that contribution should not take well Besides that as in the time of S. Bennet which may be reckoned to be about the year Five Hundred and Fifty Learning did in no degree flourish so it grew less and less for Seven Hundred years after his time or near so much even to the Age in which Erasmus lived who knew the talent of the Monks and Friers very well And truly I think Mr. Cressy's Superiors may believe that he hath taken too much pains in collecting a bundle of reproaches of a false pretender to Visions Miracles and Inspirations and an ignorant fool to be cast upon their Founder not one of which is laid to his charge by the Doctor and must therefore be imputed to another Author and he hath less reason to imagine that those reproaches must fall upon S. Gregory because he confirmed the Rules and writ the life of S. Bennet both which he might do without being guilty of either of those imputations He never knew S. Bennet and confirmed his Rules long after his death which makes some Catholick Writers believe that the Rules were in truth not made by S. Benedict and a known Catholick Antiquary Mr. Broughton takes upon him to pronounce that S. Gregory himself was never a Monk of that Order which is a greater affront to it than any that the Doctor hath put upon it I do not know but that the Church of England hath a just reverence and esteem of the learning and of the piety of S. Gregory and a greater than Mr. Cressy hath as will appear anon however as the most learned men who write many Books seldom write all with the same perfection and accurateness of judgment and their Readers do not look upon all with the same estimation so many do not believe and I doubt not many Catholicks that S. Gregorie's Dialogue of the Life of S. Bennet is for the learning or judgment of it equal to the rest of his Works But Mr. Cressy is very hard to be pleased who hath been so very angry with the Doctor for the rudeness and incivility of his language and is now no less displeased with him for his excess of civility in calling S. Benedict Saint which he says pag. 31. If he was guilty of what the Doctor charges him with savours something of blasphemy Truly though many men cannot comprehend how S. Benedict attained that degree yet no body is sure that he hath it not and his title doth not seem the worse because he doth not appear qualified by any particular Canonization at Rome there being I think no Record of any such but by a general consent amongst many devout persons which is the title of all those Primitive Saints to whose memories our Church pays as much reverence as the other doth before those very costly commencements were established at Rome which have lately conferred all those degrees and the preliminaries to it But I think it is now the civility of most of the Provinces of Europe to treat all men with the same stile that they assume to themselves or their Friends attribute to them and so we use to call those Saints who are commonly called so though we are not sure they are in Heaven and he would believe that he were very unkindly dealt with if he should be charged with want of integrity for calling the Reverend Prelates of our Church Bishops when if he did believe them really to be so he would not when he left the Church have been re-ordained and if he does not believe them to be such his insincerity is more to be reproved than our blasphemy in calling those Saints of whose station we are not so well assured But Mr. Cressy hath a greater insight into History and a more discerning spirit than any man of whom I have ever heard if he hath discovered That the greatest Iudgment and Plague that God ever no doubt in his just anger brought upon the Christian world or any Christian part of it in that general deluge of the Goths Vandals Huns Saxons Danes and other Pagan Nations proved a most unvaluable blessing as he says pag. 32. because God of those stones raised up children unto Abraham that is after these inhumane miscreants had for many hundred years massacred many millions of Christians demolished so many Churches and Religious houses and introduced a brutish savageness into the very nature of the Inhabitants within the Provinces of which they were possessed some of their posterity became Christians and yet for almost an Age after their conversion their manners remained still almost as much Pagan as they were before And for their building of Churches and Schools of piety hear what Monsieur Mezeray who is much more conversant with the transactions of those times than Mr. Cressy is says I know no time in which there were more Churches and Abbies built than in this speaking of the Tenth Century which was near the time when the most general conversion of these Barbarians happened The most wicked persons affected says he very much the title of Founders whist they ruined Churches on one side they built others on the contrary and made sacrilegious Offerings to God of those things which they had ravished from the poor and therefore those structures are not always the best Records of the piety of the Age in which they are erected and very few of the Monasteries into which Kings and Queens and Princes used to retire for attending their Heavenly meditation were erected after the incursion of those barbarous Pagans and before which that numerous Army of Martyrs was likewise expired since that time must be reckoned under the Ten Persecutions So that the unvaluable blessing that Christian Religion received from that impious inundation is not yet discovered or understood and less that the persons who by Gods blessed directions instilled into the hearts of men such an heroical Faith and Divine love were principally the Disciples of S. Benedict I must tell him again that Christianity was well cultivated before S. Bennet's Rules were published or confirmed which was not till after the year Six Hundred and from that time it received greater improvement from the piety and learning of many devout Prelates and from the learning and good lives of the Clergy and of other Religious men than it hath ever done by the disciples of S. Bennet except all the Monasteries that have been ever founded and all the professed Monks shall be looked upon as founded by him upon which computation I doubt many of Mr. Cressy's mistakes are to be imputed nor is he probably well informed of the numbers which have been converted to Christianity by the Protestant Churches though he takes upon him to know that there is not one Village which he would hardly undertake since he cannot but know that the Protestants have many large Plantations in Provinces inhabited by Pagans whereof many have been converted if he did not think that a conversion from Paganism is to little purpose
bitterly inveigh against his Principles and all for the novelty of them that is he says somewhat that hath not been said before and which they are not provided to answer which is rather an argument that all disputing is to little purpose and that it is time to give it over because neither party is reformed than that what he says is easie to be answered there will be every day new Principles new Arguments to inform and convince and convert those who obstinately persist in old Errours They who are but moderately versed in the Controversies about the Substantial points in difference between the Protestants I mean which are common with all Protestants and the Church of Rome cannot but find that the Romish Champions have quite shifted the Scene in all their arguments upon the most material matters and have found new mediums to support their cause They are visibly weary all but the Iesuits of insisting upon the Popes infallibility you scarce meet with an argument from it in any Book that is Printed nor can you engage them in it upon discourse They are with great difficulty drawn into the matter of Transubstantiation but presently shelter themselves under the shadow of their Church and if they cannot avoid enlarging upon it they neither use argument or answer that ever Bellarmine relied upon being not satisfied with much he said in that point or Purgatory or some other matters which he hath handled more at large insomuch that it hath been observed these many years that Bellarmine's Controversies are so gathered up that they are not easie to be procured amongst the greatest Book-sellers and if they are ever reprinted they will pass a severe expurgation In these varieties and lawful changes of the method and order of disputation amongst learned men which cannot but be administred by the often saying and repeating the same things which are often evinced by a new medium after it hath been long unmoveable by an old why should it only be unlawful or incongruous in the Doctor or any other Writer in defence of the Church of England to introduce new principles if they will better contribute to the maintenance of old truths and which it is plain doth stagger them and forces them to fall upon the Person and decline the matter yet I am contented for the ending all disputes which are full of obstinacy and uncharitableness to concur in the reference and how ill soever Mr. Cressy and I have agreed from the beginning of his Book hitherto I am intirely of his mind in the matter and very words of his conclusion That there is a horrible depravation in the minds especially of Ecclesiasticks which depravation can now only be cured by the wisdom and power of the Civil Magistrate and to his wisdom and severity I leave it I have now waited upon Mr. Cressy to the end of his Book and I think have not left any clause in it of any importance unanswered and before I conclude I shall observe Cressy's own method in giving him some Counsel and Advice without taking much notice of his Post-script in which there is little addition of new matter but from the same temper of spirit some variety of bitterness with some new very ill words He wishes that if the Doctor thinks not himself obliged in Conscience by breaking all Rules of piety and humanity to do all manner of despight to his Catholick fellow Subjects he would hereafter please to abstain from reviling and blaspheming Gods Saints or traducing the most divine exercises of contemplative Souls more perfectly practised only in Heaven Alas the Doctor wishes and desires that all the English Roman Catholicks against whose corrupt opinions he hath with much strength of reason and very little passion writ very weightily but never against their Persons would be his Fellow-subjects give that evidence and security of and for their fidelity as their Fellow-subjects do That they would disclaim all kind of subjection to any other Soveraign and which till they do and which the Catholick Religion cannot hinder them from doing they cannot reckon themselves nor be accounted by others his Fellow-subjects And I do heartily wish not without some apprehension that Mr. Cressy hath not by breaking all rules of modesty and discretion brought more prejudice upon the Persons of his fellow-Catholicks than all the Doctor 's want of humanity hath done It was a little too soon to awaken all the Protestants of England that they might discern in what an ill condition they must be in if that Catholick spirit that discovers it self unwarily in him and others of his fraternity should have any prevalence or much countenance in the State To his blaspheming and reviling Gods Saints so absurdly charged upon him enough hath been said before nor is there evidence to induce the most charitable man to believe that all those are Gods Saints which stand in Mr. Cressy's Calender of Saints and it was very unadvisedly done that only one single line was not expunged if there was no more that gave the occasion of mentioning Saints and Miracles and Enthusiasmes which extorted from the Doctor all those animadversions which put the other into so much rage and fury that for the support of that one onely line he hath writ this whole Book that in every line is full of nothing but Miracles and Saints and divine exercise of contemplative Souls which by his favour is as new a Principle to defend the Romish Religion by as any the Doctor hath introduced against it and surely contains more of that kind of Learning than all the Books of pure aud solid Controversie that have been written since Luther begun his Separation as if he had a mind to put the verity of the Lives of the Saints in issue and to be strictly examined from which affectation I suppose his Superiours will divert him that they and their Miracles may be left to their own repose And for his most divine exercise of contemplative Souls more perfectly practised only in Heaven which is another new principle and which and the like must unavoidably be examined by new methods and argumentations it would be much better to leave those obscure contemplations to the Persons who delight in them and find relief by them which we may charitably hope is better understood by them than comprehended by us but if they will not keep their Cipher privately to themselves for their mutual correspondence and conversation but will constitute a new language in old words for the information and amazement of other men and will be then offended and shortly after condemn them for being without the effects which pious Souls naturally produce they should not take it ill if men who patiently hear what they say do in truth believe that they themselves are without any clear notions and can draw no sence out of that mist of words in which it is concealed Mental Prayer which they would fain make their imaginations understood by is a faculty every devout
IMPRIMATUR THO. TOMKYNS Ex Aed Lambethanis Nov. 29. 1673. ANIMADVERSIONS Upon a Book Intituled FANATICISM FANATICALLY Imputed to the Catholick Church By Dr. STILLINGFLEET And the Imputation Refuted and Retorted by S. C. By a Person of Honour LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty 1673. TO Dr. Stillingfleet SIR HAving lately it may be later than most men in England who are inquisitive after Books had a view of a little Book in answer to a Book of Yours which I had not then seen Intituled Fanaticism Fanatically Imputed by him Dr. Stillingfleet to the Catholick Church I had read very few leaves in it when I was able warrantably to say that Mr. Cressy was the Author of this Book a person whom I had long known and familiarly conversed with before he was perverted in his Religion aud had often seen since and upon the whole I must confess if there had not been some particulars in it which could not suffer me to be deceived I could hardly have believed that so much pride and bitterness and virulence could upon so little provocation and with so little excuse have dropped from his pen. The confidence of it amazed me as much as the rudeness and though I could not expect that a man who had treated his own Mother with so little respect could have much reverence for your Person who have so vigorously defended her and fully vindicated her from all the reproaches that Classis of men have been able to cast upon her and exposed their malice and their ignorance more nakedly to the view of the world than I think hath been ever done before for which all her true children are and always must be indebted to you and to your memory I thought the little angry Book fit to receive some answer and the Author of it worthy of reprehension and admonition which he might receive with less disturbance from an old Friend and I thought it likewise unreasonable that you whose studies are so wholly engrossed by and dedicated to the publick should be put to the trouble to free your self from these feeble calumnies which every man who hath read your Works is able to do and every man who loves the Church is bound in justice to do Besides I was willing to invite other Lay-men to shew with more efficacy their concernment for the Church and the Protestant Religion so variously and maliciously assaulted on all hands though God be thanked impotently enough that the defence of it may not be looked upon as the sole duty of the Clergy These were the motives that invited me to undertake this little task which I was not long performing and yet even when I had finished it if so imperfect a draught can be called finishing I chanced to have the pleasant sight of your Answer to several late Treatises c. and I can with a very good conscience assure you that mine was dispatched before I did see it and therefore especially since you have only taken a slight notice in the Preface of Mr. Cressy's waspish invectives I am willing if you please that my short Animadversions may be likewise presented to his view which is intirely left to be communicated or suppressed or corrected according to your judgment by SIR Your most affectionate unknown Servant ANIMADUERSIONS Upon a Book Intituled FANATICISM FANATICALLY Imputed to the Catholick Church By Dr. STILLINGFLEET And the Imputation Refuted and Retorted by S. C. IT was the wish not the hope of the most excellent Lord Bacon in his never enough admired Advancement of Learning that good Books had the quality or faculty of Moses's Rod that being become a Serpent eat up and devoured the other Serpents which were produced by the Rods of the Sorcerers or Magicians The number was so great in his time of idle and impertinent and Seditious Books and the number of the Readers who were delighted with them was likewise so great that Books of Learning weight and importance found little countenance and few Men at leisure to peruse them and he saw no remedy but by such a miracle What would that great and discerning Person think if he had lived in these days when the licence of writing and publishing light and scandalous Books of all Arguments without any rules or limits of modesty is grown the Epidemical disease of the Nation and a reproach to the Government in the violation of the Laws the contempt of the Magistrate and the general contagion that is spread abroad and threatens the very peace of the Kingdom at least disturbs the sober conversation of it The spirit of Martin Marprelate which hath for so many years been expired or extinguished is revived with greater insolence and improved and heightned as well against the State as the Church in a petulancy of language in a style so new and unbecoming Men of honest education that the gravest arguments in Divinity it self and Texts of the Sacred Scripture are handled in a manner and fashion and with such vain and Comical expressions as have not used to be admitted in the lightest arguments or in sober and chast mirth The important and vital parts of Government the dignity of the Laws established and even the Person of the King himself and the greatest Magistrates are arraigned censured and inveighed against in such a bitterness of words with terms so reproachful as have not been ever used in good company and as if the English tongue were too narrow to comprehend all the Ribaldry and filthiness of their thoughts and inventions they coin new words of contempt and indignation and make use of a Dialect never heard of but in the company of Ruffians and the lowest and most debauch'd of the People which for wit sake they apply to their vile purposes so that this extravagance if not timely suppressed doth really seem to threaten not only a general corruption of manners but of the purity and integrity of the Language and of the good humor and good nature and modest conversation of the Nation and upon this occasion I cannot but lament the want of that caution and prudence which was heretofore observed when this unruly Spirit first broke out in the time of Martin Marprelate who had a contribution of Jests and Scoffs and Comical inventions brought to him by all the party who desired to expose the Church and the Government of it to the contempt and scorn of the loose and rude People It was not thought worthy of any serious Man to enter into the lists with such adversaries or to take notice of their Pamphlets but Men of the same Classis of the same rankness of Wit and fancy and of honester principles were the Champions in that quarrel Thom. Nash was as well known an Author in those days as Martin who with Pamphlets of the same kind and size with the same pert Buffoonry and with more salt and cleanliness rendred that libellous and seditious crew so contemptible ridiculous and odious that in
the Rules and prescriptions which Mr. Cressy and some other of his Friends have taken upon them to give for rendring the same more perfect and exact And though the Doctor is more modest than to make his own judgment and understanding an argument to condemn what another man thinks very reasonable which is the syllogism the other out of kindness hath made for him yet truly I have so good an opinion of Mr. Cressy's understanding that if he should tell me that he had held a discourse upon matter of Religion with a man who entertained him for half an hour in a continued speech with many proper and in themselves very intelligible words which drew his best attention to what he said which was all pronounced in so grave a tone that he suspected his own understanding for not quickly comprehending what his meaning could be but that after all his intentness of mind he could observe nothing but a heap of words improperly mingled together without any coherence or context to make any signification I should presently conclude that what he had heard was unintelligible canting for what other definition can be given of unintelligible canting than a dialect of affected words which have no congruity and of which men of very competent parts and who hear patiently cannot collect any sence And I have always believed that men who cannot express their own meaning in words and a method that men of good comprehension do understand their meaning have not clear notions themselves of what they do deliver and if mystick Divines will express their conceptions of the most pure operations of the Soul her self and likewise of God upon the Soul in such terms and language as none but those of their own fraternity can upon hearing them know what they would have they must not take it ill if other men believe that they have a peculiar cipher between themselves which being in words is only sence to them and canting to every body else But without doubt Prayer and whatsoever relates to it should always consist of language so plain and easie that the meanest and lowest of the people cannot but know what every word signifies And as he is commonly very unhappy in his application of Scripture so he now prophanes S. Paul's name to a purpose so contrary to what he would apply it to that if there were no other argument to convince him of his error that Text alone would do it very amply S. Paul who he says was the greatest Master of Language that perhaps ever was yet for want of words could not describe the extasie he had been in nor the vision that he had seen but professed that no humane language could describe them nor humane fancy comprehend them and therefore Mr. Cressy says that according to the Doctors grounds S. Paul should be the greatest Fanatick that ever was yea the Father of all Fanaticks yet the Doctor dares not call him so whereas the Doctor only calls those Fanaticks who will not imitate S. Paul but upon an imagination that they have seen somewhat which few men believe they did see will needs describe it in words which no body understands and though that great Master of Language therefore forbore to mention what he had seen or heard because there were no words which would serve the turn he hath helped S. Paul to proper words to do it by and says that it cannot be denied to have been a passive union of S. Paul's Soul with God but since S. Paul could not tell what it was we are not bound to believe that Mr. Cressy knows better or can better express it and it were to be wished that his Friends if they have such apparitions as they cannot understand they will be as modest as S. Paul and not go about to describe them nor believe that they do understand themselves what they cannot make any body else to understand Since Mr. Cressy appeals from the Doctor to the indifferent Reader upon his sharp censure of some expressions in Sancta Sophia and takes much pains to make elucidations upon those difficult places which the Doctor thought hard to be understood and which he seems to believe will by the pains he hath taken appear very intelligible I cannot but take my self to be one of those indifferent Readers who is not by any prejudice to the man or to the matter uncapable of judging of the sence of what he reads And I must confess that by Mr. Cressy's favour and direction I had one of those Books of Sancta Sophia presented to me assoon as it was printed which I was the more impatient to read because he had recommended it to me as a Book worthy to be read by all Christians since it medled not with any Controversies but was the greatest help to devotion in general that had been yet published nor did he think himself concerned in the commendation since he always professed that he was not Author of any thing contained in the Book but of the method and marshalling the several discourses out of Papers and Notes not enough digested by the death of Mr. Baker who was generally esteemed a learned and devout man and truly I believe he might be so and as I have heard for I never saw him nor did Mr. Cressy I think spent more time privately upon his own thoughts than in books or conversation I cannot deny but that I did then think that what was not very vulgarly said which was honest was very obscure and difficult to be understood which I did really impute to want of capacity in my self until I read many of the particulars to others much wiser and in all respects very competent judges of such discourses and when upon a full disquisition I found them of the same opinion and that they knew not how to make any thing that was said applicable to heighten their own devotions I begun to conclude too that what benefit soever others might attain by reading it for I met with some women who professed to have received much benefit by it I should get little in taking more pains to comprehend it and I remember it came out much about the same time that Sir Henry Vane published a book of the same subject of the love of God and the union with God which when I had read and found nothing of his usual clearness and ratiocination in his discourse in which he used much to excel the best of the company he kept and that the stile thereof was very like that of Sancta Sophia and that in a crowd of very easie words the sence was too hard to find out I was of opinion that the subject matter of it was of so delicate a nature that it required another kind of preparation of mind and it may be another kind of diet than men are ordinarily supplied with And I am now the more confirmed in that judgment by finding all Mr. Cressy's glosses which he hath taken the pains to make to
liberatur And he would likewise have found in the Canonization of Ignotius Loyala his thirty third miracle is that of Isabella Monialis ord S. Clarae who being threescore and seven years old being in a very high place about business by mischance had a terrible fall to the ground with which she broke her thigh and for above forty days adhibitis per Medicum Chirurgum eventu planè irrito medicamentis and all hope of life being in the judgment of all hopeless and desperate petita tamen pia cum religione impetrata reliquia B. Ignatii super coxendicem applicata statim sana est reddita coxendicem tibiam prius tumentem atque immobilem expedite sine dolore movere coepit die proxima surrexit ac libere perfecte ambulavit Many more of the like instances he will find in the fourth Tome of the great Bullarium and without the evidence of these three women these miracles had been lost which could not but contribute very much to their Canonization Nor was the Testimony of women ever rejected in those cases it is probable for that very reason for which Mr. Cressy seems to think their evidence ought not to be received because imagination is stronger in them than judgment and that whatsoever is esteemed by them to be pious is easily by them concluded to be true and such a Confessor as Mr. Cressy will easily perswade them to believe that many things are pious which he knows not to be true And in truth he hath not answered the weight of the Doctors instance of the visions of S. Bridget and S. Katherine of Syena with all the help that S. Anthony and Cardinal Baronius can give him the last of which apparently believed neither of them and his own addition is much less satisfactory to any discerning person that no Oecumenical Council hath made a Canon with an Anathema against all those who will not acknowledge all the Revelations of S. Bridget to have been divine and the belief of them necessary to salvation and that all that was done by the Council was upon occasion of invectives made against those Revelations by many Catholicks to require Joannes à Turrecremata to peruse and give his judgment of them which being favourable the Council approved them says the Doctor that is says Mr. Cressy freely permitted them to be read as containing nothing contrary to faith and good manners The Councils approbation was much more than that but if it were no more it doth not become the Catholick Church or any National Church to give that countenance to any new opinion that may encourage such a liberty as he says is taken by many writers to decry both the one and the other and introduces animosity and uncharitableness between Christians which hath been notorious enough in this particular And since he confesses that many illusions and fancies have been brought into the Church by pretence of such Revelations by the several Sects and Persons named by the Doctor as the Sects of Mendicants the Authors of the Evangelium aeternum and the rest all or most of which did find countenance and exceedingly disturb the peace of the Church and who Mr. Cressy confesses were Monsters raised up by the Devil in a cursed imitation of the graces and gifts communicated by God to his devout and faithful servants There cannot be too much vigilance in shutting all doors at which such illusions may enter and no body is to be blamed who is most jealous of their integrity We come in the next place to his fifth Chapter of resisting authority falsly imputed he says to Catholick Religion in which he says the Doctor doth very ingeniously absolve the Catholick Church her self and lays the fault only on the principles and practices of the Iesuitical party Indeed the Doctor cannot but absolve the Catholick Church from that reproach except he thought all Christian Churches liable to it but he is far from absolving all Catholicks of the Roman Church from rebellion excepting only the Iesuits though he instances most in them because the books which most defend it have been written by those of that Society but nothing can be stranger than that Mr. Cressy should so magnifie the general obedience of all Roman Catholicks that none of them were ever in rebellion against the King or his Father when he knows very well and hath some marks of it that the whole Irish Nation very few persons of honour excepted joyned in rebellion against the King and but for that rebellion neither Presbyterian Independant or Anabaptist had been able to have done any harm in England For the Scots rebellion was totally suppressed and their Army disbanded before the Irish rebellion begun It was that which produced all the mischief that succeeded in England and gave those Sects in Religion opportunity to bring in their confusion to the destruction of the Church and State with such barbarous circumstances as are too horrible to repeat though they can never be forgotten Was not that Rebellion begun and carried on intirely by the Kings Roman Catholick subjects Was there one man but Catholicks who concurred in it and did they pretend any other cause for it but Religion at least when they had the satisfaction they desired in whatsoever else they pretended did they not continue it still under pretence of Religion Was not the secular and regular Clergy equally engaged to support it And did not the Pope himself contribute to it if not contrive it And was not himself in the person of his Nuntio Rinnuccini General of the Rebels both by Sea and Land And can there be a greater manifestation that the Catholick Roman Religion it self favoured rebellion than when their head of their Church and all Ecclesiastical Orders joyned and concurred in it And it it cannot but be observed that though the Irish for ought appears only carried on or were active in that Rebellion there was not any English Catholick that made any publick profession against it nor did one English Priest Secular or Regular manifest his detestation or dislike of it by any publick writing And how much they favoured it in private discourse there wants not abundant evidence All which should be forgotten as it is forgiven before there be such loud Encomiums published of the never-failing obedience of the Romish Catholicks and the Records of later rebellions in France as well as those of the League should be razed out It is to be wished rather than hoped that the profession of Christian Religion in any Church had that impulsion in it as it ought to have that it preserved the professors of it from entring into rebellion and the practice of any other iniquity Yet it may be truly said that there were very few who did so much as pretend to have a reverence for the Church of England that were ever active in the late rebellion How far the fear and consternation men were in forced them to submit to
that torrent which over-bore them ought not to be imputed since it over whelmed multitudes of all professions who heartily abhorred those that they were compelled to obey It is a great instance of Mr. Cressy's good temper if it be of his sincerity that he is so solicitous to purge the Iesuits from the imputations which are more particularly cast on them I believe they did not expect it from him who is not thought to agree with them in all which they account fundamental Yet truly the excuse he makes for them is such as if he invited men to keep up their prejudice against them That for asmuch as concerns the unsafe Antimonarchical doctrine contained in those books cited by the Doctor it is almost a whole Age since that they have been by their General forbidden under pain of Excommunication and other most grievous censures to justifie them either in writing preaching or disputing c. Mr. Cressy speaks much of retractation and says well That they who by writing or otherwise have published scandalous doctrine which hath corrupted other men do not do their duty in being silent and giving over to do that which will be no longer safe for them to do but that recantation and retractation is necessary that they may be known to be no longer of the samc mind Is there any man of the society that hath written against that Anti-monarchical doctrine who hath endeavoured to confute Cardinal Bellarmine or Mariana or Emanuel Sa or any of the rest Is not Bellarmine's book of the power of the Pope over Kings are not all the other books to be bought at every Stationers shop Who knows any thing of the Generals warrants but themselves It was known to and permitted by the Pope that is the Pope was willing when their books were out that they should be quiet and write no more which would excuse them for not answering those books which Catholicks as well as Protestants should write against them and that they might not enter into dispute with the Colledge of Sorbon which detested their Principles He says It is well known that in this point Princes and States are generally become more clear-sighted and more wise than formerly they have been and by consequence the Court of Rome also It is indeed well known that the Court of Rome adheres still to its own principles though they do not think fit to put Princes in mind what they are well knowing that all their Bulls and Interdictions and Absolutions how long soever since published are still in the same force and vigour as they were the first hour of their publication and it is very few years since that upon an occasion of some consultation between the secular and regular Clergy of Ireland to present an address to the King in testimony of their obedience in which they disclaimed any temporal authority to be in the Pope the Court of Rome was so alarm'd by it that Cardinal Barberine writ to them to desist from any such Declaration and put them in mind that the Kingdom of England was still under Excommunication and since that time the Pope hath made many Bishops in Ireland which his predecessors had forborn to do from the death of Queen Elizabeth to the year One thousand Six hundred and Forty and this is the clear-sightedness and wisdom that the Court of Rome is lately improved in But he doth assure you that if an oath were framed free from ambiguity and without odious phrases inserted in it wholly unnecessary to the substance of it the Iesuits would not make any scruple of joyning with their Catholick brethren in it Alas what authority hath he to assure us this He knows very well that the Society will not trust him to frame such Oath and that they and he differ very much in their judgments in that point and of all men Mr. Cressy is the most unfit for such an undertaking He cannot forget that shortly after he deserted the Church of England and published his Exomologesis which in comparison of all that he hath writ since may be looked upon as a modest Book he did in that Book publish a protestation or subscription which all the Roman Catholicks in England would be willing to take and in truth it did not differ much in substance or sence from the Oaths which are enjoyned by the Law and no doubt he would have taken it himself and did then believe that all other Catholicks might have taken it likewise But within a short time all that impression of that Book was bought up or otherwise procured and a second Edition of it published wherein there were very many substantial alterations and additions from what was in the former the protestation of duty and obedience which was in the first was totally left out in the second impression it being not thought a fit obligation for the Catholicks to enter into The discourse he had made of Purgatory was likewise left out for he had mistaken the tenent of his new Church in that particular Many other alterations were made as must be confessed by any man who will take the pains to examine both Editions There were also many additions especially of reproaches against the Church of England and many bitter and virulent expressions against the Clergy of that Church And I know a person who meeting with Mr. Cressy expostulated with him upon all those particulars and asked him how it came to pass that those were left out when his Book had been first licensed by Dr. Holden and another Doctor of the Sorbon and why the other calumnies were added which so much reflected upon the Clergy contrary to what in his own Conscience he knew was true to all which he answered with passionate protestations that he never knew of one or the other till he saw the second impression that his Superiours were offended with the first in which there were some mistakes and that he had intirely left it to their discretions to do what they should think fit upon it whereupon they had caused it to be reprinted as it now stood without at all communicating with him which it seems being a custom amongst them gives me yet some hope that the very unusual passion and incivility that runs through this discourse may be added by the appointment and direction of some Superiour Since he is not so much altered in his face or habit from what he was when he was thirty years of Age as he is from that modesty and gentleness of nature and smoothness and civility of stile if all the expressions in his Book are his own from the time I knew him and had conversation with him But he finds it much easier to revile than answer any Books the Doctor hath writ in any time Nor can his opinion be doubted of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy both which he hath often taken and as often declared his detestation of the Covenant which Mr. Cressy will never be able to prove he ever
think never saw that excellent Person to take upon them to asperse a Noble man of the most Prodigious learning of the most exemplar manners and singular good nature of the most unblemished integrity and the greatest Ornament of the Nation that any Age hath produced with the Character of a Socinian Mr. Cressy well knows that before that time of his Journey into Ireland in the Year One thousand six hundred thirty eight that Noble Lord had perused and read over all the Greek and Latine Fathers and was indefatigable in looking over all Books which with great expence he caused to be transmitted to him from all parts and so could not have been long without Mr. Dallies Book if Cressy's presenting it to him had not given him opportunity to have raised this scandal upon his memory nor could that Book have been so grateful to him if he had not read the Fathers For Mr. Chillingworth if Mr. Cressy had not been very wary in saying any thing that might redound to the honour of any of the present Prelates he cannot but know that the present Arch-Bishop of Canterbury had first reclaimed him from his doubtings and they were no more nor had he ever declared himself a Catholick except being at S. Omers amounts to such a Declaration before ever he was sent for by Arch-Bishop Laud and I am very much deceived which I think I am not in that particular if Chillingworth's Book against Mr. Knott was not published before the time of Cressy's Journey in thirty eight into Ireland and I know had been perused by him and therefore Mr. Dallies Book could not interrupt him in his study of the Fathers nor induce him to fix his mind upon Socinian grounds which now serves his turn to reproach all men and the Church of England it self for refusing to believe his miracles or to submit to that authority to whose blind guiding he hath lazily given up himself and all his faculties Yet he does so much honour to those grounds that he does confess that they obstructed a good while his entrance into the Catholick Church the contrary whereof I know to be true as much as negative can be true and that he never thought of entring into the Religion he now professes till long after the death of the Lord Falkland and Mr. Chillingworth nor till the same rebellious power that drove the King out of the Kingdom drove him likewise from the good preferments which he enjoyed in the Church and then the necessity and distraction of his fortune together with the melancholick and irresolution in his nature prevailed with him to bid farewell to his own reason and understanding and to resign himself to the conduct of those who had a much worse than his If the having read Socinus and the commending that in him which no body can reasonably discommende in him and the making use of that reason that God hath given a man for the examining of that which is most properly to be examined by reason and to avoid the weak arguments of some men how superciliously soever insisted upon or to discover the fallacies of others be the definition of a Socinian the party will be very strong in all Churches but if a perfect detestation of all those Opinions against the Person and Divinity of our Saviour or any other doctrine that is contrary to the Church of England and the Church of England hath more formally condemned Socinianism than any other Church hath done as appears by the Canons of One thousand six hundred and forty can free a man from that reproach as without doubt it ought to do I can very warrantably declare that that unparallel'd Lord was no Socinian nor is it possible for any man who is a true Son of the Church of England to be corrupted with any of those Opinions But in truth if Mr. Cressy hath that Prerogative in Logick as to declare men to be Socinians from some propositions which he calls Principles which in his judgment will warrant those deductions though he confesses he does not suspect the Doctor will approve such consequences yet he is confident with all his skill he cannot avoid them that is he is a Socinian before he is aware of it and in spight of his teeth this is such an excess in the faculty of arguing as must make him a dangerous Neighbour and qualifies him excellently to be a Commissioner of the Inquisition who have often need of that kind of subtilty that will make Heresies which they cannot find All this invention is to perswade his new friends of that which they call the old Religion that his old Friend's Religion is new that they have no reverence for antiquity no regard for the Authority of the Fathers and only make use of their natural reason to find out a new Religion for themselves whereas in truth whoever will impartially and dispassionately make the enquiry shall find that there is no one substantial controversie between the Roman and the Church of England but what is matter of Novelty and hath no foundation in Antiquity and that the Fathers are more diligently read and studied in our Church than they are in theirs and more reverence is paid to them by us than by them though neither they nor we nor any other Christian Church in the World do submit or concur in all that the Fathers have taught who were never all of one mind and therefore may very lawfully have their reasons examined by the reasons of other men This that I say concerning the reading and the reverence paid to the Fathers ought to be believed till they can produce one Prelate or Member of the Church of England who hath ever used such contemptuous words of the Fathers Ego ut ingenuè fatear plus uno summo Pontifici crederem in his quae fidei mysteria tangunt quà m mille Augustinis Ieronymis Gregoriis c. Credo enim scio quòd summus Pontifex in his quae fidei sunt non posse errare quoniam authoritas determinandi quae ad fidem spectant in Pontifice residet which are the words of Cornelius Mussus an Italian Bishop and much celebrated amongst them for his extraordinary learning in Epis. ad Rom. cap. 14. pa. 606. Michael Medina a man as eminent in the Council of Trent as any who sate there in the debate whether a Bishop was Superiour to a Presbyter jure Ecclesiastico or jure Divino when they who sustained the former alledged Saint Ierome and S. Augustine to support their opinion Medina said aloud Non mirum esse si isti nonnulli alii Patres re nondum eo tempore illustratâ in eam haeresim incidissent How would Mr. Cressy and his Friends insult if a Doctor of the Church of England should publish in Print by the authority of the Church Illud asserimus quo juntores eo perspicaciores esse Doctores contra hanc quam objectant multitudinem Respondemus inquit ex verbo
Dei Exod. 23. In judicio plurimorum non acquiesces Sententiae ut à vero devies and yet they are the words of Salmeron a man of great learning amongst the Iesuits and confessed of all men to be so in Ep. ad Rom. 5. dif 51. pa. 468. How would they triumph upon the modesty of one of our Clergy if when he had reckoned up the opinions of most of the Fathers upon a difficult Text of Scripture he should conclude Sed si meam quoque sententiam avet audire liberè fatebor in nulla prorsus earum meum qualecunque judicium acquiescere and yet these are the words of Maldonate in his Commentary upon the 11 verse of the 11 ch of St. Matthew Qui est minimus in regno Coelorum major est Iohanne Baptista The question is not whether these very eminent Men and great Scholars for such they were said well and reasonably but whether they who assume this liberty should reproach us who never mention the Fathers but with veneration and rarely dissent from them but when they dissent from one another for taking less liberty or whether they do ingenuously to desire the People should believe that they are so severe observers of the Doctrine of the Fathers that they never tread out of their steps Why may it not become the Church of England to use the same expressions which Cardinal Cajetan so long since did in his Preface to his Commentaries upon the Books of Moses in his excuse for having rejected many expositions of the Fathers Solis sacrae Scripturae authoribus reservata authoritas haec est ut ideo sic credamus esse quia ipsi sic scripserunt Why may it not become any particular member of that Church in a particular point it may be but in a particular expression to differ from a particular Father when Petavius who had as exactly read the Fathers and was as great a Master of universal Learning as this Age hath produced presumes to say Multa sunt à sanctissimis Patribus praesertim à Chrysostomo in homiliis aspersa quae si ad exactae veritatis normam accommodare volueris boni sensûs inania videbuntur in Epipha pa. 244. These and very many more of the like animadversions and detections by Monsieur Dallie anger vex Mr. Cressy and his new Friends much more than any disrespect he is guilty of towards the Fathers of which they cannot assign one instance all that he says besides the mentioning them always with all possible reverence is no more than what Mr. Cressy says of them and of the four first general Councils and which indeed was the cause of Monsieur Dallies writing that Book that those Holy men nor the times in which they lived knew any thing or had heard of any of the points especially in controversie between us and the Church of Rome and therefore that it was a vain affectation to appeal to them for a decision I do not much wonder at any thing Mr. Cressy says upon this argument for he owed to himself some extraordinary observation to make his tale of presenting that unlucky Book as he calls it of Mr. Dallie to My Lord Falkland and which he says perswaded Mr. Chillingworth to have a light esteem of the Fathers but I cannot but admire and grieve that he hath so much credit with any member of the Church of England how obscure soever as to perswade him to have the same opinion and thereupon to assume the Licence and the rashness to asperse as far as his talent can contribute unto it the memory of that most loved and most esteemed Lord Falkland whose name he is not worthy to pass through his mouth with the odious reproach of being a Socinian and that when no Person of the Church of Rome hath had the courage in so many years to attempt the answering that Book de usu Patrum one of the other Church should think it necessary to take the quarrel upon him and without any reason or any instance of moment reproach Mr. Dallie with his light esteem of the Holy Fathers in language not in any degree decent nor was the matter or the manner at all necessary to the other part of his Book concerning the Church of England nor can any Man who is disposed to make that enquiry meet with a greater encouragement to pursue it than by having read that Book of Mr. Dallies I am glad I am now come to Mr. Cressy's conclusion which is not long and consists in a softer and more civil kind of scolding than the other parts of his Book but with the same bitterness and hath in truth in it somewhat of ingenuity a man would not have expected for after so many reproaches almost in every page of his Book of being a Presbyterian an Independent an Hypocrite indeed all the calumnies cast upon him which a good wit and an ill nature can suggest he confesses at last that the Doctor in one of his Books and the place he cites declares That the Church of England upon the greatest enquiry he can make is the best Church of the World which is a greater and fuller vindication of him for all the contumelious aspersions cast on him and a more ample and clear testimony because it is more innocent that he is a true son of the Church of England than any Mr. Cressy can produce of his being a Roman Catholick Will any Presbyterian or Independent or Anabaptist make that Declaration he well knows they neither can nor will whilst they retain the principles of their parties and they cease to be of either party assoon as they make that declaration he confesses that the Doctor hath subscribed and submitted to and practises all that Church requires of him and hath farther unprovoked given this ample testimony to it that he was not obliged to do and which no man can give that is divided in his affections and equally inclined to another Church that differs from it and yet he is so jealous of the honour and security of the Church of England that Church that he hath Apostatized from that Church that he hath traduced and reviled with all the scurrility of Language of this Church in which he will not permit a possibility of Salvation he is so careful that he will not allow the Doctor to be a member of it but advises like a loving Father the drowzy and sleeping Prelates to be watchful over him as a spy and treacherous person who whilst he perswades them poor simple creatures that he will be a champion for their Church endeavours all he can to destroy and undermine it How will Mr. Cressy answer to his Superiors this preposterous zeal of his own behalf of a Church the most odious and the most formidable to them that when it is even almost undermined by Officers of its own who are trusted to search and survey all its Vaults and most secret Avenues so that it is upon the point of falling
the arms of such a Church that seems to believe or without believing to countenance such an imposture or any other thing contrary to common sense and repugnant to all motions of Piety Mr. Cressy will not part with the Doctor without kindly putting him in mind of his Souls health and that being a genuine English Protestant he will find an Excommunication denounced ipso facto against all such as shall in the manner there expressed openly oppose any thing contained in the Nine and thirty Articles in the Book of Common-Prayer and of Ordinations of Bishops and Priests c. which Excommunication he says is there declared to remain in force till the Offender repent of his wicked errour which he ought to revoke Having told him this he wishes him to reflect upon his Book called Irenicum long since published by him and comparing it with the Constitutions of the Church ratified with an Excommunication and thereupon to ask his conscience whether he hath not incurred that Excommunication since his guilt having been publick and notorious no repentance no retractation appears c. He foresees that himself who hath so often subscribed to those constitutions and so often taken those Oaths which accompanie them will be thought liable to that Excommunication having so apparently renounced all the obligations and shewed no other repentance than in a constant reviling and malice towards the Church in which he received his Baptism and therefore to clear himself from reproach he declares that the Doctor cannot doubt of the validity or legality of that Excommunication he for his part may so the Doctor is to look only to himself But if Mr. Cressy had not been in great hast as it cannot be denied that he hath used great expedition in his conclusion he might have thought himself obliged for the more full conviction of the Doctor to have alledged those particulars in his Irenicum which have involved him in that Excommunication and then that that Book was published by him after he had subscribed to the Thirty nine Articles c. neither of which he hath done nor I believe will ever be able to do I confess I have not the Irenicum now in my reach and therefore must only resort to Mr. Cressy himself for a vindication and methinks he contributes very fairly to it in a testimony he gives him pa. 100 without any purpose of good will towards him where he says It cannot be denied but that the Doctor did not during the late calamities joyn in the clamour for destroying the Church he was no root and branch enemy but on the contrary generously undertook their defence and with great boldness told his then Masters in his Irenicum that though Episcopal Government and Ordinations as likewise Deans and Chapters which anciently were the Bishops Councils were not necessary nor perhaps convenient as matters then stood yet neither was their utter destruction they might if the state pleased be retained without sin in all which he believes he hath laid an indelible reproach upon the Doctor but I must tell him that he hath therein given a larger testimony of the Doctor 's courage and affection to the Church than all his revilings will be able to deface For a young Scholar who had then no obligation to the Church by Oaths or Subscriptions and knew little of the constitution of the Church of England to tell his Masters as he justly calls them who had newly Murthered their King and perswaded the People to believe that Bishops were therefore suppressed because they were Anti-christian that they might still be retained without sin was such a flat contradiction to the Doctrine they would have the People be taught that he shewed more courage in saying so than all the English Catholick Clergy ever expressed who owed as much Allegiance to the King or would be thought to owe as much as any of his other Subjects yet never wrote one line or published one Opinion against whatsoever the Rebels said or did He might well say that Episcopal Government and Ordination were not necessary as matters then stood in a Government whose foundation was laid in the most precious blood of the King and the most horrid Sacriledge and Murthers that were ever perpetrated by Christians and when no honest man would or could be made a Bishop But it is too much countenance to Mr. Cressy's unwarranted calumnies to take pains to absolve the Doctor from his aspersions who stands an object of reverence and esteem with all men who have either for the Church However such is Mr. Cressy's modesty that for the excellent performance of his task he desires no other Iudges but the Prelates of the Doctor 's own Church which could have been no excuse for me to interpose my poor opinion in the matter but when he so frankly calls upon any indifferent Reader to judge between them two whether with better success he hath defended the cause of the Church of England against the Church of Rome or he Mr. Cressy the cause of the Doctor 's own Church against himself I may hope that I may be looked upon as one of those indifferent Readers who is called upon or authorized by him to speak my opinion in the matter and upon that supposition I do assure him upon the reputation of an old Friend that he hath very much hurt his own Church in his very passionate and uncomely way of defending her and in seeming to look upon some very Excentrick Lives in the estimation of most learned Catholicks as essential parts of their Religion and to make such Miracles and Dreams and Apparitions the very foundations of the Romish faith which the most credulous in the Church do but believe are possible to be true and the wisest and most learned think never to have been and lastly in undertaking to answer a Book which upon his own or his Associates clamour was necessarily to be full of citations of Catholick Authors and Testimonies contrary to what he averred and without applying any answer to them to declare that he will not examine them nor cares whether they are true or false So that his whole Book consists in nothing else besides the petulant insolent language but finding fault with the method of the Doctor 's arguing and his making use of new and other Principles than have heretofore been insisted upon in arguments of this kind and leaves all the material parts of the Book unanswered which possibly may make his Superiours believe that he hath not performed the task they imposed upon him very laudably For the Doctor having solidly discharged all that can be expected from him he needs no such private and obscure testimony as mine which can do him no good but he hath the acknowledgement of the King himself and the Church whose worthy Champion he deserves to be esteemed and it is like he performs the work the better because Mr. Cressy and so many of his Associates are so much offended and do so
man comprehends it signifying no more than performing that in thought which is otherwise done in speech and thoughts are as plain and easie to be understood as words can and whoever cannot express plainly and clearly to an other man whatever he thinks rather dreams than thinks but because the very noise of words do very often at least with some men disturb or interrupt or divert the thoughts they do pray very allowably and effectually and it may be more powerfully who apply themselves to God by fixing their silent thoughts upon God and upon what they desire of Him without using any words at all and this is mental Prayer which probably may keep the mind more and longer bent towards God than the pronunciation of words will enable or suffer it to be and yet I doubt it must have frequent intermission and relaxation and contemplation may hold its vigour longer upon other arguments than in the exercise of Prayer Men are not to be blamed and it may be less in our Country which hath and doth still suffer by men and women too of disturbed fancies who pretend to Revelations and Illuminations and such Enthusiasms not only to introduce many extravagant opinions in Religion but to warrant and justifie unquiet and seditious actions in the State from some light within which they insist upon in large discourses of words hudled together the meaning whereof other men cannot comprehend and therefore when they meet with this spirit revived again in the writings of some modern Catholicks within the space of nine and twenty or thirty years which had layn quiet or much quieter for four or five hundred years and scarce a mention of them in the common Catholick Writers of those times it cannot be wondred at that men are not willing to give any countenance to those infusions which have so often been discovered to be mere delusions or that many who have read all Teresa's visions and ecstasies and accidentally meet with some well exercised Quakers are apt to think their stile very like because they comprehend the sence of both alike and as it is some argument against the difficulty of a Book that it is translated into any other Language than that in which it is writ so when it is translated into very many Languages and understood by none or by very few who are not suspected for ignorance in the Language it is a great discouragement to the Reader if it be no reproach upon the work and I believe and hope that it is a fate Sancta Sophia will not undergo by being translated into as many Languages as Mother Teresa hath been But it may be that the objection which Mr. Cressy unwarily says keeps women from being admitted for witnesses of miracles in the Canonization of Saints in which he finds he was grosly deceived may be a good qualification of them for the receiving and applying extraordinary Illuminations and Revelations Naturally he says pag. 68. imagination is stronger in them than judgment and whatsoever is esteemed by them to be pious is easily concluded by them to be true and I must confess I have found more Nuns and Religious Persons who seem perfectly to understand that dialect than any other Catholicks with whom I have conversed I confess I am so unwilling to think lightly or speak pleasantly of any expedient that may possibly in other men advance devotion that I am most unwillingly drawn again into the discourse of it since I now find by casting my eye upon a little Treatise written by a friend of Mr. Cressy's or by himself to illustrate that subject that I am totally incapable of understanding it for though Mr. Cressy confesses that many persons even in the Catholick Church have been seduced by the Devil and their own pride to pretend to lights received from God which were either the effects of a distempered fancy or suggestions of the Devil which his friend likewise acknowledges and seems prepared to give advice how the one shall be discovered and distinguished from the other in which I would have been very glad to be instructed but am utterly disappointed by the first conditions that he establishes towards the discovery which is That the persons who pretend to Visions and Illuminations must necessarily be Roman Catholicks because he lays it a ground indisputable that all pretences and appearances of that kind in any persons of a different Faith are infallibly Diabolical which is so full a contradiction to the right of another sort of Enthusiafts who to many men seem to make their claim with as much reason and think that every instance that is urged out of the Scripture by this new Author of all the infusions and visions and illuminations and revelations from the Creation to the end of the Revelation may be as well applied to their justification as for that of the Roman Catholicks I am resolved to be no farther engaged in the Argument but for ever take my leave of it I am confident the Doctor is so willing to gratifie Mr. Cressy that he will deny him nothing that is reasonable but it is not a just request when himself hath declared in his Book that he will not examine one quotation which the Doctor hath with notable industry and punctuality set down to prove all he hath averred and that it concerns not him whether they be true or false he now requests him in his Postscript that he will not hereafter abuse the world by fathering on the Church the Exotick opinions of particular School-men it was his part to have shewed what School-men and what opinions the Church hath rejected and by representing the Churches Doctrines lamely falsly and dishonestly which he says is his enormous faultiness committed in his last Book through every one of the points mentioned by him which he says may be visible to all heedful Readers truly the more shame for him that would not have that advantage against him when he was without any other but he says irrefragable proofs are making ready of this if the Searchers would be quiet and let the Printers work but it is an even lay the want of that discovery will be always laid upon the Searchers though they cannot prevent the coming out of any thing else they have a mind to publish And it may seem strange after his confession in his Book that all is required in and by the Church of England is comprehended in the Articles and Canons and Book of Common-Prayer well known and published he would have it thought in his Postscript that they know not where to find doctrines for no other doctrines we defend and he shall do well to declare by what authority the Catholicks of England conform themselves to the Council of Trent that hath never been received in that Kingdom as it hath not been in some Catholick Countries and therefore is not obligatory there nor must he think he answers this question by saying that all Catholick Countries have received all that is
of the Essence of Religion and reject only some Canons which are indifferent for if any thing remains indifferent after the determination of the Council and may therefore be rejected it is manifest that the jurisdiction is not in the Council though confirmed by the Pope but in that power that rejects it and judges of the indifferency For his invitation of the Doctor to a Christening that a Colledge in Cambridge may have another name given to it than it is now called by S. Bennet or Corpus Christi Colledge the wit of it is enough answered when taken notice of The last Paragraph of his Postscript is a pure piece of Oratory and may be in imitation of no worse an Orator than Caesar himself who when he had tried all fair and foul means threats and promises to draw Cicero to his party and found it was impossible to engage him to be active against Pompey he only considered how to make him Neutral to sit still without doing any thing in the quarrel and writ to him Neque tutius neque honestius reperies quidquam quà m ab omni contentione abesse So Mr. Cressy after he hath heaped more ill words upon the Doctor and applied more reproachful Epithets to his grave and learned person and stile than hath been gathered together in so small a volume within these nine and twenty years he concludes his Postscript with desiring him to consider that Almighty God commands us to love Peace and Truth and then gravely informs him how they ought always to go together and left his too civil address to him should more work upon him than would become an adversary he quickens him for the better application of his Text by telling him that since he hath demolished all Tribunals in Gods Church which might peaceably end controversies and had endeavoured as much as in him lay to banish peace eternally from among Christians it was expected from him that he should give some testimony to the world that he is at least a seeker and promoter of truth and so proceeds very Rhetorically to perswade him that he doth not himself believe any thing that he says to others because he is too reasonable a man and of too great abilities to think that such a Book as his last can convert any Catholick who cannot read without trembling at the blasphemy of it and without a horrible aversion from one who would make their Church and their Faith odious Indeed I believe they will suffer very few of their Proselytes to read that or any other of his Books which may open their eyes or inform them of the darkness they are in If Mr. Cressy's word may be taken as no doubt it will he will tell them of blasphemies that may make them tremble though he hath not in his whole answer named one but if a man will not that is cannot give credit to all the stories which are told of S. Bennet and S. Francis he is streight a blasphemer of Gods Saints as he who will not submit to the authority of the Bishop of Rome demolishes all Tribunals in Gods Church which might peaceably end controversies and endeavours to banish peace eternally from amongst Christians whereas it is only that Tribunal that hinders and obstructs the peace which but for that judicatory would be generally imbraced The counsel I would now give to Mr. Cressy will consist in two kinds the first with reference to himself purely the second with reference to the cause If he thinks fit any more to write against the Church of England which I do not disswade him from that he will state truly and clearly the difference between it and the Church of Rome which he hath never yet done I advise him to remember that he hath been a member and son of the Church of England cherished and educated in her during the most vigorous part of his age and that he ows to that education all the learning he hath I will charitably believe that he saw or thought he saw good reason to withdraw himself from her Communion and that he is satisfied in his conscience with his present state of separation let it be so why should that hinder him from living fairly and civilly towards her It is an ungenerous thing to fall from streight embraces to publick revilings Men of honour after they have contracted friendships with each other for a long time and afterwards find cause from some mutation in manners and upon discovery of infirmities with which they can no longer comply to live at a greater distance towards each other to repose less confidence than they used to do and by degrees to grow strangers they yet retain such a decent behaviour that standers by can scarce discover any alteration of affections in them they are never heard to speak ill to traduce or disgrace one another and believe that it is a debt and duty due to their former friendship never to undervalue each others parts or to bring the honour of either into question common prudence and good breeding prevents those excesses and methinks in Religion the same temper should have a greater influence and Mr. Cressy should for his own sake allow some beauty to have been in the Church that did so long detain him and not desire to render her so ugly and deformed as takes away any excuse from any body for staying so long in her company This I expected from his natural genius and from the conversation he frequented where bitterness of words was never allowable towards men whose opinions were very different and if any new illumination hath perswaded him that such urbanity is not consistent with the zeal that Religious discourses should be warmed with he should suspect it for delusion He hath an excellent example given him by a Catholick learned and Reverend Bishop the present Bishop and Prince of Condun who treats an enemy more inferiour to him and more liable to reproach than the Church of England can be imagined to be to Mr. Cressy with such condescension and humanity as if they stood upon the same level with him And no question those strokes make a deeper impression upon all ingenuous men than louder blows and are with more difficulty repelled Whereas Mr. Cressy like a rude and blustering wind disturbs all sorts of men who stand near him offends and provokes all Classes of men with his unnecessary choler What can the King think to see his Laws and Government so vilified by his scornful expressions to hear his Royal Ancestor whose obsequies were kept and observed at Nostre Dame in Paris with the highest solemnity by the first great King France ever had in spight of the Pope's Excommunication called a Tyrant by one of his own subjects What can all the Protestant Nobility and Prelates of England think to see the Ecclesiastical and Civil Laws of the Church and State despised and trampled upon by a man who could not live an hour in that Air but by the
to be burned as Hereticks very few days before having made new Laws for the discovery of them stricter than had been ever before And there is no reason to believe that he did not die as much a Catholick as he was when he writ against Luther nor did any Catholick Prince forbear to enter into the strictest alliance with him notwithstanding the Popes Bulls of Excommunication Deprivation and Interdiction nor was there one Mass the less said for it in England and after his death his obsequies were with all possible solemnity observed as hath been said before in Paris at Nostre Dame by Francis the First notwithstanding all those Bulls from Rome in all which nothing can be more observable than that the great Emperor Charles the Fifth who had threatned and compelled that weak humorous Pope into all those acts of folly and presumption against the King had no sooner made him commit that insolence but himself entred into a straiter friendship and confederacy with the Excommunicated King than had ever before been between them The other reason why they will very unwillingly expose their interest to this manner of debate is That it would divide their party which if they were solicitous only for truth would not prevail with them Other Catholick Kingdoms and Nations which differ from one another as well in the profession as the exercise of the Roman Religion as the French hold a Council to be above the Pope and the Spaniards the Pope to be above a Council and many other particulars when they come to know that the Crown and Church of England have established only amongst themselves such an exercise of Christian Religion that in all the substantial and essential points is the same which they profess without censuring them or what they find fit to do in their Countries and have only made such alterations as by the constitution of that Kingdom they may lawfully do and which they find more agreeable to the manners of the Nation and for the peace and happiness of the people They will not think themselves concerned in the policy of other Kingdoms nor the Popes authority so much of the Essence of Catholick Religion that they are bound to support all his pretences which are different in all those Countries which are most devoted to him and therefore cannot flow from any determination of our Saviour which would have made it the same in all places besides they too well know that in all the particulars proposed the Catholick Doctors are not of one mind who are now kept united to them by not knowing the constitution of the Church of England nor that the Roman Catholicks in that Kingdom refuse to give that security for their duty to the King and for their peaceable and good behaviour as all other their fellow subjects chearfully give and as are required of all by the Laws of the Kingdom and if they would perform that common duty it is very probable that there appearing no more danger to threaten the State from them than from other men those Laws which the iniquity of their forefathers brought upon them by their conspiracies and treasons may be suspended towards their innocent Children until such time as their peaceable demeanour and good carriage shall make it appear just to be abolished This expedient for the reasons aforesaid will be obstructed by the Religious and regular Clergie who have so absolute a dependence upon the Pope that they are in truth subjects to no other Prince and probably some few of the secular Clergie may concur with them though more of them if they can discern any security to themselves in disclaiming the Popes authority which few of them look upon as of the Essence of their Religion and have in their hearts as well as in their professions as sincere purposes towards the King and his People However I know not why all the Lay Catholicks of his Majesties Dominions should bind up their interest with those who have different obligations from them nor how they can excuse themselves from not throughly examining every one of the particular heads proposed by which they will receive this benefit and information that they will clearly discern what is necessary for them to retain and insist upon without which in their conscience as thus informed they cannot continue members of the Catholick Church and what is so much of the policy of the State that is warrantable or unwarrantable only as it is established by the Soveraign authority and by this means they will know how to give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to render unto God that which belongs unto God the just distribution whereof is of an equal concernment to all Christians being equally enjoyned by our Saviour Christ. THE END A Brief Catalogue of Books newly Printed and Reprinted for R. Royston Bookseller to his Most Sacred Majestie THe Works of the Reverend and Learned Henry Hammond D. D. containing a Collection of Discourses chiefly Practical with many Additions and Corrections from the Author 's own hand together with the Life of the Author enlarg'd by the Reverend Dr. Fell Dean of Christ Church in Oxford in large Folio Nova Vetera Or a Collection of Polemical Discourses addressed against the Enemies of the Church of England both Papists and Fanaticks in large Folio by Ieremiah Taylor Chaplain in Ordinary to King Charles the First of Blessed Memory and late Lord Bishop of Down and Conner Reflexions upon the Devotions of the Roman Church With the Prayers Hymns and Lessons themselves taken out of their Authentick Authors In Three Parts In Octavo New The Christian Sacrifice and the Devout Christian and Advice to a Friend these last three Books written by the Reverend S. P. D. D. in 12. Eph. 4. 31. Pag. 11. Pag. 26. Pag. 31. Pag. 32. Pag. 219. Pag. 35. Pag. 68. Pag. 94. Pag. 102. Mark 16. 16. Ver. 14. Mat. 3. 14. Mark 9. 10. Luke 18. 34. Rom. 10. 9 Rom. 1. 29 30. Rom. 10. 9 1 Cor. 3. 11 12. 1 Cor. 4. 5. Mat. 13. 29 30. Lib. 9. Ep. 39. Phil. 1. 15 18. 2 Esa. 4. 21. 26 27. Numb 12. 1. Zach. 8. 19.