or in the Host also And if in the Host whether by Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation whether by Production or Aduction or Conservation or Assumption or by whatsoever other way bold and blind men dare conjecture we determine not Motum sentimus modum nescimus praesentiam credimus This was the belief of the Primitive Church this was the Faith of the antient Fathers who were never acquainted with these modern questions de modo which edifie not but expose Christian Religion to contempt We know what to think and what to say with probability modesty and submission in the Schools But we dare neither scrue up the Question to such a height not dâ—…ctate our Opinions to others so Magisterially as Articles of Faith Nescire velle quae Magister maximus Docere non vult erudâ—…ta est inscitia O! how happy had the Christian world been if Scholars could have sate down contented with a latitude of general sufficient saving Truth which when all is done must be the Olive branch of Peace to shew that the deluge of Ecclesiasticall division is abated without â—…ading too far into particular subtilties or doting about Questions and Logomachies wherof cometh envy strife raylings evil surmisings perverse disputings Old Conâ—…roverersies evermore raise up new Controversies and yet more Controversies as Circles in the â—…ater do produce other Circles Now especially these Scâ—…olasticall quarrels seem to be unseasonable when Zenos School is newly opened in the World who sometimes wanted Opinions but never wanted Arguments Now when Atheism and Sacrilege are become the Mode of the Times Now when all the Fundamentalls of Theology Morality and Policy are undermined and ready to be blown up Now when the unhappy contentions of great Princes or their Ministers have hazarded the very being of Monarchy and Christianity Now when Bellona shakes her bloody whip over this Kingdome it becometh well all good Christians and Subjects to leave their litigious Qâ—…estions and to bring water to quench the fire of Civil dissention already kindled rather than to blow the Coles of discord and to render themselves censurable by all discreet persons like that half-witted fellow personated in theOrator Qui cum capitis mederi debuisset reduviem curavit when his head was extremely distempered he busied himself about a small push on his fingers end But that which createth this troâ—…ble to you and me at this time is your Preface and Epistle Dedicatory wherein to adorn your vainly imagined Victory in an unseasonable Controversie you rest not contented that your Adversary grace your Triumph unless the King of great Britain and all his subjects yea and all Protestants besides attend your Chariot Neither do you only desire this but augurate it or rather you relate it as a thing already as good as done for you tell him that his â—…ies and hiâ—… ears do hear and see those Truths which make him to know the Faulâ—…s of that new Religion which he had suckâ—… with his milk you set forth the causes of his Conversion The tears of his Mother and the Blood of his Father whom you suppose against evident truth â—…o have died an invisible Member of your Roman Chatholique Church And you prescribe the means to perfect his conversion which must be a Conference of your Theologians with the Ministers of Charenton If your Charity be not to be blamed to wish no worse to another than you do to your self yet prudent men desire more Discretion in you than to have presented such a Treatise to the view of the World under his Majesties protection without his licence and against his Conscience Had you not heard that such groundles insinnations as these and other private whisperings concerning his Fathers Apostatising to the Roman Religion did lose him the hearts of many Subjects If you did why would you insist in the same steps to deprive the son of all possibility of recovering them If your intention be only to invite his Majesty to imbrace the Chatholick Faith you might have spared both your oyl and labor The Chatholick Faith florished 1 200. years in the World before Transubstantiation was defined among your selves Persons better accquainted with the Primitive times than your self unles you wrong one another do acknowledge that the Fathers did not touch either the Word or the Matter of Transubstantiation Mark it well neiâ—…her Name nor thing His Majesty doth â—…rmly believe all supernatural Truth revealed in sacred Writ He embraâ—…eth chearfully whatsoever the holy Aâ—…ostles or the Nicene Fathers or blessed Athanasius in their respective Creeds or Summaries of Chatholick Faith did set down as necessary to be believed He is ready to receive whatsoever the Chatholick Church of this Age doth unanimously believe to be a Particle of saving Truth But if you seek to obtrude upon him the Roman Church with its adherents for the Catholick Church excluding three parts of four of the Christian world from the Communion of Christ or the opinions thereof for Articles and Fundamentals of Catholick Faith neither his Reason nor his Religion nor his Charity will suffer him to listen unto you The Truths received by our Church are sufficient in point of â—…aith to make him a good Caâ—…holick More than this your Romane Bishops your Roman Church your Tridentine Concill may not cannot obtrude upon him Listen to the third general Councill that of Ephesus which deâ—…eed that it should be lawfull for no man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed than that which was defined by the Nicene Councill And that whosâ—…ever should dare to eompose or offer any such to any persons willing to be converted from Paganism Judaism or Heresie if they were Bishops or Clerks should be deposed if Lay-men anaâ—… hematised Suffer us to enjoy the same Creed the Primitive Fatâ—…ers did which nons will say to have been insufficient except they be mad as was alleged by the Greeks in the Councill of Florence You have violated this Canon you have obtruded a New Creed upon Christendom New I say not in words only but in sense also Some things are de Symbolo some things are contra Symbolum and some things are onely praeter Symbolum Some things are contained in the Creed either expressly or virtually either in the Letter or in the Sense and may be deduced by evident Consequence from the Creed as the Deity of Christ his two Natures the Procession of the Holy Ghost The Addition of these was properly no no addition but an explication Yet such an explication no person no Assembly under an Occumenical Council can impose upon the Catholick Church And such an one your Tridentine Synod was not Secondly some things are contra symbolum contrary to the Symbolical Faith and either expresly or virtually overthrow some Article of it These additions are not onely unlawful but heretical also in themselves and after conviction render a man a formal Heretick whether some of your additions be not
the finding out of the right sense Thirdly to be able to compare Texts with Texts Antecedents with Consequents without which one can hardly attain to the drift and scope of the Holy Ghost in the obscurer passages And lastly it is something to know the Idiotisms of that language wherein the Scriptures were written He that wants all these requisites and yet takes upon him out of a phanatique presumption of private illumination to interpret Scripture is a doting Enthusiast fitter to be refuted with Scorn than with Arguments He that presumes above that degree and proportion which he hath in these means and above the talent which God hath given him as he that hath a little Language yet wants Logick or having both Language and Logick knows not or regards not either the Judgement of former Expositors or the practice and tradition of the purest Primitive Ages or the Symbolical Faith of the Catholick Church is not a likely workman to build a Temple to the Lord but ruine and destruction to himself and his seduced followers A new Physician we say requires a new Church-yard But such bold ignorant Empericks in Theology are ten times more dangerous to the Soul than an ungrounded unexperienced Quacksalver to the Body This hath alwaies been the doctrine and the practice of our English Church First it is so far from admitting Laymen to be Directive Interpreters of holy Scripture that it allows not this Liberty to Clergy-men so much as to gloss upon the Text untill they be Licenced to become Preachers Secondly for Judgement of Discretion onely it gives it not to private persons above their Talents or beyond their last It disallows all phantastical and Enthusiastical presumption of incompetent and unqualified Expositors It admits no man into holy Orders that is to be capable of being made a Directive Inâ—…erpreter of Scripture howsoever otherwise qualified unless he be able to give a good account of his Faith in the Latin tongue so as to be able to frame all his Expositions according to the Analogy thereof It forbids the Licenced Preachers to teach the people any doctrine as necessary to be religiously held and believed which the Catholick Fathers and old Bishops of the Primitive Church have not collected out of the Scriptures It ascribes a Judgement of Jurisdiction over Preachers to Bishops in all manner of Ecclesiastical duties as appears by the whole body of our Canons And especially where any difference or publick Opposition hath been between Preachers about any point or doctrine deduced out of Scripture It gives a power of determining all emergent Controversies of faith above Bishops to the Church as to the witness and keeper of the Sacred Oracles And to a lawful Synod as the representative Church Now Sir be your own Judge how infinitely you have wronged us and your self more suggesting that temerariously and without the Sphere of your knowledge to his Majestie for the principal ground of our Reformation which our souls abhorr Is there no mean between stupidity and madness Must either all things be lawful for private persons or nothing Because we would not have them like Davids Horse and Mule without understanding do we therefore put both Swords in their hands to reform and cut off to plant and to pluck up to alter and abolish at their pleasure We allow them Christian liberty but would not have them Libertines Admit some have abused this just liberty may we therefore take it away â—…rom others So we shall leave neither a â—…un in Heaven nor any excellent Creaâ—…ure upon Earth for all have been abused â—…y some persons in some kinds at some â—…imes We receive not your upstart supposititious traditions nor unwritten fundamentals But we admit genuine Universal Apostolical traditions As the Apostles Creed the perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God the Anniversary Festivals of the Church the Lenton fast Yet we know that both the duration of it and the manner of observing it was very different in the Priâ—…nitive times We believe Episcopacy to an ingenuous person may be proved out of Scripture without the help of Tradition but to such as are froward the perpetual practice and tradition of the Church renders the interpretation of the Text more authentique and the proof more convincing What is this to us who admit the practice and tradition of â—…he Church as an excellent help of Exposition Use is the best interpreter of Laws and we are so far from believing that We cannot admit tradition without allowing the Papacy that one of the principal moâ—…ives why we rejected the Papacy as it is now established with Universality of Jurisdiction by the Institution of Christ and superiority above Oecumenical Councils and Infallibility of Judgement was the constant tradition of the Primitive Church So Sir you see your demonstration shaken into â—…ces You who take upon you to remove whole Churches at our pleasure have not so much ground left you as to set your Instrument upon Your two main ground-works being vanished all your Presbyterian and Independent superstructions do remain like so many Bubbles or Castles in the Air It were folly to lay closer siege to them which the next puff of wind will disperse ruâ—…at subductis tecta Columnis Howsoever though you have mistaken the grounds of our Reformation and of your discourse yet you charge us that we have renounced the Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation the seven Sacraments Justification by inherent righteousness Merits Invocation of Saints Prayer for the Dead with Pâ—…rgatory and the Authority of the Pope Are these all the necessary Articles of the new Roman Creed that we have renounced Surely no you deal too favourably with us We have in like manner renounced your Image-worship your half Communion your Prayers in a tongue un known c. It seems you were loth to mention these things First you say we have renounced your Sacrifice of the Mass. If the Sacrâ—…fice of the Mass be the same with the Sacrifice of the Cross we attribute more unto it than your selves we place our whole hope of Salvation in it If you understand another Propitiatory Sacrifice distinct from that as this of the Mass seems to be for confessedly the Priest is not the same the Altar is not the same the Temple is not the same If you think of any new meritorious satisfaction to God for the sins of the world or of any new supplement to the merits of Christs Passion you must give us leave to renounce your Sacrifice indeed and to adhere to the Apostle By one offering he hath persected for ever them that are sanctified Surely you cannot think that Christ did actually sacrifice himself at his last Supper for then he had redeemed the world at his last Supper then his subsequent sacrifice upon the Cross had been superfluous nor that the Priest now doth more than Christ did then We do readily acknowledge an Eucharistical sacrifice of prayers and
uncertain or fallible rule the more dangerous is the error So our right foundation purgeth away our error in superstruction And your wrong foundation lessens the value of your truths and doubles the guilt of your errors I will by your leave requite your demonstration and turn the mouths of your own Canoâ—…s against your self That Church which hath changed the Apostolical Creed the Apostolical Succession the Apostolical Regiment and the Apostolical Communion is no Apostolical Orthodox or Catholick Church But the Church of Rome hath changed the Apostolical Creed the Apostolical Succession the Apostolical Regiment and the Apostolical Communion Therefore the Church of Rome is no Apostolical Orthodox or Catholick Church They have changed the Apostolical Creed by making a new Creed wherein are many things inserted that hold no Analogie with the old Apostles Creed The Apostolical Succession by ingrossing the whole succession to Rome and making all other Bishops to be but the Popes Vicars and Substitutes as to their Jurisdiction The Apostolical Regiment by erecting a visible and Universal Monarchy in the Church And lastly the Apostolical Communion by excommunicating three parts of the holy Catholick Apostolick Church Again That Church which resolves its Faith not into divine Revelation and Authority but into Humane infallibility or the Infallibilitie of the present Church without knowing or according what that present Church is whether the Virtual or the representative or the essential Church or a body compounded of some of these hath no true faith But the Church of Rome resolves its Faith not into divine Revelation and Authority but into the Infallibility of the present Church not knowing or not according what that present Church is whether the Virtual Church that is the Pope or the Representative Church that is a general Council or the Essential Church that is the Church of Bâ—…lievers diffused over the world or a body compounded of some of these that is the Pope and a General or Provincial Council Therefore the Church of Rome hath not true faith The greater number of your Writers is for the Pope that this infallibility is fixed to his Chair But of all other Judgements that is most fallible and uncertain for if Simony make a Nullity in a Papal Election we have great reason to doubt that that Chà ir hath not been filled by a right Pope these last hundred years These are no other but your own Mediums Such luck you have with your irrefragable demonstrations In case his Majesty will turn Roman Catholick you promise him restitution to his Kingdoms Great undertakers are seldom good performers when you are making your Proselytes you promise them golden Mountains but when the work is done you deal with them as he did with his Saint who promised a Candle as big as his Mast and offered one no bigger than his finger Do you however think it reason that any man should change his Religion for temporal respects though it were for a Kingdom Jeroboam did so you may remember what was the success of it You propose this as the readiest means to restore him Others who penetrate deeper into the true state of his affairs look upon it as the readiest way to ruin his hopes by the alienation of his friends by the confirmation of his foes and in some sort the justification of their former feigned fears Do you think all Roman Catholick Princes desire this change as earnestly as your self Give them leave first to consult with their particular Interests A common Interest prevails more with Confederates than a common faith The Sword distinguâ—…sheth not between Protestants and Papists But what is the ground of this your great Confidence no less than Scripture Seek ye first the kingdom of God and the righteousness of it and all other things shall be added unto you You say the word of God deceives no man True but you may deteive your self out of the word of God The Conclusion alwaies follows the weaker part such as this are commonly your mistaken grounds when they come to be examined The text saith Seek the kingdom of God You would have his Majesty deseâ—…t the kingdom of God The promise is of all things necessary or convenient you will be your own Carver and oblige God Almighty to Kingdoms and particular conditions The promise is made as all tempral promises are with an implicite exception of the Cross unâ—…ess God see it to be otherwise more expedient for us He that denies us gold and gives us patience and other graces more precious than Gold that denies a temporal Kingdom to give an eternal doth not wrong us Tâ—…s was out of your head That the Scots had an antienter Obligation to fidelity towards his Majesty and that Royal Family than the English is a truth not to be doubted or disputed of I think I may safely adde than any Nation in Europe or in tâ—…e known world to their Prince his Majesty being the hundred and tenth Monarch of that line that hath swayed the Scepter of that Kingdom successively The more the pitty that a few treacherous Shebas and a pack of bawling seditious Orators under the vizard and shadow of pure Religion to the extreme scandal of all honest professors should be able to overturn such an antient fabrick and radicated succession of Kingly Government But take heed Sir how you beleeve that any ingagement of the Presbyterian faction in Scotland proceeded either from conscience or gratitude or fidelity or aimed at the resetling of his Majesty upon his throne No no their hearts were double their treaties on their parts were meer treacheries from the beginning I mean not any of those many loyal patriots that never bowed their knees to Baal-berith the God of the Covenant in that Nation Nor yet any of those serious converts that no sooner discoveâ—…ed the leger de main of a company of canting impostors but they sought to stop the stream of Schism and sedition with the hazard of their own lives and estates Nor even those whose eyes were longer held with the Spirit of slumber by some stronger spels of disciplinarian charmers but did yet later open their eyes and come in to do their duties at the sixth or ninth hour All these are expunged by me out of this black Roll. Let their posterities enjoy the fruit of their respective loyalties And let their memories be daily more and more blessed But I mean the obstinate Ring-leaders and Standard-bearers of the Presbyterian Covenant of both robes and the setters up of that mishapen Idol It is from these I say that no help or hope could in reason be expected They who sold the Father and such a Father were not likely to proove loyal to the Son They who hanged up one of the most antient Gentlemen in Europe the gallant Marquâ—…ss of Montrose being then their lawful Vice-roy like a dog in such base and barbarous manner together with his Maâ—…esties Commission to the publike dishonour of
how they combat the one party against the other and the victory of the last The Puritans of the Genevian Discipline have determined of Articles of Faith and have form'd their Confession to which they oblige all those that receive their Communion But this Law which prescribes by Authority a common belief among all the Communicants cannot agree with the judgement â—…at every Believer can and ought to make of the sense of the Scriptures by the assistance of the Holy Ghost according to the second common Maxim of their Reformation For if one supposes it true no other Authority can bear rule over the Conscience nor prescribe it any thing beyond the sense that the Spirit suggests to it in the interpreting of the Scripture Upon which the Brownists also set upon the Presbyterians by all the same Authorities upon which they have founded theirs to separate themselves from the Church and abandon its determinations They maintain That to oblige the Faith of faithful men to a formular confession which can have no other than an humane authority is to bring them forthwith under the Papal Tyrannie from which the Holy Ghost hath freed them Against this the Calvinists have no reply which doth not wound themselves with their own hands and which is not their condemnation pronounced by themselves For they can answer nothing pertinently if they do not borrow the reasons the Church hath against them So God perpetual Protector of his Church causes her Enemies to pronounce her Victory with their own mouths whilst that they issued from the teeth and the mouth of the Serpent to make war with her do wage it among themselves and kill one another From these Brownists as your Majestie Sir knows much better are come the Independents which are not risen but since the advantage the Puritan-Presbyterians had upon the Protestants by the Authority of the Parliamentiers It is those that have produced this false-prophet of blood and slaughter to end this last Act of Infernal Reformation that he himself preaches to his Musulmans with his Sword in his hand after he hath broke the Cross and changed the Episcopal Crosier into a Murtherer's Axe By this same spirit of the Brownists in which he hath been originally instructed by using Disputes he deduces Fundamental Maxims of the common Reformation among them he wars against the Presbyterians with much more advantage than he did against the Protestants From whence he promises himself to make them all submit to his opinion which is an indifference of all opinion of Religion Which shall fall out without doubt according to his own mind if they will follow the Consequences of their own Maxims For the reason of which he gives liberty to every man to believe and prophesie that which they think the Spirit suggests to them But he thinks in making these People separated from the Church taste the Liberty of Conscience he shall rally all their different Sects into one Body to set them against the Body of the Catholick Church to the end he may destroy the Pope and the Bishops that conduct her and may exterminate the Kings that defend her He calls that the great work of God He assures the success to all them that follow him by the revelations which he makes them believe he had at his Fasts his Prayers and his reading the holy Scriptures But it is no marvel he can assemble such a number of Followers by the arguing of their Maxims For since they had already produced these different bodies of reform'd Battalions and reforming even to infinity Protestants Presbyterians and Brownists who in a perpetual war cannot agree among themselves He comes further as more fit to serve himself of their Maxims to put them to the Ho there by the indifference and by abolishing all Lawes that rule upon the Conscience and leaving every mans thoughts free and the liberty to prophesie and interpret the Scriptures according to the sense his spirit dictates to him For as to the remainder he troubles not himself to see by this spirit the prodigious number of Sects and Insects to swarm about who daily vomit for more monstrous opinions than caâ—… come from the bottomless pit For lâ—… there be what difference there will among them they all agree in his indifferency By this Catastrophe of the Reformation undertaken by those that havâ—… divided the Church in these latter Ages you see Sir what hath been both thâ—… Design and Genius This is not I thaâ—… represent the truth of it to you God hath set it before your eyes or I may rather say in your heart written in Characters which shall never be blotted out And to write them with his own hand he himself is descended from Heaven environed with the fire and thunder of his anger which appears enlightned upon you But from the middle thereof you hear the voyce of his mercy recalling you to him and declaring to you that all this he hath done to let you know the sins of your Fathers by drawing you out of them that he may call you back into his Church where all benediction shall be given you For true Piety and Religion whereof she hath been made the Guardian finds there as the Apostle speaks the promises of present life and of that which is to come And your Faith which God will work in you by the vertue of the Cross in the present affliction wherein you are submitting all your desires to the Wisdome of his Counsel and power of his strength shall meet there the comfort of your patience conformable to the hope you shall put in him You will say then Sir when you consider your self and the work that God shall have wrought in you That the Wisdome of the Judgements of God is without bottome That the Knowledge thereof is very difficult That it is impossible to find it out if he himself doth not manifest it He will manifest it to you Sir and you may see it if you consider the great abyss that was between you and God how far you were drawn from him before he came to you after thiâ—… manner and drew himself near to you that he might draw you to him When the King your Father had the Crown upon his Head and was sitting upon his Throne in the middle of his flourishing Kingdomes in the abundance of all prosperity and glory And that you Heir to this Majestie and Royal Pomp bred up your spirit among these mundane delights of the desire and hope of adding to the lustre of your Grandfathers the splendor of your brave Actions wherewith your politick and military virtues should adorn your life and the Historie of your Reign What 's this then when all the reasons of State as well as those wherewith your Conscience had been onely instructed would have kept you engaged in this new Religion the errour whereof you have suckt in with the milk of your infancy your eyes and your ears should have been capable of seeing and hearing the
see that thâ—… Ministers called in the presence of youâ—… Majestie either by their avowing of thâ—… truth or refusal to appear shall havâ—… been themselves the Ministers of youâ—… Conversion every one will â—…nter up on the examination of the causes anâ—… reasons of the Truth which shall havâ—… moved you thither which shall have noâ—… less vertue to make the like impression in their souls by the same means For whether the Ministers do sincerely yield to the Truth which they will not know how to contradict or whether they condemn themselves by their refusal of an ingenuous proceeding the event of their Convocation shall be alike and universal in all places where the same way to call back the People to the Church shall be practised There are no Ministers in France will know what to answer when those of Paris shall be made dumb No others will by any manner of means dispute them concerning their sufficiency But if they are wanting to the duty of a good Conscience you may easily meet many more ingenuous who will no waies refuse to acknowledge the Truth By this way the People who seek nothing but their salvation and who have no interest more pretious will be ravished to see themselves at last by a plain solid and sincere instruction upon the true understanding of matters of the Catholick Faith drawn from this Labyrinth of disputes which are given them for matter of Reformation no less Enemies to Piety than Christian Charity For this effect Sir desiring to be assisting to the design of making the People see by the conviction of their Ministers that being separated from the Church under this pretext of Reformation they are left by that means without Faith and without the Church And then when one perswades them that in the Questions controverted iâ—… Faith the Church teaches contrary to what the Antient Church hath believed those that accuse them cannoâ—… do it but by a formal contradicting botâ—… the holy Fathers and themselves which is a necessary argument of lying and errour I here put forth into the light a little Treatise wherein these two Truthâ—… are rendred evident They have formed no Controversy more important according to their own opinion than that of Transubstantiation in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist They accuse us for having Introduced by the truth of this change the necessity of adoring Jesus Christ in this Sacrament or the Sacrament it self which we maintain to be Jesus Christ himself They impute unto us that in this we have altered the Faith of the Antient Church to whom they say both this change and the adoration of the Sacrament hath been unknown They make this the principal cause forsooth of their sole necessity of separating themselves from us And being not able to deny that the whole Antient Church did solemnly offer the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ to God his Father according to his institution in the holy Eucharist they also cloak their difference in this subject from the Antient Church and from us with this That the Antient Church did not believe as they presume Transubstantiation with us nor by consequence the Sacrifice as we do saying That to this subject as they reject in our belief Transubstantiation so they have for the same reason likewise abolished the Sacrifice which the Church celebrates at this present I have made it evident Sir that the Faith of the Church at this day is conformable to the Antient upon this change in a Book which I have published against the defences brought by Minister Aubertin upon the passages of the holy Fathers in his Book of the Eucharist I have reduced the demonstration of the Truth to this point viz. That all the holy Fathers have believed that by the change which interposes it self in this Sacrament there is rendred the same Flesh and the same Blood of Jesus Christ received by the mouths of Believers whereof Jesus Christ speaks in St. John where he commands us to eat and drink them that we may have eternal life The Minister hath not been able to contradict this truth but in formally contradicting the sense which the Authors of his opinion before him have attributed to the Fathers as conformable to them and in making the sense of the Fathers formally contrary to that of Jesus Christ and that which he attributes to them formally contrary to the true sense which they have and do declare in clear and express words I have convinced him by the proof of an evident demonstration in this little Treatise And if he be called to answer upon this conviction the Truth will be found to be victorious either by his good or his evil Faith And as their Consciences tell them and bite them for having introduced by their Reformation all Opinions equally contrary to the Faith of the Church of all Ages When they see themselves reduced to this extremity they cast themselves into the retrenchment of their Fundamental Maxims which is to admit of no rule of Faith but that of the Scripture interpreted by every mans reason Upon that I have convinced them by a Demonstration without Reply that by the design of their Reformation founded upon the use of this rule they have lost both the Church and Faith Which they must avouch if they be called to answer there or that the Truth shall conserve its advantage by the refusal they shall make I most humbly intreat your Majestie Sir that you will be pleased to let this little work have the glory to appear to the World under your Royal Name for a prop which will be able to serve your Faith as an Instrument of the Truth the Victory whereof ought happily to gain you to the Church And by gaining you to bring with you her Peace and re-union of all the Parties that are divided from her For assuredly this grace of Heaven is not far from us if we our selves do not draw our selves back And I am certain that if it please the prudence of the Bishops which the Holy Ghost hath established for the conduct of the Church as I hope they will be pleased to serve themselves towards the People that have abandoned their Crosier of the way that I propose and present to your Majestie they shall see without much pain and in a little time the strayed Sheep returning to them by the very hand of those which keep them withdrawn from their Sheepfolds For in effect when the evidence of this demonstrated Truth shall once have taken its place by the sweetness of the amiable conferences where she ought to be treated with all sincerity and liberty in the spirit of all our separated Brethren as well Ministers as People they will consent with joy to re-enter into the Catholick Church So much the more willingly that by the reasons of the truth of her Faith acknowledged conformable to the Tradition of all Ages they shall so acknowledge her in all her parts to be the True Seed from
bring great prejudices and then it is better to give one account why we have taken it away than to be alwaies making excuses why we do it not Needless alteration doth diminish the venerable esteem of Religion and lessen the credit of antient truths Break Ice in one place and it will crack in more Crooked sticks by bending streight are sometimes broken into two There is a right mean between these extremes if men could light on it that is neither to destroy the body out of hatred to the sores and Ulcers nor yet to cherish the sores and Ulcers out of a doating affection to the body that is neither to destroy antient Institutions out of a zealous hatred to some new abuses nor yet to doat so upon antient Institutions as for their sakes to cherish new abuses Our Reformation is just as much the cause of the ruin of our Church and Common-wealth as the building of Tenderden Steepl was the cause of Goodwins Sands or ruin of the Country thereabouts because they happened both much about the same time Careat successibus opto May he ever want success who judgeth of Actions by the Event Our Reformation hath ruined the Faith just as the plucking up of weeds in a Garden ruins the good Herbs It hath ruined the Church just as a body full of superfluous and vicious humours is ruined by an healthful purgation It hath ruined the Common-wealth just as pruning â—…f the Vine ruins the Eâ—…m No no Sir Our sâ—…fferings for the Faith for the Church for the Monarchy do proclame us Innocent to all the world of the ruin either of Faith or Church or Monarchy And in this capacity we choose rather to steâ—…ve as Innocents 〈◊〉 to swim in plenty as Nocents But this is but one of your doubles to kâ—…ep us from the right form It is your new Roman Creed that hath ruined the Faith It is your Papal Court that hath ruined the Church It is your new Doctrines of the Popes Omnipotence over temporal persons in order unto spiritual ends of absolving subjects from their Oaths of Allegeance of exempting the Clergy from secular jurisdiction of the lawfulness of murthering Tyrants and excommunicated Princes of aequivocation and the like that first infected the world to the danger of Civil Government Yet far be it from me to make these the Universal Tenets of your Church at any time much less at this time when they are much faln from their former credit neither can I deny that sundry dangerous positions destructive to all civil societies have been transplanted by our Sectaries and taken too deep root in our quarters but never by our fault If God should grant us the benefit of an Oecumenical or Occidental Council it would become both you and us in the fiâ—…st place to pluck up such seditious opinions root and branch You say our Calvinistical Reformation so you are pleased to call it as would have it for the moderate and and orderly Reformation of England was the terror and eye-sore of Rome is founded upon two maxims The one that the Church was faln to ruin and desolation and become guilty of Idolatry and Tyranny This is neither our foundation nor our superstruction neither our maxim nor our Opinion It is so far from it that we hold and teach the direct contrary First that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Universal Church that though the rain descend and the floods come and the winds blow and beat upon it yet it shall never fall to ruin or desolation because it is builded upon a Rock Secondly we beleeve that the Catholick Church is the faithfull Spouse of Christ and cannot be guilty of Idolatry which is spiritual Adultery Thirdly we never said we never thought that the Occumenical Church of Christ was guilty of Tyranny It is principled to suffer wrong to do none and by suffering to Conquer as a flock of unarmed Sheep in the midst of a company of ravenous Wolves A new and unheard-of kind of warfare as if one should throw an handful of dry flax into the midst of a flaming fire to extinguish it But I presume this is one of the Idiotisms â—…f your language in which by the Church you aâ—…waies understand the Roman Church making Roman and Catholick to be Convertibles As if Christ could not have a Church nor that Church any privileges unless the Court of Rome might have the Monopoly of them There is a vast difference between the Catholick Church and a Patriarchal Church The Catholick Church can never fail any Patriarchal Church may Apostate and fail We have a promise that the Candle shall not be put out we have no promise that the Candlesticks shall not be removed But supposing that which we can never grant the Catholick Church and Roman Church were Convertibles yet still you do us wrong First we do not maintain that the Roman Church it self is faln to ruin and desolation we grant to it a true metaphysical being though not a true moral being we hope their errors are rather in superstructures than in fundamentals we do not say that the Plants of saving truth which are common to you and us are plucked up by the roots in the Roman Church but we say that they are over-grown with weeds and in danger to be choked Next for Idolatry whether and why and how far we accuse your Church of it deserves further Consideration First you agree with us That God alone is the Object of Religion and consequently that all Religious worship is due terminatively only to him that God alone is to be invocated absolutely or ultimately that is so as to grant our requests and fulfil our desires by himself and that the Saints are not the objects of our prayers but joynt petitioners with us and intercessors for us to the throne of Grace Secondly we profess as well as you that there is a proportionabâ—…e degree of honour and respect due to every creature in Heaven and Earth according to the dignity of it and therefore more honour due to a glorified Spirit than to a mortal man But withall we adde that this honour is not servitutis but charitatis not of service as to our Lords and Masters but of love and charity as to our friends and fellow-servants of the same kind and nature with that Honour which we give to holy men on Earth And herein we are confident that we shall have your consent Thirdly we agree in this also that abundant love and duty doth extend an honourable respect from the person of a dear friend or noble benefactor to his posterity to his memory to his Monument to his Image to his Reliques to every thing that he loved or that pertained to him even to the Earth which he did tread upon for his sake Put a Liefhebber or Virtuoso among a company of rare pictures and he will pick out the best pieces for their
the unity of the Church You collect as a Corollary from our supposed principal of the right and sufficiency of private judgement enlightned by the Spirit that no humane Authority can bind the Conscience of another or prescribe any thing unto it I have formerly shewed you your gross mistake in the premises Now if you please hear our sense of the Conclusion Humane Lawes cannot be properly said to bind the Conscience by the sole authority of the Law-giver But partly by the equity of the Law every one being obliged to advance that which conduceth to a publick good thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self And especially by Divine Authority which commands every soul to be subject to the higher powers for conscience sake not prudentially onely The question is soon decided just Lawes of lawfuâ—…l Superiours either Civil or Ecclesiastical have authority to bind the Conscience in themselves but not from themselves How shall we believe that it is not you but God that represents these things to his Majestie that addresseth them to him by your mouth that calleth him that stretcheth out his hand to him that hath set these things before his eyes in Characters not to be defaced What That his Majestie should turn Roman Catholick Are they like Belshazars Characters and are you the onely Daniel that can read them we do not see a Cloven Tongue upon your head nor a Dove seemâ—…ng to whisper in yâ—…ur ear Be not too consident lest some take it to be a little taint of Anabaptism perhaps you have had as strange phantasies as this heretofore whilst you were of a contrary party Be it what it will be you cannot offer it to his â—…ajestie with more confidence or preâ—…end more intimacy with God or to be more familiarly acquainted with his Cabinet Counsail than a Scotch Presbyter And yet your self would not value all his confidence at a Button Wise men are not easily gained by empty shews oâ—… pretences that signifie nothing but the pretenders vanity nor by Enthusiastical interpretation of occurrences It is onely the weight of reason that depresseth the scale of their judgement and maketh them to yield and submit unto it Howsoever it be God or you thaâ—… represent these things to his Majestie you tell us that the end is to reduce him from those errours which he sucked in with his milk which in thâ—… dayes of Peace and abundance it had been disficult for him to discover But now his Eyes and his eares do see and hear those Truths which makâ—… it evident to him that God hath condemned them to reduce him to the Communion of the Church wherein you promise him all manner of blessings Who told you of his Majesties new illumination or what have you seen to believe any such thing when you daâ—…e avoâ—…ch such gross untruths of himself to himself how should he credit your private presumptions which you tell him as a new Mercury dropped down from Heaven You tell us that it is necessary for every one to adhere to the true Church which is the keeper of saving truth That is true but nothing to his Majesty who hath more right already in the Catholick Church than your self You tell us moreover that this Church is the Roman Church That is not trâ—…e but suppose it were most true as it is most false what should a man be beter or more neerer to the knowledge of the Truth and consequently to his salâ—…ation for his submission to the Roman Church As long as you cannot agree among your selves either what this Roman Church is or whâ—…t this infallible Judge is One saith it is the Pope alone Another saith no but the Pope with his Conclave of Cardinals A third will go no less than the Pope and a Provincial Council A fourth will not be contented without the Pope and a General Council A Fifth is for a general Council alone â—…ither with or without the Pope A Sixth party and they are of no small esteeme amongst you here at this present is for the Essential Church that is the Company of all faithfull people Whose reception say they makes the true ratificationof the Acts of its representative Body It were as good to have no infallible Judge as not to know or agree who it is Be not so censorious in condemning others for not submitting to your Roman Church or infallible Judge nor so positive to make this submission so absolutely necessary to salvation untill you agree better what this Judge or Church is It is five to one against you that you your self miss the right Judge Whatsoever becom of your Church you say Ours is perished by the proper Axioms of our own Reformation and hath no more any 〈◊〉 in the world nor pretence to the Privilege of a Church This is hard He perisheth twice that peri sheth by his own weapons Even so Iosephs brethren told Joseph himself with Consciences guiâ—…ty enough one is not This is that which the Court of Rome would be content to purchase at any rate This hath been the end of all their Negotiations and Instructions by all means to support the Presbyterian Faction in England against Episcopacy Not that they loved them more than us but that they feared us more than them There was an Israelitish Church when Elias did not see it but he must be as blind as Bartimaeus that cannoâ—… see the Eâ—…glish Church Wheresoever there is a lawfull English Pastor and an English Flock and a subordination of this â—…lock to that Pastor there is a Branch of the true English Protestant Church Do you make no difference between a Church persecuted and a Church extinguished Have patience and expect the Catastrophe It may be all this while the Carpenters Son is making a Coffin for Juliâ—…n If it please God we may yet see the Church oâ—… England which is now frying in the fire come out like Gold out of the Furnace more pure and more full of lâ—…ster If not his Will be done Just art thou O Lord and Righteous are all thy judgements The Primitive Church was as glorious in the sight of God when they served him in Holes and Corners in Cryptis Sacellis Conventiculis Ecclesiolis as when his worship was more splendidly performed in Basilicis and Cyriacis in goodly Churches and magnificent Cathedralls Your Design stops not at the King of Great Britain but extends it self to all his subjects yea to all Protestants whatsoever I wonder why you stay there and would not adde all the Eastern Churches and the great Turk himself fince you might have done it with another penfull of Ink and with as much pretence of Reason to secure himself from the joint Forces of Christendom thus united by your means A strong Phaâ—…tasie will discover Armies and Navies in the Clouds men and Horses and Chariots in the fire and hear Articulate Dictates from the Bells This is is not to write wakeing but dreaming Yet you
their King in the chief City of that Kingdom in a time of Treaty They who purged the Army over and over as loth on their parts willingly to leave one dram of honesty or loyalty in it who would not admit their fellow subjects of much more merit and courage than themselves to assist them They who would not permit his Majesty to continue among the Souldiery lest he should grow too popular They who after they had proclamed to the world his Title and right to that Crown yet sought to have him excluded from the benefit of it and from the execution of his Kingly Office until he should abjure his Religion cast dirt upon his Parents alienate his loyal subjects and ratifie the usurpations of his Rebels These these I say were most unlikely persons to be his restorers Was it ever heard before that subjects acknowledged a Soveraign and yet endeavoured to exclude him from his rights until he had granted whatsoever seemed good in their eyes Others may be more severe in their judgements but I for my part could be well contented that God would give them the Honour to be the repayrers of the breach who have been the makers of the breach to be the restorers of Monarchy who have been the ruiners of Monarchy to be the re-establishers of peace who have been the chiefest Catalines and promoters of VVar. But that can never be whilst they justifie their former rebellious practises and after they have eaten and devoured wipe their mouths and say what have we done until they acknowledge their former errors Repentance onely is able to knit the broken bone why should they be more afraid to confess their faults and shame the Devil than to commit them Yet I cannot say with you that this hath robbed his Majesty of all hopes and means of recovery VVe may not limit God to any time who commonly with-holds his hâ—…lp until the Bricks be doubled until the edge of the razor doth touch the very throats of his servant that the glory of the work may wholy redound to himself VVe may not limit God to those means which seem most probable in our eyes So long as Joseph trusted to his friend in Court God did forget him when Pharaohs Butler had quite forgotten Joseph then God remembred him God hath nobler wayes of restitution than by Battails and bloudshed that is by changing the hearts of his creatures at his pleasure and turning Esau's vowed revenge into love and kindness I confess his Majesties resolution was great so was his prudence that neither fear which useth to betray the succours of the soul nor any indiscreet Action or word or gesture in so long a time should either discover him or render him suspected VVhen I consider that the Heir of a Crown in the midst of that Kingdom where he had his breeding whom all mens eyes had used to Court as the rising Sun of no common features or physiognomy at such time when he was not onely believed but known to be among them when every Corner of the Kingdom was full of Spys to search him and every Port and Inne full of Officers to apprehend him I say that he should travail at such a time so long so far so freely in the sight of the Sun exposed to the view of all petsons without either discovery or suspition seems little less than a miracle That God had smitten the eyes of those who met him with blindness as the â—…yes of the Sodomites that they could not find Lots door or the Syrian Souldiers that were sent to apprehend Elisha This strange escape and that former out of Scotland where his condition was not much better nor his person much safer do seem strangely to presage that God hath yet some great work to be done by him in his own due time You attribute this rare deliverance and the hopes of his conversion in part to the prayers and tears of his Mother prayers and tears were the onely proper Arms of the old Primitive Christians more particularly they are the best and most agreeable defence of that sex but especially the prayers and tears of a Mother for the Son of her desires are most powerful As it was said of the prayers and tears of Monica for St. Austine her Son fieri non pâ—…tuit ut filius istarum lacrymarum periret It could not be that a Son should perish for whom so many tears were shed God sees her tears and hears her prayers and will grant her request if not according to her will and desire we often ask those things which being granted would prove prejudicial to our selves and our friends yet ad utilit atem to his Majesties greater advantage which is much better She wisheth him a good Catholick and God will preserve him a good Catholick as he is We do not doubt but the prayers of his Father who now follows the Lamb in his whiâ—…es for his perseverance will be more effectual with God than the prayers of his Mother for his change Your instance of his Majesties Grandfather your grand King Henry the fourth is not so apposite or fit for your purpose He gained his Crown by turning himself towards his people you would perswade his Majesty to turn from his people and to cast away his possibilities of restitution that is to cut off a natural leg and take one of wood To the tears of his Mother you adde the blood of his Father whom you justly stile happy and say most truly of him that he preferred the Catholick Faith before his Crown his liberty his life and whatsoever was most dear unto him This faith was formerly rooted in his heart by God not secretly and invisibly in the last moments of his life to unite him to the Roman Catholick Church but openly during his whole Reign all which time he lived in the bosom of the true Catholick Church Yet you are so extremely partial to your seif that you affirm that he died invisibly a Member of your Roman Catholick Church as it is by you contre-distinguished to the rest of the Christian world An old pious fraud or artifice of yours learned from Machiavel to gain credit to your Religion by all means either true or false but contrary to his own profession at his death contrary to the express knowledge of all that were present at his murther Upon a vain presumption that Talem nisi vestra Ecclesia nulla pareret filium And because you are not able to produce one living witness you cite St. Austin to no purpose to prove that the elect before they are converted do belong invisibly to the Church Yea and before they were born also But St. Austine neither said nor thought that after they are converted they make no visible profession or profess the contrary to that which they beleeve Seek not thus to adorn your particular Church not with borrowed but with stollen Saints VVhom all the
world know to have been none of yours VVhat Faith he professed living he confirmed dying In the Communion of the Church of England he lived and in that Communion at his death he commended his soul into the hands of God his Saviour That which you have confessed here concerning King Charls will spoil your former demonstration that the Protestants have neither Church nor Faith But you confess no more in particular here than I have heard some of your famous Roman Doctors in this City acknowledge to be true in general And no more than that which the Bishop of Chalcedon a man that cannot be suspected of partiality on our side hath affirmed and published in two of his Books to the world in Print That Protestantibus credentibus c. persons living in the Communion of the Protestant Church if they endeavour to lâ—…arn the truth and are not able to attain unto it but hold it implicitely in the preparation of their minds and are ready to receive it when God shall be pleased to reveal it which all good Protestants and all good Christians are they neither want Church nor Faith nor Salvation Mark these words well They have neither Church nor Faith say you If they be thus qualified as they all are they want neither Church nor Faith nor Salvation saith he Lastly Sir to let us see that your intelligence is as good in Heaven as it is upon Earth and that you know both who are there and what they do you tell us That the Crown and Conquest which his late Majestie gained by his sufferings was proâ—…ured by the intercession of his Grandmother Queen Mary We should be the apter to believe this if you were able to make it appear that all the Saints in Heaven do know all the particular necessities of all their posterity upon Earth St. Austin makes the matter much more doubtfull than you that 's the least of his Assertion or rather to be plainly false faâ—…endum est nescire quidem â—…ortuos quid hic agatur But with presumptions you did begin your Dedication and with presumptions you end it In the mean time till you can make that appear we observe that neither Queen Maries constancy in the Roman Catholick Faith nor Henry the Fourths change to the Roman Catholick Faith could save them from a bloody end Then by what warrant do you impute King Charles his sufferings to his errour in Religion Be your own Judge Heu quanta de spe decidimus Alas from what hopes are we fall'n Pardon our errour that we have mistaken you so long You have heretofore pretended your self to be a moderate person and one that seriously endeavoured the reuniting of Christendome by a fair Accommodation The widest wounds are closed up in time and strange Plants by Inoculation are incorporated together and made one And is there no way to close up the wounds of the Church and to unite the disagreeing members of the same mystical body Why were Caleb and Joshua onely admitted into the Land of promise whilst the carkasses of the rest perished in the VVilderness but onely because they had been Peace-makers in a time of Schism VVell fare our learned and ingenuous Country-man St. Clara who is altogether as perspicacious as your self but much more charitable You tell us to our grief that there is no accommodation to be expected that Cardinal Richelieu was too good a Christian and too good a Catholique to have any such thought that the one Religion is true the other false and that there is no society between light and darkness This is plain dealing to tell us what we must trust to No Peace is to be expected from you unless we will come unto you upon our knees with the words of the Prodigal Child in our mouths Father forgive us we have sinned against Heaven and against thee Is not this rare Courtesie If we will submit to your will in all things you will have no longer difference with us So we might come to shake a worse Church by the hand than that which we were separated from If you could be contented to wave your last four hundred years determinations or if you liked them for your selves yet not to obtrude them upon other Churches If you could rest satisfied with your old Patriarchal power and your Principium unit at is or Primacy of Order much good might be expected from free Councils and Conferences from moderate persons And we might yet live in Hope to see an Union if not in all Opinions yet in Charity and all necessary points of saving truth between all Christians to see the Eastern and Western Churâ—…hes joyn hand in hand and sing Ecce quà m bonum quam jucundum est habitare fratres in unum Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity But whilst you impose upon us daily new Articles of Faith and urge rigidly what you have unadvisedly determined we dare not sacrifice Truth to Peace nor be separated from the Gospel to be joyned to the Roman Church Yet in the point of our separation and in all things which concern either doctrine or discipline we profess all due obedience and submission to the judgement and definitions of the truly Catholique Church Lamenting with all our hearts the present condition of Christendome which renders an Oecumenical Council if not impossible mens judgements may be had where their persons cannot yet very difficult wishing one as general as might be and untill God send such an Opportunity endeavouring to conform our selves in all things both in Credendis Agendis to whatsoever is uniform in the belief or practice in the doctrine or discipline of the Universal Church And lastly holding an Actual Communion with all the divided parts of the Christian world in most things in voto according to our desires in all things FINIS Plut. Sir Henry wotton No differences in the Church directly about the Sacrament for the first 800 years 1 Cor. 11. Theod. ex Ignatio Leo. Ser. 4. de Quad. Epiph. hâ—…r 30. 46. Aug. l. de Hâ—…re c. 64. â—…el l. 1. de Sac. Euch. 〈◊〉 1. Bel. ibid. Syn. Nic. 2 Act 6. Disp. 179. c. 1 Yet different Observations And different expressions The first difference about the presence of Christ in the Sacrament Exact Syn. Rom. sub Nich. 2. Dâ—… Cons. dist 2 cap. Egâ—…â—…er Alex. Gab. Bonâ—…v c. Scot. in 4. sent dist 11. q. 3. T. 3. q. 75. d. 81. c. 1. The determination of the manner of the presence opened a flood-gate to a Deluge of Controversies Lib. de câ—…r Theol. Schol. Gloss. de Con. d. 2. cap. Timâ—…rem Guidmâ—…nd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de ver Vasq. disâ—… 184. 6. 8. Uasq T. 3. q. 75. d. 181 c. 4. Bel. l. 3. de Euc. c. 3. in fine In 4 d. 44 q. 7. art 〈◊〉 q. 3. I. ib. 4. de Euch. c. 25 Chap. 27. Conc. Uien Bâ—…ll 4. de