an argument than if he should prove that there have been no Jesuits in England of late years because though divers have been apprehended none have been brought to Tryal 50. Concerning the Franciscan at Bristol the oath of G. Cowlishaw Ironmonger in Bristol is upon record and printed in Mr. Pryns Quaker unmaskt edit. 2. p. 3. who p. 34 c. answers to what H. D. here objects to clear the Franciscan Besides him at Bristol I could tell Mr. Denne a strange story of his Father Whitebread saying Mass about London and of another disputing for the Quakers and presently proved a masked Papist at Wolverhampton but I had rather he should have these things from others who have more leisure When he shall have considered these and other like relations which will shortly be printed at large I will desire him to tell the world whether they be groundless and unproved calumnies 51. To the next words wherein he sayes No mans innocency will be able to protect him against suspition I answer That it is not fit any man should judge how hardly Mr. Denne shall be dealt with by any suspitions further then may appear by those propositions of his which are recollected in the close of this address 52. In the very next line H. D. saith that he for his part does very confidently assure himself that if an oath were tendred to ALL the Papists in this Nation they would willingly swear that neither they themselves nor any that they know did ever use any such practise or ever thought it lawful to dissemble their Religion Wherein H. D. expresses questionlesse a greater confidence in behalf of the Jesuits then either Clark or Watson would of Robert Parsons the Jesuite or the secular Priests at this day will for the body of that Society as appears by their books which for these sixty years they have writ one against another So that H. D. is a closer friend to the Jesuites then many Romish Priests be 53. This 15th begins thus we all know 't is a fallacious way of arguing to proceed a posse ad esse as they speak at Cambridge Do not they speak so at Doway and St. Omers too and yet no better is the Argument of the Papist's Adversaries in this case Here he blames some persons under the name of Popish Adversaries sure he means to exempt himself from the number And before he is gone to the middle of this page he falls again to undertaking for the Principles of Popery and passes his word that their principles contain nothing which allowes dissimulation in Religion 54. But in the last page he will needs have Mr. S. to be a Papist for asserting that we receive the Canon of Scripture upon the Authority of the Church of all Ages and the pure spouse of Christ I would fain be told by Mr. Denne what reason he can give to his brethren Anabaptists and the Quakers why the song of Solomon should be Canon and other usefull books which bare his name Apocrypha why the Revelation of St. John should be put into the Canon 300. years after Christ and some gospells bearing the Apostles names left out but the authority of the Jewish Church for the Old and of the Christian for the New Testament But I would have him remember that to talk of the pure spouse of Christ and the Church of all ages and exclude the 12. Apostles and the first Century out of it is a discourse not becoming Mr. Dennes profession 55. Sure H. D. never saw Dr. Cosin of the Canon of Scripture nor Hooker's Ecclesiastical policy nor heard of St. Augustines non Crederem Scripturis nisi me moveret Ecclestae authoritas If Mr. S. be a Papist for this he hath these and a multitude of such good Protestant-company Popish with him 56. You ask what other Church was there in all ages but the Roman I answer unless you and I agree now upon the terms of the question we must end where we should have begun therefore first I must desire you to tell me what you mean by the Roman Church Which I shall scarce know till you answer the 20. questions that Mr. T. S. puts in the close of his preface to Daille's apology But that you may not pass without one answer I pray tell me what other Church was there in all ages but the Greek Church and those that agree with her in all or most part of what she holds particularly in believing no infallibility or Soveraign jurisdiction over all in the Bishop of Rome for which among other good doctrines the present Roman Church refuseth her Communion 57. And here you mend all at last for you no sooner hear talk of a pure spouse of Christ the Church of all ages but you apprehend it can be understood of none but the Roman Church and say plainly that to talk of a pure spouse of Christ and the Catholick church in the creed the church of all ages for those are the words in the letter that you cite is doubtless in effect to justifie the church of Rome to be a pure church 58. Thus having examined Mr. Hen. Dennes new book and Religion I shall only recollect a few positions publisht by him and his friend George Whitehead the Quaker whom he would prove to be no Papist and therefore that no Papist is a Quaker and then leave Mr. D. to turn over his Aethiopick Testament all the books of Papists and ALL their histories and leave the Reader to judge how good Protestants this fit couple be H. D. and G. W. George Whitehead besides those particulars which are mentioned in the Queries hereto annexed especially p. 14. and 16. maintaines these seven following Romish doctrines 1. That justification is by inherent righteousness and so saith no Protestant but so saith Bellarmin l. 2. de justificat c. 3. 2ly That a man may perfectly keep the law without sin so saith not Protestants but Bell: l. 4. de justif. c. 11. 12. 13. 14. 3ly G. W. denies the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification so Bell: l. 2. de justif. c. 7. 4ly G. W. affirms that Scripture is not the supream rule for trial of spirits so Bell: l. 3. de verbo Dei c. 4. 5ly G. W. hath writ an whole book against Mr. Clapham to prove that the written word is but a dead letter and carnal So saith Costerus in enchyridio p. 44. 6ly G. W. pretends to immediate Revelations and pretended miracles see Clapham and the century of queries so do the Papists unchurching them who pretend not to them as triall of a Church 7ly G. W. and the Papist both alike place much of their holiness in their beggarly apparrell in going openly with sackcloath and barefooted which I find taxed by the ancient Fathers of the Church Thus far G. W. 59. Now for Mr. Hen. Denne I hope the Reader hath ere this observed that though this book of his before us be entituled for the Quakers as I am
A GAGG for the QUAKERS WITH AN ANSWER TO Mr. DENN'S Quaker no Papist LONDON Printed by J. C. and are sold neer the North-Door of S. Pauls Church MDCLIX TO THE. READER Reader LIttle did any man think when the dispute between the Quakers and Mr. S. began at Cambridge that it would suddenly come to this question between Papists and Protestants VVhether there be any such thing in the world as a Protestant Clergy and consequently whether any true Church or faith or sacraments be to be had out of the Church of Rome I dare say that those who heard the publick dispute at Cambridge did as little foresee this as the Reverend author of Schism dispatcht did think that the controversie between him and S. VV. with those other Romanists who have writ against him about infallibility and schism would end in this debate VVhether we may give as much credit in matter of fact to 24 of the ancient Fathers of the Greek and Latin Church as to 12 country Yeomen on a Jury The Protestant affirming this the Papist denying it But so it is and so it appears by these two following discourses Which if you have patience to read you will find that Mr. Den pretending to defend the Quaker saith not one word in defense of any Sect but only the down-right open Papist and that he useth the very same arguments and the same words against Protestants in general as the Papists do in their daily-printed books But if your leisure will not permit you to read the whole be pleased for a tast to peruse the 58. 59. and 60th of the letter to Mr Den and the 14th and 16th pages of the Queries Farewell and beware of wolves in sheeps-clothing A Memorable Advertisement from Dorsetshire IN September last 1659 there was a strange discovery made of divers Witches in and neer the Town of Sherburne in Dorsetshire there being neer 200. of them at one meeting most of them Quakers and Anabaptists Three Men and two Women formerly Quakers committed to Dorchester Goale where they now are prisoners have confessed upon their examination and since their commitment to sundry persons of quality who have visited them 1. That when the Devill first appeared to and tempted them to become Witches He first of all perswaded them to renounce their Baptisme and no wonder because in it they renounced the Divel and all his works with all the sinfull lusts of the flesh which they did Actually renounce before they made a contract with him 2. That the Devil did often visibly appear to them in sundry formes and perswaded them as he Matth. 4. 8 9 10. Luc. 4. 5 6 7 8. tempted our Saviour to fall down and worship him which they did 3. That he instigated them to torment bewitch and destroy as his and their greatest enemy Mr. Lyford late Minister of Sherburne a learned pio us Orthodox painfull Divine being tormented with a painfull and sharpe disease of which he dyed and Mr. Bamfield his successour a very godly laborious Minister whom they have forced by their Witchcrafts to desert the Town 4. The two Women confess to all that the Divel hath oft times had Actuall copulation with them in sundry shapes but most commonly in the shape of Mr. Lyford and Mr. Bamfield the Ministers of Sherburne whom he and they most hated and endeavoured to destroy 5. The Devil since their imprisonment hath frequently appeared to them all and actually possessed them bruising tearing like the unclean Spirit Mar. 9. 18. to the 28. Luc. 9. 39. 42. c. tossing them frequently up down the prison in a strange manner tormenting them with strange fits of convulsions quakings shakings in all their joynts and swellings in their whole bodies that their skins are ready to break which makes them cry out and roar with great horror as divers eye-witnesses of quality attest And if incredulous Mr. Denne or any other Quakers doubt the truth of it if they please to visit them at Dorchester they will be enforced to confess it and give glory unto God for his discovery of the evillness of the way and sect of Quakers To Mr. HEN. DENNE Sir 1. THis day I met with a decree of the Pope condemning the late Apology for the Jesuits which was printed in answer to Montalto's mystery of Jesuitisme and threatning all who dare read or keep it but withall I met with a new Apology for the same persons with your name prefixed Wherein wondring to find several aspersions cast upon sundry of the Jesuites adversaries among the rest upon Mr. Tho. Smith I resolved to spend an hour or two in vindicating them and the Church of England which in favour to the flourishing Romish Mistriss and idolatry you think fit to call their fading Mistriss and idol 2. And here if I should imitate you I should superscribe this To my frivolous and learned friend H. D. Mr. of Arts and senior Soph. Captain and Apothecary farmer and Minister the reverend Apologist for the Society of Jesus But counting it no virtue to imitate you in this kind I shall only take notice of such passages as may appear to some weak people to be pertinent 3. In the first page you tell us that the Tinker mendeth soules though you can not but know if you have read over that book which you pretend to answer which I much doubt that this Tinker p. 297. l. 21. of his book entituled Law and Gospel adviseth his convert in these words come to Christ even as filthy as ever thou canst that is if I understand English when you have sworn a vain oath and would go to prayer for pardon of that sin first stab your Father then poison your Mother lie with your sister and then go confidently to Church but not before If Mr. D. have read this or those other strange passages of this T's sermon mentioned in the Quaker disarmed or if he 'l not believe that relation if he 'l credit his own eyes and see what the same Tinker saith against Christ's oration Mat. 25. 35. 42. and against the necessity of good works p. 65. 66. 99. 100. 101. 151. 304. 311. methinks he should not say this Tinker mends soules unless he mean that he mendeth them just as he mends kettles that is stopping one hole and making many 4. In the next place H. D. blames Mr. S. for proving that none may preach unless they be sent when quoth he the T. is of the same mind I answer that the T. did deny it till Mr. S. had proved it or at least he bid him prove it And Mr. S. wa perswaded and still is that Mr. E. to whom that letter was writ did not believe the necessity of any omission 5. Whereas you would fain invalidate Mr. Smiths ordination you may suppose him ordeined by Bp. Hall and then when you have answerd Mason de ministerio Anglicano Dr. Fern against Champney and the vindications of our Reformation and Orders which are writ
Parkers dayes 16. Presently you add that T. S. dared not profess openly that they received their commission from Popish Bishops of K. Henry VIII's time Ans. true because he dares not speak a falsity for they received it in the time of Edw. VI Though what you suppose had been no impossible thing since good Protestants in the dayes of Edw. VI had received valid baptisme as all men do acknowledg in Henry the eights reign 17. In answer to the rest of this be pleased to know that the antient Church believed contrary to your Popish novelty that all Bishops had spiritual jurisdiction as being successors to the Apostles And 't is only the interest of the Pope to deny it who is wont to make titular Bishops without jurisdiction to serve himself in his pretended Councils 18. I hope I need not tell Mr. D. who tells others 15. how they speak at Cambridge that a Master and a Family an overseer and a charge are relata rise and fall together but I must tell him that Bishop Barlow and Miles Coverdale had the warrant of all their Ecclesiastical Superiors who then were over them to make Bishops in the diocess of London and that Bonner was not their superior 19. To what you speake at large of Q. Elizabeths being a Lay-person and not being able to give any power c. I answer What power that Queen had and ought to have in Ecclesiastical matters you may see in the Articles of the Church of England which no Papist nor Anabaptist H. D. or W. J. W. J. or H. D. was ever able to disprove or durst say one word against it 20. Reading forward I am at a stand and must plainly confesse I know not what you mean by what followes viz. your comparing the common people and Masters of Families with the Queen that then was I know not what your asserting that these have as much power as the Queen can drive at but casting off all authority like your brethren at Munster 21. To your 6th I answer that if there be any Churches beyond our seas who count it their glory to want a succession of Bishops yea to cry shame upon it and to reject it as a superstitious relique of Popery and mark of Antichrist we are no more engaged to defend such people then the Quaker is engaged to defend the Papist or the Papist a Quaker nor so much as appears by this Apology which I am now answering 22. This I know that not only the Reformed Churches in their Confession of Ausburg and again in their Apology for that Confession cap. de ordine ecclesiastico cap. de potestate eccles. and in their other colloquies at Wormes and Ratisbon and divers of their books beside but likewise Mr. Calvin who subscribed the Augustane confession in his book de necessitate reformandae ecclesiae to Cardinal Sadolet his old friend and in his epistles to Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Ridley and in his Institutions l. 4. c. 4. 4. And with him Mr. Beza too in his book de diversis gradibus ministr. c. 21. 23. I say I know and am as sure as a man that believes his eyes can be that these and Zanchy Diodati Cappellus Pet. Moulin Daillé and others the most learned French-men now living believe episcopacy and the government by Bishops to be lawfull at least And I am sure that Mr. T. S. if H. D. be so well acquainted with him as he pretends but I am told he confessed he did not know him so much as by sight the same hour that he owned this printed book to him will at his request give him a larger list of reformed forraign Divines on this subject and proofes that other protestant churches beside the English have a successsion of Bishops which I saw in his chamber But there is so much already printed of the L. Viscount Falklands Bp. Carleton and others against your ungrounded assertion that I shall deferr sending you a larger catalogue until you or your friend Knot the Jesuit who also hath writ against Episcopacy shall have answered Dr. Hamonds dissertations against Blondel otherwise than by your sword and sequestration 23. Your 7th conteining nothing to the purpose but a bare assertion that T. S. 16. and great numbers even of Episcopall men PRESBYTERIANS Independents and ALL professors besides Papists do refuse to take the oath of abjuration is in my opinion answered sufficiently till it be proved by a bare negation Though some of them have much more cause to refuse it than you who have taken away the former trial of Popery viz. Recusancy common by the Law to Papists Anabaptists and other Sectaries which names I hope you 'l not be angry at while you take them to your self p. 16. l. 14. 16. 24. In your 8th you argue against the oath thus No man can safely swear that he believes no purgatory unlesse he be as sure that there is no purgatory as that there is a God Ans. This looks like the saying of Fa. Knot against Chillingworth who thinks that what ever he believes in religion he believes with the same certainty wherewith he receives the highest articles of the Christian faith When passion and prejudice is laid aside I hope you 'l find time to consider whether if you were now disputing in the Divinity Schools you might not safely affirm that to be true which is your opinion in any matter of Religion and not expect that any Caviller who stands by and is no way concerned in the Act should thence inferr and cry out that you are as sure of it as that there is a God who made the world If this Caviller should go further single this assertion perhaps being only argumentum ad hominem out of your whole dispute and print a book against it would not he be as you say Mr. S. is not a little ridiculous And would not you your self take as little notice of him as Mr. Smith doth of you I should enlarge upon this your acception of the word believe but that Mr. Chillingworth hath said enough of it in his answer to your Brother Knot and T. S. in his defense of Chillingworth 25. In the last lines of this 12th page you have these words what do I know whether purgatory be revealed in Scripture or no You seem here plainly to profess that you do not know whether Papists or Protestants be in the right so far as to Gods revelation in Scripture which Protestants have alwayes made their rule By which we may judge what a Protestant you are And that Anabaptists either deny the H. Scripture to be their rule or affirm that they know no error in purgatory 26. To the 9th whereof I can scarce make common sence I might tell you that no Parliament is in any sense that which is signified by the word person But I rather answer that no Parliament can free any person from any oath of beliefe which he hath taken For example if one Parliament propound an
told was offered to them at the Bull and Mouth in Aldersgate-street for their press yet it is indeed all in behalf of the Papists and conteins not one word from the first to the last to the advantage of any sect under heaven but only the Romish That the very same arguments and the very same expressions are used now against the Church of England by the Anabaptist and by the Papist so that he who answers one of them answers both I might take notice also of such words in this Quaker no Papist as cause the Author thereof whoever he be H. D. or J. W. or W. J. for I take them to be all one man to smell of a forrein Countrey as when he speakes of the Justice of peace in his District p. 10. and calls the same man Batchelour of Divinity and Master of Arts putting this after that and the like but to let this pass I shall only mention a few of Mr. Hen. Dennes positions delivered by him in this tract for I have not leasure to look into Mr. Robothams Den of theeves and then leave our Disputant and Scholar to read his Aethiopic books Some of his Doctrines printed in this book entituled Quaker no Papist are these 60. 1. That Mr. H. D. does not know whether Purgatory be revealed in Scripture or not p. 12. l. penult 2. That 't is clear who ever takes the oath of abjuration doth forswear the priviledges of Parliament p. 14. medio 3. That in good earnest he thinks those who had their ordination from the Church of Rome and do not obey the Pope are Rebells disobedient and Apostates if they defend the necessity of ordination by Bishops p. 16. medio 4. That he finds as much honest proceedings and credit in Papists as in Protestants p. 15. l. penult can see no great reason of fear or danger from papists p. 18. l. 3. 5. That he does very confidently assures himself sure no man else can assure him that if an oath were tendred to all the papists in this Nation they would all willingly swear that neither they themselves nor any that they know did ever use any such practise as is reported of Ramsey by Mr. Pryn and some in Cambridge and of a Franciscan by Mr. Baxter and swear that neither they nor any they know did ever make profession for what ends soever to be of any Religion save only their own p. 19. fine 6. That no Protestant Minister either in England or beyond the seas hath any better ordination or commission to preach then G. Whitehead the Quaker p. 8 9 10. Lastly for I will not trouble the reader with recollecting all that the present Roman Church and no other is the pure spouse of Christ or else there hath been none in all Ages From these seven Capitall assertions of Popery let any indifferent man judge whether Mr. H. D. notwithstanding his vehement pretendings to the contrary may not be justly thought to favour the doctrine of the presentRoman Church alittle more then a man of his profession which is Anabaptisme next door to Quakery should do And so till you answer these threescore Paragraphs I bid you heartily Farewell QUESTIONS ERRATA IN the letter to Mr. D. p. 2. l. 1. r. mission 31. r. Bellarmines 18 Councels In the Queries p. 2. l. 11. for let the reader judge r. No conclusion can be false when the premises are true l. 24. oft fordids p. 12. l. 28. r. Sr Walter l. 29. Countess of Sidney p. 13. l. 35. dele viz. lust wrath c. p. 16. l. 1. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} l. 2. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} p. 16. l. 16. for at the end of r. in the preface to these queries