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cause_n	authority_n	church_n	see_v	1,737	5	3.7569	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87879	An answer to the Marques of Worcester's last paper; to the late King. Representing in their true posture, and discussing briefly, the main controversies between the English and the Romish Church. Together with some considerations, upon Dr Bayly's parenthetical interlocution; relating to the Churches power in deciding controversies. To these is annext, Smectymnuo-Mastix : or, short animadversions upon Smectymnuus in the point of lyturgie. / By Hamon L'Estrange, Esqr.	L'Estrange, Hamon, 1605-1660.	1651 (1651)	Wing L1187; Wing L1191; Thomason E1218_2; ESTC R202717	68,906	120

besides Scripture Though it be true the Scripture is a river through which a Lamb may wade and an Elephant may swim yet the meaning of that place is not that the child of God may wade through the Scripture without directions help or Judges but that the meanest capacity may find so much of comfort and heavenly knowledge there easily to be obtained that he may easily wade through to his eternal Salvation If the meanest capacity may wade through the Scriptures to his eternal Salvation they are mad men will seek to go therein beyond their depth what can God give us or we desire more than the Salvation of our Souls Seek the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you the most abstruse mysteries of Art and Nature shall there become obvious to us the most transcendent speculations of all sciences shall there be revealed the most intricate and perplexed subtilities of School Divinity shall there be resolved 't is therefore a preposterous curiosity to hunt with so laborious disquisition for that here which will come so cheap and easie to us there Wherefore with pardon craved for my presumption in holding your Majesty in so tedious a discourse as also for my boldnesse in obtruding my opinion which is except as incomparable Hooker in his Ecclesiastical polity hath well observed the Churches Authority be required therein as necessary hereunto we shall be so far from agreeing upon the true meaning of the Scripture that the outward letter sealed with the inward witnesse of the Spirit being all Hereticks have quoted Scripture and pretended spirit will not be a warrant sufficient for any private man to judge so much as the Scripture to be Scripture or the Gospel to be the Gospel of Christ The Doctor is now entered into a weighty point and not more weighty then intricate viz. how we are ascertained that the Scriptures are the word of God The Doctor with the Church of Rome derives that assurance from the Testimony and tradition of the Church and her Testimony is indeed of all sufficient to render us so assured if she be so infallible and in-erring as they pretend for our Faith in this particular cannot be guided by any thing beneath infallible This question being so considerable and of such concernment it will not I hope be thought amisse if I spend a little the more time about it Therefore for elucidation and illustration therof I say That the Scriptures are the word of God is a proposition which must depend upon the evidence either of knowledge or Faith If of knowledge then it must be elicited and extracted from the principles of natural reason But all the reason in the world will never be able to demonstrate either that the Scriptures are the word of God or that they are not Mistake me not I do not exclude reason as a guide nor place it so in the line of incidence as if it stood neuter or indifferently inclined to both the affirmative and negative no I hold vastly otherwayes Arguments she hath many and ponderous to perswade that the Scriptures are of Divine inspiration that they are not so to diswade she hath and can frame none But yet those Arguments are but soluble no Demonstrations for in Demonstrations the understanding is so clearly convinced by reason that it can possibly incline no other way then one Ea est vera Demonstratio quae cogit non quae persuadet and if reason were able to demonstrate the Scriptures to be the word of God then all men who have reason would assent presently without more ado to her dictates and consequently the whole world would become Christian so that impossible it is for us to know that the Scriptures are the word of God and if know it we cannot it resteth onely that we must thereof be assured by Faith and Faith will assure us of it as infallibly to the full though not so evidently in regard the principles thereof are indemonstrable as reason can well then Faith it is which teacheth us infallibly that the Scriptures are Divine and sacred but how that Faith is produced and wrought in us is next inquirable The Doctor tels us out of Hooker that the Authority of the Church produceth it and unlesse that be required the inward witnesse of the spirit will not be a warrant sufficient for any private man to Judge so much as the Scripture to be Scripture or the Gospel to be the Gospel of Christ But the Doctor hath here most shamefully abused that judicious worthy who hath in his whole 5. books of Ecclesiastical Polity no such words and which is more no such thing If I bely the Doctor let the shame lie upon me Hooker hath thrice and no oftener occasion in those books to declare himself in this point whose very words are these 1. Vnlesse besides Scripture there were something which might assure us that we do well we could not think we do well no not in being assured that Scripture is a sacred and holy rule of well doing What that something is besides Scripture Hooker mentions not and if the Doctor say he means the Church I demand of him to prove it for sure I am Hooker doth not so much as name the word Church in all that Section 2. The Scripture is the ground of our belief yet the Authority of man is the key which opens the door of enterance into the knowledge of the Scripture Hooker saith not here that the Authority of man createth in us the belief that the Scriptures are Divine but onely that it is the key to the interpretation of the Scriptures and you may note withall that it is the Authority of but man not of God speaking infallibly by man Lastly The first outward motive leading men so to esteem of the Scriptures is the Authority of Gods Church For when we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of Scripture we Judge it even an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind without cause Observe here that the Authority of Gods Church is with Hooker the first outward so no inward nor the onely outward motive 2. That it is an outward motive too but onely to us who are born and bred up in the Church and to such I grant the Authority of the Church is a very great motive for nothing brings fools and ignorant persons to knowledge and wisdom a sooner and gainer way then the Authority of wise-men but must Faith acquiess and set up its rest in the Authority of the Church assuredly no The Church may it is possible ten thousand General Councels may saith Hooker be deceived and Authoritate decipi miserum est 't is a lamentable thing to erre with Authority sed certe miserius non moveri but to be obstinate against it and of a contrary mind as Hooker saith without cause is more

being to receive the same answer which we gave to his Intercession of Angels And of Abraham we shall have occasion to speak anon nor shall I insist upon his Intercession of Saints it differing nothing from that of Angels M. We hold that we may pray to them you not we have Scripture for it Luk. 16. 24. Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus c. Ladies this proof is for you far fetcht and dear bought dead and damned in Hell who would have thought to have taken Dives at his Beads Nor are the place and person more odd than the prayer for it is no Ora pro me Pray for me but Miserere mei Have mercy on me so Saint Abraham was no ordinary Saint the Marques would prevent us in what we should say that this is a Parable and we say so indeed but no matter what we say his Lordship hath ready a grand Inquest of ten Fathers Theophylact Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Chrysostome Hierome Ambrose Augustine Gregory Euthymius and venerable Bede who give their Verdict that it was a true History these are all good men and true but were they all agreed upon that Verdict Certainly no nay the very Fore-man so ill luck had the Marques hath it not onely {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} this is a Parable but also not as some {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ridiculously and senslesly have thought an History of a thing done Chrysostome calls it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} So doth Euthymius and Ambrose is but at his videtur It seemeth to be an History Tertullian stands mute and onely tells us He thinks Abraham's bosome was not Hell whether an History or Parable But what need we more when Bellarmine maintains the historical part onely till Death and that Theophilact was in the right when he called it a Parable M. But suppose it a Parable every Parable is either true in the Persons named or may be true in some others Not every Parable not this for Bellarmine tells us that Christ when he descended into Hell went into the Conclave of the Fathers where then Abraham was and preached to the souls there that he now had finished the work of Redemption and they must go along with him to Heaven and that afterward in the proper time they should receive their bodies So that clear it is by him that Abraham had not now his body and how he could discourse thus to Dives without his Tongue a member of that body is to me a miracle Job 5. 1. Call now if there be any that will answer thee and to which of the Saints will thou turn Eliphaz bids Job expostulate with not pray to the Saints nor are they dead Saints but living such as from whom Job might expect an answer His Lordship's Authorities are first Dionysius Areopag c. 7. but the prayer there is for the dead not to them Athanasius is such a piece of forgery as Cardinal Baronius himself saith It is a great blemish to the Catholique cause to urge such counterfeits Basil speaketh of devout persons who resorted usually to make their supplications to God at the Monuments of Martyrs not one syllable of praying to the dead Chrysostome Hom. 66. is a Bastard Saint Hieromes Epitaph upon Saint Paul is no better Saint Maximus we know not any such Saint nor Father Bernard is a thousand years after Christ and we grant Invocation of Saints had got footing in the Church by that time M. We hold confirmation necessary you not We hold confirmation as an invocation of grace to confirm and strengthen us in the performance of what we promised in Baptism But not as necessary by divine Ordinance nor as a Sacrament nor that the holy Ghost with the gift of miracles is conferred thereby His Lordships Scriptures are onely Evidences of Fact what was done they contein no precept nor is there any one word of Chrysme or anointing with oyl which is the sine qua non the main ingredient into Popish confirmation and though ancient yet it is not Apostolical by their own confessions M. We hold it sufficient to communicate in one kinde you not Our Church saith The cup of the Lord is not to be deny'd to Lay People And certainly if any one of the Elements may be deny'd it must be the Bread the cup cannot for of the Bread it is onely said Take eat this is my body but of the Cup it is said expresly Drink ye all of this implying plainly all are to communicate of it But if the Marques hath Scripture by that we will and must be governed First then Joh. 6. 15. If any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever True in the sense our Saviour spake it who told us v. 63. the words he spake are Spirit and Life implying they are to be spiritually interpreted and how that is he explain'd himself before v. 35. He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth in me shall never thirst Nor did he speak here of the sacrametal bread and if he did the Church of Rome is clearly cast for vers. 53. he is express enough Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Bloud so there the Cup comes in it cannot be excluded you have no life in you What can the Papists here say that judgement should not be given against them Next the Marques alleadgeth Acts 2. 42. And they continued in breaking of Bread and prayer and tells us here is no mention of the Cup I answer granted but what if we say there is no absolute necessity enforceth us to understand these words of the Eucharist how could the Marques prove it But if the Papists will take it for a courtesie we will not stand with them about it And though the Cup was not there mentioned yet for ought the Marques could tell it might be there for breaking of bread are words large enough to hold it else Eutychus had but a dry and choking repast And why may not breaking of bread include the cup as well as eating comprehendeth drinking Christ sate down with the Disciples to eat the Passeover Luke 22. 15. 16. and yet we find a cup there vers. 17. and the fruit of the vine in it too vers. 18. and no Communion chalice neither His last Text is Luke 24 30 35. where Christ communicated with his Disciples under one kind where he tells us that Augustine Theophylact and Chrysostom expound this place of the blessed Sacrament well wee 'l not quarrel about that neither but this triumvirate of Fathers had not it seems kond their lesson right for they should have told us that Christ communicated under one kind onely Nay had they told us of any such practise in the Primitive Church it had been somewhat but nor they nor any other for the first 500 years I might say 1000 have left us

did by consequence though not expresly to the Cardinal Bembus saying concerning the treasure of indulgences in a mockery what a mighty revenue make we of the fable of Christ Make a fable of Christ and what becomes of either Testament What if he or Calvin erred concerning the Trinity did not Liberius as I shewed before subscribe to the Arrian Heresy What if Calvin held with Nestorius two Persons in Christ did not Pope Honorius hold but one will in him an heresy full as grosse and for which he was condemned by the 6 General Councel of Constantinople What need we run into exact paralleels with them it is enough we can produce a Caelestine the 3. teaching that heresy is a sufficient cause of Divorce in Matrimony A John 22. who taught that the Souls of the just did not see God before the Resurrection Another John 23. that denied the Resurrection of the body And how I pray do the great Clerks of the Romish Interest come off here very poorly most certain even just as S. Augustine said quasi hoc sit respondere posse quod est tacere non posse as if to answer and not to say nothing were all one For if the evidence be given in so full against their Popes that find them guilty they must and all other shifts fail then such a Pope did not define e Cathedra fitting in his in-erring-chair but ut Doctor peculiaris exposuit obiter opinionem suam onely delivered his opinion as a private Doctor which is a plain confession that this rare knack of Infallibility is not by his Holinesse carried alwayes about him Again sometimes 't is no heresie what such a Pope thought because nulla adhuc praecesserat Ecclesiae Definitio the Church never desired any thing in the Point so that be the opinion never so grosse and absurd never so destructive to the many principles of Faith never so repugnant to the expresse Text of sacred Scripture yet heresie it is not with them till the Church define it Lastly some have held erroneous oppinions but upon their death-beds have been of another minde and would have defin'd the Truth but see the ill luck of it the good men have been prevented by death this is Bellarmines excuse for John 22. And yet the Cardinal's relation out of Villarius of this John's retractation represents his holinesse in no Definitive posture and as far from the thought that he was as Pope Summus judex controversiarum in Ecclesia Supreme Judg of controversies in the Church which is the main Subject of the Jesuites fourth book de Romano Pontifice For first the Pope saith Existimare se jam probabiliorem esse sententiam eam He is now of the minde that it is the more probable mark that he goes no further than probability in his Retractation and Palinody and probability is no good foundation for a Decernimus for a definition opinion that the Souls of the Saints enjoy the beatifical vision before the day of judgement And that he did now adhere to that opinion unlesse the Church mark that too to whose definition he would subject most willingly his own judgement should otherwise determine sure the Pope was brought as low in minde as body who did thus pusillanimously submittere fasces and vail to the judgement of the Church or else was certainly perswaded that whatever their Parasites give out Popes in truth differ little from meaner persons in the point of deciding Theological questions The M. his next remove is from the Protestants Doctrine to their divisions in Doctrine denied it cannot it must not be But divisions there are this sad bleeding Church of England is a most lamentable a most deplorable demonstration of it And what if there be divisions amongst us are they alwayes the marks of the false Church and unity the note of the True His Lordship will scarce be able to prove that Tertullian did I am certain think otherwise Schismata apud haereticos fere non sunt Hereticks saith he seldom differ they agree too well But why should his Lordship urge our differences so against us Are the Protestants only guilty of these dissentions Did not Paul and Barnabas grow into such a paroxisme and cholerique fit as they parted upon it Acts 15. 39. Did not Paul and Peter strive about a thing indifferent Gal. 2. 11. Were not Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus and Pope Victor at defiance Did not Chrysostome and Epipharius proclaim {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} implacable War each against nother And is the Church of Rome so unison so all of a piece as to afford no jarres The happier she sure and happier now than of old when she had as good as prudent Governours as now and I think a little better And though St. Paul had charge of her as a Gentile Church yet could he not look so narrowly into her but some there were who caused dissentions in her contrary to the Doctrine he had delivered But if such harmony there be at Rome how cometh it then to passe that in that great Article of the Romish-Catholique Faith about the Popes-Infallibility Bellarmine himself undertaketh Durandus and Adrian for accriminating Gregory the First of errour How cometh it then to passe that he taketh Panormitan and Gerson to task for saying that a private man furnished with better Authority of Scripture is to be preferred for his opinion before the Pope How cometh it then to passe that he censureth Nilus Gerson Almain Alphonsus de Castro and Pope Adrian the sixth for teaching that a Pope may be an heritique And to be short how cometh it then to passe that in his vast volume of controversies there is very rarely any one wherein the Cardinal hath not to do with some one or other of his own party as dissenting from his own Thesis and Position so that a grave Author hath cull'd out no lesse then 303 oppositions amongst the Marquis his un-jarring Catholiques And he that knoweth nothing of the quarrel between the Jesuits and Seminary Priests may see enough in Watson the Seminary who is so liberal a libeller so full of gall and bitternesse as me thinks I hear the Jesuit expostulating with him as Absalon did with Hushai Is this thy kindnesse to thy Friend Nor are they onely the smaller Bells in the Romish Church that ring thus awake the great ones the Popes themselves interfere witnesse the difference about the Translation of the Bible between Sixtus the fifth and Clement the eighth and that so great an one as all the Wits of Rome will never be able to make them Friends again So that if his Lordship takes these to be no jarrs his ear is not I think very musical And because the Marques voucheth for the Catholiques no jarrs Sir Edwin Sands True it is he saith the Catholiques have a readier way to reconcile their Enmities and to decide their Differences having

lamentable But though to the members of the Church the Authority of the Church be a vehement and strong motive yet to Pagans and Infidels who will own no such thing as a Church it is no motive at all if they question the Scriptures Divinity studious either of cavil or to be converted they must be refuted or invited by arguments drawn from reason wherein they intercommune with us and to speak truth reason will carry them a very great way on towards even to the very brink of Faith reason will tell them that the Soul is immortal that it is not onely capable but desirous of happinesse that that felicity of the Soul cannot consist in either riches honour Beauty strength learning or any earthly thing they being all too narrow for it and too short-lived but in the beatifical vision and contemplation of its Creator who is onely able to fill it and in whose presence is the fulness of joy for evermore It will tell them that though God is their last home videant quo eant they may see whither they should go non habent qua eant yet how to come there is beyond the ken of Reason and that though Religion be the way to him yet dim-sighted reason will never be able to find that way till God himself reveals it for Author de Deo est ipse Deus God himself is and must be the Authour of that which brings us to him and it were inconsistent with the Providence of the All-wise God to withhold from man that means without which impossible it is for man to attain that end for which he was created Therefore Augustine chargeth it hence upon the Pagan Gods as a grosse neglect in not instructing of their worshippers in the way and means to happinesse To the care of the solicitous Gods saith he it did belong not to conceal from their worshippers the rudiments of living well but to teach them by clear publication also to convent and reprove offenders by their Prophets to threaten open punishment to those who do ill and to promise reward to those who live well Reason therefore will thus teach them the necessity of some conveyance from God of his revealed will and that necessity will also infer the actual being of such a Revelation considering that Deus non deficit in necessariis God is not wanting in affording what is necessary This necessity and being of Divine revelation once allowed reason will make it further credible that the Scriptures now received and entertained amongst us Christians as the word of God are indeed and in truth that revealed will of God For first they have no rival there is none other stands in competition with them the Gods of the Ethnicks gave their worshippers none Secondly if there were any other yet none must compare with them they having many Prerogatives above all other These Prerogatives are First Antiquity the Doctrine of them being far ancienter then all other Religions in the world and almost as ancient as time it self had it but begun with Moses it had carried the priority and antecedency of time from all other by the confession of the heathens themselves as Josephus proveth but it was before him Nam unde Noe c. For how was Noah found righteous but by the preceding Justice of the Law of nature How was Abraham reputed the friend of God but by the equity of the same Law How was Melchisedeck called the Priest of the most high God if before the Priest-hood settled by the Levetical Law there were not Priests to offer Sacrifice Nay it was before the Floud even in Paradise it self there was the doctrine of saving Truth first instituted which afterward was not renewed but enlarged was not changed but perfected Secondly the Spirituality of the doctrine as God is a Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and truth so is the fabrique frame and contrivance of the Scriptures conformable to him 't is not a doctrine of sensuality and dissolutenesse not a doctrine of self-ends and by-respects not a doctrine of worldly pomp and state not a doctrine of wicked principles and discipline but a doctrine of sobriety and of self-denial and of humility and of virtue a doctrine tending onely to God and what is in order to him which sequestreth the soul from all earthly imaginations and cogitations and fixeth them onely upon God Thirdly the perfection of them the excellent symmetry of parts there is nothing lame nothing idle nothing impertinent in them they were not written by chance and at all adventure there 's not a syllable not a tittle but hath a masse of treasure comprehended and contrived in them Fourthly the excellency of the mode stile and form of expression descending to the meanest transcending the highest capacities where God one whiles insinuates himself into the conscience in the language of a familiar Friend another while reclaims it with the indignation of an incensed Judge where Elegancy is without levity and affectation plainnesse without irksonesse and satiety wherein the most curious spirits may be exercised the most ignorant instructed Fifthly the truth of them in the accomplishment of what was there prophesied and we may confidently believe what we see performed as Cyrus his very Name principal atchievements foretold by Esay the end of the Siege of Jerusalem by Jeremiah the translation of the Assyrian Empire to the Medes and Persians by Daniel but most especially the coming of our Saviour Christ the true Messias at the very time designed of seventy Weeks by Daniel 9. 24. The calling of the Gentiles by Esay c. 60. The rejection and dispersion of the Jews by Zechariah 12. 13. Lastly the destruction of the second Temple by Daniel c. 9. And our Saviour Christ Luke 19. 43. Sixthly the miraculous preservation of the Books themselves first against the injuries of neglect as the Law found in the rubbish of the Temple 2 Kings 22. after the wretched neglect thereof in the time of Manasseth Secondly against the injuries of alteration {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. For in the Flux of so many Ages no man durst either add diminish or change any part of them for which end Esdras Gamaliel Eleazar and others contrived that excellent Treasure of the Masoreth to denote the diversity of Readings in the Hebrew Text Lastly against the injuries of persecution as in the time of Dioclesian who commanded all the Bibles he could discover to be burnt They who delivered them up being call'd Traditores Traitors a word frequent in Saint Augustine against the Donatists the main quarrell being between the Church and them about the non-reception of those Apostates into the Congregation Seventhly the thrift and propagation of the Gospel in spite of all opposition and persecution By how many Tyrants was the Church afflicted yet never conquered and destroyed The Romans often pruned and lopt its Professors off