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A42578 Veteres vindicati, in an expostulatory letter to Mr. Sclater of Putney, upon his Consensus veterum, &c. wherein the absurdity of his method, the weakness of his reasons are shewn, his false aspersions upon the Church of England are wiped off, and her faith concerning the Eucharist proved Gee, Edward, 1657-1730. 1687 (1687) Wing G462; ESTC R22037 94,746 111

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Rome was from the beginning reckoned a particular Church I think is as plain as that Rome is in Italy I have proved it so fully above that I almost loath such a ridiculous subject of discourse pag. 17. And your Authorities from Pacian and Cyril of Jerusalem are not one jot to your purpose if you intend them to confirm that the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church all that they say or prove being that Catholick is the Sirname of true Christians and that every one should enquire for and unite with the Catholick Church into whatsoever place he comes Now what is this to the Church of Rome here is no mention of her here not a syllable to determine that she is the Catholick Church to unite with which these two Fathers are carefull to advise These things you tell us gave you some small encouragement to betake your self to that Communion that was both Christian and Catholick c. for which very reason you needed not have left the Communion of the Church of England which is both Christian and Catholick You ought to dislike Papist upon the same ground you dislike Protestant and if Christian was too large for you you needed not to leave the Church of England to be both Catholick and Christian the Church of England denominates her self from no particular Persons good or bad but is a True Church having lawfull Pastors and a Catholick Faith. You next say you cannot imagine why Protestants should so decline the Title of Catholick you mean or suffer it with so much silence to be laid aside unless it be pag. 18. because it imports a Faith spread throughout the World which they very well know would be utterly impossible to prove their Protestant Faith ever was c. Whether this passage is more ridiculous or false I must own that upon the sudden I cannot tell if you mean here as you ought the Church of England as you must to be consistent with your self having a good while ago cast off all the other Reformed Communions nothing can be more false and ridiculous since twice a Day we use it constantly in our Service and surely you will not be so extravagantly unreasonable to say we do not Mean or Pray for our selves when we Pray for the Good Estate of the Catholick Church So that our decling the Title and suffering it with so much silence to he laid aside must be put to the account of the grosser sort of Untruths And we need not wonder that you would offer a false reason for a false thing our Faith and the Faith of all the Reformed Churches having been already proved to be Catholick and therefore your utterly impossible to prove it to be a Faith spread throughout the World must be put up on the same account Nor is there ever a Member of the Church of England of any Learning that I ever met with or heard of that either declined the Title of a Reformed Catholick or was not ready onely to profess but also to prove that by being a Son of the Church of England he was a Member of a Catholick Church As to what you add about the other Adjunct in our ours I say of the Church of England as well as yours at Rome Creed Apostolical that you saw less reason for their claim to that and to give them their due they were more modest than much to insist upon it c. This Sentence is Brass every bit of it for if you mean the Church of England here I am astonished to think you should have so little Conscience or so little Modesty to publish such a gross untruth in the face of a Church that is so far from not insisting on the Title of Apostolical that it denounces every person excommunicate that shall dare to say the Church g Whosoever shall hereafter affirm that the Church of England by Law established under the Kings Majesty is not a TRUE and an APOSTOLICAL CHURCH teaching and maintaining the DOCTRINE of the APOSTLES let him be Excommunicated ●pso facto and not restored but onely by the Arch-Bishop after his Repentance and publick Revocation of this his WICKED ERROUR Can. 3. of the Synod in 1603. of England is not an Apostolical Church and calls such an affirmation an impious Errour But if you are resolved to carry things at this rate by brazening us down 't is to no purpose to contend with you I must needs tell you that you might as well have published to the World that the Church of England hath no Creed in her publick Service nor believes a Trinity nor hath any Bishops to preside ov●● her as this of her neither having nor pretending to Apostolical Faith and Succession If you include also the rest of the Reformed Churches you might easily know that there is no thing they so much insist upon as the proving their Faith and Practices to be purely Apostolical and therefore their Churches to be such so that neither are they so modest as not to insist on their being Apostolical as to the want of Succession among them that you object against 'em and they do not deny you your self have furnished them with an answer to your Party from St. Ambrose's words Non habent Petri haereditatem qui Petri Fidem non habent de Poenit. l. 1. c. 6. that they enjoy not the inheritance or Succession of Peter who have not the Faith of Peter But here you have a mind to make the Church of England to be of your opinion that is that the foreign Reformed Churches have no true Ministers because those that come out of France with the Title of Ministers are not allowed to exercise their Ministry before they receive the Orders of the Church of England pag. 19. c. It is true they are not allowed to have a Cure of Souls here without the taking of Episcopal Orders because it is expressly provided by Act of Parliament among us that no one shall have such a Cure of Souls without Episcopal Orders which Act you know was fully designed against our home Dissenters who had opportunities of Episcopal Orders at home not against them who could not have them at home with whom also we had nothing to do But since no exception was made in the Act for them the Church cannot dispense with an Act of Parliament in their favour However that she allows theirs to be true tho' imperfect Churches is hence plain because her Members in their Travels communicate with those Churches which thing she would never permit had they no Ministry it was the Practice of our Exiles in France during the long Rebellion and Dr. R. Watson hath lately put forth the most Learned and most Religious Bishop Cozin who was one of those noble exiled Confessors his Defence of their communicating there with Geneva rather than Rome So that your Argument fails you also here CHAP. XV. More of his foul Aspersions on the Church of England exposed and
might have quoted our Collect for all Conditions of Men O God the Creatour and Preserver of all Mankind p. 9. c. instead of the passage out of Theodoret onely you had a mind to shew your great reading otherwise ours would have served you to all the purposes this can they both saying the same thing that is not one syllable to your intentions p. 10. St. Ambrose's and St. Hierome's are just the same speaking that which none of our Church can deny every member of it doth believe that there is one Catholick and Apostolick Church and at the same time is as ready to profess that he doth no more believe than any of the Primitive Christians ever did that the Church of Rome is that Church or that that one Catholick and Apostolick Church is governed by one Supreme Pastour the Bishop of Rome which was the thing you were to prove but how little you have performed it I dare appeal to any one that would but as he reads consider and compare your quotations and what I have said upon them More Testimonies it seems you could have given us p. 10. but you say it were too tedious either to write or reade c. There is another reason why they would be tedious and that is because if they are no better than these we have had already they would have been nothing to the purpose and to say those Testimonies you have presented us are not the best would be to disparage your prudence and parts which we need not doe One more however you cannot refrain giving us for good omens sake that of Constantine the Great whose Zeal for the Vnity of the Catholick Church and his most earnest endeavours for the peace thereof all know and admire and therefore 't was needless to recite since it hath not one syllable to your business which was not to prove what both sides affirm that there is a Catholick Church but that the Church of Rome is that Catholick Church governed by one Supreme Pastour Quod restat probandum aternùm restabit One thing I must desire of you by reason of these passages that if ever you set up again for a Writer you would either tell us what Editions the Books are of which you quote or name the Books you pick'd 'em out of you cite the 62d Chapter Valesius's Edition says it 's the 64th you quote the 63d and he says it 's the 65th Chapter of Eusebius's 3d Book of the Life of Constantine CHAP. VIII The Ridiculousness of his Attempt against Protestant Communions exposed and an Vnity of Faith among them proved HERE pag. 10. as tho' you had done wonders by your Authorities you not without a secret vain-glory say What would I have once given to have found such an Vnity amongst Protestants to have England Scotland Denmark Zwethland Geneva Zurick c. thus Unius Labii nay to have found but one County in my own dear Countrey or perhaps one single Family so united a Brotherhood c. I wish Sir that it might have been my good fortune to have met you sometime with money in your Pocket in this generous mood I do assure you that I would have been reasonable and for one Guinea would have proved it to you or have forfeited 40 that all these Churches you have reckoned up in the North and Western parts of Europe are as much Vnius Labii as all the Proofs you have tack'd together do either prove or require for to repeat the substance of them there is none of them all doth either prove or offer at it that all the Particular Churches of Christ should have the same Customs Rites Ceremonies and Discipline without any difference one from another That which they prove and indeed there is but one that doth it clearly that from Irenaeus is that the Vnity of the Catholick Church dispersed throughout the world or which is the same thing of all the Particular Churches every where which do make up the Catholick Church was in and from the one Faith which she had from the Apostles and this Faith was that which we call the Apostle's Creed a Summary of which St. Irenaeus having set down in the short Chapter immediately before this out of which you have your quotation begins this Chapter as you have quoted that the Catholick Church having received this Preaching and this Faith to wit included in the Apostle's Creed doth preserve it and teach it inviolably c. and at the end of this same Chapter c Et neque qui valde praevalet in Sermone ex iis qui praesunt Ecclesiis alia quam haec sunt dicet Nemo enim super Magistrum est neque infirmus in dicendo deminorabit Traditionem Cùm enim una eadem fides sit neque is qui multum de ea potest dicere amplius Lampliat neque is qui minus deminorat S. Iraen c. Haer. l. 1. c. 3. Edit Feuard he tells us that the Church was so much Vnius Labii as your phrase is in this Faith that neither He that was more eloquent among the Pastours of the Church will say or teach any things different from these Articles of Faith for no Man is above his Master nor he that is less expert will diminish any thing from this Faith delivered or Tradition For since the Faith is one and the same neither he that can say most about it doth add any thing to it nor he that can say least doth take any thing from it This Faith then to use St. Irenaeus's simile like the Sun Ibidem enlightens all parts of the world shines to them all and doth influence all with her one Faith as with a common heat and makes all that embrace it throughout the world to become the constituent parts of the Catholick Church By this time I do not question but that you think your Guinea might have been in danger since no man that hath common sense can deny that the Churches of England Denmark Swedland and the rest are Vnius Labii in this Faith which is equally embraced and professed by them and therefore hath the same influence over them that it had over the several Churches in St. Irenaeus his time to make them true Members of the Catholick Church So that as all your money would have been lost on this account so your Pity over your own dear Countrey is not onely lost but childish and ridiculous too and would far handsomer have become a Woman that never saw farther than her Psalter than you that pretend to such a large knowledge in Fathers and Divinity But tho' your Pity were lost pag. 10 11. you are resolved your Countrey shall not want your hearty prayers that true Charity may possess their hearts and that there may be a most holy love planted and reigning in their hearts for ever c. I used to think it was the opinion of the Church of Rome and her Party that we