would not do his business and was not to the purpose and thereupon challenged him to produce Fathers for that Point promising him at the same time a fair Answer But our Compiler durst not offer to accept of the Challenge dares not meddle with such a thing but if two or three bits of the Old Testimonies out of the Nubes may be admitted they are at my Service and from these it is that he would fain prove that even in matters of Belief the Tradition of the Catholick Church is the best Demonstration What better than the Express Testimony of Scripture it self Methinks our ignorant Compiler might have been contented to have made Tradition only as good or equal to Scripture for the Demonstration of Faith which is the highest the Council of Trent it self durst rise in favour of Tradition and never pretended to mount Tradition so much above Scripture as to make it the BEST DEMONSTRATION of Matters of FAITH But when Ignorance and too great a stock of Confidence meet together such Assertions as these are commonly the fruits of them But for this extravagant Assertion he hath a mind to bring in Origen for a Voucher who speaking concerning the Belief of Christ's being the Son of God says that is to be embrac'd which by a Succession from the Apostles is preserved in the Church by Ecclesiastical Tradition but in Answer to this Is not that Truth and Faith concerning Christ's being the Son of God expresly taught and held forth in the Holy Scriptures and which is more doth not Origen himself expresly tell us in this very place for our Compiler is for looking no further than his own Book that that Truth was to be learnt by us ab IPSO from Christ himself whose Words Doctrine and Actions are used to be thought to have been the Subject of the New Testament which I take to be Scripture and as this Doctrine was to be read in the Scriptures so it was delivered down from thence in Ecclesiastical Tradition which can mean nothing else than either that the Scriptures which did comprehend that Faith were delivered down successively from Age to Age in the Church or that this was always taught in the Sermons and Homilies of the Fathers of the Church successively And to give our Compiler a better knowledge of Origen's sence about these things I will refer him to one Passage which I will set down and desire him to consider of it Origen in Leviticum c. 7. Homilia 5. p. 144. Edit Froben 1536. Origen in his Homilies upon Leviticus speaking of the Old and New Testament tells us that in THEM every word that appertaineteh to God by which Expression the least he can mean is that every Point of Faith may be sought after and found out and all Knowledge of things may be apprehended from THEM But if any thing doth remain which the Holy Scripture doth not determine no other third Scripture ought to be received for the Authorizing any Knowledge but we are to commit to the Fire that which remaineth that is we must leave it to God for in this present World God is not for having us to know all things Our Compiler is next for having Tertullian on his side but why does he not then bring us something to prove it or rather why did he not disprove what I had produced for the Authority and Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures from Tertullian He neither does the one nor offers at the other and yet this must pass it seems for vindicating And just thus he serves me after for when I in Vindication of S. Basil had quoted him declaring for the necessity of Scripture-Evidence for Matters of Faith he says not one Syllable in Answer to it but is for referring me to the old Quotations out of Basil Epiphanius and Lirinensis which I had shewn him before were not to the purpose which is such perfect trifling as none but such a Compiler as he is would be guilty of He then falls to thanking me for saying in relation to the Testimony from Gregory Nyssen that we allow the Tradition of Antiquity to be highly useful and necessary in the Interpreting or giving us the genuine Sense of Points of Faith all the Answer I will give him is much good may it do him however how far that Expression was from doing us any hurt or them any good I have abundantly shewn in my Vindication which I am loth to transcribe hither but that I may not be behind-hand in Civility for the Compiler's Thanks I will present him in Token of my Gratitude with a Passage or two from his Gregory Nyssen and other Fathers which I must recommend to his Consideration Gregory Nyssen in his Dialogue de Animâ Resurrectione lays it down for a Position which no Man ought to contradict that in that only the Truth (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyssen Dial. de Animâ Resurrect Tom. 2. P. 639. Edit Paris 1615. must be acknowledged which hath upon it the Seal of Scripture-Testimony And in another part of his Works he calls the Holy Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idem in Orat de iis qui adeunt Hierosol Tom. 2. p. 1084. a true or streight and inflexible Rule S. Austin is as clear and full against our Compiler while he assures us that in those things which are laid down plainly in the Scripture all those things are found which concern Faith or Manners (c) In iis quae aperte in Scripturâ posita sunt inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem moresque vivendi August de Doctr. Christianâ l. 2. c. 9. Tom. 3. p. 17 18. S. Hierom speaking of the Hereticks in his time which made so much noise and pretended so highly to Apostolical Tradition gives this severe Doom upon them but those things also which they of themselves invent and yet feign to have received as it were by Tradition from the Apostles without the Authority and Testimonies of the Scriptures the sword of God doth smite (d) D. Hieron in Aggeum c. 1. Tom. 6. p. 230. Edit Basil 1565. I could give him several such Testimonies from other Fathers but I will neither trouble him or the Reader with any more at present it will be time enough to send him the rest when he hath answered these And will now pass to his next Chapter and the Vindication of it But here it seems there was no need of any Vindication for I am brought in as one of their own side for saying and granting that our Church doth honour the Saints in observing days in honour or memory of them and I have the Compiler's thanks for it here we have had this Concession up once already it made one of the most terrible Articles of Popery against me in our Compiler's masquerading Letter from a Dissenter to the Divines of the Church of England In my Answer to that scurrilous Letter I did sufficiently acquit my self and our
now he had stolen from his own dear self and that we should now be served up again with his 11th 12th 13th and 14th Chapters of his Second Part of a Papist Misrepresented and Represented which is no new thing with him but upon the Perusal of his Book I found that this Title was only for Ornament sake to help his Printer in the Sale of them or to use one of his own dearly beloved Elegancies that this Title is much like his Bartholomew-Fair-Narrative at the outside of a Booth of which he gives such a Critical Account in the first page of his Preface to his Third Part of Popery Misrepresented and Represented as would make one suspect that the Representer uses to be very conversant at that Fair and that he there pickt up most of those pretty Phrases and fine Elegancies which appear up and down his Pamphlets and set them off so very much to the Generality of his credulous Readers Well but tho' the Representer did not formally set himself to shew that the Primitive Fathers were no Protestants yet did he not do it effectually enough in vindicating his Nubes Testium throughly from the Cavils of the Answerer this I know is that he will value himself upon and therefore I come next to examine whether and how he hath done that I must confess that when I saw his Title so promising and his Pamphlet so small I did expect that he would have kept close to his Vindication and would have come up fairly to me in every point and charge but when I came to read him I found him spending page after page in general discourse nothing to the purpose and roving here and there first into Oats's Plot then quickly into the Pulpits then back into the defence nothing but rambling and incoherent Discourse as if his business had been not to give a fair answer to an Adversary but to fill up six sheets of paper with something After I heard of his Intentions of vindicating the Nubes I did not wonder to find such rambling stuff in his Book for I very well knew his Ignorance was so great that it would be impossible for him to do it as it did require the collecting of the Nubes out of Natalis Alexandre is no more than what might have been done by a Bookseller's Apprentice who brought so much learning with him from School as to be able to understand a Latin Author and to translate some passages of him into English But to defend those passages and to prove they were not curtail'd nor abused nor misunderstood nor misapplied did require a knowledge and skill in the Writings of the Fathers themselves out of whom they had been borrowed and therefore the Representer was here at a loss was carried beyond his depth and was hereby ingaged in Matters he knew nothing more of than what he found in his Master Natalis Alexandre who not foreseeing what answers would be made to his several quotations out of the Fathers could not set down his Defences of them and therefore could not supply the Representer in this Emergency wherein he was so hard put to it by his Adversary Yet notwithstanding all this the Representer plucks up a good heart and what he wanted of Learning for this occasion he seems resolved to make up with Considence and therefore talks with as much assurance in his Vindication as if he had the Fathers at his Fingers ends and was resolved to carry the World before him but since he was so hardy as to venture once more into the Combat I think it fit to make up to him and to let him know that I must stop him a while that we two may fairly and calmly examine what hath been written and said on both sides and see whether things have been managed betwixt us as might be expected from those who understood what they were about and had no other design than to make Truth appear which all men will be ready enough to follow At the end of his Book he tells his Reader he hath run through all the Sections of his Answerer but one and talks as if he had been as particular and as substantial in his Replies as any Reader could desire but to let the World see the bold disingenuity of this Representer and to display his Confidence and his Ignorance alike I must take a new method with such a pretender and let the World see how much of my Book he hath not said one word to in defence of the Nubes his dexterity at dropping the defence of his thirty seven Chapters of his Popery Misrepresented and Represented hath been very well shewn in the View of the whole Controversie betwixt him and the Answerer but such things cannot put him to the Expence of but one blush for in his Preface to his last Piece of Popery Misrepresented and Represented he stands to it that as for the Misrepresentations no body can prove that he had not such apprehensions of Popery while he was a Protestant And for the Representations no body can prove that he did not therein give that account of Popery which he had learnt in sixteen years Conversation among the Papists and thinks this answer sufficient and a very good reason why he needed not to dispute but the World is by this time satisfied that there is a better reason why he did not dispute and defend his Characters which is because he had not learning enough to do it And this perhaps will be his next answer to me that in the Nubes Testium he did only represent the Fathers Doctrine and Opinions as he had learnt them in Natalis Alexandre and other Catholick Writers but I will take care to shut up that Door by letting him know that if he quote the Fathers themselves and either falsify or misapply or curtail their words no man else is to be answerable for them but himself and that herein he is inevitably put upon defending what he hath quoted and disputing that such and such is the true sense of the words and the doctrine of such or such a Father And therefore since I was so very particular in my Answer to the Nubes Testium as to follow him from passage to passage and to shew him that such and such passages were nothing to the purpose that others were falsified that a third sort were misunderstood and wretchedly misapplied and gave my reasons and Arguments for it all along He ought either to have been as particular and fair in his Vindication or since he really was unable to do it to have got some Friends to have done it for him but he is for doing all himself and thinks I warrant him that his Vindication will pass well enough upon the Generality of Readers since it is written with an air of Confidence and with such an assurance as certainly persuades the Readers that he has the Truth on his side And therefore I think the greater obligation is upon me to expose such an
affected confidence and I must beg the Reader 's pardon if I begin a tedious but new Method to clear this to the World and shew these two things First a Catalogue of abundance of material points and arguments in my Book to which he hath offered no sort of Answer Secondly The Weakness and Vanity of all that he hath said in Answer to any parts of my Book The clearing of these two things will give a full Answer to his pretended Vindication and will also I do not doubt it put a full End to the Controversie about the Nubes Testium betwixt the Representer and Me. As to the Catalogue therefore I will place the several particulars as they lye in the distinct Chapters and Sections of my Answer but must begin with my Preface wherein I charged him in the first place with affirming not only what was false but what was more than he could know to wit that the Latin of his Nubes Testium was out of such Editions as are most authentick since I shewed it to be false from N. Alexandre's own Confession and that he could not know what Editions N. Alexandre did use because N. Alexandre does not tell the Readers what Editions he used in his Work excepting Christopherson's Edition of Eusebius which all know to be far from being the most authentick To this severe Charge he gives no Reply I charged him also in the Preface with stealing the whole of his Nubes Testium excepting a passage or two out of N. Alexandre This is not denied by him and reason good since every page of my Book did invincibly prove it which hath so much enraged him against me I charged him with stealing his Book out of a forbidden Author every one of whose Volumes used by him in that Plagium had been condemned to the Flames by this present Pope two years before and with his standing Excommunicate by this Pope for his pains This he durst not deny any more than the other since I had reprinted the Pope's Bull it self by which those Books were condemned and the Representer for keeping and using them Excommunicated by this present Pope Answer to the Compiler of the Nubes Testium p. 4. In my first Chapter I accused the Compiler first of quoting some passages as from the 34th 45th and 36th Chapters of St. Austin's third Book against Cresconius which are not to be found in those Chapters To this I have not one word of Reply 2. In the same page I accused N. Alexandre of falsifying a notable passage of S. Austin and the Compiler of obtruding it upon the World so falsified To this not a syllable is offered in defence of either of them Answer to Nubes Testium p. 7. 3. I accused N. Alexandre with falsifying another passage from S. Austin and our Compiler with putting it off so falsified But to this not a word of Reply P. 8 9. 4. I charged our Compiler when he was come to the point of the Pope's Supremacy with giving a false state of that Controversie betwixt us To this I find no Reply P. 10 5. I charged the Compiler with a deluding translation of the Decree of the Council of Florence To this I meet with no Reply P. 12 13. 6. I charged N. Alexandre with affirming a gross untruth in saying the Fathers did with a Nemine contradicente interpret the Rock in St. Matthew to be meant of St. Peter and I charged our Compiler for coming in for his share in it in saying indefinitely that the Fathers teach that Christ built his Church upon Peter whereas I shewed there from Launoy and some Fathers themselves that the Generality of the Fathers nay the almost unanimous consent of them was directly against our two bold and mistaken Asserters To this heavy charge our Compiler in his Vindication was not able or forgot to give one word of Reply P. 21 7. I charged the Council of Florence of being notoriously guilty either of Ignorance or of Forgery in that Decree which they made and our Compiler quoted for the Pope's Supremacy but our Compiler was not at leisure to say any thing in defence either of that Council or himself P. 25 8. I charged our Compiler with citing a passage as out of S. Basil's Comments on Esaiah which not only is not there but the direct contrary to it is in that place and put down from thence by me in my Answer To this not a syllable of Reply P. 26 27. 9. I charged both N. Alexandre and our Compiler of very egregious disingenuity about St. Basil's Epistle which I proved was directed to the Western Bishops not to the Bishop of Rome in particular was sent to beg help and assistance from them not from the Bishop of Rome in particular against Eustathius I proved also that it was not through any Letter from Pope Liberius but through a Letter from the Western Bishops that Eustathius had formerly recovered his Restitution to his See and that the Oriental Bishops did not request that assistance from the West because they had not power enough of their own to have judged and deposed Eustathius but upon a quite different account To all these particular charges of disingenuity and cheat our Compiler durst not offer at one word of Reply P. 27 10. I charged them with falshood in urging a passage in favour of the Pope from Gregory Nazianzen which did concern S. Basil and not the Bishop of Rome as Elias Cretensis and Billius do assure us To this we find no Reply P. 27 11. I charged N. Alexandre and our Compiler with prefixing impertinent and false Accounts to the passage in Athanasius about Dionysius of Alexandria No Answer is given to this P. 27 28 29. 12. I charged them both with perfect Romancing about the business of Julius's taking the Cause of Athanasius into his hands and of his citing him and his Enemies to appear before his Apostolic Tribunal and proved that it was false in every part of it I charged the Compiler with adding to the falshood in saying Athanasius appealed to the Bishop of Rome with contradicting his own Master who had written a Dissertation in which he shewed that Athanasius did not appeal thither nay with contradicting his own next Testimony from Sozomen To this heavy load our Compiler has not a Word to answer P. 31 32. 13. I charged both of them with great disingenuity in calling St. Chrysostom's Letter directed to Innocentius his Letter of Request and with their forgeries about his presenting it I charged them with wholly mistaking that affair To this not a Syllable of Answer or Defence P. 32 14. I accused both of 'em of Ignorance and Disingenuity for affirming that the Synod of Capua had committed to Theophilus the Decision of the quarrel betwixt Evagrius and Flavianus at Antioch when the contrary was as plain as words could express a thing for laying that to St. Ambrose which he had not said But this Charge wants a Reply