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A57744
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The late act of the convocation at Oxford examined: or, The obit of prelatique Protestancy: occasioning the conversion of W. R. (sometimes of Exeter Colledge in Oxford) to Catholique union
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Rowland, William.
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1652
(1652)
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Wing R2075; ESTC R219949
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37,064
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142
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cast away Masse and Peace together The causes which each of you already alleadge are true enough but I leave your selves to prove them it s more then sufficient for all good Christians who tender their salvations not to adhere to either of you since you are so far from unity in Doctrine that your bodies respectively need Reformation as ye confesse of them and they of you wherein ye have destroyed your selves wholly First from the pretence of being one Christian Church and consequently any Church according as the universall Church teaches us I beleeve one holy Catholique and Apostolique Church If therefore no unity no Church And with no lesse evidence ye have Secondly destroyed either of you to be a Church having declared your severall errours in Superstition and Schisme For according to Holy Scriptures and the consent of all especially old Christians A Congregation which should generally and solemnly teach and professe Superstition and Schisme neither is nor can be a Church of Christ this would render it inconsistent with the light presented in Saint Johns Candlesticks and consequently alienate it from Christ This needs no further proofe to a man who hath observed the hinges of Christianity Doth not the whole world also know by your voluminous writings that ye have condemned the very Ceremonies of the Roman Church as unlawfull and made that amongst the vulgar people a maine argument of our Superstition and now ye say it is Superstition in the Presbyters to condemne them in you I le not presse you for I should presently cast you into Democritus his Well Ye wholly forget the force of an Argument called in the Schooles ad hominem drawne from a mans owne principle as here against you Ye goe on Secondly we are not satisfied in the next Branch concerning the Reformation of Religion in our owne Kingdome in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government how we can sweare to endeavour the same which without makeing a change therein cannot be done It is very well noted that ye cannot reforme without a change Phylosophy would laugh at you to attempt a Reformation without a proportionable mutation whence it followes that you have chang'd your Doctrine whence it further followes that its false you know Gamaliels rule if it be of God it will stand ye know then whence yours comes for if it change it is not of God You pretend to reverence the foure first generall Councells heare what the Councell of Chalcedon saith Act. 1. Sic sancivit sancta synodus c Si quis innovat Anaethema sit sanctorum patrum fidem servemus c. you see your sentence if you change you are gone and yet you must change If your Proselites would without prejudice observe how you tumble and tosse one another in reciprocall recriminations in matter of these high inconsistencies with Christianity they would relinquish such communion Your reasons to the contrary in order to you are important for it cannot be done 1. Papists Independents are equally rejected by the Praelatique party Without manifest scandall to the Papist and Separatist by yeilding the cause which our Godly Bishops and Martyrs and all our learned Divines ever since the Reformation have both by their writings and sufferings maintained who have justified against them both the Religion established in the Church of England to be agreeable to the word of God 2. By Justifying the Papists in the reproaches and scorne by them cast upon our Religion whose usuall objection it hath been and is that we know not what our Religion is that since we left them we cannot tell where to stay that our Religion is a Parliamentary Religion let us not be blamed if we call it a Parliament Religion Parliament Gospell Parliament Faith Harding Consul of Apology part 6. cap. 2. These are very home let me a little dilate them To your first You have indeed scandalized all the world and most of all those whom ye call Papists by yeilding the cause and shewing that hitherto ye have persecuted them to bloud to all manner of cruelties for not adhering to that which now is confessed to be Superstitious and Schismaticall Trajan was a Heathen and a profest enemy of Christian Religion yet he came not neere your cruelties He made a law that no Poursivants should search the houses or looke after Christians or their Priests but onely apprehend them if they should happen to meet them But under your reigne all our houses against the liberties of free borne Subjects as was declared in Master Pims case were disquieted by the very dregs of mankind continually infested with Saint Ignatius his Leopards who the better he treated them the worse they were but as he said Iniquitas eorum mea doctrina est their iniquities taught us patience This permission even of assemblies in point of Religion especially in the exercise of a Religion which was not newly taken up though different from that which was then in vogue was by the Senate allowed as that of the Jewes at Rome Nay Suetonius tells us that even the Christians were tollerated to assemble Eusebius Hist lib. 5. cap. 20. saith that Commodus the Emperour punished even by death such who accused Christians by reason of their quietnesse And in his third booke cap. 15. he tells how Nerva the Emperour did set Christians at liberty generally by publique Proclamation hence Saint John was freed from Patmos In fine he recalled all power given to Poursuivants by his predecessours How much more should Christian Senates allow of innocent meetings in celebration of a Religion which all our forefathers professed But ye persecuted both new and old Religions I feare the bloud of all those who have suffered death either by hanging Loaplanding as the Dutch call it famishing or starving for Religion will call for revenge but we pray with our blessed Saviour and his Protomartyr Saint Stephen ne statuas illis hoc peccatum Saint Paul hath also taught us Rom. 12.5.21 Be not overcome of evill but overcome good with evill Nay Aristotle himselfe in 4. Eth. cap. 3. saith it is a signe of magnanimity to forget injuries For as it is a marke of a weake Stomack not to be able to digest hard meat so it is of a pusillanimous Soule not to be able to indure a harsh word or harder threats Cicero lib. 2. Tusc ques speaking of wise mens patience saith si fortis in perferendo officii satis est ut laetetur non postulo These Christian wise men have gone further even to joy in Persecutions Aristotle when the Athenians were consulting to proceed in judgement against him upon suspition of some impiety in his opinions departed from Athens and removed his Schoole saying to his Schollars Discedamus Athenis ne prebeamus iis secundam occasionem sceleris quale prius perpetraverunt in Socratem neve iterū per impietatem violent Philosophiam Thus tender Aristotle was of Philosophy and of their innocency but our Christian Philosophers here have gone
vel hoc prae pudore relinquitur Let us proceed to particulars Your first Paragraph is of the first Article of the Covenant 1. Wherein first we are not satisfied how we can with Judgement sweare to endeavour to preserve the Religion of another Kingdome whereof as it doth not concerne us to have very much so we professe to have very little understanding 2. Which so far as the occurrents of these unhappy times have brought it to our knowledge and we are able to judge as in three of the foure specified particulars viz. Worship Discipline and Government much worse and in the fourth that of Doctrine not at all better then our own which we are in the next passage of the Article required to reforme Blessed Saint Paul was much of another spirit he earnestly professeth a most hearty sence of the welfare of all Churches he hath a Sollicitous care of all he cryes out Who is weake and I not weake who is offended and I burne not 2 Cor. 11.28 He is highly sensible not onely of all Churches but persons See him 1 Cor. 1.10 how carefull he is to have all speak the same thing and that there be no division amongst them but that they be perfectly joyned together in the same minde and in the same judgement Reade him in all his Epistles see how he and his fellow labourers even anxiously esteemed themselves concerned in all the Churches progresse in true Doctrine and practise See what he sayes to the Romans Chap. 12. the aime of his Doctrine is that we must rejoyce with the joyfull weep with the sad we must mutually feele each others passions we must be deeply concerned in our Brethrens spirituall affaires chiefly but ye contrariwise professe not to be so much concerned in preserving the Religion of your Neighbour Church Solomon would have judg'd your title surreptitious with the pretended Mothers who was contented to have the Child quartered so that she might rob the true Mother of her infant ye caused indeed the breach in Scotland from their Mother of Rome having done that you professe your selves now not much concern'd to preserve her in any Religion Ye could not have used any Arguments more forcible to prove your selves not true lively Members of Christs great Spirituall body since it is cleare by your profession here that you are not vegitated with the common spirit of it for ye are not concerned c. Contrary to Saint Pauls teaching 1 Cor. 14.33 where he professeth to teach peace of Doctrine in all Churches Ye professe also that you differ from them in Worship Discipline and Government The Philosophers at Athens however different in their Schooles touching their opinions of the Deity Providence c. as appeares in the tenents of the Platonists Stoiques and Peripatetiques yet in their Temple touching Worship Discipline and Government did far more agree then you meeting quietly at their common oblations to God which ye professe not to be amongst you Have ye not in this undeniably abolished one Article of the Creed which is Communion of Saints and consequently taken away your very pretence to a Church Externall Communion consists in uniformity of Worship Discipline and Government most especially indeed in Worship and in this as you are seperated from Rome and their whole Communion so ye are as you professe from your neighbouring Churches whence it followes you are not a true Church of Christ I speak not this as if I were at all scandalized at your breaches Aristotle treating of Beasts calls a Wolfe though a Pestilent creature animal generosum because it will not be made tame I can say no lesse of you it is generous not to degenerate all your predecessours disagreed with each other as Luther Zuinglius Calvin and the rest Tertullian not far from the end of his treatise of Praescriptions will rub you hard upon the gills Mentior si non etiam à regulis suis variant inter se dum unusquisque proinde suo arbitrio modulatur quae accepit quemadmodum de arbitrio ea composuit illi quae tradidit c. It hath beene alwaies the custome from the beginning that you thus vary from one another and yet Tertullian speaks of it as a thing most ridiculous I lye saith he if it be not true that they differ from their owne rules c. he was afraid that future ages would not beleeve so prodigious a thing but succeeding ages make it appeare even to children Ye have therefore just title not onely to the Wolfe in this point of generosity but to the Foxes under Sampson in biting each other with all virulency and yet agree in your tailes by firing all behinde you which is Gods Church It 's Cato's aphorisme opertet mendacem esse memorem You have been also observed to have been in divers tales At the first under Henry the 8. your rule was to adhere to holy Scriptures determination of the Primitive Church or Generall Councells held before the last 600. yeares as appears in the Articles of union betwixt you and the Germans In B. Jewells time you confined your selves to the first 600. yeares After in Perkins time to the first 400. yeares and now in D'allie to the Apostles only And so by degrees you creep to your invisibility where every one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Son without a Father For the Doctrine you adde as followes Wherein if hereafter we shall find any thing as upon farther understanding thereof it is not impossible we may that may seeme to us savouring of Popery Superstition Heresie or Schisme or contrary to sound Doctrine or the Power of Godlinesse We shall be bound by the next Article to endeavour the extirpation after we have bound our selves by this first Article to the preservation thereof Wherein we already finde some things to our thinking so far tending to superstition in accounting Bishops Anti Christian and indifferent Ceremonies unlawfull and Schismes in making their Discipline and Government a marke of the true Church and the setting up thereof the erecting of the Church of Christ that it seemeth to us more reasonable that we should call upon them to reforme the same then that they should call upon us to preserve it Here you have toucht the matter againe more deeply to the quick your quarrels in Doctrine are of no lesse nature then of Superstition and Schisme Thus Presbytery and Prelacy are at open wars We heard of the Heralds at armes menacing mutuall defiance at the Scotts first entring our Countrey yet there were hopes of an attonement but this Covenant hath rendred them irreconcileable Tertullian in his book of Prayer propounds a question worth your knowing Quale sacrificium est à quo sine pace receditur No peace no Sacrifice He indeed insinuates an old and constant custome of the Catholick Church in a religious embrace of each other in time of Masse which he here calls Sacrifice signifying the charity which should be amongst Christians but you have professedly