body even as Christs natural body under one spirit and head united and compacted together and that without ceas even so long as that mystick body lasteth upon earth in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi till it receiv its final consummation negatively to prevent schismes and herefies which might otherwise render the Church in her members both contemptuous and liable to continual ruin whiles every particular person left to himself would be carried up and down like children with puffes of novelty blowing several wayes by the cunning subtilty of men pretending new light spirits reasons and such like stratagems in astutia in their knavery and pride of heart to bring people into a circumvention of errour all which inconveniences are avoided by following the guidance of the Church and the Pastours therein appointed over us A general spirit of truth in those that are set over the flock keeps them together and safe whereas particular lights in the sheep that are to be ruled would divide them from their pastour and from one another and division infers destruction Nor could that great Jewish argument be any way warded or put by but by recours to the Churches infallibility which can be no other but what Christ gave her and his own autority and truth revealed by this Church is the utmost foundation that supports the whole fabrick nor can there be any thing further assigned to support it but God with whom it is beleeved to be united for as all material buildings and their connexion are beheld with the eye but their foundation is not seen but is beleeved by the influence it hath in supporting the fabrick which it self is ultimately sustained by the center So may we discern some consequences of the points of religion upon a supposal of a great fundamental truth upon which they all depend as this is that Christ is a true and divine teacher but this cannot be seen or maintained otherwise than by a pure belief yielded unto that Church that first taught him and His truth sustains all his doctrin and the formal fabrick of the Church built upon him and it can be grounded upon nothing but God himself the center of all subsistence and verity This connexion of us to the apostles of the apostles to Christ and Christ to God St. Paul insinuates when he saith to the Christians of Corinth Omnia vestra sunt sive Paulus sive Apollo sive Kephas vos autem Christi Christus autem Dei The Christians might indeed reply to the Jew and say that Christ our Lord was a holy and sacred person divine innocent miraculous and unblamable in his whole life and conversation that he came from heaven by the mission of his eternal father and his own great benignity to plant upon earth an universal catholick Church amongst all nations which in the fulnes of time God was pleased to do whereas Moses had confined his Church by Gods command till that hour of general salvation was come unto the one family of Abraham and that he had received autority from God so to do which not only his own evangelists but even Moses and the prophets sufficiently attest who all do so speak forth the birth and life passion and resurrection of this our great Messias and the glory of his Church amongst the gentiles accordingly as himself promised and it hath now appeared to be and that nothing but rancour and prejudice and the scandal of his humility and the Jews mistake of the Messias his first and second coming did incens them against their own lord when he appeared amongst them who also looked even then for a Messias sodainly to come whom they were to obey and follow and cannot probably being then the onely select people of God ascribe their immense desolations exiles from their own homes and miseries these sixteen hundred years than to the guilt they have contracted upon themselvs by shedding the blood of that sacred person Nor are they to be excused sith all the ancient Rabbies before Christs coming did openly profess throughout all the Hebrew Church that they understood not the end and meaning of Moses law nor ever should till the great Messias came to teach them which was so beaten into their minds that all the Hebrewes beleeved it as appears by the saying of the woman of Samaria When the Messias comes he will teach as all things although through the hatred they bore to Jesus Christ they began after his coming to sing another song This I say and such like words they might reply and prove all by some autority or other but yet whatsoever they could alledge the Jewish Rabbies would give another interpretation to it or if it were their own gospel flatly deny it and so having no other further autority to rely upon but the truth of that Church that stands upon this foundation of Christs divinity there they must rest For there can be no hope either of satisfying a querent or conconvincing an opponent in any point of Christianity unles he will submit to the splendour of Christs autority in his own person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the reason why som of the Jews in Rome when S. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the prophets beleeved in him and some did not So then the great resolv of all doubts must be immediately upon the autority of the present Church which derived from the Church foregoing must by several concatenations bring us at length to the autority of Christ which is the root and firmitude and life of all and if this be once acknowledged and firm and firm it cannot otherwaies be than by captivating our wills and understanding to his love and obedience under that notion the Church hath revealed him it must equally support all future generations of Christians be they never so many in any temptation or difficulty that should afterwards happen and the whole Church and all her doctrin built upon it Nor can any at any time pretend rightfully and justly other motive of his beleef than what the apostles had for theirs the first age from the apostles the second age from the first c. and still the foregoing Church does but derive the faith and practise received unto its successour and both must equally stand upon the same foundation of one and the same autority which all generations take by the like resignation and faith-submission unto the worlds end So that he that departs in any age from the waies of the foregoing Church upon what pretence soever it be done of knowledge interiour light reason spirit or other discovery he leavs the foundation on which his faith was built and vertually forsakes Christ and would have had the same argument against him if he had lived in his time for if the Church the visible Church prove not to be even in that particular age a just keeper and deliverer of faith received then was the Church deceived not so
promises of future reward do voluntarily and of their own accord forsake the world and all worldly pleasures to serv God night and day in poverty humility and chastity and multitudes of others of a secular condition in several parts of the earth have rather chosen to live an afflicted life in this world contemned abused pillaged beaten put to death by their persecutours than to forsake that religion and these too as noble and wise persons many of them as any the earth hath had But if any will yet be contentious and maintain his hatred still against Popery I earnestly request he would seriously ponder these few following Queries which I borrowed of a friend It will not be deny'd but that the Church of Rome was once a most pure excellent flourishing and Mother Church for this is not only by good St. Paul amply testified in his epistle to the said Romans but acknowledged also by Whitaker in his answer to Dr. Sanders by White in his defence of his way by Fulk and Reinolds and also by K. James in his speech to the Parliament This Church could not ceas to be such but she must fall either by Apostasie Heresie or Schism I. Apostasie is not onely a renouncing of the Faith of Christ but the very name and title to Christianity No man will say that the Church of Rome had ever such a fall or fell thus II. Heresie is an adhesion to some private and singular opinion or errour in Faith contrary to the general approved Doctrin of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common recived Doctrin of the Christian world I pray satisfie me as to these particulars viz. 1. By what General Councel was she ever condemned 2. Which of the Fathers ever writ against Her Or 3. By what authority was She otherwise reproved For If seems to me to be a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemned by every one that hath a minde to condemn her III. Shisme is a departure or division from the Vnity of the Church wherby the Band and communion held with som former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided her self by Schisme from any other body of faithful Christians or brake communion or went forth from the Society of any Elder Church I pray satisfie me as to these particulars 1. Whose company did She leave 2. From what body did She go forth 3. Where was the true Church which She forsook For it appears somwhat strange to me that a Church should be accounted schismatical when ther cannot be assigned any other Church different from her which from age to age since Christ his time hath continued visible from whence She departed If these Queries were well pondered or if men would once beleev as most true it is that by irrefragable principles which all must needs acknowledg who will own a Christianity in general Popery may be proved to be as good a religion as the best then Facta est Lux. But this is a little beyond my intention which aims no further than only to put our passions to a demur for which it may suffice us to think that Popery is not ill And if I should yet say more and endeavour to prove it good those that be of that Way will say I speak too little and they who be not will think I say too much I had a purpos in the three last dialogues of my Reclaimed Papist to make Popery appear not only a good religion but the best and not only the best but the only sole Christianity which Christ planted upon earth and which every right reason that admits of Christ must needs approve But I hope I was therfore discouraged and hindred in that work that it might be left for som better hand and I should my self very much rejoyce to see it don It is now besides my purpos my paper also is already too much swelled my mind calls for freedom and my pen is dulled Acta est pars acroamatica sequitur moralis Fifth Chapter Moral topicks for charity and peace §. 31. Conclusion AS without the indifferency and moderation I have hitherto laboured to implant ther cannot be in us any capacity of a right understanding so ther be yet som moral topicks remaining which are apt to implant this moderation and indifferency as to consider first the sad precipices men have run themselves and others by their headiness and temerarious obstinacy in their opinions and conceits about religion secondly that the connatural excellency of a good Christian consists not in finding new waies to the reformation of other mens thoughts but putting in practis the old received well known dictates of sobriety justice and piety in our selves thirdly that charity which the apostle makes to be the end and highest perfection of religion and indeed all vertue suggests good and moderate thoughts of our neighbour c. But these and such like topicks be a subject fitter for a pious preacher than a civil logician and so leav them What I should speak at this time unto any such purpos take it in the golden words and phrase of the honourable Lord Chancellour the Oratour of the Land Gentlemen the distempers of religion which have too too much disturbed the peace of this Kingdom is a sad argument indeed It is a consideration that must make every religious heart to bleed to see religion which should be the strongest obligation and cement of affection and brotherly kindness and compassion made now by the pervers wranglings of passionate and froward men the ground of all animosity hatred malice and reveng And this unruly and unmanly passion which no question the divine nature exceedingly abhors somtimes and I fear too frequently transports those who are in the right as well as those who are in the wrong and leaves the latter more excusable than the former when men who find their manners and dispositions very conformable in all the necessary obligations of humane nature avoid one anothers conversation and grow first unsociable and then uncharitable to each other becaus one cannot think as the other doth And from this separation we intitle God to the patronage of and concernment in our fancies and distinction and purely for his sake hate one another heartily It was not so of old when one of the most antient Fathers of the Church tells us that love and charity was so signal and eminent in the primitive Christians that it even drew admiration and envy from their greatest adversaries Vide inquiunt ut invicem se diligunt Their adversaries in that in which they most agreed in their very prosecution of them had their passions and animosities among themselvs they were only Christians that loved and cherished and comforted and were ready to dye for one another Quid nunc dicerent illi Christiani si nostra viderent tempora sayes the incomparable Grotius How would they look upon our sharp and virulent contentions in the debates of Christian religion and the bloody wars that have proceeded from those contentions whilst every one pretended to all the marks which are to attend upon the true Church except only that which is inseparable from it Charity to one another My Lords and Gentlemen This disquisition hath cost the King many a sigh many a sad howr when he hath considered the almost irreparable reproach the Protestant religion hath undergone from the divisions and distractions which have been so notorious within this Kingdom What pains he hath taken to compose them after several discourses with learned and pious men of different perswasions you may see by a declaration he hath published upon that occasion by which you see his great indulgence to those who can have any protection from conscience to differ with their brethren And I hope God will so bless the candour of his Majesty in the condescentions he makes that the Church as well as the State will return to that unity and unanimity which will make both king and people as happy as they can hope to be in this world If aught yet remain to be said in the heavenly words of blessed S. Paul I shall conclude it all Quosdam quidam posuit deus c. Some hath God set over us in his Church first apostles secondly prophets thirdly doctours then virtues then graces of healing opitulations gubernations sorts of tongues Are all apostles are all prophets are all doctours are all vertues have all men the grace of healings do all speak with tongues do all interpret But do you emulate the better graces And I do yet show unto you a more excelling way If I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity I am but as sounding brass and tingling cimbal And if I shall have prophesy and know all mysteries and all sciences and if I shall have all faith so that I can translate mountains and have not charity I am nothing c. This is the great rule of our happines and square of all perfection Et quicunque hanc regulam secuti fuerint pax super illos super Israel Dei FINIS
then presume of his knowledg and what motives has he in himself to do so which another wants Be it scriptures prophesies visions light or inward assurance boast of what you pleas all the earth will do the like and with the self-same confidence For let Philosphers speak what they pleas of the certainty of object which som men have over and above the certainty of subject I am not able to conceiv how an objectiv certainty can stand without evidence or how it may consist with that mutability I see to be in the world for men do depart as well from a good religion wherein they would have to be certainty of object as from a bad one wherein they allow only a certainty of subject which is nothing but a personal self-willed resolution in their wayes Since men therefor do thus abound all of them in their own sens haply without sence if a thousand voices may be of force against one single one how does it behoove us if we would be truly wise to walk all our dayes not in disputes and disquietness without end but in humility and fear But som will say all this is nothing to us since Christ our Lord hath revealed to us both God himself and all necessary truths concerning him of all which we may be confident But stay a while and ponder what I have already spoken do not all nations say as much for themselvs What then should we doubt of our faith in Christ no in no wise But I must speak a bold word these very dissentions of ours about that faith in its branches so hot so various so extravagant are apt to inferre a suspicion of it in its very root are not hundreds in our own countrey become atheists already upon that very motiv and these men supposing substantial change once made in religion and deliberately admitted are rather to be commended for their wit than blamed for they do but that sodainly which all the land will will come to by degrees If the Papist or Roman catholick who first brought the news of Christ and his Christianity into the land as all men must needs know that have either heard or read of Christianities ingress into England or other countreys and kingdoms for we do no sooner hear news of Christianity than Popery and his crucifixes monasteries reliques sacrifice and the like I say if the Papist be now becom so odious as we see he is and if the faith he brought and maintained a thousand years together be now rent all asunder by sects and factions which bandy all to the ruin of that mother religion if all her practical truths wherein chiefest piety consists be already abolished as erroneous does not this justify the pagan whom this catholick Christian displaced to make way for his own law And must not this be a certain way and means to introduce atheism which naturally follows that faith once removed even as a carkas succeeds a living body once deceased for one truth denied is a fair way to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very autority of the first revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself than he can his law for the same axe and instrument that cut down the branches can cut up the root too and if his reverence for which all the rest was beleeved defend not their truth it must needs at length utterly fail in his own For all the autority they had was purely from him and he falls in them before he falls in himself no man can deny this that shall seriously lay his hand upon his heart and ponder things as he ought And he that once ceases to beleev in Christ whom before he worshipped I am sure he will turn atheist if his wit and reason proceed consequently and beleev nothing A little more to specify my meaning If the institutions of monasteries to the praise and service of God day and night be thought as it hath been now these many years a superstitious folly if Christian Priests and sacrifices be things of high idolatry if the seven sacraments be deemed vain most of them if it suffice to salvation to beleev what ever life we lead if there be no value or merit in good works if Gods laws be impossible to be kept if Christ be not our law maker and directour of doing well as well as redeemer from ill if there be no sacramental tribunal for our reconciliation ordained for us by Christ upon earth if the real body of our Lord be not bequeathed unto his Spous in his last will and testament if there be not under Christ a general head of the Church who is chief Priest and Pastour of all Christians upon earth under God whose Vicegerent he is in spiritual affairs all which things are now held forth by us manifestly against the doctrin of the first preachers of Christianity in this land then say I paganisme was unjustly displaced by these doctrins and atheism must needs succeed for if Christ deceived us upon whom shall we rely and if they that brought us the first news of Christ brought along with it so many grand lyes why may not the very story of Christ himself be thought a Romance And erunt novissima pejora prioribus the latter condition of this land under atheism catholick faith once utterly extirpated must needs be far wors than it was in paganisme before it was planted Far sweeter is that body put case a statue of stone that was never animated than is any carkas of man after the soul is departed And are not we in a wood now who shall lead us out The maze is made greater by the consideration of the multitude of sects now reigning amongst us all which as they do unanimously conspire against that catholick Church they have deserted so do they wrangle now about every thing wherein they first agreed and conspired against her hating and execrating one another even unto war and bloodshed and the utter desolation of our distressed nation Quid est veritas and on whose side is God all this while does he not lie hid and say nothing and leav us wholly to our selvs by a judgment unsearchable in these our affairs even as in other courses of this world i th interim all opinions utter fine words all presume of themselvs all are peremptory and censur not only their neighbours but even the whole earth round about Where is truth here saith one nay not there but here quoth another neither there nor there but here saith a third but so many heres and there 's sounds nothing to a rational man but either every where or no where and which to conclude is impossible for man of himself stedfastly to resolv Here is Christ and there is Christ in the judgment of Christ himself signifies neither here nor there If they say saith our Lord here is Christ or there is Christ do not ye go forth or follow them and
the reason is very good for the true Church wherein Christ really resides is ever in a posture of quietness and defens But they that go out of her and set up new wayes of their own are ever in clamour and dissention which of them should do it best and the cry is heard aloud and without ceas Here Here. Christ is here saith the Protestant and not amongst the Papists nay quoth the Presbyterian by your favour he is Here nay then sayes the Anabaptist Here he is if you be at that quoth the Quaker you are all blinded men if any would find the true light com to us for here it is and no where but here But when all is done truth is not in division but unity not in sedition and clamour but meekness and peace If ten men stand gazing in a street and all agree that they see a thing there but disagree all in the description of it a stranger coming by will rather guess they are all mad than that they see any thing at all One thing I am sure of if all men would be humble minded and sober and cast out of their hearts the great prejudice they have taken up against one another they would see the better for it To conclude this subject for I would say no more than what may help to lop the vain and superfluous excrescencies of faction and dissentions about religion which perhaps none of us do rightly understand and would be loth to cut the tree it self to the quick it may appear sufficiently by what I have said and yet far more if we joyn our own experimental knowledg and ratiocination of further things which I do purposely omit that God is in himself an unsearchable abyss and his essence and counsels past finding out nay he is the great primo genial and father-abyss of all others not to be approached by angels or men but according to such few exteriour conceptions himself hath either revealed or imprinted in them which be far from reaching home either to his counsels or proper essence And who hath been his mate or counsellour that he should tell us news of him never heard before If any news there be of him it is surely to be had from Christ whom we beleev to be his very substantial word and the splendour of his glory and if Christ hath left any secrets of him to be revealed unto mankind we must have them from his Church which is the pillar and foundation and treasury of all his truth and if any Church is to be consulted I should think it should be that and only that which by an uninterrupted succession hath descended from himself which is that very same that first brought Christian religion into this land which without all controversy is the Catholick now by contempt surnamed Papist and if any one be otherwise minded etiam hoc Deus ipsi revelabit In the mean time let us be peaceable and sober §. 7. Obscurity of nature THe second abyss is that of Gods works and the whole creation which all men that have considered it aright find unfoardable and if any have not let me crave his company a while but in a slight survay of this wondrous fabrick and then tell me what he thinks When we confider those myriads of intelligencies angels and spirits and the whole intellectual world the first exteriour issue of divine brightness we are not then much nearer apprehension of any thing in particular than in the first abyss what they are either for substance or place or operation or extent of presence or knowledg or power or motion or order or any thing els in particular In the visible world we begin a little to find our feeling and know at least where we are but not much more Here we see a wonderful face of things but what els what is the basis on which all the frame stands and how is it setled upon it in its various and stupendious motions the order of things little or nothing appears their essences altogether unknown their properties dependances and mutual connexion obscure their limits and vigour and duration and influences doubtful their motions uncertain the mode method and chain of operation utterly hidden And what is it then we know wherein consists the excellency of our science that we should boast our selves and contemn the world and what are we able to determin in the truth of these things without uncertainty and errour This our ignorance of nature is sufficiently insinuated and evinced in that solid piece of moral-divinity in sacred writ commonly called Job from ch 38 to 42. It were worth my pains to insert here all that eloquent discours But becaus the Bible is in every mans hand he that pleases may read it there at leasure And although Doctor Brown say in his Vulgar errours as I remember that the difficulties of nature there propounded will now adayes be easily answered by every puny scholler yet those words of his be unwary both becaus those intricacies of the creation are there propounded by no less a person than almighty God as insoluble and not to be dived into by man as also becaus the Doctour if he consider right cannot but know that he that were able to give a full satsifactory reason even of the smaller things in nature as the winde or rain would be able to tell what weather it would be or what wind would blow every day in the year in any part of the earth until the worlds end so sure and fixed is the whole frame of nature But such kind of puny schollers the world never yet saw And although man sees and knows enough in nature to make him admire and adore the Authour yet not to contend with him in questions and replies about it The whole world is an immens intangled gordian knot which the wisest of men could never yet untye or discern the intermingled series of the many voluminous causes concatenated therein Even the progress of a poor plant from its seed to its decay who can declare or conceiv it so many several seeds both of plants and animals how do they shoot forth so orderly into their parts and organs peculiar each one to themselvs where lies that celestial particle in the little seminal origen which is the spring of life and motion in every thing In the first primogenial sours how is distinguished either kind from kinde or part from part in the same kind and which is that part that is to run forth into the head and which into the arms and how is it done I see wheat and barley elm and oak hors and man to shoot up constantly each one from their own seed in their own proper and peculiar mode and method and perhaps an angel or intelligence may distinctly see the reason of all in the very seeds for som reason is certainly there to be seen but what man can do it how comes such variety of bulk parts odour and colour unto
himself once to any one opinion here in England he sodainly entertains such a prejudice against all the rest that there is left in him no further place for counsel for all other wayes besides his own are condemned as soon as his own is accepted and he does no sooner think himself sure but all others must in the same time be lost And yet he hath but his own judgment for it neither supported only with the appearances of I know not what spirit or internal light which he and his enjoy and all others want And if a man press him once to further difficulties than himself hath thought on though without the reflection upon them he could never be able to settle any firm judgment about these things in particular one shall soon find that he heeds not any of those things without which the other could not be judiciously concluded nor is able even by the help of that light or spirit of his to satisfy therein either himself or other man which argues plainly that the spirit and light he pretends is nothing but his own private resolution not sufficiently amplified and yet irrationally fixed against all autority and counsel The Christians in antient times especially for the first four hundred years after Christ had many serious and grave disputes with the Jew and pagan which being rational and weighty and about the foundations of Christianity whereon the other articles were built did pusle even the wisest of their clergy to answer but after all the ratiocination ended whether it sufficed or no they still concluded with this one word Credo which the love of Christ had fastned upon them as emperour Julian comonly surnamed the Apostate testifies of them And this although in philosophy and logick it had been a weak answer yet in religion it was the best and only one to be made so that all the burden fell at length upon the autority of Jesus Christ who being both a man and one too that was crucified as a malefactor undertook to send forth religion into the world under the title of a divine Prophet and the onely Son of God almighty maker of heaven and earth which could not but at first make a disturbance both among the Jewes and Gentiles where it should be preached And the great mystery begins here and here it must end for this autority being once admitted from the Church that brings it all other catholick truths will follow by a kind of consequence from the same hands and therefor this autority of his which can never be demonstratively proved unto us that live now but only by vertue of the Church that derives it us Christ must maintain himself by signs and wonders and such signall proofs of his divine providence over his Church from time to time that his deity may somewhat appear in his Churches progres and defence and all other doctrins must be made good by it and the Church that first preached it to us In any age of the Christian Church a Jew might say thus to the Christians then living Your Lord and maister was born a Jew and under the jurisdiction of the high Priests these he opposed and taught a religion contrary to Moses otherwise how coms there to be a faction but how could he justly do it no human power is of force against Gods who spake as you also grant by Moses and the Prophets and divine power it could not be for God is not contrary to himself And although your Lord might say as indeed he did that Moses spake of him as of a Prophet to com greater than himself yet who shall judg that such a thing was meant of his person for since that Prophet is neither specified by his name or characteristicall properties who could say it was he more than any other to come And if there were a greater to com than Moses were surely born a Jew he would being com into the world rather exalt that law to more ample glory than diminish it And if you will further contest that such a Prophet was to abrogate the first law and bring in a new one who shall judge in this case the whole Church of the Hebrews who never dreamed of any such thing or one member thereof who was born a subject to their judgments This is the great oecumenicall difficulty and he that in any age of Christianity could either answer it or find any bullwark to set against it so that it should do no harm would easily either solv or prevent all other difficulties should arise by the same autority by which it was cleared For if Christ were not only a lawfull Teacher but even one that was greater than Moses as Christians beleev him to be and both the one and the other pretended this great work of establishing a Church surely Christ must do it in as great an excellency as Moses and with some advantage the doctrin and disciplin must be as sublime and stated as permanently as his and Christ who wrote no law must so provide notwithstanding that his Church might otherwise have one from him and keep it as uniformly as the Hebrew Church did theirs Wherefore as Moses after he had done all things which belonged to himself to do constituted Aaron and his Successours to be guides rulers overseers and judges of all Controversies that might arise in the tribes about any points of their religion he had written them So must St. Peter and his Successours be inabled by some equall if not more speciall means sith they also were constituted by Christ to govern his flock to captivate all men to the obedience of Christs will otherwise his Church could not go on so uniformly in all ages which uniformity is the glory and indeed the very life and conservation of a Church as that of the Hebrewes did Nor may any body prudently imagin that the Spirit of Jesus in his Church and all the members thereof cooperates in every one immediately unto truth as it does to grace for then why should he constitute doctours and pastours and bishops over us as the good apostle learnedly asserts in his epistle to the Ephesians Ipse de dit quosdam quidem apostolos quosdam autem prophetas alios vero Evangelistas alios autem pastores doctores ad consummationem sanctorum in opus ministerij in aedificationem corporis Christi donec occurramus omnes in unitatem fidei agnitionem filii dei in virum perfectum in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi ut jam non simus parvuli fluctuantes circumferamur omni vento doctrinae in nequit â hominum in astutia ad circumventionem erroris Most excellent pathetical words where we have first the doctrin that pastours are set over us in the Church to guide us then the end of that constitution which he declares first positively then negatively the positive end is a perfect unity of faith which by that means must vegetate and fructify and grow up in one
much in that age as in the first when she took her faith from him that did manifestly so comport himself as if he would be taken for a God and promised his Church by the general spirit he would send her to teach her all truth and strengthen her therein against all opposition even to the consummation of the world which none but God or one exceeding near unto him could make good and if this were not performed the imposture was in the first beginning That building must needs stand firm that rests upon a Deity which hath influence upon the whole fabrick to keep it up and if it be not so kept up and conserved the Church doth but vainly flatter her self when she boasts of the divinity of her support if she fail in her doctrin and faith Christ is not God Whensoever therfor we read either in the Acts of the apostles or other ancient story of the conversion of a Kingdom or people unto the right religion of Christianity we still find it was done not by any private illumination of any one who living before in darknes with the rest was now secretly called to teach others but by a resignation unto a former doctrin brought from Christ by his missioners and preachers by submission to a truth delivered to them from without not rising up within them Faith comes by hearing and every man upon earth that hath ever been approved Christian received it that way and was made thereby not a maister but disciple to the Church Wheras on the other side this spirit and light and such like discoveries we so frequently talk of makes us not schollers but maisters ipso facto and urges not to submit to foregoers but to condemn them not to resign our own but to captivate others understandings not to go to the Church but to go out of it and that upon the single motive of a new illumination which none had before us and we from no body I know well enough that a man cannot be converted and becom a good Christian without the assistance of Gods grace exciting and cooperating with us to our good when the truth is taught and revealed to us But this I suppose is not the Light men talk of for this is rather in the affection and will than in the understanding and bids us hearken to another not to our selves to join with a Church already planted not to begin a new one of our own heads It sayes not to us make a vineyard of your own but go into mine And the intellectuall Light men speak of if we have any we receiv it afterwards as a reward of our humility in that Church where we did not kindle it but found it already burning to guide our feet by it in the wayes of peace Crede intelliges said a great Prophet Beleev and you shall understand but we must beleev first and by that obscure step of beleef which is as a duksy twi-light between the darknes of infidelity we lived in before and the light of truth we go to arrive we to all future happines But we in England that pretend this new Light and secret Spirit are separated by it from a former Church but brought to none nor are we made disciples by it but maisters on the sudden and enabled to teach all men that which we never received from any which is absolutely against the whole cours of Christianity and will if it be admitted set open a gap unto all fanatick fansies St. Paul professes he was apostle not of men nor by men but by God and the reason is becaus his first call was extraordinary from heaven as was likewise the suggestion he had to his mission and yet that God that called him although he showed him so singular a favour yet would he not dispense with his own orders and constitutions even in him but sent him to the good Priest Ananias to be by him instructed and catechised and admitted into his Church and with those people St. Paul found in the profession of that faith did he often conferre even he that was so strangly called from heaven conferred the Gospel which afterwards he preached as himself speaks in his epistle to the Galatians with those people and with that Church he found in actuall possession and profession of that faith least saith he I should have run in vain that is least he should do or think or preach any thing amiss contrary to the truth received unto which he was called which he could no otherwaies by the constitutions Jesus himself had made be assured of but by comparing his doctrin with that which was believed and practised in the Church before him into which he was now incorporated as a member in that body by the assistance of the grace he had received to be first a disciple and then afterwards a maister and teacher and when he did become a doctour he did not make himself one no nor his calling by Christ sufficed to do it but he was made such a one under the hands of the apostles and by their approbation autority and sacred ordination as may be seen in the book of the Acts ch 13. Nor was he to teach without that Churches leav or contrary to her faith but by her direction and in subjection to her This is a faithful speech and worthy of all consideration which seriously pondered would dissipate in a moment all whatsoever pretences of light spirit reason or other thing that shall mov any to a new way by himself contrary to what he hath received seen practised in the Church before him And if any would seriously peruse the Acts of the apostles wherein the footsteps of primitive Christianity fufficiently appear he shall find that all that were called unto Christs religion were brought to the feet of the apostles and priests who received them at the door and brought them into the hous of God by the laver of Baptisme and imposition of hands and confession of sins and it was not onely the ordinary but sole ingress into that Church and none were ever esteemed to be of that body but only by those means which also the pastours of the Church were only to mannage He that comes not in at the door saith Christ is neither sheep nor shepheard but a theef and a robber And true Christian religion consists not in going out of a Church but coming in there to submit to the ancient dictates of piety which Christ revealed §. 13. Independent and Presbyterians Plea TO a judicious man whom a word sufficeth it will already appear that no opinion or way here in England can have any advantage over the other by vertue of discoveries made by any light spirit or reason since there can no such be legally pretended to set up any new religion apart from the former but to join rather with the old which if it be not absolutely true Christ is not God and all Christianity but a human invention But yet
disputant and moderatour both opponent and maister of the chair both interpreter and judg The Roman catholick I do not here mention for the taking Him for his guide and judg from whom he first received his scriptur and faith and expecting all resolutions of doubts only from his lips can never stagger or fall into perplexity But with Protestant Presbyterian and Independent whose utmost resolv is in their own hands the case is otherwayes And the combat that is amongst them is the most desperate imaginable whiles any visible speaking judg being excluded by them all each one fights against all the rest with the same topick ratiocinations that none but he that uses them must judg Scripture is for us scripture is easy and we have it the spirit that is in us teaches all truth the light from above us is only to direct us and not men who are lyers c. And these if they prevail overthrow him that uses them so that to the same combatant must needs happen by the same means both death and victory and the same autorities and argumentations if any of them obtain his desire must bear both a probility for him and a prejudice against him Thus the Protestant if he do or will pretend to convince the Presbyterian then must he at the same time and for the same reasons yield to the Roman catholick with whose discourse and arguments he flourishes and triumphs against him and yet being uttered from the mouths and pens of Catholicks against himself he contemned and jeered them And if the Presbyterian texts and reasons be of force against the Protestant then must the Protestant fall by that instrument by which himself stands and subsists against the Papist against whom he hath ever used those very assertions and arguments and the Presbyterian too must stand and fall upon the same account the same weapon laying him dead before the Independent which against the Protestant supports him The Independent if he be able by strength of his light and spirit to maintain himself against all his foregoers Presbyterian Protestant and Papist then by the same reasons must he needs fall when a new fansy rises by any succeding generation A strang case and indeed a meer riddle but a certain truth And the Catholick all this while to a disinterested understanding whiles all his enemies condemn one another stands uncontroulably justified in his oppositions to them The Independent is in the wrong saith the Presbyterian and Protestant the Presbyterian erres saith the Protestant and Independent the Protestant is deceived saith the Independent and Presbyterian you are all mad men quoth the Roman Catholick you first abused and supplanted me and now by the same wayes and means you do supplant and abuse one another But if I may interpose my judgment the Protestant although I honour his gravity above all the rest seems to be in a wors case than either Presbyterian or Independent for these in maintaining themselvs and their wayes do but strike home the first principles of protestant reformation whereas the Prelate-protestant to defend himself against them is forced to make use of those very principles which himself aforetime when he first contested against popery destroyed as be the difference betwixt clargy and laiety the efficacy of episcopal ordination the autority of a visible Church unto whom all are to obey and the like so that upon him falls most heavily even like thunder and lightning from heaven utterly to kill and cut him asunder that great oracle delivered by S. Paul in his letter he wrote to the Christians of Galatia Sī quae destruxi iterum haec aedifico praevaricatorem me constituo If I build up again the things I formerly destroyed I make my self a prevaricatour an impostour a reprobate A heavy sentence But truth will out and wisdom will be justified at long running even by her greatest adversaries It seems that those pieces of popery we so desperately inveighed against for our own interest were indeed not evil but good The Protestant may indeed with some plausible show excuse himself and say that the first Reformers though sent from God yet might they notwithstanding have some little mixture of humane passion and infirmity and so out do their work and decry more then in truth they ought to have don as he that would straighten a crooked wand bends it as much the other way to the end that by that over force it may at length recover its mediocrity and straightnes and what ever is done amiss by earnestnes of passion may by a second thought be mended And this excuse would find place in any busines of humane concernment but whether it may be of any weight in affairs of religion and divine faith I leav others to judg for what may be pretended by all unto endles changes can never be rightly said by any and S. Paul having assigned that property as a signal mark of a prevaricatour I should think we may beleeve it without further dispute However by the reassuming of this episcopacy be it the substance or shadow of Popery or what you pleas our English Protestant Church became by that means the very best and choisest flower of all the Reformation no order no decency no peace no uniformity in all the world where Protestancy was received like unto that we here enjoyed under our bishops in England nor could any man by the force of nature suspect any the least rottennes in the foundation of such a handsom fabrick I am sure I had not but by a strang chance that happened to me in my childhood And although our Prelate-Protestant is not able to answer the Presbyterian objection standing upon his own first principles of reformation which do indeed and ever will justify all revolts to the worlds end yet by the principles of his Recovery those I mean by which he reassumed Episcopacy too precipitously decried by the first reformers which principles be firm and good and right Christianity he will easily frustrate and dissolv all opposition but then he must creep into the bosom of Roman catholicks and beg the assistance of their arguments which before he foolishly contemned For every Body be it what it will natural politick or spiritual must so long as it remains entire and sound have the same principal parts and organs it was born withal and cannot endure long even in a contrary posture of them without dissolution and ruin Take any kingdom that is settled in monarchy and if you endeavour once the subversion of that Polity you do at the same time take away the life of all her laws and rights and utterly disturb her happines and peace which are so mixed and intangled in the very nerves and sinews of her laws and these again so settled upon the polity as upon the prime innate influent Calid and radicall primogeneal Humid that all goes together and take part alike either in weal or woe This truth we have had a sad experience of in the
thing as honey and sugar in nature It is true also that the death of Christ upon the cross was both a true and solemn sacrifice but that is passed away and is the object of our faith not an external rite about which the Church may meet and com together at all times to worship God as is this representation of it which our Lord instituted for that very end before his death Nor is the passion of our Lord proper to us Christians alone as the real figuration of it which himself instituted for all the sacrifices of the old law were accepted in order to that passion to com even as ours in respect of it now past And since there were true sacrifices in the old law amongst the Jews why should there not be also in the new which is beleeved to be more perfect about which Christians should assemble to offer up with it and it order to it all their requests and praises For Christ our Lord took not away those things which God his father in the old law instituted as being not contrary to him but only perfected and changed them into better things both precepts sacraments and sacrifice too and of this last it behooved him to be more careful then all the rest for otherwise sith sacrifice is the only worship proper and peculiar unto God by utterly taking it away he had not augmented but dimished his Fathers glory All other kinds of worship we Christians have for certain which the Jews ever had invocation adoration vows hymnes feasts fasts faith hope charity and prais must only that which only is proper to the almighty be excluded especially sith we have all the reasons to honour God by sacrifice the Jewes ever had we are an extern and visible congregation as they were we have the passion of the Messias to be represetned before our eyes now with us past as with them it was to com we have the same God with the highest worship to be honoured for our sins to be appeased for favours to be invocated for received benefits to be praised But if any will be contentious and not heed all this which is nothing but pious reason let him look upon the primitive Church in the apostles time whereof we have some clear footsteps delivered us in the Acts of the Apostles and he shall find that the apostles and apostolical Christians placed their religion not in hearing or making sermons for they had none but in attending to their Christian liturgy and all antiquity will attest it The sermons mentioned in that book were only in defence of Christianity made to the Jews Pagans for their conversion not to any Christians at all Such was St. Peters first speech to the Jews and Gentiles that brake in amongst the Christians in Jerusalem after their Messach ended and the holy Ghost fallen upon them c. 2. after this to other Jews c. 3. c. 5. then to Cornelius a pagan c. 10. So likewise spake S. Stephen to the Hebrew Priests and Jews c. 7. Saint Philip to the Ethiopian Eunuch c. 8. St. Paul to the synagogue in Pisidia c. 13. to others in Iconium c. 14. to Gentiles in Macedonia c. 16. again to other Jews in Thessalolonica and heathen Philosophers in Athens c. 17. both S. Paul and Apollo to the Jews at Corinth and Ephesus c. 18. c. 19. at Troas also he defended Christ and his religion against all that resisted it speaking even till midnight c. 20. but this was dispute and so the text calls it rather than a preaching and made una sabbati saith the same text cum convenissemus ad frangendum panem so that it was not the work they came together for but an additament to it So likewise he spake to other Jews in Jerusalem c. 22. to Foelix and Agrippa painims c. 24. c. 26. to the Jews in Rome for their conversion c. 28. And no where was ever sermon made to formal Christians either by St. Peter or Paul or any other as the work of their religion they came together for nor be there other sermons in that book but what I have mentioned nor did the Christians ever dream of serving God after their conversion by any such means but only by their Eucharistian leiturgy and sacrifice bread-fraction or Messach as is apparent in that book I will mention but one place in the beginning of the 13. ch which speaks thus Ministrantibus illis Domino jejunantibus dixit spiritus sanctus c. Whiles they were administring to our Lord and fasting the holy Ghost said Separate me Paul and Barnabas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Erasmus renders well and truly sacrificantibus illis Domino which one text gives double testimony both to apostolical sacrifice and priestly ordination For that ministerial function no man can doubt but that it was a publick work of religion and it could be no other than their great Christian Sacrifice as the words do manifestly import since it was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to our Lord for other inferiour ministeries of the word and Sacraments are not made to God but to the people but the apostles were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 administring leiturgying sacrificing to our Lord whent his segregation of Paul and Barnabas from the laiety to the clergy which cannot otherwise be imagined to be done but by sacredotal consecration was to be effected And all that whole book testifies sufficiently that the apostles and primitive Christians ever came together to their Dominicum or Educhdrist to their liturgy or messach and not to any sermon not ad audiendam concionem but ad frangendum panem It would griev any Christian heart to see the poor Catholicks of England so miserably harassed pillaged imprisoned hated hanged by their own allies and countreymen as they have been now a hundred years for the profession of that great work of Christianity which Christ and his apostles taught them and that they should undergo the same disgrace and ruin by such as call themselves Christians yea the only pure ones for that very self same act of Religion for which both the Apostles themselves and all primitive Christians were so cruelly persecuted by Jew and Pagan But the God of mercies look in his good time both upon the persecutour and sufferer with compassion and favour them becaus they have done it ignorantly in incredulity these becaus for his fear and love they have persevered hitherto through many great afflictions in his service and patiently withstood all opposition even unto bloodshed and death until this day But Catholicks had their lession read them long ago and they have it by heart by this time They will saith their Lord and master lay their hands upon you and persecute you delivering you into custody and prisons dragging you before Kings and presidents for my names sake and ye shall be betraied by parents children kinsfolk and friends and some of you they will put to death and ye shall be a hatred unto all
I came I beheld great store of pictures and images in Churches of Roman catholicks which being in the postures either of their bloody martyrdoms which for their religion they underwent or apostolical sacrifice or sacred retirements meditations or other exercise of their faith hope or charity either towards God or their neighbours apostles martyrs confessours hermites monks virgins kings queens byshops as they made a goodly show so did they mightily assist the fansy unto a more united thought of the religion people came into the Church to fulfil and solemnise But the altar is seldom without the pourtraicts of Jesus and his Virgin Mother but never without the Crucifix the sight of all which is apt to cast into the mind of such as enter into the Church that meditation of the apostle in his epistle to the Hebrewes Non accessistis ad tractabilem montem accensibilem ignem c. Ye are not com to the high towring mount flaming fire and whirlwind and darknes and storm and sound of trumpet and nois of words which they that heard excused themselves and requested to hear it no more and it seemed so terrible that Moyses himself stood trembling and affrighted but ye are come to Mount Sion to the city of our living God to celestiall Jerusalem and society of angels the Church of primitive Christians conscript in heaven to God the Judge of all to the spirits of just perfect men to Jesus the mediatour of a new testament and to the Aspersion of blood speaking better things than Able And all these representations so much concurring to devotion and piety as they do the doctrine and men who tore them down and cast them out of our English Churches and broke and hewed them in pieces with so much rage could not be any friends whatever they might pretend either to our mount Sion or the citty of our living God the celestial Jerusalem society of angels the Church of primitive Christians or to the spirits of just men perfected or to Jesus mediatour of the new testament or lastly to the aspersion of blood speaking better things than Abel all which was there pour-traited and described It is the judgment of all men that the violation of an Image redounds to the Prototype and therefore Kings not only in Christendom but beyond it use to punish a grand traitour either deceased or fled even in his effigie Every particular person loves to behold the picture of him he esteems and again if he hate the person he detests the face thus even our late rebells here in England after they had murthered our good King shot his pictures with bullets and broke them with their cimiters and spears all the land over Thy adversaries saith the Prophet have roared and raged in the midst of thy synagogues and for thy ensigns have set up their own banners as once of those who with strong exes cut up the thickest of timber unto the temples structure it was esteemed an honourable and noble work in them so is it countd now if any on the contrary break in pieces thy sculptures with axe hammers they were Gods enemies then that did all this and that brake down his sculptures and by those very works of theirs concluded to be his enemies by a great Prophet who well enough understood who was Gods friend and who his foe If any would consider the constitution and exigence of mans nature he would soon find not only the convenience but necessity of such helps as ocular representations afford us for the fansy hath nothing but what it receives from the senses and the intellect works upon nothing but what it has from fansy and therfore did God make man in the last place after heaven and earth was framed to the end that in so great a variety of sensible objects he might find somthing to think of even in the first instant of his being wheras if he had been made before other things he had stood like a stock or stone without any possibility of a thought Now nothing administers to the fansy and consequently to the mind with that variety and life and power as doth the eye the supplies of the ear care but dead things to it especially in the account of exciting desire and love let Cicero speak a whole day upon the beauties of a princely seat countrey city man or woman yet when the eye comes once to see the thing in its own properties it discerns and represents more at one glance than could his or all the oratory in the world ever by the help of the ear imprint into the mind Indeed who is so ignorant that he has not observed ere this that the eye has a hundred fold the actuosity of the ear nor is it unknown what strange melting affections are caused in the heart by a continual sight and meditation of some sacred pictur of the Crucifix when sermons float by and effect little or nothing in comparison even as worldly objects so long as they are coached in aiery words pass away like wind but once seated in the throne of the eye they move impetuously Nor can all the ministers in the world give me a reason why the eye in a sacred purpos may not have the helps of her species as well as the ear have hers or why the minde that is to be moved and can never be moved too much in such things may not as well have the quicker as duller assistance For when any one preaches upon the Passion of Christ does he do any thing els but labour to work out such representations in the ear and minde as oratory may effect for the moving of affections corresponding to such an object and if such good meditations put into a book of devotion be assisted with an ocular representation which is more quick and full and carries more of life with it what harm is it surely he that deprives me of the more lively helps never means whatever he pretend I should have any cordial feeling of the things he talks of And verily the Protestant pretenses for their removal of images out of our Churches are but simple ones and the simpler they be the the better it seems they serve the deluded vulgar First say they God has in his commandements forbidden the making of graven images Good and has he so do you not find too that he commanded it see if he did not give order in the same scripture for Cherubins and Seraphins to be made and set up in his sanctum sanctorum over the ark what then did God or Moses forget himself and contradict his own words or are you blind or only catholicks fools or what is the matter Look seriously and you shall find that Moses forbad prophane and forreign images but he commanded his own though he disliked the ugly face of Molech Dagon and Astaroth yet did not he therefor will his people should tear down his own Cherubins And Christians likewise have not any images of Simon
experience hath proved it for every one hath a text both to defend himself and oppose his neighbour whether it be in earnest or as it often happens in sport and jest whether wrong or rightly applied Nor can the Bible be well translated for the original carries oftentimes so great a latitude and amplitude of senses that it cannot be brought into a vulgar tongue without confineing the signification to the great alteration and perhaps subversion of the holy penmans intention Besides when men write or speak with a special peculiarity of spirit as all indeed do but those holy writers much more this genius of theirs is so lapt up in their own words or sounds that by transmigration out of the coverture in which that Spirit was born and bred as a snail in her shell it doth in a manner quite expire and vanish We find daily that books translated out of one tongue into another lose much of their connatural grace and sweetness if not all the whole genuine power and life they carried in their own character So ticklish and volatile a thing is that hidden genius couched in the rinde of mens words Nor is a man better known by his face than writings I mean if he draw his discours and sens out of his own bowels for otherwise if he be only a book botcher or collectour out of other authours it will signifie little which I take to be the reason why many spiritual books written in these times out of antient contemplatives although the matter is the same and the language mended yet be they in these penmen but dry unsavory stuff which in the first authour was a fragrant ravishing devotion the good things therin contained have by their transmigration lost their own spirit and the latter authour if so I may call him had not another to give them answerable to their nature By all this I would say thus much that the Bible translated out of its own sacred phrase into a prophane and common one loses both its own property and amplitude of meaning and is likewise devested of its peculiar majesty holines and spirit which is reason enough if there were no other why it should be kept inviolate in its own stile and speech Sacred doctrin like the persons is not to pass de domo in domum but remain under that roof which first covered them And as for peoples instructions it is as I said before to be made by the priests and pastours of the religion on whose lips the sacred knowledg hangs and thence drops down upon the assembly out of that book according to occasion and times as holy Church whole book that is shall judge it fit We commit not to children the whole pot of honey whereby they may surfeit and hurt themselves but give them only some few drops upon a stick of licoras so much as they can digest and make use of for their health And if the book wherin religious rites be grounded lawfully may and in reason ought and in practise ever hath been kept segregated in a language not common to vulgar ears much more are the sacred solemn rites themselvs to be performed in a tongue that is segregated from common use answerable to the Book according to which they be executed which custom as it renders that great Act more majestick and venerable so doth it carry with it much of convenience and no inconvenience at all For thus the Church all over the world as opposite to Babel wherein were so many divisions of tongues shall as in heart and faith so also in lip and language be unanimous and linked together and the great work of Religion wherein all Christian people from one coast of heaven to another do unanimously conspire be so uniformly executed that men may in all places of the world meet with their own Christian Church in one mode and fashion both to acknowledg and joyn with it in their orisons Nor could otherwaies any one priest serve in several countries or administer presently in a place which himself or others with him had converted for which caus men studying to get that one language which is stretched as large and wide as is the catholick Church throughout the world have in all places one tongue and that no hard one to convers withall which did not the Church use it in her rites would in time be utterly neglected The Hebrew Church being immured in one Kingdom had not those many reasons which her younger sister whose territories are extended from East to West hath to keep her rites in a language differing from the vulgar and yet she did so Inconvenience in this practis there can be none assigned but only this that if the latin tongue be used at the altar then cannot the vulgar people understand what is said But this is not of any moment For first the people have all the whole scope and purpose and frame of sacred liturgy set down in their own prayer-books and if they will in their hearts and mind whereby they may if they pleas as equally conspire and go along with the priest in their devotions as if he spake in the mother tongue Secondly catholick people come together not for other busines at the Mass but only with fervour of devotion to adore Christ crucified before them and by the mediation of that sacred blood to pour forth their supplications for themselvs and others which being don and their good purpos of serving and pleasing that holy Lord that shed his blood for us renewed they depart in peace This is the general purpos of the Mass so that eyes and hands to lift up knees to bow and hearts to melt are there of more use than ears But thirdly there is no need at all for the people either to hear or understand the Priest when he speaks and prayes and sacrifices to God in their behalf Sermons to the people must be made in the peoples language but prayers presented to God for them if they be made in a language that God understands it is enough This was well enough conceived by the whole congregation of Israel who commonly stood in vaste multitudes without in a large outward court when the priest entered his sanctum sanctorum to offer and pray for them who all the while were so far from hearing that they could not see him this if any doubt he may both discern it in the old law and in our gospel too where Zacharias is said to be praying at the altar when all the people stood without Why then may not the younger sister Church of Christians likewise pleas and pacify her heavenly father with sacred words and rites addressed unto him in the behalf of the people although these do not understand nay not so much as hear what is said And what matters it if I pray for a friend whether he hear me or no so that God unto whom I pray do hear and accept of my humble addresses St. Paul wrote to Rome from
Corinth most heartily in his letters requesting their praiers and he esteemed it as good as if he had himself been by and heard it and yet the catholick altar is not so far from the people as Corinth is from Rome Wherefore in St. Pauls judgment one may pray for another not onely priest for the people but people also for the priest without being understood or so much as either heard or seen Nor could St. Paul in his own reason ever deny the efficacy of those praiers which be made by one for another in any whatever language for it was all one to him what language the Romans spake and if he did reflect upon it he could not be ignorant that they spake not the language of Corinth when he wrote to them from thence that they should pray for him there at so great a distance But if any will yet be obstinate and object unto me that S. Paul himself even in his epistle he wrote to Corinth from Ephesus which was his first letter he sent to that people speaks there about the end of the same letter very much against their praying and prophesying in an unknown tongue he may know first that even the tongue of the Romans whose prayers notwithstanding S. Paul so earnestly requested at Corinth was an unknwn tongue to those that lived there and yet that wise apostle would not we may think contradict himself Secondly then what was the matter The busines was this There were in the primitive Churches up and down many gifts and gratuities bestowed upon Christian people by that holy Spirit who would thereby exalt the gospels glory as extemporary prophesies working of miracles gift of tongues and the like and S. Paul hearing at Ephesus of some disorders in Corinth upon that account as those kind of gifts are possible to be abused he wrote to them about it to let them know that the spirit of Jesus for such his voluntary donations unto men was indeed to be praised but yet that Christians should not therefor place in those things their utmost glory and then to diminish further the huge esteem they had there of gifts and tongues before all other he lets them know that of all the other gifts that in particular was liable to the greatest inconveniences even far more than either wonder-working or prophecy This is the apostles drift as any one may see that understands a grave and sober letter But what is all this to any service of the Church But thirdly that I may make the thing yet a little plainer the Latin in which the Catholick service is kept is no unknown tongue and therefor that objection of no valiew against it There is no tongue in the world can be said absolutely either a known tongue or unknown but only with relation unto people and so every language in the world is in respect of som people a known tongue and in respect of others an unknown English is an unknown tongue to Vienna but not to London high Dutch is an unknown tongue to London but not to Vienna And therefor that we may conclude a tongue to be known or unknown we must compare it to the family or people in reference to whom it is used and no otherwise and that family or people must be considered not in any other respects if they have many but only in relation to that particular rank or order which refers unto such a language An English merchant living in Anwerp hath two languages which himself and family speaks English and Dutch and both of them in reference both to England and Holland jointly may be called both known tongues and unknown but in his busines with the English dutch is the unknown tongue in his Holland affairs english So the Pope as he is governour and lord of the city of Rome speaks Italian as all the other people there do and it is the only known tongue in that degree and order but as he is head of the whole Church spread over the earth which is a mystical body distinct from the body politick and hath a language of its own quite differing from the Italian that passes through Germany France and Spain both Indies and the Islands the north and south world wheresoever Christians live so he uses and speaks that general language which is latin and in that sens Italian is an unknown tongue and Latin only the known tongue of the Christian world So that in order to religion that one language that is spoken not in one corner but runs quite through the hous and is common to all as they be ranked in the series of Christianity wherein they are trained up by the father of the family and which in reference to religion he only speaks himself is the only known tongue in order to it and all other tongues unknown And so not latin but english not latin but dutch not latin but spanish is an unknown tongue to the Christian world for all these though they be the known languages of particular kingdoms which be but a corner of Christianity yet not they but latin is the known language of the whole Christian body and family through the world The hous of God is but one in it self although it be disperst over several nations and the language fitted for all the body must consequently be but one wherein all those nations are united and linked together exteriourly even as they be joined interiourly in faith which in that one tongue is carried up and down and conserved and all other tongues english french spanish be accidental to Christians as they be Christians even as the times and places of their abode be nor be they fastned unto them by their Christianity but by corporal birth and education which be contingent and altogether accidental to religion So then latin in reference to religion which for reasons above named must use one language is so far from being an unknown tongue that it is the only one known language of the Christian world united to Christian faith as the proper garment to a body by whose fashion it is discerned I know that a part of the Church useth greek in her Liturgy and som few people Hebrew as well as the generality does Latin But I mention only the latin tongue becaus my countrimen take notice only of that And all the three languages agree in this that they are segregated from vulgar use consecrated by the cross of the Meffiâ—s approved by the general pastour and equally liable to the present objection which is so trufatical that it casts not the least blemish upon popery for that custom and I hope all wife men will be of my mind Our land me thinks should thank the Pope for keeping his Mass and Psalter in such an unknown tongue For so our vulgar if they should be curious to see it yet can they neither be offended by what they hear nor so much as discern that our own English communion-book is drawn out of the
necessary unto any effect either in the Protestants way which is fals or in the Catholick way which is true In the Protestants doctrin all the effect of communion is wholly attributed to the operation of faith and Christs words say they are to be taken spiritually and not literally for flesh and bloud profiteth nothing And therefore according to them one kind is enough nay if we have neither kind there is no loss but only of a ceremony which may be supplied well enough at our ordinary tables According to catholick doctrin whole Christ is really under either kind and so it is indifferent in which kind we receiv But it is not expedient ordinarily to communicate under the liquid species for danger of effusion as would somtimes happen in assemblies severally disposed And yet there may be reason by circumstance of the person to communicate rather in the liquid kind than the other as when the communicant is young or sick and not able to take down the other and therfore in antient times such people were ordinarily communicated in the liquid species only by the help of a spathula linguae or little pipe made on purpos for that use and for aught I know it may so be done still upon the like occasion As for any precept of communicating under both kinds I never heard or read of any none hath the great mother Church delivered either in her gospel or out of it For all the whole passage of the last supper whence Anticatholicks do principal ground their reasonings concerns only the sacrifice how the apostles and their successours should consecrate and bless it what they should take to bless and consecrate and how they should consummate after consecration And ther is not there any word or fact concerning the communicating of people nor were ther in that time and place any lay people at all to be communicated either man woman or childe but they were all excluded and if a man would draw negativ arguments as som do out of scripture he might conclude out of that place that lay people are to receive in neither kind sooner then in both And although learned Saint Paul may insinuate in his epstles that even the laiety did partake of Christs body yet it may readily be answered in the Protestants own grounds if he did plainly say so that he spake not of a corporall but spirituall communion Indeed the whole manner of giving communion to the laiety is wholly left to tradition and to the judgment and disposition of the Church which appears more probable for that the catholick Church hath according to her own prudence unto some persons in som times and places used only the communion of the challice to others only the sacred bread to others both no man ever finding fault therewith or startling at it as any new thing and if we consider the scrupulousnes of former ages we cannot but think they would have risen up and excepted against this if it had been deemed either new or ill or if it had not been in the breasts of all good Christians preconceived and fully known to be totally arbitrary and in the Churches power to communicate the laiety either in both kinds or only one and of the two in which she pleased or thought most fitting for the condition of the communicant This was certainly the opinion which Christians ever had concerning communion But as for consecration it seems necessary to the integrity of the sacrifice and the fruit thereof to the whole Church and determined under a precept that it should be made in both kinds for so it was instituted to declare and set forth before our eyes the Passion of Christ and his blood effused of which it could not be a compleat figure or representation except both kinds were consecrated and so the effusion exprest It was to exhibite whole Christ crucified both quoad continentiam and quoad significationem which signification is not requisite in communion where the thing contained is received and not the signification or mode exprest This indifferent use of communion amongst the antient Christians in either kind somtime one somtime the other somtimes both is enough to verify that of Saint Paul if it be taken as it ought to be in the literal sense We are all partakers of one bread and of one cup For though either kind were lawful for any one yet that any one kind was sufficient one may easily see was the opinion of that good apostle by what he speaks in the foregoing comma Whosoever shall eat this bread or drink this cup of our Lord unworthily c. and v. 24. and v. 25. repeating the institution as our Lord delivered it makes him after the consecration of the bread say absolutely Do this in commemoration of me but after the consecration of the challice he speaks with a limitation Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in commemoration of me So that the particle And in the other text must needs be taken disjunctively when he saith we are all partakers of one bread and of one cup that is to say all of us either partake of both or each one at least either of one or the other which manner of speech is very ordinary in all languages Mulier est domus salus ruina A woman saith the proverb is the safety and ruin of a hous yet not conjunctively or both together but either the one or the other according as she is her self either wise or foolish and nothing is more usual in common speech than to use this particle And disjunctively when we speak unto many at once or of many thus ten men rising from a feast may say we have fed heartily to day of flesh fish and fowl though one might haply eat only of one kind another of another as it chanced and yet not any one of all If a man do seriously peruse either the gospel or Acts of the apostles wherein is delineated the primitive religion of Christians he may easily gather that communion then was thought sufficient under one kind and that the species of Bread was most usual to such as were in health For first gospel speaks of as much effect of this one kind as of both This is a bread com down from heaven that if any eat thereof he dies not Joh. 6.50 again he that eats of this bread shall live for ever v. 25. If any one eateh me the same shall live by me v. 58. and he never there compares himself to wine as he does to bread nor mentions the drinking as he does the eating of him We are one bread and one body saith S. Paul all that do partake of one bread 1 Cor. 10.13 And what is there more to be expected but union with Christ and his mystical body immortality and life eternal with him which all follow upon our worthy communicating of the sacred bread Secondly when our Lord brake bread with his disciples in Emaus and so disappeared very great
living Honourable mention of Saints deceased proves an immortality of the soul and this immortality renders the saints even after their deceas still more honourable so that he that honors them must needs believ this and he that truly beleevs this will be apt to honour them I am God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living so argues and disputes our Lord Christ proving the souls immortality by the honourable mention of souls departed And his argument is good and very subtile for if God be the God even of souls departed then souls departed are not nothing but som subsisting thing for God cannot be said to be the God of that which is not And these two effects a beleef of our immortality and a pronenes to imitate their good works so highly crowned hath this memorial of saints wrought all over the catholick world where ther is not a man but will urge himself somtime or other for the respect he bears to such a glorious saint who by shedding his blood or mortifying his body magnified God and his religion upon earth to do somthing either of pennance or charity superabundant over and above what he should have thought upon himself without that help in imitation of the good pattern of him who being once a man compassed with the same infirmities that we now be hath shewed us notwitstanding both by his life and doctrin that such good works are both feasible by frail man and very commendable too and beneficial even to the reward of never ending glory And to this end do Catholicks read their saints lives labouring each one to the degree of his devotion to rais up in himself the lively sparkles of hope and faith and charity by those examples which he sees not confined only to the one age of the apostles but translucent in all times and places by his continued goodnes to his Church whose mercy endureth for ever Nor are those saints lives so prodigious and incredible as we in England take them to be I speak of solid authenticated legends For I have my self seen with mine own eyes and known hundreds of living men that have equalled them in those practises And he that knows the vigorous nature and life of Gospel where it is really put to practise and not only verbally profest will wonder at nothing If ye say to this mountain remove hence saith our Lord to aright beleever all things are possible and I am confident by what I have seen my self that ther be now as bad a world as it is an immens number of people among Catholicks as eminent in all perfections as ther have been in any age and som of them equall too even to the glorious saints of old whose legends we read For thousands of people do make it their very profession even as people here in London set up and profess a trade to lead their lives exactly according to the tenour of gospel noting every evening before they sleep all the deviations even of their very thoughts and making resolutions in the morning for the renewed practis of all such vertuous actions that may probably lye in their way and in particular such a vertue to day that to morrow this in the third and so they end their lives All the Catholick world knows I do not lye And all this is don not by any force of nature but against it by the meer power and vertue of their religion whereby I have known many men to subdue corrupt nature even to amazement and miracle And the various examples both of good people yet alive and of eminent saints departed whose cells and vestments and beads and books are yet reserved amongst them incourage Catholicks unto this vertuous adventure while not only by sight of their lives who live amongst them and of the mortified figures of the holy persons deceased and bloody necks of their martirs but also by sermons and the continual rites of the Church prefiguring before them the conversation and passion both of Jesus himself and his many glorious followers who have imitated his steps that none might think but that the same life might be led though not in the same degree and the same valour be shown in undergoing both carnal castigations and death even by meer man through the grace of him who strengthens us to all things they are made continually to remember and seriously lay to heart both what they are to do and whom to imitate by which reflections they are more moved towards all the good works of piety than without them such a poor weak spirit as mans is housed in mouldring clay could ever bee And that this hath been the practis of the Christian Church in all times to set before the people the lively pourtraits of their holy and well deserving foregoers for their greater incitation unto semblable good works unto which their religion calls them I could easily show throughout all ages but that I intend here to speak no more than what may somwhat allay the preconceived prejudice we have taken up against the Popes religion especially in the few particulars I touch upon of which I speak no more than what I think may suffice to unbeguile such as list seriously to ruminate upon the truth And if in these things which seem harder to us their caus be just I should think the lesser prejudices should fall away of themselvs and we at length love one another as we ought for no man I think does willingly hate the innocent Only two testimonies of the primitive respect unto saints and their images amongst Christians taken not out of the bowels of the Church but from her enemies one from the Jew the other from the Pagan sufficiently known in history I cannot but here mention The Jews in the first three ages of the Church even from the apostles to Constantine the great accused the Christians not only in private but even before the Roman emperours and Senate of three great violations of Moses law first that they broke the sabboth and had turned it from the seventh day of the week unto the first making that holiday which Moses ordained for work and that a working day which Moses made holy secondly that they worshipped images of their saints and kept them not only in their houses but in their oratories and chappels thirdly that they brought in a strange God Jesus Christ they meant which neither they nor their forefathers knew all which seemed expresly against the letter not only of the general law but of the two tables of the ten commandements The pagan all over the empire laughed at the Christians for three ridiculous worships of theirs namely of a breaden God of the priests genitals and of an asses head the first whereof proves the primitive sacrifice of which I have already spoken the second their confession the third their use and respect they had of images for the Jewes had defamed Jesus Christ our Lord whose