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
THREE LETTERS DECLARING The strange odd Proceedings of Protestant Divines when they write against Catholicks by the Example of Dr Taylor 's Dissuasive against Popery Mr Whitbies Reply in the behalf of Dr Pierce against Cressy and Dr Owens Animadversions on Fiat Lux. Written by J. V. C. The one of them to a Friend The other to a Foe The third to a Person Indifferent Sepulchrum patens est guttur eorum linguis suiâ— dolose agunt Judica illos Deus 1671. The Occasion of this Epistle THe Author had wrote a little Book called Fiat Lux to shew that wrangling about Religion is irrational and fruitless A Protestant understood afterward to be Dr Owen set forth Animadversions against that Book And this Epistle acquaints the Doctor of some of the ill qualities of those his Animadversions I. An Epistle to the Author of the Animadversions upon Fiat Lux. SIR I Was in my Journey in the North far enough from London when your Animadversions upon Fiat Lux came forth Nor did I ever set eye upon them till my return in February about half a year after which I tell you Sir to excuse my silence And now in brief For your labour I thank you for your endeavour I pitty you for your purpos I pardon you that being as I beleve intended for Gentlemens satisfaction the other for Fiat Lux his confutation this for the Authors coufusion I may not go about to reply unto you becaus this would be against the very end and principles of Fiat Lux it self which speaks forth nothing more then this That Controversies about Religion are vain and fruitless And lest this should not be able to detain me from any such reply you adde your own threats That if I shall dare to write again you will make me know what manner of man you are However Sir let we crave leave to thank you for the pastime your Animadversions have given me since my return But Sir you mistake the very drift and design of Fiat Lux which makes you to erre ever and anon throughout your whole Book whiles you take that as spoken absolutely which is only said upon an hypothesis of our present condition here in England distraction disputes and wars in order to a contrary end of unity love and concord designed by Fiat Lux and the Prosopopeia's brought in by me as Solomon in his Ecclesiastes makes the fool and atheist ever and anon to speak their minds these you conceiv to be my doctrin By vertu of these capital mistakes what by me is said of the obscurity of God Nature and Providence is with you impertinent that of Light and Spirit impious that of Plea of Parties frivolous that of Reason dissonant and to no purpos that of Scripture blasphemous that of the History of Religion no less inconsequent than untrue In a word this thing that thing every thing a wilde dishonest illiterate discours Some would wonder that he who writes in confutation of a Book should be himself the only man that understands it not But the reason is apparent It is your onely advantage to mistake The whole discours of Fiat Lux chained together one part with another from that which is supposed to that which is designed would breath so much of charity and sobernes that my Commentatour could not have told how to make any mad versions upon it It is not yet too late Now that you have finished your Animadversions or Comment or Notes upon it you may do well to take my Book again into your hands read it calmly and understand it That which you speak so frequently of Fiat Lux his ignorance is not altogether amiss for he pretends not much to learning although he knows what he sayes But yet Sir if you had defied and villified him with less violence and more seldom and not so universally in every point of history language and philosophy nor just then when you had least caus it had been more for your honour A third part of your Book which is taken up in talking of my ignorance and other qualities might well have been spared had you had arguments to demonstrate it And in my minde you too much forget your self when you recount so often with regret and anger that som gentlemen of the land should through their own inconsideration have any liking of a Book which you judg so slight aiery vain fallacious and simple As if they had none and you all the judgment of discerning Gentlemen Sir must be allowed a sens of Religion as well as Ministers and their portion of reason must not therfor be less becaus their Blood is more noble the company they keep more accomplisht and their education better They have the body although they wear not the Cloak of Religion and masters they are of their own reason tho not of yours This is one difference between Catholik countreys and ours that there the Clergy-man is only regarded for his vertue the power he hath received or is at least believed to have received from God in the great ministery of our reconciliation And if he have any addition of learning besides it is looked upon as a good accidental ornament but not as any essential complement of his Profession So that it often happens without any wonderment at all that the Gentleman Patron is the learned man and the Priest his Chaplain of little or no science in comparison But here in England our Gentlemen are disparaged by their own Black Coats and not suffered to use their judgments in any kinde of learning without a gybe from them The Gentleman is reasonles and the scribling Cassock is the only Schollar he alone must speak all know all and only understand I cannot but smile to see you turn so dexterously every thing that is said in Fiat Lux to your own use His discours of innocence and moderation gives you occasion to speak and amply dilate of wars murders adulteries lyes hypocrisies villanies And when he cries Peace Peace it is motive enough for you to cry Guns and Daggers You rave and rage against him and the whole earth you load your pen and pages with the tyrannies desolations disorders have been aforetime in the world not heeding that you had not so much as heard at this day of any such abuses if their holy and renowned Clergy-men who still declaimed against the vices of their times had not left them upon record or so much as considering that even now in these best times of Reformation are as grand disorders in all kindes as ever were in the worst times of Popish corruption Nay there was never any crow or magpie so pecked and cawed upon the back of a sheep as you do upon Fiat Lux and if he do but stir or wag you threaten if I understand you right to peck out his eyes And all this because Fiat Lux endeavours to show that animosities about matters of Religion are groundless prejudicial to peace and neighbourhood ruinous desolatory endles
worst effects of feuds then is the plea of parties specified their probabilities acknowledged and lastly an impossibility of ever bringing our debates to a conclusion either by light or spirit reason or scriptur texts so long as we stand separated from any superiour judicative power unto which all parties will submit is I think with a strong probability if not demonstrative evidence concluded And therfor is it thought by Fiat Lux to be more rational and Christian-like to leav these endles groundles and ruinous contentions and resign our selvs to humility and peace This is the design and whole summe of my book And although I speak up and down here for Papists there for Protestants elswhere for Presbyterians or Independants commonly out of the very discourses they make for themselvs yet do I not defend either their wayes or their arguments Nor do I teach any doctrin at all or hold there any opinion But I only give to understand in that one little book what is largely discoursed in a hundred That all parties do make out to themselves such a probability which as it stands joyned with the actours resolution and separated from any superiour visible power to which they will submit can never be subdued And hath not long experience proved this as true as any thing els What then is ther in Fiat Lux that can be denied Is it not evident that we are now at variance and too long indeed have been Is it not also clear that peace charity and neighbourhood is better then variance dissention and wars Do not parties strongly plead for themselvs so far perswaded each one that himself is in the right that he will not yield the truth to be with any but himself Is not all this evident I am sure it is and all England will witnes it And if any one should be able to evince that any reasonings made in Fiat Lux either for Papists Protestants or others be not certain or perhaps not probable yet he does nothing except he be able to prove likewise that they are not probable to Fiat Lux or to those that use them whether Protestants or Papists which he can no more do than he can pull a star out of the firmament I say Sir again and mark I pray you what I say If you should chance to evince that the reasons brought by Fiat Lux either for the doctrin or practises of Papists or others be either not probable or untrue yet is your labour all in vain except you be able to demonstrate likewise that they are not probable to Fiat Lux or to Papists and others who use those reasons which you can no more do then any thing that is absolutely impossible By this time Sir you may discern how hard it is to deal with Fiat Lux and impossible to confute him Sith he speaks nothing but what is as clearly true and evident as what we see at mid-day Nor do I in this any way exalt the ability of the Authour whom you are pleased so much and frequently to disable A Tom-fool may say that which all the wisemen in the world cannot gain-say as he did who said the Sun was higher at noon than any other hour of the day It was Fiat Lux his fortune rather then chois to utter words which will no sooner be read than acknowledged And it was your misfortune Sir to employ your greater talents in refuting evident truths perhaps for no other reason but becaus they issued from the pen of a man who is not so great a friend to faction as you could wish And although you proceed very harsh and furiously yet am I verily perswaded you now discern though too late for your credit that you had all this while according to our English proverb good Mr. Doctor a wrong sow by the ear Thus far in general Now briefly to give you som account in particular You spend four Chapters and a hundred and eighteen pages which is the fourth part of your book before you com to the first line and paragraff of mine The applaus and honour of this world c. And it is not unwittily done For being to be led as you heavily complain out of your ordinary road of controversies by the wilde chase of Fiat Lux it behoved you to draw som general common places of your own for your self to walk in and exercise your rhetorick and anger before you pursue a bird that slies not you say in any usual tract Preface from page 1. to page 19. Your preface wherin you speak of my subtilty and your own pretence affords me nothing but the beginning of your own mistake which will run quite through your book 1 Chap. from page 19. to 29. Your first chapter beats me about the pate for saying that I conceal my method with a terrible syllogistical dilemma He that useth no method say you cannot conceal it and if he hath concealed it he hath used one But I must pass by store of such doughty stuff being only fit for the young Oxford Schollar who being com home to take air would prove before his father and mother that two eggs were three Then going on you deny that Protestants ever opposed the doctrin and merit of good works which at first I wondered at seeing the sound of it has rung so often in mine own ears and so many hundred books written in this last age so apparently witnes it in all places till I found afterwards in my thorow perusal of your book that you neither heed what you say or how much you do deny But you perhaps love to talk of them better than your fore-fathers did though your thoughts be all the same And you will all equally bless your selvs from building of Churches as the Papists have don however your prattle goes 2 Chap. from page 29. to 110. Your second chapter collects our of Fiat Lux as you say ten general conclusions spread all over like veins and arteries in the body of that my book And this you do that you may make your self a campus Martius to sport in without confinement to my method But you name not any page of my book where those principles may all or any of them be found And you do wisely For in the sence those words do either naturally make out or in which you understand them of all the whole ten I cannot own any one for mine own set down in my book The first of my principles must be this That we received the Gospel first from Rome In your sence I never spoke this We that is we English first received it thence But you talk against it as if I meant that Brittans had it first from Rome We had it not first from Rome say you but by Joseph of Arimathea from Palestin as Fiat Lux himself acknowledges Sir if Fiat Lux say both these things he cannot mean in your contradictory fals sence but in his own true one We that is we Englishmen the
divine revelation whereunto by our humble beleef we have subscribed our consent is right and good but not at all against me who there treat a case of metaphysical concernment which you apprehend not It is no wonder then you should so much dislike all that my plea of uncertainty not only before any teacher appear but after too whiles you take the teacher and his words as they walk hand in hand actually linkt together with our beleef in him which actual beleef my supposition suspends and separates to the end I may consider whether any such teacher can appear so accomplisht as to move us who live in this present age and coin religion anew to a beleef invariable so that through your too much haste you utterly mistake all my whole discours and speak nothing at all to the case I treat of I speak wholly there as in other parts of Fiat Lux upon a supposition of the condition the generality of people are now actually in here in England where every one lets himself loose at pleasure to frame opinions and religions of themselvs And so cannot be thought to speak of a settled beleef but only of settling one or one to be settled which there and elswhere in that book I endeavour to show impossible to be so fixedly stated by any private man but that himself and others may rationally doubt it And that therfor our only way is to beleev and not dispute to submit to the old way we have formerly received and not to surmise a new This is the very substance scope and purpos not only of that paragraff but of my whole book which you do as utterly swerve from as ever any blinded man put to thrash a cock misplaced his blow Perhaps it is hard for you to conceiv your self in a state you are not actually in at present And if you cannot do this you will be absolutely unfit to deal with such hypothetik discourses as I see indeed you are Bellarmins little catechise had been a fitter book for you to write Animadversions upon than my Fiat Lux. There is good positive doctrin signed hic nunc and specified to your inclination and capacity I meddle not with any I deliver no positive doctrin at all I never descend to any particular conclusion or thesis of faith I defend no opinion but only this That every opinion is defensible and yet nonc impregnable Do you not blush Sir to see your own gross mistake God is my witnes when I finde you misled by your own errour so furiously to tax me with ignorance fraud blasphemy atheisme I cannot but pitty you And generally you talk at random as well in this chapter as others Let me give som little hint of it in particular for this once Where I in my foresaid paragraff say that differences of faith in its branches are apt to infer a suspition in its very root and consequently atheism To this you reply that That discours of mine is all rotten that Christian religion it self might thus be questioned that it is the argument of the Pagan Celsus that such contests have ever been that Protestants are resolved that Catholiks turn atheists as well as others that our religion is the same yesterday and to day that our evils are from our selves c. Doth this talk concern or plead to my assertion I know all this as well as you but that it is nothing to the purpos that I know and you it seems do not Though all this you say be true yet still it remains notwitstanding as true and certain as it was before and that is certain enough That difference of faith in its branches are apt to infer a suspicion in its very root and consequently atheism You have but beaten the air So likewise unto all that discours of mine If the Papist or Roman Catholik who first brought us the news of our Christianity be now becom so odious then may likewise the whole story of our Christianity be at length thought a Romance You speak with the like extravagancy and mind not my hypothetick at all to speak directly to my inference as it became a man of art to do But neglecting my consequence which in that discours is principally and solely intended you seem to deny my supposition which if my discours had been drawn into a syllogism would have been the minor part of it And it consists of two categories first that the Papist is now becom odious second that the Papist delivered us the first news of Christianity The first of these you little heed the second you deny That the Papist say you or Roman Catholik first brought Christ and his Christianity into this land is most untrue I wonder c. And your reason is becaus if any Romans came hither they were not Papists and indeed our Christianity came from the East namely by Joseph of Arimathea c. And this is all you say to my hypothetick or conditional ratiocination as if I had said nothing at all but that one absolute category which being delivered before I now only suppose You use to call me a civil logician but I fear a natural one as you are will hardly be able to justifie this motion of yours as artificial A conditional hath a verity of its own so far differing from the supposed category that this being fals that may yet be true For example if I should say thus A man who hath wings as an eagle or if a man had wings as an eagle he might fly in the air as well as another bird Such an assertion is not to be confuted by proving that a man hath not the wings of an eagle Yet so you deal with me here a great master of arts with a civil logician But that I may go along with you we had not Sir our Christianity immediately from the East nor from Joseph of Arimathea as I have already told you we Englishmen had not For as he delivered his Christianity to som Brittons when our land was not called England but Albion or Brittany and the inhabitants were not Englishmen but Brittons or Kimbrians so likewise did that Christianity and the whole news of it quite vanish being sodainly overwhelmed by the ancient deluge of paganisme nor did it ever come from them to us Nay the Brittons themselvs had so forgot and lost it that even they also needed a second conversion which they received from Pope Eleutherius And that was the onely news of Christianity which prevailed and lasted even amongst the very Brittans which seems to me a great secret of divine providence in planting and governing his Church as if he would have nothing to stand firm and lasting but what was immediately fixed and seated upon that rock For all other conversions have vanisht and the very seats of the other A postles failed that all might the better cement in an unity of one head Nay the tables which God made with his own hand were broken but the other
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
of the first letter being razed out 2. Let it be as you will quoth Dally this testament can be of no value For it proceeds upon an uncertain if not fals supposition Who can say assuredly that either you are his son Caius or that Caius is indeed his son 3. Either quoth Chillingworth you must be his son and actual heir while he was alive or when he was dead Not while he was alive for the right can be but in one at once Not when he was dead for no man can be a son to one that is not no more then any person that is alive can be a father to one that has no being 4. Were this right quoth Baxter which is conveighed to you in your father only or in som others also besides himself If in himself alone why doth he say constituo which signifies simul statuo or I appoint together with others 5. It seems to me quoth Blondel that this testament Mr Caius is rather against then with you Either you pretend to be his son before his testament was made or after If before your own evidence witnesses against you Constituo Caium silium meum I make Caius my son If after then by this testament you are made his son but supposed only an heir and a title for that here is none at all 6. He does indeed quoth Plessts make him truly his heir But of what not of his estate which we contend about but only of his goods all his goods And can you think Mr. Caius that a dying man would speak improperly surely no. The goods of the mind vertue prudence temperance these as Aristotle witnesses are proprie bona properly are only to be called goods But the goods of the body and goods of fortune these are improperly and falsly so called 7. Let it be what kind of goods you will quoth Hall this very word meorum Mr. Caius quite overthrows all your pretensions These are your fathers words you say well then if it be so either the state you plead for is now his or now not his If it be now his then it is not yours if it be now not his then the very title you rely upon is fals 8. A testament is to be taken in its strict and rigorous sens quoth Field and so the word omnium spoils your plea Mr. Caius You must either have all his goods or none but you have neither his good face nor other his good endowments c. 9 Com com quoth Crackanthorp we needed not have gon so far or used so many words Caius pretends that his father who made this testament is the last of seventeen Knights of his family Out of his own mouth I will condemn him and with the very first word of his will he sayes his father made which is Ego For it is clear enough that Ego is the first person and not the last And all these are ushered in by a young Whitby To this hath Chamier told you that c. Can you not see what incomparable Chillingworth hath taught you that c. You will still be impertinent though learned Plessis hath informed you that c. Where were your eyes when great Dally hath told you that c. In these few words Sir I have given you a clear Emblem not only of this book of Mr. Whitbies but of all the writings have been made against catholik religion since the reformation Ther is no evidence so clear for that antient religion but it is endeavoared several wayes to be made frustrate Although unto Catholiks who understand their religion those evasions signifie no more then these I have specified against a title most irrefragable and firm Yet in that contest children and unexperienced people would judg poor Caius to be utterly lost And so indeed he will if those crafty Lawyers may determin the busines without recours to any Judg as is don in all our affairs and controversies of religion How many sophistical evasions is he to answer about one and the same thing How many captious snares to incur in any one of his answers to be overwhelmed without doubt while no Judg interposes either with their multitude of words or force of arms But enough of this which indeed can never be too much thought of Mr. Whitby Sir begins and ends his book just as you begin and end yours against which he writes For as you in the conclusion of your book set down som rules which you desire him that shall reply unto it for more clearnes and order and substantiallity of discours to observ so Whitby in the end of this his reply against your book wherin he hath not heeded to observ so much as any one of those your good rules does also prescribe laws for you if you mean to answer him again wherof the first is That you consider all the answers he hath given to any of your arguments and that otherwis if any one single answer remain your agument must be invalid p. 501. This is the first and wittiest of his conditions For the several shifts and evasions of above twenty men which he makes use of about most of the substantial points of controversie being all put together and multiplied as they be to som thousands would if they should be all spoken to in particular though never so briefly rais such a bulk of a book as hath been seldom seen and would never be read But being as I have already told you contradictory one to another and ten to one excessively childish would no less disable the repute and gravity of that man who should so much as take notice of them then to play with boyes at span-counter in the streets And as he ends his book with the same method of prescribing laws as you concluded yours so doth he begin his in the very self-fame words as you enter yours I cannot forbid my self to wonder that c. So begins your book I cannot forbid my self to wonder that c. so begins this book of his which he writes against you imitating and repeating your very words for many lines together and returning them hand over head upon your self by the method of our good women of Billingsgate not caring so he say again what you speak how true or fals just or unjust his words be Thus much in general I shall say more by and by after I have briefly told you what he does in each particular chapter of his book His first ch from page 1 to 7. Is a bitter invective against Papists whom he concludes for their cruelties and disloyalty unworthy of mercy or any affection He acknowledges indeed that Catholik religion cannot stand justly charged with any such crimes p. 2. But yet he layes the crimes upon them all notwithstanding so indefinitely and only upon them that he excludes universally all professours of that religion and them alone from all compassion and love Although he knows in his heart both that the religion the very religion
fundamentals And yet which does not a little encreas our admiration he acknowledges withall p. 439. That general Councels have 1 a greater assistance of the Spirit of God 2 greater means of finding out the truth 3 better reason of discovering what is the opinion of the whole Church 4 an authority delegated from Christ to decide controversies After all this and with all this it is neither impossible with him nor unprobable that general councels may erre even in fundamentals which himself affirms as perspicuous as if they were writ with a sun-beam as clear and evident as that twice two make four Prelates Christian Prelates these must be the only natural fools of the world Ch. 22. from page 456. to 465. Descends to Patriarchal Councels which saith he may be disobeyed and rejected becaus such conventions are fallible and may obtrude heresies and unlawful practises upon the world and that a judgment of discretion is to be allowed unto private men whether they are to submit to their determinations or no. This whole chapter might well have been spared For if a greater much more may a particular and lesser Church obtrude heresies and unlawful practises upon men But Mr. Whitby is desirous that all should be made plain and not any rub lie in the Presbyterian and good Quakers way when he shall plead an excuse for his separation from a Metropolitan Church here in England which he hath made with a judgment of discretion here allowed him Ch. 23. from page 465 to 47