to justify In the year 1651. a devout Italian Friar being appointed to preach in the Great Dome at Padua the Archbishop present and having been informed that among his Auditors there were some English Protestants that in discourse had earnestly objected as you do Idolatry to Catholicks He therefore that he might occur to such a scandal made choice of the Doctrine concerning Images for the subject of a great part of his sermon And when he came to that point holding in his hand a Crucifix he told his hearers That that Image did in one glance lively represent even to the most ignorant beholder our Lord Jesus God and Man and almost all the circumstances of his most bitter and accursed death so patiently and willingly suffered for us Thereupon with great passion and Rhetorick he magnified the Love of our Lord hanging on the Cross earnestly pressing his hearers to return a proportionable Love and Duty to him And during this discourse he often with great reverence and tenderness of affection embraced and devoutly kissed the Crucifix Having said much to this purpose after a little pause he pursued his Discourse telling them he could not believe or suspect that any one that had heard and seen what he had said and done could reasonably imagine that he had any intention to dishonour our Lord by that which he had done to the Crucifix which represented him much less that he adored it as if he thought it a kind of God that he put his trust in it as expecting any good from it as if he knew not what Divinity Vertue or Sanctity was in that carved piece of wood Notwithstanding because he had heard that such a scandalous imputation was by some misperswaded persons laid on the Church he would then and there undeceive them Thereupon he spit upon the Crucifix threw it scornfully to the ground and trampled it under his feet 36. You see Mr. Bagshaw what kind of Idolaters the Papists are Against this Idolatry let us see what express Scripture you can produce This is the great crime for which there can be no expiation but oppressions emprisonments and Gallowses Now if what hath been here said give you no satisfaction in case you have a mind to reply do not practice your old way of snatching a phrase or expression out of a single Authour a Schoolman or Controvertist and making the whole Church answerable for one mans indescretion But search what the Church her self has declared in the Council of Trent and dispute against that as well as you can and be assured you shall either be answered or else told that you are unconquerable IV. VI. That Mr. Bagshaw's whole Discourse against the Churches Infallibility is nothing to the purpose 1. HItherto of your Preface Now I come to your book which truly will afford very little businesse And in grosse concerning your grave Discourse I must tell you That if you would be as merciful to our Estates and our Lives as You are to this our fundamental Doctrine we should find You a a very commodious Adversary For notwithstanding all your blustring You have not given this Doctrine one blow that smarts at all But God bless us from Your Swords and Your Sermons 2. The Title of your book is The great Question about the Infallibility of the Pope and Church of Rome This Question you undertake to determine We are likely to have good stuff in a Book that mistakes the subject to be discoursed on You should not have said The great Question about c. but Two Questions the one a great one about the Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church which if it be disproved destroys the foundation of that Church the other a very little question about the Popes personal infallibility in which the Church it self is not concerned at all but only Cardinal Bellarmine and a few Writers zealous for that Court. And when you had said this in all reason having a design to triumph over Roman Catholicks you ought not to have said a word about this little trifling unconcerning Question but have bent all your forces against that Great one which was only to the purpose 3. But You very wisely have spent your whole book upon it only though a subject that You your self in your Preface confess is not yet decided in the Schools amongst learned men which is as much as to say no Catholick is obliged to maintain and consequently no Protestant needs trouble himself about it Nay moreover you say the two Councils of Basil and Constance and in your Book the sixth General Council have vertually decided the contrary having preferred the Authority of a Council above the Pope which therefore may reverse his decisions and actually condemned a Pope of Heresie you might have added the seventh and eighth General Councils which ratifyed the same condemnation and to them You might have joyned Pope Agathon the successour of Pope Honorius that was condemned and his Successours Pope Leo the second and the rest till Pope Adrian the second who lived in the time of the eighth Council 4. Why do You write Books Mr. Bagshaw so confessedly to no purpose at all And why do you trouble your self about a subject that the Authour whom you pretend to confute cannot himself believe what ever opinion or suspition he may have of it For no Catholick can be said to believe any thing as a Christian Verity merely upon discourse of Reason or probable deduction from Scripture but only when such a verity appears either expressly contained in the Bible or is formally decided by a General Council or received by unquestionable Tradition of the Church Now it is apparent even out of Bellarmine himself that none of these wayes the Popes Infallibility has been confirmed Nay more Never yet has any Pope declared that himself is Infallible But you are wise in the midst of folly You write out of all danger of being confuted because no body thinks himself touched so that you have an easie and cheap triumph of it Notwithstanding by your own example I do much doubt your Honourable patron by whose command You say You wrote finds not Epist Dedic his expectation answered if he did expect any great matter and I am sure being very knowing and wise he will not believe that as you brag you have killed the Enemy having left no Argument unanswered since evidently you have mistaken your enemies person through your whole book excepting only the two last leaves where obiter and in answer to an Objection supposed to be made by moderate and ingenuous Papists you make an offer to speak de tribus capellis that is the Pope's being infallible not in himself but in and with a Councill which though it be the only matter in question you call only a Conceit of which you will speak a little and you keep your word you say very little and that little to no purpose at all 5. Therefore to what purpose should any Catholick
A NON EST INVENTVS Return'd to Mr. EDWARD BAGSHAW'S ENQUIRY AND Vainly boasted DISCOVERY Of weakness in the Grounds of the CHURCHES INFALLIBILITY ALSO His Seditious INVECTIVES Against the Moderate Sincerity of PROTESTANTS and savage Cruelty against ROMAN CATHOLICKS Repressed By a Catholick Gentleman PSALM LXIII v. VI. Scrutati sunt Iniquitates defecerunt Scrutinio They made an Enquiry after Iniquities but the Enquirers failed in the Enquiry Printed in the Year MDCLXII Mr. Edward Bagshaw THe Title of your Book is not immodest being called only An Enquiry into the Grounds of the Roman Churches Infallibility But by pronouncing in the conclusion those fatall words MENE TEKEL you confidently declare it cannot be answered The destruction of the Babilonian Monarchy was not more inevitable after the writing that Decretory sentence by an invisible Angels fingers than is the Roman Churches now You have compiled and published this your Book which you judge unanswerable and to deal ingenuously with you so may I too though I be as good a Catholick as the Pope himself What would you have more A reason for it Have but a little patience and you shall not fail of one better then you expect or have knowledge to foresee 2. Yet I conceive it concerns not Catholicks only but the whole Kingdom I mean all good Subjects in it that such a book though pretendedly against Roman Catholicks only yet full of pernicious invectives malicious complaints and seditious reflexions against the State should with a barefac'd impudence stalke abroad in the publick view as fearless of a censure Nor is the Book in it self so highly provoking as in respect of the abominable Preface that no honest subject Protestant or Catholick can read without indignation no reader justify or not mislike without declaring his Thirst after the publick ruine 3. The Apostles advice of redeeming the time forbids me to mispend it by replying line after line to what you have written That therefore which I have to say to you shall be to make good these positions in direct opposition to what you have written viz. 1. That it is against the welfare of English subjects both for body and soul that you and such as you should be permitted to call your selves Protestants and members of the English Church 2. That your instilling suspicions into the peoples minds as if English Divines c. had a design to introduce Popery again is a meer acting over the late Rebellion 3. That your attempt to render Roman Catholick subjects only in an incapacity of Toleration is more groundlesse and in your mouthes most maliciously ridiculous 4. That your whole discourse against the Churches Infallibility only proves that you have nothing to say to the purpose against it I. That it is a publick mischief that Mr. Bagshaw or any such as he should be permitted to call themselves English Protestants 1. IF common fame be true Mr. Bagshaw you are the same person that published so petulant and uncivil a Libel against my Lord Bishop of Worcester and not for that fault alone have been so deservedly Disciplined by Mr. l'Estrange and so smartly whip't that the whole Town has heard your cries How then comes it to pass that you can find leasure to seek out and defy to the combat other enemies But it may be the demolishing of the Roman Church is but an excursion in a Parenthesis whilst you are for your divertisement unbending your thoughts or taking breath awhile against a new combat with an Adversary that has a great deal more zeal sharpness honesty and courage then is for your purpose who hope not to be discern'd whilst in despight of the Act of Oblivion you will not suffer either the King or any of his faithfull Subjects to forget what they have suffered and must expect but still work and preach and print almost totidem Verbis as you did when the horrible Covenant was the only Religion and Gospel of the three Kingdoms 2. These practices Mr. L ' Estrange if he cannot interrupt yet he can call company and bid them take notice of them He will not permit you to Glory as if you could once more couzen the Kingdom into a new Rebellion Never hope to find so much as one English Protestant that will once more be cheated to look upon you as the Assertors of the Subjects Liberties or maintainers of pure Protestant Religion If the Civil Authority will for ever wink at your Caballs and the Ecclesiastick leave open the Pulpits to your Sermons of the old stile and the Presses to your Pamphlets against Bishops and indifferent Ceremonies If you expect Indemnity must be interpreted to regard the future also all that can be said will be Sani Sobrii vigiles perîmus We shall not as heretofore be surprised but we make a Covenant with destruction as if we were afraid it would escape us 3. As for your Pamphlet touching Infallibility though by the Title you pretend to attacque only Roman Catholicks and to demolish the Grounds of the Churches Faith yet in the whole Book there are not quite two small leaves wherein the Church is concern'd at all either in its Grounds or Superstructure Therefore I am confident and it may be Mr. L'Estrange who knows your wayes and Arts much better then I may in a far neater that is his own stile tell you your real Design was to write a Book with the Title against Catholicks meerly to have an opportunity to stuffe the Preface with malicious glances against Protestants too and incense vulgar minds as if Popery forsooth were ready to be introduced 4. Now though my self purely as a Catholick am little concern'd in that part of your book which you purposely wrote against Catholicks and not very much in those passages against Protestants except only in this consideration that you would fain make Catholick Religion your Engine to raise troubles yet as a faithfull Subject to his Majesty and a lover of my Countries peace I cannot but inwardly bewail and must take leave thus publickly to justifie the too reasonable cause of my grief when I see an English Subject openly professing his name and pretending to the Protection of an Honourable Counsellour of State renew the old seditious practise of inflaming the Peoples minds with rage against their Teachers and murmuring suspicions against their Governours A practise that above all others contributed to the raising of the late Rebellion and to the ruine and murder of our late Soveraign of happy memory and his best Subjects and Servants the late Archbishop of Canterbury Earl of Strafford c. Here are still among us God knowes how many Sects that if any Protestant Doctours shall presume to speak or write otherwise then according to what the furious zeal of Sectaries against Ecclesiasticall Unity and peace suggests they must presently be exposed to a general suspicion the Country must be raised upon them and upon the Bishops if they not discountenance them and upon the King unless
Nay I may truly say that even we Roman Catholicks are much concerned in it and therefore I may be pardoned if I insist upon it because unless this question be resolved all our disputes with Protestants are likely to prove meer beating of the air contentions utterly wandring from the purpose Therefore I may be excused if I take the trouble upon me to resolve it and this I must do not upon Catholick grounds or notions of the phrase being members of a Church but only the notions which Protestants and generally all Sects divided from the Catholicks have entertained of that phrase For Catholicks do not esteem any one a member of the Roman Catholick Church that doth not profess all Doctrines without exception taught by it to be true and submits not to all the Lawes and Ordinances of it There is no distinction to be made as to this matter between Doctrines in themselves Fundamental or non-Fundamental between Lawes in themselves necessary or not because a refusal to accept any one of those Lawes or Doctrines does vertually destroy the Authority of the Church of how little concernment so ever such a Doctrine or Ordinance be in it self There may be differences and even dissentions among Catholicks about points of far greater moment in themselves and yet neither of the parties be in danger of being excluded from the Title of Catholiks or members of the Roman Catholick Church because the Churches Authority has not interposed it self in those disputes either way and therefore is untouched by either 11. But generally all Congregations divided from the Catholick have a quite different conceit of the Phrase being Members of a Church And this conceit is either general or more special According to the general conception of that phrase they acknowledge all to be members of their Church or rather co-members of the Church of Christ that do not teach doctrines or make ordinances excluding all right and interest in the common salvation and thus English protestants esteem themselves members of the Catholick Church and Lutherans of the Calvinists Church and you Presbyterians Independents c. of the English protestant Church because they do not deny a possibility of salvation to one another notwithstanding the differences among them 12. The second and more special notion of the phrase being Members of a Church entertained by all particular Congregations not Catholick does import an external conformity in all Doctrines without exception and all practises determined by each congregation respectively a renunciation of any excluding the refusers from an external communion and participation of the priviledges of that Congregation who notwithstanding may be acknowledged to be almost in as good a condition as to salvation as those are which exclude them from their external Communion Thus Lutherans are not Calvinists though they believe Calvinists may meet them in heaven because they will not admit them to their communion Thus you Presbyterians and Independents c. are no English protestants as long as you are Non-Conformists Let the differences between you be never so small as wearing a Surplice Kneeling at Communion c. if these Ceremonies be established by Lawes Ecclesiastical or Civil the non-submission to them is a manifest dividing from that Church and the less considerable the quarrels are the greater is the guilt of those that publickly dispute or write against that Church of which they desire to be thought members True it is you would seem to have some reason to complain against the English Church if for such trifling differencies only they should pronounce you excommunicated from Christs Mystical Body though they must give me leave to say That by not doing so but acknowledging your Congregations to be members of the Church they do manifestly conclude themselves guilty of Schisme by such a communication with you whom they cannot deny to be Schismaticks But it would be ridiculous in you to accuse them of Tyranny for excluding you from their External Communion when you your selves will not embrace it They do not pretend to an Authority to oblige you in conscience to believe that their Doctrines are true and their Ordinances just but they would be no Church they would renounce all Order if they did not maintain the laws and customes with so great deliberation and after so many disputes with you framed and renewed Where there is no Uniformity even in external matters there is no Church but a Babel If at Communion some should sit others stand others lye along as our Lord did and others kneel if some should be bare-headed others with their hats on would it looke like an assembly of men that served God Therefore complain not but rather thank God and them if they force not your consciences but permit you to abstain from things you do not like and to practice among your selves things you like better But to expect to be acknowledged members of a Church whilst you refuse to submit to the authority of that Church in things of themselves not evil much more whilst you write publickly against them is to desire them not to pretend to the name of a Church Therefore I conclude that you Mr. Bagshaw are no more a member of the English Church then I am and my proofe is this very Preface of your Book that I now write against Your saying that Episcopacy is lawful or your being ordained by Bishops signifies nothing as long as you disobey them you are none of their subjects 13. However I cannot blame you if in despight of English protestants themselves you will needs be called English protestants For if being as really you are no true members of the English Church you were treated as such that is excluded from a participation of the emoluments of it and obliged to a separated exercise of your ill-natur'd Religion two great incommodities would ensue to you and withal two as proportionably great benefits to them and the whole Nation 14. For First What pittiful Congregations would you in a short time appear to be At present your numbers especially in Cities and Towns are not unconsiderable Whereas if being no members of the English Church you were excluded from participating Tithes Benefices and other preferments not at all due to you and had no other maintenance but the Voluntary contributions of your own party you would quickly find that Party weary of you and become rather content to hear a sermon in the Church and wholesome prayers in a Surplice then to pay so much overplus for far worse stuffe in a parlour from a short cloak and no cassack 15. The Second Mortification thence flowing would be yet more intolerable Hitherto the facility of Bishops giving you leave to call your selves English protestants and members of their Church enables you to defile their Churches by doing your own businesse in them to their great prejudice and danger In their pulpits you cry down Ceremonies you preach against their government you sow sedition in the hearts of their flock