a corner no more that is be always Visible even when the Lord gave them the bread of affliction that is even in times of Persecution as the lawful Catholick Bishops were never more Visible than when the intruding Arrians that were far enough from being Lawful Bishops persecuted them away from their Bishopricks and drove their Persons indeed into Corners yet they held intelligence and kept exact correspondence with one another still and with all their Flock's that persever'd in the Faith and disowned the uncanonical Arrian Bishops This they did by their Literae Formatae by this method the Church preserv'd in her Communion her own Members amidst their Dispersions and before any General Councils except at Jerusalem held by the Apostles themselves though the greatest Heresies arose early by this means they proclaim'd their Faith loudest of all then when they were silenc'd and excluded by the Arrians from their own Pulpits as the Sufferings which happen'd to St. Paul fell out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel So that his bonds in Christ were manifest in all the palace and in all other places and many of the Brethren in the Lord waxing confident by his bonds were much more bold to speak the word without fear Phil. 1. 12 13 14. And if the Church has a power of Condemning in judgment every tongue that rises up against her I think this amounts to a promise a glorious promise and there are many such that all or near all the Bishops in the Christian world shall never apparently fall from an Outward Profession at least of the Catholick Faith in Fundamentals and profess the quite contrary Heresies instead of them And he that will not allow thus much at least to the Church must run into wild aery suppositions of sheep without any shepherds People without any Priests a Church without any Orders and as invisible as the Leviathan makes it in his parallel between the Church of Rome and the Kingdom of Fayries Thus sar methinks this Author should go along with me for all his asking What 's this to a General Council for the promise was made to the whole Body of the Church since even he acknowledges that the Gates of Hell would prevail against Her if the Devil could so wound the whole Body of the Church as to destroy the Vitals the Fundamentals And if this be not a mortal wound to the Body to lose all its Pastors and Teachers by their falling into formal and mortal Heresie then nothing at all can wound it deadly but a total Dissolution of all and every one of its members and at this rate this Author may fancy as a certain great Enthusiast did before him that Himself alone might be the Catholick Church and that it might wholly subsist in his Single Person But he would fain avoid this inconvenience though a General Council should fall into such Fundamental Errour and persist in it because Secondly says he 'T is not the thousandth part of the Clergy nor the thousand thousandth part of the Church which in the Scripture is always put for the whole Body of the Faithful though of late it be translated into quite another notion and taken for the Clergy only I answer if the Church be always put for the whole Body yet the Clergy sure are the voice or the mouth of that Body and God has promised Isa 59 20. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion to put it out of doubt that all this Chapter is Gospel and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit which is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever Farther I add out of the Author 's own confession in his Chap. concerning Bishops and Priests The Church was always governed by Bishops that is by one whatsoever you please to call him set over the rest of the Clergy with Authority to ordain to exhort to rebuke to judge and censure as he found cause no other form of Government is mentioned by any Author for fifteen hundred years from the Apostles downwards I make account then that a General Council of Bishops is as Tertullian styles it Representatio totius nominis Christiani a Representative of all that are called Christians Inferiour Clergy as well as Laity And what then if they are not the thousandth part of the Clergy nor the thousand thousandth part of the Laity nay to strengthen his Argument what if there is not actually met in Council the twentieth part of the Bishops that are in the Christian World Suppose that all are invited with assurance of safe conduct to a place of security and time enough allow'd for their convening all which can never be effected without the consent of Kings and Princes and without that it never must be attempted nevertheless because very many cannot possibly take such a voyage and must needs be absent it was never pretended to have the force of a General Council till it was manifestly accepted by those absent Bishops of the Church Universal wheresoever dispersed or at least by the visibly Major part of them so that it might appear to any one at first glympse as they say and without any scrupulous enquiry which way their much greater number had declared themselves If there be still a few Dissenters 't is inconsiderable as what were seventeen Arrian Bishops for there were no more Arrians that were lawful Bishops in the Council of Nice where there were three hundred and eighteen Catholique Pastors equal almost to the number of Servants bred up in the House of Abraham I know not then what they mean that would evacuate and annihilate almost the whole authority of general Councils by sending us to Ortelius's Mapps or Geographical Tables bidding us take a survey of all the great Cathedrals or Metropolitical Churches and then demand of us whether there were ever any Councils so Oecumenical from which above half the Bishops of these Sees were not absent True but if they were present upon their own Charges and did but what would be certainly required and exacted of them there or wherever they were they must needs accept subscribe recite publish and preach and cause to be preacht over all their Dioceses the Decrees concerning the Faith such as the Nicene Creed or the Constantinopolitan Nay the Bishops did many times summon Provincial and National Councils to sit a little before and at the same time with the General on purpose to ratifie and spread their Decrees And if any Council was pretended to be General and Free when it was not so as was the second of Nice which being overaw'd by an Imperious woman Irene decreed Image-worship Immediately two or three other great Western Councils as that of Francfort in Germany
Imprimatur Febr. 23. 1676. H. London ANIMADVERSIONS Upon a Late PAMPHLET Entituled THE Naked Truth Or THE TRUE STATE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH The Second Edition LONDON Printed by T. R. and are to be sold by Benj. Tooke at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-yard 1676. ANIMADVERSIONS ON THE TITLE THE DEDICATION AND Epistle to the READER OF all the Rarities which of late have been the discourse of the Town where men spend much of their time as the men of Athens did either in hearing or telling some New thing nothing has been more talkt of than a cerrain Pamphlet call'd The NAKED TRUTH Now having got a sight of it and scann'd it throughout I am abundantly satisfied not only from his Style which is sometimes Enthusiastick but from his Matter and Principles if he stick to any that the Author is a Borderer upon Fanaticism and does not know it But by Naked Truth he seems to mean Christianity without either Welt or Guard as they say and not set off with Ceremony For his Title-page stands thus The Naked Truth or the True State of the Primitive Church This Title-page of his he explains very sufficiently p. 17. In the Primitive times saies he in the greatest Storms when the whole World of Jews and Gentiles were Enemies to the Church and not one of your Ceremonies in the Church to preserve it The simple Naked Truth without any Surplice to cover it without any Ecclesiastical Policy to maintain it overcame all and so would do now did we trust to that and the Defender of it If he means its great Defender in Heaven we put our whole Trust in him or if he means his Vice-gerent upon Earth the Defender of the Faith we repose an intire Confidence as we ought in the gracious Declarations and Expressions His Majesty is pleased to repeat upon all Occasions of his perpetual good Affection and Compassion for the Church of England Or if by Trusting to the simple Naked Truth this Author means the Truth of our own Cause we dare trust to that and to many Defenders of that too But if trusting to the Naked Truth be to this Pamphlet and this Project we dare not trust to it Why this is stripping the Church bare to the very skin nay Skin and all must go an Article of a Creed if need be for he spends his first long Chapter in Reforming there too and reducing the Faith to I know not what Naked Truth Methinks he should have call'd his Pamphlet The TRUTH FLEY'D for NAKED TRUTH is too short and not spoken through his Subject But Skin for skin and all that a man has will he give for his life for This he contends on his Principle of Self-preservation This he concludes the only possible expedient to keep out Popery This is his healing Salve This is the product of his Fasts the Answer to his Prayers the effect of his seeking God as he takes care to acquaint us This has been the Travel of his mind since he had these thoughts which he has been humbly conceiving these two years time enough for an Elephant to bring forth in This is the thing which he Dedicates to the Right Honourable the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament Pity it was not presented to the Lords during the last Session then I believe it would have been delivered over by their Lordships to be confuted by the same experienc'd hand that took to task a more Primitive piece of Naked Truth viz. the Solemn League and Covenant in the Palace-yard at Westminster where it expired into ashes As for those Noble Patriots in the House of Commons 't is probable they would have voted him their Thanks too after the same manner for laying a Libel at their doors making a breach upon their glorious Act of Uniformity and violating their Act their most necessary Act against Printing without a License though he makes a neat Excuse whilst he is doing it that he does it against his Conscience for which he very poentiently begs pardon of God and Them and so sins on for all this while he goes on with his Printing and Publishing it without a License How he will justifie his claim to the Title of An Humble Moderator I cannot imagine unless Assuming Imposing and turning all upside down be the signs of Humility and immoderate Zeal for one Party to be the qualification of a Reconciler or Moderator In his Address to the Reader he gives an Account why he is so scrupulously careful to conceal his Name because he cannot bear reproach So all that is like to fall upon the poor Fatherless and Motherless Pamphlet though he would have done a piece of Justice to have named himself and so to have cleared others for it has been confidently laid to the charge of more than one Reverend person who I have great reason to believe and am several waies assured had no manner of hand in it yet he does himself and me a particular favour in making it impossible for me to reflect upon his Person which I know no more than the Man in the Moon only as he makes himself the Patron of so vile a Cause For whosoever vents his own Amusements to the Churches great and real prejudice and that 's this case he must not think to scape for the Godliness of his Style nor for a man of good Intentions as sure he is or else he would never give the Devil so much more than his due as to make so strange a Protestation as he does here that he would never condemn any good Action though done by the Devil as if he supposed the Devil might do some such for ought he knows but Hell it self they say though we never heard before of any good Actions there yet it is full of Such as were once full of good Intentions Animadversions upon his first Chapter concerning Articles of Faith I Confess when first I saw this Jewel of a Pamphlet and had run over two or three pages of this Chapter I suspected its Author for some Youngster that had been dabling among the Socinian Writers and was ambitious of shewing us his Half-Talent in the way I was quickly delivered from this jealousie by his Orthodox contradictory expressions in other places But I find he is one of the Men of the Second Rate as I take leave to style them that hardly ever see to the Second Consequence Therefore once for all I protest that I do not charge Him with many of his own most obvious Consequences as his opinions for 't is plain he does not discern them But the Church may justly complain of him for thrusting out such crude indigested matter without communicating these conceptions of his to some that would have shew'd him the weak and blind-sides of them Now since the mischief is done to undo the Charm again it becomes a duty to Expose him and most of all for this Chapter where he has most expos'd himself a Chapter of most pernicious
consequence and admirably serving the turn of the rankest Sectaries Who not being able to keep up their Congregations any longer or to keep their Disciples from ours by trivially declaiming against our Ceremonies They ferment them now by instilling into them new fears and jealousies of our Doctrines Warning them away from our Churches as if there was some strange Fury working or some Innovations contriving in the Church of England and as if we were allowed to preach and maintain even in our City-Pulpits new Articles of Faith Socinian or Pelagian in opposition to the Catholick and truly Primitive How unsufferably J. O. for one has reflected not only upon some particular Persons but upon the whole Church of England and its Governers upon this account any one may read that does but run over his Survey of a discourse concerning Ecclesiastical Polity No wonder then if now they are transported with joy when an Author appears as one dropt down from heaven to plead their Cause vouching himself a Son of the Church of England teaching as one having Authority like a Father venturing at first dash upon the tenderest Point in the World concerning Articles of Faith implying and supposing all along that some are extremely to blame for improving the Faith not by confirming but enlarging it asking whether the state of Salvation be alter'd ' and what need any other Articles In what Church does he ask these Questions and how monstrous impertinent are they here if we do nothing like it Well! to begin with him and follow him step by step through his many turnings and windings and sometimes nothing but a rope of Sand to guide me He makes a discovery to us in the first place that That which we commonly call the Apostles Creed is the sum of Christian Faith And again that the Primitive Church received this as the sum total of Faith necessary to salvation Why not now I answer it is so now and all true Sons of our Church hold it so now Then why this Question Why that which follows Is the state of Salvation alter'd No doubt the terms of Belief on which Salvation is ordinarily attainable are never changeable but like God himself who establisht them fixt and immoveable But still he follows his blow though he fights with the Air If it be compleat saies he what need any other Articles There may have been needful heretofore not only other Articles but other Creeds for the farther explication of those Articles in the Apostles Creed and yet in those new Creeds not one new Article The Apostles Creed is the sum of Christian Faith True yet I hope he will not think the Nicene the Constantinopolitan and the Athanasian Creeds were superfluous and unnecessary And in his Chapter about preaching he seems concerned for this last the Athanasian and yet his censure is so bold upon Constantine the Emperour and some godly Bishops he conceives more zealous than discreet and so do some godly Bishops conceive of this Author and his pique at the new word Homoousios carries such an ugly reflection upon that Creed that I scarce dare understand him But we shall have more of this hereafter He would have men improve in Faith but rather Intensivè than Extensivè to Confirm it rather than Enlarge it And yet 't is certain that all formal and mortal Hereticks that are not Atheists are justly condemn'd for want of due extension in their Faith He prays us to remember the Treasurer to Candace Queen of Aethiopia whom Philip instructed in the Faith His time of Catechizing was very short and soon proceeded to Baptism This is soon pronounc'd as he uses to do but not prov'd It does not appear how long or how short was the time of his Catechizing or how many Leagues they travelled together before they proceeded to Baptism 'T is true there needs no great length of time to propose and demonstrate Christianity as St. Peter and the Apostles did it in few words and especially out of the Prophesies of the Old Testament which the Eunuch was then reading But then a great deal must and may be learnt in a little time as the prime Articles of Faith are so strongly and rationally knit together that 't is indeed impossible to teach or learn any one of them without teaching or learning them all Whereas then our Author proceeds thus But Philip first required a confession of his Faith and the Eunuch made it and I beseech you observe it I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and straightway he was baptized How no more than this no more What! nothing of the Holy Ghost till he heard of him in the Baptismal form What does he mean then by that which immediately follows This little grain of Faith being sound believed with all his heart purchased the kingdom of Heaven Had he believed the whole Gospel with half his heart it had been of less value in the sight of God 'T is not the quantity but the quality of our Faith God requireth I answer the true and full notion of Saving Faith is embracing from the whole heart the whole Fundamental truth of the Gospel Why does he talk then of the whole Heart and yet supposes but half or a part of this Fundamental truth Does he dream that St. Philip the Evangelist Christen'd the Eunuch after Christ's Ascension into Heaven only as St. John the Baptist brought men to his Baptism before Christ appeared in his Ministry upon earth and made him such a Disciple as those whom St. Paul found in Ephesus that had not so much as heard whether there were any Holy Ghost to whom thereupon St. Paul proved Christianity from their Master the Baptist's Testimony and to make them perfect Christians which they were not before but only a sort of Disciples Baptized them in the Name of the Lord Jesus Acts 19. Yet this Author will not let go his hold and will needs be thus objecting against himself But sure the Eunuch was more fully instructed It may be you are sure of it but I could never yet meet with any assurance of it nor any great probability of it Yes I am sure of it if he means by more fully instructed taught other Fundamental Articles beside this one that Jesus Christ is the Son of God And I will give him one demonstration of what I say which is more than a Probability out of the story it self and he might have met with this demonstration in it himself if he could have seen but an inch before him for we find in the story that the Eunuch himself made the motion to the Evangelist and reminded him of baptizing him Therefore 't is evident they had discourst before even of this particular though we are told no more in express words but that St. Philip preacht to him Jesus the Faith of Jesus Yet he had brancht out this Faith into all its Fundamental Articles and had declar'd to him even the necessity of Baptism which he understood
that will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen and a Publican spoken of private differences between man and man to be referr'd to the Determination of the Church that is the Congregation of the Faithful which they usually and by order should assemble in and refer this to the Church in General in matters of Faith not in the least pointed at there He will have much ado to make us believe that a man is not bound to tell his Brother of Heresie a matter of so great Consequence and to tell it to the Church if his Brother will not hear him and yet prove that he is bound to do this in matter of private difference or petty quarrel between them Wherefore to borrow his own Conclusion of this matter I pass this over as very Impertinent And so is that which follows I do not believe nor am I bound by Scripture to believe such Expositions as the Popish Church makes of this place That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church Who bids him believe the Popish Expositions But if that place be not spoken of the Roman Church therefore does it signifie nothing to prove the Visibility or Indefectibility of the Catholique Church But 't is plain he advances the notion of a Church Invisible a Church that shall be driven into the Wilderness where her Ninety nine Ceremonies are to be left to attend her scarce visible in the World whereas the Learned understand that place of the Churche's Persecutions the first three hundred years which made it the more illustriously visible and our nineteenth Article calls it the visible Church of Christ Now he proceeds to the business of General Councils whether they may Err in some points of Faith The Church of England acknowledges they may Err and have Err'd in things pertaining to God No doubt of it But this Author immediately flies higher with a why not in some points of Faith All the Evangelical Doctors grant says he that the later General Councils have Err'd if so why not the former what promise had the former from Christ more than the later True there is no more promise to a Council of the fourth Age or to that of Nice than to one that should be held in the seventeenth if it were as General and as free He asks concerning this promise The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church what 's this to a general Council which is not the thousandth part of the Clergy nor the thousand thousandth part of the Church We shall find him mistaken in this Account at long running Lastly he shews his charitable Divination in foretelling how much more mischief General Councils would have done if more of them had been conven'd But say you says he No General Council determin'd those errors Why because none was call'd about them had any been call'd who can doubt but they would have avow'd that in the Council which they all taught in their Churches This he says but his Yea's and Nay 's are no Oracles with us For why should they be when a General Council is not so with him Then presently he humbly craves pardon for his bold presumption viz. of these hard sayings against General Councils And I as humbly beg leave to speak for them in behalf of the Church of England and the Law of the Land both which I 'me sure I have on my side and both give much deference to General Councils The twentieth Article of our Church has these words The Church has Authority in matters of Faith And the Statute of the Land runs thus Eliz. 1. c. 1. That none however commissioned shall in any wise have authority or power to order or determine or adjudge any Matter or Cause to be Heresie but only such as heretofore have been determined ordered or adjudged to be Heresie by the authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four General Councils or any of them or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared Heresie by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures or such as hereafter shall be ordered judged or determined to be Heresie by the Court of Parliament of this Realm with the Clergy in their Convocation But for all this we do not confess or acknowledge all or many of those for General Councils which they at Trent or which Bellarmine is pleas'd to account for such a parcel of eighteen of them But those very few we count for General which the Church Universal before the unhappy breach between East and West receiv'd for General But now to unravel the skein which is much entangled and ruffled in his confused way the diminutions he puts upon general Councils may be reduc'd to these three Heads 1. That General Councils may err in points of Faith because they have no promise to the contrary 2. Because they want Numbers even of the Clergy being not the thousandth part of them and therefore to put this Argument as far as ever it will go are not truly General 3. Because of the prejudices they that should sit in Council would bring along with them then who can doubt but they would avow that in the Council which they all taught in their Churches 1. In answer to his first Exception I premise these limitations If by erring in some points of Faith he means some points belonging to the Piety of Faith as Divines use to speak or to the Perfection of Faith or remotely belonging even to the essence or necessity of Faith and wounding it by far-fetcht Consequences I will not deny but even great Councils may possibly be circumvented for a time yet I may safely venture with our Learned Pious Dr. Hammond in his Paraenesis to reckon it among the pio credibilia or a thing piously credible as we say that God will not permit a Council truly General and Free to err in Fundamentals which thus far only I presume to explain that God will never permit them to deny and declare against any Fundamental Truth and much less to affirm and declare any Fundamental Errour to be a Truth and least of all to declare it a Fundamental Truth And if this Author asks which of God's Promises give us encouragement to hope and believe this I refer him to the Prophet Isaiah ch 30. v. 20. And though the Lord give you the bread of Adversity and the water of Affliction yet shall not thy Teachers be removed into a Corner any more but thine eye shall see thy Teachers That this Chap. is Evangelical will not I suppose be denied and so is that Isai 54. 17. and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment shalt thou condemn If this be denied to be spoken of the Christian Church I prove it undeniably from our Saviour's application of the Context And all thy Children shall be taught of God It was then a Prerogative of the Christian Church that her Teachers should be driven into
Substance more than Ceremonie Little did our Saviour intend that saying against the Surplice But to follow this Author in his aiery race what if the Body that is the Substance be more than Rayment that is than the Ceremony yet the Ceremony is not nothing And if he takes away all the Rayment with his Naked Truth he will leave it such a Naked Church without either Ornament or Covering that it shall never be able to hold out against the storms with which he thunders and threatens us To his next fine mock at our Ceremonies as if they were Novelties and saying that in those great Storms when the whole World of Jews and Gentiles were Enemies to the Church there was not one of our Ceremonies to preserve it First I demand Is it Reason the Church should be as Unceremonious now in the times of her Settlement as then in the days of her Persecution Now that there is a Church at the end of almost every mile as then when there was hardly one in twenty miles Now when the Soveraign Powers of the World spread their wings to cover and protect her as then when they stretcht out their Arms to vex her Now when Kings and Queens her Nursing-fathers and Nursing-mothers bid her quit her Cave and shew her beauteous face in stately Cathedrals as then when she was fain to hide her self in the Wilderness and her Members were forc'd to wander about in Sheep skins But then again he contradicts himself to say there was not one of our Ceremonies in those Primitive Times for p. 10. he contends the Superstition of the Cross as he very mannerly terms it was in use in the second Century That the Cross was used in Baptism very betimes which is the only superstitious use we make of it there are Testimonies enow St. Cyprian's known words de laps in principio are these Frons cum signo Dei Pura Coronam Diaboli ferre non potuit Coronae se Domini reservavit Those Foreheads which the Sign of God had purified viz. in the Baptismal Ablution and Confirmation abhorr'd the Garlands of Satan and reserv'd themselves to be crowned by God And the same Father again Tom. 1. lib. 4. ep 6. Pamelii Muniatur Frons ut Signum Dei incolume servetur Arm your Foreheads unto all Boldness that the Sign of God may be kept safe A parallel place to which is that of St. Austin Tom 8. p. 262. E. upon Psal 68. Frontosus esto Quid times fronti tuae quam Signo Crucis armasti i. e. Be not weak foreheaded viz. in the Cause of God why art thou afraid for thy forehead which thou hast arm'd with the Sign of the Cross For the Surplice the Testimonies of St. Chrysostome and St. Hierome that the Priests in the ancient Church officiated in white Vestments are well enough known For kneeling at the Eucharist and bowing at the Altar I give an account of their Antiquity when he leads me to say more of them If he wonders why I bring but three or four Testimonies for our 99 Ceremonies as he calls them afterward I answer there are but three or four Ceremonies that I know of But for a need there are 99 Testimonies for them By this time he has spoken so much against the Surplice that now he thinks it his part to say something for it and at the same time to tell us why he appears so great an Enemy to it for he confesses he is so because such dirty nasty Surplices as most of them wear and especially the Singers in Cathedrals where they should be most decent is rather an intimation of their Dirty lives and has given his stomach such a surfeit of them as he has almost an averseness to all This is a strong Line and a weak Argument Such another weighty exception to the Surplice as was made by the merry Country Parson who call'd it a Rag of Popery and when he was cited for it into the Spiritual Court he made it appear by the Parish-book of Accounts that their Surplice was bought in Queen Mary 's days and therefore it was truly a Rag of Popery being worn all to pieces But if the Parish would provide him a new one he was ready to put it on the next Sunday The honest man was dismist with his Jest But alas our Author is in earnest Though a Laundress may answer this as easily as a Semstress might answer the other Argument Mean time we can only be sorry that he is so squeamish and that his sick fancy should be so much too hard for his Judgment for in the foregoing Sentence he in his own Judgment much approves a pure white Robe on the Minister's shoulders to put him in mind what Purity becomes a Minister of the Gospel He much approves it yet within the compass of six lines he has almost an averseness to all of it But we must not change whatsoever is Ancient and Decent in our Church as often as any one whoever he be pleases to change his note and to acquaint us in the same breath with his admirable Sympathies and Antipathies to the same thing His laying this ugly charge to most of us that we wear such dirty nasty Surplices is to fling dirt enough that some might stick As for the Singing-men in Cathedrals if they are so much to blame as he supposes they are either for their dirty Surplices or as he intimates for their dirty Lives yet order may be easily taken that neither of these to follow his noble Metaphor shall scape a scowring without taking quite away either the Surplices or the Singing-men out of our Cathedrals But if he follow the grain of this old thred-bare Fallacy from the abuses against the use of any thing whither will it carry him The Surplices in Cathedrals are commonly foul therefore let them be taken away for ever so the Cathedrals themselves sometimes are none of the cleanest therefore instead of sweeping them let them be pull'd down and taken away too His next Effort is against bowing towards the Altar which in his own Judgment he allows and practises in some measure Then I hope the thing it self is not unlawful No but truly many of our Church men give great suspicion to the People that they also believe as the Papists Christ corporally present there If we give this great Suspicion we give great Scandal which is a great Crime in us if it be true But it is a great Scandal to say this of us if it be not true But how do we give this great Suspicion because says he the Minister or the Reader does not only how once at his entring into the Church but bows again as he has occasion to pass and repass by the Altar Surely says he speaking the Apprehension of the Vulgar in reverence to the King of Kings he supposes there sitting What! even at those times when there is no Communion and yet at those times there 's the same bowing This is
Admonition to all Non-conformists I Find little to complain of in his Charitable Admonition but that it is no longer O si sic omnia dixisset In the Close he bespeaks them at this rate and I will do him the courtesie to transcribe a great deal in his own words that so they may be reprinted with a License though they were printed without one I beseech you saies he to consider the great mischief you bring upon this Church and Nation by your Separation from the Church you pretend to be the great Zealots against Popery and yet give me leave to say your indiscreet disobedient Zeal mainly brings it in your separation and many following divisions have caused many to abhor our Church and turn to Popery and doubtless you are to give an account to God for the ruine of those Souls for I can never yield that you have any reasonable and true conscientious cause of Separation but merely mistaken-Reason and Conscience which I much pity but no way approve and therefore I must lay the advance of Popery to your charge to your Separation for I am sure 't is the main Snare wherewith they catch unstable Souls perswading them our Church is not guided by the Spirit of Truth seeing it is so confounded by the Spirit of Division it cannot be of God who is both Verity and Unity Now though it be well known to the Learned that their Church hath neither Verity nor Unity yet this is not so discernible to weak Souls c. 'T is true indeed after great Searchings of heart occasioned by our Divisions many set up their rest upon Popery though the Principles upon which the Church of Rome pretends to judge o◠Controversies do clash and fight even with one another and therefore are most unfit to quiet other mens thoughts yet because that Church is a Great Promiser they take Sanctuary there resolving as Joab did that if they Perish it shall be at the Horns of the Altar But I would fain know of this Author if our Divisions fright so many from our Church then would not streightning the Terms of our Belief as in his Chapter concerning Articles of Faith and abolishing all our Ceremonies and blending our Orders be the cause of more Divisions and consequently of more Separations from the Church of England Would not this give the highest advantage to the Romish Party And would not they be sure to urge it upon their coming Proselytes that we had abandon'd our former Principles That we had receded from our own Articles by which we gave so good an account of our selves to the whole Christian World at the Reformation That we had banisht not only all exterior Beauty but Order and Decency out of our Publick Worship That we had been false to God and to the Church of God in breaking so many Protestations as we had made heretofore against such proceedings as these and consequently false as all Cowards are to our selves Therefore whilst he has so much Charity for some that will have their own will as he tells us he must be intreated to have a little Charity too for our Understanding and not to expect we should give away our Religion in a fit of Complaisance and throw our Church out at window in a frolick His greatest Argument why all this ought to be yielded is grounded only upon Policy And perhaps he is as much mistaken in his Policy as in his Divinity They are not born to be any Repairers of our breaches that are the Authors of such rash Counsels as these which are worse than those Dolabella gave Cicero his Father-in-law when the Commonwealth was in a manner lost Reliquum est ubi nunc est Respublica ibi simus potius quà m dum illam veterem sequimur simus in nullâ But this Author would not have us take things as we find them but make them worse because they are no better Thus What the Romans scorned to do after the battel of Cannae What the Venetians never did when they had lost all their Terra firma That Men are Now taught to think a Vertue and the sign of a Wise and good man Desperare de Republicâ They are the words of the Christian Cicero as I presume to style him the present Lord Chancellour in his Speech to both Houses of Parliament April 13th 1675. And since I am fallen by chance into the Roman History I will conclude with a remarkable passage out of Livy lib. 5. When the Gauls a Barbarous People had sackt the City of Rome and cut the Senators Throats as they sat in the Streets and when afterwards Camillus a Banisht man had driven them away and restored the Common-wealth yet the People seeing the City so defac'd and spoiled were importunate to remove the Imperial Seat from Rome and settle at Veii whilst the Senate were debating it very warmly and rather inclining to remove as the Regiment that had the Guard that day pass'd through the Forum the Centurion that Commanded gave Orders aloud so that the Senate over-heard him into the Senate-House Signifer statue Signum Sta miles hic optimè manebimus Ensign set down the Colours Souldiers stand this is the best place for us to make our Station Whereupon the Senate took the Omen rose immediately from their Consultation and all the People approv'd their Generous Resolution There is a Thundring Legion of those that are at their prayers and tears and who keep as it were God-Almighty's Watch for the preservation of the most Apostolical Church in the World And as a Holy Bishop bid Monica the Mother of St. Augustine before he was any Saint go away and be comforted for it was impossible the Son of so many tears as He had cost her should perish And this saies that good Father was received as a Voice from heaven So I hope the Mother over whom so many of her own Sons are weeping and as it were wrestling with God in secret can never miscarry But if the Question be now whither we shall remove the Ancient Land-marks and carry our Church either toward Rome or Geneva the miraculous Providence of God in restoring it together with his Majesty after so many years Banishment and ever since preserving it may as a voice from Heaven animate us to resolve that this is the best place where we are fixt and here may we keep our station FINIS