he punish them for no fault at all 4. But give me leave now Mr. Bagshaw to ask Who are you of what Sect Of what Church Common report gives you for a Presbyterian a man formerly very busie in the Intrigues of that Faction Yet some passages in your Preface and Epistle Dedicatory speak you an Independent in which you call your self an Assertor of Christian Liberty complaining of the keenness of Laws against such a disliker of Episcopal Authority as setled in England and one that refuses to admit the interpretation of Scripture from any Person or Church but only from your own private Reason Most likely it is you reserve in petto a Declaration whether party you mean to adhere to till you see how they are likely to thrive till then you would pass for an Amphibion And truly such a temper among you threatens much danger to the State When Pilate and Herod are made friends Christ must look to himself 5. If you be an Independent on all others will you not suffer others to be Independent likewise on you Or if you be a Presbyterian are you not content with enjoying hitherto the fruits of his Majesties most gracious promise from Breda None pretend more then you to tender consciences Have any call'd you in question for differences in Religion But this it seems will not serve your turn Nor an Independents turn Your tender conscience will not accept of the only condition that his Majesty annexes to this his Grace which is That you must not disturb the peace of the Kingdom This most just and necessary condition you here in your Preface renounce in which you again blow the Trumpet to sedition by telling the World that English Divines are bringing in Popery If that were true as long as it may be permitted to you to be Presbyterians or Independents among your selves what do you complain of Will you never leave this peevish this malicious envy not to content your selves with your own safety unless others be ruin'd 6. But it is intolerable that you should call your selves in your Preface We Protestants and talke of our Reformed Church of England or our Ancestors Our primitive protestancy c. Are you an English Protestant a member of the English Church established by Law and Canons Why then do you not submit peaceably to the government of your Bishops and indifferent Ceremonies Why do you reject the Book of Common Prayer enacted by supreme authority both Spiritual and Temporal to be the publick Liturgy of the protestancy of England Why do you find fault with the keenness of Laws against such Assertors of Christian Liberty The very titles you assume of Presbyterian or Independent declare that your formal essence consists in an opposition to English protestancy and prelacy You pilfer therefore the name of an English Protestant ut sportulam furunculus to use Tertullians phrase Or rather you are English protestants as Salvian says some in his time were Christians in opprobium contumeliam Christi 7. But you are wise in your generations you know you could do no mischief unless you took a vizard For if you had spoken in your Preface the true Language of a Sectary if directing your speech to English Protestants you had said I Mr. Edward Bagshaw Student of Christ-Church a very Presbyterian or Independent a professed Rebell against the English Church do out of my tender love and care of the welfare and promotion of the said Church give you O English Protestants warning to take heed of Popery for the bringing in of which among you Doctour Gunning and Mr. Thorndike and God knowes how many more are preparing way the Bishops are of intelligence with them and the State connives at them Therefore look to your selves All we can do is to blow the Trumpet and tell you once more how couragiously we will lead you to a thorough Reformation If you have neither zeal for God nor knowledge of your own strength 't is none of our fault Little do you know that we Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Quakers e. are again become good friends and will joyne together to put down this Antichristian Hierarchy and when we are to divide their lands it will be time to try which of us can get most Now a beater Meane we have not for such a purpose then as formerly we did to cry out Beware of Popery Take heed of your Antichristian Clergy c. 8. If you had unwisely discovered your thoughts with such plainnesse your open dealing would have shewed some sincerity some appearance of the simplicity of the Dove but little of the subtle wisdom of the Serpent a quality much more for your purpose Notwithstanding your vizard being quite worne out your calling your selves English Protestants will not have the effect it had in your former happy dayes twenty years since Your Voice is too well known now not to be Jacobs There is scarce an English subject so ignorant or of so short a memory but can take notice that this was the Old Tune that sounded to a charge and invited them to kill one another for Charities sake and to suffer you know whom to murther the best King that ever reigned before him The difference between the two Brethren in iniquity being only this One did but fight against him and the Other killed him One bound his hand and the other cut off his head They will be so far from startling at the name of Popery out of your mouthes that perhaps they may begin to entertain a better opinion of a Religion so persecuted by you especially remembring that the Papists never separated their interests from the Kings and Theirs but unanimously ventured their lives and estates for them and this purely out of love Duty and conscience even when all they could expect by a victory was to remain still under the penalty of the Laws 9. Therefore a disguise is necessary for you whensoever you would speak except to your own Party in private It had been folly in extremity to say We Presbyterians Independents c. do give you English Protestants warning to beware of your Doctours that would bring in Popery It had been apparently to your own prejudice unless you had said We tell you this who are true Reformed English Protestants of the same Church with you your Pastours who have care of your souls whom you see no man hinders from preaching in your Pulpits and writing Books to Preach to those that cannot hear us in Pulpits If we were enemies would the Civill or Ecclesiastical State think you allow us such a liberty and maintain us at their charges to Preach and Print as we do 10. But I do assure you Mr. Bagshaw you are no English Protestant For what is it to be an English Protestant or a member of the English Church This is a question of greater moment then ordinarily is believed The very subsistence of Protestant Religion in England now depends upon the right stating of it
A NON EST INVENTVS Return'd to Mr. EDWARD BAGSHAW'S ENQUIRY AND Vainly boasted DISCOVERY Of weakness in the Grounds of the CHURCHES INFALLIBILITY ALSO His Seditious INVECTIVES Against the Moderate Sincerity of PROTESTANTS and savage Cruelty against ROMAN CATHOLICKS Repressed By a Catholick Gentleman PSALM LXIII v. VI. Scrutati sunt Iniquitates defecerunt Scrutinio They made an Enquiry after Iniquities but the Enquirers failed in the Enquiry Printed in the Year MDCLXII Mr. Edward Bagshaw THe Title of your Book is not immodest being called only An Enquiry into the Grounds of the Roman Churches Infallibility But by pronouncing in the conclusion those fatall words MENE TEKEL you confidently declare it cannot be answered The destruction of the Babilonian Monarchy was not more inevitable after the writing that Decretory sentence by an invisible Angels fingers than is the Roman Churches now You have compiled and published this your Book which you judge unanswerable and to deal ingenuously with you so may I too though I be as good a Catholick as the Pope himself What would you have more A reason for it Have but a little patience and you shall not fail of one better then you expect or have knowledge to foresee 2. Yet I conceive it concerns not Catholicks only but the whole Kingdom I mean all good Subjects in it that such a book though pretendedly against Roman Catholicks only yet full of pernicious invectives malicious complaints and seditious reflexions against the State should with a barefac'd impudence stalke abroad in the publick view as fearless of a censure Nor is the Book in it self so highly provoking as in respect of the abominable Preface that no honest subject Protestant or Catholick can read without indignation no reader justify or not mislike without declaring his Thirst after the publick ruine 3. The Apostles advice of redeeming the time forbids me to mispend it by replying line after line to what you have written That therefore which I have to say to you shall be to make good these positions in direct opposition to what you have written viz. 1. That it is against the welfare of English subjects both for body and soul that you and such as you should be permitted to call your selves Protestants and members of the English Church 2. That your instilling suspicions into the peoples minds as if English Divines c. had a design to introduce Popery again is a meer acting over the late Rebellion 3. That your attempt to render Roman Catholick subjects only in an incapacity of Toleration is more groundlesse and in your mouthes most maliciously ridiculous 4. That your whole discourse against the Churches Infallibility only proves that you have nothing to say to the purpose against it I. That it is a publick mischief that Mr. Bagshaw or any such as he should be permitted to call themselves English Protestants 1. IF common fame be true Mr. Bagshaw you are the same person that published so petulant and uncivil a Libel against my Lord Bishop of Worcester and not for that fault alone have been so deservedly Disciplined by Mr. l'Estrange and so smartly whip't that the whole Town has heard your cries How then comes it to pass that you can find leasure to seek out and defy to the combat other enemies But it may be the demolishing of the Roman Church is but an excursion in a Parenthesis whilst you are for your divertisement unbending your thoughts or taking breath awhile against a new combat with an Adversary that has a great deal more zeal sharpness honesty and courage then is for your purpose who hope not to be discern'd whilst in despight of the Act of Oblivion you will not suffer either the King or any of his faithfull Subjects to forget what they have suffered and must expect but still work and preach and print almost totidem Verbis as you did when the horrible Covenant was the only Religion and Gospel of the three Kingdoms 2. These practices Mr. L ' Estrange if he cannot interrupt yet he can call company and bid them take notice of them He will not permit you to Glory as if you could once more couzen the Kingdom into a new Rebellion Never hope to find so much as one English Protestant that will once more be cheated to look upon you as the Assertors of the Subjects Liberties or maintainers of pure Protestant Religion If the Civil Authority will for ever wink at your Caballs and the Ecclesiastick leave open the Pulpits to your Sermons of the old stile and the Presses to your Pamphlets against Bishops and indifferent Ceremonies If you expect Indemnity must be interpreted to regard the future also all that can be said will be Sani Sobrii vigiles perîmus We shall not as heretofore be surprised but we make a Covenant with destruction as if we were afraid it would escape us 3. As for your Pamphlet touching Infallibility though by the Title you pretend to attacque only Roman Catholicks and to demolish the Grounds of the Churches Faith yet in the whole Book there are not quite two small leaves wherein the Church is concern'd at all either in its Grounds or Superstructure Therefore I am confident and it may be Mr. L'Estrange who knows your wayes and Arts much better then I may in a far neater that is his own stile tell you your real Design was to write a Book with the Title against Catholicks meerly to have an opportunity to stuffe the Preface with malicious glances against Protestants too and incense vulgar minds as if Popery forsooth were ready to be introduced 4. Now though my self purely as a Catholick am little concern'd in that part of your book which you purposely wrote against Catholicks and not very much in those passages against Protestants except only in this consideration that you would fain make Catholick Religion your Engine to raise troubles yet as a faithfull Subject to his Majesty and a lover of my Countries peace I cannot but inwardly bewail and must take leave thus publickly to justifie the too reasonable cause of my grief when I see an English Subject openly professing his name and pretending to the Protection of an Honourable Counsellour of State renew the old seditious practise of inflaming the Peoples minds with rage against their Teachers and murmuring suspicions against their Governours A practise that above all others contributed to the raising of the late Rebellion and to the ruine and murder of our late Soveraign of happy memory and his best Subjects and Servants the late Archbishop of Canterbury Earl of Strafford c. Here are still among us God knowes how many Sects that if any Protestant Doctours shall presume to speak or write otherwise then according to what the furious zeal of Sectaries against Ecclesiasticall Unity and peace suggests they must presently be exposed to a general suspicion the Country must be raised upon them and upon the Bishops if they not discountenance them and upon the King unless
Nay I may truly say that even we Roman Catholicks are much concerned in it and therefore I may be pardoned if I insist upon it because unless this question be resolved all our disputes with Protestants are likely to prove meer beating of the air contentions utterly wandring from the purpose Therefore I may be excused if I take the trouble upon me to resolve it and this I must do not upon Catholick grounds or notions of the phrase being members of a Church but only the notions which Protestants and generally all Sects divided from the Catholicks have entertained of that phrase For Catholicks do not esteem any one a member of the Roman Catholick Church that doth not profess all Doctrines without exception taught by it to be true and submits not to all the Lawes and Ordinances of it There is no distinction to be made as to this matter between Doctrines in themselves Fundamental or non-Fundamental between Lawes in themselves necessary or not because a refusal to accept any one of those Lawes or Doctrines does vertually destroy the Authority of the Church of how little concernment so ever such a Doctrine or Ordinance be in it self There may be differences and even dissentions among Catholicks about points of far greater moment in themselves and yet neither of the parties be in danger of being excluded from the Title of Catholiks or members of the Roman Catholick Church because the Churches Authority has not interposed it self in those disputes either way and therefore is untouched by either 11. But generally all Congregations divided from the Catholick have a quite different conceit of the Phrase being Members of a Church And this conceit is either general or more special According to the general conception of that phrase they acknowledge all to be members of their Church or rather co-members of the Church of Christ that do not teach doctrines or make ordinances excluding all right and interest in the common salvation and thus English protestants esteem themselves members of the Catholick Church and Lutherans of the Calvinists Church and you Presbyterians Independents c. of the English protestant Church because they do not deny a possibility of salvation to one another notwithstanding the differences among them 12. The second and more special notion of the phrase being Members of a Church entertained by all particular Congregations not Catholick does import an external conformity in all Doctrines without exception and all practises determined by each congregation respectively a renunciation of any excluding the refusers from an external communion and participation of the priviledges of that Congregation who notwithstanding may be acknowledged to be almost in as good a condition as to salvation as those are which exclude them from their external Communion Thus Lutherans are not Calvinists though they believe Calvinists may meet them in heaven because they will not admit them to their communion Thus you Presbyterians and Independents c. are no English protestants as long as you are Non-Conformists Let the differences between you be never so small as wearing a Surplice Kneeling at Communion c. if these Ceremonies be established by Lawes Ecclesiastical or Civil the non-submission to them is a manifest dividing from that Church and the less considerable the quarrels are the greater is the guilt of those that publickly dispute or write against that Church of which they desire to be thought members True it is you would seem to have some reason to complain against the English Church if for such trifling differencies only they should pronounce you excommunicated from Christs Mystical Body though they must give me leave to say That by not doing so but acknowledging your Congregations to be members of the Church they do manifestly conclude themselves guilty of Schisme by such a communication with you whom they cannot deny to be Schismaticks But it would be ridiculous in you to accuse them of Tyranny for excluding you from their External Communion when you your selves will not embrace it They do not pretend to an Authority to oblige you in conscience to believe that their Doctrines are true and their Ordinances just but they would be no Church they would renounce all Order if they did not maintain the laws and customes with so great deliberation and after so many disputes with you framed and renewed Where there is no Uniformity even in external matters there is no Church but a Babel If at Communion some should sit others stand others lye along as our Lord did and others kneel if some should be bare-headed others with their hats on would it looke like an assembly of men that served God Therefore complain not but rather thank God and them if they force not your consciences but permit you to abstain from things you do not like and to practice among your selves things you like better But to expect to be acknowledged members of a Church whilst you refuse to submit to the authority of that Church in things of themselves not evil much more whilst you write publickly against them is to desire them not to pretend to the name of a Church Therefore I conclude that you Mr. Bagshaw are no more a member of the English Church then I am and my proofe is this very Preface of your Book that I now write against Your saying that Episcopacy is lawful or your being ordained by Bishops signifies nothing as long as you disobey them you are none of their subjects 13. However I cannot blame you if in despight of English protestants themselves you will needs be called English protestants For if being as really you are no true members of the English Church you were treated as such that is excluded from a participation of the emoluments of it and obliged to a separated exercise of your ill-natur'd Religion two great incommodities would ensue to you and withal two as proportionably great benefits to them and the whole Nation 14. For First What pittiful Congregations would you in a short time appear to be At present your numbers especially in Cities and Towns are not unconsiderable Whereas if being no members of the English Church you were excluded from participating Tithes Benefices and other preferments not at all due to you and had no other maintenance but the Voluntary contributions of your own party you would quickly find that Party weary of you and become rather content to hear a sermon in the Church and wholesome prayers in a Surplice then to pay so much overplus for far worse stuffe in a parlour from a short cloak and no cassack 15. The Second Mortification thence flowing would be yet more intolerable Hitherto the facility of Bishops giving you leave to call your selves English protestants and members of their Church enables you to defile their Churches by doing your own businesse in them to their great prejudice and danger In their pulpits you cry down Ceremonies you preach against their government you sow sedition in the hearts of their flock
Calvinistical dregs and poison were instilled into it he might upon warrantable terms procure a Re-union with the Catholick Church But how should this Re-union be made By giving up to Roman Catholicks all the points of English Doctrins and Discipline No such matter But this he knew That in Books of Controversy among ten Points disputed there are not two wherein either of the Churches are interested and that most of the few real Substantial differences might be qualified by a moderate interpretation and condescendence 11. But whensoever such a business as this is either agitated or talked of you Mr. Bagshaw and your party smile and deride us poor Roman Catholicks as if we vainly framed to our selves great hopes and advantages by such good Christian designes or Writings of Protestants But truly you are deceived We indeed as we ought are glad purely for their sakes that either designe or write sincerely and ingenuously in matters of Religion But such designs and Writings are harmeful to us in our present condition and the reason is plain because they being the works of particular persons without any publick commission of persons that have no sufficient influence upon the whole English Church and State they produce little effect On the contrary they give only an opportunity to such malicious tongues and pens as Yours to Alarme the whole Kingdome both against them and us 12. But if it would please his sacred Majestie or the Parliament to allow a modest Conference not Dispute between a certain number of sober learned English Protestants and Catholicks by means of which a clear view might be given what the peculiar Doctrines by Authority established on both sides are and what place may be allowed for moderate Interpretations and Condescensions in all probability the success could not but be most happy the whole Kingdome yea all Christendom would stand in a maze to see what an inestimable blessing has been so long wanting to England and how little cause there was it should be refused How would the Civil and Ecclesiastical State of these nations be established and united in interests with all the Christian world almost How free should we all be from the least danger of being infected with the venom of Sectaries and how secure from their designes For then they would to all eyes appear in their distinct bodies it would be seen who how many and how qualified they are and permission being allowed them for a private liberty of exercising their Religions respectively any succeeding tumults would be both easily repressed and their cause appear inexcusable In a word Religion as it might by common Advice be setled in this Kingdom would deserve to be the envy and pattern to all the world besides being easily freed from many abuses much complained of but hard to be rectified in other Catholick Countries 13. And whence comes the obstruction to so inconceivable and universal a blessing as this but meerly from such English Protestants as You and Your partie are permitted to call your selves From You it proceeds that the Ecclesiasticks of this Kingdom have not hitherto so much as endeavoured to convert us Roman Catholicks to their Religion They have been unwilling to be informed what the true Differences between us and themselves are As if true Reformed Religion did formally consist in a blind heady and voluntary breach of Unity with all Churches before them They have condescended to admit conferences with Sects whose peculiar complexion consisting in an incompossibility with their government renders them irreconcileable unless they yield up both their Faith and Estates Yea for such Enemies satisfaction if any thing could satisfie them they have submitted to alterations even in their Church office and Discipline Lastly to content such English Protestants as You they have connived at your defiling altering and destroying that which heretofore was called and by Law still is truly the English Protestant Religion As will appear even by what You are suffered here to write against eminent persons of their Church 14. You proscribe and expose to publick hatred Doctour Gunning and Master Doctour Gunning Thorndike as persons that would seduce English subjects to Popery And what are your Proofs Forsooth Doctour Gunning has preached before the King and since printed and beyond your skill to disprove has demonstrated that the Lent fast is an Apostolical Institution Where lies the Popery It is You say against express scripture But is it therefore popery Do no Sects contradict express Scripture but Roman Catholicks Behold the natural Logick of a Fanatick However let this express scripture be produc'd Non liquet either in your Text or Margin Well at least say You it is against an Act of Parliament Let me ask You and Your fellowes a Question Will You be content to stand to all Acts of Parliament both as to their Prefaces and Clauses as Declarations of Faith and this under the penalty of being esteemed Papists Then I here denounce You a Papist For has not the whole Liturgy and Discipline of the English Church been ratified by Acts of parliament But what will You say to an Act of Parliament that has declared and like a Heretick burnt Your Covenant as a damned trayterous conspiracie Take heed therefore You be not found your self a papist As for the Lent fast You know that by the Lawes of the Kingdom Bishops are appointed the exacters and dispensers of the Observance of Lent which shewes it to be esteemed an Ecclesiastical observance as well as Civil So that I believe Dr. Gunning is in little danger from your charge 15. God send Mr. Thorndike as good a deliverance For his Charge consists M. Thorndike of more then one or two or three points of Accusation and every one of them seems to have an air of popery Let them be examined First say you he tells us in print that the Pope is not Antichrist Item That Papists are not Idolaters Item by consequence that all are Schismaticks who upon that score do refuse Communion with them These are terrible points against good Mr. Thorndike Yet alas not all his popery neither 16. A time was when such as You Mr. Bagshaw could both undoe and destroy English subjects meerly upon an accusation of Popery without proofe God be thanked it is otherwise now Therefore You ought at least to have produced some proofes that these Assertions are direct popery But not having done it let me advise you what kind of proofes will be expected You must know therefore that it is a Law of the English Church that whatsoever is found in the Antient Canons and is not expressly revoked by Ecclesiastical Authority in England is to be esteemed still in force And common sence and reason will tell you that before you can by such allegations as these prove any one to have deserted the English Churches doctrine and be turned a papist you must produce some Authentick Declaration of this Church by which the Pope is decided to be Antichrist and
the Papists Idolaters But that is impossible for you to do You will perhaps to little purpose cite the names of certain Calvinistical Writers that as you hypocritically called themselves English Protestants but withall you will take notice that all very Protestants have laughed at them some have been angry and demonstrated the direct Negative If you were a live member of the English Church you would know that the English Church would be no Church if the Pope were Antichrist and the Papists Idolaters For would you acknowledg that to be a Church that enjoyes her whole Authority and Jurisdiction from Antichrist and Idolaters Is she not rather a member and abortive of Antichrist This is plain reason Mr. Bagshaw and consequently the inference is undeniable That all are schismaticks who upon that score do refuse communion with the Roman Church 17. You proceed against Mr. Thorndike He insinuates say you that we may lawfully pray for the Dead Your proof I told you that this is against Protestancy must be to shew where the English Church has repealed the Antient Canons commanding Prayer for the Dead That will be a hard task On the contrary You your selves object against the common-prayer-Common-Prayer-Book that there is a clause in it that not only insinuates it to be lawful but actually exercises prayer for the dead And you know that within the time of the four first General Counsels received in England above twelve hundred years ago your Progenitors were by the Universal Church declared Hereticks for denying it Yea moreover that there was never extant any Liturgy or Missal in the Church of Christ Eastern or Western wherein there were not prayers for the dead 18. You go on Mr. Thorndike against the Doctrine of the Church of England saies That we may expect some benefit by the prayers of souls departed I suppose holy soules are meant Where does the Church of England contradict this nay more except you will acknowledg your self to be a Socinian and deny that the souls of dead persons have any subsistence at all with perception and use of rational faculties you your self will not be so shameless as to deny what you here lay to Mr. Thorndikes charge For I know none that call themselves Christians except Socinians but acknowledg that the glorified Saints do pray at least in general for the Church Militant Now if they all do pray for us all will you not permit us to expect some benefit by their prayers Must we maintain that all their prayers are to no purpose O but you infer That this in time may easily be improved to our praying unto them As for this inference which is not your defendants but only your own give me leave to tell you That if you believe that the Saints pray for the Church in general it would be no hard matter by one Syllogisme to oblige you to acknowledge that we may pray to God that he would hear and grant their prayers making them beneficial to us And now search all the Solemn Offices and Missals of the Roman Church mark the prayers that occurrs every Saints Feast you will find no other formes but such as that The prayer is alwayes directed to God alone immediately and he is desired to grant us such and such blessings by the intercession of such Saints And if in less solemne Devotions as Litanies Antiphons c. we say Sancte Maria Sancte Michael Sancte Petre ora pro nobis we are by the Church obliged to no other meaning then as before and we imitate express Scripture Laudate Deum omnes Angeli ejus omnes Sancti ejus c. Cardinal Perron will assure you that our prayers to Saints is only prier pour prier a devout wishing that they would pray for us And truly for my part I do heartily wish all the Saints in heaven to intercede in their prayers with God that he would vouchsafe to give you and us all a sincere love both to truth and peace 19. I have reserved your most criminal charge till the last which you thus express If it be not the intent of some to returne into Aegypt I cannot imagine Preface what means the crying up of that great Diana of the Papists the Churches authority and making that the sole interpreter of Scripture What Religion can you possibly be of and talk thus You in your own person standing alone are not a Church If you be but one member of a Church what ever it be as long as you are so you are subject to it it must have Authority over you the Spirit of one Prophet must be subject to an assembly of Prophets are you an Independent much freedom is implyed in that Title yet I believe your Lay Church will think it has authority enough to oblige you not to interpret Scripture for the advantage of that court of Inquisition the Classes of the Presbytery Are you a Presbyterian Your private reason shall be yoaked and chained with bonds strong enough and heavy enough to keep it from stirring to the prejudice of the Holy brethren and Sisters But you will needs call your self an English Protestant and yet will dare to revile all the Authority in your Church boldly protesting that it shall not interpret Scripture for you Your private reason shall over-master it Unless it confesse it self to be no Church that is to have no Authority to oblige its members to receive the sence of scripture from her you will be revenged by bellowing aloud This is the crying up of the great Diana of the Papists Truly I must needs say the Church of England is a very patient Church if she suffer you to speak this Bedlam language and injoy a Benefice too 20. But you do well though you mean very ill when you call this the Diana of the Papists Since you imply that a true obliging Authority if any where can only be found in the Catholick Church As for Sects that have no Succession of Ordination for such to assume Authority and Jurisdiction in matters of Religion is ridiculous even to common sence for it implies that to be men which have an ordinary use of reason is a sufficient qualification to become Ecclesiastical Teachers and Governours The Clergy of England challenging a lawful Ordination have some pretension to a real Authority and if they could justify themselves free from the guilt of Schisme even we Roman Catholicks could not deny but their Authority would oblige in conscience and under the penaltie of damnation because then it would be an Authority participating that of the whole Catholick Church and acting in union with it But of this somewhat more in the last part of this Discourse 21. I do apprehend Mr. Bagshaw that if you make any reply to this you will instead of speaking to the purpose endeavour to aggravate the cause of Doctour Gunning and Mr. Thorndike by saying at adventure that there is a secret intelligence between the Papists and them and that they do
to justify In the year 1651. a devout Italian Friar being appointed to preach in the Great Dome at Padua the Archbishop present and having been informed that among his Auditors there were some English Protestants that in discourse had earnestly objected as you do Idolatry to Catholicks He therefore that he might occur to such a scandal made choice of the Doctrine concerning Images for the subject of a great part of his sermon And when he came to that point holding in his hand a Crucifix he told his hearers That that Image did in one glance lively represent even to the most ignorant beholder our Lord Jesus God and Man and almost all the circumstances of his most bitter and accursed death so patiently and willingly suffered for us Thereupon with great passion and Rhetorick he magnified the Love of our Lord hanging on the Cross earnestly pressing his hearers to return a proportionable Love and Duty to him And during this discourse he often with great reverence and tenderness of affection embraced and devoutly kissed the Crucifix Having said much to this purpose after a little pause he pursued his Discourse telling them he could not believe or suspect that any one that had heard and seen what he had said and done could reasonably imagine that he had any intention to dishonour our Lord by that which he had done to the Crucifix which represented him much less that he adored it as if he thought it a kind of God that he put his trust in it as expecting any good from it as if he knew not what Divinity Vertue or Sanctity was in that carved piece of wood Notwithstanding because he had heard that such a scandalous imputation was by some misperswaded persons laid on the Church he would then and there undeceive them Thereupon he spit upon the Crucifix threw it scornfully to the ground and trampled it under his feet 36. You see Mr. Bagshaw what kind of Idolaters the Papists are Against this Idolatry let us see what express Scripture you can produce This is the great crime for which there can be no expiation but oppressions emprisonments and Gallowses Now if what hath been here said give you no satisfaction in case you have a mind to reply do not practice your old way of snatching a phrase or expression out of a single Authour a Schoolman or Controvertist and making the whole Church answerable for one mans indescretion But search what the Church her self has declared in the Council of Trent and dispute against that as well as you can and be assured you shall either be answered or else told that you are unconquerable IV. VI. That Mr. Bagshaw's whole Discourse against the Churches Infallibility is nothing to the purpose 1. HItherto of your Preface Now I come to your book which truly will afford very little businesse And in grosse concerning your grave Discourse I must tell you That if you would be as merciful to our Estates and our Lives as You are to this our fundamental Doctrine we should find You a a very commodious Adversary For notwithstanding all your blustring You have not given this Doctrine one blow that smarts at all But God bless us from Your Swords and Your Sermons 2. The Title of your book is The great Question about the Infallibility of the Pope and Church of Rome This Question you undertake to determine We are likely to have good stuff in a Book that mistakes the subject to be discoursed on You should not have said The great Question about c. but Two Questions the one a great one about the Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church which if it be disproved destroys the foundation of that Church the other a very little question about the Popes personal infallibility in which the Church it self is not concerned at all but only Cardinal Bellarmine and a few Writers zealous for that Court. And when you had said this in all reason having a design to triumph over Roman Catholicks you ought not to have said a word about this little trifling unconcerning Question but have bent all your forces against that Great one which was only to the purpose 3. But You very wisely have spent your whole book upon it only though a subject that You your self in your Preface confess is not yet decided in the Schools amongst learned men which is as much as to say no Catholick is obliged to maintain and consequently no Protestant needs trouble himself about it Nay moreover you say the two Councils of Basil and Constance and in your Book the sixth General Council have vertually decided the contrary having preferred the Authority of a Council above the Pope which therefore may reverse his decisions and actually condemned a Pope of Heresie you might have added the seventh and eighth General Councils which ratifyed the same condemnation and to them You might have joyned Pope Agathon the successour of Pope Honorius that was condemned and his Successours Pope Leo the second and the rest till Pope Adrian the second who lived in the time of the eighth Council 4. Why do You write Books Mr. Bagshaw so confessedly to no purpose at all And why do you trouble your self about a subject that the Authour whom you pretend to confute cannot himself believe what ever opinion or suspition he may have of it For no Catholick can be said to believe any thing as a Christian Verity merely upon discourse of Reason or probable deduction from Scripture but only when such a verity appears either expressly contained in the Bible or is formally decided by a General Council or received by unquestionable Tradition of the Church Now it is apparent even out of Bellarmine himself that none of these wayes the Popes Infallibility has been confirmed Nay more Never yet has any Pope declared that himself is Infallible But you are wise in the midst of folly You write out of all danger of being confuted because no body thinks himself touched so that you have an easie and cheap triumph of it Notwithstanding by your own example I do much doubt your Honourable patron by whose command You say You wrote finds not Epist Dedic his expectation answered if he did expect any great matter and I am sure being very knowing and wise he will not believe that as you brag you have killed the Enemy having left no Argument unanswered since evidently you have mistaken your enemies person through your whole book excepting only the two last leaves where obiter and in answer to an Objection supposed to be made by moderate and ingenuous Papists you make an offer to speak de tribus capellis that is the Pope's being infallible not in himself but in and with a Councill which though it be the only matter in question you call only a Conceit of which you will speak a little and you keep your word you say very little and that little to no purpose at all 5. Therefore to what purpose should any Catholick
a popular stile far from that studied exactness of Lawes and Sciences are most proper to have their sence agreed in This must be your task and to make it good it will be expected that You should do one miracle more which is to produce but one Example during sixteen hundred years and upwards taking in the Apostles times if You please to shew that differences in Religion have been prevented or composed and separations of divided Churches re-united by disputing out of Scriptures alone without submission to a common Tribunal On the contrary side we Catholicks will be obliged to shew you that all Heresies hitherto appearing have been so far destroyed by General Councils that the Church has been preserved in Unity and we are confident will be so for ever notwithstanding even so formidable an Adversaries opposition as you are 14. In the fifth place This great Tribunal of a General Council is of an Authority so authentick that no Appeal from it must be admitted Yea moreover it has influence not on the outward actions or professions only but even the judgments and hearts of all particular Catholick persons and Churches This appears not only by the universal agreement of all Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers past and present but by the solemn stile of the Decrees made by all such Councils in which Anathema's have been denounced against all Hereticks and Schismaticks and they separated from the Mystical Body of Christ to which alone Salvation is promised 15. In the last place therefore the Church being one and to keep it so Authority having been communicated to it by our Lord which Authority for that purpose must needs under penalty of an Eternal separation from Christ oblige all Christians to submit even their minds to it it seems to us that it followes necessarily and inevitably that the Church is infallible Unless we would say that our Lord has commanded us to hear such a Church and Guide as might lead us to Hell To prevent all suspicion of which he has expresly promised to lead not the Apostles only as you fancy but his Church into all Truth with whom he said he would be present to the end of the world thousands of years after the Apostles were dead 16. These you may suppose Mr. Bag. to be the true grounds of the Churches Infallibility It is Infallible because it is One but it is such an One from which as Separation is damnable So that if you a Presbyterian or Independent c. have a minde to assault these grounds then 1. You must first destroy that Article of our Creed I believe one Catholick Church 2. Next you must prove out of express Scripture not only that Scripture is our only Rule but that we have no other Guide to find out the sence of it but only our private reason or spirit and what these joyn'd together conclude upon will infallibly serve our turn whether it be true or false 3. That all the Antient Church and all Protestants too are mistaken when they say that Schism to you the most innocent thing in the World is a Sin a great exterminating sin for which there cannot possibly be a just cause or sufficient excuse 4. Lastly you must have the confidence befitting a Presbyterian to say that all Christians before you have been poor spirited sheepish deceived people that knew not what the Liberty of a Subject was and that all General Councils that presumed to denounce Anathema's against the private spirit or enlightned reason have been most abhorred conspiracies of Tyrants over Mens souls 17. Whereas if you were an English Protestant truly so called but the very supposition is unsufferable and therefore must be changed therefore I say whereas a true English Protestant would protest his readiness to submit both his tongue and soul to a lawful General Council and consequently would have no quarrel against the Infallibility of the Universal Church He would admit Tradition to be the best Interpreter of Scripture Only his Controversiehumour would spend it self against the Roman Churches pretention to the Title of Catholick and would maintain that the English State and Clergy had authority enough to reform themselves without consulting the Roman or any other Churches Indeed if the Eastern Church had still been in Union with the Roman the case then would be altered The English Church on such a supposition would have had a scruple to oppose both 18. Therefore since it is not in our power to oblige the Turk to permit the Eastern Bishops to meet in a General Council with the West for English Protestants sake not yours good Mr. Bagshaw I will take upon me a little more then your Book can require from me and that is to propose in the mean time a convenient mean and expedient towards the removing this scruple and that is as followeth 19. Since we cannot have speaking Judges that will please them they may I suppose do well to help themselves with Books and for that purpose pitch upon some well known time in which the Eastern and Western Churches were united and out of the Books and Monuments of that Age impartially collect the Doctrines then taught and the Church-government then in use through the whole Church For thereby it will evidently appear whether of the Churches Eastern or Western that now differ in both have deserted that which was anciently in both 20. Now I conceive a more proper time for this purpose cannot be imagined then the Age of the Church in St. Gregory the great 's time when England was converted from Paganisme by St. Augustin the Monk sent by him For it is evident that the whole Church was then in perfect Union the same Doctrines were taught and the same Government and Common laws in use all the Christian World over Besides there are extant more better and clearer Monuments both of the Doctrines and Discipline of that Age then in any other and especially in St. Gregories Epistles sent into all quarters of the World and in other of his works translated into the Greek tongue and freely embraced yea admired by the Greek Church we may find what Authority so learned and Holy a Pope exercised over other Churches according to the then received Ecclesiastical Canons Moreover besides S. Gregories Works our own Country both by wtitings of learned men Councils of Bishops and visible Marks in the foundation of Churches and Monasteries will most abundantly furnish us 21. Now when we have found what in that age was the Belief and practise of the whole Church uniformly Then we are to confront thereto the Doctrines and Discipline of the present Eastern and Western Churches Being assured that both of them have not deserted the Antient Belief and practise because if it were so there would not now be extant any Orthodox Church at all and consequently our Saviours promise of leading his Church into all Truth would have failed 21. Now when it shall appear unto us whether of these two great Churches hath