France For they ever held their Kings if not for the Head of their Church yet surely for the principall and most sound member thereof Which is the reason that the opening or Overture of their most ancient Councels under the first and second that is the Merovingian and Caroline line was ever by the power and authority and sometimes the presidencie of their Kings and Princes And my Authour quarrels very much the Monk Gratian for attributing to Isidore of Spain rather then to a Nationall Councell of France held in the yeare 829 that brave and excellent saying Principes seculi nonnunquam intra Ecclesiam potestatis adeptae culmina tenent ut per eandem potestatem disciplinam ecclesiasticam muniant God sometimes imparts secular power to Princes that live in the bosome of the Church that they might imploy this power in preserving ecclesiasticall discipline Saepe per regnum terrenum coeleste regnum proficit The Kingdome of Heaven doth many times take growth and encrease from these Kingdomes upon Earth Cognoscant principes seculi se Deo debere rationem propter Ecclesiam quam à Deo tuendam accipiunt And therefore the Great ones of the world must know that God will one day call them to an account for his Church so tenderly recommended unto them It is true indeed that these words are found in the sixth Councell of Paris lib. 2. c. 2. But it is as true that in my Book Isidore is set down in the Margent as ready to own them And both these will stand well enough considering that Isidore Scholar to Gregory the Great did flourish very neare 200 yeares before the Aera of that Councell and that that Councell by incorporating of these words unto the substance of their Canons doth put a greater lustre and authority upon them as the French Antiquary well observes And according to this doctrine are all those Capitulars or mixt Laws for matters of Church and Common-wealth of Charles the Great Ludovicus Pius Lewis the Grosse Pipine and others gathered by Lindenbrogius And a world of other Capitulaâ—s of the same nature intermingled with the Canons of the French Councells in the late edition of them by Sirmond the Jesuite In a word the very pure Acts and Constitutions of the Synods themselves were in those former times no further valid and binding then as they were confirmed by the Kings of France and entered duly upon the Records of their Palais or Westminster-Hall And yet under favour all Crowns Imperiall must give place in regard of this one flower of ecclesiasticall jurisdiction to the Crown of Great Britannie For as our Prince is recorded to be the first Christian King so is he intimated to be the first that ever exercised ecclesiasticall jurisdiction being directed by Eleutherius the Pope to fetch his Laws by the advice of his Counsell from the Book of God the old and new Testament wherewith to reclaim his subjects to the Faith and Law of Christ and to the holy Church And if Father Parsons shall damne this Letter as foisted and another obscure Papist suspect it to be corrupted let the Reader content himself with these proofs in the Margent of a farre more authenticall averment and authority Sure I am that according to this advice of Eleâ—therius the British Saxon Danish and first Norman Kings have governed their Churches and Church-men by Capitulars and mixed Digests composed as it were of Common and Canon Law and promulged with the advice of the Counsell of the Kingdome as we may see in those particulars set forth by Mr. Lambard Mr Selden D. Powell and others And I do not beleeve there can be shewed any Ecclesiasticall Canons for the Government of the Church of England untill long after the Conquest which were not either originally promulged or afterwards approved and allowed by either the Monarch or some King of the Heptarchy sitting and directing in the Nationall or Provinciall Synod For all the Collections that Lindwood comments upon are as Theophrastus speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but rough and rugged money of a more fresh and later coinage And yet in those usurping times I have seen a Transcript of a Record Anno 1157. 3º Henr. 2. wherein when the B. of Chichester oppos'd some late Canons against the Kings Exemption of the Abbey of Battles from the Episcopall Jurisdiction it is said that the King being angry and much moved therewith should reply Tu pro Papae authoritate ab hominibus concessa contra dignitatum Regalium authoritates mihi à Deo concessas calliditate argutâ niti praecogitas Do you Sr goe about by subtilties of wit to oppose the Popes authority which is but the favour or connivence of men against the authority of my Regall dignities being the Charters and donations of God himselfe And thereupon requires reason and justice against the Bishop for this foul insolencie And it hath been alwayes as the practice so the doctrine of this Kingdome that both in every part and in the whole Laws do not make Kings but Kings Laws which they alter and change from time to time as they see occasion for the good of themselves and their Subjects And to maintain that Kings have any part of their Authority by any positive Law of Nations as this Scribbler speaks of a Jurisdiction which either is or ought to be in the Crown by the ancient Laws of the Realm and is confirmed by 1º Elis. c. 1. is accounted by that great personage an assertion of a treasonable nature But when Sr Edward Coke or any other of our reverend Sages of the Law do speak of the ancient Laws of the Realm by which this Right in ecclesiasticall causes becomes a parcell of the Kings jurisdiction and united to his Imperiall Crown they do not mean any positive or Statute-law which creates him such a Right as if a man should bestow a new Fee-simple upon the Crown as this Scribbler instanceth or any Law which declares any such Right created by any former Law but the continuall practice Judgements Sentences or as this very Report calls it Exercise of the ancient Laws of the Realm which declareth and demonstrateth by the effect that the Kings of England have had these severall flowers of ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction stuck in their Imperiall Garlands by the finger of Almighty God from the very beginning of the Christian Monarchy within this Island For so our Sententiae Iudicum and Responsa prudentum have been termed time out of mind a main and principall part of the Common Law of England And therefore having cleared this point at large I shall easily yeeld to Dr Coal that the Kings Majesty may command a greater matter of this nature then that the holy Table should be placed where the Altar stood and be railed about for the greater decencie and that although the Statute of 1º Elis. c. 1.
utterly in hibite single Priests to do either the one or the other Whereupon not many yeares after about the time of Iustinian the Emperour Hormisda◠made an absolute decree to inhibite Priests to erect any Altars in this kinde under pain of deprivation as we read in Gratian and elsewhere Which places I do not for al that presse dogmatically as conceiving the Vicar would be so absurd to dogmatize any such matter as you perceiv◠the writer of the Letter seems to excuse him no◠was that the Errour of the Germane Priests bu◠I presse it only historically to let you see that if such a Rumour had been raised in the Church as we all know the Vicars behaviour did raise in the Neighbourhood 1100 yeares ago what severitie they would have used to chastise the insolencie And no marvell if you consider well what I shall now represent unto you That the very Romans themselves in the time of their Republick would never assent that a private man should presume to erect an Altar But that which I presse for doctrine is this That a single Priest quà talis in that formality and capacitie onely as he is a Priest hath no Key given him by God or man to open the doores of any externall jurisdiction He hath a Consistory within in foro Poenitentiae in the Conscience of his Parishioners and a key given him upon his Institution to enter into it But he hath no Consistory without in foro Causae in medling with ecclesiasticall Causes unlesse he borrow a key from his Ordinary For although they be the same keys yet one of them will not open all these wards the Consistory of outward jurisdiction being not to be opened by a Key alone but as you may observe in some great mens Gates by a Key and a staffe which they usually call a Crosier This I have ever conceived to be the ancient Doctrine in this kind opposed by none but professed Puritanes They tell us indeed that the Bishops power was the poysonous Egge out of which Antichrist was hatched that it is meere tyrannie because it takes all to the Bishop and his Officers and turnes the Vicars to Soliloquies and Meditations whereas the Minister holdeth all his authoritie unto the spirituall charge of the house of God even immediately from God himselfe without dependance from King or Bishop But all learned men of the Church of England that are truly judicious Divines do adhere to that former doctrin They allow the Schoolmens double power that of order and that of jurisdiction and the subdivision of this jurisdiction to the internall and externall appropriating this last to the Bishops only They say clearly that all consecrated persons have not the power of jurisdiction They aske you roundly Who shall judge what is most comely Shall every private man Or rather such as have chiefe care and Government in the Church And for the Minister whom you would have wholly imployed they conceive that generally he is a man though better able to speak yet little or no whit apter to judge then the rest and that to give him a domineering power in matters of this nature were to bring in as many petty Popes as there are Parishes and Congregations But the written Law and speaking Law of this Kingdome are above all testimonies that can be produced the one appointing the Bishop of the Diocese onely in the Affirmative and the other excluding the particular fancy of any humourous persons in the Negative from assigning out these matters of Conveniencie in Gods service And the reason why this private Vicar should not without farther directions call the holy Table an Altar is set downe in the Letter but not touched by you and is a stronger one then your Head-piece is capable of Because the Church in her Liturgie and Canons doth call it a Table onely It seemes by you we are bound onely to pray but not to speak the words of the Canons I have been otherwise taught by learned men That where we have a Law and Canon to direct us how to call a thing we ought not to hunt after reasons and conceits to give it another Appellation And that every word hath that operation in construction of Law that wee may draw our Argument from the words as from so many Topick places Which the Writer of the Letter seems to do in this passage The Rubrick and the Canons call it nothing but a Table and therefore do not you a poore Vicar in the Countrey call it an Altar The writer doth not deny but that the name hath been long in the Church in a Metaphoricall usurpation nor would he have blam'd the Vicar if he had in a Quotation from the Fathers or a discourse in the Pulpit nam'd it an Altar in this borrowed sense but to give the usuall call of an Altar unto that Church-utensill which the Law that alwayes speaks properly never calls otherwise then by the name of a Table is justly by him disliked and by this Gallant lamentably defended For I appeale to all indifferent men that pretend to any knowledge in Divinitie If the Reading-pew the Pulpit and any other place in the Church be not as properly an Altar for prayer praise thanksgiving memory of the Passion dedicating of our selves to Gods very service and the Churches Box or Bason for that Oblation for the poore which was used in the primitive times as is our holy Table howsoever situated or disposed Or if it be the Priest onely that can offer a Sacrifice which in these spirituall Sacrifices we utterly deny what one sacrifice doth he inferre out of the Collects read by the Priest at the Communion-Table which are not as easily deduced out of the Te Deum or Benedictus said in the Quire or Reading-pew◠Is there no praying praising acknowledging or thanksgiving commemorating of the Passion and consecrating of our selves to Gods service in these two hymnes And therefore if that be enough to make an Altar and that these judicious Rabbies mean not somewhat else then for fear of our gracious King they dare speak out this man must change the Motto of his book and say Habenius Altaria we have 10000 Altars Whereas no place in all the Church doth offer unto us the body and blood of Christ in the outward forms of bread and wine beside the holy Table onely And consequently if a Name be invented to divide and sever one particular thing from another or to help us to the knowledge of a particular thing or that a name be tha◠which the Law gives the thing or that a thing cannot have two distinct and proper however it may have twentie Metaphoricall names then surely a Table ought to be the distinct and proper and so the usuall an Altar but the translatitious and borrowed and so the more unusuall appellation of that holy
prove the onely Holocaust to be sacrificed on the same For you have subscribed when you came to your place that that other Oblation which the Papists were wont to offer upon these Altars is a Blasphemous figment and pernicious Imposture In the 31th Artic. And also that we in the Church of England must take heed lest our Communion of a Memory be made a Sacrifice In the 1. Homily upon the Sacrament And it is not the Vicar but the Churchwardens that are to provide Vtensils for the Communion and that not an Altar but a faire joyned Table Canons of the Convocation 1571. pag. 18. And that the Altars were removed by Law and Tables placed in their stead in all or the most Churches of England appeares by the Queens Injunctions 1559 related unto and so confirmed in that point by our Canons still in force Canon 82. And therefore I know you will not build any such Altar which Vicars were never enabled to set up but were once allowed with others to pull down Injunct 1 mo Elis. For Tables in the Church For the second point That your Communion-table is to stand Altar-wise if you mean in that upper place of the Chancell where the Altar stood I think somewhat may be said for that because the Injunctions 1559 did so place it And I conceive it to be the most decent situation when it is not used and for use too where the Quire is mounted up by steps and open so as he that officiates may be seen and heard of all the Congregation Such an one I am informed your Chancell is not But if you meane by Altar-wise that the Table should stand along close by the wall so as you beforced to officiate at the one end thereof as you may have observed in great mens Chappell 's I do not beleeve that ever the Communion-tables were otherwise then by casualty so placed in countrey-churches For besides that the Countrey-people without some directions before-hand from their superiours would as they told you to your face suppose them Dressers rather then Tables And that Queen Elisabeths Commissioners for causes ecclesiasticall directed that the Tables should stand not where the Altar but where the steps to the Altar formerly stood Orders 1561. The Minister appointed to read the Communion which you out of the Books of Fast in 1 mo of the King are pleas'd to call Second service is directed to read the Commandments not at the End but at the North-side of the Table which implies the End to be placed towards the East great window Rubrick before the Communion Nor was this a new direction in the Queens time onely but practised in K. Edwards reign For in the plot of our Liturgie sent by Mr Knox whittingham to Mr Calvin in the reign of Q. Mary it is said that the Minister must stand at the North-side of the Table Troubles at Frankford p. 30. And so in K. Edwards Liturgies the Ministers standing in the Midst of the Altar 1549. is turned to his standing at the North-side of the Table 1552. And this last Liturgie was revived by Parliament 1º Elis. c. 2. And I beleeve it is so used at this day in most places of England What you saw in Chappell 's or Cathedrall Churches is not the point now in Question but how the Tables are appointed to be placed in Parish-churches In some of these Chappels and Cathedralls the Altars may be still standing for ought I know or to make use of their Covers Fronts and other Ornaments Tables may be placed in their room of the same length and fashion the Altars were of We know the Altars stand still in the Lutherane Churches And the Apologie for the Augustane Confession Artic. 11. doth allow it The Altars stood a yeare or two in the reigne of King Edward as appeares by the Liturgie printed 1549. And it seems the Queen and her Counsell were content they should stand as we may guesse by the Injunctions 1559. But how is this to be understood The Sacrifice of the Masse abolished for which Sacrifice onely Altars were erected these call them what you please are no more Altars but Tables of Stone or Tymber And so was it alledged 24. Novem. 4º Edv. 6. 1550. Sublato enim relativo formall manet absolutum et materiale tantúm And so may be well used in Kings and Bishops houses where there are no people so void of Instruction as to be scandalized For upon the Orders of breaking down Altars 1550. all Dioceses as well as that of London did agree upon receiving Tables but not so soon upon the form and fashion of their Tables Act. and Monum pag. 1212. Beside that in the old Testament one and the same Thing is termed an Altar and a Table An Altar in respect of what is there offered unto God and a Table in respect of what is thence participated by men as for example by the Priests So have you Gods Altar the very same with Gods Table in Mal. 1. 7. The place is worth the marking For it answers that merry Objection out of Heb. 13. 10. which you made to some of your fellow Ministers and one Dr. Morgan before you to Peter Martyr in a disputation at Oxford We have no Altar in regard of an Oblation but we have an Altar that is a Table in regard of a participation and Communion there granted unto us The proper use of an Altar is to sacrifice upon the proper use of a Table is to eat upon Reasons c. 1550. vide Act. Monum pag. 1211. And because a Communion is an Action most proper for a Table as an Oblation is for an Altar therefore the Church in her Liturgie and Canons calling the same a Table onely do not you now under the Reformation call it an Altar In King Edwards Liturgie of 1549 it is almost every where but in that of 1552 it is no where called an Altar but The Lords Boord Why Because the people being scandalized herewith in Countrey-churches first it seems beat them down de facto then the supreme Magistrate as here the King by the advice of Archbishop Cranmer and the rest of his Counsell did Anno 1550 by a kind of Law put them down de jure 4º Edv. 6. Novemb. 24. And setting these Tables in their rooms took away from us the Children of this Church and Common-wealth both the Name and the Nature of those former Altars As you may see Injunct 1559. referring to that Order of King Edw. and his Counsell mentioned Act. Monum pag. 1211. And I hope you have more learning then to conceive The Lords Table to be a new Name and so to be ashamed of the Word For besides that Christ himselfe instituted this Sacrament upon a Table and not an Altar as Archbishop Cranmer and others observe Act. Monum pag. 1211. it is in the Christian Church at the least 200 yeares more ancient then the name of an Altar in that sense as you may see most
Mysteries of State how this question of Ceremonies doth relate unto the King and that the Statute of 1º Elis. cap. 2. which by long search and study he found in the very first leaf of his Common prayer Book was not a power personall to the Queen onely but to be continued unto her Successours and that the Kings most excellent Majesty may safely and without any danger at all command the Table to stand as the Doctour would have it and to be rayl'd about These are high matters indeed if they be well proved That they shall be to a hair For this old Lawyer and new-created Judge doth tell us that if a Fee-simple be vested in me and I passe it unto the King the Fee-simple doth passe without these words SUCCESSOURS and HEYRES as it doth to a Major a Bishop or any other meaner Corporation as you have it there at large Well said Doctour His Majesty is much beholding unto you and those about him to take speciall care of your speedy preferment You have not in most of your scribble given a Bishop any more prerogative then to the Vicar nor the King in this Allegation then to the Alderman of Grantham Peradventure not so much For by perusall of your Authour I finde the Alderman ranged in the third place but the King and the Bishop jumbled up together as in a bagge after Chesse-play and so thrown into the fourth place But I pray you good Doctour where upon earth was this power of ordering matters ecclesiasticall vested before it pass'd away as a piece of land held in Fee-simple unto his Majestie by the Statute of Imo Elis. cap. 2 Quis est tam potens cum tanto munere hoc Was it in the Pope in the people in the Clergie in the Convocation in the Parliament or peradventure was it in Abeyance Away Animal I tell thee The Power in matters ecclesiasticall is such a Fee-simple as was vested in none but God himselfe before it came by his and his onely donation to be vested in the King And being vested in the King it cannot by any power whatsoever no not by his own be devested from him The donour in this Feoffment is God and God onely the Deed a Prescription time out of mind in the Law of nature declared more especially and at large by that Statute-law which we call the Word of GOD. So that Doctour you deserve but a very simple Fee for your impertinent example of this Fee-simple But what do you merit for your next prank where you say most ignorantly and most derogatorily to his Majesties right and just prerogative that that Statute of 1º Elis c. 2. was a Confirmative of the old Law What and was it not good until it had pass'd the upper and lower house of Parliament was not God able enough the King his bright Image upon earth capable enough the Deed of Nature and Scripture strong enough but that like a Bishops Concurrent Lease it must receive a Confirmation in that great Chapter Your Authour a deep learned man in his faculty hath it otherwise and rightly It was resolved by the Judges that the said Act of the first yeare of the late Queen concerning Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction was not a statute introductory of a New Law but declaratory of the Old Parliaments are not called to confirm but to affirm and declare the Laws of God Weak and doubtfull Titles are to be confirmed such cleare and indubitate Rights as his Majestie hath to the Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction are onely averred and declared by Acts of Parliament And all declarations of this kind are as the stuffe whereof they are made to last forever and no Jonas Gourds to serve a turn or two and so expire as those Probationers did which peradventure some Justice his Clerk might tell you of Yea but your meaning is that this Jurisdiction was intruth or of right ought to be by the ancient Laws of the Realme parcell of the Kings Jurisdiction and united to the Crowne Imperiall Still you are short and write nothing like a Divine I tell you man It is the Kings right by the ancient Law of God and a main parcell of the Kings jurisdiction although the Laws of the Realm had never touched upon it Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester in his Oration of true Obedience saith that by the Parliaments calling of King Henry the Eighth Head of the Church there is no new invented matter wrought onely their will was to have the power pertayning to a Prince by Gods Law to be the more clearely expressed with this sounding and Emphaticall Compellation So likewise in that Book set forth by the King and Convocation called The Institution of a Christian man in the Chapter of the Sacrament of Orders it is thus written Vnto Christian Kings and Princes of right and by Gods Commandment belongeth specially and principally to conserve and maintain the true doctrine of Christ and all such as be true Preachers and setters forth thereof and to abolish all abuses heresies and Idolatries c. And John Beckinsan speaking of these particulars in hand to wit Ceremonies and Traditions not commanded by God but recommended by Clergy-men to stirre up the people to pietie and devotion saith That however they mayor ought to be maintained by the Bishops yet can they not be established as a Law otherwise then by the Authority of the supreme Magistrate And these are all Papists not Protestants who may be suspected to collogue with their Princes Nor is this Right united to the Crown of England onely as this Scribbler seems to conceive but to all other Christian Crowns and challenged by all Christian Princes accordingly For the Romane Empire one of the former Authours doth instance in Justinian that with the approbation of all the world he set forth those Laws of the most blessed Trinity the Catholick Faith of Bishops Clergie-men hereâ—icks and the like For the most ancient Kingdomes of Castile Leon Toledo and others of Spaine famous is that great work of the seven Partidas or Sections of Laws advanced by Ferdinando the third otherwise called the Saint in whose long reign of 35 yeares there was no touch of hunger or contagion but finished and compleated by his Sonne Alfonso the tenth in the first Partida or Section whereof he speaks wholy of matters pertaining to the Catholick faith which directs a man to know God by way of credence or beliefe Nor were those Volumes so composed and collected in those seven yeares imployed in that service to be afterward disputed of in Schools and Vniversities onely but for the decision of Causes and the doing of justice in all those Kingdomes and Dominions And how many Kings before this had made Laws to the same effect in those Countreys God knoweth For these Partidas were for the most part but a Collection of the ancient Laws And no otherwise have these matters been carried in the Kingdome of
that whosoever hath moved you to dislike this Order can give you no reason for it Order saith the King a godly Order saith the Parliament both mean the same thing as they use the same words An Order for Common prayers in the Mother-tongue So that Father Parsons and you must unlaugh again this foolish Laughter which you made without cause upon this Act of Parliament Well let the King the Counsell and the Parliament order what they please two things he will make good first that if Origen or Arnobius do say they had no Altars in the Primitive Church they meant not any for bloudy or externall Sacrifices as the Gentiles had Where you see he is almost come to that we have been wrangling for all this while That they had no Altars for externall Sacrifices And shew me that ever one Father or Schoolman did teach a necessity of an externall Altar to an internall Sacrifice and I will yeeld him the better of the Controversie But I see his Loop-hole already he will help himself with those words As the Gentiles had Although it be God wot but a poore shift And secondly he will make it good that the Church had Altars both the Name which the Letter denies not but onely the name applied to the materiall Instrument call'd the Lords Table and Thing too a long time together before the birth of Origen and Arnobius This later part would prove too heavie a Buckler for any man to take up that were to fight it out with a Scholar indeed For the Writer of the Letter doth utterly decline the Combat retiring himself to his 200 years which will not serve his Turn for all his Caution if Sixtus Primus did first appoint that Masse should be said no where but upon an Altar as to an advantage of ground and turning B. Jewell against this Goliah without averring any thing of his own beside the testimony of S. Paul at which this Doctour like that drunken Gossip saith Amen when he should have said All this I stedfastly believe But having to do but with this man of rags I dare undertake him in both the points and if I could fully satisfie that place of Tertullian in his Book De Oratione will adventure my credit to wipe his nose of the rest of those Testimonies produced by him And all this while I am no Champion for the Writer of the Letter who hath withdrawn his Neck out of the Collar but of the great Champion of our Church B. Jewell For the first therefore because B. Jewell saith that then the faithfull for fear of Tyrants were fain to meet together in private houses c. therefore it was they were not so richly furnished or at least wise they had not such Altars as the Gentiles had saith D. Coal But B. Jewell when he spake those words of their wanting of Churches in the Primitive Church addes presently a word or two which this Doctour did not unwillingly forget And may we think that Altars were built before Churches Which though it be not altogether an unanswerable Question for men are of opinion that Altars were built before the Churches yet is it sufficient to declare the impudencie of this man that would undertake to answer Origen and Arnobius out of B. Jewell B. Jewells conclusion there is that M. Harding was ill advised to say confidently that Altars have ever been sithence the Apostles times And he answers fully out of S. Austin the Doctours Objection that Altars being then portativo and carried by the Deacons from place to place which the learned Papists do not deny they might have had Altars although they had no standing Temples That is portative Altars not of Stone fixed to the walls of the Church as our late Popish Altars be of the which B. Jewell might very well make his former Question Now for that other Flam That Origen and Arnobius should deny their having onely of Heathenish but not of Christian Altars although it were enough to stop the mouth of this Ignoto to set down the Testimonies of those great Worthies of the reformed Church who with B. Jewell expound these two Fathers of the having no Altars at all as the B. of Duresme Mornay Desiderius Heraldus Monsieur Moulin Hospinian and others yet because he thinks he hath gotten the Cowards advantage to put us to the proofe of the Negative presuming onely upon the justice of the cause I will undertake him upon these hard conditions For Origen it is clear'd in a word that he was not interrogated and consequently that he never answered concerning the Heathen or Pagan Altars For Celsius his adversary what Countrey-man soever he was disguiseth himself as a Iew disputing against the Christians in all that discourse And it were an Argument fitting as wise a Rabbin as our D. Coal to prove the Christians to be Atheists because they had not which they themselves abhorred to the death Pagan Altars But Celsus his objection is to the purpose and generall that the Christians had amongst thēselves a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or secret Token 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of some invisible combination that they erected no kinde of Altars as all other Sects and Professions not being Atheists amongst the Jews and Gentiles did And to this generall Objection the Answer was likewise generall or very impertinent that they had no Altars at all but those immateriall Altars we spake of before in the Souls and Consciences of holy men And Arnobius well weighed comes to the same effect For howbeit he had not to do with Jewes but with Gentiles yet the Objection is in generall termes not that they erected no Altar for their Gods and Sacrifices but that they built them no Altar venerationis ad officia to officiate upon in any kinde of divine worship And so Desiderius Heraldus the best Critick extant upon that Book delivers himself That this may be understood simply and absolutely without any relation to the Pagan Altars Holding an opinion elsewhere that simply and absolutely there were no Altars erected in the Church of God before Tertullians time But this will appeare yet more clearly by a place of S. Cyrill which the L. B. of Duresme doth thorowly examine to this purpose For Julian the Apostata had been a Reader of our Church and knew the generall practice thereof and that it had been in him a ridiculous thing to imagine that the Christians should have any Pagan Altars Nay the wittie Prince takes notice of it that the very Jewes do sacrifice and have an agreement in that particular with the Pagans and yet concludes bitterly against us as he conceives Offerre Sacra in Altari sacrificare cavetis You Christians are most scrupulous in offering of any Sacrifice upon your Altar And to this as the Learned Bishop well observes S. Cyrill answers not one word which had been prevarication before God and man if