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A63840
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A defence of the confuter of Bellarmin's Second note of the church, antiquity, against the cavils of the adviser
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Tullie, George, 1652?-1695.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing T3236; ESTC R7422
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16,243
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26
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if the Bishops of Rome had in those days presumed to have broke down all the ancient mounds and boundaries of Jurisdiction the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Council of Nice and had in a word but offer'd at such an audacious attempt as an universal Monarchy over the whole Church of Christ that they would not have been taken notice of by those Councils as they were by others afterwards and by the African Bishops during that time Yes he may assure himself we should have had a brand of Infamy set upon them that would have lasted to all Posterity if any but the Church of Rome had the keeping of the Records But there 's something behind still in this Paragraph which looks as if he were fond of it therefore we must do it the civility of a remark and that is that the ancient Fathers urge the continued succession of these very Bishops of Rome as an Argument of the True Orthodox Faith and Religion professed in that Church Ergo What What you please I have told this Gentleman before that the Orthodoxy of the Faith of the Church of Rome in those days is no way concern'd in the present debate for the Church over which the Bishops we speak of presided might be sound in the Faith for the Pope's universal Jurisdiction was then no Article of it and yet they through passion inadvertency or perhaps natural ambition lay the first Foundation of that monstrous Fabric of Papal power that after-Ages built upon it I shall not here enter upon a Discourse concerning the proof of the Truth of Doctrines by succession of Bishops because the Adviser uses it only as a Medium to prove tho' poor man he has made but bad use of it that no Bishop of Rome could by any means sow those Seeds which might be afterwards improv'd into dangerous innovations yet I must tell him that after all those Fathers ultimately resolve the truth of all Doctrines into their harmony and agreement with the Apostolic writings The ridiculous Buffoonry that fills up the rest of the Paragraph sufficiently exposes its Author of it self only whereas he tells us we have no other way to look fair than by blackning the Church of Rome I must tell him in return That in my Mind they are equally impertinent who would wash an Aethiopian white and who would paint him blacker than he is In the next Paragraph about Image-worship he palliates very finely as if Paint and Varnish were still as requisite to a Discourse upon that indefensible Subject as to the Subject it self The Confuter hinting briefly to him by what advances Image-worship crept up to that height wherein 't is now taught and practic'd in the Church of Rome begins as he ought from the very first Steps or unhappy Occasions only of that religious Worship that was afterwards given them viz. the Historical use of them 300 years after Christ improv'd into the Rhetorical as he well expresses it in 300 years more after that Now upon this fastens the Adviser without ever taking notice of the Religious Adoration that is paid them that great Alteration of Religion the Confuter complains of and of which the former uses of them were only unhappily Introductory but slurs it over in the general terms of other Reasons others with a witness for which the Confuter condemns the Church of Rome of Innovation in Religion Is this Ingenuity Is this Arguing But alas 't is as good as the Cause will bear How then is the Church of England laid upon her back by the Alteration in Religion which the Confuter in this place charges upon the Church of Rome Do's the Church of England worship Images If not She can never be in the same Condemnation for not worshipping with that Church which doth worship them But here perhaps lies the Mystery Mr. Mountague in the 21. Chap. of his Appeal to Caesar approves of the giving them Civil Respect and Reverence as was done by Pope Gregory in Rememoration and more effectual Representment of the Prototype all which amounts to no more even in his own Exposition in that Chap. than to a bare Historical use of them And what of all this Do's it hence follow that the whole Church of England is equally laid on her Back with the Church of Rome that religiously worships them Is there no difference betwixt Mr. Mountague's private Opinion and the Doctrine of the Church of England No difference betwixt a meer Historical and that Religious use that is made of them in the Church of Rome Well but Mr. Mountague confesses that the Historical and Rhetorical uses of them are allow'd by the Church of England And suppose so for once what becomes of the poor Consequence still for that 's what I am concern'd for The Church of England allows an use of Images harmless in it self and therefore She is equally culpable with a Church that allows nay commands an use of them sinful in it self Consquences so big with Absurdity that a man needs but name them to expose them But after all the Church of England has no such Doctrine that I know of nor do's Mr. Mountague say so He says indeed Chap. 20. that we do not account the Papists Idolatrous for these Historical and Rhetorical uses of them and in the same Chap. that it is not the Doctrine of the Church of England to have departed from the Church of Rome about this point if She had gone no farther in Practice nor Precept than what St. Gregory recommended and that he for his part could have actually gone thus far along with them But he affirms no such thing of the Church of England as the Adviser would make him But since he has been pleas'd to make use of Mr. Mountague's Name as a sort of an Abetter of their Doctrino in this Point I think I cannot do Him nor the Reader greater Justice than here to give a Specimen of his Sense of this Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome Thus then says he in the 19. Chap. one of those cited by our Author I do not I cannot I will not deny that Idolatry is grosly committed in the Church of Rome The ruder sort at least are not excusable who go to it with down-right Idolatry without any relative Adoration worshipping that which they behold with their Eyes This Idolatry is Ancient in their Schools as he there shews not amongst the Vulgar only The little Flourishes which follow are not worth a remark for who says That such an use of Images as he there speaks of leaves the Church of Rome without all title to Antiquity or that it Vnchurches her This I am sure is a Rhetorical use of words instead of a Logical one which obliges a Disputant to keep to his terms a strictness alas that will never agree with thin Sense and a bad Cause The Confutation of his Comparison betwixt the Introduction of the worship of Images and Lawn-sleeves c. I leave to the
and no alteration of the Will it self Who sees not at first sight the illusion of such an evasion But now because the Adviser counsels the Confuter to prove in his next That a diversity of Practice as he pleasantly calls the denial of the Cup is an alteration in Religion I 'le endeavour to do it for him in as few words as I can now that I am upon the spot and save him the labour For if the Sacrament of the Eucharist be a part of the Christian Religion and I hope 't will be granted to be a very considerable one and the Cup an essential part of that Sacrament then they who deprive the Laiety of the Cup the diversity of Practice here spoke of make thereby an alteration in Religion but c. And I 'le make good this Argumentation to him when he pleases The custom of administring the Cup with Water only instead of Wine was not I hope so great a diversity of Practice as not administring the Cup at all to the Laiety who were at that time partakers of the Cup such as it was and yet it were worth his while to read what stress St. Cyprian in his 63 Ep. to Caecilius lays upon the practice of our Lord in his Institution of this Sacrament And in a word so far is this defrauding the Laiety of the Cup from being no alteration in Religion that besides what has been said it opens wide the Door to the greatest alterations imaginable For if the Church nay what is worse the Church of Rome in particular can by her own transcendent Prerogative alter and act contrary to this positive Law and Institution of Christ she may by the same reason dispence with or formally abrogate any of the other at her pleasure As for his Quotations out of Luther and Melancthon I have not been able to find upon a pretty diligent search as much as the very Tract and Epistles from whence he cites them and therefore am apt to imagine that taking them up at second hand he or his Author made a mistake in them However it be it matters not much for his second Citation out of Luther appears at first sight so forreign to his purpose that by it we may guess at the rest But above all recommend me to the Skull which could Cite that place of Spalatensis l. 5. c. 6. for the refusal of the Cup or conclude that because private Persons upon extraordinary occasions as want of Wine antipathy to it or the like mentioned by this very Author may lawfully receive in one kind the Church may make an universal standing Law against the Laiety's receiving in both Give me leave but just to continue the words of Spalatensis where the Adviser leaves of and you will be sufficiently able to pronounce of either the judgment or ingenuity of this Author without any farther descant upon him After having told us then in the general in what cases the Sacrament may be lawfully received under the species of Bread alone he proceeds Though in such a case says he the Sacrament is not truly and properly whole Wine may either be wanting or the Person abstemious or it may be more convenient to recieve at home than in the Church upon a lawful cause in which case a man may carry the Bread along with him tho not so conveniently the Wine as old examples teach us a practice perhaps not altogether warrantable in the Church But the Church neither could nor can by an universal Law deprive the Laiety of the Cup whether they will or no upon no necessity at all for what Christ granted to all men is in vain denied by the Church and where the whole Sacrament may and ought to be exhibited it cannot be mutilated and halfed without the greatest injustice and this is expresly prohibited under an Anathema by Gelasius in a Canon of the Church In the next Paragraph the Adviser is all upon the ramble again and you scarce know where to have him I 'le pick up the sense tho' he has dropt here and there and digest it for him as well as I can First Then he is angry with the Confuter for dateing the rise of the Papal Authority he speaks of so far back as Pope Victor and his reason is because the Church of Rome is generally believ'd to have been in those days pure and uncorrupt Here wants nothing but a good consequence The Faith of the Church of Rome was then sound and Orthodox and therefore one of her Bishops could not be of a warm passionate or assuming temper as Africans generally are of which Country he was and by an unwarrantable action undesignedly perhaps lay the first Foundation of a future encroachment and usurpation This is the whole Logic of the Business But the practises the Confuter censures were own'd by the Christians of those days I wonder then he did not show the vanity of what the Confuter alledges concerning the reprimand that Celestine met with from the African Bishops upon his intrusion into their Affairs or to go farther back did the Adviser never hear of the bustle that Victor's excommunicating the Asiatic Bishops made in the Church Or was no Body ever so kind as to tell him how ill that action was resented by Bishops of the Latin Church it self as may appear from a fragment of a Letter of Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons to Victor upon this occasion see Euseb Hist l. 5. c. 24. But Secondly Pope Victor's practise could be no other than an Apostolical truth because he lived in the Second Century I thought we should have him upon the Argument of bare Antiquity for all his former indignation at the Confuter for telling him 't was Bellarmin's second Note of the Church and here again is nothing but the poor business of a little Logic and conclusiveness wanting For the argument proves too much and so proves nothing at all to his purpose being that which a fortiori will justifie the Treachery of Judas and all the Heretical Doctrines that were broach'd before Victor's time But I need not farther expose its absurdity the Confuter having done it so excellently well in his first particular His third appearance of reason is that the Popes the Confuter mentions as beginners of the present Innovation of the Papal Authority living before or in the time of the four first General Councils if what is pretended were true those Councils would have taken notice of it Now because he confines his observation to those Councils only so shall I do my answer which need be no other than this That the Innovation was then perfectly in its Infancy the Tares as yet according to his own distinction in the dark and under ground not grown up and overtopping the Corn as they did afterwards and therefore difficultly perceptible at least in their future fatal tendency and event and as such might consequently easily escape the severe and solemn Animadversion of a general Council But can the Adviser imagin that