementioned Andradius Defens Con. Trid. Lib. 2. to the same purpose Neque enim in ipsis libris quibus sacra mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam in est Divinitatis quae nos ad credendum quae in illis continentur religione aliqua constring at sed Ecclesiae quae codices illos sacros esse docet antiquorum Patrum fidem pietatem commendat tanta inest vis amplitudo ut illis nemo sine gravissimâ impietatis nota possit repugnare neither is there in those books wherein the Divine Mysteries are written any thing or any character of Divinity or divine original which should on a religious account oblige us to believe the things that are contained in them But yet such is the force and Authority of the Church which teacheth thâ—se books to be sacred and commendeth the faith and piety of the Antient fathers that no man can oppose them without a grievous mark of impiety How by what means from whom should we learn the sense of your Church if not from your Council of Trent and such mighty Champions of it Do you think it equitable that we should listen to suggestions of every obscure Frier and entertain thoughts from them about the sense of your Church contrary to the plain assertion of your Councils and and great Rabbies And if this be the respect that in Catholick Countries is given to the Scripture I hope you will not find may of your Countrymen rivals with them therein It is all but Hayle and Crâ—cifie We respect the Scriptures but there is another part of Gods word besides them we respect the Scriptures but Traditions contain more of the Doctrine of Truth we respect the Scriptures but think it not meet that Christians be suffered to read them we respect the Scripture but do not think that it hath any character in it of its own Divine original for which we should believe it we respect the Scripture but yet we would not believe were it not commended unto us by our Church we respect the Scripture but it is dark obscure not intelligible but by the interpretation of our Church Pray Sir keep your respects at home they are despised by the Scripture it self which gives Testimony unto its own Authority Perfection Sufficiency to guide us to God Perspicuity and Certainty without any respect unto your Church or its Authority And we know its Testimony to be true And for our parts we fear that whilest these Joabs kisses of respect are upon your lips you have a sword in your right hands to let out all the Vitals of Divine Truth and Religion Do you think your general expressions of respect and that unto admiration are a covering long and broad enough to hide all this contempt and reproach that you continually poure upon the Scriptures Deal thus with your Ruler and see whether he will accept your Person Give him some good words in general but let your particular expressions of your esteem of him come short of what his state and regal dignity do require will it be well taken at your hands Expressions of the same nature with these instanced in might be collected out of your chiefest Authors sufficient to fill a volume and yet I never read nor heard that any of them were ever stoned in your Catholick Countreys whatever you intimate of the boyling up of your zeal into a rage against those that should go about to diminish it Indeed whatever you pretend this is your faith about the Scripture and therefore I desire that you would accept of this account why I cannot comply with your wish and not speak any more of Papists slighting the Scripture seeing I know they do so in the sense and way by me expressed and other wayes I never said they did so From the account of your Faith we may proceed to your Charity wherewith you close this Discourse Speaking of your Roman Catholicks you say the Scripture is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who will one day plead their Cause What do you mean Sir by theirs Do you intend it exclusively to all others so theirs as not to be the right and portion of any other It is evident that this is your sense not only because unless it be so the words have neither sense nor emphasis in them but also because suitably unto this sense you elsewhere declare that the Roman and the Catholick Church are with you one and the same This is your Charity fit to accompany and to be the fruit of the faith before discoursed of This is your Chatholicism the impaling of Christ Scripture the Church and consequently all acceptable Religion to the Roman Party and Faction down right Donatism the wretchedest Schism that ever rent the Church of God which makes the wounds of Christendome incurable and all hope of coalition in Love desperate Saint Paul directing one of his Epistles unto all that in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that no countenance from that expression of our Lord Jesus Christ might be given unto any surmize of his appropriating unto himself and those with him a peculiar interest in Jusus Christ he adds immediately both their Lord and ours the Lord of all that in every place call upon his name 1 Cor. 1. This was the old Catholicism which the new hath as much affinity unto as darkness hath to light and not one jot more The Scripture is ours and Christ is ours and what have any else to do with them what though in other places you call on the name of Jesus Christ yet he is our Lord not yours This I say is that wretched Schism which cloathed with the name of Catholicism which after it had slain it robbed of its name and garments the world for some ages hath groaned under and is like to do so whilst it is supported by so many secular advantages and interests as are subservient unto it at this day CHAP. 14. Of Reason Jews objections against Christ. PAg. 27. You proceed to vindicate your unreasonable Paragraph about Reason or rather against it What reason we are to expect in a dispute against the use of Reason in and about the things which are the highest and most proper object of it is easie for any one to imagine For by Reason in Religion we understand not meerly the Raâ—ocination
Assemblies would not drop one word of any indignity shewed to any of their sacred images when they pass not by their wrath against their houses goods and cattel Such things are fond to imagine 2. Many of the Antients do note it as an abomination in some of the first Hereticks that they had introduced the use of Images into their worship with the adoration of them Theodoret. haeret sub lib. 1. tells us that Simon Magus gave his own image and that of Selene to be worshistped by his followers And Iraeneus Lib. 1. cap. 23. that the followers of Basilides used images and invocations and cap. 24. that the Gnosticks had images both painted ones and carved and that of Christ which they said was made originally by Pontius Pilate and this they adored And so doth Epiphanius also Tom. 2. lib. 1. Haer. 27. Carpocrates procured the images of Christ and Paul to be made and adored them and the like is recorded of others Now do you think they would have observed and reproved this practice as an abomination in the haereticks if there had been any thing in the Churches usage that might give countenance thereunto or at least that they would not have distinguished between that abuse of images which they condemned in the hereticks and that use which was retained and approved among themselves But they are utterly silent as unto any such matter contenting themselves to report and reprove the superstition and idolatry of the Hereticks in their Adoration of them But this is not all 3. They positively deny that they had any images or made any use of them and defend themselves against the charge of the Pagans against them for professing an imageless Religion Clemen Alexand. Strom Lib. 6. plainly and openly confesseth and testifieth that Christians had no Images in the world And in his Adhortat ad Gent. he positively asserts that the arts of Painting and Carving as to any religious use were forbidden to Christians and that in the worship of God they had no sensible image made of any sensible matter because they worshipped God with understanding What was the judgement of Tertullian is known from his book de Idololatria from whence if we should transcribe what is argumentative against image worship very little would be remaining But of all the Antients Origen doth most clearly manifest what was the doctrine and practice of the Church of God in his dayes as in other places so in his seventh book against Celsus he directly handles this matter Celsus charged the Christians that they made use of no images in the worship of God telling them that therein they were like the Persians Scythians Numidans and Seres all which impious nations hated all images as the Turks do at this day To which discourse of his Origen returning answer grants that the Christians had no images in their sacred worship no more then had the Barbarous nations mentioned by Celsus but withall adds the difference that was between those and these and tells you that their abstinence from Image worship was on various accounts And after he hath shewed wherefore those Nations received them not he adds that Christians and Jews abstained from all sacred use of Images because of Gods command Thou shalt fear as he reads the text the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve and thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath and adds that they were so far from praying to the images as the Pagans did that saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing expresly commanded in the Nicene Conventicle we do not give any honour at all to Images least we should give countenance to the error of ignorant people that there were somewhat of Divinity in them with very much more to the same purpose expresly condemning all the use of Images in the worship of God and openly testifying that there was no such usage among the Christians in those dayes heard of in the world Arnobius or Minutius Faelix acknowledgeth the same Cruces nec colimus nec optamus we do no more worship Crosses then desire them and grants that Christians had nulla note simulachra because no image could be made to or of him whom alone they worshipped What was the judgement of the Elibertine Council I have before told you Lactantius in his Institut ad Constant. lib. 2. by an happy anticipation answers all the arguments that you use to this day in defence of your image worship and concludes peremptorily that where there are any Images there is no Religion shewing how perverse a thing it is that the image of a dead man should be worshipped by a living image of God The time would fail me to relate the words of Eusebius Athanasius Hilarius Ambrosius Cyrillus Chrysostome Epiphanius Hierom Austin and others to the same purpose I cannot but think that it is fully evident to any one that consults antiquity that the image use and worship which is become the Tessera of your Church Communion by your espousing the Canons and Determinations of the second Nycene Synod was in part utterly unknown unto and in part expresly condemned by the whole Primitive Church for 600. years after Christ and that you have plainly by your Tridentine decree and Nicene Anathematismes cut off your selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church of Christ and all particular Assemblies that worship him in sincerity for the space of some hundreds of years in the world Thus things went in the Church of God before your Nicene Convention How did they succeed afterwards did image worship presently prevail upon their determinations or was that then the faith of the generality of the Church of Christ which was declared by the fathers of that Convention nothing less no sooner was the rumor of this horrible innovation in Christian Religion spread abroad in the world but that upon it there was a full assembly of 300. Bishops of the Western Provinces assembled at Franckeford in Germany wherein the superstition and folly of the Nicene Assembly was layed open their Arguments confuted their determinations rejected and image worship absolutely condemned as forbidden by the word of God and contrary to the Antient constant known practice of the whole Church of God And now Sir as I said you may begin to see what you have to do if you intend to speak any thing to the purpose concerning your figures and Images You must take the Decree of your Council of Trent and the Nicene Canons therein confirmed and prove confirm and vindicate them from the opposition made to them by Tertullian Arnobius Origen Lactantius the Synod of Franckeford and others of the Antients innumerable by whom they are rejected and condemned and yet when you have done so if you are able so to do your work is not one quarter at an end You can make nothing of this business untill you have confuted or burned the
able to except against in that discourse will speedily appear In the mean time pray take notice that I have no eagerness to oppose either you or your Church so you will let the Truth alone I shall for ever let you alone without opposition It was the defence of that and not an opposition to you that I was engaged in In the same design do I still persist in the vindication of what I had formerly written and shall assure you that you shall never be opposed by me but only so far and wherein I am fully convinced that you oppose the Truth Manifest that to be on your side and I shall be ready to embrace both you and it For I am absolutely free from all respects unto things in this world that should or might retard me in so doing But that I may hereafter speak somewhat more to the purpose in opposition unto you or else give my consent with understanding unto what you teach pray inform me how I may come to the knowledge of the customs of your Church which you say I neither do nor will understand I have read your Councils those that are properly yours your Mass Book and Rituals many of your Annalists or Historians with your writers of Controversies and Casuists all of the best note same and reputation amongst you Can none of them inform us what the Customs of your Church are If you have such Egyptian or Elâ—usinian mysteries as no man can understand before he be initiated amongst you I must despair of coming unto any acquaintance with them For I shall never engage into the belief of I know not what For the present I shall declare you my apprehension as to that Custome of your Church as you call it which we have now under consideration and desire your charity in my direction if I understand it 〈◊〉 aright It is your Custome to keep the Scriptures from the people in an unknown tongue somewhat contrary to this your former custome in this last age you have made some Translations out of a Translation and that none of the best the use whereof you permit to very few by virtue of special dispensation pleading that the use of it in the Church among the body of its members is useless and dangerous Again it is the Custome of your Church to celebrate all its publick worship in Latine whereof the generality of your people understand nothing at all and you forbid the exercise of your Church worship in a vulgar tongue understood by the Community of your Church or people These I apprehend to be the Customes of your Church and to the best of my understanding they are directly contrary 1. To the End of God in granting unto his Church the inestimable benefit of his Work and worship and 2. To the Command of God given unto all to read meditate and study his Word continually And 3. Prejudicial to the souls of men in depriving them of those unspeakable spiritual advantages which they might attain in the discharge of their duty and which others not subject unto your Auâ—hority have experience of And 4. Opposite unto yea destructive of that edification which is the immediate end of all things 〈◊〉 to be done in publick Assemblies of the Church And 5. Forbidden expresly by the Apostle who inforceth his prohibition with many cogent reasons 1 Cor. 14. And 6. Contrary to the express practice of the primitive Church both Judaical and Christian all whose worship was performed in the same language wherein the People were instructed by preaching and exhortations which I presume you will think it necessary they should well understand being 7. Brought into use gradually and occasionally through the 〈◊〉 negligence of some who pretend in the Churches of those dayes when the Languages wherein the Scripture was first written and whereinto for the use of the whole Church it had been of old translated as the Old Testament into Greek and the whole into Latine through the Tumults and Wars that fell out in the world became corrupted or were extirpated And 8 A means of turning the worship of Christ from a rational way of strengthening faith and increasing Holiness into a dumb histrionical shew exciting brutish and irregular affections and 9 Were the great cause of that darkness and ignorance which spread its self in former dayes over the whole face of your Church and yet continueth in a great measure so to do And in summ are as great an Instance of the power of inveterate prejudices and carnal interests against the light of the Truth as I think was ever given in the world These are my apprehensions concerning the Customs of your Church in this matter with their nature and tendency I shall now try whither you who blame my misunderstanding of them can give me any better information or Reason for the change of my thoughts concerning them But Carbones pro thesauro instead of either further clearing or vindicating your Customs and practice you fall into Encomiums of your Church a story of a Greek Bishop with some other thing as little to your purpose Fur es ait Pedo Pedius quid crimina rasis Librat in Antithetis doctas posuisse figuras Lundatur You are accused to have robbed the Church of the use of the Scripture and the means of its Edification in the worship of God and when you should produce your defensitive you make a fine Discourse quite to other purposes Such as it is we must pass through it First you say I have heard many grave Protestant Divines ingenuously acknowledge that divine Comfort and Sanctity of life requisite unto Salvation which Religion aymes at may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the Customs of the Roman Church then that of ours For Religion is not to fit perching upon the lips but to be got by heart it consists not in reading but doing and in this not in that lives the substance of it which is soon and easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a Compendium of all divine Truths in two words which our great Apostle again abridged into one Ans. 1. I hope you will give me leave a little to suspend my assent unto what you affirm Not that I question your veracity as to the matter of fact related by you that some Persons have told you what you say but I suppose you are mistaken in them For whereas the Gospel is the Doctrine of Truth according unto Godliness and the promotion of Holiness and Consolation which cannot at all be promoted but in wayes and by means of Gods appointment is the next end of all Religion they can be no Protestant Divines who acknowledge this end to be better attainable in your way then their own because such an acknowledgement would be a vertual renunciation of their Protestancy The judgement of this Church and all the reall grave Divines of it is perfectly against you and should you condescend unto them in other things would not embrace
your communion whilest you impose upon them a necessity of Celebrating the worship of God in a tongue unknown unto them amongst whom and for whose sâ—ke it is publickly celebrated The reasons you subjoyn to the concession you mention I presume are your own they are like to many others that you make use of The best sense of the entrance of your words that I can make is in that description they afford us of the worship of your Church as to the peoples concernment in it The words of it may â—it perching upon your lips as on the tongue of a Parrot or it may be may be got by heart or as we say without Book when the sense of them affects not your minds nor understandings at all If in these vain loose expressions you design any thing else it seems to be an opposition between reading and studying the Scriptures or joyning with understanding in the prayers of the Church the things under Consideration and the getting of the power of the word of God to dwell in the heart which is skilfully to oppose the means and the end and those placed in that relation not only by their natural aptitude but also by Gods express appointment and command So wisely also do you oppose reading and doing in general as though reading were not doing and a part of that obedience which God requires at our hands and a blessed means of helping and furthering us in the remainder of it For certainly that we may do the will of God it is required that we know it And what better way there is to come to the knowledge of the will of God then by reading and me litating in and upon the word of Truth wherein he hath revealed it with the advantage of the other means of his appointment for the same end in the publick preaching or proposition of it I am not as yet informed And I wish you had acquainted us with those two words of our Saviour and that one of the Apostle wherein they give us a Compendius of all Divine Truths For if it be so I am perswaded you will be to seek for your warrant in imposing your long Creeds and almost Volumes of Propositions to be believed as such But you cannot avoid mistakes in things that you might omit as not at all to your purpose Our Saviour indeed gives us the two general heads of those duties of Obedience which are required at our hands towards God and our Neighbours and the Apostle shews the Perfection of it to consist in Love with its due exercise but where in two or three words they give us the Compendium of all Divine Truths which we are to believe that we may acceptably perform the Obedidience that in general they describe we are yet to seek and shall be so for any information you are able to give us In your following Discourse you make a florish with what your Church hath in Gospels Epistles Good books Anniversary observations and I know not what besides But Sir we discourse not about what you have but what you have not nor will have though God command you to have it and threaten you for not having it You have not the Scripture ordinarily in a language that they can understand who if they are the Disciples of Christ are bound to read study and meditate in it continually which are therefore hindred by you in the discharge of their duty whilest you neither enter into the Kingdom of heaven your selves nor suffer them that would Nâ—y you have burned men and their Bibles together for attempting to discharge that duty which God requireth of them and wherein so much of their spiritual advantage is enwrapped Neither have you the entire worship of God in a tongue known to the people whereby they might joyn in it and pray with understanding and be edified by what they hear which the Apostle makes the end of all things done or to be done in publick Assemblies but are left to have their brutish affections led up and down by dumb shews pestures and gestures whereunto the Scripture and Antiquity are utter strangers These things you have not and which renders your Condition so much the worse you refuâ—e to have them though you may though you are entreated by God and man to make use of them yea where great and populous nations under your power have humbly petitioned you that by your leave and permission they might enjoy the Bible and that Service of God which they could understand you have chosen rather to run all things into confusion and to fall upon them with fire and sword then to grant them their request O curvae in terris animae caelestium inanes But you add Besides what you mention what can promote your Salvation for say you What further Good may it do to read the letter of St. Paul ' s Epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherein 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 ingenuously and without heat what more of Good could acrew 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 practice then by the conceived substance of Gods will unto me and my own duty towards him Sir I shall deal with you without any blameable heat yet so as he deserves to be dealt withall who will not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord. And 1. who taught you to make your apprehensions the measure of other mens faith and practice If you know not of any thing needfull to promote Salvation but what you reckon up in the usage of your Church hinder not them that do It is not so much your own practice as your Imposition of it on others that we are in the consideration of Would it worth suffice you to reject as to your own interest the means appointed of God for the furtherrance of our Salvation and that you would not compell others to joyn with you in the refusal of them Is it possible that a man professing himself a Divine a Priest of the Catholick Church an Instructor of the Ignorant an undertaker to perswade whole Nations to relinquish the way of Religion wherein they are engaged to follow him and his in wayes that they have not known should profess that he knows not of what use unto the promotion of the Salvation of the Souls of men the use of the whole Scripture given by inspiration of God is Be advised not to impose these conceptions of your fancy and mind as it seems unexercised in that heavenly treasury on those who have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 senses exercised therein so as to be able to discern between good and evil It no other reason can prevail with you I hope experience may give you such a despair of success as to cause
that it tends unto your disreputation to be esteemed unacquainted with the Jews language and customes If you cannot do so you will not be able to avoid suffering from your own thoughts especially if you cannot for bear talking al out them This was all that in your former discourse you were obnoxious unto but this renewal of it hath rendred your condition somewhat worse then it was For failures in Skill and Science are not in demerit to be compared with those in Morality which are voluntary and of choice Your words in your Fiat after you had learnedly observed that the Bible was never in Moses time nor afterwards by any high Priest translated into Syriack for the use of the People are Nay it was so far from that that it was not touched nor looked upon by the people but kept privately in the Ark or Tabernacle and brought for that times by the Priest who might upon the Sabboth day read some part of it to the people I confess your expression in the Ark or Tabernacle was somewhat uncouth and discovered that you did but obscurely guess at the thing you ventured to discourse about But I took your words in that only sense they were capable of namely that the Bible was kept in the Ark or at least in the Tabernacle that is some part of it whereunto the People had no access And he must be a man devoid of reason and common sense who could imagine that you intended any thing but the sacred Ark and Tabernacle when you said that it was kept in the Ark or Tabernacle For not only by all rules of interpretation is the word used indefinitely to be taken in sensu famosiori but also your manner of Expression will admit of no other sense or intention Now herein in the Animadversions I minded you of your failure and told you that not the whole Bible as you imagined but only the Pentateuch was placed not in but at the sides of the Ark. That the Ark was kept in the Sanctuary that no Priest went in thither but only the High Priest and that but once a year that the book of the Law was never brought forth from thence to be read to the people and lastly that whatever of this kind you might fancy yet it would not in the least conduce to your purpose it being openly evident that besides the Publick lections out of the Law that People had all of them the Scripture in their houses and were bound by the command of God to read and meditate in them continually What say you now to these things 1. You change your words and affirm that you said it was kept in an Ark or Tabernacle as though you meant any Ark or Chest. But you too much wrong your self your words are as before represented in the Ark or Tabernacle and you remembred them well enough to be so which so perplexeth you in your attempt to rectifie what you said For after you have changed the first word the addition of the next leaves you in the briars of nonsense in an Ark or Tabernacle as though they were terms convertible a Chest or a Tent. I wish you would make an end of this fond shooting at rovers 2. You apply that to the practice of the present Jews in their Synagogues which you plainly spake of the antient Jews whilest their Temple and Church state continued wherein again you intrench upon morality for an Evasion And besides you cast your self upon new mistakes For 1. The Book kept in a Chest by them and brought forth with the veneration you speak of is not the whole Bible as you imagine but only the Pentateuch which was read in their Synagogues on the Sabbath dayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as James tells us Act. 15. 21. Only whereas their Law was particularly sought after to be destroyed by Antiochus Epiphanes they supplyed the room of it with the other parts of the Scripture divided into Haphters answerable unto the Sections of the Law Nor 2. Is that brought out to or by a Priest but to any Rabbi that precides in their Synagogue worship for they have no Priest amongst them nor certain distinction of Tribes so that if you your self have been in any Synagogue or Convention of the Jews it is evident that you understood little of what you saw them do 3. For their Prostration at the bringing out of the Book which you seem to commend as a solemn Adoration it is down right Idolatrous for in it they openly worship the material roll or book that they keep But what is it that you would from hence conclude Is it that which you attempted in yout Fiat namely that the People amongst the Jews had not the Bible in their own language and in common use among them You may as easily prove that the Sun shines not at noon day The Scripture was committed unto them in their own mother tongue and they were commanded of God to read and study it continually the Psalmist pronouncing them blessed who did accordingly And the present Jews make the same duty of indispensable necessity unto every one amongst them after he comes to be filius praecepti or lyable to the keeping of any command of God The Rules they give for all sorts of Persons high and low rich and poor young and old sick and in health for the performance of this duty are known to all who have any acquaintance with their present Principles Practices State and Condition And you shall scarcely meet with a child amongst them of nine ytars old who is not exercised to the reading of the Bible in Hebrew And yet though they all generally learn the Hebrew tongue for this purpose in their Infancy yet least they should neglect it or through trouble be kept from it they have translated the whole Old Testament into all the Languages of the Nations amongst whom in any nambers they are scattered The Arabick Translation of the Mauritanian Jews the Spanish of the Spaniards and Portugues I can shew you it you please Upon the whole matter I wish you knew how great the work is wherein you are engaged and how contemptible the engines are whereby you hope to effect it But such Positions and such Confirmations are very well suited And this is the summ of what you plead afresh in vindication of your Latine Service and keeping the Scripture from the use of the People If you suppose your self armed hereby against the express Institution of Christ by his Apostâ—es the example of Gods dealing with his people of old the nature of the things themselves and universal practise of the Primitive Church I really pitty you and shall continue to pray for you that you may not any longer bring upon your selves the blood of souls CHAP. 23. Communion THE Defence of your Paragraph about Communion in one kind is totally deserted by you I know no other cause of your so doing but a sence of your incompetency for its defence seing you