one by and for the Catechumeni the second for the Penitents the third for the Faithfull You cannot elude so cleare a proofe by saying the Councell required prayers for all these but did not binde to set formes in prayers for the same Councell stops your mouth whiles it tels you in plaine termes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that the same form or Liturgy of Prayers was to be used morning and evening And Clemens though not the true yet ancient tels us {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. and in the eight Book of his Constitutions recites large prayers which were publiquely used in the Church Let the Reader now judge where this shuffling lies The Canon requires one of these prayers to be in silence what then So doth our Liturgy require in the Ordination of Ministers that in one passage of this solemne act our prayers should be secret and silent yet the rest is no lesse in set formes You might then bee ashamed to object want of fidelity to me in the citation of that testimony which I but barely quoted in my margin Neither can you avoid a self-confutation in your owne proofes There was no noise of the Arrian heresie till the Nicene Councell The Councell of Laodicea wherin set formes are notified was before the Nicene by your owne account Yea but say you the heresie of Arrius was not just borne at the period of the Nicene Councell True but was it borne so long before as that any Councell tooke notice of it before the Nicene This you dare not affirme But for a second shift the heresie of Arrius troubled the Church sometime before the name of Arrius was borrowed by it Grant we upon good authority of Fathers and Councels that the ground of the cursed error of Arrius concerning the Son of God was laid before by others what is that to the question of set prayers What is if this be not a plaine shuffle Neither is it any other then a meere slurre wherewith you passe over the unanswerable pressure of the Laodicean Councell before mentioned by cavilling the difference betwixt prescribing and composing the Councell is flat in both and injoynes one and the same Liturgy of prayers Certainly brethren you finde cold comfort at Laodicea Let us see how you mend your selves at Carthage The Fathers there injoyne that no man in his prayers should name the Father for the Son or the Son for the Father that in assisting at the Altar their prayers should be directed to the Father that no man should make use of any other forme then is prescribed unlesse he did first confer with his more learned brethren Hence you gather there was no set forme in use in the Church and no such circumscribing of liberty in prayer that a man should be tied to a set Liturgie The charge was doubtlesse given upon a particular occasion which is buried with time whether it were ignorance or heedlesnesse in those African Priests that they thus mistook in their Devotions I cannot determine But why might it not be then as it is with too many now that notwithstanding the Churches prescriptions men will be praying as they list and let fall such expressions as may well deserve censure and restraint However that they had set formes seemes to bee sufficiently implyed in their own words Quicunque sibi preces aliunde describit for what can that aliunde relate unto but some former prescription which that they had even in these African Churches we need no other testimony then of the Magdeburgenses who cite Cyprian himselfe for this purpose in his Booke de Oratione Dominica where he tels us that the Priest began with Sursum corda Lift up your hearts and the Congregation answered Wee lift them up unto the Lord To which they adde Formulas denique quasdam precationū sine dubio habuerunt They had then without doubt certaine set formes of prayers and to suppose that they had prescribed formes for publique use which no man should be required to use it were a strange and uncouth fancy Neither need wee any better contest for our defence then him whom you cite in your margin learned Cassander in the just allegation both of this Councell and the Milevitane the Canon whereof runs thus It pleaseth the Fathers that those prayers or orisons which are approved in the Synod shall bee used by all men And no other shall bee said in the Church but such as have beene made by some prudent Authors or allowed of the Synod lest perhaps something may bee composed by them through ignorance or want of care contrary to the faith Say Readers is not this a likely testimony to bee produced against set formes of Prayer What is it then that you would hence inferre First that this being Anno 416. is the first mention of prayers to be approved or ratified in a Synod and the restrayning to the use of them Grant that it were so of prayers to bee ratified or restrained Is it so of prayers to be used Are you not sufficiently convinced herein by the Synod of Laodicea It is the occasion that draws on the Law till now this presumption of obtruding private mens prayers upon the publique use of the Church was not heard of in those parts now only was it seasonable for correction Secondly you say the restriction was not such but that it admitted a toleration of prayers framed by prudent Divines no lesse then those which were approved by the Synod What gaine you by that when these prayers were said and not conceived and so said that they were put into formes not left to arbitrary delivery Secondly the occasion of this restriction being the prevention of errours in praying is so universall both for time and place that it may well argue this practise to be most ancient for the originall and worthy to be perpetuall for the continuance And now that the Vindicators may see how small cause the Remonstrant hath to be convinced of the latenesse of set forms imposed not till the Arrian and Pelagian Heresies invaded the Church let them be pleased to tell the Reader what those {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Prayers prescribed were whereof Origen speaks in his 6. book against Cels so frequently used and if that word may undergo another sense what those {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} can be construed wherefrom he quotes three or four passages of Scriptures in the fourth book against Celsus Lastly what the meaning and inference may be of that which the Centuries alledge out of Origen in his 11. Homily upon Ieremy Vbi frequenter in oratione dicimus Da omnipotens da nobis partem cum Prophetis da cum Apostolis Christi tui tribue ut inveniamur ad vestigia unigeniti tui If this be not part of a set form of prayer and long before Arrius or Pelagius I have lost both my aim and the day if
orthodoxe Bishops the while Truly in all likelyhood at home quietly in their own Sees in their retired studies without notice of any plots without any intimation of dangers much more without intermedling in any secrets of State or close stratagems of disturbance So as it was not their love to peace and truth that could oppose what they never could reach to know Neither is it any fault of theirs that the deare and precious name of Episcopacie is exposed to base and vulgar obloquie Let those who will needs poure contempt upon the guiltlesse looke for a just revenge from him who hath said Touch not mine anointed and doe my Prophets no harme Still therefore must I take leave to crie Fie upon those my Brethren that dare to charge faction upon Episcopacie and withall to deplore the unhappy mis-cariages of any of our spirituall Fathers that shall be found guiltie of these wofull broyles What Cyprian would have done upon occasion of so high an indignitie offered by you to that holy function appeares sufficiently in his Epistle to Rogatianus though no instance can come home to the point For let me boldly say that since Christianitie lookt forth into the world there were never so high and base scornes put upon Episcopacie as there have been by shamelesse Libellers within the space of this one yeare in this Kingdome yea in this Citie God in his great mercie forgive the authors and make them sensible of the danger of his just vengeance SECT. II. VVHat a windie Section have you past wherein you confesse you have striven for words Things you say shall now follow Things well worthy to bee not more precious to the Remonstrant then to every well-minded Christian Leiturgie and Episcopacie Leiturgie leads the way We had need to begin with our prayers I challenged you for the instances of those many alterations you talked of in the present Leiturgie You answer me Truly Sir if we were able to produce no fuller evidence of this then you have done of your Iewish Leiturgie ever since Moses time we should blush indeed but if we can bring forth such instances c. Truly Brethren you could do little if ye could not crack and boast the greatest cowards can do this best Do not say what ye can do but do what ye say Put it upon this very issue For the Leiturgie ye say we can bring forth instances of such alterations as shall prove this present Leiturgie to be none of that which was confirmed by Parliamentary Acts Mark well Readers for certainly in plain English these men go about to mock you The question is of the present Leiturgie which is pretended to vary extremely much from that in Queen Elizabeths daies Now come our braving Vindicators and after all their brags labour to shew that this our present Leiturgie differs from that in the daies of Edward the sixt and spend one whole Page in the particular instances Is not this pains well bestowed think you have they not hit the bird in the eye utterly balking what they undertook they undertake what no man questioned and now before-hand crow and triumph in these cockle-shels of a famous conquest But ye lay this for your ground That the Leiturgie confirmed by our Parliamentary Acts is the same which was made and confirmed in the fifth and sixth of Edward the sixt With one alteration or addition of certain Lessons to be used on every Sunday in the yeer and the form of the Letany altered and corrected and two sentences onely added in the delivery of the Sacrament to the Communicant and none other or otherwise Thus sayes the Act. Now comes your rare sagacity and findes notwithstanding Queen Elizabeths Leiturgie varying from the former in many omissions in many additions in many alterations Wherein what do ye other then give the check to a whole Parliament they say flatly None other or otherwise you say The Book is so altered that the Leiturgie now in use is not the same that was established by Act of Parliament But be that as it may there lies not the question If Queen Elizabeths Book did so much differ from King Edwards What is that to us Say as you have undertaken what such huge difference there is betwixt King Iames his Book and Queen Elizabeths Now your loud vaunts end in flat silence neither can you instance in any thing save some two pettie Particles not worthie of mention that in the title of Confirmation the words For imposition of hands are added and in the Epistle for Palm-Sunday In is turned into At These are all besides those which I fore-specified which have so mis-altered the Leiturgie that it can no more be known to be it self then the strangely-disguised Dames which were mentioned in Doctor Halls reproof Now let the Reader say who is worthie to wear those Liveries of Blushes which in your Wardrobe of Wit you have been pleased to lay up for your friends But I have not yet said all If you say to these we should adde the late alterations in the use of the Leiturgie bringing in loud Musick uncouth and unedifying Anthems a pompous superstitious Altar-service we think any indifferent eye will say this is not the Leiturgie established by Parliament What mean you Brethren thus to delude the Reader are these things you mention any part of the Leiturgie are they prescribed by any law of the Church are they found in any Rubrick of the communion-Communion-book Do not the allowed Forms of our publique Prayers in all Parochiall and some Cathedrall Churches in Chappels in houses stand intirely without these Why do you therefore bring in these things as essentiall to Leiturgie In the meet omission of some whereof no doubt some Bishops of England no lesse zealously conscionable though better tempered then your selves may be found to conspire with you As for the namelesse Bishop whom you cite you must pardon me if I did not understand either you or him for the words in your Defence run That the Service of the Church of England is not so dressed that if a Pope should come and see it he would claim it as his own Now you report them to be That the Service of the Church of England is now so drest c. so as you cannot blame me if I knew not the meaning or the man But by this your description of his preaching it as matter of humiliation to all the Bishops of this Kingdome in a day of solemne and nationall fasting I perceive it is the Reverend Bishop of Carlile whom you thus cited and whom you have herein not a little wronged I acquainted that worthy Prelate with the passage he disavows the words and defies the reporters vehemently protesting that he never spake either those words or that sense and to make it good delivered me the pretended clause transcribed out of his notes with his owne hand which I reserve by me no whit sounding that way but signifying onely a vehement dislike of some
Errors Let the cause speak for it self and let that great Moderator of Heaven to whom we both appeal judge It was a light touch that I gave to your Grammaticall slip of Areopagi wherein it would not have hurt you to have confessed your over-sight had you yeelded that you stumbled though withall you say You stumbled like Emperors we could have passed it over with a smile but now that you will needs fall into a serious contestation and spend almost a whole leaf in a faulty Defence I must tell you that you make this an hainous trifle To face out wilfully the least errour is no lesse then a crime and such is this of yours as every true Grammarian knows I doubt not but you had heard of Dionysius Areopagita but if you should have cited him under the name of Dionysius Areopagus every Scholar would have laughed you to scorn Had you said The admired sons of Iustice the Areopagus I grant it had been good according to that which you cite out of Sarisburiensis but to say The admired sons of Iustice the Areopagi no Grammar no authoritie can bear you out and however you face it that you can bring precedents enow out of approved Authors name but one and take all That of Sarisburiensis which you alledge is altogether for me against your selves he sayes that Senate of Athens was called Areopagus so said my Margin before But what is this to your false Latine Brethren this matter of Latinity is but a straw but let me say this willing defence of a plain falshood is a block which your very friends cannot but stumble at and how can the Reader choose but think he that will wilfully stand in the defence of a known falshood in Language will not stick to defend a known Errour in his cause Before ye stumbled now ye fall rise up for shame in a just confession and look better to your feet hereafter But belike you have not a better facultie in stumbling then I in leaping and talk of huge great blocks that I have over-skipped in this whole Book Where are they which be they Brethren If such were they are I hope still visible shew them me I beseech you that I may yet trie my skill You instance in some words sounding to contempt I thought what these blocks would prove meer matter of words not lesse windy then the froth of your next Paragraph wherein your gravitie is set upon a merrie pin and in a becoming jeer tells us of the Gentleman student in Philosophy that desires to learn the rare secret of the sinking of froth for which I remit you and your deep student to the next Tapster IT is not all your shuffling that can shift the just charge of your grosse uncharitablenesse The Remonstrance comparing in a generall notion the forms of Civil government and Ecclesiasticall expresses it in these Terms Since if Antiquitie may be the rule the civill Polity hath sometimes varied the Sacred never And if originall authoritie may carry it that came from arbitrarie imposers this from men inspired then which no word can be in a right sense more safe or more innocent Your good glosse appropriates what in thesi was spoken of all forms of Civil government to our particular Monarchy and tels your Reader that I deliver it as Arbitrary Alterable then which there cānot I suppose be any sclander more dangerous and to mend the matter now in your Vindication you redouble your most injurious charge upon the Remonstrant as if upon this ground it could follow that to attempt the alteration of Monarchicall governement had beene in his opinion lesse culpable then to petition the alteration of Episcopall quite contrary to the expresse words of my Remonstrance whose implication is no other then this That if it were capitall in them who indeavored to alter the formes of Civill government they must needs seeme worthy of more then an easie censure that went about in a Libellous way to worke the change of a setled government in the Church See Reader this latter is in the Remonstrants judgement worthy of more then an easie censure the others accusation is no lesse then deadly Whether now doth hee hold lesse culpable Truly brethren if you be not ashamed of this unjust crimination I hope some body will blush for you With how bold a face dare you appeale to the Reader yea to the most honourable Parliament and to the Sacred Majesty of our Soveraigne that you doe the man no wrong Joyne issue then and let all these judge First you say one of the most confident Advocates of Episcopacy hath said that where a Nationall Church is setled in the orderly regiment of certaine grave Overseers to seeke to abandon this forme and to bring in a forraine Discipline is as unreasonable as to cast off the yoke of just and hereditary Monarchy and to affect many-headed Soveraignty This you think an assertion insolent enough that sets the Mitre as high as the Crowne But what a foule injury is this Reader doe but view the place and see where the Mitre stands The words run thus So were it no lesse unreasonable where a Nationall Church is setled in the orderly regiment of certaine grave Overseers ruling under one acknowledged Soveraign by wholsome and unquestionable Laws and by these Laws punishable if they overlash c. Say now Reader whether this man sets the Mitre as high as the Crowne Neither doth hee say it were no lesse haynous for the difference of the morality is excepted before but no lesse unreasonable as that which is there said to argue a strange brain-sick giddinesse in either offence Yet more anger The Remonstrant rises higher and sets the Mitre above the Crown Wherein I beseech you brethren What a Woolseian insolence were this Hee tels us you say that Civill government came from Arbitrary imposers the Sacred from men inspired now Civill government here includes Monarchy therefore this is to advance Episcopacy above Monarchy since the one challenges God for the Founder the other humane arbitrement Brethren had your argument as much reason as spight it would presse sore now as you have framed it it is a meere cavill The Remonstrant speaks of all Civill government in generall the severall formes whereof amongst severall nations and people no reasonable man can deny were introduced variously according to the first institution of their Founders What error can your sharpe eyes finde in this proposition Now you will needs draw this by an envious application to Monarchy as if I meant to derive it onely from men not from God Ye are mistaken brethren they are your better friends that thus deduce Monarchy For us wee hold it is from God by men from God as the author ordainer by men as the meanes wee fetch it not from earth but from heaven wee know who said By me Kings raigne and from him we derive their Crownes and Scepters But yee may know
it be repent of your confidence and recant your errour and grant at last that out of most venerable Antiquity the approvers of Liturgies have produced such evidences for their ancient use as your insolent wisdome may jeer but can never answer HOw I admire your goodnesse Mercifull men you pardon that fault which in justice ye could not find or cannot prove my confident assertion of the prayers wherewith Peter and Iohn joyned when they went up into the Temple at the ninth hour of prayer that they were not of a sudden conception but of a regular prescription shall be made good with better authority then your bold and braving deniall I say the prayers wherewith they joyned not the prayers which they made the prayers which they made were their own which wipes away your stout instance in the Pharisee and Publican but the prayers wherewith they joyned were publike and regular For in all their Sacrifices and Oblations the Jews had their set Service of prayers which gave life to those otherwise dead or at least dumb actions The noble and learned Lord Du-Plessis the great glory of the Reformed Church of France speaks home to this purpose so doth the renowmed P. Fagius the dead Martyr of our Cambridge besides learned Cappellus whom we cited in our late Defence Confessio olim in sacrificio solennis ejus praeterquam in lege vestigia in prophetis formulam habemus In ipsis Iudaeorum libris verba tanquam concepta extant quae sacerdos pronunciare solitus saith the said Mornay Du-Plessis There was a solemn confession in their sacrifice of old whereof besides that we have certain footsteps in the Law we have the very form in the Prophets In the books of the Iews the very expresse words are extant which the Priest had wont to pronounce Thus he And Lyranus wel acquainted with the Iewish practises as being one of them himself tels us that the Priest was used to confesse in generall all the sins of the people as saith he we are wont to do in the entrance of our Masse But Ludovicus Cappellus the French Oracle of Hebrew learning hath those very words whereat you jeer so oft as falling from my pen Ex quibus videre est orationem cujus causa Petrus Johannes petebant Templum fuisse eam quae à Iudaeis dicitur {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} quae respondet oblationi vespertinae lege praescriptae quae fiebat ut loquitur Scriptura inter duas vesperas Thus he whom I beseech you Brethren laugh at for company Admire with me Reader the subtlety of this deep exception Our Saviour I say prescribed to his Disciples besides the Rule a direct form of prayer What say my great Challengers to this The Remonstrant will have an hard task say they to prove from Scripture that either John or our Saviour gave to their Disciples publike Liturgies or that the Disciples were tyed to the use of this form Truly the task were as hard as the very mention of it is absurd and unreasonable For shame Brethren leave this palpable shuffling the Remonstrant spake of a Prayer ye ask for a Liturgie the Remonstrant speaks of prescribing ye talk of tying which till your Reply came not so much as into question It must be a weak sight that cannot discern your grosse subterfuges The use that our Saviour was pleased to make in his last Supper of the fashions and words which were usuall in the Jewish feasts is plainly affirmed not by Cassander only whose videtur you please to play upon but by Paulus Fagius at large by Mornaeus by Cappellus And if these tooke it from Maimonides who wrote not till a thousand yeares after Christ yet from whom I beseech you had Maimonides this observation A man of yesterday may upon good grounds of authority tell a truth of a thousand yeares old I let passe the meere non-sense wherewith you shut up this Paragraph as more worthy of the Readers smile then my confutation who will easily assume by comparing the place how little I meant to fetch a Liturgy from a feast or necessity out of an arbitrary act TO prove that the Jews had a form of Liturgy even from Moses his time I produced a monument above the reach of your either knowledge or censure a Samaritan Chronicle now in the hands of our most learned and famous Primate of Ireland written in Arabick translated into that tongue out of the Hebrew as Ios Scaliger whose it once was testifies fetching downe the story from Moses to Adrians time and somewhat below it out of this so ancient Record I cited the very words of the Author which these men would faine mistake as my own wherein hee mentions a booke of the old Liturgy of the Jews in which were contained those Songs and Prayers which were used before their sacrifices Adding For before every of their severall sacrifices they had their severall Songs still used in those times of peace all which accurately written were transmitted to the subsequent generations from the time of the Legat Moses unto this day by the ministery of the high Priest Thus he This is our evidence now let us see your shifts First you tel us Those were onely Divine hymns wherein there was alwayes something of Prayer If but thus wee have what wee would for what are prayses but one kind of prayers And what can be more said for a set forme of hymns then of petitions But brethren yee might have seene in the Authors owne words which you are loath to see Songs and Prayers which were ever used before their Sacrifices and were comprised in that ancient service-Service-book See now Reader whether there bee not something for set Prayers in the Authors own words which these men would wittingly out-face and not willingly see The Testimony cannot be eluded now it must be disparaged Ioseph Scaliger had certainly but two Samaritan Chronicles Who saies he had more I cited but one what needed you but to shew the world you can tell something to talk of two What businesse have we with that shorter Chronicle which you will needs draw into mention Let that bee as fond as your exception is unseasonable What is that to us How else should wee have knowne that you had taken notice of a Samaritane Pentateuch and learned Mr. Sel. dens Marmora Arundeliana Away with this poore ostentation speake to the purpose What can you say against that large Samaritan Chronicle which I produced turned out of Hebrew into Arabick written in a Samaritan Character and now not a little esteemed by the great and eminently judicious Primate in whose Library it is Surely as I have heard some bold pleaders when they have feared a strong testimony pick quarrels at the face of the witnesse so doe you brethren in this case Scaliger himselfe you say the former owner passes this censure upon it that though it have many things worthy