that lives the substance of it which is soon and easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine truths into two words which his great apostle again abridged into one And if the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all catholiks the chiefest particles of divine epistles books of sacred history and meditation upon all the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberles amongst catholiks adjoyned to the many several rites of examination of conscience daily and continual practis of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things God hath wrought for us throughout the year which all by law are tied to observ and do observ them may not give a sufficient acquaintance of what concerns our salvation and promote them enough towards it I am to seek what it is that can or what further good it may do to read the letter of Saint Pauls epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherin questions and cases and theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingeniously and without heat what more of good could accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practis than by the conceived substance of Gods will to me and my own duty towards him or what is ther now here in England when the letter of scriptur is set open to every mans eye any more either of peace or charity piety or justice than in former catholik times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those ancient catholik times they flockt every day in the week to their Churches which stood continually open there to pray and meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles all over the land both day and night they built all our churches that we have at this day remaining amongst us and as many more which we have razed and pulled down they founded our universities established our laws set out tythes and glebe-land for their clergy built hospitals erected corporations in a word did all the good things we found don for our good in this our native kingdom But Quid agitur in Anglia Consulitur de religione The former Christians practised and we dispute they had a religion we are still seeking one they exercised themselves in good works by the guidance of their holy catholik faith which leads to them all these works we by our faith evacuate as menstruous rags they had the substance of true religion in their hearts we the text in our lips they had nothing to do but to conform their lives to Gods will all our endeavour is to apply Gods word to our own factions Sir mistake me not The question between us is not Whether the people are to have Gods word or no but whether that word consists in the letter left to the peoples disposal or in the substance urgently imposed upon people for their practis And this becaus you understand not but mistake the whole business all your talk in this your eighteenth chapter vades into nothing Where Fiat Lux sayes in that forenamed paragraff that the Pentateuch or hagiography was never by any High-priest among the Jews put into a vulgar tongue nor the Gospel or Liturgy out of greek in the Eastern part of the Christian Church or latin in the Western You slight this discours of mine becaus hebrew greek and latin was say you vulgar tongues themselvs I know this well enough But when and how long ago were they so not for som hundreds of years to my knowledge And was the Bible Psalms or Christian liturgy then put into vulgar tongues when those they were first writ in ceased to be vulgar This you should have spoke to if you had meant to say any thing or gain-say me Nor is it to purpos to tell me that S. Jerome translated the Bible into Dalmatian I know well enough it has been so translated by some special persons into Gothish Armenian Ethiopian and other particular dialects But did the Church either of the Hebrews or Christians either greek or latin ever deliver it so translated to the generality of people or use it in their service or command it so to be don as a thing of general concernment and necessity So far is it from this that they would never permit it This I said and I first said it before you spoke and your meer gainsay without further reason or probability of proof cannot disposses me Dr. Cousins now byshop of Durham lately sojourneying in Paris when he understood of a grecian byshops arrival there did with some other English Gentlemen in his company give him a visit and with the same or like company went afterwards to see him The articles of our English Church were translated into greek and shown him Many questious were asked him about the service of the grecian Church praying for the dead invocation of Saints real presence confession c. Dr. Cousins can tell himself what answer he received from that venerable grave prolate Cyrillus archbishop of Trapesond for that was his name and title In brief he owned not those articles as any way consonant to the faith of the Greeks who beleeved and had ever practised the contrary He also told them distinctly and openly that Mass or Liturgy was and had ever been the great work of their Christianity all over the greek Church that confession of sins to a priest praying for the dead invocation of saints and such like points wherein we in England differ from papists were all great parts of their religion and their constant practis Finally he let them know that all the Liturgies both those of St. Basil St. Chrysostom St. Gregory Nazianzen were ever kept in the learned greek differing from the vulgar language And withall showed his own greek book of Liturgy which he used himself at the altar Dr. Cousins did himself see him officiate with his lay-brother a monk of St. Basil belonging to St. Catherins monastery in mount Sina ministring to him at the altar and found both by his words and practis that in all those and other essential parts and observances of Christianity the Greeks agreed perfectly with the Roman Church This testimony Sir of a venerable arch-byshop to such a worthy person as Dr. Cousins might I should think suffice to justifie my words and make you beleev with me that Christian Liturgies have ever been used as Fiat Lux speaks in a learned language distinct from the vulgar But we need not go far from home for a testimony Neither the Bible nor Service-book was ever seen here in England for a thousand years space in any
things specified here by your Disswader for popish novelties as they are rightly understood in the catholik sence and meaning Indulgences the real presence under the apperances or species of material symbols Communion in one kind Liturgy in hebrew greek or latin tongus unknown generally to vulgar people Use and respect of images and sacred figures Spiritual Supremcay in one byshop over the rest Saints invocation and sacrifice of mass are all acknowledged by former Protestant Reformers for old errours errours indeed but old very old ones a thousand years older than your Disswader makes them who would here make us beleev they are but fresh novelties As for the antiquity of Indulgences so far as they belong to Catholik beleef I need not trouble my self with further testimonies then the only one of your Disswader himself who is instar omnium For p. 17. he acknowledges their use to be ancient and primitive As for the real prefence Humpred in his Jesuitism sayes that Gregory the great who lived a thousand years ago taught Transubstantiation The Century writers Cent. 5. teach that Chrysostom who was two hundred years before Gregory is thought to confirm transubstantiation and Cent. 4. they place under the title of hurtsul opinions and errours of the fathers that saying of S. Greg Nyssen in his catechist sermon de devin◠sacramento Not becaus it is eaten doth the bread becom the body of the word but forthwith by the word it is changed into the body as it is said by the word This is my body And they say in the same century c. 10. That Eusebius Emissenus did speak unprofitably of Transubstantiation Antony de Adamo in his anotomy of the mass sayes That the book of Sacraments ascribed to Ambrose affirms the opinion of Christs bodily presence in the sacrament Peter Martyr in his defence wholly dislikes the judgment of St. Cyril in this point Mr. Whitgist in his defence against Cartwright testifies of St. Ignatius disciple to St. John the Evangelist that he should say of some hereticks in his time That they do not admit Eucharist and oblations becaus they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ. which flesh suffered for our sins Adamus Francisci in his margarita theologica saith Commentum papistarum de transubstantiatione maturè in ecclesiam irrepsit And Antony de Adamo in his anatomy of the Mass saith I have not yet hitherto been able to know when this opinion of the real and bodily being of Christ in the Sacrament did begin This then according to the acknowledgment of Protestants and those very learned men is no novelty The indifferency of communion either in one kind or both is manifestly affirmed by Luther in his epistle ad Bohemos by Melanchton in his century of theological epistles and several other Protestants convinced therof by the current of primitive antiquity That the Christian Liturgy was in ancient times ever celebrated in Greek Chaldee Latin or other language unknown to vulgar Christians and in a part of the Church where lay people might not approach and great part of it secretly and out of the hearing of any body and with much pomp of vestments gold and silver chalices c. is amply testified by Theodore Beza in his eight epistle theological And therfor Queen Elizabeth did not think she acted against antiquity when she caused the Service to be read in English all over Wales where the people understand it not For which very same reason the great Cardinal Richlieu deservedly taxed heretical ministers who except at least in outward show against this ancient custom for their practising the very same thing as convinced in their own consciences that it was the ancient practice both in Bearn Narbo Province and other places where the ministers of those places read Service in the French Tongue which was not the language of those Provinces nor by any of those people any more understood than is Latin by the vulgar of mankind And yet the cafe is far otherwise in this affair affair amongst Catholiks than other people For these do but only come together to hear and attend to the Minister what he sayes But the Priests in the Catholik Church comes to make atonement for the people which may well be done so long as the said people are in a general disposition of heart fitly disposed to present themselves before the face of their Lord for that end whether they hear and know the sighs and requests of their petitioner in particular for them or no so long as they are assured they are of that true Church by whom their priests are directed in their duty For thus it was in the law of Moyses dictated by God himself There shall be no man saith the sacred text Lev. 16. in the tabernacle of the congregation when the priest goeth in to make an atonment in the holy place untill he come out and have made an atonement for himself and for his houshold and for all the congregation of Israel If God allowed of this custom four thousand years ago it can neither be a novelty nor ill As for images and their due respect the Magdeburgian Centuriators in their 4. Century testifie That Lactantius affirms many superstitious things concerning the efficacy of Christs image And in their 8. century That S. Bede erred in the worshipping of images So Bale in his pageant of Popes sayes That Gregory by his indulgences established pilgrimages to images and defended worshipping of images As also That S. Leo allowed the worshipping of Images Functius another Protestant in his chronology at 494. addes That Xenaias who lived thirteen hundred years ago was specially noted and condemned for being the first that stirred up wars against images This is then no novelty neither As for Purgatory and prayer for the dead Fulk in his Retentive affirms That it prevailed within three hundred years after Christ. And in his confutation of Purgatory That Ambrose allowed prayer for the dead and that it was the common errour of his time And again in the same book That Chrysostom and Jerom allowed prayer for the dead and in another place of the same book That Austin blindly defended it and again there That Tertullian Cyprian Austin Jerom and many others affirm that sacrifice for the dead is the tradition of the Apostles As also he had acknowledged about ten pages before in the same book That prayers for the dead is taught in the writings now extant under the name of Dionysius Areopagita mentioned in the acts of the Apostles which book though he doubt whether it be his or no yet himself writing against the Rhemish upon the 2. Thessalonians allows it to have been written above thirteen hundred years ago Chemnitius in his Examen sayes That it was taught by Austin Epiphanius and Chrysostom as nine pages before that he had said It was taught by Origen Ambrose Prudentius and Jerom. Mr. George Gifford in his Demonstration sayes That it was generally in
now actual inhabitants of this Land and progeny of the Saxons received first our Gospel and Christendom from Rome though the Brittans who inhabited this Land before us differing as much from us as Antipodes had some of them been Christned long before us And yet the Christendom that prevailed and lasted among the Brittans even they also as well as we had it from Rome too mark this likewise But you reply Though persons from Rome did first plant Christianity among the Saxons was it the Popes Religion they taught did the Pope first finde it out or did they Baptise in the name of the Pope Good Sir it was the Popes Religion not invented by him as your cavil fondly imagines but owned professed and put in practice by him and from him derived unto us by his missioners You adde Did not the Gospel come to Rome as well as to us for it was not first preached there Sir properly speaking it came not so to Rome as it came to us For one of the twelve fountains nay two of the thirteen and those the largest and greatest was transferred to Rome which they watered with their blood we had never any such standing fountain of Christian Religion here but only a stream derived to us from thence My second assertion must be From whom we first received our Religion with them we must still abide This principle as it is never delivered by Fiat Lux though you put it upon me so is it in the latitude it carries and wherin you understand it absolutely fals never thought of by me and indeed impossible For how can we abide with them in any truth who may perhaps not abide in it themselvs Great part of Flanders was first converted by Englishmen and yet are they not obliged either by Fiat Lux or any lux whatsoever to accompany the English in our now present wayes If Rome first taught us Christianity she may then rather plead a power to guide us than we her This or some such like thing I might speak and rationally speak it But that we or any other should be obliged still to abide or rather to follow them who first taught us Religion though they should themselvs forsake their own doctrin as you would make me speak is a piece of folly never came into my thoughts And you may be ashamed to put it upon me Why do you not set down my own words and the page of my book where I delivered this principle My third must be The Roman Religion is still the same This also I do no where formally express nor enter into any such common place You will say I suppose it But doth this justifie you who say here that I assert it as a principle let it then be supposed for I do indeed suppose it becaus I know it hath been demonstrativly proved a hundred times over You deny it has bin proved why do you not then disprove it Becaus you decline say you all common places Very good so do I let us com to proper ones You fall then upon my Queries in the end of my book The Roman was once a true flourishing Church and if she ever fell she must fall either by apostasie heresie or schism c. So I speak there And to this you reply that the Church that then was in the Apostles time was indeed true not that Roman Church that now is So so then say I that former true Church must fall then som time or other when did she fall and how did she fall by apostacy heresy or schism Perhaps say you neither way for she might fall by an earthquake Sir we speak not here of any casual or natural downfall or death of mortals by plague famine or earthquake but a moral and voluntary laps in faith What do you speak to me of earthquakes You adde therfor the second time that she might fall by idolatry and so neither by apostacy heresy or schism Good Sir idolatry is a mixt misdemeanour both in faith and manners I speak of the single one of faith And he that falls by idolatry if he keep still some parts of Christianity entire he falls by heresy by apostacy if he keep none At last finding your self pusled in the third place you lay on load She fell say you by apostacy idolatry heresy schism licentiousnes and prophanenes of life And in this you do not much unlike the drunken youth who being bid to hit his masters finger with his when he perceived he could not do it he ran his whole fist against it But did she fall by apostacy By a partial one say you not a total one Good Sir in this division apostasy is set to expres a total relaps in opposition to heresy which is the partial Did she then fall by heresy or partial apostasy in adhering to any error in faith contary to the approved doctrin of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and Catholik Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto Sir I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad hominem to one that does not take them so And then if indeed the Roman Church had ever swerved in faith as you say she has and be her self but as another ordinary particular Church as you say she is then might you find som one or other more general Church if any ther were possitively to judg her som Oecumenical councel to condemn her som fathers either greek or latin expresly to write against her as Protestants now do som or other grave solemn autority to censur her or at least som company of beleevers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell Since you are no wayes able to assign any of these particulars my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was The fourth assertion frequently say you pleaded by our Authour is that all things as to religion were ever quiet and in peace before the Protestants relinquishment of the Roman Sea This principle you pretend is drawn out of Fiat Lux not becaus it is there but only to open a door for your self to expatiate into som wide general discours about the many wars distractions and factious altercations that have been aforetime up and down the world in som several ages of Christianity And you therfor say it is frequently pleaded by me becaus indeed I never speak one word of it And it is in truth a fals and fond assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account If you had either cited the place or set down my own words they would have spoke their meaning I might say perhaps that our Land had no part of those disturbances upon the account of religion all the thousand years it was Catholik which
brings you upon your often iterated common place of Pagans reproaches of Christians And whatever my paragraff may be this your chapter seems to me as ingenious as the very best of your book and absolutely frivolous And must you invegh against calumnies whose whole book is nothing els It is a bundle of slanders and a meer quiver of fiery darts of desolation and malice 17. ch from page 313 to 325. Your seventeenth chapter upon my paragraff of Images or Figures nibbles at more of my discours made in that one paragraff then you have taken notice of in ten of my others A man say you may indeed have such thoughts of devotion as Fiat Lux speaks of upon the sight of images which he sees hanging in Churches if he be a man distraught of his wits not if he be himself and sober So then mad men it seems can tell what figures represent sober and wise men cannot Again The violation of an image say you redounds to the prototype if it be rightly and duly represented not els And when then is Christ crucified for example rightly and duly represented Are you one of those mad men can tell what figures represent yea or no. The hanging up of traitors in effigie is don say you only to make a declaration of the fact and not to cast a dishonour upon the person So you say Becaus you know it don long after the fact has rung all the whole Kingdom over and don not in places of concours but ignominy not in the Exchange but Tyburn not with any characters declaring the fact but with a halter about his neck to denote the death and ignominy inflicted as far as is possible upon him You go on Where the psalmist complains of Gods enemies breaking down his sculptures he means not therby any images or figures but only wainscot or carved ceiling Surely the Prophet wanted a word then to express himself or translatours to express the Propher If we must guess at his meaning without heeding his words one might think it as probable what also holy scripture tells us that the hous of God was ordained with sculptures of Cherubims and other angels to represent his true hous that is above as with the circles quadrats triangels rhombos and rhomboides of wainscot The eye say you again may not have her species as well as the ear becaus God has commanded the one and not the other This Sir you only say Fiat Lux makes it appear that God commands and commends both and the nature of man requires both nor can you give any reason why I may not look upon him who was crucified as well as hear of him You adde Nor is the sole end of preaching as Fiat Lux would have it only to move the mind of the hearers unto corresponding affections Why do not you say then what els it is for you deny my words but declare your self no other end but what I have in those short words exprest You may haply conceal in your heart som other end of your preaching which you are loath to speak as to procure applaus to vent your rhetorick to get good benefices to show your fine cloth and silks your pure neat white starched bands and cuffs button'd handkerchiefs and ladies gloves to inflame factions get wives or the like but I could not think of all things at once nor needed I to express any more then that one end of preaching which is connatural apostolical and legal You go on God indeed commanded the Cherubims to be set upon the ark but those cherubims were images of nothing of what should they be images Nor were they set up to be adored Besides God who commanded them to be set up did no more gainsay his own prohibition of images to be made than he contradicted his own rule which forbids to steal when he commanded his people to spoil the Egyptians But Sir since the real Cherubims are not made of our beaten gold those set up by Moses must be only figures And of what els should they be figures but of those real ones Nor is it either to my purpos or yours that they are set up to be adored For images in catholick Churches are not set up for any such purpos nor do I any where say it No man alive has any such thought nor tradition no councel hath delivered it no practis infers it Christian Philosophers or Schoolmen have indeed raised a philosophical question Whether any respect may be terminated upon the figure purely as it such an absolute entity in it self besides that relative one that falls only upon the prototype But what they question or what they talk or what they resolve does no more belong becaus they say it unto catholik faith then if they had been asleep and said nothing All catholik councels and practis declares such sacred figures to be expedient assistants to our thoughts in our divine meditation and prayers and that is all that I know of it And the relative respect that is given to any figur as it is such a figur whether in a glass or in any more fixed postur to supply the defects of a mirrour that it terminates naturally upon the sampler or prototype is evident to right reason and philosophy And it cannot be otherwise That which you speak of the Israelites spoiling the Egyptians by Gods command hath som species of an argument in it But Sir we must know you as well as I that God who forbids men to steal did not then command to steal as you say he did when he bad his people spoil the Egyptians under the species of a loan Many things legitimate that their act of spoil and clear it from any notion of theft or robbery or stealing First they might have of themselvs a right to those few goods in satisfaction of the long oppression they had unjustly undergon and it may be that in that their great haste their own allowance was not then paid them But secondly becaus it is a thing of danger that any servant should be allowed to right himself by putting his hand to his masters goods though his case of wrong be never so clear therfor did the command of God intervene to justifie their action And the absolute dominion of the whole earth and all that is in it being inseparably in the hands of God made that by Gods express command to be truly now and justly the Hebrews right which by an inferiour and subordinate title such as is in the hand of creatures belonged to the Egyptians before So that the Hebrews in taking those goods with them did not steal nor did God command them to steal when he bad them carry those goods of the Egyptians with them for that upon that very command of God they now ceased to be the Egyptians any more But this can no wayes be applied to the busines of Images nor could God command the Hebrews to make any images if he had absolutely forbidden to have any
those ugly colours which so injuriously defaced that Religion that most innocent Religion which under the name of Popery lies here traduced by the pen of her own ungrateful Scribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Doctour Taylor against Popery And such a Disswasive as this But my amazement Sir is now blown over The Doctour appeared to me after some serious thoughts to be for a special reason that touches none so much as himself in some manner excusable That none should love Popery or ever come to know it concerns not only his wealth and dignity and life of ease which is the common caus of others also with himself but all the honour and fame he hath hitherto got by transcribing popish as now he calls but in former times named Catholik authors For having bin twenty years and upwards deeply plunged in reading and transcribing som of the innumerous spiritual books that are amongst Catholiks not only in Latin but other languages of several Kingdoms where that Religion flourishes he hath culled out thence many fine treatises which he hath set forth in his own name and language to his much renown and no small wealth and dignity amongst us Nor is it to be doubted but that he means for his yet further glory reaped from other mens labours and that spirit of piety which thence he got into his own pen to write out yet one book more The same store-house that furnished him with the life of Christ will dictate to him also the lives of his twelve Apostles and many other raptures of divine love and heavenly devotion And if people be but kept from Popery as he hopes and labours they may it will never be known whence he gathers those his fragrant pieties It was not handsom yet a piece of wisdom it was in the Grecian Cynick to spit in the dish which pleased him best lest others should taste how good it was and deprive him therby of som of his content This book of Doctour Taylors called a Disswasive printed in Dublin and as I understand reprinted here in London I suppose in the very same words by reason of the Authors absence is large enough containing 173 pages in quarto marvellously bitter and contumeliously insulting over that Religion which he cannot but know he misreports Indeed Sir there is more popery in one page of Dr. Taylors Life of Christ which he transcribed from popish Authors than is in all this whole book which he writes against those Authors popery that is owned by them to be their religion all this he puts upon them under the notion of popery throughout his whole hundred and seventy three pages except haply som three or four words whose sence also he perverts no Catholik upon earth acknowledges for any parcel of his faith Is not this strange disingenuous dealing How he comes to act thus and what is the feat he makes use of to discolour their Religion you shall hear by and by when I have first opened his book and the things contained in it His Disswasive hath three chapters and each chapter several sections The first chapter is intitled thus The Doctrin of the Roman Church in the conroverted articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive The second thus The Church of Rome as it is at this day disordered teaches doctrins and uses practices which are in themselvs or in their true and immediat consequences direct impieties and give warranty to a wicked life The third thus The Church of Rome teaches doctrins which in many things are destructive of Christian society in general and of Monarchy in special both which the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland does by her doctrins greatly and Christianly support These three be things of importance and must either be great notorius crimes in the Defendant or monstrous slanders in the Plaintiff A Religion that is new impious and unsociable that is against antiquity piety and society is hardly good enough for Hell Who is he that shall dare to profess or countenance such a religion upon earth But let us see in order how all this is demonstrated to us by an old pious and sociable Doctour His first Chapter First then That the doctrin of the Roman Church in the controverted Articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive he declares in eleven sections which make up that his first chapter First section sayes that the Roman Church pretends a power to make new Articles of faith and doubtles uses that power and for that end corrupts the Fathers and makes expurgatory Indices to alter their works The second that this power of making new articles is a novelty and yet beleeved by Papists Third that the Roman doctrin of Indulgences is unknown to antiquity Fourth that Purgatory is another novelty Fift Transubstantiation another Sixt Half-communion another Seventh Liturgy in an unknown tongue another Eighth Veneration of Images the like Ninth Pictures the same Tenth the Popes general Episcopacy likewise And the eleventh and last speaks almost as many more all of a heap to make up his one last section as Invocation of Saints sufficiency of scriptures absolving sinners before pennance simple Priests giving Confirmation selling Masses for nine pence circumgestation of the Eucharist intention in Sacraments Mass-sacrifice and supper without Communion All this is Popery all new and therfor the Roman Church is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive This is the sum of his first Chapter What in the name of God does this Author of the Disswasive your learned Doctour mean by the Church of Rome and by the doctrine of the Roman Church This Sir is a main busines and ought if he had meant sincerity to have been firmly stated before any thing were treated either of the one or the other But this he utterly here omits which he should principally have heeded that he may speak loosely and hand over head anything he may deem fit to black his own paper and other mens fame If he take them as he ought the Church of Rome for that universality of Catholik beleevers who live in several kingdoms of the world united in faith and sacraments under the Spirit of Jesus Christ and one visible Pastour and the doctrin of that Church for the body of faith and religion handed to them from age to age as taught and delivered from Christ and his Apostles which they call in the phrase of St. Paul Depositum fidei or treasure of faith I say if he mean this by the Roman Church and doctrin of that Church as he ought to do I will be bold to aver that ther is not any one claus or period in his book true and three parts of his book absolutely impertinent If he mean otherwis then Catholiks themselvs conceiv or profess he was bound in honour to make his mind known that the renown of an innocent Religion and worthy persons might not suffer prejudice by his ambiguous speech But perhaps he studied how to abuse that Religion that he may
call the Vicars Wars For the inferiour priests and levites envying the dignities glory and revenues of their prelates when they could not otherwise get them into their own hands by their lamentable tones in Eloimi raised up the people of the land to further their design This trick of theirs they learned from wolves For these when they spy a waifaring man whom they would devour and yet by a narrow search perceiv him to be too strong for them starting aside upon som hillock there set upon their tails they howl for help And if any will not beleev Fiat Lux that such be the fruits of disputes and controversies and such their nature and genius let them beleev the Authour of Animadversions who as he sayes what he pleases and denies what he lists so to his frequent reproaches villifications and slanders he adjoyns his own menaces of terrour to make my words good and justify Fiat Lux. You frequently threaten me that if I write again I shall hear more far more than you have said in your Animadversions but I promis you Sir if you write again you shall never hear more from me For now the flies begin to com into my chamber which may haply expect I should heed their flight and hearken to their buzz and I must not leav those greater employments to look upon your Animadversions or any your other books Farewell Given this V. of the Ides of April in the year of our Lord MDCLXIII J. V. C. EPISTOLA AD CROESUM AGAINST Mr. Whitby The occasion of this second Epistle DOctour Pierce had preached a Sermon in the Court upon that text In the beginning it was not so from whence he took occasion to speak of Popery which in this and that and the other particular he said in the beginning was not so and consequently all of it a novelty This sermon was afterwards printed and not a little applauded by those who are taken with such airs Mr. Cressy a Catholik Gentleman the Authours friend then sojourning in London wrote a book called Catholik doctrin no novelties in consutation of that Sermon and went presently away to Paris But after his departure Mr. Whitby set forth a huge bulk of a book against Cressy The Authour in this his epistle gives notice to Mr. Cressy his friend then in France of the contents and tenour of that his adversaries book II. Epistola ad Croesum against Mr. Whitby SIR IT is now about a year since Dr Pierce made his pretty featous Sermon in the Court where by vertue of those few words of his text In the beginning it was not so Matth. 19. 8. he consuted all Popery in the space of one hour as a meer bundle of novelties The Treatise you left here in the hands of som friends before your departure to Paris to prove against the tenour of the said Sermon That Catholik doctrines are no novelties printed afterward by I know not what good hand gave us here in England after your departur a great deal of good satisfaction This book of yours about a moneth or two after it was extant was seconded by another against Dr. Pierce penned by Jo. Siâ— a small but a very quick and lively piece to invalidate his reasons So that Pierce had now two adversaries against him The latter J. S. hears not yet of any reply But your book Sir is lately answered not by Dr. Pierce himself who hath other irons in the fire and meets now with somthing in his own life which in the beginning was not so but by one Mr. Daniel Whitby a young man of a forward spirit and possest as it seems of a fair reformed library who hath undertaken or is willing at least to undergo the quarrel This book of Whitbyes wherof my antient love and friendship hath here invited me to give you a brief account is a great volum of 512 pages so fruitful is the seed of controversie when it is once sown to increase and multiply A compendium it is I think of his whole library Whether this book of his be made up all by one hand by reason of the unity of the name and diversity of stiles discerned in it is not easy to guess But that Mr. Whitby if he had many coadjutors with him either in his own chamber or abroad should by their mutual consent alone reap the honour of all their labours wherof his own part may haply be the least you need Sir neither grutch nor fear nor envy nor any way dislike The book is of that natur that it more behoovs it should be thought to issue from one young head then many old ones that the insufficiency when it shall appear may be rather attributed to the weaknes of the Author then caus he pleads for Of this Sir I may out of Whitbyes own words in his Epistle Dedicatory and the whole progres of his book assure you that this volume of his is wholly made up of the many several replies of divers Protestant writers who have stretcht their wits to the utmost in this last age to evacuate the Catholik faith and all their grounds autorities and reasons for it not only such as have written here in England which are not a few but those also beyond the seas who are all met friendly here together though never so much differing in their wayes twenty at least or thirty of the chiefest to help to make up Mr. Whitbies book These writers he tells us in his Epistle som of them who they be Hammond Field Salmasius Baron Usher Fern Dally Taylor Crackanthorp Hall Andrews Calixtus Plessis Chamier and Chillingworth But he does not there mention Pareus Blondel Baxter and several others whom in the context of his book he makes as much use of as any of those he there honours with the title of Champions with whose sword and buckler he means to defend himself and knock you down You may easily guess the reason Although indeed even Chamier Plessis and Dally his first and chiefest three wer as great Puritans as Baxter Pareus or Blondel and no less enemies to the English Protestant then Roman Catholik Church And Baxter himself if he will but do so much as dye shall seven year hence if not sooner be put into the next calendar and sit among the Champions of the English Church cited no more then as guilty of faction and heresy but as a Protector and Patron of the truth famous Baxter incomparable Baxter So p. 230. he cites Dr. Reynolds as a great Champion of his Church who was indeed a Champion of the Puritans against it Every non-Papist is a good Protestant especially when he is dead When they fight for their wives and children against catholik traditions and faith then are they all holy zealous champions But they are damned and swery notoriously from the truth if they may be themselvs beleeved when they contest with one another which ever happens after the first great victory with the common enemy obtained One thing is
singular in this book of Whithies that he frames no answers out of any judgment of his own ripened by a long and serious consideration of the things he speaks of in this his reply but recurres presently to the books of those his forenamed masters in his library and against your reasonings only opposes their words and fore-studied evasions such as they had invented each one his own way upon semblable occasions not heeding at al whether your discours against which he writes hath anticipated those shifts afore-hand as generally it does yea or no nor how far they evacuate one another This if he had pondred well which perhaps poor man he could not do it had prevented much of his collections and sunk his huge book into a far smaller bulk To this quoth he hath Chamier told you that c. Can you not see what incomparable Chillingworth hath taught you that c. You will still be impertinent although great Plessis hath informed you that c. Where wer your eyes when reverend Hall hath so plainly told you that c. And he brings somtimes not only four or five several answers of one author to the same thing all I suppose he found there written in his book but half a dozen of those his authors with all their manifold evasions to one single catholik ground and for the most part so confusedly that the first answer of the first author hath presently another first as consisting of two parts and the first of them may haply have another first so that three succeeding periods begin oftentimes with three firsts one after an other according as he penned them haud over head out of the books he wrote venting his reasons as som young children void worms three or four head and tails together Nor heeds he at all whether these his authors do chance to contradict one another in those affairs for which he brings them in so unnaturally together one affirming what the other denies one rejecting what the other allows one distinguishing what the other absolutely grants c. This benefit he will reap by this confused interlocution of his masters that if he com to be challenged upon any of the answers which he makes by their lips he shall not need when he findes them either weak or fals or any way prejudicial to own then for his what he had openly profest before-hand to be another mans replies So that they will serv a bird all bedecked with the feathers of many a fowl for pride and pompous show unto such as will admire him and to such as shall question him for a present remedy of excuse This is not my feather but the Cuckows It is not my saying but Chamiers It is the reply of Chillingworth It is the speech of Dr. Hammond and not any assertion of mine c. What can any one do Sir to such a man but neglect him Truly I look upon Whitby as a kind of master of Revels that appoints other men who are to speak every one their parts and gives them their qu of entrance whilst himself stands in som privat place to look on and see how they do perform And he provides commonly against any one of your catholik grounds or reasons for it four or five Protestant speakers by their several wayes to disable it wherof one shall haply say that the autority you bring is good but carries another meaning a second shall affirm it is naught and forged a third stands indifferent whether it be admitted or no but is sure it makes against you a fourth acknowledges it for your purpos but disparages the authour whence it is taken a fift admits both the autority of the author and truth of his words but tells you it is only one of his errors Whitby himself not saying all the while which of all these replies he holds himself for good but imagining you wholly opprest and overwhelmed with his various collection of contradicting drollery he passes on exulting to your next point or following reason in the same mode and method to be crusht And truly Sir one may see in this one book of Whitbies at a view what a judicious examiner who loves to read and ponder all things seriously cannot but observ in all the writers since the reformation put together One admits the catholik ground and autority another rejects and villifies it another accepts the words but by some trope or other turns the sens another allows the natural sens but sayes it is one of his errours another will not have that nor any other authority upon earth to be of any force in those affairs c. And thus they do about every particular of antient faith still laughing and hugging one anothers fancies though never so much contradictory as well to one another as to the common faith they all impugn What a strange confusion would this caus in the world if the like proceeding were countenanced in civil as here in spiritual affairs and men might be outed of their estates and possessions by half a score witty lawyers with cunning querks and subtle sophistries deluding his right and tenure no judg admitted to give sentence And indeed although this contest begin in spiritual affairs yet it ever ends in civil When they have once oated a Land of their old religion and the prosperity and peace attending it mens persons estates dignities nay the very laws of the Land are apprehended and brought into the power of these reformers to the utter desolation of a Kingdom And as this book of Whitbies Sir is a compendions mirrour of all Anticatholiks dealing with the old Roman faith so will I give you in civil affairs a perfect emblem of all Whitbies book That all may clearly see if this proceeding be allowable what confusion and injustice must needs follow The Emblem of the old Roman religion I make Caius the seventeenth Knight for example of his family which hath continued in the state time out of mind A faction rises to dispossess him of all that he and his ancestours had so long and peaceably enjoyed They tell him in general that his ancestors were intruders but differ very much about the time when the invasion was first made One sayes 200 year ago another 800 another 500 several men several wayes and cannot agree They com at last to his own particular title Caius shews his forefathers succession legally descending and quietly possessing for so many generations and an evident testament also for himself wherin it is expresly said Ego Gonvillus c. constituo Caium silium meum beredem bonorum mcorum omnium c. I Gonvil do constitute my son Caius heir of all my goods c. The adversaries put case Chamier Dally Plessis Blondel Baxter Hammond Hall c. laugh at this and tell him it is all impertinent and proves nothing 1 Alas quoth Chamier these words are plainly corrupted It was not written Caium but Saium And the corruption is easie only the bottom