we charge upon Popery as if we would make the World believe that Papists think as ill of what themselves profess and practice P. 5. as we do And much more for putting these consequences as owned by Papists in the Front of the Protestant Characters of them as if we pretended they were the First Principles of Popery As for the Doctrines and Practises of the Roman Church which we charge them with the Representer generally owned them but he disowned as he easily might the belief of those Consequences and Interpretations which we charge upon them And therefore his putting them into the Protestant Characters of a Papist was his own Artifice of laying the fouler colours upon Popery on the one side that it might look the fairer when he took them off on the other Now to prevent these Deceits for the future this Answer goes through the Thirty seven Articles again P. 6. to p. 40. to shew under each Head what we charge upon them as their Doctrines and Practises which is properly matter of Representation And likewise what we charge upon such Doctrines and Practises which is properly matter of Dispute By the confounding of which two things the Representer had made a colour for his unjust complaints of Misrepresentation 2. Whereas he pretended that he never delivered his own private sense and opinion in Representing a Papist P. 44 45. the Answerer replies that he certainly does so when he determines concerning Questions which are disputed among themselves whether they be Articles of Faith or not and that the Catechism may be interpreted by a private spirit as well as the Council That Veron's Rule had no more Authority than the Representer's Characters That Bellarmines Controversies had attestation from the Pope as well as the Bishop of Condom's Exposition And that Canus himself who is referred to by the Representer acknowledges that the Popes approbation is not always to be accounted the judgment of the Apostolick See As to the Instances The Answerer shews P. 45 46. I. Of his limitting the Power of the Saints to their Prayers That no such limitation of their Aid and Assistance is to be found in the Council That the Representer would take no notice of what his first Answerer had said to shew that no such limitation was intended in the Council or the Catechism And that he did not find this limitation in the Bishop of Condom P. 12 13. 2. Of Merit That the Twenty sixth Canon of the sixth Session mentions nothing of it and that it is clear from Chap. 16. of that Session That they make Good works truly and properly meritorious of Eternal Life tho they grant the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ to be the cause of their own Merits Finally That the Answerer did not Appeal to the Thirty second Canon to oppose the Representer's Qualification of the Doctrine of Merit P. 46. P. 47 48. and was therefore unconcern'd in his defence of it 3. As to the Pope's Personal Infallibility That he denies it to be of Faith and makes it but a School point whilest there are as many who deny it to be a School point and make it a matter of their Faith That the want of positive Determination by a General Council does not prove it to be no matter of Faith because neither the Infallibility of a General Council nor of the Church is positively determined by a General Council That if Infallibility must be somewhere amongst them they have the best Reason that place it in the Pope 4. As to the deposing Doctrine P. 49. the Answerer shewed largely and clearly That Articles of Faith may be and have been decreed without Anathema's That the deposing Decree includes a Doctrinal point P. 54. P. 56. That if it were meerly a point of Discipline and Government they must either acknowledg it Lawful for the Church to depose Heretical Princes or consent that the Church is not secured from making wicked Decrees in things that concern the whole Christian World That when the Representer says That some Decrees of Trent are not universally received he does not tell us that the Council had no Authority to make them and to oblige Princes to receive them And lastly That the Pope's letting so many asserters of the No-deposing Power to pass without any censure of Heresy P. 57. does not argue a change of their Doctrine but only of the Times 3. To the Representer's Reflections upon the Answerer's way of proceeding as that 1. He owns in some part the Representer's Doctrine to be the established Doctrine of the Church of England The second Answerer charges him with foul Misrepresentation upon this account in as much as the first Answerer owned nothing which is peculiar to the Faith of a Papist as distinguished from thr common Faith of Christians and that the Representer might as well have said P. 59 60 61. That because Protestants own that Christ is to be worshipped therefore they in part own the Doctrine of the Church of Rome That Christ is to be worshipped by Images And this he shewed to be the very case in every one of those six or seven Points which the Representer only named but did not think fit to insist upon to shew how his Reflection was applicable to them 2. And that the first Answerer appealed from the definitions of their Church c. 1. To some Expositions found in old Mass-Books and Rituals P. 62. This Answerer says that he could find but one Instance of this relating to the Worship of the Virgin Mary viz. that scandalous Hymn O Felix Puerpera c. But that their Church is accountable for her old Missals which were the allowed and established Offices of Worship That even this has never been condemned but that Monsieur Widenfelts Book was condemned at Rome which was writ to bring the people to a bare Ora pro Nobis P. 63. to the Blessed Virgin 2. To some external Action as in case of respect shewn to Images and Saints To this the Answerer says That the Representer brings in this Exception without taking the least notice of what his first Adversary said concerning external Adoration P. 63 64. That it is a part of Divine Worship and that the Council of Trent requires it should be given to Images He shews further That since there is such a thing as external and visible Idolatry an Idolatrous action is nevertheless such P. 65. for the intention of him that is guilty of it not to commit Idolatry P. 66. That the worship of the Invisible Inhabitants of the other World tho with such external acts as may be paid to creatures has always been accounted Religious Worship That as the Degrees of Civil honour are distinguish'd by the sight of the Object So one certain distinction between Civil and Religious is P. 67. that the worship of an Invisible Object is always Religious and that to Worship
same Proofs c. yet surely the First Point is none of them And therefore let 's try the next 2. It is objected against us that we make Gods of dead Men and this is proved by the weekly Bills of Mortality where our Churches are called by the same Titles that they had in times of Popery Now if by making Gods of dead Men be meant making the Saints so many Independent Deities there is then a great deal of difference between what the Zealous Brother objects against us and what We object against the Papists as well as between the Reasons of our Objections For we never object this against them But if by this Expression be meant giving that Worship to the Saints which belongs only to God and our Saviour we then allow our Objection to be the same but do think that we have much better Reasons to object this against the Papist than that of a weekly Bill of Mortality For we appeal to the Publick Addresses which are made to Virgin Mary and other Saints with all the Circumstances of External Adoration to their Litanies and to the Hymns of their establish'd Offices wherein they are often in voked after the same manner as God himself is to their appropriating to particular Saints distinct Powers of doing good to their Worshippers to their Acknowledgment that the Saints are Mediators of Intercession to the Prayers that are made to them in all places as if they were omnipresent to the Sense also of their Council of Trent that they are to be prayed unto with mental as well as vocal Prayer as if they knew our Hearts All which I hope is something more than that in the weekly Bill of Mortality and in common Conversation we call our Temples by the same Names they formerly had And yet the Representer asks Wherein have I Ridiculed the Church of England I have done no more in my Character against her then what they have been doing these hundred and fifty Years against the Church of Rome so that it seems we have for these hundred and fifty Years charged them with Worshipping the Saints upon no better grounds then their weekly Bills of Mortality Only saith he what I have done in a kind of jest and without endeavouring to delude any body with such kind of Sophistry they have been doing in the greatest earnest and by it making good their Cause So that he confesses his Charge upon our Church to be carried on with a kind of Sophistry only what he has done in a kind of jest we have been doing against them in the greatest earnest i. e. we have in good earnest charged the Church of Rome with giving that Worship to Saints which belongs to God only upon nothing else but the Titles of Churches such as ours have in the Bills of Mortality But surely his greatest Sophistry of all lies in this that he endeavours to delude People into this Opinion which yet if he could he must delude them into another Opinion too that Bellarmin and all the famous Champions of old Popery were a company of Fools to be at so much Sweat and Charges to maintain the Worship of Saints and to defend it as they have done when they could so easily have denied it For that nothing is easier than to make good our disowning it against the ground upon which he charges us with it I shall presently make appear To let pass his Suggestion that the London Churches were first built by the Papists his adding that we rebuilt them with the same Titles Invocations and Dedications which they use shews how little he is to be trusted in a Question of Antiquity who talks so carelesly of things that are notorious in our own Days Our Fathers indeed found the Titles convenient enough and the Churches themselves reasonable good Churches and retain'd them both But when we raised them out of their Ashes we dedicated them to no Saint whatever has been done in this kind formerly nor have we since invocated any Saint in any one of them but we keep the Titles still And does our new Representer expect that we should Answer such Objections as these At least I desire him not to think that we will make a practice of it Must our retaining these Titles necessarily infer a virtual Dedication of our Temples to those Saints by whose Names they are distinguished from one another But what if we had called them by the Names of those Streets only where they stand had they then been dedicated to the Honour of the Streets We say that the Hundred Thirty and Two Churches here which are known by the Names dead Men and Women are with us God's Houses and dedicated to his only Service no less than the Five that are distinguished by the Names of Christ and the Trinity And me thinks so acute a Disputant as he is grown might have seen that the Title of one Church distinguishing it from the rest does not shew who is served and worshipped there when the same Service and Worship is used in all of them That which we blame them for is that they continue to worship Dead Men and Women in those Churches which bear their Names and in those which do not For if in Christ's Church they call upon the Blessed Virgin tho the Church has its Title from Christ yet 't is a House of Prayer to Her as well as to Him And if in the Churches which are known by her Name we call upon God only and worship him alone they are his Houses intirely and none of Hers. But after all where does the Answerer press him with the Titles of their Churches And yet the Reasons which press home the Arguments are they not the very same which the Answerer himself urges against him the Representer 3. I confess that I have seen Pictures in some English Bibles and Common-prayer Books and Moses and Aaron painted on each side of the Commandments upon some of our Altar pieces which things how they have crept in amongst us I cannot tell for they have no publick Authority from our Church The Answerer made his guess and perhaps it will not be easy to mend it But upon this great Occasion the Representer has brought in his Rigid Brother making us worse than the Papists themselves forgetting that he undertook to represent us not altogether so Bad and therefore he should at least have corrected himself in this manner Indeed Beloved I told ye at first that these Church-of-England-Men are within the Swing of the Dragon's Tail but I had not lied to say that they are under the Feet and the Belly more than the Papists themselves are For the Papists do no more towards the placing of Image-Worship in the Word of God than by a cleanly conveyance of that Commandment which forbids it out of the way But these Church-of England-Men as they are called have given that Abomination of Images themselves a place in every Leaf of their Bible in the very
Excommunicating and Deposing of the King but it was the fight of the Pope's Brief to such a purpose as that inspired one of the Traytors as himself confessed with those thoughts that at last setled upon the Powder Plot. And I think it was a Church of England Parliament and a Church of England Army that so loyally served his Majesty upon that occasion in the West But let the Representer shew if he can that the Papists were as serviceable in the prevention of the Powder Plot. We are now drawing to an end of a tedious Complaint which surely cannot last much longer when he is fain to spin it out with a story of the long divilish Knives which Papists were said to procure for cutting of the Protestants Throats P. 39. For I am so perfect a stranger to the least report of this matter till I met with it here that I can say nothing to it As for the Fire of London that I confess I have heard of and likewise that many charged it upon the Papists now for those that did so I hope I may without offence offer that excuse for their credulity which I take a hint of from the Representer himself It could not be expected but that the grief of so undoing a Calamity in vast numbers of suffering People should discharge it self in accusing those as the Authors of it who as they believed were well pleased with it As for the Representer what his thoughts are towards London he has given us plainly to understand in calling it a Protestant Sodom which Heaven consumed Now I dare say this was not meant for a lamentation over the sins and sufferings of the City But if men will go on to insult at this rate they should however be less clamorous against those mistakes of which the greatest occasions are given by themselves Then as to that which he calls a Monsieur's Invention They that gave credit to it have this to say for themselves That Du Moulin's public offer to make full proof of his story when Authority should require it stood many years even to the day of his death which was no improbable argument that he was provided with reasonable good testimony though it was not thought fit to call upon him for it This may be said to shew that if there were never so many that swallowed the story yet this was no reason for the Representers furious exclamations For I am by no means satisfied that they who believed it did so in defiance to all their Senses for though there were Actors and Contrivers of the Murder of King Charles the First as public as the noon-light yet I do not feel any such contradiction in supposing that some Contrivers there might be who were not as public as the noon-light And when the Representer thinks of it better he will say so too unless he will say that because the Contrivers of that dark Treason of the Powder Plot were at last as public as the noon-light therefore that it was in all likelihood a Contrivance too of the good Lord Cecil cannot be credited but in defiance to all our Senses And yet after all how does it appear that we have laid any such stress upon Du Moulin's Relation as the Representer intimates For my own part in all the conversation I have had amongst Protestants I can remember nothing concerning it but that it has been sometimes a little wondered at that he was never required to prove his story And therefore I doubt the Representer has here plaid the part of an unwise man in reviving a story to the disadvantage of the Papists which died with the first report of it as we thought at least for unless the Representer thought we had some reason to believe it why should he go about to complain that we do believe it I think we have been more Just to his Party than he has For our sense as to this matter is that since now the story is not capable either of being proved or disproved it is to be let fall and the World is no more to be troubled about it though whilst Du Moulin was alive it was not to be expected but that one or other would be harping upon it At last he comes to the Garagantua Mis-representation of them all that is P. 40. the Divine Oates with his Popist Plot. And here as from a Castle where he is safe from all possbility of Assault he bids defyance to us with all the Rhetoric that Anger and Scorn can inspire a man withal But because he lets fly at the Pulpits for this and so makes the Clergy to have given what Authority they could to Oates his lyes from their Pulpits I must needs change a word or two with him about that in our own Defence and tell him that neither is himself of that Credit nor the thing it self so likely but that it stood in great need of particular proofs I know not but that amongst Ten thousand Men here and there one might deliver the news of the Pilgrims and the Black Bills from the Pulpit But I never heard of any that did and I almost think that if the Representer had known a few Instances of this Kind out they had come if it had been for nothing but to support the Credibility of his general Accusation And to go further with him whereas he confidently says that the WHOLE Plot was received with that welcome and Credit that what would have been questioned in the very Scripture was entertained without any scruple I will make bold to ask him by whom it was entertain'd did himself believe the whole Plot while he was a Protestant If he did undoubtedly we have not lost one of the wisest of our Party If he did not neither did any body else that ever I could hear of though perhaps many might believe more then was true But for a more particular account who believed much who little who nothing at all of Oates his Discoveries and the reasons of the several Opinions he must excuse me for that I am resolved not to be drawn in Nor have I lately spoken with every Man in the Nation And 't is onely for a Representer to talk of these matters and to pronounce generally without exception though he does it also without examination of the particulars before hand Thus far I have waited upon the Representer in examining the Reasons upon which he pretends that we use I know not how many Methods to Mis-represent Papists though it has been every step out of the way For if all had been true that he pretends what is all this to the Defence of his Thirty Seven Chapters What is it to his Answerers who had no more to do then to rid their hands of those Thirty-Seven Chapters And they have done it so effectually that the Representer has thought good to rid his hands of them too But I think by this time it may appear that he has all this while given us just
cause to complain that we are many ways Mis-represented by Papists though the Representer without just cause was resolved to be before hand in the same Complaint against us For not to repeat those Mis-representations False Constructions and Wry Interpretations of Protestant Authors c. which I have shewn him to be guilty of in examining some of his Complaints it were a very easie matter to convict him of no less untrue then spiteful insinuations against all Protestants without exception in this and in his other pieces I shall at present give but one Instance and that in this his last Reply where he says that the Protestant Perswasion has its Name Being P. 17. and support not from what it is in its self but from what it is not in defying and protesting against their Neighbours 'T is easie to see what notion of Protestants such Passages as these are intended to imprint upon the minds of Men. But does the Representer in good earnest believe that our Religion is a mere Negative Religion and that we should have none at all if we had no Neighbours to defie and to protest against Or does he believe that our Religion so far as it is Negative is supported by defying and protesting against other Men does he not know that we at least pretend to support it by Reason Scripture and Antiquity Nay does he believe that there are no Affirmative points of Religion which we maintain against them and in respect of which they do in reality protest against us though it seems we have got the Name of Protestants If he does believe thus of us much more if knowing the contrary he says so however Where ' s Truth Charity or Justice If we take the Religion of Protestants as it stands in opposition to the Errors of the Church of Rome it is in many Points Affirmative and the Negative is on that Churches side For instance that God onely is to be Worshipped is as Affirmative a Conclusion as that God is but One and that Christian people are bound to read the Scriptures is as Affirmative as that they are bound to say their Prayers and that the Laiety have a Right to the Communion under both Kinds is surely as Affirmative as that they have a Right to One only Why then does the Representer say that the Protestant Profession has its Name Being and Support not from what it is in its self but from what it is not But to let this pass what although the Points held by us in opposition to the Church of Rome were only Negatives yet why must we be so bitterly represented as if our Perswasion were supported by nothing but pievishness and a Spirit of Contradiction to our Neighbours Why must we be brought in as defying and protesting against our Neighbours As if we opposed their Doctrines and Practices in despight to the Jews and not rather blamed them for saying and doing thing which we at least think are not to be justified There are divers things surely which neither Christians nor Men ought to do And so far as our Religion stands in not doing such things one would it is not the worse for being Negative nor our Practice to be blemished for having its Name from what it is not And therefore when Men come in with their Negatives in Religion and their protestations against false perswasions and evil practices they are not without more ado to be represented as Defying and Protesting against their Neighbours But least of all should it be infinuated as if our whole Religion in effect stood in this Defying and Protesting For we do in the first place Glory in this that we are Christians though we are not ashamed to be called Protestants In our Religious Assemblies where we confess our Faith before God and the World we protess no other Articles of Faith then those in which the Church of Rome agrees with us By this it is that we are Christians and it is this that makes them so This Faith which we profess and into which we were baptized is the Foundation of our assurance that if we live accordingly we shall be saved and of our hopes that those among them who are disposed to receive the Truth and repent heartily of all known sins shall find Mercy with God notwithstanding their Captivity to those Errors which if we should profess we could not have the least hope for our selves In the mean time for our Negatives against that Church we offer in our own defence that the Religion which the Scriptures teach is such a Negative Religion as ours they not injoyning and in some points forbidding what we do not do and that the truly Primitive Fathers neither professed those Doctrines nor did those things which the Church of Rome would have us to profess and to do so that their Religion was not more positive nor less Negative then ours But if it grieves good Men in the Roman Communion that there should be amongst Christians any Protestation of one Party against what is done by another it is a grief also to us only with this difference that we cannot help it but they can For if they will Reform the Terms of their Communion by the Scriptures and Primitive Antiquity they shall soon see an end of our protesting and that our Perswasion is not supported as this Representer faith by defying and protesting against our Neighbours then which he could not have said a viler thing against us no not if he had put us upon the same File with Infidels and Pagans since this is in effect to say That we have no Religion but in crosness to other People But at this rate we have been used all along though we have made no complaints of it onely they force us to it now whether we will or no Thus even in their Catechisms where one would expect plainness and sincerity we find our selves Mis-represented in that manner as if there was no such way of making Novices fast to their Church but by giving them false notions of ours For at present to name no more then their famous Doway Catechism there you find shall find the Teacher giving this wise reason Why Protestants are so so divided and damn one another for Mis-believers Because Abridgment of Christian Doctr. p. 42. Doway 1655. forsooth it is the very ground-work of Protestancy that all men even the whole-Church of God are fallible and subject to errour We say indeed that all men are subject to errour but the very ground-work of Protestancy is not as this Catechist pretends that the Church of Rome and every other Church is subject to errour but that she hath actually erred and that grievously too And his Inference from hence is no less a Mis-representation then his principle So that says he they cannot pretend to Certainty or Infallibility in any one point of their Belief So that because he is pleased to put Certainty and Infallibility together he must needs teach his