Sexes dedicated to God Religious Ceremonies and all sorts of enticements to love heaven and follow good life So that the Antiquity the Protestant pretends to is of wanting wilfully those means of helping soules which the primitive Church wanted by the Violence of Persecution and the Antiquity meaned by Catholicks is of being like the Ancient Church in all things that promote vertue inwardly and outwardly The ninth Shuffle Of the Word Tradition TO Antiquity hangs Tradition that is the receiving of Doctrine and Customes from the Ancient Church The which Catholicks place in this that it is derived fom the Apostles to us by the continuall and immediate delivery of one Age to another the sons continuing their Fathers both beliefe and conversation in Christian life and treading the same paths of Salvation This was a bit of too soure a digestion for Protestants being not able to shew any Masters from whome they had received theire beliefe Yet a Tradition they must have not to be openly convinced of having forged their doctrine Some of them therefore sayed they received their doctrine by the Tradition of the Bible made unto them by the Churches continuing since the Apostles time Wherein you see an open equivocating in the word of Tradition Catholicks taking it for the delivery of doctrine that is of sense and meaning the Protestants for the delivery of a mute book or killing letter Others call Tradition the Testimony of the Fathers of all Ages and so att least divert the Question Turning the proof of Religion which is plaine and easie to every ordinary understanding into a business of learning and long study in which though they be worstted yet the People cannot see it nor descry theire falshood The tenth Shuffle Of the word Really TO descend from the Universality or defence of their whole Religiō to speciall articles of it wee shall finde them there like themselves As for example those who beare an outward respect to the Fathers finding them concurring so thick to testify Christes Body to bee in the Holy Eucharist will see me to say the same and use the word of Christ being Really and verily and truely in the Sacrament and that they onely question the manner how he is there which is lawfull amongst Catholicks to do So that you cannot almost distinguish them from Catholicks Vntil you come to explicatiō There the Catholick sayeth that Christes Body is in the sacrament as the substance of Bread was in the thing which before wee called Bread and now is no more but turned into that body wich was hanged on the Cross by an entitative and reall mutation The Protestant wil tell you that it is stil Bread and naturally and entitatively the same thing wich it was before consecration but that by faith which is a real actiō it is Christes true body to us How to justify these words that by Faith it is Christes true body is impossible unless they wil have us believe by faith what they tell us is false Therefore others say it is an assurāce of Christs Body as a bond is of mony Peradventure of enjoying Christe in Heaven But how different both senses bee from the Catholick which they seek to be thought theirs and from the natural meaning of the words every mā cā see So that the manner of being Christes Body which they question signifies whether it bee truely there or no but onely by a false apprehension they call Faith The eleventh Suffle Of the Word Sacrifice The like is of the word Sacrifice and Altar and such other In which the Catholick position makes these words proper and that the Mass is as or more properly signified by the word sacrifice as the sacrifice of the old law That there is a true and real separatiō of the body of our Saviour from his bloud and more proper to the names then nature can make which can not make a true body when the bloud is separated nor true bloud whē the body is left out wich in this sacramēt is performed and nevertheless Christe entire and untouched But a Protestāt wil tel you that whē the Holy offering is called a sacrifice it is meaned a sacrifice of praise or thanks giving that is in reality no sacrifice but an outward ceremony of praise or thāks giving others that it is a resemblāce or represētatiō of a sacrifice to wit of that of the holy Cross so that you see the differēce of the two significatiōs is no less thē whē by the same word as of Christes one means Christs Person another a Crucifix or the picture of Christe The twelfth Shuffle Of the Word Priesthood In consequēce and conformity to this they abuse the Word of Priesthood For finding al Antiquity gloriously full of this name they must also use it and finding St. Paul had too expressely taught us that a Priest was a publick Officer ordained to offer to God giftes and sacrifices and that he ought to be legitimately called to the office and that Catholiks take Priesthood in this meaning And how on the other side themselves had taken out of the Church all solemn offerings and sacrifice the business of a Priest and nevertheless shame on one side and ambition on the other egged them on to call themselves Priests they were forced to corrupt the Word sacrifice first as is declared to come to the name Priesthood So that Priesthood in the Protestant meaning is an officer chosen to sing Psalmes in the sight of the People The which how different it is from the Catholick explication of being the publick Officer of the eternall sacrifice is too plain to be declared Onely I must add that who takes ordination with the intention onely to become the chief or high singer of the Parish receiveth not Priesthood as it is meaned and used in the Catholick Church The thirteenth Shuffle Of the word Faith THe abuse of this name Faith must not bee omitted which Catholicks taking for a perswasion of such truths as are necessary to bring us to good life and salvation which perswasion wee settle upon Christes doctrine delivered unto us by Tradition of the Church The which meaning is cleare in the Apostle who expresseth himself to speak of faith that works by Charity The first Protestants took the word Faith as excluding Charity and cryed downe good works as improfitable the latter ashamed of this as destroying good life and plainly contrary to the whole designe of Scripture and Fathers took it for the same faith that Catholicks do but would have it have force precisely out of its being a persuasion and the working to follow to no effect but as a hanger on without any End whereas Catholicks make the persuasion to bee chiefly or wholly to breed Charity which is the true cause of salvation But the presbiterian party and the plainer dealing Protestants have quite changed and destroyed faith saying faith is a Persuasion that the believer must have that hee in Person is one of the
Sanctifications or Initiations to enter us in the other six vertues Baptisme for faith Confirmation for hope Penance to redresse the wrongs we do to God and to our neigh-bour Matrimony and Extreme-Unction to injure us to temperance and to fortify us against the terrours of death Prudence because it eminently belongeth to commanders received its proper initiation in the installing of Spirituall Gouvernours which are Priests and Bishops Who being more eminent in Science and Charity have power to governe the flocke oâ— Christ And to the end that emulation might not breake unity among them Christ by his owne practise and mouth gave the Primacy to Saint Peter to whose see and successour inferiour Bishops were to have recourse in all publike necessities or dissentions of the Church And who att this day is commonly called the Pope It is incredible how great encrease of devotion and Charity accrueth to Christian people by the reverent administration and faithfull reception of these sacraments What respect and awe towardes to what adhesion their teachers their doctrine what obedience to their directions in fine how great a life to the Church and eminency above such synagogues as are destitute of these holy institutions The Apostles therefore armed with these and the aforesaid powers dispersed themselves into all the quarters of the earth planting this common doctrine and practise through the universe and dying left the inheritance of the same to their successors Who in debates about doctrines and in other dissentions meeting together and finding what the Apostles had left to the Churches they had planted did cast out such as would not conforme themselves to the received Tradition And so Christians were divided The parties cast out being denominated from their Masters or particular doctrines The part adhering to the Apostles Tradition retaining the name of the Apostolike Church Which because it was as it were the whole of Christians was therefore termed Catholike or Universall These Apostles and Disciples left certaine writinges But neither by command nor with designe to deliver in any or all of them a summary of our faith but occasionally teaching what they thought requisite for some certaine place or company which the Holy Ghost intended for the comfort of the Church In which as we professe there is nothing false or uncertaine so we know the unwritten Preaching ought to be the rule of their interpretation att least negatively Neither can we vindicate those bookes from the corruption of transscribers and much lesse of Interpretours whose labours can not pretend to the authority of scripture otherwise then by a knowne conformity to the Originals Tradition therefore became the rule of faith and Councells and Apostolicall Sees became the infallible depositaries of Tradition The other Sees fayling either by the destruction of Christian Religion in those quarters or by a voluntary discession from the rule of faith the Roman See first instructed by the two chiefe Apostles and afterwardes by perpetuall correspondence with all Christian countries and their recourse to it in matters of faith and discipline remained the onely single Church which was able in vertue of perpetuall succession to testify what was the Apostles doctrine Afterwardes Heretikes confounding equivocally the names of Apostolike and Cathlick by an impudence of saying what they list without shew of reason the Catholike party hath been forced for distinction sake to adde to their Church the sirname of Roman Declaring there by that the Roman particular Church is the Head and Mistresse and cause of Vnity to all those Churches that have share in the Catholike By this linke of truth namely of receiving doctrine by succession and by the linke of Vnity in the Roman head of the Church as the Church hath hitherto stood in Persecutions Heresies and Schismes so we are assured it will never faile untill the second coming of Christ but do hope it will encrease into an universall kingdome of his to dure an unknowne extent of Ages designed in the Apocolypse by the number of a thousand yeares in great prosperity and in freedome both from Pagans without and from Heretikes with in and in great aboundance of Charity and good life This being evidently the effect of Christs coming we see that the generall good life of Mankinde which proceedeth from the knowledge of the End to which we are created and from other motives and meanes delivered by Christs doctrine was the great and onely designe for which he tooke flesh that is to be the cause to us of a happy life both in this world and in the next The which having been the main advantage of the State of Paradise or of our nature before corruption It is cleare that Christ hath repaired the fault of Adam by making whole Mankind capable of attaining everlasting blisse unto which before his coming one only family had means to arrive The settling of Mankind in this repaire restored it to such a condition in respect of God that from thenceforth he resolved to bestow his greatest benefits upon it that is eternall felicity Whereas before as long as it was in the state of sinne his decrees were for its Vniversall Damnation By which it is cleare that Christ appeased his Fathers wrath and made him a friend of a foe he had formerly been unto us So that because eternall blisse followeth out of a good life and out of a constant habit or inclination to it as likewise damnation out of the state of a sinnefull inclination formal justification and sanctity do consist in the habit of good life and the state of damnation consisteth in an habituall inclination to sinne Neither the one nor the other in an extrinsecall acceptation or refusall of the Divine Will or its arbitrary Election or dislike which are only the efficient causes from whence proportionably to their natures they depend Further because Man-kinde was not able of it selfe to gett out of the State of sinne and by consequence lay in subjection and slavery to it And seeing that Christ by the explicated meanes and actions did sett it free and gave it power to come out of that subjection and misery he did clearely Redeeme Man-kinde from this servitude of sinne and of sinnes Master the Divell and gave it the liberty wherein it was created att the first And because Christ did this by his death and by the penall actions of his life he is rightly said to have by them payed a ransome for mankind Notwithstanding this generall preparation by which Man-kinde was enabled to well-doing no particular man arriveth to any action of vertue without the speciall providence and benevolence of Almighty God By which by convenient circumstances both externall and internall he prepareth the heart of that man unto whom he is gratious and favourable to receive these common impressions and maketh it good earth fitt for the seede of his eternall cultiuatour who without any respect to former merits planteth faith and charity and all that is good in him meerely of his
owne benignity and gratiousnesse This he doth not by immediatly determining the man but by so sweetning the proposals that they overcome his heart and make it determine it selfe according to the will of God For Divinity teacheth that the power of God after it hath given Being unto creatures doth nothing immediatly by it self but all by the mediation of the second causes onely setting them on worke So that if as some Philosophers held and is yet the manner by which many apprehend creatures to work they could worke of themselves and did so without being pushed on by him just the very same things would happen as now they do So that neither Predestination nor Reprobation by being what they are purely in God do bring any change att all in our wills determinations Nor ought there any mention to be made of them further then to shew Gods wisedome and goodnesse who fore-saw and fore-willed and so caused like an universall not like a particular cause all our actions as farre as they are good Onely where something occurreth wherein it is fitting that the course of materiall causes should be moderated and directed above their owne line to the right governement of Man-kinde there the Allmighty goodnesse hath other instruments to performe his will These we call Angels incorporall and spirituall substances The which being created with the beginning of time but not subjected to time were independently of time perfected for their owne Blisse or Misery Those who envyed mans felicity in becoming God remaining in such darkenesse and torments as extremity of willfulnesse causeth in natures of that kinde which are beyond all that we can imagine the purer part of them by adhesion to Gods disposall becoming participant of his sight with an unconceivable blisse and happiness These under his divine Majesty do governe humane actions and their negotiation for Blisse the blessed Party of them being ready to furnish us with all goods as farre as the course of Providence requireth and permitteth The bad being prompt to inflict upon men all harmes of soule and body when ever the hand of Providence doth not hold the reines This each sort of them doth in common and in particular when the ordinary course is to be inverted for the sweeter bringing of Man-kinde to the intended Blisse And such of them as are specially intent to particular persons are used to be called their Guardian Angels if they be good Divels or Accusers if they be wicked Spirits By these wayes and Instruments Christ planted his Church and governeth it and will conserve it as long us this world which was made for it shall continue keeping it free from Errour and in the quality of a Teacher a Commander and a visible Tribunall unto which all may repaire who seeke salvation But when the fore-designed worke shall be finished and the number of our brethren be compleated then shall the world be consumed by fire Mankinde rise and appeare before Christ their Judge and receive their eternall dome and all time and motion be ended and turned into a constant state for all Eternity The good shall receive the full reward of their vertue which in this life is but inchoated in their soules If they went out of their bodies perfect in charity they enjoyed immediatly the sight of God and do assist us now by their prayers as they did living by their merits that is by their good example and profitable labours for their posterity And so wee invocate them and desire God that both their prayers and merits may be beneficiall to us And because we account them Persons highly worthy and in the favour of God we therefore testify so much by keeping their dying-days Festivall for the encouragement of others to imitate them And we beare a respect to their Relikes such as we do to holy instruments as the Bible chalices consecrated oyles and the like And as we kisse the hand of a Prince or the garment of a Prelate intending it as a ceremony of honour to him so we kisse the relikes or pictures of Saints and especially crosses which we take for the pictures of Christ crucifyed making that kissing the ceremony of expressing honour to the Person represented This in the Greeke and Latine expressions is called Adoration which signifyeth kissing That being the most ancient and naturall ceremony of protesting a loving honour And the words reaching in a divers sense and meaning to the thing immediatly touched and to the Person to whom the honour is done It is said that both of them are adored by the same act of adoration but the one materially and corporally the other with the heart and mind Wee submitting our selves to the one as to our better and making the other the meanes by which we expresse it The absolutely wicked confounded and terrifyed by the sight of their Judge will be confined to perpetuall Darkenesse of spirit and gnawing of their conscience and to the anguishes of their raging thoughts and desires for all eternity The middle sort consisting of those who according to the course of all corporall deficient and mortall goods do goe out of this world substantially in Charity and love of God but not without some weakenesses and sickenesses of their soule cannot before they are purged be admitted to the sight of God And so they expect in Darkenesse and griefe that happy change to which the prayers of the living do much avayle them These are the Heads of the Christian profession of that Church which being in the communion of the Church of Rome pretendeth to have received her doctrine from Christ and his Apostles in a perpetuall publike exercise and profession handed downe without interruption to this our presentage And out of which have issued all particular congregations which in their severall seasons separating themselves from her have been denominated by severall Appellations the name of Catholike ever remaining to her inspight of all invasions Divines may finde many more Articles of faith and Heretikes may dayly occasion more and more But all are onely explications of the here proposed doctrine Now the oppositions which Heretikes make against the Catholike Church are onely the breaking downe of all Christianity and good life either in it selfe or in its outworkes As the Socinians by denying the God-head of the the blessed Trinity and of Jesus Christ the Pelagians by denying the fable of Man and the necessity and efficacy of Grace the Puritans or Presbiterians by denying the necessity of good life to justification do destroy the very Essence of Christianity and vertue Divers denying the solemne and holy sacrifice of the Altar which is the highest externe act of our Religious duty to God by cutting of most of the sacraments by rejecting prayers to the saints and angels and all devotion for the dead by abolishing Holy-dayes and publike fasts by pulling downe the pictures of Christ and his saints which our pious ancestors did sett up to renew the memory of their examples and to excite
Predestinate and shall bee saved by this persuasion through the merits of Christe without any regard to his works and life Of which sense seeing there is no revelation there can be no relying upon the word of God for any such effect and so it is cleare these people have nothing like Faith the former Protestants having at least the Carcase but renounce the soule life and being of it A bundle of divers Shuffles If wee should as thus pass over all the points controverted between Catholiks and all that have separated thēselfs from the Catholick Church we should finde very few freely disputed but that either they calōniate the Catholick position or counterfeyt it As concerning images and Saints they pretend we worship them as Gods As for mariage they report we disallow it For the merits of Christe they say wee rely not upon them because we understand them otherwise then they do For the Catholick Church understands that Christe by his life and passion procured the Establishment of the Holy Church the preaching of the Gospel over the whole earth a settled meanes to continue and encrease what he by himself and his Apostles begun a seed and root of good life plāted by the sending of the Holy Ghost to remaine in the Church for ever a Government of Bishops and Doctours for ever sacraments to bee Vniversally administred Extraordinary Examples of Heroick vertues in Martyrs Confessours Monks and Nunnes and in a Word al that was necessary to bring the Vniversality of Mankinde to heavenly bliss and these meanes to be derived to single Persons according to Gods all good providence and the connatural suite of causes The protestant understands that Christe in his private prayer spake to his Father in particular for every one of the predestinate to save him for his and his passions sake and so infer that the beliefe that he is one of those for whome Christe specially prayed is that which must apply the grace granted by Christs eternal Father to his soule and thinkes the Catholick relyes not upon Christs merits because he doth it not so sillily as he does In penance the Catholick holdeth it a sacrament in forme of a judgment in which the penitent is absolved or condemned according to his desert The Protestant holdeth onely as it were a complement of ones acknowledging himself a sinner and asking of mercy and that the preacher without farther ceremony absolve him Those who believe not the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation nevertheless use the words of one God and three Persons and profess that though they hold the son and Holy Ghost to be creatures yet that they are to be called each of them God and likewise though some hold Christe to have no other nature then of a Man yet that he is justly called God for his greate perfections and Vnity in Charity with God It were superfluous to multiply more examples to shew how it is not the zeal of truth but either ignorance in them who do not understand the true difference betwixt the Catholick Church and its deserters or malice in them who disguise either theire owne tenets or those of the Catholick party God prosper the labours of those who seek Vnity and by his sweet conduct bring all who profess the name of Christe into perfect concord in one flock by the Vnity in faith and charity PAg. 3. l. 16. Leap p. 6. l. 8.50 l. 18. so p. 7. l. 4. with l. 7. even l. 27. of all p. 13. l. 6. too weak to p. 14. l. 14. of coming p. 17. l. 22. a quality p. 18. l. 7. to p. 21. l. 1. to p. 21 l. 1. to p. 22 l. 23. observe p. 23. l. 7. same manner l. 9. Godliness p. 27. l. 23. and 4. one then it p. 30. l. 6. hynde p. 52. l. 1. bee turned p. 58. l. 3. cultivated p. 59. l. 5. byassed p. 51. l. 27. different p. 74. l. 7. preaching p. 66. l. 18. cure drunkeness p. 69. l. 23. bring the p. 70. l. 9. God as solidly p. 72. l. 15. Conicks p. 74. l. 18. obstructed p. 76. l. 10. be forced p. 82. l. 22. before to bee for p. 87. l. 4. proceedeth upon l. 2.5 long p. 88. l. 24. solve p 89. l. 7. imparity p. 92. l. 8. and contradict p. 93. l. 8. offer p. 103. l. 22. overweened p. 104. l. 21. runne p. 105. l. 8. see l. 13. carry p. 107. l. 19. condescendences p. 109. l. 10. to see p. 117. l. 17. of allegations p. 119. l. 22. are as good p. 122. l. 25. Coelibate p. 128. l. 10. 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