England Nay had the Author but personated a Dissenter in it and published it as from one of that kind it might have expected better success But for him to lay open so plainly himself and to let the world know that he was of the Church of Rome and which was as ill managed to have Henry Hills to set his name to his Book that so every one might know whence it came this was too gross to impose upon any and this was enough to blast the whole design since there are no people of tolerable sense but would as soon as they saw whence it came reflect with themselves that this Book must needs be a ridiculous sham because if there were in reality any such Agreements between any of the Members of the Church of England and the Church of Rome the Romanists would have been far from being either so uncivil to their secret Friends or so much Enemies to their own Designs as to discover their private Allies to the world and post them up that every Body may know them and thereby deprive themselves of ever having such secret Friends any more And therefore this ridiculous Pamphlet was so far from helping on or keeping up the Jealousie-Design or doing them any good that way The Reverend Dr. Shâ—â—lock that it onely served to provoke that very worthy Person who was particularly aimd at and abused in it to publish a Vindication of himself wherein he hath throughly basted the pretences of his Romish Adversary and broke the neck of the silly design The ill fortune however of that fruitless design did not deter our Representer from trying the same Method again so good and so promising an undertaking must not be let fall for the miscarriages of one Man a design so necessary must be pursued and care onely taken not to make any more such false steps as the former Author had but to secure the Privacy of it To this good purpose our Representer comes forth and presents the world with no fewer than sixteen Articles of Popery extracted out of one Book lately published by a Member of the Church of England and this in the disguise of a Dissenter and without any Printers name to it that so the Suppositious Brat might pass undiscovered and all that was said in this pretended Letter might be swallowed by the unthinking Multitude as if it came from some real Dissenter This new Method the Representer was pleased to try first against me for out of my Answer to his Nubes Testium are all those Articles of Popery pretended to be collected which are the Subject of that personating Letter from the Dissenter to the Divines of the Church of England But to the great disparagement of our crafty Representer this Letter neither was so well managed as it ought to have been for tho there was Art in fathering the Brat upon the Dissenters as if it had come from One of them yet this Art was forgotten to personate the Dissenter a little better for in this pretended Letter One plainly sees the Representer in every Period and his own stile carried throughout And therefore as tho the Author were conscious to himself and his Friends of the same mind that his stile would endanger his discovery all care was taken that it might not be known out of what Press this pretended Letter was sent Randal Taylor the Publisher of it had a strict charge laid upon him not to discover whence he had it or for whom he did publish it and thereupon durst not tell whence he had it and so resolute were they to have it concealed that when my Booksellers Servant went the next day to Henry Hills Printing-house to buy two or three of the Letters among other Books they denied the Letter and refused to sell him any of it tho he saw and pointed to a heap of them in the shop before their faces But all this foolish care was to no purpose since Henry Hills Print is too well known to all Booksellers and the Representers stile to all Scholars that have given themselves the trouble of reading his frothy Pamphlets I must confess that upon publishing my Answer to the Compiler of the Nubes Testium I did expect to meet with a great deal of ill usage and slanders I had in my Answer to that Book of the Representer discovered two things in relation to the Author of it which I knew would incense and gall the Author of it as much as they would please the Generality of Readers the One was that He had stole his whole Book except a small passage or two out of Natalis Alexandre a present Writer of the Church of Rome without once mentioning whence He had it The other thing was that He had stole the Book out of an Author every one of whose Volumes made use of by this Plagiary had been condemned to the flames two years before by the present Pope and all people forbid under pain of Excommunication immediately incurr'd the keeping reading or transcribing any of those Volumes and thereupon stands excommunicate for his pains by the present Pope and cannot be absolved by any person but the Pope himself or the Bishop of Rome for the time being The First of these did discover how much a Scholar our Representer was notwithstanding that Pompous Collection out of Fathers and the other shewed as plainly how dutiful a Son of the Church he is notwithstanding all the fine things said in behalf of the Bishop of Rome in any of his Pieces As I did expect so I now have found that I have in the highest manner disobliged our Representing Compiler since I meet with the worst usage that rage or malice were able to dictate I little dreamed that in the mustering up of my faults and mistakes Popery would have been any part of my charge but it seems I was sufficiently mistaken and tho I who may be allowed to know my own sense best did believe there was no more Popery in my Book than there is either in my Heart or my Head yet this prying Representer can find a great deal of it there and charges me quoting place and page for it with sixteen Articles of Popery which large Bill against me I will now examine The three first Articles of Popery that I am charged with are about the Pope himself in favour of whom I am charged with saying first that I can grant that the Bishop of Rome is the Successor of S. Peter 2. That that See is the Centre of the Catholick Communion while possest by an Orthodox Bishop 3. That whosoever separates himself from it professing the true Faith and possessed by a Catholick Bishop is guilty of Schism And is this ingenuous dealing must every Disputant be charged with what he grants meerly for disputation sake And must every Writer be charged with what he onely supposes for argument sake and to expose his Adversary more plainly This is very hard and very unreasonable measure to
all that he did pray for I am no more able to defend it than I could the Prayers of any man whom God had blessed with Children and Heirs to his name and his Estate if he should be importunate with God that he would bestow the blessing of Children upon him and bestow in his mercy but one Son upon him to keep up his family and his name I do not mention these things to expose those two venerable Fathers but to vindicate the Practice of my Mother-Church in relation to these things I think those that dye in the Lord have no need of our Prayers and that those that dye in his disfavonr can receive no benefit by them The fifteenth Article against me is that I say that it is the Opinion of his Church that Christs Body is really present in the Eucharist This charge is as ridiculous as any of the rest for if the real presence be the Opinion of our Church how comes it to be one of my Articles of Popery Could this unreasonable Adversary have shewn that the Real Presence is not the Opinion of our Church but onely of the Church of Rome and that I was a believer of such a real Presence his charge against me of a Popish Opinion herein would have been most justly laid But he neither offers to prove that our Church is not of that Opinion nor is he at all able to do it and yet I must be a Papist notwithstanding I believe with our Church whose real Presence is far from looking like Popery since she hath so often and so fully declared that by real here is only meant a spiritual not corporeal or natural Presence of Christs Body Nay in that very place where I said it was the Opinion of our Church that Christs Body was really present in the Eucharist I gave also the reason of that Opinion because we believe as my words (c) p. 65. there are that the consecrated Elements do by the Appointment of God communicate to every faithful Receiver the Body and Blood of Christ which is no more than what S. Paul hath said in other words before us when he tells the Corinthians that the Bread which he and they broke was a Communion of or did communicate to them the Body of Christ and that the Cup of Blessing was a Communion of the Blood of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 The last Article of Popery against me is of the same nature with the former that I do confess That that consecrated Food is the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ I do own that I did grant those words as taken out of Justin Martyr but had my Sly Adversary but had the Honesty to have put down the words that do immediately follow there I am sure that this would either not have been put down as an Article of my Popery or that my Accuser would have been hist at by all men for his folly in charging me with it since immediately after those words I did express my self thus We have already granted that it is to wit that the Consecrated Food is the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ however to corroborate what we said above it is evident to a Demonstration that this consecrated Food was still Bread and not transubstantiated into the natural Body and Blood of Christ because S. Justin says at the same time and in the same sentence that our Bodys are Nourished by that very consecrated Food to affirm which of the Natural Flesh of Christ is impious and detestable Thus I have gone through and fully answered this large Charge of Popery against me and since he was not satisfied in the Letter to set them onely once down but does for the greater security of effecting his designs against me repeat them in short before he ends his Letter I will do the same here by my Answers unto them The first charge therefore in three Articles about the Pope and the fourth about Tradition I have shewn to be as Notorious and Scandalous a Falsification of a mans words and meaning as the greatest Cheat in the world could be guilty of that the six next can be called Popery onely by the same Figure that we would call the Belief of Christs Resurrection Popery because all Christians in the world believe it as well as the Church of Rome which is a thing so horridly foolish as no one but he that hath more Malice than Wit or Logick in his head could be supposed guilty of and for the last six they are most falsely nicknamed Popery and most ridiculously laid to my particular charge except this Malicious Adversary can shew that to make a thing Popery it is necessary that it be believed and practised by all Churches that are against as well as for the Church of Rome and that I am the Generality of Christians or at least the whole Church of England If ever Rage and Folly Malice and Weakness were equally discovered to the world it certainly was in this wretched Letter wherein all the care seems to be either to pervert my words and falsifie my meaning or to put down that as said by me which was not so as meant by me that was not so and as said by me in particular which was common unto all Christians Notwithstanding this injurious usage of me yet I cannot but thank the Representer for it since he hath by this Letter discovered to the world what sort of person he is and thereby given warning to the world to have a care how they believe One that will be guilty of such dishonest things He may write on as long as he pleases but this usage of me will I question not prevent his doing any mischief by it since Men are for reading those Books onely wherein they have reason to expect Truth Candor and Integrity and are always upon their guard against if they vouchsafe to read an Author that can and does write without any concern for Truth Conscience or Honesty I will before I conclude make one short address unto the Dissenters that they would have a care how they suffer themselves to be imposed upon in these things I know this Author makes it his great care to keep them still aloof off the Church of England and therefore is upon every occasion nay without any occasion still putting them in mind of the late Execution of Penal Laws and how they were harassed by them But can they believe after all this that this man is their real Friend whose Principles and Practices look quite another way I think his affixing this most false and injurious Letter unto some of them is a fair warning how much real kindness he hath for them who was so very desirous to have this Letter thought by all people to be theirs which is made up of nothing else but folly falshood and slander What is this but to have the world to believe that the Dissenters are still the same foolish false and slanderous people that most of his Church did use to think them and I am affraid do still continue to do I will trouble them no further but request this at their hands that they would make it their Prayer to God that they never may be guilty of the dishonouring of God by affording their helping hand to the ruine of the Protestant Religion FINIS
charge either Disputant or Writer with teaching what he does onely grant for Argument sake and with believing what he meerly supposes for the same purpose and yet this is my Case in that Accusation I was in that chapter of my Book out of which these passages are taken shewing what a disingenuous sort of an Adversary I had to deal with there how he when he came to treat of the Popes Supremacy instead of putting down a just and fair account of the Pretensions of the Bishops of Rome did onely mention two or three trifling things which any one with adding onely to them two or three necessary words might grant and yet be as far as any one ever was from believing the Supremacy of the Popes of Rome That I might therefore expose him and shew the great looseness and craft with which he wrote I did in that place undertake to prove it in particular and went through all the Heads of that chapter still telling him at every one of them that I could grant it and yet continue without any obligation in the least of believing the Popes Supremacy What I had said there and granted as is usual in all Writers meerly for to expose my Adversary this Letter-Writer hath by sleight of hand turned into honest confessions and makes me assert in the Letter what I had onely supposed in the Book Whosoever will look into that page of my Book will quickly see how extravagantly abusive and false this charge in the Letter upon me is and how very disingenuous and malicious that person must be that would from thence affix to me as an Assertion about the Bishop of Rome's Succession and Unity that which was onely a School-Concession for Argument sake And tho this answer is sufficient with all persons of sense to convince them what a Jugling Adversary I have yet there is an Expression in that very paragraph which does express as plainly as words can my denyal of and disbelief of any of those things that He lays to my charge in the Letter as fair Concessions of my Opinion about the Bishop of Rome for immediately after those passages set down in the Letter I have these very words I can I say subscribe THOUGH I DO NOT to all this without any Obligation in the least of believing the Popes Supremacy And here I cannot but appeal to the world to judge betwixt me and this Jugling Adversary whether any one could express his meaning more plainly and his dissent more fully than I have done in that place and whether that Adversary must not be devoid of all Honesty Sense or Conscience that would notwithstanding such a direct denyal of mine expressed there charge me with believing and granting that the Bishop of Rome is S. Peter's Successor that he is the Centre of Catholick Communion and that it is Schism to separate from his See. Had my stile been obscure and my expressions been intricate and those words which did declare my direct disbelief of those things at some great distance three or four pages off for example from those quoted by the Representer there might have been some small pretence some little colour for the knavery used here by him but there was no ground for any such Plea for the Expressions and stile are plain enough there and the words though I do not are in the very next line to his last quotation and it is impossible but he should both see them and read them too With what conscience then could any man read those words and yet have the forehead from the very same page to bring me in as believing the direct contrary I am so far from thinking that any Christian would be guilty of such a deliberate and injurious imposture that I believe both Turks and Heathens would abhor and detest the being guilty of such a malicious Forgery As for that good Opinion of the Pope which this Jugler mentions afterwards in the Letter as mine I think I have sufficiently evidenced to the world in that second Chapter of my Answer to the Compiler how little a Friend to or favourer of the Popes Pretensions I am If to shew that there is no ground or Authority from Scripture for his claims to Supremacy if to shew that there is no ground for the Pretended Supremacy from the Laws and Canons of the Universal Church for the first six hundred years after Christ and to back this with Three Challenges to all the Romish Priests in England to name one Canon in the Code of the Universal Church that does either constitute or assert or suppose the Bishop of Rome to be that Head and Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church which their General Council of Florence defined him to be if to shew I say all these things be a discovery of a mans good Opinion of the Pope I do here own that I have as good an Opinion of the Pope as any Person within the four Seas But I am afraid that I never shall have either favour or thanks for my good Opinion of the Pope And however the Representer who I believe read that chapter thorough does tell the world of his meeting with my good Opinion of the Pope in that Book I am very fully persuaded that he does no more believe himself that I have any good Opinion of the Pope than I believe that he is at this Instant in Japan But when a mans hand is in at such sort of writing and when he is resolved to blacken his Adversary but wants Matter and Ground for such Calumnies He must eâ—en do as my Adversary does invent himself what he would fain have found in his Adversaries Work and charge him with saying that in his Work which he does not nay which he expresly denies I think I have fully vindicated my self from the charge about the Pope himself against me and exposed enough the notorius Calumny of the Representer upon this Point However lest any Reader should not sufficiently apprehend the first part of my Answer to this Calumny and lest any of the Representers Friends should deny the Proof of the deliberate Falsification of my meaning because the passage is not set down and they converse commonly with those who either have not or will not or it may be must not look into my Book it self I will transcribe those two whole paragraphs thence which are the Subject of his Charge and my Answer and they are these in the beginning of my Second Chapter concerning the Popes Supremacy p. 8. Our Compiler being now come to a Point of debate doth not forget his art of palliating which was so serviceable to him in his Misrepresentations and Representations of Popery He cannot but know and therefore ought to have avoided it that this loose talk about Successor of Peter and Centre of Catholick Communion does not reach the Pretensions of the Bishops of Rome nor fully and fairly declare what Power Jurisdiction and Authority in and over the Catholick Church those
wrought Miracles by them which WE do grant the Fathers of those latter Ages did and might do it too as long as they kept as they said of themselves that they always did from paying Religious Worship unto them But we say withal that what the Christians of those Ages did about these things does no ways defend the present Extravagancies of the Church of Rome the Excesses wherein about Reliques are come to that scandalous height as to make the learned men of their own Church ashamed of them They that will compare this passage with the Representer's Extracts out of it in the 13th Article against me cannot but discover what usage every one must expect that dares to provoke so very angry a man. But that I may also shew my own Judgment about Reliques I will trouble the Reader with the next paragraph wherein if I did not set down exactly as I designed the Opinion of our Mother-Church of England about those things yet I am sure I did that of my own Soul. As to the Practice of the Church of England which inquires not after nor is solicitous about the Reliques of Saints this may be said in her defence that she finds no Practice or Command about any such searching after the bones of the Dead in any part of Scripture of either Testament but that their whole care then was to commit them to their Sepulchres in hopes of a future Resurrection and never to disturb their Ashes and therefore she thinks it must needs be her greatest commendation that she is more careful to imitate what she finds written and practised in the Scriptures themselves than to imitate what the fourth Age of the Church began to practise when the Church of Christ was near four hundred years old The Holy Scriptures themselves are the Rule of her Faith and for any Apostolical Practices she inquires among them who lived with the Apostles or nearest to them among whom finding nothing of any searching for Reliques or any Miracles done by them in those first three hundrid years she is resolved to practise what the Christians of those first and purest Ages did rather than what After-ages did wherein plenty and prosperity let loose the reins to some peoples fancies and made that a part of Religion which was never any before The fourteenth Article of Popery against me is that we freely grant That the Fathers practised praying for the Dead and owned it as advantageous to the Souls departed And that I should say that no body denys That the Fathers in the first Ages us'd Oblations and Prayers for the Dead and that these Prayers were offer'd up also for pardon of sins I am extremely at a loss to find how I am drawn in for Popery here and which way it is proved upon me All that I have done here is to own that the Fathers did practise those things which I could not deny without betraying a greater Ignorance than I must pretend to in those Writers or that I have no conscience at all But must my Ingenuity then be made my crime and must I be made a Papist for granting that which I could not in my Circumstances deny without making my self a bold Lyar I am fallen it seems into very bad hands into the hands of One who is resoved to blacken me without having any regard to Truth or Justice or Conscience I do not say one word there of my approving what those Fathers did I do not in the least hint that I am for such Practises or that I ever use such Prayers or Oblations for the Dead or ever intended to do it So that this terrible Charge depends onely and must rest upon my granting such Practices in former days But is this dealing either just or reasonable at this rate he may make me a defender of any the most contrary things when I grant as every man of conscience must that the generality of Fathers in the first Centuries believed a Millennium am I to be made a Millenary for this when I grant that for many Ages the Communion was given unto Infants must I be concluded to be one that is of opinion that it ought to be so still or must I be represented thereupon to the world as one that does still practise the thing and gives the Communion unto the little Children How ridiculous soever such false and extravagant conclusions appear to the world yet the Usage that I find from the Representer's hands is exactly the same and altogether as groundless as the other As for the Doctrine and Practices of the Church of England her self which I do heartily subscribe to so far is she from either encouraging or practising Prayers for the Dead that whereas in the dawning of the Reformation in King Edwards first Common-Prayer Book there was a direct Praying for the Dead in that Prayer for the whole Estate of Christs Church in the next Review of the Liturgy the Petitions for the Dead were quite left out of that Prayer and out of the whole Service In the Common-Prayer Book printed at London in March 1549 the Prayer for the Dead is to be met with and so it is in another Edition in June following in the same year at London And in a Third Edition of 1551. at Dublin but upon the Review which was made about that time we find it omitted and quite left out of the Common-Prayer Books printed in 1552 and afterwards down to our times not any usage or revival of that Practice among us As to the Reasons for leaving off that Practice which could pretend to so much Antiquity I am not at leasure nor have Room here to set them down I must confess that I am not at all satisfied of it from the best Instances for it I cannot but look upon S. Ambrose's praying for the Soul of the Emperor Theodosius and his resolution not to leave him till by his Tears and Prayers he had brought him unto the Mountain of the Lord where he might enjoy Life for evermore as a Thing that might very well have been spared nay that ought to have been spared since we know by the very same Oration that Saint Ambrose did believe that the Soul of that Emperour was in Bliss was placed in Heaven did enjoy at that time perpetual Light and a never ceasing Tranquillity and was admitted into the Society of the Saints in Glory I have no other defence to make for this extraordinary Action of this Father than to say that all this was done in a Rhetorical Harangue wherein the Custom of all times hath allowed the Orators to speak things that were not strict truths and things which they neither properly speaking believed themselves or were desirous that others should And so in that celebrated Instance of Saint Austins praying for his Mother Monica after her decease that God would not enter into Judgment with her and yet professing in the very next words that he did believe that God had already done for her