about A. D. 1254. who was General of the Franciscan Order but the Book was received and defended by both Orders as will presently appear But it will be first necessary to consider what the doctrines are which are contained in this Book and if ever there were higher Fanaticism than is therein or rather greater blasphemies let them have leave to triumph The most perfect account we have of it is from Nicol Eymericus who was himself an Inquisitor and tells us these Heresies or Errors are contained in it 1. That the doctrine of Abbot Ioachim a great Fanatick excelled the doctrine of Christ and consequently the New and Old Testament 2. That the Gospel of Christ is not the Gospel of the Kingdom and therefore is not edifying 3. That the New Testament is to be evacuated or lose its force as the Old hath already 4. That the New Testament shall not remain in force above six years longer viz. to A. D. 1260. 5. That they which shall live beyond that time shall be in the state of perfection 6. That the Gospel of Christ shall give way to another Gospel and so instead of the Priesthood of Christ another Gospel shall succeed 7. That no simple man is fit to instruct men in spiritual and eternal things but they that walk barefoot 8. That although God afflict the Iews in this world yet he will save them though they remain in Iudaism and will in the end deliver them from all the opposition of men remaining such as they are 9. That the Church hath not yet brought forth Children nor will do before the end of the temporal reign which shall be after six years and by this we are to understand that the Christian Religion which hath brought forth many called to the faith of Christ is not the Church 10. That the Gospel of Christ brings no man to perfection 11. That the Gospel of the Holy Ghost coming or Ioachims work obtaining called the Everlasting Gospel or of the Holy Ghost the Gospel of Christ shall be done away 12. That no man in Religious Orders is bound to expose his life for defence of the faith or preserving the worship of Christ but other men are 13. That as when Iohn Baptist came the things that were before must needs be confuted because of new things coming in their place so when the time of the Holy Ghost shall come or the third state of the world the things that were before must be confuted for the sake of the New which are to come from whence it must be understood that the New Testament must be refuted and the old cast away 14. That Christ and his Apostles were not perfect in the contemplative life 15. That the Order of the Clergy shall perish but one of a Religious Order shall be perferred above all in dignity and honour and that as the authority under the Father was committed to one of the married order so under the Holy Ghost to one or some of the order of Monks 16. That those who are over the Colledges of Monks ought in those dayes to think of departing from the Seculars and prepare themselves to return to the ancient people of the Iews 17. That the Preachers which shall be in the last state of the world shall be of greater dignity and authority than the Preachers of the Primitive Church 18. That the Preachers and Doctors of Religious Orders when they shall be infested by the Clergy shall go over to the Infidels and it is to be feared lest they go thither for that end to bring them in battel against the Roman Church according to the doctrine of S. Iohn Apocalyps 15. These may suffice out of twenty seven to let the world know where the height of Blasphemy and Fanaticism was first hatched and no one could imagine that any who had the face or name of Christians should own these things yet they came from those excellent and inspired persons of the newly founded Religious Orders And if it had not been for the mortal hatred that then was between the University of Paris and the Mendicant Fryers who usurped the Professors places in the Vniversity against their will God knows how far this doctrine might have prevailed without the least censure For the Popes were extreamly partial to the Fryers and would hear no ill of them they now finding them their most useful instruments in all their quarrels with Princes the Secular Clergy and the People So Matth. Paris relating the Story of the quarrels between the University and the Fryers tells That though the King and the City were for preserving the priviledges of the Vniversity yet the Fryers being at the Popes devotion and doing them a great deal of service were more acceptable in the Court of Rome and therefore got the better of the Vniversity Nay so zealous was Alexander the fourth in the cause of the Fryers against the Vniversity that in the six years of his Popedom he sent out near forty Bulls against the Vniversity of which not one now appears in the Bullarium but most of them are preserved in that accurate Preface before the Works of Gul. de Sancto Amore the zealous Defender of the Vniversity against the encroachments of the Fryers and in the late History of the Vniversity of Paris In the midst of these heats some intimation was given the Divines of the Vniversity of such a Book which was in great esteem among the Fryers called Evangelium aeternum wherein were very dangerous doctrines which were saith Matthew Paris preached read and taught by the Fryers and were put together by them in a Book called Evangelium aeternum and taken saith he chiefly out of the Books of Abbot Joachim and Richerius acknowledgeth that the Book was composed by the Fryers and that the Divines of Paris by some art got a Copy of it and extracted some Heads out of it which were contrary to faith and upon that as Du Bouley saith they caused it to be burnt publickly at Paris But not being satisfied herewith they preached against it as appears by a Sermon of Gul. de Sancto Amore at the end of his Works wherein he saith That he had seen no small part of that Book and he had heard that it doth in all contain more than the Bible and therein he saith it is taught that the Sacraments of the Church are nothing that the Gospel of Christ is not the true Gospel and that the Book it self is the Gospel of the Holy Ghost and the everlasting Gospel and that the Gospel of Christ should be preached but for five years to come that then men shall have another Rule of life and the Church shall be otherwise managed Which saith he is execrable and abominable to be spoken But not content with bare preaching against them he writ a very smart Book in the name of the Vniversity of Paris de periculo novissimorum temporum of the dangers of the
8. Febr. 4. A. D. 1625. not long after he comes into England and was received with so great kindness by their party here as made the Iesuits who are friends to none but themselves soon to become his enemies especially when he began to exercise his Episcopal jurisdiction here in laying restraints upon the Regulars which the Iesuits with other Regulars grew so impatient of that they soon revived the old quarrel concerning the authority and jurisdiction of Bishops and managed it with so great heat and fierceness that the titular Bishop was fain to leave the field and withdraw into France The bottom of the quarrel was they found the kindness of their party to them abated since the Bishops coming who before had sway'd all and lived in great plenty and bravery when the poor Seculars got scarce bread to eate as Watson very sadly laments in his answer to Parsons but now the necessary support of the dignity of a Bishop made the charity of their party run in another channel which the Provincial of the Iesuits complains of in a Letter to the Bishop of Chalcedon Therefore they endeavour all they can to make a party against him among the people too which they did so effectually as amounted to his withdrawing a more civil word for his exile And now both parties being sufficiently heated the battel begins in which not only England and Ireland but France and Flanders were deeply engaged The first who appeared was Dr. Kellison Professour of Doway in a Book in Vindication of the Bishops Authority to whom Knot then Vice-Provincial of the Iesuits returned his Modest and brief discussion c. under the name of Nicholas Smith a Iesuite then dead Soon after came out another written to the same purpose under the name of Daniel of Iesu whose true name was Iohn Fluide which the other writing Ioanes for Iohn was the Anagram of he was a Iesuit too and Professour at St. Omars which Books were first censured by the Arch-bishop of Paris then by the Sorbonne and at last by the Bishops of France in an Assembly of them at Paris but the Iesuits were so far from giving over by this that they new set forth their Books in Latin with large approbations of them and publish a Remonstrance against the Bishop of Chalcedon in the name of the Catholick party in England which was disowned by the greatest number of them and cast wholly upon the Iesuits the same year 1631. three Books were published by the secular Clergy here in opposition to the Iesuits Who were so far from quitting the Field by the number of their enemies that they begin a fresh charge against both the Sorbonne Doctors and the French Clergy under the fained name of Hermannus Loemelius whose chief Author was the fore-named Iesuite Lloyd with the assistance of his Brethren as the diversity of the style shews and another Book came out against the Faculty of Paris in Vindication of Knot or Nicholas Smith with many approbations of Bishops Vniversities and private Doctors and in Vindication of the Propositions of Ireland likewise censured at Paris another Book came forth under the name of Edmundus Vrsulanus whose true name was Mac-mahone Prior of the Franciscan Convent in Lovain About the same time the Iesuits published their Censure of the Apostolical Creed in imitation of the censures at Paris against their Doctrine as though their Doctrines were as certain as that and themselves as infallible as the Apostles wherein they charge the Bishops their enemies with reviving old Heresies and broaching new ones The Iesuits having now done such great things triumph unreasonably in all places as having utterly overthrown their enemies and beaten them out of the field when in a little time after Hallier and le Maistre two Doctors of the Sorbonne undertake the quarrel against them but none was so highly magnified and infinitely applauded by the French Clergy as a person under the disguised name of Petrus Aurelius whose atchievements in this kind they celebrate next to those of the Pucelle d' Orleans and Printed all his Works together at their own charge and writ a high Elogium of him which is prefixed before them And the secular Clergy of England sent him a letter of Congratulation for his Triumphs subscribed by Iohn Colleton Dean of the Chapter and Edmond Dutton Secretary wherein they sadly lament the discords that have been among them here and the Heresies broached by their Adversaries by occasion of them The main of-this Controversie did concern the dignity necessity and jurisdiction of the Episcopal Order as appears by the Censures of the Bishops of France and by Aurelius who saith that although the Dispute began upon occasion of the Bishop of Chalcedon and the English Clergy yet it was now carried farther whether the Episcopal Order was necessary to the Being of a particular Church Whether it was by divine right or no Whether confirmation might be given without Bishops Whether the Episcopal Order was more perfect than the Monastical Whether the Regulars were under the jurisdiction of Bishops And therefore the Iesuits are charged by their Adversaries with a design to extirpate and ruine the whole Order of Episcopacy Have not these men now great reason to insult over us that some of these questions have caused great differences among us when the Iesuits in England had laid the foundation of them by their quarrels of the same kind but a little before and furnished the enemies to Episcopacy and the Church of England with so many arguments to their hands to manage their bad cause with But what becomes of the Court of Rome all this while do the Pope and Cardinals only stand still to see what the issue of the Battel will be without ever offering to compose the difference between the two parties No. The Iesuits finding how hard they were put to it make their address to Rome as their greatest Sanctuary and A. D. 1633. obtained a Decree of the Sacred Congregation for suppressing the Books on both sides without judging any thing at all of the merits of the cause or giving any censure of the authority on either side And is not now the Popes authority an excellent remedy for all divisions in the Church When in so great a heat as this was the Pope durst not interpose at all in the main business for fear of losing either side which is a plain argument that they themselves look on his Authority as so precarious a thing that they must by no means expose it where it is like to be called in Question Were not here Controversies fit to be determined To what purpose is that authority that dare not be exercised when there is most need of it and when could there be greater need than in such a time when the Church was in a flame by these contentions And yet so timerous a Decree as this was could find no acceptance For at Paris immediately comes out a disquisition upon it shewing
the Learned among them that who will dispute against it must prepare himself to hear the censure of St. Austin Ep. 118. where he saith That it is a point of most insolent madness to dispute whether that be to be observed which is frequented by the whole Church through the world 4. He sayes The sincerity of Devotion is much obstructed by making the efficacy of Sacraments depend upon the bare administration whether our minds be prepared for them or not In what Council this Doctrine was defined I never read but as for the Sacrament of Penance which I suppose he chiefly aims at I read in the Council of Trent Sess. 14. Falso quidam calumniantur That some do falsly calumniate Catholick Writers as if they taught the Sacrament of Penance did confer Grace without the good motion of the receiver which the Church of God never taught nor thought But I am rather inclined to look upon this as a mistake than a calumny in the Objector 5. He sayes The sincerity of devotion is much obstructed by discouraging the reading of Scriptures which is our most certain Rule of Faith and Life Here he calls the Churches prudential dispensing the reading of Scripture to persons whom she judges fit and disposed for it and not to such whom she judges in a condition to receive or do harm by it a discouraging the reading of Scriptures which is no other than whereas St. Paul Coloss. 3. 21. enjoyns Fathers not to provoke their children lest they be discouraged one should reprove a Father for discouraging his child because he will not put a Knife or Sword into his hands when he foresees he will do mischief with it to himself or others the Scriptures in the hands of a meek and humble soul who submits its judgement in the interpretation of it to that of the Church is a Sword to defend it but in the hands of an arrogant and presumptuous Spirit that hath no Guide to interpret it but it s own fancy or passion it is a dangerous Weapon with which he will wound both himself and others The first that permitted promiscuous reading of Scripture in our Nation was King Henry the eighth and many years were not passed but he found the ill consequences of it for in a Book set forth by him in the year 1542. he complains in the Preface That he found entred into some of his peoples hearts an inclination to sinister understanding of it presumption arrogancy carnal liberty and contention which he compares to the seven worse Spirits in the Gospel with which the Devil entred into the house that was purged and cleansed Whereupon he declares that for that part of the Church ordained to be taught that is the Lay people it ought not to be denyed certainly that the reading of the Old and New Testament is not so necessary for all those folks that of duty they ought and be bound to read it but as the Prince and Policy of the Realm shall think convenient so to be tolerated or taken from it Consonant whereunto saith he the Politick Law of our Realm hath now restrained it from a great many This was the judgement of him who first took upon him the Title of Head of the Church of England and if that ought not to have been followed in after times let the dire effects of so many new Sects and Fanaticisms as have risen in England from the reading of it bear witness For as St. Austin sayes Neque enim natae sunt Haereses Heresies have no other Origen but hence that the Scriptures which in themselves are good are not well understood and what is understood amiss in them is rashly and boldly asserted viz. to be the sense of them And now whether the Scriptures left to the private interpretation of every fanciful spirit as it is among Protestants be a most certain Rule of Faith and Life I leave to your self to judge 6. He sayes The sincerity of devotion is much obstructed by the multitude of superstitious observations never used in the Primitive Church as he is ready to defend he should have said to prove for we deny any such to be used in the Church 7. By the gross abuse of people in Pardons and Indulgences Against this I can assert as an eye-witness the great devotion caused by the wholsome use of Indulgences in Catholick Countreys there being no Indulgence ordinarily granted but enjoyns him that will avail himself of it to confess his sins to receive the Sacraments to pray fast and give alms all which duties are with great devotion performed by Catholick people which without the incitement of an Indulgence had possibly been left undone 8. He sayes The sincerity of devotion is much obstructed by denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the practice of the Church in the solemn celebration of the Eucharist for a thousand years after Christ. This thousand years after Christ makes a great noise as if it were not as much in the power of the Church a thousand years after Christ as well as in the first or second Century to alter and change things of their own nature indifferent such as the communicating under one or both kinds was ever held to be by Catholicks But although the Cup were not then denyed to the Laity yet that the custome of receiving but under one kind was permitted even in the primitive Church in private communions the objector seems to grant becasue he speaks only of the Administration of it in the solemn Celebration and that it was also in use in publick Communions is evident from Examples of that time both in the Greek Church in the time of St. Chrysostome and of the Latin in the time of St. Leo the great As for the pretended obstruction of Devotion you must know Catholicks believe that under either species or kind whole Christ true God and man is contained and received and if it be accounted an hindrance to devotion to receive the total refection of our soul though but under one kind what must it be to believe that I receive him under neither but instead of him have Elements of Bread and Wine Surely nothing can be more efficacious to stir up Reverence and Devotion in us than to believe that God himself will personally enter under our Roof The ninth Hinderance of the sincerity of devotion is that we make it in the power of a person to dispense in Oathes and Marriages contrary to the Law of God To this I answer That some kind of Oaths the condition of the person and other Circumstances considered may be Iudged to be hurtful and not fit to be kept and the dispensation in them is no more than to Iudge or determine them to be so and consequently to do this cannot be a hinderance but a furtherance to devotion nor is it contrary to the Law of God which commands nothing that 's hurtful to be done As for Marriages we acknowledge the Church may dispense in
or asked their opinion and Pope Adrian himself he saith in his defence of it against the Caroline Books never gives it the name or authority of an Oecumenical Council The same Council was rejected here in England as our Historians tell us because it asserted the adoration of Images which the Church of God abhors which are the words of Hoveden and others And we find afterwards in France by the Synod of Paris called by Ludovicus Pius upon the Letters of Michael Balbus Emperour of Constantinople in order to the Vnion of Christendome in this point that these Western Churches persisted still in the condemnation of the Nicene Council which they would not have done after so long a time to inform themselves if a meer mistake of their Doctrine at first had been the cause of their opposition But whosoever will read the Caroline Books or the Synod of Paris or Agobardus and others about that time will find that they condemn all religious worship of Images as adoration and contrary to that honour which is due to God alone and to the commands which he hath given in Scripture And I extreamly wonder how any men of common sense and much more any of learning and judgement that had read the Book of Charles the Great against the Nicene Synod could imagine it altogether proceeded upon a mistake of the meaning of it when it so distinctly relates and punctually answers the several places of Scriptures and Fathers produced by it for the worship of Images In the first Book an answer is given to many impertinent places of the Old Testament alledged in that Council which the second proceeds with and examines several testimonies of the Fathers and in the two remaining Books pursues all their pretences with that diligence that no one can imagine all this while that the Author did not know their meaning And that by adoration he means no more than giving Religious Worship to Images appears from hence because he calls the Civil worship which men give to one another by the name of adoration when he shewes that it is another thing to give adoration to a man upon a civil respect and to give adoration to Images upon a religious account when God challenges all religious worship or adoration to himself and whatever reason will hold for such a worship of Images will much more hold for the worship of men who have greater excellency in them and more honour put upon them by God than any Images can ever pretend to That God allows no other kind of adoration to be given to any but himself but that which we give to one another Can any be so senseless to think that by this civil adoration he meant we honoured every man we met as our Soveraign Prince And as little reason is there to say that by adoration given to Images he meant only the incommunicable worship due only to God in the sense of those Fathers Can we imagine saith he that S. Peter would allow the worship of Images who forbad Cornelius to worship him Or St. John whom the Angel checked for offering to worship him and bid him give that honour to God Or Paul and Barnabas who with such horror ran among the men of Lycaonia when they were about to worship them and yet surely Angels and such persons as these deserved more to be worshipped than any Images can do But we see by these examples that even these are not to be adored with any other kind of adoration than what the offices of civility require from us Besides in his language those who followed the Council of Constantinople are said not to adore Images by which nothing else can be meant than their giving no Religious worship to them and when he shews the great inconsequence of the argument from the adoration of the Statues of the Emperours to the adoration of Images because in matters of Religious Worship we are not to follow the customes of men against the will of God he thereby shews what kind of adoration he intended not the worship of Latria but supposed to be of an inferiour sort In so much that Binius confesseth that the design of these books was against all worship of Images It is true Pope Hadrian in the answer he sent to these Books which is still extant in the Tomes of the Councils doth deny that the Synod intended to give proper divine worship to Images but that is no more than the Synod it self had in words said before but that was not the Question what they said but what the nature of the thing did imply Whether that religious worship they gave to Images was not part of that adoration which was only due to God And he that expects an answer to this from him will find himself deceived who is so pitifully put to it for an answer to the demand of any example of words of the Apostles to justifie Image-worship that he is forced to make use of some Mystical passages of Dionysius the supposed Areopagite wherein the word Image hapning to be is very sufficient to his purpose And this answer of Hadrians gave so little satisfaction to the Western Bishops that A.D. 824. the Synod at Paris being called by Ludovicus Pius to advise about this point did condemn expressely Pope Hadrian for asserting a superstitious adoration of Images which they look on as a great impiety and say that he produces very impertinent places of the Fathers and remote from his purpose and that setting aside his Pontifical authority in his answer to the Caroline Books there were some things apparently false and they have nothing to excuse him by but his Ignorance And therefore they at large shew that the Religious worship of Images came first from Hereticks and that it was alwayes condemned by the Fathers of the Christian Church and answer the arguments produced on the other side out of the Writings of the Fathers And supposing that superstitious custome of worshipping Images had for some time obtained yet they shew by several testimonies that it ought to be abrogated No wonder then that Bellarmine is so much displeased with this Synod for offering so boldly to censure the Popes Writings and a Synod approved by him wherein the saith they exceed the fault of the Author of the Caroline Books because as he confesseth they offered to teach the Pope and resisted him to the face And yet no doubt they had read and considered Hadrians words wherein he disowns the giveing true divine honour to Images Not long after this Synod came forth the Book of Agobardus Archbishop of Lyons against Images occasioned saith Papirius Massonus by the stupendous superstition in that Age in the worship of them And this saith he is the substance of his Doctrine out of St. Augustine and other Fathers that there is no other Image of God but what is himself and therefore cannot be
no material difference that the Heathen called those they worshipped Gods but they do not so in the Roman Church For St. Austin saith there was scarce any difference between the Heathen and them about the name whether Angels might be called Gods or no for he thinks that they are called so in Scripture as well as Origen but the Question was about the thing whether they were to be Worshipped as Gods or no i. e. by giving any part of religious worship to them which they utterly deny And were I in the communion of the Roman Church I should much less scruple calling Canonized Saints or Angels by the names of Gods than giving them the worship of Invocation or the honour of Sacrifices but in so doing they are not only condemned by plain Scripture and reason but by those of the primitive Church who writ against the Heathen Idolatry which was the thing to be shewed § 13. 2. Another disparity is insisted on by him which is as to the manner of Worship And as to this he saith all that they understand by formal invocation is desiring or praying those Iust persons who are in glory in heaven to pray for us and if the Catholicks be guilty of Idolatry in this we must not desire the prayers of a just man even in this life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an inferiour Deitie To shew the palpable weakness of this answer I shall prove these two things 1. That those in the Church of Rome do allow and practise another kind of formal Invocation from what he asserts 2. That supposing this were all it would not excuse them and that it is of a very different nature from desiring the prayers of just men for us in this life 1. That they do allow and practise another kind of formal Invocation from what he asserts He might very well say he did understand well what I meant by formal Invocation when he makes this to be the meaning of it for never any person before him imagined that sense of it And that term of formal Invocation was purposely chosen by me to distinguish it from the rhetorical Apostrophe's of some of the Greek Fathers the Poetical Flourishes of Damasus Prudentius and Paulinus from general wishes that the Saints would pray for us Of which are some instances in good Authors from assemblies at the monuments of Martyrs which were usual in ancient times and that which I thought any man would understand by it was that which is constantly practised in the Roman Church viz. in places and times purposely appointed for divine and religious worship with all the same external signes of devotion which we use to God himself to offer up our Prayers to Saints or Angels to help us in our necessities as well as to pray to God for us The former part none can be ignorant of that have but so much as heard of the devotion of the Church of Rome all the difficulty lies in that whether they pray to them to help their necessities as well as pray for them And so many forms of Prayer allowed and practised in their Church have been so often objected to them wherein these things are manifest that I cannot but wonder this should be denyed Do they believe we never look into their Breviaries Rosaries Houres and other Books of Devotion wherein to this day such Prayers are to be found Do they think we never heard of the Offices of the B. Virgin or our Ladies Psalter a Blasphemous Book never yet censured wherein the Psalmes in their highest strains of Prayer to God are applyed to the V. Mary I have known my self intelligent persons of their Church who commit their souls to the V. Maries protection every day as we do to Almighty Gods and such who thought they understood the doctrine and practice of their Church as well as others But Madam these are mysteries not to be known till they have their Proselytes safe and fast enough then by degrees they let them know what is to be done when they have given away all liberty of judging for themselves Then it is no matter what they are commanded or expected to do they must do as others do or else their sincerity is questioned and they are thought Hereticks in their hearts whatever they profess I shall not insist upon any ancient Breviaries or obsolete Forms or private Devotions which yet they are accountable for till they do condemn them I need no more than the present Roman Breviary restored according to the Council of Trent and authorized by three several Popes In the Feast of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin as though it were not enough in the Antiphonae to say Hail Blessed Virgin thou alone hast destroyed all Heresies in the world but lest this should be interpreted of doing it by her Son a formal Invocation of her follows Vouchsafe to let me praise thee O Holy Virgin and give me strength against thy enemies And in the Hymn frequently used in her Office and particularly that day she is not only called the Gate of Heaven but she is intreated to loose the bonds of the guilty to give light to the blind and to drive away our evils and to shew her self to be a Mother or as it is in the Mass-book at Paris 1634. Iure Matris impera redemptori as thou art a Mother command the Redeemer In a word They pray to her therein for purity of life and a safe conduct to Heaven But lest the Hymns should be thought only Poetical in the Feast of S. Maria ad Nives Aug. 5. a formal prayer is made to her to help the miserable to strengthen the weak to comfort those that mourn and that all who celebrate her holy Festivity may feel her assistance By which we may understand the meaning of that solemn Hymn used in her Office wherein she is called the Mother of Mercy and Clemency and is prayed to protect us from our enemies and to receive us in the hour of death Is all this only praying to her to pray for us What could be more said to Almighty God or his Son Iesus Christ Nor is this devotion only to the Blessed Virgin but we shall see it alike in that to Angels and Saints in the Antiphona upon the apparition of Michael the Archangel May 8. he is prayed to come to the help of the people of God And in the Feast of the Guardian Angels recommended to all Catholicks by Paul the fifth in the last words of the Breviary they are prayed to defend them in War that they may not perish in Gods terrible judgement In the Hymn to the Holy Apostles they are prayed to command the guilty to be loosed from their guilt to heal unsound minds and to increase their vertues that when Christ shall come they may be partakers of eternal glory These may suffice for a present taste of the sincerity of such persons who say that in
persons they have ten times more cause to fear than the common people And considering the advantage they once had by the horrible Ignorance of Priests and people it must be imputed only to the watchful eye of Divine Providence that the Scriptures being of so little use in the Roman Church have been preserved entire to our dayes There had been no such means in the world to have prevented a Reformation as this for they are not out when they take the Scripture so much for their enemy as appears by the force and restraint they put upon it and the fear and jealousie they are in about it continually If it had not been for this would any one have compared the Scriptures in the hands of the common people as my Adversary doth to a Sword in a mad mans hand Is it of so destructive a Nature and framed for no other use than a sword is which nothing but discretion keeps a man from doing mischief by and all the way a man hath though never so meek and humble to defend himself by it is by destroying his enemy with it if he continues his assault These expressions do not argue any kindness to the Scripture nor an apprehension of any great good comes to the world by it but that really men might have been more at ease and fewer differences in Religion had happened if all the Copies of the Bible had been lost assoon as the Pope had placed himself in his infallible Chair This design was once attempted as I shall shew afterwards but failed of success and I know not how far the principles of this prudence may carry them if ever such a season should fall into their hands again having found so much trouble to them from the Scriptures and so little benefit by them their Church being once owned as infallible For I would fain know whether the Scripture hath not done more mischief according to them in the hands of the Reformers than it can be supposed to do in the hands of the common people If it must be a sword in a mad mans hand whether the more strength and cunning such a one hath he be not capable of doing so much the more mischief by it And if it were possible to get it out of such a mans hands whether it were not the highest prudence and care of the publick safety to do it It can be then nothing but the impossibility of the thing which makes them suffer the Scripture to be in the hands of any who are capable of doing mischief by it and the more mischief they may do the more desirable and prudential it is to take it from them But all men see none are so capable of doing mischief thereby as men of the greatest wit and learning and that have the fairest appearance of piety to the world the consequence then of this doctrine is if pursued to the true design of it that the Scripture should be kept if possible out of the hands of the most subtle learned and pious men above all others if they be not true to the interests of the Roman Church It is but a meer shew to pretend only to keep the people in order for when are they otherwise but when cunning men have the managing of them the true meaning of this principle is that it will never be well with the World till the Books of Scripture are all burnt which are abroad and that only one Original be preserved in the Vatican to justifie the Popes title to Infallibility and that as the Sybilline Oracles of old never to be consulted but in cases of great extremity and that under the inspection of some very trusty officers nor to be interpreted but by the Pope himself If I were of the Church of Rome and owned the principles of it I must needs have condemned the great men of it in former times for want of Prudence in this matter That would have served their turn much better than forging so many decretal Epistles falsifying so many testimonies perverting so many Texts of Scripture to maintain the dignity of the Papal Chair There was only one small circumstance wanting their good will we have no cause to question and that was the possibility of it for although the Roman Church called it self Catholick they were wise enough to know there were many considerable Churches in the world besides theirs where the Scriptures were preserved and from whence copies might be procured by persons who would be so much the more inquisitive the more they were forbidden to get it Therefore they pitched upon an easier way and finding the people under a very competent degree of Ignorance they indulged them and soothed them up in it and told them they could never miss the way to Heaven though never so narrow in the dark Their only danger was too much light for then probably they might be in a great dispute whether the broad way was not the true for there they saw most of their Friends and Leaders And while they kept the people in this profound Ignorance and superstition they jogged on in their opinion as securely to Heaven as Ignatius Loyola's Mule did to Mount-serrat when he laid his Bridle on his neck to see whether he would take the way to pursue the Moor which was the more beaten track or the more craggy and untrodden way to that place of devotion and by a mighty providence and I suppose a little help of the Rider the Beast took the more narrow way But when persons began to be awakened by learning and thereby grew inquisitive in all matters and so by degrees in those of Religion they then espied their errour in letting such a Book lye abroad in so many hands from whence so many irresistible arguments were drawn against the Doctrine and practices of the Roman Church This I assure my self is the true ground of the quarrels against the Reading the Scriptures but that being now irremediable they betake themselves to smaller arts and endeavour to hinder any one particular person whom they have the least suspicion of from meddling with a Book so dangerous to their Church and Religion § 10. For if this were not it what makes them to be more jealous of the use of the Scriptures than ever the Christians were in former Ages Was there not much more danger of misunderstanding the Doctrine of the Gospel at first than ever after Nay were there not very many who were false Apostles and great and dangerous Hereticks presumptuous and arrogant if ever any were But did Christ or his Apostles for all this think it unfit to communicate the doctrine of the Gospel to the people or were the Books containing it written in Languages not to be understood by them no they chose the most popular languages of that time most largely spread and generally understood The Apostles never told their Disciples of the danger of reading the Divine Writings that were among them when they were
behalf of the Clergy was sent Richard Fitz-Ralph the learned Bishop of Armagh best known by the name of Armachanus who there with great smartness opposed the Fryers to the Popes face in a long and set discourse still extant wherein he gives an account that coming to London about some business of his See he found great disputes about the priviledges of the Fryers and being desired to Preach he made seven or eight Sermons wherein he declared his mind against them both as to their Order and Priviledges in which he followed the doctrine of the Divines at Paris above an hundred years before delivered by them upon the like occasion asserting it not to be in the Popes power to grant such priviledges which destroy the rights of the Parochial Clergy or the jurisdiction of the Bishops The Fryers charge him with Heresie as they are wont to do those who are wiser than themselves saith Boulay Armachanus dyed at Avignon but so did not the Controversie with him although the Fryers seem to have had the better there they being the Popes Ianisaries and ready in all places to serve his turn yet Walsingham saith it was not without corrupting the Popes Court by great bribes given by the Fryers that they obtained the confirmation of their priviledges yet seven years after Harpsfield saith this Controversie was referred to the Parliament to be determined Very strange that a Parliament in England should be thought a more likely means for Vnity in the Church than the Authority of so many Popes who had interposed in it for putting an issue to this difference After Armachanus Wickliffe undertook this quarrel against the Fryers and made use of the same arguments against them which those who defended the Clergy had done before For in his Book against the Orders of Fryers he particularly insists upon this That they for pride and covetise had drawen fro Curats there Office and Sacraments in which lyen winning or worship and so maken dissention betwixt Curats and there Ghostlié Childer Which are his own words But Wickliffe and his Disciples carrying the Controversies much farther to points of doctrine and other practices in the Roman Church made the other parties more quiet out of opposition to these whom they looked on as their common enemies It may be therefore they will say that although the Popes Pastoral power may not alwayes cure their divisions yet the opposition of Hereticks makes them run together like a flock of sheep if this were true it seems they are more beholding to Hereticks for their Vnity than to the Popes Authority but we shall find that neither one nor the other of these nor both together can keep them from divisions and those managed with as great animosity as we have ever found in the most differing Sects § 9. Witness the proceedings between the Iesuits and the Secular Priests begun in Wisbich Castle in the latter end of Q. Elizabeths Reign when it came to a separation from each other about the authority of the Arch-Priest And they mutually charged each other with being guilty of a horrible Schism maintained saith Watson by the Iesuits and Arch Priest with infinite violence much infamy for the time and innumerable particular wrongs thereupon not unknown to the meanest Catholick in England The secular Priests finding themselves unjustly accused as they said to the Pope published a Book in Latin which they Dedicated to his Holiness called declaratio motuum turbarum which saith Parsons in his answer called A manifestation of the great folly and bad spirit of certain in England calling themselves secular Priests is made up only of invectives and passionate words injurious and manifest false slanders they in their Reply charge Parsons with follie and madness and the highest degree of impudencie If any one hath a mind to furnish himself with all the terms and phrases of scolding reproach and infamy he may find them in the Books they then writ against each other or if he thinks that too great a trouble he may meet with a goodly parcel of them put together out of Fa. Parsons his own writings by Watson at the end of the Reply to Parsons's Libell The short account of the breach among them was this all the loud talk they made abroad concerning their cruel persecution could not hinder ambition and envy from having its effects among them from these first arose misunderstandings and then quarrels between the secular Priests and the Iesuits from thence the Priests proceed to the framing a sodality as they called it among themselves the better to strengthen themselves against the Iesuits which they understanding prevail with one of the number of the associated Priests to betray their Councils him they send to Rome who in the name of all the Priests in England desired for the preventing differences for the future and the curing those that were already that there might be a Government and subordination settled among them Fa. Parsons being then at Rome follows the matter close and represents to the Pope the necessity of it because of the great discords which were among them in England Whereupon the Pope according to Fa. Parsons desire referrs the whole business to Cardinal Cajetan their Protector Who being governed by the Iesuits pitched upon a person wholly at their devotion as the seculars thought which was Blackwell a man swayed altogether by Garnet Provincial of the Iesuits well known for his zeal in the Catholick cause by suffering as one of their Martyrs in the Gunpowder Treason and one of the Arch-Priests instructions was in all matters of moment to be advised by the Provincial of the Iesuits The Secular Priests finding themselves thus over-reached by the cunning of the Iesuits and that they designed hereby wholly to govern their affairs make many demurrs to his Authority both concerning the manner and the substance of it and desire a Breve from the Pope and then promise to submit Parsons procures one to their purpose and an appearance of peace was for a little time among them and they mutually promised not to charge the Schism upon each other but within a month or six weeks the flame brake out with greater fury than ever the Arch-Priest sending his directions into all parts that none of the Seculars should be admitted to the Sacraments without acknowledging themselves Schismaticks So that the Popes Breve was so far from ending the difference that it encreased it Fa. Parsons charging them and the Seculars not denying it that after it they were farther from obeying the Arch-Priest than they were before So unhappy have the Popes been when they have gone about to use their Authority for composing differences among those who are in their own Church But we leave this and come to a later controversie among them about the same matters of Order and Government Richard Smith titular Bishop of Chalcedon was invested with the Authority of Ordinary over their English Clergy by Vrban
for the possibility of salvation allowed to any in their Church is built upon the supposition that they have all that is fundamentally necessary in order to it though there are many dangerous errours and corruptions in that Church whose communion they live in § 16. The Answers to the first Question being thus vindicated there remains little to be added concerning the second For he tells me that he agrees so far with me that every Christian is bound to choose the communion of the purest Church But which that Church is must be seen by the grounds it brings to prove the doctrines it teaches to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles And to be even with him I thus far agree with him in the way of proof of a Churches purity viz. by agreement with the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and that that Church is to be judged purest which shews the greatest evidence of that consent and that every one is bound to enquire which Church hath the strongest Motives for it and to embrace the communion of it Being thus far agreed I must now enquire into what motives he offers on behalf of their Church and what method he prescribes for delivering ours For the former he produces a large Catalogue of Catholick Motives as he calls them in the words of Dr. Taylour Liberty of Prophecy Sect. 20. And I do not know a better way of answering them than in the words of the same eminent and learned Person which he uses upon a like occasion to his demonstrating Friend I. S. But now in my Conscience saith the Bishop this was unkindly done that when I had spoken for them what I could and more than I knew they had ever said for themselves and yet to save them harmless from the iron hands of a tyrant and unreasonable power to keep them from being persecuted for their errours and opinions that they should take the arms I had lent them for their defence and throw them at my head But the best of it is though I. S. be unthankful yet the Weapons themselves are but wooden Daggers intended only to represent how the poor men are couzened by themselves and that under fair and fraudulent pretences even pious well meaning men men wise enough in other things may be abused And though what I said was but tinsel and pretence imagery and whipt Cream yet I could not be blamed to use no better than the best their cause could bear yet if that be the best they have to say for themselves their probabilities will be soon out-ballanced by one Scripture-testimony urged by Protestants and thou shalt not Worship any graven Images will out-weigh all the best and fairest imaginations of their Church But then I. S. might if he had pleased have considered that I did not intend to make that harangue to represent that the Roman Religion had probabilities of being true but probabilities that the Religion might be tolerated or might be endured and if I was deceived it was but a well meant errour hereafter they shall speak for themselves only for their comfort this they might have also observed in that Book that there is not half so much excuse for the Papists as there is for the Anabaptists and yet it was but an excuse at the best But since from me saith he they borrow their light Armour which is not Pistol-proof from me if they please they may borrow a remedy to undeceive them and that in the same kind and way of arguing for which he referrs to a letter written by him to a Gentlewoman seduced to the Church of Rome out of which I shall transcribe so much as may over-ballance the probabilities produced elsewhere by him After directions given rather to enquire what her Religion is than what her Church is for that which is a true Religion to day will be so to morrow and for ever but that which is a holy Church to day may be Heretical at the next change or may betray her trust or obtrude new Articles in contradiction to the old c. and shewing the unreasonablness of believing the Roman to be the Catholick Church he descends thus to particulars You are now gone to a Church that protects it self by arts of subtlety and arms by violence and persecuting all that are not of their minds to a Church in which you are to be a subject of the King so long as it pleases the Pope In which you may be absolved from your Vows made to God your Oaths to the King your Promises to Men your Duty to your Parents in some cases a Church in which men Pray to God and to Saints in the same Form of words in which they Pray to God as you may see in the Offices of Saints and particularly of our Lady a Church in which men are taught by most of the principal Leaders to Worship Images with the same Worship with which they Worship God or Christ or him or her whose Image it is and in which they usually picture God the Father and the Holy Trinity to the great dishonour of that Sacred mystery against the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church against the express doctrine of Scripture against the honour of a divine Attribute I mean the immensity and spirituality of the divine nature You are gone to a Church that pretends to be infallible and yet is infinitely deceived in many particulars and yet endures no contradiction and is impatient her Children should enquire into any thing her Priests obtrude You are gone from receiving the whole Sacrament to receive it but half from Christs Institution to a human Invention from Scripture to uncertain Traditions and from ancient Tradition to new pretences from Prayers which ye understood to Prayers which ye understand not from confidence in God to rely upon Creatures from intire dependance upon inward-acts to a dangerous temptation of resting too much in outward ministeries in the external work of Sacraments and Sacramentals You are gone from a Church whose Worshipping is simple Christian and Apostolical to a Church where mens Consciences are loaden with a burden of Ceremonies greater than that in the dayes of the Jewish Religion for the Ceremonial of the Church of Rome is a great Book in Folio You are gone from a Church where you were exhorted to read the Word of God the Holy Scriptures from whence you sound instruction institution comfort reproof a treasure of all excellencies to a Church that seals up that Fountain from you and gives you drink by drops out of such Cisterns as they first make and then stain and then reach out and if it be told you that some men abuse Scripture it is true for if your Priests had not abused Scripture they could not thus have abused you but there is no necessity they should and you need not unless you list any more than you need to abuse the Sacrament or Decrees of the Church or the messages of your
the unreasonableness of it in suppressing Books without enquiring into the merits of the cause in a matter of so great consequence as that was that this would give great occasion of triumph to the Hereticks when such scandalous and seditious Books as those of the Jesuits are meet with the same favour at Rome with the censure of the Bishops of France that their profane and Atheistical Censure of the Apostles Creed must have no mark of disgrace put upon it nor such sayings of theirs wherein they call the Bishops and Divines of France by most contumelious names and say they are the enemies of the truth and piety The Iesuits instead of defending themselves against Aurelius write a pittiful defence of this Decree of suppressing the Books on both sides and so all the means which the Court of Rome durst use to extinguish this flame proved but an occasion of adding to it And whether this Controversie be yet at an end among them let all the heats in France and England of late years concerning the Iesuits give testimony § 10. I shall not now insist any longer upon them but only produce some late passages of things which though they happened at a greater distance are yet sufficiently attested to shew what spight the Iesuitical Order bears to the Authority of Bishops what arts they have used to enervate it what power to affront their persons and expose them to all the contempt that may be when they go about to stop their proceedings or exercise any jurisdiction over them The great occasion of the Controversie between the Bishops and them was that the Iesuits took upon them to Preach and hear Confessions c. without any permission from the Bishop of the Diocese So they did in the Philippine Islands whereupon the Arch-bishop of Manille Don Hernando Guerrero called a Synod wherein it was resolved that the Archbishop ought to bring the Iesuits to account for what they did which he did and all the satisfaction he could get from them was that they had priviledges the Arch-bishop not satisfied with this proceeds against them they name a Conservator an enemy of the Arch-bishops For the Popes to keep the Bishops in awe have allowed them by a Bull for that purpose liberty in case of difference between the Bishops and them to choose a Conservator to defend their priviledges against them this Conservator proceeds against the Arch-bishop and the Iesuits procure the Governour to joyne with him who without giving leave to him to make his Defence resolve to banish him The Arch-bishop understanding their resolution to send him away goes with the Clergy about him into his Chappel and there to secure himself from the insolency of the Souldiers in his Pontifical habit holds the Eucharist in his hand notwithstanding which they came and dragged out all the Fryers who took the Arch-bishops part and afterwards the old Arch-bishop himself who fell down in the crowd with the Pix in his hand and wounded himself in the face Such exorbitances made that impression on one of the Souldiers that he drew his Sword and falling upon it said He had rather dye by his own hands than see such enormities among Christians At last the Arch-bishop was forced to let go his Pix and was presently carryed away out of the City and put into a little pittiful Barque unprovided of all things without permitting any food to be given him or any of his servants to accompany him and was conveyed by five Souldiers into a Desart Island where he had not so much as a Cabin for shelter and there he was kept till he yielded to their terms O the admirable unity peace and submission to Bishops in the Roman Church But we have yet a more remarkable instance of this kind in the notorious case of the difference between the Bishop of Angelopolis in America and the Iesuits which was heard at Rome and several Bulls published by Innocent 10. in it I shall give an account of it from the Popes Bulls and from the letter which the Bishop himself sent to the Pope about it A. D. 1649. which is extant in the Collection of the end of Mr. S. Amours Iournal which he had from Cosimo Ricciardi Sub-librarykeeper of the Vatican who received it immediately from the Bishops Agent The controversie began there upon the very same grounds which it had done in the Philippine Islands for the Iesuits would acknowledge no subjection at all to the Bishop but would Preach and hear Confessions without any license from the Bishop which difference grew so high that the Iesuits chose Conservators against the Bishops authority as the Popes Bull granted May 14. A. D. 1648. doth declare and not only so but these Conservators very fairly excommunicated the Bishop and his Vicar General upon this the Bishop sends an Agent to Rome and the Iesuits appear in behalf of their Society the Pope commits the cause to a particular Congregation of Cardinals and Bishops who upon the hearing of both sides give sentence in favour of the Bishop Apr. 16. A. D. 1648. But the Iesuits as appears by the Bishops letter bearing date Ian. 8. A. D. 1649. were resolved not to wait for the Popes resolution but finding that the people contemned their censures and adhered to the Bishop were so enraged at it that they resolved to imprison him to that end they bribe the King of Spains Vice-roy the Bishops particular enemy with a great summ of money and by that means clapt up most of his Friends and threatned them with worse if they would not obey the Conservators the Bishop himself they had appointed Souldiers to seize upon on Corpus Christi day the better day the better deed who understanding their minds sent commissioners to treat with them to prevent the tumults and disorders were like to follow on these differences but they used them with contempt and would hear of no terms unless the Bishop would submit himself and his jurisdiction to them and their Conservators but instead of peace they proceed to more open acts of hostility by imprisoning his Vicar General and using all manner of insolencies among the People who joyned with the Bishop to defend him against them The good Bishop seeing things in so bad a posture thought it his greatest prudence to withdraw to the mountains thinking himself safer among the Serpents and Scorpions there than in the City among the Iesuits There he continues for twenty dayes almost famished and afterwards for four months lay hid in a pittiful Cottage the Iesuits in the mean time offering great summs of money to those who should bring him alive or dead But not finding him they bring the excommunicated Conservators with great pomp into the City and erect a Tribunal or in the language of the late times a Highâ—Court of Iustice among them where according to their pleasure they fine banish imprison as many as they thought their enemies and there solemnly declare what mighty