Christian trust his soul with that Church which teaches that which must needs be Idolatry in all that understand not the Figure 13. There is neither Scripture nor Tradition for worshipping the Cross the Images and Reliques of Saints Therefore it evidences the same carnal hope that God will abate of his Gospel for such bribes Which is the Will-worship of Masses Pilgrimages and Indulgences to that purpose 14. Neither Scripture nor Tradition is there for the removing any soul out of Purgatory unto the Beatifical Vision before the day of Judgement Therefore the same carnal hope is seen in the Will-worship of Masses Indulgences Pilgrimages and the like for that purpose and that destructive to the salvation of all that believe that the guilt of their sins is taken away by submitting to the Keys before they be contrite and the temporal penalty remaining in Purgatory paid by these Will-worships 15. Both Scripture and Tradition condemn the deposing of Princes and acquitting their subjects of their Allegiance and enjoyning them to take Arms for them whom the Pope substitutes And this doctrine is not only false but in my opinion properly Heresie yet practised by so many Popes The Church may be divided that salvation may be had on both sides Instances The Schisms of the Popes The Schism of Acacius The Schism between the Greeks and the Latins I hold the Schism for the Reformation to be of this kind But I do not allow Salvation to any that shall change having these reasons before him though I allow the Reformation not to be perfect in some points of less moment as prayer for the dead and others Remember alwayes that the Popish Church of England can never be Canonically governed being immediately under the Pope 16. There is both Scripture and Tradition for the Scriptures and Service in a known Tongue and for the Eucharist in both Kinds How then can any Christian trust his soul with that Church which hath the Conscience to bar him of such helps provided by God These are all his own words without addition or alteration And what think you now of Mr. Thorndike was this man a secret Friend to the Church of Rome do you think who saith so plainly that a man cannot embrace the Communion of that Church without hazard of his salvation R. P. I did little think by the Use T. G. on all occasions makes of him that he had been a man of such principles But I think T. G. had as good have let him alone as have given occasion for producing such Testimonies of the thoughts which a man of his Learning and Fame had concerning the Church of Rome However you see he holds the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist and can you reconcile this to what you asserted to be the Doctrine of the Church of England P. D. Yes very well If you compare what he saith here with what he declares more at large in his Book wherein you may read these remarkable words to this purpose If it can any way be shewed that the Church did ever pray that the Flesh and Blood might be substituted instead of the Elements under the accidents of them then I am content that this be accounted henceforth the Sacramental presence of them in the Eucharist But if the Church only pray that the Spirit of God coming down upon the Elements may make them the Body and Blood of Christ so that they which receive them may be filled with the Grace of his Spirit then is it not the sense of the Catholick Church that can oblige any man to believe the abolishing of the Elements in their bodily substance because supposing that they remain they may nevertheless come to be the instrument of Gods Spirit to convey the operation thereof to them that are disposed to receive it no otherwise than his flesh and blood conveyed the efficacy thereof upon earth and that I suppose is reason enough to call it the Body and Blood of Christ Sacramentally that is to say as in the Sacrament of the Eucharist And in two or three places more he speaks to the same purpose R. P. Hold Sir I beseech you you have said enough you will fall back again to transubstantiation in spite of my heart P. D. What when I only answer a Question you asked me R. P. Enough of Mr. Thorndike unless he were more our Friend than I find he was I pray what say you to Archbishop Whitgift P. D. Hath T. G. perswaded you that he is turned Puritan above seventy years after his death who never was suspected for it while he was living nor since till the transforming dayes of T. G. R. P. You may jeer as you please but T. G. tells a notable story of the Lambeth Articles and how Q. Elizabeths black Husband was like to have been divorced from her upon them and how K. James would not receive them into the Articles of the Church And all this as well as many other good things he hath out of one Pet. Heylin Is the man alive I pray that we may give him our due thanks for the service he hath done us upon many occasions For we have written whole Books against the Reformation out of his History of it and I find T. G. relyes as much upon him as other good Catholicks do on Cochlaeus and Surius or as he doth at other times on the Patronus bonae Fidei P. D. Dr. Heylin was a man of very good parts and Learning and who did write History pleasantly enough but in some things he was too much a party to be an Historian and being deeply concerned in some quarrels himself all his Historical writings about our Church do plainly discover which side he espoused which to me doth not seem to agree with the impartiality of an Historian And if he could but throw dirt on that which he accounted the Puritan party from the Beginning of the Reformation he mattered not though the whole Reformation suffered by it But for all this he was far from being a Friend either to the Church or Court of Rome and next to Puritanism I believe he hated Popery most so that if he had been alive and you had gone to thank him for the service he had done you in all probability you had provoked him to have written as sharply against you as ever he wrote against the Puritans But what is all this to Archbishop Whitgifts being suspected for a Puritan Dares Pet. Heylin suggest any such thing no he knew him too well and saith that by his contrivance the Puritan Faction was so muzled that they were not able to bark in a long time after Had he then any suspicion of his being Puritanically inclined And as to the Lambeth Articles they only prove that he held those opinions contained in them and recommended them to the Vniversity to suppress the disputes which had been there raised concerning them And what then doth this render him
to the point of Idolatry it self R. P. Hold a little you are still too quick I have something more yet to say to you before we come to it P. D. What is that R. P. I have a great deal to tell you out of Mr. Thorndikes Just Weights and Measures about the Charge of Idolatry and the mischievous consequences of it P. D. To what end should you repeat all that I begin to think you were not in jest when you said T. G. put in some things to fill up his Book Dr. St. had before declared the great esteem he had for Mr. Thorndikes Learning and Piety but in this particular he declared that he saw no reason to recede from the common doctrine of the Church of England on the account of Mr. Thorndikes Authority or Arguments And I have already given you such an account of his opinion with respect to the Church of Rome as I hope will take off Mr. Thorndikes Testimonies being so often alledged against us by T. G. and his Brethren If T. G. had not purposely declined the main matters in debate between Dr. St. and him he would never have stuffed out so much of his Book with things so little material to that which ought to have been the main design of it R. P. But I have somewhat more to say to you which is that you charge T. G. with declining the dispute about the sense of the second Commandment whereas he doth speak particularly to it P. D. I am glad to hear it I hope then he takes off the force of what Dr. St. had said in his late Defence about it For I assure you it was much expected from him R. P. What would you have a man do he produces at least four leaves of what he had said before and then a little after near two leaves more and within a few pages above two leaves again out of his old Book and then tells how Dr. St. spends above an hundred pages about the sense of the second Commandment whereas he neither removes the contradictions nor answers the arguments of T. G. but criticizeth upon the exceptions of T. G. to the several methods for finding out the sense of the Law but saith he what need so much pains and labour be taken if the Law be express and do not you think this enough about the second Commandment P. D. No truly Nor you neither upon any consideration For the Dr. in his Discourse upon the second Commandment 1. hath manifestly overthrown T. G.'s notion of an Idol viz. of a figment set up for Worship by such clear and convincing arguments that if T. G· had any thing to have said in defence of it he would never have let it escaped thus 2. He hath proved the sense he gives of the Commandment to be the same which the Fathers gave of it 3. He takes off T. G.'s instances of worshipping before the Ark and the Cherubims and the Testimony of S. Austin 4. He answers T. G.'s objections and clears the sense of the Law by all the means a Law can be well understood And is all this do you think answered by T. G.'s repeating what he had said before or blown down by a puff or two of Wit I do not know what T. G. thinks of it but I do not find any understanding man takes this for an answer but a meer put-off So that I may well say Dr. St.'s proofs are invincible when T. G. so shamefully retreats out of the Field and sculks under some hedges and thorns which he had planted before for a shelter in time of need R. P. But why did not Dr. St. answer punctually to all that T. G. said P. D. Because he did not think it material if the main things were proved R. P. Bu◠T. G. will think them unanswerable till he receive satisfaction concerning them P. D. That it may be is impossible to give a man that hath no mind to receive it but if you please let me hear the strength of what T. G. lays such weight upon that he may have no such pretence for the future and lest the third time we meet with the same Coleworts R. P. Doth not Dr. St. make express Scripture his most certain rule of Faith Doth not he on the other side deny any thing to be an Article of Faith which is not acknowledged to be such by Rome it self Then if God hath expresly forbidden the worship of himself by an Image it is an Article of Faith that he ought not to be worshipped by an Image and since Rome doth not acknowledge it it is not an Article of Faith Therefore T. G. calls upon the Dr. to speak out Is it or is it not an Article of Faith But T. G. saith he hath found out the Mysterie of the business for he can find out Mysteries I assure you as well as discover plots and catch Moles to gratifie the Non-conformists the Articles of the Church of England must pass only for inferiour truths but when the Church of Rome is to be charged with Idolatry then they are Articles of Faith so that as T. G. pleasantly saith the same proposition taken Irenically is an inferiour Truth but taken Polemically it must be an Article of Faith because expresly revealed in Scripture P. D. Is this it which T. G. thought worth repeating at large surely it was for the sake of the Clinch of Irenically and Polemically and not for any shew of difficulty in the thing For all the Mist is easily scattered by observing a very plain distinction of an Article of faith which is either taken 1. For an essential point of faith such as is antecedently necessary to the Being of a Christian Church and so the Creed is said to contain the Articles of our Faith and in this sense Dr. St. said the Church of Rome did hold all the essential points of faith which we did 2. For any doctrine plainly revealed in Scripture which is our Rule of faith And did Dr. St. ever deny that the Church of Rome opposed some things clearly revealed in Scripture nay it is the design of his Books to prove it doth And if every doctrine which can be deduced from a plain command of Scripture is to be looked on as an Article of Faith then that the Cup is to be given to those who partake of the Bread that Prayers are to be in a known Tongue will become Articles of Faith and do you think Dr. St. either Irenically or Polemically did ever yield that the Church of Rome did not oppose these If T. G. lays so much weight on such slight things as these I must tell you he is not the man I took him for and I believe it was only civility in Dr. St. to pass such things by R.P. But T.G. would know what he means by expresly forbidden only that it is clear to himself expecting that others should submit to his saying it
England and in her separation from Rome p. 168 A passage in the Irenicum cleared p. 170 How far Idolatry consistent with owning the fundamental Articles of Faith p. 175 T. G.'s shuffling about the sense of the second Commandment p. 186 Third Conference About the Nature of Idolatry p. 195 AN abstract of the Design of Dr. St.'s general Discourse of the Nature of Idolatry p. 196 Of the manner of T. G.'s answering it p. 200 The postulata granted by him p. 203 Many material omissions in T. G.'s Answer p. 205 Of the Patronus Bonae Fidei and the service he doth the Papists p. 208 The disparity between bowing towards the Altar and the Worship of Images at large cleared p. 211 Of the difference between Reverence to sacred Places and Worship of Images p. 215 The arguments of the Patronus Bonae Fidei against bowing towards the Altar answered p. 222 The supposition of Transubstantiation doth not make it more reasonable p. 227 Of Idolatry in the nature of the thing p. 233 Of the Sinfulness of Idolatry antecedently to a positive Law p. 235 T. G.'s principles justifie the Worship of God in any Creature p. 242 Relative Worship condemned by the Primitive Church p. 248 As great danger in the worship of Images as of Gods Creatures p. 252 T. G.'s trifling about Meletetiques and Mystical Theology p. 255 The incongruity of Worshipping Christ by a Crucifix p. 257 Of the Nature and Kinds of Certainty p. 258 Why the certainty of Religion called Moral p. 265 Several sorts of Certainty of the Christian Faith p. 266 Of the impossibility of falshood in it p. 268 Dr. St.'s charge of Idolatry reaches to definitions of Councils and practises generally allowed p. 270 The parallel about bowing towards the Altar farther answered p. 273 His Fidelity in citations justified against T. G.'s cavils p. 276 The citation of Lugo defended p. 277 The parallel between Reverence to sacred places and things and the Worship of Images fully disproved p. 284 The Citation of Greg. Nyssen entred upon p. 286 The parallel between the Arian and Romish Idolatry defended p. 288 T. G.'s exceptions against it answered p. 293 Greg. Nyssen's Testimony cleared p. 303 The difference of the practice of Invocation of Saints in the Church of Rome from the addresses in the fourth Century shewed in several particulars p. 306 T. G.'s answer to the Council of Laodicea examined p. 314 The testimony of Arnobius rightly cited by Dr. St. p. 325 Of relative Latria being given to Images p. 327 Of inferiour Worship as distinct from Latria and neither of them shewed to clear the Church of Rome from Idolatry p. 337 Fourth Conference About the Parallel between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry p. 349 T. G.'s notion of Heathen Idolatry p. 350 How far Jupiter's being the Supreme God relates to the main Controversie p. 351 In what sense Jupiter might be called an Unknown God p. 354 S. Augustin makes the true God to be truly worshipped by the Athenians p. 357 T. G.'s exceptions answered p. 359 The distinction between Jupiter of Greet and the supreme Jupiter p. 365 The place of Rom. 1.19 20. not answered by T. G. p. 369 Aquinas his Testimony cleared p. 371 The state of the Controversie about the Fathers p. 373 Justin Martyr no friend to T. G.'s hypothesis p. 377 Athenagoras at large cleared p. 379 A threefold Jupiter among the Fathers p. 380 Theophilus Antiochenus not to T. G.'s purpose p. 387 Tertullian vindicated p. 388 Clemens Alexandrinus p. 400 Minucius Felix p. 405 Other Testimonies rejected as impertinent p. 415 T. G.'s Accounts of Heathen Idolatry examined p. 419 First In taking their Images for Gods at large disproved p. 420 2. In worshipping many false Gods that likewise disproved p. 429 T. G.'s arguments answered p. 431 The absurd consequences of this notion of Heathen Idolatry p. 440 T. G.'s pittiful evasions as to the modern Idolaters p. 443 3. In worshipping the Creatures instead of God the Nature of that Idolatry enquired into p. 457 Worshipping the Creatures with respect to God as Soul of the world justifiable on the the same grounds with adoration of the Host. p. 461 Why it is Idolatry to give all external worship to the Creatures p. 467 A twofold hypothesis of Heathen Idolatry p. 470 The parallel as to the Church of Rome defended p. 473 Of Appropriate Acts of Divine Worship p. 478 What errour of judgement the act of Idolatry implyes p. 491 Lugo's Testimony cleared p. 495 Whether the Church hath power to discriminate Acts of Worship p. 499 How far circumstances discriminate Acts of Civil and Religious Worship p. 501 Whether the Church of Rome doth appropriate any Act of external adoration to God p. 522 That the very Sacrifice of the Mass is offered in honour of Gods Creatures and consequently is not appropriated to the honour of God p. 526 Dr. St. doth not differ from the Divines of the Church of England about the Sacrifice of the Mass. p. 540 How far the Sacrifice of the Mass may be said to be the Act of the People p. 542 ERRATA PAge 108. Line 11. dele not p. 161. l. 21. dele not p. 215. l. 7. r. savouring p. 232. l. 13. r. declares p. 234. l. 4. r. as so Sacred p. 246. l. 15. for no r. do p. 261. l. 4. for not so r. so p. 308. l. 17. for Fallo r. Fullo p. 319. l. 1. for Idolatry r. Idolaters p. 334. l. 7. for I not r. I do not p. 511. l. 5 6. for matters r. matter First Conference Concerning the sense of the Church of England about the Idolatry of the Church of Rome Rom. P. YOU are well met at this Auction of Books I have been present at many of them beyond Sea but I never was at one in England before How go the prices of Books here Fan. Ch. Very dear methinks by the Books I have bought but I find they are so catched up by our Brethren that if we will have them we must pay dear for them R. P. May I know what they are Sir F. C. Only some few choice pieces which I have picked out of this great Catalogue such as Nepthali or the Groanings of the Church of Scotland Cooks Monarchy no Creature of Gods making but the things I most value are the Pamphlets such as Sermons before the Long Parliament in several volumes And a rare Collection of Authors about Liberty of Conscience R. P. Are there so many Books to be had about Liberty of Conscience F. C. Yes a great many have written for and against it R. P. Who are they who have written for it F. C. To tell you the truth some of the same who wrote against it heretofore but they are now more enlightned as those who wrote against Separation when time was are now the greatest advocates for it For there are some providential Truths which vary according to circumstances Do not we see the Papists who were
thought the greatest enemies to toleration in the world now plead most vehemently for it and are even angry with us for not acting sufficiently in this cause against the Church of England But because I take you for a friend by your enquiring after these Books I must tell you it is yet a disputable point among us how far we may joyn with Antichrist to promote the interest of Christ And some insist on that place to prove the unlawfulness of it Be ye not unequally yoked others again prove it lawful because it is said Yet not altogether with the Fornicators of this world or with Idolaters whence they observe that they may joyn with them in some things or for some ends but not altogether i. e. they must not joyn with them in their Idolatries but they may against the Church of England R. P. This is too publick a place to talk of these matters in but may we not withdraw into the next room for I have a great mind to set you right in this main point of present concernment And if the Papists should be found not to be Idolaters a great part of your difficulty is gone Do you think it is not fit for you to be better informed in this matter when a thing of so great consequence depends upon it as your deliverance from the persecution of the Church of England which you know we have all sighed and groaned for a long time It is in vain for any of you to expect favour from thence as long as she is able to stand For if the Bishops were never so much inclined to it how could they possibly give ease to you without destroying themselves And since the dissenting parties are so different among themselves in their light and attainments it is impossible to please any one party without displeasing all the rest Comprehension is a meer snare and temptation to the Brethren being a design to prefer some and to leave the rest in the lurch Let us all joyn our strengths together to pull down this Church of England and then though there be a King in Israel every one may do what seemeth good in his own eyes F. C. I doubt you are not well seen in Scripture for the Text is In those dayes there was no King in Israel and every one did what seemed good in his own eyes whence you may observe a special hint by the by that Toleration agrees best with a Common-wealth But this to your self and you might justly wonder at this freedom with you but that I remember you many years ago when you and I preached up the Fifth Monarchy together in the Army Those were glorious dayes Ah the Liberty we then enjoyed Did we then think the good old Cause would ever have ended thus Well! It is good to be silent in bad times But methinks you and I however may retire and talk over old stories and refresh our memories with former out-goings together For here is little at present for us to do R. P. Whereabouts are they now in the Catalogue F. C. Among the Fathers those Old-Testament Divines What lights have we seen since their dayes We need not trouble our selves about them But I observe the Church of England men buy them up at any rate What prices do they give for a Justin Martyr or Epiphanius or Philo who they say was a meer Jew How must they starve their people with the Divinity of these men How much of the good Divinity of the late times might they have for the money We cannot but pity their blindness But I see we cannot be here so private as we wished for yonder sits a Divine of the Church of England who I suppose is the person who bought so many Fathers at the last Auction as though he had a mind to write against the Papists R. P. Sit you by a while and we will talk of our matters another time I have been much abroad since you and I were first acquainted and have lately brought over a new Book from Paris You shall see how I will handle him and if you put in upon occasion you shall find by this experiment what success our united forces would have against the Church of England F. C. Do you begin and you shall see how I will second you when occasion offers it self R. P. Sir I perceive the Divines of the Church of England do buy up the Fathers very much at Auctions I wonder that any who read the Fathers can be for the Church of England Pr. Div. And I do more wonder at you for saying so For therefore we are for the Church of England because we read both Scripture and Fathers R. P. To what purpose is all this charge and pains if there be an infallible Church P. D. Therefore to good purpose because there is no one Church infallible R. P. Is there not a Catholick Church P. D. Do you think I have forgotten my Creed R. P. Which is that Catholick Church P. D. Which of all the parts is the whole Is that your wise question Do not you know the Christian Church hath been broken into different Communions ever since the four General Councils and continues so to this day What do you mean by the Catholick Church R. P. I mean the Church of Rome P. D. Then you ask me which is the Church of Rome but what need you ask that since you know it already R. P. But the Roman Church is the Catholick Church P. D. You may as well say London is England or England the World And why may not we call England the World because the rest of the world is divided from it as you the Roman Church the Catholick Church because the other Churches are separated in Communion from it R. P. I mean the Roman Church is the Head and Fountain of Catholick Doctrine and other Churches are pure and sound as they do agree with it P. D. Your proposition is not so self-evident that the bare knowing your meaning must make me assent I pray first prove what you say before I yield R.P. Was not the Church of Rome once a sound and Catholick Church P. D. What then so was the Church of Jerusalem of Antioch and Alexandria and so were the seven Churches of Asia Were all these Heads and Fountains too R. P. But S. Paul speaks of the Church of Rome P. D. He doth so but not much to her comfort for he supposes she may be broken off through unbelief as well as any other Church R. P. Doth not S. Paul say that the Roman faith was spoken of throughout the World P. D. What then I beseech you doth it follow that faith must alwayes continue the same any more than that the Church of Philadelphia must at this day be what it was when S. John wrote those great commendations of it These are such slender proofs that you had as good come to downright begging the Cause as pretend to maintain it after such a manner
The faith of Rome was not more spoken of in the Apostles dayes than its errours and corruptions have been since R. P. These are general words name me one of those errours and corruptions P. D. For this time I will name the publick and allowed Worship of your Church which after all your shifts and evasions I cannot excuse from Idolatry R. P. How is that Idolatry God forbid I did not expect this charge from a Divine of the Church of England I was prepared to receive it from my old Fanatick acquaintance here he would have thundered me with the Texts of Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon and have quoted half the Book of the Revelations against me before this time if we had not espyed you in the Room But I perceive though your Artillery may be different your charge is the same I pray tell me how long is it since you of the Church of England have maintained this charge For I have been often told that only one late Defender of your Church hath advanced two new charges against the Church of Rome viz. Fanaticism and Idolatry and that the true Sons of the Church of England disown them both P. D. Whoever told you so hath deceived you but it is not the only thing they have deceived you in I never yet saw so much as a tolerable Answer to the Charge of Fanaticism And for that of Idolatry the Authour you mean hath proved beyond contradiction that it hath been managed against the Church of Rome by the greatest and most learned Defenders of the Church of England and the most genuine sons of it ever since the Reformation R.P. But have not you seen what T. G. hath said to all that and how he hath shewed that his Witnesses were incompetent P. D. I have both seen and considered all that T. G. hath said and compared it with Dr. Stillingfleets Reply in the General Preface to his Answers And I must declare to you that if the sense of a Church may be known by the concurrent sense of her most eminent Divines or by her most Authentick Acts as by the Book of Homilies Forms of Prayer and Thanksgivings Rubricks Injunctions the Judgement of Convocation even that of MDCXL Dr. St. hath made it evident that the charge of Idolatry is agreeable to the sense of the Church of England R. P. You thought T. G. would have quitted this Post upon Dr. St's second charge but you are mistaken in him for I have brought over a Book of Dialogues from Paris wherein T. G. undertakes again to prove this to be only the Charge of Fanaticks and not of the Church of England nor of the Genuine Sons of it F. C. It is true we whom you call Fanaticks do charge the Church of Rome or rather the Synagogue of Antichrist with Idolatry for Is it not said And they Worshipped the Beast But you must know for your comfort that we do likewise charge the Church of England with it For what are all their bowings and kneelings and crossings but vain imaginations and the Worship of them is as bad as the Worship of Images And do not they make an Idol of the Common Prayer P. D. This is not fair Gentlemen but one at once I beseech you As to your charge of the Church of England I shall be ready to answer it when you can agree to bring it in I now desire to know what evidence T. G. brings to prove the Charge of Idolatry not to be agreeable to the sense of the Church of England Hath he brought other Homilies other Injunctions other Rubricks other Convocations or at least other Divines generally received and owned for the Genuine Sons of this Church who have from time to time freed the Church of Rome from Idolatry and looked upon the charge not only as unjust but pernicious and destructive to the Being of a Church Nay can he produce any one Divine of the Church of England before the Convocation MDCXL that ever said any such thing or did wholly acquit the Church of Rome from this charge If not let him not think we have a new Church made after another model and upon new principles or that those can be esteemed the genuine Sons of it who contradict the sense of the Church ever since the Reformation If there be any such among us they ought first to be proved to be true Sons of our Church before their testimony be allowed which if I be not mistaken will be much harder than to prove the Charge of Idolatry to be agreeable to the sense of it But what method doth T. G. take in this matter R.P. T. G. like a wary man disputes in Masquerade For he doth not think fit to appear in his own Person but he brings in a Conformist and a Non-conformist arguing the point And the Conformist speaks T. G.'s sense in acquitting the Church of Rome and the Non-conformist vindicates Dr. St. and makes a pitiful defence of him P.D. It was very wittily done And the Scene was well enough laid if the plot were only to represent Dr. St. as a secret enemy to the Church of England as I suppose it was But to what purpose are all those personal reflections and some repeated over and over with so much appearance of rancour and ill will as doth not become a man of any common ingenuity Can the Catholick Cause be maintained by no other Arts than these Methinks T. G. might have let the little Whifflers in Controversie such as the Authour of the Address to the Parliament and of that precious Pamphlet called Jupiter Dr. St's supreme God c. to have made a noise at they know not what crying out upon him as an enemy to the Church of England because he defends her cause to their great vexation and as a friend to Pagan Idolatry because he hath laid open the folly of yours These are such weak assaults as expose your cause to the contempt of all wise men who expect reason should be answered with reason and not with calumnies and reproaches which in my apprehension Dr. St. ought to rejoyce in as the marks of victory for while they have any other ammunition left no enemies will betake themselves to dirt and stones When I read through the First Part of T. G.'s Dialogues and observed how industriously he set himself to bespatter his Adversary and raked all the Kennels he could for that purpose especially that of the Patronus bonae Fidei c. I could not but think of an animal which being closely pursued and in great danger gets himself into the most convenient place for mire and dirt and there so layes about him with his Heels that no one dares to come near him It was certainly with some such design that T. G. hath at last taken sanctuary in a bog hoping his Adversary will never pursue him thither But notwithstanding this project of his we will try whether in spite of his heels we cannot bring him
our interest but none that understand and value our Church will endure such a pernicious discrimination among the Sons of the same Mother as though some few were fatally determined to be the Sons of our Church whatever their Works and Merits were and others absolutely cast off notwithstanding the greatest service I should not mention this but that I see T. G. insinuating all along such a distinction as this and crying up some persons on purpose as the only genuine Sons of the Church of England that he might cast reproach upon others and thereby foment animosities among Brethren But whose Children those are who do so I leave T. G. to consider R. P. Whatever T. G.'s intention was yet you cannot deny that he hath proved two parts in three to be incompetent Witnesses according to his own Measures P. D. Not deny it I never saw any thing more weakly attempted to be proved as Dr. St. hath shewed at large in his Preface Bishop White being rejected as a Puritan because condemned by that party Bishop Jewel because K. Charles said he was not infallible Bishop Bilson because of his errours about Civil Government though a stout defender of the Church of England Bishop Davenant because he was none of the Fathers Bishop Vsher because his Adversary gives an ill character of him By this you may judge what powerful exceptions T. G. made against two parts in three of the Witnesses R. P. T. G. saith That Dr. St. rather waved the exceptions by pretty facetious artifices of Wit than repelled them by a downright denial out of the affection Catharinus hopes he bears still to the Cause which had been honoured by such learned and godly Bishops as Jewel Downham Usher the two Abbots and Davenant which are recorded among the Puritans by the Patronus bonae Fidei P. D. You might as well have quoted Surius Cochlaeus for your Church as this Patronus bonae Fidei for ours For he is an Historian much of their size and credit But of him we shall have occasion to speak hereafter T. G. filling page after page out of him Let the Reader judge whether Dr. St. did not shew T. G.'s exceptions to be vain and srivolous and consequently these remain substantial and competent Witnesses And as to the cause of the Church of England which these learned and pious Prelates defended and honoured Dr. St. will rejoyce to be joyned with them though it be in suffering reproach for the sake of it R. P. Let us pass over these single Testimonies and come to the most material proofs which Dr. St. used and T. G. declares he is not yet convinced by them that the charge of Idolatry was the sense of the Church of England P. D. With all my heart The First was from the Book of Homilies not barely allowed but subscribed to as containing godly and wholsome doctrine very necessary for these times which owns this charge of Idolatry not in any doubtful or single passage but in an elaborate Discourse intended for the Teachers as well as the People To which he added that the Doctrine of the Homilies is allowed in the thirty nine Articles which were approved by the Queen confirmed by the subscription of both Houses of Convocation A. D. 1571. And therefore he desires T. G. to resolve him whether men of any common understanding would have subscribed to the Book of Homilies in this manner if they had believed the main doctrine and design of one of them had been false and pernicious If saith he any of the Bishops had at that time thought the charge of Idolatry unjust and that it had subverted the foundation of Ecclesiastical Authority would they have inserted this into the Articles when it was in their power to have left it out and that the Homilies contained a wholesome and godly Doctrine which in their consciences they believed to be false and pernicious He might as well think he saith that the Council of Trent would have allowed Calvins Institutions as containing a wholesome and godly Doctrine as that men so perswaded would have allowed the Homily against the peril of Idolatry And how is it possible to understand the sense of our Church better than by such publick and authentick Acts of it which all persons who are in any place of trust in the Church must subscribe and declare their approbation of This Homily hath still continued the same the Article the very same and if so they must acknowledge this hath been and is to this day the sense of our Church And to what T. G. saith that this doth not evince every particular doctrine contained in the Homilies to be godly and wholesome because the whole Book is subscribed to as containing such doctrine he answers that there is a great deal of difference to be made between some particular passages and expressions in these Homilies and the main doctrine and design of a whole Homily and between subscribing to a whole Book as containing godly and wholsome doctrine though men be not so certain of the Truth of every passage in it and if they are convinced that any doctrine contained in it is false and pernicious Now those who deny the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry do not only look on the charge as false but as of dangerous consequence and therefore such a subscription would be shuffling and dishonest From these things laid together in my mind Dr. St. hath not only clearly proved that the charge of Idolatry was not only owned by the composers of the Homilies but by all who have honestly subscribed to the Articles from that time to our own And I would be glad to hear what answer T. G. gives to all this R. P. He answers first by repeating what he said before and then by shewing that subscription is no good argument considering what had been done and undone in that kind in the Reigns of K. Henry 8. Edw. 6. Q. Mary and Q. Elizabeth not to speak of latter times P. D. What is this but in plain terms to say the subscribers of our Articles were men of no honesty or conscience but would say or unsay subscribe one thing or another as it served their turn If this be his way of defending our Church we shall desire him to defend his own But yet this doth not reach home to the Doctors argument which proceeded not meerly on their honesty but their having common understanding For here was no force or violence offered them they had the full power to consider the Articles and to compose the Homilies and would men of common sense put in things against their own minds and make and approve and recommend Homilies which they did not believe themselves This evidently proves the composers of the Homilies and Convocation at that time did approve the doctrine of these Homilies for it was in their power not to have passed them Thus far it is plain that was the doctrine of the Church then
are we not like to meet with very hopeful Demonstrations in the scientifical way from him But I have one argument yet more to prove there was no such change as to this matter in Archbishop Lauds time which is from the Convocation A. D. 1640. wherein no one questions the influence and direction of Archbishop Laud and the concurrence of those of his Party as T. G. calls them and yet in that very Book of Pet. Heylins he might have seen that Canon wherein they acknowledge the Idolatry of the Mass and T. G. could not pretend any ignorance of this for Dr. St. had quoted this very Canon to this purpose to shew that this was the sense of Archbishops Bishops and Clergy in Convocation so lately and so long after the first heats of the Reformation But what answer doth T. G. give to this which is so material a Testimony and so destructive to all he saith upon this matter R. P. I do not remember he takes notice of it but if you please I will look for I have his Book about me P. D. Not take notice of it It is impossible What! doth he pretend to answer and pass by the plainest and strongest arguments as if they had never been brought This is a very satisfactory way of answering and becoming the ingenuity of T. G. but I pray Sir look again I am afraid you wrong him I suppose you never read Dr. St.'s Books but only the Answers to them and then I do not wonder you applaud the Answers if they leave out the hardest arguments R. P. You have a little startled me with this omission I have turned over all the Leaves which relate to this matter very carefully and I cannot find one word about it surely it was an involuntary omission P. D. How could that be involuntary when it was produced and urged with great force to shew that this was no Puritanical charge no heat at the beginning of the Reformation no private opinion of particular persons but the sense of our whole Church representative even in A. D. 1640. R. P. I confess I know not what to say more for him but that it was an omission P.D. No Sir that is not all for there is a fault of commission too for he doth not only leave out this but he advances an hypothesis which he might easily see the falshood of from this single testimony viz. that the charge of Idolatry was only a heat of the beginning of the Reformation which was disowned in the time of K. Charles and Archbishop Laud when at the same time he could not but see the plainest evidence to the contrary by the Convocation of A. D. 1640. Is your cause to be supported only by such tricks as these R. P. You are too like Dr. St. whom T. G. charges with being too Tragical upon such slight occasions and flinging and laying about him unreasonably for a thing of nothing as when T. G. mistook Robert Abbot for George P. D. Call you this a thing of nothing methinks it is rather making nothing of a very substantial thing As to the other mistake I suppose we shall hear of it ere long I pray let us proceed in order R. P. Dr. St.'s third Argument is from the Rubrick at the end of the Communion the words are these Whereas it is ordained in this Office for the administration of the Lords Supper that the communicants should receive the same kneeling F.C. Hold there I pray what receive the Communion kneeling Give me leave to come in now for I perceive you are hard pressed and we ought to give friendly assistance to one another against these Church of England-men and therefore I will prove them guilty of Idolatry in receiving the Sacrament kneeling P. D. This will be a digression but I alwayes owe so much service to the Church of England as to be ready to defend it from so unjust a charge therefore to your business F. C. Mr. Case in his Sermon before the Long Parliament at a General Fast on such a day saith thus P. D. I pray Sir speak to the point I am not now at leisure to hear Mr. Cases Sermon repeated F. C. I hope you will not interrupt me P. D. Not when you speak to the business Do you understand what Idolatry is F. C. That is a question to be asked indeed as though I did not know what the cup of fornication means that is Idolatry and to bow at the name of Jesus and to bow to the Altar that is Idolatry do you think I do not know what Idolatry is Methinks you should have more reverence for a man of my years than to ask me such a sawcy Question have I preached this thirty years and more in the Army and in private Congregations and live to be asked such a question by you Sir I knew what Idolatry was before you were born P. D. Then I hope you can tell me now I am of Age to understand it F. C. Why have I not told you already P. D. I pray sir let us talk calmly and understand one another which we shall never do unless we agree what is Idolatry I pray give me the definition of it F. C. The definition When I was a young man as you are I had as many definitions in my head as any Body but we that are upon constant duties of another nature cannot trouble our Heads with Definitions or such idle notions But alas we grow old and such things are soon forgotten I remember in my younger dayes I read Bucanus Polanus and Amesius nay there was not a good Systeme of Orthodox Divinity to be had but I read it and noted it but I lost my notes in the time of the Wars and could never recover them P. D. This is a little off from our business I hope you are better at application of the point than at explication of it What is it in the Church of England you do charge with Idolatry F. C. Kneeling at the Sacrament P. D. For what reason F. C. Stay a little I thought I had my arguments at my Fingers ends but see how strangely good things slip out of our memories But now I remember I have some short notes about me which I took out of Mr. Gillespie's Idolatry of the English Popish Ceremonies and let me tell you he was a mighty man in his dayes against the Church of England and this Book of his did great execution upon the Bishops in Scotland I can remember how much it affected the Brethren in England and how we compared him to one of Davids Worthies that killed the Giants of the Philistins P. D. Sir at this rate of talking it will be night before you come to the Question methinks you seem to have nothing to say against us of the Church of England F. C. I nothing to say against you who ever heard me without having something to say against you I tell you Sir I look upon your Church
resolved to believe it for the Authority of your Church can never perswade any man that is not R. P. When you are gotten to this point of transubstantiation it is hard to get you off It is the sore place of our Church and you are like Flyes in Summer alwayes busie about it I pray return to your Rubrick for you seem to have forgotten it P. D. No I have been pursuing it hitherto R. P. But what say you to T. G.'s reasons why this must be understood of a corporeal presence of Christs natural Body because you else overthrow the doctrine of a real presence which hath been accounted the doctrine of the Church of England P. D. To this I answer 1. The Rubrick saith expresly that it is against the truth of Christs natural Body to be at one time in more places than one It doth not say against the corporeal presence of his natural Body but the truth of it from whence it follows that our Church believes the true natural body of Christ which was born of the Virgin suffered on the Cross and ascended into Heaven can be but in one place which is declared in the foregoing words And the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here i. e. in Heaven exclusively from being in the Sacrament Which are not true if the same natural Body of Christ could be at the same time in Heaven and in the Host. R. P. How then can your Divines hold a real presence of Christs Body as T. G. saith they do P. D. You had heard if you had staid till I came to my second Answer which is that notwithstanding this our Church doth hold that after Consecration the Elements do become the Body and Blood of Christ and so there is a real presence of Christs Body but not of his natural but of a mystical Body I will endeavour to make this out to you because you look strangely upon me as if I were big of some mighty paradox When Paschasius Radbertus did first broach the modern doctrine of the Roman Church about the same body of Christ being in the Sacrament which was born of the B. Virgin in the Western Church he met with great opposition therein from the most learned Divines of that Age among the rest there lived then in the Court of Carolus Calvus a man very eminent for his Learning called Joh. Scotus or Erigena This man at the request of Carolus Calvus delivered his opinion directly contrary to Paschasius for whereas he asserted that the very same Body of Christ which was born of the B. Virgin was invisibly present under the accidents of Bread and Wine Scotus denyed that the Elements were in any real sense after consecration the Body and Blood of Christ the Sacrament being only a bare commemoration or figurative representation of the Body and Blood of Christ. So Hincmarus who lived in that Age delivers his opinion which was afterwards taken up by Berengarius as appears by Lanfrank's answer to him And Ascelinus in his Epistle to Berengarius shews that Joh. Scotus out of opposition to Paschasius set himself to prove from the Fathers that what was consecrated on the Altar was not truly and really the Body and Blood of Christ. These two opposite doctrines being thus dispersed and a Schism being likely to break out upon it as appears both by Ratramnus and the Anonymous Authour published by Cellotius and extant in MS in the Cotton Library Carolus Calvus sends to Ratramnus an eminent Divine of that Age being imployed by the Gallican Church to defend the Latins against the Greeks to know his judgement in this matter He who is better known by the name of Bertram gives in his Preface an Account to his Prince of both these opinions and rejects them both as against the sense of the Fathers and Doctrine of the Church In the first part of his Book he disputes against Scotus who would allow no Mysterie and in the second against Paschasius who contended that the same Body of Christ was in the Sacrament which was born of the B. Virgin this he saith was the state of the second Question whether that very Body of Christ which sits at the right hand of God be reâ—eived by believers in the Sacramental Mysterie And he proves the Negative at large from the Testimonies of the Fathers shewing that they did put a difference between that Body of Christ which was born of the Virgin and suffered on the Cross and that true but mystical body of Christ on the Altar and so from the Testimonies of S. Ambrose S. Augustine S. Hierom Fulgentius from the Scriptures and from the Offices of the Church he concludes point-blank against Paschasius that it was not the same Body of Christ in the Sacrament which was born of the B. Virgin But then against the opinion of Scotus he delivers his mind fully in answer to the first Question saying If there were nothing in the Sacrament but what appeared to the senses it was unfitly called a Mysterie and there would be no exercise for faith no change at all wrought in the Elements the Sacrament would fall short of Baptism and the Manna in the Wilderness and lastly to what purpose did Christ promise his Flesh to be the Food of his People which being not to be understood carnally and literally must have a spiritual signification so that though as to their outward appearance the Sacramental Elements are Figures yet according to the invisible Power and Efficacy they are the Body and Blood of Christ. And this he shews to have been the sense of the Fathers and Christian Church This opinion of Ratramnus Paschasius in his Epistle to Frudegardus calls the doctrine of those who deny the presence of Christs Flesh in the Sacrament but do hold an invisible power and efficacy in and with the Elements because say they there is no body but what is visible and palpable And whoever will read that Epistle of Paschasius will find the expressions he answers the very same that yet occur in the Book of Bertram Of the same opinion with Ratramnus in this matter was Rabanus Maurus the greatest Divine accounted of his Age who wrote his Epistle to Egilo against them who had lately broached that doctrine mark that that the Body of Christ in the Sacrament was the very same which was born of the B. Virgin and suffered on the Cross and rose from the dead And this appears from his Epistle to Heribaldus still extant wherein he saith he declared in what sense the Sacrament was the Body of Christ. Besides the Anonymus Authour published by Cellotius the only person about that time who appeared in behalf of the doctrine of Paschasius and very inconsiderable in comparison of his Adversaries confesseth the opposition made to Paschasius by Rabanus and Ratramnus and endeavours to excuse his simplicity in asserting that the same flesh of Christ was upon the Altar which was
born of the Virgin by a new and extravagant supposition of the Sacrament being the medium of uniting two real bodies of Christ viz. of his flesh and of his Church and therefore that must be a real body of Christ too which is so remote from justifying Paschasius his doctrine that Cellotius himself is ashamed of him This same doctrine of Rabanus and Ratramnus is expresly owned by the Saxon Homilies which deny the Sacrament to be a meer commemoration according to the opinion of Joh. Erigena but say that after consecration the bread becomes the Body of Christ after a spiritual and mystical manner and in the Saxon Code of Canons it is expresly determined not to be that Body of Christ which suffered on the Cross. And this I assert to be the very same doctrine which the Church of England embraced upon the Reformation as most consonant to Scripture and the Fathers which although it doth declare against the natural Body of Christ being in more places than one even that Body of Christ which is in heaven yet in the Articles it declares that the body of Christ is given taken and eaten so that to the faithful receivers the Bread consecrated and broken becomes the Communion of the Body of Christ and the cup of blessing the communion of the Blood of Christ. And so in the Catechism it is said that the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken of the faithful in the Lords Supper i. e. that after consecration such a divine power and efficacy doth accompany the Holy Sacrament as makes the elements to become the Spiritual and mystical Body of Christ as the Church is really but mystically the Body of Christ because of his Spirit dwelling in them So the Apology of our Church saith that in the Lords Supper there is truly exhibited the Body and Blood of Christ because that is the proper food of our souls as Bread and Wine tends to the nourishment of our Bodiess And if the time would permit I could not only more largely prove this to be the sense of our Church but that it is the true and genuine sense of the Fathers both of the Greek and Latine Church And thus I hope I have done that which T. G. thought so impossible a thing viz. to explain this Rubrick so as not to undermine the doctrine of the real presence asserted by the Church of England nor to leave nothing but pure Zuinglianism in the place of it R. P. I was afraid of a Paradox and it appears not without Reason for I never met with any one yet who explained the doctrine of Bertram and the Church of England after this manner and all that attempted it talked so in the clouds that transubstantiation it self did not seem more hard to understand but I remember Pet. de Marca hath proved that the Book of Bertram was the same which was written by Joh. Scotus and therefore your hypothesis is utterly overthrown P. D. I have read and considered that faint attempt of that Great Man which seemed to be designed for no other end but to make us believe that Bertrams Book was burned for heretical at the Synod of Vercelles but if any one will impartially consider the Book of Bertram and compare it with the account given of the opinion of Joh. Scotus by the Writers against Berengarius they will find De Marca's opinion without the least colour of probability R. P. But Card. Perron Mauguin Cellotius and Arnaud all say that Bertram in the First part disputes against the Stercoranists who were a sort of Hereticks who held that the Body of Christ in the Eucharist was passible corruptible and digestible and in all things just as the bread appeared to our senses and asserted that all the accidents of the Bread were founded hypostatically in the Body of Christ and not to have any proper subsistence of their own P. D. These were a notable sort of Hereticks if they could be found but it appears by the enemies of Berengarius that this opprobrious name was fixed by them on all those who asserted the substance of the Bread to remain after consecration and it would be very strange if Bertram should confute that which himself asserts for he saith the Sacramental Elements do pass into the nourishment of our Bodies But if any were lyable to this accusation it must be Paschasius if Pet. de Marca's observation of him be true that he held both substance and quantity of the Bread and Wine to be turned into the Body of Christ from whence it follows that must be the subject of all those accidents which were in the Bread before which is the very sink of Stercoranism Nay I am very much deceived if Pope Nicholas 2. in the recantation prescribed to Berengarius did not fall into the filth of it far more than Rabanus or Heribaldus for he asserts therein that the Body of Christ is truly and sensibly handled and broken by the hands of Priests and ground by the teeth of Believers But what place could be fitter for this Heresie than the Sedes Stercoraria And Guitmundus striving to help Pope Nicholas and his Council out falls into the same Heresie himself for he shews that Christs Body may be handled and chewed in the Sacrament if so it must be the subject of the Accidents of the Bread and Wine Which according to Perron and his followers is plain Stercorâ—nism R. P. But do not you fall into another Heresie viz. of Impanation P. D. A man had need look to his words when Heresies are so common and buz so about a mans ears And some think they confute a man with a vengeance if they can find out some Heresie with a hard name to fasten upon him But if you did know wherein the heresie of Impanation lay you would never charge this doctrine of our Church with it For I find two distinct wayes of Impanation and this doctrine is lyable to neither of them 1. By union of the Bread to the Body of Christ and by that to the Divinity which was the way of Joh. Parisiensis 2. By an immediate conjunction of the Divine Nature to the Bread not meerly by divine efficacy and power but by an Hypostatical Vnion which is the opinion not without ground attributed to Rupertus Tuitiensis and is lyable to this great absurdity that all that befals the Bread may be attributed to the person of Christ which Bellarmine saith it is blasphemy to imagine And then it might be said that the bread is God that the Word is made Bread and that God is both bread and wine But all which the doctrine of our Church implyes is only a real presence of Christs invisible power and Grace so in and with the Elements as by the faithful receiving of them to convey spiritual and real effects to the souls of men As the Bodies assumed by Angels might be called their Bodies while they assumed them or rather as the
order in the Church of God it is enough to make things lawful if they are not forbidden Let us now compare this saying with what he calls the Fundamental principle of Separation that nothing is lawful in the Worship of God but what he hath expresly commanded and can any thing be more contradictory to this than what Dr. St. layes down as a principle in that very page of his Irenicum that an express positive command is not necessary to make a thing lawful but a non-prohibition by a Law is sufficient for that Where then lay T. G.'s understanding or ingenuity when he mentions such a great change in the Dr. as to this principle when he owned the very same principle even in that Book and that very page he quotes to the contrary T. G. doth presume good Catholick Readers will take his word without looking farther and I scarce ever knew a Writer who stands more in need of the good opinion of his Reader in this kind than T. G. doth As I shall make it fully appear if you hold on this discourse with me for I have taken some pains to consider T. G.'s manner of dealing with his Adversary But this is too gross a way of imposing upon the credulity of Readers yet this is their common method of dealing with Dr. St. When they intend to write against him then have you Dr. St. 's Irenicum hoping to find matter there to expose him to the hatred of the Bishops and to represent him as unfit to defend the Church of England If this takes not then they pick sentences and half-sentences from the series of the discourse and laying these together cry Look ye here is this a man fit to defend your Church that so contradicts himself thus and thus when any common understanding by comparing the places will find them either falsely represented or easily reconciled In truth Sir I think you have shewed as little learning or skill or ingenuity in answering him as any one Adversary that ever appeared against your Church and especially when T. G. goes about to prove that he contradicts himself or the sense of the Church of England R. P. But I pray tell me if this charge of Idolatry were agreeable to the sense of the Church of England why the Articles of the Church do only reject the Romish Doctrine concerning worshipping and adoration of Images not as Idolatry but as a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture but rather repugnant to the word of God For I perceive this sticks much with T. G. and from hence he concludes Dr. St. to contradict the sense of it who is the Champion of the Church of England P. D. I perceive T. G. kept this for a parting blow after which he thought fit to breath a while having spent so many spirits in this encounter but methinks his arm grows feeble and although his fury be as great as ever yet his strength is decayed And in my mind it doth not become a man of his Chivalry so often to leave his Lance and to run with open mouth upon his Adversary and to bite till his Teeth meet For what mean the unhandsome reflections he makes on all occasions upon his being the Champion of the Church of England and the Church of Englands having cause to be ashamed of such a Champion and of his putting him in mind of his duty as the Champion of the Church not to betray the Church he pretends to defend Where doth he ever assume any such title to himself or ever entred the lists but on the account of obedience or upon great provocation The name of Champion savours too much of vanity and ostentation whereas he only shewed how easily the Cause could be defended when his superiours first commanded such a stripling as he then was to undertake the defence of it But I shall set aside these reflections and come to the point of our Articles and therein consider 1. What T. G. objects 2. What Dr. St. answered 3. Which way the sense of the Articles is to be interpreted T. G. looks upon it as a notable observation that the Compilers of the 39 Articles in which is contained the doctrine of the Church of England sufficiently insinuate that they could find no such command forbidding the Worship of Images when they rejected the adoration of Images not as Idolatry but only as a fond thing vainly invented nor as repugnant to the plain words of Scripture but as rather repugnant to the word of God which qualification of theirs gives us plainly to understand that they had done their endeavours to find such a command but could meet with none To which Dr. St. gives this answer that the force of all he saith lyes upon the words of the English translation whereas if he had looked on the Latin wherein they give account of their doctrine to foreign Churches this Criticism had been lost the words being immo verbo Dei contradicit whereby it appears that rather is not used as a term of diminution but of a more vehement affirmation And what saith T. G. I pray to this R. P. T. G. repeats his own words at large and then blames the compilers of the Articles for want of Grammar if they intend the word rather to affect the words that follow P. D. But what is all this to the Latin Articles which Dr. St. appealed to for explication of the English And for the Love of Grammar let T. G. tell us whether there be not a more vehement affirmation in those words immo verbo Dei contradicit Either T. G. should never have mentioned this more or have said something more to the purpose For doth he think our Bishops and Clergy were not careful that their true sense were set forth in the Latin Articles And their sense being so peremptory herein and contrary to T.G. is there not all the reason in the world to explain the English Articles by the Latin since we are sure they had not two meanings This is so plain I am ashamed to say a word more to it R. P. But T. G. is very pleasant in describing the arguments Dr. St. brings to prove the Articles to make the worship of Images Idolatry because it is called Adoration of Images and said to be the Romish Doctrine about adoration But after the Cat hath plaid with the Mouse as long as he thinks fit leaping and frisking with him in his claws at last he falls on him with his Teeth and hardly leaves a bone behind him After he hath muster'd his arguments and drawn them out in rank and file and made one charge upon another for the pleasure of the Reader he then gives him a plain and solid answer viz. by the words Romish doctrine concerning adoration of Images may be understood either the Doctrine taught in her Schools which being but the opinions of particular persons no man is bound to follow or
the doctrine taught in her Councils which all those of her communion are bound to submit to If the Doctrine which the Church of England chargeth be that which is taught by some of her School Divines which he takes to be her true meaning this is also denyed at least by those very Divines who teach it to be Idolatry If by the Romish Doctrine be meant the Doctrine of Councils owned by the Church of Rome concerning worshipping and adoration of Images then herein she is vindicated from Idolatry by Eminent Divines that have been esteemed true and genuine Sons of the Church of England P. D. And doth this mighty effort come to this at last What pity it is T. G. had no better a Cause he sets this off so prettily and dazels the eyes of his beholders with the dust he raises so that those who do not narrowly look into his feats of activity would imagine him still standing when he is only endeavouring to recover a fall For 1. By Adoration of Images our Church doth not mean that which their School Divines call adoration of Images as they distinguish it from Veneration of them but it means all that Religious Worship which by the allowed Doctrine and practice of the Roman Church is given to Images And this is just the case of the Council of Francford concerning which I hear T. G. saith not one word in his last Book and I commend him for it the Western Bishops condemn adoration of Images very true saith T. G. and his Brethren but all this was a bare mistake of the Nicene Council which never approved adoration of Images but only an inferiour Worship but Dr. St. hath shewed that the Francford Council knew of this distinction well enough and notwithstanding their denying it the Western Church did not judge that the worship which they gave to Images was really adoration whether they called it so or not Just so it is with the Church of England in reference to the Church of Rome this distinguishes adoration from inferiour Worship but our Church owns no such distinction and calls that Religious worship which they give to Images adoration and supposing it were really so Dr. St. saith their own Divines yield it to be Idolatry i. e. the Church of England calls their worship of Images adoration or giving Divine Worship to a Creature but their Divines do yield this is Idolatry and therefore the Church of England doth charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry But how subtilly had T. G. altered the whole force of the argument by taking adoration not in the sense of our Church but of their School-Divines and then telling us that even those School-Divines who teach adoration of Images deny it to be Idolatry And whoever expected they should confess themselves guilty But what is this to the sense of the Church of England where doth it allow such a distinction of Divine worship into that which is superiour and inferiour or that which is proper to God and that which is not 2. By Romish Doctrine the Church of England doth not mean the doctrine of the School-divines but the Doctrine received and allowed in that Church from whence the Worship of Images is required and practised Such kind of Worship I mean as is justified and defended in common among them without their School-distinctions such worship as was required here in the Recantation of the Lollards as Dr. St. observes I do swear to God and all his Seynts upon this Holy Gospel that fro this day forward I shall worship Images with praying and offering unto them in the Worship of the Seynts that they be made after such Worship as was required here by the Constitutions of Arundel A. D. 1408. with processions genuflections thurifications deosculations oblations burnings of Lights and Pilgrimages which are called Acts of Adoration and this Constitution was a part of the Canon Law of England which all persons were then bound to observe or else might be proceeded against as Lollards And this is that which Dr. St. insists upon was the thing condemned by the Articles of our Church viz. the Worship of Images which was required and practised here in England And what reason have we to run to School-Divines for the sense of matters of daily practice as the worship of Images was before the Reformation And so I conclude if this be all T. G. in so long time hath had to say about this matter viz. above four years since Dr. St.'s General Preface was Published he hath very unreasonably charged him with dissenting from the Church of England in this Charge of Idolatry F. C. I hope you have done for this time and if you catch me again losing so much time in hearing Fending and proving about the Church of England I will give you leave to call me Fanatick If you have any thing more of this kind talk it out your selves if you please I expected to have had some comfortable talk with my old Friend about Liberty of Conscience and how many precious hours have you lost about the Church of England This will never do our business If you please my good Friend you and I will meet in private at such a place to morrow P. D. Nay Sir let me not be excluded your company since I am so accidentally faln into it and have but patience to hear us talk out these matters since we have begun them For I hear your Friends Friend T. G. hath said some things wherein your Cause is concerned F. C. I do intend for the Auction again to morrow and if I can easily get the Books I look for I will bear you company otherwise go on with your Discourse and I will come to you when I have made my Adventures It is possible I may meet with some of them to night for I hear them at Rutherford and Gillespee and our Divinity follows just after the Scotch Which was well observed by the Catalogue-maker For the Covenant bound us to reform according to the pattern of the Church of Scotland R. P. You intend then to meet here again to morrow at three of Clock to pursue our Conferences about these matters I will not fail you and so adieu The end of the first Conference THE Second Conference About the consequences of the charge of Idolatry P. D. HOw long have you been at the Auction R. P. Above an hour for I had a great desire to see how the Books were sold at them P. D. And I pray what do you observe concerning the buying of Books here R. P. I find it a pretty humoursome thing and sometimes men give greater rates for Books than they may buy them for in the Shops and yet generally Books are sold dearer here than in any part of Europe P. D. What reason can you give for that R. P. One is that the Scholars of England allow themselves greater Liberty in Learning than they do in foreign parts where commonly only one kind of
G. told Dr. St. the charge of Idolatry doth For by vertue of this charge he saith the Church of England remains deprived of the lawful Authority to use and exercise the Power of Orders and consequently the Authority of Governing Preaching and Adminstring the Sacraments which those of the Church of England challenge to themselves as derived from the Church of Rome can be no true and lawful jurisdiction but usurped and Antichristian This I assure you T. G. layes great weight upon in his late Dialogues and charges him with Ignorance and Tergiversation and other hard words about it So that I have a mind to hear what you can say in his defence about this before I touch upon the other consequences which he urgeth upon this charge of Idolatry P. D. With all my heart There are two things wherein the force of T. G.'s argument lyes 1. That which he calls his undeniable Maxim of Reason viz. That no man can give to another that which he hath not himself 2. That Idolatry lays men under the Apostles excommunication and therefore are deprived of all lawful Authority to use or exercise the Power of Orders In answer to these two things are already proved by Dr. St. 1. That the sin of the Givers doth not hinder the validity of Ordination 2. That the Christian Church hath allowed the lawful Authority of giving and exercising the Power of Orders in those who have been condemned for Idolatry Which he proves more briefly in his Preface and at large in his last Book from the case of the Arian Bishops And now let any one judge whether T. G. had any cause to Hector about this matter for so many pages together as though he had either not understood or not taken notice of the force of his Argument Concerning his undeniable Maxime of Reason he observed that it was the very argument used by the Donatists to prove the nullity of Baptism among Hereticks and that the answer given by the Church was that the Instrument was not the Giver but the First Institutor and if the Minister keep to the Institution the Grace of the Sacrament may be conveyed though he hath it not himself This Dr. St. thought very pertinent to shew that where Power and Authority are conveyed by men only as Instruments the particular default of such persons as heresie or Idolatry do not hinder the derivation of that Power or Authority to them And this he proved to be the sense of the Christian Church in the Ordinations of Hereticks It is true he did not then speak to Authority so much as to Power nor to jurisdiction as it is called by the School Divines so much as to the validity of Ordination But he proceeded upon a parity of Reason in both cases and could not imagine that any persons would suppose the Christian Church would allow a validity of Orders without lawful Authority to use and exercise those Orders For in all the Instances produced by him from the second Council of Nice wherein undeniable examples were brought of Ordinations of Hereticks allowed by the ancient Fathers and Councils even those of Nice Ephesus and Chalcedon it was apparent that their Authority to use and exercise their power of Orders was allowed as well as their Ordinations For he there shews that Anatolius the President of the fourth Council was ordained by Dioscorus in the presence of Eutyches that many of the Bishops who sat in the sixth Council were ordained by Sergius Pyrrhus Paulus and Petrus who in that Council were declared Hereticks And doth T. G. in earnest think this doth not prove they had lawful Authority What becomes then of the Authority of these Councils nay of the Authority of the Church it self when Tarasius there saith as Dr. St. produceth him they had no other Ordinations for fifty years together Doth this prove either Dr. St.'s ignorance or tergiversation Is not this rather plain and convincing evidence that the Christian Church did allow not barely the validity of Ordination by Hereticks but the lawful Authority to use and exercise the Power of Orders Which he likewise proves by the Greek Ordinations allowed by the Church of Rome by which he doth not mean the validity of the bare Orders but all that Power and Authority which is consequent upon them For can any man be so sensless to think that the Church of Rome only allowed the Sacrament of Orders among the Greeks without any Authority to excommunicate or absolve What mean then these horrible clamours by TG of Dr. St.'s Ignorance intolerable mistake shameful errors tergiversation and what not because he speaks only to the validity of Ordination and not to the lawful Authority of exercising the Power of Orders Whereas the contrary appears by that very Preface about which these outcries are made by E. W. and T. G. What ingenuity is to be expected from these men who deny that which they cannot but see R. P. But T. G. gives this for a Taste not only what candour and sincerity but what skill in Church-Affairs you are to expect in the rest from Dr. St. which surely he would never have done if he had spoken to the point P. D. You may think as you please of him I only tell you the matter of fact and then do you judge where the candour and sincerity where the skill in Church affairs lies R. P. But is it not an undeniable Maxime that no man can give to another that which he hath not himself and therefore it lies open to the conscience of every man that if the Church of Rome be guilty of Heresy much more if guilty of Idolatry it falls under the Apostles excommunication Gal. 1.8 and so remains deprived of the lawful Authority to use and exercise the power of Orders and consequently the Authority of Governing Preaching c. This you see bids fair towards the subversion of all lawful Authority in the Church of England if the Church of Rome were guilty of Idolatry when the Schism began because excommunicated persons being deprived of all lawful Authority themselves can give none to others and if those others take any upon them it must be usurped and unlawful P. D. This is the terrible argument which T. G. produces again in Triumph as though nothing were able to stand before it and yet in my mind T. G. himself hath mightily weakened it by yielding the Validity of Ordinations made by Hereticks or Idolaters For if no man can give that which he hath not how can those give power and Authority who have none But the Power of Orders doth necessarily carry Authority along with it For it is part of the Form of Orders in the Roman Church Accipe spiritum sanctum Quorum remiseritis c. So that a power to excommunicate and absolve is given by vertue of the very Form of Orders and your Divines say the Form is not compleat without it But then I pray resolve me these Questions
as is now plain from Marcellinus and Faustinus whose Book was published by Sirmondus at Paris where Sulpitius Severus saith more than four hundred Western Bishops were present who were all excommunicated by T. G.'s principle and what now becomes of all Ecclesiastical Authority But Dr. St. hath shewed that the Christian Church was wiser than to proceed upon T. G.'s principle proving from Authentick Testimonies of Antiquity that the Arian Ordinations were allowed by the Church although the Arians were condemned for Idolaters R. P. Yes T. G. saith That Dr. St. was resolved to go on in the same track still and to prove that the Act it self of Ordination is not invalid in case of the Idolatry of the Givers which was never denied by his Adversary P. D. How is it possible to satisfie men who are resolved to cavil Doth not Dr. St. by that instance of the Arian Bishops evidently prove that the Authority of giving Orders was allowed by the Christian Church at that time and that which he calls their jurisdiction as well as the power of Orders because nothing more was required from the Arian Bishops but renouncing Arianism and subscribing the Nicene Creed and thus for all that I can see by T. G.'s principle they still remained under St. Paul's excommunication and so Ecclesiastical Authority is all gone with them R. P. But do not you think that Dr. St. had some secret design in all this really to subvert the Authority of the Church of England For T.G. lays together several notable things to that purpose to make it appear that he purposely declined defending the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Church of England I assure you it is a very politick Discourse and hath several deep fetches in it First he begins with his Irenicum and there he lays the Foundation that the Government may be changed 2. The Book was reprinted since the Bishops were reestablished by Law 3. He perswades the Bishops in that Book to reduce the form of Church Government to its primitive State and Order by restoring Presbyteries under them c. 4. When this would not do he charges the Church of Rome with Idolatry and makes this the sense of the Church of England to make her contribute to the subversion of her own Authority 5. When T. G. told him of the consequence of this he passed it by as if he saw it not and trifled with his Adversary about the validity of Ordination 6. When E. W. endeavoured to bring him to this point he still declined it and leaves Episcopacy to shift for it self And after all these T. G. thinks he hath found out the Mole that works under ground P. D. A very great Discovery I assure you and T. G. deserves a greater reward than any common Mole-catchers do But I never liked such Politick Informers for if people are more dull and quiet than they would have them they make plots for them to keep up their reputation and interest They must have always something to whisper in Great Mens Ears and to fill their Heads with designs which were never thought of by which means they torment them with unreasonable suspicions and tyrannize over them under a pretence of kindness Just thus doth T. G. do by the Governours of our Church he would fain perswade them that there is one Dr. St. who hath undertaken to defend the Church but doth carry on a very secret and subtile design to ruine and destroy it If they say they do not believe it he seems to pity them for their incredulity and weakness and endeavours to convince them by a long train of his own inventions and if they be so easie to hearken to it and to regard his insinuations then he flatters and applauds them as the only Friends to the Church when in the meantime he really laughs at them as a sort of weak men who can be imposed upon by any man who pretends to be a Friend although even in that he doth them and the Church the greater mischief I cannot believe such kind of insinuations as these can prevail upon any one man of understanding in our Church against a person who hath at least endeavoured his utmost to defend it But since T. G. talks so politickly about these maters I will convince you by one argument of common prudence that if Dr. St. be a man of common sense much more if he be so politick and designing as T. G. represents him all these suggestions must be both false and foolish For that which all designing men aim at is their own interest and advantage Now can any man that hath common sense left in him imagine that Dr. St. can aim at any greater advantage by ruining the Church than by preserving it Are not his circumstances more considerable in the Church of England than ever he can hope they should be if it were destroyed They who would perswade others that he carries on such a secret design must suppose him to be next to an Ideot and such are not very dangerous Politicians But what is it then should make him act so much against his interest It can be nothing but folly or malice But I do not find they have taxed him of any malice to the Church of England or of any occasion for it which the Church hath given him if he were disposed to it Why then should any be so senseless themselves or suppose others to be so as to go about to possess men with an opinion of an underground plot Dr. St. is carrying on not only to blow up the Thames but the rising Fabrick of St. Pauls too i. e. to ruine and destroy himself If he be a Fool he is not to be feared if he be not he is not to be mistrusted R.P. But what say you to T. G.'s proofs Do you observe the several Mole-hills which he hath cast up and is not that a sign he works un-derground What say you to his Irenicum in the first place P. D. I will tell you freely I believe there are many things in it which if Dr. St. were to write now he would not have said For there are some things which shew his youth and want of due consideration others which he yielded too far in hopes of gaining the dissenting Parties to the Church of England but upon the whole matter I am fully satisfied the Book was written with a design to serve the Church of England and the design of it I take to be this that among us there was no necessity of entring upon nice and subtile disputes about a strict jus divinum of Episcopacy such as makes all other Forms of Government unlawful but it was sufficient for us if it were proved to be the most ancient and agreeable to Apostolical practice and most accommodate to our Laws and Civil Government and there could be no pretence against submitting to it but the demonstrating its unlawfulness which he knew was impossible to be done And for what
proposals he makes about tempering Episcopacy they were no other than what King Charles 1. and Mr. Thorndike had made before him and doth T. G. think they designed to ruine the Church of England And as long as he declared this to be the design of his Book both at the beginning and conclusion of it suppose he were mistaken in the means he took must such a man be presently condemned as one that aimed at the ruine and destruction of the Church R. P. But T. G. saith he tendred it to consideration after Episcopacy was resetled by Law P. D. That is as true as others of his suggestions The Book was Printed while things were unsetled and was intended to remove the violent prejudices of the dissenting party against Episcopal Government and I have heard did considerable service that way at least in a Neighbour Kingdom and it happened to be reprinted afterwards with the same Title it had before But what then Do not Booksellers look on Books as their own and do what they please with them without the Authors consent or approbation Hath he ever Preached or Written any Doctrine since contrary to the sense of the Church of England Hath he made any party or faction to the disturbance of the Peace of the Church Hath he not conformed to its Rules observed its Offices obeyed his Superiours and been ready to defend its Cause against Adversaries of all sorts And can malice it self after all this fasten such a calumny upon him that he is a secret enemy to the Church of England and designs to ruine and destroy it I remember a poor Englishman in Amboyna being cruelly tormented by the Dutch and finding nothing he could say would perswade his Tormentors to release him and he said any thing that he thought would prevail with them at last he prayed God that he might tell them Probable Lies I would advise T. G. the next time he goes a Mole-catching to find out Probable Plots otherwise he will lose all the reputation of an Informer and Discoverer But I can hardly tell whether his Plot or his Proofs were the worse for as there appears no likelihood in the Plot so there is no evidence in the Proofs There being nothing pretended since the Irenicum but this charge of Idolatry and that hath been sufficiently cleared already by shewing that it doth not subvert the Authority of the Church of England R. P. Let us now if you please proceed to the other dangerous consequences of this charge as they are mustered up by T. G. One is That it overthrows the Article of the Holy Catholick Church P. D. That is something indeed what doth it take away an Article of the Creed Nay then it is time to look about us But how I pray R. P. I will tell you how If the Church hath been guilty of Idolatry 1. Then she hath required and enjoyned Idolatry for many hundreds of years parallel to the Heathens 2. Then Mahomet had more wisdom and power to carry on his design than the Son of God for his followers have been preserved from it by the grounds he laid above a thousand years 3. Then our Fore-fathers had better been converted to Judaism or Turcism than to Christianity as they were P. D. I deny every one of these consequences For our present dispute is only about the Church of Romes being guilty of Idolatry and from thence 1. it doth not follow that the whole Christian Church must require Idolatry if that doth unless T. G. had proved that all other Churches are equally involved in the same guilt which he never attempted 2. It doth not follow that Mahomet was wiser than Christ for if you compare the grounds laid for Divine Worship by Christ and Mahomet I say that Christ did shew infinitely more Wisdom in them than so vile an Impostor and it is a shame for any Christian to suggest the contrary but if T. G. speaks of Power to carry on his design then it must suppose that Mahomets Power hath preserved the Mahumetan Religion so long free from Idolatry although Christ hath not which must imply the greatness of Mahomets Power in Heaven and so it borders upon blasphemy 3. It doth not follow that our Fore-fathers had better been converted to Judaism or Turcism than to Christianity For they had incomparably greater advantages towards their salvation than either Turks or Pagans and such circumstances might accompany their practice of Idolatry as might make it not to hinder their salvation But I shall give you a full answer to this in the words of Bishop Sanderson who is another competent witness if any more were needful that Dr. St. doth not in the charge of Idolatry contradict the sense of the Church of England We have much reason to conceive good hope of the salvation of many of our Fore-fathers who led away with the common superstitions of those blind times might yet by those general truths which by the mercy of God were preserved among the foulest over-spreadings of Popery agreeable to the Word of God though clogged with an addition of many superstitions and Antichristian Inventions withal be brought to true faith in the Son of God unfeigned Repentance from dead Works and a sincere desire and endeavour of new and holy Obedience This was the Religion that brought them to Heaven even Faith and Repentance and Obedience This is the true and the Old and the Catholick Religion and this is our Religion in which we hope to find salvation and if ever any of you that miscall your selves Catholicks come to Heaven it is this Religion must carry you thither If together with this true Religion of Faith Repentance and Obedience they embraced also your additions as their blind Guides then led them prayed to our Lady kneeled to an Image crept to a Cross flocked to a Mass as you now do these were their spots and their blemishes these were their hay and stubble these were their errours and their Ignorances And I doubt not but as S. Paul for his blasphemies and persecutions so they obtained mercy for these sins because they did them ignorantly in misbelief And upon the same ground we have cause also to hope charitably of many thousand poor souls in Italy Spain and other parts of the Christian world at this day that by the same blessed means they may attain mercy and salvation in the end although in the mean time through ignorance they defile themselves with much foul Idolatry and many gross superstitions Obj. But the Ignorance which excuseth from sin is Ignorantia facti according to that hath been already declared but theirs was Ignorantia juris which excuseth not And besides as they lived in the practice of that Worship which we call Idolatry so they dyed in the same without repentance and so their case is not the same with S. Pauls who saw those sins and sorrowed for them and forsook them but how can Idolaters living and dying so without
of patience P. D. Not I assure you when I meet with any thing that deserves it R. P. Here comes our Fanatick Friend to refresh you a little What is the matter man why so sad have you met with an ill bargain at the Auction F. C. No no. I got a Book last night hath taken me up till this time and truly I have read something in it which fits much upon my Spirit R. P. What is it if we may ask you F. C. It is no comfort either to you or me R. P. If I be concerned I pray let me know F. C. You know last night we heard them at Rutherford and Gillespee I came in time enough for Gillespee's Miscellany Questions a rare Book I promise you And by a particular favour I carried it home with me and looking upon the Contents I found the Seasonable Case viz. About Associations and Confederacies with Idolaters Infidels or Hereticks and he proves them to be so absolutely unlawful from Scripture and many sound Orthodox Divines that for my part he hath fully convinced and setled me and I thought it my duty to come and to tell you so R. P. Well we will let alone that discourse at present we are at our old trade again and I was just coming to a seasonable question for you viz. Whether you have not as much reason to separate from the Church of England as the Church of England had from the Church of Rome F. C. Who doubts of that P. D. I do Sir nay more I absolutely deny it F. C. What matter is it what you say or deny You will do either for a good preferment Have not you assented and consented to all that is in the Book of Common Prayer and what will you stick at after P. D. Consider Sir what it is to judge rash judgement I wonder men that pretend to Conscience and seem so nice and scrupulous in some things can allow thmselves in the practice of so dangerous a sin If you have a mind to debate this point before us without clamour and impertinency I am for you F. C. You would fain draw me in to dispute again would you No such matter there is your man he will manage our Cause for us against you of the Church of England I warrant you R. P. I am provided for it For T. G. desires of Dr. St. for the sake of the Presbyterians Anabaptists and other separated Congregations to know why the believing all the ancient Creeds and leading a good life may not be sufficient to Salvation unless one be of the Communion of the Church of England P. D. A very doughty question As though we were like you and immediately damned all persons who are not of the Communion of our Church We say their separation from us is very unjust and unreasonable and that there is no colour for making their case equal with ours as to the separation from the Church of Rome R. P. I will tell you of a man who makes the case parallel it is one Dr. St. in his Irenicum and T. G. produces many pages out of him to that purpose P. D. To save you the trouble of repeating them I have read them over and do think these Answers may serve for his vindication 1. That in that very place he makes separation from a Church retaining purity of Doctrine on the account of some corrupt practices to be unlawful and afterwards in case men be unsatisfied as to some conditions of communion he denies it to be lawful to erect New Churches because a meer requiring conformity in some suspected rites doth not make a Church otherwise sound to be no true Church or such a Church from which it is lawful to make a total separation which is then done when men enter into a new and distinct Society for worship under distinct and peculiar Officers governing by Laws and Church Rules different from those of the Church they separate from And now let your Fanatick Friend judge whether this man even in the dayes of writing his Irenicum did justifie the practices of the separated Congregations which he speaks expressely against F. C. No truly We are all now for separated Congregations and know better what we have to do than our Fore-Fathers did Alas what comfort is there in bare Nonconformity For our people would not endure us if we did not proceed to separation He that speaks against separation ruins us and our Cause P. D. So far then we have cleared Dr. St. from patronizing the Cause of the separated Congregations 2. He saith that as to things left undetermined by the Law of God in the Judgement of the Primitive and Reformed Churches and in matters of Order Decency and Government every one notwithstanding what his private judgement may be of them is bound to submit to the determination of the lawful Governours of the Church Can any thing be said plainer for Conformity than this is by the Author of the Irenicum R. P. But how then come in those words produced by T. G. P. D. I will tell you he supposes that some scrupulous and conscientious men after all endeavours used to satisfie themselves may remain unsatisfied as to the Lawfulness of some imposed Rites but dare not proceed to positive separation from the Church but are willing to comply in all other things save in those Rites which they still scruple and concerning these he puts the Question whether such bare-nonconformity do involve such men in the guilt of Schism And this I confess he resolves negatively and so brings in that long passage T. G. produces out of him I now appeal to your self whether T. G. hath dealt fairly with Dr. St. in two things 1. In not distinguishing the case of separation from that of bare nonconformity only in some suspected Rites and in producing these words to justifie the separated Congregations 2. In taking his judgement in this matter rather from his Irenicum written so long since than from his late Writings wherein he hath purposely considered the Difference of the Case of those who separate from the Church of England and of our separation from the Church of Rome R. P. But hath he done this indeed and did T. G. know it P. D. Yes very well For it is in that very Book the Preface whereof T. G. pretends to answer in these Dialogues and he doth not speak of it by the by but discourseth largely about it Is this fair dealing But the Irenicum served better for his purpose as he thought and yet he hath foully misrepresented that too R. P. But yet Dr. St. must not think to escape so for he hath searched another Book of his called his Rational Account and there he finds a passage he thinks in favour to Dissenters from the Church of England and which undermines the Church of England P. D. Therefore the Church of Rome is not guilty of Idolatry R. P. Have a little patience
as the travellers did to Polus in Erasmus or that it is clear or manifest of it self and that it is not so he saith appears by the pains and wayes he takes to find it out P. D. This is yet a degree lower By clearly and expresly Dr. St. means that which is so to an unprejudiced mind For there is nothing so plain but men may cavil at it Not the Being of God not the certainty of our senses not the differences of Good and Evil not the coming of the Messias not the Truth of the Scriptures But will T. G. say that none of these are clear because men are put to pains and several wayes to prove them If therefore Dr. St. hath shewed that all the evasions of the force of the second Commandment are meer cavils and would take off as well the force of any other Commandment if men thought themselves as much concerned to do it I think he hath proved the sense of the Commandment to be clear and express against the Worship of God by an Image And for his Friend Polus you know it doth not look well in conversation for a man to repeat his own Jests But you named a third passage T. G. repeats out of his former Book What is that I pray R. P. That concerns Dr. St.'s first way of finding out the sense of the Law For he saith the Law doth only expresly forbid bowing down to the Images themselves as the Heathens did but speaks not one word of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of worshipping God himself by them and upon this he upbraids Dr. St. that spending above a hundred pages about the sense of the second Commandment he neither endeavours to remove the contradictions nor to answer the arguments of T. G. P. D. Then truly he deserved pity and to have his Friends come in to help him they are such wonderful contradictions and mighty arguments But Dr. St. hath at large proved 1. That the Heathens did not take the Images themselves for Gods in a large discourse to that purpose and consequently this command was not express against the Heathen Idolatry in T. G.'s sense of it 2. That the Fathers did understand this Commandment to be expresly against the Worship of God by an Image in another large discourse which he concludes with those words of S. Ambrose Non vult se Deus in lapidibus coli God will not be worshipped in Stones And is this nothing to the answering T. G.'s arguments 3. That the Worship of God before the Ark and the Cherubims the only argument of T. G. doth not reach to the Worship of God by Images and this in another set discourse 4. That God did afterwards explain his own Law by condemning the Worship of himself by Images in the case of the Golden Calf and the Calves of Dan and Bethel and he punctually answers T. G.'s objections And after all this Is it not great tenderness and modesty in T. G. to say that Dr. St. only Criticizeth upon T. G. 's exceptions and doth neither remove the contradictions nor answer the Arguments of T. G. I never yet saw plainer evidence of a forlorn Cause than these things give By this taste I begin to fear when we come to the charge of Idolatry we shall find very little new or material However being thus far engaged I am resolved God willing to attend you quite through his late Dialogues and if you please at our next meeting we will enter upon the charge of Idolatry and I will undertake to make good the charge and I shall expect from you T. G.'s answers R. P. I will not fail and I pray Brother Fanatick let us have your company for I have a terrible charge against the Church of England for bowing to the Altar F. C. I shall be glad to hear that with all my heart THE Third Conference About the Nature of Idolatry P. D. WE are now entring upon a weighty business and therefore without any preface to it I begin Dr. St. in his late Defence hath undertaken to clear the Nature of Idolatry by considering two things 1. Whether it were consistent with the acknowledgement of one supreme God 2. Wherein the Nature of that Divine Worship lyes which being given to a Creature makes it Idolatry 1. To clear the former he considered who those are which by common consent are charged with Idolatry and from thence he supposed the best resolution of the question might be gathered and those were 1. the Ancient Heathens 2. Modern Heathens 3. the Arrians And concerning these he proved that they did all acknowledge one supreme God and consequently the Notion of Idolatry could not consist in the Worship of many independent Deities 1. As to the Ancient Heathens 1. From the Testimony of Scripture 2. From their own Writers in the Roman Church of whom he names twelve considerable ones 3. From the Fathers and there he shews from a multitude of plain Testimonies that the state of the Controversie about Idolatry between the Fathers and Heathens was not about a supreme God which was acknowledged on both sides but whether Divine Worship were to be given to any Creatures on the account of any supposed excellency in themselves or relation to God And so he draws the History of this controversie through the several Ages of Justin Martyr Athenagoras Clemens of Alexandria Origen Cyril S. Augustin c. In short through all those who did with greatest reputation to Christianity manage this Cause against the Heathen Idolaters 2. As to modern Heathens two wayes 1. From the Testimony of your own Writers concerning the Brachmans Chineses Tartars Americans Africans Goths and Laplanders 2. From the Testimony of the Congregation of Cardinals in a remarkable case about Idolatry in China wherein their resolution was desired 3. As to the Arrians he proves from Athanasius Gr. Nazianzen Nyssen Basil Epiphanius Cyril Theodoret S. Chrysostom S. Ambrose S. Augustin that the Arrians were unanimously charged with Idolatry although they did acknowledge but one God and supposed the greatest created excellencies to be in Christ and believed the Worship of Christ tended to the honour of the Father 2. As to the Nature of Divine Worship He proceeds in this method 1. To shew what Worship is which he distinguishes from honour the one relating to bare excellency the other to Superiority and Power which distinction he proves from the most eminent School Divines 2. What Divine Worship is viz. such a subjection of our selves to God as shews his peculiar Soveraignty over us from whence he proceeds to manifest That there are some peculiar external Acts of Divine Worship which he proves 1. From the Nature and design of Religious Worship and here he enquires into the distinction of Civil and Religious Worship which he saith as other moral actions is to be taken from the circumstances of them and from hence came the institution of solemn rites for Religious Worship And the best
indifferent Rite there had been some reason for what T. G. saith But the force of what Dr. St. said lay not meerly in their having no Images in Churches in the Primitive times but in the Reasons given by the Primitive Christians against the Worship of them From whence he hath at large proved that the Primitive Christians did look on the Worship of Images as utterly unlawful by the Law of God although the Object represented did deserve Worship And this I take to be one of the most material Discourses in Dr. St.'s Book to the present Controversie and which he lays the greatest weight upon For he insists upon these several particulars 1. That they judged such a representation of God by Images to be unsuitable to his Nature for which he produceth the Testimonies of Clemens Alexandr Justin Martyr Athenagoras Origen S. Hierom S. Augustin and others 2. That they looked on the Worship of Images as repugnant to the Will of God as being contrary to the second Commandment which did oblige Christians 3. That to suppose that they looked on the worship of Images as a thing indifferent is to charge the Primitive Christians with great hypocrisie 4. That the Christian Church continued to have the same opinion about the worship of Images after the Pagan Idolatry was suppressed 5. That it was no just excuse in the sense of the Primitive Church that they worshipped a true object or gave only an inferiour worship to the Images for the sake of those represented by them 6. That Ignorance and Superstition first brought in the worship of Images which was still condemned by the best Divines of the Church 7. That the Worship of Images came to be established in the Church by very indirect means such as Treason calumnies lyes and burning and suppressing all Books against it 8. That when it was established by the second Council of Nice it was vehemently opposed by the Western Church at the Council of Francford and that this Council of Nice was never owned in the Western Church for a General Council till the Reformation began And now I pray was it possible for T. G. to overlook all these things or was it fair to pretend to answer Dr. St.'s Book wherein all these things are and yet to pass them over as if they had never been written If this be the way of making Just Discharges I am afraid T. G.'s credit cannot hold out long for this is not after the rate of five shillings in the pound and for all that I see Dr. St. may take out the Statute against him However I shall consider what he pretends to Discharge and if his payment be not good in that neither his Word will hardly be taken for any Just Discharge more I pray go on R. P. For the fifth Chapter Of the sense of the second Commandment T. G. saith if God hath there expresly prohibited the giving any Worship to himself by an Image as Dr. St. affirms there needed no more than to expose the Law as in a Table in Legislative Gothick as it is done by him p. 671. with the addition only of a Finger in the Margent to point to the Words for every one that runs to read them P. D. And must this pass for an Answer to Dr. St.'s Discourse about the sense of the second Commandment I am really ashamed of such trifling in a matter of so great importance I know not whether it were the Legislative Gothick or no or a Finger on the Wall but something or other about that Commandment hath so affrighted you in the Church of Rome that you dare not let it be seen in your Ordinary Books of Devotion As for the cavil about expresly I have answered it already R. P. For his last Chapter T. G. saith there needed no more than to say that the Church of England doth not allow any Worship to be given to the Altar P. D. Is it possible for T. G. to think to fob us off with such answers as these barely to tell his Adversary he might have spared this and the other Discourse R. P. But T. G. saith this is the most material thing in that Chapter P. D. Say you so Was the wise Council of Nice so immaterial a thing that it must now be quite abandoned and no kind of Discharge be so much as offered to be made for it Was there nothing material in what concerns the charge of Contradictions Paradoxes School-disputes c. And all the other Instances waved to come to this of Bowing to the Altar there must be some Mysterie in this and I think I have found it the Patronus bonae Fidei inveighs bitterly against this as worse than Egyptian Idolatry and reproaches Dr. St. upon account of his defending it and T. G. finds it much easier to reproach than to answer R. P. The truth is this Patronus bonae Fidei doth T. G. Knights service For when he hath no mind to appear himself he serves him for a Knight of the Post who runs blindfold upon any thing that may discredit the Church of England two or three such rare men would ease us of a great deal of trouble For T. G. takes between five and six pages together out of him in this place besides what he hath taken up at interest upon other occasions P. D. Is this the Just Discharge to borrow so much out of the Fanatick stock Setting then aside what is brought over of the old Account which had been reckoned for before and how very many material things are never entred which he was accountable for and how much he hath borrowed upon the Bona Fides of the Fanatick Historian all the rest will amount to a very pitiful Discharge But since no better payment can be had let us at least examine this For this Bona Fides is a kind of Republican Publick Faith which no body will trust twice not so much as for Bodkins and Thimbles F. C. Hold Sir You love alwayes to be rubbing upon old Sores have you forgot the Act of Oblivion You know we dare not speak what we think of those times now and is that fair to accuse when we dare not answer Mind your own business defend the Church of England if you can in that Idolatrous practice of bowing to the Altar I alwayes thought what it would come to when Dr. St. went about the charge of Idolatry upon the principles of the Church of England I knew he could never defend himself but upon good Orthodox Fanatick principles as you call them Now Sir you have him at an advantage joyn your force and T. G.'s with that of the Patronus bonae Fidei and if the Geese follow the Fox close you will keep him from ever stirring more P. D. I thank you for your good Will to the Cause and that is all I fear from you you only add to the number and help to preserve the Roman Capitol by
Works which being neither from Mathematical Demonstrations nor supernatural infallibility he called Moral Certainty Which he might do from these grounds 1. Because the force of the Argument from the Creatures depends upon some Moral Principles Viz. From the suitableness and fitness of things to the Wisdom of an Intelligent and Infinite Agent who might from thence be inferred to be the Maker of them It being unconceivable that meer matter should ever produce things in so much beauty order and usefulness as we see in every Creature in an Ant or a Fly as much as in the vast bodies of the Heavens 2. Because they do suppose some Moral Dispositions in the persons who do most readily and firmly assent to these Truths For although men make use of the highest titles for their arguments and call them Infallible Proofs Mathematical Demonstrations or what they please yet we still see men of bad minds will find something to cavil at whereby to suspend their assent which they do not in meer Metaphysical notions or in Mathematical Demonstrations But vertuous and unprejudiced minds do more impartially judge and therefore more readily give their assent having no byas to incline them another way Although therefore the principles be of another nature and the arguments be drawn from Idea's or series of Causes or whatever medium it be yet since the perverseness of mens will may hinder the force of the argument as to themselves the Certainty might be called Moral Certainty 2. As to the Christian Faith So he grants 1. That there are some principles relating to it which have Metaphysical Certainty in them as that Whatever God reveals is impossible to be false or as it is commonly expressed though improperly is infallibly True 2. That there is a rational Certainty that a Doctrine confirmed by such Miracles as were wrought by Christ and his Apostle must come from God that being the most certain Criterion of Divine Revelation 3. That there was a Physical Certainty of the truth of Christs Miracles and Resurrection from the dead in the Apostles who were eye-witnesses of them 4. That there was an Infallible Certainty in the Apostles delivering this doctrine to the world and writing it for the benefit of the Church in all Ages 5. That we have a moral Certainty of the matters of Fact which do concern the Doctrine the Miracles and the Books of Scripture which is of the same kind with the certainty those had of Christs Doctrine and Miracles who lived in Mesopotamia at that time which must depend upon the credibility of the Witnesses who convey these things which is a Moral Consideration and therefore the Certainty which is taken from it may be properly called Moral Certainty Of which there being many degrees the highest is here understood which any matter of fact is capable of And now I pray tell me what reason hath there been for all this noise about Moral Certainty R. P. T. G. owns that the Dr. in other places doth acknowledge a true certainty of the principles of Religion but he saith he can say and unsay without retracting with as much art and ease as any man he ever read P. D. I had thought unsaying had been retracting But Dr. St. saith as much in those very places T. G. objects against as in those he allows Only T. G. delights in cavilling above most Authors I have ever read R. P. But doth not Dr. St. allow a possibility of falshood notwithstanding all this pretence of Certainty P. D. Whatever is true is impossible to be false and the same degree of evidence any one hath of the truth of a thing he hath of the impossibility of the falshood of it therefore he that hath an undoubted certainty of the truth of Christianity hath the same certainty that it is impossible it should be false And because possibility and impossibility are capable of the same distinctions that Certainty is therefore according to the nature and degrees of Certainty is the possibility or impossibility of falshood That which is Metaphysically certain is so impossible to be false that it implyes a contradiction to be otherwise but it is not so in Physical Certainty nor in all rational Certainty nor in Moral and yet whereever any man is certain of the truth of a thing he is proportionably certain that it is impossible to be false R. P. This only relates to the person and not to the Evidence Is there any such evidence of the Existence of a Deity as can infallibly convince it to be absolutely true and so impossible to be false P. D. I do not doubt but that there are such evidences of the Being of God as do prove it to any unprejudiced mind impossible to be otherwise And T. G. had no reason to doubt of this from any thing Dr. St. had said who had endeavoured so early to prove the Being of God and the Principles of Christian Faith before he set himself to consider the Controversies which have happened in the Christian Church T. G. therefore might well have spared these reflections in a debate of so different a nature but that he was glad of an opportunity to go off from the business as men are that know they are not like to bring it to a good issue R. P. T. G. confesseth this is a digression but he promises to return to the matter and so he does I assure you for he comes to the second thing which he saith the Dr. ought to have done viz. to have shewed how the Notion of Idolatry doth agree to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in her Councils P. D. It is a wonder to me you should think him defective in this when he shews that there are two things from whence the sense of the Roman Church is to be taken 1. From the Definitions of Councils 2. From the practice of the Church 1. From the Definitions of Councils And here he entred upon the consideration of what that worship was which was required to be given to Images and shewed from the words of the Council and from the Testimony of the most eminent Divines of the Roman Church that it was not enough to worship before Images and to have an intention to perform those external Acts but there must be an inward intention to worship the Images themselves and that the contrary doctrine was esteemed little better than downright Heresie 2. From the Practice of the Church For he shews many of your best Divines went upon this principle that God would not suffer his Church to err and therefore they thought the allowed practice of the Church sufficient for them to defend those things to be lawful which they saw generally practised And from hence he makes it appear that the Church of Rome hath gone beyond the Council of Nice in two things 1. In making and worshipping Images of God and the B. Trinity which was esteemed madness and Pagan Idolatry in the time of the
Worship but an occasional and rare thing and done upon supposition as if he had been alive and then present among them And that the practice of these men who seemed most to make addresses to Saints in the fourth Century did differ from the invocation of Saints in your Church I shall make appear by these particulars 1. Invocation of Saints is made a solemn part of Religious Worship in the Church of Rome For which we do not run to some extravagant expressions of your Preachers nor barely to the Ave Maries they use in their Pulpits of which no single instance can be produced out of Antiquity but to the publick solemn Authorized Offices of your Church And although you may say the Church is not answerable for the indiscretion of Preachers or the Figures of Poets yet certainly she is for all standing and allowed Offices of Divine Worship And this is that we charge you with that by this you make Religious Worship of the Creatures a part of your constant and solemn worship Even in the Masse it self you begin with confession to God and to his Creatures which Athanasius accounted so great an impiety to joyn God and his Creature together in an Act of Worship and afterwards pray to them And although in the plain Canon of the Masse you pretend there is scarce any or but twice or thrice a direct invocation of the Saints yet upon occasional and anniversary Masses such Invocation is very frequent as in the Masses of the Festivals of the Blessed Virgin which are many in the year the Masse for Women with Child the Masses of the Apostles the Angel Michael and many Saints which it were tedious to repeat It would be endless to give an account how much of your Breviaries Houres Litanies and private Offices of Devotion is stuffed out with formal addresses to Saints If you but cast your eye on any of the Offices of the B. Virgin you cannot question the truth of this Now I pray tell me where you meet with any like this in Antiquity you may pick up some flourishes of Orators or Poets in the fourth Century but what are these to the standing Offices of the Church which are the standard of Divine Worship Name me any one Liturgy of the Church which is Authentick that had the name of aâ—y Saint or Creature in it by way of Invocation before the time of Petrus Fallo who is no Author to be gloried in And of him indeed Nicephorus saith that he first brought the Invocation of the Blessed Virgin into the Prayers of the Church Before his time the Fathers utterly deny there was any Invocation of Saints in the Prayers of the faithful as Dr. St. hath evidently proved from St. Augustin and methinks T. G. should have said something or other to it and not think this poor single Testimony of Gregory Nyssen would overthrow all 2. The Invocation of Saints in your Church is direct and formal not meerly by way of desire to pray for them but to bestow blessings upon them Of which Dr. St. hath produced several late Instances in Books of Devotion now in use here in England to which many more might be added if it were needful And it is a wonder to me that any man who hath looked into the Offices of the B. Virgin can make the least doubt of this And considering the Titles given her in the Roman Church it were a disparagement to her not to pray directly to her for blessings For if she be the Fountain of Grace and Mercy the Mother of Consolation the Safety of all that trust in her the Dispenser of Graces to whom she pleases the Queen of Heaven to whom all Power is committed the Mediatrix between her Son and us as she is stiled in the Roman Church why may not men pray as directly to her as to Christ himself As long as these and many other Titles are owned in their Prayers in their Sacred Hymns in their Commentators on Scripture and not meerly in their Poets and Orators Why doth T. G. go about to deceive the world in making it believe that all their Invocation is only praying to pray for them Which is all that is pretended to be used in the Ancient Church And Cassander thinks they were rather wishes and desires than prayers for which he gives a very good reason viz. that there was a condition expressed by them such as that of Greg. Nazianzen in his Oration on his Sister Gorgonia If thou hast any regard to our affairs and if this be part of the reward of holy Souls to be sensible of things done below receive this Office of Kindness from me Which shews they had no confidence or assurance that the Saints in Heaven did understand our affairs and therefore all expressions of this kind in them were rather Wishes than Prayers And even Greg. Nyssen in this Oration upon Theodore supposes that unless he came down from above where-ever he was whether in the Aethereal Region or Celestial or Angelical and were actually present among them he could not understand the honours that were done him nor the addresses they made to him And when they did express such an uncertainty as this at the same time they made these Addresses towards the Conclusion of their Orations after the manner of Oratours it is plain they are to be understood rather for Rhetorical Wishes than formal Invocations Now let any man compare this doubtfulness of the Ancients with the confidence expressed in the Church of Rome when they declare it to be de Fide that the Saints do hear them although the manner be not and then judge whether their practises can be of the same kind 3. The Invocation of Saints in your Church doth imply inward submission to a Creature and therefore goes very much beyond the addresses of the Ancients There are three things which prove this Inward submission to a Creature in the Invocation of Saints 1. Inward Devotion to them 2. An acknowledged superiority over them 3. An intention to give them Divine Worship 1. Inward Devotion For even mental Prayers to Saints are allowed by the Council of Trent as Dr. St. told T. G. of which he takes no notice and yet quarrels with him for two other passages in the same place Must we impute this to a casual Vndulation of the visual rayes as T. G. very finely expresseth it I am afraid there was some other cause for it For since that Council allows internal prayers to Saints it must not only certainly suppose their knowledge of the heart but a due submission of our souls to them which inward Prayer doth import And therefore suppliciter invocare tam voce quà m mente which are the words of the Council of Trent doth not only imply formal Invocation but internal submission both which do belong to suppliants 2. An acknowledged Superiority over them which appears by that Authority and Government which they attribute to them
different Act. If the same act then there is a double worship and but one Act for there is an absolute worship of the person of Christ and a relative worship of the Image and let it be relative or what it will it is a real Act of worship and so there must be two Acts and yet it is but one Act. For is the Image or Cross worshipped or not If it be worshipped there must be an act of worship terminated on it and how can there be an act of worship terminated upon it if the same act passeth from the Image to the Prototype These are unintelligible subtleties and only invented to confound mens understandings as to the true and distinct notion of Divine Worship and to blind their minds in the practice of Idolatry Farther if this be a difference only de modo loquendi as T. G. saith then the very same act may be proper and improper absolute and relative per se and per accidens For so T. G. saith that it is one Act in substance but it is absolute as terminated on the person of Christ relative as on the Cross proper in one sense improper in the other per se in the former sense per accidens in the later Which Catharinus thought to be no less than ridiculous Lastly there is nothing in the world but may be worshipped with Latria by the help of these distinctions For a Divine presence in the creatures is really a far better ground of worship than a bare fiction of the mind that the Image and the thing represented are all one But of this we have discoursed already R. P. To tell you plainly my mind I never liked this giving Latria to Images my self but it being a common doctrine in our Church we ought to say as much for it as we can but I am only for an inferiour worship to be given to them and so is T. G. if I do not much mistake his meaning P. D. Let us then consider this inferiour worship as distinct from Latria and concerning this I shall prove that it neither answers the reasons given by Councils nor the practice of the Roman Church 1. Not the reasons given by the Councils of Nice and Trent For which I desire but these two postulata 1. That Images are to have true and proper worship given to them which is expressely determined by those Councils 2. That the Reason of this Worship is nothing inherent in the Image but something represented by it Which is affirmed by those Councils From hence I argue thus To worship Christ only before an Image is not to give proper worship to the Image which the Councils require to be given Therefore either the Image is to be worshipped for it self which were Idolatry by your own confession or Christ is to be worshipped in and by the Image R. P. Christ is to be worshipped in and by the Image P. D. Then you give Christ the worship due to him or not R. P. The worship due to him P. D. But the Worship due to Christ is proper Latria therefore you must give proper Latria to Christ as worshipped in and by the Image R. P. True but we give it to the Image of Christ otherwise than to his Person for we worship him absolutely and the Image respectively and for his sake P. D. That is it which I would have that there is no worshipping an Image on the account of representation but you must fall into the doctrine of relative Latria R. P. But may not I shew respect to the Cross for Christs sake without giving the same worship to the Cross that I do to Christ P. D. That is not the question but whether you may worship Christ in and by the Cross representing his Person without giving that worship which belongs to the person of Christ For either you worship the Cross for it self which you confess to be Idolatry or you worship Christ as represented by it if you worship Christ you must give him the worship which belongs to him and that can be no other than Latria Which not only appears by the doctrine but by the practice of your Church in the worship of the Cross. Which I prove by the second particular viz. 2. Inferiour worship doth not come up to the practice of your Church because your Church in praying to the Cross speaks to it as if it were Christ himself O Crux ave spes unica c. as Aquinas observes and many other of your Divines who never own any Prosopopoeia but do say that the Cross is truly worshipped with that worship which belongs to the person of Christ on the account of representation And can you imagine so many of your most eminent Divines would have put themselves to so much difficulty in defending a Relative Latria if they could have defended the practice of your Church without it But they saw plainly the Church did own such a worship to the Cross and when occasion was offered did declare it as in the place cited out of the Pontifical by Dr. St. which it would never have done if it had not been agreeable to its sense R. P. But this is but one single passage and will you condemn a whole Church for that P. D. Not if the sense of the Church were otherwise fully expressed against it but here we have shewed that passage to be very agreeable to the reason of worship given by your Councils and to the solemn practice of your Church in adoration of the Cross and therefore that passage ought to be looked on as a more explicite declaration of the sense of the Church For let me ask you if the Church of Rome had been against Latria being given to the Cross whether in a book of such publick and constant use as the Pontifical is it should be left standing when the Book-menders are so busie in your Church that scarce an Index of a Father can escape them nor such sentences as seem to thwart their present doctrine Of which take this Instance You remember what stir T. G. made about Gregory Nyssen's oration upon Theodore now the same person disputing against the Arians saith that no created thing is to be worshipped by men this sentence Antonius in his Melissa had put down thus that we are only to worship that being which is uncreated This Book happened to come under the Spanish Index of Cardinal Quiroga do you think he would suffer it to stand as it did No I assure you Deleatur dictio solummodo saith he satis pro imperio Away with this Only Why so was it not in the Author No matter for that It is against the practice of the Church out with it More such instances might be produced but I appeal to your self whether after such care hath been taken to review the Pontifical by Clement 8. and the publishing of it with so much Authority such a passage would have been suffered to remain if it had been
and wicked men are averse both from God and Heaven though they walk barefoot and make the richest presents to the true God But how doth this prove they did not intend to worship the true God there Although withal their worship even in the Capitol was Idolatrous worship both as to the Image of Jupiter and the conjunction of other Gods with him therefore whatever their intention was as to the worship of Jupiter O. M. their supplications might well be displeasing to the true God and on that account they might be said to be averse from God and Heaven R. P. I have another testimony of Tertullian still good which if I mistake not will put you hard to it It is in his Apologetick We are esteemed not to be Romans but injurious to them because we do not worship the God of the Romans 'T is well he is the God of all whether we will or no. But among you it is lawful to worship any thing but the true God as if he were not the great God of all whose no are all What could be said more express to remove that abominable pretence of the Doctors that the God of the Romans was the true God P. D. I see no reason in the world for your accounting the Doctors pretence abominable unless he justified the way of worship then used which he confesseth to be abominable both in the old Romans and others who too much imitate their Idolatries Observe that Tertullian speaks of their worship which being Idolatrous the Christians had just reason to refuse joyning with the Romans in it From hence they were accused for worshipping another God from him whom the Romans worshipped and Tertullian before mentions the several suspicions which they had concerning the God of the Christians some said it was the head of an Ass some the Cross some the Sun and some set forth a ridiculous picture with the ears of an Ass a Book and a Gown and called this the God of the Christians Tertullian upon this declares that the Christians worshipped the God that made the world and none else or as he said to Scapula the God whom all men know by Nature And in that very Chapter from whence those words are cited he saith it was the common opinion among the Romans that there was one God higher and more powerful than all the rest of perfect Wisdom and Majesty for the greatest part saith he did make this scheme of Divinity that the chief Power lay in one God to whom the rest were only ministerial and subservient I am afraid T. G. will allow my sense of these words no more than he is wont to do Dr. St.'s I will therefore give you Tertullians own words Nam sic plerique disponunt Divinitatem ut imperium summae Dominationis esse penes unum officia ejus penes multos velint Which words are of mighty weight and consequence in this matter towards the right understanding Tertullians meaning Here we see from whence Aquinas had his plures eorum and in what sense it must be understood From hence it appears that the Generality of the Heathens did not assert a multitude of independent gods nor were charged with Idolatry on that account And to let us see whom they meant by this supreme God he produces in the next words the place of Plato mentioned by Athenagoras of the great Jupiter in Heaven with his Army of Gods and Demons R. P. But Tertullian saith the Christians did not worship the God of the Romans and the Romans would not suffer them to worship the true God how could this be if they did own and worship the true God P. D. I will tell you The God of the Romans was he who was worshipped after an Idolatrous manner in the Capitol and elsewhere the Christians chose rather to to dye than to worship God after this manner the Romans would permit no other kind of Worship than their own and when the Christians refused to joyn in their worship they could not believe let them say what they would that they worshipped that God whom all men know by the light Nature The God of the Romans is the God worshipped after the Roman manner as the God of the Jews of the Turks and of the Christians is the God worshipped according to those several Laws although he be the same God in himself the Maker and Governour of the World This place then doth imply no more than that the Roman Religion as it stood at that time and the Christian were inconsistent but it doth not follow from hence that the Romans did not intend to worship the Supreme God under the title of Jupiter O. M. R. P. Before we leave Tertullian I have something more to say to you concerning him it is about a passage of his Book ad Scapulam cited by Dr. St. where he endeavours to prove that the Heathens Jupiter was the Supreme God by a miracle wrought upon the Heathens supplications to him under the name of Jove P. D. Are you sure that Dr. St. ever meant any such thing R. P. T. G. quotes his words God saith he shewed himself to be the powerful God by what he did upon their supplications to him under the name of Jove P. D. But doth not Dr. St. expresly say that it was upon the prayers of Christians that miracle was wrought R. P. Yes T. G. takes notice of that and from thence proves that he wilfully corrupted Tertullians text and makes a very Tragical business of it Methinks I see the great Dionysius with his Birchen Scepter walking round him telling him of his faults and then one or two lashes but lest his pain should be too soon at an end he takes off his hand and walks the other turn with a stern and Magisterial Countenance bidding others beware and telling them what an example he will make of him he laies on again with such a spring in his arm and so many repeated strokes that I even pity the poor Doctor and I could not think Dionysius himself could have expressed more severity on such an occasion but I consider it is against an Heretick and it is necessary sometimes to let you see how sharp we can be P. D. You need not to tell us that but we had need to keep out of your lash as long as we can for we expect no great kindness from you if ever we fall under it But why should T. G. think that Dr. St. designed to corrupt Tertullians sense in that place when himself had before owned that the miracle was wrought by the prayers of the Christians He would never have done this if he intended the other I do confess the words as they lye are capable of that construction T. G. puts upon them but in common ingenuity they ought to be understood according to his own former sense of them unless the force of the argument lay in the other sense which I do not perceive it
say If Christ be the Sacrifice he must be slain again at every Mass as he was once on the Cross or you can assign no destruction which you say is necessary to such a true and proper Sacrifice R. P. Do not you observe T. G.'s words that Christ is whole under either species and his Blood separated from his Body not really but Mystically only and in representation P. D. How is that Whole Christ under the bread and whole Christ under the wine and the blood separated from the Body not really but mystically only and by representation This is admirable stuff and true Mystical Divinity If the body of Christ doth remain whole and entire where is the true proper Sacrifice where is the change made if not in the Body of Christ if that be uncapable of a change how can it be a true and proper Sacrifice If the blood be not really separated from the Body where is the mactation which must be in a propitiatory Sacrifice If Christ do remain whole and entire after all the Sacrificial Acts where I say is the true and proper Sacrifice T. G. had far better said and more agreeably to Scripture Antiquity and Reason that there is no real and proper sacrifice on the Altar but only mystical and by representation R. P. But T. G. saith that Religion which admits no external visible Sacrifice must needs be deficient in the most signal part of the publick worship of God P. D. I pray remember it is an external and visible Sacrifice which you contend for and now tell me where it is in your Church Doth it lye in the mimical gestures of the Priest at the Altar in imitation of Christ on the Cross If that be it the necessary consumption of the Sacrifice will be no comfortable doctrine to the Priest Doth it lye in the consecration of the Elements which are visible But you say the essence of the Sacrifice consists in the change and we can see no visible change made in them and therefore there is no external and visible Sacrifice Besides if the Sacrifice did lye in the change of the Elements after Consecration into the Body of Christ then the Elements are the thing sacrificed and not the Body of Christ for the destructive change is as to the elements and not as to the Body of Christ. Or doth it lye in the swallowing down and consumption of the species after Consecration by the Priest But here likewise the change is in the accidents and not in the Body of Christ which remains whole and entire though the species be consumed and I think there is some difference between changing ones seat and being sacrificed For all that the Body of Christ is pretended to be changed in is only its being no longer under the species but T. G. I suppose will allow it to be whole and entire still Doth it then lye in pronouncing the words of consecration upon which the Body of Christ is under the species of Bread and the Blood under that of Wine and so separated from the Body But this can least of all be since T. G. assures us that whole Christ is under the Bread as well as under the Wine and so there cannot be so much as a moment of real separation between them and we know how necessary for other purposes the doctrine of Concomitancy is Tell me then where is your external and visible Sacrifice which you boast so much of since according to your own principles there is nothing that belongs to the essence of a sacrifice is external and visible and consequently your own Church labours under the defect T. G. complains of R. P. But what makes Dr. St. so bitter against the Sacrifice of the Altar since the most true and genuine Sons of the Church of England do allow it as Mr. Thorndike Dr. Heylin and Bishop Andrews and doth not this rather look like betraying the Church of England than defending it P. D. I see now you are wheeling about to your first Post and therefore it is time to give you a space of breathing Your great business is to set us at variance among our selves but you have hitherto failed in your attempts and I hope will do I do not think any two or three men though never so learned make the Church of England her sense is to be seen in the Publick Acts and Offices belonging to it And in the Articles to which T. G. sometimes appeals your Sacrifices on the Altar are called blasphemous Figments and dangerous Impostures But as to these three persons I answer thus 1. Mr. Thorndike as I have shewed already declares against the true proper Sacrifice defined by the Council of Trent as an innovation and a contradiction And that which he pleads for is that the Eucharist is a commemorative and representative Sacrifice about which Dr. St. would never contend with him or any one else and immediately after the words cited by T. G. he adds these It is therefore enough that the Eucharist is the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross as the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is represented renewed revived and restored by it and as every representation is said to be the same thing with that which it representeth 2. Pet. Heylins words are expresly only for a commemorative Sacrifice as T. G. himself produces them and therefore I wonder what T. G. meant in citing them at large For he quotes the English Liturgie for the Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving and S. Chrysostom calling it the remembrance of a Sacrifice and many of our learned Writers a Commemorative sacrifice What is there in all this in the least repugnant to what Dr. St. had delivered R. P. But he quotes Bishop Andrews saying Take from the Mass your Transubstantiation and we will have no difference with you about the sacrfiice P. D. Bishop Andrews calls the Eucharist a commemorative sacrifice and he saith it was properly Eucharistical or of the nature of peace-offerings concerning which the Law was that he that offered should partake of them and a little after follow those words you mention to which he adds We yield you that there is a remembrance of Christs sacrifice but we shall never yield that your Christ being made of Bread is there sacrificed Which is the very thing that T. G. is so angry with Dr. St. about And have not you bravely proved that Dr. St. hath herein gone against the sense of the genuine Sons of the Church of England If you have any thing yet left which you think material I pray let us have it now for fear lest T. G. make use of it to stuff out another Book R. P. I think we are near the Bottom P. D. So I imagine by the dregs which came last R. P. There is one thing yet left for a close which is Dr. St. saith supposing this sacrifice were allowed yet this doth not prove that we reserve any
external Act of worship belonging to all Christians because this sacrifice belongs to the Priests only to offer P. D. And what answer doth T. G. give to that R. P. He saith that nothing is more notorious than that those of the Church of Rome are bound on every Sunday and Holy Day to hear Mass. P. D. To hear Mass A very Christian duty no doubt especially if they understand never a word of it and as Diana saith a man is not bound to hear a word that is said But what then R. P. By this external Act he saith they testifie the uniting their intention with the Priest as the publick Officer of the Church in the Oblation of the sacrifice P. D. I have often heard of the skill you have of directing intentions but I never knew of this knack of uniting Intentions before I know how necessary the Priests intention is in your Church but what if the People should fail of uniting their intention with his as they often think and talk of other things at hearing Mass would it not be a sacrifice without the Vnion of their Intentions Suppose the Priests Intention should wander what would the Peoples uniting their intentions signifie towards the Sacrifice You will not say they have any power to offer the sacrifice therefore the Act of sacrificing belongs only to the Priest whether the Peoples intentions be united or not If the People first offered that which was to be sacrificed to the Priest and then he sacrificed it in their name as among the Jews they might be said to have a share in the sacrifice but when the sacrifice is supposed to come down from Heaven upon the Priests words and he doth not represent the People but Christ in the Act of sacrificing What doth the Peoples uniting their intentions signifie to the sacrifice I pray tell me in whose name doth the Priest pretend to the power of offering up the Body of Christ in Sacrifice on the Altar the Peoples or Christs R. P. In the name of Christ doubtless for the People have no power to do it P. D. If they have no power to do it and all the Authority be supposed to be derived from Christ for doing it what doth the uniting the Peoples intentions with the Priests signifie as to the offering up the sacrifice You might as well say that the Jews under the Cross might unite their intentions to Christs in offering himself on the Cross to the Father and so it might become their Act as well as Christ's But in my mind your phrase of hearing and seeing Mass is much more proper if men were bound either to hear or see which your Casuists say they are not than this of uniting their intentions with the Priest which is absurd and ridiculous Doth T. G. so little consider the honour of the Priestly Office as to talk of the Peoples uniting their intentions with the Priests in the oblation of the Sacrifice The next step may be that the sacrificing may depend on the Peoples Intentions as well as the Priests and what a case are you in then Aquinas and Cajetan were much wiser than T. G. in this matter for they both declare that this sacrifice belongs only to the Priests and not to the People as Dr. St. told T. G. R. P. T. G. saith he cannot find the Citation in the place quoted by him but he dares affirm that Cajetan was not so silly a Divine as to deny it to belong to the People to offer the sacrifice by and with the Priest P. D. And I dare affirm Cajetan was much wiser than to say that the offering the sacrifice did in any sense belong to the People and so much T. G. might have found in the place cited by the Doctour only qu. 86. was put for q. 85. and not as Cajetans bare opinion but as the judgement of Aquinas too He saith indeed that the Priests do offer the sacrifice for themselves and others but he was not so silly to imagine that they were to unite their intentions with the Priests in the oblation but that expression only shews for whose sake and not in whose name the sacrifice was offered For there are other sacrifices saith he which every one may offer for himself and those saith Cajetan are spiritual sacrifices of Devotion and Vertue but for the sacrifice of the Altar that belongs only to the Priests and Officers of the Church R. P. But the very mass-Mass-Book calls it meum ac vestrum sacrificium and desires God to accept it for all those pro quibus tibi offerimus vel qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium P. D. I will tell you the mysterie of this business and so put an end to this long Conference It was the ancient custom of the Roman Church as well as others for the Communicants to make an oblation of the Bread and Wine at the Altar of which they were afterwards to partake This I prove from the Sacramentary of S. Gregory published by Pamelius where it is said while the Offertory is singing i. e. the Anthem then used the oblations are made by the People and laid upon the Altar that they might be consecrated And the Ordo Romanus declares these oblations to be the Bread and Wine of which it adds that the Arch-deacon took as much and laid upon the Altar as would serve for the people that were to communicate These oblations continued in the Church a long time and were inforced by Canons and Constitutions when the people began to slacken in their devotion Upon which the Church of Rome thought fit to bring in the use of Wafers instead of common bread and so these oblations grew into disuse or were turned into offerings of money instead of them Sirmondus and Card. Bona have proved beyond all dispute that the ancient Latin Church did use common and leavened Bread in the Eucharist that was offered by the people till a thousand years after Christ. But then the doctrine of Transubstantiation coming into the Roman Church it was no longer thought fit that the Bread which was to be turned into the Son of God should be made after a common manner or with the unsanctified hands of the Laity but by those who did attend upon the Altar remembring what the good woman told Gregory I. that she wondred that the Bread which she made with her own hands should be called the Body of Jesus Christ which the people had more reason to do when they came to define the manner of the presence as they did about this time although it were not made an Article of Faith till afterwards From hence the dispute began between the Greeks and Latins about unleavened bread and from henceforward the custom of oblations for the service of the Altar declined and is only kept up on some particular solemnities as Canonization of Saints Inauguration of Princes Consecration of Bishops Marriages and Funerals however the
same form of words continues still in the Offices as if the oblations of Bread and Wine were still made by the People and so Sirmondus and Bona both say those expressions of the Mass-Book you mention are to be understood of these oblations of the People and not of the Sacrifice of Christs Body And that these oblations were called sacrifices appears by the known passages of S. Cyprian Locuples dives es Dominicum celebrare te credis quae in Dominicum sine sacrificio venis quae partem de sacrificio quod pauper obtulit sumis In which he blames the rich women that came without an Oblation which he calls a sacrifice and did partake of that which the poor offered which S. Augustin calls de aliena oblatione communicare and therefore he bids all Communicants to make their own oblations at the Altar But suppose these expressions were not to be understood of the oblations of the people as it is certain the prayers called Secretae and the first part of the Canon of the Mass are yet it was not fairly done of T. G. to leave out a very significant word which immediately followed viz. laudis qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium laudis If the People be allowed their share in the Eucharistical Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving what is this to their offering up the proper propitiatory sacrifice of the Body of Christ I do not deny that the People had a share in the sacrifice according to the sense of Antiquity not only from their oblations but because as Cassander well observes the Ancients did call the whole Eucharistical Office as it took in the Peoples part as well as the Priests by the name of a sacrifice and so the Oblations Prayers Thanksgivings Consecration Commemoration Distribution Participation did all belong to the sacrifice But since you restrain the true and proper sacrifice to the oblation of the Body of Christ to God by the Priest Dr. St. had reason to say that the sacrifice among you belongs to the Priests and is not an external Act of Worship common to all And so according to the sense you put on the Mass-Book you leave no one Act of peculiar external worship appropriated to God which is to be performed by all Christians which was the thing to be proved THE END Books Printed for and Sold by Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard and at the White Hart in Westminster-Hall A Rational account of the grounds of Protestant Religion being a Vindication of the Lord-Archbishop of Canterbury's Relation of a Conference c. from the pretended Answer of T. C. Folio Sermons preached upon several occasions with a Discourse annexed concerning the true reasons of the Sufferings of Christ wherein Crellius's Answer to Grotius is considered Folio Irenicum A Weapon-Salve for the Churches wounds in Quarto Origines Sacrae or a Rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures and matters therein contained Quarto A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the Communion of it in Answer to some Papers of a revolred Protestant wherein a particular account is given of the Fanaticisms and Divisions of that Church Octavo An Answer to several late Treatises occasioned by a Book entituled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the communion of it the first Part Octovo A second Discourse in vindication of the Protestant grounds of Faith against the pretence of Infallibility in the Roman Church in Answer to the Guide in Controversie by R. H. Protestancy without Principles and Reason and Religion or the certain Rule of Faith by E. W. with a particular enquiry into the Miracles of the Roman Church Octavo An Answer to Mr. Cressey's Epistle Apologetical to a person of Honour touching his Vindication of Dr. Stillingfleet Octavo A Defence of the Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in Answer to a Book entituled Catholicks no Idolaters all written by Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St. Pauls and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty The Rule of faith or an Answer to the Treatise of Mr. I. S. Entituled Sure Footing c. by John Tillotson D. D. Preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn To which is adjoyned a Reply to Mr. I. S. his third Appendix c. by Edw. Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St. Pauls and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty The Antiquities of Nottinghamshire Extracted out of Records Original Evidences Lieger Books other Manuscripts and Authentick Authorities beautified with Maps Prospects and Portraictures by Robert Thoroton Dr. of Physick Folio FINIS Dial p. 13. p. 10. Cath. no Idol p. 197. Dial. p. 62. Preface to Cath. no Idol Dial. p. 9. Dial. p. 15. Dial. p. 17. Cypr. Anglic p 364. 1 Ed. P. 3â— Necessary Introd to the History of B. Laud. p. 14. Conference with Fisher. p. 277. History of his Tryal p. 472. Cypr. Angl. p. 435· Dial. p. 28. Dial. p. 19. Cypr. Angl. p. 418. Dial. p. 21. Hincmar de praedest c. 31. Lanfranc de Corp. Sang. Christ. c. 4. Guitm de sacr l. 1. Cajet in Aquin. 3. p. q. 75. art 1. 2. â— Aq. 4. dist 44. q. 2. ar 2. Conink de sacr qu. 75. art 3. Maerat de sacr disp 24. sect 1. Lugo de Sacram. disp 5. §. 1. Suarez in 3. p. disp 48. art 1 §. 4. Gamach iâ— 3. p. qu. 76. c. 4. Ysambert qu. 75. disp 3. art 8. Vasq. in 3. p. disp 109. c. 4. art 6. p. 28. Dial. p. 25 27. Cypr. Angl. p. 48.1 ed. P. 66. Dial. p. 30. to 33. Laws of the Ch. Ch. 4. p. 30. Dial. p. 42. c. Cypr. Angl. p. 62. Cypr. Angl. p. 189. Dial. p. 46 47 c. Dial. p. â—7 Dial. p. 49. Prodr p. 76. B. Andrews Resp. ad Apolog. Bell. p. 37. compared with Burâ—â—il Deâ—ens Respons ad Apolog. c. 6. q. 21. B. Sanders Preface to his Serm. §. 15. De obligat cons. prael 4. §. 33. Dial. p. 51 c. P. 63. Dial. p. 52. P. 160. P. 162. Dial. p. 59 60 61. Dial. p. 53 54. P. 56. Defence p. 581. Joh. Rosin vit â—â—ed sapient Dial. p. 141 c. Dial. p. 132. Dial. p. 133 134. Pontificale Rom. de ordinat Presbyt Concil Trident. Sess. 23. c. 4. Dial. p. 143. Dial. p. 151 c. P. 155. P. 157. Scot. in sâ—nt l. 4. dist 4. q. 9. Biel. in Sâ—nt q. 2. Cajet in 3. p. q. 63. art 1. Morin de Ordin part 3. Exercit. 3. c. 1. â— 4. Alex. Al. 4. p. q. 8. memb 5. art 1. §. 6. ad 2. Scot. in 4. dist 25. q. 1. resp ad 3. Morin ib. exerc 5. c. 9. n. 12 13. Grat. 1. q. 1. post can 97. Gul. Paâ—is de Sacr. Ord. c. 7. Morin de Ord. Sacr. p.
Why Hincmarus re-ordained those who had been ordained by Ebbo because he had been deposed 7. Why Stephanus 4. re-ordained those who had received Orders from Pope Constantine 8. Why the Ordinations made by Photius were declared null To name no more If this had been always the sense of the Christian Church that the Power of Orders is indelible but not that of jurisdiction I desire T. G. to give an answer to those Questions which I fear will involve several Heads of his Church under that which he calls in Dr. St. an intolerable mistake Did so many Popes know no better this distinction between the Validity of Ordination and the Power of Jurisdiction I am sorry to see T. G. so magisterial and confident so insulting over Dr. St. as betraying so much ignorance as doth not become a Writer of Controversies when all the while he doth only expose his own But alas This is the current Divinity of the Modern Schools and what obliges them to look into the opinions of former Ages Yet methinks a man had need to look about him before he upbraids another with gross and intolerable errors lest at the same time he prove the guilty person and then the charge falls back far more heavily on himself 4. Those who did hold the Validity of Ordinations did it chiefly on the account of the due Form that was observed whoever the Persons were whether Hereticks or Excommunicated-persons For after all the heats and disputes which hapned in the Church about this matter the best way they found to resolve it was to observe the same course which the Church had done in the Baptism of Hereticks viz. to allow that Baptism which was administred in due form although those who administred it were Hereticks Thence Praepositivus as he is quoted by Morinus saith That a Heretick hath power to administer all the Sacraments as long as he observes the Form of the Church And not only such a one as received Episcopal Orders in the Church himself but those who do derive a succession from such as appears from Tarasius in the second Council of Nice where he saith That five Bishops of Constantinople successively were Hereticks and yet their Ordinations were allowed by the Church to the same purpose speak others who are there produced by the same learned Author Let these considerations be laid together and the result will be 1. Either Dr. St. was not guilty of an intolerable error and mistake in this matter or so many infallible Heads of the Church were guilty of the same 2. It was believed for some ages in the Roman Church that the censures of the Church did take away the Power of Orders 3. T. G.'s distinction as to the foundation of it in the indelible Character of Orders is a novel thing and acknowledged by their own Divines to have no Foundation either in Scripture or Fathers 4. The ground assigned by those who held the validity of Ordination by Hereticks will hold for the Authority of exercising the Power of Orders if not actually taken away by the Censures of the Church For every man hath the power which is given him till it be taken from him every one that receives Orders according to the Form of the Church hath a power given him to excommunicate and absolve therefore every such person doth enjoy that power till it be taken from him For as I have already shewed this is part of the Form of Orders in the Roman Church Accipe Spiritum Sanctum Quorum remiseritis c. and the Council of Trent determines the character to be imprinted upon the use of these words therefore this power of jurisdiction is conveyed by the due Form of Orders from whence it unavoidably follows that every one who hath had the due Form of Orders hath had this Power conveyed to him and what power he hath he must enjoy till it be taken away R. P. But T. G. saith That Excommunication by the Apostles sentence doth it Gal. 1.8 P. D. This is indeed a piece of new doctrine and a fruit of T. G.'s Mother-wit and which I dare say he received neither from Schoolmen nor Fathers For it involves such mischievous consequences in it as really overthrow all Authority in the Church For by this supposition in case any Bishop falls into Heresie or Idolatry he is ipso facto excommunicated by St. Paul 's sentence and consequently hath no Authority to exercise the power of Orders and so all who derive their power from him have no lawful Authority or Jurisdiction I do wonder in all this time T. G. did no better reflect upon this assertion and the consequences of it and rather to thank Dr. St. that he took no more notice of it than upbraid him with intolerable error and mistake I will put a plain case to you to shew you the ill consequence of this assertion to the Church of Rome it self Dr. St. hath proved by undeniable evidence that the Arians were looked on and condemned as Idolaters by the Primitive Church and T. G. doth not deny it and what now if we find an Arian among the Bishops of Rome and from whom the succession is derived He must stand excommunicated by vertue of the Apostles sentence and therefore hath no Authority to give Orders and so all the Authority in the Church of Rome is lost The case I mean is that of Liberius who shewed himself as much an Arian as any of the Arian Bishops did for he subscribed their confession of Faith and joyned in communion with them St. Hierom saith more than once That he subscribed to Heresie the Pontifical Book saith he communicated with Hereticks Marcellinus and Faustinus say That he renounced the faith by his Subscription yea more than this Hilary denounced an Anathema against him and all that joyned with him and Baronius confesseth he did communicate with the Arians which is suffient to our purpose Then comes T. G. upon him with St. Paul 's sentence of excommunication and so he loseth all Authority of exercising the power of Orders and consequently that Authority which is challenged in the Church of Rome being derived from him is all lost And now judge who subverts the foundation of Ecclesiastical Authority most T. G. or Dr. St. yet it falls out unhappily that Pet. Damiani mentions these very Ordinations of Liberius the Heretick so he calls him to shew how the Church did allow Ordinations made by Hereticks But this is not all for by all that I can find if this principle of T. G. be allowed no man can be sure there is any lawful Ecclesiastical Authority left in the world For who can tell what secret Idolaters or Hereticks there might be among those Bishops from whom that Authority is derived This we are sure of that the Arian Bishops possessed most of the Eastern Churches and made Ordinations there and the Western Bishops in the Council of Ariminum did certainly comply with them